Distorted History.

      Anarchism means freedom, liberty, co-operation, of course these come with responsibility for your actions and respect for others. In today's society none of these bricks of a civilised society exist to any real extent. nor can they as long as we have a patriarchal foundation to the society. In this society power and wealth brings privileges and most of that power and wealth is in the hands of the males of society. And so it has been for countless centuries, anarchism is the only system that will remedy this inherent flaw in our society.

     Despite the shackles that have bound women for centuries there have been women who have stood tall and defied the norms of this distorted system, sadly history tends to bury their deeds and efforts. We should do our best to resurrect their history and put it in its rightful place along side all those who who struggled to make the world a better place. Men alone will not change the world, people will.

     This from crimethinc:

 The younger Bakunin daughters, Aleksandra and Tatiana.

    To observe the 204th anniversary of her birth, we remember Tatiana Bakunin, sister of the revolutionary anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. On the basis of all the available information, Tatiana and her sisters were as courageous and creative as Mikhail. Tatiana repeatedly played a pivotal role behind the scenes in her brother’s life and in the intellectual development of several other important thinkers. The fact that her name and ideas are not widely known today attests to the barriers she faced and the deficiencies of the “great man” model of history.
       Nearly all of what we know about Tatiana appears in the margins of stories written about men. She is one of the countless people who remain invisible through the lens of patriarchal memory, which conceals both her contributions and the things she could have accomplished if the institutions and conventions of her time had not denied her personhood. Her correspondence and writings have yet to be translated.
       Tatiana and her sisters grew up in the Russian countryside studying literature, music, and history. Their father raised them to speak several languages, bringing in tutors from Western Europe; he had picked up liberal ideas during his youth working in Italy as a diplomat, though his politics shifted to the reactionary end of the spectrum as he aged. In this environment, Tatiana Bakunin distinguished herself for her love of reading and writing and her reflective spirit.
        While her brother Mikhail left home at the age of fourteen to attend military academy, Tatiana and her sisters continued their studies into adulthood. They developed a private mysticism based in poetry, powerful feeling, and asceticism, which they referred to among themselves as la religion. The sisters were the first ones in the family to rebel, revolting against the role prescribed for women in 19th-century Russia as wives and mothers. When their parents pressured the eldest daughter, Lyubov, to marry a military officer, the sisters opposed this choice and eventually forced their parents to let her break off the engagement. Tatiana herself never married.
        In 1835, Mikhail was serving as an artillery officer in the Russian occupation of Poland. Likely inspired by his sisters’ rejection of their socially ordained role, Mikhail went AWOL and left the military. When he arrived home, Tatiana and Lyubov took him to Moscow to introduce him to their friends, including Nikolai Stankevich, a student of philosophy and the organizer of an independent reading group. Together, Nikolai, Mikhail, Tatiana, and the other Bakunin sisters studied, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel and began to develop the ideals for which Mikhail later became famous.
      Tatiana also maintained passionate intellectual relations with Vissarion Belinski, one of the most influential critics in the history of Russian literature, and later, Ivan Turgenev, the author who popularized the concept of nihilism with his novel Fathers and Sons.

      “My love does not fit in any of your categories. Call it folly or what you will. I was simply in love; and before I had realized it, I spent days which it is even now joy to remember… I lived with my whole heart and soul, every vein in me throbbed with life, everything around me was transfigured. Why must I now renounce all this?”
-Tatiana Bakunin, reflecting on her relationship with Turgenev in correspondence with her brother in the 1850s 

The elder Bakunin daughters, Varvara and Lyubov.

     After the repression of the revolutions of 1848, Mikhail Bakunin was captured and sentenced to death in three countries, then condemned to life imprisonment in Russia. Defying the hostility of the Russian government, Tatiana repeatedly visited him and smuggled secret messages out of the prison at great risk to herself. Petitioning the authorities, she and her mother and siblings eventually managed to effect Mikhail’s transfer to Siberia, from which he was ultimately to escape and resume his revolutionary activities. If not for Tatiana, Mikhail Bakunin’s name might also be unknown to us today.
       In his contributions to the development of contemporary anarchism, Mikhail always emphasized the importance of women’s liberation. The credit for this is due to Tatiana and her sisters, who set an example by advocating for themselves and teaching him much of what he knew about self-emancipation. The best way we can honor Tatiana is by recognizing the important roles that all those whose names are unknown to us—the majority of them women—have played in history.

       “Women almost everywhere are slaves, and we ourselves are the slaves of their bondage; without their liberation, without their complete, unlimited freedom, our freedom is impossible; and without freedom, there is no beauty, no dignity, no true love. We love only to the extent to which we desire and call for the freedom and independence of the other—total independence in relation to everything and even and especially in relation to ourselves. Love is the union of free beings and only this love uplifts, ennobles us. All other love disgraces the oppressed and the oppressor and is a source of depravity.”
-Mikhail Bakunin, letter to his siblings, May Day, 1845

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Co-operation Between Oppressors.

      All states use different weapons to subdue, repress and intimidate the population. Over any act of disobedience hangs the state's tools, incarceration, fines, house arrest, probation and many more. The state continually works at refining and expanding these tools, and they learn from each other. What happens in one state will be tested in another, adding to their armoury of repression to keep the people in line.

 From Crimethinc, An Interview With Nikos Romanos:

Which one is the terrorist?

     After several failed attempts across Europe to frame anarchists and other anti-authoritarians with conspiracy and terrorism charges, the Greek state is at the forefront of developing new legal strategies to attack social movements. Article 187A of the Greek legal penal code has existed since 2004, but last year, Greek officials used it in a new way against Nikos Romanos and several other anarchist prisoners, convicting and sentencing them to many years in prison based on a new interpretation of the article. Regardless of whether these verdicts are overturned in higher courts, the trials indicate a major strategic shift in the policing of social movements in Greece. They offer an important warning sign about the new forms that repression may assume around the world as social conflict intensifies.
        The Greek “anti-terrorism” laws are largely drawn from United Nations and European anti-terrorism guidelines; for the most part, they were drafted in the post-9/11 period. The social-democratic PASOK government introduced the majority of Greek “anti-terrorism” legislation in 2001; at the time, it was primarily aimed at criminal organizations. In 2004, the right-wing government of New Democracy introduced a new charge: “terrorist organization.” The infamous article 187A appeared in this legislative package.
      Article 187A defines the nature and scope of so-called “criminal” and “terrorist organization” and describes the role of an “individual terrorist” within an organization. In both cases, it is not necessary that an actual crime be committed to determine that an individual participated in a coordinated act against the state and should therefore be imprisoned for many years. The article gives the judge free rein to interpret the evidence provided by the police however he or she sees fit. This has already resulted in many arrests and long-term imprisonments, mostly targeting anarchists and anti-authoritarians.
        When Nikos Romanos and several other anarchists faced trial last year, the prosecutor repeatedly emphasized: “They are anarchists, so their actions are terrorist.” This sentence summarizes the message that the Greek state aims to send.

Read the full article HERE:

 Which one is the terrorist?

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From Russia With Love

       In the face of continued repression individuals can, and do, become desperate, and do things that may be far removed from their normal line of thought. Capitalism and the state is a brutal poisonous marriage, driving millions of people in this world to the point of desperation, causing them untold misery and steeping them in savagery. So it is not surprising that some of them resort to the same brutal methods of the state, attacking the problem with violence.

   On the recent bomb explosion at an office of the Russian security service, this from crimethinc:

      A year ago, the Russian Federal Security Service—the FSB—initiated a wave of repression, arresting and brutally torturing anarchists in order to force them to sign false statements admitting to participating in a supposed terrorist group invented by the Russian authorities. The ensuing crackdowns put tremendous pressure on anarchists around Russia; you can learn more about the cases and solidarity efforts here. Today, a young Russian anarchist died in an attack on the FSB headquarters in Arkhangelsk. The FSB has gotten its wish, bullying young Russians into carrying out bombings rather than engaging in public organizing. Below, we present a rough translation of the initial report from Russian anarchists, including the young man’s personal claim of responsibility.
      As we have previously emphasized, we don’t believe that individual attacks on specific authority figures will suffice to abolish the institutional power of the state and capitalism. But the Russian state has left precious few alternatives for those who desire a means of bringing about positive change. At the conclusion of a week that has seen a tremendous upswing in authoritarian repression and fascist violence around the world, from Pittsburgh to Brazil, it is time for us to discuss how we can collectively respond to the escalating violence of the state and its fascist supporters.
     It also bears mentioning that the FSB is directly descended from the KGB, showing the continuity of oppression between state socialism and capitalism.
     We respectfully bid farewell to this young man who took a stand against repression, torture, and deceit, doing the best he could with the few options that were available to him. Let’s organize together to give people like him a reason to live. Please go to the support page for those targeted by the FSB operation.

      Visual survey report on the torture that the FSB inflicted on arrestee Igor Shishkin, from the Public Monitoring Commission findings.
From bo-ak.org:
      At 8:52 am, at the entrance to the FSB Directorate for the Arkhangelsk Region, an explosion took place. The anarchist rebel, Zhlobitsky Mikhail Vasilyevich, also known on the app Telegram as Valerian Panov, blew himself up. This is the first case of anarchists carrying out such an attack on the FSB in 19 years; the previous attack was organized in 1999 at the reception of the FSB in Moscow by the New Revolutionary Alternative organization.
      The comrade died as a result of the explosion, also causing injuries of varying severity to three officers of the FSB.
     Seven minutes before the explosion, Valerian left a message in one of the anarchist chats via Telegram, in which he described the reasons for his action:

      Comrades, now in the FSB building in Arkhangelsk there will be a terrorist attack, the responsibility for which I take upon myself. The reasons are clear to you. Since the FSB fabricates cases and tortures people, I decided to go for it. Most likely, I will die because of the explosion, because I have initiated the charge directly by pressing the button attached to the bomb cover. Therefore, you are requested to spread information about the terrorist attack: who committed it and what the reasons were.
      Well, sort of like everything. I wish you to go unswervingly and uncompromisingly towards our goal. Light to you, the future of anarchist communism!

      We bow our heads before the heroism of our comrade. We were not acquainted in person, but through communication, he left an impression of himself as an intelligent and well-prepared person who was not apathetic, who aspired to go beyond the swamp of the official opposition struggle that is now mainstream.
       We are sorry that he had no other choice, no way to do more damage to the enemy with less harm to himself.
      Yet be that as it may, he lived as he thought was right, and died as a hero in the struggle for our common ideals.

As the Kurds say—Şehid namirin! Heroes do not die!

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So The State Repression Continues.

 

       If you like Beethoven, then you'll love this, a rather unusual rendering of his ninth symphony.

 The G20 leaders listen indifferently to a performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony—Bakunin’s favorite musical composition—while the rightful heirs of Beethoven and Bakunin engage in heroic struggle outside the walls.

         The aftermath of the G20 is still being felt by those who took part in the protests and others not really involved, as the German state does what state's do, come down hard on any dissent, useing any excuse to try and stifle opposition to their grip on power and privileges.

This from Crimethinc:

       Police raided more than 20 apartments, collectives, and projects around Germany in the early hours of December 5 in a new wave of repression following their unsuccessful attempts to brutally suppress demonstrations against the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg. The “Soko Schwarzer Block,“ the special police commission called “black bloc“ that was formed after the G20, officially announced that the searches pertained to an incident during the G20 at Rondenbarg trailer park—in which the police trapped and attacked a crowd, injuring many people. Solidarity actions and demonstrations responding to the raids took place immediately in Hannover, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Hamburg, Flensburg, Göttingen, and Berlin.
      Fabio, a person who spent four months in prison, became a symbol of the scandalous lies that the authorities have been spreading about the police attack at Rondenbarg. During the attack, police kicked 14 people down a fence, screaming “That’s your breakfast, antifa swine!” All of them sustained serious injuries, including broken bones. Since the police video was published by a TV station, we can all compare the different versions. History is made by those in power and what we witness right now is the fabrication of truth. The truth that the police and the judges are trying to promote is not compatible with the experiences that thousands of people share of being charged without provocation, brutally beaten up, water-cannoned, and pepper-sprayed during the summit.
      The official charge is “Landfriedensbruch,“ breach of the public peace. But even according to the police spokesperson, the searches were not carried out to find evidence to use against people participating in the demonstration. The searches were officially made to find out more about the structure of the protests and the organizers of the riots. In other words, the explicit goal of the police is to suppress dissent via violence and ongoing intimidation.
       The intention of the police is to frame the people they attacked as rioters. But they also raided the apartments of union members. Consequently, even mainstream journalists called the searches a PR bluff. The act that the arrestees are accused of is nothing more than being part of a demonstration from which stones and fireworks were thrown. The police have admitted that they did not expect to identify anyone who had thrown anything.

The State Can Never Be A Vehicle For Freedom.

         Anarchists are, at least consistent in one thing, the state can never be a vehicle to freedom. Be it a "socialist" state, Communist" state, a "representative democracy" state, they all walk the same road, control of the people in the hands of the few. For this consistency, many anarchists have paid with their lives, "revolutionary" state after "revolutionary" state, has hounded, exiled, imprisoned and murder anarchist, whose crime has been the belief that the people should control their own lives.

    Crimethinc has produced a excellent article highlighting some of those anarchists from the past, who paid dearly for their continuing struggle for freedom in the face of "revolutionary" states.

Restless Specters of the Anarchist Dead

A few words from the undead of 1917.

          This year is the centennial of two revolutions in Russia: one in which the people toppled the Tsar and another in which the Bolsheviks seized state power. Within twenty years, the Bolsheviks had executed or imprisoned most of those who carried out the revolution. Today, as the hashtag #1917live trends on twitter, we should remember the #1917undead, the anarchists who strove to warn humanity that statist paths towards social change will never bring us to freedom. Some of them, like Fanya and Aron Baron, were murdered in cold blood by authoritarian communists in the Soviet Union. Others managed to survive, betrayed by their supposed comrades, to witness the totalitarian results of the Bolshevik coup. Their voices cry out to us today from the grave. Let’s listen.

Read the full article HERE:

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What Could Be The Last Crime?

             I believe that it is true to say that practically every person out side the army of parasites that control this system, are dissatisfied with the present system, all desire change. The debate usually centres round what to change and how best to change things. What we should be aiming for is to change everything, over the centuries we have had a multitude of changes, all within the the confines of the existing system, and we have failed miserably to eradicate poverty, homelessness, deprivation, exploitation, repression and wars, freedom has become a commodity that can be purchased, and quality of life depends on wealth, It should be obvious by now that we can never find the answer to these problems within the parameters of the present economic system, the present system is incapable of delivering satisfaction to our desires, it doesn't function that way.

                To limit the debate on change to economics, growth, the markets, and GDP, is to perpetuate the existing failed system, and more or less agree that the present system of exploitative capitalism is the only model possible. It places us in the position of believing that capitalism is the pinnacle of human imagination and ability. We would be indeed a race devoid  and barren of imagination if this were the case. We are capable of imagining a far better, far fairer world, we are capable of changing that imagined world into reality, but we have to change the system, we have to change everything.

            Below are a few comments from the Crimethinc article, To Change Everything: 

             Every order is founded on a crime against the preceding order—the crime that dissolved it. Afterwards, the new order comes to be perceived as legitimate, as people begin to take it for granted. The founding crime of the United States of America was the rebellion against the authority of the king of England. The founding crime of the society to come, if we manage to survive this one, will do away with the laws and institutions of today.
            The category of crime holds everything that exceeds the limits of a society—its worst and its best. Every system is haunted by all that it cannot incorporate or control. Every order contains the seeds of its own destruction.
             Nothing lasts forever; that goes for empires and civilizations too. But what could supersede this one? Can we imagine an order not premised on the division of life into legitimate and illegitimate, legality and criminality, rulers and ruled? What could be the last crime?
            Anarchy is what happens wherever order is not imposed by force. It is freedom: the process of continually reinventing ourselves and our relationships.
Any freely occurring process or phenomenon—a rainforest, a circle of friends, your own body—is an anarchic harmony that persists through constant change. Top-down control, on the other hand, can only be maintained by constraint or coercion: the precarious discipline of the high-school detention room, the factory farm in which pesticides and herbicides defend sterile rows of genetically modified corn, the fragile hegemony of a superpower.
          Anarchism is the idea that everyone is entitled to complete self-determination. No law, government, or decision-making process is more important than the needs and desires of actual human beings. People should be free to shape their relations to their mutual satisfaction, and to stand up for themselves as they see fit.
              Anarchism is not a dogma or a blueprint. It is not a system that would supposedly work if only it were applied right, like democracy, nor a goal to be realized in some far-off future, like communism. It is a way of acting and relating that we can put into practice right now. In reference to any value system or course of action, we can begin by asking: How does it distribute power?

         Anarchists oppose all forms of hierarchy—every currency that concentrates power into the hands of a few, every mechanism that puts us at a distance from our potential. Against closed systems, we relish the unknown before us, the chaos within us by virtue of which we are able to be free.

Read the full article HERE:

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Days Of War, Nights Of Love.

 

             Something to think about, Days Of War, Nights Of Love, an old article from Crimethinc:

              Whatever medical science may profess, there is a difference between Life and survival. There is more to being alive than just having a heartbeat and brain activity. Being alive, really alive, is something much subtler and more magnificent. Their instruments measure blood pressure and temperature, but overlook joy, passion, love, all the things that make life really matter. To make our lives matter again, to really get the most out of them, we will have to redefine life itself. We have to dispense with their merely clinical definitions, in favor of ones which have more to do with what we actually feel.

          As it stands, how much living do we have in our lives? How many mornings do you wake up feeling truly free, thrilled to be alive, breathlessly anticipating the experiences of a new day? How many nights do you fall asleep feeling fulfilled, going over the events of the past day with satisfaction? Most of us feel as though everything has already been decided without us, as if living is not a creative activity but rather something that happens to us. That’s not being alive, that’s just surviving: being undead. We have undertakers, but their services are not usually required; we have morgues, but we spend most of our time in office cubicles and video arcades, in shopping malls, in front of televisions. Of course suburban housewives and petty executives are terrified of risk and change; they can’t imagine that there is anything more valuable than physical safety. Their hearts may be beating, but they no longer believe in their dreams, let alone chase after them.

             But this is how the revolution begins: a few of us start chasing our dreams, breaking our old patterns, embracing what we love (and in the process discovering what we hate), daydreaming, questioning, acting outside the boundaries of routine and regularity. Others see us doing this, see people daring to be more creative and more adventurous, more generous and more ambitious than they had imagined possible, and join us one by one. Once enough people embrace this new way of living, a point of critical mass is finally reached, and society itself begins to change. From that moment, the world will start to undergo a transformation: from the frightening, alien place that it is, into a place ripe with possibility, where our lives are in our own hands and any dream can come true.

           So do what you want with your life, whatever it is! But to be sure you do get what you want, think carefully about what it really is, first, and how to go about getting it. Analyze the world around you, so you’ll know which people and forces are working against your desires, and which ones are on your side… and how you can work together with us. We’re out here, living life to the fullest, waiting for you—hopping trains across the United States, organizing political protests in French public schools, writing beautiful letters at sunrise in Bangkok. We just finished making love in the corporate washroom a minute before you walked in on your half hour lunch break. And Life is waiting for you with us, on the peaks of unclimbed mountains, in the smoke of campfires and burning buildings, in the arms of lovers who will turn your world upside down. Come join us!

Published 2000-09-11

• Days of War, Nights of Love

 

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END-CIV.

 

       If aliens invade earth and were tearing down the forests,contaminating the water, eliminating species, poisoning the atmosphere, and devastating the climate, would you take action to resist? Of course you would, well those in control of the monster, corporate globalisation are alien to the ordinary people of this planet, they are of another world that you and I do not inhabit, and they are doing all of the above. What action will we take to resist?
Click on "Watch on Vimeo" to view.

END:CIV from CrimethInc. Workers' Collective on Vimeo.

This from Crimethinc:

 Examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”
      The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don’t have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system—it seems to be coming apart already.
       But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future.
       Backed by Jensen’s narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land, moving along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. END:CIV illustrates first-person stories of sacrifice and heroism with intense, emotionally-charged images that match Jensen’s poetic and intuitive approach. Scenes shot in the back country provide interludes of breathtaking natural beauty alongside clearcut evidence of horrific but commonplace destruction.
        END:CIV features interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin, Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan and more. [853x480]

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This Is Not a Dialogue.

          I have always maintained that this society will always encourage you to debate anything, but punish you if you try to change things. As long as we fail to see this society as a class war with two diametrically opposed sides, and one side holds all the power levers, we are doomed to enter into an endless and pointless conversation that goes under the label of dialogue. If you are bound by the rules of your opponent, then you are not in a fair and equal dialogue. If the ground rules are shaped by your opponent, and backed up by threat, you are not in a equal dialogue. You cannot discuss capitalism into a fair and just system, that’s not how the system works. Under capitalism, the reality is that the majority will always have to struggle to get a reasonable standard of living, while the corporate bosses and their henchmen, will live in unimaginable opulence, that’s how the system functions. We can’t enter into a dialogue under such conditions, it is an illusion created by our opponents to weave passivity over society, a trick for continuity of the system. What we want is to frame the argument in our value structure, equality, justice, freedom and sustainability, realise that we can’t have those conditions under capitalism, forget the illusionary, action sapping dialogue, and organise to destroy the existing system. 

On Anarchist News from Crimethinc:

         This is not a dialogue. How could you be so naïve? A dialogue—from which some of the participants can be deported at any time? A dialogue—in which one side keeps shooting and incarcerating the other side? A dialogue—in which a few people own all the networks and radio stations and printing presses, while the rest have to make do with markers and cardboard signs? A dialogue, really?
          You’re not in a dialogue. You’re in a power struggle. All that matters is how much force you can bring to bear on your adversaries to defend yourself from them. You can bet that if you succeed, they will accuse you of breaking off the dialogue, of violating their free speech. They will try to lure you back into conversation, playing for time until they need no more stratagems to keep you passive while they put the pieces in place for tyranny.
          This isn’t a dialogue—it’s a war. They’re gambling that you won’t realize this until it’s too late. If freedom is important to you, if you care about all the people marked for death and deportation, start taking action.

Read the full article HERE:

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The Problem

This from Crimethinc:

The Problem

     …is that anyone could wield so much power in the first place. A man like Donald Trump could never be so dangerous if government and the market didn’t concentrate power in the hands of a ruling class.
Putting another party in power won’t fix this. All the faith invested in Obama’s promises of Hope and Change just legitimized the government long enough for a more ruthless tyrant to take the reins.         All the taxes paid by hopeful citizens just put more bullets in the guns of the police that will go on profiling, imprisoning, deporting, and murdering people under Donald Trump.
       We have to stop ceding our strength to these institutions. Instead, let’s build networks to meet our needs directly and defend ourselves against everyone who wants to rule us. The only way to freedom and equality is through self-determination, mutual aid, and collective resistance.

Download PDF leaflet HERE:

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Why No Roar??

 

 LET'S ROAR.

The problem's too big

the perpetrators unknown

you can't beat the system

all on your own.

So it's easy to withdraw

find your own little cage

turn a blind eye to the suffering

stifle your rage,

but, the greed goes on

the poverty's still there,

you can't just leave it

for your children to bear.

Others feel as you do,

eager to put things right

but locked in isolation

it's a hopeless fight,

so don't sit in silence

behind a closed door,

your voice can help raise

a whisper to a roar.

        Things are tough, very tough for countless millions of people on this earth, even in the "rich developed" countries millions live below the poverty line, surrounded by unimaginable wealth. Practically everybody knows the system is unfair, corrupt and exploitative, yet in these "rich developed" countries, only thousands resit and protest, Why? What is it that makes millions accept their state of poverty, their lack of control over their own lives?  Is it fear, or is it a feeling of hopelessness that you can't win against the system. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, tries hard to portray that illusion, that challenging the status-quo is only done by hooligans and terrorists, and is always forcibly put down by a strong state apparatus, as it defends us against these hooligans and terrorists. How does the majority of people get to see through this illusion, this weaving of smoke and mirrors, and realise that the real power lies with them, they can take control of their own lives, and can shape society to a fairer and more just system that sees to the needs of all our people. 

 From Anarchist News:

     ------Unlike a more abstract analysis of "the Spell," which could be thought through in terms like those found in The Ego and Its Own, by Max Stirner; this Spell was thought of in terms of more specific context, not just another spook attempting to win an individual's allegiance. The Spell wasn't a matter of believing in another's Cause, it was a matter of believing that we are too weak to pursue our own cause(s). It was a belief that was reinforced throughout all of the institutions we are expected to embrace: schools, churches, every branch of government, work, and especially through mainstream media. It wasn't a moral injunction that one shouldn't fight against these things, it was a repetitive practical demonstration that one can't revolt to any acceptable consequence.------

Read the full article HERE:

View the video "Breaking The Spell" from Crimethinc. 

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One Nation,Under Surveillance.

     We all know that the state will use whatever it can manufacture, or whatever comes its way, to tighten security. The recent attack in Paris, though tragic in every aspect, has been seized upon by the French state, and other European states, including the UK, to compromise civil liberties. Engendering a climate of fear, the state apparatus is able to clamp down more firmly on an voice of dissent. “For your own safety” protest marches will be banned, you will be encouraged to snoop on your neighbour, and report all you paranoias to the “proper authorities”, remember Nazi Germany. 

       The noose is ever tightening round the people, new anti-union laws, greater scope for surveillance, ever growing epidemic of CCTV cameras, now monitoring your every move and profiling you as you make your way about you daily business. Now the UK has found money in this austerity age, to fund more secret service units and decided not to cut funding to the police, while still slicing £12 billion from welfare. It knows where its priorities lie, certainly not with the welfare of the people.

     Are we to sit idly by while our civil liberties are shredded on the pretext of protecting us. We need protection from the state more than any other protection.

An excellent article from Crimethinc:

    WE received the following report from the group that produced the French version of To Change Everything, Pour Tout Changer. They describe the situation in Paris before and after the attacks of November 13: the intensification of xenophobic discourse, the repression of homeless refugees, the declaration of a “state of emergency” as a way to clamp down on dissent, the preparations for the COP 21 summit at which demonstrations are now banned, and what people are doing to counter all this. It offers an eyewitness account from the front lines of the struggle against the opportunists who hope to use the tragedy of November 13 to advance their agenda of racism and autocracy. With demonstrations forbidden and the COP 21 summit around the corner, what happens in Paris will set an important precedent for whether governments can use the specter of terrorism to suppress efforts to change the disastrous course on which they are steering us.

Escalating Xenophobia

       The attacks that took place in Paris several days ago, tragic as they are, are unfortunately not an isolated event. The capital city of France was simply another target in a string of bombings in Suruç, Ankara, and Beirut; it represents the continuation and expansion of the strategy ISIS initiated in the Middle East.
In France, these attacks exacerbate a political context that was already fraught. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the participation of the far-right party Front National in the second round of the 2002 presidential election, the political discourse has taken an increasingly conservative tone. For example, Nicolas Sarkozy, as Ministre de l’Intérieur from 2002 to 2007 and President from 2007 to 2012, openly adopted some arguments, topics, and symbols that were previously only used by the Front National. These discourses of “identity” and “security” have especially stigmatized Arabic and Muslim communities. In 2010, for example, a law was passed stipulating that it was forbidden to cover your face in public places in France. While not explicitly directed at those wearing a niqab or hijab, it resulted in more controls targeting Muslim women.
During this same time period, law enforcement groups were given new equipment such as Flash-balls (supposedly non-lethal anti-riot weapons) and Taser guns. The national DNA file, used since 1998 to collect the DNA of sexual offenders and abusers, has been extended to every person convicted of an offense. The “Plan Vigipirate,” a governmental anti-terrorism security plan established in 1995 after several bombing attacks in France, was also updated three times between 2002 and 2006, and more recently in 2014 under current President François Hollande.

Before the Attacks

      For years, refugees have been fleeing their countries to escape death, military conflicts, and constant political instability. Until last summer, the French government and its European counterparts didn’t care about the refugee issue—witness the countless tragic deaths of people trying to cross the Mediterranean sea. In Paris, several groups of refugees have been living on the streets in precarious conditions for months.
      Nevertheless, due to accelerating waves of immigration, the French government started to change its policy, taking part in the European political initiative “Welcome Refugees.” This was more of a political move than an expression of solidarity. During this period, refugees and migrants, left alone by authorities, began to create their own camps in several locations in Paris. They received some assistance from NGOs, collectives, activists, and others concerned about their difficult situation.
      However, refugees faced aggressive state repression, as they still do. They are regularly harassed by police who intimidate, beat, evict, and arrest them or destroy their camps. In June 2015, the fascist group Génération Identitaire (Identity Generation) attacked a refugee camp in Austerlitz with stones and bottles. The Austerlitz camps were removed by the authorities in September.
      At the end of July, another group of refugees and migrants decided to squat an old and abandoned high school in the 19th district of Paris: the Lycée Jean Quarré. Collectives and activists came to offer help; together, they began organizing demonstrations to defend refugees’ rights. On the morning of October 23, police evicted the squat. Some of the migrants who occupied it have been relocated to centers or shelters in the suburbs or even further outside Paris. Others remained without a place to sleep, so they camped in front of the Hotel de Ville, the City Hall of Paris.

Well worth reading the full article HERE:

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

Everyone Is An Anarchist At Heart.

     To most anarchists it is so obvious that we expect others to see it the same way, but sadly it doesn't work like that. What can be more enriching and liberating than controlling your own live, in mutual co-operation with others, what can be more demeaning than having your life controlled by others, who don't even have your interests at heart? Why do we accept the later, when the former is there for us to take?

Download the PDF:

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

We Have To Change Everything.

     It's our dream, to change everything, not to tinker round the edges, not to fight to get a few more handouts, of our own wealth from the plunderers. We want to shape the world to suit the needs of all our people, to share all our wealth, with all our people, to change everything is the only way.

Ah Love! Could Thou and I

with Fate Conspire

To Grasp this Sorry Scheme

of Things entire,

Would we not shatter it

to bits, and then

Remould it nearer to

the Heart's Desire!

 Extract from Rubaiyat of  Omar Khayyam.

      From Kickstarter:

      Climate change, economic crisis, unrest from Egypt to Brazil: the prevailing order is unsustainable in every way. Today even entrenched representatives of the status quo admit that it is necessary to change everything. But the best they can come up with is to appeal to the same authorities that are responsible for our problems in the first place. 
What would it mean to change everything? How can we set out on a different path?

Read the full article HERE:

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

Our Christmas Message.

    It seems only right that we should put up our Christmas message, this one from Crimethinc.com

Listen HERE: The Ex-Worker Holiday Special.

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