Smile, you're working for the queen now.

[deminks]

http://www.americablog.com/2012/06/unemployed-bused-into-london-for-unpaid.html

Who would ever guess that it's a Tory government running the UK? Anyone with a sense of decency and respect for the hard times in the UK would want to scale back if not postpone a celebration for the monarchy, but we are talking about the British royal family after all.

It's absurd to imagine any taxpayer money funding a "party" for one of the richest families in the world. It's even more absurd to bus unemployment recipients to London, ask them to sleep under bridges and then work for such an event. Royalists are naturally claiming that the event generates millions for the economy, no doubt using the same twisted logic that sports teams use when they spend millions to move a team into a new location.

(end snip)

Link to Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/04/jubilee-pageant-unemployed

A group of long-term unemployed jobseekers were bussed into London to work as unpaid stewards during the diamond jubilee celebrations and told to sleep under London Bridge before working on the river pageant.

Up to 30 jobseekers and another 50 people on apprentice wages were taken to London by coach from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth as part of the government's Work Programme.

Two jobseekers, who did not want to be identified in case they lost their benefits, said they had to camp under London Bridge the night before the pageant. They told the Guardian they had to change into security gear in public, had no access to toilets for 24 hours, and were taken to a swampy campsite outside London after working a 14-hour shift in the pouring rain on the banks of the Thames on Sunday.

(snip)

Both stewards said they were originally told they would be paid. But when they got to the coach on Saturday night, they said, they were told that the work would be unpaid and that if they did not accept it they would not be considered for well-paid work at the Olympics.

(end snip)

Prosperity for them, Austerity for us. Happy Jubilee.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. But just think, if it wasn't for the royal family,

they wouldn't even have jobs to not get paid for.

[malaise]

2. You know my view

Fuck all monarchies everywhere

[nxylas]

4. I assume you include the Kochs in that

Ironic that the so-called Republican Party is the one turning America into a monarchy.

[malaise]

6. They are fascists/plutocrats

not monarchs

[TahitiNut]

12. Agreed.

The very notion of "royalty" is (arguably) the worst invention in mankind's history. The mental malfunction that deems inheritance as the basis for an entitlement to wealth and power has led to some of the most pervasive oppression and exploitation of humanity over the ages. The one thing I believe the Bolsheviks did right was exterminate the Czar's gene pool.

But ... Disney has indoctrinated multiple generations: Some day your Prince will come. After all, you're worthless until you become a Princess. (Working males need not apply.)

[malaise]

15. Great post -100% correct

[TalkingDog]

3. Yeah, the "unpaid" internship is our future. We don't even get the honesty of being called "slaves"

n/t

[siligut]

5. And then we are subjected to "news" of how stunning Kate was at the affair

Just irritating and more in-your-face from the people in power.

[Sea-Dog]

7. WORK FOR THE QUEEN BOUDICA AND HER REPTILES

[tru]

8. They are being paid

This seems to be a work for welfare payments program, if you read the article.

[Sea-Dog]

11. not even minimum wage.

under a fucking bridge no toilets stripping out in public. undefendable should lose all contracts

[cwydro]

17. You didn't read the post you responded to.

Those workers are on the dole. They get money regularly.

Doesn't excuse the lack of a bathroom etc., but I'll bet there's more to this story.

[magical thyme]

22. yeah. left to camp out without tents in pouring rain

and they were "paid" with their work clothes. Oh, that's right. I think they were given plastic bags as raincoats. How kind of them to not take the clothes back, launder them, and give used clothes to the next group of unpaid laborers they "hire."

They were told up front they would be paid. It wasn't until they showed up that they were told they would not be paid.

Nothing excuses the lies used to sucker them in to free (slave) labor, and their subsequent treatment.

[CBGLuthier]

9. I believe the word we are looking for is "serfs."

Round up a bunch of villagers, hose em down and make them serve their betters.

[daaron]

10. Better headline: "Let them eat shit." nt

[chervilant]

13. Hierarchy,

in all its various guises, is a viciously destructive socio-cultural construct.

My roomie caught a segment on this obscene display of pomp and circumstance, and remarked, "All the homeless in the world, and she lives in a ginormous castle. Where's the humanity?"

[dixiegrrrrl]

21. Actually, several castles.

How the hell does one person and her consort live in more than one castle?
But indeed, they do.

[chervilant]

23. True that,

but, one at a time, AND just by the serendipity of birth...

[leveymg]

14. Bet the Queen didn't have to shit in her hat.

Fuck the monarchy, everywhere. Let them work for a living, instead of collecting the national dole.

[ananda]

16. Tories like that slave labour.

Tories and slaves.. what a mix.

[truebrit71]

18. God save the Queen!!

...i'll take the British system of government, the British national transportation system, the British education system and the British National Health Care system over what you have over here every single day and twice on sundays...

You can pile on all you want about monarchies and class-structured servitude, and all that other republicanist bullshit, but until such time as you lot stop invading countries that haven't attacked you and spend TENS of BILLIONS to rebuild schools and hospitals and infra-structure that you levelled in the first place with your bombs, whilst NOT feeding, housing and tending to ALL of your own citizens first may I humbly suggest you shut the fuck up...

As you were...

[lapislzi]

20. Well, you should know

We copied the empire model from you. How's that going, by the way?

[Sea-Dog]

25. .

i'll take the British system of government, the British national transportation system, the British education system and the British National Health Care system over what you have over here every single day and twice on sundays...

it isn't a all or nothing state of affairs or one big package
The NHS would continue in a republic
the queen rubber stamped the NHS bill

[Bake]

19. Divine right of kings, my big hairy ass!

But America does seem to love the "royals."

Royalty ... huh ... what is it good for?
Absolutely nothin'!
Say it again!



Bake

[MichaelMcGuire]

24. K&R

The more exposure the better.


Happy Jobbyilee