I've always had a hankering for time travel,
but I would not have chosen 1930’s Germany for my destination. Unfortunately it
would appear I have no choice, as the current Tory government has decided to
embark on a policy of racial profiling, where anybody with a
brown face is considered fair game to be intimidated and threatened.
Not only does this abhorrent and racist
behavior rack up tensions in ethnically diverse areas but it also reinforces
the opinions of every right wing knuckle dragger, who thinks any non-white
person is an illegal immigrant and should “ go back to where they came from”.
Add into the mix the threatening and
bullying attitude of the officers carrying out the interrogations and you begin
to worry that public disorder is not far away. Perhaps that’s what the Tory’s
want, a re-run of the Brixton riots of the 1980’s or the Tottenham riots of
2011. Members of the public have recounted how they were told to “crack on”
when they challenged the police actions or risk being arrested for obstruction.
So much for serving the public, it’s all about serving the political elite. A
woman, when she questioned why she was being stopped, was told it was because
she “spoke funny”, an example of casual racism at its most repulsive.
Of course this has nothing to do with
illegal immigration. This is a politically opportunist policy where the Tory’s
are using taxpayers money to electioneer for the 2015 General Election. It’s
similar to the way Cameron, Osborne and Johnson attempted to use the 2012
London Olympics for politically expedient reasons , which, when viewed through
the prism of the recent xenophobic and racialist attitudes of the government,
has a striking similarity with the 1936 Berlin Olympics with Mo Farah playing
the role of Jesse Owens.
What the coalition partners, the Liberal
Democrats, are doing, allowing the Tory’s to play the race card in such a
repulsive, disgusting and politically opportunist manner is bewildering and sickening. I expect the Tory’s
will introduce a policy soon, where all people of colour, who were born in this
country, are ordered to wear a badge on their clothing, perhaps a yellow star
and all officers will ,in future, be attired in black or brown shirts and will
address all suspects with “ Papers, bitte. Scnell! Scnell!
Heil
Cameron!
Democracy? What Democracy?
How can any democracy justify the existence
of The House of Lords? A political institution where entrance is determined by
patronage, how much money you donate to a political party, who your father is, or by just being a time serving civil servant, is surely anathema to freedom
and democracy, where power and influence should only be accessible through the
ballot box and where that power can be removed if the people choose to do so.
With 30 new appointments this week, the
number of peers has swollen to 836. It’s the second largest legislature in the
world, second only to the Chinese National People’s Congress and just as
undemocratic.
The cost is extortionate, as members can
receive £300 a day just for attending, that’s equivalent to a salary of between
£60000 -£70000 per annum, Tax free!
Some 50 peers are thought to live abroad and pay no part in the process unless
of course they fancy earning a bit of pin money by attending for a week and
picking up a cool £1500 tax free. Austerity! What austerity?
Unelected individuals should not be allowed to
vote and shape legislation within a democracy.It’s not 1813, it’s the
year 2013. Get rid of it. Now!
Twitter
Trolliday.
I’m confused. People protesting about
trolls abusing them on Twitter and trying to close down viewpoints they
disagree with, have decided to stop voicing their opinions via Twitter. Surely
their giving the trolls exactly what they want.
It’s
all About the Money.
Now that Jim Messina, election strategist
for the Democratic Party and Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff has decided to sell
his wares to the right wing British Tory Party, I think we have proof positive
that politicians are only concerned about the content of their wallet rather
than the content of their heart. It’s all about the money.
Here is an open letter to him:
Dear Mr.
Messina
I would
appreciate it if you could inform me whether you consider politics to be a way
of improving the lives of the disenfranchised, poor and vulnerable and creating
a meritocratic society where all people are able live a life free of fear and
prejudice or whether it is just an opportunity to prostitute your services to
the highest bidder, enabling you to feather your own nest.
I ask this
question of you as you were part of the team that enabled Barack Obama,
America’s first black president and a Democrat, to secure a second term, yet
apparently you will soon be working for an elitist political party, the Tory
Party, that includes among its policies, the demonization of the poor and
disabled, racial profiling and the harassment of anybody who ‘looks foreign’.A party that is implementing policies that are consigning children of poor families into
poverty while handing massive tax breaks to the wealthy, as well as destroying
the NHS, one of the greatest social creations the world has ever seen. I know
you Americans are not keen on socialized medicine, what with reds under the
bed and all that.
I presume you are comfortable working for a
political party that will happily play the race card when searching for votes.
The irony being, that if Barack Obama were to walk out of a London train station
in Britain, he would probably be stopped and interrogated for no other reason
than he is a black man. You must feel so proud.
I would have
presumed that, as you worked for the American Democrats, you would have a
freethinking, inclusive, broadminded, tolerant and liberal outlook, where
opportunity should be available to all. So it is surprising you would consider
working for an exclusive political party, that is predominately white and wealthy, that
is anti European, racist, homophobic ( you've got a track record in this area yourself, I believe, Montana?), elitist
and considers anybody, who happens to be poor or disadvantaged, to be a lazy
skiver, who brought it upon themselves.
One of the main
reasons the public are becoming disenchanted with politics and politicians is
the growing belief that politicians are more concerned about the content of
their wallet rather than the content of their heart.
You have chosen
to be part of a process, that may impose on the United Kingdom, a government
that wishes to punish the poor and disadvantaged and demonize the working
class, whilst corralling the wealth of the nation for a privileged and exclusive
elite.
For the good of
Britain, and considering the mess America has made of the world in the late 20th
century, and early 21st, I hope you fail. Perhaps then, you can try
Mugabe’s Zanu PF party or Putin and his United Russia Party. I think they’re
both planning to rule for a thousand years.
Regards.
Zero Hour Contracts.
The governments’
tacit approval of zero hour contracts demonstrates how this government has not
the slightest concern for getting people back to work but only to create, on
behalf of the employer, a ‘flexible’, compliant and oppressed pool of labour that
can only work by employee’s having to rely on state aid when employers fail to
provide sufficient hours for people to live on.
As
long as zero hour contracts proliferate, so will the continuing reliance on
welfare remain. This is not a recipe for a healthy, growing and buoyant economy. The government should be encouraging the payment of a living
wage so that workers do not have to rely on welfare, then the deficit will
begin to reduce as tax returns increase and the welfare bill reduces.
At the
moment employers are using zero hour contracts to control,exploit, intimidate and
punish those workers considered ‘not flexible enough’ as well as driving down
employee rights, removing the requirement to pay, sickness, holiday and maternity
pay and creating a demotivated, insecure workforce based on a feudal system that
considers workers as beasts of burden that can be discarded when they are no
longer of any use.
This
feudal attitude to workers is well documented in Robert Tressell’s ‘The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists’, which
describes how workers are exploited and abused and live in constant fear of
being cast aside by ‘the bosses’, thus losing any means of support and ending up, with their families, in the workhouse.
It was written in 1910.
“The most powerful drug in the world is hope. Everyone
is an addict.” (anon)
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