THE CHOICE OF EVILS
THE CHOICE OF EVILS
I admit, I voted for him. Once. In 1997. When, after 18 long, cruel years of Tory rule, the nation finally snapped and said Enough is Enough. Almost all of us, the nation as a whole, breathed a collective sigh of relief. For once, democracy worked, and democracy had brought us a leader that was going to represent the will of the people.
No longer was big business going to call the shots. No longer were our nurses, our firemen, our people going to exist on breadline wages. No longer were the mass public going to be treated with absolute arrogant contempt by a bunch of snidey corrupt privileged toffs who saw Britain as a business to be bled dry as if they were the receivers realising every last bit of this nation as an asset to be sold. No longer were we, as a nation, going to be dragged into absurd and stupid wars. No longer were we the lapdogs of the American oil machine. No longer were we going to be treated as dirt whilst all around us the lucky few lived a life of comfort.
No longer am I that naïve.
Since 1997, Tony Blair has slowly become everything that anyone who ever voted Labour despises. A traitor to the socialist ideal. A man with an avowed intention to destroy the unions. A man who declares war on the wrong country, because ‘President’ Bush says so.
What we’re faced with this year is no longer a Labour party but the mystical Third Way Tony talks about in his unusual election speeches. Not labour, not socialist. Something else. A bizarre mutation of policies that tries to be all things to all men and is no thing to no one.
But what Tony doesn’t realise is, in his rampant desire to be electable, and his best intentions, is that he’s destroyed something that no amount of Maggie Thatchers could.
He destroyed socialism.
He destroyed the sense of equality, the sense of fair play, the sense of to each his own, to each according to his abilities, according to his needs.
He pushed socialism to the fringe. He pushed a sense of fairness and equality to the margins of the unelected, unelectable splinter group.
In some ways – but only very few – this is admirable. There’s no bullshit about Tony. He doesn’t pretend he’s going to keep the socialist flame alive. He’s in the business of running the UK as a business. And running it at a profit. But that doesn’t make the vile taste in my mouth any better.
I was voting for a change. I was voting for a different world. A fairer world. A world where people don’t find themselves starving despite having a full time job. A world where people can afford to buy their own houses. A world where one job is enough to pay the bills, and where those with jobs don’t have to count themselves as “lucky“.
THE WORLD TONY MADE
But this isn’t the world Tony made. The world Tony made is one where he has vowed to destroy trade unions. A world where firefighters go on strike because they can’t pay their bills. Because the people we trust our lives to can’t afford to pay for their homes or their food. Because our firefighters are allowed - in the graciousness of the Government - to have a second job if they want one.
But surely, someone should only have to do one job in order to pay the bills? If you’ve got to work two jobs - just to pay the bills - then something’s seriously wrong.
Now I’m not sure I like the thought of the guy who might rescue me from a burning building and who holds my life in my hands worrying about what time the fire’s going to finish because he needs to get to the office and finish that report in his other job.
I’m not sure I like the idea of the same man who might be saving my children from an inferno yawning on the job as he’s paid so little he has to go and work part-time in a garage just to pay his extortionate mortgage.
It’s not a case of a firefighter having a second job if they want one. It’s often a case of necessity. For someone living in London a salary of £22,000 – which whilst on paper seems generous – is often not enough to meet even the most basic needs. An average house costs £200,000. That’s nine years salary. Before interest payments. Before any other expenses.
The core reason the firefighters are on strike is relatively simple. No one should have to risk their life for a living every day and yet not even be able to afford their own home. No one.
Yet the Labour Party, the supposed champions of the masses against the elitest clique of the Conservatives, have done nothing to check the obscene house prices. And whilst they continue to do nothing about it, the strike – and the needs for strikes – will always forever remain.
THE HYPROCRISY OF LUXURY
Good. Nobody in this country but ignorant right-wing zealots want a war anyway. The sooner the Labour Party get it into their insulated skulls that this war is against the will of the people and thoroughly undemocratic the better. In fact, I demand regime change here in the UK right now, because I feel as if I’m living in a dictatorship and far far too much is being done without the permission of the masses. The masses are just bodies to be thrown into a grinder when war requires. In the meantime, in the times of so called ‘peace’, we’re just consumers to be herded around to spend money in chain stores and keep Labour’s anonymous benefactors rich.
So I don’t understand this. The Labour Party claim the country cannot afford to pay the Firefighters a living wage. So we don’t pay them, and they go on strike. At the same time, Government think tanks claim that UK Ltd cannot afford to go to war in Iraq, and yet we’re going to war anyway.
I think this government needs to reassess its priorities. Now.
Tony has already stated that he plans to destroy unions from bringing this country to its knees. The only way to get the country off its knees is to get rid of the phantom Labour Party that hijacked socialist ideals and made this country so weak that there is no real socialist alternative anymore. Just a choice between Pepsi and Coke, between Right and Far Right. That’s not choice. That’s not democracy. That’s dictatorship. Time for a regime change?
TONY vs THE PEOPLE
Does it?
The Labour Party should be careful who it betrays and attacks on the way up. It’ll meet them again on the way down. And this time the Unions won’t be quite so supportive.
A Union is more powerful than ANY Government, if enough people act. A Union is the only place someone ‘lucky enough to have a job’ (as my ex-boss once said to me in a moment of conceit) can go if their work conditions are so appalling that despair is the only option. After all, we can’t just quit. Unemployment benefit doesn’t commence for six long weeks if you leave your job, in this caring, sharing Labour Governments care.
A Union is the most important socialist organisation in the country – a place where people act together for the good of the masses, act selflessly and as one to protect each others wellbeing.
If you want to ensure that you as an employee or a consumer have no rights, support Tony Blair’s action against the Unions. Your voice will stand alone. Powerless. No-one will ever speak up for you.
The last time a Union took on the Government, Magaret Thatcher fought, lied, cheated and stole for the right to rape and violate a country. When she claimed she had 18 months of coal stockpiled, she had six weeks. She was frantically trying to buy it in from abroad in order to prop up her corrupt, cruel ideology.
This time, Tony Blair is going to destroy the very people who supported him. The very people he betrayed the moment he entered power. There is no viable Socialist alternative anymore. He betrayed us.
A PUBLIC DISSERVICE
They’re damn right for reasons they cannot comprehend. All Public Sector staff are woefully underpaid. All Public Sector staff are treated unfairly.
I worked in the Home Office for five years. During that time I was constantly unable to pay my bills, despite having a job that gave me responsibility for huge budgets. At work I juggled multi-million pound contracts. At home I cut mould off bread in order to eat and had crippling student debts. I never had anything of worth from the Government.
And that’s when I realised that, despite my best intentions of trying to serve the public good, the Government only ever saw me as a drain upon its budget. I was even accused of being ‘greedy’ for the crime of wanting to pay my bills.
Just like the Firefighters. The new demons. The new cause of evil in this country are the firefighters. Not the big corporations. Not the government.
If Tony Blair had his way – and he’s using some very emotive language to try and convince the public that people who go on strike are the personification of evil – nobody who works in the public sector would be allowed to go on strike.
SLAVE NATION
1984 was only 19 years ago. 19 years ago the streets were full of pitched battles, and people begging for charity to enable their children to eat, as the Miners went on strike to protect their rights. Under Tony’s Britain, we will have no rights. Under Tony’s Britain, we will return to that archaic, old fashioned Britain. Under Tony’s Britain, shops will grind to a halt as penny-pinching big business fails to make the vital connection between wages in, and spending out. Credit Cards don’t last forever.
Look forward to the past. That’s where the Government is taking us. Pay the people what they’re worth – and not what you can get away with.
Tony Blair betrayed everything he promised us. He castrated the Labour Party. He removed any hope of a genuine Socialist Government. He wants to destroy the Trade Unions. He wants to do all he can within his power to put us back in our natural place – slaves, servants, fit only to be exploited for our labour and our capital.
We are not slaves. We are free men. This is why I support the firefighters. I support Unions. I support strikers. They’re people, fighting for their rights, fighting for the ability to do something as basic as pay their bills.
If we don’t stand united, then we fall divided, conquered and ruled by others. As a nation it’s time to stand up, support each other, fight for the common good, and show General Tony what we think. We think you’re a Traitor to socialism. We think you’re a disgrace to the nation. We think you’re a Warmonger and a liar. We think you’ve betrayed democracy, betrayed socialism, and betrayed the people.
And we know we’re not alone.
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