From Despair To Admiration.

 

        Looking at the affairs of this world my emotions sway from tremendous optimism, to abject despair. You look towards the Middle East and North Africa, and you see a swath of the world that is awash with blood and suffering, with daily deaths and destruction on a massive scale, the hand of the new era of capitalist imperialism. Trying to grasp the scale of the suffering and deprivation seems to be beyond our minds. How can we allow such misery to be the sum total of so many people's lives? War, power, greed and destruction, seem to be the only tools this rotten system can bring to bear on people's lives.

Winter

Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky
winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,
the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.
All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,
edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.
A weary Cassandra laments;
doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday
forsake their olive branches.

 

       Then of course we direct our eyes to the relentless struggle of those ordinary people, to shatter the grip of this cancerous system. From all corners of the world people are standing up and defying the power of neo-liberalism and its imperialist intentions. People are coming together and linking across borders in what they know is one struggle, one war, the war of the will of the people against the greed of raw capitalism, You have to stand back and gasp in admiration at this power and solidarity, and know within your heart, we will succeed. We can look at each other with pride knowing that this war is like a relay race, we take the baton and run with it, knowing that when we have run our lap, there will be somebody else there to take the baton and run further.

I’m Proud

I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,
that great mass on society’s bottom rung.
Those who, with coal-dust under their nails
in their eyes, in their lungs
claw at the earth's entrails.
Their brothers,
cement in their hair
in their mouth, in their ears,
oil ingrained in their fingers,
on their face.
Sisters, glistening with sweat
midst the ceaseless noise of machines
that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets
for other people.
Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin
smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,
grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system
weighted down
with a sack load of half-dead dreams,
sometimes brought to their knees
by a tidal wave of despair,
never defeated,
groping in the dark to find tomorrow,
keeping hope alive;
they amaze me.
Somehow, from somewhere
in this cold, cruel
unforgiving scheme of things
they find love for their children.
Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,
but buckets full, to bathe them in,
to pour over them.
They seem to know
that one day this world will be ours
and to take care of it
we will need those who have been loved. 

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

Anarchy In Rojava.

       The latest video from The Stimulator at Submedia, is on what is happening in Rojava, among other things, plus a wee plug for AK Press.

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

THE NEVER ENDING ISRAELI LAND GRAB.

            While the Western world is pre-occupied with saving the Euro, deficit reduction and increasing the banking system's liquidity, Israel continues with its policy of purloining Palestinian land, while at the same time pursuing its agenda of genocide against the Palestinian people. If you have a look at an old map and look at the territory that was marked as Palestine and compare it with what is now considered Palestinian land you get quite a shock. Not only is the land just a fraction of what it was, this land grab by Israel has been allied to thousands of Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israeli state. In man's blood soaked history I doubt if there has been a longer, more one-sided war. On the one side you have one of the most modern, powerfully equipped military machines in the world, on the other a people armed with second rate makeshift rockets, improvised home-made weaponry and stones, and after approximately 50 years, still the uneven struggle continues. None of this could happen if it was not for the financial and military support of America. What is happening in Palestine is part and parcel of American foreign policy in the Middle East, all the West is also complicit in the death of the the Palestinian people, the destruction of their farms and property and the grabbing of their land.

This from US Palestinian Community Network:

On May 15, across the shatat and in the homeland, Palestinians marked the 64th anniversary of the Nakba of 1948 in a multitude of ways. We rallied, we held vigils, and we took a quiet moment to remember, reflect, and mourn. On this anniversary, we particularly honored our heroes in Israeli prisons, who conducted the longest, and one of the largest, hunger strikes in history. In our long march to liberation and return, it has always been our people, their undiminished courage, and their towering fortitude, that have carried our struggle through. We are honored to be Palestinian, proud of our people, and the nobility of our cause.

It is therefore with grave concern that we issue this letter expressing our dismay at the continued disregard and disrespect for our struggle and our people by the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), and its President, Ziad Asali.

At this time of remembrance, two photos were widely circulated of Asali embracing Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at a celebration of Israel’s independence hosted by the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC. While Palestinians were mourning the destruction of 531 of our villages, and the expulsion of nearly 800,000 of our people, Asali saw fit to attend a celebration of that moment, and shake the hands of a man whose task it is to silence us and defend the destruction of our homes, theft of our land, starvation of our prisoners, and elimination of our people.

Indeed, this incident is merely the culmination of a long history of ATFP’s betrayal of our people. Since its inception in 2003, with Asali as its President, ATFP has consistently found itself the focus of the Palestinian community’s ire, and the organization’s history carries a string of resignations by one Board member after another in disgust. In the wake of Israel’s 2008-2009 war on Gaza, several Board members stepped down in protest of ATFP comments to CNN effectively absolving Israel of responsibility for its crimes. In his resignation letter to the Board, one member wrote:

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