Plunder And Pillage Of Our Green Spaces.

        Do we slumber as the corporate juggernaut continues its relentless process of gobbling up all public spaces and local communities and transforming them into profitable entities? Local communities are "gentrified", which translates as turning the area into a money spinning project for those with surplus cash and pushing the local community out to the periphery of society. Our green spaces, parks etc. are seen not as places of leisure and pleasure for old and young, but as possible money earners. More and more corporate enterprises occupy our parks and public spaces, turning them into cash machines for the corporate juggernaut. We are told, "it will help the economy", again a euphemism for, filling the coffers of the rich and wealthy. 

      We have to be alive to this plundering of our communities and public spaces or we will end up living in a world of total private property, suitable only for the wealthy, devoid of any public spaces where our kids can run freely and safely, and our local communities are ushered into ghettos on the periphery of our cities.

 My local Springburn Public Park.

 

       Thankfully some people are alive to this pillage and plunder and are organising to do something about this crime, why not join them?

     Two events concerning the commercialisation of green space and What we can do about it.

Discussion.

       Each summer the volume of paid events occupying our parks is expanding.
The disruption to ordinary park users who see the park as an escape from the chaos and consumerism of daily life. These park users see these disruptions to their enjoyment of the park as disturbing.
        We will be discussing these and other park and green space issues that are also enjoyable and could help to stop the use of our parks for commercial profiteering. Speakers to be confirmed.
Workshop.
      The workshop will be around. How to find out things about parks, greens pace, commons and how to use the “Community Empowerment Act”. The general public need to be heard in this conversation in protecting community assets. We will be looking at the various, forums, assemblies and mechanisms, that could help to enable groups as well as individuals to take part in this important dialogue.

PUBLIC DISCUSSION
Thursday 13 December 7:00
Kinning Park Complex. (For food 6:00)

WORKSHOP
Sunday 16 December 3:00 (Soft Drinks)
Kinning Park Complex.
https://inthecommongood.org/2018/11/15/the-life-of-a-park-part-1/

       Of course this is not a Glasgow or UK phenomenon, it is a world wide strategy of the financial Mafia and the corporate juggernaut in conjunction with the various states.  This from Athens.

       Article from Act For Freedom Now:

          On the 10th of December, the final offers for the construction of the METRO line 4 will be submitted. One of the stops of the metro is scheduled to be built on Exarchia square.

        The plateia is the heart of a neighborhood which is a historic and living site of the anti-state movement. This free space has been fought for for decades and maintained through constant struggle. This social movement in Exarchia, as everywhere, has been under constant repression by police and by the forced assimilation into state and capital’s plans for gentrification and pacification.

        It is obvious what this construction will bring with it: surveillance, policing, constant state scrutiny and of course greater commercialization and gentrification of the entire neighborhood. The total occupation of the square by a construction site for many years means from day one the abolition of a public meeting space. The devouring of this public space, will finally result in its replacement with a transit point, to serve the unhindered flow of consumption and production. It is also clear that this is a strategic plan to extinguish all the struggling projects of social self organization from the neighborhood, but also to push out the marginalized who find refuge here. Besides, the Athens METRO is already a site of class exclusion and control, having finally implemented the electronic ticket and barrier system.

        The expansion of the metro comes together with announcements of fancy plans of urban development for the whole of Athens. The story is the same everywhere: violent displacement of the poor and of the struggling subjects that give free public space its true meaning, to make way for commercial exploitation. A prime example is their designs for Prosfygika Alexandras.

     Where the oppressed build communities against state domination, refusing to be subsumed in its institutions, their homes and streets are treated as abandoned sites, as deserts. Even more so, where there is active resistance against state domination, they systematically target such neighborhoods as degenerated hubs of criminality. Their strategy of repression is the cultural desertification of commerce and capital. The plan to build a metro stop right on the square of such a neighborhood is exactly the spearhead of this capitalist colonization. But, life blossoms only through the struggle for freedom and self-determination.

 We call for a discussion about the resistance.

SATURDAY 8th of DECEMBER, at 18.00

EXARCHIA SQUARE

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I Get Sick, Disgusted, And Angry-

 

       At the age of 84, I wonder how many people can tell me how often I have heard our prancing political ballerinas with their fat salaries, generous pensions and lush perks, openly state that they will end child poverty and end homelessness?  From the age of 17 I have ranted against these preventable injustices, this callous exploitation of the ordinary people. I get sick, disgusted and angry in varying degrees, as year after year this shit is poured over my head, and what is the result. The poverty, the injustice, the misery and deprivation stays with us.

       The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has just released another damning report on the state of poverty in this country. Though I don't need the Foundation to tell me about the poverty that surrounds us, I have been there, seen it, and at times shed a tear because of it. For many years as a young man I earned my living knocking on doors in the poorest districts in Glasgow. I have entered homes where there was no bed, just a pile of coats on the floor under which a couple of kids were sleeping. I have entered houses where the only furniture was a couple of kitchen chairs, I have seen a young woman sitting on a kitchen chair in front of a fire, tearing up slices of "waxcloth" from the floor to keep the fire going. This and worse blighted the lives of many families as I made my way through life. 

       Well after a life time of promises, here we are in 2018 and what is the picture? 22% of the UK population live in poverty, that's one in five, over 14 million people. Of those 56% are in poverty despite being in a family where one or more are working. Our political ballerinas and corporate bosses always yap on about work is the road out of poverty, work hard and you will do well. of course the figures belie that false mantra as in-work poverty is now at its highest in 20 years, we, the ordinary people, are sliding back to the Victorian era. There is a continuous crime being committed as the system blights the lives of our children, more than half a million children in this country and mired in poverty, their lives chances diminished, thwarted, because of this system of exploitation, injustice, greed and profit.

      After a couple of hundred years of representative democracy under the mantle of capitalism, you would think that we the public would have arrived at the decision that the system doesn't work.

    It must by now, be clear that to expect a wealthy bunch of parasites who control the system that continues to feed them wealth and power, at the expense of the many, will somehow change the system to our benefit, is fantasy of the insane. The rise in poverty, the blighting of our kids opportunities, the stress of trying, in poverty, to hold a family together will continue to wash over us wave after wave. The only alternative, if we seek justice and a better life for all, is to bring this cancerous abomination of capitalism crashing down, by any means available, and replace it with a system controlled by the people, one that is free from the profit motive, and has the interests of all our people as its basis. 

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Prisons, Too Much Power, Too Little Scrutiny.

 

        There is not a lot to say about the following article, except that it epitomises the prison system. A trapped group in the hands of those with too much power and too little scrutiny. Reform only prolongs the same rotten, abusive system, its destruction is the only answer to this abomination.

This from Its Going Down:

       What follows is an urgent letter from long-term anarchist prisoner Sean Swain.

         A quick update, as things are hectic. I came off of a 29-day hunger strike and got nothing. The fact is that the fartgoblins want to make me die at supermax for the June11.org article about guns and drones. So, please make sure that article has my name on it and gets everywhere. Since I gotta pay for it, I want the whole world to see it.
        I’m enclosing something I hope will get everywhere, so I can generate as many calls and emails as possible. ODRC Council Trevor Clark is the fuckweasel who has been terrorizing me for years, but there’s an element in all this I haven’t talked about: In March 2013, Clark groped me after an interrogation, then he told me to take down my pants and spin around and he would dismiss the disciplinary frame-up. I didn’t do it.
        Since then, he has continually harassed and tormented me, shutting down communications and engineering disciplinary frame-ups, causing me essentially to die in in prison in 5-year installments. I would like to think this is about repression of my brilliant thoughts, but, really, it might just be a creep trying to crush me for not humoring his fetish.
         Is there a way to create a petition like the one mentioned in the enclosed? I ask because it doesn’t really exist. But I think it needs to.
       I haven’t talked about this. It was humiliating. But NOT talking about it makes me an accomplice. I have no way of knowing if Trevor Clark has done this-or worse-to others.
So, please get this everywhere.

Abolish Everything. Swain for President 2020.

Freedom,

Sean Swain 

 
Call-In Campaign:

       “I’m calling to express concern about sexual misconduct and ongoing intimidation by a high-level ODRC employee on a prisoner. I hope you will investigate. “Sean Swain is a model prisoner. He has an Honorable Discharge from the U. S. Army and a social science degree from Ashland University. He was honored for his peace work in prison, by Rosa Parks, in 2002 and as a pacifist, has not been so much as accused of any violence in 28 years. Sean contributes weekly segments to a globally- syndicated radio show and last year a book he co-wrote sold ten thousand copies. The University of Michigan is archiving his personal papers and effects because of his positive influence on our world-all from prison.
       “But in 2013, ODRC Council Trevor Clark engaged in improper sexual touching of Sean and has since then tormented him for rejecting his advances. Mr. Clark now has Sean framed for rule violations based on others’ online postings, preventing Sean from lowering in security or gaining parole. I ask you to investigate these mattes and protect Sean from Mr. Clark’s harassment and intimidation.

       “I will be joining a position at change.org to boycott Ohio tourism, universities, and travel until the ODRC protects Sean Swain from Trevor Clark. 

 

Thank you. ODRC Director Stuart Hudson: (614) 752-1611, stuart.hudson@odre.state.oh.us

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The State Watching You In Your Kitchen.

         We are aware that we live in a surveillance society, the evidence is all around us, and in lots of cases openly visible. We see the cameras in shops, pubs, transport vehicle, bus-stops, bus stations, train stations, airports and on our streets at strategic points. Then there is the phone tapping and physical surveillance by members of the state's policing system. If we want to escape them we stay at home or live in our cars. Well maybe not, if you are involved in any form of dissent from the established power structure of the state, then your home and/or your car may not be as private as you think. Big brother may have taken up residence in your home or be sitting beside you as you drive around with your friends.

        The following is well worth reading it is from Des oreilles et des yeux via Anarchist News.

        The States, according to their role of repression of individuals and groups doing subversive actions, put in place ways of keeping those individuals and groups under surveillance. It seems that some of this surveillance is done through the hiding of surveillance devices in the spaces we live in.
      These devices take different forms : microphones, cameras, geolocation devices. Targeted spaces can be all the spaces we go through : buildings, vehicles, public space. These practices are sometimes legal, authorized by a judge for example, and sometimes not, done illegally by intelligence agencies.
       We noticed the lack of informations available around us concerning this kind of surveillance. What is the real use of these devices by intelligence agencies? Which kind of devices are used? In which contexts? How efficiently? What can we do to oppose this kind of surveillance?
          Therefore we decided to gather informations about the subject, with the idea of writing and publishing a booklet in a few months. We want to focus in this booklet on surveillance carried out by intelligence agencies and political police in European States against individuals or groups doing subversive actions. Also, we limit ourselves to the study of physical surveillance devices hidden in the spaces inhabited by the suveilled individuals and groups (so we won’t talk about other kind of surveillance such as shadowing, phone-tapping and Internet surveillance).--------

Continue reading: 

A list of devices found in homes and cars:

The examples list can be downloaded here :

• (english) http://desoreillesetdesyeux.noblogs.org/files/2018/11/examples_english.pdf
• (french) http://desoreillesetdesyeux.noblogs.org/files/2018/11/exemples_francais.pdf

The archive containing the devices pictures can be downloaded here :

• (english) http://desoreillesetdesyeux.noblogs.org/files/2018/11/archive_english.zip
• (french) http://desoreillesetdesyeux.noblogs.org/files/2018/11/archive_francais.zip

     This list would be included in the final booklet, along with summaries concerning the locations of devices, how they work, and possible ways of detecting them.

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SOA, School Of Assassins.

        For far too many years the SOA, (School of Americas) America's training centre for blood thirsty dictators, assassins, and psychopathic leaders has been dispatching its graduates around the world. From this hub of despotism has come many of the world's worst dictators, military leaders and coldblooded assassins. Just another export from the "good ol' US of A" another blood splattered product of "The Land of The Free". The list of names that have exited its doors reads like a world listing of the worst of brutal criminals.

       For years the group SOA Watch, has been campaigning to have this brutal anathema to democracy shut down, and to make its purpose known to the public at large.

      In Honduras all eyes are on the outcome of a trial, where some of the products of the SOA, stand accused of being part of a group involved in a brutal assassination. It would be wonderful if they were found guilty, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

This from SOA Watch:

        Later today, a Honduran Court is scheduled to deliver the verdict in the case against the first 8 people accused of the murder of visionary Indigenous and social movement leader Berta Caceres and the tentative murder of Mexican environmental and social activist Gustavo Castro. Among the accused are:
       * SOA graduate and former head of security for the DESA hydroelectric dam company Douglas Bustillo, who is accused of planning and coordinating with the group of hitmen who went to Berta’s home to murder her.
        * SOA graduate and Army Major Mariano Diaz Chavez, who is accused of providing logistics for the murder.
        * Henrry Hernández, a former soldier connected to Major Mariano Diaz and Douglas Bustillo, who is alleged to have been the leader of the group of hitmen that went to Berta’s home on March 2, 2016.
           * Elvin Rapalo, Oscar Torres, and Edilson Duarte, who are alleged to have killed Berta, shot Gustavo, and driven the getaway vehicle, respectively.
          * Sergio Rodriguez, a manager for the DESA dam company who is accused of coordinating informants to provide DESA company executives and directors with regular information about Berta and COPINH.
            * Emerson Duarte, the twin brother of the alleged getaway car driver, who seems to be erroneously facing trial because the murder weapon is alleged to have been found in his home. However, no other evidence has been presented to suggest he was involved in the murder and government prosecutors downgraded the charge against him at the last moment. Nevertheless, he has been in jail for two and a half years on murder charges.
           The intellectual authors — those who paid to assassinate Berta — are notably absent from this trial. Roberto David Castillo, President of the DESA company, was arrested earlier this year but his case has been plagued by major delays. No other intelectual authors have been arrested.
          The organization that Berta Caceres co-founded and led, COPINH, is inviting everyone to participate in a Twitterstorm today to continue calling for those who ordered and paid for Berta’s assassination at the highest level to be held accountable. You can join on Twitter by using the hashtags #CapturaALosAutoresIntelectuales (Arrest the Intellectual Authors) and #JusticiaParaBerta (Justice for Berta).
           The trial has been plagued by irregularities and negligence that benefits the criminal structure responsible for the murder. The prosecutors representing Berta’s family were glaringly absent, as the court removed the lawyers representing Berta’s children and mother from their role as private prosecutors the day before the trial began in a highly irregular move (in Honduras and many other countries lawyers representing the victims prosecute the case alongside government prosecutors). Additionally, government prosecutors and members of a US-supported investigative unit that testified during the trial apparently failed to properly carry out certain basic investigative actions, contributing to impunity and enabling the defense lawyers to make arguments on procedural grounds. Also, several Constitutional challenges filed by the victims have yet to be resolved.
         The most moving part of the whole five and half week trial came this Saturday following the closing arguments when Laura Zuniga Cáceres, Berta’s youngest daughter, exercised her right to address the Court before they left to deliberate on the verdict. Fighting back tears, Laura looked directly at the judges and said:
          “Today it’s up to me to speak, something I don’t want to do because no one wants to talk after their mother has been murdered. It’s up to me to speak because this justice system didn’t allow us to participate in this process, it expelled us.
         The private accusation should be here, our lawyers who have accompanied us, who investigated, who formulated a complimentary theory for this case – complimentary. They should be here making the closing arguments, explaining the context in which this murder occurred, which is so important. How she was persecuted, how they even persecuted international accompaniers because this was a DESA policy.
         Our lawyers aren’t here because you threw us out of this process and we are here to speak about that too... From the moment my mom was murdered, we were excluded from the process, and we don’t agree with that either. We don’t agree with being denied the possibility of having an observer present during my mom’s autopsy, of not receiving information. We’ve had to fight for information at every moment, every step of the way. We didn’t do it on a whim, we did it because we are prepared to do everything necessary to get to the truth because we understand that it’s our right, because we understand that it’s the right of the Honduran people, because we want to establish precedents for justice.-----
 
Read Laura’s full remarks here: https://copinh.org/2018/11/laura-zuniga-caceres/

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Those Inhuman Cages Of State Repression.

       Prisons are inhuman institutions, cages of repression and control, places where slight mishaps and small infringements can and do result in severe and often, arbitrary consequences. They are places where violence and intimidation are never far away. They can and often do, destroy the individual's ability to function normally, and serve no purpose other than repression, intimidation and to create subservience. All those who find themselves contained in the state's cages of repression deserve our full support and solidarity.

From Free Jeremy dot net

      After a week of anxious waiting and worrying, we now have and can share details about Jeremy’s current situation.

       Jeremy is currently in solitary confinement and is at risk of being transferred to a higher security prison because of an incident that occurred sometime last week.

       The incident occurred either Monday, November 19th, or Tuesday, November 20th. Jeremy was exiting his unit and either pushed or bumped a door. The door he was exiting through did not have a window or any way to see through to the other side. There was an officer on the other side of the door, and, when the door opened, it allegedly bumped the officer. In response to being bumped with the door, the officer grabbed Jeremy, threw him up against the wall, and took him to the SHU (segregated housing unit), without placing Jeremy in handcuffs or calling for backup, as is prison protocol. Once in SHU, he was written up for “assaulting a staff member” for the original act of bumping the officer with the door. Thankfully, Jeremy was not injured when he was thrown against the wall, but he has been in solitary for the past week while he awaits his disciplinary hearing. The hearing should be sometime this week.

       This situation is extremely serious for several reasons. The first is that when he was brought to SHU, Jeremy was placed in true solitary confinement. Most times, when Jeremy is placed in SHU, his placement is two prisoners to a cell. While time in SHU is never pleasant, true solitary confinement has been denounced by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Méndez as “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” that may cause “severe mental pain or suffering”. A Human Rights Watch report has described it as “emotionally, physically, and psychologically destructive.” The UN Special Rapporteur on torture also strongly recommended a complete prohibition on solitary confinement in excess of 15 days. As far as we know, Jeremy has been in solitary for seven days.

       The second reason the situation is so serious is that if this infraction is upheld during his disciplinary hearing, Jeremy possibly faces a transfer to a higher security prison. Assaulting a staff member is a very severe charge, and would place Jeremy at a higher “offender level”. This is extremely worrying, as it means he would be tranferred to a medium security prison, where he would enjoy less freedoms and, even more disheartening, would be unable to finish his college classes or earn the degree he has worked so hard to complete. A transfer with a record of “assaulting a staff member” at his previous prison would also make Jeremy a target for prison staff at any new prison he was sent to. Jeremy is also very close to family at his current prison and is able to enjoy frequent visits from friends. Being taken away from that would be a devastating blow to both Jeremy and the people close to him.

       However, there is hope. If the disciplinary infraction is upheld during his hearing, Jeremy can request to stay at FCI Milan under something called “management variable”. This would mean he has the “points” that would normally place him in a medium security prison, but he would nevertheless be housed at a low security prison. This would, ironically enough, be made possible because of the college classes he has worked so hard on and is now in danger of being transferred away from. We will not know if this is an available option until we know the results of his disciplinary hearing.

These are all the details that we know as of the time of this posting. Calls are being made to Jeremy’s case manager and possibly to the warden to see what, if anything, can be done to help the situation. Please, at this time, we are asking that members of the general public do not call the prison. The situation is extremely delicate. However, you can write to Jeremy and we encourage everyone to do that! His address is:

Jeremy Hammond, #18729-424
FCI Milan
P.O.Box 1000
Milan, MI 48160

Thank you again for all your support. I will update this post with new details as they emerge.

Love and rage,
Grace North

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

Music, Poetry, And Politics In Glasgow.

 

        Well this is Monday 26th. of November, you have just two days to get your diary sorted so that you can attend what will be a wonderful and unique evening of music, singing, poetry and politics, what more could you ask for? This night will bring together some of the best known names in Scotland, paying tribute to Artists in Solidarity, who in 1984 put on a superb event, "Writers for Miners" in support of the striking miners. Lots of those who performed on that evening will be performing on Wednesday 28th. November at Mono's, Glasgow. (the time is 7:00pm, not 7:30 as stated on Mono's page.)

       This event will be the launch of a CD of the original performance in support of the striking miners, for a sneek preview of what to expect, take a look at this list.

After the introductions:

Nancy Nicolson
Aonghas Macneacail
Gerda Stevenson
Liz Lochhead
Rab Noakes

30 minutes interval

Allan Tall
Alan McMunigal of thi wurd will introduce young writers who will read works of those poets who who were at the original event but can't be with us on the night.

Freddy Anderson: (In the Vale of Aberfan) 

Hamish Henderson: Glascune & Drumlochy OR Three poems from 1939
Eddie Boyd: (“The niddeny nottum cherbo”) 

Tom McGrath: (I know a man from Denver called Mr Mac)

Donald Saunders
AnneThomson: (Dream-Songs for Winters/TheAdam'sRib)

Peter Nardini 

Tom Leonard

Ewan McVicar

      The proceeds of the event will go to support Spirit of Revolt, have a wee look at their website. 

Details:

7pm. to 10pm.

Wednesday, 28th. November, 2018.

Mono, 12, Kings Court,

Glasgow, G1 5RB.

Tickets at the door.

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Just Another Corrupt Day In The Capitalist Environment.

 

       Day in, day out, we see the various fiddles, corruption, exploitation that forms the basis of the capitalist system. Sometimes it is small dodgy backroom deals, other times it is large corporate fiddles, but the system can't function without them. Its life blood is profit, which simply means getting more out than you put in, and the aim is always to increase that "profit". These deals can mean decimating the environment, ripping off the public, and the usual one  of depriving the public of any slice of the endeavor, which in turn destroys the fabric of society, making it impossible to create a fair and just environment for the public at large.

       This latest little fiddle to come to light is one that, with the usual callousness of the system, will add more deprivation to the people of a country who already live in extreme poverty, making sure the stay there or sink deeper in to the mire of deprivation. There only hope, like that of the rest of us, is to destroy this corrupt, gangster, exploitative and inhuman system, and replace it with one that the people control to the benefit of all.

This from the Independent: 

 

 

     Shell and Eni’s scandal-plagued oil deal will deprive Nigeria of $6bn, experts estimate
         Amount is more than double the combined education and healthcare budget of Nigeria

         ------ "After years of denials, Shell admitted last year that it knew much of the money initially paid for the block, known as OPL245, would pass to convicted money launderer Dan Etete, who took a cut for himself with much of the rest paid to well-connected officials.

         Under the contract, just 41 per cent of future revenues from the oil block will accrue to Nigeria, according to the report commissioned by NGO Global Witness and anti-corruption campaigners at Re:Common, the Corner House and HEDA.

         Typically, 65 to 85 per cent of profits from such deals go to the government that granted the licence, under what’s known as a production sharing contract (PSC).

         But with OPL245, Shell and Eni dispensed with the PSC structure and effectively cut Nigeria out of all future profits. Instead the government will receive only tax revenues."----

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Glasgow's Anti-Racism March 2018.

      Saturday 24th. November saw Glasgow's annual anti-racism march. Despite Glasgow's cold November weather, in excess of 1,500 individuals turned up to march from Glasgow Green, through the city streets proclaiming their view that we are all human and each and every one of us deserves respect and to be treated decently. 

            As usual there was a motley crew with various banners and flags, groups, unions and individuals, all with the same message, "refugees are welcome here". It might have been a sedate march through our streets, but it is important, especially at this time of rising far-right and fascist tendencies. that we keep that message on the streets. We have to make it very clear, the citizens of Glasgow will not tolerate racism in any shape or form. We win and protect our freedom by protecting the freedom of others. Well done Glasgow, and a big thank you to all those who took part.

       Though I couldn't make the event myself, a comrade sent me some details with these photos. Thanks Keith.

 

 

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UK, Land Of Privilege And Poverty.

 

         Once again that clump of land, know as the UK, the forth richest country in the world, has been exposed as a class ridden, land of inequality. A land mired in poverty, strewn with destitution, where a small cabal live a life of unimaginable opulence, at the expense of the many.
        Inequality of wealth between the poorest and the richest is wider in UK than any other developed country, and is widening. 

Photo

       First, earnings of the top 10 per cent of full-time workers doubled between 1978 and 2008, whereas those of the median grew by 60 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent by just a quarter. After the financial crisis, overall earnings fell substantially over the next five years before recovering slightly, but they are falling once again. This combination of absolute decline following generations of widening inequality explains much of the current sense of unfairness.
      Second, the standard measure of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, shows Britain’s post-tax inequality rising strongly in the 1980s (from 28 per cent in 1978 to 41 per cent in 1990) though it has stabilised a little since (to around 37 per cent). Having once been one of the more egalitarian developed countries, the UK is now one of the least. Third, there has been an extraordinary concentration of rewards in the hands of the top 1 per cent, and within that group, the top 0.10 per cent.
     Finally, wealth inequality is greater than for incomes and is growing. In the absence of compensating wealth taxation, high earners can turn their income into assets, and the value of assets can be compounded through investment. This is then passed on as inheritance, entrenching inequality across time between generations and classes.

         Recently our political ballerinas, mostly wealthy products of the Oxbridge sausage factory, were all aghast at the audacity of the UN Rapporteur Philip Alston when he released his report on poverty in the UK. Foaming at the mouth they declared, how dare he put on display, the extent of poverty and destitution in this country. They went into convulsions when he claimed that the extreme poverty and destitution in this country was a deliberate result of government choices rather than inevitable circumstances.

Austerity
      Alston was critical of the “mentality” behind cuts and reforms introduced in the past few years that have brought misery and torn at the social fabric. “British compassion for those who are suffering has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited and callous approach …”
Universal credit
      The government’s ambitious programme to simplify the benefits system was a good idea in principle but was “fast falling into universal discredit” and should be overhauled. It was gratuitously punitive in its effects. Draconian sanctions and long payment delays drove claimants into hardship, depression and despair.

       Of course ordinary Joes, like you and I, knew all this, we didn't need a UN Rapporteur to tell us of the extreme poverty and destitution in this clump of land, nor did we need to be told that deliberate policies were the cause. We have lived with it for years, we have seen the result among our friends, family and neighbours. We are also aware of who is responsible for these policy choices that created this quagmire of despair, and we also know that to expect those wealth privileged political ballerinas to start to spread the wealth of this country more equally is fantasy from cloud cuckoo land.
       The answer is to rid ourselves of these prancing, privileged parasites, and take control of wealth and resources of this rich and wealth plot of land, and start to create a system that will spread those riches in a fair manner, seeing to the needs of all our people. We can do it without UN Rapporteurs, political ballerinas, and privileged worthless parasites. The sooner we start, the quicker we will see all that poverty, despair and destitution disappear.

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The Police, Functioning As They Were Intended.

 

      The illusion that is peddled by the establishment and its propaganda mouthpiece, that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, that the police are there to protect us, the ordinary people, grows thinner and thinner to the point of evaporation. Every act of police violence and corruption, remember Hillsborough, every brutal attack by police on protestors, the violence heaped on strikers, remember the 1984/85 miners strike, every miscarriage of justice by police lies, should by now have made it perfectly clear where their loyalty lies.  According to the establishment the police are doing what they were set up to do, protect the rich and wealthy from the poor and the desperate, to protect them from those who would challenge their privileged position. The only modifications the state will make to the police is to give them ever greater power and to see they are more heavily armed. The police are not the friends of the people, they stand in the way of justice, equality and freedom. They are the first line of bodyguards of this system of inequality and exploitation, with the troops standing in the background if needed. It is the same story the world over.

This from Anarchist News:

 

        On October 20^th, 2018 around 1am, cops showed up to a call at an apartment above a King St. Shop in Hamilton, Ontario. Inside they found Robyn Garlow, 30yo mother of one, with a knife. They electrocuted her with a taser and, as she was falling to the ground, shot her four fucking times.

     Garlow was known to the police. She was a drug user and was recently out of jail. These details have no relevancy to her worth, her inherent right to freedom from state oppression. Yet, they already have been and will be used to justify her murder. Because the police are a violent organization meant to protect property of the rich, they have no humanity for the poor and the working class. Because the police are a patriarchal organization meant to enforce laws that privilege masculinity, they have no room for women who do not submit to their authority.

        This was not a tragic mistake, this was murder. Badge or no badge. This was not a case of one bad or inexperienced or over-worked officer, this was an officer carrying out the mandate of the police. Just as, earlier this year, police murdered 19yo Quinn MacDougall in his own apartment after he called the cops for help. And so, on October 28^th, Feminist Action Hamilton called a demonstration to protest the ongoing oppression of our communities by this violent organization. Not to demand justice for Garlow – as we know none exists within this judicial system, let alone the SIU – but to mourn and fight for all victims and survivors of police brutality. And to dream of a world without cops or cages.

     Around 40 people met and marched down King St, holding up traffic on a busy downtown street for over 20 minutes. We held a banner that read FEMINISTS AGAINST POLICE: COPS DON’T KEEP US SAFE. We stopped to acknowledge a moment of silence at the scene of the murder and then circled around the block for a moment of screaming rage at the Hamilton Police headquarters. We had a marching band in full effect and we handed out over 300 flyers to passersby that listed 12 things you can do besides calling the cops.

       As feminists, it is important for us to draw attention to the fact that the police repress, harass, and attack Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities more intensely in order to uphold white supremacy. This is a continuation of the legacy of the police as institutions that, in the United States, were born out of slave patrols to protect white people from Black slaves and, in Canada, were created in order to help put down Indigenous revolt in order to secure white settlement of the plains.

      As feminists, it is important for us to draw attention to the fact that the police make sex work unsafe. And that queer, non-binary, and trans people – specifically transwomen – are met with more violence by the police than others. And that the police criminalize and abuse those of us with mental illness and use the prison system as though it were a hospital.

      As feminists, it is important for us to draw attention to the fact that police officers often use their undue authority to coerce and rape women on the job. And that police officers go home and extend their undue authority to their households where nearly 40% of them abuse their domestic partners with impunity.

Every assault, rape, or murder of a person by the police is an attack against us all.

Because the authority of the police breeds monsters…
Because all people deserve to be free from state oppression…
Because the system is working exactly the way it was designed to work…
We cannot call for reform or review, but only the abolition of the police and the world it creates.

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      Feminist Action Hamilton is an autonomous collective of women, trans, and non-binary persons which organizes along anarchist principles both within our communities – forming systems of mutual aid – and outside our communities – empowering ourselves to fight back against patriarchy in all its forms.

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

All States Have Blood On Their Hands.

      State violence against legitimate and peaceful marches is not the prerogative of right-wing fascist governments. All the so called representative democracies have blood on their hands. Protesters have been shot on the streets of UK mainland and Northern Ireland. It is the states answer to dissent.

     Members of the government in Greece proudly wear the badge of socialist and communist, but willing send their over armed thugs onto the street in an attempt to intimidate those citizens who go on peaceful marches or wish to show dissent. The state can't tolerate any form of dissent, it is seen as a threat to their power and control.

This from Perseus999:

 Published on Nov 17, 2018

         Athens: On 17 November 2018, following the annual protest in commemoration of the student revolt against the military dictatorship in Athens, Greece, (1973), and despite the fact that this year's protest was ending in an absolutely peaceful manner, scores of riot policemen encircled the black block just before it was going to disperse and for no apparent reason, no provocation, no excuse, no justification, they suddenly launched a massive attack and charged against the crowd with batons while firing asphyxiating gas grenades and flash-bang grenades, creating chaos in a residential area of central Athens, just outside Ambelokipoi metro station. This video serves as a reminder that this is what democracy looks like, ie. you don't have to provoke the State or the police to get attacked, wounded, gassed, arrested, intimidated and persecuted. The State and the police will judge you solely on the basis of your political or ideological beliefs. Some people argue that scenes like these are evident of a fascist State and not a democratic one, in spite of the fact that attacks like these take place all over the world in almost every democratic State that exists on the planet, by both left or right wing governments. The government of SYRIZA in Greece is a left one, the vast majority of its politicians or members call themselves socialists or communists and yet you see scenes of ruthless violence by their policemen that are identical to what happens to States ruled by right wing governments. They are not even afraid that people will make a connection between the commemoration of a crushed bloody student rebellion by a military junta and the brutal attack against a protest by policemen armed and dressed like soldiers on the same day years later. The common denominator is power. No Gods, No Masters. Video from a similar riot police attack exaclty on the same day (17 November 2017) in the same street last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f_Ar...

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

A War Only We The People Can End.

          For centuries vast swaths of the working class have been subservient under the illusion that their problems can be solved by relying on organisations and political parties external to their own class. For too long solving our problems has been theorised and delegated to groups with tenuous, fragile and sometimes fictional, connections to our class, who claim to have our interests at heart, with the only result possible, we lose control of those struggles, and our problems remain.
           The solving of the problems of our class can only be achieved by basing all our strategies on a class based structure, with all the working class involved in an active struggle.
            History tells us that the lines are drawn between the working class and the establishment, and all those organisations outside our class, no matter their proclamations, in the final battle will capitulate to the power of the state to preserve their position and their organisation. There is a war going on, continuously, and world wide, and it is waged by a class of powerful established states and corporations, against the ordinary people, the dispossessed, the working class. There is no middle ground, to believe there is, is to allow inequality and exploitation to continue.
        To win that better world for all, we have to see and recognise that battle line, the line between the classes, and take our stand united on our side of the battle line. We are involve in a war, if we fail to recognise its class structure, it is a war we can never win. To the ordinary people of this world, there can be only one war, the class war.

 

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Glasgow's Anti-Racism March.

        The UK, like most countries in recent years, have seen a rise in racism, acts of abuse and violence against immigrants and ethnic minorities. So now more than ever, we have to come together to stamp out this inhuman fascist trend.

      This Saturday gives all those in Glasgow and surrounding area the opportunity to show the true feeling of the ordinary people in our area. The Glasgow annual anti-racism march talks place this Saturday November 24th. Let's show where we stand on racism, it is vile, inhuman, and divides the people into opposing groups, rather than have them come together against the real enemy of the people, the capitalist system. Though organised by the STUC, you don't have to be in a union to be part of this, though you should think about joining one if you're not, the IWW for example, you just have to be a decent human being.

Sat 24 Nov - STUC St Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March & Rally

Assemble 10.30am, Glasgow Green. March off 11.00am. Rally at 12 noon at Adelaides, Bath Street

      The STUC St. Andrew's Day Anti-Racism March & Rally will take place on Saturday 24th November. This important annual event is organised by the STUC Black Workers Committee. Economic hardship continues to be blamed on migration. Hate crime has risen across the UK. We see atrocities committed in the name of governments across the world. And the UK government should hang its head in shame for its treatment of the Windrush generation and the residents of the Grenfell Tower in London.

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