Unstable.

 

Image courtesy of Refinery 29.

          We live in a very unequal society, a world of inequality that stretches across the planet with its ensuing misery and deprivation for the majority. What our plunderers and pillagers of the corporate parasite class and their state bed companions should do well to remember is that an unequal world is an unstable world. Fractures are already appearing and the anger is simmering just beneath the surface, occasionally bursting forth in riots, insurrection and resistance, built on a shared burden of struggle. As the capitalist system is utterly incapable of creating an equal society as it is based on profit from exploitation, it is also incapable of creating a stable and fair society. It becomes ever more obvious that if we want a fair and just society we will have to dismantle the present economic system of profit which is driven by greed and self interest. There is no magic wand, nor will the change come from above with a bunch of roses. The change we want will have to be wrestled from the hands of the plundering capitalist system we must replace. Banners and polite marches with snap slogans will not force the plunderers to relinquish their opulent lifestyles in favour of equality and fairness. It will take the mass of the population to rise up and in solidarity state that enough is enough, we will be free and live in a fair society that sees to the needs of all our people.

 The Invisible.

We live there— yes— there
A little bit above the dead
But quite a bit below the living
Where poverty is a dream
Deprivation a reality
Our daily bread an illusion
We sigh--we weep—
As ruthless poverty
With its cold claws
Tears the heart from our children
We ask—WHY?
Surrounded by opulence
Invisible to arrogant greed
Anger simmers beneath the surface
We seek equality
We will have justice
If blood is the price
So be it. 

 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Thoughts.

  Thoughts.

Image courtesy of Do Something

WAKE-UP CALL.

As the West grows fat
the Third World squirms and dies,
poverty devours their tomorrows
while the West swims in a sea of lies.
Look,   see their lacerated lives,
their pot bellies and spindle limbs
with hands stretching out towards you?
They’re not begging,
they’ve earned the right to demand.
Their poverty has kept us fat and warm
as we shaded our eyes from the light of reality,
well,    now they’re demanding.
Demanding we wake from our soft slumber
see their suffering,   grasp their hand,
 pull them from the blood sucking morass of poverty
inflicted on them by our sightless greed.
Our blindness stole their dad’s bowl of rice
our lassitude slew their brother
our flights of fashion starved their sister
our arrogance maimed their mother.

Image courtesy of Quora

 

FIRES OF THE FUTURE.

I am fire,
I surge, I hiss,
sometimes bursting forth in a flame
that lights up the world
illuminating unimagined dreams.
Then the black cloak
blankets out the glow.
Again all is dark,
but, still


beneath the surface
I surge, I hiss,
I endure, waiting, seeking,
building up pressure.
One day I will explode
destroying forever
the Tartarean crust of oppression.
I am fire,
I am the people. 

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

Darkness.

 Sometimes I walk a long dark corridor---

 Tinsel Cities.

In the city of tinsel and bright lights
midst the playthings of the rich
just beyond the champagne bubble
out of earshot of the butterfly people
in the dark shadows where no one looks
there you’ll find poverty and destitution
dance a macabre dance of survival.
In Mammon’s city of grand illusions
where rivers of wealth feed frivolity
in its twisting dark and musty lanes
where the light of hope seldom shines
an army of the living dead sweat and toil
polishing the tinsel, changing light bulbs
refilling the champagne bottles
nothing must stop the flow of frivolity
or the butterfly people will die.

 

 Victory.

Nature recoiled from the savage beast
A beast so fierce on its war horse of progress
sweeping aside all that was natural and beautiful
This blind beast conquered meadow and stream
Banished the fish from the seas
Left a trail of barren concrete and tarmac
Filled the air with odious gases
Eventually the beast conquered the earth
Now master of a dead and lifeless planet
A world that nature, maimed and bleeding
Finally abandon to allow the beast to slowly die.

 

No Words To Say.

I’m a poet with no words to say
wandering a world of sorrow and pain
lost in catastrophes played like a game
short visions rule the day
Mountains of money piles of poverty
lost in a sea of swirling illusions
wars a natural road to walk
death and destruction a way of life
ringing in my ears songs of poverty
melodies of marauding deprivation
I have eyes that see ears that hear
a dictionary in my mind but
I live in a world beyond their reach
I’m a poet with no words to say. 

Visit ann arky's home at:

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

Unacceptable.

         There is a lot of talk at the moment of the impending brutal attack coming down the line on the living standards of the ordinary people of this country, and rightly so. However what we should not forget is that the living standards in this country have been falling for quite some time. The system is merely accelerating the process at an ever increasing rate. A recent survey from Food Foundation comes up with some figures that tell a story of ever falling living standards in one of the richest countries in the world. Their figures show the extent to which this capitalist system is punishing the ordinary people. According to their findings, during January 2022, 4.7 million adults, 8.8% of the population, experienced food insecurity, that's up 20.5% from last July. The survey also found that according to a response from over 4,000 questioned, showed that 62% of households were struggling with higher food and energy costs. While 16% stated that they cut back on food to service other essential bills.   

 

 When times are hard, parasites play.

Billionaires double their wealth during pandemic.

 

         This is the state of the living conditions of millions of people in this country at the moment, and we are about to face a tsunami of vicious price increases in everything for food to energy to taxation. The bunch of privileged parasites that manage and administer this attack on us, will always display it in figures on a balance sheet, the economy and what the economy can afford. However the reality of this savage attack on living standards translates into ill health in our children, early deaths in our elderly and a stunted life for most.

       Meanwhile, energy companies are shovelling billions into the bank accounts of CEO and shareholders. This year BP's little profit earner was $12.9 billion and Shell's $19.3 billion. All of this will disappear into the pockets of the parasite class, to keep them in the luxury to which they believe they are entitled. While you and I can go to hell in a paper cart.

 

When public transport is crap, just go your own way.

Image courtesy of  You & I    The Rolls Royce Phantom Extended 2018
 

      Is this the system under which we wish to live, is this how we will treat our children and our grandparents, is this what we wish to pass on to future generations? Or will we finally stand up and take control of our lives and through community solidarity and mutual aid take action to finally destroy this system of insane economics that pampers the privileged few.  

Visit ann arky's home at:
http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page  

Rethink.

 

         Last year 2020, apparently, there was a survey done by the marketing and public relations firm Edelman, the result of that survey was that 57% of people worldwide said that "capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world". We the ordinary people of the world didn’t need a survey to tell us the capitalist system is crap, millions live with this “harm” day and daily, we are well aware of and living with, the monstrous ecological damage the system of capitalism spews across the planet. Of course the result of the survey doesn’t mean that the powers that be and their survey merchants have decide to call a halt to their sacred greed driven exploitative system of capitalism. No, what they want to convince us of is that capitalism can move to a new stage, a fair and sustainable system, it just needs a little adjustment here and there. This new adjusted capitalism will of course not see the end to £150 million private yachts, private jets, personal luxurious mansions dotted around paradise islands, tax havens, where billions of £s are salted away for personal use. These plundered “privileges” will still be reserved for the masters of the system and their backside licking cronies. It will mean that the exploitation of the many, to maintain this imbalance, will be painted “green” and in all possibility jobs will be more precarious as the capitalist beast writhes and slithers to survive. 

           So it appears that 57% of the world’s population now accept capitalism is a harm to the people and the planet, will that be the tipping point where we, the ordinary people come together and start to dismantle this cancer that is eating our very existence. A realisation that it can’t be adjusted, reshaped or re-modelled into a fair and just system, it can be nothing but an exploitative system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. The answer is to abandon and destroy capitalism in all its various guises and start with a community based system of free association, mutual aid, fair and just distribution of the fruits of our labour, a system of sustainability that sees to the needs of all our people, free from the cancerous force of profit.

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

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   

Uncle Willie.

My Uncle Willie.

         To those who know me there will be no doubt in their minds about my hatred of the economic system we bleed under. In my eighties now, I have seen this system destroy individuals, tear families apart, and in its voracious greed for profit and power, it has murdered and maimed countless millions in its endless wars. Each individual destroyed, each family torn apart, each war grave, and each veterans hospital are all indictments against a system where people are sacrificed to keep the system functioning for the benefit of a small cabal of over privileged parasites. You would think that our humanity would demand that the system should be altered, modified and shaped to meet the needs of the the people, not the other way round.
        As we look at this society we can see all around us, those unfortunate individuals whose lives are deeply scarred by a system that uses people to perpetuate its greed driven machinations. It is so easy to encapsulate the ruthless viciousness of the system in one person's life, to me my uncle Willie is such a person. To the system, a nobody, a human being of no significance, but to those around him, a father, a son, a brother, a husband and an uncle.
        My uncle Willie was my mother's younger brother, naturally I didn't know him in his early years, but I heard the stories. Willie, like the rest of my family, lived in Garngad, a Glasgow slum in the north of the city. A young man in his 20’s, he was married and had three kids, and like so many of that era, unemployed. It seems that Willie was a family man and loved his kids, he could be seen most days walking with them along the waste ground off Charles Street at the back of Glenconner Park, usually two kids running in front and the youngest on his shoulders. It seems he was an excellent snooker/billiards player, and that is where he supplemented his income, by playing round the many snooker halls in Glasgow. However to the system, he was superfluous to requirements, so could scrape a living in the slums of Glasgow as best he could. 

 

       Then, suddenly, he is a valuable asset to the system, 1939, WWII starts, and Willie is scooped up and shipped out to Egypt. We no nothing of his experiences there, but after three years there and later his demob, he returned home with malaria, this is when I got to know him, just a little. His shaking hands, the troubled look in his eyes. His return to civilian life didn't get off to a good start, on returning home to his family, of wife and three kids, he discovered that he now had five kids. This was the end of his marriage, the family broke up, and Willie moved from job to job, and his drinking got worse and he eventually couldn't hold a job, he was now an alcoholic and homeless. Moving from homeless hostel to homeless hostel, occasionally staying with family, but his alcoholism made that an ever decreasing possibility.
       I remember my mother, a church goer and anti-drink woman, on many an occasion, looking out the window and saying, “Oh here's Willie coming”, then a pause, then, “he doesn't look too drunk”. He would sit and chat to his big sister and myself, my mother would make him something to eat and give a cup of tea. Though it was never a full cup of tea, his hands were shaking so bad it would have been all over him, she only quarter filled the cup and kept topping it up, it was his troubled eyes that have stuck with me all these years, as he was leaving, my mother would slip a 10 shilling note into his hand. 

 

       Willie spent the rest of his years moving around hostels for the homeless, eventually dying in one down in Ardrossan in his fifties. To me, my uncle Willie epitomises this stinking system, you're a worthless entity, left to rot unless the system needs you, either to make its profits, or to fight its imperialist wars, and your reward for either of these activities, if anything at all, is never anything grand, usually nothing or suffering.

 

The Warmth of a Dream.

 

He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,

night frost locked his joints

morning rain chilled the marrow of his bones.

In the dream there was a sister, 

a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters

who called him "mister", a time of little pain.

Are these youngsters the same young men, who

now laugh at him, throw beer cans, 

piss on him as he lies drunk in some dark lane?

When was that first step to no forgiveness.

No will to rise to beg for food,

numbness kills the pain.

The dream brings a warmth that feels good,

dark fog shades out consciousness,

an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain.

 

 

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

Good Times!!

          More lockdown, and the capitalist beasts are calling for more tax payers money to keep them in the style the think they are entitled to, and the media keeps blowing their trumpet on the need for businesses to be saved. However what is facing the ordinary people of this country, and other countries, is abject poverty for years to come. Where do you think all those bailouts of billions of pounds we taxpayers hand to the big businesses ends up, why in the coffers of the big financial Mafia, the big banks and investment companies. Most of them are doing very well thank you and with their loot cupboards stuffed with your money, they are well placed to face the tidal wave of poverty that will hit most of us, the people who created all that money in the first place.

 

         Of course this is nothing new, the present economic system has always functioned on the basis that we the people create the wealth and the owners and managers of the system plunder that wealth to create a pampered and privileged life for themselves and that small coterie parasites around them. Perhaps this latest phase of this brutal system of exploitation, will push us hard enough into poverty and deprivation that we open our eyes and see it for what it is, and force us to bring it crashing down. You know we can build a system that is fair and just, that sees to the needs of all our people, that is sustainable, brings an end to wars. We have the power and the imagination, all we need is the will to come together and show our true humanity. Just remember, it is your money that oils the wheels of the financial Mafia.
        The following extract refers to America, but the system is repeated across the globe, capitalism and the financial Mafia have no borders, borders are for us, to keep us in our place and to live according to their rules.

        The following extract is from World Socialist Web Site 

 

Bank of America (Image credit: Mike Mozart/Flickr)

          Hefty profits for top US banks as millions face social disaster
Shannon Jones, 13 October 2020
          Big US banks reported much stronger than expected profits in the third quarter while wide layers of the population face misery and hardship.
         Buoyed by government cash poured into the financial markets, JPMorgan Chase reported third-quarter profits of $9.44 billion, or $2.92 per share, well above the forecasts of economic experts. That figure compared with $4.76 billion last quarter and $9.08 billion one year ago.
        JP Morgan’s bond and stock trading operations accounted for a 20 percent year-over-year increase in revenues, offsetting declines in consumer loans and credit cards. The bank’s earnings rose despite a charge for $524 million for legal fees related to its criminal manipulation of global markets in commodities and US treasury notes.
       Citigroup reported $3.2 billion for the third quarter, despite a 13 percent drop in revenue from consumer banking as its trading and investment revenue rose 5 percent.
       BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, also reported strong third quarter profits, which rose to $1.36 billion. Fueled by US Treasury cash, its assets under management increased to $7.8 trillion, which is an increase of 12 percent from the third quarter of last year.
       Other large US banks, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are expected to show healthy third quarter profits when their reports come out later this month.
        The strong results for the banks come in the midst of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and mounting hardship across the US. The situation facing the unemployed is increasingly dire as the limited and inadequate support for the unemployed contained in the CARES Act long ago expired and funds released by the Trump administration for a $300 supplement are largely exhausted.
       Meanwhile, the US Treasury continues to pump cash into the financial markets, money that will have to be repaid at devastating cost to the working class in terms of social benefits, wages, working conditions and lives. The necessity of restarting production in order to repay the trillions handed over to the banks and corporations is the driving force behind the homicidal back-to-work policy of the US ruling class and governments around the world. This has led to a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths, with the number of fatalities surpassing one million internationally and 221,000 in the US.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Nobodies.

          When poetry steers the mind, what else can you do but follow.

Fascism: I sometimes fear---

I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.

Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you---

It doesn’t walk in saying,
“Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments,
transportations, war, and persecution.

Michael Rosen, 2014.

 The Nobodies--

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream
of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will
suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets. But
good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter
how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is
tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or
start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The
nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits,
dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the
police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them

Eduardo Galeano 

In Those Years.

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of us, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and, yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood saying I

Adrienne Rich. Dark Fields Of The Republic.

The Individualist Hymn

Before dying in the mud on the streets
we would imitate Bresci and Ravachol;
anyone who extends a hand to you, bourgeoisie,
is a person unworthy of looking at the sun.

Grinding machines tear the beggars to pieces
and their wives are forever pale and weeping,
The fields remain fallow, the miners buried
and the workers crushed forever by murder.

And to those who don’t give in, open the tombs,
prepare the bombs, sharpen the knife,
action is the ideal!

France, on the watch with the guillotine,
chops off the head of anyone who wants to punish her.
Cowardly Spain strangles with a garrote and murderous
Italy guns down those who aren’t accustomed to trembling.

Hanged in America, throats cut in Africa,
forever tortured at Montjuich in Spain,
but the individualist still knows how to strike
the sorry breed of gentleman thugs.

And to those who don’t give in, open the tombs,
prepare the bombs, sharpen the knife,
action is the ideal!

As long as we are a herd it’s appropriate that there’s
a social gang passing laws;
as long as the sun of anarchy doesn’t shine,
we will always see the slaughtering of the populace.

Be very afraid, coppers, when you hear
the dynamite exploding against the oppressors.
We are enemies of all cops and scoundrels,
And one against all, we will scatter them.

And to those who don’t give in, open the tombs,
prepare the bombs, sharpen the knife,
action is the ideal!

No Copyright. 100% DIY. Feel free to reproduce.

 

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

I Awake.

        Woke up this morning, as usual, sat in front of the computer, as usual, and as usual the familiar thoughts started to flood through my mind.
     Anger at the unnecessary injustice, inequality, poverty and deprivation heaped on the many by the greed driven few.
      Hatred at the hypocrisy, indifference and greed of the wealthy plundering parasite class and their engineered wars, where they never lift the gun.
     Anguish at the suffering of the countless innocent millions mutilated, maimed and slaughtered, young and old, who never desire war and gain nothing from those wars.
       Sorrow at those migrants fleeing wars, death and destruction, whose journey is drowning, hatred and concentration camps.
       The longer we accept this engineered pattern of plundering, the deeper the pool of blood we wade through, the heavier the burden of complicity will weigh on our shoulders.

The Seeds We Sow.

Because of my ignorance, I sowed the seeds of anguish,
while my self indulgence planted the vine of pain,
my disregard of the future laid sorrow’s foundation.
Suddenly the future slaps me in the face,
while my children eat the food of that anguish
and chew the leaves of that vine,
as the sea of sorrow washes around their feet.
My yesterday shaped their tomorrow
My ignorance laid their path
and now my self indulgence is their burden.
It would appear that,
these failings of the father are burdened on his heirs.

    We all know that we could distribute the resources of this world in a more humane and fairer manner. Their is enough to see to the needs of all our people, our crime is we leave that distribution to the greedy plundering parasite class. To often those suffering the most, the marginalised, those with the greatest need for our assistance, somehow are hidden from view, unless we take a deeper look around us.

The Invisible.

We live there— yes— there
A little bit above the dead
But quite a bit below the living
Where poverty is a dream
Deprivation a reality
Our daily bread an illusion
We sigh--we weep—
As ruthless poverty
With its cold claws
Tears the heart from our children
We ask—WHY?
Surrounded by opulence
Invisible to arrogant greed
Anger simmers beneath the surface
We seek equality
We will have justice
If blood is the price
So be it. 

      We have the numbers, we have the power to change this weary and blood stained world to one of humanity, co-operation and justice for all. We have that better world drifting around in our hearts and heads, all we need is the will and solidarity to act now. Of course we can accept their tomorrow.

We Have The Power.

Empty streets,with empty shops,
queues forming at the job centre,
doorway beds and hungry children,
watched over by mean eyed cops,
foodbanks growing by the hour.
City razzle-dazzle just rusty remnants,
shopping malls now empty caverns,
home to starlings, pigeons, magpies,
zero hours, part-time workers live in,
homes where ambition fails to flower.
Shiny politicians peddling illusions,
grin and bear it, there’s pie in the sky,
follow the Messiah, he’ll get you there,
quietly swallow their empty promises,
so they can live in their ivory towers.
This world exists by our acceptance,
blindly following their biased rulebook,
failing to realise that we the people,
builders of the world by sweat and pain,
are the ones who really hold the power.

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

Crooks & Liars.

        I don't often say much about party politics and their crooks and liars competition called elections. However there seems to be a frenzied babble about the coming American November illusion of change. Trump or Biden, Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, Laurel or Hardy, what a choice for what is reputed to be the most powerful position in the world, however, it is far from funny. No matter which puppet of the financial/corporate industrial war machine gets to wear the USA crown, wealth and power will stay firmly where it is, locked in the vaults of the pampered privileged parasite class. Covid19 will continue to kill, evictions will still escalate, unemployment will still rise, poverty will still be rampant, and profits will still be made and syphoned into the pockets of the rich. That's capitalist change for you.

The following is an extract from FSP Revolutionary Feminism in Action:

Are The Powers-That-Be Ready to Dump Trump?

        Trump’s hopes for a second term are slip-sliding away, so he’s lashing out with vicious racism and fear-mongering. When he calls anti-racist protests unpatriotic “far-left fascism,” it emboldens white supremacists and right-wing militias to attack.
       Not only is Trump trying to rally his base with racism, but he is ranting about mail-in ballot “voter fraud” as his followers close thousands of polling places in poor and Black communities. The only thing he’s not inviting people to fear is Covid-19! Instead, he denounces Obamacare, refuses to mask up, and pushes businesses and schools to reopen during the height of the pandemic.
      Workers and the oppressed doing it for ourselves. Where is the power and will to make real change?
      It doesn’t lie with the Democratic Party — it lies with working people and the perpetually abused. In two short months, people in the streets forced cuts to police budgets, prompted bans on chokeholds and tear gas, and got cops who murder fired and arrested. Where has the Democratic Party been?
     Democratic politicians aren’t out fighting tooth and nail to stop voter suppression or police violence. They spend their energy trying to keep minor parties off the ballot and co-opting Bernie Sanders to support “centrist” Joe Biden — who actually drafted the 1994 Crime Bill that filled the prisons to bursting.
       Whoever wins the presidential contest will face the same gigantic problems, armed with the same limited capitalist tools to address them. He (undoubtedly) will have to deal with a probable depression, mass joblessness, a continuing pandemic, and public uprisings for justice, all while protecting ruling-class interests. Right now it may seem that the upper crust has more faith in Biden than Trump, but a lot can happen before November!
      What’s more important than who wins is continuing to build the strength, radicalism and organization of the grass-roots movement. The fight goes on!

Read the full article HERE:

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

The Invisible.

         A few words for those millions that suffer poverty and deprivation in this system of inequality and greed. For the migrants fleeing death and destruction with just the clothes on their back. For the homeless, the marginalised, for those invisible to the arrogant, greedy masters of this economic system of injustice, inequality and exploitation. For those cast aside for plunder and profit, a price will be paid for your pain.

 The Invisible.

We live there— yes— there
A little bit above the dead
But quite a bit below the living
Where poverty is a dream
Deprivation a reality
Our daily bread an illusion
We sigh--we weep—
As ruthless poverty
With its cold claws
Tears the heart from our children
We ask—WHY?
Surrounded by opulence
Invisible to arrogant greed
Anger simmers beneath the surface
We seek justice
We will have equality
If blood is the price
So be it.

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

American Dream.

        America, the richest country in the world, though that might not be too accurate when you consider it massive debt. Never the less, in capitalist terms, it is the richest country in the world. The image it portrays to the rest of the world  is America is the land of plenty, opportunity, and of course the "American dream". Unemployment at a record low, stock market ever rising, money, money everywhere. Often we are shown how poverty thrives in "third world" countries, but America, it is the shining example of good living, and prosperity. Of course, it is a capitalist country, and anyone who knows how the system works will be well aware, that is an illusion. 

         40 million plus, Americans live below the poverty line, homelessness is mushrooming, medical care is not for everybody.

A couple of videos and extracts from Peak Prosperity: 

At least, it has been.
        Recently, it’s become impossible not to see the signs that more and more people are falling into poverty. They just can’t afford the rising cost of living, even if they have a job.
       Here where I live, nowhere is this more apparent than the Joe Rodota trail connecting my small town of Sebastopol with the nearby city of Santa Rosa. Over the past year, this previously quiet, clean, bike & pedestrian route has exploded into a sprawling homeless encampment for hundreds of dispossessed people.
        Here’s a 2-minute video I took of the encampment this afternoon (h/t to my daughter Charlotte for manning the camera as I drove):

And:

      If you have the time, I recommend watching this 45-minute documentary on US poverty produced by a German public broadcast service. Currently more than 40 million Americans live beneath the poverty line — that’s twice as many as in 1970.
       Viewing our country through their outsider’s eye is a stark warning that we ignore this metastasizing social epidemic at our peril:       Back to my question at the start of this post: What’s it going to take? How many more millions will fall into poverty? How much more abuse will continue until of those of us paying attention, with growing fear at the social implications and perhaps at our own financial vulnerability, actively revolt against the elite-centric status quo?
       For thousands of years, history has warned us that such social imbalance will not stand:

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