The State.

  

                                                 Image courtesy of Socialist Party

       While assistant Fuhrer, Braverman, keeps drawing fascist legislation out of her rabbit hole at an ever increasing rate, much to the applause of her stormtroopers in Parliament, she is not lone. Across the globe states are moving further and further to the right in an attempt to keep control of an every increasingly angry population.

Image courtesy of The Telegraph.

      The capitalist system has succeeded in it is aim of syphoning the world's wealth and resources into the hands of a few billionaires and multi-national corporations. However the public are becoming ever more alienated from their grand plan and unrest is rising. It becomes ever more obvious that poverty and destitution are not inevitable results of some immutable law of nature, but the results of a human designed economic system. Wars are not the natural state of humanity, they are engineered by those same billionaires and corporations to further their aims of world domination. All this requires a submissive population, and that is becoming ever more difficult, unrest is on the rise, and rightly so. Hence the ever increasing repressive laws and and punishment for those who dare to dissent and challenge this insane economic system based on greed of the few. There can be no freedom or justice if inequality is the norm, there is a better world we all have it in our minds and hearts, all we need is the will to create that better world for all. Resistance to state repression is now an necessity, if freedom and justice is our desire.

Image courtesy of Colombo Telegraph.

The following from Act For Freedom Now.

      

  Carrara, Italy : REPRESSIVE OPERATION AGAINST THE ANARCHIST PAPER BEZMOTIVNY

Testo (1)
         At dawn today, 8th August, the State, through the public prosecution of Genoa (in the figure of prosecutor Federico Manotti) and the DIGOS of La Spezia, carried out yet another repressive operation against the anarchist movement. Their aim is to silence any revolutionary desire and aspiration – as already happened with “anatianarchist laws” over a hundred years ago.
         Ten anarchists have been accused in this investigation including five comrades of Carrara for whom the prosecutor had requested imprisonment, which the judge for preliminary investigations Riccardo Ghio changed to four house arrests with full restrictions, followed by five forced residences with curfew, and one comrade with no restrictions. One of the four comrades under house arrest was ordered to be taken to prison as he did not have a certificate of residence: so Luigi has been transferred to the prison of La Spezia.
         As well as the house searches the historic anarchist place in Carrara, Anarchist Cultural Circle “Gogliardo Fiaschi”, was also searched. Magazines, books, leaflets, posters and digital material were confiscated.
        The comrades have been accused of subversive association with aims of terrorism (art. 270 bis of the penal code) and incitement to commit criminal acts (art. 424 c.p.) aggravated with aims of terrorism in relation to the publication, starting from 2020, of the internationalist anarchist fortnightly “Bezmotivny”, as well as offence to the honour and prestige of the president of the rebublic and illegal printing.
         Updates to follow concerning initiatives that will be carried out in solidarity with the comrades.
         Revolutionary solidarity with the arrested comrades and those submitted to restrictive measures!

No gods, no State, no servants, no bosses!

Anarchist Cultural Circle “Gogliardo Fiaschi” Carrara, 8th August 2023

The address for writing to Luigi:

Luigi Palli
Casa circondariale di La Spezia
Piazza G. Falcone e P. Borsellino n. 1
CAP 19125
La Spezia (SP)
Italy

via: ilrovescio.info
Translated by Act for freedom now!

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info     

Keelie 39.

 

         The Glasgow Keelie 39 is now available, as usual packed with what you would expect from wee Glesca Keelie. Out spoken, exposing the government's deliberate attacks on the poorest in our communities, pointing the way to resist, lots of info on how to resist and get involved in fighting this perpetual cull on the poorest and most vulnerable, helping to get that better world for all our people. The Keelie will be found in the usual places pickets, protests, demos and on the street in general. Watch out for it and grab your free copy of Glasgow's most radical newspaper. 

You can read The Glasgow Keelie on line HERE

         If you want a wee bundle to spread among your mates, or have something to say about today's injustices, corruption, and financial shenanigans of our lords and masters, contact us HERE. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Resist.

   

                                                   Image courtesy of Guardian.

             Make no mistake, the state works hand-in-glove with corporate capitalism. At the moment in the UK the capitalist class is complaining of a "labour" shortage. This simply means that they have capacity to exploit a greater number of citizens than they are exploiting at the moment. So they look around and come up with the label "economically inactive" in their eyes it is unacceptable for an individual not to be in harness to the capitalists class when it needs them, of course in over production they'll dump you without a thought about you being, "economically inactive". So the state will do its bit to make sure that those individuals classed as "economically inactive", become "economically active", to the benefit of the corporate greed merchants. The technique this time round is to do to their own citizens what they inflicted on migrants, create a hostile environment for all those, for whatever reason, are "economically inactive. You are going to be treated like subservient slaves, unless you strongly resist.

       New DWP pilot scheme threatens even more sanctions – resistance needed!

        “From Monday 27th February the DWP starts a pilot to force thousands of Universal Credit claimants to compulsorily attend jobcentres 10 times over a 2-week period, which PCS believes could increase the risk of poverty and make it more difficult for people to claim benefits.”

“If the customers, who have been claimants for 13 weeks, fail to attend they could be sanctioned and risk losing their benefits, plunging often very vulnerable people deeper into poverty.”

A new DWP pilot threatening Universal Credit claimants with even more sanctions has just started in 60 jobcentres round Britain including 11 in Glasgow and area........

https://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/?p=3274

         The Glasgow area jobcentres involved in the pilot are
· Barrhead
· Castlemilk
· Drumchapel
· Glasgow City Central/Renfield Street
· Govan
· Laurieston
· Newlands
· Partick
· Shettleston
· Springburn
· Partick Jobcentre

 

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Everywhere.

        An extract from an article in Enough is Enough. In truth, we are everywhere, we are everybody. I think well worth a read, a very interesting read and food for thought.

           We are post, we are autonomous, we are anarchists, we are communists, we provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine, we chase the uprisings, we are brutal feminists and we look after each other, searching for truth and yet disoriented, we fight in our neighborhoods and look for every opportunity to throw a stone. We come from the solidarity movement with Latin America, from the housing struggles of the 80s, from the fading Antifa of the 2000s, from the anti-globalization movement, and finally from today, which does not yet have a name. We want everything and nothing

 

         The world is decaying. The Greens, in their compulsive good face game, try to stop or heal this decay with aloe vera. The fascists try to breathe new life into the decaying world with their necromancy of family, fatherland and Christianity. The old capitalists just continue as before. And the left, in its unsurpassed wisdom of the both-as-also dialectic, also tries its hand at the necromancy of concepts from the 19th and 20th centuries, also adding a pinch of aloe vera to the alleged magic potion that gives them the feeling of moving forward. Even the disciples of Andreas Malm pay homage to a despondent Leninism that trivializes the seizure of power in questions of militancy and pressure to act. Gramsci and Lenin would turn in their graves.
         We stand stunned before what nowadays calls itself revolutionary politics, and yet is only a pile of rubble of left-wing social-democratic politics, which pounces resentfully on the FDP, still has not gotten over the betrayal of the SPD of 1914, and does not realize that the Greens have taken these “Punch and Judy” parties to their side as welcome idiots, in order to comfortably consolidate their project of Green Capitalism without causing a stir:

 

Continue reading HERE. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

desire.

            Day and daily, across the world in towns and cities people struggle to have a lifestyle of co-operation and mutual aid, free from the ever tightening shackles of the state and and its attendant thuggish support systems. The state has to have control over the population as it tries to create a society to suit the needs of the financial and corporate world. There is no room in such a society for liberated autonomous individuals and groups, the subservient population is the desired dream of both state and corporate capitalism, all serving the desire of the privileged and powerful as they pillage and plunder the Earth's resources for their own personal gain. However the human spirt will resit subservience in a variety of ways from clandestine to open resistance and struggle, and that resistance is growing daily as the state's repression and violence tries ever harder to repress and stifle that unending desire for freedom and justice for all.
         The state apparatus that controls the patch of the Earth's surface labelled Greece by the power mongers, is always among those at the forefront of repressing that human desire for that world of caring and sharing, for peace between all cultures and for a society that sees to the needs of all our people. However the resilience of the ordinary people knows no bounds and will triumph in the end. Borders will fall, we will be brothers and sister, the world will be ours. 

The following from Enough is Enough:

       Information from struggles in the greek territory from the perspective of   Sy.Ka.Pro. 

Originally published by Communıty of Squatted Prosfygıka.

         The new season started in low-tension conflictuality with the government despite the fact that during summer huge fires burned one-third of Greek forests. And this destruction clearly occured with the responsibility of the government.
         In our squatted community of Prosfygika, on Alexandras Avenue, we run an intense campaign against the repression and gentrification of our neighborhood. We organized several info-events in squares for people to know that the state and the companies want to kick out hundreds of people from the communities houses.
On 5th October, we intervened to the leftist former-government radio station Kokkino and newspaper Avgi with the target to make them publish our statement. We specifically target this party because it is one of the main actor of the gentrification process, pushing the state mechanism to forward its plans.

          We also intervened on 14/10 to the main company owning the technical responsibility: Anaplasi ΑΕ (Aνάπλαση Α.Ε.) having as a president the mayor of Athens Kostas Bakogiannis. After our interventions “a crew” of Syriza officials, ex-president of Anaplasi A.E., wanna be athens mayor, and ex regional president came to our neighborhood to make research to prove that the neighborhood needs gentrification.
           This first period of campaign ended up October 16. with a demonstration from our neighborhood to the wider area of Ambelokipi. Even though we were not so numerous, we managed to follow a big route in central streets with full guarding equipped with helmets, sticks, gasmasks. Lately, a new law is getting imposed in Greece which is not allowing protestors to take the whole street but confining them to one street-lane or even in some cases to the pavement, surrounded by riot cops pressuring them. So the demonstrations became very tense.

         This campaign is a small preview and a warning addressed to the state, of what will happen if they attack to our neighborhood.
        At the same time, another anti-repression campaign was going on “against the obligatory DNA capture” also known as the case of the “14” with the general slogan “sabotage the state data”.
         Last year, anarchist students were arrested because they occupied a building of the Zografos University to protest against the lockout of Polytechnio. The police stated that they found in the squatted building a beer bottle with a male DNA samples matching another sample gathered after one of the 6 December 2014 the attack of cops. With the excuse of this ridiculous connection, they want to oblige the 14 arrested males comrades of the occupation to give their DNA. Denying it, they are now under the threat of arrestation.
          Based on this case, the anarchist movement, and especially the student part of it, launched a campaign with aggressive actions and public informative events. For the end of the campaign, we commonly organized a demonstration that should pass by all the univerisities of the Athens center. However, the demonstration was directly attacked by the riot cops with beatings and tear gas.

Read the full article HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info      

Our History.

        Prisons are books, that contain dark and dreadful tales, tales of brutality, savagery, suffering  and death, but also tales of struggle, explosions of desire for freedom and enduring comradeship. Most of these tales go untold, but they are there, a history of endurance and struggle in the face of continuous state repression, we should tell these tales they are an inspiration to all those who struggle for that society of justice, freedom and comradeship.

The following from Act For Freedom Now: 

        Chile : 10 years after the massacre in the prison of San Miguel: words from Memory and tales of struggle
        If prison walls could talk they would tell the experiences of those who were (and are) locked up behind them; perhaps they would tell us many stories where the poor are the protagonists, or perhaps they would tell us of the immense yearning for freedom that fills the hearts of those locked up in the dungeons and the cells.
      Unfortunately prison walls are silent witnesses of the experiences of the people inside them. It is therefore a precise responsibility of each of us, kidnapped by the State, and of whoever wants to put an end to the present system of terror to tell what happens inside these places. The history of the prisoners is our history and cannot be lost.
        Sadness reigns in prison, is its lady and mistress and dominates the lives of those who end up in this gloomy place. Not only does the prison of San Miguel contain stories full of pain, it has also had many experiences of resistance and struggle.
        In the early 1990s many political prisoners were locked up in this prison, men of several organizations filled the tower cells until they were transferred to the C.A.S. in 1994, a transfer that the combatants opposed arms in hand.
        During the cell searches right after the clashes a large quantity of weapons and ammunition were found: a 7.65 mm Browning gun with seven cartridges; an Italian calibre 38 Trident revolver; a Dachmaur gun with fifteen cartridges; a 7.65 calibre Llama; a bag containing thirteen bullets; another leather bag with 18 bullets; a NEC cell phone and three homemade explosives (1). Several prison guards and a number of prisoners were injured during the clashes, among whom Mauricio Hernández Norambuena (guerrilla and ex-commander of the FPMR, Manuel Rodrìguez Patriotic Front). Commander Ramiro (one of the founders of FPMR) said: “I was seriously injured. I had never been hit by gunfire before, and it was precisely in jail that I was shot for the first time” (2). The same event was recounted by Ricardo Palma Salamanca (ex-guerrilla of the FPMR) in an interview given in Paris on 27th January 2019: “In the middle of the clashes two people were killed, I was also armed but I wasn’t hit”.
        The weapons used in the resistance during the transfers to the C.A.S. had originally been destined for escapes. Mauricio Hernandez tells it like this: “We managed to get various weapons into the prison of San Miguel and had devised a very interesting escape plan with external support, which was joined by fighters of Mapu-Lautaro (Mapuche military leader protagonist in the war of Arauco in Chile and the MIR, Movement of the Revolutionary Left). The idea was to get a large group of prisoners out. There were fifteen or twenty combatants in support outside. There were good weapons but unfortunately the plan failed. The whole operation was organized right down to the smallest detail, the fighters outside occupied a house whose walls adjoined those of the prison, with the intention of blowing it up. They could just go through a gate and get out from that side. Unfortunately, we were transferred to the C.A.S. a few days before the escape and used the weapons for the escape to resist the transfer” (3).
        This was not the only escape attempt from the prison of San Miguel. In 1997, a group of ex-members of the FPRM tried to escape from the prison through the roofs, with a system of ropes and pulleys, so as to reach one of the adjoining roads. But the attempt failed and a revolt broke out, the prisoners involved were transferred to the prison of Colina I and II, among whom Jorge Saldivia, who was killed during a bank robbery in 2014.
      The walls don’t talk but they bear signs that are difficult to erase. Many prisoners tell us that in Tower 5 in the prison of San Miguel, where 81 prisoners died in a fire, the stains of the bodies were never completely erased … The women say that the stains seem to be made of oil, and it doesn’t matter how much wax and paint they put on the floor and walls, they always come through again. Many anecdotes are told about the ghosts and spirits of tower 5, beliefs, myths or reality… but the death of 81 prisoners has never been forgotten by the other prisoners of tower 5, and shouldn’t be forgotten by any other prisoner.

10 YEARS AFTER THE MASSACRE IN THE PRISON OF SAN MIGUEL: ACTIVE AND COMBATIVE MEMORY UNTIL ALL CAGES ARE DESTROYED!

MÓNICA CABALLERO SEPÚLVEDA

ANARCHIST PRISONER

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

One Or T'other.

         There is no half freedom, we are either free or we are not, there is no half justice, there is either justice or there is not. We accept one or the other, freedom or its opposite, enslavement, justice or its opposite, injustice. There is no middle road to walk, accept your enslavement and injustice, or resist and fight for freedom and justice for all. There is no free world while there is one in enslavement, there is no just world when there is one injustice. I can’t walk as a free man, knowing it is a privilege to me and not to others, I can’t accept justice for myself, while others suffer injustice. We are one family and together we must fight for that freedom and justice for all. 

 

 

It's Not For Me.

I don’t want freedom that’s a privilege to me
but not for you.
I don’t want the shield of justice that’s mine
but invisible to others.
I take no comfort from a warm home
while others sleep in doorways.
My food is bitter, tasteless, unsatisfying
when I know a child is hungry.
I can't live in a land of isolated peace
as others bleed from war.
What is mine should also be yours to share
our bounty and our burdens,
happiness is an empty vacuous illusion,
if it's an island.

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

Barcelona.

       I'm a lover of Kate Sharpley Library and eagerly await their latest bulletin, they have just released their September, 2020,  issue, No.102. The poem below is from that edition. Very relevant today 

Barcelona 1936

Woke one bright morning – not so long ago
–heard the sound of shooting from the street below.
Went to the window and saw the barricade
of paving stones the working men had made – not so long ago.

Met a man that morning– not so long ago –
handed me a leaflet, on the street below.
Lean and hard-faced working man with a close-cropped head-
--held me for a moment eye-to-eye, then said:
Read it, read it, read it, and learn
what it is we fight for, why the churches burn.

Down on the Ramblas, she passed me on her way,
weapon cradled in her arm – it was but yesterday.
Not just for wages now, not alone for bread
-- we’re fighting for a whole new world,
A whole new world, she said.

On the barricades all over town – not so long ago
–they knew the time had come to answer with a simple Yes and No.
They too were storming heaven – do you think they fought in vain;
that because they lost a battle they would never rise again;
that the man with the leaflets, the woman with a gun,
did not have a daughter, did not have a son?

Hugo Dewar (1908-1980)

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Solidarity.

 

     August 25th. to August 30th. a week of international support for all anarchist prisoners. Across the planet there are uncountable thousands of these state institutions of repression. Institutions of arbitrary violence, devoid of justice, sparse on medical care, dark dungeons where the state incarcerates those who would dare to challenge its vice like authority. Prisons are just one of the states many tools to create a submissive population, to repress dissent, to silence opposition to its plunder of the the poor in favour of the wealthy few. Just one of its lines of defence of the parasite class that hold the levers of power in this economic system of exploitation, poverty, war and plunder. Those who make a stand against this gross injustice, who stand up and defy the state's manufactured monopoly of control over our lives, deserve all the support and solidarity that we can muster, their struggle is our struggle, we must show which side we are on.   

The following from Anarchists Worldwide:

 

     Chile: Letter from Anarchist Comrade Juan Flores Riquelme about the Arrest of Mónica and Francisco

        We knew that by choosing the path of struggle against capital, our lives would develop against all odds, and it was not unknown to us that prison could be a possible destination.
      We questioned this humiliating reality and its so-called “social peace”, we severely questioned the enrichment of the bourgeoisie and their power. There are really too many questions to take a stand against the prevailing order. Countless have been the assassinations by the repressive forces of the power, countless those insurgents who have given their lives looking for the sharpening of the conflict against the states.
     Did the elite of this country believe that we would stand idly by after all their years of misery, alienation and neoliberal exploitation? How could we not try to be the stumbling block against the uninterrupted advance of capitalism and the states?
     A constant attack against the enemy we have made of our lives, which extend infinite complicities of an idea that lives in a multitude of hearts, a consequence of the reality of positioning against the enemy. This is how our lives are, this is how we chose it, against all odds we will advance without restraint along the path of subversion, beyond its borders, beyond its criminalization and Hollywood investigations, beyond its convictions and prisons, reality demands action from us. Our only option is to maintain the struggle for total liberation, facing with dignity the consequences that this may generate in our lives.
       These words are addressed to those daredevils who, without looking back, have defended anarchic and anti-authoritarian ideas with their teeth and claws. Monica Caballero and Francisco Solar are hermanxs [brothers & sisters] with deep convictions and critiques that are impossible to break with this new blow of power to their lives.
      To the comrades of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and Revolutionary Struggle, imprisoned in the prisons of Korydallos Greece. To the anarchist brothers and sisters imprisoned in Ferrada Prison, Italy. To all the prisoners who were filled with anger and faced off against the police during the recent revolt in October.
     Warmly greeting the initiative of the International Week for Anarchist Prisoners, which is being carried out from the 25th to the 30th of August, I say goodbye for now.

Juan Alexis Flores Riquelme
High security prison.

(via Contra Info, translated into English by Anarchists Worldwide)

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Resistance.

      The full blown war being waged by the Greek state against any autonomous spaces, any self organising by the ordinary people, any solidarity shown to migrants, has been running for a year now. What this has meant is that the state uniformed thugs and accomplices heaping torment and anguish as well as savage brutality on all who struggle for that freedom and solidarity that is nurtured in these autonomous spaces, self organising groups, and migrant solidarity and support groups. It is all the state can offer to those who seek freedom to organise their own lives, who seek solidarity and co-operation between all peoples. How long will we let these state thugs, puppets of the billionaire corporate beast, chain our lives to their greedy profit drive system of exploitation? Resistance and solidarity are the keys to freedoms door.

   The following on Greece from Act For Freedom Now:

  10, 100, thousands of squats

One year of resistance against state terrorism
     Today 26.8.20 marks one year since the armed hooded men of Chrysochoidis invaded the refugee squat of Spyrou Trikoupi 17 and the neighboring Transito squat. It was early in the morning when they forcibly pulled out families with young children from their beds–people who after much hardship and suffering had found a place to grow roots again in these buildings. They took them from their home and distributed them in miserable camps to live in the dirt and with indifference in canvas tents. Since then, a barrage of state terrorist attacks on refugee and political squats has led to evacuations, snatching of people, beatings, and arrests.
     The refugee squats have functioned for many years as unprecedented experiments of practical anti-racism and anti-fascism, self-organization, and solidarity. These spaces have given thousands of people the opportunity to regain their stolen autonomy and the right to define their own lives away from human guards and charity contractors. And almost all of them were evacuated.Families with babies, single women, LGBTQI+ people, the sick and disabled, survivors of torture were all brutally detached from their daily lives and relationships and were trapped in nothing but state mercilessness.
Political squats that formed cells of social action in neighborhoods, challenging the prevailing ideas of tourism, private property, and commercialization, which turned cities into concrete class pyramids of solitary depravity and social rivalry, were also evacuated. Those who defended these squats faced harsh repression. But this also extended to simple neighbors, as it happened in Koukaki.Bricks were placed where there were open doors.Where once voices, songs, and laughter were heard, only silence echoes now.Where life spread its wings, they left only the dust of desolation.The targeting of squats through the monstrous lies of the media is an integral purpose of the state, which wants to crush any spatial, social, and ideological sphere, that shows and proves that there is another way to live, away from gender, class, ethnicity, and religious hierarchies. That our passage through the world deserves to be more than constant anxiety of survival and a lesson in obedience, that we can throw the weights of artificial suspicion to express, to create, to dream collectively. At the same time, it is an integral part of the most disgusting but also the purest face of power, of raw authoritarianism.
        The plan for mass evacuations of squats coincides with the militarization of entire areas, with the expansion of the supervisory-repressive mechanism, and the police barbarity it inflicts on the bodies of fighters.In the past year, at Notara 26 the housing squat for refugees and migrants, we mourned for every space of struggle that fell into the hands of the enemy. We mourned for every human who lost hope, for every hope for a better life that was tarnished under police boots. We felt anger for those injured with opened heads, the sad looks in the police buses and cages, the locked doors. We were moved by every act of resistance and an attempt to reclaim stolen land. We know very well, however, that no idea, no movement is evacuated. We ourselves accept daily the increasing pressure of the government with threats of evacuation, insulting comments against residents and people of solidarity, thrashings, attempts of invasion, constant harassment, and even Nazi slogans we have witnessed by the sad entourage of the Police shouting outside the squat.A year later we are still here, stronger, more united, more determined than ever with an immense wave of solidarity embracing us, forming a circle of care around us.
We are part of a multifaceted movement that is “not afraid of ruins” because it knows how to rebuild, who finds crevices to escape from all the jail cells, who will always haunt the empty houses and the nightmares of the torturers.The liveliest firework in the thickest darkness!
source

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

I Moan.

       I moan, but I feel with justification. Our freedoms are under attack, the attacker wears the cloak of a caring state, but we must be wary, it has ulterior motives. Naturally a lot of our actions have been governed by fear and self preservation along with fear for the lives of our loved ones. A population that lives with fear is easier manipulated and controlled, and that will be the underlying ulterior motive of the state. Society is being reshaped before our eyes, socialising will be very limited, as the restricting legislation introduce now will still be in place as the virus recedes. Keep your social distancing, but go to work, out of work experiences will be curtailed for some considerable time. Theatres and large sporting events postponed for at least a year, pubs disappearing as the go bust from no sales but still got the bills coming in. Get back to work, but keep your distance, no social gatherings as work conditions will now keep you apart, for your own good of course. Isolated living and working, with TV and virtual meetings, and a lingering fear that the virus is still there. Welcome to capitalism's brave new world. 

        This will be our new normality, unless we decide that the time has come for resistance rather than submission. We have seen the shoots of our view of the world we want. Those mutual aid groups springing up spontaneously in communities across the country, a desire to be with one and other, and to help where needed without the thought of profit. That has to be the driving force of the normality that we want, not the isolated profit making for wealthy shareholders. Resisting the call to go back to work under the dystopian construction of our capitalist masters, may be difficult, but complying is abdicating your right to live freely, in communities with your friends and families. This could be the final battle for your freedom, if they win, we continue our subjugation on a journey to an ecological disaster, with no come back. We are the only ones who can save ourselves and future generations from this nightmare dystopian human disaster. I moan, but I feel with justification.   

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

Whose Script?

     At the moment we are in the midst of a world moving event, opportunity, for who, or disaster, for who. The aftermath of this world moving event could be much worse than the event itself. Fortunately the script has not yet been written. how we fare will depend on who writes the narrative. It is up to us the vast majority of the population to take charge of that pen and write our script the way we wish to shape our story.

     All pulling together should remain as it is during this event, doing it to help each other, it should not be used to help pull the system back to what it was, the opposite must be our aim, to bury the past normal and build our own.

The following is an extract from:

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions:

      Resistance; To those who say that now is not the time for “civil unrest,” that division is unhelpful, that we must keep going... we say: now is the time for it all. Mutual aid and solidarity can be no more than acts of charity if they are not combined with resistance in this current context. Carefully, whilst being safe and thinking of others... rebel, resist, and plan. Find the gaps, use the skills and networks you have. Keep yourself sane and your rebellious heart burning, because when the virus eases, the police state will continue, and food parcels and lending books are not going to dismantle it. Stay sharp.COVID-19 is in many ways a global gift to all leaders and politicians seeking to ramp up social control. After the virus eases, we will see unprecedented changes on a global scale as legislation that was rushed through hangs over us like a spectre and people obediently go about their business, terrified of Covid-20. We hope that we will never be too scared to resist. Corona shows us that the system is fucked. Will you kick it while it’s down

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Resistance An Obligation.

       Pick your country, Greece, Spain, Italy and any other capitalist swamp and the patterns the same. Capitalism's minders, the state, battle hard and ceaselessly to extinguish any form of self organising among the people. Capitalism needs a subservient population, it can't permit people to look for alternatives, or their system would collapse, though that's on the cards in any case. This is where the state steps in to try and crush any form of dissent or resistance to the economic train crash that we are riding towards climate disaster. The state simply puts a stamp of legitimacy on their own violence against the people in an attempt to prop up this suicidal economic system.  When tyranny is the norm, resistance is an obligation.

From Anarchists Worldwide:

Milan: Branca Still Holds Out. Two Comrades on the Roof

       21.01.2020: The operation to clear the Brancaleone squat at 1 Piazza Alfieri began this morning. Despite the cold and the now 12 hours on the roof thanks to being pissed off and the determination to resist, 2 comrades are still on the roof and intend to stay there as long as possible.
      There are solidaritarians in the square at the front of the building who are stubbornly refusing to leave the comrades on the roof alone. The night will be long and cold, but together we will warm it with the flame of our anger that burns to the sound of good music.
       Herbal teas and good food await us here and all are welcome.
Some angry and cold comrades. 

Milan – A Reflection from Solidarity (Resistance to Eviction Continues)

       22.01.2020: Despite unsuccessful attempts by the so-called law enforcement agencies to end the resistance on the roof, it has now been 24 hours for the two people that are determined not to give in to yet another eviction, right in this city of luxury apartments and profiteers.
         The fake social peace that Beppe Sala [Giuseppe Sala – the Mayor of Milan] would like to establish in his showcase city, a metropolis of fashion design and gentrification (especially in a neighborhood like Bovisa where this same fact is evident) will never be completely possible as long there are people not willing to bend to social compromise.
         Yesterday as today, always above the roofs, always against the monopoly of the exercise of state force, against capitalists and exploiters.
Brancaleone resists!

Milan – And We’re Still Here…Of Course

       22.01.2020: For 30 hours they’ve been standing on the roof of the Brankaleone house. The comrades are well fed and are determined to stay where they are, do you want to hear about the beauty of Piazza Emilio Alfieri from above?!
          Let’s re-launch for tonite a date at 8:30pm in Piazza Alfieri, under Branka house. Updates on the situation, proposals, music, beer and good food.
         In any case, we’ll be here all day, so come by whenever you want.
        (all updates via Round Robin, freely translated into English by Anarchists Worldwide. All photos stolen from various Italian corporate media sources)

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

Profit Versus People.

        Gentrification is not a new phenomenon, nor is it confined to any one town or city. It is just one of the methods used by the financial Mafia to increase their wealth at the expense of the ordinary local people.
      At the moment there is a battle raging in the district of Exarcheia in Athens. The newly elected government, New Democracy is brutally trying to "cleanse" the district by removing people who wish to live together in co-operation mutual aid and a community of common interests, to allow property investors a free reign in filling the area with luxury apartments, expensive restaurants and high priced fashion shops, to syphon money from tourists to the property developers bank accounts. Tourism is their current milking-cow, their goose that lays the golden egg.
      In our world of high finance, the "economy" profit and growth, outweigh any human values, the poor will continually be pushed to the margins until they decide that enough is enough.
       This extract from an excellent article by Molly Crabapple. It is well worth reading the article in full.

      From New York to Berlin, gentrification is consuming cities, and any enchantment a neighborhood offers is a harbinger of its eventual doom. Hoping to boost low real-estate prices after years of economic crisis, Greece began granting the so-called golden visa, a five-year E.U.-residency permit in exchange for a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-euro investment in real estate, in 2013. Wealthy citizens of autocracies took up the offer. Chinese investors bought up blocks of buildings; one purchased a hundred apartments in Exarchia alone. Many of these apartments were converted into Airbnbs (the Web site has more than three hundred listings for Exarchia), which drove up the rents, drove out residents, and brought in tour guides, who attempt to repackage the neighborhood’s insurrectionary spirit as vapid, marketable cool.
       “They want gentrification, to promote this as a historic neighborhood while destroying its history of artists, struggles, intellectuals, and anarchists.” Anna told me. “They want to do what Berlin did, to sell the neighborhood’s past while killing its identity.” In the last decade, Berlin rents have risen more than a hundred per cent, and for Athenians like Anna, the city is a cautionary tale. Graffiti offered a succinct rejoinder: “Airbnb TOURISTS FUCK OFF REFUGEES WELCOME.” Neither refugees nor anarchists would fit into the city that had been dreamed by the world’s wealthy. That Athens would be a series of clean, glass-walled, interchangeable rooms, through which capital could frictionlessly glide.
        Throughout the winter, police repeatedly attacked Exarchia Square with tear gas and flash-bang grenades. Sometimes the pretext was a protest; other times, it was an attack by anarchists on the police. One night, police trapped residents inside a café for hours. On November 17th, after a march commemorating the 1973 uprising, social media lit up with photos of protesters left bloody by police violence. Three days later, the Ministry of Citizen Protection issued an ultimatum: squatters had fifteen days to evacuate every squat in Greece. By late December, only a handful of squats remained, the last survivors of a network that had once given thousands of refugees a home.
        I thought of the words of an activist from Exarchia, when I asked him whether the government would succeed in fundamentally changing the neighborhood. “Exarchia is not just territory,” he answered. “Territory without people is nothing. I don’t care about losing Exarchia. I care about losing the people.”

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