An Open Letter.

      Willie McDougall was one of Glasgow's life long anarchists and a bitter anti-war campaigner. As a conscientious objector he was sent to Dartmoor prison. Somehow he managed to get his hands on a bicycle and proceeded to cycle off, making his way back to Glasgow, where he continued his anti-war campaigning. 

 Photo courtesy of Bob Jones and Gina Bridgeland.

       This is an extract from an open letter he wrote to Mr Callaghan, leader of the Labour Party. Though some what dated, it still makes for interesting reading.

        The entire letter can be read at Spirit of Revolt, "Read of the Month"

RENT, INTEREST AND PROFIT.

      The old Fabians, although reformist, carried out a vigorous propaganda against Rent, Interest and Profit, all legalised forms of robbery of the common people. This view was also held by such famous socialists as Upton Sinclair and Robert Blatchford.

      In order to buy off counter-revolutionary violence the latter were prepared to pay modest compensation to these robbers, but only for their own life time. In the case of landowners they quoted John Ball, the Kentish Priest, whose text was: "When Adam delved and Eve span who was then the Gentleman?" He was hanged for demanding the land for the people.

      Somewhere along the line in all countries the land was stolen by force, or deceit from the common people. The Red Indians in America, the Zulus in Africa, the Aborigines in Australia were massacred, while in Europe and in Scotland there were Sutherland-type Clearances.

     Jack Jones has quipped that two-thirds of the members of the House of Lords are descendants of cattle thieves, land thieves or Court prostitutes. This applies also to our landlords. Whoever got the original titles had no moral or ethical right to acquire, sell or bequeath them.

     Blatchford cleverly shows the unfair parallel with the useful writer or inventor.... The latter's copyright lasts only 50 years whereas land rights, like interest are in perpetuity. The burden of interest which lies like an Albatross round the necks of all our big cities, causes rents to be at least three times higher than necessary. As our great Scottish revolutionary, John Maclean, pointed out, the perpetual burden of interest on the nationalised industries makes it difficult for them to be viable.---- 

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Don't You Know That There's A War Going On.

From The Progressive Populist:

      "For days, images of the Philadelphia public school system have haunted me. More than 30 children in one class share 11 math books. Bathrooms locked because there aren’t enough hall monitors. What’s most heartbreaking is to know that just a few miles away other school students attend some of the highest rated public and private schools in the nation, where they are lavished with cutting edge technology and enrichment opportunities.
        Then there are the images of elected officials turning a deaf ear to the protests of the students, teachers and parents angered at the extreme cuts. And the image of the Philadelphia Board of Education voting to cancel the contract with the teachers’ union. Shame on the board and shame on everyone else who blames Pennsylvania’s and American’s crisis in public education on teachers or believe the solutions to the problem all involve taking money out of the pockets of these highly skilled professionals." Read the full article HERE:

       Does the above sound familiar?

        If there is anybody out there who still can't see that we are in a brutal global class war, they must be blind. In country after country the  flag at the masthead of the powers that be is, "AUSTERITY". An ideology being directed by the financial Mafia, which is made up of individuals and institutions of unimaginable wealth. Their wealth is increasing by means of plundering all public assets, if it belongs to the public, it has to be transferred to private hands at a bargain price. All public spending must be curtailed and where possible eliminated. Incomes have to be squeezed, cheap labour is a wonderful wealth creator for the leeches that feed off our backs.

       The world is awash with wealth, but more and more of it is being syphoned into the coffers of that small band of parasites that make all the rules, to guarantee such an outcome. It is no accident, it is a well thought out policy driven by greed, at our expense.

        Here in this country, official figures showed that disposable income available to households fell by 1.7 per cent between the end of last year and the first three months of this year, the biggest fall since early 1987. A recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation stated that a typical couple, both of whom work full-time, who have two children, would now need an annual income of just under £39,000 to maintain a “minimum” standard of living. Another result of this global class war being waged against the ordinary people, is the fact that the amount of money needed to afford ordinary, not luxury, food, clothes and leisure activities, has risen by 25 per cent since the so called "crisis" in 2008,

        As this global class war goes on unabated, this country has seen an explosion of food banks, hardly a sign of an economic recovery for us the ordinary people. In the year 2008/09 the number of people receiving food parcels from these food banks numbered, 25,899. The latest figures for 2013/14 puts that number at 913,138, almost one million people seeking free food to survive. The increase in the number of food banks is continuing, averaging two more a week opening. Where will it end, will it be when we all depend on food banks? 

           Do we just get on with it and accept that the multi-billionaires who are engineering this plundering of our wealth, after all we create all of it, will one day be compassionate and start to reverse the process? Or do we accept that it is a global class war, act accordingly and start to take back all that we created, creating a society that sees to the needs of all our people and gets the parasitic leeches off our backs, once and for all.

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Police, Criminal Gangs And Disappearing Students.

       Ukraine, Kobane and Hong Kong, all getting coverage, but our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, has given little or no coverage of a struggle for justice against a brutal regime on the other side of the world. Of course the Hong Kong protests are against an enemy and rival of Western hegemony, while the protests in Mexico are against a "friendly" state of the West, so that would tilt the balance. In Mexico, 43 students and teachers disappeared on the night of September 26. Police beatings, killings and disappearances are not a rare occurrence in corrupt Mexico, but this mass disappearance has spark rightful outrage among the people. If the babbling brook of bullshit wont spread this we must.

     It is accepted by everybody that the police in Mexico, work hand in hand with the various criminal gangs. This from Aljazeera;
More facts from 

 World.Mic 
 


And HERE:



And HERE:

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A Wee Break.

       Hi, ann arky will be away for a few days, so the rants will disappear until I return, probably Monday. 

See Yea.

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London Anarchist Bookfair.

       An event worth a visit, meet like minded people, pick up new ideas, new contacts, buy a book, have a chat, a laugh and build solidarity.

 The 2014 London Anarchist Bookfair 

will be on Saturday 18th October
From 10am to 7pm.

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An Anarchist Manifesto.

     On Tuesday 14th. October I posted the introduction to the oldest artefact we have in our collection at Spirit of Revolt Archive, An Anarchist Manifesto, printed in 1895. For those interested we have now put the full pamphlet up on our "read of the month" section for you to read in full. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

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Home Sweet Home!!!

    The recent E15 London squat brought squatting back into mainstream media. It was put forward as an anomaly, something that doesn't happen very much, a one of event by some odd people. However one startling fact that the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, didn't highlight, was the fact that more than 10% of the world's population are squatters. Another one of the many, damning facts, that show this system of capitalism doesn't work. As far as the vast majority are concerned, it fails miserably to supply the basic needs for a decent life. 

Population 1 million outside Mexico City.

      We have cities with empty property, and people sleeping rough, we have families desperately seeking shelter in abandoned buildings, all a reality just beneath the surface of the glitzy shopping malls with their "must have" designer labels and cappuccinos.

 The glaring inequalities of capitalism, Brazil.

     In the developed world squatting is usually small groups or individuals dotted around our cities and towns, but in the developing world, in many cases, they are they towns.

Dhaka, a familiar face of capitalism.

     Across the globe, capitalism has driven millions into deep deprivation while showering the few with unimaginable wealth and power. A sure recipe for the destruction of our planet.

Mumbai, a normal life for millions.

   No matter where we go in this profit drive nightmare, there are people desperate for somewhere to live and and under this system, desperation makes for untold misery.

 

A familiar sight in South Africa.

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Workers, Know Your History, Mary Brooksbank.

     We should always honour our heroes, we have many, but if we don't record them they will disappear from history, and we will be the poorer for that.

Mary Brooksbank:

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It Must Be Time!!

      How many years have we struggled against exploitation, for how many years has the sweat of our labour been plundered by the idle rich, how many years have we been forced to feed a bunch of parasites and keep them in unimaginable luxury, while our lives are a daily struggle? How long have we played the political party game, and sent a bunch of well paid party members to the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, only to see them feather their own nests, and join the greed driven parasites?

     Anarchist have always been at the forefront of that struggle to free ourselves from the burden of parasites that bleed us into poverty and deprivation. We have always shunned the the institutions of state, seeing them for what they are, guardians of the wealthy and their system of exploitation. 

 

      To emphasise just how long and consistent our stance has been, I thought it would be interesting to take an extract from the oldest publication we at Spirit of Revolt have in our archive. This rare document is titled "An Anarchist MANIFESTO" issued by the London Anarchist Communist Alliance, 1895.

Fellow Workers,

     We come before you as Anarchist Communists to explain our principles. We are aware that the minds of many of you have been poisoned by the lies which all parties have diligently spread about us. But surely the persecutions to which we have been and are subjected by the governing classes of all countries should open the eyes of those who love fair play. Thousands of our comrades are suffering in prison or are driven homeless from one country to the other. Free speech — almost the only part of British liberty that can be of any use to the people — is denied to us in many instances, as the events of the last few years have shown.

      The misery around us is increasing year by year. And yet there was never so much talk about labor as there is now, — labor, for the welfare of which all professional politicians profess to work day and night. A very few sincere and honest but impracticable reformers, in company with a multitude of mere quacks, ambitious placehunters, etc., say they are able to benefit labor, if labor will only follow their useless advice. All this does not lessen the misery in the least : look at the unemployed, the victims of hunger and cold, who die every year in the streets of our rich cities, where wealth of every description is stored up.

      Not only do they suffer who are actually out of work and starving, but every working man who is forced to go through the same dreary routine day by day — the slavery and toil in the factory or workshop — the cheerless home, if the places where they are forced to herd together can be called homes. Is this life worth living? What becomes of the intellectual faculties, the artistic inclinations, nay, the ordinary human feeling and dignity of the greatest part of the workers? All these are warped and wasted, without any chance of development, making the wretched worker nothing but a human tool to be exploited until more profitably replaced by some new invention or machine.

     Is all this misery necessary? It is not if you, the wealth producers, knew that there is enough and to spare of food and of the necessaries of life for all, if all would work. But now, in order to keep the rich in idleness and luxury, all the workers must lead a life of perpetual misery and exploitation. As to these facts we are all agreed; but as to the remedy most of you, unfortunately, have not given up trust in Parliament and the State. We shall explain how the very nature of the State prevents anything good coming from it. What does the State do? It protects the rich and their ill-gotten wealth; it suppresses the attempts of the workers to recover their rights, if these attempts are thought dangerous to the rich. Thus idle electioneering, labor politics etc. are not suppressed, but any effective popular demonstration, vigorous strikes as at Featherstone and Hull, Anarchist propaganda, etc., are suppressed or fought against by the vilest means. Moreover, the State pretending thereby to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, grants Royal Commissions on the Sweating System, the Aged Poor, on Labor in general, or select Committees on the Unemployed — which produce heaps of Blue Books, and give an opportunity to the politicians and labor leaders, “to show themselves off.” And that is about all. If the workers demand more — there is the workhouse; and if not satisfied with that, the truncheons of the police and the bullets and bayonets of the soldiers face them: — not bread, but lead!

        Is it not time we sorted this mess out, and put an end to this greed driven system of exploitation, a system that produces an abundance, but puts the producers in poverty.

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Kill TTIP.

 

       The pressure must be kept up to defeat what is corporatism's drive to control the world. It dominates so much of our lives at present the implementing of TTIP would be the complete demise of any shred of democracy of which we might have a finger hold.

 An Appeal From WDM:

     This weekend tens of thousands of people across Europe took part in more than 1,100 protests against the EU-US trade deal (TTIP). You may have been one of them. With this many people taking action, we could stop the TTIP negotiations.
Now is the time to take action to stop TTIP.
     In just 5 days more than 500,000 people have signed the European Citizens’ Initiative opposing TTIP, a petition set up by more than 200 European organisations, including WDM. People across Europe are taking action against the increased powers TTIP would give to multinational corporations to sue governments and the effects the deal could have on our environment, food safety, public services and workers’ rights.
Help us reach 1 million signatures to stop TTIP.
    Thanks to the thousands of people who have been taking action in the UK, TTIP is now being covered by the mainstream media. Local newspapers have printed hundreds of letters about TTIP, last Friday the Independent front page story quoted WDM about TTIP and the BBC Breakfast show covered Saturday’s massive day of action.
Take action now to make your voice heard.
     Thanks for your support of the campaign against TTIP.

Together, we can defeat TTIP.

Best wishes,
Morten Thaysen, WDM

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A Sullen Art.

Ah, poetry, a little favourite of by Dylan Thomas:

In My Craft Or Sullen Art

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

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They Are Our Assets, We Want Them All.

 

WARNING: These are our parks, and we are keeping them.

      Common Goods are a wealth that could sort out most of the problems we the ordinary people face, by making for a better society. These goods are all the lands, buildings, and movable items, gifted to the people over the centuries. It is a wealth that hasn't been properly audited and is known to be worth at least, many millions of pounds. These items are supposed to be held in safe keeping, with the various councils as custodians, to look after them on behave of the people. However by some trick of the mind, these councils seem to believe that they own the common goods, to do with as they wish. Which in most cases is to sell them off, and spend the money as they see fit. This is criminal and blatant theft of the people's assets for commercial gain.

      Scottish land reform researcher Andy Wightman explaining the basics of Common Good assets in Scotland. Common Good are land, buildings and artefacts that have been given to the people of a burgh or town as common property and for benefit of their common wellbeing. For more information see: http://www.scottishcommons.org

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