Are We Getting Angry?

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

 

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

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

Choices.

      As the cold Scottish weather draws ever closer, we start to think of something Margaret Thatcher said, "society is all about choices". Many of us will be faced with making some of those choices, do we eat, or do we heat? The cruelty and injustice of this system is apparent all around us, all the year long, but in winter it shouts loudest. Thousands of our people die each winter from avoidable cold related illnesses, fuel poverty is a mass killer. It is difficult to imagine why we tolerate this winter killer epidemic in the knowledge that the corporate energy companies are making hundreds of millions of pounds annually. Scottish Power, which is typical of those companies, raised its prices last year by 7%, this year it made over £700 million pre-tax profit, and hand its parent company Iberdrola, almost £900 million. Despite this, they are talking about increasing prices again. That's a lot of money siphoned from us to hand to a bunch of greed driven shareholders, while the price we pay, is living with the mass killer, fuel poverty and the resultant misery and deaths. Like everything in this society, it's not that there isn't enough, it's just that you are excluded, because you can't afford it, be it luxury or necessity. I call it financial apartheid.

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

Bedroom-tax - Poll-tax!!

      We in the UK are heading for some real battles and should be preparing now. Come April there will be the implementation of the "bedroom tax"  on top of increasing food poverty and fuel poverty. This "bedroom tax" will put three options before all those in social housing, if they are deemed to have an extra bedroom. As an "under-occupier" you can pay extra, take in a lodger or get out, non-compliance will trigger eviction notices. This is probably the most vicious attack in decades on the ordinary people of this country. The legislation comes into force and they are well aware that there isn't enough right sized accommodation to fulfil that legislation, but that won't stop them going for evictions. Even if there were enough right-sized apartments for everybody, but there isn't, the monumental upheaval to people's lives, sick, disabled, elderly, young families, as they are shunted around to the satisfaction of some millionaire cabal's bullshit economics, is inhumane, unjust and downright vindictive. This is "poll-tax model two.
       While our millionaire parasites that lord it in those Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption are spewing out crap about it all being necessary and "for our own good" a UN official, Mr De Schutter, the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has stated that the explosion of people in the UK, depending on food handouts could represent a human rights abuse. He points to the dramatic rise in the number of food banks as evidence that governments had "failed in their responsibility not to leave the poorest behind". Here in the UK the number of food banks as exploded tenfold  since the start of the recession.
       This is the UK today, massive fuel poverty with energy prices still rising. Food poverty with food banks the only growth industry in town. A third of children living in poverty. Unacceptable unemployment among our young people. Being forced through "workfare", to work for free in some tax dodging corporate greed machine. Now the threat of evictions being heaped on the shoulders of the already struggling public.
        These are drastic times and drastic action by the organised public is the only answer. We may not yet be where the people of Greece are as far as deprivation is concerned, but we are moving inexorably in that direction, it is only a matter of time. It is inevitable, unless we the public, by mass organised resistance, come together and drive our society in a different direction. Another world is possible. 

POWER CUTS, a daily reality in Greece by docupraxi

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RAISE TAXES -- RAISE AIR POLLUTION!!

       The best laid plans of mice and men---- The Greek governments super plan to raise revenue by a 40% hike in fuel oil tax, seems to have back-fired somewhat. Once again it is the economics of the insane, thinking that in a country where there is extreme poverty and massive unemployment, you can still raise revenue by taxing the poor who don't have any surplus cash to hand over. The only thing they seem to have raised is the level of air pollution.

This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ:
         Nowadays it's now known as fuel poverty, but to older generations it is huddling in cold, damp rooms round an inadequate fire hoping that either the weather will get better or that you'll have enough money to see out the cold spell. With temperatures in Greece dropping below zero in the mountainous northern regions, one of the government's most hated tax measures is starting to take effect. The decision by Athens to raise heating oil taxation by 40% seems to have backfired as millions decided not to turn on their oil fired central heating and turned to other sources, most notably, wood burning stoves, leaving the government with 790 million euro shortfall.
       In the northern region of Kozani heating oil whole sellers reported an 85% drop in demand in comparison with last year, whilst businesses supplying wood, sometimes logged illegally are seeing a roaring trade as Greeks seek to heat their homes using traditional wood burning stoves known as soumbes.

Read the full article HERE:

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STRONGER TOGETHER.

     We all know that winter in Scotland means choices, choices between eating or heating. Winter in this country, because of the climate and "fuel poverty" brings with it misery and death, while the energy companies fatten their shareholders with bigger profits. There are ways and means of fighting the leeches that own the energy companies.

This from SNIFFER:

"Jam the gas meters or Stronger Together?

    Direct action on fuel poverty in Europe campaign ‘Samen Sterker’ or "Stronger Together" reports that thousands of people in Belgium and Netherlands have organised collectively against the power companies and won great deals.

   But here in the UK EDF Fuel prices for residential customers are to hike up by 10.8% from December 7, 2012 sending the average dual fuel bill to £1,251. Scottish Gas and Scottish Power will be more than this by up to £23. And we already know that means misery and death.

   Excess winter mortality statistics from the UK Office for National Statistics estimated there were 25,700 Excess Winter Deaths (WHO) in England and Wales in 2011, 3.4% higher in the North East. Scotland’s winter statistics at 2,450 are like the UK’s low temperature related deaths, not exclusively hypothermia but cerebrovascular disease and heart disease, pneumonia, stroke and respiratory diseases.

    Belgium and Netherlands have taken direct action on fuel bills by collective switching. Their groups of 10,000 people prepared to switch en-mass to a new supplier this means that these suppliers offer a decent price in order to get them as new clients. They have a trusted third party who's actually doing all the leg work, setting up the switch system so that it is minimal effort for us. Hundreds of thousands of consumers have benefited and on average saved some 200-250 euros a year.

   Earlier this year the UK consumer organisation Which? organised the firstcollective switch in the UK. Almost 40,000 people took part, with average savings of £223 a year.

     A pilot scheme is running in Cornwall, and South Lakeland District Council in Cumbria is finalising the first local authority project in the UK. Other local councils may follow suit soon.

Let’s do it in Scotland."

      Start to organise your own "energy switch" group in your own area, join the group nearest you and hit the energy companies with a mass switch deal and get the best price. Start today before the Scottish weather really bites.

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POVERTY WAGES - GOOD FOR BUSINESS.

      Here we are in the 21 century, living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and we have charities handing out food parcels. According to the Citizens Advice Scotland, around 3,000 people have been given food parcels from The Trussell Trust since April this year. The Trussell Trust operates 6 food banks in Scotland but is scheduled to open more by the end of the year. Its busiest food bank is Dundee where they have handed out 1,188 food parcels between April and September this year. Approximately 50% of those seeking food parcels claim problems with their benefits. What is even more criminal is that almost 50% of food parcels go to those who are working. With food prices having risen by 30.5% over the last five years and massive increases in energy bills on top of wage freezes/cuts, it is no wonder that more and more working people are turning to charity to survive.

      Another feature of this capitalist system is the number of people in Scotland that live in what is called fuel poverty. Fuel poverty is when you have to spend 10% or more of your income on fuel, and here in Scotland we have 35% of the population living under those conditions. The figure is set to rise as another increase in fuel prices are set to hit the poorest hardest. Just another indictment against a system of greed.

     Because of the deliberate policies of our millionaire lords and masters, who frequent the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, we are rapidly heading back to the Victorian era of poverty in the midst of opulence. Our Westminster millionaire cabal are happily and arrogantly creating a society that is based on a low wage economy, where the ever increasing poor can beg or rely on charitable institutions. A low wage economy relies on a pool of desperate people eager for any kind of work as long as it gives them an extra crust. As far as our millionaire cabal of parasites are concerned, cheap labour is good for their millionaire business buddies.

      We have to ask ourselves, is this what we want for our children and our grandchildren? Is there an alternative? The parasitical political class will tell you that it is the only game in town, and all this sacrifice will bring you pie in the sky in the future. Lost generation after lost generation, waiting for that piece of pie from the sky, while the bloated parasites get ever richer and richer. This is all that this system has to offer.

       We want a better world for our children and our grandchildren and we know there is an alternative to this greed driven unjust, unequal, exploitative system. We can create a system that is based on sustainability, that brings our communities together in co-operation and mutual aid, we can create a society that sees to the needs of all our people, we know that there are enough resources to meet these desires. All that is lacking is the will of the people, the desire to take control of our own lives and our communities. The longer we delay the deeper we sink into the capitalist pit of deprivation and the harder it will be to dig ourselves out.

 

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HOW DO YOU COME TO OWN A COUNTRY???

          Why do we put up with a society that is so torn with unbelievable inequality? We have elderly dyeing from the cold because they can't afford to heat their home. While just along the road a bit, there are those dripping with jewels and finery clinking champagne glasses in jolly merry making. Take our Royal Family, while they bank millions from off-shore wind farms, our elderly are forced to choose between eating or heating. Why does the Royal family make all that money from off-shore wind farms? Well because the own the seabed and most of the coastline around our country. It is all part of the Crown Estates. How did they come to own all that land and sea? Well a guy who went by the name of William the Conqueror, decided that all of England belong to him, future monarchs thought it such a good idea they claimed the rest of the UK. The Crown Estates is now a multi-billion pound, money making empire and and 15% of all its profits go to the Royal family. There is no fear of them ever loosing out if profits fall, if by some weird and impossible event the Crown Estates didn't make any money the Royals would not need to apply for job seekers allowance, their income would be made up from a reserved fund.

         So, first you steal the land and then one of your off shoots, George 3, runs up huge debts, then offers the land back on condition that he and all his off spring, are kept in unbelievable splendour and extravagance for all eternity. Not a bad trick if you can get away with it, but don't try, they'd put you in the nick. Surely the land in any country belongs to the people of that country, not to a bunch of land grabbing parasites.

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ASSISTED DEATHS BY CEO. BONUSES!!

        As a young man I always looked forward to the winter. I loved hill walking in Scottish Highlands in winter, the grandeur, beauty, all breathtaking. Too young to worry about fuel poverty then, but now as a pensioner I look at the winters with a bit of foreboding. I know that I will struggle to keep the house warm as the temperature falls. I will devise strategies such as heading out on the free bus pass and having a read in a library for a few hours and then perhaps stretch to a coffee in some coffee shop that has the daily papers, another hour or more there, and then head home. Sometimes I'll dress up in the house rather than down, that extra pullover, and then as a last resort, turn the heating on. This is not unusual in our society, recent figures from a Yougov poll states that by April 2011 in the UK, there were 6.3 million households in fuel poverty, that's an unbelievable 24% of all UK households. While Confused.com found that 82% of the UK population expressed concern over fuel bills.

       Recent figures suggest that in England and Wales alone, 180 pensioners a day die from the result of fuel poverty, 84% of winter “excess” deaths are of people over the age of 64. This is modern 21^st century Britain, oil and gas off the shore of Scotland, one of the biggest economies in the world and one of the richest countries in the world. These figures of premature death among our elderly is just the tip of the iceberg. It in no way takes into account the illness and misery inflicted on ordinary people, simply because the system insists that the energy companies must make a huge profit to pour into the bank accounts of its shareholders and its CEO. It is death money and that's OK in capitalism. A system of profit first, human welfare away down the list.

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THE PINNACLE OF CAPITALISM - EAT OR HEAT!!!

         More misery as the millionaire cabal of public school thugs continue their onslaught against the living conditions of the ordinary people of this country with their “austerity cuts”. While we, the people who actually create all the wealth of the country, are facing wage freezes, wage cuts and decimation of all social services etc. the corporate world, in the shape of the energy companies, are putting the boot in. Fuel poverty is of epidemic proportions, thanks to their greed in seeking ever greater profits. During the period from 1996 to 2003, fuel poverty fell from a staggering 6.5 million people to approximately 2 million. However, from 2004 to 2009 the cost of domestic electricity rose by 75% and gas by 122%. So with falling incomes and rising prices we now find that the figures for fuel poverty for 2009 rose by 1 million to an unacceptable 5.5 million. That accounts for approximately 22% of the population.

        We know that since 2009 the price of domestic electricity and gas has risen several times, so who knows where the figures will be by now. On top of this domestic electricity is set to increase by 12% and gas by 18% come August. Another fact that should concern us is that fuel poverty tends to hit the most vulnerable in our society, the elderly, children, disabled and the long term ill, plus, 50% of fuel poor are over the age of 60.

What do you want --mince or a heat?

 

        This is a picture of one of the richest countries in the world. A country at the forefront of developed capitalism. We can rest assured that if we stick with present system things will not get any better.

         In any civilised society we should not be faced with the decision, do we eat, or do we heat. No one in a civilised country should die in their home from hypothermia because they couldn't afford the heat. A civilised society must have social services, not a system whereby the corporate world owns and controls everything, and sells it at a profit to those that can afford to pay and to hell with those who can't.

        Fuel poverty will only be eradicated when we take control of society and shape it to serve the needs of all our people, rather than serving the greed of a pack of parasitical shareholders.

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