YOU KNOW IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!!

        Although crime is falling in this country, the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, always fill your mind with horrible crimes, giving the authorities an excuse to put in place more surveillance and more control over the ordinary people. Cameras everywhere, stop and search, ID cards, everything to keep tabs on you, to make sure they know who you are, where you are, why your there and have you got permission to be there. However we haven't yet gone as far as the good sheriff of Paragould in Arkansas, who has declared marshal law on the good citizens of his patch.

This from Paragould Daily Press:

       In response to a recent increase in crime, Paragould Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall offered residents at a town hall meeting Thursday night at West View Baptist Church what could be considered an extreme solution — armed officers patrolling the streets on foot. Stovall told the group of almost 40 residents that beginning in 2013, the department would deploy a new street crimes unit to high crime areas on foot to take back the streets.
      "[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck," Stovall said. "If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID."
     Stovall said while some people may be offended by the actions of his department, they should not be. "We're going to do it to everybody," he said. "Criminals don't like being talked to."

Read the full article HERE:

And a Happy New Year to you lot!!

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A MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE PEOPLE OF GREECE.

      It is obvious that the Greek government is determined to see that the Greek people have a merry Christmas. This is a no expense spared exercise to keep the Christmas spirit of goodwill alive. I think it is Syntagma Square, Athens but not sure.

       And how the people of Athens showed their feelings regarding austerity and goodwill at Christmas a couple of years ago.

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THE STATE, EXPERT PURVEYORS OF VIOLENCE.

       These words could apply to the events of today but were written about Ravachol and his times, by Octave Mirbeau  16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917

And this begs the question...

        Who is it --throughout this endless procession of tortures which has been the history of the human race --who is it that sheds the blood, always the same, relentlessly, without any pause for the sake of mercy? Governments, religions, industries, forced labor camps, all of these are drenched in blood. The murder is weary of their laws, their prayers, and their progress. Again just recently, there were the frenzied butchers who turned Paris into a slaughterhouse as the Commune perished. There were pointless massacres, such as at Fourmies where the bodies of innocent women and little kids tried out the ballistic virtues of the Lebels machine gun for the first time. And there are always the mines in which fifty, a hundred, or five hundred poor devils are suffocated, swallowed in a single moment of horrible destruction, their charred bodies never to see daylight again. And there are also the horrid conquests of distant countries where happy races, unknown and peaceful, groan under the boot of that robber of continents, that filthy rapist of forest communities and virgin lands, the western slave trader.

Each footstep taken in this society bristles with privileges, and is marked with a bloodstain; each turn of the government machinery grinds the tumbling, gasping flesh of the poor; and tears are running from everywhere in the impenetrable night of suffering. Facing these endless murders and continuous tortures, what's the meaning of society, this crumbling wall, this collapsing staircase?

We live in ugly times. The misery has never been worse, because it's never been more obvious, and it's never stood closer to the spectacle of wasted riches and the promised land of well-being from which it is relentlessly turned away. Never has the law, which protects only the banks, pressed so hard upon the tortured shoulders of the poor. Capitalism is insatiable, and the wage system compounds the evils of ancient slavery. The shops are packed full of clothing, and there are those who go about completely naked; the indifferent rich are puking up food, while others perish from hunger in their doorways. No cry is heeded: whenever a single, louder complaint penetrates the din of sad murmurs, the Lebels is loaded and the troops are mobilized.

And that's not all.

       A population does not live solely on its stomach. It also has a life of the mind. Its intellectual joys are just as necessary as its physical joys. It has a right to beauty just as it has a right to bread. Indeed, those who could give it its higher pleasures, those who could introduce to the people this vital beauty are treated like public enemies, hunted down as criminals, hounded for being anarchists and beaten like beggars. They are reduced to a solitary life. An enormous barrier separates them from the crowd, by whom they are regarded as repulsive spectacles, and over whom there is spread the enormous, sordid, impenetrable veil of triumphant stupidity. We are witnessing an incredible social moment: at this time, while abundant with great thinkers, the public taste has never been so degraded, nor has ignorance ever enjoyed such base pleasures. Surely, if the hour in which we live is hideous, it is formidable as well: it's the hour of popular awakening. And this hour is full of uncertainty. The patience of the downtrodden and the dispossessed has lasted long enough. They want to live, they want to enjoy, they want their share of all the happiness and sunshine. Whatever the rulers do, reacting to their worst fears, they will not forestall the inevitable course of events. We're touching upon a decisive moment in human history. The old world is collapsing under the weight of its own crimes, and is itself lighting the fuse of the bomb that will blast it all away. This bomb will be all the more terrible because it will contain neither gunpowder nor dynamite. It'll contain compassion and an idea; two forces against which nothing can be done. 

Read the full article HERE:

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ENDLESS, POINTLESS WAR.

Think about it?

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YOU DECIDE!!

      I don't suppose this year will be much different, that's capitalism for you.

This from Imgur.com:

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DRONES AND MASS KILLINGS.

   
  A relevant comment from "An Elegant Feast":

  

      The media has another sensationalist story about gun violence to push, and they are going to push it, hard.  And of course, anytime a child dies, it’s a tragedy.  When it occurs with violent, brutal force, it is especially repulsive.  But there is something even more disgusting than this.  When we only concentrate on the deaths of american children that are murdered by a mentally disturbed individual, we offer silent complicity to the scores of children that the US government murders in cold, rational, calculation.  According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the US government has killed 176 children with drone strikes in Pakistan.  Where is the outrage for those deaths?  I guess when it occurs at the hand of Obama and Clinton, it becomes convenient for the media and the so-called american left to look the other way.  The consummate celebrity, Obama had a press conference to show his tears to anyone who could stomach them.  If the sight of a crass, unrelenting killer is so upsetting for the president, someone needs to quickly remove every mirror from the white house.

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A STATE WITHIN A STATE IS THE STATE.

       There is often talk of a state within a state, but no matter how you put it, it is still the state, one can't function without the other. It is not an anomaly, it is the way that any state functions. There is the public face of "respectability" and there is the slithering shadowy unseen apparatus that functions to keep the whole show on the road. The British state is probably the most polished and sophisticated in this process of keeping that slithering shadowy aspect concealed from public view. Now and again a tip of it slips into public view for a brief moment and then quietly slithers back into the background and the smiling suits once again take front stage.

This from A World to Win:

Finucane's murder by the state within the state

     A state within a state signifies the fact that sections of the armed forces, police or intelligence services are running their own agenda, often with deadly consequences. They take it upon themselves to defeat perceived enemies of the state.
Britain is home to such a state, as is clear from the de Silva report into the murder of the lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989. Although the report is only a review of documents and not the public inquiry the family wanted, it is devastating enough.

    The report uses the term “collusion” to describe the role of the RUC Special Branch, the British army’s agent-running section (FRU) and the intelligence service MI5. But it amounts to a state conspiracy to kill Finucane, who acted for Republicans in Northern Ireland.

Read the full article HERE:

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CHARITY AND SLAVE LABOUR CAN'T GO TOGETHER.

       The government's gift of slave labour to the corporate world still trundles on, though resistance is growing. However it is not just the corporate greed machine that is taking advantage with free labour workfare scheme, charities are up there among the greed merchants taking advantage of the disadvantaged. These charity shops rely on the public handing in stuff and donations and yet the will screw the same public by taking on unpaid labour. Lots of charities are withdrawing from the slave labour scheme but there are still those that are hanging in there making a cheap buck.

 This from Boycott Workfare:

 The continued exodus of charity shops from the Government’s workfare schemes leaves the Mandatory Work Activity scheme looking perilously close to collapse.
Oxfam, Marie Curie and Shelter, who all refused workfare in their stores, have now been joined by others. Scope say they are ending mandatory work schemes as have Age UK (though not necessarily in their independent stores). Cancer Research UK have said they are pulling out of mandatory work activity placements. Meanwhile British Heart Foundation have said they are ‘moving away’ from mandated work, though have continued to take placements in their stores.
It now seems that the largest providers of mandated workfare are likely to be conservation and environmental charities such as The Conservation Volunteers (TCV), a mis-named charity who have been quietly building an army of unpaid workers.

Read the full article HERE:

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THE USUAL CORPORATE IMPERIALIST HYPOCRISY.

      Once again we see the West talk with forked tongue. It preaches democracy in the Middle East while backing the Muslim Brotherhood in both Syria and Egypt, of course, hypocrisy is standard for imperialism. In recognising the "rebels" in Syria it will see the demise of the Assad regime, another regime that wouldn't play ball with the Western corporate world. Any nation that doesn't allow the mighty dollar to dominate their country is demonised and enters the "axis of evil", marking them out as "to be sorted".  Iraq and Libya have been sorted, Syria is almost sorted, that leaves Iran and North Korea to be brought to chaos, allowing the mighty dollar to walk in and make a killing. (literally and figuratively). What probably saves North Korea, for the time being, is its big pal, China, though as the West becomes more desperate, that may not put them off forever. The Western corporate world can gain from war and chaos.

From CounterPunch, a little more detail on the West's relations with the Muslim Brotherhood.

     The complexities of the Arab Spring and the struggle for political freedom throughout the Arab world should not obscure what has now become an absolutely essential understanding for all anti-imperialists: the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most powerful weapons of the Western ruling class in the Muslim world. While that may be a difficult pill for some to swallow for emotional or psychological reasons, one need look no further than the insidious role the organization is playing in Syria and the abuses of power and human rights of the government of Egypt. In the US-NATO sponsored war against the Assad government, the Muslim Brotherhood has emerged as the leading western-sanctioned force, the avant-garde of the imperialist assault. While, in Egypt, President Morsi and the Brotherhood government seek to destroy what had been, little more than a year ago, the promise of the revolution.

Read the full article HERE:

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IN THE CORPORATE WORLD, MISERY IS JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS.

      Anybody with a brain cell knows that charity in this capitalist society will never be an answer. Poverty is part and parcel of corporate capitalism, aid packages always come with strings that suit the donor. In this world of corporatism, misery, malnutrition,deprivation and death are just statistics, indicators to where to put your money. Somebody's misery is can be a beneficial tax dodge, a hedge fund's opportunity. These bank accounts don't carry the smell of deprivation into the homes of the owners. As long as the lack of money means the lack of the necessities of life, we will have deprivation and death from malnutrition. Sort out that part and we can start to sort out the malnutrition, misery and deprivation.  

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COMING TO A BUS NEAR YOU.

      The surveillance society is well and truly established here and else where. You can't walk about your city without being observed, photoed, tracked and the information stored. The local bus stop at the bottom of our street has SIX cameras mounted on it, you enter the bus and you are recorded. I have counted as many as six cameras on some buses. Dotted around town are cameras with speakers mounted, you will be instructed what to do if you are seen to be doing something THEY deem to be wrong. Now it seems that this is not enough, in some cities in America they are fitting voice recording equipment on public transport buses, to record your conversations and store them. Where America goes today, we go tomorrow. How long before all new build houses will have a camera and sound recording fitted at the construction stage? Far fetched? How long ago was it that you would have been laughed at if you said that the bus stop will have six cameras fitted? Of course you know it is all for your own good and safety. Oh George, we should have listened.

This from The Stranger:

      When people worry about drones, they worry that the information gathered by the little fliers will be stored forever as a blanket violation of Fourth Amendment protections—a warrantless search with wings. (That's what people in the US worry about, anyway. People in other countries worry that drones will kill them.)
Looks like drones are the least of the Fourth Amendment's worries. From Wired.com:
      Transit authorities in cities across the country are quietly installing microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations, according to documents obtained by a news outlet.
The systems are being installed in San Francisco, Baltimore, and other cities with funding from the Department of Homeland Security in some cases, according to the Daily, which obtained copies of contracts, procurement requests, specs and other documents.

Read the full article HERE:

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BE YOURSELF? DOWNRIGHT SHOCKING!!!

       Recently the Guardian reviewed a children's book, "A Rule is to Break", a child's guide to anarchy, apparently it was deemed downright shocking by the Tea Party in America. Perhaps we should start to hand the book out free. It seems that its main message is to teach kids to think for themselves, now that really is "downright shocking". I really like the name of the publisher, "Manic D Press".

     The gently humorous children's book A Rule Is to Break: A Child's Guide to Anarchy, which exhorts kids to "Think for Yourself", "Give Away Stuff for Free" and "Do What You Want", has come under fire from the Tea Party.
    Originally self-published, A Rule is to Break was released late last month by small San Francisco publisher Manic D Press. Written and illustrated by husband-and-wife team John Seven and Jana Christy, it follows the story of Wild Child "as she learns about just being herself and how that translates into kid autonomy". Advice includes "don't look like everybody else! Be you", and "Paint pictures on your TV! Forget about grocery stores and get dirty in your garden!"
    A review in Publishers Weekly suggested that "even adult readers taken aback by lines like 'when someone says 'Work!', you say Why?' and 'No baths ever again!' will be able to get behind suggestions to 'Educate yourself. Use your brain' and "Listen to the tiniest voice'", calling the book "the softer side of anarchy, with an emphasis on fun and independence, but also community and kindness".

Read the full review HERE:

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PARANOIA??

      Conspiracy theory, Paranoia? Never the less, lots of interesting facts. Just pick your way through them.

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WITH FATE CONSPIRE.

       And now for something completely different. One of Guy Aldred's favourite quotations from Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat and I must admit, one of mine.

"Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!"

Of course it could be called the anarchist's dream.

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AS THINGS GET WORSE, - THEY GET BETTER!!!

       Like me, you are probably baffled by the so called official unemployment figures. All we hear is shops complaining or closing, High street suffering, production contracting, public sector and private firms, paying people off, and then out of the blue come those magic figures telling us that unemployment has fallen for the second month in a row. In your daily travels have you noticed this fell-good factor washing over you? Have you started to miss your mates as they all now have jobs and your on your own? Me neither, so where do those magic figures come from, as things get worse, how can they get better? It is of course the usual smoke and mirrors of the state apparatus, giving its crystal ball a wipe or two, selective manipulation of figures. Mind you I wouldn't say that it was government false accounting, after all that sort of thing is more the realm of banks, their friends the corporate world and millionaires.

Here is one explanation from A World to Win, of some of their jiggery-pokery.  

Revealed: the harsh truth behind jobs figures

      Governments on both sides of the Atlantic have good news on jobs. Apparently. The real story is of people giving up the search for work and young people, in particular, facing a life on the dole.
Figures just out on the UK show unemployment falling by 82,000, and the number of people in full-time work increasing by 44,000 between May to July 2012 and August to October 2012.
In the US, Barack Obama and his administration are celebrating the drop in the unemployment rate from October’s 7.9% to 7.7% in November. At its peak, in October 2009, it was 10%.
Good news? Not for the majority of American or British or European workers.
      Look a little closer and you find that the percentage of working-age Americans who are either employed or actively in search of a job was reported as 63.6% for November 2012, two points lower than the previous month and the worst the country has seen since 1978.

Read the full article HERE:

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KILL THE POETS -- THEY MAY INSPIRE.

      As we are all told, the West will not tolerate dictators and repressive regimes, we in the West nurture "democracy" we choose our friends carefully. We sorted out bad bad Saddam in Iraq, we were the power behind the demise of cruel ruthless Qaddafi in Libya, we are 100% behind the overthrow of Assad in Syria, and we are keeping a watchful eye on evil Iran. We befriend such democratic countries like Saudi Arabia, where women are mere chattels, stoning and beheading are part and parcel of daily life. Another of our democratic friends is that beacon of freedom and self expression Qatar, ruled by a "democratic" despot, who recently sentenced a poet to life in prison for reading aloud one of his poems. It seems it appeared to be critical of despot rulers. 

This article from Panther Productions gives a detailed account:

    Life in prison may seem a harsh sentence for reciting a poem out loud, but it’s apparently what state security demands in Doha, Qatar, where a secret court delivered this sentence at the end of a short, secret trial in a state security case tried there in November.

      Muhammed ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, 37, a Qatari poet with a wife and child, was studying literature at Cairo University when the Tunisian revolution broke out in December 2010. Inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, al-Ajami wrote a short poem, “Tunisian Jasmine” [see below], celebrating the overthrow of repressive elites. He recited the poem to private audiences and the audio of at least one such performance appeared on YouTube, but al-Ajami says he didn’t post it, and doesn’t know who did.
     Qatari authorities took notice of the performance and, some months later, in November 2011, they arrested al-Ajami and held him in solitary confinement for most of a year before bringing him to trial. There is no allegation that he was otherwise tortured. The state charged the poet with “insulting” Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, as well as “inciting to overthrow the ruling system,” an offense that carries the death penalty.

Read the full article HERE:

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PIRATES OF THE PUBLIC PURSE.

       I have always said that the "austerity" (I love that word, it makes it sound so efficient and harmless), cuts to date are nothing, compared to what is still to come. 2013 will be crunch time, that's when the boot goes in with a vengeance. Homeless set to soar, workfare propping up the corporate profits as people are "obliged" to work for nothing more than their job seekers benefits, disability allowances disappearing, condemning thousand of vulnerable people to isolation and worse, and the only jobs on offer will be low paid part-time. Meanwhile the grand plan of transferring all the public purse to the millionaires' old boys club goes on unabated and all public assets become corporate assets. On top of all the already legislated cuts that have been in the pipeline, we are faced with massive increases in energy prices and increase rail fares. Plus Osborne has stated that all government departments will have to find extra efficiency savings, (cuts), on top of what has already been passed. However, we have to be careful when we talk about "austerity", it is not quite universal. While you and I struggle to pay our way, there are those in this twisted Alice-in-Wonderland system that are doing just fine, mostly, those who do nothing, Company directors, traders in the financial Mafia, and of course, those millionaires who pass all this "austerity" legislation. 

       An interesting article from A World to Win:

Unions should resist rail and fuel price rises with civil disobedience

      Millions of people who commute to work are a just a few weeks away from a massive cut in incomes that will intensify the dramatic fall in living standards that the recession and austerity measures have already created.
       As people struggle back to work after the Christmas holidays, they will be hit by a double whammy of steep rail fare increases and the bills for electricity and gas that in some cases will show rises of nearly 11%. his amounts to a huge transfer of wealth to the train operators and energy companies like E.On which yesterday announced increases averaging 8.7%. These will naturally impact harder on poorer households, adding to five million already in fuel poverty.
     So too will the rail fare rises. Passengers on many routes face fare increases of up to 10% next month. Season tickets and peak fares are regulated and will rise by an average 4.2%. Many commuters pay huge amounts already. For example, an annual season ticket from St Albans to London is around £3,000. That will go up by over £120 in January.
Off-peak and anytime tickets in England and Wales are set to soar, according to the watchdog Passenger Focus because they are not regulated. An anytime return from London to Norwich will now be 9.2% dearer at £107.70. A day return from Holyhead-Llandudno will be 6.5% more expensive.
      The ConDem coalition is pushing ahead with plans to reduce the £3 billion plus subsidy to the rail industry, a process that began under New Labour. That will result in ticket office closures and other “efficiency” savings.
      The rail unions have launched a campaign to bring the railways back into public ownership. Today they were holding protests in Swansea and Cardiff. More actions are planned before Christmas.
They handed out Christmas cards with a "seasonal message" from the train companies, which promised commuters will have a 2013 "packed full of cancelled trains, staff cuts and ticket office closures" while the train companies are "making huge profits".
Rob Jenks, of transport and travel union TSSA, said:

     We want to point out the dramatic rise in rail fares, a 30% increase in rail fares, compared to the average increase in people's wages of 11.9%.  So you can see there's a huge gap between what people can afford to pay and what people are having to pay.
      It's about fares, it's also about all the cuts the industry is facing as the government tries to allegedly balance the books but without taking the opportunity to actually look at what public ownership would bring and all the savings that would make by cutting out profit and various other things.

     The Action for Rail campaign says that since privatisation, more than £11 billion of public funds has been “misspent” on debt write-offs, dividend payments to private investors,  and higher interest payments in order to keep Network Rail’s debts off the government balance sheet.

     At the same time, privatisation has failed to deliver on its promises. Genuine private investment makes an insignificant contribution to the railways, representing about one per cent of the total money that goes into the railway each year.  Our fares are among the highest in Europe, many of our services are overcrowded and rely on obsolete rolling stock.

       Obviously, there is no way the Coalition is going to contemplate public ownership as an option. And nor is Labour. Shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle has only pledged to make sure that the limit on fare rises is applied more strictly. That’s really worth waiting for!
       The savage reduction in living standards that will greet millions on January 1 is unprecedented. Rail unions ought to step up their action. RMT general secretary Bob Crow has in the past talked of a campaign of civil disobedience to fight the government. There couldn’t be a better time to put his words into action than right now.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
11 December 2012

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BUSINESS IS BUSINESS!!

I just had to post this in full, from the creative mind of Teacher Dude.

     HSBC Systematic Investment Plan - For the drug cartel that is going places, a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr. Alphonse Gabriel Capone, Group Chief Executive, said: "We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The Mafia of today is a fundamentally different organisation from the one that made those mistakes. Over the last two years, under new senior leadership, we have been taking concrete steps to put right what went wrong and to participate actively with government authorities in bringing to light and addressing matters.

     "While we welcome the clarity that these agreements bring, ensuring the highest standards wherever we do business is an ongoing process. We are committed to protecting the integrity of the global controlled substance system. To this end we will continue to work closely with governments and regulators around the world."
In the past several years, the Board of Cosa Nostra - HSBC Holdings plc has taken decisive action to direct management to fix past shortcomings as they have come to light. Since 2011, with new senior leadership teams in place at both Cosa Nostra - HSBC Group and Cosa Nostra - HSBC North America, Cosa Nostra - HSBC has taken extensive and concerted steps to put in place the highest standards for the future.

     The Department of Justice has recognised these efforts in the DPA: "Management has made significant strides in improving 'tone from the top' and ensuring that a culture of compliance permeates the institution. The efforts of management have dramatically improved Cosa Nostra - HSBC Bank USA's and Cosa Nostra - HSBC Group's Bank Secrecy Act / Anti-Money Laundering and Office of Foreign Assets Control compliance programmes."

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CAPITALISM WILL NOT DIE PEACEFULLY.

       I keep saying we should be looking at Greece to see what is coming our way and to prepare the appropriate action to turn the situation to our advantage. Europe's problem is not the Greek "crisis", Europe's problem is the inevitability of capitalist "crisis". As far as the living standards of the ordinary people are concerned, capitalism is the "crisis". Until we resolve that problem, our lives will always be a struggle for survival while the parasites live in the lap of luxury. There is an alternative, there is a need, to start to create that society based on the needs of all our people. Any attempt at moderating capitalism is simply more of the same, just different degrees.

Taken from International Journal of Socialist Renewal:

        Speech given by Eric Toussaint at the SYRIZA youth festival in Athens on October 6, 2012 More than 3000 people were present to listen to four speakers: Marisa Matias, EU deputy, member of the Left Bloc (Portugal); Lisaro Fernandez, miners’ union leader (Asturias, Spain); Alexis Tsipras, president of SYRIZA (Greece); Eric Toussaint, president of Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt (CADTM, Belgium). 

 
       My dear friends, history is not written in advance. Several scenarios remain open to us. We can continue within the current chaotic situation, with more and more authoritarianism on the part of governments who are at the service of the banks. This can continue for years. Another scenario is possible, and is even worse – an authoritarian, neo-fascist scenario. That is a grave danger and a very present threat.
         But there are two other scenarios: under popular pressure, there can be a regulated capitalism, a capitalism of the type that was practiced in the 1950s and 1960s, a capitalism of the Keynesian type. That is a possible solution. But the fact that there are so many of us gathered here this evening shows that we feel that there is no point in limiting our struggle to an attempt to discipline capitalism. We want to go beyond capitalism. We want a democratic, self-managed socialism of the 21st century.
      Long live international socialism. Long live self-managed socialism. Long live SYRIZA. Long live the Greek people. Long live popular resistance. Long live the revolution, comrades!

Read the full speech HERE:

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BOMBING THEM IN TO DEMOCRACY.

      One feature of Western foreign policy is that other countries can't create democracy without the might of the Western military and Western government intervention. The powers that be preach this idiotic message that for democracy to spread anywhere in the world, it needs the fire power of the West, of course ignoring the fact that we don't have democracy here. People across the world can't do that for themselves, the ordinary people of Pakistan and Yemen can't have democracy unless we go in with our drones and special forces. The West's big lie is that by its war on terror, it is spreading democracy, when in fact they are creating chaos in an attempt at permanent domination.

This from Freedom Socialist Party (US):

      Who knows how many die from these attacks, since they are carried out secretly by the CIA. And civilian casualties are falsely minimized by counting every male of military age an enemy combatant. I guess “Kill-them-all” is the policy at hand. Hundreds of non-combatants have died, including a good many little girls and boys.
Obviously, this didn’t just start with Obama. Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world and territorially home to several ancient cultures, was artificially created in 1947 by the British Empire. From the beginning, the country has been dominated by a right-wing military, backed first by Great Britain and then the United States.
Since the 1980s war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, Pakistan’s state apparatus has been mixed up with the Islamic fundamentalists in both countries. In fact, the Taliban was nurtured and funded by the United States in Afghanistan. So much for the myth that the U.S. brings secular democracy and women’s equality to the Middle East.
      Only the people themselves can do that, and they are trying desperately. Before she was attacked, Malala said, “If the new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by the terrorists. We must raise our voice.”
      Forty-four years ago (1968) Pakistanis, with women in the forefront, launched a stunning revolution. They forced a dictator to abdicate and ran society for 139 days. Workers occupied factories, peasants seized land, and students took over the schools and colleges. This can happen again and I have no doubt that Malala Yousafzai, and other determined young women and men like her, will be a part of that struggle.

Read the full article HERE:

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CHOICES, WORKFARE OR WORKHOUSE.

      This from The Crutch Collective on Saturday's Glasgow day of action against the governments slave labour scheme which goes under the pseudonym of "workfare".

Anti-Workfare Pickets Glasgow Report

      On Saturday 8th December as part of the Boycott Workfare Week Of Action a couple of dozen people from Clydeside Industrial Workers Of The World, the Crutch Collective, Glasgow Anarchist Federation, Glasgow Solidarity Federation, the Right To Work Campaign and other individuals leafleted a branch of Superdrug in one of the city centre's busiest streets. The one thousand leaflets given out highlighted Superdrug taking on even more people on the Government's 'Work Experience' workfare scheme for the Christmas period. The extra people on workfare means less holiday pay for the regular staff. There was a lot of police about and Superdrug had hired extra security for the day. However the combination of the picket, the leaflet saying, 'Don't Shop At Superdrug' and the added security costs meant we succeeded in our objective of costing Superdrug money for using Workfare. Thanks to everyone who took part. Apparently someone also left placards saying 'Superdrug + Unpaid Work = Superdrudgery' outside their other city centre branch.

    The picket also attracted some media attention from local journalists. The Sunday Mail, with a reported readership of around one million, mentioned the Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow protests, and their article, 'Big Businesses Taking On Jobless Young People To Work Unpaid Over Christmas', helped get our general message across to a larger audience. It appears to contains some useful information on the extent of Workfare involvement of a number of companies, but it also includes some of the distortions of the reality of Workfare by these companies and the Department for Work and Pensions. We would have to question if the newspaper verified any of the information in the statements of the the Workfare companies and the D.W.P.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/revealed-big-businesses-taking-on-jobless-1480979

     The Superdrug distortions - 'Work Experience' is not voluntary in practice. Job Centre Plus and third party workfare profiteers like A4E bully benefit claimants on to the scheme. Benefit claimants can have their benefits cut if they do not not continue to 'volunteer' to stay on the scheme, after they have been on the scheme for a week. Only a tiny number of people on workfare get jobs afterwards. For example it is 3.5% for the 'Work Programme' and that includes participants getting jobs with other companies and very short-term jobs. Stacking shelves for Superdrug is not learning a skill. Argos state that 'Work Experience' people work alongside paid colleagues, but don't replace them, but the permanent staff lose out on holiday pay. Why aren't all of their temporary staff paid? Of the 25% Poundland say left their 'work experience' early, because they received a job offer elsewhere, how many were going to get offered a job anyhow? Poundland also put a positive spin on 10% going on to get jobs with them, but that means 90% do not, while Poundland continue to make profits from all the unpaid labour.

     We brought forward the time of the picket so that people could take part in he UK UnCut Starbucks demo in Glasgow. UK UnCut have been making the links between tax avoidance, cuts to public services and their impact on women. The Starbucks PR machine has gone into overdrive saying that they will pay a few more peanuts in tax in the next couple of years based on their own estimates while they don't mention all the unpaid tax from the past in their media releases. It has been revealed that the tax payments will be paid for by cuts to the terms and conditions of the Starbucks staff. The IWW Starbucks Workers Union is looking for volunteer organisers to help them organise Starbucks staff to fight these cuts c/o -

PO Box 7593, Glasgow G42 2EX
communications@iww.org.uk
www.iww.org.uk

     One person did manage to get inside the Sauchiehall Street coffee shop with leaflets, but there was too many police for a Refuge from the Cuts to be set up in this branch of Starbucks. The demo moved on to create a noisy presence with cake outside the Starbucks on Buchanan Street, another one of the main shopping streets in Glasgow.

       From there a few people went on to picket the city centre furniture store of the British Heart Foundation. The manager of the store aggressively told us we needed a permit to hand out leaflets. This is another fake claim from BHF. When we told him we didn't need one he told us he was then going to ring the police and he stropped off phone in hand. Of course the police never arrived. A customer said that the manager said we were talking 'shit', but at the same time the manager had confirmed that that they do use Workfare in that store. BHF have had 1500 placements on 'Mandatory Work Activity' and the 'Work Programme'. Despite BHF claims, the schemes are not voluntary. BHF must know the meaning of the word, 'mandatory'. All workfare companies have to sign a contract saying that they will report anyone who does not show up for the schemes, which automatically results in benefit claimants having their benefits cut. BHF have vaguely stated that are 'moving away' from workfare at some unspecified point in the future, but hopefully this picket and others will bring their use of workfare to a halt sooner rather than later. They have been pressurised in to making another public statement, which could be a sign that they are about to cave in.

     We are already making plans for a bigger Anti-Workfare campaign in the new year.

Claimants Resisting Unfair Treatment Cuts and Harassment
A group of benefit claimants and supporters in Glasgow
Hopefully we will have photos of the picket here soon:
www.thecrutchcollective.blogspot.co.uk
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Crutch-Collective/132893236781931?ref=hl
thecrutchcollective@gmail.com

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