SCHOOL OF AMERICAS - SCHOOL OF TORTURE.

       We all know that the School of Americas, SOA, is a US government organisation for the export of torture and repression. It functions for the purpose of training forces of repressive regimes around the world in brutal methods of supressing political and public dissent. It is part of the US foreign policy of propping up repressive puppet governments that are compliant to the aims of American foreign policy. All this from the country that preaches democracy, but it is democracy at the end of a gun and only if it suits the American corporate empire. 

      For years groups of people have organised to try to shut the place down, they have faced brutallity, and imprisonment but still they come back. They see it as a cancer on the land, it has no place in any civilised country, it is the bedrock of government repression. One such case of over the top sentencing is that of Theresa Cusimano who has been sentenced to six months in Federal prison for peacably crossing the line to speak out against the SOA.

 

       Those words adorn the wall inside the courtroom of Judge Stephen Hyles at the Columbus courthouse. And there they remain, strong words that ring hollow in face of injustice, merely adornments. For her act of peacefully crossing the line at Fort Benning, Georgia - a misdemeanor offense - a 6-month sentence was imposed on Theresa Cusimano. Those who train men with guns at the SOA/WHINSEC, those who created those torture manuals, have never had to defend their actions, yet Theresa is being sentenced to six months in prison for nonviolently calling attention to the US military's role in the violence carried out against her sisters and brothers in the Americas.

       Theresa Cusimano wrote the following statement to Judge Stephen Hyles before her sentencing, telling him that his complicity goes on record today as obstructing international justice and U.S. Rule of Law, and that she wished that he had the courage of Father Roy and the honor of being a subversive.:

Read the full speech HERE.

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STUDENT PROTEST - CHILE.

         Students took to the streets in Chile and were met with riot police and water cannon. The protests were in response to a Mayor referring to a girl's boarding school as a "whorehouse".

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WHERE'S OUR GDP??

        I believe it is generally accepted by the public that as a country gets richer, we should all be better off. After all, that is why the powers that be, keep telling us about the growth of our GDP, to let us know who much richer we are becoming. It is safe to say that over the years the UK GDP has been growing steadily, with the exception of 2008/9, but suddenly we are told that we can't afford most of the things we take for granted. Things like libraries, nursery classes, decent pensions, and a half decent social welfare system are now beyond our reach. We are now being told that we have to accept wage cuts/freezes, work longer to get a smaller pension, cuts in social benefits, rising unemployment, while our kids education system is decimated and privatised along with our National Health Service. But I thought our GDP had been growing year on year for some considerable time, with just the odd blip? Well it has, so where is all that extra wealth, who has the money? What has also been happening as our GDP kept growing, was that a larger share of the wealth was being syphoned upwards to an ever decreasing number of individuals. The salary gap just kept getting wider and wider, so must of that extra wealth from our ever growing GDP, (your effort and my effort) was ending up, not in the common pool, but was heading straight into the bank accounts of the ever dwindling little bunch of parasites. If all those gains from the ever increasing GDP had been evenly spread in the common good, infrastructure and welfare for example, would we be facing the same problems? It is really ironic that it is those who gained all that extra wealth from our ever growing GDP, who are now telling us that we can't afford all the most basic parts of a decent civilised society.

Some difficult decisions will have to be made!!

       Even a glance at such an economic system tells you that it is inefficient, wrong, immoral, unjust, and corrupt. It doesn't take an Einstein to come up with a better, fairer and more just system, based on mutual aid, co-operation and sustainability, a system that sees to the needs of all our people, instead of working, struggling and worrying, just to keep a bunch of millionaire/billionaire parasites in the lap of luxury. Isn't it about time we sorted this lot out and started taking care of our own people?

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THE STRUGGLE IS GLOBAL.

        An appeal and a thank-you from Labour Start:

        Members of the Mexican electrical workers union have been engaged in a heroic struggle that began more than two years ago -- and today they need our help. Despite being evicted from their workplaces by police and military in 2009, they continued their resistance and today are negotiating with the government on a just solution.

But they need our help -- the support of trade union members from around the world.

      Sending your message to the Mexican government and the union will take you less than a minute -- please do so now - click here.

        Please spread the word inside your union, to your workmates, friends and family -- and share the campaign via these social media sites:        

       Meanwhile, thanks to the more than 7,600 of you who responded to last week's appeal in support of jailed trade union leaders in Greece. The trial began on Tuesday and the union leaders have thanked all of you for your support. But we need more messages before it resumes next week, so if you've not yet sent off a message, please do so now - click here.

        Finally, it's a new year and we're relaunching our partnership with UCS - the unionised bookshop - to promote books by and for trade unionists. This month, I'd like to urge all of you to have a look at Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. If you've never heard of Mother Jones, you're in for a real treat. And remember that every book you purchase using this link helps to support LabourStart.
Have a great weekend.

Eric Lee

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WHAT IS OCCUPY WALL STREET?

       What is Occupy Wall Street about,, who are they, is it just a handful of misfits, if not, why isn't there better media coverage? This video might give you some of the answers.

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LIBERTY SQUARE LIBERATED!!

        Liberty Square in New York has been re-occupied, the barriers are down and the people are back with their library and their discusions. In spite of the lack of media coveage this protest gathers numbers and steam.

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VINDICTIVE STATE APPARATUS.

Please circulate widely

News from ethicalcensus.org.uk

Support Barbara in Court - victimised over Scottish census

       Barbara Dowling is being charged under the Census Act, accused of not filling in her census form properly. Her intermediate diet was held on Tue 10 January and her case is going ahead to trial. Barbara will be defending herself. The trial will be at 10am in Court 16, Glasgow Sheriff Court Thursday 26 January (not 16 January, as stated in an earlier email).

      Countless Scots have either failed to fill in their census forms or returned them partially completed or improved by critical comments, but have not been prosecuted. Barbara's victimisation is inexplicable. Please make a date in your diary to come along and support her. And please tell your friends.

      Barbara will also be in court on 25 Jan over non-payment of a fine incurred for blockading Faslane nuclear submarine base. Barbara is refusing to pay the fine and risks a jail sentence:

10am 25th January, Dumbarton Sheriff Court - support in court welcome

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I'VE BEEN ROBBED!!!

        Well I like the guy and his songs speak volumes, homage where homage is due. Some times a song or a poem can say more in a couple of verses than you could say in a ten minute speech or a couple of chapters in a book. Enjoy and learn.

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CRUISE TO CRAP!!!

        Have you ever watched those large cruise ships sailing in to port and thought, what beautiful constructions. I have always seen large passenger ships as things beauty. However over the years they have got larger and larger, and now they look more like very large floating hotels. Now I tend to see them as massive filthy contraptions for transporting pretty-pretty butterfly people around the world to flutter about on exotic islands. Then there is the other dimension to them, all that filth and sewage they dump in our oceans and sometimes not that far from shore.

           The average cruise ship dumps approximately  21,000 pounds of untreated sewage every day, sometimes less than three miles from shore?  Of course it is not just the sewage dumping that should concern us. Every single day, a single cruise ship can dump approximately one ton of garbage, 6,400 gallons of oily bilge water, and 25 pounds of batteries, fluorescent lights, medical wastes, and expired chemicals into our oceans. That's just one ship.

     The pretty-pretty butterfly people that create all this sewage and waste don't in any way pay for the clean up, and don't seem to be too concerned about the problem, nor do the cruise companies pay anything towards the clean up, the oceans are to them, just a waste basin from which they make millions, floating the pretty-pretty butterfly people around.

          The Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) recently singled out AIDA and TUI, two German cruise lines, for being especially environmentally filthy. It's time for them to update their filtration systems to stop thoughtlessly spewing waste into our oceans. Poisoned oceans means poisoned fish and that affects you and I.

TAKE ACTION NOW.

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CAPITALISM = CHILD POVERTY.

       Recently released figures show the shocking level of child poverty in Scotland, these figures show that 13 Scottish councils have wards where more than 30% of children live in severe poverty. The worst areas are Glasgow, West of Scotland, Edinburgh, Dundee, Fife, Aberdeen and Stirling. A quick look at the map of Scotland tells you that those areas just about take in practically all of Scotland's high population areas. The over all child poverty level for the whole of Scotland is more than 20%. Bearing in mind that every child living in poverty is in a home with at least one adult living in poverty, it is a damning picture.

        Labour social justice spokesman Drew Smith said work was the best route out of poverty. Adding, "That is why as well as investment in the vital early years and improving childcare, we need a renewed focus on creating jobs and implementing a Living Wage for Scotland." What a load of crap, when has capitalism ever paid a living wage to all its workers? Dear Mr Smith, that's not how the system works. Why are people in poverty, because they can't access their needs. Why can't they access their needs, because we have created a system whereby the people's needs are priced so as to allow an army of parasites to live in luxury. Our system doesn't produce for the needs of the people, it produces for the wealth of the shareholders. The two tend to be incompatible. Also this angle of work being the answer shifts the blame onto those who are unable to find work. It's their own fault, if only they were working they would be poverty free. History tells us different.

       On hearing the figures Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesman Liam McArthur said: "In light of this report, and the effect that unemployment has on levels of poverty, it is more clear than ever that effective collaboration at all levels of government is required to help ensure the right conditions for creating jobs and reducing unemployment in our communities." More crap, when has capitalism in any country in the world every produced a society where all were employed and all had a living wage? More of blame the unemployed for the poverty in the country.

         Take two of the worst areas of severe poverty in Scotland, Govan, where I once worked in the shipyards, as part of the Clyde, it was once the shipbuilding capital of the world and Springburn, where I still live, once the steam locomotive manufacturing centre of the British Empire. In those days, lots of employment, but also lots of poverty. In this society the two are not incompatible. However, it was with “effective collaboration at all levels of government” that seen to the demise of both these industries. See Upper Clyde Work-in. Now Govan has a child poverty level of 38% and Springburn has the worst in Scotland with a criminal level 52% of children living in severe poverty. Think of that, more than half the children in an area in the UK living in severe poverty, that's 21^st century capitalism in the developed world, not a third world country.

        Of course anybody who is interested in what our society is like will know that poverty has always been part of capitalism. The system is not in any way shape or form fashioned to see to people's needs, it is not a needs based system, profit is the only game in town. All this crap about getting people into employment, being the answer to poverty, is just sound bites for public consumption, in the hope of getting the mouth-piece elected to a cushy job. They don't believe it themselves, if they do, then they are more stupid than I have always stated.

      Child poverty of these levels is an indictment against any system, it is condemning future generations to a stunted development, a waste of the future potential of a people. All this just because we are told that capitalism is the only route available, when common sense tells us otherwise. Mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and developing a needs based society is there waiting for the people to take it up. The evidence has never been more glaring, the need has never been greater.

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ETHICAL CENSUS?

News from ethicalcensus.org.uk

Support Census Objector in Court.Intermediate Diet: 10am Tuesday 10 January, Glasgow Sheriff Court

Trial Diet: Monday 16 January, Glasgow Sheriff Court

Map:
http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/locations/index.asp?crt=glw&val=map

Train Stations: Central, Queen Street and Argyle Street (Low Level).

Underground Station: Bridge Street.

SOLIDARITY.

      Barbara Dowling will be appearing before Glasgow Sheriff Court on Tuesday 10 January, accused of failing to fully complete her census form. Please come along to the court to support Barbara. Justice is more likely to be done it is being watched.

       Tuesday's hearing is an Intermediate Diet, so it will mainly be concerned with technical matters. Although it will be particularly important to have strong support for Barbara at the Trial Diet scheduled for the following week, support at the Intermediate Diet is also important and could help to make sure that the court takes Barbara's case seriously.

Please come along if you can
More information: 07936432519 or 07786630764
More information about the campaign for an ethical census:

www.ethicalcensus.org.uk

Do You Know of anyone else being prosecuted in Scotland over the census?Ask them to contact us:
contact@ethicalcensus.org.uk

Or phone 07936432519 or 07786630764

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EDUCATION FREE FROM THE MILITARY.

        Another upper-crust brain-dead parasite spouts his mouth off and thinks he is a genius. Education Secretary, Michael Gove, had a chat with a 17 year old cadet from The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and left thinking, why don't we get all the working class kids into cadets, then the little bastards would stop thinking for themselves and become nice obedient workers for our corporate buddies. After his visionary conversation with the 17 year old cadet, Gove has come up with the idea of introducing military style cadet forces into all secondary schools. Note, all secondary schools, no mention of grammar schools. So enthused is he with his vision that he has told Children's Minister Sarah Teather to get her head together with Defence Minister Nick Harvey, and get the ball rolling. The one thing our right-wing millionaire class don't want is a disobedient working class. Get them into uniform and let them know who is boss, teach them to take orders, be subservient. It has always been the fear of the rich parasite class that the ordinary people would eventually see through their smoke and mirrors and decide to take control of society for the benefit of all. With unrest looming on the horizon all the more reason to get those possible protesters into uniform and have them sitting around looking to their leaders and waiting for orders.

         This latest piece of right-wing militaristic ideology must be resisted, we don't want our kids going to school to be prepared as cannon fodder for some corporate resource grab or some foreign policy caprice by some egocentric parasite millionaire Prime Minister. With unemployment rising and kids being groomed for the military while at school, it is obvious more will end up in the military and fighting to protect the share value of some oil giant. There should be no room in any of our schools for the military, education is about thinking for yourself, not about taking orders from your supposed superiors. Kick the military out of school and keep them out.

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THERE ARE MEN TOO GENTLE ---.

       

         As the new year gets up and running and all the talk is of struggle and fighting, we should never forget why we are fighting. It is not for the love of struggle and fight, it is not for power and wealth, it is because of love and a desire to create a world where such beautiful flowers as justice, peace and love, bloom in the fertile soil of co-operation, so we can live in a world free from the fear of deprivation. We wish to create a world where the gentle can live and grow.

THERE ARE MEN TOO GENTLE TO LIVE

AMONG WOLVES

Poem by James Kavanaugh

There are men too gentle to live among wolves

Who prey upon them with IBM eyes

And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.

There are men too gentle for a savage world

Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween

And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves

Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws

And murder then for a merchant's profit and gain.

There are men too gentle for a corporate world

Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels

And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves.

Who devour them with eager appetite and search

For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.

There are men too gentle for an accountant's world

Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass

And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves

Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.

Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world.

Unless they have a gentle one to love.

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YEA -- TH'GOOD OL' DAYS!!! MY ARSE.

         

            It is difficult to keep your cool when you hear some of the crap that pours from the mouths of our politicians. One such bout of verbal diarrhoea came recently from the Shadow Business Secretary, Chuka Umunna. Among this splurge of meaningless words was the statement, “What we need is a more responsible and better capitalism,” This man believes that somehow good capitalism has lost its way over the last 30 years or so. You know the kind of capitalism he is talking about, the sort that always pays its workers a good living wage, always gives them the best of working conditions and always adheres to the best possible health and safety regulations. Like the coal mine owners of the past for example. This so called politician, obviously is oblivious of working class struggle over the years of the good old capitalism days. Lock-outs, mass dismissals, wage cuts and atrocious working conditions, risking life and limb, all for the benefit of the good capitalist. For the benefit of this ignorant individual, there never has been an era of the good capitalism. Capitalism is a system of exploitation, a system of getting the many to work as hard as possible for a little as possible to enrich the few. Those, who like the Mr. Chuka Umunna, who somehow hold this totally irrational belief that, capitalism is a benevolent system that through a few greedy individuals has been tainted, should read their history. Not the history of this half-wit prince marrying this other equally half-witted princess by arrangement of their power hungry parents in the hope of safeguarding the lands they had stolen. Rather he should have a look at the miners strike and general strike of 1926, the 40 hour strike of 1919, and the brutal repression of both, or perhaps the dock strike of 1911 in which two Liverpool strikers were shot dead by the troops on the streets of Liverpool. This is the capitalism of old, the “good old days”, that Mr Chuka Umunna hungers after, the good capitalism of poverty wages, long hours and working conditions that caused early death. Each time one of these idiots opens their big mouth to vent an empty brain, it reinforces my belief in anarchism as the only hope for humanity.

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GREECE, ITALY, SPAIN, IT IS ALL ONE FIGHT.

      

     As the austerity cuts bite deeper and they meet ever greater resistance, so the state will come down heavier on those who resist. As I keep spouting, this is everybody's fight. We need solidarity across trades, occupations and borders. What is happening in Greece is happening across the continent, it is all a matter of degree and timing. This from LabourStart.

       More than a dozen Greek trade unionists face prison on Tuesday.   If you're a trade unionist fighting to ensure that workers don't pay the price for the global financial crisis they didn't create, 2012 looks like it will be a challenging year.

      On Thursday 24 November 2011, the Greek police arrested Nikos Photopoulos, President of the power workers' union GENOP/DEI, along with more than a dozen of his fellow trade unionists. They will appear in court on Tuesday 10 January 2012 to face charges that could see them jailed for up to five years.

     They were protesting against part of the Greek austerity measures - the cutting off of power to people unable to pay a new property tax, levied regardless of income or wealth and added to all electricity bills. The new tax is just the most recent 'austerity' action by the Greek government. The abolition of the national minimum wage and the lowering of employer-paid taxes are next.

     Please take a moment to send a message to the Greek Prime Minister in support of the campaign Greek trade union confederation GSEE, which is calling for the charges to be dropped.

Just go HERE to send your message.

    And please don't forget to pass this message along to your contacts, and to use your Twitter, Google+ and Facebook accounts to help us get the word out.

Thanks.

ann arky's home.

WHAT ARE YOU FIGHTING FOR???

         The question that we should never stop asking everyone who puts on a uniform, and like the man says, if we win the fight at home there'll be no more wars.

 

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FREEDOM'S VOICE WILL CREATE THE CRACKS IN ANY REPRESSION.

         Omar Ibrahim was given an eighteen months prison sentence for throwing a joke-shop smoke bomb at a protest, but although banged up, he is still trying to do what we all should be able to do, let our voice be heard. His blog, banged up for protesting, written from Wandsworth Prison is always worth a read.

 

        This article was submitted to national prison magazine Not Shut Up. The editor approved it for print but the Head of Education at HMP Wandsworth blocked its final publication.

      The winter is closing in but still the Arab Spring bursts through the concrete like some unstoppable rose, spreading seeds across the globe. Over there, across the Mediterranean, Syrian and Egyptian resistance reintensifies in the face of relentless oppression and tyranny. These are obvious police states that slaughter their citizenry with the contempt and brutality that only a state can wield. Russia has not had bloodshed from its police state but there are mass arrests and a sincere mistrust of the questionably elected Putin regime. I wonder how our system compares.

Continue Reading.

 ann arky's home.

WHO HAS THE POWER???

       
          In these times of a full frontal attack by the corporate world on the conditions of the working classs perhaps we would do well to remember some of the words of that old IWW warhorse Utah Phillips.

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