Religion, A Dictator.

     Because of America's brutal imperialist policies against Iran, some people will side with Iran, but we should never forget, Iran is just another corrupt authoritarian regime that wishes to control the people and enforce its own particular brand of dogma and ideology. Just like our own authoritarian states in the West, it has its secret police, it is riddled with corruption, it has its torturers, its large humanity killing prisons, its brutal minions who carry out the savage dictate of the regime. As in other states across the globe, there is no room for freedom and justice in their agenda. Corporate dictator, or religious dictator, is no choice at all.

This from asrananarchism:

       Only they who have lost their fear of death are in truly in love… My heart yearns for comrades who can hear my voice even though a more a dreadful and torturous prison awaits me for the crime of wanting to be a voice for the oppressed and my fellow inmates. Yet to be human is to endure the hardship of accepting responsibility, and there is no greater responsibility for the rebel than to stand with the oppressed. I must be the voice of people like Meysam, and thus refuse to fear Two Alef, 209, One Alef, and the regime’s other horrific prisons
        Meysam is an 18 year old youth from the Parand district who was arrested by agents of IRGC Tharallah military base for joining the protests against the increase in the price of gasoline that swept the country in November. Facing the charges of assembling and conspiring against the state, he is currently incarcerated in the 5th block of the Greater Tehran Central Prison. Despite his youth, Meysam’s hands are covered in callouses from being forced to be the sole breadwinner that his mother and sister depend on after losing his father to a traffic accident. He would work from dawn until midnight in the freezing cold of winter and the scorching heat of summer, delivering food on a motorcycle and pursuing his studies at night. After the sudden increase in the prices of gasoline, Meysam took to the streets to get his voice heard
       He says, “Even before the price increases, I was barely able to make enough to meet my family’s most basic needs. For me and others like me, traveling and leisure have always been out of reach like a mirage, but after the price increases, I can’t even afford the cost of rent, food, healthcare, and basic utilities. Who will answer our cries of agony with help?” Not only was there no help to be found, but his protestations were answered with blows from electric prods and batons. He was berated and tortured multiple times while his interrogator stood above him with a baton and electric prod and coerced him into confessing that he was taking orders from the United States and Israel and a member of so and so group dedicated to overthrowing the regime. Masyam asks “where the hell are America and Israel? I’ve never even traveled further than Shah Abdol-Azim’s Shrine! I just want to make enough income to live and an economy that isn’t corrupt. How does that make me an insurrectionist----

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Glasgow's Bloody Friday.

     Glasgow, January, 31st. 1919, "Bloody Friday", remember it, celebrate it, be proud of it, and all those ordinary people who took part in it.

    From my post last January 31st. I'll probably repeat it next year, and why not.

      A date that should be etched in the psyche of Glasgow's working class and its struggles for that better life, January 31st. 1919.
(http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7510) That was one of the many times the British state has shown its readiness to turn the military on its own citizens.
After WW1 there had been a struggle for a 40 hour week, in support of this a large demonstration was held on George Square, for some unknown reason the police started a vicious attack on the crowd, this in turn created outbreaks of violence across the city, at that point the state put troops on the streets of Glasgow.
However, these events never happen in isolation, they do not pop up from a tranquil environment, they are part of an ongoing connected struggle, a struggle that still continues to this day. Bloody Friday was not "an event" it was part of that chain of struggle between the desires of the ordinary people and the unyielding demands of the wealthy and powerful. It has not been finalised yet, there are more "events" going to happen along the way in this process. We should learn from our history that the powerful and wealthy elite will do what is necessary to defend their privileged position. Troops on the streets is not a symbolic display, it is a very real statement of intent. The Liverpool strikers during the Transport Strike of 1911 (https://libcom.org/…/1911-liverpool-general-transport-strike) found this out brutally, as two of the strikers were shot dead on the street by the military.

  Extract from The Rent Strike To Bloody Friday: Strugglepedia:

Glasgow's Bloody Friday 1919
Like all the events in political struggle it is difficult to trace the thread back to what brought it to this stage, Bloody Friday 1919 is no different. This was not just an attack on a large demonstration in Glasgow, it was the culmination of a series of radical events in Glasgow and the Clydeside area where the state showed its brutality. Perhaps we could even take it back to the 18th century and the radicals like Thomas Muir and others. However we can certainly take it back to the rent strikes of the first world war, the forming of the Labour Withholding Committee, (LWC) The Clyde Workers Committee (CWC) and the political climate of that period.
The Rent Strike
In pre First World War Glasgow there were a large number of empty houses, by the year 1915 all were occupied by incoming workers to the munitions and allied war industry trades. A shortage of workers and materials saw a lack of maintenance and the housing stock deteriorate rapidly. At the beginning of the war the landlords tried to implement large rent increases, at the receiving end of this were 7,000 pensioners and families whose men were fighting in France. This brought about the formation of the "Glasgow Women's Housing Association" and many other local "Women's Housing Associations" to resist the increases. A variety of peaceful activities were used to prevent evictions and drive out the Sheriff's officers. There were constant meetings in an attempt to be one step ahead of the Sheriff's officers. All manner of communication was used to summon help, everything from drums, bells, trumpets and anything that could be used to create a warning sound to rally supporters, who were mainly women as the men were at work in the yards and factories at these times. They would then indulge in cramming into closes and stairs to prevent the entry of the Sheriff's officers and so prevent them from carrying out their evictions. They also used little paper bags of flour, peasmeal and whiting as missiles directed at the bowler hatted officers. These activities culminated on the 17th of November 1915 with the massive demonstration and march of thousands through the city streets and on to the Glasgow Sheriff's Court. The size of the demonstration caused the Sheriff at the court to phone the Prime Minister of the day, this resulted in the immediate implementation of the "1915 Rent Restriction Act" which benefited tenants across the country.
The Labour Withholding Committee
This happened in a time of war, so it was obvious that by 1915 Glasgow and Clydeside had a very large class oriented militant grassroots movement and had forced the Government on this occasion to act in their favour. The rent strike was mainly a women’s organisation but the men were proving to be just as militant in the workplaces. Around the same time in 1915 during a prolonged period of considerable economic hardship for most industrial workers, Clydeside engineering employers refused workers demands for a wage increase. The insatiable demand for war munitions had lead to a rapid rise in inflation and a savage attack on the living standards of the working class. Workers were demanding wage increases to offset these repressive conditions. At this time Weir’s of Cathcart was paying workers brought over from their American plant, 6/- shillings a week more than workers in their Glasgow plant.
The dispute between workers and management at Weir’s rapidly escalated into strike action. The strike was organised by a strike committee named the Labour Withholding Committee (LWC). This committee comprised of rank and file trade union members and shop stewards. It was they who remained in control of the strike rather than the officials from the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE).
The strike started in February 1915 and lasted almost 3 weeks. At its peak 10,000 members of the ASE from 8 separate engineering works were on strike throughout Clydeside. The officials from the ASE denounced the strike and backed the government’s demands to resume work. It was this double pressure from the government and their own trade union that drove the workers from the various engineering works in Glasgow to form the LWC to give the workers a voice and to organise the strike to their wishes.
Although the strikers demands were not met, its importance is in the fact of it forming the LWC. A committee formed from rank and file union members that determined policy in the work place and refused to follow the directives from union officials when those directives conflicted with the demands of that rank and file.

Continue reading HERE:

http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php…

       https://radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.com/…/the-rent-strike-t…

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

Words, Our Weapon.

 

      Words are sharp deadly weapons, and are at our disposal every minute of the day. Let us use these deadly weapons as darts of truth that will help assassinate the system that continually tries to kill the human spirit that nestles in all our hearts and minds. 

This from Support Eric King:

A poem by Eric King

If words are as dangerous as bullets
and sharp as knives
Can we start filling the pages?
grinding our pencils to stubs
Turning ink into guillotines
prose the ropes onto their wrist
and rhyme these prison walls to paste
cause nothing else seems to be working
heads aren’t rolling, the streets are on holiday
maybe enough words can spark
a million fires in our hearts
which would create a million fires in the banks
a million convicts in the streets
Not giving a fuck about a voters box
Giving a fuck about having a life
our words can break these chains?
then gather our dictionaries
there aren’t enough thesaurus’ in the world
I need to fight more, I need to write more
My tongue has been shackled
I haven’t resisted, I haven’t insisted
More words, more battles, more victories
more poems, more struggle, more bumps
We’d be fighting w/our minds
dismantling the system that strangle us
Then turning those words into life
A life more important than burning & bombing
Enough magic, love, growth & life
We can grow into a space worth existing in
Our words can get us free

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

On Your Bike Mate.

       Imagine sitting on a bike for 60 minutes and powering your house for 24 hours? Well someone has just put this forward as a possibility, get fit and save a fortune. What more could you ask for?

This from Healthy Food House:

       Have you ever dreamt of powering your household without paying the huge costs? Can you imagine achieving it, and take care of your body figure at the same time?
     Well, this was the amazing idea of the founder of the Free Electric hybrid bike, Manoj Bhargava. He uses mechanical energy in the simplest way possible in order to transform an hour of exercise into supplying a rural household with energy for 24 hours.
       His mechanism is simple- the flywheel is activated when you pedal, and this powers the generator and charges a battery.

According to Bicycling:
      “The Free Electric is made with standard bike parts, which makes it easily fixable by any mechanic around the world. The bike is cheap, clean, and practical in terms of providing energy to those who need it most on a global scale.

Bhargava says:
      “Our target is to begin with India, but really it can be used anywhere. There are 1.3 billion people around the world who are still living without access to electricity.”
      Moreover, he claims that the Free Electric essentially creates “better health, more leisure time, better access to education, and opportunities for entrepreneurship—it could literally change the world.”
       Have you ever heard of a better motivation to start exercising? The featured video gives you an opportunity to see this bike in action:

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

A Corporate City.

       For more than a year now, we have been told that "austerity" is over, but like all words that flow from the mouths of our politicians, they should be taken with a pinch of salt. With the supposed "austerity" over, Glasgow has to make £50 million in cuts to balance its coming budget, (Evening Times). What does that mean? Well there are lots of proposals, all of which lead to handing over more of Glasgow's public spaces to the corporate world. A process that has been going on for years and will eventually lead to a city that is privately owned, where you will only be able to access it amenities if you have a nice fat wallet.

Photo: Scotsman.

     Among the suggested money saving proposals are such things as selling off the Gallery of Modern Art. It could become an lavish hotel with expensive restaurants, or a gambling casino with fancy eateries for rich tourists and wealth citizens. Of Glasgow's six publicly owned golf courses there are proposals to lose five of them, so all you folks who use them or live next to those fine green oasis, in our dear green place, can expect to see the rise of private housing estates, theme parks or perhaps more swanky hotels.

     Libraries, those places where you go to seek out info and pleasure, well they are deemed not really necessary, with proposals to close Maryhill and Whiteinch libraries. So you could be looking at a couple of new carpet shops, car dealers or office blocks in there place. There is more, much more in the money saving proposals that the city council is considering, in carrying out the financial world's plan of a city as a profit producing centre for the corporate moneybag share holders.

     When do we stand up and so, enough is enough, we will not tolerate any longer all our pubic assets being turned to money making entities for the greed driven corporate world. We do not want to live in a world where your only access to amenities is via a fat wallet.

     This privatisation of all that is public has been going on for years and will not stop until they have gobbled up everything that can make a profit. Slice by slice our National Health Service has been hand over, and is still being handed over, to private profit seeking companies, called "service providers". Our education system is being decimated by lack of resources while private schools and private academies are fostered.

     Only we the people can stop this plundering of the poor, the grabbing of public assets, all for the purses of the wealth shareholders. However, time is running out.

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

France Today.

        According to our mainstream media, everything in France is running as usual, the capitalist country is just getting on with the daily exploitation of the subservient public. Of course if you look a little closer you will find that particular narrative is a load of bullshit. Once again the media propaganda machine proves it is the illusion creator for the capitalist system, by omission and false reporting.

       This summary of what is really going on in France will give some idea of how far from reality or mainstream media is. It only reports revolution and insurrection in those countries that are on their list of "enemies".

       This from 325:

Compilation of resistance in progress

The rage is infinite. Every day, a blow, a strike, a revolt in the country. In order that the many initiatives do not fall into oblivion, and to give an account of the social situation, here is an attempt to compile the strikes and actions that have been taking place in France since December 5th:

RAILWAY: RATP (public transport in Paris, Enough 14) strikes for 45 consecutive days; Paris virtually paralysed during public holidays. Daily blockades of bus stations, often suppressed. A strike at the SNCF lasting several weeks, the like of which has never been seen before. Railway workers multiplying the actions all over the country. The strike was “interrupted” on January 20th to forcus on blockades. On December 5, the Paris-Lyon-Marseille TGV line was sabotaged. At the end of December, traffic on the lines in eastern France was considerably slowed down by bang signals. Several stations were attacked by protestors, particularly in Savenay, Bordeaux and Paris.

ENERGY: Several blackouts in December, notably in the Prefecture of Nantes during a demonstration and in the Bordeaux police station. Targeted blackouts in January: at the Rungis market, the CFDT (French Democratic Trade Union Confederation), Orly airport, etc. Power was cut off during the “low-traffic hours” for hundreds of thousands of households. On January 15th, the Gravelines nuclear power plant was blocked by employees, with fireworks being fired in front of the buildings. Other power plants threaten to shut down. In the refineries, rotating strikes have been taking place since December. The announced fuel shortage is not on the agenda for now.

PORTS AND DOCKS: Operation ‘ports morts’ in most major port cities. On January 15th, in Le Havre, dockworkers attack the New Year celebrations of the employers in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry by throwing big fireworks and smoke. The celebrations are cancelled. Several blockades in Montoir de Bretagne and Fos. Still in Le Havre, the strikers invade city hall and gobble up pastries and champagne of the mayor’s New Year reception.

EDUCATION: The premises of the academic inspection of Alès have been walled in. Outdated books were thrown on the rectors’ offices. Various flash mobs. Selective support of high school students who block their schools. In several schools, teachers are preventing students from taking the baccalaureate exams from January 20th. The minister promises “warnings” and “complaints”. Resignations demanded.

CULTURE: The Paris Opera gave a series of street concerts. Open-air performance of “Swan Lake” with orchestra and ballerinas at Christmas. The choir of Radio France interrupted the New Year’s speech of the boss on January 8th with the performance of Verdi’s “Slave Choir”. On January 17, striking technicians and artists disrupted the programme of the Rouen Opera House and gave a concert in the street. The Louvre is blocked. The castle of Versailles on strike. The French National Library is on strike and has hung banners.

JUSTICE: Lawyers are camping out in front of the court in Bobigny on January 15th. The lawyers of Paris confiscate the files in the “comparution immédiate” (practice of immediate presentation to a criminal judge in case of arrest), plead in many cases for non-appearance and have the accused freed. In Rennes the lawyers plead for the release of all foreigners who are imprisoned in prison camps. In most courts the lawyers’ robes are laid down. The New Year’s speech of the Minister of Justice was interrupted in Caen. All 164 bar associations are on strike.

INDUSTRY: Work stoppages and strikes. On January 17, workers in the aeronautics industry in Clermont-Ferrand threw down their overalls.

HOTEL BUSINESS: On January 20th, Macron invites the bosses to Versailles. Two workers refuse to serve the prime minister: They were fired on the spot. Others write protest messages on their plates, causing great tension in the organisation of the ceremony.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: More than one million protestors were in the streets on December 5. Almost 2 million on December 17. In the following days of the general strike, more than one million people demonstrated. Serious clashes in Paris, Rennes and Nantes in December. Record number of burned cars on New Year’s Eve. On January 7, the multinational BlackRock is attacked by railway workers . On January 9, several trade unionists were injured during horrific repression in Paris. Numerous offices of En Marche (La République en Marche, Macron party) were attacked. Emmanuel Macron was evacuated from a Paris theatre on January 17. A journalist arrested / The presidential restaurant La Rotonde burned down the same night. Heavy repression against the yellow vests demonstrating in Paris on January 18.

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Men Kek Bissa

         Sorry a day late for Holocaust Day, January 27th. However I thought it was worth remembering that the holocaust was not a one ethnic group cleansing. It included others the regime found not suitable for their distorted vision. Different ethnic groups and those whose political views didn't fit, were also eliminated, though are seldom mentioned on this memorial day.
This from Travellers Times:

 

The Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz - a poem by Raine Geoghegan 24 January 2019

         February 1943: At Auschwitz-Birkenau, a family Gypsy camp was set up in a wooden barracks. August 2 1944: Over 4,000 Roma and Sinti men, women and children were murdered in the gas chambers. January 27 1945 at 3pm, Soviet soldiers reached the camp and found only one Rom among the survivors.

The Gypsy Camp at Auschwitz
the branches on the trees bend and sway
leaves fall and settle on the ground
sunlight seeps through mottled clouds
and all is quiet 

a woman with long red hair
picks a blade of grass
holds it up to the light
remembering her husband
the shape of his mouth
how he spoke her name, Narilla 

men kek bissa: we will not forget 

an old chal with silver hair
takes his hat off, feels the warmth of the sun
on his head
his chavo was four years old when they were imprisoned
a year later he was taken and was never seen again
he had dark curls and hazel eyes 

a chavali runs into the arms of her mother
who remembers she once had twelve chavies
all had hair the colour of the darkest earth
and eyes like wolves 

men kek bissa: we will not forget 

winter birds mourning on the branches
the earth remembering
how it has given refuge to the dead 

no longer dead leaves trampled underfoot
they have become wild breathing flowers
growing in the dust.

       “Except for a few survivors, a whole people unique in its life-style, language, culture and art, was wiped off the face of the earth. The death of the Gypsy Nation was more than physical; it was total oblivion.” Azriel Eisenberg, Witness to the Holocaust, 1981 (New York) taken from Danger, Educated Gypsy, selected essays by Ian Hancock.

      (Romani jib: Men kek bissa – we will not forget; Chal – man; Chavo – boy; Chavali – girl; Chavies – children).

Raine Geoghegan

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27th, 2019.

(Main photograph: Roma children during the Second World War. The photograph would have been taken by a German soldier somewhere in the Balkans around 1942-3. Outcome unknown. Picture courtesy and (c) Bob Dawson) 

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

Newspeak.

 

       I have always thought that George Orwell was much underestimated and not read by enough people. His words have predicted where we are now, and what the future holds if we don't stand up and protect our individual freedoms. As he points out in all his works, truth is truth no matter the ideological line handed out by the powers that be. A freethinker is the enemy of ideology and dogma, and is the road we should always try to walk.

     The following is a short extract from an article in Acorn on George Orwell, it is well worth reading the complete article HERE:

Extract:

 

       Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense… If both the past and external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?” (24)
      Winston Smith’s struggle to keep a grip on objective reality, to know that two plus two makes four whatever the ideological demands of the Party, is a central theme of Orwell’s novel.
      The character tells himself: “Truisms are true, hold on to that! The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth’s centre”. (25)
      The Big Brother system has invented a new language which controls people’s minds by making heretical ideas impossible to even formulate.
       One of the Party members developing Newspeak tells Smith: “You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day”. (26)
        He explains: “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it… By 2050 – earlier, probably – all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed”. (27)
      In the face of this truth-denying dogmatism, Orwell insisted that any authentic radical should always remain free to reject the dominant official ideology: “He should never turn back from a train of thought because it may lead to a heresy, and he should not mind very much if his unorthodoxy is smelt out, as it probably will be”.
      While co-operating with others to some extent, a free-thinking radical had to fight the capitalist system “as an individual, an outsider, at the most an unwelcome guerilla on the flank of a regular army”. (28)
      In Woodcock’s words, Orwell was “a good and angry man who sought for the truth because he knew that only in its air would freedom and justice survive”. (29)

Read the complete article HERE: 
      

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

Kill The Drivers.

      It is difficult to get through the day without thinking, talking or reading about "climate Change". Facts keep pouring over us, extreme weather conditions, desertification, flooding, etc. but still there are doubters. However, among those who say they accept climate change is happening and accept that it is our way of life, spout, change your personal life style to an earth friendly lifestyle. We can go vegan, live frugally and plant a tree, but nothing will change, as the real culprit of our disaster impending future, is the economic system that rules this world. While you live frugally in you humble abode, the system is still spending millions on advertising  exotic holidays in far away places that you can fly to in a greedy fossil burning jumbo jet or sail to on a massive pollution distributing luxury liner. The corporate world is still hellbent on growth of their particular enterprise, continue mining the earth's resources at an ever increasing rate and transforming them into must have "luxury items" that will, according to the label, enrich your life, they are spending millions on trying to get you to consume more. its millionaires and billionaires will continue to have their private jets, their super luxury yachts and massive personal estates and mansions.

       Your changes in your personal life style may make a micro difference in this impending disaster, but the real culprit is capitalism, as it can't survive without continual growth and it couldn't survive without the authority of the state, they are co-joined twins dragging us over a precipice, they are the architects of our planet's death, they are leading humanity on a suicide drive, and the crash is close at hand. To appeal to the psychopathic corporate self-seeking greed driven drivers of this car crash is futile, we have to take direct action and stand up and destroy the entire capitalist/state economic model or crash with them. Remember, spaceship earth has no escape capsule.

This from 325:

Table of Contents

A concern of ‘each and every one’
Green capitalism
Forecasts and the misery of the political world
Smart cities
        In the past weeks we could experience relatively high temperatures again. So one heat record year beats the next. British climate researchers recently presented a model to calculate the temperature rise in the metropolises until 2050. Vienna is one of the cities most affected, with a temperature rise of 7.6 degrees Celsius compared to 1850, the year that is more or less considered the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
       The consequences of global warming are melting of sea ice and glaciers, sea level rise, thawing of permafrost soils (which will release even more CO2), growing drought zones and desertification, increasing weather extremes, extinction of species, etc.
     In addition, there would be further social, political and economic aggravations. Like famines and water shortages, deaths and illnesses caused by the enormous heat and epidemics, wars over dwindling resources and usable territories and a global migration movement. Just to name a few.
       To pick out just one aspect here: If we remember how the political classes and European politicians reacted to the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015. When we saw how borders were militarized, plans of action developed and powers for the military and police expanded. Not to mention the agitation of the mass media and the general racism, nationalism and panic that has been fostered by politicians, media and other opinion makers. And this was about a more or less still calculable number of people, in relation to what will happen if more and more parts of the earth become uninhabitable. Depending on how fast and drastically these developments will take place, we are talking about the largest migration movement in the history of the human race!
      The fascists and conservatives have already spoken of mass migration in 2015/2016 in order to propagate their policy of isolation. Concepts such as the “great exchange” have come up since then and various horror scenarios have been fantasized in order to achieve a racist and nationalist mobilization. Thus it is not foreseeable what reactions a migration movement of several 100 million people would trigger.

A concern of ‘each and every one’
        The ‘Point of no Return’ is crossed! Climate change is a reality, the changes are already happening, they can be felt. And these developments cannot be stopped by individual waste separation, energy saving, veganism, etc. Many appeals are directed at consumer behaviour. So the problem is made an individual problem of each of us. You can do something about it yourself’, ’10 things you can do to stop climate change’.
         They’re supposed to tell us: We humans are all in the same boat. We are all responsible for this. So change your lifestyle… Repent and become better people!
       This equates the responsibility of business, industry and the political sector with the responsibility of all of us. Every question of class and ownership is thus eliminated. But are we really all responsible to the same extent as those who actively earn money from the fact that our whole world is going down the drain? I don’t think so!

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Surveillance Epidemic.

       There is a lot of concern by several states over the coronavirus in China, with fear that it could become an epidemic, and rightly so, but there is another epidemic that most states are willing and trying to spread, it's called surveillance. This particular virus is spread by authoritarian states and seeps into ever aspect of our lives. From a few CCTV cameras it has now spread to every pub, shop, street, public transport, hospital, bank and a multitude of other places we frequent. This particular epidemic has morphed from a simple camera to an extremely complex system among its tentacles are number plate recognition, monitoring and profiling individuals as they do what ordinary people do. The latest development in this particular epidemic is "facial recognition". This new phase has been silently developing in cities across the UK, waithing for the moment it can be set among the people, and we now learn that London will be hit with a full blown version of this anti-human rights virus.

       The Met in London have just announced that they will unleash this new phase on the general public in that city. This despite the fact that EU lawmakers are mulling over a temporary ban on this part of the epidemic, to safeguard individuals rights, as part of their risk assessment to regulate AI

      When it comes to the abuse of human rights we can always rely on the UK government to go it alone.
     This technology is lurking in cities across the UK all waiting to flip the switch and and get a good look at your face as you go about your daily chores.
     I don't know if it would work, but perhaps before we go out we could all wear very large sunglasses, a large nose from a joke shop, plus very large ear muffs and paint our face various colours, and finish off with a large floppy hat. Might be worth a try, at least it would brighten up our cities and towns.
The following From TecCrunch 

       The Met says its hope for the AI-powered tech is that it will help it tackle serious crime, including serious violence, gun and knife crime and child sexual exploitation, and that it will “help protect the vulnerable.”
     However, its phrasing is not a little ironic, given that facial recognition systems can be prone to racial bias, for example, owing to factors such as bias in data sets used to train AI algorithms.
       So in fact there’s a risk that police use of facial recognition could further harm vulnerable groups who already face a disproportionate risk of inequality and discrimination.

         Yet the Met’s PR doesn’t mention the risk of the AI tech automating bias.
Instead it makes pains to couch the technology as an “additional tool” to assist its officers.
       “This is not a case of technology taking over from traditional policing; this is a system which simply gives police officers a ‘prompt’, suggesting ‘that person over there may be the person you’re looking for’, it is always the decision of an officer whether or not to engage with someone,” it adds.
        While the use of a new tech tool may start with small deployments, as is being touted here, the history of software development underlines how potential to scale is readily baked in.
       A “targeted” small-scale launch also prepares the ground for London’s police force to push for wider public acceptance of a highly controversial and rights-hostile technology via a gradual building out process… AKA surveillance creep.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Resistance An Obligation.

       Pick your country, Greece, Spain, Italy and any other capitalist swamp and the patterns the same. Capitalism's minders, the state, battle hard and ceaselessly to extinguish any form of self organising among the people. Capitalism needs a subservient population, it can't permit people to look for alternatives, or their system would collapse, though that's on the cards in any case. This is where the state steps in to try and crush any form of dissent or resistance to the economic train crash that we are riding towards climate disaster. The state simply puts a stamp of legitimacy on their own violence against the people in an attempt to prop up this suicidal economic system.  When tyranny is the norm, resistance is an obligation.

From Anarchists Worldwide:

Milan: Branca Still Holds Out. Two Comrades on the Roof

       21.01.2020: The operation to clear the Brancaleone squat at 1 Piazza Alfieri began this morning. Despite the cold and the now 12 hours on the roof thanks to being pissed off and the determination to resist, 2 comrades are still on the roof and intend to stay there as long as possible.
      There are solidaritarians in the square at the front of the building who are stubbornly refusing to leave the comrades on the roof alone. The night will be long and cold, but together we will warm it with the flame of our anger that burns to the sound of good music.
       Herbal teas and good food await us here and all are welcome.
Some angry and cold comrades. 

Milan – A Reflection from Solidarity (Resistance to Eviction Continues)

       22.01.2020: Despite unsuccessful attempts by the so-called law enforcement agencies to end the resistance on the roof, it has now been 24 hours for the two people that are determined not to give in to yet another eviction, right in this city of luxury apartments and profiteers.
         The fake social peace that Beppe Sala [Giuseppe Sala – the Mayor of Milan] would like to establish in his showcase city, a metropolis of fashion design and gentrification (especially in a neighborhood like Bovisa where this same fact is evident) will never be completely possible as long there are people not willing to bend to social compromise.
         Yesterday as today, always above the roofs, always against the monopoly of the exercise of state force, against capitalists and exploiters.
Brancaleone resists!

Milan – And We’re Still Here…Of Course

       22.01.2020: For 30 hours they’ve been standing on the roof of the Brankaleone house. The comrades are well fed and are determined to stay where they are, do you want to hear about the beauty of Piazza Emilio Alfieri from above?!
          Let’s re-launch for tonite a date at 8:30pm in Piazza Alfieri, under Branka house. Updates on the situation, proposals, music, beer and good food.
         In any case, we’ll be here all day, so come by whenever you want.
        (all updates via Round Robin, freely translated into English by Anarchists Worldwide. All photos stolen from various Italian corporate media sources)

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

The Great Illusion.

          So we have a new government lead by Boris the dangerous buffoon, and they are promising to make our lives better, they claim they are there to serve the people. They claim to be a “one nation party”, all fair and square. However a wee look at some of their personal data, tells you they live in a different world from you and I.

         The Rt Hon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson estimated personal wealth £1.3 million. Johnson sold his marital home for £3.7million and bought a £1.3 million mansion with girlfriend Carrie Symonds.

         The Rt Hon Sajid Javid Investor, Banker and Former Managing Director of Deutsche Bank. The estimated net worth of Sajid Javid is approx £8.5 Million

         The Rt Hon Dominic Raab approximate personal wealth £1.5 million

         The Rt Hon Priti Patel approximate personal wealth £2.2 million

         The Rt Hon Michael Gove approximate personal wealth £2 million

       Then there is The Rt Hon Ben Wallace, who faced criticism from his local constituency after it was revealed he had the fourth highest expenses claim of any MP in the UK in 2008, claiming £175,523 on top of his £63,000 salary.

Their idea of a fair and equal society.

        Most of this bunch of wealthy leeches have been processed through the Oxbridge sausage factory for the rich, that by itself separates them from us. No doubt that personal wealth will not be sitting in a box under the bed, it will earning more money by investments in the capitalist system. Do you expect them to do anything that might hinder that growth of their personal wealth by creating a fair and equal society? I wouldn’t hold my breath, they are not on your side, they are part and parcel of the corporate world of greed and exploitation, defenders of a corrupt economic system. If we want that better world, a fair and just society, then we have to get rid of the whole bunch of wealthy, self gratifying leeches and parasites.

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

Profit Versus People.

        Gentrification is not a new phenomenon, nor is it confined to any one town or city. It is just one of the methods used by the financial Mafia to increase their wealth at the expense of the ordinary local people.
      At the moment there is a battle raging in the district of Exarcheia in Athens. The newly elected government, New Democracy is brutally trying to "cleanse" the district by removing people who wish to live together in co-operation mutual aid and a community of common interests, to allow property investors a free reign in filling the area with luxury apartments, expensive restaurants and high priced fashion shops, to syphon money from tourists to the property developers bank accounts. Tourism is their current milking-cow, their goose that lays the golden egg.
      In our world of high finance, the "economy" profit and growth, outweigh any human values, the poor will continually be pushed to the margins until they decide that enough is enough.
       This extract from an excellent article by Molly Crabapple. It is well worth reading the article in full.

      From New York to Berlin, gentrification is consuming cities, and any enchantment a neighborhood offers is a harbinger of its eventual doom. Hoping to boost low real-estate prices after years of economic crisis, Greece began granting the so-called golden visa, a five-year E.U.-residency permit in exchange for a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-euro investment in real estate, in 2013. Wealthy citizens of autocracies took up the offer. Chinese investors bought up blocks of buildings; one purchased a hundred apartments in Exarchia alone. Many of these apartments were converted into Airbnbs (the Web site has more than three hundred listings for Exarchia), which drove up the rents, drove out residents, and brought in tour guides, who attempt to repackage the neighborhood’s insurrectionary spirit as vapid, marketable cool.
       “They want gentrification, to promote this as a historic neighborhood while destroying its history of artists, struggles, intellectuals, and anarchists.” Anna told me. “They want to do what Berlin did, to sell the neighborhood’s past while killing its identity.” In the last decade, Berlin rents have risen more than a hundred per cent, and for Athenians like Anna, the city is a cautionary tale. Graffiti offered a succinct rejoinder: “Airbnb TOURISTS FUCK OFF REFUGEES WELCOME.” Neither refugees nor anarchists would fit into the city that had been dreamed by the world’s wealthy. That Athens would be a series of clean, glass-walled, interchangeable rooms, through which capital could frictionlessly glide.
        Throughout the winter, police repeatedly attacked Exarchia Square with tear gas and flash-bang grenades. Sometimes the pretext was a protest; other times, it was an attack by anarchists on the police. One night, police trapped residents inside a café for hours. On November 17th, after a march commemorating the 1973 uprising, social media lit up with photos of protesters left bloody by police violence. Three days later, the Ministry of Citizen Protection issued an ultimatum: squatters had fifteen days to evacuate every squat in Greece. By late December, only a handful of squats remained, the last survivors of a network that had once given thousands of refugees a home.
        I thought of the words of an activist from Exarchia, when I asked him whether the government would succeed in fundamentally changing the neighborhood. “Exarchia is not just territory,” he answered. “Territory without people is nothing. I don’t care about losing Exarchia. I care about losing the people.”

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

Battling To Freedom.

 

       The people of Chile continue their struggle to be free from the control and corruption of this capitalist system of greed. Of course those with the wealth and power have a lot to lose, so they hit back with brutal savagery, the people struggle on despite the militarised police and all the other parts of the state apparatus being launched against them.  
Video from arrezafe.

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

A New World.

       It would appear that the great apolitical apathetic hordes are rising, and with eyes wide open they are enraged at what they see. Across the planet they are exploding onto the streets, attacking the system that favours the rich and corrupt. They are enraged at their poverty midst mountains of wealth, at the wars for profit and domination, at the destruction of their planet. Their humanity demands that we destroy the system before it destroys us. We must be part of them, swelling these numbers of enraged people and join with them on the streets whenever we can, if not now, when, if not us, who? We can see the door of the new world, all we have to do is go forward and open that door, for our kids and grandkids, by whatever means possible.

From Inhabit:

        Historic wildfires ravage an entire continent, scorching the land in a preview of what’s to come. Trigger-happy politicians prove eager to kickstart another war, just in time for election season. Scandals pile up, indifference mounts. The global economy churns on, stupidly and without remorse. With its latest products, Silicon Valley upgrades the emptiness. Meanwhile, each new scientific report draws the scheduled date of collapse closer.
        While the architects of disaster hope to preside over the future, people everywhere have already begun charting their own course. 2019 saw the explosion of a new revolutionary sequence, with massive protests around the world demonstrating our collective ability to decide for ourselves what life could be, beyond the familiar catastrophe. Fiery nights lit by the rebuke of indignities, the refusal of the economy’s hold over our lives, utter contempt for the elites and the police, all suffused by generalized rage at the oblivion to which they consign us.
        But if the present ruptures remind us that the future remains open, so too do they attest to the challenges before us. They are a lesson in what we’re up against, how far we still have to go. Power must be overthrown, and ecological destruction must be halted and healed. Technology must be freed from the grip of governance, and we must learn to live on a forever-altered earth. Old beliefs must be painfully shed, and new myths invented for a damaged epoch.
       What happens in the next decade will be decisive. We are at the end of one world, and the beginning of the next. 

Continue reading HERE:

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