Well here we are, once again in the midst of the period when the illusion goes even crazier. Having struggled all year with such problems as heating your home, feeding your kids, and due to the cuts in social services, you are running ragged caring for your ageing parents. Now all your anxieties, fits of depression, loneliness and loss of confidence, can be sorted. It is just a matter of the right perfume, shower gel, super razor, or getting rid of your dandruff. How foolish of you, you didn’t realise that happiness comes in coloured boxes, the more boxes, the more happiness. Your job prospects are enhanced, if you would just pick the right four-wheel drive car. Your self esteem will grow, your sex life will be more exciting, and your standing among your peers will know no bounds, if you just run out and buy that new outfit. Yes, it is the season of the grand illusion, our society has found the secret of happiness and fulfilment it is to be found in coloured boxes.
Gone are the thoughts of those 58,000 homeless in England, up by a third since 2010/11, a large proportion of them working, the 3,400 families with children living in B&B’s, steadily increasing since 2011, and those 3,600 people sleeping rough in England, (a low estimate) up 30% since 2014. All lost in a mist of tinsel and coloured boxes, and illusions woven by that babbling brook of bullshit. I guess their problem was that they didn’t buy enough coloured boxes to enhance their lives. I have no doubt there will be a splurge of consumerism in search of happiness, and come January, the old anxieties, depressions, insecurities, loss of confidence and loneliness will return. They’ll be fuelled by the usual realities of this capitalist system, zero hours contracts, low wages, increasing prices, benefit sanctions, job insecurity, and wars and turmoil across the planet. The answer to our problems doesn’t lie in coloured boxes, these are the paracetamol of the system, an attempt to temporally relieve the pain. The answer lies in changing the system, away from the a greed driven capitalist system, to one of mutual aid communities.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
An ephemeris where capitalism obscenely shows its most hypocritical face.
ReplyDeleteI remember that Simon & Garfunkel song, "7 O'Clock News / Silent Night," whose last lines read:
"In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the
House Committee on Un-American activities continued its probe into anti-Viet nam war protests.
Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting
anti-war slogans.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Viet nam, the U.S. should look forward to five more years of war.
In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York,
Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single
weapon working against the U.S.
That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news,
Goodnight.
Silent night
Holy night
All is calm
All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace."