The System Has No Legitimacy.

          For centuries we have been, through struggle and negotiations, teasing minimal improvements in our conditions from the system of capitalism. However we should never forget that, under the system of capitalism, these crumbs of comfort that we have struggled so hard for, are not permanent benefits. The system will always be involved in claw-back operations. Sometimes this is done in a slow kind of piecemeal manner, different types of legislation and rule changes, such as flexible working conditions, zero hours contracts, changing the pension age, workfare and benefit sanctions and so on. Other times it is the system itself that hits one of its inevitable and frequent “crises” that force it, for its own survival, to claw-back in a savage and vicious fashion. Two major claw-backs that spring to mind is what is now know as the 30’s and the 2008 financial crisis. In both these instances the system’s financial centres went bust and to get it back up and running, there had to be a massive claw-back of all or most of the meagre benefits from the public, that we had won through years of struggle. This was done in a similar manner in both cases, a policy of “austerity”, involving a savage and vicious destruction of the social fabric of society, resulting in a tsunami of poverty, deprivation, and mass unemployment, with no regard to the suffering of the ordinary people. The system first and foremost, this ensures that those with the wealth and power remain in control and hold onto their wealth and power. 

        When do we accept that we have been pursuing a failed policy of subservience by continually accepting the false legitimacy of this system, and asking, “Can we have some more please”. Exploitation, injustice and inequality can have no legitimacy, and any system that perpetuates those qualities must be the target of our anger, not to plead for more, but to eliminate the system completely, and replace it with a system based on mutual aid, co-operation, and sustainability, a system that sees to the needs of all our people. For freedom and justice, there is no other way.

       The following is an extract from ATTACK, a Pistols Drawn Publication:

         By permanent conflictuality we mean uninterrupted struggle against class domination and those responsible for bringing it about. By self-management we mean independence from all parties, trades unions or patronage, as well as finding the means necessary for organising and carrying out the struggle on the basis of spontaneous contributions alone. By attack we mean the refusal of any negotiation, mediation, reconciliation or compromise with the enemy.
        Nevertheless, the final aim of these intermediate struggles is always attack. It is however obviously possible for individual comrades or affinity groups to strike at individuals or organisations of Capital and the State independently of any more complex relationship
          Sabotage has become the main weapon of the exploited in their struggle in the scenario we see extending before our very eyes. Capitalism is creating conditions of control and domination at levels never seen before through information technology which could never be used for anything other than maintaining power.
Alfredo M. Bonanno
The Insurrectional Project

You can read the entire ATTACK PDF for free HERE: 

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

Change We Must.

           Who are the terrorists, who are responsible, by far, for the vast majority of the killings on this planet, who forces poverty and deprivation on millions, who plunders the planet, for personal gain and not for the community? We all know, or should know, the answers to these questions, of course it is the state and capital. Yet millions still tolerate this festering cancerous marriage between state and capital, and foolishly millions turn to those very killer organisations in an attempt to improve their lives, it is a bit like being lost in a jungle and asking a crocodile for assistance. We have had centuries of watching the rich get richer, until we now see a small group own, by far, the greatest slice of the world’s unimaginable wealth, while the vast majority struggle from day to day just for survival, and some don’t even make that level. We have had centuries of asking and petitioning for the wealth to be a little bit more evenly spread, the result is the opposite of what we ask, the rich still get richer. They say that one of the signs of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, but expecting a different result. Perhaps we should now be looking at ourselves and realising that we have to try something different, to get that better result that we all desire. You have voted for centuries, and the wealth that you and I create, still flows, at an ever increasing rate, upwards, to that small band of bloated parasites. You know there is a better way, you know that the world has an abundance of resources that could see to the needs of all our people, you know we have the ability to create that better world, but as long as we play the game to the rules of the gangsters and mobsters that at the moment control all that wealth, we are doomed to see the wealth continue flowing up to their overloaded coffers, and we will continue to see our people struggle and suffer. 

        There are many ways we can change the system, end this injustice, and end the plundering and destruction of the planet, but change we must. To continue as we are is to see the suffering increase and by the continuing plundering of the planet, the eventual demise of the ecosystem that we all rely on for survival. We must remember, the Earth has no escape capsule.

This poster has appeared recently in Greece:

Translation from Contra Info:

 The poster reads:

“I am a revolutionary, and I have nothing to apologize for.

         Terrorists, criminals, robbers are those who compose the economic and political life; the institutions and governments that, through the memoranda, are waging the most violent, the most heinous attack on the social base in the name of a “way out of the crisis.” Terrorist, criminal, robber is the State and Capital; those whom I fight committed with all my soul to armed struggle, to Revolutionary Struggle; those whom my organization has targeted all these years of our activity.
       (…) when the economic and political establishment attacks the social majority in the most merciless way, armed struggle for social revolution is a duty and obligation; because that’s where hope lies and nowhere else. The only hope for a definitive way out of the systemic crisis we are living in this historical period, for a definitive way out of every crisis. It is the only hope towards overturning capitalism, the system that gives birth to crises; the only hope towards overturning the State and Capital.
        It is the only hope for an armed counterattack of the social base against a system that crushes them.
        It is the only hope towards overthrowing the State and Capital; for Social Revolution.
         For a society of economic equality and political freedom for all.”
Pola Roupa

       “I am an anarchist, member of the armed revolutionary organization Revolutionary Struggle. The only terrorists are the State and the Capital.”
Konstantina Athanasopoulou

Demonstration in solidarity with Revolutionary Struggle members

Saturday January 21st 2017 at 12:00 in Monastiraki (downtown Athens)

SOLIDARITY WITH THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE MEMBERS

NO EXEMPTION STATUS OF POLITICAL PRISONERS

STRUGGLE AGAINST THE STATE AND CAPITAL BY ANY MEANS

–Solidarity Assembly (Athens)

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

Kropotkin's Speech.

        We at Spirit of Revolt are always delighted when we can put one of our gems from history up for the general public to enjoy on our "Read of the Month", This month it is Kropotkin's speech at the Memorial Hall London on October 21st., 1909. The speech was given to honour  Francisco Ferrer Guardia an educator and founder of “Modern Schools”, which taught radical social values. In spite of the fact that there was no evidence against him, he was executed by the Spanish state, by firing squad on October 13th. 1909.  Spirit of Revolt is fortunate to have an original copy of that speech, and are delighted to share it with the public at large.

Read the speech on line HERE:

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

Platitudes and Hypocrisy, The State's Contribution.

 

        Doesn’t it strike you as rather hypocritical that the state can move to open up shelters and facilities for all those threatened with possible flooding, but is hell bent on ignoring the thousands that are homeless across the country, even as the temperature plummets, we don’t hear of the state organising local communities to open up shelter and facilities for these vulnerable and suffering people. According to the organisation Shelter, there are approximately 16,000 homeless in the South East of England alone, and this pattern rolls out across the entire country in varying degrees. Of course this is happening on an apocalyptic scale across Europe, as those hundreds of thousands of migrants, fleeing war, death, misery, torture and deprivation, find themselves bedding down in tents covered in snow or huddle together in any closed or semi-closed place they can find. We are talking about men, women, children, and elderly, this is the true face of “civilised”, rich, capitalist Europe.

            This vast army of homeless, traumatised, fleeing individuals, and families are trapped in pockets across the continent, and for months, according to the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, they have been invisible. However, now for what ever reason, their plight is making the news again, we are seeing them huddle together, and in one journalist’s photo opportunity, saw them burning railway sleepers to try to keep warm. What will come of this sudden thrusting of their misery onto the headlines? Well going on past records, nothing,

           They will be dropped and the new headlines will be of some celebrity’s latest “scandal”, talk of the stock exchange, of how sales are up or down, and the latest on the Queen’s cold. That vast army of weary, wandering, traumatised fleeing people will once again become invisible, and calm will be returned to the “civilised” continent of Europe. Europe is rich in all manner of resources, it has cesspools filled with money, it has an abundance of skills, it is awash with wealth, well capable of resolving the “migrants” situation with humanity and dignity, but this will not happen. The overpowering out pouring from the various states across capitalist Europe is hypocrisy, it is the only answer they have to the problems of the ordinary people. If we keep the same system, we will be cursed with the same answers.

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

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

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

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.

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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.

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