Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts

Saturday 27 August 2016

Coffins From Derry.

       Sometimes the Glasgow dialect can be difficult to grasp, and the magic of words lost even though the passion may shine through. This may have been the case in the last post, so for comrade Loam and those others who might not have been able to grasp all the words, here is a transcript of Victoria McNulty's poem Coffins From Derry. Thanks Victoria.

Coffins from Derry

A thousand flood
Could have burst The Clyde
Each day of 1848
Had it not been for people.
The undead
Sailed in coffins from Derry.
Irish fever
Spilled from the Foyle, to
Boil the banks with Typhoid, the
Young scratched with fleas from starving rats
To be sacked -
Abandoned in Scotland's slums,
Feared and greeted by no one.
When my family crossed to Scotland,
They didn't flea famine,
But civil war.
The Gaeltacht already Black An Gorta Mhor,
Their names now warning signs on windows.
No work or trade gave way to
Forgotten faiths
And altered names; just tags of tarrier, terrorist and taig.
Coffins aren't made of mahogany today,
Just tarpolin and waves.
Not Killkenny's mass graves
But the beds of the Aegean Sea-
The road from Damascus stacked with similarities
Even Saul could see,
Floatsome children line beaches,
Their flesh all bloated and grey like typhus
Their parents, skeleton faces
Line security gates and fences -
Wire poked with frail famine hands-
Lips stitched and stomachs pitted
As Joe McDonnell, Bobby Sands....
And still we say they're not like us,
Don't belong like us.
I can never forget,
Scotland is cut from refugees,
And I am privileged.
My mothers made their journeys for me,
So now I watch from couch
And TV,
Miles from pipe bomb and peace walls.
Yet I will not fall silent,
I stand tall I stand proud
In welcome and unity
I stand in solidarity
With displaced people now residing in Scotland.
 
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Sunday 31 May 2015

History Tells Us!!

History tells us, why don't we remember?

There Will Come a Time.

There will come a time when the hordes remember,
who bound our grand-parents to the yoke of oppression,
who sentenced our parents to deprivation,
who bid poverty sink its teeth into our heart,
who teach our children, greed is a noble art.
Who sent our sons through the gates of hell
to a litany of cambist brawls,
crammed coffers with blood-stained gold
while laughing in Ares' halls.
"Who does these terrible things to us?" they will ask,
and when they remeber,
they'll bring an energy that is endless
to drive a fist that is fearless.
Then this merciless market-driven world will crumble
under an insurrection of integrity,
the poor will emerge from the dark husk of capitalism
to live in the light of social justice.
There will come a time when the hordes remember.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Thursday 21 November 2013

Urban Freethinker.



    A reader of my post "Work For Nothing To Feed The Greedy Rich", sent me this, I hope you enjoy.


Published on Nov 8, 2013
      A three chords and a rant style song I wrote, perhaps slightly over the top in places, you'll get the general sentiment though.
Words and Music ©2013 Unban Freethinker.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Tuesday 9 April 2013

There Will Come A time.


      Today's poem, is, I think, in keeping with the previous post. I'm sure there will come a time, my only hope is that it is soon.


THERE WILL COME A TIME.

There will come a time when the hordes remember,
who bound our grand-parents to the yoke of oppression,
who sentenced our parents to deprivation,
who bid poverty sink its teeth into our heart,
who teach our children, greed is a noble art.
Who sent our sons through the gates of hell
to a litany of cambist brawls,
crammed coffers with blood-stained gold
while laughing in Ares' halls.
"Who does these terrible things to us?" they will ask,
and when they remember,
they'll bring an energy that is endless
to drive a fist that is fearless.
Then this merciless market-driven world will crumble
under an insurrection of integrity,
the poor will emerge from the dark husk of capitalism
to live in the light of social justice.
There will come a time when the hordes remember.

ann arky's home,

Friday 28 December 2012

A CORPORATE WORLD CONTROLLED FROM THE BOARDROOM.


       The financial Mafia's grand plan is world wide, it is in fact a world wide epidemic. It is not something that is limited to Europe, no country is immune from this destructive infection. The only real antidote to this vile infection is social justice through anarchism. 
     America, that land of freedom, democracy and opportunity!! Well just like the rest of the corporate dominated world, ordinary Americans are getting poorer and the rich Americans are getting richer. Forbes has just released the latest figures on the richest Americans, and it states that the wealthiest 400 Americans posses 13% of the total wealth of all of America. This year alone their wealth increased by 7%, making the average wealth between this 400 work out at $4.2 billion each. This puts people like the most recent Presidential contender, Mitt Romney, in the poor league, as he has to get by on a personal fortune of a mere $250 million.
       Compare this to the ordinary American, this year millions of workers have been forced into poverty, saw the pensions disappear, along with their health care. Their wages are now in lower than what they were 40 years ago, if you take into consideration the rate of inflation over that period, the average wage is 22% lower now than the average in 1972. Unemployment is high, house foreclosures almost common place, homelessness rampant, jobs almost impossible to find.



       The onslaught against the ordinary people is world wide, no country is immune from the financial Mafia's plans to drive down wages, Greece, at the moment, may be at the sharp end, but others are perilously close, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, to mention a few in Europe. There is nothing in the rule book that says that the American people can't follow the Greek people into total misery and deprivation. By the slashing social spending the corporate world will achieve two things, one, it will reduce the tax they are asked to pay, so increasing profits, and two, it will open up greater opportunities for the corporate bodies to privately supply, at a profit to themselves, those services that have been trashed by national governments. No social services, only privately provide services at a cost, and if you can't pay, then you have to go without.
       Everything must turn a profit for the corporate body, no public assets, no public spaces, no social services, just big business. A bleak, harsh and desperate world for the ordinary people, a world where if you fall on hard times, it will be up to charities to help you out, or friends and relatives, who might themselves be facing the same poverty and deprivation. This is the great austerity plan, the pinnacle of capitalism, the corporate planet controlled from the boardrooms of fat-cats, with one aim in mind, increase profit, to fatten your shareholders. We either face this world and live with it, or face it and destroy the present greed driven system and replace it with a better world driven by co-operation and mutual aid, based on sustainability with the aim of seeing to the needs of all our people.The only real

ann arky's home.

 

Friday 15 June 2012

TIME FOR RIGHTEOUS ANGER.


      What does the financial Mafia's "deficit" reduction mean to ordinary people? In just a matter of a couple of years decent ordinary hard working people in Greece have been reduced to begging on the streets. This photo from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ, captures something horrifying in so much that it looks like a clean proud family, ashamed of their situation but forced to beg to support themselves and their family. There is no need for their shame, it is anger that they should be displaying. The have a genuine claim to righteous anger.





TIME FOR RIGHTEOUS ANGER

We talk of justice, we ooze compassion
you and I. Our comfort sure
with a gracious smile a token give
those "SO deserving poor".

Where is compassion when children lose
carefree innocent play,
where is justice when children meet
hunger along the way

Children who, in this world of excess
create a newsreel scene
cradled in a starving mother's arms
expiring on your TV screen.

Forget the famine rationale
in a sickly syrup word,
mouthed by those crazy apes
until the truth is blurred.

Feel the anguish of the other
hear their pitiful cry
see the hunger steal their future;
loudly cry out,  why?

Then act out your righteous anger
fan the passions flame,
create a world of social justice
end this human shame.

 


Saturday 26 May 2012

THERE WILL COME A TIME.



THERE WILL COME A TIME.
There will come a time when the hordes remember,
who bound our grand-parents to the yoke of oppression,
who sentenced our parents to deprivation,
who bid poverty sink its teeth into our heart,
who teach our children, greed is a noble art.
Who sent our sons through the gates of hell
to a litany of cambist brawls,
crammed coffers with blood-stained gold
while laughing in Ares' halls.
"Who does these terrible things to us?" they will ask,
and when they remember,
they'll bring an energy that is endless
to drive a fist that is fearless.
Then this merciless market-driven world will crumble
under an insurrection of integrity,
the poor will emerge from the dark husk of capitalism
to live in the light of social justice.
There will come a time when the hordes remember.

Saturday 14 January 2012

WHERE'S OUR GDP??


        I believe it is generally accepted by the public that as a country gets richer, we should all be better off. After all, that is why the powers that be, keep telling us about the growth of our GDP, to let us know who much richer we are becoming. It is safe to say that over the years the UK GDP has been growing steadily, with the exception of 2008/9, but suddenly we are told that we can't afford most of the things we take for granted. Things like libraries, nursery classes, decent pensions, and a half decent social welfare system are now beyond our reach. We are now being told that we have to accept wage cuts/freezes, work longer to get a smaller pension, cuts in social benefits, rising unemployment, while our kids education system is decimated and privatised along with our National Health Service. But I thought our GDP had been growing year on year for some considerable time, with just the odd blip? Well it has, so where is all that extra wealth, who has the money? What has also been happening as our GDP kept growing, was that a larger share of the wealth was being syphoned upwards to an ever decreasing number of individuals. The salary gap just kept getting wider and wider, so must of that extra wealth from our ever growing GDP, (your effort and my effort) was ending up, not in the common pool, but was heading straight into the bank accounts of the ever dwindling little bunch of parasites. If all those gains from the ever increasing GDP had been evenly spread in the common good, infrastructure and welfare for example, would we be facing the same problems? It is really ironic that it is those who gained all that extra wealth from our ever growing GDP, who are now telling us that we can't afford all the most basic parts of a decent civilised society.

Some difficult decisions will have to be made!!


       Even a glance at such an economic system tells you that it is inefficient, wrong, immoral, unjust, and corrupt. It doesn't take an Einstein to come up with a better, fairer and more just system, based on mutual aid, co-operation and sustainability, a system that sees to the needs of all our people, instead of working, struggling and worrying, just to keep a bunch of millionaire/billionaire parasites in the lap of luxury. Isn't it about time we sorted this lot out and started taking care of our own people?


ann arky's home.