With the recent revelations in the MSM about governmental sleaze and pork barrelling, a growing disgust and revulsion among the public seems to be the general response. Increasingly, newspapers are reporting on the distrust and cynicism that the public hold toward the political class and the political system itself, and even the Guardian has taken it upon itself to map out some options for political reform, from the tinkering approach to a reasonably broad root-and-branch restructuring. Cracks are widening rapidly in the edifice of the political establishment.

Prior to this revelation of course was the tragic murder of Ian Tomlinson, which brought to a head the vicious and routine abuse of powers by the police in their over-eager application of dubiously defined anti-terror laws. These laws, abhorrent as they are to civil liberties and the ultimate preservation of resilient security, are a carte blanche for all thugs in uniform, and the police have more than their fair share of those. Public trust in the policing establishment begins to erode, public dissatisfaction with policing generally is expressed, and cynicism blossoms. Cracks begin to appear in the edifice of the domestic security establishment.

Before the police murdered Mr Tomlinson at the G20 protests, the public were exposed to the harsh realities of the fantasy world that is modern finance. Like the politicians were discovered to be sleazy and incompetent later, the banks were found to be avaricious and dangerously promiscuous with other people's money, selling loans to those who couldn't even afford to pay for a loaf of bread, and then collapsing whilst bailling out with overstuffed settlement and bonus packages. Politicians thought it wise to pump several trillion GBP of public money into the banking black hole, the global economy creaked a little further towards full-blown recession. The public expressed outrage, baying for the blood of bankers and the mealy-mouthed politicians who refused to challenge those bloaters, but merely handed over truck-loads of money when they themselves were means tested and hounded by auditors, tax and benefit investigators every step of the way, even when innocent. The public watched homes be repossessed, watched as they were made redundant, and the value of their savings disappear down the drain. Cracks begin to appear in the edifice of the financial establishment.

Corporations have discovered that the new in colour is green. Across the country, and the world, corporations are employing any number of PR whizz-kids to repaint their marketing propaganda in the year's fashion of green. The Great Greenwash is in full swing and everyone is now greener-than-thou. But, of course, underneath all of that happy, caring greenwash the same old ugly mechanical churn of profiteering, externalisation, and down-stream pollution with upstream benefits are carrying on as always. Although the greenwash is keeping most consumers distracted, there appears to be a steadily growing trend toward seeking out truly ethical sources, challenging the corporate new clothes, and exposing the foul play and exploitation that is the footprint of most modern corporate advancement. The crack in the edifice of the corporate establishment is perhaps just beginning to be seen more widely, as more members of the public begin to seriously question these taken-for-granted consume-or-die messages spewed out fetishistically through the media and across every available vertical space of the built environment.

And a common thread, that runs throughout all of this, extending further back in time from the above examples, back towards the Iraq war and the weapons of mass destruction mythology, some would say, even through the uncritical reporting of terrorism, and especially the London bombings and 9/11, and subsequent media frenzy of the Terror Threat, and even further beyond that. The common thread is the so-called Fourth Estate, that self-proclaimed august body, the defenders of liberty and truth, the body that gives you the straight scoop, in a balanced and reflective way - none other than the media themselves. Time and again they have been shown to be little more than radio beacons mirroring the Party Political broadcast, to have covered up scandals (either voluntarily or as a result of a D notice), spun the flavour of the month, sided with the established nexus of power and fellating the corporate sponsors, regardless of the crass hypocrisy of the Independent, for example, who campaigns against climate change and its anthropogenic causes on one page while carrying adverts for cheap long haul flights on the page opposite. Time and again the public have had to seek out non-corporate sources of information, while the mainstream media lurch from one crisis to another crisis, breathless in the bipolar feeding frenzy of doom and despair and the passive monotone reassurances that the party leaders and corporations know what's best for us all. The cracks in the edifice of the media establishment are also beginning to show ... and to be noticed!

In this gathering of cracks in the "establishment", there are a number of opportunities that are becoming available that we have been previously denied. It is a substantial part that many of our fellow protesters, organisers, and tireless warriors for justice, equity, and a sustainable future have had to play in these emerging and established cracks. There are also others eyeing these same cracks though, be this the BNP or even closer to the centre (e.g. Tories) ... but I suspect that there is a gathering storm of disquiet amongst the ordinarily TV-induced mesmerised British people. The masses are beginning to stir on their couches.

There is a critical massification of events - the establishment icons are looking haggard and worn, emptied of all but the smallest and meanest of human aspiration and potential, the atmospheric vitality of our planet is dangerously fragile, and recent MIT modelling suggests a three-fold escalation on the earlier predictions of climate change. Our industrial and consumption base is threatened to its core with the looming advent of Peak Oil and the burgeoning energy crisis; our biosphere is losing its biodiversity, the rivers, oceans, soils, and air are polluted in many instances, beyond repair; our populations keep escalating geometrically, most in abject poverty with miserable lives eked out on the detritus of western consumer culture ... . The centre will not hold and we may well be witnessing the gradual unravelling of the tapestry of (post)modernity.

I, for one, would like to start thinking this through - what happens after tomorrow. We need not be talking revolution here. This is looking more like evolution - the revolution did not happen - a change from within the very nature of the modern paradigm which is showing itself to be unsustainable, not from outside (which would be a revolution). The modern paradigm is coming apart because it was not based on sustainable principles in the first place. Our task now is to speed up the adaptation, to help foster the new, emergent alternatives that place sustainability at its core - a sustainable equality and ethic of justice for all beings (human and more than human) - to identify what we need to learn, what we need to teach and who we need to be teaching. There are already numerous examples in the "counter" culture - the industriousness of the Climate Camp organisers and participants immediately springs to mind as a crucible of noteworthy practice, for example. But we need to organise, develop and cultivate: good fortune is preparedness meeting opportunity to act. I vote for equipping ourselves for good fortune.

So I end with a question: if you, dear reader, find yourself agreeing with these broad strokes outlining some of the components of the current mood, then how do we all take best advantage of this opportunity? Do we wait until something else moves in to fill any sudden gaps, or would it be wiser to develop a coherent plan for what we would like to see in place at that time?