Solidarity Is Our Weapon.

       I'm a bit late with this one, probably due to my stupidity of getting stuck in hospital. However, late, but still worth a viewing.

     WE should also bear in mind that the parasites that plant there arses on the plush seats at the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, those architects of austerity, workfare, benefit cuts and this attack on the poor and vulnerable, want to spend a minimum of £5.7 billion on having their private club refurbished. £5.7 billion to modernise that edifice to British establishment corruption. No shortage of money there, no long drawn out arguing about this, just a matter of selecting a timetable. Can you come up with a better way to spend £5.7 billion?

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We Are Being Conned.

      As all of the competitors in the present Crooks and Liars competition, (the general election), continue to spout the need for “cuts”, which translates into cuts in our standard of living, the claim is the same, these are tough times, and we have to make sacrifices. Tough times for who, and who is doing all the sacrificing?

     Since “the crisis” of 2008, the UK's wealth has rocketed, before that “dreadful” event, to get into the UK's richest 1,000, all you needed was a paltry £15 million. Today, according to the Guardian commenting on the Sunday Times UK Rich List, to get into that club you need a personal wealth of at least £100 million. According to that list, the top 1,000 have accumulated a combined wealth of £547 billion, this is more than double what it was just ten years ago. Poor ordinary struggle millionaires just can't make it any more. The number of billionaires in the UK has risen from 104 last year to 117 this year. Since 2010, bankers salaries have risen by 35%, FTSE 100 directors have had to get by on an increase of 14%, while MPs are struggling with a modest 11% increase.

       Compare these figures with those that refer to us, the ordinary people, the people that actually create all that wealth. We have seen wages cut, frozen, or had trifling increases of 1%, like teachers and nurses. On top of this we have had rising inflation, rocketing energy prices, cuts in social spending with the inevitable destruction of social services and our standard of living. Since that excuse for austerity, “The Crisis”, we have seen our incomes fall by more than 3.5% in real terms. And proof of the pudding, we have seen food banks pass the 1 million mark.

      Now ask yourself, who is seeing the “tough times”? Who is doing the sacrificing? A bigger question is, do we NEED austerity, or is it just a dogma being forced on us, so the the rich can continue to get richer, while the poor get poorer? After all we live in a very rich country, and the figures prove that it is getting richer at an incredible rate. The problem is that it is all going in the one direction, the wrong direction, upwards. 

      Let's take control of all that wealth that we create, and spread it among our own people. We don't need, nor do we gain by increasing the number of billionaires. We don't need FTSE 100 directors, top bankers, and we certainly don't need nor do we gain, by having MPs. MPs are people that the Crooks and Liars competition proves to be the best liars in the country. They need us, we don't need them. It is a massive con perpetrated by a small bunch of exceptionally rich and greedy people, it is not an inevitable, set in tablets of stone, system. Like all man made systems, we can destroy it, we can create a fairer and more just system, one based on co-operation, sustainability and fairness, why are we waiting?

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"Walking Tall".

       So according to Chancellor Osborne, that aristocratic millionaire product of the Oxbridge sausage factory, Britain is “Walking Tall” again. What a wonderful sound-bite, what a load of crap. Britain is certainly a very rich country, Britain is certainly awash with wealth, Britain is the seventh richest country in the world, but sadly it is all stuffed in the bank accounts, off-shore and elsewhere, of his corrupt cabal of parasites.

      Britain, continues to produce a mass of wealth, yet it is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world. That wealth, that we the ordinary people create, is soon looted and plundered and syphoned up to feed an army of over fed, greedy parasites. The result being that in this very rich country, according to a recent report by Oxfam and Church Action On Poverty, for the year 2013/14, a staggering 20,247,042, meals were given out to people in food poverty, an increase of 54% on the previous year. “Walking Tall” Britain has millions living on the breadline. Most non-government organisations that deal with poverty in this country, agree that the increase in food poverty, among other results of poverty, are changes to the social security system, a punitive sanction regime, an increase in part-time work, zero hours contracts, years of stagnant incomes, and ever increasing living costs. All these factors make it increasingly difficult for families to put food on the table.

      In “Walking Tall” Britain, one in five people live below the poverty line, and in some of our many poorer areas, life expectancy is lower than in some developing countries. In the Calton district of Glasgow it is 59 years. While this struggle to pry a decent living out of this exploitative system goes on for the majority of us, the rich keep getting richer and the gap between the real people who create the wealth, and those rich parasites that plunder it, keeps getting wider.

      In 21st century Britain, where we are again “Walking Tall” many people, on a daily basis face, rising prices, unfair working conditions, benefit cuts, and reduced buying power, making food banks the only option open to them. With this standard of living in the 7th richest country in the world, aristocratic Osborne and his cabal of millionaire plunderers, are planning even more severe cuts in the coming years. Cuts that will of course, drastically affect you and I, but will add more swag to his band of millionaire parasites, who will, as they clink their champagne glasses, congratulate him on getting Britain, “Walking Tall” again.

Relaxing before a plundering raid.

     There are two Britains, there is the one that you and I, the real wealth creators inhabit, in poverty and struggle. Then there is the other Britain, inhabited by a band of worthless parasites, who by duplicity and deceit, rob us stinking, and they live in unimaginable wealth and splendour. It doesn't have to be that way. We could really be "Walking Tall", by ridding ourselves of this corrupt, unjust, exploitative system, and getting that band of plundering parasites off our backs for once and for all. Taking the abundant wealth of this country, that we created, and sharing it to see to the needs of all our people.

Completing their course in plundering.

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You Grow The Food, You Create The Energy!!!

         The picture in the UK is grim, we have had almost 5 years of wage cuts/freezes and rising inflation, a sure path to deprivation for millions. We are informed by our millionaire lords and masters, that the cuts so far are nothing to what has yet to come. This picture of falling income has seen food banks on a rapid increase, we are a nation of families that go hungry. Since 2007 food prices in the UK have risen by 32%, twice the average in the EU, with “experts” predicting matters getting worse, as they expect food prices to rise at twice the rate of inflation for at least a decade, with your shopping basket price rising by approximately 4% per year, until around 2022. When it comes to energy prices, they have been rising at 8 times the rate of earnings. Since October 1010, energy suppliers have increased their prices by 37%.

 

       These two factors, food price increases and energy price increases tied to low or no wage increases, are enough to push millions more of us into poverty. When you factor in more cuts in the next five years, than we have seen in the last five, millions will move from poverty to deprivation on a massive scale.
 

        No matter which of the millionaire parties you may decide to vote for, if you are foolish enough to vote, It will make no difference. All the major parties are tied into what the financial Mafia have prescribed. No party will upset their financial masters, for fear of reprisals, the parasites will lift their money and go elsewhere. Bringing turmoil for the country, and our lords and master might lose control of the population as unrest could explode. Capitalism is not patriotic, that's for the peasants, it will callously see a country's infrastructure disintegrate into ruin, and to hell with the people, if its puppet politicians don't toe the line.
 

     No amount of lobbying your MP, changing the suited smiling face at the podium, or trying to change the party “from within”, will not make one iota of a difference. You may get a few more crumbs here, or an extra teabag there, but the trajectory of our living standards will be for ever downwards. The only hope is to dismantle the whole stinking edifice that is the capitalist system, and from its ruins build that fairer world that we all want. A society that is based on mutual aid, co-operation and voluntary association, one that is free from the cancerous profit motive, and sees to the needs of all our people. You grow the food, you create the energy, why do you go without?

 

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

 

Don't You Know That There's A War Going On.

From The Progressive Populist:

      "For days, images of the Philadelphia public school system have haunted me. More than 30 children in one class share 11 math books. Bathrooms locked because there aren’t enough hall monitors. What’s most heartbreaking is to know that just a few miles away other school students attend some of the highest rated public and private schools in the nation, where they are lavished with cutting edge technology and enrichment opportunities.
        Then there are the images of elected officials turning a deaf ear to the protests of the students, teachers and parents angered at the extreme cuts. And the image of the Philadelphia Board of Education voting to cancel the contract with the teachers’ union. Shame on the board and shame on everyone else who blames Pennsylvania’s and American’s crisis in public education on teachers or believe the solutions to the problem all involve taking money out of the pockets of these highly skilled professionals." Read the full article HERE:

       Does the above sound familiar?

        If there is anybody out there who still can't see that we are in a brutal global class war, they must be blind. In country after country the  flag at the masthead of the powers that be is, "AUSTERITY". An ideology being directed by the financial Mafia, which is made up of individuals and institutions of unimaginable wealth. Their wealth is increasing by means of plundering all public assets, if it belongs to the public, it has to be transferred to private hands at a bargain price. All public spending must be curtailed and where possible eliminated. Incomes have to be squeezed, cheap labour is a wonderful wealth creator for the leeches that feed off our backs.

       The world is awash with wealth, but more and more of it is being syphoned into the coffers of that small band of parasites that make all the rules, to guarantee such an outcome. It is no accident, it is a well thought out policy driven by greed, at our expense.

        Here in this country, official figures showed that disposable income available to households fell by 1.7 per cent between the end of last year and the first three months of this year, the biggest fall since early 1987. A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation stated that a typical couple, both of whom work full-time, who have two children, would now need an annual income of just under £39,000 to maintain a “minimum” standard of living. Another result of this global class war being waged against the ordinary people, is the fact that the amount of money needed to afford ordinary, not luxury, food, clothes and leisure activities, has risen by 25 per cent since the so called "crisis" in 2008,

        As this global class war goes on unabated, this country has seen an explosion of food banks, hardly a sign of an economic recovery for us the ordinary people. In the year 2008/09 the number of people receiving food parcels from these food banks numbered, 25,899. The latest figures for 2013/14 puts that number at 913,138, almost one million people seeking free food to survive. The increase in the number of food banks is continuing, averaging two more a week opening. Where will it end, will it be when we all depend on food banks? 

           Do we just get on with it and accept that the multi-billionaires who are engineering this plundering of our wealth, after all we create all of it, will one day be compassionate and start to reverse the process? Or do we accept that it is a global class war, act accordingly and start to take back all that we created, creating a society that sees to the needs of all our people and gets the parasitic leeches off our backs, once and for all.

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

Same Old---Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Poorer.

    They Sunday Times has just released its latest UK “rich list”, and it tells an interesting story, though perhaps one that every ordinary person the the UK already knows. Last year the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, so according to the system, everything is working fine.

     The latest figures show that the richest 1,000 British now have a combined wealth of £518,975 billion, up 15.4% from a year ago, and now accounts for one third of the UK's total GDP. Just to get into that 1,000 rich list, you need to have at least £85 million, if you hope to aspire to the top 500, then you will need to flash around £190 million.
     Philip Beresford, compiler of the list, has been doing this wee job since 1989, said: "I've never seen such a phenomenal rise in personal wealth as the growth in the fortunes of Britain's 1,000 richest people over the past year. "The richest people in Britain have had an astonishing year.--”

We have to stay with austerity, the recovery is still fragile.

 

      Of course as we would expect, that old lady that stays in Buckingham Palace, done very well this year by adding around £10 million to her already sizeable little pile of loot, bring her in at No. 285 on the list, with a tidy little £330 million.
      The list is a compilation of the usual CEO, landed gentry, TV grinning faces, and smiling celebrities, etc.. “Ordinary common one of us” Jamie Oliver and his wife, added a nice wee bundle of £90 million to their stash, bring it to a health £240 million.
      I should add that these figures are what is called “identifiable wealth”, you know the sort of stuff, land, property, race horse, yachts, works of art, and so on. It does not take into account their bank accounts, that's personal, and no doubt there will by many, and fat, and in diverse places.
      The list also points out that the number of billionaires living in the UK has topped the 100 for the first time, reaching 104, with their combined wealth shooting over the £300 billion. Britain now has more billionaires per head of the population than any other country, and in that cesspool of the financial Mafia, London, there are 72 sterling billionaires, making it the largest concentration of billionaires in any city in the world. So the rich have had an astonishing year with “austerity” meaning that they all ran to the bank shouting “Yipeeee”.

 

        While at the other end, the you and I end, we saw our incomes shrink by approximately £1,600 since 2010. We have had to cope with bedroom taxes, slave labour workfare schemes, vanishing disability allowances, rocketing energy prices, rising food prices, a greater use of food banks, zero hours contracts, wage increases of less than inflation, if they arrive at all, cuts in benefits and social services. So it is obvious where that massive increase in the “identifiable wealth” among the parasites came from, it came from you and I, they get richer and we get poorer, and we tolerate this!!!

 

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

 

Living In 1930's, Today.

The 21st. century with 1930 families!!

Published on May 8, 2014

        Food bank providers told MSPs it was "clear" that UK government welfare reform had been one of the drivers of the "terrifying" increase in the number of people using food banks in Scotland.
        Denis Curran from Loaves & Fishes said the use of food banks was "not just growing but exploding" saying people were being penalised for being poor and the "heart of the matter is people are starving".

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Propaganda, Propaganda, Propaganda,

      A couple of things that recently got a lot of cover in that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, one was Greece returning to the bond market, and the other, UK inflation dropping to 1.6%. These two pieces of information were meant to make us all feel a lot better, the propaganda machine was in full throttle. As for Greece entering the bond market, what this means is that the financial Mafia gambling cabal, had another casino in which to place their bets. They were prepared to loan the corrupt Greek state €3 billion at a nice healthy rate of interest of 4.75%, a mere drop in the bucket as far as Greek state debt is concerned. Does this mean that all is well in Greece and that the 27% unemployment, and 60% among the young, will suddenly evaporate? Does it mean that the trashed health service will, like magic, rise to the needs of the people? Will the abject poverty and deprivation be transformed into a land of milk and honey? Well perhaps a look at some of the figures might answer those questions. Greece's public debt in 2008, the date of the gambling casino collapse, was €263.3 billion, and the prediction for 2014 is €322 billion. The size of Greece's debt as a percentage of GDP in that 2008 bubble burst, was 112.9%, 2014's prediction is 175.9%. What Greece's re-entry to the bond market really means is that it is obvious gamblers can't stay away from the casino.

       The excited wetting of nickers among the millionaire cabal sitting in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, at the news the inflation in the UK has dropped for the sixth consecutive month to 1.6%, will not be transferred to the ordinary person on the street. According to a study by The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) mid-range household incomes between 2013 and 2014 were 6% below what they were before the gamblers crisis of 2008. Other interesting figures from the study state that between 2008 and 2013 inflation was 20%, energy prices rose by 60% and food prices by 30%. Where were incomes during this period? Did your income rise enough to cover that 60% rise in energy prices, or the 30% rise in food prices? It is all smoke and mirrors. The truth is that we as a people here in the UK are sliding down the shute to a sweatshop economy. Last year almost a million adults and children received emergency food parcels from food banks, a rise of 163% on the previous year. Irrespective of what the propaganda machine might say, more and more people are turning to food banks for survival. The Trussell trust has over 400 food banks and is opening two a week, compared to only three in 2012/13. Of course The Trussell trust is not the only organisation handing out food help to those in need, they are just the tip of the iceberg. What about those living in areas where there is no Trussell Trust, what about all those who just eat less and feed their kids less, perhaps too proud to seek help or unaware of where to get that help. The Trussell trust states that it is now expanding its services to include welfare advice and providing essentials such as washing powder, nappies and hygiene products, as more and more families are at breaking point and food is not their only problem. This is the true picture of Britain's low inflation figure

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Their Growth Is Our Deprivation.

      Where do we stand as a country, our lords and masters, the millionaire class, spout growth and being a world leader. What is more, they come up with mythical figures to prove their illusion. Of course you and I, the people on the ground, outside that bubble of rarefied atmosphere of upper crust parasites, see it somewhat different. While they discus figures plucked from their favourite guess-machine, and Her Majesty's Opposition produce imperceptible variations on those figures, we, the ordinary Joe, live in the real world of food banks and workfare, of choosing between heating or eating. In our world we are acutely aware of our collapsing infrastructure and our rapidly descending standard of living. We might have smart-phones, tablets and super broadband, but large swathes of our elderly and vulnerable are facing problems from hypothermia, and malnutrition has double in the last year. We the ordinary people are also well aware of the fact that we live with an eduction system that miserably fails our kids. According to a recent report, South Korean, Vietnamese and Macanese teenagers are streets ahead of our teenagers, in mathematics and science.
      Our infrastructure is late nineteenth century early twentieth century, and as we would expect our industrial over lords never invest, but are merely interested in taking the profits and running things into the ground, out-sourcing is cheaper, so more profitable. According to a recent survey of 148 countries by the World Economic Forum, our road transport system was rated as inferior to that of Barbados and our roads were ranked worse than those of Chile.
       Of course we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that, as far as our standard of living is concerned, it is all going to plan. Our millionaire political class, (who we should not forget, are all big investors in, and friends of, the corporate greed machine) are working hard with their corporate masters, to get this country down to a low wage, sweatshop economy, and you have to say, aren't they doing well.
     A cheap subservient workforce is the key to their growth, their businesses will grow in size and profitability. They will be able to compete with their Easter competitors. So when you hear the corrupt millionaire political cabal, and the greed driven parasitic corporate greed machine, talk of growth, you know what they mean, it's growth in their bank accounts that they are after, and you and I, are the tools.

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

UK, A Hungry Nation.

      While our Oxbridge millionaires, sitting in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, mouth off about “growth” and “making the right decisions” and the blue corner waffles with the red corner with meaningless phrases and lots of “here, here's”, you and I see hunger and desperation. This is one of the richest nations on the planet, yet its people go hungry. The Trussell Trust, which has 400 food banks across the UK, states that it handed out food parcels to more than 350,000 people, between April and September this year. What makes this even more criminal is the fact that a third of these were children. The number of people relying on food banks for survival has tripled over the last year.

        Here in the UK it is not just a handful of families that are somehow in need of help. This is a national crisis caused by the deliberate actions of the bankster friendly government. This is a nation slowly being driven to deprivation by forced “austerity”. Some leading experts state that in the UK hunger has now reached the level of a “public health emergency” A recent letter to the British Medical Journal signed by a group of senior academics from two leading universities, the Medical Research Council and a group of doctors, said that the effect of Government policies on vulnerable people’s ability to afford food needed to be “urgently” monitored.

        There letter states that there has been a rapid rise in the number of people requiring emergency food aid, plus the doubling of the number of cases of malnutrition seen in hospitals, and a rapid fall in the number of calories being consumed by the public at large. They state that these are, “all the signs of a public health emergency that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventative action,” Research into this problem, commissioned by the Government itself, has had its publication delayed, we can only speculate that the reason is that the government may find its result embarrassing.

        This is the meaning of “austerity”, this is the ConDem's “steady growth”, this is Osborne's “right decisions”, this is the financial mafia's plans falling into place. Sweatshop Britain leading the way to sweatshop Europe. We have been told that these policies will continue until 2020, how many food banks will we need by then, how many cases of malnutrition will the hospitals handle by then? This is the promise of another 7 years of falling wages, slashing benefits and social services, and rising prices. Where will your standard of living be by then? Do you honestly believe that at that magical 2020, everything will suddenly be great, and hunger and poverty will disappear? Accept it, if you accept this present system, you accept an endless downward spiral to poverty and deprivation. Surely you want more than this.

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Austerity And Deprivation, Two Sides Of The Same Coin.

        What does “austerity” mean, or what should it mean? You would imagine “austerity” would mean a doing without the luxuries, a little tightening of the belt, but does this financial Mafia's variety of “austerity” fit that description? This brand of “austerity” means abject poverty for families the length and breadth of the land. In England, since the 2008 “crisis”, malnutrition treated in NHS hospitals has almost doubled. Diagnoses of malnutrition in England rose from 3,161 in 2008/09 to an criminal 5,499 in 2012. This has been driven by wages being frozen/cut, while the cost of food and heating have rocketed. Add to this the various benefit cuts, bedroom tax, ATOS attack on the disabled, and it becomes very clear that this “austerity” is a vicious attack the living standards of the general population.

      Oxfam, that organisation that we see as a charity for those poor countries, stated that, in the UK, "increasing desperation to avoid starvation in one of the world’s richest and unequal countries has seen the number of visits to food banks rise to around half a million a year." The Trussell Trust, the UK's largest food bank operator, has seen the number of those receiving food parcels rise from approximately 26,000 in 2008, to more than 350,000 in the past five years. UK director of Trussell Trust has stated that, “It’s not surprising that rates of malnutrition have also increased. We see people coming to food banks who’ve gone without food for days.”

     Poverty and debt go hand in hand, as people get desperate in their struggle for survival, they are more likely to run up more debt. The average UK household debt is £54,000, that is close to twice the level of a decade ago. Personal debt in the UK's is almost 94% of the total UK economic output for 2012, a mind boggling £1.43 trillion. Lots of people are failing to manage that debt and are suffering in many ways, cutting down on food and heating. Interest rates are set to rise, when that happens, thousands more who are at the moment barely coping will start to sink into the mire of poverty and deprivation. With poverty comes health problems, both mental and physical, families and relationships start to strain and break.

        This is the true meaning of “austerity”, it is not a slight drop in your luxuries, a little bit of inconvenience, as you miss a night at the movies. It is mind crushing stress, it is malnutrition, it is health problems, it is watching your family disintegrate, it is seeing your kids future being stunted and their potential obliterated. It is living with the reality or the fear of homelessness, for what? To sort out a bunch of financial parasites' gambling mess, while they continue to live in the lap of unearned and undeserved luxury. That's capitalism. Do you want it? If not, what are we going to do about it?

Cum'awn, dae sumthin'

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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