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. 

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Obvious.

         I have always maintained that those who believe we can "fix" capitalism, are idiots. They are trying to fix something that isn't broken, capitalism is working just fine, and doing what it was intended to do, make a few people very rich at the expense of the many. Once you grasp this truth, you realise that the only answer for justice and equality for all, is the total destruction of capitalism and all its attendant institutions. We are sold lies and illusions, and dwell in a land of smoke and mirrors. A world woven by the massive corporate advertising beast and its companion, state propaganda. Nowhere in the world of these two servants of capitalism is there a shred of reality, nothing related to the world we the ordinary people inhabit. 

      Nothing is as it is painted, "the economy" dressed as necessary and benevolent to all, reality, a label for the continuation of exploitation of the mass of people. Bearing in mind that the richest 1% have massively increased their wealth while the bottom 50% have become poorer.  "Prison", a place to put dangerous people, reality, a dustbin to dump those who would hinder the exploitation of the people. Bearing in mind that approximately 80% of those in prison suffer learning difficulties, substance addiction and/or mental health issues, and should be somewhere in the social care system and not prison. "Advertising" bringing the latest information to assist you to make choices to enhance your life, reality, devious and duplicitous manipulation of desires and reality to increase consumption and profit. Bearing in mind that the corporate world spends billions of pounds annually on advertising, so it must work. "Democracy", hailed as a way for you to be involved in the running of your country, reality, an illusion created to try to stop you from taking control of your own lives and communities. Bearing in mind that practically all those in government have connections and investments in the corporate world and they decide the shape of your world and how your tax money will be spent.

        So the answer seems to be straight forward, to live our lives in a world we recognise and relate to, we must screw the "economy", abolish "prisons", scrap "advertising", and get rid of their so called "democracy" and take control of our communities and workplaces in co-operation with all other communities scrapping the profit motive. Well, what are we waiting for?

 

 

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And The Fox Makes Friends With The Hounds!!

 

       I don't often poke my nose into the "Brexit" pantomime, or should that be tragedy, as I feel I would be entering a very badly working dilapidated  shithouse. The Boris Brexiteers are all cock-a-hoop over a trade deal with America peddling the illusion that we would get a "good" deal. However what the public should be aware of is that America is raw capitalism, capitalism with the gloves off, bare-knuckle capitalism, and will eagerly gobble up anything and everything that will make a profit for the predatory moguls that control the levers of capitalism. However, this article has some interesting facts, so I thought it was worth repeating in full.

This from True Publica:

      By TruePublica Editor: In the magical illusions of the smoke and mirrors ideology behind Brexit, we should be acutely aware of what a trade deal with America means. In our article this week – The MAGA Agenda – it seems that among those on the radical right – the government, their acolytes and corporate donors – there is a widely held belief that a favourable trade deal can easily be negotiated with the United States. But this belief flies in the face of historical evidence as the US has proved on more than one occasion to be a ruthless and exploitative (so-called) partner where its own economic interests are involved. It is naive to think that America will be a cooperative and fair ally or partner in the common interest – it won’t. And being a sycophant of Trump’s America – with his MAGA agenda will prove to be the final nail in Britain’s coffin.
      The radical right – members of the ERG, such as – Michael Gove, Iain Duncan-Smith, Priti Patel and Chris Grayling to name a tiny handful are driving Britain into the arms of a country that exploits everyone except the very few. American values are not British values and we should never dismiss the scale of damage that the USA inflicted upon Britain over the decades since the last World War.
     For Boris Johnson to use inflammatory language to stoke up nationalism and adopt Churchillian euphemisms as a means to his own ends would make those who lost their lives to save this country from all sorts of evils turn in their graves. The fact is that the Americans exploited our position during the War and especially from 1945 for their own financial and economic gain. They were not just duplicitous, they were shameless about it and Britain should never trust them again – much as the Kurds in Northern Syria have just found out to their horror.
       In the background, as the political warfare of Brexit rages on in the mainstream media, various Bill’s that relate to Brexit and future trade deals are being heard. For any politician to say that the latest Brexit deal continues to protect the rights of workers, protects the environment, food and medical supplies is simply lying, blindfolded or doesn’t understand the deceitful machinations of this government.
        On the announcement of a new Trade Bill (1), Jean Blaylock, trade campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said:

     “Parliament needs to have a say on trade deals so that unaccountable government ministers aren’t able to use them to slash regulations, entrench privatisation and block climate action. This should be a simple, basic requirement in any democracy. MPs, Lords, business and civil society have all steadfastly been raising this for the past two years, and earlier this year Parliament introduced a clause in the old Trade Bill to guarantee that trade deals will be voted on. Yet Johnson’s government is so scared of having to answer to Parliament that it plans to have a new Trade Bill that conveniently leaves out all of these democratic provisions.
      “We know that Johnson’s government wants to do a trade deal with the US in a hurry. Trump’s administration has already told us what it wants in deal, and it’s very worrying – chlorine chicken, higher prices for medicines, and an end to any attempt to rein in the power of Silicon Valley big tech firms like Google, Amazon and Facebook. A deal like that demonstrates the need for Parliament to be able to review what’s on the table and have a vote.”

      The big problem with having made a career out of writing fantasies and falsities as Boris Johnson has done is that no-one believes the promises of habitual liars. And so it is with the one institution that stands heads and shoulders above all others in the UK – the NHS.
       Last month, promises made by Boris Johnson that the NHS is “off the table” in negotiations over a post-Brexit trade deal with the US simply cannot be relied upon. As Nick Dearden says:

      “Johnson’s promise to protect the NHS should be taken with a very large pinch of salt, because the threat to our health system will be written across a US-UK trade deal, from the new powers it gives big pharmaceutical corporations to charge higher prices for medicines, to restrictions on preventing Big Tech companies from mining the NHS database.

     This will go well beyond a US trade deal, however. Johnson’s government is talking to countries across the world who will want to use Brexit to insist on even more damaging environmental policies from the UK. Only last week Malaysia said that reducing regulations on palm oil production would be the price of a post -Brexit free trade deal.”
      The other point to remember is this – why would any country rely on America in any deal to play fair and by the rules. They don’t even in their own country. American’s don’t trust the regulatory agencies to do their work properly or professionally when most of them are drenched in corruption or bribery scandals. Take for instance the USDA’s National Organic (food) Program. Described by national media organisations as a ‘feckless agency‘ involving its complicity in what might be the biggest consumer scam in decades: the sale of phoney organic food. It’s a scam that’s been going on for years and years and yet the federal government looks the other way. Millions of American consumers have been — and are still being — duped, buying pricier “organic” products that are imported into the country without the correct licences or country of origin certificates, repackaged and sold on – making huge profits along the way. Food products can arrive from places like China, South America or Africa, be covered in pesticides and ridden with deadly heavy metals and sold as healthy organic produce simply by repackaging with misleading attractive labels.
      Corporations all across America consider being fined billions of dollars for fraud and corruption as the cost of doing business. People and consumers are the last consideration. And healthcare companies are some of the worst in America. As the Forbes said at the end of last year – in an article entitled ‘Shame, Scandal Plague Healthcare Providers In 2018′ – “Unfortunately, the problems (of corruption) are endemic and deeply embedded in medical culture.”
       Nowhere are these ill-effects more apparent than in cancer care. A recent report titled “Unintended Consequences of Expensive Cancer Therapeutics” found that the last 71 chemotherapy agents to receive FDA approval extend life by an average of only 2.1 months—time often spent in pain, isolated from friends and family – purely for the purposes of making bigger profits. It’s extortion practices even extend to the heartbreak of a family member dying before your eyes.
        In America today – two-thirds (66.5%) of all bankruptcies are caused by not having the right health insurance. Last year, 530,000 families lost everything – homes, savings, assets built for retirement – to save a family member from illness – only for everyone else in the family to be pauperised. A recent study found that only 40 per cent of Americans have enough saved to cover a $1,000 emergency expense – and medical care comes with co-pay (percentage of contribution) costs that can roll into thousands depending on the cover.
       In 2019, the average price of health insurance rose above $20,000 for families that obtain their coverage through work. They pay just over $6.000 assuming that someone in the family has a good job as they employer stumps up $14,000 per employee – per year. The Keiser Foundation report into American healthcare costs said:

        “These numbers are grotesque. Insuring a single family for a year costs almost as much as a Honda Civic. This fact should be a subject of daily outrage, and it probably would be if more workers realized just how much of their compensation is devoured by the cost of health care. After all, every dollar a company pays to Aetna or Cigna is a dollar it might otherwise be able spend on salaries and wages.”

       Boris Johnson knows this. He was born in America. From faking his ancestral history to bendy bananas, eurocoffins, and the banning of prawn cocktail crisps. Boris Johnson has been fired more than once for lying and made to apologise for outrageous allegations such as he did about the Hillsborough disaster. From his philandering and now accusations of corruption with a pole dancing ‘entrepreneur’, Boris Johnson’s honesty and integrity in any area of life mean nothing. He will be as happy selling Britain down a river without a paddle for a bit of personal glory and people will believe him.
       Was it Noel Coward who once said – “It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”
      This trade deal cannot be trusted to be in the best interests of Britain if left to the whims and fantasies of this government.

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Auschwitz-Disneyland.

      I post this article in full  because I think, with clarity, it puts into words what so many of us think and feel, but can't quite put it together. Also as the writer says, the audacity of linking those two words, Auschwitz and Disneyland will create a shock among those conditioned minds.

     It is an anonymous article taken from The Anarchist Library, a wonderful Aladdin's Cave of anarchist texts.

Auschwitz-Disneyland

I live in Auschwitz-Disneyland. I make sure that all my papers are in order,
I document my existence on social networks,
        I apply for grants and loans. I wear clothes that express who I am, I am a walking billboard, a name tag, I pick a style. I take a train, a subway, my car, un Bixi[1], it's so convenient. I take a shower, I smell good, according to the ads this foaming gel makes me irresistible. Auschwitz-Disneyland is the countryside in the city, the city in the suburb, and the suburb in the countryside. Auschwitz-Disneyland is naked life in one's Sunday best, the hegemony giving itself the answer. In Auschwitz-Disneyland, “holidays make you free.” In Auschwitz-Disneyland, we order at the drive-through, we studying by distance learning, and we shop online.
      In Auschwitz-Disneyland, “water comes from the tap and food comes from the supermarket”, food found in the skip also comes from the supermarket. Spectacular capital of Biopower and the bio-political Spectacle: Auschwitz-Disneyland is the name of the metropolis and that of the empire. Auschwitz-Disneyland is not synonymous with the Spectacle, but rather, that which the Spectacle prevents us from keeping our distance from. Auschwitz-Disneyland is not civil war, but the denial of civil war to such a degree that it becomes a weapon. Auschwitz-Disneyland does not call itself Auschwitz-Disneyland, it is called: Montréal, Burlington, Club Med, the Univerisity of Québec in Montréal, Athens, Amiens, Dix-Trente, Bagram, Oakland, Bois-des-Fillions, and I'm skipping some. The inhabitants of Auschwitz-Disneyland are citizens. In the aftermath of a riot, the citizens come out of their condominiums armed with brooms. Living in Auschwitz-Disneyland is an anaesthetic experience, which deprives us of the beauty and possibility of sensory experience.
     I wouldn't know how to say exactly how this all started, if it was domestication, patriarchy, agriculture, the State, cities, symbolic culture. There is also this god from the desert, jealous and terrible liar whose promise is no stranger to the hegemony of Auschwitz-Disneyland. This god, who could not have been so hideously jealous and a horrible liar if he had really been alone, managed to convince his disciples that he was the only god and that nothing that links us to the here-and-now is of importance, that what mattered was elsewhere and he held the key for it. Although we are no longer as loyal to this tyrannical buffoon, we continue to diligently follow his terrible promise. Auschwitz-Disneyland is the objective incarnation of this promise, the absolute negation of the possibility of being here, now. Here-and-now, is no longer here-and-now, it is just next door, out of reach, fenced off, it is a no-man's land that crosses the empire, it is subject to police surveillance at all times. When I try to escape Auschwitz-Disneyland is not to go elsewhere, it is to rediscover the here-and-now. I do not dig a tunnel, but a hiding place, a shelter.
     Auschwitz-Disneyland subjects the world to its empire through use of powerful tools such as reason, technique and grammar. In a world whose ins and outs are contained in symbolic mediations, do not underestimate the power of grammar. Grammar shapes minds and stories, it also brings many prohibitions, of course it is not permissible to join the words “Auschwitz” and “Disneyland” with a hyphen, to try to give them one and the same meaning. In Auschwitz-Disneyland, resistance, like all counter-cultures, has developed a vocabulary of its own, but fails to overcome the enemy grammar; the word “ecocide” will never hold weight against the concept of “economic growth”. The combination of a counter-cultural vocabulary with the authoritarian grammar of mass society can only lead to ridicule, we must see how easily the “New World Order”, “Bilderberg” and “chemtrails” conspirators put an end to any political conversation. Facing the risk of being confined to jargon, it is beneficial to talk through the force of rocks, paving stones, poles...
        Auschwitz-Disneyland is less the Apocalypse in motion, than the negation of this Apocalypse in the service of its expansion. The task falls on the best agents of the Apocalypse of denying the slightest trace of the latter, and to wipe out the unfortunates who had the audacity and recklessness to pronounce its name. It is perhaps no coincidence that Saint Peter became the head of the church by denying Christ three times. If this negation of the Apocalypse returns in the sphere of the spectacular, to specialists, in the private sphere we become all subcontractors. We prefer, most of the time, to deny our desire to end the domination, in favour of a trans-historical oppositional perspective and of 'counter-power'. In doing so, we deny the possibility of abolishing Auschwitz-Disneyland, by contenting ourselves with a space for demonstrations, a zone for free expression, a protest pen. We let go of the gun to better cling to the barricade.
      This mutilated negativity first results in our inability to sustain ourselves without precarity, which also feeds our servitude. This constant management of subsistence denies the possibility of note-worthy experience, of bearing a relationship to the world which is not that of domination.
        A century of industrialisation, continental genocide and four years of trench warfare eradicated everything up until the “possibility of experience.” Then after that, it was relayed by the most horrible images, rats shown alternating with a hated minority; and during that time on other screens, a mouse wearing trousers, going to the restaurant with his girlfriend, driving a car. Since scrapping experience, progress, basing itself on images, has free reign, hiding the cost of what little is given to us, cultivating our dependence, promising us anything. In Auschwitz-Disneyland, progress maintains itself by combining its best gadgets, which form so many layers which capture us like cellophane. Auschwitz-Disneyland merges telecommunications, cybernetics and pornography, and gives us the internet.
     Auschwitz-Disneyland is also the triumph of sustainable development, humanitarian intervention and green capitalism. Divided thought has multiplied to the point of constituting an inseparable heap. New animal torturers are the “finest minds” of cognitive science, and wise European scholars, well-intentioned, try to prove the innocuousness of new molecules that surround us. Where does the baby start and the bathwater finish? The “banality of evil” is also the evil of banality. The dreams of citizens reproduce sadness and the banality of their existence, their interaction is limited to an interface. Another world is possible, you want to laugh. This world is impossible, its end is desirable, that will suffice. Jokers put forward superficial slogans: ecosocialism or barbarism. If it's a matter of choice the answer is too easy, we are not fooled, the 250 known species which have become extinct today are not fooled. If it's a threat, we will respond with a roar, a fierce and wild roar, we will roar with all our strength, we will roar for the 250 known species which became extinct today.
     Auschwitz-Disneyland can provide free education, cover itself with windfarms, eat organic and drive electric cars, the “Princesses' Castle” and her thousands of hideous copies could be made of recycled cardboard, the horror would remain whole. To maintain itself, this world must keep us out of the here, far from the now, outside nature and alien to each other.
       Auschwitz-Disneyland only maintains itself by cultivating this estrangement within us towards others. We share a subway car, without letting it show; we don't look at anyone, we are voluntarily absorbed by some gadgets, some books, some music. When empty-handed, we pretend to be alone, to be somewhere else; we are in the habit. We are mobilised against the presence of the body and against the possibility that it carries. Sometimes this mobilisation fails and the decorations get torn. There are all these cities and suburbs ablaze when the cops execute the “baddies”. There is Sobibor[2] where a dozen prisoners got the camp to revolt: killing the guards, destroying the cells, fleeing into the woods. There's also Woodstock '99[3], Seattle[4] and there is Oka[5].
        A drone flies over a piece of desert, preparing to launch a missile at a truck; we will say that it was carrying some “militants”. A landlord's association decides to analyse the DNA of dog shit that stains their lawns to find and punish those “guilty”. A counterfeit Mickey Mouse gets on stage with a neophyte dictator for the greatest “joy” of children. An Italian atomic energy official gets kneecapped[6]. The war is already here, we know which side to choose. All that's left is to “desert with arms”, to desert with a friend, with at least one friend, a friend, a stranger, a stranger who became a friend, with two friends, five friends. Deserting doesn't necessarily imply going elsewhere, “arms” are not just useful for fighting; deserting implies creating a new relationship to the world, exploring “here” and experimenting “now”, noting the location of enemy devices, making a plan, plans, finding yourself, finding a friend, two friends, five friends. Together we will survive, heal, and of course fight, we will also experiment with this new grammar, better yet this language without grammar, which will put an end once and for all to “Auschwitz-Disneyland.”

[1] ed. – Similar to the 'Boris Bikes' cycle hire scheme.
[2] ed. – Sobibór was a Nazi German extermination camp in Poland.
[3] ed. – The 1999 Woodstock festival near New York ended with rioting.
[4] ed. – Seattle hosted the 1999 World Trade Organisation summit, with big protests and much property damage.
[5] ed. – The 1990 'Oka Crisis' was a 78-day armed stand-off between the Canadian military and Kanesatake indigenous protectors of traditional habitat to be turned into a golf course. Other tribes set up blockades and downed power-lines in solidarity.

[6] ed. – See Rebels Behind Bars; 'We Refuse to Reduce Our Desires...'

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The Parallel Worlds.

        We live on a planet which has several worlds, the biggest world is the one where the vast majority of the population live. That's the world that produces all the wealth of the planet, but its people live in perpetual struggle, poverty, deprivation and endless wars. Then there is the world of lies and illusion, fashioned by propaganda, manufactured by smoke and mirrors, to shape the minds of the people, in an attempt to create a submissive and subservient populace. Behind that there is the world of a small number of parasites, that takes place in the grand corridors of power, behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the public. A world where events are planned to control all that wealth created by the first world. Where plans are made to plunge the people of a country into death and destruction, where the death of millions is callously seen as inevitable to their plans, where the displacement of millions is registered as collateral damage, in their aim to control, enhance or protect the earth's natural resources from a competing cabal of parasites.

       This is the reality of planet Earth, a small globe that could be a paradise for all, a sphere rich in natural resources and potential, that is being plundered and raped for the benefit a handful of power hungry, greed driven parasites, under the banner of capitalism. We have to look behind the smoke and mirrors, see through the fog of illusion, dismantle the propaganda, and destroy this cancer before it destroys us all.  Thanks Loam for the link.

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The Real Growth Is Debt.

      The Oxbridge millionaire duo that sit on the thrones in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, the Cameron-Osborne parasites, are still crowing about how they fixed the economy, of how we are all doing better, as unemployment is falling. Of course we all know that the employment being created is part-time, low paid, low skill, zero hours contacts, the thousands forced to call themselves, “self-employed” and lets not forget, the thousands who now work for no wage at all, the workfare slave force. 

        The true signs of this “growth” are in the figures. UK family debts are rising much faster than incomes. According to a recent survey, the Avia Family Finance Report, states that typical family income rose by 4% between July and December 2014, while average household debt has rocketed over the last six months from £6,740 to an eye watering £16,260. The debt comes from many sources, family credit card debt rose a staggering 71% from £1,720 to £2,940, personal loan debt went from £1,210 to £2,090, and increase of 72%, while that ever increasing modern commodity, the “pay-day loan” went from an average £350 to £1,290, a 269% increase. Another sign of our growth, is the growth of the overdraft, which over the last six months going from an average of £340 to strangling £1,490, a whopping 338% increase.

       The report goes on to show that while average debt is climbing, the amount we pay to clear that debt is falling. The amount spent since July 2013, on servicing our debt, excluding mortgages, has dropped from £262 to $208 a month. Some of the reasons for the ncreasing debt and the falling paying off of that debt, is simply harder times. Families are paying on average, £571 a month on rent/mortgages and council tax, compared to £514 six months ago. Public transport costs have also seen an increase from £102 to £188 a month, with driving going from £116 to £130. 

      In the real world of the you and I, outside the Cameron/Osborne illusionary world, the predictions are that things will get tougher in 2015.

      A recent Money Advice Service survey found approximately half (47%) are buying cheaper alternatives to their usual everyday products, while 41% are planning to spend less on socialising. A little more than 25% will spend less on presents next year, it also states that 25% will take a packed lunch to work to help cut day-to-day spending. 

        This then is the recovery, this is the growth of the millionaire cabal, and they will continue to carry out the dictates of the financial Mafia and punish the poor and drive more people into poverty as the pursue the ideology of the corporate world. Sweatshop Europe, here we caome. 

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