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Overview of Levelling Level

The Tory Right named their latest response to it Levelling Up. For decades, Labour and the Left have responded to it with public policy that adds up to levelling down.

But what is ‘it’? Do our politicians actually know what ‘it’ is? What is ‘it’ they don’t understand?

Today, we find ourselves in the early stages of a cost-of-living crisis and a fall in living standards that is the worst since records began. But these are only some of the issues we now face.

Social mobility, debt, housing, energy, inflation or stagflation, healthcare, climate change, education, wealth inequality, fake news, crime, wokeism and many other problems join the list that’s fast growing into this out-of-control crisis that is touching everything we know, too.

Change is happening around us in ways that make very little sense. Yet the messages we hear in the media and from our politicians suggest that everything is as fine as it can be. It is leading many of us to assume that we are alone with our views and feelings; thinking that we must be going mad.

The UK is the person with major health problems. It’s in a beauty salon, where every wannabe politician must be seen as top dog by everyone. But this political class are just the Saturday morning trainees, only able to sweep up and comb hair*. They smile sweetly and tell the Country that having a great look is all it takes to fix the problems experienced by all. Meanwhile, what the UK really needs is every form of medical surgery known, with the mental health care and physical rehabilitation necessary to make every part of our system work together, returning the UK to full fitness and providing fair and balanced lives for everyone in the shortest time possible.

With an establishment obsessed with sound bites and messages, rather than public policy that has real depth, Adam Tugwell unpicks the realities of Levelling Up, levelling down and decades of mismanagement and self-interest from a political class that simply isn’t up to the job.

Adam demonstrates that the broken tools of a flawed political age will always leave someone, somewhere behind, and shows that our politicians are repeatedly failing to create the social backstop that the UK needs to stop anyone being avoidably disadvantaged.

Levelling Level focusses on the inevitable process of change affecting everything around us that underway today. It discusses how we can harness the experiences that will accompany the challenges that we face to make life better by establishing a Basic Living Standard for all.

Levelling Level proposes that it is not money and financial wealth, but people and the way that our society treats its poorest and most vulnerable that underscores our real value, success and health as communities and as a Nation.

Levelling Level is a solution to the UKs problems that works for all.

*The qualified hairdressers are the government officers and civil servants, or people who like to ‘nudge’

Solving the ethical capitalism conundrum

Capitalism worked better for the low paid over a century ago. We must look to history to understand ethical commercialism and how we can solve problems and do even better now.

Yes, making such a statement is certain to raise the heckles of both those on the left who believe that they have workers’ rights completely nailed, and those on the right who think that the money-comes-easy lives that they have are an economic miracle that is shared by all.

Sat on either end of the supposed spectrum which is the political divide, those with such refined and apparently generous world views share ignorance of the laws of consequence in common. They have little if no appreciation of the effects that such self-righteousness and outright selfishness actually have.

It is little wonder that many of those who are on the arse end of all this are feeling real pain. With rights gone mad and the part they are forced to play in a cultural system that is so obsessed with monetary and material wealth, normal people have no idea what a balanced, fair and just model of society would actually look like. Just as they have no real appreciation of what good has looked like at any time before.

The painful truth that underpins the history of humanity – and particularly the two or three hundred years since the industrial age began, is that the strong have always had the ability to abuse the weak.

More often than not, they have done so.

But whereas strength was once based on physical or military strength with both the threat and action that too often followed it, the phenomenon that is the strength abused today is a money, wealth, influence and power-crazed age that only misuses physicality at the intranational level, whilst the governments themselves smile nicely at their people and bully them with the misuse and manipulation of money and ‘the markets’ instead.

Our politicians quite literally do not understand nor appreciate the role and the neglected responsibility they have for creating and continuing to evolve a world where a basic self-sustainable life without debt or help, is something that those on a weekly minimum wage simply cannot afford.

Business has also lost sight of its role in supporting not only its own employees, but the obligation it has every member of society too.

First, the focus on service and quality for customers was replaced by the obsession with profit, efficiency and the overall bottom line. Then, the dwindling value of the low amounts of money and benefits that the lowest earners were once paid were pulled back so extensively, that systems of mutual benefit that worked for both the employer and the employed have been at best completely obscured from view.

Over a Century ago, great industrialists like Cadbury and Rowntree had the sense to build homes and infrastructure to support both workers and their families.

Farms, the Police, utility services and even Council Highways provided their staff with similar (and in rare cases still do), and those who have followed such TV Dramas as Downton Abbey will recall how the staff of great houses and estates were all accommodated.

Yes, lower-paid staff may have literally lived below stairs and the wages may have seemed very low. But all of the needs of those who worked were considered as a responsibility of the employer. People worked hard, but they were also genuinely happy too, because the relationship between everyone wasn’t just about the cost or what people are being paid.

Greed, selfishness and the obsession with one-sided rights that never had their true consequences thought through, have conspired to make basic life and the ability to live happily and free, a concept that is now neither possible, nor something that anyone on a low or even average wage can afford. And that affordability is heading quickly towards the top.

The introduction of the FIAT money system that has allowed politicians and bankers to live the myth that they can just print whatever money they want, because its true value isn’t actually anchored to anything, has literally allowed cash to be fire hosed at all those who have more money and wealth that they could ever need.

Meanwhile, the increase in the amount of money available has meant that the small amounts earned and in the possession of those with less are continually being devalued. Wage rises never keep up with out-of-control inflation and we are now experiencing retail price rises that even well-paid people are struggling to afford.

The real tragedy is that few can even see the mechanics of what those who have abused their power have actually done to us all. Many of those being hurt the most, wouldn’t even believe you if you could take all the time necessary and use every too possible to show them how it all works.

There really is little or no understanding of the role that the obsession with profit at all costs has had.

For instance, the pub and hospitality industry has always required long hours, but historically paid those taking the risks and responsibility very well. It has been broadsided – not only by the government response to covid, as many publicans believe – but by an industry that is predominantly owned by profit-obsessed capitalists who have used 80’s legislation to appease the EU to take all the fat from every part of the publicans pie that is possible. A process that has often led to many who would have previously thrived as great landlords not having the financial wiggle room to operate in challenging times and therefore going broke.

It doesn’t have to be like this. For any of us. It never did.

The reason that people cannot afford to live on a basic wage and small businesses that should be thriving are closing at a rate that society can ill afford is greed and the selfishness that underpins it. Nothing more.

It doesn’t matter what value is placed on the size of the cake, which is everything in an economy combined.

If anyone is playing that system and creating value that doesn’t exist, so that they themselves can profit, or get themselves out of a problem that their gaming helped to create, it is inevitable that those who do not have that control will be hurt.

Those who are furthest away from that power and influence will always be the ones to be hit by the consequences of this deranged behaviour. It is inevitable that they will feel the pain first.

Those at the top of this system’s hierarchy are too far away from the pain that their bad decisions will cause, to be insulated from the rose-tinted view of life they have for everyone outside their spere of contact.

Exposure to real life might otherwise prevent them from believing – as they now so clearly do – that they are the new gods and can do no wrong.

We can no longer rely on trusting that the good amongst those who lead us will be able to maintain any change in standards that they might be able to impose.

It has happened before, too many times, that devices and rules installed to protect the weak and innocent from the self-serving actions of the few within public policy have been overturned or removed. Often under the watch of leaders too weak or out of touch to know or understand why they were there.

We must return power to the most local level possible.

Where power must be shared regionally, nationally or at a world level, our representatives must come from and be recognisable amongst us at the most local level.

The local level is where every politician’s real power must remain. And that power must never be given away again to people who will forever be distant from us and out of touch.

Questions to ask Candidates who (bother to) knock on your door during the Local Elections:

If you are reading this blog, there is a very good chance that you are fed up with politics and with politicians.

There is an even bigger chance that the last thing you really want is a candidate for the Local Elections in May, knocking on your door and then pretending that they are different to other politicians and that they will get many different things done locally, that could never have been achieved at any time before.

In the absence of any real alternative to the same kind of politicians as we have right now, there has never been a time when it has been as important to be asking questions of those who want to represent us as Politicians, as now.

We need to understand their motives, why we should trust them, what they really want to achieve, what they understand about their responsibilities and everything else that we can, so that we can get the best idea of who they really are, and what we can expect from them, if they are trusted to work on our behalf.

With this in mind, some things to consider and some suggested questions follow below. Please feel free to use them – if you want to – if you have Local Elections underway in the Ward and Community where you live, running from now until early May.

Firstly, there are some myths that need to be cleared up. This way, you hopefully already have your bullshit detector fully primed, when the next rosette-wearing, single-handed world-changer rocks up your front path:

  1. Local Elections ARE NOT about National Issues. Local Elections make NO difference to decisions that are made by MPs in Parliament. Local Councillors only ‘control’ LOCAL issues.
  2. Local Councils are run by Politicians that might be members of the Political Parties that you recognise, but that’s as far as the similarity between them goes. So a vote for a Labour Candidate is not a vote for Kier Starmer, a vote for a Conservative Candidate is not a vote for Rishi Sunak and a vote for a Reform Candidate is not a vote for Nigel Farage or Richard Tice etc.
  3. Local Councils have responsibility for very specific things like refuse and recycling, local roads and parking, planning matters, alcohol and taxi licensing, environmental health, public transport, local education, social services and so on. But the responsibility they have is to INTERPRET rules and regulations that are set and often funded by Central Government in London.
  4. Just like our Parliament, Local Councils (District Level, County & Unitary) will usually be controlled by the Political Party with the largest number of Councillors elected to that Authority and belong to that Group. If that Group has a clear majority after the results of the election are in, there will be very little that Councillors belonging to other Political Parties or Groups can do. Likewise, your Candidate might well get elected and be part of the biggest Party or Group, but cannot deliver on specific promises that they have made to you, because its not what the other members of that Party or Group want to do.

So, to some of the questions you could consider asking when your doorbell rings…

Before anything else, if you don’t know already, you should first ask your Candidate if they are seeking re-election (because they have already been your Councillor or have been a Councillor somewhere else for at least 4 years before), or if they are seeking election for the first time.

If your candidate has been elected and already held the role of being a Councillor before, you could ask them: (In no particular order)

  • What have you done for me or for the ward you represented already?
  • How did you go about influencing and getting those things done?
  • How did you make sure that all the needs of this community were being considered?
  • How did you communicate and keep in touch with all of the people in this community and/or ward?
  • What Committees were you on?
  • How much did you receive in allowances and how much additional expenditure did you claim?
  • Why do you want to be elected again?

If your Candidate is seeking election to be a Councillor for the first time, you could ask them: (In no particular order)

  • Why do you want to be a Councillor?
  • If you are elected, how will you ensure that the issues that are important to this Community and ward will be prioritised first?
  • What could the Council have done better over the past 4 years and why?
  • How much influence do you expect to have on Council decisions?
  • How will you keep me up to date with news that is important to me and to the people across this community and/or ward?
  • How long to you expect to be a Councillor?
  • Do you have any political ambitions beyond being my Councillor?

And for ALL candidates, you could also ask them: (In no particular order)

  • Why have you chosen to be a member of this Political Party / Why did you choose to be an Independent Candidate?
  • Are Political Parties necessary and if so, why?
  • What makes you any different to all the other Candidates who want my vote?
  • Why do you want to represent this community and this ward in particular?
  • What experience do you have that qualifies you to represent this Ward and/or Community?
  • What are the most serious issues facing this Ward and/or community?
  • What is your opinion of the other Political Parties and/or Candidates?
  • What are the most serious issues that the Council is facing in the 4 years ahead?
  • Would you leave your Political Party and/or any alliances that you make, if the others refuse to prioritise the needs and best interests of the people you will represent first?

A couple of other things to consider:

  • You are under no obligation to talk to or open the door to anyone, at any time.
  • Nobody and no political party has the right to win an election or to represent you or anyone else.
  • Political Parties have political agendas, which by their very nature mean that they do not and will not represent the best interests of everyone, all of the time.
  • If you aren’t satisfied with any of the answers you are given, ask supplementary questions until you are.
  • If a Candidate is rude to you in reply to a reasonable question you have asked, their response tells you pretty much all you need to know about their ability to represent you.
  • You are under no obligation to tell anyone at your door, how you intend to vote.
  • You should not hand postal voting forms, ballot papers or any of the paperwork you have received from the Council to any Candidate, Political Party or Representative. If you are asked for any of these, you should make a note of who made this request, what they said and when, and then contact the Monitoring Officer at the relevant Council.

If you’ve already had leaflets through the door, these should tell you who your candidates are, who their election agent is (if they have one), who their political party is, the name of the Local Authority they are seeking election to, and how you can contact them.

If you visit the Local Authority website, you will be able to see what public services the Candidate(s) seeking your Vote may be able to have an influence upon.

The Candidate(s) who wish to be elected and become members of that Authority should be able to provide answers to questions about what has been happening where those services are concerned, and how they will go about influencing whatever happens next.

IF CANDIDATES TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE – IT HAS NO RELEVANCE TO THIS SPECIFIC ELECTION!

REMEMBER: It doesn’t matter who your Candidate might be or which Party they might represent. If they are elected, they should be representing your interests and the BEST interests of EVERYONE across the ward and community you live in no matter whether you voted for them or not!

As such, you should feel free to ask any questions which are relevant to the areas of responsibility and service provision that the relevant Council provides and equally to ask a candidate why they are talking about matters that will not concern them or the influence they would have on your behalf, if they are attempting to bring other issues in besides.

There is a code of conduct governing the behaviour of Candidates for Local Elections. So if you have any concerns, you should contact the Monitoring Officer and/or Democratic Services at the Council running the Election and seek their advice.

Change is in the air, there is so little anyone can trust and many feel paranoid. But it’s what people choose to believe and trust now that will define what happens next

I’ve spoken before about how it feels to be sat watching those who are still invested in the normality of the chaos that the establishment is fueling on one side. On the other, I have observed the many who are ‘awakening’, scrabbling about, desperately trying to make sense of things that no sensible person can really make any logical sense of, falling into the arms of conspiracy theorists or false prophets with big social media followings, as these sources offer the only answer they can find.

People are understandably very prickly about everything that is going on. Not least of all because it feels like we have entered a new age of intolerance.

It is here, that for many, the only truth is their own and it makes them unequivocally right. Anyone or any idea that is different to what they believe, is absolutely wrong.

Being prickly or falling into well-intentioned conspiracy theory traps, isn’t the biggest problem that the increasing number of people who know that the establishment doesn’t work in their best interests now face.

The real problem is there is no alternative that this growing and sizable part of the population can trust or credibly believe in. Meanwhile, in every direction, we look upon the arriving storm clouds and the turbulent world that lies ahead.

People in this ‘outside of the mainstream’ group – which is only outside because the mainstream media narrative tells us that it is – are feeling paranoid for a very simple reason: We were brought up or conditioned to believe that the establishment and anyone who represents it can be trusted and that they would always have our best interests at heart.

So, when the moment comes that any one of us realises that isn’t the case, our whole understanding of the way the world works and the framework for life it is based upon begins to fall apart.

People are quite literally becoming so fearful and untrusting of so much that they read, hear and now see, that they are becoming paranoid about everything that is going on.

Sadly, of the many speakers and ‘influencers’ with platforms who are out there pursuing new public agendas which are most often all about their own interpretation of what is happening and therefore what they believe will be for the best, few – indeed, if any at all, are doing anything proactive or constructive to help, guide and support this growing audience that is desperate for leadership that is real, coming from the hands of people who are actually able and equipped to lead.

These ‘public voices’ are instead doubling down with stories that do nothing more than consolidate the existing fears with ‘I told you so’s’, rather than presenting anything positive or based on a direction of travel that will yield genuine change and outcomes that will be good and beneficial for everyone.

It is regrettably clear that very few of the people who have the opportunity to be leading change of the kind that might result in real change through the measured, considered and proactive steps that must be taken, are doing any of the things that they could or now should.

People don’t need yet another alternative to all that is happening already that will simply result in more of the same things.

We already have an entire political culture, filled up with people who are motivated by self-interest, and resistant to doing anything on behalf of the people who elect them, if it has even the remotest likelihood of putting their role, advancement, power, influence or anticipated future at risk.

Anyone championing or prioritising a specific group, cause or political ideology – as the solution or the way to solve the problems we face, is working for nobody other than themselves – no matter how credible or trustworthy they may appear or sound to be.

The solution to everything that is hurting people, devaluing people, creating inequality of any kind or driving the wedges that divide us all deeper and more deeply every day, can only begin and can only be successfully established by casting any form of ego or ‘my idea is the one that will save us’ kind of thinking aside.

In this sense, the ‘my DNA is in tact’, ‘they are all sheep’ and the ‘we will punish them for their ignorance’ mentality is just as damaging and out of place as those who worship wealth and money, that look down on everyone else, or who are happy with the idea of digitally enslaving the majority of the population, if it will maintain their position through removing our ability to think and keeping us all controlled.

The future is not about identifying others or ourselves as being the next ‘leaders’ in the sense of ‘top-down’ hierarchies and all that we already have that is so damaging to all of us and to humanity now.

Our future is about everyone being valued. Everyone’s experience being valued. Each person’s input being valued. So that we all play our part as a leader, but likewise feel neither any obligation nor any obstruction at any time, to speaking, to doing more or getting directly involved, as we meet the challenges of the Great Reset that greed and self interest combined to create, and we come together to define our own place in the new world that we must build that lies beyond.

The truth is that the people who will be leading us in perhaps just a few months time may not already be publicly known.

It will not be any form of discrimination – legal, sanctioned or otherwise – that this dying establishment has created and seeks to impose upon us all, that will be used to decide who they are.

People must be helped to remember and to find value in who they really are.

People have the right to believe and to trust in themselves before they are asked to believe or trust in anyone or in anything else.

Real, meaningful change can only be achieved by the creation of local forums. Gatherings of real people meeting face to face, that encourage the exchange of ideas, offering the freedom to debate, without fear of consequence, and with a willingness on the part of all to embrace openness and learn from the experiences of others in a respectful way.

All this must happen without those who participate allowing either themselves or anyone with a loud or apparently credible voice to monopolise everything and pay lip service to this genuine opportunity for real democracy, by pushing their own ideas and telling everyone else that it was their choice.

The voice of the most vulnerable must carry the same value of those who have presence or voice that shouts.

Grassroots Up is the only way that real democracy can be restored, that people furthest from decision making will be as involved and as valued as those making them. It is the only way that the opportunities we all need to improve life for everyone will come to exist.

It’s not about more skills. It’s about the lowest wage being enough for anyone to live without help

Of all the points being missed by the political classes, probably the worst as well as the most troubling is the absence of any understanding or appreciation that life is now too expensive for anyone to pay for, working full time and on the minimum, basic or working wage.

Whilst it may be logical to believe that everyone is hardwired to work at and do whatever they can to earn money when they don’t have enough, the next of those points being missed is that if you cannot do the most basic of jobs and still not pay your own way without help, the rubicon has already been crossed when it comes to ‘helping ones self’.

For many, a lot of help or borrowing is the same thing as receiving just a little.

Why should anyone who doesn’t have enough even if they work a 50 hour week, struggle and destroy their life, if they cannot even then gain the benefit of being able to fully support themselves with the self-respect that it gives?

In a money obsessed society, where the politicians and elites are even more obsessed with what that means for them than most, it sadly stands to reason that government cannot think of any problem and therefore come up with any solution which isn’t itself derived in monetary terms.

On the face of it, focusing on getting people earning – and identifying that this can be achieved through the acquisition of new skills, does indeed sound like a genuinely good way to address a small element of truth that exists when answering the question of how to get more of the low paid back into work.

Yet many of the jobs that need to be filled don’t actually need or require people who are being treated like the adults they are to have any additional skills beyond common sense, being motivated and to be genuinely happy with who they are.

The problem here is very much the difference between what it is when you are required to live to work, instead of being able to simply work to live.

Politicians will continue coming up with diversionary schemes to help themselves, that just make more and more people feel disillusioned with a life where the system doesn’t legislate to allow anyone who so chooses, just to simply exist. They will continue doing so until they and The System that they are promoting, supporting and facilitating is called out for the life, community, country, planet, values and humanity destroying lie that it all is.

When the lowest wage for a working week can pay for all of the basics in life that any person genuinely needs, and the way that government and governance works is to promote and maintain that standard in all things and all it does, pretty much all of the societal problems that are plaguing life and dividing people will quickly cease to exist.

#TheBasicLivingStandard

Why do we need a CBDC when ‘normal’ money is already digital?

If you aren’t asking this question right now, you should be. The Bank of England has announced it is working on a Central Bank Digital Coin and it is likely to be in use in just a few years time. But why?

If you use online banking to move money around, pay your bills, transfer money to someone else, or have your wages paid electronically into your bank account, you are already using digital money within each and every part of that transaction.

Under the guise of simplifying life with easy to use technology, just about every part or function of life is now being ripped away and replaced with a machine function of some kind.

If you don’t believe me, look up the new AI bot that a leading search engine is about to launch which will write pretty much anything and everything that you want it to, and then ask yourself the question ‘If I use this, who is actually in control?’

Conspiracy theories abound in these times. But conspiracies sit out on the periphery and distract. They don’t have a profound affect on life within.

And this is the point. Technology to improve quality of life: YES. Technology to control life: NO!

The problem is that those pushing all of this; all of these changes; all of this ‘progress’ are ignoring the No that all of us would consciously give if we were actually asked, and amalgamating it all so that it equates to exactly the same thing.

We are quite literally being tricked into surrendering our freedoms with a series of lies that make us think that we are the winners as we progressively lose.

The only purpose of a single, universal central bank digital coin is control. Nothing will be private. Everything you do with money will be seen. And it won’t stop there. As the Canadian government did with their protesting truckers, if you do or say anything that someone in control doesn’t approve of or doesn’t like, they can simply switch your money supply off. You should think about what that would mean.

The crypto craze has been fun for those who have played the game and won. But it was based on nothing more than belief. And whilst the original idea that launched cryptos like Bitcoin was decentralised finance, the reality was that it was as pretend, fake or created as the FIAT money it sought to replace.

By buying into the myth that we can get rich by taking bets and speculating on money and currencies that simply don’t exist, we have actively played a part in creating our own living lie. A lie that is about to hurt and damage us beyond repair, taking away anything that resembles freedom of choice and freedom to be who we actually are as it does.

The technology is good. The ownership and purpose is rotten to the core. We need to retake control of the way that everything works before we are all inescapably and completely enslaved within a system that works for nobody other than those who control it.

If any of this makes sense, use cash.

If you are a business owner, reject the cash bribes from card companies and banks to refuse to take cash.

Together, work with your communities to create your own markets, systems of exchange – and yes – digital currencies that are pinned to real value – which isn’t money, but the value that people put into and give to the system itself.

Freedom is our future. Our future can only begin locally and by trusting only the people and the communities that we really know. Our future freedom starts with Grassroots-Up.

Tug’s Guide for Politics: 99 Quotes about Politics, Economics and our broken system of Democracy today

I remember a conversation with someone back last summer, when I mentioned my interest in politics. Their face crunched up as they exclaimed ‘there are better ways to get things done in the world’.

Politics is of course an emotive subject. It’s about our tastes, how we appear to others and therefore who we really believe we and the world to be. And that’s why subjects such as which side of the ‘Brexit debate’ that you may or may not be on, have resulted in people quite literally viewing others as it being a defining focus or reference point to who they really are.

It isn’t. And to make someone else wrong, simply because you have heard or seen something that gives you just a snapshot of their point of view, and then take it as way to stereotype everything about them and who they really are, is just lazy. If you’ve ever done that, I’m afraid it says much more about who you are!

‘Leave politics for the politicians’ is a very enlightened way of looking at politics. But few would now disagree that these are far from being enlightened times.

Like the person I mentioned above, the reality that we will all have to face, sooner or later, is that if we really want things to change in any meaningful kind of way, democracy – and therefore politics, and how we then govern everything, is the only genuine method to find and implement a better way.

The fundamental problem with politics, is the people who are in politics today.

To be clear, those people are not just the representatives of one of the political parties that we have to choose from. They are the representatives of them all.

The inherent problem with changing politics, is that most of us are happy to wait for someone else to do the changing for us.

What we don’t see is that someone else will certainly change things, but the change will only be on the basis of what works best for them – no matter what they say or what they lead us all to think.

The reality is that we all have to accept the need for change and when we have, we then need to accept that we all have to take part and have a role to play too.

Understanding how different or specific parts of our political and economic system work often begins a process of peeling away the layers of the onion for a lot of people. Call it a watershed or eureka moment if you like.

Politically awake since I was a teenager, I was a Town Councillor for 4 years, a Parish Councillor for 3 years and a Borough Councillor for 8 years, where I was also the Chair of Licensing for 4 of those. I was also a local government officer too.

Whilst I’ve been blogging and writing books about politics in a detailed way for over a decade, I appreciate that the best way for anyone to see those different perspectives or variations on what they already know, is to present a succinct view. Then wait and see what they think.

Following on from my two very recent Books of 99 Quotes, ‘TUG’S GUIDE LINES’ and ‘TUG’S GUIDE LINES FOR BUSINESS’, ‘TUG’S GUIDE LINES FOR POLITICS’ offers 99 Quotes covering the broken state of the political and economic system, how they work, and how or what we will have to do to change things so that The System genuinely works for everyone, and everyone can find happiness in life, no matter what they have, who they are, or what they do.

Tech for the sake of tech is forsaking real life. Humanity is being supplanted by something that is not very nice – and we are welcoming it in

No, this really isn’t an anti-technology blog. Quite the opposite. It is a blog focusing on the question of what drives technological advances and what purpose their implementation is really for.

Is all the technology that we already have, that we are being offered and that we are being promised: Making life easy? Making life reliable? Making life cheap?

The chances are that once you have stopped to think about it, your answer will be at least one of these, but probably all three.

But tech is easy, reliable and cheap for who exactly; is this really about the end result for you?

If we look subjectively at all the technological development there has ever been, right since the industrial age began, the general consensus would likely be that the rise of tech has only ever been good for us. That no part of it could possibly represent anything bad.

With the arrival of the internet and the smart technology age, as we dip our toes further and further towards a waterfall of AI, it really does seem that everything in life couldn’t be progressing faster or improving at an increasing or exponential pace.

But as the ease with which a fully-tech-orientated life seems to be taking shape, the upcoming generations are no longer fully familiar – if indeed familiar at all, with the process of traditional learning and remembering information and processes of thinking that will equip them in dealing with the future experiences that they cannot yet see. And why would they, when a search engine linked to their smart watch or phone, can instantly do it all for them instead?

This rate of so-called progress is coming at a massive price. It’s not just the dangerous lie that knowledge is the same thing as experience that is breaking the fabric of society and our humanity apart.

It is both the dependency and preference that we have for a tech-takeover of our lives in every sense that is supercharging the process of us all forgetting and proactively leaving behind the people, the individuals and the human beings that we really are.

We are told and conditioned to believe that technological advances have created an age where it is no longer possible for humanity to go backwards in any way. Why would we question this when every stream of accepted information or media narratives tell us that the flow and breadth of Information, pharmaceuticals, digital money and foods that even 100 years ago could never have been dreamed of, really do make us all, the unwitting participants in a game where we are actively being led to think and believe that we are all the new gods.

The technology that we already have is great, and it is mind boggling to visualise what is yet to come. But have you noticed how someone who we would probably only ever catch a glimpse of on social media or TV is always doing well out of it, whilst somewhere, someone and indeed many others are suffering as a result – usually in growing numbers and well outside of the media view.

Whether it’s the people who are no longer needed for the jobs that they were trained for relying on food banks or the billionaire tech moguls being able to declare that their latest inventions will mean nobody will really have to work again, technological development is being used as the tool of money-obsessed-age.

Technology and technological advances are not being used as the tools to improve and enhance life and humanity in the ways that each and every one of them genuinely could, in the right hands.

The uses for technology today and how we could be using them look very much the same. But man cannot have two masters.

For as long as tech development is driven by profit, the humanity and freedoms we so believe in are being sent back to the stone age at a like-for-like increasing pace.

The metaverse and the world of virtual reality may not have taken off in the ways that it has the potential to do so yet. But as we have seen with the drug-like hypnotic ability that computer and video games have on different people, we must surely be very close to turning point where people can step into a pretend world where they never again have to leave.

Again, the question must be asked, ‘What is this really all for?’ ‘Who really benefits from the general population losing touch with everything that matters?’

A growing population that has the resources and information available for everyone to think freely in a way that history has never allowed normal people to do so before is a problem for the people who abuse the power and responsibility they have gained at the top.

Like lambs to the slaughter, we willingly embrace the march of tech as it preaches the message that we are one step closer to a quality of life that we can’t even begin to imagine, each and every day.

We ignore the loss of jobs, the redundancy of our skills and talents. We are blinded to the dependency we are all building upon machines and processes that the wiping of history through the whims of the strangely all-powerful woke will quickly leave even the most educated of our younger generations unable to understand.

The nightmare story of life within a dystopia that we ridiculously still believe is restricted to the pages of great works such as 1984 is already unfolding around us all. But instead of rejecting it, we are embracing it like we are all the lead in some modern day parody of Oliver Twist, where we are falling over ourselves with the begging bowl and crying out for even more.

Tech would be even more beneficial and helpful to us all, if its overriding purpose were to improve life and its use were to be restricted by principles such as choosing restraint and consideration over its use, rather than the default setting today, which is always to do use it, not because it is morally right and healthy for everyone to do so, but simply because its profitable for someone, and they can.

It is both sad and very regrettable that technological advances have become yet another tool where those who already possess so much, are effectively unopposed by anything as they impose even more restrictions and choking controls on life and our ability to flourish, just so they can have even more of the power, money and influence that they will never use as they could and really should.

The harsh and uncomfortable truth is that none of those who are bought into and fuelling this specific kind of technical age and motivated this way will ever say, is that without care for humanity and what the basic tenets of life are and should always be about, the few can only become smaller in number.

Whilst the power, wealth, influence and control of the few continues to grow, all others will become the soulless slaves and bodies, drugged by a technologically engineered experience where they believe they have everything, but actually have nothing. All under the auspices of a repressive system harnessing tech for all the bad reasons we can imagine.

This is nothing less than a process of enslavement by tech. Not imposed on us voluntarily, but voluntarily imposed.

We are all playing a part in allowing this to happen. But the alternative needn’t look or feel like the rejection of tech in any way.

The freedom of us all hinges upon our readopting and repurposing tech for uses that are genuinely useful and important, so that it is used to benefit the many, rather than coming at cost to the many in ways that will only ever truly benefit the few.

The Way For All Of Our Own, Our Community’s, Our Country’s and The World’s Problems To Be Permanently Solved? = The Basic Living Standard

If you really want to understand the basic equation of all the problems that we, our communities, our country and the world has, it is this:

We value money more than we value people, our humanity and a good existence or life.

OK, so there are plenty of ways that we tell and convince ourselves that we live and experience good lives. But have you noticed how pretty much 99.9% of the time, our happiness or how we feel about something or an experience we are having, all comes down to using something that has been paid for or bought?

The money obsession or conditioning that we all have, means we place a financial value on everything.

We look at every part of life in terms of what the direct or indirect material value of everything is. The only exception to this is the relationships that we have with people we genuinely care about and what those relationships mean to us.

We are, in effect, completely absorbed in the way that we now live and how we perceive everything. This means that we are blinded to the alternative way of life that exists, which would be better for us all, in every healthy, balanced, fair and just way that is imaginable.

We don’t see that money or the lack of money, is the common factor with all the problems that we, our communities, the country and the world has. That there is never enough of it. And as more is created, the disparity between those with less and those with more gets wider and wider as the value that either rich or poor possesses also gets further and further apart.

For as long as material wealth continues to be the value set or benchmark that makes this world work, because of the believe that we all place in it, the number of problems that society has will continue to grow. There will be fewer and fewer solutions available to solve the growing number of problems that society has.

The alternative to this system and the hurt that it is causing those who believe they benefit in some way, is the complete rejection of the money based order and The System as we know it.

The solution to all our problems is the adoption of a people first economy, that places the value on people, humanity, community, our environment, the legacy and the responsibility that we have to all others, above money either being a benchmark for life, or being considered in any way to be and be valued as a ‘thing’.

The way this will be achieved is through the adoption, implementation and assurance of The Basic Living Standard.

The Basic Living Standard equation or formula is this:

All individuals will be able to support themselves fully on the equivalent of the lowest paid weekly wage, in a basic and healthy way, without debt or the need of support or help from any 3rd Party.

All laws, regulations, administrative and business practices shall reflect this basic requirement that underlines the basis of a truly just, fair and balanced society, and how it will operate and thrive.

The reaction that you may have might be that ‘This is impossible’. ‘This isn’t the way that the world works’. ‘You are suggesting we go backwards and live in what we understand to be feudal times’.

But this is not the case.

What you are hearing from that excitable voice from within, is the resistance to change of a system that you have been convinced is still serving you well.

But The System isn’t serving you well. The System isn’t serving any of us well.

The System is serving money and everything to do with money very well indeed. And the cost to us as individuals, as communities, as a country and as a world, is much greater than anything that the lie which is money can buy.

Few will see or be able to visualise the shift that will exist once the transition from a money obsessed way of living, to one that is truly people-centric in every way, until it actually exists. And as we walk forward into the uncertainties that lie in 2023 and the years that lie ahead, this is indeed the biggest problem and the biggest obstacle to better lives, good health and the real happiness that so few of us consciously recognise as being what we are missing from our lives and that we so desperately want.

The choice, as always, is yours. Together, it is ours.

This is about people and values. Our abuse of people and values is what all the challenges we are now facing are about. This is the outcomes that all the difficulties we must now experience are for.

Never mind ‘Elites’, ‘Big Business’, ‘Politicians’, ‘The Media’ and even ‘The WEF’. It’s Money, wealth and an unsustainable material-based values set that now runs EVERYONE’S lives – and WE ARE ALL TO BLAME!

For as long as the number of those addicted to the money and wealth, material value set outnumber those who have become aware or awoken to the unsustainable lifestyle that we have all been living, with the real damage that our money-based value set really does, the risk to us all is that we will end up overdosed and dead in the gutter.

We are picking up speed as we head towards this avoidable destiny today, because enough of us have not yet realised or accepted, then acted upon the knowledge and understanding of what the value of life really is and what the life we are living is really all for.

Through a process of surrendering moral and ethical values based on humanity and life, we have collectively sold our souls to the unsustainable addiction of a money and wealth material value set.

Being under the control of this all-encompassing mindset – as we collectively and most assuredly are – has led to us valuing everything that we do, everything we say and even everything we think being in or in some kind of financial and material wealth based terms.

Society has reached the point where the majority of people value their own success, their achievements and their own value as a person, based exclusively on the perceptions of others and what other people think.

Whilst we a conditioned to believe that addictions are suffered by and remain only the fault of the individual, this is simply not the case.

The addiction to money, wealth and a material-based values set operates at a much deeper societal level. Indeed, so embedded in ‘normal life’ has this addiction become, that it has taken on an intergenerational form, where for those that have and want more, the disease and the symptoms that accompany it have become hereditary and passed on. 

So nomalised has this money and wealth obsessive sickness become, that the behaviours which enable and facilitate it have not only become legalised and regulated, they have done so to the point where the damage caused to individual people, communities, countries and even the world itself, are not only considered to be legal and therefore right. They touch every part and every level of society to the point where this mindset or way of thinking dominates the world and mankind in a fully sanitised form.

The greed that underpins this whole process has never been sustainable. It is simply the case that with the way that time works, people are unaware of the damage that has been done over long periods of time, allowing any accurate analysis, translation and communication of the true causation of our problems to be ignored.

It serves the purposes of those who would treat mankind as nothing more than a commodity and source of income to do everything they can to ensure that we forget who and what we really are

We were an agricultural economy long before a money obsessed one. So, why are the money people so desperate to divorce us from or destroy the basis and roots of who we really are?

By ignoring or attempting to destroy any part of the history that brought us to where and who we are, including the processes which enable self sufficiency right down to the level of growing basic foods, we may not just excise the lessons that led us to the opportunity of both being civilised and with humanity, we may also be physically contributing to the downfall of the basic ingredients of who we and who human beings really are.

Much is said by the commentators who recognise the cultural identity crisis that the UK has created for itself. Idealists have consistently worked over decades to erase the systems, processes, history and even the shibboleths – whether good or bad, that are a fundamental part or ingredient of who we all really are.

In an age where mental health is supposedly a watch word and clarion call for consideration and kindness, our understanding of mental health or rather the poor-health understanding that we have of it tends to be based upon something that is missing, hidden or not joined up in some way.

It is therefore massively ironic that when it comes to the treatment of everyone else, the same people who are so obsessed with the self, cannot see that the same ills experienced by the individual can also be visited collectively upon communities, regions and entire countries, in just the same cruel and destructive way.

We are the sum of our experiences, not only as people. But as communities, countries, continents and as a world too.

We ignore or try to erase the building blocks of our identity – whether personal or collective – at our own peril.

History, experience or what we should really identify and accept as ‘thought’ can be decapitated or have a hand, a leg or a vital organ removed from it, just as easily and in the same way that our physical bodies can.

Today, the obsession that we have with money, wealth and a material-based values system means that we have not only forgotten who we are. We are also passively acquiescing or giving our consent to the whims, desires and actions of anyone, when doing so means that everything we take for granted will be maintained, improved and most importantly, kept from risk.

The obsession with money, power, influence and everything that comes with values that surround wealth and material possession is a degenerative sickness that knows no bounds.

At the very top of our leadership trees or hierarchies, this addiction and disease has ravaged minds so extensively that so-called leaders and the people who have all the power and influence today have forgotten who they really are. They genuinely believe that what is best for them is best for everyone, and that they can inflict the controlling solutions they have created to save themselves upon the world, without there being any real cost.

If they should succeed, what we only understand to be our freedom to think, say and do as we please in the forms that it comes in today will be lost. With it will go the route map, manual and directions that can remind us and direct us back down the pathway back to real-life and community, and along with it, the real basis and value set of who we are.