FANTASY OR FUTURE?

       In a world controlled by "the markets" what happens when "the markets" go crazy? What is likely to happen when a bunch of massively armed Zionist fanatics attack a bunch of heavily armed Islamic fanatics? The innocents stand to suffer immeasurably, that's the nature of the beast we have allowed to grow and allowed to control our world. Fantasy or future?

ann arky's home.

THE ILLUSION THAT CAPITALISM IS FAIR.

       Most of the debate on the present capitalist system and its current problems, that we get on that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is about how to modify the anomalies and glitches in the system. What is never on there radar is the fact that the system is inherently corrupt and beyond correction. All their debate and arguments seem to flow from the illusionary point of view that there was a time when capitalism was a fair and just system, and all we have to do is get back to those good old days and everything will be just fine. It never was a fair and just system, it never can be, it is based on someone useing others to get richer than them. It has nothing to do with providing a service, that may be, but not necessarily so, a bye product, but it is not the aim.

This from A World to Win:

The biggest loophole is capitalism itself

      As austerity deepens, with spending cuts stretching into the far horizon, there is a renewed focus on the tax that corporations pay, or rather don’t pay. Some argue that if they paid their “fair share”, cuts in services like health and care would not be so severe.
    Others like Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK, go further, claiming that "if only more had been done to tackle rampant tax evasion, Europe would not be facing a crisis today." It’s an attractive – but ultimately misleading – theory that would seem to solve the problem of public finances and the economic crisis at a stroke.
     Tax avoidance by the major corporations is an obvious target, so much so that MPs last week called names like Starbucks and Amazon to explain themselves before the Commons public accounts committee.
Chancellor George Osborne has even dedicated some funding to allow Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to chase the worst abusers and close loopholes. He even described tax evasion as “morally repugnant”. But it’s making no impact.
       While individuals and small firms are hounded by HMRC with some success, the major transnational corporations continue to run rings around the government, as the PAC found out.

Read the full article HERE:

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JUSTICICATION FOR AUTHORITY.

      Noam Chomsky stated that onus of justification is on authority, if it can't be justified, then it has to be abolished. Of course there are others who have tried to justify the authority of the state and admitted that they can't.

This extract is from In Defence of Anarchism by Robert Paul Wolff:

Preface

     This essay on the foundations of the authority of the state marks a stage in the development of my concern with problems of political authority and moral autonomy. When I first became deeply interested in the subject, I was quite confident that I could find a satisfactory justification for the traditional democratic doctrine to which I rather unthinkingly gave my allegiance. Indeed, during my first year as a member of the Columbia University Philosophy Department, I taught a course on political philosophy in which I boldly announced that I would formulate and then solve the fundamental problem of political philosophy. I had no trouble formulating the problem- -- roughly speaking, how the moral autonomy of the individual can be made compatible with the legitimate authority of the state. I also had no trouble refuting a number of supposed solutions which had been put forward by various theorists of the democratic state. But midway through the semester, I was forced to go before my class, crestfallen and very embarrassed, to announce that I had failed to discover the grand solution.
     At first, as I struggled with this dilemma, I clung to the conviction that a solution lay just around the next con- ceptual corner. When I read papers on the subject to meetings at various universities, I was forced again and again to represent myself as searching for a theory which I simply could not find. Little by little, I began to shift the emphasis of my exposition. Finally -- whether from philosophical reflection, or simply from chagrin -- I came to the realization that I was really defending the negative rather than looking for the positive. My failure to find any theoretical justification for the authority of the state had convinced me that there was no justification. In short, I had become a philosophical anarchist.

Read the full essay HERE:

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WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN GAZA.

       It is always good to hear somebody speak of Israel in terms that we don't usually hear on TV. I got some pleasure watching the expressions on the faces of the rest of the panel, that alone makes it worth watching. 

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A LAND OF TOTAL SURVEILLANCE.

This from Liberty:

How private is your private life?

I am writing to let you know what is happening with the Government’s Draft Communications Data Bill, also known as the Snoopers’ Charter.

The Government plans to instruct private companies to collect and store our ‘communications data’. That means records of emails, web activity, texts and phone calls – for the entire population. This amounts to mass, blanket surveillance - outsourced to the private sector.
Find out more about the Draft Communications Data Bill here

Your privacy is under threat

Your communications data can build up a very detailed picture of your life: who you have texted, emailed, skyped or phoned on any given day; where you were when the contact was made and for how long; which websites you have visited in the privacy of your own home; details of social media activity…and more.

We can stop the Snoopers’ Charter

Since we learned of the draft bill last year, we have submitted expert evidence to Parliament, secured public statements against the measures at all three main party conferences and encouraged thousands of Liberty members to write to their MPs or sign petitions.

This new law is being reviewed right now so we need your help urgently. We stopped this proposal under the last Government, and together we can stop it again.

Please visit www.nosnooperscharter.org.uk to help us stop the Snoopers’ Charter.

Thank you for your support



Shami Chakrabarti

Director of Liberty

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R.I.B. IN GLASGOW ON SATURDAY.

Just a wee reminder, head down to Radisson on Saturday. 

Glasgow's Radical Independent Book-fair project...

...supporting small press publishers and independent producers...circulating radical reading materials and information...

SAT 24 NOV  from 10am till 5pm approx

Radisson Blu Hotel
1st Floor lobby
Argyle Street, Glasgow
next to (near to Central Station)

mini stall at
Radical Independence Conference

note although there is an entry charge for the Conference -

the RiB stall will be outside the main hall and therefore access to it is free.

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

         Nice to see some self help happening in the wake of Sandy. If those who suffered from the power of Sandy, wait for the "proper" authorities to sort things out, their misery will drag on and on, but if they get together and sort it out themselves, things will start to happen.

Construction Materials Expropriated from Luxury Developments in Manhattan, Delivered to Victims of Sandy

NEW YORK, NY—Over the past two weeks, a group of concerned New Yorkers has been expropriating thousands of dollars worth of tools and materials from luxury residential developments across Manhattan and delivering them to neighborhoods devastated by Superstorm Sandy.

    The confiscated materials, some of them never even used, include: shovels, wheelbarrows, hand trucks, pry bars, tarps, buckets, hard bristle brooms, industrial rope, contractor trash bags, particulate masks, work lights, work gloves, flashlights, heat lamps, and gasoline.

    Liberated from their role in building multimillion-dollar pieds-à-terre for wealthy CEOs and Hollywood celebrities, these tools are now in the collective hands of some of the hardest-hit communities in the city where they are now being allocated and shared among the people who need them most. These expropriations will continue as long as the demand for them exists.

The targeted developments are being financed with over a billion dollars in bank loans plus untold millions in tax breaks from the city. All are slated to become high-end residential towers with apartments starting at upwards of $2 million, all no doubt with unparalleled views of the city—perhaps even all the way to its outer edges, where tens of thousands remain without power, heat, and hot water weeks after the storm. People continue to wait hours in line for blankets and batteries while the tools to improve their lives, the tools to help them literally dig themselves out from under the rubble, sit idle behind chained fences, safely tucked in beneath all-weather tarps or locked inside heated office trailers.

Read the full article HERE:

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IT IS NOT A WAR, IT IS GENOCIDE.

     Without condoning the blowing up of innocent people's homes from afar, but there is something of a mis-match here, what I would call a disproportionate response. If somebody throws a stone at your window, would you go and throw a hand-grenade through their window?

The damage done to a house by a Palestinian rocket fired at Israel.

The damage done to a house by an Israeli rocket fired at Gaza.

      Meanwhile the Western dignitaries sympathise with Israel and strongly condemn the Palestinians.

Photos from the BBC.

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ZOMBIE CAPITALISM.

      I keep going on about the worst is yet to come, and keep pointing to Greece stating that it is not the exception, it is the pattern of the future. All the crap from our millionaire suits in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, about reducing the deficit and increasing growth, is an attempt at a feel-good factor, it is an illusion. After two years of Millionaire Osborne's master plan of screw the poor and reduce the debt, it is obvious that it is now in complete disarray. The latest figures have shattered even the economic "experts" by the size of the increase in government borrowing. The only growth is in the number of firms going bust and the number just holding for the meantime. That babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, still keep up the fantasy that Greece is the problem, if only we could sort that lot out, everything would be just right. Well, their stock and trade is bullshit, so what do you expect from them? Believe me, the worst is yet to come.

This from A World to Win:

'Zombie capitalism' more dead than alive

     You don’t have to listen too closely to hear the sound of factory gates slamming for the last time, and shutters rolling down over retail outlets. Consumer electrical chain Comet is just one amongst the many household names facing up to the consequences of the accelerating global contraction.
    Closing down sales are in progress across the country and thousands upon thousands of jobs are disappearing. Close to 2,000 of its former employees will be on the streets by the end of November.  
    Workers for iconic brands in every sector are under attack. Alongside Comet comes Hovis. Premier foods, owner of Hovis which it acquired in 2007 with the purchase of Rank Hovis McDougall is struggling with £1 billion of debt. The debt burden was much bigger until it was forced to sell Branston Pickle to the Japanese Mizkan group and Hartley’s jam to the marvellously-named US-based Hain Celestial.
     This summer’s extreme weather around the world devastated crops, driving wheat prices towards the stars, and pushing the cost of Premier’s bread beyond the reach of the Co-op which then cancelled its contract. 

Read the full article HERE:

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SCOTT CROW ON CIRCLED "A".

The latest from Circled A:

       Scott Crow is a community organizer, writer, strategist and speaker who advocates the philosophy and practices of anarchism for social, environmental, and economic aims. For almost two decades he has continued to use his experience and ideas in co-founding and co-organizing numerous radical grassroots projects in Texas, including Treasure City Thrift, Radical Encuentro Camp, UPROAR (United People Resisting Oppression and Racism), Dirty South Earth First! and the Common Ground Collective, the largest anarchist influenced organization in modern U.S. history to date. In addition to grassroots organizing, he has worked for regional and national organizations, including Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, Ruckus Society and A.C.O.R.N. With his partner, he produced the documentary film Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation. These political activities lead to him being labeled a “domestic terrorist” by the FBI beginning in the late 90s with investigations that continued for almost a decade.

(http://thecircleda.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/circleda_20_11_12.mp3)

ann arky's home.
 

GREAT VICTORY FOR IWW MEMBERS.

       Once again, organisation and solidarity win the day, 9%. must be one of the best victories in a long while.

IWW Victory!

John Lewis Cleaners Win Pay Rise

      Monday 19 Novermber 2012 -- The industrial Workers of the World are proud to announce their victory in their latest John Lewis cleaners' campaign. On Friday 16 November, the IWW-unionised John Lewis cleaning staff employed by contractor Integrated Cleaning Management won a 9% pay rise as a result of their campaign.

     The outsourced cleaners work at four different John Lewis sites in London and are employed by cleaning contractor Integrated Cleaning Management (ICM). This announcement follows a previous press release on Monday 12 November, in which IWW lodged a fresh pay dispute on behalf the IWW unionised cleaners at John Lewis, and a further press release on Wednesday 14 November, in which the IWW announced our intention to ballot the John Lewis cleaning staff for industrial action. The attached campaign press release can be downloaded at the bottom of this article.

Read the full details HERE:

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OL' MAN RIVER.

      Some of you young ones might not know of this giant of a man, here he is singing of another giant of a man. Paul Robeson, born April 9th. 1898, was the son of a former slave, won a scholarship to Rutgers University, a brilliant student and for a short term was a lawyer. Became politically active for civil rights and was involved in Council on African Affairs, (CCA). He was an incredible actor/singer and played Othello on Broadway, no one actor has ever given more performances in a Shakespearean play. He gave a concert in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. After WW2 the CCA was placed on the Attorney General's list of Subversive Organisations, this brought him to the attention of  the infamous McCarthy during the McCarthyism era.   

     He refused to recant his beliefs, was refused an international visa, and his income fell dramatically, After this he lived in Harlem and published a periodical that was critical of American policies. The case of Kent V. Dulles brought about the restoration of his right to travel, However soon after this his health deteriorated and he died in January 23rd. 1976.

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LOOKING BACK AT THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT.

     Though it had a greater impact in America than here and no matter the outcome, I personally see the Occupy Movement as a great success. It took more people along that road of making the private public, politicised lots of people and created new networks of communication. It also altered the way lots of people view this society that we live in, opening their eyes to the inequalities and injustices, none of that can be bad. 

This from The Bureau of Public Secrets: 

Looking Back on Occupy

1. Your assessment of the Occupy movement was very positive. What is the overall perception you have of this movement today? What is left of Occupy?

       There is not much left of the Occupy movement as such — almost all the encampments were destroyed in November or December 2011 and virtually no new ones have emerged. On the other hand, the movement was in no way “defeated.” With few exceptions, the people arrested were quickly released and totally exonerated. The elimination of the encampments simply had the effect of forcing the participants onto other, more diverse terrains of struggle. Countless people all over the country continue to meet regularly, to network with each other and to carry out all sorts of actions — picketing banks, disrupting corporate board meetings, blocking home foreclosures, protesting environmental policies (Monsanto, Tar Sands Pipeline, fracking, etc.), in addition to more specifically “occupy” type actions such as attempting to take over and reopen schools and libraries that have been closed and abandoned, or “Homes Not Jails” attempted takeovers of vacant housing to provide dwellings for homeless people. One of the most interesting and well planned of these latter types of actions, “Occupy the Farm,” took place just a few blocks from my home last April, when ecological activists took over a large plot of vacant urban land and turned it into a community garden, planting more than ten thousand seedlings in the space of a few days. The gardener-occupiers were driven out after three weeks, but the agitation continues and has resulted in a temporary victory against a planned commercial development. [November note: Since the completion of this interview the immense disaster relief work of Occupy Sandy is yet another very important and exemplary development.]

      The Occupy movement already had the implicit goal of “reclaiming the commons” — occupying public squares or parks played on this theme, since regardless of quibbles about permits it was obvious that such spaces belong to the public and are, or at least originally were, intended for public use. But these more recent actions have the merit of challenging the fetish of private property in a more direct manner. That fetish has always been extremely strong in the United States, and the police responses to its transgression have always been more immediate and brutal. But I like to hope that these types of actions will eventually weaken the fetish, just as happened in the days of the Civil Rights movement. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when black people first started restaurant sit-ins, one often heard this argument: “That restaurant belongs to the owner, he has the right to do whatever he wants with it, including deciding who he wants to serve.” But as more and more people kept peacefully sitting in and calmly accepting arrest, the general public was gradually brought around to the idea that there was a “higher law” than property rights — that other rights also had to be respected, such as the right to be treated fairly as a human being. I think this may eventually happen with these post-Occupy invasions of various types of property, as people see the absurdity of there being millions of vacant buildings while there are millions of people living in the streets. Even now many people sympathize with the idea of defending a family against foreclosure, despite the fact that a bank technically owns the home, because there is increasing awareness that the banks have often acted illegally. The notion of reopening abandoned schools, etc., is even more exemplary in that it hints at the notion of a society based on cooperation and generosity rather than on how much money can be made from something.

         The two drawbacks of these types of action are that they are risky and that they thus tend to be the work of a small minority (mostly young and mostly male). Occupying public spaces is much more likely to attract the sympathy, the support, and ultimately the participation of multitudes of ordinary people (including parents, children, elderly, disabled). But for those who want to push the limits and don’t mind the risks, taking over vacant buildings and opening them up to public uses is much more challenging and inspiring than breaking windows.

Read the full article HERE:

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UTOPIA ON THE HORIZON.

     People change, circumstances change people, our circumstances are changing dramatically, how will we change? We will change, how rapidly will we change, what direction will we look? Will we seek that Utopia? If not, why not?

Again, from The Greek Streets:

     ROARMAG.org presents: ‘Utopia on the Horizon’, a documentary for those who chose to struggle.
     In May 2011, hundreds of thousands of Greeks swarmed into Syntagma Square in Athens to protest against the firesale of their country, their labor rights and their livelihoods to corrupt domestic elites and foreign financial interests.
       In a matter of days, a protest camp was set up — organized on the principles of direct democracy, leaderless self-management and mutual aid — providing a glimpse of utopia in the midst of a devastating financial, political and social crisis. On June 28-29, during a Parliamentary vote on further austerity measures, the state finally responded with brutal force, eventually evicting the protesters from the square and crushing the radical potential of their social experiment.

     A year later, Leonidas Oikonomakis and Jérôme Roos — PhD researchers at the European University Institute and co-authors of the activist blog ROARMAG.org — returned to Athens to speak to activists involved in the movement and the occupation of Syntagma Square, as well as WWII resistance hero Manolis Glezos. What follows is this dramatic portrait of a country veering on the brink of collapse; and the people who chose to struggle in order to build a new world on the ruins of the old.

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IT IS SLOW GENICIDE.

       So what is new in this latest show of Israeli aggression? It is part and parcel of the Zionist aims to have all the land that God promised them. Yes, according to the Zionist, away back thousands of years ago, when they were an ancient roaming tribe, God told them that this land was theirs. The problem being that there are millions of people living on these lands, so they have to be removed. And there will be no peace as long as this idiotic claim is at the root of their Zionist government policy. Bit by bit the land of Palestine is disappearing and being settled by fundamentalist Jews, the Palestinian people are the problem, to have God's promise fulfilled, these people have to go, be destroyed, eliminated or call it what you will. This latest onslaught against the Palestinian people is just another step in that direction. In my way of thinking, the word genocide seems to fit. 

Of course you need God's blessing before you kill.

      The last major Israeli assault on the Palestinian people of Gaza was December 27 2008, in what the Israeli state called Operation Cast Lead. As usual with the Israeli state, the action was claimed to be in response rockets being fired from Gaza, and as usual the response was totally and utterly disproportionate. It was state blanket repression of an entire people. It was referred to in most places a a massacre. It involved a co-ordinated attack by land artillery, air bombardment and shelling from the sea. On January 3 the      Israeli state ground forces moved in and attacked many densely populated areas. Gaza was literally cut in two. The operation was ended on January 18 and the withdrawal of Israeli ground forces was complete by January 21. In that short period of brutal overwhelming firepower, it is estimated that 1,400 Palestinians died and 13 Israelis.

      In the 2006 Israeli invasion of the Lebanon, Israel declared all of Lebanon south of the Litani River a kill zone. Within this entire twenty mile area of Lebanon, anyone who was in a vehicle would be targeted and destroyed by the Israeli state terrorist forces. People in villages across the south of the country, who were already without food or water, were unable to flee the bombing or get medical aid.

         Between 1968 and 1974, the Lebanese government registered 3,000 attacks on Lebanon by the Israel state apparatus, which resulted in the brutal murder of 880 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.

           Of course the attacks on Lebanon by the Israeli state did not start in 1968 with the attack on Beirut airport and the destruction of the Lebanese civilian air fleet. The Israeli aggression started much earlier. Between 1949 and 1964 there were 140 Israeli attacks on Lebanese villages and towns. Some of these attacks include, on July 24th. 1950 a Lebanese civilian plane shot down by Israeli planes, October 1950, Israeli state forces fired on Lebanese civilians killing four at the village of Yarun. In 1959 Israeli state forces hijacked three planes, two civilian planes and one Lebanese military jet, and forced them to land in Israel On August 27th. 1959 Israeli state forces killed one woman and destroyed two houses and three bridges during an Israeli terrorist infiltration into South Lebanon. June 14th 1968 saw the Israeli state terrorists bomb Mays Al-Jabal in South Lebanon and injured 56 people. After the Israeli state terrorist attack on Beirut airport in 1968 their occupation forces killed 11 Palestinians in the ‘Arqub region.

        After 1968 the Israeli state terrorist attacks became so numerous that they would fill the pages of a Glasgow telephone directory. The Israel state apparatus has been attacking and killing Lebanese and Palestinians long before the formation of Hezbollah and the PLO.

         The 2006 Israeli aggression, saw more than 1,000 bombs dropped on 9th August 2006 on Khiyam alone, destroyed the entire infra-structure of Lebanon, killed over 1,000 Lebanese, mainly women and children, children making up almost 50% of those murders. Lets not forget the countless children killed in Gaza over the years of Israeli aggression. During this period the Israeli deaths are in the low hundreds mostly soldiers.

         This is the record of a state that is held up by the Western states as the only democratic state in the Middle East. If this is democracy, who wants it. This is the usual state imperialism doing what it always does, expand and control, brute force while proclaiming democracy, killing while waving the flag of peace. Territory and resources are the aim, people are expendable.

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CONFRONTATION, -- THEN WHAT?

      Golden Dawn's new office sparks riots. More and more Greece seems to be heading to a straight split on the streets with the fascist aided and abetted by the state apparatus, being confronted by massive anti-fascist  and it turning brutal, all the hallmarks of a coup by the military or a civil war. This is what "austerity" brings to the ordinary people, and we are not immune.

This from The Greek streets:

 

Hundreds of anti-fascists riot in the city of Agrinio as police from across Greece protect the newly-opened office of Golden Dawn Nazis
Sunday, November 18, 2012

     Agrinio, a medium-sized city of just over 100,000 saw some of the most severe rioting in its history on the evening of November 18th. As the Nazi party Golden Dawn formally opened an office in the city, just opposite the local police station, hundreds of police and Golden Dawn members arrived from nearby cities (but also from Athens, approx 280km away). At the same time, local anti-fascists took to the streets of the city, demonstrating and rioting against the Nazi presence. At least 20 anti-fascists have been detained by the police (at least two of them arrested/charged), while at the time of writing (22:00 GMT+2) the rioting continues.

 

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GLASGOW'S RADICAL INDEPENDENT BOOK-FAIR.

Glasgow's Radical Independent Book-fair project...

...supporting small press publishers and independent producers...circulating radical reading materials and information...

SAT 24 NOV  from 10am till 5pm approx

Radisson Blu Hotel
1st Floor lobby
Argyle Street, Glasgow
next to (near to Central Station)

mini stall at
Radical Independence Conference

note although there is an entry charge for the Conference -
the RiB stall will be outside the main hall and therefore access to it is free. 

ann arky's home.

THE ENEMY IS HERE, AT HOME.

     You and I may know this, but how many people don't? He may be talking about Iraq, but the same applies to Afghanistan as it did in Vietnam and thousands of other unfortunate countries across the globe. Though I do believe that more and more people are beginning to realise the our real enemy is right here in our own country, and most of them wear expensive suits.

ann arky's home.

PRIVILEGE AND IMPUNITY.

      Imagine you get a nice easy job, you get paid for turning up, you can if you wish just sleep on and off and hobble off to the bar now and again and it pays well. You start to fiddle the expenses, get caught and sentenced to 9 months in prison. You are released after 9 weeks and you wander back to your old job, move in and carry on as if nothing had ever happened. Fantasy? Well no, it is the rules in that club of pomp and privilege, the House of Lords.

      Take the case of one Paul White, last year he got convicted of fraudulently claiming £14,000 worth of false expenses at his place of work. Straight from prison after serving nine weeks of a nine month sentence, back to his old job and for the months of April and May he claimed £4,596 in expenses and for June this year has claimed £3,600 in expenses. The June expenses were for turning up on 12 seperate days at £300 a day, plus £285 travelling expenses. That's a total of £8,481, not bad for 3 months part-time “work”.

      How does he do it? Well he is one of those privileged parasites who has those magic four little letters in front of his name, “LORD” . Paul White, is better known as Lord Hanningfield, and the House of Lords is his nice little earner, of course it is tax payers money that he is pocketing and it is just for turning up.

 It's tough trying to adjust after prison.

     However I don't want you to think that Lord Hanningfield is alone as the only privileged benefit cheat. His Lordy pal Lord Taylor of Warwick, not only a cheat, but a liar, done for lying about where he lived and fiddling £11,000, served 3 months of a 12 month sentence, and in June this year his fingers were in the honeypot again, claiming £2,100 in expenses.

     Of course there more of these members of this privileged parasite club that have fiddled and the went back to business as usual. One Baroness Uddin, though not prosecuted, was told to pay back fiddled expenses to the tune of £125,349, has this June claimed £1,800 in attendance allowance. Try to think of who you know in your neighbourhood, that might have in some way fiddled at work, went to prison and then back to their old job, no questions asked? So why do we tolerate a bunch of parasites washed in pomp, privilege and impunity, all at our expense. 

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