Self Defence Takes Many Shapes.

      There is no doubt that this world has beauty and pleasure in abundance to offer, but it is impossible to be blind to the violence all around us, we live in a very violent world. The inescapable fact that we should all wake up to is that states are by far the worst offenders when it comes to violence. State authorities far outstrip any individual, group, or gangster mob, in the range and depth of violence they daily administer.

        Their violence takes many shapes from the misery, poverty and early deaths from corporate exploitation, aided and abetted by the state. There is the plundering of the public purse to enrich the already wealth bedfellows of the state, which is responsible for millions living mired in deprivation. There is the state "punishment" handed out to those who would resits this deliberate, avoidable violent injustice. Of course we can never ignore the state's greatest savage, brutal violence, it is when it decides to go to war with one of its fellow states. Which of course is always founded on a false narrative, cajoling the population into following its fluttering coloured rag and sacrificing their lives for the survival and enrichment of the keepers of the state. Wars create mountains of bodies and rivers of blood, and millions of lives that remain steeped in misery for the rest of their lives. However the keepers of the state ensure that the state survives intact.

        How people respond to this violence varies, but due to the scale brutality and breadth of state violence it is difficult to fault anybody's struggles against this continuous onslaught, each of us must choose or own path of resistance, but resistance is always justifiable, it is simply a choice of self defence.

    An anonymous song from Italy depicting someone's choice of resistance, lifted from Anarchists Worldwide:

The Individualist Hymn
Before dying in the mud on the streets
we would imitate Bresci and Ravachol;
anyone who extends a hand to you, bourgeoisie,
is a person unworthy of looking at the sun.
Grinding machines tear the beggars to pieces
and their wives are forever pale and weeping,
The fields remain fallow, the miners buried
and the workers crushed forever by murder.
And to those who don’t give in, open the tombs,
prepare the bombs, sharpen the knife,
action is the ideal!
France, on the watch with the guillotine,
chops off the head of anyone who wants to punish her.
Cowardly Spain strangles with a garrote and murderous
Italy guns down those who aren’t accustomed to trembling.
Hanged in America, throats cut in Africa,
forever tortured at Montjuich in Spain,
but the individualist still knows how to strike
the sorry breed of gentleman thugs.
And to those who don’t give in, open the tombs,
prepare the bombs, sharpen the knife,
action is the ideal!
As long as we are a herd it’s appropriate that there’s
a social gang passing laws;
as long as the sun of anarchy doesn’t shine,
we will always see the slaughtering of the populace.
Be very afraid, coppers, when you hear
the dynamite exploding against the oppressors.
We are enemies of all cops and scoundrels,
And one against all, we will scatter them.
And to those who don’t give in, open the tombs,
prepare the bombs, sharpen the knife,
action is the ideal!
******
No Copyright. 100% DIY. Feel free to reproduce.

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

A System Beyond Reform.

         Got up this morning, sat down at the computer, looked out the window. I’m comfortable, my window looks out across Littlehill Golf Course, a public owned golf course, a beautiful scene of undulating hills of grass and different types of trees, but Scotland’s winter had laid her icy hand across the area, the grass was white with frost. In conditions like this, how can you not think of those unfortunate individuals who find themselves sleeping rough, how do you not feel the frost savagely biting at the marrow of their bones, it is a lonely, slow, cruel death situation. It is difficult to grasp the fact that we, living in the sixth richest country on the planet, still tolerate such a cruel, unnecessary injustice. They suffer this vicious injustice not through lack of resources, but because of ideology.

The Homeless.

Tenebrous spectres, they exist,   out there,

on the crumbling edge of chaos.

A father, a son, a brother,

a daughter, a sister, a mother.

Fragments of some shattered family structure;

waste products

from a society being driven to destruction

by a hurricane of greed

living a life that wears out life,

dying,

the devious death of exhaustion from existence.

        No doubt, like me, you have listened to our political ballerinas spouting their hypocritical mantra, about what they are doing to help the homeless. They do this without shame or conscience, fully aware of the fact, that in the UK, since 2010, homelessness has increased by a staggering 34%. This massive increase can be laid at the feet of the government, through their welfare changes, introduction of Universal Credit, housing benefit cuts, etc.. Though these are not the only reasons for this increase, you can’t solve homelessness without building affordable homes. Our system of profit from houses is much more important than actually housing everybody, it is a system devoid of human compassion. It is much more profitable to have hordes of people chasing an small limited number of homes, this drives the prices up, big bucks for developers and estate agents. It pushes up rents, big bucks for landlords, why would they want to change such a lucrative system? It is a fact that the ideology of our political ballerinas, has driven the building of affordable homes to a 24 year low. It is also a fact that approximately one third of those homeless today will still be homeless a year on.

         It is an indictment on this system of profit before humanity, when we are looking at more than 300,000 people in this country waking up having spent the night, crammed with their families into hostels or dingy temporary rented accommodation, and these are the lucky ones, others will have spent the night on a pavement, doorway, dark lane, and if they wake up, in this weather, that is not guaranteed, it will be to face a cruel world, where their struggle for survival will be dependent of others and charity.

          This is capitalism, this is the system we tolerate, we know its injustices, we are aware of its inequality, we can see the suffering it inflicts on so many. We know within our hearts we can create a better, fairer system, a system built on compassion, mutual aid and co-operation, a system that will see to the needs of all our people, a system freed from the cancerous burden of profit and exploitation and free from the yoke of rich over privileged parasites, that suck the blood from all of our lives.

       Capitalism cannot be reformed, we have had centuries of reforms, the poverty, deprivation and wars are still with us. The only answer is the total destruction of this man made system of greed and exploitation. The next step is up to us.

The Warmth Of A Dream.

He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,

night frost locked his joints

morning rain chilled the marrow of his bone.

In the dream there was a sister,

a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters

who called him "mister", a time of little pain.

Are these youngsters the same young men, who

now laugh at hime, throw beer cans,

piss on him as he lies drunk in some dark lane?

When was the first step down this slippery slope,

when was that first step to no forgiveness.

No will to rise to beg for food,

numbness kills the pain.

The dream brings a warmth that feels good,

dark fog shades out consciousness,

an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain. 

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