A Blood Stained Peace.

       All the self centred, pompous heads of state who shuffled for their moment on the podium, attempting to glorify the imperial blood bath of 1914/18, keep referring to how war brought peace to Europe and how we all live in harmony now. The so called peace that followed that dreadful avoidable slaughter, lasted a mere 21 years, before they were at it again, spreading the blood of youth  across the globe. They wax lyrically about how Europe has known peace since their last blood letting of 1939/45. That of course is a lie. There may have been peace in most countries in Europe, but we were busy doing our blood thing across the globe. The list of wars, battles, interventions, and attempts to thwart independence movements across the empire, is a long unending catalogue of bloodshed.

       This is by no means a complete and definitive list, but it does give some idea of what they mean by peace.

After the 1914/18 blight on humanity, we have had:
1918/20, Intervention in Russia civil war.
1919/23, Turkish war of independence.
1919/19, Third Anglo-Afghan war.   
1919/21, Irish war of independence.
1920/20, Somalialand campaign.
1920/20, Great Iraqi revolution.
1936/39, Great Arab revolt in Palestine.
1938/48, British Zionist conflict.
1939/45, Second World War.
1945/49, Indonesian National revolution.
1945/46, Vietnam, Operation Masterdom.
1946/47, Greek civil war.
1948/60, Malayan emergency.
1950/53, Korean war.
1951/54, Suez Canal zone emergency.
1952/60, Mau Mau uprising.
1955/60, Cyprus.
1956/57, Suez Crisis.
1962/66, Indonesia - Malaysia.
1962/75, Dhofar rebellion.
1963/67, Aden emergency.
1982/82, Falklands war.
1982/84, Lebanon.
1991/91, Gulf War.
1992/96, Bosnia.
1998/98, Desert Fox Iraq.
1998/99, Kosovo.
2000/02, Siera Leone civil war.
2001/----, Afghanistan, 4th Anglo-Afghan war.
2003/09, Iraq war.
2011/11, Libyan Intervention.

     Most of these conflicts were against people trying to free themselves from the British Imperialists. While we were merrily sending our youth to foreign shores to repress and kill, we were proudly proclaiming how we were living in peaceful Europe. As we done our imperial killing across the globe, other European countries were doing likewise, but our efforts were dwarfed by the new mighty imperial nation, US of A.

     This is the pattern of capitalist peace, slaughter for wealth and power, death for resources and profit. Nothing will change until we change the system, and consign this exploitative system of capitalism to the dustbin of history.

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

Still No Democracy.

 
         Still down south sipping coffee and reading papers, among other things. It was while doing the coffee, paper thing that I came across an article in The Times of July 28th.. which I had to spout my view on. They had a photograph and a full page article on the Bullingon Club, mentioning that a high percentage of those in the photograph had died in the first world war. The article seemed to convey the notion that the war had claimed the lives of all classes. This may be true, but without a shaddow of doubt, it was the ordinary people who paid the highest price by a very large margin.
        There is also another difference. Since this war was nothing other than an imperialist scramble for wealth, power, resources and markets, for thos imperialists and their parasite friends, and the Bullingdon Club was stuffed full Princes and other friends and members of that imperialist class, they are the ones who should have done all the fighting. It was their war, they stood to gain or lose imperial wealth and power. On the other hand, the ordinary people, who died in their millions, came from poverty, and after the greed driven avoidable blood-bath, those who returned, returned to unemployment and poverty.
        I personally, have no sympathy, nor will I shed any tears, for those of the imperialist parasite class, who died fighting an imperialist greed fest, which they engineered. They were defending theur own position of wealth and power, or trying to gain more. They ordinary people, on the other hand, were hoodwinked and bullied into believing they were defending something they never had, and still do not have, namely, "dwmocracy"
      The article is just another plug at the establishment propaganda line, "we're all in this together", pure unadulterated bullshit.

 

The Establishment's Weaving Of Lies.

       That babbling brook of bullshit,the mainstream media, always gets it wrong. At the moment it is pouring out lots of hate rhetoric against Russia, but precious little against the murderous onslaught by the Israeli state against the people of Gaza.

     Also on the WW1 "celebrations", they throw their weight behind the establishment view, of it being a heroic and glorious battle for democracy, which we, being the democratic half of the contest, won of course. I wonder what the German people think about that?

      What we should never forget is that the blood letting that goes by the name of WW1 wasn't won, it was an armistice. It was stopped because the imperialist psychopaths were faced with mutinies, rebellion and spontaneous out breaks of truces between the ordinary soldiers on the front line, some of these young men paid with their lives in front of a firing squad for the act of humanity. At home, the imperialists were faced with another battle, strikes and civil unrest across the continent of Europe. Another factor that brought the war warmongering nut-cases to call a halt, to the greed driven slaughter, was the fact that the death toll continued to soar and the maimed continued to be carried home, they were simply running out of canon-fodder. WW1 was an unimaginable spilling of mainly young blood, to further the aims of greed driven imperialist ambitions, in other words, greed and nothing more.

    Up to the start of that unnecessary blood letting of WW1, Europe had no democracy to defend. After the bloody event, Europe had no democracy anywhere. 100 years after that imperialist blood letting, we the ordinary people are still fighting for democracy in Europe.

Part of an email I recently received: 

         As the UK commences four years of commemorations of the centenary of World War 1, the Northumbria and Newcastle Universities Martin Luther King Peace Committee has released a set of resources to help schoolteachers mark the December 1914 Christmas Truces as part of their World War 1 teaching. They are designed as a corrective to the government-sponsored commemorations of the slaughter in the trenches as a heroic and necessary war.

        The December 1914 Christmas Truces, when British, French and German soldiers stopped fighting to celebrate Christmas, exchange gifts, sing carols, and even play football, are one of the most extraordinary episodes in modern military history. These were not isolated incidents. Following weeks of spasmodic fraternisation by men unconvinced by war propaganda, the Christmas Truces occurred right down the front from the North Sea to Switzerland. Made possible by shared traditions of Christian celebration, they were a hopeful moment of recognition of common humanity and a (brief) rejection of the terrible violence of industrialised war pursued by rulers in a deadly game of global imperial competition for territories and resources. They were quashed by orders backed by threats, and by replacing troops with men 'untainted' by the Truces.

         The truces are worth teaching about because they are simply so remarkable and evocative in themselves. Ordinary men recognising their common humanity infuriated high commands by temporarily stopping the industrialised slaughter of the trenches. However at a time when revisionist historians and politicians are offering retro-chic defences of the First World War as somehow necessary or even heroic, the truces can also teach an important message that may otherwise be overlooked in the centennial commemorations.

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

Mutiny And Strikes Stopped WW1.

          When we discuss that imperialist lead blood letting for power, known as WW1, we should make it quite clear that it wasn't started by ordinary people, but by a bunch of power hungry generals, politicians and royalty. However we should also make it quite clear that it didn't end in any type of victory, but an armistice. Neither side of the pompous blundering generals, politicians nor aristocratic idiots, could claim outright victory. That unnecessary bloody conflict which cost millions of lives of ordinary people, was stopped by those ordinary people. It was striking workers and mutinying soldiers, plus the running out of bodies to sacrifice, that brought the imperial greed fest to an end. By 1918, strikes and unrest were widespread across the whole of Europe, German forces were refusing to fight, earlier there had been similar mutinies among French and Russian troops and mutinies were also occurring among the British troops, including the Australian Imperial Force, Under these circumstances, it was obvious, even to the bunch of blundering idiots in charge at that time, that the blood letting power grab couldn't continue.

The arseholes who glory in war.

        Despite this, the Oxbridge millionaire cabal, running our country on behalf of the financial Mafia, have set aside £55 million to mark the blood letting as a wonderful victory and a defence of democracy. 1914 Europe had no democracy to defend, and when the troops came home, it wasn't to a democratic land fit for heroes, it was to unemployment, poverty and deprivation. Here we are, 100 years on in 2014, and we, the ordinary people, are still struggling to create that “democracy” here in the UK and across Europe. 

 The democracy they were defending.

         It was the ordinary people who suffered during that imperialist land grab, it was the ordinary people that brought it to a close, it is the ordinary people that should make sure that the present day power mongers don't turn it in to some sort of extravaganza to display their power and wealth, a circus of flag waving imperial symbolism. The ordinary people across Europe and further afield, suffered horribly during that unnecessary monumental blood letting, we can't let the perpetrators, by smoke and mirrors, take centre stage and wallow in undeserved glory.

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

In Capitalism, Oil = Blood.

       Is the root of Ukraine’s problem the fact that rich oil and gas deposits were discovered there early in 2013. So naturally, opposing imperialist camps vie for control, and once again as imperialists squabble over control of a country's rich resources, it's the people that suffer. Though oil could and probably will, transform Ukraine, it is at present one of the poorest countries in Europe. Sadly it has recently been given the kiss of death, by the usual vampire, the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers). That means it takes on a massive debt to hand to the corporations to exploit its country, and proceeds to pay back that debt, by massive cuts in social spending, and massive privatisation of public assets. It has to decimate the lives of its people and destroy what social fabric exists, in order to satisfy the blood suckers in the bank of Western imperialists, the IMF.
 

      Imperialists, of what ever shade, always manage to get workers to pick up guns against workers, they always get some to run with one flag and others to run with yet another. They manage to play the patriotic game, or the ethnic game, in an endeavour to gain control. Though they themselves are never patriotic, the sink their ill gotten wealth in any country that will pay the right dividend. You'll not see many “oligarchs” running in the streets with a Kalashnikov, They tend to be sitting with their banker guarding their thieved pile.
 

      And so it is at the moment in Ukraine, ordinary worker fighting and killing ordinary worker, to see which imperialist gets the goodies.

This from FREEDOM SOCIALIST (Voice of Revolutionary Feminism).

       The truth is Ukraine’s economy depends on both Russia and Europe. But each side wants to exclude the other. Meanwhile, Ukraine has signed its new loan deal with the IMF, accepting severe cuts to public spending, privatization of public resources, and other austerity measures. Ultra-rich oligarchs continue to loot the country.

     Volodymyr Ishchenko, an anti-capitalist sociologist in Kiev, puts it in a nutshell. “The crazy, irrational capitalist system that inevitably produces competing imperialisms … this is the root of the problem — not only for Ukraine, but for the entire world.”

Read the full article HERE:

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

When The Price Of Greed Was Blood.

      Anybody with a grain of common sense knows that WW1 was an imperialist and aristocratic land grab, paid for by the blood of millions of ordinary innocent people. We also so know that for the ordinary people,there were no benefits. The fruits from that blood letting went to the privileged parasite classes, the misery and suffering to the common people.
      Despite this truth, the powers that be to this day, try to portray this totally unnecessary blood bath as some sort of heroic fight to defend democracy, in reality a democracy that never existed, and still to this day, doesn't exist.
      As we approach the anniversary of that tragic event, we will be seeing all the trappings of power, militarism and patriotism being displayed in an attempt to convince us, that it was all worth while, something of which to be proud. There will be bugle blowing and recruitment campaigns for the next generation to be sacrificed at the alter of the new imperialism, corporate imperialism.

 

      That's why events as this listed below are of such importance, we must counter the insane claims of the imperialists, and continue to show the First World War for what it was, a bloody greed fest, a battle between power crazy empires for land, resources and markets.

JOINT BOOK LAUNCH

‘Writings against the First World War’

with Bruce Kent and A.W. Zurbrugg

Wednesday 18th June, 7pm

Entry £3, redeemable against any purchase

Housmans Bookshop 5 Caledonian Road King's Cross , London N1 9DX,

click here for map

       Our guests present the works of those who opposed the First World War and who wrote and published in order to convince others of its horrors, with particular reference to newly published books ‘Not Our War: Writings against the First World War’ and Ernst Friedrich’s shocking photobook ‘War against War!'.

       Bruce Kent will introduce Ernst Friedrich’s photobook ‘War against War!’ (Spokesman, 2014), which conveys the brutality and human cost of WWI through a series of graphic images. Originally published in 1924, Friedrich’s work begins with an impassioned plea, addressed ‘To Human Beings in all lands’, to understand the causes of war and to take steps to prevent it.

      The photos that follow are accompanied by annotations, sometimes understated, sometimes bitterly ironic, and contrast nationalist propaganda with the appalling reality of the conflict. Friedrich’s work is a condemnation of war which remains shocking and relevant to this day.

      Anthony Zurbrugg, editor of ‘Not Our War: Writings against the First World War’ (Merlin Press, 2014), will introduce his new book. This anthology presents the diverse voices of men and women who questioned and opposed the war: liberals, radicals and pacifists, anarchists and socialists, soldiers and non-combatants.

       They asked critical questions: Was this a war for civilization? What were the forces behind the war? How might it have been prevented? The work features the writings of James Connolly, Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Keir Hardie, Jean Jaurès, Louis Lecoin, V I Lenin, John Maclean, Errico Malatesta, Sylvia Pankhurst, Siegfried Sassoon and many others.

Housmans Bookshop

5 Caledonian Road

King's Cross ,

London N1 9DX,

UK

click here for map

Tel 020 7837 4473

Fax 0870 706 6035

shop@housmans.com

THE MERLIN PRESS Ltd.

www.merlinpress.co.uk

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

Government Backed Corporate Imperialism.

 

       Giants like Monsanto don't get what they want without the help of the various governments. Governments listen to the corporate wish list, and then proceed to set up funding to smooth the process, and pass legislation to put the stamp of legitimacy on their greed driven agenda. Of course it is all shrouded under the banner of development and aid. Western aid has always been loaded to assist Western corporate giants take advantage of developing nations, the first thought has never been the welfare of the people.

         The new imperialist adventure in Africa goes by the name of “The New Alliance for Food and Nutrition”, for the African nations that sign up, this means that their agriculture policies will be at the mercy of the big greed driven giants like Monsanto, Unilever and DuPont. Just to make it easier for those corporate plunderers, the UK government is throwing £395 million into the pot. Imperialism is not something from the last couple of centuries, it is here and now, and we the tax payers are still funding, the plundering of the African continent. 

This from War On Want:

 

      The New Alliance has been modelled on the ‘new vision’ of private investment in agriculture developed by management consultants McKinsey in conjunction with the ABCD group of leading grain traders (ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus) and other multinational agribusiness companies. Government officials have acknowledged that most of the content in the national cooperation frameworks has been taken from other corporate initiatives such as AGRA (the Alliance for a New Green Revolution in Africa) and the Grow Africa investment platform of the World Economic Forum. Policy commitments required of African countries joining the New Alliance include ending the free distribution of seeds, phasing out national export controls and making it easier for private investors to take over agricultural land. The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) has announced that it will be contributing £395 million from the UK aid budget to the New Alliance over the coming three years.

Read the full article HERE:

         People are now more aware of the greed and corruption that goes on between  corporatism and governments and are organising against this destructive system. Saturday May 24th sees the world event of March against Monsanto, though it should be noted that Monsanto are not the only viper in this basket.

 

Details:

    The global March Against Monsanto will take place this coming Saturday, May 24th! If you haven't RSVP'd to your local event yet, you can find a location near you on this event list. If there isn't a march in your area, you can still start one! Here's how: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/2014/02/directions-to-organize-march-against.html
      Whether you are physically marching or not, please join our social media hashtag storm that will be coinciding with the march on Saturday. The details and hashtags will be released through the event page and our Facebook page. You can RSVP to the event here.
     Please invite your friends lists to your local events and to the social media storm. Here's an easy plugin for Firefox users to automatically invite all of their Facebook friends: http://mzl.la/1eIy3Ct
      To view March Against Monsanto's press release, go here. Please forward this press release to any and all of your press contacts.
       Hope to see everyone out there! Here are our links to stay up to date and get involved:
Website www.March-Against-Monsanto.com
    Global event list: www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page_5.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarchAgainstM
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto -

     See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf
     If there isn't a march in your area, you can still start one! Here's how: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/2014/02/directions-to-organize-march-against.html

Website www.March-Against-Monsanto.com
      Global event list: www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page_5.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarchAgainstM
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto - See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf

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

The global March Against Monsanto will take place this coming Saturday, May 24th! If you haven't RSVP'd to your local event yet, you can find a location near you on this event list. - See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf

The global March Against Monsanto will take place this coming Saturday, May 24th! If you haven't RSVP'd to your local event yet, you can find a location near you on this event list.


If there isn't a march in your area, you can still start one! Here's how: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/2014/02/directions-to-organize-march-against.html

Whether you are physically marching or not, please join our social media hashtag storm that will be coinciding with the march on Saturday. The details and hashtags will be released through the event page and our Facebook page. You can RSVP to the event here.

Please invite your friends lists to your local events and to the social media storm. Here's an easy plugin for Firefox users to automatically invite all of their Facebook friends: http://mzl.la/1eIy3Ct

To view March Against Monsanto's press release, go here. Please forward this press release to any and all of your press contacts.

Hope to see everyone out there! Here are our links to stay up to date and get involved:

Website www.March-Against-Monsanto.com
Global event list: www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page_5.html
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarchAgainstM
Facebook: www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto - See more at: http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/#sthash.eUfJZh5S.dpuf

Ukraine For The Ukrainians.

       Obama, mouthpiece for Western corporate power, aided and abetted by our own bunch of rabid pups, the Cameron cabal, are ratching up their rhetoric, in an attempt to prepare us for a blood bath in Ukraine, as they want a slice of that unfortunate country. Meanwhile the Russian imperialists are manoeuvring and manipulating to see that they are not outdone in this corporate land grab. Both empires are prepared to sacrifice the blood of the people of Ukraine and the blood of their own citizens to satisfy their power lust. It could be 1914, when the greed of imperialism dragged Europe into the bloodiest era of its existence, all for power and wealth for that psychopathic parasitic scum, that sits on our shoulders like a caked scab, the so called "elite".

      Millions took to the streets to try to stop the illegal invasion of Iraq, we should be prepared to take to the streets again to stop this re-make of that horror story, "The 1914 Land Grab".  

 

This from SACC:

 

Ukraine Crisis - Public Meetings in Scotland

 

       Ukraine is at the brink of war. It is being pulled apart by imperialist forces, from the East Russian forces and from the West NATO, the EU and the USA.

       SACC is one of the co-sponsors of a series of public meetings being held in Scotland with Zakhar Popovych from the Ukrainian Left Opposition. Zakhar Popovych will give an eye witness account of recent developments and offer a left analysis of events so far. Obviously Zakhar Popovych cannot represent the full range of left opinion in Ukraine, but we hope these meetings will contribute to a better understanding of the Ukraine crisis and will stimulate debate.

 

Please invite your friends and help to make these meetings a success

 

Fri 16 May - Eyewitness report from Ukraine (Dundee)

7.30pm, Queen's Hotel, Nethergate, Dundee DD1 4DU

On facebook

 

Sat 17 May - Eyewitness report from Ukraine (Edinburgh)

4-6pm, Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL

On Facebook

 

Sun 18 May - Eyewitness report from Ukraine (Glasgow)

2pm, Jurys Inn, 80 Jamaica Street, Glasgow G1 4QG

On Facebook

 

More about the Ukraine Crisis

 

Manifesto: 10 theses of the Leftist Opposition in Ukraine (14 January 2014)

Zakhar Popovitch speaking in London (video, 12 March 2014) 

No UK troops for Nato's Ukraine war games - Statement from the Stop the War Coalition (23 April 2014) 

Ukraine’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Reality by Robert Parry (5 May 2014) 

A view on the Ukraine crisis from Scotland by Paul O'Hanlon (10 May 2014) 

In Ukraine the US is dragging us towards war with Russia by John Pilger (14 May 2014)

 

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

 

Combat Stress Reaction, So Shot At Dawn.

     The recent floods in the south of England has kept our millionaire Oxbridge parasite leader, in wellies for a while. This has probably taken his mind, temporarily, off his arrogant grandiose scheme of trying to turn that imperialist blood letting known as the First World War, into a glorious struggle for the freedom of the people. No doubt his minions will still be beavering away in the back rooms of power, dreaming up methods to turn it all into a pompous spectacle. A spectacle where the parasite class will put on all their finery, stand under flags listening to “Land of Hope and Glory”, drunk on that poison “patriotism”.

Patriotism

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

     Perhaps as they stand with their shining medals, chains and badges of phony honour, they will reflect on the 306 young men that their class had shot at dawn for “cowardice”. 306 young men that had experienced their mind being crush by the endless pointless slaughter all around them. Young men that had seen their friends and in some case family members blown to pieces and maimed, and could see no end in sight. Men as young as 17, tied to a stake and shot at dawn, by their own comrades, on the orders of the blood crazed defenders of imperialism, for what today we would refer to as post-traumatic stress syndrome and combat stress reaction. 

Shot at dawn memorial, at the National Memorial Arboretum  

   Another thought that should permeate through their warped minds is the fact that the UK was one of the last countries to end this barbaric dawn murder of its own troops. The die-hard UK imperialists would cling to this savagery until the bitter end. It was two different classes, the arrogant upper class, officer prats, and the worthless working class, who had to be treated brutally to keep them in line. Nothing much has changed in their mental attitude, it is still them, who believe they were born to lead, and us, who need to be kept in line, or we might start doing what we want to do.

   We owe it to those 306 young men and all those who suffered during and after that imperialist land grab, to remember it for what it was, a massive blood letting, so that the European aristocrats could settle their greed driven differences.

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

The Armed Forces Are No Friend Of The People.

      To all those who say “support our troops” I think they should ask themselves, “what are the troops really for?”. They are portrayed as, there to protect the people, but can be, and are, brought onto the streets to suppress the people and protect the state apparatus. The armed forces are the strong arm of state expansionism and the body guard of corporate globalisation. It is ordinary kids from our communities that are hoodwinked by the state propaganda, the deal is you hand in your freedom and you get a uniform, with the promise of learning and travel. In truth, the kids are brutalised and moulded into robots that will always follow orders, no matter what. Then they are sent to the out posts of the corporate imperialist's empire, there they will employed to crush any local resistance to the march of Western corporate greed, corporate globalisation. 

     People of the world don't need protecting from people of the world, we the people, need protection from the various states and their partner, corporate imperialism, who are wedded in a festering marriage of greed and destruction. 

Symbols of state repression.

This from Indymedia:

  ------We see them recruiting in the towns, colleges and jobcentres, luring in the exploited and excluded classes with bloodmoney, moronic patriotism and the promise of adventure to replace their misery, with macho bootcamps or the controlrooms for videogame-style remote killing technology. Despite cuts Britain still has the fourth largest military budget in the world as it clings to an imperial legacy of genocide and enslavement. Today the Western armies are flexible for democratic-expansionist wars, 'peacekeeping' interventions to facilitate the new colonial age of corporate globalisation, counterinsurgery, geopolitical manoeuvrings and resource control, or prepared for internal policing and strikebreaking. Their ends are the same as ever, here as in Afghanistan, Mali or Libya - the rulers lie, the poor die, capitalism profits. 

Read the full article HERE:

For Queen And Country And All That Crap.

     As the 100 years anniversary of the start of first World War draws ever closer, we should be prepared for the Cameron/Gove clan of duplicitous imperialist's, mounting crescendo of foul lies, that it was all for freedom and democracy.  What those who fought in that horrific shameful episode of imperialist greed, came home to, was not freedom and democracy. They came home to poverty and deprivation, while the imperialist decision making war mongers, pinned honours on their breast, stuffed their coffers with plunder and basked in the reflected glory of other people's suffering and deaths.

       As the year progresses, we have to organise to shine the light of truth on their hollow, sham pompous and hypocritical facade. We have to remember those British troops that the British military shot because they had suffered to the extent that they couldn't fight any more. They named it cowardice, in an attempt to cover their blood letting.

      The first World war was probably the most brutal imperialist fallout ever, where those who had wealth and power, got the people to slaughter each other in an attempt to enlarge or hold onto that wealth and power. There never was any thought of freedom or democracy for the people, on their agenda. It was all jingoism, smoke and mirrors, propaganda, as the aristocrats of the world scrambled to plunder what the could from each other.

    Let's remember it for what it was, imperialist greed, pompous arrogance of those with wealth and power, a sacrifice of a generation of ordinary people at the altar empire. We owe it to all those ordinary people who died needlessly, simply offered up as payment for territory, wealth and power to gratify the lust of the greed infested imperialists.

       In February 2013, Ben Griffin, former SAS soldier in the British army, Ben Griffin spoke at the Oxford University Union debate in favour of the motion "We Will NOT Fight For Queen and Country", explaining why he would no longer accept the lies which perpetuate war.

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

Just A Mirror Of America

      January 26 was Australia Day, when the colonial power raised its flag and pompously paraded as if Australia was an empty land found by the imperialists of the West. The parade showed no hint of the bloodshed, plundering, genocide ethnic cleansing and slavery that is the foundation of Australia.

     This article from Socialism Or Your Money Back helps to put that in perspective.

     The imperial wars and massacres (guns vs spears) such as those at Hawksbury, Nepean Richmond Hill, Risdon Cove, Appin, Bathurst, Port Phillip, Swan River (Battle of Pinjarra), Gravesend, Vinegar Hill, Myall Creek, Kinroy, Rufus R, Long lagoon, Dawson River, Kalkadoon, Cape Grim, the Black war, McKinley River, and West Kimberely were resisted by Aboriginal warriors like Pemulwuy, Winradyne, Multuggerah, Yagan, and Jandamarra. These wars, along with starvation and Western diseases decimated the dispossessed Aboriginal population to about 70,000 by 1920.
      Australia's First Peoples were marginalised onto reservations and missions, restricted entry into white towns, exploited as unpaid slave labour, their indigenous languages and sacred rituals forbidden, and mixed blood children (The Stolen Generations) were forcibly kidnapped from their parents for resocialisation - ie to be made "white". Until the 1967 referendum in Australia, Aborigines were government property: "The right to choose a marriage partner, to be legally responsible for one's own children, to move about the state and to socialise with non-Aboriginal Australians, were just some of the rights which Aboriginal people did not have."

Read the full article HERE:

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

Colonial Butcher Kitchener.

       Well friends and comrades,  it's a new year, will it be a new year's resolution, or will it be a new year's revolution? Will there be the great awakening, will there be that revolution of consciousness when we see the world differently? Will we follow our imagination, and grasp our dreams? Will we realise that power we have through solidarity, and shape the world to all our needs? After generations of being exploited, will we finally stand up and screw the bastards, once and for all. All the best.

           This image, one from those brutal days of empire, must be the biggest insult of the last century, to the ordinary people. Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC.

was a famed butcher of the colonies, in the peak days of Empire. As colonial administrator, he was responsible for many ruthless campaigns to keep the colonies under the yoke of the British Crown. He was also the imperialists recruiting sergeant for that swamp of death, that is referred to as The First World War. Why would the people of this country and those of the former British colonies wish to see this man honoured? Why should we feel any affinity to this butcher?

     We are in for a year of patriotic pish being poured over us, in an attempt to turn the stupidity and the pointless carnage of that blood bath of 1914/18 into a glorious event. An avoidable event, when parasitic imperialists decided to settle their greedy squabbling by shedding the blood of millions of ordinary people. People who had nothing to gain from the slaughter, People who left poverty to enter that hell on earth, and, if the did come back, they returned to even greater poverty and hardship, while their imperial lords and masters wallowed  in glory and wealth.

    There was nothing in the "Great War" for the ordinary people except endless, pointless killing and suffering. Rather than follow the flag waving triumphalism of that pampered parasitic class of imperialist dinosaurs, who would willingly send another generation into the "valley of death", for their own gain, we should be getting very angry. We the people bore the brunt of all the bloodshed, death and misery, while they, the ruling parasites gained all the spoils.

    The First World War, like most wars, was a public display of our lords and masters' greedy squabbling, to further their own wealth and power. It should be remembered as such, and the finger should be pointed at those responsible for all that death and suffering. 

Patriotism

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

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

Black Is White, And White Is Black.

        Every week or more, we hear of a death, maiming or injury, of one or more Palestinians, and that babbling brook of bullshit, the main stream media, always reports it as “retaliation” by Israel, but never do they refer to Palestinian, “retaliation”. This goes all the way back for decades, you would not be blamed for getting the impression that it is the Israeli lands that are being stolen, it is the Israeli people that were being driven from their homes, it is Israeli lands that are being occupied and developed by the Palestinians. Amazing how that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, can have you thinking black is white and white is black.

 

This from  Middle East Monitor:

 

        Once again we hear that Israel has bombed the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip "in retaliation" for something that they've done against Israelis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country will "respond". Many people would agree that a person in his position has a duty to protect his citizens. Certainly, those in the White House and Downing Street do, which is why Israel gets away with murder, quite literally. It's all down to legitimate self-defence; or so we are led to believe.

       What, though, is the reality? Why is that right of self-defence never extended to the people of Palestine? After all, it is their land which is under occupation; it is their land which is being stolen and colonised; it is their land from which they are being excluded in a decades-long act of ethnic cleansing that its proponents hope will never end.

Read the full article HERE:

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February 28 - A Pointless Anniversary.

         Today 28 February 1856 the protagonists of the Crimean War, after three years of slaughter, came together in Paris and through hours of huffing and puffing, signed an armistice, which was to end on the 31 March 1856. However both sides continued the build up their defences, but they did managed to calm their blood lusts, and on March the 30 1856 the Treaty of Paris was signed, and the blood soaked land got a little respite.

      Since then right up to the present hour, the imperialists and nation states have continued to slaughter the lives of ordinary people. Treaties have come and treaties have gone but the power lust remains. Borders are crossed, borders are eliminated, power structures are destroyed and new power structures built in their place. None of this is for the benefit of those who stand in the front line, none of this carnage is for the benefit of the ordinary people. Through the years all that has changed is, why the slaughter. It used to be to further or defend the power of monarchs and imperial empires, today it is to further or defend corporate empires, resources and markets. But the pattern is still the same, we do the dying and the killing, they reap the rewards.

         Here we are in 2013 and they are still legitimising the destruction, while they make arrangements to take their killing machine out of Afghanistan, they are entering a new adventure in Mali, with warring glances at Iran. In all the recent carnage and misery, who have been the beneficiaries? An honest assessment would probably say, the arms industries and the oil and gas industry of the Western corporate empire. 

 

       The madness and killing will continue as long as we keep this greed driven system of capitalism, a system the seeks to build and defend the personal fortunes for the few. Of course there are alternatives, we could, as ordinary people, take control of our own lives and build structures that see to the needs of all our people, the type of society that we want, based on co-operation, justice, mutual aid and freedom. That means of course that capitalism must be destroyed.

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