WHY ANARCHISM?

Freedom and Equality: F u n d a m e n t a l l y, anarchism is the struggle for freedom. Freedom from the rulers and cor­porations who dominate our lives and are destroying our earth. Freedom for workers, women, and all oppressed people in all parts of the world. We believe that this sort of freedom can only be achieved together with equality and a fair distribution of resources.

Individual and Collective: A n a r c h i s t s believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of the individual. But this dignity and humanity can only be fully realised in a co-operative, egalitarian society. This is why we are in favour of working together collectively and being organ­ised. It is incorrect to equate anarchism with individualism or chaos.

Revolution: Anarchists understand that this truly free and equal society can only be achieved through revolution - meaning a complete trans-formation of society. This society cannot be ‘given’ to the people by politicians or bureaucrats. It must be built by the people from below.

Violence and Direct Action: A n a r c h i s m opposes the violence which is an integral part of capitalism and the State (this violence comes in many forms: war, patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends - in other words, the way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action - action taken by everyday people to cause immediate problems for the rulers of our lives. This includes strikes, boycott’s, work-to-rule’s and occupations. Both authoritarian communism (as in Russia, China etc.) and ‘labourism’ (ie. the labour parties of the world), have failed to solve our global crisis. We need a different path to a better world. Anarchism offers itself as a guide on that path.

What Might an Anarchist Society Look Like?

    The world’s resources would be held in common and shared with all the diverse life on Earth; People would manage their own lives, work and communi­ties, and everyone would have a say in decision making through decentralised forms of organisation;Relationships in all areas of life would be based on mutual respect and equality, regard-less of gender, skin colour, sex­ual orientation, disability, age, culture etc.; Work wouldn’t be boring and repetitive, but instead would be a means of voluntary self-expression and fulfillment; unpopular or difficult jobs would be shared; Education would be integrat­ed into daily life to produce free individuals who think for our-selves; Goods and services would be produced ecologically for human needs based on the principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need”.

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SOCIETY BASED ON CAPITALISM, RELIGION, AUTHORITY & PATRIOTISM

SOCIETY BASED ON CAPITALISM, RELIGION, AUTHORITY & PATRIOTISM
CRAP for short. 

        Any alien looking in on our society must come to the conclusion that we earthlings love CRAP. It is all they will see as we scurry about working in CRAP jobs for CRAP wages and in what little “leisure” time we have we rush around buying CRAP. We spend precious time discussing the benefits of this piece of CRAP as opposed to that piece of CRAP. We weigh up the difference between this pair of CRAP trainers and that pair of CRAP trainers, this CRAP label and that CRAP label. We consider we have choices when we select this CRAP newspaper or that CRAP magazine from the avalanche of CRAP paper pulp on offer. One CRAP supermarket after another offers us an array of CRAP food and TV vomits endless CRAP into our homes and we flick from CRAP Big-Brother to CRAP house make-overs, from CRAP lifestyle programs to CRAP celebrity chat shows.

       Move to the realms of the “serious” CRAP and we have on offer CRAP political parties throwing up an display of smiling CRAP politicians, who, come election time, prance about offering CRAP policies in the hope that they can take their place in that CRAP institution at Westminster. What we get from the CRAP government of the day is such things as the CRAP war on drugs, that doesn’t work, CRAP tough on crime, that criminalizes poverty, CRAP war on terrorism, that is counterproductive,

    Capitalism, can produce nothing but an abundance of CRAP as profit is the only motive.

    Religion, produces CRAP freedom destroying dogma, based on the supposed mutterings of some airy-fairy gods.

    Authority, gives us a CRAP life based on surveillance and strict unbending laws.

    Patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel, gives us CRAP racism and generates canon fodder for the state’s endless wars.

     Is this the type of society that we want to bequeath to our children and their grandchildren? Should we not be taking control of our own affairs and producing to our needs based on sustainability? A world of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid is possible, a world that accommodates us all as equals and prepares the world for the next generation rather than rob them of an existence. First we have to get rid of    C. R. A. P. Let’s start now.

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DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS!!!!

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ARE YOU ANGRY??? IF NOT, WHY NOT???

      The people are angry. The kids are angry because they have nowhere to go in this system, and the adults are angry because nowhere is their existence. Dead-end jobs mixed with broken down schools in this endless competition to see who can end life with the most possessions. It begins with compulsory education, with the idea that indoctrination is the same as education. Feeling trapped in the endless work load, in the endless department stores, surrounded by nothing but millions of people doing the same thing and consuming the same way, there should be no need of explanation why we're angry. It's about the government detaining citizens on nothing more than a hunch. It's about police officers having the malicious control over the life and death of those around them. It's about the richest people in the world getting rich from the work of others. It's about getting kicked out of the park by cops because you deter tourism and you're homeless. It's about travelling four thousand miles around the world so you can fight in a war only to enrich Western capitalism. It's about working all your life struggling to bring up your family then being told you need to bail out the banks and pay for it in cuts to your pityfull standard of living.  It's about getting beat up and torn apart, tortured and vivisected, thrown to the gutter after exploitation. And it's about swarms of people doing nothing but going along with it, buying the products that support the rich who bribe the ruling class. It's about. Consume. Obey. Exist. Consume. Obey. Exist. Consume. Obey. Exist.

THINK!

Commercialism!

"Since the 1970s the US oil company Occidental has been drilling in the Peruvian Amazon area. During that time it is estimated that Occidental has dumped 9 million barrels of toxic waste into the streams, land and rivers of the Achuar people."

UNDERSTAND!

State Power!

"Since 2001, more than 4,000 US troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 260 UK troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 1,000,000 Iraqis and Afghans have been killed in illegal invasions.”

QUESTION!

Religion!

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence." -- 1 Timothy 2:12

There are thousands of reasons why we are angry, pick one and join us.

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WORLD STRIKE 2012!!!

     It is up to you.

The only way for this plan to work is for the message to be spread. The idea is for everyone in the world to know about the strike by the summer of 2012. Then, within a very short time, a new moneyless system will be brought about that will change the world completely.

FIRST: Ask in conversation whether the person you're speaking to would like the idea of a world where money does not exist; where everything is free; a world without rich or poor; where all human needs are met by society working together as a whole; a world without boundaries, people living together in peace and harmony.

      Most people will say yes. Basically, probably all human beings are anarchists at heart. But, they will say, it wouldn’t be impossible.

NEXT: Tell them about the Strike for a Moneyless World in 2012. If they like the idea, tell them to tell their friends. Those friends will tell others, and by the year 2012 everyone on the planet will know, and decide whether they are for or against the idea.

You might make copies of this flyer -

*WORLD STRIKE 2012*

If you agree that the abolition of money would be a fine solution to most of our problems, and that we could create a much better system where EVERYTHING - food and drink, clothing and housing, water, heating, education,health-care and entertainment - shall be FREE for EVERYONE - why not join the World-Wide Strike on the opening day of the Olympic Games in 2012?

The Strike will begin the moment the symbolic Olympic flame is lit - the signal for all who support the abolition of money to stop work and demand a new fair world of true freedom and justice.

*WE WANT A MONEYLESS WORLD*

http://yabanji.tripod.com/id10.html
 
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LEGAL MURDER.

     The state of California recently reached a total of 700 people on death row It is astounding that a state within what is supposed to be the leader of the "free democratic world" can have 700 people lined up for execution, judicial murder. California now has more than twice as many death row prisoners than the so called “death” state of Texas, which had 331 as of January 11th. Florida, the state with the second largest number of death row prisoners, has 391 as of January 13th. almost half that of California.

     In these three states alone, there are 1422 people waiting to be executed by the USA. These figures are appalling and are showing an increase. In California the number of death sentences increased by 50% for 2009 compared to the last few years. Add to these figures the fact that America has more of its people locked up per head of population than any other country in the entire world and you begin to see the shape of that society. Of course the vast majority of all prisoners including those on death row come from the poorest section of the community. Even a blind greed drive politician can surely see this as disproportionate and also there must be a link between poverty and violence. These figures are not just a blip of statistics, it is probably no coincidence that the prison system in America is big business and there is money to be made from the incarceration of people, so no doubt this merciless medieval behaviour will continue to rise until we put an end to this whole greed driven, unjust, barbaric system under which we live.

 

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REPORT FROM LONDON LAUNCH OF ID CARDS FOR 16-24s

    This Monday (8th Feb) the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) began the next phase of the ID Card Con - targeting 16-24 year olds living in London. Minister for Identity, Meg Hillier invited the media to come and see the first 'volunteer' be fingerprinted at 8:30am. A dozen or more hardy NO2ID supporters mounted a chilly white protest in biting winds and the odd flurry of snow outside Victoria passport office. IPS security

decided to stay in the warm, and keep an eye on us through the window. Getting there half an hour before the minister meant we caught the media going in - and also coming out. Phil Booth gave interviews to ITV news and the Press Association cameras, and reporters from several London university newspapers. Guy Herbert spoke to news radio.

    Inside the passport office, according to one person watching, the volunteer actually referred to himself as a guinea-pig. Shame he didn't get the full message on the flyers we were handing out, which is *don't* be a guinea-pig. Bizarrely, one young man walking past our protest waved what looked like an ID card at us. He was turned away from the front door, but headed in by the side entrance. Members of the media said later he was a member of an IPS Public Panel - "independent scrutiny" groups, hand-picked by IPS - which may explain how he came to be issued with a card before the 'first' volunteer...

Glimpsing Ms Hillier through the glass around 9:30am, we rapidly relocated our protest round the corner. But to no avail. The Minister snuck out another way, leaving another decidedly low-key media event

without directly engaging her critics.

   For more information, flyers to download and print off, and notice of upcoming 'Stop the ID Card Con' events in London and across the North West, please visit: http://www.no2id.net/idcardcon/

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SERIOUS TERRORIST OFFENCES - EXCUSE ME?

10 February 2010  Richard Haley  Full article can be read HERE.

      Mohammed Atif Siddique, who walked free on Tuesday after the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction under Section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000, has been described as a "stupid young man." Stupidity at the age of 20 isn't a very serious flaw. Dunder-headedness on the part of Scotland's police and prosecutors is a lot more worrying. But what else can you call their doggy, excitable, unthinking pursuit of Atif Siddique?

      Their dunder-headedness was combined with a smart-Alec approach to the law. What else can you call the decision by the police to delay Atif Siddique's arrest until 13 April 2006, the very day that the controversial Terrorism Act 2006 came into force? That allowed them to add an extra item – encouraging terrorism – to the charge-sheet, in case the other charges wouldn't stick. The device was successful and the conviction for this essentially frivolous charge still stands, even though Atif Siddique has now been cleared of the main charge against him.

    All this might be amusing if it hadn't cost Atif Siddique nearly four years of his life and the stigma of a couple of terrorism convictions. It might be amusing if it wasn't eerily reminiscent of the Bush regime's over-wrought, pig-headed manoeuvres to incorporate torture into official US policy, or Blair's "now it's legal, now it isn't but it doesn't matter" approach to the war in Iraq.

     Counsel for the Crown said at Tuesday's appeal court hearing "Mohammed Siddique remains convicted of serious terrorist offences." It would have been more accurate to say "Mohammed Atif Siddique remains convicted on frivolous terrorism charges that should never have been put before a court."

      One of these charges is the smart-Alec charge under the Terrorism Act 2006, a law that Atif Siddique broke for less than a day. Perhaps he would have closed the offending website down before the new law came into force if he hadn't been distracted as a result of having been stopped by police a week earlier. As it was, he probably didn't even notice the new law. Who can blame him?

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WAR = BIG BUSINESS.

   While the various governments make belly rumbling noises about climate change and carbon footprints, continually telling us how they are trying to save the planet by giving you cheap roof insulation etc. and at the same time asking you to turn your thermostat down one degree, only boil enough water for one cup of tea, and walk or cycle to work. What they never discuss is the carbon footprint of war. War is probably the highest carbon footprint of any human activity. However it is a policy of keep quiet about that one. War is big business, war helps the economy, war creates jobs, war puts billions of tax payers money into the coffers of  big business, war is the state's biggest business. Think of the waste of transporting and maintaining thousands of personnel half way across the globe, armed to the teeth and continually exploding millions of tons of armaments and replacing them, at the same time destroying the infrastructure of some poor country and in the process killing thousands of innocent, old and young people. While in the same breath, saying we can't afford care for the elderly, nursery places for the young and affordable housing for all.

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CORPORATISM/FASCISM.

     The British government's decision to sell off the search and rescue facilities is another step towards a totally corporate run country. The corporate world has already made inroads into the health service and education among other aspects of the social structure of this country. This latest hand over of public assets to the corporate world could have very far reaching consequences. I can see the day when you had better not take to the hills or go for a sail without your credit card. Rest assured that the corporate world are not doing this for humane reasons. How can you morally make money out of somebody in a life threatening situation? If you are ever lost or injured in a blizzard on the Scottish hills, perhaps your credit rating will decide whether they send a helicopter or a dog sleigh team. After all, business is business.

    The march of corporatism is the march to fascism, it was Mussolini who said, that it should not be called fascism but corporatism as it was the coming together of the state and the corporate world. Who should know better what fascism is than the man himself, Mussolini. The more we tolerate this march of corporatism the harder it will be to have any control over our lives. We should be organising against that cancer in our society, the growth of corporatism. Society belongs to those in that society, not to a faceless bunch of corporate parasites. Only a mass grass roots movement can ever hope to halt the growth of this cancer.

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Does wealth trickle down?

What is your opinion of the capitalist "trickle down theory"???

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CRISIS/OPPORTUNITY???

     The present time is probably the greatest opportunity we have ever had of bring about the demise of the capitalist system. The capitalist world is in crisis, the claims of recovery are not really believed by the big money. They see countries that are carrying massive debts that they can’t service and see the spectre of sovereign debt defaults. That debt of course is tax payers' money that went to "bail-out" the financial parasites of the capitalist world. The so called stimulus hasn’t worked, "The real concern is that the whole recovery is nothing more than poorly-directed government stimulus which has simply had the effect of boosting asset prices," according to David Morrison at GFT.

   The big money club’s answer to the problem is to force countries to start a prolonged and vicious series of cuts in social spending, education, health, benefits, etc. allied to tax increases that will fall mainly on the average to poor section of society. This will be accompanied by selling of off the country’s assets to the private sector, at bargain prices of course.

   This is where we come in, the governments of these debt laden countries will have to legislate these events into being. We will be the ones that will suffer, not the chief executives nor the government ministers. We have to start now and organise and take to the streets demanding an end to any idea of cuts on our standard of living. Not in this city and that city, but across the country and in each country.

   The European countries most at risk of defaulting on their debt are Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland with Britain bringing up the rear. Portugal has already managed to stop the government from implementing its proposed cuts and Greece will probably have massive resistance on the streets as that government tries to please its money master in the financial world.

    Without a successful and massive attack on our living conditions the capitalist system will fracture and start to fall apart. If we want to change the world to one of justice and mutual aid, seeing to the needs of all our people, then we have to prevent this savage onslaught on our conditions. Communicate across borders, organise across borders, act across borders. To the working class there are no borders, we are all at the receiving end of this attack by the parasite class as they struggle to hold onto their power and privileges.

 

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FROM THE PARIS COMMUNE TO THE KRONSTADT REBELLION

Remember now there were others before this;
Now when the unwanted hours rise up,
And the sun rises red in unknown quarters,
And the constellations change places,
And cloudless thunder erases the furrows,
And moonlight stains and the stars grow hot.
Though the air is fetid, conscripted fathers,
With the black bloat of your dead faces;
Though men wander idling out of factories
Where turbine and hand are both freezing;
And the air clears at last above the chimneys;
Though mattresses curtain the windows;
And every hour hears the snarl of explosion;
Yet one shall rise up alone saying:
“I am one out of many, I have heard
Voices high in the air crying out commands;
Seen men’s bodies burst into torches;
Seen faun and maiden die in the night air raids;
Heard the watchwords exchanged in the alleys;
Felt hate speed the blood stream and fear curl the nerves.
I know too the last heavy maggot;
And know the trapped vertigo of impotence.
I have traveled prone and unwilling
In the dense processions through the shaken streets.
Shall we hang thus by taut navel strings
To this corrupt placenta till we’re flyblown;
Till our skulls are cracked by crow and kite
And our members become the business of ants,
Our teeth the collection of magpies?”
They shall rise up heroes, there will be many,
None will prevail against them at last.
They go saying each: “I am one of many”;
Their hands empty save for history.
They die at bridges, bridge gates, and drawbridges.
Remember now there were others before;
The sepulchres are full at ford and bridgehead.
There will be children with flowers there,
And lambs and golden-eyed lions there,
And people remembering in the future.
Kenneth Rexroth.  December 22, 1905 – June 6, 1982

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Support Mohammed Atif Siddique

*** Support Mohammed Atif Siddique in court on Tuesday *** SACC meeting Tue evening - Doors Open, From Plantation to Pollok, From Kabul to Kennishead

    Mohammed Atif Siddique - Appeal Court Hearing on Tuesday 9 February 10am High Court, Lawnmarket (Royal Mile), Edinburgh - map

Assemble outside the court from 9.00am Support for Mohammed Atif Siddique welcome outside and inside the court (please show respect and courtesy to the court).

Getting there

   Mohammed Atif Siddique will appear before the Appeal Court again on TUESDAY, following a decision on 29 January that he had suffered a miscarriage of justice when he was convicted for "terrorism" in September 2007. He'll find out then whether the Crown is seeking to bring a fresh prosecution. Atif's friends and supporters fear that Crown lawyers, incredibly, may try to do just that. If they do, Atif's legal team will no doubt be arguing robustly that no new prosecution should be allowed.

Atif Siddique has already served nearly four years of his 8-year sentence (which runs from the date of his arrest, in recognition of the long delay before his case came to court). His original trial lasted 4 weeks. Any fresh prosecution would be an outrage, piling further anguish on top of the miscarriage of justice that the Appeal Court says Atif Siddique has already suffered. The Appeal Court said at the end of last month that it was "minded" to quash Atif's conviction. It should do that. 

* Please come along to show your support from 9.00am (for 10am), even if you can only spare 10 or 15 minutes.

* Better still, please set aside the morning or the day so that you can show your support for Atif through any legal arguments that develop, and so that you are there if, finally, he walks free.

A packed court makes a difference. Please pack the court for Mohammed Atif Siddique.

For more information, contact Richard 07719822164 or email contact@saccnet.org.uk

Background

   The Appeal Court in Edinburgh ruled on 29 January that Mohammed Atif Siddique, jailed for eight years for "terrorism" offences, had suffered a "miscarriage of justice" and that it was "minded to quash" his conviction.

    Mohammed Atif Siddique was arrested at his family home in Alva, Clackmannanshire in April 2006. His case came to trial in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Glasgow airport. Atif was convicted in September 2007 and subsequently sentenced to 8 years in prison.

    Speaking on the steps of Glasgow High Court after Atif's conviction, his solicitor Aamer Anwar said:

"Today Mohammed Atif Siddique was found guilty of doing what millions of young people do every day, looking for answers on the internet. This verdict is a tragedy for justice and for freedom of speech. It undermines the values that separate us from the terrorist, the very values we should be fighting to protect."

In a case that made legal history, Aamer Anwar was charged with contempt of court as a result of his remarks. The case against Aamer Anwar was heard by three judges sitting in the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh in April 2008. A judgement clearing him of contempt was given on 1 July 2008.

   Mohammed Atif Siddique 's appeal was heard in Edinburgh in July 2009. Donald Findlay QC, for Mohammed Atif Siddique, and Derek Ogg QC, for the Crown both described Section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000 as "draconian." Derek Ogg QC also described it as "controversial" and "unusual."

Appeal Court ruling - SACC report, 29 Jan 2010

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WHY DESTROY CCTV CAMERAS ?

I came across this and thought it was worth discussing. Taken from SCHNEWS.

1.1) Why destroy cctv cameras ?

    Trust your instincts, but if you need intellectual justification then:

"The gaze of the cameras does not fall equally on all users of the street but on those who are stereotypical predefined as potentially deviant, or through appearance and demeanour, are singled out by operators as unrespectable. In this way youth, particularly those already socially and economically marginal, may be subject to even greater levels of authoritative intervention and official stigmatisation, and rather than contributing to social justice through the reduction of victimisation, CCTV will merely become a tool of injustice through the amplification of differential and discriminatory policing."

   "an instrument of social control and the production of discipline; the production of 'anticipatory conformity'; the certainty of rapid deployment to observed deviance and; the compilation of individualised dossiers of the monitored population."

"The unforgiving Eye: CCTV surveillance in public space" Dr Clive Norris and Gary Armstrong of the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at Hull University, UK.

"What we have been able to show is that Creduce crime - if anything it has increased - and it didn't reduce fear of crime. If anything there was a slight increase in anxiety."CTV didn't 

Prof Jason Ditton of Sheffield University.

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WHY I HATE THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA!!

    If it was just the sex, scandal and celebrity worship it would be bad enough but the mainstream media is much worse than just a keyhole view of the self-centred celebrity parasites and their fawning poodles. It has a much more sinister purpose, it is a necessary tool of the state/corporate/imperialism military machine and is used with a relentless brutal ruthlessness.

    Mainstream media, like harmful bacteria, is everywhere, it is accepted in its present form as if it were the guardian of society. It probably is, the guardian of this corrupt and vicious system we call capitalism. It does this by concealing and safe-guarding the shady and self-serving connections between the media, politics, government, big business, in particular, the military-industrial complex and religious organisations.

   To do this the planet and most of its inhabitants, you and me, are ruthlessly lied to, manipulated and exploited, sometimes tortured and killed, for the enrichment and gratification of a few power freaks and parasites. The mainstream media spouts patriotism, dividing the world’s working class, perpetuates such schemes as the states phony "War on terror", glorifies the present slaughter in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere as some sort of Western sacrifice for the benefit of others and works up fervour against the next sacrificial lamb, in the present case, Iran.

   The mainstream media will claim to inform and investigate when in fact all it does is pump out money making distraction or disinformation at best and at worst, cynical war-mongering propaganda. It will lie and distort with impunity, overlook, deny or " forget" its own dangerous filth but will not hesitate to crucify one of its enemies for the slightest slip-up.

   To be informed we need to ignore the mainstream media and create our own media, a working class information system that is not tied to the profit greed machine, not wedded to the corrupt state apparatus. This is easier than ever with desktop publishing and the internet, through these channels we can produce local news handouts as well as keeping ourselves informed on international affairs. We can create links across all borders with our working class brothers and sisters in any part of the world, we can create unity within our class and lay the foundations for a just and peaceful world based on sustainability and mutual aid. Let’s communicate, organise, take back our world and let the revolution flourish.

 

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Could be one less to worry about??

Where are all the bounty hunters, now is your chance to earn some spare cash and at the same time take a dangerous man off the streets and out of circulation.
http://www.arrestblair.org/   

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PROTECT MEDICAL CONFIDENTIALITY NOW

     Some of you will remember the fight to provide patients with rights over the NHS Summary Care Records back in 2006-7. Though the vast majority of GPs and the public opposed the uploading of patients' information without explicit consent, the Department of Health pushed on regardless, uploading the details of anyone* who failed to respond to a single letter. Now the Department is bribing health authorities across the UK to do a massive mailshot to patients. Fail to respond to a single letter and your personal details - including sensitive medical information, such as your last 6 months' prescriptions - will be permanently uploaded to the NHS spine.

    We'd like to know when and where these mailshots are going, as we suspect that the Department of Health is still trying to pull a fast one. If you receive one of the mailshots, which should contain a leaflet entitled 'Changes to your health records', and it DOESN'T contain a copy of the opt out form then please get in touch with us via office@no2id.net

    Latest info indicates that mailshots could already be going out to parts of London and the East of England, with health authorities in the North West, North East, and Yorkshire and Humber to follow in coming weeks. It would be helpful if you could indicate the region in which you live when you contact the office. --

*Anyone, that is, who had not already got their GP to put a 'stop code' on their medical record using the NHS Confidentiality Campaign's opt out letter - which you can still send, if you haven't done so already:

http://www.nhsconfidentiality.org/optoutletter


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I WANT TO BELIEVE!

I WANT TO BELIEVE!

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in hearts that live in dark valleys,

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

In spite of war, in spite of greed

The essence that is humanity struggling to be free.

All around death arrives in many guises,

Silent as the frost poverty kills,

The ruthless march of war

With every drum beat seeks God’s blessing,

While the God fearing kill the God fearing,

Slaughter in the name of the greater good.

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in the hearts that live in dark valleys

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

Not just as the dream of poets.

 

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" A DEVIOUS PLAN"??

   The British state in conjuction wth a load of others has decided on a grand plan to get out of Afghanistan and claim a victory. As Boldrick would say, "They have a devious plan." They are going to give that honest broker President Karzai a pot of gold, £87 million to shell out to young "low level" Taliban. The deal will be come and get a job with us and we will give some of the slush fund. I wonder what the average British and American soldier will think when this young "low level" Taliban who was responsible for killing, let's say, two Americans and one British soldier is offered a pot of gold to come into their camp and do the odd job, or perhaps get his college fees paid, courtesy of the US and British governemnts. Ah, but we all know that is the way the state works, your life is just a bargaining chip in their grand plan of things. Busines is business as the say.

FOREIGN POLICY.

Listless eyes, lifeless face

motionless body with hanging limbs

carried by a mother fleeing

foreign policy’s vicious whims.

No toys, no laughter

no playing in the sun,

a short pitiful life;

an Afghan child, 2001.

No plans, no choices

no hope by any name,

collateral damage

in the big players game.

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WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR COMMONS?

http://www.scottishcommons.org/

     They were stolen. Here is what Professor Cosmo Innes (1798-1874), the famous advocate and Professor of Constitutional Law and History in this Department wrote in his book, Scotch Legal Antiquities: - “Looking over our country, the land held in common was of vast extent. In truth, the arable - the cultivated land of Scotland, the land early appropriated and held by charter - is a narrow strip on the river bank or beside the sea. The inland, the upland, the moor, the mountain were really not occupied at all for agricultural purposes, or served only to keep the poor and their cattle from starving. hey were not thought of when charters were made and lands feudalised. Now as cultivation increased, the tendency in the agricultural mind was to occupy these wide commons, and our lawyers lent themselves to appropriate the poor man’s grazing to the neighbouring baron. They pointed to his charter with its clause of parts and pertinents, with its general clause of mosses and moors - clauses taken from the style book, not with any reference to the territory conveyed in that charter; and although the charter was hundreds of years old, and the lord had never possessed any of the common, when it cam to be divided, the lord got the whole that was allocated to the estate, and the poor cottar none. The poor had no lawyers.”

   Now here in the 21st. century they are still at it, selling off and stealing the peoples' common goods. Do we need lawyers to take back what was stolen from us???

 

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REJOICE, THE RECESSION IS OVER!!!!

       We are all supposed to rejoice at the news that the recession is officially over. Of course unemployment will continue to rise as the corporate world streamlines for what it sees as “difficult” times ahead. The mountain sized bailout is still there, it still has to be paid for and that’s where you and I come in, we are expected to pay for it. The main political parties are arguing over just where to cut and by how much. Rest assured that there will be massive cuts in social spending, that translates into cut benefits and less jobs.

      We can accept this attack on our living standards by meekly holding out the begging bowl and pleading for some lousy job with no security and crap wages, so as to ensure that the privileged parasites can get their greed feast going in full gear once more. Or we can take what is rightfully ours, everything we produce. We the ordinary people built everything on the planet, we mined every piece of ore, we smelted every piece of metal, we made every piece of machinery. We grew every oat, apple, potato and banana and we transported them across the globe. It is our world, we have earned it by sweat and blood through generations, it doesn’t belong to the parasites. It’s time to take it all back rather than crawl for a hand-out from those parasites who produce nothing but power and privilege for their own class at our expense.

    In stead of protests and strikes we could start with more occupations, more of locking the bosses out, more taking what is ours and more control of our lives. The first step is collective seizure/management of workplaces, but the next step has to be to dismantle the relationships between the various enterprises, radically transforming them to be part of the community. The inherent relationship in the way capitalism and industry have set things up has an inbuilt value structure that must be destroyed, otherwise workers' self-management could function simply as a form of emergency management of failing capitalist enterprises, to be once more engulf in the capitalist value structure in a renewed and invigorated capitalism. The goal is for collective democratic management tied into the community and working in federation and solidarity with other like projects with the aim of expanding, depriving capitalism of its necessary growth and consumers. The bigger the capitalist crisis, the greater our opportunity to recreate society in the shape we desire.

 

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WORKERS, KNOW YOUR HISTORY.

   

    In a quiet cemetery in Abercrombie Street in the East End of Glasgow, you’ll find the memorial in the photograph above. It was raised to the memory of the six weavers shot in 1787 by the military at Drygate near Glasgow Cathedral. Their crime? They were part of a protest march making its way to the Cathedral in support of a wage increase. Then, as of now, the city officials, the military and the judiciary put 100% support behind the employers. They had no hesitation in using what ever power they had at their disposal.

     In this type of society nothing changes. The harshest of treatment is still handed out to strikers and protesters while the employers are protected by the powers of the state. If we jump forward a couple of hundred years to the 1980’s they were still at it with the brutal and harshest of treatment handed out to the striking miners during the Thatcher era.

   This is what they call democracy, a system where the employers can exploit the workers with the protection of all the power of the state but a demand for a decent living can be met with all the force of the state.

    Today’s struggles are linked to all those struggles of the past and we should learn the lessons. It is the workers against the state and the employers. They fight to keep their privileges and power, while we struggle to get a decent living. The two are incompatible it is either their privilege at our expense, or a decent living for all with the end to the power and privilege of the parasites.

 

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ATTEMPT TO BAN PROTEST OUTSIDE BLAIR INQUIRY

       Negotiations between the police and Stop the War broke down today when it became clear that the government is trying to hide our legitimate peaceful protest from Tony Blair when he gives evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry on Friday. After days in which we were told by the police that they would try to facilitate our protest, Stop the War has been told we will not be allowed to protest on the grass outside the QEII Conference Centre. This is a denial of our democratic rights and Stop the War will now call for the widest possible mobilisation, not just to express the majority view in this country that Tony Blair should be held to account for war crimes, but in defence of  the right to protest.

      Why should the public be denied the right to peaceful protest, particularly when the latest evidence given to the Chilcot Committee shows beyond doubt that Tony Blair knew he was taking Britain into an illegal war, and that he doctored legal advice to deceive his Cabinet, Parliament and the British public.

     Stop the War is calling on all its supporters, local groups and affiliated organisations to mobilise the widest possible support for the Blair protest on Friday. We urge everyone who can to join the demonstration at the QEII Conference Centre from 8am. Full details for the planned events are here: http://bit.ly/8mKM0T

Spread the word as widely as you can among your family, friends, work colleagues, fellow students etc, etc

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Some Democracy???

      The politicians and the media always spout that we live in a democracy yet the shallowest look at the structure of our society makes it blindingly obvious that this is the big lie. Politicians are an elite, drawn from the minority group, the middle or upper class. All that is presented to us on a political level from politicians and the media is controlled and represented by the middle class and on the odd occasion, the upper class.        When, on the odd occasion, a working class person becomes an MP, they must convert to middle class behaviour. Working class individuals who join the political/media parasite club and don’t modify their accents and mannerism to conform to that of the middle/upper class, are ridiculed. In the recent BBC’s “Question Time”, January 14, Ken Clarke stated that class was no longer an issue in Britain. This was said without a smile or a giggle, in spite of the fact the he and the other three members of the panel and the chairman were all from that small privileged group of 7%, the “public school boys” and no doubt part of the old boys network.

      How can they claim it is a democracy when the vast majority of the top civil servants, (70%) are also drawn from the small 7% of the population that are public school privileged. These are the people that advise the middle class club that is our government of the day, on policies. Are they likely to come up with any policies that will damage their privileged position in society? As a group they are completely out of touch with the ordinary working class people of this country and can never really understand the problems and conditions faced by the working class. They will always legislate to make sure that the privileged class of parasites that they belong to will stay in that position at the expense of the majority. In this society wealth buys privilege and power, that allows you to put your kids into that small elite 7% of public school educated individuals who go on to safeguard the privileges of their class by filling all the top positions in the political and media field. Under these conditions it is impossible to have a democracy.

 

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Timeless comment.

Some things are timeless and Hicks is as relevant today as he was when alive, just enjoy, a giggle never does any harm.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkZQ2Fx1j9E  

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Section 44 must go, says SACC

     Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (SACC) welcomes Tuesday's ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg that Stop and Search powers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 breach Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to respect for a private life). SACC says that Section 44 of the Terrorism Act should now be repealed.

   The judgement concerned a case brought by Kevin Gillan and Pennie Quinton, who were stopped by police while their way to a demonstration at an arms fair held in London in September 2003. However, the judgement was framed in very general terms and it seems almost certain that any use at all of Section 44 stop and search powers would be similarly in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

   Section 44 allows police to search people for items that could be used in connection with terrorism, without needing to have any reasonable grounds for suspicion. The searches can only be carried out in areas where authorisation for them has been granted. Most people are unlikely to know whether a particular place is in such an area or not, and police and the Government are secretive about these authorisations. The Strasbourg judges ruled that the stop and search power itself and the authorisation process "are neither sufficiently circumscribed nor subject to adequate legal safeguards against abuse."

    SACC has long argued that Section 44 stop and searches are unjust and arbitrary. We are glad that the European Court agrees with us. Any police force that continues to search people under Section 44 will be skating on very thin legal ice indeed. There is no need for arbitrary stop and search powers of this sort. Where police have reasonable suspicions about someone they have perfectly adequate search powers without relying on Section 44.

     Parliament should act urgently to clear up this mess by repealing Section 44. It needs to respect both the letter and the spirit of the Strasbourg ruling. MPs need to resist any Government attempt to re-bake Section 44 in a rights-proof form. When the Law Lords outlawed the arbitrary powers of detention contained in the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, the Government devised its bizarre control orders scheme in order to evade the ruling. This obstinacy lead to a catalogue of injustice and litigation. We don't want that to be repeated. We need a clean break. We need Section 44 to go.

     116 section 44 stop and searches were carried out by Scotland's regional police forces in 2007, 1376 were carried out in 2008 and 878 from 1 January to 31 August 2009, according to a statement made last September by justice minister Kenny MacAskill. The number of section 44 stop and searches carried out by British Transport Police in Scotland is unknown. 117,278 section 44 stop and searches were carried out in England and Wales in the year 2007/8.

      Section 44 stop and searches haven't prevented a single act of terrorism. All they have done is signal to Muslims they are the target of police suspicion (since they are disproportionately likely to be searched), signal to other communities that Muslims are to be regarded as suspicious (since they are observed being searched), and to promote amongst everyone an exaggerated fear of terrorism.

      SACC will continue to campaign for the repeal not only of Section 44 but of the whole of the Terrorism Act 2000, which manufactures injustice and fear in many other ways besides those considered in the Strasbourg ruling.

Notes
1. The Strasbourg ruling in the case of Gillan and Quinton v. the United Kingdom, can be read in full at http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=860909&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber

2. Figures for Section 44 Stop and Search in Scotland can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/default.aspx?pq=S3W-26459

3. More about stop and search in Scotland at http://www.sacc.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=422&catid=44

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Community Action.

    Extract from BBC, more here 

   " Parents at a closure-threatened primary school in North Lanarkshire have occupied the building and are refusing to leave. Four women are staging the sit-in at St Matthew’s Primary in Wishaw. They are angry at proposals by North Lanarkshire Council which could see the school shut, along with three others in the region. The council said education officials were going to St Matthew’s to in a bid to resolve the situation. The protesters told BBC Scotland they had sleeping bags and food and were determined to remain in the school. A public consultation on the school closures is due to end on Friday.

      Parents at the other threatened primaries – Belvidere in Bellshill, Gartsherrie in Coatbridge and St Francis of Assisi, Cumbernauld – have also staged protests, held meetings and arranged petitions in a bid to keep the schools open."
   Where possible support should be shown by turning up at the school to boost morale, donating food etc. and picketing council offices. The communities belong to the people who live there, not a bunch of town planners who live elsewhere.   

 

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A Call for Solidarity.

Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, the only serving British soldier refusing to fight in Afghanistan, was released from the Military Correction Training Centre in mid December and is now awaiting the legal hearings prior to his court martial. The initial legal arguments will be heard on Friday 29 January. The army has decided that the hearing will be held at Bulford Camp , about 10 miles from Andover, probably because it thinks holding it in Wiltshire will diminish media coverage. Stop the War will be organising transport to go to Bulford to give support to Joe on the day of his first court martial hearing. If you would be interested in going, please inform the Stop the War office:

Call 020 7801 2768 or email office@stopwar.org.uk.

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State insanity.

    The British state moves with steady stealth at introducing compulsory ID cards to enable you to access practically all transactions, banking, social benefits, doctors, and all aspects of our National Health Service, not to mention libraries etc. inspite of widespread opposition from all sections of society, the knowledgable in these matter and the lay person. Apart from the problems that would be created if some of the information on you card was wrong and the fact that the information could be compromised as it shuttles between the various institutions, there is the problem of mass errors when cards are produced.

     A little glimpse of this is happening in Germany at this moment in time. On the 1st. January 2010 over 30 million holders of bank cards in Germany found that they could not withdraw cash from their accounts nor could they make any purchases with their cards. The problem is still there at the date of his post. The problem, a fault in the chip, the estimated cost of putting it right, approximately $432 million. Of course retailers are considering sueing for the lost business which will of course add to the cost. Perhaps the Germans are lucky, it was just cash and purchases that were involved. If however it had been the British "super" ID card, that could have been 30 million people locked out of medical treatment and health care, prescriptions, benefit cash, as well as their bank accounts.

     Only the paranoid, authoritarian, control crazy state apparatus would push such an insane scheme knowing the possible chaos and life threatening situations that could arise under such conditions.

     Let's not drop the drive for a mass anti-ID card movement. Don't believe any of the crap coming from the government on this matter, no matter what they say, they are intent on getting these life threatening cards into everybodies wallet.

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BREAKING OUT OF THE ILLUSION.

        As anybody who has even a miniscule awareness of history knows capitalism has never delivered what its proponants declared it would, prosperity for all. In developed capitalist countries it has created wealth for a privileged few, struggle for the majority and poverty for the remainder. Its "mission statement" is an illusion.

      We are all aware of the endemic poverty in the "poor countries" the "Tthird World", most of it, if not all, due to international captalism.

      However, for capitalism's failings we need look no further than its "successes". In the world's biggest and richest economies, the developed capitalist economies, the proof that even at its highest developed level, the system of capitalism can't deliver prosperity for all.

     In America, that pinnacle of capitalism, we see its glaring flaws and failings. according to recent figures, one in eight Americans now receive food stamps, with 6 million of them claiming to have no other form of income. 25% of children in America are fed on food stamps. Added to that is the fact that 1.2 million children live in homes with no income.

   Japan, that other juggernaut of the capitalist eceonomy can boast of approximately 10,000 people sleeping on the streets of Tokyo, with thousands more renting a "cubicle", not much bigger than a coffin, in the cities "Capsule Hotels". These places are fast becoming one step away frm the street.

   Some capitalist ecomomists are proclaiming they have to make it worse for the many, insisting that governments must cut social spending to allow the money grabbers to start their greed feast all over again. While others state, the only formula to get the economy growing again is to cut social benefits and lower wages. Obviously the survival of the system is more important than the well being of the people.

   Under these conditions the people have the right to defend themselves by whatever means possible. That doesn't mean marching in an orderly fashion to some government building and asking to be employed in some lousy job for a crap wage.

   We have a better imagination than that, we can break out of the capitalist illusion. We can take control and shape society to see to the needs of all our people, instead of pandering to a greedy bunch of shareholders and financiers.

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CLASS WAR

       Recent statements from the representatives of the parasite group such as Tessa Jowell's statement "Most people don't give a thought from one day to the next whether Eton exists." and "Class war for votes is not our plan." and Cameron ridiculing any talk of clas war, is how the parasite class would like us to think.

        However make no mistake the class war is in full swing with the parasite class plundering public resources and being "bailed-out" with workers money. According to the parasites, there is no class war when  they take from us, it is only labelled class war "nonesenses" when we complain.

         As for Eton and other institutions of privilege that support the parasites, perhaps we should take note of some figures. Although private education of young people only accounts for approximately 7% of the population, they go on to fill around 50% of places at the top universities. Then move on to account for 75% of judges,  70% of finance directors, 45% of top civil servants and let's not forget, 32% of MPs. From these positions they shape society to guarantee victory for the parasites in what they know to be a class war. In this society private education is the bricks and cement  of the class system, it perpetuates privilege and poverty.

       In the near future we will be expected to pay for the parasites "bail-out". We will be expected to quietly and with subservience accept higher unemployment, lower wages and pensions, accompanied with drastic cuts  in social services. those who resist will be demonised and called destructive, trouble makers, hooligans, extremists, etc..

        It is only if we accept that we are in a class war and take steps to organise accordingly can we hope to  turn the tide. We must organise to take control in the community and work-places, to take back all that is ours, and that is all production and distribution. The bigger the crisis in the capitalist system the greater our opportunity to create a society based on mutual aid and co-operation freed from the greed and profit motive of this system of privilege and exploitation.

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PROTO-FASCISM.

 Page 94/95;    

   Neoliberalism is not only an economic policy designed to cut government spending, pursue free trade policies, and liberate market forces from government regulations. It is also a political philosophy and ideology that affects every dimension of social life. Neoliberalism has heralded a radical shift that defines the citizen as consumer, disbands the social contract in the interests of privatized considerations, and separates capital from the context of place.Within this discourse, as Jean and John Comaroff have argued, "the personal is the only politics there is, the only politics with a tangible referent or emotional valence. It is in these privatized terms that action is organised, that the experience of inequity and antagonism takes meaningful shape." Unnder such circumstances, neoliberalism portends the death of politics as we know it, strips the social of its democratic values, and reconstructs agency in terms that are utterly privatized. It provides the conditions for an emerging form of proto-fascism that must be resisted at all costs. Neoliberalism not only enshrines unbridled individualism as a central feature  of proto-fascism, as Herbert Marcuse reminds us, it also destroys any vestige of democratic society by undercutting its "moral material and regulatory moorings," and in doing so, offers no language for understanding how the future might be grasped outside the narrow logic of the market. But there is even more at stake here than the obliteration of public concerns, the death of the social, the emergence of a market-based fundamentalism that undercuts our ability to understand how to translate privately experienced misery into collective action, and the elim ination of the gains of the welfare state. There is  also the growing threat of displacing "political sovereignty with the sovereignty of the market, as if the latter has a mind and morality of its own.'" As democracy becomes a burden under the reign of neoliberalism, civic discourse disappears and the reign of unfetered social Darwnism, with its survival-of-the-slickest philosophy, emerges as the template for a new form of proto-fascism. None of this will happen in the face of sufficient resistance, nor is the increasing move toward proto-fascism inevitable, but the conditions exist for democracy to lose all semblance of meaning----

Extract from; 
AGAINST THE NEW AUTHORITARIANISM   by HENRY GIROUX   1-894037-23-5

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DEATHS FROM "FRIENDLY FIRE".

     In war we always seem to accept killing but deaths from "friendly fire" are always considered more deplorable. They will make headline news and the inevitable enquiry will follow. But how much more "friendly fire" can you get than being killed by your own family?

     According to the United Nations Population Fund there are an estimated 5,000 women killed each year in what distorted minds call "honour" killings.  Figures from The United Nations Development Fund for Women state that 22 women a day are killed in India because of dowry related affairs. While in South Africa one woman is murdered every six hours by a family member or partner. United Nations special adviser, Asma Jahangir, in a report to the the Commission on Human Rights said, "The perpetrators of these crimes are mostly male family members of  the murdered women who go unpunished or receive reduced sentences on the justification of having murdered to defend their misconceived notions of family honour."

   No country seems to be immune to these male murders of females, a recent survey of cases that received media coverage between 1998 and 2007 concluded that in the UK there were an average of 12 cases investigated a year.

    What state has our civilization reached when we still have male family members killing their own female family members on some personal and transitory notion of honour?

    Of course it will continue as long as we have two classes of citizens, one the so called dominant and the other, the expected to be, submissive. It will only change when each human being respects and accepts as equall all other human beings, giving to each the rights that they claim for themselves.

    Of course you and I know that the present system doesn't lend itself to all being equall, we are graded according to our consumer ability, our macho attitude, our success at exploiting others, possessions mean power, power gives you extra rights.

ann arky's home.  

TO DIE EARNING YOUR DAILY BREAD.

        Day and daily we hear of deaths across the world, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine etc. and they often make headline news. However closer to home the deaths continue, day and daily, ordinary folks die at work, often due to lack of or faulty safety equipment, over-worked through pressure from bosses causing mistakes and a multitude of other avoidable reasons. Today we pay our respects to another worked killed at work but we will probably not read about it in the press.

       Ray Jessop  died yesterday following an  accident at work. Ray, a painter by trade, he fell from a  ladder and died of his injuries soon after.

       Ray was a founder member of the short-lived Hull GMB.  He signed up in January 2002, and was one of only three  members who stayed with the OBU after the collapse of the  Hull branch. Few of the the current membership would have  known him; his last attendance at an event outside of Hull  was at the pre-onference "way ahead" meeting in July 2004. Also he was not in his element at meetings: in  the minutes of the 2003 AGM he is listed as "Softly spoken bloke with long hair and earrings (who the minute-taker couldn't hear)".  But he could always be relied to take part in direct action. He was up for anything in that line. Many causes  have benefitted from his support, practical and financial.  He was a stalwart of the animal rights movement, of the campaign against the arms trade, of the Palestine Solidarity movement. He will be missed in the ranks of these and other radical organisations.

     Ray was 51 years old. As far as I know he leaves no partner or children. Although he was a very outgoing and sociable fellow, we never seem to have got round to discussing his private life.
Details thanks to IWW members.

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A SUGAR COATED BUSH??

     I have always maintained that voting at elections to change a leader is much the same as voting for a new suit for a psychopath. Nothing really changes, it is just at first it looks a bit different. Watching the hysteria after the Obama election I felt saddened that so many people could be fooled by this switch of clothes, same old shit, nice new suit. Now we have Obama, a sugar coated Bush, preaching the " just war", extolling the self sacrificing America giving up its young folks to help the world, and for this duplicity he receives the Nobel Peace Prize and you can feel your stomach churn. The best comment I have read of the Obama acceptance speech at the Nobel Peace Prize event is here

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OGIES OF REPRESSION.

       As states feel the crunch of collapse they muster their repressive forces, aware of the fact that the people will only take so much. The closer to collapse the state goes the more severe the repression. The police are given a free hand, the military sit in the background waiting their comands, the media pours out its disinformation, all the right wing fascist groups are encouraged to come out of the sewers on to the streets.  Divide, intimidate and misinform the usual strategy of the state is put into overdrive as the survival of the system is what matters, not the will and welfare of the people. As Greece races forward to defaulting on its debt the powers that be are aware of what that will mean, the collapse of any form of social services. so it will try to pre-empt the people's dissatisfaction by every repressive means available. Control  in any form is the states only means of survival. Greece is just a little further down the road than lots of other states, but most are facing the finacial crunch that will put people under stress and onto the streets. We should watch very carefully what is happening in Greece and learn how to be one step ahead of the brutal reprssion that is coming our way.

   More from Greece:
9-12-2009 : RECENT DAYS HAVE SEEN
INCREDIBLE JUNTA ORGIES IN GREECE.
EXAMPLES:
1) Cops with guns in the demonstrations.
2) Motorbike raids against protesters.
3) Cops following peaceful demonstrators in their tracks, wild and indiscriminate arrests.
4) Staged events such as the alleged assassination attempt against the rector of the Pritanea.
5) An enormous number of vague and even criminal charges and arresting people young and old.
6) Closing schools on the pretext of swine flu and the merciless beating of students who wanted to get to their schools.
7) Undercover cops kidnapping young protesters.
8) Higher level visible collaboration between Golden Dawn neo-nazis and the Police.
9) Secret meetings between Chrysohoides and the bosses of the TV channels and journalists to decide on how TV reporting was going to be done over these days.
10) Secret covert cameras and helicopters hovering constantly.

Read the full article here:  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10260

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TERRORISTS IN UNIFORMS.

The Greek assasination from an eye witness,

this story should be widely distributed ;

       An Exarchia resident whose balcony overlooks the spot where Alexis Grigoropoulos was murdered.

I'm not so involved in any political activities. I'm not an activist. I can only speak about the killing. I can't take a position on all the other things that happened because all these other things are very complicated and I don't have clear thoughts on them.

Exarchia has always been an alternative, counterculture neighborhood. For many years it was a frequent occurrence that something would happen on a street corner in Exarchia and suddenly everyone from the cafes and the bars and the sidewalks would pour out into the streets and run to see what was happening. Usually it was incidents between people and police, some fights, confrontations, insults, shouting matches. In the old times it happened very often. Then there was a period when this didn't happen so much, but in the last years it has started becoming more common again.-----

 

    Read the full story here;  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10247

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Bankers bonuses my f**=>^****"

    All this talk of hitting bankers' bonuses is just hogwash. It makes people think that somebody is being made to pay for the real mess and pain that is coming our way. So the bankers are whinging about their £1.5 million bonus being cut to a mere £750,000 each, (gee, how unfair, how will they ever manage) and we are supposed to think that they are hurting?? They will be laughing and in clover for the rest of their lives while you and I face savage cuts to all social services, wage freezes/cuts plus high unemployment. Do we need the bankers and their dodgy dealings, ripping off all and sundry? Forget the bankers and their bonuses, it is the system that has to be destroyed, don't expect the corporate world or the financial institutions to be altruistic, ethical or even honest, that would be bad for their businesses. We need a fairer, more humane and just system that sees to the needs of all our people, not one that tends to the needs of a bunch of greedy parasites. We can create a social system based on mutual aid, voluntary co-operation and sustainability, a system freed from the corporate greed and profit motive of this system of sweaty palmed money crazy shareholders.

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CRISIS/OPPORTUNITY?

        Workers today have a great opportunity to compare the present with the past and to be alive to the acts of imperialism that might have, in an earlier time, gone un-noticed by vast swathes of the people of the planet. We the workers have a greater connectivity through the internet and therefore can react more quickly in solidarity with our comrades across the globe.

       No longer can the imperialist conceal their deeds by semantics, censorship and propaganda, the world has shrunk, the internet has turned it into a village and we are aware of the village bullies. We are aware of the rising corporate fascism, regionally and globally, backed up by the militarization of the state. We are also aware of the ever deepening crisis in the capitalist system and know that it needs wars, war contracts feed the shareholders of the military industrial complex that is capitalism today. We have become aware of the continuing rhetoric pouring from Western leaders referring to the peaceful West yet we can’t recall a year when the West was not involved in a war somewhere in the world.

       The workers of the world are now becoming conscious of their homogeneity, perhaps it is the brutality of a system that we created that is causing this consciousness and also the knowledge that we have the ability to destroy such a man made system and create a more just, moral, humane and sustainable system. A system based on mutual aid and voluntary co-operation rather than the profit and greed of the present system.

      However the change must come in the near future if we are to prevent WW3. The crisis the corporate world is facing means that the competing imperialists cannot compete in friendly fashion, they must win to survive and each will do what it believes is necessry to survive and expand. In the eyes of the imperialists, the destruction of the people is an acceptable price to pay for the survival of the system.

 

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Politicians and freedom of speech don't go together.

It seems that the truth and freedom of speech can cost you your job. According to a recent ITN news report:

     A Labour election candidate who called the Queen a "parasite" and "vermin" has been sacked. Would-be local councillor Peter White was axed by party bosses after being forced to apologise for an online rant about the monarch. A Labour spokesman said: "Mr White appeared before a panel of the regional board of the London Labour Party who, after hearing the evidence, decided to remove him from the panel of candidates." The 26-year-old had been due to fight for a seat on Havering Borough Council in east London next year. His comments were posted on the Facebook page of Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, who is campaigning for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee to be marked with a public holiday. Mr White posted: "What is the point of celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of someone who is born into a position of privilege? She is a parasite and milks this country for everything she can."

    He added: "Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with a public holiday but lets (sic) have one that means something, rather than celebrating vermin." 

 

    So there you have it, Labour does not support freedom of speech.  Indulge in that sort of thing and it could cost you your job.

 

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PATRIOTISM.

PATRIOTISM.

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ‘tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

 

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