Local Kids.

          The latest issue of The Local Kids, Autumn 2020, No. 6, is just released well worth downloading the PDF and having a wee read.

 

        The last months we saw different shades of curfew being imposed throughout the world. Apparently in this highly developed society (in the sense of the multiplication of institutions and technologies that penetrate every aspect of life) a pandemic can only be dealt with through the most blunt weapon of repression. To come together, to see eye-to-eye, is branded irresponsible and forcibly disbanded, with a glaring exception for profit-making, exploitative relations.
          Physical intimacy and tenderness suddenly become something threatening with deadly consequences. Meetings and physical contact are declared to be something abnormal and forbidden. Don’t kiss, don’t hug, don’t touch. Yes but touch the screens. The physical is banned from our real world and replaced by the virtual. The situation serves as an ideal opportunity to push ahead the total digitalization of all aspects of life. This is the definition of this society of a human life; work and consume, preferably without leaving the confinements of the home and permanently accompanied by a fear of potential infection which puts one in a constant state of anxiety.
          Levels of fear went through the roof not only because of the unknown risks of a potentially deadly virus, but also because of the violence unleashed against perceived potential transmitters. Everyone who doesn’t display the good behaviour of the responsible citizen, is deemed suspect. The understanding of solidarity and responsibility was deformed and equated with obedience and trust in the state. Though not everyone went along with this narrative, the streets and squares did empty. Interaction moved to the internet, a space inherently linked to
surveillance (data gathering) and shaped by unknown or misunderstood parameters (algorithms). Some might accept this (self-)imposed separation and isolation, others are starting to doubt if they want to live a life devoid of encounters that are not ruled by capitalist logic.
          The flow of goods will continue, the economy will be kept alive, the transfer of all aspects of life to the digital will be guaranteed. Thus creating an unstable construct of infrastructure where mobile phone antennas, fibre optic cables and the supply by trucks, trains etc. are more and more important. Could this mean possibilities to sabotage their apparent security at their sensitive points? By experimenting with these possibilities, can we perhaps feel, sense and touch life a little more?

PDFs on thelocalkids.noblogs.org

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

Capitalism=Hypocrisy.

        In this insane system of capitalism it is not difficult to find monumental hypocrisy, in this web of illusions, businesses are supposed to develop and make goods and then sell them and keep the profit. However, that rule is not always followed. Take the arms industry that multi-billion pound corporate creator of death and destruction, they like other corporate greed merchants receive public money, yours and mine, make the weapons of destruction, or whatever, then sell them back to us direct or via the government’s military spending. A nice little earner if you can get it.
       It has just been announced that the UK government is giving a European arms consortium £30 million to develop a laser weapon, no doubt once they have perfected it, they will sell it back to us and pocket the profit. £30 million to develop a new weapon at the same time as telling us, the ordinary people, we can’t afford welfare and social services. 

 

       Hypocrisy is part and parcel of this insane system, austerity for you and me, but our lords and masters are quite prepared to pay almost £2 million a day to bomb Syria into “freedom” with all the resultant death, misery and destruction that has ensued.
        It is estimated that our attempt at bombing Libya into freedom cost you and I, £1.4 billion, just part of the estimated £33 billion the UK has spent in overseas military adventures the last couple of decades in bolstering its corporate interests.
       All this under a campaign of austerity, where you and see, wage freezes/cuts, slashing of welfare and social services, the corporate world sees subsidies and increasing profits, while those at the receiving end of our “spreading democracy” see death, destruction, and mayhem. That is the capitalist system at work, doing what it was meant to do, make lots of wealth and power for that small cabal with their hands on the levers of power. 

 

Our Political System.

Wanker bankers, with their bundles of booty,
Sleazy solicitors, spewing slimy words for pieces of silver,
Lying lawyers, licking posteriors in the corridors of power,
Pompous politicians, products of posh fee paying schools,
Fraudulent financiers, fiddling the fruits of our labour,
Movers and shakers, false dream makers,
Weavers of illusions, creators of charades,
Perfidious pedlars of devious deals,
Nauseating narcissistic brainless mouths,
Candidates offered up to lead us to the promised land??? 

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