Our Streets.

 

          Anarchist literature/magazines etc. on the streets seems to be disappearing, probably due to the rush to join the social media realm. However we abandon the streets at our peril. Of course there are still papers and magazines on the street, the Glasgow Keelie for one but we need to flood the streets with our ideas, theories and actions. It is on the streets that we meet new people, strangers who could be influenced by what we hand them. On social media we seem to be speaking to the same people all the time, it's not the way to win over the great politically apathetic silent majority, and we need them.
          Some publications from April 2023, try to get your hands on some, reprint if you can and throw them around. Look for more to spread the word, or better still, start your own and get on the street.

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

Low Tech.

 

             We seemed to be completely hypnotised by modern technology it has swamped our lives, we have become dependent on it throughout our daily life. Each new piece of technology we are lead to believe it will improve our life, make life easier, but does it and at what cost? Modern technology has enmeshed us in one massive surveillance machine, the powers that be and some commercial concerns gather facts about your daily life and can use it to their advantage without your knowledge. Cameras monitor your very movement, your phone is a tracking machine and can pin point where you were at any given moment. Modern technology takes away many of your skills that helped you to be independent. It can isolate you but give you the impression that your are part of a community, social media, where some people have a thousand "friends" but have met very few. A strange world of community in isolation. 

These words from Not Buying Anything must surely provoke some thoughts        

 

Wendel Berry at work... without a computer.

       In 1987 Wendel Berry explained that he did not wish to buy a computer with which to do his writing. He never did relent, preferring the low tech and less flashy pencil and paper combo.
       His goal was always, "to make myself as plain as I can". Towards this goal he shared his standards for technological adoption.

They are as follows:
1. The new item should be cheaper than what it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than what it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than what it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of renewable energy, such as solar or that produced by the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that would take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.
       Using such standards would mean that much of the technology we use now would no longer be produced or consumed. How much of modern technology advances the human condition, rather than advancing surveillance, control, and profit-making? Maybe we need less technology, not more, or perhaps the answers we need can only be addressed by low tech rather than high. But talk that way and most people will think you are insane. We have accepted high tech unconditionally as a good that always makes life better.
        Berry says, "The Luddites asserted the precedence of community needs over technological innovation and monetary profit. The victory of industrialism over Luddism was overwhelming and unconditional. It was undoubtedly the most complete, significant, and lasting victory of modern times.
        To this day, if you say you would be willing to forbid, restrict, or reduce the use of technological devices in order to protect the community, or to protect the good health of nature on which the community depends, you will be called a Luddite, and it will not be a compliment.

Technological determinism has triumphed."

         In an insane world, the sane will be seen as the ones who have lost their minds. Some would say that Wendel Berry was not thinking straight to consider that using a pencil for writing, and editing on paper with his wife, could not be improved upon by the purchase and use of a computer. And yet, he still resisted.
        "The individual", Friederich Nietzsche said, "has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe." He thought that if you tried it, you would often be lonely, and sometimes frightened. But, he thought, "no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself".
         You could say that Berry was off his rocker for not being an enthusiastic cheerleader for high tech. But you couldn't say that he didn't own himself. We would do well to consider his standards for technological adoption, and seriously question all new innovations before we choose to adopt them in our own lives. Contrary to what the tribe believes, new technologies are not always improvements that benefit humanity.

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

Prying Eyes.

           I know I keep blaabing on about moving away from the big tec giants and their messaging system, and I throw up suggestions in the hope that those better versed in the technical side of these things than I, can throw some light on what I post. I think it is very important that we get out of the grips of these gigantic all powerful data syphoning machines and their tracking endeavours. They have the power to, and will, close down all that they don't want to receive any publicity. They are not on our side, they work for the status-quo and the corporate world. 

         I previously mentioned Signal as an alternative to the Facebook-twitter messaging brigade, I still think it is a great alternative. The more knowledgeable could point out the pros and cons.
        Browsers are another arm of the big-brother brigade, sucking up your data and tracking you on the internet for commercial purpose, but data that can also be used by the various state organisations. 

        The Brave browser seems to be an interesting alternative. Again I await the verdict of the more knowledgable than myself.
       Sooner or later we are going to have to choose, if we wish to have freedom of expression and be free from the prying censoring eyes of the big tec giants, who are one of the guardians of the state/corporate world of power, wealth and privileges for the few. 

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

Personal.

 

       "Signal is okay but it's owned by one non-profit company (which you may or may not trust). Matrix is better. It's also end to end encrypted and open source, but you can run your own servers (and connect to other servers seamlessly) so you have much more control over your own data. There is a Glasgow based server here: https://matrix.glasgow.social"

 

        The above is a comment posted on my previous article on the messaging service Signal. I don’t profess in any way to be an authority on these matters, I just believe that we should be moving away from the big corporate giants in the communication/social media scene, with all there controls over, and storing/sharing of your data. I personally would always prefer open-source, but free open-source is always an attraction. So I would be delighted if people came forward with their opinions on where to go to escape the multinational control oriented beasts that at present seem to hold us in the palm of their hands. Pros and cons of Signal, Matrix or whatever you think would help us break that control over our data. Thanks Neil for your comment.

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

Opposites.

 

        As the following article states, we can't expect large capitalist organisations to continually allow their platforms to promote anti-capitalist material. I think it only makes sense that if these large corporate beasts see that they are promoting something that will lead to their demise, then they will stifle it as best they can. It would be naive in the extreme to think otherwise. Anarchists depending on large capitalist organisations to promote their ideas seems somewhat odd. If we become dependent on Facebook and Twitter etc. to further our ideas sooner or later they will close that avenue down. 

          The following article is just one line of thought, it's from Raddle:

       We can't keep expecting platforms owned by far-right billionaires to stay honest. Anarchists are the biggest threat to any capitalist, so of course they're going to shut us down at every opportunity.
       Crimethinc / It'sgoingdown / Anarchistnews / sub.media / Unicornriot / Anarchists Worldwide / 325 / A-Infos / AMW English / ROAR Magazine / mastodon.social / littleblackcart / AKPress / theanarchistlibrary and raddle.me are all incredibly important anarchist projects that each serve a different purpose, but they can't continue to exist in a vacuum while the social media behemoths are busy closing ranks to ensure all our efforts are stifled.
       Every one of our projects is wholly dependent on corporate platforms for promotion and growth. The capitalists who own those corporate platforms are making it crystal clear to us that they're no longer going to tolerate us radicalizing their users against them. They'll continue to erase any anarchist, anti-capitalist or anti-fascist project that grows enough on their platforms to pose a threat to the established order.
        Here on raddle, we try to promote and support other anarchist platforms as much as possible. Our sidebar here links to all the anarchist news outlets and we regularly discuss anarchist podcasts, book fairs and events. We've always encouraged anarchists to use our platform to grow their own platforms. But it's not a one-way street. There needs to be a concerted effort between all the aforementioned anarchist venues to amplify each other's voices. Cross promotion is the only thing that will keep us all alive and kicking. If we all work together it will benefit all of us. If raddle thrives, sub.media thrives and if sub.media thrives, theanarchistlibrary thrives.
       We need to lean on each other now that we can no longer rely on individually promoting our platforms on corporate media. Every anarchist site should be prominently linking to and working with every other anarchist site to help the entire anarchist network thrive. We need each other now more than ever.
       If you work with one of the other anarchist platforms, I'd love to hear your suggestions for achieving better integration of the anarchist web.

      To help you keep in touch and spread the word, here are some Anarchist links.
        This is by no means an exhaustive list, please take it, use it, add to it, link up and spread the word.

https://325.nostate.net/ [multilingual, news, directory, distro]
https://actforfree.nostate.net/ [en, prison, news, distro]
https://www.ainfos.ca/ [multilingual, news]
https://www.akpress.org/ [en, publisher, store]
https://www.amwenglish.com/ [en, revolutionary, news]
https://www.anarchistlibraries.net/ [multilingual, library, directory]
https://anarchistnews.org/ [en, news, social, media, distro]
https://anarchistsworldwide.noblogs.org/ [en, news]
https://anarchy101.org/ [en, learning]
https://anarchyplanet.org/ [en, chat]
https://anarquia.info/ [es, blog]
http://www.anticarcelaria.org/ [es, south-america, podcast, zines, news]
https://armthespiritforrevolutionaryresistance.wordpress.com/ [en, revolutionary, archive, library, distro]
https://asranarshism.com/ [fa, afghanistan, iran, news]
https://attaque.noblogs.org/ [multilingual, news]
https://autonomynews.org/category/news/ [en, autonomy, news]
https://autonomynews.org/ [en, england, revolutionary, news]
https://barrikade.info/ [de, switzerland, news]
https://bcblackout.wordpress.com/ [en, canada, news]
https://blackautonomynetwork.noblogs.org/ [en, blackness, zines]
https://contrainfo.espiv.net/ [multilingual, news/blog, directory]
https://contramadriz.espivblogs.net/ [es, news/blog, distro]
https://crimethinc.com/ [multilingual, news/blog, media, distro, store]
https://czarnateoria.noblogs.org/ [pl, news]
https://darknessoutside.home.blog/ [en, prison, anti-racism, australia, zines, blog]
https://enoughisenough14.org/ [en/de, news/blog, store]
https://itsgoingdown.org/ [en, activism, news]
https://kolektiva.media/ [multilingual, media]
https://littleblackcart.com/ [en, publisher, store]
https://malacoda.noblogs.org/ [it, zines, news]
https://mtlcounterinfo.org/ [en/fr, canada, news/blog, zines]
https://ni.hil.ist/ [multilingual, nihilism, social]
https://www.non-fides.fr/ [multilingual, blog, directory]
https://north-shore.info/ [en, canada, news]
https://postromanticqueerwave.noblogs.org/ [en, queer, distro, art]
https://publicacionrefractario.wordpress.com/ [es, prison, news]
https://pugetsoundanarchists.org/ [en, us, news/blog, zines]
https://raddle.me/ [multilingual, social, news]
https://ragnarok.squat.gr/ [gr, insurrection, news/blog]
https://sansattendre.noblogs.org/ [fr, insurrection, news, directory]
https://www.sproutdistro.com/ [en, distro]
https://sub.media/ [multilingual, media]
https://theanarchistcinema.org/ [en, media]
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/ [en, library, directory]
https://unicornriot.ninja/ [en, us, news]
https://urbanguerilla.org/ [en, history, archive]
https://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/ [en, canada, indigenous, news]
https://warzonedistro.noblogs.org/ [en, green-anarchy, distro]

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

B(A)D News.

   

    Keeping in touch, keeping up to date, gathering info, social media, emails, blogs and podcasts all play their part in this world of a tidal wave of voices. Obviously you have to sift your way through a swamp of misinformation, fake news and downright subterfuge and propaganda. Some info from around the world that falls into the anarchist spectrum, but should be common knowledge, so spread the word.

        Episode number 37 (08/2020) of "B(A)D NEWS - Angry voices from around the world", a monthly news program from the international network of anarchist and anti-authoritarian radios, consisting of short news segments from different parts of the world, is now online.

Length: 35:40 min

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

Ideas In Closed Circles?

       As anarchists are 100% for the abolition of the state, it surely follows that the state will be 100% against anarchism. Hence its propaganda mouthpiece, the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, will paint anarchists as mindless, violent advocates of destruction, and its biased and corrupt judicial system will deal with them as such. Because of this misrepresentation of anarchism, I have always been a strong advocate of showering our towns and cities with paper, leaflets, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, etc. all explaining what anarchism is really about. Our "propaganda" has to be stronger than theirs. I'm not dismissing direct action and other projects of autonomy, but without the general public getting to know what we are all about, they will still carry this media based caricature of anarchists in their minds.

      For a considerable number of years I produced a paper called "The Anarchist Critic", as well as walking through Glasgow's streets handing it out, to all and sundry, I would leave it at various places, on buses, in cafes and pubs, etc.. I'm not claiming I started a social revolution in Glasgow, but I do believe that I may just have altered some people's perception of anarchism. On a massive scale, I'm sure it would create a different view of our beliefs and why we do what we do. Social media seems to have replaced the paper in your hand, I know that social media has a place, but there are millions of ordinary people who never enter the world of internet social media, and we neglect them at our peril. Unless the general public are aware of our ideas, in times of crisis, when they look for answers, they are not going to pick up our ideas, if they unaware of them in the first place.

      I know it is easier to sit down at a computer and publish your thoughts and ideas, your activities etc. but I feel your are talking to a rather closed circle of the same group of "followers", and "friends".  On the street, everybody you hand your paper to is a stranger, somebody new, and day in day out, that is a lot of strangers getting what you  are trying to do and say. I have spouted this before, but I do despair that we are missing avast swath of people who are the very people we have to convince, our ideas are for their benefit, and their kids benefit.

      Will I ever see the return of "The Paper" popping up across our towns and cities, in our communities. Local info shaped around anarchist ideas, in your hand to read, to keep for reference, to pass on to friends and work mates? Not nostalgia, just a belief that we are missing a valuable weapon that would be a wonderful conduit for our ideas.

 

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

On The Street With The Invisible Ground.

        Across the world anarchist put together leaflets, zines, pamphlets, etc., and work towards getting them out on the street among the less informed members of society, in the hope of bring about change. Though I see a place for the "social media" avenue of communication, I still believe we abandon the paper and the street at our peril. The street is the place to meet people you have never met before, to influence that stranger, to make that new connection. The paper "thing" in your hand, transferring it to a living person, is so much more alive than sitting at a screen spouting your thoughts. So I always plug magazines, leaflets, flyers, etc.. Though no longer able to do my bit on the street as I used to, I still hunger for that human connection between me, my ideas on paper and a complete stranger.

      So here is an extract from my pick of an April zine, The Invisible Ground, that could be freely printed out and taken to the street.

Fascists ARE the State

        States uphold their own authority by maintaining a monopoly on violence. The state, through its police and military apparatuses, is considered the only actor that may legitimately commit violence. Fascism is a bargain struck between the state and certain privileged groups; that members of these groups may enact violence which is then legitimized by the state. As long as the violence serves the state’s desires and ultimately upholds its authority, the state will not interfere.
       Historically, when a state (especially capitalist states) finds its authority is in jeopardy it will commonly employ campaigns against an ideological “Other” in an attempt to reunify an increasingly skeptical population under its mythological authority and ensure its continued existence.
         20th and 21st century fascism are examples of this practice, as is the colonial concept of whiteness itself.

The myth of the Legal Society

        There are many myths that are crucial in upholding behaviors that ensure the public’s continued participation in, and identification with the nation state. Few of these myths are as pernicious as that of the Legal Society; the notion that the actions of the state are bound by a code of laws, and not simply motivated by the state’s desires.
     State atrocities committed through the police and military throughout history and in recent memory have proven the ideal of the free and legal society is a myth.
       How many lived through the evictions of Oceti Sakowin and Sacred Stone Camp? How many more watched via livestream? How many injustices must we witness before we admit that the state is limited in action only by its own ability, and driven only by its own desire!
       It doesn’t matter if we believe our actions will be considered “legal”. When the state feels threatened, legality becomes difficult to define.

Download free as a PDF HERE:here 

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

New Nega-zine.

          I have always spouted that in spite of the internet and social media, anarchists should be flooding the streets and our communities with paper. There is something special about being on the street and handing a complete strange a paper with your ideas. Social media tends to be a closed circle, the same people pushing around the same ideas, it has its place, but should always be complimented by that paper on the street, in the workplace. I have left my paper on public transport, stood outside bus and train stations, walk through the city centre handing it out. Every one that accepts it is a complete stranger I would probably never have contacted on social media, and who knows how many hands it will pass through after that.

           So it is with delight that I read of a new anarchist magazine, Nega-zine, though it is not the sort of thing you might hand out on the streets, it is something that you can circulate among comrades, friends and associates, adding to the sum total of our ideas that are circulating on a permanent basis, it is available from Elephant Editions.

         When reading the following pages it would be well to put everything that we already know about technology aside. Indeed, what knowledge or hypothesis passed off as certainty makes up the scientific aspect of technology? Not much.
        Negazine is not an easy read. On the contrary, reading it requires a certain level of effort and the will to put oneself on the line. And it couldn’t be otherwise, given the subjects it goes into. Negazine offers neither certain answers nor slogans to write on the next wall.
The main theme (but not the only one) of this first issue is technology. The central point of the discussion is the difference between the various techniques (the single capitals and the techniques that they develop, often in conflict with each other) and technology as such, which is an anonymous process devoid of a centre, a process that is continually eroding reality and replacing it with virtual pre-confectioned surrogates.
       Technology’s action goes deep. It is not simply the way that it supplies power with the means for more control. In fact, this is perhaps its least important aspect. The main point is the way in which technology is modelling and rendering inoffensive individuals, acting on their tastes, their desires and reducing their critical and cognitive capacities, uniforming them and flattening them through quite visible processes. All said and done, the technological utopia will be nothing other than a world of idiots where repression will simply be superfluous.
        Other arguments are faced as well as technology: culture (and its significance for the individual and power), the role of drugs in anarchist circles, the future migratory surge – where will the anarchists be?, as well as aspects of anarchist ‘information’.
It should be clear that these questions are not being taken up for the love of discussion but to give one more weapon to individuals who want to attack. It is a question of acutening one’s vision in order to identify an enemy which often passes off as invisible, in fact which has in its invisibility its main point of strength.
        Even if faced only in passing, the ‘when’ to attack is clearly now. ‘How’, although not gone into explicitly, remains affinity and informal organisation, small attacks spread throughout the territory in an insurrectionalist projectuality that has been experimented by many anarchist comrades in recent years. What has been lacking, leading to a generalised stagnation, has not been the methods of attack but what to attack: where and in what form does the enemy manifest itself today.  These are the convictions that Negazine starts off from and which should be borne in mind to understand the sense of what is written.
          The journal is coming out in both Italian and English, now the world lingua franca, with the explicit desire to address oneself to all comrades interested, in spite of the fact that the context in which they find themselves living and acting are very different.
Contents
 Editorial
Technology
Two languages
Technological control
Sleeping
Drugs
Litanies
Seeing
How, when, why and if it still makes any sense
And now?

Negazine n.1 / 2017
68 pages  19-28cm
4.50 (5.00 including UK postage)
For distribution:
5 copies – 12.00       (15.00 including UK postage)
 Contact: Elephant Editions
 elephanteditions@riseup.net

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

The Beauty And Magic Of Paper.

       It is a problem that hasn't gone away, how do anarchists get their ideas out to the general public? today there seems to be a tremendous emphasis on "social media", but to me that seems so distant and lacks that human contact. To gain your information you have to sit in front of a computer or pick up you mobile phone/tablet, and deliberately go to a particular spot on the internet dial, an isolated way of communicating, though a useful tool. I still believe that the paper in your hand, handed to another human being, is a much rich path to walk. It is a contact in real space, in real time, a possible kindred spirit. Who knows where that paper will end up, in whose hands. You give it to one, they take it home, a member of the family reads it, takes it and gives it to their mate, and so on.
      In Paris it seems that the plastering the walls with paper is back in fashion. The wall, the lamp-post, can be you 24 hours a day, quiet mouthpiece, shouting to those who care to look.

 This from Anarchist News:

Blasphegme: An anarchist broadsheet on the walls of Paris

[From the first issue of Blasphegme: An anarchist broadsheet on the walls of Paris. It’s been getting pasted up around the city in the past month. The biggest difficulty faced by anarchist counter-info projects is often distribution -- how to get texts into the hands of people who will be interested in them? Using posters as a way of distributing long-format texts has definitely been tried before, either by connecting to a website or by keeping things short enough to fit, but it's an interesting idea that's worth experimenting with more.]

Introduction:

“I spit on your idols, I spit on your gods, I spit on the homeland […] I spit on your flags, I spit on capital and the golden calf, I spit on all religions: they’re jokes, I don’t give a shit about them, I don’t give a damn. They only exist because of you, leave them and they’ll fall apart.
You’re resigned, but you’re a force — you don’t even know it, but you’re a force nonetheless, and I cannot spit on you, I can only hate you… or love you. Beyond all my other desires, I want to see you shaken from your resignation in a terrible awakening into life. There is no future paradise, there is no future, there is only the present.”
Albert Libertad, To the Resigned, 1905

An excerpt:

The party’s already over?

(excerpt from a poster seen in the streets of Paris these past months)

       We’ve had a good time running through the streets these past months, trying to subvert our existing lives and these modern, sanitized cities, these showpieces of capitalism and the society of control.
       We didn’t give a shit about this law, just like the results of a presidential election or of a football match, because we don’t want to work, period. We don’t accept our exploitation, whether or not its facilitated by this law.
      So why wait for the next “movement” to have fun, when all we have to do is to continue what we started these past months? Why should we each return to our own isolation, submerged in the various alienations that distract us from our self-destructive boredom and loneliness, when we’ve seen that so many of us want to attack the existing world? This society tries to break us down a little more each day, and to frighten away those who have decided they can no longer accept this comedy, no longer blindly follow the union march and the marching orders of good citizens, no longer accept states of emergency, or, for that matter, any states at all.
       We have discovered, or rediscovered, what it means to run across the pavement, to play in spaces where policing controls our every movement. We knew that this society of misery depended on our servitude, and our fear of cops, but we’ve learned that we are strong enough to overturn it, that they can’t prevent us from playing like wild children who destroy everything they pass.
       We’re off to such a good start, let’s not trade any piece of the present for a fictional tomorrow, and let’s not surrender anything of this moment for the winds of the future!

Solidarity with all those arrested these past months!

Read the full article HERE:

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

Lost My Smart Phone, How Can I Live!!

       It may be strange to use social media to ask, is social media playing to dominant a part in our lives? Are we being shaped by social media rather than our own experiences? By sitting and responding to what we are fed on social media, we actually believe we are doing something, we feel we belong, we are involved, but the world is still out there made up of real people doing real things. I personally still believe that on the street handing out your paper or leaflets is the best way to reach people, you are meeting people who are outside your own little circle. Perhaps I'm old fashioned.

Thought this was an interesting article from It's Going Down:

        In the 90s, there was a kind of rowdy spirit of anarchism that I often felt like Profane Existence kind of typified. Building through the late 90s that started to transition towards this Crimethinc. styled personal revolution. I feel like that kind of paved the way towards blogs and social media: a focus on the individual over the ideas. That flows directly into what praxis looks like and action falls by the wayside.

         In hindsight, it almost looks like this master plan: channelling this voracious, rowdy movement into online posturing. Whether that was the goal or not, who knows, but it echoes through civilization at large. There’s unquestionable intention in creating the social media world but I don’t want to sound convoluted in thinking it was aimed at anarchists, it just turns out that it worked out the same. No doubt something that would be considered an added bonus from the eyes of the State.
        So you have the interplay of two things: the rise of repression and the rise of social media. In my eyes, it was the combination of the two that really decimated this milieu. In some regards, it could very well die on Facebook. Everything becomes so absolutely personal in nature and so tied to the individual that we lose the ability to even think about these ideas as existing in their own merit. You don’t have arguments: you just have reactions. So you go round and round with the same argument, but it doesn’t matter. What is being said matters less than who is saying it.
        That opens the door for a ramp up in oppression politics to further those divides. The ideas and the drive are what suffer. Arguments replace discourse. Praxis becomes impossible. So when everyone who laid low in the mid-00s started coming back around and saw what the “anarchist milieu” currently looks like, they just kept moving. Why wouldn’t they? We’ve just opened ourselves up to external influences to the point where repression, by and large, isn’t even complicated. A couple Facebook profiles and the State can just undermine anything.
       So long as we use social media as the platform for communication, then we have no ground to stand on. No traction, no hope for meaningful dialogue and certainly not any kind of engagement. Having a critique of technology or capitalism doesn’t make you exempt from its consequences. Get off of social media is definitely my weakest call to action, but it’s sadly a necessary one. If we want to move forward, we have to recognize this.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Military Coup And Smartphones.

 

        So there's been a military coup in Thailand, to save the country of course. This is not Thailand's first military coup, they have had 12 since the its break from absolute monarchy in 1932 and this is the second in the last eight years. The first thing the military do to protect democracy is shut down TV broadcasting, you can't have information getting out to the general public if you want a “military democracy”. However, Thailand is one of those many countries that are avid users of social media and so it was a simple switch from TV to smartphones. Information continued to flow through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. So people were still getting and passing on information of what was going on. This of course doesn't suit “military democracy”

     To protect the country, the New Thailand masters summoned the local internet providers and ordered them to “monitor, check and block the dissemination of information which is distorted, incites violence or which may lead to unrest in the kingdom or affect national security or contravene public morals.”. On top of this, the Thai newspaper The Nation, had its headquarters occupied by troops, just to protect the people from any nasty news that might slip out.

 

     To get the population to be subservient, the powers that be need to control what information, ”propaganda”, the people are fed, so called “representative democracies” are a little bit more subtle, but the military move in with the boot, it's how they think.

       Social media and smartphones make it much more difficult for the powers that be to isolate us from each other, and from information of what is going on in our world, making us much more difficult to be controlled. Let's hope the Thai people use it to full advantage to achieve real freedom and democracy. 

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