Sing the Word Hope in Four-Part Harmony

We are young, confident, affluent, and have no memory

of tougher times. We’ve grown up in an era of never

ending financial growth, and have expected things to

stay that way. We’ve grown up in owner occupied homes

with total acceptance of technology, global warming and

terrorism. Our whole society has been based on

consumerism for the past 15 years, making us dream

consumers, yet we don’t know the difference between a

credit card and a debit card, and we have no idea how

much a pint of milk costs.

On average we have 800 illegally downloaded songs, and

1 on 8 of us spends more than 100 pounds a month on our

mobile phone bill. We’ve never read a newspaper, and

we’ve never used our chance to vote.

We allow our governments to make decisions without

giving us all the facts. They send troops abroad who

will die in order that we can steal resources from the

people who have them. People who meant us little or no

harm until we invaded their country. We allow those

troops to commit horrendous atrocities and hang our

alleged enemies for much less.

We’ve spent years entrusting our futures to our

parents, our governments, the banks and the

corporations who have continually lobbied for their own

interests, and we’ve let them make selfish decisions

that have left our society teetering on the edge of

ruin.

We’re blinded from the information that would really

shock us by stories of sex and sleeze which doesn’t

make the smallest difference to our lives, and so we

have no desire to do anything about the things that

really do. We’ve watched as greed wipes billions of the

worlds stock markets, destroys jobs and lives, and

proves that capitalism is just as corruptible by human

nature as communism.

These are tough times but we seek solace in our friends

and Co-Conspirators, we make small differences in each

other’s lives, and dream that we can make real

progress.