The Message.

        It's that time of year again, when lots of people go merry, till bells are ringing, bankers are singing, and the turkeys try to run free. It is also the time of year when our "Monarch" hereditary head of state in a democracy, (contradiction there somewhere) gives her Christmas message. Now what can an extremely rich, privileged, pampered old woman, who holds that position because of who her dad was, say to ordinary hard working and struggling people? She will of course refer too "My government", which is actually a true reflection of what our democracy is, a collection of her pampered and privileged friends and acquaintances. She is referred to as really just a figure head, but one whose stamp of approval must appear on all and sundry regarding the state and its affairs.
        Apart from living off the state, tax payers money, Lizzie Windsor owns some extremely valuable assets with large incomes. Almost half of the shore line of England, Wales and Northern Ireland is owned by the crown estate. Six royal residences dotted around the country, approximately 150,000 works of art, many said to be priceless, and a team of very expensive winning race horses. Other little gems that she possesses, include a car collection stated to be worth around £10 million, a very large collection of Faberge art works, the British sea bed, Regent Street in London, Westminster Abbey and Hyde Park. You can throw in some other little pieces to see she doesn't go hungry in these hard times, such as, for what it is worth, all the gold mines in Scotland, the world's largest clear-cut diamond, 25 acres of forest, the UK continental shelf, an off shore wind farm, while at the same time her family are doing their bit for the UK arms industry.

 

       The British establishment and royalty know that arms are good investments; especially shells, bombs and cruise missiles that are tipped with depleted uranium. Air, water and soil are contaminated when DU is used, and once contaminated there is no way to decontaminate it. Contaminating the food chain is a crime against humanity for which the Royal Family is complicit, as it was (with the help of Tiny Rowland) in the asset stripping of Africa.

 

        Referring to her as a figurehead, is the smoke and mirrors of her class. The royal family is there as a gigantic monument to British imperialism, a display of pomp, wealth and power, to let you know your place, if you ain't got diamonds and ermine you're not one of them, you are a minion in their service, it's saying, "don't mess with us, we've got lots of wealth and power." God doesn't need to save the queen, we the UK tax payers do that.

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Whose Money?

  

 

       Since the start of this pandemic, I have always stated that it was an ideal opportunity for the state to re-capitalise the failing capitalist economic system. Since the beginning of the Covid19 affair, the various states across the world have poured trillions of dollars/pounds etc into the coffers of the corporate beast that is destroying the planet. Before the pandemic, all the indicators were that capitalism was in dire straights, and was heading for a colossal slump, unless they could re-capitalise it to a massive scale. The bailout needed would dwarf the 2008 taxpayers handout to the financial mafia, and we all know the years of austerity that little exercise cost the ordinary people. Glory hallelujah, along comes Mr Covid, and the propaganda machine convinces us all that we have to save the economy, to save your jobs of course, nothing to do with corporate profits etc. Open the flood gates flood the corporate world with all sorts of grants, special funding and lots of dodgy contracts. Where will all that money end up, and who will pick up the tab when the financial mafia send the debt collectors to various states to demand their loaned loot back? Why, you and I of course will be expected to foot the bill, by then the billionaire class will have salted their share away in some nice little tax haven.
        We continually pay for the privileges and welfare of the richest people on the planet by our poverty, crap wages, poor working conditions, lousy living conditions, broken education system and inadequate health and social welfare systems. This time round most have not only willing accepted this but have asked and encouraged the state to do so, to protect the economy and "our jobs" of course. What a wonderful state of affairs for the pampered, privileged parasite class, no doubt they'll all sit back with a smug look of satisfaction, for once again they have shafted the general public, plundered the public purse, and got away with it. For how much longer will we tolerate this two fingers to the people.

 

       The total net worth of the nation’s 651 billionaires rose from $2.95 trillion on March 18—the rough start of the pandemic shutdowns—to $4.01 trillion on Dec. 7, a leap of 36%, based on Forbes billionaires, according to a new report by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). By around March 18 most federal and state economic restrictions in response to the virus were in place. Combined, just the top 10 billionaires are now worth more than $1 trillion.

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Whose Wars?

       Isn't in strange that we in the West are always the good guys, and those others are the bad guys, we always do the right an honourable thing, while they always do heinous and nasty things. What a wonderful position to be in, always righteous, fair and compassionate. Well that's the propaganda that is spewed out over us on an hourly basis, and I suppose it is the same in those other patches on the planet that we vilify. All attempting to engender that poison called patriotism, and it is never for the benefit of the general population of either side.
      It's all about power, wealth and privilege of the parasite class on either side of the divide, a divide that doesn't or shouldn't exist between the ordinary people from either side. We don't, or shouldn't, seek power and privilege, we seek, or should seek, justice and peace among all our people, no nation, no borders, just one world of people. Wars are never fought with the benefit of the people in mind, nor do the ordinary people ever gain from any war, we shed the blood, the powerful and privileged pick up the spoils, riches from blood and death. It doesn't have to be that way.

A message from John Pilger...

"Why are we living with the threat of world war? Russia, a nuclear power, is encircled by America and Europe; China, a nuclear power, is the brunt of unrelenting provocation.  Why do we in the West allow this? The answer lies in one word: propaganda. In the West, our propaganda industries - both political and cultural - rarely ask us to look in the mirror. Stop the War performs this vital task and deserves our support. Join me at Artists Against War on Friday."

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It's Law!!

         The Greek state shows how to use Covid19 to control public protests and demonstrations. Since 2008 after the murder of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer, the people of Greece have marked his cold bloody murder by mass gatherings, and march to the place where the police officer cold bloodedly gun down the 15 year old teenager. This year the state uses the pandemic to stop this annual commemoration of a child murder. A massive police presence surrounded the memorial to his shooting. This was a mass gathering of heavily armed police formed to stop a mass gathering of unarmed people. The people of Greece have shown in the past that they can hold mass gatherings while keeping social distancing, but the state was more interested in putting a stop to this annual remembrance of a police killing than anything to do with the pandemic. This is a repeat of the police violence launched against the annual march and demonstration marking the 1973 student uprising that eventually lead to the overthrow of the Greek Military junta.

         The state will do all in its power to quash any thought of marking events against authority, this pandemic has given them carte blanche in dealing with public protests. It is a right we relinquish at our peril. No doubt state's across the globe will do likewise drawing on the "emergency" laws to stop the spread of Covid19, to stop mass public gatherings and protests. All for your own good of course.

       Police in Greece’s capital have detained dozens of people who defied a coronavirus-related ban to take part in the annual commemoration of the fatal shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a police officer in 2008.
        Some 4,000 police officers were deployed on Sunday to prevent gatherings and will continue to do so until the early hours of Monday. 

Protesters shout slogans after being detained in Athens during a rally marking the killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos 12 years ago [Yorgos Karahalis/AP Photo]

        Footage posted online showed riot police on Sunday afternoon entering apartment buildings in Exarcheia, a neighbourhood in central Athens, to flush out would-be protesters. One video showed officers throwing stun grenades inside a building. Another clip showed police pushing photojournalists and other accredited members of the media. 

A picture of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, right, at an impromptu shrine at the site of the fatal shooting in Athens 12 years ago [File: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP Photo]

       

         The scenes reminded the heavy-handed tactics adopted by police last month when they violently broke up a peaceful rally commemorating a 1973 student uprising against Greece’s then-military rulers.

The following from AA:

        Over 100 people have been detained in Greece’s capital who gathered to mark the 12th anniversary of police killing of a 15-year-old boy on Sunday, local media reported. Tension rose as police tried to disperse demonstrators that gathered in central Athens where the shooting took place, according to Athens-Macedonian News Agency.

      The government had announced a ban on public gatherings of more than three people as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Some protesters tried to hold banners, but where stopped by the police.
       Meanwhile, the Greek police said five policemen were injured following a mob attack outside the police station of Kolonos, a northwest suburb of Athens, on Saturday.  Nearly 80 people had been arrested, they said.
      "Yesterday, on December 5, 2020 afternoon, nearly 80 people, with covered faces, wearing helmets and full-face hoods, tried to approach and attack the Kolonos police station," the police said.

 

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Submission.

          This covid19 pandemic has certainly changed the way we live our lives, the state has seized full control of all aspects of our lives. When we can go out, where we can go, and who we can meet, all enforced by law, true aspects of a dictatorship, a living model of fascism. It's handed out as the only road available, and most people have accepted it. Perhaps out of fear, confusion, or a desire to protect their loved ones, the propaganda certainly attempted to mould people's minds in that direction. I too accepted it but with the never disappearing thought that this was all wrong, there was an alternative, but the state, as should have been expected, went for the total control method, rather than a community based series of answers. The state more or less abandoned any semblance of "parliamentary democracy" and ruled by decree and dictate.
          The mould has been set, the model is working, the population is submissive, the state can now move on from there, holding onto that now conditioned population that await the next directive, the next set of instructions. This is a very high price to pay, when there were alternative ways that didn't erase what little freedoms we had, we could have organised our communities to take control in conjunction with other communities, advised by the best medical and disease experts we have. The political ballerinas should have been taken out of this equation, it is a medical emergency, not a political emergency. The state is not your doctor, nor never will be, it is your controller, your gaoler, the guardian of their sacred economy.
       We now face a very difficult struggle, to get the state to relinquish that control over us that it has always sought, and has now grasped by propaganda and decree. The following article may be from Italy, but the similarities to our own little patch of the planet, are obvious for all to see.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

 

       Health, yes sir!

    No people will readily submit to authority, however docile they may be by nature and however accustomed they may have grown to obeying it. Therefore it requires constant coercion and compulsion, meaning police surveillance and military force. Michail Bakunin

 

         If it is true that language creates the world in which we live and helps to understand it, then what is being prepared is a terrible world, as terrible as a world where militarism – and consequently war – are the predominant aspects can be. If the continuation of a state of emergency that carries on from decree to decree, and is tending to become permanent was not enough, now the government curfew has arrived.
        The history of this word clearly recalls tragic scenarios, normally used in contexts of war or dictatorship; in both cases the repressive role carried out by the military is obvious. What is happening is exactly this, a repressive upsurge limiting personal freedoms in an increasingly militaristic way.
         After militarizing our minds with months of propaganda, during which they bombarded us with slogans such as “we are at war” against an “invisible enemy”, now militarism is gaining ground in its most classic physical version. If it has been visibly present in the big cities for several years with the pretext of “Safe streets”, it is now materializing in all the most remote corners of the Peninsula, such as what is happening in Taurisano, province of Lecce, under the pretext of the high percentage of the population testing positive to Covid, with the very real prospect of deploying the army to prevent gatherings and control possible demonstrations in the streets. And if, as is the case of Taurisano, they present themselves in a more reassuring guise with white coats worn over brutal combat gear, this must not reassure us, but rather make us reflect on the role of science – medical but not only – and its increasingly close relation with militarism, war and repression. With its role of government, in fact, government meaning control and the submission of the population.
       It is certainly not by chance that since the Covid epidemic struck Italy, Political decisions have always been subordinated to a Committee of scientists: the Comitato Tecnico Scientifico [technical scientific committee], which includes councillors of arms factories such as Leonardo – Finmeccanica among among its members. These are the same scientists who are carrying out projects of death in a vast number of Italian universities, guess what, also in ever closer contact with the army, through various collaborations.
         The militarization of not just our minds and our lives but the whole of this society is becoming more and more visible therefore.
           But when the life they have in store for us is militarism, therefore war, the first steps to stand up to it are desertion and resistance, so as not to be labelled collaborationists at least.
salut-DEF

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Strike.

         In this capitalist cesspool of inequality and injustice the workers often take strike action to try and redress some of those injustices and inequalities, and it's not easy. To take strike action in this capitalist system of exploitation, often means that when you stop working, you stop eating and so does your family. So strike action is always difficult to organise and sustain. Over the years we have seen some very large strikes and some small very determined strikes, there have been great victories and some defeats, but the strike action is still one of the best weapons in the armoury of the ordinary working people in defence of their conditions and to try to improve those condition. However it is also one of the necessary weapons if we want to change the system to one of fairness that frees us from the exploitation of that privileged pampered parasite class, and in so doing creates that society that sees to the needs of all our people.
      While this struggle against exploitation and corruption has involved many strikes, and lots ending in savage brutality, handed out by the bosses minders, the state, our planet has never seen a strike of the magnitude of what is happening in that patch of the world called India. An estimated 250 million, yes million, ordinary people have taken a unified strike action. They are taking a stand not only against their working conditions, but the gross corruption of the Indian government and the corporate bodies that get rich on the exploitation of poverty.
      Now is the time to show our support from across the world, for this unprecedented unified action by ordinary people. Their struggle is our struggle, we all live under a unified corporate monster that is backed to the hilt by rich, corrupt politicians. These two entities are well organised and unified in their determination to continually enhance their power and wealth on the backs of the ordinary people. We should take a leaf from their book and be unified and organised world wide, it is one struggle, one battle for one world, shaped by us the ordinary people.

 The following from The News:

      The Indian working class has once again flexed its muscle and organised a general strike of more than 250 million workers against the anti-workers, anti- people and anti-farmers policies of the rightwing Modi government.
       All efforts to intimidate and repress the workers failed to stop this general strike from taking place. Despite repression, this joint general strike by workers and farmers has almost shut down India. This massive day of action was called by 10 trade unions and over 250 farmers’ organisations, and was accompanied by massive protests and a near total shutdown of some Indian states.
       Workers in nearly all of India’s major industries – including steel, coal, telecommunications, engineering, transportation, ports, and banking – joined the strike. Students, domestic workers, taxi drivers, and other sectors also participated in the nationwide day of action. These historic protests illustrate the power of workers and farmers to bring a nation’s economy to a complete standstill when united in defence of their rights.

Also this from Jacobinmag:

     Even more importantly, the general strike converged with a march launched by a broad group of farmers’ organizations, all planning to descend on the capital of Delhi. Social media was suddenly awash with images of farmers using tractors and trucks to break down the barriers erected by police to keep them out of the city. In one video, a protester emphatically explained to a policeman at the barricades that “this is a revolution, sir.”

 And from Wikipedia:

       On 26 November 2020, a mass general strike was held across India. The strike was organized by 10 trade unions across the country and was supported by the Indian National Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist), and other left-wing parties.[1][2][3] An estimated 250 million (25 crore) people took part in the strike,[4][5] which Jacobin estimated as the largest in history.[6] The strike was followed by a march to New Delhi, which arrived there on 30 November with tens of thousands of farmers surrounding Delhi,[7] increasing to hundreds of thousands by 3 December.[8]

And from Industriall Union:

       Trade union leaders expressed concerns that, using Covid-19 as an excuse, the government has unleashed widescale repression. Police used violent means to attempt to stop hundreds of thousands of workers and farmers who are on their way to Delhi to demonstrate peacefully in the capital city on 26 and 27 November.

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No Photos!!

          For as long as we have had police, we have had police violence, it's nothing new, it's just that the public are now more able to record it, and spread far and wide, photos and videos of that violence. This in turn raises the public anger and leads to much larger protests against this whole rotten system. The powers that be, who have no intentions of curbing that violence against the public, are looking around of ways and means of stopping the spread of the images.
        France has come up with what it believes is a great idea, make it illegal to film/photograph police on duty. Certainly a great idea to blind the public to the truth, but hardly a democratic and fair way to deal with the situation of police violence. Of course the good people of France are not idiots and can see through this autocratic measure to curtail, even more, what freedoms they have.
        So for weeks now the people from that patch on the planet, have been taking to the streets in their thousands and facing off the violent police. They know of the violence, the feel the violence on a daily basis, and they are determined that it will be recorded and made public.
       This new law does not just hamstring the general public, but obviously journalist, and observers are also covered by this, nothing short of, fascist law. It is always the only direction states can take, greater restrictions on the public, greater control of the public, a subservient public is necessary for the state's survival. That's why it is important for us not to be submissive, not to yield their desire to strangle the public from thinking for themselves, we must continually circulate what we consider important, and take what action we think is necessary, to right the wrongs in society.

A demonstrator in Paris holds an umbrella and a sign reading: "For your safety you will have no more freedoms". [Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters]
 

            Thousands of people across France have protested against a proposed security bill that would make it more difficult to film police officers. Media freedom and human rights groups have led protests for weeks to have the government scrap or revise a bill that would restrict the filming of police, saying it would make it harder to prosecute cases of abuse.
       The interior ministry said about 52,350 people demonstrated around France, including 5,000 in Paris. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said at least 64 people had been arrested across the country and eight police officers were injured. In the western city of Nantes, two riot police were injured, one of them with a Molotov cocktail, French media reported. In a tweet, Darmanin praised the police for facing down “very violent individuals”.
        In the capital Paris, protesters on Saturday set fire to several cars, pillaged a bank and tossed objects at police – the second consecutive weekend of violent protests against the draft bill. French police had been deployed to avert trouble after violent clashes erupted during the demonstration in Paris a week ago that saw dozens wounded. The new clashes came after Macron gave a much-anticipated interview on Friday to Brut, a video-based news portal aimed at young people.

Read the full article HERE: 

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Alexis.

 

  

     Across the world on a regular basis, there are mass protests against police violence, it is common practice to hear of police brutality, and racism plays a large part in their acts of violence. However it is not always racism at the root of this police violence, it is part and parcel of their training, restrain, be forceful, intimidate etc., and of course that feeling that they are the law, and above reproach. It was not racism that ended the life of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos, it was police callous brutal arrogance.

Alexis Grigoropoulos, youth murder by police officer.

       Today, December 6th. 2020, marks the 12th anniversary of the murder of 15 year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a Greek police officer. It was a Saturday evening and two teenagers are out in Exracheia Athens, having a coffee, a chat, a laugh, a police car passes, and according to who you read, the police officers came back on foot, there were words the police officer fires two bullets and young Alexis falls to the ground and dies on the street in the arms of his teenage friend Nikos Romanos. The police officer claimed that he fired his gun in the air to scare the boy and teach him a lesson, but those two “warning shots” ended the life of a teenager.

Nikos Romanos being arrested years after police murdered of his friend Alexis.

             This brutal unnecessary killing of of a youth by the state's henchmen, brought a hurricane of mass protests across Greece, that lasted for months, and rightly so. Each year since, in Athens and other cities across Greece, people remember this brutal killing of a youth, and mark it with mass protests.

       Epaminondas Korkoneas, the Greek cop who murdered young Alexis Grigoropoulos, was released from prison July 2019. His release follows a verdict of an appeals court in Lamia, central Greece. The court upheld the conviction of Korkoneas for the deadly shooting of Alexis Grigoropoulos, but reduced his sentence from life to 13 years in prison. He was released after serving the most of the reduced sentence. He is not a subject to a parole or any other restriction. Let's not forget, that it was the system that killed young Alexis, a system of authority, governance and control, a hierarchical system of power.

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Tinsel.

        There is a pattern on a globe floating around in the milky way, and it is a macabre picture of poverty, destitution, wars, inequality, and injustice, the main species on that globe is engaged in a suicidal war with it's ecosystems. Some are forming groups and rebelling against this insane, self inflicted bloodfest, while those in power lash out with savagery at those who dare to break the pattern. I just sit in my wee bubble and despair, so turn and look the other way, and think of verse.

 Tinsel Cities.

In the city of tinsel and bright lights
midst the playthings of the rich
just beyond the champagne bubble
out of earshot of the butterfly people
in the dark shadows where no one looks
there you’ll find poverty and destitution
dance a macabre dance of survival.
In Mammon’s city of grand illusions
where rivers of wealth feed frivolity
in its twisting dark and musty lanes
where the light of hope seldom shines
an army of the living dead sweat and toil
polishing the tinsel, changing light bulbs
refilling the champagne bottles
nothing must stop the flow of frivolity
or the butterfly people will die.

A Dream deferred.

A dream deferred, where does it go?
Is it stored in some labyrinth of the mind,
does it fade and waste away,
gone, forgotten, lost,
or does it become a burden
that weighs heavier with the years,
a burden that breaks you,
poisons your thoughts with regret
like a fog clouding your mind
in that bitter taste
of what could have been. 

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Personal.

 

       "Signal is okay but it's owned by one non-profit company (which you may or may not trust). Matrix is better. It's also end to end encrypted and open source, but you can run your own servers (and connect to other servers seamlessly) so you have much more control over your own data. There is a Glasgow based server here: https://matrix.glasgow.social"

 

        The above is a comment posted on my previous article on the messaging service Signal. I don’t profess in any way to be an authority on these matters, I just believe that we should be moving away from the big corporate giants in the communication/social media scene, with all there controls over, and storing/sharing of your data. I personally would always prefer open-source, but free open-source is always an attraction. So I would be delighted if people came forward with their opinions on where to go to escape the multinational control oriented beasts that at present seem to hold us in the palm of their hands. Pros and cons of Signal, Matrix or whatever you think would help us break that control over our data. Thanks Neil for your comment.

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Signal.

       More and more groups and individuals are starting to use "Signal" as their chosen messaging service, it's free, open-source and encrypted end to end. Your message leaves your device encrypted arrives at signal encrypted, is forwarded encrypted and then deleted at the server's end. Even the server has no idea what you sent. Making it extremely difficult for any prying eyes to see what you are chatting about. Sounds like the right method to communicate with your little group knowing that only those you send to can read what you sent. This is not a sales pitch, I just think it is worth considering in switching, for obvious reasons.

Info on Signal.

EU and Signal.

Signal, what is it.

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Cashless.

         Covid19 has certainly been a great boon to the capitalist world, it has allowed the reshaping and refinancing of the crumbling capitalist model, leaving the bill for the tax payer, and as I have said before allowed the state to tighten its grip on the population. There is another opportunity that has been seized by the financial section of capitalism, the cashless society. The wet-dream of the financial gurus, and of the state has been a cashless society. Of course not in the same sense that anarchist/communists see a cashless society.  Transactions are much easier controlled if there is no physical cash to change hands. Much more efficient without producing all that moving around securely, producing and counting  paper and coinage. There will be no place to hide, we all need to purchase in this capitalist nightmare. The cashless society would mean that every financial transaction you make would be logged and stored in a computer somewhere, place, time, amount, all stored. There to be pried into, analysed and profiled along with your other actions from that massive intrusive array of surveillance apparatus that surround us all. 

 

        The pandemic was the golden opportunity to make cash infectious, dirty, much better and safer to use contactless cards. This moves on to the next money saving exercise, the end of the ATM machines, why maintain and service all those devices if the bulk of the population just wave a card to pay for everything, plus the line that is pushed, everybody now purchases on-line. Then of course, no cash deposits or withdrawals, so why have all those people sitting around in those nice banks dotted around you cities and towns, you can do it all on line.  Of course the most vulnerable are the ones who depend most on cash in the hand, but to our financial masters, they are a negligible minority that can be taken out of any equation in their grand plans, superfluous to requirements. The cashless society is a blessing to the control freaks in state organisations and a must for the financial mafia in their drive for a totally controlled, world wide system, of financial control and manipulation. Because of the pandemic and the ensuing propaganda from the state and its coterie of parasite companions, we have allowed ourselves to quietly walk into their dream, a world under their total control. One world, one open prison, with no escape route, except revolution of course. 

 

 

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