Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts

Thursday 1 July 2021

Live Free.

            Autonomous spaces, where people organise in a co-operative manner the way they want to live, free, in peace, co-operation and harmony are essential bullet holes in this authoritarian system of control freaks and profit gobbling maniacs. However the state can't tolerate free thinking people who live in harmony outside their cage of submission. The Greek state has used every brutal tool in its authoritarian armoury against these autonomous spaces brutal evictions, detention and prison sentences, bricking up doorways, and mounting a military style occupation of the area. However, the Greek state is not alone in this onslaught against the free thinking people, state after state is doing likewise, and never much of a mention in the state mouthpiece the mainstream media. The following extract is from Germany, but it could be Russia, France, Chile or any of the other capitalist oriented states.

Originally published by Kontrapolis
 
To the companions of Köpi Wagenplatz
         We know exactly how you feel right now. We went through the same shit almost a year ago. The whole chaos of barricading, clearing things out, keeping things there. Arguing, liking each other, all the fear of losing the long used and long loved home. All the questions of where to go afterwards and at the same time knowing that we will not lose our home, because we can still defend ourselves, because we will still defend ourselves.
        Of course the Liebig34 was and is quite different from the Köpi Wagenplatz. But when it comes down to it, we can count on each other. We want to say again a big thank you how you have supported us shortly before the eviction and really on all levels. Without you we wouldn’t have been able to get things going so well and we wouldn’t have had as much fun. And above all, we would not have gotten to know each other better. Thanks for that! For support and new friendships.
That’s why we want to ask everyone to support Köpi as much as we do! More than 30 years of self-organization do not just pass us by. Köpi Wagenplatz is similar to the Liebig a super diverse bunch of people and therefore quite unique. Few Wagenplätze in Berlin have existed for so long and more and more are being evicted and more and more are needed.
        We can’t imagine a Berlin without the Köpi and the Köpi Wagenplatz and we don’t want to. We have experienced the best concerts in Köpi. We all forgot about time for a whole weekend and hung out in the Köpi yard by the fire bin for far too long, drank beer and forgot when next Monday wll come. All in all, we all have our different exciting stories that we don’t want to miss. Köpi is so much more than a place to live! Köpi is a super international place where so many different spaces, people and collectives are. “Köpi bleibt Risikokapital!“ That is clear. Let’s show the profit-oriented system what it means when another self-organized project is taken away from us. Let’s show the pigs that they can’t take away our ideas of freedom. Better burning hearts than dead dreams!
         It is the same as always, Köpi Wagenplatz must be defended to the last.

We wish you a lot of strength!
See you soon your Liebig34
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Wednesday 9 June 2021

Rigaer 94.

           Pick your country and the state apparatus will be doing much the same things. Clamping down on autonomous spaces, self-organising groups, and all those that don't fit their model of existence for profit, and regimented control. The state has to know what you are up to, where you are, why are you there and should you be there. This report is from Berlin and it is not the first attack by the state on this autonomous space. The state has all the money time and resources to waste on these types of restrictive measures, after all we given them the money through our taxes, it's a shame we allow them to use our money to control us.
        The Germany state's minders in their usual heavy handed and over the top methods, attacked Rigaer 94, during July 2020.
 
 
          
 
      This report on the Germany state again planning to close this popular autonomous space is from Act For Freedom Now:
        The time to search the conflict and intensify it is long overdue. It’s time to go against the idea of property and the owners and take on the fight on our side, the side of the disposessed, the renters, the homeless. It is also time to resist against the occupation of our neighbourhoods, against the state and a society, that supports and contributes to its agenda and actions of systematically opressing and exploiting people based on racial ascriptions, drives away, displaces and excludes those that don’t fit or don’t want to fit in with the city of the rich. There is no reason to defend the existing and take the side of those profiting of the capitalist system. There are many reasons though to get organized together and rebel against state and capital, against authorities and its defenders and fight for the principles of selforganisation, mutual aid and a life in freedom and dignity. That is the context in
        To us, this house is a place where we chose to live and fight collectively. It is a place of organization of different local and international struggles in which we involved ourselves over the years. As a piece of the ongoing resistance in this city. Against the policestate and with it the transformation of parts of the city into so called “danger zones”, in which cops harass, control and hunt people. Against gentrification, rising rents, real estate projects, the destruction of public spaces and forced displacement. Against social isolation, egoism and the narrative of “everyone fending for themselves”.
         On the contrary we stand for selforganization, mutual aid and solidarity. For taking our lives into our own hands and defending ourselves against the omnipresent paternalism. For the experiments of selforganized spaces, spaces of the struggle and a life in a collective, without mechanisms of authoritarian and patriarchal oppression. Our open spaces Kadterschmiede and the youth space Keimzelle are meeting points that allow us to stay in exchange even when the social life is supposed to be frozen.
The attack on Rigaer94
         For the 17th and 18th of June, the self-proclaimed facility manager Luschnat, the “lawyers” Bernau and von Aretin and a so called fire security expert designated by them are getting ready to lead another attack against our house with the help of the police. They set out on the legal base of an ordinance by the district Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, that is supposed to force everyone to tolerate a “site inspection to examine the fire security” of all flats and rooms. It’s unlikely that this will be a “simple fire security inspection”, since everyone involved knows, that this house was turned into what is most likely the most fire safe house in the whole city, with the help of many friends in the past months. For a similar planned attack in march, that could be averted, 500.000€ for the Hundertschafts*-cops from different federal states were already spent. This fact points towards an action having been and being set up for a longer time period. We can imagine that the cops will again establish a “red zone” a few days prior to the 17th and 18th of june, to be able to take the house by assault on the 17th, occupy the neighbouring houses and destroy walls, the fire safe doors that we installed, and many more elementary facilities in the house. Maybe Bernau, Luschnat and co. want to then declare the house to be “uninhabitable”. By that they could evict with the help of cops and private security everything in the house they’d want to. Finally they want their hired lackeys to destroy what we have built up. This would be a scenario similar to the eviction attempt of the summer 2016.
 
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Tuesday 27 October 2020

Twins.

       It is sometimes difficult when you see our so called "political representatives", in their fine clothes and polite civilised manner, that they oversee and manage the cruel, vicious and barbaric prison system. A system deeply rooted in violence and inhumanity, a relic from our more barbaric past, but which our well manicured "political representatives" deem necessary to keep them in their privileged position of wealth and power. Prisons are institutions of violence, repression and  intimidation, and are intended to be so, as a deterrent to those who would dare to challenge the status-quo. As long as the state survives, the savagery and barbarity that is the prison system will persist, they are inseparably linked like Siamese-twins.  

The following from Act For Freedom Now: (Translation is not perfect, but you grasp the viciousness) 

 Rotative Hunger strike in spanish prisons

        From last 1st of September on at least 14 prisoners, mostly anarchists, take actually part of a new rotative hunger strike against the precarious health conditions in the spanish prisons. They reinvicate also a 14 point program against isolation custody (FIES/DERT), tortures and physical and psychical violence from the prison guards, dispersion of prisoners far from their home, etc. Every comrade is doing a 10-days-hunger strike, one following other, every month 3 prisoners.
      Violence in spanish prisons is very common, every year 200 prisoners die inside spanish prisons violently or from drugs, no medical attention or diseases. Actually in corona times, the conditions in jail are mostly insupportable (bad food, no activities, no visits…).
        Last month of August our comrade Carmen Badía Lachos was violated from a prison guard inside the ‘hospital’ part of the Zuera-prision (Zaragoza).
      She suffers cancer and use a wheelchair to move, so this psychopath had an ‘easy game’ to act like a coward. Carmen did a public communicate about this machist crime. Last year Carmen did a very long hunger strike (more than 2 month) to denounce her health conditions to get released from prison because of her incurable cancer. The prison-administration denied her petition… The violator got threats to kill from an anonymous prisoner.
       Long term prisoner Claudio Lavazza in August was brought back to Spain after being judged in Paris for a big bank-robbery (in 1978) and he got sentenced 41 years later to ten years of prison in France! Claudio was arrested in 1996 after a bank-robbery in Cordoba where died 2 cops in a battle of gun-fire.
        Also still in prison our anarchist comrade Gabriel Pombo da Silva, actually in the jail of Leon. He got transferred from Aachen/Germany in 2013 to Spain with the special condition that he had to finish just his sentence from Germany in spanish prisons and then he’d be free from all anterior sentences. So in 2016 he became free. But his freedom in Spain didn’t have a long stand… just because one judge from Girona opinion that Gabriel should finish his 30-years-sentence from 1990… that would be 16 years more behind bars! But his friends and comrades try to bring the case to the superior tribunal of justice, so the last word is still not spoken.

Solidarity with the anarchist/revolutionary prisoners all around the world!

Down all prison walls!
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

Thursday 24 September 2020

How Long?

       As sates across Europe and elsewhere march in lock-step with each other at trying to crush any and all self organising autonomous structures and individuals, it sometimes appears as if one state is trying to out do the other in the expanse and severity of their actions, with the terrorist label attached to any voice of dissent. Greece appears the worst, then it looks like Germany is trying to lead the pack, and so it goes on, ever lurching to the right and further draconian acts to control the population. How much longer will the people accept this goose-stepping to fascism, how much longer will we let our anger simmer below the surface. No state is immune from this thrust to the right.

This report from Act For Freedom Now, on Germany:

      The most revolutionary thing one can do is to proclaim always loudly what is happening.” Rosa Luxemburg
    On Monday, August 31, cops attacked 27 objects, 24 of them in Hamburg and one each in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. The reason for the searches is the investigation against the Roter Aufbau Hamburg for the formation of a criminal organization.
    These investigations are a further escalation of an authoritarian formation in Germany. The aim is to smash emancipatory structures and to ensure that fascistization continues to proceed. In this context, stand also the investigations on 129a here in Frankfurt, which have the sole aim of criminalizing and smashing left structures. With our solidarity, however, we are taking the wind out of the sails of repression – widespread and united against this class justice.
We send solidarity greetings to those affected by the raids and wish you a lot of strength!
     Solidarity with the Roter Aufbau Hamburg! Fire and flames to the repression! United we Stand – United we Fight!
We are all 129a!

       This from another part of this world of neo-liberalism from one who has often felt that brutal lash of state authoritarianism and remained loyal to freedom and justice. 

       San Miguel Prison, Chile: New Drawing by Anarchist Prisoner Mónica Caballero

[Prisiones chilenas] Dibujo de la compañera anarquista Mónica Caballero

        The prison and I are old acquaintances, on more than one occasion I have sat at their table, over the years we have changed and we have both learned from each other…but no matter how much time passes essentially the prison and I remain the same. Prison is still the power-sucking monster that grows and spreads submission and repentance, and I continue to have the same seditious desires as before.

Mónica Caballero, anarchist prisoner


 

 


Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Tuesday 4 February 2020

True Caspitalism.

        Across the world in developing countries we hear of brutal and draconian actions against workers who organise and act in solidarity to try to better their conditions. However here in civilised Europe we do it differently, (oops I forgot, according to our lords and masters, we are no longer Europeans) We do have dialogue and in most cases if the workers are organised enough, we get a compromise, occasionally a victory. In Germany, that so called democratic country, in one particular dispute with workers who are being treated unfairly, the gloves are off. Instead of trying to reach a compromise the bosses have decided to sack a group of workers and threatened 800 more with lay-off, if the struggle continues. Obviously the bosses feel strong enough to take on the union and confident enough to know that they will get the backing of the state if this struggle escalates. At times like this it is incumbent on all workers to stand up and show their support and solidarity with the workers at the receiving end of this brutal profit before people policy, of this capitalism with the gloves off. We surely can also stand up and take our gloves off in defence of our living conditions. When bargaining ends, real struggle begins.

      Workers at Ameos in Germany, a private for-profit hospital corporation, are demanding fair wages, secured by a collective bargaining agreement. In the federal country of Sachsen-Anhalt in the east of Germany, for example nurses receive up to 500 EUR less than comparable employees in other hospitals. But Ameos refuses to sign a collective bargaining agreement with the union, ver.di. After massive short-term strike action in November Ameos has fired 14 workers without previous notice and has threatened 800 lay-offs should industrial action continue. The workers have now started an open-ended strike. They are fighting for better wages. Adequate payment will also help to find more people for the health professions. Adequate health care services for the region must be the priority, not ever higher profits. The workers need your support in their struggle. Please join us in sending protest emails to the regional CEO Frank-Ulrich Wiener and the Chairman of the Ameos board, Dr. Axel Paeger.
Click HERE to send email: 
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 22 July 2019

How Dare You Try To Live Outside Our System!!

       Greece, Argentina, Germany, Russia, France, no matter where, when people start to set up a life style contrary the laid down norms of our State/corporate/consumerism society, they are met with the full frontal force of the authoritarian state's enforcers. The intimidation is to create subservience in the population, it is saying, "How dare you try to live outside our system, get on with your work, your shopping and screen watching, leave us to handle everything else". Of course people are not like that, they prefer freedom, freedom to choose their own way of life, freedom to shape their society and communities they way they want, not follow the dictates of an authoritarian exploitative economic system.
This from Enough is Enough: 

Saturday 20.07.2019 Friedrichshainer Nordkiez:      
      This morning, the cops of the LKA 5.21 unit under the command of Kranich raided Liebig34. Unusual was the Saturday, unusual the mix of units from different departments. New were a few civil cop faces, not new: the repression.

Originally published by Indymedia DE.

      The reason for this raid was probably stones thrown from the house during the last few weeks. After the cops collected stones from the Dorfplatz around 2:30 this morning, they obtained a court order and search warrant to search part of our house and returned around 6:30 a.m.. They came through the backyard and the front door, sawed the doors and barris, picked them up and thus forcibly gained access to our project. A lawyer was quickly on the scene and was able to observe and testify. Altogether the cops were about three hours in the house, having searched officially and intensively three connected rooms and the attic. They also snooped around in unlocked private rooms, tore posters from the walls, knocked over furniture, cut internet cables and destroyed windows. During the search, they extensively documented the interior and structure of our house. In the officially searched part of the house they collected plenty of DNA and fingerprints from everyday objects. They also confiscated some items from these rooms, such as cigarette butts, stones, deposit bottles, internet switches, wall paint and clothes. They did not seek contact with the people in the house and did not record any personal data.
      Meanwhile and immediately afterwards there were soli actions: the cops were shot from the roof of Liebig14 with fireworks, a cop car covered with stones and paint, barris burned in Rigaerstrasse. People came to support and are still supporting now, helping us to repair our doors together.
This morning joins into the sharpening situation here in the neighbourhood: our anger becomes bigger and the harassment and repression increases. Together we have survived the morning well, but the extensive DNA recording concerns us. It suggests an intention to normalize DNA recording and shows that the cops want to fill their databases. Collecting random samples such as those from cigarettte butts, cups, empty bottles and window frames, shows that even the most basic forms of daily alternative life are criminalised preventively and placed under general suspicion. So it is now enough to drink a cup of coffee in a queer-feminist house project and end up in a DNA database for life, without even a concrete accusation of a so-called crime.
      Our answer: Form gangs and get your crew! Only together are we strong!
        Become active and do not wait for a dayX. In the case of Liebig34 , we welcome both centralised and decentralised actions of all kinds. Over the past few months, they have put a mischievous smile on our faces. We are seeing an increase in radical and militant practices that implicitly and explicitly refer to feminist issues. We want more of it!
Probs to the action of a FLINT* action group against the ASW last week.
For current information on Liebig34 check: twitter @Liebig34Liebig and http://liebig34.blogsport.de/
Dates:

Today, Saturday 20.07., 9 pm,Dorfplatz

Tomorrow, Sunday 21.07., 6 pm,manifestation at Dorfplatz in front of our house
Come over! If you have discarded long internet cables, please bring them with you, the pigs have cut our cables, but we won’t be cut off!

Who’s Kiez? Our Kiez!
Love, Your 34 collective
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Monday 10 June 2019

Dare To Stand For freedom.

 
       Another day, another country, another display of police brutality against a left thinking group. Forget the flag they wave, it is the same across the planet, anyone who dares to try to alter the status quo, is in for a rough time. We live in an authoritarian, unjust world, you stand up against its greed, brutality and injustice and it will bring down the full force of its mindless minders, the police and its biased judiciary.
The following from Enough is Enough:


         German territory: In the early hours of June 8, there was a violent police attack on the grounds of the AZ (Autonomous centre) in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Two members of staff were injured and taken into custody. In the further course of the incident, the police officers committed abuses, made far right statements and behaved in a sexist manner.

Submitted to Enough 14 in German. Translated by Enough 14.

         At the end of an event, an aggressive guest, who had previously been expelled from the premises, had called the police. The police calmly asked the staff to send all those present outside to check their personal identity. When this disproportionate measure was questioned, the police immediately escalated the situation by physically attacking two of the staff and fixing them with excessive force. First, Mr. O. was forcibly brought to the ground and suffered such serious injuries that the officers had to call an ambulance immediately. In the hospital, the doctors documented, among other things, a facial wound that had to be stitched, as well as numerous abrasions and bruises. There was also further abuse on the subsequent trip to the Essen police headquarters. The police officers used pain grips and even beat Mr. O. when he was already tied up. They also threatened him and tried to provoke him with far right statements.
       The AZ worker Mrs. L. was also forcibly fixed to the floor and taken into custody with the sentence “We also take in the dishy woman”. She suffered minor injuries and was at the mercy of the sexist practices of the police while in custody. With the cell door open, she had to undress and was exposed to the gazes of the male officers. In contrast to Mr. O., she was not allowed to put on much of her clothing until the end of her custody. Around noon both were released from custody.
        “I condemn the police violence against our staff* in the strongest terms and demand that the violent police officers be subject to disciplinary consequences,” said Stefan Gassner, chairman of the AZ association. “It is unacceptable that right-wing police officers are able to make an example of people who think differently with impunity. A public discussion about the anti-democratic structures within the police force, as well as ever tougher and more unconstitutional police laws, is long overdue.”
     As staff of the Autonomous Centre, we are horrified by this disproportionate police action. We understand this police attack as targeted harassment against a left-wing youth culture project. This incident is exemplary for the right-wing attitudes within the police that are becoming more and more apparent.

AZ Mülheim, June 09, 2019
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 27 May 2019

States, Green Liars.

        Most states are spouting the lie that they are following a "green" agenda, it makes them look good in the eyes of certain sections of the public. Here in the UK the present Tory government has stated it plans to be the "greenest" government in UK history, then in the same breath, gives planning permission for fracking to take place. Germany is similar, waffling on about its "green" credentials but granting permission for further opencast mining to the detriment of the local communities, the ecology of the area and continues to feed the atmosphere with CO2 gasses. Open cast mining is probably one of the worst culprits for devastating the landscape, they simply tear the surface of the earth apart over a vast area, making it look like a moonscape, not to mention the damage done by the burning of the result of this ecological disaster.  
      There is strong resistance by communities to these acts of duplicity, but states can and have bulldozed the opposition of local communities with sicking regularity. We need to link up all our opposition to these deeds of ecological acts of terrorism with a concerted resistance to the root cause, capitalism. The state and capitalism are hand in glove by far the greatest threat to our existence. They will continue to rape and plunder the planet for their gain of power, wealth and privilege. The welfare of the planet and its inhabitants are of very little concern to the state/capitalist machine, the managers of this destructive duo seem to be oblivious to the fact that if they continue as they are going, they will be part of the that species that went extinct. Only the combined power of the ordinary people can stop this greed driven human suicide, and anarchism is the only tool that is capable of turning round this human blunder and creating a sustainable system that sees to the welfare of the planet and all its inhabitants. However, time is running out, we are at the stage of now or never, which will we choose.  
German citizens resistance to open cast mining, from Enough is Enough:

        The action group “Kohle erSetzen!”(replace coal) and the alliance “Alle Dörfer bleiben” (all villages stay) call for a sit-in blockade against the construction of the L354n road between Wanlo and Kuckum, which began yesterday. The road will only be needed if more villages are destroyed for the brown coal underneath. Under the motto “Not a single meter for coal”, residents and activists of the climate justice movement want to block construction work on Monday 27 May.
       “With this road construction, RWE is revealing its ignorance of the forthcoming coal withdrawal,” says Mira Jäger, press spokeswoman for Kohle erSetzen! “It is clear that all villages will remain. Even with the completely inadequate result of the coal commission, the opencast mines can hardly be continued. Thus both the dredging of the villages and the new road construction are absolutely unnecessary.” Nevertheless, a piece of forest has already been cleared for the construction work and several hectares of fertile arable land are to be sacrificed.
       “In order to create more facts and to put people in the villages under pressure, RWE is building a new ‘mine edge road’ far behind the villages. This is a mockery for all those who are determined to stay in their villages,” says David Dresen from the threatened village Kuckum. If open-cast mining continues as RWE intended, the new roadside mine road will not be needed until 2027, when Kuckum will be destroyed. RWE has already had approval for the new construction for four years. According to RWE’s current plans, it would be sufficient if road construction were not to begin until 2025. The local residents therefore assume that RWE is already building to put them under pressure and deprive them of the quality of life in their villages. “At RWE, there is a system in place to make life hell for the people here. The construction of the road raises the provocations to a new level,” says David Dresen. “In order to give weight to our demand for an immediate halt to all preparatory mining measures, we are therefore forced to go one step further and call for the construction work to be blocked.”
      RWE is currently digging a path through fields and forest across the full width of the future road. Once this work has been completed, the aisle will be examined for possible old explosive devices and archaeological finds, after which road construction will begin immediately.
       In the last 100 years almost 300 settlements for lignite mining have been destroyed in Germany alone. In the meantime, however, broad support has emerged for a quick exit from coal, as is demanded by tens of thousands of people every week during the “Fridays for Future” climate strike. Nevertheless, RWE is pushing ahead with the resettlement of around 1,500 people in the Rhineland region. Six villages and additional farms are still under threat from the Garzweiler II open-cast mine. On 22 June, Alle Dörfer bleiben therefore invites you to a major day of action in the Rheine region (Rheinisches Revier), together with Fridays for Future, BUND, Greenpeace, Campact and nature lovers. On this day, activists from Ende Gelände will also disobey the coal mining industry elsewhere (but near… Enough 14).
        RWE’s business not only destroys village communities in Germany. As corporation with the highest carbon dioxide emissions in Europe, it poses a particular threat to the existence of people worldwide who are losing their basic livelihoods as a result of the climate crisis. These people are already suffering from increasingly severe droughts and extreme weather events, even though they have contributed very little to the climate crisis.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Tuesday 6 November 2018

UK, Third World Country!!


          Further to my article regarding the "End Of Austerity" some very interesting and devastating  series of facts in this link from Comrade Loam. It lays bare the facts of how we in the UK have seen our standard of living deteriorate further in relation to inequality within the country than any other country in Europe. As far as inequality goes we look more like a third world country than a so called rich developed country.
      "...purchasing power parity poorest people in the United Kingdom in the year 2000 are poorer than any other nation in 2010 some of the poorest 10% of the population have an income on the scale which the OECD create and I should explain this a little better to you the OECD study creates a scale and inequality scale in the year 2000 in the United Kingdom the poorest 10% of the population had an income which which gave them 60 points on the OECD scale the top 10% of the population of the United Kingdom in the year 2000 had an annual income at 845 points on the same scale 60 at the bottom 845 at the top Germany is the country in the study which comes closest to the United Kingdom at the bottom end of the scale poorest people in Germany are at around 60 points in the scale as well but the richest 10% of the German population have a score at the other end of the scale lot of 845 but just above 300 and that's the closest of any country in the whole survey including the United States so that's in the year 2000 15 years later and uniquely in the survey poorest people in the United Kingdom are poorer than they were in the year 2000 and there is no other country in the survey at all where 15 years later people have fallen further back than they were 10 years earlier at the top of the scale in the United Kingdom the richest people have moved from 845 points on the scale now to 1150 they have broken through the 1000 barrier in Germany the most well-off have got richer - they've now moved from just above 300 to just below 400 so the gap between the United Kingdom and any other country in Europe which starts with differences in equality in inequality which are absolutely striking at the start of the period that gap has grown even further in the 15-year period and that's what I mean I think by suggesting to you that while in the European mainstream the gap between the top and the bottom in any country is relatively narrow and even under the conditions of austerity grows to a modest extent the United Kingdom begins as the most unequal country in the European Union and that accelerates away accelerates away even faster during the austerity years and the figures as you will know I'm sure are not in any way one-off for the product of some strange methodological quirk earlier this year research for the Centre for you for European reform the Centre for European reform told the same story at a regional level the United Kingdom has nine of the ten poorest regions in northern Europe there is one part of Belgium that is on that list all nine others are regions of the United Kingdom and within the United Kingdom the gap between the richest and poorest regions is wider than in any the European Union country and that gap the centre concludes has widened and not narrowed during the age of austerity but simply it seems to me that by the end of the period the United Kingdom no longer looks like a European country the mechanisms of social solidarity which are the project of government action have been abandoned here to an extent unparalleled elsewhere with the gross disparities exposed in the figures I just set out and nor of course in our country is this dismal journey over..."

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

Friday 1 June 2018

Democracy And Police Violence.

           It appears that in Germany you can't put up posters depicting police violence, without dire consequences.
This from Hyperallergic:

 Kalabal!K Library
           An anarchist library was raided earlier this month in Berlin after police executed search warrants in the hunt for two men wanted in connection to a series of posters depicting police violence during the last year’s G20 protests in Hamburg.
          Kalabal!K, located on Reichenberger Strasse in Kreuzberg, was searched on the morning of May 9 after police suspected two men wanted for libel were located inside. Just after 5:15am, Berlin police reportedly broke open the door of the anarchist library with an angle grinder. They also stormed an apartment in the same building, as well as three other apartments in the Neukölln and Tempelhof districts.
           The State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) gave Berlin police permission to search the premises of Kalabal!K, which is located in a left-wing project house known as “Reiche 63a,” part of a collective run by the Self-Governing Comradeship of East Berlin, where police reportedly seized evidence including data carriers, as well as illegal weapons and guns.
         Police arrested two men, aged 24 and 27, on suspicion of spreading slander in connection to the “wanted” signs that were posted around Kreuzberg in December of last year following the violence at the G20 summit in Hamburg. The posters in question depict several members of the Hamburg police and local politicians, who are accused in the renegade poster of forming “a terrorist group for the purpose of attempted manslaughter, serious injury, mistreatment and kidnapping.”
          Politicians depicted in the poster include the Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz; Senator Andy Grote; and Hamburg’s Chief of Police Hartmut Dudde. According to activists, these individuals were responsible for motivating police aggression during the Hamburg G20 protests last July, where for several nights left-wing groups demonstrated against the summit.
           Criticism of police aggression during G20 was widespread, with several journalists reporting a disproportionate use of force to put down demonstrators. According to a report by Constanze Nauhaus in Der Tagesspiegel, “the police deployed such a massive force to surround the demo’s starting point at Hamburg’s Fischmarkt square that it was almost impossible to count the number of water cannon and reinforcement units stationed in the surrounding streets.”
This is the offending poster:

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

Monday 24 July 2017

Fear Is A Weapon.

       This society is held together by fear, fear of punishment if you break the rules. Those with the wealth and power, create those rules and they have an array of institutions to enforce those rules. For us to break their rules could endanger their powerful and privileged position, this will not be allowed at any cost. From fear of losing your job, or your home, to court orders and fines, on to imprisonment, are just some of the accept methods of keeping you subservient. It is obedience or a precarious life of repression, and we call it democracy. The farce of a free society where inequality is protected and dissent is met with repression. Fear is a weapon used against our class, until we can act freely, we are slaves.
This from Act For Freedom Now:
       The “Faetzig-Camp” is a mixture of a Summer camp with political focus and a festival.
Why oppose prisons?
        We live in a society of punishment. All of us have experienced the principle of punishment, whether in our families, at school, at work, at the job centre or other agencies, in hospital or in psychiatric institutions.
        Punishment is part of a top-down system of power and powerlessness. It lets the strongest win, because they write and are able to enforce the rules. Punishment directs how we act and think. Punishment creates fear and makes us adapt. Fear of punishment is what creates the cop in our heads who forces us to help carry the violence known as normality. Fear of punishment stops us from taking action against injustices and wrongs.
         Growing up in a world filled with punishment leads to a system of punishment living inside of us. It leads to us accepting and using punishment as a means of solving problems ourselves.
Prisons are the heart of punishment. Prisons isolate, humiliate, debase, wound, abase, traumatise, rape. Forced labour, control from the outside, arbitrariness and ruthlessness reign in prisons. Prisons mean to lock away anything that is disruptive instead of dealing with it. Prisons are the opposite of respect, the opposite of peace, the opposite of taking action with consideration for the needs of others. Prisons are the opposite of a free society.
           We are looking for a way out of these confines. We are convinced that people can encounter each other equitably and organise without institutions of the state. Also when solving conflicts.
We, people from various politically active contexts, from environmental movements, anti-prison groups, Antifa groups, have repeatedly made the experience that being politically active leads to repression. Around us we can see that those who have few privileges as it is, are sorted out and given fewer opportunities still.
During the camp we want to meet people who are open for the problems addressed here.
           In and after presentations, during workshops and rounds of discussions we want to join you in thinking about how to improve our networks, how political strategies might look like to en- and counter intensifying repression. What we need to change in our everyday lives, in our everyday environments, step by step. How a society of prisons can be overcome in the long-term.
           Let“s not let ourselves be separated from prisoners through walls! Keep and get in touch with them! Let us make the issues of prisons and the omnipresence of punishment present in more heads again!
          Let us fight for a world on a level playing field, in freedom and equality. For a society without oppression, without punishment, without prisons.
Prisons are not a solution, they are part of the problem!
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Tuesday 29 November 2016

A Radio Active Ocean!!

        It seems odd that the UK is pushing ahead with its nuclear energy plans when other countries are moving away from that source of energy. We are still reeling from the Fukushima disaster, which to this day is still pouring radio-active waste into the Pacific, with no end in sight. Of course what drives these decisions is never the welfare of the people, but corporate greed and state power. The facts about nuclear power are that we can't fully estimate the cost of construction, we have no idea of the cost of, or a proper method of, decommissioning, we can't give any guarantee that we will be able to use that piece of land again. Even on economics, it doesn't make much sense. On this basis it seems irrational to pursue that path, but pursue it our lords and masters will, unless we do something about changing the system. 
      Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (HPC) is a project to construct a 3,200 MWe nuclear power station with two EPR reactors in Somerset, England.[4] The proposed site is one of eight announced by the British government in 2010,[5] and in November 2012 a nuclear site licence was granted.[6] On 28 July 2016 the EDF board approved the project,[7] and on 15 September 2016 the UK government approved the project with some safeguards for the investment.[8] The plant, which has a projected lifetime of sixty years, has an estimated construction cost of £18 billion, or £24.5 billion including financing costs.[1] The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to consumers under the "strike price" will be £29.7 billion.[9]
 On Fukushima:
       The 7.4 magnitude quake hit on Tuesday, just off the coast of Fukushima, which was also the site of the 2011 9.0 scale earthquake.
The Japan Meteorological Agency have said that this new quake was actually an aftershock from the previous one, and have warned that further aftershocks could follow.
       The 2011 quake was catastrophic in it’s destruction, killing 15,891 people, with a further 2,584 missing. It destroyed countless homes and ruined people’s livelihoods.
       The fear that these quakes will cause a huge problem in the nuclear power sector is very real. About 30% of all Japan’s power comes from nuclear power stations, many of which are located on the coast where the earthquakes tend to strike.
       The 2011 earthquake catastrophically damaged 3 of 6 nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi facility, the extent of the fallout from this has never been fully identified.
       One repercussion of this has been the pollution of radioactive waste into the sea. It is thought that hundreds of tons of radioactive waste has been pumped into the sea every day ever since. The nuclear waste has penetrated the Japanese food chain and has been detected in food over 200 miles away.
       In 2015 Akira Ono the chief of the Fukushima power station said that there was no known way of decommissioning the power station and stopping the waste leakage.
      Officials have claimed that while there is a definite leakage, they say it is not doing any actual harm to the environment, but the stats claim another story.
        American scientists have been studying what is effectively the ‘death’ of the pacific, where marine life is dying off at an alarming rate. Krill, one of the key players in the sea-life food chain has been found washed up in vast numbers, and bodies of seals and sea lions are repeatedly washed up on shores.
        USA Today ran a story of starfish being washed up that had seemingly turned to ‘mush’, the reason to which they said left them ‘baffled’. It has also been reported that a staggering 98% of the sea floor is covered with dead sea life.
        It’s time people woke up to the reality of what is happening. In our lifetime we have already seen so many species become extinct on land, and now humans are destroying the sea, too.
Germany:
      Within days of the March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, large anti-nuclear protests occurred in Germany. Protests continued and, on 29 May 2011, Merkel's government announced that it would close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022.[5][6] Eight of the seventeen operating reactors in Germany were permanently shut down following Fukushima.
      In September 2011, German engineering giant Siemens announced a complete withdrawal from the nuclear industry, as a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.[8][9]
America:
 -------however the Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed in 2005 which aimed to jump start the nuclear industry through financial loan-guarantees for expansion and re-outfitting of nuclear plants. The success of this legislation is still undetermined, since all 17 companies that applied for funding are still in the planning phases on their 26 proposed building applications. Some of the proposed sites have even scrapped their building plans, and many think the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
further dampen the success of expansion of nuclear energy in the United States.
Italy:
      However, following the 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents, the Italian government put a one-year moratorium on plans to revive nuclear power.[3] On 11—12 June 2011, Italian voters passed a referendum to cancel plans for new reactors. Over 94% of the electorate voted in favor of the construction ban, with 55% of the eligible voters participating, making the vote binding.[4]
And Australia, the world's third largest producer of uranium, has no nuclear power plants.

Australia currently has no nuclear facilities generating electricity. Australia has 33% of the world's uranium deposits and is the world's third largest producer of uranium after Kazakhstan and Canada.

  

Sunday 22 May 2016

The Game Is Loaded, But Not In Our Favour.





-----------Let's not forget that the IMF is not participating in the third memorandum agreement or in its funding mechanism. So, could somebody explain to me why legislation has been passed which requires that any political decision that is made in Greece must be first sent to the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB), who must then agree on these proposals? This is part of the third memorandum agreement. Could somebody explain to me how the Greek government is supposed to clash with the IMF when this very same government has signed an agreement where the IMF still has the power to accept or reject political decisions made in Greece? The subservience of the Greek government has surpassed even that of the Quisling regime.
           The only way in which this situation can change is if the Greek people find a way to overturn this government, as soon as possible. They have a responsibility to do this, before we see the situation get even worse.-------
Read the full article HERE:
           The above statement highlights the squabbling that goes on within the financial Mafia, in the mean time the people of Greece see their assets being sold off to satisfy the greed of the German section of the Mafia. The German section will under no circumstance countenance the thought of that mountain of Greek debt they hold, being written off, or down. However, debating in financial terms, about the problem the people of Greece face, is just a discussion between money lenders who placed some lousy bets based on greed, and want their money back. It will in no way help the people of Greece to alleviate their poverty and deprivation. Even if all of the Greek debt was written off, they would no doubt be loaded with a massive new debt to “build their economy”. Framing the game in the financial Mafia’s rules, will never solve the people’s problems, the financial Mafia is a big part of that problem.
          The last couple of sentences of the above statement, (The only way in which this situation can change is if the Greek people find a way to overturn this government, as soon as possible. They have a responsibility to do this, before we see the situation get even worse.) is hardly an answer at all, if that means replacing it with another set of career suits, who talking and thinking financially, will take up the debate in the same language as before. As long as we, the ordinary people, play their game, to their rules, we will always come out at the bottom of the heap. What the people of Greece, as well as the rest of us, have to do, is not overturn the present government in favour of another cabal of lords and master, but to overthrow the entire system based on this financial insanity. In simple words overthrow capitalism.

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

Wednesday 27 April 2016

You're Free To Vote For Your Own Exploitation.

          Repression, repression, repression, it is the same the world over, corporate bodies control the world, it's repression that keeps the system together, governments do the corporate bidding, and the state apparatus enforces it, by means of strong arm tactics of the police and the judicial system. Stay in line, accept your humble place in the scheme of things, don't hinder the flow of wealth upwards to the parasites, and certainly don't try to change the system. These are the rules of the capitalist society, and woe be tide anyone who tries to break those rules. In the capitalist system your are free, you are free to accept your poverty, your ever falling living standards, you are free to vote to continue your exploitation, and the plundering of your wealth. But you are certainly not free to call for an end to this unjust, unequal, exploitative system that favours the few at the expense of the many.
            The following is just one example of how speaking out against the brutal injustices of the system will be met with more brutal repression.
        Last Sunday night (April 24th) one person was arrested in The Hague (Netherlands) on suspicion of pasting The Anarchist Wallpaper. He is being charged with instigation against authority, inciting violence and pasting of a poster. On Thursday the person who got arrested will be brought in front of the examining judge, who will decide whether to release him or transfer him to preventive detention.
Last week anarchists spread hundreds of Wallpapers in the neighbourhoods Transvaal and Schilderswijk and other places in the city. The first issue of the Wallpaper is about the uprising last year in the area of the Schilderswijk, where thousands of people rebelled for days against the police and the state after the murder on Mitch Henriquez, who was strangled to death by the police. Henriquez was yet another victim of violence by the racist police force of The Hague. Many months after the uprising the police were still hunting the rebels of last summer.
      Now that someone is locked up again and it seems that the prosecution is very eager to keep him as long as possible on the suspicion of spreading a poster, expressing our solidarity is the only thing we can do. Solidarity through action.
Stop the repression! Solidarity with the prisoners! Down with the police and the state! Long live anarchy!
Below the main article of the Anarchist Wallpaper:
Down with the cops and the State! Long live the revolt!
On the Schilderswijk revolt
          In the summer of 2015 a revolt shook up the Schilderswijk in the Hague. A revolt against the daily repression and racism of the cops. Against the suffocating reality of exploitation and unemployment. A revolt of those who decided to break with the normality of State repression. The tables were turned and the cops were chased off the streets. The murder of Mitch Henriquez, another racist murder by the police, was what sparked the revolt. Let’s not forget, let’s not forgive!
The politicians, media, mosques and all kinds of neighbourhood initiatives depicted the revolt as an everyday riot, as a criminal act of which the perpetrators had to be punished severely. Don’t believe them; those organisations that live off state subsidies, those who want to push forward their own agenda at the costs of the oppressed, those that sell out the oppressed in order to be able to join those in power. That people are oppressed in neighbourhoods like the Schilderswijk is obvious. Not being employed because of your name, or exploited at a meager salary while the bosses, big companies, politicians and banks are only becoming richer.
       The scapegoat politics that is integrated in the State is blames people of colour for poverty, housing problems and austerity measures, only to make people distrust each other. But refugees, Moroccan and Surinamese people are not the cause of these problems. The real problem is the State and its politicians that only care for the bosses and big companies, and the police that murders, who wants to protect this at all costs.
        The revolt in the summer of 2015 was not an everyday riot. It was a legitimate revolt against everything that oppresses us. It was a revolt against the police that terrorises us on the streets. Against the incessant control of CCTV, ID-checks and the so-called “zero tolerance” policy that we only see in poor neighbourhoods. It was a revolt by a community that refuses to be divided by political games any longer. For years we have been asking for change but no one wanted to listen; the only option left then is to revolt. For our dignity, for our existence.
         Those who revolted and refused to bow down to repression are those who have not lost their dignity. It is precisely these people that offer hope for a different, better future. That this summer may be a hot one!
Down with the cops and the State! Long live the revolt! Long live anarchy!
Autonomen Den Haag
in German
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk