Same Old--

         Prowling through some old material I came across some bits and pieces from 1996 that highlights that nothing ever changes on the agenda of the ruling class. It is always the same attack, cut spending on the needs of the ordinary people.
        The poem below was written during a school closure campaign in 1996 by Freddie Anderson, Irish born Glasgow based anarchist, poet, play-write and activist. Freddie was born 11 September 1922 and died 10 December 2001. Of course we have moved on since then, it's not just schools closures we are looking at, it's libraries, community centres, swimming pools, to name but a few.

WHO’S TO BLAME?

Whenever misrule grabs state power
and keeps in bond the nation,
the foremost of its great misdeeds
are cuts in education
for learning is a noble thing
and in its grans pursuit
we throw old prejudice aside
and seek to find the Truth.
So those who shut our school-house doors
do so with vile intent
be they local councillors
or a gangster government,
they’ll blame each other endlessly
for crimes they common share,
conveniently forgetting that
two must make a pair.
Now who are the bigger vandals
the louts who burn our schools
or the scoundrels who just close them down
according to the rules.

                                                                             Freddie Anderson. 

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

Angry.

         Today, 31st. July, some Glasgow citizens marched from St Mungo Museum to Glasgow Green in protest at the cuts and closures taking place in the city, libraries, community centres, sports centres and more, plus the selling off of other of the citizen's public assets. It was a colourful march and well attended, but not well enough attended. Glasgow citizens it's time you got angry and raised you voices in on thunderous roar, "We will not tolerate this slashing of our services and assets".
        What is happening is the plundering of public assets, which will end up in private hands, and the diminishing of the quality of life for those who live in this city and to whom these assets belong, a slashing of the quality of life for the next generation. What is the council for if it is not to service and maintain the services and facilities for the people who live in the city. If they can't do that then then the city council is superfluous to requirements.
      It is time to stop being polite and time to take to the streets with your righteous anger and force the take back of all our assets into the control of the all of the people of our city. Glasgow, get angry, you have every right to be ferociously angry, and show it on the streets of our city and in our communities. It is your health and welfare and that of your children that are going to suffer from this plundering of the public purse.

 

 

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