That's you and me, guys!
This concerns a country whose use of phenomenal innovation is being radically controlled by heavily invested conglomerates. The working man/woman is rapidly being constrained into servitude, all of which is indentured to a global service economy.
This exchange of labour has seen the private and political elite prosper, leaving the thankful worker to gratefully survive off shared economy scraps! Yes fellow cabbies, that's the trickle down effect in all its glory.
Politicians and the right wing media work symbiotically to promote the myth that the ones who should be held responsible for our Nations insurmountable social and economic woes are those at the bottom rather than the grotesque 1% perched at the top. The Taxi Trade epitomises a position in society that the government needs to subordinate and is currently being subjected to relentless destabilisation.
Make no mistake, what appears to be gutless passivity by our licensing authority, is actually a very active drive to silence a somewhat influential voice, i.e, the London cabbie. There will be peripheral casualties along the way, but as Travis Kalinik stated, they amount to no more than collateral damage. Of course the government hasn't been able to achieve this alone, so they furtively manoeuvred themselves to facilitate an en masse assault on an entire public service.
Three years ago the government still could have implemented ground rules, but now, the predatory, heavily financed Corporates (the kind that gets kicks by implanting aggressive virus’ into your laptop) are holding the reins, and the government can be no more than its bitch.
The Taxi Trade is being left in limbo, not knowing who is ultimately responsible or who to trust. But let's be clear, the powers that be are fully aware the Taxi Trade is not an industry that's defunct, an argument that could, with some validity, be levied against the coal miners in the early 1980’s. No, the Taxi Trade remains an extremely relevant, valued, and self sufficient business.
And therein, brothers and sisters, lies the underpinning to our problem. Britain no longer manufactures anything, most of the middle classes have moved into phoney jobs often endorsed by some bullshit name like ‘Management Consultancy’. Transport for London is awash with this sort of middle class soup, bankrolling over 400 executives on six figure salaries (Sir Peter Hendy is still pocketing £600,000 pa for a 4 day week at Network Rail). TFL’s pot runneth over with faux jobs.
The taxi trade’s independence is viewed by the movers and the shakers as a loose cannon that poses a threat to these self-created elevated positions, and any loose change outside the parameters of the corporate umbrella was always going to be a target for those in Management Consultancy.
They fully understand that most of the working classes aren't afforded the same financial flexibility as we are to sustain a long enough protest to cause any real damage. To a degree, we can navigate around certain obstacles, that is, unless we let them block off our lifeline. The taxi trade can still- just about- shine the spotlight on the injustices that are covertly being inflicted on Britain’s workforce. It is debatable if the trade has the clout to shift some of the emphasis where it belongs, onto the shoulders of those in power. But whatever, we need to try, we really do need to try.
Have we forgotten the gargantuan effort it took to get through ‘The Knowledge?’ Have we lost the connection with who we did it for and why we did it? Have the toffs beaten us with the stick a few too many times for us to psychologically mount an effective comeback? Really?
Are we that detached from our resolve?
No one can ever understand what it's like until they've endured The Knowledge through to completion. As much as some might decry or belittle it, they can never truly understand. Cast your mind back to the day of your REQ. On that day, if you were given the choice of, either winning the lottery or being awarded your Green Badge, which would you have plunged for?
The process each and everyone of us undertook was equally as rewarding as the result. It's no revelation, that those who go to university, the majority of which will go on to complete their degree, not so with The Knowledge. To see it through to the end really does take Goliath sized resolve.
Uber, yes Uber- the Valdemort of the taxi business- has a controlling capacity goes way beyond anything we have ever known. They control content and are rapidly increasing their control over data flows, user activity, and access on person related data. The opportunity for wide scale surveillance are also taken into account by those in authority if only to control and monitor city traffic. Surveillance capacity was always going to instil the authorities sycophancy to technological controlled service Industries.
The control of contents by Corporations like Uber affords them the opportunity to embed censorship into customer software (in Uber’s case the primary consumer is the driver, not the passenger). Their emerging dominance is already redefining terms and conditions as well as how functional models are used.
They will continue to remould working directives/ business parameters, including trade regulations, protections, benefits and responsibility. In the short term, one might see the illusion of freedom that these start up platforms offer as attractive, only later to find out that they’ve bought into a lifetime of enslavement. Hook, line, and sinker!
The next time you hear ‘Lets Uber’ give them cause to think on, soon they may not have the option. It’s easy to comprehend too why they would want to be included in what appears as a kind of fascist utopia, only to be jolted awake to the fact that it isn't utopia at all, but a vile regime that we have been complicit in creating, and is now inescapable
They say the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to make us believe he didn't exist. I believe, the Devils greatest trick was to convince us that our neighbour is an enemy. Your neighbour might not have too much sympathy if you, the ‘cabbie’ next door is put out of business, they may gloat even, oblivious that he is just being used as Devil fodder. Tomorrow, it'll be the fella who lives opposite who'll be gloating as your neighbours job now sinks out of existence, and so on, and so on...
The sad truth is, the government will do anything to obtain and hold on to their slice of the pie.
God isn't going to save us, neither are the Orgs. If we don't at least try to save ourselves, then we are ripe for the picking.
Somehow, we need to dig down and reattach ourselves to the resilience that it evident in all of us, we just need to vigorously shake it out of its slumber. There is a new kind of destroyer in town. It has the same objective as the old enemy, except this time it has much deeper pockets!
It's either Fight or Die!
THE FIGHT STARTS AT GRASS ROOTS LEVEL!
THIS IS NOT ONLY A FIGHT FOR THE TAXI TRADE, THIS IS A FIGHT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE!
LET’S MAKE OUR OWN LUCK
Sean Paul
from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1LgBsYQ
via
IFTTT
