I'm Cheating Here..........

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/margaret-thatcher-is-dead.html

This chap has a better command of the language than I! The above link takes you to his blogspot - it has to be read!! All of it!!

I wish I were as eloquent, I know I'm as angry!!

The above link explains why the "Thatcher" hammer still swings to this day. I know many people have some vague romantic view of this evil woman - or maybe Meryl Streep? But she had the heart of a concrete block and the greed of a newborn! But her cancerous legacy still eats away at this country and it won't stop unless people become aware.

For fear of repeating myself:

Marx argued that a successful revolution could only happen with a politically aware proletariat. Be aware!!

I'm getting ANGRY!!

A couple of times I've rented my wrath about current issues in our economically divided country. I've rediscovered an old passion for raging against the 'top-dog'. 

Sad really. Because most people, as I've stated earlier, do not want to engage. They just want to get by. But that, too, fuels my rage. As I see it, the reason most people don't want to engage is seen in how they're being manipulated. 

The most recent rant came whilst I was talking to my daughter about her writing. (I'm hoping she'll write a best-seller - she has the talent!) But my rant moved from being a friendly exchange about her latest character and plot to what's happening today in the UK. 

I'm not going to reveal her latest plot, but it did lead me to give some consideration to the REAL conspiracy theory that's destroying my world. Conspiracy theorists are painted as 'crazies' who believe that a handful of super-rich, elite, inter-related individuals control everything that happens in the world. Politicians and corporate giants love these people. They can be so easily dismissed. David Icke is a wonderful example. His position is that we are controlled by "shape-shifting lizards". At their head is the British Royal Family. Everyone else associated with them, however tenuously, is also a "shape-shifter". Other theories mention the mysterious "Illuminati". A group of extremely powerful individuals who's only aim is to control the Earth with a "One-World-Government". Or maybe its the Devil worshipping Bildebergers? Lovely stuff! So easily rebuffed and paraded in the media as the ignorant leading the stupid. But.....

The point of capitalism is to make money. That's its purpose. There is no conscience about it. It's perceived as a Darwinian process whereby the strong survive and prosper and the weak fall by the wayside. Just as in nature. Weber's "Protestant Ethic Thesis", mooted as the trigger point of capitalism, argues that the roots of capitalism are buried in a work ethic which demands that a worker makes money to make money! Therein lies the root of the "conspiracy" issue. What most people are only half aware of is the financial clout that the wealthy bring to bear on the policy-makers of our nations. They control the wealth, the media and the government - to a degree.

I could go on but won't. The point to this particular rant was that political apathy is more prevalent today than it has ever been in my history! More and more people are stating that "you can't trust any of'em!" So who does one vote for? For people to engage in politics there has to be a shift in perception. Initially, it might be a good thing to mistrust politicians! After all, they're just humans like the rest of us. The key to the shift is the meaning of democracy. It requires numbers. The vast majority of us should converge and agree on some basic instruments of governance. What appears to be happening is that there are many divisions among the populace. The disabled are campaigning against the bedroom tax, the unemployed are campaigning against benefit cuts, "British White Workers" are campaigning against immigration policies, others against EU membership, yet others against fracking, the list goes on!

What we should be doing is campaigning against a government that's encouraging these divisions. We should all be together on a single issue - get this government out! We should be campaigning against a system that allows ALL of these issues to go unabated. It's time we moved away from neoliberal politics and returned to a proper democracy that our forefathers died for! We should all come together for the sake of the 99% who are NOT super-rich. All these other problems could then be settled amicably. In a proper democratic fashion.

There may be divisions in our community, but these can be sorted between us. Not trampled over by the corporate giants that actually call all the shots! It is they who drive wages down. It is they who buy our national treasures for poultry sums and degrade them. It is they who devise more dangerous, (yet, for them, profitable), means of providing energy. It is they who argue that a "dependency culture" emerges if you allow the weak, infirm and disabled to "dally" on benefits! It is they who maintain high levels of unemployment to keep wages low. It is they who took our manufacturing base to Third World countries to lower production costs by creating sweat shops. It is they who damaged our economy - deliberately!

We have a common enemy. We should be united against them. One single issue.

The Greatest Speech Ever Made - Charlie Chaplin

Are We Totally Defeated?

Socialism is being eroded on every front! Unbelievably the Labour Party has a right-wing "think-tank"! They appear to believe the political rhetoric that the libertarian press espouses. That people on benefits are "scroungers", unwilling to seek gainful employment. That the elderly and infirm are a "costly burden" on the state. That private investment creates jobs. That immigration is the scourge of this country.

When are we going to grow up? Karl Marx argued that a revolution could only work if the proletariat were "politically aware". How aware should we be? We have people committing suicide by the dozen. We have kids thrown into poverty.  We have a floundering health care system through poor management and an urge to privatise, putting more lives at risk. We have a generation of young kids suffering mental health problems because of "lack of hope". We have a huge problem with homelessness looming as the 'bedroom tax' kicks in. We have a government Hell-bent on taking every last penny from the poor. We are returning to the "Golden Age" of Victoriana!

Soon there will be a totally divided nation. The few who have the most and the many who will have nothing. The likelihood of the few who have the most staying in this country, once they've robbed us blind, is likely to be nil. Do we have to become a Third World country before we do something to stop this rot? 

“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.

Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Working Men of All Countries, Unite!” Karl Marx

I Thought Usury Was A Sin.........

An interesting pic I got from https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vox-Political/331758126847793.

The article, which I urge you to read, talks about 'credit unions' and how they must be allowed to compete with the likes of Wonga, et al., giving credit to assist people in crisis. People should not be in crisis in this country. We stole most of the wealth from other countries when we were an Empire! We were the seat of industrialisation. We're still one of the richest economies in the world. Why shouldn't we all benefit from that? And why is there not some kind of concerted joint effort to combat this growing disaster? Why don't we change the 'mode of production', as Marx would say?

I've been taken by the possibility of Workers' Cooperatives as a means to put the economy back to some form of stability. I'm still exploring the concept as viewed by the likes of Professor Richard Wolff in America and the likes of the authors of  http://www.uk.coop/.If the comment "We're in this together" was designed to convince people en masse that we're all supposed to support each other then why not go all the way? Instead of paying millions of pounds on unsustainable benefits for the unemployed, (the vast majority of whom do want to work!), then why not invest in Workers' Cooperatives? Why not utilise the redundant work spaces left by corporate bodies in their rush to exploit workers in Third World countries and start producing home grown goods?

It's been operating across Europe for some time now. Surely we can save our economy from the clutches of the greedy few and generate wealth for the masses? According to Wolff, if the USA were to reinstate all of their redundant factories and produced home-grown goods, there would be enough profit to end global poverty! I don't know if that's an ambitious claim but I do know that we have the skills and labour-force to generate a sizeable income between us. Then we could get our lives back and live in a true democracy. Not one engendered by the incumbent policy-makers bent on silencing the majority.

Just a thought.....