Today In Taksim Square.

      The latest from Taksim Square, the police have went in with force this morning and useing water canon and teargas and are charging the protesters in a brutal attack to try to clear the Square. The latest video  from the BBC gives some idea as to what is actually going on. Some photographs here. Also this short video from Reuters shows police numbers.

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A Cull Of The Working Class.

 This from "brickburner":

The Cull of the working class.

        As we all know by now, the dreaded Bedroom Tax has arrived. This of course is the latest of a long list of attacks on working class people. We must be careful not to view these attacks in isolation – they constitute a coordinated assault on working class people particularly the most vulnerable members of society; the sick and disabled. It has been estimated that eight in ten people affected by the Bedroom Tax are disabled. Many of those have already been through a work capability assessment conducted by the French firm Atos, on behalf of the Department of Works and Pensions, which has resulted in them losing their benefits.

      Michael Meacher M.P. led a commons debate on the 17th. January this year in which he criticised almost every aspect of Atos’s operations including the thousands of people who have died after being declared fit for work. You can see his speech on You Tube. Atos has been widely and repeatedly criticised by the British Medical Association, and is subject to constant lobbying by disabled groups throughout the country. This callous treatment of the sick and disabled goes hand in hand with the emergence of a new and sinister trend of political thought has developed over the term of the present Government, which sees welfare benefit claimants and those at the very bottom of society as lazy, dishonest stupid scroungers who are less than human.

       The Government’s sustained attacks on the weakest in society are reminiscent of the Nazis treatment of some of their own citizens prior to the beginning of the Second World War when they “assessed” the sick and disabled to see if they were physically and mentally fit to live. Those human beings whom they termed Lebensunwertes Leban-“life unworthy of life”, and “useless eaters” were callously exterminated. The German authorities managed to persuade the population at large through written and pictorial propaganda, that this extermination was morally acceptable and that the sick and disabled were a drain on the economy. They managed to do this by “dehumanising” people.

      An article in The Guardian on 11May 2013, reported on research carried out at the University of Louvain by Jacque-Philippe Leyens which suggests that low status groups including the poor, homeless people, drug addicts and welfare claimants are seen by others as less than “fully human”. Leyens has coined the term “infrahumanisation”- the infra for “below”, as in below or less than fully human to describe this development of everyday dehumanisation. As Robert de Vries in the Guardian article puts it, “The Government’s cuts to welfare benefits are causing real harm to a lot of innocent people, nevertheless, remarkable numbers seem to be willing to support them”, and, “People struggling to get by in their own lives will find it hard to sympathise with those they feel are getting a free ride”.

     The Government propaganda about “shirkers” and “strivers not skivers” seems therefore to be working. Unfortunately, on programmes such as “Question Time”, these phrases have been enthusiastically adopted by many members of the audience. This of course is a classic example of the “Divide and Conquer” strategy being employed against the working class.

      Another ruse used by the Government to justify their unremitting attacks on the working class is the mythology that cuts are necessary, and “that we are all in this together”. The idea that those at the top of society will suffer just as much as those at the bottom would be laughable if it were not so insulting and contemptible; the very people who decided to cut the living standards of working class people are in the process of voting themselves a pay rise of between £10 to £20 thousand pounds a year. Most of us would be delighted to live on just the pay rise, but in fact MP’s will now get more than £75,000 a year-some of them want £100,000, - yet they have the nerve to say that we all have to share the pain! And of course the Bankers still get their bonuses and Multi-nationals manage to dodge paying tax.

     The claim that cuts in public services are necessary at all is a complete lie. As Tony Benn once said, “If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people”. According to U.K. Government figures Britain spent at least £9.24 billion in Iraq and £11.1 billion in Afghanistan between April 2001 and March 2010, and that’s not taking into account what has been squandered from 2010 till now. The so-called Ministry of Defence lost £74 million pounds of taxpayers’ money recently on a cancelled order for fighter jets. (Richard Johnstone, Public Finance 10 May 2013). So it would seem that there is plenty of money to wage illegal and pointless wars, but not enough money to create a caring peaceful society.

       There is another war going on at the moment; it is the class war. A war waged by those at the top of society against those at the bottom. We are the victims of this war. For generations working class people have had to endure poor wages, bad and often dangerous working conditions, industrial illnesses and long periods of financial hardship. Working class people are still being killed daily in this war. Literally thousands of people die every year after Atos has passed them fit for work. People have been forced to work for benefit money; before long regular workers will be sacked then they too can work for slave wages and will join the millions of others living below the breadline. Warren Buffett an American billionaire business magnate once said, “There’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class - the rich class that’s making war, and we’re winning!”

      Through these measures, the Government has upped the ante in their war against the disabled and unemployed. If you aren’t in work, or are sick or disabled you don’t deserve to live, - you are a useless eater! In this war against the working class the sick, the disabled and the unemployed are being culled. The Government are killing working class people. If this seems far fetched, you only have to remember this, the entire Nazi extermination programme which culminated in the Holocaust, started in 1939 with the T4 euthanasia program which targeted sick and disabled people. If the German people had resisted at this stage the Second World War may never have happened.

      The only way we can prevent history repeating itself, is for ordinary working class people to organise and fight back. We have to combat the Bedroom Tax and all the other cuts that the Government and their friends in big business are trying to impose on us. We have to rely on ourselves and not on politicians; they are part of the problem not the solution! Above all, we have to overcome the State’s attempts to divide and rule us; we need to show our fellow workers that we have nothing in common with the boss class and that we must build our own organisations and strong communities to unite against them.

Only then can we hope to win the class war.

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How To Increase Your Workforce Without Increasing Your Wage Bill.

         Are there any idiots out there who believe that Poundland and Homebase etc., take on unemployed people under the ConDem's workfare scheme simply to help them find a job? I have no doubt across the country's boardrooms the discussions will be around how many they can take on in an attempt to keep down their wage bill. It's great value, a subsidy from the government to their millionaire friends, free labour, slavery with the stamp of legitimacy.

      Continuous demonstrations against this modern day slave labour scheme have been responsible for some companies dropping out of this government gift scheme to their corporate buddies, they don't like the bad publicity, it could damage their profit margins, they want you the public to love them. More needs to be done to kill this scheme dead. However, Homebase have just blown away any illusions that were there, about this being for the benefit of the unemployed.

 Photo from Pride's Purge.

From The Guardian:

     Leaked internal document appears to promote the use of unpaid jobseekers to reduce company payroll costs. Homebase has been accused of "vulture" business practices after a leaked internal document appeared to promote the idea of using unpaid jobseekers to keep down company payroll costs. The DIY retailer confirmed that a photo of more than a dozen unemployed jobseekers from the government's work experience programme, captioned, "Would 750 hours with no payroll costs benefit YOUR store?" was produced by company staff for an internal discussion.

Of course you can forget all that crap about it being voluntary

Again from The Guardian:

     Jobseekers have been made to do compulsory unpaid work for up to four weeks after refusing to take part in the voluntary work experience scheme. The revelation, supported by documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, calls into question the concessions made to the voluntary programme last month, which removed a two-week benefit sanction imposed on those dropping out of that scheme, as refusal to complete a placement on the compulsory scheme can lead to jobseekers' benefits being stopped for three to six months.

     This is the grand plan, get wages down to sweatshop level, cut all social spending, (reduces big businesses tax bills) and then force those who can't find work into a job for no wages. That way our beloved corporate benefactors will be able to compete with all the other sweatshop economies across the globe. Who can possible object to that plan?

     Day by day it becomes more obvious that this greed driven system called capitalism has nothing to offer the ordinary people, we get screwed on a daily basis by well coiffured, shiny suited, (Boris Johnston excepted) millionaires. How they must laugh when at their sumptuous dinner parties, they sarcastically talk about austerity and us all being in this together. I can hear them in their mansions, giggle over cocktails as they joke about the "bedroom tax". I can imagine the conversation in their posh clubs, as they discuss how many employees they can take on-board without paying them a penny in wages. Are we waiting to see if they will change and perhaps share their cake with us? We'll have a long wait.

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"We Have A Pope".

      "We have a Pope" and so the stench of the church continues, as one scandal ridden chief shuffles off another steps in to carry on the whole sorry mess of the corrupt Church PLC. Benedict with his shady Hitler Youth past, and the ever present flow of financial and sexual scandals, slips out of the limelight, and now Francis, friend of Argentina's 1976 brutal military junta takes the reigns.

     The church's history is a catalogue of brutality, sexual crimes, financial fiddlings and siding with all manner of brutal autocratic regimes in an attempt to further and protect its wealth and power, and its maniacal desire to control the minds and bodies of the people of world. Those who seek freedom and justice can have no truck with such a vile institution. As long as it exists, freedom is in chains.

An extract from a Guardian Article:

 What one did not hear from any senior member of the Argentinian hierarchy was any expression of regret for the church's collaboration and in these crimes. The extent of the church's complicity in the dark deeds was excellently set out by Horacio Verbitsky, one of Argentina's most notable journalists, in his book El Silencio (Silence). He recounts how the Argentinian navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment.

Read the full article HERE:

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Faslane Update.

ACTION AT FASLANE TODAY:
Peace Activists target UK’s Nuclear Hypocrisy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday 3rd February  

      In the early hours of this morning (Monday 3rd February) two peace activists, Sylvia Boyes and Mary Millington were arrested attempting to enter Faslane home to the UK’s nuclear submarines. Their actions come a week after David Cameron pledged to increase defence spending including investment in nuclear weapons. The Ministry of Defence also admitted that chancellor George Osborne is already signing off millions of pounds worth of investment on nuclear submarines before a parliamentary decision on the issue is to be taken[i].
Sylvia Boyes, a long term term Peace Activist and member of Trident Ploughshares[ii] said:
      “When the government of my country fails in its democratic duty to disseminate the necessary information to initiate real debate on nuclear weapons how can I continue not to act? The building work and development for the Trident replacement at Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment continues unabated despite the government saying no decision is to be made until the next Parliament in 2015. We here in the UK must face up to our role in the silent acceptance of the proliferation of weapons of mass murder and mass destruction.
      I remain convinced that all nuclear weapons are weapons of mass murder and mass destruction and are therefore illegal under international laws of war. This is not a one off action but one of many to create a climate of opinion to enable the government to take part in real disarmament negotiations. My banner ‘Nuclear Disarmament if not now, when?” is asking that question for us all to answer” Large protests are expected in April this year at both Aldermaston and Faslane as campaigners continue to press for a real debate on nuclear weapons and to scrap plans for over £100bn to be spent on a Trident Replacement system.
       On learning of their arrest Dave Webb, Chair of CND[iii], commented:
“At a time when people are suffering the consequences of such brutal cuts to welfare and social services – the government needs to take action on its choices for spending. Why is the government so intent on wasting billions of pounds on useless nuclear weapons while citizens suffer severe economic hardship? It is hardly surprising that citizens like Sylvia and Mary become so frustrated with the lack of progress that they feel they have to personally challenge the tragic waste of money and morally indefensible Trident system.”
For further details contact Dominic Linley at Dominic@yorkshirecn.org.uk or on 01274 730 795 / 07939 143 698  

[i]http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/31/trident-uk-military-shopping-list
[ii] Trident Ploughshares is a campaign to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a non-violent, open, peaceful and fully accountable manner http://www.tridentploughshares.org/
[iii] Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe's biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 32,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of nuclear weapons everywhere. www.cnduk.org

 

Trident subs, aircraft carriers and drones on MoD's £160bn shopping list www.guardian.co.uk Margaret Hodge raises doubts on whether massive weapons spending has been approved by National Audit... ann arky's home

 

THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES.

        As austerity bites, the ingenuity of the ordinary people find alternatives to this corporate driven insanity that attempts to control every aspect of our lives. Which, of course, proves that there are alternatives, there is a better way. Let's hope what is happening in Greece, with their alternative economy, catches on and does what they say it won't do, replace the Euro and develops enough to undermine the present system. You have eggs, I fix washing machines, let's talk??

This from The Guardian:

       It's been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done good business with her fresh pies.
But not a single euro has changed hands – none of the customers on this drizzly Saturday morning has bothered carrying money at all. For many, browsing through the racks of second-hand clothes, electrical appliances and homemade jams, the need to survive means money has been usurped.
     "It's all about exchange and solidarity, helping one another out in these very hard times," enthused Ioanitou, her hair tucked under a floppy felt cap. "You could say a lot of us have dreams of a utopia without the euro."
       In this bustling port city at the foot of Mount Pelion, in the heart of Greece's most fertile plain, locals have come up with a novel way of dealing with austerity – adopting their own alternative currency, known as the Tem. As the country struggles with its worst crisis in modern times, with Greeks losing up to 40% of their disposable income as a result of policies imposed in exchange for international aid, the system has been a huge success. Organisers say some 1,300 people have signed up to the informal bartering network.
       For users such as Ioanitou, the currency – a form of community banking monitored exclusively online – is not only an effective antidote to wage cuts and soaring taxes but the "best kind of shopping therapy". "One Tem is the equivalent of one euro. My oil and soap came to 70 Tem and with that I bought oranges, pies, napkins, cleaning products and Christmas decorations," said the mother-of-five. "I've got 30 Tem left over. For women, who are worst affected by unemployment, and don't have kafeneia [coffeehouses] to go to like men, it's like belonging to a hugely supportive association."
      Greece's deepening economic crisis has brought new users. With ever more families plunging into poverty and despair, shops, cafes, factories and businesses have also resorted to the system under which goods and services – everything from yoga sessions to healthcare, babysitting to computer support – are traded in lieu of credits.

Read the full article HERE:

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MPs' £1.8M IN PERKS REVEALED.

       It seems that our elected representatives are still riding the gravy train. Guardian research has revealed that little groups of our MPs have received bungs, handouts, backhanders, or in parliamentary parlance, donations/contributions to the tune of £1.8 million last year. Of course all those generous givers were doing it out of the goodness of their heart and had no intentions of expecting anything in return. It seems that these "all-party parliamentary groups" are little bunches of MPs with specific interests and they get loads-a-cash and gifts from wealth donors and large corporate bodies, all of course with nothing on their mind but the well being of our poor MPs. Have you ever had cash and gifts given to you by wealthy parasites or corporate bodies? Well perhaps it is because they think that MPs are an endangered species and they want to try to preserve them. Can you honestly believe that all this £1.8 million was given with a smile and then the donor melted into the background never to trouble our MPs again, except perhaps to hand in another bung, sorry donation/contribution. The stench that oozes out of that place, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption  chokes the nostrils of any honest being.

Can I help you? I'm a member of an All-party Parliamentary Group.

MPs' £1.8m in perks revealed

Guardian research finds that gifts and funding included trips to 27 countries and £32,000 donation to parliamentary choir.
Donations to all-party parliamentary groups: get the data

Businesses, overseas governments and lobby groups have given sponsorship, free gifts and funding worth at least £1.8m to MPs and Lords in the past year through all-party parliamentary groups, Guardian research has revealed.

More than 300 all-party groups – semi-official groupings of MPs and Lords interested in a particular subject – have received funding or support from outside groups, including:

• Trips to 27 countries including China, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Taiwan, Thailand, Israel and Liechtenstein for members of 15 groups.

• A £32,000 donation from BT Global Services to fund concerts for the parliamentary choir.

• Contributions totalling more than £117,000 for "associate membership" – at £8,400 a time – of the all-party group on health, from companies including AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and actuaries Milliman.

• Free membership for MPs and Lords of the Slimming World all-party parliamentary group and the Weight Watchers group. Each group has about 20 members who are MPs or peers, drawn from all the main parties.

Continue READING:

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GUNS ON THE STREETS.

          

          According to a recent Guardian article by Allan Travis, it seems that the UK millionaire cabal is considering employing water cannon, plastic bullets and live ammunition to deal with disturbances on our street. I have a sneaking suspicion that the wealthy parasites are looking ahead at the possibility of the UK public taking to the streets in anger at the continued slashing of their standard of living, to fund bankers aid. They would want to be prepared and have every form of repression and intimidation stamped with their badge of legality before the events. Of course the British state has used live ammunition on our streets before now. Excluding Northern Ireland, we can go back to 1919 when we saw British troops line Glasgow city centre, docks and place machine gunners on top of the City Chambers Building in George Square and other buildings in the city. This was after disturbances during the “40 hour week” strike, an event that became know as "Bloody Friday".  In  Liverpool the troops shot and killed two strikers on the street during the 1911 dockers strike. So if there are those out there that view the violence in Egypt etc. and think that it couldn't happen here, well read your history and think again, it has, and it could again. The state will always do what it needs to do to protect the wealth and power of those whose hands are on the power levers. The people must be kept in their place, as far as the parasites are concerned.

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WAR IS OUR BUSINESS!!

        It is quite frightening how the “Free Democratic Peace Loving West” can drum up all manner of reasons to attack, invade and destroy so many countries across the globe. Our most recent list includes, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to mention a few. Now our war hungry political class is screwing up the tension for having a go at Syria and Iran. There are those who claim that the war against Iran has already started with covert attacks on industrial installations and the assassination of a general. What drives our war crazy “leaders”? Do you honestly believe it is all for the benefit of the Iraqis, Afghans and Libyans? Or is it big money corporatism seeking control over all the planet's valuable resources? The following is a short extract from a recent article in The Guardian, it is well worth reading the whole article.

"---The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn't want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US – which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region – Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.

Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?---"

Continue reading.

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THE PRIVATISATION OF OUR HEALTH SERVICE.

        The privatisation of the National Health Service is steadily moving along. It is of course disguised as many things, from incompetence of management, inefficiency of all the staff and the service they give, and of course the big propaganda lie, that the corporate world could do it all much better and much cheaper. The fact that our health service probably rates with the best in the world, is never taken into account, we still have to move towards the American model. America, a country where there are over 46 million people who have no health cover what so ever.

       Our millionaire ConDem cabinet, of course will do everything in their power to see that the corporate world gets its greedy hands on all our public assets, and the Health Service is seen as a prize gem, where billions can be made. After all those who rule the corporate world are the friends and old school mates of our millionaire cabal in the Westminster Houses of Corruption and Hypocrisy. So they will do what they can to help their friends, and besides, most of them will have a million or two invested in the various private healthcare companies across the globe.

        Reading the letters in The Guardian on line, recently, there were two that I thought threw a lot of light on the subject of the National Health Service privatisation, here they are.

Your report (11 November) that the management of Hinchingbrooke hospital will be taken over by the private company Circle Healthcare and that the government sees this as a solution for "cash-strapped NHS hospitals" like this one which "has accumulated debts of £40m" fails to question the economics behind this idea. Surely, as a service free to patients, an NHS hospital cannot make money or get into debt.

The 20 hospitals said to be struggling financially are short of cash because of the artificial constraints of the internal market initiated under John Major, much loved by New Labour and currently being converted towards full privatisation under the Con-Dem government. For 30 years our governments have told us to love the free market, but privatised public services are run under rigged markets to allow private companies to profit at the expense of taxpayers. Now the economic imbalances of the NHS's internal market are being used as propaganda in moving towards full privatisation of health on the disastrous American model, a real free market that favours the rich.

When will the media attack the gobbledegook economics of Cameron and Lansley? A free NHS has the amount of money the government decides to spend on it. Its hospitals do not get into "debt".
Name omitted. London

• It is perhaps little wonder Circle Healthcare was given the go-ahead to run the Hinchingbrooke hospital. The company recruited a former aide to health secretary Andrew Lansley as head of communications. Christina Lineen spent two years working for Lansley prior to him becoming health secretary. In addition, Conservative MP for Boston & Skegness Mark Simmonds, who was a minister when the healthcare reforms were drawn up, was paid £50,000 a year to work just 10 hours a month as "strategic adviser" to Circle Healthcare. These cases are of course not alone; members from all main parties have direct links to companies that will benefit from the increase in NHS privatisation. Our democracy is broken.
Name omitted. London

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