The following is a comment left on one of my posts by Loam, thanks comrade. It refers to a documentary made by John Pilger, a number of years ago, read it, and think what has changed in the years since, basically the poverty and deprivation is still there, it looms large like a huge scar on the face of our unequal and unjust society. Then try to contemplate what things will be like in the coming years, after listening to our Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his wage freeze for millions of ordinary people and his talk of "hard times" ahead. How can we let that happen when millions are living in "hard times" now and in the past, with 25% of our kids living below the poverty level, and any deepening of the "hard times" would certainly lead to more homelessness, destitution and death, stunted development for millions of our kids. Perhaps we should be asking those who predict and manage these "hard times", how it will affect them and their privileged families. Ask how many of their kids will go to school hungry, how many of their wives will consider taking to prostitution to feed their kids. Of course we should also ask, what gives them the right to plunge millions into poverty, to stunt the health and development of millions of kids while they maintain their pampered, privileged position of power and wealth. Do you know the answer to that question?
The Warmth of a Dream
He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,
night frost locked his joints
morning rain chilled the marrow of his bones.
In the dream there was a sister,
a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters
who called him "mister", a time of little pain.
Are these youngsters the same young men, who
now laugh at him, throw beer cans,
piss on him as he lies drunk in some dark lane?
When was that first step down this slippery slope,
when was that first step to no forgiveness.
No will to rise to beg for food,
numbness kills the pain.
The dream brings a warmth that feels good,
dark fog shades out consciousness,
an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain.
“Tonight, more than two million parents will go to bed hungry in order to give their children something to eat… for the first time since the Great Depression, Britain – the so-called Welfare State – is deliberately cutting back the means of survival of its poorest, and their children.” Children growing up in poverty is the subject of Smashing Kids, 1975. John Pilger meets the Hopwoods, of Liverpool, where hunger has become a way of life during father Harry’s unemployment as his family of five survive on £1 a day. The wallpaper in their council house is torn and there are no clothes in the couple’s wardrobe and no sheets on their bed. The family have never had a holiday and Harry tells Pilger: “It would be easier to serve time than to put up with this.” Frank Field, director of the Child Poverty Action Group and later a Labour MP, says benefits from the unemployed are falling in real terms and many families struggle to feed their children. The Brunsdens, of Hackney, east London, are one of these and have just been served with notice to quit their council house for not paying rent. Mother Irene shockingly tells Pilger that she would have to resort to prostitution “if my baby really, really needed something to eat and I didn’t have a penny”. Another mother says she does not mark her younger children’s birthdays because “they’re too young to know anyway”. Pilger points out that the current Labour government’s planned increases in social benefits will be wiped out by inflation, “imposing a direct threat to the survival of the growing number of the poor”. Smashing Kids, 1975 (Pilger, ATV), ITV, 14 August 1975 Producer-director: John Ingram (26 mins)
Smashing Kids from John Pilger on Vimeo.
