Austerity Backlash

ONLY the RICH call for AUSTERITY, NEVER the POOR (Have you noticed?)

But the key detail in the austerity issue is that Joe Bloggs in the street owes no-one anything. Yet - surprise, surprise (as per normal) - it's him who's expected to fund the MASSIVE government borrowing and shell-outs to banks who lost Joe Bloggs's deposits and much more besides in their reckless high-risk gambling... oops, I mean 'investments'. (The lost money still exists, of course, it merely moved to another account).

In Greece and France this COLOSSAL attempted theft is being thwarted. At least, that's what the electors in Greece and France have decided. So if the new politicians are genuine then the banks' (and governments') wealthy debtors will have to sweat - so Joe Bloggs, who had nothing to do with it anyway, can get back to a lifestyle where he pays sensible tax and gets sensible services like health treatment etc, and all runs as it did before the corporate sharks over-reached themselves.

Will this MONUMENTAL attempted rip-off turn into a MONUMENTAL flop? Will the politicians who represent Joe Bloggs hold out against the sharks? It's a bit like the nail-biting end of an episode of Tintin.

Some say EU countries are too diverse for a single currency. But the US functions OK with similarly vast diversity. The chief difference (apart from the language problem) is that the US is integrated economically, whereas the EU is not. So all they need to do in Europe is to agree common taxes, common min wage, etc, etc... with all the economic issues run from Brussels.

Everything else, laws, customs and so forth that are not connected with the economy can remain. And the euro should work fine. The REAL menace is more than anything the market system: corporate greed, lack of regulation, etc. That's the ELEPHANT that needs sorting.

Maybe Italy, Portugal and Spain and others will join France and Greece and shove two fingers to the banks and billionaires. Let's hope they do - and expel the austerity-sharks from the Euro (not the other way round)!

 

Jubiludicrous

Stuff the bloody jubilee, the monarchy, and the whole sodding elite class establishment. If people want street parties then fine, but NOT surely in celebration of a system that way back in 1726 good old Jonathan Swift (in his masterpiece 'Gulliver's Travels') reveals all in stark corrupt, absurdity - and shows those who support it as most absurd of all?

You'd have thought 286-years would have been ample for the Joe Bloggses to have learned something from Swift - it's not as if his observations have exactly been kept out of the limelight!

The only celebration of monarchy here in the yuk that'd be worth joining would be to celebrate its termination - which is long long long overdue...

 

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Denis Diderot, 18th century French philosopher and writer

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"It should be no surprise that when rich men take control of the government, they pass laws that are favorable to themselves. The surprise is that those who are not rich vote for such people, even though they should know from bitter experience that the rich will continue to rip off the rest of us."

Andrew Greeley (Chicago Sun-Times, February 18, 2001)

 

 

"Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business."

John Dewey (1859 - 1952) Philosopher, Psychologist and Educational Reformer

 

 

 

Guns Olympic

To make some of the more amazing examples of the recent craze of 'flash-dancing' work, some crucial requirements need to be met: a superb communication network - presumably the internet; loads of small groups all practicing identical techniques over maybe several weeks; group members to know precisely when to be in a particular location, and be able to fulfil that; and members must trust that the other dancers will turn-up as arranged and perform to a reasonable standard.

So staging the bigger of these amazing stunts can be quite demanding. Yet it happens frequently, and in most countries, sometimes involving hundreds, maybe thousands, of dancers - and numerous well planned and coordinated camera positions too.

All GOOD FUN AND GREAT ENTERTAINMENT...

But... with a bit of refinement and extrapolation, these tactics could have profoundly more significant applications. For instance, what if several million people at once took a sick-day? Or how simple now to have volunteers standing-by for a flash-strike, or an unofficial flash-demo... be it anti-Trident or anti-austerity.... be it anti-privatisation of Health or anti-militarisation of the Olympics....

This last cause is interesting because the whole concept of the Olympics is symbolic of war - each nation competing against the rest.

To me, this detail tarnishes the entire show. It might be a human trait to engage in war, but that's because we're still basically primitives. Which for those of us whose base instincts (ie, untold greed, fearless aggression, overweening confidence and a will to power...), are about as evident as life after death - in other words: invisibly buried in our psyches - none of these 'war games' are even remotely attractive, nor sensible. In fact, they're something we expressly avoid. Which means the Olympics, and especially sports like football, are not merely boring crap (despite attempts by the Establishment media to persuade us otherwise), but representative of a display of humankind's most problematic qualities: what Carl Sagan aptly termed 'Dragons of Eden'.

 

Murdochgate

The issues around Murdoch, that we all totally knew about ages ago, are now, amazingly, emerging into the light. (I truly thought it would take at least till after he was dead and his toady politicians all safely retired from the front line). But except that the UK is puny compared with the US, the issues here leave even Watergate behind. Instead of politicians cheating one another, as in the Watergate scandal, here we have a snide little Fascist who's had at least two, maybe three UK PMs licking his boots (I'm trying to keep this polite). It's the politicians at fault, but that doesn't mean this diabolic little cunt (couldn't resist it) shouldn't be relegated to oblivion.

It was his Faux News, after all, with its drum-beat to invade Iraq.... AND his multiple meetings with Fascist psychopath Blair before the latter, despite Bush's concession to him, finally caved in. Blair's sole concern was re-election. He chose Murdoch's pocket to that of 2-million anti-war protestors (and probably 10x that behind them) - otherwise Murdoch (& friends) would have driven a highly effective propaganda campaign against him.

Prior to invading Iraq Labour had to re-write its constitution. I actually read the 'before' and 'after'.... only a few words changed: ie, from 'must' to 'should' and suchlike, which converted what had been an exemplary treatise into meaningless pap. They got it done just in time - early 2003. And for all I know, subsequent 'policy commissions' (whoever the hell they are whose meddling ruined that crucial document?) have left it as it was? I can't be arsed to find out.

Being the BIG media thug he is, Murdoch and his empire is ambassador exclusively to BIG business. And there's not many businesses that aren't run on Fascist principles. War is maybe the most lucrative activity there is for some of the BIGGEST businesses - who are, as all can now clearly see, effectively responsible for relieving the US treasury of maybe $1tn, and Iraq of > 1.3-million lives, displacing millions more, untold devastation and suffering, that continues... and the little bastard Murdoch sits there, wizened, frail, semi-articulate, probably not giving a fuck because he's about to get on a fancy private jet and return to his mansion in the US.... with absolute impunity (a bit like the banks), ie:

"They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose."

An anonymous protest poem from the 17th century.

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