Glasgow Against ATOS Monthly Picket.

       Glasgow against ATOS is a Grassroots disabled activist campaign opposing Atos (Atos HealthCare) and supporting rights of disabled people in Glasgow and beyond. On the last Friday of each month the group picket outside the ATOS offices in Cadogan Street Glasgow. The next picket will be Friday January 31 at 12:30.

    Ian Duncan Smith's "reforms" of disability allowance, is administered by ATOS and since they started their brutal campaign against the most vulnerable in our society, we have seen more than 1,300 people died after being assessed and told to start work related activities. Whichever way you look at this, it is unacceptable, Ian Duncan Smith has blood on his hands. Some disabled people have committed suicide after being assessed as fit to start looking for work. People who force vulnerable people into this sort of situation have changed the category from suicide to murder, and should be held accountable.

Photo From Glasgow against ATOS

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

"Britain Of The Year"???

        Millionaire, George Gideon Osborne has done more for his corporate millionaire friends than any chancellor in generations. This heir to a Baronetcy, has fought tirelessly at decimating the living standards of the ordinary people, in an attempt to grow and protect the wealth and power of his class. This is one man who can give us all a lesson in class solidarity. He cares not for the misery, poverty and humiliation that he heaps on those who stand in the way of his class's domination. He has no doubt what so ever, which class he belongs to, and will do anything and everything to secure that class's position of dominance. He knows it is class war, it is the only way he can maintain that dominance.

 

       Across the country thousands are facing the threat of eviction because of the “bedroom tax”, thousands of vulnerable disabled people have died after being assessed by ATOS as fit for work, and having their benefits cut. Homelessness is on the increase across the country, and has rocket in London by 62% over the last two years, thousands of people are forced to work for no wages in workfare schemes, swelling the coffers of the corporate greed machine. Rough sleeping, was falling for a while, but thanks to George Gideon Osborne's class policies, it is once again growing. According to the latest figures, 6,437 people slept rough in London during 1012/13, up from 5,678 the previous year.

 

Osborne Photos from Google.

     Naturally his class want to show their appreciation and delight at his efforts to improve and protect their wealth and power. So that organ of the landed and business class, that voice of the upper crust right, the Class War newspaper of the rich, “The Times”, has named, George Gideon Osborne as “Britain Of The Year”. They know who their friends are.

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

Living With The Fear Of Homelessness.

       Across the UK people are being penalised because of a government hell-bent on pursuing the policies of the financial mafia. You can pick any village, town or city and there will be people being pushed into poverty, or worse, facing homelessness. If its not low wages, it's zero hours contracts, if it's not disability benefit cuts, it's being sanctioned and having your jobseekers allowance stopped, then there's the bedroom tax.
       With the bedroom tax there are approximately 50,000 people living with the threat of homelessness because of this vicious attack on ordinary people. Homelessness has rocketed in the last year, up 62% in London alone, and other massive rises across the country as a whole. Why should anybody have to fight for a home? We are in a society where the fear of homelessness is becoming part and parcel of life.
       This is the picture of capitalist progress, this is us "on the mend", this is the vision of the mythical growth, that the millionaire cabal of pompous parasites keep mouthing off about.
       You could pick one of thousands of cases that bring home the viciousness and callousness of these policies, each one a display of the injustice and inequality that riddles this capitalist system, each one genuine and unacceptable.Though we should campaign to have the bedroom tax scrapped, the real answer is to destroy this system that has these policies inherent within its very fabric, a system built on power and exploitation.

 This is just one case put forward by Care2:

 

 

      For fourteen years Danielle Heard has fought cancer -- a disease that has left her disabled.
    Despite everything she's been through, she's now got another fight on her hands: avoiding homelessness because of the bedroom tax.
The cruel, unfair "Bedroom Tax" means that Danielle's parents must now pay an extra £80 a month in rent; they're now worried that they could lose their home if they can't stretch the budget to make ends meet.
      Right now, a staggering 50,000 people across Britain like Danielle and her family face losing their home because of the bedroom tax.

That's not right, and it's not fair.

Take action today: Join us in calling on David Cameron to repeal the bedroom tax and stop penalising hard working families like Danielle's.

 

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

Petition, ATOS Kills.

     Petition:- Glasgow 2014 Ltd Organising Committee: Drop ATOS as a sponsor for the 2014 Commonwealth Games

        Glasgow Games Monitor have recently created petitions on 38 Degrees and Change.org calling for ATOS to be dropped as a Commonwealth Games sponsor.

The Change.org petition is live and if you agree with it please sign it – you can pass this link on to promote it as well:

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/glasgow-2014-ltd-organising-committee-drop-atos-as-a-sponsor-for-the-2014-commonwealth-games

     The 38 Degrees system is more complicated and we have to get a critical mass of people to agree to the campaign before they start running it. Please vote to help us get the campaign going on 38 degrees as well, if you have any suggestions or comments feel free to list them on the 38 degrees site:

http://38degrees.uservoice.com/forums/78585-campaign-suggestions/suggestions/5196813-atos-unfit-for-2014-commonwealth-games

     For background information view some of our previous posts relating to this campaign here and here.

Best wishes,

Glasgow Games Monitor

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

Who Voted For Slavery?

       How much longer will the people of this country vote in this system of greed and corruption, that works against their interests, how long will it be until they all realise that this is not a democracy, never has been, and under the present system, never can be. We cannot tolerate any longer, a system where by the poor are forced to work for nothing to enrich the profits of large wealthy companies. This, Workfare/Traineeship/Work Experience con, is not a little temporary fix, this is the template for the future, this is the pattern they want to be the accepted route for the next generation. The kids will leave school and be conned into thinking that this is the norm, a crap eduction, then work for nothing, swelling the bank accounts of rich shareholders, with the carrot held out in front of you, that if you humiliate yourself sufficiently for long enough, you might be one of the privileged that get a paid job at the end of it all. How wonderfully gracious of your employer to actually pay you.

       We as a class cannot accept that our kids are here to be forced into slave labour at the dictate of a bunch of millionaires, whose only interest is in the profitability of their shares. We are responsible for the dignity and well being of our kids and grand kids. Standing by and watching them being humiliated and abused by corporations is not acceptable under any circumstances. Nobody in this country voted to bring back slavery, but it has already got its foot well and truly in the door.

       There are so many avenues being used by this government of boardroom directors to attack our living conditions, all of them help big business. The slashing of social services and benefits is necessary to allow them to reduce the taxes that their corporate friends pay, if and when they pay at all. The bedroom tax, ATOS attack on disability allowance, and Workfare/Work Experience/Traineeships are all part of this business friendly agenda. Do we want a society that has only one aim, to enrich the corporate world at the expense of the people? As long as we keep putting rich millionaire business people in charge of our lives we will get screwed. Their businesses come well before your kids, you would be an idiot if you expected them to do otherwise. Can you not hear Osborne's speech to the Employers Federation, "I have a dream, one day all the workers will come to your businesses for nothing, and we will realise that paradise of sweatshop Europe"

      If we want a decent life for all we have to get rid of this festering cancer of capitalism. We shouldn't be organising to ask for some more crumbs from the cake, which we made, or please don't squeeze us so hard. We should be organising to take over the entire running of all aspects of our society, all manufacturing and distribution at the dictate of the people's needs, not driven by the greed of a handful of overtly rich useless parasitic leeches.

This from The Void:

      Osborne will force all those out of work for six months and between the ages of 18 and 21 into Traineeships or Work Experience.  Those who refuse will be sent on a Community Work Placement  – 780 hours unpaid work – or face losing benefits completely.  This is a huge turn around for a Government that in early 2012 were falling over themselves trying to persuade people that unpaid Work Experience – for major employers such as ASDA and Poundland – was voluntary.

     Osborne’s speech yesterday made a laughing stock of companies like Tesco and charities like Barnardo’s who have insisted that Work Experience schemes are not workfare.  Even if you bought that, they are now, or will be as soon as Osborne gets his way.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Week Of Action Against Workfare.

      ATOS continues its march of murder across the vulnerable in our society. I recently posted about the the tragic affair of Jacqueline Harris, who took her own life after being deemed fit to work by ATOS and having her disability allowance removed. Well their brutal actions are still bringing misery and death to our people. It was recently reported that Victor Cuff, aged59, who suffered from depression, took his own life, after having his benefits cut when those box ticking bureaucrats at ATOS, assessed him fit for work. How long will we sit back and allow this brutality against the sick and vulnerable people in our community?

       Because that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, doesn't report the full extent of the onslaught against the ordinary people in our communities, lots people are unaware of the full horror of this “austerity” plan. We have workfare, forcing thousands to work for free, for corporate greed merchants, we have people facing the threat of eviction and /or reduced benefits, because of certain circumstances, they find they now have a “spare room” . We have ATOS declaring the sick and vulnerable, fit for work, then there are stagnant wages, while food and energy bills go through the roof. Then let's not forget those thousands, 70,000, at the last estimate, who face hunger and deprivation because of “sanctions”. When one of the growth areas is food banks, you know that society has failed its people. These are all a deliberate attack on the living standards of our people, an attempt to get the UK on course to be part of the new sweatshop Europe. The low wage, low welfare economy, is the corporate world's plan to boost their competitiveness with the Eastern sweatshop empire.

       With a concerted well organised effort we can stop this juggernaut of corporatism and start to build a society we want, one that sees to the needs of all our people. After all we the people make everything on this planet, we distribute everything on this planet, but the system dictates what we make and where we distribute it, and it is all for the benefit of the leeches on our backs, our unnecessary burden of parasites. There are the resources, we have the ability, and we know there is a need, all that is missing is our will to take control and create that better world for all.

      This coming week there is planned week of action against workfare, get involved, employed, unemployed, retired, disabled, homeless, it affects us all, by lowering the standard of living across the board. If we shout loud enough, others will hear and realise that they are not alone. We can change this society.

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

Government Paid Mercenaries!

      When a state carries out policies that kill people in another state, they usually call it war. However, what do you call it when a state carries out policies that kill its own people? Well here in the UK the policies pushed through by the state are killing people. One of them is called “Work Capability Assessment” and the weapon is in the hands of ATOS. I suppose that ATOS being a French company, we should call them mercenaries.

      The number of people who have died after being assessed by ATOS, as fit to work, is well over 100,000. In any war situation these figures would be a national disaster, why does our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, not splash them across banner headlines? Simply because they are on the other side, the side of the murdering state. The latest tragedy in this brutal assault on the disabled and vulnerable, was 53 year old, partially sighted Jacqueline Harris, as well as her problem with her sight she had restricted mobility and was on constant pain relief. However the compassionless bureaucrats, sitting comfortable in their cocooned world of “ticky-boxes” considered her fit to look for work and stripped her of her benefits. It was a pain to far, and sadly Jaqueline Harris took her own life.

    This war against its own people continues on many fronts, the freezing/cutting of wages in the midst of rising energy and food prices, the bedroom tax, putting extra strain on already stretched finances, are just two attacks which are pushing more people into fuel poverty, food banks, deprivation and in turn malnutrition, with the resultant health problems. In truth, these actions are a slow death sentence and are directly responsible for health problems and an early death in thousands of cases. The state by its deliberate policies is killing its own people, all in the name of the economics of the banksters, it is sacrificing the lives of its citizens to bolster and increases the wealth of the already obscenely wealthy. We live in a sacrificial society, where the people are offered up to the god Mammon. 

This from The Void:

     A woman stripped of benefits after being found ‘fit for work’ by Atos has taken her own life the Bristol Post have reported today.

According to the newspaper: 

     “PARTIALLY-sighted and only able to walk with the aid of a stick, Jacqueline Harris suffered crippling pain due to slipped discs in her back and neck. Her mobility was reduced further when a dog savaged one of her wrists. “Despite being in agony which strong pain relief could not ease, the 53-year-old was deemed to be fit for work following a government health assessment and told to find a job.

      “Her sister claims the verdict that she was ineligible for disability benefits drove her to take her own life earlier this month.”

Read the full article HERE:

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

Accelerating To Deprivation.

     This government's eager complicity in the financial Mafia's drive for sweatshop Europe is seen in the number of ways in which they offer their business friends helpings of free labour. They give interviews proclaiming unemployment is falling and the recovery is gaining ground. However, unemployment is falling because thousands of people are on workfare, a government gift of free labour to the corporate greed machine, and as for recovery, well among the ordinary people the recovery is a fairytale. The millionaire's Old Boys network, our government, has now started another way of forcing young people to work for nothing, their “traineeships” scheme. Of course their millionaire buddies in businesses like Boots, Poundland and Kwik-fit, to mention just a few, are more than eager to take on board as much free labour as they can get their hands on. Why employ people for a wage when your friends in government hand you free labour.

       Another smiling comment from the millionaire cabal in charge of our drive to deprivation, is that inflation has fallen from 2.7% to 2.2% and this should ease the pressure on the general public. What a load of bullshit, in that “fall” there is hidden the fact that food has risen by 4.6% and energy bills are set to rise in the region of 10%, how this will ease the pressure on the ordinary household budget has yet to be explained.

     With workfare, traineeships, zero hours contracts, part-time employment, bedroom tax, rocketing food and energy prices, and ATOS killing off the disabled, this government has pressed the accelerator as we spiral down the deprivation road. Sweatshop Europe here we come. 

 

An excerpt from an interesting and informative article by The Void:

Unpaid workers on these schemes are counted as employed, a handy distortion of the figures for a Government that claims they are bringing down unemployment.  With the numbers in part-time work, precarious self-employment or workfare all at record levels, and wages falling far behind inflation, the true picture of the labour market is far from good news. Recent Housing Benefit statistics* show that the number claiming help with housing costs remains at record levels.  Over 5 million people are on this benefit and for the first time, in July 2013, the number of working Housing Benefit claimants topped one million.

 Read the full article HERE:

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

Evictions To Help The Economy!!

      According to Sweet & Maxwell,(legal information providers), tenant evictions by landlords have risen to 36,177 for the year June 2012 to June 2013. This is the highest in 5 years, an increase of 9% on the previous year. We all accept that the governments “bedroom tax” has pushed already struggling tenants over the edge and must be blamed for most of this increase. Of course we should not forget the last few years of enforced austerity measures had already taken thousands to the brink of financial collapse and ever closer to that eviction. As Daniel Dover, co-author of Residential Possession Proceedings, has been quoted as saying, “Rising rents on residential property and falling real wages are trends that have been in place for a number of years, and have stretched the finances of an increasing number of tenants to breaking point.”

      Campaign group False Economy, through a Freedom of Information request, received figures from 114 local authorities, indicating that because of the “bedroom tax”, a minimum of 50,000 are adversely affect and facing rent arrears problems. You can add to that number by approximately 30,000 tenants in housing association property.

      Recently a much smaller survey, found that one household in four, 25%, affected by the “bedroom tax” have found themselves facing rent arrears for the first time. According to the National Housing Federation, just over 50% of 63,578 tenants from 51 housing associations were unable to meet their rent payments in the first few months of the introduction of this tax. The worst affected area being Barrow in Cumbria, where more that 75% of all council tenants have fallen into rent arrears since the introduction of this brutal tax. Other areas are showing figures of around 50%. That is a lot of anxiety, stress and misery.

     We are not alone in seeing this tax on the poor as unfair, brutal and unacceptable, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on housing Raquel Rolnik has called for a rethink on the policy after finding the reform was causing “great stress and anxiety” to “very vulnerable” people.

      Will rent arrears, the ensuing poverty, and the actual and threatening evictions, be the spark that will light the fire? The fire is inevitable, as sparks are flying everywhere, ATOS, workfare, zero hours contracts, decimated social services, continuing austerity in the midst of arrogant wealth, and a government that is no more than a thin mask for blatant corporate greed.

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

When Will We Hear The Cry, Enough Is Enough?

      So Russell Grant thinks there is going to be a revolution, well all the factors are there, Living standards rapidly declining, more and more wealth flowing into a smaller and smaller group of arrogant parasites, necessary resources, oil, gas, water, etc. getting scarce, and a widespread feeling among the ordinary people, that those who are meant to represent them, are corrupt and in the thrall of the disgustingly rich, who are ripping us all off. A feeling that the old ways don't work. The latest two fingers to the so called “representative democracy” by the corporate/financial mafia, was the “big six” energy companies who were summoned to The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, to account for the recent massive price increases. However they were too busy ripping us off that couldn't make it, so sent their minions, a way of showing our arrogant greedy pompous MP's who is boss. No matter who turned up nothing would have happened, it is all a show to give that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, something to spout.

     It is a depressing picture, we live among opulent wealth, yet struggle to feed our families, worry about heating our homes in winter, and live with the knowledge that in this millionaire's club, there is nobody representing us, the ordinary people, the people who produce all this wealth. If that is not a tinderbox waiting for a spark, I don't know what is. What will be the spark? Will it be the increase in avoidable deaths this winter because of fuel poverty? Will it be the ever rising deaths among the sick and vulnerable victims of ATOS? Will it be the families who can no longer stand by and watch their kids going to school hungry? Or will it be that deep feeling in your stomach that enough is enough, and it is time to stand up and do something about this greed driven juggernaut? 

 

    Say the word,”REVOLUTION”, put it into your daily conversation, the more familiar we are with the thought the more likely we are to take up the idea. We have tried everything else and it has all failed miserably. If we want an end to this corrupt, vicious, repressive injustice, we have to think dramatically different, another world is possible, it is up to us. 

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

Glasgow Against ATOS.

A call out from  Glasgow Games Monitor 2014

Thursday 31st October 1pm.

Drop ATOS from the Commonwealth Games – 

Lobby of Glasgow City Council
George Square, Glasgow G2 1DU

Lobby of Glasgow City Council, 

organised by Glasgow Against ATOS.

    We need you! On the 31st October, Councillors of Glasgow City Council will be
debating a motion to drop ATOS as a commonwealth games sponsor. Please come to George Square for a lobby of those councillors who are debating this motion.
     Thousands of people have died after going through the ATOS work capability assessment, ATOS are not fit to be a sponsor of the games and we ask that as many people and organisations let them now how we feel about this immoral company’s involvement in the Commonwealth Games next year.

      FANCY DRESS VERY MUCH ENCOURAGED, ITS HALLOWEEN AFTER ALL SO IF YOU’RE UP FOR IT GET YOUR BEST HAUNTING GEAR ON !

https://www.facebook.com/events/219037268264562/

See previous GM 2014 posts,

commentary and short film of testimonials:
Background: http://gamesmonitor2014.org/2013/10/04/crunch-vote-on-atos-commonwealth-games-role/
Commentary: http://gamesmonitor2014.org/2013/08/08/atos-kills-and-it-has-accomplices/
Short film of testimonials against ATOS: http://gamesmonitor2014.org/2013/10/24/unfit-for-2014-campaign-film/

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

The Smothering Of Potential And The Destruction Of People.

      It is difficult to quantify the damage being done to the ordinary people of this country by this millionaire regime sitting in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. Is it the damage done by their smashing of the education system, is it facing the choice of eating or heating, is it the brutal attack on the disabled by ATOS, is it the working for nothing slave labour workfare scheme, is it the inhuman zero hours contracts, is it the bedroom tax, is it the lack of support when things don't work out in your life. Probably most of all it is the illusion they peddle, that this is a fair society, and if you work hard you'll do just fine. We tend to think that people could be hit by one of the problems mentioned above. However the brutal truth is that you can be savaged by some or all of these injustices, as you struggle through this greed driven system of exploitation, capitalism has no compassion. The damage is not a one-of blow, it is a cumulative assault on the person, that can and does damage them for the rest of their lives. Bullying, harassing, and degrading people is spouted as criminal, but our millionaire cabal, under the stamp of legitimacy granted to them by "the state", can do it daily and on a widespread basis, with impunity. Only the people can call them to justice, and surely our patience is running thin.

     The following letter was offered to Glasgow Against ATOS. It speaks volumes on what is wrong in this type of society. Bright intelligent, hard working people being destroyed, as their potential is trodden in the mire of an unjust and brutal system. We can surely do better than this for all our people.

Someone has very bravely asked us to share this honest letter to their MP. ***Warning: could trigger; report of suicide attempts.

Dear MP,
      I meet you back in 2007 at ***** school while you where presenting to the sixth form year. I was one the only one in that group to say I was interested in politics. You probably don’t remember me but I do remember you. I found your presentation very interesting and actually a lot better than the Lib Dem local MP presentation. You actually inspired my keen interest in politics.

     Since then I was presented with an Anti-bullying Diana award by Ed Balls, meet Gordon Brown and even had meetings (although short) with Ed Balls. I was also a founding member of the Young Anti-bullying Alliance. Then once I turned 20 I became an advisor to the group passing on my knowledge and skills to the younger members as well as being emotional support and encouragement. In 2011, when Tories and Lib Dem came to power, the Young anti-bullying alliance was disbanded due to decrees in funding for both the princess Diana memorial awards and the anti-bullying alliance. That was a sad day for all our members and it was heart breaking to say goodbye to the young people I had been mentoring, which also included young people from mencap.

       2011 was an eventful year for me as I also finished my psychology degree, and I have to say I was very fond of the psychology of politics and terrorism module. I learnt a lot and I was hooked on every word during the lectures. Despite being severely dyslexic I made it through my three year degree and had a great sense of achievement at the end of it.

        All of us left university with great ideas of what we could do with our lives, ambitions and lustre to work up the ladder in a career we would enjoy and keep us interested. Ah that almost childish enjoyment of being 21 again and gently nudged into the world of work. All of us started applying for work before we left university, looking for the best we could get and keeping our hopes up. After about three months of looking none of my friend group had found any work and we were starting to feel the drain of the “real world”.

      I can’t speak for our entire group from university, but I ended up getting to my 22nd birthday and crying because I had no job, no money and a lot of debt left over from university. I finally got a full time job in February, though it was far from perfect. I worked hard and ended up getting promoted in the summer.

     However I was working 60+ hours to even earn a decent wage. The hours took a drain on me and I ended up being diagnosed with depression in November 2012 the second time in my life. I wanted to hold onto my job but knew that I could not go on without treatment. So I referred myself to CBT. This only help to a certain extent but due to family commitments I had to keep working, I soon received a demotion as I could not keep up with my work load. This caused my first suicide attempt, which luckily my family intervened and my GP became very supportive of me. Helping me to take time off work and even stand up for me when I was given 40+ hours work when I should have been on a phase back to work.

      However my mental health was not improving and there were problems at home. I had no outlet and no ability to deal with distressing emotions or incidents in my life. Finally one day I was in a meeting with my boss, the word safeguarding was mentioned and I cracked like I have never cracked before. I could not stop crying, I was a failure and I couldn’t even do my job, my boss was also saying how I seemed to “space out” at work and I was thinking it was due to alcohol. I wanted to quit back in November and again during the meeting. However I was not going to get JSA if I left my job and I had financial commitments.

      April the 5th 2013. MY LIFE ENDED.
Everything I had known up to that day changed, I was rushed to hospital by my friends as I screamed and cried and tried to wrestle my way out of the car onto the motorway. I had in an automatic and uncontrollable moment bought alcohol after I left work, I had my painkillers with me and the roof of the car park at the back of town just looked as if it was a good place. I had tried to contact someone I felt I could talk to before this although I do not recall what time exactly but no answer. Anyway no longer having the courage to jump I decided to go sit by the abbey. It was a beautiful place and it relaxed me. I was sobbing on the bench as people walked past, downing my vodka and pills. I couldn’t go on living. I was in an unskilled and undervalued job with low pay and my family was a mess. I could not afford to move out from my parents and every part of my soul felt drained. There was nothing happy left. Society had drained me and far too quickly. I still wonder what the point of life is to this day.

       Since then I had spent 48 hours in an acute unit, 8 weeks in an acute day treatment unit and been on sickness benefits. I’ve had different diagnosis from reoccurring depressive disorder to depression and psychosis. I hear voices when I am distressed and upset. I do things which I cannot control and I feel like I am now a drain on society. However I decided that I will take the time I need to recover and plan on in the future becoming a productive member of society.

      Now that you have had my life story I feel I should explain why I am writing to you. Since your party has been in government I feel as if not only myself but everyone like me has been tarred with the same brush. We are called work shy, made to go to numerous assessments and generally harassed by your party for being disabled. I may not have a leg missing or some major physical disability, but that is not the defining point for being classed as disabled or unable to work.

        I ask of you to help stand up for people who do not have a voice. Such as me, I am only able to write to you, I cannot travel to London and protest because I cannot stand in a crowd without having panic attacks or a “psychotic episode.” I am scared to stand up for myself as I fear backlash from the public. I hide the fact I have mental health problems as your party continues to persuade the public of how we are lazy, workshy and undeserving of help.

        I understand that the economy does not permit the government the luxury of just handing out a cushioned lifestyle to people who cannot work and you are even trying to help people who may be able to return to work, one day reach that goal. However I believe that your party is attempting to, if not already, trying to breech the human rights of the disabled.

      Remember that a society is judged on how it treats it poor and vulnerable.

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

Full Circle, Victorian Poverty To Osborne Poverty.

      How far will this government of millionaires go in creating its section of the European sweatshop economy? Well as far as we will let them. Though they failed to get voted in, they managed to cobble together a cabal of privileged parasitical millionaires to push through their agenda of low wage anti-union policies at the behest of the financial/corporate mafia. However they are by no means finished, there are some very vicious plans still to be implemented. Having attacked the unemployed with slave labour "workfare", brutally assaulted  the disabled by means of ATOS, bludgeoned individuals and families with the "bedroom tax" and coerced those working into accepting zero hours contracts, Old Etonian millionaire Osborne, has a super plan to bring back the Victorian workhouse conditions. Come April, all unemployed will be forced to do 30 hours a week of unpaid of charity work, or lose their benefits. If you can't find a job, you can be expected to be out picking up litter etc. saving the council money, and allowing them to pay off some more workers, to be forced to the same work. How you are supposed to find work while doing 30 hours a week slave labour is not mentioned. The reason being that they are well aware that there are no jobs.

      All this bodes well for their corporate  friends, forced labour, and shrinking wages and the promise of more "anti-union legislation". The phrase, "anti-union legislation" translates as an attack on all our working conditions, including health and safety. As far as the corporate greed machine is concerned, health and safety is costly, and that money could be used for shareholders bonuses. After all people are cheap, much cheaper than health and safety. Since taking the reigns of power, this millionaire cabal have managed to cut the average family income, in real terms, by £1,300 annually, and remember, they are talking about the "austerity" conditions lasting until 2018. How much will your average income have shrivelled to by then?

      It is all going to plan, sweatshop Europe is well under way, wages have fallen by approximately 10% since 2010, the unemployed will work for nothing, unions are being decimated, so firing at will isn't a problem, and zero hours contracts take a load off the employers responsibilities. In the marble halls of the corporate world, the champagne glasses are clinking in honour of the Osborne/Cameron attack on the working class.

Following extract from Mirror News:

     He said taking more money off the wealthy to pay for schools, hospitals and defence was “not sensible for a country if it wants to support wealth creation”. On the opening day of the conference he also announced policies that included pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights. And his shift to the right was reinforced by party chairman Grant Shapps who set out plans for new anti-union laws – as his boss appeared to doze off in the audience.

Read the full article HERE:

     This is the best we can expect from this type of economic system, it's called capitalism. That means make lots of money for corporations at the expense of the people employed. However, it is not the only game in town, as we are continually told. There are other ways to shape our society, there is co-operation, mutual aid, producing to see to the needs of all our people and sustainability. We can create structures that serve us the people, rather than a market, controlled by billionaires. The parasites need us, we don't need them.

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

Eating Or Heating.

      As you ruminate on your problem of eating or heating, your mate in workfare, your disabled neighbour facing ATOS, and your friend on zero hours contract, perhaps you could spare a thought for Bruce Rockowitz and Coco Lee. This couple got married recently and their wedding is reported to have cost $20 million, yes, $20 million. Bruce, is one of those products of the capitalist system, creating personal wealth from sweatshop exploitation, his 2012 income is reported as almost $7 million, while his bride Coco, a Hong Kong pop star, not short of a bob or two herself, likewise is a product of this system.

 

      This typifies the glaring injustice in the economic system we tolerate, two relatively young people have amassed an unbelievable fortune. One from exploiting desperate vulnerable people, the other by being the subject of media hype. While the most of us put in a full days work all our lives, creating the wealth that they enjoy, and we just about get by. We live amidst an abundance of wealth that we created, yet most live in poverty, is that the best we can do?

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

Are We Getting Angry?

        Are we getting angry? Workfare, where thousands of people are forced to work for multinationals and receive no pay. Are we getting angry? ATOS, in its quest to make money from ticking boxes has seen almost two thousand disabled people it claimed were fit for work, die within moths of their decision. Are we getting angry? The governments “bedroom tax” is threatening to break up families, force homes into debt, and have the threat of eviction hanging over the heads vulnerable people. Are we getting angry? The six big energy companies are making billions of pounds and are increasing their prices this winter, while there are almost 4 million people in the UK living in fuel poverty. Are we getting angry? 4 million children in the UK, one in every three, are living in poverty, this is the highest of any developed industrial nation in the world. Some districts in this country have a much higher rate, with Springburn in the north of Glasgow topping the league with a criminal rate of 52% of children living in poverty. Are we getting angry? Zero hours contracts are growing like weeds in an unkempt garden. Meaning you are employed but have no guarantee of hours, so no idea how much you will earn. You sit with your phone handy, hoping your boss will phone and offer you a few hours work, but you are off the unemployed figures. Are we getting angry? Here in the UK, average wages have, in real terms, fallen by approximately 10% since 2008, while the gap between rich and poor gets wider by the month. Are we getting angry? While ordinary families are squeezed by “austerity measures” meaning lower incomes and rising prices, the number of millionaire households in the UK grew by 98,000 in 2012. Whose recession? Are we getting angry? We are being driven to the deprivation of the Victorian era, by our lords and masters, as they plunder our public assets, Royal Mail etc., as gifts to their friends in the financial/corporate Mafia.

 

     Are we getting angry? If not why not? There is an old Korean saying that I think we should ponder during these times. Enjoy the ecstasy of your righteous anger. Our anger in the present circumstances, would most certainly be righteous.

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

Glasgow ATOS Picket And Photos.

      This month's picket outside the Glasgow offices of ATOS was held on Friday July 26th. The picket was a poignant affair as the assembled group held a minutes silence for one of ATOS's latest victims Elenore Tatton, a 39 year mum who died shortly after being assessed as fit for work.

       The number of ATOS victims who have died shortly after being assessed fit for work is well over a thousand and growing monthly. This is not a series of unfortunate accidents, this is the result of an ideological process being driven by those greedy parasites devoid of compassion, who sit in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, and who follow the dictate of their masters in the financial Mafia.

      The whole process of ATOS is an attack on the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, it is part and parcel of the plundering of the public purse, for no other reason than to satisfy the world's gang of corrupt banksters. It's called balancing the books, but the figures are written in the blood of the sick and vulnerable from our communities. Are we counting the dead in this war against our people?

     This video is the case of another killing at the hands of ATOS, its victims are easy to find.

ann arky's home.