Thursday 2 April 2009

London Protests

'The Humour and Irony'

Yesterday I watched the London G20 protests with vague humour and slight concern. I found stories of bankers waving 10 pound notes from office blocks amusing. Bankers have recieved an awful press in the last 12 months but I believe that this attack has gone full circle, the bakers at first were afluent and enjoying huge benefits from their jobs. Now they are hated, with jobs at risk and are an attacked minority. Surely protestors must see the irony that many of them support leftist values but they still do not bring moral equality to these bankers and this is the foundation for the view of any leftist democracy. I went on many foums about the incident with the 10 pound notes and every time I presented a balanced view of the situation I was shot down as a facist or captilist 'scum'. From what I could understand rational iternet users by their hundreds were posting anticapitalist slogans and threats to bankers. I attempted to explain to one user that the merits of the labour government have fundamentaly come from the relatively open and easy banking system in the city of london. He still ignored what essentially is the truth and tried to argue that the wealth the labour government has used was the merits of hard working lower class. A commie if ever I heard one so I left him in ignorant and idealist bliss.

Another story that further made me horrified at these protestors were banners that had slogans such as 'Rich Bankers go and Burn' was a story of Leeman Brothers. Most of the execuitives within the company had been paid all bonuses and up to 75 % of their wages in stocks unfortunately for them their stocks have become worthless and livelyhoods lost. Again relating back to my forum experience people used chief execuitives as examples of 'capatilist greed' where these are the men who have relatively lost the most and have invested so much time on the assumption that they would reap the rewards of 120 hour working weekings. These are not the people who we should blame for a social creation of greed these people are upstanding members of society who have enabled her majesty's government to act with such decadence up until last year.

The last piece of irony for the protestors was when a few decided to break the front of an RBS bank branch. The irony being this is a government supported bank and therefore this an attack on a centre-left government who need to curb spending if they want to stay in power and meet the protestors want for more fisical stimulus packages. Also fo the anticapatilist protestors with the current borrowing record of Mr Brown they have hardly done him a favour.

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