Wednesday, 24 February 2010

SCREW THE "MARKET".



By Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger.

     "Over the past thirty years, Wall Street has waged a steady war against governments around the globe, convincing policymakers of various ideological stripes that whatever raises profits for bankers and traders will be good for the rest of society. It’s a very simple and appealing portrait of how the world works. Unfortunately, it’s completely wrong.

Profiting from hunger:
     In an interview with AlterNet’s Terrence McNally, economic luminary Raj Patel explains the connection between widespread global poverty and wild Wall Street profits. Markets are defined by a set of rules—if those rules completely disregard social welfare, then the participants in those markets will ignore them as well. When traders can make a quick buck speculating on the price of rice, they will, even if that speculation drives up the price of a basic necessity and makes people go hungry.
    We’ve known this for a long time, but as Patel illustrates, governments have allowed financial bigwigs to rewrite the basic rules of the road so that Wall Street can extract profits from anything—even hunger. That process created several crises in the developing world over the past few decades, and has now ravaged the economies of the United States and Europe. As Patel notes:
     By basically gaming the system with regulations — that they authored — which encouraged a certain kind of playing fast and loose with the numbers, it was possible through some creative accounting for huge amounts of systematic risk to be kicked off into the future and ignored. And of course when the catastrophic risk was realized, everyone ran for the hills and started demanding public support.

Financial turmoil in Greece:
      This political sleight-of-hand is demonstrated by the looming fiscal crisis in Greece. As Richard Parker explains for The Nation, Goldman Sachs colluded with prior Greek administrations to hide the nation’s fiscal situation from both its own citizens and investors (Parker is an adviser to current Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou). Goldman was not interested in fair play—it was interested in making money off of the Greek government in any way it could. If that meant actively sabotaging the market by hiding important information, well, Goldman didn’t care.

First Greece, then …
    Now that this budget façade has been stripped away, Goldman and other investors are now profiting from making things very difficult for Greece. As Matthew Yglesias explains for The American Prospect, the rational, profit-maximizing choices of investors are now actively helping to drive Greece into a default that hurts everyone:
     When Greece starts looking shaky, the interest rate it needs to pay on its deficit goes up, which makes the country look even shakier. This cycle can push a vulnerable country into a default situation.
     Various Greek administrations clearly bear significant responsibility for the situation. Nobody forced them to get in bed with Goldman Sachs, just as nobody forced U.S. administrations to gut our financial regulatory system. But the problem in Greece is not just a problem for a single Mediterranean nation—there is very real risk that the investor “unease” could spread to Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Italy, and by extension the European Union and the global economy. The bonuses at Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase this year were not a sign of renewed strength in the global economy.

Community Security Clubs to the rescue:
      So if Wall Street can’t save us, what can? Our communities could play a significant role, as Andrée Collier Zaleska explains for Yes! Magazine. Zaleska profiles Common Security Clubs in Portland, Boston and Fort Lauderdale to show how people hit hard by the economic downturn are banding together to make ends meet, and organizing for political action.
      “[Jared] Gardner, a busy organizer in Portland, launched four CSCs in his church, two of which were comprised almost entirely of unemployed people. By the time his own group had met five times, they were planning tours of local co-housing projects, organizing to fight locally for progressive taxation, and wondering how to bring the rest of their church into the time bank they had created.”
      Markets are supposed to serve human needs, not the other way around. But Wall Street isn’t going to give up its stranglehold on the U.S. political process for nothing. While community-driven efforts are a good start, we need much larger actions and reform to restore balance to the global economy."

     The only point of divergence that I have with this article is in the last paragraph, "--we need much larger actions and reform to restore balance to the global economy." No we don't, we need much larger actions to undermine the present system and build alternative modes of life. While the system is cracking we should double our efforts to create a society based on mutual aid not reinforce one geared to profit and exploitation. Large community organised structures that put the people in those communities in charge of their own affairs, and undermine and destroy the power of the corporate shareholder. Communitiees working in federation with each other for the benefit of all our people. The "market" will always favour the few at the expense of the many. That's hardly a desirable aim!! For years the "market" has screwed you, so now let's screw the "market". 

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Tuesday, 23 February 2010

"The Future Has No Future."



In today's society the thoughtful and the aware can only feel hope burdened with fear.
Taken from Tarnac9 . 
 
        "From whatever angle you approach it, the present offers no way out. This is not the least of its virtues. From those who seek hope above all, it tears away every firm ground. Those who claim to have solutions are contradicted almost immediately. Everyone agrees that things can only get worse. “The future has no future” is the wisdom of an age that, for all its appearance of perfect normalcy, has reached the level of consciousness of the first punks.
       The sphere of political representation has come to a close. From left to right, it’s the same nothingness striking the pose of an emperor or a savior, the same sales assistants adjusting their discourse according to the findings of the latest surveys. Those who still vote seem to have no other intention than to desecrate the ballot box by voting as a pure act of protest. We’re beginning to suspect that it’s only against voting itself that people continue to vote. Nothing we’re being shown is adequate to the situation, not by far. In its very silence, the populace seems infinitely more mature than all these puppets bickering amongst themselves about how to govern it. The ramblings of any Belleville chibani contain more wisdom than all the declarations of our so-called leaders. The lid on the social kettle is shut triple-tight, and the pressure inside continues to build. From out of Argentina, the specter of Que Se Vayan Todos is beginning to seriously haunt the ruling class."
 
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"Perchance to dream"



       This little quote below from here    seems to be looking in the right direction on how to deal with the greed merchants that are responsible for the oncoming assault on the living conditions of the ordinary people. Alas, it is only a dream as this is corporate capitalism we live under and the big money boys call the shots.
       
       "Here’s a more appropriate action: declare war on Goldman Sachs and other global financial firms that created this mess. Send the troops, the planes, the tanks, and the ships. Attack every outpost of the saboteurs on European soil. Blockade the airports and ports. Make Wall Street traders and CEOs fear for their lives, or at least for their freedom to travel. Build some Guantanamo-like facility to hold these enemy financial combatants until they can be tried, convicted, and properly punished.
       Ok, if a literal armed attack on Goldman is too far-fetched, then go after the firm using the full force of the regulatory and legal systems. Close the offices and go through the files with a fine-tooth comb. Issue subpoenas to all non-clerical staff for court appearances. Make the internal emails public. Post the names of all managers and traders on Interpol. Arrest anyone who tries to board a plane, train, or boat; confiscate their passports; revoke their visas and work permits; and put a hold on their bank accounts until culpability can be assessed. Make life at least as miserable for them as it now is for Europe’s tens of millions of unemployed workers."

          However, the misery to be heaped on the ordinary people is real, the anger of the ordinary people is real, so perhaps that misery and anger will find a vent and blow this lousy unjust system clean out of the water.


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Monday, 22 February 2010

Dangerous to film Santa Claus!!!



   Sometimes I go on about "Big Brother" society that some people might think I am a wee bit paranoid, but the following article takem from the Guardian.co.uk  should perhaps redress the balance and confirm that most people are too complacent and "Big Brother" is really here and now.
    What the article proves is that all a police officer has to do to get you carted off, is say, "I'm suspicious of what you are doing." It could be photographing your granny or a new building going up in your area, or perhaps even Santa Claus.

     "Man held in police station for eight hours after taking pictures of Christmas celebrations in Accrington.
Police questioned an amateur photographer under anti-terrorist legislation and later arrested him, claiming pictures he was taking in a Lancashire town were "suspicious" and constituted "antisocial behaviour".
      Footage recorded on a video camera by Bob Patefield, a former paramedic, shows how police approached him and a fellow photography enthusiast in Accrington town centre. They were told they were being questioned under the Terrorism Act.
      Senior police officers last year promised to scale back the use of anti-terrorist legislation such as Section 44 of the act, which deals with photographers, after a series of high-profile cases in which photographers said they had been harassed by police for taking innocuous images in the street.
      Patefield and his friend declined to give their details, as they are entitled to under the act. The police then appeared to change tack, saying the way the men were taking images constituted "antisocial behaviour". Patefield, who is in his 40s, was stopped three times before finally being arrested.
      He and his friend were taking photographs of Christmas festivities on 19 December, after attending a photography exhibition. The last images on his camera before he was stopped show a picture of a Santa Claus, people in fancy dress and a pipe band marching through the town.
      He turned on his video camera the moment he was approached by a police community support officer (PCSO). In the footage, she said: "Because of the Terrorism Act and everything in the country, we need to get everyone's details who is taking pictures of the town."  
    Patefield declined to give his details and, after asking if he was free to go, walked away. However the PCSO and a police officer stopped the men in another part of the town. This time, the police officer repeatedly asked him to stop filming her and said his photography was "suspicious" and "possibly antisocial".
     Patefield asked if the officer had any "reasonable, articulable suspicion" to justify him giving his details.
She replied: "I believe your behaviour was quite suspicious in the manner in which you were taking photographs in the town centre … I'm suspicious in why you were taking those pictures.
     "I'm an officer of the law, and I'm requiring you, because I believe your behaviour to be of a suspicious nature, and of possibly antisocial [nature] … I can take your details just to ascertain that everything is OK."
      Patefield and his friend maintained that they did not want to disclose their details. They were stopped a third and final time when returning to their car. This time the officer was accompanied by an acting sergeant. "Under law, fine, we can ask for your details – we've got no powers," he said. "However, due to the fact that we believe you were involved in antisocial behaviour, ie taking photographs … then we do have a power under [the Police Reform Act] to ask for your name and address, and for you to provide it. If you don't, then you may be arrested."
     There is a section of that act that compels a member of the public to give their details if a police officer suspects them of antisocial activity.
     The sergeant also alluded to complaints from the public and, turning to Patefield, added: "I'm led to believe you've got a bit of insight into the law. Do you work in the field?"
     Patefield was arrested for refusing to give his details, while his friend, who gave in, walked free. Patefield was held for eight hours and released without charge.
     In a statement, Lancashire police said they and members of the public were "concerned about the way in which [Patefield] was using his camera". It said police felt they had "no choice" but to arrest him because he was refusing to co-operate."

     I would say that we have reached the point in this country where if you wish to take your camera with you, you should also take a lawyer.

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Sunday, 21 February 2010

The U.S. Prison System: A Multimillion-Dollar Industry



   Taken from; http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/the-u-s-prison-system-a-multimillion-dollar-industry/ 
     The U.S. prison system is not simply a method of punishing and detaining criminals, but is also a profitable, multimillion-dollar industry. This leads to some problems.
     The number of private prisons have sprung up in recent times. While in 1998 there were only 5 private prisons, by 2008 the number jumped to 100. According to journalist and author Eduardo Galeano in his book Upside Down, the private U.S. prison company Corrections Corporation of America was one of the five highest priced companies on the New York Stock Exchange by the end of the twentieth century. In fact in 1996, World Research Group held a conference to discuss how to maximize profits in this burgeoning industry.
     What's wrong with the privatization of prisons? It creates a financial incentive to keep people behind bars, regardless of whether they deserve to or not.
      While crime rates have gone down, the number of people incarcerated has gone up. According to Human Rights Watch, 2.3 million people were incarcerated as of 2007. The United States has the largest incarceration rate in the world with a staggering 762 per 100,000 residents. Compare this to the U.K. whose rate is 152 per 100,000 residents, or Canada whose rate is 102.
      So many prisoners create a large workforce. According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry is responsible for the production of war supplies such as military helmets, ammunition belts and bullet-proof vests. In addition they also produce equipment services, body armor, medical supplies and more. From an employer's perspective, prisoners create the ideal workforce -- no need to give them benefits, compensation or reasonable wages.
      While few would argue that dangerous criminals should be allowed to roam the streets, keeping people in prison for the sake of maximizing profits is immoral and unjust. Incarceration takes a toll on families and communities, and the formerly incarcerated experience great difficulty in getting hired to new jobs once released. In addition, overcrowding in prisons leads to security concerns for inmates and officers alike.
Simply put, a person should be incacerated for the crime committed, not for profit.

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Saturday, 20 February 2010

PRIVATE CAPITAL, PUBLIC MISERY.



Extract from an old article on : http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3768

      Throughout the world, public services have been under attack for the past twenty years. Forming a central plank of the capitalist globalisation agenda, ‘privatisation’ and ‘competition’ are the seemingly unchallenged dogma of modern capitalism. The levels of privatisation which have taken place worldwide are absolutely mind-blowing. During the 1990s alone over $900 billion worth of public assets were transferred into private hands. Globally this agenda is pushed by the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The basic theory by which these bodies operate is that all decisions should be made on the basis of profitability alone. Economies in the so-called ‘developing’ world have been carved up under re-structuring deals called Structural Adjustment Programmes which have been like manna from heaven for international business. The World Bank website(1) , for example, “provides information on more than 9,000 privatisation transactions in developing countries from 1988 to 2003”. This information is presented as ‘revenue generating opportunities’ for international capital. The current phase of the WTO’s strategy for the imposition of its privatisation agenda is the General Agreement on Trade in Services – which looks to sell off such basic services as healthcare, education, housing, water supply, waste management etc. This strategy is driven not in the interest of the ordinary people of these countries but by the needs of international capital. As David Hartridge, Director, WTO Services Division put it quite succinctly: “Without the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services sector, particularly companies like American Express and Citicorp, there would have been no services agreement and therefore perhaps no Uruguay Round and no WTO.” (2)
      This privatisation agenda has had disastrous consequences for many peoples and communities in the developing world. According to journalist John Pilger,
“The introduction of school fees where there was previously free education has driven many poor families to withdraw their children from school, while hospital fees have put basic health care beyond the reach of millions. Although they acknowledge the harm which privatisation has brought to poor communities in the Third World, the World Bank and IMF still insist on prescribing it as an economic model. Water privatisation is just one example. The World Bank notes that water in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince costs up to 10 times as much from the private sector as it does from the public supply, and that poor families in Mauritania now have to spend a fifth of their household income on water. Yet both the World Bank and the IMF continue to force water privatisation on developing countries. During 2000 alone, the IMF made water privatisation or full cost recovery a condition of loan agreements to 12 African countries. The World Bank has promised Ghana an extra $100 million in loans if it privatises its water supply.”
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MIXING WITH THE PLEBS!!



        Recently the media has been blabbing on about a certain member of the parasite class, a Sir Nicholas Winterton, conservative MP for Macclesfield who stated that it was infuriating that he had to pay to travel with his class of person. This “gent” also said, passengers with cheap train tickets are, “a totally different type of people.” Another of his comments that no doubt came from his heart, was, Those in standing areas had, “a different outlook on life” compared with first class passengers. This old windbag and parasite also stated, “They may read a book, but I doubt whether they’re undertaking serious work or study, reading reports or amending reports that MPs do when they travel.”
        Why there should be such surprise or shock at such remarks is what shocks me. This is the real values these people have. They DO believe they are a better class of person, they do feel they have the right to all the privileges and perks that are going. They just don’t say it out loud in the wrong company and that was the mistake of this particular parasite. They smile and spout drivel pretending to engage with the peasants and show a little courtesy now and then as the last thing they want is for peasants with pitch forks arriving at their door. Which would be no bad thing under the present circumstances.
 
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Friday, 19 February 2010

BIG BROTHER IS HERE!!



       In Britain today we are a nation of the observed, there is one cctv camera for every 14 people, making a total of 4.2 million cameras watching you go about your business, more than any other country in the world. It is not unusual for an individual to be captured on more than 300 cameras on one day. There are now plans to to expand the capacity to read vehicle number plates from an amazing 35 million per day to 50 million by 2008.
      You are also being recorded in other forms, the national database holds more than 3.5 million profiles of individuals. Since 2002 there have been more than 8 million criminal records checks on those applying for jobs. By the end of 2002 law enforcement bodies had made more than 400,000 requests for data from mobile network operators. This year to April, 631 adults and 5,751 juveniles had been electronically tagged.
     We have kids being fingerprinted at school on the pretext that it makes it easier for them to use the library, (how did you use the libraries in the past?) and some schools using palm prints for ID.
     Is your personal data safe, the simple answer is NO. As more and more private companies enter the security field the sharing of data becomes more widespread, the more it is shared the more it leaks into other hands, plus data is valuable on a commercial basis and companies will pay good money for information about you and what you get up to.
      At present there are 216 catalogue companies in the UK that are part of the Abacus data-sharing consortium with information on more than 26 million people. All this available to those how have the money to pay. You can also rest assured that there are lots of other organisations collecting your details to sell to the big companies, if there’s a profit in it, somebody will do it.
     It is all about control, control of you and me, that’s why the state backs every one of these activities. To know where you are, should you be there, have you permission to move to another point, are you doing what you should be doing at that given time, and all verifiable and therefore can be enforced.. Such activity is repugnant to any society that professes to be free, this society is obviously not free. Until we dismantle the state and all its attendant apparatus and replace it with a system of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid, the growth of this type of activity is inevitable. Use your imagination, think where can it further expand to in you personal life, perhaps your living room? Big brother would like that!!
 
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THE BRITISH IMPERIAL STATE, A BENEFACTOR??



      It is always good to know your history, it smashes so many myths.
      Britain’s Imperial history is always portrayed as a force for good, a paternal approach. Taking care of the colonies for their own good, a civilising process until they were able to look after themselves. Of course those who know their history are fully aware that the reality is a far different scenario.
     Mike Davis’s book, Late Victorian Holocausts, published in 2001, details famines that killed between 12 million and 29 million inhabitants of the Indian continent. He clearly shows that these people were murdered by the British state. When the drought of 1876 impoverished the farmers of the Deccan plateau India had a net surplus of rice and wheat. The then viceroy, Lord Lytton, insisted that nothing should stand in its way as it was exported to England. In 1877 and 1878, at the height of the famine, grain merchants exported a record 6.4m hundredweight of wheat. As the peasants began to starve, officials were ordered "to discourage relief works in every possible way". The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited "at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices". The only relief permitted in most districts was hard labour, from which anyone in an advanced state of starvation was turned away. In the labour camps, the workers were given less food than inmates of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1877, monthly mortality in the camps equated to an annual death rate of 94%.
     As millions died, the imperial government launched "a militarised campaign to collect the tax arrears accumulated during the drought". This collected tax, which ruined those who might otherwise have survived the famine, was used by Lytton to fund his war in Afghanistan. Even in places that had produced a crop surplus, the government's export policies manufactured hunger. In the north-western provinces, Oud and the Punjab, in spite of the fact that they had brought in record harvests in the preceding three years, at least 1.25m people died.
      The same type of imperialist policies are still employed today by the western corporate world. The continents of Africa and South America can bear witness to the poverty inflicted on millions of people to feed the corporate greed machine. Only when we as ordinary people come together and organise at community level and co-operate with each other on a global scale creating societies based on mutual aid and sustainability, undermining the festering marriage of state and corporate greed and so consigning it and its wars, exploitation and greed, that is part and parcel of that system, to the dust bin of history and perhaps remembering it as man’s darkest hour will we see a world fit for all our children and grandchildren.
 

Wednesday, 17 February 2010

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE STATE.



    It won’t come with jackboots and book burnings, with mass rallies and fevered harangues. It won’t come with “black helicopters” or tanks on the street. It won’t come like a storm – but like a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: everything is the same, but everything has changed. Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality has taken its place.
    As in Rome, all the old forms will still be there; legislatures, elections, campaigns – plenty of bread and circuses for the folks. But the “consent of the governed” will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small group of nobles who rule largely for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.
    So whenever some big media beast or Democratic “leader” steps forward now to say, “Gee, we were misled by these guys” or “Boy, if I’d only known before,” or some other craven, mealy-mouthed expression of self-justifying ignorance – tell them to their face that they lie. If they were ignorant, it was a willful ignorance, a co-opted ignorance, a bribed and bought ignorance, born from their desire to keep on feeding from the trough of power and privilege just as long as the slops keep coming. Wadded with power, privilege and nice pay packets, they were willingly deceived.

(Extract from: http://www.chris-floyd.com/
 
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THE BRITISH STATE AND ITS EMISSARIES.

     Three recent books - Britain's Gulag by Caroline Elkins, Histories of the Hanged by David Anderson, and Web of Deceit by Mark Curtis - show how white settlers and British troops suppressed the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya in the 1950s. Thrown off their best land and deprived of political rights, the Kikuyu started to organise - some of them violently - against colonial rule. The British responded by driving up to 320,000 of them into concentration camps. Most of the remainder - more than a million -were held in "enclosed villages". Prisoners were questioned with the help of "slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging until death, pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight, and burning eardrums with lit cigarettes". British soldiers used a "metal castrating instrument" to cut off testicles and fingers. "By the time I cut his balls off," one settler boasted, "he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket." The soldiers were told they could shoot anyone they liked "provided they were black". Elkins's evidence suggests that more than 100,000 Kikuyu were either killed or died of disease and starvation in the camps. David Anderson documents the hanging of 1,090 suspected rebels: far more than the French executed in Algeria. Thousands more were summarily executed by soldiers, who claimed they had "failed to halt" when challenged.
       Extract from an old The Guardian, Tuesday December 27 2005.
       The history of British Imperialism is littered with such horrors, as is all the empires of the past. Today we have the new imperialism, American Imperialism, and its more recent history in South America, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East show that it is following in true brutal and ruthless imperialist fashion.
 

THE NEW WESTERN FASCISM.

     Warrantless searches, phone tapping, torture, kidnapping, indefinite imprisonment without charges, denial of legal representation, a continuous assault on our civil liberties, you name it, all part of the free democratic West. We slumbered, we are now in the grip of neo-fascists with an agenda aimed at protecting a privileged elite and using the unbridled power of an authoritarian government to enhance and protect their wealth.
    They are not wearing black shirts, nor stomping down our main streets in their shiny black boots and they are not burning books. To most people Fascist means swastika waving rallies and chants against the Jews. They are wrong. Today’s fascists are radical, conservative, corporate, authoritarian nationalists. They always play the fear card, terrorists from abroad, al-Qaeda, the continuous war against the enemy over there, then claim they need the power to protect us.
    The longer we slumber the tighter their grip until all freedom and civil liberties are a thing of the past. They will not reverse the trend of their own accord, they will never willingly relinquish their power. This is no time for slumber, this is a time to challenge that power, the gangrenous marriage of state and corporate power must be broken, dismantled, atomised and buried in the dustbin of history. Power must belong to the people who make up our society or it belongs to the putrid, pampered, privileged parasites of the new era of the fascist/corporate/state. If we continue to slumber our children will inherit a world of violence, deprivation, control and punishment, while the elite gorge on the fruits of our children’s labour.
 

SCOTLAND AGAINST FASCISM.

SCOTLAND UNITED AGAINST RACISM & FASCISM

SAT 20 FEB ASSEMBLE 11.30am ~ Ross Bandstand ~
Princes St Gardens ~ Edinburgh

RALLY AT NOON FOLLOWED BY MARCH

NO  TO RACISM & FASCISM

NO  TO ISLAMOPHOBIALEAGUE

NO  TO THE ENGLISH/SCOTTISH DEFENCE LEAGUE

YES  TO A MULTICULTURAL, MULTIRELIGIOUS, MULTIRACIAL, UNITED SCOTLAND

J O I N A DAY O F C E L E B R AT I O N

w w w. s c o t l a n d u n i t e d . o r g 

WHAT THE ARMY WON'T TELL YOU!


WHAT THE ARMY WON'T TELL YOU!
Look at the eyes, he’s shit scared, so would you be.
He’s trying to kill somebody and they’re trying to kill him.
 
. Do you want to know about death injury and trauma


. Do you know you’ll be cannon fodder for big business
 
Don’t listen to the spin, forget the travel and the training in trade skills. Think of Iraq and Afghanistan, think of more than 3,700 US soldiers dead, more than 320 UK soldiers dead, more than 25,000 US wounded and more than 8,500 UK soldiers wounded. Think of over 20 UK Iraqi vets. who have committed suicide.
Think of over 1,000,000 Afghan and Iraqi men women and children killed

The army is there to serve the needs of big business but we pay in taxes and if your foolish enough, you’ll pay in blood. Your life is worth more than cannon fodder for big business, embrace life not death.
THERE TO SERVE THE CORPORATE WORLD.


Tuesday, 16 February 2010

STATE TERRORISM.

If we want an end to terrorism we have to stop killing other peoples children.

Our state terrorism kills more children than the suicide bombers.

THE NEXT REVOLUTION!!!

      There never has been a more critical time in humanity’s history, we are at the point of no return, if it is not already too late. We the ordinary people must create the next revolution which must be a revolution of consciousness. We have to break the mind set moulded by state power and corporate greed. A mind set that sees war as a means of progress, war as a means of sorting out international problems. War has never been to the advantage of the mass of ordinary people who are called upon to sacrifice their lives. The plunder always goes to those who advocated war but never see the front line at the time of conflict. They call on the people to make the sacrifice while they themselves walk the corrupt corridors of power, safe while they wait for the glory and the gold. It is time to see state organised violence at the behest of corporate greed abandoned as the last vestiges of our darkest hour, an era when we lost our humanity and allowed acquisitiveness to run rampant across the world.
     We have to realise that to allow the festering marriage of state power and corporate greed to exist is to continue the rape of the planet, the exploitation of its people and the spiral of violence and corruption. We have to come together to undermine the state and all it stands for, remove its strangle hold over our lives and take control of our own lives and the environment. The corporate world must be transformed by the workers into organisations controlled by those who work in them and for the benefit of all the community. We don’t need kings, presidents, prime ministers or boards of directors and their sweaty palmed shareholders to tell us how to live our lives. Their records can’t stand scrutiny, it’s a catalogue of arrogant cronyism, corruption, self centred greed, exploitation and violence.
   There is an alternative in spite of the established pack of rapscallions trying to preach “free market capitalism” as the only way. Control and decisions must come from the bottom up, we must take control of our communities and work in confederation with other communities to create a society based on free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. Anarchism points the way, its the tool to create that better world of peace and justice for all. Only we, the ordinary people, can create a diverse and colourful world free for all our diverse and colourful human family to enjoy. We have to wake up to the fact that it is their world or it is our world, there can be no compromise, no half measure, tomorrow is ours or there is no tomorrow, and time is running out.

AN APPEAL TO LABOUR PARTY MEMBERS.

     To all those socially minded Labour Party members and supporters let me remind you where you are. You are in or supporting a Party that lied this country into an illegal, unjust and unnecessary war, with all the bloodshed and misery that has unfolded since. You give strength to a Party that has introduced extraordinary rendition, torture and secret prisons at the core of its “anti-terrorist” strategy. You are the life blood of Party that is, according to Amnesty International, ripping up the precious freedoms of this country. Your Party bailed out the banks and because of that is about to embark on a series of savage cuts in the living standards of the ordinary people.
       To stay comfortable in such a Party you have to swallow the lies and the spin and the sickening self justification and you will continually bleat about change from within. Such bleating has been heard from the loyal members and supporters since before the 60s. In all that time your Party has continually moved to the right. It isn’t working.
     Take your socially mind conscience out of the Party and on to the streets, join the thousands, perhaps millions would be more accurate, who wish to see real change by community based non hierarchical direct action. Grow up, cut the umbilical cord between you and the Party system, be a free thinking compassionate human being.
 

Monday, 15 February 2010

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”.

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.

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS!!!!

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Sunday, 14 February 2010

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.

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.
 

Friday, 12 February 2010

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/



Thursday, 11 February 2010

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?

    

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.

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.

Saturday, 6 February 2010

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.
 

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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Friday, 5 February 2010

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).
   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.

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

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.
 

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

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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