So, the UK government no longer feels it necessary to ensure people have enough food, and hands off responsibility to a charity.
This makes me VERY angry indeed. Someone posted that this is "collapse". But it's nothing of the sort. There is not sense whatsoever that the government can't ensure that there's enough food, distributed fairly enough, that no-one goes hungry. It can simply commit money to bulk buy enough food for the UK in the next year if it wanted to.
That it doesn't is a political decision.
This makes me VERY angry indeed. Someone posted that this is "collapse". But it's nothing of the sort. There is not sense whatsoever that the government can't ensure that there's enough food, distributed fairly enough, that no-one goes hungry. It can simply commit money to bulk buy enough food for the UK in the next year if it wanted to.
That it doesn't is a political decision.
3 comments:
I'm a bit paranoid about the religious right. The religious fanaticism so rife in American politics must seem hilarious in Britain. Beware!
Food Banks are relatively new, beginning here in the States in the early 70's. As nearly 1/5 are "food insecure" here in the USA food banks have become essential. Yet many involved in organizing food banks intended them as a stop gap measure not a permanent institution.
The Trussell Trust has only been around since 1997. Such an enormous handover to a religious entity of such recent vintage by government raises concern. Especially so because of the special relationship the trust has with Sainsbury's.
The number of quasi-religious groups in the USA with extreme right wing political and corporate connections is extraordinary. So much complexity it's hard to figure out. "The Family" is but one nevertheless Jeff Sharlet's piece in piece in Harpers (2003) provides a glimpse at the model which is used. The model and the organizations can and do cross borders. The "Kill the Gays" bill in Uganda is an example of that.
Good point.
There's a symbiotic relationship between religion and social collapse.
The more that government provided secular safety nets are removed, the more people depend on religions. And for those religions which are themselves profit making businesses, they have an interest in rival safety nets being removed.
In my lackadaisical searching I've found nothing that rings alarm bells about the Trussell Trust. It does seem alarming that the State is contracting out so much power to such a young religious organization without a political process attached to the decision.
In your Thought Storms tabular chart about NetoCracy you suggest that "conspiracy theories" provide an epistemology for NetoCracy. This Diary at Daily Kos seems quite right in outline. And right about the goal: "A Proto-Fascist (Business run) Government, Union Free Country, Privatized Education, and the End of Social Safety Nets."
I don't understand the networks of power in the UK--for that matter pretty hazy about them here in the USA. For example,Campus Crusade for Christ is on every college campus in the USA, or nearly. It's an important network here, but probably not so in the UK. In many ways it's easier to make connections between identifiable networks in the USA and Bulgaria rather than the UK.
Still, I feel sure that the nexus of the Christofascist--or proto-Christofascist--networks extend to the UK. The religious cloak makes them insidious. Few recognize the corporate capture of government they represent. But I should think from a distance seeing what's happened here might be apparent.
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