RIP Tony Benn

 

RIP Tony Benn

RIP Tony Benn, the world has lost THE voice of social justice, equality and peace. I can’t think of any one else who gave up their title in order to become a MP. He could have become Lord Stansgate in the early 60’s, instead he was plain old Tony Benn, member of parliament. He left parliament is 2001 to; as he put it, spend more time in politics. Since then he has devoted most of his time to campaigning against the various illegal wars our government and their American allies have waged over he last decade or so.

I feel almost ashamed that we (as a country) never fulfilled his dream of becoming a truly just, socialist state. He said socialism was within our grasp, that it was achievable in our lifetime, and so it was, if enough people had actually wanted it. He said over and over again, capitalism doesn’t work, and he was right. He was right then and he’s right now. And if anyone doubts that capitalism doesn’t work just stop and take a look around the world. Look at the developing countries whose workers are forced into selling their produce to our multinationals at prices fixed so low the workers are left barely able to survive. Millions of workers around the world are unable to educate, feed or cloth their families.  Often children work along side their parents in factories whose health and safety standards are non existent and wages insufficient to lift them from their abject poverty. Millions of workers do this day in and day out seven days a week, fifty two weeks of the year and with no time off for good behaviour. They can’t even grow food to feed themselves because often, they are backed into a corned and forced to grow what ever it is that the ‘market’ demands, at a price also set by the ‘market’.   

This sorry cycle is sustained by the poor in this and other western countries. Austerity has bitten so deep many, many parents in this country struggle to buy clothes for their families from anywhere except the massive cheap discount stores. These stores are owned by the multinationals and supplied by the working poor of developing countries. The only winners in all of this are the chosen few at the top.

There is real poverty in this country now, people who live a hand to mouth existence, people who rely on soup kitchens and food banks and sink deeper and deeper into debt. They are preyed on by the illegal loan sharks but also by the growing and flourishing band of legal loan sharks. These are the easily accessible loan companies who offer ‘payday’ loans with an APR that quite literally goes into thousands. These loans are completely immoral and should, in any decent humane society be illegal. The very poor in this country are forgotten by the rest of us; we see them and think, oh just another chav family scrounging off the state, where as in reality they are locked into a cycle of deprivation and poverty with no release, no reprieve and no hope. If they resort to shoplifting (often for food) they are fined, when they are unable to pay the fine they go back to court and the fine is increased. This ludicrous cycle is repeated and repeated until their debt is like a lead weight around their necks and ultimately someone either ends up in prison or dead. And all because capitalism is the sacred cow of the west.

It makes you feel like screaming, Tony Benn was RIGHT Capitalism does NOT work. He was right then and he’s still right. He fought all his life for social justice for others,  he had no axe to grind, he could have been a peer of the realm and lived a very comfortable life without ever bothering about how the rest of the world faired, but he was a decent human being and actually CARED about social justice for all.  To all of those people who trot out the same old, same old arguments against socialism I say, go to youtube and listen to him speak, read his books, understand his arguments. Try, just try to think independently and not be sucked into the rich mans dream. Understand that socialism would not ‘steal’ what you have worked for; it would ensure that those who are rich and powerful would not be able to ‘steal’ from you. Think about it and ask yourself who profits from this corrupt system of ours, is it you? Or is it someone else a lot higher up the food chain than you or I will ever be? What ever argument any one comes up with against socialism, those very same arguments have previously been used against the abolition of slavery, the introduction of the minimum wage, the Victorian reform laws that stopped children going down mines or up chimneys and just about every piece of health and safety legislation we have today.  In fact these same old, same old arguments have been used by generations of people to suppress the rights and freedoms of ordinary people and ensure their ‘right’ to exploit others for their own gain carried on uninterrupted.  

I am so very, very sorry we didn’t listen Tony, you said we could do it in our lifetime and we failed. We are further away from a socialist state now than we have ever been and I for one am truly sorry.