Workers Lockin!!

A call for solidarity from IUF:

Occupy Dandenong! 

Workers fight lockout with lockin

     National Union of Workers (NUW) members at the International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF) facility in Dandenong (Victoria) have responded to a management lockout by occupying the lunchroom.

      After months of fruitless bargaining for a new wage agreement which saw management demanding big concessions, union members voted to ban overtime and paperwork. Workers arriving for the early morning shift on January 27 were informed of the lockout and several dozen union members rushed inside as the gates were closing. They've installed themselves in the lunchroom while members and supporters demonstrate outside.

     You can support them - CLICK HERE TO SEND A MESSAGE TO IFF urging the company to lift the lockout and bargain in good faith!

 

     US-based International Flavours and Fragrances is one of the largest transnational makers of food ingredients and a supplier to many leading food and snack companies.

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Christmas Bonus.

      Looks like somebody is trying to pay off their Christmas debt. Though it would seem to go without saying, that if you do 31 ATM machines across the country, you are a travelling group.

From Act For Freedom Now:

     A raid on two cash machines where thieves made off with £10,000 could be linked to a gang of travelling criminals.
     Police Scotland are seeking the help of forces across the UK to track down those involved in the smash and grab at a Morrisions supermarket in Banchory, Aberdeenshire in the early hours around 3am yesterday morning.
It’s thought a Land Rover was used to haul the machines from the wall in the heist which could also be linked to a similar raid on a bank in Kirriemuir in    Angus before Christmas when £100,000 was taken.
     One line of inquiry links them to fugitive…who is wanted for raids on 31 ATMs across the UK. from local snitch media

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Canada's Dirty Past.

      Scotland has a lot to answer for, over the years we have exported men who have played a leading roll in the expansion of British imperialism. One such, is a Glasgow man, born in Brunswick Street, where the Mitre pub stands. John Alexander MacDonald, born 11th. January 1815, died 6th. June 1891, vicious racist, is considered as the father of Canada. Like all servants of imperialism, he is celebrated, with pomp and ceremony by the ruling elite, though there is a growing group in Canada who are openly contesting the adulation of such a despicable character.

This from Community Soapbox:

    Here in Kingston, Ontario, where “every day is Canada day”, John A. MacDonald is at the centre of all of the misplaced celebration of this great era. This makes sense, because MacDonald is a perfect example of the kind of person who founded Canada. He pushed for and enacted many of the most disgusting and brutal colonial policies of the era. In an act that he would later refer to as his “greatest political accomplishment,” he pushed to disenfranchise and ultimately push out the Chinese population on the West Coast, saying that their presence would tarnish the “Aryan land” that he envisioned for the new country. He invented and implemented residential schools. He used starvation policies followed by military intervention to crush Metis rebellions and cement Canada’s expansion West.-------

Read the full article HERE:

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

Here in Kingston, Ontario, where “every day is Canada day”, John A. MacDonald is at the centre of all of the misplaced celebration of this great era. This makes sense, because MacDonald is a perfect example of the kind of person who founded Canada. He pushed for and enacted many of the most disgusting and brutal colonial policies of the era. In an act that he would later refer to as his “greatest political accomplishment,” he pushed to disenfranchise and ultimately push out the Chinese population on the West Coast, saying that their presence would tarnish the “Aryan land” that he envisioned for the new country. He invented and implemented residential schools. He used starvation policies followed by military intervention to crush Metis rebellions and cement Canada’s expansion West. - See more at: http://www.kingstonist.com/2015/01/20/sir-john-a-macdonald-bicentennial-celebration-33249#sthash.0YgJZ6kJ.dpuf

The Common Man.

     I always think that a little poetry can say a lot. This on is one from a favourite poet of mine. Joe Corrie.

 Joe Corrie, miner, 1884-1968.

I AM THE COMMON MAN.

I am the common man,

    I am the brute and the slave,

I am the fool, the despised,

    From the cradle to the grave.

I am the hewer of coal,

    I am the tiller of soil,

I am the serf of the seas,

    Born to bear and to toil.

I am the builder of halls,

    I am the dweller of slums,

I am the filth and the scourge,

    When winter's depression comes.

I am the fighter of wars,

    I am the killer of men,

Not for a day or an age,

    But again, and again, and again.

I am the common man,

    But Master, oh! Take you heed,

For you have put in my head

    Many a wicked deed.

I am the slave and the brute,

    And my hands are a strong as steel,

Oh! Master, how will you fare

    When down at my feet you kneel?

Joe Corrie. 

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Syriza, Then What?

 Queue at unemployment centre Athens.

     Today, January 25th, is election day in Greece, and there is an array of theories of what will happen. Leading the polls is Syriza, a gathering of left leaning groups, who have stated that if elected they will scrap the austerity ideology of the financial Mafia. In reply, other states in the EU are saying, Greece must "pay its way". as puppets of the financial Mafia, that's what you would expect them to say. What, "pay its way"  translates as, is more misery and deprivation to be heaped on the people of Greece. A people who in the last few years have seen their social structures decimated. In a country of just over 11 million people, austerity measures in Greece have resulted in approximately a million people with no access to healthcare, leading to soaring infant mortality, HIV infection, mental and physical health problems, and suicide. Between 2009 and 2011, the hospital budget has been slashed by 25%. In a 2000 report by the World Health Organization, the Greek healthcare system was ranked 14th worldwide in the overall assessment, above other countries such as Germany (25) and the United Kingdom (18), Ours in the UK, could go the same way if the financial Mafia say so.
       The education system in Greece, is in tatters, pensions have been cut, taxes increased, and new taxes implemented. Unemployment at present is running at 25.8, with youth unemployment at 50.6, health insurance is linked to working, disappearing after one year unemployed. There is an epidemic of homelessness, and it is not unusual to see, not individuals, but families sleeping rough. This is what the financial Mafia and their minders, EU governments, want to continue, as Greece is forced to pay to help prevent the moguls of the financial Mafia from loosing any money.

Scenes from Athens.

      I have never taken part in any government elections in my entire life, I usually refer to them as the "Crooks and Liars Competition", which leaves us under the control of the best crooks and liars of that particular season.

        However, the situation in Greece is so dire, that anything that can help alleviate the suffering and misery of so many innocent, ordinary people, must be worth a try. I have no doubt what so ever, that the financial Mafia, will have plans to kick the shit out of any left leaning group that gets power in Europe. So if Syriza wins, we can expect all sorts of dirty tricks to try to discredit them. Make no mistake, the lives of the people of Greece are of no concern to the ruthless financial Mafia. To them, more suicides, unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and deprivation, is a price worth paying, to protect their wealth and power.

        An interesting article from Lenin's Tomb:

      We can have all sorts of hypotheses about how things will work out with Syriza in office, trying to implement an anti-austerity agenda.  There are semi-plausible arguments that Berlin will ultimately be inclined to throw Syriza a bone, the better to avoid generating a new, unnecessary crisis.  I think this overestimates how rational the EU elites are, and underestimates their vindictiveness.  I think if the situations favours it, they will want to continue to make an example of Greece one way or another, and demonstrate that this left populism stuff isn't going to fly.  I think they will be brutal in the negotiations, and that whatever concessions they offer will be deliberately insulting.  My guess is that only if Syriza has the strongest mandate possible, an outright parliamentary majority, coupled with a renewed mobilisation of social and workers' movements to try to fulfil the party's promises, will the EU be inclined to cut them a half-away decent deal.  Yet even the more pessimistic scenario wouldn't preclude real gains that shift the balance of power in favour of workers, democratise the state, humanise the immigration system, and so on.

However the point, now as before, is to test these hypotheses by getting Syriza elected.

Read the full article HERE:

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Slaves And Masters.

A slave protects his master.

Photo from arrezafe

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Churchill's Jewish Conspiracy.

 

 The young imperialist Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

     At the moment, the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is all a glow over Churchill. We are continually being told what a wonderful man he was, a great leader, a towering figure of courage, morality, and intellect. Like so many of those who are handed the reigns of power in this country, like the Cameron/Osborne cabal, he came from an aristocratic family, the Dukes of Marlborough. Like most of that ilke, he had a dysfunctional family life, farmed out to a "nanny", hardly spoke to his father and while at Harrow, wrote repeated letters to his mother begging her to come and visit him. It is also commonly known that he was overly keen on alcohol, to put it mildly, and among other repugnant beliefs, he was an outspoken supporter of Mussolini right up to 1937.

1st. Duke of Marlborough. His family still exerts power over us.

     What the babbling brook of bullshit will omit from their sickening syrupy spew about this rather blood thirsty aristocrat is his Gallipoli disaster, which saw him removed from is post as First Lord of the Admarlty. I also doubt if they will mention any of the facts listed below.

The voice of a man born into wealth, power and privilege

 all taken from Wikipedia:

     Another account said the police had the miscreants—Latvian anarchists wanted for murder—surrounded in a house, but Churchill called in the Scots Guards from the Tower of London and, dressed in top hat and astrakhan collar greatcoat, directed operations. The house caught fire and Churchill prevented the fire brigade from dousing the flames so that the men inside were burned to death. "I thought it better to let the house burn down rather than spend good British lives in rescuing those ferocious rascals."[79]

    A major preoccupation of his tenure in the War Office was the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention, declaring that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle".[97] He secured, from a divided and loosely organised Cabinet, intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation

   Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926.

      That Commission solved nothing and the miners' dispute led to the General Strike of 1926. Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and during the dispute he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country" claiming that the fascism of Benito Mussolini "rendered a service to the whole world," showing "a way to combat subversive forces"—that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius ... the greatest lawgiver among men

      Churchill opposed Gandhi's peaceful disobedience revolt and the Indian Independence movement in the 1930s, arguing that the Round Table Conference "was a frightful prospect".[116] Later reports indicate that Churchill favoured letting Gandhi die if he went on a hunger strike.[117] During the first half of the 1930s, Churchill was outspoken in his opposition to granting Dominion status to India. He was a founder of the India Defence League, a group dedicated to the preservation of British power in India. Churchill brooked no moderation. "The truth is," he declared in 1930, "that Gandhi-ism and everything it stands for will have to be grappled with and crushed."[118]

      At a meeting of the West Essex Conservative Association, specially convened so that Churchill could explain his position, he said "It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace ... to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor."

        In response to an urgent request by the Secretary of State for India, Leo Amery, and Viceroy of India, Wavell, to release food stocks for India, Churchill responded with a telegram to Wavell asking, if food was so scarce, "why Gandhi hadn't died yet. In July 1940, newly in office, he welcomed reports of the emerging conflict between the Muslim League and the Indian Congress, hoping "it would be bitter and bloody".[118]

      Churchill's attitude towards the fascist dictators was ambiguous. After the First World War defeat of Germany, a new danger occupied the political consciousness—the spread of communism. A newspaper article penned by Churchill and published on 4 February 1920, had warned that world peace was threatened by the Bolsheviks, a movement which he linked through historical precedence to Jewish conspiracy.[136] He wrote in part:

    "This movement among Jews is not new ... but a "world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality

        Churchill expressed a hope that Hitler, if he so chose, and despite his rise to power through dictatorial action, hatred and cruelty, might yet "go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the great Germanic nation and brought it back serene, helpful and strong to the forefront of the European family circle.

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Engines Of Domination.

      Rather long for a quick look, but interesting, well worth persevering. I liked the end conclusions. The book is available from AK Press.

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The State, Weaver Of False Differences.

 

     On January, 17th. 2013, on a street in Athens, an immigrant worker was murdered in cold blood by two members of Golden Dawn. On January 17th. 2015, in memory of this murdered worker, approximately 400 people marched to the spot where he was stabbed to death. The hands that killed Shehzad Luqman, may have been psycho members of Golden Dawn, but the full responsibility for this crime lies with the state.

       The state breeds racism, creates borders, arbitrary lines drawn by power mongers on a map, turns worker against worker, on a basis of race or colour. The state supports corporate power which exploits all of humanity. As long as we have capitalism and its minder, the state, we will have divisions between worker and worker, based on some illusionary geographical difference. We are all inhabitants of this one earth, only as people co-operating without borders can we hope to see to the needs of all our people. We don't need states, they are a hindrance to co-operation and mutual aid, they are the perpetrators of repression, war, and want, the enemy of freedom.

From Contra Info:

      Comrades from the area met once again on the streets, joining the call for a mobilisation with a distinct bloc at the tail end of the demonstration. As anarchist individuals, we might come from different starting points, nevertheless we share a common conviction: We have no illusions of democracy, nor do we wait for any bourgeois justice or electoral system to solve the problems of the oppressed. The institutions of the States and Capital are the main perpetrators responsible for the murders en mass of migrants and refugees at the borders of the continents and oceans; for the State and para-State pogroms and deportations, for the concentration camps, for spreading xenophobia and racism, for the production and reproduction of nationalisms, and finally for the complete fascistisation of our neighborhoods and societies.

Read the full article HERE:

 PATRIOTISM.

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

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If Davos Was A Toilet???

     Two days to go until the world's richest parasites gather to discuss how best to get fatter, how best to milk the system harder, how best to increase their pilfering of the earth's resources, all for their own greed and gratification. Yes, it's banquet time for the plunderers of the planet, it's Davos time, World Economic Forum time.

       On the 24th. January they will come from all over the world, to lavish in resplendent pomp and wealth, the powerful corporate moguls, the billionaires, the pampered parasites of industry, representatives of the financial Mafia, the two-faced political pundits, the heads of state, all members of that putrid mass that feeds of the backs of the ordinary people. We are expected to believe that they are indulging in this frenzy of pleasure, all for our benefit, we are supposed to believe that they are wrestling with such problems as how best to eradicate poverty, how best to share their ill-gotten wealth with the ordinary people.

      Of course if you believe that, then you probably still believe in Santa Claus. What the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will spew out about this four Michelin star festival of indulgence, will be the usual pattern of myths, illusions, and down right lies. We will be told that between the clinking of the champaign glasses, they will be trying to sort out the inequalities in this world. When in fact all they will be doing is trying to smooth out any obstacles in their path to further exploitation of the planet and its people.

     It would be wonderful if we could, for one glorious day, turn Davos into one large toilet, then we could flush them all down the toilet in one historic moment for humanity, and the world would be a much fresher smelling place. 

 This from Global Justice Now:

     This week, 1,500 business leaders and 40 heads of state are meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum. They will be discussing how big business can help improve the state of the world – in their own best interests.

      The rhetoric from Davos is so deeply engrained in society that it can be difficult to challenge the power that they hold. Our new series of interactive infographics exposes seven myths that exist to perpetuate injustice and poverty across the world - find out who is really getting richer; who the real scroungers are; and how Africa is really the one aiding us.

     The world will not be saved a tiny group of the super-rich. Hope lies in challenging the power and wealth of this small elite and the orthodoxy of neoliberalism. By working with social movements around the world another world is possible.

     At Global Justice Now we are campaigning for a world where resources are controlled by the many and not the few. And the first step to do this is to debunk the myth that big business is the solution to all our problems.

Best wishes,

Alex Scrivener,
Global Justice Now

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The Militarisation Of Normal.

     Does it sound and look familiar?
Quote from Hardt and Negri's Empire:

--------- the rise of Empire is the end of national conflict, the "enemy" now, whoever he is, can no longer be ideological or national. The enemy now must be understood as a kind of criminal, as someone who represents a threat not to a political system or a nation but to the law. This is the enemy as a terrorist....In the "new order that envelops the entire space of... civilization", where conflict between nations has been made irrelevant, the "enemy" is simultaneously "banalized" (reduced to an object of routine police repression) and absolutized (as the Enemy, an absolute threat to the ethical order"

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Everyone Is An Anarchist At Heart.

     To most anarchists it is so obvious that we expect others to see it the same way, but sadly it doesn't work like that. What can be more enriching and liberating than controlling your own live, in mutual co-operation with others, what can be more demeaning than having your life controlled by others, who don't even have your interests at heart? Why do we accept the later, when the former is there for us to take?

Download the PDF:

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The Omnipotent Market.

      The power of “the market” is something we are told we have to accept, as if it were some omnipotent super being, beyond our control, somewhere in the outer universe, when in fact “the market” is no more than greedy people with lots of money manipulating resources in an attempt to increase or safeguard their unearned wealth and power.
      The latest crisis in “the market“ is oil, once selling at $100 a barrel, now heading for $30 a barrel. Same product, doing the same things, but now looking like it is near worthless, according to “the market”. This transformation is simply brought about by a bunch of greedy oil producers, in this case the Saudis, who see the growth of fracking in places such as America, as a threat to their market share. So they flood the world with their oil and suddenly it's a very cheap product, making the more expensive fracking process look uneconomical. The Saudis aren't to worried about the falling price as they are sitting on a multi-trillion dollar oil fund, and their oil is relatively cheap to get out of the ground.
       However, as these greedy billionaires fight it out to retain their slush money, the effect their squabbles have on the ordinary people can be devastating. If you are an oil producing country and your economy is dependent on oil, and it is more expensive to get your oil out of the ground, then this little squabble means bankruptcy for you, with all the attendant misery that this heaps on the people of that country.

       This is what is happening to Venezuela at the moment. The country is now running out of money, inflation is soaring and stands at 65%, supermarkets are empty, queues stretch round buildings for everything and anything, as desperate people try to survive. Some area authorities are banning buying groceries on certain days, and banning queueing at night, while protests are on the rise. According to UBS, Venezuela has an 82% possibility of collapse this year. The financial Mafia will descend on Venezuela like a flock of vultures and devour all the assets in the country. The people will suffer poverty and deprivation, and of course it will all be put down to that omnipotent outer space being, “the market”, nobody will be to blame.

     “The market” is capitalism at work, the devastation caused by these workings, are man made, and all the decisions are made by people sitting in boardrooms, protecting their plunder, without a thought for the misery they inflict on the ordinary people. As long as we have capitalism, we will have “the market” destroying people's lives, we will have poverty and deprivation, and we will have wars, as the greedy invisible suits behind the illusion of “the market”, take what measures they deem fit to hold onto their ill-gotten wealth and power.
     The world has enough resources to see to the needs of all its people, it is the insane method of gathering and distributing those resources that is the real problem. Capitalism is a man made system, we can dismantle it, replace it with sanity, create a system based on needs, and bury forever, the illusion of that omnipotent spectre “the market”.

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ISIS, A Long Running Story.

       For those interested in ISIS and what is going on in the Middle East, you could do no better than read Alistair Crooke's historical analysis of the roots of ISIS. The following is a short extract:

Today, ISIS' undermining of the legitimacy of the King's legitimacy is not seen to be problematic, but rather a return to the true origins of the Saudi-Wahhab project.
In the collaborative management of the region by the Saudis and the West in pursuit of the many western projects (countering socialism, Ba'athism, Nasserism, Soviet and Iranian influence), western politicians have highlighted their chosen reading of Saudi Arabia (wealth, modernization and influence), but they chose to ignore the Wahhabist impulse.
After all, the more radical Islamist movements were perceived by Western intelligence services as being more effective in toppling the USSR in Afghanistan -- and in combatting out-of-favor Middle Eastern leaders and states.
Why should we be surprised then, that from Prince Bandar's Saudi-Western mandate to manage the insurgency in Syria against President Assad should have emerged a neo-Ikhwan type of violent, fear-inducing vanguard movement: ISIS? And why should we be surprised -- knowing a little about Wahhabism -- that "moderate" insurgents in Syria would become rarer than a mythical unicorn? Why should we have imagined that radical Wahhabism would create moderates? Or why could we imagine that a doctrine of "One leader, One authority, One mosque: submit to it, or be killed" could ever ultimately lead to moderation or tolerance?

Read the full article HERE:

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