Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts

Monday, 27 July 2020

Same Again?


        Capitalism, fascism, it's an easy switch for any capitalist government, they are just slight variations on the same theme. 2008, the capitalist system had blown its lot on a mad gambling spree, suddenly the state is the corporate banker and starts to throw money at the corporate gamblers to help them survive their losses. All of this of course comes from the public purse, so we pick up the tab in the shape of years of austerity. Move forward to 2020, and we have Covid19 bringing havoc to the capitalist world of shareholders, once again the state becomes the corporate banker and throws billions to shore up the shareholders empire. Once again, we the public will pick up the tab, with the cash bonus to the corporate club being much larger than the previous, the austerity when it hits, will be even more brutal than the last time round. 
      The so called "welfare state" is just a temporary measure, a sort of paracetamol for the public, to make them feel a little bit better. It can, of course, and has been, quickly dismantled, if the corporate world needs a hand out. As has been proven in the past, and will be again, when the bills start arriving for all those billions that the state flung at the corporate shareholders.
We should note, fascism doesn't need to arrive with jackboots, it can arrive in expensive suits and limousines.
      The following is a short extract from an article in Acorn Winter Oak, about the rise of Mussolini in Italy, Nothing has really changed, we have allowed history to repeat and repeat itself, and we, the general public, bear the brunt each time. Perhaps this time round we will get the picture and bring this stinking system crashing down.

    ---After 1925, in the face of economic crisis, the pure economic liberalism of the Manchester School went out of the window, in favour of state intervention.
       But this was intervention in the interests of business and Capital, not in the interests of the Italian people whom fascism mendaciously claimed to represent!
      ‘Development’ was at the forefront of fascist plans, as is the case with all industrial capitalists. More land was cultivated and an infrastructure of roads, new towns and industrial estates was built.
       “A vast programme of public works was undertaken, carried out by private firms, who were offered lucrative contracts by the State. Electrification of the rail system began, with the construction of tunnels on the Rome-Naples and Bologna-Florence lines. A massive road building programme was entrusted to ANAS (Azienda Nazionale Autonoma delle Strade), created in 1928, which oversaw the showcase construction of big toll motorways, the first in Europe”.  This was nothing other than a bailing-out of the capitalist economy by the pro-business fascist state, for which the cost would ultimately have to be borne by the public.
Ring any bells in 2020?
       Banks were also treated to fascist largesse, notably BCI, saved by the Italian state with a massive influx of money.
        Note the authors: “There was neither socialisation nor nationalisation. The State became capitalist; it guaranteed the property of most of the shareholders and their future dividends. The only socialisation was that of the losses, assumed by the public purse”.---

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Tuesday, 9 November 2010

LET'S MAKE THAT STAND.

    
       In 1945 the Atlee government came to power in spite of the dire warnings of the doom and disaster brigade of the privileged Churchill pack of parasites. In taking power his government set about carrying out its promises of laying the foundations for a society based on needs based services. It was not perfect, but it was a massive step to a better society for the ordinary people. Over the years it has changed and grown, modified in many ways, but the underlying structure was the same, we look after those that can't look after themselves, we give to those who are in need.
        This bunch of millionaire parasites that have cobbled together a coalition of millionaires to grasp power is a grouping of dogmatic free-marketeers and they are on a mission. That mission is to dismantle the very principles and structures of our welfare state. This is not an “on the hoof” idea, it is a vicious well planned idealogical attack on the ideas of sharing and mutual aid at the base of any civilised society, the very principles that underpin our welfare state. Everything will be supplied by the private sector. There will be no such thing as public assets, no public space.
       To do this they need the help of the public, so they set about using the tried and tested policy of scaremongering, the same tactics used by the last government in their “war-on-terror” as they chipped away at our civil liberties.
       This millionaire cabal of free-marketeers will attempt to scare you into believing that any other policy will have catastrophic effects on us all. Along with their scaremongering, they will of course come up with their chosen scapegoats. They will set about demonising the unemployed, making out that they are living a life of luxury at our expense. A life of luxury on £65 a week job seekers allowance. They will claim that it is their own fault they are unemployed, ignoring the fact that, in this country there is over 2.5 million unemployed and only 500,000 job vacancies. They will persist in this lying and smoke and mirrors illusion even as the unemployment is set to rise dramatically. 
       Their vision of society is one that everything we do and everything we want will generate profit for their shareholders. Everything, health, education, pensions, prison services and all other social services will be provided by the corporate world over which we will have no control what so ever. If it can't generate profit the price will be increased or it will be closed down, no matter the need.
       Those who cannot provide some profit for them will be left to fend for themselves or appeal to some charity or other. This is the return of the Victorian era of wealth and privilege swaggering over abject poverty, where the poor are punished for being poor.
      They can't do it without your quiet consent, if this is the world you want for you kids and grand-kids then remain silent and let them suffer. If on the other hand you want a better world for your kids and grand-kids then stop being silent, stop giving consent by your apathy. Stand up and stop being silent, they are prepared for a fight but hoping you won't bother. Let us prepare for a fight, a fight for the right to a decent life without being in bondage to the corporate world. Your kids and grand-kids are depending on you. Communicate, organise, resist.
LET’S MAKE THAT STAND.

Come rise with me
here, take my hand
it’s time my brothers
to make that stand,
we’ve bought this world
with blood and tears
shed by our kin
through countless years.
Put an end to war
it’s time for pace
man killing man
has to cease.
No more poverty
in a sea of wealth
all men equal
in a new commonwealth.
Let’s never again kneel
let’s stand up tall
claim what’s ours
justice for all.

ann arky's home.

Saturday, 6 November 2010

THE PEOPLE STRIKE BACK!!!

     The people strike back: http://www.indymediascotland.org/node/22138
     More and more we are seeing people from all across the political spectrum taking direct action against the gambling casinos they call the financial sector and the tax dodgers of the corporate world. People are beginning to show their anger at the gamblers blowing their lot in the casinos of the financial world, then coming with the begging bowl and being given billions of tax payers money only to pay themselves massive bonuses and run straight back to the casino. At the same time telling us we have run up too much debt because of the money we have loaned them, so we will have to decimate our welfare services to save the bond markets losing some of their money.
       Do we have to put up with Vodafone's £6 billion tax fiddle and the new boss of Lloyd's getting a £7 million pay package, while we are told to tighten out belts and head to the nearest charity to get help for our kids? The list of tax evaders, (dodgers) is so common place that they are quite blatant about it all. It ranges from Vodafone to Google, to Murdoch's News Corporation, from Ashcroft to Green, billions of what should be tax paid to society is siphoned off into private coffers or poured back in to their business to increase bonuses to shareholders.
      Recently we have seen banks being occupied and picketed along with Vodafone, this justified action is simple to organise and effectively hits them in the pocket as well as showing other people that there is a way to get back at the greed machine that is set to shred our standard of living. Watch for what is going on in your area and join them, those involved are ordinary people, working, unemployed, pensioners. After all it is the ordinary people that are being squeezed but we don't have to take it lying down.
ann arky's home.