The Modern State Has No Place For Freedom.

      The attack on anarchists by states, across the capitalist world, continues unabated, from Spain to Chile, from Mexico to Italy. Those who fight hardest to end this greed driven exploitative system of capitalism, and replace it with a system of co-operation, mutual aid and sustainability, are the ones the states wish to crush. They are the greatest threat to their ill-gotten power and wealth.

      From the Czech Republic, comes another familiar episode of brutality and repression. Reported in Contra Info

    Non-vegan diet, isolation, boredom, hour and a half of daylight. Meeting people through the bars and hardened glass. These are just some of the conditions our comrades experience while imprisoned. In this article we would like to describe the everyday reality of imprisoned anarchists and outline ways to support them. We call for support of all three defendants and, especially Martin, to whom the few next weeks may be critical. We also call for exerting pressure on the Pankrác prison to respect Martin’s vegan diet and towards improving prison conditions in general. More about the case from AntiFenix.

 Operation Phoenix, police infiltration and possibly fabricated case
     Recently in April 2015, Police of the Czech Republic commenced an operation against the anarchist, anti-authoritarian and animal liberation movement. This operation is known and called Operation Fenix (Phoenix). During the initial stage many individuals have been questioned and interrogated, some arrested and several places raided. Police confiscated servers, computers, flash drives, cameras, mobile phones and other digital devices or data carriers. So far we do not know to what extend the operation goes and how many people are being monitored and what the intentions of the police are. On a number of occasions the police fabricated or purposely concealed important facts in order to obtain permission to search different properties and arrest people.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

July 14th. A Date For Your Diary In Glasgow.

Film Conversation, The Portal, Plantation Productions: 

6:30 for 7 on 14th July Film Length 36:17


THE GOVAN PROJECT - PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
       To increase understanding and encourage participation in helping to build local institutions where research can be shared, discussed and developed with others.
       So we had our first volunteer session along side the film night. It was a nice summer evening, so we weren’t expecting a big crowed. The folk who did turn up had a wide variety of perspectives, which is ideal. An important part of the process of this kind of research work is that we are all coming at it from different sets of experiences, where the teacher and learner are inter changeable. Where the more experienced in different aspects and topics can be the less experienced in others.
    We found local volunteers, even family members who spanned a wide understanding of academic research and local life. Folk who do campaigning work, local men's group, some visitors to the city, a few students and some other local people with a general interest. We are also receiving enquiries from Glasgow Volunteer network. So its all good there. This is how we hoped to start.
      The next film and conversation night we will be showing “Given to the People” The story that led up to GalGael’s beginnings. The conversation will be about how this group of people, even in the midst of protest and through what they were learning from the protest, were planning on how to sustain the energy of the protest to create a sustainable community institution, Galgael, which is now 20 years old. Gehan Mcleod will lead the open discussion and share some ideas. Topics could include, governance structures, using assemblies for decision-making and input ideas from the floor.
       It would be worth pointing out here, we will be using the Centre for Human Ecology office at the Pearce Institute as a drop in, on a Thursday starting this week from 1:00 to 4:00 and early evening for those who work and cant get to events. Or other times by appointment if you email or phone. It is important to meet folk face to face, pop in for a chat.

Next volunteer session will be posted soon: See website

Phone: 07811 263 923

Thanks to Plantation for use of Portal. http://plantation.org.uk/

Sign up for updates: https://commgood.wordpress.com/

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

NO, The Start Of An Arduous Journey.

     So the people of Greece have said NO to the truncheon of the financial Mafia, they have suffered enough as the banksters try to recoup their gambling loses. I have been a frequent visitor to Greece over the years and have seen it transformed from a pleasant place to live, among a friendly people, to a pit of deprivation, beggars have spread like a virus, social structures have collapsed, stress and trauma are everywhere. None of this was because of the actions of the ordinary people of Greece, it was all engineered by the financial Mafia in an attempt to shore up their crumbling financial house of cards. They will gladly sacrifice a whole land of people, sinking them into the mire of perpetual poverty, looking only at their balance sheets. We should all take a good look at this scenario, none of us are special to the financial Mafia, we can all be sacrificed at the altar of Mammon, if the banksters see that as a way of protecting their edifice of illusionary money.

      What does it feel like to live in Greece today, surrounded by a crumbling society, watching friends and family suffer for no reason of their own.

     This letter was sent to ft.com and gives some idea of what the people of Greece have been, and are going through. We owe them our support and solidarity in their fight to free themselves from this bludgeoning by the financial Mafia.

Sir, Memory. No memory of life before the financial crisis; politics has dominated it ever since. But now I can hardly remember life before Friday night. Fear. I am terrified of tomorrow, all I now see is black. Uncertainty, leading us through our days, every remainder of hope for a brighter future being destroyed by the minute. I look at my three-year-old niece, I envy her ignorance, I envy her age. I am 21 years old and the past few days I feel tired by life. A referendum that supposedly gives me the right to define my future, seems to have taken it away.

     There are hundreds of people queueing at the ATMs and petrol stations, there is silence in the streets, people’s faces are frozen. This is the reality since Friday night. There are, and have been for a long time, people literally starving. However, it seems that instead of their situation improving, the rest of us will have no different a fate.

       Families and friends divide in Yes and No camps. We are called to exercise our democratic right by voting on a referendum while having no tangible explanation of what will follow each decision. I see everyone I know ready to take this huge responsibility without even being prepared to do so. I notice us, arguing endlessly, everyone supporting their stance fervently, ego dominating minds and words, while having no clue as to what is really at stake.

      We all want the crisis to end, we all crave growth and happiness. I do not remember my parents being free of stress and anxiety in the past years. I do not remember not noticing shops closing every month, or the rapid increase of beggars in the streets. People that, before the financial crisis, never had to beg for anything. However, the past five days have been worse than all that has been so far. They say that all we hear is propaganda; but we have lost our trust in all sides, now everything seems to be lies.

       It feels like an end. The end of our lives as we knew them. Yes, the lives that, before Friday, we already thought could be better; now we realise they were better then. The only thing we truly wish for is that the worst is not yet to come.

Iliana Magra

Thessaloniki, Greece

       The people of Greece face an extremely hard time, NO may have been the right decision, but it is not an immediate panacea. You can rest assured the the financial Mafia will not back off easily, they will do their damnedest to crush the Greek resistance to their dictates. Their are extremely hard times ahead for the people of Greece, and their answer lies in their own hands, they have to break the shackles of the economic system that binds them to the banksters model of exploitation. There are groups in Greece that are pointing to the answer, people taking control of their own country free from the mantra of profit and illusionary growth.

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

Your Class Needs You.

The Industrial Workers of the World

2015 national speaking tour...

‘YOUR CLASS NEEDS YOU’

       The National Secretary of the IWW, Dave Pike, introduces the fighting union, what it stands for and how it is winning victories for the working class - like higher wages for cleaners, permanency for temps and safety at work for fast food workers. The IWW sees the world as divided by the boss class and the working class, and no-one will fight for our class other than us. We organise so that workers can win for themselves and are not reliant on Union full timers or politicians to fight for them. Come along to this event and find out what the IWW is doing in Europe and around the world, and how you can get involved. Fight for your class.

CCA, Clubroom.
350 Sauchiehall Street.
Glasgow City centre - G4 9AJ

Sat 25 july - 7.15-9.15pm

clydeside@iww.org.uk
www.iww.org.uk

IWW - A RADICAL UNION FOR ALL WORKERS

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

Now.

Now.

No time to theorise the market economy

no time to mark out the nations boundary

injustice is now.

No time to measure the moon with a measuring tape

no time to catalogue the deeds of the great

injustice is now.

No time to worship purloined power

no time to kneel at the ivory tower

hunger is now.

No time to let illusions swamp the mind

no time to be lead like a host of blind

hunger is now.

It's time to cast your silence to the ground

it's time to use actions your anger found

freedom can be now.

It's time to hold fast to your heart's dictate

it's time to rise in anger against the state

freedom can be now.

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

Tomorrow Is Ours.

      The people of Chile have had brutality heaped on them for generations, from the CIA's, (Capitalism's Invisible Army) coup, that installed the butcher Pinochet, through the neo-liberal/free-market policies forced down the throats of the people by the American financial Mafia. However, like people the world over, they take only so much, and then they start to kick back. You will not find much about the struggle of the people of Chile in our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. No, they are much too pre-occupied with more important things such as royal babies, sporting spectaculars, and hyping up hate against those poor and vulnerable on benefits.  

    The struggle by the people in Chile is just one part of a growing world wide hatred of this insane system of exploitation of the majority, by the rich few. A growing awareness that we can change things, we have the power, and when we come together, we are unstoppable. This world belongs to us, from the bricks to the the mansions, from the bicycles to the cargo ships, we made them all, we can surely decide how we will use them.  

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

Freedom Bulletin No. 8, 1929.

     The latest addition to to Spirit of Revolt "Read of the Month" is Freedom Bulletin No.8, September, 1929, one of the few printed out of London and in the Whiteway Community. Well worth a read.

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

From Glasgow To Greece.

     Glasgow stands with the people of Greece against austerity. In spite of the usual Glasgow crap weather, there was a reasonable turnout. Well done to all those involved I'm sure there are many more people than those who turned up in the lousy weather, standing behind the people of Greece in their bitter struggle with the financial Mafia.

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

There Is No Freedom While Prisons Stand.

    Australia, like America and Israel carries out a brutal policy of genocide on people whose land they have colonised. Of course in Australia and America, they have been at it for much longer than their Israeli friends.

       Australia also has a vicious and cruel policy on migrants, locking them up in concentration camps on somebody else’s island. The colonisers have swamped the territories and now vastly out number the indigenous people, and as is customary with colonisers, the indigenous people are seen as lesser human beings, denied all the basic rights and receive the rough end of the "justice system". The first nation people of Victoria Australia, are now only 1% of the population, but make up 30% of the prison population. A true indicator of how they are treated. To boost prison spaces in Victoria, the authorities are useing shipping containers to house prisoners. Think of the heat stuck in a steel box, think of the cold when the temperature drops.

       Recently in Victoria, Australia, a smoking ban in prisons sparked a riot that was stated by the Australian authorities, as the worst prison riot in recent times. I doubt that it was simply the smoking ban alone that brought this about, I have no doubt, it was a case of the last straw breaking the camel's back.

This from Insurrection News:

      Melbourne, Australia, 01.07.15: Hundreds of prisoners at the Metropolitan Remand Centre in Ravenhall have rioted in response to a state-wide ban on smoking in all of the state of Victoria's prison hell-holes. The prisoners attacked screws, lit fires, rammed an exit door, torched prison vehicles and stormed a control room during what the cops are describing as one of the biggest prison riots in recent history. All prison staff were evacuated from the prison and heavily armed police goon squads entered the prison deploying tear gas in an attempt to suppress the riot. The riot began at around 12:20PM on 30.06.15 and continued until 03:00AM on 01:07:15 when the cops finally suppressed the uprising. There are reports from the corporate scum media that several prisoners were injured in the riot and that at least 2 screws got battered. As a result of the riot the entire prison system in Victoria is now on complete lockdown. 

       In response to the riot a snap action was held at a traditional First Nations meeting spot in the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Collingwood by First Nations Liberation (FNL) and their supporters in solidarity with the rioting prisoners. In the state of Victoria, First Nations peoples only make up 1% of the population but make up 30% of Victoria's prison population - this over-representation of First Nations people in the prison system is a direct result of the unceasing genocide that has been waged against First Nations people since the arrival of the colonists in the territories now commonly referred to as Australia in 1788. Afterwards a small group of anarchists painted graffiti on a nearby wall in solidarity with the rioters.

      Solidarity and strength to the Ravenhall rioters who kept the screws and heavily armed cops at bay for almost 15 hours armed only with makeshift weapons, their fists and a fierce will to resist! 

Fire To The Prisons! Destroy The Prison Society!

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

The Ever Increasing State Repression.

A few moments to myself, so thought I would share this.

        From Spain to Mexico and across the globe, state surveillance comes down hard on anarchists and those connected to anarchist groups and spaces. In Spain they have Operation Pandora and Operation Piñata, here in the UK Bullingdon boy Cameron, jumping on the tragic killing of tourists in Tunisia, has spouted his mouth off about radicalism, stating that they will target those who do not want to take part in the democratic process of the country, that's a very wide circle. Also a rather ambiguous statement, since we don't have a democratic system in which to take part.  Every event of violence will be used as an excuse to increase state surveillance across the board, and to clamp down on any form of dissent. Not to sing from their handed out hymn sheet, will become ever more dangerous, a different opinion will be seen as radicalism and attempts will be made to silence that opinion. The term radicalism will be deliberately kept extremely vague, and used as a large catch all net. Of course we should take this as signs that the powerful pampered parasites feel threatened.

This from Contra Info:

-------On the other hand, we have the government’s efforts to qualify anarchism or “anarchic conduct” under the judicial classification of terrorism, applying severe charges and operating under maximum security parameters, only to withdraw the charges, with the argument that they lack sufficient evidence – but always leaving the open threat that “investigations continue.” Nonsensical investigations, plagued with arbitrary references to groups and individuals that exist in very different spaces.
This is all paralleled by police monitoring and surveillance of certain individuals in an attempt to intimidate them, as well as provocations against certain autonomous spaces.-------

Read the full article HERE:

Spanish democracy in action.

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

Crisis To Plan.

 

      For some time now that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, has been vomiting bilge water and crap about the "Greek crisis", pouring festering sewage over anything the Greek people try to do to alleviate their situation. The theme is always, bad Greece, for not following the dictate of the financial Mafia and not punishing the people of Greece further for the greed of the banksters. It all makes it so glaringly obvious that people don't matter, democracy is an illusion, and the people can got to hell in a hand cart, as long as the financial Mafia can keep their corrupt house of cards standing. The Euro situation is unsustainable and is kept alive by each paying the other to pay them back what they owe, shuffling money between indebted institutions and printing trillions of Euros to paper over the cracks.

      However we should be under no illusions, what is happening in Greece, is not a one-of crisis, it is a formula that will be applied to any country that tries to tell the the financial Mafia that their system is fucked and is unsustainable. It will be the method to bring any government into line, that in any way threatens the financial Mafia's monopoly of power over people. The moment people start to take control to shape their country, it is seen as a nail in the coffin of the power of the financial Mafia, and will be crushed. They will push the Greek government and people to chaos and destruction, and from the troubled times, engineer a right wing government that will willing sign up to the Financial Mafia's terms, and the illusion can continue.

      The photo is a rare gem of truth from a member of that babbling brook of bullshit, the Metro.

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

A Short Break.

      I have my sister and her husband arriving from Canada for a few weeks, so my ranting may be sparse or absent during that time. I want to show them little gems of our beautiful country. In the meantime, just a fleeting thought.

The Vision.

In youth the future was so bright

a vision so near, so easy to see.

There was no guns

there was no wars,

the glow of love had banished night

my brothers and sisters all were free.

Peace and love replaced competition

in the future everybody was my friend.

There was no greed

there was no hunger,

each child blossomed free from exploitation,

to abuse another we could not comprehend.

Time and age has made the light so feint,

in the darkness it's hard to find my way.

Was it a dream

was it a vision

shall I ask Hope which path she meant,

tell me lady, where and why did I go astray?

In this accursed darkness I can no longer see,

dare I ask the strangers, are you still my friends.

Was there a way

did I fail to fight,

in the distance are my brothers free

or is the accursed darkness where it ends?

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

Let's Discuss Tomorrow, Today.

      Your local community is the basis for a better society, get together, talk, organise and shape your community the way you want it to be for you and your kids. It can only be done if we meet up and discuss our ideas, free from the influence and pressure of authority. How do you build a better society if we don't come together and talk about the how, why, and where, the nuts and bolts of what we really want. Let's discuss tomorrow, today.

      Make a date for Tuesday June 30th. 978 Govan Road, bring along the community you want.

 

      Come along to the Portal, Plantation Productions, on Tuesday night, help us to start thinking about building new models of community participation, value systems, and a knowledge base of things folk need to know, learn and share to counter austerity and win things.
      As many other communities have shown us, the rewards of community-run assets & spaces are huge (i.e. reigniting community spirit, ensuring sustainable management of resources & ensuring much needed spaces and services continue to exist). However, as many other communities have
learned (and shared), the process of collectively governing a community asset is a complex and challenging one with many obstacles – practical, relational and political.
      In order to navigate these challenges as effectively as possible we believe that a process of structured knowledge-sharing, learning and research needs to take place in the community by the community to figure out the what, how and why, of building and rebuilding community structure, resources and representative institutions. We can build, through Participatory Action Research, (PAR) the knowledge, strength and vision needed to really take these kinds of projects forward.
      It has taken many hours months and years to put this project together. It is time to put it to into action. It is wide enough in scope and adaptability. What we offer is a framework. What you hang on it will go towards reclaiming the commons and the hope of a decent future – If we are willing to fight for it.

PAR Volunteer information session:
Tuesday 30th June 5:30-6:30 pm

Film Night - Conversation
 – The Secret History of our Streets
30 June 7 -9:00

Plantation Productions
The Portal
978 Govan Road
Glasgow
G51 3AJ

All info on Website:
https://commgood.wordpress.com/
https://commgood.wordpress.com/participatory-action-research/

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





  

Who Killed Freedom?

      Away back in 1951, or there about, I started reading the newspaper, Freedom, and more or less from then on continued to read the paper. I also wrote a couple of pieces for my favourite paper. Of course it was never perfect, but since 1886 it was a voice of reasoned anarchism, it was always there when others faltered and failed. I was utterly gutted when it folded and just couldn't understand why. The final statement in the piece "Transforming Freedom" by Andy Meinke still rings in my head, as the sort of statement one would have expected from some fascist group that closed down the paper Freedom, "---Kropotkin might have started it but we fucking finished it".

An article from a couple of months ago, by Christopher Draper in Northern Voices, throws some light on the demise  of that long standing flickering light of Freedom:

Who Killed Freedom?: an unauthorised history 1.

Christopher Draper

FREEDOM the world’s oldest anarchist newspaper is no more. Founded in London in October 1886, for over a century FREEDOM was universally recognised as the most thoughtful, open-minded, newspaper of the British anarchist movement.  In October 2014 this unique institution, having survived police raids, violent attacks and two world wars, was declared dead by its editorial collective.  FREEDOM blamed its demise on the combined effects of declining interest in print media and insufficient support from the anarchist movement.  The truth is rather different.  FREEDOM was destroyed by three young men deficient in knowledge and authoritarian in practice and one old man who knew better yet encouraged these miscreants to do their worst. T he consequence, though tragic, was utterly avoidable. 

Democratic Clique

   

FREEDOM was never officially the newspaper of the anarchist movement. It was started in London in 1886 by a small band of anarchists with no formal ties to any other political organisation.  As David Goodway observed:  'It was published monthly as a sober and thoughtful journal surviving while other publications appeared and soon folded in the tempestuous and often violent world of contemporary anarchist activism.'  Despite initially promoting debate between individualist anarchists and those of a more socialist persuasion FREEDOM soon adopted an explicitly anarchist-communist outlook. Other interpretations of anarchism continued to be expressed and debated within the paper and throughout its long, varied and sometimes interrupted history FREEDOM continued to provide open-minded, unsectarian coverage of anarchist affairs.  Although nominally controlled by a self-elected libertarian collective FREEDOM not infrequently relied on key individuals within the group to safeguard the newspaper’s anarchist integrity.  When Tom Keell in 1915 acted precipitously to keep the paper out of the hands of Kropotkin’s pro-war faction he was denounced as a dictator by fellow editor George Cores but backed by the wider anarchist movement. Once again in 1928 FREEDOM was kept alive as an irregular bulletin through the dedication of Keell who published it from his home at Whiteway Colony.  From 1930 until his death in 1934, John Turner carried the editorial baton and then after a two year gap the paper was revived in a new guise by Vernon (Vero) Richards. 

Read the full article HERE:

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

Bombs Or Butter?

       Everybody knows that America is a very wealthy nation, a super imperialist power that dominates the world. According to the IMF, (International Mankind Fuckers), 2015 figures, by GDP America is the second richest country in the world, slightly behind China, UK is ninth.

      However that leader of the capitalist world, USA, up to its armpits in wealth, and like all capitalist countries doesn't spread that wealth around its people. In the citadel of capitalist wealth, 46.2 million of its citizens live in poverty, slightly more than 14%. The figures for 2013 state that 1.5 million children lived in shelter or emergency accommodation. The number of households, in 2014, living with "food insecurity" was a staggering 1 in 7. The numbers living in poverty are multiplied when you add those just managing to keep themselves above that magic line of poverty. Where does all that wealth go? Well according to recent figures, approximately 50% of the federal budget goes on killing and the necessary equipment for that activity.

     This recent article from Freedom Socialist, Voice of Revolutionary Feminism, throws up some interesting facts.

One F-35A fighter jet — $157 million*
Ten new elementary schools — $148 million.
*This does not include research and development; the total cost of the F-35 program so far is $1.5 trillion.
Sources: Defense Industry Daily; Reed Construction Data

        Though hardly front-page news, the proposed federal budget for 2016 boosts funding for the Department of Defense. Obama earmarked $534 billion to these U.S. warlords. Their base budget in 2000 was around $300 billion. His proposal keeps baseline “defense” spending at its typical 20 to 30 percent of the total budget.

       This $534 billion does not include the Department of Energy allocation to build nuclear bombs. Nor does it cover an additional $51 billion for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, etc. This money comes under the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) — authorized, unaccountable hush money which exempts the Pentagon from the spending restrictions of the 2011 Budget Control Act. Social services programs are barred from such exemptions.

         When the war-related share of the federal debt is added in, nearly 50 percent of the total federal budget goes to militarism!

            With social programs legally defenseless and the Pentagon now well-protected, the GOP announced its proposal to cut food stamps by 34 percent over the next decade. Obama’s budget would cut Medicare by $400 billion over the same period.

         This Republicrat frenzy for more guns and less butter is an assault on working people everywhere. An effective fightback requires that we understand where it’s coming from.

Read the full article HERE:

       The insanity of this system is there for all to see, a system where unbelievable wealth is created and vast amounts of it are spent on destruction, with the bulk of the rest of that wealth ending up in the off-shore accounts of a small greedy bunch of parasites. Do you have any ideas how better to distribute that wealth we create?

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

One Day Soon??

Yea, I'm the eternal optimist, one day, one day------

FROM GEORGE SQUARE TO TAHRIR SQUARE.

In a global square, in a global village the people are gathering,

They want to sort out their village once and for all.

They have had enough of wild beasts stealing their chickens,

Of war lords pillaging and plundering their crops.

Though they labour hard, they live poor

While the wild beasts and war lords grow fat.

This time they will take the time and do it right,

This time they will finally and forever banish,

Wild beasts and war lords from their village.

This time all our chickens will feed all the children of the village

This time our crops will see all our people through the winter,

This time, all the fruits of our labour will be ours.

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