Showing posts with label Washington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington. Show all posts

Friday 8 January 2021

Far Right.

    What happened in Washington, America, on the 6th of January should have red lights flashing in all those of the left. The Biden brigade will have to move further to the right for two main reasons, it has to somehow get those millions of trump fascist on board to quell their anger, and it will have to appease all those conservatives who will be demanding that the government come down with a tough law and order agenda. Dissent will be seen as an evil that has to be snuffed out to save their precious "democracy". Follow the rules or be severely punished, not fertile ground for freedom of expression. We have seen the far right across the planet strengthen and stiffen its resolve for total control, with America, still a powerful imperialist power, now openly at the helm of the far right, freedoms flag is truly being torn asunder, but still flutters bravely.

The following article is from crimethinc:


 Meanwhile, as the Republicans Fracture, a New Political Center Emerges—Further to the Right
      As a consequence of Donald Trump’s supporters occupying the Capitol building in Washington, DC after a rally promoting his baseless claims of election fraud, the Republican Party is fracturing, setting the stage for the consolidation of a new bipartisan political center—albeit much further to the right than before. Yet this also paves the way for massive sections of Trump’s base to break away from representative democracy altogether, embracing an explicitly fascist alternative. The events of January 6 offer them martyrs and a revanchist narrative that will serve them for years to come, providing an internal mythos for recruitment and a justification whenever they need to use force.
     The events of January 6 will discredit Trump supporters in the eyes of centrists and force some Republicans to shift their allegiances to the center, but they will also push the envelope regarding what is acceptable. This may help the far right recruit locally countrywide and could normalize similar actions in the future.
      But this is not the only danger ahead. In the name of a war against extremism, centrists are going to demand to expand the same machinery of state repression that the next Trump will inevitably use against us. This is essentially what happened in Weimar Germany, setting the stage for the rise of the Third Reich. Likewise, Trump’s chief weapon throughout 2020 has been the Department of Homeland Security, created under Bush in response to the September 11 attacks, and he has also benefitted from further centralization under Obama. Centrist appeals to fight “chaos” will serve to draw many of our former allies out of the streets, while justifying new crackdowns that will target us as well as the far right. 

       The state clampdown after this will suppress freedoms across the board, targeting all forms of dissent. In Turkey, when Erdoğan put down a right-wing military coup, that paved the way for him to repress every form of protest. State repression of the right will follow the playbook they use against our movements—incorporating reformist elements while isolating and destroying “extreme” elements. If the only pressure on the government is from the far right, the state will make concessions to them. 

      We are already seeing our former allies withdrawal from the streets in the events of January 6. Liberals urged people not to go to DC, counting on the authorities to deal with Trump supporters. This was a miscalculation. Security forces are not particularly inclined to stand up to the part of the population they sympathize with most—and even when they choose to do so, their hands are effectively tied by the deeply engrained institutional habits of treating conservative white people much more respectfully than they treat people of color, poor people, and anti-capitalists.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Friday 16 March 2018

The Street Cleaners.

        Trumps victory in America certainly opened the sewer gates and allowed the filth to flow freely onto the streets of America. However, no matter the stench from the neo-nazis, fascists, white supremacists, KKK, and other demented minds, there are those who will take to the streets to clear the filth and allow freedom to breathe. Let's hope this band of street cleaners grows rapidly in every city across the globe, and sweeps the far right sewage back into the cesspool from which they slither.
This from Roar Magazine:
         Since the election of Donald Trump, acts of racist violence have proliferated across the United States. Racists and misogynists feel emboldened to express and act on their views. White nationalist groups and resurgent traditional white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have used Trumps victory to gain new recruits. All that stands in their way are the groups of anarchists, communists, and socialists who have taken it upon themselves to prevent fascism from becoming a powerful political force in the United States. This film tells the story of what “Antifa" is and why people are using these tactics to confront racism and fascism in the US today.
        Who are the anti-fascists? What motivates them to risk their lives to fight the far right? What is the history of militant anti-fascism and why is it relevant again today? How is anti-fascism connected to a larger political vision that can stop the rise of fascism and offer us visions of a future worth fighting for? Through interviews with anti-fascist organizers, historians, and political theorists in the US and Germany, we explore the broader meaning of this political moment while taking the viewer to the scene of street battles from Washington to Berkeley and Charlottesville.
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk  


Sunday 6 December 2015

Syria, The Compassionate Face Of Imperialism!!!

       It can be taken as a truth, that all those involved in the bombing of Syria, do not have at heart, the well-being of the Syrian people. So many nations from across the globe, running in to help the Syrian people?? In this capitalist, imperialist world, it beggars belief. What the motives are for each of those nations involved is extremely difficult to get a handle on, one thing is sure, at the baseline, it is self interest. Who stands to gain what if this happens, who stands to lose what if that happens, is all very complicated if we don't have all the facts. As in all wars, truth and facts are casualties. There is no point looking to that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media for clarity, they pedal illusion, wishful thinking and propaganda.
 Imperialist building blocks of democracy.
     Counter-Punch, has an interesting article that helps to supply informative parts of the jigsaw, that is the Middle East, Syria in particular.
------As for Washington’s “strategy”, it now boils down to the CIA need of a new rat line. That could imply sitting on the – weaponized – sidelines watching Turkmen and Kurds slug it out, thus creating an opening for the Turkish Army to intervene, and the Russian Air Force to prevent it, with all hell guaranteed to break loose. ------
Read the full article HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

Saturday 25 August 2012

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL---!


On "beauty" This from Peace X Peace:


Yasmina Mrabet
Washington, D.C. USA


     “Here I am, in a precarious condition. I struggle to maintain the standard of ‘beauty’ society demands and my authentic presence is inhibited. A focus on the external renders my internal being invisible. “
continue READING:

ann arky's home.

Friday 6 April 2012

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - EVERETT MASSACRE, 1916.



           On reading the earlier post "WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON" you should not be fooled into thinking this is a new phenomenon, that it is only today that the state and it apparatus tries to repress the struggle of ordinary people as they attempt to better their conditions. The bosses and the establishment have always come down hard on any individuals who find themselves at the forefront of the constant struggle of trying to defend the conditions of the ordinary people. This constant opposition to the aspirations of the people, is the most glaring proof of the diametrically opposed positions of the capitalist system and the state on the one side, and the living standards and ideals of the ordinary people on the other. Our history is a rich heritage of struggle and suffering at the hands of the bosses and their minders, the state. We would do well to remember and honour that struggle and to repeat the stories of the determination in the face of that brutal repression that goes hand in hand with the state. Only by realising that it it is not a new struggle but the next chapter in the continuing struggle of the people, will we bring an end to that struggle and victory for the people.


In 1916 in Everett, Washington, a passenger ferry loaded with Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) free speech activists attempted to dock. On the dock, the local sheriff, along with armed deputies and armed guards hired by local businesses, attempted to block the ship from docking. According to lore, when the sheriff asked, “Who are your leaders?” the response from the ferry was a shout from everyone aboard, declaring, “We are all leaders here.” As folk musician Utah Phillips explains, “that scared the tar out of the ol’ law you know”[1] and as a result, a gunfight ensued. The gunfight left at least five IWW members dead and became known as the “Everett Massacre.” In the documentary film The Wobblies (Bird and Shaffer 1979), which tells the story of the early years of the IWW, two IWW members recount their experience in the “Everett Massacre.” Years later, Utah Phillips recounted this story on a collaboration album with popular musician Ani DiFranco, spreading the story and message to a new generation.

 ann arky's home.

Tuesday 28 February 2012

OCCUPY AIPAC.


An open letter from Chris Hedges: 

I invite you to join me at the Occupy AIPAC Summit in Washington this weekend.

       I spent seven years in the Middle East. I lived for two of those seven years in Jerusalem. I was the Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times. AIPAC does not speak for Jews or for Israel. It speaks for right-wing ideologues who believe that because they have capacity to wage war, they have a right to wage war.
And just as these elites were too blind and too enamored of their own rhetoric to see what invading Iraq would trigger, so too are they unable to comprehend the regional conflagration that would be unleashed by attacking Iran.
      The uprisings from Tunisia to Egypt to Greece to Occupy Wall Street to our gathering outside AIPAC's doors in Washington are all the same primal struggle for justice. The battle for justice in Middle East is our battle. It is part of the vast, global battle against the 1 percent. It is a battle against the fossil fuel industry, the weapons manufacturers, the security and surveillance state, the misuse of public funds that wastes $ 4 trillion on wars that never had to be fought, the trillions more in looted taxpayer money to prop up insolvent banks and swell bloated military budgets, the battle to protect working men and women who are left struggling in the name of "austerity" to save their homes and find work.
       Join us at Occupy AIPAC this weekend. Help us make the voices of the 99 percent—the voices of mothers, fathers and children in the squalid refugee camps in Gaza, in the suburbs of Tehran and in the bleak industrial wastelands in Ohio—heard. Yours,
Chris Hedges.



Wednesday 14 September 2011

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON ---???

  
       Union busting is part and parcel to the capitalist system, it is not one company nor one coutry it is the way the capitalist system works across the planet. The last thing the capitalists want is for the workers to be organised and work together to improve and protect their pay and conditions. A fragmented and unorganised workforce can easily be exploited, wages and conditions can be eroded when the workers don't stand together. It is obvious that it is in the interest of every worker to be an active member of their union and stand united in solidarity with all workers who find themselves in dispute with their employer.



Stand with Longshore Workers 21! HOORAY FOR UNIONISTS willing to be arrested! In a dispute raging through the summer in Longview, Washington, over 120 members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) have been detained by cops, including Local 21 President Dan Coffman and International President Robert McEllrath. The unionists are fighting to stop international conglomerate EGT Development from breaking a longstanding master agreement the ILWU has at the Port of Longview's publicly subsidized grain terminal. Members of the ILWU are contractually entitled to work the 50 jobs at the terminal, but EGT sued the port for the right to bring in nonunion workers, and inflamed tensions by importing members of Operating Engineers Local 701, who have crossed picket lines to work. On September 7, hundreds of ILWU members stood on railroad tracks to block a train carrying grain to the facility. Police in riot gear attacked protesters with clubs and pepper spray. The next morning, police reported that hundreds of ILWU members from Northwest locals and supporters broke down the gates of the EGT terminal, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain. Security guards retreated and no one was hurt or arrested. An emergency meeting of ILWU locals also shut down other Washington ports. THE ILWU SEES THIS BATTLE as critical to thwart unionbusting drives at other grain terminals. It is all that and more. The struggle at Longview is part of the nationwide resistance against the bosses' austerity attacks. It continues the mobilization begun in Madison, Wisconsin last year. Longview originated as a timber town and longshoremen have worked the Columbia river port for more than 80 years. The community and ILWU won't roll over for EGT, scabs or court orders. The challenge for the rest of organized labor is to mount real national support for this struggle, including stopping the Operating Engineers Union Local 701 from providing scabs. Readers can support these brave unionists by defending them in the press, and by sending donations and messages of solidarity to President Coffman, ILWU Local 21, 617 14th Ave, Suite B, Longview, WA 98632, or email: ilwu21@iinet.com. For background information on the struggle see: Here's why Longshore workers are so angry.