This is another American political meme I found over at the Tumblr site, 1000 Natural Shocks (Over 18s only). I don’t know who the American Reformers are, but looking at the points on their meme, I’d say that they were similar to the Bernie Sanders’ radical Left of the Democrats, and wished to transform their country’s political system into something like that of Europe’s.
It’s clearly American, but there are some points which would definitely benefit our politics over here. For example:
* Ending gerrymandering
* Strengthening trade unions
* Dealing with student debt
* Ending lobbying (And not the pathetic deception Cameron pulled, which actually ended democratic access and strengthened the professional, corporate lobbyists)
* Raising the minimum wage.
* Shifting the tax burden fairly so that the rich pay their proper whack
* A proper commitment to the NHS: Reverse and end privatisation.
* Ending privately run prisons.
* Actually strengthening the welfare state, so that the sick, the disabled and the unemployed are genuinely supported.
* Make a secure commitment to genuine human rights. Retain membership of the EU and its human rights legislation. David Cameron wants to replace these with a far weaker version that would not give British citizens anywhere near the same level of protection.
* Make a genuine commitment to real environmental protection, including against flooding, rather than the derisory token gestures of Cameron’s cabinet.
* 50 per cent renewable energy over here sounds pretty good as well.
* Increased spending on infrastructure.
* Genuine, proper support for small businesses. Make sure the big boys pay their smaller contractors on time. This is driving many to the wall. The Tories have been putting it off since Major’s day. It’s time this ended.
This is another meme I found over at the Tumblr site, 1000 Natural Shocks (over 18s only). It breaks down just how much the tax paid by an American citizens making $50,000 a year is spent on welfare and subsidies for the rich and the big corporations.
As you can see, the amount spent on welfare is trivial. Far more is spent subsidizing the corporate rich. And the biggest amount is the tax burden caused by the rich using tax loopholes not to pay their fair share of the tax burden.
Mike and the Angry Yorkshireman have also put up memes on their sites, Vox Political and Another Angry Voice, also showing how the tax burden over here has been shifted onto the poor as successive Tory administrations since Thatcher have cut taxes for the rich. And under David Cameron, the tax burden on the poor for the benefit of the rich has increased massively, while welfare has been cut right, left and centre.
There’s been a whole book written about this subject: Take the Rich Off Welfare. And what adds insult to injury is that these are the same people, who stand up and declare themselves superior to everyone else, because they’ve made it by their own efforts in the free market. They haven’t. They’re just scroungers and hypocrites, taking money from those who really need money and welfare support. It’s time for them and their paid servants in politics, to be kicked off state support for good.
This is another piece I found over at the Tumblr site, 1000 Natural Shocks (over 18s only). It’s a banner telling the world exactly what Trump’s doing put up at a Trump rally by a group of High School pupils before they were thrown out. If you want to see the original piccie, it’s at http://greybeard55.tumblr.com/image/138740655755
It’s true, and if they’re studying politics, they should go to the top of the class.
This is another list I found on the Tumblr site, 1000 Natural Shocks, listing inventions and the Black people, who created them. If you want to see the original image, it’s at http://greybeard55.tumblr.com/image/138647095505. Be aware that it is an over 18 site, so no minors.
This is another piece about Trump’s terrible attitude to women. A former member of Trump’s campaign team in Iowa, Elizabeth Mae Davidson, has left it and is seeking advice from a civil rights organisation, citing The Donald’s sexism and refusal give women working for him equal pay to that of their male co-workers. She states that she was paid $2,000 a month, while the men, who were also working part-time for the campaign, were paid $3,500-$4,000. She also points out that sexism and negative attitudes towards women were rife in his company.
Cenk Uygur, the Turks’ anchor, points out that her statement about pay has yet to be ascertained legally. It is possible that she could ‘just be saying it’. But he points out that Trump and the Republicans do not want women to be paid equally. They reject it on the grounds that it’s just an excuse for women to sue corporations. Uygur makes the point that as a staffer for Trump, Davidson should have known this, and it should have come as no surprise when he did it to her.
Uygur also reports that when Davidson and another female activist met Trump, he said, ‘You guys could do a lot of damage.’ They thought at the time that he was referring to their looks. Trump, again, has laughed off this accusation, saying that ‘a lot worse could be said’, but denies he actually did so, stating that ‘it’s not in my vocabulary’. He has then gone on to make other comments and accusations against Davidson. One of them is that she behaved strangely when she was on campaign team, to the point where she started dressing as his wife.
Uygur has some sympathy for her position as a woman working for such a terrible man, who does see women simply as sex objects and doesn’t want them to have equality with the men in his organisations. But he criticises her for having the same selfish attitude to these issues that permeates all Republicans. The Republicans don’t care when the policies they advocate harm other people. Not when people are unable to feed themselves on their pay, find themselves discriminated against at work, or are shot down, assaulted and imprisoned by the cops for no reason whatsoever. This last is a reference to the racist shootings by police of unarmed Black men, which sparked the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests. In one of the most horrific incidents, a young boy was shot and killed, simply because he was playing with a toy gun. When incidents like these happen to other people, the Republicans simply shrug and say it doesn’t matter, because it didn’t happen to them. but when it does happen to them, there’s outrage.
Uygur’s entirely right about Trump’s horrendous attitude to women, and the way it’s firmly based in Republican attitudes to gender. The Republicans are very much in favour of traditional gender roles. Jerry Fallwell, the right-wing TV evangelist, first made his breakthrough into national US politics in the 1970s, when he led a campaign against the equal pay act. This was the piece of equalities legislation which gave American women the right to be paid the same as men for the same work. And the attitudes to women get more crazed and reactionary the further right you go. Ann Coulter, possibly the Republican’s most splenetic and venomous polemicists, has stated that she doesn’t think women should have the vote. Really. You can check it for yourself. Along with all the other insane and bigoted things she said. There’s whole lists of them on the Net and Youtube.
And these attitudes aren’t confined to America. They permeate UKIP over here, and you can find the same rants against equal pay and maternity leave for women, and flexible working hours to they could fit in their duties looking after their children, in the pages of the supposedly ‘female-friendly’ Daily Mail. They’ve also attacked equal pay legislation and campaigns as harmful to industry, alleging that such provision for maternity leave will make women employees less productive and more expensive to hire. They’ve then go on to argue that this will result in either less women being employed, or firms suffering economic damage from having to employ them and cater for their needs.
I found this meme about the Republicans’ appalling attitudes to women’s rights on the Tumblr site, 1,000 Natural Shocks. (Over 18s only). It probably refers principally to the most vociferously debated and obvious campaign against a recently won right for women, abortion. But it also describes pretty much their entire attitude to women’s rights as a whole, from working outside the home, equal pay, to the right to vote. And this is all despite the fact that the Republicans also have very powerful women on their side, like Coulter and Sarah Palin. And they are powerful, no matter what can be said about their own intelligence, sanity or the stupidity of their policies. But the danger is, for some reason people still continue voting for them.
I found this quote from John Steinbeck over on the Tumblr site 1000 Natural Shocks. (Over 18s only, I’m afraid). It’s a great quote, from one of the true titan of modern American literature.
It isn’t invariably true, but traditionally the poor have been more sympathetic to those in need, and had greater self-help networks in the form of friends and neighbours, who were prepared to help out, than the rich. One of my aunts grew up during the Great Depression. Her father was a staunch socialist of very left-wing views, who did take tramps back home to share a meal with himself and his family. I’ve heard of others doing the same as well.
Even now, findings indicate that the poor are more likely to give a greater part of their income to charity than the rich. It’s possibly one of the reasons, although it’s rarely mentioned or discussed, there are many victims of good, bourgeois, upper middle class homes who rebel and try to be working class. And its one of the reasons that the long, Neoliberal campaign to smash working class pride and communities is so despicable.
This another political meme I found over on the Tumblr site, 1000 Natural Shocks. It advocates strengthening the unions, and giving working people jobs and a proper, living wage, to restore America’s place in the world. The meme may come from the other side of the Pond, but it equally applies over here in Britain as well. And, apart from the country, there’s not a word I’d change.
Working people of all countries, unite!
If you want to look at the original, be aware that it is an over 18 site.
This is another great joke I found over on 1000 Natural Shocks on Tumblr. It’s photos from an American news programme, reporting that it was MLK Day, dedicated to the memory of the great civil rights leader. And Donald Trump’s poisonous counterpoint to the great man’s work, simply by being Donald Trump.
This is another meme I found over on the Tumblr site, 1000 Natural Shocks. (Over 18s only). It’s a counterblast to the Republicans’ claim that it’s only them, who are standing up for combat veterans against the evil Obama administration. This is a list of some of the bills to help wounded and mentally scarred soldiers that the Republicans have actually blocked over the past six years Obama’s been in office.
And Sarah Palin has the gall to say it’s all Obama’s fault that her ex-soldier son hit his girlfriend, because thanks to Obama, veterans aren’t respected.
This is another meme attacking Donald Trump I found over on the over 18 site 1000 Natural Shocks. It’s a quote from the great horror maestro, Stephen King, saying exactly what he thinks about the real, walking horror that is Donald Trump.
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