THIRD NATIONAL DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST BENEFIT CUTS.

SPREAD THE WORD.

The 3rd National Day of Protest Against Benefit Cuts has been called for April 14th 2011.

      Millions are set to be affected by savage cuts to housing, disability, sickness and welfare benefits. People with disabilities, illness, the unemployed, single parents, carers the low waged, part time students, volunteers, homeless people and college students are all likely to see a devastating drop in disposable income sending people even further below the poverty line.

      The poorest and most vulnerable are being asked to pay for the mistakes and extravagances of the richest. Meanwhile poverty pimps like Atos Origin and A4e (they now operate in 10 different countries around the world.) are set to rake in hundreds of millions on government contracts to bully and intimidate people from claiming the pittance handed out in benefit payments. Many disabled people have threatened suicide if these cuts are allowed to continue. Some have tragically already carried out that threat.

     The first two days of protest against benefit cuts have seen demonstrations, meetings, unemployed discos, public pantomimes and occupations in cities across the UK. Atos Origin have been forced to close offices, protesters have gathered inside and outside workfare sharks A4e and demonstrations have taken place from Downing Street to local town centres such as Lydney and Crawley.

       We still have three more weeks to organise for the biggest day yet. We call on all claimants, as groups or individuals, to organise and take action around the country on April 14th.

WE HIV' TAE DAE SUMTHIN'.

       If you are planning an event in your town or city please add details in the comments below to be added to this page and the facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=164277070288955

http://benefitclaimantsfightback.wordpress.com/

ann arky's home.

STUDENTS DIRECT ACTION.

By fleabite, submitted on Fri, 25/03/2011

      On Tuesday university security and approximately 80 police, including a canine unit, police horses and a police helicopter circling overhead from about 10am evicted us from the Hetherington in a heavy handed operation lasting several hours. Those of us that were not inside at the time resisted by sitting down in front of the doors and blocking the entrance in. Many of us sustained injuries including concussion caused by a security guard hitting an occupiers head off a wall and floor, several shoulder dislocations and many cuts and bruises. So far there have been 3 arrests as well.

       After the final occupier was carried out by several police, we marched on the main University building and approx 100 of us occupied the Senate rooms – the incredibly plush suite of rooms where the senior university management is based and where they host their meetings and events.

      After several hours the senior management team came and finally agreed to have the mass meeting we’ve been requesting of them for weeks! Escalating tactics clearly works!At that point access to the building was also restricted which meant that the folks who had gone to get food and, inevitably, coffee weren’t able to come back in. Donation from others who showed their solidarity in all sorts of wonderful ways including some yummy roasted vegetable pizzas (thank you whoever you are!) were not being allowed in. However we had a very cunning plan. Tying together the tablecloths that no senate room would be the same without, within the hour we brought all the food up and were able to hand out fresh, hot pizza in front of the management who had banned access to the building. They then agreed that those who had been involved earlier should be allowed back in as it was undemocratic that decisions were being made without them.Also at this time David Rovics appeared.  So immediately following the meeting with management we set up chairs in the biggest room and enjoyed a gig.About an hour into the gig, which included us going out onto the balcony so that those stuck outside could be a part of it, word came that management were offering us the Hetherington back, in return for us vacating the Senate rooms.  Direct action gets results!

       We had a meeting to decide what to do and agreed to return to the Hetherington, but that before we would leave Senate we wanted a delegation to be inside the Hetherington so that we could be sure it wasn’t a trick. We also wanted the water and electricity checked out as both had been turned off after the eviction. Finally the phone call came through and singing and chanting we left the Senate rooms and returned to the Refreed Hetherington to watch Jack give a fantastic performance on Newsnight Scotland

ann arky's home.

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THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT???

      With all the nuclear plants around the world and what is happening at the moment in Fukushima, Japan, I can't help but feel that as far as this planet is concerned,--The future is bright.

ann arky's home.

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - SINGERS STRIKE 1911.

  
      This March marks the hundredth anniversary of one of the West of Scotland's many bitter strikes. It was in 1911 that the management of the Singer Sewing Machine factory in Clydebank, known for its harsh working conditions and its anti-union policies, decided to sack some women workers and then demand that another group of women workers take on the extra work at no extra remuneration. The women refused and on 21 March 1911, there was a walk out and strike. You can read about the Singer 1911 strike HERE.

      In today's climate of cuts, pay freezes and rising unemployment we could do well to remember the women of the Singer factory who said, “enough is enough” and took direct action. The more you accept in cuts and hard conditions the more you will have to accept. You have to draw the line somewhere or continually see your conditions worsen. We have certainly reached the stage of “enough is enough”, so what will be our direct action?

SOLIDARITY.

ann arky's home.

PAYING FOR THE WAR WITH NURSES AND TEACHERS!!!!

    
       Some updates on the financial cost of Cameron's Libyan caper, it seems that every Prime Minister needs a war. These figures are from defence analyst Francis Tusa's estimate gathered from Parliamentary Questions.

      The four RAF Tornado GR4s now based in Italy. Running costs are £35,000 an hour, once they are in the air. The Tornados fired Storm Shadow and possibly Brimstone missiles during their first two sorties, but the MoD won't say how many they used. Each missile costs £750,000 to £800,000.
      The 10 Typhoon fighters also in Italy, more expensive because they are new. The cost to fly them is thought to be £70,000 an hour, though that may reduce to £40,000 an hour the longer the operation goes on.
       The Trafalgar-class submarine HMS Triumph, which has been in the Mediterranean for more than a week. It has been firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at Gaddafi's air defence systems. Running a submarine costs up to £200,000 a day. Its cruise missiles cost £500,000 each.
      The navy's two frigates in the Mediterranean – HMS Cumberland and HMS Westminster. Running costs about £90,000 a day. HMS Cumberland was diverted to Libya on its journey home to be scrapped, so every day it is there is above and beyond budget.

     
       That's a lot of teachers and nurses and it will not stop the Libyans from killing Libyans, which can be added to those that are being killed and maimed by the compassionate West's weapons of mass destruction. I know that we are not getting figures of casualties, "collateral damage" but it is inconceivable that such weapons can be rained down on a large city, (Tripoli, population 1,065,405 (2006 census) night after night and the people are unscathed. But doesn't the West always fights clean wars, we never kill civilians, only combatants. Remember "Shock-and-Awe" in Iraq and the following slaughter across that country including Fallujah December 23, 2004?
      Forty odd years of us supplying Qaddafi with hi-tec weapons of mass destruction and then going in with ours to knock his out. No doubt after this is all over we will have to re-arm Libya, now that is good business.

ann arky's home.
        

THE HEAVY HAND OF AUTHORITY.

SPREAD THE WORD.

      Hundreds of students are currently occupying the senate rooms of Glasgow University in an ongoing protest against the cuts both at the university and nationally.Earlier today the occupiers were, without warning, forcibly evicted from the Free Hetherington which had been held by students and staff since 1st February, making it the longest running anti cuts student occupation in the UK. Approximately 80 police, canine units and a helicopter were involved in what has been described by witnesses as a heavy handed response to the occupation.

        Immediately following the eviction from the building several hundred then marched from the Hetherington to the main Glasgow University building and at 2:15pm entered the Senate building where they

currently remain.

SOLIDARITY.

        A first year Glasgow University student, says “I was dragged out of the Free Hetherington by three police officers. It was completely disproportionate. All we were doing was protesting against cuts at

our university”

ann arky's home.

THE HAND OF HYPOCRISY.

     

      As Western Cruise missiles blast holes in Libya's infrastructure, killing Libyans to save Libyans, and possibly laying the ground work for a civil war, nobody is saying where they go from here. How long will the no-fly zone last, don't know. What do we do if the Libyans killing Libyans drags on in a long stalemate, do we send in the Western cavalry to take sides and give one side a wee push, more or less guaranteeing a prolonged civil war and possible occupation. Just to keep the peace mind you. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, the moral policemen are up to the necks in shit. The idea that this will be a nice clean surgical operation with all of Libya being ever thankful to the West is an illusion. We have been “policing” Iraq since 1991 and Afghanistan since 2001. When does our involvement in Libya end and at what cost? Not counting the Libyan deaths and injured, there is already one American plane down with one pilot missing, and we have just started.

        Setting aside the human horror of what is happening in Libya and casting a glance at the financial side, there must be questions. Each time a Tornado jet runs a sortie it takes approximately £30,000 of fuel. How many have we run so far? If a Tornado is brought down there is the £50 million cost of a replacement. Each cruise missile that is fired cost £500,000. There have been more than 110 cruise missiles fired so far. A quick calculation comes up with £55 million already up in smoke and misery from cruise missiles alone, with the arms industry rubbing its hands at the thought of all those being replaced. I don't know what proportion of those cruise missiles were fire by the UK but I reckon that we would fire our fair share. Then of course we have our submarines out there in the Med. and I have no doubt our boys wanted a shot at firing their gear off, I wonder what it cost to send a sub to the Med. and then fire off a few £500,000 missiles? While this little pygmy war is being played out in Libya, let's not forget our long running and on going £4 billion a year affair in Afghanistan.

       I know you can't put a price on human life but at a time when we in the UK are being faced with draconian cuts to every fibre of the social structure of our society, wage cuts and mass unemployment, is this the right policy. Can we in the UK really afford to strut around the world bombing democracy into other countries? When we look at the figures of death and misery resulting from our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan can Libya be justified?

       Meanwhile in nearby Yemen and Bahrain protesters are being brutally crushed but no call for a no-fly zone. Well Bahrain is really a US naval base, which is very handy to have so near all that oil, and Bahrain is also on best buddy terms with that other autocratic despot regime, Saudi Arabia. So we don't want to upset that little power structure do we? Then of course no call for a no-fly zone over Israel while it carried out its policy of genocide in Gaza 2008/09

 

      It's all hypocrisy and is really about oil, resources and power, the Western powers have proved often enough that when it comes to the people of the Middle East and Africa, they don't give a shit.

ann arky's home.

PLAYING FAVOURITES!!!

    The absolute monarch of Bahrain, King Hamad, violently crushes peaceful protesters, in the process dozens are killed and he claims that a foreign plot has been crushed. Across the way, Qaddafi claims that the protesters are a foreign plot and starts to crush them violently. In the first case the West nods approvingly, and in the second, it starts to bomb the shit out of the country. Could it be that the Western imperialist powers are playing favourites? To the Western powers are the protesters in Libya worth more than the protesters in Bahrain? We can stand by and watch one group being brutally crushed but must run in and save the second group. Though the saving may leave their country torn asunder and could lead to civil war for some years to come. Of course that would be fine by the West, it could set up a puppet government and take control of the oil, just like Iraq. Am I being a little too cynical?

ann arky's home.

THE CARING COMPASSIONATE WEST!!!

      
         No matter what argument that is put forward to justify the bombing of Libya, the REALITY is that it will be ordinary Libyan people that will die, young, old and innocent. Our wonderful cruise missiles do not just hit bad guys and they go off with a helluva big bang, we can be sure that and one certain beneficiary will be the arms industry. Of course, to the politicians sitting ever so safe in their corridors of power, these lives are a price worth paying!! The world is peppered with dictators that repress “their” people with a vicious violence, some we put there and some we help stay there and most of them are armed to the teeth by the same benevolent West, and of course we do lots of profitable business with them. So now the West has placed its bets and we have Libyans cheering and Libyans dyeing. The result will be a divide country potholed by cruise missiles and pockmark with graves of innocent Libyans. I object very strongly to being labelled as a Gaddafi supporter because I oppose the bombing. Is brute force the only answer that the so called moralistic and civilised West has to these problems? If so can we really call ourselves “civilised”? It is surely naive to think that the West is pouring all this money and blasting off all these very expensive missiles out of compassion for the Libyan people. We have proved in the past the the West doesn’t give a shit about the people of the Middle East nor North Africa, and many other places. The ordinary people of the West might care, but the Western state apparatus? Don’t make me laugh, it’s not funny.

ann arky's home.

LIBYANS CHEER AND LIBYANS DIE.

        

       See here we have another "Coalition of the Willing", a bunch of Western imperialist states supported by a ragtag bag of dictatorships, about to blow the shit out of another oil rich country. No matter what the "rebels" or the "Pro-Gaddafi" groups think, it will be Libyan people that will be killed. It will be ordinary people, men women and children that will be at the receiving end of the might cruise missiles. Missiles that will be launched by a bunch of youngsters sitting in what could pass for a games console, an environment completely divorced from the reality of what they are doing. Their co-ordinates and button pushing will result in mangled bodies of young and old, ordinary Libyan people. At the end of it all, the West will have control of the oil and the Libyan people will be left with a divide country potholed by mighty missiles and pockmarked by graves.

        Is this the only answer that a civilised world has to this problem? If so we are in for a massive escalation of missile launching as our world is filled with Gaddafis, large and small, and in most cases armed to the hilt by the benevolent West. The real problem is state power and corporate capitalism working hand in glove with each other to further their power and wealth. All this has nothing to do with the welfare of the people, to the state and the corporate world, people are dispensable, profit and power are the gods.

 

ann arky's home.

CAPITALISM AND ITS ETERNAL WARS.

     

      Britain boasts of being a peaceful nation but when has the UK been at peace? There are young people in their twenties who have never know this country not to be fighting in an overseas war. How many wars can a small country wage while telling its people that we can't afford decent social services? While cutting education, closing libraries and decimating the health service? The dogs of war must be fed but not the social fabric of our society. The arms industry has saliva running down its chin at the thought of another war. Who gains in these endless wars? Not the young soldiers who are sent out to do the killing, not the families of the soldiers, and certainly not the ordinary people of this country. And from past experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is not the people of the bombarded country.

      

      The only gains go to the corporate giants of this world, the oil industry, the arms industry and all the back-up companies that go to support any war. War is big business, capitalism doesn't just make money out of making things, there is lots of money to be made from destroying things, profit is all it is about, as far as the people are concerned, the corporate world doesn't give a shit. It is not the Libyan revolution that we should be focusing on, but the need for a revolution here to stop these endless bloody wars where the ordinary people of the world pay in blood and sweat and the corporate parasites inflate their already bloated wealth. 

We have more in common with the people we attack and invade than we have with the corporate parasites that stand to get all the "spoils of war", corporate capitalism and its state mandarins are the "dogs of war".

 ann arky's home.

THE DOGS OF WAR SMELL BLOOD.

STOP THE WAR COALITION   19 March 2011

Email office@stopwar.org.uk
Tel: 020 7801 2768
Web: http://stopwar.org.uk/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/STWuk
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/stopthewarcoalition

EMERGENCY PROTEST:
HANDS OFF LIBYA: STOP THE BOMBING NOW
SUNDAY 20 MARCH 3-4PM
DOWNING ST, WHITEHALL, LONDON

     Britain and the USA have bombed Libya with more than one hundred Tomahawk  cruise missiles. These are not precision guided weapons but weapons of mass destruction that will create many civilian casualties in Libya. The United Nations resolution authorising a no-fly zone begins as it will continue, with a full-scale military attack on the country.

   

       Stop the War condemns this barbarous attack which will result, not in protecting the people of Libya, but in enslaving them under the domination of the West. We know only too well the death and destruction that imperialism has brought to the peoples of the region. We call on all those who oppose these attacks to demonstrate at Downing Street at 3pm on Sunday 20 March.

SOLIDARITY

LOCAL STOP THE WAR GROUPS

     We are asking all local Stop the War groups around the country to call protests in their area. If you would like to be involved in local protests where you live, contact your nearest Stop the War group: SEE http://bit.ly/dRSlpl

     A leaflet putting the case for non-intervention and a petition, initiated by Tony Benn, John Pilger and others, are both available to download for printing, here:

LEAFLET: http://tinyurl.com/6henp2l

PETITION: http://tinyurl.com/6z9lk2x

ann arky's home.

DISASTER CAPITALISM????

    The following is an article by Bob at Politics in the Zeros. The question is, is there any other type of capitalism? We all know the answer to that one, a resounding NO. Time for change, capitalism must go or it takes the civilised world down with it, it's our choice.

   

     Capitalism doesn’t just profit from disasters, as Naomi Klein says. It also, through greed, shortsightedness, and corruption, creates disasters. It could be a real estate bubble inflated by corruption and a deliberately asleep government that finally popped, taking down the US economy with it. It is also nuclear plants built to inadequate specs and monitored by toothless regulatory agencies that have been compromised by the very industry they pretend to regulate.

         In both cases, the causes are the same, a lunatic capitalism that is concerned only with short-term profits and governments who are beholden to and owned by it.

For example.

         A noted physicist describes what Japan is doing at the reactors as using a squirt gun against a raging forest fire. What’s worse, attempting to dump salt water on the reactors could damage them even further. Instead, he says, do what they did at Chernobyl, bury the reactors in boric acid, sand, and concrete and be done with it.

         The reaction to this from supposedly savvy Japanese government and business to this admittedly huge disaster has been like the Keystone Kops and not anything coherent. No doubt Tepco wants to save the reactors, thus their increasingly deranged attempts do something, anything, and not write them off completely. The government has lied and evaded so consistently that it can no longer be trusted. Instead of championing the needs of their increasingly desperate populace, it manufactures fantasy statements and pretends things will be better soon. Their interests intertwine with those of the corporatists. They are the same. Japan has a disaster, one that is made much worse by an enfeebled government that is more concerned with saving face than saving people and a poisonous form of capitalism that cares little about anything but profits. And that, my friends, is why we have yet another disaster of capitalism.

ann arky's home.

MORE ON WESTERN IMPERIALISM.

More on the West blood lust for military action in Libya. We are eager to fight those we arm to stop them using the arms that we gladly sold them, like they say, "Business is business".



ann arky's home.

THE BENEVOLENT UK STATE MACHINE!!!

   
   Here we go again, the selfless British state rushing in for the good of the Libyan people, that wonderful honourable, benevolent state that only thinks of the well being of people across the globe, it has no financial, political or commercial interest in these actions. I'm sure the Iraqi and the Afghan people will have a different view.  Our arms industry seem to make a fortune selling all manner of arms to brutal distators and then our state sends in our young people to destroy them. Then of course we have to sell the new regime more arms. Jeremy Corbyn MP: Speech in House of Commons debate on Libya, 17 March is worth listening to, a view that will resonate with most thinking people.

ann arky's home.

SO THE ARAB LEAGUE VOTED FOR INTERVENTION???

       Smoke and mirrors sums up the West response to the Libyan situation. Once again the wonderful ethical West goes marching into another Arab country. More blood on the sand, more preaching about saving the Libyan people, while supporting other vicious dictators across the world. The Libyan regime has been repressing the people of that country for years but we could do business with the dictator, just as we do business with the other dictators in the region, from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia and anywhere else we can make a buck. It is working class blood that will be shed on both sides, but the gains will be to the big corporate bodies in oil, construction and armaments.

ARAB LEAGUE "VOTE" FRAUD

        Not only a demonization campaign against the Libyan leader, but every form of fraud and propaganda is being used to push for this intervention, including a supposed "vote" by the Arab League supporting the latest U.N. resolution. Left unsaid is the fact that only 11 of the 22 members of the League even attended the meeting, which was held behind closed doors. Two of these 11 attending members, Syria and Algeria, made clear that they were completely opposed to military intervention in Libya.

          Meanwhile the corporate media has ignored a resolution by the African Union, representing 53 countries, which adamantly rejected a no-fly zone or other intervention.

ann arky's home.

A MATTER OF GREAT CONCERN.

To John Swinney MSP
Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth Scottish Government

    An open letter on a matter of great concern to all in Scotland, perhaps everybody should demand an answer to their concerns from My Swinney. Do we really want to pour out personal information to a foreign private company who can in turn hand it over to a foreign government? Is there no company in Scotland that could do this job, if it needs to be done?

Dear Mr Swinney,

               I have already raised this matter with Charles Kennedy MP but his office have pointed out that this is a devolved matter and I should approach you.

              I understand that the 2011 Scottish census will be run by an American company (CACI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CACI International, a US-based defence contractor, who from August 2003 until the early autumn of 2005 was contracted to provide "interrogation services" for the US Army at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. While CACI staff were employed as interrogators at Abu Ghraib, prisoners were humiliated and tortured there by US military police.

            It is simply not acceptable that such a company, which is apparently facing criminal charges in the US, should be given a contract to carry out the census. I also understand that our data may be held outside the UK and made available to the US Government under their Patriot Act. This will violate the principle that data is kept confidential for 100 years. 

            Please clarify the position. If this is correct I think the Scottish people would be well advised to refuse to co-operate until the CACI contract has been cancelled and Scottish people can have confidence that the census will be wholly run by the Scottish government itself and the data will not be made available to any foreign government.

It canny be righ'

ann arky's home.