The activists inspired during the referendum saw an opportunity to take power back so that they could use it to build a fairer country. And in that process, as they brought the British state to its knees, they learned something vital – a lesson they’re unlikely to forget anytime soon: ultimately, people have more power than we’re allowed to believe. For a generation, the British state has asset-stripped the UK, allowing wages to stagnate as the elite become richer. They have handed our political decisions to corporate managers and the wealth of our collective work to gambling bankers. This plundering of our country relies on one simple thing: a passive population. In 1981, Margaret Thatcher declared her mission: “Economics are the method, the object is to change the soul.” We were taught to be consumers and shareholders, not citizens or voters or activists. And largely, it worked. Until now. In 2014, Scotland got its democratic soul back. People have remembered that it’s not by changing what we buy that we change the world, but through imagining and organising together. And, by joining political parties, mobilising social movements and building new media, that’s what thousands in Scotland are doing.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:19:31 +0000
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