I do not understand

[avevale_intelligencer]

Somebody voted.

Somebody voted for a party which believes there should be no limit to how little an employer can pay its hirelings, especially if they are sick and have special needs; that people who are sick and have special needs should be left to fend for themselves with no benefits and on a wage on which, by definition, nobody can afford to live.

Somebody voted for a party which maintains simultaneously that a job is the only measure of human worth and that a job is a favour generously bestowed upon the lower orders by the upper classes, and which enforces those definitions on all of us and always has.

Somebody voted for a party whose members want to keep all the money and all the power in the hands of the top fraction of one per cent of the population, and do not give a damn what happens to the rest.

I do not understand how anyone can vote for such a party. I do not understand how there can be one ordinary person walking on this earth who would ever vote for such a party. Even when the only alternative is an alternative in name only, as now, to vote for that alternative should be a point of pride and honour for any person living who is not already part of the ruling élite.

There is no way that the true nature of this party can not be apparent to anyone who pays even the marginal degree of attention that I do to current affairs. There is no way that anyone can be unaware of that for which they have chosen to cast their vote.

I do not understand. I don't think I ever will.

It makes it very hard for me to feel human, sometimes. Because whatever kind of reasoning, whatever pattern of thought, allows people to choose to support such a party, I am not clever enough, not strong enough, to reach it.

Comments

The press

[lewis-p-bear.livejournal.com]

You will just have to start applying logic filters to the trash spawned by the media.

Re: The press

[eoforyth.livejournal.com]

Hardly 'trash spawned by the media' when you can watch an MP stand up in parliament and spout half-baked ideas of why he thinks minimum wage should be done away for people with disabilities, simply so they can be put to work.

His suggestion is that disabled people should be able to be employed at less-than-minimum wage in order to prove they can still be a productive member of the human race. Of course an employer will be more likely to take on someone if they can get a similar level of work without having to pay the same wage - but that isn't the same thing as giving the disabled a fair shake now, is it?.

Re: The press

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It's always easy to blame the press for the success of these people, and the papers do shape public opinion to a degree, but in these days there are just too many other opportunities to see the truth for that excuse to work.