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.

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Class War.

  A little message lifted from Act For Freedom Now.

 Destroy Borders. Destroy Slavery!

Xenophobia, hierarchy, and racism
cannot be fought with fratricidal wars
sworn on bibles or patriotic flags

In breaking the silence and
indifference of the civilised we want to
widen the space for revolt, increase the
possibilities for direct attack on the
pillars of this world.

The objectives can be seen everywhere
the concentration camps,
the airline companies that deport
‘aliens’, the ‘waiting zones’, the slave
traders, the lines of communications,
etc. etc.

Only through direct solidarity
will we be able to refuel the social
tempest of class war, sabotage and
relentless attack where the divisions
into nationals and foreigners, legal
immigrants and aliens dissolves in
joyous collision against the enemy
that oppresses us all.

Vagabond hearts, enemies of all
borders, the world-wide of insurgents

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Justice.

            The state is a brutal and vindictive organisation that will go to any ends to protect its claimed monopoly on power. It will create laws and punishments arbitrarily, in an attempt to crush any resistance to its  attempt to control the population and protect its wealth and power. The only road to freedom and true democracy is to resist and work towards the abolition of the whole state apparatus. Take a journey across the planet and you will come across in every so called country, similar cases of state brutality against groups and individuals who seek freedom from the control and shackles of the oppressive state apparatus, many pay with their life for persisting in their desire for freedom and justice.

             That is why all those lovers of freedom and justice should support the call for a day of action
            30th November: Day of action in solidarity with Alfredo and other comrades on hunger strike [Alfredo Cospito]

The following extract from Enough is Enough.

 

         Since 20 October, the anarchist Alfredo Cospito has been on hunger strike against his detention in total isolation and torture and against imprisonment without parole. Other detained comrades (Anna Beniamino, Ivan Alocco, Juan Sorroche and Toby Shone) as a sign of solidarity and to give strength to Alfredo’s struggle, have also started a hunger strike.

          Alfredo has been in prison uninterruptedly for ten years, spent in High Security sections until his transfer to 41 bis. The 41 bis is a prison regime of annihilation, as it is designed to cause physical and mental damage through the technique of sensory deprivation; it is a political and social death sentence, aimed at cutting off all contact with the outside world.
Our comrade was transferred to these torture chambers because, despite his imprisonment, he never stopped contributing to the international anarchist debate with articles, editorial projects and proposals.
         The re-examination of the 41 bis measure against Alfredo is set for 1 December. This hearing will be very important because it will have to pronounce on the legitimacy of the previous Justice Minister Marta Cartabia’s decision to apply the 41 bis prison regime against our comrade.
         Alfredo was convicted, along with Anna Beniamino and other anarchists, in the mega trial Scripta Manent, a trial aimed at criminalising anarchist ideas and hostile practices against all forms of authority and domination. Specifically, Alfredo and Anna were accused of being responsible for the double explosive attack against the Scuola Allievi Carabinieri in Fossano, on 2 June 2006, claimed by Rivolta Anonima and Tremenda / Federazione Anarchica Informale. For this attack, on 6 July, the Court of Cassation reformulated the sentence to ‘political massacre’. Life imprisonment is the only penalty the Italian penal code provides for political massacre. After reclassifying the crime, the Cassation sent the case back to the Court of Appeal to redetermine the convictions. The hearing that will decide the extent of these sentences is set for 5 December in Turin.
         The Italian state, which has always protected the fascist strategy of mass murder, now wants to convict two anarchists of massacre for an explosive attack that caused neither victims nor injuries.

Read the full article HERE. 

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

Fantasma.

      Anarchist literature should be blowing in the wind, it should create a paper storm, it should fill the channels of communication, it should be everywhere, lying around for all and sundry to pick up, read, learn, act and pass on. Sadly, that has always been my unrealised dream. However, we can still do a wee celebratory dance when another issue of an interesting anarchist paper raises its head above the sludge of the daily deluge of the usual popcorn and bubble gum that clogs up our channels of communication. 

Welcome to the fourth edition of Fantasma all articles HERE

Fantasma Number 4, November 2020

Full readable PDF HERE:

 

LEAVING COVERED TRACKS BEHIND (EDITORIAL)

Once a again darkness soaks a new day. I open my eyes and see the past years in fast motion: the the jungle with its trees, its undergrowths and its branches which scratched my legs. These one liana which dangled not far from me while i was lost sitting on the ground. I remember like it was yesterday how I reached for it, straightened myself up and took heart again. There was wide green, high rocks, dark caves and deep canyons long after I blazed myself a trail out of the covert. All of a sudden I stepped in front of a gigantic waterfall with its tempting song of deadly maelstrom. Vainly it tried to attracted me from the waterside to ruin me. I walked on. Today the sky is cloudless and it seems to become a good day. I rub the sleep out of my eyes, listen shortly to the busy stillness and then get up from my way too soft mattress. My feet are hurting, they got sore from the long marches through the mist. But it is a good pain because it tells me that I left tracks behind. For all of those, which their life will bring on the same path. I arrived the city now, a new phase of life begins.
        Another year past since the last issue of Fantasma got published. Another year in clandestinity that hold ready lots of lessons. Exhausting lessons. Inside us there were two wolves fighting for dominance and the self-flagellation became a permanent background music.
        The next issue, come on, do the next issue!“ was the booming dogma that got louder and louder in our ears. Up until the point we had been so fed up from ourself, that we were ready to pull the plug und give up the newspaper. Paradoxically these fatalism created a moment of stillness in which we could let go; in which we were able to resolve the compulsive feeling of publishing another issue, come hell or high water. We took our hands off the wheel and relieved we were preparing us for the crash.
          To our surprise no accident was the result but finding a new route. Emotionally more distanced we gained a new momentum for the fourth issue of Fantasma without demanding anymore that it will return us to the field of social struggle. We recognize and appreciate it as a small and one-side inscribed signpost on the way into the unknown. The same as the book Incognito was a signpost for us back then, when our adventure commenced. We are also looking forward to the inscription of the other side of the signpost – from already left-behinds for (coming) left-behinds from people on the run. To talk about experiences and create some reference points what direction could be taken and what misstepts could be avoided. There is still much to say and share about it.

Until the next issue!

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

One Or T'other.

         There is no half freedom, we are either free or we are not, there is no half justice, there is either justice or there is not. We accept one or the other, freedom or its opposite, enslavement, justice or its opposite, injustice. There is no middle road to walk, accept your enslavement and injustice, or resist and fight for freedom and justice for all. There is no free world while there is one in enslavement, there is no just world when there is one injustice. I can’t walk as a free man, knowing it is a privilege to me and not to others, I can’t accept justice for myself, while others suffer injustice. We are one family and together we must fight for that freedom and justice for all. 

 

 

It's Not For Me.

I don’t want freedom that’s a privilege to me
but not for you.
I don’t want the shield of justice that’s mine
but invisible to others.
I take no comfort from a warm home
while others sleep in doorways.
My food is bitter, tasteless, unsatisfying
when I know a child is hungry.
I can't live in a land of isolated peace
as others bleed from war.
What is mine should also be yours to share
our bounty and our burdens,
happiness is an empty vacuous illusion,
if it's an island.

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Changed Patterns.

        The covid19 pandemic has certainly altered the way we live or day to day lives, sadly the remodeling of our daily patterns has not been done by us the public. This remodeling of the patterns for living has been totally orgainsed by the state, which never bodes well for our individual freedoms. Another factor in the way our lives have been patterned has been the link to the life blood of this economic system, the economy, so this has been a major aspect of how the state handles this pandemic. It is never a case of health and welfare of the people above all else. Our lives have had to be juggled with the saving of the economy. The wealth of the pampered and powerful few holds sway over the lives of the public. So "opening up" the economy will be pushed, even knowing that it could, and probably will, cause an increase in public deaths. They would rather have that, than a decrease in corporate profits.

This is the 2nd episode of Sub-Media's "system Fail":

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Politicalised In A Repression Cage.

 

        We all know that prisons are inhumane institutions of state repression. There sole purpose is to subdue the rebellious and disobedient in society, and turn them into subservient humble citizens, who will quietly follow the rules no matter what shape or form those rules take. Though that may be the aim of the state in imprisoning humans in cages, the result can quiet often be the opposite and produce a politically alert and active individual. It can sharpen the individual's awareness of the nature of the state and the cruel injustices inherent in this type of society.  

          The following is a letter first published in 325, from John Bowden, long term prisoner in the UK, one of those whose internment raised his political awareness, and far from becoming a subservient humble citizen he became a political activist locked in a cage but still with a voice that can and does reach outside the state's cages.

Letter from John Bowden, long-term radical prisoner (UK)
           There is a group of prisoners who although imprisoned for non-political offences subsequently become politicised or radicalised whilst in jail, and in both the USA and Britain this is a phenomenon that has become increasingly widespread.
        In the USA during the 1960s and 70s the radicalisation of ordinary black prisoners, in particular, was fostered by the centrality of imprisonment in the experience of black activists and revolutionaries like Malcolm X (who described prisons as “universities of revolution”), Eldridge Cleaver, George Jackson, H Rap Brown, Angela Davis and others. George Jackson described his own politicisation succinctly: “I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me”.
         Thus those whom W.E.B. Dubois described as an “army of the wronged” increasingly defined themselves as political prisoners who were the products of an oppressive political-economic order. This belief underpinned the praxis of radical groups such as the Black Panthers and Symbionese Liberation Army, and prisons were seen as the epicentre of a broader social and political revolution. The call for recognition of radicalised prisoners claim to political status underpinned prisoners’ demands in a series of protests that punctuated the 1970s in U.S. Prisons such as Folsom, Soledad, San Quentin and, later, Attica.
          The radicalisation of ordinary prisoners in both the UK and the USA was channeled through both identity politics and the prisoner union movement. In the UK such groups during the 1970s were highly active in organised protests and uprisings against oppressive prison conditions, particularly for long-term prisoners. The politicisation of ordinary prisoners who link their imprisonment to broader social and political inequality and oppression, and prison as the epicentre of their struggle, transforming them into proto-revolutionaries striking out against the capitalist state, is a spectre that terrifies those responsible for managing and enforcing prison repression.
          Islamic radicalisation within prisons is currently considered by the state a primary “intelligence and security concern”, and a leaked UK Home Office document identifies prison as a “key site of radicalisation for young Muslims”, justifying measures like the political vetting of Imams before they are permitted to preach in jails and the creation of “separation wings” or isolation units for militant Muslim prisoners. In the UK the segregation or isolation of politicised and radicalised prisoners in separate wings and units is a method of control imported from British occupied and controlled Northern Ireland where during “The Troubles” Irish Republican prisoners of war were confined to the notorious H-Blocks of The Maze prison, which through the dirty protests and hunger strikes actually became an epicentre of the wider Irish Republican struggle. Concentrating radicalised prisoners in separation units and wings inevitably creates greater solidarity amongst those prisoners and re-enforces their radicalisation, and of course in any case political ideas and ideologies cannot be isolated or segregated, even within an oppressive institution like prison. The treatment of politicised prisoners is always inevitably brutal and discriminatory, and within total institutions whose fundamental purpose is to tame and subdue the rebellious and disobedient poor, prisoners who develop a political consciousness and psychologically liberate themselves from existential and penal obedience are perceived by the prison system as the most dangerous of all the imprisoned.
         Prisoners serving indeterminate or life sentences for non-political offences but who subsequently become politicised whilst in prison have a very minimal chance of hope of ever being released, even when their actual risk to the public is considered minimal or even non-existent. Officially, the prime criterion determining the “suitability for release” of indeterminate sentenced prisoners is their assessment as “low-risk” to public safety, but in fact what actually determines a life sentence prisoner’s chance of release is not a perceived level of risk to the public, but their level of obedience to prison authority.Those life sentence prisoners who embrace an ideology considered by their jailers as “subversive” and “anti-authority” are viewed as the absolute antithesis of the “model prisoner” and therefore permanently “unsuitable for release”. Prisons are microcosms of the society that creates them, and the treatment of prisoners who identify with a political belief system that directly challenges the authority and legitimacy of the state reveals the fascist core of that state, which has implications for society generally, especially during times of social unrest.

John Bowden October 2019

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The Folly Of Joining A Political Party.

       What are political parties, what is their real purpose? I see them as shock absorbers of the system of authority. While the state and its authoritarian agenda pushes against individual freedom and seeks total control over the population, there is resistance, that resistance would build up and eventually find a outlet in overthrowing the authoritarian shackles of the state. So it is important for the survival of that authoritarian state system to find ways and means of channeling that resistance into some dead end process, political parties serve that purpose. First they must become part of the system to participate, and will then defend the system, demanding that you put your anger into their ballot boxes and they will take you to the promised land. History tells us they never have, and logic tells us they never will. They are an embedded part and parcel of the state system of population control, nothing more and nothing less. Freedom lives outside the party political system, and dies when it enters the party political system.

This from Anarchists Worldwide: 

 

 

Exist / Resist  
       Two years have passed since the gendarmerie entered a piece of land, far away, where a Mapuche community still lives today, and started shooting. They entered shooting because this piece of land had an owner, an owner who had a huge amount of properties, and it bothered him that there were people who occupied one of them. That was the justification for the State to enter with its bullets, for torture and persecution, for imprisonment, for death.
      It seems frivolous to take to the streets on this date, as if a couple of numbers on a calendar makes more sense than any other couple of numbers when it comes to gathering, but at no time during these past years have we forgotten Lechu. We try in some way, to continue “the struggle”, fancy words that we sometimes use to mean solidarity and direct action.
      Because that is what was happening in Cushamen, solidarity and direct action. That’s why Lechuga was there, sharing and supporting a struggle that is no stranger to us, the struggle for life and dignity, against the State and private property.
      During this time, the State continued to fulfill its role, with more prisoners, even though the prisons are collapsing, with more vigilance and control, with more police on the streets willing to kill to defend the property of others. In two years the State accumulated several more deaths, killed in the barrios, prisons and police stations.
        The other arm of the State, the political parties, continued to do their job as well, pacifying and channeling the anger towards their ballot boxes.
      From the first moment they acted like police pointing at people while shouting “infiltrators” or protecting the church and the police from attack and today they continue to play the game of the good citizen.
         Left-wing parties and the progressive sectors call on people to participate in this voluntary civic service that is the electoral circus because know that when they stop channeling the anger that it explodes and forges bonds of solidarity that can go against their interests. They call on “the youth”, who are modern and think that violence is a thing of the past, to register and vote for them, protest must be a party. A party of democracy.
       Recently, someone who knows what it means to lose someone at the hands of the State said that “there are times when we have to destroy the world to build it again”, but today it seems that all we have to do is bow our heads and accept. They killed Lechu, in the same way that Rafael, La China, Maxi, Dario, Mariano, Luciano and so many others were murdered…and they want to make us believe that what we have to do is to demand justice from those who killed them. What we have to do is go out and destroy the world. We do not ask or demand anything!
Some Anarchists

(via Contra Info)

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An On Going Battle.

A Battle Yet To Be Won.

 

At the crack of dawn with weapons drawn

We seek that better tomorrow
where freedom blooms like flowers in a wild meadow
Justice drips from ever leaf on every tree
Heart’s desires run wild, a herd of prancing fawns
Unchained, unfettered, imagination hurtles us
Towards a better world, of bright sparkling dawns.
In the stream of liberty we cleanse our minds
Of wars, fear, violent death and anguish
Heal the scars of alienation, poverty and exploitation
Hand our children the heritage they desire and deserve
A life of freedom, peace and plenty
Unshackled potential guarded by friendship and co-operation.
The battle is not yet won
So, each day we must
At the crack of dawn with weapons drawn
Seek that better tomorrow. 

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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.

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Turn The Anarchist Within You Free.

 

        I always maintain that we are all anarchists at heart, but some are afraid to admit that fact. Nobody likes to continually be told what to do, we all want to choose our own way of life, we don't like to see people suffer without wanting to help, we all want to be treated equally and fairly, we don't want to see people being exploited for the benefit of the few. However, the vast majority forego these desires and comply with a system that day and daily curtails all these inner desires. It might be fear of losing what little they have, it might be that they are conditioned by the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, into believing that there is no other way than the greed driven system of capitalism. There is, it is to join with others in seeking the fulfilment of these inner desires, community based mutual aid, solidarity between those communities, thinking for ourselves and refusing to be constrained and fitted into little boxes that suit this system of authority and exploitation. Believing in your inner desires to be free, co-operative and fair, giving in to the anarchist that lives within yourself, and wishes to be free.

Vandals.

 

        I have always maintained that we are all anarchists at heart. We all want to control our own lives, we don’t like being told what to do, we like to feel we belong, and are a useful part in whatever we are involved. Of course this sort of society doesn’t allow for that. So to all those youngsters out there, the ones who hate being told what to do, who hate authority, who lash out without direction, the “vandals, the “rebels without a cause”, you’re not the misfits, you’re not the bad penny, the black sheep, you are the ones that are alive, you are anarchist that are looking for a direction. Look deep and seek the root of your anger and frustration, it’s not your neighbour, the bus driver, the car park attendant, or the group in the other street, it is the system, the state and its apparatus, that tries to bind you in a straight jacket of their rules and regulations. Direct your young anger and energy in that direction and you will find what you are looking for, and become part of an ever growing army that wants the same as you, comradeship, freedom, justice and equality of opportunity.

 

The Rebel

Rebel rebel break the rule,
What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.
Not for you the herd’s dull beat
Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,
Living out the life of a clone
Marching with the crowd but always alone.
Shaping your life from some dusty tome
Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule
Swim in the sea, never the pool.
Live your emotions, feel the surge
Follow your dreams, chase the urge.
Make life though short, an exciting game
Not a mad march for fortune or fame.
Capture the moment, live it now
Being alive your only vow.

Rebel rebel break the rule
In the end, you’re humanity’s jewel. 

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

 

See The Other As Self.

 

       In this society, there are so many campaigns on so many issues, from freedom of movement, freedom of speech, feminism, human rights, freedom from religious extremism, animal rights, the right to privacy, and so it goes on. All of this highlights the fact the we are living in a flawed system, a system where each individual has to fight for the right just to exist without coercion, intimidation or fear. At the heart of this flawed society is the failure to see the other as a unique human being with the same rights as ourselves. If we put that part right, the rest should follow.

      This latest broadcast from Circled A Radio, is an interview with Maryam Namazie. Maryam Namazie has spoken and written numerous articles on Women’s Rights issues, free expression, Islamism, and Secularism. Maryam is an inveterate commentator and broadcaster on Rights, Cultural Relativism, Religion, Political Islam and many other related topics. She’s a speaker at the Feminism in London Conference on the subject ‘Religious Fundamentalism and the British State’

Listen to the interview HERE:

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

 

Which Side Are You On?

 

From Contra Info:

Back to Heidenau, where the nazis are established…

       As long as the racists, motivated by a campaign of fear in the mass media and supported by hypocrite policies, gather and run riot in front of the refugees under the eyes of police, we have the obligation to stand in their path – by all means necessary.
      Not only in Heidenau, but everywhere and every time that resistance is needed – as a daily routine…
      Show your solidarity. Support the refugees. For a practical anti-fascism.
       Stop pogroms! Racism arises in the mainstream of the society. Fight this conditions.
Germany kick the bucket!

       As capitalism's flaws and failings become more obvious and the system throws up ever more “crisis” we are seeing the rise of fascism. In the 30's capitalism “crisis”, there was a growth of left wing groups but also a massive counter growth in fascism. Today we are seeing the same pattern, as capitalism stumbles from one “crisis” to another, people are more disillusioned and disenchanted with the system and seek answers, usually in two directions. The one direction is for dramatic change of direction and value structures, while the other is back towards an illusionary era of authority, control and perfection. There is no guarantee which side will win, the backward looking group will get surreptitious help and support from the state sector and the corporate world, the forward looking groups will have to rely on the will and power of the people. We have to choose sides, to the ordinary person it should be obvious which side to choose, but is it?

From ANU Education:

       Fascist organisations have been increasing their influence in the developed world during the 1990s. Such a widespread growth has not occurred since the 1930s. During the post World War II period right-wing extremist organisations had sporadic successes in a series of western European countries including the United Kingdom (the National Front), Germany (Sozialistische Reichspartei, SRP; Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD) and France (the Poujadist movement, Organisation Armee Secrete). There were the authoritarian but increasingly moribund regimes in Spain and Portugal, but only in Italy was there a significant, though small right-wing extremist party, the MSI which consistently attracted votes and held parliamentary seats in a western European democracy.

       The 1980s saw such organisations grow in strength in Germany (Deutsche Volksunion, DVU and Republicans) and France (Front National) in particular. The economic and social chaos which followed the anti-stalinist revolutions in 1989 have also provided fertile ground for fascism in Eastern Europe. The extreme right made progress during the 1980s and 1990s across western Europe, including in Italy (Northern Leagues), Norway and Denmark (Progress Parties), Sweden (New Democracy), Austria (FPÖ), Belgium (Vlaams Blok) and the Netherlands (Centre Party and Centre Democrats). Nor has North America been immune from this trend, as the level of support for David Duke, with his Klu Klux Klan associations, in US Senate, the Louisiana House of Representatives and gubernatorial elections indicated. In Canada the Reform Party represents a similar phenomenon.1

      The resurgence of fascism in Germany since unification is therefore not an isolated phenomenon. Any discussion of German events must draw attention to this international trend in order to avoid attributing the growing significance of fascism there simply to local factors, peculiarities of German institutions and history or, most misleadingly, to the German psyche. A discussion of developments in Germany can, however, throw light on the international trend and help in assessing the adequacy of different approaches to understanding and combating fascism. It should also be noted that while fascist movements have undergone rapid growth recently, their impact on social and political life has increased and propitious circumstances for continued expansion of their influence remain, they are as yet a long way from taking power in Germany or elsewhere in the economically developed world.

Read the full article HERE:

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Free The Rebel In You.

      After the Crooks and Liars competition is over, and the insanity is once more slightly hidden, we should not sink into the apathy that keeps this stinking system going. We should pump up the rebel in us all, it is our only hope of saving ourselves from the shackles and poverty of capitalism. forget conformity, forget the rules of this cruel game, forget respect for uniforms, flags and badges, open up ridicule for religion, encourage anger at the pomp and arrogance of monarchy, spit venom at inequality, let your disapproval be loud, spread dissent. 

The Rebel

Rebel rebel break the rule,

What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.

Not for you the herd’s dull beat

Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,

Living out the life of a clone

Marching with the crowd but always alone.

Shaping your life from some dusty tome

Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule

Swim in the sea, never the pool.

Live your emotions, feel the surge

Follow your dreams, chase the urge.

Make life though short, an exciting game

Not a mad march for fortune or fame.

Capture the moment, live it now

Being alive your only vow.

Rebel rebel break the rule

In the end, you’re humanity’s jewel.

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

When The Abused Pick Their Abusers.

      Well today is the day, the day when many of the abused run around selecting their abuser. They do it with an attitude of anticipation, they feel that change is in the offing. In spite of this process never having produced any meaningful change in the past, they harbour that insane thought, somehow, this time will be different. The babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, will of course be screaming at you all the intricacies and permutations possible in this charade of smoke and mirrors, attempting to reinforce the illusion that it is you that rules the country. However, choosing your abuser, never allows you to choose the abuse. 

     At 81, I have lived through many elections, (Crooks and Liars competitions), and at the start of each, the promises from the participants is always much the same, they will lift children out of poverty, the will end fuel poverty, they will solve the housing crisis, they will improve social services, education, health and welfare. The very fact that these promises keep coming up at the start of each Crooks and Liars competition, is proof that they have always failed. 

      So what's the betting, that once this new cabal of abusers take up the reins of power, each successful contestant will get richer, and when the next Crooks and Liars competition comes around, they will troop out the very same promises that they made at the last one. Another 5 years of failed promises, but the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, doesn't say something?

      Don't expect justice to handed to you my a bunch of millionaires sitting in a gilded palace, or freedom to be granted to you by a cabal of privileged parasites wallowing in the obscene pomp and splendour of the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. Freedom and justice is something you have to take, at your level with your community, it is not a gift granted to you from above. Like I keep saying, we don't need them, to make the world a better place for us all, they do need us to keep them in their bubble of wealth and privilege.

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