A Wee Visit To Rabbie's Patch.

       Tomorrow Stasia and I will be escaping for a week or so to a lonely cottage on the Ayrshire coast. A chance to recharge our batteries, relax and just drift. Some members of the family will be dropping in for a wee visits, just to add that rich flavour to the break. Also might be another opportunity to visit Rabbie Burns' cottage, who knows.

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Pointless Consumerism Or Pleasurable Solstice?

        At this time of year it is difficult to escape the continuous onslaught of the pressure to indulge in pointless consumerism and the pressure to sink into excessive gluttony. It is the time of year when the corporate juggernaut gets desperate fearing that it hasn't stripped you of all your cash and loaded you with enough debt, to stuff their coffers. The wave of jingoism and totally misleading adverts form a goo that fogs the minds of many, especially the young and parents of the young, it is all about pressure and is difficult to escape. As usual, a few calming words of wisdom from Not Buying Anything. Happy solstice everybody.

      Winter solstice is one of my favourite events of the year, perhaps because I was born on this day almost 6 decades ago (that was fast). If I had delusions of grandeur, I might have thought that the light returned because I came into the world.
       "Did I do that?" Even if I am not responsible for this wondrous photonic turn of events, it is still a time of year that I cherish.
        First of all, solstice is a celebration that is based on observable facts, and I find that comforting in its solidity. One does not "believe" or "not believe" in this well established annual celestial occurrence.
        It is a celebration based on science, which can also be just as magical and amazing as any fabrication of the imagination. The rational part of my brain likes that this event is as real as it gets.
        Best of all is the fact that this is a celebration for everyone, and in a world that is increasingly fractured along religious, political, and tribal lines, such an event is of infinite value.
        Today we celebrate something that is 100% inclusive, even if our Southern Hemisphere brothers and sisters are celebrating the longest day of the year while we celebrate the shortest.
       It is solstice everywhere on the planet, and the wonder of nature joins us all together in one great human family on the best home in the known universe.
      Now, the light returns, and I find that pretty amazing, even if I didn't do it. Happy solstice, my human family, wherever you happen to be. This is a celebration for everyone.
      Note: In lieu of sending a birthday present, please donate to a charity of your choice. I don't need, or want, anything (although a cure for multiple sclerosis would be nice, and the permanent end of war would be brilliant).

 

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Dare To Criticise Israel??

       I have always known that the USA is not the democratic paradise it spouts to the world at large, but I didn't know that several states make it obligatory to sign a pro-Israeli certificate before you can work for any state funded institution!!!

This from an article by The Intercept: 

       A children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed early Monday morning in a federal court in the Western District of Texas, alleging a violation of her First Amendment right of free speech.

      The child language specialist, Bahia Amawi, is a U.S. citizen who received a master’s degree in speech pathology in 1999 and, since then, has specialized in evaluations for young children with language difficulties (see video below). Amawi was born in Austria and has lived in the U.S. for the last 30 years, fluently speaks three languages (English, German, and Arabic), and has four U.S.-born American children of her own.
    Amawi began working in 2009 on a contract basis with the Pflugerville Independent School District, which includes Austin, to provide assessments and support for school children from the county’s growing Arabic-speaking immigrant community. The children with whom she has worked span the ages of 3 to 11. Ever since her work for the school district began in 2009, her contract was renewed each year with no controversy or problem.
      But this year, all of that changed. On August 13, the school district once again offered to extend her contract for another year by sending her essentially the same contract and set of certifications she has received and signed at the end of each year since 2009.
      She was prepared to sign her contract renewal until she noticed one new, and extremely significant, addition: a certification she was required to sign pledging that she “does not currently boycott Israel,” that she “will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract,” and that she shall refrain from any action “that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israeli or in an Israel-controlled territory.”

        The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian — or McCarthyite — self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading:

        That language would bar Amawi not only from refraining from buying goods from companies located within Israel, but also from any Israeli companies operating in the occupied West Bank (“an Israeli-controlled territory”). The oath given to Amawi would also likely prohibit her even from advocating such a boycott given that such speech could be seen as “intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with Israel.”

    
         There are currently 26 states where this legislation is now law and 13 where the legislation is pending, that would cover well over half the states in America. It would seem that in America you can advocate boycotts of all manner of things in your own country but dare not speak to harm Israel, strange?

Read the full article HERE:  

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Anger And Frustration Will Open The Gates to Change.

Today's Western Democracy. 

 

      It should be obvious to all that the idea of voting for a different party to "govern" you, will only produce the same tasteless loaf of bread, just cooked in a different oven. Real change can never come from keeping the same basic principles of profit and continuous growth. Likewise relying on those parties which wish to participate in the management of this system will only lead to new faces sitting on the throne of power. As this awareness grows it becomes obvious that it is not party ideology that will force change, it is anger and frustration. Only when the people start to say to hell with this being shit on generation after generation, and decide to do something about it, without waiting for their esteemed leaders to tell what and when, only then will we see real change. The first burst of anger may not be successful but it will set the pattern as people start to feel the strength and power they hold. They will forge their own answers in the heat of struggle, there will be no need to stop to see what the rule book says. Each answer will be born from the problems that arise.

      All the more reason we should be paying particular attention to the Yellow Vests actions and seeing the possibilities inherent in that form of struggle. The new future can only come about by destroying the corrupt and decadent present. The Yellow Vests may not be the birth of the new future, but it could be the consummation of that birth, that is up to all of us.

       Anarchist News has is a well documented and detailed article on the Yellow Vests which is well worth reading in full:

       Since November, France has been shaken by the yellow vest movement, a grassroots reaction to President Macron’s proposal to increase fuel taxes in order to force the poor to pay for the transition to “ecological” technologies. Like the Occupy movement, the yellow vest movement cohered around shared tactics and frustration rather than common goals or values; consequently, the movement has been a battleground for many different political agendas and factions. The far right initially took advantage of the movement’s “apolitical” character to gain influence, especially online; but as the movement spread and the clashes with the police intensified, anarchists and other uncontrollable rebels also staked out ground within the movement.

Continue reading HERE:

https://anarchistnews.org/content/yellow-vest-movement-showdown-state 

       

         Also worth a read is the article by David Graeber:

       If one feature of any truly revolutionary moment is the complete failure of conventional categories to describe what’s happening around us, then that’s a pretty good sign we’re living in revolutionary times.

      It strikes me that the profound confusion, even incredulity, displayed by the French commentariat—and even more, the world commentariat—in the face of each successive “Acte” of the Gilets Jaunes drama, now rapidly approaching its insurrectionary climax, is a result of a near total inability to take account of the ways that power, labour, and the movements ranged against power, have changed over the last 50 years, and particularly, since 2008. Intellectuals have for the most part done an extremely poor job understanding these changes.

Continue reading HERE:
http://news.infoshop.org/europe/the-yellow-vests-show-how-much-the-ground-moves-under-our-feet/?platform=hootsuite

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Sanctioned, A Vindictive Act Of Intimidation.

    I always find it amazing we accept how certain words used quite liberally in this society never convey their true meaning. Words like "austerity", it can be spoken by what seems a calm unemotional fashion, concealing its real life meaning. To those who spout it most, it means being careful with money, balancing the books, being prudent. When in actual fact, in this society, it means misery, low wages, cuts in social services, deteriorating health service and education system, and much more in the way of misery for vast swaths of ordinary people.

      Another word that can be used in a seeming innocuous manner is "sanctioned". Again our political ballerinas use this word in civilised tones as if they were oblivious to its true meaning. Its true meaning being, increased poverty, deprivation, stress, homelessness, mental health problems, family break-ups, suicides and more. Not a word that should be banded about with emotionless calm.

     "Sanctioning" someone who is on benefit is a sadistic, savage, callous act of vindictive brutality, meant to intimidate and bludgeon the poor in our society, into submissiveness. All caring and civilised people in this country should be up in arms at the very idea of such a vicious, life threatening act based on "upper class" ideology that see the poor as a group that need to be punished for their poverty.

       How long will we accept the cruelty that flows freely from this ideology of the wealthy ruling cabal of parasites, an ideology that thinks in terms of rewarding the rich and punishing the poor. How long will we accept such words as "austerity and sanctions" being used with calm politeness before we take to the streets to vent our anger and disgust with this system of hypocrisy and avoidable injustice and inequality?

 This image taken from    Humanity Torbay

 

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Richard Wolff On The Yellow Vests.

       At the risk of boring some of my readers, another view point of the Yellow Vests. However I do think we have to look very closely at what is happening in France, to look and learn. Thanks Loam for the link.

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The Many Facets Of Struggle.

 

         Anarchist Nikos Romanos, despite more than four years in high security prison and a life threatening hunger strike that brought him near to death, is still vociferous in his condemnation of the state/capitalist system. His writings from prison are still forged with hatred of this exploitative system and a desire to bring it down by all means available, a desire to see freedom for all blossom across the globe. A desire to see our communities shaped by the communities free from fear and repression.

     Nikos as a teenager, was a close friend of murdered teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos, and was with him at the time of his cold blooded murder by a police officer. He saw at a very personal level, and at close quarters, the savagery of the state's protecting minions. I have no doubt this brutal action helped to shape and fashion his anarchist philosophy.

        In June 1914, Nikos penned the article, "The Question of Dignity" well worth a read by all anarchists. The following is an extract from that article:  

Scattered thoughts surrounding the belligerence of today…
        Closing this text I would like to comment on some things concerning the current status quo. Therefore I am looking for words to successfully describe the main characteristics of this monstrosity. Total social control of bodies and minds. Economic crisis, techno-scientific plague, police and military operations, clashes of geo-political interests, diplomatic incidents, generalized unrest, raw violence, diffused confusion and mass disorientation. We are at a critical point of the historical zeitgeist, many analyses have been publicized about the way in which the state is restructuring and fortifying at all levels, as well as the tendency of capitalism to spread its militarization beyond the exploited territories of the third world to the interior of the metropolises, in this way responding to the political instability which is spreading rapidly. Besides the different words and the deviation of some points of view there is a coercion of perceptions concerning the severity of our times. The problem is that even so we are unable to rise to the occasions and challenges of this time and remain trapped in perceptions that feed the cycle of inactivity and introversion. Personally I believe that it is necessary for us to organize through networks and fronts of action which will be coordinated based on minimal political agreements promoting campaigns of multiform action against the spearheads of modern tyranny and answering commensurately to the repressive attacks. By abolishing the bureaucracy of central organization we arm our initiatives and we coil or create fronts for action where we see it necessary. Whether it concerns current matters. (i.e. C type prisons) or thematics of the wider anarchist struggle (i.e. antifascism). In the attempt to break the circle of self-reference we must try to connect all the fires lit against civilization, from militant protests, assemblies and clashes up to armed attacks, a revolutionary attempt for the spreading of militant anarchy. Because what unites us is more than what divides us and since our aim is none other then the full frontal attack on the system, all attempts that are carried out independently of political tension must connect under the vision of absolute freedom. This of course does not retract our critique on incidents, it simply confirms that when critique is combined with dynamic interventions it is more effective because it aims at the spread of revolutionary thought to those who diverge from the dominant dogmas and are seeking ways of clashing with the existent. Placing thus the prospect of connecting our desires in unions of free individualities that collectivize heading towards the chaotic paths of creative destruction. In this attempt we must politically clash with the hysterical reactions of the reformist wing of the anarchist movement that rushes to sign legitimacy certificates to the State. Remembering the political competitiveness of the most intense condemnation from the parliamentary parties after each armed revolutionary action. We have seen written by “anarchist” spaces, phrases such as terrorists and murderers, reproducing the language and arguments of power. It seems that it is not only power that is terrorized but also the reformist wing of the anarchist movement that fears maybe “their shops will be flooded”. It seems that all these prefer the role of the eternal victim, a political masochism that is aroused by taking photos of beaten faces and stabbed bodies from the attacks of the fascists and cops. To conclude, multiform struggle means struggle by all means, nothing more, nothing less. Whoever is not shocked by the thousands of suicides of the economic war in times of “peace”, the drowned immigrants at the sea borders, the torn bodies of the people caught up in the expansion wars of the capitalist superpowers, the animals that are skinned alive inside the multinational industries, the murderous violence of the police, by everything happening in this system, and is shocked – for example – by the bodies of two fascists, that is their problem. The revolution is a constant war for a slave-less life which despite whatever temporary retreats, does not stop fighting and opening ways for our small and big raids. It is not pleasant strolls under the influence of alcohol in order to be obsequious to an invisible ghost called capitalist society. Besides, there are many student magicians of political deceit, more skilled and with more gifts. The above also has the aim of showing that opposing poles between new and old anarchy is false and the only real current question is either with the revolutionaries who fight or with the charlatans of conventionalism. Anarchy therefore that fights is separated from this perversion and transfers its rage to every corner of the world. The rage expressed in the forceful voices in a solidarity protest, the fire that torches the temples of money and symbols of wealth, the personal attacks on State officials and their armed dogs, the ruins left behind by a mechanism that exploded at one of the bases of the ruling class.
      We continue all together, free, wanted and hostages, the struggle for the destruction of capitalist society.
      Signals of solidarity, insurrection and love To all the comrades and friends of the Network of Fighter Prisoners.
      To the Italian anarchists for the upcoming week of international solidarity (16–24 May)
     To anarchist fighter Claudio Lavazza, Monica Caballero and Francisco Solar.
      The comrades from the security case and to Tamara Sol.
       To unrepentant saboteur Marco Camenisch.
       To every imprisoned anarchist at every corner of the world who I unwillingly forgot.
        With my mind on all the anarchists on the run.
        Strength to all those who arm their refusal against the system.
      Honour for ever to Sebastian Oversluij who fell while fighting during a bank robbery.
       Honour for ever to all those who died in the revolutionary war.
Long Live Anarchy!

Nikos Romanos, May 2014

Read the full article HERE: 

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The Need For More Leaderless Action.

      What is happening in France should be of tremendous interest to all those who wish to change society away from this corporate/state plutocracy to a system controlled by the people. This not a protest organised by some trade union or political party, this is a spontaneous uprising by people across a wide spectrum and not following the dictates of some ideology. Here we see people who didn't wait for the "leaders" to tell them to take to the streets, it grew among the people and spread across the country. Union leaders, bureaucrats, academics, party leaders, and academics stand confused, and I would think a little afraid as they can't get control of this phenomenon.  

     I have often said that nobody knows the spark that will start the fire. This particular fire that is raging across France started with a few disgruntled truck drivers who voiced their views on social media. That was the spark that ignited the underlying anger and discontent that rumbles under the surface in every corporate/state plutocracy that controls and exploits the lives of millions. All I can say is keep creating those sparks, the tinder is there, one spark is all it takes.
Two opinions of democracy:

 Photos by Abdulmonam Eassa

      There is an excellent article on the events in France by Jerome Roos, in Roar magazine. Here are a couple of extracts:

        What began four weeks ago as a nationwide response to a widely-disseminated Facebook call by two angry truck drivers to block local roads and highway toll stations in protest against a new “ecological” fuel tax introduced by Macron’s government has now spiraled out into a full-blown popular revolt against the banker president and the wealthy corporate elite he so openly represents.

And how various groups can gel:

       In recent days, the political crisis has been aggravated by what appears to be a veritable convergence of social struggles. On December 1, ambulance drivers joined the fray, demonstrating in front of the presidential palace with screaming sirens. On Monday, December 3, French students radicalized their ongoing struggle by blocking access to over 200 high schools; the following Thursday an estimated 100,000 of them participated in a nationwide walkout against Macron’s changes to university admission procedures and a rise in administrative fees. Shocking footage of several dozen students being placed in stress positions by riot police for an extended period of time soon went viral and served to further inflame the tensions and anti-police sentiment among the gilets jaunes. Then, last Saturday, thousands of environmentalists at a pre-scheduled climate demonstration in Paris donned yellow vests in solidarity. Meanwhile, the main unions for French farmers, truck drivers and public transport workers have all announced their intention to go on strike.

The need to ignore the old avenues of dialogue and compromise:

      Four weeks in, the uprising also continues to confound mainstream journalists and experts. “The gilets jaunes have blown up the old political categories,” one French media activist told ROAR on Saturday night, after a long day of riots in the capital. “They reject all political leaders, all political parties and any form of political mediation. No one really knows how to confront or deal with this movement — not the media, not the government, nor anyone else. What we are witnessing is unprecedented in French history.” While the outcome of these dramatic developments remains uncertain, it is clear that France is currently living through a rupture of historic proportions, taking the country onto uncharted terrain. For the left, the emerging scenario presents both exciting opportunities, but also a number of significant political risks. How are radical and autonomous social forces to insert themselves into this unfamiliar and uncertain situation without losing sight of the dangers that lie ahead?

Read the full article HERE: 

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Anathema.

      The Latest issue of Anathema is now available, Vol. 4 issue 11. It is an excellent read, there is also another detailed article on The Yellow Vests, well worth a read.

From Anathema

Volume 4 Issue 11 (PDF for reading 8.5 x 11)
Volume 4 Issue 11 (PDF for printing 11 x 17)
In this issue:

• Cash Bail
• Yellow Vests From Afar
• Brosnan Security In Chico
• Welcome To The Future
• Revolutionary Letter #18
• On Splitting
• N17 Report
• Black December
• Phones & Security Culture

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Yellow Vests.

       When ever there is a grassroots movement, protest or open people's struggle in another country it is always difficult to get at the truth of what is really happening. The main reason of course being that babbling brook of bullshit our mainstream media, where some people look for information and receive nothing but distortion and establishment propaganda. They will certainly not paint nice colours around any protests that threaten the power of Western governments.

       So it is always welcome when you get a report from somebody who is there.

This report from Anarchist News:  

 

 

       A statement from the Yellow Vests shows the political sophistication we must develop as similar social struggles emerge in the declining United States.
        An excellent friend in Paris forwards this:
Pour transmettre aux anglophones qui seraient intéressés…
Call from the Yellow Vests of Commercy to set up popular assemblies
“We will not be ruled. We will not be divided and bought off.”
NO TO RIP OFF! LONG LIVE DIRECT DEMOCRACY!
NO NEED FOR REGIONAL ‘REPRESENTATIVES’!
          For nearly two weeks the movement of yellow vests has brought hundreds of thousands of people in the streets all over France, often for the first time. The price of fuel was the drop of diesel that set the plain on fire. The suffering, the enough-is-enough, and the injustice have never been so widespread. Now, all across the country, hundreds of local groups are organizing themselves in their own different ways.
       Here in Commercy, in the Meuse, we have been operating from the beginning with daily popular assemblies, where each person participates equally. We organized to block entrances to the city and service stations, and filtering road blocks. In the process, we built a cabin in the central square. We meet there every day to organize ourselves, decide next actions, interact with people, and welcome those who join the movement. We also organize “solidarity soups” to live beautiful moments together and get to know each other. In equality.
      But now the government, and some parts of the movement, propose to appoint representatives for each region! That is to say a few people who would become the only “interlocutors” to public authorities and summarize our diversity. But we do not want “representatives” who would end up talking for us!
       What’s the point? At Commercy a punctual delegation met the sub-prefect, in big cities others met directly with the Prefect: they ALREADY have conveyed our anger and our demands. They ALREADY know that we are determined to finish off with this hated president, this detestable government, and the rotten system they embody!
       And that’s what scares the government! Because he knows that if they begin to give in on taxes and fuels, they will also have to back down on pensions, the unemployed, the status of civil servants, and all the rest! They also knows VERY WELL that they risk intensifying a GENERALIZED MOVEMENT AGAINST THE SYSTEM!
      It is not to better understand our anger and our demands that the government wants representatives”: it is to supervise and bury us! As with the union leadership, they look for intermediaries, people with whom they could negotiate. On whom they can put pressure to appease the eruption. People that they can then buy off and press to divide the movement to bury it.
      But that’s without counting on the strength and intelligence of our movement. It’s without counting that we are thinking, organizing, developing our actions that scare them so much and amplifying the movement!
         And above all, there is a very important thing: everywhere the movement of the yellow vests demand in various forms, something that is well beyond the purchasing power! This thing is power to the people, by the people, for the people. It is a newsystem where “those who are nothing” as they say with contempt, regain power over all those who stuff themselves, over those who rule, and over the money powers. It’s equality. It’s justice. It’s freedom. That’s what we want! And it starts from the grassroots!
        If we appoint “representatives” and “spokespersons”, it will eventually make us passive. Worse: we will quickly reproduce the system and act from top down like the scoundrels who rule us. These so-called “representatives of the people” who are filling their pockets, who make laws that rot our lives and serve the interests of the ultra-rich!
         Let’s not put our finger in the gear of representation and hijacking. This is not the time to hand over our voice to a handful of people, even if they seem honest. They must listen to all of us or to no one!
        From Commercy, we therefore call for the creation throughout France of popular committees, which function in regular general assemblies. Places where speech is liberated, where one dares to express oneself, to train oneself, to help one another. If there must be delegates, it is at the level of each local yellow vests people’s committee, closer to the voice of the people. With imperative, revocable, and rotating mandates. With transparency. With trust.
         We also call for the hundreds of groups of yellow vests to have a cabin as in Commercy, or a “people’s house” as in Saint-Nazaire, in short, a place of rallying and organization! And that they coordinate themselves, at the local and departmental level, in equality!
         This is how we will win, because that, up there, they are not used to manage it! And it scares them a lot. We will not let ourselves be ruled. We will not let ourselves be divided and bought off.
          No to self-proclaimed representatives and spokespersons! Let’s take back the power over our lives! Long live the yellow vests in their diversity!

LONG LIVE PEOPLE POWER, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE!

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This Class Ridden Plutocracy, Our Problem.

        The UK is a class ridden society, scarred by inequality, controlled by a wealthy elite and presided over my an outdated imperialist monarchy. Yet it parades itself on the world stage as a leader of democracy. Perhaps a leader of hypocrisy would be a more accurate title. In this fog of illusion of democracy, the rich get richer, and milk the system by every means available, while the ordinary people in most cases just scrape by, while many others sink deeper into the mire of deprivation. The outdated monarchy and its parasitical hangers on, by slight of hand, exploitation and corruption, live a life of unimaginable opulence, oblivious to the needs of the vast majority.
       This situation can only survive by us, the ordinary people, being silent, docile and submissive. We are complicit in our own injustice if we don't actively take steps to destroy this brutal charade of democracy. By our inaction and turning a blind eye to the exploitation and inequality that rapes and plunders our communities, we must shoulder the blame. If we are aware of the inequalities, injustices and blatant exploitation, the only sane thing to do is to put matters right, and bring the whole stinking, rotten class ridden system crashing down. We have tried dialogue and reform for centuries, but the parasites still hold sway. Voting has only made as more compliant with the corruption inherent in the system.
         We must stop playing their game to their rules and by direct action take control in our communities and workplaces. This is the only road open to the mass of people who suffer on a daily basis under this medieval plutocracy. If you believe that you can convince the ruling wealthy parasites to take their wealth and spread it more equally among the people who actually create that wealth, you are living in a dream world of fantasy. They will merely enter into another dialogue with you for the next couple of centuries. 

 

 

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This System Of Human Suicide.

       There are many reasons to strive for the destruction of capitalism, its exploitation of people, its ever widening gap between rich and poor, the fact that poverty and deprivation are its by-products, the fact that the wealth created always flows up to the few at the expense of the many, its endless wars and the resultant death and misery. Then there is its drive for ever increasing growth and its plundering of the earth's resources to feed the insatiable corporate greed, and many more reason can easily be found. However, at the top of the list of indictments against the capitalist system must be it is destruction of the natural environment. This avoidable destruction is responsible for the extinction of countless species on the planet, this in turn will lead to the inevitable extinction of our own species, the human. Why persist with a system that we know, if it continues, we lose the essential diversity of the planet which will obviously see the demise of our own species.

       There are alternatives, it is possible to create a system built on sustainability, mutual aid and co-operation, we have enough resources at present to see to the needs of all our people. All we need is the will to start to put in place the building blocks for such a system at grass roots level, while destroying the foundations of this present system of human suicide. However, time is running out, we are reaching the point of now or never.

This from Not Buying Anything:

      “Our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals — the sixth wave of extinctions in the past half-billion years. We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.  

      Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we’re now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day.”

Source: The Extinction Crisis, Center for Biological Diversity, biologicaldiversity.org

       Without insects and other land-based arthropods, EO Wilson, the renowned Harvard entomologist, estimates that humanity would last all of a few months.
        Even if this were the only problem facing us (it isn't), it would be enough to prompt some serious questions about where civilization is headed, and then consider some serious solutions, like radically changing the way we do everything.
      You can't separate the way we live from the challenges we face, like Insectageddon. There are better ways of doing things that respect all life on Earth, and if we are to save ourselves, we will need to adopt them, and soon.
       First insecticide, then ecocide, then humanicide. As they go, so go we.

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Nikos Romanos.

        On the recent post regarding the murder of Alexis Gigoropoulos by a police officer in Athens. It is difficult to assess the impact of such an act of brutal murder of such a young person. Obviously the family and friends have something die inside them after the event, a part that will never live again. We know that the people of Greece felt anger and outrage at this callous murder by a state minion, the weeks of riots and protests that followed are proof of that. However there was one person on who, not unexpectedly, this act treachery had a deeply profound impact. It was his teenage friend who was having coffee with Alexis that evening, Nikos Romanos.  Alexis died in the arms of Nikos on the street where we was shot dead. Think how that must have impacted on his young life, on his thoughts on the police and the system they protect. Nikos went on to become a very active and dedicated anarchist in Greece, and for his dedication to freedom and justice is now locked up in Korydallos prison in Athens. 

Some links regarding Nikos Romanos:

https://www.thepressproject.gr/article/70024/Video-Nikos-Romanos-just-after-the-murder-of-Alexandros-Grigiropoulos

https://greece.greekreporter.com/tag/nikos-romanos/

https://greece.greekreporter.com/?s=Nikos+Romanos

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/06/nikos-romanos-family-fear-martyr-greece-protests-hunger-strike

https://en-contrainfo.espiv.net/2015/12/29/nikos-romanos-requiem/

https://prisonersolidarity.net/prisoner/nikos-romanos

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Remember Our Own.

       A little homage to one I never knew, though I do believe I have met him at some events or other. I am also sure others felt his warmth, while others felt his wrath. I also believe that if we look at the lives of true fighters we find they always leave a path to help those who follow.

This from Anarchist News:

      So passes Jay. Militant individualist nihilist anarchist. The biggest crust lord we’ll ever meet. A lover, a fighter. Jay lived a life at the margins, a life which was an all-out war for freedom against the techno-industrial machine that is killing all that they love – wild nature, the wild individual self, and now themself. A fiery Glaswegian, apologising for nothing and bowing to no-one. Jay lived at the Faslane Peace Camp for a time, battling nuclear Armageddon. A vicious squatter and traveller, resisting evictions and was most at home in the moment. A busker, beggar and street-drinker. Site-life road protester. Hitch hiking metal punk, crust, sludge and doom show organiser and frequenter. Guitar, bass and washboard shredder. Tarps, caravans, polyprop, bikes and burners. Courageous hunt saboteur, scourge of the elite.
        During their life on the wild fringes they developed necessary survival skills which they cherished. They loved making benders and shelters, cooking delicious feasts on open fires, prolifically shoplifting and scavenging from the debris of civilisation. They scorned this world that denied their pure wild tendencies and revelled in rupture; sharing spoils with comrades, lovers and friends. As tenacious and feisty as they were, they were also the most loving and kind to those close to them.
       They had a close affinity with non-humans, instantly becoming trusting friends with mistreated and vulnerable dogs, cats and goats. They spent time at FRIEND Animal Sanctuary in Kent, caring for animals rescued from lives of torture. Some of us were privileged to know the tender, soft sides of Jay and be on the receiving end of their care and devotion. Mischievous, hilarious, creative, kind.
         Jay chaos’d over to the mainland in 2016, finding new freedoms. (I who write this am not familiar with their life spent there, and welcome those who know more to edit this piece if they wish.)
          A thinker, a doer. Jay wrote and published zines and pamphlets. Jay acted on their word and unleashed all sorts of radge shit that we will tell around the fires with comrades. Think of these, smile, cry, cheer and fight on with renewed ferocity.
        They lived and died to their word, which was a word of total, indiscriminate and urgent destruction against all that denies freedom, wildness and what they loved. Their war in this realm came to an end in the beautiful land called Galicia in the evening of December 2nd, 2018.
Some words from Jay:
          “Total liberation is my own war, a war that I have fought for years, against every cage, every civilisation, every society, every creed, every ideology and morality. It is a matter of fulfilling my creative-destructive desires. It is misanthropic. It is existentialist. It is striving against all domestication. It is my vengeance for all the years that this prison-society has stolen from me, my vengeance for the destruction and pollution of the natural environment, my vengeance for the nonhumans whose lives I respect more than the life of any “human”.

My total liberation means total war!
War to the bitter end!”

Let the fires burn!
Long live anarchy!

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

Alexis Grigoropoulos, 10 Years On.

  

      Today, December 6th. marks the tenth anniversary of the murder, by a police officer, in Exachia, Athens, of 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos, a brutal sadistic action that lit the fires of some of the fiercest riots in Greece in recent years. I was in Athens at that time and remember the feeling of outrage and fierce red hot anger that ran through the streets for many weeks after the brutal pointless murder of a youth out on a Saturday evening, having a coffee with friends. It still hasn't subsided, ten years on and the feelings still run high, people find it difficult to forget the murder by a state minion, of an innocent youth, and so they should. His murder is still commemorated, in different ways by different groups.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

           On the evening of 4th December, we made our attack upon the police border control of Exarchia on Voulgaroktonou street. We came with sticks and flaming bottles, and when they saw us they immediately started to panic and run shouting for help. We struck fear into their hearts and sticks onto their heads, fire engulfed at least two policeman and at least one patrol car was burned. We hunted them and made sure it was a night to remember. We also stole some of their equipment (clubs, shields, helmets). When we left, the street had changed its character, transformed from a quiet suburban street with a police checkpoint to a battleground, a site of victory. They also bleed, and we can make them.

         The same night, the state and its mouths reported that there had been a mild and usual attack with no injuries and damages. They hid the action instead of publicizing it for repression propaganda because our action was a success and an example. When we beat them and we win, they have to try their best to hide this as an impossibility, that they are composed of people, that they have weaknesses. They also hide our action because of the anniversary of the assassination of Alexis, as a way of dampening our momentum and isolating our action. If they can’t change the reality of our victory they attempt to change what is spoken. They may believe that they can avoid the fall of their world by silence, but this is an expression of their collapse. We are here to engrave their tombstone.

        The government also accused us of being mafia. This is part of SYRIZA’s program of continuously criminalizing insurrection as an attempt to isolate and mystify our direct response to state and economic warfare. This is also seen inside the movement, by those who collaborate with the state, put rioting on the outside, and call us self-indulgent hooligans.

       The snitches of the movement who attempt to make our passions, desires, and revolutionary strategy alien to us open the back-door to repression. Ten years after the assassination of our comrade and the ensuing revolt, we continue to fight in vengeance and in love, because our struggle creates while it destroys. 2008, our action yesterday, and everything in between was not enough. We gain in these moments of rupture the ecstasy of our collective power, the power to alter our streets, our lives, and our world. Our only regret is that we didn’t do enough. Its these moments that change the world: the planning when our ideas were fluid and fantasy, to the moments just before of anxiety, excitement and boredom, to the calm and beauty of the present of the action, to the reflection and projection afterwards where we felt that our next step would have to be the everything. We must continue until we reach anarchy.

          We are everywhere there is a fight against authority, we are the seed in the burning forest. In our hearts are the insurrections that followed the revolt of Alexis which spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East. These revolts were subdued by dictatorships, theocracy, and the military power of capital, but we still feel their pulse every time we take revolt into our hands. In our hearts are those who fight in the USA, revolting inside and outside of the mass prison system. In our hearts are those who combat the rise of fascism globally (US, Europe, Brazil, etc.). In our hearts are the migrants and solidarians who destroy these recent national lines which attempt to divide our struggle in Greece and everywhere. In our hearts are the anarchists fighting the state in Russia like Mikhail Zhlobitsky who bombed the FSB office in Archangelsk on 31 Octomber. In our hearts are those building and defending the free spaces in France. In our hearts is the Algerian woman murdered in Paris by gas grenade. In our hearts are the indigenous struggles and assassinated comrades in Latin America. Alexis lives in all these struggles, as long as we fight he will never die. We humbly add one more attack to the list.

Death to the bosses, death to the police, death to capital.

Anarchy lives.

-From some of those who participated in the attack.

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

You Don't Fit, You Need A Pill Or Injection.

          In this society mental health problems usually lead to incarceration, either in prison or the straight jacket of the pharmaceutical industry and its emissaries. Could this article be pointing to a rebirth of R. D. Laing?
This from Sub.Media:

          Mental Health in all its complexities is a topic that impacts just about everyone… and yet is rarely talked about. Ableism, rooted in an assumed mental wellness, is prevalent even among communities that fight against other oppressive social norms such as hetero-patriarchy and institutionalized racism. For those of us experiencing depression, psychosis or any other form of madness, our struggles usually remain invisible and unacknowledged until they boil over into full blown crisis. When this happens the massive coercive potential of the state is used to force us back into line. If we are lucky enough to escape the prisons and psych wards that form the double-edged sword of carceral psychology, we are often left traumatized, heavily medicated and likely to face further institutionalization down the road.
        In this month’s episode of Trouble, subMedia talks to people who are pushing back against this reality. Refusing to accept the notion that mental unwellness is the result of one person’s brain chemistry they instead recognize the fundamentally social and interconnected nature of people and our problems. Rather than allowing interventions to remain the territory of psychiatrists and police, our guests are reclaiming traditions, experimenting with self-therapy collectives and building relationships rooted in care and trust that form the resilient foundations so necessary for communities engaged in struggle.

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