REMINDER - ANTIWAR ASSEMBLY SATURDAY 8 OCTOBER.

All the signs are that the Anti-war Assembly in Trafalgar Square on Saturday is going to be a memorable day. Grace McCann, will be there, the women who has come closest so far to carrying out a citizen's arrest on Tony Blair. 

      Films, visuals and audio will be an integral part of the day, and when the Assembly ends at 4pm, we will march to Downing Street, led by ex-soldiers and relatives from military families, with the demand that the government bring the troops home now.

      The need to build the political pressure to make the politicians reflect the majority view of public opinion that all the troops should be withdrawn from a futile and unjustified war, was never more apparent following the statement this week by the new US commander of the occupation in Afghanistan, US General John Allen, who said: "We're actually going to be here for a long time."

      Which is why this week, in Trafalgar Square in Britain, and on Freedom Plaza, Washington DC, in the United States, there will be major anti-war events on the tenth of anniversary of the start of the Afghanistan war.

      Please do all you can in these last few days to help publicise the Anti-war Assembly as widely as possible and encourage everyone you know to join us. Users of social networks please spread the word, share and tweet as much as you can.

ANTI-WAR MASS ASSEMBLY
SATURDAY 8 OCTOBER
12 NOON TO 4.00PM
TRAFALGAR SQUARE LONDON
Called by Stop the War Coalition, CND and British Muslim Initiative http://www.antiwarassembly.org/

Transport from Scotland: http://glasgowstopwar.blogspot.com/

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WALL ST, - 20 DAYS AND STILL THERE.

        

  In spite of  the almost complete blackout by the mainstream media the occupation of Wall St. continues and is growing in numbers, it is now spreading across the whole of America in cities from the east coast to the west, from the south to the north. So far it seems to be keeping itself clean, by that I mean no leaders and no parties. What they have to remember is that we are governed by consent, we have the right to withdraw that consent, and when we do, we cannot be governed. Only then will we be able to create the type of society that we really want.

        OCCUPYWALLSTREET is a people powered movement for democracy that began in America on September 17 with an encampment in the financial district of New York City. Inspired by the Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising and the Spanish acampadas, we vow to end the monied corruption of our democracy … join us! We're now in DAY 20.

MORE PHOTOS HERE:

Get Involved

OCCUPYWALLST.ORG for news and logistics

NYCGA.net for General Assembly Updates

OccupyTogether.org join occupations across America

Reddit Page organizing tool

Facebook Event Page for facebookers

Tumblr for clippings and links

Livestream from the global revolution

Antibanks for international actions

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AFGHANISTAN -- WHY???

        The cost of the war without a reason raging in Afghanistan has and is costing the UK dear. Not only is it draining the public purse at a time when our cabal of millionaires in the cabinet are slashing viciously at all our social services, but even more seriously, it is costing the lives and future of thousands of our young people. Leaving aside the massive slaughter of Afghans on their own soil by foreign troops they never asked to enter their country, the figures for the UK suffering is unacceptable. Along side the 382 UK deaths since the start of this tragedy there is the wounded. 

Centrally available records show that: For the period 1 January 2006 to 15September 2011:

       1,792 UK military and civilian personnel were admitted to UK Field Hospitals and categorised        as wounded in Action.

3,440 UK military and civilian personnel were admitted to UK Field Hospitals for disease or non-battle injuries.

       256 UK personnel were categorised as Very Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.

       268 UK personnel were categorised as Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.

      Then of course there are those who have suffered trauma and will struggle with mental heath problems, probably for the rest of their lives, causing more suffering and anguish for their friends and families and so the misery spreads. WHY. 

Don't you know, wars create jobs.

       Ask any of our pampered politicians why we are there and each one will give a different reason. They'll have to give some reason, for them to admit that they don't know would not go down too well with their bosses. I'm sure any man or woman on the street would most certainly find it hard to come up with a reason and no doubt each reason would differ from the other. The truth is this war defies reason. I'm sure somewhere deep in the dark corridors of corrupt power there will be a handful of millionaires who know the reason for this ten years and counting slaughter and destruction. Somewhere there will be a benefit to some corporate body, perhaps the arms industry, they must be making a mint from the death and destruction. Perhaps it will be the Western corporate mining sector, rubbing their sweaty hands thinking of all that mineral buried under the mountains of Afghanistan and all that cheap labour in a country with no infrastructure. The corporate world feeds on the blood of the people, slaughter in Iraq, all that shiny black oil, Libya, more of the black stuff. The potential wealth for the corporate world from all those precious minerals waiting to be exploited by the wealthy and powerful Western mining sector will gladden the heart of many of those on any Stock exchange.

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12,000 ON HUNGER STRIKE.

       12,000 prisoners on hunger strike against inhumane conditions and treatment??  No this isn't some banana republic, it is sunny California in the land of the free the good ol' U.Sof A. It preaches human rights and freedom to the world and does its damnedest to bomb the world into freedom and democracy but has thousands of prisoners own its own soil who feel ill treated enough to go on hunger strike.

THIS FROM SACC.

       In September 6,000 prisoners in California began the 2nd wave of a hunger strike against inhumane conditions in California Secure Housing and Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg) Units. Numbers released by the federal receiver’s office show that on September 28th, nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike.
     Lawyers from the prisoner’s legal & mediation team have been banned from communicating with hunger strikers and family members of hunger strikers have also been denied visits. This is an added punishment that increases isolation for hunger strikers in an attempt to break the strike and conceal retaliation.

More background and updates at http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/

10 ways to support the strike: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/take-action/

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GLOBAL REVOLUTION???

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MILITARY DEMOCRACY???

      

          I have never been one to think that democracy will come via a military government. In most cases the top Military are in too cozy a relationship with those at the top you wish to get rid of, they are part and parcel of the same state apparatus. So I thought it would only be a matter of time before there were the usual fractures between the new ruling elite and the real people of Egypt, and now the new ruling class are beginning to show where their plans are heading, the usual control over the working class. Below is an appeal from LabourStart.

        The Egyptian revolution last winter was an inspiration to the whole world. And workers were at the heart of it. Their strikes brought down the Mubarak regime.

But today, Egypt's Military rulers continue to criminalise strikes.

     That hasn't stopped Egyptian workers from walking off the job in their hundreds of thousands. Today, a major strike wave is sweeping the country, with schools, hospital and public transport systems shut down. Those workers face the risk of brutal repression unless the country's military rulers start recognizing their basic human right to join and form trade unions, and to strike.

        Egypt's new independent unions and the International Trade Union Confederation have today launched a major campaign to pressure the new regime to enact a labour law that recognizes workers' rights.

      It's extremely important that you and other members of your union act today by sending off a short message. It will take you less than a minute to do this.

Click here to send off your message.

Please pass this message on to other members of your union.
Thank you!



Eric Lee

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PEOPLE FIRST.

More from that very wet Saturday 1st October Glasgow. The weather didn't dampen their spirits, nor their anger.

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CAMERON - MILIBAND, TWO OF A KIND!!

        The following is a short extract from Tony Benn's speech made at the weekend. It is all well and good what he says, but we don't want to to defeat the government and see a Miliband Labour government in its place. After all the man himself Ed, has said that they cannot reverse the cuts. To replace the Cameron/Clegg millionaires with look-a-like named Miliband is hardly going to improve the conditions of the ordinary people of this country. They are all singing from the same music sheet, it's just that the Cameron mob are singing it as a reel, while the Miliband bunch want to sing it as a waltz. The end result will be the same, a drastically decimated welfare system, a low wage economy and millionaires making loads of cash. It is not the faces at the front of the package that is the problem, it is the package itself.

          “The present government is mounting the biggest attack ever made on the welfare state created after the Second World War. Their aim is to finish the work begun under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

         When people came back from the war, the view was that it was the responsibility of government, representing the people as a whole, to provide affordable homes, free medical care, education for all, and key public services.

        All of that is now under threat. The Con-Dem Coalition's programme of austerity and privatisation will take us back 80 years.

          We are going to need a tidal wave of resistance from below to defeat the government. Every one of us needs to get active, involve others, spread the spirit of resistance to help to build a united mass movement to stop the cuts.”

What we want is a mass movement of resistance to change the system, not to change the face at the podium or the bums on the seats of power, and party political politics will never do that.

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FORNICATING WITH THE IMF!!!

Financial herpes, just about sums it up, Greece has been fornicating with the IMF(International Mankind Fuckers) Sounds like this guy is a poet with a vision.

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GREAT BRITAIN -- FOR WHO??

         

             Millionaire Cameron wants to put the”GREAT” back into Great Britain. Well, Britain is "GREAT", it just depends on which side of the financial apathied wall you sit. It is “GREAT” if your are Sir Philip Green, owner of Arcadia/Topshop/Burtons/BHS, you earn all that money from that group of companies and you don't pay tax, a nice wee fiddle, you see the company is in his wife's name and surprise, surprise, she doesn't live in Britain, she is a resident of Monaco!! It is “GREAT” if your are one of Britain's too many millionaires. Since the “financial crisis” of 2008 the number of millionaires in Britain has grown from 528,000 to 619,000 an increase of 17%., Britain has the fourth most registered millionaires in the world coming in after USA, Japan and China. So millionaire Cameron has no worries there, Britain is “GREAT” for this bunch of parasites.

It's a GREAT country.

             However, what if you happen to be on the other side of that financial apathied wall? Well millionaire Cameron has a wee problem there. There is nothing “GREAT” about Britain if you are among the 4 million children growing up in poverty, more than 1 in 3, a figure that is amongst the worst in Europe. Nothing “GREAT” if you happen to be one of the 2 million pensioners living below the breadline and facing winter in fuel poverty. Again we are amongst the worst rates of pensioner poverty in Europe. I wonder if millionaire Cameron and his millionaire cabal, can even grasp an inkling of how “UN-GREAT” Britain is for the 20.2% of our young people who live a life on the dole? How “GREAT” is that, a fifth of all our young people unemployed, a waste of talent and resources, a destruction of the future.

          Sorry Mr. millionaire Cameron, you and your corporate cronies with policies of profit before people can never make Britain "GREAT" for the people of this country. You and the system you fight so viciously for, has to go, your greed driven corporate fascism has to be flushed down the toilet before this country can be "GREAT" for all of the people who live and work here.

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WHOSE WORLD IS IT???

       According to our wonderful unbiased mainstream media, this isn't happening. We are talking about thousands occupying Wall St, we are talking about 700 arrests at the Brooklyne Bridge, we are talking about the area being occupied for nearly two weeks, and occupations popping up all over America. It would seem that our media has a problem with its near sight and can't see what is under its nose but has good long sight and can tell you what is happening a couple of thousand miles away, of course with a bit of distortion.

       The stench of the greed from the system is beginning to choke the nostrils of the people and they don't like it. Across the globe people are coming onto the streets and the shout is always the same, “the system doesn't work for the people”. How can we accept a system that alienates so many people. We are aware of the poverty and deprivation that blots every country on the planet, some more than others but no country is immune, the system doesn't work for the people.

        Modifying it will not get rid of the basic principle of the system, put in a dollar and take out two, something for nothing for the few and grinding struggle for the rest. Remember Obama's "change", more of the same type of "change" is what you will get if you just tinker with the system. There are alternatives to this profit driven system, it doesn't take much imagination to come up with a system of co-operation and mutual aid, a system that sees to the needs of all our people based on sustainability. We don't need the parasites of the corporate or financial worlds, they produce nothing of any use, all they are interested in is more power and wealth for their cosy little cabal and the rest of us can go to hell in a hand cart.

      Can we look forward to the time when the people of every country occupy their towns and cities, their villages and communities and decide how they want to live, and how to do it in co-operation and federation with all others, shaking the billionaire parasites off their backs, creating a sustainable world of mutual aid free from deprivation? Why not?

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NOT THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER, BUT A START.

Well, what's your reason? Or what's your reason for not being an anarchist?

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THE CUTS ARE FOR YOUR BENEFIT!!!

      

       Our millionaire public school thugs keep spouting that what they are doing is for the benefit of the country. What do they mean by “benefit of country”? What most people would think is that it is for he benefit of the people of that country. However the policies being administered by this bunch of millionaire parasites is most certainly not for the benefit of the people. Let's start with the £9billion cut from disability benefit, hitting some of the most vulnerable in our society. Then of course there is those effects that are not linked to any specific cut, like for example the fact that in the last year FareShare, which redistributes waste food from food manufacturers and super markets to various social care charities, has seen the demand for its food rise from 29,500 to 35,000 and increase of 20%. A lot of those coming forward for the food are from what would be termed “stable families” affected by rising unemployment. The number of charities applying to the FareShare scheme has risen from 600 to 700 over the last year. Almost half of those charities signed up to the scheme have claimed that the demand for their food services has risen by more than 50%. That's an awful lot of people depending on food handouts to survive, in what is one of the richest countries in the world. So much for “the benefit of the country”. Another action for “the benefit of the country” is a wage freeze, and in some cases, a wage cut, on public sector employees, while inflation is running at 5% and fuel bills for heating have risen by 18% this year alone. What is the total so far that are benefiting from these policies?

WE HAVE PLANS FOR THE SOCIAL SERVICES.

     Cuts in social services and benefits, wage freeze and wage cuts, high inflation and rocketing fuel prices, cuts in education, closure of libraries, leisure centres, and school, attempts to privatise the National Health Service, higher pension contributions, working longer and lower pensions at retiral, plus unemployment rising, all for your benefit. Of course you won't benefit now, but in 20 years or so this will be a great country for big business, lots of cheap labour and hundreds chasing every job. What you are being promised is the usual pie in the sky for you, and an immediate killing for the millionaire parasite class. So as far as they are concerned what they are doing is for “the benefit of the country”, as they consider it is their country, we are just the tools by which they make their fortunes. In the words of that old song,”When will we ever learn”?

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WAR = PROFITS.

       

         Ten years of death and destruction in Afghanistan and still it goes on. Hundreds of UK troops killed and thousands injured, plus billions of pounds spent on maintaining this inhumane, pointless slaughter. Where does all that money go? It pours into the arms industry who are delighted to see tons of munitions being exploded, creating a need to have them replaced, at the same time allowing the other psychopaths in power across the globe an opportunity to see these destructive weapons in use. A war is like a trade show to the arms industry and it doesn't cost them a penny.

         There are urgent and pressing needs across the globe, they are not being seen to, the usual excuse is lack of resources. How much of the capitalist world's resources are spent on destruction and killing, what impact would there be if all those resources were directed at people's needs? Of course for that to happen we need to get rid of the capitalist system itself. As long as we have the present system of corporate capitalism and national governments, we will have wars and destruction, suffering and deprivation, as the parasites engineer everything to their own benefit.

STOP THE WAR 

       The Antiwar Mass Assembly in Trafalgar Square on 8 October is going to be one of Stop the War's most important events.  Thousands of people have pledged to be there (see  http://bit.ly/pBlNMI), transport is being organised around the country (see http://bit.ly/oM17x9), the timetable for the event
has just been published, with a very impressive list of speakers, musicians, artists and performers (see http://bit.ly/poSQPd).

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AFGHANISTAN?

      

        After ten years of the UK being at war in Afghanistan, how much do we the British people know about that country and its people. At a guess, I'd say practically nothing, except what our biased media spew out from time to time in an attempt to justify that illegal slaughter. This might not be the empirical answer, but it helps.

AFGHANISTAN: A Potted Social History

      I. If the history of Afghanistan is about any one thing, it is about playing hard to get when capital turns on the charm: a mainly small-holding peasantry and artisanal population that spurns the joys of wage-slavery; saturated carpet bombings by external foes (sometimes in conjunction with the Afghani government) that fail to crush the smuggling operations of the mountain people; civil wars and the restricted nature of export crops making (non-drug related) industrial agriculture untenable; mountain bandits collecting taxes from all sides in return for protection, making the state’s tax collectors green with envy; meticulous social engineering plans to divide the country into northern (oil, gas, and minerals) and southern (cheap labour) spheres of influence, overwhelmed by ethnic/tribal/religious complications.Like the Columbian communeros (common land), minga (festive labour and reciprocal labour exchange) and the Russian obshchina, the self-subsistence Afghani local jirga (now devoid of all its communitarian village structures) proves a formidable obstacle to ‘progress’. Its strength is in inverse correlation to the power of the central government. In any case, the small amount of surplus secured by the state makes the seizure of power a dubious victory. Capital has almost given up creating modern structures of domination in Afghanistan, instead it tries to implant itself onto ‘communitarian’ traditions

Read more here; Revolt Against Plenty.

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