After The Strike

So, was it a 'damp squib', as David Cameron would have everyone believe? Well, for those of us who took part in yesterday's day of action, it certainly didn't feel that way. According to Tory propaganda, services weren't as badly affected as feared, there were no significant delays at Heathrow airport, for instance - which the media gleefully reported over and over again. What you have to remember here is that the government and their media lackeys had spent days ramping up the spectre of massive disruption as the result off the strike, so that any level of actual disruption on the day would seem minuscule in comparison, allowing the government to brand the whole strike a failure. The reality, of course, is that causing disruption was never the point of the strike. The point was to make a clear statement to the government over the pensions issue, to demonstrate the strength of our feelings, and, hopefully, to force them into proper talks.

It's also worth comparing my personal experience of public reaction to the strike and the way in which it was reported by the media. Here in Crapchester, most people were pretty supportive. OK, you had the odd wanker shouting abuse - usually taxi drivers, who are mainly Nazis anyway - and quite a few who didn't have the balls even to shout abuse, but instead rather pathetically flicked V-signs at us. However, to watch that evening's edition of our local BBC news programme, you'd have thought that people had been spitting at us in the street and hurling bricks. They seemed to have gone out of their way to interview only those members of the public opposed to the strike, (or maybe they did have positive reactions, but just chose not to broadcast them). Significantly, I thought, the interviews from Crapchester all seem to have been recorded some time after the march through the town, and involved people who hadn't seen it first hand. To be sure, there were no BBC cameras or reporters in evidence during the march and rally.

As for Jeremy Clarkson, I have no intention of getting embroiled in the nonsense surrounding his supposedly humourous comments about shooting strikers on the BBC yesterday. The overreaction to it in some quarters relay doesn't help our cause and simply gives him the publicity he craves. Look, at best he's an oaf, at worst a cunt. Either way, his opinions are of little consequence. But talking of oafish cunts, one of the pillocks the BBC used in its Tory propaganda, sorry, fair and balanced reporting of the local strike action, really got my goat with a particularly moronic comment that he clearly thought was incredibly clever. He trotted out that old standard of the reactionary right wing cretin: "We pay their wages, so should just go back to work!" Where to start with such idiocy? Well, I don't know where that particular dipshit works, but let's say, for the sake of argument, he works in a bank. Now, how does a bank make its money? By using the money I (amongst others) deposit it there to lend to other individuals and businesses and charging them interest. Also by charging for transactions involving the money I deposit there. So, quite clearly, I'm paying his wages. It would be the same if he worked in a shop, or a factory, for instance - his wages would come from the money spent by others (civil servants included) buying his stock or products. We all pay each other's wages - it's how capitalism works, fuckwit. Which leads me ask, why weren't you at work you bald bastard? Why were you on the street talking to a TV reporter? I pay your wages for fuck's sake. Get back to bloody work!