CORPORATE ART.

Michelango's David has always been the envy of the American Galleries and recently corporate sponsors

ran a promotion for American artists to create their own David to be displayed in New York. You can preview the exhibition here.

ann arky's home. 

VIOLENCE-RIGHT OR WRONG??

  

       Anarchism attempts to create a society of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid, and free from the greed devouring drive for profit. Most people would agree that it is a desirable aim, the difference of opinion is usually in how do we get there. Do we get there with or without violence? Can violence ever be justified in an attempt to create a better world? I don’t believe there is an absolute law on the matter, circumstances and those involved must be the final arbitrator. My own personal opinion seems best expressed by Martin Luther King in the following quotation. ---”As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked - and rightly so - what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government.”

      Today, as at the time of Martin Luther King, we see the corrupt governments of America and Britain and a rat bag of others throwing indescribable massive violence at innocent peoples of other lands in an attempt to solve their own problems while condemning all other violence that may arise as a result of their actions. Where should the ordinary people of the world stand on this? Since it is always the ordinary people that suffer in such action, it is obvious if we wish to be free from this violence we must unite and put an end to the power of the state, talking to the state apparatus has never stopped the state’s violence, we must create a society where it is the people that are involved, that make the decisions, not the war-lords nor the corporate greed machine.

     I believe that anarchism is the ultimate social system for humanity. It is based on the individual’s rights, it is free from coercion, it aims for sustainability, and is based on those basic but fundamental principles of , free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. To some it is an impossible dream but in reality it is possible if the will of the people so desire. We are governed by consent, we can withdraw that consent and create our own new world free from war, poverty and exploitation.

 

ann arky's home. 

2, DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS!!

   

     Councils and government bodies are now pushing for draconian cuts in our standard of living in an attempt to reduce the mountain of debt that has been piled on the backs of the ordinary people. Debt that appeared because the greed merchants in their voracious and reckless greed feast were about to go bust. So the tax payer, through the government, hands them billions of pounds of our money. Only to be told by the same financial institutions that the mountain of debt has to be reduced. It is not to be reduced by the financial institutions who got the money of course, no we paid them the money so we have to carry the can. 

     We are expected to quietly sit and watch TV, football and chat merrily at the pub. Meanwhile, they hack away at our kids education, our health care, our social benefits our other services, freeze wages and in some cases reduce wages, as well as thrrowing thousands on the unemployed scrap heap. All because the financial world can't function with this mountain of debt..  It is as insane as if a small business was going bust and the bank loaned it some money, the the small business then says that it can no longere do business with the bank as the bank has this debt on its head, so I would like the bank manager and his staff to take a cut in their standard of living. Alice in Wonderland stuff, only they are trying to make it a reality.

    We have an obligation to take to the streets and support all those who are fighting these cuts, the authorities will try to pick you off one at a time, but united in solidarity we can resist this savage attack on all of our living standards. This is not an attack on any one group, this is a brutal full frontal assault on the entire working class of this country. Organise, resist, take control, or see your future and your kids future go down the tubes. We can build a society based on mutual aid, voluntary co-operation and free association, that will see to the needs of all our people, not a bunch of parasitical shareholders and their minders the sleazy politicians. Now seems the right moment to put that to the test.

ann arky's home. 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.

I believe it is essential to grasp that an anarchist society would involve a different way of thinking and a different way of living, not the self-management of the present world.

ann arky's home. 

CONSENT???

     Has the state any legitimacy? Apathy, acquiescence, consent, ah, that is the question and how do we differenciate.

"… consent is always compromised by force; the mere existence of effective force dedicated to some end constitutes coercion toward that end, whatever you may think or want. If I consent to abide by the law when that law is enforced by a huge body of men with guns and clubs, it is never clear, to say the least, whether my consent is genuine or not. … It will always be prudent for me, under such circumstances, to simulate consent, and there are no clear signs by which a simulation could be distinguished from a genuine consent in such a case. That I am enthusiastic in my acquiescence to your overwhelming capacity for violence—that I pledge my allegiance according to formula, sing patriotic songs and so on—does not entail that I am not merely acquiescing. … [T]he mere existence of an overwhelming force by which the laws will be enforced compromises conceptually the possibility of voluntarily acceding to them. Or put it this way: the power of government, constituted by hypothesis under contract, by which it preserves the liberties and properties of its citizens, is itself conceptually incompatible with the very possibility of their consent." (Pages 50-51)

Crispin Sartwell. Against the State, Page 50/51.
 
ann arky's home.  

THE FREEDOM TO INDOCTRINATE.

       

       Recently the UK government passed legislation setting out compulsory sex education in all schools. Of course there was the usual belly-rumbling and garbled noises from the Christian fundamentalists claiming that it was an attack on their freedom to indoctrinate the minds of young kids. As usual the government caved in and an amendment was added allowing faith schools to teach sex education in a manner that reflected their religious views. What a cop-out, how do you teach sex education reflecting the view that you shouldn’t be taught it in the first place?

       I can visualise a sex education lesson in a faith school where the teacher holds up a condom between their finger and thumb stating, this is a condom, some people say it can prevent pregnancy, but if you ever use one you will burn in hell for all eternity. That should be very helpful to the kids. Now kids, you know that artist fellow down the road who does a lot of charity work, well he is gay and therfore evil, so don't look at or buy any of his art work.

        Why sex education? Why not allow the faith schools to teach all subjects to reflect their religious views, history, biology, etc. A history lesson could go something like, Henry viii founded the church of England because he was possessed by the devil and filled with evil spirits. The world today is mainly free from witches, because we burnt most of them in years gone by. Biology, the main elements that play a part in the human condition are genetics, environment and the snake from the garden of Eden. There is no end to this crap if you allow the faith schools to teach subjects to reflect their religious views.

        Why doesn’t religion get out of education and confine itself to funny places where men wear long dresses and speak to some imaginary guy in the sky. Where mumbo-jumbo and the adoration of symbolism, crosses, blood of Christ and other weirdo things is seen as OK. Let it be an adult choice if they wish do these things, stop indoctrinating our kids in this divisive, destructive, illusionary world built on the ramblings of some big noises in an ancient, nomadic Middle Eastern tribe.

 

ann arky's home. 

CAPITALISM AND POVERTY.

This isnae' wit a voted fur!!

     

       Scotland, part of the UK, one of the most developed capitalist countries in the world and land where immigrants come in the hope of a better life. However, it is not a country of milk and honey, it is the usual capitalist inequality, exploitation, injustice and poverty. 

In households with less than 60% median income in Scotland today are:

980,000, 20% or one fifth of all individuals,

250,000, 24% of children,

150,000, 16% of pensioners,

590,000, 19% of working age adults

• Inequality:

The share of the income of the richest ten per cent is the same as that of the bottom fifty per cent.

• Poor Health:

Differences in life expectancy between the poorest and richest areas of Glasgow can be up 25 years for men and 15 years for women.

• Debt and financial exclusion:

Only 1 in six people whose household income is less than £10,000 has a bank account. More than half do not have any savings.

• Bad Housing:

360,000 homes in Scotland are affected by dampness, more than 70% of Scottish social housing is below the Scottish Quality Housing Standard and over 125,000 children live in overcrowded houses.

• Fuel Poverty:

An estimated 650,000 ‘fuel poor’ households in Scotland and more than 2,000 (rising to 5,000 in severe winters) people aged over 65 die as a result of cold related illnesses during winter months.

• Disadvantaged young people:

Nearly 1 in 5 young people leave school without SVQ2 level (Higher education entry level) qualifications, increasing their risk of poverty in later life.

      This is what we can expect from the capitalist system, a system based on greed and profit, a system where wealth is created by the many and continually sucked up to the parasitical handful who control the means of production and distribution. Only when we have workers control of these means of production and distribution will we see an end to poverty and deprivation.

ann arky's home. 

ARE YOU WHERE YOU SHOULD BE??

   

    There has often been the statement made that we are "sleepwalking into a police state". For some time now I have said  that is not true, I believe we are already there, right in the heart of a very well developed police state. Where the state is always trying to increase its power of control and surveillance. Making sure you are where you are supposed to be, have you got permission to be where youy are have you permission to move to another spot, can you be observed as you move about your business? Is this the world you want? Is this the world you voted for?

This newsletter can be read online shortly at http://newsletters.mu.no2id.net/ 

+ DANGERS OF DATA RETENTION +

Anti-filesharing measures in the Digital Economy Bill currently before Parliament open a back door into your and your family's personal lives that *will* be exploited by the database state.Last year's public outcry against a Communications Data Database - intended to store details of your phone calls, e-mails and internet

browsing - forced the last Home Secretary to disavow plans for a giant surveillance database and to drop the proposed legislation. But things didn't end there.

     The Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 were still passed, requiring internet service providers (ISPs) and telecoms providers to retain communications data on all fixed and mobile phone, e-mail and internet usage for 12 months. Because this is linked to the details of the person subscribed to the service, the retained data, wherever it is held, forms a digital dossier on YOU... and your family.

     Even national security is no excuse for blanket surveillance of everyone's communications, but the Digital Economy Bill would now make allegations of copyright infringement sufficient grounds for 'fishing expeditions' (speculative searches) in the data retained by ISPs - thereby ensuring the technology must be in place to enable mass surveillance by other agencies and organisations. With a new unit set up at the Home Office just last month to push forward the £2 billion 'Interception Modernisation Programme' (IMP), it isn't hard to imagine who else'll be snooping too.

     Open Rights Group (http://www.openrightsgroup.org/) and others continue to campaign against measures in the Digital Economy Bill. They have various objections - but as NO2ID we have to be concerned about any pretext for mass surveillance without any form of warrant or oversight.

     Interception of communications was historically so sensitive that it was made into a power exercised only on the approval of the Home Secretary that cannot be even mentioned in court. We fail to see why recording all your communications (and providing technical means for them to be arbitrarily investigated) is any different to opening your letters or secretly breaking into your home.

Please do write to your MP (http://www.writetothem.com/) in your own words, expressing your concerns.

ann arky's home.

WAR WITHOUT END!!

      Well, there’ve always been people going around saying someday the war will end. I say, you can’t be sure the war will ever end. Of course, it may have to pause occasionally–for breath, as it were–it can even meet with an accident–nothing on this earth is perfect–a war of which we could say it left nothing to be desired will probably never exist. A war can come to a sudden halt–from unforeseen causes–you can’t think of everything–a little oversight, and the war’s in the hole, and someone’s got to pull it out again! The someone is the Emperor or the King or the Pope. They’re such friends in need, the war has really nothing to worry about, it can look forward to a prosperous future.

~ Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage (1938)
 
ann arky's home. 

SAVE OTAGO LANE GLASGOW.

Save Otago Lane from the greed of gentrification. Smile:)

Dear all,

As you all may or may not know we are planning a 'gathering' on saturday (27th) in order to get a photo with as many people as possible crammed into the lane, hopefully at least 244...We would love for you to join us, this is an opportunity to hopefully talk to many of the interested people out there about how they can help show their objection to the proposed development and we would be very happy for anyone to hand out information of a similar nature and/or join in a small amount of speech making.

We aim to meet from 12 o'clock for around an hour/hour and a half and anyone who wishes to help out with ushering people around would also be very welcome - get in touch with Martin at Tchai ovna.

Hope you can make it, feel free to get in touch for further info,    Shuna

As gentrifiction moves in, history, character and people power move out, public space becomes private space.

ann arky's home. 

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". 

ann arky's home. 

"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."

 

ann arky's home. 

"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.

ann arky's home. 

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.

ann arky's home. 

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.

ann arky's home. 

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.”

 ann arky's home. 

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.
 

ann arky's home. 

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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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