The State Kills In Many Ways.

      Greece, like other European countries has abolished the death penalty, but there are other ways the state can take away your life. The state demands the monopoly on violence. This is the latest report on the prison hunger strikers in Greece, with the hunger strike starting on March 2nd. it is obvious, that by now, several of those involved will be in a critical condition.

From Contra Info:

       On March 31st 2015, a judicial council permitted the release of Athena Tsakalou, mother of the Tsakalos brothers, under restrictive conditions: bail of 10,000 euros, obligation to check in to a police station three times a month, ban on exiting the country, and prohibition on leaving Salamina (Salamis Island), which means that, if her sons come out alive from hunger strike, she will no longer be able to visit them in prison.
    However, another judicial council dismissed the motion for conditional release of the wife of GerasimosTsakalos.
Meanwhile, the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire members – eight of whom are currently hospitalised in critical condition – together with anarchist prisoner Angeliki Spyropoulou enter the 30th day of their hunger strike (since the 2nd of March). Earlier today (31/3), CCF comrade Michalis Nikolopoulos ran the risk of having a cardiac arrest.

Immediate release of the companion of Gerasimos Tsakalos!

      

        Prisoners in A wing of Koridallos men’s prison, show their solidarity with the hunger strikers by doing a banner drop.
         The banner reads--  “Immediate release of the relatives of CCF – Victory to all the hunger strikers – Dignity or death”

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A Black Man Is Killed Every 28 Hours By A White Cop!!!

      The Land of the free, the good ol' US of A, where a black man is killed every 28 hours by a white cop, hard to believe? The real question is why is this tolerated, why doesn't America explode?

Ferguson: Chronicle of an Insurrection from the stimulator on Vimeo.

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Has The State A Monopoly On Violence?

      In our desire to change the world to a better place for all, is non-violence ineffective and statist? Is self-defence violence? This question of violence is expanded in detail in Peter Gelderloos's book, "How Non-Violence Protects The State".

The following is a short extract:

Non-violence is Statist

     Put quite plainly, nonviolence ensures a state monopoly on violence. States — the centralized bureaucracies that protect capitalism; preserve a white supremacist, patriarchal order; and implement imperialist expansion — survive by assuming the role of the sole legitimate purveyor of violent force within their territory. Any struggle against oppression necessitates a conflict with the state. Pacifists do the state’s work by pacifying the opposition in advance.[88] States, for their part, discourage militancy within the opposition, and encourage passivity.

 Download the full book from The Anarchist Library, HERE:

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1984 And The Permanent State War.

     1984, permanent state of war, all fiction of course!!! Well is it, America is "officially" in a permanent state of war.

This from Polizeros:

      America’s state of permanent global endless war approaches 12th anniversary. The militant American Empire doesn’t need any more AUMF (Authorization to Use Military Force.)

       On September 14, 2001, the Congress authorized the President to wage unfettered, permanent war against pretty much anyone the President, in his sole discretion, deemed related to the 9/11 attacks and any future attacks.  On September 18, 2001, President Bush signed this authorization into law.

      The United States has been in a permanent state of war ever since.  And on May 16, 2013, the Obama Administration’s Pentagon officials testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that they expected this permanent state of war to last another 10 to 20 years.

Read the full article HERE:

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THE MARCH OF THE CORPORATE EMPIRE.

       It would be difficult for anybody to pick a year since the end of the second world war, when the UK, that peaceful nation, has not been somewhere fighting on foreign soil? We have the headline affairs, like Suez, Korea, Falklands, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Then we have had UK military overseas, “peace keeping”, “training” and “supporting”. Now that we are preparing to pull out of Afghanistan, it would appear that our millionaire war lord, Cameron, has a vision of a long military adventure in North Africa, his corporate friends demand it, “Thar's gold/oil in them thar lands”. His statement, “This is a global threat and it will require a global response. It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months…,” I'm sure would be most heart warming to those blood merchants in the arms industry, Once again the camouflage is the war-on-terror, protecting us at home, making our streets safer. The message they put out is that if we go into foreign lands and bomb the shit out of the locals and steal their natural resources, they will love us and leave us in peace. Though they always omit to mention the part about the rich resources. No, there is never any mention that the countries that we bomb into democracy happen to be sitting on resources that the corporate West need and from which our fat cat corporate over lords can make billions. At one time we had the British Empire that butchered its way across the world looting and pillaging, fattening its privileged parasites, now it is the Western Corporate Empire, backed up by a cabal of state funded military. The Empire is dead, long live the Empire.

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GUNS AND STATE VIOLENCE.

        There is a lot of sound and fury going on in America at the moment about guns, should they be banned, should certain types of guns be banned. Of course the gun lobby keeps up the cry that guns don't kill, it is people. Others say that it is rage that is at the root of all those shootings and massacres. Of course there is rage in America, perhaps it is because, even subconsciously, the American people now realise that "the American dream" was an illusion, it was a con, perpetrated by the corporate world.  It never did reach all Americans and it is doubtful if it ever reached anywhere near the majority of the American people. It was a propaganda weapon that kept everybody beavering away with the selfish desire that they were going to make it big time. They were going to get up the ladder higher than others and accrue more than others. A little bit of rationalism would have told them, that can't happen to everybody, so the dream was flawed from its inception. On the matter of guns, my only question is, what are guns for? Their only purpose is to kill, that is what they were designed to do, they are not fashion adornments, they surely aren't status symbols. Somewhere in the psyche of gun lovers there must be some link with the guns only purpose. Of course simply banning guns will not stop murders and massacres, but turning away from the love of guns might change that psyche.

      However, I see American society as a microcosm of the American state. Across the globe we see America indulging in mass killings by the biggest guns on earth, they make it quite obvious that they take it as right that they should solve what they deem to be problems, with firepower, but throw their hands in the air in anguish when individuals do like wise. Throughout our history, guns have always meant power, as we rampaged across the planet raping and plundering its resources, but this violent response to what the state sees as problems, is labeled morally right and stamped legal, but that violence is meant to be its prerogative. When individuals and groups do likewise to solve their problems, it is labeled morally wrong and stamped illegal. It is obviously a flawed system. 

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WORKERS, REMEMBER YOUR HISTORY, ATTICA PRISON.

      An event that shocked all sane people that heard of it, now drifts into mist of history, but we should never forget how brutal the state can react, any state, not just those far away despot regimes, but our own Western, so called civilised democratic states. In 1971 in Attica Prison New York the American state unleashed its fury at those who would attempt to defy its authority and a blood bath resulted.

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THE STATE, EXPERT PURVEYORS OF VIOLENCE.

       These words could apply to the events of today but were written about Ravachol and his times, by Octave Mirbeau  16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917

And this begs the question...

        Who is it --throughout this endless procession of tortures which has been the history of the human race --who is it that sheds the blood, always the same, relentlessly, without any pause for the sake of mercy? Governments, religions, industries, forced labor camps, all of these are drenched in blood. The murder is weary of their laws, their prayers, and their progress. Again just recently, there were the frenzied butchers who turned Paris into a slaughterhouse as the Commune perished. There were pointless massacres, such as at Fourmies where the bodies of innocent women and little kids tried out the ballistic virtues of the Lebels machine gun for the first time. And there are always the mines in which fifty, a hundred, or five hundred poor devils are suffocated, swallowed in a single moment of horrible destruction, their charred bodies never to see daylight again. And there are also the horrid conquests of distant countries where happy races, unknown and peaceful, groan under the boot of that robber of continents, that filthy rapist of forest communities and virgin lands, the western slave trader.

Each footstep taken in this society bristles with privileges, and is marked with a bloodstain; each turn of the government machinery grinds the tumbling, gasping flesh of the poor; and tears are running from everywhere in the impenetrable night of suffering. Facing these endless murders and continuous tortures, what's the meaning of society, this crumbling wall, this collapsing staircase?

We live in ugly times. The misery has never been worse, because it's never been more obvious, and it's never stood closer to the spectacle of wasted riches and the promised land of well-being from which it is relentlessly turned away. Never has the law, which protects only the banks, pressed so hard upon the tortured shoulders of the poor. Capitalism is insatiable, and the wage system compounds the evils of ancient slavery. The shops are packed full of clothing, and there are those who go about completely naked; the indifferent rich are puking up food, while others perish from hunger in their doorways. No cry is heeded: whenever a single, louder complaint penetrates the din of sad murmurs, the Lebels is loaded and the troops are mobilized.

And that's not all.

       A population does not live solely on its stomach. It also has a life of the mind. Its intellectual joys are just as necessary as its physical joys. It has a right to beauty just as it has a right to bread. Indeed, those who could give it its higher pleasures, those who could introduce to the people this vital beauty are treated like public enemies, hunted down as criminals, hounded for being anarchists and beaten like beggars. They are reduced to a solitary life. An enormous barrier separates them from the crowd, by whom they are regarded as repulsive spectacles, and over whom there is spread the enormous, sordid, impenetrable veil of triumphant stupidity. We are witnessing an incredible social moment: at this time, while abundant with great thinkers, the public taste has never been so degraded, nor has ignorance ever enjoyed such base pleasures. Surely, if the hour in which we live is hideous, it is formidable as well: it's the hour of popular awakening. And this hour is full of uncertainty. The patience of the downtrodden and the dispossessed has lasted long enough. They want to live, they want to enjoy, they want their share of all the happiness and sunshine. Whatever the rulers do, reacting to their worst fears, they will not forestall the inevitable course of events. We're touching upon a decisive moment in human history. The old world is collapsing under the weight of its own crimes, and is itself lighting the fuse of the bomb that will blast it all away. This bomb will be all the more terrible because it will contain neither gunpowder nor dynamite. It'll contain compassion and an idea; two forces against which nothing can be done. 

Read the full article HERE:

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DRONES AND MASS KILLINGS.

   
  A relevant comment from "An Elegant Feast":

  

      The media has another sensationalist story about gun violence to push, and they are going to push it, hard.  And of course, anytime a child dies, it’s a tragedy.  When it occurs with violent, brutal force, it is especially repulsive.  But there is something even more disgusting than this.  When we only concentrate on the deaths of american children that are murdered by a mentally disturbed individual, we offer silent complicity to the scores of children that the US government murders in cold, rational, calculation.  According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the US government has killed 176 children with drone strikes in Pakistan.  Where is the outrage for those deaths?  I guess when it occurs at the hand of Obama and Clinton, it becomes convenient for the media and the so-called american left to look the other way.  The consummate celebrity, Obama had a press conference to show his tears to anyone who could stomach them.  If the sight of a crass, unrelenting killer is so upsetting for the president, someone needs to quickly remove every mirror from the white house.

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HOW THE QUEBEC STUDENT MOVEMENT WON.

        The student protests in Quebec reached a successful conclusion. They did not win by marching from A to B and then going home. They got organised to fight back and meet state violence with self defence force. They were determined not to be driven off the streets, not to be intimidated, they fought back. The state will always fall back on violence to gain control, control through intimidation is always in their armoury. It is a hard lesson to learn but to negotiate with the state you have to negotiate from a position of strength, it is the only thing that will make them concede.

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PEOPLE RE-ACT TO STATE VIOLENCE.

         According to the latest reports from the general strike in Greece, over 100,000 took to the streets in Athens and hundreds have been arrested and a considerable number injured, there are reports of water cannon moving into Exarcheia Square. No doubt that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, will spout about the violence of the people on the streets. There will be no mention of the violence of the state in implementing draconian cuts to the standard of living of the people, which is in reality a brutal assault on ordinary people. An assault that is causing ill health, malnutrition, metal health problems and suicides to mention a few of the direct results of the state's brutal assault on innocent people. What is happening on the streets is an attempt at self defence by the people, it is obvious the ballot box didn't work. What is being forced onto the people was never in any election manifesto. That being the case then it is also obvious that democracy doesn't exist. Never the less the people are expected to be subservient, humble, quiet and take what is thrown at them on the instructions of the financial Mafia.

       
          We should also remember that similar scenes have been taking place in Spain and Portugal this week, is this because these people are just violent people, or are they people that have been assaulted, too often, for too long, too severally and they feel it is now time to hit back and defend themselves. We should never forget that the violence always starts with the state, not the people, we only respond to how we are treated.

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SHOULD ANYONE HAVE A MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE?

        Is self defence violence? It is a regular feature of the media to keep referring to “violent demonstrations”, what they fail to see is that a demonstration is in essence an act of self defence against a very powerful force, in most cases it is the state or states. The question is always how far do you go in defending yourself? A lot of the violence on demonstrations is one sided and from the the state apparatus and in others the violence is not violence but no more than being provoked into defending yourself against, kettling etc.. Obviously as the superior force of the state apparatus has the upper hand by means of weaponry and training, this means, those defending themselves have to continually seek new strategies and tactics. There is an obvious conflict between the state which protects wealth, property and corporate power, and the people at the other end being exploited by this cabal, in such a conflict, should one side have the monopoly on “violence”? The following is a short extract from an interesting article from Anarchist News Dot Org:

   "The Black Bloc protesters interviewed did not endorse violence, but did take issue with how violence is portrayed when acts of vandalism do occur during demonstrations. When it comes to the state’s monopoly on violence, they said, there is no comparison.     “What is rarely acknowledged in the mainstream discussion, and even among the left, is the disproportionate nature of violence of the state in acts all around the world,” said “O.” “We are engaged in three wars — Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia — we have covert wars in Iran, we have structural violence here at home through poverty, budget cuts, police brutality, and when one person throws a rock through a window it is treated as an out-of-context violent act.”

Not all Black Bloc protesters are anarchists. However, Black Bloc tactics are easily embraced by those who prefer to resist the state and foster collective action.

For protester Rick Young, the Black Bloc protesters, who he affectionately called “the anarchy guys,” were the heroes on May Day. He joined the protesters as they surrounded the police on Hill Street. Young’s experience on the “front lines” caused him to see the Black Bloc as soldiers in a battle for social and economic change.

“The anarchy guys were the only guys that showed real solidarity today,” he said while resting in Pershing Square, the final destination of the march. “They were really together. They were the ones that allowed the marchers to come down Hill Street.”

Young speaks of his face-off with police as a “band-of-brothers” moment, where differences quickly dissolve in a group action borne out of the necessity of self-preservation.

“I don’t even know their names … but let it be known that the anarchists today broke the police line at Fourth Street and allowed the marchers to come down here,” he said.

Read the full article HERE:

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VIOLENCE VS NONVIOLENCE???

         I have always said that everybody has the right to self defence, it is a natural reaction to a physical threat to your person. However in this society there are those who are deemed to have the right to inflict violence, which is not called violence, and those who, if they defend themselves, are labelled violent. It all depends who writes the rule book. As far as this society is concerned the rules are stacked against the ordinary people, we have the freedom to do as we are told and not to defend yourself when attacked by the police. The following is an extract from an interesting post on Polizeros.

      "----- In contrast, when the police surround a group of peaceful Americans, who are committing no crimes, in full riot gear, deadly weapons at the ready, and plenty of potentially deadly less lethal weapons ready to be used at the drop of a hat, this is not considered violence. They irrationally bark out demands and no matter how ridiculous or irrational those demands are they are expected to be followed to the T in seconds. Any number of things can set these uniformed thugs off resulting in any number of injuries up to and including death. And yet this is not considered violence. It may be deemed an excessive use of force–interesting phrase. But it will not be deemed violent.-"

Continue READING.

          Obviously there needs to some discussion by the general public and activists in particular to what constitutes violence. The state's rule book is a loaded dice.

ann arky's blog.

THE RIGHT TO SELF DEFENCE.

     

          The following is taken from an old article on the unrest in Greece after the killing of 15 year old AlexisGrigoropoulos, shot by a police officer on the 6 December 2008. Most people agree that the murder of Alexis was the catalyst to the unrest that still continues in Greece today. The underlying anger had to come to the surface sooner or later as the people suffered the true violence of capitalism. Violence is not just that dished out by the uniformed protectors of the state apparatus, it comes in many guises. When you are continually on the receiving end of violence you have the right to self defence and the violence of capitalism is real, vicious and continuous. The violence of capitalism has always been there, but the recent “financial crisis” has meant that it has to be administered with greater severity and over a wider area in order to preserve the wealth at the top. Under such unrestrained and relentless violence what should be your response? Do we need to wait for that catalyst before displaying our anger in the open?

Reflections on the recent unrest in Greece; "The rise of n

ew organisational forms and contents of struggle is being discussed by all the insurgent elements"...

‘VIOLENCE means working for 40 years, getting miserable wages
and wondering if you ever get retired…
VIOLENCE means state bonds, robbed pension funds
and the stock-market fraud…
VIOLENCE means being forced to get housing loans which finally
you pay back as if they were gold…
VIOLENCE means the management’s right to fire you any time they want…
VIOLENCE means unemployment, temporary employment,
400 Euros wage with or without social security…
VIOLENCE means work ‘accidents’, as bosses diminish their workers’ safety costs…
VIOLENCE means being driven sick because of hard work …
VIOLENCE means consuming psycho-drugs and vitamins
in order to cope with exhausting working hours…
VIOLENCE means working for money to buy medicines
in order to fix your labour power commodity…
VIOLENCE means dying on ready-made beds in horrible hospitals,
when you can’t afford bribing.

Proletarians from occupied GSEE, Athens, December 2008

Continue reading.

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TURKEY TRYING TO CRUSH ALL TRADE UNIONS.

      

      States always try to stifle any working class organisation, whether it be trade unions or community organisations that seek some sort of autonomy. If it doesn't feel too threatened then the attacks are quiet, subtle and covert, but if it feels the threat is rising, then it can become very brutal, overt and bring into use all the bruteforce of all the state apparatus. At the moment Turkey is trying to smash all working class organisation in an attempt to create a subservient workforce suitable for its corporate friends in the EU. We cannot stand by and watch the state try to crush those struggling to improve their conditions. We are all in this struggle together to survive in an exploitive corporate capitalist greed machine which is backed up by the state.

       This following message is from IUF, International Union of Food Workers,   hopefully those reading it will take the action requested.  

    

       "The Turkish government has filed criminal charges against 111 union leaders, members and supporters, which carry prison terms of up to 5 years in connection with a 2010 demonstration in Ankara. The list of those indicted by the Ankara Public Prosecutor include TEKGIDA-IS President Mustafa Turkel along with 4 other national officers and twelve branch presidents, the current and former heads of the national centre DISK, two former leaders of the public sector confederation KESK and other prominent union and social activists."

      Click HERE, to learn more and send an urgent protest message to the Turkish government.
      An injury to one is an injury to all. Are you free if your brothers and sisters are in chains?

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THE GREAT ILLUSION.

        It is one of the state's biggest con-tricks, this statement that what they do for “national security” is the state's attempt to make you safer. This massive lie gives licence to total surveillance, high security prisons, torture, rendition, held without trial, and a host of other moves to intimidate and suppress dissent.

      However, making you safer is not what it is all about, it's more to do with large corporations making buckets full of profit from tax payers' money. It also keeps you in line, breeding fear and in so doing, stifling dissent. Those with the power of the state are the ones that need to be under surveillance.

     

       Collectively they are involved in more violence and terror through the means of war than any group of terrorist could ever dream of unleashing. Ask the Iraqis or the Afghans how our anti-terrorist activities have kept them safe.

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THERE IS NO LAW AGAINST SELF DEFENCE.

  

     Interesting to here David Cameron condemn the "violence" of the students the other day, "unacceptable" they should feel the "full force of the law" and all said with a solemn face, no hint of a snigger. Perhaps he should have remembered another quote he made.

We're all in this together!!

    "Things got a bit out of hand. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets"

D Cameron,Oxford,1986.

     We should remind David Cameron that his -smashing the place up- was just for fun, a jolly good time, the violence he condemns is self defence.

    When we hear those Oxbridge millionaires condemn violence we have to remind them that self defence is not a crime. What they and the media never mention is the violence that is being perpetrated on the working class by them, at the behest of the corporate greed machine, to safeguard their millions. What greater violence is there than trapping people in poverty, depriving them of the social services that are meant to provide those essentials of civilised life, dignity and opportunity. When one group savage the living standards of another group while they themselves live in the lap of unearned luxury, that is violence. When one group forces hardships on another knowing that they themselves will in no way suffer from those measures, that is violence. We have no intention of allowing that violence to ruin the lives of our children and threaten the dignity of our pensioners. Are we expected to lie down and take what the millionaire club throw at us? Most certainly not, we have the right to self defence, we are fighting for our dignity, the future opportunities for our children, the well being of our elderly. To threaten them is violence of the worst degree, we have duty to fight back, we have a right to self defence. The more savage the violence inflicted on us, the more violent our self defence. I am against violence, but just remember,- you started it, with the violence of your vicious “austerity cuts”.

 

 

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STATE VIOLENCE AND LEGITIMATE TORTURE!!!!

      

       So George W. Bush has informed us that lives have been saved in the UK and US by waterboarding. According to the logic of this deranged individual, torture is fine if it is done by the good guys but is evil when done by the bad guys. Of course they are both doing it for the same reasons, in the hope of extracting information that might be useful to their cause. My problem is how do you differentiate between and “bad” guy torturing another human being, and a “good” guy torturing another human being? With these statements what these so called leaders are proving is that there is no difference between the power mongers at both ends of the so called “war on terror”. They are both extremists and have no compassion for anybody who gets in their way. Immense suffering can be inflicted on thousands of innocent people as long as you believe that your God is on your side and you're doing it for the right reasons. This allows us to vilify the suicide bomber while applauding the “shock-and-awe” inflicted on the innocent people of Iraq. You see, our cause was good, their cause was bad, simple logic. These psychopathic leaders see the horror that is now experienced by millions of innocent Iraqis and Afghans as acceptable simply because they say the cause is right. If the situation was reversed and we suffered as these unfortunate people's, have and are suffering, it would of course be a dreadful evil, their cause couldn't possible be as noble as ours. It is all part of the Western philosophy, me-right-you-wrong, which allows us to ride roughshod over any country in order to further our own interests.

           Oh for the end of this state system that pits man against man because of ever shifting lines drawn on the planets surface, an end to the power held by religions, and an end to this capitalist system of greed and exploitation that pits man against man and state against state all for the greater good of the shareholders.

 

PATRIOTISM.

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ‘tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY, 16th.AUGUST.

     

        Workers should know their history, it tells you which side the the state is on no matter the government of the day. Every occasion when the ordinary people come together to try to improve their lives, whether it be to fight a closure, oppose a war or push for reform, the state always answers with force. It can be the heavy hand of the police or the bullets or sabres of the military and afterwards the state will peddle the usual lie about it being justified force. In this so called democracy the will of the people must be stifled at all costs.

        The 16th August is the anniversary of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, the outcome of a demonstration of 60,000/80,000 people in Manchester calling for parliamentary reform. A cavalry charge, 15 killed and estimates of 400 to 700 injured. Not an isolated incident by any manner of means. Prior to this in Glasgow 1787 the Calton weavers on strike for an increase in wages marched to the Cathedral in support of their claim only to be met by the military, 6 weavers were killed by gun shot. We can move forward to the violence that the poll tax demonstrators met, the striking miners, the G20, and so it goes on. All this should tell us the the state is never on the side of the people.

      We owe it to those who have suffered and died in the people's struggle for liberty and justice to keep alive that history, our history, the workers history.

Weaver's memorial at Abercromby St cemetary Calton Glasgow. 

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