Red And Black Telly: Instant reaction to Saturday night’s FUCKPARADE, plus PIGGATE

Your free printable cut-out pig mask!

Courtesy of Political Scrapbook

If you’re planning on getting kettled outside the tory conference next week, you don’t want the bacon filming you, and when you shout “fuck the pigs!” remember, Dave already has. Now we know why Ian Duncan-Smith’s breakfast is so expensive. #piggate

Or you might want to join the Class War anti-gentrification Shoreditch Fuck Parade this coming Saturday; keep the pig-fucking classes out of Shoreditch!

Simply click on the image to download the pdf, and print A4 – for best results select ‘fit’ – then stick on some cardboard and cut him out. The mouth is firmly closed in case the toffs get any funny ideas.

Oink!

I do not have an iPhone

Originally posted on Amila Bosnae

So I could qualify as a real refugee if war happened to me again, no? I mean, I do have an android phone, and yeah, if I had to flee again, I would most likely bring it with me because it’s a lifeline to everyone I know as well as to essential emergency services, plus it weighs practically nothing, but it’s not an iPhone, so I could pass for a real refugee, right? Or maybe it would be better to hide it anyway and remember to wear my worst clothes ever rather than the ones that would keep me warm and dry at night, because you better fucking look the part if you find yourself on the wrong side of a humanitarian crisis. You better look like you’re visiting from the Dark Ages if you want to satisfy the privileged gaze.

People who bring their phones to the loo with them now scoff at others who are uprooting their entire lives for bringing theirs. Are you kidding me?

Do iPhones in the refugees’ hands bring it too close to home that they are just like you and me? Is it because people wanted to see Middle Easterners as backwards and awfully primitive and generally beneath the mighty capitalist Westerner or something? Pls explain.

By the way, I once met a vendor of the Big Issue who had an iPhone so he could accept electronic payments from people who don’t have cash on them. I don’t know how it works, exactly, since I don’t have one myself, so obviously, the correct conclusion here is that I am actually way worse off than him, the scrounging bastard.

What say you to that, people suddenly interested in the plight of the homeless for the first time in your lives? Where is your god now?

God save the pig!

It’s not pig and it’s not clever! – Cameron’s pork sword.

One of Cameron’s constituents in defiant mood yesterday.

“You can tell a man what boozes,
by the company he chooses,
– at that, the pig got up and walked away…”

-Anon.

More Cameron pig-related jollity.

We must point out for legal reasons that the next item is a porkie, Hameron has made no such denial at time of going to press.

Welcome to the Pig Society!

Should the tabloids or the beeb attempt to link Corby romantically with a vegetable marrow, we will of course smell a rat.

Some useful points from the IWCA

We know full well that the govt. will deliberately squeeze resources to stoke racism and its propaganda wing the BBC will do everything possible to reassure wavering xenophobes that it’s perfectly natural to be scared of foreigners.  Alongside welcoming the victims of the neoliberal wars we must all be fighting austerity on the ground. We must make allies of these people not rivals. The refugee crisis and the pathetic squabbling over responsibility for their well-being has made a nonsense of the concept of nation-state.

Originally posted on  The Heckler

Given that refugees from Syria are due to start arriving in the UK in the next few days as part of the government’s pledge to accept 20,000 over the next five years – Syrian refugees in new scheme ‘to arrive in UK soon’ – May
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34268604 – we thought it would be useful to re-visit the manifesto of the Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) to see what they had to say about the issue of accommodating refugees. Here it is:

Asylum seekers & immigration

As with official anti-racism, immigration and asylum policy can prove similarly divisive. As a rule political refugees are housed in the most under-funded areas which are duly expected to share out already meager resources with the new arrivals. Across the country, the government is shown to have repeatedly short-changed councils to whom refugees are allocated. The interests, concerns and sensitivities of local communities are also routinely dismissed. Unsurprisingly this can be a source of suspicion, tension and resentment.

The IWCA will fight for:

The allocation of political refugees to areas that can most easily accommodate them.

Consultation with local communities regarding new arrivals.

Appropriate financial compensation from government to local authorities.

Additional government grants to facilitate integration.

Extra housing provision to take account of any extra demands on housing stock.

The safeguarding of tenants’ positions on existing housing lists.

The right to work or study for political refugees while their claims for citizenship are being processed.

The rest of the IWCA manifesto can be seen here – http://www.iwca.info/?page_id=1410 Trust us, it’s well worth reading…

All pretty reasonable as far as we’re concerned. However, we have to bear in mind this was written over ten years ago and we are now in the midst of some heavy duty austerity. Which means that any areas due to accept refugees will have to fight tooth and nail to ensure funding is in place and that they’re not expected to cut into their existing budgets to fulfil their obligations.

We know it’s inevitable that refugees will be parked on the worst estates in ‘hard to let’ properties with minimal support to help them settle and integrate. That is going to cause problems, there’s no point in denying it. What will exacerbate the situation is when residents contact the council with worries about the impact of refugees being parked on their estate with minimal support and find their concerns are dismissed by the council as ‘racism’. There are no prizes for guessing which political tendency is going to benefit from the resentment at having concerns about the impact of refugees dismissed out of hand.

Having a sensible discussion in some left wing and anarchist circles about the impact of settling refugees in areas already under considerable social and economic stress as a result of austerity and a stagnating economy is proving to be difficult. Lisa McKenzie is finding this out to her cost after having written this piece for the Guardian – The refugee crisis will hit the UK’s working class areas hardest – http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/16/refugee-crisis-hit-uk-working-class-powerless

All Lisa has done is to point out the bleeding obvious that settling refugees in areas suffering social and economic stress is going to cause problems if financial and other forms of support are not provided and there’s no consultation with the host community. Dismissing legitimate concerns such as this as ‘racist’ and sweeping them under the carpet as some people in left wing and anarchist circles are trying to do is making a potentially difficult situation for stressed working class neighbourhoods even worse.

Red And Black telly: Corbs neglects to to sing “God Save the Queen”

There will be no unpaid workers at the Co-op!

Posted on Industrial Workers of the World Dorset

Dorset IWW General Members’ Branch is pleased to announce that our dispute with a Bournemouth outlet of the Co-operative has been settled amicably. We have a verbal assurance from local management who are USDAW members, that they have no wish to exploit unpaid workers on their premises, and that their connection with ‘Prospects’ has been severed. We congratulate them on their principled decision and affirm our commitment to defeat the government’s work programme and end unpaid labour.

Nationally however, the situation is less clear; we have had sight of a Co-op internal document that sets out the parameters of their unpaid work experience programme. Whilst it insists that placements must be voluntary and offer meaningful experience, we note that vulnerable adults are being conscripted who may not be fully aware of their rights. It’s highly likely some of them will not be able to make an informed decision and/or will get browbeaten by jobcentre staff with targets to meet. Once they are on the scheme if they leave they may be deemed to have made themselves intentionally unemployed, and be sanctioned. Lastly of course, however you dress it up, it’s unpaid labour. How long does it take to assess a person’s suitability for working in a grocer’s shop? A week, two? Why then should a national chain not speculate a fortnight’s minimum wage to find out?