My Strange Week...

Last Monday I went to my job seekers appointment, to collect what feels like the remnants of communism. The normally friendly guy was extremely short with me and told me had cut me off because I didn't turn up to a random check on my job search the week before.

1stly WHY THE HELL are you randomly checking me? I am a graduate, do you think I paid £9k plus for my education to sit on the dole for less than a tenner a day?

2ndly WHY THE HELL don't you 'randomly' check the people that cannot seem to get a job but can make it to the bookies at 9am every day?

3rdly I called your 0845 number that you make JOBLESS people call to tell you I could not make it as I had an interview, you know the thing that is meant to make me get off the dole??

4thly This is MY NATIONAL INSURANCE money that I'm begging for!

He had no sympathy and said I should have come after my interview and waited around the job centre until he had seen all of his appointments to check in with him. Just because you haven't got a job they think they can enslave you and demand you to be there at whatever time of day. When I returned and spoke to a different clerk he said the job centre is becoming like a 'concentration camp' and 'prison' with all the new government requirements. He also let me in on another 'secret'; that now they are ACTUALLY going to really help us get a job instead of just signing us off because there are too many people on job seekers allowance. Well blow me down! The job centre are actually going to start helping us get jobs?!

Later that week I met the TORY boy, being working class and living in London I don't usually meet, or possibly have never met someone like him. He asked me my view point on so many specific topics just so he could try and prove his narrow minded point of views. I told him I was at Occupy at St Pauls, he asked me how it was, to which I replied 'fun' & he said 'I knew it, it's just a party, I bet everyone was drinking and taking drugs etc'. Errr no, they have a strict policy of no drugs or alcohol, it was fun just because it was a good experience with loads of varied debates going on. The picture on the left was a guy from 'anonymous' and a random capitalist heckler who we ended up chatting to for about 2 hours. He repeatedly kept saying 'What are you doing here with these losers?' ie what are three 'normal' non-hippy, bathing, young women doing at this protest?

Yet the people who insist on stereotyping are the people who conform to stereotypes themselves. The Tory boy is a pro-fox hunting, clay pigeon shooting, Guardian hating, anti-immigration, sticking up for colonialism, boarding school educated, racism denier. Among the least offensive things he said was that 'a foreign name does not inhibit you from getting a job'. This is 100% untrue and just shows you how naive some people are. I can think of 100 examples but off the top of my head; a lawyer family friend once left an interview in tears when the employer said she had all the credentials but wouldn't hire her because of her surname 'Mohammed'. Another friend had a disheartening short time as a recruitment consultant for professionals because her superiors would put CVs in the bin if the header name was foreign and would say 'this CV looks good' if their was name was 'Thomas' or 'James' etc. Even entrepreneur 'James Caan' changed his name as he knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with a Pakistani name. (Also see http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/2011/11/disadvantage-of-being-ethinc.html). One of the more offensive things was a sarcastic fake phone call he made saying 'We colonised countries, especially in Africa, then we left, and now they want our charitable help?'

Need to dye some hair now, will be back... Peace

http://raraproductions.blogspot.com/

The Chattering Classes, Occupy and the 99%

*Inspired by Russia Today*


This morning I watched a debate on Russia Today on Occupy Wall Street. They had the presenter and three panellists. One of whom was of particular interest as he embodied every stereotype of the so-called 1%. In the face of gathering momentum across the US and across the globe he belittled the protests as issues of the 'chattering classes'. WOW. The others could scarcely believe their ears. The disturbing thing is I do not think he was part of a propaganda machine trying to persuade the masses that the Occupy protests were meaningless due to any vested interest. To me he was the victim of the propaganda machine and he genuinely dismissed the mass unhappiness at the economic and political systems currently in place. He said the only unity between the protesters is their system of voting consensus and even this he dismissed as arduous and unworkable. I am guessing that this is exactly what was said when democracy came to the fore.

Across the world people en masse are refusing to accept the status quo that has made their lives a misery, so why exactly should people in the West still accept that more deregulation, income equality and cutting spending aka services for the poor, is the answer to the world's economic problems. For their convenience, people like the man I mentioned would like to put people in neat little categories which fit his view of the world. They also do this in order to feel safe, as this is how the masses are controlled. Create stereotypes and people will conform to them. People fear what they don't understand... You get the point! I wonder if Mr Category is aware that he himself is embodying a stereotype?

The Tory Voice on twitter called @raraproduction 'bitter socialists' due to a report on David Cameron. This had nothing to do with being a bitter socialist, it was simply exposing the person that is in charge of your life. This is another example of a right-wing assumption - because you are unhappy with aspects of the elite or capitalism that means you are a hippy socialist? No-one in their right mind begrudges the success of someone who is rich and has worked hard, it is the resulting slavish way that the politicians end up soullessly pandering to them that is pissing off the 99%.

See also http://raraproductions.blogspot.com/ & http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/