Death From Greed.

     May 18th. a personal anniversary for me. It was ten years ago on May 18th 2003 that I lost a dear friend and comrade John Stewart Simpson, Ian to his friends, destroyed by that vicious killer mesothelioma, (asbestos related lung cancer). A fit 66 year old swimmer and cyclist, in a very short time went from being treated for a bad cough to being diagnosed with with mesothelioma and died six months later. It still hurts.

     This rapid vicious killer is no unfortunate event, no unavoidable accident. The health problems from asbestos were known to the powers that be and being written about in the 30's but UK industry continued to use it up until the 60's. 

Wealth From Asbestos.

Why no righteous anger from the crowd?

Why no public cry for justice?

Can't they hear those shallow gasps?

Can't they see their brother's pain?

Lungs that measured to the task

strength that made the Clydeside name.

Men who by willing force and skill

built the nations wealth

never knowing the final bill

was destruction of their health.

Now dumped on life's ladder's lowest rung

strewn like wreck across this city:

vibrant lives by asbestos stung

deserve more than passing pity.

Why no righteous anger from the crowd?

Why no public cry for justice?

 

     It was continuous lobbying and forced legislation that eventually put a stop to this killer substance being used in UK industry. At no time were the bosses of industry concerned about the health and well-being of the workers. The United Kingdom has one of the highest rates of mesothelioma in the world, largely because asbestos use continued in the UK long after it was banned in other parts of the world. Because of its wide use in shipbuilding, those in shipbuilding are among the people most affected by mesothelioma, and the shipbuilding industry played a large role in the industrial history of the United Kingdom.

The Waiting Game.

Don't tell them it's a killer,

as they work with it to earn their keep.

It's a time-bomb in their lungs,

but, so efficient, so very cheap.

It takes so long to kill

they'll never know who to blame,

They'll probably all be dead

before the couts hear their claim.

It's a time-bomb, it's a killer,

and they knew, ASBESTOS.

       Though banned in the UK in the 60's, asbestos continues to kill, in 2008 in the UK, there were 2,249 deaths from mesothemiola and on average, the UK has more than 2,000 deaths each year from this greed driven killer, mesothelioma. Though deaths from this disease are beginning to decline in younger men, overall deaths are expected to increase by 10-20% over the next 5-10 years. Her we are in 2013 and the unbridled greed of past industries is still killing our people. It's the system friends.

 

WHEN  THE TIME-BOMB GOES OFF.

The bike just sits there,

dust covering its lovely sheen,

puffing up the Fintry Hills

well, it’s no longer my scene.

Y’see, as a Clydeside apprentice

I proudly learnt the tradesman’s skill,

little did I know then

the price, asbestos lungs that kill.

Now I just sit here through the painful day

gasping each mouthful of air, wondering

how can I make the bastards pay.

They new it was a killer

a time-bomb in our lungs

but, because it was so quick and cheap

they firmly held their tongues.

So what, if it cost the workman’s life,

there’s always a couple of new workers

in the care of the worker’s wife.

Please try to understand my anger

as I and others bear their cost,

a slow death from asbestos lungs,

a vibrant life lost.

Anguish for family and friends,

all in the name of profit;

now that really does offend.

Our anger without direction

is a blind archer behind the bow,

we have to use our anger

to smash the status-quo.

ann arky's home.

An Inspirational Life.

       I just received this sad news, from a wobbly friend and comrade, I'm sure he will have no objections to my sharing this with all those wobblies, friends and comrades out there, and like he said, we should use his life as an inspiration to organise for that better world.

      Dave Patterson, an electrician, who worked mostly overseas in places like Azerbaijan and Angola, died last night. Dave joined the IWW before anybody else I know of in Scotland, before the Stevenson College branch of the 90s. He joined the Clydeside IWW, at its inception. He was born in Springboig, Glasgow, and as a teenager was involved in the formation of the National union of School Students in the mid 70s. He only rarely made meetings and events due to his work, and his Scottish residence was south of Aberdeen.
      He was a dual carder also in OILC. In the course of a year I would usually see him a few times, after attending different football matches or at the STUC Mayday. In 2011 he got married to Lucy, a nurse in Edinburgh. This year in May, he was absent. A mutual friend came up to me before the Clydeside IWW took part in the procession, to explain he had been diagnosed with an aggressive and incurable strain of cancer. A few days ago he was moved to St.Columba's  hospice in Gogar near Edinburgh.

     This is a sad and sudden demise and in Scotland we mourn the loss of Dave, an unforgettable character. But knowing Dave and his affinity with the wobbly tradition, he would say - "Don't Mourn, Organise!"

 ann arky's home.

Pupil's Open Letter.

      The fascist regime in Greece will do anything to intimidate the people. Recently they passed legislation that makes it illegal for teachers to go on strike, no matter their grievance. The education system is in free-fall, what little is left is due to the dedication of those teachers and the determination of the pupils, not the system or its fascist governors.

This from Contra Info:

Piraeus, Greece: Open letter from a secondary school student

To my teachers… and the others:

      My name is K.M., and I am a student in the first class of secondary school, at the 10th Lyceum in Drapetsona, Piraeus.

     I decided to write this text because I wanted to express my outrage, my indignation, at the nerve and hypocrisy of those who govern us and all those journalists and the mainstream media who help them to impose their lawless and immoral plans at the expense of the pupils, the students, and the younger generation.

    My reason for writing is the intention of my teachers to go on strike during the university entrance exam period, and the politicians and journalists who shed crocodile tears about my future, which is “at risk” because of this strike.

What are you saying? What kind of future do I have, because of you? And who is it who has really put my future at risk?

Let’s look at who has constructed the future, and all of our lives, for a very long time already:

    - Who made the future for my grandfather? Who dressed his future with the cast-off clothes of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and forced him to immigrate to Germany?

     - Who has misgoverned and ripped off this entire country?

     - Who has forced my mother to work from dawn till dusk, all for 530 euros a month? Money that, after paying food and bills, is not even enough for a new pair of shoes, let alone a book I might want from a flea market table.

      - Who has cut my father’s salary in half?

      - Who is it who has slandered him, threatened to force him to return to work under civil conscription, threatened to fire him, along with all of his co-workers in public transportation, when they, wanting only to live with dignity, went on strike? More »

ann arky's home.

Misery Equals Success.

       So the Troika and the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) are pleased with their Greek political puppets. So much so the the rating agency Fitch has up-rated Greece by one notch from CCC to B-, which is still junk status, but the Greek corrupt political class are being rewarded for their success. 

     This success has included slashing the living standard of the people of Greece to approaching third world level, creating the ideal conditions for the corporate world to move back and take advantage of slave labour sweatshop conditions. 

   Another success of the neo-fascists political clique sitting in Athens has been to sell off billions of Euros worth of assets belonging to the people of Greece, to the corporate world in a fire sale of the century. Anything belonging to the people of Greece that could make money has to go.

      Most decent human beings look at what has happened in Greece as a tragedy, the financial Mafia see it as a success. A success they are willing to repeat in country after country in Europe. Only when they have sweatshop Europe will they be happy.

      The people have to stop asking for moderation in the cuts, we have to stop asking for "austerity" to be eased. What that is asking for is, pleased keep us a bit above third world conditions. The system is doing what it is intended to do, create conditions for the corporate world to make increase profits at lower costs. You and I are those costs, we have to be cut down in cost. That translates into low wages and no social services.

        For decent conditions for all our people the present economic system has to go, the profit motive has to be killed off. We the people have to take control of all the means of production and distribution and base our society on mutual aid.  

Photos taken from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

ann arky's home.

  

This Crazy World.

This Crazy World

In this crazy world

                    half dead from dereliction

                    half brutalised from deprivation

                    half drowned in a sea of greed

                    half devoured by perpetual need.

Where

                    war shrieks from East to West

                    famine seldom seems to rest

                    hunger stalks the layman's life

                    poverty kills with a silent knife.

We find

                    a pompous pampered arrogant clique

                    live a life that's smooth and sleek

                    far removed from want and fear,

                    bought with another's sweat and tear.

Yet            

                    not a word do the speak

                    to aid the fallen or the weak

                    preferring to kneel at luxury's shrine

                    repeating their mantra, "This is mine".

Now watch them

                    peddle lies of tongue and pen

                    slyly hoard their plunder then

                    with spurious sanctimonious phrase 

                    shed crocodile tears at man's malaise.

Where

                    is it written that masses must sweat

                    deprivation and misery a constant threat

                    covering the world in measureless wealth

                    so the few can plunder with avid stealth?

In friendship

                    let's clasp each human hand

                    with compassion try to understand

                    our differences, our hopes, our fears

                    dragging mankind from this sea of tears.

Creating

                    a world where justice flowers

                    the many reap the fruits of their toiling hours

                    a world of sharing, tending the others need

                    an end to privilege, plunder and greed. 

ann arky's home.

Dirty Fuckin' Hippies.

     It's an old one, but nice to hear. "Peace man" flower power, oh where have all the flowers gone!!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

       ann arky's home.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Circled A Radio, Arrest And Protest.

    Some interesting and informative information from Circle "A" Radio.

Donnacha talks to two journalists and trade union activists, Ewa Jasiewicz - still
under injunction over her arrest at the No Dash for Gas
(http://www.nodashforgas.org.uk/)  protest at the EDF West Burton power station -
and Jason N. Parkinson - who has just settled his second fight against police
production orders (http://londonphotographers.org/tag/production-order/)  - about
their successful court battles and how they fight continues. 

Listen HERE: 

ann arky's home.

Disintegrating Society.

       This is a chapter taken from The Barbarian Review, a collective writing project done by various foreign people in Athens: a few persons passing through a brief period of time, in a very special city. This is a very interesting collection of writings, well worth a visit.

A Kaleidoscope of Memory-Images

      Not a theoretical directive from a bureau pretending to direct affairs, but rather another voice added to a chorus, another emanation in addition to all the others.

*

We are sitting in the Parko, drinking beer as usual.

– Yeah, I know what you mean, he says – Like starting from here we can change the world.

Exarcheia comes from the heart.

*

Rakomelo in the cafe to celebrate the end of the world in 2012.

– Maybe it really will end, we confide with half-hope to one another, almost coughing over the warmed-up liquor. The barman calls back to us our claim about the end of the world in yet another toast.

– No, no, interrupts an old customer in the back, clacking his worry beads as he slowly rises with effort and shuffles over to pay. – No, it is the end of paradise, he says somewhat cryptically. With good humour, the barman tries to correct him, but he is adamant: it is the end of paradise, not the world. And with that, he somewhat unsteadily goes out the door into the night. Yes, we reflect, he is in the right: the end of the working class paradise, the neoliberal paradise, the middle class social-democrat paradise, the scientific progress paradise, all the variations of the Christian heaven come down to earth. We are here at the vanishing of paradise: the social contract, the welfare state, democracy and all that. A new toast:

– Goodbye paradise, hello disaster! little glasses go up – To the catastrophe!

Yes, let us have a toast to this, our new era of storm clouds!

*

      Merkel comes to visit. Athens is waiting. The sky is gray and apocalyptic: not the apocalypse of imagination, thunder and lightning, but the gray mournful waning of the world in its own banality. There is besieged Syntagma surrounded by its riot police, the shops all shuttered and closed, the walls covered with graffiti, and a hateful, angry feeling in the air. The surveillance camera on its gigantic concrete pole is watching the events with silent malevolence. There is something universally ugly, almost frightfully shabby about the scene: Athens is not a beautiful city any more, the riot police are standing there with tear gas at the ready representing the governmental views and projects, the shoppers have all retreated for a brief time, the leftists are chanting their meaningless slogans while slowly trying to filter away from the fighting, and meantime we are collecting chunks of marble and stones. All together now: the riot police are forced back aways under a hail of projectiles, hoots, and derision. More tear gas is the response. Clashes start to spread around the big mob in the center of the square.

       It was not even such a big riot, so far as Athens is concerned, and yet anywhere else in Europe it would be sensational. Even so, it was special for the vision it distilled: here is the contemporary world, the modern era, that of a barely functioning coalition government determined to end the hedonistic apathy that was its only real support. When materialistic doctrines underlie a society, as they have only just done for the past two centuries in the West, there is no love possible between ruler and ruled, no organic connection in the society. This emptiness was especially evident on that day: this is what is left of all the fantastic promises of the past two centuries- a young mob throwing rocks at the universally despised police forces on streets littered with debris and ever-renewed tear gas, the leftists desperately trying to call an uncaring elite to old promises extorted from them under threat of civil war, and this same elite determined to annihilate its own society to save itself. And above all the vacant surveillance camera watching over the fray, the promise and practice of a new totalitarianism but one that is finding its pretensions and power everywhere falling short of its own mad desires, that finds everywhere only a lack of respect and consideration. Empty streets and running rioters, police hurriedly tramping along, Maalox and stun grenades, leaving behind them deserted, smashed storefronts surrounded by chunks of rubble: Welcome to the 21st century.

ann arky's home.

Corporate Gain From Misery.

       I recently posted an article, "No Human Being is Illegal", highlighting the desperate plight  of immigrants on hunger strike in the Netherlands. What we should remember is that this is not a new phenomena, this harsh treatment is widespread, has been going on for years and is a day and daily occurrence in country after country.  It is also big business, companies like G4S make millions from certain human beings being classified as "illegal" and herding them like cattle, depriving them of any rights. It is a sad indictment of any society that makes corporate bodies rich on the back of people's misery. This world belongs to its people, not the political and corporate institutions that at present control our lives.

       The following extract is from an old article from Tiger Beatdown, sent to me by Loam at Arrezafe. Nothing has changed in the intervening time, except that the likes of G4S have made lots more cash.

       "I am a Non Western, South American immigrant in a society that is increasingly determined to get rid of those like me. Media constantly reminds me that we are practically non human. That our rights should be eroded further in the name of safety. Politicians build careers using the rhetoric of hatred against those like me. I was punched in the face, I was elbowed in the stomach on two different occasions by two White Supremacists who objected to my looks and my speaking another language with a friend. Racial slurs were hurled. And still, I know I don’t have it as bad as others. In the grand scheme of things, I am privileged. I am a documented resident. At least, I am not one of the thousands currently in detention camps awaiting deportation. Then my life would be under the control of a corporation that actually makes a profit out off the lives of those who are dehumanized the most. If I was undocumented, my life would be in the hands of someone like this guy, featured in The New York Times this past week:

      Nick Buckles, the chief executive of G4S, would not discuss the company. But last year he told analysts how its “justice” business in the Netherlands blossomed in one week after the 2002 assassination of a politician with an anti-immigrant and law-and-order agenda.
“There’s nothing like a political crisis to stimulate a bit of change,” Mr. Buckles said.

     That’s what undocumented immigrants are: a bit of political change. Except that the security guards working for the company that Mr. Buckles represents had a big degree of responsibility for the gruesome death of eleven asylum seekers who were awaiting deportation in a detention center at Schiphol Airport in The Netherlands on Thursday, October 27^thof 2005. Apparently, the kind of change Mr. Buckles aims for does not include preserving the wellbeing of people whose only crime was to seek an opportunity to better their lives. When detainees raised the alarm and cried for help, when flames were taking over the detention center, the guards working for Mr. Buckles’ corporation ignored them. They were left to die. Nine men and two women. Their bodies now an “opportunity for corporate growth”.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

Workers Know Your History, Sacco and Vanzetti.

     Workers know your history, it is a mirror of the brutality of the state, an institution that will attempt to crush any resistance to its authority.

        It was on May 12th. 1926, that the Massachusetts Supreme Court, against world opinion, upheld the the guilty verdict on two anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, they were both executed on  August 23rd. 1927.

ann arky's home.

Murder By Legislation.

      The present government in pandering to the dictates of the financial Mafia have introduced numerous savage attacks on the living conditions of the ordinary people. Among some of the most brutal are, the ATOS attack on the disabled, the closing of Remploy factories, workfare slave labour legislation and the bedroom tax. This latter piece of legislation from the warped mind of rich well housed, Iain Duncan Smith, has just claimed its first death. Stephanie Bottrill forced to pay extra council tax because of spare rooms, in a house she had lived in for 18 years, couldn't take any more and threw herself in front of a lorry, she left a letter saying she could no longer afford to live and blamed the government for her death. I can't formulate my thoughts into words that would be adequate for this outrageous crime perpetrated on a 53 year old woman living alone. However, some people can:

ann arky's home.

No Human Being Is Illegal.

    Across the world people are on the move and most are not tourists. As country after country feels the pain of religious faction fighting, in most cases, fueled and instigated by Western military interference, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to mention a few, who can blame people for trying to find a better life for themselves and their families. Then there is the factor of the "developed" states, to aid and abet their corporate masters, waging brutal and devastating wars across the globe, for power, markets and resources. Let's not forget the fact that they also install and prop-up vicious regimes that will play ball with those corporate masters. 

     All this forces ordinary people to flee their own country for refuge elsewhere. People as a whole don't want to just uproot and move across the world, like you and I, where we live has all kinds of ties and associations, culturally and family. It is desperation that drives immigration, Though the corporate West is responsible for vast swathes of this suffering that drives the immigration, we don't treat those immigrants with any degree of care or compassion. As a rule, states mark out immigrants as scroungers, criminals and nerd-do-wells, then herd them into refugee camps and heap more misery on already miserable lives. Immigrants are human beings just like you and I, they care for their families, they fall in love, they grow old, they just want a decent life, but at this juncture in their lives, they desperately need help. No human being is illegal, this world belongs to the people.

This article from Indymedia:

-->

Hunger and thirst strikes in the Netherlands
 2013-05-10 01:15
CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH HUNGER AND THIRST STRIKERS IN DETENTION CENTERS IN
THE NETHERLANDS public indictment against the system of repression we call Fortress Europe.
     About 60 asylum seekers in detention center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, have been in hunger strike for four days now. 18 of them also stopped drinking since Wednesday 6th of May. They are protesting against the asylum policy that criminalizes refugees: they get thrown out on the streets without money or shelter and they get detained in prisons for up to 18 months. The refugees on hunger strike demand not to be treated as criminals anymore. They clearly stated they want freedom and protection. 

     Wave of hunger strike Wednesday May 1st, twenty refugees in detention center Schiphol went on hunger strike. While the guards brutally broke down the strike in Schiphol, by putting the hunger strikers in isolation cells, about 80 refugees in detention center Rotterdam started a hunger strike on Monday 6th of May. One day later, fifty women in detention center Brugge (Belgium) also went on hunger strike. A thirst strike is even more dangerous than a hunger strike: the latter can last for 40 days before people get in a critical situation, whereas a person who does not drink will be dead after one week. Government arrogance The Dutch government has shown an unbelievable arrogance in this matter. At first, they did not respond to the demands of the refugees at all. One parliament member of the ruling party People's Party of the Freedom and Democracy (VVD) even went as far as to say the refugees “were taking the government hostage” by going on hunger strike. 

     Then, as late as Thursday 9th May, they “provided” a worthless “offer”. In return for the end of the hunger strike, the government “offered” to shorten the usual 17 hours a day detainees are locked inside their cell with a few hours. The hunger and thirst strikers of course rejected this ridiculous proposal and they will continue with their protest. But things are getting very serious right now. As of Friday the third day without water begins for the refugees who have no other means of getting their voice out than to go on a hunger or thirst strike. Refugees searching for a better life get thrown into a Kafkaesk bureaucracy of having to provide proof that doesn't exist in order to get their permit to stay. Once rejected, undocumented refugees get thrown out on the streets and get denied basic human rights, such as food, shelter, work and health care. Racist police hunt them down and jail them. In detention, refugees are stripped from their dignity, their autonomy, their lives and their future. Once deported, no one ever hears from them again. Right now, refugees in detention center Rotterdam are directly and unmistakeably demanding their rights and their freedom. The government will have to respond very quickly and adequately, if they don't want to be held responsible for dozens of deaths.
      Call for solidarity We are strongly calling for solidarity from our friends throughout Europe. Solidarity with the hunger and thirst strikers in special; and with refugees in general. The state is aimed at excluding everyone who is not directly exploitable by capital. Make it known how this insane migration policy of repression destroys the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Show your solidarity by spreading this message. Print this letter and glue it everywhere, preferably to walls that symbolize exclusion by Fortress Europe: parliament
buildings, embassies, deportation offices, immigration offices, etc. etc. Letter removed? Glue it again. Everywhere.
TOGETHER WE CAN FIGHT FORTRESS EUROPE!

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/05/509312.html

ann arky's home.

The Cost Of An Uncivilised Society.

      As George Gideon Oliver Osborne, the George was added by himself at the age of 13, continues his slashing at social spending and spouting about financial prudence, it seems these prudence factors only apply to us lesser mortals. When it comes to war, it is acceptable just to throw money away. As the British troops prepare to pull out of Afghanistan, it would appear that the MOD has some 11,000 20ft containers jam-packed with equipment, including vehicles, lying around Afghanistan, but intends to bring back just over half of them. The rest will just simple be abandoned, who knows how many millions/billions of your tax money will end up being shuffled between local Afghanistan wheelers and dealers in black market equipment.

     Then again in another sign of financial prudence, a communications system developed for use in Afghanistan has been delayed to such an extent, that it won't be ready until after British troops are set to withdraw from the country in 2014. Let's not forget that other macho toy of the state, the F-35 jet fighter, estimated cost around the £250 billion, estimated running costs over 30 years will be in the region of £625 billion. Assuming they don't crash or get blown out of the sky, that would of course increase the cost considerably as I assume they would be replaced.

     Meanwhile the Gideon gang are closing day centres, cutting disability allowance, slapping a bedroom tax on the ordinary people and forcing people to work without wages, for multinationals. All because, they claim, we can't afford all the decencies of a civilised society. We can certainly afford all the obscenities of an uncivilised society. One super-duper 1,300mph jet fighter, £61.1 million, would translate into how much affordable social housing? One rather noisy destruction emitting tank, £4.1 million, how many existing homes could be properly insulated? Of course we should remember that the UK is now a drone nation, one drone, £2.9 million, how many free school meals? One thing we should always remember, war kills ordinary people but corporations get richer.

     We would do well to remember George Orwell's 1984, in which the government impoverishes the people with its endless military campaigns against those faceless enemies. 

ann arky's home.

 

Solidarity, Our Strongest Weapon.

      Another link in that chain of solidarity, ann arky has linked to Loam at Arrezafe

       In solidarity we can change our world and turn it away from this needless sea of tears.

A NEEDLESS SEA OF TEARS.

Though we live in a world of callous commerce

and know justice

is an altar where the caring are sacrificed,

see freedom as a river that runs parched

in the fierce desert of poverty,

our thoughts cannot be chained

our dreams will not be caged.

 We will think beyond the profit race

dream beyond the market place

in friendship clasp each human hand

with compassion try to understand

our differences, our hopes, our fears,

dragging this world from its needless sea of tears.

ann arky's home.

Religion, A Vicious Master.

      Islam, like all religions, is an institution of repression and will go to any extremes to to denigrate all those who don't conform to their narrow strict dictates. In Burma those nice Buddhists are burning and pillaging the Muslims, in vast swaths of the Middle East the various factions of Islam are slaughtering each other. We all know what the Zionists are doing to the Arabs around Israel, and let's not forget what the Catholics and Orthodox Christians did to the Muslims as Yugoslavia disintegrated, all in the name of their faith. They all spout peace and love, but practice bitter rivalry that doesn't draw the line at murder, rape, mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing. Religion has been and still is, a major player in the endless slaughter that plagues this planet. Any good claimed by religion can be done by normal human beings without the aid of their many brutal and duplicitous gods, and all the harm and horror done by human beings in the name of their many brutal and duplicitous gods, has to be laid at the feet of those religious institutions, even although they are carried out by confused and deranged human beings.

Photo from arrezafe

Some very brave young women:--

ann arky's home.

The Mask Is Slipping.

      The following is an extract taken from a post on the Anarchist Federation Scotland site. I believe it is well worth being read as widely as possible and repeated in as many places as possible. It allows us to see the real face behind the mask of the so called "democratic" state. Here in the UK the mask hasn't quite slipped, but we have had glimpses of that vile face of greed and repression that lurks just out of sight, and should be aware that the mask will come off and we will have, what I refer to as "bare-knuckle" capitalism, similar to what the people of Greece are experiencing at present. A dying beast can be a dangerous beast.

     ------The financial surplus that would buy off the people, then, no longer existed and the state was failing to maintain control through propaganda.  So instead its mask slipped and it began using all of its violent repression methods against all rebellious social spaces. It was more than obvious that from this stage on any form of resistance would be made illegal and repressed.  The main receiver of the state’s violent repression was of course the anarchist movement, as an example of what would happen to anyone that was willing to question the established oppressive system. The incidents of the massive state repression against the anarchist movement in Greece are innumerable.

Current developments
    The social war in Greece is now at its peak and the once ‘democratic’ state has stopped pretending and been transformed into a totalitarian regime that has as its only purpose to establish the regime necessary in neoliberal conditions for the local and foreign capitalist to exploit in the maximum possible level the social wealth and the people of Greece. A full analysis of the repressive violent attacks of the state to the movement would probably need a lot of pages starting from the new established legislation that label terrorist any form of political action that the authoritarians don’t like – even a political document that questions the capitalist structures can with the new legislation be considered as act of terrorism - to the countless attacks on squats and protests that have led to the imprisonment of hundreds comrades. Such an organised and massive attack towards a social movement hasn’t been seen before in a ‘democratic’ state, let us mention that only in the last few months the state has attacked more than ten anarchist squats and dozens of comrades have been imprisoned.------

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

IWW Appeal.

An appeal from IWW:

SUPPORT YOUR BUS DRIVERS!

END METROLINE RACE TO THE BOTTOM:

REINSTATE OSCAR ALVAREZ

      Oscar Alvarez has been a London bus driver for 8 1/2 years. He reached the 10th position nationwide in Blackpool Best Bus Driver of the Year 2007 competition which to date is still unbeaten by any Metroline driver.

      Now he has been unfairly sacked following a disagreement with a car driver who cut up his bus endangering herself and others. Oscar was simply defending the safety of his passengers and other road users.

      Oscar is also a union activist defending his colleagues from a race-to-the-bottom attack on their terms and conditions - coincidence? Gerry Downing, another union activist, was recently sacked for similar reasons but has now won his job back. Other drivers in similar incidents have not been sacked.

TAKE ACTION: SEE OUR 3 EASY WAYS TO HELP

PLEASE HELP OSCAR

1. JOIN OUR EMAIL CAMPAIGN

Copy the model letter below and email it to Metroline:

• Sean O’Shea (Chief Operating Officer) soshea@metroline.co.uk
• Jaspal Singh (Chief Executive) jsingh@metroline.co.uk
• Nina Johnson (Senior HR Advisor) njohnson@metroline.co.uk
• Metroline Head Office info@metroline.co.uk

MODEL LETTER:

Dear Mr. Sean O’Shea,

Re: Compassionate appeal – Mr Oscar Alvarez

      I am writing to you as a member of the public and Metroline bus passenger to express my deep concern about the dismissal of Mr Oscar Alvarez, ex Metroline driver from the West Perivale Garage. Rather than gross misconduct it seems to me that Mr Alvarez actions should be construed as an attempt to correct the driving behaviour of another driver who had not only endangered her own safety, but also that of her baby and other road users. My understanding is that Mr Alvarez is an excellent driver; indeed has won a national award for good driving on behalf of Metroline. It is my firm belief that his action does not amount to gross misconduct and so I am requesting that you accept his appeal for reinstatement.

Yours sincerely

[Your name]

[ PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR E-MAIL TO london@iww.org.uk ]

2. PHONE METROLINE

Urge them to reinstate Oscar. Please focus on Oscar’s great record as an outstanding driver and on the very weak merits of his case.

• Directors Office: 020 8218 8844 Comments: 0845 300 7000
  
  
  3.   SPREAD THE WORD & BUILD THE CAMPAIGN

• You can do this by
• Leafleting Metroline: Session dates and times will be posted at http://tiny.cc/REINSTATEOSCARNOW
• Keeping up to date via our website https://www.iww.org.uk/ and FB page http://www.facebook.com/london.iww
• Sharing this by e-mail with your contacts

• Thanks…

  An injury to one is an injury to all!  

  
  

  
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