BS: No longer Great Britain?

Subject: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:18 PM

Our justice system is to be decimated twice. Decimation is the killing of one tenth of something.

Our health system threatens to be bankrupted by the bills that ineluctably flowed from the Private Finance Initiative.

Our military system is also to be decimated twice. It begins to look as if military equipment will only be able to be financed by similar foolish manoeuvres.

Our welfare system will suffer worse.

The pound is down against the euro and the dollar. The governor of the bank of England teeters on the brink of telling us to fear a double dip because of Osborne's retrenchment, economists say we need quantititative easing but Osborne will not light up the banks' arses to make them lend (yet they report new record profits).

This is starting to look like the beginning of Armaggedon.

Well done the Con-Dems.

Subject: RE: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:19 PM

Oh fuck that should have been BS. Would an elf kindly oblige?

Subject: RE: No longer Great Britain?
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:21 PM

The U.S. dollar you mean. The pound is still worth more than the CDN
dollar, according to my currency converter.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:44 PM

Great Britain is an island, not a country.

That's not just a pedantic point in this context. This kind of Con-Dem political blitzkrieg could well push the Scots towards going leabing the Union, and there'd be two independant countries sharing that island once again.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:48 PM

It's the usual Tory Closing Down Sale.
Everything Must Go!!!
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 04:49 PM

Anything to the highest bidder, but Mates' Rates ,for Cameron's friends

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:02 PM

And now even, from 2012, the work of audit of local authorities will be outsourced, with the skills built up within the Audit commission -the fifth largest audit body in the UK - either sold off or privatised!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:18 PM

For Christ sake don't blame the Tories ......Labour ran with it for eleven years, didn't Blair just love those PFIs.

Were getting more and more like America, blaming all our ills on the other party....There is no other party!

Fuckin' wake up!

That rant wasn't aimed at you Em.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 05:43 PM

Tell me ake - from a recent news item

"Health chiefs were today facing demands for an inquiry after it emerged the NHS will have to pay a total of £1.26 billion for the privately built Edinburgh Royal Infirmary - and still not own it.

It means that by 2028, NHS Lothian will have effectively paid for the hospital seven times over but it will remain the property of private operator Consort.

The revelation has prompted fury from unions and politicians, who said it made a mockery of an agreement that was already a bad deal for the taxpayer."

Source: Edinburgh Evening News 21 July 2010

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:02 PM

We are all being asked to pay for the rest of our lives for the crimes of successive govts....Tory and Labour, now the Libs have joined in the robbery.

WE can no longer achieve the growth required to keep this capitalist system sustainable...so the system is taking back what little it has given and screwing the very poorest for all they've got.

I've always known this system was rotten...joined the YCL/ CP in my teens, but whats happening right now is worse than anything I experienced then.

I'm amazed, people seem to be sleepwalking. Has all our spirit really been wasted on fighting imaginary battles about minority rights.....This is about survival!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:03 PM

A big boy did it and ran away!

Prats, blaming things that have been building up for years, on a government that's only been in 5 minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:12 PM

Could we please give this new government a chance, they are only in office a few months.

They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work.

Labour diddled the figures for years. They kept saying unemployment figures were down, when in fact they weren't, people just signed on sickness benefits as it paid more.

As I said, it's a young government, please give them a chance.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:15 PM

It's a young government? What do they want to be when they grow up?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 06:26 PM

'The opposition', probably. I doubt any of them really wanted to win the last election.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:29 PM

Gentle Gaint's second sentence indicates why his suggestion "give this new government a chance" is not such good advice.

Just for starters, forcing mothers to go out to work as soon as their child reaches five is not something which any party would have dared put in an election manifesto.

"New Labour" certainly deserved to lose the election. But nobody deserved to have this government. And nobody voted for the policies it is imposing.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:41 PM

"They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work."

Oh fuck again. The rich blaming and penalising the poor again. Go for it "Gentle Giant" - workhouses by this time next year?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:48 PM

IKt's all your own fault for not reading Private Eye - the Daily Mail for the sentient being. They told us about this all of ten years ago, must be expecting to be raped by Ajax any minute.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 07:59 PM

Ajax? - taken to the cleaners again?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:04 PM

McGrath, the proportion of young mothers the UK has risen from 8 per cent to 29 per cent during the last 20 years.

In the 1980s a single mother typically had separated from a partner after some years of marriage or cohabitation. Now, a growing proportion have never been in a co-resident relationship. It seems that lone motherhood is less a result of relationship breakdown and more a lifestyle choice. The existence of over generous state benefits as source of economic security seems to be encouraging young women not to bother seeking employment, living off benefits with two kids is now a well paid professional. Current policies structured around helping single mothers to become self-sufficient workers are misconceived.

The benefit system is and has been abused for years. The benefits systems should be stricter. Considering the tax payers well earned salary is being injected into it each month, I think WE should have more of a say, as it is OUR money that the government take from us to give to the people who DO NOT want to work.

If there are extreme special circumstances where one does need the help of the benefits system, IE - made redundant, and have a family to provide for then fair enough. But I say NO to all the scroungers that are proud to say they "live off the state" and call their children "Beer Tokens" all because they can't be bothered to work.

Get the percentage down on Britain having the highest rate of teenage mothers in Europe - that would improve the critical housing needs, get tough with the "I can't be bothered to work spongers", and make then work, whether it is cleaning the streets all day - who cares and lastly round up all the drug users and alcoholics , and put them into an institute until they are clean, allowing them the bare essentials to live then make them work for OUR money that the government shell out as we also pay through our tax - £100m yearly to feed their drug habit (Methadone). No one has to sign on weekly these days. Two weeks ago in my local public house a guy sold 600.00 pounds worth of "holiday vouchers" from the Social Security family fund for 150.00, there was no name on them nor did it say "non transferable".

I know Margaret Thatcher wasn't popular, but there is no way she would have stood by and allowed this to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:14 PM

Shoot them all, that's what I say. Use the children for medical research. Does anyone know how to remove urine stains from a swastika flag?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:21 PM

Up against the wall motherfucker.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:26 PM

Ooh stop it, cheeky.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:35 PM

Exactly what state benefit includes exactly what entitlement to "holiday vouchers" and how do you redeem them anyway? Everything I know or can find out about "holiday vouchers" leads to some sort of scam to get one to attend a timeshare shale bummel, and having twice obtained and tried to use those sorts of "holiday vouchers" (for different reasons) I can report from first hand experience that they are valueless and useless. I doubt whether the DHSS would be handing them out.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:39 PM

That's probably just what the bloke who paid £150 is going to find out..

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:39 PM

So, another 'guest' appears from nowhere without any obvious musical interest or contribution - indeed any other contribution of any kind - to comment on the 'abuse' of benefits by single parents/scroungers?

Under the circumstances I make no apologies for quoting this personal account from the 'netmums' website

A personal account by Karen Lewis

"When netmums first suggested I write something for the website I thought 'no problem' however there is nothing quite as daunting as a blank piece of paper. Since then I have alternated between writing nothing much at all and then gabbling on for page upon page and so I have enlisted the help of Cathy at Netmums to rein me in and chop out all of the waffle.

I recently picked up the book "Acid Row" by Minette Walters in a bookshop and the synopsis on the back of the book read:

'Acid Row. The name the beleaguered inhabitants give to the place they live. A no-man's-land of single mothers and fatherless children where angry, alienated teenagers control the streets.'

It is difficult to believe that people still think of all single Mums in this way but then I find it staggering that there are people who can't see beyond the colour of a person's skin.

I am 36 years old and I have been a single mum since I was 18. In the 1920s I would have been sent away or locked up somewhere for being an unmarried mum and my baby would have been taken away. At times it is difficult to believe that we have come very far from those days.

You would be hard pushed to find a woman who intentionally became a single mum. There was a time when it was generally believed that young girls got themselves pregnant in order get a Council House; well, my eldest son was born in 1986 and he was 13 before I was allocated a Housing Association property. Nowadays single mums are seen as lazy benefit scroungers, but with the exception of 3 years (1996 to 1999) when I claimed Income Support, I have always worked full time.

What is true about single mums is that we are all very, very different, we all work hard and battle constantly to stay afloat and not one of us chooses to claim benefits, live on the breadline or fit Minette Walters' description.

Life and experience shape us all and not everyone grows up to be the confident, assertive or inherently cheerful person that we would all love to be. Each of us has our own weaknesses and we all learn from experience. During the past 18 years I have suffered at the hands of one extremely violent partner and another violent and manipulative partner, I have lived at home with my son, with a partner and my son and now alone with my sons. I have suffered terrible postnatal depression which left me hospitalised following several suicide attempts and I have been in the position where the electric has run out, it is a Saturday night and I have just 2p in my purse until Monday morning. It has been something of a journey and I wouldn't want to have to do it again, but I have learnt, I have lived through it and I have survived. I am not a victim, I am just me and I happen to be a single mum.

When my eldest son was born I worked full-time at Hammersmith Hospital as a Medical Secretary, the pay wasn't great and the childminding fees were crippling, but I did it. Having lived through all of the things that I have described I am now a Senior PA, earning a darn good salary, paying my own rent and bills, still struggling with the childminding fees but I am doing it. Sure there are times when I feel lonely, times when I feel beyond exhausted and times when I feel extremely stressed, but the one thing that all of us single mums have is our kids.

My eldest son is now 16 (17 in March) and a huge, strapping great lad with a soft heart and a delightful personality. He is my good friend and I almost burst with pride over him at times. My youngest son is 5 and he is my angel. He got me through the dark days of my depression and he is a joy to both my eldest son and me. We are not the ideal TV, picture perfect family, I still scream, shout and nag at them. Like anyone else the state of my eldest son's bedroom drives me insane as do the biscuit and sweet wrappers, the dirty cups and crockery and Jake seems hell-bent on making it as difficult as possible to get out of the house in the mornings. They don't get £200 worth of Christmas presents from me but they don't go without and I think they benefit from it. They are spoilt in other ways and I wouldn't change them or be without them for all the riches in the world.

So, if you are a new single mum hold your head up, ignore every negative newspaper article or comment and get on with it. OK, so we aren't as free as single people to just decide what we want and go out and get it, it takes us a bit longer and it is always going to be that bit more difficult, but it's not impossible. It is also not impossible to simply enjoy being a single mum. Any single mum who lives on Income Support has my total admiration, they are resourceful, strong, inventive and determined, all characteristics that deserve respect"

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: mousethief
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 08:52 PM

"They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work."

What work? I thought you guys had a job shortage and double digit unemployment like us?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Smokey.
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 09:05 PM

We never really count our unemployed, but that'll be about right. There's no excuse for it though, we've been inundated with jobs ever since they shut all the coal mines and stopped us manufacturing anything.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 13 Aug 10 - 09:32 PM

I'm afraid Gentle Giant's description and figures are an example of cherry picking from the kind of information in the pages of the Daily Wail mousethief

In Feb 2010 The Daly Mail reported that
"The proportion of mothers who bring up their child alone has risen from 10 per cent to 25 per cent in the past 20 years.
At present, there is no tax incentive for mothers to marry the fathers of their children. A report into the findings for centre-right think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies said there is growing evidence that
'lone motherhood is less a result of relationship breakdown, more a lifestyle choice'.

However it goes on to state for those with the attention span to read that far that

"Around a quarter of all children grow up with a single parent, and a high proportion live below the Government's poverty line."

Hardly the picture of single parenthood as a "well paid profession"?

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Teribus
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 02:51 AM

Let me see now, the previous ZANULiebour Government came to power in 1997 and only left in May 2010. According to my arithmetic that means that they were in power for almost 13 years. The current Coalition Government have been in power less than three months and all the ills of the country are THEIR fault!!!

Sorry Richard Bridge that argument is so ludicrous it is not even worth responding to. But go and review the track record of ALL Labour Governments this country has had to put up with, they have all left office leaving the country in a complete and utter mess, although I must admit the Blair/Brown show really ripped the arse out of it even by Labour Party standards.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: akenaton
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 03:03 AM

Discussing the merits of "the new govt", or any govt is waste of time in the situation we now find ourselves.

Our standard of living and public services are going to be attacked whoever is in power and as usual the very poorest are going to be worst affected.

The number one priority for the political classes is to get the economy reset, any suffering involved will nor affect the rich too much.

The oft repeated cry of "were all in this together" makes me sick

If you're in work, with £100'000 in the bank, does the loss of a tenner a week mean as much to you as some poor bastard on the dole?

To make our economy sustainable nowadays, politicians and bankers have to gamble.....with our tax money, and as everybody knows gamblers always lose!

If we as a nation, are to suffer hardship, it should be in the cause of a completely new social and economic system, not to reset the failed and rotten old one.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:05 AM

Are we to repay our debts, prior to starting this brave new world, or shall we wipe the slate clean and start again?
This country is deeply in debt, and in order to repay that debt, we must stop spending more than we earn.
It's really as simple as that.
Any change in the tax regime, or revamp of our fiscal system, will ALWAYS impinge more on the poor than on the rich. That is an unfortunate fact of life.
I believe that raising Income Tax, as the fairer way to increase the Treasury's coffers. Then as a retired person, I would say that, wouldn't I? :)
However since the reign of that lady Richard Bridge is so fond of, [She ran the country single handed you know!] direct taxation has been a dirty word, whatever party is in power.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:12 AM

"They have promised to get young mums off benefits and back to work, they plan to cut housing benefit and assess everyone claiming incapacity benefit, disability living allowance and get more of the long term unemployed back to work."

Typical Tory thinking, i.e. "People of a lower social status than me are getting more than I believe they're entitled to. Punish them and all will be well! Meanwhile, stand up for the 'rights' of the rich to get richer and richer and doff your cap and curtsy when they pass."

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:14 AM

Richard, I hope this helps "Holiday Vouchers" Many local authorities give out these vouchers for holidays for carers. Sometimes these vouchers are called respite grants or carers' grants.

As a carer you may be given your own grant, separate to the payments or services given to the person you care for. Carers allowance is probably one of the most abused of all the benefits. Mothers actually feed their children undiluted orange juice prior to a test for hyperactivity allowance. Theycan use the grant to pay for a short break or holiday whether you're going away with the person you care for or not. The holiday or short break may be in the UK or abroad, these vouchers are not named, so they sell easily enough.

Contact your local Social Security Office Richard to apply for a short-term-break voucher or grant.

Emma B, your socialist outburst is admirable, but Official figures reveal that nine out of every ten, long term sick pay claimants are well enough to work. Of the 292,000 work capability assessments carried out since the switch from Incapacity Benefit to Employment and Support Allowance in October 2008, nearly 200,000 were rated fit to work, and 65,000 were told their health problems were not severe enough to stop them from working in some capacity. So over 2 million of the currently 2.6M claiming incapacity to work could indeed be fit for work.

Only a few short years ago it was well known that the Government actively encouraging people onto this benefit, it was certainly making the scrutiny of such claimant's health, somewhat lax. Why? because they wanted to keep the Unemployment figures down.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 05:29 AM

""Tell me ake - from a recent news item

"Health chiefs were today facing demands for an inquiry after it emerged the NHS will have to pay a total of £1.26 billion for the privately built Edinburgh Royal Infirmary - and still not own it.

It means that by 2028, NHS Lothian will have effectively paid for the hospital seven times over but it will remain the property of private operator Consort.

The revelation has prompted fury from unions and politicians, who said it made a mockery of an agreement that was already a bad deal for the taxpayer."

Source: Edinburgh Evening News 21 July 2010""

Tell ME Emma, do you really think this lunatic contract is the work of the current government, carried out in less than two months or, as is much more likely, was it all signed and sealed under the auspices of that wonderful period of waste and imprudence presided over by Gordon the Grimacing Gopher?

The same thing was proposed for Pembury Hospital, but the Trust were smart enough to make sure that they WILL own it in due course.

That one is half built, and I don't think they got that far in two months, do you?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 05:36 AM

And I've just acquired UK Citizenship... Mind you, there is always someone worse off than us. Have you looked at the Greek state of affairs recently?

George "I am not really a rat jumping ship" Papavgeris

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 05:58 AM

Don't tell me you views GG, SHOW me the facts. SHOW me the terms of the vouchers.

Your "official figures" are simply political spin. The government wants to take from the poor to give to the rich, it skews the figures. I know enough people who have had to be assessed for say mobility allowance to know the viciousness of the tests.

PFI was an attempt to continue conservative policies of low direct taxation. A mistake, but the vice was the conservative policy to let the rich keep more. "New Labour" should have scrapped it but its core was something they inherited.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 07:23 AM

"And I've just acquired UK Citizenship..."

Not altogether sure that congratulations are in order here or not...

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 07:49 AM

To use your own analogy George, they don't usually leave one sinking ship to join another!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:30 AM

In October 2008 the previous government introduced employment and support allowance (ESA); new sickness benefits claimants were subject to a work capability assessment (WCA), replacing the personal capability assessment test for incapacity benefit, and designed to determine how able people are to work.

More people were being deemed ineligible for sickness benefits and fit to work under this new system and, by mid October 2009, the Department for Work and Pensions statistics showed that over twice the proportion of applicants for employment and support allowance (ESA) were being assessed as fit to work than under ESA's predecessor, incapacity benefit.

This meant that they were being put on to jobseeker's allowance which at £64.30 a week is worth £25 a week less than ESA and involves less support

BUT
THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS ACCUSED MINISTERS OF SIMPLY "SHUNTING" DISABLED PEOPLE ON TO LOWER LEVELS OF SUPPORT.

The then Lib Dem shadow work and pensions secretary Steve Webb (now 'promoted' to Minister of State for Pensions in May 2010 under the new coalition government) said:

"The government is shunting large numbers of ill or disabled people onto a lower level of support by deeming them 'fit to work'. This scheme may simply disguise the problem instead of dealing with it."
He urged the government to track those deemed ineligible for ESA to ensure "they are not left to rot on a benefit with a different name".

Ironically, the DWP figures came out on the day that the NATIONAL AUTISTIC SOCIETY released a report warning that autistic adults were being failed by the benefits system, and that their particular needs were not being picked up by the assessment, leaving them ineligible for ESA.

A PARKINSON'S DISEASE SOCIETY survey of 40 working-age adults with the condition, found 40% had been deemed fit for work - and hence ineligible for ESA - and placed on the lower value jobseeker's allowance or "forced" into early retirement while a further 22% were placed in the "work-related activity group", which means they are required to attend job centre interviews and improve their employability.


ESA represented the 'brave new world' of benefit entitlement, with heavy emphasis being placed on "not writing people off", encouraging "work-related activity" and involving the private sector in providing the support people would need to get into work.

However, the reality was that Jobcentre Plus and the private partners (paid largely by results) trying to operate this new regime in an unfriendly economic environment struggled to cope with the 90% of claimants in some of the most deprived areas of the country who failed this new tougher eligibility test

By March 2010 Jobcentre Plus staff felt many people who pass work capability assessments were not actually fit for work, according to a study by the Department of Work and Pensions.

They believed this was especially damaging for clients with mental health problems and exacerbated their symptoms.

Neil Coyle, director of policy at the Disability Alliance, said he sympathised with jobcentre staff's frustration. In his experience, many were unable to deliver support they felt clients needed because the assessment made them ineligible for ESA

The study also confirmed a large backlog of appeals against work capability assessment decisions

And now Conservatives - with Lib Dem support - want to further cut benefit bills for the long-term sick by getting more into work with even stricter medical tests.

FINDING PEOPLE FIT FOR WORK WHEN THE WORK ISN'T THERE SIMPLY SHUNTS THE PROBLEM AROUND; IT DOESN'T CREATE JOBS!!

Subject: REout taking up Jona: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:34 AM

Maybe Jonathan Swift had the right idea, "Gentle Gaint", when he wrote A Modest Proposal...

(What's a gaint?)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Emma B
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:41 AM

errr....according to the Urban dictionary Gaint is a shortage of blood to the brain due to a diversion to create an overly large dick!

then again it could just be a typo :)

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 09:00 AM

Not a nice thing for a lady to say Emma.

Derek Shulman

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 09:54 AM

Listen to this as you read................


For those who've not yet sussed this out yet, the entire WORLD is fucked up, not just this country. In my opinion, we are now living through times that are going to start spreading much sorrow and despair around the planet....

However.......all is not so gloomy or without hope, because with that despair will come the Anger, at long last. God, it's been a long time coming, but it's finally here!   FINALLY that suffocating Apathy Blanket is being lifted off the Human Race..

Who started the lifting?

Was it the Wanker Bankers with their greed, their crookedness, their lack of concern for anything on this planet other than their own bank accounts?

Was it The Native Americans finally getting their messages across to us, after decades of trying to make us hear, make us see what we are doing to the planet?

Was it the arrogance of BP as they stumbled from one disaster to another, media wise, that finally broke through the extra safe and warm blanket that has covered the USA for so long?

Was it our soldiers coming home in their coffins, or in their wheelchairs, their legs left in forgein lands, where the people they try so hard to help, so often make it plain they are not wanted there?

Was it the pensions lost? The lives ruined? The jobs gone? The houses that no-one can afford? The university degrees that mean nothing? The children spilling their souls on to our city streets?

Was it a FINAL AWAKENING that all is not as it should be? That NOTHING is as it should be??????????

Was it the realisation that much of the blame lies with all of us, as a species, for buying the materialistic crap sold by The Corporate Bastards for so long? Was it because they have made their billions from people who've been content to live their lives on that Corporate Conveyer Belt of Life...£20,000 marriages, £3,000 holidays, £10,000 cars, Gap Years, Second Homes, Third Homes, Designer Clothes, Designer Shoes, HELLO magazine.....?

Well, maybe it's time for a new magazine....called simply....

'HELLO??????????'

You can fill it with the likes of Paris Hilton of course, and Jordan too, with every grossly overpaid Football Fug and his tribe of plastic dolly bird girlies who flock around him............

And then, you can have The Other Side as your main feature...

The Other Side is about no more blame, just a realisation that we ARE in this together, from the worst crooked bastard in the world, to the humblest, poorest, kindest peasant who's never harmed a fly....

It's time to actually see how desperately serious this has all become, and also to recognise that the ONLY people who can save this world are You...and Me..and We...and Them..and Us........Because if we don't all start pulling together to overcome this catastrophic state of the planet then we are literally doomed..in every sense of the word...

The choice is ours.....

It's that simple.
It's that bleak.
It's actually THAT EASY too.

The power has always been with us, ALWAYS, but for so very long we have all had our heads shoved into the Corporate Ostrich Arses, been their puppets, their slaves......

We no longer have to be slaves.........We are born Free...all we have to do is shake off our shackles and walk out there...together....


WE ARE AWAKENING.....


Spend time talking about the Solutions, not the problems.
Spend time talking about the words and life of JFK, not his death.
Spend time listening to how he wanted the world to be.....

Realise we've turned away for so long, refused to admit what has been happening for so long, that those in power who wanted more power, who wanted to control and bring all of us to our knees have done exactly that, because we chose to let them...

On Labour Day, in Washington, there is a march going to take place. A march started by just one woman, over on Facebook, who has had enough...thousands are attending...

Be there, if you can....

The time has come to take back our world...

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:09 AM

Oh, and by the way, ANY Government that wants mothers to 'get back into work' is crap, because Mothers ALREADY work, doing the hardest and most important job on this planet, and that is raising the next generation....And it's because we have allowed, almost forced, Mother and Child to become so separated that we have many of the problems in our society that we now have...

Children need their mothers (and fathers), but women are designed by nature to be the main carers. Once we looked after our children with love and care, we realised how deeply precious they were. Now, for many women, who themselves have never known real love, their children are nothing more than annoying little brats who stifle their enjoyment and social life...

Bring back Femininity to this world, because the gentleness that once ran through many women was vastly important to the state of this world, to our very communities...

We live in an ever increasing de-sensitised world and it's desperately important to get that sensitivity back again, because if Mothers don't love their Children, then how the hell are those children ever going to learn to love one another, to love this planet, to care for it, to care for each other, to care for *their* children..?


Oh, and GREAT Britain?

Again, the choice lies with us.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: MikeL2
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:17 AM

hi

Many people have short memories when it suits them !!!!

Successive governments of both colours have long promised to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefits.

None has achieved anything. It has got progressively worse.

If ( not when ) this government gets around to trying to do it they will find that it is almost impossible to achieve.

As someone said earlier - how can they get people who are judged to be fit to work to come off Incapacity if there are no jobs ??

I know a few people who have been investigated in the past and judged to be fit to work. Each one challenged the judgement resulting in long legal cases costing thousands and thousands of pound and to my knowledge not one of them has moved off Incapacity.

This new government will find it very difficult to make their promises stick. Promises are easy......achieving them isn't.

cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:23 AM

The current Con-Dems are simply taking Thatcherite policies to their logical conclusion. After the decimation of the nationalised industries and the virtual destruction of our manufacturing base, the current Tory government is now directing it's energies to the complete dismantling of the welfare state.

The Conservatives despise the welfare state, and they will not be happy until it's replaced completely by private sector alternatives; alternatives that are driven soley by the bottom line and have commitment to the betterment of society in any way. This is a disaster of huge proportions and whilst we can rightly blame Cameron et al for their lack of moral responsibility in abandoning the fight for genuine equality in society it's impossible to argue with the fact New Labour are also responsible for bringing this disaster on the country as their pathetic inability to regulate the financial markets (or indeed the fact they courted them) have only added to the yawning gap between the very rich and the rest of us.

And its' the very rich in charge again now - expect no quarter when it comes to making sure their interests are protected and nurtured, at whatever cost to the rest of us. Don't believe me? Their green credentials are a sham, as is demonstrated by the latest proposals to sell off some of globally important wildlife reserves as DEFRA faces 40% cuts. Who's heading the review on public spending cuts? Arch-wanker in non-dom residence Sir Philip "I pay less tax than my cleaner" Green, a man for whom the phrase 'reprehensible piece of shit' is an apt but understated description. This man will be deciding on the care and welfare of some very vulnerable, a risk people, and we know he doesn't give a shit about that sort of thing(after all, he didn't want to fulfil his responsibilities and contribute taxes to help pay for them as the rest of us do).

And what of the Lib-Dems in all this? A complete joke. They've made themselves unelectable for a generation at least.

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Stu
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:27 AM

Sorry for the very long sentence!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 10:55 AM

I suppose, 'GUEST, Gentle Giant', we're not going to get any rants out of you about power abusing, non-dom tax avoiders, or grossly overpaid 'Chief Executives' with their massive bonuses for failure, or reckless, greedy bankers who brought the world financial system to the brink, are we? No, thought not! They're probably quite pleased that there are pathological snobs, like you around, engaged in obsessive 'poor-bashing'. But if you're expecting some sort of reward for your slavish 'loyalty',you might have to wait a long time!

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 11:11 AM

The Tories aided by the simple minded wankers from the Lib/Dems hate to see anyone get something for nothing, this means ALL benefits, if you're a single mother, what the fuck it's your fault, if you are disabled, you'll bloodywell have to pay for it and if you're unemployed, you're a scrounger and a waster, no matter that our friends the immensely rich bankers were a bit to blame you working class oiks are going to pay for it all.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: No longer Great Britain?
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 11:29 AM

I have always regarded whinging about the state of the country as proxy for whinging about one's own inadequacies and trying to blame others for your own shortcomings.

Something about the blame culture.

Perhaps if we wanted a government that helped those not in a position to help themselves for whatever reason, somebody would stand for such ideals and get voted in. There is no labour party and Kinnock killed it off, knowing it was unelectable. Caring conservatism is an oxymoron and LibDem is a moron wanting the oxy of publicity.

Live with it.

I get paid a hell of a lot incidentally and am one of those demonised by frustrated losers. No silver spoon, no lucky breaks. Just a kick up the arse whilst working down the pit many years ago and decided to do something about it.

Now, I want to help others and you know what? It ain't easy. there is not a political party that will see beyond dogma to be pragmatic and the public sector agencies there to pick up the pieces are full of value driven protocol led donkeys.

if you really want to know why people like me aren't doing more, it is because middle management is a necessary cog in the gearbox, but sadly not fit for purpose. if we sacked them, it would actually be worse, despite the temptation.

Interestingly, my "quango" is not being killed off, but I suggested that it should. Ain't life a good long giggle......

Britain can be great, just don't think it can be so by whinging from the sidelines. get off your arse and make it so.