WORKERS, KNOW YOUR HISTORY.

Tanks and troops with fixed bayonets, Trongate, Glasgow 1919.

      Since the beginning of capitalism the workers lot has been one of continuous struggle against his/her employer. Any attempt to improve our conditions has been met with stiff and sometimes violent opposition, not only from the employers but also from the state on behave of the employers. This is something that the ordinary worker should remember, but these struggles are however, never taught in mainstream education.

     We have to write our own history and add to it the struggles of today. Each generation has to know it is a continuous struggle and they are part of that struggle. If we don’t record our history and learn from it, then it never happened and we will never achieve that society of equality for all.

Calton Weavers Strike 1787, six weavers shot and killed at Drygate near the Cathedral.

1820 Insurrection, Hardie, Baird and Wilson executed.

Cotton Spinners Strike 1837, strikers sentenced to 7 years deportation.

The Rent Strike 1915, grassroots movement forced the government to freeze all rents until the end of the war.

Clyde Workers Committee 1916, members of the committee arrested by military authorities and removed from the city.

Bloody Friday 1919, mass demonstration in George Square, attempting to gain a 40 hour week, attacked by police, resulting in the largest military mobilization of the British state against its own people, with troops lining the streets of Glasgow and guarding the docks.

Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Work-in 1971/72, to save closure, shipyards occupied for 16 months.

       Recently we have had school occupations to stop closures, factory occupations and strikes. These are not new struggles they are part of that continuous struggle to build a society that sees to the needs of all those in that society. A struggle that requires that we are aware that we are all in the same struggle and should support each other in solidarity for that common aim, justice for all. For more of Glasgow’s working class history click here.

 

ann arky's home.

PISSED-OFF!? YOU SHOULD BE.

           Throughout history, real social change has happened when ordinary people get pissed off with business as usual, talk to each other, get organized, and take to the streets. We have surely reached the point when we the ordinary people are truly pissed off. We have seen the wealthiest section of society get a wee bit worried and been handed billions of tax payers money. While we have been told that cuts in social spending are unavoidable. We face massive unemployment at the time of these cuts and we get that shit, “We are all in this together”. If we expect the corrupt politicians and the corporate world to sort our problems then we deserve all we get. So, we’re pissed off, can we talk? Can we get organised? Can we take to the streets and bring about real social change?

ann arky's home.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA.

                                                           Picture by John Hartfield.

Some everyday headlines,
WE ARE SPREADING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ.
AFGHANISTAN IS A WESTERN SUCCESS.
THE FREE MARKET SPREADS PROSPERITY.
THIS YEAR WE WILL TACKLE AFRICA'S POVERTY.        

     Who so ever reads the bourgeois press will become blind. Slowly the fog rises, lies build on lies, lies spawn lies, lies shape your vision and reality is lost in a false consciousness. Trivia and mediocrity fill the mind, seek reality outside the putrid puss and you are deemed to be mad, a raving lunatic, possessed. The media teaches us all we need know of scandal and sport, crime and sex, who slept with who and where, depicting life as a smutty peepshow. Through the bourgeois press you’re fed your daily dose of loathsome lies, banal boring bromide, cliched crap, trivia and petty pulp. Our leaders are portrayed as heroes, supermen, and so the lies breed lies, and lies stretch back into the distant past, lies distort history until it is lost in a bizarre deformed fabrication. We then repeat the disasters of yesterday because the lies are everywhere blinding us. We can’t relate to reality, reality always takes us by surprise because we have no grip of reality, only the lies.

From ''Mein Kampf''

"All this was inspired by the principle that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the (public) more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation."   Adolf Hitler.

ann arky's home.

CHARITY.

     We are all familiar with those can carriers that shake their can under your nose for some charity or other. It could be for a new something at some hospital, or save the children fund, and no doubt, being a caring human being, you are always inclined to give.

     However if we look a little deeper we can see that the only reason we have to have charity funds for something so basic as the health and well being of children is simple because we accept the system of capitalism. We openly allow a system that puts a price on everything, including the lives of all children, to profit from the suffering of children. What other humane and just type society would put a price on the health and care of children?

    So perhaps the next time you drop a few coins in a charity box you could open up a discussion with the can shaker on how we can eliminate the need for such a precarious method of caring for kids by suggesting that we come together to get rid of the profit motive that cripples our ability to give all our kids all the care and attention that they need and deserve.

   Mutual aid, and co-operation should be the basis of any society, not the fat bankbooks of greed merchants in the corporate world. Why should a bunch of parasites get rich because children need help? Why should we gamble with any kids well being in the hope we can raise enough money to achieve a standard we know can be reached if we put enough cash in some corporation’s bank account? It is profit and market share, or it is justice and well being for all, it can’t be both.

 

ann arky's home.

BBC poll shows widespread disaffection with capitalism

I could have edited, quoted from or re-written this article but I thought it was worth posting in its entirety.

WSWS By Julie Hyland

12 November 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/bbcc-n12.shtml

     A global poll by the British Broadcasting Corporation’s World Service shows widespread disaffection with the capitalist free market, including a significant opposition to capitalism per se.

       Conducted by GlobeScan/PIPA, the poll interviewed more than 29,000 people in 27 countries, between June 19 and October 13, 2009. These were in the United States , Canada , Mexico , Brazil , Panama , Costa Rica , Chile , Australia , Japan , Indonesia , Philippines , India , Pakistan , China , Russia , Ukraine , Turkey , Poland , Czech Republic , Germany , France , Italy , the UK , Spain , Nigeria , Egypt and Kenya .

       The poll found that more than three in five respondents were opposed to free-market capitalism. Some 89 percent believed that capitalism was not working, with a majority of those questioned in 22 of the countries indicating strong support for government intervention to support greater regulation of business and the market, in favour of a more socially equitable division of wealth.

       Almost a quarter of respondents believed that capitalism should be replaced by a “different system.”

The BBC reported, “If there is one issue where a global consensus seems to emerge from the survey it is this: there are majorities almost everywhere wanting government to be more active in regulating business.”

In only two countries, the United States and Pakistan , did more than one in five people believe the current economic system was working. A majority in 22 of the 27 countries supported greater wealth edistribution—67 percent or an average of two out of three people. In 17 of these countries, a majority responded that they wanted greater regulation of big business. In 15 of these, especially in Russia , the Ukraine , Brazil , Indonesia and France , the majority were in favour of government being more active in owning or controlling major industries.

      Twenty-three percent believed capitalism was “fatally flawed.” An almost equal number of people questioned in France felt that capitalism had failed (43 percent), responding that its inadequacies could be resolved by greater regulation and reforms (47 percent). After France , the highest numbers supporting the replacement of capitalism were in Mexico (38 percent) and Brazil (35 percent). In the 12 countries highlighted on the BBC website, more than 10 percent in each nation supported this position. Those defending the present set-up were a minority in every instance.

      The survey threw up several statistical anomalies. German respondents recorded less support for the view that capitalism had failed than in the US for example. Nonetheless, the majority in each instance—almost 70 percent in the US and more than 80 percent in Germany —registered their disapproval with the status quo.

      Responses as to whether the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “a good thing” were less surprising, with the US, Canada, west and central Europe, and Australia showing a majority in favour (between 73 to 81 percent). In those countries that had felt more directly the impact of the USSR ’s dissolution in terms of their living standards, the loss of political and economic backing or where it was widely viewed as an alternative to capitalism, the trend was the reverse. Some 61 percent of Russians and 54 percent of Ukrainians felt it had a negative impact, as did the majority of those in Pakistan and Egypt . According to the BBC, “Almost seven in 10 Egyptians say the end of the Soviet Union was a bad thing and views are sharply divided in India , Kenya and Indonesia .”

      Overall, a narrow majority (54 percent) of 15 countries polled said the break-up of the USSR was positive, while 24 percent said they did not know.

      The poll was timed to coincide with celebrations marking 20 years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which saw overturns of nationalised property relations across eastern Europe and the Soviet Union —presided over by the Stalinist bureaucracy, now become the nascent capitalist class, under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.

       The BBC commented that in 1989 it had appeared that free-market capitalism had emerged triumphant from the Cold War. Now, however, GlobeScan Chairman Doug Miller stated, “It appears that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 may not have been the crushing victory for free-market capitalism that it seemed at the time—particularly after the events of the last 12 months.” This is in reference to the economic crisis that is ruining entire economies and destroying living standards the world over.

      It was under these circumstances that leaders of the major powers gathered in Berlin on November 9 for a “Festival of Freedom” to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the efforts to revive popular enthusiasm for the overturns of the Stalinist regimes were marred by the fact that all over the world, the supposedly capitalist victor is itself in profound crisis.

     At the centre of this global capitalist breakdown is the United States . Having declared itself triumphant following the overturns in the USSR and Eastern Europe, the US is today economically bankrupt.

     In reality, as Leon Trotsky had warned, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its satellite states was the tragic and inevitable consequence of the reactionary role played by the Stalinist bureaucracy and its policy of building “socialism in one country.”

      As the World Socialist Web Site stated on November 9, “The contradictions between world economy and nation state—between the global character of production that has welded together millions of workers all over the globe in one socially unified process of production, and the division of the world into rival nation states—broke the back of the Stalinist regimes two decades ago. These contradictions, however, also lie behind the growing conflicts between imperialist powers, the escalating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , the unceasing attacks on the social gains of the working class and the arrogance and greed of the financial elite.”

     Only last month, United Nations aid agencies reported that more than 1 billion people will have experienced undernourishment by the end of this year. An additional 100 million people have joined the ranks of the underfed—which now constitute one sixth of the global population—as a direct result of the global economic recession. Much of the rise is in the poorest regions of the world, such as Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East.

     Also in October, the World Bank reported on the devastating decline in living standards that has occurred in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe . Predicting a 5.6 percent fall in economic growth for “emerging Europe and Central Asia ” this year, it reported that unemployment now stands at 11.4 million in the region. One third of the population in the region lives in poverty.

    In western Europe, the backdrop for capitalist triumphalism, the situation is no better. The European Union has warned that the public deficit amongst its member states could rise to 100 percent of gross domestic product by 2014 due to the global crisis. Urging “fiscal discipline,” it stated that five countries were particularly at risk of potential bankruptcy. This includes the UK , the world’s sixth largest economy and the third largest in Europe . Only last week, the British government announced the world’s biggest bailout for a single bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland, taking the total of public funds handed over to the banks in aid and stimulus packages to some £1 trillion.

      In the US itself, the election of Barack Obama has seen no let-up in the right-wing, big business policies of its Bush predecessor. Some $700 billion has been given to the banks, with an additional $23.7 trillion made available in loans, subsidies and other guarantees to the financial parasites on Wall Street. The price of this subvention to the super-rich is being extracted from the American working class, as seen in the forced bankruptcy and wage cutting in the auto industry, and the continuing wars of aggression in Iraq , Afghanistan and increasingly Pakistan .

     The BBC poll underscores that the realities of daily life faced by workers across the globe are making their impact on social consciousness. Whatever the facile pronouncements of the powers-that-be, capitalism is being discredited by its own actions. At the same time, the leftward sentiment identified in the BBC poll has no outlet within official political channels. Significantly, the poll received barely any coverage in the mainstream media.

    It should be noted that the poll results reflect the start of a process that portends even greater political shocks and upheavals. In the coming period, the turn to an alternative to the capitalist system—the socialist reorganisation of society so as to satisfy social needs, not private profit—will become a conscious political orientation among masses of people.

Work like you don't need money
Love like you've never been hurt
and dance like no-one's watching

ann arky's home.

THE MEDIA.

       Though I always scream about the media being the propaganda organ of the state, I sometimes wonder at who does the layout. Quite often you find headlines running one after the other that must raise the ire of the readers or at least must make them think. For example recently there were two headlines one following the other in one of our national papers. The first headline trumpeted, “Unemployment up again.” followed by, “Energy companies say that prices will have to rise.” So not only do you worry about losing your job, but you’ll have to pay more to cook and stay warm. This is not confined to any one paper, they are all at it. The following day in a free paper on the one page, “’Fragile’ economy set to grow faster than forecast.” and facing that, “We could see record home repossessions, says minister.” This is the type of society we have allowed to grow under our noses. It is all subterfuge, smoke and mirrors. The first contrasting headlines are really to instil fear in the ordinary people, hold on to your job at all costs as there will be lots looking for your job and it will be very tough if you get dumped. The other set of headlines is just a little bit of double speak, and can be explained as, recovering economy really means the financial centre is making lots of money again, but you are still up shit creek.

      As the media and all the politicians babble on about recession and recovery, as far as the ordinary people are concerned it has always been much the same. The vast majority have always had to struggle to bring up their families and try to improve their standard of living. In the so called “BOOM” times most ordinary people were just getting by while the “entrepreneurs” were doing very well thank you, and that is how they measure things. In a recession, the ordinary people really hurt and live with the fear of unemployment and deprivation, while the big money mob, weep and sweat because their millions have shrunk a little and there is less opportunities to use their money to screw the workers.

     Why don’t we get wise and dump the bunch of parasites that we carry on our backs, the greed brigade that gamble and speculate with our lives, all in the quest for more money. The profit motive that is only there to feed a bunch of sweaty palmed shareholders who put their profit before the well being of the people. We have the resources and the ability to create a society that is based on the needs of all its people, a society that is both sustainable and fair and also frees all our people from the fear of deprivation. It is just the will that is missing.

 

ann arky's home.

CHANGE!

     Most of those with any insight into the political world we live in, would like me, have viewed the euphoria that surrounded Obama’s election as President, with disdain and disbelief. We would have wondered how can the people be so duped. His trumpet call of “Time for change” made us weep and fear for the future. Well, there has been some change, more funding for war.

     On Wednesday 4th November Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, (US), Admiral Mullen stated that the Pentagon would be seeking additional war funds for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars for coming year 2010. Though he didn’t state an amount, some analysts are quoting $50 billion. However the New York Times stated that on October 30th Jack Murtha, Chair of the Defence Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee said he expected supplemental spending 2010 to be around $40 billion.

    This of course would add to Obama’s glories the dubious honour of rubber stamping the most expensive year for war funding since Bush’s much trumpeted “Global War on Terror” though I believe Obama has now given it the much more civilised title of “Overseas Contingency Operations”, now that’s real change capitalist style.

 

ann arky's home.

TIME TO RAGE?

     As we look around at a world where poverty is endemic, war is pusued for wealth and power under the guise of protecting "us", the wealthy swan around floating on a sea of deprivation and death darkens every sunset, what do we do? We have created a system where the many struggle to heap privilege on a bunch of parasites and we talk to the parasites asking them to give us a few more crumbs. Isn't it time to change the way we address this world, isn't time to rage and as an old Korean saying goes, "Enjoy the ecstacy of your righteous anger? It is sometimes easier to say in a few verses of poetry what might take a few pages to otherwise say.

TIME TO RAGE.

Time to rage, like a river running wild.

Time to rise, to save the child.

Time to rage, like a mountain flood.

Time to rise, to stop the blood.

Time to rage, with righteous anger.

Time to rise, to point the finger.

Famine, misery, sickness, death,

stretch across these pleasant lands;

war, greed, hunger, blood,

sour the lovely desert sands,

charity, chat, quiet dismay

is not enough,

prayers, thoughts, what M.P.s say

is useless stuff.

Time to rage, like a river running wild.

Time to rise, to save the child.

Time to rage, like a mountain flood.

Time to rise, to stop the blood.

Time to rage, with righteous anger.

Time to rise, to point the finger.

 

ann arky's home.

LOST and/or STOLEN??

       From our ever looking, ever listening City Strolls comes this request, and it is one that I feel that all of our country should get involved in. The theft has been going on for years and like a card sharp in a dodgy casino, the Glasgow council shuffles this and that from the common good to the private sector. It is our assets and the corporate world wants it, all of it and the council sleep in their bed.

Questions that need to be asked;
Who has all our public artifacts?
Property for sale, whose propery is it?
Where do all the profits from the Common Goods go?
Who decides our land should be sold or what its use should be?

WANTED

Common goods detectives

The Family Silver of Scotland Scandal.

£1.8 billion or more of land and assets belonging to the public has

been lost due to centuries of mismanagement and corruption.

Campaigners claim this land and assets are being misappropriated

 or even stolen.

Treasure hunt

Where is our Common Good?

The Common Good is all around you ­ see if you can find some.

Send us  pictures. Ask us questions. What about your local library,

your park. Who do you think owns all the pictures and treasures

 in the art galleries?  Lets learn to find and recognise our

 public common good ­ take public ownership of it.

 Because if we don’t someone else will and we will

 never see it again.

www.bridgeweb.info

ann arky's home.

FORTRESS EUROPE.

     As the rich countries of the world rip off the continent of Africa and the people of that continent descend into a life of continuous hell through famine, war, and total deprivation, there is that steady stream of brave individuals who try to make the journey to what they believe will be a better life in Europe. Of course Europe wants the riches of Africa and some of its cheap labour but it also wants to pick and choose who it lets across its borders, and is not too bother what happens to those not chosen. As the powers that be in Europe tighten their borders in an attempt to hold on to their privileged position of power and wealth, the deaths of thousands of migrants is the result. The list below is just the tip of the iceberg a more detailed account can be found  here.

     We have a responsibility to all migrants, they live at the harsher end of the same system as we do and are doing what we are trying to do, survive in this harsh and unjust and exploitive system. These figures reinforce the proof that the state is the enemy and all borders are an injustice.

27/10/09 Greece Boat sinks off Lesvos island. Three women and 5 children – all Afghans - were reported to be drowned AP

26/10/09 Italy 300 Eritreans and Somalis landed in Sicily after 5 days in the stormy sea. One man found dead on board Repubblica

07/10/09 Italy Migrants arrival in Gela, Sicily. Three bodies were recovered from the sea. Three other people were reported to be missing Ansa

23/09/09 Egypt Egyptian police shot dead one Eritrean trying to cross into Israel Reuters

19/09/09 Morocco Shipwreck off the island of Perejil. 8 bodies recovered, other 21 people were reported to be missing Reuters

16/09/09 Egypt Egyptian police shot dead two Eritrean refugees trying to cross into Israel Reuters

09/09/09 Egypt Egyptian police shot dead 4 African migrants as they tried to slip across the Sinai desert border into Israel. Here, at least 12 African migrants have been killed since May 2009 Reuters

01/09/09 Egypt Egyptian police shot and killed an African migrant near the border with Israel and seriously wounded an 18 years old women Reuters

31/08/09 Spain Boat landed in Canary island, in Granadilla (Tenerife), one dead onboard El Pais

29/08/09 Malta Body found off Bizzerbugia. It could be one of the passengers of the boat rescued two days before in the same area Ansa

27/08/09 Malta Migrants boat rescued off Malta, the body of a dead man was found in the sea during the operations Ansa

22/08/09 Italy The lifeless body of a man was found off Linosa, 24 miles on the north of Lampedusa Repubblica

20/08/09 Italia Five Eritreans rescued 12 miles south off Lampedusa claimed 75 passengers of the same boat have died during the 20 days spent going adrift in the Mediterranean, between Libyan and Italian shores. Their bodies were thrown in the sea by the survivors. Malta's authorities found 7 bodies in the open sea Ansa

20/08/09 Italy A man hidden under a truck just disembarked in the port of Brindisi, fall on the road and died immediately Ansa

09/08/09 Libya Libyan police killed at least 6 Somali refugees after a fight against a group of refugees who tried to escape from the detention camp of Ganfuda, near Benghazi. Other sources reported the victims would be 20 Fortress Europe

13/08/09 Greece Two bodies were recovered from the sea off the coast of the eastern Aegean island of Kos while another three people were reported to be missing Kathimerini

11/08/09 Spain Body found near Cartagena, between Cabo de Agua and the island of Escombreras La Verdad

10/08/09 Italy A boat broke the engine three miles off the island of Pantelleria. Four of the nine passengers try to cover the distance by swimming. One of them is reported to be missing Ansa

07/08/09 Greece Body found at Igoumenitsa port. He sneaked onto a truck believing it was about to board a ferry for Italy and he died after he jumped off when it appears that the truck was headed for mainland Greece Kathimerini

06/08/09 Algeria A migrant died after an Algerian coast guard vessel collided with a boat carrying migrants to Sardinia El Watan

31/07/09 Egypt Egypt police kill African migrant at Israel border. At least seven African migrants have been killed at the border since mid-May Reuters

27/07/09 Greece The Kurd refugee from Iraq Arivan Abdullah Osman who had been severly injured on the 3rd of April at Igoumenitsa port by Port police, while trying to reach Italy, died today at Thessaloniki hospital Reuters

27/07/09 Spain Parts of a body in advanced state of decomposition were found along La Fontanilla de Marbella beach, where one week before a dead body was recovered Sur

24/07/09 Spain One man is reported to be missing after he fell in the water during a rescue operation in front of Manilva coast, close to Malaga Sur

23/07/09 Turkey Three people killed in a road accident of a truck smuggling migrants near Kulp, in Diyarbakır province France Presse

22/07/09 Spain A dead body was recovered on the beach of La Fontanilla de Marbella Sur

17/07/09 Spain Lifeless body found in Cadiz sea, in front of Barbate. It could be the tenth victim of the shipwreck of June 29 Sur

15/07/09 Spain A third passenger of the migrants boat landed in Canary have died in the hospital of El Hierro Diario de Navarra

15/07/09 Spain Migrants boat landed in the Canary island of El Hierro. One dead on board. A second man died soon after his hospitalization Diario de Navarra

03/07/09 Egitto Egyptian police shot dead two Somali migrants on Thursday who tried to slip across the Sinai desert border into Israel Reuters

30/06/09 Spain 8 people were drowned, including 2 women, after a boat capsized in front of the coast of Barbate, near Cadiz El Mundo

28/06/09 Egypt Egyptian police shot dead an African migrant and wounded two others, including a 15-year-old, at the Israeli border Reuters

24/06/09 Egypt Egyptian police shot dead a migrant at the Israel border in the Sinai desert. The victim, thought to be in his 20s, was the third killed since mid-May Reuters

23/06/09 Italy Amir Rohol, a 19 years old Afghan, died after having fallen from a truck disembarked in the port of Ancona Ansa

17/06/09 Spain Migrants boat rescued off Murcia. A man is dead and a second one is reported to be missing Ansa

04/06/09 Spain At least 18 people reported to be missing after their boat capsized 18 km from Tarifa (Cádiz) El Pais

03/06/09 Spain A cargo ship intercepted the corpse of a drowned migrant off Cabo de Gata, in Andalucia La Verdad de Murcia

02/06/09 Egypt Egyptian police killed an African migrant near Israel border along the Sinai. A second one was shot in the back and is in critical conditions Reuters

22/05/09 Italy The lifeless body of a migrant was found in the sea near the island of Cavoli, along the south eastern coast of Sardinia Ansa

02/05/09 Italy One of the 140 migrants rescued two weeks before by the Turkish Pinar cargo ship, died at the hospital of Caltanisseta for meningitis Ansa

30/04/09 Spain One of the passenger of a boat intercepted the day before 14 miles from Tarifa (Cádiz), died in the hospital of Isla de las Palomas El Mundo

23/04/09 Spain Two dead bodies were found in the Strait of Gibraltar by the Spanish Coast Guard Diario de Navarra

20/04/09 Spain One man drowned during the rescue operations of a boat departed from Senegal and directed to Canary islands, 27 miles off Nouadhibou El Dia

16/04/09 Italy 140 migrants rescued off Lampedusa by the Turkish Pinar cargo ship. During the operations, one 18 years old pregnant woman drowned Repubblica

08/04/09 Italy Migrants boat rescued by the Italian fishing boat Cesare Rustico, capsized. 3 people missing Ansa

05/04/09 France The dead body of a migrant was found in the Channel’s tunnel, died after he felt from the train under which he was travelling hidden towards England Le Monde

03/04/09 Italy Two bodies found on a migrants’ boat intercepted 60 miles south of Lampedusa Apcom

29/03/09 Italy An Iraqi was found dead in the port of Ancona, inside a Greek ferry coming from Patras, where he was embarked hidden under a truck Ansa

29/03/09 Libya Migrants boat sank off Said Biilal Janzur, a suburb of Tripoli, from where it had left three hours before. 20 bodies were recovered, while 210 people were reported to be missing Ansa

27/03/09 Spain According to the ngo Asociación Pro-Derechos Humanos de Andalucía, at least 581 migrants have died in 2008 trying to reach Spain: 239 off the Canary islands and 342 in the Mediterranean Apdha

26/03/09 Italy A migrant was found dead in the port of Venice, hidden inside a truck emarked on the Hellenic Master ferry, coming from Greece Gazzettino

26/03/09 Algeria According to the Nigeria’s Ambassador to Algeria, 14 people died in the desert after they got lost, ran out of fuel and water Nigerian Tribune

22/03/09 Spain Two people were reported to be missing after they fell in the sea during a rescue operation Publico

20/03/09 Tunisia A shipwreck on the way to Lampedusa happened off Sfax, near the Kerkennah island. 17 bodies were recovered while around 50 remained missing Ansa

18/03/09 Spain The lifeless body of a drowned migrant was found on La Línea de la Concepción seaside Sur

07/03/09 Spain A migrant was deadly injured trying to overcome the Ceuta border fence Abc

25/02/09 France A baby died few days after his birth near Dunkerque. His parents, Kurdish from Iraw, where traveling towards England and sleeping at the open air, in some barracks near the A 16 hiway Nord Littoral

23/02/09 Algeria According to official figures, the Algerian authorities have recovered from the sea the dead bodies of 261 emigrants since 2005. In particular: 98 in 2008, 61 in 2007, 73 in 2006 and 29 in 2005 Info Soir

21/02/09 Spain One dead body found on a boat carrying 35 migrants, intercepted 18 miles off Motril, near Granada La Razón

16/02/09 Spain 25 drowned and one reported to be missing after a boat capsized 20 metres from the coast of Lanzarote island, in the Canaries. Among the victims there are 4 babies, 4 children 8 to 11 years old, and two women, one of which was 8 months pregnant Abc

02/02/09 Spain Boat intercepted south of Gran Canaria island: 3 dead men on board El Pais

29/01/09 Tunisia 8 migrants were reported to be missing after their boat capsized off Hammam-Lif, 15 km south of Tunis Ansa

29/01/09 Turkey The bodies of 5 have been washed up on the coast of southwest Turkey town of Bodrum Kathimerini

25/01/09 Algeria 12 men are reported to be missing at sea, since they left, on January 2, from the coast of Arzew heading for Spain Quotidien d’Oran

21/01/09 Italy 53 migrants arrived to Lampedusa. One dead among them Adnkronos

19/01/09 Tunisia 26 people were reported to be missing after their boat capsized off La Marsa, near Tunis, trying to reach Italy Repubblica

15/01/09 Algeria 4 men are reported to be missing after their boat sank off Gdyel, near Oran Quotidien d’Oran

13/01/09 Greece The bodies of 2 migrants were discovered on the island of Leipsoi close to a half-sunken plastic rowboat Ansa

13/01/09 Greece An 18-month-old baby drowned off the island of Syros yesterday when a boat carrying 19 migrants capsized Kathimerini

10/01/09 Senegal A canoe capsized off Dakar and 4 women drowned Iht

08/01/09 Spain A boat of migrants landed in the island of Alboran, in Andalucia, one dead were found on board El Mundo

01/01/09 Morocco Migrant shot dead by the Moroccan police when trying to cross the border fence in the Spanish enclave of Melilla. He died after his hospitalization in El Hassani hospital, in Nador

ann arky's home.

MILITARY FAMILIES.

    If you have family connections with the military or know anyone who does and is against the war in Afghanistan, please contact the Stop the War office. More and more military families are getting in touch. As Michael Clarke, Director of the Royal United Services Institute is quoted as saying in Today's Guardian 'The cynicism that eventually corroded the morale of US forces in Vietnam is a spectre that is beginning to haunt the whole Afghanistan enterprise'.

Contact; office@stopwar.org.uk

ann arky's home.

The paperless workers at ISS fight for their papers.

        I just received this from a comrade and feel that it should be given as great a distribution and support as possible. Perhaps other workers could learn from their tactics, more occupations and then negotiate from strength, less walking out and allowing scabs to walk in 

CNT France : international@cnt-f.org

Hi comrades

More than 2000 paperlesses workers for the cleaning firm have gone on strike; occupying 30 sites in the Ile-de-France region. they are doing so with the support of unions and other groups who have joined with them to denounce the exploitation of undocumented workers and the arbitrary way in which their cases are heard by local prefectures. After having occupied the Cité des sciences in Paris on Sunday 18th October the workers then took over the headquarters of the company in Paris' 12th district (3 rue des meuniers) ISS is a cleaning sub-contractor and one of the leading 'multiservice' companies and has already seen it's offices occupied earlier this month. The company has never respected agreements and has fired undocumented workers after having exploited them for years. undocumented workers are found in great numbers and are indispensable in many sectors such as construction, public works, cleaning, securitty, catering, care work, agriculture, baking, etc. The majority pay their taxes and welfare contributions to health, retirement and unemployment funds. they don't take jobs away from anyone else and they are often forced to work in terrible conditions due to their legal status. Papers for all paperlesses workers, it's good for everybody!

CNT Cleaning union.

ann arky's home.

CROOKS AND LIARS.

       With the Glasgow North East by-election, (my home patch) due to take place next week, and a mountain of paper garbage pouring through my letter box and the unusual vistors at my door, I thought that this little piece that I posted in the Radical Glasgow web site prior to a previous election was still valid. It seems that some things never change.

       In today’s society we have lots of strange and bewildering events, festivals etc.. One of the most bizarre festivals is the “Festival of Crooks and Liars”, this comes round every four or five years and usually goes under the odd name of “elections.” This festival starts with the groups and/or individuals wishing to participate in the “Festival of Crooks and Liars” breaking into outbursts of incoherent verbal diarrhoea. These verbal outbursts tend to get loud, more ridiculous and more persistent as the festival date looms ever closer. The event culminates in a mad frenzy of the contestants running around the country trying to prove that they are indeed the biggest crook and the best liar in the land.

        The aim of the “Festival of Crook and Liars” seems to be for the contenders to make every attempt to out do the other contenders in verbal rubbish, hyperbole and deceit. This part is foolish enough, but the part played by the public is much more of a mystery. It would seem that some members of the public believe that if they take part in this trip of insanity and actually vote for one or other of the contestants in the “Festival of Crooks and Liars” this will in some way end poverty and bring peace and stability to their lives. What is more strange is the fact that those who take part in the voting ritual of this festival have been doing so for many years and have seen the results each time to be that the “Crooks and Liars” do very well, but they themselves remain, relatively poor and insecure and their environment keeps going down hill, yet they persist in participating believing that somehow the next bunch of “Crook and Liars” will not actually be crooks and liars.

       Perhaps those “voters” should start to organise among themselves to take control of their own lives and communities and try to shape them the way that they would like in co-operation with others and leave the ridiculous show of insanity that is the “Festival of Crooks and Liars” for what it is, a dangerous illusion, a disempowerment that allows our wealth to be siphoned upwards.

 

ann arky's home.

The FSA, with both guns blazing!!!

       The current scandal on insider trading on Wall St. with regards the Galleon hedge fund and some other big guns in the rip-off money club seems to have come to court because of the authorities using wire tapping and other forms of surveillance. It is not unusual in the US to see these sort of affairs hit the headlines and the courts, after all there is plenty of that sort of thing about, it is the way big business works, but not here in the UK, we are a bit more refined. You see here in the UK financial world it is gentlemen that you’re dealing with. If you need proof of this then the outcome of the UK Financial Services Authority “investigation” into insider trading should be proof enough. When the British Financial Services Authority thought that there might be some dirty dealings, sorry, insider trading, they became utterly ruthless and sent a letter to all the UK financial institutions asking if they knew of any evidence of insider trading. Naturally nobody seems to have had any knowledge of this sort of thing, after all, this the UK, we would never dream of indulging in such grubby events. You might make a lot of money, but would you be able to sleep at night?

      

ann arky's home.

BENEFIT REGULATIONS TO BREAK A STRIKE?

       “New Labour’s new benefit regulations could be used, and I have no doubt that they will be used, to break any strike. The new regulations in trying to force people back to work, even where there is no work, state that after 13 weeks of receiving unemployment benefit and you are still unemployed but do not want your benefit to be cut, then you must accept a job interview allocated to you by your Job Centre liaison person.

       Sitting across the desk from your Job Centre liaison person this is the sort of thing you might hear, “It would appear that there doesn’t seem to be any jobs in your field of engineering, construction or even driving, however I have arranged an interview for you for one of those temporary jobs going at Royal Mail.” Of course if you refuse the job offered, you also lose the right to unemployment benefit. This is where the reserve army of unemployed can be called upon by any organisation that is facing strike action by its employees. I am sure this is how Royal Mail is attempting to break this strike and other employers will follow suit. This is also how a group of worried, vulnerable people in some degree of poverty, will be forced to scab on there fellow workers, not because they wish to scab or have no solidarity with the strikers but because it could mean extreme poverty for them and their families.

        This is just another example of how the state always works hand in hand with big business against the interests of the people of this country. And anther reason why all communities should fall in behind striking workers and give them unconditional support. Perhaps demonstrating outside job centres that use this bureaucratic fiddle to crush workers struggling to hold onto what meager conditions they might have, could be a start.

ann arky's home.

ARE YOU BIG BROTHER??

     One of the “shortcomings” with surveillance cameras is that there is an overwhelming volume of information and not enough people to watch and analyse the data. That problem might now be at an end. A company has recently developed an artificial intelligence system that can detect aberrant behaviour. This new system opens up the surveillance to the general public with you and I expected to be BIG BROTHER, and earn cash prizes for those of us who catch the most crooks, or could that eventually be, catch the most activists, or the most benefit cheats?? 

      The system is about to go live next month in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, UK. You are being sucked in to watch your neighbour. Or it could be a new way to occupy that ever increasing army of unemployed, keeping them busy watching cameras in the hope of earning a few bob.

Read more of the article here.

ann arky's home.

THE FRUITS OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM.

     It is difficult to know where to start when looking at the effects of global capitalism but I suppose we could start with the fact that almost 1/5 of the world’s population lives in squalid unhealthy areas without water, sanitation or public services, and in one of the richest countries in the world, USA, its literacy ranks 10th out of 17 industrialised nations.

       When it comes to distribution of wealth the Guardian Weekly’s figures (2003) tell their own story. In 1970 the average American CEO made 40 times the average worker’s salary. By 1998 that had changed to 1,000 times the average worker’s salary. Another display of capitalism’s glaring inequalities could be the fact that in 1999 and 2000 the Carnival Cruise Line created profits of approximately $1 billion but paid virtually no corporate income tax while at the same time in 2000, a janitor employed by Carnival Cruise Lines maked less than $1:55 an hour. Another example of the system’s exploitation, if we really needed one could be the fact that in 2000 Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney maked $9,783 an hour compared with a Haitian worker who stitches Disney products for 28 cents an hour. Where is all this wealth that capitalism claims to be creating? An interesting fact tells us, 52 of the world’s largest economies are corporate economies. What do they do with some of this great wealth? In 1993 tobacco maker Phillip Morris decided to create a grassroots citizens group called “The Advancement of Sound Science” to fight regulation of the tobacco industry and to portray the dangers of smoking as unfounded. Another use the corporate world puts some its wealth to would be the example of ExxonMobil, one of the world’s most profitable corporations with sales of more than $1 billion a day. ExxonMobil used some of its money to fund some 124 organisations that deny climate change. In 2002, the US granted Poland, one of the poorer nations in Europe, an interest-free loan of $4 billion, what for, to purchase fighter jets.

      This reads like an indictment, when will the people come to a guilty verdict and pass sentence of banishment from the planet, on this vicious exploitive system.

 

ann arky's home.

WORKERS, REMEMBER YOUR HISTORY.

     Capitalism has always meant the workers have to continually struggle to maintain their standard of living let alone improve that standard. Nothing has been handed to the workers by capitalism, it has always had to be taken bit by bit and that struggle still goes on. The struggle will end when we finally get rid of the yoke of capitalism.

      In 1874 during one of the many of capitalism’s depressions, unemployed workers were demonstrating in Tompkins Square Park, New York, When for reasons best known to the authorities a detachment of mounted police charged into the crowd indiscriminately beating hundreds of men women and children with their batons. Abram Duryee, New York’s Commissioner of Police is on record as having stated ”It was the most glorious sight I ever saw---”

      London 1888 saw, women and teenage girls that worked in the match making industry, the matchgirls, strike. The strike was against the poor pay, dreadful working conditions and the 14 hour working day. They were also striking against the working conditions which brought about “phossy jaw” a severe medical condition caused by phosphorous being deposited in the jaw bone resulting in toothache, swelling of the gums, and abscesses. It was a disfiguring and painful, foul smelling condition with the jaw bones eventually rotting turning greenish white and would glow in the dark. The jaw bone could be removed or it would gradually cause death.

     Strong public support for the girls and an outcry at the methods used in the factories forced the manufacturers to change these methods so as to eliminate “phossy jaw” After three weeks of strike action the London match makers capitulated. Though in some other countries manufacturers persisted in the old methods until legislation forced them to change.

      That’s capitalism, we know there is a better way.
 
     Read some of Glasgow's workingclass history HERE.
 
     ann arky's home.

BNP-KKK-Nazi fascist, all the same type of vermin.

So the arsehole Nick Griffin thinks his appearance on Question Time was like facing a lynch mob. In spite of his mates being Klu Klux Klan he doesn't seem to know what a lynch mob is. Well blob brain, take a good look at the picture, this is what a lynch mob looks like and for any more of the sordid details speak to you buddies from the KKK, they are experts in that particular field, they have along history of that type of vicious racism. But then I'm sure you know their history, that's why you signed up with them, just as you know the history of the nazi Hitler and you honour him. You are no friend of the working class, you and your bed-partners, KKK/Nazi types are leftovers from a dirty past and I'm sure the working class of this country will eventually dump you in the dustbin of history where you belong.

ann arky's home.

CRIME PAYS, IF ITS BIG TIME!!

       

      Austerity, cuts in social spending, benefit cuts, well that’s for you and me but not for those in the big club at the Westminster House of Corruption. It seems that one noble lady, no less than the Baroness Goudie has screwed the British tax payer for £230,000. How did she manage it, it’s easy. Live in London, buy a wee £200,000 pad in Glasgow and claim that as your main residence.

      Baroness Goudie, a personal friend of the Prime Minister, lives with her husband in a nice little £1.5 million shack in London. It would appear that she has lived practically all her life in London, brought her two kids up in London and her husband is a leading barrister in London but claims that her main home is Glasgow. This little arrangement has allowed the noble Baroness to claim £150,000 in accommodation expenses plus an estimated £80,000 for travel expenses between Glasgow and London.

       Now week in and week out some poor individual gets done for claiming a couple of quid above what our masters say they are allowed, and they get done. The mistake they are making is the piffling little amount they are doing, it seems that to get off with it you have to think big, screw them for hundreds of thousands and you will probably get a severe finger wagging.

   

ann arky's home.

POOR LITTLE ISRAEL!!!

      The Israeli state with its spin, complicity of other imperialist states and the world-wide Zionist lobby has succeeded in convincing world public opinion that it is a poor small state, an innocent victim merely trying to protect itself. As a victim it can avoid responsibility, a victim cannot be held accountable. However, the facts don’t convey that picture, Israel is the world’s fourth largest nuclear power, but still spouts the image of the poor little kid in what Netanyahu refers to as a “neighbourhood of bullies.”

      Israel produces 10% of the world’s arms and is the largest recipient of arms the US distributes to malevolent regimes around the world, yet still maintains the stance of the poor little victim in its conflict with the Palestinian people. Israel is an imperialist occupying power, that since 1967 has expropriated hundreds of thousands of acres of Palestinian land for its own illegal settlements, demolished over 11,000 Palestinian homes, has repeatedly attacked densely populated cities such as Hebron, Bethlehem, Jenin, Ramallah, Nablus and Rafah with artillery, bombs, laser-guided missiles and snipers. Yet the Israeli state still escapes accountability for this state terrorism, still crying “poor victim.”

      Israel has an economy three times larger than Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine put together. It has created a situation where 70% of the Palestinian people live on less than $2 a day and still escapes any responsibility towards the innocent people it rules.

      Not so long ago the military might of the Israeli state, with the financial support and blessing of the US, deliberately killed an innocent civilian population and wreaked havoc on the infra structure of another country, Lebanon. More recently the “poor little kid on the block” was ripping Gaza apart and slaughtering its people, a third of those killed were children, and it does it with complete impunity, while the other imperialist states make rumbling noises about a peace keeping force to protect poor little Israel.

      Who will rebuke the Israeli state, who will hold it responsible? Certainly not the other world imperialist states, Israel is a member of the powerful imperialist club and as such can carry out these barbaric acts and expect no more than a few platitudes and some insincere finger wagging. Only the people can call a halt to this barbaric system of state terrorism and only when we join hands across borders as brothers and sister and create a world of communities based on mutual aid, labeling the state system and its bed partner, corporate capitalism, as “man’s darkest hour” and throwing it into the dustbin of history.

 

ann arky's home.

Banker's bonuses or heated homes??

       As the bankers and hedge fund managers recovery from their pause in the greed feast and start to gallop away again with their stratospheric bonuses the rest of us can look forward to a cold winter.

       The latest government figures show that the number of families in the UK affected by fuel poverty has risen from 2.4 million in 2006 to 3.25 million in 2007. As fuel prices soared through 2008 the projected figures for England alone are expected to reach 3.6 million for 2008 and 4.6 million for 2009. Add to this the rest of the UK and you have a shocking and unacceptable level of homes living in fuel poverty in a country that has just handed the bankers billions of our money.

        These figures came as Citizens Advice announced the number of people falling behind with fuel bills had increased by nearly 50% in the past six months, and by more than 80% over the past three years. Between April and September Citizens Advice bureau in England and Wales saw a 46% increase in the number of people coming forward with fuel debts compared with the same period last year. The majority of people seeking help over debts to energy companies were of working age; 5% were over 65 years old, while 25% had a disability. We are in a society where the weakest and the most vulnerable suffer the most.

        It is obvious that the government targets to end fuel poverty among vulnerable households by 2010 and among all households by 2016 is just so much “hot” air, as are their targets to end child poverty and all the other election propaganda. As unemployment soars and all the parties are showing an eagerness to wield the axe at the social services it should be obvious to all that this system is not for the benefit of the ordinary people.

        We acquiesce to a system of privilege for the parasites and watch our children, elderly, and poor suffer the indignity of poverty at the same time as we watch the bloated parasites frolicking around in yachts and on sun drenched islands sipping the favourite Champagne. Is this the best we can do for ourselves and the rest of humanity? Surely we can devise a fairer system, we have the resources to see to the needs of all, all we need is the will to destroy this man made system of greed and create a society based on mutual aid and sustainability. A fairer system that sees to the needs of all those in that society based on free association, voluntary co-operation and is free from the profit motive.

 

ann arky's home.

ANN ARKY TO WILLIE BAIN.

    The following is a short e-mail from ann arky to Willie Bain the Labour candidate for the coming Glasgow North East by-election.

Hi,

      received your propaganda through my letterbox and feel that you are somehow assuming that the people of the area are rather simple and have short memories. You continually go on about the SNP ripping off Glasgow, and in doing so place the blame for the state of the area on the SNP, but seem to overlook the fact that this area has had a Labour MP for 74 years and for the last 12 years, a Labour government at Westminster. Are we to take it that the previous labour MPs were worthless, plain stupid or worse and somehow you are going to ride in on your white charger and save the area? Tell us how, if you are elected and end up down in the Westminster House of Corruption among the 600 odd other political careerists, you will make an impact that will benefit the people of Springburn.

      You state that you will clean up the shopping malls and streets by clearing them of drunks and drug addicts, where will you put them, somewhere that will cost no money and need no infrastructure? Can you tell us why we have so many drunks and drug addicts in the area and what you will do to stem the flow of young lives being destroyed in this manner? Of course bearing in mind that the previous 74 years of Labour MPs and 12 years of Labour government have seen the area continue to tailspin down the tubes of poverty and deprivation.

       You ignore the history of your own Party and the way it has treated the people of this area and to believe that you will move the Party machinery to act differently from its long past is somewhat naive and little arrogant to say the least.

 

ann arky's home.

YOU SAVE THE WORLD ----- FOR WHO?

       When the powers that be start telling us to save the planet, they are talking to you and me, the guys at the bottom of the ladder. We have to turn the heating down 1 or 2 degrees, just boil enough water for one cup of tea, have a quick shower rather than a nice deep bath. You should walk or get on your bike rather than the car, take the bus not the car. All very well, but while you’re sitting in front of the tele with the lights out and a tea-cosy on your head to keep you warm, just think on these few things.

         At the beginning of next year Russian oligarch Roman Abromovich will take delivery of his new yacht, it will be the biggest private owned yacht in the world. The 557 footer Eclipse is estimated to have cost £300 million. It comes equipped with its own private submarine that doubles as an escape vehicle. Among its other little extras are a military grade missile detection system, armour plating around his own master suite, bullet proof windows, two heli-pads, swimming pool, luxury spa and an anti digital camera device to stop people photographing his frolicking.

        You see he needs this one as his other three have specific uses. His Pelorus, (377ft.) room for 22 guests and 40 staff, that’s a nice ratio, is for entertaining and has two heli-pads. His Ecstasea, (282ft.) Chinese themed interior, is for cruising. While is dinky little Sussorro a mere 161ft, is for short journeys and loaning out to friends. You could ask??

         The annual overhead cost for his little fleet is more than £15 million and the cost of filling the fuel tanks on his Pelorus is a fiddling loose change of £73,000.

        You see, less energy for you, more energy for them. We could of course get rid of his type and that would mean we could boil a wee bit more in the kettle, keep the heating comfortable and have a nice long relaxing shower, now that’s not too much to ask, is it?

 

ann arky's home.

FROM INSIDE IRAN.

The following is a letter taken from the July issue of an underground paper called “The Street” published in Iran. The issue can be download from here:

http://feedblitz.com/r.asp?l=41789627&f=343373&u=20664667&c=2725740

         Thirty days have passed since what they called the presidential elections. Thirty compact days, during which in tandem with the terror, the bullets, tortures and the regime’s lies, the collective con- sciousness and awareness of the people have developed and morphed. The true nature of the Islamic Republic and its anti-human laws and regulations has been exposed to all, and people have discovered the power of their numbers and their togetherness.

         Those wisps of illusion that had forced many into sweet thoughts of step-by-step change have been blown away, and the flames of awakening have spread across the rooftops in the country. In their fight against the coup regime, people have come to see the deep contradiction between a system based on velayat-e faqih [guardianship/rule of religious jurist] and a popular system based on people’s will. When their singing throats became the targets of the regime’s bullets, the people saw the anti-human nature of the Sepaah [Revolutionary Guards] and the Basij. People found out all about the regime’s daily, hidden crimes, when it became apparent to all that their social wealth had been spent to procure the latest and most sophisticated instruments of police oppression, and the most technologically advanced know-how at the service of spying and controlling the citizens. Kamenei issued the command for the killings, and every day since a new corpse is handed to still another grieving, yet rage filled, family opposing them. That inept clown, Ahmadinejad, talked of freedom, while thousands of the country’s youth were lined up in death camps, awaiting to receive their daily dose of torture. This regime wrote illusory letters to their promised Mehdi the messiah, while the nation’s mothers in search of their disappeared children were insulted in the corridors of the Islamic halls of justice, and saw the catastrophe of the events in their shaken hopes.

         This consciousness has grown and a collectivity has made it impossible to breath the suffocating air any more. To make the passage from consciousness to proactive action, to go from understanding the oppressive, unjust and corrupt social relations to changing those relations and building a just, free and equal society, this passage is dependent on organization. Let them speak of easy solutions for change, those who are horrified of the people’s power, and those who have tied their hopes to the replacement of a layer of today’s rulers with a layer of tomorrow’s rulers. Leave them with their dreams and ideas such as a Green TV station that would remote control the people from afar, and render them into political observers, not actors. However, the people, who did not remain mere observers of the coup and intervened in their fate with their own lives if need be, are marching far ahead of the coloured dreams of that crowd. The people have realized that to overthrow this organized injustice, they need their own organization. An organization that, unlike the party suggested by Moussavi, will not submit to an existence in the poisoned crevices of the coup regime’s laws, an organization that will grow in order to smash open the cracks in the system and reach to the air of freedom.

          A large people’s organization is an association of small organizations, which sprout and gather strength from within the heart of the struggle against the coup, and which will guarantee the people’s rule by defeating this anti-human system.

 

ann arky's home.

WHY THE IRAQI BLOODSHED??

Now that the blood and the dust is beginning to settle in Iraq, the real reason for the illegal invasion of that country is now becoming clear. We were told all sorts of fairy tales to justify the slaughter, to get rid of non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Then it was to get rid of that wicked, nasty, nasty Saddam. Now that the contracts are being signed, as Iraq’s oil fields are privatised against the wishes of the Iraqi people and against the wishes of the Iraqi oil industry unions, it is difficult to conceal the truth.

BP has just agreed the details of its contract to develop a vast oil field in the Basra area and other companies are lining up to gobble up the rest of Iraqi oil. A blood curling slaughter of innocents to open up the Iraqi oil fields to the big corporate world, as they make sideway glances in the direction of Iran.

 

ann arky's home.

LEST WE FORGET.

       As November 11th., Remembrance Day approaches the heads of state with bowed heads and solemn faces will make their usual vacuous platitudes in honour of all those who have been killed in the catalogue of state sponsored wars. Lest we forget, wars are the states’ method of survival and enlargement, it is not workers wishing to kill workers, they are the tools used by the state on its war pilgrimage.

      The solemnity displayed by statesmen/women at these occasions is meant to convey the impression that it is all different now and lessons have been learnt. However nothing has changed, the brutal saga rumbles on and on. After two world wars we moved to a variety of more local wars, remember Suez, then Korea, let’s not forget Vietnam, then fast forward to Afghanistan and Iraq with our states eyes on Iran. In between times our state and some of our “allies” after condemning the nazis, went on to build their own concentration camps in places like Kenya, Malaya and Algeria, to mention just a few. Then of course the states colluded with each other as millions were shipped from German concentration camps to Soviet camps. During the war, even although the Jews were a target of the Nazi German state, our own state locked up hundreds of German Jews. We should also remember that during the second world war strikers in the north of Italy were bombed be both sides. Remembrance Day should stamp upon our minds that the power mongers of one state have more in common with the power mongers of another state than they have with the ordinary people of any country.

       As the heads of state and their generals appear for their photo opportunities on Remembrance Day and speak those words “Lest we forget”, who will raise a voice for those 1 million+ Iraqis killed in the imperialist blood bath for oil, or the thousands of Afghan civilians slaughtered for who knows what. Who will raise their voice as the slaughter goes on week in week out to call, enough is enough, the state must go so the wars can end.

     Lest we forget, all wars are products of the state and until we get rid of this insane state system we will continue to see our young men and women being sacrificed at the alter of state power with our “allies” becoming our new “enemies” and our old “enemies” becoming our new “allies.” In the State/capitalist world, war is always good for business.

 

ann arky's home.

Help the needy and get shut down!!

A COMMUNITY law centre that provides free legal advice in Glasgow to more than 3000 people each year is to close. Lawyers at the East End Community Law Centre are mounting a legal challenge over the loss of £250,000 council funding. The centre, which was set up 12 years ago and has seven full-time staff, including two lawyers and a legal trainee, will shut next year. It follows a shake-up of advice services by Glasgow City Council.

It has awarded a £2.4million contract to a new consortium of services, East Glasgow Advice, which is made up of Citizens Advice Bureau, the Greater Easterhouse Money Advice Project and Govan Law Centre. Hundreds of people in the East End have signed a petition opposing the law centre closure, which is in the Ladywell centre in Duke Street. Its lawyers are mounting a legal challenge of the loss of funding, arguing the £2.4m contract was the highest value of nine the council advertised in September 2008. Marcus Parham, a solicitor at the centre, said: "We deal with more than 3000 clients each year and bring in well over £3million to the community.

"A lot of our cases deal with employment tribunals and benefit claims. It is a lot of money for the most vulnerable people in the area. About 70% of our clients are disabled."

"We will try to deal with as many cases are possible, but we are now having to turn people away."

"There is also ongoing litigation over the loss of funding."

Glasgow East MP John Mason said: "I am concerned there will be a reduction in the provision of legal advice in the East End. The centre deals with around 3000 cases each year and it is my understanding the new service will have the capacity to deal with only 250."

A council spokesman said: "In the past, the 27 organisations that made up Glasgow's Advice Network had been developed without any over-arching clear strategic framework, resulting in fragmented service provision across the city. "The way money advice, welfare rights, housing and employment and legal advice services were provided required modernisation." "We moved to a commissioning approach, which saw a consortium called East Glasgow Advice be awarded the contract in this area of the city." "Changing the way we fund these advice services will mean improved service provision across the city, in addition to providing a fair and transparent allocation of resources."

Publication date 15/10/09   Thanks Caroline Wilson.

ann arky's home.

CAPITALISM, PARTY POLITICS, CUTS, UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY.

The Tory cronies plans for you and I have been spouted at the recent Tory conference. One Tory millionaire, man of the people, actually stated that cutting your benefit will improve your quality of life. Another stated that we are too generous because some families receive benefit that is more than the minimum wage. If benefit is the minimum that the government thinks you can live on, where does that leave the minimum wage? Shouldn’t they be talking about raising the minimum wage? Other ideas they have to help us all, is to make you work longer before you get your miserly pension and when you do get it, it will be less. Then of course there is the plan for the sick on incapacity benefit, they will all be tested to see if some bureaucrat thinks your sick enough to resist their coercion to get you into some crap job with even more crappy wages.

Of course Labour are no different, they just plan different cuts, and while the Tories catch phrase is “We are all in this together” Labour keep saying “To encourage growth”. The reason for all these “necessary” cuts is the massive debt “we” have. What debt you might ask, why the billions we gave to the banks and other large businesses. Having saved “them” and their greed driven shareholders, we now have to pay the price with wage cuts, wage freezes, massive unemployment, and cuts in social services. Why wait until the pain really hurts before asking, “Was it worth it?”. We all know it was not worth it to us the ordinary people, all we have done is save a lot of very wealth parasites from going down the tubes. We have hawked ourselves up to our necks, so the really wealthy can continue to milk us.

In any sane society based on social justice this would never arise. Production would be based on the needs of those in that society, not on the greed of sweaty handed shareholders, there would be no profit driven large corporations riding roughshod over the planet and its people. Capitalism is not an inevitable natural structure, it is a greed driven man made system that benefits the very few at the expense of the many. It is no more than a social system that can be destroyed and sent to the dustbin of history. We have the ability and the resources to create a new system, one based on the needs of the people and sustainability. The longer the delay in the change from the destructive capitalist system to a sustainable social system the greater the risk to all life and the planet itself.

 

ann arky's home.

What's your problem man?

 A diagnosis from The Agonist,

       "The greatest flaw in patriarchal civilisation has been the over-emphasis on the masculine archetype (identified with spirit) and the devaluation of the feminine one (identified with nature). This has been reflected in the fact that the god-head has no feminine dimension, in the neglect of the soul and in the misogyny responsible for the repression and suffering of women. The history of the last 4000 years has been forged by men, determined by male perspectives and directed towards goals defined by men - principally the goal of conquest. (this is no sense intended as a criticism; in the context of prevailing belief systems and general level of consciousness, things could not have been different).

However, because of the powerful influence of this long formative experience on the development of religion and science as well as our cultural ideas and patterns of behaviour - civilisation has been built on this unbalanced foundation.

Where there is no relationship and balance between the masculine and feminine principles, the masculine principle becomes pathologically exaggerated, inflated; the feminine pathologically diminished, inarticulate, ineffective. The symptoms of a pathological masculine are rigidity, dogmatic inflexibility, omnipotence, and an obsession with or addiction to power and control. There will be a clear definition of goals but no receptivity to ideas and values which conflict with these goals. The horizon of the human imagination will be restricted by an overt or subtle censorship.

We can see this pathology reflected today in the ruthless values which govern the media, politics, and the technological drive of the modern world. We can see the predatory impulse to acquire or to conquer new territory in the drive for global control of world markets, in the ideology of perpetual growth, in new technologies such as the genetic modification of food. We see exaggerated competitiveness - the drive to go further, grow faster, achieve more, acquire more, elevated to the status of a cult. There is contempt for the feeling values grounded in the experience of relationship with others, with other species, and with the environment. There is a predatory and compulsive sexuality in both men and women who increasingly lose the capacity for relationship. There is continuous expansion in a linear sense but no expansion in depth, in insight. The pressure of things to do constantly accelerates.

The result? Exhaustion, anxiety, depression, illness which afflict more and more people. There is no time or place for human relationships. Above all, there is no time for relationship with the dimension of spirit. The water of life no longer flows. Men and women and, above all, children, become the victims of this harsh, competitive, uncaring ethos:

women, in their desire to be accepted in a world ruled by men, and because the feminine value has no clear definition or recognition in our culture, are drawn to copy the pathological image of the masculine which itself incorporates fear of the feminine."

 

ann arky's home.

Is technology making us stupid?

Although I am against any form of pariamentary politics and against the party system I believe the following article from the SPGB is worth debating

"Do you ever wonder whether the smarter technology becomes, the dumber and lazier we become? At one level, of course, this can’t be true. Literacy rates in almost all countries are in the high nineties, and the information revolution can scarcely be said to have rendered people more ignorant than they were hundreds of years ago. Advanced capitalism needs workers skilled in the ‘knowledge economy’, and can scarcely afford for its school indoctrination centres to turn out workers who aren’t up to the job. But still, when you try to have a conversation in a pub with a group of people who are simultaneously writing phone texts, checking their email, Facebook, Twitter accounts and RSS feeds, and looking over your shoulder at the cricket scores on the giant TV screen, while humming along to the rock tune on the in-house speakers, you might be forgiven for thinking that less is sometimes more. It seems as if people don’t discuss, think, concentrate, criticise, evaluate. All they’re doing is time-slicing in a perpetual multi-tasking environment. What you are dealing with is, arguably, a case of social attention deficit hyperactive disorder. An entire society in need of ritalin. The world is drowning in an ocean of data, but data is not information and information is not knowledge. Data consists of bytes or small packets, which must be compiled into some kind of order so as to provide meaningful information. Thus the words ‘lion’, ‘fish’ and ‘eats’ are data, while ‘lion eats fish’ or ‘fish eats lion’ or ‘lionfish eats’ are alternative forms of information. There is a similar difference between ‘information’ and ‘knowledge’. For knowledge to exist, small pieces of information must be collected and processed into some meaningful agglomeration, like molecules building into more complex organic systems. Knowledge is thus a construct which it takes time, patience, communication and experience to build. In the Dark Ages, knowledge was a treasure locked up behind monastic walls. In the Middle Ages, it was still the preserve of princes. With the dissolution of the monasteries in Britain knowledge began to be secularised, and the invention of printing revolutionised its spread. The information revolution which began with printing and has lately accelerated geometrically with the internet has certainly involved a knowledge revolution but the two are not the same and the one does not necessarily entail the other. From a world subdued in ignorance modern workers now face a perpetual storm of information from which it is perhaps becoming harder, not easier, to extract meaningful knowledge. It is not only the speed and intensity of this ‘data rain’ which swamps the mind. It is the fact that it is being broken down into smaller and smaller packets, knowledge being deconstructed, digitised, quantised and miniaturised for faster transmission. And to cope with this onslaught, the mind becomes less reflective and more selective, picking and choosing what it will process according to its preset value judgments, making it less rather than more likely that new ideas will be adopted. Time too is at a premium, and technology is taking knowledge away from the library and the desktop towards the e-reader and the smartphone, from email to Twitter, from debate to mere chat. Some futurists, like Ray Kursweil, have been predicting the advent of the Singularity, a technological point beyond which it is not possible to make any predictions at all. The nature of the Singularity is popularly supposed to be the development or evolution of true machine intelligence, but could it be that instead of machine intelligence rising to meet us, we simply sink until we pass it on the way down? Some say it’s Google making us ga-ga, others that it’s screen-burn to the brain. But where most such concerns are merely the same old bourgeois snootiness against youth or the lower orders, socialists have got legitimate reason to worry, because this could all play into the hands of capitalism. The ruling class loves to  infantilise us, making us think we’re too dumb and childlike to take responsibility for ourselves without their ‘guiding’ authority. It would be scary to think that this might come to be true. Our best hope is for a political Singularity, something no techie is predicting. The Zeitgeist Movement appears to be making huge strides in popularising non-market production for use, and another group is calling for a World Strike against money in 2012. These might grow or they might fizzle out, like the anti-capitalist movement. But for such a post-capitalist society to succeed it cannot be imposed from above or gifted to the world by one or two visionaries. Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere  are all useful means of communicating ideas, but they’re not oriented towards what is also necessary: focussed reflection and critical debate. It’s not that people are incapable of these abilities, but if they are not accustomed to them they may try to avoid them. The danger is the spread of soundbite socialism at the expense of depth."

http://tinyurl.com/ybdxzrq

Feedback, however critical, will be appreciated.
Yours for a world without wages (money, poverty and war),

Robert Stafford

Internet Department

www.worldsocialism.org/spgb

ann arky's home.