Wednesday, 14 December 2011

THE MANY SHAPES OF VIOLENCE.

         Brutality and violence comes in many shapes and some capitalist bastards are worse than other capitalist bastards. 

Over 100 workers have been locked out from the CPM Rangitikei plant for 2 months by a vicious employer trying to starve them into accepting huge pay cuts and unacceptable changes to terms and conditions. Their union, the New Zealand Meatworkers Union, has requested the Employment Relations Authority to provide facilitation services.
To learn more and to send a message to ANZCO Foods urging the company to enter into facilitation and demanding an end to the lockout and a return to the bargaining table, click here.
Ron Oswald
General Secretary, IUF




International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)

8, rampe du Pont-Rouge
1213 Petit Lancy, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 793 22 33
Fax: +41 22 793 22 38
website:
www.iuf.org

USA, - MILITARY DICTATORSHIP!!


       Some time today the America Congress will vote on a bill that will increase military control in that country. The legislation would allow the military to arrest and detain indefinitely, without charge, any American citizen it deemed to be a danger to the country. This dictatorship type legislation would circumvent the FBI and other civil law enforcement agencies. If this passes, it will be the final proof that there is no such thing in America, as even a sham of democracy. The state usually justifies such legislation in time of national emergency and war, of course, America is permanently at war, as are all Western capitalist "democracies" so perhaps that is their thinking. What we should be aware of is that if America introduces such legislation you can rest assured the rest of the Western countries will be looking at it with interest. We live under what at best can only be called the illusion of democracy. The brutal slashing of the living standards of most of the people in the developed world, against their wishes, is proof enough of that.

         As early as today Congress will vote on the final version of this dangerous defense bill. It then goes to President Obama. This bill threatens both U.S. national security and fundamental American ideals. It would:
  • greatly expand the military's role in domestic counterterrorism, sidelining the FBI and local law enforcement;
  • authorize the indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects, including American citizens; and
  • effectively make Guantanamo a permanent prison.
President Obama promised to veto the bill if the final version contained these provisions. Tell President Obama on Twitter to protect our national security and our rights with a veto of the NDAA.
The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, and Obama's Counterterrorism Advisor have publicly expressed opposition to the bill, as have 16 former interrogators and counterterrorism professionals and 26 of the nation's most respected retired military leaders.
Retired four-star Marine Generals Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar wrote in a New York Times op-ed that "this budget bill—which can be vetoed without cutting financing for our troops—is both misguided and unnecessary: the president already has the power and flexibility to effectively fight terrorism."

WHEN IS SUICIDE NOT SUICIDE - WHEN YOU'RE PREGNANT!!


      Sometimes you read a report and you come to the conclusion that it must be from some far off, foreign undeveloped country, as it seems so out of line with civilized thought. That was how this article struck me, of course it wasn't from some enclave of a primitive warlord, it was in fact, from the land of freedom and opportunity, the supposed leader of free democratic world, the good ol' US of A. No doubt the religious fundamentalists will be behind this injustice. The sooner we rid ourselves of the insanity of the religious fundamentalists, Christian, Muslim, Jew or what ever, the better for all concerned.

         Today, the Indiana Court of Appeals heard testimony on the case of Bei Bei Shuai, the pregnant woman who ingested rat poison in a suicide attempt, causing her to go into preterm labor at 33 weeks to a baby girl that died soon after.
       Shuai, who survived her attempted suicide only to be arrested and held without bail since this March, has become the poster child for the question as to whether the rights of a fetus actually outweigh the rights of the woman who carries it. Ironically, she has now been imprisoned for nine months — longer than she ever carried the baby girl that she is accused of murdering.

OCCUPY THE WORLD, IT'S OURS.


 
        The occupy movement seems to be gaining momentum and is moving in the right direction. In America there has been a campaign to occupy the ports, and though they have been evicted from the Wall Street site they are planning to re-occupy it with Occupy 2.  In London there has been the occupation of the UBS building and the forming of the “Bank of Ideas”.


 
        The occupy movement has to grow or it dies and the only way for it to grow is to branch out and bring the idea to a greater number of people. The occupying of the ports in America is widening the range of influence and allowing a greater number of people to become involved. The London “Bank of Ideas” again will involve a greater range of people and will widen the idea of occupation as a tool of change, rather than sitting in one spot in some symbolic action.



The work places, distribution and the streets should belong to the people, only then will we have justice.

ann arky's home.

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

MANUFACTURING HATE IN PREPARATION FOR WAR??


From Stop The War.
      Last Monday about 250 people packed into Conway hall to hear a range of speakers address the threat of an attack on Iran. Abbas Edelat from CASMII (Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran) busted the myths used to demonise Iran, showing that there is in fact no evidence of Iran developing nuclear weapons and that far from Iran being the belligerent country, it is the western powers that have played this role for over 50 years.

     There were messages of solidarity from John McDonnel MP and Darren Johnson from the Green Party. George Galloway drew the worrying parallels with the media campaign and the 'dodgy dossier' in the build up to war on Iraq. But unlike Iraq, Iran is far from being isolated or internally divided. If Iran is attacked, people inside the country will unite in resistance and many nations of the world will very quickly be involved. An attack on Iran will set the Middle East on fire.




      In light of this disastrous potential, Tony Benn urged everyone to speak out against any possibility of an attack and start building the resistance now to a new war in the Middle East.

      The public meeting last Monday was the start of a campaign to do just that. We need to follow this up with local meetings and events to start spreading these arguments far and wide. Stop the War is urging supporters who want to organise such an event to get in touch now so we can start planning a mass campaign in the new year.

Watch videos from the meeting here:
http://bit.ly/sV9Ixd
Sign the petition here: http://bit.ly/rXkyFZ


ann arky's home.

BEHEADING, CORRUPTION AND THE UK'S BLIND EYE.


       The arms industry is a true capitalist enterprise, devoid of any morals. Since 1960 the regime of Saudi Arabia have been a major purchaser of UK made arms. This is not just a series of corporate manufacturers selling to the highest bidder, the hand of the UK state is involved in most of these deals as they are government to government contracts. Governments are expert at putting nice names to despicable affairs, recently BAE arms manufacturer sold 72 Euro fighters to Saudi Arabia, at a cost of £4.4 billion, the project was named The Salam (Peace) Project. UK corporate business with the help and blessing of the UK government, makes billions supplying all manner of weapons to what is probably one of the most repressive regimes on the planet. This regime of Royal despots rule over a country that as well as brutal repression, is in the eyes of most observers is rife with corruption on a massive scale. The Guardian has ran numerous reports of allegations of corruption at the highest level.. In 2004, following revelations about a £60 million "slush fund", the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began an investigation. There were further allegations in June 2007 that BAE, with approval of the UK’s Ministry of Defence, had made payments worth hundreds of millions of pounds since 1985 to bank accounts under the personal control of Prince Bandar, the son of Prince Sultan. On 14th December 2006 the SFO announced that it was stopping its investigation. CAAT and The Corner House challenged the decision in the courts. In April 2008 the High Court ruled that the SFO had acted unlawfully in curtailing the inquiry, but this ruling was overturned by the House of Lords on 30th July 2008. More information about the case and documents which were released during it can be viewed here.

The whole thing stinks.


      Saudi Arabia is also a country that beheads people, for among other things, the crime of sorcery. The latest case of this was a 60 year old woman who was headed for the crime of sorcery, and recently a man was beheaded for the same crime, it seems he told fortunes. This year alone the Saudis have executed 79 people, 5 of them women, compared to 27 for the whole of last year. It is obvious that they are stepping up the repression with one eye on the “Arab Spring”. It is criminal, but to be expected, that the UK state considers Saudi Arabia to among its “friendly” allies.


ann arky's home.

Monday, 12 December 2011

GIVING BIRTH IN GREECE.


         While the UK mainstream media fills its pages and TV time with squabbles over David Cameron's EU veto, we should not lose sight of what the “Euro crisis” means on the ground. The conditions in Greece for the ordinary people are appalling, what is happening there is nothing short of crime against humanity. The criminals in this case are the financial gurus of the bond markets with complete complicity of European national governments. The Greek people are being ground into the dust by “austerity” cut after “austerity” cut, increase taxes, pension cuts and thousands being added to the unemployment army on a daily basis. Ill health, suicides, drug addiction and alcoholism are all on the increase, these are the constant companions of poverty. In the new Greece to be pregnant is now a nightmare unless you belong to that well-heeled group in the upper echelons of the income bracket. Read how it is to be pregnant in modern Greece.
      Of course we should not be under any illusions that we are somehow guaranteed immunity from the Greek treatment, it could and probably will come your way, in the not too distant future. That's capitalism for you.

ann arky's home.

CORPORATE DESIRE - A CHEAP SUBSERVIENT WORKFORCE.


       The present corporate friendly government, is hell bent on handing the big business lobby what it has always wanted, ie; to be able to fire workers without running the risk of being taken to a tribunal for unfair dismissal. The corporate world is asking the government to do away with legislation that the workers and unions have fought long and hard for, protection against dismissal at the vagaries of their employer. They are also asking for another couple of favours from their millionaire puppet politicians, to do away with redundancy and collective bargaining. According to the double-speak of the deranged minds of the corporate bosses, this will create more jobs by allowing businesses to hire and fire without fear of facing a tribunal. They maintain that it would help business if they could hire and fire more cheaply.

We need protection from the workers.

       This is just hogwash, in an attempt to take away what little rights workers have. Employers can at present hire workers on an temporary contract for up to three months to determine their suitability for the job and can dismiss them at the end of that three months, with no costs involved for the employer. If they were eager to hire more workers but feel they don't want to run the risk of a tribunal if the worker is unsuitable, they can use the temporary contract and if they are suitable retain them. The fact that they don't just means that they don't want to employ more workers and it is not the legislation that is stopping them.
      In the present climate the corporate bosses know that they have the backing of our public school millionaire politicians to do what they can to dismantle what little protection workers have. Less workers rights, easy hiring and firing, no redundancy, no collective bargaining, all helps to keep down wages and increase profit margins. In this exploitive system of capitalism, that's the name of the game. A cheap subservient work force is the corporate world's dream. No amount of tinkering will change that. We have to remember that as we fight for decent conditions, they are never ours when we win them, they are merely on loan, the bosses will come back later with the backing of their friends in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption and take them all back again. For a decent life for all we have to get rid of this exploitive system of capitalism.

Sunday, 11 December 2011

WAR IS OUR BUSINESS!!


        It is quite frightening how the “Free Democratic Peace Loving West” can drum up all manner of reasons to attack, invade and destroy so many countries across the globe. Our most recent list includes, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to mention a few. Now our war hungry political class is screwing up the tension for having a go at Syria and Iran. There are those who claim that the war against Iran has already started with covert attacks on industrial installations and the assassination of a general. What drives our war crazy “leaders”? Do you honestly believe it is all for the benefit of the Iraqis, Afghans and Libyans? Or is it big money corporatism seeking control over all the planet's valuable resources? The following is a short extract from a recent article in The Guardian, it is well worth reading the whole article.


"---The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn't want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US – which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region – Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.
Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?---"


ann arky's home.

Saturday, 10 December 2011

"SAVE THE BANKERS" CHARITY.

         As we all contribute to "Save the Bankers" charity by accepting savage cuts to our living standards and accepting the decimation of our kids education, while at the same time giving our pensions to the "Bankers Bonus Fund" we should not forget, it is going to hurt. The main effect of all the legislation being passed by the millionaire cabal will by to safeguard the financial sector and destroy the lives of vast swathes of ordinary people. There is no shortage of money, it is all up to the choices our millionaire public school thugs decide to make. All that money that is being stolen from the public sector is going somewhere, that's the choices they have to make. Do we take the taxpayers money and spend it on the welfare of the people, or do we give it to the bond markets? Do we spend it on health and education or spend it on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc.? Do we give people a decent civilised pension or do we replace our nuclear weapons of mass destruction and build status symbol massive aircraft carriers? To our millionaire political class that inhabit The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, it isn't a difficult decision, the former wins every time and screw the people. Big business must be helped, the people must pay, our parasite politicians see this as how to run a country. What's your idea of running a country?




ann arky's home.

STATE REPRESSION.


          Not all Arab Springs lead to sunshine, while the media mainly focuses on Egypt, we should not forget that all across the Arab world there has been people rising up against authority and in most cases this is being met with brutal repression. Messages of solidarity can let those being violently intimidated know that we in other countries are aware of their struggles and will raise our vioces in their support. They are not alone, an injury to one is an injury to all.

  

Last spring, while Tunisians and Egyptians celebrated the fall of authoritarian regimes, the people of Bahrain also staged a series of peaceful protests.

They were met by fierce repression. Leaders of the teachers' union were arrested and sentenced to long jail terms.

This weekend, their appeal comes before the courts. The Education International, representing some thirty million unionized teachers around the world, has called for a major online campaign to press the Bahraini government to drop the charges.

You can learn more and send off your message here.
Thanks very much - and please spread the word.

Eric Lee

Friday, 9 December 2011

SPARKS FIGHT BACK.


          It is encouraging to see the private sector fight back against the savage attack on their living conditions. A combined fight back of both public and private sector industries is one route to success. This article is from Union-News.co.uk

Sparks in “unprecedented” action over pay, apprenticeships
 by - 7th December 2011, 18.36 GMT
     Electricians in the construction sector have taken part in what organisers describe as “the biggest unofficial strike in decades”. The series of mass walk-outs followed a decision by the construction giant, Balfour Beatty to initiate a legal challenge to last month’s strike ballot conducted by Unite which returned an 81% majority in favour of industrial action against threatened “sign or be sacked” contracts which had been due to come into force today. Hundreds of sparks and supporters blockaded Balfour Beatty sites in London, Hartlepool, Hull, the Conoco Phillips refinery at Immingham in Lincolnshire, Cardiff, Liverpool, Glasgow and Manchester. Sparks at the Grangemouth oil refinery in central Scotland voted at a mass meeting earlier this week to join more than one hundred colleagues who protested outside the company’s head office in Hillington, Renfrewshire. They later blockaded the entrance to a Strathclyde Fire Brigade training centre under construction by Balfour Beatty. More than a dozen sparks walked off the job to join protesters who later occupied one of the site offices.


       Today’s protest in Cardiff marks the first action of its kind in Wales. In Manchester, electricians occupied a city council meeting and demanded to know why councillors had awarded a construction contract for the town hall and library to NG Bailey – one of the seven employers which Unite says is trying to impose a 35% pay cut and enforce de-skilling on the industry. Ian Black, Unite shop steward at Grangemouth told UnionNews: “The agreements at the centre of this dispute have worked well for forty years and we don’t see any reason for change. “This is an attack on our wages and employment, but it’s also about apprenticeships. It’s about the future, about young people getting a proper four-year apprenticeship.  It’s not just about money, not just about ourselves.  It’s about the young men and women coming into our industry.” Rank and file organisers of today’s protests – which mark an escalation in their four month campaign against the so-called BESNA contracts – feel increasingly the momentum is with them, not the employers.
       At Balfour Beatty’s Blackfriars site, 300 workers and students persuaded 20 workers not to go in, despite police pushing aside campaigning workers to allow Balfour employees to enter the site unhindered. Campaigners did manage to shut down a lorry entrance leading to the canceling of orders for the day. One spark from Southend who only wanted to be named as “Keith” told workers blockading the site: “You [Balfour] can’t make 55 million pounds and then expect people like me to take a 35 percent pay cut.

SOLIDARITY.

      In one scuffle, a police officer grabbed the only black protester present at the demonstration. Other activists tried to free him but officers took the man named by a friend as “Josh” away to a van and confirmed he was arrested for assaulting a police officer. Cries of “racist boot boys” and “I’d rather be a picket than a scab” reverberated around the area, as protesters promised to return this evening. Rank and file sources say no sparks, cable pullers or scaffolders came on site for the night shift. Spirits were  boosted by the presence of a large number of senior lay Unite officials at the Blackfriars protest, which was also attended by the Labour MP John McDonnell and RMT general secretary Bob Crow.
      Unite is contacting all members at Balfour Beatty in preparation for re-balloting employees in the coming days. The union is also preparing to ballot for industrial action at two more of the group of seven companies seeking to break away from the current JIB agreements, which cover pay, skill and safety levels. Senior officials believe Balfour Beatty’s management is looking for a “face-saving exit” from the dispute. Unite is calling for the employers to take part in talks at ACAS to try to stop escalating industrial action and civil disobedience in the new year.
Watch our film report of today’s events here:


All out 07
ann arky's home.

THE RIGHT TO SELF DEFENCE.

     
          The following is taken from an old article on the unrest in Greece after the killing of 15 year old AlexisGrigoropoulos, shot by a police officer on the 6 December 2008. Most people agree that the murder of Alexis was the catalyst to the unrest that still continues in Greece today. The underlying anger had to come to the surface sooner or later as the people suffered the true violence of capitalism. Violence is not just that dished out by the uniformed protectors of the state apparatus, it comes in many guises. When you are continually on the receiving end of violence you have the right to self defence and the violence of capitalism is real, vicious and continuous. The violence of capitalism has always been there, but the recent “financial crisis” has meant that it has to be administered with greater severity and over a wider area in order to preserve the wealth at the top. Under such unrestrained and relentless violence what should be your response? Do we need to wait for that catalyst before displaying our anger in the open?

Reflections on the recent unrest in Greece; "The rise of n
ew organisational forms and contents of struggle is being discussed by all the insurgent elements"...
VIOLENCE means working for 40 years, getting miserable wages
and wondering if you ever get retired…
VIOLENCE means state bonds, robbed pension funds
and the stock-market fraud…
VIOLENCE means being forced to get housing loans which finally
you pay back as if they were gold…
VIOLENCE means the management’s right to fire you any time they want…
VIOLENCE means unemployment, temporary employment,
400 Euros wage with or without social security…
VIOLENCE means work ‘accidents’, as bosses diminish their workers’ safety costs…
VIOLENCE means being driven sick because of hard work …
VIOLENCE means consuming psycho-drugs and vitamins
in order to cope with exhausting working hours…
VIOLENCE means working for money to buy medicines
in order to fix your labour power commodity…
VIOLENCE means dying on ready-made beds in horrible hospitals,
when you can’t afford bribing.
Proletarians from occupied GSEE, Athens, December 2008


Wednesday, 7 December 2011

GLASGOW'S ETHEL MACDONALD - PART 3.


    Part three of the Ethel MacDonald story, an inspiration to all those involved in today's struggles. A party of Glasgow's working class history of which we can all be very proud.



You can read more of Glasgow's working class struggles and of the lives of some of those involved, HERE.

ann arky's home.

AN ANNIVERSARY.

     
From The Greek Streets. 
           Athens saw two commemorative demonstrations for Alexis Grigoropoulos today: the first one in the morning called by high school students, and the second one called by anarchists, leftists and grassroots trade unions. Both demos saw clashes with the police around Syntagma square; as of this time (21:10 GMT+2) some lower intensity clashes continue around the Exarcheia area.
Earlier on, riot police had stormed the anarchist social space Nosotros in Exarcheia. As of 6 pm local time, there were 9 arrests, 6 detentions and 14 police injured according to a police report. The number is bound to increase during the night.  anniversary

 



ann arky's home.

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

PUBLIC SECTOR + PRIVATE SECTOR = VICTORY.


     While the Cameron millionaire cabal in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption slash at the social sector destroying social fabric of lives of the ordinary people of this country, he is giving the nod to his millionaire corporate Mafia friends to attack the wages and conditions in the private sector. The electricians in the construction industry are being forced, without negotiations, to accept a 30% wage cut and a change in conditions. Of course the electricians are not taking this lying down.
       Of course we have to realise that this is not a public sector struggle and a private sector struggle, this is one struggle against a system that sees workers as an insignificant mass that can be treated as best suits the corporate/financial world, and can be discarded and impoverished if it suits big business. It is time that the private sector and the public sector joined hands and worked as one, only then will we win and then we can change the system to one of justice and fairness, free from the greed of the profit motive.



ann arky's home.

HUMAN SACRIFICE ON THE HIGH ALTER OF FINANCE.


         When looking at how the ordinary people in Europe are being punished for the sins of their bankers and politicians, it is difficult to know where to focus. Greece has been in the firing line to some of the must brutal attacks to the livings standards of any European country. However a little closer to home is Ireland. Bearing in mind that Ireland has already been through 4 years of savage cuts to the conditions of its people, what is in store for them in the coming year 2012 is frightening. The Irish government has set out its next hit list and it amounts to 2.2 billion Euros of cuts for 2012. Its targets are the usual working class areas, welfare, health, education, fuel and rent allowance, disability allowance and student grants, on top of that lot there is VAT increased to 23%. Public sector workers are being punished extremely brutally, having seen their wages cut, by on average, 15%, they now face a two year wage freeze and the threat of redundancy, as another 6.000 public sector jobs are set to go. No doubt in the coming months we will be able to talk about the decimation of the Italian people's living standards, Spain is well down the road to social disintegration caused by rampant unemployment and cuts to social spending. We here in the UK have similar problems with savage cuts and youth unemployment running at well over 1 million.

       The working class of Europe are being sacrificed on the bankers' alter of greed, what ever actions are taken by the puppet politicians, it is always to ensure that the banks and bond markets, the politicians paymasters, don't lose out. This system has nothing to do with improving the welfare of the people, it is all about amassing wealth in the accounts of the corporate world and their greedy shareholders. It is all about holding on to that unearned wealth and the power that derives from that wealth. The people are of no consequence, mere pulp that can be used, abused and sacrificed as the need arises in the game of exploitation.

"Sacrifices have to be made."


       Surely lurking somewhere in your mind you can think of an alternative system, a system that sees to the needs of all our people, a system that is built on mutual aid and sustainability. It is not impossible to build such a system, the present system of capitalism is a man made system of a few hundred years. It is not something handed done from the gods, written in tablets of stone. It was people that devised it and it was people that drove it, surely people can destroy it and build from a foundation of co-operation, a caring a system that we would be proud to leave to our grandchildren. Are you proud of the inheritance that we will leave to them under the present system?


OCCUPY MOVEMENT = AL QAEDA!!!!

     
     This government, like all other governments spends billions on surveillance of "terrorist organisations", but what is a terrorist organisation and who decides? The following short extract from BTYahoo News, throws up lots of questions, though in some people's minds, it clears things up.
City of London Police have sparked controversy by producing a brief in which the Occupy London movement is listed under domestic terrorism/extremism threats to City businesses.
The document was given to protesters at their “Bank of Ideas” base on Sun Street – a former site of financial corporation UBS. City police have stepped up an effort to quell the movement since they occupied the building on 18 November, with the document stating: “It is likely that activists aspire to identify other locations to occupy, especially those they identify with capitalism.
“Intelligence suggests that urban explorers are holding a discussion at the Sun Street squat. This may lead to an increase in urban exploration activity at abandoned or high profile sites in the capital.” The Occupy movement is listed alongside threats posed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), Al Qaeda and Belarussian terrorists.


 
         Well at least this statement makes it clear that the role of the police is not to keep the peace and law and order. To all those who laboured under this illusion it is now there in black and white on the printed paper, issued by the police themselves, their aim is to protect capitalism. Now it seems to be out in the open that you are a terrorist/extremist if you are a threat to City business. It would appear that in the eyes of this regime that we live under, peaceful protest by the citizens equates to extremism and terrorism. I thought we were told that it was the courts that would decide who was right or wrong in these matters, not the police chief. Is it the government or the police that decides who is on the list alongside Al Qaeda and FARC, or are these list made up by group of unelected secret service bosses? Or more likely a group of corporate advisers who will do everything in their power to eliminate any criticism to their greed feast.