A late night rant...

According to one low circulation women’s magazine, one in six children aged 5 – 14 in the world are child labourers. Or 158 million to be exact.
My everyday reading material may not be of a particularly high-brow nature (Marie Claire may be considered a bible by some but a reference point of the literati it is not) but I admit to being entirely ignorant of this fact until today. Is this just me?
I consider myself to be fairly well versed on the current crises around the world. So perhaps my ignorance of this problem is symptomatic of a wider predicament? Are the executive again lulling us all into a false sense of security, shielding us from the terrible truths to further their own gain? This is surely nothing new, we are by now used to governments at best protecting us, at worst deceiving us and preventing the stark realities of the modern world from becoming common knowledge.
And, to cite another instance where the government have been less than truthful, why is there not utter uproar at the latest scandal involving MP’s and their ridiculous expenses allowances, a topic that has received relatively little coverage considering the amount of public money this eats in to? Two million struggling to find work (did I mention that I’m one of them?) and yet these elected politicians claiming tens of thousands to furnish their flippin’ homes and indulge their husband’s penchant for porn is no biggie. I don’t get it.
It seems we’ve become so utterly despondent, so hopelessly aware of the fact that our attempts to create change will bomb, that we have simply given up. As a collective we’ve stopped shouting (with those few that do being portrayed as raving hippies a la the recent G20 protests) and favour instead a seething silence. And as the current fiscal crises escalates, this gloom will surely give way to further feelings of despondency .

I just don’t see it ending well.