How interesting, with the Moon
conjunct Mars in Leo, Jupiter in Cancer and Saturn in Scorpio that today’s headlines
are about Britain’s hungry school children. The poor little mites are coming to
school hungry and are resorting to stealing sandwiches from the canteen to feed
their starving families later. The teachers are even feeding them biscuits to
stave off hunger pains!!
This term I had a bit (an
understatement) of a to-do with my school over designer school bags. I mean if
Adidas or Nike want our school to promote their products, I think they should:
a) Pay us for doing so or,
b) Give us some of their products for free
But neither of these things has
happened.
Anyhoooo, after a standoff that I
eventually lost (*snork snork*), our pupils are once again parading around with
£40-50 Nike or Adidas bags.
Really Alex, I hear you ask, don’t
you have something better to do than to deprive our future generation of their
much loved and needed toys?
Well no. I reckon nearly £400,000
(that would be the total sum forked out for school bags for each pupil in a
school of 1,000 children) of someone’s hard earned money ends up paying for
some CEO’s weekend in Monte Carlo. My idea was that our pupils utilise our
local market so parents can buy decent bags at a fraction of the price and the
profits from said bags go into the pockets of our local business men and women
rather than into the coffers of an international corporation. That way the
hungry men and women of Walthamstow benefit by having a bit more jingle in
their pockets so the whole community can benefit. That way some child not on
free school meals does not have the opportunity to flash his/her affluence in
the face of our many, many pupils who are on free school meals. You know,
exercise a little equality.
But oh no, that’s not how
capitalism works.
It has to be that the large multinational
corporations exploit child slaves in third world countries and we in the first
world are so brain washed that we can’t even think about telling our parents to
put two fingers up these corporations and buy local. After all, school children
NEED their bags with logos!!
As my Australian friend said: “Are
you serious? A family can’t afford to make a sandwich for their child’s lunch
but can afford to buy an Adidas bag or two?”
I know poverty exists in a first
world country but for crying out loud, let’s get our priorities straight! Get
parents to feed their children first and then worry about the damn bags!! And
don’t even get me started on mobile phones!!
I would really welcome some much
needed dialogue on how we can support parents in making a decision between a
necessity and a luxury. Such is the lesson of Saturn in Scorpio and Jupiter in
Cancer. . .spare a thought for the adolescents who are experiencing their first
Jupiter returns or Saturn oppositions and have a big lesson to learn.
