Have Some Dignity - Don't Beg The G20 To 'Put People First'!

[flyingfish]

Have some Dignity - Don’t Beg the G20 to Put People First!

There are two sorts of people in the world. Those of us who have to live by selling our labour and those that live off our labour. For the vast majority of workers in the world, we simply cannot eat if we do not go to work. This is not the situation for those who own the multinational corporations, the financial institutions, banks etc. and who own factories and other workplaces.

For the rich, everybody and everything must become a source of maximum profits regardless of the cost inflicted on people in Britain or other countries. The credit crunch shows that this profit motive is causing a deep crisis for society. There is rising unemployment, pay cuts, reduced working hours, extended shut-downs, increased charges for and closures of small businesses, more house repossessions and personal indebtedness, creeping privatisation in healthcare and education, wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinians, and the creation of racist divisions in Britain. 'Free trade' is destroying the economies of many developing countries. Barack Obama is busy killing people in Afghanistan and in Pakistan with his Predator missile strikes.

The full and hidden consequences of the continued bank bail outs, achieved through robbing the public, will hit over the next few years. The lie last October from all the main parties was that the banks had to be bailed out or 'you will all lose your jobs and your houses'. The TUC supported the bail out too. The banks were bailed out without even a vote in parliament resulting in jobs and homes now being lost. Today, the working class and everyone who wants change, will have to take up and develop a spirit of resistance to secure their rights. Workers will have to take a stand for themselves as workers. Simply begging the Government and G20 leaders to bring change that will “Put People First” is a mistake doomed to failure. The G20 are fully committed to the profit motive, which is, in fact their only uniting feature.

Workers today have been encouraged to think of themselves as isolated consumers, rather than being part of the working class. This has been achieved through having access to masses of credit and big mortgages which causes us to live well beyond our means. There is another side to all of this:
where has this money come from? The economy in Britain has become increasingly based on consumption rather than production bringing the decline of manufacturing and agriculture. Consumer spending now makes up about 66% of GDP. There has been an element of buying off highly organised and unionised workers in the rich countries at the expense of the rest of the world in order to keep them from seeing themselves as part of the working class and opposing the profit motive and the capitalist system. We have been spending the wealth generated by workers in Britain and other countries just like we have been literally feeding off the agriculture of other countries. This is only possible because Britain enforces unfair trade rules with developing countries and has military bases around the world with which to bully and invade.

Not only are workers encouraged to believe they are now well off and don't have to think about fighting for better pay they are also ensnared. Workers become pre-occupied with making their repayments and become less and less prepared to take strike action. The workers' outlook is then dominated by individual problems and concerns. It becomes harder for workers to find time to think and act together as a class, which makes it easier for employers and the Government to squeeze more out of us without worrying too much about working class resistance. As a result of this many workers have forgotten that it is the workers that actually produce wealth even if they don't control it.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the Miners' Strike. The miners saw themselves as workers and acted accordingly. The strike was undermined and eventually defeated by a combination of state attacks and divisions within the working class which were sown by trade union and labour party leaders who pushed the idea that there could be a unity of interests between workers and capitalists. They went on to prevent widespread solidarity strike action by other sections of the working class. In 1984 the TUC jumped on the bandwagon of condemning miners for resisting the violence of the state. Many union leaders busied themselves with their own sectional interests, working with employers to ensure production carried on as 'normal' so preventing solidarity strike action.

Through the closure of the mines, the Thatcher government wrecked a vital resource of the economy, without any regard for the future and the potential of developing clean coal technology. The current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are connected with oil and gas supplies. The rich plunder the entire globe for energy supplies, they are not concerned with the economy from the point of view of meeting people's needs, only from the point of view of making maximum profits.

In Britain we have seen the spread of part time, temporary, and agency jobs with lower pay, no pension or sick pay and little or no holiday pay, less paid meal and tea breaks,and productivity and “profit sharing” schemes to intensify work. Conditions for the working class are deteriorating very fast. Yet in this situation some are bleating about “British Jobs for British Workers” at Gordon Brown's instigation, instead of fighting to improve conditions for all those who have to sell their labour in order to live.

The credit crunch is debunking the myths of the free market economy and privatisation and the unity of interests between the working class and the rich.

The 'solutions' being advocated by the heads of state in the G20 countries are actually about how to maintain exploitation of land and labour for private profit and to deal with the resistance people are starting to develop. In Britain students in universities all over the country, have had occupations against the bombing of Gaza, and investment by their universities in the war industry.
Across the globe workers are demonstrating and, in some places, governments are in danger of being overthrown. The crisis also brings the danger of more wars closer. It is time that the working class in Britain woke up.

Open Discussion 28 March 2009 e-mail : opendisc@ymail.com

[Puppetmaster]

What about the work shy ,get up around dinner ,use state handouts ,and due special night work around the back of factoires,workers get hit with HIGH TAXES to pay for work shy.

[BELIAL]

What about the work shy ,get up around dinner ,use state handouts ,and due special night work around the back of factoires,workers get hit with HIGH TAXES to pay for work shy.

Straight to the point ,an excellent post.
I'm effing fed up paying these useless tosser bankers ,directors ,CEO's Billions of £'s tax money to subsidise their £740 million pensions When they only work ten days a year and most of those days are spent lunching, and they still manage to loose £800 000 000 , thank f**k they weren't full time

[baldrick]

What about the work shy ,get up around dinner ,use state handouts ,and due special night work around the back of factoires,workers get hit with HIGH TAXES to pay for work shy.

Straight to the point ,an excellent post.
I'm effing fed up paying these useless tosser bankers ,directors ,CEO's Billions of £'s tax money to subsidise their £740 million pensions When they only work ten days a year and most of those days are spent lunching, and they still manage to loose £800 000 000 , thank f**k they weren't full time p***k

I thought he was referring to politicians (though could be interchangeable).
:mfo

[BELIAL]

What about the work shy ,get up around dinner ,use state handouts ,and due special night work around the back of factoires,workers get hit with HIGH TAXES to pay for work shy.

Straight to the point ,an excellent post.
I'm effing fed up paying these useless tosser bankers ,directors ,CEO's Billions of £'s tax money to subsidise their £740 million pensions When they only work ten days a year and most of those days are spent lunching, and they still manage to loose £800 000 000 , thank f**k they weren't full time p***k

I thought he was referring to politicians (though could be interchangeable).
:mfo

I think the term work
shy spongers now applies to all those in the higher tax bands who can afford to fund blind trusts or offshore tax haven bank accounts, second homes and deviant desires funded as necessary expenses probably also merit inclusion

[johnsouthwales]

'here here!!