The Fierce Urgency of Now

The great Martin Luther King jr once talked of the "fierce urgency of now". This profound statement referred primarily to the urgency of civil rights for African Americans. Today, in the UK, we are faced with our own fierce urgency of now.

Public sector workers and the jobs they do are under the fiercest assault that they probably have ever faced. The attack on services, jobs and the conditions of employment of the people providing much needed help to hard pressed local communities is not the usual tinkering around that we have, unfortunately, been all too used to in recent years. This is about whether public services,as we know them, should exist at all.

The Tories,and their Lib Dem mates, in spite of pre- election promises to the contrary, have decided on a massive restructuring of society. The financial collapse, by their mates who still find enough cash to pay each other massive bonuses, was, for them the perfect opportunity to dismantle beloved institutions such as the National Health Service - I repeat - in spite of promises to the contrary.

Working people are having to pay the price of the folly of the bankers by not only losing their jobs in the name of austerity but also seeing their living standards fall in very real terms. The fact that many thousands of public service workers have not had a pay rise for years and are likely not going to get one for some time. Taking money out the pockets of the lowest paid meaning that they had less money to spend in the economy is simply the craziest way of handling the economy. Surely this is an economy that needs money circulating rather than less? The only people who seem to have any money to spend are the rich and none of that seems to be trickling down to the most needy in teems of job creation.

The fierce urgency of now for working people in the UK is a plan B by this Government. There needs to be a plan for the economy that goes beyond the macho posturing of Chancellor Osborne towards one that recognises the real pain being felt by communities throughout the country.

The fierce urgency of now is for this country to not have to descend further into fighting outside soup kitchens that people have been reduced to in Coventry as hungry people argue and then fight over scraps from the van. This is true and is what we are being reduced too. The desperation that many young people feel as they worry about their future job prospects as youth unemployment rockets.

The fierce urgency of now for the women who seem to have been particularly targeted by this government as the people who rely the most on public services for the jobs they provide and the care they give.

The fierce urgency of now for the black community who, as always, come off the worst having started this period in economic history behind where everyone else started anyway.

We all have a fierce urgency of now. It's a fierce urgency of resistance. We must stand up and fight. The surest thing of all is that if we do not fight then we most certainly lose. However, if we fight we at least have a chance to win!