SYRIA - TAKING SIDES vs IMPERIALIST INTERVENTION.

         An extract from an interesting article from The International Centre, it is well worth reading the whole article as it does throw some light on the very complex situation in the Middle East and the even more complex and seemingly contradictory attitude of the West.

         U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ declared on March 25, 2011 – that there are 3 repressive regimes in the Middle East that must be condemned – Syria, Libya and Iran. Why is the U.S. targeting these particular countries? The progressive political movement must avoid being just an echo and a justification of Pentagon war policy, especially whenever any developing country is in the cross hairs of a U.S. attack.

        Consider: isn't Israel a criminally repressive regime against the Palestinian population? Aren't Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan repressive regimes, military dictatorships and/or corrupt monarchies? All of these brutally repressive regimes have killed of thousands of their own population and could not survive one day with out decades of U.S. military, economic, diplomatic and political support. Is the U.S., with the largest prison population in the world and more weapons than the rest of the world put together, a repressive regime? It is the source of repression, destabilization, dictatorships and wars.

 

         It is within this context that progressives must view the demonstrations that have been taking place for two months against the Bashir Assad government in Syria. The regime has both acknowledged that reforms are essential and responded with force. The actual character and the social forces involved in these demonstrations remains unclear, as does the political direction of the Syrian opposition.

          The events in Syria are connected to the social explosion shaking the Arab world. Washington and all the old regimes tied to it in the region are trying desperately to manage and contain this still unfolding mass upheaval into channels that do not threaten their domination of the region.

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   "EXTREMISTS" AND UNIVERSITIES. 

       Recently the Cameron/Clegg millionaire cabal have been shouting there mouths off about universities not doing enough to crack down on extremists. To most people in this country, this is interpreted as meaning violent Muslim extremists, but however that is not how it will unfold. It will encompass all “extremists” as defined by that narrow band of pro-establishment public school thugs. If you advocate radical change to society away from the profit motive and towards a sustainable, needs based society, you no doubt will come under the heading of “extremist”. We should be very vigilant when we hear those in power talking about clamping down on “extremists”. Who draws the line between acceptable view and “extremist”, how narrow should acceptable be defined?

ACCEPTABLE AND UNACCEPTABLE EXTREMISTS???

 

       The other point that is very important, is that if universities are suppose to be at the cutting edge of research in all fields, how do you do that if you exclude those views that don't fit the mainstream acceptable views of the establishment. In forbidding “extremist” views, you neuter any debate and confine it sterile ground and the future is barren. Of course for a number of years universities have been moving away from that position of, the centres of cutting edge debate and research and moving towards being factories that turn out units needed for “the economy” (big business).

       If your accepted ideas can't hold up in open debate, and to defend them you ban all those who disagree with those ideas, then I believe you are an “extremist”. Then we already know that the Cameron/Clegg millionaire cabal and their cohorts are indeed, right wing “extremists”.

 

 

 

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POLICING THE POLICE!!!

      Next month in London there will be a demonstration by at least 2,000 police officers. They will be demonstrating against cuts to the police service. How ironic??

   
     I believe that all politcal activists, trade unionists and students should come together and organise to police this event, just in case there is any trouble. You have a month to rehearse your kettling tactics and snatch procedures.

       If this is a free and fair democracy, then there is no other way to police this event. If the police insist on policing it themselves, then fair and democratic procedures demand that all other demonstrations should be policed by those, and only those, who organise the demonstration. Or does our democracy not work like that?

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY,--

WILLIAM C. McDOUGAL 1894-1981.

EARLY YEARS.

       Born on the 22nd. of January 1891 in the district of Partick in Glasgow, William C. McDougal spent nearly seventy years actively promoting Libertarian non-sectarian Socialism. He joined the Glasgow Anarchists around the age of nineteen. Willie served as secretary to the Glasgow Anarchist Group and held Sunday meetings at the foot of Buchanan Street. At this time anarchists groups were growing in number in and around Glasgow.

GLASGOW ANARCHISTS 1905.

PRISON.

       Prior to the first world war anarchist groups received relatively little interference from the police. The war changed all that, with meetings being disrupted by police and patriotic groups. At one such meeting in Botanic Gardens, Willie was speaking and referred to the King as a parasite. A crowd rushed the platform and threatened to throw him into the nearby River Kelvin. In 1916 Willie was arrested for refusing the call-up, he was beaten by the local police and handed over to the Military. He refused military orders, was put on trial and sentenced to two years imprisonment. He was sent to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, then on to Denton Camp, eventually ending up in Dartmoor. While at Dartmoor he was involved in prison disputes and tried to organise a strike. He then decided to slip out of the camp by means of the camp bicycle, cycling part of the way he eventually reached Glasgow where he resumed his anti-war and anarchist propaganda. This activity also included holding classes on economics in the rooms of the Herald League and speaking at open-air meetings.

ANTI-CONSCRIPTION GLASGOW GREEN 1939,

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.

     After the war the Russian Revolution considerably increased political activity on the streets of Glasgow. Most anarchists were enthusiastic about the Revolution, some of Willie’s meetings indicate this with titles like, “Lenin’s Anarchy”, “Revolution of Necessity”, and “Dictatorship, democracy and Government”. It was not long before Willie and the Anarchists lost faith in “Lenin’s Anarchy”, by 1920 it had turned to hostility.

      At this time the Glasgow Anarchist Group became the Glasgow Communist Group, in 1921 it changed to the Ant-parliamentary Communist Federation, this group was kept alive right through the 1930s by Willie McDougal, Guy Aldred, Jenny Patrick and other anarchists. Guy Aldred left in 1933, Willie kept it going until 1941.

GUY ALDRED.

GLASGOW GREEN FIGHT.

        Willie was also involved in the fight for freedom of speech and assembly on the Glasgow Green. This struggle came to a head in 1931 by the arrest and imprisonment of the Tramp Preachers. The major players in this struggle to repeal the bye-law forbidding public speaking on the Green were Guy Aldred, Willie McDougal, Harry McShane, and John McGovern. Willie was among those arrested and tried for speaking on the Green without a permit, many other activists played a part in this important Glasgow struggle. The bye-law was repealed in 1932 thanks to the excellent case put by Guy Aldred.

GEORGE SQUARE BLOODY FRIDAY 1919.

SPANISH CIVIL WAR.

       1936 to 1939, the years of the Spanish Civil War, saw a remarkable rise in the activity of Glasgow Anarchists. During this period Willie’s public speaking activities were to peak, the events in Spain also drove Willie to print, publish and edit a number of papers. The first to appear was “Advance”, 1936, then came “The Fighting Call”, 1936-37, “The Barcelona Bulletin” 1937, followed, next came the “Workers Free Press”, 1937-38, and then, “Solidarity”, 1938-40. Apart from trying to give an anarchist view point on the Spanish Civil War, these papers were trying to provide an open forum for anarchist and other voices of the left.

TANKS IN TRONGATE GLASGOW AFTER BLOODY FRIDAY 1919.

WORKERS OPEN FORUM.

        During the 2nd. world war Willie McDougal with Dugald Mackay formed the Workers Revolutionary League to follow on from the Anti-parliamentary Communist Federation. Later on with others he formed the Workers Open Forum, this was again an attempt to provide a platform for all the views from the left and try to create unity. The “Form” rented rooms at 50 Renfrew Street and continued until the late 1950s. The end of the Workers Open Forum marked the end of an era, an end to regular working class political meetings in dingy little halls dotted about the city.

PROPAGANDIST TO THE END.

      After this period Willie McDougal continued his struggle to spread anarchist views by publishing papers. In 1970s there was the “Industrial Republic”, and the year up to his death, “Sense”. Along with these he produced many pamphlets, among them, “Marxism Made Easy”, “An Open Letter to Mr Callaghan”, and “Anthology of Revolt”.

       Willie McDougal continued his propagandist activities right up to his death. The last issue of “Sense” being at the printers at the time of his death. He always tried to put his ideas in the simplest form possible. Willie never lost faith in the belief that the struggle to end the insanity of capitalism could and would develop towards Socialism. William C. McDougal together with other Socialist activists kept alive the Anti-parliamentary Libertarian Socialism that demands real change in society not the tinkering reforms of Party Politics within the framework of Capitalism. His life was an advancement of that cause, his death a loss to the fight for human liberty.

 More on Glasgow's working class history, HERE.

 

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 100,000 STRIKING WORKERS NEED YOUR SUPPORT.

   Like it or not, the workers of the world are in revolt. Across the globe there are protests, demonstrations and strikes. All of them are one in the same thing, part of the same struggle, people fighting against an exploitive system that comes down hard on any opposition, People fighting to maintain what standard of living they have or fighting to have their rights recognised. The corporate system we live under is nothing less than corporate fascism and will do all in its power to ensure that the true voice of the people will not be heard. The desires and aspirations of the people are an anathema to this system of dog eat dog and to hell with the hindmost.

      We in Europe, in the past, have tended to see our struggle as somehow different from the struggle of people in developing countries. Now we recognise that the system of corporate capitalism is a globe system of exploitation and our struggle against this exploitation has to be on a global scale if we are to gain the initiative. Strikers here need the support of ordinary people across the globe just as striking workers in the developing world need our support. To fight a global system we need to be global. With this in mind please take a few minutes to send your support to these striking workers in Botswana.

      100,000 striking public sector workers in Botswana need our help.
The strike started on 18 April and since then the government has dismissed hundreds of workers, detained union leaders, and carried out acts of violence and intimidation targeting unions.

      
     We've been asked by PSI, the global union federation for public sector workers, to send thousands of messages of protest to Botswana's government.

Please take a moment and click HERE.

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       THE IMF, PREDATOR!!

        Recently the Cameron/ Clegg cabal of millionaires were waiting for the IMF to pass judgement on the Osborne hatchet job being perpetrated on the British public. Of course there were loud cheers from the millionaire public school thugs when the IMF gave its vote of approval. Only an idiot would have expected any other verdict. If we consider what the IMF is, we get the general picture. It was created back in 1944 when the it became obvious who the winners were going to be in the final stages of WW2. The new masters of the world came together to form an organisation that would create a world financial system that would guarantee the world's wealth and resources would flow rapidly and only towards them, they wanted total control, the birth of the IMF. According to an examination by ActionAid, of the Malawi famine of 2002/3 its conclusions were that the IMF policies, “bears responsibility for the disaster.” IMF restructuring has devastated countries across Africa and South America. It is an organisation that works towards complete privatisation and low wages. After the 2008 collapse, the IMF congratulated Hungary for continuing to pursue its deficit reduction arrangements by slashing public services. The Hungarian people however had other ideas and got rid of that government, electing a government that promised to make the banks pay for their errors and greed. It introduced a levy on the banks and the IMF blasted the Hungarian government and its people with all the threats it could muster stating that the banks would flee the country and in an act of intimidation, it shut down its entire Hungarian program. Hungary didn't collapse, its people benefited.

 

         IMF policies have nothing to offer the people of any country, its only purpose is to keep syphoning the wealth up to the elite, to create an ever more powerful corporate world that controls all the planet's resources. Its policies have created famine, deprivation, abject poverty and death to thousands, if not millions across the globe. So why should it do anything else except applaud millionaire Osborne and his millionaire public school thugs when they devastate the public services, destroy the social fabric of our society, slash wages and pensions, and privatise everything in sight. All to make sure that “our” deficit is cleared, which in other terms means that we make sure that the bankers and the bond markets don't lose any of their unearned money that they greedily gambled and lost. It is two different worlds, it is their world of every lower wages and no social services controlled by a bunch of parasites, or it is our world of a decent society with all the social services necessary to keep it a decent society, a society based on needs, mutual aid and sustainability.

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MAY DAY-MAY DAY-MAY DAY!!

     

 The Cameron millionaire cabal are hell-bent on getting rid of anything that has a connection with the culture of the ordinary people, anything that the ordinary people can call their own, an event that brings them together and reminds them of the struggles of the past. Everything has to be corporate culture, good for the economy or steeped in nationalism and power. May Day has always been our day, a day when we the ordinary people of the world can come together and celebrate our past struggles, our working class heroes, our history, our culture. It is our day, a day of fun, family, reunion and solidarity. We must stand up and stop this bunch of public school millionaire thugs from trying to erase anything that unites the ordinary people across all borders and cultures. We don't want another symbol of state or corporate power to take the place of what is ours. If a bank holiday in October would "help the economy", then let's have one, there is nothing wrong with another holiday, we don't get as many as our continental neighbours.

 

      The Government is currently running a “pre-consultation” on moving the May Day bank holiday, potentially to October.

        The idea is that a later bank holiday might help stimulate domestic tourism. Whilst this could be true, the loss of domestic tourism in May would be greater than the gain – just ask any of the big retail companies and trade associations currently lobbying against the move.

       Or is this more a move to placate Tory back benchers who've long wanted to remove a public holiday with an association to May Day? It's surely a bad idea to mess around with a tradition dating back to the middle ages over a political whim.

       The Government’s consultation ends on Thursday 9th June. If you want to join us in defending May Day (and calling for an additional bank holiday whilst we're at it!) please use this online action to add your own submission to the pre-consultation.

Send your own message now

 

 

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       BLAIR MOUNTAIN, WEST VIRGINIA.

        There isn't a country in the world that does not have people protesting against what this corporate fascist system is doing to our lives and the planet, which is the future lives of our kids and grandkids. From the "Arab Spring" to the Pan-European protests agains the plunder of our public assets, from groups objecting to the rape of the planet to the cruelty to animals and all this vandalism is done in the name of profit for the rich, parasitical corporate shareholders. It is time that we all joined hands and made it one massive movement against the system that breeds poverty for the many and the eventual demise of the planet.

A REPORT FROM, MARMET, West Virginia—

      On Monday morning, hundreds of people began a weeklong, 50-mile trek to protest mountaintop removal mining and defend labor rights. Nearly 250 marchers and supporters of the Appalachia Rising March on Blair Mountain gathered at the Marmet Baseball Field for a rally on Monday morning. An hour later, shortly after 10 a.m., they headed toward Blair, a town near the Boone-Logan county border, where their march will end on Friday.

SOLIDARITY.

     As the marchers began, several people driving through Marmet honked their horns in support of the marchers. Two small groups of counter-demonstrators held up signs including “Friends of Coal” and “I Love Coal.”

      The marchers plan to walk the same route more than 10,000 coal miners took between Aug. 24 and Sept. 4, 1921, marching to Logan County to organize non-union miners.

 

        The 1921 March on Blair Mountain was the biggest armed conflict in American labor history. After several days of battles, federal troops arrived and ended the conflict.

Read the rest of the story and see video from the Charleston Gazette here

Find out how to join the march here

http://earthfirstnews.wordpress.com/

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GLASGOW'S DOCUMENT FILM FESTIVAL --- 2011.

        Every year the Glasgow Document Film Festival comes around, and every year they never fail to entertain, inform and provoke discussion. This year I'm sure will be no exception, so take my advice and pop in to a worthwhile enlightening experience.

Growing Bolder - Free Film Afternoon

2.00pm - 4.00pm

Thursday 9th June 2011

CCA, Club Room

350 Sauchiehall Street

Glasgow

        This is a relaxed afternoon of films selected from Document Film Festival and Plantation Productions. Two films will be screened followed by questions and answers session with a panel of the film-makers

        The Govan Banners is a film about the Spanish Civil War made by Govan Seniors Film Club based at Plantation Productions, inspired by banners from 1938 which were found in an attic in 1979 by one of the group members. The banners link Govan with the Spanish Civil War through the Scottish democracy movement. The film shows the group’s quest to find out more about this.

        You Always Think There’s Nothing There is a thought provoking film made with the 'Damned Rebel Bitches' - an independent social history group of mature women based at Tollcross Community Centre in Edinburgh. The film explores what poverty means today for older people across Scotland’s capital and looks behind the glamorous façades of tourism and culture. A story about self respect! Part of 'Making A Difference, Stories From The Fight Against Poverty In Scotland. http://www.makingadifferencescotland.co.uk/

For more info on Growing Bolder/Active Ageing Week: http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/

THAT'S NO WIT THE FILM WIS SAY'N!!!

One Scotland Many Voices Film Festival

3.00pm - 6.00pm

Friday 24th June 2011

GMAC

5th Floor, Trongate 103

Glasgow G1 5HD

Free    Free    Free.

Other Europe

Rossella Schillaci / Italy / 2011 / 75’

(Italian/Somali with English subtitles)

        Document 9 in partnership with GMAC present Other Europe. This beautifully shot film documents the struggles and aspirations of a group of fully-recognised refugees who face being moved from the disused building they occupy to a prison-like compound.

       Despite difficult living conditions, language barriers and hostility from locals, some determined refugee inhabitants attempt to take a stand against the local authorities to make their voices heard.

Followed by Q&A.

IT'S THE BEST FILM FESTIVAL IN THE WHOLE WORLD, SO IT IS.

Please circulate...........Please attend.............

Paula Larkin
Coordinator  Document Festival
tel: 00 44 141 332 9311

http://documentfilmfestival.org/

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GREECE TODAY-- SPAIN, PORTUGAL TOMORROW??

 

      The following is a report from OCCUPIED LONDON-- FROM THE GREEK STREETS. Where are the British people in this corporate plunder of all our public assets and the slashing of our standard of living? Are we going to be limited to 50 or so people at a time running round pointing out the tax dodgers, or are we going to organise and mobilise to change this corrupt and exploitive system once and for all?
      All the media is spouting about the "Arab Spring" where is the "Pan-European Spring"?
   

     REPORT STARTS HERE: Athens sees its biggest gathering in years, more than 150,000 at Syntagma square as the build-up for the General Strike of June 15th begins

A crowd whose size is difficult to even estimate gathered in central Athens to protest against the crisis and the Memorandum tonight. The call to a pan-european call of action saw more than 100,000 (some estimates give much higher numbers) flooding Syntagma square and many central nearby avenues. In contrast to previous gatherings, police presence was much higher, with fencing erected around the parliament building and double, or triple rows of riot police around it.

The city is now building up for the General Strike of June 15th, which is also the next date of action announced at Syntagma square. Both mobilisations are aimed against the new agreement between the government and the troika (IMF/EU/ECB) which is planned to be voted at parliament on the morning of the 15th. The general assembly of Syntagma square has already called for a blocking of the parliament from the night of the 14th. In addition to the fencing installed around the parliament (see below), a police water canon has also appeared nearby.

Similar demonstrations took place in Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Larisa, Volos and many other Greek cities. In the Cretan city of Chania, fascists bearing arms appeared in the gathering, in a failed attempt to provoke the gathered crowd.

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