Showing posts with label cuts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cuts. Show all posts

Monday 16 February 2015

Shatter It To Bits And Then---!!


 
      You know it, I know it, and we would be idiots if we didn't realise that “they” know it. The “they” I'm referring, to is our Oxbridge millionaire lords and masters, the Cameron/Osborne Cabal. What is it we all know? It is the fact that we the public are being screwed, and getting poorer. According to recent figures, the average Scots worker's annual salary is £1,900 lower in real terms now, than when the financial Mafia's henchmen, the Oxbridge mob, took control in 2010. While our wages go down, fat cat chief executives of the large companies, earn as much as the average annual salary, every two days, and they know it. As chief executives stuff their loot into off shore accounts, Citizens Advice Scotland, reports that it has seen a significant rise in the number of working Scots who are struggling to put food on the table. I'll repeat, you must be an idiot if you think “they” don't know that, the point is “they” don't give a shit.
       Of course “they” know it, but what is their considerate, compassionate reply, well the Osborne part of the thieving Cavaliers, has promised another £30 billion of cuts, or as they call it, "fiscal consolidation", over the next few years. That translates into higher salaries and bonuses for the top bunch of parasites, and more cuts to the standard of living of you and me.
          We don't need to keep demonstrating, telling them about the damage cuts are having on people's lives, “they” know. We have to organise to bring the whole stinking system of greed, inequality and injustice, down on their heads. We can do better than this, we built this sordid edifice and everything else in it, we can sweep the ruins aside and start that better world, built of fairness, co-operation and mutual aid, creating a society that sees to the needs of all our people.

Ah Love! Could Thou and I
with Fate Cospire
To Grasp this Sorry Scheme
of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it
too bits, and then
Remould it nearer to
the Hearts Desire!
Extract from Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Thursday 26 July 2012

REMPLOY PICKET.


      Most of us are aware of the devastating effect the government's cuts can have, but probably none wore than those employed by Remploy.
       There used to be over 50 workers at the Remploy factory in Preston, now reduced to only 18, each of them was out on the picket line for the second day of their national strike, 100% turn outs were also reported at Heywood and Wigan. Support came from BAE and Rolls-Royce workers as well as teachers, passing council refuse workers and ex-Remploy workers who had taken advantage of previous redundancy packages.
The government has been Orwellian in claiming they are helping disabled people into work whilst sacking them from their jobs. In Preston the workers were shown 6 job opportunities to apply for, each of these positions turned out to already have been filled. One ex-Remploy worker had found work on the railways and promised 20 hours a week of work, only to be told upon arriving for his induction that he was only going to be offered a zero hours contract.
The site at Preston carries out socially useful work, recycling computer equipment that ends up being re-used by the Department for Works and Pensions amongst others. Bidders from the private sector have actually offered to take over the factory but their cases have not even been entertained.
As they have proved themselves ‘fit for work’, the Remploy workers could face a bleak future without Employment Support Allowance and be forced into Workfare schemes. “We have been thrown on the scrap heap”, one worker said.

For more info see  Remlpoy Workers

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Tuesday 8 May 2012

THE PARTY'S OVER.


        Well the elections are over, the verbal diarrhoea has stopped, some of the Crooks and Liars breathe a sigh of relief while others shed a tear, as for the dull herd, they'll leave the scene to merge into the mire of daily life, feeling they have been part of something, though in time they'll wonder what.



        To all those obedient, subservient, believers, well you done it. You broke your daily routine, left your comfort zone and boldly marched to the ritual altar of the ballot box, you made your mark, and done your duty. Now back in your daily plod, there is a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that, because of you, from today on, things will be different. Just like the last time you voted and the time before that, and the time before that. Sorry to burst your bubble friend, those with disabilities are still being sacrificed on the financial alter, unemployment is still set to keep rising, with a generation of young people being destroyed, benefits for the most vulnerable are still being cut, our health service is still being privatised, our education system decimated, and oh, the tele is still crap. You may even have managed to change some of the smiling suits in that bunch of Crooks and Liars, and I have no doubt we will of course hear the usual platitudes, “lessons have been learnt” “we hear what you are saying”, beyond that, you will still struggle to pay your bills, you will still get crap wages and lousy conditions, if you have a job. As far as the “political class” are concerned, the show's over, it's now time for you to get back to your routine grind and leave them to get on with the plunder of all our public assets. Isn't it a great system? Well they seem to think so!!

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Thursday 12 April 2012

HOW MANY DEAD AND INJURED WILL WE ACCEPT?


        It is imperative that we continually stress the human side of all this financial shuffling being done by the various governments at the behest of the financial Mafia. We get daily reports about how the markets are responding, but little or no mention of the distress and deprivation being heaped on the people.  It seems that the format is for the elected governments to try to gain the confidence of the markets by screwing the people. One would imagine that it should somehow or other, be the other way round, the elected governments trying to gain the confidence of the people by screwing the markets. The fact that it is the way it is, makes it glaringly obvious whose side they are on. In this web of financial re-adjustments, re-capitalisation, increasing banks liquidity, and other descriptions for plundering the public purse, there is no group taking care of the interests of the people. It is up to the people to take care of themselves with the same ruthlessness as the financial mafia take care of themselves. There is no other phrase suits the situation better than "class war". Our people are being injured and dying by the deliberate decisions of a group of people, well aware of the consequences of their actions, for no other reason than personal gain. It is a class that has all the wealth dragging what they can from another class, those who produce all the wealth. That by any analysis is "class war".

 


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Thursday 5 April 2012

A GOOD EDUCATION - IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY.

            Here in the UK we pride ourselves on being a civilised country yet our elected millionaire representatives are creating an education system that is tiered according to you place in the class system, a class system that they rigorously adhere to, it is built into the way they think. Since this bunch of millionaire parasites came to power, this country by 2014/15 will have seen, in real terms, a 13% cut in public spending on education. What this does is create a very high level of education for those super rich friends of the millionaire cabal in charge, a second, and lower level of expensive education for the lower caste, (middle class) and the lowest level of poorly funded sticking plaster education for the peasants, the “untouchables”, in this class ridden society that we tolerate.
       Dr Bousted, who heads the most moderate of the three teachers' unions stated: "This Coalition Government's attack on poor children is a blight upon our conception of ourselves as a civilised society. They remind me of a former Prime Minister who said there was no such thing as society." She also stated that among cuts that had affected the poor were:
A 22 per cent cut in grants to Sure Start centres designed to give the under-fives a good start in life. This has led to the closure of 124 centres;
The removal of the ring-fence on funding for school meals at a time when the number of children entitled to free food at school has risen by 110,000;
Cuts in local authority funding which have led to one in five councils axing the supply of library books to primary and secondary schools;
The withdrawal of education maintenance allowances of up to £30 a week which encouraged poorer students to stay on in post-16 education;
A real-terms cut of 13 per cent in public spending on education by 2014-15.    
        What we should never lose sight of is fact, that this “deficit reduction” is all to save the bankers and bond holders from losing any of their ill gotten gains. So on who side does that put our elected millionaires? Just whose benefit are they working for, those that they throw into the dustbin of society through unemployment, decimated health care, underfunded education, or their millionaire friends the bankers and bond holders who get all that public money?


        Since they believe in, and work at perpetuating a class system, then we have no alternative but to recognise that fact and to engage in earnest in class war.


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Friday 23 December 2011

THE HIGHEST FORM OF FASCISM.


       As the “financial crisis” continues to crush the ordinary people of the developed world, we should not lose sight of the fact that it is all created by smoke and mirrors, an illusion. A small super rich bunch of parasitical clients of the banking world have managed to convince the Western governments of all political persuasions that the trillions of dollars, euros and pounds of the parasitical cabal's bad debt, is somehow public debt and must at all costs, be returned to the parasites' coffers. The compliant governments can only do this by taking tax payers money, money that should be spent on social services etc., and handing it to the parasites, this is done under the guise of “deficit reduction”. This not being enough, they then have to start selling of all public assets to the corporate world and privatise all public services, to raise more money to hand to the parasites. Thus guaranteeing the cabal of parasites can retain their trillions of dollars, euros and pounds at the expense of the well being of the citizens of most of the Western world. This is the 1%, the billionaires and multimillionaires created by the exploitation that is the capitalist system. This small bunch of leeches are in the position of dictators of the world. With the low interest rates they are in a position with their trillions to borrow more trillions to generate ever greater assets bubbles, creating unimaginable profits that make bankers bonuses look like their kids pocket money. What we are witnessing is the dictatorship of capital, fascism in it highest form, world domination by the few. If there is to be any form of decent life for the ordinary people, this dictatorship must be overthrown, and that can only be achieved by the overthrow of capitalism itself.


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Saturday 26 November 2011

THE STATE V MUTUAL AID??


         We have to accept that there is an attack on the living standards of the ordinary people, with social spending slashed communities will have their facilities plundered, it will be almost impossible to keep communities together. We have to look to new strategies that by-pass and short circuit the state apparatus and allow communities to offer social amenities to young and old alike. Empty buildings can be utilised and brought into use for the community. People can come together and by means of mutual aid and networking strengthen their community and allow their creativity to blossom. We don't need the state to provide, we have the imagination, resources and the strength to function outside the state apparatus. A brilliant idea, though not new in anarchist history, is the Bank of Ideas, in London. 


The Bank of Ideas is situated on Sun Street, Hackney in an abandoned office block purchased several years ago by the bank UBS. It is an enormous space complete with a 500-seater lecture hall.
It has been opened to the public for the non-monetary trade of ideas to help solve the pressing economic, social and environmental problems of our time.
There is also room for community groups, youth clubs, nurseries and other public services that have lost their space due to Government spending cuts.
Artists, performers and creatives are welcome to come entertain and to help transform the space. We also encourage games, workshops and skillshares on anything from yoga to yahtzee.

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Friday 28 October 2011

A FAIR DAY'S PAY---????


        Every where you look there is evidence that we are all in this together. As most of us see our standard of living nosedive, either through wage cuts/freeze, redundancy or inflation, or perhaps even a hit from at least to of these measures being forced on us by our millionaire lords and masters, it is puzzling how a certain group seem to manage quite well in spite of the “crisis”. Take the directors of the Footsie 100 companies for example, while they go on about hard times and how difficult decisions have to be made they still manage to award themselves a whopping 43% pay increase over the previous year's salary. Perhaps if we look at it as “all in this together” means US not THEM, it all begins to make sense.
 
I have to make some very difficult decisions.

       To give you some idea of how our captains of industry are suffering in these hard times, take a wee look at the earnings for last year.

Mick Davis(Xstrata) £18,426,105.

Bart Becht (Reckitt) £17,879,000.

Michael Spencer (ICAP) £13,419,619.

Sir Terry Leahy (Tesco) £12.038,303.

Tom Albanese (Rio Tinto) £11,623,162.

Sir Martin Sorrell (WPP Group) £8,949,985.

Todd Kozel (Gulf Keystone Petroleum) £8,913,223.

Don Robert (Experian) £8,601,984.

Edward Bonham Carter (Jupiter Fund Management) £8,530,871.

Dame Marjorie Scardino (Pearson) £8,003,641.

        Not a bad wee packet for a day at the coalface, and remember these are the sweaty palmed greed parasites that sit in board rooms directing plans to cut your wages and conditions, who plan to make you redundant to increase their share of the loot that they cream of your labour. This is capitalism, screw you, I'm all right Jack. It is now raw capitalism, open and blatant exploitation of unimaginable proportions. They see nothing wrong in this greed feast, as far as they are concern the system is working just fine.

Saturday 13 August 2011

CORPORATE LOOTERS.


          QUOTE;    “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X

         Our millionaire lord and master Cameron, believes that those who were involved in the disturbances across England last week should be evicted from their home. All the family, even if it was just one member of that family who was involved. He also believes that if they are on benefit, they should lose their benefits. One council has already served an eviction notice on one family.


         This is the usual revenge response that we expect from the right wing millionaire Oxbridge brigade. Well over 1,500 have been arrested in connection with the disturbances, does that mean we will now have over 1,500 more homeless families wandering our streets begging? According to “one-response” millionaire Cameron, that should sort the problem. Having made them homeless will the council now by law be obliged to find them temporary accommodation? Perhaps the millionaire Cameron cabal think that 1,500 extra penniless homeless families wandering our streets, will benefit our society. Perhaps they would care to explain, but explanation is not their strong point.
Looters, I know what I'd do with the buggers.
 

        This right-wing mob of millionaires only have one response, revenge, hit hard. They will sit in the security of their wealth and enjoy all the opportunities that their wealth offers, spouting morality. A morality that sees their wealth protected at the cost of social services, the public education system and our NHS. So, groups of youths looted some business, what about Oxbridge Cameron and his millionaire friends in the corporate world that have for generations looted our communities of jobs, opportunities, hope. Shifting their wealth to where it will make the greatest profit for their own selfish desires. What has done the greater damage to our society, a group that shut down coal mines, shipyards, steel works, and in the process devastated communities for generations, driving them into abject poverty and deprivation. Or several small groups that looted some stores and smashed up some businesses? Let's focus on the greater damage and get our priorities right.

Sunday 31 July 2011

PRIVILEGES FOR SOME, FEAR FOR OTHERS!!!

       

       One of our over lords, Oliver Letwin, Policy Minister for the millionaire cabal, has stated the old upper class mantra that, public sector workers should be afraid of losing their jobs because it will make them more productive. His comments were made at a meeting with a leading consultancy firm. This is the same Oliver Letwin who reportedly agreed to repay a bill for £2,145 for replacing a leaking pipe under the tennis court at his constituency home in Somerset after having claimed it on his parliamentary expenses. The same guy who once said  that he would rather beg on the street than let his children go to an inner city comprehensive school.
         It never fails to amaze me how the arrogant bunch of Oxbridge millionaires and their lackies see people as units to be worked harder, to live in fear of losing their job and a constant fear of deprivation. While they themselves feel they are entitled to any and every privilege that they can lay their grubby sweaty little hands on.

   We need to put the fear of death into those bloody workers.
  
     Do we need them? They cost US a fortune to keep THEM at a priveleged standard THEY believe THEY are entitled. They produce nothing except hot air and spend their time passing legislation that will slash the living standards of all the ordinary people in this country, but will not affect them one little bit. They call it democracy!!! 


 

Tuesday 24 May 2011

LIBRARIES OR BOMBS??

     
      While the Cameron/Clegg public school thugs shout cuts, cuts, cuts, Cameron's little Libyan war has become Cameron's killing fields. The “No-fly zone” has now escalated into a continual bombardment of Western Libya. NATO has just completed its heaviest bombardment of the city of Tripoli since the so called, “protect civilians” campaign began. How do you protect civilians in a densely populated city by heavy bombardment of weapons of mass destruction? Perhaps the citizens of Tripoli are worth less than the citizens of Benghazi.

      All this killing doesn't come cheap, oh dear no. While the millionaire duo shout, “We can't afford” social services, libraries, education, child care, etc. the bill for Cameron's violent little ego trip, is reckoned to cost around about £1 billion by the autumn. Experts state that the cost to date is around the £300-£400 million with the bill rising by about £38 million a week. A far cry from smug low life Osborne's figure which he quoted at the start of the killing that it would only be in the tens of millions. To people of his ilk, that's just pocket money, he could probably pay for that himself.
WHO NEEDS SOCIAL SERVICES?

        The true cots will not be known for some weeks yet, when the Defence Officials make their announcements. Of course all the cost will be understated as we are about to escalate this affair with the announcement that we will be now using attack helicopters. Another little very expensive military toy that we can obviously afford.
A HOSPITAL??

       Why do we tolerate “our” government spending over £1 billion in six months on the destruction of a country and the killing of its people. This continual free spending when it comes to foreign military intervention and slashing and cutting at all our social services while muttering, we can't afford, we can't afford, lays bare the unbridled hypocrisy of this millionaire cabal of public school thugs.

        This is the situation that capitalism and its bed partner, party political politics, has given us, an elite bunch of pampered parasites controlling everything and showing complete disregard for the ordinary people. However, wonderful sparks of hope keep springing up, with the latest being Madrid and some other cities in Spain. Support appearing in other cities across Europe, with the ordinary people beginning to realise their power and the growing awareness that with solidarity we can change this world. We can create a fairer and more just world freed from the capitalist greed and profit motive, we have the power to create a world we would be proud to leave to our children and our grandchildren. As the world is at the moment, being raped, plundered and polluted, all for profit for parasitical shareholders, we fear for the future of our children and our grandchildren. It doesn't have to be that way, there is an alternative, all we have to do is all come together and discuss the world we want for the future.
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Friday 29 April 2011

THAT RIGHT ROYAL THINGY!!!

    ONE OF THEM
       I thought I might get through the week without mentioning IT, but I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. Here we are, putting on one of the most spectacular displays of privilege, a display of parasitical living, all paid for by tax payers, and beaming it all over the globe. What we are saying to the world is, this is Britain in the 21st century. However it is a lie, it is not Britain, it is a glimpse of a slice of the upper crust, the pampered elite, the parasites. Britain today is a country with mass unemployment, children living in poverty, pensioners dying of hypothermia during our cold winters. Britain is a country that can put on a extravaganza that takes your breath away by its sheer opulence, but can't put together a system whereby most young couples can afford their first home as they try to start up on their own. A country where couples struggle to try and give their kids a decent up-bring, let alone a lavish wedding.

    ONE OF US.   
       It was probably the biggest, most lavish display of privilege and unearned wealth seen on the planet, from a country that is fighting a war in Afghanistan, supporting a war in Libya, while cutting education, health care, disability benefits, and the social fabric of society, well that part of society where the real people live. This is a display that says Britain is a very rich country, but we don't want to spend it on the ordinary people. It says, Britain is a country of centuries of kings and queens with super wealth at the pinnacle of society, and has still failed miserably to create any semblance of equal opportunity or hint of fairness.
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Saturday 19 February 2011

REWARD THE THIEVES!!!

       As we struggle through our daily grind most seem not to be fully aware of the impact of the cuts being implemented by the public school millionaire thugs. Aware or unaware we can be sure the results will be somewhere between horrendous and apocalyptic, with the public sector employees taking the brunt of this assault, though all the ordinary people will feel the pain.

       All the debate on the media is about how to cut, where to cut and by how much to cut. Nobody is talking about cause, blame, pay-back. The so called “financial collapse”, was predictable and was caused by the greed of the financial centre as they blew a great big housing bubble and aided and abetted by government and bankers gorged on it until it burst. The rewarded themselves, by grabbing massive slices of the mortgage revenue in the form of absurdly large salaries, loan shark commissions and those stratospheric “performance bonuses”. When the pot went dry and their scam collapsed they simple held out the begging bowl and the government, with tax payers money, duly obliged. Groups of individuals were culpable and gained immensely from their greed, but who is being held to account? Nobody, it is expected that the ordinary individual will take the hit, so as to protect the lavish lifestyles of the perpetrators of this giant scam. The very fabric of our society will be shredded, unemployment will soar, what savings the ordinary person thought they had in the value of their home will drop dramatically. Meanwhile the financial Mafia will continue to laugh all the way to the bank. The ordinary people of this country did not cause the “collapse” (mess) they are the victims, but then again, this is capitalism, and that is the way that the system is meant to work. You work all your life, they live off your back. Get used to it, or change it forever.

Saturday 12 February 2011

SCHOOL CLOSURES - AGAIN!!!!

         In this system some things never change, that's why I keep repeating, workers know your history. Today we are facing school closures, among other things, and we are having government blaming councils and councils blaming government. To those who know their history it is as if  we had run the video back. It is a cycle that keeps comimg round, sometimes it is little attacks on the working class and sometimes, like now, it is savage, vicious and brutal attacks that decimate our conditions. Conditions that we, as a class, have fought long and hard to wrestle from this corrupt and unjust system. It seems that we never win them, we get them and the system continually tries to take them back to enhance the wealth of the parasites that run this country, the millionaire's club. We should know by now that we can't modify or reform the system for very long, it soon reverts to its, "grab everything for the corporate world" strategy. We have to destroy the greed system of capitalism, sending it to the dustbin of history and create a society founded on mutual aid. We can create a needs based society based on co-operation and sustainability that will see to the needs of all our people, a system free from the profit motive and free from the grip of the pampered shareholding parasites that at this moment in time is setting about destroying the future of our children and grandchildren,    

                                        
        To make the point about, these attacks being nothing new, the little cartoon is from a Glasgopw free sheet dated May 1996, but it could just as well have been drawn this week about today's events. Workers, know your history. Otherwise we will be able to use this little cartoon in 15 years time.



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Tuesday 25 January 2011

CORPORATE FASCISM.

Cartoon by Peter Brookes.
        The latest figures state that the UK economy shrunk by 0.5% in the last quarter. Everybody shakes their head and says, dreadful figures, but our millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, says it was all down to the snow and the government will not be blown of course and change its plans. Of course they won't change their plans, why should they? Is there still anybody out there who believes that these "fair cuts" have anything to do with the economy, the deficit, growth or any of the other crap these public school thugs spout? Whether the economy grows, shrinks or stands still, their “austerity cuts” plan will continue, that's because their grand plan is to transfer all public assets into private hands and cutting all social spending is their method. This means that everything you want or do will return a profit to some corporate body or other. Send your kids to the library, well only if you can afford it, take a walk in the forest, well not for long, as they are about to be sold off to those who can afford them, ie. the big corporations. After the implementation of the millionaire cabal's plans we will be a society of profit units or surplus to requirements. We will have no control on how our society is shaped, no redress against those in control, everything will be privately owned and run for profit.

       We have to see through the smoke and mirrors of this bunch of thuggish parasites, they are about to change our society beyond recognition and totally for the benefit of their millionaire friends, it is such a massive shift of power and that's why it is so difficult for some people to grasp. These changes are forever, as far as they are concerned, once we have lost control of all public assets the struggle to take them back could be long and brutal, but get them back we must, otherwise we will be living in a society of true corporate fascism.

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Sunday 9 January 2011

NECESSARY HASTE.


       While we the public slowly try to organise against cuts here, there and everywhere, the millionaire cabal is racing ahead with its plans to demolish the NHS as we know it. Of course the Cameron/Clegg duo rhetoric, may not sound like that of wreckers, but what they are doing is wrecking a public service irreversibly and leaving the pieces to be picked over and devoured by greedy profit seeking corporations. The introduction of market forces and competition into the NHS will make it subject to EU competition law and the Gatt free trade agreement, which suits the big corporations but removes any form of control away from representative and volunteer bodies. Fair dealing between the faceless corporations will be the aim, not the health and well being of the people it was set up to attend to, it will be another product to be milked for the benefit of shareholders.
     The same process is being carried out with considerable haste, in education, penal system and defence, with market forces being in the driving seat. Higher education has more or less been privatised with university grants cut by up to 80% and students having to fund the shortfall.
     Of course the millionaire cabal are not unduly worried about the anger of the people as we have a mainly right wing media that does not inform but spits out the free market ideology, the mainstream media is the propaganda unit of the free market millionaires and should be ignored.
      We should, with necessary haste, try to grasp the truth behind the smooth, “all in this together” and “fair and necessary austerity cuts” rhetoric, once all has been privatised, public services, health, education, penal system and anything else that can be turned into a profit, what control will we have over any aspect of society? If it doesn't produce a profit, it will wither and die. How long will it take to get back some semblance of control over the things that matter in our lives? Remember, it took us hundreds of years to get some of the benefits that we currently enjoy, relinquishing them into the hands of the corporate world will turn us into slaves of the corporate beast. A beast more ruthless than most slave masters of the past.
      Nothing short of a pan-European general strike will halt this daring dash of the free market ideology. It is not a country wide problem, it is a pan-European problem and will only be solved when we bring an end to the corporate fascism that is infesting every aspect of societies across the planet.

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