THUR.18 NOV. - LOBBY SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT.

Thur 18 Nov - Lobby Scottish Parliament against UKBA -
No UKBA Clearances
Assemble 11am, Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh.

       UKBA's unilateral withdrawal from the Asylum Contract negotiations will be raised at First Minister's Questions on Thursday by Anne McLaughlin MSP. Demonstration outside the Parliament and go inside to a meeting with MSPs.
         Some people will be able to go in to witness the Parliament in action.  If you wish to be one of them, please let Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees know as names have to be arranged in advance. Go into Parliament 11.30am, First Minister's Questions 12 noon.
        Please come along to show your support, even if you can only spare a short time from work.

Bus from Glasgow.
      Join the bus leaving the City Chambers, George Sq at 9.00am, leaving Edinburgh at 2.00pm.  Seats free.  Contributions welcome.
        For more information contact Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees:
Margaret–07870286632
Jock – 07896877315
email mailto:glascamref@gmail.com

     Watch the Camcorder Guerillas video of Monday's protest against the removal of asylum seekers from Glasgow City Council housing:   http://vimeo.com/16888229

Descend on Brand Street Re-open the Negotiations

No Evictions Here.

Saturday 20 November - Outside UKBA, Brand Street, Govan, Glasgow (nearest underground is Cessnock)    10.30 for 11.00am.

        Solidarity Rally with our Refugee Friends and Neighbours and Ceremonial Burning of the Letters.
Glasgow’s traumatised and impoverished refugees have been thrown into a state of alarm by the UKBA’s unilateral withdrawal from the Asylum Contract negotiations and their subsequent callous and contemptuous letter threatening removal at 3 days’ notice to private housing either with YMCA or the notorious Angel Group somewhere in Scotland.  Stand shoulder to shoulder with our fellow refugee citizens in their fight to remain in their homes and communities.  Join the rally at Brand St on Saturday morning.  Bring your letters from UKBA for ceremonial burning outside the loathsome UKBA offices.

Called by Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, the Right to Work Campaign, Positive Action in Housing and Unity.

For all other enquiries about SACC, visit http://www.sacc.org.uk/ /contact or phone 07936432519

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MORE ON NEWS CORPORATION.

                                                          Image by John Hartfeild.

    

      A few days ago I posted a wee article on Mr. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and how its wonderful creative accounting and other shufflings managed to pay only 6% tax on billions of $ profit over a period of three years. His empire stretches far and wide and he is as far to the right as you can get without falling of the planet. Well Mr. Murdoch is a very anbitious man and is hell bent on taking over the entire UK media. The following is part of a campaign by avaaz to try and prevent that from happening.

      The conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch is trying to take over British media with his bid for full ownership of BSkyB. We only have 3 days to tell the regulator why this deal is bad news! Rupert Murdoch is on a fast track to control over half of this country’s newspapers and television. This week is our only chance to tell regulators to stand up for a wide choice of news, and defend our democracy.

       Britain loses if Murdoch wins. With all of the BSkyB TV network his massive dominance of our media would become further entrenched, extending his power and political influence. Here and elsewhere Murdoch has used his reach to promote conservative political candidates, the persecution of minorities, climate change denial and the dangerous lies that led to the invasion of Iraq.

       We have until Friday to stop this! Let’s flood the regulator with thousands of submissions saying why we feel this deal is against the public interest. We’ll deliver tens of thousands of comments in boxloads to Ofcom’s offices on Friday, making a media splash. Send yours now via the link below, and encourage everyone you know to do the same today.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/ofcom_no_bskyb_takeover/?vl

         Murdoch’s News Corporation already owns 39% of the BSkyB television company and four of our best-selling newspapers. His new expansion bid rides roughshod over the ‘media plurality’, which the government has a legal duty to uphold. Regulator Ofcom is accepting public comments on Murdoch’s plans for just a few days.

        This deal would allow Murdoch to cross-promote his different outputs and increase his political roles. For 30 years no British political party has won an election without Murdoch's blessing. This ability to get voters’ attention gives him frequent access to the prime minister - hence his nickname the ‘24th member of the cabinet’.

        This is a fight for the soul of British democracy. We cannot afford to have one company dominate half of our TV, newspaper and online news. From illegal spying at the News of the World here to his hate-filled Fox News empire in the U.S., Murdoch’s media erodes the values we hold dear and shows few scruples when attacking political or commercial rivals - now including the BBC.

        The Avaaz movement in Canada recently proved that determined campaigning can block conservative media takeovers. Let’s do it again here. Ofcom has given until this Friday for anyone to submit comments on whether this deal is in the public interest. Let’s send a message today and tell everyone we know.

http://draft.blogger.com/goog_1736774496

       In the world we are striving to create, citizens will be empowered by a media telling truth for the public good. Countering this deal is vital if we are to leave space for such a media in our country, and the world.

With hope,

Alex, Ricken, Brianna, Mia, Ben and the whole Avaaz team

PS Avaaz has a new website! Your feedback will be very valuable to help us improve it. You use the pink buttons on the left hand side of any page to report any problems you find.

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REPRESSION.

     The recent students' protest in London and the expected comments from most of the media and the millionaire controllers of society, for the full weight of the law to be brought down on those nasty protesters who didn't play be their rules, should remind us that the desire for repression is alive and well in this “mother of democracy”.

     Most people have an opinion of what repression is and it is normally seen as something to do with an outrageous violation of rights and it usually happens somewhere foreign and under a dreadful dictator but not here in our “mother of democracy” This illusion is based on the failure to grasp that repression is part and parcel of any class society. In our society, as in any class society, there are those who rule and those who are ruled. It is the state’s function to maintain this structure protecting the privileges of those who rule against the desires of those who are ruled, to do this a combination of coercion and accommodation will be applied. In its drive to maintain the status quo the state will have to continually repress any social movements that attempt to break the rule-ruled, empowered-dis-empowered nature of our society, repression is a necessary and permanent part of the state apparatus.

       The military and the police are two of the main bulwarks of the state and recent years have seen a change in the way that the state deals with dissent. Crime is no longer seen as something done by individuals, it is now a “war-on-crime” this in turn has brought a militarization of the police, armed police on the streets is now seen as commonplace and it is not just small arms, the police can call on ever more powerful fire power. The introduction of the community police has been an attempt to turn the ordinary people into the eyes and ears of the state allowing the state to be more pre-emptive in its approach to dissent.

      The state also infiltrates all organisations of protest and dissent, monitoring and provoking where it feels it would be beneficial to the survival of the state. Infiltration and provocation are not new, we can go back to what is known as the 1820 insurrection, when government agents provoked an uprising in order to deal more severely with its dissenters. The same principles are applied today. The state’s ever changing forms of repression also attempts to link protest to its “war-on-terror” creating a fear among the people and allowing it greater scope to deal with any form of protest or dissent. This is repression of the desires of the ordinary people for change

       In today’s class society repression comes in many varied and subtle ways and to change society for the benefit of all we must confront that repression where ever it is present. We must see protest as our way of taking control of our lives and changing society for the good of all future generations.

 

 

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WHY BOOTS ARE WALKING RIGHT OVER ALL OF US!

      Recently we have seen angry groups of ordinary people across the country occupy banks and Vodafone. These people have been disgusted by greedy bonuses and massive tax theft while they are being hit with all sorts of "austerity cuts" and are calling for real change in the way our society functions. It is not just the odd bank and Vodafone, they are all at it, the list reads like a "who's who" of the business world. There is Mr Green, government advisor and owner of BHS, which is conveniently registered in his wife's name and she happens to live in a tax haven, so that saves him a few million quid a year that should go to the tax man. Then we have Mr. Murdoch's News Corporation, he knows a few wee tricks on how to avoid, (fiddle) tax. Then there is Google, dodging tax the way a LibDem dodges manifesto promises. All across the globe big business is ripping off the public, and millionaire governments are giving a nod and a wink, as they belong to the same club.

     The following is a leaflet drawn up to highlight another "friend" of the high street who has indulged in a nifty piece of accounting to avoid paying its fair share of tax. 

      DID you know that Boots The Chemist, that High Street shop with which we are all so familiar, is stealing £86 million a year from the British public thanks to a tax dodge?

      That's right! As exposed recently on BBC radio's File on 4, it sneakily changed its HQ to a post office office box in Switzerland to avoid paying proper UK taxes and is now handing over only £14m a year instead of more than £100m.

     Meanwhile, Boots boss Andy Hornby - the former chief of failed bank HBOS, walked away with more than £2m in his own pocket for his first nine months' work. It's the same picture everywhere - Big Business is being allowed to get away without paying its fair share of taxes that the rest of us have to cough up. And the Fat Cat bosses are laughing in our faces with their massive pay cheques and luxury lifestyles.

     This comes at a time when the Tory/Lib Dem government is telling us the country is broke and weve all got to make sacrifices. Thousands of people will be losing their jobs. Vital public services will be cut. Those who cannot find work are to be punished with what amounts to slave labour or the threat of starvation.

     Only the rich are to be allowed a proper education with the massive hike in student fees. The NHS is coming under attack from privatisation. We are all going to have to work until we drop dead because the state doesn't want to pay us the pension we've earned.

       This is not a coincidence! What we are seeing is a deliberate attack on the majority of the population by greedy global Big Business and its friends in the deeply unpleasant Conservative and Lib Dem parties. We say we have to fight back! The students in London have shown us the way - we have to make it quite clear to the ruling elite that we will not put up with DAYLIGHT ROBBERY from Boots or any other Fat Cat criminals!

JOIN THE RESISTANCE!!

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A PROUD HISTORY. NOVEMBER.

       We the working class have a history steeped in presecution, exploitation and struggle, a history of which we can be rightly proud. Every little freedom and little bit of luxury we have we owe to those who fought and in some cases died to force it from the capitalist class, who gave it grudgingly, and now that same capitalist class is in the process of trying to take it all back. We owe it to our grandchildren and to those forefathers who showed such selflessness, to bravely carry on that struggle and create a society that will bring and end to the exploitation of our class.

COTTON SPINNERS STRIKE, 1837


DEPRESSION AND STRIKE.

     1830 saw a sharp depression grip the West of Scotland. By 1837 the weaving industry was attempting to push through wage cuts. The cotton spinners of Glasgow took strike action in an attempt to defend their wages. The strike lasted from July through to the end of August 1837. During the strike a blackleg (knobstick), was shot and the authorities arrested the leadership of the union. Those held in prison were indicted on midnight on the 24th of October, the last possible moment they could be legally held. The trial was to take place on the 10th of November in Edinburgh.

TRIAL.

      The Public Prosecutor had taken three months to put their case together. The defence had fifteen days to prepare an answer to the charges. Three days before the trial and without knowledge of their agents, the prisoners were moved, heavily ironed, from Bridewell Jail in Glasgow to Edinburgh Jail. Just before the trial the Crown stated " ...not convenient for them to proceed with the trial...", and postponed the trial until the 27th of November. The delay increased the expenses for the prisoners' council and the witnesses.
      Andrew Gemmel, the law agent for the prisoners put all other business aside, immediately employed 15 extra clerks and worked day and night to copy down Crown witnesses' evidence. This amounted to 2 large volumes containing evidence from over 150 witnesses from different parts of the country and was completed in fifteen days. The verdict from the trial was;
On charges,

1.Conspiracy to keep wages up.
2.Disturbances at Oakbank Factory.
3.Molestation at Mile End Factory.
Proven by a majority of one vote.

On other charges;

Appointment of “secret committee” to do unlawful acts.
Attempting to set fire to houses and factories.
Invading dwelling houses of, and assaulting “knobs”.
Not proven by unanimous verdict.

       The sentence of the court was that the prisoners should be transported for a period of 7 years. However they spent 3 years in prison hulks at Woolwich on the Thames and then were pardoned. After the trial the Cotton Spinners' Union collapsed due to the lack of funds.

WAGE TRENDS.

Below is a short table showing the trend in wages during the period referred to above.

Wage trends (wkly)                           1836-37    1841-42    1846-47

Cotton spinners (machine)                    35/-           25/-            26/-
Cotton spinners (power)                       11/-            7/-              8/-
Coalminers                                           25/-           15/-            20/-
Bricklayers                                           21/-           21/-            24/-
Joiners                                                 20/-            ?                22/-
Stone masons                                       22/-           18/-            22/6
Handloom weavers                                6/-             6/-              7/-
Railway labourers                                 14/-            ?                15/-
Railway masons                                    21/-           21/-            31/-
 
More on Glasgow's working class history HERE.
 

 
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SELF DEFENCE IS NOT A CRIME- IS IT??

Unity statement -
Defend the right to protest - Defend Education

Now is the time for unity, more so now than at any point in our movement for a better world. The move to privatatise all areas of our lives and work will need maximum unity against their efforts to divide us.

SIGN THE STATEMENT ONLINE NOW AND FORWARD TO YOUR NETWORKS
http://www.petitiononline.com/st53231/petition.html

We need unity to defend education and break the Con Dems’ attacks. Stand with protesters against victimisation.
• Stand with the protestors against victimisation
• Hands off our students, our colleges and our universities
• Broken windows cannot compare to the broken hearts and dreams of a generation denied education and jobs
       Wednesday’s 10th November national NUS/UCU 50,000 strong national demonstration was a magnificent show of strength against the Con Dems’ savage attacks on education. The Tories want to make swingeing cuts, introduce £9,000 tuition fees and cut EMA. These attacks will close the doors to higher education and further education for a generation of young people. During the demonstration over 5,000 students showed their determination to defend the future of education by occupying the Tory party HQ and its courtyards for several hours. At least 32 people have now been arrested, and the police and media appear to be launching a witch-hunt condemning peaceful protesters as “criminals” and violent. A great deal is being made of a few windows smashed during the protest, but the real vandals are those waging a war on our education system.
        We reject any attempt to characterise the Millbank protest as small, “extremist” or unrepresentative of our movement. We celebrate the fact that thousands of students were willing to send a message to the Tories that we will fight to win. Occupations are a long established tradition in the student movement that should be defended. It is this kind of action in France and Greece that has been an inspiration many workers and students in Britain faced with such a huge assault on jobs, housing and the public sector.

We stand with the protesters, and anyone who is victimised as a result of the protest.
Initial signatories include:

Mark Bergfeld, NUS NEC
Sean Rillo Raczka, Birkbeck SU Chair and NUS NEC (Mature Students’ Rep)
Vicki Baars, NUS LGBT Officer (Women’s Place)
Alan Bailey, NUS LGBT Officer (Open Place)
Kanjay Sesay, NUS Black Students’ Officer
Matt Bond, NUS Disabled Ctte (Open Place rep)
Michael Chessum, Education and Campaigns Officer UCL SU
Jade Baker, Education Officer Westminster Uni SU
Cameron Tait, University of Sussex Students' Union President
Nathan Bolton, Campaigns Officer Essex University Students’ Union
Clare Solomon, ULU President
Jim Wolfreys, UCU NEC
Dr Marion Hersh, UCU NEC and Scottish Executive
Alex Gordon, President, National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers (RMT)
Lee Hall, playwright ‘Billy Elliot’
Hilary Wainwright, Transnational Institute
Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies King’s College London
Billy Bragg Songwriter
Noami Klein Author and Activist.
All in a personal capacity

SOLIDARITY.

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NO WAY TO PUT AN END TO WAR.

Something to think about as rmemberance Sunday  approaches. Listen to Buffy HERE.

Universal Soldier

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.

Buffy Sainte-Marie 1964.

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SELF DEFENCE IS NOT A CRIME.

You either take what you get or you fight back, self defence is not a crime.

Manchester University Students Occupy against the cuts


Statement from students in occupation at Manchester University:

       “Students at Manchester Univeristy have peacefully occupied the John Owens Building and are lobbying the finance board over the Coalition’s attacks on higher education.

       “We are demanding that the University opens its books so that we know where the cuts will fall, how many voluntary redundancies have already been made and to highlight the fact that the vice Chancellor is paid 20 times the average salary. The financial director has denied any cuts are planned, despite the fact that voluntary redundancies have been announced and the combined studies department has already been cut.

        “We are here to support lecturers and administrative staff who will be losing their jobs. To oppose the rise in tuition fees that will price out most working class students. And to oppose the privatisation of our Universities.”

Rush messages of support to    manunioccupation2010@gmail.com
http://manunioccupation.blogspot.com/2010/11/manchester-university-students-occupy.html
 

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THREE STRIKES AND YOU'RE OUT.

      Ian Duncan Smith's new super plan to penalise the unemployed is now about to be rolled out. It's modelled on that righteous authoritarian dictate, “three strikes and you're out”. Your crimes could one or all of the following dreadful crimes, refusing to take a job offered by your “Job Seeker Advisor”, failing to apply for a job when told to do so, failing to turn up for a placement interview.

      For the first offence you could lose three months Job Seekers Allowance, a second offence and it is six months lose of JSA, and wait for it, a third offence and you lose your JSA for three YEARS. Another little bit of their authoritarian mind set is that you have no right of appeal, your Job Seeker Advisor's word is final.

      This type of planing chooses to ignore the fact that there are 500,000 listed vacancies in this country while there are over 2.5 million unemployed. It also chooses to ignore that with their policies of cuts, we are going to see another 500.000 public sector workers dumped on the unemployment queue, plus the knock-on effect in the private sector.

      A Job Seeker Advisor will be able to strip “errant” unemployed of their JSA with no right of appeal, and no doubt the Advisor will be under pressure to meet targets. Cameron's millionaire poodle, Clegg says that the plans will bring 300,000 households back into work. Even assuming his figures are anyway near accurate, what he fails to mention is that figure will be more than replaced by the public sector pay-offs.

     There are thousands of reasons why people become unemployed, the biggest one is lack of decent jobs, nothing in the millionaire's plans go any way to solving that problem. Forcing people to go about picking up litter 30 hours a week for no pay does not create jobs. It could of course reduce paid employment as councils struggling to cut cost now find that they can have the streets cleaned for free, will start to pay off those who are paid to do this work.

     All of these plans are driven by an ideology, there is nothing wrong with the capitalist model, your poor because of you own lack of effort, the unemployed are lazy shirkers and if you are not working you deserve nothing. This is the type of society they are intent on forcing on the people of this country, there is no room for sharing, helping those less fortunate than ourselves, services based on needs. Everything must create a profit for the millionaire class and that profit as usual will come from the working class, who will have no say in how our society is run. Our lords and masters will be the corporate world, it is not a pretty picture if you are a member of the working class. Only by realising this is a class war, and at the moment we are loosing, can we hope to reverse this trend and push society in the direction of an all inclusive sharing society where needs over ride profit and mutual aid is the basic principle.

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DON'T BREAK OUR COMMUNITIES APART!

        
       The free-marketeers ideology gathers pace. Shifting asylum seekers from council housing to private sector housing puts more tax payers money in the pockets of the private sector landlords, apart from the misery and pressure it puts on the individuals and families of those involved.
         The following was taken from; http://www.indymediascotland.org/node/22207
Keep the Contract with Glasgow City Council!
Join the Protest:

Monday 15 November
10.30am
Outside Glasgow City Chambers,
George Square.

Today at a meeting in Cranhill it was confirmed that the first asylum seeker families are to be moved out of Glasgow City Council accommodation starting as early as Monday next week. One family has been told they will be moving on Monday. At least two other families have been told they'll also be leaving accommodation provided by the council next week. On Saturday last week, the 900 plus asylum seeker families who are currently accommodated in housing organised by Glasgow City Council received letters stating that the housing contract from the UK Border Agency to house them had been terminated.

        Staff at the Glasgow Asylum Seeker Support Project were told at 3pm on Friday afternoon after their acting head had received the news in an email. The move has taken everyone involved in supporting asylum seekers in Glasgow completely by surprise and came as a shock to many.

       It is still not known where families are going to be moved to and the confusion is spreading anxiety and alarm through the asylum seeker community in Glasgow. Earlier today the UKBA press office was suggesting that, in the short term at least, the other current accommodation providers in Glasgow, the YMCA charity and the notorious Angel Group, would take on the contract. The letters sent out to the tenants however suggest that they could be relocated to anywhere in Scotland.

        Now facing significant disruption to their housing - and potentially facing being moved away from established friends and supporters as well as from services such as GPs and social workers - asylum seekers in Glasgow are extremely alarmed and concerned about this sudden news. Many are concerned about how their children could be affected if they are moved out of established schools. Many are also worried that they may have to move away from friends and supportive neighbours and community groups, breaking the strong ties that have developed over months and years in communities across the city. Other concerns have also been raised about the ability of the YMCA and the Angel Group to provide adequate accommodation at such short notice.

      Since taking over part of the housing contract in 2006, both the Angel Group and the YMCA, have received criticism over how they have provided accommodation to asylum seekers. The Angel Group, in particular, have had many accusations of providing inadequate housing and its staff giving poor service, made against it.

        UNITY is calling for a protest outside of Glasgow City Chambers of everyone concerned about the sudden ending of the housing contract and against the disruption to our communities and its impact on the lives of our friends and neighbours.

      Come to Glasgow City Chambers at 10.30 Monday 15th November to show your opposition to these developments and to call on the UKBA and Glasgow City Council to resolve any difficulties.

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LET'S MAKE THAT STAND.

    

       In 1945 the Atlee government came to power in spite of the dire warnings of the doom and disaster brigade of the privileged Churchill pack of parasites. In taking power his government set about carrying out its promises of laying the foundations for a society based on needs based services. It was not perfect, but it was a massive step to a better society for the ordinary people. Over the years it has changed and grown, modified in many ways, but the underlying structure was the same, we look after those that can't look after themselves, we give to those who are in need.

        This bunch of millionaire parasites that have cobbled together a coalition of millionaires to grasp power is a grouping of dogmatic free-marketeers and they are on a mission. That mission is to dismantle the very principles and structures of our welfare state. This is not an “on the hoof” idea, it is a vicious well planned idealogical attack on the ideas of sharing and mutual aid at the base of any civilised society, the very principles that underpin our welfare state. Everything will be supplied by the private sector. There will be no such thing as public assets, no public space.

       To do this they need the help of the public, so they set about using the tried and tested policy of scaremongering, the same tactics used by the last government in their “war-on-terror” as they chipped away at our civil liberties.

       This millionaire cabal of free-marketeers will attempt to scare you into believing that any other policy will have catastrophic effects on us all. Along with their scaremongering, they will of course come up with their chosen scapegoats. They will set about demonising the unemployed, making out that they are living a life of luxury at our expense. A life of luxury on £65 a week job seekers allowance. They will claim that it is their own fault they are unemployed, ignoring the fact that, in this country there is over 2.5 million unemployed and only 500,000 job vacancies. They will persist in this lying and smoke and mirrors illusion even as the unemployment is set to rise dramatically. 

       Their vision of society is one that everything we do and everything we want will generate profit for their shareholders. Everything, health, education, pensions, prison services and all other social services will be provided by the corporate world over which we will have no control what so ever. If it can't generate profit the price will be increased or it will be closed down, no matter the need.

       Those who cannot provide some profit for them will be left to fend for themselves or appeal to some charity or other. This is the return of the Victorian era of wealth and privilege swaggering over abject poverty, where the poor are punished for being poor.

      They can't do it without your quiet consent, if this is the world you want for you kids and grand-kids then remain silent and let them suffer. If on the other hand you want a better world for your kids and grand-kids then stop being silent, stop giving consent by your apathy. Stand up and stop being silent, they are prepared for a fight but hoping you won't bother. Let us prepare for a fight, a fight for the right to a decent life without being in bondage to the corporate world. Your kids and grand-kids are depending on you. Communicate, organise, resist.

LET’S MAKE THAT STAND.

Come rise with me

here, take my hand

it’s time my brothers

to make that stand,

we’ve bought this world

with blood and tears

shed by our kin

through countless years.

Put an end to war

it’s time for pace

man killing man

has to cease.

No more poverty

in a sea of wealth

all men equal

in a new commonwealth.

Let’s never again kneel

let’s stand up tall

claim what’s ours

justice for all.

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STATE VIOLENCE AND LEGITIMATE TORTURE!!!!

      

       So George W. Bush has informed us that lives have been saved in the UK and US by waterboarding. According to the logic of this deranged individual, torture is fine if it is done by the good guys but is evil when done by the bad guys. Of course they are both doing it for the same reasons, in the hope of extracting information that might be useful to their cause. My problem is how do you differentiate between and “bad” guy torturing another human being, and a “good” guy torturing another human being? With these statements what these so called leaders are proving is that there is no difference between the power mongers at both ends of the so called “war on terror”. They are both extremists and have no compassion for anybody who gets in their way. Immense suffering can be inflicted on thousands of innocent people as long as you believe that your God is on your side and you're doing it for the right reasons. This allows us to vilify the suicide bomber while applauding the “shock-and-awe” inflicted on the innocent people of Iraq. You see, our cause was good, their cause was bad, simple logic. These psychopathic leaders see the horror that is now experienced by millions of innocent Iraqis and Afghans as acceptable simply because they say the cause is right. If the situation was reversed and we suffered as these unfortunate people's, have and are suffering, it would of course be a dreadful evil, their cause couldn't possible be as noble as ours. It is all part of the Western philosophy, me-right-you-wrong, which allows us to ride roughshod over any country in order to further our own interests.

           Oh for the end of this state system that pits man against man because of ever shifting lines drawn on the planets surface, an end to the power held by religions, and an end to this capitalist system of greed and exploitation that pits man against man and state against state all for the greater good of the shareholders.

 

PATRIOTISM.

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ‘tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

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21st. CENTURY SLAVERY, UK STYLE.

      

        Every day it becomes more obvious the the ConDem millionaires coalition is nothing more than the unadulterated self interest of the millionaires club, a straight up front attempt to safeguard their unearned wealth by slashing the welfare state and allowing their other millionaire friends to offer the services at a price and a profit to them. Privatisation brought in under the guise of necessary “austerity cuts”. They know it is class war, isn't it about time we reacted accordingly? This cabal of millionaires are now not afraid to show their true colours, to hell with the pretence of “liberalism”, it is now in with the hatchet and carve everything up for privatisation. At the same time placing the blame on the last bunch of corrupt fraudsters, with their mantra, it was all their fault, while they gleefully go about attacking the living conditions of the working class.

         They will spout their favourite phrase, “deregulation” which will remove any form of community control and carve up even the most basic services to the poor and vulnerable, to allow their millionaire mates to step in and make a killing at our expense. What is on the cards for the working class is a society controlled by Group 4, Capita, etc. with the only guarantee being crap wages, no job security, longer working life, if you manage to get a job, and shit pensions. All this along with high unemployment decimated health service and shredded education system. There will of course always be the few charities struggling to do their best to help out in this Victorian society of deprivation.

          Another little trick they have up their sleeve is, if you have been unemployed for any length of time on job-seekers allowance, (in the midst of high unemployment) you will be “obliged” to do 30 hours manual labour a week, for free. It could be council work picking up litter or some other job that the council has to pay somebody to do. So I don't see the council employing people when they can force them to work for nothing. For those people with a little dignity and a belief that slavery went out some time ago, who decide not to demean themselves or take somebody else's paid job away, they will be hit with their benefit being stopped for three months, all £65 of it.

        This is the millionaires co-joined twins' “Big Society”, everything privatised, slavery for thousands and crap wages and conditions for the “lucky”. All this while the millionaires who dreamed up the plan laughing all the way to the bank, chuckling, “suckers”.

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NEWS CORPORATION.

     

     A short profile of Rupert Murdoch taken from Class War,  his influence spreads far and wide, so you should know a little about the man.

     Rupert Murdoch is News Corporation, an organisation that has evaded, (avoided) paying what would be considered his fair share in tax.

      Some of Murdoch's tax avoiding assets: Fox, Sky, The Sun, News of the World, The Times, The Financial Times, and Myspace.com. He is rated as the 117th richest person in the world with a net worth of $6.3 billion

        He is a union hater and according to the Economist in 1986 Murdoch helped to smash the British print unions by transferring the production of his newspapers to a non union plant at Wapping in East London. He stated that he would dismiss the 6,000 striking workers who were trying to win some concessions out of the media billionaire. The London Evening Standard called the episode, "the biggest union-busting operation in history."

      According to a BBC report; "Mr Murdoch's die-hard loyalty to the tax loophole has drawn wide criticism." The report found that in the four years prior to June 30, 1998, "Murdoch's News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only $325 million in corporate taxes world wide. That translates as6% of the $5.4 billion consolidated pre-tax profits for the same period. By comparison another multi-national media empire, Disney paid, 31%. The corporate tax rates for the three main countries in which News Corp. operates - Australia, the United States and the UK - are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively. Further research reveals that Mr Murdoch's main British holding company News Corp. Investments, has paid no net corporation tax within these shores over the past 11 years. This is despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly $3 billion." 

    So in keeping with the feelings of the ordinary people about occupying and picketing bailed out bankers and tax dodgers we could start a boycott campaign against the tax dodging anti-working class newspapers who will be peddling the crap put out by the millionaire cabal at the Westminster House of Hypocrisy and Corruption, that these cuts are necessary.

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THE PEOPLE STRIKE BACK!!!

     The people strike back: http://www.indymediascotland.org/node/22138

     More and more we are seeing people from all across the political spectrum taking direct action against the gambling casinos they call the financial sector and the tax dodgers of the corporate world. People are beginning to show their anger at the gamblers blowing their lot in the casinos of the financial world, then coming with the begging bowl and being given billions of tax payers money only to pay themselves massive bonuses and run straight back to the casino. At the same time telling us we have run up too much debt because of the money we have loaned them, so we will have to decimate our welfare services to save the bond markets losing some of their money.

       Do we have to put up with Vodafone's £6 billion tax fiddle and the new boss of Lloyd's getting a £7 million pay package, while we are told to tighten out belts and head to the nearest charity to get help for our kids? The list of tax evaders, (dodgers) is so common place that they are quite blatant about it all. It ranges from Vodafone to Google, to Murdoch's News Corporation, from Ashcroft to Green, billions of what should be tax paid to society is siphoned off into private coffers or poured back in to their business to increase bonuses to shareholders.

      Recently we have seen banks being occupied and picketed along with Vodafone, this justified action is simple to organise and effectively hits them in the pocket as well as showing other people that there is a way to get back at the greed machine that is set to shred our standard of living. Watch for what is going on in your area and join them, those involved are ordinary people, working, unemployed, pensioners. After all it is the ordinary people that are being squeezed but we don't have to take it lying down.

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DEPLETED URANIUM, A STATE CRIME.

        

        Over the years I have written several articles on depleted uranium, some in blogs and websites and one for the newspaper Freedom. I have highlighted the horrors in Serbia and Kosovo caused by NATO forces use of depleted uranium weaponry on the people of that unfortunate region. Also the use of these same weapons much closer to home at the weapons testing range at Dundrennan on the Solway Firth. However all that was dwarfed by the US and UK forces use of these weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan. What has unfolded in these regions must rate as the one of the greatest ever state crimes. In regions of Iraq the rate of birth defects has risen into the stratosphere, cancers and other diseases have sky-rocketed and this is set to continue for many years to come. Yet most people in the West are blissfully ignorant of what their governments have done in their name, not only to these countries, but to our own troops, and of course our governments play dumb and carry on using these weapons of mass destruction.

          To once again attempt to highlight this state crime against innocent people I have lifted part of someone elses article on the subject.

          You can read the whole article HERE. 

         "Most Americans have no idea that depleted uranium munitions used by the U.S. military are causing one of the greatest environmental nightmares in the history of the world. In fact, most Americans have no idea what depleted uranium even is. But even as many Americans gobble down their burgers and french fries and pizza and enjoy the "good life" watching their big screen televisions, an entirely different story is being written on the other side of the world. In Iraq and Afghanistan today, there are some areas that have been so polluted by depleted uranium that they have literally become uninhabitable hellholes. Americans like to think of themselves as so "environmentally conscious", but the truth is that one of the greatest environmental tragedies of all time is being caused by the U.S. military and yet nobody seems to care."

      The full article is a must read.

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REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE 11th OF NOVEMBER??

       

       Every day, every month, the workers have a history to tell and write. Though we could go through the month of November and find volumes of working class history worth remembering, I think this one is of special significance. It highlighted the depth of hypocrisy and corruption that the state will go to in an attempt to crush those who stand up to fight for the rights of the ordinary people. This event was not about the deaths of eight police officers, mostly killed by police bullets, it was about trying to crush an idea. An idea that workers could organise together in an attempt to better their conditions. To this day, states all over the world are still trying to put obstacles in the way of workers organisation. Some states more brutally than others but all will go as far as the feel they can get away with in an attempt to keep the workers "in their place".

      Perhaps you could let ann arky know what piece of November working class history you think is significant and why. Write it in the comments for others to read. Our history must be written or it never happened.  Read some of Glasgow's working class history HERE.         

      

      November, 11, 1887, the Haymarket anarchists, Spies, Fischer, Engel and Parsons were executed at Illinois prison. It became know as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in American legal history. The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, started in May, 4, 1886 when a mass meeting was held in Chicago at Haymarket Square in support of a strike for an eight hour working day.

       The police moved in to disperse the meeting, at that point an unknown person threw a bomb at the police lines, the unsuing confusion of the bomb and gunfire resulted in eight police officers being killed mostly from “friendly fire”. There was also an unkown number of civilians injured and killed.

       The legal proceedings that followed saw eight anarchists tried for murder, the trial also received international publicity and the verdict received international condemnation. Although the prosecution conceded that none of the accused had thrown the bomb, four men were convicted and executed and one committed suicide in prison. At the execution, Parsons’ last words are reported to have been, “let the voice of the people be heard.”

     The Haymarket affair is usually seen as significant in the origin of the workers International May Day. It was also seen as the event that brought about the caricature of the “bomb throwing anarchist”. Although none of the accused threw the bomb, to this day, that caricature is still used by many, among them the mainstream media.

     The site of the incident was designated a Chicago Landmark on March 25, 1992. The Haymarket Martyrs' Monument in nearby Forest Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark on February 18, 1997.

 

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KNOW YOUR HISTORY, THEY'RE STILL AFTER YOU.

       Since the word anarchism first appeared, the various states have been doing all they can to get rid of those who support the theory and practice of anarchism. It obviously worries them that the people should want to control their own affairs and remove power and wealth from the handful of parasites who have for far too long had an unearned  monopoly on on both. Their attacks will use whatever they have at their disposal, phony science, propaganda, indoctrination, (education) violence and intimidation. In spite of this it hasn't gone away, if anything, there are probably more anarchist now than there has ever been. The idea that people can manage their own affairs better than a privileged parasitical elite can, is now more obvious than ever. However, the state never gives up without a fight, so it will continue to intimidate, misrepresent and use overt and covert means to try to destroy the idea that people will benefit more from self-management, co-operation, free association and mutual aid, working in federated communities based on sustainability. Why so many people still fall for the states line that we are better off living in a system of power and privilege to the few, is a bit of a mystery to me.

     

       The following article was taken from Redpepper

       "The International Conference of Rome for the Social Defence Against Anarchists, which took place between 24 November and 21 December 1898, agreed to a series of measures to clamp down on anarchist activities and propaganda.

      These included the establishment of new surveillance agencies; arrangements for the exchange of intelligence among participating countries; new laws on the possession and use of explosives; bans on membership of anarchist organisations and the distribution of anarchist publications; a prohibition on rendering assistance to anarchists; limits on press coverage of anarchist activities; and mandatory capital punishment for assassination of heads of state.

      The conference was convened in response to a wave of anarchist violence, including the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria at Lake Geneva on 10 September 1898. It also agreed to an early version of suspect ‘profiling’ – the ‘portrait parlé’ method of criminal identification, based on Alphonse Bertillon’s system of classifying criminal suspects according to physical characteristics of parts of their head and body.

Britain was the only participating country that refused to sign the conference’s final protocol."

 

 

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MONEY FROM NOTHING, OR PHONEY WEALTH!!!

       

       The following is an extract from a much longer and very informative article which can be read HERE.

Amazing, in today's world you can create wealth by just adding a couple of zeros at the end of a reserve account, no need to go to the printers and waste all that paper.

4. Quantitative easing -- dirty deeds done dirt cheap.

        The long decline of the US dollar documented earlier -- a decline that is ongoing -- is one reflection of the growing relative weakness of the US in the context of the world economy as a whole. This growing weakness was revealed by the harsh impact of the most recent recession on the US economy, one felt much more strongly there than in the other major economies. In the face of this deepest recession in a generation, the fourth and final aspect of US-based currency wars came to the fore. It is without doubt the strangest of any that we have looked at, not the least because of its mysterious name, "quantitative easing".

       There are several ways of defining Quantitative Easing. According to the Central Bank of the United Kingdom, it is a way of injecting money into the economy "by purchasing financial assets from the private sector". How are these assets paid for? Why "with new central bank money". But where does that money come from? Well, "the Bank can create new money electronically by increasing the balance on a reserve account".[20] And that's it. New money is just simply created. If your balance is $1000, add a "zero" and it's $10,000, new money created "electronically by increasing the balance on a reserve account". Quantitative easing's "effect is the same as printing money in vast quantities, but without ever turning on the printing presses."[21] A skeptic would argue that the obscure term "quantitative easing" was chosen as less likely to arouse suspicion than a more transparent name such as "Harry Potter money creation".

       When this was policy in Japan in the wake of the deep recession of the early 1990s, it was derided in the US press as something "which essentially stuffed Japanese banks with cash to help them write off huge bad loans accumulated during the 1990s".[22] But since 2008, this policy of creating money from nothing has been embraced with passion in the United States. In 2008, the US central bank (the Federal Reserve) "bought $1.7 trillion worth of Treasury and mortgage bonds with newly created money".[23] That $1.7 trillion did not exist. It was brought into existence electronically and transferred to the books of financial institutions in the hopes of pushing that newly minted money into the economy and stimulating growth. That program is now over. There is, however, every prospect that another round of quantitative easing will be announced in the coming weeks, with anywhere from $1 trillion to $2 trillion being created electronically to "stuff US banks with cash to help them write off huge bad loans" accumulated in the last 10 years, to paraphrase the sarcastic analysis of Japan's similar policies.

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THE BIG SOCIETY????

    

       Millionaire Cameron's “BIG SOCIETY” is certainly going to be big on unemployment. At present there are approximately 2.5 million people unemployed in the UK with about 1.5 million claiming Jobseekers Allowance. These figures are set to rise rapidly if the experts have done their sums properly. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, (CIPD) the private sector will lose most with the rise in VAT to 20%, they reckon that the increase VAT will throw approximately another 250,000 people on the dole from the private sector. John Philpott, chief economist with CIPD has stated that, ”The full impact of the coalition government's planned fiscal tightening has been underestimated.” The CIPD also says that their calculations show that the impact of VAT rise and the government's spending cuts will cost approximately 900,000 jobs from the private sector and 725,000 jobs from the public sector. Their estimate is that the coalition's cuts will cost the UK 1.6 million jobs over the next 5 years with the private sector taking the biggest hit.

        Well there you have it, the “BIG SOCIETY” everybody on the dole, services cut to the bone and everybody running around helping in charity organisations to alleviate the suffering of the poor, of which they themselves are part.

        How much of all this suffering will affect the millionaire cabal in the Westminster House of Hypocrisy and Corruption that are implementing this grand plan? Not one of them will feel the least bit of pain as the deprivation increases on the rest of society. Why do we accept the will of the millionaire class that inflicts this suffering on us, knowing that it is all to the benefit of their friends in the millionaires' club. Their cronies in the financial sector will be wining and dining them from now until they are buried. They know how to work together for their mutual benefit, isn't about time we the workers done the same? Why let parasites feed of your body, let's get rid of this whole system of privilege and power to the wealthy, and replace it with a system of co-operation, mutual aid, and sustainability that works for the benefit of all our people.

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