GLASGOW'S RADICAL WOMEN.

       Well, the party's over, as the words of the song go, and today that could be literally, as the year ended and also figuratively, as the millionaire public school thugs rip our welfare system apart. Of course in ordinary life when the party's over, we have to get back to the daily grind. In this case it will be realising that we have a helluva fight on our hands if we want a world in which all can live with dignity and free from the fear of deprivation. We now face a period where the thoughts will be of survival, not of parties. However in times of adversity the ordinary people have always shown tremendous resolve and when the come together they are an unstoppable force that can re-shape the world. Glasgow, like most cities, can be proud of its radical history of struggle and at times like these we can perhaps learn from those past battles when we took on the establishment and won. We can also take inspiration from some of those members of the working class that showed selfless dedication to the cause of the ordinary people. One of Glasgow's many working class heroes was Mary Barbour, at a time of tremendous deprivation she organised with other women in the city and took on the British government and won. The battle is known as "The Rent Strikes", perhaps now we can again call on the strength and determination of all those Mary Barbours' that are living in the city today.

    The following is a page from Radical Glasgow's Strugglepedia, where you will find more of Glasgow's heroes and some of the city's struggles.

MARY BARBOUR, 1875-1958

EARLY LIFE.

      Mary Barbour was born on the 22nd of February 1875 in the village of Kilbarchan. She was the third child of seven, her father was a carpet weaver. In 1887 the family moved to the village of Elderslie. Mary worked as a thread twister eventually becoming a carpet printer. The year 1896 saw her marry David Barbour and settle in the Govan Burgh of Glasgow. She joined and became an active member of the Kinning Park Co-operative Guild, The first to be established in Scotland.

GLASGOW RENT STRIKE & WOMEN’S PEACE CRUSADE.

      Mary joined the Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Sunday School. The Glasgow rent strike during the first world war brought her to the forefront of local political activity. Because of large rent increases by the Landlords, the Glasgow Women's Housing Association was born in 1914. It was in Govan that the first active résistance to rent increases appeared. Mary Barbour was instrumental in forming the South Govan Women's Housing Association. As a working class housewife with two sons and her husband an engineer in the shipyards she was well qualified to be energetically engaged in all its activities from the organising of committees to the physical prevention of evictions and the hounding of the Sheriff's Officers. This type of activity soon spread to the whole of the Clydeside area. The situation climaxed on the 17th of November 1915 with one of the largest demonstrations in Glasgow's political history. Thousands of women marching with thousands of shipyard and engineering workers paraded through the streets of the city to the Glasgow Sheriff's Court where the demonstration was near riot proportions. Out of this defiant stand came the "Rent Restriction Act" heralding in a change in the housing system of the city of Glasgow. The act also benefited tenants across the country. Mary's involvement in this struggle had made her a working class hero in Govan and much further afield. Together with Helen Crawfurd and Agnes Dollan, Mary, in June 1916, was instrumental in founding the Women's Peace Crusade in Glasgow. She was a frequent and regular speaker at its many rallies on Glasgow Green.

FIRST WOMAN LABOUR COUNCILLOR.

      1920 saw Mary stand as one of three candidates for the Fairfield Ward of Govan, and elected to the Glasgow Town Council as its first woman Labour Councillor. It was mainly the women's vote that gave her the 4,701 votes that marked her success. During her term as a Labour Councillor she fought for many causes to help the poorest in the community. The range of policies that she pushed for covered a very wide spectrum but all for the benefit of the working class community. Among them were such things as washhouses, laundries and public baths, free milk to school children, child welfare centres, play areas, pensions for mothers, home helps and municipal banks, she also pushed for a campaign against consumption.

FIRST WOMAN BAILLIE.

       The years 1924-1927 saw her serve as Glasgow Corporation's first woman Baillie and appointed as one of the first woman Magistrates in Glasgow. Her council work allowed her to develop her commitment to the welfare of women and children. In 1925 she was chairperson of the Women's Welfare and Advisory Clinic, Glasgow's first family planning centre. Mary worked continuously and energetically to raise funds to support its team of women doctors and nurses. Mary Barbour retired from her council work in 1931 but never relented on her work load in committees for welfare and housing and remained energetically involved in Co-operative Committees. In her later years she continued her commitment to the welfare of the poor by organising trips to the seaside for children of the poor. At the inaugural meeting in Glasgow of the Scottish National Assembly of Women she was the guest speaker. At the age of 83 she died on the 2nd of April 1958. Her funeral took place at Craigton Crematorium in Govan.

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ONE BIG UNION.

       Building a new society in the shell of the old. Continuing the necessary policy of a pan-European struggle it makes sense to have that great big ONE union. I keep saying how the opposition, the corporate world and its minders the state are well organised and work together to achieve their aim, control of all assets on this planet, which would be a disaster for both the planet and all of humanity. We have to fight like with like, they are organised across national borders, so likewise we must do the same. From London to Glasgow, to Berlin, to Madrid, to Rome, to Brussels, to Athens and the rest. One way to achieve that would be ONE BIG UNION, focused on the creation of a society that sees to the needs of all, and gets the pampered parasites of our backs.


One Big Union:
* A union that’s open to all workers.
  Controlled by members in their own class interests, rather than by bureaucrats or politicians.
  Membership dues to suit wages for part-time and full-time workers.
* Information, solidarity and the will to win.
* Members throughout the country and across the globe.
Contact us through iww.org.uk

From the IWW constitution:

Industrial:
The industrial process is simply the production and distribution of goods and services. Whether you clean the office at night, serve coffee over the counter, stand behind a desk or sit in front of a computer screen, feed a press, sit in crane, drive a taxi, a truck, a van, or study for qualifications that could put you in a job, you are part of that process. In jeans or apron, overalls, uniform or suit, you are an industrial worker.

Workers:
We define workers by their relationship to how things are produced and distributed. If you don’t hire and fire other workers, if you are looking for work, studying for work, or retired from a lifetime of work, then you are a worker, and do not have the same economic interests as those who control jobs.

of the World:
The ownership of the means of production and distribution of all the essential goods of life is being drawn into fewer and fewer hands, and our lives are increasingly controlled by global corporations. Wars are directed to control natural resources, raising profits regardless of the real cost. Political democracy seems to be part of the problem rather than the solution. Only the working class has a vested interest in building an international organization based on workplace democracy to administer society in the interests of all. join us. Help build a new society in the shell of the old.

Download the application form at iww.org.uk

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LIVE ON £10 A WEEK???

       How would you live on a £10 food voucher a week and no cash? Add to that the fact that you don't have a place to stay, and you are not allowed to work, then think, how do you survive. Of course you would say that it doesn't happen in this civilised country, it must be some other poorer country in the third world. Of course you are wrong, it is here, and it is now, in one of the richest countries in the world, the UK, and don't let the crap they pump out about the need for “austerity cuts” fool you into thinking that we are not a rich, very rich country. This is the situation of asylum seekers who are going through the appeals process. They receive no state benefits of any kind and are not allowed to work to support themselves. So they sleep rough, here, there and anywhere they can find, the lucky ones get bedding down on a friend's couch or floor for a night or two.

        Mr Joseph Nibizi, Manager of the Red Cross destitution clinic where the weekly food vouchers are given out, said that he has seen the number of destitute asylum seekers queueing up for emergency help grow from 860 in January to 1,400 in July. This type of treatment of a human being is a slow form of state execution, no body can survive such conditions, especially in the recent winters we have had. Mr Nibizi, stated that, “These are human beings. They should be given their basic needs.” Of course we all know that in a civilised society they would be allowed to work and contribute and their needs would be seen to, that's what you call being civilised. Any society that treats a human being in such a fasion is away off the civilisation radar, and if we stand by and allow this without a protest and a demand for justice and humanity for all, then we also are away off the civilisation radar.

     You can read the story of one such asylum seeker at Guardian UK.

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NO HINT OF IRONY.

This year the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, making his annual clichéd platitudes spoke of the importance of mutual dependence, fellowship and loyalty during the current economic downturn. He also focused on the need to share the burdens of adversity as some people face testing times amid the downturn.

As he spoke the words; “Faced with the hardship that quite clearly lies ahead for so many in the wake of financial crisis and public spending cuts, how far are we able to sustain a living sense of loyalty to each other, a real willingness to bear the load together? How eager are we to find some spot where we feel safe from the pressures that are crippling and terrifying others?--” there was no hint of irony, standing there as the head of an institution that could be named as, The Christian Investment Corporation, and is among the wealthiest in the land, and has millions invested in the corporate system that is responsible for the “adversity” that thousands in this country are facing. What he was pouring out was some basic principles of socialism, but he certainly didn't want you and I to go out and organise our society under those very principles. Nor was he asking those millionaire thugs responsible for the “adversity” to share their wealth equally with the ordinary people.

No, he was simple trying to sound good and wanting you and I to share among ourselves what little we have, but in no way to try to dismantle the system that causes the “adversity” and construct a system of social justice and mutual aid. No matter what these cloistered preachers spout, they are firmly on the side of the establishment and are ignorant or ignore the fact that, the millionaire bedfellows that they lie down with are the reason we have that “adversity”.

To solve the problems within our society we need neither God nor master, leader nor Monarch. We need people to take control of their own lives and to organise at community level, creating a society built on mutual aid, free association and voluntary co-operation, based on sustainability. We need to rid ourselves of the burden of leaders, preachers, pampered parasites and the profit motive. Only then can we hope to see a society that will see to the needs of all those involved in that society, and the monkeys off our backs.

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OUR SECOND CHANCE!!!

                                          Glasgow George Square 1919.

    Since the failure of the 1936 Spanish Revolution the working class movements have battled on a more or less reformist agenda and it is fair to say that they have won major reforms to their advantage. However at the same time they have become integrated into the modern capitalist system of production. From the late 19th century through to the middle of the 20th century pre the Spanish Revolution there were mass movements with a more revolutionary agenda, In Europe this continued up until the start of the second world war and it was probably this war that saved the European capitalist class. Since then there has been no real revolutionary mass movement in Europe. However with the corporate class making a massive push to devour all the public assets in Europe there has been considerable anger among the working class as the pain to be inflicted on the ordinary people begins to become apparent. The corporate world are probably looking at this as their final victory to take control of anything and everything that can turn a profit, from health to prisons, from social welfare to education and more. This anger can and should be the start of what can only be called the second chance of the working class revolutionary movements. The ordinary people are beginning to see that no matter the government they vote in, nothing changes and that what is happening in this country under a Con/Dem coalition government is happening all over Europe with a 57 varieties of governments from Social-this to Christian Democrats that, from left of centre to right of centre. They all preach a different agenda but follow the same grand plan, the corporate plan.

      There is more pain to come from the corporate plan, and before it decimates the working class population, we have to organise a Pan-European mass resistance to this attempt to plunder all public assets. We mine, make and distribute everything in this world, it is our world paid for by the toil, sweat and blood of our forefathers, we are idiots if we let it fall from our grasp in to the hands of a bunch of pampered parasites. We have this second chance we can't lose it without the mother of all fights. They will do what ever they think is necessary for them to attain victory, our defeat. We likewise, must do everything in our power to achieve that final victory. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren.

                                           France, 2010. 

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

     Because of the savage attack by the millionaire public school thugs, the Merry Christmas gift thousands of council workers will be getting this year will be warning notices of possible redundancy, a Merry Christmas to you to, millionaire Cameron and Clegg. You and the rest of your millionaire chums in the cabinet,(cabal) will be totally and utterly untouched by the vicious cuts you are forcing on the social fabric of this country.

      Social workers, school dinner staff, meals on wheels, refuse collectors, youth workers, home helps, are just some of the people who will be among those receiving such warning letters before the legal deadline date of 1st January 2011. The GMB states that 87,374 jobs so far are likely to be lost in the first wave of “savings”, all this on top of the recent figures that show that unemployment has increased by 35,000 to a staggering 2.5 million, raising unemployment to a rate of 7.9% . It is called “savings”, who or what are we saving, certainly not the living standards of those likely to be thrown on the unemployment mountain.    

     Thousands of ordinary people in this country are facing a very miserable festive season with the further outlook very grim indeed. What is the future for the kids in these families as their parents face the loss of their income for the foreseeable future. We are not talking about the higher earners, these are people who are already struggle to maintain a reasonable standard of living and they are now faced with redundancy, Each redundancy is a human tragedy that will in many cases drag on, sucking the family ever deeper into the mire of deprivation.

       All this on a lie that we need to reduce the”deficit”, which translates as, “we need to get rid of all social spending and transfer all public assets to our millionaire friends in the corporate world” It is a policy to increase the corporate wealth at the expense of the general public, it is a way of guaranteeing the risk to their friends in the bond markets is minimised. It has nothing to do with the welfare of the ordinary people, nothing to do with the future well being of the ordinary people. It is wealth creation for the already obscenely wealthy parasites that own most of this country and will soon own us.

 

       Thankfully resistance is growing with ordinary people from students to pensioners ocupying banks and some of the shops belonging to the tax dodgers brigade. To find out more on this growing resistance to their greed visit; http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/actions  You can of course form your own group and organise resistance to this savage attack on our living standards, using you imagination and ingenuity. The greater the variety and unpredicability of our resistance the greater the success.

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- ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!!!

       Aberdeen has been in the news recently for some very different reasons. Of course most football fans will know that the city's team is having a crap season. Its council workers are not doing so well either. The council has been trying to get them to take a 5% cut in their wages, though I'm delighted to see that the workers through their union have refused to willing throw themselves into dire poverty. Like everybody else they are facing increased costs in energy and food along with the VAT increase, it is more likely that they will need a 5% increase in wages just to stand still. Another occasion where the name Aberdeen has come to my notice is by way of Aberdeen Asset Management. As its name suggests, it is an asset management company. Its CEO is a Mr Martin Gilbert, no he hasn't taken a 5% wage cut, on the contrary, his basic annual salary went up from meagre £400,000 to a more acceptable £500,000, on top of this he had a nice little bonus of £3.3 million. You would think that might be enough to keep him above the deprivation line, even although it is not a full time job, well he appears to have time on his hands as he is also Chairman of First Group and Chaucer Holdings which brings him in some spending money to the tune of £262,000. How many jobs at more than a quarter of a million pounds can one person hold down. Just a few examples of our millionaire cabinet's mantra, “we're all in this together.”

       The sooner we scrap this greed driven parasites paradise and replace it with a society based on the needs of all our people the better. We know there is a desirable alternative of communities based on mutual aid, co-operation and sustainability, where we can all contribute in the knowledge that our needs will be seen to and we will not be carrying a bunch of greedy parasites on our backs. Also just maybe, Aberdeen Football Club might win the SPL, well that's probably a wish too far.

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NUMBER CRUCHING.

      In times of economic turmoil, with all kinds of predictions from all sorts of pundits, the poor lay person has to turn to the experts for what is the true picture. Sadly economics is no science, in spite of all the economists telling you otherwise. It is a matter of you pays your money and you takes your pick. Turning to the various experts for what is on the cards for our so called “economic future” the figures are as varied as the the old school ties that spout them. Lets take that well informed and nose to the ground profit hungry bunch the Confederation of British Industry, (CBI) they have down graded their previous prediction for growth in the economy from a minuscule 0.3% to and even more miserable 0.2%, after all they should know. However another well informed bunch of experts come up with a different set of numbers, the British Chamber of Commerce lower their prediction, from 2.2% down to a modest 1.9% growth. So the experts say it is all down grading, but if you don't like those figures well just turn to another bunch of experts, the Office of Budget Responsibility. Now, if you're an optimist then these are the boys for you, their star gazing comes up with an increase in growth of 2.3% that's up from their previous prediction of 2.1%. So the future is rosy, or it is miserable, it depends on your chosen expert. What we can be sure of is the fact that what this millionaire cabal of public school thugs are implementing will mean real hardship for millions of ordinary folk and super bonuses for the millionaire club. Ah well, that's capitalism.

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TOMORROW'S WORLD???

     

     Trying to come to understand the full effects of the public school millionaires' slash and burn tactics is difficult, as we have never before seen such vicious cuts to the welfare of the people of this country. We can turn to those outside the government who have the time and the finances to study these things and see what they have to say. One such group is the Institute of Fiscal Studies, and they have just recently release one of their reports on this matter.

       A recent Institute of Fiscal Studies report, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, throws up a very alarming picture of the damage likely to be done by the “austerity cuts” being inflicted on the people of this country by the public school millionaire cabal. According to the report, the slash and burn policies of this bunch of public school thugs, will see the first increase in absolute child poverty for some 15 years. The report states that due to the tax changes alone, introduced by this government there will be a further 200,000 children dropped into penury, plus a further 200,000 working age adults by 2012/13. The governments cuts to housing benefit alone will push a further 100,000 children into poverty.

       According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies report, over the next three years incomes are set to stagnate, this allied to deep welfare cuts, will see an increase in relative poverty of 800,000 children and working age adults plus a rise of 900,000 in absolute poverty for the same group.

      Chris Goulden, poverty policy manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, stated, “It is a reversal of fortune for the poor. The coalition have said that the increases in child tax credits will help but that's sticking plaster,"

        When it comes to cuts to council budgets, we can expect a further set of circumstances that will impact on our lives. We can look across the Atlantic to see how that might affect our way of life. In Detroit, the city is having to make cuts and has planned to cut off city services, including road repairs, police patrols, street lighting and garbage collection in 20% of the city. I wonder how they decide which 20% gets hit.
         In Philadelphia, if you call out the police to the scene of an accident you can be hit with a bill, in some cases $300.

        These are just a few of the little surprises that are waiting for us down the road a bit. Unless we can take control of our own lives and control the society we live, in rather than leave it all to a bunch of public school millionaire thugs. It is your life, why let them control and destroy it, so that their friends in the banking casinos can continue to live the life of unearned luxury.

 

 
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TAX DODGERS OF THE HIGH STREET.

      This is just a few of the big wealthy businesses that are ripping off the British tax payer while the government turns a blind eye and swings the hatchet at public services. We in Britain are being mugged by a gang of public school thugs. As far as I am aware, mugging is a crime against which you are entitled to fight back in self defence, you can legally take what action is necessary to defend yourself. Hit back hard.

BHS:
        BHS is part of the Arcadia group, owned by Sir Philip Green. Well no, not really, because he gave it to his wife, who doesn't actually work there at all, but she lives in Monaco so doesn't have to pay income tax. This costs Britain around £300 million. That's enough to pay the full £9,000 hike in tuition fees for 32,000 students. Or, the salaries of 20,000 NHS nurses.
      To make matters worse, David Cameron sought advice from billionaire Sir Philip Green on government cuts, We are not really “in this together”.

    WHERE DID ALL OUR MONEY GO? 

     HE SENT IT OFF TO MONACO!

VODAFONE:
     Vodafone owes the UK an estimated £6 billion in avoided tax. This money would cover most of the £7 billion per year cuts to the welfare system.
     It's not only Britain where they aren't paying up. Vodafone owes the Indian government £2 billion in tax from buying an India company. This could save millions of people in India dying from starvation.

     THEY SAY TOP UP!      

       WE SAY PAY UP!

LLOYDS TSB:
     The Lloyds banking group was bailed out by the government after taking too many risks with our money. The bail out cost the British public £850 billion, that's 95% of this country's deficit. Yet we are the ones facing cuts – not the bankers.
     In fact these banks are actually promoting tax avoidance by encouraging wealthy customers to channel money through China.
     Pay them a visit and picket their premises, organise demonstrations to let the public know what they are up to. You are being asked to pay the shareholders bonuses by taking a cut in your standard of living, don't swallow the crap, fight back.

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WORKERS CITY, KNOW YOUR HISTORY.

As the millionaire cabal set about doing a hatchet job on the welfare state we will have to  come up with strategies to resist this free market onslaught. As society has changed over the years so our strategies will have to change. Of course we can still learn from the past, our working class history is a rich well of ideas and strategies that can be used adapted and used again. The main thing is to come together in our communities and link those communities in a federation of resistance. Organised resistance is necessary to win this battle against the millionaire corporate take over of our country.

      The Workers City was an organised movement in opposition to the 1990 European Capital of Culture which was intent on branding Glasgow as a tourist centre with a mono culture that in no way showed the rich diversity of culture that sprang from the ranks of the ordinary people. As far as Glasgow's City Council Mafia were concerned there was no working class in Glasgow, just cheap labour to service the tourist industry.

     This short video gives a hint of what Workers City was about, perhaps there are ideas in there that can be reworked and used to continue that working class resistance.

More of Glasgow's working class history HERE.

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SMOKE AND MIRRORS--IDEOLOGY!!

        Recent figures from the Bank of England show that in the UK there are over 10 million families that are struggling to pay their bills. There are approximately 26.5 million household in the country, so we are approaching the 50% of UK families in some sort of financial trouble. These figures are before the “we're all in this together” austerity cuts come into play. This an increase from 8.9 million in the last report. These figures do not include the hundreds of thousands of people who have already fallen behind with their various payments. The report also states that 1 in 10 people are having difficulty paying their rent or mortgage. It also states that it expects these figures to get worse next year.

This is the type of life that capitalism brings to the ordinary people, struggle to hold on to your standard of living and facing cuts. This situation is nothing new, no matter how far we go back the story is the same. Go back to 1787, the Calton Weavers strike, three weavers shot dead, and why were they on strike, because they were facing a wage cut. It's the same old story, and it is a brutal story.

We are now being told the full extent of the next round of vicious cuts to be unleashed on the ordinary people of this country. Believe me, these will be the worst that any of us have experienced in our life time. The misery that will be heaped the the ordinary people of this country will be brutal and it will be long lasting, this is not a quick fix policy.

You have to ask yourself, does the government really want to devastate the living standards of the people? We know that there are alternative ways of reducing the deficit, why this way? The truth is it has nothing to do with rapid deficit reduction and all to do with ideology. The deficit is the wonderful excuse to allow them to go hell for leather at transferring all public assets into private hands and that is the real game plan. The cuts will make it impossible for government departments to carry out their appointed duties, and where they fall short, galloping in to the rescue will come the knight in shining armour, the private sector. Then you starve the local councils of funds and they can no longer provide the required services, lo and behold, here he comes again, galloping to the rescue the wonderful capitalist knight in shining armour, ever ready to supply what you want or need, at a profit of course. No such thing as a public service, good lord no, that would be silly, you must always provide a profit for the parasites sitting at the top sucking the life out of society.

Prepare yourself for a society with no public assets, no public spaces, no public services, all corporate owned and controlled, a society of ghettos and poverty with an unbridgeable divide between the deprivation of the many and the opulence of the few. We know there is an alternative, we can build a society that is based on the needs of all our people, we know what we want, a society created on the principles of mutual aid free from the fear of deprivation and exploitation. We have it in our power to destroy this abomination of a system and build a future that we would be proud to hand to the next generation.

 

Ah Love, Could Thou and I

with Fate Conspire

To Grasp this Sorry Scheme

of Things entire,

Would we not shatter it

to bits, and then

Remould it nearer to

the Hearts Desire!

Extract from Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam.

 

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THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN LAYPERSON'S TERMS.

       It is not often that we get a chance to hear the "financial crisis" as they call it, the grand larceny as I call it, explained in good old fashioned layperson's terms. If only the news readers used the same down-to-earth language, it would make watching TV almost acceptable. There are many words and phrases to describe the bankers, banksters to greed merchants, but I think wanker bankers has a poetic ring to it, and it will take its place in the Oxford English Dictionary.



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THE STREETS BELONG TO US.

       It is wonderful to hear young people with passion stating that they will stand in solidarity with anybody that stands up and fights the "austerity cuts." I hope that the media moguls and their journalist lackeys along with the millionaire twins from the Westminster House of Hypocrisy and Corruption, listen to this young man on the video below, this is the young people that they try to vilify and intimidate, he speaks for thousands of young people all over the country, how the millionaire cabal have misjudged the youth of this country.

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LET'S JOIN HANDS.

        I sometimes go on like a loop tape and keep repeating the same thing over and over again. However I will continue to repeat my view that the only answer to the present savage attack on the living standards of the ordinary people in this country and across Europe is to co-ordinate all our actions in a pan-European struggle. We are no longer fighting our specific governments, they are only following the dictates of international finance. The corporate finance world is organised in its attempt to keep wages down, have a large pool of unemployment and transfer all public assets to the private sector. To hope to combat this with one-of actions at different times in different countries is doomed to failure. Spain has had massive general strikes, in France, Greece and Ireland the people have taken to the streets, the flaw in this was the fact that they all took place at different times. We have to communicate, co-operate and organise in a pan-European manner, just like our opponent, international finance. Our actions must be simultaneous, it is surely not beyond our ability to co-ordinate our actions for maximum effect. Governments can cope with one day strikes here and there, they will not be able to cope with a pan European general strike, imagine the effect of even a pan-European students day of action with every capital in Europe at a standstill.

       That excellent website Anarkismo puts this view across much better than I could ever hope, read, think pan-European, communicate pan-European and organise pan-European.

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THERE IS NO LAW AGAINST SELF DEFENCE.

  

     Interesting to here David Cameron condemn the "violence" of the students the other day, "unacceptable" they should feel the "full force of the law" and all said with a solemn face, no hint of a snigger. Perhaps he should have remembered another quote he made.

We're all in this together!!

    "Things got a bit out of hand. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets"

D Cameron,Oxford,1986.

     We should remind David Cameron that his -smashing the place up- was just for fun, a jolly good time, the violence he condemns is self defence.

    When we hear those Oxbridge millionaires condemn violence we have to remind them that self defence is not a crime. What they and the media never mention is the violence that is being perpetrated on the working class by them, at the behest of the corporate greed machine, to safeguard their millions. What greater violence is there than trapping people in poverty, depriving them of the social services that are meant to provide those essentials of civilised life, dignity and opportunity. When one group savage the living standards of another group while they themselves live in the lap of unearned luxury, that is violence. When one group forces hardships on another knowing that they themselves will in no way suffer from those measures, that is violence. We have no intention of allowing that violence to ruin the lives of our children and threaten the dignity of our pensioners. Are we expected to lie down and take what the millionaire club throw at us? Most certainly not, we have the right to self defence, we are fighting for our dignity, the future opportunities for our children, the well being of our elderly. To threaten them is violence of the worst degree, we have duty to fight back, we have a right to self defence. The more savage the violence inflicted on us, the more violent our self defence. I am against violence, but just remember,- you started it, with the violence of your vicious “austerity cuts”.

 

 

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STUDENTS DEMO DECEMBER 9.

      

      Today, Thursday 9 December, the day that the house of millionaires were to vote on the university tuition fees for England, saw massive demonstration by students and others. London saw the largest demonstration, on-going at the time of writing, with demonstrations in other cities across the UK. In Glasgow, where I live, there was a well attended march and demonstration through the city centre, The students with other supporters gathered at the top of Buchanan St and after some speeches marched off noisily and colourfully down Buchanan St. stopping at the Vodafone £6 billion tax dodging flagship shop, halting business for sometime. All the while making it plain to those passing by just why there was such anger with Vodafone, Most of the people in the vicinity seemed to agree with the demonstrators. Next the march headed off along Gordon St, creating a similar break in business for the Royal Bank of Scotland staff.

      The students seemed to take the police by surprise when they broke into a gallop as the headed for their next target, another branch of the tax dodging Vodafone. This tactic was repeated as the march made its way to George Square, where they resisted the police efforts to be directed away from the City Chambers, breaking through the police line and formed outside the city Chambers for a short period.. They then took off around the Square and back to the front of the Chambers. By this time the police numbers and been increased considerably and at this point they probably out numbered the students by about five to one.

      At this point the usual police tactic of kettling took place with students split in two groups and easily out numbered by police. In spite of this the students did manage another wee surge to change there position. After a considerable period of stand off, most of the students were released to cheers from their supporters. As I left the Square I was informed that all the students been released but later was informed that there had been at least two arrests with one student being injured.

        I think the students should be proud of their display of tactics and solidarity, my only reservation is that they see this as a student battle and all about education. It is not, it is all about the living standards of all the working class. The cuts are savage and widespread and what the students have to do is link up with the unemployed, the pensioners, council workers and local communities who will all feel the brunt of this free market ideology being inflicted on us by the millionaire front men of the corporate world. The call of the students, "United the students will never be defeated" should be modified to " United the working class will never be defeated."the

     One little word to the police, you should not be fooled that you are on the other side. Your kids are going to be hit, their education is going to be shredded, your parents health care is going to be decimated. The society that your kids and grandkids are going to inherit will be the same Victorian deprivation as the rest of us, your kids will face unemployment and cut benefits, you don't belong to that millionaire's club, you are being used by them to protect their power and wealth.

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