Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts

Tuesday 11 July 2023

Fires.



FIRES OF THE FUTURE.
 
I am fire,
I surge, I hiss,
sometimes bursting forth in a flame
that lights up the world
illuminating unimagined dreams.
Then the black cloak
blankets out the glow.
Again all is dark,
but, still
beneath the surface
I surge, I hiss,
I endure, waiting, seeking,
building up pressure.
One day I will explode
destroying forever
the Tartarean crust of oppression.
I am fire,
I am the people.


           The foundations of the capitalist society are built on bricks made of the work and exploitation of the ordinary people. These foundations are very weak, as pillage and plunder rampages across humanity and injustice roars with laughter. There is always a simmering anger just below the surface, and sometimes it explodes through the chimera of stability and lets the dream of freedom and justice run free scattering the seeds of hope. It always takes the state's full exercise of power and brutality to quell and control this explosion, but it can never extinguish that simmering anger and desire for justice and freedom.
          One such explosion was recently plainly visible in France, where anger burst forth and claimed the streets and displayed what it thought of this subservient exploitative and brutal system. The anger was plain to see as the state's brutal apparatus tried to stem the flow of that desire for freedom and justice. 
           The following extract is from an article that documents the physical result of the explosion of anger but can't detail the feelings that started it and the feelings that it has lit in the hearts and minds of so many. Long live anarchy, which will blow like a breath of fresh air through the decaying pungent smell of exploitation and injustice. 

Image courtesy of Daily Mail.

Today’s Figures on the Riots

 In total, between the night of June 27 to 28 and July 2 to 3, there were officially 12 031 vehicles burned, 2 508 buildings burned down or damaged, including 273 police and gendarmerie premises, 105 town halls burnt or damaged, 168 schools were attacked. 722 law enforcement personnel were injured.

3,625 people were taken into custody throughout the territory (1,124 of whom are minors). Among all those arrested, « the average age is between 17 and 18 (…) the youngest is 11 years old and the oldest 59 years old, one third are minors”, “60% of the total have no criminal record”, «10% of the people arrested are non-French and there have been 40 placements in administrative detention centres» according to the Minister of Interior. Of the detained persons, 990 of the age of majority and 253 minors were referred to the prosecutor’s office, and 480 of the age of majority were referred to the court for immediate appearance. To date, 380 people have been sent to prison, whether they have been sentenced or placed in pre-trial detention pending trial.

Continue READING 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info     

Tuesday 18 January 2022

Youth.


            If anything positive can be taken from the climate emergency, it's the fact that so many young people have taken to criticising the present economic system. The young have grasped the need to take action on the streets, form groups and challenge the government on its complete failure to address these problems. there are thousands more young people now interest in politics and acting on that, than there was before the climate emergence gripped the headlines. All us old campaigners and activist can do, is join with them and offer our experience if they want it, but we shouldn't give up the streets, that's where the changes needed will come from, not from the corridors of power and privilege, they are the problem. Thanks Bob for the links.

The Biologist values and jobs
https://youtu.be/7X0swpc_05o
Metropolitan - Police Scotland - Same Difference  

Climate Justice Solidarity
 

Anti Racism Migrant Communities And The State  

Pension Funds and Fossil fuels
https://youtu.be/BI4QMX_CXTQ

Climate Scientist - Career Change to Climate Change
https://youtu.be/qOSns-hkhP4
 

visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

Monday 9 November 2020

Ungovernable.

       A view from those who have been fighting oppression under the yoke of ever changing Presidents for generations, and those Presidents all with their never shifting homage to the system of the colonialism. Obama, Trump, Biden, so what's new.


          16 Things You Can Do To Be Ungovernable. P.S. Fuck Biden 
        Indigenous Action looks at basic ways that people can get ‘back to basics’ as the Trump era comes to a close.
       We are ungovernable on stolen land. Fuck Biden.
      Biden has replaced Trump. While some are celebrating a “safer” form of settler colonial violence, we have been bracing for the war to resume. It’s not just that Trump doubled down on white supremacist authoritarian nationalism (aka fascism) and nearly continued his explicitly brutal legacy, it’s not just that liberal settler-colonizers barely clawed their way to victory. It’s that at the end of the day both Trump and Biden are two sides of the same coin. We will once again be subject to that lurid post-election wane of political fervor until the liberal tide recedes and we are left facing the same ecological and social violence as before.
       The Obama-Biden administration was responsible for deporting more people than any other US regime in history. Between 2009 and 2015 Obama-Biden forcibly deported more than 2.5 million people which amounts to more than the sum deportations from all the other presidents of the 20th century. Tohono O’odham and Hia Ced O’odham communities have been heavily militarized and bisected by the US/Mexico colonial border. Whole villages have been displaced and sacred sites have been desecrated across numerous border occupied Indigenous communities. This has been compounded by Trump’s “border wall” but border militarization and colonial occupation of Indigenous lands will continue whether the U.S. is under Republican or Democrat control. Colonizers are united in their belief and practices of colonialism. The Obama-Biden regime was not a reprieve for those who have been bombed and attacked by drones which, in Afghanistan, has meant the murder of innocent lives 90% of the time. We cannot celebrate when we know that with Biden (or whoever), U.S. imperialism and endless war against people of color around the world will continue.
        Biden has framed himself as the restorer of a “normalcy” under which we were being killed, assaulted, disappeared, bombed, polluted, incarcerated, impoverished, and desecrated. A return to neoliberal normal is a return to death for Indigenous, Black, and Brown peoples the world over.
       There’s a discourse regarding a lesser evil and a diatribe about hope somewhere in there, but these themes have been beaten into our flesh so that our skin has lost its ability to scar. It’s as if our bodies are the land desecrated with each cycling of our abuser. In the case of electoral politics the cycle isn’t challenged and neither is the abuse. Only the degree of which the veil covers the wounds is of concern. The matter is not seeing the abuse, it’s seeing the effect which moves the zone of comfort to nearly unsettling.
        We have been refusing domination, control, and exploitation in these lands by colonial forces since 1492. Being ungovernable means we pledge no allegiance to colonial authority nor are we dependent upon their systems for our survival, identity, belonging, or well-being.
       In the face of COVID-19 and more overt fascism, we celebrate the powerful expressions of unmediated direct action and interventions against capitalism, white supremacy, cis-heteropatriarchy, and the colonial police state. From the powerful Black Lives Matter uprisings, to the tearing down of racist statues, from autonomous zones to the thousands of mutual aid projects throughout Turtle Island providing necessary supplies and support, our communities have been taking direct action and building alternative infrastructure for generations so that we are not dependent on the state or corporations.
        We seek to organize and intervene as directly as possible in the root causes that uphold oppressive social orders while working to creatively build and support alternatives based in mutual aid, dignity, and collective self-determination beyond capitalism. We are ungovernable and we must make it impossible for this colonial system to govern on stolen, occupied land. Build, sustain & proliferate autonomous organizing and organizations and embrace your role in these struggles.

16 Things you can do to be Ungovernable:

Continue Reading:  

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk  

Monday 19 October 2020

Racism.

         Everywhere the "white" man (no sexism intended, we also have "white" women racists.) has taken to settling in another's land they have seen the indigenous people as inferior, and steadily went about taking over their lands, destroying their way of life and culture, and so it goes on today.
        Canada, despite its portrayal of a friendly, peaceful land, is steeped in brutal racism, managed and legislated by a racist state, always has been from the first settler to the present day. The indigenous peoples have been pushed aside, marginalised and treated with savagery and brutality and are still seen in that category of inferior. Never have we stepped onto another people's territory and seen them as having a long traditionally developed sustainable culture, something we could learn from, nor have we asked to co-operate with them. We enter on the belief of our superiority and our right to do as we wish, where ever we land. That is our history, and that is what we have to eradicate.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

       Right now in Mi’kma’ki, commercial fishermen are physically threatening, intimidating and harassing Indigenous people over their livelihood catch of lobster. The violence has escalated in the past few days, and seems likely to continue to escalate. The RCMP have been filmed allowing commercial fishermen to steal and poison lobster, burn vehicles, smash windows, throw rocks at Mi’kmaq people and attack chiefs and women.
      
What’s happening in Mi’kma’ki is a prime example of how race operates in so-called Canada, with the state protecting the side of big business and using white working-class people to project their force onto the non-white population. Examples of this can be found all over the country.
       
In August, 27km camp on Wet’suwet’en yintah was burned to the ground by arsonists, and somehow the state has no leads or interest in pursuing the case, even though there were public facebook posts calling for that specific action to be carried out.
     
In Secwepmeculecw the Tiny House Warriors have faced near constant harrassment from white supremacists who even set up a camp and barbeque within a stone’s throw from Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit folks in order to harass and intimidate them.
      
In Algonquin territory non-Indigenous hunters continue to disrespect and threaten Indigenous people on their own territory, who are protecting the moose population from being over-hunted.
        
In Six Nations territory the police continue to harass and arrest Indigenous people, unchecked by us the greater community at large.
       
When is enough enough? Why aren’t we shutting the country down? The white supremacist settler state cannot continue unchecked. There must be action. This is a callout to all settlers and supporters to take actions where you stand, how you see fit. Transportation routes are vulnerable, we proved this in the spring. It doesn’t take many people carrying out subversive actions to cause the state immense damage.
Take action now. What are we waiting for?
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Thursday 26 March 2020

Why I'm An Anarchist.

       I lifted this straight from Dog Section Press, away back in June 2019, but considering the way things are going right now, I thought it worth repeating.
       There is nothing I could say about the article, except just read it, and start to think for yourself.

     Why I'm An Anarchist by Benjamin Zephaniah



         I got political after I suffered my first racist attack at the age of seven. I didn’t understand any political theory, I just knew that I had been wronged, and I knew there was another way. A few years later, when I was fifteen a marked police car pulled up to me as I walked in Birmingham in the early hours of the morning, three cops got out of the car, they pushed me into a shop doorway, then they beat me up. They got back into their car, and drove off as if nothing had happened. I had read nothing about policing policy, or anything on so-called law and order, I just knew I had been wronged. When I got my first job as a painter, I had read nothing on the theory of working class struggles or how the rich exploited the poor, but when my boss turned up every other day in a different supercar, and we were risking our lives up ladders and breathing in toxic fumes, I just knew I had been wronged.
        I grew up (like most people around me) believing Anarchism meant everyone just going crazy, and the end of everything. I am very dyslexic so I often have to use a spellchecker or a dictionary to make sure I’ve written words correctly. I was hearing words like Socialism and Communism all the time, but even the Socialists and Communists that I came across tended to dismiss Anarchists as either a fringe group, who they always blamed if there was trouble on demonstrations, or dreamers. Even now, I just checked a spellchecker and it describes Anarchism as chaos, lawlessness, mayhem, and disorder. I like the disorder thing, but for the ‘average’ person, disorder does mean chaos, lawlessness, and mayhem. The very things they’re told to fear the most.
        The greatest thing I’ve ever done for myself is to learn how to think for myself. I began to do that at an early age, but it’s really difficult to do that when there are things around you all the time telling you how to think. Capitalism is seductive. It limits your imagination, and then tells you that you should feel free because you have choices, but your choices are limited to the products they put before you, or the limits of your now limited imagination. I remember visiting São Paulo many years ago when it introduced its Clean City Law. The mayor didn’t suddenly become an Anarchist, but he did realise that the continuous and ubiquitous marketing people were subjected to was not just ugly, but distracting people from themselves. So more than 15,000 marketing billboards were taken down. Buses, taxis, neon and paper poster advertisements were all banned. At first it looked a little odd, but instead of either looking at, or trying not to look at advertising broads, I walked, and as I walked I looked around me. I found that I only purchased what I really needed, not what I was told I needed, and what was most noticeable was that I met and talked to new people every day. These conversations tended to be relevant, political, and meaningful. Capitalism keeps us in competition with each other, and the people who run Capitalism don’t really want us to talk to each other, not in a meaningful way.
       I’m not going to go on about Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism, but it is clear that one thing they all have in common is their need for power. Then to back up their drive for power they all have theories, theories about taking power and what they want to do with power, but therein lies the problem. Theories and power. I became an Anarchist when I decided to drop the theories and stop seeking power. When I stopped concerning myself with those things I realised that true Anarchy is my nature. It is our nature. It is what we were doing before the theories arrived, it is what we were doing before we were encouraged to be in competition with each other. There have been some great things written about Anarchism, and I guess that’s Anarchist theory, but when I try to get my friends to read these things (I’m talking about big books with big words), they get headaches and turn away. So, then I turn off the advertising (the TV etc.) and sit with them, and remind them of what they can do for themselves. I give them examples of people who live without governments, people who organise themselves, people who have taken back their own spiritual identity – and then it all makes sense.
            If we keep talking about theories then we can only talk to people who are aware of those theories, or have theories of their own, and if we keep talking in the round about theories we exclude a lot of people. The very people we need to reach, the very people who need to rid themselves of the shackles of modern, Capitalistic slavery. The story of Carne Ross is inspiring, not because he wrote something, but because he lived it. I love the work of Noam Chomsky and I love the way that Stuart Christie’s granny made him an Anarchist, but I’m here because I understand that the racist police who beat me have the state behind them, and the state itself is racist. I’m here because I now understand that the boss-man who exploited me to make himself rich didn’t care about me. I’m here because I know how the Marrons in Jamaica freed themselves and took to the hills and proved to all enslaved people that they (the Marrons), could manage themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love books (I’m a writer, by the way), and I know we need people who think deeply – we should all think deeply. But my biggest inspirations come from everyday people who stop seeking power for themselves, or seeking the powerful to rescue them, and they do life for themselves. I have met people who live Anarchism in India, Kenya, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and in Papua New Guinea, but when I tell them they are Anarchists most will tell me they have not heard of such a word, and what they are doing is natural and uncomplicated. I’m an Anarchist because I’ve been wronged, and I’ve seen everything else fail.
           I spent the late seventies and the eighties living in London with many exiled ANC activists – after a long struggle Nelson Mandela was freed and the exiles returned home. I remember looking at a photo of the first democratically elected government in South Africa and realising that I knew two thirds of them. I also remember seeing a photo of the newly elected Blair (New Labour) government and realising that I knew a quarter of them, and on both occasions I remember how I was filled with hope. But in both cases it didn’t take long to see how power corrupted so many members of those governments. These were people I would call and say, “Hey, what are you doing?”, and the reply was always something along the lines of, “Benjamin, you don’t understand how having power works”. Well I do. Fuck power, and lets just take care of each other.
           Most people know that politics is failing. That’s not a theory or my point of view. They can see it, they can feel it. The problem is they just can’t imagine an alternative. They lack confidence. I simply blanked out all the advertising, I turned off the ‘tell-lie-vision’, and I started to think for myself. Then I really started to meet people – and, trust me, there is nothing as great as meeting people who are getting on with their lives, running farms, schools, shops, and even economies, in communities where no one has power.

That’s why I’m an Anarchist.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Thursday 20 June 2019

Why I'm An Anarchist.

 
          I lifted this straight from Dog Section Press, there is nothing I could say about the article, except to say just read it.
Why I'm An Anarchist by Benjamin Zephaniah



         I got political after I suffered my first racist attack at the age of seven. I didn’t understand any political theory, I just knew that I had been wronged, and I knew there was another way. A few years later, when I was fifteen a marked police car pulled up to me as I walked in Birmingham in the early hours of the morning, three cops got out of the car, they pushed me into a shop doorway, then they beat me up. They got back into their car, and drove off as if nothing had happened. I had read nothing about policing policy, or anything on so-called law and order, I just knew I had been wronged. When I got my first job as a painter, I had read nothing on the theory of working class struggles or how the rich exploited the poor, but when my boss turned up every other day in a different supercar, and we were risking our lives up ladders and breathing in toxic fumes, I just knew I had been wronged.
        I grew up (like most people around me) believing Anarchism meant everyone just going crazy, and the end of everything. I am very dyslexic so I often have to use a spellchecker or a dictionary to make sure I’ve written words correctly. I was hearing words like Socialism and Communism all the time, but even the Socialists and Communists that I came across tended to dismiss Anarchists as either a fringe group, who they always blamed if there was trouble on demonstrations, or dreamers. Even now, I just checked a spellchecker and it describes Anarchism as chaos, lawlessness, mayhem, and disorder. I like the disorder thing, but for the ‘average’ person, disorder does mean chaos, lawlessness, and mayhem. The very things they’re told to fear the most.
        The greatest thing I’ve ever done for myself is to learn how to think for myself. I began to do that at an early age, but it’s really difficult to do that when there are things around you all the time telling you how to think. Capitalism is seductive. It limits your imagination, and then tells you that you should feel free because you have choices, but your choices are limited to the products they put before you, or the limits of your now limited imagination. I remember visiting São Paulo many years ago when it introduced its Clean City Law. The mayor didn’t suddenly become an Anarchist, but he did realise that the continuous and ubiquitous marketing people were subjected to was not just ugly, but distracting people from themselves. So more than 15,000 marketing billboards were taken down. Buses, taxis, neon and paper poster advertisements were all banned. At first it looked a little odd, but instead of either looking at, or trying not to look at advertising broads, I walked, and as I walked I looked around me. I found that I only purchased what I really needed, not what I was told I needed, and what was most noticeable was that I met and talked to new people every day. These conversations tended to be relevant, political, and meaningful. Capitalism keeps us in competition with each other, and the people who run Capitalism don’t really want us to talk to each other, not in a meaningful way.
       I’m not going to go on about Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism, but it is clear that one thing they all have in common is their need for power. Then to back up their drive for power they all have theories, theories about taking power and what they want to do with power, but therein lies the problem. Theories and power. I became an Anarchist when I decided to drop the theories and stop seeking power. When I stopped concerning myself with those things I realised that true Anarchy is my nature. It is our nature. It is what we were doing before the theories arrived, it is what we were doing before we were encouraged to be in competition with each other. There have been some great things written about Anarchism, and I guess that’s Anarchist theory, but when I try to get my friends to read these things (I’m talking about big books with big words), they get headaches and turn away. So, then I turn off the advertising (the TV etc.) and sit with them, and remind them of what they can do for themselves. I give them examples of people who live without governments, people who organise themselves, people who have taken back their own spiritual identity – and then it all makes sense.
            If we keep talking about theories then we can only talk to people who are aware of those theories, or have theories of their own, and if we keep talking in the round about theories we exclude a lot of people. The very people we need to reach, the very people who need to rid themselves of the shackles of modern, Capitalistic slavery. The story of Carne Ross is inspiring, not because he wrote something, but because he lived it. I love the work of Noam Chomsky and I love the way that Stuart Christie’s granny made him an Anarchist, but I’m here because I understand that the racist police who beat me have the state behind them, and the state itself is racist. I’m here because I now understand that the boss-man who exploited me to make himself rich didn’t care about me. I’m here because I know how the Marrons in Jamaica freed themselves and took to the hills and proved to all enslaved people that they (the Marrons), could manage themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love books (I’m a writer, by the way), and I know we need people who think deeply – we should all think deeply. But my biggest inspirations come from everyday people who stop seeking power for themselves, or seeking the powerful to rescue them, and they do life for themselves. I have met people who live Anarchism in India, Kenya, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and in Papua New Guinea, but when I tell them they are Anarchists most will tell me they have not heard of such a word, and what they are doing is natural and uncomplicated. I’m an Anarchist because I’ve been wronged, and I’ve seen everything else fail.
           I spent the late seventies and the eighties living in London with many exiled ANC activists – after a long struggle Nelson Mandela was freed and the exiles returned home. I remember looking at a photo of the first democratically elected government in South Africa and realising that I knew two thirds of them. I also remember seeing a photo of the newly elected Blair (New Labour) government and realising that I knew a quarter of them, and on both occasions I remember how I was filled with hope. But in both cases it didn’t take long to see how power corrupted so many members of those governments. These were people I would call and say, “Hey, what are you doing?”, and the reply was always something along the lines of, “Benjamin, you don’t understand how having power works”. Well I do. Fuck power, and lets just take care of each other.
           Most people know that politics is failing. That’s not a theory or my point of view. They can see it, they can feel it. The problem is they just can’t imagine an alternative. They lack confidence. I simply blanked out all the advertising, I turned off the ‘tell-lie-vision’, and I started to think for myself. Then I really started to meet people – and, trust me, there is nothing as great as meeting people who are getting on with their lives, running farms, schools, shops, and even economies, in communities where no one has power.

That’s why I’m an Anarchist.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 12 November 2018

Gaza, The Israeli State's Extermination Camp.


       Gaza, it can no longer be called an open prison, it has now been changed, by the Israeli government, into an extermination camp. Deaths and maiming are a daily occurrence, and those whose bodies have not been ravaged by Israeli sniper fire, live a life of utter deprivation, with suicides increasing at an alarming rate. All of this is by deliberate government policy, with the results being well known to the vicious racist state of Israel and the rest of the so called civilised states.
     If a so called civilised world can stand by and see this happening, and not only do nothing, but continue to arm and support the responsible state, then they are complicit in this mass murder and maiming, just as if the had their troops involved in this barbaric state genocide.
     Gaza, a strip of land approximately seven miles by two at its widest part, is home to over 2 million Palestinians. They are penned in by the Israeli military, penned in under appalling conditions of over crowding, poverty and deprivation, with electricity just a few hours a day, a shortage of clean water, no work, a health service that depends on the Israeli authorities allowing medical volunteers through their strict check points. 
      In this small over crowded strip of land, since March this year, 220 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli military, more than 24,000 causalities, more than 5,000 shot with high velocity gunfire, hundreds of them requiring amputation.
      You will search hard to find another small strip of the planet where so many human beings are being systematically brutalised and exterminated by deliberate state policy, and we see the cabal of Western states turn their backs and look the other way, in the name of "security" and profit.
       A must read article that goes some way to highlighting this 21st. century state genocide, from the Independent,

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Sunday 4 March 2018

Mental Illness Or ??


 



           Following on from Killer Cops And Gun Control:

        This is a discussion paper written by a member of the Twin Cities General Defense Committee, Local 14. It therefore does not represent the official positions of the Twin Cities GDC, the General Defense Committee in general, or the Industrial Workers of the World.
By Erik D.
          We can’t eliminate exceptional violence without eliminating systemic violence. We must fight for liberation, not smaller boxes guarded by white men with guns.
Introduction – We Must Connect The Struggles for Peace
       On February 18th, 2018, A nineteen year old white man entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with his rifle, and murdered 17 people. He was later arrested peacefully by police. The shooter’s social media profiles indicate a racist obsessed with white nationalism and a hatred of women, and a promoter of fascist messages and imagery. He was reportedly obsessed with guns, and his behavior had been reported to law enforcement repeatedly. Law enforcement never took action, which has itself been widely criticized. The reasons for this inaction are not hard to pin down for those willing to look: Cruz, the shooter – was a white man with a gun, and therefore not a threat. In the aftermath, a Neo Nazi organization calling itself the Republic of Florida claimed Cruz as a member. This was quickly refuted when it became clear that their troll leader was merely seeking attention. Many stopped paying attention to that aspect of Cruz’ history as a result. But a peek at Cruz’ social media history demonstrates his independent hatred of black people and womenOr the swastikas he etched into his firearm ammunition magazines.
          In the aftermath, student survivors have successfully seized the national spotlight for the moment, and are demanding steps that will end the shootings that they have grown up with. This is a quest – to stop the violence in our society – that must be supported, and accomplished. But in order to accomplish it, we must be frank with ourselves about the causes of these shootings. The causes are white supremacism, male supremacism, and the history and present of firearms in the USA.
          Compare the spotlight these high school students have successfully seized with the response of mostly black women and men, including many youth, after the murder of Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Mike Brown, Jamar Clark, Sylville Smith, and so many others. The “Ferguson moment,” started with the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, transformed into a national movement against police murder of black people in the US by law enforcement. In contrast to the brave students of Stoneman Douglas High, the brave youth declaring that Black Lives Matter were demonized, and the militarized weight of the state was brought to bear against them repeatedly.
If our goal is to eliminate or at least massively reduce the epidemic of violence in our country, we must connect these struggles. Without connecting their gun control efforts to the concerns and needs of the Movement for Black Lives, the Stoneman Douglas students will substantially fail. Perhaps more ominous is the probability that they win some of their their demands without connecting them to the systematic violence that underwrites our entire country’s history and culture.
The problem is not mental illness
         A major concern in the post-massacre coverage has been the near-universal discussion of the shooter’s mental state. Many assume that merely because someone engages in an aberrant act, they are mentally ill. This is very far from the case. Breivik, the Norwegian neo-Nazi who in 2011 murdered 77 people – mostly leftist youths – was clearly not mentally ill. Neither was Dylan Roof, when he sat through a prayer meeting at the historic AME church founded by the great Denmark Vesey, and then opened fire, murdered all present except one person, whom he intentionally left alive as a witness. Neither were the Columbine shooters – those who are often held up as the originators and paradigm of modern school shootings in 1999.
         What they all had in common was not mental illness, but a hatred of non-white people and women. This is a through-line so consistent in mass shooters that it is very difficult to find exceptions. Those few apparent exceptions, such as Elliot Rodger, the Isla Vista mass murderer who targeted women, and whose mother is Asian, nevertheless adopt the particular hatreds of the masculinist and white supremacist culture in which they are raised. Rodgers frequently made racist and sexist statements, including specifically against Asian people.

Thursday 25 August 2016

No War But Class War.

       Under capitalism, the festering cancer that dominates our lives, the ordinary people fight a multitude of battles, there are plenty of injustices to pick from. There is racism, sexism, patriarchy, gender problems, inequality, injustice, militarism, and so the list goes on. All of these struggles are important, but winning one or all of them, will not bring this corrupt exploitative system crumbling down. There is the core battle that has to be fought, and that one struggle is the only struggle that will free us from the crushing power of the capitalist system. We have to realise that it is a class based system, that is its foundation, it ability to function. We are its serfs, its peasants, its slaves, and no matter how many injustices we manage to right, the same class system will still be in place. There is an "elite" of privileged parasites who control every aspect of our lives, and we feed them generously. Until we eradicate that class bases of our society, we will never be free, we will always have injustices and exploitation as the norm of our lives. Class war is the only road to demolish this needless burden on the shoulders of humanity.


Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk


Wednesday 30 December 2015

Democracy, Secrecy Behind Closed Doors.


      The babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, would have us believe we live in a democracy. A strange democracy, where we choose our lords and masters, pay their salaries and excessive expenses, but that democracy holds the governments papers for thirty years, in secret, away from the prying eyes of the public, that is supposed to be their employer. Some of the stench from those recently released secret papers is now beginning to fill our nostrils. The underhand, back stabbing double dealing of the Thatcher years is now appearing in the public domain. 
     One such stench comes from David Willets, who in Thatcher's government claimed that the Scots were a juicy target for cuts, as well as stating that they could gain votes down south if they were seen to be plundering the Scots, also stating that the Scots had their snouts in the trough. He had to resign because he had "dissembled" in his evidence to the Standards and Privileges Committee over whether pressure was put onto an earlier investigation into Neil Hamilton's brown paper envelope saga. Despite his “dissembling” of evidence, his career would not suffer, in fact he was rewarded like so many of the products from Oxbridge sausage factory, by a cushy number in the “Lords” and is now slouching about in ermine as Baron Willets. 
     Another smell from the recently released secret papers is one Oliver Letwin, another product from the Oxbridge sausage factory, also responsible for the vomiting of rabid racist remarks while serving in Thatcher's band of rogues. He is now a senior policy adviser to King rat Cameron. While an aide to Maggie at No. 10 in 1985, it is alleged that he said that white people are not prone to disorder, and stating that a scheme to encourage black entrepreneurs would only result in them investing in discos and drugs.
       These are just two of the band rabid racist, Oxbridge arseholes, whose views were known to those who brought them into their inner circle, to decide policies that shape our lives, so we can accept that their views are acceptable to the cabal that we keep in luxury, and allow to rule over our lives. No wonder they keep their stinking dirty linen secret for 30 years. Democracy behind closed doors, and with secret papers, if it wasn't so dangerous and disgusting, it would be funny.
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Friday 5 June 2015

Invaders Against Immigrants!!!

     Saw this on Arrezafe and thought it worth posting here. A native American speaks the truth to immigrants.


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Thursday 14 May 2015

Two Baltimores.

         The babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, has been pouring a lot of biased gibberish and photos of violence in Baltimore. We know there are “black” areas, and that is where most of the violence occurs. As for the rest of Baltimore, I for one, know nothing. However it seems that it is a city of unbelievable contrasts, a city displaying the capitalist obligatory wealth differences on a major scale.
         A very interesting article from Anarchist News gives a clearer insight to this area, which could be described as two cities.
       Recent riots in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray have been the largest there since those following the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. They began on April 25, 2015, when a group of protestors split off from a peaceful rally and began hurling bottles at cops and smashing patrol cars.[iv] This happened not far from Camden Yards[v] where white Orioles and Red Sox fans remained untouched behind stadium gates. Others, drunk and racist, brawled with protestors outside nearby sports bars. But Baltimore’s true elites were far from downtown. That Saturday was the 119th running of the Maryland Hunt Cup, a steeplechase horse race in Reisterstown, Baltimore County. A steeplechase, for those less schooled in equestrian pastimes, is where the horses jump over a bunch of fences and ditches and try not to fall over. In Maryland, this particular race provides rich people with an excuse to break out their finest, brightest spring clothes. Bowties, salmon-colored shorts, Lilly Pulitzer dresses in red and green. Flowery sunhats. Mint juleps and Natty Boh beer. White Baltimore ascends toward its ideal form. Down in the fields a horse trips and falls, snapping its leg and pitching the jockey off into the mud. It will be soon be dragged out of view of the garishly-clad onlookers to be shot.
Read the full article HERE:

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Friday 8 May 2015

Built On Racism, Die By Racism.


      That Zionist state of Israel, that claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East, is sooner or later going to implode/explode. While it carries out its policy of genocide against the Palestinian people, in its drive for a "Greater Israel", stacking up bitterness, resentment and hatred across the world, internally, the same nut-case religious fundamentalism is splintering its internal structure. Resentment grows between the ultra-orthodox Jews, who don't work, are paid by the state and are exempt from military service, and the others, who have to work to survive and see their sons and daughters being drafted into the military. Poverty is also a factor, with over 14% of all Jews in Israel living below the poverty line, while billions are spent on policing and military. Another divisive factor in their society is the fact that, some Jews are more equal than other Jews. The Ethiopian Jews, living in Israel come in for some very rough treatment from their "bothers", simply because they don't fit the picture of how they think a Jew should look. The Ethiopian Jews who arrived in Israel in the 1980's make up approximately 2% of the Israeli population, but 40% of the prison population, and where as 14% of the Israeli population lives in poverty, in the Ethiopian section of the community that figure jumps to more than 35%. They are insulted, ridiculed and harassed, simple because of their colour. It seems being a Jew is not enough, you have to look like what they think a Jew should look like.
      Recently the Ethiopian Jews have erupted onto the streets with running battles with the police, this was sparked by an unprovoked attack on a Jewish soldier, who didn't fit their picture, he just happen to be Ethiopian. A state built on racism, will die by racism.


From Dialectical Delinquents:
3/5/15:
Israel, Tel Aviv: conflicts between Ethiopian Jews and cops continue “…protesters threw rocks and glass bottles at police, who responded with stun grenades and fired water cannons at protesters. As of midnight Sunday, almost 50 people were injured. According to Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, 23 of them were police officers.” More here Israeli mounted police charged hundreds of Ethiopian-Israeli citizens and fired stun grenades on Sunday to try to clear one of the most violent protests in memory in the heart of Tel Aviv. The protesters, Israeli Jews of Ethiopian origin, were demonstrating against what they say is police racism and brutality after the emergence last week of a video clip that showed policemen shoving and punching a black soldier. Demonstrators overturned a police car and threw bottles and stones at officers in riot gear at Rabin Square in the heart of Israel’s commercial capital. … tear gas was also used, something the police declined to confirm. “I’ve had enough of this behavior by the police, I just don’t trust them any more … when I see the police I spit on the ground,” one female demonstrator who was not identified told Channel 2 before police on horseback had charged. Earlier, demonstrators brought evening rush hour traffic to a standstill for over an hour by blocking one of the city’s main highways. …Tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in dramatic, top-secret operations in the 1980s and 1990s after a rabbinical ruling that they were direct descendants of the biblical Jewish Dan tribe. The community, which now numbers around 135,500 out of Israel’s population of over 8 million, has long complained of discrimination, racism and poverty. Tensions rose after an incident a week ago in a Tel Aviv suburb where a closed circuit video camera captured a scuffle between a policeman and a uniformed soldier of Ethiopian descent.”…Netanyahu says “…there is no place for this type of violence” – we know the type he colonises several places for.
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Wednesday 6 May 2015

Racism And Police Brutality.

 
 It says "Police" on his chest, but he looks like a soldier in a combat area.
An appeal from ColorOfChange, on behave of the people of Baltimore:


Sign the Petition.

Over the past few days, Baltimore law enforcement stepped up their militarized violence against protesters. Courageous Black folks and their allies calling for an end to centuries of structural racism and discriminatory policing were met with pepper spray, beatings and unjust arrest. 1 And while all 6 officers who killed Freddie Gray have been charged and are out of jail, many protesters are languishing in overcrowded, inhumane jail cells facing unjust criminal charges and outrageous bail.
Will you join nearly 30,000 ColorOfChange members urging State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby to drop the charges against all protesters?
Since the tragic police killing of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, more than 300 people have been arrested for protesting. Among them is Allen Bullock, an 18-year-old facing a $500,000 bail and 8 criminal counts — that carry a life sentence — for smashing the windows of a police car. 2 Allen's family urged him to turn himself in, but in the context of a justice system that values property over Black lives and disproportionally treats Black youth more harshly than their white counterparts, Allen faces no mercy.
The people of Baltimore have had enough. Over just the last 4 years, police have killed 109 people in the city. And in 2014, 100% of the people killed by Baltimore police were Black. Baltimore — like most cities in America — has a long and ongoing history of violent, discriminatory and illegal policing. 
The same racist and violent Baltimore policing culture that killed Freddie has fueled the recent abuse of protesters. In a harrowing video released this weekend, police are seen pepper-spraying a Black protester point blank and then brutally dragging him across the street by his dreadlocks. 3 White people protesting the same unconstitutional curfew instead received a 5-minute-warning. 4 Police also arrested 10 legal observers who were documenting human rights abuses by law enforcement. 5
Protesters are not criminals. Urge State's Attorney Mosby to drop the charges against protesters and focus the city's resources on preventing violent and discriminatory policing.
Thanks and peace,
— Rashad

Sign the Petition.

References
1. "A Bloody History of Police Brutality in Baltimore," The Root 05-04-2015
http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2015/05/a_bloody_history_of_police_brutality_in_baltimore.html
2. "Cops Who Murdered Freddie Gray Released On Bail, Protester Still Stuck In Jail (VIDEO)," ReverbPress 05-04-2015
https://reverbpress.com/justice/bullock-held-on-500k-bail-freddie-gray-cops-released/
3. "Balt Police caught treating peaceful protesters diff based on race/or content of speech," SCT LAW Tweet 05-03-2015
https://twitter.com/wylielawfirm/status/594921328643317761
4. "White protestors politely asked to leave, black protestor pepper sprayed and dragged away," BoingBoing 05-04-2015
http://boingboing.net/2015/05/04/white-protestors-politely-aske.html
5. "Baltimore's Refusal to Permit Legal Observers to Witness Police Enforcing Curfew Resulted in Mass Arrest," FireDogLake 05-04-2015
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2015/05/04/baltimores-refusal-to-permit-legal-observers-to-witness-police-enforcing-curfew-resulted-in-mass-arrest/
Don't they make you feel safer!!!!
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Wednesday 29 April 2015

Baltimore And Police Brutality.




An Appeal from Color Of Change:
      It has been more than two weeks since Baltimore police killed Freddie Gray and no officer has been fired, arrested, or prosecuted. Local officials don't even have answers to the most basic questions: Why did police violently arrest Gray? Why was this healthy 25-year-old's voice box crushed, his spleen ruptured and 80% of his spine severed after 45 minutes with Baltimore law enforcement? 1
       The lack of accountability for Gray's killing is unacceptable and the solution to Baltimore's policing crisis is not martial law or more militarized policing. Right now, we need widespread public pressure to ensure the necessary leadership and independent oversight to bring Gray's killers to justice and overhaul the Baltimore Police Department. Without independent oversight it's unlikely that Gray's killers will be held accountable. Local prosecutors work too closely with police on a day to day basis to hold them accountable — and they almost never do.2
      To be Black in Baltimore means every day is a risk. In a city overcome with racism, police violence, and a police union blocking reform,3 even the most simple activities — a walk down the street or the drive to work — could mean an unlawful arrest or deadly attack at the hands of law enforcement. According to an investigation by the Baltimore Sun, in just 5 years, 100 Baltimore residents have won $5.7 million worth of settlements relating to police brutality and civil rights. The stories are shocking, yet almost none of the officers were held accountable:4
  • Jerriel Lyles, who was attacked by police on his way out of a convenience store: "The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”
  • Starr Brown, a pregnant woman slammed to the ground and kneed in the back by police after calling them for help: "They slammed me down on my face...The skin was gone on my face"
  • An 87-year-old grandmother, who was attacked after calling an ambulance for her wounded son, was told: "B****, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black b**** I have locked up.”
       Following Freddie Gray's killing, a community tired of living under siege and facing decades of employment discrimination and decimated public housing is rising up to demand change.5 Last night, as the National Guard moved into Baltimore, images of militarized police tear gassing and beating protestors, fires, and outrage once again flashed across our TV screens. The best way to restore peace to Baltimore is for Governor Hogan and local leadership to undo the structural racism targeting its people. But right now, police are preparing to announce even harsher measures to crack down on the protests — like a curfew for youth6 — that will likely continue to escalate an already unacceptable level of confrontation and violence between police and citizens.
       Protestors in Baltimore are showing the same courageous resistance and vision for a better country that we see coming out of Ferguson, Madison, New York, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and other cities across the country. And just as in Ferguson, justice for the brutal police killing of Freddie Gray depends on Governor Hogan's leadership to do more than ramp up law enforcement.
Thanks and peace,
References
1. "Nonviolence as Compliance," The Atlantic 04-27-2015 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4768?t=6&akid=4316.2196388.TAFzlj
2. "Why I Don’t Trust Baltimore Prosecutors with Freddie Gray Case," Legal Speaks 04-22-2015 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4769?t=8&akid=4316.2196388.TAFzlj
3. "Maryland Cop Lobbyists Helped Block Reforms Just Last Month," Intercept 04-28-2015 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4770?t=10&akid=4316.2196388.TAFzlj
4. "Undue Force," The Baltimore Sun 09-04-2014 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4771?t=12&akid=4316.2196388.TAFzlj
5. "Baltimore’s shame is America’s shame: How job flight and police brutality spelled doom for Freddie Gray’s neighborhood," Salon 04-28-2015 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4772?t=14&akid=4316.2196388.TAFzlj
6. "Gov. Larry Hogan promises more than 1,000 additional troops, vows to prevent rioting," The Baltimore Sun 04-28-2015 http://act.colorofchange.org/go/4773?t=16&akid=4316.2196388.TAFzlj
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