Category: youth

Categories
youth

Youth don’t care?

You hear it all the time: “Young people aren’t interested. They don’t care. Young people today are lazy and apathetic.”

Well… I’d be completely disinterested in politics too if I thought the only options available to me were 3 look-alike old parties, some crusty hippies, and bunch of looney-lefties. Who wouldn’t be? The current political landscape in the UK is a moonscape of good ideas, and completely uninspiring.

Of course this is a myth, young people ARE interested, and they ARE changing the political landscape all over the world. The biggest party in the Italian parliament was 90% elected by youth, the ‘Arab Spring’ is a youth movement, as is the ‘Indignado’ movement in Spain, and Obama is only President of the USA because he ignited hope in the youth.

The problem is not the youth, it’s the f’in ‘grown ups’ that are the problem!
Where are the solutions to the problems we tell our youth are going to dominate their world?
We tell them that we are all destroying the environment, and then do nothing about it. We are borrowing their futures to pay for our todays, and then say it will all be alright because we can grow our way out of our debts – when we all know that is either not going to happen, or will just damage the environment further. And we tell them that if they’re not prepared to work for free they’re not going to get on the world, when none of us had to do the same.
That’s not just lousy messaging, that’s cynical and hypocritical behaviour.

LIFE is here to change this picture.

corporate-controlled, debt-fuelled, fossil-burning workhouseWe see the problems, and we have solutions. We do not accept the continuing destruction of our environment, we are not prepared to mortgage our children’s and grandchildren’s futures to pay for an easy retirement today. And our solutions do not ask the young to revolt against the old, they do not pit the youth against the grown-ups, they are solutions that we can all join in together, to create a better future, and a life worth living for everyone. 

LIFE proposes evolution before revolution.

Don’t chastise young people for feeling disenchanted, when the picture we are painting is so dismal. Paint a brighter picture, imagine a better world, and inspire the next generation to build the future that you want to live in, and that they will want to help build and support.
Don’t lament the apathy of the youth. Instead, take that as motivation to change the landscape, to provide better options, and challenge yourself to provide the shoulders for their future.

 

 

Categories
change economics Key Article youth

Intro

What LIFE is proposing is simple, a radical evolution: public services instead of welfare.

If we provide each other with safety (guaranteed access to the basic necessities of life in the event of need),
free of charge and without means testing,
we will remake our economy and come into balance with our environment.

Citizen-Contract

That’s it. This one simple change will bring growth to our economy, sanity to our public finances, and joy to our lives.

This is not utopian, this is simple, basic stuff. We can spend the same amount of money that we are already spending on welfare today, but instead of providing benefits, we provide the actual services that those benefits are supposed to buy. The services only cover the bare necessities of life, and they are available universally to every citizen, irrespective of circumstance. No “benefit trap”.

No one is forced to take the services, they are just there to provide a floor to living standards to those that want to use them. 

Continue reading “Intro”
Categories
citizen Freedom privacy youth

Drug Criminalisation: All Cons

Has the “drug war” been a success and should we continue it? You decide…

The pernicious, hidden effects of drug criminalisation:

  • erodes the privacy boundary, thence respect for public space 
  • criminalises pursuit of fun and millions of otherwise law abiding citizens, eroding respect for the law
  • excuses the creation of a police state, wire tapping (87% of 2012 wire taps in USA) and racial profiling
  • criminalises poverty and misery
  • feeds the industrial prison business 
  • promotes moralism as if it were a virtue
  • draws arbitrary distinctions between substances that harms the reputation of the law

 

The obvious effects:

  • increases criminal opportunity for theft, violence and smuggling 
  • sends money to criminal gangs, enabling other more serious crimes
  • reduces access to rehabilitation and education
  • increases corruption
  • destabilises producing countries
  • lost government revenues 
  • increases danger due to lack of quality controls
  • enables the introduction of untested, dangerous new substances

 

And that’s before even mentioning:

  • wastes police and prison resources
  • crowds the judicial system with non-violent, otherwise civil citizens
  • no correlation between amount of resources spent on the ‘drug war’ and the rate of drug use

 

Categories
Democracy youth

FU.IGM

The generation with the jobs, the ‘final salary’ pensions, the mutual fund accounts, the second homes and the cheap driver’s insurance. The free bus pass, the winter heating allowance and the holiday in the sun. The reason why music and art is still dominated by the 60s, 70s and 80s. And, most importantly, the slavish obedience of cow-towing politicians.

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They are the “Fuck you. I got mine.” generation, and they are driving our societies, our economies and our environment into the abyss on their way out. They are not evil, they are just careless. As far as they are concerned they worked hard for what’ve got, they fought the good fight, played the game, and made their way up the ladder, just like they were supposed to.

But just being a survivor is not the summit of human achievement. Realising that you are part of a circle, that you stand on the shoulders of those who came before you, and that you must shoulder those who come after you, those are the true virtues. Humility, care and service are the hallmarks of a truly great generation.

It’s your responsibility, the responsibility of those who are not blinded by their own struggles, to take the reins from those that are. We must assume the mantle that our great-grandparents gave us: the power of democracy to control the direction and destiny of our society. 

Only passive acceptance is holding you back, a natural deference to those that are older and should know better. The FU.IGM generation is a minority. The world belongs to those who are under 45 today, and everywhere you are the majority. You don’t need a bus to get to the polling booth, you don’t need permission to register to vote, and you have every right to reclaim what is rightfully yours.

Take control. 

Vote. 

Your vote can change the world, starting in 2015. 

Love. LIFE. Vote.

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