Our Dear Green Place.

 

        The ever decreasing green places in our city is a frightening prospect. A city with little or no green parks is a concrete desert. Even those places that are still green and pleasant within our city are under attack, because of the continual renting them out to commercial interests. This is not what these green and pleasant spaces were created for, they were not created to make profits for commercial concerns, they were spaces for our citizens to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. Places within our city for kids to run free and safe, for people to walk in peace, to relax, for safe open air leisure, for an escape form the concrete and traffic. Without them our lives are diminished, impoverished, and our kids are deprived of that essential in growing up, the ability to run, play and relax in pleasant and safe surroundings.

 

My local Springburn Public Park

        These paces must be protected and preserved for our leisure and pleasure, not as opportunities for the commercial world to cream off ever greater profits.

     An appeal from my Friend Bob, but also from my heart.

    Two events concerning the commercialisation of green space and what we can do about it

A discussion (Thursday 13th Dec)

       Each summer the volume of paid events occupying our parks is expanding. The disruption to ordinary park users who see the park as an escape from the chaos and consumerism of daily life is worsening. Many park users see these disruptions to their enjoyment of using and living round the park as out of sync with what the park is there for.
      We will be discussing these and other park and green space issues and some that that are also enjoyable and more conducive to park use – and that could help to stop the use of our parks for commercial profiteering.

Speakers to be confirmed.

A workshop (Sunday 16th Dec)

The workshop will be around. How to find out things about parks, greens pace, commons and how to use the “Community Empowerment Act”. The general public need to be heard in this conversation in protecting community assets. We will be looking at the various, forums, assemblies and mechanisms, that could help to enable groups as well as individuals to take part in this important dialogue.

PUBLIC DISCUSSION

Thursday 13 December 7:00
Kinning Park Complex. (For food 6:00)

WORKSHOP

Sunday 16 December 3:00 (Soft & hot drinks)
Kinning Park Complex.

Please forward to interested.

More info: inthecommongood.org

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

Disturbing Public Peace.

 The Local Kids, is a publication that describes itself as, a compilation of texts, a contribution to a correspondence between those who desire anarchy and subversion. It is certainly filled with interesting articles on a variety of subjects.

    All of the articles are worth a read, this particular short article is from issue No.2:

Disturbing Public Peace

First pronounced in a courtroom in Berlin, 8th ofAugust 2018

       For me, the court, this building of authority, is not a meaningful setting for anarchist and revolutionary confrontation with domination. The struggles for a world without exploiters and exploited take place in everyday life and on the streets. A trial is an imposed snapshot that seeks to weaken current and past struggles and to deprive them of their fellow combatants.
      In a way, however, I involve myself with this juridical spectacle by sitting in the dock today. I could have simply paid the fixed fine to avoid this trial. But to pay for what? I am here today to create a certain publicity that should show that state repression can be counteracted by combative deeds.
       Therefore, it is not my intention to negotiate with the prosecutor and to enter into the discourse of innocence or guilt. It is perfectly clear to me that if I am convicted - as in principle is true for all accused - I will be convicted as an example, to deter others from committing the reproached deeds. I doubt that in this case the intent of overall repression and oppression will have an effect, because I do not feel attacked as a person, but mainly for my idea of a human coexistence without any domination. But this idea does not solely belong to me. Thousands of comrades showed this clearly in July 2017 in Hamburg - among other dates - where for a brief moment state control has failed altogether, despite massive security measures. During this moment, the will to create a rupture with the existing order has moved and inspired many people to act in solidarity.
       That today a public prosecutor will judge me, is to me an admission of the vulnerability of the state. In that sense, I'm certainly not the one who is justiying himself with this trial and judgment, but you: who must defend your blood-soaked power and submission to the state and capital!
       Because of my views, I certainly do not insist on the right to freedom of expression, because the language of the law is not mine. Accordingly, I expect and demand nothing from this court and its servants, because as I have already said: the struggles for a liberated society and against the existing order will be fought elsewhere

Autumn 2018.

Read issue 2 PDF, A4.      Print issue 2 PDF, A3.

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

History Should Teach Us Something??

      I came across this little piece I penned at the start of the illegal invasion of Iraq, for the paper I produced, "The Anarchist Critic". Since then the imperialist slaughter has washed across Libya and Syria with Iran in the cross-hairs. At the time it was difficult to drink in the horror and terror inflicted on the ordinary people of Iraq by the Western imperialist's callous and brutal "Shock and Awe", a deliberate action of savagery unleashed on the innocent, children, elderly and infirm. All because one man and his team wouldn't play ball with the Western imperialists. Since then the faces of the figureheads of Western imperialism have changed, but the policy is still the same. We have seen the faces of Bush, Clinton, Blair and Cameron come and go, we now have the Trump and May duo, but that's all that has changed, the brutal imperialist bloodshed continues unabated.

     When will it finally sink in, that voting to change the faces of these figureheads, these puppets of corporate imperialism, will change nothing. They say that doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result, is one of the first signs of insanity, is that where we are at now?

From 2003:

IF THEY WERE COMEDIANS WE COULD LAUGH AT THEM.

         However, these two arrogant Christian fundamentalists nutters are for real. Their brutal Afghanistan and Iraq bloodbaths have turned the world into a nightmare, a breeding ground for other fundamentalist nutters to pursue their "God given" dogmatic beliefs. The number of innocent civilian deaths cannot be justifies on the banner of "A good cause". The impoverished country of Afghanistan has been returned to the stone age where 5% have access to fresh water, 25% of all children are dead by the age of five, 400 a month are blown up by land mines and civil war festers just below the surface. Conservative estimates put the civilian deaths in Iraq, since the illegal invasion at 15,000 and still rising. Coalition aggressors deaths nearing the 1,000 mark and an estimated 8,000 US soldiers injured. Economically the costs of this brutal, illegal Iraq adventure are put at $100 billion, (tax payers money of course) and most agree that this is a grossly under estimated figure. Iraq's infrastructure is in tatter and once again it is the innocent civilians and their children that have to try to survive in this Bush/Blair disaster.

         Getting rid of the Bush/Blair "God disciple duo" is not the answer, they are merely the selected strong-arm war lords of the corporate world, doing its bidding, (with a little help from God). They would be replaced with a different personality but the same brutal agenda would still be pursued. We have to crush the system that welds the state apparatus and corporate power into a brutal force that controls the worlds resources. We have to bring all the world's resources under the control of the ordinary people. The state and its repressive apparatus must be dismantled, multi-national corporations taken over by those who work in them and moulded to the benefit of all, a new society created, one that is based on free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. Tomorrow must belong to us the ordinary people or there is no tomorrow.

                                                                                              ann arky.

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

Gaza, The Israeli State's Extermination Camp.

       Gaza, it can no longer be called an open prison, it has now been changed, by the Israeli government, into an extermination camp. Deaths and maiming are a daily occurrence, and those whose bodies have not been ravaged by Israeli sniper fire, live a life of utter deprivation, with suicides increasing at an alarming rate. All of this is by deliberate government policy, with the results being well known to the vicious racist state of Israel and the rest of the so called civilised states.

     If a so called civilised world can stand by and see this happening, and not only do nothing, but continue to arm and support the responsible state, then they are complicit in this mass murder and maiming, just as if the had their troops involved in this barbaric state genocide.

     Gaza, a strip of land approximately seven miles by two at its widest part, is home to over 2 million Palestinians. They are penned in by the Israeli military, penned in under appalling conditions of over crowding, poverty and deprivation, with electricity just a few hours a day, a shortage of clean water, no work, a health service that depends on the Israeli authorities allowing medical volunteers through their strict check points. 

      In this small over crowded strip of land, since March this year, 220 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli military, more than 24,000 causalities, more than 5,000 shot with high velocity gunfire, hundreds of them requiring amputation.

      You will search hard to find another small strip of the planet where so many human beings are being systematically brutalised and exterminated by deliberate state policy, and we see the cabal of Western states turn their backs and look the other way, in the name of "security" and profit.
       A must read article that goes some way to highlighting this 21st. century state genocide, from the Independent,

‘Will he lose his leg?’: Thousands of Gaza protesters facing life-altering injuries from Israeli high velocity bullets

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Remembrance Day, Who And What To Remember?

 

      Remembrance Day is here, and as usual it will be filled with so much pomp and ceremony, so much false narratives, and distorted history, that the truth will lie buried with those millions of ordinary people who died in some of the most horrifying circumstances imaginable. From the Somme to Hiroshima, the deaths will never be remembered as battles for supremacy between opposing power mongers, each seeking to bolster their own particular hold on power. It will always be honoured as noble, just, and necessary, in an attempt to make war "clean", "moral" and "righteous", so that it can be used again and again, as the various power mongers defend and bolster their own particular power block for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Through the fog of lies we should be more selective in who and what we remember.

      On this Remembrance day perhaps we should reflect on the words uttered by a German soldier, from the novel "All Quiet on the Western front",

       “But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony – forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”

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Rebellious Working Class Ended WW1.

        When it comes to WW1, most people in UK think it ended in victory for the "allies", the word "armistice" doesn't seem to register. What really brought an end to that particular imperialist bloodbath, was the collapse of discipline. Mutiny and rebellion were breaking out everywhere, troops had had enough, orders were ignored, officers were ridiculed, and the various states were anxious as to their survival. It was a class thing that finally put a nail in that particular psychopathic imperialist endeavour. 

       The following is an excellent article on libcom, posted by Jared, well worth reading in full, as we head into the hypocritical pomp and ceremony of establishment's charade of caring, that will be on display in the next few days. That babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, will wallpaper our lives with banal, patriotic jingoism and empty rhetoric, which we are supposed to swallow. Those who engineer and benefit from wars, will take the stand with bowed heads, who knows, perhaps thinking of the next great plunder and how they can get away with it all.

       I make no excuse for posting this in full, it should be writ large in the minds of this generation, as we stand looking at bloody war after bloody war, with the high possibility of even more devastating conflicts looming.

Some images of WW1 mutinies.

From libcom:

The untold history of armistice 

and the end of World War I
         ‘The best antidote to ideology is detail,’ writes Paul Mason. And the detail that’s missing this Armistice Day is that working people, when they take power into their own hands, can end whatever catastrophe is imposed on them.
        In 1918, after four years of slaughter, deprivation and hardship, the Central Powers of Austro-Hungary and Germany were rocked by strikes and mutinies. In February, a naval mutiny broke out at Kotor and sailors shot their officers; by October, the Austro-Hungarian army had collapsed from mass desertions and political upheaval. Soon afterwards a mutiny by German sailors at Kiel merged with other uprisings and quickly escalated into a full-scale rebellion against the imperial state, sparking the abdication of the German Kaiser and the proclamation of a workers’ republic on 9 November 1918.
       Preferring peace to full-scale revolution, an armistice with the Allied powers was signed two days later, on 11 November 1918. Working-class revolt had helped to end the First World War.
      Not that you’d know this from New Zealand’s centennial commemoration of armistice Day, Armistice 100. People across the country will take part in a number of sanitised official events, from joining the ‘roaring chorus’ to texting the Armistice Beacon. They’re unlikely to learn much about the strikes, mutinies and resistance from below that toppled both generals and governments.
      I’ve searched the program resources in vain for any reference to how and why armistice came about. Among messages of peace and the standard script of sacrifice and loss, there is a notable silence when it comes to the masses of working men and women who contributed to the war’s end. Instead, peace seems to fall upon the war like a happy sun-shower. The surrenders of the various Central Powers seem to just … happen.
       Why is there such a gap in the historical narrative? Surely it is not for lack of time or information. We’ve had four years of commemoration and some big spends to go with them (although not as much as Australia, whose $1.1bn dwarfs the $31m spent in New Zealand). It’s not as if the date crept up on us.
      Perhaps I’m being far too critical of the Armistice 100 program and the small pool of public historians working on WW100-related events. After all, I’ve been one of them, although if I’m honest, the feature on censorship and its marginal references to dissent during the First World War was possibly too little, too late.
      It would be wrong to see this glaring omission as some devilish scheme designed to serve the interests of capital and the state. There’s no conspiracy at play here. Instead, official historians are often hamstrung by codes of conduct and the mythical stance of neutrality, or by what is or isn’t palatable to their managers and their manager’s managers. Histories of social revolution, radical ideas, and the agency of everyday, working-class people are hardly the thing of monthly reports or ministerial press releases. And despite the big-ticket items of commemoration, the long, hard slog of quality, in-depth research is like the work of any modern workplace – of trying to do more with less.
       Perhaps, too, there’s something in the turn away from class as a framework of analysis – that is, if class was ever a frame of analysis in the first place (we have, after all, had numerous historians tell us that New Zealand was a classless society, free of a bourgeoisie and proletariat). As Paul Mason notes, ‘the termination of war by working-class action fits uneasily at a deeper level: for most of history the existence of a workforce with its own consciousness and organisations is an afterthought, or an anomaly.’ Instead of exploring the final months of the war through the experience of class or capitalist social relations, we have instead been fed a discourse that historian Charlotte Macdonald believes ‘has come to be strongly characterised by rather too neatly drawn themes of consensual patriotism, duty and sacrifice.’
      Yet if we centre class, and class conflict, in our reading of armistice, the history it reveals is somewhat different to the official account on offer.
       A few examples will suffice. On 16 October 1918, 14 men of the 1 New Zealand (Divisional) Employment Company were charged with mutiny after ‘combining together not to work in the NZ DIV laundry when it was their duty to do so.’ The men, most of whom were labourers, were all sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour for their collective work-refusal. That their sentences were later remitted does not negate their struggle.
       Three days after armistice, on 14 November 1918, a riotous throng of men from the New Zealand Division gathered in the town square of Beauvois, France. Monty Ingram, a bank clerk from Whakatāne, recorded the event in his diary. ‘A great gathering of troops were harangued by a chap in the Dinks, who, standing on a box in true labour agitator style’ called on the military authorities to send them home. After a Padre was physically prevented from speaking and a staff officer was howled into silence, the men, now in their thousands, marched on Division Headquarters ‘and swarmed over the place like bees around a honeycomb.’ When Major General Andrew Russell finally appeared in the doorway, he was ‘badly heckled by all sorts of interjections thrown at him and by being called all the b-b-b’s under the sun.’ Russell’s speech fell on deaf ears. Instead, the crowd ordered their general to get in touch with the War Office and cancel any orders sending them to Germany. According to Christopher Pugsley, appeals to the honour of the Division and the threat of dire punishment prevented further action. Still, Russell recorded in his diary: ‘must watch for Bolshevism.’
      This temporary levelling of rank was triggered by frustrations about demobilisation, but class was ever present. As Dave Lamb notes, the widespread mutinies across the Allied forces broke out too soon after armistice for delay in demobilisation to be the sole cause. ‘Antagonism towards officers, hatred of arbitrary discipline, and a revolt against bad conditions and uncertainty about the prospect of being sent to Russia all combined with the delay, confusion and uncertainty about demobilisation.’
        Observed William Wilson, a farmer: ‘Codford [Camp] the last few weeks has been unbearable, discipline has gone to the pack and the troops don’t care a damn for officers and NCOs.’ Strikes by British dockers and seamen caused further delays, and further examples of direct action. There was conflict in Bulford and Sling camps, where New Zealand troops were charged with ‘endeavouring to persuade persons to mutiny’ and sentenced to hard labour. And on the transport ships home, unpopular officers found themselves victim to collective justice. In these moments, when the soldiers took power into their own hands, the generals were powerless to act.
       Back in New Zealand, the sudden end to the war, coupled with the influenza pandemic, also tested the home front military command and their ability to enforce discipline. Two weeks after armistice, the Chief of General Staff, Colonel Charles Gibbon, found himself rushing to Featherston Military Camp, where the troops were mutinous. 5000 men had staged a ‘violent’ demonstration in front of camp headquarters and presented a list of demands to the commandant. Gibbon and Defence Minister James Allen endured a stormy confrontation with the men’s delegates. In the face of mass protest, Gibbon and Allen gave in to some of the soldiers’ demands around demobilisation. By December, the recruits were marching out of Featherston at the rapid rate of 500 a day.
      The militant self-activity of working people – whether they were soldiers, industrial workers, or both – was a deeply entrenched concern for the New Zealand government. The upheavals of 1918, home and abroad, fed into a developing ‘red scare’. By 1919, red scare rhetoric came to dominate the public sphere. Prime Minister William Massey urged his Reform Party faithful to ‘secure good men to stem the tide of Anarchy and Bolshevism’. Allen believed ‘there was so much lawlessness in the country that the only thing that could save [it] from going to damnation was the drill sergeant.’
      Wartime regulations were extended into peacetime. The power to deport undesirables was legislated in 1919. Distributing revolutionary books or pamphlets remained seditious. And now that soldiers trained in killing had returned to their jobs and their pay disputes, firearm acts were passed allowing the state to clamp down on whole working-class neighbourhoods.
     Fear of working-class resistance strengthened the apparatus of state surveillance. Meetings of radicals were secretly attended by police and fortnightly reports were sent to Police Headquarters. Detectives in each district systemised this work by compiling an index of individuals who had ‘extreme revolutionary socialistic or IWW ideas’. This signaled the formation of New Zealand’s first ‘Special’ Branch and laid the groundwork for all future spy agencies in New Zealand. The unrest unleashed in the final months of the war directly influenced the monitoring of dissent in New Zealand for years to come.
       This is a small taste of the untold history of armistice and the end of the First World War. Instead of learning about it, the turbulent events leading up to and after armistice are turned into joyous celebration. Cloaked in the language of peace, Armistice Day becomes an official exercise in justifying the insane loss of life.
      We might even be tempted to see Armistice 100 as an example of what Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and scholar Viet Thanh Nguyen calls the ‘industrialisation of memory’. In his book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Nguyen also examines the ‘memory industry’ – the museums we take our children to visit, the sculptured grounds of Pukeahu National War Memorial, the Armistice Day parades at sunset. For Nguyen, at the root of this industry is the industrialisation of memory.
Quote:
      Industrialising memory proceeds in parallel with how warfare is industrialised as part and parcel of capitalist society, where the actual firepower exercised in a war is matched by the firepower of memory that defines and refines that war’s identity.
        In other words, memory and the memory industry are weaponised. And while the memory industry produces kitsch, sentimentality, and spectacle, the industrialisation of memory ‘exploits memory as a strategic resource’.
        It is how bodies are produced for current and future wars.

        ‘The best antidote to ideology is detail,’ writes Paul Mason. And the detail that’s missing this Armistice Day is that working people, when they take power into their own hands, can end whatever catastrophe is imposed on them.
        First published by Overland Literary Journal. Jared Davidson is a labour historian and archivist based in Wellington, New Zealand. His forthcoming book, Dead Letters: Censorship and subversion in New Zealand 1914–1920 is out March 2019

Posted By Jared
Nov 10 2018 04:20

 

Publish And Be Damned.

         You believe strongly in justice for all, equality of opportunity, freedom as a basic right, you are vehemently anti-exploitation, anti-war. You sit at your computer writing up leaflets, flyers and texts, to distribute to all and sundry, hoping to influence them to change society towards these ideals. However, are they legal? For the word legal, substitute, "controlled". The state lives by control, if what you are doing is not controlled, you will be deemed a threat, and no doubt, appropriate action can and will be taken. In this society, freedom extends only as far as you are subservient, and you make no attempt to change the structure of the power arrangements within this society.

 

          This from leccoriot, translated for Act For Freedom Now:

 IF EVEN PUBLISHING IS CLANDESTINE ACTIVITY…

          On 7th July a comrade was stopped in Lecco station by the Railway Police. After searching him and examining the books and pamphlets he was carrying, the police decided to raid his home and that of his parents on the pretext that they had found ‘La salute è in voi’ [Health is within you] among the books, a manual for lovers of direct action edited in 1906 and recently reprinted by some comrades. 
        Following the searches more anarchist printed material was seized as it had been printed illegally, and the comrade was charged with ‘clandestine printing’. To this charge another was added, that of ‘insulting the armed forces’, because of a poster where the Alpini [Alpine Troops] were specifically attacked in a proposal for a debate.
         Unfortunately this episode is not an isolated one and raises several points for us to think about.
           First of all it reintroduces the charge of clandestine press from out of the armoury of repression. Although claiming the publishing and distribution of material outside the rules imposed by the market (and the State) would be superfluous, it might be useful to dwell on the potential of this repressive instrument for a moment.
         In fact, in any documentation centre or squat there are dozens of texts that have been ‘freely’ published without any authorization or copyright; all this material could end up being locked away in police station store rooms.

What to do in the face of this?

         Without even considering the question of legalization, which, if it were possible, would allow books and pamphlets to continue to circulate without any legal consequences, one preventive response to future repressive crusades in the name of clandestine printing could be to open up a debate on the significance of ‘free’ publishing, its potentialities, perspectives and difficulties.

The charge of ‘contempt for the armed forces’ also deserves a mention.

          Certainly not because of the penal question in itself, which is minimal, but rather for comrades to think about. Attacking the armed forces directly, whichever way one prefers, should be a good habit not to be lost in our opinion. Especially as some of these forces, the Alpini for example, disguise themselves as pacifist entities that are beneficial to the community and, thanks to their fake folkloristic character, their nationalist, racist and sexist aspects are passed on unsuspectingly. Hence the decision to unmask them explicitly and openly criticize them in any situation whatsoever, no matter who their interlocutor, so as to tear away the veil of ambiguity that lets them move around freely. 
         May there be contempt! This could be a good starting point for looking beyond the single atrocities perpetrated by Alpini, police and carabinieri, and finally getting to the root of the problem. That is to say the State’s need to increase its repressive or preventive apparatuses, the existence of the armed forces as functional to maintaining the status quo. And no less important, especially in these ominous times, the increasing push for every ‘good citizen’ to become police informers, blindly obedient with an acritical respect for the law seen as absolute truth, characteristics that are undeniably linked to the militarist ideology.
          Certain that their intimidations won’t have any effect, we need to build as many occasions as possible so that words printed in black and white cut through our pages and come out into the open, expressing a radical critique that can’t be recuperated by the democratic yoke.
          To bring alive the tension against all authority, against assassins, minions of power and the indifferent, increasingly accomplice to everyday atrocities.

Centro di documentazione anarchico l’Arrotino [Anarchist resource centre l’Arrotino]

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

Artists In Solidarity.

       Spirit of Revolt's next big event is a special one, in conjunction with thi wurd. It is formed round an event that took place in 1984, in support of the miners strike, by Artists-in-Solidarity, and was called "Writers for Miners". It took place in what was then The Third Eye Centre, now the CCA, Centre for Contemporary Art. It involved a considerable number of well know singers, song writers, musicians, writers and poets, some who sadly are no longer with us. The audio files of the event survived and with the effort of writer James Kelman, the surviving members have been contacted and agreed to have the files made into a CD and use it as a fund raiser for Spirit of Revolt. most of those involved in the original event and who are still doing there thing, have agreed to come and perform on the night of the CD launch. The CD has 21 tracks, and no matter your interest, I'm sure you will recognise most of the artists.

       This will be an opportunity to come and enjoy a rich and varied event with some of the best know musicians/artist/writers/poets from our area. The words of some of the poets who are no longer with us, will be read by members of thi wurd.

        It will be held in:

     Mono, Kings Court, Glasgow, on November 28th. 2018.

 

 

All funds raised will go to support Spirit of Revolt, archives of dissent.

Music Poetry and Politics! 
A collaboration between thi wurd, Artists-in-Soidarity and Spirit of Revolt.

Including: 
James Kelman
Paula Larkin
Tom Leonard
Liz Lochead
Ewan McVicar
Alan McMunigall
Aonghas MacNeacail
Peter Nardini
Nancy Nicolson
Rab Noakes
Donald Saunders
Gerda Stephenson
Allan Tall
Scottish Solidarity with Kurdistan

Stalls:   IWW,  Spirit of Revolt,  thi wurd.

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

Spirit of Revolt's Conscientious Objectors.

       To all those who were unfortunate enough to miss Spirit of Revolt's Show and Tell event on Conscientious Objectors, held in the Mitchell Library, here is your chance to catch up. The event is now up on film on Spirit of Revolt's NEWS section. Thanks Bob for the film.

      From Spirit of Revolt, enjoy:

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There Is Only So Much Bullshit We Will Take.

      I didn't get any of this from any of the tributaries of that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, you have to look elsewhere for any real news. How long before the rest of the country decides it has had enough of the bullshit fed to them from our political ballerinas via the bullshit propaganda machine called the "media"?

This from Act For Freedom Now:

Report from events outside the New Cross Assembly

     What we saw last night 6.11.18 was real people power in action, as people continue to fight against the destruction of Tidemill community wildlife garden in Deptford and the eviction of the adjacent flats at Reginald House. This follows last week’s eviction of the Tidemill occuption by hordes of cops and bailiffs, which was strongly resisted throughout the day. The area now remains a fortified zone, permanently surrounded by dozens of bailiffs.
      At 7pm on Tuesday evening, around 40 people, furious about the planned destruction of yet another green space & eviction of yet more council flats, gathered to protest at the Lewisham Mayor and councillors who were due to speak at the New Cross Assembly. Despite there being plenty of empty seats in the room, us common riff-raff were shut out and prevented from participating in their ‘democratic processes’.
       So instead we made our feelings heard from the outside, banging on the gates and makeshift drums and eventually making it right up close to the half-open windows, through which cries of “stop demolition”, “careerist parasites!” and “no one believes your lies!”, and plenty of cheers of support for the angry locals inside the event were expressed.
      Councillor Joe Dromey, a particularly smug-faced, upper-class advocate of the destruction (and son of Harriet Harman no less) was the first politico to leave the event. As he did so, he was mobbed by the fiery crowd. He couldn’t face his constituents and eventually opted to be bungled into a police van to drive him home.
      Meanwhile, Lewisham Mayor Damien Egan’s attempts to make a quiet getaway were foiled, as the crowd spotted him and encircled his car. Some people lay passively in the road while others stood around the car. The message was made very clear to the young mayor: drop the development, hands off tidemill. The cops waded in and, without giving any formal warnings to leave, set about dragging people out the road and violently chucking people about left right and centre. Several of them appeared completely unhinged, charging and punching people in the face.
      For about 5-10 minutes, the mayor’s car was unable to leave its parking space as the scuffles with the cops continued. Eventually, enough violence was used by the police to clear the path, enabling the mayor and his colleague to begin driving slowly through the backstreets of Deptford. But at every turn, brave and passionate people with little concern for their own safety, got back into the road, or tried to make barricades with bins. This was it: Tidemill had become a symbol of every dodgy development project in the area, of lie after lie by self-serving and patronising local politicians, of destruction of our neighbourhood and the environment. People really have had enough.
       To get the car through, the police had to bring in heavy reinforcements and dogs. Met police Commissioner Cressida Dick even made her way down by the end of it and was sighted talking to the chief cop on the scene. At one point, crazed skinhead cop #1393 inexplicably made a beeline for a harmless and entirely peaceful young brown man who was walking alone about 10 metres ahead. This psychopath threw himself on this poor lad, chucked him to the floor and proceeded to asphixiate the totally passive guy, digging his thumbs into pressure-points on his neck so that his face was rammed up against the concrete, and knelt on his knee for extra measure. It looked like he was going to kill the guy, and the many people who witnessed it said so. Given that there were lots of people who had been much closer to Egan’s car, this was yet another overt case of pure racism, premeditated assault, and outright police brutality. This took people’s attention away from Egan’s car which was then able to get away onto New Cross Road at around 10pm. The poor guy was arrested and taken to Lewisham police station, where a group went to support him.
      The racist assault & arrest by the cops aside, the night was a really promising one. It was fantastic to see impassioned people taking to the streets again, uncompromisingly defending our neighbourhood from corporate parasites, fighting ecocidal destruction, and refusing to play to their silly game of ineffectual quiet protest.
      Later that night, Councillors Joe Dromey and Paul Bell pulled out the inevitable tired old tropes of ‘legitimate’ vs. ‘illegitimate’ protestors, masked vs. unmasked, young vs. old, ‘native residents’ vs. interlopers, poor vs. middle class & respectable -i.e. those naive enough to continue to play along with their sham consultations and faux democratic processes.
      No-one but your suited cronies buy it. We’ve gone right through the petitions, the utterly futile ‘debate’ in your forums, the legal processes and the passive protests. And Lewisham Council has run roughshod over all of them.

There’s only so much bullshit that people will take.

SUSTAIN THE RESISTANCE!

DO NOT LET THE POLITICIANS DIVIDE US!

NO HOMES ON A DEAD PLANET!!!

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We Live To Tread On Kings.

  

     Spreading anarchist ideas is obviously the way to  get them picked up by the public at large. The more we make them available the more we will see the general public engage with those ideas. Like the corporate world says, "It pays to advertise". With Stuart Christie giving us The Anarchist Film Archive, this can be enriched by such sites as The Anarchist Library, and now a revamped site that list anarchist texts for printing and distributing, Library Anarhija, well worth a visit. Then of course, at a more local level we have an archive here in Glasgow gathering and preserving the history of the struggles of the ordinary people of the city and the Clydeside area, Spirit of Revolt. We learn from our history.

      All wonderful resources that we should use extensively in our attempt to raise awareness of the rich possibilities of anarchist ideas.

      Of course there are many, many more, such resources, and we should use them freely, however, never forgetting the need for positive action in our communities, our workplaces and our streets.  

A text from Library Anarhija: 

We Live To Tread On Kings.

‘O gentlemen, the time of life is short;…
And if we live, we live to tread on kings;’ 

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UK, Third World Country!!

          Further to my article regarding the "End Of Austerity" some very interesting and devastating  series of facts in this link from Comrade Loam. It lays bare the facts of how we in the UK have seen our standard of living deteriorate further in relation to inequality within the country than any other country in Europe. As far as inequality goes we look more like a third world country than a so called rich developed country.

Thanks Loam for the link:

      "...purchasing power parity poorest people in the United Kingdom in the year 2000 are poorer than any other nation in 2010 some of the poorest 10% of the population have an income on the scale which the OECD create and I should explain this a little better to you the OECD study creates a scale and inequality scale in the year 2000 in the United Kingdom the poorest 10% of the population had an income which which gave them 60 points on the OECD scale the top 10% of the population of the United Kingdom in the year 2000 had an annual income at 845 points on the same scale 60 at the bottom 845 at the top Germany is the country in the study which comes closest to the United Kingdom at the bottom end of the scale poorest people in Germany are at around 60 points in the scale as well but the richest 10% of the German population have a score at the other end of the scale lot of 845 but just above 300 and that's the closest of any country in the whole survey including the United States so that's in the year 2000 15 years later and uniquely in the survey poorest people in the United Kingdom are poorer than they were in the year 2000 and there is no other country in the survey at all where 15 years later people have fallen further back than they were 10 years earlier at the top of the scale in the United Kingdom the richest people have moved from 845 points on the scale now to 1150 they have broken through the 1000 barrier in Germany the most well-off have got richer - they've now moved from just above 300 to just below 400 so the gap between the United Kingdom and any other country in Europe which starts with differences in equality in inequality which are absolutely striking at the start of the period that gap has grown even further in the 15-year period and that's what I mean I think by suggesting to you that while in the European mainstream the gap between the top and the bottom in any country is relatively narrow and even under the conditions of austerity grows to a modest extent the United Kingdom begins as the most unequal country in the European Union and that accelerates away accelerates away even faster during the austerity years and the figures as you will know I'm sure are not in any way one-off for the product of some strange methodological quirk earlier this year research for the Centre for you for European reform the Centre for European reform told the same story at a regional level the United Kingdom has nine of the ten poorest regions in northern Europe there is one part of Belgium that is on that list all nine others are regions of the United Kingdom and within the United Kingdom the gap between the richest and poorest regions is wider than in any the European Union country and that gap the centre concludes has widened and not narrowed during the age of austerity but simply it seems to me that by the end of the period the United Kingdom no longer looks like a European country the mechanisms of social solidarity which are the project of government action have been abandoned here to an extent unparalleled elsewhere with the gross disparities exposed in the figures I just set out and nor of course in our country is this dismal journey over..."

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Anarchist Film Archive.

      Put on a local film show, bring anarchism to your neighbourhood, Spread the word with a friendly film night, all possible via Anarchist Film Archive. It's there make good use of it.

Anarchist Film Archive- More than 1000 FREE rare films & documentaries

        Christie Books just relaunched the Anarchist Film Archive, an easy to use online streaming, and has a ton of rare and hard to find films, documentaries and historical archives from early 20th century until our days. Check it out now HERE:
In their own words:

        “The archive is free to access and contains a growing collection of nearly 1000 difficult-to-find feature films, documentaries, interviews, talks and short videos — all with anarchist or libertarian-oriented themes of education, justice, resistance — and liberation. Complementing the archive is a comprehensive and regularly updated database of anarchist/libertarian films compiled and maintained by Santiago-Juan Navarro. The archive is easy to use: you can scroll through the titles, search for a particular film in the ‘Search’ box or search by tag. You can also embed individual films in blogs, facebook pages etc.”

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

 

The End Of Austerity!!

 

        As usual our political ballerinas are prancing around with their opposing views. On the one side, the opposition spouts gloom and doom, while the group with their hands on the controls, waffle on about "austerity is over", and everything is wonderful and will only get better if you leave them in control. Then through the portal into the real world and we find the truth. The use of food banks in UK has risen by 13% this year, people are still being callously sanctioned for trivial and unjust reasons, and losing their benefits for varying periods from one week to one year, pushing them into deprivation and desperation. This winter it is forecast that their will be an increase in deaths from fuel poverty. Which translates into people sitting in their home during the UK winter with no or too little heating and in some cases dying a slow death.

      What kind of society takes the only means of survival away from poor and vulnerable individuals and families, by deliberate means of "sanctions". What is the outcome for a young family when their income is stopped, in a society where money is your means of survival? This is callous vicious vindictiveness based on an ideology that the poor must be intimidate to obey and be submissive, or at worst, a cull of the poor. 

      How can we claim to be a developed rich modern country when there is an ever increasing number of our people, to survive, are having to seek food from charities?

      While the UK spent. 2016/17, £35.3 billion on defence, the world's 5th largest defence budget, the same government is quite prepared to see an increasing number of its elderly people suffer strokes, heart attacks, pneumonia and death, simply because they don't have enough money to heat their homes.

     This is the real picture of the "end of austerity" a country that has seen, during the ten years of "austerity", the richest section of our community double its wealth, while the rest of us have seen our standard of living rapidly decrease, and we continue to slide down that slippery slope to ever greater deprivation. All of these factors can be reasonably named engineered poverty.

       This is the best that capitalism can deliver, is this the way we want to live, is this the world we wish for our children? The answer is not to look to the very wealth political ballerinas to come to our rescue, they wont. Their corporate buddies need us as a large pool of submissive cheap labour, it helps their profits. The answer as always, is in our own hands, to take control of our own lives, our communities and workplaces, and shape them to the needs of all our people. Don't expect the rich and powerful to come riding on a white charger to sort out your problems, that's up to us, and only the people can and will solve the problems of the ordinary people.  

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

Spaceship Earth Has No Escape Capsule!!

      While reputable scientists tell us we have a very short limited time to get free from fossil fuels, or face human disaster on an unprecedented scale, the UK government makes noises of approval while voicing vacuous promises. Then goes on to grant fracking licenses to greedy corporate bodies who don't give a shit about the planet, and only have eyes for profit.
       The planet is not dying, it is being murdered, by corporate greed, and by our inaction, we are complicit. A fine gift for our grandchildren.

      As usual, quiet voice of reason from that excellent site, Not Buying Anything. 

          Humans are killing the planet, and we seem unable to stop. But hey, nobody's perfect. A recent report shows that since the 1970s our actions have caused the deaths of 60% of invertebrates. And the news is not good for insects, either.
         Humanity is facing the most extreme challenges in 200,000 years, and no one seems worried enough to take any kind of meaningful and collective evasive action.
        “We have known for many, many years that we are driving the planet to the very brink. This is not a doom and gloom story; it is reality. Our day-to-day life, health and livelihoods depend on a healthy planet. There cannot be a healthy, happy and prosperous future for people on a planet with a destabilized climate, depleted oceans and rivers, degraded land and empty forests, all stripped of biodiversity, the web of life.” - Marco Lambertini, director general of the WWF

       The majority reaction is that "nobody's perfect", and that we will just have to ride this thing out and see what happens. Too bad about all the extinctions.
That is the all-too convenient truth, and it overrides all the inconvenient truths confronting us.
       We are far from perfect, but approaching perfection is a goal we should continually strive toward. If we did, we could tackle all our challenges with creative, life-enhancing solutions. For a dumb species, we can be pretty smart when we want to, or when faced with imminent death.
     We CAN do better, and we will have to. If we fail to act, and soon, before long it will be human populations crashing.
There is nothing convenient about that.

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No Time!

        Sometimes you know what you want to say, but realise that it will come out as a rather long monologue, and not the way you wanted it. Thought to word is a complicated process, and we don't always get it right. So to cut the crap, I thought I would try it with a wee poem I put together some years ago.

Now

No time to theorise the market economy

no time to mark out the nations boundary

injustice is now.

No time to measure the moon with a measuring tape

no time to catalogue the deeds of the great

injustice is now.

No time to worship purloined power

no time to kneel at the ivory tower

hunger is now.

No time to let illusions swamp the mind

no time to be lead like a host of blind

hunger is now.

It’s time to cast your silence to the ground

it’s time to use actions your anger found

freedom can be now.

It’s time to hold fast to your heart’s dictate

it’s time to rise in anger against the state

freedom can be now.

More of my little ramblings HERE:

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

 

The Relentless March Of The Financial Mafia.

 

       It is relentless, it is gaining in pace, it will continue as such, unless we stand up and resist. I'm talking about the march of privatisation, gentrification and corporatism, the commandeering of public spaces, a process that can by any rational thought, be called the culling of the poor. Excluding them to the margins of this new society, built for profit only. The ordinary will be dumped in poverty camps on the periphery, there to be called upon when needed to serve the new society built to the god Mammon. Obviously autonomous spaces are a threat to this financial Mafia dream, so must be rooted out, by rigged laws or brute force. Argument and dialogue will have no more than a delaying effect, they have the wealth, and the power of the state behind them, they know their goal. Do we the ordinary people, know ours?

This from Autonomies

         Anarchist social centres constitute fragile points of passage for anti-capitalist archipelagos of resistance.  There fragility is born of the (ever increasing) restrictions of private property and State opposition.  Yet they are often the only link to rebellious pasts and radical presents: they are the vehicles of radical thought and practices, the precious islands of different futures struggling against and creating beyond the violence of the present.
      The Centro de Cultura Libertária of Cacilhas-Almada, Portugal is the oldest anarchist cultural centre in Iberia; a centre whose space is now threatened by rampant real-estate speculation.  From the CCL, we share their urgent call for solidarity.

The CCL needs your support!
       The Centro de Cultura Libertária, an anarchist association with 44 years of activity in Cacilhas-Almada, Portugal, is again threatened. The continued pressure of the real estate business, the change in the rental law and the gentrification that forces the departure of residents from the central spaces of cities, the destruction of non-profit spaces or the closure of neighborhood stores, now also touches the CCL.
What is happening?
       This is not the first time that the CCL’s permanence in its historic headquarters has been called into question.
Between 2009 and 2011 the Centro de Cultura Libertária resisted an eviction procedure initiated by the landlord. Only the solidarity of many collectives and individuals here and beyond allowed us to face the costs of the judicial process, which led to two trials and one appeal. In the end, we reached a rent increase agreement that allowed us to continue in the space without changes in the duration of the contract.
      However, in 2014, as a result of the changes in the rent law in favor of property owners’ interests, the CCL contract duration was set at five years. At the end of 2018, we have reached the point where, as has happened to thousands of tenants, the continuation of the rent of our space will be at the mercy of the owner’s will and the conditions that he wants to impose on us.
Why support the CCL?
      The CCL is an anarchist cultural centre founded in 1974 by old libertarian militants who resisted the dictatorship, occupying since then the space rented at number 121 Rua Candido dos Reis, in Cacilhas-Almada. The Center has a unique library and archive in Portugal, with documents produced over the last hundred years, as well as a bookshop promoting libertarian culture. It has been a fundamental space for anarchism in Portugal, welcoming successive generations of libertarians. During its existence, the Center hosted numerous activities, such as debates, meetings, reading circles, video sessions, workshops, dinners and various learning workshops, and served as home to many libertarian groups and collectives. Different publications came out of the space, such as the Voz Anarquista in the 1970s, Antithesis in the 1980s, the Anarchist Information Bulletin in the 1990s, and Húmus magazine in the first decade of this century.
As an anarchist association, the functioning of the CCL’s internal organisation is horizontal and is based on the assembly of its members, where decisions are made and the tasks inherent to the life of the association are distributed. Participation in the CCL is always voluntary, unpaid and non-profit. The only sources of funding are membership fees, the bookstore, dinners and solidarity donations.
What future for the CCL?
       We do not want the Centro de Cultura Libertária to end! We want it to continue to exist as an active libertarian association for many years!
       But at the moment the future of the CCL is open: it can remain in the same space, paying a much higher rent, or move to a new space, where we would try to have better conditions for our activities, but where expenses will also be higher.
       In both cases, and given the conditions imposed by the current housing market bubble, we know that we will need financial means that we do not have. For this reason, we will start a fundraising campaign, which will include crowdfunding, concerts, dinners and other initiatives.
      We count on your solidarity support so that together we can guarantee a future for the CCL.
Center for Libertarian Culture
October 2018
C.C.L. bank account details for donations
Holder: CENTRO DE CULTURA LIBERTÁRIA
IBAN: PT50003501790000215493029
(Bank: Caixa Geral de Depósitos)
Contacts
E-mail: ateneu2000@gmail.com
Mail: Apartado 40 / 2800-801 Almada – Portugal
http://culturalibertaria.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/CulturaLibertariaCentro
The website for the crowdfunding effort can be found here. 

        For the Centre’s blog, click here.
       Original Portuguese language statement from CCL, HERE

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