Tag Archives: Community

on Time

Shanghai
BLM, Ukraine
women of Iran, China
...refuse to be slaves

~

n.b. The national anthem of The People’s Republic of China contains the line;

“Rise up those who refuse to be slaves”

Being brought up in England, where the national anthem, unusually, is about a person, not the nation, I have not had much time for national anthems, but the anthem of the PRC, as reported in The Guardian newspaper, has a line that I would happily sing.

It appears that the people of China have taken the words to heart. After nearly THREE YEARS of the Zero Covid policy some have had enough.

“…you may fool people for a time, you can fool part of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Abraham Lincoln said that.

Enough is enough.

CLP 28/11/2022

on guard

IN YUNG GUNS WE TRUST
threat? self-determination?
people get ready

~

n.b. Graffito on a low-rise social housing development in a beautiful, wooded district on the north side of Birmingham, Alabama. Not just scrawled on a wall, but painted large across the building.

At first, my response to these words was that this slogan, for it is big and prominent enough to be a political slogan, was an act of immature bravado, possibly delineating gang territory. However, this is not necessarily the case. Gang signs are usually more subtle, more discreet, almost meaningless to the naïve passerby, instantly recognisable to friend and foe.

Here in Birmingham Alabama, (the neatest, tidiest city centre in the whole of the USA as far as I have seen), there has been a long history of open warfare on people of colour by racist whites.

As a civil war was fought, as legislation was introduced, as civil rights were argued for and established, the racists have beaten, bombed and murdered people in this small city for speaking up for their basic rights as citizens of the USA. The racists in this city, made it a point to openly and brutally resist the changes USA society needed to go through to begin to live up to its constitutional promise, “all men are created equal.”

Birmingham, Alabama is a place of pilgrimage. A place to pay respect to the church-going children fire-bombed, the Freedom Riders set upon, the brave people who endured attacks by police dogs, batons and boots, our fellow human beings who were treated worse than dogs for boycotting, travelling, marching, sitting in, or simply praying.

This history of living memory does not just disappear overnight. It might be, given the attack on the Capitol Building in Washington DC on 6th January 2021, that some people do not feel entirely at ease with the increasing aggression of the extreme right.

It might be that the public murder of George Floyd and the deadly shootings of so many other black young people by police officers around the USA, has provoked some to think that if the ghastly NRA can argue guns are for defence, then these young people are not going to be sitting on their hands and hanging about for official help in policing their community.

In the USA those, who have made sure access to firearms is so easy, need to appreciate that self-defence means everyone has the right to be armed. These trusting in “YUNG GUNS” are taking the freedom to carry deadly weapons argument for defence to its obvious conclusion. If you believe you can’t trust the police, courts and the prison system to act humanely, who can you trust?

Then, after asking who do you trust, the next question needs to be “Who do you love?”

Unfortunately, sadly, awfully, I have since heard that the YUNG GUNS who had sprayed the blue paint on the wall, (barely visible on the brickwork in the photo above), had been enforcing their own form of terrifying justice locally.

~

CLP 06/10/2022

on selective hearing

I keep saying it
she said, nobody listens
can anyone hear?

~

n.b. Birdsong, traffic, the sound of lone voices.

Mindset #1

Choose from we or I

part of problem or answer

you that, me this, us

~

CLP 22/06/2021

On Numbers (2021)

What does it matter?

A fresh start or same, same old?

Welcome aboard guys!

~

n.b. Things will be different, things will be the same. My new year resolution is to love my neighbour. Worth another go, don’t you think?

CLP 01/01/2020

On the Street ix

Lost in rain-drenched leaves

Camouflaged by shades of brown

Spotted by kind eyes

~

n.b. So what if I cancelled my cards after waiting on the phone to the bank for fifty minutes? I came home to this in my postbox, with a very soggy wallet; everything present and correct. Thank you, Mark.

~

CLP 08/10/2020

Andrà tutti bene

What happens here, now

Will be seen positively

Winners write history

.

n.b. Italian phrase translates as “Everything will be alright.”

CLP 12/03/2020

On the Cheap

Here is a term used in economics, “externalities”. It means costs incurred as a result of running a business that are not picked up by the business, but by those living in the communities in which they operate.

A simple example is water pollution caused by pouring untreated factory waste into rivers, causing illness, increasing burdens on health services, affecting work attendance and reducing incomes of the afflicted and family members drawn into their care and support.

Cigarette smokers, whilst suffering from addiction, often choose to smoke and some justify the health burdens they impose on their families and communities by buying into a belief that the direct taxes they pay on cigarette purchases more than compensate for any health treatments required resulting from tobacco smoking.

Again this argument ignores the emotional and economic pain incurred by non-smokers who love and care for them, as well as the illnesses and disabilities imposed through secondary smoking, particularly on children, including pre-natal babies.

Another argument to justify smoking is perpetuated along the lines of personal freedoms and the concept of individual liberties. This argues that freedom to smoke is a choice that adults should be able to make, but the logic is not extended to acknowledge the known addictive properties of cigarettes, nor the imposition of polluted air, health problems, suffering of bereavement resulting from this “free choice” on those who do not have that choice, (children), or those who choose not to smoke, (fellow citizens, family and friends). It also fails to recognise the lying and deceptions systematically carried out by the managers of tobacco firms around the world.

The taxes paid directly by smokers raise cigarette prices at the point of purchase, but corporate tax laws allow the multinational corporations and their shareholders to continue to profit relentlessly from the manufacturing process. Which is why courts apply huge fines on the corporations challenged by group actions in the USA and Canada in order to penalise the cynical profiteers.

We know smoking kills; slowly, painfully, distressingly and expensively. This is written on packets around the world along with clear images of the ghastly health issues brought about by smoking. Despite this customers continue to queue to buy cigarettes. In the UK queues for treatment at hospitals are growing and no one calls to ban cigarettes and smoking despite the externalities imposed by this industry’s operations on the NHS.

Finally, today’s news unveils an horrendous story. In Delhi a deadly factory fire has killed “dozens.” Companies choosing to use low wage labour in loosely regulated or un-regulated economies to produce machine parts, clothing, household products and handbags, (in this instance), are doing so to improve profitability in wealthy, consumer-based nations where the customers live.

The corporations making the choice to source manufacturing in low wage economies are simply shifting the burden of employment costs directly onto the workers in these places. Low wage means: wage slavery (not enough income to risk time off for the fear of being unable to feed a family); it means no pension; it means no factory safety standards; it means no personal protection equipment for workers; it means the costs of production are externalised and carried on the backs of the lowest paid people the companies can find. This is so that we in the UK, for example, can get low price products that feed into our consumption-oriented world.

If the people in India, in this case, were paid properly, worked in safe environments, had health cover and pensions, they would not be so cheap to employ and the comparison to more local production sites would be more equitable. The Indian economy would have to move to a healthier, more sustainable and more independent model.

Of course this would change the economics of the globe. Would that not be a good thing? Could we not move to economies in which people have local work in sustainable businesses, regulated by the communities in which they operate?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/08/delhi-fire-india-factory-dozens-dead

In writing the above I recognise that the Conservative Party in England is pushing to de-regulate the economy there to push the externalities of all goods and services onto the backs of UK resident workers and their families, whilst the rich get richer through lower costs of production and higher corporate profits and shareholder dividends. They dream of an “Off-shore Singapore”.

I refer you back to my earlier post Fat Blond Bloke.

I also refer you to Naomi Klein’s book, No Logo.

CLP 08/12/2020