A HOME OR A HOUSE??

          It is claimed that there are over 1 million empty houses in the UK and it is estimated that 2 million families in the UK need a home. We are a rich capitalist country!! In this society that is seen as an insurmountable problem, where as any rational approach would be to give those without homes access to empty houses. Of course in this society a house is not seen as a place to live, it is seen as property and therefore a valuable asset, money. So if you are well off, you can have several houses, of course only living in one. While others can't have a house and have to share or live in a hostel, or worse live on the streets, leaving all those other house empty. This injustice is glossed over by referring to it as “the market”, some divine oracle that controls our lives. This system of capitalism, whereby a house is not a home but a valuable asset, creates all the usual contradictions. While you are looking for a house you hope that prices will fall, but once you have your house, you hope and pray that the price will go up. Once you have your house and the price falls, because it is on a mortgage you end up owing more than your pile of bricks is worth, not a very satisfactory situation, but then again, that's capitalism for you. If we take the government out of the equation and classify a house as a place to live and not a commodity to be sold for gain, then I'm sure the people would sort out the housing problem tomorrow. But that wouldn't be capitalism.

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32% SALARY INCREASE -- WAGE FREEZE, TWO SIDES OF CAPITALISM.

        As the austerity policies being pursued by our millionaire public school thugs, continues to bite ever deeper, it pays to have a wee look at salaries. Over the last year people have been finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, what with wage cuts/freezes, VAT increases and rocketing fuel prices etc., but of course, this is capitalism and it doesn't work out that way for everybody. Take those pampered parasites the CEO of the FTSE 100 companies, this year on average, they enjoyed a 7% salary increase on top of their already fat-cat salaries and monopoly money bonuses. However, if you are one of the CEO of the “blue-chip” companies, then you chuckled all the way to your winter home in St Moritz as you enjoyed on average an increase of 32% on your bloated undeserved salary.

I'm a CEO,  I work bloody hard!!

       32% salary increase when their friends in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, are dictating a 1% cap on public sector pay increases, for at least two years, this after a two year pay freeze. Remember, inflation is running at just over 5%, that makes it a massive pay cut for all public sector workers that will continue for the next few years. In reality, public sector workers will never get back to the level of salary they were at two years ago.

       We are continually told we can't afford all these social services, but there seems to be an awful lot of money sloshing around in this corrupt system. The shape of our society, under this present system, is all down to government choices. It is not that there is not enough money, the government choose to spend vast sums on armaments, wars and tax breaks to big business. It could if it so wished, spend that money on social welfare, it could introduce a fairer tax system, whereby those fat-cat CEO and others of that ilk, paid a larger share into the public pot. However under this corrupt and exploitive system, we have to realise that the government is the guardian of wealth and power and has a duty to make sure that those with the wealth and power see it grow and in no way can it be diminished.

       Under these conditions we are foolish if we sit back and expect the government of the day to look after our welfare at the expense of their old school friends in the millionaires club. We don't come into that equation, we are at times an inconvenience, and at other times a necessity, as a mob needed to keep buying their crap. Give your imagination a wee bit freedom, think, can you visualise an alternative society that would see to the needs of all? It's not that difficult!!

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY, ETHEL MACDONAL PART 2.

          Here we continue the story of one of Glasgow's anarchist women, Ethel MacDonald and her link with the Spanish revolution.
More on Glasgow's working class history, HERE.

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"TOTAL POLICING".

  

       With the millionaire ConDem's rapid dismantling of the very social fabric of our society crashing along unabated, it is obvious that there will be anger among the ordinary people. People who have been subservient, compliant and hard working as they tried to have a decent life will soon find, that is no longer possible. Anger will turn to action with circumstances forcing people to come together and organise for their mutual survival, the state however, to protect its authority, will do its damnedest to prevent that coming together. The policing will change, dissent will be stifled and protest will be criminalised. On that theme, the following article is lifted in full from that old war horse of the anarchist movement, FREEDOM, the longest running anarchist newspaper in the UK.

Taken from FREEDOM, vol. 72 December 2011.

The graphics are not FREEDOM's.

     When Oxbridge graduate Bernard Hogan-Howe began his new job as Metropolitan police commissioner in September, he brought with him a quaint PR phrase 'total policing' (that he himself coined when chief of Merseyside police) as a way of introducing himself into the new role as top cop. As a sound-bite it ticked all the right boxes for an insouciant media – enticing, unspecific, and unavoidably non-committal. But what in reality does a change at the top of the police pile mean for anarchists and activists especially during this period of economic disintegration and increasingly fractious social unrest, what can we expect in this new era of total policing?

     Already this year we have seen several examples of pro-active policing taking on a more sinister role – the kind of policing that goes beyond public order and preservation of the peace but designed to undermine political expression.

      When education activists did a banner drop at the Lib Dem party conference in September they were remanded for three days by West Midlands police as their “membership of an organisation showed that they could not be trusted not to cause danger to the public”. In Bristol there was a raid on The Automonist radical magazine where police seized phones, computers and paperwork looking for a connection to the August riots, and it was during the August riots that several people received long jail sentences for simply posting messages on Facebook encouraging participation in the unrest. There were also the pre-emptive arrests and raids on squats in the run up to the Royal wedding and of course the arrest of145 people for the Fortnum & Mason peaceful occupation on 26^th March.

       But perhaps the most pronounced indication that we are enterig a new era of political policing was the excessive and overt role of plain-clothes police during the November student demonstration in Central London.

      Despite the tightly regulated route of the march – each side street blocked by a small army of well defended barriers – gangs of plain-clothes police, acting independently of uniformed police, embedded themselves in the demonstration and sought to impose themselves upon the crowd, only revealing their identities when people grew hostile towards them. Whether this was to provoke a reaction or simply target individuals they wanted to arrest, the gang strategy highlighted a new and potentially dangerous example of things to come.

     This new approach to the management of political dissent and public protest will impose itself more and more as the crisis deepens, where the legitimacy of government is constantly questioned and the role of the state relentlessly challenged, where ordinary people, angry and disillusioned with the current state of things, become active political subjects.

      For the state to maintain its authority and control over an increasingly embittered population they must ensure not only a compliant protest culture but the continued separation between political activists and the rest of society. Policing now has taken on a form of dissuading us from expressing a common purpose. This is is the political policing of the future.

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WAR IS THE WAY OF CORPORATE CAPITALISM.

        David Cameron is probably feeling all flushed with success after bombing Libya back a couple of centuries, and is now looking around for another little ego trip. After all there is oil and gas to be got in Iran, can't let a little thing like human casualties to stand in the way of that. The West is in dire fanacial straits, but the expense of war will be far out weigh by all those lovely oil and gas assets to add to the coffers of the Western corporate Mafia.

This from Stop the War.

       The western powers seem to be doing everything possible to increase tension with Iran. Yesterday EU ministers imposed new sanctions on top of those agreed by Canada, the US and Britain last week. David Cameron promised yet another round in January, meanwhile he has expelled Iranian diplomats in response to protests at the British Embassy in Tehran, closing one of the last channels for negotiation.
      A British minister recently promised that further unspecified 'appropriate measures' will be taken against Iran. The recent IAEA report showed there is no conclusive evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but this kind of western brinkmanship can only antagonise the Iranian regime.
      Stop the War is planning a national campaign against an attack on Iran in the next months. The campaign starts with a public rally in London on Monday.

Public Meeting: Don't Attack Iran
Mon 5 December, 7pm
Speakers include George Galloway, Tony Benn, Lindsey German and Abbas Edalat
Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion sq, London WC1R 4RL

Please tweet and share widely: http://on.fb.me/sJqZKg
You can download a leaflet from: http://bit.ly/tYZkXL
Sign the petition here: http://bit.ly/rXkyFZ

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GLASGOW ANARCHIST FAIR.

Glasgow Anarchist Fair

Saturady 10th December

10am - 11pm

Kinning Park Complex.

Workshops: Introduction to Anarchism - Anarchist strategy in Community and Workplace - Ben Franks (author of'Rebel Alliances: The Means and Ends of Contemporary British Anarchism') on Anarchist Ethics - Libertarian Education - Racism - Scottish author D.D. Johnston reading from his new book, Peace, love and Petrol Bombs.

Stalls: Including Radical Independent Bookfair, Anarchist Federation,Solidarity Federation, GU Vegan Society, Glasgow Social Centre, Coal Action Scotland.

Social: In the evening, Films, Music, Chat.

Kid's Space: Please contact us as soon as possible to use the space.

glasgowanarchists.wordpress.com/fair

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - ETHEL MACDONALD & SPAIN.

          In 1936 hundreds of people left Scotland to fight in Spain against fascism. But there is a name of a young scots woman anarchist that will always be linked to the Spanish Civil war, Ethel MacDonald.

Read a short version of Ethel MacDonald's life HERE.

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THE CURSE OF CAPITALISM.

     In Europe all the bankers and their yes men the politicians, are running around trying to find ways to save their billions. They keep coming up with grand plan after grand plan, only to find that it isn't working. Though they can hold their meetings in luxurious hotels and wine and dine their way through a multitude of exotic menus, the people at the receiving end of the grand plans are sinking fast.

    Under the present system of bankers corporate fascism, what has Europe got to offer the people? Country after country is seeing unemployment soar, some countries are at the moment away ahead of the others. At the forefront is Greece with youth unemployment almost at the 50% level, while total unemployment is at 18.3% and rising. Spain is in a similar position with total unemployment running at 22.8% and youth unemployment also approaching the 50% mark. Portugal and Ireland have approximately 30% youth unemployment, here in the UK it running at about 20%. All other countries in Europe have varying degrees of this malaise.

    This is the stark reality of conditions for the next generation of young people growing up in Europe, poverty and unemployment. These figures are an indictment against a system that can pour unbelievable wealth into the coffers of the few, while the vast majority struggle to keep their heads above water. A system that, to protect the unearned wealth of the few, is quite prepared to sacrifice country after country to a life of deprivation.

      Unemployment never comes alone, it has constant companions, the obvious is poverty, less noted but just as cruel is mental health problems, then there is the usual rise in suicides, violence, drug addiction and malnutrition. All this brings about the destruction of our social society, but only at our level. The millionaire class responsible for all this misery and destruction, go unscathed and will continue to take their yacht to the Med. fly to Dubai, and soak up the sun at St Moritz.

CRISIS!!  What crisis?

      As across the continent unemployment and poverty rises to scales not seen since the 30s and the 1% parasite class continue living in luxury on the backs of the ordinary people, it is surely obvious that the system doesn't work for the majority of the people. If the people want an end to this corrupt, unjust and exploitative system, they have to take control away from the financial parasites, remove the corrupt political class, (the parasites' managers) and organise society from the grassroots, creating a society that sees to the needs of all our people. A society based on mutual aid and sustainability, one that is free from the profit motive. Capitalism doesn't work.

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IN PURSUIT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE.

          Over the years I have written many pieces venting my hate of the mainstream media, I see it as dumbing down, sensationalising, and misrepresenting the world we live in, I see it as a tool of the establishment, an organ of the state propaganda machine. Part and parcel of that corrupt body, the media, is the weaver of illusions, the advertising industry, it attempts to shape the world to suit the the corporate greed machine. It uses and abuse everyone and anyone, creating illusions as reality, moulding our kids, into attempting to be the impossible. I like this video as in a clear and amusing manner, it highlights the corrupt and corrosive effect of the advertising industry, and how it insidiously destroys lives for profit.

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GLASGOW'S DAY OF ACTION.

       Glasgow's march and rally, Day of Action, today, November 30, was probably the largest protest march seen in the city since the demonstration against the Iraq war. It was large by anybody's standard. Chatting to people on the pavement as I gave out leaflets I was pleased by the welcome response I was receiving and the eagerness for a leaflet and information. On Glassford street as I handed a leaflet to a woman who was standing watching the march go past, she smiled and said, “That is the most beautiful thing I have seen in years, good on them.” That I believe is the most common response among the ordinary people of our city.

      The public are aware that they are being ripped-off by a bunch of wealth parasites, they are aware that the millionaire government are lying to them, they are aware that the politicians are in the pocket of the corrupt bankers, and they are pissed-off with the lot of them. Let's hope that the public in their anger, come together not just to protect pensions, not just to stop the cuts, but to change the system. Our living standards are heading to the Victorian era, our kids education is being decimated, our social services are being dismantled, our health service is being privatised, if we have to stop all of that we have to change the system.

      The system that this government willing presides over and eagerly pursues, is responsible for callous and cruel criminal acts. It is responsible for throwing well over 1 million of our young people on the dole, stifling their potential for a decent life, and destroying a multitude of dreams and hopes. Their system is responsible for another brutal crime, that of massively increasing child poverty in this country. Their attack on the ordinary people, is at all stages of their life, increase child poverty, massive youth unemployment, soaring adult unemployment, and decimation of pensions. Add to that the wage cuts/freezes, and destruction of social services, while the rich get richer and you see the extent of their attack on the ordinary people and you can only come to one conclusion, they see it as what it is, class war. Only when we see it as the same, and fight back to destroy their power and change the system, to one that sees to the needs of all our people, only then will we eliminate all the problems listed above.

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GOLDMAN SACHS, RULER OF EUROPE!!!

        I have often spouted about the financial coup in Europe. That illusion, our so called democracy, has been replaced by an unelected leader in two European countries, first Greece and then Italy, and in both cases the new "leaders" are referred to as technocrats. As far as Europe is concerned, Greece is a small fry economy, never the less, its elected government was removed because the Prime Minister had the audacity to suggest a referendum on the country's finances, Italy, on the other hand is a major player in the European economic league and it is significant that in the later case it is a Goldman Sachs man that has taken the reins. Goldman Sachs stand to go belly-up if the major countries in Europe default on their sovereign debt, So that can't be allowed to happen, the public will be screwed as every penny of public spending will be re-directed towards the national “deficit”, that must be paid or Goldman Sachs is no more, and with the power they wield over the political classes, they will make sure it is paid. Getting rid of the elected government when there is a risk of them not throwing the taxpayers money at the deficit fast enough, is just the natural step for them, we can expect more Goldman Sachs coups in Europe as the sovereign debt crisis deepens.

You don't need elections -- I'm a technocrat.

You'll find a more detailed explanation than my personal rant, HERE. A short extract follows.

The ascension of Mario Monti to the Italian prime ministership is remarkable for more reasons than it is possible to count. By replacing the scandal-surfing Silvio Berlusconi, Italy has dislodged the undislodgeable. By imposing rule by unelected technocrats, it has suspended the normal rules of democracy, and maybe democracy itself. And by putting a senior adviser at Goldman Sachs in charge of a Western nation, it has taken to new heights the political power of an investment bank that you might have thought was prohibitively politically toxic.

Continue reading

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SOME THOUGHTS FOR TOMORROW'S MARCH.

          Some little bits of information to remember when on the November 30^th. day of action, march and rally. The chancellor has give his autumn budget report this afternoon and it doesn't make nice reading if you are an ordinary member of the public. When this Oxbridge millionaire laid out his first plan to save the bankers from losing the money they had gambled, it was to be a short sharp kick up the backside of the general public. Two years of austerity cuts and then fantastic growth would propel us all into eternal prosperity. Now it seems that the austerity bit for you and I is to last much longer. Public sector workers, who have suffered a two year pay freeze are to be limited to a 1% pay increase for a further two years. That is a helluva drop in wages over a five year period, remember inflation is running at 5%. On top of that, the original estimate of the number of public sector pay-offs of 400,000 has been revised up to 710,000. That's a helluva lot of people being thrown on the dole. So we are supposed to be grateful to this bunch of millionaire public school thugs for wage cuts/freezes, youth unemployment of over 1 million, total unemployment to rise to 3 million+, social services decimated, National Health privatised, education shredded and fuel poverty. All this to save the bankers going bust after their biggest greed feast in financial history. None of the measures being put in place by this millionaire cabal, will in any way impact on their luxurious parasitical ways. They and their millionaire corporate friends are doing very well, thank you, and will do everything they can to protect their wealth and power, sadly that means screwing you the general public. Though that is not a problem to them.

These are hard times, you'll all have to tighten your belts.

        Dwell on these matters as you march and wave your banners tomorrow. We don't want the millionaire Mafia to be kinder to us and spare us the unemployment and gentler with the cuts. We want the parasites to be removed, the system to be destroyed and a fairer and more just system based on the needs of the people to be created in its place. What's more, we don't want their help to create that system, there are poison to any system of justice and fairness. We have the ability and the imagination to do it the only way it can be done, by ourselves, the ordinary people.

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REMEBER REMEMBER - DAY OF ACTION.

       

         Glasgow Trades Councill will be having a March & Rally on the Day of Action, REMEMBER, REMEMBER, the 30th November. Let's make it a Wednesday to remember,  let's put down a marker, we don't like the way this country is run and we intend to change that. The March will start in Shuttle Street (near High St Station) gathering at 12noon and moving off at 12.30pm.
The students’ meeting point will be the Royal Concert Hall steps at the top of Buchanan Street, at 11:30am, to meet the main demo thereafter.

        The main march route will then be, George Street, Cochrane Street, George Square (South), Hanover Street, Ingram Street, Glassford Street, Trongate and then finishing at Glasgow Barrowland.

Speakers will start at 1.15

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