Rage Against The Establishment

As regular readers may have noticed, I’m currently taking a sabbatical from my blog writing. The reason for this break is that I’m working on a book which is quite an undertaking to say the least, so rather than scatter my creative energy, I’ve decided to focus the bulk of it on this one particular project. I’m also revamping my website and blog, in conjunction with my web designer, with the aim of relaunching in the New Year, and will be producing a workshop based on the contents of the book once the writing and the new website are completed. I’ll also be taking the Reiki 2nd degree course in February which will enable me to practise Reiki professionally, so as you can see, there’s a busy time ahead for me over the winter months.

However, following the news that the aptly named Rage Against The Machine has beaten the X-Factor offering to the coveted Christmas number one spot, I felt compelled to make some comment. If you haven’t caught any of the huge publicity this story has received, in a nutshell a chap from Essex started a Facebook group encouraging people to buy Killing in The Name (selected, I imagine, for its final refrain of ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’) between 13-19 December, rather than the single released by the winner of the X-Factor, as a protest against the X-Factor’s stranglehold on the number one Xmas slot over the last four years. The campaign succeeded and a defeated Simon Cowell had to admit that he had been ‘over confident’ and that perhaps ‘not everyone liked the X-Factor’.

I personally despise the X-Factor as for me it represents much of what has gone wrong with our society. Our world is increasingly being controlled by the corporations and the mega-rich, who seem intent on squeezing every last penny out of us to fill their already vastly overflowing coffers. It’s not just the greed, selfishness and ‘I’m alright, Jack’ attitude which angers me though. It’s the patronising, arrogant and frankly insulting belief they seem to have that the masses are easily placated (i.e. fooled) through manipulation (“let’s tell them that the country’s economic problems are caused by the immigrants and the benefit scroungers, that’ll get ‘em off our backs”) and distraction (with whatever bland mass-produced corporate crap they place in front of us) – and the disgusting and horrific fact that if you don’t fall for their spin, their wealth renders them so ludicrously powerful that any protests are easily silenced, thwarted or simply ignored. (There’ll be much more on this in my forthcoming book, with thoughts and ideas about what you can do to promote change on a personal level).

So this is why I was so delighted that RATM succeeded. Though this was small scale stuff, it proved that People Power cannot be underestimated. All it took was one person to stand up and say ‘I’ve had enough of this’ – and now of course, thanks to the Internet, one person with a big idea can reach millions of people in record time. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do this on a larger scale? If all of us could come together and agree to some kind of action which would really sock it to The Man? For example, what if we all decided to boycott the large stores – or even just the supermarkets – for one month? Or not pay any utility bills for one month – or maybe even one quarter? (March/April would be the best time to refuse to pay, when all the big winter bills are flooding in.) There’d be no way they could prosecute everyone or stop everyone’s supply so they’d probably resort to bully-boy scare tactics to try and get us back under their control, but the fact is we’d be hitting them where it hurts – in their overstuffed bank accounts. And talking of banks – maybe all of us with bank accounts could withdraw all our cash and either keep it under a mattress, or if that’s not possible, put all of it in a Post Office account or building society instead. Let the banks know how much we object to their greed through direct action instead of just moaning about it on internet forums or down the pub.

To slightly paraphrase Mr Lennon – you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Maybe there’s someone out there with far more charisma than me who can translate this kind of action into reality. Maybe by getting these ideas out there  now, they’ll take root in the collective unconscious and one glorious day enough people will realise that greed and selfishness is ruining our world and that at last it’s time to take a stand and make a difference. It’s certainly more likely to happen at some point over the next couple of decades as the younger generations become increasingly disenchanted with the fact that they’re having to pay through the nose for their education, with little chance of a job at the end of it; and the fact that if they do find a job, the cost of living is so inflated that they barely have a few quid left over for themselves – and certainly no chance of ever owning their own property. Perhaps then the masses will finally wake up and realise that they’ve been sold a lie about what brings you happiness and that the current system is actually geared towards bringing economic riches to a few at the expense of the overall well-being of the many. Here’s hoping.

In the meantime, I wish you all a wonderful Yuletide, with many happy hours spent warm and snug with the people you love. And I’ll see you again soon in what I hope will be a much more empathic, compassionate and selfless New Year for us all. Cheers!