Acceptance.

       Where are we now in this new world wide control system, where have the little freedoms we had gone, where are our choices? We seem to have accepted the state's open prison approach to this pandemic without much of a public discussion. We willingly abandon our right to be involved in formulating the solutions of our problems, to our political ballerinas, with their economic value structure and their sole interpretation of the "science". Now we walk in a world of weariness, fear, confusion and mistrust, pinning our hopes on the big capitalist pharmaceutical companies to come up with the magic bullet, a vaccine. Could it have been different if we the public were involved in helping formulate the solutions, would the economy have outweighed the health and welfare of the people? Too late now, we are where we are, not so, we could still take control of the situation, taking the politics and economy out of the equation, and concentrating on the health and welfare of the people, allowing the experts in the fields of pandemics, public health and medicines to guide us, all free from the weight of saving the economy.
        The following an extract from an interesting article originally in El Critic 

 

Barcelona.

 Translated by Autonomies: 

 

         The social malaise spreads moment by moment. The endless sequence of confinement – de-confinement – re-confinement – is the rope that slowly asphyxiates us. It is the rope that a State, incapable and seized by panic, holds to, to try to impose its new normal. Now we know that the announced new normal is nothing more than the continuation of this nightmare. When it all started, it seemed that we were in a science fiction movie, and that we were masked protagonists. The contained emotion of the first month was made up of fear and relief; the fear of dying and the relief of not having to work. The balconies strove to open up to the sky. Now there are no songs. The slogan “Everything will be fine” sounds even more stupid, and we have learned that we are only the useful fools of a moment in the history of capitalism. The plot can be summed up in a few words: unbridled capitalism – what is usually known as neoliberalism – produces a virus that capitalism itself reuses to control us. In the silence of the night subjected to a curfew, the cry of “Enough!” is heard. We are tired, fed up with so much uncertainty, fed up with so many falsehoods and, above all, fed up with so much arbitrariness.

Read the full article HERE 

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.
          Thanks to everyone who has kicked some cash our way during this economic crisis.  If you're in a position to do so and want to support our work, please consider making a one-time donation or signing up to be a monthly sustainer at https://sub.media/donate.

All for now,
subMedia

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

Central Control.

     I have always said that this pandemic was too much of an opportunity for the establishment to miss, the Neo-Liberal mob with their cohorts, the World Bank, IMF and others of that ilk would grasp it with relish to further their aim of world control. That has always been their aim, useing economics as the driving force, but couldn't push to hard for fear of  public unrest. along comes the pandemic and they can push for population control  with the acceptance of the populace. They can accelerate their drive for world central control on the grounds of health of the people. Perhaps you think I might be a conspiracy theorist, but the evidence is there and has been for a considerable number of years.

The following extract is from an article in Acorn, Winter Oak:  

       The sole reference, it can truly be said, as prophetic as it is disturbing, is one I found in an article by Jacques Attali, former boss of EBRD [European Bank for Reconstruction and Development], written for L’Express during the epidemic of 2009: (2)
      If the epidemic becomes a little more serious, which is possible, since it is transmittable by humans, it will have truly planetary consequences, both economic (the models suggest a loss of three trillion dollars, that is a 5% drop in global GDP) and political (due to risks of contagion). It would therefore be necessary to establish a global police force, a global stockpile, and therefore a global fiscal policy. We would then—much sooner than economic reasons alone would have allowed—come to establish the basis for an actual global government.

     The pandemic was thus already envisioned: how many simulations were run by the major insurance companies! And by the protective services of the states. Just few days ago former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown again returned to the need for global government: “Gordon Brown has urged world leaders to create a temporary form of global government to tackle the twin medical and economic crises caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.” (3)

 Read the full article HERE:

        They are working hard at their plans for the world centralised control, they have the resources, the wealth and the organisation, how hard are we working to get local community control on a horizontal operational method? They are working hard at cementing control in the hands of the rich and powerful, how hard are we working at getting control in the hands of the people?  It will happen their way, unless we organise to stop it from happening, and that will take mass protests, mass organisation, mass solidarity and mass direct action. At the moment, they have the advantage, they have their plan, they have the resources and organisations, we have to catch up, or we enter Orwell's world. 

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

Our Rights.

       No doubt we all have our opinions on what is happening to our society and why, what should be done and what shouldn't be done, also when does our rights need to be sacrificed and why. Also we need to ensure that whatever rights we lose, must be restored as their suspension is no longer required. The state has a nasty habit of stating it is necessary to curtail our  rights because of this and that, but failing to return those rights when the "emergency" is over. The present situation gives the state complete control over all aspects of our lives, even to when we can leave our home, where we can go and what we can do. Surely an unacceptable situation to be tolerated for any length of time in any society. Who will be the ones to say when we have our rights restored, obviously it must be us, the people, we can't trust the state as its aims are always control of the population. Be prudent, but be vigilant. 

 This from Act For Freedom Now:

France: “The Worst Virus Ever… Authority…”

About COVID-19, authoritarian delusions and the shitty world we live in…        The macabre death toll increases day by day, and in the imagination of each person takes place the sensation, at first vague then always a little stronger, of being more and more threatened by the Great Grim Reaper. For hundreds of millions of human beings, this imagining is certainly not new, that of death that can strike anyone, at any time. Just think of the damned of the earth sacrificed daily on the altar of power and profit: those who survive under State bombs, in the midst of endless wars over oil or mineral resources, those who coexist with invisible radioactivity caused by accidents or nuclear waste, those who cross the Sahel or the Mediterranean and are locked up in concentration camps for migrants, those who are reduced to pieces of flesh and bone by the misery and devastation caused by agro-industry and the extraction of raw materials…And even in the lands that we inhabit, in times not very long ago, we have known the terror of butcheries on an industrial scale, bombings, extermination camps… always created by the thirst for power and wealth of States and bosses, always faithfully set up by armies and police.
     But no, today we are not talking about those desperate faces that we constantly try to keep away from our eyes and minds, nor about a history that is now past. Terror is beginning to spread in the cradle of the kingdom of commodities and social peace, and it is caused by a virus that can attack anyone – although of course, not everyone will have the same opportunities to cure themselves. And in a world where people are used to lying, where the use of figures and statistics are one of the main means of media manipulation, in a world where truth is constantly hidden, mutilated and transformed by the media, we can only try to put the pieces together, to formulate hypotheses, try to resist this mobilization of minds and ask the question: where are we going?
      In China, and then in Italy, new repressive measures were imposed daily, until they reached the limit that no State had dared to cross yet: the ban on leaving one’s home and on moving around the country except for work reasons or absolute necessity. Not even during war would there have been consent to the acceptance of such far-reaching measures by the population. But this new totalitarianism has the face of Science and Medicine, of neutrality and common interest. Pharmaceutical, telecommunications and new technology will find the solution. In China, the use of geo-locating to report any movement and any case of infection, facial recognition and e-commerce are helping the State to ensure that every citizen is locked up in their own home. Today, the same states that have based their existence on confinement, war and massacre, including of their own population, impose their “protection” through prohibitions, borders and armed men. How long will this situation last? Two weeks, a month, a year? We know that the state of emergency declared after the attacks [translation note: originally imposed in 2015 following the Islamic State terrorist attacks in Paris] has been extended several times, until the emergency measures were definitively incorporated into French law. What will this new emergency lead us to?
       A virus is a biological phenomenon, but the context in which it originates, its spread and its management are social issues. In the Amazon, Africa or Oceania, entire populations have been exterminated by viruses brought by settlers, while the settlers imposed their domination and way of life. In the rain forests, armies, merchants and missionaries pushed the people – who previously occupied the territory in a scattered way – to concentrate around schools, in villages or towns. This greatly facilitated the spread of devastating epidemics. Today, half the world’s population lives in cities, around the temples of Capital, and feeds on the products of agro-industry and intensive livestock farming. Any possibility of self-sufficiency has been eradicated by States and the market economy. And as long as the mega-machine of domination continues to function, human existence will be increasingly subjected to disasters that are not very “natural”, and to a management of them that will deprive us of any possibility of determining our lives.
        Unless… in an increasingly dark and disturbing scenario, human beings decide to live as free beings, even if it is just for a few hours, days or years before the end – rather than shutting themselves up in a “natural” world, of fear and submission. As did the prisoners in 30 Italian prisons, faced with the ban on visiting rooms imposed because of Covid-19, by revolting against their jailers, demolishing and burning their cages and, in some cases, managing to escape.

NOW AND ALWAYS FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM!
[Originally published on Nantes Indymedia on 13.03.2020]

via Sans Attendre Demain, translated into English by Anarchists Worldwide

Read the original French script HERE:   

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

State Logic, From Shoplifting To Terrorism.

 

       All states move inextricably towards total control of the population and fascism, it is their only road for survival. The following is just one example of how a simple case of shoplifting can be turned into an attempt to repress and eradicate an entire political philosophy. All political thought must be subservient to the state's proclaimed narrative, free thought and alternatives to the status-quo must be eliminated to guarantee the survival of the state. One move to achieve this is private security firms don the mantle of the state police, with the blessing of the state. This example is from Greece but is not unique to that particular state.

     This from Act For Freedom Now:

         Friday 12.07.19, in the Leroy Merlin store in Piraeus, a simple attempted theft of a few items becomes the pretext awaited by the manager of the store, in cooperation with OVIT SA, the store security company, to bring about the resignation or dismissal of the worker G.A. as a supposed accomplice in the affair. G.A. is a militant known for his political and unionist activity in the store. He is also active in social struggles and the class struggle. The event that unleashes everything, which takes place between the windows and shelves of a large store, is an attempted theft of objects estimated to cost 180 €. A daily practice for a large part of the proletariat in the years of the capitalist crisis. But which in this case becomes an unprecedented persecution leading to the accusation of seven comrades and finally the imprisonment of anarchist comrade X. Kortesi in just 24 hours.
          The two comrades suspected of having committed the crime were apprehended with force by the security guards and locked in a room-cell in the store. After some time, and when it seemed that the incident could be resolved, Konstantinos Drivas, ex-soldier, security agent and owner of OVIT starts threatening the two comrades, by blackmail and appeal to psychological and physical violence, to make them rat on the worker, G.A. as being their “accomplice”. Drivas is accustomed to using information extraction methods and management thanks to his knowledge acquired in military seminars that meet the standards of OTAN! Thus, Ovit voluntarily assumes the role that the Leroy Merlin society confided to him as repressive mechanism and it is here that the story starts to take on disproportionate dimensions.
         At first, it seems that G.A. was targeted for being an active militant in trade union action, being in solidarity with comrades in struggle, because of his participation in strikes and labour struggles, in short the thorn in the side of the store administration. He is also a member of the Association of employees working in the commercial sector of Piraeus. With the two comrades’ refusal to legitimize the scenario that the company is trying to set up, Drivas threatens to involve the police, taking advantage of the fact that one of the comrades, X. Kortesis is out of prison on bail. The two comrades who took the products demand that they be let go. But Drivas and the other security cops hold them back by force. Three hours later, those in solidarity and comrades arrive at the store to pay the amount and denounce the company’s action, Leroy Merlin and his security agents. They manage to release the two comrades. The first attempt collapses when the personal and political relationship between the employee and X. Kortesis is exploited by the store management to get the former to hand in his resignation. Which does not happen. This is also the reason for which G. A. is apprehended by the Piraeus police as a witness. The accusation transmitted by the police to the Prosecutor’s Office in Piraeus mentions three offenses: theft, unlawful use of force, assault.
          The next day, comrade X. Kortesis is arrested by the police in the centre of Athens. Police put a hood on him and take him to an unknown destination, while beating him during his arrest. The comrade is brought to the Prefecture of Piraeus. At the same time, a terrorist-type investigation is conducted at his home by a large number of police.
          A few words on the exaggerated and premeditated accusations and the attempt at the political and physical elimination of comrade X.K.
           The vengeance of the State vis-à-vis Comrade X. Kortesis takes full reign when the theft becomes a serious crime, so as to involve the second comrade. The refusal of the comrade to name the other persons, and his political course, is enough to put him in danger. As Pantelidis the investigator insists, the comrade is suspected of having committed further offences. The State and its repressive mechanisms have accounts with its declared enemies and the fighters who have been struggling for years. X. Kortesis is an anarchist and has never concealed it. He was sentenced for participation in the organization “Revolutionary Struggle” and imprisoned for two years; one of the many people who stood by his side and attended his trial as a witness is anarchist comrade and employee of Leroy Merlin, G.A.. The political and personal relations between the two comrades are enough to initiate new acts for their political and physical elimination. The recipe is simple: criminalize the obstinacy of comrades to be part of social and political struggles and give an example to all those who strongly oppose the State. Certain so that comrade G.A. from witness quickly became suspect and accomplice on the same charge of aggravated theft. The prosecutor Angeloudi investigates another five persons, bringing the number of persecuted to seven. While a usual and well-known practice of the police and judiciary of the “anonymous call” makes sure that anarchist comrade P.X. also finds himself accused. On Thursday, July 18, the employee G.A passed before the investigating judge. There, they try to dismantle the accusation of prosecutor and the role played by the boss, Leroy Merlin and the company’s security OVIT. He is released without restrictive conditions.
        Persecution of the anarchist movement and its multiple aspects, criminalisation of class struggles and social struggles, political and physical elimination of comrades, the repression and intimidation of self-organised movements are at the core of the doctrine “order – development of capitalist-security” that the Greek State and its political staff has served for years.
         Some noise about the anomie and annihilation of Exarchia, squat evictions, more recently that of “Brooklyn” in Ioannina, repression (attack on the protest against AirBnB and tourism development by the CRS in the Koukaki district) up to the criminalisation of the strike, the abolition of the law prohibiting police presence inside the universities, the prosecution of 20 former and current political prisoners based on their political identity and for reasons of expression of solidarity in prisons, against the State and the bosses, all contribute to the construction of the new totalitarian framework that is being set up in order to face every social contestation and struggle.
         We declare and present ourselves on the class war front. We declare that we will not leave any comrade alone in the face of the repression of the State, the bosses and their accomplices who are the real thieves. A permanent and daily theft, sometimes violent, sometimes by methodically extracting the consensus of people who are exploited but who sometimes confront them.
         No challenge will remain unanswered

Let’s crush the terrorism of the State and the bosses

IMMEDIATE FREEING OF COMRADE X. KORTESIS

NO CHARGES FOR THE OTHER COMRADES

AGAINST THE STRATEGY OF THE STATE AND THE BOSSES

RESISTANCE AGAINST THE CRIMINALISATION OF SOCIAL AND CLASS STRUGGLES

GATHERING MONDAY 22/7, 18.30 AT THE OFFICES OF THE OVIT SECURITY COMPANY

TUESDAY 23/7, 18.30, AT THE LEROY MERLIN STORE IN MAROUSI

To write to comrade:
Christoforos Kortesis
Dikastiki Fylaki Korydallou
ST’ PTERYGA
TK 18110,
Korydallos,
Athens

Assembly of anarchist collectives, Comrades and others in solidarity

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

The Prying Eyes Of The State Are Everywhere.

 

         I have often spouted off about the "Big Brother" constant surveillance society of modern living. Everybody is watched, shopping, going to and from work, attending any event, traveling by bus or train, having a coffee in town, you are monitored, profiled and logged. let's not forget Stingray, a device that can swoop up the data from 1,000 mobile phones in one fell swoop. However it doesn't stop there, if you happen to one of those fair minded people that see the injustices and inequalities around you, and speak your mind, then you will come under a more thorough and sinister surveillance. Planted bugs, hidden cameras, undercover two-faced spies, and much more from the hi-tec world, in use by the state apparatus. Anarchists have always been high on the state's list of those meriting that more sinister surveillance. Actively working against injustice and inequality, makes you a threat to their authority, a possible risk to their control over the population, so, in the twisted mind of the demented authoritarians, you need to be constantly monitored, and if possible, silenced.  

This from Act For Freedom Now:

SPIES AT WORK

           For almost thirty years, amidst investigations being opened and closed (often without the investigated ones even knowing about it), we can say that anarchists from Trento and Rovereto have been systematically spied on. Of course they were and are not the only ones, considering the omnipresence of electronic surveillance. But various investigations against anarchists, quite poor in judicial results, served to control those who disturb power’s plans in a more selective and shameless way. Bugs in homes, self-managed places, cars have been found many times since the end of the nineties. Not to mention landlines and mobile phones under control and cameras in front of houses. On one occasion a bug was found in none the less than a rucksack. For the operation ‘Ixodidae’ (which in 2012 led to the arrest of two anarchists and later to a trial against eight comrades accused of ‘subversive association with intents of terrorism’, which ended in nothing), Trento prosecutors had spent over a million euros for video and audio tapping.
        Bugs with GPS have also been recently found in two cars. But obviously all this isn’t enough for Digos and ROS carabinieri (and the prosecutors who give them authorization, if there is any). Rebel life must be spied on minute after minute. So last week a micro camera was found in the kitchen-living room in a comrades’ home. A step not to be overlooked.
       Privacy – not only that concerning words but also bodies and gestures – turned into material for investigation to be set up and dismantled at their leisure.
        We don’t want to resigned to the Big Brother (we don’t mean the TV show).
          We don’t think the problem is only ours’, but it is everyone’s.
        It is necessary to react to these attacks on freedom with solidarity.
       It is necessary to say to spies and their filthy manoeuvres, strong and clear,

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

       Tuesday 23rd January, 6pm, Piazza Pasi in Trento: public exhibition of the recently ‘found items ‘
Anarchists

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

GOVERNMENTS JUST KEEP DRONING ON!!

          There is a quiet revolution taking place in the developed world and there isn't much coverage in our babbling brook of bullshit, the media. It is considered illegal to send armed assassins into another country and blow somebody's head off. However America does this almost on a daily basis, the reason they seem to get away with it is that they have managed to do this without sending in armed humans. They send their armed drones across borders and and pull the trigger from some air conditioned office in the US. The difference with this method and an assassin, is that a human assassin may succeed with a simple bullet to the head, the drone on the other hand will blow up a building, a car or a truck and tough luck if you happen to be an innocent by-stander. Ten years ago in America's war against the world, less than 5% of its military aircraft were unmanned, now it is approximately 40% unmanned.

          This type of technology is far to good an opportunity for the authorities to ignore, millions of pounds of public money are being poured into the development of drones of all sizes. BAE leads a consortium of defence companies that have been handed almost £31 million in regional funding to come up with a way of making drones capable of sharing our skies with other air users. At the cost of £17 million an old military site in Aberporth in Wales has been turned into the first and largest centre in Europe specifically for flying and testing civilian drones. US congress as asked the Air Space Regulator, The FAA, to free up American airspace for drone use by 2015, the UK is expected to follow suit latter. The FAA also stated that it expected about 10,000 unmanned commercial drones flying in America's airspace by 2017.

       Though they talk of civilian drones, it is the surveillance aspect that authorities are more concerned about. Five police forces in England have tested the use of drones and Staffordshire police still use them. Kent police have teamed up with their partners in UK, France and the Netherlands to try to come up with a policy for using unmanned drones in the English Channel.

The US Homeland Security use unarmed predator drones to police the Mexican border. Big Brother has truly arrived.

        In about 3 years I would expect to see unmanned drones hovering over demonstrations, parades, marches and football grounds, and while you're enjoying that rock concert, have a wee look skywards. There appears to be no limit to which these drones can be put, from the very small, photographing everything the authorities want to keep an eye on, to the larger armed ready to direct force to where the authorities think it is necessary. Control, that's what it is all about, control of you and me.

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