Recent reports of the dumbing down of the UK have highlighted how there are no jobs for young people, schools will no longer be built, pensions will be eroded, some hospitals will disappear and all budgets will be sized down and quartered. It assumes that all the basic services we consume from the state are expendable but that products heaped on us by private enterprise or badly procured by government departments are immutable. Is that the case? Do we really need designer labels, tasers, weapons of mass destruction, News International or even bottled water? Could we not sacrifice some or all of these instead of the things that nurture a better society?
If any or all of these disappeared would our quality of life diminish? I doubt it. We would have more income to spend on real needs. It would also help eradicate the culture of deception and economy with the truth that underpin these products and services. Unless St Michael's, inov8 or Salomon are deemed designer labels, I have never had any truck with any of these expendable products and seem to be none the worse for it. I did read the Sunday Times before Rupert got his paws on it but never since nor any of the rest of his stable of corrupt journalism, I have stubbornly refused Sky, never buy bottled water, and I fail to understand how Trident and Tasers make me safer.
As I left the supermarket the other day I watched a woman wheel out a trolley full of bottled water from the supermarket and heave it into her 4x4. Why? Any study of water quality would confirm that tap water is a superior product, particularly in Scotland where tapped water was invented and where even water from streams and sources in the mountains has done me no harm for the last 25 years. People seem to purchase many optional and expensive goods and services through unjustified fear, peer pressure and obsession with status and image. Is Sky television not primarily a regressive tax that transfers money from the ordinary citizen to the freeloaders in Sport and Entertainment as well as the News International Executives? Why pay 200- 300 times as much per litre for bottled water than the ubiquitous real thing? Would I feel any better by wearing Armani boxer shorts or a Rolex watch? Yet these are the sort of things that we squander huge amounts of money on and feed the frenzy of celebrity endorsements and unsustainable marketing budgets for products that are admittedly sometimes very good but essentially marketing froth.
So what could we do about it? It is asking too much for the coalition to come to its senses on Tasers and Trident, governments are always afraid of taking on the organisations that enhance their machismo with dubious weapons. But News International and bottled water are consumer dependent products and services. Could they be the first targets in a people's ethical and economy campaign? Egalitarian consumer values would target the add ons to living not the basic services as part of the belt tightening that is needed as we strive to live within our means. Who knows it might even influence our slash and burn politicians when they realise that they are damaging far too many people's lives and aspirations with their often tactless and factless chopping fantasies and their infatuation with keeping in with the media.
If any or all of these disappeared would our quality of life diminish? I doubt it. We would have more income to spend on real needs. It would also help eradicate the culture of deception and economy with the truth that underpin these products and services. Unless St Michael's, inov8 or Salomon are deemed designer labels, I have never had any truck with any of these expendable products and seem to be none the worse for it. I did read the Sunday Times before Rupert got his paws on it but never since nor any of the rest of his stable of corrupt journalism, I have stubbornly refused Sky, never buy bottled water, and I fail to understand how Trident and Tasers make me safer.
As I left the supermarket the other day I watched a woman wheel out a trolley full of bottled water from the supermarket and heave it into her 4x4. Why? Any study of water quality would confirm that tap water is a superior product, particularly in Scotland where tapped water was invented and where even water from streams and sources in the mountains has done me no harm for the last 25 years. People seem to purchase many optional and expensive goods and services through unjustified fear, peer pressure and obsession with status and image. Is Sky television not primarily a regressive tax that transfers money from the ordinary citizen to the freeloaders in Sport and Entertainment as well as the News International Executives? Why pay 200- 300 times as much per litre for bottled water than the ubiquitous real thing? Would I feel any better by wearing Armani boxer shorts or a Rolex watch? Yet these are the sort of things that we squander huge amounts of money on and feed the frenzy of celebrity endorsements and unsustainable marketing budgets for products that are admittedly sometimes very good but essentially marketing froth.
So what could we do about it? It is asking too much for the coalition to come to its senses on Tasers and Trident, governments are always afraid of taking on the organisations that enhance their machismo with dubious weapons. But News International and bottled water are consumer dependent products and services. Could they be the first targets in a people's ethical and economy campaign? Egalitarian consumer values would target the add ons to living not the basic services as part of the belt tightening that is needed as we strive to live within our means. Who knows it might even influence our slash and burn politicians when they realise that they are damaging far too many people's lives and aspirations with their often tactless and factless chopping fantasies and their infatuation with keeping in with the media.
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