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F R E N D Z of martian
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'less progressive' ?
The UK I don't think is any different from anywhere else in the respect of
'people keeping their heads down', this happens in a lot of countries I
reckon. The key problem is that the employers (especially in some senses
the small to medium sized ones) know that their employees are 'scared of
loosing their jobs'. This is because people will sit and moan and groan
about their salaries, the conditions of employment, some (all too often)
utterly incapable manager (who's main attribute is being mates with someone
in more senior management or simply having the biggest mouth) but in order
to make a stand against anything, change anything, you have to be willing to
sacrifice yourself to do so - and this means threatening to resign and
meaning it; and doing it if nothing happens.
Now obviously this is very easy to say and a lot more difficult to do and
this is exactly the thing that the management know. In my opinion the key
thing that Thatcher changed in the Eighties was the promotion of the idea of
so called 'personal freedom' as a consumer - this means our freedom to buy
cars on HP, our freedom to have lots of credit and store cards, our freedom
to get 95% or higher mortgages that rely on both partners working to feed
the loan, our freedom to have both partners working, but also have children,
private medical care, etc. etc. This means that lots of people now are 'too
scared' to threaten to quit their jobs as they are totally caught by the
short and curlies by the same system that promised them 'freedom to
choose' - this freedom is ultimately the complete opposite.
People get paid shit wages here in Spain. The average office worker between
18 and 30 gets less than 600 pounds a month, some people earn barely four
hundred and the minimum wage is around 280 per month. I live in Barcelona
and a half-decent flat (say 35-45 square metres) will cost you about
40,000 - anything decent for two people, in a not bad area, upwards of
80,000 pounds - okay, this is cheaper than London - but the same problems
exist for everybody. There's no way to get a mortgage for 40,000 pounds on
600 pounds a month. Also, most employers put people on continuously
renewable contracts, ensuring that any benefits are avoided. The unions are
still strong because I suppose the people need them - I think the old right
of civil protest is still perfectly acceptable and people do it a lot. Not
that this necessarily changes the government's (conservatives) attitude.
BTW. One of the president's (Jos� Maria Aznar) main influences of his
modern centralist-popularism is the UK's dearly beloved Tony Blair - the
differences between political parties are fading.
Yes it could be much, much worse than here or in the UK, easily - we have
generally speaking very reasonable lives in comparison with a large
proportion of the world. We are 'permitted' in the UK to 'dress in peculiar
ways' and live an 'alternative' lifestyle in the comfortable cradle of an
understanding society - people may not see it as an understanding society,
but the level of tolerance in the UK is very great indeed, though not as
high I think as in other countries of the EC. We are the products,
prot�g�es and victims of consumerism all at the same time, it protects us
and allows us to berate it. It doesn't like being berated, but it tolerates
it to an extent because this very attacking of it is a symbol of its
supposed success and freedom of expression.
Mike.
-----Mensaje original-----
De: Neil Elkins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Enviado el: 02 May 2001 11:50
Para: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Asunto: RE: for those of us who can't be there...
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F R E N D Z of martian
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My answer (and probably an overly simple one, to be honest) is that we have
a slightly different attitude about work drummed into us from an early age
than other, less progressive economies - basically that a job is a
priviledge, rather than a right or whatever, so workers rights are shakier
here and people just tend to keep their heads down because they're scared of
losing their jobs, and hey, it could be worse. Pretty much what Thatcher
wanted us all to think, basically...
Just look at what happened when Marks and Spencer tried to close down their
shops in France - the law wouldn't allow them to lay off all those people
redundant at such short notice.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Harris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 02 May 2001 10:26
To: multiple recipients of
Subject: RE: for those of us who can't be there...
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F R E N D Z of martian
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Well it did make national news headlines in Spain. It was quite bizarre to
watch as the pictures of the protests in Spain we full of large marches of
the two main unions here, in around about five or six of the main cities - a
sight I don't think seen on the shores of Great Britain for quite a while.
Then switching to the UK, we saw lots of colourful characters generally
looking like they were having fun, until the point that the police started
to beat them up - which the news-reader did comment on the overly strong
response from the UK police - not a union in sight though - or did they miss
that bit? - and not enough burning of the stars and stripes and the
ubiquitous McDonalds flag - seemed to be well up for that in South Korea and
Australia.
What is different about the UK is that in most countries, pro-worker or
anti-capitalism/consumerism/globalisation/Americanisation protests seem to
be the area of Unions and students, in the UK this isn't the case at all.
Funny to see pictures of Cuba, where the horrible communist bay of Mexico
outpost we calmly and collectively listening to Fidel Castro rant on about
those bastard Americans and the like. Seemed a lot less barbaric than the
demonstrations of the democratic West and other westernised parts .....
Mike.
-----Mensaje original-----
De: Martin Cosgrave [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]En nombre de Martin
Cosgrave
Enviado el: 01 May 2001 19:16
Para: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Asunto: Re: for those of us who can't be there...
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F R E N D Z of martian
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Hmm, first chance I've had to look; several cameras turned off...
*loads* of meat wagons in Oxford Circus at the fujiint camera
bastard media never mentioned that it was *a game* - blithely saying
that cyclists had gone from Liverpool St to Euston without pointing
out that they were playing fucking monopoly...
not good to see riotous protesters actually being fluffy I guess - the
public would get the 'wrong' idea
AFAIK the ppl on foot were playing monopoly with the property bits and
critical mass were doing the stations
martian
On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 04:16:51PM +0100, Neil Elkins wrote:
> ---
> F R E N D Z of martian
> ---
>
> That site seems to have gone down, since The Register linked to it.
>
> See. Capitalism doesn't work.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vince Hoffman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: 01 May 2001 15:25
> To: multiple recipients of
> Subject: RE: for those of us who can't be there...
>
>
> ---
> F R E N D Z of martian
> ---
> and these are ok too http://www.userfrenzy.com/ruckcam/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Ayres [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: 01 May 2001 15:23
> To: multiple recipients of
> Subject: for those of us who can't be there...
>
>
> ---
> F R E N D Z of martian
> ---
>
> CCTV footage of Oxford Circus RIGHT NOW! (Mayday, etc.)
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/londonlive/travelandweather/cctv/campop040247.html
>
> ---
> Richard Ayres
> Developer
> Circle.com
> PGP Key: 0x687DC70E
>
>
> --
> Sent to you via the frendz list at marsbard.com
>
> The archive is at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
>
>
> --
> Sent to you via the frendz list at marsbard.com
>
> The archive is at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
>
>
> --
> Sent to you via the frendz list at marsbard.com
>
> The archive is at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
--
Martin Cosgrave, Chief Technical Officer, AppDev Ltd.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://appdev.co.uk
0117 902 3143
07971 987 428
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