Letter to the Bank #69 (Culture or Policy to Blame?)

SWORDS INTO BROOMSTICKS    Londoners walk with brooms en route to help clean up after rioting that took place the previous night outside Clapham Junction railway station in Battersea, London, Tuesday, Aug. 9.  (Photo: Matt Dunham / AP via MSNBC.com)

Dear BM,

Short of face time, these notes are the best I can do to be in your face. I’m upfront and don’t come at you from behind. That’s good right? You don’t have to watch your back at night. I’m all about verbal confrontation, or more precisely, nuanced debate albeit a one sided debate because you have bigger fish to fry. I’m honorable. If I came to you with duelling pistols I’d walk the requisite ten paces. Would you? This is the crux of our problem. I’m not interested in putting your back up and so ending all communication. I want to keep those lines, channels open. I am slightly interested in putting your nose out of joint, getting you out of your comfort zone. I live in a permanent discomfort zone. I’m already there and want you to join me on the other side. This is all about showing you how the other half lives...again and again and again until it sinks in, if only on a subliminal level, and eventually effects policy in such a way as to improve the lives of those who have nothing by making it possible for them to at the very least keep what they have and perhaps even take the little seeds of their lives and make them grow. Is that too much to ask?

The prime minister, David Cameron, described the rioting there as being the result of the culture not the policy. One nasty racial/bias incident all too quickly diverts everyone’s attention away from the fat bank accounts and unsocially considerate policies of the wealthy by again turning the frustrations of the poor and disenfranchised against itself where it will continue to fester, confused, depressed, unsatisfied, or will errupt in more arson, looting and mayhem. If only the powers that be would get creative—don’t blame the culture —support it, fix it, prop it up with education reform, job creation and revive hope. What a thought. For some reason Tom Brown and Biggles, Flashman and Billy Bunter all come to mind. If none of those names mean anything to you that is fine. You’ll have to do some work of your own. Call it rhetorical thinking, thinking out loud. When you think “honorable” what comes to mind, what do you picture? This assumes you are able to visualize anything at all—because let’s face it you have a lazy imagination and vision is not your forte. Do you see people playing polo, buying the first round, picking up a lady’s handkerchief? I suppose it is a start. We’ll try and work with that. Now lie down. You must be exhausted.


Sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay