They Laugh.

They are laughing at us.

           So the pandemic seems to be in retreat here in the UK, during this pandemic the government poured billions of pounds into the coffers of big business, to keep their corporate friends form loosing too much of their ill-gotten gains. The debt just piled up, now it’s pay back time, that’s where you and I come in to foot the bill. Austerity the word that dare not speak its name, but is there in the guise of efficiency savings. To you and I that means closure of libraries, community centres, swimming pools, workers paid off, social services slashed and of course for many there will be a wage freeze (cuts in reality) as prices steadily move in an upward direction. Just announced is a £139 rise in energy prices for 11 million of us consumers as the price cap has been raised. The mountain of debt will have to be paid back as the financial Mafia set out their terms of repayment and demand their pound of flesh and it is you and I that will bleed, not the billionaire class who gained so much during this pandemic.
        During the pandemic while you and I struggled as best we could, the one class that saw their wealth balloon was the billionaire class. Just a couple of headlines make this very clear: Billionaires' wealth rises to $10.2 trillion amid Covid crisis and The billionaire boom: how the super-rich soaked up Covid cash and COVID-19 has made the super-rich richer. It’s time for a billionaire wealth tax and Billionaires got 54% richer during pandemic, sparking calls for "wealth tax" of course you and I know, there will be no wealth tax, and if there is it will be some small change they have in their pocket. That suggestion is just a paracetamol for the public, it makes them feel better but does nothing for their problem.
         If nothing else, this pandemic showed up the glaring inequalities inherent in this economic system. While you and I struggled to survive this pandemic the billionaire class and their government cronies, were laughing at us. It is long past the time when we should stand up and wipe that smile of their smug faces. The efficiency savings and our struggle for a decent life will continue and that struggle will become more difficult, unless we take on this billionaire driven system of greed, inequality and exploitation. It is a man made economic system, not the words from above written in tablets of stone. Let’s organise to bring it crashing down once and for all, we can create that better world for all.

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

Warring UK.

       The UK, that patch on the planet that boasts of being the Mother of Parliaments, a country that claims to be a democratic and peace loving nation, well it seems that it has the second largest military presence around the world after U$A. I have no doubt that this sort of revelation will perhaps come as a surprise to you. An open democratic country where the people are unaware of the government's military involvement around the world. It shouldn't surprise us, as the state always works with duplicity, and functions in the interest of power and resources for its corporate bosses. All this being funded by tax payers money, plus the largest increase in military spending since the cold war, while the Chancellor of the Exchequer, their purse holder, promises a wage freeze for public sector workers and hard times ahead for the rest of us. Excluding themselves of course.

       Britain’s armed forces have a far more extensive base network than ever presented by the Ministry of Defence. New research by Declassified reveals the extent of this global military presence for the first time – as the government announces an extra 10% spending on defence.
        UK military has base sites in five countries around China: naval base in Singapore, garrisons in Brunei, drone testing sites in Australia, three facilities in Nepal and quick reaction force in Afghanistan
        Cyprus hosts 17 UK military installations including firing ranges and spy stations, with some located outside UK’s “sovereign base areas”
        Britain maintains military presence in seven Arab monarchies where citizens have little or no say in how they are governed
        UK personnel are stationed across 15 sites in Saudi Arabia, supporting internal repression and the war in Yemen, and at 16 sites in Oman, some run directly by British military
        In Africa, British troops are based in Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Mali
        Many UK overseas bases are located in tax havens such as Bermuda and Cayman Islands
      Britain’s military has a permanent presence at 145 base sites in 42 countries or territories around the world, research by Declassified UK has found. The size of this global military presence is far larger than previously thought and is likely to mean that the UK has the second largest military network in the world, after the United States. It is the first time the true size of this network has been revealed.

Read the full article HERE 

        Of course if you read the real history of this little island you would know that the Britain has always been a militaristic nation, run by a war loving aristocratic clique, seeing themselves as some sort of exceptional breed, but now bound up with the financial Mafia and corporate plunderers. Their aim has never changed, just their methods.
       How much longer can we the ordinary people put up with this power crazy bunch of psychopaths slashing their sabres across the world, stoking the flames of eternal wars, while pushing us the ordinary people, into ever deeper poverty. When the insane are driving the car, it's time we took they car keys away from them.

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

UK Poverty.

 

        The following is a comment left on one of my posts by Loam, thanks comrade. It refers to a documentary made by John Pilger, a number of years ago, read it, and think what has changed in the years since, basically the poverty and deprivation is still there, it looms large like a huge scar on the face of our unequal and unjust society. Then try to contemplate what things will be like in the coming years, after listening to our Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his wage freeze for millions of ordinary people and his talk of "hard times" ahead. How can we let that happen when millions are living in "hard times" now and in the past, with 25% of our kids living below the poverty level, and any deepening of the "hard times" would certainly lead to more homelessness, destitution and death, stunted development for millions of our kids. Perhaps we should be asking those who predict and manage these "hard times", how it will affect them and their privileged families. Ask how many of their kids will go to school hungry, how many of their wives will consider taking to prostitution to feed their kids. Of course we should also ask, what gives them the right to plunge millions into poverty, to stunt the health and development of millions of kids while they maintain their pampered, privileged position of power and wealth. Do you know the answer to that question?

 

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 down this slippery slope,

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.

       “Tonight, more than two million parents will go to bed hungry in order to give their children something to eat… for the first time since the Great Depression, Britain – the so-called Welfare State – is deliberately cutting back the means of survival of its poorest, and their children.” Children growing up in poverty is the subject of Smashing Kids, 1975. John Pilger meets the Hopwoods, of Liverpool, where hunger has become a way of life during father Harry’s unemployment as his family of five survive on £1 a day. The wallpaper in their council house is torn and there are no clothes in the couple’s wardrobe and no sheets on their bed. The family have never had a holiday and Harry tells Pilger: “It would be easier to serve time than to put up with this.” Frank Field, director of the Child Poverty Action Group and later a Labour MP, says benefits from the unemployed are falling in real terms and many families struggle to feed their children. The Brunsdens, of Hackney, east London, are one of these and have just been served with notice to quit their council house for not paying rent. Mother Irene shockingly tells Pilger that she would have to resort to prostitution “if my baby really, really needed something to eat and I didn’t have a penny”. Another mother says she does not mark her younger children’s birthdays because “they’re too young to know anyway”. Pilger points out that the current Labour government’s planned increases in social benefits will be wiped out by inflation, “imposing a direct threat to the survival of the growing number of the poor”. Smashing Kids, 1975 (Pilger, ATV), ITV, 14 August 1975 Producer-director: John Ingram (26 mins)

Smashing Kids from John Pilger on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/17187548 

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

Screw You.

        So now the wee hints are being dropped, with the Chancellor stating that hard times are ahead, suggesting a freeze on public sector wages, the inevitable cut to services and an increase in taxes, he did however, say that there would be no return to "austerity". Though in my book if it looks like austerity, smells like austerity and hurts the general public like austerity, then it is austerity. Having handed the large corporations and their business buddies, billions of pounds in handouts, and handed out lucrative health related contracts to non-health business pals, they now turn round and tell you and I, that we are the ones who will have to pay back all that money to the money lenders of the financial Mafia, apparently it is "our" debt. You have to hand it to them for their blatant two fingers to the public, while announcing these pictures of a brutal future of wage freezes, increase taxes for us, he has just announced the largest increase in military spending since the cold war. They know whose side their on, do we?

      Their sacred economy is all that matters, big business corporations must be rescued and protected come what may, as for small businesses, they can go to hell in a handcart and the public can go with them. Welcome to state/corporate fascism.

Thanks Loam for the link: Sick Britain's Orwellian Dystopia.

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

FAIR MINDED MR. SMITH.

        So Ian Duncan Smith thinks it is not fair that benefits have increased more than wages, and believes that benefit increases should be capped below the rate of inflation. Of course, in his drive for fairness, the fact that wages have increased less than the rate of inflation doesn't mean that he will call for an increase in wage settlements. What fair minded Ian Duncan Smith fails to mention, is that those on benefit, as a rule, tend to be living near, at, or below the poverty level, and any increase below the rate of inflation will most certainly push them further down that depressing pit. Bearing in mind that a large proportion of those who are working are also at, near, or below the poverty level, any wage increase that is below the rate of inflation is in fact a wage cut, adding more pressure to the endless struggle just to get by. Which is the situation that the ordinary working population of this country have been suffering for more than two years. Will our righteous Mr Smith, in his crusade for fairness, call on employers to make all wage increase at least equal to or greater than inflation. Most certainly not, that is not the direction to go if your are trying to create a UK sweatshop economy. Make no mistake about it, that is the grand plan, not just for the UK, but for the whole of Europe. Bit by bit we are being squeezed, bit by bit our standard of living is being lower. We are not at the level of the people of Greece, yet, but we are going in that direction, it is just a matter of time. Unless of course we decide that we have had enough of being screwed by millionaires, for the benefit of millionaires, and start to take control and change the system to one that sees to the needs of all our people.

ann arky's home.

WHOSE RIGHT DIRECTION?

       David Cameron in his new year speech has said that Britain “is heading in the right direction”, and he really means it. As far as our millionaire parasite Prime Minister and his millionaire corporate cronies are concerned, we are “moving in the right direction”. Two years of shrinking incomes due to wage freezes/cuts and wage increases of less than inflation, have taken the country nearer to that corporate dream of a low wage sweatshop economy. It is all falling into place, low wages, part-time workers desperate to hold onto their carp job, temporary contracts that can be cancelled at a moments notice and a massive erosion of workers rights and entitlements. A few more years of this and our corporate masters will be able to compete with any sweatshop in the East. Their other success story is of course the cuts in social spending. To the corporate greed merchants, social spending is tax money, if we can get rid of all that mamby-pamby social spending nonsense, it would mean a reduction in taxes and therefore, an increase in their profits. In their philosophy of greed and exploitation, if people want services of any kind, social or otherwise, they can purchase them from the corporate world. Of course if you can't afford that, well, tough, that's not their problem.

     Yes Mr Cameron, you can hold your head up high among your millionaire corporate cronies, you have been successful in taking the people of this country well down the path of transformation from workers to serfs. However, if I were you, I would not get too confident and complacent, I do expect the people of this country will start to stand up and do to you, what you have done to them, and kick the shit out of you, and those millionaire corporate cronies. We will not quietly crawl into serfdom, we have been there before. 

ann arky's home.

P0LITE LANGUAGE - BRUTAL RESULTS.

     What does "austerity cuts" really mean. We here in the UK still haven't yet had our full dose of financial Mafia medicine. there is more coming down the pipeline. If you want to see what is in store for you just look across at Greece. There they have seen their education system disintegrate, schools with no books, etc. their health service devastated, hospitals and clinics closing, running short on medicines, unemployment stratospheric, with all that, that entails. So it goes on, a sea of human suffering, misery and deprivation, all summed up in those nice sounding words, "austerity cuts". 

       Our shiny millionaire politicians along with the media, (the babbling brook of bullshit), are forever pouring out those nice sounding euphemisms. "Wage freeze" translates into possible malnutrition, foreclosure, or hypothermia in the winter. "Benefit reform", attacking the meager living standards of the lowest paid and most vulnerable. "Capping housing benefit" throwing families onto the street. There is always a reality to their respectable sounding words, words that taken together really mean plundering the public purse for the benefit of the financial Mafia.

      Like I said, we haven't been pushed down as far as Greece, YET, but where is the guarantee that we will somehow be saved from that. Do you think that the compassion of the millionaires and their friends in the financial Mafia will some how see our suffering, and stop stuffing their bank accounts? As far as they are concerned, everything is working fine, we the public are pouring billions into their pockets, in the hope that they will be nice to us in the future.

A report from The Greek Streets:

140 university departments are closing down –

hospital doctors on partial strike

        The ministry of education decided to close down 140 higher education departments including entire institutes. In an effort to keep the society as less educated as possible, and given that a lot of young people are developing a radical political identity and practice within the universities, the government now closes down entire departments while from this year on the free textbooks policy comes to an end, while there are systematic efforts to introduce tuition fees.

        Meanwhile the union of the hospital doctors yesterday announced that they are going on a partial-strike accepting only A&E patients and rescheduling every arranged appointments with patients. Hospital doctors protest because the Ministry of Health does not pay them for work they done, while doctors salaries have fallen circa 40% the last couple of years.

ann arky's home.

THE CUTS ARE FOR YOUR BENEFIT!!!

      

       Our millionaire public school thugs keep spouting that what they are doing is for the benefit of the country. What do they mean by “benefit of country”? What most people would think is that it is for he benefit of the people of that country. However the policies being administered by this bunch of millionaire parasites is most certainly not for the benefit of the people. Let's start with the £9billion cut from disability benefit, hitting some of the most vulnerable in our society. Then of course there is those effects that are not linked to any specific cut, like for example the fact that in the last year FareShare, which redistributes waste food from food manufacturers and super markets to various social care charities, has seen the demand for its food rise from 29,500 to 35,000 and increase of 20%. A lot of those coming forward for the food are from what would be termed “stable families” affected by rising unemployment. The number of charities applying to the FareShare scheme has risen from 600 to 700 over the last year. Almost half of those charities signed up to the scheme have claimed that the demand for their food services has risen by more than 50%. That's an awful lot of people depending on food handouts to survive, in what is one of the richest countries in the world. So much for “the benefit of the country”. Another action for “the benefit of the country” is a wage freeze, and in some cases, a wage cut, on public sector employees, while inflation is running at 5% and fuel bills for heating have risen by 18% this year alone. What is the total so far that are benefiting from these policies?

WE HAVE PLANS FOR THE SOCIAL SERVICES.

     Cuts in social services and benefits, wage freeze and wage cuts, high inflation and rocketing fuel prices, cuts in education, closure of libraries, leisure centres, and school, attempts to privatise the National Health Service, higher pension contributions, working longer and lower pensions at retiral, plus unemployment rising, all for your benefit. Of course you won't benefit now, but in 20 years or so this will be a great country for big business, lots of cheap labour and hundreds chasing every job. What you are being promised is the usual pie in the sky for you, and an immediate killing for the millionaire parasite class. So as far as they are concerned what they are doing is for “the benefit of the country”, as they consider it is their country, we are just the tools by which they make their fortunes. In the words of that old song,”When will we ever learn”?

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