Poetry – Welcome to the New Slavery

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Welcome to the New Slavery

Welcome to the new slavery!

We work so that others might get paid!

The world is run for the few!

My – how they scream and shout

If you dare to suggest

That any other way will do!

‘It may not be perfect

But ‘the system’ is better than the rest!’

Bellow the media crew.

Shady people press the buttons

To nudge us towards what to believe.

They who own the media own us too.

Unseen fingers control the markets –

Buy and sell us for a song;

Laughing as they tighten the screw.

Dreams, like candy, are passed around

For us to suck in our sleep –

Telling us the lie that we can join them too.

But it’s an exclusive club

And they always guarded it well

So that their fortunes grew.

Trickle down is the new mantra

As they deceive with their lies

And keep us caged within this human zoo.

Opher 18.1.2016

Welcome to the New Slavery

I have arrived at the conclusion that everything we do is for the benefit of a few. We work and they cream off the profits. That is a form of slavery. We prostitute ourselves. We sell our time and bodies.

There are tiers. There are tears.

We are paid well in the west. Our unions have wrestled our wages and conditions out of the hands of the employers. They are not so lucky in the third world. Their labour is cheap, jobs few and numbers many. That is the ideal combination for the capitalist money makers. Those on the bottom tier live in poverty and are grateful for the crumbs.

The capitalists made the system that way.

We live in an age where we can vote on game shows but not on political issues. Democracy via representation is not democracy – not when our representatives can be lobbied, bribed and bought by the corporations.

Democracy is when the voice of the people is making the decisions. I might not like the decisions made by the majority. They might not be arrived at through intelligence or knowledge. They might be spurious, self-centred, ignorant and prejudiced. But I would prefer that to the way it is done right now – controlled by wealthy minds that put up the money for candidates and pull the strings for self-interest.

If I had a choice I’d prefer government through the people that via a small group of the wealthy. The problem then would merely be – who controls the media?

Zara Sultana – telling it like it is! The system is rigged! The rich are making a fortune out of covid.

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The system is rigged. Cronyism and corruption. There is exploitation and abuse. Millions are being put out of work. Food banks, homeless and desperate people while the rich minority prosper.

Something is very wrong with our society. Listen to Zara!

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Poetry – Profits from Misery

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Profits from Misery

They are selling condoms to paedophiles

So they don’t leave DNA.

They’re selling missiles to maniacs

Who have the means to pay.

We’re best friends with Saudi

And Assad’s not such a bad guy.

Profit – that’s the reason why.

We’re selling bullets to psychopaths

And thumb-screws to bully boys

As long as they’ve sufficient readies

To pay for all the toys.

Profit from misery

They do not give a damn.

Children play in sewage

When it’s part of their big plan.

Screams are just the background

To the purchase of another yacht.

 There are no holds barred.

They give it all they’ve got.

They’re selling bombs to the bastards

Who are murdering their own.

Electric prods to torturers

Who never act alone.

Stability’s the enemy –

That’s no fun.

You cannot make good money

If they’re not killing everyone.

Opher 10.1.2015

Profits from Misery

I got up in the middle of the night with these words ringing round my head. I wrote them down in the dark. They are better in the dark. The light of reality does not make happy reading.

This world is run by the big corporations for profit. They do not care about human suffering, the pillaging of nature, death, misery, rape, torture, slaughter or the devastation of the planet. All they care about is money.

It’s like a big computer game as they accrue their billions. Who has the best yacht? Who has the best penthouse suite? Who has the most wealth, most power, and most influence?

They bribe and control from afar. No government is immune. They fund the candidates they want elected. They buy up the media to tell us what to believe and who to vote for and they control the corruption of the establishment.

Lying if all part of their strategy.

They blow a country up so they can build it again and profit from the process. They gamble on the stock market throwing subsistence farmers into starvation to extract their crock of gold. They close factories to open elsewhere at cheaper wages and pay the minimum in order to extract the maximum. They bribe. They cheat. They corrupt. They lie. They create one big cycle of misery in which the 99.9% of us all swim.

Their faces are well hidden except when they buy a football club or two.

Poetry – Victims of Greed

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Victims of Greed

Acid skies and fermented seas,

Arid lands and drowned trees,

Whirling fury and the great freeze!

Millions of ears all deaf to pleas!

Etched away by dollar signs;

Sacrificed to grand designs.

Concrete piles in straight lines –

Plastic world – multitudes of crimes.

Bewildered beasts stumble in black smoke

Seeking refuge from hot winds that choke,

The carcinogenic rain in which they soak

And machete madness for their last stroke.

Majestic giants are toppled to earth,

Felled to the ground though so thick of girth,

Axed to death for all they are worth,

Victims of a plethora of births.

Opher – 1.1.2016

Victims of Greed

The big corporate capitalist machine goes forth in search of profit. Buying land to mine and fell and trinkets to sell. There is no law, rule or restriction that can withstand the power of the dollar or the lawyers command.

Armies of brains are deployed, politicians bribed, media purchased and opinions bought.

Sold down the river.

Fed with mindless popular culture entertainment until narcotised and catatonic.

The forests ripped and burnt. The air full of smoke. The wild-life butchered. Nature abused and raped.

Money made.

Progress.

A tiny few prosper from death, war, destruction, poverty and the devastation of the planet – making a tidy packet out of misery.

Trees topple as the future is sold.

Who profits from war?

Who profits from poverty?

Who profits from ecological disaster?

Who profits from killing the wild-life?

Who runs the big non-tax paying multinationals?

How is it cheaper to employ an army of lawyers than obey laws?

In whose interest is all this misery and destruction?

Who runs the show?

What will our grandchildren inherit?

Is this the world you want to live in?

Patriotism – Proud to be British???

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Patriotism – Proud to be British???

I am British.

So why do I feel so torn about my heritage, so conflicted?

Am I not proud to be British? To be the descendant of people from a tiny island who went forth to conquer the world and create the greatest Empire the world has ever seen?

At one time the British Empire ruled most of the globe. Our Kings and Queens ruled over the USA, Canada, Indonesia, The Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Africa, India, Pakistan, the Caribbean and the Falklands.

We were the supreme world power.

Yet, was this a good thing?

Was this anything to do with my kin?

I think not.

My people did not rule or create an empire. Neither did we benefit.

The empire was created by the establishment – the aristocracy and wealthy traders. They raised armies and navies and went forth to invade, capture and plunder. They set up companies to use indigenous people as cheap labour in order to harvest, mine and manufacture the goods that made them richer.

The wealth poured back from the empire but it did not find its way to the likes of us. We were every bit as abused as those indigenous people abroad.

My people were the poor working people. We were the ones pressganged into the navy, used as cannon fodder in the conquering armies, exploited at home in mines, factories and shipyards.

We lived in poverty and slums while the establishment built great mansions, with fancy carriages, banquets, balls, fine clothes and servants.

The empire was not of our doing, neither was it of benefit to the likes of us. Its foundation was based on racism, arrogance and superiority. It spawned slavery, greed, exploitation and division. It was based on might, force, violence and cruelty. It subjugated and controlled.

Am I supposed to feel proud about this?

No. I refuse.

I refuse to own this empire or take delight in its accomplishments.

But I am proud to be British.

I am proud of the working people who stood up against this establishment and fought for justice and freedom, for rights and fair conditions.

I am proud of the ones who fought for the right to vote, for fair government, fair pay, fair work conditions.

None of it was easily forthcoming.

It took time for men like me to be given the vote. It took even longer for women to be afforded the same.

It took blood and guts.

We formed unions, struck and starved, marched and were massacred, just so that we could be afforded fair pay and good work conditions. We fought for a better, fairer society and it had to be wrested by struggle and loss of life from the hands of the establishment.

So I am proud of those brave women and men and the sacrifices they made. I’m proud to be descended from them.

I look around at this society we have fought for. It is still not as good as it should be. There is still injustice and gross inequality, exploitation and slavery. I look at the wealthy becoming wealthier while people like me slave on zero-hours contracts for poverty wages.

There is still much that needs addressing.

So when it comes to patriotism I think it’s a con-trick.

I’m not going to wave my flag for the Queen or celebrate battles and empire.

I will stand up for the Diggers, for the Chartists and the victims of Peterloo.

They make me proud to be British.

Poetry – The British Empire

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The British Empire

From the shores of this small island,

Reaching out with armies to embrace the whole world,

From the Falklands, through the USA, Canada, the Caribbean,

Africa, India, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines

to Australia and New Zealand,

Great Britain ruled.

The greatest Empire the world has ever seen.

The tentacles of that empire

Probed, exploited, subjugated and menaced.

Its power was extent.

It sent forth its mighty navy.

It invaded, deposed and laid claim.

It deployed its superiority and arrogance

Through its technology and attitude.

A sense of privilege and worth,

It conquered,

Divided and ruled.

With armies of bureaucrats it controlled.

It plundered the world

Bringing back the spoils

To build its stately homes,

To finance its servants and lavish lifestyle,

With fashion, banquets and balls.

To finance its great armies

And maintain its domination.

Yet little, if any, of this vast plunder

Was wasted on the populace of Great Britain.

The public were sentenced to poverty,

Gruelling labour in field and factory,

A life of penury with great penalty

And heartless application

Should they rebel,

Or question their position.

For we were the cannon fodder,

Worthless, expendable,

Without a vote,

No power and no hope.

Brainwashed in schools

To worship mighty God,

King and country

And wave our union jacks on Empire day.

The Empire was a product of the elite,

For the benefit of the elite.

While we, the people, were exploited

As heartlessly as any slaves.

The British Empire

Swaddled the world in pink.

It should have been red –

Red with the blood

The blood of ordinary folk,

Of battlefields,

Of the whipped slaves in the sugar plantations!

Or at least blue with aristocratic blood,

The blue blood of arrogant rulers,

Of those who populated the Public Schools

And assumed superiority.

But it was pink.

The delicate feminine colour

Of charm and romance.

A disguise

For a sinister vehicle of oppression,

Within and without.

All Empires crumble.

But the same privileged elite

Maintain their position,

Deploy their power

And still reign supreme.

Opher – 29.12.2020

Thus it is everywhere to this day. Just because the Empires are less obvious does not mean they do not exist or are not as ruthless. Privilege maintains privilege. Equality is a myth

Plantation House in Louisiana

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There was incredible wealth to be made from these huge plantations. Slavery created wealth.

It’s a different type of slavery now but we’re still being exploited and the same level of inequality thrives.

Poetry – Birth

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Birth

 

Genocide, larceny and slavery

The founding of a nation.

The red man and the black man

Exploitation, extermination.

 

Looking for a new life

Full of arrogant superiority.

With guns, whips and slipknots,

Possessing wealth the priority.

 

Born through rites of murder

And heartless cruelty;

Hypocrisy and fear;

Evading all penalty.

 

Hundreds of years have passed

But the attitude persists.

Throttling the very necks

Of anyone who resists.

 

Time to put it right

To make positive what might be.

To respect each other –

With a new era of equality.

 

Opher – 3.5.2020

Inequality – The factor that fuels discontent, hatred and terrorism.

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tortured cover

While a tiny minority in the West live in opulence billions of others around the world live in squalor, poverty and despair.

This inequality is what is fuelling terrorism, mass migration and hatred.

It needs addressing.

When you have nothing you have nothing to lose. When there are no jobs and no hope what is there to look forward to? When your children are dying of disease and malnutrition while others are indulging in undreamt-of extravagance it must fill you with hatred.

People who are desperate turn to fanatical religions, extreme politics, mass migration, war and are traumatised by their experience. To them horrendous death is a daily occurrence. Why not?

The average income of the top FTSE 100 executives in Britain is £14,000,000

The average income in Britain is £27,000

A top executive earns 183 times the income of the average worker.

Some executives are earning in excess of £14,000,000 (How many lottery wins is that a year?)

A miner working at the coal-face, covered in coal-dust at temperatures of 38 degrees will earn £40,000 (And are worth every penny of it).

A registered nurse will start at £21,500 (And should be paid double).

In China the average yearly income is £3210.

In Zimbabwe the average yearly income is only £1,950.

The two richest people in the world (Bill Gates – worth $79,000,000,000 and Carlos Slim Helu – worth $77,000,000,000) are worth more than entire countries. It is my contention that nobody could ‘earn’ that sort of wealth. They have accrued that by exploiting others.

It is my belief that until this inequality within Britain and all around the world is addressed we will have war, terrorism, mass migration and hatred. If you stop and think about the consequences of this exploitation it is unacceptable. What would you say to the mother who has just buried her baby?

Accruing huge wealth is a sickness. Inequality is a disease.