It Is Still A Bitter Damaging Love.

      After putting up my recent post on religion, "A Bitter Damaging Love." I received this comment on Facebook.

Hi,    Loathe to go over the same old ground John but I find this kind of post at best very unhelpful and at worst extremely hurtful. I don't deny that for many people religion is a very bad experience but for many it is a positive thing. I'm not expecting you to agree. I just find it difficult to ignore this kind of post when it goes so much against my own experiences x

My response is as follows: 

Hi,

     nobody can deny the personal experience that you get from religion and nobody can deny you your opinion, likewise me. My opinion is based on historical evidence that stretches back through the centuries and across the planet. Through the ages religion has a track record of persecuting those who dare to be different, even today religion is fighting a rearguard battle against gays, lesbians, birth control, and abortion, we have the “morality police” in Iran arresting and beating those whose dress code and behaviour doesn't fit their norm, and in that land of the free America, some family planning clinics have to have armed guards to protect their clients from violence and abuse from the faithful.

     As you run your finger across a map of the world lingering at points of extreme violence, you invariably find there is a religious split and no religion is exempt from the bloodshed. Even those nice, respect for all life, Buddhists, at this moment in time are marauding through Burma killing Muslims and burning their property. Not so long ago in the Balkans, the Catholic Croatians brutally “cleansed” their new country of Muslims and the Orthodox Christians did likewise in Serbia and so it goes on. All of them quite prepared to kill in the name of their peace loving god.

     Let's not forget what the Jews are doing today, to the Muslim Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank.

      The scandals of physical and sexual abuse of children in the care of the Catholic Church, is not an new phenomenon it has been part and parcel of that institution for as far back as you wish to go. According to Sarah Ruden in her book, Paul Among the People: in the first chapter of Paul's Letter to the Romans, the Apostle severely criticized pedophiles as well as homosexuals for their unnatural, cruel, and rebellious acts against God and humanity. The date and name slip my mind at the moment but I believe it was in the 17 century the Pope of that day called for all those priests who sexually abuse young children, to be driven from the Church. In 1871, in Australia, a young nun, Mary Mackillop, witnessed a pedophile priest molesting a boy. When she reported it to the Catholic hierarchy, they threw her out of the convent and excommunicated her.

     All the good deeds that are done on this planet can be done by ordinary people without the need of all powerful Gods, who invariably cause divisions. Hierarchy and tradition stifle freedom of thought and action. Over the years I have written quite a few articles on on religion, all of them critical, and at the age of 79 I have in no way changed my opinion, I still see religion as one of the main causes of division and violence on this planet. Yes there are other institutions that have savaged humanity, that in no way mitigates the damage done by religion, it merely lumps them together.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Just Magic.

Saw this on arrezafe and loved it;

Published on May 8, 2013

Youn Sun Nah - Momento Magico
Youn Sun Nah Quartet 2013
Youn Sun Nah / Vocals
Ulf Wakenius / Guitar

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Death By A Thousand Paper Cuts.

      First saw this on Anarchist News, using the system against the system, seems to be a growing tactic in America.

From The New York Times:

        One of the first inklings Sheriff Richard Stanek had that something was wrong came with a call from the mortgage company handling his refinancing.
“It must be a mistake,” he said, when the loan officer told him that someone had placed liens totaling more than $25 million on his house and on other properties he owned.
But as Sheriff Stanek soon learned, the liens, legal claims on property to secure the payment of a debt, were just the earliest salvos in a war of paper, waged by a couple who had lost their home to foreclosure in 2009 — a tactic that, with the spread of an anti-government ideology known as the “sovereign citizen” movement, is being employed more frequently as a way to retaliate against perceived injustices.
Over the next three years, the couple, Thomas and Lisa Eilertson, filed more than $250 billion in liens, demands for compensatory damages and other claims against more than a dozen people, including the sheriff, county attorneys, the Hennepin County registrar of titles and other court officials.
“It affects your credit rating, it affected my wife, it affected my children,” Sheriff Stanek said of the liens. “We spent countless hours trying to undo it.”
Cases involving sovereign citizens are surfacing increasingly here in Minnesota and in other states, posing a challenge to law enforcement officers and court officials, who often become aware of the movement — a loose network of groups and individuals who do not recognize the authority of federal, state or municipal government — only when they become targets. Although the filing of liens for outrageous sums or other seemingly frivolous claims might appear laughable, dealing with them can be nightmarish, so much so that the F.B.I. has labeled the strategy “paper terrorism.” A lien can be filed by anyone under the Uniform Commercial Code.

Read the full article HERE:

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A Bitter Damaging Love!!

         Comedian Dave Allen remembers his introduction to religion - his first day of school! We can laugh, but to those involved I would  say it was anything but funny. To many it meant a lifetime of damage and a world of hate.

-->

A to Z of Religions

Acclaim Arrogant Absolutes.

Bellow Bygone Beliefs.

Casuist Cackling Cabal.

Deadly Divine Dogma.

Embellish Earlier Errors.

Form Fearful Fundamentalists.

Gaily Gabble Gehenna.

Hype Holy Hate.

Ignorantly Idolise Illusion.

Justify Judgmental Jargon.

Knowingly Kindle Kulturkampf.

Lambaste Liberal Learning.

Machiavellian Mind Moulding.

Narrate Nescient Nostrum.

Obligatory Obnoxious Obfuscation.

Peremptory Pestiferous Panjandrum.

Quickly Quell Querists.

Redundant Reactionary Rants.

Suppress Scholastic Scepticism.

Totally Trammel Tolerance.

Ululate Useless Utterances.

Vaticinate Vicious Vengeance.

Wailing Wearisome Waffle.

Extol Excessive Exaltation.

Y? Y? Y?

Zany Zealous Zealots.

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The World's Largest Open-Air Prison.

         With a population of almost 1.7million people crammed into a tiny space, Gaza is becoming overcrowded and unsustainable. It's port and land-borders have been blockaded for years, disrupting essential supplies for the population and it's farmland is routinely damaged by Israeli military incursions.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Land Of The Free.

How democratic America deals with autonomous spaces.

 

 August 22nd, 2013— The StayAway squat in Oakland was evicted by a paramilitary camo-clad SWAT team with assault rifles. A long-time rent paying resident was also evicted and left homeless, all for the profit of REO Homes.

       At around 10am, four heavily armored black SWAT trucks turned heads as they rolled down Vallecito Place in Highland. Deterred by the barricades that had been built in front of the StayAway over the previous month of eviction defense, the camo-clad SWAT team packing AR-15s went up 28th street and entered an adjoining property. This maneuver appears to have been pre-planned, as the neighbor said that while the Sheriff did not gain her consent to pass through her yard, she was addressed by name upon stepping outside. Entering through the backyard with no warning, StayAway residents confronted by this paramilitary squad were forced at gunpoint to abandon their possessions and leave their home with nothing but the clothes on their bodies. Two comrades were arrested and at the time of this writing their charges are unknown, although we know they were taken to Santa Rita County Jail. Those who witnessed the arrests say that one of the arrested comrades was beaten by officers. Those unfortunate enough to be barefoot at the time were not even permitted to get their shoes, and no one was able to get food for the three dogs who had not yet eaten. The entire block was closed to all traffic for over two hours. The StayAway collective and supporters rallied to challenge the fascist sheriff department, confront the owner, and demand a return of stolen possessions.

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Care Of Those With Disabilities, Or A Bus Park?

       The Accord Centre in the East End of Glasgow was a day centre for people with severe learning difficulties and their carers, it satisfied a need in the area. Recently it was demolished to make way for a bus park to serve the Commonwealth Games. Their was a promise of an alternative centre, but to date--NOTHING.

     Those involved in the Accord Centre have written an open letter to Alex Salmond.

 

Dear Mr. Salmond,
       We are writing this open public letter to you because a solution has still not been found to what you have described, in a letter to City Council leader Gordon Matheson, as our “legitimate concerns” over the closure of The Accord day centre in Dalmarnock for people with severe learning disabilities. In the letter, you said you were “very concerned” about the closure of the centre, stressing that “no group should feel dispossessed” as a result of the Commonwealth Games. Previously, when you visited the users and carers at the Accord centre in May 2011, you emphasised the fact that the Scottish Government – “all of us […] every taxpayer in Scotland” – is paying 80% of the costs of the Games and you therefore have a “locus” on the issue. You also said that people in Scotland should have a “good feeling” about the Games. We assure you that we do not have a ‘good feeling’ about the Games at present.

Read the full letter HERE: 

There is also an open letter to Gordon matheson

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Money Isn't Real.

      One of the best explanations of the capitalist economic system I have ever heard. Full explanations of how the system works, some very interesting figures, done with humour, but accurate. Well worth the listen, The BBC, Where Did All The Money Go??

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

He looks Like A Real Threat!!

Well what do you make of this? A 7 year old threat that must be retrained?

POLICE : Put your hands behind your back, Kevin, you're under arrest.

Put your hands behind your back.

I'm taking you to jail. Ok?

First, ok, listen to ...

Ah, ah, ah ... no tears.

You have the right to remain silent. 

Anything you say may be used against you in court.

You have the right to counsel during interrogation be, 

if you can not repay you the court will assign a public defender.

Do you understand? Say yes or no.

CHILD : ... yes ....

POLICE : I understand. Right.

Now I sit in the back seat and if you keep crying and you misbehave ...

From arrezafe. Translated from English to Spanish, to English.

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Anti-ATOS, Glasgow Picket, Wrong Date.

         I appears that I have made a bit of a blunder, I advertised the Glasgow Against ATOS monthly picket as being on Friday, 23 August, when in actual fact it is, as always, the last Friday of the month, which would make it Friday, August 30, 12:30 to 14:30.  Cadogan Street Glasgow. To those who may have turned up on Friday 23, and I know there was at least one, (sorry Stevie), I can only say I am very sorry for my misinformation and any inconvenience that it may have caused. I have now corrected the original post. Again sorry for the mistake.

       However it gives you another week to get organised, make placards, get in touch with Glasgow Against ATOS, and make this a massive protest against the killers ATOS.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Solidarity Against The SDL.

A shortened version of the "thank you" from Edinburgh UAF:

 

Hello friends

      Well done lovely people of Edinburgh and beyond, you did an amazing job! Over 800 anti-fascists from across Scotland joined a UAF march to oppose 80 members of the racist Scottish Defence League in Edinburgh on Saturday 17th August. The racist SDL march was supposed to be their big event in Scotland, a two finger insult to the largest and most diverse multi-cultural festival in Scotland. However, on the day the racist SDL had to bus in their pals from the Sunderland Div of the EDL and the North West Infidels to make up the numbers. As the racist SDL trailed past City of Edinburgh Council offices, supporters openly gave Nazi salutes-please see photos on our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/EdinburghUAF/photos_stream
      Green Councillor Maggie Chapman commented ‘Edinburgh is a wonderful, welcoming and diverse city. I’m glad we were there to stand up against the hatred and bigotry of those claiming to speak for Scotland. I think it speaks clearly that their demo was fronted by the EDL Sunderland Division. Clearly the SDL does not have the support in Scotland that it would believe it has.’
     Thanks to all who came and helped build the demo on the day, thanks to the Festival visitors and performers who joined us on the march. A truly international crowd joined our march as it passed down to the Scottish Parliament to stand united against the racist SDL and EDL.
     Trade unions including EIS, UCU, PCS, UNISON, RMT and Unite the Union encouraged union reps and members to mobilise their union branches, their workmates and community campaigns to attend the march.
     Larry Flanagan, Gen Sec of Scotland’s largest teaching union, EIS had encouraged union members to attend the march, ‘EIS resolutely opposes racism in all its forms. As a profession, teachers engage with young minds to develop a shared commitment to values such as fairness and equality, self-respect and respect for others. Racist ideologies such as those pedalled by the SDL and EDL are an assault on those values and need to be challenged through events such as the counter demonstration planned for this Saturday.’
     Edinburgh College Students Association and other Student Associations supported the march too. UAF speakers emphasised the need to mobilize large numbers of people from our trade unions, community and faith organisations to oppose racist and fascist groups whenever they try to take to the streets. We showed the racist SDL that we are the many and they the few. We showed that they are not welcome on our streets, our city or our Festival!
You Tube video of the UAF march can be viewed on the following link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GyzaNRWwQtE
Detailed coverage of the UAF Edinburgh march can be found on Facebook: Edinburgh Against The Racist SDL.
     SDL intend to demonstrate in Dundee The racist SDL have said their next demonstration will be in Dundee in late September, early October. When we get further information we will let you know. Let’s make sure we give them the same unwelcoming reception when they
come to Dundee.
Thanks
UAF Edinburgh
Facebook: EdinburghUAF
Email: uafedinburgh@riseup.net
Twitter: @UAFScot

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Glasgow's Monthly Anti-ATOS Picket.

An appeal from Glasgow Against ATOS:  (Corrected date)

      Please come and join us at our monthly picket of the ATOS testing centre at Cadogan Street Friday, August 30, 12:30 to 14:30, and support our fight against the cuts to the sick and disabled, we want the so called Health Care Professionals to  know we wont be going away until ATOS is removed from its role as DWP medical assessors.

    This IT company has found thousands of people fit for work who have subsequently died within weeks of assessment, plunged thousands of sick and disabled people into poverty, everyone knows a friend or has family member who has a debilitating illlness or disability that leaves them unable to work, ATOS KILLS ! KILL ATOS !

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

When In Edinburgh ----.

BENEFIT GIG FOR ACE AND ECAP THIS FRIDAY

    Whatever you're planning on doing this Friday (23rd) you should cancel and come to this fundraising event for Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty and The Autonomous Centre Of Edinburgh...

Featuring some of the best bands Edinburgh has to offer...

-The z28

-Northern Upland Sheep Strategy (Rodney Relax)

-White Lightnin'

-Babylon Dub Punks

-Dapitz Punks.

-Little Love and The Friendly Vibes

-Shock And Awe

£3 entry. Cheap drinks all night - £2.55 for pint of lager or 80 shilling!

Friday 23rd August.

Doors open at 7PM.

Strictly no entry after 10:30PM due to licensing regulations.

Leith Dockers Club

17-17a Academy Street

Edinburgh

EH6 7EE

     All money raised goes to Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty and The

Autonomous Centre Of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) consists of volunteers from the local community who give advice and solidarity for benefit hassles,

debt woes, and similar poverty problems.

     The Autonomous Centre Of Edinburgh (ACE) is a self-managed social resource centre which is open for groups or individuals to use who are trying to make a better society and improve their lives.

http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/

http://autonomous.org.uk/

ECAP gig August 2013 SMALL

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Lose Your Home, Lose Your Freedom.

      As times get tougher and homelessness increases, the various parts of the state apparatus will do all sorts of things to sweep the homeless under the carpet. There is always an attempt to keep the centre of the city nice and clean to allow business people a pleasant environment to keep the rivers of capitalism flowing.    

      Some years ago in the city of Brazil, because of the poverty, gangs of children lived on the city streets. In an attempt to rid the city of these poverty stricken kids, gangs of vigilantes would kill them during the night. It was stated in various articles that the police were involved in the "cleaning" process, being paid by private companies to do the "cleaning" during their off duty time.

        However in South Carolina they are not quite that brutal, but they are still cleaning the streets of the city by exiling the homeless to a camp, (prison) outside the city.

      "-----In order to accommodate all the homeless people who will now be banned from downtown, the city will partner with a local charity to keep an emergency shelter on the outskirts of town open 24 hours a day. However, it’s unlikely the shelter, which can handle 240 guests, will be enough to handle the local homeless population, which numbers more than six times the available beds.
Homeless people can stay at the shelter, but they’re not permitted to walk off the premises. In fact, Columbia will even post a police officer on the road leading to the shelter to ensure that homeless people don’t walk towards downtown. If they want to leave, they need to set up an appointment and be shuttled by a van.
In other words, the 1,518 homeless people in the Columbia-area now have a choice: get arrested downtown or be confined to a far-away shelter that you can’t readily leave. Jail or pseudo-jail.-----"

Read the full article HERE:

A Nicer City.

They're cleaning the streets of Brazil

the tools,    a knife or a gun,

the contracts out to private tender,

law and order pay for the work to be done.

Well dressed smiling Western gnomes

make the rules so they grow fat,

poverty drives the children from their homes

in the city, seek safety in packs.

Brazil pays homage to Western banks

its industrial might expands

children swell the homeless ranks

their blood on Western hands.

They're cleaning the streets of Brazil

the tools,     a knife or a gun,

the contracts out to private tender,

law and order pay for the work to be done.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Digging The Seam.

      Over on "A World To Win" there's a very interesting article on the effect the 1984/45 miners' strike had on our culture. It is a review of the book, "Digging the Seam". I also found the photos fascinating.

Women on picket outside Yorkshire Main colliery during the strike 

I can’t understand what has happened to Kim
There’s been such a terrible change
When I think of how that girl acted before
I can’t understand such a change

A beautiful hand with the pastry she had
Her sponge cakes were lovely and light
But, now it’s all muesli, and yoghurt, and nuts
While she’s out at meetings at night

We could have gone on, for the rest of our lives
Never knowing, just what she was like
And she’d have been trapped in our image of her
If it hadn’t have been for the strike.

 A woman attacks a suspected strike-breaker in Rossington.

In her haste for justice, she seems to have lost a shoe.

So ah’ll wait for me dream ‘ome till later,
Give ‘im all the support that ah can,
‘Cause when this lot’s ower, ah’m glad ah can say
Well, leastways ah married a man.  

 

Two young miners shackled to a lamp-post by police
after taking part in a mass picket in Nottinghamshire

      The full story of the state's brutality and duplicity in the 1984/45 miners strike has still to be told. There are lessons there for us all, on what is going on today and how best to resist.  

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

 

Punk Fiddle,

     Should be an interesting night, Wedneday, August 21, 6:30, at the Scotia, Stockwell Street, Glasgow. Local bard and literary thingy Jim Ferguson, will be there to launch his new book, Punk Fiddle. Must be worth a visit.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Workers Know Your History - 1912.

      Think of it, 1912, women and children had their working hours cut from 56 to 54, but with a pay cut?? It's not that long ago, and the powers that be in the corporate financial Mafia are doing their best to turn the clock back. The system stinks it always has and always will.

This from Anarchist News:

29th Annual Bread and Roses Festival!

Mon, 08/19/2013 - 17:42 -- Anonymous (not verified)

        In 1912, a new state law went into effect reducing the work week of women and children from 56 to 54 hours. But because so many women and children worked in the mills, men’s hours were also reduced. When the first paychecks of the year revealed a cut in pay, thousands of workers, already barely surviving on an average pay of $8.76 a week, walked out of the mills, and the Great Strike had begun.

       The strike united workers from 51 different nationalities. Carried on throughout a brutally cold winter, the strike lasted more than two months, defying the assumptions of conservative trade unions within the American Federation of Labor that immigrant, largely female and ethnically divided workers could not be organized. In late January, when a bystander was killed during a protest, I.W.W. organizers Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti were arrested on charges of being accessories to the murder. I.W.W. leaders Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn came to Lawrence to run the strike. Together they masterminded its signature move, sending hundreds of the strikers’ hungry children to sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont. The move drew widespread sympathy, especially after police stopped a further exodus, leading to violence at the Lawrence train station.The IWW raised funds on a nation-wide basis to provide weekly benefits for strikers and dramatized the strikers’ needs by arranging for several hundred children to go to supporters’ homes in New York City for the duration of the strike. The union established an efficient system of relief committees, soup kitchens, and food distribution stations, while volunteer doctors provided medical care.

     Congressional hearings followed, resulting in exposure of shocking conditions in the Lawrence mills and calls for investigation of the “wool trust.” Mill owners soon decided to settle the strike, giving workers in Lawrence and throughout New England raises of up to 20 percent.

         The Boston Industrial Workers of the world see this event as a critical part of our history and fully support The Bread & Roses Heritage Committee. we call to all workers to come out on labor day SEPTEMBER 2, 2013 to recognize, commemorate, inform, and share the labor history and social justice legacy of Lawrence’s 1912 Bread & Roses strike.

an injury to one is an injury to all!

http://www.breadandrosesheritage.org/

http://iwwboston.org/

Some of Glasgow's working class history HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Only Doing My Job.

       Oh Greece, how you used to make me laugh and chat, I loved your warm friendly people, now you make me weep, and I admire your compassionate, brave people.

This from ContrInfo:

    In the night of August 13th, a ticker inspector inside a moving trolley bus pressured a 19-year-old to hand over his identity card and pay a fine for not having a ticket, threatening to take him to the nearest police station should he not comply with his authority. After some moments, the bus driver intervened in the argument in favor of the inspector. The passenger resisted the bullying, and there was a scuffle. Then suddenly, the bus door was opened and the young man either jumped off, or (more likely) was shoved out of the vehicle. He was fatally injured from the fall on a sidewalk. Despite the teen’s body lying on the ground covered in blood, the ticket collector went on threatening other passengers who were furious at what just happened, and he even demanded a woman be arrested by the cops.

What happened later:



     After the burial ceremony, the gathered crowd returned to the place of the fatal incident. When the demonstration arrived in Dimarchiou Square, large numbers of protesters remained there. Approximately 200 people (most of them school students) continued to march toward the Aghios Antonios metro station, expressing their anger with direct actions, erecting barricades and setting dumpsters on fire.
     Soon thereafter, people were chased by MAT anti-riot squads and DELTA motorcycle units through Panagi Tsaldari Street, Ethnikis Antistaseos pedestrian road, and the surrounding alleys up to Thivon Avenue.
There followed an orgy of state repression, with anti-riot cops beating------

Read the full report HERE:

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Class War.

       This bulletin is simultaneously published in three languages: Czech, English and French, not because we have efficient translators but for the sake of internationalism on one hand, and because it is the result of a common activity of comrades speaking different languages on the other hand.

You can download, read and enjoy the PDF by clicking on the following link:

http://www.autistici.org/tridnivalka/wp-content/uploads/class_war_01-2013-en.pdf

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Fracking And Tarsands What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

       A little info on tarsands, it is probably much worse than fracking, doesn't the future look--- well black.

Sorry they keep removing the video, I guess they want me to pay for it, but you can see it here at Polizeros.

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