Memories.

 

        Another beautiful day, 20 degrees, practically no wind, a clear blue sky, and that wonderful short term Scottish memory, after a couple of days like this we start to think, what a fantastic climate.

     So I set off to complete what I didn't the last time out on the bike, go to Balmaha. It is a beautiful spot, if the weather is kind, it was today, very kind indeed. It is another spot I used to take the kids to, though in those days it wasn't quite so popular, just a place for some walkers, cyclists and a few cars. Today it was awash with walkers, lots of parked cars, though I seemed to be the only cyclist there today. 

      It was also the place, in my younger days, we walked through heading for Rowardennan and then up Ben Lomond. Lots of wonderful pleasant memories as I sat in the sun.

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

£125 Lunch Or A Food Bank!

       My fair city of Glasgow was once a city of skilled industrial workers, who built ships, locomotives, and other products of heavy industry, it had miners and steel workers. Now it is a city of low wage workers in the service industries, who exist on on part-time or zero hours contracts, or "self-employed" cyclist scratching out a living delivering bits and pieces. Our city has been turned into a playpen for tourist, a city of shopping malls, cafés, restaurants, hotels and expensive "events", a place for those with too much money and not enough common sense. The city's latest plaything for the rich is the idiotic eating experience of "The Event in the Sky".  George Square, which was once a green and pleasant square in the city centre with trees and grass, in good weather it would be covered by people sitting around, mums with their kids, or people having lunch on the grass, now it is a tarmac rentable space for the corporate juggernaut. The latest one of these events is the afore mentioned "Event in the Sky", they have dumped an large industrial crane on the square and attached to it is what looks like one of those large contraptions you see at some fairgrounds, where you get swung and twirled around in, for a couple of pounds. Only this one has seats around its outer edge an island in the middle where chefs will serve you food. So for £50 you can sit there and be lifted to approximately 60 feet or so and enjoy your breakfast. Lunch comes in at £125, I have no idea what the idiots pay for an al a carte dinner floating above the exhaust fumes of the city centre. This event attracted some many idiots that its stay was prolonged for a few days more than planned. 

        This is a glaring example of the inequality endemic in our city, and others across the planet. Glasgow is a city with areas of high deprivation, low life expectancy, child poverty and food banks, but we have brainless idiots happy to pay £125 for lunch swinging above the city centre, on the end of a crane. This is the shape of the world that this economic system of capitalism has built, frivolous and fancy expensive experiences on which the rich can spend their ill gotten gains, while the ordinary citizens struggle from day to day to scratch out a meagre living at best. Of course they can only live this phoney life of excess with our complicity, despite the fact that we create all that wealth, we serve the rich exploiters for a few crumbs off their table. We built that crane and that swinging basket, we grew their food and delivered it to them, and then went home to poverty and deprivation, what are we thinking of??

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

Roads Festooned With Colour.

       Sunday was another warm but very humid day with a light wind, obviously my thoughts turned to those winding roads around my patch. This time my dream machine took me to Drymen, (Billy Connolly stayed there for a spell.) I had thought of going on a few more miles to Balmaha, but a late start and having to get home early as I was being treated to a father's day dinner at my daughter's family home, that idea was shelved.

      The weather certainly brought out the Lycra brigade, the roads were festoon with brightly coloured bikes and people, all seemed to be pushing hard, obviously trying to improve their times. Not like me, just delighted to be able to cover some miles, I've done all that trying to beat the clock.

      Tuesday is forecast to be a scorcher, so perhaps that visit to Balmaha might happen then.

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

The UK's Crime Of The Century.

 

         In Glasgow on Saturday 17th June a demonstration in support of the victims of the Grenfell Tower man-made disaster took place. There were similar demos and protests in cities and towns across the country, the entire population is moved by both compassion and anger, we should not let either of these emotions fade. Showing support and solidarity with the victims of this crime is not only important, but necessary. However, we must direct and increase our anger, not just at the "strong and stable" May's and wealthy Oxbridge educated Hammond's, who has fingers in the private health business, but at a system, that for as far back as you care to go, has provided rabbit warrens for the "plebs" and mansions for the wealthy. The entire distress, trauma, misery and deaths of Grenfell Tower, is the direct fallout of a deliberate policy of scrimping on money being spent on the people who create all the wealth in this country. It is not as if the Kensington and Chelsea council was short of a bob or two, as far as I know, this bunch of money orientated sharks, had built up a surplus of £240 million, but it never crossed their sick thick skulls to listen to the citizens and sort out their fears and needs.

       Forget treating the Grenfell Tower inferno as an accident, treat it as a crime, not just of greed driven power hungry individuals, but the inevitable consequences of a system driven by profit. We will be fobbed off with inquiries and meaningless phrases such as "lessons will be learnt", "we will follow the findings of the inquiry", "those responsible will be held to account", which by the way, is government speak for "finding a scapegoat" The entire capitalist system is a festering cancer that grows on the misery and deaths of millions across this planet. It is not a system of compassion, it is a system of greed, where money is more important than the lives of people. Until we sort that problem, we will face ever increasing numbers of Grenfell Towers of larger or smaller proportions.

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

Let's Talk World Wide.

        Information is valuable, the more we talk to each other, the more we can show solidarity. Bad News, a new world wide anarchist radio network started its broadcasts on June 15th.. If you can set up podcasts you can have your struggles broadcast to the anarchists and others, across the globe, learning from each other and showing solidarity when possible.

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

Crap Dangerous Housing For The Plebs.

       I have avoided mentioning the Grenfell disaster until now, the horror is overwhelming and it is difficult to grasp the horror and agony of the last few minutes of those ordinary people who were caught up in that inferno, through no fault of their own. On seeing the videos of this tragic incident, the first reaction is on outpouring of horror and a welling up of compassion and a desire to do something to help. Then rationalism creeps in, and anger rises, a righteous anger at an unjust system that allows such an avoidable tragedy to happen, and knowing the root cause was money. All across this country incidents of this nature happen, though on a much smaller scale, all down to putting cost and profit before human life. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media usually ignores them, they are not big enough to be classed as news. Grenfell was different, it could not be ignored. On seeing the disaster unfold the 9/11 tragedy flashed through my mind, we could point the finger at terrorists for that event, but this towering inferno of the Grenfeell Tower, where do we point the finger, at money, it was not an unavoidable accident. Both these incidents have a human element in their cause, one was hatred, the other was ideology of profit.

        I have no doubt, somewhere along the line in the building and maintenance of these tower blocks, scrimping and money, shaped the decisions, rather than human safety. This is symptomatic of this economic system we tolerate. Those who work to create all the wealth, see it lavished on others, while they scratch out a living in damp, dangerous, substandard, lousy accommodation. The UK, the sixth richest country in the world, can afford to house its population in decent safe accommodation, but chooses not to, in accordance with its ideology. Those who legislate and enforce the legislation on health and safety, are the very ones who profit from cutting corners, your MP's are made up of people who have investments in property, letting agencies, building contractors, and maintenance firms, and they are in it for the money. Until we sort that problem, there is another Grenfell tragedy waiting in the wings.

     Lousy unsafe housing conditions for the ordinary people is nothing new, it is part and parcel of this corrupt economic system, as far back as you wish to go, and it is still with us. It is not the lack of skill or resources that keeps us in crap unsafe housing, it is the economic system that festers all around us, profit first and foremost, human life a poor second.

     This video of the Kirby rent strike back in 1972, tells you nothing has changed, we are still struggling for decent homes to live in, and bring up our kids. As the woman in the video says, nothing will change unless we change it ourselves.

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

Kirkie Main Street.

         I have been doing my best to keep out of the way of our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, and their popcorn and bubble gum crap they call politics. So I have been out on the bike a few times recently, but only short runs round the Campsie area, but not bothering to stop for the odd photo. I think I have covered that area enough. Yesterday again round the Campsie area, but this time went via Lenzie and Kirkintilloch. I wanted to see the new pedestrianised main street in "Kirkie", the last time I visited that wee toon, the main street, called Cowgate, was in upheaval. It is now completed, and in spite of my mate Roger, a Kikrie local, saying it was a disaster, I found it a great improvement. The pavements are much wider, no place to park on the main road, lots of marked pedestrian crossings where the cars have to give way, plus nice big 20mph signs. I cycled through with hardly a vehicle in sight. That's how the town centre should be, safe for people to wander around at leisure. Sorry Roger, the new design wins. Of course no matter how they re-model the main street of any town, the success or otherwise will depend on the money to spare in the public's pocket, and as that shrinks, I afraid the new Cowgate will not get much wear and tear, from shuffling shoe traffic.

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

Bicycle Wins.

 

        Away from the hypocrisy, lies, deceit, farce, illusions and downright insanity  of the party political scene, This from Not Buying Anything, is obviously created by a man after my own heart. Like the writer, I learnt to drive before the legal age, I could drive before I left school, thanks to my ol' man.

        I read once that a bicycle is the most efficient form of transportation in the known universe. I am sure it is not far from the truth. I have always thought that bicycles were magic machines.
Riding a bicycle can be up to 5 times more efficient than walking, and can produce the equivalent of about 950 miles per gallon. Number crunchers carefully calculate such things with wonderful equations such as:

P = gmVg(K1+s) + K2VaVg
and
E = 1/2mv2 + 1/4mv2 = 3/4mv2

Oooo, it's science. Here is some more:

One hundred calories can power a cyclist for three miles,
but would only power a car 280 feet (85 meters)

         I have always been impressed with sensible cycling peoples in India, China, and many European countries. As a kid I saw photographs of large Indian and Chinese cities teeming with bicycles, while private vehicles were as rare as persistent killing smog events.
In recent years China has been making the shift from being a 'bicycle kingdom' to one dominated by cars. How sad it is to see former cycling nations make the shift from a sustainable source of transportation to one completely unsustainable.

  Member of Environment's Angels bicycle gang

        I started out on unsustainable transportation quite early. I bought my first car before I was old enough to drive it legally. The day I got my driver's licence I ceased to walk or cycle if I could drive instead.
That was a big mistake because I came to miss the freedom, enjoyment, and simplicity of walking and biking. But I was destined to return to my beloved cycling eventually.
Part of the problem has been that the auto industry has us sucked right in to the whole car mystique. We feel like we can't live without them, that we are somehow incomplete without hauling our two tons of glass, metal, and rubber around with us everywhere we go.
However, increasingly aware recent generations are not as enthusiastic about car ownership, and the sales of cars is projected to fall in some markets in the future.

        I am also increasingly unenthusiastic about driving. While we still own a vehicle, we only drive it about 3000 km a year, well below the average of 20,000 km.
I find driving less enjoyable than I used to, and instead of being a 'freedom machine' it is beginning to feel more like an anchor.

 Bicycle cargo carrier from Denmark hauls up to 100kg of freight

        For shorter trips (below about 20 kms return), I usually ride my bicycle. It keeps me fit, saves money, and is more sustainable. And it is fun.
        Based on the principles of energy efficiency and sustainability, there is no contest. No car can deliver 950 miles per gallon. Nor will you burn much fat while driving.
The bicycle wins.

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

UK, Defender Of --What??

       The UK establishment always spout how they are the defenders of freedom and human rights, but words are cheap, and actions always speak louder than words. So I suppose we should look at how the UK interacts with other countries, who it chooses as its friends, and who it chooses as its enemies. One of our dear friends and staunch allies is that citadel to medieval barbarism, Saudi Arabia. A country that still carries out pubic be-headings, public floggings, and stoning to death, where women are denied all accepted 21st. century rights, the right to drive, to go into mixed company unaccompanied, where if she is raped and reports it, she will in all probability, be charged with having sex outside marriage, and is likely to have a public flogging. At the head of this barbaric blot on the face of humanity, is a cabal of unbelievably rich religious fundamentalist fanatics, blind to compassion and anything resembling human rights, but an eye for making money and gathering power around themselves.  So the UK in its defence of human rights sells this cesspool of religious extremists, billions of pounds worth of military hardware, sends in special military advisers to assist them in retaining and expanding their power. I think you have to admit, it kind of blots the UK's human rights mantra.

       Now let's look at one of the UK's enemies, one that the UK played a major part in destroying, Libya. I am not, and never have been, a cheer leader for Gaddafi, but he did carry out a program of social benefits that would shock must people who read about them. Libya was a country of free health care, free electricity,  and interest free loans. Mothers received the equivalent of $5,000 for every child born, on getting married each couple were give the equivalent of $ 50,000 to find a home. Naturally, the UK as one of the world's defenders of human rights and of freedom, saw this abomination, and in a welling up of good will to all men, had to step in and destroy such a misuse of wealth. Now that Libya is a land of tribal feuds, blood letting, religious extremism, and dire poverty, the UK pumps up its chest with pride and points to Libya as a success story.

     As I keep saying, don't listen to their words, look at their actions.
Photos courtesy of arrezafe. 

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

  

Let's Roar.

 

      The farce of pretend change, the general election, is over, but the people still want real change, and it will come, but from outside that edifice to corporate capitalism and British imperialism, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. Those who want real change to this unjust, unequal, exploitative society, have to be that change, it will never come through delegating that desire for change to a bunch of overpaid, over privileged, political ballerinas.

 

A post election message from Libcom:

       Whatever the result of the general election, we need to be building a movement capable of creating a better world.

Whether it's to wrest reforms from a minority Labour government, or defend ourselves against the onslaught of an increased majority for Theresa May, politics happens in our everyday lives through the wage relationship at work and the state outside it. Organising in our workplaces and communities is essential to building a movement that can transform society, regardless of the electoral cycle.
There are groups already doing that in the UK, right now. Local solidarity groups, national campaigns, radical media and archival projects, anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary unions all exist and welcome new members and volunteers.
We list some of these below, pick one and figure out how to join or support them.

     Libcom's list HERE so why not, if you haven't already, seek out a local group and become part of that change. Libcom's list is not the definitive list, I'm sure that if you look and ask around you'll find one you feel you can slot into, and change that whisper to a roar.

Let's Roar.

The problem's to big

The perpetrators unknown

you can't beat the system

all on your own.

So it's easy to withdraw

find your own little cage

turn a blind eye to the suffering

stifle your rage,

but the greed goes on

the poverty's still there,

you can't just leave it

for your children to bear.

Others feel as you do

eager to put things right

but lock in isolation

it's a hopeless fight,

so don't sit in silence

behind a closed door,

your voice can help raise

a whisper to a roar. 

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

A Ploy To Get You Off The Street.

        The latest show from the UK's Theatre of Lies, The General Election, has come to an end, the curtain has come down, the media frenzy abates, now back to the usual world of poverty, exploitation, homelessness, food banks, lousy wages and wars. All that time and energy, all those long TV shows and heated squabbling, in a few weeks will be dead history, and capitalist juggernaut will go merrily on its way, of ruthless exploitation, and its brutal rape and plunder of our planet, but it did give our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, a lot of bubble gum and popcorn to spew out over us.

       The capitalist system with the backing of the state has the incredible ability to morph and change, but retaining its basic structure. All those radical groups, people’s assemblies, etc. who start to form a political party, and/or enter into dialogue with the existing system to extract improvements, at best, do no more than readjust bits of the system here and there, but leave the raw structure of the capitalist system intact, much to the pleasure of the ruling elite. At the moment the system is in a critical state of turmoil and unrest, more and more of the people across the world are showing their anger at the inequality and injustice of the system, and the power mongers are looking around for any method that will hopefully return them to some sort of control. If this means new political parties, calling for more democracy, being given legitimacy, and in doing so restoring the public’s faith in “representative democracy”, then so be it.
       Probably the best known of these “people’s” movements in Europe, are Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Both came together as a manifestation of the people’s anger at the establishment and its brutal policies of exploitation, corruption and austerity. Both consisted of a mixed bunch of radical left, anarchists and ordinary people, who wanted real change. Both looked like they might challenge the system. However, both formed political parties, walked through the portal of parliament, and took their seats in the marble halls of power, both became part of the system, bolstering up the capitalist elite’s desire to get the people off the streets and bring them back to the acceptance of “representative democracy”, Accepting the parliamentary road they had taken the anger, and will of the people for real change, and channelled it into lobbyists within the system to ask for a few more more crumbs and crusts from the capitalist booty. 

        To take your protests and people’s assemblies down the parliamentary road you are cementing the status quo, you may gain a few more links in your chains, allowing you to walk a little further, but you will remain shackled to the capitalist beast of exploitation, poverty, homelessness and wars.
       Your freedom lies outside parliament, on the streets, in your communities and in your work places, organising horizontally to take control of these areas, short circuiting, by-passing, circumventing and stifling, the so called “will of parliament”. Building real horizontal democracy based on the needs of all our people, sustainability, co-operation as opposed to competition, and mutual aid, only then will you see the cancer that is capitalism wither and die, only then will the people control their own lives. 

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

June 8th. A Win For Capitalism.

       I find it infuriating, though I have grown to expect it, how our political ballerinas jump on transient figures as if they were tablets of stone. The Teresa May, “strong and stable” cabal, have been spouting about how, under their “strong and stable” spell on the bridge of this sinking ship, the UK is the fastest growing economy in the developed world. They continue with this mantra even although the latest figures puts the UK at the bottom, equal to Italy. The latest figures put Canada at the top, followed by Germany, then Japan, next comes France and near the bottom that mighty capitalist juggernaut the US, then UK and Italy equal, languishing at the bottom. But what does the truth matter, this is the season of spewing bigger lies, the Theatre of Illusions is in full swing, with its latest production, “The General Election”. This farce ends on the 8th. of June, but its consequences will be felt for years to come. Will it be on with the full frontal attack on the social fabric of our society, or will it be a rearrangement of some of the crumbs and crusts from the table of opulence being distributed among the so deserving poor. Which ever Messiah takes their place on the throne of UK money machine, the capitalist exploitation will continue, we the ordinary people will continue to produce all the wealth in the country, and will continue to struggle and fight for decent life, while all that wealth we produce, finds its way into the coffers of the already obscenely wealthy and over privileged exclusive club of our lords and masters. June the 8th. may change the label on the package, but it is still the same old box of lousy tricks. I for one will not be excited nor disappointed at the result, I will predict that result now, here on this wee blog, it will be a win for capitalism.

 

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

Drowning In A Sea Of Propaganda.

        As the UK theatre of lies, our so called "general election", trundles on, trying to get you to support one illusion or the other, we should take note that we swim in a sea of propaganda. The party machines and the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, weave the smoke and mirrors of fake news, lies, propaganda, speculation and supposition, with truth lying somewhere in the sludge well below the surface. We live in a world created and manipulated by propaganda, spewed out by powerful factions and big business with vested interests against the interests of the ordinary people. Any idea of democracy in  a society where the truth is absent is an illusion, those who produce the propaganda do so to keep that illusion alive. Question everything, accept that the interests of the corporate world and the power mongers, and that of the ordinary people are diametrically opposed, incompatible, propaganda is there to make you believe the opposite.

      My friend and comrade Bob at City Strolls, explains in more detail how the insidious fog of propaganda shapes our world.

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

Who Knew What!!!

          States throughout the centuries have always worked with spies, double agents and undesirables, all in the name of power and foreign policy strategy. So we should accept that this still goes on, in their secret little chambers, under the label of "national security". So what did our government know of those twist minds responsible for the brutal carnage of ordinary people in Manchester and London? What dirty dealings with these psychopaths were they involved in to achieve their aims of power and control in the Middle East? If they had knowledge of these people and their twisted ideology, why was no action taken, was this to achieve their aims in foreign policy, it could hardly have been for the safety of the people.

      As usual John Pilger speaks out fearlessly and sincerely on matters which our elected political ballerinas close their eyes and ears. Thanks Loam for the link.

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

Ignore Their Poisonous Patriotism.

        I think everybody agrees that the world we live in has changed dramatically over the last ten years or so. What seemed stable now looks unstable, systems that were said, would bring peace and prosperity to everybody, are now showing their inherent flaws, and divisions are widening. The populace are aware of the glaring inequality that has rapidly widened, with the rich and powerful becoming richer and more powerful, while they the ordinary people slide further down the slippery slope to poverty and deprivation. The power mongers are worried that this awareness will lead to them losing control, and they are snarling at each other with greater viciousness and ferocity, smouldering wars are warming up, barriers are rising between the rich and powerful factions. Nationalism is their chosen weapon to rally the population to support them against the "evil and dangerous" other, to help them gain control and protect their own little empire. The system of globalisation is breaking down, and like a wounded beast, that is when it is at its most dangerous. The lines of old empires are being redrawn, the battle lines are being laid down, and the blood of our children will be expected to defend them, as of empires before. We must never again allow our children's blood to be the cement of their greed driven system of exploitation for wealth and power.

       We must see this world without borders, one world, one people, as the economic system that has dominated our lives starts to unravel, it must be seen as an opportunity to refocus, rethink the direction we want the new world to take. We must refuse to fall for their divisive strategies, ignore their nationalism and poisonous patriotism. Unity between all people is the only rational answer to our problems, we have nothing to gain by hating our neighbours. As the system of economic greed and and insanity crumbles, let's do what we can to hasten its final destruction by co-operation, unity and solidarity between all the ordinary people of this tiny planet.

      Wherever you look the “patriot” card is being played more often. Whether it is in the brash version of Trump’s “America First”, or the authoritarian menace of Erdogan and Putin, the game is essentially the same. The aim is to divert attention from the real crisis onto the “other”, the foreigner. The politics of prejudice have always been part of the capitalist game but now the situation is more desperate. Finding a scapegoat is a lot easier than solving the real economic problem.

Read the full article HERE:

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