Work?

  

         We have created a society, a structure that demands we sell ourselves to someone or something in order to gain sustenance to survive. Work becomes the term used for normality, the desired state to find comfort. In order to have a decent life we look for our slave master, we accept our slavery, or we could find ourselves homeless, destitute. In most cases this work enriches others rather than ourselves and our family. The more we look for and accept work as a means of survival the stronger the power of our slave masters. Until we realise this, we hand a heritage of slavery to our children and our grandchildren. Work is dressed up as good and honourable, the right thing to do, when in fact all it does is strengthen the links on our chains, binds us to an unjust, unequal and insane structure that will, in the end, if allowed to continue, destroy us all and our planet.

 

The following from Act for Freedom Now:

      Let’s destroy work, let’s destroy the economy!

         Let’s destroy work, let’s destroy the economy! We are not concerned with the political problems of those who see unemployment as a danger to democracy and order. We do not feel any nostalgia for lost professionalism. We don’t want better wages or the continuation of subsidies. Nor are we for the abolition of work, the discovery of alternative ways of life, or the reduction to the minimum in order to live happily. We want the destruction of a system that makes us beg for the minimum necessary so as not to starve to death.
        We want the destruction of work and this society, of what we do during the day and its continuation that extends until night, a perpetual circle that never seems to end. We refuse to remain prisoners in this prison without bars or walls, but whose objective is exactly the same: resignation to what they tell us to accept, to the bosses’ orders and to the police that protect them and protect what we need to destroy.
        We want the destruction of the rule that makes us continue like this, prisoners of a job that takes all: our time, our energy, our creativity. The destruction of work is above all the destruction of survival, a step into the unknown. Destroying work means attacking, attacking that on which work is based and that which it produces. The attack does not affect profit indirectly, as a strike does, but hits the structure directly, either the means of production or the end product. And the object to be destroyed, although it is property, is also work, because it is something that results from work.

 

 

 

We do not want to be destroyed by capitalism, so capitalism will have to be destroyed by us.

 

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

Money.

   

  

        As usual, some words of wisdom from friend and comrade Gregg at Not Buying Anything. As they say, "money makes the world go round", but we don't like the way that it is going round, so we could help stop it going round in this insane crazy way by doing what we can to stop feeding it the money to make it go round.

The following from Not Buying Anything:

"If we don't end war, war will end us." - H.G. Wells

        Money has power, so the withholding of money has power too. So the practice of simple living (earning and spending just enough for a life that meets basic needs) withholds money not only from exploitive corrupt corporate entities destroying the environment, but also from corrupt violent governments perpetuating endless wars.
       Chances are your government is one of those using your tax dollars to wage war. I know mine certainly is. That is one reason I live simply, and have made do on a small income when I could have made more.
      Living this way I do not pay income taxes, and therefore don't pay for war. It is a way to resist not only the war machine, but also the corporate war on our planet.

       "Simple living choices can be part of a lifestyle of nonviolent resistance. The more you examine your economic behavior, the more you learn of your entanglement with the military-industrial complex and of your power to untangle yourself.
       You can help build parallel economic systems based on cooperation and sustainable choices rather than on consumerism, resource depletion, and exploitation.
      By participating in such alternatives, you live the revolution in values that is necessary for peace with justice. Each economic choice you make can be a witness to your values."

From the pamphlet: Low Income/Simple Living as War Tax Resistance

        War resistance through not paying income tax is not the main reason I live simply, but it is a wonderful fringe benefit. It is hard enough to pay for the essentials in life these days, why pay for war on top of that?
       When we make do with enough and no more, we join a revolution in values that has the power to end war and exploitation wherever it exists

 

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

Ruthless.

    

     

                                                   Image courtesy of BBC.

           So P&O ferries have just paid off 800 workers without a hint of discussion. Just a statement telling all ferries to stay in port waiting an announcement. The announcement came shortly after that via a zoom message, no matter how it was phrased it came down to "your fired". Obviously this was not a sudden decision, for as the dismissal statement was "zoomed", the replacement foreign workers were already waiting at the dockside to take over the ferries. So there was a process of recruiting vetting and employing the replacement cheaper workers to replace the 800 fired. All done surreptitiously, behind closed doors with no regard to the disaster this would mean for so many families. Homes pushed into poverty, kids having to miss out on all manner of things, anxiety and stress for the households concerned.
         No matter what you might think, this is the true face of capitalism, first and foremost it must be profit, and to hell with the workforce. In 2019 P&O ferries were bought by DP World, a Dubai company, during 2020 they claimed almost £15 million in government grants, our money, and in 2020, paid out £270 million to shareholders. Now in 2022 they clam that they are losing money and need to pay off their staff and employ cheaper labour from abroad. If that is not exploiting workers who for whatever reason will work for less, then what is. What does that statement make of Bumbling Boris's statement about the UK being a high salary, high skilled economy.
        There should be no shock and horror at this decision, this economic system of capitalism will always put profit before people, and will always be as ruthless as they can get away with in their drive for ever increasing profit. Attempting to make capitalism a more humane system is like trying to make an omelette without breaking the egg. If you want justice and fairness in the workplace, then the workers have to take control of that workplace, there is no alternative. Yes, the present system may give you sticking plaster or a paracetamol to make you feel better, but it will not cure the problem of workers exploitation. 

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

It Works!

 

       There are those who say "capitalism isn't working", this is flawed analysis, capitalism is working perfectly as it was intended to do, create vast wealth for the few at the expense of the many. Look around you, it has been a roaring success. The proof is every where, vast luxury million £ yachts, private jets, luxury mansions and an abundance of billionaires, side by side with millions living in poverty and destitution, bloody wars where the many shed their blood so that the rich and powerful can keep their power and privileges. The economics of the insane.

           To be living under the yoke of this exploitative capitalist system is to be in a state of perpetual war. Even if we submit subserviently to the dogma of the system, we fight to have a decent standard of living. If we resist the continual onslaught on our living standards and our freedoms, we are engaged in a constant battle. Human decency and justice are incompatible with the drive and desires of the corporate capitalist system, greater production, consumption and ever growing profit. Somehow this seems acceptable, and war in some shape or form is normalised into everyday life. Co-operation and mutual aid are replaced by competition. Make it big, get very rich, become a celebrity and somehow you are applauded, struggle with your daily life and you are not worthy of recognition. Your quality of your life is dependent on wealth and wealth is gained by exploitation, a constant system of battle to gain over the other. A constant state of war, in some shape or for, seems to make it much easier to accept the bloody wars created by the system as it tries to dominate resources to continually grow its wealth, power and privileges.
           Only when we replace this system of insane economics will we be able to live in peace, building a world on mutual aid, co-operation and respect for all life, only then will we be able to see to the needs of all our people, without the need for competition, exploitation, power, privileges and obscene wealth. 

Image courtesy of Counter Currents.org

Quote:
“He who is not armed dies…and he who does not die is buried alive: in prisons, in reformatories, in suburban hideouts, in – bought on credit – fully equipped modern kitchens and palatial bedrooms.”

Ulrike Meinhof – RAF

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

Disobey.

          The media and our political ballerinas keep telling us that times will be hard. We the ordinary people will struggle to heat our homes, and cook warm meals, It will be difficult to pay for the food to cook, even to eat cold. normal things for the kids will be curtailed considerably as we struggle just to survive in a much more impoverished manner. We will worry about those energy bills that are going through the roof, worry about the things we can no longer put on the dinner table, worry about our rent, our mortgages and paying just to get to work. Of course those who manage this system of insane economics, our Right Honourable PMs, I doubt if any of them will be worried about their energy bills nor will they miss a meal so as to turn on the heating. They are doing all right with their salary of approximately £82,000 plus expenses and cheap meals in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, and in lots of case, making just as much again and in some cases more than their salary from second and third and in some case fourth jobs.

 

       Another group that are doing very well thank you, are the energy companies. I may be ignorant on this, but I don't think it cost any more today then it was a few weeks ago, to get the oil and the gas out of the ground, but the price per barrel and per therm has rocketed to somewhere in the stratosphere, Shell and BP's combined profits for the year, amounted to £40 billion. Somebody is making a killing at our expense. Of course the energy industry is not the only group that are plundering and pillaging at our expense. Rio Tinto will be handing its investors a neat little bonus of £16.8 billion for year 2021. Barclays more than quadrupled its profit to £1.1 billion.

How else can you get about?

 

If you wish to go a little further afield.

 

       So you see, it is not all gloom and doom, if you're in the millionaire/billionaire club, life is looking good. If however you happen to be one of the ordinary people of this country, then are you in for a very rough time friend. Of course it doesn't have to be like this, The reason we are where we are is our obedience to the greed driven insanity of capitalist economics, which over the centuries has kept amassing more and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and driving more and more into poverty and destitution. Sick and tired of being the ones who do all the hard work and watch the wealth from that work flow into the hands of the millionaire/billionaire class of parasites. Well sticking to their rules will just perpetuate the insanity of this situation. Non-Serviam, I will not serve, would be a better approach. 

Visit ann arky's home at

 http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page  

1%??

 

        Here we are in the UK, a small but very rich country, where the people are facing a cost of living crisis the like of which most of the population have never experienced before. Taxes go up, food prices are rocketing, energy costs are going stratospheric and no real assistance on the horizon. A few sticking plasters have been suggested, none of which will do anything to alleviate the massive impact of the rising cost of living, a cost of living crisis that will lead to illness, early deaths and stunted potential of a generation. Our social service are creaking at the seams, our health service is at breaking point, and education system is a disgrace in a rich civilised society. Our lords and master that walk the marble halls of power having praised to the roof our struggling health workers have offered them an insulting 1% pay rise, which is in effect a pay cut when considering inflation at 5.5%, forecast to reach 7%.

                                                   Image courtesy of Guardian.

          As I said we are a small country our people are struggling to have a decent life, yet the pampered privileged "honourable MPs" who lord it over us, see fit to spend more on military spending than the vast country of Russia. According to "World Population Review" the figures for 2022 are, that vast and expansive country of Russia, population 144.5 million, spends $48 billion on military spending, while the tiny islands of the UK, population 67.22 million, spend $55 billion 

Image courtesy of Imperial and Global Forum.  

     I repeat, we are a very rich country, but for how much longer are we going to tolerate this insanity that feeds endless billions on the means for war and all its savagery and destruction, yet leaves its population struggling for the basics of a decent life. Are we to remain slaves to the insane economics of the powerful war mongers?

          This small piece was prompted by Loam's comment: BRITAIN OVERTAKES RUSSIAN MILITARY SPENDING — BUT ONLY OFFERS NURSES 1% PAY RISE Britain’s government is offering healthcare workers a 1% pay rise, which is likely to amount to a pay cut after inflation, at the same time as its military spending has just overtaken Russia to become the world’s fourth-largest defence budget. https://declassifieduk.org/britain-overtakes-russian-military-spending-but-only-offers-nurses-1%-pay-rise/

Thanks Loam.

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

Rip-off.

         I'm always surprised that most people don't see the daily rip-off of public funds to capitalist businesses. The pandemic has been the largest rip-off in recent times, though there have been many. Billions have been thrown at big businesses during the pandemic, clothed in the illusion of saving jobs, but in actual fact, saving bosses lifestyle. Where was the saving people's jobs when they closed steel works, coal-mines, shipyards, etc? The other big rip-off was the selling off of public assets, Royal Mail, BT, Gas, Electricity, Railways, public transport, all revenue raisers for the public purse to help pay for social services etc. They were all sold to make money for the corporate world, denying the public that income. Now we are told that we can't afford social services, our health service is at breaking point and our education system is crumbling, and they see private capitalists as the answer to those problems, rip us off when we get sick.

Image courtesy of AlterNet:

 

        Greene King manages 1,700 pubs and rents out 1,000, now complaining that times are difficult and the government will need to come up quickly with financial help, ie, tax payers money, to protect the lucrative business. Having milked the public for years and now finds it difficult to do so, asks the government to do it for them, in the form of shovelling tax payers money into their business. Don't these people realise that it is a capitalist system, you open a business, milk the public make a lot of money at their expense, to create a lucrative lifestyle, then you can't make any more killings, you go bust, that's how this insane system is supposed to work. Not milk the public for your own greedy benefit and then when times are hard get the government to keep you in the style to which you have become accustomed. That's called greedy exploitation. It's insanity if we continue to accept this greedy rip-off, by the rich, with the help of the government. We are an extremely rich country, the problem is we obligingly give all our wealth to a small cabal of parasites.

 

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

Insanity.

Photo courtesy of Seaforces.org

          As the British establishment wanted to be seen as one of the big boys in the power broker stage, it decided to build two massive aircraft carriers. Though we are short on cash for health and social facilities, our privileged pampered political ballerinas decide that £7.6 billion was snip for two of these beasts of destruction. Of course there is another £6.2 billion to kit them out with the hardware to blow other countries to smithereens. You would also imagine that these beasts were for the UK to blow its trumpet in various spots around the globe. However what we find is that while this brute scuttles around the Mediterranean there are more U$A F-35B fighters on board than UK fighters. A total of 8 UK F-35Bs compared to 10 from the US Marine Corp. Are we the UK tax payer in some way subsidising the U$A war machine? 

 Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

         Another little point, each of these F-35B fighters costs approximately £93 million and today we just plonked one into the Mediterranean Sea. No doubt there will be a few tut-tuts from the top brass as they go about replacing this £93 million killer machine. Think what would £93 million would do for you local community. The £93 million for the F-35B fighter doesn't take into account arming the beast with missiles at from £250,000 to £800,000 a pop, and they usually carry a few.
        This is the face of the insanity built into our system, while we cut social care, public sports facilities, libraries, community centres and have a health system cracking at the seams and a grossly underfunded education system, rising poverty and homelessness, we can pour billions into weapons of mass destruction, as we parade around the world as one of the U$A bully's big sidekicks.

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

Death By Poverty.

      The world is watching a mass slaughter of the poor, some watch with horror, some with disdain, after all it is away over there in India. This shows up the glaring inequality and inefficiency of the capitalist system, it is the poor in India that are suffering the most, as is usual in this economic system. India is a very rich country, but millions of its citizens live in dire abject poverty. They are the ones who stand confused when told to self isolate, use sanitiser, wash your hands frequently, when their home can be a box in the midst of a refuse dump.

    The pain and anguish of the poor of India shrieks across the globe, but few hear it. Those extremely rich countries that can spend billions on arms, send a few plane loads of supplies, and puff out the chests expecting loud praise and acclaim. If ever there was an example that showed up the abject failure of capitalism to see to the needs of the people, India today is that example. What we are seeing is a crime against humanity, the cause in this case may be a virus, but how it manifests itself is the result of the capitalist economic system. The virus doesn't pick the poor by choice, it is the economic system that makes them vulnerable to its ravishes. The world is awash with wealth, so why are people dying because of poverty, it may be labelled covid19, but it is the poverty created by this insane economic system that feeds this death machine.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

Smiling Thieves.

      There are endless of ways to point at the insanity of our current economic system of capitalism, to point to its savage cruelty, to its gross inequality, its destruction of our ecosystems, its exploitation of people, its plundering of the Earth's finite resources, its endless wars, its infinite catalogue of other crimes against humanity. Lots of us have been doing so for many years, more and more are joining in this cry for sanity, and an end to our demise at the hands of insane greed. No doubt many more will join us before we finally end this darkest hour in human history.

       I like this accurate assessment of our economic system from Not Buying Anything:

             No one earns billions of dollars. You have to steal that kind of money.

      There is nothing to admire in the money hoarding, cheating ways of the billionaires.
      They want us to believe that their business model is based on their hard work. They want us to believe that they are richer than us, because they are better and smarter than us.
       Their story claims that they are "self-made".
      Their story is false - they have stolen their wealth using capitalism's bogus business model.

Capitalism's Bogus Business Model

- exploit workers, crush unions, don't pay a living wage, gig economy
- never acknowledge responsibility, or pay for, environmental damage
- avoid and evade taxes
- push for more government subsidies and bailouts
- privatize profits, publicize losses
- employ shady accounting practices
- use corruption, lies, coverups and cheats
- sell junk/planned obsolescence
- debut constant upgrades
- spend $1 trillion/yr on mind and behaviour altering advertising and propaganda
      We have all been the victims of the billionaire's bogus business model, which is premised on endless growth, based on infinite resource extraction from a finite planet. We can now see that model has lead us to the brink of collapse.

      As hard as it may be, we need to end this parasitic relationship. You may feel that what is happening in the world of business is not right. Trust that you are correct in feeling this way. There is nothing right about the billionaires.

     It is important for us to ground ourselves in our own reality, and have a support network that allows us to join together to cooperatively figure things out. They want us atomized and weak, so joining together in solidarity is the obvious response.
     We are pleased that this a place where that can happen. It wouldn't be possible without you, and we are grateful for your participation in this project.
     It is more effective to light the candle of truth, than to curse the darkness of the billionaires plan for us.

         "Anyone who cheers for any billionaire to win anything is a pathetic bootlicking loser. Billionaires are worthless, parasitical, untalented, unnecessary middlemen.
        “Philanthropy” is just another billionaire narrative control tool, same as buying media outlets and funding think tanks.
         Build a library named after yourself and you’ve got this “philanthropist” label that pundits use so that people call you that instead of “parasitic sociopath”.
        If wealth had anything to do with hard work, single moms would be the billionaires."
- Caitlin Johnstone 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Let's Walk With The Poets.

       I often shout my mouth off about the insanity of this economic system that is grinding the planet and humanity to destruction, and struggle to come to terms of why it seems to garner support from so many of those being exploited and driven to extinction. There can be no rational justification for a system that, with no thought of human well-being, creates an unimaginable abundance of wealth as its main product, then siphons it into the pockets of a chosen few. While at the same time the multitude that produce that wealth, struggle to survive and millions fail in that struggle. There can be no way that we can look at this mad rush to extinction and state that there is a grain of sanity in its functioning.
        In my case it is not just a belief, in my heart of hearts, I know, and I'm sure you also know, that there is a better way to manage our lives. With some thought, a little imagination and the breaking of a few rules, we can bring about the demise of this suicide pact with the greedy and insane, and create that better, fairer and more humane world for all.

WALK WITH THE POETS.

My head has had enough of you,
you doomsday sooth-sayers, and
rationalists, that trap us in the world that is.
Go weave your tales of “can't be done”
to the dead, and those of no imagination.
I want to walk with the utopian,
the dreamer and the poet,
laugh with the child and sing with the wind.
Run with the deer, not with “the market trend”
Enough of, “this is the way it has to be”,
a world of poverty, wars and inequality.
Now, I'll create the world I want to see,
A world of sharing, peace and liberty.
I want the children to plan tomorrow,
the adult help them get there,
trees and flowers our treasured possessions,

with birds and animals their keepers.
Who wants a world that chains us to mortgages,
binds us to a labouring day, just to eat bread?
Who wants to spend their life, feeding fat-cats
while their own children go hungry?
No, this is not the world that has to be,
in our foolishness and misplaced trust,
this is a world that has slithered over us,
poisoning our mind, putrefying our spirit.
Let's call on the poet, let's welcome the dreamer,
let's take council with the utopian,
They'll help us create a better world for all.

 The following wise words from Not Buying anything:

       If you think that the world we live in today doesn't make any sense at all, you would be right. That is because our system doesn't have to make sense - it only has to make money.         If this system were a person it would be imprisoned, or committed to an asylum. Void of any moral compass, you would cross the street to avoid having to rub shoulders with such an destructive and unstable character, if it were actually a character. If it were a person, ecocidal capitalism might be manifested as something like The Mad Hatter, from Alice in Wonderland. "I am under no obligation to make sense to you."
- Mad Hatter

       Or perhaps as the hookah smoking Cheshire Cat, since the system is obviously under the influence of some very bad drugs. In fact, it is on one of the most destructive drugs known to humanity – money. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. You must be, or you wouldn’t have come here.”
- Cheshire Cat

      They want us to believe there is no other way to conduct human affairs other than through fouling our own nest, and allowing the many to die from highly preventable causes, while the few gain obscene amounts of wealth. None of that makes any logical sense what-so-ever. But still, Margaret Thatcher famously told us, "There is no alternative", and many agreed with her. Not sociologist John Bellamy Foster, who is thinking rationally when he says,

“We have to go against the logic of the system even while living within it.”

       I agree, but what exactly is the logic of a system that is already looking for a new planet to exploit when this one is completely destroyed? If there is no possible alternative, then let's ponder impossible alternatives. Now is when we could use a healthy dose of creativity and imagination. Our capacity to dream of a better world can surely yield something better than the total insanity that has brought us to edge of destruction.
     Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll modeled the kind of thinking we need now. He said,

"Sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

       I consider the impossible all the time, before, during, and after breakfast. I have to, because I need to inject a bit of sense in a world where there doesn't seem to be any at all.
      So I ask myself, "How about an impossible world where social relationships are not governed primarily by economics, however participatory, but by solidarity? How about an impossible world where ecocide is not an integral part of what we do?"
     I envision a system where billionaire outlaws are outlawed (not such a crazy idea after all). "Sure we destroyed the Earth", the billionaires will say, "but we destroyed it for profit."
       We have to start thinking of impossible ideas, systems, and methods. Why not dream impossible dreams?
      At one time any human would have told you that flying through the air in thin metal tubes for great distances was impossible. Or visiting the moon. Or polluting limitless oceans and the atmosphere, or cutting down expansive, seemingly endless old growth forests. And yet, all of those fall under the purview of the possible today. Who knows what "impossible" things we will achieve tomorrow?

“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, a person who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost their mind.” - C.S. Lewis

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

"Progress"

        The cabal of pampered parasites and political ballerinas that support this insane economic system, always spout about "progress". However the only "progress" I see, is in the production of ever more sophisticated playthings and trinkets for the well off, and ever more destructive devices for wars of plunder. Sadly, in "progress" in the field of well-being for the human population of this planet, I struggle to find any.

     The following piece is an accurate picture of our world today, however, sadly I wrote this post around 8 years ago, where is the "progress"?

          It is difficult to grasp the state of the world that we have created. A world where there is an abundance of almost everything conceivable and yet to the vast majority of the world’s population it is all out of reach. A world where a small elite live a life of obscene and wasteful wealth while millions die of starvation and millions of children die from the lack of clean drinking water. In this capitalist made world there are small enclaves where the rich, in safety, play games with their expensive toys, private jets, luxury cars, yachts and several holiday homes in “exotic” locations. While just over that financial apartheid wall there is the stench of squalor and death for countless millions living in total deprivation and endless wars,
        In this capitalist created world, 8 million people die every year from poverty, One billion children live in abject poverty, 640 million do not have access to appropriate shelter, 140 million have never attended school, 400 million do not have access to clean uncontaminated water, 500 million do not have basic sanitation, 270 million have no access to health care, and 90 million are severely food deprived. Approximately 12.3 million people worldwide live in conditions of “modern slavery,”while over one billion people live on less than one dollar of income per day and over three billion live on less than two dollars per day. Then there is the strata in between that manage to scrape a reasonable existence that seems to keep them from revolt.
        All this misery in spite of the fact that the world economy actually produces one and a half times the amount of food necessary to provide the entire human population with adequate and nutritious meals. The fact that the capitalist system will not allow this to be shared out to those in need tells us that it is not a natural problem but a political problem. Perhaps the words of Derrick Jensen come close to capturing something of that world.
       “We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means—all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity ... What this means is that corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have...I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that they can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host ... For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.”

Eighteen Hungry Children

Eighteen hungry children die

every minute of every day

eighteen of tomorrow’s people

cruelly thrown away.

When pandering to a fashion

gratifying our greed,

think, theirs is no desire

but a basic need.

Envisage a familiar face

a child that calls your name,

try to be the parent

try to place the blame.

Eighteen hungry children die

every minute of every day,

eighteen little faces

that never learnt to play.

Walk past your local school

listen to the shrill,

stand and count to sixty

imagine hunger start to kill.

Fingers must be pointed

at decisions made on high,

questions must be asked

loudly asked by you and I.

Eighteen hungry children die

every minute of every day,

eighteen precious lives

the claws of hunger slay.

WHY?

annarky's home.

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:

ann arky's home.