Kiddy Lines and Clichés

'Innocent until proven Muslim'

One of the things that kids used to love saying, I dunno, maybe they still do, is 'I can do what I want, it's a free country'. Even now, in relation to politics and revolutions, we often use the word 'freedom'. Why is it so important yet it remains so elusive? Not just in terms of actually gaining this thing called freedom but what it actually means. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, typifying that the definition is not clear.  Free doesn't cost anything yet it is still being fought for (by people) and is so feared (by governments).

When we are finally 'free' like we are in good ol Blighty, we tend to follow the law senselessly anyway. 'The law of the land', another cliché we like to cite, especially when it comes to immigrants and bearded clerics who we barely register as human beings equal to ourselves. We regard 'the law' so highly, but lots of laws are shit. They are chopped and changed by shitty people when it suits them. Current government: let's change the law to make life more shit for the bottom but not for the top, because the reason the country hasn't got any money is because of the poor, oh wait, hold on, that's not right.... we've actually given all our money to remedy the bad investments made by millionaires, that is LAWFUL but over-claiming benefits is not. Yup that makes sense. Oh never mind, law is still really important, especially when Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond comes on Question Time and says if we don't like the law we should just change it, we meaning white men in suits who do not know about the normal struggles of normal people. That's how important our laws are, he says we should just change the law and chuckles.

The right-wing press and our right-wing government are baying for Abu Qatada's blood. They have already blatantly ignored the law of the land and our free country by keeping him in prison for a whopping six and a half years without charge. It has taken that long for the European Court of Human Rights to rule his detention unlawful, I could have told the government that in six and a half seconds, not that they did not know his detention was unlawful. Now he has paid by losing six and a half years of his life because of the nature of our free country, a prolonged justice system. Not only has his detention proven we don't need Guantanamo to ignore the laws of our land but the government also want to deport him, because of the huge symbolism that would represent; that WE are in charge of our borders and not Brussels/ Strasbourg or whoever else can be possibly blamed for our 'problems'. If you are brown/black and especially bearded, and you don't like our country you can get out! proving that we still have not moved passed the 'let's just move all the criminals to a country we don't care about (Australia)' theory. Our government are bullies, and as much as they can try and infuriatingly and patronisingly deny it, they have still not moved on from their colonialist tendencies. WE can go into other countries and basically do what we please, or even put a stranglehold on their economies from the safety of our free country but if one 'hate preacher' comes to our country and denounces us, Cameron forbid!

It is obvious that 99% of governments are more into the glory and symbolism of being able to kick so-called extremist clerics out than real governance, but if we really had to fear him, wouldn't it be best to keep him here and keep an eye on him? Until they can kick him out (pshhh we'll see), that is exactly what they are going to do, enforcing a 22 hour curfew, a phone, internet and Mosque ban on him, which will inevitably be ruled illegal anyway. If there is anything that would make me want to terrorise, it would be exactly what they are doing to him, no? Proving that mind over matter is only right to a certain extent. But how oh how would the government be able to avoid the inevitable headlines such as 'Qatada is costing the taxpayer millions'? Hmmm it's a tough one, let's just pass him onto our Western puppet, sorry I mean buddy, and then we can rub our hands of him and claim a victory against terrorism. Terrorism, that thing we were fighting remember? In order to preserve the law of the land and our free country.

Right-wing Daily Maily reading apes are in agreement that this country is a bit of a joke, but for totally different reasons, the top rated comments on the Abu Qatada story include,

'If the horrible creature refuses to recognize the western culture surely he should refuse their protection on principle? He obviously is a hypocrite and a fat ugly one at that.'

'Just DEPORT the nerd,i have to get up 6 mornings a week on just above minimum wage to pay my taxes for people like him to live in comfort.I have not had a holiday for three years for my three children and wife.Come on lotto please get me out of this country.'

I started to write about these comments but where do you start?! Of course the worst rated comments luckily remind me that there are people who have common sense in my beloved country.

'Actually, the case against Abu Qatada is very weak. I mean, I don't like the things the guy says, but I also don't like a lot of things other people say, so should they all be locked up too? There has been NO EVIDENCE ever provided where we can see or hear him telling people to kill Jews, or kill Brits. So until someone shows me the evidence, he is innocent, because unlike my fellow brainwashed Brits, I don't believe all the nonsense that the politicians and media pump into our minds to keep up perpetually scared.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100070/Abu-Qatadas-release-imminent-Downing-Street-says-considering-options-remove-him.html 

 

 

More travails of taxpayer Joe

Too many things to be angry about today I don't know where to start... Well I've already ranted about how almost everything this government have done so far has been an attack on the poor, http://musingsfromaneet.blogspot.com/2011/12/goodbye-2011-beginning-of-my-life-but.html and another week just brings another initiative to make the poor; poorer. Capping benefits. It was only due to the Lords that child benefit is excluded from this cap.

But, wait hold up?!! This would not just be a win for the right-wing, it's a win for the taxpayer Joe who wakes up, goes to work, pays his taxes, pays the bills, comes home, kisses his wife and kids goodnight, sleeps and does the same shit the very next day.

I'm not that much of a deluded left-winger that I cannot see when something is just plain wrong,  OF COURSE  no-one should be paying their taxes in order for some others to not do much more than sit on their backsides and occasionally get up to reproduce more little no hopers just like them. OF COURSE  it gets me mad when I see that grown arse men who probably have wives and children cannot possibly get a job, but you can make damn well sure they can make it to the bookies for 9am. OF COURSE it gets me mad that the local drug dealer has the same house as my parents whilst paying at least 5 times less than they do, whilst driving around in 11 plate cars. OF COURSE it gets me mad that my grandma had no choice but to get married at the age of 15 and take on three stepdaughters, yet the girls in my school had every choice but chose to accidentally on purpose get up the duff because they have no further ambition than a council house and benefits. OF COURSE there is something wrong with a society that has everything but chooses to achieve nothing.

But wait again! Does capping benefits make Joe's life any better? Will he sleep any better? Does he get any richer? Will living costs go down and employment go up? If all the poor lived in shanty towns like Cameron would like, would Britain still be 'Great'? Will the government also aggressively recoup more money from the rich people we bailed out? What about the multi-million pound corporations that pay less tax than Joe does? If benefits do get capped will Joe receive a tax rebate? Because you know, we're all in this together?

Hell to the NO!

Wake up and get your priorities straight or we'll end up under a government like the French, who debate Burkhas and whether or not to define certain genocides a genocide, when their economy is crumbling and the people are suffering. But don't worry, making Vicky Pollard receive less benefits will give us a FAIRER SOCIETY. Can't wait.

Goodbye 2011 - beginning of my life but the beginning of the end

Around two and a half weeks ago I decided to get married, I thought fuck it what am I waiting for, being the rebellious woman I am this was the closest thing I could get to eloping, plus the year of 2012 is forever (well maybe not forever) going to be associated with the London Olympics so I may as well make the year of 2011 associated with my marriage! So it was planned in 3 days and I am now officially a 'we'. The day of my marriage 'our' parents officially met, at one point our dads started debating about the financial crisis, my dad, working in the jaded world of banking said there is just way too much debt and this is the root of the problem, my other dad said that the financial crisis was simply a ploy for austerity and that there was money and the corrupt governments are just pissing it up the wall (to paraphrase somewhat). It got me thinking, minus the sweeping general statements they're probably both right.

America has not yet implemented the necessary or heinous cuts, depending on your perspective, that parts of Europe has, instead focusing on stimulating economic growth and their economy is growing, slowly, but it is growing and unemployment is declining. Whereas the UK and let's face it Conservative government (I'm missing the Liberal Democratic element of this so-called coalition) have focussed on cuts which has directly resulted in stagnation. They have gone about cutting EMA; cutting housing benefits; cutting public sector jobs; whilst raising VAT; tripling tuition fees and simultaneously raising the interest rates on student loans; going after fraudulent benefit claimants but not tax evading corporations or rich people; re-jigging the NHS; making NEETs like me stack Tesco shelves for free, lest they cut off our generous allowance of £7 a day. Soon, there will be no such thing as Job Seekers Allowance, Housing Benefit etc as the Tories want to simplify everything (that they have never had to use and therefore do not understand) and make one universal credit. I asked my job seekers parole officer how he thought this was going to work in practice, he replied that 'the government are broke, so one credit system will probably mean they pay out less and so the recipients ends up with less money'. Anyway, I don't know if it's just me but it seems like this year has not only been the year I got married but also the year of austerity/privatisation/attack on the already fucking poor!!

Whether or not this crisis is mostly about debt the governments are struggling to pay back, compiled with the bad investments they and banks have made, it seems an obvious statement to make but why does joe taxpayer have to literally pay for it? The price of food, travel, goods and services keep rising and joe taxpayer has to keep getting poorer, and yet joe taxpayer is one of the lucky ones as that means he has a job!

The suggestion that a certain amount of debt, public and private should just be wiped out has been ridiculed as infeasible (see occupylsx.org). Prior to this crisis, many were campaigning for third world debt to be wiped out, it created a deep ditch of poverty which poor countries would never be able to dig their way out of because as much as they dug, the mud would still keep pouring in. All of this being designed on purpose of course. OK it's a crap analogy as I'm tired and it's midnight but my point is debt is fine if you are able to pay it back, it's interest or usury which has turned out to be the source of EVIL! The people who govern us are slavish to the speculators who have to be able to trust that our governments can pay their debts back. If they, whoever 'they' are, decide that the chances are slim, they up the interest rate, thereby making it harder and harder for the countries to return to economic health. People didn't seem to care too much about this before but now it's happening to the rich countries Western governments are even turning on each other, accusing other country's credit ratings of being worse than theirs <cough cough Sarkozy>, akin to the snitch in school who gets told off by the teacher and asks why another has not been told off too.

More privatisation in the UK cannot surely be the answer? Can you resolve a problem with what created it in the first place? Whether it's been through the front door or back door this has been the year of not so subtle privatisation, kicking the poor when they're already down. The free market has already ensured a massive wealth and class divide, the government has just exacerbated it. How dare Labour have wanted more than 50% of our young to go university?! says David Cameron. What a croc, let's make our universities as elite as they were in the Bullingdon days ay? They have also restored the Thatcher policy of discounting council houses HEAVILY (50% of market rate and only a 5% deposit needed) in order for tenants to buy them, thereby allowing them to get on the housing market, buy and sell until they attain coveted middle class status and reducing council housing even further. Thereby eliminating some poverty and exacerbating others! This is how the free market resolves 'itself' of course! Sometimes I wake up and think I'm either dreaming or the world is some sort of sick joke* This was 2011 bitches...

*For more sick jokes see North Koreans hysterically sobbing at the death of Kim-Jong Il and the Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama ordering a troop surge in Afghanistan, collusion of militiary action in Libya and a few days ago approving arm sales of $11b to Iraq so the sectarian massacres can continue.

See also http://anbarrockny.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/