Racism.

         Everywhere the "white" man (no sexism intended, we also have "white" women racists.) has taken to settling in another's land they have seen the indigenous people as inferior, and steadily went about taking over their lands, destroying their way of life and culture, and so it goes on today.
        Canada, despite its portrayal of a friendly, peaceful land, is steeped in brutal racism, managed and legislated by a racist state, always has been from the first settler to the present day. The indigenous peoples have been pushed aside, marginalised and treated with savagery and brutality and are still seen in that category of inferior. Never have we stepped onto another people's territory and seen them as having a long traditionally developed sustainable culture, something we could learn from, nor have we asked to co-operate with them. We enter on the belief of our superiority and our right to do as we wish, where ever we land. That is our history, and that is what we have to eradicate.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

       Right now in Mi’kma’ki, commercial fishermen are physically threatening, intimidating and harassing Indigenous people over their livelihood catch of lobster. The violence has escalated in the past few days, and seems likely to continue to escalate. The RCMP have been filmed allowing commercial fishermen to steal and poison lobster, burn vehicles, smash windows, throw rocks at Mi’kmaq people and attack chiefs and women.
       What’s happening in Mi’kma’ki is a prime example of how race operates in so-called Canada, with the state protecting the side of big business and using white working-class people to project their force onto the non-white population. Examples of this can be found all over the country.
        In August, 27km camp on Wet’suwet’en yintah was burned to the ground by arsonists, and somehow the state has no leads or interest in pursuing the case, even though there were public facebook posts calling for that specific action to be carried out.
      In Secwepmeculecw the Tiny House Warriors have faced near constant harrassment from white supremacists who even set up a camp and barbeque within a stone’s throw from Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit folks in order to harass and intimidate them.
       In Algonquin territory non-Indigenous hunters continue to disrespect and threaten Indigenous people on their own territory, who are protecting the moose population from being over-hunted.
         In Six Nations territory the police continue to harass and arrest Indigenous people, unchecked by us the greater community at large.
        When is enough enough? Why aren’t we shutting the country down? The white supremacist settler state cannot continue unchecked. There must be action. This is a callout to all settlers and supporters to take actions where you stand, how you see fit. Transportation routes are vulnerable, we proved this in the spring. It doesn’t take many people carrying out subversive actions to cause the state immense damage.

Take action now. What are we waiting for?
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

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It's Time.

 

         The pandemic has produced a greater burden on the shoulders of the ordinary people of this country and abroad. To a life of struggle has been added loneliness, greater uncertainty, closer surveillance and an increase in poverty. For how long will we take this injustice in a world of unimaginable wealth, surely the time has run out for the pampered, privileged parasite class, who plunder the spoils of our labour. It is not just their plundering of the spoils of our labour, but their unbridled greed driven destruction of the planet that must force our hands in defence of the future of our grandchildren and all life on the planet. The hourglass of their time in power must now be running out  fast.

 IT'S TIME TO STORM HEAVEN.

Under the yoke of servitude we dragged our existence forward
For generations have fertilised the earth with our blood
Oiled the machinery of wealth with our sweat
We have produce bountiful harvests
A mountain of luxury
Yet
All we know is
Penury pain and poverty
Struggle laced with bitter anguish
Our hands have fashioned a pleasure palace
Feasts abundance frivolity and a sea of fetishes
For a merciless army that feeds on selfishness and greed
And though we dwell under the shadow of hell
We will shall never relinquish our dreams
In our hearts we nurture a better future
A softer world for all our children
Where poverty's claws
And war's ire
die
One day
Our righteous anger
Will smoulder and rumble
And cause the old world to tremble
Before exploding in a blast of social justice
We the people will storm the gates of an earthly heaven.

  If not under these dark times,----then when? 

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UK Torture.

       The state peddles the illusion that prisons are "correction centres", places where your "bad habits" will be corrected, and you will come out a model citizen. Of course to them your "bad habits" are words and deeds that could harm the powerful and privileged, and that "model citizen" they strive to create has to be a subservient citizen who accepts their place in the dung-heap of capitalism. However we all know or should know that prisons are state institutions of repression, hellholes of violence, overcrowding and arbitrary justice delivered on a whim of the staff.
      Our media does from time to time mention prisons where torture and inhumane brutality is prevalent, but it is usually in those far way places run by nasty foreigners, it would never happen here in free democratic UK, ha-ha-ha. So it is with a little surprise that I actually read of treatment tantamount to torture happening in Scottish prisons, though we already know it is happening across the country, it is encouraging to see it get the oxygen of publicity from our mainstream media.  

 

The following extract is from The Daily Record:

         An anti-torture watchdog has revealed fears about the use of segregation and excessive force in Scottish jails.
       A new report included allegations from a women with borderline personality disorder, who was left with a black eye after one incident and a suspected broken elbow in another.
      The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT)’s report was based on visits to Shotts and Cornton Vale prisons.
      It highlighted 27 cases where force was used on women – aimed at keeping them safe – following incidents of self-harm or suicide attempts.
       It also describes the segregation of some women in HMP Cornton Vale as “akin to solitary confinement” and “verging on institutional neglect”, according to The Ferret website.
      The report said: “As neither woman wanted to exercise alone in the stark yards, the women were locked alone in their cells for 23.5 to 24 hours each day.
     “The women also ate alone in their cells, where their food was given to them through the door. The only regular inter-prisoner communication…was to shout through the walls to each other.”

       Considering that Cornton Vale Prison has the design capacity to hold a maximum of 119 inmates and the details from the following extract, that in itself is an indictment against the place and those responsible for its management.

This from Wikipedia:

         It has been criticised for overcrowding, with 340 inmates being held there in August 2004.[6] A high number of suicides have taken place there. Eleven women killed themselves while serving sentences at Cornton Vale between 1995 and 2002.[5] In 2010, Brigadier Hugh Munro (the Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland) declared the prison in a "state of crisis", citing overcrowding, two-hour waits for the toilet, cold meals, lack of activities and a deep problem of prisoner boredom which was impeding rehabilitation.[7]
       In 2006, 98% of the inmates had addiction issues; 80% had problems with mental health and 75% were survivors of abuse. It also holds children, in particular the babies of inmates who are imprisoned alongside their mothers and teenagers where there is no suitable accommodation available in young offenders institutions.
       In 2006 it was announced that the practice of "double cuffing" all inmates who are in labour to a custody officer until second stage labour and immediately re-handcuffed after giving birth, had ended.[8]
       A 2012 review into women's prisons in Scotland, conducted by former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini described Cornton Vale as "a miserable place" and that conditions for prisoners were "antediluvian and appalling".[9][10]
        In 2019 women were found “who clearly were in need of urgent care and treatment in a psychiatric facility, and [who] should not have been in a prison environment”. Among them was one woman who bit through the skin and muscle of her arm down to the bone and another who set her hair on fire.[11]

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The State.

         In state after state the repression goes on, according to their philosophy of total control, dissent must be quashed. Sometimes it is an individual that they attempt to silence, other times it groups, some go unnoticed others get some publicity. If it is mainstream media publicity, the chances are that the theme will be that they are terrorists, looters or just violent thugs, demonise the dissenters is the name of the game. Our publicity should be to show them for what they are, individuals and groups struggling to bring an end to this regime of exploitation and total control, those necessary tools for the capitalist economic system to function.

        The case below is from Italy, but pick your state, and you'll find the repression, methods vary, but the aim is always the same, a subservient population, eliminate those who would dare to resist state authority. Solidarity is the weapon that can free us from the yoke of capitalism and the shackles of the state.

This from 325:

SOLIDARITY MOBILIZATION 9th-24th NOVEMBER
      This autumn several prosecutions, which involve hundreds of anarchists, will take place in Italy. In these investigations public prosecutors and judges want to put the anarchist ideal under trial. The attempts to reduce different tensions and practices in various legal schemes, i.e. the hateful and pathetic division between “good” and “bad” anarchism, aim to repress those who fight, making them face decades of imprisonment.
       In a period in which the imposed living conditions are increasingly harsh, it is essential to fight: to respond to the violence of the State, to the regime of oppression that tries to impose, attempting to attack anyone who expresses solidarity with those who have already chosen on which side to stand.
      We will stand, close and complicit with our comrades, and not only in the courtrooms: we call for two weeks of mobilization from the 9th to the 24th of November, as an opportunity to create moments of active solidarity in the streets or wherever we choose to express it.

ALONGSIDE ALL THE ANARCHISTS ON TRIAL!
AGAINST PRISONS AND FOR THE FREEDOM OF ALL PRISONERS!
FREEDOM FOR ALL!

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Good Times!!

          More lockdown, and the capitalist beasts are calling for more tax payers money to keep them in the style the think they are entitled to, and the media keeps blowing their trumpet on the need for businesses to be saved. However what is facing the ordinary people of this country, and other countries, is abject poverty for years to come. Where do you think all those bailouts of billions of pounds we taxpayers hand to the big businesses ends up, why in the coffers of the big financial Mafia, the big banks and investment companies. Most of them are doing very well thank you and with their loot cupboards stuffed with your money, they are well placed to face the tidal wave of poverty that will hit most of us, the people who created all that money in the first place.

 

         Of course this is nothing new, the present economic system has always functioned on the basis that we the people create the wealth and the owners and managers of the system plunder that wealth to create a pampered and privileged life for themselves and that small coterie parasites around them. Perhaps this latest phase of this brutal system of exploitation, will push us hard enough into poverty and deprivation that we open our eyes and see it for what it is, and force us to bring it crashing down. You know we can build a system that is fair and just, that sees to the needs of all our people, that is sustainable, brings an end to wars. We have the power and the imagination, all we need is the will to come together and show our true humanity. Just remember, it is your money that oils the wheels of the financial Mafia.
        The following extract refers to America, but the system is repeated across the globe, capitalism and the financial Mafia have no borders, borders are for us, to keep us in our place and to live according to their rules.

        The following extract is from World Socialist Web Site 

 

Bank of America (Image credit: Mike Mozart/Flickr)

          Hefty profits for top US banks as millions face social disaster
Shannon Jones, 13 October 2020
          Big US banks reported much stronger than expected profits in the third quarter while wide layers of the population face misery and hardship.
         Buoyed by government cash poured into the financial markets, JPMorgan Chase reported third-quarter profits of $9.44 billion, or $2.92 per share, well above the forecasts of economic experts. That figure compared with $4.76 billion last quarter and $9.08 billion one year ago.
        JP Morgan’s bond and stock trading operations accounted for a 20 percent year-over-year increase in revenues, offsetting declines in consumer loans and credit cards. The bank’s earnings rose despite a charge for $524 million for legal fees related to its criminal manipulation of global markets in commodities and US treasury notes.
       Citigroup reported $3.2 billion for the third quarter, despite a 13 percent drop in revenue from consumer banking as its trading and investment revenue rose 5 percent.
       BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, also reported strong third quarter profits, which rose to $1.36 billion. Fueled by US Treasury cash, its assets under management increased to $7.8 trillion, which is an increase of 12 percent from the third quarter of last year.
       Other large US banks, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are expected to show healthy third quarter profits when their reports come out later this month.
        The strong results for the banks come in the midst of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression and mounting hardship across the US. The situation facing the unemployed is increasingly dire as the limited and inadequate support for the unemployed contained in the CARES Act long ago expired and funds released by the Trump administration for a $300 supplement are largely exhausted.
       Meanwhile, the US Treasury continues to pump cash into the financial markets, money that will have to be repaid at devastating cost to the working class in terms of social benefits, wages, working conditions and lives. The necessity of restarting production in order to repay the trillions handed over to the banks and corporations is the driving force behind the homicidal back-to-work policy of the US ruling class and governments around the world. This has led to a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths, with the number of fatalities surpassing one million internationally and 221,000 in the US.

Read the full article HERE: 

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Opportunity.

         I keep saying the same thing, because I believe it should be the main focus of our struggle to create that new normal in our favour. This pandemic is an opportunity, and is being used as such, to further the state and capitalism's aims, with a vicious attack on our living standards, an increase in privatisation, shedding of labour, crushing of autonomous spaces, curtailing the voices of the independent thought, crushing dissent, and the creation of a subservient population, that they hope will subdue any mass protests as anger grows over our deteriorating conditions, and ensure their success.
       We have to see the pandemic as our opportunity. We will never beat them by legislation and/or appealing to the various political parties, this whole edifice to finance, that shackles populations to an economy that favours the few, will only be beaten in our communities with mutual aid, in our workplaces by workers control, and on the streets by mass protests that lead to that dramatic revolutionary change in the structure of society in favour of our class, all the people. We abandon the streets at our peril.

The following is an extract from APO Squat-Host:

        Neither with prisons, nor with laws, fascism can be smashed only in the streets.

     -------Seven years after Fyssas death, we are facing the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic and the intensification of State’s and Capital’s attack to the society. The beginning of a new round of pillage of the social base, with main points: labor’s devaluation, the abolition of social insurance, the continuation of privatisations, as also the restructuring of educational system and the criminalisation of syndicalist action. From the normalization of the state emergency through the repression of social and class movements and especially the anarchists/antiauthoritarians, the evictions of squats, the police occupations of entire areas, to the banning of demonstrations and the generalized upgrading of the legislative arsenal against the people of the struggle. From the expansion of war against refugees and migrants and their attempts that aim to their demonization and their extinction from the public space, their incarceration into concentration camps, to the looting of nature, through the activation of capitalist engines of development that destroy local communities, mountains, rivers, lakes, seas and forests, in the name of profit and of their total imposition over humans and nature.

       State’s repression constitutes today the dominant component of State’s policy. This declaration of war against all of those who are struggling, is a part of the systematical attempt of the Greek State to subdue social and class resistances and impose a complete submission for society that goes on for decades. An attempt that was blocked by the massive mobilisations, revolts and struggles over the last years.
        With solidarity as our weapon, let’s continue the counter-attack against state and capitalist brutality. Let’s revitalize social and class resistance. The only real answer against war, nationalism and fascism born and raised by the state and capital, is the organisation of the social and class counter-attack. Without any illusions that the exploitation and repression system can improve, without any illusions that any government can raise a real barrier against fascism, let’s fight together from below, with internationalist and class solidarity as our weapon. Let’s struggle together, locals and migrants, workers and students, for the construction of a society of equality, justice, solidarity and freedom.
       We do not forget Pavlos Fyssas assassination on September 18, 2013 at Keratsini. We do not forget the assassinations of S. Luqman, Al. Grigoropoulos, Zak Kostopoulos and P. Zifle

 The current text was written before the Golden Dawn’s trial on 8th of October 2020.

Read the full article HERE:

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Eviction.

   

         The continuous drive by the state marches on relentlessly, it drives on its desire to crush any form of dissent, independent living or thought. State after state proceeds with its heavy handed evictions and closure of autonomous spaces, it will take the relentless drive by all independent thinkers and groups to return this savagery back on the perpetrators. If you desire a fair society with freedom of expression, thought and action, then you must get behind those fighting this brutal drive for a subservient population. Perhaps you think that the eviction of a squat doesn't affect you, but it does, it means that in the society that you live, the right to an alternative thought and way of life has been curtailed by brute force, savage action against people who are trying to create that better life for themselves and others, is that the type of society that you can live with?

 The following from 325:

Berlin: Liebig34 is evicted (Germany)
October 12th, 2020
9 October 2020
          It feels incredible to type these words into the keys: The Liebig34 is cleared.
          At 7:00 a.m. Robocops started sawing and flexing fences, doors, windows and barricades and at 11:00 a.m. the last inhabitants* of the Liebig34 were dragged out of the rooms.
          We are sad. We are crying. We are exhausted. WE ARE ANGRY.
          They can‘t imagine the determination they have awakened in us. This act of violence will explode in an act of counter-violence and self-defense. Already so much solidarity has happened in the last nights, months, years and has shown what we are capable of doing. This eviction is a moment of radicalization. We can use it and together we can express our hatred for this shit.
          Even if the press, politicians, cops and Nazis are now taking pleasure in our loss, we are turning powerlessness into anger. So many borders have been crossed. We shout NO in your spiteful eats. You can have our house, you will never get our passion. We are so much more than this house – we are anarchists, feminists, queers and antifascists who will now channel their anger and attack capitalist patriarchy to the last.
         We call for the demo from 21:00 in Monbijoupark. We call for decentralized actions. Let us experience a wild and chaotic October together!
34 million property damage – we are already well on the way.
Liebig34 lives. Liebig34 fights.

Liebig34

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Toblerone.

         Switzerland, most people view it as a rather idyllic small country, a picturesque land of mountains, loved by climbers, artists and photographers, famous for chocolate, cheese with holes in it, and the cuckoo clock. However it has another side, it is famous among the rich and powerful for its dark and secret dens where they hide their money. Millionaires, billionaires aristocracy, and others of that ilk, can, in this small state, stash their ill gotten gains far away from the prying eyes of the tax man and many, many do. This is not a box beneath somebodies bed in a mountain village, this is a very lucrative money making racket for the powers that be in picturesque Switzerland, a big slice of its economy. Like all other nation states, perhaps a little different in its structure, it has all the trimmings of the state and its repressive apparatus, also like any other capitalist country, it has inequality, injustice, and repression, and like any other capitalist state, the people there are taking to the streets to voice their desire for a fair and just system that benefits all our people.
         The following from Act For Freedom Now:

 

         On 1st August about 300 people took to the streets in Bern against the myth of Switzerland. Our criticisms were addressed to the main four subjects of the Swiss history. Colonialism, reification, antisemitism and patriarchy. But these are only few of the many reasons why Switzerland shouldn’t be celebrated as such. In the end police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators because of a little paint against Amtshaus [district office] thereby deliberately putting people’s lives at risk. Police also lined up outside symbolic buildings during today’s demonstration, thus showing that they defend the history of oppression and are behind it.
      Unfortunately, due to the heat and the short duration of the mobilization we couldn’t reach all the people we mentioned in today’s appeal. Many questions posed by the demo couldn’t be transmitted as we would have liked, for example with creative slogans or speaking. However, today’s demonstration was necessary, and through the solidarity of those there it was able to give a necessary signal in the times of the Coronavirus crisis.

 

       In spite of Corona we were not few today and gave an example against the history of Switzerland with a militant demonstration. With this demonstration we wanted to show why States must not be celebrated. They promote and support forms of oppression in order to use them in order to exist. Society is formed by capitalism and the State in such a way that it cannot function according to solidarity but can only serve profit. Those who don’t serve exploitation fall into the trap of the system. This inhumanity occurs every day all over the world. For this reason we don’t support the system of States, we fight it. Covid19 shows us that the system is fragile and is not there to support us. The health of millions of people could not and cannot be guaranteed and many companies have proceeded with massive layoffs – many more will follow in order to save the system. The countries where the health system is in an even more disastrous condition due to the exploitation of the West are faring even worse.
         All over the world it is clear how the concept of State is only being kept alive through the suffering of the many. Protests against State authority have been increasing all over the world in recent months, but instead of taking these protests seriously governments are violently trying to silence the demonstrators. We are in solidarity with all these protests and today, also in Switzerland, we gave a signal against the politics of oppression and exploitation carried out through capitalism, racism, sexism and many more isms.
Source: Barrikade.info
Translated by act for freedom now!

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EU Camp.

          In this complex matrix of finance, resources, nationalism, borders, corporate powers, trade deals, arms industry and wars, it is easy to get lost in the political debate of cause and effect. However if we step outside the standard narrative of the powers that be, it is really quite simple. 99% of all the ills that plague the people of this planet can simply be laid at the door of the economic system that prevails and corrupts all our lives. A system of exploitation and greed, with power and privilege for the few. A system that through its power-blocks, borders and wars, spawns migrants, poverty, misery, deprivation, homelessness, and paints a distorted picture of those fleeing the systems inevitable painful and brutal results. All backed up by a propaganda machine that bellows the poisonous illusion that migrants are a danger to our way of life, our culture and are just risking death across thousands of dangerous miles, to get on our benefits system and take advantage of our wonderful social services. Though those locals who live on those benefits and rely on those social service, could tell them that it is not worth crossing the road for them, let alone half the world.

The Following from Enough is Enough:

Lesvos. Greece. A statement by some of the Enough collective, who are on Lesvos at the moment.
Published by Enough 14.
         Once again some of the Enough 14 collective are on the Balkan route, where Europe’s true face comes to the surface. This time we are on Lesvos, the island that showed Fortress Europe’s ugly face through the inhuman Moria camp. Apart from the lost of the very few belongings of its inhabitants, the fear and the suffering in the new camp, its actually not a bad thing when an inhuman camp like Moria burned down.
        Many things have been said about the outer borders of the European Union, it should be clear by now that the dying in the Mediterranean Sea, the repression, pushbacks, imprisonment and suffering on the Balkan route are designed and therefore deliberate policies.
       After the fire in Moria the conditions for refugees on Lesvos, became even worse. People were forced to go into the new camp, where there is no running water, only one meal per day, insufficient sanitary facilities, a lack of about anything. On top of that authorities banned the distribution of food and water outside of the camp. The repression against refugees and people who support them is growing fast. Greek authorities claim they are investigating 33 people from four different NGO’s for the formation of a criminal association and Espionage. In reality they are inverstigated because they support refugees.
      On Lesvos the cops are everywhere. Harassing refugees and people who support them. To get an idea what happens when people try to distribute food or water to refugees, it can happen that you get chased by Delta cops on motor bikes. A wild pursue through Mytilene for distributing food or water to people in need. Welcome to Europe 2020.
     Were not wondering about the systematic repression, it’s the logical consequence of a system against life. What is wondering us, is the starry-eyed understanding of the system were living in. The European Union and its member states were never about solidarity. Its a capitalist economic union and therefore its always about money and its competative position in the capitalist order. Human rights are sometimes useful to use as a PR measure, but normally they don’t play a role in everyday politics in the European Union. The capitalist order is the reason that people are forced to leave their homes. Trade treaties at the expense of the global South, arms exports, the growing climate catastrophe, and the wars that the EU and its member states support with their “peace” missions. In other words, the capitalist way of life and its colonialized structures are systematicly producing refugees.
        Colonialism was never away, it has only changed its face. Our rulers know that their colonial policies will produce more and more refugees. That’s why they designed Fortress Europe, its a cruel attempt to scare-off people from coming to Europe. The result of this deliberate policies are tens of thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. As a consequence our rulers did not open safe routes for refugees, but instead started a wave of repression against sea rescue operations. And yet people are appealing to the people that are responsible for this structural mess, to make it a bit more human. Although its obvious that the European borders policies are designed to keep a Europe for the Europeans.
       As long as there is an starry-eyed understanding of the colonizisation policies of the European Union and its member states, which have always meant death and oppression, as long as we don’t fight the capitalist order with all consequences, we will not be able to put an end to Europe’s border policies. We have to unite our struggles and instead of asking for reforms, we must put an end to authoritarian capitalist rule.

Connecting struggles!
Smash the capitalist death machine!
Solidarity with the defendants of the Brennero trial!
Solidarity with the comrades struggling against the Nea Demokratia Mafia!
Solidarity with Liebig 34, Terra Incognita, Notara 26 and Danny stays!

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The Nobodies----

        A poem by one of us, Eduardo Galeano, who stood tall and faced the system with determined defiance, poetry and wit. 

The Nobodies--

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream
of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will
suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets. But
good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter
how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is
tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or
start the new year with a change of brooms.

The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The
nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits,
dying through life, screwed every which way.

Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the
police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them 

Eduardo Galeano

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Self Defence.

          Though the present has an abundance of those who are taking on the system with dedication and principle, putting their own lives on the line to fight against this corrupt system of exploitation and greed, it is still inspiring and informative to look back at some of those who stood tall in the face of the brutality of this capitalist insanity, inequality and injustice. I have always seen any protest against the present system, no matter how it turns out, to be nothing more than self defence, and that is surely everybody's entitlement. Lucy Parsons was one of the many, who saw the system for what it was and spoke out loud and clear for all to hear.

The following from Wear Your Voice:

Described as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters”, Lucy Parsons’ writings and speeches were reflective of her time and continue to be relevant today.
        The summer of 2020 was ~eventful~ in terms of political focus on anarchists and anarchism. I rolled my eyes every time an American politician blamed anarchists for chaos, showing clearly how willfully ignorant they were about anarchism as a philosophy.
       With all that in mind, I wanted to delve more deeply into the history and words of Lucy Parsons. Her life was also marked with American politicians blaming chaos on anarchists, though this was in the late 1800s. Reading Lucy Parsons: American Revolutionary ended up hitting way too close to home, considering it was about events that happened more than a century ago. I took a lot away from the book, but the biggest takeaway is how applicable Parsons’ ideology remains in today’s political climate.
        I would be wrong not to mention that Parsons was far from perfect. Her views on sex workers and sexual liberation were antiquated—causing strife between her and Emma Goldman. That being said, I personally believe Goldman was afforded privileges Parsons never got because of race. Parson’s treatment of her son, who she had committed to an asylum, was also abhorrent. Still, reading about her life and her ideologies has been illuminating.
      So, here are four Lucy Parsons quotes to turn to for the rest of this cursed year:
      “If the Anarchists had thrown the bomb at the Haymarket they didn’t commit a crime nor violate any law. The Constitution gives the people the right to repel any unlawful invasion in any way they see fit.”
        This just feels so pertinent when we look at the so-called violence and looting during protests this summer. I’ve written about it before, but fighting against oppressors is justified violence—it’s self-defense. Now I personally think the Constitution is relatively shitty considering who was included in drafting it, but I can’t argue with Lucy’s logic here.
“And some did rest their chins upon their clenched hands And swear to help abolish the infamous system that could produce such abject misery… And some did gnash their teeth and howl, swearing dire vengeance against all tyrants.”
      To me, this so perfectly describes the organizers and revolutionaries who are working so hard to dismantle the systems that oppress us. We cannot forget that the uprisings of this summer came after years of organizing and struggling by mostly Black people, who have been working for liberation for centuries (and more recently, since Ferguson). The activation of people during this summer’s actions has hopefully produced a new group of people who “swear to abolish the infamous system,” whether that be capitalism, the carceral state, settler colonialism, or all of them (inshaAllah).
        RECOMMENDED: Anarcha-Feminists of the Past and Present are an Inspiration for Today
        “Will you deny that your jails are filled with the children of the poor, not the children of the rich? Will you deny that men steal because their bellies are empty?”
        Prison and police abolition are undoubtedly having a moment right now. When we talk about abolition, the conversation isn’t only about what would be abolished, but also about what would be created. This quote by Parsons illuminates how so much crime in our country is caused by lack of resources and opportunity, where punishment by the carceral state does nothing but exacerbate the conditions that caused the crime in the first place. It feels as though more people are finally willing to accept that the system we’ve been told is meant to provide justice does no such thing. Rather, it is a symptom of a racialized capitalism, one that criminalizes poverty, especially when those who are poor are Black, brown, disabled, and/or sex-working.
         “The present social system is rotten from top to bottom. You must see this and realize that the time has come to destroy it.”
          This is the one that lights a fire under my ass (and enrages me). People have known that capitalism is untenable and immoral since the 1800s. We must resist the narrative that it’s the natural order of things and embrace the idea that no one person should control wealth in such a way that others are left without enough to live comfortably. It is far past time to destroy the systems that support cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, carcerality, and colonialism. So, let’s get to it.

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

Inequality.

         This world is awash with wealth in all shapes and forms, but it is very thinly spread on the majority of the world's population. By far the largest heap of that wealth, though created by the many, is heaped on the few. It is poured over and accumulated by the few, those who own and manage this brutal system of exploitation. Ever since the inception of capitalism, this has been so, but the efficiency of the system of production and exploitation has raced ahead at an unbelievable speed, creating wealth at an ever growing rate, but the distribution has always gone in favour of those owners and mangers of the system. The discrepancy between those few and the many has reach utterly gross and unacceptable inhumane proportions. Poverty and deprivation sprawls over our cities and towns, doorways become beds, food banks the accepted way of life for millions, and death by starvation for many, many more. Yet, within reach and plain view, we see luxury cars, private jets, grand mansions, lavish yachts and a swaggering coterie who weave the illusion that they are entitled to this life style.
        The chasm between these two groups, the many who create all that wealth, and the few who plunder it, is creating an ever growing anger and the many are starting to openly seek redress and justice. However justice will only come when this entire system of exploitation is torn asunder and replaced by a system of equality and fairness, a sustainable system freed from the cancer that is profit, a system moulded round the needs of all our people, and an end to power and privilege for the few. Though the following article is about U$A, it applies equally across the planet.

The following from Struggle-la-lucha:
 

     Almost 13 million people in the U.S. are “officially” jobless. The real number is far higher. Many haven’t received an unemployment check in weeks. Then there’s Jeff Bezos, who runs Amazon and owns the Washington Post. His stash ballooned by another $72 billion in the last six months.
       Over a million people have died of the coronavirus around the world. More than 210,000 expired in the United States of Trump. But it’s been party time for the super rich. Millions line up at food pantries and worry about being evicted or losing their home. Meanwhile, U.S. billionaires gained another $845 billion in wealth according to the Institute for Policy Studies. 
        This nearly trillion-dollar gain during the pandemic is merely dessert for these parasites. They’ve been having a feast for nearly 50 years. If workers were receiving the same share of the economy as they had in 1975, their wages would have approximately doubled by 2018. The bottom quarter of wage earners would be taking home an average of $61,000 per year instead of $33,000. Those in the middle would be making $92,000 instead of $50,000.
      These figures represent another $2.5 trillion dollars stolen every year from poor and working people by the wealthy and powerful. The study showing this “Grand Theft Payday” was commissioned by Seattle’s Fair Work Center and carried out by the RAND Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. Inequality has become so massive and repulsive that it’s obvious to RAND analysts who usually work for the military-industrial complex.
Big Capital’s counterattack
        This massive transfer of income isn’t the result of sunspots or UFOs. It’s the product of a worldwide class struggle between the rich and the rest of us. The class struggle doesn’t just include workers on strike or future union organizing drives at Amazon or Walmart. Every fightback against oppression is a class struggle.
     The Black Lives Matter movement is a class struggle. So is the struggle of the Filipino people against the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Rodrigo Duterte. Transgender people trying to survive is a class struggle.
       The height of the Black liberation struggle was in the 1960s and early 1970s. The master class was pushed back.
       The Vietnamese people defeated the Pentagon war machine. Africans in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique won independence. French workers carried out a general strike in 1968.
       Big Capital staged a counteroffensive. Dozens of Black Panther Party members were murdered by police. New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller massacred the Attica prisoners. Decades before Iraq was invaded, war criminals Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were destroying anti-poverty programs for President Richard Nixon.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Solidarity.

       That blood soaked part of the planet that goes by the name of South Africa, where millions of lives were brutally blighted, for generations, by the colonialist regime of Apartheid, may have, through a bloody and savage battle broken the chains of that particular shackle, but like the rest of us, in this capitalist system, is still struggle for justice and freedom. At present the workers there are in the midst of a general strike, fighting the usual capitalist malaise, greed, corruption, violence, state repression and corporate bosses slashing at conditions and wages. They deserve all the solidarity and support that we can muster, their struggle is our struggle. In the battle for justice and freedom from exploitation we see no borders.

The following from IndustriALL Global Union: 

       8 October, 2020Thousands of workers took to the streets of South Africa’s main cities and towns to protest corruption, gender-based violence, and to protect jobs and collective bargaining agreements from arrogant employers.
     The national strike, on 7 October, which coincided with World Day for Decent Work, was called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) with support from the other main federations: the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA), the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU).
      IndustriALL Global Union’s five affiliates in South Africa belong to three of the federations. The combined membership of the federations represents millions of workers. The unions say the law should be used to deal with corruption through prosecution, and anti-corruption strategies should be put in place.
       The unions wanted an end to gender-based violence and for the government to ratify Convention 190 on curbing violence and harassment at work, and to develop an implementation plan. The gender pay gap must also be closed.
       On health and safety, unions want employers to comply with labour laws and not leave the burden on workers and their families.

 André Kriel, SACTWU general secretary said: 

“The COSATU strike is significant because it is unifying. It confirms concretely that all South African workers, irrespective of union federation affiliation, are crystal clear about common core issues which they must fight in the current conjuncture: corruption in the public and private sector, job losses, attacks on collective bargaining and gender-based violence”.

IndustriALL general secretary Valter Sanches said:

“We are in solidarity with the millions of South African workers who are fighting for jobs, against gender-based violence, and for the protection of collective bargaining. These are issues at the core of union activities, and employers should not be allowed to destroy what the union has gained through years of struggle.”

Read the full article HERE:

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

Dreamers.

       The news feeds us with tales of woe, fashions us visions of doom and dread, paints an illusion that only the concerted action of our caring government can get us out of this mess, but deep down you know there is another way, far removed form saving the economy and herd immunity. 

  WALK WITH THE POETS.

My head has had enough of you,
you doomsday sooth-sayers, and
rationalists, that trap us in the world that is.
Go weave your tales of “can't be done”
to the dead, and those of no imagination.
I want to walk with the utopian,
the dreamer and the poet,
laugh with the child and sing with the wind.
Run with the deer, not with “the market trend”
Enough of, “this is the way it has to be”,
a world of poverty, wars and inequality.
Now, I'll create the world I want to see,
A world of sharing, peace and liberty.
I want the children to plan tomorrow,
the adult help them get there,
trees and flowers our treasured possessions,
with birds and animals their keepers.
Who wants a world that chains us to mortgage,
binds us to a labouring day, just to eat bread?
Who wants to spend their life, feeding fat-cats
while their own children go hungry?
No, this is not the world that has to be,
in our foolishness and misplaced trust,
this is a world that has slithered over us,
poisoning our mind, putrefying our spirit.
Let's call on the poet, let's welcome the dreamer,
let's take council with the utopian,
They'll help us create a better world for all.

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

Choices.

(Image: Daily Record/Tom Ross)

        Stefan King, reputed to be worth a cool £54 million, owner of Glasgow's Corinthian, Delmonica's and The Social, has suggested that his staff take three months unpaid leave to save their jobs, not to save his company of course. He has also put it in such a fashion that he is doing them a favour. This is the same Stefan King who was back in 2015 reputed to be paying staff below the minimum wage, and in 2019 had questions raised by the Gambling Commission about suspected money laundering at his Corinthian gambling club.
        No doubt as the catastrophe that is Covid19, and the ticking time bomb that is the Brexit fiasco, burst upon us, we will see more of these type of offers coming from those extremely wealthy corporate beasts as they try to milk the situation for all it is worth.
        As unemployment soars and social services diminish, there is very hard times in store for us the ordinary people. What are we going to do about this sledgehammer of poverty and deprivation that is about to strike us? Shall we appeal to our lords and masters the political ballerinas, to please take our taxpayers money and give it to the corporate world so that they will employ us again? Or will we look inwards towards our communities and organise mutual aid, self help, co-operatives and take what we need for the welfare of all our people. Commandeer those workplaces that we deem to be necessary for the health and well-being of our communities. Take control of our own lives and decide how we want to live without the exploitation of the profit driven capitalist system, owned and controlled by muti-billionaires, who by the way, while you and I have seen our struggles stiffen,  have seen their wealth grow immensely during this pandemic. The choice is ours to make, accept more of the same, or take control of the change we want to see.

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