Human Creation.

          We live in a society where the rich build their mansions with the bones and coffins of the poor, and fuel their luxury yachts with workers blood. A society that puts the stamp of legitimacy on murder and destruction by calling it war, honours it, and shrouds it with a blanket of glory. The insane have brainwashed us into accepting the slaughter that is war, as a legitimate activity, when sanity tells us that it is murder based on greed and the seeking of power. In our theatre of illusions we accept that those who point the finger at another part of the planet and sign the declaration of war, are not the ones who pick up the gun, that part of the grand illusion is up to the us, the ordinary people, who have no desire to kill ordinary people from another part of our planet, and who will never share in the loot garnered from the bloodshed, but will pay for that bounty with their blood.
        The question is, why do we accept such gross insanity, injustice and subterfuge, why do we send or sons and daughter to fuel this insane illusion, while those who hold the reins of power, with all its attendant wealth and privileges, live in a bubble of secure opulence. The absurd nature of this insane society is blatantly obvious as the few hold the vast majority of the the fruits of the earth, while the many who produce those fruits of the earth, struggle with poverty and destitution on a daily basis. 

        The system we live under is not written on tablets of stone, handed down from some man in the sky. It is a human created economic system that favours the few at the expense of the many. We can destroy it and create a system of equality, based on co-operation, sustainability, free association, free from the greed driven profit motive and sees to the needs of all our people. There is no magic wall or supernatural power standing in our way, just a small bunch of greedy sleaze ridden parasites. We have the imagination, the power and the ability, all we need is the will. After all, we the ordinary people built every road, mansion, cathedral, hospital, ever ship that sailed, every truck that moved, we loaded it and unloaded it, grew ever vegetable, ploughed every field, what have we got to fear? 

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Be The Revolution.

       This extract is what I consider to be excellent advice from one of my favourite journalists, Caitlin Johnstone.

        One of the most frustrating things is seeing where we need to move and not being able to get the collective to come with you. You’re like, “It’s there! Let’s move!”, and they just want to bicker and ego spar. Just blast off into health yourself, and trust that the others will follow if and when they are able.
        Be your own revolution. You have all the media access you need to help wake the world up with the power of your own inspired action. Reject cliques, factions and sectarianism, and have the courage to stand on your own two feet attacking the machine with your own unique abilities.
        This doesn’t mean you can’t organize and work collectively; you absolutely can. If you see people doing something you want to uplift, uplift it. But when you’re done, don’t stay and become a member of the club. Move on and retain your self-sovereignty. If you’re doing something that people want to help uplift and amplify, let them do so. When they don’t want to anymore, let them go. Don’t try to manipulate them into staying.
       You are free to collaborate with anyone on any issue at any time. You don’t actually need to be a member of the Blah Blah Whateverist Club to do this. And when nothing is happening that you want to collaborate with others on, you can attack the machine on your own, using your own unique set of tools based on your own inspiration. You are not owned or bound.
      All these debates we’re seeing lately over who should be let into and kept out of the Revolution Club, how the Revolution Club should act, who should lead the Revolution Club etc are based on the assumption that there has to be a Revolution Club in the first place, and there just doesn’t. Organize and collaborate on a case-by-case, issue-by-issue basis while remaining sovereign.
       Have the compassion to prioritize the needs of the collective and the courage to stand as an individual. Trying to impose your will on exactly how the collective revolution should and should not be moving is a doomed endeavor, because you cannot control the collective, you can only control yourself. So be your own revolution and attack the machine wherever you detect a weak point in its armor.
      I’ve avoided all cliques and factions like the plague, and I’ve been far more effective in this fight than I would have been if I’d chosen to glom onto some faction and uphold all its -ists and -isms. It would have killed my ability to move with agility in whatever way is demanded by each present moment, because I would have been binding myself to the movements of a group that isn’t seeing what I’m seeing and can’t move the way I move.
        This is just what’s worked for me, and of course your mileage may vary. But if you’re like me and you don’t see the various groups, organizations and factions getting us to where we need to go, consider stepping out of the vehicle, standing on your own two feet, and waging your own revolution.

Read the full articlle HERE:

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Strike.

         In this capitalist cesspool of inequality and injustice the workers often take strike action to try and redress some of those injustices and inequalities, and it's not easy. To take strike action in this capitalist system of exploitation, often means that when you stop working, you stop eating and so does your family. So strike action is always difficult to organise and sustain. Over the years we have seen some very large strikes and some small very determined strikes, there have been great victories and some defeats, but the strike action is still one of the best weapons in the armoury of the ordinary working people in defence of their conditions and to try to improve those condition. However it is also one of the necessary weapons if we want to change the system to one of fairness that frees us from the exploitation of that privileged pampered parasite class, and in so doing creates that society that sees to the needs of all our people.
      While this struggle against exploitation and corruption has involved many strikes, and lots ending in savage brutality, handed out by the bosses minders, the state, our planet has never seen a strike of the magnitude of what is happening in that patch of the world called India. An estimated 250 million, yes million, ordinary people have taken a unified strike action. They are taking a stand not only against their working conditions, but the gross corruption of the Indian government and the corporate bodies that get rich on the exploitation of poverty.
      Now is the time to show our support from across the world, for this unprecedented unified action by ordinary people. Their struggle is our struggle, we all live under a unified corporate monster that is backed to the hilt by rich, corrupt politicians. These two entities are well organised and unified in their determination to continually enhance their power and wealth on the backs of the ordinary people. We should take a leaf from their book and be unified and organised world wide, it is one struggle, one battle for one world, shaped by us the ordinary people.

 The following from The News:

      The Indian working class has once again flexed its muscle and organised a general strike of more than 250 million workers against the anti-workers, anti- people and anti-farmers policies of the rightwing Modi government.
       All efforts to intimidate and repress the workers failed to stop this general strike from taking place. Despite repression, this joint general strike by workers and farmers has almost shut down India. This massive day of action was called by 10 trade unions and over 250 farmers’ organisations, and was accompanied by massive protests and a near total shutdown of some Indian states.
       Workers in nearly all of India’s major industries – including steel, coal, telecommunications, engineering, transportation, ports, and banking – joined the strike. Students, domestic workers, taxi drivers, and other sectors also participated in the nationwide day of action. These historic protests illustrate the power of workers and farmers to bring a nation’s economy to a complete standstill when united in defence of their rights.

Also this from Jacobinmag:

     Even more importantly, the general strike converged with a march launched by a broad group of farmers’ organizations, all planning to descend on the capital of Delhi. Social media was suddenly awash with images of farmers using tractors and trucks to break down the barriers erected by police to keep them out of the city. In one video, a protester emphatically explained to a policeman at the barricades that “this is a revolution, sir.”

 And from Wikipedia:

       On 26 November 2020, a mass general strike was held across India. The strike was organized by 10 trade unions across the country and was supported by the Indian National Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), and other left-wing parties.[1][2][3] An estimated 250 million (25 crore) people took part in the strike,[4][5] which Jacobin estimated as the largest in history.[6] The strike was followed by a march to New Delhi, which arrived there on 30 November with tens of thousands of farmers surrounding Delhi,[7] increasing to hundreds of thousands by 3 December.[8]

And from Industriall Union:

       Trade union leaders expressed concerns that, using Covid-19 as an excuse, the government has unleashed widescale repression. Police used violent means to attempt to stop hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers who are on their way to Delhi to demonstrate peacefully in the capital city on 26 and 27 November.

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Cashless.

         Covid19 has certainly been a great boon to the capitalist world, it has allowed the reshaping and refinancing of the crumbling capitalist model, leaving the bill for the tax payer, and as I have said before allowed the state to tighten its grip on the population. There is another opportunity that has been seized by the financial section of capitalism, the cashless society. The wet-dream of the financial gurus, and of the state has been a cashless society. Of course not in the same sense that anarchist/communists see a cashless society.  Transactions are much easier controlled if there is no physical cash to change hands. Much more efficient without producing all that moving around securely, producing and counting  paper and coinage. There will be no place to hide, we all need to purchase in this capitalist nightmare. The cashless society would mean that every financial transaction you make would be logged and stored in a computer somewhere, place, time, amount, all stored. There to be pried into, analysed and profiled along with your other actions from that massive intrusive array of surveillance apparatus that surround us all. 

 

        The pandemic was the golden opportunity to make cash infectious, dirty, much better and safer to use contactless cards. This moves on to the next money saving exercise, the end of the ATM machines, why maintain and service all those devices if the bulk of the population just wave a card to pay for everything, plus the line that is pushed, everybody now purchases on-line. Then of course, no cash deposits or withdrawals, so why have all those people sitting around in those nice banks dotted around you cities and towns, you can do it all on line.  Of course the most vulnerable are the ones who depend most on cash in the hand, but to our financial masters, they are a negligible minority that can be taken out of any equation in their grand plans, superfluous to requirements. The cashless society is a blessing to the control freaks in state organisations and a must for the financial mafia in their drive for a totally controlled, world wide system, of financial control and manipulation. Because of the pandemic and the ensuing propaganda from the state and its coterie of parasite companions, we have allowed ourselves to quietly walk into their dream, a world under their total control. One world, one open prison, with no escape route, except revolution of course. 

 

 

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A Just Struggle.

          Anyone with a rational and objective mind who takes a look at the system that we presently live under, will admit that it fails dramatically to produce fairness, justice or equality to any acceptable degree. Our society is riven with injustice, inequality and by any measure lacks fairness. The divide between those with power and wealth and the ordinary individual, is an unbridgeable chasm. Opulence, pomp, privilege, power and wealth sit cheek-by-jowl with homelessness, hunger, poverty and deprivation, creating a vision that makes a mockery of "democracy" and human decency.
         However we are naive in the extreme if we believe that those who exploit and oppress us will, through dialogue and peaceful protest, willing give up their power and privileged position and abandon their obscene wealth in an attempt to make society a fairer and more just society. They will use whatever means available to them, to protect their wealth, power and privileges, be it by passing laws, backed up by force, or blood on the streets.
       We have to accept that those who hold that wealth, and power which endows them with privileges are our oppressors, who work hard at maintaining the unbridgeable chasm. As oppressors we have to treat them as such, we can't ask them to please give up your wealth, power and privileges so that we have a fair society, it won't work. Perhaps we should think hard about the words of Frederick Douglass, escaped slave, abolitionist, writer, and orator.

        “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, and it may be a physical one, or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of whom they oppress.” -Frederick Douglass

         Only a revolution will replace this greed driven economic system that degrades the human spirit and breeds inequality and injustice. However, you can't buy a revolution, you can't make a revolution, you have to be the revolution, and a revolution will not come with a bunch of roses in its hand.

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It's Obvious.

          I make no excuses for having posted the following article several times in the past, and will probably post it again in the future. I think now, more than ever, it is the line of thought and action that needs to be more widely spread, a truth we have to shout from the roof tops, as our world rolls merrily along the road to ultimate disaster. Only anarchism can put a brake on that trajectory.

WHY ANARCHISM:

Freedom and Equality.
       Fundamentally, anarchism is the struggle for freedom. Freedom from rulers and corporations who dominate our lives and are destroying our earth. Freedom for workers, women, and all oppressed people in all parts of the world. We believe that this sort of freedom can only be achieved together with equality and a fair distribution of resources.
Individual and Collective.
      Anarchists believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of the individual. But this dignity and humanity can only be fully realised in a co-operative, egalitarian society. This is why we are in favour of working together collectively and being organised. It is incorrect to equate anarchism with individualism or chaos.
Revolution.
        Anarchists understand that this truly free and equal society can only be achieved through revolution – meaning a complete transformation of society. This society cannot be ‘given’ to the people by politicians or bureaucrats. It must be built by people from below.
Change by Direct Action.
       Anarchism opposes the violence which is an integral part of capitalism and the state (this violence comes in many forms: war, patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends – in other words, the way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action – action taken by everyday people to address the power imbalance in present day society. This includes strikes, boycotts, work-to-rule’s and occupations.
The Past.
      Both authoritarian communism (as in Russia, China etc.) and ‘labourism’ (ie. The labour parties of the world), have failed to solve our global crisis. We need a different path to a better world. Anarchism offers itself as a guide on that path.

What Might An Anarchist Society Look Like? 

1 The world’s resources would be held in common and shared with all the diverse life on Earth.
2 People would manage their own lives, work and communities, and everyone would have a say in decision making through decentralised forms of organisation.
3 Relationships in all areas of life would be based on mutual respect and equality regardless of gender, skin colour, sexual orientation,disability, age, culture etc.
4 Work wouldn’t be boring and repetitive, but instead would be a means of voluntary self expression and fulfilment; unpopular or difficult jobs would be shared.
5 Education would be integrated into daily life to produce free individuals who think for ourselves.
6 Goods and services would be produced ecologically for human needs based on the principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need”.

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Bloody Friday.

          Bloody Friday is a date that is branded on the psyche of Glasgow's working class, January, 31st. 1919, (or should be) when people from Glasgow and all around gathered in George Square holding a mass peaceful demonstration in support of the 40 hour week. When some individual among the higher echelons of power, for reasons known to them, ordered the police to attack the crowd. They went in with batons swing and all hell broke loose. Fighting spread across the city and well into the night as the people vented their anger on the police and the authorities. The powers that be got extremely nervous, fearing a revolution being sparked in the Red Clyde and spreading. Their answer was troops, armed with fixed bayonets on the streets of Glasgow, tanks stationed in a warehouse in the east end of the city, and armed soldiers at the gates of docks and other places that the powers that be, deemed strategic.
       I know it's not January, an anniversary or anything like that, but it is an event that we should always try to bring to the attention of the young taking up the struggle for a decent life for all. Though it has been written about by many people I thought it would be nice to hear a voice of one who was there at the time, A Glasgow working class fighter and writer/poet, someone I have admired since I first came across his name while researching the subject at the Caledonian University many years ago, Tom Anderson.

 Bloody Friday.

The Judas Iscariots, disciples of Christ,
Sent out the “Blue Legions”, bought at a price,
To maim and to kill at pleasure of will
The people unarmed who before them stood still.
The “Arm of the Law” read words from a “writ”
Empowering their legion to kill and to whip.
To cover their deeds, the press cried aloud,
“Save, save our good City from Bolshevik shroud!”

The knaves in chorus joined in with the throng:
“Machine them, baton them, drive them along;
Strike down the damned strikers, vermin at that,
The army’s behind you, make good your part.”
“The soldiers of freedom” - - - Christ! What an affair - - -
Stood waiting for orders, to “charge over there.
And sad was the sight, at the dead of night,
Slaves dressed in khaki, without human right.

They marched Khaki slaves through our streets day and night,
To show us the strength of their power and might;
And the poor slaves, bowed down with bayonet and gun,
Felt now they were the plundering Hun.
Christ Almighty! Was there ever a plot so foul,
They played with our men as a fox with a fowl.
Then down came their swoop with an avalanche tread;
And Kirkwood went down, and they cracked Willie’s head.
We fear not their law, nor yet their great men;
We fear not their prisons or blood-gallows pen;
We fear not their priests, or parsons or spies;
We fear not their land away up in the skies.
We laugh at their army, and navy, and king;
We laugh at the god to whom these thieves sing
We laugh,and in earnest we strive for the day
To wipe out the tyrants who do our class slay.

                                                                                Tom Anderson.

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Bonfire.

         Obvious where I lifted the image from, but thought it suited a wee verse I wrote some years ago.

The Propagandist.

When the hordes run with their flaming torches
When they light the torch of freedom
Burning all injustices
Scorching all hypocrisies
Making a bonfire of poverty
Throwing dogma, patriotism, and religion on the flames
I'll be there, among them with my box of matches. 

 

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Our WW4.

         War, that integral part of this economic system we live under, the wars of imperialism, wars fought all over the world with your blood for their gain, the war of state power for plunder and pillage to benefit the few, those members of the pampered, privileged parasite class. However there is another world war that the establishment don't want you to see, hear about, or in any way support. It's the war of the people for justice, equality and freedom. In country after country the battles rage and blood is shed, but for the noble cause of that better world for all, free from exploitation, for a sustainable world unshackled for the chains of profit for the few. 

 

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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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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:

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God Guiding Trump!

 

      When we look around at what is being done by the various heads of state, the impression is one of insanity, wrapped up with greed and power. Rationally you think this can't be, surely the mass of people could not vote in the insane to govern our world. I believe the evidence says, yes they can, and have done so. 

 

       JERUSALEM — When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sat down for an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network in a hotel in Jerusalem earlier this month, he made a remark that was perhaps the most revelatory of any in his nearly one year in office.
       An evangelical Christian, Mr. Pompeo had just returned from tours of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the ground where Jesus is said to have been crucified and buried, and of tunnels beneath the Western Wall, by the holiest site in Judaism. The interviewer posed a question around a biblical tale about a queen who saved Jews from slaughter by a Persian official: Did Mr. Pompeo think President Trump had been “raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?”
      “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Mr. Pompeo said. “It was remarkable — so we were down in the tunnels where we could see 3,000 years ago, and 2,000 years ago, if I have the history just right — to see the remarkable history of the faith in this place, and the work that our administration’s done, to make sure that this democracy in the Middle East, that this Jewish state, remains. I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”

       The above statement was made by one of the most powerful men in the world, Mike Pompeo, American Secretary of State, he is a fundamentalist evangelical Christian and helps to shape American policy to the rest of the world. He is a outspoken believer in the "Rapture"

        TheRapture, in Christianity, the eschatological (concerned with the last things and Endtime) belief that both living and dead believers will ascend into heaven to meet Jesus Christ at the Second Coming (Parousia). The belief in the Rapture emerged from the anticipation that Jesus would return to redeem all members of the church. The term rapture, however, appears nowhere in the New Testament. In his First Letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul wrote that the Lord will come down from heaven and that a trumpet call will precede the rise of “the dead in Christ” (4:16). Thereafter, “we who are still alive and are left will be caught up” (in Latin, rapio, the standard translation of Paul’s original Koine Greek) “together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (4:17). The Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) mention Jesus’ return to earth from heaven; e.g., The Gospel According to Mark cites Jesus as foretelling a “ ‘coming in clouds’ with great power and glory” (13:26).

     Evangelist Pompeo also has strong views on China, views that should make us run for the nearest nuclear bunker, or stand up and destroy this insanity.

July 31, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - Quick. Somebody tell Mike Pompeo. The secretary of state is not supposed to play the role of court jester — the laughing stock to the world. There was no sign that any of those listening to his “major China policy statement” last Thursday at the Nixon Library turned to their neighbor and said, “He’s kidding, right? Richard Nixon meant well but failed miserably to change China’s behavior? And now Pompeo is going to put them in their place?”
       Yes, that was Pompeo’s message. The torch has now fallen to him and the free world. Here’s a sample of his rhetoric:

      “Changing the behavior of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] cannot be the mission of the Chinese people alone. Free nations have to work to defend freedom. …
     “Beijing is more dependent on us than we are on them (sic). Look, I reject the notion … that CCP supremacy is the future … the free world is still winning. … It’s time for free nations to act … Every nation must protect its ideals from the tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party. … If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party, whose actions are the primary challenge today in the free world. …
      “We have the tools. I know we can do it. Now we need the will. To quote scripture, I ask is ‘our spirit willing but our flesh weak?’ … Securing our freedoms from the Chinese Communist Party is the mission of our time, and America is perfectly positioned to lead it because … our nation was founded on the premise that all human beings possess certain rights that are unalienable. And it’s our government’s job to secure those rights. It’s a simple and powerful truth. It’s made us a beacon of freedom for people all around the world, including people inside of China.

      A quote from Ray McGovern on Mike Pompeo’s latest rant of China.

    A lack of experience or intelligence, though, may be too generous an interpretation. More likely, Washington’s behavior stems from a mix of the customary, naïve exceptionalism and the enduring power of the U.S. arms lobby, the Pentagon, and the other deep-state actors – all determined to thwart any lessening of tensions with either Russia or China. After all, stirring up fear of Russia and China is a tried-and-true method for ensuring that the next aircraft carrier or other pricey weapons system gets built.
   - "Source" -

        How can we trust our lives to people who believe that they will be lifted into the clouds by an invisible man in the sky. How can we allow such people to determine who is our enemy and who is our friend in a nuclear armed world. This is surely insanity on our behave if we persist in accepting this  system that allows such people power over our lives. Do you think that such people as Pompeo will listen to reason and consider the well-being of all humanity, before the beliefs of his invisible man in the sky?  

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Viva l'anarchie!

       Emile Henry was Guillotined in Paris on 21st. May 1894. His last words were reputed to be "Courage, comarades! Vive l'anarchie!" (wikipedia) His crime, placing a bomb in a cafe in Paris.

       What drove Emily to carry out this act was his hatred and anger at the corruption, injustice and inequality that he saw all around him in society. All this existing behind an illusion and veneer of the opposite values. This hatred of what he saw and his desire for justice, equality and freedom drove him to desperate acts. Here we are 126 years on from his execution, if Emile could come back and view today's society, what would he think and what actions would he take?
       Today the injustice has been magnified a thousand fold across the globe, avoidable inequality has ran rampant and reached unimaginable levels, corruption is so blatant that it seems to be the accepted way of life. I fear dialogue and debate will never remedy this state of affairs.

Two quotes by Emile Henry from his trial:

       “I had been told that our social institutions were founded on justice and equality; I observed all around me nothing but lies and impostures… I brought with me into the struggle a profound hatred which every day was renewed by the spectacle of this society where everything is base, everything is equivocal, everything is ugly, where everything is an impediment to the outflow of human passions, to the generous impulses of the heart, to the free flight of thought”.

And:

      “You have hanged in Chicago, decapitated in Germany, garotted in Jerez, shot in Barcelona, guillotined in Montbrison and Paris, but what you will never destroy is anarchy. Its roots are too deep. It is born in the heart of a society that is rotting and falling apart. It is a violent reaction against the established order. It represents all the egalitarian and libertarian aspirations that strike out against authority. It is everywhere, which makes it impossible to contain. It will end by killing you”.

Drawing by Phil May, 1894.

Up Yours!

      Bristol, is a city with a large content of two  fingers "up yours" attitude to the establishment. I always read with interest and sometimes with a smile on my face, at some of what comes out of that fair city. Long may that spirit flourish and grow. Hopefully it could become infectious and be the next pandemic.

      This latest rendering from that part of our island may not be to everybody's liking, but it does continue that spirit of "up yours", which can be so endearing.

The following from 325

 

PDF: Engaged Combatant (Cover)

PDF: Engaged Combatant (Contents)

This is a collection of poetic ramblings by an anarcho-nihilist hooligan in Bristol, UK.

     Forging some kind of weapon by merger metaphors and poetry from lived experiences, an alternative from quick-fix solutions in the fast lane of instant gratification, stolen and twisted out of meaning, into some spiritual sloganeering which hopefully challenges a life of just material band-aid.

    The author feels like they are tidying up the loose ends in their mind!

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

Who Shapes?

       Today, across the world, we are certainly in the process of seismic changes, we could let them unfold without any input from us to shape those changes and accept the world that forms. Or we could be the driving force to shape those changes to the benefit of all. You can rest assured that the rich and powerful are already doing their best to shape those changes to the benefit of their parasitical class. We should be grateful for those millions across the world that have taken to the streets with a concerted effort to grasp control of those changes and drive them in the direction of the better world for all.
       Anti-police brutality needs to be looked at from the point of view of why the police are there in the first place, who needs them most and why. The police are not an entity that exists in a vacuum, they are part and parcel of a system. A system that shaped them the way that they seen best to fit their purpose, a system that needs that reserve of violence for its existence. We don’t have a racist brutal police force, we have a racist brutal system, of which the police are an integral and necessary part. We should never lose sight of the fact that we will never be rid of police brutality as long as we tolerate this brutal capitalist system.
     Perhaps we should all carry with us, to shape our actions, a few lines from Adrian Mitchell’s book, Heart At The Left.

My brain socialist
My heart anarchist
My eyes pacifist
My blood revolutionary.

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

A Desired Normal.

      It must now be obvious to most people that the system we have been living under has failed us, the people. As we scramble to save lives with a decimated health service and keep hearing the same phony platitudes from our political ballerinas, that the government is doing all it can, doing it right, and everything is falling into place. While 4 weeks into this lockdown, front-line workers are still struggling to get the right equipment. 

     An economic system that was wholly focused on profit for the millionaires and billionaires at the expense of social spending, a system that completely failed to build and maintain the structures necessary for a civilised society. A system that failed to prepare for such emergencies and allowed so many citizens to fall by the wayside, must be seen for what it is, a system that is pure and simple there to enrich those few who are already rich at the expense of the many.

     Knowing this raises the obvious question, what are we going to do about this injustice and abject failure? Mutual aid groups are spring up all over the world, as ordinary people step in to fill the void left by this failed system. People with compassion and a desire to help each other and those more vulnerable than themselves. This surely must be the blueprint for any future shaping of our society. Communities coming together and doing it themselves in co-operation with other groups and communities, with no thought of profit, just seeing to the needs of all our people. I see no reason why we should abandon this method of caring for each other, rather than meekly sitting waiting for our lords and master to get the old greed drive, failed system back up and running. 

    We can and must create that new "normal", based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and seeing to the needs of all our people. 

       The following short article on mutual aid, how to build on it, where it can take us, its possibilities, its possible problems, and its possible wrong directions. There are plenty of links in the article giving a much wider discourse on the subject that will save us, mutual aid.

The following extract from Acorn:

       Mutual aid features prominently in the anarchist response to the current situation. Here is, after all, a perfect opportunity to put theory into practice and to show that acting together, by and for ourselves, is more effective and empowering than waiting passively for the state to save us.
       There is also the possibility that the self-help community networks built up now could evolve into the bases of future revolutionary activity.
      “Longstanding anarchist forms of organization and security have a lot to offer when it comes to surviving the pandemic and the panic it is causing”.
      “Within communities, mutual aid has been proven as the only way to get through the privations of lockdown and the fear of serious or fatal illness. Communities have acted quickly to share basic supplies and resources”.
       “We are seeing Mutual Aid groups spring up in local communities across the UK as crisis sparks compassion in many who want to help out and reach our most vulnerable, our isolated, the many left behind by successions of uncaring governments”.
     “Social solidarity and mutual aid pandemic care is blossoming in communities large and small”.
See also here, here and here.
     There has been occasional reflection on the limits of such an approach, asking how we can ensure that mutual aid networks do not simply turn into temporary means of helping people adapt to a situation they maybe ought not to be adapting to…
        “If our capacity to care for one another fails to be instantiated in qualitatively different forms, they may very well simply be reintegrated into novel expressions of privation, dispossession, and precaritization in whatever new legal and economic systems that may attempt to establish themselves”.

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