MATEWAN, ARMED STRUGGLE.

            Not many films are ever made that cover a strike from the strikers point of view, one such film was Matewan by John Sales. I think Matewan is one of the most powerful films made, it covers a miners strike in West Virginia when all the miners walked out, this action turned West Virginian into a battlefield with the miners fighting it out with armed strike breakers, who were paid and armed by the mining companies. After a harsh and brutal struggle the miners eventually laid down their arms probably from the excess fire power of the enemy, but also an appeal to patriotism played a part. This short clip shows one of the many powerful scenes and should be essential viewing.

         Times have changed but the struggle hasn't, it is still those who have to work to survive, and those who exploit them to enrich themselves and/or their shareholders. To them workers are just tools, expendable items that are bought at the cheapest possible price, and cast aside as profit margins dictate. As long as we have that duality, there will always be conflict and struggle.

ann arky's home.

EUROPE, THE WORLD'S LARGEST SWEATSHOP.

        Though the following article sees the Greek situation spreading to all the Southern European states, I on the other hand, see it coming to practically all the European states. It would suit the corporate fascist in conjunction with the financial Mafia to turn Europe into one very large sweatshop. This would put them in a much stronger position when trading with all the other power blocks on the planet. Cheap labour and low corporation taxes, is the perfect recipe for for corporate greed. To expect our respective national governments to somehow protect us from this "grand-plan" is rather naive as they are the managers of the "grand-plan" on behalf of the financial Mafia, they are the servants of the corporate fascists. 

This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

     It's not a great photograph but its sole virtue is that its tells a story, and so illustrates so much of what is happening in Greece today and for that reason I posted it.
      In it are all the elements of a new emerging economy that has been foisted upon Greece in the name of financial salvation. In the foreground is the child beggar, no more than 11, I'd venture, his Fagin like "handler" (How Dickens serves us in times of need) just off frame at the entrance of the Ble patisserie.
      Ble, which serves high end baked goods at the kind of prices that even New Yorkers/Parisians might baulk at is, itself a perfect example of how the economy is going. Inside the employees haven't been paid for months and yet remain working, as they know giving up a job there means certain unemployment, a fact the supervisor hovering in the background is no doubt aware of.
       300 Euro per month wages, total absence of labour protection laws and rampant poverty are the fate that awaits other southern European economies adopting the kind of austerity measures that Greece has implemented in the last three years.

 ann arky's home.

POLICE HELP POLITICAL PRISONERS!!!

          One reason I always stay optimistic about the future is the never failing ingenuity of the ordinary people. Repeatedly when faced with adversity, they cleverly turn it into an opportunity. No matter what the repressive authorities throw at them, given time they will always turn what looks like defeat, into victory. The rigid authoritarians can never defeat that fluid, clever ingenuity of the people. 

This from Contra-Info.

ATHENS: Police steel plates used to seal squat, sold by activists to help political prisoners.

      The Occupied Social Centre VOX, one of the two buildings that were evicted by police in Exarchia on April 20th, was re-occupied the next day by anarchists, neighbours and other people in solidarity, who tore down the steel plates sealing off its entrances.

        On April 26th a few of the comrades who had helped the squatters re-occupy VOX, reported that all of the steel plates used by the cops and their paid mercenaries to seal it off were kept and have now been sold in the market, and all profits (nearly 300 euros) will be given as financial aid to imprisoned fighters across Greece.        Congratulations, comrades!

ann arky's home.

WHERE ON THE PLANET IS CAPITALISM WORKING?

         Europe is in turnmoil with every city across the continent having protests, strikes and angry people on the streets, America has the Occupy Movement growing on a daily basis, even sleepy old Canada where a pedestrian crossing the street without using the pedestrian crossing is considered news, is having its problems. Montreal say running battles with the Police at  the proposed North Plan. A plan to allow the corporate mining gangsters to plunder the Northern Territories of Quebec.

      It seems that capitalism is having a hard time at the moment. I suppose it would the kindest thing to keep up the pressure and put it out of its misery.

      This from Contra info:

      A demonstration against the neo-colonial project “Plan Nord” (North Plan), which seeks to exploit to a maximum extent the minerals in Québec’s northernmost territories for the profit of mining companies, has turned into a street battle between insurgents and riot police, with an intensity and length rarely seen in Montréal.

Gathering about 2,000 people including indigenous militants, ecologists, striking students, anarchists and trade-union militants, two demonstrations converged and heavily disrupted the Plan Nord’s Employment Fair taking place inside Montréal’s Palais des congrès (convention center) last Friday 20th of April.

At around 12h30, a group of demonstrators (mainly striking students) has succeeded in entering the huge building, even if it was heavily guarded by riot police.

Continue READING:

ann arky's home.

"ANARCHY", IN COMMON PARLANCE, CHAOS, VIOLENT DISORDER!!

        I have always maintained that if you ask 100 people what the meaning of anarchy is, you'll get 100 different answers. Most will be wrong and will be answers like chaos and disorder, and will be based on ignorance of all things anarchistic. The establishment, state, mainstream media are all involved in perpetuating that line of thought, probably because they see anarchism as their greatest threat.

This from The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest:

In common parlance “anarchy” refers to a state of chaos or violent disorder and “anarchism” to the rebellious or merely perverse pursuit of this state. Indeed, the word “anarchist” was first used in the seventeenth century as an epithet against the defeated Levellers in the English Civil War. While the ideas and practices that would become known as anarchism were distinctly foreshadowed by movements such as the Diggers and the Ranters in the seventeenth century as well as by eighteenth-century thinkers such as William Godwin (and arguably by far more ancient schools of thought, from the Cynics of the fifth century bce to the Taoists of a century later), it was not until Pierre-Joseph Proudhon turned this epithet into a positive self-description that we can speak of anarchism per se, as a historical entity. Historically speaking, however, anarchism is the name for a movement, originating in mid-nineteenth-century Europe, characterized by its vision of a society of generalized self-management, its opposition to all forms of hierarchy and domination, and its particular emphasis on means of transformative action that prefigure the desired ends. The word also serves to name the goal of the movement – substantive and universal freedom, sometimes called “anarchy” – elements of which may be found in every society that has ever existed, particularly among peoples living without private property and the state.

Principles and Practices

Popular misunderstandings concerning anarchism, fed by more than a century and a half of sensationalistic media representations, are widespread – and, unfortunately, many scholarly accounts of anarchism do little to correct these distortions. The association of anarchy with chaos and senseless violence, while owing something to a certain phase in anarchist history (that of “propaganda by the deed”), is readily dispelled by even a cursory reading of works by actual self-described anarchists: “Anarchism … is not bombs, disorder, or chaos,” writes Alexander Berkman (1870–1936). “It is not a war of each against all. It is not a return to barbarism … Anarchism is the very opposite of all that” (Berkman 2003: xv). Similarly, Emma Goldman (1869–1940) defines anarchism as “the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary” (1910: 56). The entry on anarchism that Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) wrote for the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica defined it as “a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government” (2002: 284). These three explanations of anarchism – it would be difficult to find any more widely accepted by anarchists – show that anarchism is a form of social order rather than mere disorder or absence of organization; the form of social order anarchism represents is intended to maximize freedom, and to do so without recourse to the kinds of coercive institutions that are typically assumed to be necessary, variously called “government,” “law,” or “authority”; and in place of these institutions, anarchists propose to produce social order through a system of “free agreements” to meet individuals' “needs.”

Continue READING:

ann arky's home.

HOMELESSNESS + EMPTY HOUSES = HIGH RENTS.

      Following on from an earlier post on homelessness and highlighting the contraditions in this type of society, thousands homeless, thousands of empty houses and the government doing its damnedest to keep them empty. Protecting empty property helps to keep rents high and in this society, that is more important than the needs and dignity of the ordinary people.

 

ann arky's home.

WHY WORK?

       In today's society and for some hundrerds of years past, work has been the, be all and end all, of the ordinary person's life. We are brain washed into believing that it is necessary and the only method for our survival. It doesn't have to be that way, work can be transformed into creativity, and society structured to limit time spent on "necessary" work cut to a minimum and still see to the needs of all our people. We should examine what exactly work is in a capitalist society and who stands to gain the most for "our work".

This from Digital Elephant:

       The old work ethic has disappeared along with the massive obsolete structures of capital which required a permanent army of producers, yet work still has far more implications than mere survival. Millions of people still compete for the privilege of turning up day after day, year after year, to surrender body and soul in exchange for a wage. The alternative: to encounter one’s real desires and create the means required to realise them, could present some surprises and lead to undreamed choices. A job, boring or arduous as it might be, is the easy way out. It gives structure to our day and puts order in our expectations, giving us just enough in our pockets to acquire instant sublimation and quell any sudden surge of hatred towards what is stealing our time and our lives.
The pernicious mixture of hatred and dependency at the basis of the work relationship atrophies the individual, reducing life to a question of accountancy. ‘Free time’, a mere negative quantity ranging from a few hours between days at work, to months or even years between jobs, can be survived by performing a number of rituals. Shopping, watching TV, doing voluntary work or going on adventure holidays to far away places can fill gaps and prevent any feelings of anguish which might lead to putting the whole setup in question. If all else fails, capital’s white-coated auxiliaries are always on hand to prescribe the latest psychotropic fix tailored to produce a dim glow of indifference.

Continue READING:

 ann arky's home.

POLICE POGROM IN CENTRAL ATHENS.

 

With austerity come repression.

This from, From The Greek Streets:

        Since today morning large police operations are taking place in Athens. Police buses with hundreds of police officers start blockading entire building blocks and invading buildings, they stop and search violently everyone who looks foreigner. The people arrested without documents will be moved to the new detention centres. The minister of Citizen Protection M. Chrysochoidis stated: ” Athens will be cleared in a few days, We must re-occupy the public space”.

ann arky's home.

BANKERS BONUSES - HOMELESS, THEY ARE CONNECTED.

        One aspect of our millionaire supreme leader's policy of “deficit reduction” “austerity cuts” is that families are finding it harder and harder just to keep their heads above water. Sadly not all can, and thanks to soaring unemployment and banks' repossessions, homelessness in this country has risen by a staggering 14%. Statistics are one thing but the human side should never be forgotten. What this translates into in human terms, is that there are 48,510 destitute families with no home, within this figure there are 69,460 homeless children. Again because of the financial Mafia's “austerity” agenda, support for these families is fast disappearing, which means that lots of them find their way on to the streets. This is the 21^st century in the UK, one of the richest countries in the world, yet we have families trying to survive living homeless on the streets of our cities. From bankers bonuses and millionaires wielding power to struggling families and homeless children, our society is a picture of inequality and injustice, a society where money and profit are valued above human dignity, a society where the wealthy cement their power by subterfuge and corruption.

          While this cruel injustice is taking place before our eyes, the mainstream media will encourage us to enter into debate about tweedle-dee-Tory and tweedle-dum-Labour as if changing the suit and smiling face that occupies that stewpot of corruption, No.10, will solve all our problems. Surely history has taught us by now that, no matter how many times we send them in and send them out through the revolving doors of that No.10, our lot doesn't change that much, but those who slither into that place end up doing very well for themselves. Elections never benefit the people who vote, but do wonders for those who get the votes. Instead of voting for a bunch of egotistical parasites and keeping everything the same, why don't we ignore the elections and organise to take control of our own lives and all the assets of society and create the type of society that we want. One that sees to the needs of all our people. We are the ones that create the wealth, we make and distribute everything, we run all the services, the parasites need us, we don't need them.

ann arky's home.

THEY'RE NOT STUPID!!

           I have often spouted that as far as the financial Mafia are concerned, the economic situation is going to plan and that the real game plan is to transfer all public assets and services to the corporate world, but at the same time reduce Europe to one very large sweatshop so that the we can compete with the other sweatshop areas in the world. As far as the various national governments are concerned, their job is to keep the lid on the discontent caused by this policy at the same time as managing the process.

The following are two quotes from an excellent article from Infantile Disorder.

         "But for all their mendacity and corruption, leading politicians are rarely stupid. Since John Maynard Keynes, the bourgeois have at least theoretically understood that increases - rather than reductions - in government spending stimulate a stagnant economy. When PMs and Chancellors since then have refused to do this, it has been because they've had an eye on the longer term picture, and have focused on reshaping the economic landscape. But no, that's a polite way of putting it. I really mean taking a sledgehammer to working class living standards."

        "The politicians - and behind them the international banksters - are hellbent on using the economic crisis to reduce our living standards to those that existed before the working class made huge gains in the aftermath of World War Two. They figure that a recession makes this easier, as workers are more likely to put up with their lot, for fear of losing their jobs, their homes, and so on. However, an elastic band can only be stretched so far before it snaps back, and that day is fast approaching."

Read the full atricle HERE:

ann arky's home.

 

   

IT'S NOT JUST "TWO POSH BOYS", IT'S THE SYSTEM.

        According to Tory MP Nadine Dorries our two millionaire supreme leaders, Cameron, descended from King William IV and Osborne, heir to a baronetcy, are, to quote, "Not only are Cameron and Osborne two posh boys who don't know the price of milk," "But they are two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others - and that is their real crime."

What's milk, and does it have a price? I personally drink Champagne.

         Of course us at the receiving end of their “deficit reduction” policies, (pseudonym for transferring public funds to their friends in the financial Mafia) are fully aware that they have no idea how we the ordinary people live, we are also aware of the fact that they have any inkling to find out. It is two different worlds, one of wealth, privilege, arrogance, greed and power, and ours, of struggle and exploitation. Of course it is not just Cameron and Osborne that are responsible for this dual world, they are more the products of this system of wealth equating with power. It is the system of capitalism that allows and encourages wealth creation through exploitation of the many by the few, and that wealth to become the power that controls us the ordinary people. Running round to the ballot box at the next election with the desire to remove these two privileged prats and replace them with two new shiny smiles in new suits, will in no way change the system. The wealth plundered from the many will still hold the reins of power. As long as we do no more than poke fun at the privileged parasites who control our world and do nothing more drastic, then we are doomed to be that mass being exploited and plundered by that cabal of privileged arrogant prats, they will certainly not give up their position of power and privilege because we call them names.

          Forget the ballot box and organise outside the system to take control of our own lives, start in our communities, to lay the foundations of the type of world we want. A world of fairness, justice and seeing to the needs of all our people, a world of co-operation, sustainability and free from the greed and profit motive of the privileged parasitical prats that infest our lives at present.

ann arky's home.

SHY POLITICIANS!!!

         I suppose the one good thing that has come out of the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) impoverishment of the Greek people is the fact that the mainstream Greek politicians can't show their faces in public. At the approach of an election this makes it difficult for them. 

This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

As an MP I served the people well and still they don't like me!

Or Far From the Madding Crowd as perhaps the elections should be named, considering the fact that few, if any of the members of the coalition government are able to campaign in public. Instead of the mass rallies that usually mark elections in Greece, both PASOK and New Democracy politicians have been careful to hold meetings behind closed doors with just the party faithful present.

With just two weeks to go the national election campaign has been so low key as to be considered to be virtually non-existent,. No election centres have been set up and campaign billboards and handouts are nowhere to be seen. This is partly a financial matter as the two main parties owe 240 million euros and only last week did they manage to pass legislation to reschedule their debts (a privilege they ruled out for lesser mortals, or voters as they are know locally).Instead of a country plastered in posters and drowning in flyers PASOK and New Democracy have reserved their efforts for TV talk shows and the internet. Both choices are problematic; TV has been shedding viewers for years, especially among the young and more educated and social media is not a comfortable environment for politicians unused to debating with voters except on their own terms. Indeed their ham fisted attempts to replicate traditional electoral methods online have been met with derision and biting humour by Greek language bloggers and Twitter users.

Continue READING:

 ann arky's home.

STOP THE WAR.

An appeal from Stop the War Coalition.

1) HOW YOU CAN HELP MAKE THE WORLD A SAFER PLACE
        The astonishing comments by two UK army majors serving in Afghanistan, that the war is lost and politicians are "trading soldiers' lives for votes", only reflects the views of most people in this country (SEE: http://bit.ly/Ifl4L1).
        The government is continuing to wage the war knowing that the overwhelming majority of people in Britain want the troops brought home now. In addition, the government is pressing for increased Western intervention in Syria -- almost certainly as a stepping stone to a military attack on Iran.
       David Cameron is clearly no different from Tony Blair in his slavish support for America's wars without end. These war policies are making the world ever more insecure and unstable. It is more necessary than ever for the anti-war movement to mobilise the widest possible active opposition to the warmongering of our political leaders.
       We have much work to do,

ann arky's home. 

BREIVIK, BUSH AND BLAIR!!!

         There has been a lot of coverage in the mainstream media on the cold blooded murders by the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, and all have put their particular spin on the events and the personality of the perpetrator. On report stated the “he was a man who was aware of what it was to be civilised, but chose not to be” this is probably true. He was a man with a set of beliefs and felt it right that he should kill for those beliefs. The killing of innocent individuals was acceptable to support his beliefs. How does that separate him from our leaders, Prime Ministers, and Presidents?

          The main difference is that he decided that it was acceptable for innocent people to die to further his cause, took his weapons and in person, carried out the act. In the case of Bush and Blair, they had their beliefs on Iraq and accepted that it was acceptable for innocent people to die to further those beliefs. However they didn't carry out the act, they took public funds and paid others to carry out the brutal killing of thousands innocent people.

        The other difference is in scale, Breivik carried his hand guns and killed 77 young people, Bush and Blair's paid killers rained down unimaginable and sustained terror on thousands of innocent civilians with some of the most destructive weapons in their armoury with the boastful “Shock-and-Awe” tactic. It can be said that Bush and Blair were individuals who were aware of what it was to be civilised, but chose not to be. We pay, and the media applaud and honour those who committed the greater crime with by far the most sustained and brutal killings over a much longer period, and and put the other on trail. To the innocent victims of Breivik and those of Bush and Blair, it was still a brutal death and to their relatives it was still a brutal unforgivable crime. It seems that in our distorted society, individual murder is condemned, state mass murder is acceptable.

ann arky's home.

YOU'VE GOT THE AUSTERITY, NOW THE REPRESSION.

           Greece has the austerity part of the formula and now it is getting the repression part. The financial Mafia having plundered the Greek people's public assets, it requires it's managers, the Greek state, to step up the repression in an attempt to terrorise the people and try to prevent more protests and rebellion. The powers that be are well aware that what they are doing to the people will result in anger and people taking to the streets, their next stage will be to terrorise those that do and demonise them through the mainstream media. Just as they had no qualms in dishing out poverty and deprivation on the people, they will have no qualms on dishing out violent repression. As far as they are concerned the people must be controlled as the financial Mafia do their utmost to strengthen and expand the corporate fascism that already exists.

This from FROM THE GREEK STREETS:

            Major police operation in Exarcheia, Athens sees two anarchist social centres evicted; the entire neighbourhood is currently under curfew and cut off by heavy police forces.

         At approximately 06.50 GMT+2 on Friday morning, heavy police forces conducted simultaneous raids at two newly occupied anarchist spaces in the neighbourhood of Exarcheia: the building at 60, Valtetsiou str and the building of the abandoned VOX cinema by Exarcheia square. The latter had been occupied for a few weeks and its opening event was planned for this Saturday.

         It is speculated that the raids took place following the order of I. Tentes, a prosecutor of the High Court in Athens, who launched his career after being appointed in the judiciary by the Junta regime in the early seventies. History, in case it should be noted, does seem to have a peculiar sense of irony.

         At the time of writing (12:33 GMT+2) the entire Exarcheia square is cordoned off by heavy police forces while the K-VOX social centre has been sealed off.

ann arky's home.

ANOTHER EGO WINS.

           Presedential elections in France, council elections in Scotland and bye-elections in the UK, they all have something in commom, they don't represent the people. They represent overblown egos or political parties that want to keep the existing system of corporate fascism. Under the present system elections have nothing to do with democracy and all to do with power and wealth.

Another excellent comment from The Commune:

      George Galloway’s victory in the Bradford West by-election has caused a stir, says duvinrouge.

        The people massively voted for a candidate to the left of Labour even with a Tory-FibDem coalition. This has got Labour nervous and inspired the Left. However, as much as Galloway appears to be on the side of ordinary people as opposed to the rich, he is another political ego on another stage of his trip. The whole parliamentary system is full of them, all dreaming about one day being Prime Minister. Today more and more people are fed up with the egos. Not just the political variety but the corporate whores as well. Increasingly people are realizing that they don’t need to put up with them. That society can be run without structures promoting power and control. That society is one of direct democracy. That is, communism. All over the world people have got a taste of direct democracy through the Occupy movement & their General Assemblies. Tahir Square has spawned workers’ councils. We can organize society to meet our needs rather than just being used to generate profit for an elite.

Out with the professional political egos ruling; in with delegates & assemblies!

ann arky's home.

WHEN WILL IT END??

         A little tune to stamp your feet to over the weekend as you make your way to your favourite protest. The question is, when will it end, it'll end when capitalism ends.

ann arky's home.

STOP THE EVICTIONS, GLASGOW.

Glasgow anti-evictions campaign:

Protest at UKBA, Sat. 21 April
RALLY & PROTEST
at Brand Street UKBA Reporting Centre
Saturday 21 April
11am

Stop the Evictions
End Destitution
Housing is a Human Right

       At a meeting on Tuesday night, attended by numerous organisations, it was agreed unanimously to continue the campaign against the eviction and enforced homelessness of refused refugees by calling the above rally and protest at the UKBA offices in Brand St, Govan.

YPeople housing protest

Supported by:
FBU Scotland
Glasgow City Unison
Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
Unity Centre
Defend Glasgow Services
Stop the War
Right to Work Campaign
Coalition of Resistance
Black Activists Rising Against the Cuts

     The statement below was agreed at the rally at the Red Road on Thursday 12 April.

       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 hand over 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 on Saturday. Bring friends, family, workmates, trade union branches, churches and other organisations, banners, placards etc.

Please circulate this message round your networks.

ann arky's home.