Who can’t relate to the feeling that life,
sometimes, bogs you down? Every day many tasks, chores, activities
lie waiting to be taken care of, from getting up to going to bed
again. Food to be prepared, children to be readied for school,
laundry to be organized, the car to be refuelled or put in for
service and all before arriving at work for another stimulating day
adding to the coffers of the wealthy. Issues there range from the
state of the toilet facilities, whether there is flexibility in the
flexi-time to who’ll get the next promotion and who the chop. Home
alone to an empty flat or home to a house filled with family,
stopping to shop on the way, there are still all manner of jobs lined
up waiting their turn, defiant in their refusal to just go away. The
garden, the grass, the dog, the shower head that keeps falling off
the wall; better put the rubbish out, but what rubbish – black bin,
green bin, blue box or paper collection? Freshly prepared evening
meal, micro-waved dinner or take-away followed by a well-deserved
rest – oh, better just sort out that unpaid bill, answer a few
emails and return a phone call, help with homework, wash up, maybe
get it done before the news starts,----and so on till bedtime.
Life is full of these single issues; eating, work,
health, education, transport, recreation, shopping – for food,
clothes, household needs. Single issues, each a part of the big
picture, a part of life, the parts constituting a whole. What we
choose as the parts and how we put them together probably defines our
character in large part. It’s not what’s thrown at you but how
you react to what’s thrown at you that reveals your personality.
Being proactive rather than reactive will mean being better organized
and more in control of one’s time, resources and emotions; however,
proactive or reactive, issues are what make up our days, years, whole
lives. Most of us will prioritise, knowing that ultimately all will
need to be dealt with; some can be passed over lightly or shared or
delayed, others, more pressing, will receive our urgent attention.
Our cerebral life would find little to exercise it
within the confines of daily life as just described but there is the
much wider swathe of issues out there engaging those who are in
contact with their social conscience. So-called political issues.
Single issues:
Poverty. Immigration. Health. War. Women’s
Rights. Anti-Globalisation. Trafficking. Natural Resources.
Inequality and Wealth. Land Rights. Water Wars. Unemployment.
Housing. - The list is endless.
There are many people who work full time on their
chosen most important issue for years. There are many more the world
over who volunteer part time endeavouring to make a difference on one
or more of these never-ending single issues. These are people, with
selfless motives, believing they have something to offer, wanting to
make the world a better place, wanting to create a level playing
field. So, why is it that there are now more of them than ever before
in history, trying to reverse the march of ever-widening divisions?
If what they were doing was working there would be need for less
of them, there would be positive indications from statistics, not
year on year reports of increasing anomalies. The futility of the
ever-increasing single issue campaigns is clear for all who dare to
spare a look. Could it be because they are being reactive rather than
proactive? Could it be that their perceptions of these issues as
‘single’ issues is working against them?
As in life, it isn’t possible to be involved with
all these issues separately. As with life’s issues, the single
‘political’ issues add up to the whole. What is required is a
philosophy, a way of life that addresses the sum total of all the
issues, large and small. Democracy could be the short answer to all
these and other issues. Democracy, not of the voting candidates in or
out every 4 or 5 years on spurious promises variety, but simply the
democracy of supporting delegates who are charged with upholding
truly democratic principles to continue strengthening community
welfare worldwide.
Socialism is the natural umbrella for humanity, the
vast majority of which desires a peaceful world. All these single
issues are seen by socialists as effects, the cause of
which is capitalism. Effects can be ameliorated to some extent but it
is surely better to eliminate the cause and prevent the effects
returning. Once the decision is made by the majority to press forward
to cooperative life in a peaceful world based upon common ownership
and organised in the interests of the whole community many people will already be
in place who have the knowledge, skills and passion to bring reality
to their long-held dreams of solutions to each of the single issues, in full
recognition that theirs is just one small but significant part of an
entity much greater than the sum of its parts.
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