Do We Leave The Problems To Our Kids?

 

 

      So you have seen the grotesque pantomime performed by the political ballerinas at Westminster, you have seen the rising child poverty, you have seen the increase in precarious working conditions, you have seen the decimation of our social services, you have seen the increase in homelessness and un-affordable rents, you have seen the corporate mafia vultures circling our National Health Service. Look abroad and you see the rise of fascism in Europe and else where, you have seen the wars in the Middle East where the West has stepped in to bring the people of that area "democracy" and delivered death, destruction and destitution, plus an unimaginable wave of desperate people taking the dangerous course migrating half way across the world in search of a decent life. You look at our burning planet and the total unwillingness linked to complete inability of the system to do anything meaningful about this impending disaster. You look at Chile and you see the people of that country rise up in desperation to try and stop the the ever downward spiral of their living conditions, as well as the continuing exploitation, endemic corruption and state violence. Across the globe people are standing up and saying, very loud and clear, this system doesn't work for the vast majority of the people on the planet.

      We see the vast wealth that we produce, but we see it private jets, luxury yachts, opulent penthouse and vast gated estates, we are aware of the tax havens that are a boon to the millionaire and billionaire predatory class, while we, the wealth producers, struggle from day to day for a decent living.

      It is obvious that we have the imagination, the desire, the means and the ability to devise a much fairer and sustainable system that is built on mutual aid, and co-operation, that sees to the needs of all, and respect for all life on the planet. A system freed from the vile clutches of the profit motive, free of borders and authority over others. You know that in your hearts that is the world we want for our children and our grandchildren. However it is up to us to deliver it, or will we sit back and leave this vile corrupt system of exploitation for our kids to sort out?

     It is obvious that the system cannot be reformed, it is built on exploitation of others for personal gain, that is the basic principle of its existence. The only answer is the total destruction of the entire system, and that will only come about by you and me standing up and joining those who are already in direct conflict with this cancerous system of corruption and greed. We can eradicate it from the planet and place it in stories of the past, labelled "The Darkest Hour In Human History.

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

Extinction Submission!

       On Extinction Rebellion, I have made my views known in a couple of previous posts, I still hold the view that those behind this movement are not what they portray themselves to be, and are leading the public along a road that will not solve the problem of possible planet extinction.

     This is an extract from an article, which I endorse, from Acorn:

         We are well aware that there are many genuine grassroots activists involved in Extinction Rebellion protests, people we know are on our side. But more and more questions are being asked about the nature of the organisation itself, about the true agenda of the leadership lurking behind a flimsy illusion of horizontality.
         The non-existence of a mass radical anti-capitalist movement in the UK (let alone a radical ecological anti-capitalist one!) means that XR has appealed to a lot of people who have long been waiting for some kind of rebellion to finally emerge.
        Perhaps they have been tolerant of XR’s eccentricities (starry-eyed love of the police, dogmatic non-violence bordering on control-freakery, connections with business interests, refusal to consistently condemn capitalism) because they are the only show in town and it is a question of XR or nothing.
        The same is not true in France, though, where revolution is often in the air and where the last year has seen a full-on yellow-coloured challenge to the neoliberal state. XR have been active there too, but their fake radicalism and lame submissiveness to authority has shocked many eco-radicals and anti-capitalists, who have been voicing their concerns online.
        On October 12 the “Désobéissance écolo Paris” collective published an open letter to Extinction Rebellion members, containing a wide-ranging critique of the organisation and its approach.
      Then on Monday October 14 two reports appeared on the anti-capitalist Paris Luttes site. The first of these was entitled “Extinction Rebellion : ni désobéissance, ni obéissance, mais servilité et crédulité” – “Extinction Rebellion: Neither Disobedience or Obedience, but Servility and Credulity”.
      Reporting on the XR occupation in Châtelet, it said “Extinction Rebellion scuttled its own initiative in a total absence of strategic thinking and analysis of power struggles”.
       It explained: “The ‘diversity of tactics’ working group on Wednesday evening had asked each of the six blockade points to start thinking about what we would say to the press, the authorities, the public, on the day that we were moved on.
     “For instance, it was suggested, in the spirit of a convergence of struggles, that we say ‘we are not leaving without the passing of a law for carbon neutrality by 2025 and an amnesty for all activists incarcerated during the various Gilets Jaunes protests’. That would have been awesome.
      “But the XR leadership decided, at a sparsely-attended assembly on Friday morning, October 11, to dismantle the camp, to move most of the equipment and to pull out from the six blockade points.
      “In short, XR removed everything which made this public space a living space where we could discuss, debate, get to know each other.
       “The given reason was, of course, the next day’s action, but anyone with a minimum of strategic sense should have seen that this camp, now that it was there, now that it had been reinforced by Gilets Jaunes and other anti-capitalist and environmental activists, the night before the weekend, had definite subversive potential. Predictably the action on Saturday October 12 was, on the other hand, a total flop”.
       The article went on to comment: “This is not a case of ‘non-violent civil disobedience’ nor indeed of ‘obedience’ since there was no official warning from the police or the authorities. It was rather a case of servility: we ended the camp before even having been ordered to leave. This is exactly the opposite of struggle or rebellion”.-------

------- They added: “It was a rather pleasant surprise to see that many XR activists did not stay stuck in the XR box, did not shy away from more radical action, less focused on media PR, and were asking real political questions about the scope of these actions. As often happens, the grassroots could quickly outgrow the organisation”.

Read the full article HERE: 

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Attack The Root, Don't Pluck At The Petals.

       I and countless of thousands of others have repeatedly stated that the climate change protests as they stand are delusional. They are appealing to the state to legislate to turn the capitalist destructive monster into a nice friendly green capitalist destructive monster. The planet cannot and will not be saved by states in conjunction capitalists, they are the bedfellows of the destructive system that is capitalism, a system that feeds them unimaginable wealth and power. The answer is obviously outside the state/capitalist way of thinking, capitalism needs perpetual growth, perpetual growth is the destruction of the planet. It is impossible to push for perpetual growth on a planet with finite resources, something has to give. If we continue with this economic model then in the not too distant future, we lose, and the planet goes on for countless more centuries without us. We have to attack the root of the problem, not pluck at the petals. The following article from Contra Madriz puts it much better than I could.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

        Various institutions, environmental groups, trade unions and student groups gathering under the name “Fridays for Future” have announced a so-called “Week for Climate” from the 20th to the 27th of September. Basically this week consists of programmed and alienating demonstrations in which the State and other institutions (UN, G7 etc) are being asked to remedy or take action against the disaster they are causing. In their simplistic and reformist discourse they never criticize the cause of the ongoing devastation: industrial techno capitalism and its technocratic organization of the world.
       They are the ones who criticize climate change without criticizing those who produce it: they have a corpse in their mouths, those who defend the myth of progress, of sustainable development and of a ‘comfortable’ life in exchange for slavery and the commodification of every aspect of our lives, a life sold to technological domination. They are the ones who have purchased the new fashionable product, climate change, from the supermarket of rebellion.
      Fridays for Future? Today more than ever the future does not exist, we live in an eternal present and any vestige of the past has been erased. The technological prostheses that surround and colonize us make us live in a continuous state of sleepwalking, where the catastrophe is not about to come as they insist on warning us, the catastrophe is here and now, the catastrophe is the alienating life directed by the algorithms of our ‘virtual assistants’, the catastrophe is a world already devastated by industry.
      Climate change is just one more of the thousands of harmful consequences of the industrial revolution (the only revolution, that began two centuries ago, that has reached all parts of the planet and colonized and commodified all lifeforms). Climate change is inseparable from the techno industrial system: deforestation, acidification of the oceans, desertification, extinction of thousands of animal and plant species, thousands of chemical products that doom our existence, pollution of land, air and water are just some of the the harmful consequences of this system. We believe that to speak only of climate change without criticizing the techno industrial system is to fall into a reductionism and to not go to the root of the problem.
       Climate change and all the toxicity are the consequences of the technocratic project that manages and administers our lives. A project that consists of colonizing, dominating and commodifying all lifeforms. Once nature has been colonized and dominated, the next objective is human beings, a project based on the convergence of technologies known as NBIC (nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and cognitive sciences) to which we can also add robotics and artificial intelligence, their greed has no end. If everything is commodified right down to our daily activities, their profits will not stop increasing. To turn the world and everything that inhabits it into a programmed machine where nothing escapes its control: world-machine, human-machine. This leads us to a mechanistic vision of the world, of ourselves and everything that surrounds us.
     Hundreds of research programs with multi million dollar investments are dedicated to finding new sources of energy. This need for energy for the world to function results in the devastation of territory and annihilation of millions of human and non-human animals. Industrial energy runs the world, it is necessary for the production and distribution of all those unnecessary products that we find around us, it is the economy and it is war. The system has identified and understood as a big business that only ‘renewable’ and ‘clean’ energies will allow to it operate, expand and survive. The new technocratic project is ‘renewable’ and ‘sustainable’, it is ecological. This new project also covers the entire territory, from the industrial deserts of solar panels and wind farms (also causing climate change, devastation of the territory, diseases etc) to eco-cities (non-places where everything is controlled, optimized and automated, also producing hundreds of harmful products and an alienating life). So, to defend green energy is to defend the project that is hurtling us at great speed and a huge rate of progress towards the abyss, it is to defend those who are creating a totalitarian world, it is to defend the project of those who manage and administer our robotized lives.
        This is why we are calling for a week of struggle against climate change and all harmfulness from the 20th to the 27th of September from an anarchist perspective, which goes beyond the limits imposed by social democracy. One more week, in which by means of diverse forms of direct action various groups and individuals will confront the techno industrial system. The week of September 20-27 is only a goal for liberal and statist ecologism, but for those of us who aim for the elimination of the State, capitalism, patriarchy and the techno-industrial system, it is an opportunity to escape the narrow margins of domestication and initiate an autonomous, anti-capitalist and anarchist path against techno-industrial toxicity.

Neither the State nor techno-science will save us.
The struggle is the only way.

(via Contra Madriz)

*Translation note [AWW] – the original title for the week of action translates directly as ‘Week of Struggle Against Climate Change and All Harmfulness’, which sounds fine in the original Spanish language text but does not translate well into English. We toyed with using the word ‘toxicity’ rather than harmfulness, but in the end decided to just leave it out.

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We Can Do It All By Ourselves.

          Still on the subject of climate emergency. A wee message that history has taught us over the years, all the peaceful marches and demonstrations are only seen by the state as complaints, and the don't pay any attention to complainers. Remember the Iraq war!! Millions on the march across country after country, but the powers that be went ahead with their plans for domination and blew the hell out of Iraq and its people.
          Take you complaint to the various states regarding the climate emergency and they will sort it out in their own time with their own agenda that will not do too much damage to profits of their corporate pay masters.
         We can shut down those responsible for this emergency, and we can do it quickly, all by our selves, all we need is the vision and the will to so so.

       This from Crimethinc:

 

 No Government Will Save the Planet for Us

       From September 20 to 27, tens of thousands will take to the streets to denounce the causes of climate change and call on governments to address what may be the most drastic crisis facing humanity in the 21st century. These mass actions will showcase the growing anger of a new generation that has known nothing but crisis, war, and the threat of environmental collapse. We have prepared the following text as a flier encouraging climate activists to consider how to interrupt the causes of climate change via direct action rather than petitioning the state to do solve the problem for us. Please print these out and distribute them at climate protests and everywhere else you can.
      Finally, people are filling the streets to call on governments to address the climate crisis, the most serious threat facing humanity in the 21st century. This is long overdue. But what good will it do to petition the same sector of society that created this problem? Time and again, we have learned that the state does not exist to serve our needs but to protect those who are profiting on the causes of this crisis.
      The most effective way to pressure politicians and executives to address the climate crisis is to show that whatever they fail to do, we will do ourselves. This means moving beyond symbolic displays of “non-violence” to build the capacity to shut down the fossil fuel economy ourselves. No amount of media attention or progressive rhetoric can substitute for this. If we fail to build this capacity, we can be sure that the timeline for the transition to less destructive technologies will be set by those who profit on the fossil fuel economy.
      Several examples from recent social movements show that we have the power to shut down the economy ourselves.
        In 2011-2012, the Occupy Movement demonstrated that tens of thousands of people could make decisions without top-down organization, meeting their needs collectively and carrying out massive demonstrations. On one day of action, participants shut down ports up and down the West Coast, confirming that coordinated blockades can disrupt the global supply chain of energy and commodities.
      In 2016, people converged to fight the Dakota Access Pipeline, a corporate project threatening Native land and water. Tens of thousands established a network of camps to block construction, demonstrating a new way to live and fight together. The Obama administration canceled the pipeline, causing many occupiers to go home, but the Trump administration reinstated it—confirming that we must never count on the government to do anything for us.
        In France, occupiers blocked the construction of a new airport at la ZAD, the “Zone to Defend.” Farmers teamed up with anarchists and environmentalists, establishing an autonomous village that provided infrastructure for the struggle. After years of struggle, the French government gave up and canceled the airport.
      We have seen train blockades in a variety of struggles. In Olympia, Washington, anarchists blocked trains carrying fracking proppants in 2016 and in 2017, forcing the company to stop transporting the commodity. In Harlan County, Kentucky, coal miners have blocked a coal-carrying train after the Black Jewel company refused to pay wages they owed to workers. It only takes a few dozen people to shut down a key node in the supply chains of the global fossil fuel economy. Imagine what we could do on a bigger scale!
        Governments serve to protect the economy from those it exploits. The state exists to evict, to police, to wage war, to oppress, and above all to defend the property of the wealthy few. The perils of climate change have been known for years, but governments have done little in response, focusing instead on fighting wars for oil, militarizing their borders to keep out climate refugees, and attacking the social movements that could bring about the sort of systemic change that is our only hope of survival.
       The capitalist economy is literally killing us. Let’s begin the process of shutting it down.

Another end of the world is possible!

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

Glasgow Climate Emergency Protest, 2019.

        Yesterday, Friday 20th. across the world people took to the streets in their millions, with one voice, "Stop The Destruction Of The Planet", Glasgow was no exception. I have always considered that the climate emergency call was necessary and urgent, their righteous anger too subdued and their target was wrong, they were aiming their anger at governments, asking them to legislate to make capitalism "green". Capitalism is the real reason the planet is burning and it is that system that has to be attacked and destroyed. What was encouraging, at least with the Glasgow protest, is the fact that, that message has started to appear in a greater number of banners and leaflets. The message is getting home, capitalism in conjunction with governments are the fire-raisers, and the reason the planet is burning.

Glasgow Video:

Some Photos From Glasgow Protest:

A leaflet from The Protest:

radicalglasgowblog.blogspot

 

SPACESHIP EARTH

HAS NO ESCAPE CAPSULE.

 

           The earth is burning, and we know who is responsible for this disaster, but it is pointless to ask the fire-raisers to be more careful with their matches. They live for and by their fire-raising activities, and gain immensely from their actions with their matches. It allows them to sail in multi-million pound yachts, buy tropical islands for their own selfish pleasure and gives them tremendous power over the rest of us, not something they will give up without a fight.

        Capitalism and states work hand in hand at this fire-raising, apart from the industrial pollution, they spawn wars, a major cause of world pollution and therefore climate change. So we have to attack the root cause of this human disaster. Appealing to them to modify their behaviour, may result in smaller fires here and there, but the earth will still burn, their ethos is continuous growth, an impossibility.

        Green capitalism is still going to extract ever more resources from the finite supply on earth, it will not end wars, leading to eventual environmental disaster of one sort or another. It is only the destruction of capitalism that we may stop this impending disaster 

capitalism is the enemy

https://spiritofrevolt.info

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