Same Old.

 

        Just in case there are any young people out there that think the present day energy crisis is a new phenomena, I would like to point out to them that the ordinary people get shafted year in year out, while millionaires become billionaires and billionaires bank accounts grow fatter by the hour. It will be ever so, as long as we tolerate this greed drive exploitative, insane system of profit oriented capitalism. To make my point I'm reposting this article I wrote for the Anarchist Critic away back in 2008, read it and see if it rings familiar.

issue 67 Aug. '08
WHO WILL DIE THIS WINTER??

         Energy firm Centrica, owners of British Gas, recently announced a massive 35% price increase to take effect immediately. A day or so later they announced a profit of almost one billion pounds for the six months to June 30th. This was £100 million higher than the city financial spivs were expecting, this did not however, cause them to revue their price increase. So while the city spivs were rubbing their sweaty palms in greedy glee, the rest of us are probably sweating while thinking of our next gas bill, of course you will not be sweating come the winter when you cannot afford to heat your home. British Gas managing director, Phil. Bentley, stated, “We very much regret that we have had to make this decision at a time when many household budgets are already under pressure” I wonder, how cold will his house be this winter and how much pressure is his household budget under?
         Every winter in Scotland there is an large increase in deaths among pensioners, mainly from cold related health problems. Pensioners and others on low income in this country cannot heat their homes properly during the winter and have to make that third world choice, “to eat or to heat”.
The recent fuel price increases will push even larger numbers of vulnerable pensioners and low income families further into the pit of fuel poverty. Many will die and others will suffer health problems that will stay with them the rest of their life.
       Look around you, see the old and the low income families, try to visualise the ones that wont make it through the winter. Try to think of how they will die, their life slowly ebbing, their dignity disintegrating as the temperature falls and the dampness bites. As one of the richest nations on the planet are we prepared to see our friends and neighbours die in poverty because of the greed of shareholders? Are we prepared to stand by and feed the rich parasites at the expense of those around us? Or will try to change things so that we see to the needs of all our friends and neighbours, put an end to such indignities as death from fuel poverty and put all the natural resources in the hands of the people?
ann arky would be interested to hear how you will cope with this massive increase in gas prices and what you think should be done. annarky@radicalglasgow.me.uk

When will we ever learn? 

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By Our Tolerance, We Are Complicit.

      I recently read an article decrying the plight of the people of Greece and stating that due to the dire economic situation in Greece, 25.7% of Greeks are unable to heat their homes adequately. It pointed out that this was among the highest in Europe. Bulgaria at 37% being the worst, followed by Lithuania 29%, Cyprus 23% and Portugal 20%. Shocking figures which are indicators of misery and deprivation across rich Europe.
       Of course you and I know that under the capitalist system, being in a rich union of countries or in a very rich country does not eliminate poverty and deprivation. Take the VERY rich UK, recent government figures reveal that we in the UK are among the top raft of fuel poverty citizens in Europe. In the first four years since the Conservative Oxbridge brigade took control of our political machine in 2010, fuel poverty has risen by 9%. During the coldest spell of the 2017/18 winter it is estimated that more than 50,000 died from cold related problems, the worst figure for 40 years.
      The study also found that as well as turning down the heating to save money. 25% were scrimping on food. It is obvious that with rising prices and benefits and real wages shrinking, fuel poverty is going to increase. The fuel poverty rate for the UK, 2015, was 17% (Wikipedia) energy prices have continued to rise well above the rate of wages, this can only add more pressure to the struggling homes.
     All this is a further indictment of this economic madness, the UK, 5th. richest country in the world is among the worst for fuel poverty in Europe, when compared to the lowest rates of fuel poverty in Europe of around 2% in Austria, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
      In a sea of wealth, we tolerate a system of inequality, exploitation, poverty and deprivation, where people queue at food banks, and die from the cold. Our tolerance makes us complicit in their deprivation and deaths. The wonder of capitalism and the "market forces".

 

 

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The End Of Austerity!!

 

        As usual our political ballerinas are prancing around with their opposing views. On the one side, the opposition spouts gloom and doom, while the group with their hands on the controls, waffle on about "austerity is over", and everything is wonderful and will only get better if you leave them in control. Then through the portal into the real world and we find the truth. The use of food banks in UK has risen by 13% this year, people are still being callously sanctioned for trivial and unjust reasons, and losing their benefits for varying periods from one week to one year, pushing them into deprivation and desperation. This winter it is forecast that their will be an increase in deaths from fuel poverty. Which translates into people sitting in their home during the UK winter with no or too little heating and in some cases dying a slow death.

      What kind of society takes the only means of survival away from poor and vulnerable individuals and families, by deliberate means of "sanctions". What is the outcome for a young family when their income is stopped, in a society where money is your means of survival? This is callous vicious vindictiveness based on an ideology that the poor must be intimidate to obey and be submissive, or at worst, a cull of the poor. 

      How can we claim to be a developed rich modern country when there is an ever increasing number of our people, to survive, are having to seek food from charities?

      While the UK spent. 2016/17, £35.3 billion on defence, the world's 5th largest defence budget, the same government is quite prepared to see an increasing number of its elderly people suffer strokes, heart attacks, pneumonia and death, simply because they don't have enough money to heat their homes.

     This is the real picture of the "end of austerity" a country that has seen, during the ten years of "austerity", the richest section of our community double its wealth, while the rest of us have seen our standard of living rapidly decrease, and we continue to slide down that slippery slope to ever greater deprivation. All of these factors can be reasonably named engineered poverty.

       This is the best that capitalism can deliver, is this the way we want to live, is this the world we wish for our children? The answer is not to look to the very wealth political ballerinas to come to our rescue, they wont. Their corporate buddies need us as a large pool of submissive cheap labour, it helps their profits. The answer as always, is in our own hands, to take control of our own lives, our communities and workplaces, and shape them to the needs of all our people. Don't expect the rich and powerful to come riding on a white charger to sort out your problems, that's up to us, and only the people can and will solve the problems of the ordinary people.  

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

Let The Dream Commence.

 

       We live in a society based on illusion and deception, continually swamped in a morass of propaganda that sells the lie, that happiness comes in different shaped boxes at different prices. The dearer the price, the bigger the box, the greater the happiness. One of the basic tenets of this smoke and mirrors society is the "self", all that matters is you, if you work really hard, you can have that large house in the country, with a large powerful car, and lots of exotic holidays abroad. If on the other hand, you find yourself poor and struggling, then you are just not working hard enough.

      There is never any mention of the fact that those with the most wealth, far from earning it by working hard, they got it by exploiting others, or they inherited from others, who, in the first place, had gathered it from plunder and exploitation.

       What this society  delivers to the ordinary people is benefit sanctions, workfare, (slave labour) bedroom tax, increasing homelessness, poverty and deprivation. It is estimated that this Christmas, you know, that season of plenty, family fun and warm homes, 90,000 kids will spend it being homeless. During our winters, around 22,000 elderly die from cold related problems, too poor to heat their homes properly, and poorly insulated housing.

       Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Department of Health’s chief medical officer, said severe weather could “substantially add to the average winter death toll.”

She wrote in Public Health England’s Cold Weather Plan for England 2014-15: “Excess deaths are not just deaths of those who would have died anyway in the next few weeks or months due to illness or old age.
“There is strong evidence some of these deaths are indeed “extra” and are related to cold temperatures, living in cold homes as well as infectious diseases such as influenza.”

      The truth is the enemy of this society, hence the need to cover everything in flashing lights, tinsel and deception. The truth is that we the people are being bled to death, while we create an abundance of wealth. Unimaginable wealth that is hived off into fewer and fewer hands. If the truth is broadcast enough, it will become obvious to us all, that this cannot and should not go on. We who create all of this wealth live amidst homelessness, child poverty, fuel poverty and ever deceasing living standards, while the exploiting plunders grow ever richer and richer.

      A better world is possible, we have the ability, the strength and the resources, we have the imagination, all we are lacking is that burning desire to tear down this fabricated  insanity, of creating wealth for the few at our own expense. We built everything you see, we done it for a greed few, we can build a better world for ourselves if we so desire. Solidarity, co-operation, mutual aid, respect for each other and sustainability are the building blocks. We can start by taking control of our communities, building self-help groups to circumvent the need to draw on the corporate world, shaping things in those communities the way we want them Let's take our dreams from the drawing board into the real world.

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

A Time Of Celebration And Good Cheer!!!

      While the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, spews out images of throngs of people fighting their way into shops to spend hundreds of pounds in an attempt to buy happiness in a colourful box, let's not forget the reality of modern day Britain. The Britain where millions of us live, the Britain of the daily struggle, of trying to keep our heads above water. A world where we are surrounded by unimaginable wealth, but are witness to beggars, rough sleepers, homeless, food-banks, child poverty and fuel poverty. the question is why?

      Behind the veneer of designer names and brightly coloured shopping malls, there is another world. A world where hopes and dream die, and opportunity never knocks.

      Zero hours contracts and the minimum wage are the establishments method of guaranteeing poverty. Don't expect them to try to alleviate the problem, it suits them the way it is. It creates a pool of cheap labour.

      Poverty kills both the young and old, and those it doesn't kill, it scars for life. So who is responsible for those scars and those deaths?

      Poverty, a preventable phenomenon,  turns good people into bad parents, but not by their own desire.

      Fuel poverty in one of the richest countries in the world, is a crime, who is responsible?

     Don't expect the top layer of parasites to do anything about poverty, they need it to keep getting fat bank accounts. If we want to be rid of poverty, we will have to do the fixing ourselves.

      No matter how they do the numbers, no matter the illusion they try to weave, the truth is that the UK has millions living in poverty, Why?

     Food banks, a necessity in modern capitalist Britain, while the Oxbridge millionaires talk of a growing economy, Why?

      Employers will gladly pay you the minimum wage or less, if they could get away with it, and some do.

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

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

 

Who Pays For The UK Recovery?

       Yea, the nights are fair drawn' in, it's getting' cauldur, for some that is a fearful dread. In this country of millionaire economic recovery, this winter, approximately 3.5 million people will not be able to to heat their homes adequately. Age UK states that an older person dies every 7 minutes from the cold weather, then there is the increase in cold related illness, if it doesn't kill them, can leave their health impaired for the remainder of their lives. The winter figure for England and Wales is 206 cold related deaths a day. Every winter, across the country, elderly people die from living in homes they can't afford to heat, yet the big energy companies see their profits go through the roof. The UK energy watchdog states that this year suppliers of our energy will see a record profit £106 from every customer, up from £53 the previous year. In 2009 the big energy companies averaged £9 profit from each customer, since then they have enjoyed a staggering 1,100% increase in their profit per customer. That is a crime against the elderly of this country and people should be held to account for those deaths. 

       Another symptom of this millionaire economic recovery is the increase in evictions, and the threat of eviction, even although you have no rent arrears. Citizens Advice Bureaux states that it has seen a 38% increase in the number of people consulting them over the fears of eviction, even although they have no rent arrears. Eviction by private landlords is the most common cause of homelessness encountered by their offices. The housing shortage, and increase price of houses see landlords increasing rents to unaffordable levels. Some tenants have been faced with eviction after asking for repairs, the landlord making the excuse he wants to sell the house. Others have been faced with eviction after informing the landlord that because of changed circumstances they have moved on to housing benefit, even although they have no rent arrears. Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “Tenants are being treated as cash cows as a chronic housing shortage pushes up prices and forces renters out of their homes. Competition for properties means that tenants are easy to replace, increasing insecurity for people trying to create a home in the private rented sector. “We see people who will be forced to move away from work, school or family and friends, which can ramp up commuting and childcare costs or disrupt children’s education.”

     These are the conditions of the ordinary people in this rich millionaire controlled country, these are the building blocks of the millionaire economic recovery. As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, it's called capitalism.

 

 

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Government Paid Mercenaries!

      When a state carries out policies that kill people in another state, they usually call it war. However, what do you call it when a state carries out policies that kill its own people? Well here in the UK the policies pushed through by the state are killing people. One of them is called “Work Capability Assessment” and the weapon is in the hands of ATOS. I suppose that ATOS being a French company, we should call them mercenaries.

      The number of people who have died after being assessed by ATOS, as fit to work, is well over 100,000. In any war situation these figures would be a national disaster, why does our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, not splash them across banner headlines? Simply because they are on the other side, the side of the murdering state. The latest tragedy in this brutal assault on the disabled and vulnerable, was 53 year old, partially sighted Jacqueline Harris, as well as her problem with her sight she had restricted mobility and was on constant pain relief. However the compassionless bureaucrats, sitting comfortable in their cocooned world of “ticky-boxes” considered her fit to look for work and stripped her of her benefits. It was a pain to far, and sadly Jaqueline Harris took her own life.

    This war against its own people continues on many fronts, the freezing/cutting of wages in the midst of rising energy and food prices, the bedroom tax, putting extra strain on already stretched finances, are just two attacks which are pushing more people into fuel poverty, food banks, deprivation and in turn malnutrition, with the resultant health problems. In truth, these actions are a slow death sentence and are directly responsible for health problems and an early death in thousands of cases. The state by its deliberate policies is killing its own people, all in the name of the economics of the banksters, it is sacrificing the lives of its citizens to bolster and increases the wealth of the already obscenely wealthy. We live in a sacrificial society, where the people are offered up to the god Mammon. 

This from The Void:

     A woman stripped of benefits after being found ‘fit for work’ by Atos has taken her own life the Bristol Post have reported today.

According to the newspaper: 

     “PARTIALLY-sighted and only able to walk with the aid of a stick, Jacqueline Harris suffered crippling pain due to slipped discs in her back and neck. Her mobility was reduced further when a dog savaged one of her wrists. “Despite being in agony which strong pain relief could not ease, the 53-year-old was deemed to be fit for work following a government health assessment and told to find a job.

      “Her sister claims the verdict that she was ineligible for disability benefits drove her to take her own life earlier this month.”

Read the full article HERE:

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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

Child Poverty, Fuel Poverty, Food Banks And An Early Death.

      Do you not get sick in your stomach, and very angry when you keep being fed this crap about how the economy is recovering and the UK is now doing well. That babbling brook of bullshit, the media, are always trotting out goody-goody figures of how things are now on the up and up, while the vast majority of us are facing the worst attack on our living conditions in living memory.

       In this Britain on the rise, we have the Trussell Trust which runs 400 food banks in the UK, claim that it has seen the numbers of those applying for food, triple in the last year. 2012-2013 saw 346,992 people relying on food banks to survive, of those 126,889 were children. In this prosperous growing economy we have 13 million people living below the poverty line.

       In this land of growing opportunity we have 3.5 million children living below the poverty line, that is 27% of all children. In some local areas that figure is dwarfed, by numbers like 50%-70%. Another interesting figure regarding child poverty is the fact that 66% of those children in poverty, are in homes where at least one person is working.

      From child poverty to adults relying on food banks, to fuel poverty, that is the  true picture of the UK's growing economy. It is estimated that 24,000 people in the UK will die from the cold this winter, simply because they can't afford to heat their homes. Cold homes bring on increased blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, respiratory problems and a host of other problems. More than 6 million people in the UK are worried that they may not be able to heat their homes properly this winter. Millions of pensioners face the winter with dread and anxiety, as they know the dangers of a cold home, but can't afford to heat theirs.

 

       With this depressing picture of the real UK, we get those arrogant, pompous, parasitic millionaire MP's claiming that poverty is due to those scroungers and drug users living on benefit, however the facts don't bear that out. According to G Hay and L Bauld, Population estimates of problematic drug users in England who access DWP benefits, Department for Work and Pensions, 2008, suggest that 6.6 per cent of the total number of benefit claimants in England were problem drug users. While drug misuse may prove to be a key reason this group of people finds it hard to escape poverty, it clearly has no explanatory power for the other 93.4 per cent of claimants.

     The truth is the system is designed to syphon wealth upwards and it is working exceedingly well at the moment. If we want to eradicate child poverty, fuel poverty, and the need for food banks, and the attendant misery, then we have to destroy the system of capitalism. Turning to the managers of this exploitative system and asking them to share a little bit more of their wealth, (which we created) with us, may temporarily get you a few more crumbs, but they will keep the cake. and we will keep our poverty.

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

Feeding Off The Blood Of The Vulnerable.

     True to form, as the temperature drops, and more and more people are facing fuel poverty, along come the corporate highway thugs. We in Scotland have seen the first real drop in temperature since last winter and this is met by SSE energy company announcing that it will raise it prices as from November. We can expect to see an 8.2% increase in energy costs this winter. This is a company that last year (2012) announced profits in the region of £1,500 A MINUTE!!! While they are shaking their heads and saying we have to increase prices, the top three parasites in the company are now looking at almost doubling of their salaries. The top blood sucking leech, in this rip-off company will this year stash almost £2 million salary into his already fat bank account. As you see this is just a slight increase from his miserly £1.1million salary for 2012. This, of course, is in keeping with our wage freeze/cuts, proving that we are all in this together. Fat salaries and bonuses, as you and I know, are not a new thing, the corporate world throws them around their little circle of friends, as you and I would pass round the crisps. Recently Ian Marchant stepped down as chief executive of SSE and left with a smile on his face, as his little parting gift was salary and bonuses worth £1 million and a pension pot of £9 million and just in case he found things difficult after leaving, he also got share options worth £4.8 million.

      In this greed driven exploitative system of injustice, winter is seen as an opportunity to rip people off. In any decent compassionate society we would see winter as a time to help each other, to see that nobody suffers because of the cold winters. Energy price increases mean increases in avoidable deaths from cold related diseases. This is criminal in a country where fuel poverty is rife and rising. Price increase are not a matter of survival for the big energy companies, there are a desire and policy. The big 6 energy companies have seen their profits rise by 74% since 2009. In the same period prices have risen by 13%. For the first six months of 2013, Centrica, owner of British Gas, saw their operating profits rise by 9% giving them a staggering £1.58 billion.

      While our elderly and vulnerable suffer and die in our cold damp winters, we tolerate the leeches feeding of their blood. There is no grounds on which this type of behaviour can be acceptable. Energy is not a commodity, to be sold to those who can afford it, in any decent society, it is a necessity available to all. Don't expect them to change things. If we think this is intolerable and inexcusable behaviour, then we will have to change the system. Remember, the energy companies used to belong to us! It is up to us and us alone.

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