THEIR LORDSHIPS’ LITTLE FIDDLE!!

 

Why should I turn up for a pittance of £300 a day?

 

        The House of Lords, that £19 million a year symbol of unbridled parasitical privilege, a place that we are told is filled with “Their Lordships” whose only duty is to safeguard our so called democracy. Yet again we find, like the “Honourable Members” of that “other place” that they are no more than petty minded little greedy expense fiddlers. It seems that over 100 of them were claiming £100 a night expenses for living overnight in London while they had their own property in the city. Well I suppose it helps with the champagne bills, one has to have standards.

          Now in an attempt to make them squeaky clean they are to be paid a meagre £300 a day attendance money plus travel expenses. Of course for the really busy little Lordships there is a pop in allowance of £150 for part of the day, plus travel expenses.

          Think on this as you see your benefits cut and your child’s education being decimated. Cast a little reflection on the poor Lordships as your incapacity benefit is stopped or your job disappears. Think of their £300 a day plus expenses as your job seekers allowance is stopped if you refuse to take some crap job for an even crappier wage. Perhaps you could ask your boss for travelling expense just for turning up. Why do we accept such inequalities and such injustices? Remember we are paying for all this and we are the ones being forced to take all the pain. We don’t need a coalition or a new prime minister, we don’t need a change of party and we don’t need to carry this bunch of privileged parasites on our backs. What we do need is a change in the structure of society, we need a society freed from the greed of the millionaire parasites who see profit as the only game in town. We need a society based on the needs of all those who take part in that society, a society based on mutual aid, a society based on communities controlled by those in the community, working in co-operation with all other communities, a federated society of equals, based on sustainability.

ann arky’s home.

 

MINISTRY OF WAR!!

 

       As Ossie the toff prattled on about his necessary and very fair cuts you probably noticed that there were no cuts announced for the Ministry of War’s budget. I call it by it proper name since all it ever seems to do is send our troops to kill and maim people in other countries. Countries I might add that have never attacked us. He could have saved us £45 billion by scrapping trident and not replacing the beast, but some how he feels the need for our country to have these illegal weapons of mass destruction skulking about deep in the Atlantic pointing at our enemies. Who are our enemies? We don’t know and if we did we couldn’t fire these weapons of mass destruction, for though we bought and paid for them, we can’t use them without America’s permission, and they are unlikely to grant that permission unless it is somebody they don’t like, so we would be doing them a favour and taking the blame. At a running cost of £5 billion a year, these weapons of mass destruction do however allow our ministers to prance about on the international stage with the label “Super Power” pinned to their chest. That must make them feel good!! Let’s try to imagine how that £5 billion a year works out in schools, hospitals, cheap homes and/or an excellent public transport system.

        Though Ossie the toff didn’t cut our Ministry of War budget you would imagine that there was a wee bit wiggle room there, as, for the year 2009, the financial crash year, we managed to spend more on warfare than Russia. As a matter of fact we were the third largest spender on warfare on the planet, We were only beaten into third place by the mighty war machines of the USA and China.

         Our democratic welfare state managed to spend for the year 2009 approximately £45.8 billion on war. How would that translate into health, education and pensions? Of course we have to think what would the state be without its war machine? How could it make those land grabs for the corporate world, how could it seize other people’s oil for the oil giants? Yes, we need that mighty war machine to protect and increase the assets of the corporate world, so you and I will just have to pay up, grin and bear it.

       We could of course organise to change society so that it sees to the needs of all its people and works in peace and co-operation with all other ordinary people across the planet. A society where the need to protect the greedy profit seeking parasites is a distant memory from the dustbin of history.

ann arky’s home.

BLOOD AND MINERAL WEALTH??

        300 British troops killed in Afghanistan, it is working out at 1 killed every other day, 300 British families devastated, all in the name of –WHAT–? This does not take into account the number of young people coming back from that imperial expedition with limbs missing and other horrific injuries, then there are those who come home mentally scarred and broken. The bulk of those killed and damaged in this imperial affair are from the working class, the class that has nothing to gain from this endless slaughter. When it comes to why we are there we get a myriad of answers from, making us safe here in the UK, to building a true democracy in Afghanistan, of course we haven’t even started to build a true democracy here in the UK. 

    Recently we have been getting little hints of what could be the true reason for our government sacrificing so many of our  working class youth, (and they are young, the average age of UK deaths in Afghanistan is 22 and among the 300 deaths, 31 were teenagers) In some of the financial papers there has been talk of the mineral wealth of Afghanistan as being in the £3 trillion region. Now the Western corporate world is not going to let that fall into the hands of of any other power group. So they call on their minders, the Western states to get in there and lay claim to that wealth by setting up a compliant government. A government that will let the Western corporate greed machine rip, rape and plunder that unfortunate land to feed their ever hungry shareholders. We the working class of the world bleed and the corporate world gains.  

ann arky’s home.

I’M PROUD.

I’M PROUD.

I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,

that great mass on society’s bottom rung.

Those who, with coaldust under their nails

in their eyes, in their lungs

claw at the earth’s entrails.

Their brothers,

cement in their hair

in their mouth, in their ears,

oil ingrained in their fingers,

on their face.

Sisters, glistening with sweat

midst the ceaseless noise of machines

that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets

for other people.

Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin

smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,

grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system

weighted down

with a sack load of half-dead dreams,

sometimes brought to their knees

by a tidal wave of despair,

never defeated,

groping in the dark to find tomorrow,

keeping hope alive;

they amaze me.

Somehow, from somewhere

in this cold, cruel

unforgiving scheme of things

they find love for their children.

Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,

but buckets full, to bathe them in,

to pour over them.

They seem to know

that one day this world will be ours

and to take care of it

we will need those who have been loved

ann arky’s home.

 

 

KILL THE CUTS–CHANGE SOCIETY!!

 

         Tuesday sees well manicured millionaire Osborne, on behalf of the millionaires club, launch his attack on the working class via his emergency budget. This will be the first step to take the working class back to the thirties, back to Victorian poverty. We have to show that we are not going down that road just to save the bond markets and some of his other millionaire friends from suffering some financial loss. They want to safe guard their fortunes at our expense, they know it is a class war, we pay for the problems, not the millionaires that caused the problems. To them, that’s the way it should be. We have to show that we also recognise this as a class war and we know who our enemies are. We are not in the same club as that bunch of pampered, parasitical, millionaire hypocrites.

          On Tuesday 22 June there will be a demonstration and rally in George Square Glasgow from 3pm onwards. There will be a host of speakers speaking out against the cuts but no doubt some will be asking for you to vote them into power next time round. That’s not the answer, the rally and demonstration is all well and good as a first phase to show our opposition to this savage attack on our living standards and show that we will act in solidarity with all our communities. However the struggle must continue into the workplaces and the local communities. Standing in George Square listening to speakers will not stop the cuts.

           It was on July 31st 1925 that then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin made the following statement; “All the workers of this country have got to take reductions in wages to help to put industry on its feet.” Yes, they seem to have been a wee bit more honest in those days, no crap about us all being in this together for the sake of the country. Less than a year on from that statement Britain was in the grip of a general strike. The entire working class was solid but were sold down the river by the trade unions. We must learn from that and never let control leave the grass roots. All action against the cuts must be driven and controlled by the people involved, don’t play follow-my-leader into the trap of change the party in power and waving at a new smiling shiny leader.

           Workers control, communities controlled by those in that community working in federation with each other to change society, not to change the leader. We don’t need leaders, prime ministers, kings or presidents, their record doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

ann arky’s home.

NARCISSISTIC BALLERINAS FROM THE HOUSE OF CORRUPTION.

 

      As the narcissistic ballerinas of the West Minster House of Corruption prance about in their illusionary world of necessary cuts spouting that there is consensus in the need for savage cuts, not one has suggested some savage cuts to the military spending. For example, how about saving £4 billion a year by ending the war in Afghanistan or saving £70 billion by scrapping Trident, which is more than the millionaire cabal say is needed to balance the books. With one piece of legislation they could wipe out the deficit and end the pointless slaughter of young members of the working class, 298 to date and rising, plus the pointless slaughter of thousands of Afghans, children, young, old, men and women.

         But no, I’m afraid our millionaire friends believe that we are all behind them in this vicious attack on the living conditions of our class. We have even been asked where we would like the axe to fall. A bit like being allowed to select the axe that you will be behead with. We are being asked to take our living standards back to the Victorian era so as to safeguard the profits of the bond markets. Our millionaire friends know who their friends are, and it is not you and I. They also know where they stand in the class war, fair square behind the financial and bond markets, after all that’s where they keep their loot.

         Do we, the ordinary people of this country know who our friends are? It certainly isn’t the filthy rich millionaires’ club who are making a grab for what little we have. With 23 millionaires in the cabinet, they’re not likely to upset their friends and relatives who live by shuffling money around the world to the detriment of the ordinary people.

         This is class war, too many ordinary people are swallowing the propaganda of the enemy and accept the illusionary view that the millionaires’ club are doing all this to save us from further pain. We are supposed to inflict ourselves with pay cuts/freezes, cuts in social benefits, cuts in health, education, pensions and drastic cuts to the social fabric of society on top of rapidly increasing unemployment, the effects of which will last for years, and all this is for our benefit??? What pain will fall on the millionaires club, how will the parasites sitting in that West Minster House of Corruption suffer in these “difficult times”? Can we trust a bunch of parasitical, narcissistic, well manicured millionaires to organise society to the benefit of all? Do we need them? I’m sure we have the imagination and the ability to organise society to suit the needs of all our people, a society freed from the greed of the millionaires and the profit seeking god they worship.

ann arky’s home.

JUSTICE WINS.

Batons at the ready??

Once again a victim of police brutality ends up in court charged with violence.  Harvie Brown was charged as the ring leader of violence against the police at last years G20 protest. However it took the jury a mere 30 minutes to find him not guilty after seeing film footage of the police brutality against protesters. A glowing example of the need for protesters to film everything they see at such an event. Film evidence in court can be very powerful and can in some cases contradict the police evidence, as it did in this case. A mass protest with everybody armed with their video phones merrily taking film of everything in sight would be a clear indication that we are aware of what we are up against and are collecting the evidence. They may manage to confiscate some, but some will survive and “could be used  as evidence in a court of law.”

ann arky’s home.

PROFIT FROM CANCER!!

Most people are aware of the inequalities and injustices within the capitalist system. We know of the millions that die from starvation and the millions more who live in poverty all to help feed that small band of greedy parasites in the corporate world. The deprivation of whole swaths of the world’s population is on show for all to see. We know the system stinks, but there are millions of hidden miseries that are inflicted on the poorest sections of our communities.

In Britain work related cancer kills more people than road accidents. The following information is from a recent study by The Society of Occupational Medicine. It is estimated that more than 8,000 people die each year from work related cancer compared to approximately 3,000 killed in road accidents. The construction industry is the worst hit with more than half of males diagnosed with cancer working in that industry. Employees in this industry are exposed to asbestos, diesel fumes and silica among other carcinogens. The study also states that there are almost 14,000 newly diagnosed cases of cancer every year related to occupational carcinogens. 54% of those working women diagnosed with cancer do shift work, including night work and it is believed this disrupts the body’s natural rhythms. It goes on to state that over a million British workers are exposed to cancer causing substances at their place of work, asbestos being the main killer.

This burden of cancer falls mainly on manual workers and lower paid grades of employment A further quote from the study states, “Many of the industries with workers at risk don’t have access to good occupational health advice so proper risk assessments are not undertaken.— The missed opportunity is that we know many of the culprits and how to control them.—”.

Once again we see that profit comes before the health of the workers, we know the substances and we know how to control them but it doesn’t happen. Why? Workers are expendable, profit is GOD.

Under any sane and just system society would not expose our people to such dangers. We are taking about the people who build our houses,  schools, hospitals, offices, roads, bridges etc. an essential section of our society yet we allow them to be killed to save a fall in the share price of some corporate body. Good health and safety at work cuts into their profit so can be sacrificed along with the people involved. There will always be somebody they can call on to filled the gap left by the dead and dying.

ann arky’s home.

EVERYBODY AND THEIR DOG.

   

       The Edinburgh June 5 demo against the Israeli massacre had a remarkable turnout. It was good to see such a large crowd at such short notice. There were groups from all parts of Scotland proudly displaying their banners. Despite the problems that the ordinary people of this country face because of the governments economic policies, it is obvious that the people of Scotland have not lost their compassion when others are in need.  

   This brutal Israeli state activity even brought out the local canine activists who marched with the other protesters in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

    It is obvious that the pressure must be kept up to bring the Israeli zionist policies to a halt. Of course that is only one step in the right direction, we must struggle to end the state system. This brutal massacre is only one display of state savagery, we could fill  a library with the list of brutal events visited on the ordinary people of this world by state oppression. By far the greatest killers in this world are states, their brutality outstrips any other organisation. In our focus on this massacre let’s not forget it is the state system that is at the root of this violence.

ann arky’s home.

SATIRE: The Pillars of Society=21st. Century Barbarians.

     Words of wisdom that could apply to all in the weird and wonderful world of corporate capitalism,  from Dave Riley at LeftClick   

     I have had my head around the world, both man and boy, for many a year . I’ve strutted and fretted;  witnessed my share of hi fidelity sound and ferocious fury.

     But when it comes down to it I gotta say: “Bah!”

      Hello! Are you listening?

      Way back when I knew something was wrong. It was as plain as the smell under my very own nose.

      It wasn’t that I was intellectually precociousor party to a special knowledge or insight. I just knew that the world was in in parlous state.

          Don’t be thinking that I’m going on about a feral asteroid  set to make a mess of downtown where ever. I’m not been apocalyptal. I’m far too young for that. (And besides, if the truth be known I’m spiritually shallow inside with out an ounce of repentance worth harnessing.)

      All I’m saying is that what was bad way back when has got even worse.

      Our lives have got worse. And this worseness has not occurred because there’s more juvenile delinquency, illegal drugs, invading wogs or swear words on the teley. Things have gone from bad to worse one hoodwink at a time.

       What wages buy has gone down. Personal debt has gone up. We work longer. The social ‘safety net’ has been trimmed right back to bare bones. Accommodation is expensive.  Employment security no longer exists. Murderous wars persist as a permanent feature of a sham quest for ‘peace’. We are ruled by the stockmarket and God Profit. The air temperature is rising.

          But this demented, sorry, brutal and nasty world is sold to us as the best of all possible options. How sick is that?

As for me, I miss the 20th Century. 1953, for instance. That was good year. Or 1968. And 1972 wasn’t so bad either….

          But today, what’s on offer? Unless you make your own way through your own customized ‘opening’ and got ahead — ahead of  any competing others (“Stiff bickies mate:your loss/my gain.” ) — you are going to be just another 21st century victim living an insecure existence one pay check (if you get one) at a time.

         And there are billions of us –all more or less in the same boat. While some of us are worse off than others.,we are all servants to the same master.

         The same master? As I say I am lacking in spiritual essences.I’m theologically empty inside. So I can’t complain to ‘Somebody’ upstairs.

         I’m also too kind to blame migrants or refugees. I rather like Arabs (and Arabic food) for instance and get a kick out of mixing with Aborigines. If I complain to  the  media they won’t print what I say.

         If I start yapping on about ” the system”. I’m dismissed as ideological, or that I have “an agenda”.

I have an agenda but they don’t?

Even at election time, which should be open season for whining , my complaints are worked over by party spin doctors and drowned in rhetoric. “Responsible government” prevails.

       I’m ignored. Belittled. Abused. Dismissed. Patronized. I’m nobody.

      And the pillars of society go about their business of looting and killing like the 21st Century Barbarians they are.

     They do all these things and there’s not a fuckin’ thing in it for me.

     No wonder I complain. Next time you butcher a Afghani wedding party or lock some Tamils up on Christmas Island, I want to know what’s in it for me?

     However, we can still hold on to those ideals that we know can make a different world. Yea, we are up to our armpits in shit but we the workers  built this edifice to greed, we can surly make a shovel and dig our way out.

ann arky’s home.

SAME OLD SHIT!!.

     

      If we know our history we realise that this so called “crisis” we are facing is nothing new. It is just one of the many and usual “crisis” in this system of capitalism that blights our lives.

     As our two manicured public school boys, running that Westminster House of Corruption keep spouting about cuts here and cuts there, all of which will be an attack on the ordinary people, we should cast our minds back. It was on  the 31st of July 1925, the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, stated “All the workers of this country have got to take reductions in wages to help to put industry on its feet”.  Sound familiar? Yes, it was just the same old shit. The parasitical industrialist were feeling a wee bit of a pinch, due to their greed and short sightedness, so it was time to make a a bigger grab from the working class.  They know their class war!!

    What followed shortly afterwards was the 1926 general strike. Of course we all know how that it ended. It ended by the unions selling the working class down the river.

    With this latest attack on the working class we could or perhaps that should read “should” take the same action again.  However, knowing our history we should be better prepared and not allow the unions to do the same as last time. We must be better organised at grassroots level, keep control of the actions at that level, making sure that the unions are there to do our bidding not to dictate to us.

   Of course things have changed as far as industry goes, but we are  still all workers and it is that which must unite us across the full spectrum of society. It is with that in mind that we must organise and work together in federation with all other groups. Victorian povert awaits you if there is inertia and/or disunity among our people.

       Again history might help, we could do well to recall the Clyde Workers Committee.   Of course we could just sit back and let the wealthy privileged parasites slash and grab at our standard of living, after all we wouldn’t want the bankers, bond holders and shareholders to run the risk of losing some of their ill earned wealth, would we??

ann arky’s home.

JUNE 5TH EDINBURGH DEMO.

Sat 5 June –

Edinburgh Demo against Israel’s massacre of Gaza flotilla

 2pm Foot of the Mound, Princes Street, Edinburgh  

         Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign calls on supporters of freedom for Palestine, enemies of cold-blooded massacre on the high seas to join the Scottish demonstration Saturday 5 June, assemble 2pm Foot of the Mound, Princes Street, Edinburgh.

Scottish PSC calls on people of conscience to demand:

    * an immediate end to British support for the blockade of Gaza

    * the Scottish government initiate sanctions against Israel and support the call from the UN’s Judge Goldstone for Israel to appear before the International Criminal Court for its crimes against humanity

    * the rogue state of Israel is stripped of its nuclear weapons

    * Scottish councils, universities and other institutions to boycott all Israeli produce, companies and institutions linked to the Israeli state.

Help us build the demonstration on Saturday:

    * Every day this week Scottish PSC will be at the Foot of the Mound, Princes Street, Edinburgh, 4.30-6pm with leaflets & posters for Saturday’s demonstration.

          – Join us at the stall and leaflet/discuss the situation with passers-by

         – Pick up posters and leaflets from the stall to distribute throughout the city, at your workplace, in your community
    * Planning meetings:

        – Dundee – 6pm today (Tuesday 1 June), Tower Building, Dundee University
  

        – Glasgow – 7.30pm (Wednesday 2 June), 31 Arlington Street, off Woodlands Road
      

      – Edinburgh – 7.30pm (Thursday 3 June), Peace & Justice Centre, corner of Princes Street and Lothian Road (planning, flag and banner assembly, banner making) 

       Download the leaflet and poster from our website: www.scottishpsc.org.uk

      Also check our website and twitter page for latest news:        twitter.com/scottishpsc

ann arky’s home.

STATE TERRORISM.

 

          Already Israel is pumping out the propaganda about the violence of those on board the aid convoy. How they attacked with iron bars and other implements those poor commandos who come under the cover of darkness to take control of the ship. This in the eyes of the Israeli state is provocation and needed to be put down with automatic machine guns and other peaceful implements. What would any civilian ship do when boarded by armed invaders on international waters, Does Somalia spring to mind? Of course the Israeli state conveniently forgets the case of the Exodus, a ship carrying Jewish refugees that was commandeer by the British in 1947. Here is a short extract from The Times of he event;

       “— Several hours of fighting followed, with the ship’s passengers spraying fuel oil and throwing smoke bombs, life rafts and whatever else came to hand, down on the British sailors trying to board, soon the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman on the Exodus were killed; scores more were wounded, many seriously.—-.”

         It seems very natural to defend yourself against armed invaders on the open sea, those on board had every right to defend themselves, the Israeli state had no right what so ever to board a civilian ship on the open seas without the permission of the captain.

          However we all know that states make up the rules as they go along, the more powerful the state, more it changes any rules to suit its own purpose, and to hell with the consequences on civilians. The state system is at the root of most of the problems on this planet today. We could of course add religion and corporate capitalism.

ann arky’s home.