Anarchy Is For Lovers.

       Anarchism, the philosophy of love, irrespective of what the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media would have you believe, without love in your heart you can never be an anarchist. Of course that doesn't mean you are not a fighter, it is just that your battles are to spread love, peace and justice throughout the world. Anarchists have expressed their hopes and dreams in many ways, poetry, theatre, novels, paintings, etc., but also in direct action when and where they feel it is needed. Anarchism can claim among its ranks many poets one of them Frederico Arcos, Spanish anarchist and poet.

From The Anarchist Library, Frederico Acros:

       Federico Arcos (July 18, 1920-May 23, 2015), a lifelong anarchist, participated in the Spanish Revolution and Civil War in the 1930s, and later took part in the antifascist underground there. He immigrated to Canada in 1952, where he continued his commitment to anarchist goals. He eventually compiled an extensive archive of anarchist writings and other material.

Fifth Estaters met Federico in the early 1970s. In time he became a beloved elder to people working on the paper, and in the larger Detroit/Windsor anarchist, radical, and labor communities. The 50th anniversary retrospective exhibit of the FE at Detroit's Museum of Contemporary Art is dedicated to Federico. It runs from September 2015 to January 2016.

The following remembrance is presented with the understanding that each generation of rebels confronts the leviathan of oppression and exploitation in its own way, using the ideas and resources passed on to it by those who came before. Today's anarchists and anti-authoritarians fight for a future free from hierarchy and exploitation, developing means and strategies as they go. For some, living memory of the struggle goes back to the Occupy movement, for others, Seattle in 1999. Those of us who became active in the 1960s and '70s were personally acquainted with veterans of the revolts earlier in the century, from whom we drew deep inspiration and courage. Because the fight for freedom is still ongoing, awareness of the lives and legacies of yesterday's fighters and battles remains relevant, in fact essential.

—Robby Barnes

Continue reading:

           Now thanks to The Fifth Estate we are able to read Momentos a book of poetry by Federico Arcos in Spanish and in English on a free download HERE:  

Two of his poems from the collection:

WHITE DOVES

White doves. White doves
that pass by … return…
white doves flying in circles
as if protecting the neighborhood.
White doves. White doves
that perch on the roof of my house.
Peace… Peace and tranquility
the domain of those white doves.
But … what? But … what?
If there is no tranquility that lasts,
but there are vivid memories
of black doves in flight over
Barcelona!… Madrid!…
Guernica!… London!…
Hiroshima!!!… Nagasaki!!!
White doves. White doves
Lasting symbol. Endless beginning.
Oh, white doves; white doves!
—August 1960, Hiroshima 15 years on

And:

       Since 1939, young anarchists in Spain have paid the price for resisting Francoism. Raul Carballeira, a prominent figure in the anarchist underground, was one who paid the ultimate price when surrounded by police on Montjuïc Mountain in Barcelona.

RAUL CARBALLEIRA
(February 28, 1918-June 26, 1948)

Bursts of shrapnel
mowed down your young body.
But you still had a gasp of breath,
a gasp of breath and a bullet;
and your mind, like a rapid steed,
galloping in the air,
on a hot June afternoon,
exploded under your own impact.
I cry out and I cry out with vehemence;
I cry out with vehemence, oh brother;
for never did they succeed
in chaining The Idea
or silencing The Word.
The word that expresses
In ideas, the soul.
We are a hammer of steel.
We shall continue hammering.
Each word, a blow;
each blow, a spark;
each phrase, a flame;
and in fires of words,
torches of The Idea
illuminating the darkness,
we shall proceed on the path
with dawns of truth.

Read the full collection HERE:

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

A World In Revolt.

       It is difficult to grasp the extent of the public protests and anger across the globe, at the policies of neo-liberal corporate capitalism and their henchmen minders, the various states. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will always look the other way on these matters, and prefer to show you the latest royal baby or give the nitty-gritty details of some celebrity that is having an affair. However, you can move around the map of the world, put your finger on a city, and you can bet the deeds of your plantation, that there will be unrest on the streets in that city. Sometimes it is just a public display of that anger by mass protests, other times it storms into open riots against the system. It is not just on the streets, but in prisons across the world, prisoners are in open revolt against the injustice inflicted on them. It is so widespread today that if they all joined hands and organised together across borders, the system would collapse. The protests' fragmentation is its own real enemy. As long as we are isolated one group from the other, the powers that be, can isolate the protests and keep the lid on the anger. Our weapon has to be solidarity, in any form we can show, by publicity, by joining, by physical and moral support. What is going on in the world of anti-capitalist revolutionary endeavour, is always worth spreading, to inform, to inspire to learn from. Only when we the ordinary people see the world has no borders, and our struggle is global, only then will we be able to create that better world for all, and see to the needs of all our people.

         Recently "Revolutionary Struggle" released a compilation of letters, texts and communiques, you can download it for free HERE: The truth written and circulated is also a revolutionary act. 

An extract:

“If someone today wants to open a profitable business, they should make guillotines”

        With the above phrase an American journalist describes the size of social rage in the USA. It is the first time historically, where the total of the developed capitalist world boils in rage and desperation for the rulers, for those that are to blame for this crisis, which not only are not punished but continue enjoying their privileges and increasing their profits. It stems from the rage at the expanding poverty, at the marginalization of wider and wider parts of society, at the injustice, since the rulers require that the people are sacrificed in order to face the crisis.
       This rage is expressed in the last few months with more and more intensity all over Europe. In one European city after another, millions of people go to the streets with the youth in the front line, in order to express their opposition to the hard neo-liberal attack that the rulers have unleashed against the social and labour vested interests. In France because of the social security changes, in England because of the educational measures, in Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland, demonstrations are turning into revolts.
        One revolt causes another one and progressively, all over Europe the big social ignition is expected. The phrase “us or them” becomes more and more a common conscience and will become the slogan that will determine the result of the next bigger revolts.------

The full compilation can be downloaded HERE:

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

The Price Of Oil Is Always Blood.

          Remember in 2007, the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, filling every avenue of communication with their vomit of how we were liberating Libya?  How we were going in to a despot controlled hell to help the Libyan people liberate themselves from that mad man Gaddafi? How our smart bombs and measured military expertise would allow the country to flourish as a free democracy. Well now, almost 10 years later, due to the silence of our babbling brook of bullshit, on all matters Libya, You could be forgiven for thinking that our lords and masters with their imperialist military might had succeeded, and Libya was now a liberated and free democracy. 

         The truth could not be further removed from that thought, Libya is now a living hell, no longer a country, but a series of warlord and religious fundamentalist controlled areas. All brutally vying for power, in a land where the entire infrastructure has been destroyed, Where the life of vast swathes of the ordinary people has been reduced to drinking foul water and eating rats. Where beheading is a daily occurrence and rape endemic, where misery, fear and hunger is the fabric of life. The West is now seeing thousands upon thousands of migrants make that perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea, thousands of suffering unfortunate people who leave Libya with the one thought, "better to die at sea than return to Libya". This is the Western  type, bomb created democracy we brought to the Libyan people.

          The humanitarian disaster that is now Libya, was totally engineered by the imperialist West, the hell-hole of destroyed cities and towns, was our doing, and you would be an idiot if you thought that our destruction of Libya had nothing to do with the thousands of fleeing migrants, but the babbling brook of bullshit stays silent on that matter, we are now more or less in control of the Libyan oil, no longer any need to report what is going on in that unfortunate part of the world. The suffering of the people is of no concern in matters of control of resources.

         There is an excellent article about Libya with photos on arrezafe, though the English translation is not perfect it is understandable and informative.

 Libya today.

   We do not know how many people have died in Libya today as a result of the brutal intervention by NATO in 2011. Some sources speak of about thirty thousand dead; others, increase that figure. Meanwhile, the Red Cross estimates about one hundred and twenty thousand dead, but there is no doubt that the war which began NATO has destroyed the country and thrown into its six million inhabitants to a sinister nightmare.

Read the full article HERE:

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

There Is a Gap In the Wall- It Has To be Filled.

        Just heard from Loam of arrezafe, of the death of a Spanish comrade, like all those hardy loyal fighters for a free society, they must not be forgotten, their lives and their stories must be recorded, to inspire the next generation of fighters. Their passing always leaves a gap, a hole in our wall, we can only hope that some younger fighter, will step up and fill that hole. Now more than ever, we need those characters of steel and honest resolve.

A Comrade has left us

         We are sorry to hear of the death of long-time anarchist militant and member of the CNT Spain, Jose Luis Garcia Rua. Garcia Rua passed peacefully on Friday morning, January 6 at the age of 93. Rua was born in 1923 in Asturias, Spain. His father had been a member of the CNT who perished on the Oveido front during the Civil War. In 1939, he was forced into exile in France, eventually winding up in a concentration camp of Argelers and Barcarès, however he was able to return later than year.
      Garcia Rua began a career as an academic, but worked in construction, metal and mines. He was involved in anti-Francoist activity and ultimately repressed for his role in a miners' strike. He lost his job in academia for some time but ultimately became a professor of philosophy in the University of Granada in the mid-70s. In 1977, after the death of Franco, he was chosen Secretary of the Andalucian region of the CNT, a position he held twice. Between 1986-1990, he served as the General Secretary of the CNT and from 1997-2000, as the General Secretary of the IWA.
        He is the author of numerous articles and books, both related to anarchosyndicalism as well as his academic interests. On May Day 2015, he made an impassioned speech about the International Workers Assocation, calling on comrades to continue the tradition of militant anarchosyndicalism. This was the last speech that he made in public.

We send our condolences to his family.

IWA Secretariat

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

The Fabrication Of Reality.

        Never, never, trust that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. It consists of a group of people who will sell, to their corporate bosses, information stolen from you, to enhance their salary, and reputation among the shitpot of other journalists. You are always fair game in their egotistical career of bosses arse-licking. They will use and abuse any information they can sneak, steal or fabricate, they are the monkeys of their corporate media barons, the front line in the defence of this established system of greed, inequality and injustice. Treat them with the contempt they deserve. They have no place in the world of those who struggle to create that better world of mutual aid, co-operation and social justice, that struggle that strives for an end to capitalism, they are well and truly embedded in the world sleaze, corruption and greed. The propaganda mouthpieces of the establishment.

This from Rabble:

         In the past year or so, the bottom feeders of the press managed to write many lurid stories about comrades in the UK and our networks, which have not only invaded people’s privacy but have put them at risk from the state and fash. These journalists infiltrated our protests and social events, took close range pictures, trawled social media and pieced together sensationalist and often wildly inaccurate pieces about individuals, and put footage on the internet that led to people being targeted by the cops.
           While I expect no better of the media, I do expect us to put up more of a fight. The tolerance of the broader London anarchist/anti-authoritarian scene for the presence of journalists on our demos, and sometimes in our spaces (at times even on invitation!), is exceptional and I’ve witnessed it in few other anarchist milieus. Why is this? Is it mere slackness, a fear of rocking the boat, or are people actually buying the liberal bullshit from the likes of the NUJ about “freedom of expression”? A combination of the above seems the likely contender.
        In many cases, the widespread use of “social” media means that information is simply given to hacks on a plate; they need only copy and paste a few Arsebook quotes, and download some photos that the user themselves has put on their profile to come up with a story, such is the quality of the mainstream media. Obviously, people need to wise up to this and close down their social media accounts, or at the very least clean them up.

Read the full article HERE:

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

        

Greek State's Six Year Old Hostage Released To Relatives.

       An update on the Greek state's treatment of Pola Roupa's six year old child, who was being held in a psychiatric hospital under police guard, after the arrest of the child's parents. It seems that the Greek state has been forced to relent and bring a modicum of humanity into its treatment of this child. You can rest assured that this action was not brought about by the state's compassion, but by the strength of protest, and the fact that the eyes of the world were watching. Of course the state hasn't taken its foul teeth out of the child just yet, the state's henchmen will decide the innocent child's future within six months. We cannot let any state's acts of repression to slip past unnoticed, we must always be vigilant and resist.

This from Contra Info:

 Banner hung by the anarchist squat Utopia A.D. in Komotini, northern Greece: “Six-year-old captive; the hatred is growing; cops–judges–media filth, murderers”

         Today, Sunday January 8th 2017, after a new prosecutor’s order, temporary custody of Lambros-Viktoras Maziotis Roupas was given to the grandmother on his mother’s side, so his captivity in the psychiatric unit(!) of the children’s hospital in Athens was finally terminated. The six-year-old child left the hospital escorted by his first-degree relatives.
        Meanwhile, there were protests by inmates at Koridallos men’s and women’s prisons, Elaionas women’s prison in Thebes, and Trikala prison.
       Revolutionary Struggle members Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa and Kostantina Athanasopoulou have interrupted their thirst and hunger strike.
            A court will decide on the final custody of the child within six months.

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

UK- Military State.

         The creeping militarisation of our society keeps slithering forward, sometimes they find an excuse, some “terrorist “ event, sometimes it just happens out of the blue. This is the case at the Rosneath peninsular near Glasgow. The area is home to that abomination at Faslane, the Trident nuclear submarine base, and the nuclear weapons store at Coulport. These two weapons of mass destruction sites are policed by the MOD armed military police, who are not under the jurisdiction of the Scottish government, but the MOD in London. They have just announced that they will be widening their sphere of influence, and notifying the local population to expect to see them in a wider role in and around their area. There seems to have been no consultation with Police Scotland, but it has simple been announced as a fête-accompli, a like it or lump it, you’re getting it, attitude. They have announced that they will be doing spot checks, and stopping, at random, cars in certain areas.
         The area is one of beauty, visited by thousands from around the central belt of Scotland and further afield, it is an area visited by thousands of tourists, but the MOD armed military police have asked locals to report anybody they see taking photos anywhere near these two, danger to humanity sites. So if you are sitting with your family at the edge of the Gare Loch, on a fine sunny day, and you decide to take a photo, beware, you could receive a visit from your friendly armed MOD military police. Should we be worried? Well as our lords and masters spout venom at certain states claiming they are not democracies, but despot regimes controlled by the military, yet sit silent when we see the expansion of military control over ever more of our civil society, I think the time for worry is over, and it is time to display your righteous anger. 

       We here in the UK are a country that has been involved in overseas military adventures more or less continuously since the end of the second world war, and we are allowing our society to become more and more, a military controlled entity. When MOD armed military police patrol our streets and do spot checks, the façade has fallen, the gloves are off, the state is sowing its true colours. Gone are the pretences that the civilian police are there to protect us from the bad locals, and the military to protect as from those nasty foreigners overseas. It is simply all about control of the civilian population, to repress dissent, to intimidate those who object to injustices perpetrated by the state. Do you really want armed to the teeth, armed MOD military police swaggering through our streets, when out for a drive with your kids, do you really want to be pulled over by armed MOD military police? The decision is yours, if this is a democracy!!

Read The Herald article HERE: 

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

God's Failures Means That He Should Be Sacked.

        Christians are strange animals, they talk to an invisible man in the sky, and claim he is all seeing, all powerful, and a loving god, yet they accept that he didn't intervene to prevent the slaughter of the first world war, but will somehow intervene when they ask him to heal their aching back. He didn't prevent the genocide of the native Americans, but will respond to their call for him to help them through their daily problems. Though he sat idly through the holocaust, they will claim that with god's help they will solve their daily problems. Considering his track record on these major events, and other natural tragedies, I think he is sleeping at his post. If he did exist, I would see him as a very selfish, and extremely stupid god. To get through this life, I would rather rely on my fellow humans, with all their failings, than trust a so called, all powerful, loving invisible man, that has so miserable failed to show his love fairly across the globe. 

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

State Kidnapping Of A Child.

       A further statement from Pola Roupa, on the despicable act of the Greek state kidnapping of her child.

From Act For Freedom Now:

       I Panagiota (Pola) Roupa declare that I was and will be until I die an unrepentant enemy of the system. They have now put the child in the middle of this war and they punish him in order to get revenge against me. They have kidnapped my child and i don t know where he is since our arrest in the early morning.
        We are at war, it is true. But them fighting against my child, by not allowing me or other close relatives to see him and by threatening to send him to an institution, is the most despicable act in this war. Those who are in the state apparatus are worms because they are fighting against a 6 year old child.
       And I want to state that I have now begun a hunger and thirst strike to demand that the child is given to my mother and my sister. As for me I will remain the enemy until I die. And I will never yield. Long live the revolution!

Pola Roupa

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The Paranoid State And A Child.

      How depraved and paranoid is a state that locks up a six year child of an anarchist couple, then denies that child any legal representation or visits from friends and family, while keeping the child under constant police guard? Do they see the six year old child as a threat to their power, or are they useing the child to put pressure on the arrested anarchists parents? Either way in its indicative of the foul sadistic thinking of those twisted stinking henchmen who serve the state. In the eyes of the state, even an innocent child can be used as a tool, and to hell with the child's wishes and desires to be with its family. No innocent child should be used as a bargaining chip in the state's fight for total control and the monopoly of power. This is happening in the so called civilised EU, no matter how much illusion creating propaganda they spew out, they can never make the EU look like a democracy, nor can their talking shop parliaments give it the appearance of a civilised entity. It is a collection of despot state regimes, where freedoms are slowly strangled day by day.

This from Contra Info: 

       In the early morning hours of January 5th 2017, two Revolutionary Struggle members, fugitive comrade Pola Roupa and anarchist Konstantina Athanasopoulou were captured at a southern suburb of Athens. Anti-terror cops raided a hideout with Pola and her six-year-old son inside, while Konstantina was arrested in another house nearby. After being forcibly removed from his mother, Lambros-Viktoras Maziotis Roupas—the small son of Revolutionary Struggle members Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa—is being held captive inside a children’s hospital guarded by cops(!), without any access to visitations by his close relatives or even the legal representative of his parents.
            The Greek authorities, and in particular the public prosecutor for minors Mrs. Nikolou, still refuse to entrust the child to first-degree relatives of Pola Roupa.
            In response to this, three Revolutionary Struggle members—the anarchist prisoner Nikos Maziotis, the recaptured comrade Pola Roupa and the newly arrested Konstantina Athanasopoulou—have undergone hunger and thirst strike since January 5th, demanding that the six-year-old be immediately placed with his aunt and grandmother (relatives on his mother’s side).
In an open letter Nikos Maziotis stated, among others, that: “Our son is the child of two revolutionaries, and he’s proud of his parents. We will not succumb to any blackmail. We defend our choices with our very life”.
         On January 6th, during the women’s transfer to Evelpidon courts, Pola shouted: “The worms are holding my kid captive at Paidon (children’s hospital in Athens), guarded by armed cops; at the age of six, he is a prisoner of war” and: “Long live the Revolution!”. Furthermore, Pola stated: “I am a revolutionary, and I have nothing to apologize for.”

Below is Konstantina’s statement:

        “I am an anarchist, member of the armed revolutionary organization Revolutionary Struggle (Epanastatikos Agonas). The only terrorists are the State and the Capital. I refuse to eat and drink anything until the child of my comrades Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis is delivered to relatives of theirs.
Konstantina Athanasopoulou”
           On the inside, anarchist prisoners and other inmates at different wings of Koridallos male and female prisons have mounted a joint protest by refusing lock-up, to claim an end to the captivity of Lambros-Viktoras in solidarity with the Revolutionary Struggle prisoners currently on hunger and thirst strike.
On the outside, comrades in various cities throughout Greece have carried out diverse actions in immediate support of the anarchist revolutionaries, demanding that the first-degree relatives of Pola Roupa be granted immediate visitation and custody of the underage child.
        Strength to Konstantina Athanasopoulou, Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis, proud members of Revolutionary Struggle.
        Revolutionary Struggle will neither lay down arms nor surrender to the enemies of freedom.

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

The System---It's Falling Down.

       It is obvious, even to those politically blind and politically apathetic, that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a psychopathic power hungry, vicious dictator. Journals are closed down, staff are jailed, protests are savagely broken up, any form of dissenting voice is brutally attacked, thousands are dismissed from their employment because of their political view, thousands are imprisoned on any state whim. Turkey is a despotic entity that relies on extreme heavy handed police repression to exist. The harder the state attempts to crush the will of the people, the stronger the resistance will grow. The explosion will come, but it will require all our support and solidarity, plus the oxygen of publicity, the eyes of the people who desire freedom must focus on any resistance against the state that arises in any state.

 From Freedom: Anarchist Media, Publishing and Bookshop (UK)

         Late last month the editor of Meydan anarchist newspaper in Istanbul was sentenced to a year and three months in prison for “supporting terror,” the latest in a string of attempts by the Turkish State to shut down dissenting voices against Erdogan’s government. Today we are proud to publish a translation of Meydan’s uncompromising response, from their latest edition.
We are being cornered
        With the fear and shock that constantly oppresses our lives, with the agendas that change by the day, by the hour, with the constant repetition we see in news articles, debates, newspapers and radios, with the shares and retweets, the media that takes us for idiots and is fed by manipulation, with the gentrification and demolition policies that erase our past, our identity and our memory, with the “illusion of democracy” that weakens and imprisons our freedom, and with the reality that becomes more and more incomprehensible everyday, we are being cornered.
We are being cornered because the rulers require it in order to declare their authority and assert their dominance over our stolen willpower. We are being cornered because the rulers require it to keep their power and to create new objects to use in their own wars. We are being cornered because this is the only way the government is able to create space for itself and exist.
We are being cornered by misery
        The days that have to keep going through the exhaustion, the bodies that fall powerless, the minds that become unhappy as they weaken…
The rulers submerge the streets that we use to walk to school in the mornings, to go to work and to catch a bus in darkness. They comer us with unhappiness by squeezing us into minibuses and metrobuses that are full to the brim and sending us to work at the crack of dawn. As the government comers us with unhappiness, they drag us towards hopelessness and despair.
        We must resist the government that decides when we may sleep and when we must wake, that snatches our morning sun and pushes us towards darkness and despair in order to win back our bodies and minds. We must find the courage to defy those who would turn us into blind and deaf, unknowing and unfeeling individuals and break out of this complacency and cornered-ness.

We are being cornered by panic
       The broadcasting prohibitions that follow exploding bombs, the unfounded accusations after suspicious packages are found and bomb threats are made, the people who choose or are forced to choose to stay away from crowded places, the dollars that are exchanged in order to “prevent a crisis,” the people who dream of running away from the land that is oppressed by war, death and economic crises… 
        In the land we live in, the government dominates the individual with fear and panic, it incapacitates, comers and in time, annihilates. As the government enforces this state of fear and panic in all public areas, the individual loses control, becomes vulnerable and is cornered into the annihilation imposed by the rulers.
       Our lives are cornered into the grip of crises or death, and our days are spent looking for a way out of fear and panic, out of this cornered-ness.

Continue reading HERE:

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

Capitalism=Hypocrisy.

        In this insane system of capitalism it is not difficult to find monumental hypocrisy, in this web of illusions, businesses are supposed to develop and make goods and then sell them and keep the profit. However, that rule is not always followed. Take the arms industry that multi-billion pound corporate creator of death and destruction, they like other corporate greed merchants receive public money, yours and mine, make the weapons of destruction, or whatever, then sell them back to us direct or via the government’s military spending. A nice little earner if you can get it.
       It has just been announced that the UK government is giving a European arms consortium £30 million to develop a laser weapon, no doubt once they have perfected it, they will sell it back to us and pocket the profit. £30 million to develop a new weapon at the same time as telling us, the ordinary people, we can’t afford welfare and social services. 

 

       Hypocrisy is part and parcel of this insane system, austerity for you and me, but our lords and masters are quite prepared to pay almost £2 million a day to bomb Syria into “freedom” with all the resultant death, misery and destruction that has ensued.
        It is estimated that our attempt at bombing Libya into freedom cost you and I, £1.4 billion, just part of the estimated £33 billion the UK has spent in overseas military adventures the last couple of decades in bolstering its corporate interests.
       All this under a campaign of austerity, where you and see, wage freezes/cuts, slashing of welfare and social services, the corporate world sees subsidies and increasing profits, while those at the receiving end of our “spreading democracy” see death, destruction, and mayhem. That is the capitalist system at work, doing what it was meant to do, make lots of wealth and power for that small cabal with their hands on the levers of power. 

 

Our Political System.

Wanker bankers, with their bundles of booty,
Sleazy solicitors, spewing slimy words for pieces of silver,
Lying lawyers, licking posteriors in the corridors of power,
Pompous politicians, products of posh fee paying schools,
Fraudulent financiers, fiddling the fruits of our labour,
Movers and shakers, false dream makers,
Weavers of illusions, creators of charades,
Perfidious pedlars of devious deals,
Nauseating narcissistic brainless mouths,
Candidates offered up to lead us to the promised land??? 

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

 

Deep In Our Hearts.

        I have always maintained that we are all born anarchists, but the society we grow up in bids us bury those feelings and desires somewhere deep in our hearts. However we do carry them with us through out our lives, they are there ready to sprout and grow if we can create the right circumstances. These occasions rise in all parts of the world, sometimes in small groups that grow and then some fade under pressure from without. Other times it is a mass movement that can only be crushed by the military might of an authoritarian regime. No matter what, we should always remember deep in all our hearts there is a desire to live, with each other, in peace, in caring, sharing communities.

I Want to Believe!

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in hearts that live in dark valleys,

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

In spite of war, in spite of greed

The essence that is humanity struggling to be free.

All around death arrives in many guises,

Silent as the frost poverty kills,

The ruthless march of war

With every drum beat seeks God’s blessing,

While the God fearing kill the God fearing,

Slaughter in the name of the greater good.

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in the hearts that live in dark valleys

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

Not just as the dream of poets.

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

Magic Moments.

        Life can be quite a struggle in this unequal, unfair, unjust society, so much so, that sometimes we lose sight of those precious gems close at hand. However, we can still have those magic moments. On the 2nd January, we had some of the family round, so it was an opportunity for another of those magic moments, another excuse for a fire in the back garden, another chance at chatting, drinking fruit juice, and toasting marshmallows on the fire. Despite the bitter cold it was a great night, for a short period, we created a simple world, planted a friendly memory, captured the delight of laughter, pleasant chat and strengthened the bonds within a group. A nice way to start the year.

My grand-daughter, Stefania, toasting a marshmallow on the fire.

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

 

A New Year's Thought.

IT'S TIME TO STORM HEAVEN.

Under the yoke of servitude we dragged our existence forward

For generations have fertilised the earth with our blood

Oiled the machinery of wealth with our sweat

We have produce bountiful harvests

A mountain of luxury

Yet

All we know is

persecution pain and poverty

Struggle laced with bitter anguish

Our hands have fashioned a pleasure palace

Feasts abundance frivolity and a sea of fetishes

For a merciless army that feeds on selfishness and greed

And although we dwell under the shadow of hell

We shall never relinquish our precious dreams

In our hearts we nurture a better future

A softer world for all our children

Where poverty's claws

And war's ire

die

One day

Our righteous anger

Will smoulder and rumble

And cause the old world to tremble

Before exploding in a blast of social justice

We the people will storm the gates of an earthly heaven,

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

Something Rotten And Malignant At The Heart Of Our Society.

 

       A happy new year to all my family, friends and comrades, so forward into 2017, filled with hope and determination, that we can change the world. This time of year all across the world people gather, filled with goodwill towards each other, a feeling of camaraderie sweeps across the globe, and then it dissipates and fragments. This year let's hold on to that feeling and join hands in the realisation that we are one people, and we can shape this world to our liking and our needs.

       Of course we should not forget that there are those who can't join in any gathering of their choice, for a multitude of reasons, among them, abject poverty, illness, and living in a war decimated area and then those who find themselves locked in the penal cages of the state. Prisons are symbols telling us that freedom has not yet been born, they are living monuments to power, authority and repression. Prisons are edifices reminding those lovers of freedom that their work is far from over. 

       No matter the nation state, it will have its prisons, a tool in its defence of its monopoly on power. Here in the UK that so called "bastion of freedom", the powers that be, boast of crime figures falling, but fail to see the contradiction in the rising numbers of its citizens it locks up in its cages of repression. In that other "land of the free" the good ol' US of A, they lock up more of their own citizens than any other despot, dictator or monarchy on the planet.

      No matter the "prison reforms", prisons are an intolerable abomination of human dignity, they are factories for the destruction of the individual, the state's tool for control. In present day capitalism, prisons are more and more becoming production units for making money for large corporations. In other words prisons are large factories housing slaves. There are no workers rights, no minimum wage, no paid holidays, no days off, no sickness benefits and no health and safety cover, but there are punishments for not working hard enough.

      Naturally, human beings, being what they are, lovers of freedom and dignity,  if you treat them in this manner you build up pressure, and sooner or later the pressure blows. In America on the 29th of September, the largest strike in American prison history began, and ran for months. Some of the individuals involved in that stand for dignity are still being brutally punished by the state's henchmen, know as screws.

     Here in the UK over the last few months, we have seen a series of prison riots,  all brutally suppressed by the heavy hand of the state. Recently in Brussels, in civilised Europe prison riots broke out at several prisons, Tournai, Arlon, Huy, Landtin, and Andenne.  the prisoners burned their cells, flooded the units, trashed the hallways, etc. Saturday May 7, a devastating mutiny rocked the Merkplas prison in Anvers. Whole wings were destroyed and burnt by the insurgent prisoners. Walls were levelled, fences torn down, whole units ransacked.

        Prisoners strikes, and prison riots are symptoms of something rotten and malignant at the heart of our society. People will make a stand about animals being held in cages, but seem to tolerate human beings being held in cages, Why? Of course our babbling brook of bullshit, the main stream media, pedals the lie that our prison are full of nasty, evil, brutal psychopaths. When the truth is far removed from that pungent vomit that the media spews out. Facts show that a very high proportion of those in prison are suffering from some form of substance addiction, a high proportion suffer from mental health problems, a high proportion are illiterate, all of these problems make it difficult to integrate into society. These are people that need our help and support, not to be locked up in cages at the whim of a biased judicial system, that is there to protect the rich and wealthy.

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