Illness As A Money Making Machine.

      The NHS as a corporate experiment, a chance to see how best to turn it into a money making corporate giant. That's what this government is doing, of course it is under the dictate of the financial Mafia. Though it is driven by the international Financial Mafia, we can still put a spoke in their wheel by making it impossible for the government to go ahead with this money from suffering experiment.

This from Sum Of Us:

    We knew privatising the NHS wouldn’t work -- and lots of other people said so too. But the government and the big health corporations wouldn’t listen. Now we’re the ones paying the consequences.
    Circle Holdings, the first private healthcare operator to take over an NHS hospital trust, has announced it’s pulling out of its ten-year contract. It says its franchise is ‘no longer viable under current terms’. We know what that means: it’s no longer making money.     It’s bad enough that a dearly needed hospital’s future is in jeopardy because of a misguided privatisation gamble. But the truth is much more grisly: the bosses installed by the private operator bullied staff and created a ‘blame culture.’ Circle pitted doctors against doctors and was allegedly willing to ensure local GPs incurred financial losses as long as it meant the corporation continued to make a profit. It’s time to stand up for our hospitals.

Tell our government to stop breaking up our health service and protect the NHS.
    This is a glimpse into our future: private corporations managing hospitals based on what will be most profitable, rather than what will deliver the best care to patients. And, when the arrangement inevitably collapses, it’s the British people that will be left to pick up the pieces -- and pay the bill.      The only way to save the NHS is to fund it properly -- that’s what doctors want, it’s what patients want, and it’s what everyone wants. The only ones who don’t want it are free-market ideologues who think that privatisation is a magic bullet that can save hospitals that are underfunded and understaffed.

Well, now we know that’s simply not true.
Defend the our health service and tell David Cameron to stop privatising the NHS.
Thanks for all that you do,
Martin, Katherine, and the rest of the SumOfUs team

More information:

Hinchingbrooke Hospital: Circle to withdraw from contract, BBC, January 9, 2015 
Battle with GPs led to Circle’s retreat from Hinchingbrooke hospital, The Guardian, January 9, 2015
Hinchingbrooke staff in CQC 'abuse' concerns 'fear bosses', BBC, September 29, 2014 

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

Operation Pandora, Bail Money Required.

     An update and appeal on behalf of the Spanish anarchists held under the draconian Operation Pandora. 

From Contra Info:

Urgent! Money needed for bail!
The seven imprisoned comrades from Operation Pandora are expected to be released on bail this Friday evening, January 30th, 2015. The judge has ordered that they each pay a bail of 3,000 euros to be released on provisional liberty. Donations are urgently needed in order to pay their bail (a total of 21,000 euros). Please spread the news.
Below is the bank account information for sending money:
ES68 3025 0001 19 1433523907 (Caixa d’Enginyers)

A few more details here: efecto pandora

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

Henry Kissinger, Citizens Arrest.

     There are some brave people in this world, and among them we should include those women in America who go by the name of Code Pink. They are persistent and well organised in there anti-militarism campaign, among other injustices they see.

     On the 29th January, in the American Senate, during an Armed Services Committee hearing, they attempted a citizens arrest of that arch organiser of state bloodshed, Henry Kissinger. Of course the Chairman of the hearing, Senator John McCain, berated them, calling they low life scum, if there is anyone who could recognise that life form it would be him, as he is part of that genre.

From Code Pink:

Alli and Anna Kaminski read the arrest warrant! 

     Did you hear? CODEPINK took the Senate by storm yesterday by attempting a citizens' arrest of Henry Kissinger while he was testifying in the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing! Chairman of the hearing, Senator John McCain, responded by referring to us as “despicable," "disgraceful," and "low life scum” –– and we couldn’t be prouder.

 

Alli McCracken dangles plastic handcuffs at Kissinger  

     For over a decade, CODEPINK has been holding war criminals accountable for their actions. We’ve exposed the lies in the halls of power in Washington DC and across the country, starting with the Bush administration and continuing into the Obama years, but never forgetting the grave offenses committed by people before them, like Henry Kissinger. Check out more pictures from the arrest on our Facebook page!    But our work isn’t possible without you. Please consider supporting our work by making a donation today.

For justice and accountability,
Alli, Anna, Janet, Jodie, Katie, Kristin, Medea, Nalini, Nancy, Nathan, Sergei, Sophia and Tighe

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

  

And In France, Also Infected By Paranoia.

    Another little snippet on the paranoid state getting us to spy and snitch on each other, and how children are a threat. It is not just the UK, it is universal.
This from Lenin's Tomb:

Eight year old boy arrested for glorification of terrorism posted by Richard Seymour

      That 'free speech' again.  French press brings us news of a little boy named Ahmed who 'glorified terrorism', and was duly shopped to the police by the teacher and head of school.

     Apparently, when asked in class, on 8th January, if he was 'Charlie', he replied that he was not.  He didn't like Charlie Hebdo's cartoons, and that his feelings were with the terrorists.  "I am the terrorists, because I am against the cartoonists of the Prophet."

     The head of the school later apprehended Ahmed while he played in a sandpit, saying "stop digging in the sand, you will not find a machine gun there to kill us all with".  Subsequently, the boy's father accompanied him to school on a couple of occasions, Ahmed being rather distressed and out of sorts by the treatment he was subjected to.

    Then on 21st January, the head of the school decided to press charges against the little boy and his father.  The boy was reported to police for 'glorification of terrorism', and the father for 'trespassing' when he accompanied the boy to the school.   Both father and son were forced to report to the police station in Nice St Augustine, to answer these charges.

    This follows a series of arrests and the recent suspension of a teacher who was also referred for judicial investigation for resisting the 'moment's silence' for Charlie Hebdo.  The school rector launched a rally for "republican" values after noting the "unacceptable" failure of some teachers to comply with the moment's silence, and having launched an immediate investigation.

    Ahmed now has a lawyer, who said: "We are facing a collective hysteria. My client is 8 years old! He does not realize the scope of his words. It's insane."

     Yes, it's insane.  Thankfully, the pup-eyed Charlies who were recently beseeching hashtagged international solidarity, and rallying to the defence of free speech, will not have abandoned the fight so soon.  They, surely - and there are so many of them - will not let the Ahmeds down.  They will spring into action with the swift, passionate alacrity that we have already seen they are capable of.  Won't they?

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

"Radicalism".

      The state, to survive becomes ever more paranoid, and sees an enemy in every nook and cranny. It will continually introduce legislation to spy, pry and monitor, every aspect of our lives, from early age, to old age, you are a suspect. New spectres are raised in an attempt to legitimise their ever increasing control over our lives. The latest spectre is "radicalism". We are being warned to watch for any signs of "radicalism" and report it to the authorities. It would perhaps be more useful if we had a debate on what is "radicalism". After all, in this society it is radical to suggest that the fruits of our labour should be to see to the needs of all, not for the benefit of the few.

      However the latest flow of bilge water from the mouth of fascist, two-faced, Home Secretary, Teresa May, seeks to find "radicalism" in our pre-school kids. Those who care for children are being asked to watch for signs of "radicalism", and report it to the authorities. Will we soon find three year old Jean, and four year old John, being dragged into by MI6 for interrogation, because of their "radicalism", and perhaps subjected to some mind altering psychology, to put them on the road to submission and servility.

      The state needs war to justify its existence, if not a foreign blood letting war, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, then an array of pygmy wars, such as "war on terrorism", and now an internal war, a "war on Radicalism". When will we rid ourselves of this octopus of interference the state, this cancer that destroys our freedom of expression, speech and thought? This unnecessary chain and shackle on our liberty, that wants us all to spy and snitch on each other? We can organise our communities my mutual aid, co-operation and free association, without this crippling, prying monster whose only aim is self perpetuation and control.

This from today's Herald:

    Under the Home Office proposals, staff at pre-school nurseries would be required to monitor children for signs of radicalism. Speakers at universities would be vetted for any signs of extremist views that would support or encourage terrorism.
   Colleges and universities would have to provide details to the authorities of who is due to speak at least two weeks before they are due to appear. It would enable background checks to be carried out to find out if they have promoted extremism.
      They must also provide advance notice of the content, including an outline of the topics to be covered. It also suggests, where appropriate, universities should have protocols to pool information about speakers.
   The plans are outlined in a consultative document which accompanies Home Secretary Theresa May's Counter Terrorism and Security Bill.
   However, the proposals face a growing backlash. Scotland's children's commissioner Tam Baillie warned, if passed, they could split communities.
    In a letter in today's Herald, Mr Baillie, Jackie Brock, chief executive of Children in Scotland, Maggie Simpson, who heads the Scottish Childminding Association, Jean Carwood-Edwards of the Scottish Pre-School Play Association said it could impact on how staff work with children.
    They said: "Among many staff caring for and working with children, these duties would fall on, for example, the childminder of a three-year-old and the nursery teacher of a two-year-old.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Let's Kill TTIP.

     TTIP is grinding on, its draconian undemocratic legislation is being fine-tuned in the dark corridors of corrupt secret power. Away from the eyes and ears of the public, politicians and moguls of corporate power are sorting out the world to suit big business, and to hell with any form of. or any hint of, democracy. You are not privy to how big business will use you to benefit profits. Your elected officials will have no control of, nor power over, the corporate world, Corporate power rules with a free hand, and will have the power to alter any legislation brought forward by elected politicians. If big business doesn't like it, it wont happen. If big business likes it, and we don't, they win, so tough luck for us.

     Don't just sit around until it happens, organise against TTIP, protest loudly and often, it is corporatism write large.

      The following is a video on regulatory cooperation in the TTIP negotiations, a joint project of SumOfUs, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), LobbyControl, Seattle to Brussels Network and Campact.

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

We The Labouring Masses.

     What insanity we tolerate, we who create everything, live with poverty continually knocking at our door, and those who create nothing wallow in unimaginable wealth, and splendour. We sweat and toil to feed an army of parasites. From the fishing boat, to the super luxury yacht, from the football stadium to the lakeside mansion, we created them. Then because of some totally irrational line of thought, we hand them to the do nothing brigade, who grow fatter and fatter on our sweat.

 

WE THE LABOURING MASSES.

We the people have, every brick laid,

have fed the world with sweat and spade,

every instrument played in every band

created by the skill of the craftsman's hand.

We made every truck and every load,

our toil our effort every winding road,

every ship that ever sailed the sea,

our power our imagination made it be.

Cities and towns large and small,

our labouring hands fashioned them all,

every home, every spire,

luxury mansion or humble byre.

No matter what dreams the mind might spawn

without labour's hand they'll never see the light of dawn,

without labour's strength and labour's skill,

we would be foraging beasts in a jungle still.

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

Why Pay Workers When You Can Get Them For Free?

 

      You never see that much about workfare in our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. It is one of those many things in this society, that gurgle away in the background like a stinking sewer, and people somehow start not to notice. Basically if you are unemployed you are given a job-seekers allowance while you look for PAID employment. However, in workfare, the state takes this out of your hands, and forces you into employment without pay, and you have no choice, if you refuse, you will be sanctioned, your benefits stopped. There is a continual waffle, from the powers that be, about how this helps you into full time employment. There is of course, no evidence what so ever to support this bullshit. 

      It is nothing more or less that a scheme to help businesses cut their cost, and increase profit, by having a pool of unpaid labour they can draw on. It is a scheme that the corporate world would love to see permanently enshrined in labour laws, as a way of introducing all those entering the "labour market" to the corporate way of life. A spell of unpaid labour with the unfounded hope of a paid job in return for you subservience. If you are one of the lucky ones you may get a lousy, low paid, crap job, for your humble loyalty.

      The scheme undermines the wages and conditions of those who are in paid employment, another bonus for the boss. There should be  a roaring outcry, with mass protests shutting down any business that even considers participating in such a scheme of free forced labour. We are being screwed by the millionaire cabal, and they know it, and will continue to do so, as long as we meekly accept what shit the throw at us.

 Some anti-workfare groups:

Boycott workfare

Anti-workfare

Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty 

Facebook boycott workfare

Haringey Solidarity Group

       I'm sure you will be able to find a local group battling this forced labour scheme, if not why not start one?

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

Who Was Peter McKellar?

    I believe that we should never forget those comrades who stood against authority when it was at its harshest and most repressive. Reading through an old copy of The Word, on the Sparrow's Nest site, I came upon the case of Peter McKellar. The article starts with:-- 

     Our comrade Peter McKellar of 38 South Annadale Street, Glasgow, will have been court-martialled for the second time before these lines are printed.
     Then aged 22, a glazier by trade, he registered as a conscientious objector on December, 26, 1939. His case was heard on April 23, 1940, by the Glasgow Tribunal, consisting of Sir A. C. Black, K.C., Sir Robert Bruce, J.P.. L.L.D., and Mr. (now Sir) R. Bryce Walker, C.B.E., etc.
    McKellar told the Tribunal that his father was killed in the great war. He would not butcher nor yet be butchered. It was enough that this had happened to his father. The Tribunal sympathised with him. He replied that he wanted justice as an anti-militarist, not sympathy. --------

      Who was Peter McKellar, is there anybody out there who can throw some light on this comrade and man of principle. We should remember our own, record their life, they are part of our history, the history of the ordinary man and woman of our communities.  So if you have any wee bit of info, no matter how little a detail, please share it with ann arky, so that we can try to put his page in its rightful place in our history.

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

The World Is Our Village.

       In Greece, the fat cats are running with their carpet bags full of money and exiting the country. It is estimated that €16 billion has left the country since Christmas. That's a helluva hole in the finances of a small country up to its neck in debt. These are the individuals and institutions that want to milk Greece, but believe that it is no longer a safe bet. This will be part of the plan of the financial Mafia, bleed it in to submission, as it is every time a left leaning government gets power. All that matters to the moguls in charge of the financial Mafia is that their finances are protected, and the people can go to hell in a hand cart, as far as they are concerned. The only game in town is to play their game or get the shit kicked out of you. Hence, socialism in one country gets strangled at birth. Borders have to fall, and people have to think globally.

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

Workers Lockin!!

A call for solidarity from IUF:

Occupy Dandenong! 

Workers fight lockout with lockin

     National Union of Workers (NUW) members at the International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF) facility in Dandenong (Victoria) have responded to a management lockout by occupying the lunchroom.

      After months of fruitless bargaining for a new wage agreement which saw management demanding big concessions, union members voted to ban overtime and paperwork. Workers arriving for the early morning shift on January 27 were informed of the lockout and several dozen union members rushed inside as the gates were closing. They've installed themselves in the lunchroom while members and supporters demonstrate outside.

     You can support them - CLICK HERE TO SEND A MESSAGE TO IFF urging the company to lift the lockout and bargain in good faith!

 

     US-based International Flavours and Fragrances is one of the largest transnational makers of food ingredients and a supplier to many leading food and snack companies.

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

Christmas Bonus.

      Looks like somebody is trying to pay off their Christmas debt. Though it would seem to go without saying, that if you do 31 ATM machines across the country, you are a travelling group.

From Act For Freedom Now:

     A raid on two cash machines where thieves made off with £10,000 could be linked to a gang of travelling criminals.
     Police Scotland are seeking the help of forces across the UK to track down those involved in the smash and grab at a Morrisions supermarket in Banchory, Aberdeenshire in the early hours around 3am yesterday morning.
It’s thought a Land Rover was used to haul the machines from the wall in the heist which could also be linked to a similar raid on a bank in Kirriemuir in    Angus before Christmas when £100,000 was taken.
     One line of inquiry links them to fugitive…who is wanted for raids on 31 ATMs across the UK. from local snitch media

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

 

Canada's Dirty Past.

      Scotland has a lot to answer for, over the years we have exported men who have played a leading roll in the expansion of British imperialism. One such, is a Glasgow man, born in Brunswick Street, where the Mitre pub stands. John Alexander MacDonald, born 11th. January 1815, died 6th. June 1891, vicious racist, is considered as the father of Canada. Like all servants of imperialism, he is celebrated, with pomp and ceremony by the ruling elite, though there is a growing group in Canada who are openly contesting the adulation of such a despicable character.

This from Community Soapbox:

    Here in Kingston, Ontario, where “every day is Canada day”, John A. MacDonald is at the centre of all of the misplaced celebration of this great era. This makes sense, because MacDonald is a perfect example of the kind of person who founded Canada. He pushed for and enacted many of the most disgusting and brutal colonial policies of the era. In an act that he would later refer to as his “greatest political accomplishment,” he pushed to disenfranchise and ultimately push out the Chinese population on the West Coast, saying that their presence would tarnish the “Aryan land” that he envisioned for the new country. He invented and implemented residential schools. He used starvation policies followed by military intervention to crush Metis rebellions and cement Canada’s expansion West.-------

Read the full article HERE:

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

Here in Kingston, Ontario, where “every day is Canada day”, John A. MacDonald is at the centre of all of the misplaced celebration of this great era. This makes sense, because MacDonald is a perfect example of the kind of person who founded Canada. He pushed for and enacted many of the most disgusting and brutal colonial policies of the era. In an act that he would later refer to as his “greatest political accomplishment,” he pushed to disenfranchise and ultimately push out the Chinese population on the West Coast, saying that their presence would tarnish the “Aryan land” that he envisioned for the new country. He invented and implemented residential schools. He used starvation policies followed by military intervention to crush Metis rebellions and cement Canada’s expansion West. - See more at: http://www.kingstonist.com/2015/01/20/sir-john-a-macdonald-bicentennial-celebration-33249#sthash.0YgJZ6kJ.dpuf

The Common Man.

     I always think that a little poetry can say a lot. This on is one from a favourite poet of mine. Joe Corrie.

 Joe Corrie, miner, 1884-1968.

I AM THE COMMON MAN.

I am the common man,

    I am the brute and the slave,

I am the fool, the despised,

    From the cradle to the grave.

I am the hewer of coal,

    I am the tiller of soil,

I am the serf of the seas,

    Born to bear and to toil.

I am the builder of halls,

    I am the dweller of slums,

I am the filth and the scourge,

    When winter's depression comes.

I am the fighter of wars,

    I am the killer of men,

Not for a day or an age,

    But again, and again, and again.

I am the common man,

    But Master, oh! Take you heed,

For you have put in my head

    Many a wicked deed.

I am the slave and the brute,

    And my hands are a strong as steel,

Oh! Master, how will you fare

    When down at my feet you kneel?

Joe Corrie. 

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

 

Syriza, Then What?

 Queue at unemployment centre Athens.

     Today, January 25th, is election day in Greece, and there is an array of theories of what will happen. Leading the polls is Syriza, a gathering of left leaning groups, who have stated that if elected they will scrap the austerity ideology of the financial Mafia. In reply, other states in the EU are saying, Greece must "pay its way". as puppets of the financial Mafia, that's what you would expect them to say. What, "pay its way"  translates as, is more misery and deprivation to be heaped on the people of Greece. A people who in the last few years have seen their social structures decimated. In a country of just over 11 million people, austerity measures in Greece have resulted in approximately a million people with no access to healthcare, leading to soaring infant mortality, HIV infection, mental and physical health problems, and suicide. Between 2009 and 2011, the hospital budget has been slashed by 25%. In a 2000 report by the World Health Organization, the Greek healthcare system was ranked 14th worldwide in the overall assessment, above other countries such as Germany (25) and the United Kingdom (18), Ours in the UK, could go the same way if the financial Mafia say so.
       The education system in Greece, is in tatters, pensions have been cut, taxes increased, and new taxes implemented. Unemployment at present is running at 25.8, with youth unemployment at 50.6, health insurance is linked to working, disappearing after one year unemployed. There is an epidemic of homelessness, and it is not unusual to see, not individuals, but families sleeping rough. This is what the financial Mafia and their minders, EU governments, want to continue, as Greece is forced to pay to help prevent the moguls of the financial Mafia from loosing any money.

Scenes from Athens.

      I have never taken part in any government elections in my entire life, I usually refer to them as the "Crooks and Liars Competition", which leaves us under the control of the best crooks and liars of that particular season.

        However, the situation in Greece is so dire, that anything that can help alleviate the suffering and misery of so many innocent, ordinary people, must be worth a try. I have no doubt what so ever, that the financial Mafia, will have plans to kick the shit out of any left leaning group that gets power in Europe. So if Syriza wins, we can expect all sorts of dirty tricks to try to discredit them. Make no mistake, the lives of the people of Greece are of no concern to the ruthless financial Mafia. To them, more suicides, unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and deprivation, is a price worth paying, to protect their wealth and power.

        An interesting article from Lenin's Tomb:

      We can have all sorts of hypotheses about how things will work out with Syriza in office, trying to implement an anti-austerity agenda.  There are semi-plausible arguments that Berlin will ultimately be inclined to throw Syriza a bone, the better to avoid generating a new, unnecessary crisis.  I think this overestimates how rational the EU elites are, and underestimates their vindictiveness.  I think if the situations favours it, they will want to continue to make an example of Greece one way or another, and demonstrate that this left populism stuff isn't going to fly.  I think they will be brutal in the negotiations, and that whatever concessions they offer will be deliberately insulting.  My guess is that only if Syriza has the strongest mandate possible, an outright parliamentary majority, coupled with a renewed mobilisation of social and workers' movements to try to fulfil the party's promises, will the EU be inclined to cut them a half-away decent deal.  Yet even the more pessimistic scenario wouldn't preclude real gains that shift the balance of power in favour of workers, democratise the state, humanise the immigration system, and so on.

However the point, now as before, is to test these hypotheses by getting Syriza elected.

Read the full article HERE:

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