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Yesterdays news is still today's truth!

They only tell us what they want us to know.....An Anti Austerity Demo gathered outside the BBC headquarters in London the other weekend, ...


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MAKE SENSE OF THE SENSELESS ! / QUESTION THE QUESTIONABLE ! / SHOUT ABOVE THE NOISE !

Friday 25 April 2008


There seems to be some sort of 80’s nostalgia trip going on in the media, looking back at the fashion, culture, politics and economics of the time. So what do we remember? But more importantly, Why do they want us to remember? “Those that control the past control the future” but what part does it play in the present? In the words of Spandau Ballet “To cut a long story short.”
The 80’s shaped today’s society. Some say the 80’s needed to happen after Labour Governments failings in the 1970’s Winter of Disconntent, IMF, 3 day weeks, people sick of seeing rubbish on the streets. Hence Thatcherism and all it’s social evils, Free Market capitalism benefited some and left millions on benefits.
The Trade Unions were beaten into submission during the Miners Strike, youth culture became business through the new enterprise capitalism. Credit turned Council houses into castles, left people as slaves to the wage, some lucky ones got their freedom when they sold their homes for huge profits, others ended up in the workhouse when theirs were re-possessed.
During the Thatcher regime Political activism grew e.g. Red Wedge, Stop The City, CND, Anti Poll Tax Demos. A reaction to the injustice of selfish monetary policy, but strong political force, prevented any protest damaging Thatcher’s New Right Government, any opposition was crushed by her claw.
The 90’s was about consolidating our new society and packaging it up in Celebrity, Complacency and Compliance, Citizens as consumers. A re-branded Great Britain where things could only get better. But that was then and this is now! So where do we go from here then, and how are we going to get there, if the 80’s had to happen because of the 70’s, what is going to be done about the state of the nation in the 00’s? What’s the plan? Another set of extreme measures me thinks, for a whole new set of problems that have grown out of the 80’s and 90's e.g. Climate change, pollution, all the waste of 80’s economic growth had to go somewhere, and that’s on top of the constant issues no matter what decade, with things such as low pay and high prices, crime, living standards, you know the usual things that ails a Capitalist state, the things that they’ve created or condoned. The Cold War has finished, now it’s the War on Terror. Our young people are killing each other with guns and knives and for some reason immigrants want to come and live in Britain. No doubt here in 2008 there will be people saying that we have returned to a time of Labour crisis; discontent in Public Sector over pay with first the Police and now the teachers going on strike. People unhappy with Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, credit crunch, high interest rates, increased cost of living, issues around immigration. Something old, something new, something borrowed something blue. Where’s the alternative? the opposition! New Labour and Conservative are one and the same a one party policy state, where it’s about containment and how to control the masses in this brave new world of theirs, with its high tech computers, genetic modifications and surveillance . As I’m thinking and typing this I can see many parallels with times that have gone I keep wanting to expand on points, and highlight them, but I’m starting to feel like I’m going to go round in circles if I do that, so I’m going to stop, unlike the world, politics and economics, which does go round in cycles. We need to remember that, and we also need to remember…fuck, forgotten what we need to remember, but it was along the lines of we are the opposition….we are growing in numbers…and they shouldn’t forget that…..and I wonder what people looking back will remember about the 00’s.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find that each generation surprises the previous one. I'm 42 and well remember 1979 onwards in terms of politics, music etc. I've seen The Clash and Crass. I'm amazed how orderly society seems to have become. We are all getting shafted by the politicans and their corporate mates and no-one seems to care. Or is protest just ignored by the media nowadays?

Anyway, I have a feeling that things will change and I hope they will because if you ask me there is nothing like some direct action (etc) to prove how healthy a democracy is. And ours isn't too healthy right now. Basically I think they had better because we seem to be reaching a point at which either people get off their backsides and start demanding the sort of society we want or we just become corporate, celebrity, consumer zombies.

Can you imagine what would happen in France if their government gave 50 billion to a load of bankers who essentially had allowed their own greed to get the better of them?

Great blog. Great music. Keep it up.

Anonymous said...

I read your BRILLIANT piece Nuzz and I am not ashamed to say that I wept. You put it better than I could- as you said, its so hard to address this issue without going round and round, forever expanding the theorys and coming back to old problems. This has been going on for longer than the 70's, and the problem is simple when you stand back and see the full picture, we are all controlled by a ONE PARTY STATE, where power is concentrated on a group of people pretending to offer us choice, when all they are doing is selling a lifestyle lie. The politicians are not even in charge- merely puppets of the giant corporations- who manipulate the laws to their own advantages, and have been selling us their planet- destroying, soul- destroying consumerism for a very long time (tupperware parties anyone?!!). The only answer now is direct action- and not in the weak- kneed liberal fashion we have seen recently (anti-war?? these people know nothing about real warfare)- we need to be strong and stand up, shout and scream, destroy all their happy, jolly consumerist crap and go back to the way we should be! DIRECT ACTION- REVOLUTION- DESTROY THE CAPITALIST CONSUMERIST SOCIETY WE HAVE FORCED UPON US!! COME ON PEOPLE- WHATS WRONG WITH YOU??!! YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED BY YOUR COMPLACENCY!

Nuzz Prowlin' Wolf said...

Nice one anon and chi, you guys'n'gals are obviously with the program, see you on the barricades, either that or the prison exercise yard when they bang us up for 42 days while trying to prove we're terrorists.`