Language is a tool, poetry is a weapon, it can be a powerful weapon that can stab the heart, open a mind, explode a myth, ram home the truth.
Tuesday, 25 April 2017
Australia, The Good Life!!!
Australia is a country that we don't hear much about in our neck of the woods, unless of course you're into cricket and/or rugby. For most people here in the UK, there is this perception of Australia as a sunny land with the good life. However, Australia is a capitalist country and so comes with all the usual capitalist baggage, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, inequality and discrimination.
Australia has a population of approximately 24.5 million, and they don't all live the good life. The people of that country are going through the same "austerity" treatment that we are going through, with much the same results, increase in poverty and homelessness. Australia's "middle class" is shrinking and over the last decade, the bottom 5% of income earners have become poorer. Sound familiar? The Australian headline poverty rate in 2014 was 13.3 percent, or 2.99
million people up from 11.8 percent in 2003-04, while children in poverty in one-parent families, rose from 36.8 percent in
2012 to 40.6 percent in 2014. Same old capitalist story.
According to the The Australian Council of Social Service report 2016, In international perspective, Australia’s poverty rate remains
above the OECD average, despite the country's relative prosperity. Ah well, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
It is not just in poverty and homelessness that Australia follows the capitalist mode of society, it is also in discrimination. Australian Indigenous people are at the receiving end of a brutal discrimination. In 2000, life expectancy of Indigenous Australians was some 20 years below that of other Australians. All the socio-economic indicators such as income, employment, housing, education and health show considerable disparities between Australia's Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. In fact, Australian Indigenous poverty ranks alongside countries as poor as Bangladesh where absolute poverty is real.
From FTP No. 8.
However, Australians, like people across the globe, don't all sit and take this savage exploitation with complete subservience, they fight back. If you are interested in finding out about some of that fighting back then the zine FTP is worth a read and No. 8 is now available. FTP is a “bi-annual report
on indigenous, ecological & anti-capitalist resistance in the
occupied territory known as Australia.” As such, this zine features a
wide-range of actions compiled from communiques and news reports. There
are a lot of photos interspersed with the text, making this a great way
to learn about what is happening in Australia. I'm all in favour of our ideas and actions finding their way onto print and being circulated, the printed word finds its way into places the internet can't.
Sunday, 23 April 2017
The Anarcho Tourist Review.
The March issue of The Anarcho Tourist Review Is available as a PDF free download HERE:
Well worth a wee read, here is the introduction and contents:
Introductory notes
Clearly we are living in critical times. Even from abroad, it’s clear to see that the election of Trump, coming as it does in the epicenter of Imperial power, signifies that we are at a major historical turning point. One might even say that the post-modern era is ending. All the beliefs and practices that we once presumed normal are dissolving and giving way to a social outlook that may previously have been dismissed as irrelevant.
For one, Trump’s victory totally stunned an impotent post-modern Left, but it did not really surprise any of us. To be honest, those who predicted otherwise were shocked, first and foremost, only with how out of touch they were with social reality. This is the first time in recent memory that a Western superpower has elected a head of state that represents such a clear departure from the politics of ‘business as usual’, even though this new direction is doubtlessly towards something quite foreboding. What is now undeniable is that, rather than going with a more conventional option, people are evidently calling for something much crazier.
On top of this, the rise of Trump is only one of the many symptoms of an era that seems to be defined, more than ever, by the slow-motion collapse of civilization in general. The wars are becoming ever more widespread and violent, environmental disasters multiply whilst the fish are disappearing from the oceans, and, in combination with protests that are growing ever more violent, there is ever less hope of society and its Left gaining a few more years of peace with its hypocrisy and pacifism. As things descend into chaos, leftists present themselves as skilled strategists by telling people to peacefully vote in (generally rigged) elections for thirdplace parties…
We can only hope that now the mask is off the illusions of easy solutions will also disappear. There are no more charismatic candidates to delicately conceal the dystopia that we were already living in anyway. The state and society have taken further steps toward totalitarianism shedding their few remaining inhibitions along the way. In such times the only honorable response to the state and its class of rulers can be resistance. Those invested in the existence of the state can plead patience if they want but the ultima ratio of princes and peoples is sorting from its long slumber: popular uprising is the only solution to today’s problems, the only way to end this depraved and crumbling oligarchy.
Meanwhile, with attention switching to the core capitalist states Greece seems to have drifted back to the periphery of interest. For some Leftists, the situation is an embarrassment best not mentioned. By this point few are paying attention to the latest re-run of negotiations, the government’s stage managed heroic resistance is just as boring as the next inevitable honest compromise is spineless. Those who do glance at Greece after two years of Syriza see a population demoralized, disorientated and demobilized. The great humanitarians have become the prison guards of Europe while large layers of society get ever poorer. They have done nothing but pave the way for the restoration of the old regime which waits excitedly in the wings.
However, we do not have to look far for a response to this bleak picture. We see it in the honest defiance of the political prisoners, the barricades of Exarcheia, continued resistance to austerity, and the everyday humanity and solidarity which contrasts with the government’s hypocrisy. These call us to rethink, regather our strength and continue along the difficult path of struggle that lies ahead. In these difficult times, let’s focus on pluralism, respectful disagreements, and positive acts. With that being said let’s go on . . .
Contents:Continue reading HERE:
A Tale of Two Cities: Paris and Athens
A Semi-Concrete Organizing Proposal
Anti-Capitalist Tactical Spectrum
A Parliamentary Dead End
An Anarchist Affection for Democracy
The Return of Nation-State
The Conspiracy theory
Some theses on Neo-Fascism
Orchomenos
Anarcho Tourist Reviews
A Fatal Malaise Of A Civilisation.
My previous post was in response to the coming UK general election, but this farce, this charade, this competition of liars, is not confined to the UK, it is a world wide illusion, a disease of humanity, a disaster of gigantic proportions, that is rapidly destroying our planet. We recently had "an election" that put a narcissistic unstable moron on the throne of the most powerful imperialist power on Earth. While waiting for the stage production from the UK theatre of lies, we are having the French presidential election spewed over us. None of these events have any possibility of solving the problems we face as a civilisation, all are concerned with the control of power in their personal fiefdoms. All they do is gratify a few messiahs and aggravate the problem that we as a civilisation are now facing.
The following is from an interview first translated by Ill Wind Editions:
By the way, the book, "The Coming Insurrection" if you haven't yet read it, is well worth getting your hands on.
Editor’s note: The trial of Julien Coupat and Mathieu Burnel, known as the “Tarnac affair”, has dragged-on for over eight years now. On the 10th of January, the Court of Appeals deemed that it was no longer to be classified as a terrorism case. Assumed by many to belong to the Invisible Committee—whose first opus, The Coming Insurrection (2007), was a resounding success—they here take a critical look at the presidential campaign. Their newest book, Maintenant [Now], is due to hit the shelves next week.Continue reading HERE:
***
Le Monde: What do you make of the presidential campaign?
What campaign? There was no campaign. There was a soap opera, a fairly worn-out one at that, to tell the truth, full of twists and turns, scandals, dramatic tension and suspense. Much brouhaha, a tiny frenzy, but nothing that managed to pierce the wall of generalized confusion. Not that there is any lack of followers for each candidate, tossing-about with varying degrees of fanaticism in their virtual bubbles. But this fanaticism only deepens the feeling of political unreality.
A graffiti that went up in Place de la Nation during the Mayday demonstration last year stated: "There will be no presidential election”. It suffices to project ourselves ahead to the day after the final round of the election to grasp what’s prophetic in this tag: whatever happens, the new president will be as much a puppet as the current one, the legitimacy of their governance will be just as lacking, just as minoritarian and impotent. This fact isn’t solely due to the extreme withering of politics—to the fact that it has become impossible to believe honestly in all that is done and said there—but is likewise due to the fact that politics is a derisory means of confronting the depth of the current disaster.
What can politics and its proclamatory universe do when confronted by the concomitant collapse of ecosystems and subjectivities, of the wage society and the global geopolitical order, the meaning of life and the meaning of words? Nothing. It only adds to the disaster. There is no "solution” to the disaster we’re going through. To think in terms of problems and solutions is only one more aspect of this disaster, a way of safeguarding us from any serious questioning. What’s called into question by the current state of the world is not merely a political system or a certain form of social organization but a whole civilization, that is to say, ourselves, our ways of living, of being, of relating and thinking.
The buffoons who mount their platforms to boast of the “solutions” they’ll be strong enough to enact once elected are only pandering to our need for illusion, our need to believe that some kind of decisive change exists that would spare us, and spare us above all from the need to fight. All the “revolutions” that they promise us are only there so that we may avoid changing who we are, to relieve us of any physical or existential risk. They’re candidates for the deepening of the catastrophe. Seen in this light, it would seem that for some people the need for illusion is virtually insatiable.------
Saturday, 22 April 2017
The Ever Tightening Grip Of The State.
As the states across the West, and elsewhere, turn sharply to the right, we will see from them, a more brutal response to dissent, dissent in any form. Harsher sentences, shifting to minor offences being dressed up as serious offences, large sweeping arrests, and catch-all charges. The charade of "due process" will evaporate as guilt by association will become the norm. Most states stand up and spout about their adherence to the "letter of the law", the only problem with that is they keep shifting and changing those "letters" to their advantage. They make the laws, so they are always on the right side of "the law", to protect and enhance their grip on power.
This happens under all manner of guises, subtly, by small unannounced degrees, under the cover-all banner of state security, "anti-terrorist" legislation, or the ever increasing "state of emergency". Procedures introduced under these banners are seldom, if ever, relinquished, they are kept on the state's agenda for further use, and in most cases, become common practice.
The following article refers to America, but can equally apply to almost any state, for example, France's now year long "state of emergency", Turkey's new massively increased powers to the President, Italy and Spain's sweeping up of anarchists. They are all at it, as dissent rises, so does the harshness of the state, eventually we see the raw power and authority of the state institution. Don't expect the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media to get all hot and bother about this ever diminishing rights of the citizen, they are there to protect the established power structure, and no matter what, will continue to spew out their usual illusions, sweared with bubble-gum and popcorn crap.
This happens under all manner of guises, subtly, by small unannounced degrees, under the cover-all banner of state security, "anti-terrorist" legislation, or the ever increasing "state of emergency". Procedures introduced under these banners are seldom, if ever, relinquished, they are kept on the state's agenda for further use, and in most cases, become common practice.
The following article refers to America, but can equally apply to almost any state, for example, France's now year long "state of emergency", Turkey's new massively increased powers to the President, Italy and Spain's sweeping up of anarchists. They are all at it, as dissent rises, so does the harshness of the state, eventually we see the raw power and authority of the state institution. Don't expect the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media to get all hot and bother about this ever diminishing rights of the citizen, they are there to protect the established power structure, and no matter what, will continue to spew out their usual illusions, sweared with bubble-gum and popcorn crap.
Continue reading HERE:"It's crazy, a few windows got smashed," 23-year-old Olivia Alsip said, two months after her arrest on felony riot charges. "Why are 214 people looking at ten years in prison?"
Alsip only knew one other person at the protest march that day. The political science graduate student from the University of Chicago had met her partner in November, when the two had joined the camps at Standing Rock opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. When they heard about calls to protest Donald J. Trump's inauguration in D.C. on January 20th under the banner "Disrupt J20," they felt they had to be there. "I identify as an anarchist, and I've been an activist for women's and queer rights since the 8th grade," Alsip told me over the phone from Chicago.
Alsip is among 214 defendants facing felony riot charges, up to a decade in prison and a $25,000 fine for their participation in the anti-capitalist, anti-fascist march, which ended with a mass arrest on the morning of Inauguration Day. As far as the student understands, the evidence against her amounts to little more than proof of her presence at the unruly protest, as indicated by her arrest. Like the vast majority of her co-defendants, Alsip didn't break or throw anything. Now she lives in shock over the steep price she and her fellow protesters might pay as the new administration and police forces set the tone for how they will deal with the spike in organized dissent.
Anarchists and anti-fascist activists across the country have responded to Trump's ascendancy, and particularly the attendant emboldening of white supremacists, with confrontational protest. Rivers of digital ink were spilled approving and denouncing the meme-friendly punch delivered to neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, as well as the militant demonstrations that prevented far right troll Milo Yiannopoulos from waxing hateful at UC Berkeley. But while scattered vandalism and punching (a neo-Nazi) were deemed headline-grabbing militancy, the media relegated the most extreme incidents involving anarchists and antifascists—namely, recent treatment of them—to footnotes.
A New York Times article published two weeks after the inauguration about anarchist protests accorded just half a sentence to the fact that a Yiannopolous supporter in Seattle shot and seriously injured an anti-fascist activist, and has yet to face charges. Fifteen paragraphs down, a mere mention was given to the mass arrest of the 200-plus anti-fascist protesters on Inauguration Day. The fact that these arrestees now face felony riot charges went unmentioned by the Times—blanket charges, which carry a heft unheard of in the last decades of protest history.
"In my over thirty years of practicing law, I've never seen anything like this," said veteran D.C. attorney Mark Goldstone, of the charges. Goldstone, who has defended dozens of activist cases and is representing six of the J20 defendants, called the charges "unprecedented territory."
Dragnet arrests at protests are nothing new—recall the arrest of over 700 Occupy protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge. Nor is the leveling of serious criminal charges to demonstrators accused of property damage. With a legal logic seemingly opposite to that in the J20 cases, just one man was blamed for the $50,000 of property damage wrought during the 2009 Pittsburgh G20 Summit; he was convicted of felony criminal mischief and three misdemeanors. But the charge of felony riot is in itself rare, let alone when applied to over 200 people.
Thursday, 20 April 2017
Another Show From The Theatre Of Lies.
The symbol of UK democracy.
So the UK is to have another election, BORING, BORING, BORING. Does anybody honestly believe that after this latest theatre of lies and hypocrisy, that we will see an end to poverty, an end to homelessness, an adequate health service, and an education system helping all kids to a freethinking maturity? Or will it be business as usual, ordinary people struggling for a decent life, while the rich swagger all the way to the bank. You have seen it all before, pompous messiahs offering you the gift of equality, that they can never deliver. The babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, trying to work the public into a frenzy of choosing between tweedle-dum or tweedle-Dee. How many elections and how many Prime Ministers will it take for the message to sink in, they change nothing, the system stays the same.
These elections are all about making sure you believe in the illusion that you live in a democracy. We live in that smoke and mirrors of illusion that we the people are calling the shots when it comes to an election, but what is on offer is more of the same, with perhaps little tweaks here and there to suit the taste of a particular messiah. However, the basic structure of exploitation, inbuilt poverty and gross inequality remains the foundation of our society. When has it ever been different.
These party political elections are capitalisms greatest trick, a necessary illusion for capitalism's survival. Without that illusion that we the people are choosing, the whole festering ruthless system of greed and exploitation would be exposed. When we take part in this theatre of lies and subterfuge, we are complicit in our own exploitation, and we deny our children the future they rightly deserve, a world of justice, freedom from deprivation and exploitation. Our inability to see beyond the capitalism/state monopoly on power, guarantees our future generations a continuous life of struggle for what is their right, a society that sees to the needs of all our people.
Wednesday, 19 April 2017
When In Edinburgh, Visit ACE.
As usual, ACE in Edinburgh puts on a great array of events, always interesting, always informative, the end of April is no exception.
Wednesday 19 April Stop Arms Sales to Saudi demo Stop Arms Sales to Saudi: From Scotland with Shame Demo Wednesday 19 April - Scottish Parliament Take Action! From Scotland with Shame: Demonstrate to call for an end to Arms Exports from Scotland Wednesday 19 April from 12 noon – 2pm. Outside Scottish Parliament. https://www.facebook.com/events/100896443796519/ More info at the bottom
Thursday 20 April Scrap the Family Cap and the “Rape Clause” There will be a demo against the family cap on Child Tax Credits and 'rape clause' at Scottish Parliament from 12:30 - 13:30 this Thursday 20th April, to coincide with First Ministers Questions. Info on opposing these horrific measures at https://www.facebook.com/scotwomensaid/
Thursday 20th April. Basta! - After the Bolivarian Revolution, with Clifton Ross We'll screen part of a new documentary, "Yukpa: Blood on the Mountain" by Arturo Albarrán and Clifton Ross. Ross, also the author of "Home from the Dark Side of Utopia" (2016, AK Press) will talk about the break-down of 21st Century Socialism, the rightward swing in Latin America and rise of indigenous resistance throughout the continent.
Free. All welcome. Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (ACE), 17 West Montgomery Place EH7 5HA Thursday 20th April, 7pm – 9pm Organised by AK Press
Tuesday, 18 April 2017
May Day Picnic On Glasgow Green.
It is a day to celebrate our victories in the struggle for that better life for all. A day to remember all those who tirelessly fought the battles to improve all our lives, our working class heroes. A day to meet up with old friends and make new friends, a day of chat, fun, discussion, for all that vast army of ordinary people who struggle day to day.
In an attempt to bring Glasgow May Day, as it should be, back to that great celebration of ordinary people, in the open air, a group are holding a May Day picnic on The Green, on the First of May 2pm onwards, bring what you expect to find, bring the family and friends, bring your street. Enjoy singing, poetry, music, chat, fun, laughter and friendship. See you there.
On Monday May 1st, from 2:00 pm in the east part of Glasgow Green next to the cycling centre, across from the Templeton Factory, join us for a family day, a fun day, a day to celebrate the solidarity of the working class and on the Green where it belongs.
Music, poetry, banners, face painting, singing, food to share, friends to chat with, people to meet, stories from our radical past, and news of actions and projects of the present.
Sunday, 16 April 2017
You Can Cut Down All The Flowers, But You Can't Stop Spring From Returning.
The Magazine Avalanche is always packed with interesting and informative articles, this latest one No.10 is no exception and is available as a free download HERE:
WE all know, or should know that the state cannot survive without control and will always attempt to silence any voices of dissent, suppress any attempt at self organisation, and try to intimidate the population into submissiveness. We owe it to show our solidarity with those who have struggled against that unforced control and find themselves locked in hell-hole cages of the state's prison system.
The following article is one from Avalanche10, calling for support and solidarity. When the state attempts to crush and destroy dissent, we should remember the words of Pablo Neruda, "The state can cut down all the flowers, but it can't stop spring from returning."
Avalanche 10: These past months, in different cities, including during unpermitted demos or riots, many of us have been thrilled by the number of offensive actions in the street. From clashes with the guard dogs of the state and property to the broken windows of shops and even the pillaging of their contents; from attacks on journalist-cops to overcoming the pacifiers of the day: all of this has shaken the arrogance of the powerful. In all forms of struggle – which aren’t limited to “social movements” -- self-organization and direct action are indispensable if we are to break with the pacification world of commodities and with state terrorism. Because to claim that it’s unimaginable for individuals to directly oppose the existing order is just a veiled way of saying that social revolt is simply impossible.
Repression is not just the moment when the flashball or baton comes to strike recalcitrant bodies, it’s each moment of daily life under the domination of the State and Capital, through their thousands of omnipresent psychological and physical manifestations that coerce the poor into accepting a shitty life. It’s the prisons that lock up ever more people for ever longer sentences, in order to punish, isolate, break, and store them, out of sight of the peaceful consciences of good citizens. It’s also the outside prison, built from measures like electronic bracelets, house arrest, exclusion areas, bail conditions, and so on.
The Kalimero solidarity fund for prisoners of the social war was created in the days following the movement against the CPE and has existed for ten years now in the Paris area. Its first text laid out the basis for its activities in these terms: “Because we know that the police and the justice system are nothing but machines of war that seek to crush all desire for revolt, we will not tearfully position ourselves as victims. The task we set for our selves is to provide concrete, material support to our comrades and friends (even if we don’t know them) primarily though monthly stipends for prisoners, technical support for their defense, and the creation of a counter-force both inside and outside the court.” Currently and for the past several month, we have been sending regular mandates to many people locked up, including those awaiting trial for the attack on the police car that was burned during the demonstration on May 18, 2016, to one of the rioters from Beaumont-sur-Oise held in custody after the death of Adama Traore at the hands of the gendarmes in July 2016, and to a comrade sentenced to ten months in prison following the ransacking “Jaguar” demo on April 14 2016.
Several initiatives have already been organized to continue topping up the fund, such as the concert last October in Montreuil during the weekend of solidarity with prisoners of the social war. Because we don’t intend to simply react to repression against the so-called “social movement”, we also seek to place our actions within a continuity of revolt, which can be individual or collective and can take many forms. Because the sentences and pre-trial custody handed down by judges during the instruction are far too long. Because the Kalimero fund can only send these monthly stipends if there’s a number of different initiatives to bring in the cash. Because there is no truce in the social war. For these reasons, we call on all of your to more than ever increase your solidarity contributions to top up the fund, whether that’s by individual transfers (either one-time or recurring) or by organizing events (concerts, meals, or other) in order to turn over some or all of the money raised to the fund.
You can find us every second Thursday of the month during the Kalimero meetings in Montreuil to chat or to pass us an envelope, or you can reach us by email (kalimeroparis@riseup.net) to arrange a bank transfer.
Some participants in Kalimero Paris
Avalanche 10: These past months, in different cities, including during unpermitted demos or riots, many of us have been thrilled by the number of offensive actions in the street. From clashes with the guard dogs of the state and property to the broken windows of shops and even the pillaging of their contents; from attacks on journalist-cops to overcoming the pacifiers of the day: all of this has shaken the arrogance of the powerful. In all forms of struggle – which aren’t limited to “social movements” -- self-organization and direct action are indispensable if we are to break with the pacification world of commodities and with state terrorism. Because to claim that it’s unimaginable for individuals to directly oppose the existing order is just a veiled way of saying that social revolt is simply impossible.
Repression is not just the moment when the flashball or baton comes to strike recalcitrant bodies, it’s each moment of daily life under the domination of the State and Capital, through their thousands of omnipresent psychological and physical manifestations that coerce the poor into accepting a shitty life. It’s the prisons that lock up ever more people for ever longer sentences, in order to punish, isolate, break, and store them, out of sight of the peaceful consciences of good citizens. It’s also the outside prison, built from measures like electronic bracelets, house arrest, exclusion areas, bail conditions, and so on.
The Kalimero solidarity fund for prisoners of the social war was created in the days following the movement against the CPE and has existed for ten years now in the Paris area. Its first text laid out the basis for its activities in these terms: “Because we know that the police and the justice system are nothing but machines of war that seek to crush all desire for revolt, we will not tearfully position ourselves as victims. The task we set for our selves is to provide concrete, material support to our comrades and friends (even if we don’t know them) primarily though monthly stipends for prisoners, technical support for their defense, and the creation of a counter-force both inside and outside the court.” Currently and for the past several month, we have been sending regular mandates to many people locked up, including those awaiting trial for the attack on the police car that was burned during the demonstration on May 18, 2016, to one of the rioters from Beaumont-sur-Oise held in custody after the death of Adama Traore at the hands of the gendarmes in July 2016, and to a comrade sentenced to ten months in prison following the ransacking “Jaguar” demo on April 14 2016.
Several initiatives have already been organized to continue topping up the fund, such as the concert last October in Montreuil during the weekend of solidarity with prisoners of the social war. Because we don’t intend to simply react to repression against the so-called “social movement”, we also seek to place our actions within a continuity of revolt, which can be individual or collective and can take many forms. Because the sentences and pre-trial custody handed down by judges during the instruction are far too long. Because the Kalimero fund can only send these monthly stipends if there’s a number of different initiatives to bring in the cash. Because there is no truce in the social war. For these reasons, we call on all of your to more than ever increase your solidarity contributions to top up the fund, whether that’s by individual transfers (either one-time or recurring) or by organizing events (concerts, meals, or other) in order to turn over some or all of the money raised to the fund.
You can find us every second Thursday of the month during the Kalimero meetings in Montreuil to chat or to pass us an envelope, or you can reach us by email (kalimeroparis@riseup.net) to arrange a bank transfer.
Some participants in Kalimero Paris
Saturday, 15 April 2017
The Dollar, Built On Blood.
The bringer of democracy!!
How can you in a sane and rational manner justify the total destruction of two countries which have never invaded or attacked you? Iraq and Syria are now fields of ruin, swamps of blood, filling the air with the stench of violent death. So we the moral and righteous West, decided that Saddam and Assad were bad men, therefore justifying the deaths of countless thousands of innocent people, and the displacing of millions, creating an endless flow of miserable, traumatised refugees fleeing death and destruction and ending up either drowned in the Mediterranean, or in concentration camps across Europe.
The UK has played a brutal and savage pivotal part in this modern Dante's Inferno. This country, weighted down with austerity, has seen fit to spend billions of pounds on this blood soaked imperialist resource grab, we have to accept, that is all this is about. During our "difficult times" when we the people of this country were seeing our social services being decimated, wages slashed, and benefits cut, with the cry, "we can't afford these thing", our beloved lords and masters saw fit to spend more than £30 billion on destroying Iraq, with all the misery, death and destruction that that entailed.
Not content with that, our blood soaked parasitic masters decide to go gung-ho into Syria. To date our cash strapped loving, caring, people's government, this year alone, (2017) has unloaded 216 bombs and missiles on that unfortunate country of Syria. Each of these implements of death costing between £22,000 to £800,000, not counting the cost of getting them there and then deploying them. Of course all of them will be replaced, with the arms industry rubbing its sweaty hands in glee, and praying that the war continues or intensifies.
What we have done to the Syrian people is dwarfed by that malevolent cabal that is American imperialism. In 2016 alone, the US dropped 12,192 bombs in Syria and 12,095 in Iraq,
according to the American think tank Council on Foreign Relations.
What do you honestly think has been the outcome of all this lavishly expensive, death and destruction, what has it done for the people of that region? The only gainers in this human tragedy, has been the large Western corporations, mainly the arms industry and the oil and gas industry, not forgetting the financial Mafia. We pay for it in austerity, the people of the region pay for it in misery, blood and death.
Not satisfied with their blood fest, in the Middle East, that brain dead, moronic psychopath, who sits at the helm of the world's largest and most dangerous war machine, narcissistic Trump, is bellowing about a nuclear attack on North Korea. A country, that as far as I am aware, has never attack any other country on the planet. Though it is one of only three countries in the world where the central bank is not controlled by the dollar. In 2000 there were seven, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. Now there are only three, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. Could that be a reason why they are classified as "evil" countries. Of course China is also a state owned Bank, but that is a bigger fish, but no doubt the "evil" propaganda will continue, keeping it as the demon, until such times as the dollar monster sees fit to take it out. The strength of the dollar is built on blood.
Not satisfied with their blood fest, in the Middle East, that brain dead, moronic psychopath, who sits at the helm of the world's largest and most dangerous war machine, narcissistic Trump, is bellowing about a nuclear attack on North Korea. A country, that as far as I am aware, has never attack any other country on the planet. Though it is one of only three countries in the world where the central bank is not controlled by the dollar. In 2000 there were seven, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. Now there are only three, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. Could that be a reason why they are classified as "evil" countries. Of course China is also a state owned Bank, but that is a bigger fish, but no doubt the "evil" propaganda will continue, keeping it as the demon, until such times as the dollar monster sees fit to take it out. The strength of the dollar is built on blood.
Packed with the gifts of democracy.
Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Here, There, The Thoughts The Same.
Our smart bombs bringing democracy to the Middle east.
Hi all, I'm back after a break away from the normal routine, it does wonders for you mind, clears out some fixed ideas that you're not too sure why they are fixed in the first place, gives birth to new ideas, you wonder why you never thought of them before. No matter where we hide, the destruction and misery that is capitalism continues. However, in my case, no matter where I escape to, the focus is always the same, unnecessary injustice, avoidable misery, implemented poverty, and the horrors of the power struggles that spawn avoidable wars, with all their attendant suffering, trauma and countless violent deaths of innocent bystanders, and what we can do about them. These are all symptoms of the festering disease, born of the cancerous marriage of the nation state and capitalism.
Capitalism is blind, irrational, and destructive, it will race towards the precipice, unwilling and unable to stop before the edge, it is only after it has crashed does it pause to see how to modify itself, to continue on its course of total destruction. To allow this to continue will obviously lead to the destruction of everything, from climate, environment and human civilisation. To hope for anything else from this system is naive in the extreme.
Frankie Boyle is a Glasgow comedian I much admire, as well as making us laugh, he uses his skill with words, to make us think, pointing at things with his own brand of humour and wit. Humour can be a great weapon against authority and its corrupt thoughts and decisions, and against the woven illusions, and smoke and mirrors, of that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media. I repeat here his latest piece.
Frankie Boyle
A column I wrote about Trump and Syria:
Nothing more perfectly embodies White America than a 70 year old golfer firing missiles at the Middle East from his country club. Some sticks in the mud probably expect a host of formalities to be gone through before attacking another country: a UN investigation, or congressional approval perhaps, but personally I'm just glad to see a guy with the temperament of a mistreated circus animal launching ballistic missiles on a hunch. It seems statesmanlike and decisive. It's difficult to tell what Syria's moderate rebels are really like, as journalists can't really be embedded with them, because they'd be beheaded. But I refuse to be cynical: there's every chance that Assad's end will see a peaceful, pastoral period for Syria once groups like Allah's Flamethrower and Infidel Abattoir get round the table and good-naturedly sort out their deep seated differences on the finer points of Islamic Law. Perhaps this is a period which Syrians will one day look back on and laugh, if laughter is still allowed.
Not only will Democrats support any war Trump chooses to start, they'll be outraged by any voters who hold it against them at the next election. Hillary Clinton called for the airstrikes immediately before they happened. We'd do well to listen to the woman who is the architect of modern Libya, where her neoliberal intervention introduced the principals of the free market with such clarity that the country now has several different governments competing for the right to kill everybody. Clinton was criticised for running a tone-deaf, aloof campaign but Democrats have rallied, pointing out that many people didn't vote for Hilary because Trump is a Russian spy, and people who didn't vote for Hillary are Russian stooges, and people who voted for Hillary but not very enthusiastically are also Russian stooges, and slowly but surely the goodwill has begun to return.
Personally, I think it would be great if Putin was controlling Trump. I'd love to think there was a rational, malevolent actor directing him rather than just a combination of his own blood sugar levels and the concept of vengeance. I honestly think we'd be in less trouble if he was being controlled by the dark wizard Thoth Amon, or if his body had been taken over by a sentient bacterial civilisation that was using him as a kind of Lifeship. I'm not saying it's impossible that Trump was moved by the plight of Syria's children, perhaps in the same way that Tony Soprano got really upset when that guy killed his horse, it's just that the balance of probabilities is that he doesn't care about them, even enough not to ban them from entering his country.
The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that the UK government had close discussions with the US over the few days running up to the attack and had been given "advance notice of the President's final decision". Odd then, that immediately after the chemical attack the Guardian cites Downing Street officials (on a tour of despots with the prime minister in the Middle East) who, when asked about military reprisals, said “nobody is talking about that”. Sort of makes you wonder if there's any contempt that can be shown by the US that will stop us drooling about our "special relationship" like we're some kind of stalker. I doubt the Americans see us as a valued ally. We're just somewhere that they stick a few missiles. My best guess is that they think of us in the way that we would think of a shed.
At the prospect of a war, the media reacted with the exuberant joy that I remember fights bringing to a school playground. War copy sells well, and is easier to write. A good way to get a handle on the media's attitude to conflict is to try to write a thousand words on a United Nations sponsored bilateral negotiation, then the same on a missile cutting a hospital in half. The Guardian exuberantly described the "pinpoint accuracy" of Tomahawks. I'm not sure accuracy is strictly relevant when you're delivering high explosives, the ultimate variable. In the West, we've never needed the military spectaculars favoured by Soviets and dictators; the news has always been our missile parade. On MSNBC the launch of the Tomahawks was repeatedly described as "beautiful". And there is a certain beauty at that point in their trajectory. Perhaps we should focus on some other point. It would be nice to see a shot of them ten seconds before they drop on their screaming victims. Or two days later when bodies are being pulled from the rubble. Maybe a shot from ten years down the line when the shell casings form part of a makeshift gallows, reflected in the glass eye of an implacable amputee warlord. Perhaps our whole fucked up attitude to war comes from only ever seeing our missiles taking off, only ever seeing our soldiers setting out.
Ignoring international law is bad for all sorts of reasons, not least because it's the same position as Assad's. Knowing that our own resolve is only strengthened when people attack us and expecting other people's to be weakened is suggestive of a kind of racism. Pouring arms and bombs into an intractable conflict means that you are happy for it to be prolonged and worsen. Britain's activities in the Middle East historically mean we almost can't imagine what a moral position might look like. We have a huge navy that we could use to pick up the thousands of Syrians, Libyans and others scheduled to drown in the Mediterranean this year, for a fraction of the cost of the bombs we've dropped on them. I wonder if those people know, clambering onto boats with their frightened children, many of whom have never seen the sea before and will never see land again, that we aggressively tune out images like this, should they ever reach us at all. That we see all these lives we could save as part of a chaotic, insoluble mess, better not thought about; we who focus so intently on the sleek, clear lines of bombs.
Friday, 31 March 2017
See You Later.
To all my comrades, friends and followers, I'll be away for a wee break, of around two weeks, I believe in the philosophy that the older you get the more breaks you should take. So my rants will fall silent for a while, keep changing the world until I get back, and I'll try to join you.
Believe Or Die!!
Nation states, all of them, are morally corrupt authoritarian institutions, that will make bedfellows of any other state, no matter its record on human rights, as long as it is advantageous to the power mongers in charge. Here in the UK, our lords and masters always spout about our high moral values and our respect for human life, but have no problem cosying up to such regimes as Saudi Arabia. A state that is harshly governed by a bunch of intolerant religious fundamentalist psychotic nut-cases. A state that is so barbaric that it still carries out public beatings, as well as public beheading. In our dear friend, Saudi Arabia's land, a woman who is raped and reports it to the police, is usually charged with having sex out with marriage. In the developed world there are those who believe they have a friend in the sky, who they can talk to and who will personally look after them, and there are those who consider this as a rather stupid idea. Normally there is no real danger in holding the view that the man in sky is an illusion and should be dismissed. However in that land of our dear friend, Saudi Arabia, to speak of atheism, can imperial your life. The late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia introduced laws defining atheists as terrorists, and recently the "justice system" in Saudi Arabia saw fit to sentence a young man to 2,000 lashes and ten years in prison for expressing his atheism on twitter. Of course the lashing was carried out in public, just to bring home to others, that in that country you are not allowed to express your personal view on the man in the sky, you must kneel before authority. I suppose, in that land of sadistic barbarity, you could say that he may have been lucky, there is the case of the poet who renounced Islam and was sentenced to death. Such cases abound in that "holy Land" of a loving god, our bosom buddy in the Middle East.
Members of the club for deranged young men, know locally as Members of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice of Saudi Arabia, or religious police.
We can go through nation state after nation state, and they will all be found wanting in a greater or lesser degree, in the way they treat human rights. All states consider human rights expendable, when it come to the safeguarding of the power of the cabal at the top of the festering mess that is the established state.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
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