Sometime after the Christmas dinner is consumed, tiredness has set in and the noise of the family starts to peak, many people will be starting to wonder what the coming year holds for them. The television advertising will commence for the next great consumer feast day, The New Year Sales, and everyone will be getting off the couch and back onto the treadmill to start paying off the credit card bills that gave the kids their presents. Obviously, if the re-payments start to bite you can always apply to Megabank Multinational for a little Christian charity and some easing of repayment terms. After all they were more than happy to use Christmas to sell you credit limit upgrades so they must be full of spiritual values........ By the time the Western World wakes up from the nightmare pantomine of Christmas and starts to look at the bill it will already be too late. 2012 promises more unemployment, rising prices, home repossessions and increasing taxation no matter what any politician on the stump will say. You may all think that this is a bleak Christmas message coming from Scrooge himself but my point here is that if you are in this situation then you are part of the lucky end of human life today.

People around the world are fighting for survival let alone representation. There are countries where the chance to be hocked up to the eyeballs to Megabank Multinational would be seen as a step forward. In North Korea people are enslaved by an insane regime. In Syria people are being murdered in the streets by a sociopathic regime. In the U.S.A. the poverty levels are now touching 50% of the population and in Washington they are gearing up to run a presidential election for which Megabank Multinational will happily fork out billions to ensure the democratic choice of a candidate who will do as he is told.

After the 2008 crash there was a flood of investment slushing from financial instruments into commodities. The traders pumped up the prices of the raw materials of life in order to extract profits whilst leaving the losses of their sub-prime catastrophe to the tax payer. Now, in 2012, we are all going to reap the harvest of that unlimited greed which drives the wealthy to consume the poor. The price of food will rocket in 2012, in the so called developed world this will lead to hardship for many, in the under developed world this will lead to death for many, in the boardrooms and trading houses this will lead to bonuses for a few. So this is Christmas, and what have you done?

Forty years ago John Lennon released Happy Xmas (War is Over) and what exactly has changed? How can it be that after so much time all we appear to have become is more efficient at exploiting humanity? When exactly are we going to see representative politics anywhere in the world? When are we all going to stop being distracted by the adverts and the marketing and realise that this is our world and we need to stop the killing?