Wealth Built On Poverty.

       Saw this image on arrezafe when reading his article on the new headquarters of the European Central Bank, and thought it was an extremely powerful symbol of capitalism in the developed world. A world where the poor are hidden away, while business continues to function as if everything is fine. Brush that which might shatter the illusion of "everything is fine", under the carpet. 

   Palatial air conditioned shopping malls, city centre gentrification, grand spectacles to woe the tourists, shop windows a blaze with designer labels. Then side streets with people sleeping rough, dark doorways that are home to damaged human beings, crush by a pitiless system. Housing schemes where the vicious teeth of poverty bites at the lives of the many. Capitalism, a compassionless system of contrasts, inequality and injustice. Why do we tolerate this brutality heaped on our own people? 

A monumental feat of engineering, on the banks of the River Main, the seat of the European Central Bank. Spectacular, cold, imposing. 185 meters high, 45 floors. 110,000 square meters. More than 4,000 tons of steel.

"The symbol of the best that a united Europe can achieve," said ECB President at his inauguration. "A great new home for the ECB to fulfill its mandate" , according to Draghi.

Read this and think of Greece!!!

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Resisitance.

      Resistance is everywhere, it gains in strength by joining hands in solidarity.

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Never Rise Off Their Arse.

Rebel Tam.

When rebel Tam was in the pit

He tholed the very pangs o' Hell

In fechtin' for the rights o' Man,

And ga'e nae thoucht unto himsel'.

"If I was in Parliament,

By God!" he vowed, "they soon would hear

The trumpet-ca' o' Revolution

Blastin' in their ear!"

Noo he is there, back-bench Tam,

And listens daily to the farce

O' Tweedledum and Tweedledee,

And never rises off his arse.  

Joe Corrie.

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GDP, And All That Crap.

     The world of capitalism and debt is a very strange world. Debt as a percentage of your GDP seems to be taken as a bench mark of a country's viability. Hence Greece gets clobbered, plundered and its people driven into deprivation as its debt, 2013, sits at 177% of GDP. Others are not that far behind, Italy is sitting at 132% of GDP with the USA at 105%. The UK, though low as a percentage of GDP is seeing that percentage rise considerably. When the "crisis" hit in 2008, UK debt was 51.9% of GDP, but has now, 2013, shot up to 90.6%, are we heading towards a Greek situation? Another fact we should remember, after the WWII, the UK was bankrupt, but managed to create the National Health service!! We don't hear a lot about Japan but it seems to survive with a staggering debt of 256% of GDP, why? To whom do all these countries owe that debt? If the Greek economy was devastated and plundered with debt of a mere 177% of GDP, does this mean that the world is heading for a "Greek crisis", as the world debt, 2014, was sitting at an eye-watering 286% of the world's GDP. So in this insane capitalist asylum, the world's debt outstrips all its wealth, who are the banksters and financial Mafia that will call this debt in, and turn the world into another present day Greece? 

       All these crazy figures prove, is that the whole system of capitalism is built on an illusion, a world of shuffling figures, a world where a bunch of people tell us that the world owes more than it is worth, where that bunch of people have the power to destroy an entire country and its people, because we are lead to believe that the illusion is a reality.

      The world belongs to us, the people who live on it, there is nobody above us to whom we owe anything. The debt is an illusion by those who produce nothing, in an attempt to enslave those who produce all the wealth on the planet. Let's stop talking economics, and start talking people's needs, let's stop looking at balance sheets, and see to those needs. Let's shatter the illusion of perpetual growth and create sustainability and mutual aid. It is our only hope of fairness and justice for all our people, it is the only hope of saving our home, the planet.  

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Ricardo Flores Magon.

Farewell!*

We cannot break our chains with weak desire,

With whines and supplicating cries.

'Tis not by crawling meekly to the mire

The free-winged eagle learns to mount the skies.

The gladiator, victor in the fight,

On who the hard-contested laurals fall,

Goes not in the arena pale with fright

But steps forth fearlessly, defying all.

O victory, O victory, dear and fair,

Thou crownest him who does his best,

Who perishing, still unafraid to bear,

Goes down to dust, thy image in his breast.

Farewell O comrades, I scorn life as a slave!

I begged no tyrant for my life, though sweet it was;

Though chained, I go unconquered to my grave,

Dying for my own birth-right-----and the world's. 

Ricardo Flores Magon.

 

 * Written just before his death, (1923) while incarcerated in the federal prison, Leavenworth, Kansas. Magon was an active Mexican rebel, and at the behest of the Mexican government, the US government seized him, its agents beat him up fiercely, and afterwards held him for years until his death.

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Imprisoned For Being A Companion.

      Even the vapourish illusion of democracy has long since disappeared in Greece. The people of that country are forced to live their lives at the vagaries of greedy corporatism and  brutal authoritarianism As the living standard of the people is plunder beyond anything seen in Europe since the end of the second world war, the powers that be, in an attempt to keep control of this situation, have only one tool, savage repression. I'm sure in time, that tool will fail, and the people of Greece will win through to take control of their own lives.

     The story of Evi Statiri is just one of countless victims of that savage repression.

This from Contr info:

    Greece: Evi Statiri still in prison for being the life companion of a captive anarchist urban guerrilla

    On July 14th 2015, it became known that the latest motion for release filed by Evi Statiri (the life partner of CCF imprisoned member Gerasimos Tsakalos) was rejected by the competent judicial council.

    Despite the fact that Evi has never been a member of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, nor had she any involvement whatsoever in the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire escape plan, which was uncovered in January 2015, she is nevertheless being held in pretrial detention in Koridallos prison since March 2nd.

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Sunny Campsie.

    A beautiful day yesterday, Wednesday, so had a lovely cycle round the Campsie area. Lots of sunshine and not much of a wind. Who could ask for more.

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

Corporate Murder!!!

     A recent study based on the UK government's own figures found that approximately two-thirds of children living in poverty were in households where at least one parent was working. The study also found that that there was an increase in the number of children living in working families who were faced with absolute poverty as opposed to relative poverty. 

     The acceptable face of economic growth capitalist style. We produce an abundance of wealth, and more working families sink deeper into the mire of poverty. This is the reward the system hands you if you are one of Cameron's “hard working families”. All of this is no accident, it is the expected result of policies based on ideology that glorifies the greed of the corporate world, at the expense of the people who create all that wealth. 

      Poverty, especially child poverty, has a devastating effect on the health and development of the individual. It brutally destroys the potential of every individual that it touches. We also know that in this system there are a considerable number of people who have died as a result of benefit cuts. People proclaimed to be fit for work by a bunch of bureaucrats, had their benefits cut, and died shortly afterwards. Others have committed suicide after such callous inhumane treatment. 

       All of this is the result of deliberate policies thought up and implemented by people with names and addresses. They must be held to account, the evidence is there, they are responsible for what is nothing less than murder. 

      Despite almost a quarter of a million people signing a petition demanding that the government release the figures showing the number of people who have died after being stated to be fit for work, and had their benefit cut, this bunch of Bullingdon boys refuse to do so. Despite the judicial system of the land stating these figures showed be released, they still refuse, stating that they will appeal the decision. Their excuse is that those demanding the release of the figures are scaremongering. The answer is simple, release the figures and prove your point.

      How much longer will we accept the cull of our poorest and most vulnerable? How much longer will we accept our people being sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed? How much longer will we allow ourselves to be duped by a bunch of millionaire parasites who are working hard for the benefit of their rich cronies in the corporate world? Are we waiting for the rich and powerful to become more compassionate, waiting for them to look at our plight and say, “Oh dear, we must do more for those poor people”? You'll have a helluva wait.

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The EU Coup Over Greece Proves Who Rules.

       We should not underestimate what has happened in Greece, it is crystal clear proof that national governments have no say in how their country is run. Democracy in capitalism, is, as anarchists have been saying for centuries, an illusion, those with the greatest wealth have the greatest power, and they will use that to defend and further their position of wealth and power. 

     The people of Greece are suffering the worst poverty seen in Europe since the end of the second world war. Did that brotherhood of nations, the EU rush forward to help the suffering people? A resounding NO, the rushed forward to try to save their debt ridden banks. As far as the plutocrats that control Europe are concerned, the people of Greece can go to hell in a handcart. This is capitalism functioning as intended, brutal, ruthless and exploitative, a system without compassion. 

       To imagine that there is a milder, more people friendly and compassionate capitalism, is naivety in the extreme. If we the people want justice and fairness for all our people, then we have to start in earnest, to demolish this blot on the face of humanity. We have to relegate capitalism to the bin of distant history, to the fog of the past, and start, in the here and now, to create that better society. To organise in our communities and workplaces, to take control, to shape things the way we want them to be.

      Take Greece as your last warning, it is writ large who controls your life, who controls the direction you will be driven. As a people we can be the slaves of the financial Mafia, or the masters of our own destiny.

An interesting article from A World To Win:

      The eurozone, along with the rest of the capitalist world, is weighed down by debt and economic growth rates have failed to return to their pre-crash levels by some margin. Germany, France and the others are not interested in democracy and not open to pressure or protest, as Syriza have found out. Merkel and co are themselves locked into overriding economic and financial forces.
      Appeals by Tsipras and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to European solidarity and democracy were therefore bound to fall on stony ground. Their failure to attack capitalism as a system was noticeable and was a weakness. Yet there can’t be a regulated, “softer” form of capitalism, where some countries do austerity and others don’t as a matter of choice, especially within the eurozone where the ECB controls every country’s banks.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

The eurozone, along with the rest of the capitalist world, is weighed down by debt and economic growth rates have failed to return to their pre-crash levels by some margin. Germany, France and the others are not interested in democracy and not open to pressure or protest, as Syriza have found out. Merkel and co are themselves locked into overriding economic and financial forces.
Appeals by Tsipras and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to European solidarity and democracy were therefore bound to fall on stony ground. Their failure to attack capitalism as a system was noticeable and was a weakness. Yet there can’t be a regulated, “softer” form of capitalism, where some countries do austerity and others don’t as a matter of choice, especially within the eurozone where the ECB controls every country’s banks.
- See more at: http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/a-very-capitalist-coup.html#sthash.1RcuvMjj.dpuf

You Have Felt The Pain, Now For The Agony!!

     For some time now the Troika, (ECB, European Central Bank, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers, EC, European Commission) have been holding a gun to the head of the people of Greece, now they pull the trigger. Syriza has accepted a deal worse than the one that 62% of the people of Greece had just recently rejected, so much for European democracy. Syriza, like all political parties, when push comes to shove, they play by the rules of the Financial Mafia. 

      The God-fathers of the financial Mafia have taken a "left leaning" government and rubbed their noses in the shit, and it is the people of Greece that will feel the pain. After more than five years of collapsing living conditions, five years of failing health service, five years of disintegrating education system, they are now being forced to endure higher taxes, lower pensions and higher unemployment for the foreseeable future, and their national assets sold off to fund the European banksters. Will the Syriza group be able to get the coup accepted by the Greek parliament? My opinion is they will, but will the people of Greece accept that ruling from the puppets in the Greek parliament, I hope not.

    An interesting comment in The New Statesman, from Varoufakis tells us how democracy works in Europe:

    When Donald Tusk, the European Council President, tried to issue the communiqué without him, Varoufakis consulted Eurogroup clerks – could Tusk exclude a member state? The meeting was briefly halted. After a handful of calls, a lawyer turned to him and said, “Well, the Eurogroup does not exist in law, there is no treaty which has convened this group.”
     “So,” Varoufakis said, “What we have is a non-existent group that has the greatest power to determine the lives of Europeans. It’s not answerable to anyone, given it doesn’t exist in law; no minutes are kept; and it’s confidential. No citizen ever knows what is said within . . . These are decisions of almost life and death, and no member has to answer to anybody.”
Events this weekend seem to support Varoufakis’ account. On Saturday evening, a memo leaked that showed Germany was suggesting Greece should take a “timeout” from the Eurozone. By the end of the day, Schäuble’s recommendation was the conclusion of the Eurogroup’s statement. It’s unclear how that happened; the body operates in secret. While Greeks hung on reports of their fate this weekend, no minutes were released from any meetings.

Read the full article HERE:

And from The Barbarian Times: 

        Syriza has shown their hand- as if anyone needed confirmation. At The Barbarian Review we have taken a consistent line fully against Syriza, in contrast to many of the unsupportable illusions that have been promoted in certain radical sectors, and the proof of this can be read by anyone. Well before there was Syriza, there were any number of past Marxist dictatorial and social-democratic failures. History clearly showed what was going to take place. Now Syriza is just another austerity government but with more ridiculous rhetoric, and more generous helpings of incompetence. The shuttered stores, abrupt policy changes, populist-nationalist rhetoric, and official lies surely recall to mind life in the East Bloc. The only thing missing is more serious repression, which presumably is not far off.

 

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Two Wheel Magic.

      Not my favourite cycling weather, windy, showers, but never the less, out enjoying the cycle.

Isn't Scotland a beautiful country?

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

 

The Magic Of Poverty.

The Magic Of Poverty

Despondency,  our morning cloak

worn through the lonely day,

walking poverty's empty corridors

remembering promise that broke

in castles made of clay.

Indignation trapped in a heart

desire lost in a fog

poverty's special magic where,

a lover becomes a tart

 a spouse a snarling dog.

Voices raised in anger

hands wrung in despair

faces with no love

self-pride a stranger

confidence a rare affair.

Tired wishes, empty hopes, tears

and broken dreams,

short lived loves, brittle vows,

tomorrow filled with fears;

poverty's melody themes.

Our daughters and our sons

innocent and intent

born in the labyrinth of poverty;

a dark place bright hope shuns,

dreams are never sent,

by the force of poverty drawn

to become the labouring crowd,

filling the world with plenty, yet

missing out on the golden dawn,

their passions by poverty cowed. 

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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