The Answer

Yes ! A month to the day later, my reply.

The original will be posted here when I find out how to do it.




The jist of his reply however, was that "developing nil-emission cars, and switches that remember to turn themselves off, would help the environment."

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By then I'd penned a letter to Nick Clegg.
In the face of this complacent nonsense I chose to send it, and a rejoiner to DC's letter which had been rude, intrusive and patronising.

Watch this space...























































Meanwhile, world events were unrolling that will bring about the changes we all want and will stand up for, when the time is right.
SUSTO will be a part of this change, as will each and every one of you.
WE ARE THE 99% !
It's time the 1% stopped destroying our planet in the name of corporate greed.
The movement towards a fairer future has begun. Not by an individual. Not by a Group.
By all of us who have opened our eyes to the ruthless destruction of our rights, our lives, our communities, our system of government our national integrity and our planet.
We are you, me, our families and friends. We are the 99% and we are mad as hell at how our labour and suffering is turned into profit for a few.
Together we can change it, now.
Join us. Wake Up ! Open your eyes.

First test all your ideas of 'democracy' with what you actually see happening around you. (How much public effort has already been expended against a very expensive road in Witney? Who will benefit when it is built? And it will be, no matter how much they protest. Roads all over the country are being built into residential areas, or into greenbelt land. Ready for the lorry's. Airports have also been 'upgraded' for no apparent reason and in the face of protest. It is part of global plan to put in place infra-structure for greater commerce. 'Streamlining' and 'increasing efficiency', at the cost of peoples homes and livlihood. Have you ever tried to claim a 'benefit'?  What about all those taxes? Income/car/TV/VAT/travel etc are they fair? Equal? Representative? Who spends your tax money? Who profits from it? Your money bailed out RBS. Did YOU get a £6.5million 'bonus' this year? When was the last time you spoke to or influenced your MP? Did you vote for a 'coalition government? Who is representing you in parliament? Does he listen to you? Are you happy with the NHS? Are your kids getting the education they deserve? Do you get a fair wage? Have you got a job? The job you wanted? Enough to live on? Do you care about the earth? We've been asking them to stop destroying the Rainforests and oceans for forty years, have they listened? Stopped?  Have you been waiting for someone to do something?)
It's you.
Now
Join us.
We know what is being done.
We know what to do about it.                       
We do not forgive. We do not forget.
We will not be slaves to a system that is robbing us and our children of a fair and free future.
We are the 99%
Together we are strong
All over the world, right now, people are coming together with one voice.
Join us. Support us. Be ready when we call you to stand up for what is right.
Unite for a fairer future.
This is Democracy in Action !
Peaceful democratic protest is not a crime.  It is a Right.
Use it or lose it, along with all of them...forever.

The Letter

                                  R F Hughes                                                                                                            (No mobile phone, computer,TV)

Mr D Cameron MP                                                                                               House of Commons, London  SW1  0AA

Dear Sir,

I am the founder of a ‘Sustainable’ Community Action Group in your Constituency that is actively taking measures to reduce our ‘Carbon Footprint’ and become more efficient in energy use. We are also addressing the issues of waste, recycling and ‘buying local’. My group represents about 5% of our community, and a wealth of knowledge, enthusiasm and experience in sustainable lifestyles.

In the course of raising awareness of general and specific ‘alternative’ solutions to these issues, questions are being raised about which I would welcome your advice.

My aim is to gain clarification, not to engage in political incitement or accusation. I merely wish to apprise you of the ‘state of play’ at the front line.

The most often point raised is this; how are we supposed to convince those who are still in the thrall of expanding market pressures to consume at ever increasing rates, to break the habits of a lifetime ?   These – the majority – understandably cannot see the point in curbing their spending habits, seeing this as a restriction or imposed limitation to their ‘rights’ of choice and aspiration.  (False rights, earned not by necessity or need, but enforced by a system that depends on them for its profit margins.)             
There is certainly no incentive for them to do this while the ‘capitalist/consumer’ system of cheap, often foreign, mass manufacture of goods and imports of out of season and exotic foods continues to be the driving force of the economy, and their apathy is strongly encouraged.

Indeed, the whole concept of sustainable living is completely counter-intuitive to consumer ‘market’ needs and expectations.

How then do we make the Transition to a more sustainable way of life in sufficient numbers to meet the targets the government have committed us to?

Those of us, who have always lived frugally, aware of the impact we have on the planet and trying to do the ‘right’ thing, have always  been ridiculed for our views and pushed to the fringes of a consumer obsessed society. 

Indeed, without the trappings of this consumer obsessed society, such as TV, mobile phone, computer, car etc… we are actively ostracised and discriminated against on a daily basis.   However we are the ones upon whom you are now calling to lead the Transition and create your ‘Big Society’.                                   
 In fact, we are the only ones who understand the issues and are prepared to spend our – voluntary – time in trying to raise general awareness of them.

But we cannot compete with unelected, unaccountable, inaccessible multi-billion pound corporations who seem to be determined to wring the last penny of profit out of the planet in complete disregard of the irreparable damage they are doing.  (The planet is a finite resource.)

How do you reconcile the needs of individuals and communities, with the impossible aspirations of the greedy few?  

The vast majority of your ‘ State Nanny’d ’ population are simply no longer capable of thinking beyond their latest acquisition, having been subjected to incessant, specifically designed and refined advertising campaigns all of their lives, with the added promise that the government will ‘take care’ of them for the least effort on their part.        

They are hardly capable of thinking for themselves at all, in a sustainable framework.

The demograph of people who remember post war rationing, ‘making and mending’ and ‘going without’ are not only dwindling, they feel that they have contributed enough. They lost the value of their pensions, have been taxed heavily and live in fear of an increasingly violent and uncontrolled society, a collapsing NHS and being forced to sacrifice their homes for whatever dubious care is available.   They see no point in going without any more, at this stage in their lives and there is no answer to that.  Why should they be made to feel guilty for having been good and diligent consumers – as was required of them – all their lives ?

This is a small amount of the feed-back I’ve experienced, and while the few of us who form the Sustainability group are no less intent upon ‘making a difference’, it would be very helpful to have some authoritative support and answers, if there are any, to the points I’ve raised.

We voted for you and look to you for leadership/guidance in these matters, that are crucial to the survival of, well, all of us…   

We meet on the first Tuesday of the month (next 4^th October, 1^st November) informally and in private at the White Horse PH, Stonesfield and offer you or a representative a standing invitation to join us for discussion.

Or may I/we meet you in one of your local constituency surgeries ?

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Yours sincerely,

R F Hughes

Sustainable Stonesfield CAG

P.S.  Have you managed to think of a good generic label for the sustainability movement/party that is in the process of developing ?     Assuming that ‘communism’ or’ socialism’, while being totally accurate, bear the wrong connotations to a ‘Tory’ party and have already been much over-used, to the detriment of their original meanings.


I sent this on 28th August 2011 and frankly did not expect a reply. America bankrupt. Middle East about to descend into civil war. Greece about to default on the ridiculous amount of debt it's got itself into (despite clear warnings before they joined Euro that this is precisely what they would do). Not a chance the leader of the country would reply to little old me an my pedantic rantings.....or was there ?

B S

• Big Society ? Bull Shit. If they're planning to make us run our own 'communities', provide our own services etc, but STILL have to pay taxes (which up till now were a public coffer to pay for the services etc) when oh when is someone going to suggest the first thing we should do is get rid of 'the government' altogether??

    They've proved to all of us without a shadow of doubt that they're incapable of performing their duties, as PUBLIC  SERVANTS. Preferring to squander the resources of this Country in the most inept, corrupt, self-seeking and destructive ways possible. Openly.   Unapologetically.    With no concern for the damage they're doing to our Country and the 'communities' they're going to rely on to get us all out of the mess they've created.

It is a sad indictment that the two things that post war governments did for the good of their 'citizens' - the vote for women and the NHS - have back-fired so badly.  Women are as disenfranchised now as they have ever been, possibly more so, with the internet. The NHS may well be the straw that will break our back, as a Nation. It was devised at a time when the population was healthier (a diet of home grown and basic foods, tho' boring and tasteless, has been shown to be more than adequate, and much healthier than our 'fast-foods' and supermarket, plastic packaged, E numbered, added sugared etc...) and far more optimistic than today. Willing to 'go that extra mile' and 'pull together'. Vaccines and immunisations were being developed that promised greater health to our children. Post war growth of housing and manufacturing promised health, wealth and happiness for all. The 60's blossomed in that euphoria, and are still a beacon, fifty years on, of a time when patriotism, pride in our Country and what it had achieved, could achieve and did achieve, in music, literature and scientific discovery was at an all-time high.

What NO ONE could have predicted then, in their worst nightmares, was that a series of complacent, selfish, over paid, out-of-touch, lying, cheating, whoring, over-privileged, bimbling idiots would grab hold of all that promise, and bit by bit, over the last four decades, sell our proud Nation down the river.

One man, in his worst nightmare DID see the consequence of one of the more profligate, unnecessary and self-destructive parliamentary decisions. A decision that in one blow, displayed a gross lack of confidence in the people who had elected it to protect and serve them, and set in motion entirely predictable events that have rendered the British people helpless and hog-tied in the face of a very real and devastating Invasion.   His name was ENOCH POWELL.

There has been plenty of blood in the streets since then. Murder.  Infanticide.  Honour killings.  Female castration.  Knife 'culture'.  Gun 'culture'.  Killing children and albinos in the name of witchcraft/voo-doo.  Rioting and looting.

All have happened and continue to happen in our green and pleasant land.
More than enough for a river.....So why isn’t something done?
Because it all generates money in one form or another.  Hospitals benefit, so their shareholders are happy; Prisons benefit; Builders; Manufacturers; Newspapers…anything that is corporately owned and is run coldly and cynically as a profit making business.

Add to that 9-11, the Underground bombs in London. Suicide bombers... More than rivers of blood. There are Oceans of blood to come. And all our ELECTED leaders do is tell us to put up, shut up and pay up.
Taxing the things we can't live without.
Brainwashing us with glamour and celebrity, bright colours and flashing lights, which for hours every day hold us in thrall to the frivolous. The unnecessary. The pointless. The mindless. We know it.  YOU KNOW IT. Think about it...what would you be doing if you could just get away from it?
Ask yourself how would it benefit a small group of 'leaders' to have a brainwashed slave population who believed their only purpose in life is to pay taxes and consume...?   

Sure we should care about our communities. Of course we could manage them.

(We did long before there was 'democracy', 'government', taxes, money or consumer 'culture'.   Which is NOT culture now, but a cynical, heartless, corporatized system of enslavement.) 

Sure people will work voluntarily for a good cause, for something worthwhile. Benefiting their fellow man. But only if everyone is pulling in the same direction and the goal is clear.

NOT if they are second class citizens in a collapsing, dead-ended society from which all rights and involvement have been stripped for decades, in the name of a 'free society' that is nothing like free, and a 'democracy' that ensures a small autocratic elite continues to drain us dry of all sense of  National Identity, hope and self-respect.

NOT if the deal is -"You do our work, for nothing, (care of elderly, care of disabled, Libraries etc)  and we'll just keep collecting the taxes."  In effect, our taxes would go to pay them - for collecting the taxes. And nothing else.

So I say - Big Society = BULLSHIT !

We’ll do it, yes, because our biological imperative is to survive.
But we’ll do it on OUR terms…

It’s time to do away with medieval class structure, unequal distribution of land, pointless hours in schools that offer nothing but addiction to the corporate drug (greed) and mass child-minding. Time to opt out of a world that has made promises to you all your life and never kept them*.  In return, keeping you one step behind the carrot, using up your strength, intelligence and life in the name of ‘profit’.  Time to take more than responsibility for our actions – take control of them.


*Who remembers the first box of  Soap powder?  We’d never need another one…only fork out for a washing machine…and insurance because it wasn’t built to last…and a new kitchen to put it in… and now there’s another kind of soap powder – at least it has a different name – and it must be better because they say it is…
To my personal knowledge the quality of washing powder, a simple detergent based on alkylbezenesulfonates (washing soda ) and bleach,  has  been ‘better’, ‘new’, ‘improved’, ‘washed whiter’, ‘whiter than white’, ‘blue white’, ‘washed colours brighter’ every year for the last forty. And no, It doesn’t clean clothes any better than the first one.

Nuclear Power ? Which would supply more than enough of free power for everyone?...we only had to pay the high prices for the building and setting up and safety costs…that never seemed to end…and did the price of energy ever come down???         And NO it isn’t safe, never was and never will be.
We ‘bought’ the nonsense that ‘we had to pay more for petrol and gas because they came from far away’…did our own gas lower the price for us?  No, we sold it abroad. Strangely, it cost much less to transport it abroad than it ever had to buy it in…Is ‘abroad’ further away???

We were promised schools of a quality and superiority such as we’d never seen…and we never did see them, because before we could hang up our useless red brick poly degrees our schools were filled with the children of foreign immigrants who succeeded in the dumbing down process where constantly changing the exam system, falsifying results – those of girls – and other heinous examples of discrimination designed to produce an homogenised ‘worker base’, plus the inevitable ‘brain drain’ of all those in the ‘providing’ professions – teachers, nurses and  doctors – who could get away from a system of oppression no better than the ones in different cultures that we abhor, had failed.

Council Tax??? Which was going to ensure our services were improved and run efficiently???  So how did we reach this point? The big Society…
Because those services that had been provided to facilitate the lives of the working populance - who took a pride in them, were immediately corporatized and immediately the standards dropped, the ‘service’ non-existent, responsibilities deferred to the ‘voluntary’ sector.  While at the same time political nepotism and corruption were given an open door and chequebook.

Who could ignore the public bickering and in-fighting in our own WOCC, as wasteful, pointless, highly paid and pensioned jobs were handed out and the construction of ‘fortress WOCC offices’ went ahead at vast (public) expense?

That we continue to pay for such profligate indulgence, and meekly accept another rise, and another and another, in the price of what we already pay for in our taxes, puzzles me greatly.
What exactly will it take to open peoples’ eyes to what is being done to them?
YOU!
When are you going to wake up and realise you’re playing into their hands by desperately trying to preserve a status quo that long ago ceased to be. (It’s just not profitable.)

The only people with a vested interest in maintaining things as they are, are the ones sitting at the top of their corporations watching the zero’s accumulate in their bank accounts… while people and the planet dies…..

It’s time to be human beings again. Not wage slaves. Slaves. Who seem to have sold their souls for the chance to watch the enemy’s propaganda and be told what to do.
At what point did you lose your humanity? Your sense of connection to the earth. Your delight in simple things. The time to enjoy them. Your life…?

Is the loss so great that you believe it cannot be retrieved?  It can. It is there, a blink away. A realisation away. A decision away. Shrug off your self  imposed shackles. Say NO to being a slave. Say yes to Human Being.
Being yourself – not someone’s expectation.  Being in control.  Being a part of life and living.

There is not much time left to make the change, before the corporate powers slam home the bolts of their Brave New World…..

Disclaimer

Come with me, to the world of the Mighty Boosh.....Oh no, that's somewhere else.

THIS is where the thinking gets down and real. 
I thinks wot I thinks an I sez wot I thinks.

My opinions are my own - an thanks to this web thingy you can be privy to 'em.
Read 'em. Enjoy 'em. Agree or disagree. Sensible, constructive critical discussion is welcomed.  Berating and general or specific insults will only be tolerated if grammatically correct - and contributer can take as good as he gives.

If you are Pussy and can't take it - the Truth I mean - keep well away.

It is almost certainly bound to offend SOMEone.  The truth often does.

It can also be hard to take, so take your time an think about it.
Try to challenge what I've said. Form your own opinion. Bring your own ideas.

Anything...just get used to stretching your perceptual horizons,
open your mind and say "Aaaah.....!"

Level 1 Rant = Usually humorous and short. Non threatening

Level 5 Rant = Opinionated (remember? That 'opinion' we're all entitled to) and likely to raise debatable points of view.

Level 11 The Ultimate Rant. Revelationary. To appear at the Apocalypse.
Untill then no rant is likely to achieve Level 10 = The ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything!

Enjoy. Be provoked. Think!

We'll start with a tempered Level 5. Written well before the riots in London - all grist to the mill...