Action.

 

           The struggle of the ordinary people for a society of fairness, justice and that sees to the needs of all our people is continuous. At times it simmers just below the surface, other times it explodes into action, When the anger and discontent surface it can be a short brutal battle, other times it can be a long drawn out affair, with many paying a high price for their desire for justice. One of the recent longer strike actions has been the Indian farmers strike, against government legislation that would have allowed the international aggro-businesses to dominate and decimate the lives of thousands of small farmers. The strike lasted approximately one year and has just ended with the Indian government withdrawing the hated legislation, a victory for the striking farmers. However many paid for the victory with their lives.
         Another recent and ongoing strike on this continuous struggle of the people for fairness and justice is happening at the moment in Spain with the metal workers in Cadiz. The battle is continuous and at times brutal but the end will only come with victory and the formation of a fair and just society that sees to the needs of all our people, free from the greed motive of the corporate parasite class.

Thanks Loam for the links.

 

The following from the World Socialist Web Site:

 

            The struggle has rapidly developed into a rebellion against the union bureaucracies and a clash with Spain’s government coalition, made up of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the pseudo-left Podemos party.
           Workers occupied the Puerto Real industrial area and built barricades with industrial equipment, burning cars and rail tracks to block police from the area. Bonfires have been lit at the entrances to the factories, manned by pickets, halting production. Military shipbuilder Navantia, European multinational aerospace firm Airbus, construction multinational Dragados, aerospace supplier Alestis and stainless steel manufacturer Acerinox, and their subcontractors are all affected.
           Workers at petrochemical plants in La Linea, Algeciras, and Los Barrios have also stopped work, and picketers there blocked major highways.
          The strike is widely supported in the region, which has the highest unemployment rate in Spain, with 23 percent unemployment and over 40 percent among youth. The trade unions report that 98 percent of workers are striking as anger surges across the region.

Read the full article HERE:

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Our WW4.

         War, that integral part of this economic system we live under, the wars of imperialism, wars fought all over the world with your blood for their gain, the war of state power for plunder and pillage to benefit the few, those members of the pampered, privileged parasite class. However there is another world war that the establishment don't want you to see, hear about, or in any way support. It's the war of the people for justice, equality and freedom. In country after country the battles rage and blood is shed, but for the noble cause of that better world for all, free from exploitation, for a sustainable world unshackled for the chains of profit for the few. 

 

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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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Learning To Resist.

         On this, the 50th anniversary of the global uprisings of 1968, subMedia pays homage to the insurgent youth who helped kick things off a half-century ago by taking a look at some contemporary student-led movements that are still tearing things up around the world. In this month’s episode of Trouble, the first of a two-part series on radical student movements, sub.Media talks to a number of current and former student organizers from so-called Puerto Rico, Quebec and Chile as they share their experiences from the high-points of past struggles and provide hard-fought lessons that can help prepare a new generation for the battles to come.

Originally published by Submedia:

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LOOKING BACK AT THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT.

     Though it had a greater impact in America than here and no matter the outcome, I personally see the Occupy Movement as a great success. It took more people along that road of making the private public, politicised lots of people and created new networks of communication. It also altered the way lots of people view this society that we live in, opening their eyes to the inequalities and injustices, none of that can be bad. 

This from The Bureau of Public Secrets: 

Looking Back on Occupy

1. Your assessment of the Occupy movement was very positive. What is the overall perception you have of this movement today? What is left of Occupy?

       There is not much left of the Occupy movement as such — almost all the encampments were destroyed in November or December 2011 and virtually no new ones have emerged. On the other hand, the movement was in no way “defeated.” With few exceptions, the people arrested were quickly released and totally exonerated. The elimination of the encampments simply had the effect of forcing the participants onto other, more diverse terrains of struggle. Countless people all over the country continue to meet regularly, to network with each other and to carry out all sorts of actions — picketing banks, disrupting corporate board meetings, blocking home foreclosures, protesting environmental policies (Monsanto, Tar Sands Pipeline, fracking, etc.), in addition to more specifically “occupy” type actions such as attempting to take over and reopen schools and libraries that have been closed and abandoned, or “Homes Not Jails” attempted takeovers of vacant housing to provide dwellings for homeless people. One of the most interesting and well planned of these latter types of actions, “Occupy the Farm,” took place just a few blocks from my home last April, when ecological activists took over a large plot of vacant urban land and turned it into a community garden, planting more than ten thousand seedlings in the space of a few days. The gardener-occupiers were driven out after three weeks, but the agitation continues and has resulted in a temporary victory against a planned commercial development. [November note: Since the completion of this interview the immense disaster relief work of Occupy Sandy is yet another very important and exemplary development.]

      The Occupy movement already had the implicit goal of “reclaiming the commons” — occupying public squares or parks played on this theme, since regardless of quibbles about permits it was obvious that such spaces belong to the public and are, or at least originally were, intended for public use. But these more recent actions have the merit of challenging the fetish of private property in a more direct manner. That fetish has always been extremely strong in the United States, and the police responses to its transgression have always been more immediate and brutal. But I like to hope that these types of actions will eventually weaken the fetish, just as happened in the days of the Civil Rights movement. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when black people first started restaurant sit-ins, one often heard this argument: “That restaurant belongs to the owner, he has the right to do whatever he wants with it, including deciding who he wants to serve.” But as more and more people kept peacefully sitting in and calmly accepting arrest, the general public was gradually brought around to the idea that there was a “higher law” than property rights — that other rights also had to be respected, such as the right to be treated fairly as a human being. I think this may eventually happen with these post-Occupy invasions of various types of property, as people see the absurdity of there being millions of vacant buildings while there are millions of people living in the streets. Even now many people sympathize with the idea of defending a family against foreclosure, despite the fact that a bank technically owns the home, because there is increasing awareness that the banks have often acted illegally. The notion of reopening abandoned schools, etc., is even more exemplary in that it hints at the notion of a society based on cooperation and generosity rather than on how much money can be made from something.

         The two drawbacks of these types of action are that they are risky and that they thus tend to be the work of a small minority (mostly young and mostly male). Occupying public spaces is much more likely to attract the sympathy, the support, and ultimately the participation of multitudes of ordinary people (including parents, children, elderly, disabled). But for those who want to push the limits and don’t mind the risks, taking over vacant buildings and opening them up to public uses is much more challenging and inspiring than breaking windows.

Read the full article HERE:

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STRONGER TOGETHER.

     We all know that winter in Scotland means choices, choices between eating or heating. Winter in this country, because of the climate and "fuel poverty" brings with it misery and death, while the energy companies fatten their shareholders with bigger profits. There are ways and means of fighting the leeches that own the energy companies.

This from SNIFFER:

"Jam the gas meters or Stronger Together?

    Direct action on fuel poverty in Europe campaign ‘Samen Sterker’ or "Stronger Together" reports that thousands of people in Belgium and Netherlands have organised collectively against the power companies and won great deals.

   But here in the UK EDF Fuel prices for residential customers are to hike up by 10.8% from December 7, 2012 sending the average dual fuel bill to £1,251. Scottish Gas and Scottish Power will be more than this by up to £23. And we already know that means misery and death.

   Excess winter mortality statistics from the UK Office for National Statistics estimated there were 25,700 Excess Winter Deaths (WHO) in England and Wales in 2011, 3.4% higher in the North East. Scotland’s winter statistics at 2,450 are like the UK’s low temperature related deaths, not exclusively hypothermia but cerebrovascular disease and heart disease, pneumonia, stroke and respiratory diseases.

    Belgium and Netherlands have taken direct action on fuel bills by collective switching. Their groups of 10,000 people prepared to switch en-mass to a new supplier this means that these suppliers offer a decent price in order to get them as new clients. They have a trusted third party who's actually doing all the leg work, setting up the switch system so that it is minimal effort for us. Hundreds of thousands of consumers have benefited and on average saved some 200-250 euros a year.

   Earlier this year the UK consumer organisation Which? organised the firstcollective switch in the UK. Almost 40,000 people took part, with average savings of £223 a year.

     A pilot scheme is running in Cornwall, and South Lakeland District Council in Cumbria is finalising the first local authority project in the UK. Other local councils may follow suit soon.

Let’s do it in Scotland."

      Start to organise your own "energy switch" group in your own area, join the group nearest you and hit the energy companies with a mass switch deal and get the best price. Start today before the Scottish weather really bites.

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GLASGOW'S RADICAL WOMEN.

       Well, the party's over, as the words of the song go, and today that could be literally, as the year ended and also figuratively, as the millionaire public school thugs rip our welfare system apart. Of course in ordinary life when the party's over, we have to get back to the daily grind. In this case it will be realising that we have a helluva fight on our hands if we want a world in which all can live with dignity and free from the fear of deprivation. We now face a period where the thoughts will be of survival, not of parties. However in times of adversity the ordinary people have always shown tremendous resolve and when the come together they are an unstoppable force that can re-shape the world. Glasgow, like most cities, can be proud of its radical history of struggle and at times like these we can perhaps learn from those past battles when we took on the establishment and won. We can also take inspiration from some of those members of the working class that showed selfless dedication to the cause of the ordinary people. One of Glasgow's many working class heroes was Mary Barbour, at a time of tremendous deprivation she organised with other women in the city and took on the British government and won. The battle is known as "The Rent Strikes", perhaps now we can again call on the strength and determination of all those Mary Barbours' that are living in the city today.

    The following is a page from Radical Glasgow's Strugglepedia, where you will find more of Glasgow's heroes and some of the city's struggles.

MARY BARBOUR, 1875-1958

EARLY LIFE.

      Mary Barbour was born on the 22nd of February 1875 in the village of Kilbarchan. She was the third child of seven, her father was a carpet weaver. In 1887 the family moved to the village of Elderslie. Mary worked as a thread twister eventually becoming a carpet printer. The year 1896 saw her marry David Barbour and settle in the Govan Burgh of Glasgow. She joined and became an active member of the Kinning Park Co-operative Guild, The first to be established in Scotland.

GLASGOW RENT STRIKE & WOMEN’S PEACE CRUSADE.

      Mary joined the Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Sunday School. The Glasgow rent strike during the first world war brought her to the forefront of local political activity. Because of large rent increases by the Landlords, the Glasgow Women's Housing Association was born in 1914. It was in Govan that the first active résistance to rent increases appeared. Mary Barbour was instrumental in forming the South Govan Women's Housing Association. As a working class housewife with two sons and her husband an engineer in the shipyards she was well qualified to be energetically engaged in all its activities from the organising of committees to the physical prevention of evictions and the hounding of the Sheriff's Officers. This type of activity soon spread to the whole of the Clydeside area. The situation climaxed on the 17th of November 1915 with one of the largest demonstrations in Glasgow's political history. Thousands of women marching with thousands of shipyard and engineering workers paraded through the streets of the city to the Glasgow Sheriff's Court where the demonstration was near riot proportions. Out of this defiant stand came the "Rent Restriction Act" heralding in a change in the housing system of the city of Glasgow. The act also benefited tenants across the country. Mary's involvement in this struggle had made her a working class hero in Govan and much further afield. Together with Helen Crawfurd and Agnes Dollan, Mary, in June 1916, was instrumental in founding the Women's Peace Crusade in Glasgow. She was a frequent and regular speaker at its many rallies on Glasgow Green.

FIRST WOMAN LABOUR COUNCILLOR.

      1920 saw Mary stand as one of three candidates for the Fairfield Ward of Govan, and elected to the Glasgow Town Council as its first woman Labour Councillor. It was mainly the women's vote that gave her the 4,701 votes that marked her success. During her term as a Labour Councillor she fought for many causes to help the poorest in the community. The range of policies that she pushed for covered a very wide spectrum but all for the benefit of the working class community. Among them were such things as washhouses, laundries and public baths, free milk to school children, child welfare centres, play areas, pensions for mothers, home helps and municipal banks, she also pushed for a campaign against consumption.

FIRST WOMAN BAILLIE.

       The years 1924-1927 saw her serve as Glasgow Corporation's first woman Baillie and appointed as one of the first woman Magistrates in Glasgow. Her council work allowed her to develop her commitment to the welfare of women and children. In 1925 she was chairperson of the Women's Welfare and Advisory Clinic, Glasgow's first family planning centre. Mary worked continuously and energetically to raise funds to support its team of women doctors and nurses. Mary Barbour retired from her council work in 1931 but never relented on her work load in committees for welfare and housing and remained energetically involved in Co-operative Committees. In her later years she continued her commitment to the welfare of the poor by organising trips to the seaside for children of the poor. At the inaugural meeting in Glasgow of the Scottish National Assembly of Women she was the guest speaker. At the age of 83 she died on the 2nd of April 1958. Her funeral took place at Craigton Crematorium in Govan.

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