PEOPLE FIRST - OCTOBER 1st.

 

                 The Scottish Trades Union Congress, in parnership with a growing number of faith, equality, anti-poverty and campaign organisations will hold the People First march and rally on 1st October 2011.

The march will go from Glasgow Green to Kelvingrove Park where thousands will assemble to hear speeches and music before attending a range of fringe events held in places of worship, student unions, public buildings and hotels in the vicinity of the park.

The event will also feature a specific initiative to raise funds for the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal created to help those hit by famine in Africa. Sponsoring and supporting organisations for the event will be very diverse, but have in common the aim of working together on a non-partisan basis to:

• challenge poverty levels and campaign for redistribution of wealth across Scotland and the UK;

• campaign to protect those hardest hit by service and benefit cuts; and;

• help to build and reconnect Scotland’s communities.

To be kept updated on developments contact

demoupdates@stuc.org.uk

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MODERN IMPERIALISM - CORPORATE FASCISM!!

            We can go through the wars that the UK, as a Western imperialist power, has been involved in since the beginning of the 20^th century, World War 1, 1914-18, World war 2, 1939-45, Korea, 1950-53, Suez, 1956-56, and the short but bloody Falklands 1982-82. All these wars have one thing in common, the all have an end date. However in 2001 Western imperialism entered a new phase, we entered the era of the war without end, the war on terrorism. Not long after the 9/11 attacks in America, president George W. Bush announced a new doctrine, a new national security strategy of pre-emptive war, to strike at terrorist groups and states that allegedly pose a threat, or are developing a credible threat, to the United States, Britain and most of the Western nations actively supported this stand. Obama continued this doctrine, and what it is, is basically a licence for the West to wage aggressive war whereever they think fit. Ironically, Obama endorsed the doctrine of pre-emptive war, when giving a speech accepting the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. What he endorsed was the type of action that the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War 2, had outlawed and condemned.

        There is absolutely no doubt that our cynical political class have been using the war on terror to keep the population in a permanent state of fear and to push through military and surveillance contracts, handing the corporate world trillions in tax payers money. In America since the 9/11 event, the US ruling political elite has spent US$8 trillion on homeland security. The war on terror is also intended to give their imperialist wars across the globe, a stamp of legitimacy. Of course we can ask, is the world any safer because of the illegal war on terror and its accompanying financial cost and human death and suffering? Has the obliteration of Iraq as a functioning country and the 10 year slaughter in Afghanistan made the world a safer place to live?

         I think it is safe to say that the war on terror has failed miserably to stop attacks on Western countries. We are told that it has foiled numerous attacks on Western cities, but we never get the information to verify these stories. What we can be sure of is that the actual manifestation of the war on terror, extraordinary renditions, unmanned drones with their death and destruction, barbaric torture and inhumane treatment at Guantanamo and Bagram prison, Western forces killing thousands of Muslim civilians across large swaths of the planet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, to mention a few, is and will continue to build up an unstoppable anger and hatred of the West. You can't make friends with people while you destroy their homes and kill their family and friends. The war on terror is one method of securing natural resources for the West and feeding trillions of tax payers money to the massive corporate military industrial complex that controls our subservient and complicit political class. In the West, imperialism is alive and well.

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HOW MUCH SHIT WILL WE TAKE???

          Our mainstream media seems rather reluctant to report on the ongoing occupation of Wall St. in the good ol' US of A. They are always keen to show protests in those nasty foreign countries where the people don't behave like us here in the free and democratic West. When they do report mass demonstrations in the West it is always in a bad light, we in the West are never portrayed as freedom fighters but more as thugs and hooligans intent on mindless criminality. However, the demonstrations against the Western corporate capitalist mess we are in at the moment will not just stay in Greece. There have been mass demonstrations in Italy, Spain, France and here in the UK there are plans for mass demonstrations later in the year, (organise now). We can accept that the ordinary people will take so much shit and then they start to hit back, and that applies across the globe. I think we in the West are just about at that limit of shit we will take, before we hit back.

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NOT THE TEN O'CLOCK NEWS???

       

         While NATO pulverises the Libyan people in the name of freedom for the Libyan people, our subservient media paints a picture of peace loving rebel fighters running around the country freeing their fellow citizens. The method they use to free them is to sit back and wait until NATO blasts the hell out of them and then rush in all guns blazing. If that doesn't work, then they lay siege to the town or city, starve it of food, water and medical supplies, after which they will ask NATO to go back in and terrorise the citizens with a massive bombardment from the air. Thus, Western style freedom crawls its bloody way through Libya.

       What is vomited from the mainstream media has no relation to the truth as it is happening on the ground in that unfortunate country. What is happening is tribal faction killings, looting and ethnic cleansing of towns and cities across Libya, aided and abetted by NATO and its paymasters. The following is a short extract from BEFORE IT'S NEWS.  It is well worth reading the whole article. You certainly will not get the information on the Ten O'clock News.

        ---- Despite desperate attempts by Wall Street and London to proclaim their intervention in Libya a success, even going as far as sending their political proxies Nicolas Sarkozy of France and David Cameron of the United Kingdom for a quick photo opportunity at the rebel held airport in contested Tripoli, vast swaths of the nation are still fiercely resisting NATO and their proxy rebel forces. This includes entire cities still standing in defiance against rebel attempts to "starve them out" and dozens of daily NATO airstrikes (NATO report for September 22) aimed at breaking the population's will to fight on.

         Weeks ago, the rebel forces, led by US State Department and UK Home Office listed terrorists from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a subsidiary of Al Qaeda, boldly announced plans to starve out cities resisting their unelected, foreign backed seizure of the North African nation. The London Telegraph reported in an article aptly titled, "Libya crisis: Rebel leaders hoping to starve Gaddafi stronghold of Sirte into submission," that under the cover of heavy NATO bombing rebel leaders hoped "to starve Col Gaddafi's home town of Sirte into submission, laying siege to his last remaining stronghold in an attempt to avoid mass bloodshed, according to the man spearheading efforts for a peaceful takeover."

A NATO PEACE MISSION!!

       Fox News would relay an AP report on September 2, 2011, that rebel commanders declared, "we want to save our fighters and not lose a single one in battles with Qaddafi's forces. In the end, we will get Sirte, even if we have to cut water and electricity and let NATO pound it with airstrikes." AP cited Mohammed al-Rajali, a spokesman for the rebel leadership in the eastern city of Benghazi. Ironically, the article was titled, "UN Warns Libya is Short of Water, Fuel, Medicine," a crisis admittedly being caused by the premeditated denial for entire cities of critical supplies for their civilian populations, enabled by NATO bombing and under the cover of UN recognition of the terrorist rebels - a move that has soundly resigned the UN's legitimacy and stated purpose to the scrapheap of history. ___ READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE.

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SETTLERS - ARMY OF OCCUPATION.

        Like most rational people I have always seen the Israeli settlers  in the Palestinian lands as part of the Israeli army, an army not wearing the usual uniform, but still an army of occupation. They move in, occupy and secure the foreign territory and defend it against the rightful owners, the Palestinians. If need be, they call in reinforcements in the shape of the unformed Israeli army. It seems now that even the Israeli army is admitting this, as they are starting to train the settlers to defend the land they have occupied. Settlers occupying land frees up the uniformed army to get on with the job of repressing the local indigenous people. A similar type of genocide that was pursued by the settlers on the indigenous people of that land we call America, but with a much more efficient weaponry. Palestine is the "Wild West" and the Palestinians are the "indians" of the 21st century.

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THE ANARCHIST CRITIC.

The latest issue of Radical Glasgow's Anarchist Critic free paper The Anarchist Critic, is now available as download PDF  HERE.

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THE STATE, - A COLD BLOODED KILLER.

       

         The state is the most brutal organisation on the face of the planet, it has no hesitation in sending its own people to foreign lands to kill and maim innocent civilians in their homeland, it will unleash weapons of unimaginable devastation on cities and villages in country after country killing and injuring thousand, and claim the actions are legitimate. These brutal actions do not make the state's cold blooded legalised killing of one of its own citizens any less barbaric.

         This is a statement from Amnesty International on the recent execution of Troy Davis.

          In the early hours of this morning, after a torturous delay of more than 4 hours, the state of Georgia executed Troy Anthony Davis by lethal injection. Despite the serious doubts about his guilt. Despite millions calling on Georgia to reconsider.

Write a message of solidarity to Troy's family

         Like you, I am not only sad but outraged that this has happened. I was there last night with hundreds of others at a vigil outside the US embassy. We continued to hope, right up until the last moment, that those with the power to do so would wake up and prevent this injustice. They did not

       Today, Georgia didn't just kill Troy Davis, they killed the faith and confidence of Georgians, Americans and Troy Davis supporters worldwide in the US criminal justice system.

My colleague, Wende at AIUSA met with Troy yesterday to convey the support that he has had from all of you. He asked us to deliver this message back to you:

"The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace." Troy Davis

Soon we will channel all the outrage we’re feeling into redoubling our efforts for all the other Troy Davises. But today, we simply stand in solidarity with Troy’s family on this darkest of days. Send a message to Troy’s family now

You must know that your support has been a huge comfort to Troy and his family. Thank you for everything you have done.

I am Troy Davis. You are Troy Davis. We will not stop fighting for justice.



Kate Allen
Amnesty UK Director

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DO WHAT I SAY, NOT WHAT I DO.

           The powers that be, tend to criticise hoodies and those who cover their faces at demonstrations marches etc. claiming that if you have nothing to hide, then why cover your face. Of course you and I know that when it comes from the mouths of the state apparatus, they never practice what they preach. It is one set of rules for you and I, and another for them and their minders.

          Well it is much the same with the austerity cuts, you've all heard the the Cameron, Osborne millionaires mantra, “We are all in this together”, or Nick the Clegg's message spewed out at the recent Liberal Conference, “We are all facing hard, very hard, times ahead.” These type of statements coming from the mouths of a cabinet that has 23 millionaires, speaking to people on minimum wage, on benefit, lousy pensions and facing horrendous winter fuel bills, Yea man, we are all in this together, my arse.

"We're all in this together boy."

          When will we wake up to the fact that we are being taken for a bunch of mugs by a group of crooks and liars? Nothing they say or do will in any way benefit us the ordinary people, their crap about “managing the economy” is all about saving the wanker bankers and doing their damnedest to cover the loses of their millionaire friends in the financial sector after their greed feast. They know who their friends are!!!

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WILL IT BE A MERRY CHRISTMAS??

       Our dupicious millionaire politicians are still feeding us crap about improving the economy by austerity cuts, while those in the know are more or less saying it is all over and we are heading for the biggest collapse of the financial system - ever. The Greek people are in the front line of the harshest attack on anybody's living standards seen in Europe. They are expected to accept wage cuts, pension cuts, social service cuts, increase taxes, plus VAT up to 23%, a new porporty tax on all property, increased unemployment and price increases on energy and food. The attacks on the general public will become more vicious and more wide spread as the greed created crisis rapidly deepens.

      At the moment we have mass demonstrations in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, with plans for co-ordinated union demostrations in the UK. The various goverments are not listening to the people, they can't, they are impotent in the face of the dictates from the leader of the banking cartel, the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) and the policy from them will continue to be, screw the people and hand the tax payers money to the banks. In this corporate fascist system we live under they hold total power over the political class and the International Mankind Fuckers will not allow their cartel to go down. When will the demonstrations turn to open revolt?

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THE BIGGEST PONZI SCHEME - EVER.

    

          While the gangster banksters try to save their arses by screw the general public with a little help from their buddies, the governments, you and I are suppose to appeal to those very gangster's buddies by saying, please don't shut our library, our local school, please don't decimate our health service or our social services, please don't make us unemployed, etc. Why do we fall for this illusion of Representative democracy that is a cover for the biggest ponzie scheme the world has ever seen?

A little explanation of how the ponzie scheme works.

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HAS OUR TIME COME!!!

        Today the various states only survive with an delusional and perpetual threat, which in turn allows the state to continually increase surveillance and control over it citizens. The individuals ever increasing desire for freedom is always a threat to the state and its power. The time has long since gone, if it ever existed, when the state was deemed to do the bidding of its citizens and be the protector of the individuals freedom. Today the state is what I call the corporate world's minder and hit squad, its main function being to protect and further the markets and resources of the various corporate groupings around the world. Invariably that is what wars are all about. The desire for freedom by the individual is a grasp at anarchism, though few recognise it as such, but the states ever tightening grip on our freedom of movement and expression drives us ever further along that path. Has our time come??

      The following is a short extract from WHAT PISSED ME OFF!! It might provoke a little bit of debate, and that can't be a bad thing.

       Democracy today consists in the invention or reinvention of spaces, movements, ways of life, economic exchanges and political practices that resist the imprint of the state and which foster relations of equal liberty. The struggles that take place today against capitalism and the state are democratic struggles. At the same time, however, we might sound a certain note of dissatisfaction with the term “democracy.” We can echo Bakunin, who finds the term democracy “not sufficient.” As Derrida himself said of democracy: “[A]s a term it’s not sacred. I can some day or other, say, ‘No, it’s not the right term. The situation allows or demands that we use another term …’” The situation is changing, and the new forms of autonomous politics that are currently emerging demand the use of another term: anarchism.

       Shipwrecked on the craggy shores of state power, anarchism is now moving to the forefront of our political imagination. There has been a certain paradigm shift in politics away from the state and formal representative institutions, which still exist but increasingly as empty vessels without life, and toward movements. Here new political challenges and questions emerge – concerning freedom beyond securities, democracy beyond the state, politics beyond the party, economic organization beyond capitalism, globalization beyond borders, life beyond biopolitics – challenges and questions that anarchism is best equipped to respond to with the originality and innovation that our new situation demands.  Read the article in full.

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DEPRIVATION TO END HUMILIATION!!!

        The Greek foreign minister Mr. Venizelos stated that the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) had failed to “give a definitive and complete answer to the attacks on the Euro.” and said that Greece had been blackmailed and humiliated. His answer to the blackmail and humiliation of the Greek people was the need to do three things.

 1. Greece achieving its 2011 and 2012 fiscal targets. This translates into, slash the living standards of the Greek people and put them in a state of deprivation for the next 15 to 20 years or more. His 2^nd point: Achieve annual budget surpluses “as soon as possible”. Translation, sack thousands of public sector workers, pushing unemployment to previously unseen levels increasing the poverty of the ordinary people. Mr. Venizelos's 3^rd. Point; Carry out structural changes to allow Greece to become more competitive and productive. Translation; Sell off all Greece's public assets at bargain prices to the rich investors of the greed driven corporate world, in so doing, add billions of Euros to the coffers of the banking system and remove any control the Greek people might have over their own assets. This then is the Greek political class's answer to end the humiliation of the Greek people. It sounds to me that the cure is worse than the disease, think of the mess we would be in if they were in the medical profession!!

 

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IMF, CREATING A REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION.

Those who are familiar with history, well Western history, will be looking at Greece and having visions of Germany after the first world war. What the winners in that imperialist war done to Germany in the form of reparations, as a punishment, drove the German people into a spiral of deprivation, creating a revolutionary situation in which the fascists took control, with a little help from their friends. What the winners in the world war of debt, in the shape of the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) and the others in the financial cartel, are doing to Greece is just the same as reparations, and will drive the Greek people into a spiral of deprivation, with no likelihood of a reversal for at least a generation. All this to protect the debt mountain of the winners club in this insane game of grow the debt, namely Germany and France.

It will not stop there, Portugal, Italy and possible Spain are all in the firing line in an attempt to save the mountainous debt bubble from bursting and hurting those at the top. The people of country after country will be sacrificed by having their living standards slashed at the dictate of the International Mankind Fuckers, at all costs, the billionaires at the top of the festering heap must be saved. The financial system most survive, even if it means the people have to live in rabbit warrens or sewers.

You lot will have to tighten your belt.

We are lead to believe that this is the only game in town and we the people must take our medicine to save the system. This message is of course, pumped out by those very people who created the fantasy world of growth and debt, the very people who will make sure that they will not suffer for their greed and believe that we the people have a duty to suffer so as to save their arses. Why do we accept such shit? We don't need them, they need us. We make and distribute everything on this planet, they do nothing but live off our backs. They could of course be creating their own demise, simply by creating a revolutionary situation in each country in turn could see their selfish self centred greed driven ideology go up in smoke.

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KILLED EARNING YOUR BREAD.

    

      Across the globe people die just trying to earn their crust of bread, some might have been unavoidable, but most of the others were in all possibility caused by lack of proper health and safety regulations being in place or not being enforced. Health and safety often competes with profit and profit comes first in this capitalist system. Money is sacred, money is scarce, but there's always another worker there to take the place of the killed worker.

      The recent mining disaster in Wales where 4 miners lost their lives due to flooding is a stark reminder that even today in this country, mining is still a very dangerous occupation. Today for me, as the son of a miner, is a very poignant day, September 18 is the 52 anniversary of one of the worst mining disasters in the UK. My father worked in the mine and retired just about a month before the disaster.

Memorial to the miners who lost their lives in the Wester Auchegeich Colliery disaster.

      In September 18^th. 1959, 47 men lost their lives in a coal mine near the village of Auchengeich. The cause of the disaster was a faulty fan purifying the air in the colliery that caught fire due to an electrical fault. The men, who were on their way to start their shift at approximately 6:50am. were in bogies travelling to the coal face to start their days work. Forty three were found dead in the bogies, one seemed to have fallen off and three were found some way from the carriage dead by the side of the track. They had all died because of the intense smoke that developed in the tunnel. There were in fact just a few hundred yards from safety. The mine was eventually flooded to put out the fire; there was only one survivor from the crews. The Mining accident was one of the worst within the UK in the 20th century, widowing 41 women and leaving 76 children without a father.

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BOMBS AND DEATH OR NURSES?

        Ten years of bloodshed, death, pain and anguish for the Afghan people, over 1500 US deaths and almost 400 UK deaths, for what? The cost of the Afghan 10 year war is shattering both in its cost in human life, also the financial cost. What could that financial package have done other than kill and maim? Billions for death and destruction while at the same time cutting back on social services. It is hardly the hallmark of a civilised society. 

 

The only beneficiaries of war are the arms traders and their associates.

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IT WILL BE WON OR LOST ON THE STREETS.

     While we in this country mobilise against the millionaire bankers' cuts to our living standards, we should not lose sight of the fact that this is not a UK problem. This is a crisis in capitalism across the globe. The financial system is in effect bust, and has to claw in money from the public to save the bankers arses. They have to raise more money from the people and take ownership of all public assets to shore up their greed gotten billions.

      As far as Europe is concerned, Greece is probably at the front line and what is happening there is in all probability coming our way. Recently the Greek government introduced a new tax very much reminiscent of Thatcher’s Poll Tax: every single house owner in the country is to face an “emergency tax” ranging between 3-20 euros per square meter (depending on their property value, location etc). Even people on unemployment benefits are not to be spared of the tax, only offered a discount instead. Practically, this means that an average household of, say, three bedrooms (approx. 100 sq m.) would have to pay an additional of 1,000 euros (!) annually in tax. It doesn't stop there, a staggering increase in VAT (from 13% to 23% for many products), and the effective sacking of thousands of public sector workers. Of course there are the usual exceptions from the new tax, no not the poor hard working, but the more leisurely, religious-use buildings owned by the Church will be exempt. The Orthodox church is the largest property owner in Greece.

      All this information looks innocent on paper, just statistics, percentages, numbers, but when it hits you personally the human effect is a different story. It means poverty in the present time with it likely to continue for decades, destroying the future of the next generation, stress and anguish which at times can be unbearable. Friday 16 September in the Greek Northern city of Thessaloniki, a 55-year old man tried to set himself alight in front of a branch of Piraeus Bank, in protest and desperation for his mounting debt to the bank. He was rescued by passers-by and police and has been transferred to hospital.

      You can write, text, send emails to your MP, decide to change who you vote for at the next election and it will all be to no avail. This is not a national crisis, it is global and it will be won or lost on the streets. It is the system that has to be changed, not the bums on seats of power, nor the smiling faces at the podium.
Some of the details here were taken from

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/

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WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON ---???

  
       Union busting is part and parcel to the capitalist system, it is not one company nor one coutry it is the way the capitalist system works across the planet. The last thing the capitalists want is for the workers to be organised and work together to improve and protect their pay and conditions. A fragmented and unorganised workforce can easily be exploited, wages and conditions can be eroded when the workers don't stand together. It is obvious that it is in the interest of every worker to be an active member of their union and stand united in solidarity with all workers who find themselves in dispute with their employer.

Stand with Longshore Workers 21! HOORAY FOR UNIONISTS willing to be arrested! In a dispute raging through the summer in Longview, Washington, over 120 members of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) have been detained by cops, including Local 21 President Dan Coffman and International President Robert McEllrath. The unionists are fighting to stop international conglomerate EGT Development from breaking a longstanding master agreement the ILWU has at the Port of Longview's publicly subsidized grain terminal. Members of the ILWU are contractually entitled to work the 50 jobs at the terminal, but EGT sued the port for the right to bring in nonunion workers, and inflamed tensions by importing members of Operating Engineers Local 701, who have crossed picket lines to work. On September 7, hundreds of ILWU members stood on railroad tracks to block a train carrying grain to the facility. Police in riot gear attacked protesters with clubs and pepper spray. The next morning, police reported that hundreds of ILWU members from Northwest locals and supporters broke down the gates of the EGT terminal, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain. Security guards retreated and no one was hurt or arrested. An emergency meeting of ILWU locals also shut down other Washington ports. THE ILWU SEES THIS BATTLE as critical to thwart unionbusting drives at other grain terminals. It is all that and more. The struggle at Longview is part of the nationwide resistance against the bosses' austerity attacks. It continues the mobilization begun in Madison, Wisconsin last year. Longview originated as a timber town and longshoremen have worked the Columbia river port for more than 80 years. The community and ILWU won't roll over for EGT, scabs or court orders. The challenge for the rest of organized labor is to mount real national support for this struggle, including stopping the Operating Engineers Union Local 701 from providing scabs. Readers can support these brave unionists by defending them in the press, and by sending donations and messages of solidarity to President Coffman, ILWU Local 21, 617 14th Ave, Suite B, Longview, WA 98632, or email: ilwu21@iinet.com. For background information on the struggle see: Here's why Longshore workers are so angry.

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