[g8-sheffield] (no subject)

[worldwarfree at riseup.net]

Don't let em bring in the cleansing machines!
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Hello this first apperd on the sf list.. so why here? read and i hope it will
become revelent as to why.. plus we hope it to become a full aritcal in time..
so please read add coments etc..

mozaz:

Don't let em bring in the cleansing machines!

How do we tackle both Global Capitalism while simultaneously having to deal with
worsening antisocial situations taking place directly around us? Though
inextricably linked, maybe we should just concentrate on one issue or the other
BUT somehow together.


This is the first time I've posted to the Social Forum list (where this bagan
life) because I feel that at present, left-leaning political thinkers (perhaps
other than here) appear to concentrate on globalisation: how we are affected by
what's happening overseas and the way we, as the privileged few, perpetuate it;
Meanwhile, the reactionary right deliver a two-pronged attack instead - dealing
their political card upon the poorest and uneducated communities (Bee En Pee)
while those lucky enough to enjoy the privileges of living in the UK(ip) and
the luxury of hypocrisy they'd have to forfeit, fear the nightmare of global
equality becoming a reality..


Reason I'm writing this is because I'm finding that my patience and empathy
towards others, important values for any human, are being tested a bit too much
just now, to the point where my problems are making me question my beliefs.
Whlie i know that poverty is the root cause to the daily shit we encounter, i'm
often left torn between feelings of compassion towards people who's social
problems impact upon myself and cursing the authorities to provide some "social
cleansing".


Unfortunatley, i think that the rightees end up relating to people more than the
leftees do. Maybe. someone can correct me on that. Okay, it's people's ignorance
thru lack of education, ultimately caused by poverty, that finds a connection
with right wing solutions to society. At the risk of being a little negative, I
think we need to consider: how come the left's ideas don't appeal to working
class povs as much as the reactionary right does?


Some stuff I've found myself burdened with on a domestic level has recently made
me think that the right sometimes makes as much sense as the left - obviously i
wouldn't agree with ethnocide or cleansing of the handicapped and disabled. But
then again I feel that the left's obsession with international affairs at the
expense of local issues affecting people's traditions, however backward some
may be, is likely to create a void presently being filled by quick fix "don't
tell em the whole truth about yer politcs" reactionaries


Bringing an experience of my own into play here, I have a nuisance neighbour
that's bothered me for the last 35 months. Despite my complaints to the
appropriate authorities and efforts I've made to get help for her to hopefully
resolve the situation, this has resulted in nothing but misery for all. She's
an ex-crack whore, bringing all those problems back home above my ceiling and
into the wider communal areas of the flats, constant activity during the dead
of night due to her mental health issues, and then, since the end of 2003 it's
culminated into a full-on aural assault where the whole area is being subjected
to a disturbing display of a 40 year old woman pretty much losing it in public
and letting everyone else know about it. She's not been able to access
apropriate help and her behaviour has impacted on so many others around her.


Apart from moving out ages ago, which has got to be the sensible option here, I
seem to have chosen the non-sensible option of banging my head repeatedly
against the wall (metaphorically speaking) in an attempt to get the social
services and any of the other agencies to intervene on her behalf, which in
turn will give the rest of us some peace while allowing her to at least be
given the chance to live - instead of just existing like a member of the living
dead!


I'm taking a long time to say what i need to say here and obviously the above
episode is something i can't pass by so easily as someone who, say, happens to
notice it on their way to the office. So, in this modern world, I've taken the
nonsensible option of trying to help (and there are certainly great lessons to
be learn't in defeat!) a person rather than just trying to get her evicted
without also exercising my social conscience. Mental health services won't help
someone however much they may need it if that person won't accept their help,
this leaves the option of sectioning her but I feel her mental health team
won't section her because she is black/mixed ethnicity and throughout the
decades there has been a disproportionate amount of black people put into care.
Political correctness has ultimately failed this woman who's been left to it for
so much of her life (long before i started living there 5+ years ago)


Maybe she's just being dealt with in a care in the community way that affects
anyone with such problems, black or white. If you can handle yourself, just
about, you'll be left to it. But she hasn't been handling it,and has now
flipped (or least over the last year+). Her self-denial towards those who
supposedly can help her while simultaneously crying out for help for her (or
for someone to come and bludgeon her, one or the other!) is obviously not being
read by the professionals as this person needs intervention for reasons I can
only think are because of the claimant litigation culture we've inherited from
the US. Either that or she's beyond help and services see too much risk
involved


The safety net system is no longer in place in society and has been replaced by
legal measures involving much of public sector worktime being devoted to
assessing how sueable their service is, and how risky (costly) a client will
be. Litigation society feeds so efficiently on the removal of essential
services, chasing itself round and round distracting everyone by how
profitable, while ultimately so redundant, such a system is. The film Devils
Advocate seems to sum up quite well where we're at now that the world belongs
to the lawyers and crooks (one and the same)


Meantime, while we're waiting for it all to go belly up, how about sorting our
own backyard out something we'll have to do sooner or later whether global
capitalism continues or not.


I'm trying to get a point across towards the end of this email that if your team
wins all its games abroad, you may well become champions but in all probability,
you'll let your homes fans down


The body keeps on rotting, as the soul dies...



(follow up to "Cleansing Machines")



I don't want to sound like i've got some sympathy here with dodgy "Let God sort
'em out" politics. But on my previous post on here i raised the question of
there not being enough social services provision available for an overwhelming
amount of "need". The "needy" being those users of the services because of the
social problems they happen to have.


In this follow up, i'm not so much rethinking my views as reasserting the crux
of the problem. For me, in my small world but also in view of the bigger
picture, that problem centres around drugs.


Previously, my utterings about living in the flat beneath a woman with a long
history of hard drug use who's reality has become totally out of control... i
laid some of the blame on her mental health team for not intervening and
allowing her to go ever so gradually downhill. Sectioning someone who obviously
is in such a distressed state (but who so obviously does NOT want that form of
conditional help) was probably a bit naive on my part. Looking at this ongoing
situation realistically, i can confirm she IS asking for help (she's often
heard asking, shouting/screaming for help) but is so far in her own hell that
she can not find the help she needs except for in the form of a bottle, a
punter, a phone call to her dealer - In short a multitide of addictions.


"Days reduced to nothing, only desire is to feed. Satiate the craving and let
the cancers breed".


The offy is open all the time and dealers at the end of the phone work just
about flexi-time, even on bank holidays. Social services may be supplied
courtesy of the taxpayer on behalf of the NHS but you have to wait a couple of
weeks for an assessment. Even on an emergency basis you're left waiting for 6
hours or something for the out-of-hours team (and like anyone knows even with
something "physical" like an achey-leg, once you get into the doctors sugery -
the pain soon dissappears). Meanwhile, around the corner, the 24hr so-near-so
SPAR offers ongoing therapy and medication needs to the tune of whatever you
have left in your pocket.


"A life spent consuming poisons - the slow suicide of modern man".


So, (apologies if this is just seen as a rant, using up time and spamming the
list...) my question has become more of a Do People Really Want Help or Are
They Happy In Their Shit? more than Why Isn't Someone Doing Something To Help
Them, anyway. It's probably always been the case that people can only help
themselves, just that i haven't always been around, so i come to the conclusion
that Thatcherist-age consumerism is responsible for the miserable-age that many
of us are presently living in.


Peoples' lives have been reduced to a plastic "half life",


forced to inhabit a world of mindless trends. This is especially true for those
who don't have any stake or security in this world - their particular mindless
trend ends up being the most self destructive. I feel, there is an hipocrisy
here in that those who do have a stake and interest in this society are
dabbling in the same poisonous shit as those underclass, except that they have
comfort and security (luxury and hipocrisy). Of course, we're all as bad as
each other, consuming the same crap but some come off worse than others. In all
this we have to realise that most homeless people would, given the chance, leave
their life of struggling to scrape a few quid together to buy sore more shit AND
INSTEAD swap it for a life where they felt more in control, where they could
consume probably more alcohol and stuff but in a safer, hypocritical
environment (with a few cars thrown in there, etc.)



"The followers of false leaders, have chosen the easiest course".


Surrendering our personal autonomy to a State, a doctor, a psychotherapist, etc.
stops us having to think. Maybe the more professionals a society has, then the
more dumbed down the general populace becomes. It helps if those professionals
keep it real though and understand where the plebs are coming from, taking into
account all the genuine concerns, misconceptions, even superstitions that these
plebs so often have - unenlightened, uneducated and impoverished that they are.


Maybe, a lot of people who find themselves in circumstances of homelessness,
substance addiction, etc. don't want the big house, big car and expendable
income. Maybe they've partly got into the lower rungs of society because
they're rejecting the shit that we all know is shit. Unfortuantely they become
even bigger victims of the consumerist shit machine, choosing a form of "slow
suicide" where in actual fact they may want to live but, not in this present
society. Their choice leaves them to hang around, waiting perhaps for change to
come from above (i do agree that this is how society will affect social change,
i.e. change from above) and, ultimately, their bodies live on rotting as their
souls die.


"It's your life it's your choice, to hock your gems for rocks and dust. And I
can't blame you for your utter weakness. But you can't blame me for my disgust"


I don't really get off on this whole negative writing experience and do feel
that one thing we can do is make ethical choices for our consumer needs. There,
that feels positive! here's another:


"Maybe, its not too late To learn how to love And forget how to hate"


The quotes throughout this 'rant' are lyrics taken from Path Of Resistance's
"Who Dares Wins" LP on Victory Records (sounds dodgy but trust me, we're not
talking Blood and Honour stuff here!)


Except for the last quote which is taken from Ozzy's "Crazy Train"