Vague Terminology To Stifle Dissent.

         The term "extremist" is a very wide and vague expression, and can mean all things to all people. The state loves that sort of ambiguous terminology, it allows it to swoop on any form of dissent and place it in the "extremist" file. They will link terrorism with extremism, and interchange between them. You call for dramatic change to the way society is organised, and you can find yourself in the "extremist" category, and by word association, linked to terrorism. Anarchist are increasingly being placed in the "extremist/terrorist" bracket allowing the state to come down with the full force of its loaded judicial system. In so doing it hopes to stifle all dissenting voices, and create a population of submissive, subservient citizens. 

This from Act For Freedom Now:

Naples, Italy – Repressive operation against FAI/FRI

         Naples prosecutor Catello Maresca, in charge of an investigation on subversive association linked to FAI/FRI, demanded that twenty anarchist comrades be arrested and the Centro Studi Libertari, the place of anarchist group Louise Michel, and the 76/A anarchist space to be shut down..
        As an investigating judge rejected the prosecutor’s demand, the latter has made appeal; this will be held on 14th December at the court of review in Naples.       

Anarchists from Naples.

via: croce nera anarchica

More On The State's Brain Washing Factories.

      Germany, Greece, Italy, Uruguay, UK, it makes no difference, the state's brain washing factories are busy trying to keep the lid on dissent, all using the same physical and psychological weapons against resistant individuals.  This latest update on the savage treatment of Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis, is just another display of the state's many acts of inhumane brutality. See, Savage Brutality Of The State, for previous report.

This from Contra Info:

        On December 5th 2017, Revolutionary Struggle members Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis were forcibly removed from Koridallos prisons (both were subjected to headlocks, holds, etc.) and were involuntarily admitted to the General State Hospital of Nikaia. The prison prosecutor pressed physicians to force-feed the two hunger strikers. The hospital doctors refused to treat the prisoners against their will, and solely reported that Nikos Maziotis has lost 14.6% of his initial body weight, while Pola Roupa has lost 12.8% of her initial body weight.
        On December 6th (on the 26th day of their hunger strike), Roupa and Maziotis were finally discharged from the hospital and returned to Koridallos prisons, determined to continue their hunger strike until their demands are met (among other things, they request extended visits with their six-year-old child).
      Maziotis was informed that he would be placed in a disciplinary segregation unit, until damages at B isolation section in the basement of Koridallos women’s prison are repaired. This means that the comrade is being punished for having completely destroyed the solitary confinement wing where he has been held for over 5 months, and is now facing appalling conditions, even worse than the previous ones.

The State's Brain Washing Factories.

 

      A large section of the public believe that prison is just a place where they lock-up "the bad people". A place where they are given meals, exercise, and access to books and TV, so they don't give it much thought. However, the truth is far removed from that naive illusion. Prisons are one tool in the state's armoury to create a submissive population. Once enmeshed in the judicial/prison system your every action will be dictated, rules and regulations will be used in an arbitrary manner to enforce your submission. The snake that is the judiciary system will slither hither and thither in a web of legislation to crush who you are, and attempt to create who they want you to be, a subservient digit in the general population, easily controlled and no threat to the establishment's power, wealth and privileges.The prison system is a series of brain washing factories, whose only function is to protect the established power structure, a structure of power and privilege for the few at the expense of the many. 

 This from Act For Freedom Now:

       21st of December we call to let the imagination flow and to express solidarity in its multiple forms. Once again we will show that our imprisoned comrades are not alone but present and on the streets with us.
        They want to raise even higher walls, not only of concrete and iron, but also of loneliness and isolation. And these walls we want to break down, with love, affection, rage and solidarity for our comrade Lisa.

You can send pictures and audiovisuals to solidaritatrebel@riseup.net

         Having received a sentence does not imply that the imprisoned person is “only” at the mercy of the prison system. The political and judicial machine of the State continues to investigate, observe, analyse, and decide over the fate of the imprisoned. Especially when the prisoner has not fallen to her knees asking for mercy in front of the court, has not humiliated herself by some kind of gesture seen by the enemy as “reconciliation”, the ways in which the justice system can demonstrate that they are not through with her yet are numerous. The refusal to cooperate with the police is considered proof of guilt and can be used to maintain the investigation open for an indefinite period of time. The silence and dignity in the face of the executioners and their accusations is considered concealment of the crime, and can generate new investigations.
       Furthermore, being socialised as a woman and not reproducing the assigned roles, in this case for example having a rebellious attitude or a non-submissive position towards the institution, generates multiple sentences which go beyond a conviction at a juridical level, since there is also the intervention of moral and social condemnations, inherent to the patriarchal framework, which ist framing prisoner to the circumstances of the imprisonment.
To continue expressing your political convictions and ideas from within the walls and not denying who you are is considered a lack of repentance and an argument for why a prison sentence does not suffice.
         And when the legal arsenal is exhausted in a “reasonable” sentence, that is, sufficiently heavy to accommodate the accusation, but the ethic of the imprisoned person stays intact, the justice system does not hesitate to attack the relations with the outside world, the family ties, sentimental bonds and friendships. Besides the concrete, the iron bars, the artificial lights and security cameras which not only cut off life but also suffocate it, they add mountains of paper which need to be traversed in order to obtain simple human contact with the people close to you. Requests, permissions, authorisations, postponements, which put the will to not feel defeated to the test.
         On the 7th of June Lisa, our anarchist comrade, was sentenced by the court of Aachen (Germany) to seven and a half years in prison for robbing a bank. At this moment we are awaiting the outcome of an appeal written by the lawyers which, if accepted, will involve a revision of the sentence and imply that the case will be brought to court again. Therefore our comrade is still held in preventive arrest in the prison of Cologne. Due to an illness which lasted various months, her mother died in the beginning of November. During this time, the prosecutor as well as the judge, alleging “flight risk”, have denied her the possibility to visit her mother in hospital and also the permission to be present at her funeral.
        The enemy does not only use juridical argumentation, but employs many more insidious mechanisms. Like in so many other cases, when the thirst for revenge of the justice system is not satisfied with a simple – however large it may be – prison sentence, the enemy continues to be hawk-eyed, searching for every supposed weakness of the prisoner in order to submit her. It is clear that this is a purely vengeful means, an answer to the comrade’s firm and non-collaborationist attitude. An additional punishment, invented to aggravate the already tough sentence of confinement; yet another attempt to make her bow down, this time aiming at her private life and personal circumstances. A logic, nothing new, of judicial blackmail with the aim of undermining her coherence and political convictions.
        They want to raise even higher walls, not only of concrete and iron, but also of loneliness and isolation. And these walls we want to break down, with love, affection, rage and solidarity for our comrade Lisa.

With hate for the enemy.
We do not forget. We do not forgive.

Some anarchist comrades

solidaritatrebel.noblogs.org

"---The Madness Of Men."

         The following is an article from The Tyee, thanks Loam for the link. I print the article in full, as don't think there is a more pressing problem than the survival of our species. We live in an infinitely varied and precarious environment that depends on balance for its survival, we ride roughshod over that finely balanced structure at our peril. The situation described in detail in the article is an indictment of the economic system under which we live. We have developed a system of perpetual economic growth, aimed at profit, with no thought to sustainability or the needs of our people. As humans we seem to have virtually unlimited capacity for self-delusion, and a cavalier attitude to self destruction. The rapid depletion of the planet's finite resources, both living and material, is having, and will continue to have, a disastrous effect on that delicate balance of the ecosystems of our planet, that is all the life that depends on that planet. Sadly, I believe that we will not address these problems as long as we cling to the economic system that is responsible for this impending disaster, namely capitalism. Until we understand that problem, the other problems will only be exacerbated by that greed driven exploitative economic system of capitalism. We would do well to remember, spaceship Earth has no escape capsule.

 

 

          A curious thing about H. sapiens is that we are clever enough to document — in exquisite detail — various trends that portend the collapse of modern civilization, yet not nearly smart enough to extricate ourselves from our self-induced predicament.
       This was underscored once again in October when scientists reported that flying insect populations in Germany have declined by an alarming 75 per cent in the past three decades accompanied, in the past dozen years, by a 15 per cent drop in bird populations. Trends are similar in other parts of Europe where data are available. Even in Canada, everything from casual windshield “surveys” to formal scientific assessments show a drop in insect numbers. Meanwhile, domestic populations of many insect-eating birds are in freefall. Ontario has lost half its whip-poor-wills in the past 20 years; across the nation, such species as nighthawks, swallows, martins and fly-catchers are down by up to 75 per cent; Greater Vancouver’s barn and bank swallows have plummeted by 98 per cent since 1970. Heard much about these things in the mainstream news?
       Too bad. Biodiversity loss may turn out to be the sleeper issue of the century. It is caused by many individual but interacting factors — habitat loss, climate change, intensive pesticide use and various forms of industrial pollution, for example, suppress both insect and bird populations. But the overall driver is what an ecologist might call the “competitive displacement” of non-human life by the inexorable growth of the human enterprise.
        On a finite planet where millions of species share the same space and depend on the same finite products of photosynthesis, the continuous expansion of one species necessarily drives the contraction and extinction of others. (Politicians take note — there is always a conflict between human population/economic expansion and “protection of the environment.”)
       Remember the 40 to 60 million bison that used to roam the great plains of North America? They — along with the millions of deer, pronghorns, wolves and lesser beasts that once animated prairie ecosystems — have been “competitively displaced,” their habitats taken over by a much greater biomass of humans, cattle, pigs and sheep. And not just North Americans — Great Plains sunshine also supports millions of other people-with-livestock around world who depend, in part on North American grain, oil-seed, pulse and meat exports.
       Competitive displacement has been going on for a long time. Scientists estimate that at the dawn of agriculture 10,000 years ago, H. sapiens comprised less than one per cent of the total weight of mammals on the planet. (There were probably only two to four million people on Earth at the time.) Since then, humans have grown to represent 35 per cent of a much larger total biomass; toss in domestic pets and livestock, and human domination of the world’s mammalian biomass rises to 98.5 per cent!
      One needs look no further to explain why wildlife populations globally have plunged by nearly 60 per cent in the past half century. Wild tigers have been driven from 93 per cent of their historic range and are down to fewer than 4,000 individuals globally; the population of African elephants has imploded by as much as 95 per cent to only 500,000 today; poaching drove black rhino numbers from an already much reduced 70,000 in 1960 to only 2,500 individuals in the early 1990s. (With intense conservation effort, they have since rebounded to about 5,000). And those who still think Canada is still a mostly pristine and under-populated wilderness should think again — half the wildlife species regularly monitored in this country are in decline, with an average population drop of 83 per cent since 1970. Did I mention that B.C.’s southern resident killer whale population is down to only 76 animals? That’s in part because human fishers have displaced the orcas from their favoured food, Chinook salmon, even as we simultaneously displace the salmon from their spawning streams through hydro dams, pollution and urbanization.
        The story is similar for familiar species everywhere and likely worse for non-charismatic fauna. Scientists estimate that the “modern” species extinction rate is 1,000 to as much as 10,000 times the natural background rate. The global economy is busily converting living nature into human bodies and domestic livestock largely unnoticed by our increasingly urban populations. Urbanization distances people psychologically as well as spatially from the ecosystems that support them.
        The human band-wagon may really have started rolling 10 millennia ago but the past two centuries of exponential growth greatly have accelerated the pace of change. It took all of human history — let’s say 200,000 years — for our population to reach one billion in the early 1800s, but only 200 years, 1/1000th as much time, to hit today’s 7.6 billion! Meanwhile, material demand on the planet has ballooned even more — global GDP has increased by over 100-fold since 1800; average per capita incomes by a factor of 13. (rising to 25-fold in the richest countries). Consumption has exploded accordingly — half the fossil fuels and many other resources ever used by humans have been consumed in just the past 40 years. (See graphs in: Steffen, W et al. 2015. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, page(s): 81-98.)
        Why does any of this matter, even to those who don’t really give a damn about nature per se? Apart from the moral stain associated with extinguishing thousands of other life-forms, there are purely selfish reasons to be concerned. For example, depending on climate zone, 78 per cent to 94 per cent of flowering plants, including many human food species, are pollinated by insects, birds and even bats. (Bats — also in trouble in many places — are the major or exclusive pollinators of 500 species in at least 67 families of plants.) As much as 35 per cent of the world’s crop production is more or less dependent on animal pollination, which ensures or increases the production of 87 leading food crops worldwide.
       But there is a deeper reason to fear the depletion and depopulation of nature. Absent life, planet earth is just an inconsequential wet rock with a poisonous atmosphere revolving pointlessly around an ordinary star on the outer fringes of an undistinguished galaxy. It is life itself, beginning with countless species of microbes, that gradually created the “environment” suitable for life on Earth as we know it. Biological processes are responsible for the life-friendly chemical balance of the oceans; photosynthetic bacteria and green plants have stocked and maintain Earth’s atmosphere with the oxygen necessary for the evolution of animals; the same photosynthesis gradually extracted billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in chalk, limestone and fossil fuel deposits, so that Earth’s average temperature (currently about 15 C) has remained for geological ages in the narrow range that makes water-based life possible, even as the sun has been warming (i.e. stable climate is partially a biological phenomenon.); countless species of bacteria, fungi and a veritable menagerie of micro-fauna continuously regenerate the soils that grow our food. (Unfortunately, depletion-by-agriculture is even faster — by some accounts we have only just over a half-century’s worth of arable soils left).
       In short, H. sapiens depends utterly on a rich diversity of life-forms to provide various life-support functions essential to the existence and continued survival of human civilization. With an unprecedented human-induced great global die-off well under way, what are the chances the functional integrity of the ecosphere will survive the next doubling of material consumption that everyone expects before mid-century?
       Here’s the thing: climate change is not the only shadow darkening humanity’s doorstep. While you wouldn’t know it from the mainstream media, biodiversity loss arguably poses an equivalent existential threat to civilized existence. While we’re at it, let’s toss soil/landscape degradation, potential food or energy shortages and other resource limits into the mix. And if you think we’ll probably be able to “handle” four out of five such environmental problems, it doesn’t matter. The relevant version of Liebig’s Law states that any complex system dependent on several essential inputs can be taken down by that single factor in least supply (and we haven’t yet touched upon the additional risks posed by the geopolitical turmoil that would inevitably follow ecological destabilization). read more
       Which raises questions of more than mere academic interest. Why are we not collectively terrified or at least alarmed? If our best science suggests we are en route to systems collapse, why are collapse — and collapse avoidance — not the primary subjects of international political discourse? Why is the world community not engaged in vigorous debate of available initiatives and trans-national institutional mechanisms that could help restore equilibrium to the relationship between humans and the rest of nature?
      There are many policy options, from simple full-cost pricing and consumption taxes; through population initiatives and comprehensive planning for a steady-state economy; to general education for voluntary (and beneficial) lifestyle changes, all of which would enhance global society’s prospects for long-term survival. Unique human qualities, from high intelligence (e.g., reasoning from the evidence), through the capacity to plan ahead to moral consciousness, may well be equal to the task but lie dormant — there is little hint of political willingness to acknowledge the problem let alone elaborate genuine solutions (which the Paris climate accord is not).
         Bottom line? The world seems in denial of looming disaster; the “C” word remains unvoiced. Governments everywhere dismissed the 1992 scientists’ Warning to Humanity that “...a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided” and will similarly ignore the scientists’ “second notice." (Published on Nov. 13, this warning states that most negative trends identified 25 years earlier “are getting far worse.”) Despite cascading evidence and detailed analysis to the contrary, the world community trumpets “growth-is-us” as its contemporary holy grail. Even the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are fixed on economic expansion as the only hammer for every problematic nail. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases reach to at an all-time high, marine dead-zones proliferate, tropical forests fall and extinctions accelerate.
        Just what is going on here? The full explanation of this potentially fatal human enigma is no doubt complicated, but Herman Melville summed it up well enough in Moby Dick: “There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.”

First They Came For The Anarchists---

        Across the capitalist world the various states are clamping down on on the voices of dissent. In Italy, Greece, and else where, autonomous centres that have been squatted for years are being raid and the members arrested. In Germany the state apparatus closed down German Indymedia, and raided journalists' homes, it seems that free speech is only allowed if it doesn't want to change the system. The German state has gone a step further, and has raided an anarchist bookshop in Frankfurt and taken away posters. It is an on going battle between those who value and demand freedom, and the authoritarian institution of the state, which wants control and a submissive population.

        The state surely must feel vulnerable if it starts trying to prevent you from reading what you please, this is just one step away from burning books, which I am sure they would love to do, if the public would tolerate such actions. 

First they came for the Anarchists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Anarchist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the journalists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a journalist.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

           On Thursday November 30th, at around 4pm, a dozen plain clothes and uniformed policemen from the cantonal police entered the premises of anarchist bookshop Fermento, on Josefstrasse 102 in Zurich, armed with a search warrant. The alleged crime: “Public instigation to commit crimes and acts of violence”.
         As we have just learned, three policemen from the Criminal Investigation Department of the cantonal police already entered the bookshop ten days earlier. Then too using the same statement: the bookshop window would be an incitement to commit crimes and violence against businesses and individuals, to be seen in the context of the recent incendiary attacks against the construction of the PJZ [new palace of justice] and “Bässlergut” prison in Basel.
           All this did not happen completely unexpectedly. Only a couple of days before, a long background article published by Schweiz am Wochenende and taken up by the Aargauer Zeitung urged that something be done once and for all against these anarchists, boasting of having discovered what everyone in Zurich can see: our shop window.
           If the police acted on the impulse of Andreas Maurer’s piece – to call the journalist by his name – or if the latter had written under the pressure of someone else, we cannot know and do not care. The journalist’s role as cop has been openly demonstrated once again.
Let’s move on to the technical side:
         In the first search, only the posters hanging from the window inside the bookshop were removed. Clearly the agents in question were not sure which poster contained the criminal message, so they took them all. One of these was an invitation to support our bookshop, which at the end of February will have to give way to yet another branch of Migros. We learned of the posters’ removal in amazement.----

Read the full article HERE: 

100 Years Are Enough.

       December 6th. was the ninth anniversary of the cold blooded police murder of young 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos, outside a café in Exarchia, Athens, we must never forget. However, the 6th of December also marks another anniversary. This year 6th of December 2017, marks the centenary of the birth of the Finnish state. Like all states, it has not been a love affair between the established elite that grabbed power in that birth, and the people.  It has always been a struggle and sometimes a brutal and savage struggle between the people and those of the establishment who wish to hold on to their privileges and power.

      However, large sections of the country feel that 100 years are enough, and it is time for that deformed birth to be put to rest, and disappear into the dustbin of history.  

Workers Know Your History, Frank Little.

         To some 100 years seems a long time, but when you are approaching 84, it doesn't seem that far back. It was 100 years ago in 1917, that Frank Little was brutally murder, by what was probably collusion between the American mine owners and the US state. Frank's crime, he stood steadfast in organising and supporting striking miners, and was out spoken against America's entry to WW1. He advocated that the people of America should fight capitalism, not German workers. His life is an example of just how vicious the system of capitalism is, and how the state will always come down on the side of big business against the desires and aspirations of the ordinary people.

This extract is from Freedom Socialist, Voice of Revolutionary Feminism:

        Legendary labor leader Frank Little was assassinated 100 years ago to stop him from doing what he did best – organize workers. His life was defined by an unshakable conviction that you had to fight tooth and nail for the working class.
      Little was a child when his parents joined thousands who jumped at the chance of grabbing 160 acres in the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush. An extended drought, coupled with a global economic crisis, made keeping a family farm difficult to impossible for many. As the Populist Party wrote in its 1892 Omaha Platform, “The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few. ... From the … prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two great classes — tramps and millionaires.”
       By the time Little was twenty, he abandoned farming and followed his brother Walter to California where they mined for a living. Little discovered mine owners had only one objective — the acquisition of excessive profits in any way possible. They paid miserable wages. They spared every expense that might have made this work safer. They overworked the miners, squeezing out every last ounce of blood and sweat.

       Learning the hard way that capitalism was brutal, vicious and unforgiving, he threw himself into organising against this callous savage system. He paid dearly for his dedication to his class, the ordinary people, suffering beatings and eventual a horrible sadistic brutal death.

       His last days. In 1917, Frank Little travelled to Butte, Mont., to help the miners striking against the powerful Anaconda Mining Corporation. Tensions were high. Miners were waging a militant strike, furious about the recent Speculator Mine fire that killed 168 men. Additionally, the Russian Revolution, along with the U.S. entry into World War I that same year, had prompted a ferocious pro-war, anti-communist campaign by the U.S. government and big business.
       Though crippled as the result of a vicious attack in Texas, Little vigorously supported the Butte miners and continued to speak out against U.S. workers joining the war effort. He urged workers to “fight the capitalists but not the Germans.” On the night of Aug. 1, six men kidnapped him from his boarding house room. They roped him to the bumper of their car, dragged him across cobblestone streets and then hanged him above the railroad tracks with a note pinned to his chest, “First and last warning.” No one was ever convicted of this heinous crime.
        On Aug. 8, 1917, one week after his murder, ten thousand people filled the streets of Butte for Montana’s largest funeral procession in history. They knew who was on their side, who had put his life on the line. The city fathers forced mourners to carry the U.S. flag in the procession. But once away from the city, the flag disappeared, leaving only the IWW banner to honor this brave Wobbly’s life. On his tombstone is carved, “Slain by Capitalist Interests for Organizing and Inspiring His Fellow Men.”

Read the full article HERE: 

 
   

Disabled Workers Responsible For Sluggish Economy!!!!

         Doesn't it get right up your nose, how our political ballerinas sitting in their plush offices, banking their fat salaries, and other little earners, not open to the rest of us, can without a blush of shame, blame the disabled for our "sluggish" economy? What these greedy parasites refuse to admit, is that every nut and bolt produced, every office cleaned, every lorry driven, every car that rolls of the assembly line, is there by the efforts of the ordinary people, is what produces the wealth of this country, and pays their fat salaries for sitting on their arses criticising the disabled. "Sluggish" economy is just another way of saying that our army of over paid CEOs want us to work harder for less, so that we can make their business able to compete with the sweatshops across the globe, allowing them to stuff more of their bank accounts into lucrative off-shore tax havens.

      Another fact that they are blind to, or wish to conceal, is that far from being responsible for our "sluggish" economy, the workers, disabled and otherwise, are carrying them and the rest of the parasites on their backs, perhaps that might have something to do with our "sluggish" economy. 

        We don't need the Hammonds and the rest of his parasite army, we are capable of producing enough for everybody, it is just a matter of distribution. We allow far, far too much of what we produce to go the greedy, surplus to requirements, CEOs and political ballerinas. If we sort that out by getting rid of capitalism, we will not need to worry about our "sluggish" economy, there will be plenty for us all.

Guardian News

Published on Dec 7, 2017

    The chancellor appears in front of the Treasury select committee to answer questions on the November budget and says 'high levels of engagement in the workforce, for example of disabled people' may be one of the factors keeping down UK productivity levels

Remember Remember!!

        Remember remember the 6th of December. 2008, December 6th, a Saturday evening in Athens, some youths sit in a café in the district of Exarchia, having a night out. There would have been coffee, chat, jokes, laughter, no thought of impending doom. Then in a brief moment young, fifteen year old Alexis Grigoropoulos falls to the street murdered by an on duty police officer. Young Alexis dies on the street in the arms of one of his young friends. That event unleashed years of pent up anger across Greece, in the form of riots for days on end. Every year since, protesters have taken to the streets across Greece, in memory of young Alexis, and to protest at police brutality, a brutality that is  administrated by the institutions of a supposed socialist  government, but is in fact just another authoritarian state machine.

        As I stamp this out on the keyboard there is fierce fighting between protesters and the police in the district of Exarchia, the scene of the murder of young Alexis. So far there has been 28 known arrests. The protests and marches marking the murder of young Alexis started this afternoon, in cities across Greece, and has turned into running battles with the police, continuing into the night. We should never forget how the state tries to monopolise violence as its legitimate tool, to be used as it sees fit on who it deems necessary, with no rebuke.

Exarchia this evening:

        Greece, like the rest of the states in Europe and else where, profess to be democracies, but the reality is very different from the illusion they try to weave. Today Athens was in lock-down, with Metro stations closed and transport disrupted. Thousands of police have been drafted into Athens. Two events today have the establishment on high alert, one is the marking of the police murder of 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos, the other, the visit of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who will arrive with hundreds of his own bodyguards. There are snipers placed at points along his route, this is how European democracy works. It can only carry out its pomp and symbolism under the protection of a ring of armed police and the barrel of the gun. 

Savage Barbarity Of The State.

         Prisons are state repression on a violent and cruel scale, but sometimes even that can descend even lower into barbaric savagery, when the system seems to reach a point where its vindictiveness displays the fact that they have lost sight of the fact that they are dealing with human beings. Callous procedures where submission is the only objective. 

      From Contra Info, this is the latest information on Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa, two humans enmeshed in the Greek judicial system.  

          Revolutionary Struggle members Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa are on hunger strike since November 11th 2017.

       The two imprisoned comrades are fighting against isolation measures; against specific provisions of the new correctional code aimed at repressing them as high-security prisoners; against the proposed detention of high-security prisoners in police stations; against the intended reinstatement of the type C prison regime. They also demand an immediate end of the solitary confinement imposed on Nikos Maziotis (since July, the comrade is kept isolated from other prisoners by a decision of the justice ministry); an extension of visiting hours based on the frequency of visits a prisoner has; appropriate visitation rooms for incarcerated parents to meet with their children.

        They made it clear from the outset that they only receive water. They have repeatedly asked to be granted unhindered phone communication with their six-year-old son before being transferred from Koridallos prisons to any hospital.

On December 2nd, Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa were transferred to a hospital outside the prisons due to the deterioration of their health condition. However, the next day both comrades asked to be sent back to the prisons because eventually they were not permitted unhindered phone communication with their child.

        On December 4th, Nikos Maziotis burned and destroyed the B’ isolation section in the basement of Koridallos women’s prison, where he has been held in solitary confinement for 5 months. He was then moved to the prison infirmary because of the fumes, and was threatened with further isolation – this time in a disciplinary unit of Koridallos prisons.

         In the early hours of December 5th, hunger strikers Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa were forcibly transferred outside Koridallos prisons. The prison prosecutor ordered their involuntary hospitalization. They are currently being kept at the General State Hospital of Nikaia, both threatened with force-feeding. As of yet, the hospital doctors have not succumbed to the prosecutor’s order.

Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa continue their hunger strike. They have stated they will not accept serum, and will act against involuntary treatment and force-feeding (torture) in every possible way.

Call For Solidarity.

IWW
Call for solidarity:

       Call for Court Solidarity with Clydeside IWW Member on the 7th of December

          Clydeside Industrial Workers of the World call on all political organisations, groups and individuals sharing an emancipatory, anti-capitalist vision to support and attend the demonstration outside Glasgow Sherriff Courts on the 7th of December 2017, in solidarity with the IWW member arrested with the Red and Black bloc in August’s Glasgow Pride.
        Panos Theodoropoulos of the IWW was arrested while supporting a 16-year-old being harassed and threatened with arrest by the police. The police used extensive physical force on Fellow Worker Panos, tackled him to the ground, and subsequently held him for more than 30 hours in custody.
       It should be noted that the IWW- organised Red and Black bloc was resolutely non-violent and did not seek any type of confrontation before or after these events. In the same Pride march the police arrested 3 trans activists protesting Pride’s decision to have police lead. The charges include ‘attempt to rescue’ and ‘resistance to arrest’, with an officer further claiming that they were injured (presumably during their violent and unprovoked attempts to wrestle Panos to the ground). In the following weeks, the police dropped all charges on the 16-year-old, proving that they were wrong in harassing and arresting them in the first place and rendering even more absurd their decision to press on with Panos’s charges. The relevant statement issued immediately after Panos’s release from custody is available below. In the meantime, the other 3 trans arrestees have not been issued court dates as the police continue to search for evidence that has eluded them for three months. This is clearly an issue which the police are unprepared to drop, with the dual purpose of: 1) criminalising and thereby attempting to diffuse the re-energised wave of political organisation and protest that Glasgow is experiencing in recent months and, 2) attempting to save face and looks less ridiculous after their actions in Pride were criticized from all angles.
       For both of these reasons, demonstrations of solidarity to the arrested and accused are of deep political importance, their implications extending beyond the personal situations of those involved. To begin with, the police’s actions provoked a significant backlash that ran counter to a carefully crafted public relations campaign. Their very presence in the Pride march, which the 3 trans activists protested, was part of that campaign. After the backlash they were forced into issuing a statement which, despite its conciliatory tone, offered nothing concrete to those affected by their activity (available below). A fundamental aspect of all emancipatory struggles is concerned with uncovering the masks and illusions which the system uses to maintain its legitimacy. The institution of the police plays a crucial part in this narrative, and thus the opportunity for further fracturing their attempts to present a humane, supportive face must be seized upon to the fullest. We need to keep up the pressure.
       From a movement and organisational perspective, Red and Black bloc was organised by queer members of the IWW as an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist presence in an increasingly commercialised and depoliticized Pride. In an era of deepening wealth inequality and the rise of the far-right across the West, the bloc’s was an important political statement that aimed to unite, in practice, a variety of seemingly disparate struggles under the banner of solidarity.
      It occurred in a time when autonomous radical movements in Glasgow are on the rise, a variety of which are represented in IWW membership. Despite significant differences that exist between groups, it should not be forgotten that the current situation presents a significant improvement to where the movement was at a year ago. Events have made clear that when such progress is achieved, the police and the State will retaliate by criminalising protesters. They hope that their actions will succeed in breaking our resolve, in literally terrorising us into silence. On the contrary, the facts show that their actions are fuelling our activity. Indicatively, the Pride arrests sparked the creation of a new radical group, Anti-Capitalist Queers (links available below). This is a positive momentum which needs to be nurtured, built upon, and extended. The State’s enmity towards us is a confirmation that we are moving in the right direction.
      As the struggle deepens and the movement develops, it is reasonable to expect that the police will employ increasingly heavy-handed tactics on protesters and activists. They will attempt to silence us, divide us, and disempower us. It is therefore imperative to make court solidarity a lasting habit, to institutionalise it to the point that: 1) the activists involved in the movement know that they will never be left alone, a knowledge which will further empower and embolden our struggles and, 2) the police know that when they target one of us, they will be faced with an entire movement. Court solidarity, part of a wider mentality of support to whoever is caught in the cages of the State, is an indispensable aspect of all radical political activity. Let it be shown that the movement refuses to accept the criminalisation of protesters, whether now or in the future. Let us lay the foundations, in our budding movements, for lasting, practical political solidarity. As the IWW slogan goes, ‘an injury to one is an injury to us all’.

        Join us at the solidarity demonstration on the 7th of December 2017 outside Glasgow Sheriff Court! The exact time will be made available shortly.

More information:
Original statement released by Clydeside IWW following the events: https://www.facebook.com/clydesideiww/posts/1446956275339793
Original Statement by Anti-Capitalist Queers following the events: https://acqueescotland.wordpress.com/…/anti-capitalist-que…/

Police statement mentioned above: http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/…/15570666.Police_Scotland_a…/
Anti-Capitalist Queers/ Pride 5 Solidarity page: https://www.facebook.com/ACQueeScotland/
Facebook Solidarity Demo event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2055266351361176/

Time For Righteous Anger.

        It has always amazed me just how much suffering, poverty and deprivation our society will take before it explodes into righteous anger, and tears down the system responsible for all this unnecessary suffering. Our babbling brook of bullshit the mainstream media throws up everything for discussion, as long as it doesn't mean changing the system. Our political ballerinas, depending which colour of tie is in power, will utter platitudes, from "what needs to be done" to "what we are doing to remedy the situation". However, nothing changes, the suffering goes on, poverty's teeth still bites into our communities, and deprivation still push people to an early grave. In the UK we are fast reaching the level of poverty and deprivation of the 20's and 30's. After a few years of gains, from what were sometimes very bitter struggles, we are now sliding back to Dickensian style poverty. 

           Perhaps when our babbling brook of bullshit swings into full "consume for Christmas" mode we can reflect on the following. Recent figures show that in Glasgow  from May 2016 to March 2017, 39 homeless people died on its streets, in Edinburgh it was 18 homeless deaths for 2015/16.  

       Charities claim that estimates that 5000 people in Scotland sleep on the streets in the course of a year are likely to be "the tip of the iceberg" with a recent study by Heriott Watt University for Crisis predicting rough sleeping will double from 800 across Scotland on any one night – already a 10 percent rise for the first time in ten years – to 1500 by 2041.

      The Edinburgh winter shelter, run by Bethany Christian Trust, has already reached capacity on several nights since opening in October and will increase capacity from 49 sleeping mats to 75 on Monday. In Glasgow the winter shelter run by Glasgow City Mission at the Lodging House Mission day centre in the Gallowgate opened on Friday night.

Read the full article HERE:

      While our pampered political parasites squabble "Brexit" and spew about the illusion of how to make Britain great again, poverty takes a bite out of an ever larger section of our communities, with the resultant suffering and early deaths.

     Recent figures show that one fifth of the UK population is now living in poverty, and we are witnessing the worst decline in living standards for children and pensioners in several decades. 

        Nearly 400,000 more children and 300,000 more pensioners are now living in poverty than five years ago, during which time there have been continued increases in poverty across both age groups – prompting experts to warn that hard-fought progress towards tackling destitution is “in peril”. 

       The report, by the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), shows that a total of 14 million people in the UK currently live in poverty – more than one in five of the population. While poverty levels fell in the years to 2011-12, changes to welfare policy – especially since the 2015 Budget – have seen the numbers creep up again.

     UK to experience longest fall in living standards for over 60 years---

Read the full article HERE:

      This is capitalism, after centuries of of producing unmeasurable wealth, the majority of citizens still struggle to survive, while others suffer poverty and deprivation, with its attendant miseries, diseases and early deaths, and the few wallow in unimaginable opulence. How many more centuries are we going to tolerate this greed driven insanity, expecting it to somehow change and see to the needs of all our people. It isn't going to happen, capitalism cannot be reformed into a caring system, a history of centuries of exploitation should be proof enough. When will we see that explosion of the people enjoying the ecstasy of their righteous anger, and building that better world. We are producing ever more wealth and it is going somewhere, but not to the masses who produce all that wealth, where is it going, who is living off your sweat and tears? think about it, get angry.

Time For Righteous Anger.

We talk of justice, we ooze compassion

you and I. Our comfort sure

with a gracious smile a token give

those, SO deserving poor". 

Where is compassion when children lose

carefree innocent play,

where is justice when children meet

hunger along the way?

Children who, in this world of excess

create a newsreel scene

cradled in a starving mother's arms

expiring on your screen.

Forget the famine rationale

in a sickly syrup word,

mouthed by those crazy apes

until the truth is blurred.

Feel the anguish of the other

hear their pitiful cry

see hunger steal their future;

loudly cry out,   why?

Deaths From Criminal Gambling Casinos.

 

        "Austerity", a word that the West has come to live with for almost a decade now. Those in the gilded cage of privilege and power weave an illusion round the word, slipping it in as, "balancing the books", "living within your means" or "getting the economy back on its feet", all of which is hogwash and cod-swill. It is actually the public banded about word that replaces the use of the truth, that it is an ideological plank for the rich and powerful to recoup their gambling loses, by plundering the ordinary people of this world. 

       The system by which the quality of our lives depend is one large gambling casino, where the rich and powerful shuffle trillions of dollars around the various gambling tables within the casino. These are called stock markets, hedge funds, and financial investment funds, and other such fanciful names. Of course they don't sit up all night bleary eyed personally shuffling their ill-gotten gains, they have financial institutions that do all that for them. From this casino, unlike the ones that the more pleb like individuals frequent, they make vast amounts of money from this casino. Periodically the system goes wrong and the lose big time. That's when "austerity" comes in, they have got to get their money back, unlike you when you leave  gambling casino with empty pockets. Since their system is bust, the only place left to rip-off is the public purse.

        So what "austerity" really means slashing money from public services. We are brain washed into accepting that there is no money, so all social service have to be cut, savings have to be made, efficiency cuts have to be administered, but we always have enough money for wars. What the word "austerity" translates into is poverty and deprivation for the many, death to many others and endless wars.  "Austerity" is a crime, it is not a victimless crime, people die from the direct results of "austerity". Recent studies by Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the University of London, have revealed the staggering cost in human life by the obnoxious word "austerity".

This from World Socialist Web Site, thanks for the link Loam: 

       A joint report by Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the University of London (UCL) finds that savage cuts to the UK National Health Service (NHS) and Social Care provision could result in nearly 200,000 “excess” deaths by the end of 2020 in England.

“The effects of health and social care spending constraints on mortality in England: a time trend analysis,” published in the British Medical Journal, BMJOpen, estimates 45,000 extra deaths have occurred between 2009 and 2014 and predicts a further 152,141 deaths from 2015 to 2020—a staggering 100 a day.

The research links increasing mortality rates to the cuts to health and social care spending, first begun under a Labour government, then continued by successive Conservative governments to pay for the £1 trillion bailout of the banks after the 2008 global financial collapse.

“From 2001 to 2010,” it states, “the absolute number of deaths in England decreased by an average of 0.77% per year. From 2011 to 2014, the number of deaths increased by an average of 0.87% per year.”

       "Austerity" is a crime carried out deliberately, by people, fully aware of the consequences on other people, it is not the result of some natural law, though the rich and powerful would like you think it was. Those imposing, administering, and enforcing the policies necessary for their "austerity" recouping plan are criminals in every sense of the word. However, it is only the people that can bring them to justice by bring down the the whole festering cancer that is the gambling casino, and that can only be down if we bring down capitalism the greed driven system that feeds the casino.

       For more damning figures that flow from the criminal act of "austerity" read the full article HERE:

 

Revolt In Songs.

         Well it is fast approaching, Glasgow's radical musical event of the year, a night to remember, songs, music and poetry in tune with the title of the event. I am of course talking about Spirit of Revolt's December do, Revolt in Songs. Apart from a wonderful talented and varied list of performers, there will be an open mic slot. 

      So don't be the one that missed it, mark your diary, write it on your wrist, tell your friends to remind you, but be there. If you don't make it this is what you will be missing:

Julie Anne McCambridge
John David Player
Chris Fear
Callum Baird
Dirt Roadsters
Jim Ferguson
Rab Fullerton
James Kelman (tbc)
Brendan McLaughlin
Paul Tasker
Glasgow Glam Rock Dialogues

Also you, turn up on the night and perform a song/poem/instrument, on the open mic.

£5 entry (or £10 including fund-raiser donation to SOR)

When:  Wednesday, December 20th. 2017.

Time:    Doors open, 6:45 for 7pm. start.

Where: The Old Hairdressers, 

              20-28 Renfield Lane, 

              Glasgow G2 6PH.

Cost:    £5, or £10 including fund-raiser donation to SOR. 

             Where in this country, in the city, will get such a talented and varied nights entertainment for such a meagre price. You and your chum go for a coffee and scone and you have spent more than a tenner, think about it?