Re-imagining?

        

Image courtesy of Oral History Columbia

      Gentrification, redevelopment, re-imagining, all nice sounding words for turning public spaces into private spaces, for changing places that were free to use, to money making enterprises for some corporate bodies. Everything has to produce a profit. Free public spaces don't make money for the big boys, so have to go. This is something that most ordinary citizens are aware of, it is not a local feature, it is world wide across this capitalist world. Everything must be privately owned, so you pay the corporate beast for every amenity in your city, town or village.
        Of course there is resistance to this plundering of public assets, but not enough. The perpetrators of this plundering exercise have wealth, the power of the state and the corporate world on their side, we have our solidarity. The stronger that solidarity against this plundering the more likely we are to win. There is no power on earth stronger than the combined will of the people, and that is what has to come together to defeat this ravaging of our public spaces for profit. 

                                                    Image courtesy of Glasgow Live.

 An extract from Act For Freedom Now:

Athens,Taking responsibility on 2/9/22

In recent years we have been experiencing a generalised attack on the neighbourhood of Exarcheia, with squat evictions, clearing operations and the attempt to impose a regime of police occupation on the neighbourhood.At the present time this attack is intensifying, with the assistance of Attiko Metro and the attempt to build a metro station in the square. The choice of the square for the construction of the station is a political and ideological choice of the municipal authority and the state, part of the broader strategy that has been expressed explicitly in recent years in the state’s counterattack against Exarcheia, a neighbourhood where resistance and struggle against exploitation and oppression has been territorialized both symbolically and practically.

The choice of the metro station in Exarcheia square is not based on the needs of the inhabitants for their movements – it could not be, as under the condition of class domination our movements are defined and organised in the metropolis by the state as the transport of the commodity work force. The choice of the station in the square is not based on the neighbourhood’s desires for the use of public/open space, but against them, seen as another opportunity to deploy hundreds of cops in the neighbourhood with the intention of destroying its only square, meeting place and political activity and handing it over to the interests of capital.

FREE MOVEMENT BASED ON OUR NEEDS AND NOT ON STATE/CAPITAL’S INTERESTS
THE SQUARE – THE STREET – THE POLYTECHNIC – EXARCHIA DOESN’T FREQUENT MUSEUMS
REGENERATION MEANS DISPLACED POOR PEOPLE
EXARCHIA WILL ALWAYS BE HERE – FIRE TO THE ATTIKO METRO CONSTRUCTION SITES
COPS – CONTRACTORS – CITY HALL – ALL BASTARDS WORKING TOGETHER

humble and rebellious

Crisis???

     

       So there's a cost of living crisis and EVERYBODY suffers, well not exactly. Petrol prices have rocketed, and it is all put down to those nasty Russians, no mention of the astronomical profits being made by the oil producing and refining companies. This section of the capitalist system, far from suffering due to this war in Ukraine have used it to shove profits through the roof. They are all making unimaginable profits and in private praying at the altar greed, that the war continues. They've never had it so good.
        This is just one example of how this system enjoys wars as they always benefit the rich and powerful. The same applies throughout the capitalist system. Emergencies, wars, famine and shortages are all a means to increase profits, a system based on exploitation of the many for profit for the few. This greed based system, this billionaires gambling casino, this insanity called capitalism will only end when wee the ordinary people decide we have had enough and organise to bring the whole stinking edifice crashing down. A better world is possible, just think of how you would like to see the world, a fairer world, a world based on compassion, humanity and justice, then make it happen. We have the numbers, we have the imagination, we have the skills, where is the will?

The following from Zero Hedge: 

 

 

         Amid soaring gasoline prices in the second quarter, the eight biggest independent U.S. refiners are set to report later this month a huge 652% sequential jump in their average earnings per share (EPS), according to estimates from investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt & Co cited by The Wall Street Journal.
        All refiners and all integrated oil and gas companies are set for a windfall of profits for the second quarter as U.S. gasoline prices soared to the highest ever on record of over $5 per gallon in early June.
        The biggest refiners are also expected to generate billions of cash flow from operations as refining margins are at their highest in many years.
        “We’re seeing margins twice as high as the golden age,” Charles Kemp, a vice president at energy consulting firm Baker & O’Brien Inc, told the Journal. Kemp was referring to the 2004-2007 period, when refiners booked massive profits, too.
        The largest international majors are also set for exceptional earnings at their refining businesses, thanks to high refining margins and fuel demand in the second quarter. Some of the largest international oil majors have already announced expectations of blockbuster earnings from their refining divisions when they report Q2 profits later this month.
          France’s supermajor TotalEnergies said last week that “Refining & Chemicals results are expected to be exceptional given the very high levels of distillate and gasoline cracks.” ExxonMobil said in an SEC filing in early July that the rise in industry margins is set to add between $4.4 billion and $4.6 billion to its Q2 results. At Shell, the refining margin nearly tripled in Q2 compared to Q1 and is expected to add between $800 million and $1.2 billion to the second quarter results of Shell’s Products division, compared to the first quarter 2022.
         Yet, the second quarter could have been the peak refining profits for some time as gasoline demand in the United States has weakened in recent weeks in response to high prices at the pump. Crude oil prices have also dropped from the recent highs of $120 a barrel as markets fear a recession is coming. 

 

Visit ann arky's home at http://strugglepedia.co.uk    

Accidental?

 

        The evidence revealed in the following article on the death of a young man, is just one example of why the feelings of the public, regarding the police and our judicial system, range from mistrust to downright hatred. The police and the judicial system exist in a bubble that makes them untouchable and beyond true public scrutiny and accountability. It takes courage, considerable time and tremendous perseverance to try and burst that bubble, many have tried, but few have succeeded. Public exposure of these incidents can help burst that bubble.

                                               Photo courtesy of No Majesty.

The following, including the film, was taken from Anarchist Film Group: 

         When Rod Charles first heard that his great nephew Rashan had died whilst being detained by a police officer, he assumed that the incident must have merited whatever action the officer took. Why wouldn’t he? Rod Charles had served for 30 years with the Metropolitan Police, retiring at the rank of Chief Inspector, and Rashan was a young man with low level criminal convictions.
       That first news came on the day Rashan died, Saturday 22 July 2017. Rod recalls: “It wasn’t until 20 or 24 hours later, the Sunday morning, when a niece called me to say Uncle Rodney have a look at some footage what’s on CCTV which has been uploaded to YouTube. And it was when I looked at the footage on YouTube, that changed everything.”
        Somebody had uploaded a few minutes’ fuzzy footage recorded on a mobile phone from a CCTV monitor in a Hackney supermarket. It showed a police officer pursuing Rashan into the shop, grabbing him from behind, hurling him to the floor with a combat throw, and heavily restraining him. It showed a second man joining the restraint, pinning Rashan down, and helping to handcuff him when he was limp and unresponsive.
       “The officer was not at fear of harm from Rashan. He threatened nothing to the officer. No member of the public nearby was threatened by Rashan,” says Rod. “The nature of the force being used. . .has caused me and continues to cause me a lot of concern.”
       Rashan Charles was 20 years old, a loving father to his daughter, who was coming up to two years old when he died. He was a beloved son, friend, nephew, cousin, brother and, as Rod puts it, “an integral part of the family”.
        In our new documentary film, “Accidental Death” of a Young Black Londoner, The Case of Rashan Charles, Rod Charles examines previously unseen footage that reveals more about what happened to Rashan. Rod questions the quality of the investigation into Rashan’s death, the “accidental” deletion of evidence, the tactics of police lawyers and the conduct of the coroner at the inquest that concluded with a finding of “accidental death”.
       Our film shows, for the first time, curious interactions between the man who helped restrain Rashan and several officers at the scene, interactions that raise questions about the official narrative.

 

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

Israeli State, The Fire Raiser.

  

 Syria, home to millions of ordinary people, like you and I.

 

     The Middle East region is a powder keg, it is in fact where World War3 is, for the time being, being fought. Conflicts rage across the region with every major power involved in some way or another, and this weekend Israel threw petrol on the fire. That Zionist apartheid state, this weekend carried out a series of attacks on three nations, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as well as Sections of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Palestinian PELP-GC. Of course it couldn't do this without a nod of approval from it financial banker, the US.

      Despite this ruthless escalating series of illegal attacks, the western nations will sit back and do nothing, some of the poodles that head these governments may nod their heads in disapproval, but will continue to call Israel their friend and ally and continue making lucrative arms deals for Israel to continue its attacks on any and all Arab nations. We are being dragged to destruction by two psychopathic entities, Israel and USA and their poodles in the EU.

This from Antiwar: 

        The weekend marked a precipitous escalation in Netanyahu’s promise to attack all perceived “enemies.” From Saturday evening into late Sunday afternoon, Israel carried out strikes against three separate nations, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. By Monday morning, he had also attacked forces from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as well as Palestinians from the PFLP-GC. That’s a lot of enemies to wage war against all at once.
        Rumors of Israeli attacks against targets in Iraq over the last few weeks came to a head last week, when US and Israeli officials confirmed that the attacks were taking place. This led to some complaints from Iraqi officials, but Israel is hardly backing away from this policy.
       Indeed, with Israel’s election less than a month away and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his allies trailing substantially in most polls, it appears the policy is to escalate its attacks across the region, hoping to secure more votes from the hawkish right.
        The biggest attacks came Saturday, when Israel launched a series of attacks against a village near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The attacks were drone bombings, with Israeli drones laden with explosives flying into the target, crashing and detonating.
       Israel attacking Syria is common enough, but the real news was the Israeli military commenting directly, claiming they’d attacked an Iranian site, intending to preempt an Iranian attack on northern Israel on Thursday. Iran denied everything, including that they’d been hit in the strikes.
      It makes sense why the Netanyahu government would want to make this the case, as while he’s got mounting political opposition, he likely believes war with Iran is still a platform that would benefit him in the election. Indeed, if the war actually was ongoing against Iran and basically all Shi’ites, it would probably guarantee his reelection.
     But it didn’t stop with an attack in Syria, nominally on Iran. On Sunday, Israel carried out attacks against the Lebanese capital of Beirut, targeting Hezbollah. Israeli drones also slammed into Western Iraq, killing at least one member of a Shi’ite militia there.
      That bought Israel into engagements in three distinct countries, targeting Iraqi Shi’ite militias, Hezbollah, Syrian, and Iranian forces. Adding a fifth faction, early Monday morning Israel attacked a Palestinian base in northern Lebanon.
       That’s almost everyone in the region that Israel could attack, but this week will probably see a continuation of such strikes. Israel has also indicated an interest in starting to attack the Shi’ites in northern Yemen, even though they are not the same type of Shi’ites, so that too is likely to be a priority target.
       So far there has been no reaction from Israel’s opposition parties, and it puts them in an awkward position, as historically attacking anything is relatively popular in Israel, and it is considered unthinkable for the opposition to chime in on that in anything but enthusiastic support.

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

Rampant Russian Fascism.

This from FREEDOM PRESS:

London: callout for solidarity with Russian Anti-Fascists

        We are an ad-hoc collective of anti-fascists in London who want to organise a solidarity event to support anti-fascists in Russia on 19th January.

        19th January is a significant day for anti-fascist and anarchists as each year demonstrations are held to remember Russian comrades, the journalist Anastasia Baburova and lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who were murdered by fascists in broad daylight 10 years ago, as well as other fallen comrades who were victims to fascist violence. Markelov, an experienced lawyer and social democrat, spent years fighting for justice in workers’ struggles, environmental protests and against the violence of the Russian state. Baburova, a young journalist with independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was a reporter and anarchist from Sevastopol, Crimea. They were murdered in Moscow by a nationalist terror group with links to the Kremlin.
      We also want to express our solidarity to the defendants in the “Network Case”, in which 11 Russian anti-fascists and anarchists have been detained and tortured as part of a security service investigation into alleged terrorism. These men, from St Petersburg and Penza, are due to go trial in the coming year.
       The Russian state’s repression against political dissents acts in tandem with fascist gangs, a collaboration that has long been known and experienced.
       With the turn to right and far-right fascist populist governments across the world from India to Brazil, USA to Italy, there is no more greater need that to share experiences and knowledge around this international moment which we are all facing whether in the UK or in Russia.
       Whilst our comrades are faced with unimaginable violence by both the state and street-level fascist gangs, we intend to send a message of solidarity and defiance with this event.
      What you can do:
We invite you to attend a meeting on Monday November 26th 6.30pm -9.00pm at Mayday Rooms, 88 Fleet St, London EC4Y 1DH. Please RSVP: london19jan(at)riseup.net
Discuss within your group to support this initiative
Save the date and republish this callout on your website

Resources:
Rupression website
The Russian Reader website
Open Democracy on the situation in Russia

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

The State and Its Two-Faced Little Spies.

        As long as we have a state, or any form of competing power blocks, we will have those lowest of low life, the infiltrator "spy". All those who are alive to the injustice, exploitation and repression of the system we live under, and are prepared to speak their mind and take action against that injustice and repression, need to watch their back. One in their midst may not be what they profess to be, though they may be the most vociferous in their criticism of the system. It could all be a ploy to draw you into their sphere of influence and prod you to action you may not have taken under you own volition. While they gather a profile with which to snare you at a later date, dragging you into the quagmire of the state judicial system in an attempt to silence you.

        An interesting article from Freedom News, though not an isolated case, it is always well worth while to get these snakes out to public scrutiny.  

Exclusive: The Met spychief who infiltrated Freedom Press

Freedom News,
        After an investigation tracking his articles through the paper and talking to old comrades, Freedom can today reveal at least some of the story of former spycop Roger Pearce as he used our paper to worm his way into Northern Ireland.
      Earlier this week it was disclosed that Freedom Press would now be considered a core participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry, following official confirmation that Pearce had operated as “Roger Thorley,” a former writer for Freedom in the 1970s and ’80s.
       Having looked through the Freedom archive and cross-checked with former collective members, Freedom can confirm that Pearce, writing under the moniker R.T, penned a series of articles over the course of the period 1980-81 and then joined a fact-finding mission to Belfast, before disappearing from sight.
Download the articles (pdf)
        Most of these essays were dryly written, but heavily critical assessments of the policing and justice systems with a focus on the situation in Northern Ireland, suggesting among other things that IRA members detained by Britain should be treated as political prisoners — a major and controversial demand of Republican combatants at the time. Pearce qualified as a barrister with Middle Temple in 1979, meaning he was ideally placed to act as an “expert voice” on such matters when putting forward such articles for publication.
        The strong implication, and one which Freedom is investigating, is that Pearce was using the paper as a way to contact and assess British connections with the radical community in Northern Ireland in a period of crisis. The news will strengthen the case for an expansion of the inquiry into the region, as Pearce joins other undercovers with links to Northern Ireland and would go on to become the Met’s Director of Intelligence and head of Special Branch from 1998-2003.
Have pen, will travel
        Anarchists who were active at the time do not, for the most part, remember Pearce very well — he seems to have kept a relatively low profile — and as far as can be told he was never an active editor at the paper. Some memories do survive however, which fit with what we now know to have become the standard operating procedure for Met infiltration of perfectly legal, poorly resourced organisations.
        Dressed up with Trotskyish glasses and a goatee, Pearce was conspicuously “useful” as a car driver prepared to give people lifts (this is a recurring theme from spycops) and one comrade remembers that he was the “unofficial chauffeur” of Leah Feldman, a grandee of earlier times in the movement who, it was said, had been at the funeral of Peter Kropotkin 60 years earlier. Other memories place him as having a girlfriend who was also an activist, though this can’t be confirmed.
       What can be confirmed is that when inquiry head Mitting defined Pearce’s writing as “virulently anti-police” he wasn’t exaggerating — and it was specifically in favour of the IRA. In one article, Prisoners of Politics (Vol 41, No. 22, Nov 8th 1980) the editors debate “R.T” over his demand that IRA detainees should have political prisoner status, noting that “all prisoners are political”. In another he attacks the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, as “difficult to evaluate in terms of sheer blatant prejudice and hysteria,” comparing him to Provisional IRA man Gerard Tuite.
        But it is R.T’s final article which should raise the most eyebrows. In The Not So Distant Struggle (Vol 42 No. 19, Sep 26th 1981) he reports back from a fact-finding mission to Belfast that he had inveigled himself onto, along with four other members of the Freedom Collective. The consummate London police spy’s empathetic report on the Troops Out phenomenon, which suggests a close working relationship with the then-active Belfast Anarchist Collective, notes:
       Within a short distance of Britain we are daily witnessing a most repressive regime whose intensity supports no comparison with life in London; a regime where there is near total monitoring of movement day and night, where constant use is made of the Prevention of Terrorism Act to detain and prosecute ‘political offenders’, where the overt presence of armed forces often reaches saturation point, where prisoners are condemned by juryless Diplock courts, and where widespread condemnation has been directed internationally, particularly from America.
        This was a man so embedded in the heart of that “repressive regime” he would rise to high office, ringmaster to the many other liars and manipulators of that force in their efforts to destroy resistance in Belfast and beyond. A paid-up member of the British state writing to the public that:
        Ideological scruples must not be allowed to erode the clear responsibility of focusing attention on what has become the embodiment of the repressive state visibly at work in utilising all its resources, using the streets of Belfast, Derry and elsewhere as a prime testing ground for future urban unrest in Britain.
        In doing so, the striking image of people demanding to determine their own existence emerges not just from individual IRA actions, but rather from the close communities of which the IRA guerrillas are an indissoluble part.
       It’s an analysis many anarchists and leftists would agree with, then and now. But for an agent of the Crown, misleading would be an understatement.
       We are now asking around Belfast comrades to see if anyone remembers his visit – or whether he resurfaced later in his deployment period, up to 1984. Please get in touch if you do!

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

 

The Rent Strike, A Tool In Our Armoury.

Brooklyn 2012.

       I hope, after Spirit of Revolt's recent exhibition on the Glasgow 1915 Rent Strike, that more people are now aware of the rent strike as a tool, a weapon in the struggle of the ordinary people. What we tried to get across was that the 1915 rent strike was not a unique event, not a one-of happening. The rent strike has been used to defend tenants rights across the world long before 1915, and is still used today. It is a powerful weapon and should always be in the armoury of the ordinary people. The 1915 victory in Glasgow did not end the exploitation of tenants, the greed of landlords is just as virulent today as it was back then. It is still the same struggle today, a struggle for a decent standard of life and the right to have a home to lay your head down in security and comfort. To make my point about the longevity of the rent strike here is a short video of one that is taking place today in San Francisco.

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

CRISIS/OPPORTUNITY?

        Workers today have a great opportunity to compare the present with the past and to be alive to the acts of imperialism that might have, in an earlier time, gone un-noticed by vast swathes of the people of the planet. We the workers have a greater connectivity through the internet and therefore can react more quickly in solidarity with our comrades across the globe.

       No longer can the imperialist conceal their deeds by semantics, censorship and propaganda, the world has shrunk, the internet has turned it into a village and we are aware of the village bullies. We are aware of the rising corporate fascism, regionally and globally, backed up by the militarization of the state. We are also aware of the ever deepening crisis in the capitalist system and know that it needs wars, war contracts feed the shareholders of the military industrial complex that is capitalism today. We have become aware of the continuing rhetoric pouring from Western leaders referring to the peaceful West yet we can’t recall a year when the West was not involved in a war somewhere in the world.

       The workers of the world are now becoming conscious of their homogeneity, perhaps it is the brutality of a system that we created that is causing this consciousness and also the knowledge that we have the ability to destroy such a man made system and create a more just, moral, humane and sustainable system. A system based on mutual aid and voluntary co-operation rather than the profit and greed of the present system.

      However the change must come in the near future if we are to prevent WW3. The crisis the corporate world is facing means that the competing imperialists cannot compete in friendly fashion, they must win to survive and each will do what it believes is necessry to survive and expand. In the eyes of the imperialists, the destruction of the people is an acceptable price to pay for the survival of the system.

 

ann arky's home.

Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune??

I found this on youtube and found it interesting, then gave myself a shake and remembered that this is how the whole rotten system works. Money, gifts and favours called in, it is all a rich man's club and stinks from top to bottom. There is no truth in the political system, it is all spin, smoke and mirrors. What do you believe when you don't know who is paying the piper? Vested intersts, hidden behind "friendships", influence lies in the hands of those with the money, corrupt politicians who sell themselves to the highest bidder as they seek the power and the glory. You and I used to further their insane visions of glory, you and I paying the price every time. We pay in poverty, bloodshed in war and dangerous working conditions etc., we are kept in ignorance as the power greedy and the extremists do deals behind closed doors. When do we bring the temple down and cast the dealers out. It is our world or it is theirs, there is no room for both.

ann arky's home.

PARANOIA OR EFFICIENCY?

       Recently my passport expired and I had reluctantly to head to the passport office for a renewal. On my previous visit, some ten years ago, it was a matter of taking your place amidst lots of people and watching monitor screens waiting for your number to come up. This time however, it was somewhat different, I arrived and was confronted with an electronic glass door which didn’t open as I approached. I stood there making movements in a Chaplinesque fashion in the hope that it would respond and let me in, then I noticed a security guy on the inside pointing to the left of the door. What he was pointing at was a large button which when pressed magically opened the glass doors, through these doors and heading to a second closed glass door only to be greeted my more gesticulations from another security guy on the inside indicating that it was the other glass door on the left that I should go through. I was now inside the citadel, and in the presence of two women security guards behind a counter and three male security guards on my side of the counter. One of the women asked if I had any sharp objects, keys, knives, scissors etc. If so I was to put them in the little box plus any mobile phones, then I was beckoned by a male security guard to walk through a scanner, once through I got my keys and mobile back, I didn’t have any knives, scissors or any other type of sharp objects.

       What is this all in aid of? Are they expecting some terrorist, illegal immigrant, alien, undesirable or whatever they want to call them, to rush in with a knife, scissors or other sharp object demanding a passport? If it is the suicide bomber that they are worried about, I have no doubt the said psycho would blow himself up as soon as the young woman asked him to hand over his keys, sharp objects, knives, scissor, mobile phone etc., at that point he is already in the building. Perhaps it is protecting the staff from assaults, if so then why not post offices, council offices, benefit offices, rail station ticket offices, chemists, schools, department stores etc.? Perhaps they have these in mind somewhere down the line, along with the thousands of CCTV cameras on “our” streets, plus a number tattooed on your forearm, a compulsory ID card covers as that, as you can’t go anywhere without it.

       This is obviously one of the many symptoms of an extremely paranoid governing class, part of an extremely efficient control system instilling fear and obedience devised by the governing class or a combination of both. It has nothing to do with the well being and safety of you and I on the street.

       This is the world that we seem to be blindly strolling into, a world of controlled movements, every excursion in to your town or city photographed as you make your way to the bus, the shops, the pub with armed police walking the streets. They will keep telling you that it is all for “your” protection, but you must realise it is for “their” protection, they must know what you are up to, who is going on a protest, where and how, who is acting different from the crowd. Only you and I can stop this and take back our world.

 

ann arky's home.

LOST and/or STOLEN??

       From our ever looking, ever listening City Strolls comes this request, and it is one that I feel that all of our country should get involved in. The theft has been going on for years and like a card sharp in a dodgy casino, the Glasgow council shuffles this and that from the common good to the private sector. It is our assets and the corporate world wants it, all of it and the council sleep in their bed.

Questions that need to be asked;
Who has all our public artifacts?
Property for sale, whose propery is it?
Where do all the profits from the Common Goods go?
Who decides our land should be sold or what its use should be?

WANTED

Common goods detectives

The Family Silver of Scotland Scandal.

£1.8 billion or more of land and assets belonging to the public has

been lost due to centuries of mismanagement and corruption.

Campaigners claim this land and assets are being misappropriated

 or even stolen.

Treasure hunt

Where is our Common Good?

The Common Good is all around you ­ see if you can find some.

Send us  pictures. Ask us questions. What about your local library,

your park. Who do you think owns all the pictures and treasures

 in the art galleries?  Lets learn to find and recognise our

 public common good ­ take public ownership of it.

 Because if we don’t someone else will and we will

 never see it again.

www.bridgeweb.info

ann arky's home.