IWD.

          The struggle of the ordinary people for that better world for all comes in many shapes and guises. Since most, if not all these struggle, are against the prevailing system, so their history tends to be whitewashed over, modified, buried, or romanticised, to make it acceptable to the status quo. However, all these separate strands of struggle are forged in blood sweat and tears. None more so than women's part in these struggles. March 8th. International Women's Day, rightly so, draws attention to the struggle of women for equality and justice, freeing it from the balloons and pink ribbon that the existing system would have you envisage that struggle. Women's struggle is our struggle, solidarity prevails.

the following extract from Struggle La Lucha.

       

        On many holidays recognizing people’s struggles and their leaders — for example, the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — the present-day celebrations are both sweet and sour.
       The only reason for formal recognition is that protests and struggle made it so — and this is a victory. But the other, “give it the side-eye” part is that the actual history of how they originated is covered up in pink ribbons. The blood, sweat and tears that were shed have been washed away.
       International Women’s Day is like that. So much has been done to sterilize it, package it, market it, capitalism-it (my made up word) — foremost in the capitalist West, of which the U.S. is the capital. 

Continue reading     

And More,----Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women's equality. Collectively we can all #EmbraceEquity. Celebrate women's achievement. Raise awareness about discrimination. Take action to drive gender parity. IWD belongs to everyone, everywhere. Inclusion means all IWD action is valid.

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

Pot & Kettle.

     

        With the farce, pantomime, call it what you will, that is going on in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption and people calling for a general election, I thought I would try to make it easier to choose between Tories or Labour. So let's look at how the Tories work, they will follow the dictate of the "markets", They will be business friendly, they will balance the books, which translates as the people will have to pay for this mess. So misery and hardship with poverty for us will be the result. 

       Now Labour, however, will follow the dictates of the "markets", They will be business friendly, they will balance the books, which translates as the people will have to pay for this mess. So misery and hardship with poverty for us will be the result. 

      So there you have it, so why bother supporting any of them, the system is rigged in favour of big business. You will be asked, without an option, to bear the brunt of their gambling casino addiction.
        There is a better way to organise society, based on mutual aid, freed from the cancer of profit and exploitation. A society of community organising and control of production and distribution by the people, and seeing to the needs of all our people. Anarchism shows the way, we just have to have the courage and determination to end the state system and build that better world for all. 

 

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

Patriotism!

            I couldn’t escape some of the media’s deluge of patriotic nonsense at the loss of one of their imperial figureheads. What shocked me most about this outpouring was a clip on TV of young woman crying because the Queen had died. This young woman of what looked like ordinary working class family, crying at the death of a woman who lived in a world of obscene opulence, so divorced for her own working class standards, she would be unable to comprehend that lavish privileged world, a women she in all probability had never met, but somehow swallowed the patriotic fabricated rubbish that surrounds that whole family and missing what they stand for, privilege, wealth and power. Monarchy is an anathema to democracy and yet vast numbers of ordinary people fall for the illusion that they, the royal family are part and parcel of life with us. The peasant and the lord are never partners, the wealth power and privileges of the lord divides and creates a wall where the peasant must know their place, and it is not in the same big happy family. Patriotism is the narcotic used to dumb the minds of the population, create that illusion that we are all one big happy family, special, different from others, better.

Patriotism

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,
if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag
held aloft by some foolish hand
inciting worker and peasant to kill
on some green and wooded hill,
peasant and worker from some other land.
Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag
that brings out fools to stand and brag
of brutal deeds painted grand,
deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still
killed by my brothers' misguided hand.
No allegiance have I for the Nation
this man made autocratic creation
that divides my brothers in a world so small,
binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,
bids us follow its drum, sing its song,
then sheds our blood in some border brawl.
No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,
have no ear for power oration,
though its iron heel is on my breast,
my back feels its leather thong,
at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

 

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

Rapists.

           I have often visited Greece and love Athens, having stayed there for months at a time, though I see those who live there, on the whole, as very friendly and welcoming, but patriarchy is a problem. I remember asking a very friendly elderly gent who lived near Athens if he had any family, his answer was "Yes, three --- and a daughter".
       The following report is welcome news as the women of that patch of land known as Greece are now standing up and claiming their right to equality. 

The following From Enough is Enough: 

        It was in response to an incident in which a woman hired to clean a house was imprisoned and repeatedly sexually assaulted by her “employer.” The neighbors called the police but the police declined to intervene. They are always ready to raid a squat or attack people in a public square, but cringe away from breaching the door of a middle-class home, so the rapist was able to escape and remains at large.
       This horror also unfolded in the shadow of an ongoing headline-grabbing case in which a “respectable” Greek man, an airline pilot, murdered his (much younger) wife and then said she was killed by immigrants, a calculated racist ploy which Greek police not only agreed with, blaming “hardened immigrant criminals” on national TV, but acted on by kidnapping an undocumented guy from the country of Georgia and beating him for days in an effort to make him confess.
      It seems almost too obvious to state, but the above is an example of the intersectional ways gender is interlocked with class, race and nationalism, as well as the key role the police play in maintaining these brutal hierarchies.
       As with so many incidents of gendered violence, fatal or otherwise, the perpetrator was that most deadly thing: “the man of the house.” Graffiti spotted in the neighborhood summed him up: “Good kid. Pilot. Orthodox Christian. Femicide.”
        The police responded to the revelation of the husband’s guilt by going back on TV and giving other men who might want to kill their wives advice on how they could get away with it better than he did. This is not a joke or hyperbole.
       While mainstream news coverage of both these cases focused on what might be called a “carceral” angle — why weren’t these men ARRESTED and LOCKED UP? — the women of Athens have gathered in tremendous numbers multiple nights in a row to express not only their outrage but more direct, systemic solutions to the campaign of violence waged daily against women.
       The march on Tuesday night began with speakers and chants. Prior actions had already heavily coated the surrounding blocks with militant feminist graffiti in both Greek and English. Once the march got moving, the amount of graffiti became so intense that artists towards the back of the march had trouble finding any wall space! There were lots of feminist, anarcha-feminist, anti-police and queer slogans and symbols. A few that I noticed were DEAD MEN DON’T RAPE, KILL RAPISTS, ABORT PATRIARCHY, ABORT CAPITALISM, THE POLICE DON’T KEEP ME SAFE – MY FRIENDS DO, and the immortal line INSTEAD OF “I LOVE YOU,” SAY “FUCK THE POLICE.”
      I was also moved by the graffiti reading LET’S ALL BECOME INSURGENTS, ROBBERS, SABOTEURS.
      There were countless stickers and flyers as well as ferocious chants (in Greek). Following are translations of some of these superb chants:

       “Patriarchy rapes and kills, on the street and at home. We will burn the state and patriarchy.”
         “Glorious Greek man, on your grave we’ll hold the biggest festival.”
        “The rapist will not come from the East, he will come from Ekali and Koponi.” (Greek neighborhoods)

“This, this, this is right: kicks with 12cm heels to smarten you up.”
“Die, Greece, so we can live. To hell with the family! To hell with the homeland!”
“Two meters, two meters underground, there is a home for every rapist.”
“Gay, trans, lesbians, priestesses of disgrace. We are proudly the shame of the nation.”
“In the streets, in the squares, in all the neighborhoods: immigrant women, you are not alone!”

        MAT, the riot police, nipped at the heels of the march, but there were no direct clashes, though a few participants practiced the quintessentially Greek multitask of jogging away from police while hand-rolling a cigarette.

Continue reading HERE: 

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

Anarchism.

       For those who might be unsure, thought this was worth sharing, so lifted it straight from ANARCHISM:

Le Monde Libertaire - Officiel

🏴 For a st century anarchism.
By the Black Star - FA group of Allier - via the website of Libertarian Socialism (full text online)

🏴 Anarchists want an egalitarian society of free men and women For anarchists, any government, any state power makes it possible materially to dominate and exploit one part of society by the other. To the way social, government and centralizing life are organized, they are opposed to a self-managerial and federalist mode of organization. Anarchist ideas are distanced both from the reformist views of socialism (who believes it possible to gradually change the unequal foundations of capitalist society through parliamentarism) and from Marxist concepts, especially dictatorship as a revolutionary means.

🏴 "... Anarchism is the requirement to place our lives under the double seal of individual freedom and social equality between these individuals, the refusal to abandon one of these pillars on the other's pretense, and the placing in place of a way of organization of society allowing these goals to continue to be fulfilled.

▶️ Read the whole text: http://www.socialisme-libertaire.fr/2019/07/pour-un-anarchisme-du-xxie-siecle.html

· See original ·

Rate this translation

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

Twins.

       The misunderstood and misrepresented, the inseparable twins, anarchism, and autonomy.

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

Feminism in Poland.

         Feminism may be a widely discussed and an accept view point in this country and some others, but there are countries where it has never gone mainstream. Anarchist Radio Berlin was present at the recent and very first Feminist Congress in Poland. This is a short interview in English with one of the oraganisers.

Feminist Congress in Poland

        At the beginning of February 2020, the Anarchist Radio Berlin had the opportunity of participating at the first Feminist Congress in Poland. In Wroclaw we did a small interview with one of the organizers of the congress about the organizing effort and feminism in Poland.

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

Why Anarchism?

 

    

       From the home page of Radical Glasgow's Anarchist Critic:

WHY ANARCHISM?

Freedom and Equality

     Fundamentally, anarchism is the struggle for freedom. Freedom from rulers and corporations who dominate our lives and are destroying our earth. Freedom for workers, women, and all oppressed people in all parts of the world. We believe that this sort of freedom can only be achieved together with equality and a fair distribution of resources.

Individual and Collective

     Anarchists believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of the individual. But this dignity and humanity can only be fully realised in a co-operative, egalitarian society. This is why we are in favour of working together collectively and being organised. It is incorrect to equate anarchism with individualism or chaos.

Revolution

     Anarchists understand that this truly free and equal society can only be achieved through revolution – meaning a complete transformation of society. This society cannot be ‘given’ to the people by politicians or bureaucrats. It must be built by people from below.

Change by Direct Action

     Anarchism opposes the violence which is an integral part of capitalism and the state (this violence comes in many forms: war, patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends – in other words, the way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action – action taken by everyday people to address the power imbalance in present day society. This includes strikes, boycott’s, work-to-rule’s and occupations.

The Past

     Both authoritarian communism (as in Russia, China etc.) and ‘labourism’ (ie. The labour parties of the world), have failed to solve our global crisis. We need a different path to a better world. Anarchism offers itself as a guide on that path.

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

International Women's Day.

To mark March 8th. International Women's Day

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

Glasgow, International Women's Day- March 8th.

Wikipedia:
        International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year.[3] It is a focal point in the movement for women's rights.
       After the Socialist Party of America organised a Women's Day on February 28, 1909 in New York, the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference suggested a Women's Day be held annually. After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted in 1975 by the United Nations.
      Today, International Women's Day is a public holiday in some countries and largely ignored elsewhere.[4] In some places, it is a day of protest; in others, it is a day that celebrates womanhood. 

      If you are in Glasgow on that particular day, why not swell the numbers for women's rights, which are human rights, take part in Glasgow's celebration of International Women's Day? 

    In honour of International Women's Day-- Friday, 8 March-- a Rally and Walk of Pride will be assembling at 12 Noon in the Glasgow City Centre at the Dewar's statue in Buchanan Street.
      All are welcome to come together for singing, an open mic, a display of banners and placards, and leaflets on the history of this international holiday, and the ongoing importance of speaking out and fighting back against the twin evils of capitalism and patriarchy.
     This will be followed by a Walk of Pride through George Square to the City Chambers to honour, in song and in spirit, ourselves, each other, and all lovers of liberty and equality. Please join us as we demand respect and our rights: in our homes, our neighbourhoods, and our workplaces.
     More information on this event, and the Industrial Workers of the World, is available from https://iwwscotland.wordpress.com/

   

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

A "MIXED RACE" Princess!!!!

       Not a subject that I tend to get involved with, except to show my disgust. However, sometimes it is difficult to keep your mouth shut. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media is gushing and glowing with their favourite subject, the UK's largest benefit family, the Windsors. It seems that one of their family has selected his heir producing machine, much to the jubilation of the rest of the family and the established power mongers. My my, aren't our royals very modern, this is the first time in its long history of parasite living, that one of the inner circle has chosen a bride of "MIXED RACE", how daring, how modern. I got a bit confused, I thought that there was only one race, the human race. Of course being a member of a family that presided over an empire where we had to control and exploit millions of "lesser beings", it must be difficult for them to see those lesser beings with a different coloured skin, as equal, after all we used to own them. The fact that this "MIXED RACE" is mentioned just puts on display the rampant racism among this whole circle of parasites and their puppets.

      I wonder how many of our ordinary citizens have been equally "modern" by marrying a partner of "MIXED RACE", but never got a mention in our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media?

     This whole charade of "special" people awash in wealth plundered from the public purse, that we are obliged to continue to fund and hold in some special respect belongs to a rather distant past, and is due being dismantled. How do you respect parasites of these gigantic proportions?

 By the people for the people! So we pick up the bill.

Just another day in the life of an ordinary family, but we pick up the bill.

A friendly chat before heading off to the pub, but we pick up the bill. 

 

A Poem For International Women's Day, 2017.

      Another poem for International Women's Day,  thanks Loam for reminding me of this one.


You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou.

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

International Women's Day, 2017.

 

          It is a strange world where approximately 50% of its population is deemed less valuable than the other 50%. What kind of species are we that thinks one half of our kind, is worth more than the other half? It is impossible to rationalise this sort of thinking, it is simple beyond reason, for us to regain our sanity this sort of thinking has to go.

         A poem for International Women's Day, first read at an International Women's Day celebration at Joy Kogawa House in 2015,

I want to write a poem for every girl and woman today
Who has been told she can't attend school although her brothers can;
Who has had acid thrown on her dreams;
Who has been shot in the head for thinking;
Who is forced into marriage as if her life weren't her own;
Who is bought, who is sold;
Who weeps or who can no longer weep
because of the men who trespass her body;
Who is beaten and fearful; who is beaten, but fearless;
Who is starved because she speaks out, speaks back, just speaks;
Whose house is bombed, whose village is razed;
Who is stoned for adultery because she is pregnant;
Who is stoned for a rape that male judges call adultery;
Whose family erases her, whose community evicts her;
Who has just enough money for a single egg;
Who carefully slices that egg for her children to eat;
Who is denied a single day off work;
Who takes on three jobs to keep her family off the street;
Who is whipped by her boss after days without sleep;
Who watches over our children in manicured playgrounds
while her own grow up motherless;
Who lies locked for months alone in a cell;
Who huddles into herself with eyes like trampled flowers;
Whose mind is trapped in the shuddering loop of annihilating night;
Who is told she is nothing when she is everything;
Who is told she is dirt, when she is the Earth.

Fiona Tinwei Lam.

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

A Call To Rape!!!!

         What would you do if you entered a fast food chain and it was decorated with the following slogans?

A CALL TO RAPE:

“LOVE IS A SPORT, ESPECIALLY WHEN ONE OF THE TWO DOESN’T WANT IT”

MACHISM :

“THERE ARE 3 CATEGORIES OF WOMEN: WHORES, SLUTS AND PAINS IN THE ASS”.

Whores sleep with everyone, sluts sleep with everyone except with you, the pains in the ass only sleep with you. “

“I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE GAYS! “

       That couldn't happen in this day and age, I hear you say. Sorry you're wrong, commercialism will pander to any depth of depravity to make a buck. Obviously, in the circumstances, you would ask for it to be redecorated, politely of course. Apparently there is such a chain in France, Le Bagelstein, and when four students complained to the manager, he called the police and the students were arrested. What a perverse society we live in, when objecting to a call for rape gets you arrested.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

         On the night of Saturday, June 18, the Bagelstein of Old Lille was suddenly redecorated with multicoloured paint and its lock was sabotaged echoing the Rennes demo and the Nantes action that took place the same day.
IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE IMPRISONED OF BAGELSTEIN IN RENNES
         In Rennes May 26, 4 people get jail after an altercation with the manager of the fast-food “le Bagelstein”. Following accusations by feminists of the “deco” of the fast food chain with serious sexist and homophobic propos affixed to the walls and restaurant accessories, four students come to see this “decoration” for themselves, that goes as far as to call to rape. After some of the students’ remarks, the manager insults them and threatens them right till the arrival of the BAC. The four young people are embarked unceremoniously, direction custody, court, prison.
        The judge sentenced them to months in prison for the “violence in numbers during demonstration” (? !! ??? !!) because of their involvement in the protests against the labour law. The trial does not even talk about the reason for their presence at the scene (to denounce the sexist and homophobic communication of “bagelstein”). Once again, the court of Rennes has instructed a political trial, aiming to make these four students pay for the “malaise”, the “blues”, the “fatigue” of traders from the city centre because of the mobilization against “Job Law!” which has gone on for three months.

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

  

Object.

The latest from Circled A Radio, this episode is on feminism.

         On this show Yodet Gherez interviews a representative of The feminist organisation Object, Beattie Baraki! Object formed in 2004 and united London-based feminist groups in campaigns, and gained over 15 hundred members. The organisation is an award-winning human rights organization specifically set up to challenge the sexual objectification of women in the media and popular culture, the main-streaming of the sex industries, and all forms of commercial sexual exploitation by combining high-end lobbying and grass-roots activism.

LISTEN HERE:

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

Enough Is Enough.

        Thinking of those pampered parasites draped in ermine, those corporate bosses with their private jets and yachts, those rich callous MPs, legislating life and death for the poor, those bonuses for the rich and austerity for the many. If it was a story written for TV, I could understand it, but a reality created by the sweat and labour of the many, it beggars belief. 

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

MUST WE TOLERATE

the giggling audacity of the rich

midst the pitiful anguish of the poor,

those boated cavaliers

using pillage to secure

their lives of arrogant excess,

a pirate's plundering tour.

WHERE IS IT WRITTEN

that this world must be

a place where the many toil and sweat

grinding out their meagre existence

in poverty, hunger and debt,

while the hubristic greedy few

live the life of a pampered pet.

LET'S TRY AGAIN

no more war, no deprivation

a world of sharing, a world of giving

a chance for all to grow and prosper

in a culture of friendship and forgiving.

With true love and understanding

we can create a new way of living. 

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

Need Or Desire!!!

       Saw this on Arrezafe, and thought it accurately explains what is wrong in this insane capitalist system we exist under. A system that can't distinguish between need and desire.

Do not waste it----

 Millionaires need it-------

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