How Much More Are People Supposed to Take?

What the hell is going on? I’m looking at the reports from France and wondering how many more people have to march through the streets before governments understand that being able to afford your life is a fairly basic fucking expectation.

The protests over living costs and public services have descended into violence in places. Shops damaged, buildings burning, people hurt. And somewhere underneath the smoke are people who wanted to say something perfectly reasonable: we cannot keep doing this. We cannot keep paying more and having less.

I understand that anger. Here in Australia, you can do the sensible things, watch your spending, cut back, shop carefully, and still feel as though you’re going backwards. Groceries, electricity, insurance, housing. Every bill arrives wanting a bigger piece of money that was already accounted for. What exactly are we supposed to cut next? Eating? Heating? Having a bloody roof? Because our wages sure as hell aren't keeping up with the cost of living!!

And please spare me another lecture about budgeting. A budget tells you where the money goes. It doesn’t magically produce enough of it. There is something deeply insulting about telling people to manage their money better when they’re already standing in a supermarket putting things back.

Then Trump weighs in, blaming immigration. How convenient to have a ready-made target whenever something goes wrong. I’d like to hear rather more about how people are supposed to afford food, fuel and somewhere to live. A scapegoat won’t pay the electricity bill.

I don’t support burning somebody’s business or destroying public buildings. Some poor bastard loses their livelihood, workers lose shifts, and the repair bill lands somewhere. But condemning the destruction cannot be the entire response. The people marching peacefully still deserve an answer when the streets have been swept.

That’s what bothers me. The cameras will move on. The speeches will finish. People will go home to the same unpaid bills and the same dread of the next one.

We are asking for an ordinary life with a little breathing room. Enough to cover the essentials without feeling sick every time an envelope arrives. Perhaps even enough left to enjoy being alive.

If governments cannot understand why that matters, they need to spend less time explaining the economy to us and more time listening to the people trying to survive in it.