Assange.

 

        An appeal on behalf of Julian Assange and whistle blowers in general. The state will always try to silence those who try to tell the truth about the state's illegal actions in an attempt to lull the public into believing the state is squeaky clean and a benevolent institution. It is very important the we protect those brave individuals who make public the foul actions of the state.

       I’m writing to you on the ignominious anniversary of the day the first detainees arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in January 2002. Twenty-one years later, no one responsible has been held accountable for this legal black hole, where men were held without charge, counsel, or judicial review until the Supreme Court forced a modicum of due process.
       With tragic irony, it is Julian Assange ⁠— who published the documents that exposed the extrajudicial practices and government lies ⁠— who has been in Belmarsh Prison (widely known as “The British Guantanamo”) for nearly four years, after the seven years of detention in the Ecuadorian embassy.
       I write to invite you to join me on January 20th, when I will be testifying before the fourth sitting of the Belmarsh Tribunal.

           Inspired by the Russell-Sartre Tribunals of the Vietnam War, the Belmarsh Tribunal brings together a range of expert witnesses — from constitutional lawyers, to acclaimed journalists and human rights defenders — to present evidence of this attack on publishers and their sources, and to seek justice for the crimes they expose.
         The First Amendment — and the life of Julian Assange — are at stake. Join us in person or online.

In solidarity,

 

Jesselyn Radack
Director
Whistleblower & Source Protection Program (WHISPeR)
ExposeFacts

Twitter: @JesselynRadack

              DONATE NOW

WHISPeR Project at ExposeFacts 1717 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington, DC 20006 USA Donate by mail 

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

Free Speech.

            I have just started reading "Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent during World War1, by Eric T, Chester. This is a meticulously detailed book backed up by extensive research. It highlights the extent the state will use its apparatus, police, judiciary and military to stifle dissent, and how it will raise its level of suppression in times of war. Among other events, t he book draws attention the savage brutality used against IWW and peace campaigners during WW1. One interesting fact that I was unaware of was how the American state looked to the UK for methods of suppression, as they considered the UK to be a master at the devious art of suppression of dissent. This book is well worth reading, though it refers mainly to WW1, similar methods are still being used today with the added benefit to the state of modern surveillance technology. To understand their methods is a step to being able to counter them and defend what freedom of speech we have and perhaps one day bring about complete freedom of speech unfettered by state legislation.
        It is available from the usual online outlets and W. H. Smiths, prices vary according to where you make you purchase, so it pays to shop around.

Book Details:
Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent during World War 1
Publisher: Monthly Review Press.
ISBN paper: 978-1-58367-868-8
ISBN cloth: 978-1-58367-869-5 

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

Silencing Dissent.

         The tentacles of the state's authority machine spread far and slither into a variety of places. Ever seeking to silence dissent, tie the lips of resistance, isolate the people from the true nature of society, and advance their desire for a submissive population.
       If you ever go on to espive.net, you would expect to find a plethora of views and information on autonomous spaces, resistance to injustice, support for migrants, direct action against repressive state actions, support for those in struggle for freedom, etc..
      However today you will find a very simple message that highlights how the freedom of speech is always under attack from those who oppose real change to this repressive and exploitative society that dominates our daily lives.
      Those who  desire freedom must always be on a war footing and ever vigilant, as the attack on our freedoms is relentless, surreptitious and backed up by repressive legislation, all moulded in favour of those in power.
 

     The following is the clear message you will find today if you click onto espiv.net: 

ENGLISH
Hello, comrades:
        We would like to inform you about the latest developments on the shutdown of the server.
          The information we received is that the server went out of order after an oral command of the rector of Panteion University to their computerisation section on the occasion of a complaint about digital piracy.
       More specifically, this complaint concerned two book titles that were uploaded in pdf format to one of the hundreds of blogs hosted by the server. We immediately tried to contact the rectorial authorities and work out a solution, wanting to regain access to the content of the blogs as soon as possible.
        The server, which hosts 850 blogs, has been located in Panteion University since the beginning of Espiv project in 2008. From time to time issues have arisen, and so far we have managed to overcome them and keep the server in place, at a public university in Athens (Greece).
       We understand that many things have changed over the last 12 years, and from time to time we have discussed the real conditions under which Espiv project continues to operate. However, it is our intention and desire to keep the server in place, with all political and labour collectives, neighbourhood assemblies and self-organised projects hosted on it.
     Our repeated attempts to receive a clear answer from the rectorial authorities fell on deaf ears. On Thursday, 28 May 2020 (a week after the shutdown), we received information that the rector will refer our issue to the next council of the senate of Panteion University, which is unknown when it will take place. One should not be too superstitious or naive to assume that all this is due to increased academic duties. After all, the command to shut down the server was given impressively quickly. With universities still closed and after a two-month lockdown, conditions were considered favourable to add another movement’s infrastructure to the long list of squats and projects recently suppressed. A choice that expands repression in the field of internet, imposing the normality of social media, digital snitching, and recording and surveillance of any information circulated on the internet, again showing that the role of the cop can be played well by all sorts of rectors and state employees. The choice to suppress an infrastructure that supports the expression of dozens of collectives within the antagonist movement can only find us against them.

      We will let you know of any further developments and mobilisations.

NO POLITICAL GAGGING LEFT UNANSWERED.
NOT A STEP BACK.

The administration crew of espiv.net

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

Julian Assange.

        Those who still hold on to the illusion that we here in the UK live in a democracy just have to take a good look at the way in which the British state  is dealing with Julian Assange. Consider the length of his incarceration and the treatment during that unjust incarceration. He is being treated worse and under more restrictive conditions than the way the state treats the most violent of offenders, and we all know that their treatment is unjust and brutal. Julian Assange is not a violent and dangerous man, but the state treats him worse than a wild animal. This is a deliberate attempt to silence those who might consider exposing the dirty secrets of the state. The state always murders democracy.

The following extract from an article by Finian Cunningham:

       The persecution of Julian Assange is one of those breakthrough moments when suddenly people realise that almost everything they have been told to believe is not true.
       This week the Australian-born journalist and publisher has been subjected to a show trial in a British court with the threat of extradition to the United States looming. If he is extradited, the 48-year old is facing 175 years – a death sentence – in prison on wholly contrived espionage charges.
       Assange is being persecuted for the sole and simple reason that he exposed war crimes and systematic corruption by the US government and its Western allies. His years of arbitrary detention and the torture endured over the past year while in solitary confinement in a British dungeon are a grim warning to all citizens. The warning is that their supposed democratic rights are non-existent as far as the powers in Washington and London are concerned. If you dare speak truth to power, then this fate will also be yours.
       Thus, when it gets down to it, the harsh reality is that there is no such thing as democracy in the US or Britain. Elections and media are but window-dressing to hide the brutal truth that fundamental, basic democratic rights of free speech and due legal process are not inalienable principles, but rather are dispensable privileges whenever the powers-that-be ordain so.
       Julian Assange’s incarceration and pillorying is like an inquisition from medieval times happening in the year 2020. He dared expose the rampant, systematic crimes of so-called authorities through his Wikileaks site. His blasphemy was to expose the charlatans and mass-killers who masquerade as pious leaders. --------

Plot to kill Julian Assange

More on Julian Assange from Craig Murray.

     Mark Summers QC outlined that in the case of Belousov vs Russia the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg ruled against the state of Russia because Belousov had been tried in a glass cage practically identical in construction and in position in court to that in which Assange now was. It hindered his participation in the trial and his free access to counsel, and deprived him of human dignity as a defendant.
      Summers continued that it was normal practice for certain categories of unconvicted prisoners to be released from the dock to sit with their lawyers. The court had psychiatric reports on Assange’s extreme clinical depression, and in fact the UK Department of Justice’s best practice guide for courts stated that vulnerable people should be released to sit alongside their lawyers. Special treatment was not being requested for Assange – he was asking to be treated as any other vulnerable person.
     The defence was impeded by their inability to communicate confidentially with their client during proceedings. In the next stage of trial, where witnesses were being examined, timely communication was essential. Furthermore they could only talk with him through the slit in the glass within the hearing of the private company security officers who were guarding him (it was clarified they were Serco, not Group 4 as Baraitser had said the previous day), and in the presence of microphones.----------

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

Dare To Criticise Israel??

       I have always known that the USA is not the democratic paradise it spouts to the world at large, but I didn't know that several states make it obligatory to sign a pro-Israeli certificate before you can work for any state funded institution!!!

This from an article by The Intercept: 

       A children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed early Monday morning in a federal court in the Western District of Texas, alleging a violation of her First Amendment right of free speech.

      The child language specialist, Bahia Amawi, is a U.S. citizen who received a master’s degree in speech pathology in 1999 and, since then, has specialized in evaluations for young children with language difficulties (see video below). Amawi was born in Austria and has lived in the U.S. for the last 30 years, fluently speaks three languages (English, German, and Arabic), and has four U.S.-born American children of her own.
    Amawi began working in 2009 on a contract basis with the Pflugerville Independent School District, which includes Austin, to provide assessments and support for school children from the county’s growing Arabic-speaking immigrant community. The children with whom she has worked span the ages of 3 to 11. Ever since her work for the school district began in 2009, her contract was renewed each year with no controversy or problem.
      But this year, all of that changed. On August 13, the school district once again offered to extend her contract for another year by sending her essentially the same contract and set of certifications she has received and signed at the end of each year since 2009.
      She was prepared to sign her contract renewal until she noticed one new, and extremely significant, addition: a certification she was required to sign pledging that she “does not currently boycott Israel,” that she “will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract,” and that she shall refrain from any action “that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israeli or in an Israel-controlled territory.”

        The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian — or McCarthyite — self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading:

        That language would bar Amawi not only from refraining from buying goods from companies located within Israel, but also from any Israeli companies operating in the occupied West Bank (“an Israeli-controlled territory”). The oath given to Amawi would also likely prohibit her even from advocating such a boycott given that such speech could be seen as “intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel.”

    
         There are currently 26 states where this legislation is now law and 13 where the legislation is pending, that would cover well over half the states in America. It would seem that in America you can advocate boycotts of all manner of things in your own country but dare not speak to harm Israel, strange?

Read the full article HERE:  

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

Publish And Be Damned.

         You believe strongly in justice for all, equality of opportunity, freedom as a basic right, you are vehemently anti-exploitation, anti-war. You sit at your computer writing up leaflets, flyers and texts, to distribute to all and sundry, hoping to influence them to change society towards these ideals. However, are they legal? For the word legal, substitute, "controlled". The state lives by control, if what you are doing is not controlled, you will be deemed a threat, and no doubt, appropriate action can and will be taken. In this society, freedom extends only as far as you are subservient, and you make no attempt to change the structure of the power arrangements within this society.

 

          This from leccoriot, translated for Act For Freedom Now:

 IF EVEN PUBLISHING IS CLANDESTINE ACTIVITY…

          On 7th July a comrade was stopped in Lecco station by the Railway Police. After searching him and examining the books and pamphlets he was carrying, the police decided to raid his home and that of his parents on the pretext that they had found ‘La salute è in voi’ [Health is within you] among the books, a manual for lovers of direct action edited in 1906 and recently reprinted by some comrades. 
        Following the searches more anarchist printed material was seized as it had been printed illegally, and the comrade was charged with ‘clandestine printing’. To this charge another was added, that of ‘insulting the armed forces’, because of a poster where the Alpini [Alpine Troops] were specifically attacked in a proposal for a debate.
         Unfortunately this episode is not an isolated one and raises several points for us to think about.
           First of all it reintroduces the charge of clandestine press from out of the armoury of repression. Although claiming the publishing and distribution of material outside the rules imposed by the market (and the State) would be superfluous, it might be useful to dwell on the potential of this repressive instrument for a moment.
         In fact, in any documentation centre or squat there are dozens of texts that have been ‘freely’ published without any authorization or copyright; all this material could end up being locked away in police station store rooms.

What to do in the face of this?

         Without even considering the question of legalization, which, if it were possible, would allow books and pamphlets to continue to circulate without any legal consequences, one preventive response to future repressive crusades in the name of clandestine printing could be to open up a debate on the significance of ‘free’ publishing, its potentialities, perspectives and difficulties.

The charge of ‘contempt for the armed forces’ also deserves a mention.

          Certainly not because of the penal question in itself, which is minimal, but rather for comrades to think about. Attacking the armed forces directly, whichever way one prefers, should be a good habit not to be lost in our opinion. Especially as some of these forces, the Alpini for example, disguise themselves as pacifist entities that are beneficial to the community and, thanks to their fake folkloristic character, their nationalist, racist and sexist aspects are passed on unsuspectingly. Hence the decision to unmask them explicitly and openly criticize them in any situation whatsoever, no matter who their interlocutor, so as to tear away the veil of ambiguity that lets them move around freely. 
         May there be contempt! This could be a good starting point for looking beyond the single atrocities perpetrated by Alpini, police and carabinieri, and finally getting to the root of the problem. That is to say the State’s need to increase its repressive or preventive apparatuses, the existence of the armed forces as functional to maintaining the status quo. And no less important, especially in these ominous times, the increasing push for every ‘good citizen’ to become police informers, blindly obedient with an acritical respect for the law seen as absolute truth, characteristics that are undeniably linked to the militarist ideology.
          Certain that their intimidations won’t have any effect, we need to build as many occasions as possible so that words printed in black and white cut through our pages and come out into the open, expressing a radical critique that can’t be recuperated by the democratic yoke.
          To bring alive the tension against all authority, against assassins, minions of power and the indifferent, increasingly accomplice to everyday atrocities.

Centro di documentazione anarchico l’Arrotino [Anarchist resource centre l’Arrotino]

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

Have You Got Permission???

         I think this wee video shows the stupidity of the system as it tries to control your every move and action, and how it manages to get ordinary people to attempt to implement its control system. How it seeks to get you to ask permission for your ever action. Well done Danny, handled beautifully, with dignity and humour, you put the suits in their place. Thanks Loam for the link.

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

The Antifascists.

           In this capitalist world fascism never dies, from time to time it raises its ugly head  and vomits out its hate and divisive filth. Fascism seems to make its appearance within a state when the state feels under threat, it is fanned by the right-wing parasites that hold tenuously onto their privileged positions, Its rise is not an unavoidable accident of fate, but a strategy of capitalism to protect and or bolster the wealth, power and privileges of the parasite class that hold the reins of power. To allow fascism a voice does not enhance free speech, on the contrary, it stifles free speech and gives rise to hate and opens up irrational and unnecessary divisions within the ranks of the ordinary people.  

        Fascism, like capitalism cannot be reformed, it must be confronted head on, and destroyed. We don't need lessons on what it does when it gains power, we have history that paints a true picture of its methods and aims. If you wish to be able to make you own decisions, and choose your own path, then you are an enemy of fascism, and should join in the fight to drive it from our communities,  off our streets, stamp it out in our work places and eradicate it from any of our groupings and organisations.

       The Antifascists, is an excellent documentary on the rise of fascism across the world and how best to mercilessly crush this cancer in our midst. Thanks Loam for the link.

 

Don't Get Angry, You May Be Investigated.

      Angry with your government? Careful, you could be seen as a threat by the security services. This article refers to America, but what crazy idea flies over there, has a habit of landing over here.

From Polizeros:

      The Pentagon, in its usual dimwitted yet dangerous way, is mining social media to determine if citizens are angry at the state and thus, presumably, a threat. Let’s unpack this foolishness, shall we? NSA has been trying to do the same thing for years, slurping down every conceivable piece of data on us in hopes it can be used on a real-time basis to identity threats. So far they have failed miserably and have admitted that all their operations has not produced any actionable information that stopped terrorists. However, the genuinely dangerous thing here for citizens is the Pentagon assumes if you are angry at the government that you are a potential threat and must be investigated further. No matter if your anger may be justifiable, no, just being angry at the government means you are guilty of pre-crime, which means what Big Brother in the Pentagon wants it to mean. The real problem is such intrusive techniques, spying on the citizenry constantly, is useless for catching terrorists. But it keeps people in the Pentagon employed and defense contractors happy with big contracts, even as it essentially is security theater.

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

Snitching, Snooping, Surveillance Democracy??

            How deep have we sank into the fascist world of Orwell's 1984? More and more legislation stopping you from doing this, more and more legislation stopping you from saying that, more and more surveillance, a polite word for snooping, ever greater encouragement for people and institutions to snitch on people's idiosyncrasies, if you don't fit into their straight-jacket, you're a threat. Always the bogey man of terrorism is dangled in front of you, seeking your acquiescence in this avalanche of fetters on your freedom. 

            The recent case of school boy, Rahmaan Mohammadi who had a visit from the police after his school reported him under the government's “Prevent” scheme, gives us some idea of how this snitching, snooping, paranoia permeates our society. What was Rahmaan's heinous crime, he wore a “Free Palestine” badge, what narrow minded, paranoid member of the school staff thought that supporting the cause of the people of Palestine, merits a police investigation? Rahmaan also alleged that the police warned him not to talk about Palestine in school, and further claimed that staff members put pressure on his 14 year old brother, telling him to get Rahmann to ”stop being radical”. This is an outrageous assault against the individual's right to voice their opinion on whatever matters to them. You and I know, this is not an isolated case, this cancer is everywhere. The government is spending £40 million on the snitchers program, “Prevent”, while continually cutting budgets to health, education and all other social services. Under no stretch of the imagination, would you call this democracy.

        Our millionaire friendly state now plans to go further, 

under new government legislation Local councils, public bodies and even some university student unions are to be banned by law from boycotting “unethical” companies, as part of a controversial crackdown being announced by the Government.
        Under the plan all publicly funded institutions will lose the freedom to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

        So you elect your local council, they are supposed to do your bidding, you instruct them to stop handing your money to industries that ruin your kids health, tobacco, industries that gain from bloodshed, the arms industry, and those millionaire shareholders sitting the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, say, no you can't do that, we might lose if the share prices go down. According the millionaire Bullingdon Club boys that walk our corridors of power, the boycotting of such vile, destructive, money making concerns is responsible for, “undermined good community relations, poisoned and polarised debate and fuelled anti-Semitism”. 

       So, where is our “democracy” that illusion that the state has created by means of smoke and mirrors, that same illusion the state used to get millions to shed their blood, supposedly defending, when in fact they were participating in an imperialist land and power grab, defending the wealth and power of those who control that state. Democracy can only be found outside the state, the state is authority, democracy is anti-authoritarian, the two are totally incompatible. If you want freedom and democracy, the state has to crumble and the system that it spawns must be destroyed.

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

Surreptitiously Herded Into Silence.

         Here in our Western "democracy" terrorism is the bogeyman, and to counter that will-o'the-wisp, what freedom of speech we still have, is being shut down. Added to the restrains on our rights, political correctness throws in its demands. There are certain groups against which you have to be very careful how you criticise them, a joke could be a joke too far. What can place you under the heading of a terrorist, can vary from country to country. In Spain recently it was a tattoo and owning a particular book, no bombs, no plot to maim or kill. This erosion of our rights, is like a creeping cancer, as each part of our freedom of speech is shut down, it is one helluva fight to try to get it back. Control and subservience is the aim of the state and it will use every opportunity to that end. Freedom of speech is the enemy of authoritarianism, conversely, authoritarianism is the enemy of freedom of speech. What type of society do we want to live in, one under total control of the faceless bureaucrats, or one in which we can all express our beliefs and thoughts openly without the fear of repression? We can only have the latter if we are vigilant and fight tooth and nail for that right of freedom of speech.

         It is difficult to grasp just how far down the road to state censorship of our words and deeds we have been surreptitiously herded. It happens under many guises, protection for certain religions, individuals and institutions, placing them beyond criticism, but criticism is my right if I disagree with any on the list. In a true democracy we should not have to fight for the right to express our opinion  openly and freely, it is a given, if we have to fight for that right, we do not live in a democracy. 

      Received the following article from comrade Loam, it is a must read and worth spreading widely. So read, think and share.

Notably, police also found “small sign” with the slogan “Gora Alka ETA” on one of the men. The judge adopted a curious interpretation. “Gore ETA” is a common meaning of “Long live ETA”, but the judge concluded it was meant to refer also to “Long live Al-Qaeda-ETA.” Putting aside the interpretive approach, finding a sign on one of the men is a problematic aggravator, let alone a basis, for a criminal case. This concern is magnified by the court noting that a “cover of a book called ‘Against Democracy’, by the Coordinated Anarchist Groups” had been found among their possessions.

And:

We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in France (here and here and here and here and here and here) and England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Much of this trend is tied to the expansion of hate speech and non-discrimination laws. We have seen comedians targeted with such court orders under this expanding and worrisome trend. (here and here).

The full article can be read HERE:

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

And In France, Also Infected By Paranoia.

    Another little snippet on the paranoid state getting us to spy and snitch on each other, and how children are a threat. It is not just the UK, it is universal.
This from Lenin's Tomb:

Eight year old boy arrested for glorification of terrorism posted by Richard Seymour

      That 'free speech' again.  French press brings us news of a little boy named Ahmed who 'glorified terrorism', and was duly shopped to the police by the teacher and head of school.

     Apparently, when asked in class, on 8th January, if he was 'Charlie', he replied that he was not.  He didn't like Charlie Hebdo's cartoons, and that his feelings were with the terrorists.  "I am the terrorists, because I am against the cartoonists of the Prophet."

     The head of the school later apprehended Ahmed while he played in a sandpit, saying "stop digging in the sand, you will not find a machine gun there to kill us all with".  Subsequently, the boy's father accompanied him to school on a couple of occasions, Ahmed being rather distressed and out of sorts by the treatment he was subjected to.

    Then on 21st January, the head of the school decided to press charges against the little boy and his father.  The boy was reported to police for 'glorification of terrorism', and the father for 'trespassing' when he accompanied the boy to the school.   Both father and son were forced to report to the police station in Nice St Augustine, to answer these charges.

    This follows a series of arrests and the recent suspension of a teacher who was also referred for judicial investigation for resisting the 'moment's silence' for Charlie Hebdo.  The school rector launched a rally for "republican" values after noting the "unacceptable" failure of some teachers to comply with the moment's silence, and having launched an immediate investigation.

    Ahmed now has a lawyer, who said: "We are facing a collective hysteria. My client is 8 years old! He does not realize the scope of his words. It's insane."

     Yes, it's insane.  Thankfully, the pup-eyed Charlies who were recently beseeching hashtagged international solidarity, and rallying to the defence of free speech, will not have abandoned the fight so soon.  They, surely - and there are so many of them - will not let the Ahmeds down.  They will spring into action with the swift, passionate alacrity that we have already seen they are capable of.  Won't they?

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

"Radicalism".

      The state, to survive becomes ever more paranoid, and sees an enemy in every nook and cranny. It will continually introduce legislation to spy, pry and monitor, every aspect of our lives, from early age, to old age, you are a suspect. New spectres are raised in an attempt to legitimise their ever increasing control over our lives. The latest spectre is "radicalism". We are being warned to watch for any signs of "radicalism" and report it to the authorities. It would perhaps be more useful if we had a debate on what is "radicalism". After all, in this society it is radical to suggest that the fruits of our labour should be to see to the needs of all, not for the benefit of the few.

      However the latest flow of bilge water from the mouth of fascist, two-faced, Home Secretary, Teresa May, seeks to find "radicalism" in our pre-school kids. Those who care for children are being asked to watch for signs of "radicalism", and report it to the authorities. Will we soon find three year old Jean, and four year old John, being dragged into by MI6 for interrogation, because of their "radicalism", and perhaps subjected to some mind altering psychology, to put them on the road to submission and servility.

      The state needs war to justify its existence, if not a foreign blood letting war, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, then an array of pygmy wars, such as "war on terrorism", and now an internal war, a "war on Radicalism". When will we rid ourselves of this octopus of interference the state, this cancer that destroys our freedom of expression, speech and thought? This unnecessary chain and shackle on our liberty, that wants us all to spy and snitch on each other? We can organise our communities my mutual aid, co-operation and free association, without this crippling, prying monster whose only aim is self perpetuation and control.

This from today's Herald:

    Under the Home Office proposals, staff at pre-school nurseries would be required to monitor children for signs of radicalism. Speakers at universities would be vetted for any signs of extremist views that would support or encourage terrorism.
   Colleges and universities would have to provide details to the authorities of who is due to speak at least two weeks before they are due to appear. It would enable background checks to be carried out to find out if they have promoted extremism.
      They must also provide advance notice of the content, including an outline of the topics to be covered. It also suggests, where appropriate, universities should have protocols to pool information about speakers.
   The plans are outlined in a consultative document which accompanies Home Secretary Theresa May's Counter Terrorism and Security Bill.
   However, the proposals face a growing backlash. Scotland's children's commissioner Tam Baillie warned, if passed, they could split communities.
    In a letter in today's Herald, Mr Baillie, Jackie Brock, chief executive of Children in Scotland, Maggie Simpson, who heads the Scottish Childminding Association, Jean Carwood-Edwards of the Scottish Pre-School Play Association said it could impact on how staff work with children.
    They said: "Among many staff caring for and working with children, these duties would fall on, for example, the childminder of a three-year-old and the nursery teacher of a two-year-old.

Read the full article HERE:

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

I'm Not Charlie.

        You can rest assured, the state will use any and every event to tighten its grip over the people. This "Je Suis Charlie" event that is sweeping through Europe like an epidemic, will be used to attempt to turn us into some sort of homogeneous sponge, with one opinion, or your a terrorist. Fit in, say the mantra, or you are worthy of investigation by the state apparatus. To stand up and say "I'm Not Charlie", in no way diminishes the horror and revulsion felt by the barbarity of that act of pointless brutal murder. However to acquiesce, en masse, to a uniformity of response, orchestrated by the very state that represses freedom of speech, or be singled out as, against "freedom of speech", is surely a contradiction.

     This article by Richard Seymour posted in Lenin's Tomb, if true, emphasises the points made above.

     In fact (a correspondent tells me, referring to this article), the provisions of recent legislation (13.11.2014) on the monitoring and reporting of school pupils' speech and behaviour appear to have been put into effect for the first time as the names of children who failed to observe the minute's silence were reported by teachers or supervisors to the head, then to the rectorat - the regional education administration - and on to the police and prosecuting authorities, to be analysed by the intelligence services, who decide whether the facts in question are serious enough to warrant formal investigation of the pupil and his/her family and social network.  

    More widely, there are a series of arrests and sentences being handed down for "justification/gorification of terrorism", including that of a 28 year old man diagnosed with learning disabilities.

     If you are not Charlie, would you please speak up so that we can have you arrested and flung in jail, or re-educated?

Read the full article HERE: 

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