Just Text Death.

        It says a lot about our present economic system when you look around the world and find that countries with the richest natural resources have some of the poorest people on our earth. The Middle East is a wash with oil, which transfers into unbelievable wealth, but you can't say its people are all very rich. This pattern is repeated across the planet, another example is the Democratic Republic of Congo. A vast country, the second largest in Africa, the 11th largest in the world. As well as having coal, oil and diamonds, it is also the richest source of cobalt in the world. That rather dull looking material produces unimaginable wealth for the corporate world, but little for the people of the that country. In fact it is the opposite, this immeasurable wealth is probably the main cause of the suffering of the people.
       Because of the economic system that prevails today, blood will be shed to get control of that wealth. Sadly that blood is shed for the end product of things like mobile phones and laptops, and these are products that the vast majority of the people who produce that raw material will never see. 

        If it was just dreadful working conditions and poor pay, that would be bad enough, but we are talking about millions dying and millions more suffering unimaginable violence. Since its bitter struggle to be free from the Western colonialists, the country has been blighted by violence, and at the root of that, is the fact that it is very rich in raw materials like cobalt. 

      The Second Congo War, sometimes referred to as the “African World War”, as it involved around twenty armed groups and nine other African countries started in 1998. No doubt all eager to get a slice of that wealth. Although “Peace Accords” were signed in 2003, fighting continued in the east of the country through 2007. In this region the prevalence of all manner of sexual violence and rape is often described as the worst in the world. Since 1998 this conflict has claimed the lives of more than 5.4 million people. Though this was a brutal conflict, more than 90% were not killed in combat, they died from such things as malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malnutrition, brought about by the usual companions of war, displaced populations ending up living in unsanitary, over crowed conditions, combined with lack of shelter, clean water, food and medical care. What is even more tragic, 47% of those deaths were children under five.
     The country also has great agricultural potential but this is being stifled by this conflict, which still continues. It is the struggle to control those vast mineral resources that drives this most brutal and savage conflict. Is your mobile phone worth it?

      

       Surely we have the imagination and the ability to device a economic system whereby natural resources do not equate with misery, poverty, deprivation and bloodshed for the many, and unbelievable opulence for the few.

The Hell Holes Of Greece.

       The latest on the nation wide prison hunger strike in Greece, this from Contra Info:

Counter-info gathering in Larissa, Greece (June 25th, 2014); the top banner reads: “Maximum security prisons, concentration camps…
Crush the new totalitarianism. Fire to the hellholes”;
the other banner reads: “Invisible and visible prison bars…
The prison society smiles at you. -Anarchists’ Assembly of Larissa”

      Draft bill on new Type-C maximum security prisons will be put to a vote within a week. The Greek parliament is in summer recess; the recess section (consisting of one third of the total number of MPs) is scheduled to vote the bill on Thursday the 3rd of July 2014.

Below are the hunger strikers (per prison) who continue to participate in the nationwide mobilization against the operation of a Greek Guantanamo in Domokos prison:

Koridallos (Athens): 1,480 prisoners

Patras: 550 prisoners

Grevena: 400 prisoners

Larissa: 330 prisoners

Domokos: 300 prisoners

Chania (Crete): 280 prisoners

Nigrita (Serres): 200 prisoners

Amfissa: 200 prisoners

Corfu: 120 prisoners

Trikala: 120 prisoners

Malandrino: 120 prisoners

Avlonas: 100 juvenile prisoners

Kos: 60

Corinth: 50

Nafplion: 50 prisoners

In Alikarnassos (Crete), all inmates abstain from prison food.

     Also, on June 26th, another court session at Koridallos was interrupted, because all of the CCF imprisoned members on trial are currently on hunger strike against the fascist bill of the ministry of Justice.

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

Part Of The Blood Stained Western Agenda.

     Listening to and reading, that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, on the matter of Iraq and Syria, I just get confused. None of what they spew out seems to make any sense, and I don't believe that the Western imperialists are sitting back and tut-tutting at what is going on and waiting for the powers that be in that part of the world, to sort it out. I have do doubt that the Western imperialists are the real makers and shakers in that part of the world. I sincerely believe that the slaughter and misery that is being heaped on the people of that part of the world is fulfilling a Western agenda. Our Western lords and master are quite prepared to see, and encourage, countries to descend into civil war, bloodshed and misery, if it suits their aims, in their grand scheme of things, people are of no consequence. It has always been such, today in the Middle East, it is no different.

How Western imposed democracy looks.

 

      I found this article on ISIS and Iraq, by Counter Punch, enlightening and it did clear some of the fog that surrounds this whole Western created disaster.

       What’s important as far as Obama is concerned, is that the strategic objectives of Isis and those of the United States coincide. Both entities seek greater political representation for Sunnis, both want to minimize Iranian influence in Iraq, and both support a soft partition plan that former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie H. Gelb, called “The only viable strategy to correct (Iraq ‘s) historical defect and move in stages toward a three-state solution: Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south.” This is why Obama hasn’t attacked the militia even though it has marched to within 50 miles of Baghdad. It’s because the US benefits from these developments.

Read the full article HERE:

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

 

Democracy Under The Financial Mafia.

         I recently posted an article about the mass prison hunger strike in Greece, a protest against an extremely repressive system and proposed draconian legislation. Here is an update with the hunger strike now in its forth day. It is now wide spread across all the Greek prisons. with more than 4,000 prisoners now taking part in the hunger strike protest. By the 23rd. June those participating in this protest against cruelty and repression were: 

Koridallos, Athens: 1,300 inmates 

Patras: 550 inmates 

Grevena: 400 inmates 

Larissa: 300 inmates 

Chania, Crete: 280 inmates 

Domokos (where the Greek State intends to establish the first maximum security prison): 4 wings; that is, 240 inmates 

Amfissa: 200 inmates 

Corfu: 120 inmates 

Trikala: 120 inmates 

Malandrino (one of the toughest prisons; also where Ilir Kareli took the life of a miserable torturer-guard): 120 inmates 

Avlonas (juvenile prison): 100 inmates 

Nigrita, Serres (where prisoner Ilir Kareli was recently murdered by torturers-guards): 80 inmates 

Nafplion: 50 inmates 

On the evening of June 24th – 2nd day of mass hunger strike of over 3,900 prisoners across Greece 

         To date that figure is is now 4,180. For so many people to take such desperate action, tells you something is rotten at the heart of the system. We owe them all the support and solidarity that we can muster. More information HERE.

— nearly 60 anarchists made an anti-prison intervention outside the house of Antonis Samaras, Prime Minister of Greece, in the northern suburb of Kifissia, Athens. Comrades threw anti-repression leaflets in the streets and shouted slogans such as:

Read the full article on Contra Info HERE 

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

A Family Of Real Benefit Scroungers.

       That family, who by reason of birth, are deemed to be more important than you and I, have cost you and I, the lesser people, a total of £35.7 million last year. This does not count the cost of security, which is considerable but secret, guarding this family, who by reason of their birth are guaranteed a life of unbelievable luxury. No matter their ability, or lack of it, no matter their skills or lack of such, no matter the mistakes they make, they will always have a life of splendour, pomp, privilege and power, paid for by you and I. While you and I struggle to make ends meet, face ever increasing costs, with no matching increase in income, this bunch of pampered parasites, will glide around the world, waited on, hand and foot, take trips in helicopters, funded by you and I, hold and attend banquets in opulent settings, while we tighten our belts to make sure it all happens for them.

Your average UK family living on benefits!!

       Just so as not to let their decadent life style slip, our millionaire government, for next year, has allocated an increased sum of £37.9 million, of our money, to make sure they can continue to live in the decadent style to which we have made them accustomed.

      Of course this family of public funded parasites, living on £37.9 million social benefits, don't think it is quite enough, and doesn't allow them to bring all their property up to the standard that they would wish. A royal source when questioned on this matter of living on benefits, said, "We would like it to be more. We don't like having a property backlog hanging over us. We would like to have enough money to get that fixed... (but) we accept that in recent years the economy has been in such a state that that has been entirely unrealistic." How thoughtful of them.

 The family gets dressed up the day the giro arrives!!

       Perhaps we should request that since it is our money, we should be asked how we would like it spent, send suggestions as to how you would like to spend that £37.9 million, to the Oxbridge Cameron/Osborne gang. Also, since our millionaire Cameron cabal are always on about benefit scroungers, they should take a look at this family, who seem to be working the system with vigour, impunity and avarice. Come on Iain Duncan Smith, sort them out. Not a bloody chance of that happening, not unless we do it ourselves. 

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

Being Elderly Is No Excuse For protesting!!

        Never hold the opinion that because you are elderly, or walk with the aid of a stick, or are in a wheel chair, that the police will not throw you around in their usual heavy handed manner. On Monday this week in Sheffield, a group of elderly passengers decided to take direct action to protect their travel concessions which were under threat. The protest was organised and staged by a group of elderly and disabled passengers in response to South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive's decision stop their free bus pass travel before 9:30am.

       They decided to travel without paying (their entitlement) and called the journey a “Freedom Ride”. What transpired was the usual heavy handed approach by the transport police, resulting in pensioners with walking sticks being knocked over, elder people hand cuffed, and ending up with cuts and bruises and some being taken to hospital. This is how representative democracy protects your right to peaceful protest. "Democracy" enforced by intimidation and repression.

 

Five rather heavy transport police manhandle pensioner.

This from The Express: 

     They gathered at Sheffield railway station on Monday after travelling without paying from the Meadowhall shopping complex to the city centre in what they billed a “Freedom Ride”.
      Jen Dunstan, of Sheffield Disabled People Against The Cuts, said: “Dozens of elderly and disabled people have been left with bruising. Some have cuts where their skin has broken from being pushed and shoved.”

Read the full article HERE:

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

Springburn, Left To Rot!!

 Springburn Public Halls, left to rot before being knocked down.

       Well, well, poor old Springburn and the North of Glasgow. It seems that our city fathers, at Kremlin in George Square, don't know that our fair city has a North End. In their gigantic tax funded, corporate extravaganza, The Corporatewealth Games, they stated that it was for all the city. I have just received their latest glossy Glasgow Magazine, and being a Springburn man, I had a wee look to see how it would impact on my part of the city, but it seems the city fathers don't know where Springburn is, or perhaps they think it is outside our city, hence the lack of interest.

 Springburn Park winter gardens, yep, left to rot.

      The East End has a time trial running through it to the city centre. The Southside, has a marathon running through it to the city centre. The West End has a road race running through it to the city centre. There are games venues in the East End, the Southside, and the West End, and "live zones" in the East, the city centre, the Southside and the West End. Their wee map is festoon with little symbols indicating Glasgow Landmarks, but nothing in the North side of the city. as far as this piece of corporate plunder is concerned, Springburn is a wasteland, not worth pilfering. Our call to fame in Springburn is our poverty and deprivation, we have the country's worst child poverty and the highest number of request for child care orders. Having "cleansed" the East End of peasants, perhaps they thought that the cost of doing likewise in the North was a cost too far. At least the transport should run as normal in the North of the city. You could visit Springburn every day and not even know there was such a "Greatest Show on Earth" corporate extravaganza going on in our fair soon to be bankrupted city.

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

The Duplicity Of The State.

       When will the real truth be told on the criminal act called "The Iraq War"? When will those responsible for this long term illegal disaster be held responsible? Apart from the war veterans who today are suffering a raft of health problems, the ordinary Iraqi people to this day carry the legacy of that brutal, insane and criminal act. Their soil, water and air are contaminated, birth defects are common place, cancers are wide spread, all the direct result of the use of depleted uranium by the forces of the power hungry Western imperialists. 

Some of the birth defects attributed to the use of depleted uranium in Iraq.

         Our right holy, St. Anthony Blair, should be made to look at these pictures and view films like this on a daily basis until he enters the realms of reality and admits, he was wrong, and his act was irresponsible, criminal, brutal and inhumane, and based on duplicity.

       History can hide some dreadful events, but only if we let it, in this case we mustn't let that happen. The full, true and unadulterated story of Iraq and its aftermath, must be told and retold, as a warning of the insanity and duplicitous nature of governments and the state. The damage unleashed by the two Christian fundamentalists, Bush and Blair must be catalogued and used as a reminder of why we must never trust the state.

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

No Romantic Fable.

For those who don't know; 

"Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners."
– Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1989)

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

New Forms Of Workers Organisation.

     Thanks to City Strolls for this, also thanks to Glasgow Anarchist Federation, Clydeside IWW, Spirit of Revolt, and Radical Independent Bookfair for sponsoring and organising this valued discussion. A book launch and talk/discussion, by Immanuel Ness on new forms of workers organisations held in Glasgow on Wednesday 18 June at the Fred Paton Centre.

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

European Prison System At Its Worst.

        Today sees the start of a mass hunger strike by prisoners in Greek prisons. The conditions in Greek prisons are sub-human, to refer to them as “third world” would be insulting to those “third world” countries. Every prison in Greece is massively over crowded, as the government gets on with its crushing repression of any resistance to their “austerity” plans, at the dictate of the Troika, (EC European Commission, ECB European Central Bank, IMF International Mankind Fuckers).

        Forget about Golden Dawn, the present Greek government is marching along the road to fascism all by its self, and needs no lessons from that band of thugs. It has instituted mass concentration camps for immigrants, where conditions are deplorable.

          Prison hospitals in Greece are are without doubt the worst in Europe. All this is quietly accepted by the European Union, as they are fully aware that for their austerity and privatisation plans to continue, all resistance must be crushed. Greece is the experiment that is being watch carefully by the financial Mafia, if they get away with it, it could become their preferred template for the rest of Europe, if and when needed.

          It is not just the conditions that are driving the victims of the Greek prison system to take drastic action, it is a raft of new legislation that will condemn some to life in prison without hope of release. If ever there was a case for pan-European solidarity, surely this is it.

This from Contra Info:

ANNOUNCEMENT OF HUNGER STRIKE
      From June 18th, 2014, prisoners in all Greek prisons have abstained from prison meals as a way of protest against the fascist bill for type C prisons, and in defense of the right to furlough and release on parole.
      However the minister of Justice and the government insist on ignoring our protest. They have not responded in any way to our just demands, and provocatively aim to pass the bill in summer sessions of the parliament, in their attempt to prevent people’s reaction.
       Against this bill which condemns us to remain prisoners for life without rights or hope, we put our bodies and souls as a shield. This is the only thing we have left.
     From Monday, June 23rd, 2014 we start a mass hunger strike in all prisons across Greece. We claim our rights, and we fight to remain humans, instead of human shadows locked up and forgotten into despair.
We demand:
     1) The withdrawal of the fascist bill for type C prisons. We say no to the Greek Guantanamo, a prison within a prison, without furloughs, without visitations, without tomorrow…

Read the full article and the full list of demands HERE:

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

War.

     From the mouths of babes, a poem written by my then 11 year old grandson. 

War.

War is a bullet in someone's chest.

War smells like gunpowder.

War tastes like sour lemon.

War sounds like people screaming and crying.

War feels like a cold hand.

War looks like a broken picture of a family on the floor.

War lives in a box of bullets.

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

ATOS Still At It.

        Well well, would you believe it, ATOS told fibs, this and the government's idiotic blindness to their failings, allowed ATOS to make millions from tax payers money, as it humiliated, harassed and stressed, our most sick and vulnerable. 

             ATOS made millions from their brutal treatment of the disabled as they carried out the government's Work Capability Assessment scheme. Eventually they had to pull out this lucrative adventure, because of all the bad publicity highlighted by such bodies as Glasgow Against ATOS, and others. Of course undaunted they set about getting their hands on another bundle of tax payers money, knowing that their buddies in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, would overlook the brutal chaos they left in their wake, with the last contract. Just shove in a phoney tender and hey presto, another contact, in the form of Personal Independence Payments, PIPs, and another stash of tax payers money pops into your bank account.

   "Atos stated in its tender document that it had 'contractual agreements' in place with a national network of 56 NHS hospitals, 25 private hospitals and over 650 physiotherapy practices to provide assessments. This turned out not to be true.

         Will there be fraud charges to follow? I doubt it very much. The bunch of thugs in the Cameron millionaire cabal go into an apoplectic fit, when they even think of someone who may have cheated on their benefit claim, but it is just a finger wagging when corporate bodies plunder the public purse for millions.

          All this back scratching between our governing body of Oxbridge millionaires, and their buddies, corporate CEO's, at no time benefits the ordinary people, it is just a scheme for transferring public money to corporate bank accounts. Cutting benefits, traumatising the disabled, closing Remploy, getting people to work without a wage, will do nothing to improve the social fabric of our society, but it does make a lot of money for the private bodies paid by tax payers money, to carry out these policies. Isn't time we asked, “what's in it for us?”

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

In Capitalism, Oil = Blood.

       Is the root of Ukraine’s problem the fact that rich oil and gas deposits were discovered there early in 2013. So naturally, opposing imperialist camps vie for control, and once again as imperialists squabble over control of a country's rich resources, it's the people that suffer. Though oil could and probably will, transform Ukraine, it is at present one of the poorest countries in Europe. Sadly it has recently been given the kiss of death, by the usual vampire, the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers). That means it takes on a massive debt to hand to the corporations to exploit its country, and proceeds to pay back that debt, by massive cuts in social spending, and massive privatisation of public assets. It has to decimate the lives of its people and destroy what social fabric exists, in order to satisfy the blood suckers in the bank of Western imperialists, the IMF.
 

      Imperialists, of what ever shade, always manage to get workers to pick up guns against workers, they always get some to run with one flag and others to run with yet another. They manage to play the patriotic game, or the ethnic game, in an endeavour to gain control. Though they themselves are never patriotic, the sink their ill gotten wealth in any country that will pay the right dividend. You'll not see many “oligarchs” running in the streets with a Kalashnikov, They tend to be sitting with their banker guarding their thieved pile.
 

      And so it is at the moment in Ukraine, ordinary worker fighting and killing ordinary worker, to see which imperialist gets the goodies.

This from FREEDOM SOCIALIST (Voice of Revolutionary Feminism).

       The truth is Ukraine’s economy depends on both Russia and Europe. But each side wants to exclude the other. Meanwhile, Ukraine has signed its new loan deal with the IMF, accepting severe cuts to public spending, privatization of public resources, and other austerity measures. Ultra-rich oligarchs continue to loot the country.

     Volodymyr Ishchenko, an anti-capitalist sociologist in Kiev, puts it in a nutshell. “The crazy, irrational capitalist system that inevitably produces competing imperialisms … this is the root of the problem — not only for Ukraine, but for the entire world.”

Read the full article HERE:

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

All Buddies In The Same Cesspool.

          As we live in a “representative democracy”, you can rest assured as the protests against fracking grow, our government will totally ignore or try to suppress those protests. The main reason is of course, that lots of those millionaires in our “representative democracy” have vested interests in the companies involved. The millionaire Cameron cabal, have buddies in the business, and no doubt there will be the odd nod and wink, while sipping their bubbly. Little remarks dropped at those posh do's with a little nudge-nudge, you know what I mean. Big business and rich politicians all swim in the same cesspool, and quite frankly,they don't give a shit about you and I. They set their agenda and you and I have to be conned, convinced, coerced or intimidated, round to their way of thinking. It is with much thanks to a FOI request by the folks at the website InvestigatingBalcombeandCuadrilla.com that a lot of information on our millionaire “representative democracy's” policy and policing on this matter has come to light.

This from SchNews:

        In fact government is littered with executives with a pro-fracking agenda (as uncovered by Frack Off). No wonder the Tories are cheering shale gas along. But Cuadrilla recently went further, feeling confident enough to exert some political pressure of their own: They stated that unless the government changed trespass law in favour of frackers – allowing fracking under people's homes and land without permission – they would pull out of Lancashire. The changes went through.

      This summer Britain is also expected to kick off the “14th onshore licensing round”, due before the end of July. The licences will give the successful bidders drilling rights in an area covering a total of 37,000 square miles. No doubt the government are trying their hardest to assure potential frackers that operations in the UK will be all plain sailing.

Read the full article HERE:

I Will Obey!!

         Saw this on Not Buying Anything blog and thought our Lords and Masters would like it to be tattooed on all our foreheads. Gove, the education messer-upper, will soon demand that the kids at school learn it off by heart, Vince Cable, our business secretary, will insist that it be recited before each and every union meeting. The perfect formula for getting the economy going again. Now you know what to do!!!!

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

One Day All The Lies Will Collapse----.

        Another interesting and informative article from Glasgow Games Monitor 2014. This one is on, the pie-in-the-sky, "legacy" of the games. The magic phrase that is supposed to make you think that, all that public money being handed over to the corporate world, is actually for your benefit. After the "greatest show on earth" moves on, we will have a wonderful "Legacy". As Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda master said, "The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed". However, even he knew it must all come crashing down.

   From the Games Monitor article:

     However, we argue that ‘legacy’ claims are one of the primary means to legitimise, and deflect attention from, massive public expenditure on Games events. This expenditure on urban spectacle is almost always for the benefit of business; the bread and circuses of the spectacle is a great way of alienating people from the exploitative realities of land-grabbing, displacement, and gentrification. Glasgow City Council Leader, Gordon Matheson, intends to sell “two weeks of magic” to an increasingly suspicious public.

Read the full article HERE:

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