Now Or Never?

       It must now be obvious to even the most the apolitical and apathetic of our society, that the way our society is structured has failed miserably to protect the vast majority of our citizens. This economic system has allowed our pampered privileged parasite class, through corruption and greed, to plunder the public purse and exploit the majority, for nothing more than personal gain. They have squandered the tremendous ingenuity, productivity and industrious effort of the vast majority on nothing more than personal opulence and phony grandeur.

    We are now faced with a choice that has to be made quickly, do we continue to allow this to happen, or do we call a halt, and take control of our lives ourselves. The coronavirus has not brought about society's failings, it has merely shown them in great detail to the vast majority of our people.

      As always in times of disaster and upheaval, the public react with mutual aid and co-operation, despite the failings of the system. This time we have the opportunity to expand these groups and link up, spreading this human idea of mutual aid to all aspects of our society, shaping that society in a more fair and humane manner. Capitalism, the cause of inequality, injustice and wars, is in crisis, it is up to us to ensure it dies, and is replaced with a society that sees to the needs of all our people, one based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and free from the profit motive. Let's see this pandemic as an opportunity to rid ourselves of the real disaster of capitalism and all that it entails, from corruption, inequality, unbridled greed and endless wars.  

The following call from Greece:

Anti-Covid19: Network for Mutual Aid and Struggle (Greece)

       In the unprecedented social conditions we are living in, the spread of coronavirus has taken critical dimensions for the national healthcare systems and the capitalist mode of production as well as social organisation in general. For the system to survive, state and bosses implement totalitarian politics and a further devaluation of our lives.

– Lack of health facilities for the big majority of the population

– Militarisation of our everyday life, with a ban on transportation enforced through economic, surveilled and penal repression

– Mass layoffs, intensification and dire conditions for those working in hospitals, super markets, fast food restaurants, telecommunications

– Creation of concentration camps for migrants and mass incarceration in prisons without any health provision

– No meaningful measure for the homeless, drug users, sex workers

– Increase of domestic and gender violence cases as well as psychological breakdowns due to the prolonged confinement of people in their homes

       All of the above make up a dystopia to which we deem necessary to respond to in a direct and collective way, self-organised and in solidarity with every subject that is experiencing the physical, psychical and mental consequences of totalitarianism; and at the same time to fight to break the unproductive and totalitarian management of the present crisis by the state. For these reasons we want to communicate and create a network for solidarity and struggle, with initial aims the following:

         Food and medicine collection and delivery; or meals from social kitchens

Psychosocial support. Converstation through phone and even face-to-face private meeting, adhering to the healthcare measures

       Reporting domestic and gender violence cases and direct interventions

Collect and publish information from concentration camps and prisons

The responsibility is not collective as the state is shamelessly trying to manipulate us through the horror-loving coverage of the virus by the media, but it is first and foremost the state’s responsibility. The pointed shifting of responsibilities from the state and its representatives to each individual for the acquittal of the systematic underfunding and understaffing of the healthcare system is unacceptable and vile. We are not to blame for the shortages of permanent medical staff, intensive care units, medical equipment but the particular governements that spent thousands of euros to save banks or for military equipment instead of staffing undervalued public hospitals.

       We put forward as a direct collective action a freeze in payments, debts, rent, electricity, water, internet, public transportation. According to us these basic services should be free anyway and let alone in a situation of financial destabilisation like this. All people of the exploited and non-privileged class have to spare their money for basic consumer goods like food and medicine, since the future is uncertain.

WE DEMAND FROM THE STATE AND THE BOSSES

        Permanent socialization of all private healthcare facilities and health products units.

         Unemployment benefit to all laid-off workers and the unemployed.

All goods to be sold at cost price, super market bosses do not profit off our backs.

       Compliance with the demands of workers for pay, working time, even the cessation of employment for their self-protection.

       Closure of all capitalist structures (factories, shops etc.) that don’t cover basic needs.

       Compliance with the demands of prisoners and release of all high-risk individuals, prisoners with charges of less than 5 years, and all those who await trial. Setting up healthcare facilities for prisoners and provision of sanitary products.

        Closure of all concentration camps and papers to all migrants.

Transformation of airbnb and hotels to self-containment facilities for people with symptoms, high-risk groups, people affected by domestic and gender violence and people facing housing issues.

       Tsiodras shed crocodile tears for the people who are to get sick and invited us all to assume our responsibilities for the protection of public health. Recognising that public health includes also people in factories, prisons and concentration camps, we announce that if the state doesn’t care about public health in total, we have the collective responsibility to take actions to ensure this. We also inform that we will necessarily move on to organise and escalate similar actions in case the state continues the exploitation of the state of emergency to repress its political enemies, anarchists and fighters, and to pass laws that it wouldn’t be able to pass in times of mobilisation. The movement and the people of the social base are already organising mutual-aid and resistance structures for the current crisis and the upcoming impoverishment and no martial law can stop them. The survival of the repressed and the exploited in times of a general crises depends directly on their self-organisation, thus any attempt to repress must be answered in defiance of any restrictions.

Phoneline: 00306945276127

Email: synsquat@riseup.net

FB: https://www.facebook.com/AntiCovidAidNetwork/

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

A System Beyond Reform.

         Got up this morning, sat down at the computer, looked out the window. I’m comfortable, my window looks out across Littlehill Golf Course, a public owned golf course, a beautiful scene of undulating hills of grass and different types of trees, but Scotland’s winter had laid her icy hand across the area, the grass was white with frost. In conditions like this, how can you not think of those unfortunate individuals who find themselves sleeping rough, how do you not feel the frost savagely biting at the marrow of their bones, it is a lonely, slow, cruel death situation. It is difficult to grasp the fact that we, living in the sixth richest country on the planet, still tolerate such a cruel, unnecessary injustice. They suffer this vicious injustice not through lack of resources, but because of ideology.

The Homeless.

Tenebrous spectres, they exist,   out there,

on the crumbling edge of chaos.

A father, a son, a brother,

a daughter, a sister, a mother.

Fragments of some shattered family structure;

waste products

from a society being driven to destruction

by a hurricane of greed

living a life that wears out life,

dying,

the devious death of exhaustion from existence.

        No doubt, like me, you have listened to our political ballerinas spouting their hypocritical mantra, about what they are doing to help the homeless. They do this without shame or conscience, fully aware of the fact, that in the UK, since 2010, homelessness has increased by a staggering 34%. This massive increase can be laid at the feet of the government, through their welfare changes, introduction of Universal Credit, housing benefit cuts, etc.. Though these are not the only reasons for this increase, you can’t solve homelessness without building affordable homes. Our system of profit from houses is much more important than actually housing everybody, it is a system devoid of human compassion. It is much more profitable to have hordes of people chasing an small limited number of homes, this drives the prices up, big bucks for developers and estate agents. It pushes up rents, big bucks for landlords, why would they want to change such a lucrative system? It is a fact that the ideology of our political ballerinas, has driven the building of affordable homes to a 24 year low. It is also a fact that approximately one third of those homeless today will still be homeless a year on.

         It is an indictment on this system of profit before humanity, when we are looking at more than 300,000 people in this country waking up having spent the night, crammed with their families into hostels or dingy temporary rented accommodation, and these are the lucky ones, others will have spent the night on a pavement, doorway, dark lane, and if they wake up, in this weather, that is not guaranteed, it will be to face a cruel world, where their struggle for survival will be dependent of others and charity.

          This is capitalism, this is the system we tolerate, we know its injustices, we are aware of its inequality, we can see the suffering it inflicts on so many. We know within our hearts we can create a better, fairer system, a system built on compassion, mutual aid and co-operation, a system that will see to the needs of all our people, a system freed from the cancerous burden of profit and exploitation and free from the yoke of rich over privileged parasites, that suck the blood from all of our lives.

       Capitalism cannot be reformed, we have had centuries of reforms, the poverty, deprivation and wars are still with us. The only answer is the total destruction of this man made system of greed and exploitation. The next step is up to us.

The Warmth Of A Dream.

He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,

night frost locked his joints

morning rain chilled the marrow of his bone.

In the dream there was a sister,

a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters

who called him "mister", a time of little pain.

Are these youngsters the same young men, who

now laugh at hime, throw beer cans,

piss on him as he lies drunk in some dark lane?

When was the first step down this slippery slope,

when was that first step to no forgiveness.

No will to rise to beg for food,

numbness kills the pain.

The dream brings a warmth that feels good,

dark fog shades out consciousness,

an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain. 

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