Coiled Spring.

        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.

 

 Spain:  https://www.npr.org/2021/02/19/969320165/protests-continue-in-spain-against-jailing-of-rapper-over-tweets?t=1614269967662

Belarus: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-23/belarus-revolution-women-nina-baginskaya/13164670

Greece: https://www.voanews.com/europe/greek-students-teachers-defy-weeklong-ban-protests

Europe: https://carnegieeurope.eu/2021/01/27/europeans-right-to-protest-under-threat-pub-83735

South America: https://www.brinknews.com/why-is-latin-america-aflame-with-protests/

      And of course the little reported largest workers strike in the world ever.

India:  https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/51024/Indian+farmers+join+mass+action+after+Modi+government+attacks%C2%A0

 

        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? 

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

Eagle Stew.

        The babble and furore of what happened on January 6th in America has now more or less disappeared from the media, no longer able to create sensationalism from that event so it slides down the scale. Of course it is not forgotten by the powers that be, they will milk it for all it's worth to tighten security, ever greater surveillance, passing ever tighter legislation, to clamp down on any form of protest, putting all protests under the umbrella of "domestic terrorism".  We should have no illusions, the establishment in the U$A and here, as elsewhere, is fascist in intent, but wears the cloak of liberalism. This steady march to fascism will not stop, either it will result in a total submissive population, bound to the rigid rules of corporate greed, or it will come to an end when the people finally stand up and grab freedom and justice for all, bringing an end to the whole corporate/state system of greed and exploitation. 

Lots of interesting videos on Kolektiva HERE: 

The latest episode of  System Fail:

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

Alexis.

 

  

     Across the world on a regular basis, there are mass protests against police violence, it is common practice to hear of police brutality, and racism plays a large part in their acts of violence. However it is not always racism at the root of this police violence, it is part and parcel of their training, restrain, be forceful, intimidate etc., and of course that feeling that they are the law, and above reproach. It was not racism that ended the life of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos, it was police callous brutal arrogance.

Alexis Grigoropoulos, youth murder by police officer.

       Today, December 6th. 2020, marks the 12th anniversary of the murder of 15 year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a Greek police officer. It was a Saturday evening and two teenagers are out in Exracheia Athens, having a coffee, a chat, a laugh, a police car passes, and according to who you read, the police officers came back on foot, there were words the police officer fires two bullets and young Alexis falls to the ground and dies on the street in the arms of his teenage friend Nikos Romanos. The police officer claimed that he fired his gun in the air to scare the boy and teach him a lesson, but those two “warning shots” ended the life of a teenager.

Nikos Romanos being arrested years after police murdered of his friend Alexis.

             This brutal unnecessary killing of of a youth by the state's henchmen, brought a hurricane of mass protests across Greece, that lasted for months, and rightly so. Each year since, in Athens and other cities across Greece, people remember this brutal killing of a youth, and mark it with mass protests.

       Epaminondas Korkoneas, the Greek cop who murdered young Alexis Grigoropoulos, was released from prison July 2019. His release follows a verdict of an appeals court in Lamia, central Greece. The court upheld the conviction of Korkoneas for the deadly shooting of Alexis Grigoropoulos, but reduced his sentence from life to 13 years in prison. He was released after serving the most of the reduced sentence. He is not a subject to a parole or any other restriction. Let's not forget, that it was the system that killed young Alexis, a system of authority, governance and control, a hierarchical system of power.

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

Accidental?

 

        The evidence revealed in the following article on the death of a young man, is just one example of why the feelings of the public, regarding the police and our judicial system, range from mistrust to downright hatred. The police and the judicial system exist in a bubble that makes them untouchable and beyond true public scrutiny and accountability. It takes courage, considerable time and tremendous perseverance to try and burst that bubble, many have tried, but few have succeeded. Public exposure of these incidents can help burst that bubble.

                                               Photo courtesy of No Majesty.

The following, including the film, was taken from Anarchist Film Group: 

         When Rod Charles first heard that his great nephew Rashan had died whilst being detained by a police officer, he assumed that the incident must have merited whatever action the officer took. Why wouldn’t he? Rod Charles had served for 30 years with the Metropolitan Police, retiring at the rank of Chief Inspector, and Rashan was a young man with low level criminal convictions.
       That first news came on the day Rashan died, Saturday 22 July 2017. Rod recalls: “It wasn’t until 20 or 24 hours later, the Sunday morning, when a niece called me to say Uncle Rodney have a look at some footage what’s on CCTV which has been uploaded to YouTube. And it was when I looked at the footage on YouTube, that changed everything.”
        Somebody had uploaded a few minutes’ fuzzy footage recorded on a mobile phone from a CCTV monitor in a Hackney supermarket. It showed a police officer pursuing Rashan into the shop, grabbing him from behind, hurling him to the floor with a combat throw, and heavily restraining him. It showed a second man joining the restraint, pinning Rashan down, and helping to handcuff him when he was limp and unresponsive.
       “The officer was not at fear of harm from Rashan. He threatened nothing to the officer. No member of the public nearby was threatened by Rashan,” says Rod. “The nature of the force being used. . .has caused me and continues to cause me a lot of concern.”
       Rashan Charles was 20 years old, a loving father to his daughter, who was coming up to two years old when he died. He was a beloved son, friend, nephew, cousin, brother and, as Rod puts it, “an integral part of the family”.
        In our new documentary film, “Accidental Death” of a Young Black Londoner, The Case of Rashan Charles, Rod Charles examines previously unseen footage that reveals more about what happened to Rashan. Rod questions the quality of the investigation into Rashan’s death, the “accidental” deletion of evidence, the tactics of police lawyers and the conduct of the coroner at the inquest that concluded with a finding of “accidental death”.
       Our film shows, for the first time, curious interactions between the man who helped restrain Rashan and several officers at the scene, interactions that raise questions about the official narrative.

 

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

Columbia.

         It doesn't get a lot of coverage in our mainstream media, but South America, that land of American engineered coups, has been the scene mass uprisings across most of the countries in that area. Some have lasted months others shorter, the Covid19 bring many to a slow-down, or halt, that doesn't mean the anger has gone away or the problems have been resolved. Far from it, the anger still bubbles underneath the surface and will no doubt explode once more.

This report from Crimethinc: 

The Uprising in Colombia: “An Example of What Is to Come.

A Report and Interview on the Background of the Revolt 

 

The police protect us? NO, the cops repress, mutilate, rape, and kill.”

  

    The streets of several Colombian cities have erupted into conflict in the last two days in response to the brutal police murder of 43-year-old Javier Ordóñez, a lawyer and father of two in Bogotá, the nation’s capital. Ordóñez was peaceably drinking in the street in front of his friends’ apartment when police arrived and, without provocation, beat him and tased him 11 times. By the time he arrived at the hospital, after a further beating at the police station, he was already dead.
     Video captured by Ordóñez’s friends and shared widely on social media sparked widespread protests in Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Popayán, Ibagué, Barranquilla, Neiva, Tunja, and Duitama. In Bogotá alone, 56 police substations, called CAIs (Comandos de Atención Inmediata) were damaged, most of them burned. Although mainstream news is reporting eight people killed by police or paramilitaries on the first night, images circulating in Colombia on Thursday claimed 10, all but one of whom have been identified. The numbers of wounded vary by source. The New York Times claimed that a further 66 had suffered bullet wounds the night of September 9, with over 400 wounded in total.
      Colombia has an intense history of violent state and paramilitary repression, which has only intensified during the pandemic. Under current president Ivan Duque, widely seen as a continuation of former president Álvaro Uribe’s corrupt narco-administration, the Colombian government has failed to uphold its side of the peace accords with demobilized guerrilla forces, and murders and disappearances of activists, dissidents, and revolutionaries have increased significantly.
     In the following report and interview, we explore the background and implications of the latest chapter in a global wave of revolts against police and state repression. 
Background:
      The 2019 Paro Nacional On November 21, 2019, taking inspiration from the Chilean revolt and uprisings across South America, broad swaths of Colombian society took to the streets. The protests, which often took a militant tone and lasted roughly a month, were not over any one specific grievance but in response to multiple factors that had made life in this war-torn country unbearable. Duque’s government was trying to push through an unpopular packet of austerity measures, students were demanding better funding for education, and murders of activists, Indigenous people, and ex-guerrillas by the state or paramilitaries had increased.
      The month-long mobilization came to be called the paro nacional or national strike. More than the duration, its significance lay in the fact that it was the first time in decades that anyone had seen such an autonomous mass mobilization. For years, militant resistance had been monopolized by specialized, armed guerrilla groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army, the ) and the ELN (National Liberation Army). The strike represented the return of more generalized street confrontation that lent itself to much broader participation.

A demonstrator in Bogotá uses a spray can to fan the flames of a burning police station on September 10. Photo by Nadège Mazars.

       A Year of Revolt in South America
      Colombia’s paro nacional should be seen in the context of the movements shaking other South American countries at the time. While the Chilean insurrection lasted longer and reached further in terms of self-organization and militancy, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay all saw widespread protests in 2019. In Bolivia, a complex and highly charged conflict led to a bloody coup by right-wing Christians.
     As in Colombia, there were several longstanding causes behind the mobilizations. Latin America has suffered astronomical rates of violence and inequality for decades—really, for centuries. Thanks to austerity policies, the brunt of recent economic stagnation has been intentionally forced on the most marginalized.
       The examples of revolt in other South American countries, as well as from Hong Kong and beyond, helped spark the month of protest in Colombia late last year. The new tactics popularized in Hong Kong and Chile were reflected in Colombian rebels’ effective use of the primera linea shield bloc tactic.
        Chile’s months of unrest, which were only halted by the pandemic, provided an inspiring horizon for those in South America and around the globe. On the other end of the scale, the nightmare that Bolivia has lived over the past year is a sobering reminder that political coups and openly racist regimes pose as much of a threat as ever. The stakes are high, as Colombians know all too well from years of state and paramilitary violence.

September 10, 2020: 10 people murdered, Bogotá, Colombia. Justice and stop the genocide.

 

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Psychos.

    On reading this my hatred of this system that breeds authoritarianism, intolerance, violence and a host of other injustices and inhumane actions, has grown to unimaginable levels. I didn't think that was possible, but the deeper this system sinks into the dark morass of callous and brutal inhumanity, the more the anger and hatred becomes uncontrollable.

This From The BBC

 

Linden Cameron, courtesy of Golda Barton.

        A 13-year-old boy in Glendale, Utah, was shot several times by police officers after his mother called 911 for help with his mental health crisis.

    Linden Cameron, who has Asperger's, a form of autism, is now in a serious condition in hospital, his mother said.
     Golda Barton said she had believed police attending on Friday night would use "the most minimal force possible".
      Salt Lake City Police Sgt Keith Horrocks told reporters that the incident was now being investigated.
      Speaking to local CBS-affiliate KUTV, Ms Barton said she told the 911 operator that her son needed to be taken to hospital for treatment.
       He was experiencing a crisis because it was her first day back at work in almost a year and "he has bad separation anxiety", she said.
       "I said, he's unarmed, he doesn't have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming," Ms Barton said. "He's a kid, he's trying to get attention, he doesn't know how to regulate."
       At a press conference, Sgt Horrocks said officers were called to a "violent psych issue" and reports that a boy - who they did not name - had made "threats to some folks with a weapon". He added that there was no indication when they attended that the boy was armed.
        An officer shot the boy when he tried to flee on foot, Sgt Horrocks said.
      According to an online fundraiser set up to raise money for medical bills, Linden Cameron has suffered "injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, intestines and bladder".
      "The long-term effects of his injuries are still unknown, but it is likely that his recovery will be long and require multiple kinds of treatment," the page, set up by a friend of the family, says.
      According to data compiled and regularly updated by the Washington Post, 1,254 people with a mental illness have been shot dead by US police since the beginning of 2015. This represents 22% of all people shot and killed by police across the country over that period.

 

Time To Rage.

Time to rage, like a river running wild.

Time to rise, to save the child.

Time to rage, like a mountain flood.

Time to rise, to stop the blood.

Time to rage, with righteous anger.

Time to rise, to point the finger.

Famine, misery, sickness, death,

stretch across these pleasant lands;

war, greed, hunger, blood,

sour the lovely desert sands,

Charity, chat, quiet dismay

is not enough

prayers, thoughts, what MP’s say

is useless stuff.

Time to rage, like a river running wild.

Time to rise, to save the child.

Time to rage, like a mountain flood.

Time to rise, to stop the blood.

Time to rage, with righteous anger.

Time to rise, to point the finger.

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

Rosa Nera.

       The Greek "New Democracy" government is continuing it ruthless policy of trying to eliminate all Squats, autonomous centres and voluntary migrant support groups. Far from this being a police operation these evictions look more like a military operation. Greece is not alone in trying to eliminate these self organising centres, it is the aim of all states to have everybody to follow the rules of the state, to survive. It and it alone needs to have the monopoly on how our lives are shaped. Leaving people to plan and shape their own lives would be the demise of the state. It will muster whatever savagery, terror, and intimidation, with the necessary brutality to ensure its own survival. The state exists by subservience and blind obedience.

The following from Anarchist News:

Not the best quality of video but you grasp the numbers protesting.

      They evacuated a squat but didn't expect 2000 people protesting on the same day...

       Following the police raid and evacuation of Terra Incognita 16 years old squat in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 17 August 2020, the police invasion at Libertatia Squat in Thessaloniki on 23 August 2020 and the arrest of 12 people rebuilding the roof that had been burnt by fascists during an attack, another squat was raided on Saturday 5 September 2020, this time in Chania, Crete where Rosa Nera Squat stood ground since 2004.
     Few hours later, following the police raid, hundreds of people marched in solidarity through the small greek island town in the afternoon and held a public assembly in the evening to decide the next steps of resistance.But that was not the end. The public assembly decided for another protest through the center of Chania on the same night, where beyond the greek government and police expectations more than 2.000 people took part in the small town of approximately 55.000 residents, marching in solidarity to the “Rosa Nera” Squat.
     The mass participation in the protests and assemblies is a clear sign of the Squat's openness and interconnection with society and the people's reaction to the plans of turning this historic building into a hotel owned by an Israeli company.
     During the last years, all the greek governments have carried out several campaigns of elimination of the self-managed spaces. What they want to achieve is that people find themselves only in the cafes, in the bars, and in the shopping centers as just consumers and customers. Consequently, the offensive that Rosa Nera is facing in Chania is not fortuitous. The Rosa Nera building belongs to the Polytechnic School of Chania, and for 16 years has been a place of struggle and emblematic culture, also covering accommodation needs. In its facilities, the tireless people who have worked hard to give life to the building have created a theater, a library and reading room, a space for presentations (of artistic creations), a children’s park, a construction workshop, a free bazaar of gifts and a communal kitchen for the production of bread.
     In these 16 years hundreds of events, concerts, presentations, debates, workshops, parties, cafes to support collectives and actions have been organized. All have had an anti-commercial character contrary to the government’s and the University of Crete plans to convert the squatted building into a hotel, so that only those with pockets full of money may enjoy the beautiful view from the Kasteli hill, where the Squat is located. To turn something which is free and accessible to everyone in the town, to a restricted area for the few willing to pay to enjoy it. The Rosa Nera Squat kept and ensured the free for all character of the place intact. And that is why you see so many people in the streets protesting the eviction.

This video from Squatting Will Stay.

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

Belarus.

       We should continually highlight mass protests across the world, in an attempt show that people across the world are rising against the injustice and inequality that is the norm in this world, and against the authoritarian attitudes of all states across the globe. The authoritarianism is all a matter of degree, some more brutal than others, but the aim is the same, to keep wealth, power and privilege where they are, in the hands of a few pampered parasites. Brutality is the inherent tool of all states, to be brought out when ever it feels threatened by its own people or an external rival to its power.
        From Chile to France, from Peru to Mexico, Bolivia to Slovenia, the anger is rising and the streets are becoming the political arena, we should all be organising to join them, the streets are where we will eventually win, not in the marble halls of power, enter there and you play their game to their rules.
     Some extracts from AMW:

Situation in Belarus: Anarchist Perspective Briefly
       Finally, we face the outrage of Belarusian people in the streets. The increase of resistance is enormous. Many people say that such an uprising was never seen before during the rule of Alexander Lukashenko. These three nights, probably all the world has seen crowds of people giving fight to the police special forces, using barricades, burning tires and Molotovs.
      The police (or “militia” in Soviet-fashioned Belarus) reacts with great violence. Many people got seriously injured and there is one confirmed killed protester.
        There is also the call for the General Strike issued by the opposition. How successful it will be is yet to be seen. But there are first confirmed reports of strikes at several State-owned enterprises today (August 12).
        As it often happens in Eastern Europe, it was elections and electoral fraud that served as the starter for people’s unrest. However, deeper roots of the situation are long autocratic rule of the president, poverty, lack of prospects and opportunities. A big role in the current revolt is also played also by the inhuman policy of the government during the Coronavirus epidemic. Authorities decided to simply ignore it and made several scandalous statements. This ended up with a wave of infection and also a huge grassroots organizing of the society against the danger of the virus.------

       ------In this political landscape, anarchists are more visible than in Ukraine or Russia. In oppositional circles, they have the reputation of quite “hardcore” enemies of the regime who suffered very strong repressions, which is true, and also are always in the frontline of the resistance. The reverse of this image is that anarchists are seen more as eternal fighters, which can be a sort of “ram” of the changes, but then are supposed to give way to more conventional politicians.-----

-----From riot to revolution
        Today the whole protest movement shows a very simplistic demand: resign of Lukashenko and new “honest” elections. It helps to maintain the superficial unity of the protesters. But surely, this situation cannot last long.
       The specific of Belarus is state-ownership of the huge part of the economy. It is the basement for extracting wealth by state bureaucracy and capitalists close to the ruling clique.
     It is highly predictable that once either pro-Western or pro-Russian politicians are in power they’ll try to launch large-scale privatization and transformation this merely State-capitalism into the one ruled by external actors, i.e, international monetary organizations and Russian business-elites.
       In this context, the program and the call of revolutionary forces should be both clearly anti-authoritarian (Lukashenko MUST go) and also socially-concerned. We need to counter the ghost of privatization by promoting the turning of state-owned enterprises into municipal and collectively-ran ones, decentralization and democratization of different sphere of social life: self-defense, healthcare, education. At the same time, all social obligations for free access to different services monopolized by the state today should be promoted and developed.
       To be short: if anarchists of Belarus will be able to play key and organizing roles in the development of the popular uprising (while all opposition leaders are clearly confused now), then they have several prospects. As a minimum, to present actively the anarchist movement and its message, to make it known broadly within the population. As a medium goal, to become significant political actors, which will influence the social development of the new Belarus in terms mentioned in the previous paragraph, to take a foothold in infrastructure, media-sphere and society for rapid further political development. As a maximum… who knows our real limits?

Read the full article HERE:

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

The Awakening.

         Portland USA is not on our mainstream media news very much at all. The media have a habit of reporting rioting in places our lords and masters call "enemies" but seldom report much when it is happening on the streets of our "friends". So continuous riots being brutally attack in a "friendly" nation is just not news.  
        However, Portland USA has seen it citizens on the street in violent clashes with the authorities and the police since the daylight, public execution, by a police officer, of George Floyd, and it is still going on, getting met with ever greater military style police violence. This is surely worthy of reporting.

The following report from It's Going Down:

 A report from the front lines of Portland from Defend PDX.

by Misanthrophile
      In the beginning, we were many. We were thousands. Exploding into the street after watching a video of horror both strange and all-too-familiar: a video of a nine-minute murder, of a killer indifferent to the pleas of the bound man he choked and crushed to death. Broad daylight, on film, unprosecuted. Another police murder. Another black person dead.
     As the video circulated, things began to shatter. Hearts. Trust. Restraint. Patience.
     We marched through these streets–our streets–to the sound of shattered windows. We screamed the names of the dead to the heavens as though they might be able to hear, as though we might rouse them and reverse the brutality that ended their lives. From above: silence. Some crimes are unforgivable, irreversible. But the future is not yet written: we could stop this from happening again, we must stop it by any means necessary. Voices united in a pledge, a pact: “No Justice, No Peace.”
     There was no justice, and so there was no peace. The police quickly set aside their PR platitudes and came for us in force. The cacophony of flash bang grenades rattled windows, nerves, teeth. Thick, sputtering clouds of tear gas choked downtown and incapacitated passersby as the protesters scattered, terrified by this sudden brutality. The pain is unbearable. Your eyes swell and burn: you become blind. Fire in your lungs, your mouth, your stomach. You retch and spit. Every instinct screams that you are dying, panic fills you: you flee.
     We could not withstand it, at first. Mass protests disintegrated into terrified individuals, scattered to the winds.
     “We have to do better,” we told each other, clothes rank with mace and sweat. Sheltering with a friend, a stranger, a new comrade. Sharing a beer, watching Hong Kong YouTube videos. Thinking. Learning.
     Not all the protesters returned, but the ones who did learned quickly. With one voice we sang our lessons. “Slow in the front, protect the back!,” we chanted as we learned to march at a steady pace. “Walk, don’t run!” we called out as we learned to fight back panic and remain calm in the face of fire. “Stay together, stay tight!”: a song we knew from the start, soon augmented with a second line: “We learned to ride the terror. “Be Water,” we said to each other as we regrouped after the police broke the group with gas and fear. We learned painfully that debates on direction had to be conducted carefully to avoid splitting and quickly to avoid police attention. Hand signals I had learned in the Army discovered again by an army of Gen-Z warriors: stop, regroup, left, right, quiet down.
     After a week of this, the city passed an ordinance against tear gas. The cops now needed new tools to hurt us and so we learned the brutality of the police line. Of charging cops with batons. Of an entire canister of crowd control mace emptied into the faces of protesters. We learned that cameras save lives and so every phone became a weapon. The police knew this too. They began to target journalists.
      The police made the mistake all authoritarians and cowards make: because they are driven by fear, they believe others are too. We learned to ride the fear, live with it, transmute it into rage and commitment. We learned in lock step, we learned together.
     As we became accustomed to their tactics, the police tried new ones. Every time they escalated, we learned to become more resilient, creative, unpredictable. We went to their police union. They instantly declared a riot and drove us away with batons and thick clouds of gas. We went to the North precinct. They drove us into the residential streets and claimed we tried to burn them alive. Lies and lies and lies, mainstream media eating it up; we existed in a world no one seemed to know about or believe, we were alone but we had each other. We did not stop
    And then the feds arrived.
    We do this every night.” Same shit, different day. Nothing to be afraid of.

Read the full article with videos HERE:

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

The Coming Pain.

         I have always maintained that this pandemic was a wonderful opportunity for the state to shovel billions of pounds into the belly of the corporate beast, money that you and I will be told we must pay back to the international money lenders. Before this pandemic, the capitalists system was well on the way to a massive recession and here was the golden opportunity to bail it out in so many different ways. The corporate overlords were given the opportunity to shed labour, grab taxpayers money, and start to dismantle working conditions to make labour cheaper for them. Of course some businesses will go to the wall, but in a recession that would have happened anyway, the big boys don't mind that, they have sufficient reserves to take up the slack, should business start to improve, as it probably will with cheaper labour costs, and employees spread more thinly on the shop floor, and a fat injection of tax payers money.

     The other golden opportunity went to the state, aware that recessions tend to bring unrest and anger to the streets, and this pandemic accelerating the unemployment, they had to prepare for that eventuality. So the introduction of a draconian range of population controls. Some obviously make sense under the conditions of a pandemic, but some will be in place much longer than the pandemic, some people will start to accept some of these conditions as the "new" normal, this will make it all that easier for the state to control that unrest and anger that will inevitable surface as the pain starts to hit the standard of living of millions in this country. The pain is coming, all that money thrown at maintaining businesses and keeping people of the streets by paying them not to work, will be a massive bill that will land at the feet of the taxpayer.

   Some governments have taken the precautions to smother public protests further than others, the others will follow suit as the conditions change. The Greek state for example has introduced a ban on protests that are not sanctioned by the police, you can be arrested for attending a protest if the police haven't given it the nod of approval. Of course the citizens of that patch on the earth controlled by the Greek state are not taking it lying down, I love the people of Greece. The other day there was a massive protest outside the parliament building in Athens. As expected, the police moved in with brutal force, batons swing and gas canisters flying, resulting in a riot situation, with lots of arrests.

The following report from Act For Freedom Now:

          9 July 2020, Athens, Greece: Proposed by a self-proclaimed socialist Minister of Public Order (Michalis Chrisohoidis), taking part in a right wing government (News Democracy), assisted by the votes of the self-proclaimed socialist party (KINAL), the greek Parliament approved a junta-inspired bill on Thursday imposing new restrictions to quash and destroy the right to protest, a right integral to the so-called democracies, eg. under the provisions of the new law you will be arrested for joining a protest that hasn’t been authorized by the police. For dozens of years across the world, this has been called a Police State or a Dictatorship but then again the greek governing party’s name is “New Democracy”, which probably means the same, when someone feels the need to affix the word “New” to the political theory of “Democracy” that has been solidified for more than 2.500 years.
       As a result, thousands of people marched through central Athens denouncing the new law, and managed to approach in great numbers the greek parliament at Syntagma Square, during the discussion of the bill. The sight of hundreds of policemen that flooded the area around the parliament, during such a sensitive topic of protest, aggravated things and soon the protest turned in to a riot, making the atmosphere unbearable to breath, while the riot police “bombarded” the area with asphyxiating gas grenades.
       After a decade long financial crisis, Greece is expected to suffer a new major recession this year due to the impact of the pandemic. The new law that was passed yesterday seems to aim exactly towards what’s coming. The strong reaction of the greek society, for all the money that were thrown away by the greek government and Athens mayor (Kostas Mpakogiannis) during the quarantine and what followed. It’s no wonder that the greek government chose to hire thousands of new policemen, rather than nurses and doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, then again, as it was aforementioned the governing party’s name is “New Democracy”…

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

System Fail 1.

        Submedia has just released its first episode of their new format "System Fail"  and it covers the first part of the present uprising against police brutality in America.

The following from Submedia:

System Fail #1: RIOTS ACROSS AMERICA
Website:https://sub.media/video/system-fail-01-riots-across-america/
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/433088212/
Youtube: https://youtu.be/qj-0asLNRc4/

          (Note: The video has already been blocked in the US on YouTube... we'll work on getting this addressed.)

        The pilot episode of subMedia's brand new show, System Fail, looks at the incendiary riots that have swept across the United States in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, and the state's desperate attempts to bring things back under control.

Featuring an interview with Oluchi Omeoga, co-founder and core organizer of the Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block.
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Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Endless Babble.

      One thing this pandemic has done is blow a large hole in the illusion that we live in a democracy. The hypocrisy is laid bare, the phony lies become obvious, the callous blundering ineptitude is clear for all to see, government by dictate is the rule. The following extract is about France, from Freedom For Farida, but does it not sound familiar, the ruse of shifting the focus from the depleted and impoverished health service to all in unison, clapping the health workers as heroes.

     On Thursday, June 16, 2020, after months on the front line fighting to save lives threatened by the COVID-19 virus, hospital workers in France took the streets. They wanted to defend their rights and denounce the lack of funds and staff that have plagued French public hospitals for decades.
     Whenever a new government comes to power in France, they repeat the same old song: there’s no money for public hospitals. As a result of these policies, health care workers continue to work tremendous amounts of overtime hours with less and less means to offer patients proper treatment.
    The COVID-19 pandemic compounded their problems—yet at the same time, the French government was glorifying hospital workers as heroes on the front lines of the war against the virus, making promises to improve their conditions and proclaiming that the government would do everything possible to help hospitals. The authorities even asked people to stand at their windows every night at 8 pm and clap their hands to express solidarity with healthcare workers. Many hospital workers understood that this new rhetoric was just political theater aimed at manipulating the public. In fact, the government had no real plan to improve their conditions. Rather than words, healthcare workers wanted action, concrete changes that would improve the situation of healthcare workers.

Read the fullarticle HERE:

   

     One advantage of growing old is the fact that you are living long enough to see the empty rhetoric and hypocrisy being repeated election after election, with nothing changing. The same shiny faces in nice suits pouring out lies and phrases they think the public want to hear. Sadly over the years most of the public have swallowed these lies and empty promises and ran to the ballot box to elect the new Messiah. Remember the euphoria as "things can only get better" smiling Blair rose to the throne in the house of lies, now a hated war criminal. Then the crazy scenes as the pope of hope, the prince of peace, Obama walked six feet above the earth, who went on to continue the killing in the name of the corporate greed machine.

      How long will it take for the people to realise that to be governed by wealthy privileged self seeking greed merchants, spells doom and misery for the ordinary people. Perhaps these recent uprisings against police brutality, will help them grasp the fact that the police are not the real problem. It is the established bureaucratic institution of the state, that is the real problem. It needs the police they are there to protect the pampered privileged wealthy power mongers and will be legislated to do what is necessary to subdue and keep control over the population. Exploitation, inequality and injustice would not be tolerated by the mass of people if there was not the threat of the state's loaded judicial system to come down hard on the dissenters.  

Endless Babble

The questions arise, Why the hunger?

Why does poverty continue to linger?

Why such need in a world of wealth? 

Why put a price on a child's health?

Confused and angry the public stand

gazing in disbelief at this pathetic band.

Those shiny politicians designed by spin

their street credibility paper thin,

the great persuaders looking the mood

struggling so hard just for our good!

Masters of the art of wheeling and dealing

exceptional experts at legal stealing.

Enter the media, drowning us all in trivial text

everything you need know

of scandal and sport, crime and sex.

Together they create a world of confusion

all fashion and style, a vicious illusion.

So no matter how often we point at need,

we always drown in a sea of greed,

no debate entered into, no answers found,

 the waffle and babble goes round and round. 

 

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

Anarchy.

     Without much effort I can see hunger, poverty, deprivation, midst warehouses filled with food and necessities of life. At a glance I can see police brutality, state repression and I can smell the decaying flesh of wars.
      What words can we use to end the inequality, injustice and pointless misery of wars.

  Words.

Perhaps words are just forgotten trinkets
locked in some old box
lying in a dark attic
waiting for the poets to find the key.

      Behind every glossy facade this society of illusions throws up, they walk, unseen, the forgotten, the disenfranchised, the hungry, the homeless and the lonely, lost and unwanted somewhere under a sea of opulence.

Between Dignity and Poverty

In this metropolis of wealth with its fountains of opulence
We are the excluded army that walks that tightrope
Between dignity and poverty.
The excluded, the marginalised, the forgotten,
Regulated by mercenaries, some with guns, others with pens.
They know not, we are their brothers and sisters.
Nor do they know,
Our strength is forged in the humiliation of the bread line
Our daily question, will there be food,
Or will the pangs of hunger stay.
We exist in a system of numbers and balance sheets,
Our lives, dehumanised statistics,
Catalogued and filed by a blind accountant.
When asked to count our dead, do we count the living dead?
Will this tightrope be the inheritance to our children
Or shall our tortured journey lead us from anxiety to revolt
Will the anguish of our children feed our righteous anger
Causing us to tear asunder this fabricated web of injustice 

 

      A depressing view of our world, but one that is there for all to see, should they care to look. Our question should be, how do we right these wrongs, how do we wipe the injustice and inequality from the face of the earth. how do we create that world of respect for all human life, and end power pomp and privilege that is based on wealth.

Why Not?

I see hungry children crying beside warehouses of food
I see the elderly cold hungry alone in an ocean of plenty
I feel anger when caskets draped in that coloured rag
carried home with military pomp weeping families
another causality of greed privilege power
Day and daily I see greed praised as success
rich as celebrities, poor as failures
I swim in a sea of fabricated illusions where privilege is progress
where truth dies a lonely death somewhere in a corner of our heart
Yet within my heart I have millions of seeds of love
I know I must plant and let grow
So why shouldn’t I be an anarchists?

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