THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.

         In this society anxiety walks with us, will my benefit be cut, will I be deported and who knows why a young man would throw himself in front of a train, but then again, this is capitalism. 

Jim McFarlane 30-6-11   hereandnowscot@gmail.com

         I was early. I had the luxury - on a clear day - to get off the shoogly bus. Across the Squiggly bridge I sauntered, northwards past the Broomielaw, nondescript buildings housing bureaucrats of BT, the Scottish Office.....

        The Job Centre in Argyle Street wasn't my destination, this time, carrying on, was the ATOS assessment centre at Cadogan St. - quiet outside at mid morning - no Black Triangle or dis ability campaigners this early.

       Reaching Bothwell Street I at first turned right, only to discover the imposing entrance I had imagined to be "Eagle" was not the place. About turning I strode. Across the road, every window of Habitat festooned the message: closing down sale/ everything must go! A symbol of the sixties myth, going the way of Woolies.....

        Just beside the slip-road from the Kingston Bridge was the Eagle building. The penny dropped. This was the immigration office place. Up to the 4th floor, a screening barrier and uniformed civil servant greeted me. Keys, coins, lighters, all to be placed on a tray. It was a hallmark of departure.

      I had to sit next to the toilets. This was the designated bay for benefit appeal claimants. In the larger waiting room space, a few of Jock Tamson's bairns who awaited a different fate: the right to stay or face deportation.

      Another unshaven man was processed. He said he was late because a young lad had thrown himself under an Underground train at Govan. No empathy overflowed from the clerk. My fellow claimant's lateness would undo my planned escape to Paisley afterwards. I settled down - a few BBC science magazines helped distract my thoughts. Others came & went or nervously visited the latrines.

      My time came. The clerk led me along the corridor. He opened the door. A surprise greeted me. This was not like Wellington Street or other overspill locations for Appeals. It was a miniature court room. I took my seat, a desk in front with water and tissues. I was at least 12 feet away from judgement.

     The legal man, explained how they would conduct the proceedings. The medical man - whose face betrayed a liking for the bottle - asked the questions. It was a case of casting the mind back, a portrait of anomie in the months before last autumn. A period when the diagnosis was incomplete. The medical scans were underway but not going as planned. I was sleeping fitfully, I was not functioning as before. Enough information was gleaned.

    Time to go. There would be no verbal verdict. I would be in a state of suspense. They ushered me out of the Eagle's lair. Would I continue under the scrutiny of the State? Or would I tread the path of precarity .

Disability assessor

[to be continued...]

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     A CLASSY MAYFAIR FIRESALE!!!

     For those poor deluded souls who still think that "their" government is driving the fiscal policy in their respective countries, the extract below helps to clear the smoke from the bankers and bond markets smoke and mirrors illusion. Austerity cuts, as I keep spouting, have nothing to do with deficit reduction, it is all to do with flogging off everything in sight to the corporate world at "firesale" prices. Everything must go, ports, airports, land, anything that the corporate world can make money from will be handed to them on a plate, social services will be starved of funds letting the corporate world step in and sell the service to you at a price and profit to them, all of this at the dicate of the IMF and ECB. "Your" government is selling "your" country and the money raised will of course, not go to those who actually own these assets, the people, no, it will all go to the bankers and bond markets to cover their losses, and "your" government will comply, even if it decimates the living standards of the people, even if the people take to the streets in mass protests making it quite clear that they do not want this policy to continue. The state's minders will also be on the streets dealing out brutal repression with baton and tear gas, and if that doesn't work their is always the army. So much for democracy. 

     The short extract below was taken from from an article that appeared in The Guardian June 29 and was written by Aditya Chakrabortty and  titled, Greece crisis. As Athens erupts Mayfair hosts a classy firesale,.  The full article is well worth reading. The graphics are not The Guardian's.

     'At first, yesterday's meeting looked like a thousand other upmarket business events; suits gathered at Claridge's hotel in London's Mayfair for a day's discussion of how to reform Greece and its economy. But listening to the presentations from Greek ministers and officials about the airports, the ports, the land they were auctioning off to the highest bidder, the real purpose of the day came into sharp focus. Here in an art deco room with five chandeliers and too many mirrored surfaces to count, was the beginning of a classy firesale.

       The men from Athens were not calling it that, of course. “A professionally run privatisation plan” is how George Christodoulakis, the man in charge of Greece's asset sales preferred to describe it. But even he conceded that the pace and scale of the government's scheme to flog €50bn (£44.8bn) of assets within the next five years had been forced on it. “One can say; is this the best time to sell assets?” '

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      THE MARCH OF CORPORATE FASCISM.

    

   

     This July will be the 75th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War. When the fascist started their onslaught on the elected Spanish government, thousands of ordinary people from around the world made their way to Spain to help in that fight against Franco's fascists. Thousands from Britain alone, see previous post. That spirit of solidarity is once more needed as the fascists once more attack the ordinary people. This time it is not Spain, and they are not lead by a military general. The modern day fascists are world wide, has no uniform and doesn't carry a gun. They wear suits, carry laptops and sit at desks in offices of splendour. Today it is corporate fascism that dictates the fiscal policies in every country in the world.

ATHENS.

        There is not one government in Europe that was voted in to decimate the education system, privatise the health system, close libraries, shut down nurseries, cut social benefits and social services, raise pension contributions and raise the pension age. However, that is what you are getting. Not only that we are being told that it is all for our benefit, we are told that if we don't accept their grand plans we will face dire consequences. What we are told is the best option is austerity cuts, and that translate into, we cover the banks and bond markets losses and accept an impoverished society mired in deprivation for at least a decade or two.

PARIS.

 

        However, we don't have to play the game with their loaded dice, we can write the rules of the game ourselves, we can change the way the game is played. Across Europe that is what is happening, in France there are mass demonstrations, in Spain there are weekly protests across the country building up to a national day of action on the 24 July, in Greece there are on going mass protest in Athens and else where across Greece. Here in the UK there is a public service day of protest on Thursday 30th June.

LONDON.

 

      The protests have to move out from the big cities, they have to take place in every city, town and village in the country. This struggle is not the struggle of one particular group it is the struggle of all the ordinary people against the relentless march of corporate fascism. Your so called representative government does not represent you, it takes it orders from the banks and the bond markets and they are not interested in the welfare of the people, only in the welfare of their bank balances.

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SPANISH CIVIL WAR, 75 YEARS AGO THIS YEAR.

PRESS RELEASE:      Files reveal full extent of British involvement in the Spanish Civil War.

        More volunteers may have left Britain with the aim of joining the International Brigades in Spain than previously thought according to documents discovered at The National Archives.

      This year marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. Despite the British government’s official policy of non-intervention, thousands of men and women from Britain and Ireland were inspired by their political beliefs to fight in defence of the Spanish Second Republic. They were among the first of a generation defined by the fight against Fascism.

        The British Security Service, sometimes known as MI5, was interested in which British volunteers were defying the ban to fight in Spain as many were also suspected members of the Communist Party. 

      James Cronan, Diplomatic and Colonial Records Specialist at The National Archives, said: “The records show that the Security Service tracked the movements of around 4,000 people it believed were trying to travel to Spain to fight with the International Brigades, many more than previously thought. It’s not clear how many made it to Spain although we know that hundreds never returned. “The International Brigades brought volunteers together from all over the world in defence of democracy but few if any records exist of their service. That’s why uncovering a document like this is so exciting.”

      The list has now been digitised and is available to view online at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/spanish-civil-war. It provides researchers and historians with a valuable new resource and is a good starting point for anyone wishing to find out whether a relative fought in Spain. The annotated list includes entries for the poet John Cornford, union leader Jack Jones and Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell, whose famous book Homage to Catalonia detailed his experiences with the International Brigades.

CAPA; Refugees on the beach.

      The newly-digitised material contains more than 200 pages of names and dates detailing the movements of the men and women who left British ports on their way to the frontline in Spain and a roll of honour of those killed in action. A selection of index cards have also been digitised and put online for notable brigade volunteers including the classicist Bernard Knox, Irish Brigade leader Frank Ryan and George Orwell as well as recently deceased veterans such as Sam Lesser, Bob Doyle, Jack Edwards and Paddy Cochrane.

     A ceremony will be held on 2 July 2011 at the International Brigades Memorial in Jubilee Gardens, London to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of the conflict with two of the five surviving British veterans. Further commemorations are planned later this year.

Contact secretary@international-brigades.org.uk for details.

For media enquiries please contact Thomas Norton on 0208 392 5277 or e-mail press@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY -

- EMMA GOLDMAN'S BIRTHDAY.

      As the struggle of the ordinary people is set to become more harsh, we should always remember those who in their life gave so much to that struggle. We can learn from their deeds, their words and take inspiration from the way they lived their life.
     Today June 27 is the birthday Emma Goldman, born, 27 June 1869, died 14 May 1940, one of the many working class giants that took the full force of the state but never wavered in their believe, never lost their desire for a better world for all.

      On June 27, 1919 Emma Goldman spent her 50th birthday behind prison walls, where she was serving a two year prison term in Jefferson City, Missouri, for her conviction, along with Alexander Berkman, for conspiracy against the Selective Service Act of 1917 (for publicly speaking out against conscription). Today, June 27, 2011 we should take strength from the countless Emma Goldman's across the world and refocus our vision and re-double our efforts to carry on the struggle for that better world for all.
     
       Emma Goldman's writings and speeches touched on the full spectrum of human activity, she had clear thoughts on everything from love to death and all that comes between. Here are a couple of quotes from those two perspectives.
 

Cover of 70th Birthday Commemorative Edition pamphlet (Los Angeles: Libertarian Committee, 1939)

[Kate Sharpley Library]    

  

  Love:          

              Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere.

     Death:

               As to killing rulers, it depends entirely on the position of the ruler. If it is the Russian Czar, I most certainly believe in dispatching him to where he belongs. If the ruler is as ineffectual as an American President, it is hardly worth the effort. There are, however, some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They are Ignorance, Superstition, and Bigotry — the most sinister and tyrannical rulers on earth. As for the gentleman who asked if free love would not build more houses of prostitution, my answer is: They will all be empty if the men of the future look like him.

        Responding to audience questions during a speech in Detroit (1898); as recounted in Living My Life (1931), p. 207; quoted by Annie Laurie Gaylor in Women Without Superstition, p. 382

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ANN ARKY IS HAVING A WEE BREAK.

      ann arky is indulging in a holiday on the continent for a few days and  will be back in the next day or so.

As always,    in solidarity, ann arky. 

        FREE FROM GOVERNMENT AGREEMENTS!!!

         Did you know that anarchists have been right all along!! A little bit of proof that citizens are not bound by agreements made by their government as they did not participate in that agreement and so by law cannot be bound by such an agreement!!!

         It is worth seeing the whole video through to the end, though it does seem as though he is drawing it out a bit but enjoyable never the less.

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DEMOCRACY vs MYTHOLOGY:

THE BATTLE IN SYNTAGMA SQUARE.

        I have continually spouted that the deficit reduction has nothing to do with deficit reduction. It is all to do with saving the banks and the bond markets from losing any of their illgotten assets and rescue them from their gambling excesses. The billionaire playboys gambled massively and lost, so now they want the ordinary people of the world to pay for their greed. Living standards will be slashed, social services will be decimated, unemployment will rise, pensions will be plundered and all public assets will be sold off at bargain prices to those very billionaire gamblers.

      All this is happening not because your government wants to destroy the social fabric of the nation, but because they are being dictated to by foreign billionaires and as they are in the pay of those billionaires they obey for fear of losing their own wealth, power and privileges. It is an army of occupation taking over all the decision making in their target countries.

      It is explained excellently in the following extract from STURDYBLOG. Please take the time to read the article in full and spread the details as widely as possible. This is your battle, it is not just something that is happening over there in some foreign land. It is here, it is our struggle, it is your and your kids future.

     "I have never been more desperate to explain and more hopeful for your understanding of any single fact than this: The protests in Greece concern all of you directly.

        What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion; an invasion as brutal as that against Poland in 1939. The invading army wears suits instead of uniforms and holds laptops instead of guns, but make no mistake – the attack on our sovereignty is as violent and thorough. Private wealth interests are dictating policy to a sovereign nation, which is expressly and directly against its national interest. Ignore it at your peril. Say to yourselves, if you wish, that perhaps it will stop there. That perhaps the bailiffs will not go after the Portugal and Ireland next. And then Spain and the UK. But it is already beginning to happen. This is why you cannot afford to ignore these events.

      The powers that be have suggested that there is plenty to sell. Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Angela Merkel’s party, recently made the helpful suggestion that we should sell some of our islands to private buyers in order to pay the interest on these loans, which have been forced on us to stabilise financial institutions and a failed currency experiment. (Of course, it is not a coincidence that recent studies have shown immense reserves of natural gas under the Aegean sea).

       China has waded in, because it holds vast currency reserves and more than a third are in Euros. Sites of historical interest like the Acropolis could be made private. If we do not do as we are told, the explicit threat is that foreign and more responsible politicians will do it by force. Let’s make the Parthenon and the ancient Agora a Disney park, where badly paid locals dress like Plato or Socrates and play out the fantasies of the rich.---"

 

       We have to admit that the world at this moment in time is owned by gambling billionaires, they buy governments and plunder the planet. We can continue in this fashion and leave a future of deprivation and corporate fascism to our grandchildren, or we can orgainse in solidarity with all the ordinary people of the world and change the way our world is run. We can create a world based on needs, mutual aid and sustainability, we have the resources, we have the ability, all we are lacking is the will to start that change.

 ann arky's home.

        TOO MUCH TROUBLE TO TREAT CHILDREN!!!

         While our millionaire public school thugs, do their utmost to privatise our National Health Service at the same time as uttering camouflage statements like "the health service is safe in our hands" and "we are not privatising the health service" there are those who see the millionaire cabal's plans as an advance in the service, an introduction of the American model. For those who are not too familiar with the "American" model perhaps the following statement will give them some insight. It was taken from an American blog, you can read the rest of the blog HERE. It might help you to realise where this bunch of millionaire public school thugs are driving our National Health Service. 

        "Sixty-six percent of publicly-insured children were unable to get a doctor’s appointment for medical conditions requiring outpatient speciality care including diabetes and seizures, while children with identical symptoms and private insurance were turned away only 11 percent of the time, according to an audit study of speciality physician practices in Cook County, IL."

A don't wannt t' be discriminated against.

 

     “We found disturbing disparities in speciality physicians’ willingness to provide outpatient care for children with public insurance — even those with urgent and severe health problems. This study shows a failure to care for our most vulnerable children” said a study author."

 

    Never accept that a bunch of millinaires have your best interests at heart, they will always serve their own class. We most make sure that we do the same.

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TIME FOR RIGHTEOUS ANGER!!!

         As the Greek government tries to push through more "austerity" measures to appease the IMF and bond markets, the people of Greece are saying NO, enough is enough. The riots, strikes and now camps on Syntagma Square are proof of their determination. Here in the UK, we are also being hit with “austerity” measures for the same reasons, to protect the bond markets, the banks and to appease the IMF. However, to date, we in the UK seem to be taking it on the chin with the mythical stiff upper lip. There are those who might say that the reason for that is because we are not being hit as hard as the Greeks. Perhaps not, but we still have unacceptable poverty in this country and our “austerity” cuts have still to bite.

         Save the Children state that there are over 1.6 million children in the UK living in extreme poverty. No matter the illusions they try to weave, no country can claim to be civilised where over 1.6 million children live in extreme poverty. This is an increase on last years figure, the main contributing factor to this increase being because of huge increases in the cost of energy, petrol and food. According to the British Retail Consortium, families have seen the average food bill of £100 increase by £5 since last year. This continuing rising cost of living, has thousands more families struggling to to pay for the very basics in the home. What people have to cope with in the face of wage cuts, wage freezes and benefit cuts are such things as Petrol £1.37 a litre, diesel £1.42 a litre, and according to the Office of National Statistics, the last 5 years have seen the price of bread increase by 50%, butter by 57.7% and milk up 33%, on top of this gas is expected to rise by 19% and electricity by 12% before the end of this year. Obviously if you are on a low income, benefit or a wage freeze, then these factors are going to hit you hard, as you are obliged to spend a larger proportion of your income on the basic necessities. Last year over 61,000 people across the UK approached Foodbanks for help. Poverty is wide spread here in the UK but our millionaire, friends of the IMF and bank Mafia's hatchet job, has still to do its real damage. Will the UK people still continue with their orderly strikes, marches and banner waving, or will they vent the very real anger that they are already feeling? "Enjoy the ecstasy of your righteous anger", goes an old Korean saying!!!

 

 

TIME FOR RIGHTEOUS ANGER.

We talk of justice, we ooze compassion

you and I. Our comfort sure

with a gracious smile a token give

those “SO deserving poor”.

Where is compassion when children lose

carefree innocent play,

where is justice when children meet

hunger along the way?

Children who, in this world of excess

create a newsreel scene

cradled in a starving mother’s arms

expiring on your TV screen.

Forget the famine rationale

in a sickly syrup word,

mouthed by those crazy apes

until the truth is blurred.

Feel the anguish of the other

hear their pitiful cry

see hunger steal their future;

loudly cry out, why?

Then act out your righteous anger

fan the passions flame,

create a world of social justice

end this human shame.

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TEAPOT COLLECTIVE INTRODUCTION TO ANARCHY, PAGE 13. 

         Time for the next exciting page from the Teapot Collective Introduction to Anarchy, we continue with page 13. Page 12 can be read HERE.

         "--Find examples of what life could be, put our ideas into practise in everyday life.

          Creating anarchy is helping your neighbours, stealing from your workplace, growing your own food, throwing a brick at a riot cop, organising a stamp-collectors club, babysitting for your friend, talking back, phoning in sick, not being what is expected of you. Anarchy is mutual aid, co-operation and not leaving your life to others to organise it.

      We don't see the mythical revolution as something that will just happen suddenly one day after we've polished some ideology. Revolution is a

process of individuals and collectives gradually reclaiming what's been taken from us.

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