IF NOT NOW ----- WHEN? IF NOT US ----- WHO?

THERE WILL COME A TIME.

There will come a time when the hordes remember,

who bound our grand-parents to the yoke of oppression,

who sentenced our parents to deprivation,

who bid poverty sink its teeth into our heart,

who teach our children, greed is a noble art.

Who sent our sons through the gates of hell

to a litany of cambist brawls,

crammed coffers with blood-stained gold

while laughing in Ares' halls.

"Who does these terrible things to us?" they will ask,

and when they remember,

they'll bring an energy that is endless

to drive a fist that is fearless.

Then this merciless market-driven world will crumble

under an insurrection of integrity,

the poor will emerge from the dark husk of capitalism

to live in the light of social justice.

There will come a time when the hordes remember.

        As the states across Europe stride ever further to the right and fascism shows it vile face from behind the tenuous illusion of democracy, and we live the hardship of financial corporatism's actions of plunder of the public purse, do we meekly accept this financial serfdom or strike out for justice and liberty to control our own lives? There are two questions that need to be answered now, and answered honestly and sincerely.

      "Fear and embarrassment should give their position to daring and
decisiveness, anger should give birth to storms of rage and each one
should ask their heart, if not now... when? if not us... who?"
-Excerpt from a communique of the Conspiracy Cells of Fire

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IT IS ONE BIG JOINED UP STRUGGLE.

      The world is rapidly changing, no longer are we involved in isolated struggles in our own backyard. We have a world vision, through the means of modern communication we are a joined-up struggle, it is no longer the boss-man, it is the world corporate system that we see as the enemy. We can support and show solidarity across the planet as we see the struggle unfold, we can relate each struggle to our own struggle, it is one gigantic struggle for freedom, justice and sustainability. Anger and resistance is growing, we gain strength from knowing others are struggling with us for the same aims, that makes victory all the more certain. 

This from AdBusters:

Look at what's happening in Quebec ... the boldness of the media democracy movement in Mexico ... the teenagers leading an education revolt in Chile ... the Pussy Riot inspired art war unnerving Putin in Russia ... and the new post-capitalist ways of living being forged in Greece and Spain. Witness the growing tempo of green riots across China, the South African miner strikes, the corruption protests of India, the freedom fight in Bahrain, the tremors of dissent in Saudi Arabia, the total loss of confidence in America's corporate-funded Coke-Pepsi election show. Then, add to that the crippling droughts, looming food scarcity, the end of easy oil and the tipping points hovering ominously on the horizon ...

Read the full article HERE:

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SMILING FASCISTS IN EXPENSIVE SUITS.

     The corporate beast is working hard at cementing its grip over our lives, it already holds tremendous sway over most elected governments with its financial clout. But they want to go even further and create what would be one massive corporate fascist regime, they want to over rule any legislation they deem hinders their plunder and rape of the planet. Legislation might be for the benefit and welfare of the people, but if it gets in the way of their sacred profits, then it will be over-ridden. New fascism doesn't come marching down the streets in jackboots, it sits in plush offices dressed in expensive suits, but it is just as brutal and ruthless. We ignore it at our peril. 

This from AVAAZ: 

Dear friends,

We have four days to stop a top-secret global corporate power grab that attacks everything from a free Internet to environmental protections. This agreement is being negotiated right now by bureaucrats backed by corporate lobbyists. Click below to crash their secret meeting with our global call to kill the TPP deal:

    Details are leaking of a top-secret, global corporate power grab of breathtaking scope -- attacking everything from a free Internet to health and environmental regulations, and we have just 4 days to stop it. 
     Big business has a new plan to fatten their pockets: a giant global pact, with an international tribunal to enforce it, that is kept top secret for years (even from our lawmakers!) and then brought down like a Death Star on our democracies. Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Walmart and almost 600 other corporate lobbyists are all in on the draft -- including limits on smoking laws, affordable medicines and free speech on the Net.

    The latest round of negotiations ends in just 4 days -- but outcries in each of our countries could shake the confidence of negotiators and scuttle the talks forever. Let's get to a million against the global corporate takeover. Sign below and forward widely. Avaaz will project our petition counter on the walls of the conference so negotiators can see the opposition to their plan exploding in real time:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_death_star/?bwqhjab&v=17858

    The deal, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is written to protect investors from government regulation, even if that regulation is passed in the public interest. Leaked versions suggest the TPP would undermine protections for air and water safety and reintroduce measures from the US Internet freedom attack as well as steamrolling efforts to produce generic affordable medicines. Worse still, lawmakers who fail to conform to the TPP’s rules face sanctions in an international tribunal -- a place where corporations can sue us for deals previous governments signed in secret!   Negotiators say this is just a trade agreement, written to facilitate investment and profit for all. But the leaked draft imposes so many limits on citizen protections, it's clear this "trade" agreement is skewed to put corporate profit above people's needs -- that's not surprising since it's been drafted in secret with almost 600 corporate lobbyists.

   But there is hope: Australia is bucking against the international tribunal system, and New Zealand is objecting to the takeover of its medicine-pricing protections that keep drugs affordable. Massive public opposition, casting doubt over each country's ability to sell TPP at home, could derail the talks for good. Sign the petition now, and forward widely -- the delegates and lobbyists are watching the wave of opposition grow in real time:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_death_star/?bwqhjab&v=17858

    US Candidate for Senate, Elizabeth Warren in a recent speech said: “Corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters, because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people." Let’s reach one million to stop the corporate takeover of our governments.

With hope,

Iain, Pedro, Laura, Ari, Emma, Lisa, Luca, Ricken and the whole Avaaz team

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HAVING A CHAT WITH THE MAN IN THE SKY.

      Some years ago when I worked for SACRO, I used to take a woman to see her brother who was in Carstairs Mental Hospital. He was in there for murdering a stranger, he apparently heard voices that told him to do it. As I drove her there we would chat and she told me how God spoke to her and guided her. I could never separate the two. One was locked up because his voices told him to do unsociable things, the other was outside because her voices told her to sociable things, both were delusional.

       However, our world is filled with these types of people and as we walk past them in the street, chat to them at the bus stop, they seem normal people and probably hold down a job. How many of our politicians, judiciary, and others in power, talk to and get answers from that man in the sky, how many are delusional. This video is of a person who is accepted as a normal person, given broadcast time and claims God spoke to him the other day. How many other "normal" people you meet are like him, speak to an imaginary man and get answers?

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VERMIN SLITHERS BACK DOWN ITS SEWER.

EDL takes a hiding, the SDL must go the same way, down the sewers.

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SPRING HAS NOT YET SPRUNG!!

     Uprisings across the Middle East, sometimes popular uprisings of the ordinary people, but in most cases hi-jacked by Western interference with ulterior motives, or taken over by fundamentalists. At the end of the day they have usually ended up with another authoritarian power structure in place that sets about solidifying its position of power and doing its utmost to stifle any popular democratic challenge to its position.

This from LabourStart:

 

      Remember the "Arab Spring"?  It was supposed to mean a new era of freedom for workers.  But in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, union leaders and activists are being jailed and sacked in brutal attempts to crush independent trade unions.

      Global unions have launched online campaigns to protest and we need your support and the support of your fellow union members to put pressure on governments and companies in North Africa to begin to respect workers' rights.

       In Morocco, Said Elhairech, the general secretary of the Moroccan dockers union was arrested in Casablanca on false charges, including one relating to national security.  Nearly three months later, he's still being held, denied bail.  The International Transport Workers Federation has launched a global campaign to demand his release.  Send your message to the Moroccan government today by clicking here.

       In Egypt, transnational food giant Kraft has sacked five members of the board of the newly-created independent union at the former Cadbury chocolate factory in Alexandria following a protest over the non-payment of a government-decreed social allowance.  The IUF, the global union representing food workers, has an online protest here. 

      And finally in Tunisia, Zed Naloufi, the general secretary of the union at Kraft SAIDA, was disciplined and summarily dismissed following a membership meeting. His crime? Representing and meeting the members who elected him.  Support the IUF campaign demanding that Kraft reinstate him here.

     It will take you only a few minutes to support all three campaigns, but it's hugely important that you do so.

      And even more important that you recruit others to do so.  Let's flood the Moroccan government and Kraft with thousands of email messages in the next few days.

      And in doing so, let's help turn the promise of the "Arab Spring" into a reality for North African workers.

 

Thanks very much.

 

Eric Lee

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AUSTERITY URBANISM.

    As an old wrinkly who has lived practically all his life in Glasgow I have seen many changes, and it is with hand on heart I can say that very few of the changes were made with the welfare of the ordinary people in mind. Our elected crooks and liars have always been business orientated, always looked to placate the big buck corporate world. Sometimes the ordinary people have benefited, but mostly they have seen their communities devastated or simple wiped out. It could have been so different, but then again, the people are not in control. 

 

 

 

This from Strickland distribution:

 

austerity urbanism: 

A walk through the fictional city 

Saturday 15th September 2012

 

Ah fancy a walk'n a talk.

 

      As part of a series of projects for Transmission Gallery, The Strickland Distribution is hosting a public walk on Saturday 15th September to investigate contemporary forms of cultural (de)generation. Led by writer & researcher Neil Gray, with contributions from housing & community groups; activists & artists, the walk will take a circular route beginning and ending at the Speirs Wharf canalside ‘cultural quarter’, via the post- industrial and brown-field landscapes of North-West Glasgow.The writer, Iain Sinclair once said of regeneration that “any puddle will do”, referring to the frequency of waterside regeneration in the UK – no matter how bitter the climate or inauspicious the view.

       The canalside Masterplan for the cultural quarter is a neoliberal mixture of soft policy options borrowing from Charles Landry’s ‘creative city’, Richard Florida’s ‘creative class’, Andres Duany’s ‘new urbanism’, and so-called ‘smart growth’ principles. The masterplan is specifically framed in the language of austerity, admitting the partial, fragmentary nature of the regeneration approach in a time of economic crisis.

      While apparently less bullish than other large-scale gentrification projects in Glasgow, ultimately ‘smart growth’ is about the extraction of value from land and property, and the increase of a socio-spatial tax base, making the ‘new urbanism’ a strategy for the few at the expense of the many despite its green pretensions and community participation rhetoric. The new urbanism is a separate, privileged spatial project with limited boundaries. This walk will cross those boundaries exploring the wider spatial relations of the area, revealing the planning blight and social contradictions that are a direct result of an underlying ideology of growth which the new urbanism not only leaves unchallenged but actively supports. 

 

 

 

     The walk will critically illuminate the ‘arts-led property strategy’; the rent-gap and blight; the continuing crisis in housing, and the commodification of social spaces. Rather than present gentrification as an inevitable process, the walk will explore the possibility that capitalism is increasingly unable to reproduce the most basic conditions of everyday life for a majority of the population, deferring a crisis of productivity to a crisis of urbanism. This walk in the fictional city will examine urban reality against the urban myths of city boosters.

     The walk is proposed as an investigative history from below: a critical exploration of gentrification in the context of austerity urbanism. City boosters and planners promote top-down solutions to urban crisis, yet radical social change can only ever come from broad-based pressure from below. This walk aims to provide the means for collaborative exchange, instigating & sustaining wider solidarity & activity between anti-gentrification researchers, activists, community groups & artists. We welcome all those with such an interest.

      Saturday 15th September, (1–5pm): Meet outside Cowcaddens subway entrance at 1pm. Please bring appropriate footwear and clothing. The ground will occasionally be rough.

Transmission Gallery 

28 King Street 

Glasgow G1 5QP 

Scotland

Tel.:+44 (0)141 552 7141 

info@transmissiongallery.org 

www.transmissiongallery.org

 

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THE BEAST LIVES ON.

       Officially the Iraq war is over, though the Americans are still in that country, so this video may seem dated, but we are still doing the same in Afghanistan, recently 200 Marines have been sent to Guatamala to fight in the "war against drugs" and we are looking at ways to bring down Iran. The beast lives and continues to devour innocent lives and will do so until the people say no and demolish this corporate/military fascist reign of blood for money.

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DIRTY GOLD.

      The Eldorado Gold Corporation is a large Canadian gold mining company with 7 operating mines, three under construction, three development projects, plus an extensive program of exploration. They operate in China, Brazil, Romania, Greece and Turkey and aim to produce 1.7 million ounces of gold annually by 2016.

       We all know that gold mining is probably one of the worst industries regards pollution. see "A simple band of gold", but it nets vast fortunes for the corporate world, how much of that wealth will find its way down to the people who live near the mining area or the general public at large? It is a safe bet to say, not much at all, if any. The company will savagely decimate the land and walk away with the loot, swelling the coffers of the billionaires in the corporate world.

This from the Greek Streets:

Monday, September 10, 2012

      1,500-2,000 demonstrators gathered in the village of Skouries in Chalkidiki on September 9 to protest again the commencing of the extraction of gold by the Canadian mining company Eldorado Gold. The demonstration soon clashed with police protecting the mining facilities and at least five demonstrators were injured, including a SYRIZA MP. It is reported that the police used tear-gas inside the forest (photo below) causing serious risk for a widespread fire (with demonstrators putting off the fire in many cases), and rubber bullets.

At least 15 people were detained and taken to the local police station (in Ierissos) where demonstrators immediately gathered in solidarity, demanding their release. As a result, the detainees were transferred to nearby police stations in Chalkidiki, while four demonstrators have been transferred to Thessaloniki.

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WHO WILL SEIZE THE OPPORTUNITY?

         As I have often said on this blog, crisis can be an opportunity to re-shape our world to a better place for all. However  we of the left are not the only ones that see this crisis as an opportunity. Capitalism itself, is a beast of renewal and can fashion itself from the rubble of its own creation. Also the far right will seize the moment and pray on the fears and anxieties of the people.

This from AdBusters:

  Venerated investment banks have vanished overnight, titans of industry have permanently shuttered their doors, and rich nations have lurched perilously close to default. The ideology of the free market, once seemingly unassailable, lies in tatters. While the death knell of capitalism may not yet be tolling, the crisis is undoubtedly of a different order of magnitude than anything seen in decades.

Read the full article HERE:

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CIRCLING VULTURES WAITING FOR HUNT TO DELIVER.

        We now have a new Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, remember how he squirmed out of a spot of bother not so long ago, it seems now, as usual with the members of the old boys club, all is forgiven. Obviously Andrew Lansley wasn't offering up the Health Service to the corporate world fast enough. The corporate vultures will be perched near by to see just how fast this new guy will get on with the carve up.

This from Lansbury's Lido:

How to make a homoeopathic solution

• Take the original solution and dilute 1 part solution with 9 parts distilled water
• Take this new solution and dilute 1 part solution with 9 parts distilled water
• Repeat until the desired potency is achieved

How to sell off the NHS

• Take a fully public funded national health service and hand over key services to private capital
• Take this 'low fat' NHS and hand over critical assets to private capital
• Take this NHS Lite and dilute with yet more private capital
• Repeat until the vultures are fed and there's no meat left on the carcass.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

SHITHEADS IN EVERY COUNTRY.

         It is the normal behaviour of fascist scum, during difficult economic times, to come crawling out the sewers where they normally live, to scapegoat different groups and create divisions in the ranks of the ordinary people. The state will always lean lightly on the fascist scum as they make it more difficult for the ordinary people to organise while this rat bag of vermin roam the streets beating and intimidating their target groups, preaching hate and violence to all those whom they deem to be different from from their mythical stereotypes. You can't reason with vermin, it has to be destroyed or it will destroy all that is decent in people's relationships. This video was Greece, but the shitheads are doing their best to spout their putrid ideology here in the UK as well as most countries in Europe. The anxieties and anger of the people, at the economic onslaught being forced on them, is where they try to sow their malignant seeds. Resistance to their muck should be the aim of all those who hope for justice, freedom and a decent society that sees to the needs of all our people.

 

This from OMADEON:

         The Greek Neo-Nazi Party “Golden Dawn” issued official announcements, that they wanted to “apply the law” to illegal immigrant street-sellers “without a license to sell”. This pretext, however, was proved a shameless lie: -The nazis also destroyed the merchandise of immigrants with official licenses. Some black people (see the videos below) showed their papers to the nazis, but their goods were smashed anyway, after being told that “blacks are unwanted in Greece, anyway”. So, these violent attacks were nothing but pure racism; very similar to Adolf Hitler’s S.A. attacks on Jewish shops, just because they were Jewish, long before the Nazis took power in 1933.

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NO COPS AND NO ROBBERS, JUST PEOPLE.

       When anarchy does come, nothing will be the same again, no cops and no robbers.

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IT IS A BRUTAL AND RUTHLESS SYSTEM.

        Some facts and figures that might surprise you, and then again it might not, if you happen to one of the unfortunate individuals that have been repossessed, made unemployed or are struggle to cope with your debt. Perhaps one of the most brutal facts is that 105 properties are repossessed every day. Another feature of our wonderful system of capitalism, is that in this country one person is declared insolvent every 63 seconds, and over the last year, on average, 1602 people have been declared redundant every day.

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ISRAELI APARTHEID.

       A state and religious enforced injustice that has gone on under the eyes of the world, is reinforced by America and ignored by the UN. How much longer can the Zionist state of Israel get away with this crime. A crime that a multitude of labels seem to fit, occupation, apartheid, genocide, all labels that have no place in the 21st. century. How much longer must the Palestinians suffer this barbarity at the hands of those blinded by religious fervour?

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CORPORATE FASCISM IS HERE.

         When you look at how this country and most other Western "democracies" have developed along a continuous shift to the right, with us now at the point where it is safe to say we live in a system of corporate fascism, it becomes obvious that it doesn't it matter which party gains power. From Social Democrats to Conservative, from Liberal to Christian Democrats, form Labour to Socialist, they all end up carrying out the same policies, they all end up following the dictate of that hit squad of the corporate fascists, the financial Mafia. Even the smoke and mirrors of the illusion of democracy has disappeared, your elected government will do the bidding of "the market". Its policies will be shaped by "the market" as if "the market" was some supernatural being beyond the reach of man. Let's get it clear, "the market" is a group of men and women, sitting in flashy offices, shuffling billions of dollars, pounds and yen, to fatten the bank accounts of an unbelievably rich bunch of parasites. They are just a group of very rich, very greedy arrogant people. Yet because of them the governments legislate to keep the people under total surveillance, governments move to the right, states become police states, totalitarian states, states under the hidden rule of the military, as in America. They do this to protect the power and the wealth of those people who run and control "the markets" We are mere chips in their big poker game.

This from Nihilo Zero:

      Finally, while I don't want to argue too much about definitions... the U.S. has more prisoners per capita (and in total numbers) than any other nation on Earth.  Wire-tapping and other broad surveillance measures have been codified by the state.  American citizens can now be arrested by the military, detained, and imprisoned indefinitely without the right to a trial.  All of this amounts to the very definition of a totalitarian police state.

Read the full article HERE:

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PROFIT FROM HUMAN MISERY.

      You have to admit that the corporate world never misses a trick. Think of something bizarre like punishing people for transgressing some legislated ruling and the corporate world will turn it into a profit making enterprise. Prisons are big business in America and here in the UK our corporate fascist masters are driving the idea of corporate prisons to help feed their army of parasitical shareholders, profit from human misery, ah, that's capitalism.

This from Nihilo Zero:

      In addition to the street-level violence, the police forces in the United States then help incarcerate more people at a rate seen no where else on earth. More people are imprisoned in the U.S. than in any other nation (both in total numbers AND per-capita). Millions of people get cycled through the U.S. prison-industrial complex every year. No nation on earth imprisons more people than the "land of the free."

     America, the USA, is THE police state, and the extreme subjugation of millions of individuals is big business -- entire towns now spring up around large prisons (complete with motels for visiting relatives and services and shops for the prison employees), and that's on top of the economics involved with the court systems and police equipment.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

TAKE WHAT THEY GIVE YOU, OR FIGHT BACK!!

       Spearheaded by the financial Mafia, and with the IMF, (International Mankind Fuckers) leading the charge, the march of corporate fascism continues unabated across Europe. The social fabric of the Greek people has been decimated and a whole country thrown into deprivation, but still the financial Mafia want more from the Greek people, demanding more unemployment, more drastic cuts to social services and the destruction of whatever working conditions the people still have, one such dictate to their partners, the Greek government, is to introduce a six day working week. Also sell off more of the Greek people's assets to their corporate friends.

       The Spanish people are now well down the road the Greek people have been dragged. The figures of how much Spain will need in a bailout has gone from €30 billion to €70 billion and now a figure of €300 billion is being mentioned. This is money that will be plundered from the Spanish public purse and handed to the financial Mafia. It will be raised by more unemployment, drastic cuts to the social services, the decimation of the health service and education, creating rampant poverty and deprivation for the Spanish people, as has already happened in Greece.

       As this corporate cancer spreads, the people are beginning to realise the obvious, that relying on "the government" to solve their problems, is like asking the fox to take care of the chicken shed.

I’M PROUD.

I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,

that great mass on society’s bottom rung.

Those who, with coal-dust under their nails

in their eyes, in their lungs

claw at the earth's entrails.

Their brothers,

cement in their hair

in their mouth, in their ears,

oil ingrained in their fingers,

on their face.

Sisters, glistening with sweat

midst the ceaseless noise of machines

that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets

for other people.

Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin

smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,

grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system

weighted down

with a sack load of half-dead dreams,

sometimes brought to their knees

by a tidal wave of despair,

never defeated,

groping in the dark to find tomorrow,

keeping hope alive;

they amaze me.

Somehow, from somewhere

in this cold, cruel

unforgiving scheme of things

they find love for their children.

Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,

but buckets full, to bathe them in,

to pour over them.

They seem to know

that one day this world will be ours

and to take care of it

we will need those who have been loved.

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