IN A POLITICALLY CORRECT WORLD.

and now for something completely different---.

Friends,

       I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to my friends and colleagues, but it is difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without offending someone.

      So I met with my lawyer yesterday, and on advice, I wish to say the following:

    Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious, secular persuasions and or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

     I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that it is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

    By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

     This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her, him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Best Regards (without prejudice)

Name withheld (Privacy Act).

ann arky's home.

LIVE SPARKS.

        The electricians are holding firm in their resolve not to be treated like serfs, with a "take it or leave it" attitude from the employers. If Balfour Beattie get away with cutting the electrician's wage by up to 35%, then you can rest assured that you will probably be next in line for the same treatment. That is taking it that you have a job at all. These guys are at the forefront of the attack on your living conditions. the bosses will not pick a fight with all the workers at the one time. First one group, then the next, once you have slashed the wages of the first couple of groups the rest is easier. This is your fight, whether you are in the public sector or the private sector or unemployed, you never know, you or your kids, might want to a spark in the future. Show solidarity with your class, that's what the millionaire class do to defeat you. 

From Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/groups/264935423529258/

Sparks Against de-skilling and 35% Pay Cuts

Public Event for Sparks Against de-skilling and 35% Pay Cuts
Friday 10:00 until 13:00 Baflour Beatty Office, Lumina Building,

40 Ainslie Road, Hillington Park, Glasgow G52 4RU
FRIDAY 6TH JANUARY - 10AM

SCOTTISH BASED BALFOUR BEATTY M&E WORKERS ARE RETURNING THEIR BESNA CONTRACTS UNSIGNED STRAIGHT TO THE OFFICE

       Pass this on and let's give them as much support as possible! ALL M&E workers in the area should attend to show their support and to pass on the message to BBES that we will not stand for this attack

          The same firms who are de-skilling our industry and cutting our wages are also blacklisting innocent people. If you have heard sparks complaining about the blacklist on demo's and didn't know what they were talking about - watch this youtube video and all will be revealed - if you've never seen it before, it is truly shocking. As it stands I am not blacklisted but I do personally know a couple of people who are. It is a shocking practise and needs to be eradicated.

ann arky's home.

DON'T BELIEVE THE LABEL - CHECK THE CONTENTS.

         While our millionaire class protect their wealth by hacking at the social fabric of our society, their puppets keep taking centre stage to tell us how difficult it is going to be. Of course they don't mean difficult for them, they mean difficult for us, the ordinary people. As far as they are concerned there will be no change in their lifestyle, no worries about holidays, mortgages, heating the house or the kids food. That sort of triviality is for us the peasants. We have Tom and Jerry, sorry, Merkel and Sarkozy telling us that 2012 will be worse than 2011, while their Italian fellow conspirator Giorgio Napolitano, saying that there will have to be sacrifices. This Italian puppet of the bond market, stated, “Sacrifices are necessary to ensure the future of our young people ---”. What he fails to mention is that the future of a generation of our young people has already been sacrificed because of the policies of his financial Mafia. The financial conditions in our society are not something that just happened and therefore we just have to get on with it. They are the result of deliberate policies of the powerful financial Mafia that controls the political apparatus of the developed world. The political class of this capitalist system are the puppets and implementers of that Mafia's policies. If there is anybody out there who still believes that we have democracy in the developed world they should take a look at what the various political parties offer, it is all a cruel illusion. They all offer the same package, they may vary in colour, pace and degree, but it is a package that favours the multimillionaires/billionaires of the financial world. All the parties advocate policies that will guarantee that the bond markets don't lose out. The well being of the population is secondary to the financial well being of that cabal of multimillionaires/billionaires. What we have is a system whereby a small privileged group of extremely wealthy individuals, by means of that wealth, control the political and business structures of the developed world. No matter how you dress it up and what trimmings you hang on it, such as periodic elections for the masses, it doesn't alter the structure nor its power base. The power and policies are the prerogative of that small cabal. The so called, elected governments, merely give those policies the stamp of legitimacy and implement them on behave of the financial cabal.

The label says “democracy” but the jar contains “fascism”.

ann arky's home.

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - FLINT OCCUPATION.

       Working class history is a history of struggle, and along the way there have been some defeats, but there has also been lots of tremenndous victories.  75 years ago in America, workers took on the mighty auto industry and won. Just one of the many battles that should give us inspirtion as we continue the struggle today. It is not a new struggle, it is the same struggle, a struggle for a decent life and the right to shape our society.

        THE FLINT OCCUPATION.

       "On this day, December 30th, in 1936 -- 75 years ago today -- hundreds of workers at the General Motors (GM) factories in Flint, Michigan, took over the facilities and occupied them for 44 days. My uncle was one of them. The workers couldn't take the abuse from the corporation any longer. Their working conditions, the slave wages, no vacation, no health care, no overtime -- it was do as you're told or get tossed onto the curb.

       "So on the day before New Year's Eve, emboldened by the recent re-election of Franklin Roosevelt, they sat down on the job and refused to leave. They began their occupation in the dead of winter. GM cut off the heat and water to the buildings. The police tried to raid the factories several times, to no avail. Even the National Guard was called in. But the workers held their ground, and after 44 days, the corporation gave in and recognized the UAW as the representative of the workers. It was a monumental historical moment as no other major company had ever been brought to its knees by their employees. Workers were given a raise to a dollar an hour -- and successful strikes and occupations spread like wildfire across the country."

Read some of Glasgow's class struggle HERE.

 ann arky's home.

ANARCHY - ANARCHISM - WHAT'S YOUR IDEA?

        I suppose at the start of the year and claiming to be an "anarchist" and advocater of "anarchy" I should make it a wee bit clearer what I personally mean when I use these two words. I know there are a multitude of meanings out there and I don't state these as the difinitive word on either, just what I personally mean when I use them.

Anarchy - 

      Without (an-) ruler (archos). To my way of thinking this doesn't mean, a free-for-all. My interpretation is, I am responsible for ALL my actions and accept ALL the consequences of those actions. It is a freedom that comes with one basic human responsibility, you govern yourself, instead of abdicating to some external authoritarian coercive group or individual, be it dictator, president, monarch, religion or government, In essence, no Gods, no Masters.

Anarchism -

       A political theory advocating the elimination of governments, also the elimination of authority over any individual, be it religious, gender or race. Society based on mutual aid, free association and voluntary co-operation.

        I think, together, these two definitions are not a bad way to live. Certainly an excellent place to start.

       It would be nice to know what is your personal interpretation of these two words.

ann arky's home.

PROBLEMS WITH GDP.

        It always fascinated me when I learnt the the UK GDP climbed during to years of the housing boom, simply because the value of the house were rising, not that there were more house built. It seemd odd that the country had "X" number of houses and the country's GDP was "Y" some time later with the same amount of bricks and mortar, windows and doors the country's GDP had risen to "W", all because the value put on those bricks and mortar went up. So by producing nothing and sitting doing nothing you just got richer and purchased on the strength of this illusionary wealth. And our learned university economists thought this was great and would last for ever. Ah, the wonders of capitalism.

ann arky's home.

A RAIL NETWORK FOR THE WEALTHY.

       The new year for most here in the UK will mean more of the same as last year, “austerity cuts” price increases and rising unemployment. Those who still have a job and have to travel will be hit again on the 2^nd January as rail fares are set to rise by an “average” of 6%, no doubt making some think, “is the job really worth it”. If they take a look at what we in the UK have to pay to travel on the rail network and compare it with what those in the rest of Europe pay, then it might be easier to answer that question.

    The following eye-popping information is taken from an article in the Evening Times 30 December 2011.

TEN times bigger!!!

    SOME UK rail commuters facing 6% average fare rises next week are already paying almost 10 times more for season tickets than their European counterparts.

     Figures released today show the price of a 2011 season ticket from Glasgow to Falkirk, which is around 22 miles, would be £1956. A ticket from Woking in Surrey to London, which is the same distance, including Tube travel in the capital, is £3268.

     Yet a similar 22-mile journey from Velletri to Rome costs Italian season ticket holders just £336.17, say the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT). Similar journeys of around 21-24 miles in other European countries reveal that rail travellers on the continent are paying far less for their trains.

     According to the CBT figures, which include the equivalent of multi-modal travel tickets on each city’s underground systems, an annual season ticket for the 24-mile journey from Ballancourt-sur-Essonne to Paris costs £924.66. The cost of a season ticket on the 21-mile Strausberg to Berlin route is £705.85, while the 22-mile Collado-Villalba to Madrid trip costs Spanish season ticket holders £653.74. 

     From January 2, UK regulated fares, which include season tickets, are rising by an average of 6%. The average for all tickets is 5.9%. And the Government still plans annual rises of RPI inflation plus 3% for January 2013 and January 2014.

      CBT’s public transport campaigner Sophie Allain said: “Even we were shocked by how much more the UK ticket was in comparison to our European counterparts. “If the Government is serious about promoting economic growth it must look at reducing planned fare rises.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

     With these figures it is obvious that rail travel in this country is fast becoming the prerogative of the wealthy, you know the type, friends of the Camerons etc.

 ann arky's home.

MY NEW YEAR'S REVOLUTION.

       A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL THOSE OUT THERE WHO READ THIS BLOG, WITH A SPECIAL BIG THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO FOLLOW MY RANTINGS.

     Let's break with tradition and forget the new year's resolutions and make it a time of New Year Revolutions.

Aw'ri best, fae ann anrky.

  ann arky's home.

THE WORLD SPRING???

           Is this the "world spring", could it be the start of something big? Whatever, it is certainly more likey to bring about real change than running to a ballot box  and voting for the personality of the year from the crooks and liars available. With the oxygen of publicity this might just catch on.

This from Infantile Disorder.

Anarchy in China as Officials and Cops Beat Retreat from Village

      "Wukan, a village in the south-eastern corner of China, is currently being controlled and administered by its citizens, after Communist Party government officials and police were forced out of the area this week. This amazing situation followed clashes over privatisation of communal land - which threatened many with destitution - and the apparent state murder of one of the resistance movement's delegates.---"

READ ON.

 ann arky's home.

YOUR NEW YEAR'S REVOLUTION!!!

         So 2011 runs out and 2012 pops its head above the parapet. We can discuss the “what ifs” of the issues of 2011 but the over riding problem will be addressing the real problem that faces us in 2012. We have reached a position in the development of the world where our affairs are no longer controlled at a local level. We can organise at that local level but what influences our lives most will be decide by a small group of extremely wealthy and powerful billionaires/multimillionaires. With their trillions and billions of Dollars/Euros/Pounds they blackmail countries and threaten economies in the process of protecting and increasing their wealth. Never in our history has so much power rested in the hands of so few. Never have so few held sway over the lives of so many millions of the earth's population. Their financial calculations will determine the poverty or otherwise of those millions. Their drive to hold on to, increase and protect that wealth and power will shape the world we live in, will determine what industries will be developed, what parts of the planet will be decimated, what population will be sacrificed on their alter of greed.

       We can survey the array of political parties offering their various magic potions, all promising to bring prosperity and happiness to all. However none of them will be able to run against the power of the multi-millionaire/billionaire cabal, all of them will play the game according to the rules set down by their financial masters the rich cabal. On a world wide scale, social services will be cut, public assets will be sold off to the wealthy and powerful, money will be poured into the coffers of that faceless Mafia. All the political parties will comply but put their own colour of paint on the box but it will be the same kit of tools in the box.

        Our only hope of salvaging our world from the hands of the vampire squid organisation is to ignore their rule book and write our own. Stop trying to implement change through the political system as it is set up, by-pass the party political system, it stinks, is corrupt and in the pockets of the financial Mafia. We must organise at grass roots level and across borders. Capital has no nationality, it is international, to fight it we have to be the same, an international grass roots movement. As long as we enter into debate with the corrupt financial system we hand it legitimacy. It has no legitimacy, no group has the legitimacy to push millions into a world of deprivation in the midst of plenty, merely to further their own wealth and power. We are governed by consent, we can and have the right, to withdraw that consent, and the need to withdraw that consent has never been more pressing. The future of all generations to come and the planet itself depends on how we address the problem of a world controlled by a small corrupt and greed gang who are blind to the disasters of their self-seeking policies.

        Here's wishing you a revolutionary new year.

ann arky's home.

SPREADING THE MESSAGE!!!

  

          From the supposed birth place of Jesus, the holy-holy people send out their message of peace and good will to all men. The holier than thou mob show how to celebrate the birth of their beloved Jesus in true Christian style. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rival-clerics-brawl-jesus-birthplace-130200368.html   
         Palestinian police stormed the basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem after rival groups of Orthodox and Armenian clerics clashed in a row over the boundaries of their respective ancient jurisdictions inside the church. Lead by example, that's what I always say.

ann arky's home.

DO A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL, AND WHAT DO YOU GET???

            It becomes sickening, to see the ordinary workers being attacked by right-wing ideology, come out fighting with tremendous solidarity and then be “sold-out” by the well paid union bosses. Time and time again we have seen the workers come out prepared to fight for their conditions and time and time again the union bosses have done a “deal” where the workers get nothing or at most a pittance. This latest “deal” over pensions means that the workers, who came out in their hundreds of thousands on Nov 30 to show their resistance to the government's pension plans, will now be forced to accept what the government wanted in the first place. Pay more into your pension, work longer to get it and end up with less. Unless of course the workers ignore their unions, organise and continue the fight. The grass roots are against this pension “deal” and it will be up to them to continue the fight. They could take a few lessons from The Clyde Workers Committee and keep control of the situation by means of grass roots organisation.

         History tells us that the workers cannot rely on the well paid union bosses when it looks like a real fight, the union bosses have too much to lose, fat salaries and perks, which no doubt will include a decent pension. When ever there is a ground swell from the ordinary people the unions do the governments bidding, they don't want to upset the apple cart. We can go back over the history of the working class struggles and see the pattern. One of the most galling examples of workers eager to continue the fight but being “sold-out” by the union bosses was of course the 1926 General Strike. As far as the union bosses are concerned, it seems that nothing has changed since then.

A PLAGUE ON OUR PLANET.

       The Cameron public school thug will go to any lengths to protect the “City”. He'll avoid any form of legislation that might hurt the financial leeches and prevent them from milking the system for all it is worth. He'll screw Europe and tell them to bugger off. His reasoning, well the “City” accounts for 10% of the total UK income. I wonder what proportion of our national income was produced by our shipyards, heavy and light engineering, steel works, and our coal mines, etc. and what was done to protect them? Well since they have all gone, what ever it was was not enough. Even with that lot gone, the “City” is only 10% of our total national income, what about the other 90%, where is that and what special protection will the Cameron parasite come up with for that. We have to accept that this system is under the total control of the financial parasites that shift their billions and trillions around, black-mailing country after country, making sure that no government has the power to interfere with their money making scams.

      

We're bankster, we don't obey no stinkin' laws.

        I have previously written about the coup taking place in Europe, first in Greece, where the thin veil of illusion of democracy was removed and a “technocrat” put in to replace the elected Prime Minister. This idea seemed to delight the financial parasites as it was quickly followed by the removal of the elected Prime Minister of Italy, who was replaced by a Goldman Sachs suit. Now a Leham Bros financial whiz kid who helped bankrupt that financial giant, has taken the reins in Spain, replacing the Prime Minister. Across the world country after country is told it has a deficit problem, even although it is one caused by the banks and their parasite billionaire/multimillionaire clients, they are told that the only answer is to get rid of the elected government and replace it with one of the banksters responsible for the problem in the first place. This is to ensure that no matter what happens, the parasite financial Mafia will not lose any of the money the greedily gambled. Leeches, parasites, vampire squids, call them what you will, there will never be a society of fairness and justice until we rid the planet of this plague.

ann arky's home.

IRAQ'S LIBERATION LEGACY.

         There is a legacy for the Iraqi people, a legacy left to them by the “Coalition of the Willing”, a legacy that will be handed down from generation to generation. It is a legacy that has stolen their future and shattered the dreams of generations yet to come. Depleted Uranium (DU) type weaponry, was widely used in Iraq with devastating effects. There are over 350 sites in Iraq contaminated with DU, though the explosions have long since gone silent, the after effects of the contamination will linger for generations. Birth deformities have increased more than ten fold in some areas, cancers are in epidemic proportions. The figure for 2007 was 140,000 cases of cancer and 7,000 to 8,000 new cases reported each year. On viewing photographs of some of the deformities in these children it is hard to believe that the perpetrators are still walking free. What was the cause that was worth this sort of hell on earth for so many. Mid-wives in Iraq are purported to have said they no longer look forward to births as.... "We don't know what's going to come out." Is this “liberation” Western style?

         It is not as if the US and its “Coalition of the Willing” didn't know what were the effects of DU, its effects were well documented and discussed. A quote from "- Lt. Col. M.V. Ziehmn, Los Alamos National Laboratory memorandum,March 1st 1991 states, ”There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no-one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus be deleted from the arsenal. I believe we should keep this sensitive issue in mind when action reports are written."

        Then there is Fallujha, but then, that's another horror story the Iraqis have to pay for their "Liberation".

         If you are interested in the truth and you wish to highlight the crime against humanity that these events are evidence of, then please visit these sites and spread the links as widely as possible.

http://stgvisie.home.xs4all.nl/extremedeformities.html
http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/depleted_uranium_iraq_afghanistan_balkans.html

The Crucified Boy

Layla Anwar

...I suddenly had a flashback. A dream I had about 6 months prior to the second Gulf War.

I dreamt of a young Iraqi boy, being held by two american GI's and uplifted to be crucified on a cross.

They nailed him to the cross and walked away.

I woke up choking. I said to myself, they tortured the children of Iraq now they will crucify them.

The boy is now resurrected and is guiding my pen.

He is asking me to draw him crucified on a old rotting wooden cross.

He tells me that he wants the background to be filled with a half million skeletons of dead babies with Ms.Albright smiling on top of them.

He is asking me to draw newborns with grosteque deformities due to depleted uranium.

He is urging me not to forget the starving looking babies due to malnutrition.

He is making sure I paint the children who have cancer because of american chemical weapons, queuing up in desolate hospitals.

And he has not forgotten the children who survived in tattered clothes with their tattered textbooks walking barefoot to school.

Oh wait, he is also telling me to draw in the corner, a picture of the orphanage bombed during the war of liberation and he is making sure that I show the kids running in the streets desperate with nowhere to go — some kidnapped, some sold whilst others raped.

I asked him if he wanted me to add anything.

He said the picture is almost complete.

"What shall I call it?" I asked.

He replied:

"The World as I see it". 

ann arky's home.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED -- AGAIN!!!

       In 2003 George W. Bush stood in all his military regalia and with that daft Hollywood salute proudly stated, “Mission accomplished”, which was his announcement telling the world that the war in Iraq was over and they had won. Here we are in 2011 and Obama has announced that the US troops are leaving Iraq, the war is over and they have won, "Mission accomplished", again. Well it is now true, they have won, they have won the oil and that was what it was all about, the rest is of no consequence to our corporate world. What price have the people of Iraq had to pay for this Western oil adventure? What sort of country is Iraq now, after the West has “liberated” them? Saddam was no angel, but who is that rules over a country? Under his rule there was a considerable movement to get more women to participate in the affairs of society. His government was a secular government and didn't tolerate religious fundamentalists. From 1970 to 1980 the Iraqi economy grow by 11.7%, this after they finally nationalised the oil, which was the real problem with the West, they don't allow nationalised oil. The economic growth all came to an end with the Iraq/Iran war, aided and abetted by the US. The first Gulf war and the 10 years of sanctions imposed by the West, all but destroyed the country. The death toll from the sanctions varies form 500,000 upwards. One comment made about two years ago by a young Iraqi tells us something of what they might be thinking, "When the Americans started this whole war issue, we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we walked toward it. But when the war happened, that light was the American train coming the other way that ran us over."

    What has more than 8 years of occupation cost? In cash terms it has cost the USA over $1 trillion, roughly about $5,000 a second. In coalition deaths, over 5,000, and in injured approaching 40,000. One other figure that doesn't seem to get much headlines is the fact that 30% of US troops suffer some form of mental illness within 3 to 4 months of going home. No matter what it cost those troops of the coalition it fades when compared to what the Iraqi people have suffered and they didn't ask to be “liberated”. Estimates, and that is all we can get as nobody seemed to be interested in recording the true numbers, of Iraqi civilian deaths vary from 600,000 to 1 million. Those Iraqis displaced but remaining in Iraq number approximately 3 million, those displaced to Syria and Jordan approximately 3 million. Those Iraqis injured, the number is just not available and would dwarf any of the figures already given.

      We could say the war is over so everything is fine, but unemployment is running about 60%, child chronic malnutrition approximately 30%. The number of hours that the average Iraqi has electricity to their homes (Ryan Crocker, US Ambassador to Iraq 2007) 1 to 2 hours. The number of Iraqi homes connected to sewer system 37%.

      Another tragedy of this war is that just prior to the war Iraq had 34,000 physicians, today it is less than 12,000, though the need today is far greater than ever. One poll shows that 82% of Iraqis are “strongly opposed to the presence of the coalition troops. Only 1% believe that the coalition forces are responsible for any improvements in security. 67% feel less secure because of the occupation and 72% have no confidence in the coalition forces.

        In your own analysis, do these figures look like a success story, does it look like the “liberation” of a people? Or does it look like the decimation of a country and its people for the sole reason of getting our hands on that nationalised oil? 

ann arky's home.

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY, - HELEN CRAWFURD.

HELEN CRAWFURD, 1877-1954.

BACKGROUND.

Born Helen Jack on the 9th of November 1877 in the district of Gorbals Glasgow, the 4th child of the family of 4 daughters and 3 sons of William Jack, a respected master baker and Helen Jack (nee Kyle). While still a child the family moved to Ipswich where she was educated. When Helen was 17 the family moved back to Glasgow to the middle-class district of Hyndland. Helen was shocked by the poverty and the conditions of Glasgow's working class and was made aware of politics by her parents. Her father was at one time President of the Operative Bakers Association. A deeply religious family, her father was Church of Scotland Presbyterian, her mother a confirmed Methodist. Discussions on religion and politics were a regular feature of the family home. Helen married the Reverend Alex Montgomerie Crawfurd on the 18th of September 1898. However she soon rebelled against the theological teaching of the Church, believing that it was discriminatory against women. Her interest in the women's movement was furthered by reading the works of Josephine Butler.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE.

She joined the suffrage movement around 1900 and in 1910 joined the Women's Social and Political Union, (WSPU). Helen fully endorsed the militant actions of the Pankhursts in attempting to gain the vote for women. In 1912 she was arrested and sentenced to one month in Holloway Prison for breaking the windows of the Liberal Minister of Education's residence in London. 1913 saw her again arrested for trying to protect Mrs. Pankhurst from police brutality at a meeting in the St. Andrew's Halls Glasgow. She was later released and re-arrested the following night for breaking the windows of the Army recruiting offices and sentenced to one month in Duke Street Prison Glasgow. It was in this prison that she went on her first hunger strike and 8 days later was released. Prison life did nothing to dent her passion, she went on to become one of the best know and most popular members of the Scottish Suffragette Movement. Helen was again arrested in 1914 at a meeting in Perth and sent to Perth Prison. After a 5 day hunger strike she was released. Shortly after her return to Glasgow a bomb exploded in Botanic Gardens Glasgow, she was blamed and this resulted in her fourth prison sentence and her third hunger strike in two years.

SOCIALISM.

Shortly after the start of 1914 she left the WSPU because of its pro-war stance. Her shift from the radical suffrage politics to a socialist standpoint was in part due to her association with the Glasgow Repertory Theatre and the plays of Ibsen, Shaw, Galsworthy, Gorky and others. Helen was appalled at the infant mortality rate and sheer depravation in the Glasgow slums. Such conditions caused her to question a system that could tolerate this to continue. Around 1912 onwards Helen's speeches, though still with a Christian content, leaned towards a Socialist message. 1914 saw her proclaim her Socialist beliefs by joining the Independent Labour Party, (ILP). In spite of the loss of both her husband and her mother in 1914, Helen Crawfurd throughout the war was a constant and energetic political activist. Always keen to involve women in the fight against the war, Helen with her friend Agnes Dollan organised large and regular meetings on Glasgow Green. 1915 saw Helen and Agnes found the Glasgow branch of the Women's International League. In an attempt to attract more working-class women and form a strong militant anti-war movement, Helen with Mary Barbour and other women activists in June 1916 organised a peace conference, this gave birth to the Women's Peace Crusade (WPC) in Glasgow. June 1917 in Glasgow saw the launch of the National Women's Peace Crusade with Helen Crawfurd as its Honorary Secretary. Helen's strong anti-war stance brought her into contact with, and worked alongside, John MacLean.

RENT STRIKES & ILP.

While taking a leading role in the anti-war movement Helen was very active in the 1915 rent strikes. She was appointed secretary of the Glasgow Women's Housing Association (GWHA), and was an important figure in rallying housewives to fight the rent increases. Her efforts along with Mary Barbour, Agnes Dollan, Jessie Stephens and other women activists resulted in the "Rent Restriction Act" of 1915. This act benefited tenants all over the country.

By the end of the war Helen Crawfurd was seen as a national political figure. 1918 saw her appointed as Vice-President of the Scottish Divisional Council of the ILP. She was becoming disillusioned with the ILP, eeing it more a reformist group rather than socialist and was becoming more aware of the ideas of Tom Bell and Arthur McManus who in 1920 set up the British Communist Party. At the 1920 Easter conference of the ILP Helen presided at a meeting to form an unofficial group to be known as the "left wing" of the ILP.

COMMUNISM.

While still Vice-President of the Scottish division of the ILP she accepted an invitation to the second congress of the Third Communist International in Moscow. Her journey there proved somewhat arduous. Her passport was confiscated by the Norwegian authorities. Avoiding the police she made her way to a fishing boat which carried her out to sea where she boarded a cargo vessel, it took her to the port of Alexandrovic and from there she made her way to Moscow where she had an interview with Lenin. She joined the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1921. The same year saw Helen appointed to the Executive Committee a position she held for many years. Helen was always keen to involve women and in 1922 she edited a page of the official communist party newspaper the "Communist" called Page for Women.

FAMINE RELIEF.

1920 saw much of Helen's energy devoted to the Workers International Relief Organisation, (WIR). In 1922 she became its secretary. During her term she raised money for the famine-stricken region of the Volga this allowed them to carry out relief work in Germany and in all the mining districts of Britain during the miners' lock-out which followed the general strike of 1926. She also managed to extend the relief work to the famine-stricken west of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands during the depression. During the German elections of 1924 she addressed a meeting of 10,000 in Berlin on behalf of the German Communist Party (KPD). In the struggle against fascism prior to the 1939 war Helen was Secretary of the anti-fascist organisation in Glasgow. On the eve of the 2nd World War in 1939 she organised a Peace Congress of representatives from countries within the British Empire.

LATTER YEARS.

The small quiet town of Dunoon on the lower reaches of the Clyde became her home during the latter years of her life. Though Dunoon was the sort of town where elderly people go to retire Helen never retired, still working for the cause of women and for the working class community of the town. In 1945, while at the age of 68, she was elected to the Dunoon Town Council. Helen still kept up a considerable correspondence on both local and international affairs in the press. Just days before her death one of her letters appeared in the Daily Worker. At the age of 75 she was Chairperson of a session of the Scottish Congress of the Communist Party.

Helen Crawfurd Anderson died on the 18th of April 1954 at the age of 77.

MORE ON GLASGOW'S WORKING CLASS HISTORY.

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WRATHFUL, VENGEFUL GOD OF CONSUMERISM!!

       Browsing about this morning looking for something, anything, that didn't pay homage to the Western God of consumerism, Christmas, I came across this little piece and thought as it is that time of year I would like to share it with you all. Enjoy.

      It's the great dark winter of austerity but Michael Gove, the testicular-faced education Caesar south of the border has found enough pennies in his sporan to send a new copy of the King James' Bible to every school in Engerland. Not only that, but this new edition will be prefaced by the Book of Gove.

Let us worship, with Gove.

       Will the hitherto undiscovered Book of Gove be Old or New Testament in its leaning? Will kids be introduced to the vengeful, jealous and totally psychotic tyrant of the OT - the one who sends firestorms to engulf His creation and who has a bee in his bonnet about foreskins? Or will kids be given a hypocritical taste of the nice god - via his son, who is also er... himself... - who wants us to turn the other cheek except when marching into oil-rich nations to free their fossil-fuels for our use? Or will it be a kind of religious 'nice cop, nasty cop'?

READ ON---

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A MERRY XMAS TO THE ARMS INDUSTRY!!!

        It is the festive season and the ordinary people of the UK are facing an “austerity” Christmas. The slashing and cutting of social services, benefits, wages, pensions, on top of rising unemployment, being implemented by our millionaire public school thugs, with their mantra, “we can't afford them” sounds rather hollow when we look at what is being squandered on death and destruction. The money poured into Iraq and Afghanistan is well passed the £20 billion mark. To put this figure in perspective we can take Ken Livingstone's statement, "The true cost of our policy of international adventures is now being shown - £20bn is 10 times the amount it would cost to scrap student fees in England, for example.". So would you rather have ten years of free education for your kids or ten years of bombing, killing and destroying some foreign country? When this figure was released, Lindsey German, convener of “Stop the War Coalition” said, "People will be astonished that the government had the cheek to call for public spending cuts when such an obscene amount has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan." This figure of over £20 billion, believe it or not, does not include the wages of the troops, (10,000 in Afghanistan at the moment) nor the cost of treating those injured in these unacceptable brutalities. Bob Crow's statement also helps to let us grasp the reality of this situation, “The money that's been drained away on illegal war-mongering is only outstripped by the cash ripped off in the bankers bail-out," This figure still does not have Cameron's little ego trip, the Libyan disaster, added, another vast expenditure on death and destruction. We still have to count in such things as the UK's illegal weapon of mass destruction "Trident".

Don't you know,the arms industry creates jobs??

         When governments talk about can't afford, it is a matter of choices. They have in their coffers a vast pot of gold, they decide where to spend that gold. It so happens this mob choose to spend unbelievable sums on bank bailouts, followed by foreign policy adventures of death and destruction and nuclear weapons. They could choose to spend it on improving social services, education, health and welfare of the people and pensions. They choose not to. However they still claim that this is a democracy, it is a strange democracy when the wealth of a country is drained away in destructive and financial policies that not one member of the public voted for, and then we the public, are told we will have to suffer “austerity cuts” to all the fabric of our society. At the same time all those who made those decisions will in no way be implemented in the suffering from the “austerity cuts” nor the death and destruction from their foreign policy. In fact, they belong to the same club that they helped to bail-out, the only group that will benefit from their choices. If you think that is democracy, you are delusional, it's called corporate fascism.

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THE SPARKS ARE FLYING!!!

        The bullying tactics of the employers goes on, with the full backing of the millionaire cabal in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. The construction industry is leading the charge to decimate the wages and conditions of workers, starting with the electricians, they have thrown them a new un-negotiated contract with the message, sign it or leave the site. This contract can mean up to 30% cut in wages and a host of attacks on conditions and entitlements won over many years. However, the electricians are not taking it lying down, the fight is on, and with the solidarity of all those in the private and public sector, plus the support of the ordinary people from all walks of life, they can force the employers back to the negotiating table and tear this blackmail document up and throw it in the bin where it belongs. This is not just an attack on electricians, this is an attack on all workers conditions in the private sector. If Balfour Beattie get away with this the others will quickly implement similar contracts across the board. The government is attacking the conditions of those in the public sector and now the private sector are following their lead, with the blessing of the Cameron/Clegg public school thugs. This is the biggest attack on the working class since the 30's and the results, if they win, could be much worse than the 30's for us. It is not a case of one nasty employer, it is a case of a policy of constructing a cheap labour force to help the corporate world swell their coffers.

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