A TAX ON CREATIVITY.

          The Mafia in George Square Glasgow seem to be determined to turn Glasgow into a cultural wilderness. Their latest venture to extract more money from its hard pressed citizens will most certainly put an end to a whole host of small events. The only way groups and individuals will be able to carry the cost of this new tax, will be to pass it onto the public. I'm not talking about the big multi-million celebrities affairs, they already rip us off. It is more the DIY events, the small gigs to raise funds, the small independent exhibition to introduce an artists work, the community event to help the community, free or chargeable, it will be hit by this added tax.

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-scottish-government-scrap-public-entertainment-licence-fees?utm_medium=facebook

 Why This Is Important.

        The implementation of hefty fees to obtain a Public Entertainment Licence for exhibitions and events—including those to be held free of charge—is practically extortion and will cripple grass-roots art and culture in Glasgow. Small, independent venues such as coffee shops who support artists and performers by hosting free events will not be able to sustain the fees announced.

       It is a tax on arts and entertainment. Glasgow City Council must urgently review this and scrap the proposed fees.

Council briefing note:

http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/57F0A7CC-ADC8-4798-BC8B-9E7A5C97F9F0/0/BriefingNotePEL.pdf

Proposed fees:

http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Business/Licences/Entertainment/TemporaryPublicEntertainmentLicensing.htm

Press coverage:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/home-news/warning-new-law-puts-city-art-scene-in-danger.16724126

The Bigger Picture

       This petition is a response to Glasgow City Council's announcement that from 1 April 2012, a licence will be required to hold free events such as exhibitions and performances. Previously a licence was only required for events charging admission. We, the undersigned, believe this change will be damaging to the foundations of Glasgow's art community and wish to have the changes repealed.

        Visual art thrives in Glasgow. The Arts and Humanities Research Council have recently awarded £122,500 to the Glasgow School of Art for the express purpose of studying the phenomenon known as the "Glasgow Miracle" - the overwhelming success of art in Glasgow. (BBC News 2012) For many artists, gallerists, and enthusiasts the explanation of this success is simple: art in Glasgow is driven by a core community of hard-working, early- to mid-career artists with a strong do-it-yourself ethos. Artists in Glasgow take empty warehouses, factories, shops, offices and transform them into vibrant, productive spaces. Locations such as IRONBBRATZ Studios, based in a former Merchant City office, demonstrate Glasgow's resourcefulness in utilising unconventional spaces to host events featuring both local and international talent. To require artist-led initiatives such as these to apply for licences to host free events would exhaust small budgets.

         The application fee for a Public Entertainment Licence is costly - based on the previous year's figures the licences range from £120 to £7500. It is also a lengthy process, requiring months of notice to the Council and 21 days of public notice via signage posted on location. Artist collective The Mutual, for example, do not have permanent premises and rather host exhibitions in a variety of venues, each of which would require licensing under the amended law. It would almost certainly bring a close to the "pop up" exhibition in Glasgow - the use of empty shops between leases as temporary exhibition spaces. The months of planning required to apply for a Public Entertainment Licence would undermine the spontaneity and flexibility required of such events and organizations.

      Glasgow's art community has produced a number of exceptional talents, and notably the last three Turner Prizes have been awarded to artists with connections to the city. Events such as the Glasgow International and Merchant City Festival coordinate programming throughout a variety of small venues to create weeks of attractions, generating both cultural interest and valuable tourism. Inspired by a long local history of exhibitions in temporary venues, the Glasgow International in particular has been so successful as to serve as a model for similar events in other cities and countries. This kind of success is built upon a strong foundation of artist-led initiatives and independent exhibitions which will be undoubtedly stifled under the new regulations.

      This legislation will impact sectors beyond the visual arts; community organizations, clubs and activity groups, students, charities and performers of all types will feel the restrictions imposed by this licensing change. It will also have a direct impact on local shops, landlords, restaurants, pubs and tourism. The arts in Glasgow generate a substantial economy for local business owners, without which many would suffer.

        Requiring all public events, regardless of size or entry charge, to register for licensing allows the city council to determine what events it deems suitable for public audiences. It jeopardizes not only visual arts in Glasgow but also freedoms of expression and assembly. The changes to public entertainment licensing cannot as they stand be allowed to come into effect. We demand these changes be reassessed with careful consideration of the cultural and financial impact they will have on Glasgow as a whole.

"BBC News." School of Art awarded grant to probe 'Glasgow Miracle'. January 18, 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-16603378.

ann arky's home.

MORE RIPPING UP OF CONTRACTS.

          Like I keep saying, your problems are not national, they are international. Just as governments across the globe are ripping up contracts, pension agreements, benefit policies, health care, and education, just to mention a few, so the private sector is following suit. Here in the UK the Electricians have been in a long running battle with Balfour Beattie who have torn up the negotiated contract it had with electricians and handed them another, with a take it or leave the site, message. The new contract apart from hitting the electricians with a 30% wage cut also introduces cheap casual labour to do skilled jobs. Sound familiar, if not it soon will, it's coming to an employer near you.

From the IUF:

          In an attempt to drive workers back to the dark ages of casualization and destroy their union strength Auckland Ports has made a “take it or leave it” proposal to the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) that would do just that and threatened to replace them with contractors if they refuse.

          The IUF is standing with the MUNZ, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and with the International Transport Workers Federation (our sister Global Union Federation) in refusing to be bullied into accepting this ultimatum. You can read more here or you can simply help by taking a few moments to sign on to the union’s petition by clicking here

Thank you in advance for your support.

Ron Oswald,
IUF General Secretary

ann arky's home.

 

YOU ARE ALSO IN THE PONZI SCHEME.

           Having been a long term visitor to Greece and having a family connection there, I can tell you that the full extent of what the Greek people are suffering is well beyond the propaganda on the media. What is not reported widely by the mainstream media are the facts on the ground, the people behind the statistics. Overall unemployment is running at over 22%, among the young it is over 50% and the IMF, (International Mankind Fuckers) has dictated that another 150,000 have to lose their jobs. On top of three years of wage cuts and tax increases, the Mafia at the IMF are demanding a further 22% cut in the minimum wage with further pension cuts. Think on these figures, try to see it happening where you live, what would you do? The Greek people are expected to accept a life of severe third world deprivation at least for the next generation or two, and accept it like good subservient serfs. Would you kneel and accept this plunder of the social fabric of your society, see your kids future deposited in the bank account of the corporate fascists that rule this world, or would you stand up and try to do something about the situation? There is no point in appealing to your "elected" government, it has been taken over by a Goldman Sachs hit man with his heavy team waiting in the wings, the illusion of democracy has been broken. The technocrat Papademos, installed by the IMF to run Greece in a manner suitable to the financial Mafia, obviously has double standards. In a statement about the mass protests taking place across Greece he said, ”Vandalism, violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country and it won't be tolerated.” Of course he believes that an international body imposing somebody to run that country, has a place in democracy and will be tolerated? Well perhaps it will be tolerated by the suits in parliament, but will it be tolerated by the people? The extent of the anger in Greece can be seen in the bitter clashes with that imposed authority. In Athens as the suits with their imposed leader sorted out the implementing of the IMF plan, riots covered the city. More than 150 shops were looted including at least one gun shop, 48 building were set alight. Also destroyed, perhaps symbolically, was the Asty cinema, which was used during the second world war by the Gestapo as a torture chamber. While this was going on, similar scenes were taking place in Thessalonika, other cities and on some of the Greek islands.

 

What worries me is that we all tend to feel that it is all happening over there, it couldn't possible happen here, but we are all in the same ponzi scheme, sooner or later our little illusion will be shattered and we will all be standing doing battle in our own little patriotic backyard. Mean while, the corporate fascists are organised world wide. This is not a national problem, this plunder of public assets is organised on an international basis and it can only be combated on an international basis, this is corporate fascism taking full control, the end of elected governments having a say in the fiscal policies of their country. Of course you may feel that your government is more democratic and won't let it happen to you, they'll fix it before it really hurts you, more the fool you.

ann arky's home.

GREECE BURNS AS THE BANKERS DEMAND THEIR POUND OF FLESH.

           Today in Greece tens of thousands, possible hundreds of thousands of its people have taken to the streets, In Athens it is estimated that more than 50,000 people crowded the streets around Syntagma Square where running battles with the police continued well after dark. Several buildings were on fire as darkness engulfed the city. At the time of writing tear gas and Molotov cocktails are criss-crossing the streets. The Euro-Bank and the first floor of the State's Accounts Office are ablaze. What I find more significant about this demonstration is that as there have been demonstrations across the country and the islands, there has also been many occupations by demonstrators the list of building is quite impressive;

          Protesters and strikers have occupied the following buildings and have transformed them into headquarters for the evening rally:

Athens Law School

Ministry of Health in Athens

Cinema-Theatre Olympion in Thessaloniki

Building of the Regional government of Western Greece in Patras

Building of the Regional Government of Ionian islands in Corfu

Building of the Regional Government of Crete in Rethymnon

Building of the Regional Government of Thessaly in Larisa

Rethymno City Hall

Holargos City Hall

Regional Union of Imathia in Veroia.

“In order to save the banks from bankruptcy, they’ve thrown us into poverty and unemployment. They sold off our country and all that belongs to us. Switch off your TV, take to the streets, for victory!”

          So while the expensive suits, without consulting the people, sit in the parliament building trying to do a deal with the devil, heaping more misery on the heads of the Greek people, the people have been on the streets telling them that deal or no deal they will not accept any more deprivation to protect the wealth of the bankers.

           We should all be out demonstrating in solidarity with the Greek people, what is happening to them is no less than the sacrifice of a people on the alter of bankers greed. Greece is being turned into a third world country and there is no guarantee that it will not come over here. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Romania, and Hungary are all teetering on the brink, and when the chips are down the bankers will have no qualms about doing to the rest of Europe, what they are now doing to Greece.

           It was also interesting watching the BBC six o'clock news, and thinking of a previous post, true to form, the main item and the longest spot went to the death of an American singer Whitney Houston, with Greece and what is happening there a very brief second spot.

          Since writing this I have learnt that there are several banks on fire across Athens. How far will the bankers push the rest of the people in Europe??

ann arky's home.

SAY "NO" TO ACTA.

              Saturday 11 February saw a demonstration in George Square Glasgow. Though not the largest protest I've seen on the Square it was colourful, enthusiastic and mainly young people. This protest was against ACTA the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which many believe will be a direct attack on our basic human rights and the fundamental freedom of the internet. What was significant about this protest was not that it took place at all, but the fact that the same thing was happening across Europe on the same day, city after city. This was a pan-European protest. It is a tactic that those protesting against the system should employ. Just as the ACTA is more or less global, so is the attack on our conditions by the corporate Mafia, global, our response can only succeed if we act globally.

ann arky's home.

THE BBC MANUFACTURING CONSENT???

Manufacturing consent from Think Left.

         The BBC should be an important voice, not least because we, the people own it- and its users, ( so that’s us again) – fund it. We would hope to be able to trust it to provide quality educational material and to keep us informed about what is happening in the world, and honest and accurate reporting.

Today, rather than report on Ed Miliband’s letter to the House of Lords about the Health Bill, the BBC bombards us with articles about the Falklands, Syria and disgruntled Christians.

So what is happening at the BBC? We are kept well informed about the goings-on in the Falkland Islands. Is that a co-incidence in that as I remember it was the flag-waving and cheering of the departing ships, which led to a recovery for Margaret Thatcher in 1982 when the public-service cuts were hitting hard?

The BBC inform us of the coming-and-goings of managers of football clubs, about complaints from Christians about being marginalised. I am unsure as to why the BBC should be a voice for religious groups – isn’t that what churches are for?

While all this is going on, the most unpopular policies in recent years go unreported by the BBC, and by much of the Press.   Continue READING.

              An interesting article on the manufacturing of consent and the failure of the BBC to keeping us well informed on what is going on in our own country and also the rest of the world. The BBC is meant to be an information source free from the tainting bias of money. However it is no more than a propaganda organ for the establishment and though it comes in for a lot of criticism from that body, that criticism is mainly that it is a public owned body, as they believe it should be privatised and allow their corporate friends to make lots of money from the organisation. It is a publicly funded body that should serve us the public that fund it but fails miserably on that score. Naivety would surely be the only reason for stating that the BBC is an unbiased organisation.

ann arky's home.

CHAPLIN IS ALIVE AND WELL!!

        Probably a speech from a movie that has more relevance today than when it was written. I can't see a modern big time movie maker allowing such a powerful piece onto the mainstream movie circuit. Charlie wrote the speech himself and it took him many hours of re-writing until he was satisfied that it said what he intended. I love the fact that the film in which Chaplin made the speech was made about 70/80 years ago but has been married to images of today. An excellent piece of work.

ann arky's home.

WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON COPS, WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON??

          I have always said that it is time that the police recognised whose side are they on. They are part of the 20%, the managers and flunkies that do the dirty work for the 1% that are clobbering the 79%. They are not and never will be, part of the 1% that they put themselves on the line to protect. Like the rest of the 20%, they really belong with the 79%, the protesters who are on the streets fighting for fair and decent education, health services, pensions and social benefits that the police and their families will depend on. So it is encouraging to see the Greek police beginning to shift their focus a little and realising that the protesters on the streets have a legitimate grievance, and also pointing in the direction of the real criminals.

        Greece's largest police union has threatened to issue arrest warrants for officials from the country's European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders for demanding deeply unpopular austerity measures.

I particularly like this part of their statement:

         "Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. We refuse to stand against our parents, our brothers, our children or any citizen who protests and demands a change of policy," said the union, which represents more than two-thirds of Greek policemen.

"We warn you that as legal representatives of Greek policemen, we will issue arrest warrants for a series of legal violations ... such as blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty."

         Come all you British coppers, whose side are you on, the 1% that is destroying the future your kids will inherit or are you with the protesters that are trying to defend the future for your kids???

ann arky's home.

 

ATHEIST VICTORY.

A much welcomed poke in the eye for the authoritarian holy Joes of this world.

A test case bid to outlaw prayers before local council meetings has been won by the National Secular Society and an atheist councillor. They challenged the practice of Bideford town council, Devon, of having religious prayers on meeting agendas. Mr Justice Ouseley, sitting in London, ruled: "The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a council is not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue."

Source.

ann arky's home.

DIRECT ACTION WORKS.

           Glasgow Solidarity Network has demonstrated how direct action gets the goods with a successful conclusion to its first fight. Two members of the Glasgow Anarchist Federation and their flatmate discovered that it is illegal in Scotland for letting agents to charge tenants fees apart from rent and deposits. Their letting agent, Martin & Co, had charged the three of them them a substantial £250 "check-in" fee before they had even paid their deposit. They first submitted an official complaint but received only the receipt listing the fees they had paid as a reply. Shelter advised them that they could go to the small claims court, but the court fee would have been £65 with no guarantee of a win! So instead, on 3rd February, they and 15 friends from the Glasgow Solidarity Network delivered a letter in person to the head of the Martin & Co West End office (to the amusement of other staff) giving the company two weeks to return the money. They left quickly, took a picture outside for posterity, and dispersed, some to the pub. The manager must have called the police, because two officers came by the flat on Saturday to have a friendly chat, but thanks to helpful information from the Scottish Activist Legal Project, Solidarity Network members know their rights, and the police left without even taking names. On Tuesday 7th February, just four days later, the tenants received a cheque for the money in full.

Don’t let letting agents get away with charging illegal fees! Don’t let landlords take advantage of you! Join us!

DEPOSIT STOLEN? WAGES STOLEN?

JOIN GLASGOW SOLIDARITY NETWORK

COLLECTIVE DIRECT ACTION AGAINST LANDLORDS AND BOSSES

LEAVE A MESSAGE:  07842935713

glasgowsolnet@gmail.com

www.glasgowsolnet.tk

Report with photo here:   http://glasgowsolnet.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/direct-action-gets-the-goods-victory-in-less-than-a-week-for-newly-reformed-glasgow-solidarity-network/      

ann arky's home.

RIPPING UP THE CONTRACT.

           We seem to be in an era of those, who believe they are strong, ripping up contracts, no negotiation, just a take it or leave it attitude. We all entered a contract when we started work and paid national insurance and taxes. In our case that was to guarantee that we would have health care free at the point of need, social benefits when unable to work, for what ever reason, a decent pension when age told us it was time to quit working. Now "our" government is ripping up that contract, our health service is being privatised, our social benefits are being slashed, more so for the disabled, and our pensions are crap. It is not just the public sector contracts that are being ripped up, the private sector is  taking its lead from "our" government. Large firms like Balfour Beattie have torn up the contract it has with the electricians that it employs. Handed them a new un-negotiated contract with a sign it or get off the site demand. The new contract of course does not improve the conditions of the electricians, in some case it leads to a 30% wage cut. What do you do when you enter into a contract with some and they then without negotiations, decide to change the terms? I believe you have the right to break your contract with them and defend what is yours.

        On the same theme, more forcibly put from a post by Ten Bears on Polizeros.

When you break the Social Contract

Ten Bears Feb 9, 2012, 8:22 am

Forty-three years ago I got a Social Security Card and went to work on a cattle ranch a hundred miles the other side of Burns (Oregon). When I first cashed that first paycheck, I entered into a social contract with The United States Government – specifically that if I pay into the system for the next forty-five or fifty years, then after forty-five or fifty years of paying into the system the system will pay me back. I faithfully met my part of the contract, I faithfully paid into the system.

Now the government wants to take away what I’ve paid for the past forty-three years, just seven years short of honoring its end of the social contract… to steal it from me and give to the bankers, the trustfunders, and the drug/media/oil/military/industrial complex. Violate the social contract we entered into forty-three years ago. Rip me off, and give it away.

Be forewarned, take from me what I have in good faith paid into the system, and I will no longer consider myself a part of this country, nor bound to its laws, its standards or its mores. Rip me off, and I will collectively rip you a new asshole.

Who better to fight the revolution, than a dishonored Vietnam Veteran?

 ann arky's home.

GLASGOW SOCIAL CENTRE.

       Glasgow Anarchists will be doing a stall and Kids Space at this event on Saturday 11th between 12 noon and 3pm. Help with this still welcome.

Launch of the Pop Up Social Centre @ Kinning Park Complex.

        Over the weekend of the 10-12th February, the KP will see the first Pop-up Social Centre. For more details of what the popup is read on. Here's the line-up:

Friday 6.30 - 9.45 talks, discussions and film (details below)

7pm: Urban Activism and the Commons

7.20pm: Kinning Park Complex story

7.40pm: Sustaining Activism over the Long Term

8.30pm: Film: The Garden

Urban Activism and the Commons

        Sometimes it seems that our city is drowning under the torrential logic of capital. A councillor’s retirement package amounts to more money than many of us will make in a working lifetime; private developers and monopoly landlords gorge on public assets fed to them by local government; and the ruling parties continue to propagate the most insulting sound-bite of the current crisis: "We’re all in this together". B*llsh*t, we’re not all in this together, the political, industrial and financial elites are doing very well on our labour, time and anxieties.

        Stopping the rot starts wherever we find ourselves. There is no big secret to enacting change. The knowledge and skills required to end the rule of the few resides within each of us. Tapping into that knowledge is itself a learning process that takes place in the here-and-now, not sometime in the future. Our communities are worth more than any number of pound, euro or dollar signs. We realise this worth when we come together and share what we have. This ‘coming together’ is the essence of the Glasgow Social Centre (GSC).

         From the 10th to the 12th of February, the GSC invites you to take part in a series of events spanning across the coming year in various locations around the city. These events, known as Pop-Up Social Centres, are intended to increase our collective confidence through

sharing our stories and ideas. These events are intended to produce practical actions that defy the possessive logic of capitalist greed by creating collective ways of being-in-the-world.

Saturday 3-10pm Roller disco, food, entertainment, stalls and more!

3-6pm Roller Skating

12-8pm People's Cafe

6-10pm Acoustic Cafe and pot luck. For pot luck bring along anything you want to share: food, tricks, games, music, instruments, ball pools etc. Also stalls during the day and free shop! Bring or take clothes for free.

Roller Disco Disco, Food & Chat

        The ‘Social’ in Social Centre is crucial to the ethos of the social centre movement. Theatre, poetry, music, dance and roller-skating discos: we use these mediums to tell our stories of love, adventure and resistance; we use these mediums to imagine new ways of being-in-the-world; and we use these mediums to simply make an arse of ourselves.

          Saturday is about roller-skating, food and fighting capitalism. Saturday is about coming along to share a song, a joke, a story, some cake, a recipe; or a piece of utterly useless information about clocks, owls, coat hangers or sand paper. If, for the time being, you’d like to hold on to such particulars, then that’s fine too: your company is more than enough.

        If you can, please bring along guitars, trumpets, mandolins, drums, shakers, wobble boards, sport socks, bean bags, post-its and egg-timers (the fancier, the better).

Sunday 11-6pm Gardening, craft and bikes

11-3pm Gardening workshop/skillshare

2-5pm Dr. Bike from the Bike Station (bring your broken bike!)

2-5pm Craft workshop

Gardening, Dr Bike & Craft

         My mate gave me his old racer when he bought himself a brand spank’n new Rally Grifter. The racer is gubbed and in need of some serious attention. On Sunday 12th February at the Pop-Up Social Centre our friends The Glasgow Bike Station are running a bike maintenance workshop. The winter is particularly harsh on our two-wheeler, ten-speeder dream machines: pop along for some Tender Lovin Bike Care. I’ll see you all there with ‘Bullet the Blue Sky’ (that’s my new racers name).

        Other friends will be there too. We will be running a workshop on raised garden beds. Dominate your vegetable patch without backache. Erect a raised garden bed on your urban plot and let the worms work their magic.

         Sunday is about skill sharing. It’s about learning practical stuff with friends. As well as the above, the Glasgow Social Centre will be putting on an up-cycling workshop where you can learn how to turn bike tire inner tubes into wallets, purses and maybe even dinner jackets. There are all sorts of practical and fantastical things you can do with a wee bit of junk and imagination. We’ll let you what junk to bring over the coming week.

For directions please visit

http://www.kinningparkcomplex.org/directions/

http://glasgowsocialcentre.blogspot.com/2012/02/pop-up-social-centre-launch-kp.html

ann arky's home.

HEALTH & PHARMACEUTICALS, PLC!!!

         In post after post I have went on about the ideological drive of this government to privatise everything in an attempt to recapitalise the corporate Mafia. This drive will change the way we live, will remove everything from public control into the hands of that corporate Mafia. It would appear that most people seem to think this means an array of businesses but don't connect this ideology to the health service. It's as if we are lulled into a sense of complacency believing that they can't privatise the health service. However we are just months away from having our National Health Service privatised for ever. The government's Health and Social Care Bill, if passed in to law, will mean the end of our free care at the point of need, Health Service. Our National Health Service will be opened up to market place competition between the big corporate beasts that seek profit before anything else. It means that those parts of the Health Service that don't make a profit will fall by the wayside, services like long term caring treatment, care of the elderly etc..

        Sixty years of free health care when you need it, will have been wiped out by a piece of legislation pushed through by a bunch of public school millionaire thugs who are working in the best interests of their millionaire friends in the corporate world. Neither the Conservatives or the Lib Dems had the privatising of the National Health Service in their manifestos. Neither of these parties have a mandate to privatise the National Health Service. No matter how they dress this bill up, it will not change the facts on the ground, big business will control the health service if this becomes law. Corporate this and corporate that, will control the shape, direction and content of the health service, it will no longer be OUR National Health Service, it will Health and Pharmaceuticals PLC.

          If you in any way think you live in a democracy, then this must be wrong on all counts. The public never asked for nor wants a corporate health service. The public never voted on or for a corporate health service, but that is what you are going to get unless you stop this bill becoming law. This can only be stopped by mass protests and mass lobbying of MPs, by the trade unions getting behind the public and organising to stop this decimation of our National Health Service. Grass roots organisations should for the time being, abandon other causes and direct their abilities and efforts to stopping this corporate grab to turn our National Health Service into a billion pounds gravy train for the shareholding parasites. This bill will become law in just a few months and then it will be too late, the National Health Service will be no more. Three months is not a lot of time but it is all we have.

ann arky's home.

VIOLENCE VS NONVIOLENCE???

         I have always said that everybody has the right to self defence, it is a natural reaction to a physical threat to your person. However in this society there are those who are deemed to have the right to inflict violence, which is not called violence, and those who, if they defend themselves, are labelled violent. It all depends who writes the rule book. As far as this society is concerned the rules are stacked against the ordinary people, we have the freedom to do as we are told and not to defend yourself when attacked by the police. The following is an extract from an interesting post on Polizeros.

      "----- In contrast, when the police surround a group of peaceful Americans, who are committing no crimes, in full riot gear, deadly weapons at the ready, and plenty of potentially deadly less lethal weapons ready to be used at the drop of a hat, this is not considered violence. They irrationally bark out demands and no matter how ridiculous or irrational those demands are they are expected to be followed to the T in seconds. Any number of things can set these uniformed thugs off resulting in any number of injuries up to and including death. And yet this is not considered violence. It may be deemed an excessive use of force–interesting phrase. But it will not be deemed violent.-"

Continue READING.

          Obviously there needs to some discussion by the general public and activists in particular to what constitutes violence. The state's rule book is a loaded dice.

ann arky's blog.

WHAT ARE OUR OPTIONS?

          I consider myself, on the whole, an optimist, a person with a positive attitude, but there are moments when the view shifts and my muse takes me a different route.

OUR FUTURE.

Once upon a time,

in our not so distant past

stood a beautiful, a unique world,

laden with promise,

a world where our future was open,

our potential vast.

Now, seduced by glinting tinsel of the mad

our reason quivers

on the edge of a dark abyss.

We have created a world

where wastelands abound

where we

the many, the marginalised, the ordinary,

struggle to survive in voracity that astounds

are seduced

to create wastelands in our minds,

slowly accepting chaos

in a world of insanity.

Here corporate monsters

of hypocrisy, contradictions,

sever the fragile cord

that unites being with being,

grow fatter

on the trade of emotions for illusions;

until our tormented minds

twist in silent pain

a searing pain

that sends the human spirit fleeing.

We struggle to let emotions guide our heart,

illuminate the shadows of our veiled sadness,

try to create a society

where love is not a dying art;

sadly falling to the seduction of consumer living

that leads us down the path

to eternal madness.

The future by today’s deeds is surely moulded,

yet we write tomorrow’s history

with an irradiated hand,

face the vision of yet unborn children

distorted, bleeding mortally

from wounds they know nothing of,

who’ll fall heir to a bleak,

chaotic, terrifying land.

ann arky's home.

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - ERICH MUHSAM.

            Across the planet and through the years anarchist have come in for some brutal and truly barbaric treatment at the hands of the sadistic dupes of the state. We could probably fill the London telephone directory with names of our comrades who have suffered in this way. February marks the 78^th. anniversary of the arrest of one such comrade. The following from wikipedia.

Erich Mühsam (6 April 1878 – 10 July 1934) was a German-Jewish anarchist essayist, poet and playwright. He emerged at the end of World War I as one of the leading agitators for a federated Bavarian Soviet Republic. Also a cabaret performer, he achieved international prominence during the years of the Weimar Republic for works which, before Hitler came to power in 1933, condemned Nazism and satirized the future dictator. Mühsam was murdered in the Oranienburg concentration camp in 1934.

Mühsam was arrested on charges unknown in the early morning hours of 28 February 1933, within a few hours after the Reichstag fire in Berlin. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, labelled him as one of "those Jewish subversives." It is alleged that Mühsam was planning to flee to Switzerland within the next day. Over the next seventeen months, he would be imprisoned in the concentration camps at Sonnenburg, Brandenburg and finally, Oranienburg.

         During his short stay in various concentration camps, Mühsam suffered dreadfully and was treated to unbelievable barbaric cruety. The following is one report of some of his treatment. Again from  Wikipedia.

"After breaking his teeth with musket blows; stamping a swastika on his scalp with a red-hot brand; subjecting him to tortures which caused him to be taken into a hospital, even now the fascist hyenas of the Sonninburg concentration camp continue their beastly attacks upon this defenseless man. The last news are really atrocious: the Nazi forced our comrade to dig his own grave and then with a simulated execution made him go through the agony of a doomed man. Although his body has been reduced to a mass of bleeding and tumefied flesh, his spirit is still very high: when his traducers tried to force him to sing the Horst-Wessel-Lied (the Nazi's anthem) he defied their anger by singing the Internationale."

It was even alleged that the camp's guards had even ripped out pieces of Mühsam's beard in order to make him look more like the caricatures of orthodox Jews seen in anti-semitic newspapers and tracts.

On 2 February 1934, Mühsam was transferred to the concentration camp at Oranienburg. The beatings and torture continued, until finally on the night of 9 July 1934, Mühsam was tortured and murdered by the guards, his battered corpse found hanging in a latrine the next morning.[3]

        Those with power will always fear, revile and attempt to eliminate those who call for justice and freedom. The state will not tolerate those who will stand up to its threats, that is why it carries on its relentless propaganda against and repression of anarchists.

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THE SAD TALE OF A POINTLESS WAR.

             While the West continues with its Afghan adventure, the drug barons continue to make millions from the poppy fields of Afghanistan, The West while fighting the Taliban, now claim that their aim is to get rid of the opium poppy fields and choke the heroin trade. What they fail to mention is that the Taliban had already done that before the West went in to get rid of the Taliban. It was also the discontinuing of Western aid after the Soviet era that re-started the opium growing in Afganistan before the Taliban came to power. 

          During the Taliban rule, Afghanistan saw a bumper opium crop of 4,500 metric tons in 1999,.[13] However, in July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. As a result of this ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 91% from the previous year's estimate of 82,172 hectares. The ban was so effective that Helmand Province, which had accounted for more than half of this area, recorded no poppy cultivation during the 2001 season.[14]  (wikipedia)

            It is only since the West invaded that the heroin trade has once again flourished and grown to the multi-million dollar business that it is now. The Afghan puppet government is riddled with corruption and drug barons, who are making millions while the Western troops fight a losing battle.

         11 years of bloodshed and misery to remove the Taliban and as the West pulls out the Taliban are ready to move in and take control. However what we have left is a country in ruins with massive unemployment, heart breaking drug addiction, unbelievable poverty and wealthy drug barons in control. This is the legacy the West hands to the Afghan people, they paid in lives and misery, we paid in billions of dollars and the pointless deaths of far too many of our young people. The story in Iraq is much the same, the ordinary people pay and are left to cope with depleted uranium, deaths in every family, destroyed infrastructure, homelessness, poverty and deprivation. Where is the benefit of either of these actions, where is the public outrage in the West. We accept this slaughter and no doubt if the powers that be decide, for what ever insane reason, to do the same to Syria and /or Iran, the people of the West will put up with it with the usual anti-war protest by the handful. We live under a state of international corporate fascism and the public seem to want it, accept it, or are blind to the fact. WHY.

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