i can't believe the bias of the police as reportd in the guardian article.ut then thats the uk. every power group closing ranks to destroy the little gains made by hard working people. i gotta say musket, i can't say how apaulled i was by the treatment of the poor a ploitical footballs. in canada we had some hard times and lost some bitter battles, but we made damn good money when we worked. i paid for two university degrees from five years of drilling and blasting. i doubt thats possible over there. its really heart breaking to see people have the opportunity for a decnt life destroyed for foolish politics that now we see the result. thatcher empowered the financial industry to run everything and deindustrialized much of the uk.

i remember well how bad it felt to loose a job and get laid off and have to go dwon the road looking for the next project, but at least we had other big projects to go to. over there i saw lots of hard working decnet people have their only realistic opportunities ruined, and they had few or no alternatives..

the only comparable thing i saw in canada was the nova scotia fishermans union organizing drive. there the fishermen were still share croppers in debt for life to the compamny store. in the late sixties the west coast fishermen's union saw this and came east to help organize a union. almost every power in society rose up to legally and mostly illegally destroy this union. people who were eligible for welfare were denied because they had family members in the union. police aressted organizers on trumped up charges--most never brought to trial. and company thugs with axe handles would beat any organizer who they found. i was a teen ager when i got the idealiatic bug and hitch hiked up the guyborough shore to hand out union pamphlets. was it ever an eye opener. many fishermen were barred for life. however canada is a big country and the west coast fishermens union got a lot of them work on the west coast--those who could move. and its a move like from london to moscow.

it's depressing to see the lack of social progress.

the real issue is the powerfull don't give a damn for those who risk health and lives everyday at work to produce the real wealth of the nations.