Pippa Bartolotti2013-05-22T02:48:36-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=pippa-bartolottiCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Pippa BartolottiGood old fashioned elbow grease.Why Is So Much Wealth in the Hands of the Few?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.25349042013-01-23T12:42:00-05:002013-03-25T05:12:01-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
In a world where 854 million people are undernourished and 700 million are obese, the inequalities are stark. Governments worldwide, swayed by the lure of past glories and reacting to the strings pulled by the rich, lack imaginative responses to changing circumstances. The link between economic models and inequality will be the testing ground.
Our tired economic models insist on basing their trends on growth - an impossibility in a world of finite resources. Inequality languishes unaddressed at our peril. It will not be enough to ask the most vulnerable to suffer further just to maintain the system which made them vulnerable in the first place.
The need to minimise governance-induced debt will not be met by squeezing the average citizen still further, because they are not likely to tolerate it. With the advent of the internet and mobile technology people are now more in touch with each other than ever before. They are learning to sift through the endless streams of information and disinformation, and they are formulating their own plans. People know that there is a small but fantastically rich elite who hold themselves above the law, who pay little or no taxes, and who for generations have lived quite literally off the fat of the land, stolen land.
Land is the one finite resource where the value is rigged entirely towards the possessor at the expense of the community surrounding it. A tax shift away from goods and services, and towards the value of land would create greater wealth for communities without dispossessing the owners. It would also be the single most effective means of reducing inequality. To continue a bias in policy towards landowners and the rich, at the expense of people and planet, would be no less than a criminal enterprise of government.
Land is used not only for the production of wealth but also as an instrument of oppression of human by human. The challenge before us is to bring about change in policy so that people will pay for what they take, not what they make. Introducing a land value tax is the first step in realising the type of equality based on fairness for all.]]>Rapetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24593422013-01-11T17:51:21-05:002013-03-13T05:12:01-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
The figures below represent a holocaust. A women's holocaust without end.
1 out of every 3 women in the world has been raped, beaten or abused
30% of people in the UK think that violence against women is OK.
50% think it should be kept behind closed doors
More than 100 million women are missing from the world's population - a result of discrimination and female infanticide.
Two thirds of the 774 million adult illiterates worldwide are female
At least 60 million girls worldwide are forced into marriage before the age of 18.
An estimated 3 million girls are estimated to be at risk of female genital mutilation each year.
A third of teenage girls in a relationship suffer an unwanted sexual act.
A quarter of girls suffer physical violence, such as being slapped, punched or beaten by their boyfriend.
1 girl in 16 is raped
64% of students know women whose boyfriends or partners have hit them
25,000 men in England and Wales move from one relationship to another, serially abusing their partners
Everyone in society is responsible for these figures (from Amnesty International) by either looking away, or feigning blindness. And society will not change until each one of us changes. True equality means real respect. You do not beat or rape a person you respect, and you respect your equals.
We must remove the shame and stigma from rape victims and honour those who are raped. Only by applauding the bravery and resolve of the abused can we turn the tables on these cowardly oppressors.
Rape is the ultimate crime of an unequal world.]]>Limits to Growthtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22140572012-11-29T17:16:27-05:002013-01-29T05:12:02-05:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Many people now take two showers - a day. This is very relevant to our current stage of consumption.
Consumption of our resources such as water, land, clean air and fossil fuels is now at an unsustainable level. At the time of Elizabeth 1st the world population was about half a billion. Today it is 10 billion. That is a lot of showers. Clearly there have been many improvements since the year 1500: we are now more hygienic, warmer, better fed and more healthy, but the way we have gone about improving our lifestyles has come at a price. And although we might think everything is quite expensive enough already, we are not actually paying the full price.
The full price would include the cost to the environment. Trees don't bill us for their loss of forests, endangered animals do not bill us for their loss of habitat. The oceans ask no price for the pollution humans pour into them, and the air will not send us an invoice for the extra greenhouse gasses it has to burden. If the fish and whales took us to court for murder of their family members we would at least have more life left in the sea.
In 1972 a group of eminent scholars, called the Club of Rome, published a book called Limits to Growth. They spent years pulling information together, then modelled it to create a future trend scenario. Their conclusions were that we were using up the natural resources of the planet too quickly, and if we did not change our ways, collapse was inevitable. Limits to Growth was an early warning siren. Sadly few people listened.
Please do look at this very good explanatory graph and updated info here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html
In essence, they estimated that if human beings continued to consume more than nature was capable of providing, global economic collapse and abrupt population decline could occur at around 2030. In other words humans are taking too much, and not giving enough back, and sooner rather than later there is going to be a very big problem.
Governments baying for economic growth at all cost are digging us deeper into the quagmire. They pursue this because they measure success in money, not in wellbeing or protection of the ecosystems on which we all actually depend in order to stay alive.
Ever more dangerous and unwholesome methods are being used to extract fossil fuels. Tar sands are huge wasters of energy and put more CO2 into the atmosphere in their extraction than when they are burnt. Fracking - or hydraulic fracturing - pumps toxic chemicals into the ground to release small pockets of gas, deep sea oil drilling has an abysmal record, but still they do it.
But there is another way of doing business. Growth is still possible, but only if we invest in technologies such as renewable energy supplies, allocate money for innovation and research so that we can overcome our dependence on dirty fuels and convert to clean energies such as wind, tide and sun. We need to stop wasting so much, and stop polluting the air with CO2 and poisons from incinerators and dirty industries. We need to reuse more of what we have, and recycle more of what we need such as metals and plastics. Recycling leaves more in the resource pot for the next generation.
If you had the choice between a car burning fossil fuels, and a long and healthy life for your children, which would you choose?
Limits to growth was updated in 2008, and the data was found to remain relevant. Update document can be read here http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf]]>Economic Growth - Wrong Answertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15704522012-06-05T09:28:57-04:002012-08-05T05:12:28-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Way back in the 1700's Adam Smith recognized a limit to economic growth. He predicted that in the long run, population growth would push wages down, and natural resources would become increasingly scarce.
Consider a steady state economy - an economy of stable or mildly fluctuating size, minimal chance of the boom and bust cycle, less opportunity for outright greed. The term can apply equally to a national economy, a local, regional, or global economy. To be sustainable, a steady state economy must not exceed ecological limits, and that is it's most important attribute.
Our recent and unprecedented growth in economic activity has significantly shifted the balance of nature with potentially disastrous consequences for the ecology of the planet, for our own well-being but particularly for that of the next generation. It is a mistake to believe that more growth will diminish our problems. In the long term more growth would be a disaster, as continuous growth is completely incompatible with sustainability.
A steady state economy does not imply a stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living (and a bigger likelihood of it being improved), when minds cease to be engrossed by the shallow art of obtaining more money.
The human economy is embedded in nature, completely. Without the natural world to draw upon, there is nothing to make money from. But we have been perverse. We have exploited nature to its very limits, maybe beyond its ability to absorb our delinquency. Economic processes are actually biological, physical, and chemical processes. Humans don't create anything, they transform it into something else - plastics, cars, toxic waste.
Economic growth cannot be relied upon to alleviate poverty either. On the contrary, economic growth has polarized wealth - mostly into the hands of the few. If the pie isn't getting any bigger, we need to cut and distribute the pieces in a fair way. Poor people who have trouble meeting basic needs tend not to care about sustainability - how can they when the priority is finding the next meal. At the other end of the scale, excessively rich people tend to consume unsustainable quantities of resources. Fair distribution of wealth, therefore, is a critical part of sustainability and the steady state economy.
60 years ago, John Maynard Keynes said "The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behaviour and religion."
Economic collapse is extremely painful. But environmental collapse - the collapse of the planet's support systems which sustain life on earth as we know it - that is truly unbearable.
Governments have their heads stuck in the past. They can only think of recreating what has been - growth. But the future will be different. The future needs the fairness and sustainability only steady state economics can bring.
More here at http://steadystate.org and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy]]>Redefining Prosperitytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12717942012-02-12T15:10:01-05:002012-04-13T05:12:01-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Prosperity is defined as being flourishing, thriving and successful. To be a flourishing, thriving and successful human being depends more upon health and happiness than the size of your bank balance. The misplaced clamour for economic growth has put many economies into decline, and economic notions of prosperity are at last being seen for what they actually are - a negative impact on personal and national self esteem. It seems that we have mistakenly equated the acquisition of monetary wealth with our feelings about ourselves.
If the crazy drive for economic growth has got us where we are - a society becoming less equal by the day, public borrowing at levels in excess of £1 trillion in the UK (US $15 trillion), shrinking tax receipts and rising unemployment - why oh why is the government baying for more growth?
Our socio-economic order is rotten. Greed and irresponsibility have fuelled little but disaster. Yet still we hear the cry for a return to 'business as usual'. Certain groups and individuals know exactly what to do, because they know how much they have to gain from it. A return to the old order - as if that was possible - would continue to magnify the wealth of the few. We now know that the problems facing communities right now are a result of 'growth'. We do not want a return to the old order.
We live in a world of finite resources. No matter how deep we dig, the fossil fuels will eventually disappear, so for starters an oil based economy does not make much sense. Uranium too is a fossil fuel, and its supply is finite. Gas, coal - all the fossil fuels can only be mined for so long, and they will be no more.
Life for us all is poised to change. There are a lot of mouths to feed, so we must look to ourselves and our communities for the answers. Big Money and Big Corporations will be dragged screaming into their own decline, because the last thing they want to see is ordinary people managing their own way into the future - and it could be a lot better than the past.
A sensible government would be looking to real prosperity. It would be using sustainable energy sources and guiding us towards non-financial goals such as family life, health and community. The Buddhist definition of prosperity is based on collectivism and compassion, and that is not a bad place to start. ]]>Government Does Not Solve Problems - It Subsidises Themtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11087082011-11-22T17:37:59-05:002012-01-22T05:12:01-05:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Thank you Ken, we already knew. And we know that none of you in government have the foggiest clue how to put it right. You are working on old solutions to old problems, and no amount of history will provide the answer.
You haven't yet worked out that we need new solutions to new problems. Rapidly widening inequality, pointless wars, diminishing resources, climate change; all new problems needing new solutions. The history books won't help us now. Taking the hard decisions will.
Problem - high inequality. The income gap had been closing since Victorian times, but now it's widening at a terrifying pace. Top company executives are now earning more than 75 times the average wage. In 1980 it was about 13 times. The Green Party has long considered that 10 times is about right.
Average UK wages have increased threefold since 1980, the chief executive's package at the now partly state-owned Lloyds Bank has increased by more than 3,000%. This is an astronomical pay rise for poor judgement, bad management, and downright fraud.
Tough talk about market forces is tantamount to bullying. The 1%ers are just well connected idiots whose proof of greed, mismanagement and foul play is on record. It's time to call their bluff. The High Pay Commission recommends transparency, accountability and fairness, I recommend pay cuts.
Problem - war. There are always those who think wars can be a catalyst to move past a crisis. Military rhetoric surrounds us. War is not a tool to solve our current problems. It is an abhorrence. Mumblings about Iran grow louder. Israel and the US are about to start playing the war game entitled Juniper Cobra 12 to check that their missiles can be properly co-ordinated in times of what can only be called blatant aggression.
Israel is a nuclear power and more than willing to use it (but that's a secret of course). The US is a nuclear power and has already used it. What has Iran done to deserve our wrath- apart from not cowering to the whim of the West.
War with Iran will cost taxpayers dear. It will not solve our economic problems. It will make them worse. I recommend an outbreak of peace together with military spend being diverted to clean energy projects worldwide. The armed forces have the engineers, the logistics, the manpower.
Problem - diminishing resources. We cannot have unlimited economic growth in a world of finite resources. Water scarcity looms. Land to grow unsustainable crops to feed and mobilise a massive increase in human numbers is in short supply, yet we cannot kick the old habits of thoughtless consumerism. We eat too much meat, use too much oil, pollute too much air. In short we are, unscrupulous, unethical, unsustainable. We have to change our ways and no government has the guts to tell the truth. Listen if you will to the tired old political rhetoric, but it won't solve the problem. Lifestyle change will.
Problem - Climate change. It's galloping up to us right now. Atmospheric CO2 has risen from 310 parts per million to an alarming 389 in just 50 years. Precious little is being done about it. NIMBY's don't like windmills, bird lovers don't like them offshore; governments spend fortunes (of our money) promoting nuclear because it gives them weapons grade material. It seems everyone likes the dirtiest power source of all - coal. Or do they want magic? I recommend New Education for all based on ethical lifestyle and hands-on problem solving.
For too long governments have been put into office by big money and big media to do their bidding. The people and the planet are not even second. They were not even on the agenda - until now.
Hats off to the Occupiers, to the Trade Unions, to the people waking up to the real world. We are on the agenda, and we might just write it!
]]>White Poppies Make History in Newporttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10921342011-11-14T08:04:56-05:002012-01-14T05:12:02-05:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Do the wearers understand what they are doing? Have they given it even a modicum of independent thought? Have they considered the White Poppy for peace?
I do not want to take anything away from the British Legion whose work in picking up the pieces of the war ravaged is very important, but I do wish to say that war is not the glorious sacrifice we are taught it to be. Today's wars are about resources, destabilization of sovereign states, and big big money. The military /industrial complex cannot wait to do their version of 'picking up the pieces'. The lucrative rebuilding contracts are the icing on the cake for the mega corporations who have already creamed off the tax-payer subsidised weapons manufacturing industry. The arms trade rub their collective hands with perverse glee as they watch the built-in obsolescence of their products obliterating countries where they personally have no chance of being harmed. Killing, maiming, genetically mutilating, destroying, indiscriminate and arbitrary execution - no weapon or tactic is too abhorrent to use. More bombs and tanks can easily be made - and sold - to governments who continue the relentless cycle in cruel denial of basic truths and human rights. Today's wars are not the honourable red poppy event of misty-eyed valour they have been painted to be. Today's wars are about as far from courageous self-defence as you can get.
As independent thought is being ground out of us, conflict resolution is shunned. Research into what makes a good peace is cast into the wilderness and the proposed Wales Peace Academy languishes in the back rooms of despair together with those great thinkers who know there is a better way. Peace has been given a bad name because there is no money in it for the greedy few.
In the face of unrelenting moves to ever more vile wars, peace campaigners in Newport have resurrected the White Poppy, and it is to the credit of the British Legion in Newport that for the first time, possibly anywhere, the White Poppy wreath was laid as part of the official rembrance ceremony at the Cenotaph in Clarence Place. For just one moment it was possible to think that the laying of White Poppy wreaths would no longer be a clandestine activity, as if peace was not to be talked about in polite circles and White Poppy wreaths laid only at dead of night. For one moment Peace was actually up front and on the agenda.
The Peace Pledge Union have this year sold more white poppies than any time since 1934. When they bother to consider the reality, people are thinking differently about war.
]]>I Mind That you Have Bought my Governmenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10740402011-11-05T12:32:45-04:002012-01-05T05:12:02-05:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
For the most part Greece has defaulted on the impossibly high interest rates it has been asked to pay for borrowing money to survive in a system of economic duplicity and political corruption. Any smidgen of growth Greece can wring from its depleted economy will go towards paying interest rates forced upon them by the undemocratic ratings agencies such as Standard and Poor, and the banking cartel who like to think they have us all firmly stitched up in their grubby little mits.
The third world - or that which we laughingly call the developing world - which has been prevented from developing largely by the sharp practice of the IMF, the World Bank, and utterly mis-named fair trade agreements, has been in this position for decades, with any economic surpluses being put not towards their own growth, but to the bottomless coffers of the banking fraternity in the form of interest rates, infamously know by its other name: usury.
Some of us look upon the panic in the EU and the US with wry amusement. Some of us are taking part in the downfall of the industrial-military-political complex of greed by getting out there and Occupying. Others are wringing their hands because life as we know it is ending.
St Paul's Cathedral, the chair and trustees of which are drawn from the financial conglomerates of Lloyds Bank, Lloyds Banking Group and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, has, by a twist of fate, been hosting the London Occupy movement in the face of enormous pressure from the Establishment. Yet it has remembered its first calling, the people, and faced down the bankers.
Italy is next in line to default, and the sharp suits lining up at the G20 belie the panic. The Euro currency is falling apart. When EU monetary union was formed, they forgot the story of the Three Little Pigs, and built their houses on straw. But it is not the Big Bad Wolf which is blowing their houses down, it is the quiet decisions of the people.
Peacefully they congregate in the face of violence. They know it will work. Governments send in the troops to put off other would-be occupiers, but still the movement grows.
Young people are rising above their tick box education with the vision to see right through this system of greed. The bankers, blinded by decades of unfettered greed, have wormed their way out of a mere 0.05% on financial transactions commonly known as the Robin Hood Tax. Aided and abetted by government they spontaneously combust at the thought of higher taxes on the rich - even though a one-off, one year only, tax of 20% on the top 10% UK wage earners would wipe out the £800 billion UK deficit in one foul swoop.
Their greed is paving the way to their own undoing. They think they can buy us all. They have bought our governments, and manipulated our systems for the furtherance of their own pointless gratification. Ordinary people are feeling stitched-up. They have stopped buying 'stuff, they have stopped listening to the propaganda. The sword of Damocles hangs over every job in town and the belts are drawing tighter. Economic growth is no more. Bankers and governments are looking like ridiculous parodies of Canute as they try to force back the incoming tide of change.
We don't want a new system, we want those who are being paid to improve our lives to get on and do the job - to work for the future health and security of people and planet.
]]>UN Vote - American People, or American Elite?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9793282011-09-24T17:30:32-04:002011-11-24T05:12:02-05:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Had they been able to see the numbers in the table below, it would have been impossible for Americans to have no opinion.
Population 5.5 million Jewish 11 million Palestinian(7M refugees)
Overall Land Controlled 91.7%Israel 8.3%Palestinian
Military Personnel 175,000 0
Reserves 500,000 0
Irregulars 10-15,000 3-5,000
Tanks 3,800 0
Artillery 1,500 large 0
Warships 20-30 0
Submarines 6 0
Combat aeroplanes 2,000 0
Nuclear weapons 300 0
GDP $195 billion $4 billion
Military expenditure $10 billion Negligible
Killed (over 63 years) 6,000 75,000
Wounded 20,000 300,000
Abducted/jailed 30 400,000
Homes demolished 0 50,000
Refugees created 0 6,000,000
Obama has been vacillating between his own conscience, and the wishes of those pulling the strings. he, like so many others, has traded his own sense of justice for a seat at the top table - the outward show of power, the trappings, the posh dinner parties. It may be an uncomfortable presidency for him, but it is a good deal more uncomfortable for those who most needed the justice he promised.
]]>Are our elected officials truly interested in justice?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9793232011-09-24T17:22:14-04:002011-11-24T05:12:02-05:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Those who look good in the media, have charisma and charm, are heavily marketed. Those who know their stuff, but do not produce the right kind of sound bites are left trailing. In the end we are left with a few well-connected, well educated buffoons who can talk the talk, but under closer scrutiny cannot walk the talk, or even walk the walk. Career politicians are a global curse. They soak up money and maintain the preferred status quo of their sponsors. They clearly do not know what they are doing, or we would not be facing economic collapse, high level fraud and unjustifiable banksters bonuses for which the struggling poor and middle classes are expected to pay.
The rich use our transport systems and our communications systems. They benefit from advances in government sponsored healthcare and subsidised technological achievements, yet they do not like to pay taxes. It seems that some feel they are above it, and often they are encouraged to think this way, yet it should be a pleasure to pay tax, to contribute to the economy and to help the less fortunate.
The only reason we send people to occupy those seats at the top is to leverage the power of the community to enhance national prospects and to work on behalf of those who need help the most.
But we fall for the same old tricks every time. We do not recognise good people when they come before us. We are more inclined to be tricked by the hype, for the election leaflet which looks like a pizza menu - but with even less nourishment on offer.
Occupying these seats at the top table is important. Engaging in the struggle for justice is important, leadership is important. Yet the leaders of conscience are marginalized - maybe their hair is not trendy or their suit a little crumpled - and the result is that we do not have authentic representatives of our values to occupy those seats.
Therefore, we must pay attention and hone the skill of discernment. We must not give our vote to just anybody to occupy these positions of power. We must not allow fakes to represent us. Fakes are those who wear the jackets of pseudo-authority, but who do not engage in the artful use of power on our behalf. Discerning who is genuine and who is fake has been difficult, but, take a closer look. The arrogance of those who do not have the interests of the people at heart is getting easier to see by the day. Their actions are a clue that they are not interested in our values.
It is long past time to wake up. Few stand up and fight for truth and justice in this world of desperate need. When we look beyond the smoke and mirrors of politics and power, it hurts. We have to re-evaluate everything, our past, our present, our future - so mostly we turn away in denial, preferring the comforting surreal, disneyland media trance which is presented to us on a plate. But once awake, we have the choice of fooling ourselves indefinitely, or facing up to what needs to be done and acting. The transition takes time, but once our eyes are open, they can only see. And we find we are not alone.
]]>Creating the Generation we Want Your Responsestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9321892011-08-20T15:17:46-04:002011-10-20T05:12:02-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
"Educationally, there is a need to bring back the old technical colleges with a wide variety of practical courses that would lead to self sufficiency of local communities (permaculture, dressmaking, blacksmithing, carpentry etc.) plus the provision of medium and higher technical jobs that the country needs."
"I did several years in workcamps as a CO alternative to military service. Very useful and enlightening. I would consider introducing some such practical service/training for all young people between school and higher education, to broaden horizons and give them a variety of experience and company before choosing courses and careers."
"Bankers have made robbery legal, how can we blame people for learning from example.
Much of the rioting was a response by people who feel powerless. It's what happens when far too much of society is in servitude to markets. We've had more than 40 years of it. Blair was only marginally better than Thatcher in this respect. They all were, and still are, bonkers to imagine that it didn't matter how much wealth was siphoned off to the richest 5%. "
"A fantastic email. I can say outright I agree conceptually with the need for radical and imaginative rethinking for our society to operate and have at least a hope that things can improve with time.
Surestart - under threat in England from the cuts but protected in Wales - in part aims to do this."
"First observation....Kibbutz"
"There's definitely some merit to the ideas. I would advise that the underlying emphasis should be on enabling the true potential of humankind to blossom. For this purpose, we must be prepared to explore the nature and depth of essential values and truth in the design of any new processes for real education. With the right level of guidance, such process will serve to avoid systemic collapse due to the same old issues."
"Look at Norway placed highest on the Human Development Index. What is wrong with adopting some of their great ideas for social inclusion and welfare?"
"I have to say that your emphasis on boot camp and benefit withdrawal is really out of tune with the overwhelming opposition to authoritarian approaches to 'back to work' measures amongst people affected by unemployment."
"Add regular home/clinic visits by public health nurses in the first two years, to check milestones and development, assist with any problems parents might be having, and as a lifeline for new young isolated mums, and you have my vote!! "
"Where such a large proportion of what is wrong lies with inequality and the quasi-criminal actions of the rich, big business and the consumption-obsessed societies and economies they have constructed, it seems curious that almost all your remedies target the conduct of the poor and, especially, poor parents. (not actually true - it made no distinction)"
"We used to have a system in NZ called Plunket Nurses - which assisted parenting from birth, through to primary school This system picks up not only nutritional, developmental, health and behavioural problems early, but also child abuse, enabling early intervention with parenting skills as well as to assist the removal a child (and mother) from a dangerous situation if necessary. It also connects young mothers with others in the community, and provides an opportunity for a wealth of health promotional activities in child and maternal health, and family planning, as well as a referral service to health and social services as needed. It was accompanied by Karitane Hospitals and Health Camps for school-age children who were not achieving developmental milestones (eg weight, height, learning etc) and involved children staying for at least six weeks, usually 3 months, but sometimes longer, where they were fed a healthy diet, their immunisation status was checked and addressed if necessary, had a regular exercise regimen, and they attended school at the camp. NZ dumped this system as a cost-cutting measure in the neoliberal experiment of the 1980's and children have been suffering ever since. The Plunket system could be easily adapted to dovetail in with your child centres at age 2, and health, rather than boot, camps serve a holistic purpose in ensuring total (physical, emotional, social) health intervention, without the stigma. Worth thinking about!!
Thanks for this, it makes a lot of sense. Single sex education from puberty is certainly an idea I would back. You have provided an element of hope."
"Problem: consumerism and widening inequality. Solution: hard work and common values."
"What about teachers, career advisors and youth workers who have been trained to work with young people in civil society and whose main burden is persistent undervaluing, under-resourcing and underfunding. "
"I completely do not agree with this text, I really do not want a society this person wants."
"Use progressive taxation to fund better housing, better social infrastructure, better schools, youth centres, play areas, not 'parenting classes' but neighbourhood centres and facilities for young parents, etc. Why not structure our work, taxation and pensions systems so that young parents, fathers and mothers, are 'free to stay with their children' part- or full-time, as they choose?
Invoke the Green Party policy on citizen's income."
"Surely 'bad parenting' is not something that can be 'mopped up' but something which gradually diminishes as we build societies (at local and national level) that offer genuine hope of improvement, involvement, participation and creativity."
"There have always been feral children...both in town and country. What we have that is new is feral parents."
"If we stop the wars and cancel Trident, we could afford a decent future for the next generation.
Like many of my generation I was "trained" by ex military personnel. As with all groups, some were natural born educators and enthused us. The majority were bullies. Those at my school were even bigger bullies."
"I do think a four year degree level course in educational sociology and psychology and pulling apart the building blocks of your subject is a preparation for teaching. (It is interesting to note that recent teacher training courses have not done this but have been a dumbing down involving lots of capitalist propaganda about "targets"- revolting business speak.)"
"Great to hear some common sense; a welcome antidote to the tidal wave of nonsense from the media. I wish people had the same sense of outrage about the bankers."
"Community Service for Life as a sentence for looter bankers."
So there we have it. People with opinion, ideas, experience and healthy disagreement stepping up to the mark, and whilst it is good to disagree, please in future bring to the discussion constructive criticism AND your ideas for building the society we can be proud of.
]]>Creating The Generation We Wanttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9264342011-08-14T10:40:41-04:002011-10-14T05:12:01-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
Of course in the US the small strand of uber rich is even richer than here in the UK, and this minority certainly gets richer at a phenomenal pace. The low income families in the US are possibly in a worse mess than the low income families in the UK. Violence is higher, gun crime is endemic, and politics has failed, so it's great idea to speed up the process of decimating our own society by instigating the oppressive and failed measures of another society.
We need the confidence to persue a new approach. 11 years of full time education has yielded poor results, and the education system has failed a large proportion of young people. Prison only teaches offenders to be better criminals. The prison system has never worked. If it had worked in the past we would not need it now.
Many parents have thrown in the towel. Feral children haunt every neighbourhood. Foul- mouthed and lazy parents are a menace to society, inequality, poor education and meaningless punishment systems are the norm.
Imaginative and progressive solutions are being stifled at birth, and the answers do not lie in history, they lie in a fresh progressive approach which tackles the layers of systemic failure head on, and in parallel. It took 4 people - a front line social worker, a young black mother working in equalities, a disenfranchised woman caring for her elderly mother and myself - 10 minutes to work through the following solution:
From the age of 2 all children would go to small neighbourhood pre schools at no charge - with no get-out clause for anyone rich or poor. They would get 3 meals a day plus a snack to take home. Parents would then be free to work, the resultant tax income contributing to the cost of extra schooling. If parents chose to fulfil the prophesy of multi generational laziness their benefits would be replaced by vouchers which could only be spent in one place. Training for parents would be available.
Simultaneously, older children missing the initial introduction to greater equality and wider socialisation would be filtered into age groups, and at key teenage years boys and girls would be educated separately to save them from their own silliness. There would be a progressive and staged education system delivered by hands-on experienced trainers, quite possibly from the armed forces - who are exemplary trainers, but who currently train for the wrong thing - but also from all walks of life.
The emphasis would be on setting boundaries, understanding discipline, being an instrinsic part of the community, and leaning how to learn. Tick boxes would be abolished, practical skills encouraged. Individual assessments would guide young people towards jobs for which they show a natural aptitude. A vast system of apprenticeships would have yearly graduation points where income would increase with performance. Monthly wages could start from 14 years of age where learning would dovetail with employability. Those with a more academic preference and ability would be similarly channelled, but with more emphasis on learning and opportunities for free university places.
Those entrenched in disrespectful behaviour would be channelled to appropriate terms of 'boot camp' style activities, and filtered back into the mainstream system when appropriate. Older children would learn good parenting skills.
The ultimate aim would be to leapfrog ahead of the game, reigning in the tendency for bad and disrespectful behaviour in the current generation, and preventing it in the next. Mopping up bad parenting has to be a crucial step, but overcoming the root causes of our ills is essential. Clamping down brutally on those whose life options are rapidly diminishing is not the answer. Facing up to and taking radical imaginative action toward a progressive and more equal society is.
]]>Society too big to Caretag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9218902011-08-08T08:08:00-04:002011-10-08T05:12:02-04:00Pippa Bartolottihttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/pippa-bartolotti/
They know what to do when you are in an organised march. They know what to do when responsible working people take to the streets and march. They kettle them, abuse them.
The police had no notice of the recent riots. They did not know what to do. That is a poor reflection on the training, the cost and the overall intelligence of our police force.
You can blame it on organised crime, or youth unemployment, or school holidays, the recession, the EDL, rising inequality, anything you like, but the fact is that our society is getting lax. Shopkeepers did not bind together to protect that which was theirs. Of course most 'shopkeepers' were absent. The directors of chain stores and multinationals are not the type to get their hands dirty. They will claim on the insurance and not care that entire communities have been wrecked. This is 'society' at work. Society is so big that nobody cares anymore and there is no quick fix.
I have brought up 3 boys. I have been up before the headmaster on more than one occasion, I have sat in my own sitting room whilst the police paid a visit due to one misdemeanour or another. I have pulled televisions, complete with sockets, from the bedroom wall and given them away so that homework can be done. I have trailed them to stinking flats full of rubbish where good looking boys with glassy eyes stare emptily from pale faces bereft of reason. Where are the other mothers? Why are these children left to their own devices when clearly their own devices are not leading them in a good direction; why am I alone facing this waste of humanity?
Motherhood is challenging. You have to put yourself out. I have been to the drugs rehab centres, hunted through bedrooms every day for substances which have no place in my home. If my boys were out in these troubled times, I would not ring them, I would go straight out and bring them home, and they know it.
So whilst the teenage misdemeanours of my offspring are long over, I have to watch as others go so far over the brink that they burn down neighbourhoods, putting lives at risk and laughing all the way to eBay with their trophys of stupidity.
If they knew their mothers would march down the street and bring them home, would these children behave in this way? Not likely. Nothing is more embarrassing then your mother turning up to bring you home - at any age.
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