The Right To Vote is not a Right!!

Posted on by Opher

There is no right to vote!

That ‘right’ was clawed out of the hands of the wealthy through blood.

Your ancestors fought for that ‘right’.

The King had the only voting rights.

Then he gave it to his Barons as well.

Then they allowed wealthy land owners to vote.

The CHARTISTS held rallies and were beaten, charged by cavalry and killed.

After huge protest with much bloodshed they had to give in. Reluctantly they gave others the ‘right’.

First they conceded to give votes to men over 21 who owned property.

1832 men had the vote.

Women were still considered unworthy. The Suffragettes fought a brave and bloody campaign. More blood. More death.

It wasn’t until 1928 that finally men and women could finally vote!

The History of Voting Rights in the United Kingdom

WHAT WAS SO RELUCTANTLY GIVEN CAN BE EASILY TAKEN AWAY!!

VOTE!!

Your vote was paid for with blood, torture and death. Use it!

Vote out Nazis!!

Not Representing British Values at all!!

Posted on by Opher

My view of what British values really are are the exact opposite of the fascist thugs of Farage/Robinson’s army.

In my opinion the ERG, Braverman, Rees-Mogg, Patel and Farage and the others, have spent fourteen years scapegoating immigrants as they lined their own pockets, robbed the public services and put millions into the pockets of their chums.

Blaming immigrants has been the diversion.

Brexit and the constant stream of propaganda from the likes of the Daily Mail and Daily Express has poisoned the minds of the British public and empowered racists and far-right nationalists.

It isn’t the immigrants who have made the poor poorer – that is austerity and deliberate Tory policy!!

The poor have been brainwashed and conned!

British values have always been standing up for fairness, tolerance, equality and the underdog. That’s what the chartists, Tolpuddle martyrs, suffragettes, Swing followers and all those working people who stood up and fought for social justice stood for. They didn’t tolerate fascists and racists!!

What has gone wrong with our political awareness??

Posted on by Opher

Back in my days as a student, back in 1966-71 I used to take on a Summer job working for the council as a road sweeper. All the street cleaners, bin men and other council workers used to meet up for an extended break every day. It was full of intense knowledgeable debate and argument. They knew their stuff. They were incredibly knowledgeable about the social history of Britain and Europe. They mocked me because I knew so little about the Suffragettes, Tolpuddle Martyrs, Swing riots, Diggers, Chartists and Peterloo massacre. They called me ignorant college boy and instructed me to read CP Snow’s Corridors of Power and The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. They knew that the establishment had long fought to suppress worker’s rights, pay and voting. They knew all the extremes that had taken place to suppress working people. They knew that every right had been fought for and that if they didn’t fight to keep those rights they would lose them.

What they wanted was a fairer, more equal society, where people were properly rewarded for their efforts and all the money and rights was not going to the wealthy elite. They well knew their social history and could relate it to present society. They knew that people had fought and died for their rights. They never wasted a vote. They were ordinary people, not greatly educated, but alive and aware. Their minds were alert and lively. They certainly taught me a lot.

Freedom has to be defended strongly or it is eroded. The greedy will always steal more if they can. They want a stupid, uneducated and gullible workforce to exploit.

What has gone wrong with our political awareness??

What the Tory Party mean to me and why some working people vote for them

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My thoughts on what the Tory Party mean to me can be summed up in two words – Unbridled Greed.

The think they are naturally superior and so deserve a far bigger slice of the cake than the plebs. They remind me of that incredibly annoying advert where the girl says ‘Because I’m Worth it!’

Why do some working people vote for them? I am told it’s aspiration. They aspire to be rich and earn millions.

I think that’s partly true. I see it like the daft American Dream – they are happy being poor and exploited, being shafted on pay so that they live in squalid conditions, because, one day, they hope to be the one doing the exploiting. It’s a bit like slaves aspiring to be slave owners.

It’s a view I find repulsive.

In my view the cake is big enough for us all to have a great share if it was spread more evenly.

Back in the day when men and women were fighting and dying for the right to vote, the Tory Establishment thought they would never stand a chance of being voted into power. They only represented 5% of the population. What they quickly did was take over the media and brainwash the population.

I think that working people vote Tory because they are told to. They are told that a socialist alternative would be like Stalinist Russia. The media are good at lying.

Voting Tory, in my mind, is an insult to the Suffragettes and Chartists who died to give us the vote.

What Did Women Win In Britain A Hundred Years Ago?

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I find it rather salutary to look at the lists of countries and when they gave the vote to women. For many it was not until the mid 20th Century or even later. Women have only been considered equal to men in many places for a mere fifty years. That seems incredible to me.

In Britain after campaigns that ran for around a hundred years the Suffragists and Suffragettes finally won limited suffrage. It was a hard-fought battle. Many women failed to support the movement and described women who were fighting for the right to vote as lunatics.

It was not a complete victory in 1918. Women were reluctantly given the right to vote – but only those who were over thirty years old and were property owners (around 6 million). So what was the idea behind that? To eliminate the uneducated and poor? To give he vote only to the rich, middle and upper classes?

It wasn’t until 1928 that this was extended to all women over the age of twenty one.

Emmeline Pankhurst Quotes – Suffragettes fighting for equality

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Emmeline Pankhurst Quotes – Suffragettes fighting for equality.

Emmeline believed in equality and wanted the vote for women. She believed in justice so strongly that she was prepared for civil disobedience and even damage to property to force people to take notice. She was prepared to suffer and go to prison for her beliefs. She was a woman of great courage.

suffragettes-annie_kenney_and_christabel_pankhurst

The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.
 Nobody listens until you force them to.
Justice and judgment lie often a world apart.
The law is not fair. It is merely a legal system There is not justice in it.
Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who withholds his or her consent.
If a person is determined you can torture or kill them but you cannot force them, deep inside, to agree with you. You merely provoke lip-service.
Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. They have decided that it is entirely right and proper for men to fight for their liberties and their rights, but that it is not right and proper for women to fight for theirs.
All people are equal. The rights of all have to be upheld.
My parents, especially my father, discussed the question of my brothers’ education as a matter of real importance. My education and that of my sister were scarcely discussed at all.
Education is the basis of freedom and democracy. The education of women is of utmost importance. We need women fully present in all positions of power and decision making. Societies and religions that suppress women are barbaric.

Emmeline Pankhurst Quotes – Suffragettes fighting for equality.

Posted on by Opher

Emmeline believed in equality and wanted the vote for women. She believed in justice so strongly that she was prepared for civil disobedience and even damage to property to force people to take notice. She was prepared to suffer and go to prison for her beliefs. She was a woman of great courage.

suffragettes-annie_kenney_and_christabel_pankhurst

The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.
 Nobody listens until you force them to.
Justice and judgment lie often a world apart.
The law is not fair. It is merely a legal system There is not justice in it.
Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who withholds his or her consent.
If a person is determined you can torture or kill them but you cannot force them, deep inside, to agree with you. You merely provoke lip-service.
Men make the moral code and they expect women to accept it. They have decided that it is entirely right and proper for men to fight for their liberties and their rights, but that it is not right and proper for women to fight for theirs.
All people are equal. The rights of all have to be upheld.
My parents, especially my father, discussed the question of my brothers’ education as a matter of real importance. My education and that of my sister were scarcely discussed at all.
Education is the basis of freedom and democracy. The education of women is of utmost importance. We need women fully present in all positions of power and decision making. Societies and religions that suppress women are barbaric.

Poetry – I Have Rights – a homage to the Suffragettes.

Posted on by Opher

DSC_0812

I Have Rights

I wrote this after going to see the film ‘The Suffragettes’.

I was surprised to find that women were not given the vote in Switzerland until 1974. I was not surprised to see that equality is only now being considered in Saudi Arabia in 2015.

In Britain we have had a long history of social reform. Our children no longer are forced to work in factories, down mines or on the land. They are all afforded education. All our population over the age of eighteen can vote. We have laws on racial equality. Slavery was abolished. We have regulations concerning employment rights and health and safety legislation.

Nothing was ever conceded without a struggle. Our rights and freedoms have been well paid for in blood, torture and death. The establishment, who control the media, were always quick to put forward the case against reform and whip up hysteria and doubt. They have never been slow to claim that to bring in reform will undo us all. They have always been proved wrong.

Our rights, freedoms and social reforms are precious because they were wrested from the powerful through the spilling of much blood by determined, brave and resolute people.

We should be watchful; they are easily eroded in the name of security and the needs of the economy. In practice this usually means the interests of the powerful, wealthy members of the establishment.
I Have Rights

 

I have rights

Set in blood

We shall win

 

I am equal

Set in blood

We shall win

 

I am free

Set in blood

I shall win

 

We have fought

Set in blood

We shall win

 

What we have

Has been paid for

In full.

 

What we have

Can be taken back

Easily.

 

Our rights, our freedoms and our equality

Are worthy of the blood

Lest we forget.

 

Opher 13.10.2015

Democracy – The long and often bloody fight for freedom – The Suffragettes.

Posted on by Opher

Suffragettes -Annie_Kenney_and_Christabel_Pankhurst
Suffrage is the right to vote. The use of the term suffragette was introduced to be derogatory to women supporters of the right for females to vote and be equal to men.
A novel idea only a hundred years ago.
Many women wanted to have the vote. And they fought for it.
If anyone is in any doubt as to the strength, resolve, intelligence, bravery and resilience of women they only have to look at the history and actions of the British suffragettes. They were no dainty feminine flowers to be pushed around. They stood their ground and fought for their rights with all the fierceness and strength of mountain lions. There was no way they were going to back down or lose. Strangely the suffragettes were largely from the middle-classes and upper classes. The grinding poverty of the working classes was probably a factor in deterring them from becoming involved in the struggle. But the suffragettes knew how to organise.
They wanted the vote and they got it.
The tactics were active and sometimes violent. They used hunger strikes, chaining themselves to railings, arson and destroying mailboxes. Whatever it took to raise awareness. Emily Davidson threw herself under the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby and was killed.
Women were arrested and force-fed.
Emmeline Pankhurst was responsible for developing these militant tactics and refused to back down.
The supposed case against giving women the vote was that they were too emotional. Prime Minister Asquith changed his mind about supporting the vote for women because he thought they might vote against him. The establishment did not want democracy. It threatened their wealth and power.
The First World War intervened and the involvement of women on the home-front doing the work of their absent men forced the issue. In 1918 men over the age of twenty one were given the vote and women over the age of thirty (with caveats about owning property).
It was not until as late as 1928 that women over the age of twenty one were given the vote.

Every concession has been hard fought for and equality was a long time coming – it hasn’t even arrived yet!