A large prison population would allow the government to both increase profits for the private prison-management companies they would inevitably sub-contract the facilities out to, and would allow them to appear 'tough on crime'.
There really isn't downside, as far as the right-leaning parties are concerned. And, unfortunately, this age is and will continue to be one where the right wing will gain ascendancy, and will continue to pursue their dismantling of everything liberal movements of the late 19th and early 20th century fought for.
And the worst part is that the liberals let them. We fell for the faux patriotism of phony wars carried out in the name of imaginary threats, and used to take away the freedoms people fought and died for eras ago. We silently acquiesced as the right to detention without charge was extended, we looked the other way when British citizens were renditioned, we tutted when De Menezes was killed because he looked funny. We eagerly followed, sheep-like, as the media led us into one crusade after another against immigrants, 'benefit-scroungers', mothers of ten living in comfortable homes on YOUR hard-earned tax money, the useless, greedy, lazy, scrounging poor. We shrugged as the unions were co-opted and neutered, we pouted as the wages of the top-band of white-collar financiers, managers and CEOs sky-rocketed to seventy, a hundred, two-hundred times what the average worker made because they 'created wealth', we subscribed to the idea of cheap credit being an extension of that 'wealth' being given down to us, as proof that the upper classes were re-distributing the wealth, just like the old days. We laughed as the first warning signs emerged that this credit being given to us was built on faulty premises, that the banks whose job it was to 'create wealth' were doing so splendidly, as long as you were in the top 1 percent, that this miracle of doubling the absolute GDP from 1997 to 2008 might be just a mirage.
No, we followed all that our government told us, because it was 'New Labour'. Because somehow, we imagined that the 'Labour' in the title meant something. We fought for issues like gay rights and an end to gender discrimination, while ignoring the looming threats that lurked behind the government's eagerness to push us into fighting for these things to the detriment of others. We achieved hollow victories indeed, when seen in the greater context.
Because one day, the whole facade came crashing down. The banks tumbled, and it turned out that they had been fooling us all along. There was no redistribution of the 'growth' this country had experienced, because now the banks wanted it all back, now that their fraud had been exposed. They came tumbling down, crashing the economy and forcing millions of people into situations where what was once affordable was now a distant memory. The government spent our tax money propping up those banks, even while they steered us into recession after recession, tumble after tumble. The world economy raced downwards, and the UK went with it. The party was over.
And now, we saw, too late, what had been building for so long. The chair was taken away, the curtain was pulled back and the brick wall behind the stage was revealed. The banks came after the people whose money had saved them, foreclosing homes and seizing assets as the results of a recession they created came to the fore. The conservatives came to power, promising to end the waste and self-indulgence of New Labour. They sold off the NHS to private companies, they cut thousands of government jobs, they slashed welfare and benefits and aid. They closed hospitals, departments, and schools. They cut council funding and arts funding. In short, they slashed away at everything that had epitomised liberal Britain.
But the curious thing is, the ones who started the collapse, the bankers....they still made record bonuses. They pocketed millions even as the economy burned. The super-wealthy put tens of trillions of dollars into offshore tax havens preventing the government's attempts to collect the tax it was owed. The absolute and average incomes of the top one percent increased, even as the rest of the country suffered sharp, cutting drops in their own incomes. Private companies raced to privatise government services like there was no tomorrow. Corporations paid less tax than the common people did, and tried to avoid paying even those taxes whenever they could. All this talk of wealth trickling down was revealed to be what some people had always suspected it to be; utter flimflam.
And, at this supreme moment in our post-WWII history, when everything that generation fought for and voted for is being stripped away in the name of rampant, unfettered capitalism: what do our people do? Do they finally rise up, demanding governmental change? do they fight the police who use batons, water sprays, tasers and rubber bullets to disperse innocent protests?do they march up to the banks and demand change, at the threat of a mass run? Do they, in short, stand up for their rights as citizens of a free, democratic, modernized, post-Beveridge nation?
No. We squabble over the football results. We vote for meaningless Big Brother and X-Factor competitions. We fight for whatever scraps of wealth the government deigns to give us. We live in increasing poverty, seeing homes closed, crime rise and wealth ebb away. And we turn on each other. We castigate the poorest as 'scroungers' without bothering to analyze why society has left them that way, unable to live a dignified life. We castigate poor youths as thieves, criminals and scum, and demand the return of capital punishment they rebel against the hopelessness and emptiness of society the only way they know how; by rioting and stealing. We justify police abuse, repression and mistreatment by assuming that the victims must have asked for it, while thoughtlessly accepting the endless media stories of two brave policewomen, killed by a thug, because it would 'disrespect' the memory of the dead to question either the system they worked under or the policemen/women themselves. We accept surveillance of our phones, our e-mails,and our Facebook accounts because the government needs it to stop 'terrorism'.We ignore the news of the government spying on activist movements and threatening 'miscreants'. And worst of all, we angrily accuse those among us who question this system of unequal distribution of being 'socialists', 'communists', and using 'the politics of envy'.
'Envy', because an average man working today cannot ever, ever hope to reach the levels of wealth that will see him join the ranks of the 'wealthy', in this supposedly merit-based society. 'Envy', because we see the trillions of tax pounds being siphoned away through corporate malfeasance, tax loopholes and share-based bonuses. 'Envy', because the NHS is cut and welfare is slashed while the wealthiest in society grow wealthier in this recession that we're supposedly 'all in together'. 'Envy', because we see companies with the sole motive of earning profits taking over public services, whose sole purpose is to provide for society, not to earn a profit.
So it really doesn't matter who you vote for: UKIP, Conservatives, New Labour, the BNP, the Lib Dems. They're all the same: they've accumulated enough power now that they see no need to give it away again, and nothing short of a catastrophic shift in society will persuade them to do so. All that I know is that there is a popular groundswell of anger building up across the Western world that is denied an outlet, a voice in their own governance and in this system of capitalism. Of course, the attempts to distract this angry populace continue apace; more shows, more football, more token gestures, more tough talk and no action. But less and less people are being taken in. And one day, someone, somewhere will snap. That is probably the only hope we have of seeing change in this right-wing shift. A shift, remember, that we, the proudly self-declared 'Liberal class', actively helped bring in. We fought for gay rights, they took away our freedoms. We fought for an end to inequality, and they granted it to us. We are now all equal. Whether you're an immigrant, gay, lesbian or a woman....you are now a proudly equal citizen, with an equal chance to be spied on, suppressed, told to shut up, and forced to work for spare change while your NHS outlet, welfare check or unemployment allowance is slashed to the bone to allow more money to be given to the banks to supposedly free up public lending. Celebrate. Our liberal selves. Hooray.
In 'Death of the Liberal Class', Chris Hedges supplies a great, snappy quote about this;
'The presidential election exposed the liberal class as a corpse. It fights for nothing. It stands for nothing. It is a useless appendage to the corporate state. It exists not to make possible incremental or piecemeal reform, as it originally did in a functional capitalist democracy; instead it has devolved into an instrument of personal vanity, burnishing the hollow morality of its adherents.'
I'm deepy sorry to hijack this thread, I had to get this off my chest somewhere. Take it as ramblings, if you want to.
and two) because it's not so much right wing politics I'm against it's usually their supporter's complete inability to empathise or demonstrate a modicum of compassion. Some people on this board appear to believe that any benefit claimant is a parasite and all "socialist" policies are wrong, I'd hazard a guess that without socialist policies over the last sixty years the readership of this board would be down by a substantial percentage because we simply wouldn't be here. I'm talking about infant mortality and better healthcare free at the point of delivery.
