Beggars on the Underground

"There are beggars and buskers operating on this train - do not encourage them by supporting them". Oh and while you're at it, you see that little old lady that keeps smiling at you when you look up? Give her a good ol' kick and take her purse. It's a 'dog-eat-dog world' out there, every man or beaten up little old lady for themselves. After all, beggars and buskers only want money to score crack, buy beer and generally make others feel bad; they don't want shelter, safety and hot food... one moment, I think we've taken a wrong turn somewhere here.

So these guys, these often homeless and almost certainly penniless guys, they're the outlaws? They're the ones to be spat at? Interesting that... and those heroic individuals urging us to not help desperate individuals in need must be the good guys! Its difficult to know what stand to take here. If I were to say 'up yours, London Underground' and give this beggar sniffing at my shoe a fiver then I would likely be shunned along with my new friend; but if I were to ignore him, or her of course, entirely then I would be with the soulless majority. And therein lies the problem... the soulless majority.

Maybe soulless is a bit extreme... in most cases anyway. But if this is the way we are running our city society then what help is there for the bottom rung. I know that 'animal instinct is survival of the fittest' and all that crap but aren't we, through having higher learnt than unlearnt behaviour, supposed to have evolved into a social species with a sense of... what's that word... community? And that is exactly it. Community. The antithesis to, well, what we seem to live in now! 

Next time you see, or are approached by, a homeless person, beggar or busker, try talking to them. I mean, think about it, how fascinating do you think their story is? Probably more so than your own. Most will be willing to engage and most will be friendly. If you find yourself worrying 'but what will all these others around me think?', then don't worry too much, you can always cheer yourself up by tripping up that gentle old man getting on the train and pinching his walking stick.

Those who wish to do more than simply talk to struggling members of our community visit:
http://www.centrepointroom.org.uk/

Death Counts - Controversial Perspective

I couldn't for a moment argue against the vast volume of tributes for the recently fallen British soldiers in Afghanistan, in fact I feel for the families and friends as much as the next morally-guided individual. However, maintaining that same moral attitude, perhaps a few words ought to be said for the thousands upon thousands of Afghans and Iraqis who have prematurely lost their lives in the space of ten years.

The Afghan population was the first subjected to a functional revenge motive of the corporate sponsored American government (and its 'wannabe big-time' allies) after that tragic day in September 2001. The airstrike bombardment initiated on the 7 October 2001 began a period of catastrophic civilian death rate with The Guardian estimating 20,000 dead in 2002. In the airstrikes many Taliban bases were destroyed and presumably many Taliban supporters were killed, this is all well and good (job done if you believe so) but what about those unfortunate innocent men, women and children who happened to get caught up in the devastation, and let's not play it down, it can only be described as utter inescapable devastation, where is the justice in that? And where is the logic? Angering the irrelevant population surely only makes them relevant. This was an example being made NOT a tactical conflict strategy.

Corporate greed is possibly to blame for the advance on Iraq - clear evidence of which is in the 'surprising' lack of WMD sites (for which international war-criminals have not yet, metaphorically or not, been hung for). Estimated civilian deaths in Iraq reached 100,000 since 2003, with wikileaks information perhaps pushing that higher (Iraqbodycount.org, March 2012). A number of that size may seem hard to visualise in terms of people, but you count up to 100,000 and imagine each number being a person you have once known as a body - perhaps some perspective can be achieved.

Can these individuals that lose family, friends, work, the ability to eat and feed their remaining family - everything - through the actions of the 'allied forces' be blamed for wanting to join an insurgency? That is for each individual to decide, but maybe look at the facts first. This commentary is not littered with statistics to make up anyone's mind - that is the responsibility of each person. If that responsibility is ignored and we don't consider the views of others then we can only be viewed ourselves as irresponsibly informed, as ignorant.

It is not, and cannot be, an 'eye for an eye' in a conflict waged and regulated, for dubious reasons, by individuals across the world sat comfortably at home in their armchairs watching their power play out on CNN, Fox News and the BBC. Despite this, we would do (and the media do) history an atrocious injustice by not demonstrating the multi-faceted dimensions in progress. Furthermore, a simple, clearly needed, reminder that despite all prejudices one might have, we all share characteristics that make us a collective.

Perhaps as a point of departure this can lead to an investigation into the simple question: what gives us the right? As a British citizen who feels fairly useless with regard to the shit state of it all; of all the corporate, governmental, mediatized, propaganda-infused lies, I just hope that those who are suffering know that there are some of us on their side and we can together hope that the powerful scaremongers of the West get what they deserve.