Minority report

The world runs as it does because of a very tiny minority of people. This elite, are the engineers, scientists and designers who innovate, improve and push technology to its limits. This group, most of whom are men produce everything that the modern world depends on. They cannot do it alone however and in turn they depend on the masses to provide the labour and the needs that keep them going. There is another elite of course, and those are the minority that control the money supply. For these people to exist they need the rest of us to spend as much money as possible, and that in turn traditionally means that we work hard to earn that money, or more recently to accumulate as much debt as we possibly can.

Most of us are utterly helpless and without the system operating as it does, we'd perish very quickly. Survival skills are something that our distant ancestors once had, but today we have a generation that can operate a remote control but have no idea how to recognise the wildlife that we were once dependent upon. So many skills are vanishing. It struck me yesterday that I don't remember telephone numbers anymore. Why? well one reason is that I don't need to, with all the numbers that I use being pre programmed into the phones. We are not encouraged to use our minds anymore, children at school are no longer encouraged to learn their tables or to learn poetry; precious little is ever committed to memory, as our technology does it all for us, freeing our minds to watch mindless pap on the TV. We don't write either, holding a pen has become an art form and most people now can type faster than they can form letters in coherent handwriting.

The bulk of the population are cattle to the elite minorities, and are led by the nose into doing exactly what they are supposed to do, whether that be work or not work, fight or not fight and so on.

A few weeks ago, the reputation of politicians in general were in tatters. Those of all political hues were pilloried for being caught with their hands in the till, and top Tories were shown to be working part time in the Commons and the Lords while making money hand over fist in other jobs. That story is no longer newsworthy, the tabloids have forgotten it and so, of course, has Joe public. Poor Joe has the attention span of a newt and the memory of a garden slug. The recent by election in Norfolk saw a swing of 16% towards the Tories. That means that a huge swathe of the electorate has decided that they would like a Tory government again. Joe imagines that the Tories would be better for him and that he and Mrs Joe and the six kids will all benefit from a change. What Joe forgets is that the Tories represent the interests of the elite groups that run the economy, whilst depending on the cattle to stay in their place doing what they are told.

We are a capitalist society, and whichever govenment gets elected will not change that. Govenments sometimes succeed and often fail, and the press loves to focus on the failings producing the terrible see sawing swings from right to left. A change is not necessarily a good thing, but Joe won't mind, by the time of the next election Jhe will have been told what to do.