The most egregious example of course is the 'We're all in this together' mantra touted by our cabinet of millionaires. Thanks to the train wreck that is George Osborne, the phrase has become so laughable that it has become a cliché: like the Big Society, a policy which dare not speak its name. For that reason, I'm going to mention it again.
We're all in this together. It's part of a wider discourse which uses 'we' as a marginalising tool. Everybody works hard, don't they? A fair day's wage for a fair day's pay and all that. Benefit fraud is something everyone can get behind: don't let the scroungers get away with it. That's why disabled people are increasingly targets for vicious attacks, because they're obviously scrounging. Never mind that the actual level of fraudulent disability claims is estimated at 0.5%. We all think that a proper education is important, so we should model our schools on Eton and Harrow, regardless of the fact that there just aren't enough nice little earners around - even if every one of us benefitted from a public school upbringing. Health provision ought to be private, and care non-existent - unless you can afford it. Stand on your own two feet. Get two minutes break if you finish your factory task early. Sign away your rights as a worker for a share in the company. On and on it goes.
The clearest demonstration of where we're heading comes not from the usual suspects in Birmingham, Manchester, Westminster, or wherever else they choose to peddle their lies, but from across the pond. Mitt Romney, with his comments about 47% of his own potential electorate, is the beast unclothed. A man of (an admittedly even more dubious than the standard ones) religion, he really believes that people should not be given ANY KIND of state support, he really does; and - as if things weren't already bad enough in the Land of the Free - his ideas are this close to becoming official US policy. Not long before, under the cloak of the lates austerity crisis, these all-but eugenicist ideas drift over here in a noxious cloud.
So. Where are WE? That WE who put in 12 hour shifts day after day for minimum wage; that WE who cry at night because we can't feed our kids properly or maintain a roof over our heads; that WE who are scared to become sick because no-one will care for us; that WE who are dispossessed of the pitiful belongings we have somehow guarded in all the adversity; that WE who can only dream of a clean water supply, and not have to walk miles to get it; that WE for whom any kind of education for our kids will never happen. How can WE make any of this better, while THEY set us against each other?
WE must rise up, must take back the pride which is rightfully OURS, must stand against the hatred and divisiveness of THEM - the evil men (and women) who seek to push our faces in the midden, calling US lazy or undeserving, telling US that WE must work harder to line THEIR pockets with more filthy lucre. Stand for each other and demand the right to a decent home, food for OUR bellies, clothes for OUR backs, education for OUR children, doctors to cure OUR ills, and respect for US as human beings. WE deserve nothing less.
