Bookfair.

         Another reminder of the Red and Black Clydeside Bookfair coming up as part of Glasgow May Day celebrations. May Day is important to the ordinary people, as it it is a time to celebrate our struggles, our successes and honour our class warriors, but also a day to come together with old and new friends, to strengthen those bonds of solidarity among the ordinary people of our cities towns and villages. Why not get a stall, come and give a talk, join in the discussions, what ever, but do come along and just browse and mingle, meet new friends, and old acquaintances.
        With all the present brutal attacks on our living standards, there has never been a more important time for all the ordinary people to come together and defend our living standards against this unnecessary vicious avalanche of austerity and hardship that is being heaped on us, all in the name of the economy and profit. 

The following from the Red and Black Bookfair website, have a look.

        Glasgow has one of the richest histories of anarchist organising in these islands. Our founding mothers include Ethel MacDonald, Jenny Patrick, Margaret Duff, and Mollie Baird. Our history includes names such as Guy Aldred, John Taylor Caldwell and Stuart Christie, organisations such as the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation, and publishing houses such as the Strickland Press.
       Anarchist pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers, books, speakers, organisers, agitators, and groups have informed and excited radical and working class life in Glasgow since the 19th Century.
       That tradition continues today, and Red and Black Clydeside is just its latest expression.
       The event is a showcase for the libertarian left and beyond in Glasgow today. As well as talks, discussions, and stalls, we are providing a long overdue chance, curtailed by the pandemic, to mingle in person.
       Red and Black Clydeside is part of working class Glasgow’s May Day celebrations, and follows from the previous weekend’s May Day on the Green. It is organised by groups including Glasgow ACG, the Glasgow Keelie and other individuals.
       The event will take place in the CCA on Sauchiehall Street on 7th May 2022, but we hope its effects will be much longer lasting.

Saturday 7th May 2022

3pm – 9pm
The Clubroom
Centre for Contemporary Arts
350 Sauchiehall Street
Glasgow G2 3JD

 Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

They Laugh.

They are laughing at us.

           So the pandemic seems to be in retreat here in the UK, during this pandemic the government poured billions of pounds into the coffers of big business, to keep their corporate friends form loosing too much of their ill-gotten gains. The debt just piled up, now it’s pay back time, that’s where you and I come in to foot the bill. Austerity the word that dare not speak its name, but is there in the guise of efficiency savings. To you and I that means closure of libraries, community centres, swimming pools, workers paid off, social services slashed and of course for many there will be a wage freeze (cuts in reality) as prices steadily move in an upward direction. Just announced is a £139 rise in energy prices for 11 million of us consumers as the price cap has been raised. The mountain of debt will have to be paid back as the financial Mafia set out their terms of repayment and demand their pound of flesh and it is you and I that will bleed, not the billionaire class who gained so much during this pandemic.
        During the pandemic while you and I struggled as best we could, the one class that saw their wealth balloon was the billionaire class. Just a couple of headlines make this very clear: Billionaires' wealth rises to $10.2 trillion amid Covid crisis and The billionaire boom: how the super-rich soaked up Covid cash and COVID-19 has made the super-rich richer. It’s time for a billionaire wealth tax and Billionaires got 54% richer during pandemic, sparking calls for "wealth tax" of course you and I know, there will be no wealth tax, and if there is it will be some small change they have in their pocket. That suggestion is just a paracetamol for the public, it makes them feel better but does nothing for their problem.
         If nothing else, this pandemic showed up the glaring inequalities inherent in this economic system. While you and I struggled to survive this pandemic the billionaire class and their government cronies, were laughing at us. It is long past the time when we should stand up and wipe that smile of their smug faces. The efficiency savings and our struggle for a decent life will continue and that struggle will become more difficult, unless we take on this billionaire driven system of greed, inequality and exploitation. It is a man made economic system, not the words from above written in tablets of stone. Let’s organise to bring it crashing down once and for all, we can create that better world for all.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Opinion.

My Humble Opinion From What I’ve Seen.
        Why I think protests against closures are bound to fail. Councils are by law prevented from running a deficit, they are compelled to balance the books, and the financial structure is engineered so that each year, because of inflation, rising wages (meagrely) maintenance and repairs etc. they have to make savings, “efficiency saving” which translates into closures and/or lay-offs of staff. Barmulloch community centre is closing, let’s suppose that the whole district mobiles to such an extent that the council concedes and keeps it open, it still has to look elsewhere to swing its axe to balance that inefficient budget. Should the council decide, to hell we will run a deficit for a few years and try and sort this out, then the government sends in its “managers” to run the city over the heads of the people. Remember Derek Hatton and Liverpool in the 80’s. 

  

 

     On a national government front, the game is rigged in favour of the large financial institutions who have the power to bring a country to economic disaster. Some 30 years ago approximately, these same financial institutions decided that privatisation was the best way to re-capitalise the system and more or less dictated to states that they had to follow this policy or find themselves outside the financial markets, economic doom. Of course they can force the issue in other ways, remember Greece 2010, Greece according to the EU financial mafia, was carrying too much debt, so sent in a team of their financial managers to sort it out, over the heads of the elected government, how it should be tackled, ordering the privatisation of lots of Greece’s profitable assets, altering labour laws etc. while loading them up with more debt, “the bailout”, so the privatisation policy continues merrily on its way. This debt of course has to be paid by the people. Some ten years on by 2017, unemployment in Greece was still at 22% and one third of the population still living below the poverty line, conditions haven’t changed much since then, this is how states repay their debt to the financial Mafia. You’re appealing to the minions who are forced to follow the rules set my the financial Mafia. They may now and again get some bubble gum and popcorn, but those who dictate the direction of the governments are sitting in their grand mansion counting their pieces of gold, and they like what they have and are not in any shape or form going to change the system that has given them such wealth, power and privileges. They will gladly bring down a country, should they not play be their rules. The UK is not immune, remember 16th September 1992, Black Wednesday? UK joined the European Exchange Rate against the wishes of the financial Mafia, who then engineered a fall of the pound to such an extent that the Chancellor raised interest rates three times in one day in an attempt to save the pound from becoming worthless, eventually gave up and withdrew from the European Exchange Rate. Privatisation is the direction set out and being implemented, and it is not going to stop because you shout at a councillor. Public assets will be disposed of one way or another, either by phoney community takeover or straight privatisation and placards are not going to stop the relentless march of the corporate world to gain all public assets of any worth.
        So what should we do? I suppose be anarchists and have one aim and one aim only, not to appeal to the system to be fairer, not to encourage people to follow a doomed path of asking to be treated fairly, but work hell for leather on destroying the system completely. The system will not change in any dramatic manner by dialogue, appeals and petitions, the system can cope very well with these methods of protest, and if the powers that be think these are getting too nasty for their liking, they have the armoury to stifle it, police, judiciary, prison system. 

           I tend to think that people of Peru and Colombia are getting close to the direction by burning police stations, banks, corporate buildings and looting supermarkets, but first you have to flood the streets with your anarchist ideas, literature, meetings, stalls etc. until there is enough of the population who have finally realised, the system has to be destroyed, not petitioned, if we want a free, fair, just, sustainable world, that sees to the needs of all our people. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info     

More Fair.

 

         Just a few more photos from Glasgow's Radical Fair, such a great fun and positive day, let's stop the closures.   

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Be Prepared!

        Democracy European style, well Greece is part of the European Union, and I haven't heard any objections from any of the other members of what is happening in Greece. What is happening in Greece is being watch by other EU states, they are looking and learning, should they need to introduce more severe population controls in their own patch. No condemnation, just observation.

 

 

       Rest assured, the states are aware that the debt mountain that has been paid to their corporate masters needs to be paid back to the financial mafia, and the only method acceptable to their corporate masters is austerity for the people. This time round it will be austerity big-time accompanied with massive unemployment. They will be expecting and preparing for unrest and anger to spill over onto the streets, so population control will be a priority on their minds.

 

 

        As I have said before, their plans are well advanced, to defend their wealth, power and privileges, where are our plans to to regain our freedoms and protect our living conditions?

         A recent Oxfam study found that since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s richest 10 billionaires have seen a wealth increase of half a trillion dollars – enough to pay for every person on the planet to get a vaccine. In this UpFront special, Marc Lamont Hill discusses with economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis what is driving the staggering wealth inequalities and how governments are offering socialism for the rich, and austerity for the rest.

 

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Austerity Normal.

             That coterie of platitude producers known as MPs, who meet in their private club, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, have had 8 pay rises in 10 years, while NHS staff have seen their pay frozen. Now that same bunch of self interested careerists decide to give the NHS staff a 1% pay rise, at the same time the body that regulates the MP's salaries as stated that MPs will not receive a pay increase of more than £3,000. Compare that £3.000 increase with what 1% would amount to for NHS staff, some where around about £170 per year. At the moment The basic annual salary for an MP from 1 April 2020 is £81,932, plus expenses, whopping subsidised meals, and fancy foreign travel junkets. Those expenses are very generous, and come with a comfy pension scheme. Who do you think serves the country best, the NHS or the MPs. Parliament can close down for generous holidays, and the country merrily functions. Close down the NHS for generous holidays and see in what sort of mess society becomes. It is unthinkable.

 

          However this is the type of society we tolerate, we pay pompous privileged careerists generous salaries, we allow them to pile up obscene wealth through the contacts of their privileged position, and let them administer austerity to the rest of us. When do we get the will to tear down this edifice to inequality and corruption, we have the power? When do we decide that we want the fruits of our labour to come to us, the real wealth creators. There is a tidal wave of austerity coming our way, we accept it and stunt the futures of our kids and grand kids for generations, stand by and watch homelessness grow, food banks proliferate and poverty spread like a new pandemic. 

 

        At the moment the state has in place, due to pandemic legislation, population controls sufficient to stop wide spread protests, which it will try to cement into some sort of permanent legislation, while its propaganda wing preaches that we will soon be back to "normal". There is no "normal", there is only deeper austerity, and unless we take back control of the streets, austerity will be our continuing "normal". We must have the right to vent our anger at gross injustice, inequality and blatant corruption, and the only places we can do that are on the streets, in our workplaces, and in our communities. Their plan is already set, where is ours, in defence of our freedoms and conditions?

 

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

Whose Money?

  

 

       Since the start of this pandemic, I have always stated that it was an ideal opportunity for the state to re-capitalise the failing capitalist economic system. Since the beginning of the Covid19 affair, the various states across the world have poured trillions of dollars/pounds etc into the coffers of the corporate beast that is destroying the planet. Before the pandemic, all the indicators were that capitalism was in dire straights, and was heading for a colossal slump, unless they could re-capitalise it to a massive scale. The bailout needed would dwarf the 2008 taxpayers handout to the financial mafia, and we all know the years of austerity that little exercise cost the ordinary people. Glory hallelujah, along comes Mr Covid, and the propaganda machine convinces us all that we have to save the economy, to save your jobs of course, nothing to do with corporate profits etc. Open the flood gates flood the corporate world with all sorts of grants, special funding and lots of dodgy contracts. Where will all that money end up, and who will pick up the tab when the financial mafia send the debt collectors to various states to demand their loaned loot back? Why, you and I of course will be expected to foot the bill, by then the billionaire class will have salted their share away in some nice little tax haven.
        We continually pay for the privileges and welfare of the richest people on the planet by our poverty, crap wages, poor working conditions, lousy living conditions, broken education system and inadequate health and social welfare systems. This time round most have not only willing accepted this but have asked and encouraged the state to do so, to protect the economy and "our jobs" of course. What a wonderful state of affairs for the pampered, privileged parasite class, no doubt they'll all sit back with a smug look of satisfaction, for once again they have shafted the general public, plundered the public purse, and got away with it. For how much longer will we tolerate this two fingers to the people.

 

       The total net worth of the nation’s 651 billionaires rose from $2.95 trillion on March 18—the rough start of the pandemic shutdowns—to $4.01 trillion on Dec. 7, a leap of 36%, based on Forbes billionaires, according to a new report by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). By around March 18 most federal and state economic restrictions in response to the virus were in place. Combined, just the top 10 billionaires are now worth more than $1 trillion.

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

Screw You.

        So now the wee hints are being dropped, with the Chancellor stating that hard times are ahead, suggesting a freeze on public sector wages, the inevitable cut to services and an increase in taxes, he did however, say that there would be no return to "austerity". Though in my book if it looks like austerity, smells like austerity and hurts the general public like austerity, then it is austerity. Having handed the large corporations and their business buddies, billions of pounds in handouts, and handed out lucrative health related contracts to non-health business pals, they now turn round and tell you and I, that we are the ones who will have to pay back all that money to the money lenders of the financial Mafia, apparently it is "our" debt. You have to hand it to them for their blatant two fingers to the public, while announcing these pictures of a brutal future of wage freezes, increase taxes for us, he has just announced the largest increase in military spending since the cold war. They know whose side their on, do we?

      Their sacred economy is all that matters, big business corporations must be rescued and protected come what may, as for small businesses, they can go to hell in a handcart and the public can go with them. Welcome to state/corporate fascism.

Thanks Loam for the link: Sick Britain's Orwellian Dystopia.

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

Tory War.

       Party political politics have never been my strong point, but I can't help take a little giggle of glee at the possibility of the coming war within the Tory party. The financial pundits of both sides are as usual clamoring to get the "national" debt under control. However that's where the split comes. The two factions are gearing up for a fight, on the one side is the bumbling buffoon Boris brigade, sailing along on his ginormous ego. Boris's election promise stated that there would be no return to austerity, he promised more jobs with massive spending on infrastructure projects and his ego demands that, come what may. Of course that requires more money, so his camp want to plunder the middle class with more taxes etc. Most financial pundits agree that to try and plunder the poor would be unpopular, but also impracticable, as there is not enough avenues there to sort out the £2trillion UK debt. The other side in this party squabble claim that a policy of plundering the middle class would damage the crumbling economy even more. Of course that last statement translates into hurting some of their friends and perhaps costing them their comfy job in parliament.

      Which ever way it goes the real financial Mafia will demand that they get back their £2trillion they loaned the UK treasury for their covid19 pantomime, no matter who the Tory party decide to screw. So you can rest assured that they will, and we the ordinary people will feel the pain, come what may. Of course decimating the middle class will more or less display what anarchists have always said, in this society there is only two classes. All this working class, middle class and upper middle class, is just an illusion based on propaganda to create that vision of the ladder you can climb to get to the top. However it is extremely difficult to climb a ladder made of illusions.

       So who is going to win, the Boris brigade plundering the middle class to pay off the debt, and at the same time, spend, spend more debt on infrastructure. Which is just another method of taking public money and handing it to their corporate buddies. Or the good old fashion die-hard Tories who see the plundering of the poor the only decent solution to their crumbling sacred economy and ever growing debt. 

     Of course we, the ordinary people, could throw a spanner in both their plans, by deciding to take control of our lives and sorting out our problems all by ourselves, without any political party's blessing.

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

Our World.

           There is a lot of rumblings about the aftermath of this covid19 pandemic, but one thing we can be sure of is that we the people will be expected to take the pain. Government support schemes have kept some businesses afloat by throwing billions of pounds at them, paying company wages etc.. All this was to try and ensure their economic system would survive and unrest among the public would be limited. However, government support schemes will be withdrawn and borrowers, individual as well as businesses will start to come up short on their loans. So far banks have been seen as supportive of all this and not being to ruthless with their customers. For how long will the banks be able to hold on to that helping hand posture.
       No matter how hard they may wish to be seen in the public eye as the supportive saviours of the system, crunch time will come. The time will arrive when companies go bust and all that borrowed money lavished on them has to be paid back. The survival of the banking system will make them completely ruthless. That mountain of debt the government has thrown at its corporate friends will be called in by the financial Mafia they borrowed it from. That’s when you and I come in. The conditions for that pay back will be dictated by the moguls who run the financial Mafia scheme. 

       First thing will be cut government spending so that they can use more tax payers money to service the debt, then sell public assets to raise cash to service the debt, that puts more of our wealth in the hands of the corporate world. That translates as the financial Mafia get all their cash that was thrown at the corporate world back in their coffers, but you and I will take the pain. It will be Austerity writ large and bold across the generations of the ordinary people. We have yet to recover from the previous corporate gambling crisis and we are now about to be hit harder this time round, all to save the precious economy of the pampered wealthy powerful few. 

      We have to ask ourselves, is it worth sacrificing the lives, health, welfare and potential of our children to preserve the well being of a privileged, pampered parasite class. You know there is a better way to distribute the wealth that we the ordinary people create. They need us, we don’t need them, we make and distribute everything, it’s our world, we just have to take control of the system for the benefit of all our people.

WE THE LABOURING MASSES.

We the people have, every brick laid,
have fed the world with sweat and spade,
every instrument played in every band
created by the skill of the craftsman's hand.
We made every truck and every load,
our toil our effort every winding road,
every ship that ever sailed the sea,
our power our imagination made it be.
Cities and towns large and small,
our labouring hands fashioned them all,
every home, every spire,
luxury mansion or humble byre.
No matter what dreams the mind might spawn
without labour's hand, never see the light of dawn,
without labour's strength and labour's skill,
we would be foraging beasts in a jungle still.

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

Same Again?

        Capitalism, fascism, it's an easy switch for any capitalist government, they are just slight variations on the same theme. 2008, the capitalist system had blown its lot on a mad gambling spree, suddenly the state is the corporate banker and starts to throw money at the corporate gamblers to help them survive their losses. All of this of course comes from the public purse, so we pick up the tab in the shape of years of austerity. Move forward to 2020, and we have Covid19 bringing havoc to the capitalist world of shareholders, once again the state becomes the corporate banker and throws billions to shore up the shareholders empire. Once again, we the public will pick up the tab, with the cash bonus to the corporate club being much larger than the previous, the austerity when it hits, will be even more brutal than the last time round. 

      The so called "welfare state" is just a temporary measure, a sort of paracetamol for the public, to make them feel a little bit better. It can, of course, and has been, quickly dismantled, if the corporate world needs a hand out. As has been proven in the past, and will be again, when the bills start arriving for all those billions that the state flung at the corporate shareholders.
We should note, fascism doesn't need to arrive with jackboots, it can arrive in expensive suits and limousines.

      The following is a short extract from an article in Acorn Winter Oak, about the rise of Mussolini in Italy, Nothing has really changed, we have allowed history to repeat and repeat itself, and we, the general public, bear the brunt each time. Perhaps this time round we will get the picture and bring this stinking system crashing down.

    ---After 1925, in the face of economic crisis, the pure economic liberalism of the Manchester School went out of the window, in favour of state intervention.
       But this was intervention in the interests of business and Capital, not in the interests of the Italian people whom fascism mendaciously claimed to represent!
      ‘Development’ was at the forefront of fascist plans, as is the case with all industrial capitalists. More land was cultivated and an infrastructure of roads, new towns and industrial estates was built.
       “A vast programme of public works was undertaken, carried out by private firms, who were offered lucrative contracts by the State. Electrification of the rail system began, with the construction of tunnels on the Rome-Naples and Bologna-Florence lines. A massive road building programme was entrusted to ANAS (Azienda Nazionale Autonoma delle Strade), created in 1928, which oversaw the showcase construction of big toll motorways, the first in Europe”.  This was nothing other than a bailing-out of the capitalist economy by the pro-business fascist state, for which the cost would ultimately have to be borne by the public.
Ring any bells in 2020?
       Banks were also treated to fascist largesse, notably BCI, saved by the Italian state with a massive influx of money.
        Note the authors: “There was neither socialisation nor nationalisation. The State became capitalist; it guaranteed the property of most of the shareholders and their future dividends. The only socialisation was that of the losses, assumed by the public purse”.---

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