Janetta McGinn

      It is with deep sadness that we learn of the death of Glasgow stalwart and comrade, Janetta McGinn.

A Farewll

Another comrade leaves the field of battle
Another comrade who always stood tall
Another of our warriors has left the field
Another brick has fallen from our wall

Who will step forward to take her place
Who among us will rise to her just call
Who will step forward to fill the gap
Who has the courage to replace her fall

The following from her family on Facebook post:

       Our much loved mum, Janetta McGinn died peacefully this morning in our home in Spain. She was 89 years old and she kicked ass for every day of her life. She was born with a fighting spirit that saw her lead campaigns and fight for socialism and justice all her life. She was never ever sentimental and wouldn’t like me posting this sweet love song that my dad wrote for her when they were young. I sang it to her in her last moments. With my mum you can kiss goodbye to a generation of good people that stood up for others. She never lost her hope for a better society, and she will be missed by many people that she helped throughout her life. We hope to have a funeral today in Spain and say farewell to her in another time in Scotland, with Arthur Johnstone singing and the Internationale playing, as she had wished.

Matt McGinn

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Free And Fair Elections, Aren't We Lucky!!

          Meddling in elections is seen as something other nations do to us in the "free democratic" West, but our system guarantees "free and fair" elections!! Aren't we lucky? According the the powers that be in this country we have just   completed another "free and fair" election, well done Britain.
     Does anybody actually believe that the smear campaign launched against Jeremy Corbyn was based on unbiased honest reporting of facts?
       Of course anyone with an open mind and a knowledge of past elections should know that anybody who stands up and talks about changing the system radically to make it much fairer, and mentions "socialist ideas", will be viciously attacked by the system, they will have their character assassinated and their chances of winning the election completely demolished. That's how the rich and powerful protect their wealth and power, and it is not likely to change for the next election.

     Caitlin Johnstone explains it nicely in her article:

Someone Interfered In The UK Election, And It Wasn’t Russia.

       Ladies and gentlemen I have here at my fingertips indisputable proof that egregious election meddling took place in the United Kingdom on Thursday.
      Before you get all excited, no, it wasn’t the Russians. It wasn’t the Chinese, the Iranians, Cobra Command or the Legion of Doom. I’m not going to get any Rachel Maddow-sized paychecks for revealing this evidence to you, nor am I going to draw in millions of credulous viewers waiting with bated breath for a bombshell revelation of an international conspiracy that will invalidate the results of the election.
In fact, hardly anyone will even care.
       Hardly anyone will care because this election interference has been happening right out in the open, and was perfectly legal. And nobody will suffer any consequences for it.
      Nobody will suffer any consequences for interfering in the UK election because the ones doing the interfering were extremely powerful, and that’s who the system is built to serve.
      As of this writing British exit polls are indicating a landslide victory for the Tories. Numerous other factors went into this result, including most notably a Labour Party ambivalently straddling an irreconcilable divide on the issue of Brexit, but it is also undeniable that the election was affected by a political smear campaign that was entirely unprecedented in scale and vitriol in the history of western democracy. This smear campaign was driven by billionaire-controlled media outlets, along with intelligence and military agencies, as well as state media like the BBC.
      Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been described as the most smeared politician in history, and this is a fair description. Journalist Matt Kennard recently compiled documentation of dozens of incidents in which former and current spooks and military officials collaborated with plutocratic media institutions to portray Corbyn as a threat to national security. Journalistic accountability advocates like Media Lens and Jonathan Cook have been working for years to compile evidence of the mass media’s attempts to paint Corbyn as everything from a terrorist sympathizer to a Communist to a Russian asset to an IRA supporter to a closet antisemite. Just the other day The Grayzone documented how establishment narrative manager Ben Nimmo was enlisted to unilaterally target Corbyn with a fact-free Russiagate-style conspiracy theory in the lead-up to the election, a psyop that was uncritically circulated by both right-wing outlets like The Telegraph as well as ostensibly “left”-wing outlets like The Guardian.
      Just as Corbyn’s advocacy for the many over the plutocratic few saw him targeted by billionaire media outlets, his view of Palestinians as human beings saw him targeted by the imperialist Israel lobby as exposed in the Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby. For a mountain of links refuting the bogus antisemitism smear directed at Corbyn, a lifelong opponent of antisemitism, check out the deluge of responses to this query I made on Twitter the other day.
      This interference continued right up into the day before the election, with the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg flagrantly violating election rules by reporting that early postal votes had been illegally tallied and results were “looking very grim for Labour”.
      The historically unprecedented smear campaign that was directed at Corbyn from the right, the far-right, and from within his own party had an effect. Of course it did. If you say this today on social media you’ll get a ton of comments telling you you’re wrong, telling you every vote against Labour was exclusively due to the British people not wanting to live in a Marxist dystopia, telling you it was exclusively because of Brexit, totally denying any possibility that the years of deceitful mass media narrative management that British consciousness was pummelled with day in and day out prior to the election had any impact whatsoever upon its results.
     Right. Sure guys. Persistent campaigns to deliberately manipulate people’s minds using mass media have no effect on their decisions at all. I guess that’s why that whole “advertising” fad never made any money.
      I am not claiming here that the billions of dollars worth of free mass media reporting that was devoted to smearing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party had a greater effect on the election results than Brexit and other strategic stumbles in the party. I’m just saying that it definitely had a much greater effect than the few thousand dollars Russian nationals spent on social media memes in the US, which the American political/media class has been relentlessly shrieking about for three years. To deny that a media smear campaign the size and scope of that directed at Corbyn had an effect is the same as denying that advertising, a trillion-dollar industry, has an effect.
      Which means that plutocrats and government agencies indisputably interfered in the British election, to an exponentially greater extent than anything the Russians are even alleged to have done. Yet according to British law it was perfectly legal, and according to British society it was perfectly acceptable. It’s perfectly legal and acceptable for powerful individuals to have a vastly greater influence on a purportedly democratic election than any of the ordinary individuals voting in it.
      A free and healthy society would not work this way. A free and healthy society would view all forms of manipulation as taboo and unacceptable. A free and healthy society would not allow the will of members of one small elite class to carry more weight than the will of anyone else. A free and healthy society would give everyone an equal voice at the table, and look after everyone’s concerns. It certainly wouldn’t tolerate a few individuals who already have far too much abusing their power and wealth to obtain even more.

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The Storm Troops Of Imperialism.

       When ever members of the military come out and openly voice the truth about what the military is all about. When they lay bare the fact that the military, in any state, are the storm troops of imperialism, an antithesis of freedom and democracy. We should spread their words far and wide. Thanks Loam for the link.

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June 8th. A Win For Capitalism.

       I find it infuriating, though I have grown to expect it, how our political ballerinas jump on transient figures as if they were tablets of stone. The Teresa May, “strong and stable” cabal, have been spouting about how, under their “strong and stable” spell on the bridge of this sinking ship, the UK is the fastest growing economy in the developed world. They continue with this mantra even although the latest figures puts the UK at the bottom, equal to Italy. The latest figures put Canada at the top, followed by Germany, then Japan, next comes France and near the bottom that mighty capitalist juggernaut the US, then UK and Italy equal, languishing at the bottom. But what does the truth matter, this is the season of spewing bigger lies, the Theatre of Illusions is in full swing, with its latest production, “The General Election”. This farce ends on the 8th. of June, but its consequences will be felt for years to come. Will it be on with the full frontal attack on the social fabric of our society, or will it be a rearrangement of some of the crumbs and crusts from the table of opulence being distributed among the so deserving poor. Which ever Messiah takes their place on the throne of UK money machine, the capitalist exploitation will continue, we the ordinary people will continue to produce all the wealth in the country, and will continue to struggle and fight for decent life, while all that wealth we produce, finds its way into the coffers of the already obscenely wealthy and over privileged exclusive club of our lords and masters. June the 8th. may change the label on the package, but it is still the same old box of lousy tricks. I for one will not be excited nor disappointed at the result, I will predict that result now, here on this wee blog, it will be a win for capitalism.

 

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Bombs Or Butter?

       Everybody knows that America is a very wealthy nation, a super imperialist power that dominates the world. According to the IMF, (International Mankind Fuckers), 2015 figures, by GDP America is the second richest country in the world, slightly behind China, UK is ninth.

      However that leader of the capitalist world, USA, up to its armpits in wealth, and like all capitalist countries doesn't spread that wealth around its people. In the citadel of capitalist wealth, 46.2 million of its citizens live in poverty, slightly more than 14%. The figures for 2013 state that 1.5 million children lived in shelter or emergency accommodation. The number of households, in 2014, living with "food insecurity" was a staggering 1 in 7. The numbers living in poverty are multiplied when you add those just managing to keep themselves above that magic line of poverty. Where does all that wealth go? Well according to recent figures, approximately 50% of the federal budget goes on killing and the necessary equipment for that activity.

     This recent article from Freedom Socialist, Voice of Revolutionary Feminism, throws up some interesting facts.

One F-35A fighter jet — $157 million*
Ten new elementary schools — $148 million.
*This does not include research and development; the total cost of the F-35 program so far is $1.5 trillion.
Sources: Defense Industry Daily; Reed Construction Data

        Though hardly front-page news, the proposed federal budget for 2016 boosts funding for the Department of Defense. Obama earmarked $534 billion to these U.S. warlords. Their base budget in 2000 was around $300 billion. His proposal keeps baseline “defense” spending at its typical 20 to 30 percent of the total budget.

       This $534 billion does not include the Department of Energy allocation to build nuclear bombs. Nor does it cover an additional $51 billion for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, etc. This money comes under the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) — authorized, unaccountable hush money which exempts the Pentagon from the spending restrictions of the 2011 Budget Control Act. Social services programs are barred from such exemptions.

         When the war-related share of the federal debt is added in, nearly 50 percent of the total federal budget goes to militarism!

            With social programs legally defenseless and the Pentagon now well-protected, the GOP announced its proposal to cut food stamps by 34 percent over the next decade. Obama’s budget would cut Medicare by $400 billion over the same period.

         This Republicrat frenzy for more guns and less butter is an assault on working people everywhere. An effective fightback requires that we understand where it’s coming from.

Read the full article HERE:

       The insanity of this system is there for all to see, a system where unbelievable wealth is created and vast amounts of it are spent on destruction, with the bulk of the rest of that wealth ending up in the off-shore accounts of a small greedy bunch of parasites. Do you have any ideas how better to distribute that wealth we create?

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Workers Know your History, William Morris.

      Despite his wealthy upbringing and his Oxbridge background, William Morris, March 1834-October 1896, played an important part in the early development of socialism in the UK. 

From Wikipedia:

    In January 1881 Morris was involved in the establishment of the Radical Union, an amalgam of radical working-class groups which hoped to rival the Liberals, and became a member of its executive committee.^[154] However, he soon rejected liberal radicalism completely and moved toward socialism.^[155] In this period, British socialism was a small, fledgling and vaguely defined movement, with only a few hundred adherents. Britain's first socialist party, the Democratic Federation (DF), had been founded by Henry Hyndman, an adherent of the socio-political ideology of Marxism, with Morris joining the DF in January 1893.^[156] Morris began to read voraciously on the subject of socialism, including Henry George's Progress and Poverty, Alfred Russel Wallace's Land Nationalisation, and Karl Marx's Das Kapital, although admitted that Marx's economic analysis of capitalism gave him "agonies of confusion on the brain". Instead he preferred the writings of William Cobbett and Sergius Stepniak, although also read the critique of socialism produced by John Stuart Mill.^[157]

     Spirit of Revolt have just added the Second Series Vol.II No.2 of The Commune, The William Morris Issue, published by Guy Aldred in February 1927, to their read of the month, collection. It is well worth a read.

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We Are At War.

      Our war mongering, imperialist lords and masters, seem to think that it is not war if you go in and bomb a country, they keep mouthing "No boots on the ground" and that makes everything just fine. However in actual fact there will be "special forces" on the ground. We are not at war, we are just bombing different countries, and of course with our "smart bombs", we only kill the bad guys. The West is always morally justified in killing in foreign countries, after all, we're the good guys, it is other countries that make up "The Axis of Evil" , "The Evil Empire", etc..

        The world pours blood from such psychopathic illusions. War is states' means of retaining power, it is not a bring of democracy, it is not an envoy of peace, it is the imperialists tool for survival.

This from Freedom Socialist Party, The Voice of Revolutionary Feminism:

    President Obama reassured the nation in his special press conference on Sept. 10 that no U.S. “boots on the ground” would be used to “degrade and destroy” ISIS — just bombers. So therefore, this country is not at war. What a pack of lies.

Actually, “targeted military airstrikes” is exactly how imperialists make war in today’s world. And the majority of casualties are civilians. In Syria, for example, Assad’s air superiority has murdered, wounded and displaced millions of non-combatants in three years. Israeli air attacks killed more than 2,100 Palestinians in just a month. Ukraine’s air strikes on eastern Ukraine killed 3,000 mostly civilians, and produced a million refugees in two months. And, as Iraq war vets point out, Iraqis still face radioactivity and infrastructure devastation from the eight-year U.S. military occupation.

As have many before him, the president declared that U.S. militarism is good and just. Nonsense! Empire America created the likes of ISIS and the Taliban to bolster U.S. control over the region and stamp out authentic revolution against gross poverty and repression.

Massive, unconditional humanitarian aid is the only thing the U.S. can offer that will help. No bombs! No drones! No troops! No mercenaries!

A Family Of Real Benefit Scroungers.

       That family, who by reason of birth, are deemed to be more important than you and I, have cost you and I, the lesser people, a total of £35.7 million last year. This does not count the cost of security, which is considerable but secret, guarding this family, who by reason of their birth are guaranteed a life of unbelievable luxury. No matter their ability, or lack of it, no matter their skills or lack of such, no matter the mistakes they make, they will always have a life of splendour, pomp, privilege and power, paid for by you and I. While you and I struggle to make ends meet, face ever increasing costs, with no matching increase in income, this bunch of pampered parasites, will glide around the world, waited on, hand and foot, take trips in helicopters, funded by you and I, hold and attend banquets in opulent settings, while we tighten our belts to make sure it all happens for them.

Your average UK family living on benefits!!

       Just so as not to let their decadent life style slip, our millionaire government, for next year, has allocated an increased sum of £37.9 million, of our money, to make sure they can continue to live in the decadent style to which we have made them accustomed.

      Of course this family of public funded parasites, living on £37.9 million social benefits, don't think it is quite enough, and doesn't allow them to bring all their property up to the standard that they would wish. A royal source when questioned on this matter of living on benefits, said, "We would like it to be more. We don't like having a property backlog hanging over us. We would like to have enough money to get that fixed... (but) we accept that in recent years the economy has been in such a state that that has been entirely unrealistic." How thoughtful of them.

 The family gets dressed up the day the giro arrives!!

       Perhaps we should request that since it is our money, we should be asked how we would like it spent, send suggestions as to how you would like to spend that £37.9 million, to the Oxbridge Cameron/Osborne gang. Also, since our millionaire Cameron cabal are always on about benefit scroungers, they should take a look at this family, who seem to be working the system with vigour, impunity and avarice. Come on Iain Duncan Smith, sort them out. Not a bloody chance of that happening, not unless we do it ourselves. 

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

The End Of Capitalism?

        With the recent and pending “crises” in capitalism there is a lot of talk about “the end of capitalism”. I for one don't think capitalism will simply collapse, and that will be that. Crises will come and go and capitalism will continue doing what it always does, and does very well, shifting wealth and power from the many to the few, it will continue its attempt at perpetual growth. It might take a couple of steps back, it might change pace and or direction, but it will continue making the very rich, richer. Capitalism will don't destroy itself from within. It is not just an economic system, it is a state of consciousness, and although across the planet, more and more people are seeing the injustice in the system and are displaying their anger in various ways, it has to go beyond that. The anger has not simply to call for change, not just to appeal for a fairer distribution of resources, or an end to corruption, there has to be a revolution of consciousness among the people. We have to create that new world “beyond capitalism” in our heads and then translate it into a reality. Only when enough of us finally decide that we have had enough of capitalism, only when enough of us enter that new consciousness of a profit free world, and see the world differently, will we see the end of capitalism. Then we can place it in the dustbin of history and enter that new world of socialism. 

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Poster Campaign.

      A couple of photos from timeline photos that I'd love to see appear at every bus stop, railway station, and shopping mall. Nice big A3 size plastered all over the place.

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

Workers Know Your History, Hungary, 1956.

      It is true that the dominant culture writes the history, but it is never a complete history, and it most certainly isn't accurate. The 1956 Hungarian revolution is no different, the capitalist stooges perpetrate the myth that Stalinism was socialism, and capitalism freed the people of Hungary.

An interesting article on this matter  from The Commune:

      More than fifty years since the Hungarian revolution of 1956, the events have faded and their meaning and importance to socialists perhaps lost in time. The struggles, the barricades, the workers councils and resistance to Russian imperialism are a vague memory even for those involved in the movement at the time. The real struggles and aspirations of the Hungarian revolution will be reduced even further to the strong box of history by the official commemorations attended by the great and the good of the bourgeoisie who will claim the mantle of the freedom fighters of 1956. In so doing they will continue such myth as the decisive role in the fall of Stalinism in Eastern Europe was played by the prayers of Pope John Paul II and the foreign policy of the American President Ronald Reagan and his ally Thatcher.

Read the full article HERE:

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Why Socialism?

      The following quote is from an article that accurately describes the problems that we face today, it could have been taken from some lecture at some school of economics, financial research group, or similar body of today. It was however written in 1949 by Albert Einstein. Here we are in 2013 and we are still wrestling with the same problems he was describing then. In my opinion the main difference now is that the problems are more glaringly obvious, more clearly seen, much better understood, by many more people. This is of course encouraging, as the more people that see and understand the problem, the more likely we are to do something about it in a more radical manner. There is now more likely to be a mass response with a mass consensual answer, now more than ever we are more likely to ignore the "expert" and decide for ourselves. That of course is the first step to freedom and a better world. Who better than the people know what sort of world the people want?

       The following is taken from, Why Socialism? By Albert Einstein.

     Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
    The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the "free labor contract" for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present-day economy does not differ much from "pure" capitalism.
     Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an "army of unemployed" almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.
    This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
     I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Read the full article HERE:

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ONE WORLD, ONE CLASS.

Thought for today:

"While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Eugene V. Debs, November 5, 1855 - October 20, 1926.

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY, - HELEN CRAWFURD.

HELEN CRAWFURD, 1877-1954.

BACKGROUND.

Born Helen Jack on the 9th of November 1877 in the district of Gorbals Glasgow, the 4th child of the family of 4 daughters and 3 sons of William Jack, a respected master baker and Helen Jack (nee Kyle). While still a child the family moved to Ipswich where she was educated. When Helen was 17 the family moved back to Glasgow to the middle-class district of Hyndland. Helen was shocked by the poverty and the conditions of Glasgow's working class and was made aware of politics by her parents. Her father was at one time President of the Operative Bakers Association. A deeply religious family, her father was Church of Scotland Presbyterian, her mother a confirmed Methodist. Discussions on religion and politics were a regular feature of the family home. Helen married the Reverend Alex Montgomerie Crawfurd on the 18th of September 1898. However she soon rebelled against the theological teaching of the Church, believing that it was discriminatory against women. Her interest in the women's movement was furthered by reading the works of Josephine Butler.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE.

She joined the suffrage movement around 1900 and in 1910 joined the Women's Social and Political Union, (WSPU). Helen fully endorsed the militant actions of the Pankhursts in attempting to gain the vote for women. In 1912 she was arrested and sentenced to one month in Holloway Prison for breaking the windows of the Liberal Minister of Education's residence in London. 1913 saw her again arrested for trying to protect Mrs. Pankhurst from police brutality at a meeting in the St. Andrew's Halls Glasgow. She was later released and re-arrested the following night for breaking the windows of the Army recruiting offices and sentenced to one month in Duke Street Prison Glasgow. It was in this prison that she went on her first hunger strike and 8 days later was released. Prison life did nothing to dent her passion, she went on to become one of the best know and most popular members of the Scottish Suffragette Movement. Helen was again arrested in 1914 at a meeting in Perth and sent to Perth Prison. After a 5 day hunger strike she was released. Shortly after her return to Glasgow a bomb exploded in Botanic Gardens Glasgow, she was blamed and this resulted in her fourth prison sentence and her third hunger strike in two years.

SOCIALISM.

Shortly after the start of 1914 she left the WSPU because of its pro-war stance. Her shift from the radical suffrage politics to a socialist standpoint was in part due to her association with the Glasgow Repertory Theatre and the plays of Ibsen, Shaw, Galsworthy, Gorky and others. Helen was appalled at the infant mortality rate and sheer depravation in the Glasgow slums. Such conditions caused her to question a system that could tolerate this to continue. Around 1912 onwards Helen's speeches, though still with a Christian content, leaned towards a Socialist message. 1914 saw her proclaim her Socialist beliefs by joining the Independent Labour Party, (ILP). In spite of the loss of both her husband and her mother in 1914, Helen Crawfurd throughout the war was a constant and energetic political activist. Always keen to involve women in the fight against the war, Helen with her friend Agnes Dollan organised large and regular meetings on Glasgow Green. 1915 saw Helen and Agnes found the Glasgow branch of the Women's International League. In an attempt to attract more working-class women and form a strong militant anti-war movement, Helen with Mary Barbour and other women activists in June 1916 organised a peace conference, this gave birth to the Women's Peace Crusade (WPC) in Glasgow. June 1917 in Glasgow saw the launch of the National Women's Peace Crusade with Helen Crawfurd as its Honorary Secretary. Helen's strong anti-war stance brought her into contact with, and worked alongside, John MacLean.

RENT STRIKES & ILP.

While taking a leading role in the anti-war movement Helen was very active in the 1915 rent strikes. She was appointed secretary of the Glasgow Women's Housing Association (GWHA), and was an important figure in rallying housewives to fight the rent increases. Her efforts along with Mary Barbour, Agnes Dollan, Jessie Stephens and other women activists resulted in the "Rent Restriction Act" of 1915. This act benefited tenants all over the country.

By the end of the war Helen Crawfurd was seen as a national political figure. 1918 saw her appointed as Vice-President of the Scottish Divisional Council of the ILP. She was becoming disillusioned with the ILP, eeing it more a reformist group rather than socialist and was becoming more aware of the ideas of Tom Bell and Arthur McManus who in 1920 set up the British Communist Party. At the 1920 Easter conference of the ILP Helen presided at a meeting to form an unofficial group to be known as the "left wing" of the ILP.

COMMUNISM.

While still Vice-President of the Scottish division of the ILP she accepted an invitation to the second congress of the Third Communist International in Moscow. Her journey there proved somewhat arduous. Her passport was confiscated by the Norwegian authorities. Avoiding the police she made her way to a fishing boat which carried her out to sea where she boarded a cargo vessel, it took her to the port of Alexandrovic and from there she made her way to Moscow where she had an interview with Lenin. She joined the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1921. The same year saw Helen appointed to the Executive Committee a position she held for many years. Helen was always keen to involve women and in 1922 she edited a page of the official communist party newspaper the "Communist" called Page for Women.

FAMINE RELIEF.

1920 saw much of Helen's energy devoted to the Workers International Relief Organisation, (WIR). In 1922 she became its secretary. During her term she raised money for the famine-stricken region of the Volga this allowed them to carry out relief work in Germany and in all the mining districts of Britain during the miners' lock-out which followed the general strike of 1926. She also managed to extend the relief work to the famine-stricken west of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands during the depression. During the German elections of 1924 she addressed a meeting of 10,000 in Berlin on behalf of the German Communist Party (KPD). In the struggle against fascism prior to the 1939 war Helen was Secretary of the anti-fascist organisation in Glasgow. On the eve of the 2nd World War in 1939 she organised a Peace Congress of representatives from countries within the British Empire.

LATTER YEARS.

The small quiet town of Dunoon on the lower reaches of the Clyde became her home during the latter years of her life. Though Dunoon was the sort of town where elderly people go to retire Helen never retired, still working for the cause of women and for the working class community of the town. In 1945, while at the age of 68, she was elected to the Dunoon Town Council. Helen still kept up a considerable correspondence on both local and international affairs in the press. Just days before her death one of her letters appeared in the Daily Worker. At the age of 75 she was Chairperson of a session of the Scottish Congress of the Communist Party.

Helen Crawfurd Anderson died on the 18th of April 1954 at the age of 77.

MORE ON GLASGOW'S WORKING CLASS HISTORY.

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - TOM ANDERSON.

TOM ANDERSON, 1863-1947

EARLY YEARS.

Tom Anderson was born on the 17th December 1863, at a place called Pollokshaws in Glasgow. His father, a hand-loom weaver came from a long line of hand-loom weavers and a line of Presbyterians. Though Tom's father was a Presbyterian he also held very strong radical views and taught his children to be courteous to all but bow to none. The family moved to Airdrie, at that time it was a small village not far from Glasgow. At the age of ten, Tom started work. He did not follow the family craft but at the age of fourteen started his apprenticeship as a joiner with Shanks of Motherwell (a small town near Airdrie). Tom was by nature a rebel and did not take readily to the ideas of the Church. He became an avid reader and devoured the books in the local library. His favourite being Gibbon's "Decline and fall of the Roman Empire", he later wrote 'Across the Ages', a small book based on his study of this book. His attendance at Church dwindled and eventually stopped as Tom became a Freethinker.

TRADE UNIONISM & POLITICS.

At the age of twenty in 1883 he moved back to Glasgow and joined the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, a year later he was elected as the society's president. In 1889, Tom married Bella Craig, she came from a Unitarian family. Throughout her life she looked on the bible stories as stories of childhood and not to be taken seriously, she was a staunch comrade and enthusiastically helped Tom in all his activities. They had three sons James, Robert, and Tom, and one daughter, Bella. During the 1914-1918 war, their son James was an Absolutist. The year 1894 saw Tom join the newly formed Independent Labour Party and worked with them for several years. Later he joined the Socialist Democratic Federation, and threw himself into its pioneering work. In 1907 the south side branch of the SDF presented Tom with an illuminated address in appreciation of his work on behalf of socialism.

SOCIALIST SUNDAY SCHOOL.

1894 was also the year that Tom founded the first Socialist Sunday school and three years later he formed the South Side Socialist Sunday School, which continued well into the 1930s. Tom believed in the Catholic maxim, "Give us the child until he is six, and you can do what you like with him afterwards". For over thirty years Tom Anderson taught the children of the working class the virtue of independence, the power to think for themselves and the meaning of socialist revolution. Tom was an accomplished musician and a fine poet, and in 1907 he compiled a song book containing fifty three songs. Of these songs thirty three had original melodies and most were of a socialist nature. His poetry was always of social protest and revolt. Tom Anderson was probably the first socialist member of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners and it was as a socialist that in January and February 1901 he led one of the biggest strikes in the city. Throughout the strike Tom showed himself to be a courageous and very capable leader and gained the respect of all the workers involved and those out with the trade. After the strike Tom found it almost impossible to get work, he seemed to be blacklisted by all of the city's employers. At this period he left his trade and started working for himself.

TEN PROLETARIAN MAXIMS.

Tom now joined the Socialist Labour Party, and in 1910 they opened a Socialist School for children. They dropped the word "Sunday" as they did not want to be seen as hypocrites. Tom became President of the school and remained so throughout its existence. In June 1917 the first issue of Revolution appeared with Tom as editor. 1917 also saw Tom write his famous 'Ten Proletarian Maxims', he believed them to be the basic principles of Revolutionary Socialism. In 1918, Tom founded the Proletarian School Movement in conjunction with the Proletarian Colleges, with the ten proletarian maxims as the basis of its teachings. The movement was inaugurated with the purpose of teaching children of the working class the necessity of abolishing the present political state. In March 1919 the first number of the 'Red Dawn' appeared, this was the official organ of the Proletarian School Movement and Tom was the editor. The Proletarian Colleges were to carry forward the work of the Proletarian Schools, but embrace all the social activities of the working class. Among the subjects taught were, economics, industrial history, sexual science, drama and music. Tom Anderson as Principle of the college was fortunate to have the help and assistance of John MacLean MA, John S. Clarke and many others in the socialist revolutionary movement. On the 4th of April 1920, the Proletarian Schools held their first annual conference with Tom Anderson as President. The outcome of this conference was the formation of the International Proletarian School Movement affiliated to the Third International and the Young People's Movement. By now the movement had a good hold in Scotland and Wales and was spreading in the Midlands and the south. In 1923, a public petition was organised by the National Citizens Union, deploring, "...the existence and the rapid growth of Proletarian Schools which by their teaching of sedition and revolution, and their blasphemous treatment of all religion, are fast becoming a menace to the stability of the democratic constitution of his country; as well as to our national character, moral standards, and home life; and urge upon the Government the necessity of taking immediate steps to deal with this communist movement to pervert the minds of British children; and to give all facilities for the private bill which is being introduced with this object into the House of Commons." The private bill mentioned in the above petition was introduced into the House of Commons by Sir John Butchard Bart., MP. The National Citizens Union managed to raise 71 petitions and collect 72,718 signatures. Some indication as to how worried the established institutions had become.

SPEAKER & WRITER.

As well as being an excellent speaker Tom Anderson was a brilliant story teller and over a period of many years wrote extensively, often under different pen names, the better known being John Davidson, Mary Davis and Margaret Dobson. In July 1919, under the name of John Davidson he published in book form his story of the class war. It appeared in the New York Weekly People, it was reprinted in the Socialist and the Sydney People and the IWW of Sydney printed it in thousands as a propaganda leaflet. In February 1924, under the name of Margaret Dobson, he published Sex knowledge for Parents. In July 1924 the Government confiscated the entire issue, leaving Tom facing considerable financial difficulties. Tom Anderson continued in the revolutionary movement all his life and also continued writing. Below is listed some of Tom Anderson's printed thoughts;

·Across the Ages: Short stories for young workers, (part 1) 1930, (part 2) 1932, 3rd. ed 1945.

·Two slaves and the underman (1915)

·The Proletarian song-book (1919)

·The fat bourgeois: A story for the young (1919)

·The class state (1930)

·Comrade Josef Dietzgen (1937)

·Comrade John MacLean: His life (1930, 2nd. ed. 1938)

·The God Man (1931)

·The story of the inquisition (1946)

·Proletarian poems (2nd. ed. 1946)

This is only a small proportion of the writings of Tom Anderson but might give some idea to the breadth of ideas and the effort he put into his beliefs. Tom had been involved in public speaking from the age of fourteen and then from the age of twenty five to the age of fifty five there never was a week he didn't speak at one or more meetings during the open air propaganda season, nor during the winter indoor meetings.

Tom, was born in poverty of working class parents, he was well qualified to understand their plight and their hopes. He never drifted away from his class nor betrayed any of the principles he professed. After a lifetime of struggle for the cause of revolutionary socialism Tom Anderson died in 1947

More on Glasgow's working class history HERE.

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EXPLOITATION -- SHE GOT IT RIGHT.

          It is strange that the Western mainstream media made very little, if any mention, of the Occupy Wall St movement. That is until the eviction in Wall St., then, lo and behold, there it was on my TV  midday news. Now it was just an argument between some protesters and the city authorities. To have reported on the occupation before the evictions would have meant discussing why they were there. That is not what the media want to do, they don't want to show ordinary people being organised and conducting themselves in a democratic and dignified way, putting forward coherent and valid arguments against the present system. Much better to show them in conflict with the police. So as the evictions move across the American continent we can expect to see more cover in the mainstream media. However what we should take from this is that it is a national movement, across the whole country, and not as they would have us believe, a bunch of young hippies. Not only is it happening in America but it is also happening in Europe, and with the "austerity cuts" set to bite harder in Greece and Italy, almost immediately, and then to other countries, we should hope to see that the ordinary people across America and the whole of Europe will take the occupy movement to its natural and logical conclusion and occupy everything.

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OCCUPY.

RUDOLF ROCKER, image from wikipedia.

http://poumista.wordpress.com/2011/10/

Historically the oppressed and the disaffected have rallied to the standard of socialism because of its oppositional position within capitalism – an oppositional position which provides the appearance of a radicalism it did not possess. During periods of revolutionary potential, however, people see opportunities to go beyond attempts to ameliorate capitalism, and to instead abolish it altogether. It is important to realise, however, that this is not usually an apocalyptic conversion into revolutionary activity, but is an emerging process involving continual, but unsuccessful attempts to reconstruct a movement of socialist opposition, find new forms of organisation and activity as well as new forms of protest and expression.

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TIME'S UP!!!

        

          We all know that the banks control the governments, finance rules the world. We all should know that the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) is a cartel that works to put every country into debt, then demands that the debt mountain be reduced by every country selling of all its publicly owned assets, thus putting more money into the hands of the private sector. Soon the corporate world will own everything and we will have a society without any public assets or public spaces, it will be total corporate fascism. We are nearly there it is on course to happen very soon, unless we do something to screw the system and take control of our own communities and our lives.

         The following is a short extract from a very interesting article, taken from the Freedom Socialist Party, which puts in in plain language, well worth the read.  Of course I'm not saying political parties are the answer, I see them as more the problem, but the article does help explain the methodology behind the corrupt financial system we live under.       

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           Here’s the hitch. Workers, the main consumers, cannot afford to buy endless commodities. In this case, the rock of over-production runs into the hard place of not enough customers. And once again, recession or depression ensues.

The crises of over-production always underlie financial crashes, and the banks cannot fix this problem. But they do prop up their profits through government bailouts and by bleeding the working-class goose that crafts the real golden eggs. The bubbles get bigger, and there are still not enough worker-consumers who can afford to buy, buy, buy.

           Time’s up. The only way out of the quagmire is to dispose of a destructive economic system. Liberal commentators, top union officials and Democratic Party supporters argue for the party to vote for reforms such as more spending to create jobs, meaningful regulation of Wall Street, taxing the rich and corporate giants. Conservative libertarians advise turning back the clock a century or two and going back to “civilized” capitalism without monopolies.

But finance capital has all the power, and there is no way to regulate it within capitalism. For proof, none of the crooks in suits are in jail for their massive, fraudulent sale of questionable mortgage “investments.”

         A whistleblower recently revealed that the Securities and Exchange Commission has been shredding the results of its investigations of the U.S. financial industry for twenty years!

Working people need to militantly organize now in defense of expanded social services, union protections and free speech. In fighting for our rights, we can consolidate the power to overthrow this system and get one that works.

         READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

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