We Need To Organise Pan-European.

       Does anybody still think that the UK austerity plan and the privatisation of everything, including the health service, is purely a UK government plan? It is happening across the planet, in the new era of capitalism, public is evil, private is good. Populations will be impoverished as all wealth is syphoned up to the privileged parasite class, at an ever increasing rate.

         Greece, a country I visited regularly over a number of years, and in my earlier visits in and around Athens, I never saw a begger. Now it is not uncommon to see people sleeping in doorways, including children. You will see people rummaging through waste bins in search of something to eat or sell. Suicides and substance abuse have rocketed in the last few years. 

         Spain, remember that country that you went to on holiday, bustling streets and shops and a friendly atmosphere? Well, regarding child poverty, Spain has now dropped to the second worst in Europe, just above Romania.

        Of course both of these countries always had poverty, under capitalism every country has poverty. The difference now is that it is widespread, endemic and getting worse, not because of the lack of wealth, but because of the ever increasing rate at which that wealth is being sucked upwards.

        Even those countries that are considered the leaders in social welfare, Sweden for example, are now seeing their public services being gobbled up by the corporate greed machine, to the detriment of the general population.

Two short quotes from The International Journal of Socialist Renewal: 

       Tonight’s public meeting is standing room only. The mood is cheerful, earnest, disciplined and, dare I say it, rather churchly. Fittingly, we begin with songs: first a hymn tune with the refrain "Everything is for sale", then a jazzier number that goes "Got any money? (Then you can buy a place in the queue)". Next there’s a short dystopian pantomime set in a hospital waiting room: the man with the private plan goes straight upstairs while the lady on the public option has to wait in line. The sheepish uninsured fellow with the broken leg is shown a price list, then the door. 

       Sweden’s welfare system is famously extensive: long parental leave, free childcare, free tertiary education, generous social security. After the economic crisis of the early 1990s successive governments have reduced entitlements and cut public spending, but what has changed the most is the incorporation of the private sector at every level of the welfare state. All public contracts are subject to competitive tendering and most new clinics and hospitals are built with private funds. Communal clinics, nursing homes and schools compete with private firms for pupils and patients. Last year the state paid almost 100 billion kronor (£11 billion) to private welfare operators, overwhelmingly to 10 large corporations all owned by private equity funds.

Read the full article HERE:

           Bearing in  mind the above facts, do you honestly believe that changing the smiling face of the Etonian millionaire, sitting on the throne at the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, for another smiling Oxford educated suit, will make one bleeding bit of difference in the direction this country and every other country in Europe, is being driven? Will running and putting a X in a box in favour of party machine that is in the thrall of the financial mafia and the corporate world, stop the UK slide into a sweatshop economy, reverse the child poverty in Spain, reduce the deprivation and suicides in Greece, and bring back Sweden's social welfare system? Don't hold your breath. 

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

32% SALARY INCREASE -- WAGE FREEZE, TWO SIDES OF CAPITALISM.

        As the austerity policies being pursued by our millionaire public school thugs, continues to bite ever deeper, it pays to have a wee look at salaries. Over the last year people have been finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, what with wage cuts/freezes, VAT increases and rocketing fuel prices etc., but of course, this is capitalism and it doesn't work out that way for everybody. Take those pampered parasites the CEO of the FTSE 100 companies, this year on average, they enjoyed a 7% salary increase on top of their already fat-cat salaries and monopoly money bonuses. However, if you are one of the CEO of the “blue-chip” companies, then you chuckled all the way to your winter home in St Moritz as you enjoyed on average an increase of 32% on your bloated undeserved salary.

I'm a CEO,  I work bloody hard!!

       32% salary increase when their friends in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, are dictating a 1% cap on public sector pay increases, for at least two years, this after a two year pay freeze. Remember, inflation is running at just over 5%, that makes it a massive pay cut for all public sector workers that will continue for the next few years. In reality, public sector workers will never get back to the level of salary they were at two years ago.

       We are continually told we can't afford all these social services, but there seems to be an awful lot of money sloshing around in this corrupt system. The shape of our society, under this present system, is all down to government choices. It is not that there is not enough money, the government choose to spend vast sums on armaments, wars and tax breaks to big business. It could if it so wished, spend that money on social welfare, it could introduce a fairer tax system, whereby those fat-cat CEO and others of that ilk, paid a larger share into the public pot. However under this corrupt and exploitive system, we have to realise that the government is the guardian of wealth and power and has a duty to make sure that those with the wealth and power see it grow and in no way can it be diminished.

       Under these conditions we are foolish if we sit back and expect the government of the day to look after our welfare at the expense of their old school friends in the millionaires club. We don't come into that equation, we are at times an inconvenience, and at other times a necessity, as a mob needed to keep buying their crap. Give your imagination a wee bit freedom, think, can you visualise an alternative society that would see to the needs of all? It's not that difficult!!

ann arky's home.