The Protest of Negotiation

  Someday I may be arrested for not paying my debts to the banks I use.  I will be found guilty.  I am not interested in trying to argue out of this as it will be true but I am more interested in the reasons of why I am guilty.  In short I want to try to understand if I have good reasons for being guilty.  I also want to find out what the moral thing for a person in my position to do.

  There are two reasons for wanting to be arrested, one I want to feel as if I had some power over my life and in the society I live in and two I want to try to negotiate what is good moral criminal activity and what is not.

  I’ll try to explain what I mean in the second instance.  People break the law.  People break the law knowing that they are breaking the law.  People of all strata of society break the law may it be a robbery or may it be through tax evasion.  People who break the law are sometimes caught and punished.  Some aren’t, whether they are not caught or that they are caught and not punished.  Many corporations don’t pay tax.  This is cliché.  Some banks are involved in drug cartels and financial crashes.  Some people protest the installation of a fracking industry.  From this we find that some people are more punished than others, though it may be inproportion to the amount of damage they actually do.

  Why is more important to contain and keep protestors under constant watch than it is to take away bonuses from bankers?

  This is the society I live in and so how should I react.  What should I do as a good citizen or as a morally good person?

  If we are unable to punish the irresponsibility by legal mean the citizen should try to punish them in their own non-violent ways such as changing to different banks or by not paying the debts we owe them.

  I feel justified in not paying my debt to my bank because I had to take out an overdraft in order to pay off my living fees at University because I had to take a year out due to mental illness.  Out of University I had great trouble getting a job and even if I were not protesting I would still be unable to pay off the debt before the interest is applied.  I may be guilty and I may be put to jail but is this really the most appropriate way of dealing with the large questions of economy and even larger questions with what are we really supposed to be doing with our emerging adults?

  There will be more of me; more intelligent, able people who are not put to use, who are not involved in their community, whose futures look uncertain from the start.  This in the world’s sixth richest country makes little sense to those who want the best for themselves and for their children.

  For me I see two things going on that has allowed this to happen.  One, the legal corruptions of those in highest positions in politics and in business, and two, the majority of people who are unengaged, unconcerned, with the way society is run.

  For me election day can’t come soon enough, the day when I will be able to try and put a government that might actually tackle the deep economic problems as well as the environmental problems, and even then they might not do that.  What is it that I, someone who believes that society need to change the way it operates if our successors, namely our children and grandchildren, are going to have one?

  I feel powerless because I don’t feel like I have a hand or a say at how society should be organised, I feel powerless because I don’t feel that society cares for me or is willing to negotiate with me, I don’t feel like a citizen.  In Philip Blond’s ‘Red Tory’ he outlines the situation where public spaces are either in the hands of the state or the hands of the markets.  In Michele Houellebecq phrase we are more ‘service users’ of our country.  I want to change that.

  I may be put away but that will not put away the reasons as to why I am guilty.  This is a plea to everyone that we must put on hold our everyday business and try to negotiate a way of living that does a better job of sustaining the environment that we need to survive and that does a better job of making our lives worth living.

  I don’t believe in giving my money to people who hold others with contempt and who break the law in such a way that changes the livelihood of neighborhoods.  This is why I will not be paying my debts even if I was in a position to pay them off.  I may be punished but there are greater things at stake here that need to be negotiated, things that need to be protested.