Hello Lamp Post, What Kind Of Day Have You Had?

 

        It seems that the citizens of the fair city of Bristol are to be part of a large and very expensive experiment. They are soon to be enmeshed in a web of connectivity, an invisible spider's web of waves and pulses. The City council with the help of hi-tec giants, universities and pots of money will be working together to create a magic world of an all joined up society. Lamp posts, bus stop and other inauspicious objects will become points of communication. The latest face recognition and crowd analysis will be employed, the powers that be boast of the wonderful benefits, stating that it could mean that if there was an accident, the emergency services could be notified before you can reach for your phone. Of course they don't mention that with all that face recognition and crowd analysis, that other service, the one with the riot shields and truncheons could arrive before you can reach for your phone. Another feature they seem to be getting carried away with is, you will be able to communicate with the said lamp posts and bus stops and have some sort of conversation, and others will be able to hear and see what has been going on there, swapping information. Doesn't it sound wonderful, you will be able to communicate with everybody without actually meeting anybody. So when you tire of watching crap TV or playing with your game consul, you can walk down the high street and have a conversation with a lamp post, or perhaps your fancy is a nice bus stop, this they say is connecting the city!! 

      What it boils down to is a super surveillance system where there is no hiding place, no need to came face to face with another human being, or are you naive enough to think that all this money and effort is being spent for the benefit of the citizens of the fair city of Bristol. If it is successful, in the eyes of the powers that be, it will be rolled out across the country. The perfect controllable society, where people can function in isolation, always being observed and recorded, a system where decisions are made by algorithms, computers and faceless individuals. Welcome to the world of connectivity. 

This from 325:

       City authorities and allied technological entrepreneurs are working to kit out Bristol with a city-wide ‘digital fabric’ of the very latest in sensor and connectivity technology, to make it the world’s first open ‘programmable city’. A high-speed fibre-optic network (making use of disused cable ducting owned by the council) is being combined with a new ‘city operating system’ that will power an experimental network. In the coming spring of 2016, 1,500 sensor-equipped lampposts are being launched around the city; the vast majority of Bristol will be covered in a Radio Frequency (RF) mesh. This is predicted to revolutionise the way that emergency response, traffic management and other municipal services are handled, and track certain vehicle locations, with eventual alleged trickle-down ‘benefits’ such as informing residents of parking spaces and air pollution (ahem, from those parking spaces) in an increasingly mechanised and technified environment.-------

And there is more:

---------The sensors will collate vast amounts of raw data, which the council is already equipt with various ‘Big Data’ processing platforms to analyse; Bristol has already opened up almost two hundred of the city’s data sets on traffic flows and energy use, crime trends, targeted advertising, generating new innovative businesses, as well as encouraging citizens to interact with the city in new, digitalised ways. ‘Acoustic detection sensors’ have also been mentioned; similar uses have been made of microphone-equipt lampposts in major cities of the United States, with audio recording and gunshot detectors linked straight to police targeting ‘high crime areas’, to be combined with surveillance video. As opposed to the reactions which their use in obtaining convictions have earned across the Atlantic, as a precursor to the Bristol Is Open initiative the PAN innovation team began a four-week project in Bristol during 2013 called Hello Lamp Post, to introduce smart-city technologies more ‘softly’. The project’s co-creator, Ben Barker, was featured in media at the time. “Smart cities, where technologies play an important role, tend to be perceived as high on efficiency yet low on warmer, human elements, Barker explains. “Our starting point was a desire to use the city’s existing infrastructure to encourage human interaction through storytelling and story sharing.” ” In a bizarre mix between Artificial Intelligence and a chat forum, users were offered the opportunity to ‘communicate’ with street furniture like lampposts, postboxes, and bus stops via text message by using the repair numbers found on these objects as SMS codes. The object would “wake up” and respond in kind with a series of text messages, “sharing interesting content about that specific location left by others who’ve come before”.

The full, well worth reading article, can be found HERE:

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What If------!!

          Some thoughtful words from Not Buying Anything:

       What is the ethos of our time? Most people would agree that it is the American Dream, or globally speaking, the Consumer Dream.
An ethos is defined as "the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations." So ours is something like - work hard and you will be able to buy everything you have ever wanted. As nice as this lie sounds, it has had some unintended consequences.
         There are currently several individuals in the world that are in the running for designation "First Trillionaire". They truly exemplify the ethos of our day, which could also be read as "The Ethos of More".
But only for me. Not for you. My gain is at your expense because there is a scarcity of everything. There is not enough so we have to compete with each other, and winner takes all. This is a distortion of the facts when we live in an infinitely abundant universe. “If you perceive the universe as being a universe of abundance, then it will be. If you think of the universe as one of scarcity, then it will be… 

         I always thought that there was enough to go around - that there are enough ideas in the universe and enough nourishment. It’s very hard to move beyond the idea that there is not enough to go around, to move beyond that sense of ‘I better get mine before anybody else takes it away from me’.” 

- Milton Glaser

       Our current ethos, The Consumer Dream, has become The Planetary Nightmare.We need a new characteristic spirit to guide us, one diametrically opposed to the one we have today.
        In an abundant world there is plenty to address everyone's need, but there will never be enough to fulfil the greed of even a few. Needs are finite, while greed is unlimited.
        What if we are not as greedy as the economists tell us we are? Maybe we don't have infinite wants, or wouldn't if it weren't for being immersed in profit propaganda and advertising our whole lives. Maybe, with a new world view, people would give simplicity a try, and discover that a simple life of limited wants is a sustainable, happy existence. It is enough.
Imagine if, in an Ethos of Abundance, we all thought that there was more than enough to satisfy the needs of every human on the planet. In such a world view we could freely share the gifts of Earth with everyone taken care of in the healthiest way possible.
        In such a world we would spend our time taking care of ourselves and those around us in a spirit of cooperation and sharing. Most people would agree that this would be preferable to competition and perpetual war.
         It is an idea whose time has come. Goodbye American Dream, hello Enough For Everyone. Gift what you can - receive what you need.

"What if...

Everyone started sharing, just a little bit
With everyone else,
something that they liked to do
and didn’t charge for it?

I like making art and growing plants.
In current society, I have to sell
“things” or my “time” to live.

But if I gave some of my art
And some of my plants away,
And other people gave away some of what they do
Before long our society
Would have a different shape.

I believe we would soon have
More time for 'giving'
than for 'selling'."

- Candace Ross

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Another World War, Whose Side Are You On?

         Pick your country, and there is a need for solidarity across those borders, as the various states use their purloined power to stifle any attempt by the people to reclaim that power. There is a world war going on at the moment, it is the war against the tyranny and exploitation of the capitalist system, it is a world wide class war. If we want a world of freedom and justice, a world we would be proud to hand to our children and our grandchildren, then it is a war we must win. 

         We have to forget those phoney lines drawn on maps by kings, presidents and dictators, and realise that the struggle, in any part of this world, by people defending their conditions or fighting for a decent life, is our struggle. The system we are fighting is world wide, it is not national, though states call on us to be patriotic, their masters, the capitalist system, is never patriotic, they laugh at those same borders they insist we observe. 

        Today French unions, students and undocumented workers have been in the streets day and night to reject the anti-labour reform pushed through the government without a vote. Not that our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media notices. They are on the streets defending some meagre conditions that they wrestled from the system, and it now wants them back. That struggle is our struggle, it is the same system, what is implemented there can and will be implemented elsewhere if it suits the profit motive. Don’t be fooled by the propaganda that the French workers have it easy with their guaranteed 35 hour week. The facts are somewhat different. The French workers on average work longer hours than their UK and German counterparts. The figures for 2014 show that on average the French workers worked 37.5 hours per week, UK, 36.1 and German workers, 35.3. Like all conditions for workers, they can be manipulated at will by employers. 

         Those in struggle in France are part of that world wide class war, they are planning a general strike for June 14, it demands all the support and solidarity we can muster. Let the borders melt, we are one people in one gigantic struggle. Our solidarity is our most powerful weapon, if we use it we can win.

 Some points from the French labour reform bill.

• The 35-hour week in theory remains, but as an average. Firms can negotiate with local trade unions on more or fewer hours from week to week, up to a maximum of 46 hours.
  
• Firms are given greater freedom to reduce pay.
  
• The new law creates easier conditions for laying off workers, which is regulated in France.
  
• Employers given greater scope to negotiate holidays and special leave, such as getting married and maternity leave.
  

Where in this is there anything that is a gain to the workers? It is an employers bill

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

The Grand Illusion.

      What a hullabaloo about the possibility of a woman president in America. All those women shouting about feeling empowered, remember Thatcher? As one woman put it, "I fell as empowered by a woman president as I do about women cops". Then of course we had that other earth shattering empowering moment in America, when the first black man was was voted in as president. Suddenly all the people of colour in America were empowered, my arse. Things will go on as before, the financial Mafia will rule, the new figurehead might indicate a slight difference in emphasis, but not direction.

      How much money was thrown at Hilary to get her where she is? Well it was a cool $296.4 million, that's what you need to be empowered in the capitalist world of America. All those big backers that threw their money at her will be waiting in the wings to get their pay-back if she gets to the Whitehouse. and that's where the empowerment goes, never to "the women", "the people of colour" or any other group of ordinary people. 

       Every four years we are subjected to this grand illusion, this spectacle of mass insanity, where millions think that by all voting for one person, the system will change. Out goes one figurehead, in pops another, but the power moguls still sit with their hands on the power levers. Of course there might be a few titbits thrown here and there, some crumbs for the peasants, a sort of window dressing, but not necessarily so.

       Think of the number of presidents and prime ministers that have been ushered in on a wave of misplaced belief that this would bring change, here we are, in the twenty first century, and the result is a planet facing destruction, a world at war, poverty rampant, and the gap between rich and poor ever widening. Can't we wake up to the fact that this system doesn't work. There is an alternative, first we have to get rid of corporate power, dispel the illusion of capitalist representative democracy and take power into our own hands. We don't need presidents, prime ministers, CEO, and other hoarders of wealth and power, we can have a fairer system of distribution and see to the needs of all our people, if we really want it to be that way. 

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

Great Run, Pity About The Roads.

        Well it seems that this glorious spell of wonderful weather is about to fizzle out in a few days time, we will be back to what we know best, a bit on the cold side, windy and wet. However it was great while it lasted, who knows, perhaps it will come back again, SOON.

Ward Toll, a cross roads and a garden centre. 

       I took the bike along another road that I haven't been for a few years, up past Ward Toll, turn right and head down to Buchlyvie, turn right along the road from Stirling, then soup and coffee at Ballot Toll. For some reason I can't find the name "Ballot Toll" on the google map.

Buchlyvie, needs to see to its roads.

      The decision to take the B road to Buchlyvie was a big mistake, for about 1-1.5 miles, the road surface is atrocious, difficult to describe it other than there must be a law against call a piece of ground like that "A Road". you then get a couple of miles of fairly decent surface, then it gets worse than the first bit. The section after you go over the wee hump bridge and start to climb up to the main road, defies description. I thought as I turned onto the main road from Stirling that it would be a good surface, it is not, for the first mile or so, it is a nightmare, it does eventually turn into what could be called "A Road". I would recommend that anybody with a decent road bike should not go anywhere near the Ward Toll to Buchlyvie road.

Ballot Toll, one of my favourite watering holes when out on the bike.

      From Ballot Toll,  I went on to Drymen, then on through Croftamie and on to Glengoyn, famed for its single malt whisky.

Ptarmigan Pub Drymen.

Glengoyn Distillery.

       Despite the miles of excuses for roads, it was a wonderful day out.

Another view from Drymen Square.

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

Glasgow Peoples Press.

 

    Over the years, anarchists and libertarian socialists have produced a mountain of zines, newspapers, serials, etc. and those in Glasgow are no exception. The vibrant people of our city have added more than their fair share to that legacy of literature, detailing the struggles, anger, dreams and hopes of the ordinary people. We at Spirit of Revolt are very proud to have collected a considerable number of these publications and are working hard to make them available on line, so that those involved in struggle today, can learn from the past, and grasp the fact that their struggle is not a new struggle, but the same struggle as previous generations.

         The latest paper to be digitalised by Spirit of Revolt, and made available for you to read on line is one that, though there were not a tremendous number of issues, 11, in fact, it was popular and influential, namely Glasgow Peoples Press. All 11 issues are held in our archive and are there for you to read on line, see T-SOR 3-56-6 John Cooper Collection. The latest addition to our Read of the Month gives a short summary of this paper, highlighting issue No.6. Have a look, we know you will find it all very interesting and we hope helpful in your struggles.

 Image from Glasgow Peoples Press No.11.

       I'm sure there are a lot of anarchists/libertarian socialists etc. out there and they may have a bob or two in their pockets, if so, and you like what we are doing, remember, it's your history, perhaps you could make your way to the Contribute page. Any small donation, a one of, or a regular direct debit, a couple of quid or so, will be gratefully accepted, and can be the life blood that keeps us going, doing what we think, and I hope you think, is a very important part in the preservation of the history and heritage of the people of this city. Go on, look at our site, and ask yourselves, do you want to help.

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

Solidarity Is Our Weapon.

 

       In this country, we all know that the justice system is served by police, who have given us the Birmingham 6, Hillsborough, and Orgreave, to mention a few. We also know that this is not unique to the UK police, but pans out across the globe as part and parcel of the way the various states do things. In Greece there has been the long running case of anarchist Grigoris Tsironis and comrades. Held in prison on a serious of robbery charges, which  have now been dropped, thanks to the international support and the fact that it was obviously a frame-up. Of course the state doesn't give up easily, the robbery charges dropped, he and his comrades are now roped into the anti-terrorism laws, and under investigation about terrorist organisations. If you're a nuisance to the state, they will keep after you and keep trying to silence you. That is why we must always show our solidarity with those who stand up and face down the system. It is obvious that they don't do it for their own well being, their fight is our fight and demands our support.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

        I call, therefore, the solidarity movement to rally up forces with its strong and mass presence in the judicial battles of all the comrades whose cases are now underway. Solidarity and support by the movement cannot be given partially or selectively.
      Comrades who refuse the charges attributed to them and fight for their collapse, deserve our solidarity. Comrades who claim responsibility for their acts and with dignity and political arguments fight their battle inside the court rooms, deserve our solidarity.
Finally, comrades who discredit civil justice and spit in the faces of judicial employees, do not bargain for their freedom and they themselves create the preconditions in order to regain it, deserve the same solidarity.
       Let us perceive, even if it sounds romantic, that we are different pieces of the same puzzle, that when connected, our vision for the revolution will appear.
        Let’s look ahead and gaze this vision and let’s leave the mistakes and hostilities in the past.
Solidarity is our weapon
Not a step back…

NO COMRADE HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE STATE
FREEDOM TO POLITICAL PRISONERS
AND IMPRISONED FIGHTERS
STRENGTH TO THE WANTED COMRADES
Grigoris Tsironis
Koridallos Prisons
4/6/2016

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Another Capitalist Success Story!!!

        So Mike Ashley, in front of a committee of MPs, admits he is a bit of a rascal. Accused of paying below the minimum wage, too many zero hours contracts, the vast majority of the warehouse staff are agency workers, running a climate of fear in his warehouse, involving the staff in long, time consuming searches, after their clocked off time, administering a, six strikes and you’re out regime. The strikes being, chatting too much, taking too long in the toilet, and other such vile crimes. Also being penalised if you are as much as one minute late. 

           The publicity has seen the price of the shares in his company, Sports Direct, take a tumble, down 45% on last year. Could this be the next capitalist success story after Philip Greens magnificent job at BHS? He has promised is accusers, the MPs, that he will put all these matters right, that of course could hit his profit margins, which in turn will keep pushing the price of his shares down. Could this be time to pull the plug and walk away with his millions, earned from all that below minimum wage, zero hours contracts, and agency workers, climate of fear, routine that he followed so faithfully. Of course, if so, we will get the usual, “difficult trading conditions” was the cause of the collapse. Whatever the outcome of this little exercise with the MPs, what I don’t expect is that Sports Direct will become a pleasant and well paid place to be employed.

 

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

The Dangerous Infection Of Christian Fundamentalism.

       Our esteemed lords and masters, clinking their glasses in the subsidised bars of that citadel of imperialism, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, along with our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, are always spewing out verbal sewage about extremists. Of course they always mean the Islamic variety, they never mention the other viral infection on this planet, the Christian variation. This particular sickness is widespread in the US, but is slowly infecting greater numbers here in the UK. Thanks to the Oxbridge cabal of millionaires, so called independent schools are spring up all over the place. In a sane world this would be no bad thing, but when the agenda is set by religious fundamentalism, blind faith, anti-science and egos backed of with big money, the result is far from desirable.
         It has now come to light that there are an increasing number of “faith schools” of the Christian fundamentalist variety, popping up in this country, the most virulent variety being those under the banner of Accelerated Christian Education schools, (ACE) these establishments are a variation of an "education" system, (translates as propaganda system) spawned and developed in the Southern Baptist states of the US, and among the poison they spread is creationism as fact, and women’s submissive position to men. Children are taught in divided slots partitioned from each other. This fundamentalism is extremely dangerous and can poison the minds of children who grow into adults with a closed and bigoted value structure, creating more and deeper unbridgeable chasms in our society.
         Religion must be taken out of education, be should demand education, not indoctrination. Believers can teach at home, or go to their palaces of hallucination, to spout to the willing, but they should never be allowed to take children and blind them to the real world we live in, with their poisonous bigotry and illusionary world of invisible people and magic.

An interesting article from The Independent: 

         A rare photo inside an Accelerated Christian Education school, from the 1980s. Former pupils say the same classroom format is still used in the UK today

  ------ The textbooks used by the schools have also been criticised for providing allegedly inappropriate material. A number of textbooks seen by The Independent and which are reportedly used in schools appear to include worrying content about gay people, women’s rights and also appear to teach creationism as fact.
       One textbook says: “Homosexual, adjective: having unnatural sexual feelings towards one of the same sex… Homosexual activity is another of man’s corruptions of God’s plan.------

Read the full article HERE:

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

The Bumpy Road To Aberfolye.

 

        Still the sun shines, and our dour Scottish personality is already saying, "Aye, we'll pay for this", but grab it while we can. Another glorious day temperature in the 20's and a light wind, magic. After last weeks nasty experience on the Loch road, I decided to go for the Trossachs and settled for Aberfoyle. It has been a few years since I took the bike to this lovely spot. It was a very pleasant run though not much in the way of flat roads. However, again the road surface raises its ugly head. After you go round the round-about at the Rob Roy Inn, the road is a disgrace, as the main road into Aberfoyle, it is broken, potholed, rough  and a danger to cyclists. You have to suffer about half to three quarters of a mile if unrelenting bangs and bumps, on a narrow busy road. I don't know if it is a fact that many motorists are unaware of what goes on under their car while driving over these road surfaces, and they just accept it, but it is costing them money on damaged shock absorbers and tyres. Perhaps if they wake up to that fact they may complain more and get something done about the problem. Of course you face the same road on the way out of Aberfoyle. Never the less, a beautiful day out.

About four years since I visited this lovely spot on the bike.

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

 

No Need For A Shepherd.

The Disobedient.

The shepherd directs, and the flock move,
always with the help of the dog
even sheep can be disobedient.
The disobedient must be controlled
their desire to take their own path
could be the end of the need for a shepherd
and sheep would graze where they will,
there would be no flock
just similar beasts grazing together.
Perhaps we should look at the disobedient
asking why they want to be so,
could it be that they know something we don’t.

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

BHS, Capitalist Success Story.

 

       Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, are reporting the recent BHS event as if something had gone wrong. As far as capitalism is concerned it worked out perfectly. A guy buys it, makes a fortune and bleeds it dry, then walks away, much richer than when he bought it, capitalism at its best. Is there any idiot out there who thinks that BHS was all about the employees and the customers? These latter two are just components, just the disposable ball-bearings that make the system function, but can be dumped and a replaced by a new set. The BHS can be registered as one of the UK's greatest capitalist success stories, all that effort by the people, creating all that wealth for a small bunch of parasites. Sure some shareholders might have lost some of their filthy loot, but they made a fortune over the life of the company, and the really big fish made a real killing.

 Philip with one of his buddies.

         Let's look at the facts, a guy, let's say Philip Green, buys this "enterprise" and over 15 years he pays his wife £400 million in dividends, that averages out at around £28 million a year, and to add some cream to their cake, it is channelled through a tax haven. No sense in giving any of it back to the people who created that wealth. There are other avenues where the shysters can make more money, that illusion known as the "pension fund". This is where the employee and the employer put money aside so that when the employee retires there will be something there to help them get by. In the case of this particular, "pension fund", when our friend Philip bought the company, its "pension fund" was in surplus to the extent of £5 million. After his 15 years of plundering, wheeling and dealing, slicing and dicing, "stewardship", that £5 million surplus, is now a whopping £571 million deficit. So having cleaned the pot out, and saddling the company with a massive £1.6 billion debt problem, our bold entrepreneur, sells the company to a serial bankrupter, for £1.

 Philip's wee boat, paid for by people like you.

        Meanwhile, Philip walks off into the sunset, with an estimated £3.6 billion bank balance, to take control of his new £100 million+ super yacht, with some serious Bahamas sailing to think about. Far from being a disaster, BHS is text book capitalism, for other "entrepreneurs" to follow. We have seen it in the past, and we will see it in the future, as long as we tolerate this stinking system of greed and plunder. So get used to it, capitalism, milk the masses and live happily ever after, Ah, the beauty of capitalism.

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