May Day, Our Day.

           Wednesday May 1st. MayDay, Labour Day, Workers Day, call it what you will, but it is all about the ordinary people coming together to celebrate their struggles and their victories. A day to remember all those working class heroes, who struggled and fought for the betterment of all, fought for a society that sees to the needs of all our people. Organise your own celebration, make for the streets, make new friends, meet up with old friends. Make it an opportunity to re-new that vision of a fair and just society that is buried in all out hearts, show the strength of solidarity that will get us there. May Day, a time to re-new that Spirit of Revolt.

                                  

 

           Now more than ever we have to show solidarity, we have to come together to defend our standard of living. May Day this year is an ideal opportunity to show that solidarity with all the ordinary people of this country and across the world, to lay down a marker, as the pampered parasite political class make a ruthless and savage grasp to capitalise everything in sight to save their gambling spiv bankster friends and bond merchants, from carrying their own gambling debts. We are expected to quietly pay off the gamblers losses and stand by while they privatise everything they can lay their sweaty palms on, that can make them money. It is their world -- or it is our world, you can decide.

            May Day is a day to realise our strength and see that road to the better world we all desire.

ann arky's home.

The Mask Of Anarchy.

      30th. April, last day of the month, last poem of the month, the day before May Day. I'm a great admirer of the poetry of William McIlvanney, I think I have read all he has written and some several times. So, with Labour Day in mind, I thought of this one from his book In Through The Head ISBN 1851581703 published by Mainstream Publishing Edinburgh.

    

Everyman: A Morality Play.

"Aye zur," Everyman said, as the Lord of the Manor

Raped his wife, sons and his daughters, and threw him a tanner.

"Aye zur," Everyman said, "that be bully for ee."

And he pulled up his smock as he bowed from the knee

with a delicate click of obedient clogs

And a tail-wagging movement he borrowed from dogs.

"Aye zur," Everyman said, "that be bully for ee"

"Appen Maister be wantin ma bollocks for tea?" 

With a father from north and a mother from south

He let every cliché find a home in his mouth,

Being taught as a man he would never fit,

He was skilled in the role of an identkit.

He learned his lines well until one fateful day,

Though his mouth still remembered the things he should say,

A slight twinge in one leg made him suddenly see;

"Get A grip. Human beings can't bow from the knee." 

"Ach, fuck this fur a play," every man said,

Took the lord of the manner and stove in his head.

       Since it is the last day of the wee poetry thingy, and tomorrow IS May Day, I thought, just for good measure, I might as well through in a few verses from Shelley's Mask of Anarchy.

The Mask of Anarchy.(extract)

'Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you -

Ye are many - they are few.

'What is Freedom? - ye can tell

That which slavery is, too well -

For its very name has grown

To an echo of your own.

'Tis to work and have such pay

As just keeps life from day to day

In your limbs, as in a cell

For the tyrants' use to dwell,

'So that ye for them are made

Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,

With or without your own will bent

To their defence and nourishment.

'Tis to see your children weak

With their mothers pine and peak,

When the winter winds are bleak, -

They are dying whilst I speak.

ann arky's home.

State Kidnappings.

      Two kidnappings in the middle of the night, two citizens pulled from their beds and surreptitiously dragged to a police station away from their homes. Actions of some dictatorial regime in some far off place? No, this is "democratic"  Europe, this is the normal state response to resistance to their policies, this is Greece. It could be Spain, Italy, UK, or any European country, they are all in the same big financial Mafia club. They will meet resistance with any force they feel is necessary, to carry through the corporatisation of the whole continent.

This from Contra Info:

Athens IMC collective
     * Translators’ note: In the early hours of April 10th, 2013, two fighters of the struggle against the gold mines in Halkidiki were kidnapped by the EKAM special police force from their homes in the town of Ierissos (located near the forest of Skouries). Hooded cops literally broke into their homes in the middle of the night, while they were sleeping with their families. Meanwhile, the local police station had been abandoned in fear of retaliation by the residents. Indeed, villagers of Ierissos stormed the police station and burned everything inside, as a first enraged response to the repressive operation. They also set up blockades in the area. Until the 14th of April, the two arrestees were held in the Thessaloniki police headquarters. On that day, prosecutors ordered the pretrial incarceration of both fighters on grave felony charges in connection to an incendiary attack on the Skouries mining site in mid-February 2013.

      The river will not flow back! No matter how hard they try to reestablish the 1967 junta, we will not allow that to happen!

Read the full article HERE:

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Youthful Traveller.

       April 29th., one more day to go, after today, of "poem a day" month of April. I hope you have had as much pleasure reading them as I have had posting them. It forced me to go back over pages I hadn't looked at for years, it kindle sparks that I thought had been extinguished.

Youthful Traveller.

Now,

firm in winter's bosom clasped

gazing back along a path

a path I never can retrace

wondering, when summer's blaze

cooled to autumn's seductive charm,

when autumn ran to winter's chill?

I saw no signpost mark the borders

no checkpoint with the list

bidding me declare.

So the sea of life I duely sailed

a smuggler to the last,

contraband I carry in my heart,

the joy of spring

mid winter's icy blast.

ann arky's home.

The Soldierless War Is Here.

       The soldierless war creeps ever closer and closer. We can now strike at the heart of communities from a comfortable office. Young people can sit at what would resemble a games console and mark up their score in hits, oblivious to the terror and carnage that is happening as they watch a screen and push an innocuous button. A family wiped out, a village destroyed and they didn't get off their backsides. Drones, for surveillance, drones for destruction, drones for home and drones for abroad. Control and carnage from an air conditioned office block near you. 

This from Stop The War Coalition, CND, War On Want, Drone Campaign Network:

      Last Saturday saw hundreds march to RAF Waddington against the UK government's use of Drones in Afghanistan, now controlled from the military airbase near Lincoln. The largest demonstration against drones to date brought together Stop the War, War on Want, the Drone Campaign Network and CND and more than 600 members of the public to launch a national campaign against drones.
       The pressure of our campaign has already been felt after the Ministry of Defence was forced to admit just two days before the protest that the Waddington control centre is now in operation. But much of the secrecy about how British drones are being used, and the threat of new interventions, remains.
      A comment in January by the Secretary of State for Defence showed just how easy a new intervention might be when he had turned down a request from France to send drones to Mali because of the "unacceptable impact on our operations in Afghanistan". The question of whether or not British people want a new war in Mali was not even raised.
    The widespread media coverage on drones that Saturday's demonstration has provoked has started an important debate about their use and showed just how important a strong anti-drones campaign will be in the coming months.

Stop the War would like to thank all those who participated in Saturday's successful demo

• Read the report from Common Dreams on the Ground the Drones demo, including TV reports from Sky and the BBC
• David Shariatmadari argues that drones might be changing more minds about war now that killing is conducted from our doorstep

Sign our petition and share with your friends

• Already signed by former archbishop Dr Rowan Williams, Dennis Halliday (former UN Assistant Secretary-General) and almost 4000 others. Please sign our petition to call on the government to abandon the use of drones as a weapon of war.

 ann arky's home.

Pipe Dreams.

      Today we are back in Glasgow for our poem, it's from a wee book called Glasgow's McGarrigle, ISBN 1871009014 by Fat Cat Publications. It is the work of one of Glasgow poets of the 80's, John McGarrigle, the introduction to the book by Dominic Behan, states;

    "---McGarrigle's work is filled with anger and bitterness. It is bitter without being brittle and angry without self destroying angst. It is conceived in his soul, compressed in his wit and dedicated to what Mayakovsky thought the greatest cause in the world, "The liberation of mankind". He doesn't know about envy or despair but he does know what he has been denied a share of. John McGarrigle's mind lives on hope for the future, love for his fellows and the certain unshakable knowledge that its all gotta change. That's what makes him a great poet."

Pipe Dreams.

another burst pipe

another broken window

sometimes I think I'll scream

but usually end up

lost in a dream

of living in a nice house

somewhere

quiet and serene

away from the squalor

that I'm living in

but, I'd probably

end up lonely

for my friends and family

and end up

back in Castlemilk

dreaming of a nice house

somewhere

quiet and serene.

ann arky's home.

Occupied Territory.

 

       The police are an occupying force for maintaining social peace in enemy territory. Where we the ordinary people live is not where the ruling class live. The reason this territory has to be controlled is simply because the system does not work in the interest of the ordinary people, and as social and environmental conditions worsen, the dissatisfaction has to be controlled, less it disrupts the well-being of the ruling class. However the nature of this exploitative system we live under, means that dissatisfaction will always be there among the ordinary people. Today as the ruling class are on a looting and plundering binge, anger among the ordinary people will grow and so will the brutality of the occupying police force.

      Across Europe we are seeing this unrest growing and in unison we are seeing the police brutality also grow. The people of Greece have felt the growth of savage assault on its streets on an almost daily basis as they are bulldozed into poverty and deprivation. Other countries where the “austerity” looting by the ruling class has been harshest the people's anger has been met with the same increase in police brutality.

     Only when we put in place a system that works in the interest of t  he ordinary people, will we see the anger disappear from the streets and the need to be policed by an occupying force become obsolete.

  

    

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Defending The Right To Freedom Of Speech.

      Most people know, or should know the poverty and deprivation that has been callously forced onto the ordinary families of Greece. Of course the people of Greece, like people anywhere else, when they are brutally assaulted, fight back. The state, of course, is aware of this and meets this fight back, with an array of methods. First and foremost is propaganda, mislead, confuse, and scapegoat sections of society, divide and rule. When this doesn't do the job then it is the bare-knuckle approach with violent repression, Greece is well down this path. Daily brutality against any organised protest, a free hand to right-wing fascist groups who are there to put fear on the streets. Also the state will deal harshly with any attempt by the people to communicate outside the state blessed institutions, the babbling brook of bullshit, the media is to be your only organ of information. Hence the Greek state has done its damnedest to close down Indymedia Athens and the people organised free radio broadcasts. The free flow of information by the people must be stifled, only the state message is to be heard.

       On April 25th. in Athens there was a massive demonstration against this attempted stifling of the voice of the people. Thousands took to the streets to defend Indymedia Athens and the voice of the people's radio.

     From Contra Info some of the slogans being chanted by the mass demonstration.

‘From Athens to Mexico, create thousands of indymedia sites so that repressors get wiser’

‘Indymedia is a voice from the streets; not one step back in the face of repression’

‘Pirate radios and self-organized spaces inside faculties; the academic asylum belongs to fighters’

‘This is how you do it right: take down the Greek flag and raise a protest banner’ (reference to the 24/4 action at Propylaea)

‘Cybersecurity is not feasible; proletarians/trolletarians have no IP’

‘10, 100, 1000 indymedia sites against a world filled with rotten media’

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War And Peace.

       Todays poem is from Selected Poetry by Herbert Read, 1892-1968, poet and art critic, proclaimed himself an anarchist but went on to accept a Knighthood. He is reported to have said that he only accepted it under pressure from his wife!

War And Peace.

The kind of war is chang'd: the crusade heart

out-shattered: flesh a stain on broken earth

and death an unresisted rain.

The horror loos'd all honour is lost.

Peace has pride and passion: but no evil

to equal the indignity of war, whose ringing anvil

wins only anguish. The weighted hammer

breaks the stretch'd tendons at the wrist

And leaves the soul a twisted nail

tearing the flesh that still would live

and give to words the brutal edge of truth.

ann arky's home.

Hacktivism.

        On this episode, of Circled "A" Radio the host chickpea talks to Mike, one of the participant organisers of the UK Hacktionlab Network about their event, BarnCamp 2013; a rural technical skillsharing weekend open to people of all abilities and backgrounds focusing on hacktivism (hacking + activism), with workshops, entertainment, politics, and fun in the sun taking place on Friday 7th to Sunday 9th June. HacktionLab is UK tech-activist run project that aims to create regular convergence spaces where activists interested and/or working in the areas of alternative media, renewable energy, on-line video distribution, free software or any other form of activism that utilises technology can get together and plan how to better harness the technology (or not) to support grass roots social movements. Mike and chickpea discuss the importance of understanding the political aspects of using technologies in pursuit of freedom. This episode also features music recorded at Barncamp 2010 open-mic sessions.

ENJOY:

ann arky's home.

Steel Doors Of Prison.

       Today's poem is from a book called Poetry Like Bread, the title is taken from a line of poetry, "poetry should be like bread, for everybody" this is also my sentiments. This particular poem is by Jimmy Santiago Baca, abandoned at 2 brought up by his Grandmother for a while and eventually put in an orphanage. He was part of the street gangs in New Mexico and ended up in Prison, where he taught himself to read and write and started to write poetry. As they say, the rest is history.

Steel Doors Of Prison.

The big compound gates close the world off,

Lock with a thunderous thud and clunk,

While bits of dust scatter into your lungs,

Breathing in the first stark glance

Of prison cellblocks behind the great wall,

Breathing in the emptiness, the darkness

As you walk with an easy step on the cold sidewalk.

Then another door locks behind you,

This door is your cell door. A set of bars,

Paint scraped, still as cobras in gray skins,

Wrapping around your heart little by little:

The ones you love cannot be touched,

Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day,

All seen from these bars, celebrated

With a deep labouring yearning from within,

While the cobras slowly wind and choke

Your mind, your heart, your spirit,

You hear nothing but the steel jaws close,

Slowly swallowing you.....

ann arky's home.

Leila Berg.

      From Anarchist Studies Network,  for those who might be down London way, around the end of May:

Dear all,

       I've been asked to circulate information about an event to explore Leila Berg's contribution to radical education and the lives of children, on 22nd May in London (there's an obituary at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/23/leila-berg). Berg identified as an anarchist in her later decades and championed anarchist educational approaches and experiments. The information is as follows:

Leila Berg (1917-2012): writer, rebel, radical educator.
Date: 22nd May 2013
Time: 7pm-8.30pm
Place: Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9DX
Entry is £3, redeemable against any purchase.

     An event to explore Leila Berg's contribution to radical education and the lives of children.
      Michael Fielding (professor at the Institute of Education, London) will chair a panel of speakers to introduce Berg's contribution to radical education and the lives of children: Emily Charkin (historian at the Institute of Education, London) on Berg's position within the radical education tradition of the 1960s and 70s, Wendy Jones (writer and friend of Berg) on Berg's writing for and with children and Lynn Brady (one of the founder members of the Risinghill Research group) on Berg's account of the radical school, Risinghill. There will then be time for questions and discussion about Berg's signficance for contemporary debates.

 

Ruth

Dept. Politics, History and International Relations,

Loughborough University,

LE11 3TU

 

Recent publications: Continuum Companion to Anarchism

Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red

 

ann arky's home.

 

The Kremlin In George Square.

       After ten years of volunteers, lots of them kids, transforming a piece of waste ground into a garden for all, including the kids, Glasgow City Council has decided, against the wishes of the locals, to destroy this project that adds immensely to the community. They need you support, ten years is a lot of time and effort to be wiped-out by the council.

 



http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hands-off-the-childrens-garden/??

Help us save the Children's Garden from a Council Takeover

Glasgow City Council have just written to us demanding that by the end of April only 4 days away: we chop down our willow tunnel. That we remove all fruit trees (despite them just coming into blossom)

That Land Services are going to take over two of our lovely raised beds -
despite us having paid for them and all the plants in them.

Please contact your councillor, MSP, newspaper, and anyone else you can
think of - and please please - sign this petition, and get your friends to
sign it. And please come up to the garden this weekend to show your support.



Come and visit the garden this weekend - and show your support

John Hancox
Tel 0778 606 3918

ann arky's home.

The Warmth Of a Dream.

    We live in a cruel system and today's poem asks the question, Who knows the past of a stranger, who knows the future of a friend.

The Warmth Of a Dream.

He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,

night frost locked his joints

morning rain chilled the marrow of his bone.

In the dream there was a sister,

a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters

who called him mister, a time of little pain.

Are these youngster the same young men, who

now laugh at him, throw beer cans,

piss on him as he lies drunk in some dark lane?

When was that first step down this slippery slope,

when was the first step to no forgiveness.

No will to rise to beg for food,

numbness kills the pain.

The dream brings a warmth that feels good,

dark fog shades out consciousness,

an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain.

ann arky's home.

Snoopers' Charter,

     An Appeal from Liberty to try to stop one of Big Brother's tentacles from reaching further into our private affairs:

E-mail your MP       Read our Blog     The Home Secretary wants to store your online data, turning you from citizen to suspect. The Snoopers’ Charter (Communications Data Bill) has been met with criticism at every turn but the Home Office is battling to get it into the Queen’s Speech. The Government is far from unified around the Bill and today it has been reported that the Liberal Democrats may block the bill because of the impacts it would have to our privacy.      Now is our opportunity to stop this Bill. Will you help us by e-mailing your MP?       The Communications Data Bill will impact everyone’s lives and only together can we stop it. It is vital that you tell your MP you will not stand for this threat to our civil liberties. If thousands of Liberty members and supporters write to their MPs we can stop the Snoopers’ Charter.       We can’t leave this up to chance. Please visit our website now to e-mail your MP.      When the Coalition Government was formed, it promised "to end the storage of internet and email records without good reason". Let’s remind them of this.

ann arky's home.

A Scarred Heart.

     Long poems, short poems, what does it matter as long as you say what you feel. Today's poem is a short one verse.

A Scarred Heart.

I tossed a heart at life

saw it dance in the morning sun

watched it through a field of nettles run

felt it warmed by passion's breath

heard it crack between love's teeth

was proud, as it turned its back on fear

sighed so when it it near' drowned in an anguished tear;

scarred and bleeding it came back, aged like wine,

with a quiet pride I said, "This is mine".

ann arky's home.

Big Brother In The Classroom.

       We all know of them, we get taught about them in school, we sometimes use their "gifts". I'm talking about those millionaire/billionaire philanthropists, who after years of screwing people to make their obscene fortunes, decide to hand some back in the way of a "gift". We are supposed to love them and feel grateful as they drop a library here, a park there, or what ever takes their fancy. One that is in the news quite a lot recently is super billionaire Bill Gates. Just the same as the rest, having made his pile from trying to create a monopoly, he now sees himself a some sort of God figure and believes he has the right to interfere in our lives in an array of ventures. His latest venture is to throw $5 billion at a scheme to put cameras in every classroom in America. Just to improve the teaching of course. No way will the system be used by the state, education authorities or the police or any other body, for any other purpose than improving the kids education!!! Big business and the state will jump at the idea, big business because it will love to get its hands on that $5 billion, and there is a lot of money to be made implementing and maintaining the system, and the state which will be delighted at another section of society having there every move monitored, and have the corporate world do it for them. Of course it will be deemed such a success by the powers that be, that it will be rolled out across the Western world. Big Brother is growing bigger.

      Why is it that those people who manage to screw the public and make a fortune, feel it gives them the knowledge, ability, and the right, to jump into areas of other people's lives, that they have neither the knowledge, ability nor right to do so. Simply it is because in this type of society, money equates with power, and power over-rides knowledge, ability and right. Ah, that's capitalism for you.

ann arky's home.

They're Only Here To Help You!!

    A mortgage is for life, but your house might not be!! Enjoy.

ann arky's home.

The March Of The Right.

      We have had the rise of fascism in Greece, we have had the removal of an elected government in Italy and had it replaced by a "technocrat" from the Troika. So it goes on, country after country moves further to the right. We in the UK, are facing the same lunge to the right, though our mob are a little more subtle. They slide legislation through under the guise of efficiency and give it innocent sounding names, this latest one is "reforming the legal aid legislation", it should read, "destroying the legal aid legislation".

This from A World To Win:

     Since April 1, legal aid has no longer been available for cases involving divorce, child custody, clinical negligence, welfare, employment, immigration, housing, debt, benefit and education. A number of advice centres have closed as a result. An estimated 600,000 people will lose access to advice and legal representation.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

I'm Sick.

       April 23rd. another day another poem, another one from the 80's but times haven't changed that much have they?

I'm Sick.

I'm sick of missing the theatre

when "The greatest show on earth",

arrives in town.

Sick of living through the winter

with the heating turned down.

I'm sick of seeing my kids

miss out on this and that.

Sick of living with dampness

in a run down council flat.

I'm sick of having beans on toast

every other day.

Sick of TV shows extolling

a healthy lifestyle way.

I'm sick of wearing the same old jacket

hail, rain, or shine.

Sick of being told

the problem's really mine.

I'm sick of being a statistic

in some ministerial debate.

Sick of quietly letting

them decide my fate.

I'm sick of being offered work

if I accept a lower wage.

Sick of trying to control

this bubbling pent-up rage.

I'm sick ------------

I'm not,   really sick,

though I soon will be,

I'm just obliged to live

on benefit.

ann arky's home.

 

 

Shot At Dawn.

     I work with a group who are archiving as much non-party political, material on grassroots struggle, associated with Glasgow/Clydeside area, the group is called Spirit of Revolt. Have a look, I'm sure you will find something of interest. You may also feel you have a collection of your own that you would like to donate to the group to be archived. All that we collect will eventually be archived and made freely available to the interested public.

      Being a member of the group has its rewards as you get first glimpse of very interesting material that perhaps hasn't seen the light of day for many a year. Just recently we were given a small collection, mainly on the peace movement and one particular document vividly reminded to me of the cruelty and barbaric nature of the state, especially in time of war. I think the document speaks loudly for itself.

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