Well, in fact the times are not so desperate afterall, are they? My parents (this year alone) have been to Cuba, RSA, France, going to Germany and later on in fall they're going to Spain or Tenerife to be more exact. So what my mum said tonight was full of wisdom for me. She said - credit crunch opens up more possibilities because people pay less attention...
This is true, come to think of it. We live in times of the worst economic collapse since 1933 and the only thing, it might seem, what people in charge are focusing on is how to save the nation and how to emerge from this bad situation a winner. The fact is, right - most common people don't have the time to think about this sort of thing. They have to get to their jobs or job centres to find a job - in order to provide for their families. That's all and well if it weren't that the Estonian government, as does the US government, claims that the backbone of the nation are the people. They constantly say that the people vote the officials to make the decisions and yet if the decision that they make don't work out how the politicians want them to, they can always fall back on the argument that the people have spoken - voted for those bad-decision-making fools to run the country. I got to thinking - isn't this a bit immature? I mean - they make the decisions their party tells them to make no matter what the pre-election statements were. So the argument that the people have some say in the decision-making process is absurd.
I know - the politicians are always lying about their agendas, right? So there's no reason why the Estonian politicians should be any different. But it brings me back to the original idea - people remain wilfully ignorant (thanks G. C.) to whatever happens in the upper circles for the simple reason that the middle class needs to get some work done. I see it every day with my girlfriend - she has an important job - if she didn't do it, it would not get done. Therefore - she needs to do her job. Whereas politicians make so very little effort to actually change anything. You know what the average attendance is for the Estonian Parliament consisting of 101 members? It's about half. That means that half the people we elected to part-take in the decision making process aren't even showing up to discussions half the time. That would all be fine, weren't there a fact that some of the bills need at least 2/3 of the whole of the Parliament to vote "PASS". That is difficult if you have only 44 people attending. So my question arises at last. Why do we pay triple and most of the time quadruple the amount of our own wages to the people who should be running this country, when they intentionally extend the approval of bills and don't even show up to discuss matters of national importance. It seems a shame and a waste to me.
Well, not to just let out steam and rant forever about the idiotic wages of the Parliament (and I doubt the wages are equal in the US or the UK or anywhere for that matter), I'd like to propose another fact. The public of any country - I mean the majority of voters - don't usually see the problems with the country. They might, when asked about problems within the state, go on and on about corrupt politicians and the low levels of education and that sort of thing. They never realize that the way all this began was with the lobbying and the intentional losing of government money. That lobbying is not in fact done by politicians. There are the companies and corporations that have the ability to alter the decisions and the outcomes of bills and the results of meetings. Obviously the money that goes missing from the state ends up in the pockets of these companies. These are the proverbial "owners of the country" (as G. C. so cleverly put it). I agree with Bill Maher and George Carlin - the crowd is dumb and ignorant although an individual might be smart and understanding, but the problem is that we don't have smart, intelligent people - very very occasionally one emerges and tries to make a difference. The usual response is to buy him off. Silence him that way. Or maybe just make him an offer he can't turn down - "How would you like to be a minister in the government?" We all know that 99% of the time that intelligent person is greedy and not rich . . . the greed gets them almost every time. There are others that are smart and are high in an office. But they're too smart to help everybody else - they know the best way to scam a little to provide a comfortable future for his own family for generations to come. This is no use to the middle class. They still drive 20 miles to their jobs that they usually loathe. They work late to get some extra cash to afford that second half-coat of paint for their wooden garden furniture. It seems pathetic and it is but it's the only option for them - it's "deal with it or wither". Very rarely a person might emerge that rises quickly without help from parents, relatives or acquaintances - just themselves. They rise quickly to a fair position in life and retain the hope that someday - in a few generations - his kids' kids' kid becomes the president of the local branch of the company. And again - his own interests lie in the way of the greater good.
Of course you got to look after yourself before trying to save the world. I do it too - I eat and then see what the others at the table do. I don't starve just so my brother could have his way - fuck that - I saw the KFC first, so I go first. But the point remains - one ordinary person cannot make a huge difference. That's why the credit crunch affects people that were struggling to begin with more. That's finally my point - economic collapse causes the rich to get richer and the poor to stay poor. But the middle class - they keep their heads down, do their job and go on with their lives as if nothing had happened. And that's what I like in this day and age - I never worried about the economy - I knew even when it started that in every nation there is that middle level that will stay the same forever. Ok, some poor people get to the middle class or even higher up and sometimes the rich lose their money and become middle class or even lower down. And the middle class might travel both ways. But in general - the situation is the same in the middle. The rich and the poor move further away from the ordinary people. And thank the Big Bang Theory for that. I see no reason to panic, unless for some strange reason the middle class died out. Since that is virtually impossible, I revel on the sight of the working class citizen (whom I no doubt one day will be). I marvel at those ignorant people, because I know that I'm safe when there's at least one civil servant to be found within a hundred yards or so from yourself.
Crunch on! But be certain - most of us are stuck in the middle.
