The Savage March Of Raw Capitalism.

      The previous post was on the insane savage destruction of the Amazon forest, however, it's what capitalism does, destroys. Destroys communities, environments eco-systems, fauna and flora, defacing the earth, all in the name of profit for the few. The 21st. century juggernaut capitalism, raw capitalism, capitalism with the gloves off, people and communities can be cast aside, villages removed, every action assessed as how it will show up on the financial statement of the corporate world. When and where does it stop, when the last tree has been logged, the last green spot concreted? 

Part one of a two-part Shoal report from Germany.

Hambach mine: destroying communities

             The bus stops remain, but the buses don’t call any more in the little rural village of Manheim in Nordrhein-Westfalen. The pub is still there, but permamently shut. The same with the shops. The village church is still standing but was desanctified in May this year and will never host another service. Only a handful of houses show any signs of occupation. The rest are deserted, boarded up, surrounded by bleak wastelands of rubble where once stood family homes.

 

 

        Manheim is, in fact, in the process of being completely demolished. Why? It is the latest human settlement to get in the way of the massive Hambach opencast lignite mine, which is busily laying waste to 85 square km of German countryside to extract “brown coal” used for fossil fuel power stations. Trees, wildlife, communities – nothing can ever be allowed to get in the way of industrial capitalism and its insatiable need to destroy all that is living.
       Operator RWE, whose entire executive board joined the Nazi Party en masse on May 1 1933, knows that electrical and political power always go hand in hand and thus far has been given free rein by the authorities, despite much local opposition. The human beings whose homes got in the way of their profits have been resassigned to Manheim-neu, a new settlement 7km away on the other side of the A4 motorway. 

      Just as clear-cut forests can apparently safely be replaced by planting saplings on a different site, so can people’s lives be neatly rearranged to suit the financial needs of the ruling industrial capitalist elite. An environmental activist who has been visiting Manheim for several years told me of his sadness at the death sentence imposed on the community. “You really saw the decline of the village. At some point you could not buy bread any more. People were really depressed. They said their grandparents were born there, their parents as well, they had lived there all their lives.
      “There are not a lot of old buildings in Germany because so many were destroyed in the wartime. Where I live, you need permission to paint your house – not just the colour but the kind of paint. “Here, 60km away, they are destroying whole villages. It all depends on who is wanting to do what”.
       There were attempts to protect Manheim. As well as residents determined to defy the compulsory purchases, supporters squatted some houses but were rapidly evicted and the buildings immediately rased to the ground to stop them coming back. RWE and the authorities insist that that the destruction of Manheim, with all the human trauma it involves, is for the “common good”. 

 

    Passers-by we spoke to didn’t seem to agree. One referred to RWE as “criminals”, while another preferred to describe them as “the mafia”. He noted that they ruthlessly threw people out of their homes in Manheim and then adopted a “human” approach when it came to the question of destroying Hambach Forest, arguing that the jobs were good for the local “community”. The political situation has shifted a little in Germany in 2019. Rising awareness of climate change, and the environmental crisis in general, means there is currently a question mark over the ongoing expansion of the Hambach mine. But nobody seems to have have told the people demolishing Manheim. We watched as their bulldozers tore into the walls of a place that somebody once called home. Before long, even the firm soil it stood on will have been ripped away by RWE’s enormous and brutal machineries. Is this what progress looks like? Replacing a community with a massive hole in the ground?

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Governments Fiddle While The Planet Burns.

        It has been in the news recently, and there has been condemnation and outrage, and rightly so. The Amazon fires, the raging capitalist driven burning of the planet's lung. This is surely the most greed driven insane action of capitalism for many years, if not ever. All accepted rational scientific information states clearly, to survive our species needs the Amazon forests. This destructive action has no other reason than money for the rich and powerful, spearheaded by macho, fascist, psychopath Balsonaro. What we see is from afar, but their are people who live in the forests and have no other way of live except to live with and in the forest, it is their way of life and their culture that is going up in smoke. If this continues, then we will be the next to feel the utter folly of burning the planet's lung, nobody will escape this suicide pact with the corporate juggernaut and the financial Mafia. It may already be too late, if there is life out there in outer space, they must be looking on in complete disbelief, watching a supposed intelligent, ration species, stand by and allow a small group of their own, engineer collective suicide for all. This must surely be the most dramatic lethal and final action that proves beyond any doubt, that capitalism is a destructive force and doesn't and can't work for the people. It is either the destruction of capitalism, or the destruction of the species. The chose is ours.

       The following from AMW

Originally published by Abolition Media Worldwide.

      More than 18,000 Mura people live in Amazonas state, the largest state in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.
       Logging companies have cleared away an area the size of several football fields near their village, leaving a broad dirt hole in the ground pockmarked by the treads of heavy machinery.
    “With each passing day, we see the destruction advance: deforestation, invasion, logging,” said Handerch Wakana Mura, one of several leaders of a tribal clan of more than 60 people.
       “We are sad because the forest is dying at every moment. We feel the climate changing and the world needs the forest.”
       Indeed, Amazon deforestation has surged 67% in the first seven months of the year from the same period a year ago, as the Bolsonaro regime has ramped up environmental destruction.
       Forest fires were up more than 80% in the country year-to-date, hitting their highest point since at least 2013.
       Everywhere in the region around the Mura village, pockets of fire were raging.
      The fascist President Jair Bolsonaro has called for the development of protected reserves and railed against environmental fines, emboldening loggers and farmers who seek to clear the land, sometimes by setting fires.
      Deforestation in the area began four years ago, and only last year were loggers and those extracting rocks to build a nearby roadway forced out.
      Logging subsequently jumped across the roadway, with a huge area of downed trees visible by drone.
       When that abated, the Mura people came upon a path through the jungle nearby that had recently been hewn with chainsaws and machetes – a logging path and the first sign of a new area that would be targeted.
      This time, the path runs particularly close to a group of Brazil nut trees the clan harvests, a major traditional food source for indigenous people in the area, Handerch Wakana Mura and other tribal leaders say.
      The Mura clan plans to fight against loggers and others exploiting the land through militant resistance.
     The clan says it will be a tough battle, with Bolsonaro having vowed not to set aside any more tribal land.
      Leader Raimundo Praia Belem Mura, a 73-year-old who has lived on the land his entire life, has vowed to fight to the bitter end.

    “For this forest, I will go on until my last drop of blood,” he said.

      A small group armed with spears, bows and arrows, cannot be left alone to fight this corporate juggernaut suicide mission, if ever solidarity was needed it is now.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

How Best To Get The Scum Fascists Of Our Streets.

        In Portland USA, the fascists and others of that rancid breed, show up, en masse, on a regular basis, all kitted out in their armour and armed, in an attempt to terrorise, beat up, and on occasions, kill those who they see as not part of their pure white, fundamental Christian, American paradise. They are on these occasions accompanied by an even greater number of more kitted up and well armed riot police and government agents from various strand of the state, to ensure a safe passage for the festering fascist mob. They are meet by antifascists who are usually outnumbered by the combined forces of the fascists and the state minders, and as a rule the antifascists are the ones that end up being beaten up and arrested by the police. At least one among the antifascists has called for a rethink of tactics and a different approach, perhaps we should all do likewise. Perhaps a muscle flexing face-off might not be the best approach, I do agree we can't ignore them, and they must be defeated.

      The following from It's Going Down:
A critical reflection on the mass antifascist actions in Portland on August 17th. 

 

 

      Since Trump’s election, the Alt-Right, fascists and neo-Nazis (as well as racists and misogynists of all stripes) have been bolder than ever. Around the country they have stabbed people, beat people up, and shot at them.
       In Portland, of course, they have descended nearly every other month for the past two or three years with the intention of instigating a street brawl and provoking anarchists and antifascists, as well as to doxx and threaten people’s safety. And people up and down the west coast have responded. We have allowed ourselves to be provoked each and every time, showed up in the hundreds or thousands, and gotten our asses kicked. We’ve had some shining moments, to be sure, but at the end of most of these demonstrations, all the antifascists I know – and I assume many others – leave feeling demoralized, disempowered, and sometimes in the ER scared to death about our friends lives. Neither the fascists nor the antifascists have changed tactics in these demonstrations. While the police get better at crowd control, become more and more violent, and put more money and energy into investigations, we continue to let ourselves be provoked and show up to do the same damn thing as the month and year before.
       The day before the demonstration on August 17th, a friend said to me, “We have to get these fuckers. The scope of their violence is so intense.” Yes, the fascists are violent and they routinely attack POC, queers and random bystanders. They should be attacked, and I would certainly celebrate if they all killed themselves. But these Portland demonstrations no longer feel like they are actually about attacking anyone. I show up terrified, knowing today might be the day I see a friend get shot. Given their guns and the police response, I do not show up expecting us to do anything more than be a symbolic gesture. Antifascists can talk a big game about how “we are going to show them.” We can show up with bats and batons and pepper spray. And yet, at every demonstration, our goal becomes to not end up in the hospital and maybe get a couple good punches in.
        On August 17th, we stood around for about an hour before the Alt-Right left the park and crossed the bridge, and then we walked aimlessly around the park because we had no other plan than the one we’ve always had. This is not an attack. It doesn’t show us our own strength, and it certainly doesn’t show them our strength.
       At this point, “antifa” feels like a brand name, not an ideology. My politics are larger and deeper than the image embodied by that word. As anarchists, we are inherently antifascist. I am not interested in being defined as “antifa” because we are so much more than that. There are plenty of “antifa” in the antifascist demonstrations who are not anarchists, who do not seem to have politics outside of beating up fascists in the street.
      At every demonstration, I’ve seen supposed antifascists using violently misogynistic and transphobic language, even making rape threats against the fascists. Those people are not on my team. If we were to encounter people like that outside of these demonstrations, they would be our enemies, not our friends. If making fascists bleed is the only thing have in common with each other, what are we fighting for? Where was the 200 person black bloc in Portland when 700 migrants were arrested two weeks before? Are those fascists not worth fighting because we can’t meet them in the street in a flashy muscle-on-muscle fight in front of the media?
       I do not want to fight for or with people who think it’s acceptable to make rape threats, or who use disgustingly misogynistic language. But Joe Biggs announces he is coming to town, and we all team up like we are one big antifa family. And in Portland, the “antifa” feels like a dog that comes when its name is called and gets kicked.
       When the fascists show up in Portland, how can we respond differently? PopMob will have their demonstration, which brings a lot of people in costumes and party attire, and that’s great. But the fascists thrive on us – the black bloc – showing up, too. So what if we didn’t show? I am not saying we should stay home. I am not saying we should not respond. But there is a lot of truth in the idea of “not giving them what they want.” Liberals use that phrase to mean we should stay home, but that is surrender, and we will not surrender.
        There are so many other ways of showing up the day of a fascist demo that do not involve having a face-off with them at the waterfront. We are creative. We are anarchists. We have so many enemies throughout the city that can and must be attacked. An attack on one fascist is an attack on all of them, and we don’t need to stand at the waterfront flexing our muscles in front of their body armor and their guns to strike a blow against them. Think of what 200 people in bloc could accomplish if we were not surrounded by 700 cops, the FBI, and the national guard. Think of how many other opportunities there are. Think of the fascists temporary glee when we don’t show up at the waterfront, only to find out that while they were waiting for us, we have taken action – and won – on another front.
       We need to refind our creativity. We need to remember how to make demonstrations joyful. We need to stop letting ourselves be provoked, and instead become the provocation.

More on the Portland fascist antifascist recurring battles.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk    

BUCK Helps Buck The Trend.

       I do sometimes harp on about getting papers onto the street, as an anarchist I strongly feel there isn't enough of our material getting out there into the hands of the general public. Perhaps my harping on will inspire those younger than me to get out there and hand people our message in a physical form, not everybody is on Facebook. So I like to publicise any anarchist papers or zines etc., that I come across, this one, called Buck, is from Bristol, a city with a fair bit of radical action. It may not be to everybody's taste, but that's anarchism for you, and is well worth a read.

        “It becomes a hazard of the choices we make when we commit acts that move us nearer to the freedom we seek.”
      ‘Buck’ is inspired by ‘September Commando’ by John Yates with it’s minimal direct punchlines that accompany iconic images.

BUCK, Free download PDF:

Visit ann arky's Home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

ACE Edinburgh.

 

        As usual, our friends over in Edinburgh at ACE, have pulled together another couple of months of events, important, interesting, and worthy of attention. So if you can shuffle over to Edinburgh and given them your support, all worth while.

Sunday 25th August
Rising Free book reading in aid of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre
6.30pm
SHRUB Coop (Zero Waste Hub)
22 Bread street, EH3 9AF
https://www.facebook.com/events/2441906742569751/

       Sisters Uncut Edinburgh invite you to share space with and listen to the voices behind Rising Free, a recently published anthology of creative writing from Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.
      Following the reading and a short break, survivors in the audience will be welcome to share their own voices in an open mic. Entry is by donation with all money collected going to support Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.
      This topic of this event can provoke a range of emotional responses. There will be provision of support available for anyone who finds the event difficult.
        This event is open to all genders
Organised by Sisters Uncut http://autonomous.org.uk/groups-activities/sisters-uncut-edinburgh/

Mon 26 August
      Protest over Amazon fires
1pm – 3pm Scottish Parliament
Organised by Extinction Rebellion
https://www.facebook.com/events/648606235635568/

Wednesday, 28 August
     Stop Lock-Change Evictions !
Demonstration organised by Scottish Refugee Council, Living Rent and others
11:00am -12:00
Court of Session , Parliament Square, EH1
https://www.facebook.com/events/344415249767683/?active_tab=about

       JOIN US outside the Court of Session on Wednesday 28th August at 11am to demonstrate against the callous Home Office policy which forces people into street homelessness, to support the case of Ali vs Serco and the Home Office, and to raise awareness of ongoing, inhumane lock-change evictions in Glasgow.
#StopLockChangeEvictions #DignityNotDestitution

Thurs 29 August: ACE Evening Opening
       ACE open 6 - 8 pm
General browsing welcome, Open to all!

Mon 2 September
       Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty advocacy stall
10am – 11.30ish
Leith Jobcentre, Commercial Street
All welcome
(note – weather dependent, not on if its pouring!)
www.edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk

Thursday 5 Sept: ECAP Monthly Meeting
       ACE 6 - 8 pm All welcome
Help organise ECAP activities for the month ahead
www.edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk

 Saturday 7 September: ACE is Open!
     Come browse & check out our groups

Open 1 - 4 pm

Sunday 8 Sept: International Women's Day Group
        Edinburgh branch - all women welcome
ACE 12 - 2 pm
http://autonomous.org.uk/groups-activities/international-womens-day/

Wed 11 September
       Action for Trans Health Planning meeting at ACE
https://www.facebook.com/events/486168151880782/?event_time_id=486168168547447

Sunday 15 September
     Edinburgh IWW branch meeting
2pm – 4pm at ACE
http://autonomous.org.uk/events/iww-2019-09-15/

Friday 20 Sept: #GeneralStrikeForClimate
       Gather 11am Middle Meadow Walk, Meadows
11.30am March to the Parliament
https://www.facebook.com/events/600485737142445/permalink/616791722178513/

      Edinburgh Youth Climate Strike
We ask that all people join us for this general strike the climate crisis is no longer an issue that will effect young people it will effect us all.
So on the 20th of September we ask people of all ages and backgrounds to stand together to face this climate and ecological crisis.

Edinburgh World Justice Festival
28 September – 19 October
http://www.ewjf.org.uk/

October
Auction for Trans Health
Online via Facebook
Coming up in October
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AuctionForTransHealth/
        Edinburgh Action for Trans Health have a facebook group where they will be holding fund-raising auctions. Expect to find some quirky queer curios and funky feminist things up for grabs! Money raised here will go directly into the hands of trans people in need or on into projects to bring about the liberation of trans healthcare. The next auction is coming up in October so join the group, set notifications to get all posts so as to not miss the auction, and add your friends so they can join in on thee bidding!

Regular Events

Every Tuesday 12 – 3pm at ACE
Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty drop-in
http://edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk/?page_id=2193
Plus all ACE facilities open

Every Wednesday 2pm – 4pm at ACE
Common Ground
Homeless led action and advocacy
http://autonomous.org.uk/groups-activities/the-a-team/
More news on events on Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh facebook and on the ACE calendar at www.autonomous.org.uk
For info on all the groups based at ACE see http://autonomous.org.uk/groups-activities/

CONTACT acemail@gmx.co.uk

Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh, 17 West Montgomery Place, Edinburgh EH7 5HA
        ACE is open every Tuesday 12-3pm, the last Thursday each month 6pm - 8pm, and the first Saturday each month 1pm - 4pm
Plus see ACE facebook and the calendar at www.autonomous.org.uk for special events and meetings
      Tel 0131 557 6242 - best to ring during opening hours, sorry we cannot guarantee to be able to respond to voicemail.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

Can We Sing Our Way To That Better World?

         As anarchists we are always looking at ways to get our message across to the general public, there is a multitude of methods, dialogue, meetings, leaflets, literature, poetry, protests, demonstrations, music, squats, by example, and many many more, and we should utilise them all to our advantage.

This from Embers:

 

      Talking to Lee Reed, anarchist organizer and MC from Hamilton, ON and self-described mouthy jerk. We talk about how his political music and focus have changed over time, artists and anarchists finding themselves in conflict over gentrification and figuring out what to do about it, Locke St repression and supporting Pride defenders, his recent Polaris nomination for the Steal City EP, and more. Plus I crammed this episode full of great tracks, old and new. Enjoy!
Music in this episode:
Lee Reed - The Bank
Mat Heddle feat. Lee Reed - Gtfh
Warsawpack - Doomsday Device
Lee Reed - Fuck No

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Glasgow Workers City Free Event.

       It is getting closer, mark your diary, it is only a few weeks away, Spirit of Revolt's Show and Tell. Our regular free event held in the Mitchell Library, where we show case a particular section of the archive, and where the public can have a look at the material ask questions, etc. This is followed by an open discussion, this session will be on the subject of Glasgow's Workers City, a series of events that ran counter to Glasgow's European City of Culture 1990. Some members of the Workers City group will be in the audience, to say their piece and answer questions, the discussion will be opened by Workers City member Tommy Kayes. This should prove to be a very interesting and informative lunch break. Also members of Spirit of Revolt will be on hand to answer any questions you may wish to raise regarding this archive.

Details of Workers City FREE event:

Monday, September 16th.
12 noon-2:00pm.
The Blythswood Room,
Level 5, Mitchell Library,

Glasgow, G3 7DN. 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Sustainable Green Or Suicide?

      It would be a fool or a corporate boss, that claims that climate change is not happening and what changes there are, is not down to human activity. Those same fools would also deny that this activity is a threat to the existence of the human species, along with most other species. The body of evidence keeps piling up proving that we humans, if we continue with our present economic system, are committing suicide and in the not too distant future.
       Despite the evidence, the scientific data, the detailed research, pointing to this inevitable out come of our present way of living, states and corporate bodies continue to pursue the insanity of the illusion of perpetual growth and ever increasing production. For the system to survive it must push for greater production and ever increasing consumption, without these two foundations of this economic system the whole edifice would collapse. The powers that be will do everything in their power to see that that doesn't happen, they have too much power and too many privileges they will defend, even if that defence sends us all into oblivion.
       It is obvious that the present economic system cannot be allowed to continue, if we want the human species to continue, but the destruction of the system will not come from the managers of that system. It is up to us, the ordinary people of this world to start and try to live outside the economic madness that prevails today. Small steps, small actions, must became large sustainable efforts with the one aim, to bring down this crazy economic march to oblivion. We humans should do well to remember, spaceship Earth has no escape capsule.

The following from Enough Is Enough:

Greeting from the new world

      It is now one week ago that some people occupied the Osterholz forest in Wuppertal (German territory). This week we watched the deers galloping through the forest. Watching the frogs moving through Chalk Town in wet weather conditions. We were also allowed to listen to eagle owls when they go hunting in the dark. And there were so many great people visiting us. We had many conversations about ecology, the destructive way of life of the old world and how we can build another world. It was an inspiring week.

Originally published by Jeder Baum Zählt. Translated by Enough 14.

      The old world has trouble saying goodbye. It sends scouts at the fence of the Oetelshofen company and human beings in uniform threatening with pepper spray and police dogs. For us this is not a surprise, it only increases our determination to fight for this forest. Although climate change clearly shows that the time of the old world is over, many of the humans who are moving in this old world do not seem to be able to say goodbye to their prefabricated way of thinking. It’s mostly about cost reduction and the logic of profit. And “investment security”. As long as it doesn’t cost too much, there can still be a little environmental protection. But we won’t be able to stop climate change this way.
      Capitalism has brought the old world into the situation in which it is today. The destructive force that destroyed most of the primeval forests in Europe is working hard to destroy the last few remnants of primeval forest in Europe. Ikea sends devastating greetings from the Carpathians. But the old world also imports the goods for which the Amazon is uprooted. Brazil’s President Bolsonaro is called upon to stop deforestation, but at the same time trade agreements are signed that will fuel the same deforestation from “the lungs of the earth”. The CDU and many other representatives of the old world send their greetings.
       Newer forests are also threatened by deforestation, such as the Osterholz forest. The old world is ruthlessly pumping out groundwater, whether for open-cast mining in the Rhineland or the limestone quarry in Osterholz. It releases a lot of CO2 by burning lime and using fossil fuels such as lignite. The old world produces and produces. Lots of these products damage the earth’s ecosystem for overproduction. So for nothing. But the old world doesn’t care, the most important thing is to earn Euros.
      Today (August 22) humans of the political party CDU want to “inform” various media representatives and others in the Osterholz forest. At 16:30, to be exact. The CDU Wuppertal believes that environment and business can only go together. In their thought pattern of yesterday’s eternity, they apparently have not yet understood that it is the capitalist logic of profit that shows the old world its limits. Climate change cannot be negotiated with, the earth demands that we humans act consistently or the earth acts itself and will put an end to this capitalist madness. Many people will come to the forest today to make this clear once again.
      The new world will produce on basis of needs. In the New World everyone can take part and ecological considerations will always come first. Not the logic of profit. That is the way we have to go. It will not be painless, we will have to do without some things. But if we open our minds and free ourselves from the thinking pattern of the old world, we will realize that we do not need many of the “products” that are advertised in the old world.
       We will continue to enjoy our time together with all other living beings in the Osterholz forest and fight for this forest. Let’s move into a new world!

Jeder Baum Zählt (Every tree counts), August 22, 2019

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Civilised Society That Treats People Like Cattle.

        Just to hammer home the point that here we are in the 21st. century, and in the so called developed civilised world, the state system that we live by still herds human beings like cattle, strips them of their rights, and in other barbaric ways persecutes them. The crime these unfortunate people have committed is to have crossed those imaginary lines called borders.

 From Turin Italy:

Turin, Italy : In the detention centre for migrants in Corso Brunelleschi: a fire every day…

        The atmosphere remains tense and edgy in the detention centre of Corso Brunelleschi: during a storm on Friday, a young man took advantage of guards and forces of order’s diverted attention to climb bars and walls and conquer freedom.
        Even if the official media present protests and fires with an aura of exceptionality, burning mattresses and the few pieces of furniture left is now a recurring practice to draw attention to the many problems inside, the least being the lack of a barber. Recently prisoners also told us that there was not enough shampoo for them to wash their hair or any fresh water to drink.

Continue Reading →

From Tenerife Spain:

Spain : Revolt and escape at the detention centre for migrants in Tenerife 

      In the detention centre of Hoya Fria, in Santa Cruz, on the island of Tenerife, prisoners set off a revolt while in the yard of the concentration camp on Saturday 2nd August. About twenty people managed to climb the fences and escape from the concentration camp.
The entire police force of the island has been on a man hunt in these hours: seven people have been captured but the others are still on the run.

From America:

            The third week in June began with a broad political discussion on whether Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s designation of migrant detention centers as “concentration camps” was the correct nomenclature for holding rooms in which 41 detainees live in a cell built for eight. It ended with heinous reports of the conditions at said camps, where undocumented migrant children are being held away from their families in conditions “worse than jail,” according to physician Dolly Lucio Sevier, who wrote up a medical declaration obtained by ABC News after visiting Border Patrol holding facilities along the border in Texas. Here’s everything we’ve learned about conditions in the detention camps in recent weeks.

Continue reading: 

From UK:

       In some senses they look, sound, smell and taste just like prisons: bland food, bleak corridors, standard-issue tracksuits and blue flip-flops, and the mechanical clunk at 9pm when everyone is locked in for the night.
       But Britain’s network of immigration removal centres are a case apart for the 25,000-plus people who pass through one each year: there is no rehabilitation, no criminal sentence, very often no time limit on the loss of liberty. Many of those incarcerated say the conditions are far worse than actual prison.
     The Guardian has spoken to dozens of current and former detainees who have provided grim testimony about what life behind bars in these 10 facilities is like. They describe depression, limbo, occasional hysteria and an all-pervading angst on the part of those detained.
       The internal architecture is bleak. To reach the visiting room at Harmondsworth IRC near Heathrow airport visitors must provide their passports, a biometric thumbprint, surrender themselves to detailed pat-down searches from surgical-gloved security guards and pass through several sets of locked doors.

Continue reading:

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Spirit of Revolt "Read Of The Month".

        As always, the volunteers at Spirit of Revolt are busy doing what they can to bring the people to the Archive, and bring their history to the people. We put on exhibitions, pop up stalls at different events and of course our "Read of the Month". This month, August, it is a short text by Glasgow anarchists, Farquhar McLay:

      Spirit of Revolt’s August 2019, “Read of The Month” is a short text by Farquhar McLay, Glasgow anarchist, activist, writer, poet and deserter from the British army. Farquhar had many works published and played a prominent part in the Workers City group in Glasgow. The group was formed to counter the City Council’s distorted view of Glasgow being promoted by the City Council during Glasgow’s European City of Culture 1990. In this text Farquhar lays open the duplicity and the council members’ lack of knowledge of the ordinary people of Glasgow. Enjoy.

Read on line:

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Peopele Of Glasgow Stand With Migrants.

 

       In city after city, in country after country that vulnerable group of human beings that are stripped of their rights, scapegoated and pushed to the margins, is an indictment against this callous capitalist system we live under. I am of course talking about migrants, an ever growing army of people fleeing everything from war, to persecution, from death, to deprivation, but in the eyes of any state, the crime they committed was they crossed those imaginary lines called borders. That somehow gives the state the right to herd them, ignore them, deprive them of all rights and persecute them. We cannot let this continue, they, like us, are human beings struggling to make a decent life for themselves and their families in a quagmire profit seeking big business, they need assistance, not persecution and exploitation. 

     I'm proud to see that the people of Glasgow are standing up and saying enough is enough, we will no longer tolerate this ideology of abusing those who through extremely difficult situations have had to flee their homeland, leaving their friends and neighbourhood, and cross those imaginary dividing lines, the state calls borders.

      Yesterday, August 20th, the people of Glasgow took their anger to the city chambers and loud and clear, let the powers that be know, that this callous and brutal treatment of migrants must stop and stop now.

Thanks Bob for the film.

Letter to the City Council:

       🔒🔒Today Living Rent "locked-in" Glasgow City Council with HUGE turnout of over 150 members and supporters from various groups across Glasgow!🔒🔒

      We've had enough. Serco is intent on making our friends and neighbours destitute in the search for profit and won't stop until all 300 locks are changed. It is time for Glasgow City Council to stop offering the people of Glasgow empty promises and feckless task forces. It is time for real action. We demand that the council:

        1. Set up an arrangement to provide emergency accommodation to all affected individuals, including those that have received a right to remain status. 2. For the council to make clear the timescale for providing an individual assessment of each person facing eviction.

      Their claim that they cannot legally provide accommodation is false. According to guidelines by COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities), Glasgow City Council have "a duty to safeguard the most vulnerable people in these situations, in many cases this includes providing financial support to meet essential living costs and other help from social workers to avoid destitution."

       Everyone has the right to a decent and affordable home, irregardless of their supposed "status" and when those in search of profit go after those made most vulnerable, we are all in danger. As such, we are no longer going to stand for Glasgow City Council's inaction. We and thousands of Glaswegians are standing by ready to resist by any means necessary.

#NoEvictions #StopSercoEvictions #Lockoutserco

Read more here: https://www.livingrent.org/lock_in_council

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Just A Personal Thought.

 

 

         As my years roll by I more and more go over my past thoughts and deeds and I think, yes, I could have done more, I could have perhaps tried harder in some cases, I could have done it differently. However, deeds that have been done, have been done, but can still be used as lessons for tomorrow, but there are some thoughts that have never changed, one in particular is that thought I have always harboured, of pride in being one of that great mass of people, who I believe will one day inherit the world, and transform it into a world that is built on justice, mutual aid, sustainability and respect for each other, a world that sees to all our people's needs and has catalogued war and capitalism as a long past history of humanity's darkest hour. 

I’m Proud

I’m proud of my people, proud to be one of them,

that great mass on society’s bottom rung.

Those who, with coal-dust under their nails

in their eyes, in their lungs

claw at the earths entrails.

Their brothers,

cement in their hair

in their mouth, in their ears,

oil ingrained in their fingers,

on their face.

Sisters, glistening with sweat

midst the ceaseless noise of machines

that throw out shirts, shoes, toys, carpets

for other people.

Those with soil and sweat stuck to their skin

smelling of the earth, feeding the multitude,

grinding out their lives in a harsh pitiless system

weighted down

with a sack load of half-dead dreams,

sometimes brought to their knees

by a tidal wave of despair,

never defeated,

groping in the dark to find tomorrow,

keeping hope alive;

they amaze me.

Somehow, from somewhere

in this cold, cruel

unforgiving scheme of things

they find love for their children.

Not a teaspoonful, not a cupful,

but buckets full, to bathe them in,

to pour over them.

They seem to know

that one day this world will be ours

and to take care of it

we will need those who have been loved.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Brutality Must Be Met With Force, It's Self Defence.

      No matter what country, no matter by what name you call them, police, police officers, cops, pigs, minders of the the wealthy, protectors of the state, sooner or later they all revert to form, sadistic, vicious, homophobic, macho, nationalists, who deem themselves to be above the so called law of the land. 

       In the US, 992 people were shot by the police in 2018, a number were unarmed. Across the globe and you will find reports of excessive police brutality, seldom if ever, are the perpetrators brought to justice., That's what they are there for, to protect the rich and powerful and look after their property, to keep the population at large under control, to protect the powerful and privileged who day and daily milk the system in systematic plunder and corruption. Some countries are worse than others, the example below is from Mexico, no doubt if you look you around the world, you will find other cases just as brutal or worse. In this case it is encouraging to see that the people didn't take kindly to the police brutality and rape, and decided to let their anger roar loud and clear.

Mexico City, Mexico: Angry rioting against police rape
August 18, 2019 by Act For Freedom Now:

12 August 2019

“Cops, pigs, rapists” 

       On Monday, August 12, 2019, hundreds of women took to the streets to express their anger at the patriarchal and sexist violence of the police. A few days earlier, four uniformed pigs raped a young woman aged 17 in the patrol car in the streets of Azcapotzalco province. This case echoes another, a little older, where a 16-year-old girl was raped by a police officer in the National Photographic Museum in the centre of Mexico City.
       The headquarters of the Public Security Directorate was the meeting point of the demo. On the facade of the State building, slogans have been traced to the bomb, such as “we are mean, we can be worse“, “cops, pigs, rapists” or “to attack one of us, it is to attack us all “… Then the procession left for a stroll in the streets of the city and covered the walls with a multitude of anti-police and anarcha-feminist tags; the protesters found themselves in front of the Attorney General’s building in Mexico City to settle accounts. Once in front, the more determined ones tagged the walls outside (“we do not need to be brave, we need to be free,” “pig cops” or “corrupt policemen“) as inside (on the insignia of the institution) and ransacked the furniture of the reception. The facade of the glass entrance also fell in pieces.
       The Mexican daily “El Universal” reports the attack on the building of the Prosecutor General’s Office with these words:
       “The situation turned to violence when a group of alleged anarchists tried to enter the public prosecutor’s office, the security guards immediately closed the glass doors. However, two young women broke them with stones and hammers.”
        Protesters also threw pink powder at Mexico City Security chief Jesus Orta as he made a statement to the press calling for calm and assured the protesters that the affair would be the cause subject of an inquiry.
        The following day, Tuesday, the mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Scheinbaum, reported that six police officers had been dismissed after being identified as responsible for the alleged rape of the 17-year-old girl.
      Violence against women is a daily occurrence in Mexico. According to United Nations figures, nine women are killed every day in that country.

“Rapists, we’ll cut your dick“ 

[From the Mexican Press, August 12 and 13, 2019]

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

We Suffer And Die For Profit To Others.

          It always puzzles me why we tolerate a system where the majority do all the hard graft, and run all the dangers of the job, but hand the bulk of the wealth they create to the few, who do nothing and face none of the occupational hazards, there is something insane about this whole structure. There is always occupational dangers lurking in most jobs, and most could be eliminated but because of the system they are not, as that would cut into the profits for that greed driven few.
INDUSTRIAL DISEASES.
         We have come through the start of the industrial age and moved on to the hi-tec age, but every move into every industry comes with its on particular problems. Practically every industry is linked to an industrial disease. We have silicosis, lung disease prevalent among stone masons, potters grinders etc.. Then there is pneumoconiosis, mainly among coal miners, caused by breathing in fine coal dust and carbon dust. Arc-welders are at risk of manganism, manganese poisoning brought on by exposure to the toxic effects of the fumes from welding rods melting as the are used. Painters are at risk from neurological deficits from solvent‐exposure, which include impaired colour vision, cognitive defects, tremor and loss of vibration sensation. There are many more links with occupation and disease, but you are seldom, if ever, told of these dangers when you apply for the job. Health and safety regulations go some way to protect workers from these dangers but usually these measures are re-active and only come after years of suffering and campaigning.
       As a young man starting my trade in the Clydeside shipyards in the 1950’s, I was ignorant of the dangers of asbestos, and as it was widely used, all of us were exposed to the horror of death from mesothelioma, an asbestos induced incurable cancer, it can lie dormant in the lungs for 60 years or more, before suddenly bursting into action and triggering certain death. I have friends who have died from this slow and painful death. It was not that the dangers of this substance weren’t known, medical papers had been written about the danger from asbestos exposure as far back as the 30’s, but it continued to be used up to and including the 60’s. The employers didn’t abandon asbestos willingly, it took campaigning and legislation to finally attempt to get rid of this killer substance. That is the pattern in most of industries, its dangers are only restricted by campaigning and legislation. The profit motive drives industry, not the well being of the employee. Most industries can be made safe, but it usually requires investment in safety equipment and training, and that costs money, which in turn cuts into the profit. So safety in industries will always come lower down the ladder, and as times get harder, corners are cut in safety to prevent cuts in profit. The economic system we have at present does not lend itself to the welfare and well being of the workers, only when the workers control all the industries will their well being be at the fore front of production.

     I wrote the following little piece many years ago when I was diagnosed with plural plaques, the foot print of asbestos in your lungs. However good fortune smiled on me and I did carry on cycling and still do a wee bit at the grand old age of 85.

 When the Time-Bomb Goes Off

The bike just sits there,

dust covering its lovely sheen,

puffing up the Fintry Hills

well, it’s no longer my scene.

Y’see, as a Clydeside apprentice

I proudly learnt the tradesman’s skill,

little did I know then

the price, asbestos lungs that kill.

Now I just sit here through the painful day

gasping each mouthful of air, wondering

how can I make the bastards pay.

They new it was a killer

a time-bomb in our lungs

but, because it was so quick and cheap

they firmly held their tongues.

So what, if it cost the workman’s life,

there’s always a couple of new workers

in the care of the worker’s wife.

Please try to understand my anger

as I and others bear their cost,

a slow death from asbestos lungs,

a vibrant life lost.

Anguish for family and friends,

all in the name of profit;

now that really does offend.

Our anger without direction

is a blind archer behind the bow,

we have to use our anger

to smash the status-quo.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk