Strikes!


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“… and when quizzed about the upcoming nurses strikes, the Conservative party chairman said that demands for a 19% pay rise for nurses would cost the NHS 10 billion pounds, which should instead be spent on NHS frontline services. Back to you, Chris.

Gaslighting fuckers! If nurses aren’t the NHS frontline?? I mean, what about ambulance drivers and and paramedics? Are they not frontline services? Give them a decent pay rise, you fuckers! They deserve it, find the money! You all spring into action every time you crash the economy, you can find the money then. Get ’round the table, make a decent offer. Instead, they’re sending in the army telling us the unions are holding the country to ransom. The unions!? Can we all just be clear about this? Our last prime minister blew a 30 billion pound hole in the economy overnight, test and trace cost us 37 billion pounds. Useless PPE wasted 8.7 billion pounds, which ended up in the pockets of Tory donors. A shambolically executed Brexit lost us 40 billion in tax revenue alone. Richi Sunak lost 11 billion pounds by overpaying interest on UK debt, and yet, you read the front pages, it’s nurses who were the ones who are greedy and irresponsible. It’s the fire service that’s holding the country to ransom, ’cause they all just decided they’d prefer to drink tea on a freezing picket line than save children from burning buildings. It wasn’t so long ago we were clapping them; hailing them as heroes. They were all considered key workers during the pandemic, weren’t they? Bus drivers, teachers, nurses. Now, they’re called lazy workshy fuckers. Postal workers, striking to save what’s left of the Royal Mail — it having been sold off to the lowest bidder for a quick buck by the millionaires in Westminster — but it’s your postman who is destroying the country!? The entire northern rail network is on the brink of collapse whilst rail companies and their shareholders make record profits, …but it’s that fat, lazy fucker behind the ticket desk, asking for a bit of job security, who is destroying our rail infrastructure!? 25 to 50% of average households are unable to pay their bills this winter, whilst energy companies announced record breaking profits. In 2021, Shell paid zero pounds on their oil production in the UK and received 100 million pounds of subsidies in tax payer’s money. Working people are suffering at the hands of corporate greed and unbridled economic mismanagement, and this is why people are striking for better pay, conditions and job security. Recently, the government gave us the Public Order bill that, that [sic] even one Tory peer described as an afront to a civilised society. Crackdowns on peaceful protest is the purview of China and Iran, not British democracy. And yet these reactionary fuckwits tell us it’s Scottish primary school teachers who are holding us hostage. The bastards who wrecked the economy, squandered our reputation on the international stage, sold off any and all of the country’s assets for a quick buck are getting their mates in the media to tell you that it’s bus drivers, bin men, teachers, nurses, postmen, passport control workers and rail workers who are throwing the country to the dogs. Don’t believe them; they are lying to you!

Well, stome [sic], still some weeks ahead of Christmas industrial action, misery for commuters, patients and holiday makers. Frustration and anger at the unions for deciding to strike over Christmas …”

Jonathan Pie

They are ‘civilised’ and ‘look like us’: the racist coverage of Ukraine

“What all these petty, superficial differences – from owning cars and clothes to having Netflix and Instagram accounts – add up to is not real human solidarity for an oppressed people. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s tribalism. These comments point to a pernicious racism that permeates today’s war coverage and seeps into its fabric like a stain that won’t go away.” Moustafa Bayoumi asks that we offer help and solidarity to innocent people who need protection, irrespective of geographical proximity or skin color.

www.theguardian.com

Das Gegenteil von Transparenz

“Wer sich hingegen am Ausverkauf der Demokratie beteiligt, scheut offensichtlich das Licht der Öffentlichkeit. Wenn die Unterhändler und Sigmar Gabriel wirklich überzeugt wären vom TTIP,  könnten sie es ja für alle zugänglich ins Netz stellen.” Katja Kipping beschreibt den eigens eingerichteten TTIP-Leseraum und seine Nutzungsmodalitäten.

www.linksfraktion.de

Our students were right to walk out

“Rights go hand in hand with responsibilities; you have the right to fart in [sic] public lift, it doesn’t mean you should exercise it.“ Ali Milani is proud to be representing Brunel students who respectfully showed their discontent with rightwing columnist Katie Hopkins’ views.

brunelstudents.com

Can we afford to ignore what Katie Hopkins says about migrants drowning in the Med?

“So while we ought noisily to challenge her incitement to hatred and violence against the most vulnerable groups in society and to condemn the fact that major media outlets are providing her with the microphone to do this, we also need to organise for a different kind of politics in which those escaping war and poverty are welcomed and not left to drown in the seas that surround us.“ Des Freedman regards Katie Hopkins as merely a sideshow in an age of neoliberal politicians protecting uninhibited cross-border flow of capital while barring people fleeing poverty and persecution and refusing to help them when they vanish into the sea.

www.opendemocracy.net

Europas Schuld

“Natürlich kann Europa nicht jeden Krieg verhindern und jeden gescheiterten Staat aufbauen. Doch Europa muss für instabile und Not leidende Staaten bei Weitem mehr tun als bisher. Ansonsten darf es sich nicht wundern, wenn deren verzweifelte Bewohner in Richtung Hoffnung aufbrechen—und sich weder von Meeren noch von Zäunen aufhalten lassen.” Markus Becker sieht eine klare Mitverantwortung Europas für das Flüchtlingsdrama. Pflichtlektüre.

www.spiegel.de

David Cameron used swarm instead of plague in case it implied that God had sent the migrants

“There has to be something wrong with a world where the best employment option for a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t being a farmer in sub-Saharan Africa, but crossing the Mediterranean on a punctured lilo, only to spend days dangling under a lorry so that he can end up selling lollipops in a nightclub toilet. Our indifference is staggering.”
Frankie Boyle

www.theguardian.com

Meet Fethullah Üzümcüoğlu and Esra Polat, the Turkish couple who spent their wedding day feeding 4,000 Syrian refugees.

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