Recognise The System, Then Destroy It.

     There are those who still think capitalism is a random array of busy entrepreneurs, busying themselves with making money. A mish-mash of large and small businesses creating wealth for themselves from producing things people want. That stage of capitalism has long since gone. This random exploitation has morphed into something much more ruthless, much more cohesive, much more dangerous and something that threatens the very existence of human society. We now have a small cabal, approximately 1% of the planets population, controlling every aspect of our lives, the shape of our society, the goods that are manufactured, the "news" we receive, whether there will be war and where. It is now a massive juggernaut driven deliberately and relentlessly by the ideology of greed, which blindly plunders and rapes the planet in the search for ever more personal wealth, control and power.

    We have to view it in that light, it is beyond reform, it can't be modified to see the world and its population with compassion, fairness and justice are not, and never have been in its DNA. This destructive process has to be destroyed or it will continue down this path to humanity's suicide.

     Put much better than I could, from The Winter Oak, (The Acorn):

      Let’s be clear about this: the system exists.
        You can call it what you like – The Establishment, The Thing, The Matrix or the Industrial-Military-Prison-Propaganda-Complex – but it exists.
     It has become trendy in recent years to pretend that this is not so, that what we are seeing is merely a collection of economic or interpersonal relationships.
     But it is the system that promotes, protects and imposes all the layers of domination and exploitation that mark our everyday lives.
       It is the system that tells us we have to spend our best life energy working for it, just for the right to eat and exist in the world it claims it owns.
       It is the system that pays its hired thugs to beat us up, intimidate us, lock us up for years if we refuse to play by its rules.
       It is the system that maims and murders human beings on an unimagineable scale across the world, all in the interests of its profit and power, and still always claims the moral high ground.
       It is the system that lies through its teeth, with a slick smile on its face, and is always quick to accuse anyone who challenges its lies of being a liar.
      It is the system that devours, poisons and destroys our air, our water, our land and our bodies.
     It is the system that brings death and extinction while claiming to bring growth.
      It is the system that is always looking at new ways to monitor us, to control us, to infiltrate our lives, to direct our thoughts, to crush the tiniest possibilities of our freedom and resistance.
      It is also the system, of course, that insists that the system does not exist, that we should not confuse the many trees of its oppression and control with an overall wood that could be termed an entity.
      It says that anyone who talks of the system is necessarily a simple-minded fool who imagines the world is all controlled in every detail by half a dozen James Bond villains sitting around a conference table in an underground bunker.
       It says that anyone who talks of the system is a conspiracy theorist liable to start spouting all kinds of deranged, maybe anti-semitic, nonsense.
     The system says this because it knows full well that the rest of us – the powerless nobodies it so despises – will never be able to effectively challenge the system if we don’t even know that it exists.
      On this point, and this point alone, we agree with the system. Identifying the existence of the system is the necessary first step to clearing the way for a worthwhile future for humankind and our planetary home.
      The second necessary step is to destroy the system in its entirety.

Continue Reading: 

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The Holy Crap Of Vicious Religions.

 

     With sickening regularity, another child sexual abuse case in the Catholic Church hits the headlines. This time it is the top of the tree that has had the spotlight shine on him, a Cardinal no less. When will people realise that the Catholic Church has been riddled with this sort of thing for centuries, it is not a modern phenomena, it is part and parcel of its history. I have always maintained that it is not just the humble priests that are guilty of this. Priests get promoted and no doubt some of those will continue secret perversion as they move up the ladder. How many guilty higher ranking clergy are now sitting in the judgement seat of of known colleagues with the same perversion. 

     The whole institution stinks from top to bottom for a multitude of reasons, child sexual abuse is just one of that multitude. Others include stifling freedom of expression, control over people's rights to choose, brainwashing children into believing in a man in the sky, who will send them to hell for all eternity if they don't obey their perverted and irrational rules. In all its history it has been an instrument of control with bizarre, cruel and barbaric punishments on those who would dare to disbelieve their hogs-wash. 

     As I have said, it is a scar on the face of humanity, an impediment to freedom of speech and choice, its brutal and violent past has not been abandoned willingly, it has been contained by public outrage and disgust.

        Debates in international forums and in mainstream media on the role, responsibility, liability, and response of ecclesiastical authorities of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) toward clerical child sexual abuse (cCSA) fail to take into account the historical roots and awareness of the problem. Reports also fail to mention the historic organizational laws RCC developed over centuries. In contrast, RCC documents evidence that the Catholic Church not only carried century's old history of cCSA, but also repeatedly condemned cCSA by successive papal authorities, organizational laws, and institutional management mechanisms. During the first millennium, however, church laws remained confined to the bookshelves and were not converted into appropriate management policies and infrastructural models. This was largely due to the absence of a central administrative organizational structure, which developed later in the 12th century, following the Second Council of Lateran (1139) when the Papacy asserted its authority to establish administrative control over the organizational church. It was only then that management policies started to be framed and institutional structures enacted to deal more appropriately with cCSA from the 14th to 20th centuries. Despite this, RCC developed a culture of secrecy using clandestine organizational management models and institutional laws prescribed in 1568, 1622, 1741, 1866, 1922, and 1962 which aimed to manage cCSA. The current study traces reported cCSA as far back as the first century and critically examines the organizational laws, and institutional policies developed by RCC to address clerical sexual misconduct up to the end of the 19th century.(

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30040587

From Wikipedia:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases

 

Sexual abuse has existed in the Catholic Church since at least as far back as the 11th century, when Peter Damian wrote a scathing treatise, Liber Gomorrhianus, against such abuses and others. In 1531, Martin Luther claimed that Pope Leo X had vetoed a measure that cardinals should restrict the number of boys they kept for their pleasure, "otherwise it would have been spread throughout the world how openly and shamelessly the pope and the cardinals in Rome practice sodomy."[23]

       I don't write these things an an enemy of the Catholic Church, but as a lifelong enemy of all religions. They are all power structures, that aim to control the population within their irrational dogma under the threat of punishment. They all preach peace and love, but will have no hesitation in slaughtering non-believers and those of other religions. All religions have a gory blood stained past, which from time to time bursts forth to the surface even today. How many bloody conflicts across the globe can be laid at the feet of opposing religions and religious factions? Too many to count and too many to allow us to let religions maintain their vicious grasp of people's minds. 

  

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Hope Springs Eternal.

        Well Sunday was a special day for me. After almost 18 months of medical problems from internal examinations to tumour removal, from chemo to fractured foot, from A&E to blood transfusions, from Acute Assessment Units to urine infections, from flu to pneumonia, from being carted off in an ambulance to labyrinthitis, and energy levels that dipped below zero, I was beginning to think that I would never get back on the bike.        

         However, hope springs eternal and Sunday being a nice day, sunny intervals and a light wind, I decided now was the time. So a small outing on the dream machine was called for, and the legs didn't complain too much, though there has been a drop off of power in the wee legs, but I was out pushing the pedals. I'm too embarrassed to say how small a run it was, but I was out there just as a wee test run to see how I got on, and it was fantastic. I am now looking forward with immense delight to a long hot summer that I know Scotland can deliver. Yeeha.

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An Ocean Of Lies On Venezuela.

        When will the so called "free press" start to publish facts instead of  pumping out propaganda and illusion to support the wealthy and powerful? Get used to it, never, the so called "free press" will see us all drown in a sea of lies, they are owned by the wealthy and powerful and are a tool in the control of the world's resources.  Venezuela is a very rich country with an abundance of natural resources, and that's the problem. To the corporate moguls those resources should be in their hands to be exploited for their personal gain, not spent on improving the lives of ordinary people. They will raise hell and high water to get their greedy grasping hands on that wealth and the suffering and death of millions is just collateral damage, to them, a price worth paying.

         In this video, the UN Investigator and Human Rights Rapporteur Alfred De Zayas, exposes the callously planned coup against Venezuela, executed by the strangling a nation and its people, by the corporate gangsters and the financial Mafia, aided and abetted US imperial military might. Thanks Loam for the link.

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The Terrorists Are Back In Action.

       Today as I watch the plunder of Venezuela unfold and I fear for the people of the unfortunate country, visions of the past flash through my head. For those who still think that the media splurge of propaganda is to show the world that the West cares and to let them know that we will rescue the people of Venezuela from a mad evil dictator, I ask them to cast their minds back to recent history across the Middle East, and see the Western states for what they are, professional terrorists.

     I wrote this article back in March 2016, but because of what is going on in Venezuela I think it is well worth repeating. I have seen nothing since 2016 that would alter my opinion, but a lot that would re-confirm that view.

          We live in a world of terrorists, the religious fanatics who feel the need to kill, to prove how wonderful their religion is, how great their god, they kill hundreds indiscriminately, while praising their god. Then there is the professional terrorist, the states, who bomb into destruction entire countries, killing countless millions in the process, spreading terror across land after land. At the same time creating breeding grounds for the for the religious fanatic to recruit and win over more suicide maniacs. What links these two groups is the fact that will kill indiscriminately for an idea, they will kill innocent people who are in no way involved in the terrorist process. People who just happen to be in their line of fire.

        There is no terrorist organisation on earth or has there ever been one, that could compete with, let alone out do, the countless deaths and massive destruction of the nation state. Today we are witness to almost the entire Middle East in a quagmire if blood, death and destruction, we have seen countries with modern infrastructure reduced to rubble, with the victims numbering in the millions, and the vast majority of those killed have been killed by the various states. From Afghanistan to Iraq, from Libya to Syria, the accolade for the highest number of deaths and greatest destruction goes, unchallenged, to the Western states. Only an idiot would say that the West only carried out these blood soaked actions with the welfare of the people of the Middle East in mind. They done it for their own self centred ideology, just like the religious nutters.

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Truth, That Elusive Gem.

      In this world of capitalism, financial speculation and imperialism under the flag of corporate development, that diamond known as the truth is an elusive gem. We can't find it in the words of our prancing puppet, political ballerinas, who dance to the tune of their masters, and sing the song of their lobbyists. Their main interest is driving their lucrative career, so truth is something with which they are not familiar, on the contrary, it puts the in a state of confusion.

      Now where do we find it, this elusive gem? We have to look at the interests and agenda of "big money", and accept that that particular tribe will never have the interests of the ordinary people at heart. They will destroy a country, its infrastructure, and throw its people into the mire of deprivation and death, all in the drive to further their grip and control over any country's resources.

      So to Venezuela, our mainstream media that septic puss ridden mouthpiece of "big money" will pour out tainted vomit, laced with their crocodile tears, of the suffering of the people of Venezuela, weaving the illusion that they care, in the hope that you will willing accept their greed driven agenda, of stepping in with our flag waving military and rescue the poor people of Venezuela.

     I, like most of you, don't really know what it is like living in Venezuela today, but we can accept that the people of Venezuela are suffering, and not from the results of their own actions, but I'm sure we both agree that what we are served up as "news" is well divorced from that elusive gem, the truth. I'm also sure that most will accept that it is a power grab by American "big money" and it will take a tremendous outpouring of loud public anger to stop this intended rape and plunder of a people and their resources. "Big money" is not in the business of listening to the people, until we destroy the beast, the Venezuela type of events will keep on happening.

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Let's All Be Smugglers Of Beautiful Ideas.

      Being a lover of poetry I thought today I would post a poem from our Spirit of Revolt Archive. This is taken from the Alan Burnett Collection, a Glasgow anarchist who as a young man spent time in prison for proclaiming is right to be a conscientious objector. He later settled in New Zealand where he became a long standing member of a writers group. After his death his partner sent us some of his material, which formed the first collection in our archive.

WATER BARRELS

Smugglers
               connote
                           camel trains
                                              from the East
Ponies laden with silk or tea
               Muffled hooves down dark lanes
               light flashing on remote hilltops
Kegs of brandy
                   stacked in caves
                                     revenue cutters lurking
                                                            in moonlit coves
Frontiers
          border guards
                          diamonds
                                      drugs
                                           gold
                                               illegal immigrants
Gloating sheiks
                       sinuous harem girls
                                                    hedonistic orgies
White slavers
                    white-collared crime
                                                 laundered currency
               Corporate raiders
               Credit card fraudsters
               Flies/fleas/cockroaches
               Insider traders
SRA's            slow release asprins
               sadistic ritual abusers
But comrades
                 let us smuggle
                                    our emotions
                                                     into society
Let us continue
                     staggering with
                                         our illicit water-barrels of poems
Across the arid desert
                            of our materialistic community---------------  
                                                                                   Alan Burnett.  

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The Clock Is Ticking, Let's Not Miss The Moment.

      To those with their eyes open it is obvious that the present economic system is not intended, nor will it ever, function in the interests of the ordinary people. Across the world we see poverty and deprivation grow, we see man made ecological disasters burst like fireworks across the planet, we are witness to bloody savage wars that only serve the wealthy and the powerful, and heap misery, anguish and death on millions of innocent people, yet this economic system of insanity and greed persists, why?

     It will not, of its own accord, desist from this path of brutal lunacy, as it functions as it was intended, to enrich the few at the expense of the many. Those in control of this plundering machine are doing very well, and will continue their road to ever greater grandiose life styles and opulent trinkets such as private jets and multi-million pound yachts. It will take what ever means are available to it, to crush any form of resistance to is hegemony. A Change or modification to the system is a futile pipe dream and will come to nothing, the only answer lies in its total destruction. That destruction will only come from us, the ordinary people who have the humanity and the courage to take it on in a full frontal, determined effort to smash this system of greed, and designate it to the history museum of human folly and tragedy and remember it as humanity's darkest hour. There are two classes in this world, those who control the wealth, power and resources of this planet, and those who are excluded from that cabal, you have to decide which class you belong to and act accordingly, it is a class war. There is a choice, a tomorrow with equality, justice and freedom, or a tomorrow as a slave to poverty and deprivation, at the beck and call of the corporate juggernaut, however, the time to choose is fast running out.

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Venezuela Is Not Alone.

       Over the years the people of Central America have suffered immensely at the hands of Western imperialist capitalism. They have had American puppet governments imposed on them with savage ruthlessness, bloodshed was the building bricks of the new globalisation regime in that part of the world. At the moment Venezuela is in the news, creating the impression that all else is fine, just this nasty Maduro to sort out, and peace and tranquility will return to cover the land.
       However, far from it, the entire surface of Central America is in turmoil as global capitalism hits another of its recurring "crises". The power elites fight ruthlessly and savagely to hold on to their wealth and power, while the ordinary people face ever deeper spiraling poverty and the realities of violent repression. Venezuela is not alone, the whole region is in the midst of bloody turmoil.
      An extract from a well researched and informative article by William I. Robinson posted on NACLA:

"My neighborhood backs me...my neighborhood is Nicaragua." Student protester at an SOS Nicaragua protest against Daniel Ortega in Managua in May 2018 (Flickr/Jorge Mejía Peralta).

      Some three decades after the wars of revolution and counterinsurgency came to an end in Central America, the region is once again on the brink of implosion. The Isthmus has been gripped by renewed mass struggle and state repression, the cracking of fragile political systems, unprecedented corruption, drug violence, and the displacement and forced migration of millions of workers and peasants. The backdrop to this second implosion of Central America, reflecting the spiraling crisis of global capitalism itself, is the exhaustion of a new round of capitalist development in recent years to the same drumbeat as the globalization that took place in the wake of the 1980s upheavals.
         Lost in the headlines on Central American refugees fleeing to the United States is both the historical context that has sparked the exodus and the structural transformations through capitalist globalization that has brought the region to where it is today. The mass revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 1980s did manage to dislodge entrenched military-civilian dictatorships and open up political systems to electoral competition, but they were unable to achieve any substantial social justice or democratization of the socioeconomic order.
      Capitalist globalization in the Isthmus in the wake of pacification unleashed a new cycle of modernization and accumulation. It transformed the old oligarchic class structures, generated new transnationally oriented elites and capitalists and high-consumption middle classes even as it displaced millions, aggravated poverty, inequality, and social exclusion, and wreaked havoc on the environment, triggering waves of outmigration and new rounds of mass mobilization among those who stayed behind. Hence the very conditions that gave rise to the conflict in the first place were aggravated by capitalist globalization.
       Despite the illusion of “peace and democracy” so touted by the transnational elite in the wake of pacification, the roots of the regional conflict have persisted: the extreme concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of elite minorities alongside the pauperization and powerlessness of a dispossessed majority. With the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras, the massacre of peaceful protesters in Nicaragua in 2018, and the return of death squads in Guatemala, this illusion has been definitively shattered. The Central American regimes now face mounting crises of legitimacy, economic stagnation, and the collapse of the social fabric.

Well worth reading the full article HERE:

 

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Haiti, Revolt To Revolution??

       Across the globe ordinary people are in revolt against this brutal exploitative system of capitalism. However these types of revolts are not spread through our mainstream media, as far as they are concerned, it is hush-hush, keep it quiet, they only preach the pro-capitalist lies and myths. So you will not have had much info from them of the ongoing insurrection that is taking place and growing in that poverty stricken American imperialist controlled patch of the planet called Haiti. The people of Haiti have been in struggle against various imperialist interventions for years, mainly French and American.  Their struggle has been long and brutal, but far from diminishing, it is growing. Their struggle demands our solidarity.

This from It's Going Down: 

       Introduction, context, and report from Abolition Media Worldwide about the ongoing revolt and spreading insurrection in Haiti.

       Jovenel Moïse, the corrupt US backed president of Haiti, is faced with a rapidly spreading insurrection. The population had resoundingly rejected his claim to authority by repudiating the voting process, rising up during the elections, and now fighting for the president’s immediate removal.

The people in Haiti have been in near constant revolt since colonization and slavery. Resisting the French, the Americans, and the Duvalier dictatorship, Haitians have resisted all forms of subjugation, colonial and indigenous. After the US kidnapping of popular president, Aristide, the Haitian political system has been generally unpopular and, ultimately, a client of the US government.

Downtown PAP, #Haiti after police shot and killed anti-govt corruption protesters today. pic.twitter.com/NTc0004yaA

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 13, 2019

        Moïse was “elected” under the shadow of rebellion. Each step he took closer to political power was met with widespread popular disdain. His party, the right wing Tèt Kale (PHTK), was renowned for its corruption and incompetence. Moïse declared, “I alone have the solution for the question of corruption,” while he assumed power under an indictment for money laundering. He put several new PHTK politicians in positions of power while they were suspected of financial transgressions.

Context of the Revolt

       Last summer, the government implemented an IMF austerity program that raised the price of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene to almost 50%. This draconian attack was met with fierce resistance.

Leyogàn, #Haiti anti-govt corruptions protests Feb. 12, 2019. pic.twitter.com/aZnL5F6iLH

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 13, 2019

       As the resistance tapered off the scope of the capitalist attack on the poor became clear. The Venezuelan government established a fund called PetroCaribe that offered revenue for Haiti. The program was promoted as a program of “economic solidarity,” valued at $3.8 billion dollars. The fund was supposed to help restore the country after the hurricane, and generally increase the standard of living for the poor. This money, in actuality, was squandered and embezzled. The resistance to the state immediately intensified and has never subsided. What began as a movement against state corruption has now morphed into resistance against the president and his party. Militants are not articulating piecemeal demands but are calling for the overthrow of the ruling party.

Spread of the Insurrection

        On February 9th revolutionaries blocked the roads to the president’s home and stoned his property. Thousands of people poured into Port-au-Prince demanding the overthrow of the regime, and the state has begun killing protesters.

Protests underway in Cite Soleil, #Haiti today. "Together we can force Jovenel to go!" pic.twitter.com/aQEkhoETVl

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 12, 2019

      On February 12th, all 78 prisoners have escaped from Aquin Prison in southern Haiti, as the countrywide insurrection has left Haiti’s police force unable to respond. The prisoners were able to escape while the police were distracted by nearby protesters, demanding the overthrow of the corrupt right wing regime of Jovenel Moïse. The prisoners had initially left their cells for a scheduled shower, and escaped in the midst of a demonstration outside the prison and its adjoining police station. Barricades made by protesters had blocked police reinforcements sent from Les Cayes, a town nearly 34 miles (55km) away.

Flaming barricades in the community of Terre Rouge, #Haiti today as part of 6th consecutive day of national anti-govt/corruption protests. pic.twitter.com/PwaueSY2FV

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 12, 2019

        Earlier in the day in Port-au-Prince, revolutionaries responded to the murder of a protester by police by throwing rocks and molotov cocktails. Militants have set up flaming barricades to block roads around the country, and attacks against the police have been increasing.

Solidarity with the Revolt

         Anarchists, revolutionaries, and internationalists have a responsibility. When the poor is under assault, fighting to regain dignity, and overthrow right wing forces revolutionaries must move in tandem. As the US state is impulsively trying to organize a coup, and destroy the communal/revolutionary process in Venezuela it is also propping up a corrupt, far-Right government in Haiti that is directly looting the oil revenue that was gifted from Venezuela.

Four cars set ablaze today at the Biwo Etat Civil in Lalue, PAP, #Haiti. Protesters have skirmished with police all day as they use tear gas, water cannons and live ammunition to keep large crowds forming. At least one man reportedly gunned down near Presidential Palace by USGPN pic.twitter.com/bZkIUEzpB0

— HaitiInfoProject 📡 (@HaitiInfoProj) February 10, 2019

        Revolutionaries have an opportunity to increase international connections, participate in anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle, and combat the fascist momentum in the Americas.

     Revolutionary action against Haitian state institutions is of utmost importance now, and small acts of solidarity can have a huge impact. The time to act is now!

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The Crushing Of Democracy After WW2

       For an interesting look at the machinations of the western democracy farce and how it functions hand in glove with fascist groups, and pursues their agenda with callous brutality, the following article is well worth a read. Since the second world war the ideology of the meagerly disguised  Western Fascism has pillaged the freedom of the people across the whole of Europe with a ruthlessness that is only matched by its brutality and deception. Yet there are those who still accept that it waves the flag of freedom and democracy.

Worth reading in full, from The Transmetropolitan Review:

-------Like most North Americans, the anarchists of the US can be quite clueless. Living in the center of an empire has long been known to produce delusional thinking, entitlement, myopia, selfishness, and above all, ignorance. In this regard, North Americans are anything but exceptional. The crimes of the US empire are well cataloged, their details readily available online, and the atrocities archived in a thousand different libraries. Despite these facts, even the most radical US anarchists remain oblivious to the lasting impact of their country’s imperialism across the globe. To highlight this unfortunate pattern, and also reveal a way to reverse its effects, this essay will focus on the country that has influenced contemporary US anarchism more than any other: Greece.----

------- The fact that a nation-state of less than 11 million people came to shape US anarchism is certainly mind-boggling, especially if one tries to find direct links, but the explanation is very simple. On December 6, 2008, the Greek police executed a 16 year-old anarchist named Alexis Grigoropoulos in cold-blood, triggering a month-long insurrection that left the country scorched and smoldering. Unlike other global uprisings tied to the economy, this insurrection was fueled by a simple truth: the police think they can kill whoever they want and now we’ll punish them for it. There was no other reason for this revolt. Compared to the US, the Greek police kill relatively few people, making the ferocity of this insurrection nearly holy in its righteousness and justification. At the time, many US anarchists asked themselves, if our Greek comrades will do this over one murder, why can’t we do this for the hundreds murdered by police in the US every year.-------

      For details of how after the second world war, the US, Western Europe and NATO savagely went about trying to crush any attempt by the people to build democracy, read the full article HERE:

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Those Tinpot Dictators.

 

   The brutality that states will inflict on their own citizens to maintain their power over them is well documented.

    After eleven weeks of mass protests the figures are shocking to say the least. The number injured by police varies according to source but government figures put the number at 1,700, knowing governments, these figures will be an under estimate. Again numbers seriously injured in the protests varies according to source and are put at between 124 and 353. Some of the serious injures being sight impairment, lose of an eye and broken bones, to a hand blown off. Most of the injuries were caused by “defensive bullets” known as Flashballs or LBDs and stun grenades which contain a dose of TNT. On one occasion during the protest  on December 1st. the police fired 10,000 tear gas canisters, working out as approximately one for every protester present on that day.

     The extent of savagery that these tinpot dictators in foreign lands will go to to hold on to their wealth and power is a testament to their depravity.

     Ooops, sorry, these details are not some foreign tinpot dictator, this is our own home grown variety, this is modern day France and is happening today, against the Yellow Vest protester. This is European democracy at work racking of the violence on protesters in the hope of breaking their resolve to effect change. The last thing Western European power mongers want is change that might impinge on their wealth and their grip on power. Capitalism is a savage beast that can't be domesticated, it has to be put down.

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Where Has The Real World Gone?

      As always, thoughtful, insightful words from Not Buying Anything.

Where has the real world gone, are we now afraid to be alone with our thoughts, after all thoughts are a good way of finding direction in our life. Face to face communication can be a wonderful enriching experience. Yes, there way be a place for "social media" but as part of our life, it shouldn't become our life, and that, unfortunately seems to be the trend. 

This from Not Buying Anything:

 

      Oliver Sacks, British neurologist, naturalist, historian of science, and author, feared for the future before he died. He wasn't so much alarmed at what had come into being. Rather, he was shocked by how much was missing.

     “Everything is public now, potentially: one’s thoughts, one’s photos, one’s movements, one’s purchases.
     There is no privacy and apparently little desire for it in a world devoted to non-stop use of social media.
      Every minute, every second, has to be spent with one’s device clutched in one’s hand. Those trapped in this virtual world are never alone, never able to concentrate and appreciate in their own way, silently.
      They have given up, to a great extent, the amenities and achievements of civilization: solitude and leisure, the sanction to be oneself, truly absorbed, whether in contemplating a work of art, a scientific theory, a sunset, or the face of one’s beloved.”

Oliver Sacks died in 2015. Before he passed he wrote, 

      "I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself.

       Sacks wouldn't have advised looking for such answers, such peace, in a mobile screen.

      We are trapped in a virtual world. I have doubts about it providing us with a "good and worthwhile life".

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

 

All Power To The Powerful, The US Democracy Illusion.

 

      A simple little game of question and answer gives us a vivid lesson on how "democracy" works in the US. All Hail the Emperor of America, a wonderful system to give unlimited power to the powerful, while binding the hands of the supposed checks and balances. Thanks Loam for the link.

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

Venezuela, Guatemala, Same Old Same Old---

 

     What are the people of Venezuela facing? History tells us the the US imperial machine stamps its blood stained boot heavily in that part of the world.

Havana Reuters:

      "Cuba said on Thursday the United States was moving special forces closer to Venezuela as part of a covert plan to intervene in the chaotic South American country using the pretext of a humanitarian" crisis.

      Scaremongering, fake news, or just the usual US behavior in that part of the world. We should have no illusions about the cause of Venezuela's problems nor should we doubt the motives of the US imperialist Empire. History tells us the story.

This from Freedom Socialist Party:

       “We came to work. I know I’m not getting asylum because they don’t give you asylum for hunger,” a young migrant from Honduras told a reporter. “But us on the caravan would rather die fighting than sitting in Honduras waiting to starve or be killed.”
      These stark words show the desperation of thousands of people, half of them women and girls, who have recently fled Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. What could force so many people to leave home and everything they know for a future that is uncertain at best? The history of U.S. intervention in Central America largely supplies the answer.
       Guatemala: coup, civil war, climate change. In 1954, the CIA engineered a coup against the government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz. A 36-year civil war ensued, during which the U.S. militarily aided one bloody, right-wing regime after another. Each has conducted a genocidal campaign against the indigenous peoples, who are the majority of the population.
       During the war, more than 200,000 people were killed and another 43,000 “disappeared.” More than 80 percent of the victims were indigenous Mayans. Prosecution of the main military and political figures responsible for mass murder is still rare 23 years after peace accords were signed ending the war.
        Half of Central America’s people live in poverty. Global warming, caused mainly by carbon emitted by richer countries, is leading to drought and crop failures and making the situation even more dire. With hunger common across the region, Guatemala has one of the world’s highest rates of chronic malnutrition.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Glasgow, International Women's Day- March 8th.

Wikipedia:
        International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year.[3] It is a focal point in the movement for women's rights.
       After the Socialist Party of America organised a Women's Day on February 28, 1909 in New York, the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference suggested a Women's Day be held annually. After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted in 1975 by the United Nations.
      Today, International Women's Day is a public holiday in some countries and largely ignored elsewhere.[4] In some places, it is a day of protest; in others, it is a day that celebrates womanhood. 

      If you are in Glasgow on that particular day, why not swell the numbers for women's rights, which are human rights, take part in Glasgow's celebration of International Women's Day? 

    In honour of International Women's Day-- Friday, 8 March-- a Rally and Walk of Pride will be assembling at 12 Noon in the Glasgow City Centre at the Dewar's statue in Buchanan Street.
      All are welcome to come together for singing, an open mic, a display of banners and placards, and leaflets on the history of this international holiday, and the ongoing importance of speaking out and fighting back against the twin evils of capitalism and patriarchy.
     This will be followed by a Walk of Pride through George Square to the City Chambers to honour, in song and in spirit, ourselves, each other, and all lovers of liberty and equality. Please join us as we demand respect and our rights: in our homes, our neighbourhoods, and our workplaces.
     More information on this event, and the Industrial Workers of the World, is available from https://iwwscotland.wordpress.com/

   

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

Under The All Seeing State.

      How much more policing by surveillance machines can we accept? We are watched in all aspects of our lives, as you walk down the street, enter a pub/cafe/library, or what ever, you are being watch. Shopping, place of work, sitting on the bus, they are there, the CCTV cameras, 24-7. Having got us all to accept the presence of the camera, they keep adding another surveillance/control facility to its armoury. Facial recognition, profiling, and now predictive algorithms. The computer will tell the police where a crime is likely to be committed and who is likely to commit a crime. Wonderful no need for detective work, just ask the computer where was the crime committed and who "dunnit", problem solved. No denying it the computer has worked it out, so you must be guilty, computers don't make mistakes!!!! 

    What a load of crap to depend on for your freedom, humans design the algorithms, humans come with bias and make mistakes, but the computer will be accurate? We as a society are sleep walking into a panoptic prison.

     This little piece from Liberty:

Policing by Machine – Predictive Policing and the Threat to Our Rights collates the results of 90 Freedom of Information requests sent to every force in the UK, laying bare the full extent of biased ‘predictive policing’ for the first time – and how it threatens everyone’s rights and freedoms.
It reveals that 14 forces are using, have previously used or are planning to use shady algorithms which ‘map’ future crime or predict who will commit or be a victim of crime, using biased police data.
The report exposes:

• police algorithms entrenching pre-existing discrimination, directing officers to patrol areas which are already disproportionately over-policed
• predictive policing programs which assess a person’s chances of victimisation, vulnerability, being reported missing or being the victim of domestic violence or a sexual offence, based on offensive profiling
• a severe lack of transparency with the public given very little information as to how predictive algorithms reach their decisions – and even the police do not understand how the machines come to their conclusions
• the significant risk of ‘automation bias’ – a human decision-maker simply deferring to the machine and accepting its indecipherable recommendation as correct.

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

The Suffering Of The Libyan People, Part Of The Grand Plan.

       The destruction of Libya by the Western imperialist military wing, NATO, is no longer news. We are supposed to sit back and consider it a success and the people of Libya have been given democracy, thanks to our unselfish assistance. What a massive distortion of the truth, eight years on and Libya, and I'm not spouting praise for Gaddafi, far from it, what was a modern state with a national education system, health service and other modern facilities, has been reduced to a barbaric feuding tribal land, where poverty and bloodshed are co-joined twins. All part of the Imperialists' strategy to destroy any power structure in that part of the world, so that its resources can be freely plundered. Syria an on going process and Iraq, are similar scenarios, with Iran and Venezuela, marked for similar treatment. The callous savagery of Western imperialism knows no bounds. 

Democracy Western Style.

Some extracts from a Middle East Eye article: 

       NATO’s bombardment of Libya in 2011 was never about human rights. Rather, it was the wilful creation of a failed state, designed to ensure the country could never again re-emerge as a strong, united, independent power

       Of course there is not always unity between the Western imperialists, there is deep rivalry between the various power blocks within the power hungry cabal.

A blood-soaked chessboard

      At the same time, Libya continues to serve as a blood-soaked chessboard for inter-imperial rivalries between Western powers, with France and Italy backing different sides in the ongoing civil war, each vying to position itself as the "indispensable power" in the region. To this end, May saw a conference hosted by Emmanuel Macron in Paris – with the Italians cut out – while Italy held its own rival event in Palermo six months later.

     Neither produced anything concrete for Libyans, although the French president's promise of December elections may well have spurred further violence, as each side sought to create facts on the ground in the run-up. The elections, needless to say, never happened - nor could they have, in the absence of any kind of agreed constitutional framework for carrying them out. 

      Even when they come together to destroy a country, they can't always agree on dividing the spoils, greed dominates their entire individual ideology.

     - the progress of the LNA, the reconciliation with Gaddafi loyalists, and the success of the Libyan-led negotiations - were a blow to the US-UK policy of militia-led destabilisation.

Read the full article HERE:
   
      Looking at the Libya, Iraq and Venezuela situation, the logic should surely follow that with the mass protests in France and America, surely it is time for intervention to bring these poor suffering people democracy, NATO, where are you when you are needed.

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