Gamblers!!

 

 Image courtesy of Daily Mail.

            It is par for the course for greed to prevail in the capitalist system. Cast your mind back to 2007-2009 financial crash. The banking system went bust, they had been dealing in dodgy packages, selling them on and hoping nobody looked inside the packages, as they were worth nothing, but generated cash for the big banks. However some people did look inside the packages and found the had been sold a pig in poke. And the system collapsed under the weight greed driven gambling. In steps you and I with our tax money and bailed the banks out to the tune of approximately £140 billion. This lead to ten years of austerity as we paid the price of the greed driven gambling frenzy of the financial institutions. So the banking system was looked at and lo and behold, it was found to be lacking in any regulations to stop this crazy greedy driven gambling with our money. So regulations were brought in to tighten how the financial Mafia used our money and prevent this happening again, and it seemed to work. 

Image courtesy of The Mirror.

         However our political masters have decided that the banking industry is far too regulated, so are setting about removing all those regulations to prevent insane financial gambling by the financial Mafia. Now they can let rip all the greed driven insanity in making a quick buck at any expense. Hold on to your braces, another crash is now very much a possibility, and once again you and I will be expected to bail them out. If we do this time, then we deserve all we get. We should never have our lives dictated to us by the millionaire/billionaire parasites. They gamble to get rich quick, smiling as they go, as they believe, they are to big to fail. Surely enough is enough, it's time to bring this whole madhouse of greedy driven economic insanity crashing down around the heads of the parasitic few. We don't need them to tell us how to live our lives, we can make a much better job on our own. We know the society we want, mutual aid, sustainability, co-operation, equality and justice and seeing to the needs of all our people. We will never get it under the corporate capitalist/financial Mafia yoke

Image courtesy of Daily Mail.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

The Street?

          We, the ordinary people are at war. I'm not talking about the war of missiles and drones, but the war we have fought for generations, the class war. Year in year out the conglomerate of corporate beasts have have grabbed more and more of the world's resources and in their never ending drive to increase profits, we have been hit time and time again with punishing austerity, inflation, cuts to social services, which translates into poverty and destitution for millions. Once again with great viciousness, the attack is on the ordinary people, and as winter approaches we are facing cold homes, insufficient food on the table, with the result being stunted children and elderly and vulnerable people dying earlier than would be normally.
           This is a constant fight and it will not be won in the marble halls of power, nor in the debating rooms of unions. It will be won on the streets, we surrender the streets at our peril. It is important that we take our anger and frustration on to the streets in organised vast numbers. To win that decent life for all, we must be prepared to do our debating with direct action on the streets, in our communities and workplaces. The good life will not be handed to you by the wealthy and powerful, we'll have to take what we create and turn it into a society of mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people.
          Perhaps we can learn something from recent history, the mass protests of Gilets Jaunes

The following from Enough is Enough. 

           On November 17, 2018, a new kind of movement exploded in the face of many observers and took the trade unions and political parties, who were convinced they had a monopoly on protest, by surprise: the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement.

Originally published by Contre Attaque. Translated by Riot Turtle. 

 

         Officially 287,710 demonstrators, probably 10 times more, had spread around 2000 traffic circles across the country, created new spaces for discussion. The demonstrations were heterogeneous, many of them were not used to protesting. We all remember the call of truck driver Ghislain Coutard improvising a rallying symbol, the yellow safety vest. His anger and his genius call “We all have a yellow vest in the car! Put it on your dashboard in front of you all week long. It will be a little color code to show that you support the movement”.
        In the weeks that followed, a strange phenomenon: we all looked at each other on the streets, as if to count ourselves. And there are many of us… You know the rest: 65 weeks of mobilization, thousands of injured demonstrators and an estimated 1.800 injured among the forces of order. The mobilization was unprecedented, but so was the violent repression.
        In 2018 alone, the police fired 19,071 LBD bullets and launched 5,420 rounds of grenade ammunition. Total repression. The victories, unfortunately, are not as numerous. Although the carbon tax has been buried, the list of 42 demands has remained largely unheeded.
        The few measures that have been saved at the simulacrum of a citizens’ assembly will be further eroded by amendments in Parliament. Not sure that this is what the Gilets Jaunes had in mind when they demanded more direct democracy.
        4 years later, most of the initial Gilets Jaunes groups don’t exist anymore, but some activists persist and don’t hesitate to support other militant collectives. From their chaotic course, let us retain that the Gilets Jaunes movement knew how to show all the old street movements the need to renew the way to mobilize. A lesson still far from being integrated if we observe the success of the last call of the CGT in France…
          It would be good not to leave the monopoly of mobilizations to these union organizations again, who usually organize nice demonstrations and then leave. The success of the Sainte-Soline mobilization shows it, we have to fight in a different way. Mobilize people who use different strategies and create cohesion between “peaceful” and “determined” protests. The Gilets Jaunes knew how to blow on the embers of social movements, it’s up to us to set things on fire!

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Black Hole

 Image courtesy of Know Law.

 

            Is austerity necessary or unnecessary, after all it is just to balance the books to the satisfaction of the financial Mafia. According to our Rishi Sunak team we have a £50 billion black hole in our finances and it has to be filled. However according to a group of economic experts, it isn't there. It appears it is all down to the way you do your calculations, and apparently Rishi, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 2020-2021 changed the way we do our counting the state finances, so now we have a £50 billion black hole. If however we revert to the previous accounting method, we end up with a £14 billion surplus. It seems that the figures are all based on predictions, you just pick the way you make your predictions. So it seems we have a choice, either a £50 billion black hole or a £14 billion surplus, however, we will not be given that choice, that's up to the lovers of the markets and the financial Mafia. The £50 billion black hole suits big business as austerity will drive down inflation, which in turn will depress wages and cut government spending with the added bonus for big business, that cuts to government spending will eventually lead to tax cuts. Big business doesn't want to pay taxes, it cuts into their profit margins.
         The question is of course, do we put up with this mathematical fiddling to suit big business and the fanancial Mafia, or do we organise to bring down the whole stinking rotten gambling casino of the rich, where we always pay for their greed driven loses. The choice is ours, what heritage do we want to leave to our grandchildren?

 

Image courtesy of Know Law.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

 

Budget.

           The Truss Kwarteng marriage has certainly displayed true Toryism, feed the rich and the rest can go to hell in paper cart. We don't need experts to tell us that massive tax cuts to the wealthy and corporate juggernauts will certainly enhance their life style considerably. While you and I are promised pie in the sky in the bye and bye. It will all be wonderful when that magical growth pours billions into the exchequer's coffers at some point in the future, meanwhile we wait in poverty and hope they spend it on us, though that has never happened in the past. However if we do look at the experts in the wonderful gambling casino called economics, we find they speak a different script from the Truss Kwarteng duo.
        That much admired institution of the capitalist world, the IMF, gives it's verdict on the mini-massive budget. They state that tax cuts complicate the fight against soaring prices. They also state that inflation will peak at 11.3% by the end of the year and remain on average around 9% for at least two years. How does that fit in with your 5% pay increases and universal credits not being increased by inflation? That austere bastion of the money people the Bank of England, warns "material risk to financial stability". So it has indulged in another binge of buying government debt to prevent a sell-off and another risk to pension funds. Yes, your pensions are in the big gabling casino of capitalism and are all at risk if the gambling kids loose.

Image courtesy of Sound Health and Lasting Wealth. 

 

       If you need any more evidence that this mini-massive budget is not in your interest, then listen to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, they forecast the only way to balance the books with this budget, to suit the financial Mafia is "big and painful cuts" to public spending of around £60 billion. You know what that means to you and I, we will be starved of public services and public amenities, nurseries, libraries, health care, education, sports centres and a host of other essentials to our daily life will will crumble and fade away. All because our lords and masters decided to give massive tax cuts to the wealthy and big business. We must stand up and defend ourself and our families against this cull on the poor, there is a better way to organise society, based on fairness, mutual aid and seeing to the needs of all our people.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Legal Killing.

           What seems to go without any retribution is the state's killing of ordinary people by means of legislation. Austerity measures are discussed and passed in to legislation by people who have no worries about heating or eating. It is then enacted by the minions of the state, backed up by the law. The result of course is that ordinary people, who have no say in the matter, suffer hardship, poverty and deprivation and of course death. All deemed necessary to balance the books to suit the financial Mafia. These policies to suit the big financial boys, have over the years reduce the life expectancy of the population. What is insane about this crazy setup is we pay them to do this.

            The following extract from The Guardian. 

 

 

         More than 330,000 excess deaths in Great Britain in recent years can be attributed to spending cuts to public services and benefits introduced by a UK government pursuing austerity policies, according to an academic study.
        The authors of the study suggest additional deaths between 2012 and 2019 – prior to the Covid pandemic – reflect an increase in people dying prematurely after experiencing reduced income, ill-health, poor nutrition and housing, and social isolation.
        Previously improving mortality trends started to change for the worse after austerity policies introduced in 2010 when tens of billions of pounds began to be cut from public spending by the Tory-led coalition government, the study said.
       The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found there were 334,327 excess deaths beyond the expected number in England, Wales and Scotland over the eight-year period.

 

Read the full article HERE. 

 

 Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

By Design?

     

        

           The economic hardship that is hitting the ordinary people, more or less across the globe, receives lots of explanations, from pandemic, supply chain break down, to the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia. You can take you pick or pick and mix, but are you getting to the heart of the problem? Perhaps we can dismiss all these supposed reason and listen to top US economists and certain government officials, who seem to lay the blame at the workers feet, by stating wages are too high, and there is not enough unemployment. The chair of the Federal Reserve, one very rich, Jerome Powell, has openly stated that inflation is being caused by wages being too high, and economist and former Clinton aid, Larry Summers, claiming that the solution to the inflation problem is to increase unemployment to around 10%. With these guys of the financial Mafia calling the shots, don't expect austerity to disappear any time soon.
         Their answer to the aim of increasing profits is lower wages and increase unemployment. So are we here by design, incompetence by our lords and masters, or the inevitability of living with a greed driven, insane economic system that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
          Do we wish to be pawns in this economic gambling casino of the pampered parasite class. Can we hand this legacy on to our children and grand children? Surely they deserve better than this as their way of life. Their future is in our hands, we can sit back and let the leeches bleed us dry as we struggle from day to day in a perpetual spiral of increasing poverty. Or we can organise within our communities and workplaces to take control of our lives, and shape society to our desires of seeing to the needs of all our people. We have the ability, imagination and numbers to build that better society based on equality, free association, sustainability and mutual aid, a society where the world is our village and its population our brothers and sister, not our competitors.

          An American guy named Jefferson, you may have heard of him, once wrote, "when the government assaults the very liberties it was hired to protect, it is time to alter or abolish it." I would go for abolish as a start.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

A Virus.

         Today as the ordinary people of the UK, like those else where in the world, are heading for the biggest fall in living standards for many, many years. People are facing winter unable to heat their homes, struggling to put food on the table and often failing. There is a massive rise in homelessness, in food-banks, our health service is teetering on the edge of collapse due to lack of funding and slices being handed to the corporate word. Our kids' health will be assaulted and their education system is broken.

 

      Despite these unnecessary conditions being heaped on the population, the UK government see fit to spend an obscene amount of tax payers money on this jamboree celebrating a parasite families imperial power. £28 million of our tax money has been set aside for this obscenity, the lottery fund is donating £22 million to plaster the country with symbols of pomp and imperial power.
      We are supposed to celebrate 70 years of a woman sitting on a throne, a woman whose entire family and many hangers-on, who have never earned a penny from honest work in their lives, and are subsidised to the hilt with tax payers money. This old lady, who we are supposed be enthralled with is labelled a "constitutional" monarch. However, she is the one that opens parliament, and in speeches honestly refers to "her government", she is the one approached by the elected Prime Minister should he wish to close down parliament. She also sits in her palatial surroundings signing death warrants on those poor individuals who are condemned by British Overseas Territories that still have the death penalty. This whole edifice of pomp and power is an attempt to get us all to cheer an obscene display to the world of Britain's brutal imperialism, its past and its determination to hold on to that power, wealth and its privileges. It baffles me seeing all those thousands of people who struggle to make ends meet, willing pay homage to this family of parasites, this edifice to pomp, wealth, power and privileges. All I can say of those throngs who wave flags, cheer this obscenity, is that their minds have been damaged by the fatal and vicious virus of patriotism.

 

Visit ann arky's home at http://strugglepedia.com  

Lies.

          We are facing the worst crush on our standard of living in many a year, a throw back to Victorian times, with all the repercussions that this entails, drastic effects on the health and well being of our children and ourselves, increase in stress and anxiety, an increase in mental health problems also leading to an increase in poverty, destitution and homelessness. We live in one of the richest counties on the planet and our lives are controlled by a rich group of privileged parasites.

                                             Image courtesy of World Socialist Web Site

      We have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who spouts that he understands the hardship the ordinary people are facing, he is lying, he doesn't, he can't possibly know how to juggle with decisions of whether to skip a meal to buy your kid a pair of shoes for the winter, making the decision of whether to turn the heating on or go cold so that you can put food on the table. He lives in a bubble that insulates him from the reality of the ordinary people. This man who states he understands our problems is a multi-millionaire, he and his wife have a personal fortune of around £730 million between them. Last year, his wife, daughter of a billionaire, received approximately £11 million in dividends from her 9% share in her fathers multi-billion pound company. How they can have the audacity to say, they understand our problems, when they don't even know anything about our lives and daily struggles. Two different worlds, one of opulence and excess the other of daily struggle to have a half decent life, with the ever present risk of not making it even to that level.

Image courtesy of The Journal.

       Why do we tolerate this subservience to this bunch of rich, selfish parasites? They need us to make their fortunes for them, we don't need them. We the ordinary people have made everything, distributed everything, but always do it to the dictate of the rich and powerful, all to the advantage of the rich and powerful, why?  

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info