Defend The Right To Peaceful Protest.

     Under the state apparatus the right to freedom of speech is always liable to attack, the state would rather we were subservient and obedient. When people start to object to how they are being treated, that's when the state takes off the gloves and it becomes bare-knuckle capitalism with repression and intimidation the tools to get you back in line and obedient. One of Glasgow's past fights to defend the right to freedom of public assemble, was the fight for freedom of speech on Glasgow Green, a fight that lasted from 1922 to 1932, and here we are now in 2013 having once again to fight for the right to public assemble, to voice our concerns on the way our society is heading. It is by continual vigilance and struggle that we hold onto what little freedoms we have, under the present system, they are continually under threat, once gone, the fight to get them back is a much harder struggle than defending them.

Defend The Right To Peaceful Protest.

An open letter from Glasgow against Atos to all Political groups / parties

And Trade Unionists.

DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PEACEFUL PROTEST.

      If you are someone who has been involved in a protest or demonstration in the past few years you may have noticed an increase in the use of certain tactics by the Police.

The brutal tactic of “Kettling”, - the enforced containment of groups of people, is used by Police routinely despite widespread public and legal condemnation of the dangers of this tactic. The Police often use riot shields and employ mounted officers in these situations in which people are corralled and crushed together sometimes for hours on end.

     Forward Intelligence Teams collect information and photograph people attending demonstrations or protests. These photographs are compiled on “Spotter Cards” which are then used to identify individuals.

      At every protest you can be sure to see at least one mobile CCTV unit monitoring the crowd and possibly a helicopter hovering overhead.

      These are not tactics that are reserved for dealing with groups which promote racial hatred such as the Scottish Defence League, but tactics that the police are using increasingly against any group of ordinary people who are voicing their concerns about issues which matter to them and their families.

Ordinary citizens such as environmental campaigners, disabled rights groups, families affected by cuts in public services must have the right to articulate their grievances without interference from the Police. They must be allowed the right of free speech and peaceful protest without attempts by the police to criminalise these basic democratic rights.

      The journalist George Monbiot reported on the misuse of police power during the Kingsnorth Climate camp Campaign. Two female protestors were attacked, arrested and remanded in prison for four days. As George Monbiot commented; “Anyone who seeks political change is treated as if they were an enemy of the public interest”, and, “that the police are turning activism into a crime”. (Guardian 22^nd June 2009).

     The human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield Q.C. remarked that; “Legitimate and peaceful mass demonstrations is being policed off the streets. Increasingly heavy –handed tactics are being employed along with the potentially dangerous practice of kettling or corralling. It is part of a general policy by successive authoritarian governments. They brook no opposition and contrive a compliant society upon which they can wreak havoc with their elitist economic policies”. (Guardian 10^th March 2013).

      During a recent trade visit to Delhi, David Cameron said of the massacre of hundreds of Indians who were protesting against oppressive laws and were shot by British troops in 1919, “We must ensure that the United Kingdom stands up for the right to peaceful protest anywhere in the world”, (The Telegraph 20 February 2013).

      When David Cameron said anywhere in the world – he meant of course anywhere except here! He doesn’t mind democracy and free speech as long as it’s somewhere else. And the politicians are quite happy to give the police a free hand to maintain their position of power and privilege.

We must stop this misuse of police power. It is a scandal that ordinary citizens are being deprived of their democratic right to protest against injustice.

We cannot stand by and watch this happen.

We are not posing a threat to democracy - the police are!

We are not breaking the law - the police are!

To this end we call on all individuals with a concern for free speech and who value the democratic right to protest, all political groups and parties, all trade unionists, all of our fellow citizens suffering repression to join us in condemnation of police harassment and intimidation.

      Although there are many divisions in society at the moment, this is something that affects all of us. We have to be united on this, - do not fall for the police’s divide and rule tactics.

The right to free speech and peaceful protest is the mark of a free society.

As Martin Luther King so eloquently said; “Freedom is never given voluntarily by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”.

      Let us remember this, and unite against those who oppose free speech!

     “Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”
― Simone Weil

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The "Shock and Awe" System.

     France and the UK, we know have special forces in Syria helping the "Free Syrian Army", the same two countries are puffing themselves up to start shipping arms into the cauldron of slaughter that is Syria today. This would be shipping Western aid to AL-Qaeda, as anybody with half an eye knows that is who the real fighting force is that is taking on the Assad regime. Assad, like all state rulers, is no democrat, but he did tolerate other religions in the country. It is  said that come Easter in the Syrian city Aleppo the streets of the city are alive to the clatter of wooden crosses being dragged across the cobbles as the Christian community openly celebrate that particular festival. With France and the UK's help that tradition will in all probability be wiped out, if the "Free Syrian Army" win this slaughter, and the Syrian Christians, like the Iraqi Christians of the last decade, will have to flee across some other border.

      Western hypocrisy is no shrinking violet, it is blatant, callous and brutal, from aiding and training the Taliban in Afghanistan, to fighting and killing the Taliban in Afghanistan, from fighting Al-qaeda, to supporting and arming Al-qaeda.  All this to further the power of the Western (dollar) Empire. Sadly it is the ordinary people that are killed in their millions to further that power. Ordinary people from the West sent to slaughter innocent people who are just like them, drivers, teachers, engineers, office workers, factory workers, etc.. Nowhere in the ranks sent to do the dirty work of killing will you fund the real beneficiaries of all this slaughter, the corporate millionaires.

    Listening to Tony Blair talking about removing Saddam from Iraq and watching the video of Baghdad, a large modern city, at the receiving end of "Shock and Awe", watching a city being pulverised and then a country's infrastructure being totally destroyed, on the pretext of removing a dictator, leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach. Looking at Iraq today it is obvious that the medicine was worse than the disease.

      Western capitalism is totally and completely ruthless, countries can be bombed and blasted back to the stone age, as we do in the Middle East, or they can be destroyed by the financial Mafia wing of the same system, as in Greece, with others to follow. There is no golden horizon in capitalism for the ordinary people of this world, they will always be the foot soldiers of the millionaire class as it continues its quest for ever greater power and wealth. In their book, death and destruction is a price worth paying, if it protects and furthers their hold on the world's resources.

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The Brutal Defence of The Dollar.

        All in the public domain, but not tied up in a proper narrative. The rule of the mighty dollar has been a very brutal epoch in human history, a history that is mired in blood for wealth and power. Its end would surely be a welcome relief to all humanity. The questions are, when and how.

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Why Socialism?

      The following quote is from an article that accurately describes the problems that we face today, it could have been taken from some lecture at some school of economics, financial research group, or similar body of today. It was however written in 1949 by Albert Einstein. Here we are in 2013 and we are still wrestling with the same problems he was describing then. In my opinion the main difference now is that the problems are more glaringly obvious, more clearly seen, much better understood, by many more people. This is of course encouraging, as the more people that see and understand the problem, the more likely we are to do something about it in a more radical manner. There is now more likely to be a mass response with a mass consensual answer, now more than ever we are more likely to ignore the "expert" and decide for ourselves. That of course is the first step to freedom and a better world. Who better than the people know what sort of world the people want?

       The following is taken from, Why Socialism? By Albert Einstein.

     Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
    The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the "free labor contract" for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present-day economy does not differ much from "pure" capitalism.
     Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an "army of unemployed" almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.
    This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
     I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Read the full article HERE:

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Workers Know Your History, - The Paris Commune.

        An anniversary that shouldn't go unnoticed, March, 18, 1871 the workers of Paris along with some mutinous National Guardsmen took control of the city and started to build their new world. It has become known as The Paris Commune, or The Commune of Paris, sadly it only lasted until May, 28, 1871. A few months when a desperate grasp for freedom by the people had a tenuous hold. For this attempt at realising a better world, the power of reaction came down hard. The end of May, 1871 saw the streets of Paris run as rivers of blood as the authorities slaughtered in excess of 30,000 people in the city of Paris. For those few months, the workers ruled their own lives, made their own decisions, lived the dream they carried in their hearts. This is something that an authoritarian society will not tolerate at any price, and the price the workers of Paris paid was high indeed. The Paris Commune was probably the first real attempt, by the workers to take control of their own lives, since the start of the industrial age. I'm sure it will not be the last, that dream is still carried in our hearts.

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Give Us Yir Money!!!

         What a fantastic con the EU financial Mafia have come up with this time. To save the busted banks in Cyprus from going belly-up and their shareholders losing out, they have decided to take a 6% to 10% slice off the customers money held in the banks and in return give the customer that amount of shares in a busted bank. Can you imagine say Tesco going bust, and to try and save it, the company slapped a 6% to 10% charge on your grocery bill to help to save the company and its shareholders? The banks are private companies with greedy shareholders, nothing more and nothing less. The financial Mafia rule, they do and say what they want and governments jump through the hoops. But it is you and I that suffer, OK, this is Cyprus, but what makes you think that if they can get away with it there, they wont see it as an excellent method of greater plunder of the public purse elsewhere. A wee trial run in a wee country to test the water? As well as getting your money via the government, they can go straight to your bank account. It saves all that delay and bureaucracy of tax collecting.

      Take a look around you, your standard of living is in rapid decline, yet  public money is flowing like a river in spate, into the coffers of the billionaire cabal that go to make up the Financial Mafia, why? Well simply to save them from losing out, they don't want to mark-down their ill-gotten wealth, so they will make good their loses from you and I. We are there to make sure that the pampered army of parasites are kept in the lap of luxury. Ah, capitalism, it's a wonderful system, if you're a leech, or a parasite, but not much cop if your just an ordinary citizen trying to get on with your life. Well, you know the answer to that, change the system. You are many, they are few----.

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Workers Know Your History, - Spies for Peace.

      An anniversary that can be looked back it with pride as it was an exercise in exposing a government plan to set up unelected military control of this country in the event of a nuclear attack. It all came to light March 1963 by the efforts and enterprise of a group known as "Spies for Peace".

    50 years on and what devious plans have our millionaire cabal in those Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption got planned for us behind our backs? What other master plan have they got in place to safeguard their wealth and power in the event of some national disaster? You can rest assured that it is there. It is just a matter of how do we find out and how do we counter their last grasp at power. Where are the "Spies for Peace" today, or perhaps those "Spies for Freedom".   This from Wikipedia:

The Spies for Peace was a group of anti-war activists associated with the Committee of 100 who publicized government preparations for rule after a nuclear war. In 1963 they broke into a secret government bunker, Regional Seat of Government Number 6 (RSG-6) at Warren Row, near Reading, where they photographed and copied documents. The RSGs were to include representatives of all the central government departments, to maintain law and order, communicate with the surviving population and control remaining resources. The public were virtually unaware what the government was planning for the aftermath of a nuclear war until it was revealed by the Spies for Peace.
They published this information in a pamphlet, Danger! Official Secret RSG-6. Four thousand copies were sent to the national press, politicians and peace movement activists and copies were distributed on CND’s Easter march from Aldermaston.
The pamphlet said it was “about a small group of people who have accepted thermonuclear war as a probability, and are consciously and carefully planning for it. ... They are quietly waiting for the day the bomb drops, for that will be the day they take over.” It listed the RSGs and gave their telephone numbers. Most of the pamphlet was about RSG-6, which the Spies for Peace described in detail. They said that “RSG-6 is not a centre for civil defence. It is a centre for military government”, and they listed the personnel who were to staff it. The pamphlet described emergency planning exercises in which RSG-6 had been activated, including a NATO exercise in September 1962, FALLEX-62. Spies for Peace asserted that the exercise demonstrated the incapacity of the public services to cope with the consequences of nuclear attack and that the RSG system would not work. The exercise, they said, “proved once and for all the truth of the 1957 Defence White Paper that there is no defence against nuclear war.” In a hint at the source of their information, the Spies for Peace said that FALLEX-62 “convinced at least one occupant of one RSG at least that the deterrent is quite futile”. The pamphlet claimed that at the time of the Cuba Missile Crisis, a month after the NATO exercise, RSG-6 was not activated. The pamphlet objected strongly to the fact that the RSG network had not been publicly debated, that its staff were unelected and that they would have military powers.^[1]
The 1963 Aldermaston issue of the CND bulletin Sanity included the Spies for Peace revelations and several hundred demonstrators left the Aldermaston route and headed for RSG-6 where they set up a picket. The Spies for Peace made front page news but the press was later prevented by an official “D-Notice” from saying any more about the matter. The police tried to prevent any further distribution of the information but failed to do so. RSGs in Cambridge and Edinburgh were also picketed.
Although several people were arrested, the original spies were not identified or caught. Since the death of Nicolas Walter it has been revealed that he was one of the Spies for Peace.^[2]

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Dream But Never Sleep.

        We still carry the dream of a new world in our hearts, but now there are more of us.

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Beheading And Other State Murders.

       With so many weird opinions floating around on the internet, I had to convince myself while reading this article on Jadaliyya, on the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, that it was indeed irony.

Even though “[t]he beheading issue has always been a source of tension between Saudi Arabia and the international community,” the international community is not satisfied with this new approach. Having a whole bunch of people stand in front of a man, look directly at him as others are watching, and fire directly at him, is just so passé and, in the final analysis, not just inhumane, but also (please don’t let any children who watch CNN read this next word) graphic. Why can’t the Saudi Government kill in a civilized manner like the U.S. government does, with drones. Let someone else clean up the mess. And you don’t have to face your victims (and their families/neighbors/walkers by) after killing them. The Mideast policy preferences of the two countries almost mirror each other, so why not take them a step further? After all, what can go wrong with killing criminals and terrorists?

Read the full article HERE.

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Our CRAP Society.

      I have posted this before, but I feel it is worth repeating from time to time.

Our C.R.A.P. society, based on 

Capitalism,
Religion,
Authority,
Patriotism.

                  CRAP for short,

       

        Any alien looking in on our society must come to the conclusion that we earthlings love CRAP. It is all they will see as we scurry about working in CRAP jobs for CRAP wages and in what little “leisure” time we have we rush around buying CRAP. We spend precious time discussing the benefits of this piece of CRAP as opposed to that piece of CRAP. We weigh up the difference between this pair of CRAP trainers and that pair of CRAP trainers, this CRAP label and that CRAP label. We consider we have choices when we select this CRAP newspaper or that CRAP magazine from the avalanche of CRAP paper pulp on offer. One CRAP supermarket after another offers us an array of CRAP food and TV vomits endless CRAP into our homes and we flick from CRAP Big-Brother to CRAP house make-overs, from CRAP lifestyle programs to CRAP celebrity chat shows.

        Move to the realms of the “serious” CRAP and we have on offer CRAP political parties throwing up an display of smiling CRAP politicians, who, come election time, prance about offering CRAP policies in the hope that they can take their place in that CRAP institution at Westminster. What we get from the CRAP government of the day is such things as the CRAP war on drugs, that doesn’t work, CRAP tough on crime, that criminalizes poverty, CRAP war on terrorism, that is counterproductive,

Capitalism,

can produce nothing but an abundance of CRAP as profit is the only motive.

Religion,

produces CRAP freedom destroying dogma, based on the supposed mutterings of some airy-fairy gods.

Authority,

gives us a CRAP life based on surveillance and strict unbending laws.

Patriotism,

the last refuge of the scoundrel gives us CRAP racism and generates canon fodder for the state’s endless CRAP wars.

      Is this the type of society that we want to bequeath to our children and their grandchildren? Should we not be taking control of our own affairs and producing to our needs based on sustainability? A world of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid is possible, a world that accommodates us all as equals and prepares the world for the next generation rather than rob them of an existence. 

First we have to get rid of  C. R. A. P. Let’s start now.

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Some Things Never Change.

     From the German occupation until the present day some things in Greece have changed, but mining operations of the corporate world in Northern Greece prove, that then again, some things never change!!!

Photo From Act For Freedom Now:

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Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour.

         Recently that babbling brook of bullshit, the media, has been awash with tales of "inappropriate" sexual activity by celebrities, which translates into sexual violence by people with assumed power, outside the church the victims are mainly female. Though it is, for the moment a series of money making headlines, it is not a new form abuse, it has been part and parcel of our society for as long as we care to look back. In a hierarchical society there is always a pecking order and in this particular one, women have been pretty low down that line, and power invariably leads to abuse. Sexual abuse is just one aspect of this society, albeit a serious one, but the whole system is built on and survives on, abuse, or exploitation to use a better word. Yes we have to highlight the abundant sexual abuse that takes place within this society on a daily basis, but we have to align it with all the other forms of abuse that scar, tarnish and destroy the lives of ordinary people. It is a human respect thing, it is a matter of removing from individuals, power over other individuals, wherever it appears. This is impossible under the conditions of the present economic system, the change has to be seismic, we have to move away from competition, where the weakest always lose, to co-operation, where all are respected and nourished. We have to move away from the profit motive, to mutual aid, in other words we have to build a society where we all respect each other as an equal human being. Sexual activity, like all human activity, should be free and consensual. It is not a lot to ask, it is just the anarchist way.  

     Tune in and listen to this discussion on the matter of sexual violence from 

Circle A Radio:

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State Sponsored Uniformed Thugs.

       The Greek police have now descended to new low level of callous brutality, and what is more is that it is with the blessing of the Greek government and the judiciary. It seems to be accepted that if you are arrested you will be beaten, the state has put intimidation into full throttle and the police are obliging. This depressing article from Borderline Reporters should be made as widely available as possible. This is Europe, not some far flung despot state, this is how the state deals with any form of resistance when it feels threatened.

     Recently, however, this controversial practice was taken to a new level. The Police published photos of four youths arrested on robbery and terrorism charges.

Three of those arrested, as presented in the first set of images released by the Police

  When reporters and members of the public pointed out that the photos had evidently been photoshopped, and rather crudely for that matter, the Police finally released several unaltered photos of those arrested. In the second set of photos, it was revealed they had been brutally beaten.

 

The same three, in the second set of images

Read the full article HERE:

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Heads They Win - Tails You Lose.

     As the Cameron/Osborne millionaire cabal continue with their "austerity" plan and you and I slide ever further down the poverty plughole, their mantra of "we are all in this together" and "tough decisions have to be made" merits a little examination.

      Through the period of the "crisis" from 2008 to 2011, average wages for UK workers rose by a mere 3.7% while those who engineered the "crisis" the 1% top financial sector, saw the salaries rise by 8.6%. When the "crisis" arrived in 2008, it is not as if the banks hadn't been raking it in. European banking profits for the year 2003 were approximately €8 billion, for 2007, this had risen to €40 billion, and in 2008, the year of the "crisis" they still made €10 billion. However, those vast sums of money seemed to have disappeared. Where did it all go? Since 2008 until 2011 the European Commission approved €4.5 trillion in state aid to that same financial sector that had been raking it in since 2003.

       We are told we can't afford decent social services, can't afford decent pensions, and benefits have to be cut, where did that €4.5 trillion "state aid" to the financial sector come from? State aid is your money, the state doesn't have any money except what it takes from the people.  "In good times, banks took the benefits for their employees and shareholders, while in the bad times the taxpayer bore the costs. For the banks, it was a case of heads I win, tails you - the taxpayer - lose."  Mervyn King, Governor of The Bank of England. All of that €4.5 trillion "aid" to the privately owned financial sector was plundered from the public purse, stolen from the people.

      Another aspect of the deepening poverty among the ordinary people of Europe is the obscene fact that of a European population of approximately 500 million, 0.6% are millionaires and their wealth is approximately €7.6 trillion, equivalent to roughly 50% of the European GDP. In other words those 0.6% millionaires could have bailed out the banks with €4.5 trillion all by themselves and still had €3.1 trillion left between them.

       Europe is made up of very rich countries, we are awash with wealth, it is just that the system is loaded against the ordinary people and in favour of all those greedy, sweaty palmed, millionaire/billionaire parasites that go to make up the financial Mafia.  "the crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire----- we conclude this financial crisis was avoidable." US Congressional report 2011.  Ah, the wonders of capitalism.  

Figures gleaned from TNI:

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"We Have A Pope".

      "We have a Pope" and so the stench of the church continues, as one scandal ridden chief shuffles off another steps in to carry on the whole sorry mess of the corrupt Church PLC. Benedict with his shady Hitler Youth past, and the ever present flow of financial and sexual scandals, slips out of the limelight, and now Francis, friend of Argentina's 1976 brutal military junta takes the reigns.

     The church's history is a catalogue of brutality, sexual crimes, financial fiddlings and siding with all manner of brutal autocratic regimes in an attempt to further and protect its wealth and power, and its maniacal desire to control the minds and bodies of the people of world. Those who seek freedom and justice can have no truck with such a vile institution. As long as it exists, freedom is in chains.

An extract from a Guardian Article:

 What one did not hear from any senior member of the Argentinian hierarchy was any expression of regret for the church's collaboration and in these crimes. The extent of the church's complicity in the dark deeds was excellently set out by Horacio Verbitsky, one of Argentina's most notable journalists, in his book El Silencio (Silence). He recounts how the Argentinian navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment.

Read the full article HERE:

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41 Years Solitary Confinement!!

        Another reminder of what goes on in the land of the preacher of democracy and freedom, the Good ol' US of A. This appeal from Amnesty International.

	Amnesty International UK
	After 40 years of ‘inhuman’ punishment, conviction overturned for third time
	Albert Woodfox has spent most of the last 41 years in solitary confinement, locked up for 23 hours a day in a 6.5 x 9 foot cell. Yet a judge recently overturned his murder conviction for the third time on the basis of racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson prior to Albert’s re-trial in 1998. Now the Attorney General of Louisiana has a choice: appeal the ruling and drag out Albert’s ordeal for many more years, or let it stand - paving the way for Albert to be re-tried or freed.

	Dear John, My name is Robert H. King. I was released on 8 February 2001, after spending 31 years in prison - 29 of them in solitary confinement at the infamous Louisiana State Prison also known as 'Angola'. Confined there with me were Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, the other two friends who make up 'the Angola 3'. Herman and Albert have now spent 41 years in prison. And though neither are any longer housed at Angola, both remain in solitary confinement at another prison - a punishment Amnesty has described as 'cruel, inhuman and degrading'. Call on the State of Louisiana to end Albert Woodfox's ordeal Prior to and since my release from prison, I have continued to campaign to free Herman and Albert. Last week, that campaign took a huge step forward with the ruling by a federal district court that there was racial discrimination in the selection of the jury foreperson prior to Albert's re-trial in 1998. Louisiana's Attorney General could appeal against this ruling – he has two weeks left to do so. Or he could do the right thing and end four decades of injustice by letting the ruling stand, clearing the way for Albert to be re-tried or simply walk free at last. Call on Louisiana to allow Albert Woodfox to be retried or walk free I know what being locked up in that cramped, dark cell does to a man, and I fear for my friend Albert whose physical and mental health is failing fast. The sense of how cruelly and unjustly Albert and the rest of us were treated still burns as strong as ever - as does my will to end their ordeal. This isn’t the first or even the second time Albert’s conviction has been overturned. Previously judges have cited racial discrimination, misconduct by the prosecution and inadequate defence in their rulings. There is also troubling evidence that a key eyewitness against Albert had been bribed, and no physical evidence linking him to the murder has ever been found. Call on Louisiana to allow Albert Woodfox to be retried or walk free However, I also know how many of you share my sense of injustice and that we can count on your ongoing support. When I spoke to Albert last week he asked me to pass on his gratitude to his ‘legions of supporters’ across the world, particularly to all of you in the UK. Wednesday 17 April will mark the 41st anniversary of our incarceration in Angola. Please help ensure that this year it is a day of hope - or even freedom - for my friend, Albert Woodfox. End Albert Woodfox’s ordeal: email the Attorney General now Power to the people!  As ever, Robert H. King The only freed member of the Angola 3

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Those Office Killer Soldiers.

    Drones are hyped as the smart clinical method of dealing with the "really bad guys" of this world, but the truth is that they are weapons of terror. They create terror when ever they are sighted over an area and result in all sort of psychological problems for those who live in or near the area where they are used. This is over and above the sudden and brutal carnage caused by their devastating fire-power. These weapons of terror are used by Britain and the US to kill in other sovereign states without any declaration of war, illegal under international law. There is a feeling of helplessness, fear and hyper anxiety in men women and children when these killers fly overhead, for good reason. These are not surgical weapons, they can wipe-out a small village in one fell swoop and the perpetrators  will call it a success if among the many killed and maimed their appointed target lies dead.

      We are under the illusion that this is a solely America crime, but the UK is up to its armpits in this illegal, soldierless program of terror and assassination. It is no more than we should expect from any state. States will always use whatever means is at their disposal to maintain their power, no matter how fiendish, vile, brutal or how dubious its legality they may be, just as long as they can get away with it covertly or overtly. It is all part and parcel of their game of empire.

 

This from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

    Legal proceedings were begun in London recently against British Foreign Secretary William Hague, over possible British complicity in CIA drone strikes.
     Britain’s GCHQ – its secret monitoring and surveillance agency – is reported to have provided ‘locational evidence’ to US authorities for use in drone strikes, a move which is reportedly illegal in the United Kingdom.

Also this:

    One psychiatrist told researchers that many of his patients experience ‘anticipatory anxiety,’ a constant fear that they might come under attack. The report goes on to note that:

"Interviewees described emotional breakdowns, running indoors or hiding when drones appear above, fainting, nightmares and other intrusive thoughts, hyper startled reactions to loud noises, outbursts of anger or irritability, and loss of appetite and other physical symptoms. Interviewees also reported suffering from insomnia and other sleep disturbances, which medical health professionals in Pakistan stated were prevalent.’---"

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Driven By Unbridled greed.

      Large corporations are having a field day, most of them are holding large volumes of cash but are still using the "austerity" plan as a method of making more. It gives them the excuse to lay-off workers by what ever means possible, it can be out-sourcing or efficiency cuts, the effects are the same, spreading the load over fewer workers, and/or lower wages, but to them more importantly, higher profits.

This appeal from Labour Start:   

      The FNV Bondgenoten is taking action in support of their members' demand for decent transfer conditions for service workers scheduled to be outsourced. Their terms and conditions under the new employer, catering and service giant Sodexo, will be severely degraded. Many of these workers, employed in catering, cleaning, security, and reception are long-serving Unilever employees. The union is demanding safeguards and compensation for being tossed on the outsourcing scrapheap - support their struggle.  Sign up to the IUF campaign by clicking here to send a message to Unilever. 

       In another 8 days we're closing down the 3rd annual LabourStart survey of trade union use of the net.  Fillling in the survey will only take you a couple of minutes and will provide invaluable information not only to us, but to the international trade union movement.  Please fill in the survey here.

       Finally, we need just over 500 more of you to send your messages of protest to the Turkish government following raids that resulted in the arrests of over a hundred trade union leaders.  If 500 of you send off your messages today, that will bring the total up to 10,000 -- a number which we hope the Turkish government will not ignore.  Please help us grow this campaign and spread the word in your unions.

 

Thank you for your support.

 

Eric Lee

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Which campaigns have I missed?  Click here to find out.

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