Bolt-hole.

        It is easy to find inequalities and injustices in this society, they are all around us. Some glaringly obvious, but others tucked away in some idyllic spot on the planet. These short quotes from a Financial Times article 12th.-13th. September, yes I do read it from time to time, highlights the gross inequality that is created by our billionaire parasite class.

     "When the world is so affected [by Covid19] we have no right to rejoice," said one private banker. "But we will have a very good year" sales of Monaco's notoriously expensive apartments are also holding up."

     Among the UK's ultra-rich who make Monaco their safe, secure bolt-hole is Philip Green, of BHS pension fund fame.

    "The pandemic has plunged economies into recession but the strong performance of global financial markets has in many cases increased the wealth of the ultra-rich, and highlighted the attractions of bolt-holes such as Monaco that promise personal safety through strict policing and video surveillance as well as as financial protection and excellent healthcare"

   and

       "Herve Ordioni, who heads a committee for promotion of Monaco as a financial centre and is also chief executive of the local operation of Edmond de Rothschild, said that his staff had to deal with six times as much trading as normal during the lockdown. "It was massive," he said. "We had an unbelievable amount of activity." "

     All this luxurious pandering, financial security, excellent healthcare, to a small parasite class, while in this country, as in ever other country, millions are struggling to put food on the table. Millions face a life of misery, deprivation and absolutely no security what so ever. Can anyone explain to me why we should put up with such a callous, brutal, exploitative system. Especially when we know there are alternatives. There is not enough outright anger on the streets yet, but hopefully it is coming and soon. 

     How about one of these, just to get away from it all for a while? 

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

Class.

 
     Those on the right of the political spectrum will always spout that there is no such thing as class, we are all able to do well in this capitalist system, if we just work hard enough. Sadly there are those on the left of the political spectrum who claim that class is an out modded term and doesn't apply to today's social structure. Nothing could be further from the truth, class is the only way to show clearly the two sides of this exploitative system, and to explain clearly which side you are on in this struggle for justice and equality. 

      One class may have differing variations of wealth but still belong to that class which is has no real power in how the system works and are open to the exploitation of the wealthy and powerful controlling class, and will always have to struggle and fight just to have a half decent quality of life with millions failing to even reach that level. The other class will always have wealth and power, and defend it with what ever means are necessary, no matter the poverty of the many that there actions invariably cause.
      Determined and constant struggle, organisation, solidarity and direct action to bring down this capitalist exploitative system, in other words, a full scale class war, will bring an end to the gross inequality and injustice that plagues the lives of the many,

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

Fueling Hatred.

       What makes you hate a system? I suppose we all come at it in our own way. I took to anarchism at the age of 17 as a apprentice in the shipyards, these views were reinforced after I left the yards and became a door to door salesman. Below I will relate very briefly some of the experiences that hardened that hatred of the system and done much to strengthen my love of anarchism. They are not in any chronological order, just as they come to mind. Nor are they limited to Glasgow, these scenes were repeated in other districts where I knocked on doors for a living, Coatbridge, Airdrie, Port Glasgow, Greenock, and so the dreadful scenes kept repeating themselves.

      1. Entering the "single end", I found myself in a square room with no furniture except for a wooden kitchen chair, where the woman sat tearing up waxcloth to throw on the fire to try and heat the place. I then became aware of a bundle of coats lying on the floor in the corner and noticed to little heads sleeping huddled beneath the coats.

     2. As I entered the house a voice said, "watch your feet" and I noticed that there were hardly any floorboards in the hallway, and a young boy was in the kitchen chopping them up to burn to keep warm. In the living room with a couple of chairs, there was a wire coming in the window from the house above. The electricity had been cut off and they paid the woman above a few shillings every week  so that they could have some light and the radio.

   3. A house I entered and stood in the hall while the man, trousers down below his navel, and a t-shirt well above it, displaying a blackened stomach where you could see the cleaner lines where the sweat had created little rivers. As he looked for some documentation, which was never forthcoming, my attention was drawn to a kitchen cabinet in the hall, the type with glass doors and a drop-down front. The glass had long gone, and the front was open, while looking at the bits and pieces of food lying there I also noticed maggots crawling among the scraps. Then a little white face appear looking in a puzzled manner at me, it wore nothing but a very short vest, was filthy and pale white, obviously had never seen the outside.

     My memory is filled with such visions of abject poverty and deprivation I witnessed on a daily basis. This while Glasgow was a bustling industrial city, with wealth pouring into the coffers of our lords and masters. Our politicians preaching about eliminating child poverty, all those years ago, and here we are in the 21st. century with approximately 25% of our child population living below the poverty line. Talk about hypocrisy and empty promises. When will we ever learn.

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

Crazy World.

       When you survey the world we live in you see so much blatant injustice, poverty, corruption, greed, violence and inequality, in the midst of unimaginable wealth. You see and hear the wealthy being applauded for their pilfering and greed, and you ask yourself, why do we tolerate this plundering of the common wealth by the greedy few. We could all write volumes of the way the world is being destroyed by that greedy few. There is another way to live, we could put it all right if we the many would only rise up and take control. There is a better world in all our hearts, we just need the courage to take control and start to build it here and now.

 THIS CRAZY WORLD.

In this crazy world,
             half dead from dereliction
             half brutalised from deprivation
             half drowned in a sea of greed
             half devoured by perpetual need.
Where
             war shrieks from East to West
             famine seldom seems to rest
             hunger stalks the layman’s life
             poverty kills with a silent knife.
We find
            a pompous pampered arrogant clique
            live a life that’s smooth and sleek
            far removed from want and fear,
            bought with another’s sweat and tear.
Yet
            not a word do they speak
            to aid the fallen or the weak
            preferring to kneel at luxury’s shrine
            repeating their mantra, “This is mine”.
Now watch them
            peddle lies of tongue and pen
            slyly hoard their plunder then
            with spurious sanctimonious phrase
            shed crocodile tears at man’s malaise.
Where
            is it written that masses must sweat
            deprivation and misery a constant threat
            covering the world in measureless wealth
            so the few can plunder with avid stealth?
In friendship
            let’s clasp each human hand
            with compassion try to understand
            our differences, our hopes, our fears
            dragging mankind from this sea of tears.
Creating
            a world where justice flowers
            the many reap the fruits of toiling hours
            a world of sharing, tending the others need
            an end to privilege, plunder and greed.

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

The Crowd.

        I have always maintained, in this capitalist society, that dissatisfaction and anger is always present, simmering just below the surface. Sometime it displays itself in a small burst, isolated and then quietly fades, sometimes it can be a mass display by a large group of people, finds its way into the media, and then disappears. Then there are those times of course when it is an explosion of released energy fueled by anger and fury, thousands take to the streets and, like in Chile recently, attack the symbols of the system, they burn banks, police stations and loot shops. No matter how small or how large, they are all part of that discontent and subdued anger. Sooner or later it will explode and the existing system will not be able to put its exploitative and repressive parts together again. Well that, in my mind, is the aim of all those bursts of anger, large or small.

I Am The Crowd.

I am the crowd

I swim in the quagmire of poverty

its hooks, its barbs, tear my flesh

rupture my dreams,

I hold my breath for centuries

hoping to break through, gasp pure air.

Through the murky mire

I see bright things, shiny things sparkle

I see women in fine dresses, men in silk shirts

I ask myself,

why do I swim in this cesspool?

I want the light and warmth of rectitude

to caress my labouring body,

seeds of my dreams to bloom

like wild flowers in a meadow.

One day I will use my boundless strength

to haul this torn, battered being

out of the morass

onto the warm grassy bank,

when I do;

woe betide you, women in fine dresses

woe betide you mister in your fine silk shirt

should you ever try to get in my way,

for I am the strength of the world, I am the crowd. 

       The following is a piece on one of those small bursts of anger, a small display of that underlying discontent that one day will explode.

From 325:

Amazon Vans Sabotaged in Solidarity with Striking Workers by Lorenzo Orsetti Anarchist Brigade: North Carolina (USA)

      We are seldom compelled to claim the ways we choose to attack. We are not specialists, nor anarchists isolated from the acts of sabotage and theft that we know occur daily by employees within the Amazon monster. We generally prefer our actions to be just another strike amongst the many, adding to the already existent chorus of rage and discontent. As the crisis deepens and the feelings of isolation and helplessness appear to be sinking in, it is important to remember that one way of regaining agency in our lives is through attack and disruption.

      It is not only the corona virus that is making our lives unbearable, but even more so, it is our continued daily lives under capitalism and state control. Amazon and other tech companies are exploiting the virus, accumulating unheard- of profits and pushing their nightmare tech world. Amazon claims to provide a safe future for society all the while continuing to put its lowest paid employees in danger of infection, biding their time until they can eliminate those positions completely and replace them with automation and robots.

Along with all these reasons, we chose to sneak into one of Amazon’s parking areas and slash the tires of eight delivery vans – for the sheer pleasure of feeling alive and for the continuation of resistance during a confusing time. We know this is just one drop in a vast sea, but to quote a fallen comrade, “Always remember that ‘every storm begins with a single raindrop.’ And try to be that raindrop yourself.”

In solidarity with the striking Amazon workers!

       For ourselves and towards an eternal mayday for all of us!

– Lorenzo Orsetti Anarchist Brigade in North Carolina

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

Why I'm An Anarchist.

       I lifted this straight from Dog Section Press, away back in June 2019, but considering the way things are going right now, I thought it worth repeating.
       There is nothing I could say about the article, except just read it, and start to think for yourself.

     Why I'm An Anarchist by Benjamin Zephaniah

         I got political after I suffered my first racist attack at the age of seven. I didn’t understand any political theory, I just knew that I had been wronged, and I knew there was another way. A few years later, when I was fifteen a marked police car pulled up to me as I walked in Birmingham in the early hours of the morning, three cops got out of the car, they pushed me into a shop doorway, then they beat me up. They got back into their car, and drove off as if nothing had happened. I had read nothing about policing policy, or anything on so-called law and order, I just knew I had been wronged. When I got my first job as a painter, I had read nothing on the theory of working class struggles or how the rich exploited the poor, but when my boss turned up every other day in a different supercar, and we were risking our lives up ladders and breathing in toxic fumes, I just knew I had been wronged.
        I grew up (like most people around me) believing Anarchism meant everyone just going crazy, and the end of everything. I am very dyslexic so I often have to use a spellchecker or a dictionary to make sure I’ve written words correctly. I was hearing words like Socialism and Communism all the time, but even the Socialists and Communists that I came across tended to dismiss Anarchists as either a fringe group, who they always blamed if there was trouble on demonstrations, or dreamers. Even now, I just checked a spellchecker and it describes Anarchism as chaos, lawlessness, mayhem, and disorder. I like the disorder thing, but for the ‘average’ person, disorder does mean chaos, lawlessness, and mayhem. The very things they’re told to fear the most.
        The greatest thing I’ve ever done for myself is to learn how to think for myself. I began to do that at an early age, but it’s really difficult to do that when there are things around you all the time telling you how to think. Capitalism is seductive. It limits your imagination, and then tells you that you should feel free because you have choices, but your choices are limited to the products they put before you, or the limits of your now limited imagination. I remember visiting São Paulo many years ago when it introduced its Clean City Law. The mayor didn’t suddenly become an Anarchist, but he did realise that the continuous and ubiquitous marketing people were subjected to was not just ugly, but distracting people from themselves. So more than 15,000 marketing billboards were taken down. Buses, taxis, neon and paper poster advertisements were all banned. At first it looked a little odd, but instead of either looking at, or trying not to look at advertising broads, I walked, and as I walked I looked around me. I found that I only purchased what I really needed, not what I was told I needed, and what was most noticeable was that I met and talked to new people every day. These conversations tended to be relevant, political, and meaningful. Capitalism keeps us in competition with each other, and the people who run Capitalism don’t really want us to talk to each other, not in a meaningful way.
       I’m not going to go on about Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism, but it is clear that one thing they all have in common is their need for power. Then to back up their drive for power they all have theories, theories about taking power and what they want to do with power, but therein lies the problem. Theories and power. I became an Anarchist when I decided to drop the theories and stop seeking power. When I stopped concerning myself with those things I realised that true Anarchy is my nature. It is our nature. It is what we were doing before the theories arrived, it is what we were doing before we were encouraged to be in competition with each other. There have been some great things written about Anarchism, and I guess that’s Anarchist theory, but when I try to get my friends to read these things (I’m talking about big books with big words), they get headaches and turn away. So, then I turn off the advertising (the TV etc.) and sit with them, and remind them of what they can do for themselves. I give them examples of people who live without governments, people who organise themselves, people who have taken back their own spiritual identity – and then it all makes sense.
            If we keep talking about theories then we can only talk to people who are aware of those theories, or have theories of their own, and if we keep talking in the round about theories we exclude a lot of people. The very people we need to reach, the very people who need to rid themselves of the shackles of modern, Capitalistic slavery. The story of Carne Ross is inspiring, not because he wrote something, but because he lived it. I love the work of Noam Chomsky and I love the way that Stuart Christie’s granny made him an Anarchist, but I’m here because I understand that the racist police who beat me have the state behind them, and the state itself is racist. I’m here because I now understand that the boss-man who exploited me to make himself rich didn’t care about me. I’m here because I know how the Marrons in Jamaica freed themselves and took to the hills and proved to all enslaved people that they (the Marrons), could manage themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love books (I’m a writer, by the way), and I know we need people who think deeply – we should all think deeply. But my biggest inspirations come from everyday people who stop seeking power for themselves, or seeking the powerful to rescue them, and they do life for themselves. I have met people who live Anarchism in India, Kenya, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and in Papua New Guinea, but when I tell them they are Anarchists most will tell me they have not heard of such a word, and what they are doing is natural and uncomplicated. I’m an Anarchist because I’ve been wronged, and I’ve seen everything else fail.
           I spent the late seventies and the eighties living in London with many exiled ANC activists – after a long struggle Nelson Mandela was freed and the exiles returned home. I remember looking at a photo of the first democratically elected government in South Africa and realising that I knew two thirds of them. I also remember seeing a photo of the newly elected Blair (New Labour) government and realising that I knew a quarter of them, and on both occasions I remember how I was filled with hope. But in both cases it didn’t take long to see how power corrupted so many members of those governments. These were people I would call and say, “Hey, what are you doing?”, and the reply was always something along the lines of, “Benjamin, you don’t understand how having power works”. Well I do. Fuck power, and lets just take care of each other.
           Most people know that politics is failing. That’s not a theory or my point of view. They can see it, they can feel it. The problem is they just can’t imagine an alternative. They lack confidence. I simply blanked out all the advertising, I turned off the ‘tell-lie-vision’, and I started to think for myself. Then I really started to meet people – and, trust me, there is nothing as great as meeting people who are getting on with their lives, running farms, schools, shops, and even economies, in communities where no one has power.

That’s why I’m an Anarchist.

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

Vultures Don't Feed Lambs.

       The Mirror newspaper published an article recently, and I wonder why, perhaps they thought it was "news". What the Mirror doesn't seem to realise is that every ordinary person in the UK knows that poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that child poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that pensioner poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that people with disabilities are finding it harder to make ends meet. So where is the news? It would have been better had they pointed to the real causes and the only remedy, get rid of the economic system that creates these problems.
       They take their facts from a recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report. The report states that over the last 5 years poverty has increased for pensioners and children. It also states despite rising employment, in-work poverty has also risen, and it doesn't take an economic expert to see this is down to the fact that inadequate pay, hours and/or both these factors. It has now reached the point where more than 50% of the people living in poverty are in a working family, this is up from 39% 20 years ago, now there's capitalist progress for you.

      Other interesting facts from the every day life of people in the UK, there are more than 4,500 people sleeping rough on the streets of England alone. 14 million people here in the UK are living in poverty, an increase of 400,000, over the last 5 years, there are 4 million children living in poverty, an increase of 300,000 over the same period. The report also states that people are more likely to be living in poverty if they are in a family where there is a disabled person or a carer.
     Now try as you may to equate that with one of the richest countries in the world  and a supposed highly developed and civilised country. We live in a society where deprivation and opulence live cheek-by-jowl and the capitalist system has proved over the centuries that it can't remedy this disparity. This inequality has increased and will continue to increase as long as we tolerate a economic system that has as its foundation the creating of wealth for the few at the expense of the many. the building bricks of capitalism is exploitation of the many by the few, and the above figures are not an unavoidable accident, they are an ideological choice, the inevitable consequences of such an economic system. How much longer will we accept the poverty of our friends and family, the stunting of the potential of our children and the abandonment of our elderly, while the perpetrators live a life of obscene opulence with private jets, luxury yachts and  private estates. The remedy is in our own hands, don't expect the vultures to feed the lambs.

   

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

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

The System Is People.

      What a crazy insane world we live in. A world awash with wealth all gravitating to a few humans, while millions of people live in deprivation and misery. Looking rationally at the situation today you have to scratch your head in disbelief and ask yourself, how did we let this happen. In this world today we have approximately over 2,200 (USD) billionaires, that's a lot of wealth in the hands of so few. Add to this the fact that we have somewhere between, 14 to 18 million, millionaires. Think of that in total wealth and ask yourself what could that do to help eradicate the deprivation and misery experienced on a daily basis by millions of ordinary people. 

       Of course we often say it is the system and lambast the system. However we should not forget that the system is not an inanimate "thing", the system is people. The system is those billionaires and millionaires, all with names and faces, who hoard caches of wealth in tax havens, wealth they plunder from the ordinary working people. It is an impossibility for any individual to go out and work hard and amass a billion dollars, all by their own efforts, without exploiting the effort of others. My father worked really hard all his life as a coal miner, we never amassed a fortune. 

       The system will be defended ferociously by those names and faces that hold all that plundered wealth, all those billionaires and millionaires, they are the system, they are the perpetrators of all that deprivation and misery on this planet, they are the enemy of the ordinary people. Don't be fooled by their minions and puppets who call for the rich to pay more taxes, that is just the system offering the ordinary people a paracetamol. It is simply a straight forward class war between the ordinary people and that band of greed driven plunderers. 

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

Why I'm An Anarchist.

 

          I lifted this straight from Dog Section Press, there is nothing I could say about the article, except to say just read it.

Why I'm An Anarchist by Benjamin Zephaniah

         I got political after I suffered my first racist attack at the age of seven. I didn’t understand any political theory, I just knew that I had been wronged, and I knew there was another way. A few years later, when I was fifteen a marked police car pulled up to me as I walked in Birmingham in the early hours of the morning, three cops got out of the car, they pushed me into a shop doorway, then they beat me up. They got back into their car, and drove off as if nothing had happened. I had read nothing about policing policy, or anything on so-called law and order, I just knew I had been wronged. When I got my first job as a painter, I had read nothing on the theory of working class struggles or how the rich exploited the poor, but when my boss turned up every other day in a different supercar, and we were risking our lives up ladders and breathing in toxic fumes, I just knew I had been wronged.
        I grew up (like most people around me) believing Anarchism meant everyone just going crazy, and the end of everything. I am very dyslexic so I often have to use a spellchecker or a dictionary to make sure I’ve written words correctly. I was hearing words like Socialism and Communism all the time, but even the Socialists and Communists that I came across tended to dismiss Anarchists as either a fringe group, who they always blamed if there was trouble on demonstrations, or dreamers. Even now, I just checked a spellchecker and it describes Anarchism as chaos, lawlessness, mayhem, and disorder. I like the disorder thing, but for the ‘average’ person, disorder does mean chaos, lawlessness, and mayhem. The very things they’re told to fear the most.
        The greatest thing I’ve ever done for myself is to learn how to think for myself. I began to do that at an early age, but it’s really difficult to do that when there are things around you all the time telling you how to think. Capitalism is seductive. It limits your imagination, and then tells you that you should feel free because you have choices, but your choices are limited to the products they put before you, or the limits of your now limited imagination. I remember visiting São Paulo many years ago when it introduced its Clean City Law. The mayor didn’t suddenly become an Anarchist, but he did realise that the continuous and ubiquitous marketing people were subjected to was not just ugly, but distracting people from themselves. So more than 15,000 marketing billboards were taken down. Buses, taxis, neon and paper poster advertisements were all banned. At first it looked a little odd, but instead of either looking at, or trying not to look at advertising broads, I walked, and as I walked I looked around me. I found that I only purchased what I really needed, not what I was told I needed, and what was most noticeable was that I met and talked to new people every day. These conversations tended to be relevant, political, and meaningful. Capitalism keeps us in competition with each other, and the people who run Capitalism don’t really want us to talk to each other, not in a meaningful way.
       I’m not going to go on about Capitalism, Socialism, or Communism, but it is clear that one thing they all have in common is their need for power. Then to back up their drive for power they all have theories, theories about taking power and what they want to do with power, but therein lies the problem. Theories and power. I became an Anarchist when I decided to drop the theories and stop seeking power. When I stopped concerning myself with those things I realised that true Anarchy is my nature. It is our nature. It is what we were doing before the theories arrived, it is what we were doing before we were encouraged to be in competition with each other. There have been some great things written about Anarchism, and I guess that’s Anarchist theory, but when I try to get my friends to read these things (I’m talking about big books with big words), they get headaches and turn away. So, then I turn off the advertising (the TV etc.) and sit with them, and remind them of what they can do for themselves. I give them examples of people who live without governments, people who organise themselves, people who have taken back their own spiritual identity – and then it all makes sense.
            If we keep talking about theories then we can only talk to people who are aware of those theories, or have theories of their own, and if we keep talking in the round about theories we exclude a lot of people. The very people we need to reach, the very people who need to rid themselves of the shackles of modern, Capitalistic slavery. The story of Carne Ross is inspiring, not because he wrote something, but because he lived it. I love the work of Noam Chomsky and I love the way that Stuart Christie’s granny made him an Anarchist, but I’m here because I understand that the racist police who beat me have the state behind them, and the state itself is racist. I’m here because I now understand that the boss-man who exploited me to make himself rich didn’t care about me. I’m here because I know how the Marrons in Jamaica freed themselves and took to the hills and proved to all enslaved people that they (the Marrons), could manage themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love books (I’m a writer, by the way), and I know we need people who think deeply – we should all think deeply. But my biggest inspirations come from everyday people who stop seeking power for themselves, or seeking the powerful to rescue them, and they do life for themselves. I have met people who live Anarchism in India, Kenya, Jamaica, Ethiopia, and in Papua New Guinea, but when I tell them they are Anarchists most will tell me they have not heard of such a word, and what they are doing is natural and uncomplicated. I’m an Anarchist because I’ve been wronged, and I’ve seen everything else fail.
           I spent the late seventies and the eighties living in London with many exiled ANC activists – after a long struggle Nelson Mandela was freed and the exiles returned home. I remember looking at a photo of the first democratically elected government in South Africa and realising that I knew two thirds of them. I also remember seeing a photo of the newly elected Blair (New Labour) government and realising that I knew a quarter of them, and on both occasions I remember how I was filled with hope. But in both cases it didn’t take long to see how power corrupted so many members of those governments. These were people I would call and say, “Hey, what are you doing?”, and the reply was always something along the lines of, “Benjamin, you don’t understand how having power works”. Well I do. Fuck power, and lets just take care of each other.
           Most people know that politics is failing. That’s not a theory or my point of view. They can see it, they can feel it. The problem is they just can’t imagine an alternative. They lack confidence. I simply blanked out all the advertising, I turned off the ‘tell-lie-vision’, and I started to think for myself. Then I really started to meet people – and, trust me, there is nothing as great as meeting people who are getting on with their lives, running farms, schools, shops, and even economies, in communities where no one has power.

That’s why I’m an Anarchist.

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

A War Only We The People Can End.

          For centuries vast swaths of the working class have been subservient under the illusion that their problems can be solved by relying on organisations and political parties external to their own class. For too long solving our problems has been theorised and delegated to groups with tenuous, fragile and sometimes fictional, connections to our class, who claim to have our interests at heart, with the only result possible, we lose control of those struggles, and our problems remain.
           The solving of the problems of our class can only be achieved by basing all our strategies on a class based structure, with all the working class involved in an active struggle.
            History tells us that the lines are drawn between the working class and the establishment, and all those organisations outside our class, no matter their proclamations, in the final battle will capitulate to the power of the state to preserve their position and their organisation. There is a war going on, continuously, and world wide, and it is waged by a class of powerful established states and corporations, against the ordinary people, the dispossessed, the working class. There is no middle ground, to believe there is, is to allow inequality and exploitation to continue.
        To win that better world for all, we have to see and recognise that battle line, the line between the classes, and take our stand united on our side of the battle line. We are involve in a war, if we fail to recognise its class structure, it is a war we can never win. To the ordinary people of this world, there can be only one war, the class war.

 

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Has The Time For Words Passed?

          In the face of so much oppression, unnecessary suffering, injustice and raw exploitation, and a heart that is bursting with passion for justice and freedom, I’m finding it difficulty to keep my mouth shut. How can you shut out all the unnecessary misery in this world, how can you turn a blind eye to the cause, especially as the cause of all this suffering in wars and deprivation is simple to see, capitalism. Capitalism is the root cause of practically all our problems, to remedy that situation you have to kill the root, not try to prune some of its malignant twigs. 

           I always find it puzzling that a system that produces so much poverty, misery and exploitation, while fabricating endless wars, all for the wealth and power of the few, continues functioning. Where is the righteous anger of the crowd, the ordinary people, who exist in the exploitation, misery and poverty, and whose family and friends have their blood shed to feed these endless wars? They could bring the system down tomorrow if they so desired. It is a system where our pleasures are enjoyed under the shadow of dark deeds done thousands of miles away. These deserts of poverty and deprivation, these lands of blood soaked soil, this world of oppression, are not brought about by some mechanical device or natural occurrence, but by humans, sitting in plush offices, making decisions based on personal gain, decisions devoid of humanity. Deprivation, poverty, oppression and exploitation are not diseases, they are the result of human decisions. These people, along with our political ballerinas who pander to their every desire, must be named shamed and brought to task, for the savage brutality they have heaped on the ordinary people of this world, merely to satisfy their own greed, wealth and power. 

         I sincerely believe that the time for talking and reasoning with the irrational greed driven cabal that is driving this world to destruction, has passed. That which is held by faith or belief, cannot be dislodged by reason, the powerful warmongering cabal that control this vicious system are helpless and blind to reason’s bright light. Over the centuries, we the ordinary people have pleaded, argued, and reasoned for a fairer society, our request and pleadings have often been met with the brutal might of the state, with savage force attempting to silence our reasoning. As we are, after those centuries of seeking justice, still mired in exploitation, poverty, deprivation and the savagery of endless wars, surely the time has come to admit, that our pleadings, requests and reasoning have failed miserably. 

        Will we continue to reason with the irrational? Will we still appeal with dialogue against the brutality of the state? Will we harbour the thought that the rich and powerful will turn rational and compassionate, and decide to share that wealth and power with us lower mortals? History has your answer.

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

 

No War But Class War.

       Under capitalism, the festering cancer that dominates our lives, the ordinary people fight a multitude of battles, there are plenty of injustices to pick from. There is racism, sexism, patriarchy, gender problems, inequality, injustice, militarism, and so the list goes on. All of these struggles are important, but winning one or all of them, will not bring this corrupt exploitative system crumbling down. There is the core battle that has to be fought, and that one struggle is the only struggle that will free us from the crushing power of the capitalist system. We have to realise that it is a class based system, that is its foundation, it ability to function. We are its serfs, its peasants, its slaves, and no matter how many injustices we manage to right, the same class system will still be in place. There is an "elite" of privileged parasites who control every aspect of our lives, and we feed them generously. Until we eradicate that class bases of our society, we will never be free, we will always have injustices and exploitation as the norm of our lives. Class war is the only road to demolish this needless burden on the shoulders of humanity.

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

From Hero To Rogue, The Working Class Journey.

 

          A poem from a previous generation, though written about the miners, it applies equally to all members of of the toiling class in this stinking exploitative system. 

The Miners.

Ye're heroes, aye, ye're heroes,

When workin' doon the mine.

They slap yer back an' praise ye,

Ye're gallant lads an' fine,

Toilin' there among the damp

Where nane o' them wid daur,

Ye're heroes, aye, ye're heroes,

When gettin' coals for war.

They humour ye, an' praise ye,

As ye keep the bunkers fu',

An' the convoys bring the foostuffs

That they ration out to you;

Or the troopships tak' yer brithers

To the battlefields afaur,

Ye're heroes, aye, ye're heroes

When gettin' coals for war.

They'll promise ye high heaven

As the furnace flames ye feed,

In a world that's mad wi' murder,

Truth is sacrificed to greed;

As factories belch their smoke-clouds

An' their profits daily soar,

Ye're heroes, aye, ye're heroes,

When gettin' coals for war.

It was yince a different story----

Das ye mind their hunnish tricks?

They battoned ye in "Twenty-one",

Ye were jailed in "Twenty-six",

Did they aid ye in the "Thirties",

As yer miseries did increase?

Ye were traitors, rogues, an' workshies

In pipin' days o' peace.

They flatter to deceive ye,

Their creed is aye the same;

Watch them when the victory's won,

The'll try the same old game

Forget their rosy promises-----

Remind them if ye daur,

An' see how they treat the heroes

Who produced the coals for war.

James Mitchell.

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