Money is the root of all evil.

Even Geoffrey Chaucer said so in The Canterbury Tales. And why is that we all love money so much. Possibly because of the massive impact that capitalism and consumerism has had on us all. The division of the classes, all trying to survive and become wealthier than the other. The unfair competition of trying to get a better social standing in life. The distorted distribution of the wealth, to mostly the upper classes while the lower classes suffer. 

With the ideals of money, people plunder our resources, murder and exploit just so they can be wealthy rather than thinking of the greater good. In our society, money equals everything. Now we have money, we have greedy bankers and stock brokers who try to create more profit for themselves and essentially completely piss on those, the proletariats, who have less money. Let’s not forget, we have alternatives to money and years before we had money, people traded. Money in reality is of no real value. People lived in a lot more harmony with each other because there was no need for competition and who owned the nicest house. 

Oh and lets not forget, the love of money causes spiritual damage. We want more than we need, if we truly want happiness all we need to is look inside ourselves. Money is not the meaning of life. Oh and lets be honest money causes more crime than any other factor combined, a statistic i read claimed it caused 90% of all crime. Burglaries, rich bankers stealing from us. And ridiculous laws stopping you from becoming a freegan despite all that food going to waste, when in fact we could use that to feed those in need. We’ve turned ourselves against each other. And for what? To have more money than others.  

So it's nearing the end of the year, and it's gone in a flash. One moment it was the beginning of the year, the next moment I am faced with the prospect of almost turning 18. The last year I came out of feeling sad and dissatisfied and hoped for a better year. And my wish was actually granted. Karma must have decided to forgive me.  I've had a fantastic year, all in all. It of course hasn't been without it's downsides, but I can safely say 2011 will be a year to remember. Well the parts I can remember of it. Working at The Guardian for two weeks was one of the highlights, coming into contact with some fantastic people not just in The Guardian but through going out. Meeting Luke through having drunk ridiculous amounts, hey who said drinking was bad?! Luke's made a happier person than I could have been before. Living at Occupy London has been the most life changing experience ever. It's something I wish all could experience, in the short time I've been there. I've learnt some life lessons, re-learnt things I've forgotten and made some memories that will define me as a person for the rest of my life.
But for now I'll see you all in the next year.
Happy New Years everyone! :
Charlotte

6 Ways in Which to Fall(back) in Love with the World.

The other night at Bank of Ideas, and even before then I’ve realised despite the world  is and can be absolutely dreadful there’s no need to despair.

1. Talk and hang out with like minded people. There’s nothing worse than having friends who don’t agree with half of what you say.The past month and a bit I’ve managed to spend in the Occupy movement has been absolutely mind opening. I’ve met people who want exactly the same as me and we’ve been campaigning for that.
2. Learn to love yourself. Make peace with yourself, because you can truly love no one before you learn to love yourself. Think of at least one good thing about yourself a day.  “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” - Buddha
3. Be nice to others. Try and do at least 3 good things a day, whether its helping your parents or simply smiling at a stranger in the street. Yesterday I saw an old punk and I smiled, and he smiled back and I got this beautiful feeling that perhaps I’d slightly made that part of his day. 
4. Meditate. It takes a while. I’m not brilliant at it, a lot of time I can only last about a couple of minutes. However it allows you to clear your mind and rest it for a few seconds. Find a quiet corner take deep breaths and focus only on that. You’ll get there eventually.
5. Cut down on complaining!  This sounds silly but rather than focusing on the negative focus on the positive and when it gets to the negative, rather than complain. Think. Think about how you can change the situation at hand. 
6. Remember everything is beautiful.  Even if you live in a city and the skylines are grey and cloudy, there is life around you. Even in the most simplest of things can beauty be found. Look into yourself for that, or even simply a kind act done by someone or a kind stranger, a random meeting or the simplicity of the world itself. “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” - Buddha

Lucy Rose at Rough Trade

These are some photo's I took of Lucy Rose at Rough Trade East  on Tuesday 15th November at one of their instore gigs. The gig itself was beautifully played, and Rough Trade was absolutely packed out, jammed packed. More than almost any other instore I have been to at Rough Trade. She played a beautiful set with her new song Scar and other songs such as Gamble, which she admitted she rarely ever plays as she finds it depressing.
As some of you may know, she suffers from stage fright and you could almost see this in the nervous manner in which she was sat, and her eyes which were cast down for much of the performance. She managed to keep the crowd entertained however, with her little anecdotes and her sweet manner.

Full review to be loaded here: http://deadlinemagazine.blogspot.com/

Lucy Rose.

Why the Socialist Worker Party, is most probably NOT for me!

So recently, I joined the socialist worker party. I'm not a socialist, no. However I suppose I would describe myself as a social anarchist, I decided to make the move not because I'm interested in becoming a socialist, but rather I find myself realising more and more just how radical some of my view points regarding both the government, the economy and feminism become more and more extreme as I become more learned in all these areas. Although the economy part is debatable, as I'm quite sure "shareholder" is a term I shall ever really get myself acquainted with! Quite purely, the reason was to be able to talk to more like minded people like myself, to interact with those who do direct campaigning such as the work I should like to be able to one day go into myself and most importantly to learn.I suppose you'd ask, why not join up with an anarchist group such as ALARM, and I've thought this to myself and that although perhaps I'd enjoy it there a lot more, but first I think I want to be able to understand socialism completely, considering that yes I have much to learn being only seventeen, and my viewpoints as many tend to fluctuate. Three years ago, I had only just started discovering politics and believed I was a supporter of the LibDems. It's safe to say, I now have no respect for them.

Drawing from the fact that, I am a social anarchist, socialism tends to come into it, and while at the utmost I consider to be an anarchist, I wish to broaden my mind and to be able to understand the basics of socialism, anarchism, communism and all the other left wing theories. To be able to understand, why perhaps I'm not an advocate for their cause and so far concerning socialism I think I've found quite a few points that have ingrained into me that I am most definitely not a socialist!

A flaw I have found within the party was that keeps on coming back to me, is their definition of working class. They would define the working class using Marx's term as one of who has only but their labour to sell, however they would consider even those who many would believe to be middle class as working class if they have but their labour to sell, making a figure of about 80% of the population. Broadly speaking, I think this is an incorrect definition of the working class, myself coming from a pretty working class family in its roots and both household income today, I actually find it rather offensive, having known plenty of people who can afford a much better lifestyle and more possessions than I, have not had to know the hardships of not being able to afford school books and buying them for about 1p of Amazon. The class struggle is not over, with their now being described as what is known as an underclass... This means to me only that the gap between the rich and the poor is now actually widening. While in theory, you may be able to say even those of the middle class are also working class, I believe it to be a huge understatement and shows a lack of understanding to what working class means. Working class is a whole different attitude to the middle class. Just as the skinheads and punks held different attitudes... so do the working and middle classes.

Why you ALL should watch Taking Liberties

Touched upon basic civil liberties such as:

• Right to Protest.
• Right to Freedom of Speech.
• Right to Privacy. 
• Right not to be detained without charge. 
• Innocent Until Proven Guilty. 
• Prohibition from Torture. 

And through these six illustrated how through the New Labour government how they destroyed all these rights, and how we have very little freedom with all them. It depicts the stories they didn’t want you to know, such as innocent men and women being arrested. How the right to protest has been stifled, how the rights of which have been fought for over centuries beginning with the  Magna Carta have been abused and demolished in the space of a decade. The lies Tony Blair and his government fed us and how in ten years he created more laws than any other government before him. One day we’re going to wake up with no rights and wonder how we got here, how we got to this stage and then it’ll be too late. I believe everyone needs to wake up from their slumber and realise we have no rights, we have no say in matters. It us against the government. The police are meant to be SERVANTS TO THE PEOPLE, yet the only persons they are serving are the government. 
British people need to wake up and protest for the right to protest, protesting shouldn’t be something to be feared it should be something which is celebrated and the documentary shows how we can win, but also how the government can make us fear going into protest. It was an emotional, gripping documentary and I’d recommend it to everyone, especially those interested in politics as it may open your eyes a little bit.

Burning Candy “A Fistful of Paint” Exhibition at Tony’s

I visited this the other day, and as a fan of both street art and graffiti I felt overwhelmingly proud to come from East London, a place which this crew of artists have derived from. For anyone living in East London they will have certainly at least a couple of their graffiti about. Burning Candy being one of the most prolific and influential groups to make street art. Having come from London and many of those in the crew having been to art college, it pleases me that artists such as themselves are universally recognised with them even having been in the Saatchi Gallery.
As all Burning Candy works are, they were beautifully done with different pieces of art work including collages, miniature sets of their works done to buildings and my favourite piece which was a painting of a city landscape beautifully done with a train passing through underneath with each of their tags on it; Sweetoof, Gold Peg, Hiboux, Tek 33. The gallery in which itself was being shot in as seen in the video which was shot for the exhibition was the apparently “aftermath of a Western style showdown” using fire extinguishers filled with paint to splatter the inside of the building with different colours and is followed by an accompanying video on YouTube. It was an explosion of beautifully done work and vibrant colours. I’d recommend to all of you who enjoy any sort of Street Art and live in London, as it is a substantially small exhibition it would only take ten minutes if your time. However it closes really soon on the 21st August!