Tuesday 25 April 2017

The Early Signs of Fascim - A List



This list comes from a poster from the Holocaust Museum, titled "The Early Signs of Fascism":



  • Powerful and continuing nationalism
  • Disdain for human rights
  • Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
  • Supremacy of the military
  • Rampant sexism
  • Controlled mass media
  • Obsession with national security
  • Religion and government intertwined
  • Corporate power protected
  • Labor [sic] power suppressed
  • Disdain for intellectuals & the arts
  • Obsession with crime & punishment
  • Rampant cronyism & corruption
  • Fraudulent elections

Does that remind you of anyone? .......




Have a good day, and don't have nightmares!



Thursday 6 April 2017

Here's a joke about Corbyn





One day, Corbyn decides he has had enough of people decrying his capabilities, so he decides to demonstrate his powers to the world.

He organises a press conference, and in front of everyone, gets to the podium, clears his throat and announces that the next day, he will walk on water, across the Thames.

The media goes nuts, the Mail and the Express call him blasphemous, the Sun would too, only they don't know how to spell it so instead they just scoff at him, the Guardian says the LibDems would do it better given the chance, the Guardian thinks that Blair should be the one to do it, the Tories openly sneer but are secretly worried. Corbyn ignores them all, and just repeats that yes, he will indeed walk on water.

The next day, Corbyn arrives by the Thames, goes down to water level, removes his shoes, rolls his socks inside the shoes, rolls up his trouser legs, steps forward to the water, and calmly steps on the water, and crosses the Thames, in front of the astonished crowds and the rest of the world.

The next day, the Daily Mail's front page screams: "EXCLUSIVE!!! Corbyn can't even swim!!!"

Losing our Humanity






Losing our humanity for the sake of a few pounds.
This is 2017, this isn't the way it was supposed to go.
The future, age of enlightenment, lives improved, maybe even global peace.
That was what I dreamt of as a child.

But today, in 2017 Britain, things have suddenly got much darker.

Imagine this: If you were raped and got pregnant as a result, and this would be your 3rd child, as of today, you will have to prove you were raped, you will have to fill in forms detailing the rape, then an assessor will decide whether you were in fact raped or not. If you didn't want your child to know he was the result of rape, tough, he will find out soon enough; other parents will find out; his classmates will find out. What should have been the most strictly private matter of all will be scrutinised by officialdom. If you were trying to get over the trauma of being raped, it's not going to happen: submit yourself to the administrative humiliation, or forsake the financial assistance you need to bring up that child.

Of all the cuts which are going to hammer the most vulnerable today, and the gods know that there are many, and they are savage ones, of all the despicable things this cruel government are imposing on us from today, from the 50p a week Housing Benefit to the -90% cut in bereavement benefits, but the most savage, the most despicable, has to be the one where a woman must prove she was raped in order to provide for the child who was the product of that rape.

Losing our humanity for the sake of a few pounds.

Saturday 4 March 2017

Requiem







From the day it was born, the NHS has been a thorn in the Tory side. The very notion that there is this free, accessible to all, equalitarian, based on need rather than money or status, system is anathema to them.

They never voted for it, they never accepted it, and have sought to destroy it ever since its inception.

At last, they are succeeding. It is no coincidence that this should happen at the same time as the rise of the extreme right, the hardening towards foreigners, poor, disabled, etc. They would have dismantled it for free, they so hated it, but it turned there was a lot of money to be made out of the old lady, so they sold her bit by bit.

And we let them. We were complacent, we forgot what a truly beautiful institution the NHS was, we bitched about waiting times and bad food, we made endless movies poking fun at hospitals and nurses and its sometimes creaky bureaucracy. But we forgot what an amazing thing it is to be able to have free medical care at all times. We took it for granted. And we, and our descendants, will suffer for generations because of their purulent hatred and our own carelessness.





Monday 23 January 2017

“That doesn’t affect YOU, you have been here for years!”




Hey, followers (if any), long time no see! Well, here I am again...

This is written for people I speak to, who seem to be unaware of how this Brexit bullsh*t is affecting me personally, not just as a vague concept of "getting our country back" and "saying no to Brussels" and other hollow sentences. This is where that sh*t gets REAL.

When I first arrived here in 1985, I still needed to register with the Home Office, which I did, and got my temporary residency permit. Then, in the next 18 months or so, the rules changed, and I no longer needed to apply for permanent residency, as an EU citizen, I was automatically granted permanent residency, but, here's the kicker, the Home Office didn't bother sending out permanent permits, because it was no longer necessary to have one. With me so far?

I have toyed with the idea of getting British nationality over the years, sure, but, well, it was never urgent, it was expensive, and I always had other things more important to do, and after all, what did it matter? I married my British love, our kids were British, we have a mortgage and one day, our house will be ours outright, and I have never been one to bother with nationalism, and flags, so what if I kept my French passport rather than getting a British one, it was not important.

Fast forward to, well, now. Post Brexit, not being allowed to have a say in the matter despite living here for over 30 years galled me hugely, and spurred me into action, and I decided to go for it, apply for British citizenship. It shouldn't be a big deal, right?

Ah ah ah (hollow laugh). Turns out that, behind the scenes, over the last few years, the goalposts have been moved.

For starters, since 2015, in order to gain citizenship, you MUST have permanent residency; despite the fact that you haven't needed it since 1986 or so. They quietly reinstated those rules for EU citizens, but didn't tell us.

Ok, so I'll apply for permanent residency, shouldn't be a big deal, right? I mean, I have been here over 30 years, paying taxes, National Insurance, I have bank accounts, a mortgage, a permanent address, kids, a British husband etc...

Ah. Well, the forms are 85 pages long. 85 pages long. Question after question after question, asking you to list every single time you have been in and out of the country (WHY?), where you've been, for how long... It wants bank statements, it wants to know every bit of your life detailed since you've been here. P60, P45, Piss Off... How have you been supporting yourself? Can you support yourself?

And, here's the absolute kicker of them all: Since 2005, yes, you read that right, 2005, every EU citizen resident in my kind of situation* in the UK MUST have comprehensive private health insurance. Say what, I hear you say? Yep, that's right. First I've heard about it. I also fail to understand how and why, when the whole point of reciprocal agreements is that I can use the local health services, and what's more, I have done so since 1985 without any issues.

I can also tell you that no-one, but absolutely no-one in my situation, EU residents in the UK, knew about it either. No-one was ever told. Not those who, like me, have been here before the requirement came in in 2005, no-one who settled in the UK after 2005. It is buried somewhere in the paperwork, and doesn't get pointed out or stated at any point.

And guess what, apparently, if you haven't fulfilled this criteria you weren't aware of, you cannot get permanent residency, and if you can't get permanent residency, you can't get British nationality. Ta-DA!

So there you go. As we speak, people like me are being turned away, are being refused what they thought would be a fairly easy piece of paper to obtain, for failing to have something they didn't know they were supposed to have, and which of course cannot be got retroactively. What's more, the same people, people like me, who never questioned their right to be here, are being told they need to make arrangements to leave the country, I kid you not.

There are 3 millions of us. 3 MILLION EU citizens who have settled in the UK, for work, for love, for whatever reason, and who suddenly do not know what the future holds for them. Let me tell you that it is terrifying.


*My kind of situation: Not having 5 years of *continual* employment, carers, stay at home parents, sick or disabled people, etc, etc. Please note that even if you have a British partner who has been earning enough to support the family, it does not count.