Our Wankers this Week are … well, ourselves.
That's it. We're all a bunch of wankers. OK, not every single one of us. Not The GOS, for a start. And probably not most people who visit this website regularly, because having a jaundiced and therefore realistic attitude to the world is a natural predisposition in all grumpy old people.
But in general, on average, taking the rough with the smooth and bearing in mind every aspect of the situation, we ARE a nation of total Wankers.
Let's see, what's in the news at the moment? Oh yes, the banking collapse and the credit crunch. Now here's a case in point. We're all rushing round like headless chickens because an artificial, imaginary construct has failed. Bankers across the developed nations have spent years taking enormous salaries, having vast free lunches and generally living the life of Riley - and for what? For moving imaginary money around in a system of imaginary deals so complex that none of them have known what the hell they were doing.
Now the shit has hit the fan, they've been found out, and what do we do? We bail them out, we rescue them, we save their streaky bacon using taxpayers' money.
Not in America, of course. I expect they will, eventually, but at least the elected representatives of the American people have given Bush and his cronies a bloody nose first. And the main reason is that, as Andrew Sullivan wrote this week, Bush has regularly and consistently set himself above law, has ignored the constitution and the legislative system of America, and has behaved like a dictator - which is what he means when he calls himself "the decider".
As Sullivan explains …
"This is the core conservatism that George W Bush and Dick Cheney, his vice-president, have systematically attacked for the past eight years - in favour of a de facto protectorate of one strong man. They believe it's necessary to save us from terrorism. But they also believe the president of the United States is constrained by no law, no treaty and no constitution when he is defending the nation. Even when Congress has passed laws for presidential signature, Bush has attached provisos on many, saying he is not obliged to follow them when acting to defend the country. He has unilaterally suspended the Geneva conventions and unilaterally violated American law in sanctioning wire-tapping and torture. By any rational measure, he and Cheney have committed war crimes and their only defence is that they are above such laws and so incapable of committing any crimes in the defence of the nation."
But this page isn't about Americans being Wankers (though they are, God knows they are!), it's about us. What has been our own contribution to the credit crunch disaster?
Quite considerable, actually. Almost to a man, we have been unutterably greedy. Not just the fat cats with their absurd, even criminal, bonuses for doing f*ck-all rather badly, but the average Joe in the street. Every ill-educated little oik who starts a flat-roofing company with his mate thinks he has a right to be rich. He reads the lads' mags, he sees the celebrities on telly, he hears about footballers and their wives, he takes seriously the quiz shows and reality shows and lifestyle shows that dominate the modern media, and he truly believes that he has a right to "a lifestyle". He deserves a 4x4 and a Beamer in the drive, a six-bed house with decking and a jacuzzi, and three or four foreign holidays a year. Because he "works for it".
In reality he doesn't work particularly hard. If he wants to see what work is, he should pop back fifty years or so and try a few shifts down a coal-mine. And when the shift was over, there was no digital thermostatic surround-sound power-shower to wash the dirt off, either.
Yes, if he works reasonably hard and looks after his customers conscientiously, he deserves to make a living and support himself and his family. But to be rich? No, being rich takes something special, a hard-nosed obsessive concentration, a boring, soul-destroying kind of compulsion that the experts on Dragon's Den have got, and the contestants by and large haven't. Which is why they're the contestants and not the judges.
In order to fund this lifestyle with the 4x4 and the Beamer and the Jacuzzi, our roofer takes on unreasonable amounts of debt from any bank that's fool enough to give it to him, and this is the nub of his Wankerdom. We've heard a great deal in the media about the wicked banks and building societies who allowed customers to run up debts they couldn't possibly repay, but does anyone mention the customers themselves?
Aren't these people with, allegedly, brains to think and eyes to read and mouths to ask? Didn't it occur to them to wonder whether they could actually afford to repay these loans? Or did they just rush forward with greedy hands outstretched, squealing "Gimme, gimme!" like the big kids they are?
Well, now they're feeling the pinch, and a bloody good job too. Losing your dream house? Good! Got to sell one of the cars? Tough. Can't afford to go to Tenerife for the third time this year? Dear me, how sad.
Meanwhile in Downing Street the idiot McBroon fiddles about with our money, talking as tough as his slack jaw will allow, pretending he knows what to do when really we'd all be better off if he just sat on his hands and did nothing. Credit where credit is due, "Bunty" Cameron of the Remove hasn't got a clue what should be done and seems to be keeping his mouth shut, sensible fellow. Instead he busies himself with cheap electioneering tricks about council tax. It's always nice to see someone who knows his own limitations, ow, leggo, you rotters!
And in the Stock Exchange those other headless chickens are having a field day selling everything and bringing the value of shares crashing down, just because they're scared, Aah, bless, the little things are frightened! The companies they own shares in are still doing business, of course. The factories are still producing, the workers are still working, the shops are open, their shelves are full, shoppers are still buying, savers are saving, consumers are consuming, nothing has changed, but suddenly it's all worth less than it was yesterday because a few stockbrokers got a bit frightened? There has to be a better system than this, probably involving the summary execution of anyone earning more than 100 grand a year.
And what of our standing in the world? Are we Wankers abroad as well as at home?
Well, sadly, yes we are. Our athletes and para-athletes may have done us proud, but there's not much to cheer us up anywhere else. Our pride and, it has to be said, greed have embroiled us in not one but two un-winnable wars simultaneously, where our soldiers keep their heads down and try not to get killed too much, hampered by poor equipment and not much of it.
At sea, we watch from a distance as other nations do the job we used to assume was ours by God-given right, policing the oceans. While French troops land in Somalia to get back French citizens who have been kidnapped, our Navy are told not to capture any Somali pirates for fear of infringing their human rights.
And while an American warship, a Russian warship and a third warship from … somewhere else … menacingly surround the Somali pirates who have captured a Ukrainian cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, where are the Royal Navy?
Probably further north, letting a rabble of Iranian savages in speedboats capture their boat crews. Who will then cry when their captors take away their iPods.
No, it's not a pretty sight, is it? Not a nation to feel proud of? Small wonder so many people are emigrating. Over 200,000 skilled workers and professionals turned their backs on the UK and left for good last year to start a new life abroad. In the last ten years, 2 million people have gone.
Soon there'll be nobody left but us Wankers.
The GOS says: And you'll notice we haven't even touched on speed cameras, the alleged global warming, hoodies, litter-bins, smoking bans, elf'n'safety, terrorism etc. God, I'm so restrained.
And that's not to mention paedophile hysteria. I watched "EastEnders" last night - about a paedophile - followed by "Place of Execution" - also about a paedophile. Is there any popular television drama these days that isn't about a paedophile? Can't we think about anything else?
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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