A Class War Welcome For Iain Duncan Smith.

A call from The void:   

       

      Iain Duncan Smith is hosting a Jobs Fair at Chingford Assembly Hall, Station Road, Chingford, E4 this Friday November 14th.  Class War will be welcoming him from 10am and are planing to make a day of it.  Speakers including the future Chingford MP Marina Pepper, – the local Class War candidate – along with John McArdle from the Black Triangle campaign are expected to speak at noon.  Expect vengeance.  Please spread the word and help make this big.

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

Can We Join The Dots?

 

      We all know capitalism produces wars between countries, and has done so more or less, since the system crawled out of the slime to infest the globe. What most people don't seem to recognise, is, it also causes wars within countries, wars between the ruling elite and the ordinary people. As capitalism is global it is difficult to find a country where the people are not in open conflict with the powers that be. The Ferguson riots in America, though classed as racial, racism is an aspect of capitalism. Mexico, the recent disappearance of 43 students and teachers and the ongoing violent protests, is the capitalist state attempting to crush any resistance to its exploitation. Recently we have seen over 100 protests across Ireland against watercharges, as capitalism tries to squeeze more profit from the ordinary people. In Brussels, there have been violent clashes as more than 100,000 protesters took to the streets against that common aspect of capitalism, “austerity”. In London we have just had more than a thousand masked anti-capitalist protesters take to the city centre.

      It would be extremely difficult to find a country where the people are not at odds with the system, across the globe unrest, anger and disgust are the feelings of the people, all have a growing hatred of a system that ties them to poverty, while they produce an abundance of wealth, that invariably ends up in the hands of a small greed driven bunch of parasites. With so much anger and unrest, it seems strange that the system is still managing to bleed us dry, perhaps we just have to join the dots between these world wide protests and we will see the system collapse.

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

War.

A poem by my then, 11 year old grandson, Ros:

 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 bullets.

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

Remembrance Day, What Are We Forgetting?

      We are approaching "Remembrance Day", when we will be treated to  a cacophony hypocritical speeches by the solemn faces of those who sent us to war, expensive suits with the obligatory red poppy, who see war as a necessary way of protecting their wealth and power. We will hear the false voices of those who believe it is acceptable to shed the blood of others, while they reap the plunder and the spoils.

 

       What will be missing from this militaristic spectacle will be the voices of those who speak the truth of what war is, and why we still have wars. No one will be allowed to point the finger, no one will be held to account for the pointless slaughter of countless millions of young men and women, 99% of which come from that group that never see the "spoils of war", the ordinary people. To the victor and the vanquished, the result is the same, the ordinary people of both sides, pay with blood, and the ruling class lift the gold and the glory. They have always spoken of the war to end all wars, well, that has still to be fought, and it is called The Class War.

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

Workfare, A Capitalist Epidemic.

       Here in the UK we protest against the government about workfare, a scheme whereby the unemployed work for businesses, but get no salary. We behave as if this was just our problem, the result of us having a nasty government. However, like I keep saying, these greed driven capitalist ideas are not a UK phenomenon, the capitalist disease is world wide. Take Greece for example:

 GreekReporter notes the solution to Greece's problems...

     Centre of planning and Economic Research in Greece has proposed a controversial measure in order to deal with the problem of increasing unemployment in the country.  The measure includes unpaid work for the young and unemployed up to 24 years old, so that companies would have a strong motive to hire young employees. Practically, what is proposed is the abolition of the basic salary for a year. At the same time the “export” of young unemployed persons was also proposed to other countries abroad, as Greek businesses do not appear able to hire new personnel.

     Then of course there is that country at the other end of the world in what lots of people see as a benign but pleasant land, Canada, where the Bank of Canada Governor stated:

   ------that the employment situation is so bad that young people should consider working for free. As The Globe & Mail reports, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz said 'Adult children stuck in their parents’ basements because they can’t find adequate employment should take unpaid work to bolster résumés as they wait for the recovery to take hold'.

 

      Similar schemes are in place or are being considered in other countries, including France, and of course Bill Clinton set the ball rolling in that direction in America as far back as the 90's. Our problem is not British workfare schemes, it is the capitalist system. I have no doubt that if we were successful in getting rid of the various workfare schemes, the system, no matter the colour of the government, would come up with other similar means of cutting labour costs and increasing company profits. Until we finally demolish the system of capitalism, we will be plagued by exploitation by various variations of workfare schemes, and poverty will be our domain.

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

When Will We Ever Learn?

  

     Written almost 500 years ago, and sounds like an anarchist analysis, certainly still makes excellent sense today.

The Politics of Obedience:Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

by Éttiene de la Boétie.

         “What is so remarkable is that La Boétie did this in 1552 or 1553 - four-hundred-and-forty years ago! It is also interesting that modern tyrants use the same formula today to subjugate and dominate their victims. Here are the main elements of the La Boétie analysis as I see it:” (FrederickMann)

The only power tyrants have is the power relinquished to them by their victims.

• The tyrant is often a weak little man. He has no special qualities that set him apart from anyone else - yet the gullible idolize him.
• The victims bring about their own subjection - they "win their enslavement."
• If without violence the tyrant is simply not obeyed, he becomes "naked and undone and as nothing."
• Once you resolve to serve no more, you are free.
• We are all born free and naturally free.
• Grown-up adults should adopt reason as their guide and never become slaves of anybody.
• People can be enslaved through either force or deception.
• When people lose their freedom through deceit, it is because they mislead themselves.
• People born into slavery regard it as a natural condition.
• In general, people are shaped more by their environment than by their natural capacities - if they allow it.
• Habit and custom are powerful forces that keep people enslaved.
• There are always some people who cannot be tamed, subjected, or enslaved. Even if freedom were to be entirely extinguished, these people would re-invent it.
• Lovers of freedom tend to be ineffective because they are not known to one another.
• People who lose their freedom also lose their valor (strength of mind, bravery).
• Among free people there is competition to do good for humanity.
• People seem to be most gullible towards those who deliberately set out to fool them. It is as if people have a need to be deceived.
• Tyrants stupefy their victims with "pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes."
• Tyrants parade like "workers of magic."
• Tyrants can only give back part of what they first took from their victims.
• Tyrants attain their positions through: (a) Force; (b) Birth; or (c) Election.
• Tyrants create a power structure, consisting of a multi-layered hierarchy, staffed by a conspiracy of accomplices. Accomplices receive their positions as a favor from the tyrant.
• The worst dregs of society gather around the tyrant - they are people of weak character who trade servility for unearned wealth.
• Accomplices can profit greatly from their positions in the hierarchy.
• If people withdraw their support, the tyrant topples over from his own corrupted weight.

From
LeDiscourse of Voluntary Servitude by Éttiene de la Boétie.(abridged and edited from the Harry Kurz translation)

    "Let us therefore learn while there is yet time, let us learn to claim our liberty. Let us open our eyes to our natural freedom for the sake of our honor, for the very love of virtue. As for me, I truly believe I am right, since there is nothing so contrary to reason as self-imposed tyranny. I believe the time will come when support will be withdrawn from tyrants and their accomplices. Then let us watch them all fall from their own corrupted weight."

 When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?

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

 

There Is Another Way.

        There is another way, but the road will not be easy, the imperialists will try to crush the dream by any means available, propaganda, subterfuge, oppression or outright bloody war, they have done so in the past, and are doing so at this moment in time, wherever freedom raises its flag. As long as the people allow themselves to be governed by a small group with vested interests, they will never taste justice, nor feel freedom.

     In the year after the Gezi uprising, protests continue against the government’s urban redevelopment plans, against police repression, in response to repression of the Kurdish and Alevi populations, and in honor of the martyrs that lost their lives in the uprising. Most recently, angry protests and riots have spread across the country in solidarity with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units fighting against the Islamic State in Kobanê, Rojava. This film chronicles a year of uprisings, resistance and repression since the Gezi uprising in Turkey.

After Gezi: Erdoğan And Political Struggle In Turkey from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.

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

Seize The Day.

       Thought for the day, remember "The Dead Poets Society"? Seize the day. Enjoy.

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

Net Neutrality Under Threat.

         The internet is important to the way we organise, communicate and keep in touch with friends and family, anything that skews it in favour of big business at the expense of the ordinary member of the population, has got to be stopped. It would be shaping the internet the same way our society is formed, the rich and powerful get he cream while you and I get shoved into the slow lane, a class divided internet is not acceptable. 

Dear Fight for the Future member,

Click here to join an emergency protest for net neutrality on November 6th!

    Did you hear about the massive protests in Hungary? The government there proposed an Internet Tax, that would have charged ordinary internet users exorbitant prices *per gigabite.*

Thousands of people took to the streets in protest, holding their shining cell phones aloft as a symbol of resistance to the unfair Internet Tax. In response, the government announced they would lower the tax.

Instead of accepting the compromise, even more people took to the streets demanding unfettered, affordable access to the free and open web. And they won. The government backed down and took the controversial tax off the table.

      It’s election day here in the U.S. and we face a similar crisis. Regardless of which party comes out on top today, the FCC is set to annihilate net neutrality and open the floodgates for rampant Internet censorship and abuse. This is the moment we’ve been building for. In the last year, Fight for the Future has grown to more than 1 million members! We are stronger than we’ve ever been and we have the power to save net neutrality, but signing petitions and making pho ne calls isn’t going to be enough.

    This Thursday, November 6th we’re organizing emergency protests across the country, but we need more people to step up and help “anchor” protests in their towns. Anchoring a protest is easy: it just means you pick a time and location, and agree to be there and get as many of your friends as possible to come. The protests themselves are simple: we are asking people to gather in the evening at government buildings and hold their glowing cell phones, laptops, and tablets aloft to shine light on the growing corruption in DC and demand real net neutrality.

     We, and several other groups with large email lists, will send an email to our thousands of members in your area encouraging them to attend your event.

Click here to join an emergency protest or start one in your town.

You can also reply to this email if you are able to help anchor a protest and we’ll get in touch with you right away.

     The protests on Thursday will be the kickoff for a month of escalating actions leading up to the FCC’s final decision, which we expect to come in early December. We’ll be holding these vigils every Thursday leading up until that point, so if you can help organize one any time in the coming weeks, let us know! Just reply to this email, we’ll see it.

We’ve updated https://Battleforthenet.com to support these emergency protests.

      Please share the link far and wide and tell as many people as possible that the fight for net neutrality is coming to a head and we need to start something big right now.

For the Internet,

-Evan at Fight for the Future     
Want more awesome more often?

* Like us on Facebook
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* Keep us fighting, chip in what you can.

 

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

The End Of The World As We Know It, Do You Care?

         Another informative episode from The Stimulator, from tar sands resistance to mass protests against the disappearance of 43 students and teachers, from Iraq to Kobane.

Locomotive Time Bomb from the stimulator on Vimeo.

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

Having The Shit Kick Out Of Us.

      George Osborne at the recent Tory party conference announced that if the Tories get in at the next election he would introduce £25 billions worth of new cuts, which would include one of the biggest squeezes of welfare in recent times, at the same time promising his rich friends tax cuts to help pour more cash into their already overflowing coffers. He also announced a two year freeze on working-age benefits. This is another way of saying two year of cuts to working-age benefits, as no doubt inflation will not stay frozen at the same time.
 

 How the West introduces democracy abroad.

 

      This arrogant pompous millionaire parasite, also said the the British people could no longer afford to live in a country which spent £100 billion on welfare payments to people of working age. Perhaps he could start by getting his rich billionaire corporate friends to start paying wages that would stop those working, from having to claim benefits just to survive. Of course we are a country that can afford to spend more than £250 million on bombing Libya back to the stone age, and re-entering the Iraq war at an unknown cost, as it forecast to last for years, but missiles being fired are in the region of £250,000 and £750,000 each, and tornadoes flying at a cost of more than £40,000 an hour. However, all we ever get from this bunch of pampered Oxbridge millionaire parasites, is about how the poor and the vulnerable are a heap of scroungers and are costing us too much. 

 

The West's version of a ballot box in the Middle East.

     We are being severely  beaten in a brutal class war, and the sooner we realise this, the sooner we can begin to address this as united group, aware of our class connections, and take on the pampered parasite class, that at the moment, is kicking the shit out of us.

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

 

 

Police Controlled Democracy.

         I recently posted about the young protester killed by a police grenade in France on October 26th. Today the protesters are still on the streets in various place across France, protesting the brutal death of this young man, but our babbling brook of bullshit the mainstream media doesn't seen to have noticed. They will of course show rioting, protesting and mass unrest, happening in those far away places, but here in Europe, we have "democracy"!!!! Democracy at the end of police baton, or a riot police shield. In our Western style "democracy" we can now accept that the police are a branch of the military and are armed military style. Here in Scotland there was an attempt to get armed police on the streets on routine duty, all part of the control of the public, in case they start to voice their anger at the total lack of democracy, and the power of the corporate bodies that rule our lives. Policing today is not about law and order, it is all about control of the civilian population, and if that fails, the army will take to the streets, in full fighting kit to put down any threat to the power of the establishment, they've done it before, 1911, two strikers shot and killed in Liverpool, 1919, Glasgow. The "establishment", that body of suits that represents the interests of the corporations, the landed gentry, the aristocracy and the powerful club of millionaires. So a young man/woman being killed on a peaceful protest, is something that will be acceptable to the powers that be, if it protects their pampered position.

A report from Anarchist News:

       (On October 26th, the police in France killed a young demonstrator in Testet, near Toulouse, who was protesting the construction of a dam. This text is a reportback from a march against police brutality in Nantes last night. Nantes is close to Notre-Dame-des-Landes, where the ZAD, Zone à Défendre, is located. The resistance in Testet has also been called a ZAD, and solidarity between the two areas has been very strong.)

In spite of the daily propaganda since Rémi's death and the siege by police, three or four thousand demonstrators heroically gathered (in Nantes) to protest against police violence and the murder of Rémi in Testet. The city is locked down by police with a helicopter above, roadblocks downtown and several checkpoints. A group managed to gather in front of the Nantes prefecture, at the meet-up site.

The gathering is dynamic, young and aggressive. It sets off, shouting,

“The police kill, Nantes stand up!”

Read the full article HERE: 

Photos HERE:

More Information HERE:

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

The Monster TTIP, Still Lives.

    It is still there lurking in the murky shadows of the marble halls of power, the monster that is TTIP, but the voices of anger are rising. Let's raise our whisper to a roar.

This from World Development Movement:

       People power is working! After months of protests across Europe the EU is wavering on the EU-US trade deal (TTIP). Leading representatives including the newly appointed EU president Jean-Claude Juncker have hinted that ISDS could be removed from TTIP.
This is a crucial moment to keep up the pressure on decision makers
    More than 750,000 people have already signed the European petition to stop TTIP. Our pressure on policy makers is working, but we need your support to make sure we defeat this undemocratic trade deal.
Help us reach 1 million voices against TTIP
      TTIP threatens to transfer power from elected governments to unaccountable corporations by giving big business a much bigger say in law-making. And if that wasn’t bad enough TTIP could also undermine some of our most precious rights and regulation to protect our environment, workers and food safety.
Add your voice to the protest against undemocratic trade deals like TTIP
      Together we can defeat TTIP and fight for a fair trade system.

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

You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet.

 

        I have always stated that the "austerity" policy has nothing to do with "balancing the books", "debt reduction" or the "financial crisis", it's all about creating sweatshop conditions here in the West, so that our imperialist masters can compete with their rivals in the East. Austerity will be a permanent feature of our future society, it is all ideology, and we are mere units in their productivity plan, units that they can manipulate to reduce the cost. It is unbelievable that vast swaths of people still think that Oxbridge millionaires are the best people to look after the welfare of the poor. That people who grow their wealth and power by investing in large corporations, will in some way help the poor to better wages and conditions, it's an absurd line of thought, our interests are in opposition to their interests. 

      The system is controlled by corporate wealth, with one aim, to grow corporate wealth, and you and I, with our demand for a decent life, stand in the way. No matter what hardship you may think you have been hit by, because of this ideology, you ain't seen nothin' yet, think Greece. The average salary in Greece is now down to £17,000 per annum, that was their first experiment, and it worked, now to roll it out across Europe.

      An extract from an excellent article in The Guardian:

--------Now add in these: disability living allowance starts converting into personal independence payment with a target to remove 500,000 people in new Atos medical tests. The Guardian has revealed how jobcentre staff are under orders to find any sanction to knock people off benefits. New obstacles are strewn in their path: people must apply for their benefits online from computers they don't possess; many of these claimants are semi-literate. When in dire straits, there will be no more crisis loans, only a card for buying food, with not a penny for bus fares. Trussell Trust food banks expect a great surge of the hungry, so they ask everyone to donate the price of an Easter egg.
     Here is the final wicked twist: legal aid has been removed for advice on benefits, housing, divorce, debt, education and employment. On Monday the budget of Citizens Advice for such cases falls from £22m to £3m. The few emergency cases still covered – families facing instant eviction – can only use a phone service, not face-to-face legal help. Law centres will close. There will be no help on school exclusions, landlord or employer harassment, or failure to pay wages.--------

Read the full article HERE: 

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