Cruel Vindictive Act.

      To be evicted from you home, is an inhuman act, but in Scotland in the winter, it is of vindictive act of cruelty. There is no way that a civilised society can stand by and see a fellow human being thrown on to the street, usually in the name of money and profit, and do nothing about it. It is encouraging to see that there is still some of that Red Clydeside running through the veins of the citizens of Glasgow.

      Monday 13th. December say a protest  in support of a fellow citizen who was being faced with eviction onto the cold miserable wet streets of Glasgow. Thanks to that support the eviction has been postponed. Again, solidarity is the weapon that wins struggles.

This report from Living Rent:

Living Rent Glasgow

 

 

Turn up, turn out, turn your landlord inside out!

        Great show of solidarity on Monday, 13th. December, for our member Philip, who is being threatened with eviction during this dreich Glesga winter. Thankfully it has been postponed to a formal Tribunal hearing on February 24th!
       Philip's case represents ANOTHER example of why a winter eviction break is needed in Scotland. A victim of an inadequate and faulty benefit system which has denied him the dignity he deserves, Philip's situation has been made even worse by his landlord, Southside Lettings, who has refused to fix the mould and damp in his flat.
       Phillip is facing a winter eviction in a city whose council recently and unanimously backed a motion endorsing Living Rent's campaign for a winter break on evictions. Clearly some of the city's landlords and letting agents are not taking the hint that this cruel practice should end now.
       However, with the backing of his tenants' union in collaboration with legal representatives, Phillip knows that he isn't facing his landlord alone.

Sign our petition for a Winter Break on evictions here: https://www.livingrent.org/winter_break

       Read more about Glasgow City Council's endorsement of a Winter Break here: https://glasgowguardian.co.uk/…/urgent-call-for-government…/

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

Ask Your Gaoler For Paracetamol.

        It becomes more and more obvious that we can't get the type of free and just society we want without a hard and bitter struggle. As state repression crawls further and further into our everyday life, enforced by a well armed police force backed up by a loaded judicial system, more and more people are drawn into conflict with the state. The endless attack on the social fabric of the population by the plundering of the public purse, by the state's money and business orientated policies, while pampering and subsidising their corporate friends, it becomes obvious that the state and big business are not on our side. We stand diametrically opposed to each other in what is clearly a class war, the rich and power with their self protecting state apparatus versus the ordinary people armed with nothing more than solidarity and a desire for a fair and just world for all. To get there will never be done by appealing to the rich and powerful political and corporate Mafia, you are asking them to give up the wealth and power and join us in shaping an equal and fair society, to give up their pampered and privileged life to join us the ordinary people in a building a society that sees to everybody's needs fairly. Such requests are based on an illusion peddled by the political parties, who in reality benefit from the existing unjust and corrupt system.

       The misery, poverty, deprivation, inequality and violence encapsulated in this capitalist system backed up the state is so glaringly obvious, it is crime to look the other way, it's an abandonment of your humanity, it's giving consent and being complicit in perpetuating the injustice. Appealing to your gaoler for an extra pillow to make a your life little bit more comfortable, or asking for a paracetamol to ease your pain, is not an answer, we have to break down the prison walls and free ourselves.

This from AMW:

 

 We are tearing down walls for freedom

         The recapture of Matrozou 45 and Panetoliou 21 is an act against the fear imposed by state repression. It is a signal of resistance and a rallying cry for escalation. Let us not leave our neighborhoods and nature in the heat of development plunder. Do not accept the displacement of our lives. Keep the parks, squares and hills free. Let us oppose the mercenaries of the state. Let us intensify the struggles against the exploitation of labor. Let us completely take up the struggle for survival and freedom. The struggle is neither legal nor illegal.
        Together with dozens of anarchist / antisocial companions, we are taking back the community’s homes in order to meet housing needs that would not have been possible without this occupation, to re-open solidarity structures and re-establish free-living relationships without hierarchy, reopen homes in the neighborhood and in the movement with events, celebrations and organization.
        We occupy buildings and connect illegal electricity and water. We are working to make them sustainable and we are taking on the cost of repression. It is a conscious choice to blackmail with rent and bills. Meeting the basic needs must be a given to all people and not a tool in the hands of the bosses to give us the dilemma of submission or misery.
        Housing seizures are a logical response to the irrationality of a financial system that forcefully keeps people in huts, roads and concentration camps at the same time as there are thousands of vacant buildings. In a suffocating metropolis drowned in cement and drinking places, occupations are places of socialization without institutional and financial control, places where people can redefine their relationships on the basis of solidarity and respect, outside the dominant standards.
         And for those who are complaining about the unpaid occupation accounts, it would be good to dig a little deeper into all that has been stolen by state and international economic policies, all those unpaid party accounts, factories and, of course, the millions in euros. In a forest-burning state with the collapse of the health system and bleeding education system, the state chooses to hire 1,500 cops with extra money for equipment. Because all they care about is protecting their friends and their friends’ investments from an uprising.
       On the other hand, the Greek police and media, the urban propaganda system, are on the verge of collapse after the last operation in Koukaki. They still do not want to admit that high-profile journalists and politicians and the anti-terrorism unit itself condemned without any evidence an “innocent Greek family.” Because this will undermine social trust in the foundations of the urban system and give us space to say once again that THIS IS NOT ABOUT AN INDIVIDUAL CASE. They prepare and construct the next culprits… All this is done to instill fear and terror into people’s minds about squatters and anarchist / antisocial sites.
         The squatters are attacked by the entire state apparatus and not only by the “right government.” The disagreement between SYRIZA and ND is about what is the most effective way to suppress the movement. Police democracy throughout the area with the involvement of anti-terrorism also existed under SYRIZA with thirty examples. One example of extreme repression was when they sent two MAT squads to Philopappou Hill to prevent tree planting. Whether left or right, such an unjust and contradictory system cannot survive without repression, and repression is something that will always exist and we will have to go through it to get what we need.
         The occupation of all the necessary resources, productive forces, spaces, and ultimately our own lives, is the one-way street for the struggles of the oppressed and exploited, and our small occupations foreshadow this happy future.

Occupation Community of Koukaki

Original publication January 11, 2020

via athens.indymedia.org

From: https://mpalothia.net/athina-anakatalipsi-ton-katalipseon-matrozoy-45-kai-panaitolioy-21/

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Prisoners Solidarity.

       Our media would rather we forget the struggles on the streets, unless it is happening in a country that is deemed to be an enemy of the Western imperialism. The last thing the establishment want is for people to realise that the world is in revolt against this planet plundering, life destroying, exploitative greed driven system. State after state continues to attack and incarcerate those opposed to its gravy train for the rich and powerful. If we forget or ignore those who have been locked up in the states repression cages, we lose the struggle for that better world for all. Those who have struggled and find themselves enmeshed in the loaded state judicial swamp deserve our full and unstinting solidarity and support. They have started the struggle, we need them to help us continue with that struggle to end the darkest hour in humanities history, the capitalist economic system. The system uses international co-operation against dissent, we to have to use international co-operation against the system.

      This from 325: 

 

WEEK OF INTERNATIONAL AGITATION IN SUPPORT OF THE PRISONERS OF THE REVOLT IN CHILE. FROM JANUARY 13-19.

“THOSE WHO FORGET THE POLITICAL PRISONERS FORGET THE STRUGGLE”
        More than 80 days after the social outbreak in Chile, the struggle and social organization persists in the unwavering conviction of confronting and breaking with the model of power and economy that has perpetuated inequalities, injustices and abuses for decades.
        Undoubtedly the revolt that still breathes in Chile means this is a turning point with no return, it is within a long journey of struggle that has also brought with it a hard cost: hundreds and hundreds of prisoners of the revolt that are today in the different prisons in this territory. Each week this number increases and in an obvious phenomenon of mass incarceration the State seeks to intimidate and criminalize social protest. We speak of political prisoners of the revolt because of the fact of the mass imprisonment of social fighters after the outbreak of the 18th [October], responding to a political decision of the State and not to technical/legal criteria, understanding the complicity between the different powers of the State in order to perpetuate the existing model of control. That is why we make this call for international solidarity with the prisoners of the revolt in order to reveal the political condition of their imprisonment and demand their immediate freedom. We extend this call appealing to the multiple initiatives and solidarity actions that arise in each territory.

THOSE WHO FORGET THE POLITICAL PRISONERS FORGET THE STRUGGLE!

IMMEDIATE FREEDOM TO THE PRISONERS OF THE REVOLT!

CO-ORDINATION FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE OCTOBER 18th POLITICAL PRISONERS

In other languages 

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State's Inhumanity.

         It is unbelievable that a so called civilised democracy can treat humans with such cruelty, herding them in disgusting conditions, removing their right to decency, inflicting on them conditions that endanger their physical and psychological health. Treating them to harsh and brutal treatment should they dare to object.
       Migrants, it's as though they arrive with a special badge signifying that they are sub-human, and deserve nothing from the community, no rights, and must be kept enclosed in filthy detention centres. One such detention centre that our media seldom if ever, mention is the Greek island of Samos, an island that its past can lay claim to be the birth place of such luminaries as the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, after whom the Pythagorean theorem is named, the philosopher Epicurus, and the astronomer Aristarchus of Samos, the first known individual to propose that the Earth revolves around the sun. (this info from Wikipedia)

     Nowadays  It is home to 7,497 migrants in a camp made to house 648. these appalling conditions merit outrage not just from the migrants, but from all decent civilised people. These conditions are inflicted knowingly and deliberately by the Greek state authorities. Where is the international outrage, perhaps because the migrants on Samos are not the only ones, this is common practice across the globe by state after state.

This report from Act For Freedom Now:

 

         At the moment 7,497 people are being held in a centre built for 648.

     Many are unaccompanied minors. Protests against the dramatic living conditions are frequent: yesterday, Thursday, a revolt was suppressed by riot police, a fire had destroyed about one hundred tents and shacks on October 14 leaving thousands of people without shelter and forced to sleep outdoors.
      A protest was held on October 18 to claim freedom of movement and the possibility to finally leave the island concentration camp and for two days between October 24 and 25 a group of people held a permanent sit-in in piazza Pitagora, in the centre of Vathy. A riot had previously been severely repressed in the month of May. Also this morning, Friday December 20, the people being held in the Samos concentration camp continued their struggle without letting themselves be intimidated by the repression, and came out into the streets again reaching the city of Vathy in a determined and noisy demonstration. Translation to Italian by: Athens Indymedia

       About 300 immigrants began to protest on Thursday December 19 against the segregation and detention on the island, outside the main entrance to the detention centre, shouting slogans. They then headed for the minor entrance (which links the hotspot with the city of Vathy) and blocked the road. The police prevented them from carrying on the protest towards the city, which was only 500 metres away.
       The immigrants responded by overturning the chemical toilets, putting up barricades and throwing stones at the police, who reacted with a shower of teargas. The municipality of eastern Samos decided to suspend lessons in the nearby primary and nursery schools because of the strong smell of teargas present in the air.

Solidarity with the rebel immigrants!

       “They will never admit in their news that the act of rebelling was our extreme attempt to remain human” – from “Lotta contro l’oblio”, [Struggle against oblivion], the latest text of Apatris

       Try to imagine, 7,497 people, young and old, living in a detention centre, mainly tents, built to house 648 in rather sparse and restricted conditions!!

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Slave Labour In The UK.

        How many products do you buy or services you use, here in the UK that are produced by slave labour? Workers here in the UK that are paid as little as 30p to 50p an hour, and it is all perfectly legal and encouraged by the government. In fact it couldn't happen without the government organising and delivering this bonus to the corporate world.

       A host of well known and little known companies benefit from this government produced bonanza, right here under our eyes. I am of course referring to prisoners being used as cheap labour for the business world. This in turn allows companies to pay off workers who have to be paid the minimum wage, who get sick pay, who get paid holidays and can take action against an unjust action by their employer. None of these conditions are allowed while being employed in prison. You are a captive slave labour force with no workers rights and you are being more or less forced to feed the rich and powerful, at the expense of your fellow workers on the outside.

This from Another Angry Voice:

        In August 2016 the US department of Justice announced that they are going to set about phasing out their use of private prisons, which triggered a spate of moral high-horsing from British people who tried to claim that our private prison riddled system is still superior to the US system because at least here in the UK we don't use prisoners as a cheap source of labour.
       The map in the article header proves how wrongheaded this attitude is. Just because they haven't heard of Britain's prison labour management company One3One, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or that it isn't farming out prison labour to ever increasing numbers of private companies that are queuing up to take advantage of prison labour for as little as 30p an hour.
        Prisoners in England and Wales are being used as a cheap source of labour in all kinds of industries including printing, textiles, engineering, woodwork, laundry and even assembling plastic poppies for the Royal British Legion.
        The idea of training prisoners up with skills so that they are less likely to reoffend when they get out of jail is a vary good idea in principle, but the problem with farming prison labour out to the private sector is absolutely obvious. If scores of companies all over the UK are taking advantage of prison labour for as little as 30p an hour, then this availability of extremely cheap labour has an obvious downwards effect on wages and employment rates in whichever business sectors they become involved in.
      Since the Lib-Dems enabled the Tories back into power in 2010, British workers have suffered the longest sustained period of long-term wage deflation in recorded history. The real terms value of British wages has slumped 10.4% since the economic crisis, a wage decline only matched in severity by Greece out of all of the most developed economies in the world.
        The Tories have been doing everything they can to reduce wages and the disposable incomes of ordinary people: They've reduced public sector wages in real terms by imposing below inflation 1% pay rises (whilst accepting an 11% pay raise for themselves), they've overseen an exponential rise in people employed on exploitative Zero Hours Contracts, they've repeatedly slashed in-work benefits like Tax Credits and Housing Benefit, they've massively increased the amounts charged for university education and the interest rates charged on this appalling form of Aspiration Tax, they've unlawfully used unemployed people as a massive pool of free labour to distribute to their corporate mates and they've massively expanded the number of prisoners working for private companies too.
       The economic effect of prison labour driving down the wages of ordinary workers is bad enough in itself, but there is evidence that the availability of prison labour is actually resulting in real job losses as unscrupulous companies lay off their paid workforces and replace them with prison labour.

Here are some specific examples:

DHL According to the One3One website the global distribution company employs over 800 UK based prisoners to receive orders, pick, pack and ship. Meanwhile they have been shutting distribution centres, laying off hundreds of paid staff across the country (including 330 jobs in Droitwich, 200 job losses in Swindon and further job losses in Scunthorpe and Corby), and slashing wages across their distribution network prompting strike action. This is how Chris Taylor, DHL General Account Manager described the scheme on the One3One Solutions website: "Once you are through the prison door we like to create an environment identical to any DHL workplace". 

Going Green
A Cardiff based loft insulation and solar panel instillation company that laid off 17 workers at their call centre and replaced them with prisoners from Prescoed prison at an hourly rate of just 40p an hour. 

Speedy Hire A tool hire company that sacked 800 workers and shut down 75 depots in 2010. Since then they have massively increased the size of their prison contract to service and repair the tools they hire out, paying Erlestoke, Garth and Pentonville prisons £114,012 for the services of around 100 prisoners during the 2010-11 financial year. 

Timson Ltd
The boss James Timson is happy to act as a propaganda mouthpiece for the government's prison labour scheme, but what he fails to mention in his praise for the programme is that his company's increased use of prison labour coincided with a wave of redundancies that wiped out some 30% of the paid workforce at the company.

Cisco Cisco is mentioned by the Tory MP Andrew Selous as being a big player in the government's prison labour scheme. In August 2016 the company announced that it plans to lay off 5,500 workers worldwide. Perhaps they could prevent a few job losses in the UK by bringing the services they've outsourced to prison labour schemes back in-house?

Read the full article HERE: 

         An extract from an excellent article on prison slave labour by IWW Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee.

Workplaces of the future?

Prison Labour

Overview

        During every moment of a prison sentence, someone somewhere is profiting from that person being caged. The UK has the most privatised prison system in Europe, and since the early 1990s, when the first private prisons were built, prisons are increasingly being used to line the pockets of companies and individuals. Prisons have always benefited those in power; a longstanding tool of social control and repression used against working class communities.
            Prisoner that work in prisons have no rights to organise, no contracts, no pensions, no right to to choose what they do – they have no use of the gains that workers have fought and died for over centuries. If prisoners refuse to work they are punished via the IEP (Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme), and can have visits, association (time outside in a courtyard or out of cell) and other ‘privileges’ take away from them. They are the ultimate captive workforce for capitalist industries and have been used to break strikes, while simultaneously taking jobs out of communities and into prisons. Prison labour has been used as a tool for conquest and domination for centuries, from using convict labour to colonise countries, to putting prisoners to work in making goods for armies and war.
        IWOC are working on a report about Prison Labour and Prisoner Exploitation in England, Wales and Scotland that will hopefully be available by Summer 2016. These key facts and statistics paint a brief overview of prison labour here:
           One3One Solutions is the trading arm of the Ministry of Justice founded in 2012. Over 9,700 prisoners were employed in their profit-making partnerships with private companies, with a total of 13.1 million prisoner working hours being recorded (1).

Read the full article HERE: 

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Bloody Democarcy.

         From our daily bilge feed from our mainstream media, it would appear that all is fine and dandy in France, and the people are quietly getting on with their servile existence. Of course nothing could be further from the truth, the people of France are angry and showing it on the streets. It is over a year since the yellow vests started their mass protests, and they are still continuing, recently they have been joined by massive union presence on the streets, taking on the government for its unjust, corrupt, anti-worker and profit oriented polices. Of course France being a member of the phony democracy club, comes down hard with unleashed police brutality against the any form of dissent. 

     The following video is of one of the many protests happening on a continuous basis. This altercation took place at the corner of rue Jeanne d'Arc and rue du Gros-Horloge in the city centre at around noon local time on the 9th of January 2020.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1215252368381612033

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Profit From Illness.

        We keep hearing our prancing political ballerinas spouting about how the National Health Service is safe in their hands, and that there are no plans to privatise the NHS. What utter bullshit, the NHS has been getting privatised slice by slice for years and it is still continuing.

From Kings Fund:

         The Department of Health and Social Care’s accounts also show that NHS providers spent £1.3 billion2 on services from non-NHS organisations in 2018/19. Data from NHS Improvement shows that NHS providers spent £271 million on outsourcing services to other providers, including the private sector, in 2018/19 – up from £221 million in 2017/18. This includes outsourcing elective hospital treatment in order to deliver waiting times targets.
         If spending on primary care services – including GPs, pharmacy, optical and dental services – is included, some have estimated that approximately 25 per cent of NHS spending goes on the private sector.

        Anybody that holds any illusions that this creeping privatising of the NHS will some how be reversed under a capitalist system is naive in the extreme. With the engineered problems in the NHS it is likely to become a galloping privatisation, with governments seeing private capital as the white knight that will rescue our struggling NHS, but also making lots of money from people's health problems, for the financial Mafia. A system of profit governing your treatment, not your needs.

       Then there is this talk of opening up the NHS to the American market, which of course will lead to an American style Health Service. The following is just one example of how the American Health Service works.

This from the Guardian: 

 'I live on the street now': how Americans fall into medical bankruptcy 

        It’s been over a dozen years since Susanne LeClair of West Palm Beach, Florida was first diagnosed with cancer and she’s been fighting ever since. Now she, like many other Americans facing life-threatening illness, is bankrupt despite having health insurance.
       Before her first cancer-related surgery, LeClair was told by the hospital they accepted her employer-based health insurance.
      “I paid my $300 copay. After the surgery, I started receiving all these invoices and came to find out the only thing covered was my bed because the hospital was out of network,” said LeClair. “My bills were hundreds of thousands of dollars, so I had no choice but to file bankruptcy.”
        LeClair is on the verge of having to file for bankruptcy a second time due to the mounting medical debt she has accrued for additional cancer-related surgeries, regular appointments, medications and supplies related to her recovery, despite having health insurance and paying as much as she can out of pocket for copays, deductibles and premiums to maintain insurance.
       “My medical bills are at $52,000. I’ve done everything from credit cards to consolidation loans, I just keep simply paying one credit card with another interest-free one until I can pay the next one,” LeClair added. “It’s the side of cancer most people don’t understand or know about and it’s never-ending. It just keeps adding up and adding up and before you know it you’re back in debt that you can’t believe again.”
       Bankruptcy can also make it difficult to find employment given that many employers will disqualify a candidate with a bankruptcy filing found from a background check.
        According to a study published in February 2019, about 530,000 bankruptcies filed annually are because of debt accrued due to a medical illness. The study found that even the Obama administration’s landmark Affordable Care Act (known as Obamacare) has failed to change the proportion of bankruptcies caused by medical debts, with poor health insurance cited as one of the main culprits.

Read the full article HERE:

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Insanity Reigns.

        It is difficult to comment on the recent drone killing in Iraq by the irrational and impulsive action of Herr Trump, the possibilities for misery, carnage, chaos, death and destruction, involving millions of innocent people, is so multi-faceted that the mind draws back in horror and disbelief. However, it is a reality and must be faced and met with mass protests and direct action against all those who for whatever reason support this insanity. This is just the latest act of bloody imperialism by the US establishment, the latest in a long line that goes back more than a century. The blood of innocents drips from every dollar, countries become metropolises of misery and populations become an army of migrants, as a result of the US foreign policy, aided and abetted by its varies poodles dotted around the planet, including that previous blood soaked imperialist state of the UK.

     Sanity and humanity demands that we do our utmost to bring down this festering system of plundering the planet by the powerful for their own gain. As long as capitalism exists, power will dominate, wars will persist, death and destruction will be a daily occurrence for millions, and waves of displaced people will wash across the planet in search of safety and sanctuary. As always the rich and powerful will gain, the poor will always pay the price in sweat and blood. 

        Who can disagree with this extract from an article by Black Rose Anarchist Federation

In today's world, a daily occurrence for millions. 

        We share the view of fallen Black freedom fighter and Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. that “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my own government. I cannot be silent.” Much of the world has become a scorched battlefield for over two centuries as the dark shadow of U.S. imperialism, resource extraction, and capital accumulation first spanned the continent, then the globe. Through the colonization of indigenous peoples in the Americas to imperialist expansion around the world, this great purveyor of violence has displaced, imprisoned, tortured, enslaved, and killed untold millions. It is no surprise that in our time, through an endless “war on terror” that the darkest areas of this shadow have engulfed the broader Middle East.
        We stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and the Middle East who have suffered greatly from U.S. imperialism. The 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup that ousted Iran’s first democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and brought the oppressive shah back to power made the ground fertile for the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Since then, the U.S. has been directly involved in destabilizing both Iran, and later, Iraq; first starting with the Iran-Iraq war (1980). The Gulf War of 1990-91, the intermittent bombings as well as the sanctions and blockade that lasted through the 90s, the 2003 invasion and ensuing occupation, and the battle against ISIS can more accurately be viewed as a three decade long war waged by the U.S. Intermittent threats of war against Iran, crippling economic sanctions and drone warfare have finally come to a tipping point. The world waits in horror as lines are drawn in the sand and Trump openly threatens to commit war crimes in Iran through the targeting of cultural sites. Millions of people who are desperately trying to escape the clutches of this endless war have fled their homes: the U.S. is guilty of creating the largest refugee and humanitarian crises since WWII. We demand: U.S. Out of the Middle East!

Read the full article HERE:
       My only disagreement with the above statement is that it is not "Out of the Middle East", it is off the face of the planet for all imperialism, capitalism.

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The Whole Barrel.

        Prisons, those large buildings planted firmly midst the population and sometimes in the countryside, though unwelcoming in appearance they sit quietly as part of the landscape. People walk and drive by and in most cases don't give them a second thought. Though in fact these edifices to state authority and control, house inhumanity in an organised and brutal fashion. Prison after prison in country after country, torment, cruelty, sadistic and deliberate violence and even death are part and parcel of their routine. All those who find themselves entangled in this state repression machine are damaged by it, some physically some psychologically, some both. This is not by accident, these institutions are doing the job of the state control and repression, suppressing dissent, attempting to create a subservient, passive population.
        The case below is not one of those isolated unfortunate happenings, it is part and parcel of a deliberate program of state control, carried out by the paid minions of the state, and those responsible do so with impunity, all under regimes that fly a false flag of "democracy". Like the article says "Not Rotten Apples" it is simply a rotten system and the whole barrel has to be destroyed. There is no place in a civilised society for prisons, in any shape or form.

This from Act For Freedom Now: 

Solidarity poster for anarchist comrade Pierloreto Fallanca (Paska)

 NOT ROTTEN APPLES

       September 17 saw the start of the trial against our comrade Paska, accused of resistance and grievous bodily harm towards some of his jailers during a transfer.
        A couple of pushes against a few of the escort screws was the least he could do after the treatment they had reserved for him on various occasions: the latest being the rally driving of the paddy wagon that caused him a strong blow to his head and ribs during the transfer of October 18, 2018.
      On the other hand, since his arrival at La Spezia the prison management had decided to arbitrarily reserve even more restrictive measures for him such as delaying mail, bans on meeting others, isolation up to the 14bis isolation regime level as well as being forbidden to go to the yard with the other prisoners.
       That doesn’t surprise us. In the year 2018-2019 alone La Spezia prison boasts no less than 5 deaths out of about 230 prisoners, added to the acts of self-harm and beatings as a daily occurrence: the normality of a prison considered to be among the most progressive in Italy. It is, therefore, within the normal execution of their functions that escort guards Luigi Viziello and Stefano Cenderelli covered our comrade in insults, kicks and punches.
      In a climate of constant fear and threats many prisoners avoid talking about their daily harassment for fear of repercussions. And when someone does decide not to stick to the rules of the game the medical staff take care of it – as in the case of Paska, Gouba Abdelatif and Giuseppe Landini – to complete the work of the thugs by liquidating what happened.
      When asked to report the signs of beatings and ascertain the physical consequences, the doctors deny the evidence and dish out psychotropic drugs: yet another weapon to bow the will of those who rebel.
      Unfortunately our comrade’s story is the normality of prison, a story of ordinary detention. The guards appearing as the injured party in this trial are not an exception, they are the most coherent and sincere representatives of every prison and its reason for being.

SOLIDARITY WITH PASKA

FIRE TO THE PRISONS

EVERYBODY FREE

Anarchists

Source: RoundRobin

via: Inferno Urbano

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An Early Invite.

        Anarchist bookfairs, festivals, gatherings are always welcome events. A great opportunity to meet up with new contacts and old comrades, a chance spread ideas learn new ones. To generate that feeling of solidarity and comradeship, feel you are among people you wish to work with, and with whom you hold the same basic ideals.
        So why not mark your calendar, and if you can get yourself to Vienna around the end of April 2020, you could enjoy all of the above and more.

 Details:
Dear comrades!
        We want to invite you for the next ABC-Solidarity-Festival in Vienna starting at Thursday 23. to Sunday 26. April 2020.
          It would be great if you come to Vienna with your merch, books and info tables, workshops, bands, tattoo tools or other ideas how to participate at the festival. It is a great opportunity to get connected with comrades from all over Europe and to discuss several issues about our struggles, perspectives, projects and critics.
         If you want to offer a workshop or play with your band: Please contact us as soon as possible to fix the details – for the workshop you have normally two hours all in all. The workshops are on Friday or Saturday, starting at 1 in the afternoon. Have a look at the timetable of the last years: https://abcfestvienna.noblogs.org/program-2017
        It would be a pleasure to see you in Vienna (of course you are very welcome also during the year).

All the best and warm hugs from us,
ABC Vienna

https://abcfestvienna.noblogs.org

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Remembering Our Own, Albert Meltzer.

       We should always remember our own, those who stood up and fought on the side of the ordinary people against the injustices and inequalities of this repugnant capitalist system.

     January 7th. marks the 100th. anniversary of the birth of staunch anarcho-communist, conscientious objector, Albert Meltzer who died almost five years ago on the 7th. May 1996.

      This extract is from the Kate Sharpley Library and is by his friend and comrade Stuart Christie:

 Albert Meltzer with Stuart Christie

Albert Meltzer, anarchist

Stuart Christie

         Albert Meltzer was one of the most enduring and respected torchbearers of the international anarchist movement in the second half of the twentieth century. His sixty-year commitment to the vision and practice of anarchism survived both the collapse of the Revolution and Civil War in Spain and the Second World War; he helped fuel the libertarian impetus of the 1960s and 1970s and steer it through the reactionary challenges of the Thatcherite 1980s and post-Cold War 1990s.
      Fortunately, before he died, Albert managed to finish his autobiography, I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels, a pungent, no-punches pulled, Schvejkian account of a radical twentieth century enemy of humbug and injustice. A life-long trade union activist, he fought Mosley's Blackshirts in the battle of Cable Street, played an active role in supporting the anarchist communes and militias in the Spanish Revolution and the pre-war German anti-Nazi resistance, was a key player in the Cairo Mutiny [after] the Second World War, helped rebuild the post-war anti-Franco resistance in Spain and the international anarchist movement. His achievements include Cuddon's Cosmopolitan Review, an occasional satirical review first published in 1965 and named after Ambrose Cuddon, possibly the first consciously anarchist publisher in the modern sense, the founding of the Anarchist Black Cross, a prisoners' aid and ginger group and the paper which grew out of it - Black Flag.
        However, perhaps Albert's most enduring legacy is the Kate Sharpley Library, probably the most comprehensive anarchist archive in Britain. 

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Governed And Controled.

        For those who still believe we have democracy in Europe, they should open their eyes to the constant rise in police brutality, and the growing resistance to this aspect of authoritarian states. From Athens to Prague, from Paris to Leipzig, The police act with brutality and impunity against peaceful protests, gatherings of ordinary people and large celebrations by the public. Also the open attack on migrants and their mass detention in appalling conditions. None of these procedures equate with democracy, they are more akin to fascism. 

      Pick your territory and you will find these conditions in greater or lesser form, but they are always there. To be governed you must first be controlled and then subservient. Freedom, justice and equality don't fit with that formula.

       The following is a short extract from an article on police brutality in Leipzig which you can say mirrors what is happening in Exarcheia in Athens and elsewhere in today's world. 

From Enough is Enough:

 

        ------ In view of the increasing police violence, it would nevertheless be wrong to portray oneself as a victim. One should not complain about people being harassed, beaten, insulted by cops. Because we know that the police will always be on the side of the rich and powerful, and also on the side of fascism. This is shown sometimes more, sometimes less clearly.⁵ All people who fight for a better world, free from exploitation and oppression, are logically in conflict with the state power and its allies. And must therefore expect attacks by cops. We have no expectations and no demands on these pigs! We reject dialogue with them as long as they wear their uniforms and defend a system of injustice with brutality! Nevertheless, the increasing police violence should be addressed and we, as a movement, must think about how we can face it collectively and in solidarity.
      What was also to be seen on New Year’s Eve was that many people reacted in solidarity against the brutality and aggressiveness of the cops. Some of those who were arrested were liberated again, cops were put in their place when they tried to drag people out of the crowd and beat them up, even though unfortunately this was not always successful. In addition, many people took part in the attacks on the pigs. All this illustrates the increasing anger caused by the constant provocations of state authorities.-----

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Tories, Party Of Welfare State.

  

        Anybody with half a brain cell knows that "austerity" was an ideological decision and not a necessity. It was a determined policy of plundering the public purse to feed the corporate tax havens. Though I have always been aware of the fact that the state feeds and supports the corporate beast with the false platitude that it helps the "economy" (the rich) and brings jobs. Although the facts were there, Somehow I never however thought of the Tory party as the party of a welfare state!!
      The article in "The Canary" explains it very clearly, well worth a read just to sort the facts out in your mind.

 

 

      An extract from The Canary article:

           The Tories run a secret welfare state for rich people that costs taxpayers up to £180bn a year

The long con

       The idea was never to shrink the welfare state. It was always to divert government investment from the human-welfare state for the many to the corporate-welfare state for the few. Imagine it like a long con.
       You create a sense of scarcity, like there just isn’t enough to go around. The coalition government did this with austerity; the Thatcher government did it with previous economic crises. Despite the 2007/8 financial crisis being caused exclusively by the private sector, and the private sector being bailed out by the government, it was reframed as a public spending crisis. And the very debt accumulated in rescuing the economy from casino banking became the excuse to rapidly cut funding for the welfare state.
       Then you begin pitting different needs against each other. Young people’s services versus elderly people’s security. People who were born here versus people who arrived here. People with jobs versus people without jobs. And thanks to the primal fear that people with little have when faced with having even less, a fight ensues. While that fight is happening, you merrily divert as much spending as possible to you and your friends. The best bit? When the scarcity you just created hits and things stop working in the human-welfare state, it just makes your case seem stronger. ‘See, we told you things were bad. This service needs more private-sector involvement to boost efficiency.’
       And so you go on. Every publicly-funded service is up for grabs – a means of siphoning taxpayer cash away from meeting public needs, and towards filling private pockets. In return, you’ve assured your post-parliament career in the revolving door of political and corporate life.

The enablers

        Perhaps the greatest enablers of the corporate-welfare-state long con are UK newspapers and media outlets. Just three corporations dominate 83% of newspaper reach in the UK. That’s just a handful of billionaires dominating the UK press. And they cannot be trusted to play fair when it comes to policies that invest in regular people rather than providing them with government subsidies or tax cuts.

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Refuse and Resist.

         The latest Spirit of Revolt,  “Read of the Month", since it is coming at the beginning of a new year, its only fitting that it should come from one of our new collections the John Frew Collection, it is a news sheet of the anti-polltax movement Refuse and Resist. That period when the Thatcher government tried to impose the poll tax on the people of this country was one of mass protests and open rebellion, as the people stood firm against this grossly unjust tax. Their resolve, solidarity and organisation eventually won the day and the poll tax was scrapped.

     Why not dip into the John Frew Collection and enjoy some of your own fascinating history. While there you could go on to explore the multitude of local history from the Glasgow/Clydeside area and further afield, from the numerous other collections held in Spirit of Revolt.

 REFUSE AND RESIST: Read on line. 

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