So where did it all go so wrong?
In 1999 Helen Clarke became our Prime Minister, and in three terms has sought, through her Government, to address poverty. Check out her speech one year before the election, and after the election below (available in two different formats for viewing, depending on your software – just click on the image to play it). She said she wanted to remove the gap between rich and poor….where did it all go wrong?
As data from the SoFIE report points out, the gap between rich and poor is, in fact, growing.
At a more reasonable hour, I’ll try to add to this post and write about the way that throughout the 1990s we saw the development of an underclass through the use of unemployment as a means of securing low inflation through keeping wages low – and the way that’s something that is still with us to some degree. The rhetoric seems to continue; the myth of the market as normative continues. To put it another way, we seem to believe the doublespeak and babble that is portrayed as truth and meaning – there is no going back, but neither do we have to necessarily march blindly on. Keeping inflation low is a really good thing to do, if you happen to have money and assets that would be devalued by the process – but of course, someone has to suffer to keep it low – and those people are, predominantly, those who have very, very little.
With them, we know, is the Kingdom of God. How do we inhabit the kingdom and participate in a system which oppresses them?
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