RADICAL WOMEN.

      It is less than 100 years since women won the vote in America and August 26 marks that anniversary. Of course as women the world over now realise, that in this type of elected representative "democracy" winning the right to vote doesn't mean you have freedom. 

This from Radical Women:

Dear Friend,

Happy Women's Rights Day! August 26 marks the anniversary of women in the United States winning the right to vote in 1920.

The campaign for suffrage came directly out of the battle to end slavery and was fought through militant actions in the streets, workplaces and halls of government. Today, the struggle for equality continues against a stepped-up war on women. Elected officials from both parties are shredding social services while our paychecks shrink and jobs disappear. Over the last two years, state legislatures passed 164 anti-immigrant laws, relegating women and men without documents to the precarious informal economy. Last year, 26 states enacted laws restricting reproductive freedom and abortion. Meanwhile, over 40% of families headed by single African American, Latina and Native American mothers live in poverty.

Continue READING:

ann arky's home.

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL---!

On "beauty" This from Peace X Peace:


Yasmina Mrabet
Washington, D.C. USA

     “Here I am, in a precarious condition. I struggle to maintain the standard of ‘beauty’ society demands and my authentic presence is inhibited. A focus on the external renders my internal being invisible. “

continue READING:

ann arky's home.

WE BEAR THE BRUNT.

     An article I was reading today from one of the newspapers that populate that babbling brook of bullshit called the mainstream media, stated that, "it is the ordinary people that are bearing the brunt of the war in Syria." I have no doubt the writer thought he/she was making a profound statement, an illuminating point, highlighting some peculiar aspect of this particular war. However as far as I am concerned it was about the dumbest, most stupid statement, made about this particular war, or any other conflict.

        Anybody that looks at history can see that in war that is always the case, it has never been other than, the ordinary people bear the brunt of the conflict. Look at the First World War, cast your eyes over the list of lives lost, and ask yourself, where are the corporate bosses, the dukes and princes, the prime ministers etc? Move on to WW2, as it ravaged across Europe and Asia, who bore the brunt, was it the CEO, kings, presidents, land owners or the aristocracy? A resounding NO, it was as in all state wars, the ordinary people that bore the brunt. However, it is the landed gentry, corporate bosses, presidents, prime minsters, the rich and powerful that reap what ever benefits ever arise from these state struggles for power, resources or markets. We the ordinary people supply the the lives to be sacrificed at the state's altar of power. We gain nothing from these state organised actions of mass terrorism.

ann arky's home,

TERRORISM.

      The powers that be in today's world are always sounding dire warnings of terrorists and the horror they are intent on inflicting on us. I have no doubt that there are, out there, groups of fanatics who will create mayhem for their cause. However, no matter the size of the "terrorist" organisation, none of them are in the big league.  When it comes to REAL terror, there is one organisation that can and has has outstripped them all.

    It is odd that people should accept the state, even although history tells us that, despite its vociferous and strenuous propaganda to the contrary, the state is the longest running, most experienced, most skilled, most copious purveyors in that ancient and intricate art of terror, in the long and tortured history of man. From the internal terrorist organisations of "national security", to the external exploits of the state's terrorism of war. The state, without a shadow of doubt, has the highest record of death and destruction of any organisation on the planet. There is nothing in man's history that can compare to the overwhelming destruction of the state.

      Ever since the first government was formed, terror has been an accepted weapon for keeping the people in line. Never for the benefit of the people in the line, but for those few who wish to keep them there. The few rule the many and since it is against the interests of the many, the few need the weapon of terror to protect their little profitable cabal and keep them in power. It would therefore seem obvious that if we wish to free ourselves from the the ever present anticipation and results of terror, we have to first and foremost get rid of the greatest source of terror, the state, and its mouthpiece, government.

ann arky's home.

A CALL FOR HELP.

      A worthy cause and your support can make all the difference to some young persons life. Without our youth, there is no tomorrow.

TO LOSE A SON.

It seems, in this harsh and callous world

There is no room

For the sweet, the soft, the gentle

Too many compromises to the inner self

Too many cruel realities pierce the heart.

How do you love

When survival bids you

Case your heart in an iron cask

Seal your skin in a titanium sheet

Fulfil the code and not yourself.

With pleasures locked in an inner chamber

Love hidden beneath a smile

Desires crammed in secret corners

All protected from the discordant demands

Of a rapid moving, confusing, pitiless world.

Where do the sweet, the soft, the gentle, find solace

Where can the heart float free

Where can the inner self blossom

Open for all the world to see

Accepted and un-threatened?

200 mile Cycle 

to Promote the Prevention of Young Suicide

200 miles.
4 days.
2 girls, 2 boys, 4 bikes.
1 of the leading causes of death between the ages of 10 and 24.

     In April 2013, our Founder/Director Laura Kayes, our Head of Dance Ruth Foster and two of our long standing members Scott Jess and Gavin Shankland will be cycling the 200 MILE journey from Glasgow to Wigan to raise money for The2Davids Theatre Productions and to raise awareness of teenage suicide.
     A donations page will follow shortly but even if you're unable to donate we would be incredibly grateful if you could share this event to help us spread the word.

Love,

The2Davids Theatre Productions
www.the2davidstheatreproductions.com

 

ann arky's home.

 

THE WAY OF SLAVES.

THE WAY OF SLAVES.

Politicians living a life of opulence

paid for by other men’s dreams,

add to the lexicon of humanity’s suffering

weaving their selfish grandiose schemes.

Abusing privileges, grasping at wealth

egos blown like a hot air balloon,

preaching our poverty will bring

prosperity for all----------soon.

We tighten our belt another notch

accepting a beggarly slice of the cake,

while they bask in a cherry orchard

surrounded by a fine wine lake.

Pouring words, grand posturing,

as they unveil their latest plan,

assuring they live in luxury

while we struggle as best we can.

Poverty’s the price for allowing

others to plan our days,

when will we finally grasp

this is the way of slaves.

ann arky's home.

STARVE THE BEAST.

       This might be aimed at the American youth, and in the eyes of the general public, the war in Iraq is over, but the corporate beast is still killing in other countries across the globe, and like the videos says, "starve the beast", it is still eating our youth in the name of corporate greed.

ann arky's home.

YOU'RE FUCKING AROUND WITH US? - NOT FOR LONG!

      Written in 1967, by Raoul Vaneigem, the book, The Revolution of Everyday Life, is still as relevant today as it was when written all those years ago.  For those who haven't read it, this short extract might prompt you in that direction.

Chapter 25

 "You're Fucking Around With Us? - Not For Long!"

       In Watts, Prague, Stockholm, Stanleyville, Gdansk, Turin, Port Talbot, Cleveland, Cordoba, Amsterdam, wherever the act and wareness of refusal generates passionate break-outs from the factories of collective illusion, the revolution of everyday life is under way. The struggle intensifies as misery becomes universal. What for years were reasons for fighting specific issues - hunger, restrictions, boredom, illness, anxiety, isolation, deceit - now reveal misery's fundamental rationality, its omnipresent emptiness, its appalling oppressive abstraction. For this misery, the world of hierarchical power, the world of the State, of sacrifice, exchange and the quantitative - the commodity as will and representation of the world - is held responsible by those moving towards an entirely new society that is still to be invented and yet is already among us. All over the globe, revolutionary praxis, like a photographic exposer, is transforming negative into positive, lighting up the hidden face of the earth with the fires of rebellion to ink in the map of its triumph. 

ann arky's home.

IMPERIALISM - WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY.

      For those interested in history as a map to where we are now, this from, Land Destroyer, is worth a read.

Part 1: Imperialism is Alive and Well

February 18, 2012 -

   The British Empire didn't just have a fleet that projected its hegemonic will across the planet, it possessed financial networks to consolidate global economic power, and system administrators to ensure the endless efficient flow of resources from distant lands back to London and into the pockets of England's monied elite. It was a well oiled machine, refined by centuries of experience.

     While every schoolchild learns about the British Empire, it seems a common modern-day political malady for adults to believe that reality is organized as their history books were in school - in neat well defined chapters. This leads to the common misconception that the age of imperialism is somehow a closed-chapter in human history. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Imperialism did not go extinct. It simply evolved.

Imperialism is alive & well.

     There are several pertinent examples illustrating how imperialism is still alive and well, and only cleverly disguised with updated nomenclatures. What we know today as "free trade" actually derives its origins from economic concessions the British frequently extorted from nations under its "gunboat diplomacy" strategy - that is, anchoring gunboats off the coast of a foreign capital, and threatening bombardment and military conquest if certain demands were not met.

continue READING:

ann arky's home.

PAYMENT BY RESULTS??

     All the figures that come out regarding this economic system make it blatantly obvious that it does not work in the interest of the majority of the people. Yet millions still accept it as if it was the only game in town. We the ordinary people are continually told austerity is the only answer and we have to accept this harsh reality, so that we can have pie in the sky in the years after 2020, perhaps. As we suffer wage cuts/freezes, unemployment, and a destruction of our social society, the millionaire cabal that run this gambling casino and hand out this need for austerity, move further and further into the stratospheric realms of opulence.

     Recent figures show that the average pay package of a FTSE 100 chief executive, for the year 2011 reached £3 million. This translates into an average annual increase of 8.5%. Compare this with the national average pay increase of the ordinary workers, which works out at 1.6%, well below half the rate of inflation.

     You would imagine that with the FTSE 100 chief executives claiming all that loot and that massive increase in salary, they must have done their job very well. However, during the same year, 2011, the FTSE 100 fell by 6.5%, leaving all those sweaty handed investors much worse off, is that payment by results?

    Of course it doesn't stop there, new research indicates a boardroom pay explosion has taken place at the beginning of this year. Yes, it is true, austerity is the way to prosperity. However it is our austerity that paves they way for the parasites' prosperity

      Surely it is the realms of insanity to continue with an economic system that grinds the vast majority of the population into a pit of deprivation, while throwing unimaginable wealth at a handful of parasites. The wealth that has been accumulated in this country over the years, all created by the labour of the ordinary people, is more than sufficient to see to the needs of all our people. The resources are there, it is this ludicrous greed driven system of economics that makes sure that all that wealth goes to the few and it translates into power for that few, over the rest of us. Another world is possible.

ann arky's home.

JUNK THOUGHT AND MIND PULP.

       We sleep walk through the bombardment of advertising, unaware of its power. Some people say that they are immune to advertising, but they are wrong. The corporate world would not pay all that money if there was any doubt that it pays off handsomely. It is everywhere, in your face, in your ear, it shapes our culture, it earns billions for the corporate world, it shades people's political leaning. It is propaganda for an economic system that feeds the fat cats, but we the people have no real control over it, it uses us, and not for our benefit.

Micah White's Thought Bubble: Junk Thought from ThoughtBubbler on Vimeo.

ann arky's home.

A CRISIS IN CIVILISATION!!

        We are all aware of the crime that is being perpetrated on the Greek people by the financial Mafia, we have seen the mass demonstrations and the riots, but what is not reported is the other ways in which the Greek people are tackling this onslaught of government arranged poverty and deprivation. There have been "Don't Pay" campaigns, looting supermarkets and distributing the food to the community, buildings being occupied and used for the benefit of the community. Other have decide to leave the cities and start there own sustainable community free from the capitalist mantra of money and profit.

This from the BBC News:

      As Greece sinks ever deeper into the most severe economic depression in living memory, some young people are taking drastic action to change their lives.

      In the spring of 2010, just as the Greek government was embarking on some of its harshest austerity measures, 29-year-old Apostolos Sianos packed in his well-paid job as a website designer, gave up his Athens apartment and walked away from modern civilisation. In the foothills of Mount Telaithrion on the Greek island of Evia, Mr Sianos and three other like-minded Athenians set up an eco-community. The idea was to live in an entirely sustainable way, free from the ties of money and cut off from the national electricity grid.

'Crisis of civilisation'

     The group sleeps communally in yurts they have built themselves, they grow their own food and exchange the surplus in the nearest village for any necessities they cannot produce.

Continue reading the main story.

ann arky's home.

WHERE DEMOCRACY WAS BORN, FASCISM FLOURISHES.

       With capitalist poverty doesn't come aid, but repression. As the possibility of anger and unrest simmers among the populace, your elected government turns to fascist policies to keep you in line. Greece today, tomorrow -----??

This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ:

     With August coming to an end and the temperatures dropping from the low 40s C to low 30s C The northern port city of Thessaloniki shakes off of its summer lethargy as people come back from their annual holidays and the town readies itself for the return of its large student population. However, amidst the renewed hustle and bustle some things haven't changed. Many of the businesses in the centre remain shuttered, their store fronts decorated with graffiti and For Rent signs, the cafés while now busier are far fewer in number and the restaurants mostly remain empty except on the weekend. The only new business is a chain of fast food outlets that does a roaring trade in in 70 cent hot dogs and cheap iced coffees.

      On the other hand whether it be in the supermarket lines or in the streets the talk is about how everyone will pay the latest round of bills. The guy pumping petrol complains about the cost of road tax whilst the woman behind me in line frets about how she'll make it through the winter if the government decides to raise the cost of heating oil by 40% as promised. 

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

THE END OF PUBLIC SPACE.

          Public space is rapidly disappearing as the corporate world takes over more and more space to shove their brand name in our faces. Nothing is safe, buildings can be covered in massive posters screaming their product at us whether we want it or not. Any open space has billboards erected, it is not just advertising, it is conditioning, it's implanting brand names and logos in every mind every where, it all helps to keep the consumer juggernaut rolling. That's is all that matters, profit, not the aesthetics of the society we live in.

ann arky's home.

HELP FOR HATERS.

A reasoned argument, What do you think?

ann arky's home.

GREECE, - A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.

         Having been a regular visitor to Greece over many years and having wonderful memories of meeting many friendly families, I find it heart breaking what is now happening to all those friendly families. The economic chaos brought about  by the greedy gambling of the financial Mafia has plunged the ordinary Greek family into a hell-hole of deprivation. Everything that makes a society civilised has gone, health care has disintegrated, medicines are in short supply, the education system has collapsed, unemployment has gone stratospheric. With all this comes the rising drug and alcohol abuse, increase in mental health problems, rising crime, a staggering increase in suicides, and with the cuts, needle exchange centres are closing and HIV is increasing faster in Greece than any other country. The tragedy is that we are not talking about a family, we are talking about an entire country. What was once a modern 20 century country has in a couple of years been plunged back to worse than UK Victorian poverty. What sane and humane system that has an abundance of wealth floating around would tolerate such a crime against humanity. A crime that is well within our resources to resolve. However, it seems to be beyond the ability or desire of this capitalist system to even attempt to alleviate the dire circumstances of the Greek people. Only a society of people controlled communities working on mutual aid and co-operation, structured to see to the needs of all our people will find an answer to the Greek tragedy that is playing out before our eyes.

This from THE COMMUNE:

a report on the situation in greece

1 08 2012

During a recent visit to Greece, Eric Chester was able to get some sense of the enormous problems confronting that country.

Greeks are very proud of their past, not only the legendary era 2500 years ago, the time of the Parthenon, but more recently when Greeks fought the Nazi invaders. Nevertheless, along with the national pride is a bitter sense of despair, a feeling that there is no way out of the current catastrophe. The number of suicides has been increasing rapidly, as young Greeks try to cope with massive unemployment and the disintegration of the educational system, along with clear indications that the crisis will only grow worse

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

LONDON LEAVES A BAD TASTE AFTER ST. IMIER.

This from AFed UK:

Anarchists Detained by Counter-Terrorist Police on Return from Swiss Conference [plus French, Spanish translations]

For the past week, thousands of anarchists from across Europe have been converging in St.Imier, Switzerland to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the founding of the Anarchist international. The gathering took the form of a festival and educational, with music, films and entertainment as well as workshops and discussions.

On returning from the St Imier gathering, two anarchists, one a member of the UK Anarchist Federation, were detained for nearly two hours at Heathrow by SO15 (counter-terrorist) police. During the detention, the anarchists were told that their normal rights did not apply, and had their names, addresses, email addresses, DNA and fingerprints taken. The detained anarchists were also forced to sign forms – which may or may not be legal – waiving their rights to silence and a solicitor. Police also conducted a thorough search of personal possessions, photocopied literature and passports and took information from phones and cameras.

During the detention, the police constantly accused the anarchists of lying about involvement in criminal activity and alleged that they would be conducting follow-up police action against one of the detained anarchists. In addition to this, SO15 officers asked a number of inflammatory, irrelevant and offensive questions, including ‘what would you do if someone raped your mother?’ evidently in an attempt to cause emotional upset and illicit angry or violent responses. One member (28) who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals from the police, said "We were treated like criminals. I told them I went to the congress as I am an amateur journalist and I write articles about activism. They saw my note book, camera and Dictaphone but they said I was lying. One officer said 'You said you are an anarchist, I've seen anarchists on the news, they are violent, throw molotov cocktails and disrupt people’s lives not write articles'".

Read the full statement HERE:

ann arky's home.

THE BILLIONAIRES GOLD RUSH!!!

        While the financial Mafia's puppets, our elected leaders, are running around taking crap about growth and austerity in one breath, trying to convince us that they have the financial "crisis" under control, what are the real big money men doing? Those billionaires that shuffle money around to make a quick buck at our expense seem to be saying that the system can't be fixed. Two of the biggest players in the financial gambling casino, Soros and Paulson, are dumping their financial shares  and buying gold as fast as it can come out the ground. Soros has openly stated that the financial system is about to collapse, and now it seems that he is packing his bags and getting out of the casino. 

This from Inquiring Minds:

Perhaps even more disturbing is what he believes is coming after the financial collapse….

As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. “Yes, yes, yes,” he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

That doesn’t sound good.
George Soros has told us what he believes is going to happen, and now he is making moves with his money that indicate that he is convinced that it is actually about to start happening.
But he is not the only one that has been busy accumulating gold.
Billionaire John Paulson (the one that made 20 billion dollars on the subprime mortgage meltdown) has been buying gold like crazy and his company now “has 44 percent of its $24 billion fund exposed to bullion.”
So why are Soros and Paulson buying up so much gold?

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

IAF ST. IMIER CONGRESS STATEMENT.

Public statement from IFA Congress Saint-Imier 2012, 9-12th August 

Public statement from IFA Congress Saint-Imier 2012, 9-12th August to other exploited and oppressed people of the World.

The St. Imier meeting has enabled a lot of groups and militants that are member and non-members of the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF-IFA) to meet each other. IFA would like to sum up the events of the last few days.

 -------Anarchists reject the idea that it is human nature that one personal exploits another and that we are unequal. It is the case that rulers and states throughout history have maintained this system. This lie justifies Capitalism as a 'natural' system. We hear that there is a 'crisis' of Capitalism, but Capitalism is crisis. It is a recent system in historical terms and has already brought humanity to its knees many times before producing the current situation. But people all over the World are seeing through this lie and are resisting states and capitalism as never before and seek to coordinate their efforts across national boundaries. This makes an anarchist society more possible than ever.----

Read the full statement HERE:

ann arky's home.

GUNNED DOWN FOR ASKING FOR BETTER CONDITIONS.

        As workers' struggle intensifies, so the state repression brutalises, and no where is that brutal repression more open than the recent attack on striking miners in South Africa, where the police opened fire and killed an estimated 40 demonstrators.

This is from an article in The New York Times: 

MARIKANA, South Africa — The police fired on machete-wielding workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine here on Thursday, leaving a field strewed with bodies and a deepening fault line between the governing African National Congress and a nation that, 18 years after the end of apartheid, is increasingly impatient with deep poverty, rampant unemployment and yawning inequality.

Continue READING:

ann arky's home.