As usual, SubMedia delivers the news that the mainstream media overlooks. This latest edition System Fail 14, is no exception, watch and see what is happening across this scarred, damaged and plundered planet.
This Edition:
Artificial intelligence reaches a new and unexpected milestone while the human condition continues to worsen. As supply chains are pushed to the brink, working people around the globe struggle with new realities of stagnated wages and out of control inflation. While oil corporations celebrate record profits, the people of Ecuador are fighting back with work stoppages, road blocks, and riots across the country. Meanwhile, in Tanzania, tensions have flared as the government tries to displace many indigenous Maasai people from their ancestral homelands for yet another playground for capitalist elites. Finally, we follow up with our coverage of Giannis Michailidis, anarchist prisoner in Greece, who has now been on hunger strike for over a month.
I penned the little piece below away back in February 2003, why bother repeating it now you might ask. After all Tony has bent his knee in front of the monarchy, been welcomed into the bosom of the imperial establishment and made a knight.
It was a joke then, what makes you think it's different now?
Well the point is not about Tony, but the fact that we are facing an unprecedented attack on our living standards, millions more of ordinary people are going to be dragged in to poverty, people's health will suffer, kids potential will be stunted and the elderly will go to an earlier grave than they would normally. Meanwhile millionaires and billionaires get richer and richer by the day. So if you are thinking of marching through the streets with you placards, demanding the government do something to help you, then reflect on February 15th. 2003, when 1 million marched in London, 100,000 marched in Glasgow and similar amounts in cities across the planet, all on the same day, the result was to be totally ignored by the government. You will have to come up with something a bit stronger than nice marches and fancy placards. The state and its corporate bedfellows are in a corrupt and festering arrangement but are determined to to protect their power, wealth and privileges and will fight tooth and nail to keep wages down, cut social spending, with the excuse of cutting inflation and balancing the books, the real purpose is of course to re-capitalise their broken and corrupt system. The only way they know how to do that is to make us pay by inflicting crippling austerity on the population. You will have to be ready for a bitter fight and perhaps a long one, or you can knuckle down and take what is coming to you. The choice is up to us all, we organise and fight back or we accept our abject poverty and hand the same misery on to our kids and grandkids.
He didn't listen to you then, what makes you think Boris will now?
If politicians listen to the will of the people, what should Tony be doing after February 15th, If ever a people spoke loud and and with one voice, it was the British people on Saturday February 15th. A protest voice of 1 million ordinary British people on the streets of London, close to 100,000 on the streets of Glasgow, with nearly as many in Belfast, all saying the same thing, “This war must not happen”. On the same day, this call was repeated across the planet in most major cities. What more does Bush and Blair need to make them realise that they are wrong, If there is a war on Iraq, it will be in the name of George W. Bush, Tony Blair and their handful of scullions, most certainly not in the name of the British people. What ever we think of Saddam, and what ever we think should happen to him, on one thing we all agree, the Iraqi people must not become collateral damage in the oil barons and weapon makers scramble for richer pickings. If Tony did not get the message on February 15th. Then we must repeat it at regular intervals until he does.
What is always omitted from the mainstream media, is the anger across the planet at the brutal repressive actions of the various states. The anger at the continual savagery against those who demand change from this insane exploitative system based on privileges to the wealthy and struggle and poverty to the many. No matter the brutality, the struggles intensify, the anger of the people grows. This struggle is marked by the deaths of thousands of ordinary people, the beating of many more and the incarceration of millions across the planet. However, the struggle continues and the anger grows, there can only be on outcome, the destruction of the state/corporate stranglehold on the liberty of the people.
Back from a wee break in the wilderness I thought I would re-start my rantings with a video from Sub Media. Here they bring together a series of May Day happenings across the world. It is impossible today to find a country where the people are not on the streets in anger at the system that shackles millions to poverty, destitution and war, and where the public's opinion of politicians has sunk somewhere low in the sewage system, from Sudan to Sri Lanka, from Paris to Montreal, from Berlin to Chile. The people are angry, the privileged parasites are nervous, expect the unexpected.
A note from SubMedia regarding this video:
During the production of this episode we were working with the
most up to date information at the time when we had said nobody
had died at the May Day protests in Chile. Unfortunately we have
since learned that Francisca Sandoval, a journalist age 29 died
several days later in the hospital. Our condolences go out to her
family and loved ones.
We're sorry for any confusion this may have caused
So May Day is over, but the ethos of May Day lingers on. There is more to come, more organising ,more getting together if we want to change this system of greed and profit for a better world for all. The next big thing in Glasgow will be the anti-war rally, May 7th and then the Red and Black Clydeside Bookfair, May 7th.
Details for the Anti-war rally, Saturday May 7th. 11.30am, Blythswood Square Glasgow. Spread the word bring your friends and family it affects us all.
The anti-war rally will end in good time for you to wander down the road to the CCA 350 Sauchiehall Street for the Red and Black Clydeside Bookfair from
3pm to 9pm. and an opportunity to find out more about organsing your
community/workplace, to meet old friends, make new friends, pick up literature, enter discussions, see a film, chat or just browse, all welcome.
It appears from our media that the only violence in the world is taking place in Ukraine. Little or no mention of the fact that the streets of Sudan, have been since October 2021, the scene of state brutality against peaceful protesters. Since the October military coup in Sudan, 93 protestors have been killed, hundreds seriously injured, and more imprisoned by the military security forces, but still the people take to the streets to protest this military take over of their country, and the West, so called defenders of democracy, look the other way. I'm not for one minute suggesting that the Ukraine bloodshed is not important, but let's cover the violence across the globe that this insane system of state/corporate/military economics has produced. We are awash with violence from east to west, from north to south, but somehow our Western media seems to focus on one single spot of European violence, ignoring the thousands of lives that are being ended, maimed, destroyed and displaced across the planet on a daily basis. What makes the lives of Ukrainians more important than the lives of Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Afghans, Somalians, and the people of Yemen and Sudan to mention a few. Does our compassion and humanity only reach as far as the borders of the European military camp?
Sudan. The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors announced that one protestor was killed, and dozens were injured during the March of the Millions in Khartoum, on Thursday. Eisam Hasab al-Rasoul (23) was shot in the chest by the security forces, leaving the current number of protestors that have been killed at 93, since the October 25 military coup.
16 protestors were also reported to have been injured by gunfire, including a critical injury of a gunshot wound to the chest during the Burii demonstrations in eastern Khartoum, on Wednesday. Dozens more injuries occurred the next day, as peaceful protestors were fired upon by coup forces with live bullets, tear gas, and sound bombs, in an effort to disperse demonstrators headed towards the Presidential Palace. Protesters chanted slogans denouncing the October 25 military coup, calling on the army to return to their barracks, full civilian rule and retribution for those killed during the protests. Other cities in Sudan such as El Obeid, El Gedaref, Wad Madani, and Port Sudan also witnessed excessive violence during demonstrations condemning the coup, on Thursday. In El Gaderef, protestors faced tear gas and excessive beating with sticks and truncheons. Members of Sudan’s General Intelligence Service also arrested five activists in El Gedaref, three of whom were taken from inside the Gedaref Hospital. The five activists arrested in El Gedaref are Dr Muhamed Suleiman, lawyers Mutasim Osman and Hamam al-Rashed, Walid Abdallah and Moshen.
Northern Sudan
16 activists of the Al-Hafir resistance committee were issued with a fine of SDG50,000 by the Dongola Court in Sudan’s Northern State, for their part in the protests at Sheryan El Shimal (Artery of the North) on the Sudan-Egypt border. The activists who were protesting the recent price hikes in electricity fees, were fined for building barricades in order to prevent lorries heading to and from Egypt to cross. Abdo Ali, a member of the Dongola Resistance Committees Coordination, told Radio Dabanga that the amounts set by the court would be paid on the activist’s behalf by his committee. He also stated that a group of coup force members wounded 5 protestors by pelting them with stones and beating them with sticks, during a demonstration on Tuesday. The committee condemned the attack on the peaceful procession and described those behind the attack as ‘barbaric’.
Across the globe, people are angry and taking that anger to the streets. To more and more people it is becoming obvious that the dominant economic system on the planet is not working for the better good of the many, but simply protecting and enhancing the wealth, power and privileges of the few. Of course as the anger among the people grows, so the repression of the state increases. Any written word, spoken word or action, that attempts to end this exploitation of the people and the plundering of the planet is now labelled criminal, or terrorist, allowing the state to unleash its brutal forces of intimidation backed up by its loaded so called judicial system. However the rebellion continues. The youth of France are angry and on the streets, the Yellow Vests are still on the streets in vast numbers. Russia has mass demonstrations against state repression. People's anger walks the streets of Greece, South America is in a constant state of rebellion No state is immune from the anger of the people and it grows by the day. When will this storm of anger finally wash away the greed, inequality, injustice and brutality of this economic system of privilege and insanity. When will we end this economic system that spawns wars, brutality, deprivation and obscene inequality.
In towns and cities across the country people are organising "Kill the Bill" protests. This is not about a few lefties protesting, this is about climate change, working conditions, wages, peace movements, equal rights, injustices, corruption, about your right to display your anger or dissatisfaction with the way our country is being run. This is the 2021 poll-tax, it affects everybody and it must be resisted with the same anger and determination that brought down the poll-tax. You and everybody else has the right to protest, it is protest that brought about wage increases, better working conditions, end to slavery, end to child labour in mines and other industries, all real change for the benefit of the ordinary people was brought about by protests, they were never given to the people in a benevolent manner by the system. This bill will kill the right to protests as and when we feel the need, in this society, without protests we are at the mercy of the state and its corporate buddies who will milk the situation for their benefit, all to the detriment of our freedoms and conditions. The importance of killing this bill can't be emphasised enough, it puts the public in a straight-jacket and gives free rein to the state, it is the rock solid foundation of the police state. Total control of where you can meet up, how many and what sort of noise you can make, if any, and for how long. Our freedoms in this society are limited enough without taking away the one that has in the past allowed us to make progress in our desire for a free and fair society. Lose that right at your peril. "Kill the Bill", think poll-tax.
Let's grow this list, make it cover every city, town and village in the UK. This will be the most important protest in defence of your freedom and your right to public assembly and protest. Kill the Bill, kill the police state.
I, like many others have spouted at regular intervals the need to be vigilant as the pandemic diminishes, as the government will do what it can to hold onto the restrictions that it has put in place in the name of controlling the pandemic. The state apparatus always aims at a subservient population, one that sits and waits for government instructions as to when to meet up, where and how many. It has gained this through emergency legislation and will be most reluctant to let that control go, giving the people the right to move as they please, meet where and when they please, and with how many they wish to meet.
It seems that Priti Patel, she who allegedly shouts and swears at those who work for her, but in doing so has not broken the ministerial code, according to bumbling Boris, now wishes to tighten controls over people's right to protest, giving the police more powers to deal with those who would dare to protest. With in her twisted mind she seems to think that the police, already do not have sufficient powers to go carte-blanche and heavy handed into any protest, with the states blessing, she wishes to hand them more power to stifle our right to public protests.
This population control is just one of the restrictions that the state will do its damnedest to hold onto and enhance, it is in the nature of the state. Not only must we be vigilant but also ruthless, in the defence of our right to peaceful and mass protest. We must also protest in mass and loudly at any attempt to hold onto any of the pandemic restrictions that were introduced as emergency legislation because of the pandemic. Otherwise the few freedoms we do have will vanish into the annals of history. where it will be almost impossible to retrieve them. Freedoms and governments pull in the opposite direction, If you value your freedom, then be prepared to fight for them, the state will not hand them over with a smile.
Concern over the government’s limitation of the right to protest during lockdown continues to mount after it emerged that the home secretary, Priti Patel, is eager to grant police greater powers to control demonstrations once the Covid restrictions are lifted. In a letter to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) Patel wrote that although she appreciates protest is “a cornerstone of our democracy” she wanted to know how the Home Office could help police ensure protests in the future do not impact on “the rights of others to go about their daily business”. In a letter to Sir Thomas Winsor, the head of HMICFRS, dated last September but just released under freedom of information laws, Patel wrote: “I would like to know ... what steps the government could take to ensure the police have the right powers and capabilities to respond to protests.” Campaign groups such as Liberty argue that police already have extensive powers to control or ban protests and arrest individuals who stray from police-imposed conditions. Patel recently described last year’s Black Lives Matter protests as “dreadful” after previously calling them illegal. BLM demonstrators have claimed they were subjected to intimidating police tactics such as kettling, and a report from the monitoring coalition Netpol alleged the policing of the protests was “institutionally racist”. Patel’s letter to Winsor has prompted a review by the inspectorate into how effectively the police manage protests. Its findings will help Patel prepare a new law to curb protests that it is understood will target those that block parliament or affect judicial hearings, among other criteria. There is growing concern that the government has used the pandemic to suffocate protest. Gracie Bradley, the interim director of Liberty, said Covid regulations passed as emergency laws appear to create a blanket ban on organising and attending protests, which was a disproportionate restriction of human rights. “It’s a failure to prioritise what is the exercise of a fundamental democratic right and one that is all the more important given the government’s propensity to sideline parliament in the course of dealing with this pandemic,” she said.
What will the end of covid19 bring, will it see the underlying anger of
the people explode, will it see the long suffering, exploited and
marginalised take to the streets, not to demand change, but to
unstoppably create change, in doing so destroy this system of greed, pillage and plunder, that for
generations has stunted their lives and that of their children. Or will
they humbly submit to more of the same, leaving the rich pampered
parasites laughing all the way to their luxury yachts.
I Am The Crowd.
I am the crowd I awim in the quagmire of poverty its hooks, its barbs, tear my flesh rupture my dreams, I hold my breath for centuries hoping to break through, gasp pure air. Through the murky mire I see bright things, shiny things sparkle I see women in fine dresses, men in silk shirts. I ask myself why do I swim in this cesspool? I want the light and warmth of rectitude to caress my labouring body, seeds of my dreams to bloom like wild flowers in a meadow. one day, I will use my boundless strength to haul this torn, battered being out of the morass onto the warm grassy bank, when I do; woe betide you, women in fine dresses woe betide you mister in your fine silk shirt should you ever try to get in my way, for I am the strength of the world, I am the crowd.
London, the most unregulated city in the world - rich scum particularly welcome ★ “Give me your rich, your greedy, Your mafia drug-gangs from every corner of the globe yearning to launder cash, The people traffickers who exploit the teeming shores. Send these, the property speculators who create the city's homeless and drive out the working class. Bring on the economic power of right-wing churches To buy up our cinemas, our theatres, and our music venues. I lift the lamp of the corrupt politician To illuminate your way!”
A week or so ago I posted a piece referring to the pent up anger of the people, and likened it to a coiled up spring and sooner or later it will uncurl as all coiled up springs do, and the pent up anger will no longer be a murmuring under current but will become a physical event. A glance across the world and there is a realisation that the coil of anger is already releasing its energy. From Hong Kong to Ecuador people have been taking to the streets in protest at the myriad of injustices, gross inequalities, corruption, police brutality, blatant abuse by those in power and a host of other foul endemic features of this capitalist system.
However, where is the anger of the people of UK, still murmuring below the surface, what little act will cause the UK pent up coil of anger to explode?
Organisation, strategies, tactics, solidarity, communication and knowing your enemy's strengths and weaknesses, all necessary for success in our struggle for that better world. One tactic that seems to have fired up the attention of the mainstream media is the "black bloc". Not a new video, but never the less interesting.
It is just a little over a year since that patch of land known as Chile exploded with the righteous anger of the people, and they took to the streets to vent that anger at the system and institutions that had been grinding them down for years. They attacked official government buildings, police stations, and other edifices that represent this corrupt and exploitative system. Fourteen months on and the fire still burns, the people of Chile still carry on that fight for freedom and justice. Chile is not unique, the same system ferments wars and grinds people into poverty on a binge of greed and corruption the world over, and like Chile, revolt is on the streets in country after country. Our aim should be to unite all those struggles as one final battle in the war against this state/corporate plundering of the planet, corruption and domination of our lives. Their struggle is our struggle, one people, one world, our world of equality and justice for all.
NOTHING IS OVER! WE ARE STILL IN REVOLT AGAINST EVERY AUTHORITY A year after the start of the revolt that exploded in Chile on 18th October 2019, we continue to spread Confrontación. Greeting all those who have remained active in the struggle against the established order before, during and after so-called the “social explosion”, we remain in the streets with a new printed issue. A year has passed since 18th October and over these days we have carried anarchist rage against this oppressive system with the warmth of the moments of struggle we continue to share among comrades and occasional accomplices in solidarity, in the heat of the revolt. We also have a vivid memory of each instance of repression and state violence on our bodies/minds and the many murdered, tortured, assaulted and maimed. To this we add the referendum of 25th October for a possible change of the Constitution, an institutional trap that doesn’t concern or represent us. Like any moment in history, our context has its own possibilities, difficulties and challenges that form the struggle scenario. Here we want to share some reflections, questions and practical ideas to connect us with the concerns and desires of those who refuse to allow the triumph of normality imposed by Power and the democratic delusions being put on today’s agenda. FOR A FREE LIFE BUILT ON THE RUINS OF THE OLD WORLD OF THE STATE AND POWER For those of us who for years have been spreading the revolt against all authority in word and deed, the struggle doesn’t pass through changes in the State apparatus. A year has already passed since a revolt that had different components and whose horizon of rupture with the established order has unfortunately remained trapped by the illusion of presumed structural changes starting from the possibility of a constitutional change, a reformist solution agreed by the political class in November 2019 faced with the impossibility of stopping the advance of a violent revolt without leaders or managers. A wide range of sectors adhered to solutions offered by the institutions with greater or lesser diffidence towards the constituent electoral process, channelling energies and debates towards this scenario with a logic similar to the plebiscite held in 1988 for a return to democracy with peaceful means after almost a decade of mass protests and anti-dictatorial subversive actions. The plebiscite – as an experience re-conducted to the present time – was also born from the pact between dictatorship and a political class ready to guarantee social pacification and the continuity of the dominant economic and political regime.
