Quiet Bye-way.

     We live in a world where Covid19 casts a dark and frightening shadow, where the blood of imperial conflicts colour the seas and stain the land, where armies of innocent flee across man made borders to be greeted with cruelty and humiliation, where hunger's cruel claws tear at the young and the old. It is our world, a world we can't escape from but can try to alter. However from time to time I take a walk down another bye-way and seek a little respite in the land of poetry. Today I'll take that stroll.

     Though I like a laugh and a giggle, most of you who have read anything I have written will realise that those features seldom, if ever, find their way in to my written word. 

    The following poems are all from a wee book called, "They say I'm Crazy."

A couple on my mother's death:

The Lonely Wynd.

At the bed, death's waiting room,

the family muster,

with empty words wrapped in thoughts of death,

gaily chatter.

Outside, hungry birds feed, sing and fly,

their chirpy songs seem to call her death a lie,

but summer's sun

reaching through the window pane

sadly smiles,

knowing they'll never meet again.

I wonder,

in coma wrapped, what were your thoughts.

Pleasure,

looking back at what used to be?

Pride,

at how, to this life happiness you brought?

Perhaps it was a welcome rest from pain

a just pause in your long struggle,

alas too late, this enigma with me remains.

So rest, in your rest peace be your gain

for you dear mother, an end to trouble

as love's boundless force could not break

death's firm grasp upon your heart,

passionless devouring cancer 

unmoved by prayer on our part, 

took your hand along that lonely wynd,

death took time

fused the moment on our mind.

In the midst of family

alone dear mother you had to die.

That Part Of My Life.

Everywhere I walk,

she dies.

I walk the leaf covered park alone,

she dies.

In each glen, by each loch,

she dies.

In the midst of each merry throng,

she dies.

With everyone I meet,

she dies.

each time I think of times gone by,

she dies.

When the future I try to grasp,

she dies.

There is no place  can hide from

her death.

There is no act that can obscure

her death.

My life is now marked by

her death.

Her death now shapes my life.

On Western imperialism.

Remember Iraq.

Mammon, God of the New World Order

has spoken:

Any nation who blasphemes 

against the scriptures

of the Holy Free Market economy

shall find its people scorched by fires

that rain out of the western skies

and the people shall suffer perdition

through all eternity. 

All the world shall see

Mammon's hi-tec retribution.

A couple of personal views.

The Illusion.

How frail we are

how tenuous our hold,

what a strange trick of nature

that we should feel so bold.

To life tied by a silken thread

burning youth,

a new world vows to mould,

oblivious, as fate blindly cuts the thread,

without a sigh,    leaves sweet youth so cold.

Middle age with confidence comes,

experience expands the illusion.

We cover the world in words of wisdom

believing we

lead nature to the right conclusion,

but she with ease, a beauty all her own,

shows our naive plans as utter confusion.

At what age will we realise,

we always pay for our arrogant intrusion.

In old age we accept the fact

our time in nature's span is small.

How rich, life in nature's domain could be

if to foul greed we refuse to fall.

Accept, we as beggars in her presence stand,

man can flourish and grow tall,

act as her lord and master,

she'll cast man aside like a cheap rag doll. 

Buried Treasure.

Rich,    man I'm rich,

this life, this treasure chest of mine,

crammed full.

Those moments of ecstasy with forgotten names,

burning loves that broke the rules,

quiet meetings that burst into flames,

short lived loves

sealed with brittle vows.

Passions that sparkled and flashed

bringing warmth,     even now.

Ruby red anguish that shaped my heart,

diamond friendships this world can't part,

a son that changed this world to gold

adding pride to my treasure chest.

A daughter brought radiance beyond compare,

of precious gems,     they gave the best.

These jewels, these precious stones

this bounty beyond belief

all mine,

outshines a prince's throne.

A couple on the death of my dad.

Ten Years.

It's been ten years since, dad,

do you still remember,

how your coaldust cover body

clawed in that dark abyss

for your share of sixpence

to feed your hungry kids?

I do.

Do you still remember,

how each day you descended into

that dark hell, laid your life

on the line, just to clothe

your family and your wife? 

I do.

Do you still remember,

how throwing crumbs from the window,

with skill the blackie's song you imitated;

settling down with a smile,

the humble comforts of our home appreciated?

I do.

Well dad,

it's been ten years since you died,

I still remember this and much more.

Then I always will ------- for a portrait

of your humble courage

hangs on a wall,

somewhere in my heart.

The Gift.

You promised me Jerusalem

a socialist paradise,

I have world

of greed,

brutality and lies.

You promised me Jerusalem

a land of hope and plenty.

I have a world

of want,

fear and envy.

Still,

from the bottom of my heart

I thank you for your gift,

a precious dream. I thank you dad,

for all your life you tried. 

Just a thought:

The Seasons.

When you look, it's plain to see,

spring has crossed these mountains,

--------------many years before;

kissed their slopes, with shoots of hope,

promised so much more.

Then sweeping in, in a blaze of life,

summer saw the promises bloom,

---------------many years before;

bathed the dreams, in bounteous streams,

birds began to soar.

So with stealth, and deceptive charm,

autumn cooled the gurgling streams,

-----------------many years before;

slowed their pace, to one of grace,

quietly closed a door.

Now with vulgar haste, and callous force,

winter assaults those mighty peaks,

----------------of many years before;

as gathering clouds, spread their shroud,

memories start to pour.  

       I hope my little wander down that bye-way brought something to you, and prodded you mind away, for a while, from our Covid19 plagued and trouble strewn world.

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

Just Anothr Coup.

     We all know or should know, that through the ages, the imperialist powers were no more than bullies. They took what they wanted in the form of riches, resources and territory, from those they could plunder and pillage, and who were in no position to resit the might and corruption of the empire bullies.

     Today nothing has changed except the name of the imperialist power, today the biggest bully on the planet is the U$A. Its power may be slipping on the world stage, but it can still throw its weight around and plunder its less powerful neighbours. Its latest pillaging expedition was in the form of a coup in its backyard in Bolivia. It so happens that Bolivia has one of the world's  largest deposits of that rare mineral Lithium. Its government was developing the lithium and useing it to enrich the country and improve the lives of its citizens, keeping the big dollar boys out of the loop. With U$A trying to capture the electric car market and its need for a cheap supply of that mineral to do so, it then decided to overthrow the elected government of Bolivia, and install a puppet regime that would allow the dollar to develop the lithium to the benefit of the Elon Musk and other corporate bandit residents of the U$A. They feel so powerful and exceptional that they don't even try to conceal the fact that they engineered a coup to plunder the lithium.

        A quote from Elon Musk: "We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”

The following is an extract from Struggle La Lucha:

 Elon Musk with Vice President Mike Pence on May 27, 2020. Photo: WikiCommons

        On July 24, 2020, Tesla’s Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second US “government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people.” Someone responded to Musk soon after, “You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.” Musk then wrote: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
        Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales’ term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivia’s far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina.
       At that time, the “evidence” of fraud was offered by the far right and by a “preliminary report” by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgment by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country.
Lithium Coup
       Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who saw—after centuries of oppression—remarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivia’s wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the US embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019.-----

Read the complete article HERE:

       This is capitalism, this is the rule of wealth and power over the lives of the many by the few. This is the system that condemns millions to deprivation and homelessness. The system of raw power over elected governments, that perpetuates wars for resources and power, this is the cancer that eats at the heart of humanity, destroys justice and crushes freedom.

      For humanity to blossom, freedom to grow and justice to prevail, the cancer that is capitalism must be destroyed, root and branch.

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

Homeless.

        The Covid19 pandemic has many dark strands that will shade many lives for years to come. The shadow that it casts over America stretches across the oceans with the UK in its perimeter.  When money is the basis of your society you can expect the managers of the system to be completely ruthless in the safeguarding of that particular commodity. Wealth and power are paramount health and well-being are secondary. That's the essence of capitalism.

The following from The Conversation:

        The United States is on the verge of a potentially devastating eviction crisis right in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Federal, state and local eviction moratoriums had put most of the pending cases on hold. But as the moratoriums expire and eviction hearings resume, millions of people are at risk of losing their homes.
      That’s because the court process is heavily skewed towards the needs of landlords and offers few protections for tenants – a problem that has been going on for decades, as my ongoing research on the process of evictions shows.
       Early in the pandemic, as states shut down their economies, tens of millions of people lost all or part of their incomes, with poorer Americans suffering the greatest losses.
        Worried about a wave of evictions, the federal government and many cities and states imposed moratoriums in an effort to prevent a crisis. Some states went further and provided financial assistance directly to renters, while Congress provided aid in the form of economic impact checks and enhanced unemployment benefits.
      Financial assistance to tenants is important because landlords have also been hurt by the economic effects of the pandemic. Part of preventing an eviction crisis and maintaining affordable housing means helping tenants pay their rent in order to ensure that landlords can pay their mortgages and other costs.

       All this aid has helped ensure greater financial and housing stability for people affected by COVID-19. But the federal benefits have now expired, and many eviction moratoriums have lapsed or will do so soon. As a result, as many as 26 million people are believed to be at risk of losing their homes in the coming months.
      This comes on top of the many other economic and health effects of the pandemic that have hit low-income Americans – especially women of color who have children – the hardest.
      Unfortunately, not even an extension of the moratoriums or financial assistance alone can solve this problem. Eventually, tenants will have to pay back their landlords and, if they can’t, will have to go to court to avoid losing their homes. In most cases, they’ll lose.

Read the full article HERE:

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

WW3

       I'm no lover of the Russian state or the Chinese state, or any state for that matter, as my rants should indicate, but I do think that we in the "West" are on board an ancient rotting old ship in rough seas, being crewed by a bunch of blind, power crazy psychopaths, and it doesn't bode well for the world at large. We would do well to remember, a wounded dying beast can be very dangerous.
An interesting article from Consortium News:

     “There is a slow-motion Third World War underway between the US-centralized power alliance and the nations like China which have resisted being absorbed into it, and that war is being largely facilitated by propaganda. If one doesn’t wish to become a propagandist themselves, one ought to withhold belief from the stories they are told about the terrible, awful things the unabsorbed nations are doing which require extensive sanctions, subversion and interventionism in response.“ (Caitlin Johnstone)

      I have come independently to the same view as the writer Caitlin Johnstone. We are indeed now in the throes of a Third World War against China and its ally Russia. This war has been started by U.S. and the UK, supported by minor Five Eyes allies Canada and Australia. They have chosen their preferred strategic fighting terrain to be information and sanctions warfare, because they know that on conventional military war-fighting terrain they would be unable even to begin to prevail over Russia and China.
      So this is a war confined to hostile rhetoric, sanctions and subversion. It is fought with words by people like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his obedient American and British acolytes such as U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Labour leader Keir Starmer and a myriad of indoctrinated Western news editors.
     It features continued recycling of old discredited anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda myths like the Skripals, Syria chemical weapons attacks, alleged Uighur genocide, and repression of human rights in Hong Kong.
     Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds have obediently joined in the anti-China push, and are now in Washington receiving face-to-face briefings and instructions from their imperial masters. And they seemed overjoyed to be on the big stage:
      The target audience in this Information War is not the Chinese or Russian people. Our new warriors have long given up trying to influence either nation with their obvious lies. No, the target is us.
     As George Orwell foretold in 1984 : in Oceania’s never-ending, un-winnable wars against Eurasia and Eastasia, the main theatre is propaganda aimed at we citizens of Oceania. We are the gullible recipients of false narratives. Remember the inflammatory newsreels, the five minute hate sessions as Orwell described them? We are there now, in much of our mainstream media produced by stenographers of the empire.
      We are being subjected to constant indoctrination at various levels of subtlety. It is unclear now who are the perpetrators, who are the enablers, and who are the gullible recipients: The white noise of false narratives surrounds us and it becomes harder and harder to disentangle as the volume increases. Dissident voices are efficiently marginalised.
      Russia and China are patiently avoiding being goaded by this new kind of world war started by the West into similar retaliatory actions on their part. They know they enjoy superior strategic deterrence, and are quietly sitting tight on their deterrence assets.
     Meanwhile, they are also sticking calmly to the facts, and choosing the terrain on which they wish to engage physically with Western provocations. As China humiliated India with stones and clubs in the Himalayas it will in its own time find appropriate ways to humiliate U.S. and allied navies’ provocations in the South China Sea.
      Iran humiliated America in its telegraphed non-lethal missile attack on the U.S. base in Iraq, after the U.S. had murdered Iranian General Soleimani in Iraq. Russia safely neutralised Ukraine’s foolish naval provocation at Kerch Bridge in Crimea, thereby sealing President Petro Poroshenko’s political demise a few months later. And so it will continue.
     Australia is backing the wrong horse. We should be standing back from this new Third World War. We need to rediscover the art of diplomacy. Present policies will not end well for the U.S. and its military allies.

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

Disappearing.

The Met Police has announced that it’s rolling out facial recognition cameras across the UK capital in the hopes of tackling ‘serious crime’ Mirror Jan. 24, 2020.

     There is no doubt that we live in the surveillance society, and the means of that surveillance is ever growing with the advances in technology, from face recognition technology to sophisticate drones, you are being watched. Greater detail of you and your movements are being gathered, whether you are aimlessly wandering around your city, on a peaceful protest, picnic or picket, it is all being logged and a profile of you is being built. Perhaps these details will find there way to some advertising agency, but most likely, onto some state register for further use.

     Obviously we would rather not be followed, logged and profiled, without our permission, by some corporate or state body. So disappearing from their myriad of prying eyes is a very desirable aim. So with the increase in drones what steps can we take?

You are being watched over from on-high!

    The following article is from The Conversation:

Law enforcement drone over demonstrators June, 5, 2020, Atlanta.

           Drones of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. As a political sociologist who studies social movements and drones, I document a wide range of nonviolent and pro-social drone uses in my new book, “The Good Drone.” I show that these efforts have the potential to democratize surveillance. But when the Department of Homeland Security redirects large, fixed-wing drones from the U.S.-Mexico border to monitor protests, and when towns experiment with using drones to test people for fevers, it’s time to think about how many eyes are in the sky and how to avoid unwanted aerial surveillance. One way that’s within reach of nearly everyone is learning how to simply disappear from view.
        Over the past decade there’s been an explosion in the public’s use of drones – everyday people with everyday tech doing interesting things. As drones enter already-crowded airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration is struggling to respond. The near future is likely to see even more of these devices in the sky, flown by an ever-growing cast of social, political and economic actors. Public opinion about the use and spread of drones is still up in the air, but burgeoning drone use has sparked numerous efforts to curtail drones. These responses range from public policies exerting community control over local airspace, to the development of sophisticated jamming equipment and tactics for knocking drones out of the sky. From startups to major defense contractors, there is a scramble to deny airspace to drones, to hijack drones digitally, to control drones physically and to shoot drones down. Anti-drone measures range from simple blunt force, 10-gauge shotguns, to the poetic: well-trained hawks. Many of these anti-drone measures are expensive and complicated. Some are illegal. The most affordable – and legal – way to avoid drone technology is hiding.
How to disappear
      The first thing you can do to hide from a drone is to take advantage of the natural and built environment. It’s possible to wait for bad weather, since smaller devices like those used by local police have a hard time flying in high winds, dense fogs and heavy rains. Trees, walls, alcoves and tunnels are more reliable than the weather, and they offer shelter from the high-flying drones used by the Department of Homeland Security.
      The second thing you can do is minimize your digital footprints. It’s smart to avoid using wireless devices like mobile phones or GPS systems, since they have digital signatures that can reveal your location. This is useful for evading drones, but is also important for avoiding other privacy-invading technologies.
     The third thing you can do is confuse a drone. Placing mirrors on the ground, standing over broken glass, and wearing elaborate headgear, machine-readable blankets or sensor-jamming jackets can break up and distort the image a drone sees. Mannequins and other forms of mimicry can confuse both on-board sensors and the analysts charged with monitoring the drone’s video and sensor feeds. Drones equipped with infrared sensors will see right through the mannequin trick, but are confused by tactics that mask the body’s temperature. For example, a space blanket will mask significant amounts of the body’s heat, as will simply hiding in an area that matches the body’s temperature, like a building or sidewalk exhaust vent.
       The fourth, and most practical, thing you can do to protect yourself from drone surveillance is to get a disguise. The growth of mass surveillance has led to an explosion in creative experiments meant to mask one’s identity. But some of the smartest ideas are decidedly old-school and low-tech. Clothing is the first choice, because hats, glasses, masks and scarves go a long way toward scrambling drone-based facial-recognition software. Your gait is as unique as your fingerprint. As gait-recognition software evolves, it will be important to also mask the key pivot points used in identifying the walker. It may be that the best response is affecting a limp, using a minor leg brace or wearing extremely loose clothing. Artists and scientists have taken these approaches a step further, developing a hoodie wrap that’s intended to shield the owner’s heat signature and to scramble facial recognition software, and glasses intended to foil facial recognition systems.
      These innovations are alluring, but umbrellas may prove to be the most ubiquitous and robust tactic in this list. They’re affordable, easy to carry, hard to see around and can be disposed of in a hurry. Plus you can build a high-tech one, if you want.

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

Psychopaths Rule.

       It's common knowledge, or should be, that prisons are institutions of brutality, where violence is arbitrary, justice is varied on a whim, human rights are removed at the will of an individual, physical and psychological health is of little concern to the authorities, control and authority is all that matters. It is the control and authority of individuals who interpret these in their own manner according to their own particular mood or disposition. All this goes on in our towns and cities and we calmly go about our daily business.

    Some prison have a more brutal reputation than others, but a recent report from America, puts Alabama prison system right there at the top of the festering heap of callous brutal savagery that stinks of psychopaths give free rein.

The Alabama Report:

 

      Alabama prisons have used ”cruel and unusual punishment” on inmates by allowing correctional officers to perform routine beatings, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said following an investigation.
      “Our investigation found reasonable cause to believe that there is a pattern or practice of using excessive force against prisoners in Alabama’s prisons for men,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the department’s Civil Rights Division said.
     An investigation of 13 Alabama prisons found that 12 of them had correctional officers using excessive, and sometimes deadly, force on inmates that violated their Constitutional rights.
       Excessive force by corrections officers included the use of batons, chemical spray, and physical beatings involving kicking prisoners, which often resulted in serious injuries. Two Alabama prisoners died from excessive force incidents in the last months of 2019 alone.
       In one fatal incident in October 2019, “the level of force used caused the prisoner to sustain multiple fractures to his skull, including near his nose, both eye sockets, left ear, left cheekbone, and the base of his skull, many of which caused extensive bleeding in multiple parts of his brain,” according to the DOJ.
       The 28-page report released on Thursday highlighted multiple instances of officers using excessive force on inmates, with some of those times including when there was no physical threat to the employees' safety. The report also found officers would “use force as a form of retribution and for the sole purpose of inflicting pain".
     One instance stated how an officer “brutally hit, kicked and struck a handcuffed prisoner” in a medical unit while calling himself the “reaper of death”. The prisoner reportedly “begged for the officer to kill him”, according to four nurses who witnessed the incident.
      Low staffing and overcrowding in Alabama prisons was credited in the report as a trigger for officers to become “tired, stressed, overworked and angry”.
     “After carefully reviewing the evidence, we conclude that there is reasonable cause to believe that conditions in Alabama’s prisons violate the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution and that these violations are pursuant to a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of rights protected by the Eighth Amendment. Specifically, we have reasonable cause to believe that the correctional officers within the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) frequently use excessive force on prisoners housed in Alabama’s prisons for men. Such violations are pursuant to a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of rights secured by the Eighth Amendment,” the DOJ said Thursday in a letter to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey.
       This report comes as the DOJ first started looking into the Alabama prison system starting in 2016. The department already found that the prison system was “deliberately indifferent” to prisoner-on-prisoner attacks on sexual abuse. Investigations also found officials failed to maintain facilities that were “sanitary, safe, or secure”.
    “Ultimately, Alabama does not properly prevent and address unconstitutional uses of force in its prisons, fostering a culture where unlawful uses of force are common,” the most recent report stated.
     Ms Ivey said in a statement that her administration was hopeful they could reach a resolution to all the department’s allegations.
      “I am as committed as ever to improving prison safety through necessary infrastructure investment, increased correctional staffing, comprehensive mental-health care services, and effective rehabilitation programs, among other items,” the governor said.

      So the governor said, and we heard Bla bla bla bla! Prisons must crumble to dust for freedom and justice to flower.

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

Same Again?

        Capitalism, fascism, it's an easy switch for any capitalist government, they are just slight variations on the same theme. 2008, the capitalist system had blown its lot on a mad gambling spree, suddenly the state is the corporate banker and starts to throw money at the corporate gamblers to help them survive their losses. All of this of course comes from the public purse, so we pick up the tab in the shape of years of austerity. Move forward to 2020, and we have Covid19 bringing havoc to the capitalist world of shareholders, once again the state becomes the corporate banker and throws billions to shore up the shareholders empire. Once again, we the public will pick up the tab, with the cash bonus to the corporate club being much larger than the previous, the austerity when it hits, will be even more brutal than the last time round. 

      The so called "welfare state" is just a temporary measure, a sort of paracetamol for the public, to make them feel a little bit better. It can, of course, and has been, quickly dismantled, if the corporate world needs a hand out. As has been proven in the past, and will be again, when the bills start arriving for all those billions that the state flung at the corporate shareholders.
We should note, fascism doesn't need to arrive with jackboots, it can arrive in expensive suits and limousines.

      The following is a short extract from an article in Acorn Winter Oak, about the rise of Mussolini in Italy, Nothing has really changed, we have allowed history to repeat and repeat itself, and we, the general public, bear the brunt each time. Perhaps this time round we will get the picture and bring this stinking system crashing down.

    ---After 1925, in the face of economic crisis, the pure economic liberalism of the Manchester School went out of the window, in favour of state intervention.
       But this was intervention in the interests of business and Capital, not in the interests of the Italian people whom fascism mendaciously claimed to represent!
      ‘Development’ was at the forefront of fascist plans, as is the case with all industrial capitalists. More land was cultivated and an infrastructure of roads, new towns and industrial estates was built.
       “A vast programme of public works was undertaken, carried out by private firms, who were offered lucrative contracts by the State. Electrification of the rail system began, with the construction of tunnels on the Rome-Naples and Bologna-Florence lines. A massive road building programme was entrusted to ANAS (Azienda Nazionale Autonoma delle Strade), created in 1928, which oversaw the showcase construction of big toll motorways, the first in Europe”.  This was nothing other than a bailing-out of the capitalist economy by the pro-business fascist state, for which the cost would ultimately have to be borne by the public.
Ring any bells in 2020?
       Banks were also treated to fascist largesse, notably BCI, saved by the Italian state with a massive influx of money.
        Note the authors: “There was neither socialisation nor nationalisation. The State became capitalist; it guaranteed the property of most of the shareholders and their future dividends. The only socialisation was that of the losses, assumed by the public purse”.---

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

Open Prison.

      We should have learned by now that in this manipulative system the state doesn’t always need physical constraints, a conditioned mind is prison bars enough, to make the individual feel they are free and part of a free and normal society. To the conditioned mind the prison walls are invisible, the illusion of freedom appears so real it is accepted. To keep the illusion alive, the system has its prison warders in the shape of the education system, the media, corporate advertising and state propaganda, that is usually enough to keep the majority of the population reasonably content in their illusion of freedom, and to shape their needs and desires. For those who don't accept this illusion of freedom, then there is always the more brutal loaded judicial system and prison cages of repression.
     We have in most cases willingly assisted in our own enslavement by the embracing modern technology. Not that the technology itself is inherently enslaving, but our acceptance of the belief that the corporate world’s control and development of such technology is progress. Progress, an ambiguous word that can conceal an illusion. Technology has bound us to the owners and developers of that technology. One example, in the not too distant past, games were usually very simple and also very enjoyable. All they required was a ball, a couple of sticks, something to throw, a bat etc. nothing complicated, but enjoyed my millions across the planet. Today games are complicated apparatus that we could never make on our own, to enjoy the new “games” we have to put ourselves in the hands of the corporate bodies that own and control that technology, and with their dictate of progress they will be outdated and you will need to buy into the new and much more sophisticated model. You are on the technology gravy train, not as an enjoyer of the gravy, but as the producer of the gravy, for the few in control to lap up.
     As long as growth is seen as progress, increase in consumption will be necessary, and the powers that be will devise, through their usual conditioning endeavours, ways and means to put new and costly products as symbols of happiness, success and status. A quote from Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, encapsulates that line of thought. When asked why are the works of William Shakespeare are banned, the controller replies, ‘Because it’s old; that’s the chief reason. We haven’t any use for old things here’. ‘Even when they’re beautiful?’. ‘Particularly when they’re beautiful. Beauty’s attractive, and we don’t want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones’”. I think Huxley has thrown us a warning there, as did Orwell, we ignore them at our peril.

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

Every Lidl Helps.

          Those large sprawling supermarkets, are they as innocent as the seem? Where ever they open their mammoth consumer machines, local businesses close and local producers suffer. Food is grown in massive agribusinesses usually useing cheap labour, it is packaged and transported thousands of miles, polluting the planet, for no other reason than to monopolise the food chain and create massive profits for the parasite class. They are part and parcel of the corporate capitalist movement to turn our towns and cities into money making consumer munching plots. 

         Following article from Act For Freedom Now:

Received on 23/7/20
     In the night of July 23rd we spayed slogans in solidarity to the squats Liebig34 and Rigaer94 in Berlin on the LIDL supermarket in Neos Cosmos / Athens. After we destroyed all windows with hammers.
     Every eviction has its price. This is a message do all responsibles for the aggressive gentrification of many european cities, which allways goes on with the eviction of squats, the state terror against the radical movement and the rising of rents. We noticed the eviction thread against Liebig34 in Berlin and the attack by so called owners and their companies together with the cops against Rigaer94. With the eviction of Dervenion56 in Exarchia the government of ND continious its operations against the combative and solidarity resistance, which we allways will be – with squats or without.
     One of many answers to an evicted squat is the destrucion of a consuming symbol the capitalist system offers to the inmates of the prisons called Metropolis. To support the struggle of our comrades in Berlin we found a german company, but it can be also real estate agencies or luxury cars or tourism.
    The LIDL supermarkt chain was targeted allready some time ago in Germany because of its bad working conditions for their employees. This action is a solidarity offer to this aggressive campain against the working contitions in LIDL WORLDWIDE. 8 to 10 hours per day with a fake smile for pity money, sitting in front of hundreds of products, in a cashier, becoming a robot which just counts and counts. Or lifting big weights destroying your back. Why all these? Which is the role of supermarkets ?
      Supermarket are big financial mechanisms which seem very innocent to the majority of the people. The truth is, they are not.
Colonilization
      Supermarket are colonilizing the economies of local societies in all the earth. All the small markets, grocery stores and other kind of shops are shutting down whenever a new supermarket is opening. There is no need for a new supermarket in most of the areas, its just matter of expanding and absorbing. Also, is reducing the use of local products and producers. Slowly slowly, the residents of an area are becoming workers, mainly women, of this industry, losing all their indepentace (even in liberal terms)
Anti-ecological
     The opening of chain supermarkets, local or multinational, is also increasing importing of products. This is happening because the production companies are exploiting people in a cheaper way in other countries, or because they make better offers to a multinational company because of the massive consumation. What is happening at the end is a big consumption of petroil by the ships to transfer products all around the world. The paradox of capitalism, the fact that a product from 2000 miles far is cheaper than the local, is killing faster the nature.
Food Control
     All these brings us to the bigger problem. Supermarkets are the greatest tool for multinational food companies to takeover all of our nutrition process. We eat shit, we don‘t produce anything, we need money to buy everything, we need to work for them for ever to be able to buy them and cure our selves from the sickness their food is creating
Do we smash supermarket?
    Yes we do. But we have to know that most of the people will not understand why. So we must do more propaganda against this mechanism. And for sure it is better to smash without people being inside. Our target is to spread fear to the side of the bosses not to the side of the random population. But if somebody break a supermarket with people inside without putting someone in danger, its okay, we can overpass it.
       Solidarity to Liebig34 and Rigaer 94
We hit the german interests in solidarity with the resistance in the german controlled territory
       Solidarity to Dervenion 56 and all the evicted and the still resisting squats in Greece
Support to the workers that suffer in the food and product industry worldwide

source Greek original text: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1606472/

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Another Lie.

        Look at the image carefully, look closely at the names and the business empires that they are associated with and ask yourself, "Are these the people and bodies that we can trust to take care of the planet?". The very same group that has and is destroying the planet for nothing more than greed for profit. The same corporate bodies that are ever looking for new ways and means of increasing their wealth and power irrespective of the cost to planet and people.

        These are the groups that are tasked with creating "Protected Areas" and the "New Deal For Nature". Surely history tells us something, and the history of this gang of ruthless thugs are hardly likely to in any way jeopardise their flow of greed driven profits. The very fact that this bunch of robbing vandals are collected in one organisation should have us running to join protest groups across the planet. New Deal For Nature is just another one of those big fat lies dressed up in a green disguise, capitalists are not planet savers, they are planet destroyers.

The following is an extract from another interesting article in ACORN:

     Protecting the environment has surely got to be A Good Thing.
     Creating “protected areas” for nature in various parts of the world might therefore seem to be a positive move.
     However, when these areas are being promoted by the same capitalist system which brought nature to her knees in the first place, the alarm lights start flashing!
       Protected Areas” are in fact one aspect of the global capitalist scam being sold to us under the label of the ‘New Deal for Nature’.
     Because, in typical capitalist style, this scam has been wrapped up in shiny green packaging and promoted by the well-known WWF, the New Deal for Nature initially attracted little opposition.
      But in recent weeks, thanks to the truth-spreading efforts of the No Deal for Nature campaign and its supporters, support has been slipping away.
     The human rights charity Survival International has been doing a great job of blowing the whistle on what is nothing other than a new phase of industrial capitalist imperialism, aiming to displace indigenous peoples and further exploit Mother Nature for the profit of the usual tiny and greedy elite.
   Warns Survival director Stephen Corry: “The latest idea to be heavily promoted by big conservation NGOs is doubling the world’s so-called ‘Protected Areas’ (PAs) so that they cover thirty percent of the globe’s lands and oceans.
    “This is now their main rallying cry and response to two of the world’s biggest problems — climate chaos and loss of biodiversity.
     “It’s a marketing gimmick designed to funnel even more money to those who have for decades demonstrated their failure to mitigate either climate change or biodiversity loss.
    “Many PAs aren’t really protected at all. They include industrial exploitation — mining, logging, plantations, trophy hunting concessions, or extensive, usually high-end, tourist infrastructure.
      “The locals are thrown out as the land is grabbed by one or other industry, partnering with one or other big conservation NGO.
     “It’s a new colonialism, the world’s biggest land grab, supposedly ‘green’ and supposedly to save the world — a really big lie. As Odette, a Baka woman from Congo, says of such imposed conservation projects which don’t work, ‘We’ve had enough of this talk of ‘boundaries’ in the forest. The forest is ours’.”
     The alert is also being sounded via the World Rainforest Movement, notably in a statement entitled “Protected Areas feed corporate profiting and destruction”.

 Read the full article HERE:

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Their Rules.

       Today, more than ever it is blatantly obvious that freedom is born of struggle, it can never be a gift from some high and mighty authority. The riots and mass protests on the streets of country after country across the world, are testament to this need for struggle to gain our freedom. The following is a wee compilation of a couple of wee articles I wrote some three years ago, what they say may have been obvious back then, but now I believe what they say is irrefutable as the states across the planet create more and more surveillance and militarised policing, and come down harder and harder on those who would dare to protest the state's authority.

        It should be obvious to any observer of the present economic system that rules this world, that it can't be reformed. Capitalism can't be converted into a caring compassionate, system that sees to the needs of all our people. Its basis is self gain based on the exploitation of others, others are there to be profited from, not cared for. So running to a ballot box putting down your mark, against a chosen party disciple, will not bring about the compassionate capitalism you hope for, nor will petitioning the political ballerinas that hold the reins of power because of that ballot paper.
        The creation of that better world for all, must take place outside the rules of capitalism, and outside the legislation of the capitalist minders, the state. The change has to happen among the people, by the people, in their communities and workplaces, in spite of, and in opposition to, the structures created by this enslaving economic system. We have no rules, we create structures and strategies as we develop, our needs will determine the shape of our new society, after we have built a bonfire of all the rules and legislations that bind us as units of profit, and as subservient units of the state.
     Those who confront the injustices of this greed driven capitalist system, openly and head on, often pay a high price. For some the price is their life, others it is being locked up in the various states' cages of repression. All deserve our unending solidarity, if our aim is to build a world of fairness for all our people. The state will not relinquish its authoritarian power willing, it will never offer the people freedom, it will not fade away quietly. It will fiercely attempt to crush all and any flowering of freedom and self determination, it can only survive by our subservience, our freedom and justice can only blossom from its ruins.

       Today's rule book was written by the enemies of freedom, we must tear it up and burn it along with all the other structures of the capitalist system.

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Scream!

        This pandemic has slowed down our work at Spirit of Revolt, but we are still doing what we can, We have just completed our first virtual Show and Tell outreach event, and it proved to be a success. We were privileged in having anarchist, writer, historian, Máirtín Ó Catháin, as speaker followed by a discussion, question and answer session. The subject matter was Belfast, Glasgow anarchism. The video of this event will soon be available on our website, so keep popping in to have a look.

     We are also still able to post our "Read of the Month". So, July "Read of the Month" is a little known news-sheet from our Bratach Dubh Collection called Scream!: A voice of the youth movement. Youth Information Network. issue 1.   

      Today more than ever we need to communicate with youth in our society, there has to be a dialogue between the generations, each learning form the other and adding to our sum total of knowledge and desires, to take on the struggles that we are facing in the coming months and beyond.  The young will probably be he hardest hit in the new “normal” that we are about to face. Solidarity between the generations is the only weapon that can bring us success.

Read on line and other options:

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Health Or Profit.

      We are all aware that in this capitalist economic system, profit will always be worth more than human health and well being. This has been the pattern through the years, industries come with dreadful health problems for the workers and in lots of cases for the public living around those industries, it should be labelled, murder for profit. The fight to clean them up and protect workers and the public at large is always long, and is not always successful. Today we are still suffering dreadful health problems because the system still puts profit before the health and well-being of the people. To remedy this situation for once and for all, we have to remove the source of the problem, the capitalist system and its never ending greed for profit at any cost.

Industrial diseases 1:
The following from Act For Freedom Now: 

     Mpeos AGET and government officials, all the bastards are working together
    For years now the city of Volos stinks of melted plastic. The percentage of cancer and cardio-respiratory problems keeps rising. The people of Volos have demanded a stop to the burning of garbage and the degradation of our lives in mass demonstrations and protests.
      Local authorities (municipal & regional) not only do not share the citizens’ demands but try by all means to increase profitability for the multinationals to the detriment of society and nature.
       On June 13 the authorities using their dogs tried to suppress the movement against the burning/processing of garbage with brutal violence, gases and beatings while already set-up prosecutions followed, non-typical investigations in homes and workplaces. The culmination of their repressive attack was the extreme lynching and torture of our friend and comrade Vassilis Maggos. Following the untimely death of Vassilis, our limits have long been surpassed!
In the early hours of Thursday and Friday 17/07/2020 we attacked the building of the Regional Centre of Magnesia with axe and fire, lighting up a little the dark summer night and disrupting the peace of uniformed -or not- State dogs. It was a sample, a minimal form of counter-violence against the policies practiced by municipal and regional authorities, a small reminder that we are moving around at night ready for everything!
An answer to police and judicial arbitrariness!

Even if we may never win, we will always fight!

Vassilis Maggos Presente!

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