POVERTY IN THE UK!!

      It is odd that so many people believe that capitalism is a system that brings prosperity to all. Even as the evidence stacks up against it with poverty increasing across the world, it is still accepted by too many as the only game in town.

       Poverty in the UK tends to be invisible when it comes to the mainstream media. They are more likely to focus on poverty elsewhere. Yet poverty in the UK is considerable by any standard. Some figures compiled by Oxfam give an indication of just how poverty blights the lives of so many across the UK.

      In the UK 13 million people, more than 1 in 5, live in poverty, with the majority of both children and working age adults in poverty living in working households, 55.3% of children and 52.9% of adults. Bang goes that excuse that they are poor because they wont work!!. How does poverty translate in to real life? One example would be that a child born in the poor district of Calton in Glasgow has a life expectancy of 54, where as a child born in the more affluent area of Lenzie on the outskirts of Glasgow has a life expectancy of 82. They are separated by about 10 miles.

       In the supposed affluent UK, 1 in 8 men and 1 in 4 women earn less than £7 hour and almost 50% of home owners earn less than the minimum wage. In this land of advanced capitalism a staggering 3.9 million children live in poverty with more than half of these in working households. The reality of this is that children born into poverty are more likely to have lower birth weight, higher infant mortality, and poorer health than their counter parts born into better off homes.

       Another feature of this advanced capitalist society is the fact that the number of households in which no-one has ever worked has almost doubled since 1997. According to the Office of National Statistics, 1.7% of all households were permanently jobless by the second quarter of 2010, up from 1% in the second quarter of 1997. Of course as we know, capitalism is an unfair system so these figures are not spread evenly across the country. For example in the more affluent East England it is just 0.5% jobless households, compared with inner London which stands at 6.5%.

Everything seems to working fine!!

 

      As the gap between rich and poor gets wider by the year and the number of poor increases, surely we will reach that point where we say enough is enough. After all capitalism is just a man made system, one that benefits the few at the expense of the many, it is not created from tablets of stone or ordained by a supreme being. Men created it, men can destroy it, and create a more fair and just system that benefits all our people, not just a handful of parasites.

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OUR MAN IN SPAIN.

   

     It is difficult to find out what is really going on in Spain at the moment. The mainstream media, as usual tells us about uprisings in far away places, but never too much about unrest right here in the EU. So ann arky is appealling to blog readers who have any first hand information of what is happening in Madrid, Barcalona and Bibao to send in your account. One such account came in from a friend, "our man in Spain", it is brief but still welcome.

      It is only by communicating across borders that we can learn from each other and know what other resitance groups are doing and how best to support each other. The working class has no borders, no country, we are trans-global.

FROM OUR MAN IN SPAIN.

    "Really frustrating not being able to catch up much on what's going on in Madrid and Barcelona and to a lesser extent Bilbao. I suppose you saw what happened when they tried to evict people in Barcelona. From what they've told me in Bilbao there's a bit of everything but there does seem to be a genuine belief in a horizontal form of organising which, let's face it, is the only way any resistance movement has a chance of getting anywhere. Something positive and creative certainly seems to be taking shape. Time will tell but the signs are encouraging. Don't really know if the PSE lost votes to the PP in the recent regional government elections or people simply didn't bother voting for them or voted for some of the small progressive parties."

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WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN???

     

      Behind closed doors and long into the night they met. Then the announcement, Greece and its EU partners have agreed a deal to loan Greece more money. You would think that for the people of Greece that would be a good thing, after all the country is strapped for cash and the people are suffering.

      However this money will not go to make the lives of the Greek people any better, on the contrary, they will have to suffer more pain because of this loan. They will have to face higher taxes, cuts in services, and lower wages, add to that the fact that they will have to sell off all their assets to the corporate world, who at the moment are hovering over Greece like the proverbial vultures. You see, this money isn't really for the Greek people, it is to save the gambling casinos of the world, (the banks and bond markets) from suffering the effects of their excessive greedy gambles that went wrong.

     Over the last few years the banks and bond markets gambled like crazy and it all went wrong and they are virtually bust. So how do they save themselves? Why by getting the taxpayers of the world to fund their losses. The governments of the EU and across the world will slash the standard of living of all the people and the money saved can go to pay off the gamblers debts. Then those same governments will sell off all our public assets to their friends in the corporate greed machine and that should just about save the parasites in the banking and bond markets from losing too much of their unearned cash.

Why should we want to change things??

 

     Who devised such a wonderful scheme, if you have billions to play with and you lose, no problem, just take the people's money and let them grovel in misery, while you get back to playing with your billions. Oh when will we ever learn????

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GLASGOW'S BIGGEST FESTIVAL.

The place to be this weekend is in Glasgow, what with the Reshuffle and the Westend Festival, where else would you want to be.

GLASGOW'S BIGGEST FESTIVAL.

       Once again the many participants bring you over 600 events ranging from classical and choral music, folk, rock, jazz, theatre, dance, children’s authors, guided walks to local gala days. In 2010, over 165,000 people attended free and ticketed events across 16 days, making WEF Glasgow’s most successful festival. The famous Festival Sunday (the Opening Parade) alone attracts tens of thousands from all over the city and central Scotland.

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GO LOCAL THIS WEEKEND.

REMEMBER: Tomorrow Friday
Community action and hidden power.
We will discuss, play, make, act and interact.

Creativity and popular education
Critical conciousness
Decoding and encoding action
For multi-racial politics, environmental and social justice

Pearce Institute, Govan Road, across from Govan Cross subway. 

Tea from 12.30,  Workshop starting at 1pm-4 With 15-20 min. break for snack.

Weans kin go, let's get doon therr.

 Part of the Govan Reshuffle,  All ages. Children with supervision

See yi at the reshuffle man.

REMEMBER: Saturday at the Community Garden, Elder Park. Govan Glasgow.

Bike Station Dr Bike 1:30 3:30;
Bring your bike and get it checked or fixed FREE. Also Free bicycle lessons.

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WE ARE ONE.

      In most Western countries being a union leader or activist, can cause you hassle, but seldom your life. However, the situation is different in other parts of the world. In the developing world to organise to try to improve your conditions can mean harrassment, beatings and death. It is unacceptable in this day and age, that when ordinary people come together to try to better their meagre living conditions, they should run the risk of death. The following is a call from Labourstart, please spend a few minutes of your time in an attempt to stamp out this brutal intimidation of ordinary working people trying to survive in an unjust and exploitive system.

       This is not the first time I've written to you about Iraq - but I need your help again.

      We have just learned that Jamal Abdul-Jabbar, a leader of the Iraqi oil and gas workers union, has been forcibly relocated in an attempt to destroy the union. Please take a moment to learn more and to send off your messages of protest by clicking here. And please spread the word to your fellow union members.

     Meanwhile, we've learned some terrible news from Guatemala, where the banana workers union leader Idar Joel Hernandez Godoy has been murdered. Thousands of us need to send urgent messages to the President of Guatemala telling him to bring the perpetrators to justice. Click here to learn more and to send off your message.

     Thanks for your continued support. Eric Lee.

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WOMEN IN PRISON.

     Most people who know anything about prison agree that, in the vast majority of cases, they do not solve the problems they are intended to. A very high percentage of prisoners have mental health problems, addiction problems and other forms of problems that prison does not address. A very high percentage are non violent and no threat to the public, but still we lock them up.

     In the case of women prisoners the case for locking them is even thinner, yet the female prison population in England and Wales has increased 114% over the last 15 years, and now stands at over 4,000. 80% of women prisoners have serious drug problems, and of prisoners that self harm, 43% are women, though they only make up 5% of the prison population. Approximately one third are there for shop lifting or handling stolen goods, and a half are thrown into prison on remand.

     Another feature of the women in prison means that each year 17,000 children are separated from their mother because of prison. Of these children only 5% remain in the family home and 9% are looked after by the father. The children lose their routine, their school friends and because of the few women's prison, their mothers are usually miles away creating problems trying to keep contact with the family. In Styal Prison some of the prisoners were actually born there, becoming part of a never ending cycle. Two children a week are born in prison.

     Looking at the cost of keeping a woman in prison, stated to be £56,415, and being aware of the non violent nature of the offences, the devastating effect on family life and the women themselves, plus the fact that it is help that most need and not punishment, it is obvious that the money would be better spent setting centres to deal with their problems rather than locking them up and perpetuating the cycle of chaotic lives.

     Of course that would require a civilised society where all vulnerable people would receive assistance when required.

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WORLD WIDE SOLIDARITY.

IUF:    Uniting food, farm and hotel workers world-wide

      Three union activists have been dismissed from their employment at KFC in Thailand after they established a union and sought to bargain a collective agreement with KFC management.

Send a message to KFC management demanding their reinstatement.

http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/938

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STRUGGLE IN JAPAN.

     

     The Western mainstream media is filled with the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, however that is not the only places that the ordinary people are in revolt against this exploitive system. At this moment in time, people in countries all over the world trying to bring a halt the injustices of the capitalist system, trying to change the world for the benefit of all. In the South American continent, across Europe, America, and Asia, people are in revolt against their lives being controlled by the plundering parasites of the corporate world. The following is a little information of the struggle taking place in Japan.

     Through the medium of instant communications, solidarity across the globe is now possible, can the global uprising be close at hand?

From:  doro-chiba-quake-report@auone.jp

Sent: Mon, 30 May, 2011 18:16:34
Subject: Doro-Chiba Quake Report

Dear Friends,

                  Japanese Kan administration launched series of outrageous oppression: one is a bloody crackdown on Kan-Nama (Solidarity Union of Japan Construction and Transport Workers Kansai Area Branch), the western stronghold of labor movement, arresting 13 union officials and members on May 11, and the other is a unprecedented outrageous oppression on Sanrizuka farmers (Sanrizuka-Shibayama United Opposition League against the Airport Construction) arresting 50 farmers and supporters in the Tokyo High Court building on May 20.

This is a video of the mass arrest taken from the pavement of the High Court Building:

http://youtu.be/d54jmGBVEDk

The crackdowns express profound fear of the ruling class that these pivotal labor and farmer movement are joining together the mounting anger of workers, farmers, fishers and other inhabitants in the quake-stricken areas who are suffering from the disasters and radioactive exposure.

Rise up to crush violent crackdowns together! The united power of working class and people alone can create future! Stop mass layoff of one million under the pretext of the huge quake! Abolish nuclear plants by the power of international solidarity!

Please forward this Newsletter as widely as possible and send protest messages to the Japanese Government:  https://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment_ssl.html

In Solidarity, 

International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba  http://www.doro-chiba.org/english/english.htm

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STOP ATOS CUTTING DISABILITY BENEFITS.

STOP ATOS CUTTING DISABILITY BENEFITS.

Picket Atos Recruitment Evening
Atos Medical Assessment Centre
Corunna House
29 Cadogan Street
Glasgow G2 7AB

Monday 6th June  5.30pm – 8.30pm



Who are Atos?

Atos Healthcare are a part of a private, profit making corporation. On behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), they carry out the medical assessments, now called 'Work Capability Assessments

(WCA), for Employment Support Allowance (formerly Incapacity Benefit).

Atos SICKNESS BENEFIT ASSESSOR!!

What do they do?

Atos are currently recruiting more medical professionals to carry out new assessments on all people on sickness benefits. They are actively carrying out the Government’s plan of cutting sickness benefits by £250 billion. The process is driven by cost cutting not objective medical opinion. In recent trials of their largely unreliable new computerised medical test 29% of claimants had their benefits cut, but most people win their case when they appeal with the help of an advice centre. Atos will be also recruiting more staff to carry out these distressing and degrading tests on all people on Disability Living Allowance for the first time, where the plan is to cut the budget by 20%. The Government are cutting these benefits to reduce the debt caused by bankers gambling on the financial markets. The most vulnerable in society are being made to pay for the greed of the rich and the inevitable booms and busts of capitalist economics.

More info: The Crutch Collective on Facebook

http://thecrutchcollective.blogspot.com/

thecrutchcollective@gmail.com

Facebook event page:   http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=188876404494450

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WHAT HAPPENS IF THE GREEKS DEFAULT?

        The end is nigh, prepare for Armageddon, the banking world is in shit creek and the system is about to explode. Of course most people with any knowledge of capitalism know that it is unsustainable and will eventually collapse, the financial sector is just part and parcel of that same system. Our problem is not so much the collapse of the system, but how do we react to that  catastrophic event? Will we fight to get it back on the rails, so that we can get back to borrowing and getting ever bigger mortgages, back to a job with crap wages and an never ending struggle to get an increase that will help you survive? Or will we decide to take control ourselves and change the entire system to one free from the profit motive, bond holders and financial spivs? The following is an extract form a much longer and more detailed article HERE.

What Happens if the Greeks Default?

       Andrew Lilico, writing in the London Telegraph, gives us the answer to that question with a series of short bullet points. I might not agree with all of them, but he is looking in the right direction. (quoting from http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/andrewlilico/100010332/what-happens-when-greece-defaults/)

       “It is when, not if. Financial markets merely aren’t sure whether it’ll be tomorrow, a month’s time, a year’s time, or two years’ time (it won’t be longer than that). Given that the ECB has played the “final card” it employed to force a bailout upon the Irish – threatening to bankrupt the country’s banking sector – presumably we will now see either another Greek bailout or default within days.

“What happens when Greece defaults. Here are a few things:

- Every bank in Greece will instantly go insolvent.

- The Greek government will nationalize every bank in Greece.

- The Greek government will forbid withdrawals from Greek banks.

- To prevent Greek depositors from rioting on the streets, Argentina-2002-style (when the Argentinian president had to flee by helicopter from the roof of the presidential palace to evade a mob of such depositors), the Greek government will declare a curfew, perhaps even general martial law.

- Greece will redenominate all its debts into “New Drachmas” or whatever it calls the new currency (this is a classic ploy of countries defaulting)

- The New Drachma will devalue by some 30-70 per cent (probably around 50 per cent, though perhaps more), effectively defaulting 0n 50 per cent or more of all Greek euro-denominated debts.

- The Irish will, within a few days, walk away from the debts of its banking system.

- The Portuguese government will wait to see whether there is chaos in Greece before deciding whether to default in turn.

- A number of French and German banks will make sufficient losses that they no longer meet regulatory capital adequacy requirements.

- The European Central Bank will become insolvent, given its very high exposure to Greek government debt, and to Greek banking sector and Irish banking sector debt.

- The French and German governments will meet to decide whether (a) to recapitalise the ECB, or (b) to allow the ECB to print money to restore its solvency. (Because the ECB has relatively little foreign currency-denominated exposure, it could in principle print its way out, but this is forbidden by its founding charter. On the other hand, the EU Treaty explicitly, and in terms, forbids the form of bailouts used for Greece, Portugal and Ireland, but a little thing like their being blatantly illegal hasn’t prevented that from happening, so it’s not intrinsically obvious that its being illegal for the ECB to print its way out will prove much of a hurdle.)

- They will recapitalise, and recapitalise their own banks, but declare an end to all bailouts.

- There will be carnage in the market for Spanish banking sector bonds, as bondholders anticipate imposed debt-equity swaps.

- This assumption will prove justified, as the Spaniards choose to over-ride the structure of current bond contracts in the Spanish banking sector, recapitalising a number of banks via debt-equity swaps.

- Bondholders will take the Spanish Banking Sector to the European Court of Human Rights (and probably other courts, also), claiming violations of property rights. These cases won’t be heard for years. By the time they are finally heard, no one will care.

- Attention will turn to the British banks. Then we shall see…”

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THE FREE HETHERINGTON.

       The Free Hetherington is probably the longest running student occupation in the country. Hetherington House at Glasgow University was occupied by the students on February 1 2011. It had previously been The Hetherington Research Club but had been unoccupied for a year since the Research Club left the premises in Feb 2010 and was due for redevelopment by the University.

        The occupation is intended as a protest against cuts to higher education within the Glasgow University and across the country. Since the occupation the students and the wider community have organised a varied and interesting series of events and there usually something arranged for most days and evenings of the week.

       One such event organised at the Free Hetherington, which is tied in with today's events of popular uprisings happening across the world, was a talk and discussion with sociologist John Holloway, the events were recorded and can be viewed on the Free Hetherington site.

        Perhaps others will take encouragement from what the students and their supporters have achieved here, the lesson from this action is "Direct Action" gets results.

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LEGAL FIDDLES AND ILLEGAL FIDDLES!!!

     

       A government department has issued what it calls the silliest excuse put forward by people caught cheating on benefit claims. All in an attempt to ridicule and shame those who try to fiddle the benefit system. Hoping to alienate them and scapegoat them as an excuse to introduce draconian measures against anybody who relies on benefit to survive. They have to be held up to ridicule and prosecuted for doing what a vast number of MPs have done and in some cases are still doing. In the case of the MPs all they have to say is that they were not involved in any wrong doing. They may be asked to pay it back or receive a slap on the wrist. Out of 600 odd MPS and about the same number in the Lords and a year or more of scandalous revelations of widespread fiddling, only about 6 have gone to court. One Lord how did end up in court stated, it wasn't an expense system as such, but more of an allowance system to top up their income, and he was doing nothing wrong as they were all doing the same. I hope the Met. were listening to that.

IF YOU DON'T PAY US PROPERLY, WE'LL LEAVE!

     We are told that benefit cheats cost the tax payer approximately £1.6 billion, shock, horror, that's about as much as the government is expected to spend destroying Libya over a 6 month period. It fades into insignificances when compared to Vodafone's £6 billion tax fiddle, then there is Philip Green with his nice little arrangement of having his wife as owner of BHS Group, claiming she is a resident of Monaco, so doesn't pay UK tax on the company's profits. Most of the big companies avoid paying there fair share of tax by what can only be described as phony overseas offices and other tax avoidance fiddles. However no government department sets out to ridicule and shame them, even although sorting that little lot out would put hundreds of billions into the tax revenue of this country. It seems that the powers that be want a monopoly on fiddling for their own class, and have no intentions of allowing to spread down to us minions.

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UK's BOY SOLDIERS??

       

       Here in the so called “Developed West” our oligarch owned pro-establishment mainstream media, will spout off about the “boy soldiers” being used in some “developing” nations. They scream, horror, crime against humanity, and so it is. However they are rather quiet on the UK's boy soldiers. Recent figures show that in the last 5 years or so the number of boys aged 16 being recruited in to the UK army has grown considerably. The Ministry of Defence, (or should that be of War?) has released figures that show that last year 1,400, 16-year-old's were recruited into the army. This amounts to 17.4% of all of all new recruits, up from 12.7% last year. The Ministry of Defence, (that euphemism again,) has admitted that under 18-year-old's have been sent into combat areas since 2007, also 15, 17-year-old's were sent to Iraq between 2003 and 2005, and that 36 teenage UK soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. How many have been injured and miamed for life, how many will suffer mental health problems because of their eperiences?

         Of course they will say that those poor boy soldiers in Africa etc. were abducted, forced, coerced into the army, while our brave young lads volunteered. Can it truly be called volunteering when you are faced with no further education options, unemployment or at best some crap low paid job. Then along comes a smiling recruiting team who offer you training, education, a trade, travel, a wage, plus accommodation? It seems a good option, because you are not told the truth, once you sign on the dotted line you your travel consists of a trip to Afghanistan, Iraq or some other imperialist resource grab, laying your life on the line for some corporate body who will make billions from your efforts.

      These are kids, just out of school and in most cases from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. You don't see many 16-year-old's from the well-heeled brigade volunteering for the army, oh no, their kids are destined for university and a well paid job with a house in the leafy suburbs.

     This is just one of the many injustices that pass as fair and just in this corrupt capitalist system. What civilised society would allow its kids to leave school at 16, be handed a weapon then trained to kill? What's more, the hypocritical stance, that they are volunteering. Ill informed, mislead, and desperate, kids cannot make an informed choice, they are being used.

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THE SCOTS WHO FOUGHT IN SPAIN.

    

       Another wee bit of Scots history that is well worth remembering, though today don't expect the fascists to come marching down the street with jackboots. This time they have arrived in suits in offices of the corporate world where they dictate their policies to their subservient front line troops, the parliamentary party political system. It was Mussolini who said that it should not be called Fascism but Corporatism, as it is the coming together of the corporate world and the state. I'm sure if he were around now, he would be delighted to see its progress. It has arrived and it is world wide. Our only hope is more of the "Arab Spring" across the globe. More than ever solidarity is not to do with your work-place and community, it is to do with our class across the globe. Corporatism is world wide, our resistance has to be the same.

Photo by Capa.

More of this series  HERE.        

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