The unhelpful politics of Anger post 2008

Since 2008, many populations throughout the world previously living in relative comfort have been thrust into uncertainty. The emotions fear and anger have come to the fore in place of optimism and positive activism. Prior to this time, if a political party we didn’t support was in power, we complained but got on with things. Now, people are looking for more people to blame and many scapegoats can be found. Bankers, politicians, regulators and developers are the most obvious targets. We’d like revenge and to put some of the culprits behind bars and out of business. We are angry!

This emotion is not going to help solve our future. In politics, the likely outcome is voting the ruling party out of power. However, a negative vote is the likely to provide a negative outcome. We repeat the negative vote at a 2nd election and are stuck with even fewer people we can vote for.

A positive approach is to vote for something or someone new or different. A negative approach is to stick with establishment political parties who are funded by corporations, developers and trade unions which leaves them compromised. As the political climate swings away from ruling parties, these corporations, developers and trade unions will concentrate their electoral funding on the parties whose policies bear close resemblance to their value systems, but more importantly those perceived as most likely to gain power. This means the system is permanently compromised.

In looking for someone to blame (especially politicians) we forget to look at ourselves. The majority of us after all voted them in. Unless we look at our value systems, we will vote for similar politicians those we believe to have failed us. People have many motivations when casting a vote, some idealogical focussing on the rights of workers or the environment, others based on religious belief systems, others on the economy and jobs and others again based on personal self-interest. Politicians often get asked “what can you do for me?” as opposed to “for the Country / World?”. Many people were happy to vote for the politician who will do them a favour. Tribalism is also a big factor with some families not changing their votes for generations meaning establishment power is often slow to change.

We can’t afford to be angry for too long because it paralyses us. Anger does not seek positive solutions, just negative ones like punishment and revenge. Taxes and austerity measures, even those designed to fund jobs are met more anger and finger pointing the super rich whose wealth is declining at great pace. The culprits can be punished over time and will sooner or later have to face up to their actions even if it’s their legacy after they’ve gone.

The reason we can’t afford to be angry is the scale of the crises coming on stream. The rising cost of grain in the aftermath of the Russian heatwave and of cotton prices in the aftermath of the floods in Pakistan highlight the challenge. The peak oil crisis is likely to have a major impact on the prices of food and energy. The food crises of 2008 was triggered by peak oil as was the global banking crisis (which would have happened eventually but needed a trigger). Sovereign, banking and personal debts are far greater than money in existence, so without clever solutions we can expect several more financial crises. Bankers, politicians, developers see the only way to get the debt money back is growth and this idea has been sold to most of the public.

The most difficult of items in the positive emotions list below is forgiveness. If we could forgive wrongdoings even if it means those who have done wrong go unpunished, then we can move on.

Continuous growth destroys the planet and extracts all its resources – it’s not a solution. Therefore creative thinking is needed, something not provided by many politicians. Their focus is on the short-term and on next election. Many work long hard hours and many help a lot of people, but not so many have clear vision. Those who do are afraid to tell people that times ahead mightn’t be so comfortable – it loses them votes – a catch 22. Climate change, planetary destruction in its many forms, peak water, fish, grain and a whole range of resources are all on or within the horizon.

Solutions exist but solving them needs understanding followed by agreement.

Some solutions instead of anger:

1. Participate and initiate change, engage your politicians – they adapt to public mood and some do change.
2. Think of the bigger picture – long term sustainability.
3. Decide to move away from anger and towards positive action.
4. Form or join think tanks.
5. Stop watching so much TV and advertising which is designed to brainwash and tamper with our value systems.
6. Don’t let technology dictate your lives, it takes away from time planning our (families) future.
7. If change takes time, in the meantime vote for politicians with vision (instead of constituency work or familiarisation). Good vision leads to more positive outcomes for all.
8. Take action on the path to sustainability in your life every so often. Many people respond well to seeing other people doing things rather than talking about them.

More positive emotions:

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