Report lists new 'social evils'

Dundundun...... Time to panic again people!!!

No seriously.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7356713.stm

They asked 3600 people to fill in a questionnaire to find out what were today's top 10 evils. Then they went to the minorities and asked them to have their say. This is what they came up with..

The decline of community

Individualism and selfishness

Consumerism and greed

A decline of values

The decline of the family

Young people both as victims and perpetrators

Drugs and alcohol

Poverty and inequality

Immigration and responses to it

Crime and violence

I agree mostly with what they have come up with, and they do admit that a lot of them are interlinked, want a cure? Bring back industry.
I can't speak for everywhere, but certainly here it all went a bit pete tong when they closed the shipyards, unemployed people started looking for hope in the bottom of a bottle, families were so poor they couldn't afford ANYTHING let alone the newest nokia!

So where from the likes of the 80's did we go from poor depressed unemployed diving into the bottle to the social anarchy we have now?


The Decline of the Community
OK, for a start.. what community? are we talking church community, the community defined by all the little gangs (YRT, YGP all that nonsense)?. The simple fact is that communities are for little villages, or social groups. The overall "community" that people wish for wont come back, the population is too high! (yet one of our councillors complained to the newspaper not that long ago that we who do not have children are selfish, and that we need more children..wake up ans smell the nappies people!)
In cities there is no such thing as a community they way it used to be, people are to scared of losing their privacy, in fact people these days are having to learn to ignore their neighbors, because if we are honest about it, we can hear everything they say through shoddily built council flat walls anyway! Community wont exist unless people can trust each other, and with peoples washing getting stolen off their washing lines, grave goods getting stolen to pay for drugs, and a"good kickin" being the answer to most peoples problems these days.. it's not going to happen.

Individualism and Selfishness
Whoa doggy! What are we talking about here?? Individualism is bad? No i don't think so.(conformconformconformthegovernmentisyourfriendconformconform) I am an individual, i think off the beaten path, it doesn't make me a bad, or a socially irresponsible person. In fact, i am more likely to help my neighbors out BECAUSE i don't conform.. being a bad ass gangsta doesn't float my boat, i don't want to seem well 'ard, especially if that means i can't help old ladies across the street if they need it! You can be individual and not hurt society... you just have to know where to draw the line. Now on the other hand, if you mean only looking out for yourself... that comes under the same category. I have found that you have to have some element of this to survive today.. if not follow these simple instructions....

Write "Doormat" on your back
Lie down in any heavy pedestrian traffic area
Sigh and complain about your lot in life.

The line people.. the line!

You know what, I'm not going to go on, because they are all mostly linked. It all boiled down to no hope. People overspending to try and maintain a semblance of a happy life, so their kids don't get bullied at school, so they can feel that their quality of life doesn't suck. Having the newest thing that is shovelled their way because they would appear poor without it, being so cut off from everyone because no one knows who to trust anymore.. It all boils down to poverty.

I hate to quote from Mrs McCaffrey once again, but in her Decision at Doona book, society has slipped into lethargy, kids don't see the point in getting a Job because they spend their life working for what? more work! The rewards are simply not enough anymore and the stress is simply not worth it. So what happens to the socially disillusioned youth? Mrs McCaffrey's book has it that they begin to commit suicide in alarming numbers, not much hope to go on, the last great thrill...

Seem familiar?


19th Bridgend suicide shock
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1065518.ece

Sorry to say people that this was only the case with the highest exposure, so many more happen and we don't even know about it.

How do we fix it? Find safe secure jobs, security for the workers so that they aren't getting exploited, or sacked for the least thing! contracts that last longer than 6 months.. hell! takes that long to sort out the paperwork with the social sometimes!

Give people something to live for, and they will start respecting society again.