A TIME TO THINK, A TIME TO ORGANISE.

St Imier 140th anniversary -

Talk and News On Upcoming International Anarchist Festival.

Public Event By Glasgow Anarchist Federation And Friends

Thursday, 19 April 2012

18:30 – 21.00

Room 407, Boyd Orr Building, University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ

       In August 2012 anarchists from all over the world will be gathering in St Imier, Switzerland for a week of events to mark the 140th anniversary of the founding of the Anarchist International- a major split with the authoritarian international of Karl Marx.

     This split represents a fundamental divide between those who believe that communism can be imposed from above, and those who believe that we can only have true communism if we have freedom as well. How we get where we want to go is as important as where we want to go.

      As part of the process of building up to the summer event, the Anarchist Federation is hosting a series of meetings around the country. The theme of the meetings is the struggle against authoritarianism- from St Imier to today.

The following issues will be discussed:

• The background to St Imier and what was involved in the split

• How the struggle against authoritarianism continued in key revolutions such as Russia and Spain

• The debate about human ‘nature’ and why humans do not need authority to flourish

• The role of authoritarian tendencies in struggles today eg the cuts movement, the strikes in the public sector, the student movement and within the anarchist movement itself.

http://www.anarchisme2012.ch/

Facebook Event Page:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/240919052672305/

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THE SHINING EXAMPLE ISN'T SO SHINY.

         It is common practice for one state to play its people up against the people of another state to further its ends. Since the 2008 “crisis” most of the European states have lampooned the Greek people with comments about them being lazy, paying themselves too much, corrupt and avoid paying their taxes. Anything to try to justify the financial chaos that prevails across the continent. It is a case of being self righteous and having to bail-out others, we point fingers at each in turn. Greece, then Spain, Ireland and Italy and so it goes on. Of course Germany is held up as how the others should behave, hard working and prudent with their finances, but becoming tired at having to support those more foolhardy lesser people.

        However though we are told that Germany is doing it right and we should all try to follow its example, not all the Germany people see it that way. There is as much discontent and anger in Germany as in the rest of the capitalist Europe. People are struggling, people feel repressed, people can see through the smoke and mirrors of the system.

       All is not well in the example that is held up to the rest of Europe, poverty in Germany, like the rest of Europe, has been growing. This growing poverty for the majority of the population is matched by a staggering concentration of wealth at the top of society. The number of millionaires in Germany has risen in recent years to 830,000. In Germany in 1965, 1 in 75 children were in poverty by 2007 that had risen to 1 in 6. In Berlin 15.2% of adults receive welfare and 30.7% of children. During the period from 2005 to 2010 there was not a single city in the Ruhr area that did not experience social decline and stagnation. The pattern is the same as the rest of Europe, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, An article in a recent edition of Der Spiegel stated, “Never has the gap been so wide to the general population” and according to new statistics from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) “For the bottom 50 percent of the population, very little has changed in terms of income for decades”.
      Under this system of capitalist exploitation, no matter how rich or how well balanced the books are of a particular country, it makes no difference to the people, they still suffer poverty and an ever widening gap between them and the small cabal of parasites that control all the wealth and power. Until we fix that problem, poverty will always be the lot of the ordinary people. 

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A LITTLE MORE ON "DON'T PAY".

     It seems that the Irish people are about to launch their own version of the "Don't Pay" campaign that is spreading across Europe. Though in truth it is more a case of " Can't Pay Won't Pay" as it is the severity of the cuts that is forcing people  to take matters into their own hands. It is important that the people protesting in one country are aware that the same thing is happening in countries all across Europe and to link up and work in unison and solidarity with each other.

    This from KCUR.org:

By NPR People: Philip Reeves

      House prices have crashed. Banks and businesses have failed. Jobs have been axed. People are struggling to make the mortgage. The Republic of Ireland's 4.6 million people have suffered considerably since the financial crisis began four years ago, forcing their government to turn to the European Union and International Monetary Fund for a $90 billion bail-out.

     Yet the Irish have, for the most part, endured the pain and taken the medicine — a mighty dose of tax increases and spending cuts — compliantly enough to earn plaudits for their country in Brussels as the "poster child of austerity".

Is that now about to change?

      This weekend, Ireland's 1.65 million householders were supposed to register to pay a new tax; an annual household charge of 100 Euros. That's about $133. By the time the deadline expired at midnight Saturday, only about half had done so. Hundreds of thousands now face the prospect of penalties and, potentially, prosecution. Is a tax revolt in the making, that could disrupt the government's strategy for getting the economy back on its feet — and make it still harder to implement future austerity measures?

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ANYONE FOR YOGHURT?

Nice to see these two faced smarmy bastards get their just rewards.
This from eagainst.com.

        Antifascists in Greece attacked with yoghurt and eggs a TV news broadcaster, during a live TV interview, because a week before he hosted an interview with the representative of the Greek Neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. It must be reminded that the aforementioned fascist party was supported in the “manifesto” of the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 attacks in Oslo, where 93, mostly teenagers, were killed.

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FROM MASS PROTESTS TO MASS REVOLT!!!

From The Internation Journal of Socialist Renewal.

By Dick Nichols, Barcelona

        April 1, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Since the global economic crisis broke out in 2008, the many-sided protest movement against neoliberal austerity has yet to gain enough strength to force any real retreats from governments doing the bidding of capitalism’s ruling elites.

        But the March 29 general strike against the new labour law in Spain — hugely supported and backed by often vast demonstrations in 111 cities and towns — could well point to a turning of the tide. It lifted social resistance in Europe to a new height and gave millions of people a glimpse of how they might finally make the country’s corrupt and arrogant powers-that-be pay for their crisis.

       The right-wing media screamed “flop”, but the behaviour of the finance markets told the real story: on strike day the Madrid stock exchange lost nearly 1% (its eighth straight day of losses) and the premium on Spanish public debt rose further over the Italian debt premium that only recently exceeded it.

      The Popular Party (PP) government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is trying to appear calm and above the turmoil. Rajoy commented that, while his government respected the right of citizens to protest, he has no choice but to carry on with the grim duty of implementing the tough policies needed to rescue Spain’s economy. He then introduced into parliament the most brutal budget since the Franco dictatorship ended in the late 1970s. The Madrid stock exchange rose 1.23%
Continue READING.

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WHY SHOULD THE INNOCENT PAY SO MUCH?

From Occupied London:

UPDATE, 20:17 GMT+2 A translation of the suicide note left by Dimitris Christoulas, the 77-year old man who commited suicide at Syntagma Square in Athens earlier (this month) today (see below for background to his story).

The Tsolakoglou* [Quisling] occupation government literally nullified my ability to survive on a decent pension, for which I had already paid (without government aid) for 35 years.I am of an age that prevents me from offering a decent individual response (without of course ruling out the possibility of being the second person to take arms, should one person decide to do so), I find no solution other than a dignified end, before resorting to going through garbage in order to cover my nutritional needs.One day, I believe, the youth with no future will take up arms and hang the national traitors at syntagma square, just like the Italians did with Mussolini in 1945 (at Milan’s Piazzale Loreto)

–Dimitris Christoulas, Syntagma, Athens, April 4th, 2012

[*Georgios Tsolakoglou was a Greek military officer who became the first Prime Minister of the Greek collaborationist government during the Axis Occupation in 1941-1942.]

     Suicide rates have doubled in Greece since the government signed the loan agreement with IMF/EU/ECB. This morning (Apr 4), a 77-year old retired pharmacist shot himself dead at Syntagma, Athens’ central Square (his suicide note is translated above).

      Yesterday evening, a 38-year old father of two and long-term unemployed, jumped off the roof of his housing block in the town of Ierapetra, Crete.

     There are calls circulating for a rally tonight on Syntagma Square at 18:00. One of the calls is accompanied by this flyer.

      ‘Scumbags, one suicide per day because of you, but the day is coming when the desperate ones will choose to take the law into their own hands: you shall pay’

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WHAT IS ANARCHISM?

       Ask a hundred people what is anarchism, and you'll probably get a hundred different answers, probably negative. Then ask them if they have read any anarchist history, or any anarchist theory, or do they know any anarchists and they will probably say NO. It is probably the least understood and the most misrepresented system on the political spectrum. Why? Could it be that it is the one system of organisation that is a real threat to the present ruling army of parasites.

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WHO NEEDS YI BABY.

        It seems that one of those brilliant intellectual "think tanks", Centre for Economic and Business Research, (CEBR), have come up with a simple way of increasing the UK's GDP. According to them, the UK GDP suffers from to many Bank Holidays, simply by scrapping the Bank Holidays the country would be richer by £19 billion a year. Of course the question that might be asked is, by the workers scrapping their one day holidays, how much of that increased GDP would end up in their pockets? The same brilliant team also pointed out that South Korean workers work approximately 500 hours a year more than their UK counter parts and that country doesn't have the same "crisis" that we have. 

       In spite of the fact that the filthy rich in this country are getting richer faster than ever before, by getting an ever increasing slice of that GDP, they still believe that they have to get the ordinary people to work longer hours and have fewer holidays. They find it difficult to understand why ordinary people should have weekends off and enjoy holidays when they could be at work producing wealth for the parasites club.

      Think of all those hours you work just to survive at a half decent living standard and how much of the wealth you produce ends up in the bank balance of those who want you to work longer. Is it any wonder that they want you to work seven days a week for as many hours a day as they can squeeze out of you? Think how little you would have to work if that bunch of parasites were not creaming off the largest slice for themselves.

     For us to pruduce all that we need for ourselves, without all that surplus crap and without supporting an army of leeches sucking us dry, would probably bring the working day down below 4 hours a day, with as many long weekends as you wish. There is an army of non productive jobs that are there just to make sure that as much as possible is creamed off for the parasites and as little as possible goes to those producing the wealth.

      By reshaping society so that we produce what we need and making at available to those who need it, we would free up all those people in the non productive wealth directing and protecting organisations. This would  allow everybody to reduce the working hours and lead a more creative and enriched life.  We don't need to feed that army of parasites that insist on telling us that we are not working hard enough nor long enough, but they most certainly need you. To change the world all the workers have to do is stop, and the world comes to a standstill. What would happen if all the CEO stopped? Sod all, we don't need them.

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MORE ON "DON'T PAY".

        A more detailed explanation of the "Don't Pay" movement. Let's think about it, speak about it and get down to doing it. Mass movements can change society, with the will we can shape society the way that we want it to be.

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DON'Y PAY -- JUST DO IT.

       As the state carries out the policies of the financial Mafie and the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) it is encouraging to see the people take control of those aspects of society that they deem necessary for the normal functioning of their daily life. If we can control those aspects of society, we can control all of society.

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THE SOCIETY OF SPIN.

         There is something about this short film that is both frightening and enlightening, it seems to grasp the essence that is at the heart of the type of society we have created.

 

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IT'S A MAN MADE SYSTEM OF EXPLOITATION.

        All the reporting and discussion on the "crisis" always refers to the situation as if it were something mechanical, beyond the ability of us mere humans to control or even alter. What they never hint at is that it is not mechanical but human. It is human decisions made for short term selfish human gain. Individuals sitting in their marble halls making decisions as the shift billions in cash around the world, with no other reason than to increase those billions. The human cost, the effect on the lives of the billions of people adversely affected by those decisions is of no consequence. They neither notice nor care, unless it might adversely affect their gambling results. It is not something set in tablets of stone that we have to sit around soaking up the punishment inflicted by the financial mafia, we can take control of all the production and distribution setting up a society based on communities that see to the needs of all our people. We don't need the cabal shareholders that live like parasites of our labours, but they do needs us. Capitalist economics is not some phenomenon of the natural world, it is a man made system of exploitation, it could be wiped away if the will of the people so desire. A better world is possible, just think of a world based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and humanity. Or we could accept this world of injustice, poverty and inequality and leave our grandchildren, a world of exploiation devoid of hope.

        The following is from "This is our job", originally translated from Liberación Total

        Street protests against the attacks of capitalist States on our living conditions have recently spread throughout Europe. Despite the strikes, actions, and massive demonstrations, and despite the broad movements that haven’t even expressed any grand revolutionary aspirations beyond the mere defence of minimum basic necessities, the States have responded with indifference.

        Appealing to confusing economic formulas, numbers, statistics, and abstract concepts, those States have tried to locate the problem’s origin in inaccessible, metaphysical realities. However, the origin and causes of our daily problems have no metaphysical foundation whatsoever. Poverty, exploitation, repression, and systematic abuse are the results of very concrete structures, of specific decisions taken by specific people who have specific interests.

Continue READING:

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.

        As the dogs of war howl at the gates of Iran their thoughts are never on the "after", the blood, death and the chaos, such thoughts are alien to them. Such thoughts are for that quieter breed, those that keep this world turning, those that just want to get on with their lives.

The End and the Beginning.

 

 

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the sides of the road,
so the corpse-laden wagons can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa-springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls how it was.

Someone listens

and nods with unsevered head.

Wislawa Szymborska

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - EVERETT MASSACRE, 1916.

           On reading the earlier post "WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON" you should not be fooled into thinking this is a new phenomenon, that it is only today that the state and it apparatus tries to repress the struggle of ordinary people as they attempt to better their conditions. The bosses and the establishment have always come down hard on any individuals who find themselves at the forefront of the constant struggle of trying to defend the conditions of the ordinary people. This constant opposition to the aspirations of the people, is the most glaring proof of the diametrically opposed positions of the capitalist system and the state on the one side, and the living standards and ideals of the ordinary people on the other. Our history is a rich heritage of struggle and suffering at the hands of the bosses and their minders, the state. We would do well to remember and honour that struggle and to repeat the stories of the determination in the face of that brutal repression that goes hand in hand with the state. Only by realising that it it is not a new struggle but the next chapter in the continuing struggle of the people, will we bring an end to that struggle and victory for the people.

The Everett Massacre:

In 1916 in Everett, Washington, a passenger ferry loaded with Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) free speech activists attempted to dock. On the dock, the local sheriff, along with armed deputies and armed guards hired by local businesses, attempted to block the ship from docking. According to lore, when the sheriff asked, “Who are your leaders?” the response from the ferry was a shout from everyone aboard, declaring, “We are all leaders here.” As folk musician Utah Phillips explains, “that scared the tar out of the ol’ law you know”[1] and as a result, a gunfight ensued. The gunfight left at least five IWW members dead and became known as the “Everett Massacre.” In the documentary film The Wobblies (Bird and Shaffer 1979), which tells the story of the early years of the IWW, two IWW members recount their experience in the “Everett Massacre.” Years later, Utah Phillips recounted this story on a collaboration album with popular musician Ani DiFranco, spreading the story and message to a new generation.

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A PERSON IS A PERSON, IS A PERSON, IS A PERSON!!!

Stop the evictions

No deportations

End destitution now

 

Rally and protest

Red Road / Petershill Rd

Thursday 12 April 5.00 – 7.00pm

Called by:

Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees,
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns,
The Unity Centre,
YPeople Glasgow Residents Association

       Up to 140 Glasgow asylum seekers are to be evicted by their landlord, Ypeople, in the next few weeks, and left without home, and without access to work or any benefits or state support whatsoever.  

     These people have had their claim for asylum refused even though most are unable to return to their countries because they are too dangerous. They include Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zimbabwe and others. 

      Ypeople, a charity funded to provide accommodation to vulnerable people, claims they have to do this before handing over the housing of asylum seekers to Serco, a giant multinational making money for its shareholders out of running prisons and detention centres. 

The handover period runs to November, yet Ypeople have decided to evict everyone right now. Community groups say they will not be able to cope.

     We call on Ypeople to act with humanity towards these extremely vulnerable people and on Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government to step in and stop this disaster before it happens. What kind of city and what kind of Scotland are they governing that allows this kind of humanitarian outrage to occur? 

      Finally we call on the British government to honour its international obligations in the spirit as well as the letter by granting protection and the right to work for all people seeking sanctuary.

      Come and support the demonstration next Thursday. Bring friends, family, workmates, trade union branches, churches and other organisations, banners, placards etc.

If you wish to add your organisations name to the list of supporters of this demonstration, please email ncadc@ncadc.org.uk

Please circulate this message round your networks.

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WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON??

Not everybody is enjoying the holiday weekend. It is the measure of a any society when those who struggle to improve the conditions of the ordinary people are victimised hounded and imprisoned. It is these cases that make it glaringly obvious on which side the powers that be stand, it is a display of their real intentions. An appeal from Labour Start.

        It's a long holiday weekend for many of us, a chance to celebrate the holidays with our families and friends.  I hesitate to write to you, to interrupt the festivities, but this is urgent.

        A week ago, the leader of the metal workers union of Kosovo, Hasan Abazi, was travelling to a meeting of European trade unionists in Zagreb, but on his way was arrested by the Serbian government. He was held for 50 hours without even the chance to talk to a lawyer. Now, he's being held in solitary confinement.

        Serbia has committed itself to allow free movement of Kosovars through its territory. That's part of what it needs to do to become a full member of the European Union.

        The International Metalworkers' Federation has issued an urgent appeal for his release. [*]

        Amnesty International has condemned the arrest. [**]

Please take a moment to send off a message of protest to the Serbian authorities:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=1338&src=lsmm

         Then, please publicize this to your friends, workmates and fellow union members by email, Twitter, Facebook, and word-of-mouth. If we can flood the inboxes of Serbian government ministers this weekend with our protest messages, they might be compelled to re-think this outrageous arrest and to let Hasan go. They don't want to risk Serbian membership in the EU -- a point we mention in the message to them.

Thank you -- and a very happy Easter and Passover to all of you.

Eric Lee

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A GOOD EDUCATION - IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY.

            Here in the UK we pride ourselves on being a civilised country yet our elected millionaire representatives are creating an education system that is tiered according to you place in the class system, a class system that they rigorously adhere to, it is built into the way they think. Since this bunch of millionaire parasites came to power, this country by 2014/15 will have seen, in real terms, a 13% cut in public spending on education. What this does is create a very high level of education for those super rich friends of the millionaire cabal in charge, a second, and lower level of expensive education for the lower caste, (middle class) and the lowest level of poorly funded sticking plaster education for the peasants, the “untouchables”, in this class ridden society that we tolerate.

       Dr Bousted, who heads the most moderate of the three teachers' unions stated: "This Coalition Government's attack on poor children is a blight upon our conception of ourselves as a civilised society. They remind me of a former Prime Minister who said there was no such thing as society." She also stated that among cuts that had affected the poor were:

A 22 per cent cut in grants to Sure Start centres designed to give the under-fives a good start in life. This has led to the closure of 124 centres;

The removal of the ring-fence on funding for school meals at a time when the number of children entitled to free food at school has risen by 110,000;

Cuts in local authority funding which have led to one in five councils axing the supply of library books to primary and secondary schools;

The withdrawal of education maintenance allowances of up to £30 a week which encouraged poorer students to stay on in post-16 education;

A real-terms cut of 13 per cent in public spending on education by 2014-15.    

        What we should never lose sight of is fact, that this “deficit reduction” is all to save the bankers and bond holders from losing any of their ill gotten gains. So on who side does that put our elected millionaires? Just whose benefit are they working for, those that they throw into the dustbin of society through unemployment, decimated health care, underfunded education, or their millionaire friends the bankers and bond holders who get all that public money?

        Since they believe in, and work at perpetuating a class system, then we have no alternative but to recognise that fact and to engage in earnest in class war.

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WHAT PRICE A LIFE?

ATHENS (Reuters) - A cash-strapped Greek pensioner shot and killed himself outside parliament in Athens on Wednesday saying he refused to scrounge for food in the rubbish, touching a nerve among ordinary Greeks feeling the brunt of the country's economic crisis.

Picture courtesy of Teacher Dude & BBQ.

        He played their game to their rules, he worked hard, got a “decent” job, he was a pharmacist, and brought up his family within the rules of their game, and in his old age, callously they threw him into deprivation. What more could he have done - nothing -. to the financial markets he is worth nothing, a disposable unit, of no consequence. To those who knew him, he was a dignified man, to his family, a loving member, to the general public, a decent human being destroyed by a system that is immoral, unjust and inhumane. The media may focus on this betrayed and destroyed elderly man, but across this continent millions are rapidly dropping to his level of despair, fear and deprivation, for what? To save the bankers from losing their wealth, to keep an unjust immoral and inhumane system functioning. How many more will be driven to take such action as this elderly retired pharmacist? When will we turn on the perpetrators of this hideous crime and bring them to justice?

Picture courtesy of AE TV.

           When do we take control of our lives and build a society that sees to the needs of all our people. It is possible, there is an alternative to this parasite breeding, greed infested repressive system. Capitalism is not some plan of the Gods, it is a man made economic system the fails the majority of the people. Before many more of our people are driven to the depth of despair, to the end of their tether, let's dismantle this cruel killer of an economic system and replace it with one built on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and humanity.

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WHAT LABEL HAS THE SYSTEM PUT ON YOU?

1. We are alone.
We are told not to act.

2. We want to be together.
We want to act.
3. We want to act together.

4. When we go to mass actions, we look for people with whom to act.
Our attendance is a search not necessarily for those who want to act in the same way and for the same reasons, but rather for those with whom we can act in harmony.

5. This is not a search for friendship.
O my friends, there is no friend.

We are not necessarily looking for those who want to listen to music with us
(though soundtracks make actions way cooler)
or who want to smoke cigarettes with us
(though that’s fun, too)
or who want to sit in meetings with us
(though planning helps, some times).

6. This is a search for affinity.
7. There are many ways of engaging in this search.
Some of us hold signs.
Some of us bring sign-up sheets.
Some of us wear black.

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