Cruel Farce.

        Any thinking person who looks at the various states and their proclamations on green energy and planet climate change, must see it as a farce. How do you clean up the planet's pollution if you don't include the world's largest polluter  in the equation? There is no doubt that the Pentagon with its massive war mongering budget is the world's largest polluter, but is never taken into account when talks of cleaning up the planet are taking place. Obviously the war mongers don't want anything to impede their murderous drive to maintain their power, wealth and privileges, even if it means the destruction of the all life on the planet.

 The following from Roots Action:

         As a result of final hour demands made by the United States during negotiation of the 1997 Kyoto treaty, military carbon emissions are exempted from climate negotiations.
            But the U.S. military is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world and a key contributor to climate collapse!
            U.S. climate envoy designate, John Kerry, is right; the Paris Agreement is “not enough.”
             We're organizing around this new petition:
             To: John Kerry and the U.S. Congress
             From: ---- -----
          All emissions need to be included in order to justly meet international pledges made to protect the earth's climate. There must be no more exception for military pollution.

Add your name by clicking here!

Turn your thermostat down one degree to help save the planet!!!

 

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

The UK, Abject Poverty In The Midst Of Obscene Wealth.

      A recent report states that the UK government is presiding over “significant and growing” hunger, the report warns that one in five children in the UK live in homes that are severely food insecure, this is the worst level of child hunger in the EU. The same report states that 2.2 million people in the UK are classed as severely food insecure, this translates into the fact that the UK is responsible for one fifth of all severely food insecure people in the EU.

        So the rich UK has an army of adults and children who are classed as severely food insecure. It has another army luring in the shadows of this corrupt exploitative system, the army of homeless. According to Shelter at least 320,000 people in the UK are homeless. The report also states that this is a year-on-year increase of 13,000, up 4%. It puts the national figure at around 1 in 200 people in the UK as homeless. It also states that these figures are probably an under estimate as it doesn't take into account, the sofa-surfers, those sleeping in sheds and cars etc. 

       Another hallmark of this rich UK society is poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's recent 2018 report states:

 This research reveals that, in our society: 

• Child poverty has been rising since 2011/12; 
• 4.1 million children are living in poverty, a rise of 500,000 in the last five years; 
• Four million workers are living in poverty –a rise of more than half a million over five years; and 
• In-work poverty has been rising even faster than employment, driven almost entirely by increasing poverty among working parents.

        Then there is that other army of those on benefit being driven to destitution by never ending cuts in social services, a rapidly crumbling health service, and an education system that has vacancies that can't be filled, and a vast number of teachers off with stress.
     All the signs of a poor country, debilitating social conditions that blight the lives of millions, but in this case it is a very rich country and the conditions in the country are created by deliberate choices made by those in power. There is more than sufficient wealth and resources in this country to see to the needs of all our people, the choices are ideologically chosen.
     In the midst of this swamp of poverty and deprivation, our "lords and masters" are spending billions on weaponry. We have had the usual chest thumping and flag waving at the UK's recent acquisition of two monster aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. The cost of building these monstrous imperialist weapons of mass destruction is in excess of £6 billion. Of course this is a drop in the bucket to the final cost when completed and fitted out with its fancy super expensive F-35B stealth fighter jets. Each jet comes with an eye-watering price tag of £78 million. The UK with its army of hungry and homeless, is buying 48 of these imperialist testosterone pills to kit out its two mammoth carriers, but is planning to buy a total of 138 to complete its battle group. That would come in somewhere around the £14+ billion, then add a cool  £6+ billion building costs. Thanks Loam for the link. Details of this mad imperialist chest thumping extravaganza here: 
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50903.htm
         Of course the billions spent on these two brutes of indiscriminate killing machines is just a small fraction the UK spends on weaponry just to be the side-kick of the imperialist USA.
          This shows where the privileged parasites that control this country put their priorities, certainly not in the well being of the people, but in the defence of their power and wealth at the expense of the people.
           In the words of the song, "When will we ever learn---"

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

The Army Without A Uniform.

         War is universal, it is the life blood of modern capitalism. It is not just the uniforms that carry out the destruction, it is all the research centres, manufacturing centres, logistics and transportation companies that back them up and make war possible. The nice guy that works in the arms industry office, the driver of a transport company that carries the weapons to their destination, the researcher that is working on new weapons systems, they all go home to family and friends, but they should be obliged to wear a uniform. They are an integral part of the imperialist war machine, without them no war would be possible.    

         We destroy cities, and whole countries, then hand out contracts to multinational companies to re-build the infrastructure, all part and parcel of the merry-go-round of the imperialist war machine. How much of this system's time, energy and resources are wasted in this vicious circle of destruction and rebuild? No matter how much, the destruction and waste of life and resources will continue, as long as we accept the society that capitalism forces on us. It will continue as long as we see war as only a thing in uniform, we have to realise that war is dependent on an army of participants not in uniform, they are the core of the war machine.

         As I said, war is universal, this is a call for solidarity from Italy:

AGAINST THE WAR IN LIBYA
LET’S JAM THE WAR MACHINE

       War is no longer declared: it is simply there. Since 1991 the Italian State has been at war with its troops deployed in over 20 countries and its participation in all the most prominent ‘international missions’.
         Renzi’s government is now getting ready to attack Libya with the purpose of lining up the army in defence of ENI oilfields and gas pipes.
         As this wasn’t enough, the Italian State will soon go back to Iraq with a contingent of about 500 soldiers, who will oversee work on the Mosul dam to be undertaken by the construction company Trevi from Cesena.
          War has always been used by the States and the ruling classes in order to affirm their own interests. From resources grabbing to the availability of low cost workforce, war is the oxygen of any business.
          Not only: war is a business itself, as it secures huge profits to the bosses of the arms industry – first of all the State’s giant Finmeccanica – and to speculators who distribute ‘reconstruction’ contracts between themselves, not to mention the bosses of the logistics necessary to military manoeuvres.
         While the bosses feast at the expense of the whole world, we also see war here close to us, under the form of hunted humankind: millions of refugees are crowding on the external borders of the very States that have bombarded them; but they are faced with kilometres of walls, barbed wire, iron, internment camps and troops watching them. Borders which had apparently disappeared are becoming material again.
         On this side of the border people are being made to live in the terror that war can bounce back in the form of indiscriminate attacks. Zones of dissent are being restricted, life conditions are worsening and cities are being militarized. All this is being achieved amidst the tacit consent of anyone who doesn’t oppose resistance to these choices.
           But we can find the responsible of the horror also here close to us. In fact it is not only the military that make war. They need others to support them in their doings: companies that produce arms, universities that develop technology and intervention strategies, commercial carriers for the logistical transport of arms and soldiers.
        An armoured vehicle that is not boarded on a ship can’t go and shoot oversea; a bomb that is not carried outside a factory can’t be dropped on a Libyan or Syrian village. For these reasons Moby Lines, Tirrenia, FS Logistica, Saima Avandero, Ter Roma and many others are complicit in the war. FS Logistica earns over 10 million euros per year from the railway transport of military vehicles. Moby Lines transports RVM bombs from Sardinia to the Continent in order for them to reach war scenarios.
       Therefore it is necessary to act against war logistics, the imminent attack on Libya and all the accomplices of militarism. For this reason we call on all the enemies of the war machine for mobilization from 28th March to 2nd April, with actions of disruption and opposition against those who send instruments and supplies to the front, according to each one’s desires and possibilities.
     We call for demonstrations to take place in as many cities as possible on 2nd April, in squares, outside universities, research centres and war businesses.
       Because we respond to the war between the states and the peoples with social war, for the destruction of all borders and all forms of exploitation made by human beings on other human beings and nature.

Anarchists and antimilitarists

Translated by act for freedom now!

via:www.informa-azione.info/

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

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?

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