Rethink.

 

         Last year 2020, apparently, there was a survey done by the marketing and public relations firm Edelman, the result of that survey was that 57% of people worldwide said that "capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world". We the ordinary people of the world didn’t need a survey to tell us the capitalist system is crap, millions live with this “harm” day and daily, we are well aware of and living with, the monstrous ecological damage the system of capitalism spews across the planet. Of course the result of the survey doesn’t mean that the powers that be and their survey merchants have decide to call a halt to their sacred greed driven exploitative system of capitalism. No, what they want to convince us of is that capitalism can move to a new stage, a fair and sustainable system, it just needs a little adjustment here and there. This new adjusted capitalism will of course not see the end to £150 million private yachts, private jets, personal luxurious mansions dotted around paradise islands, tax havens, where billions of £s are salted away for personal use. These plundered “privileges” will still be reserved for the masters of the system and their backside licking cronies. It will mean that the exploitation of the many, to maintain this imbalance, will be painted “green” and in all possibility jobs will be more precarious as the capitalist beast writhes and slithers to survive. 

           So it appears that 57% of the world’s population now accept capitalism is a harm to the people and the planet, will that be the tipping point where we, the ordinary people come together and start to dismantle this cancer that is eating our very existence. A realisation that it can’t be adjusted, reshaped or re-modelled into a fair and just system, it can be nothing but an exploitative system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. The answer is to abandon and destroy capitalism in all its various guises and start with a community based system of free association, mutual aid, fair and just distribution of the fruits of our labour, a system of sustainability that sees to the needs of all our people, free from the cancerous force of profit.

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

Mutual Aid.

           This Covid19 pandemic has forced us all to rethink the way we do things, and one of the positive actions that have come from the drastic circumstances we find ourselves in, is the number of "Mutual Aid" groups that have sprung up all over the country. Let's hope we learn that these groups are not just for  emergencies, but point the way to a better way of doing things in our communities from here on in. A way to get to know your community, to enrich your community, to offer the hand of help where needed, and spread friendship across your community. Also a method to bypass the corporate profit seeking moguls that exploit us on a daily basis. You know it makes sense.

         Got this wee article from a comrade, Nick, thanks Nick.

Mutual Aid – A Radical Response
        “Mutual Aid is the sharing of resources as opposed to the wealthy giving to the needy” 

         Glasgow Mutual Aid (GMA) was set up in response to the covid pandemic at a time when charities and state organisations were slow to respond. We saw organising democratically, without hierarchy and bypassing the system to deliver a non-judgemental service as both being necessary and to be a radical act. We quickly realised that we needed to respond to non-covid situations as well. However, few of us thought that ten months later we would still be active and be needed more than ever.

 

          Whether it’s help with shopping; collecting prescriptions; a friendly regular phone call; picking up medication for pets; arranging food parcels or accompanying someone anxious about travelling to visit their dying mother, our volunteers have met a variety of challenges both willingly and imaginatively. Many volunteers have also received a service, for example when required to self isolate.

 

        As people’s circumstances have changed and furlough has ended for many, our pool of volunteers has dwindled. However, the current resurgence of the virus and the toll that months of restrictions is taking on many people, means that demand is rising again. There are currently opportunities for volunteers across all Glasgow postcodes. Even if it’s only a couple of hours a week, you can make a difference to folk in your local community. Get Involved to volunteer or request a service:

Phone M-F 10-2 0141 280 7025

Text 07451289389

support.glasgowmutualaid.co.uk
volunteer.glasgowmutualaid.co.uk

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

Choices.

  A new slogan suitable for our capitalist parasites ideology.

Photo courtesy of Erik R. Rishoff /flickr.

    

    By now it should be clear to everybody that crunch time is fast approaching and capitalism doesn't work for the benefit of the ordinary people. Everywhere you turn companies are laying off employees, the list is staggering.

   All the figures point to a massive increase in poverty, homelessness and deprivation, no blue horizon for the ordinary people of this country.

    Figures announced this morning state that the UK economy shrank by 20.4% in April, the largest monthly contraction on record, and it is all just beginning. In the coming months job loses will be on a scale not seen since the twenties and before. Here is a short list of what is known at the moment:

The Telegraph states that 250,00 business will be laying off employees.

Frankie and Benny's is closing 120 restaurants,

Roll Royce laying off 3,000,

UK car industry laying off 2,000

British Gas laying off 5,000

J Mathey laying off 2,500,

Airlines expected to lay off 70,000

BP world wide, laying off 10,000

Mulberry laying off 25% of workforce, 

Bentley cars laying of 25% of its workforce,

Airbus stated it will make job cuts. 

This list is by no means complete and comprehensive, and this as the cheery part of the picture. 

    And so the dark clouds continue to gather, and we haven't even sorted out Brexit and the mayhem that it will cause. Another factor, and I suppose we can blame the Thacher gang for this, most experts agree that UK will be hit hardest of the rich nations as 75% of its economy is in the service industry, and that will be devastated.

      Meanwhile the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been pouring billions of money he doesn't have into the coffers of the corporate world, to "save jobs" which translates into saving the corporate world from losing too much of their loot, and keeping them "afloat", you have to keep the shareholders happy. Money that the money lenders will shortly be knocking on the Chancellor's door to sort out a repayment method. Which will include cutting government spending, which means cutting social spending, much tighter and deeper austerity, a cap or cut to public sector wages, and of course selling off public assets to raise cash to pay for that bailout of the corporate parasites, for example, parts of NHS etc.

     So what should we the ordinary people do? Just grin and bear it, start thinking of charity shops, food banks and hand-outs, tighten our belts and get on with it? Remember, bringing your kids up under such conditions will stunt their potential, blight their general physical and mental health, scar them for life, and in all probability, also scar their children. 

     A lot of people during this pandemic learnt about mutual aid and found it worked and was enjoyable. We need to expand that feeling of community and and continue and expand mutual aid in our lives. Refuse to fall back into the consumer mode that the corporate world desire, buying crap and that endless supply of stuff that is out dated  forcing you to buy another. Start to organise to take control of our workplaces, and distribution centres, to produce what we want and need and distributing them in a fair and just manner.  Our lords and masters are already organising to get you back on the treadmill of ever increasing consumption and growth, all to the detriment of the planet and the the benefit of that pampered, privileged bunch of wealthy parasites. You follow them to your detriment or you resist and follow the path that will benefit us all in an equal and fair manner. The choice is simple, more and bleaker austerity, poverty and deprivation, or a chance to build that better world for all.

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

Like Lions After Slumber.

         The capitalist world seems to be in perpetual change, but no matter how it changes, some things remain as constant, exploitation, injustice and inequality. However, the divisions have become clearer, the lines more clearly drawn, which side to choose has become simpler. We are witnessing a world of greed and inequality laid bare, the façade has fallen, the illusion is melting into a thin haze.
       The dreams we have held in our hearts for generations are now being seen as possible, seen as the only answer, the only way. The debating should be over, it is time to gather your friends, step outside the ”economy” create communes in the cities, in the valleys and the fields, link your communities through bonds of mutual aid. Each creaking capitalist crisis, widens our path, re-enforces our dream, opens opportunities.
        It is now obvious the we, the ordinary people, must put ourselves on a war footing and accept the we are fighting a class war we can’t afford to lose, and act accordingly. If we win, the world is ours, to fashion as we wish, to see to the needs of all our people. If we lose, we remain on our knees, in servitude to corporate capital, and will hand that legacy to our children and grandchildren.

The Mask Of Anarchy. 

'rise like lions after slumber

 In unvanquishable number, 

Shake your chains to earth like dew 

Which in sleep had fallen on you --

 Ye are many -- they are few. 

 `What is Freedom? -- ye can tell 

That which slavery is, too well -- 

For its very name has grown 

To an echo of your own.

'Tis to work and have such pay 

As just keeps life from day to day 

In your limbs, as in a cell 

For the tyrants' use to dwell, 

`So that ye for them are made 

Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,

 With or without your own will bent 

To their defence and nourishment.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

That Babbling Brook Of Bullshit.

      I tend to refer to the mainstream media as, "that babbling brook of bullshit", and have refused interviews with journalists on several occasions. I see the mainstream media as an essential part of the establishment apparatus. A propaganda tool of the corporate world, and at all times, against the type of change to society that is necessary to break out of this vicious circle of capitalist exploitation. When anarchists talk to the media, they are putting their ideas and beliefs in a mincer, and having them served up in distorted misshapen unrecognisable minuscule portions. I fail to see how we can expect a social revolution to come via the mainstream media, they are firmly on the other side of the desire for a change, to a system of fairness and justice, built on the needs of the people. 

       We have to be our own media, we have to communicate via our communities and workplaces, report on, and be constructively critical of the real world we live in. We must ignore the filtered version of distorted sound-bites that is spewed out from that vast international corporate mouthpiece, whose only aim is to create a false reality, in which none of us actually live. It attempts to make the gross inequalities and injustices of the capitalist system acceptable, to make the public more amenable to the voracity of the parasites who hold the levers of power in this corrupt system. It will glorify war, honour the corporate plunder of the earth, and shine the spotlight of adoration on wealth and greed. Why should we even contemplate any form of association with something that is so hostile to our aims and desires? To see the world we live in, we must create a mainstream media blackout, in our lives, and talk to each other.

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

Our Tomorrow??

Food for thought:

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

WHAT COMMUNITY?

        There is a lot of talk about “communities” and how we should look after our “communities”. What is more this talk can come from left and right of the political spectrum. We can have Cameron and his Eton millionaires talking about the need to strengthen “communities” and we have trade unionists and activists talking about defending our “communities”. But what do they mean, they can't all be talking about the same thing, can they? Most people mean their neighbourhood when they talk about their “community”, but a neighbourhood, like a community, is not a commune, it is a very mixed bag of all manner of people, form shop owners, other small capitalist enterprises, professionals, government officials, workers and unemployed estate kids. All of these have different interests and in most cases, conflicting interests. To call for the strengthening of our “communities” is to call for the status-quo, the community or neighbourhood is a microcosm of the capitalist society that we live in. In this society that we live under, to call for a community loyalty, is just the same as the state calling for patriotism, there is no real common interest. The conflicts and exploitation that take place in society at large, take place in our “communities” on a daily basis. Why should ordinary people call for the strengthening of the subordination and restrictions that hinder their freedom of expression, and opportunity? It can never really be a community unless all its members have equal freedom of expression and equal opportunities. Once we have that, we can then talk of strengthening our “communities”, until then we should talk of taking control of our “communities” and shaping them to suit the needs of all those in that community, working from a position of equality. That of course requires getting out of the capitalist system.

I’M  PROUD.

I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,

that great mass on society’s bottom rung.

Those who, with coal-dust under their nails

in their eyes, in their lungs

claw at the earths entrails.

Their brothers,

cement in their hair

in their mouth, in their ears,

oil ingrained in their fingers,

on their face.

Sisters, glistening with sweat

midst the ceaseless noise of machines

that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets

for other people.

Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin

smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,

grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system

weighted down

with a sack load of half-dead dreams,

sometimes brought to their knees

by a tidal wave of despair,

never defeated,

groping in the dark to find tomorrow,

keeping hope alive;

they amaze me.

Somehow, from somewhere

in this cold, cruel

unforgiving scheme of things

they find love for their children.

Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,

but buckets full, to bathe them in,

to pour over them.

They seem to know

that one day this world will be ours

and to take care of it

we will need those who have been loved.

ann arky's home.

A CRISIS IN CIVILISATION!!

        We are all aware of the crime that is being perpetrated on the Greek people by the financial Mafia, we have seen the mass demonstrations and the riots, but what is not reported is the other ways in which the Greek people are tackling this onslaught of government arranged poverty and deprivation. There have been "Don't Pay" campaigns, looting supermarkets and distributing the food to the community, buildings being occupied and used for the benefit of the community. Other have decide to leave the cities and start there own sustainable community free from the capitalist mantra of money and profit.

This from the BBC News:

      As Greece sinks ever deeper into the most severe economic depression in living memory, some young people are taking drastic action to change their lives.

      In the spring of 2010, just as the Greek government was embarking on some of its harshest austerity measures, 29-year-old Apostolos Sianos packed in his well-paid job as a website designer, gave up his Athens apartment and walked away from modern civilisation. In the foothills of Mount Telaithrion on the Greek island of Evia, Mr Sianos and three other like-minded Athenians set up an eco-community. The idea was to live in an entirely sustainable way, free from the ties of money and cut off from the national electricity grid.

'Crisis of civilisation'

     The group sleeps communally in yurts they have built themselves, they grow their own food and exchange the surplus in the nearest village for any necessities they cannot produce.

Continue reading the main story.

ann arky's home.

WHERE DOES ALL THE MONEY GO?

        So not only do the banks create money out of thin air, they steal your labour and then they still need a bailout?? where is all the money going? 

        This from Inquiring Minds:

The grand mortgage contract deception

         It was exposed in a recent ‘Independent’ article that 97% of, so-called ‘money’ is created ‘out of thin air’ with digits on your account, by the high street banks. The other 3% is mainly banknotes, which are loaned by the Bank of England to the high street banks at a small interest rate –point 5% at the moment. With this in mind I give the example below.

            Let’s look at a mortgage contract: before you signed a contract, allowing the bank to steal the principal sum of 200K plus, maybe 300K interest, from you and the working community collectively, they offered you a contract to sign for worthless digits. Upon signature you became the conduit for them to steal yours and the working community’s labour because all of us have to work to give the bank, not repay, the principal sum.

         The fraud is not just charging interest on the principal sum—it’s stealing the principal sum as well.

          Did they have the 200K at the time you signed the contract? No, they did not. So it comes from you and the working community when you pay it.

Am I right? If I am they are not just stealing interest, they are stealing the principal sum as well; a total of 500K.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

THE STATE V MUTUAL AID??

         We have to accept that there is an attack on the living standards of the ordinary people, with social spending slashed communities will have their facilities plundered, it will be almost impossible to keep communities together. We have to look to new strategies that by-pass and short circuit the state apparatus and allow communities to offer social amenities to young and old alike. Empty buildings can be utilised and brought into use for the community. People can come together and by means of mutual aid and networking strengthen their community and allow their creativity to blossom. We don't need the state to provide, we have the imagination, resources and the strength to function outside the state apparatus. A brilliant idea, though not new in anarchist history, is the Bank of Ideas, in London. 

The Bank of Ideas is situated on Sun Street, Hackney in an abandoned office block purchased several years ago by the bank UBS. It is an enormous space complete with a 500-seater lecture hall.

It has been opened to the public for the non-monetary trade of ideas to help solve the pressing economic, social and environmental problems of our time.

There is also room for community groups, youth clubs, nurseries and other public services that have lost their space due to Government spending cuts.

Artists, performers and creatives are welcome to come entertain and to help transform the space. We also encourage games, workshops and skillshares on anything from yoga to yahtzee.

READ ON.

 ann arky's home.

RAW CAPITALISM - PEASANTS BEWARE.

    

        Capitalism doesn't change it's spots, it is a system of exploitation of the many for the advantage of the few. At the end of WW2 and the existence of the Soviet Union creating a threat of Communism across Europe, and other places in the world, capitalism modified slightly. In the West it made concessions to the working class and the middle class, grants to higher education, a health service, social housing, a welfare system, to help the poorest etc.. With the collapse of the Soviet Empire and Thatcher's subsequent destruction of the trade unions, the threat of communism had gone. The need to appease the workers no longer existed. Capitalism could get back to its true form, it was time for raw capitalism with the gloves off. What we are living through is the system of capitalism mounting an all out attack on the working class and the middle class. For the majority real austerity will be the order of the day, with education an expensive luxury for the rich, a health service that will cater for those with the most money, charity your only hope of social services. Bankers, CEO and their sidekicks will live in ever increasing luxury. Our billionaire landed gentry and nobility are back in full control, peasants beware.

         Our children will be denied a decent education, without which it will be impossible to understand the complexity of the geopolitical system that is draining their lives, let alone organise to change its structure. Society will be fragmented with petty crime on the increase, communities will become ghettos. A rather frightening picture but the only out come from an unchallenged system driven by one overriding desire for profit, a system where human beings are no more than expendable resources. The gap between the ordinary people and the billionaire ruling class will be unimaginable. The answer for the majority of people on this planet does not lie in capitalism and time is of the essence.

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