Our Struggle Ends When We Win The World.

        Glasgow/Clydeside was once known as the Red Clyde, a period of radical action by thousands of ordinary people from the area. However some historians  seem intent in watering that history down to a wishy-washy very pale pink. However, no matter how the establishment historians and their sidekicks in the media, try to portray the Red Clyde as a wishy-washy very pale pink, the real history defies them. The people of the Clydeside have a proud history, they have a heritage, and it is one of continuous struggle for justice and a better world. There were more industrial strikes on Clydeside during the first world war than before or after, Hundreds of thousands organised rent strikes from Clydebank to Glasgow, and successfully forced the UK government to bring in the 1915 rent restriction act. The Clydeside history is littered with hard and sometimes brutal struggles, struggles of people who demanded more, who demanded change, and in many case got it.

      However the struggle is not over, we are now in the midst of the most brutal attack on the living conditions of the ordinary people for many a decade. Despite the struggles and victories of the past, we are once again heading back to the poverty of the thirties, increase homelessness, increased child poverty, working families relying on charities. It is once again time to reignite that fighting spirit of the Red Clyde, time to call on that solidarity, that unity of purpose. We don't have the shipyards, we don't have the engineering factories, but we do have the people of Glasgow/Clydeside and their history of determined struggle, and their desire for justice. Now more than ever, we need that Red Clyde radical spirit to defend and improve our living conditions and those of tomorrow's generation.

           A poster from the 80's. calling on that Red Clydeside spirit. We are alive, from the rent strikes, to bloody Friday, to the poll-tax and beyond, our struggle will end when we win the world.

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In This Economic System Brutality Repeats Itself.

 

        There is always talk of change, but in this capitalist system, certain things never change. I wrote this little piece back in 2012, and here we are in 2018 and the same  basic structure still continues. Wealth and power control our lives, that wealth and power is created by the daily grind of the ordinary people. We furnish them with the wealth and power to continue exploiting and controlling our quality of life.

February 2012:

       We should never forget that in any industrial struggle you are not only fighting your employer, but the powers that be. The authorities will always throw the full extent of their power in support of the employer and against the workers. You elect them and they support your employer, that's how the system works. That power can be police intimidation/brutality/provocation, to bringing the troops onto the streets to crush the resistance of the group in dispute. Britain is no different in that respect, we have had the troops on the streets on numerous occasions. Troops were put on the streets in Liverpool during the 1911 dockers strike, resulting in two strikers being shot dead on the street. Later in Glasgow 1919 during the 40 hour week struggle, once again the state brought troops on to the streets. That event in Glasgow became known as Bloody Friday. We can go away back to what was probably the first organised strike in the country and the then authorities ran true to form and brought the troops out against the strikers, that was the 1787 Glasgow weavers strike. Don't ever expect "YOUR" elected representatives to support you in any workers dispute, they support the system, which is one of exploitation and business orientated, your are just the replaceable wee cogs in their greed machine.

Let's jump forward, 1984/85 miners strike

       Of course it is not just industrial disputes that the full force of the wealth and power cabal will come down on the public. Any resistance to whatever  legislation they wish to force on to the public will be met with the same brutal onslaught, jump forward to 1990, remember the poll-tax? In that case it was a victory for the people.

       Real change for the benefit of all our people will only come when we demolish this greed driven exploitative, unjust system, and replace it with a society that is free from the profit motive, sees to the needs of all our people, and is built on sustainability.

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

Sympathy Where Sympathy Is Due.

       I can understand the sympathy for the two injured police who were deliberately run over by a vehicle, it is always painful to see anther human being suffer, let’s hope they recover and look for another job. This may have been a pointless violent action, for whatever reason, but we should not, as the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media would have us do, allow that sympathy to overflow onto the police as an organisation. We should always remember that the police are the minders, the street thugs, of a system of unearned privilege and wealth for the few, a system of greed and corruption that breeds poverty, alienation, deprivation, anxiety and stress for the many. The police are the systems hounds, with blood on their teeth, trained to keep control on the streets for fear that the people may change the system. The illusion that they clear our cities of “crimes” conceals the fact that the “crimes” that they are are proposed to be cleaning up, are the direct result of this exploitative system they defend. 

       What have the police ever done for the people? Their history is one of a litany of miscarriages of justice, brought about by their brutality, false statements, lies, incompetence and corruption, in conjunction with a biased judiciary, remember the Birmingham six 1975. Let’s not forget the part the police played in the Liverpool transport workers strike 1911, the forty hour strike and Glasgow’s bloody Friday 1919, move forward, and their doing the bidding of the greedy and powerful in the 1984/85 miners’ strike, remember Orgreave? Of course we have to list Hillsborough 1989, and so the list goes on, an organisation that was put in place to defend the indefensible, a system of festering greed, corruption and privilege, that perpetuates oppression, poverty and misery.

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

 

Glasgow's Bloody Friday.

      This Friday, January 31st. marks the 95th anniversary of Glasgow's Bloody Friday. A day when the state showed its bare-knuckles and brought the military onto the streets of Glasgow, to quell what it thought were the sparks of revolution. It showed that the British state, like all states, will go to any lengths to maintain its power. Glasgow's streets saw troops with fixed bayonets, machine guns and tanks, as the state showed it willingness to crush any attempt to change the power structure of our society. 

     That event was sparked by the desire of the workers to better their conditions and bring down unemployment by introducing the 40 hour week. The state showed what it thought of that idea. From then until now the workers have continued to struggle to better their conditions. Now however, the struggle has changed and is less about bettering our conditions, and more about defending what we have.

    Since the "crisis" the state has whittled away at what conditions we had won over generations of struggle. We have seen wages frozen/cut, energy price soar, social services decimated, working conditions savaged. We have seen the widespread introduction of zero hours contracts, a system whereby the employee has no idea how much he/she will earn in any given week. You are classed as in full time employment but can be laid off without pay for days at a time.

     There have been other attacks on our standard of living with the bedroom tax, the withdrawing of disability allowance, implemented by the brutal ATOS regime, Workfare, whereby you are compelled to work for no wages, and so it goes on.

 

     What the workers of 1919 wanted was an improvement in their living conditions through the 40 hour week, and this could bring 60,000 to 70,000  to mass on George Square, to show their solidarity, and take on the brutality of the police.

    Today we are trying to defend our deteriorating conditions, our standard of living is being attack on several fronts, what our forefathers fought for is being taken from us. Where is the 60,000 to 70,000 forming up to show their solidarity, voice their anger and be prepared to defend their position?

This from Strugglepedia:

THE DEMONSTRATION, BLOODY FRIDAY.
     On Friday 31 January 1919 upwards of 60,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square Glasgow in support of the 40-hours strike and to hear the Lord Provost's reply to the workers' request for a 40-hour week. Whilst the deputation was in the building the police mounted a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators, including large numbers of ex-servicemen, retaliated with whatever was available, fists, iron railings and broken bottles, and forced the police to retreat. On hearing the noise from the square the strike leaders, who were meeting with the Lord Provost, rushed outside in an attempt to restore order. One of the leaders, David Kirkwood, was felled to the ground by a police baton, and along with William Gallacher was arrested.
RIOTS AND ARRESTS.
     After the initial confrontation between the demonstrators and the  police in George Square, further fighting continued in and around the city centre streets for many hours afterwards. The Townhead area of the city and Glasgow Green, where many of the demonstrators had regrouped after the initial police charge, were the scenes of running battles between police and demonstrators. In the immediate aftermath of 'Bloody Friday', as it became known, other leaders of the Clyde Workers' Committee were arrested, including Emanuel Shinwell, Harry Hopkins and George Edbury.
TROOPS.
     The strike and the events of January 31 1919 “Bloody Friday” raised the Government’s concerns about industrial militancy and revolutionary political activity in Glasgow. Considerable fears within government of a workers' revolution in Glasgow led to the deployment of troops and tanks in the city. A full battalion of Scottish soldiers stationed at Maryhill barracks in Glasgow at the time were locked down and confined to barracks, for fear they would side with the rioters, an estimated 10,000 English troops, along with Seaforth Highlanders from Aberdeen, who were first vetted to remove those with a Glasgow connection, and tanks were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Friday. Soldiers with fixed bayonets marched with tanks through the streets of the City. There were soldiers patrolling the streets and machine guns on the roofs in George Square. No other Scottish troops were deployed, with the government fearing fellow Scots, soldiers or otherwise, would go over to the workers if a revolutionary situation developed in the area. It was the British state’s largest military mobilisation against its own people and showed they were quite prepared to shed workers’ blood in protecting the establishment.

Read the full article HERE:

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