So austerity was not necessary and George Osborne has been wrong on everything, and is always wrong, of course we always knew that fact.
And now for a evening at the movies.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
views and poetry from an anarchist perspective.
Read the full article HERE:Born of human error, continually generating copious heat, the Elephant’s Foot is still melting into the base of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. If it hits ground water, it could trigger another catastrophic explosion or leach radioactive material into the water nearby residents drink. Long after bleeding from the core, this unique piece of waste continues to be a testament to the potential dangers of nuclear power. The Elephant’s Foot will be there for centuries, sitting in the dark basement of a concrete and steel sarcophagus, a symbol of one of humankind’s most powerful tools gone awry.
Read the full article at The Anarchist Library HERE:There are hidden stories all around us,
growing in abandoned villages in the mountains
or vacant lots in the city,
petrifying beneath our feet in the remains
of societies like nothing we’ve known,
whispering to us that things could be different.
But the politician you know is lying to you,
the manager who hires and fires you,
the landlord who evicts you,
the president of the bank that owns your house,
the professor who grades your papers,
the cop who rolls your street,
the reporter who informs you,
the doctor who medicates you,
the husband who beats you,
the mother who spanks you,
the soldier who kills for you,
and the social worker who fits your past and future into a folder in a filing cabinet
all ask
“WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITHOUT US?
It would be anarchy.”* * * * *And the daughter who runs away from home,
the bus driver on the picket line,
the veteran who threw back his medal but holds on to his rifle,
the boy saved from suicide by the love of his friends,
the maid who must bow to those who can’t even cook for themselves,
the immigrant hiking across a desert to find her family on the other side,
the kid on his way to prison because he burned down a shopping mall they were building over his childhood dreams,
the neighbor who cleans up the syringes from the vacant lot, hoping someone will turn it into a garden,
the hitchhiker on the open road,
the college dropout who gave up on career and health insurance and sometimes even food so he could write revolutionary poetry for the world,
maybe all of us can feel it:
our bosses and tormentors are afraid of what they would do without us,
and their threat is a promise —
Today is the 100th anniversary of the publication of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, my favourite book.
To commemorate the anniversary, the film making team at “Shut Out The Light” have released this fabulous trailer of their forthcoming film Still Ragged.
I’m really proud that my song Letter To Kathleen, based on Tressell’s final letter home to his daughter, is the soundtrack to the trailer.
The film itself features Ricky Tomlinson, Dennis Skinner MP, Len McCluskey of UNITE and Tom Watson MP amongst others.
Tonight’s public meeting is standing room only. The mood is cheerful, earnest, disciplined and, dare I say it, rather churchly. Fittingly, we begin with songs: first a hymn tune with the refrain "Everything is for sale", then a jazzier number that goes "Got any money? (Then you can buy a place in the queue)". Next there’s a short dystopian pantomime set in a hospital waiting room: the man with the private plan goes straight upstairs while the lady on the public option has to wait in line. The sheepish uninsured fellow with the broken leg is shown a price list, then the door.
Read the full article HERE:
Sweden’s welfare system is famously extensive: long parental leave, free childcare, free tertiary education, generous social security. After the economic crisis of the early 1990s successive governments have reduced entitlements and cut public spending, but what has changed the most is the incorporation of the private sector at every level of the welfare state. All public contracts are subject to competitive tendering and most new clinics and hospitals are built with private funds. Communal clinics, nursing homes and schools compete with private firms for pupils and patients. Last year the state paid almost 100 billion kronor (£11 billion) to private welfare operators, overwhelmingly to 10 large corporations all owned by private equity funds.
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Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk |
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.ukThe conditions under which many melon pickers in this country work stink. Sometimes literally. Can you help?Azucena Ordorica has had five years’ experience picking melons in California. Her descriptions of the restrooms near the fields where she has worked are stomach-turning: “The bathrooms were always very dirty,” she says. “When I would open the door, a horrendous smell along with a swarm of flies would come out. The flies were flying and landing all over my body,” she says. “It was horrible.”And that’s not the worst of it. According to melon harvester Brenda A. Ruiz, “On occasions bathrooms are not provided.” Brenda also says that “The water that is provided to drink is hot and dirty.” And the bosses find creative ways to take the workers’ meager wages away from them. Brenda reports that she and her co-workers are required to carpool with their supervisors — at a cost of $15 per day!Women workers endure special threats and humiliations. Azucena had a particularly traumatic experience with sexual harassment. “On the first day of employment, a supervisor once told me if I had sex with him twice a week, he would make sure I had work for the entire season,” she says. “Since I refused, I was fired.”People should NOT be subjected to such abuses to support themselves and their families. Cantaloupes and other melon crops bring hundreds of millions of dollars of profit every year to U.S. growers. They can afford to pay their workers better and to ensure that their employees work in safe, sanitary conditions.We know it is possible because one exceptional company, Perez Packing Inc. of Firebaugh, California, is working with the UFW to make it happen. We’re currently negotiating with them to give their workers the kind of union contract every farm worker deserves.By sending your contribution today, you’ll allow us to organize at the other melon companies with these horrible abuses. Every donation, regardless of the amount, makes a difference and is greatly appreciated.
The latest short documentary in the Global Uprisings series explores ongoing resistance and self-organization in the midst of the crisis in Spain.As social conditions continue to deteriorate across Spain, people have been turning to the streets and to each other to find solutions to the crisis. This film tells the story of the massive mobilization that saw millions of people converge on Madrid on March 22, 2014; the story of the proliferation of social centers, community gardens, self-organized food banks; and the story of large-scale housing occupations by and for families that have been evicted. The film pieces together many of the creative ways that people have been coping with crisis and asks what the future may hold for Spain.Filmed and edited in March/April 2014, it is part of the Global Uprisings documentary series. View more at globaluprisings.org.