Throughout football’s history the sport has rarely been glamorous. The majority of games, played week in week out, by the 92 teams of the english football league are dirty, scrappy affairs. Cold food, warm beer and blind refs. The fact is, to be a real football fan(particularly a fan of club that has not secured long term investment or seen regular silverware lifted) is a struggle. Millions of fans,season after season, walk the tight rope between jaded pessimism and blind optimism, only to find their team(usually) somewhere between the top 2 and the bottom 3, with only the knowledge that we could of done it better, to keep us going til the start of the next season. January is the month when the once hidden now open struggle reaches its peak, the old jaded pessimists and the young optimists, lay bets on the inevitable rise or fall of their beloved club. More and more, however january is becoming the month when class-conscious football fans feel the need to ask themselves - do i really hope this private enterprise secures more investement than any other?
This time last year Queens Park Rangers were a struggling relegation favourite, on the verge of administration and seemingly without a chance of long term survival. Now according at the BBC at least QPR are now ‘the richest club on the planet’. Theyve spent the last fortnight flashing millions to replace the majority of their existing squad and putting together ‘4 year plans’ for premier league domination. All this has been made possible because QPR’s debts and desparation have made them a shrewd business opportunity for F1 moguls, flavio briatorre and bernie ecclestone and no other than lakshmi mittal, the 5th wealthiest man on the planet. In other words, the main attribute which QPR possessed was that it was cheap! Understandably, the majority of QPR fans are over the moon. Having prepared themselves for years for a world without the club they’ve spent their lifes supporting, it now seems, not only is the club financially secure but some fans have already begun discussing premiership and european football. In this case the optimists are undoubtably winning the war.
Maybe im just a romantic and im too young to know for sure, but please tell me there was a time when achievements in football were at least partly based on hard-work, die-hard support and dare i say it, desire on the part of the players and the manager to achieve, not to secure a lucrative transfer to a bigger club, but simply for the joy of success. As a class conscious football fan, i’ve long felt fully prepared for the effects of globilised market forces in the beautiful game. The chasm opening up between the top 4 or 5 teams and the rest of us, expected. The national game sidelined and funds following the more profitable premier league, expected. Fans priced out of games as tickets and even a pie and a pint become too expensive, expected. The mad scrambling for cash by all but the top clubs, expected. What i didnt expect was how quickly id have to come to terms with the effects id been so well prepared for.
So whats the answer. The benefits of fans ownership are obvious. Financially secure football, full accountabilty of players, managers and the board to the fans, democratic decisions made in the interests of the fans only. Great, the question is, how much damage will be done before fans become organised enough to wrestle control from corruptable boards and wealthy, powerful owners? will there be anything left to rebuild?. I dont know, but id assume that by the time the idea of fans ownership is discussed on mass, big business will be well and truly entrenched and wont give it up without a fight. So what else is there to say? - BRING IT ON!
oh and before i forget - COME ON STOKE!!!
Media Artys
all about stuff..
5 reasons to choose vaping eliquids instead of smoking
The Royal College of Physicians and Public Health England are saying that smokers should be reassured that vaping is much less harmful than smoking and they encourage everyone to choose vaping eliquids instead of tabacco cigarettes. More than this, vaping eliquids can also be a very tasteful habbit because of all the delicious flavors you can choose from.
- Vaping eliquids from e-cigarettes is not a “gateway” to smoking, because you can choose the amount of nicotine in the product you use. FreeSmoke UK Vape Shop gives you a large variety of flavors and tastes of eliquids, with 0 mg up to 6 mg nicotine strength you can choose from.
- British Charities such as British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK agree that vaping eliquids can save lives. They say that more than 70% of British smokers should try to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking for good. Further than 720.000 people have manged to quit cigarettes after using e-cigarettes, then they quit e-cigarettes as well, because vaping isn’t just swapping one addiction for another. Smoking rates have started to fall faster since e-cigarettes than at any other point in the last ten years, because of the popularity of this technology.
- It’s safe for your children! Because of its ingredients, the smoke of eliquid is not dangerous for the non-smokers around you, such it is the smoke of tabacco cigarettes. Also, the eliquid is bottled in a glass bottle with childproof cap, so you don’t have to worry if you forgot it on the table, because your kid won’t be able to open it.
- You can choose between tons of flavors on your taste. Not only the smoke, but the taste can be delicious too. You can choose between many natural flavors and extracts such as peach or strawberry for a delicious sensation. Also you can mix them up as you wish, trying a new combination everytime, such as strawberry and vanilla, or cherries and mint. If you’re not so into mixing, you can choose already mixed premium eliquid flavours on FreeSmoke.co.uk. There you can find mind-blowing mixes such as milk with cocoa, peanuts butter and biscuits, wich will make you remember the childhood with all it’s goodies and delicious flavors. If you’re not so into flavors, you can also choose a clasic tabacco flavor, to get the feeling of smoking a cigarette.
- It’s cheap! A bottle of eliquid can be enough for a month of vaping, instead of a box of cigarettes wich should be enough for couples of days or even less. And the eliquid is cheaper.
What is the point of joining a union?
My generation, for the first time since the end of World War 2, will be worse off than our parents. As shocking as it is, it is not surprising. The rise of the job agency, which is becoming more and more like the only route to employment, keeps young workers on an unlivable, minimum wage. Many young workers can’t afford to move out and get there own place. Prices are rising, but wages are not, and our bosses and their lackies in government are doing whatever they can to drive down wages and cut corners. We all known why they do it, the less they can pay us, the more they can keep for themselves. It is a lot cheaper for construction firms to ignore health and safety rules and hire untrained labour, but this costs hundreds of young workers their lives every year.
And what can we do? Complain to a superviser, who is either on 50p an hour more than you but thinks he/she is the biggun or a snivelling jobsworth who won’t think twice about crying to senior managers. What’s the point? I suppose the agency could sort you out with another job, where they are still taking pounds an hour off your pay and where you will still be screwed daily? Again what’s the point? The only real, long term option for young workers is joining the union.
Firstly, if a group of workers are organised in a trade union, they have at least got one leg to stand on. Whether its bullying bosses or job cuts, unionised workers have the ways and the means of fighting back, whereas in ununionised workplaces, its a lot easier for the bosses to get away with it.
Secondly, if a workplace is united in a trade union, then it is much harder for the employers to divide you and your fellow worker bees, and drive down wages. It’s something thats happening a lot at the moment, bosses highering cheap migrant labour, and because of the division and racism that has been stoked up by the press, the government and the ruling elite as a whole, indigeonous workers end up blaming migrant workers for poor wages, pointing the finger of blame at people in the same boat, instead of the real culprits, who are just trying to screw us all to get richer. Where migrant and indigenous workers are united together, they have fought together for better pay, to defend jobs and for skills training.
Everything we have, from the right to free speach to the National Health Service has been won because working class people have been organised and fought for them. If this generation doesn’t get organised then the ruling classes of big business, politicians and newspaper editors will roll back even further the rights that generations, before us, have won.
They need us more than we need them, we could do our jobs perfectly well without them, we could run society much better without them…they are organised, so we should be too. Join a union today.
And what can we do? Complain to a superviser, who is either on 50p an hour more than you but thinks he/she is the biggun or a snivelling jobsworth who won’t think twice about crying to senior managers. What’s the point? I suppose the agency could sort you out with another job, where they are still taking pounds an hour off your pay and where you will still be screwed daily? Again what’s the point? The only real, long term option for young workers is joining the union.
Firstly, if a group of workers are organised in a trade union, they have at least got one leg to stand on. Whether its bullying bosses or job cuts, unionised workers have the ways and the means of fighting back, whereas in ununionised workplaces, its a lot easier for the bosses to get away with it.
Secondly, if a workplace is united in a trade union, then it is much harder for the employers to divide you and your fellow worker bees, and drive down wages. It’s something thats happening a lot at the moment, bosses highering cheap migrant labour, and because of the division and racism that has been stoked up by the press, the government and the ruling elite as a whole, indigeonous workers end up blaming migrant workers for poor wages, pointing the finger of blame at people in the same boat, instead of the real culprits, who are just trying to screw us all to get richer. Where migrant and indigenous workers are united together, they have fought together for better pay, to defend jobs and for skills training.
Everything we have, from the right to free speach to the National Health Service has been won because working class people have been organised and fought for them. If this generation doesn’t get organised then the ruling classes of big business, politicians and newspaper editors will roll back even further the rights that generations, before us, have won.
They need us more than we need them, we could do our jobs perfectly well without them, we could run society much better without them…they are organised, so we should be too. Join a union today.
Has the whole world gone mad?
I think the most worrying set of statistics I’ve seen this year have to be those referring to mental health, particularly amongst children. According to the most contemporary data from Office of National Statistics, 7.6 % of girls aged between 5 and 15 suffer from at least one form of mental illness. The figures for boys in the same age group are staggering - 11.4%! So almost 1 in 10 of the next generation have already been diagnosed with mental health issues, labelled ‘mad’ long before they’ve had a chance to emotionally develop and long before they’ve encountered all the horrors that modern capitalism has to offer.
The stats refer to considerable rises in cases of all major categories of disorders. However, as the question i want to try and answer is to what degree the rises in cases of mental health, can be attributed to objective factors, the rest of this article will focus on those disorders which i believe are most conditional on societies development (or not as the case may be)as a whole i.e behavioral(psychotic) and personality disorders. The statistics do also show that this is where we’ve seen the most rapid increases in cases over the last decade.
The first point that needs to be made about these types of disorders is that there is no clear understanding or consensus from psychlogists and psyciatrists on how to categorise these conditions, nevermind what actually causes them or effective treatment, especially for young sufferers.
Despite this lack of general agreement, there are a rich tapestry of theories, most now negated, which have led to the development of all manner of practices. Even today over a million people worldwide, per year are treated to regular doses of electroconvulsive therapy(where doctors pass electronic currents through the brain in an attempt to induce seizures in the vague hope that ‘positive effect’ outweighs ‘long-term negative side-effects’. In the 1940’s and 50’s electric shocks and other practices, equally bizarre and horrific were used to ‘treat’ everyone from mass murderers to homosexuals and the ’sexually corrupt’, although today it is mainly used to treat clinical depression, catatonia and schizophrenia in patients who haven’t responded to courses of cognitive therapy and drugs. The use of this outdated and irresponsible practice is simply a symptom of the contradiction between the relative lack of understanding of mental illness and funding into research and the expanding scope of the problem, for mental health professionals.
Psychiatry has progressed in many ways since the 40’s, however. Many sufferers of personality and behavioral disorders respond extremely well to cognitive therapy - which essentially boils down to guiding patients through there own thought processes and helping them understand where problems have originated from, and from there, developing a course of action which best suits the patient. It is now becoming increasingly rare for poorly educated GP’s to hand out dangerous anti-psychotic drugs to anyone showing symptoms, which could suggest potential schizophrenia. This doesnt mean, however that the problem has been sgnificantly eased by leaps foreward in technique. Rightly the favoured course of action for young patients is usually behavioral therapys and/or counselling. Unfortuatley this first stage of treatment which often includes processes which lead to diagnoses, are undertaken by under-paid, under-valued community psychiatric nurses with only limited training. Specialists, psychiatrists etc will only usually be called upon for the initial diagnosis and the prescription drugs if deemed necessary. Private sector protocols are more flimsy, still.
So its clear that the lack of adequate training in the NHS and the short-termism of the private sector are failing patients, but this alone can’t explain the endemic proportions of mental health problems in young people. So where does the blame lie? The Daily Mail calls it ‘a predictable symptom of the decay of moral fibre’, but i fail to see how a lack of morality, can lead to mental health issues. Government studies suggest that blame falls upon cannabis, alcohol and even tobacco - before long they’ll be blaming rock and roll and side-burns. I do agree with the Daily Mail (a first?) that the problem is predictable, although not in the way they insist.
Marxists will be familiar with his theory of alienation, used to describe a phenomenon in capitalist societies, whereby workers become detached from their own production and product of their labour, essentially and psychologically becoming a cog in the machine as their role in the workplace appears more and more meaningless. For the majority, those same processes are a reality of their place in wider society. Its not difficult to imagine the effects of that same objective reality on those not in work but conditioned by the very same socio-economic system, including those most at risk from emotional and behavior problems, 10-18 year olds.
Until recently psychologists on the whole agreed that emotional/behavioral disorders were due in the main to ‘genetic vulnerabilities’, arguing that certain people were pre-designed to be at risk. However in recent years, researchers have been forced into a re-think. According to wikipedia the most prominant opinion is now that disorders are caused by genetic vulnerablities ‘linking up with enviromental factors’. These are thought to include ‘employment problems, socioeconomic inequality, lack of social cohesion, problems linked to migration, social upheaval and features of particular societies and culture’. So neo-liberalism then? Private practices in the US have even begun to recommmend ‘Dialectical behavior therapy’ based on studying hegelian dialectics as a way for patients to better understand the processes which have led them to ‘mental illness’. However, due to the cost of developing dialecticians (and of course im talking about $’s not hours spent at cadre schools) this treatment is only available to the wealthy.
The question comes down to what we regard as factors and catalysts and what we determine to be the origin of the recent escalation of the problem.
Family life, bullying, stressful school enviroments, debt, low pay, unemployment, alienation from work etc are all factors and triggers but ultimately the mental health of a society will always be determined by its contradictions as percieved, consciously or not by those most effected by those contradictions i.e the working class and poor. In other words, the general decay of the capitalist mode of production and therefore modern society, is directly responsible for the worrying statistics which have politicians and newspaper editors alike pointing to scape-goats. Until there is a fundemental change in how society is run, the mental health of those at the age when we all begin coming to terms with society and our place in it, will reflect capitalisms, anarchy and decay.
The stats refer to considerable rises in cases of all major categories of disorders. However, as the question i want to try and answer is to what degree the rises in cases of mental health, can be attributed to objective factors, the rest of this article will focus on those disorders which i believe are most conditional on societies development (or not as the case may be)as a whole i.e behavioral(psychotic) and personality disorders. The statistics do also show that this is where we’ve seen the most rapid increases in cases over the last decade.
The first point that needs to be made about these types of disorders is that there is no clear understanding or consensus from psychlogists and psyciatrists on how to categorise these conditions, nevermind what actually causes them or effective treatment, especially for young sufferers.
Despite this lack of general agreement, there are a rich tapestry of theories, most now negated, which have led to the development of all manner of practices. Even today over a million people worldwide, per year are treated to regular doses of electroconvulsive therapy(where doctors pass electronic currents through the brain in an attempt to induce seizures in the vague hope that ‘positive effect’ outweighs ‘long-term negative side-effects’. In the 1940’s and 50’s electric shocks and other practices, equally bizarre and horrific were used to ‘treat’ everyone from mass murderers to homosexuals and the ’sexually corrupt’, although today it is mainly used to treat clinical depression, catatonia and schizophrenia in patients who haven’t responded to courses of cognitive therapy and drugs. The use of this outdated and irresponsible practice is simply a symptom of the contradiction between the relative lack of understanding of mental illness and funding into research and the expanding scope of the problem, for mental health professionals.
Psychiatry has progressed in many ways since the 40’s, however. Many sufferers of personality and behavioral disorders respond extremely well to cognitive therapy - which essentially boils down to guiding patients through there own thought processes and helping them understand where problems have originated from, and from there, developing a course of action which best suits the patient. It is now becoming increasingly rare for poorly educated GP’s to hand out dangerous anti-psychotic drugs to anyone showing symptoms, which could suggest potential schizophrenia. This doesnt mean, however that the problem has been sgnificantly eased by leaps foreward in technique. Rightly the favoured course of action for young patients is usually behavioral therapys and/or counselling. Unfortuatley this first stage of treatment which often includes processes which lead to diagnoses, are undertaken by under-paid, under-valued community psychiatric nurses with only limited training. Specialists, psychiatrists etc will only usually be called upon for the initial diagnosis and the prescription drugs if deemed necessary. Private sector protocols are more flimsy, still.
So its clear that the lack of adequate training in the NHS and the short-termism of the private sector are failing patients, but this alone can’t explain the endemic proportions of mental health problems in young people. So where does the blame lie? The Daily Mail calls it ‘a predictable symptom of the decay of moral fibre’, but i fail to see how a lack of morality, can lead to mental health issues. Government studies suggest that blame falls upon cannabis, alcohol and even tobacco - before long they’ll be blaming rock and roll and side-burns. I do agree with the Daily Mail (a first?) that the problem is predictable, although not in the way they insist.
Marxists will be familiar with his theory of alienation, used to describe a phenomenon in capitalist societies, whereby workers become detached from their own production and product of their labour, essentially and psychologically becoming a cog in the machine as their role in the workplace appears more and more meaningless. For the majority, those same processes are a reality of their place in wider society. Its not difficult to imagine the effects of that same objective reality on those not in work but conditioned by the very same socio-economic system, including those most at risk from emotional and behavior problems, 10-18 year olds.
Until recently psychologists on the whole agreed that emotional/behavioral disorders were due in the main to ‘genetic vulnerabilities’, arguing that certain people were pre-designed to be at risk. However in recent years, researchers have been forced into a re-think. According to wikipedia the most prominant opinion is now that disorders are caused by genetic vulnerablities ‘linking up with enviromental factors’. These are thought to include ‘employment problems, socioeconomic inequality, lack of social cohesion, problems linked to migration, social upheaval and features of particular societies and culture’. So neo-liberalism then? Private practices in the US have even begun to recommmend ‘Dialectical behavior therapy’ based on studying hegelian dialectics as a way for patients to better understand the processes which have led them to ‘mental illness’. However, due to the cost of developing dialecticians (and of course im talking about $’s not hours spent at cadre schools) this treatment is only available to the wealthy.
The question comes down to what we regard as factors and catalysts and what we determine to be the origin of the recent escalation of the problem.
Family life, bullying, stressful school enviroments, debt, low pay, unemployment, alienation from work etc are all factors and triggers but ultimately the mental health of a society will always be determined by its contradictions as percieved, consciously or not by those most effected by those contradictions i.e the working class and poor. In other words, the general decay of the capitalist mode of production and therefore modern society, is directly responsible for the worrying statistics which have politicians and newspaper editors alike pointing to scape-goats. Until there is a fundemental change in how society is run, the mental health of those at the age when we all begin coming to terms with society and our place in it, will reflect capitalisms, anarchy and decay.
Young liberals from the Eastern Partnership countries gather together in Chisinau II
A special guest of the seminar was Mr. Dirk Schubel, Head of the EC Delegation to Moldova. He mainly talked about the current political situation in Moldova and the chances of Eastern Partnership countries to become part of EU.
In the same day the participants also had the chance to visit local institutions, meeting with Victor Moraru at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova.
Next day also had a tight program, so maybe the party they had the last evening wasn’t a very good idea :) Besides the lack of sleep the participants were active in discussions on liberal youth policy in and for Europe. Claudia Benchescu, member of LYMEC Bureau had a presentation regarding LYMEC’s activity and its aims. Many of the organizations present at the seminar are actually members of the European Liberal Youth.
Next part of the seminar was an IT session. The participants had to introduce their countries, websites and blogs. It seems that youth understands best the power of internet and try to use it as much as possible in order to promote their organizations.
After a good lunch everybody moved to the Ministry of Youth and Sports to meet with the Minister Ion Ciobanu. The minister gave a brief information about his daily activities and the achievements of this first year of Minisrty existence.
In the same day the participants also had the chance to visit local institutions, meeting with Victor Moraru at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova.
Next day also had a tight program, so maybe the party they had the last evening wasn’t a very good idea :) Besides the lack of sleep the participants were active in discussions on liberal youth policy in and for Europe. Claudia Benchescu, member of LYMEC Bureau had a presentation regarding LYMEC’s activity and its aims. Many of the organizations present at the seminar are actually members of the European Liberal Youth.
Next part of the seminar was an IT session. The participants had to introduce their countries, websites and blogs. It seems that youth understands best the power of internet and try to use it as much as possible in order to promote their organizations.
After a good lunch everybody moved to the Ministry of Youth and Sports to meet with the Minister Ion Ciobanu. The minister gave a brief information about his daily activities and the achievements of this first year of Minisrty existence.
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