The Bellgrove Hotel, Five Stars For Degradation.

 

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.

 

        How we treat the vulnerable and the needy in this society challenges all sense of decency. The homeless can be shoved in any hovel or dismal infested hell-hole, if it makes money for its unscrupulous owners, it will survive, if they can't make money from their little venture, the the homeless are back on the streets. 

 The picture belies the interior horror. Photo by Nick Ponty.

        The Bellgrove Hotel, in Gallowgate Glasgow, is one such large establishment that houses homeless men. Over the years it has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and is once again in the news, It is claimed that the owners of this festering disease incubator, Stuart Gray and his cousin Alison Barr, have received the tidy little sum of £1.5 million in housing benefit, in gratitude from the state.

       The latest scandal to hit the headlines is the fact that several of the men being housed in that garbage can have contracted  Group A streptococcal infections, also known as a flesh eating disease.  

         FRESH calls to shut down a notorious Scottish homeless hostel have been made following fears that residents have been put at risk of contracting a deadly flesh-eating disease. NHS Scotland confirmed that four residents of the privately-run Bellgrove Hotel, which houses almost 140 homeless men in Glasgow have been treated for Group A streptococcal infections, which can cause mild symptoms but in vulnerable drug users can infect wounds and lead to fatal conditions including infections of the blood and necrotising fasciitis (flesh-eating disease).

        Homeless people are mired in a range of complicated problems, all of which require compassion, a variety of specialised care, and a safe place to lay their head, however in this society they are at the mercy of money making dens, a handful of caring individuals, charities, or the streets. This country has enough resources to end this criminal act of using the vulnerable as a money making unit, but chooses not to, by dogmatic ideology. A homeless person is a human being, and as such should be treated as one, with dignity, compassion and equality. this society fails on all fronts. As long as we tolerate this greed driven capitalist system, individuals will find themselves at the mercy of hell-holes like the Bellgrove Hotel, while the owners lap up the money with impunity. 

The Disease Of Consumemas!

       The retail trade is sitting biting its nails, the last weekend before Christmas is now visible on the horizon, it is the last chance for Santa Clause to empty the public's wallets and purses, the last chance for Santa Clause to get the punters loaded up with debt, the last big binge before it starts all over again with the January sales. Whatever Christmas is supposed to mean is irrelevant, what really matters is to get the consumer binge through the roof. Get the public moving through the shopping malls like stampeding cattle, grasping at colour boxes that are somehow meant to produce happiness, endless bottles of odours all supposed to have their own special magic. The stress levels go through the roof, the debt mountain goes strata-strophic, but the colour boxes and odour filled bottles fail to bring that special magic and fail dismally  to create that higher level of happiness. Come January the bubble bursts, the illusion evaporates. Why are so many still captured by the same illusion each year? By now we should all know that coloured boxes don't bring happiness, and odour filled bottles don't contain magic, but vast consumerism does destroy the planet. It also increases the power of the corporate world, who live and grow fat by our gullibility. Celebrate the winter solstice in a community manner, no need to come bearing gifts of the latest "thing", bring companionship and plan for a future without consumerism.

       This breath of common sense comes from the site Not Buying Anything:

Creating art from found natural objects can be a meaningful new Winter Solstice ritual that costs nothing.

       Is there any Christmas left in Christmas? It is more like Consumemas now. It is all about the presents, the loot, the haul, the stuff. Shopping, wrapping, unwrapping, throwing away - same futile cycle with the same futile results. Within a few days all that remains is the debt and damage.
        It is no wonder many people find this madness to be depressing and demoralizing. But we can rise above Consumemas, and reclaim this special time of year for our own. It truly is an event worth celebrating, as humans have for millennia, before Christmas, or Consumemas, ever existed.
        And while gift giving may be involved, it does not have to be all about the gifts. Indeed, gifts are not a required part of enjoying this time of year. While the social pressures are great, many are breaking free from the burden of mandatory (and often mindless) gift giving.
        Those with experience have found that involving a group of people in the discussion surrounding radically changing winter celebration traditions can be fruitful and liberating. Often they find that they aren't the only ones wondering how they can stop others from buying them things they don't want, or need.
        I got the following email reminder from Adbusters concerning #BuyNothingXmas:

       "The malls are full of anxious sweat. The throngs are out and about for the final shopping "rush", hunting the aisles with a tense urgency that's inimical to the spirit of giving. But another Christmas is possible. Another way of being is possible.
       Reclaiming the ritual of this magical season – consciously and deliberately – is a radical, emancipatory choice. Since manufacturing and consumption are responsible for more than half of the global carbon dioxide emissions, choosing to buy nothing this Xmas may give Gaia some much needed relief.
       And if you still need to be convinced to consume less – consider that if we heat up just 4 degrees more, we will witness a total and irreversible collapse of human civilization. We're killing ourselves – but even as the denial about global warming is slowly breaking over us, we still choose – sheeplike – to join the madness in the malls.
      Consumerism is the opiate of the masses. Without significant rituals, we clamour to participate in the only ones we have, like the Christmas shopping binge, driven by our desire for meaning – of which our culture is devoid.

          #BuyNothingXmas gets to the heart of this matter.

        As the much awaited solstice arrives and Christmas nears, can you find the strength to break the addiction, to wake up from the nightmare ... will you be brave enough to plant the seed of a new way of being? Make your life a demonstration, a defiance, a piece of art, a heroic journey.
        Start this Christmas – dare to gather your friends and family together and vow to do it differently this year."
         There are many meaningful ways to celebrate at this time of year. Conspicuous consumption does not have to be one of them.
“Creating a new tradition that brings more peace and heart to your holidays could also bring you closer to family and friends.
          Sharing a ritual founded on love of nature, on respect for the always renewing cycles of life, and on faith in the future has a way of bringing out the best in people.”
 Deena Wade

Anarchists, Why Do We Do It?

 

         Taking an overall view of this world we live in gives us a frightening picture, so much deprivation, so many wars, such glaring inequality, so many actions driven by greed, so many actions driven by hatred, so much callous inhumanity. To see a world of equality, justice and peace seems an impossible dream, the present seems to belie that dream. However, there are those who will always strive for that dream, no matter how dark that road may appear. They will hold onto that dream with passion and conviction, they will shape their lives round that dream, they are the ones that keep that dream alive, and to them we must be grateful. No matter how daunting the task we must always believe in that dream and each little step that shines a light on it, increase the belief that we can create that dream.

          I found this article from Birds Before The Storm, by Margaret Killjoy, said a lot of what I believe myself, but said with much more eloquence than my voice. 

 Strategic Optimism.

         I want to die in bed, a hundred years old, having lived most of my life in a stateless, anticapitalist society. This is possible. Authoritarianism is not unconquerable. I don’t believe in utopia, per se, and I don’t think an anarchist society would be perfect, but I believe we could live a lot healthier, happier, and more freely than we do now. So I want to win. I believe it’s possible for us to win.
       On the other hand, I don’t expect to.
      I came to terms a long time ago with my investment in this hopeless cause. Even when I was an eager and innocent baby anarchist, I never believed that a beautiful, black-and-red dawn was about to break across the horizon. I cut my teeth getting my ass kicked by cops trying to stop a war and trying to stop corporate globalization, then moved on to the insurmountable task of trying to slowly shift culture towards anti-authoritarian values. I never expected to win. I try to fight like I’m going to, though.
       Fighting to win, and fighting for what I actually believe in instead of some watered down compromise, has proven to just outright be a better way to live. Furthermore, acting as though winning is a serious possibility is the only way for it to become even the barest possibility.
       My optimism is a cynical optimism, a strategic optimism, but it’s optimism nonetheless.
       When I was a teenager, I had an art teacher who instilled in me a respect for process-oriented thinking. “The point of painting is the act of painting,” he told me, “not the act of having painted.” This was true across mediums and applicable to life itself… after all, the final result of life is death. One ought not live for one’s legacy, but for one’s life. Yet, with painting and most everything else, the goal mattered too. The goal informs and enriches the process, and the goal is only achievable by staying focused on the process.
      We tell one another about the golden land that lies beyond the horizon not to convince ourselves that the place exists exactly as we imagine it, but because those stories give us a direction to walk and a reason to walk. The walking itself is what matters, of course. The process is what matters.
      This is hard for me to reconcile with my anarchism, sometimes. Some of my friends are in it for the fight, but I’m not a fighter by natural temperament. I’m too anxious, these days, to spend much of my time on the front lines of anything. I hope we win soon, so I can find ways to be socially useful and keep myself entertained without the threat of prison looming like death in the shadows.
        Still, absent of living in the society I desire to live in, I do find value and meaning in struggle, in walking, in imagining possibilities. I’ve probably never experienced this contrast between my cynicism and my hope more clearly than I have in terms of how I engage with activism. For years, I was engaged in direct action activism — in campaigns to save this or that forest or mountain, to keep this or that development or youth jail out of this or that neighborhood, to save some person or keep some draconian law from passing. Activism, even of the direct action variety, tends not to be revolutionary. It tends to stay on the defensive. It tends to burn people out, expose people to risk, and use up a ton of resources. It’s certainly not going to save the world.
       To any extent that I engage with activism today, I engage in activism without illusions. Though I know we’re not going to stem the tide of global catastrophe, direct action activism often accomplishes its immediate goals. I know people who still live on their farms because of activism. I know of community gardens that still exist. I know of stands of old growth forest that are still standing. Those trees will likely survive until human-driven climate change destroys them in a few years time — and that’s the problem with activism. It’s never enough.
     Still, without optimism — cynical or not — and its attendant courage, none of that would have been accomplished, and that’s not nothing. There’s an undeniable value there. There’s also a value in the unruly encampments we set up and a value in the connections we made with other communities. Direct action activism is one way to engage with passionate people, passionately, and to live life to its fullest. I have no illusions about it, but I don’t regret a moment of it.
      I believe that we can win. I believe another [end of the] world is possible. I don’t always know what to do with this optimism. How do we accomplish it? Anarchism is not heaven. We don’t get there by just being good people and accepting Bakunin as our personal lord and savior. We get there by thinking seriously about strategy and by making plans. We get there by working at it, in whatever ways suit us or are appropriate to our circumstances. Whatever chance we’ve got of getting there, it’s by each of us trying what we can and seeing what works, it’s by supporting those of us who are trying in ways we aren’t.
      When I die, not in bed, not a hundred years old, not in a society free of hierarchy, I’ll be able to say… well I probably won’t be able to say much of anything, because I’ll be busy dying, but let’s pretend I’ve got my wits about me… I can say I fought to win.

The Earp Gang Hit Scotland.

      On the whole, crime in Scotland is falling, but the powers that be are intent on increasing the number of police carrying fire arms, there seems to be a contradiction in there somewhere. Not only are the number of armed police being increased, but we will see more of them on the street, attending no violent incidents. 

HUNDREDS of armed officers will be routinely deployed to incidents that do not involve firearms for the first time ever. In in a major shift in policy, police with weapons will now be allowed to attend non-violent incidents if they are nearer the scene than unarmed colleagues.
Police Scotland chiefs have revealed that 399 officers have now been approved to carry guns which is a rise of 124 and they will now be used more frequently in routine investigations.

      We should not be surprised at this trend, slowly, slowly, we will have a fully armed police force. The state will always want its first line of defence to be armed to the hilt. Batons and riot shields might be intimidating to some, but guns are even more so. That is the purpose of the police force, forget the catching the bag-snatcher, or the violent drunk, these are just by-products of the system. Its real purpose is to be the first line of defence against any threat to the established power. When silencing dissent, repressing protests and creating submission, guns speak louder that batons. So watch out for your local Wyatt Earp, strutting his/her stuff down you local high street.

      A couple of the Earp gang seen in the wild west town of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

Glasgow's Revolt In Songs.

         The music night to remember is less than a week away, Spirit of Revolt's fund raiser musical evening is next Wednesday, 20th. December. The list of performers is varied as it is talented. We have Calum Baird, Jim Ferguson, Julie Anne McCambridge, Rab Fullerton, Chris Fear, Paul Tasker, John Player, Enradgay, Brendan McLaughlin, Glasgow Glam Rock Dialogues, there will be floor spots and the package will be compeered by Brendan McLaughlin. I doubt you will ever get another opportunity to hear all these artists on one evening in one place. So clear your diary and mark in Wednesday, 20th December, The Old Hairdressers, 20-28 Renfield Lane, Glasgow G2 6PH. Meet old friends, make new friends, have a night to remember. Doors open 6:45, start just after 7pm.

       Hope to see you there having a wonderful night of songs, poems, music, chat and memories.

So The State Repression Continues.

 

       If you like Beethoven, then you'll love this, a rather unusual rendering of his ninth symphony.

 The G20 leaders listen indifferently to a performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony—Bakunin’s favorite musical composition—while the rightful heirs of Beethoven and Bakunin engage in heroic struggle outside the walls.

         The aftermath of the G20 is still being felt by those who took part in the protests and others not really involved, as the German state does what state's do, come down hard on any dissent, useing any excuse to try and stifle opposition to their grip on power and privileges.

This from Crimethinc:

       Police raided more than 20 apartments, collectives, and projects around Germany in the early hours of December 5 in a new wave of repression following their unsuccessful attempts to brutally suppress demonstrations against the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg. The “Soko Schwarzer Block,“ the special police commission called “black bloc“ that was formed after the G20, officially announced that the searches pertained to an incident during the G20 at Rondenbarg trailer park—in which the police trapped and attacked a crowd, injuring many people. Solidarity actions and demonstrations responding to the raids took place immediately in Hannover, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Hamburg, Flensburg, Göttingen, and Berlin.
      Fabio, a person who spent four months in prison, became a symbol of the scandalous lies that the authorities have been spreading about the police attack at Rondenbarg. During the attack, police kicked 14 people down a fence, screaming “That’s your breakfast, antifa swine!” All of them sustained serious injuries, including broken bones. Since the police video was published by a TV station, we can all compare the different versions. History is made by those in power and what we witness right now is the fabrication of truth. The truth that the police and the judges are trying to promote is not compatible with the experiences that thousands of people share of being charged without provocation, brutally beaten up, water-cannoned, and pepper-sprayed during the summit.
      The official charge is “Landfriedensbruch,“ breach of the public peace. But even according to the police spokesperson, the searches were not carried out to find evidence to use against people participating in the demonstration. The searches were officially made to find out more about the structure of the protests and the organizers of the riots. In other words, the explicit goal of the police is to suppress dissent via violence and ongoing intimidation.
       The intention of the police is to frame the people they attacked as rioters. But they also raided the apartments of union members. Consequently, even mainstream journalists called the searches a PR bluff. The act that the arrestees are accused of is nothing more than being part of a demonstration from which stones and fireworks were thrown. The police have admitted that they did not expect to identify anyone who had thrown anything.

Resistance Is Many Faceted.

       On my many visits to Greece, mainly Athens, I have always found the public transport cheap, and what is more it was publicly owned and run with the people in mind, lots of concession for those who needed them. However, since the Troika, (ECB, Expert Crooked Bastards, EC, Executive Criminals, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers) got a strangle hold on the Greek state, it has demanded that all public assets be transferred to their greedy corporate buddies. Everything in sight is being privatised, this includes the once publicly owned and reasonable transport system, of course this is happening in countries across the globe. Just another sign that the financial Mafia are out to bleed the public dry.  

        What this has meant is that fares are rising, control by the system is increasing and large sections of the community are being exclude from the once cheap transport system. It seems that this is not being accepted in a subservient manner by sections of the people, they have decided to hit back at the profiteers and hit them where it hurts, in their bank accounts. They are taking action that will slow down the whole process of control and cost the plunders of the public purse, lots of that stuff they worship, "money". 

This from Act For Freedom Now:

       In the early hours of Saturday December 2nd we attacked the centre of application collection and issuing of registered electronic travelcards of OASA, on 153 Thessalonikis street, Kallithea station, with an incendiary device. The above function was taken on by OASA as well as personnel from 2 companies which are in charge of installing and operating the new electronic systems of control on public transport (turnstiles, electronic tickets etc.), LG CNS and GEK TERNA. Our intervention resulted in the complete destruction of very expensive technological equipment (computers, scanners, special ticket printers etc) that belongs exclusively to the companies-contractors, as well as a massive amount of copies of registered electronic travel-cards and issuing applications.
        Our message is clear: just like you organize our exclusion from public transport and want to control our every movement in the cities, we organize to destroy your plans. Methodically, with rage and a plan we organize your worst nightmares!
      The incendiary attack on a main structure of the OASA-state-contractors plannings is added to the diverse factual moves of resistance against the systems of control, surveillance and exclusion which are set up on public transport recently. Against its restructuring, we chose to carry out a targeted act aiming at creating the greatest possible damage, the greatest possible cost for those who have received millions of euros in order to organize the exclusion of large parts of social strata from public transport. To factually contribute to the blocking of the unobstructed implementation of their plans, to further promote the wider social struggle for free transportation.
       While the ministry of Transport proceeds to the gradual closure of
turnstiles at the entrances of Metro stations and endless lines are formed at the electronic tickets and registered travelcards, we chose to express our rage. Instead if standing in lines and becoming desperate, instead of legitimizing the plans of state-contractors against our daily material interests, instead of being vulnerable towards inspectors and turnstiles, instead of thinking INDIVIDUALLY, we chose to organize and act COLLECTIVELY. We chose to attack and torch the shackles they offer us. We chose to break extortion itself and not negotiate the terms of acceptance. We could not care less about the “discomfort and indignation of the passengers” who rush to purchase the sought after ticket, waiting up to 1-2 hours in line. We are not them, we do not speak in their name.
        We are interested more in those who are thrown out of stations and buses because they do not desire to negotiate their every day need for transportation. This is the position we speak from, this is the position from which we chose to attack the condition of social control and discipline that dominates inside and of public transport. We keep our hate and rage for the daily scalpers and extortionists of our lives, all sorts of inspectors, snitches and cops we see on our path.
       OASA made an announcement the next day and mentioned that “the extensive and ethically unacceptable practices of the fake ticket networks and the bloodsucking of public wealth has ended and many will have to deal with the truth and justice”. This game played by OASA and the ministry of Transport who attempt to connect the diverse resistance movement with networks and alien interests, is one we have seen before and is ridiculous. We have one thing to say: SHUT YOUR MOUTHS!
         No political supervisors of the ministry of Transport ever, let alone Spirtzis (minister of Transport) because of his political-party background, can speak of networks and dark interests when addressing others. They should look in the mirror! They should first speak of the public transport bodies that have been set up and raised for decades now as realms of contractors and employment agencies through slavery practices and black-unpaid labour of thousands of workers cleaning and guarding the stations by outsourcing to other networks. They should first speak of the organized bloodsucking of public wealth of the national contractors of public projects that continue to plant toll booths everywhere and the structures (ports, airports etc.) that were built with the money and sweat of other people
so they can deliver them to all sorts of contractors and investors at will.
FACTUAL RESISTANCE TO THE CONTROL AND SURVEILLANCE OF OUR LIVES
FREE TRANSPORT FOR ALL
STRENGTH AND SOLIDARITY TO HUNGER STRIKERS, MEMBERS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY
STRUGGLE N.MAZIOTIS-POLA ROUPA

    

Vague Terminology To Stifle Dissent.

         The term "extremist" is a very wide and vague expression, and can mean all things to all people. The state loves that sort of ambiguous terminology, it allows it to swoop on any form of dissent and place it in the "extremist" file. They will link terrorism with extremism, and interchange between them. You call for dramatic change to the way society is organised, and you can find yourself in the "extremist" category, and by word association, linked to terrorism. Anarchist are increasingly being placed in the "extremist/terrorist" bracket allowing the state to come down with the full force of its loaded judicial system. In so doing it hopes to stifle all dissenting voices, and create a population of submissive, subservient citizens. 

This from Act For Freedom Now:

Naples, Italy – Repressive operation against FAI/FRI

         Naples prosecutor Catello Maresca, in charge of an investigation on subversive association linked to FAI/FRI, demanded that twenty anarchist comrades be arrested and the Centro Studi Libertari, the place of anarchist group Louise Michel, and the 76/A anarchist space to be shut down..
        As an investigating judge rejected the prosecutor’s demand, the latter has made appeal; this will be held on 14th December at the court of review in Naples.       

Anarchists from Naples.

via: croce nera anarchica

More On The State's Brain Washing Factories.

      Germany, Greece, Italy, Uruguay, UK, it makes no difference, the state's brain washing factories are busy trying to keep the lid on dissent, all using the same physical and psychological weapons against resistant individuals.  This latest update on the savage treatment of Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis, is just another display of the state's many acts of inhumane brutality. See, Savage Brutality Of The State, for previous report.

This from Contra Info:

        On December 5th 2017, Revolutionary Struggle members Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis were forcibly removed from Koridallos prisons (both were subjected to headlocks, holds, etc.) and were involuntarily admitted to the General State Hospital of Nikaia. The prison prosecutor pressed physicians to force-feed the two hunger strikers. The hospital doctors refused to treat the prisoners against their will, and solely reported that Nikos Maziotis has lost 14.6% of his initial body weight, while Pola Roupa has lost 12.8% of her initial body weight.
        On December 6th (on the 26th day of their hunger strike), Roupa and Maziotis were finally discharged from the hospital and returned to Koridallos prisons, determined to continue their hunger strike until their demands are met (among other things, they request extended visits with their six-year-old child).
      Maziotis was informed that he would be placed in a disciplinary segregation unit, until damages at B isolation section in the basement of Koridallos women’s prison are repaired. This means that the comrade is being punished for having completely destroyed the solitary confinement wing where he has been held for over 5 months, and is now facing appalling conditions, even worse than the previous ones.

The State's Brain Washing Factories.

 

      A large section of the public believe that prison is just a place where they lock-up "the bad people". A place where they are given meals, exercise, and access to books and TV, so they don't give it much thought. However, the truth is far removed from that naive illusion. Prisons are one tool in the state's armoury to create a submissive population. Once enmeshed in the judicial/prison system your every action will be dictated, rules and regulations will be used in an arbitrary manner to enforce your submission. The snake that is the judiciary system will slither hither and thither in a web of legislation to crush who you are, and attempt to create who they want you to be, a subservient digit in the general population, easily controlled and no threat to the establishment's power, wealth and privileges.The prison system is a series of brain washing factories, whose only function is to protect the established power structure, a structure of power and privilege for the few at the expense of the many. 

 This from Act For Freedom Now:

       21st of December we call to let the imagination flow and to express solidarity in its multiple forms. Once again we will show that our imprisoned comrades are not alone but present and on the streets with us.
        They want to raise even higher walls, not only of concrete and iron, but also of loneliness and isolation. And these walls we want to break down, with love, affection, rage and solidarity for our comrade Lisa.

You can send pictures and audiovisuals to solidaritatrebel@riseup.net

         Having received a sentence does not imply that the imprisoned person is “only” at the mercy of the prison system. The political and judicial machine of the State continues to investigate, observe, analyse, and decide over the fate of the imprisoned. Especially when the prisoner has not fallen to her knees asking for mercy in front of the court, has not humiliated herself by some kind of gesture seen by the enemy as “reconciliation”, the ways in which the justice system can demonstrate that they are not through with her yet are numerous. The refusal to cooperate with the police is considered proof of guilt and can be used to maintain the investigation open for an indefinite period of time. The silence and dignity in the face of the executioners and their accusations is considered concealment of the crime, and can generate new investigations.
       Furthermore, being socialised as a woman and not reproducing the assigned roles, in this case for example having a rebellious attitude or a non-submissive position towards the institution, generates multiple sentences which go beyond a conviction at a juridical level, since there is also the intervention of moral and social condemnations, inherent to the patriarchal framework, which ist framing prisoner to the circumstances of the imprisonment.
To continue expressing your political convictions and ideas from within the walls and not denying who you are is considered a lack of repentance and an argument for why a prison sentence does not suffice.
         And when the legal arsenal is exhausted in a “reasonable” sentence, that is, sufficiently heavy to accommodate the accusation, but the ethic of the imprisoned person stays intact, the justice system does not hesitate to attack the relations with the outside world, the family ties, sentimental bonds and friendships. Besides the concrete, the iron bars, the artificial lights and security cameras which not only cut off life but also suffocate it, they add mountains of paper which need to be traversed in order to obtain simple human contact with the people close to you. Requests, permissions, authorisations, postponements, which put the will to not feel defeated to the test.
         On the 7th of June Lisa, our anarchist comrade, was sentenced by the court of Aachen (Germany) to seven and a half years in prison for robbing a bank. At this moment we are awaiting the outcome of an appeal written by the lawyers which, if accepted, will involve a revision of the sentence and imply that the case will be brought to court again. Therefore our comrade is still held in preventive arrest in the prison of Cologne. Due to an illness which lasted various months, her mother died in the beginning of November. During this time, the prosecutor as well as the judge, alleging “flight risk”, have denied her the possibility to visit her mother in hospital and also the permission to be present at her funeral.
        The enemy does not only use juridical argumentation, but employs many more insidious mechanisms. Like in so many other cases, when the thirst for revenge of the justice system is not satisfied with a simple – however large it may be – prison sentence, the enemy continues to be hawk-eyed, searching for every supposed weakness of the prisoner in order to submit her. It is clear that this is a purely vengeful means, an answer to the comrade’s firm and non-collaborationist attitude. An additional punishment, invented to aggravate the already tough sentence of confinement; yet another attempt to make her bow down, this time aiming at her private life and personal circumstances. A logic, nothing new, of judicial blackmail with the aim of undermining her coherence and political convictions.
        They want to raise even higher walls, not only of concrete and iron, but also of loneliness and isolation. And these walls we want to break down, with love, affection, rage and solidarity for our comrade Lisa.

With hate for the enemy.
We do not forget. We do not forgive.

Some anarchist comrades

solidaritatrebel.noblogs.org

"---The Madness Of Men."

         The following is an article from The Tyee, thanks Loam for the link. I print the article in full, as don't think there is a more pressing problem than the survival of our species. We live in an infinitely varied and precarious environment that depends on balance for its survival, we ride roughshod over that finely balanced structure at our peril. The situation described in detail in the article is an indictment of the economic system under which we live. We have developed a system of perpetual economic growth, aimed at profit, with no thought to sustainability or the needs of our people. As humans we seem to have virtually unlimited capacity for self-delusion, and a cavalier attitude to self destruction. The rapid depletion of the planet's finite resources, both living and material, is having, and will continue to have, a disastrous effect on that delicate balance of the ecosystems of our planet, that is all the life that depends on that planet. Sadly, I believe that we will not address these problems as long as we cling to the economic system that is responsible for this impending disaster, namely capitalism. Until we understand that problem, the other problems will only be exacerbated by that greed driven exploitative economic system of capitalism. We would do well to remember, spaceship Earth has no escape capsule.

 

 

          A curious thing about H. sapiens is that we are clever enough to document — in exquisite detail — various trends that portend the collapse of modern civilization, yet not nearly smart enough to extricate ourselves from our self-induced predicament.
       This was underscored once again in October when scientists reported that flying insect populations in Germany have declined by an alarming 75 per cent in the past three decades accompanied, in the past dozen years, by a 15 per cent drop in bird populations. Trends are similar in other parts of Europe where data are available. Even in Canada, everything from casual windshield “surveys” to formal scientific assessments show a drop in insect numbers. Meanwhile, domestic populations of many insect-eating birds are in freefall. Ontario has lost half its whip-poor-wills in the past 20 years; across the nation, such species as nighthawks, swallows, martins and fly-catchers are down by up to 75 per cent; Greater Vancouver’s barn and bank swallows have plummeted by 98 per cent since 1970. Heard much about these things in the mainstream news?
       Too bad. Biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. It is caused by many individual but interacting factors — habitat loss, climate change, intensive pesticide use and various forms of industrial pollution, for example, suppress both insect and bird populations. But the overall driver is what an ecologist might call the “competitive displacement” of non-human life by the inexorable growth of the human enterprise.
        On a finite planet where millions of species share the same space and depend on the same finite products of photosynthesis, the continuous expansion of one species necessarily drives the contraction and extinction of others. (Politicians take note — there is always a conflict between human population/economic expansion and “protection of the environment.”)
       Remember the 40 to 60 million bison that used to roam the great plains of North America? They — along with the millions of deer, pronghorns, wolves and lesser beasts that once animated prairie ecosystems — have been “competitively displaced,” their habitats taken over by a much greater biomass of humans, cattle, pigs and sheep. And not just North Americans — Great Plains sunshine also supports millions of other people-with-livestock around world who depend, in part on North American grain, oil-seed, pulse and meat exports.
       Competitive displacement has been going on for a long time. Scientists estimate that at the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, H. sapiens comprised less than one per cent of the total weight of mammals on the planet. (There were probably only two to four million people on Earth at the time.) Since then, humans have grown to represent 35 per cent of a much larger total biomass; toss in domestic pets and livestock, and human domination of the world’s mammalian biomass rises to 98.5 per cent!
      One needs look no further to explain why wildlife populations globally have plunged by nearly 60 per cent in the past half century. Wild tigers have been driven from 93 per cent of their historic range and are down to fewer than 4,000 individuals globally; the population of African elephants has imploded by as much as 95 per cent to only 500,000 today; poaching drove black rhino numbers from an already much reduced 70,000 in 1960 to only 2,500 individuals in the early 1990s. (With intense conservation effort, they have since rebounded to about 5,000). And those who still think Canada is still a mostly pristine and under-populated wilderness should think again — half the wildlife species regularly monitored in this country are in decline, with an average population drop of 83 per cent since 1970. Did I mention that B.C.’s southern resident killer whale population is down to only 76 animals? That’s in part because human fishers have displaced the orcas from their favoured food, Chinook salmon, even as we simultaneously displace the salmon from their spawning streams through hydro dams, pollution and urbanization.
        The story is similar for familiar species everywhere and likely worse for non-charismatic fauna. Scientists estimate that the “modern” species extinction rate is 1,000 to as much as 10,000 times the natural background rate. The global economy is busily converting living nature into human bodies and domestic livestock largely unnoticed by our increasingly urban populations. Urbanization distances people psychologically as well as spatially from the ecosystems that support them.
        The human band-wagon may really have started rolling 10 millennia ago but the past two centuries of exponential growth greatly have accelerated the pace of change. It took all of human history — let’s say 200,000 years — for our population to reach one billion in the early 1800s, but only 200 years, 1/1000th as much time, to hit today’s 7.6 billion! Meanwhile, material demand on the planet has ballooned even more — global GDP has increased by over 100-fold since 1800; average per capita incomes by a factor of 13. (rising to 25-fold in the richest countries). Consumption has exploded accordingly — half the fossil fuels and many other resources ever used by humans have been consumed in just the past 40 years. (See graphs in: Steffen, W et al. 2015. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, page(s): 81-98.)
        Why does any of this matter, even to those who don’t really give a damn about nature per se? Apart from the moral stain associated with extinguishing thousands of other life-forms, there are purely selfish reasons to be concerned. For example, depending on climate zone, 78 per cent to 94 per cent of flowering plants, including many human food species, are pollinated by insects, birds and even bats. (Bats — also in trouble in many places — are the major or exclusive pollinators of 500 species in at least 67 families of plants.) As much as 35 per cent of the world’s crop production is more or less dependent on animal pollination, which ensures or increases the production of 87 leading food crops worldwide.
       But there is a deeper reason to fear the depletion and depopulation of nature. Absent life, planet earth is just an inconsequential wet rock with a poisonous atmosphere revolving pointlessly around an ordinary star on the outer fringes of an undistinguished galaxy. It is life itself, beginning with countless species of microbes, that gradually created the “environment” suitable for life on Earth as we know it. Biological processes are responsible for the life-friendly chemical balance of the oceans; photosynthetic bacteria and green plants have stocked and maintain Earth’s atmosphere with the oxygen necessary for the evolution of animals; the same photosynthesis gradually extracted billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in chalk, limestone and fossil fuel deposits, so that Earth’s average temperature (currently about 15 C) has remained for geological ages in the narrow range that makes water-based life possible, even as the sun has been warming (i.e. stable climate is partially a biological phenomenon.); countless species of bacteria, fungi and a veritable menagerie of micro-fauna continuously regenerate the soils that grow our food. (Unfortunately, depletion-by-agriculture is even faster — by some accounts we have only just over a half-century’s worth of arable soils left).
       In short, H. sapiens depends utterly on a rich diversity of life-forms to provide various life-support functions essential to the existence and continued survival of human civilization. With an unprecedented human-induced great global die-off well under way, what are the chances the functional integrity of the ecosphere will survive the next doubling of material consumption that everyone expects before mid-century?
       Here’s the thing: climate change is not the only shadow darkening humanity’s doorstep. While you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media, biodiversity loss arguably poses an equivalent existential threat to civilized existence. While we’re at it, let’s toss soil/landscape degradation, potential food or energy shortages and other resource limits into the mix. And if you think we’ll probably be able to “handle” four out of five such environmental problems, it doesn’t matter. The relevant version of Liebig’s Law states that any complex system dependent on several essential inputs can be taken down by that single factor in least supply (and we haven’t yet touched upon the additional risks posed by the geopolitical turmoil that would inevitably follow ecological destabilization). read more
       Which raises questions of more than mere academic interest. Why are we not collectively terrified or at least alarmed? If our best science suggests we are en route to systems collapse, why are collapse — and collapse avoidance — not the primary subjects of international political discourse? Why is the world community not engaged in vigorous debate of available initiatives and trans-national institutional mechanisms that could help restore equilibrium to the relationship between humans and the rest of nature?
      There are many policy options, from simple full-cost pricing and consumption taxes; through population initiatives and comprehensive planning for a steady-state economy; to general education for voluntary (and beneficial) lifestyle changes, all of which would enhance global society’s prospects for long-term survival. Unique human qualities, from high intelligence (e.g., reasoning from the evidence), through the capacity to plan ahead to moral consciousness, may well be equal to the task but lie dormant — there is little hint of political willingness to acknowledge the problem let alone elaborate genuine solutions (which the Paris climate accord is not).
         Bottom line? The world seems in denial of looming disaster; the “C” word remains unvoiced. Governments everywhere dismissed the 1992 scientists’ Warning to Humanity that “...a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided” and will similarly ignore the scientists’ “second notice." (Published on Nov. 13, this warning states that most negative trends identified 25 years earlier “are getting far worse.”) Despite cascading evidence and detailed analysis to the contrary, the world community trumpets “growth-is-us” as its contemporary holy grail. Even the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are fixed on economic expansion as the only hammer for every problematic nail. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases reach to at an all-time high, marine dead-zones proliferate, tropical forests fall and extinctions accelerate.
        Just what is going on here? The full explanation of this potentially fatal human enigma is no doubt complicated, but Herman Melville summed it up well enough in Moby Dick: “There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.”

First They Came For The Anarchists---

        Across the capitalist world the various states are clamping down on on the voices of dissent. In Italy, Greece, and else where, autonomous centres that have been squatted for years are being raid and the members arrested. In Germany the state apparatus closed down German Indymedia, and raided journalists' homes, it seems that free speech is only allowed if it doesn't want to change the system. The German state has gone a step further, and has raided an anarchist bookshop in Frankfurt and taken away posters. It is an on going battle between those who value and demand freedom, and the authoritarian institution of the state, which wants control and a submissive population.

        The state surely must feel vulnerable if it starts trying to prevent you from reading what you please, this is just one step away from burning books, which I am sure they would love to do, if the public would tolerate such actions. 

First they came for the Anarchists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Anarchist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the journalists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a journalist.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

           On Thursday November 30th, at around 4pm, a dozen plain clothes and uniformed policemen from the cantonal police entered the premises of anarchist bookshop Fermento, on Josefstrasse 102 in Zurich, armed with a search warrant. The alleged crime: “Public instigation to commit crimes and acts of violence”.
         As we have just learned, three policemen from the Criminal Investigation Department of the cantonal police already entered the bookshop ten days earlier. Then too using the same statement: the bookshop window would be an incitement to commit crimes and violence against businesses and individuals, to be seen in the context of the recent incendiary attacks against the construction of the PJZ [new palace of justice] and “Bässlergut” prison in Basel.
           All this did not happen completely unexpectedly. Only a couple of days before, a long background article published by Schweiz am Wochenende and taken up by the Aargauer Zeitung urged that something be done once and for all against these anarchists, boasting of having discovered what everyone in Zurich can see: our shop window.
           If the police acted on the impulse of Andreas Maurer’s piece – to call the journalist by his name – or if the latter had written under the pressure of someone else, we cannot know and do not care. The journalist’s role as cop has been openly demonstrated once again.
Let’s move on to the technical side:
         In the first search, only the posters hanging from the window inside the bookshop were removed. Clearly the agents in question were not sure which poster contained the criminal message, so they took them all. One of these was an invitation to support our bookshop, which at the end of February will have to give way to yet another branch of Migros. We learned of the posters’ removal in amazement.----

Read the full article HERE: 

100 Years Are Enough.

       December 6th. was the ninth anniversary of the cold blooded police murder of young 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos, outside a café in Exarchia, Athens, we must never forget. However, the 6th of December also marks another anniversary. This year 6th of December 2017, marks the centenary of the birth of the Finnish state. Like all states, it has not been a love affair between the established elite that grabbed power in that birth, and the people.  It has always been a struggle and sometimes a brutal and savage struggle between the people and those of the establishment who wish to hold on to their privileges and power.

      However, large sections of the country feel that 100 years are enough, and it is time for that deformed birth to be put to rest, and disappear into the dustbin of history.  

Workers Know Your History, Frank Little.

         To some 100 years seems a long time, but when you are approaching 84, it doesn't seem that far back. It was 100 years ago in 1917, that Frank Little was brutally murder, by what was probably collusion between the American mine owners and the US state. Frank's crime, he stood steadfast in organising and supporting striking miners, and was out spoken against America's entry to WW1. He advocated that the people of America should fight capitalism, not German workers. His life is an example of just how vicious the system of capitalism is, and how the state will always come down on the side of big business against the desires and aspirations of the ordinary people.

This extract is from Freedom Socialist, Voice of Revolutionary Feminism:

        Legendary labor leader Frank Little was assassinated 100 years ago to stop him from doing what he did best – organize workers. His life was defined by an unshakable conviction that you had to fight tooth and nail for the working class.
      Little was a child when his parents joined thousands who jumped at the chance of grabbing 160 acres in the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush. An extended drought, coupled with a global economic crisis, made keeping a family farm difficult to impossible for many. As the Populist Party wrote in its 1892 Omaha Platform, “The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few. ... From the … prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two great classes — tramps and millionaires.”
       By the time Little was twenty, he abandoned farming and followed his brother Walter to California where they mined for a living. Little discovered mine owners had only one objective — the acquisition of excessive profits in any way possible. They paid miserable wages. They spared every expense that might have made this work safer. They overworked the miners, squeezing out every last ounce of blood and sweat.

       Learning the hard way that capitalism was brutal, vicious and unforgiving, he threw himself into organising against this callous savage system. He paid dearly for his dedication to his class, the ordinary people, suffering beatings and eventual a horrible sadistic brutal death.

       His last days. In 1917, Frank Little travelled to Butte, Mont., to help the miners striking against the powerful Anaconda Mining Corporation. Tensions were high. Miners were waging a militant strike, furious about the recent Speculator Mine fire that killed 168 men. Additionally, the Russian Revolution, along with the U.S. entry into World War I that same year, had prompted a ferocious pro-war, anti-communist campaign by the U.S. government and big business.
       Though crippled as the result of a vicious attack in Texas, Little vigorously supported the Butte miners and continued to speak out against U.S. workers joining the war effort. He urged workers to “fight the capitalists but not the Germans.” On the night of Aug. 1, six men kidnapped him from his boarding house room. They roped him to the bumper of their car, dragged him across cobblestone streets and then hanged him above the railroad tracks with a note pinned to his chest, “First and last warning.” No one was ever convicted of this heinous crime.
        On Aug. 8, 1917, one week after his murder, ten thousand people filled the streets of Butte for Montana’s largest funeral procession in history. They knew who was on their side, who had put his life on the line. The city fathers forced mourners to carry the U.S. flag in the procession. But once away from the city, the flag disappeared, leaving only the IWW banner to honor this brave Wobbly’s life. On his tombstone is carved, “Slain by Capitalist Interests for Organizing and Inspiring His Fellow Men.”

Read the full article HERE: 

 
   

Disabled Workers Responsible For Sluggish Economy!!!!

         Doesn't it get right up your nose, how our political ballerinas sitting in their plush offices, banking their fat salaries, and other little earners, not open to the rest of us, can without a blush of shame, blame the disabled for our "sluggish" economy? What these greedy parasites refuse to admit, is that every nut and bolt produced, every office cleaned, every lorry driven, every car that rolls of the assembly line, is there by the efforts of the ordinary people, is what produces the wealth of this country, and pays their fat salaries for sitting on their arses criticising the disabled. "Sluggish" economy is just another way of saying that our army of over paid CEOs want us to work harder for less, so that we can make their business able to compete with the sweatshops across the globe, allowing them to stuff more of their bank accounts into lucrative off-shore tax havens.

      Another fact that they are blind to, or wish to conceal, is that far from being responsible for our "sluggish" economy, the workers, disabled and otherwise, are carrying them and the rest of the parasites on their backs, perhaps that might have something to do with our "sluggish" economy. 

        We don't need the Hammonds and the rest of his parasite army, we are capable of producing enough for everybody, it is just a matter of distribution. We allow far, far too much of what we produce to go the greedy, surplus to requirements, CEOs and political ballerinas. If we sort that out by getting rid of capitalism, we will not need to worry about our "sluggish" economy, there will be plenty for us all.

Guardian News

Published on Dec 7, 2017

    The chancellor appears in front of the Treasury select committee to answer questions on the November budget and says 'high levels of engagement in the workforce, for example of disabled people' may be one of the factors keeping down UK productivity levels