Youth.

            If anything positive can be taken from the climate emergency, it's the fact that so many young people have taken to criticising the present economic system. The young have grasped the need to take action on the streets, form groups and challenge the government on its complete failure to address these problems. there are thousands more young people now interest in politics and acting on that, than there was before the climate emergence gripped the headlines. All us old campaigners and activist can do, is join with them and offer our experience if they want it, but we shouldn't give up the streets, that's where the changes needed will come from, not from the corridors of power and privilege, they are the problem. Thanks Bob for the links.

The Biologist values and jobs
https://youtu.be/7X0swpc_05o
Metropolitan - Police Scotland - Same Difference  

Climate Justice Solidarity
 

Anti Racism Migrant Communities And The State  

Pension Funds and Fossil fuels
https://youtu.be/BI4QMX_CXTQ

Climate Scientist - Career Change to Climate Change
https://youtu.be/qOSns-hkhP4
 

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

Easy Learning.

     I came across this little booklet many, many years ago. So far back I can't remember where I got it, but found it recently at the back of a shelf. It is a spoof on a well known series of children's books, so I thought I would share it with you. POLICE.  

PDF and other downloads.

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

Occupied Territory.

 

       The police are an occupying force for maintaining social peace in enemy territory. Where we the ordinary people live is not where the ruling class live. The reason this territory has to be controlled is simply because the system does not work in the interest of the ordinary people, and as social and environmental conditions worsen, the dissatisfaction has to be controlled, less it disrupts the well-being of the ruling class. However the nature of this exploitative system we live under, means that dissatisfaction will always be there among the ordinary people. Today as the ruling class are on a looting and plundering binge, anger among the ordinary people will grow and so will the brutality of the occupying police force.

      Across Europe we are seeing this unrest growing and in unison we are seeing the police brutality also grow. The people of Greece have felt the growth of savage assault on its streets on an almost daily basis as they are bulldozed into poverty and deprivation. Other countries where the “austerity” looting by the ruling class has been harshest the people's anger has been met with the same increase in police brutality.

     Only when we put in place a system that works in the interest of t  he ordinary people, will we see the anger disappear from the streets and the need to be policed by an occupying force become obsolete.

  

    

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INSULT YOUR POSTMAN, BUT NOT A POLICEMAN!!!

        If you insult a bank manager, a shop assistant, a lawyer, or a bus driver, you wouldn't expect to disappear, why should it be different if  you insult a police officer??
This appeal from IUF:

To those who already sent messages in response to our first appeal we offer a huge “thank you!”. Over 4,000 message in the first few hours cannot have gone unnoticed by Algerian authorities. With your support we were able to locate Yacine.

Yacine is being held in custody. On Monday October 8 after all that he has endured he will face the charge of "insulting a police officer".

We are asking you to respond again, this time to the Algerian President to call for his release from custody and proper medical attention.

Please send a message to the Algerian President and Justice Minister immediately to secure the safe release of Yacine Zaïd.
Thank you in advance.
Ron Oswald,
General Secretary, IUF

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DEEMED A TERRORIST FOR FIGHTING FOR BETTER CONDITIONS.

       At last it is beginning to unravel in the public domain, the fact that employers have been running a blacklist for years. Though most trade unionists, those keen on health and safety and other activists have known all along, but what they couldn't be sure of was what information was listed against them, where did that information come from and of course its accuracy or otherwise. The fact that such blacklists are illegal is one thing but to have what appears to be confirmation that the police and MI5 were feeding the blacklist, blows a hole in the illusion that the police and MI5 etc. are there to protect us from criminals and terrorists. After all what is the terrorist or criminal element in pointing out to an employer that there is an asbestos danger in a particular workplace? It becomes obvious that the police and MI5 etc. are there to protect the wealth and power of those in control of the capitalist system. Anyone that in any way interferes with the profit making of our corporate masters is deemed an enemy and can be put on a blacklist that can have devastating effects on the individual and their family due to the fact that they will probably never again work at their trade. All this done with the help of the police and our secret services, who spout that they are there to protect “us”, from what? Are they there to protect us from those fighting for decent working conditions, proper health and safety regulations being followed. Idea that the police are there for law and order and to protect the public, is just for propaganda purposes, there might be a little spin off in that direction, but their main purpose is to protect the wealth of the powerful in this society. This from The Guardian.

STOP, TRADE UNIONIST

        The police or security services supplied information to a blacklist funded by the country's major construction firms that has kept thousands of people out of work over the past three decades.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has revealed that records that could only have come from the police or MI5 have been discovered in a vast database of files held on 3,200 victims who were deemed leftwing or troublesome.

The files were collected by the Consulting Association, a clandestine organisation funded by major names in the construction industry.

Its database was seized nearly three years ago, but the extraordinary nature of the information held has only now emerged, following an employment tribunal for one of the victims, Dave Smith, a 46-year-old engineer who had a 36-page file against his name and was victimised repeatedly for highlighting safety hazards on sites, including the presence of asbestos.

Continue READING.

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WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON COPS, WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON??

          I have always said that it is time that the police recognised whose side are they on. They are part of the 20%, the managers and flunkies that do the dirty work for the 1% that are clobbering the 79%. They are not and never will be, part of the 1% that they put themselves on the line to protect. Like the rest of the 20%, they really belong with the 79%, the protesters who are on the streets fighting for fair and decent education, health services, pensions and social benefits that the police and their families will depend on. So it is encouraging to see the Greek police beginning to shift their focus a little and realising that the protesters on the streets have a legitimate grievance, and also pointing in the direction of the real criminals.

        Greece's largest police union has threatened to issue arrest warrants for officials from the country's European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders for demanding deeply unpopular austerity measures.

I particularly like this part of their statement:

         "Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. We refuse to stand against our parents, our brothers, our children or any citizen who protests and demands a change of policy," said the union, which represents more than two-thirds of Greek policemen.

"We warn you that as legal representatives of Greek policemen, we will issue arrest warrants for a series of legal violations ... such as blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty."

         Come all you British coppers, whose side are you on, the 1% that is destroying the future your kids will inherit or are you with the protesters that are trying to defend the future for your kids???

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"TOTAL POLICING".

  

       With the millionaire ConDem's rapid dismantling of the very social fabric of our society crashing along unabated, it is obvious that there will be anger among the ordinary people. People who have been subservient, compliant and hard working as they tried to have a decent life will soon find, that is no longer possible. Anger will turn to action with circumstances forcing people to come together and organise for their mutual survival, the state however, to protect its authority, will do its damnedest to prevent that coming together. The policing will change, dissent will be stifled and protest will be criminalised. On that theme, the following article is lifted in full from that old war horse of the anarchist movement, FREEDOM, the longest running anarchist newspaper in the UK.

Taken from FREEDOM, vol. 72 December 2011.

The graphics are not FREEDOM's.

     When Oxbridge graduate Bernard Hogan-Howe began his new job as Metropolitan police commissioner in September, he brought with him a quaint PR phrase 'total policing' (that he himself coined when chief of Merseyside police) as a way of introducing himself into the new role as top cop. As a sound-bite it ticked all the right boxes for an insouciant media – enticing, unspecific, and unavoidably non-committal. But what in reality does a change at the top of the police pile mean for anarchists and activists especially during this period of economic disintegration and increasingly fractious social unrest, what can we expect in this new era of total policing?

     Already this year we have seen several examples of pro-active policing taking on a more sinister role – the kind of policing that goes beyond public order and preservation of the peace but designed to undermine political expression.

      When education activists did a banner drop at the Lib Dem party conference in September they were remanded for three days by West Midlands police as their “membership of an organisation showed that they could not be trusted not to cause danger to the public”. In Bristol there was a raid on The Automonist radical magazine where police seized phones, computers and paperwork looking for a connection to the August riots, and it was during the August riots that several people received long jail sentences for simply posting messages on Facebook encouraging participation in the unrest. There were also the pre-emptive arrests and raids on squats in the run up to the Royal wedding and of course the arrest of145 people for the Fortnum & Mason peaceful occupation on 26^th March.

       But perhaps the most pronounced indication that we are enterig a new era of political policing was the excessive and overt role of plain-clothes police during the November student demonstration in Central London.

      Despite the tightly regulated route of the march – each side street blocked by a small army of well defended barriers – gangs of plain-clothes police, acting independently of uniformed police, embedded themselves in the demonstration and sought to impose themselves upon the crowd, only revealing their identities when people grew hostile towards them. Whether this was to provoke a reaction or simply target individuals they wanted to arrest, the gang strategy highlighted a new and potentially dangerous example of things to come.

     This new approach to the management of political dissent and public protest will impose itself more and more as the crisis deepens, where the legitimacy of government is constantly questioned and the role of the state relentlessly challenged, where ordinary people, angry and disillusioned with the current state of things, become active political subjects.

      For the state to maintain its authority and control over an increasingly embittered population they must ensure not only a compliant protest culture but the continued separation between political activists and the rest of society. Policing now has taken on a form of dissuading us from expressing a common purpose. This is is the political policing of the future.

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POLICE CAN'T BE TRUSTED.

        There will lots of people and groups handing out advice to the Occupy Wall St. movement and no doubt some of it will be positive advice and some will be destructive. However this open letter from "anarchists" is probably the best advice they could get, I sincerely hope they read, digest and act on the sound advice contained in the article. Of course it is not just Wall St occupation that should read and act upon the letter, but all those occupations present and to come, and I have no doubt that there will be many more in the not so distant future, be it street, factory, school, public building or community, the advice holds good.

Short extract of the open letter from: CrimethInc. Ex-workers Collective.

   

Police can’t be trusted.

        They may be “ordinary workers,” but their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class. As long as they remain employed as police, we can’t count on them, however friendly they might act. Occupiers who don’t know this already will learn it first-hand as soon as they threaten the imbalances of wealth and power our society is based on. Anyone who insists that the police exist to protect and serve the common people has probably lived a privileged life, and an obedient one.

Don’t fetishize obedience to the law.

         Laws serve to protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful; obeying them is not necessarily morally right—it may even be immoral. Slavery was legal. The Nazis had laws too. We have to develop the strength of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of the laws.

To have a diversity of participants,

      a movement must make space for a diversity of tactics. It’s controlling and self-important to think you know how everyone should act in pursuit of a better world. Denouncing others only equips the authorities to delegitimize, divide, and destroy the movement as a whole. Criticism and debate propel a movement forward, but power grabs cripple it. Th e goal should not be to compel everyone to adopt one set of tactics, but to discover how different approaches can be mutually beneficial.

Don’t assume those who break the law or confront police are agents provocateurs.

       A lot of people have good reason to be angry. Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; some people still remember how to stand up for themselves. Police violence isn’t just meant to provoke us, it’s meant to hurt and scare us into inaction. In this context, self-defence is essential. Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow in league with the authorities is not only illogical— it delegitimizes the spirit it takes to challenge the status quo, and dismisses the courage of those who are prepared to do so. This allegation is typical of privileged people who have been taught to trust the authorities and fear everyone who disobeys them.

READ THE FULL LETTER HERE.

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POLICING THE POLICE!!!

      Next month in London there will be a demonstration by at least 2,000 police officers. They will be demonstrating against cuts to the police service. How ironic??

   
     I believe that all politcal activists, trade unionists and students should come together and organise to police this event, just in case there is any trouble. You have a month to rehearse your kettling tactics and snatch procedures.

       If this is a free and fair democracy, then there is no other way to police this event. If the police insist on policing it themselves, then fair and democratic procedures demand that all other demonstrations should be policed by those, and only those, who organise the demonstration. Or does our democracy not work like that?

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