by RogueTrooper
Wed May 13th, 2009 at 06:52:25 AM EST
I shouted out
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
When after all
It was you and me
Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
In today's Guardian, Jeremy Seabrook, has some interesting things to say about the current expenses scandal engulfing British members of Parliament.
The anger at the grotesque and irresponsible expense claims of MPs is, to some degree, artificial, for who does not enjoy a good bout of moral righteousness? When the present "scandal" follows so hard on the heels of stories of the contortions of bankers, the ingenious ways and means of corporate tax evaders, and the continuing witch-hunt against "benefit fraud" ("We're getting closer" warn the illuminated panels at the bus stops), it is clear there is something more profoundly wrong with society than a few cheats and opportunists exploiting legal "loopholes" in a system widely advertised as the best ever devised by humanity for the ordering of its affairs.
The theory that MPs now represent no one but themselves is perhaps less true than we might wish. They are not alone in taking advantage of rules of such moral flexibility that few people now seem able to distinguish between necessary expenses, fiddling, or just emolument for services performed.
Of course, any society that, even one that unwittingly, worships at the altar of Ayn Rand is going to have to deal with the consequences of a populace hell bent on maximising its self interest.
promoted by whataboutbob
Money is, of course, the most obviously deficient commodity, since money is now the closest measure we have to moral "good", just as its absence is our nearest definition of "evil". Scarce resources are the constant cry of the richest societies the world has ever known. We cannot afford it - whether another holiday, a second home, or the maintenance of our hospitals, schools, our systems of defence, our welfare net, the defeat of crime and violence. We do not have the wherewithal to abolish poverty, to achieve a basic sustenance for all, to provide security for the most vulnerable. We shall, no doubt, eventually be able to do so, but that happy day is indefinitely deferred.
There is never enough to save children from the neglect of social workers and the violence of their own carers; nor to look after the elderly and infirm, the army of aged wraiths whose "demands" on the generosity of the state can only increase in the years to come. "Indebtedness" and this age of recession are going to cast a pall over the wellbeing of future generations. There is a famine of credit, dearth of bank loans, plague of bankruptcies, tsunami of foreclosures, while the grim reaper scythes down businesses - the apocalypse is among us, in the sedate streets and familiar thoroughfares of daily life.
Every generation gets the children it deserves. It would seem that they get the representatives they deserve also.
We are all familiar with the dominant ideology - the fallibility, frailty and weakness of human nature, led so easily into temptation, fallen, venal, selfish and greedy. If money has been elevated and humanity consistently depreciated, who is to blame? How did material resources supplant inner resourcefulness? It is no good turning on hapless MPs, or bankers, or the ingenious legal minds whose formidable brainpower is dedicated to helping the richest people on earth avoid paying their dues to society; let alone the pitiful cunning of benefit cheats who milked pennies out of an ungenerous public purse.
There are, perhaps, no innocent bystanders, yet many are ready to cast the first stone at the crooked and self-serving. Perhaps, after all, our MPs represent us more than we care to admit. This is why the indignation of the unforgiving media and the vengefulness of the public have reached such a paroxysm. The errant MPs show us something about the way we truly live, and we are bound to turn upon them with unrestrained venom. It may be that the source of the evil is not out there, in the sinister minds of MPs, but lies closer to the virtuous rage and excitable fury of those now making the loudest noise about it.
"... after all It was you and me..."
