Ukraine For The Ukrainians.

       Obama, mouthpiece for Western corporate power, aided and abetted by our own bunch of rabid pups, the Cameron cabal, are ratching up their rhetoric, in an attempt to prepare us for a blood bath in Ukraine, as they want a slice of that unfortunate country. Meanwhile the Russian imperialists are manoeuvring and manipulating to see that they are not outdone in this corporate land grab. Both empires are prepared to sacrifice the blood of the people of Ukraine and the blood of their own citizens to satisfy their power lust. It could be 1914, when the greed of imperialism dragged Europe into the bloodiest era of its existence, all for power and wealth for that psychopathic parasitic scum, that sits on our shoulders like a caked scab, the so called "elite".

      Millions took to the streets to try to stop the illegal invasion of Iraq, we should be prepared to take to the streets again to stop this re-make of that horror story, "The 1914 Land Grab".  

 

This from SACC:

 

Ukraine Crisis - Public Meetings in Scotland

 

       Ukraine is at the brink of war. It is being pulled apart by imperialist forces, from the East Russian forces and from the West NATO, the EU and the USA.

       SACC is one of the co-sponsors of a series of public meetings being held in Scotland with Zakhar Popovych from the Ukrainian Left Opposition. Zakhar Popovych will give an eye witness account of recent developments and offer a left analysis of events so far. Obviously Zakhar Popovych cannot represent the full range of left opinion in Ukraine, but we hope these meetings will contribute to a better understanding of the Ukraine crisis and will stimulate debate.

 

Please invite your friends and help to make these meetings a success

 

Fri 16 May - Eyewitness report from Ukraine (Dundee)

7.30pm, Queen's Hotel, Nethergate, Dundee DD1 4DU

On facebook

 

Sat 17 May - Eyewitness report from Ukraine (Edinburgh)

4-6pm, Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL

On Facebook

 

Sun 18 May - Eyewitness report from Ukraine (Glasgow)

2pm, Jurys Inn, 80 Jamaica Street, Glasgow G1 4QG

On Facebook

 

More about the Ukraine Crisis

 

Manifesto: 10 theses of the Leftist Opposition in Ukraine (14 January 2014)

Zakhar Popovitch speaking in London (video, 12 March 2014) 

No UK troops for Nato's Ukraine war games - Statement from the Stop the War Coalition (23 April 2014) 

Ukraine’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Reality by Robert Parry (5 May 2014) 

A view on the Ukraine crisis from Scotland by Paul O'Hanlon (10 May 2014) 

In Ukraine the US is dragging us towards war with Russia by John Pilger (14 May 2014)

 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

The Brutality Of The Israeli State.

      Every time you look at what is happening in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories, you never fail to be shocked at what is happening to the Palestinian people. It is hard to believe that you are reading about the 21st century and hard to believe that the rest of the world not only tolerates this treatment but in many cases condones this barbarity.
        I recently read the report of the Palestinian lawyer who after being released from an Israeli prison, hanged himself in his bedroom. One can only imagine the horrors that drove this quiet rational family man to take his own life. 

 

 

     On the morning of 29 April, Amjad Safadi’s wife left their Jerusalem home for work. A little after 8am, Amjad’s younger brother Samer arrived to escort him to a court hearing. As he opened the door to his room, Samer found that Amjad had hanged himself.
     The shocking death of the 39-year-old lawyer and father of two girls came five days after his release from the notorious underground Russian Compound detention center — known in Arabic as the Moskobiyeh — in Jerusalem.

Read the full story HERE:

     The number of Palestinians imprisoned by the Israeli authorities is out of all proportion to the Palestinian population. It is estimated that since 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned, this accounts for approximately 20% of the population and 40% of the male population. Recent estimates of how many are in prison put the figure at around 6,800, including members of the Palestinian legislative council. Minors are not exempt from this brutality, recent figures put the number of minors imprisoned as over 200, with 29 below the age of 16.
     This is 21st. Century Israel lashing out 19th century treatment to a subjugated people, while the so called civilised world looks the other way. 

 

     Children are often taken suddenly from their homes, often in the middle of the night, with soldiers surrounding the house and then raiding it. Soldiers usually do not have a warrant for arrest or searches. For example, in July of 2010, an unusually heavy number of Israeli soldiers (in 12 jeeps) entered the outskirts of the village to arrest a local youth, 17 year old Ahmad Abed Al-Fatah Burnat, without giving any reason. Ahmad was taken by jeep to Ofer military prison located outside Ramallah. Prisoners in Ofer, especially young boys, are kept in harsh conditions with the intention of pressuring them to give information about other Palestinians. Many are denied food and water for extended periods of time and exposed to extreme cold or heat.

Detailed Report HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Still Going On About May Day.

      I know May Day has come and gone, but in this country, the difference between what it has been, what it could be, and what it has become, is striking. The powers that be have taken this wonderful day of celebration and struggle and turned it into a quiet walk, waving a few banners, and a theatrical style audience and performers event, as the various bigwigs do their speech thing. We the ordinary people, the ones who do the every day struggling, become the quiet audience, while the egos sing their songs, and that's your May Day "celebration". Is that what we want? Is that the way it has to be? Well I suppose it is up to us!!

Solidarity Means Attack! from the stimulator on Vimeo.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Question Everything.

       If they don't teach you to ask why, and question everything, they have failed.

From The Sirens:

       If you have been through school anywhere from kindergarten up, your probably familiar with this guy, your token teacher/professor. All though all of them are different, you might even like or agree with some of them, the majority do little more than create the next generation of obedient workers. The face on this poster represents that every guy, who takes young impressionable people and molds them into something of his liking.

      Don’t let the image of higher learning fool you, it is far from a neutral setting, it exists to reproduce capital.

The Sirens.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

"The Anarchists", An Anniversary.

          I may be a day behind with this one, but I still think it is an anniversary worth remembering. I believe it was May 10, 1968, during the May 1968, uprising in France that Leo Ferre, an anarchist, and one of France's finest songwriters, and poets wrote the song, "The Anarchists". A man of passion, imagination and, a wonderful performer. Enjoy his passion.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Two Rats From The Same Sewer.

       Two rats from the same sewer, finance and arms dealers, both are central to the festering abscess that is capitalism. They both feed each other, with death and misery being the result. The corporate financial Mafia are the driving force behind the "austerity" ideology that is responsible for the rapid declining living standards of the ordinary people everywhere. The arm industry, with the help of the financial mafia, the banks, feed the thugs, such as NATO, that create mayhem, death and destruction across the planet, in an attempt to protect the interests of their lords and masters, the corporate world.

       The ordinary people gain nothing from neither, but pay in blood and sweat to fatten the coffers of these, surplus to requirements parasites. Anything that can be done to highlight the true nature of their business and turn the public against them can't be bad.

 This from Act For freedom Now:

 

--------A local anarchist and member of the Stop NATO Cymru campaign group said: “We took part in the May Day march to draw attention to the struggles of workers all over the world against exploitation and violent oppression which is exacerbated by arms producers here in the UK.

       We targeted Barclays because it’s a major investor in Exelis Inc. the parent company of the EDO Corporation which is guilty of mass-producing arms to sell to oppressive regimes, exacerbating violent conflict and suppressing legitimate protest. Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd has 5,059,591 shares in Exelis and Barclays PLC has 63,071 shares.

       We entered the branch after leaving the May Day march and refused to leave until we had made an impact. Within half-an-hour the management decided to close, depriving the company of a busy Saturday afternoon’s profit through direct action. We sent our message to the public by plastering the front of the building with stickers which gave details of Barclays’ guilt and sent a clear message to the company that we won’t tolerate money from our communities being used to fund war.”-------

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Living In 1930's, Today.

The 21st. century with 1930 families!!

Published on May 8, 2014

        Food bank providers told MSPs it was "clear" that UK government welfare reform had been one of the drivers of the "terrifying" increase in the number of people using food banks in Scotland.
        Denis Curran from Loaves & Fishes said the use of food banks was "not just growing but exploding" saying people were being penalised for being poor and the "heart of the matter is people are starving".

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Whose Streets?

         What can we learn from past protests? One of the largest and probably longest in the West, in recent years was probably Montreal 2012. For approximately six months the streets belonged to the protesters, though the true extent of this occupation never really got that much coverage from that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. Here is the story of those six months.

https://ia601709.us.archive.org/16/items/STREETPOLITICS/STREET_POLITICS.mp4

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

When Will We Ever Learn?

        Our life is a constant struggle, we produce an abundance of wealth, and struggle to survive. For generations the public have listened to politicians and walked round to the ballot box to make their mark on that bit of paper, that guarantees a decent job for somebody else, and the same old shit for themselves. In Glasgow we remember the rent strike of 1915, it was a victory on that issue, but the system stayed the same, and that's why in  Kirby, 1972/73, the local people were once more in an organised rent strike, nothing had changed.

         Here we are today with the bedroom tax, among other repressive legislation, still struggling to keep our heads above water, still producing an abundance of wealth, and there are still people who listen to politicians, who still walk round to the ballot box, make that same mark, and get the same results. They say that one of the signs of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, but expecting a different result, makes you think??

         In this video the voice of Ethel Singleton in 1972, could be from the 1915 rent strike, or it could be from any housing scheme in 2014 Britain. When will we ever learn?

'Behind the rent strike' was Nick Broomfield's graduation project. It followed the progress of the 1972/73 Kirkby rent strike. This video features Broomfield's interviews with Ethel Singleton, one of the forces behind the strike who gives an insightful, intelligent and articulate analysis of the plight of the working class in 70's Britain.

    

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Leftovers.

 A wee poem from Contra Info:

Leftovers.

Ten bread rolls
four red apples
a green apple
a banana
dozens of sandwiches
rolled in aluminum foil

We try to save
what can be saved
from this crooked world
scavenging your garbage cans
scavenging your tourist life

Do you need any towels?
Do you need any toilet paper?
we ask while diving
deep into consumers’ leftovers

My feet are killing me
but I cannot stop questioning
When the fuck will we stand up?
against you-know-who
against you-know-what

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Freedom Of Expression.

        Keep the web free and open. Freedom of expression is not something to be overseen by corporations, nor state apparatus.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Failed System.

      The fight against injustice has never gone away, it is part and parcel of the exploitative system of capitalism. Throughout the years people have struggled, organised and fought bitter battles, demanding a fair and just society for all. In Glasgow, we can go back to 1787, the Calton Weavers strike where the weavers of that area  organised to fight the continuing erosion of their living standards, and in the usual attempt at repression, the powers that be were responsible for the deaths of at least six strikers. 1915, the Glasgow Rent strike, a fight to stop the landlords from squeezing the last drop of sustenance from their tenants.  Since then nothing has really changed, we are still fighting the continuing erosion of our living standards, the bedroom tax, zero hour contracts, workfare slave labour and sanctions, the removal of disability allowance from the most vulnerable in our society, and a continuing erosion of wages and working conditions.

         Centuries of bitter struggles just to keep some semblance of decency, while the employing class get richer and richer. Surely by now we should have realised that the system doesn't work in our favour, it can't be modified to work for the benefit of all our people, it has to be scrapped, shoved in the dustbin of history, relegated to the category of man's greatest folly. It has to be replaced by a system that sees to the needs of all our people, a system based on co-operation, mutual aid and sustainability, free from the corrosive motive of profit. We have to do it ourselves, by organising within our communities  mechanisms that circumvent the existing capitalist structures. The help wont come from those already in power, they are doing just fine and are loathed to change anything. The system will only crumble and die when we decide we have had enough, of this endless exploitation and bitter struggle.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

UK, --Mended!!

          The Cameron millionaire cabal, are crowing about the UK recovery, they repeat their little ditty, “unemployment down”, “growth figures up”, and proceed to clink their champagne glasses. One factor that has helped the government's unemployment figures has been the massive increase in “self-employed”. According to a study done by the Resolution Foundation, over the last five years of recession self-employment has risen by approximately 650,000, and now accounts for 15% of the total workforce, a staggering 4.5 million. Self-employment, though lauded by the millionaire cabal, is not the guaranteed road to the good life, with more than a quarter of self employed living on poor incomes. Nor is self-employment the desired option, in lots of cases it was the only option to survival. The growth of self-employed is greatest in the areas of high unemployment, in London where there are well paid jobs, it is at its lowest. The study also shows that the average weekly income of someone self employed, is 20% lower than it was in 2008, and that a typical self-employed worker now earns 40% that of a typical employee. Self-employment is a precarious road to walk, for a very large proportion, the grim economic truth of self-employment is one of an uncertain future, with difficulties in getting mortgages and personal credit and no growing pension pot. 

 

Photo from A World To Win.

         Another factor that blows a hole in the Cameron Millionaire cabal's glowing picture of a mended Britain is the fact that according to official Eurostat figures, some areas of the UK are poorer than some poor countries from former communist Eastern Europe. According to their findings people in the Welsh Valleys and in Cornwall are worse off that those from Lithuania and Estonia. It also states that people from Durham and the Tees valley are poorer that those from the wealthiest regions of two of Europe's poorest countries Bulgaria and Romania. It also shows that London is the richest place in Europe.

 

"We must continue austerity, it's the only way to fix things."

 

       So the new fixed Britain is one of vast swaths of low incomes and an uncertain future, massive discrepancies in wealth between different areas, some of the poorest regions in Europe, and their policy is more of the same. Austerity is the new way of life for the ordinary people, while the millionaire parasites continue to increase their wealth. Britain is certainly fixed for the corporate class, and it is you and I that are paying for that fix. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The State Always Tries To Crush Resistance.

Solidarity doesn't recognise borders, resistance knows no frontiers.

An Appeal from US Palestinian Community Network:

ALL OUT FOR DETROIT
To Defend Rasmea Odeh

         Rasmea Odeh, Palestinian community leader and icon, begins her trial on June 10th. Despite months of Rasmea Defense Committee organizing in Chicago and across the nation, the U.S. government refuses to drop its case against Rasmea, who they are alleging lied on an immigration application she filled out 20 years ago.

       If found guilty, she could face up to ten years in federal prison, an immediate revocation of her citizenship, and then deportation from the United States.

NOT UNDER OUR WATCH!

        The charge against Rasmea is nothing but another political attack by the U.S. government, meant to defame and criminalize another Palestinian, Arab and Muslim leader who has dedicated her life to the empowerment of her people, as well as to intimidate and repress entire communities that are organizing for justice and liberation.

         We know Rasmea never lied about any part of her life. She was brutally tortured into a confession by the Israelis 45 years ago, and now the U.S. is trying to brutalize her once again. After giving so much of her life to others, Rasmea now needs our support. We have already received statements of support from over 100 organizations and more than 3,000 people have signed the online petition for Rasmea. Now, we have to show our presence in the court rom.

That is why we are putting out the call: All Out for Detroit!

        Join us on June 10th in Detroit, Michigan, for the beginning of Rasmea's trial. We will pack the courtroom and rally outside every day of the trial to show the broad support Rasmea has across all communities.

Locations and times are still to be announced, but regularly updated information will be found at:

www.stopfbi.net
www.uspcn.org

You can also reach the Rasmea Defense Committee directly at cppr@aaan.org.

I SUPPORT RASMEA ACTION PLAN:

1) Sign the petition to drop the charges:
http://www.iacenter.org/rasmeaodehpetition/

2) Send statements of support and solidarity to cppr@aaan.org

3) Like Drop the Charges Against Rasmea on Facebook and Tweet using #justice4rasmea.

4) Send us your pictures holding up the following message: "I am _____ and I SUPPORT RASMEA." (Fill in the blank with a self-identifier - your name, occupation , or any other description. Examples: "I am a youth organizer and I support Rasmea!" or "I am a supporter of Palestinian Human Rights and I support Rasmea!" Hold the sign up, snap a selfie, and send it to cppr@aaan.org. Then make it your Facebook/Twitter/Google profile picture! Remember, we may use your image in publications or informational pamphlets either online or in distributed hard copies.)

DONATE: To help support Rasmea's defense fund, go to http://stopfbi.net/donate. You must also send an email to cppr@aaan.org, noting the amount and its designation to Rasmea in order for the funds to be allocated correctly.

If you want your donation to be tax deductible, the donation must be in the amount of $100 or more and you must pay by check to "NLG Foundation" with "Rasmea defense fund" on the memo line.

Please mail these checks to:
Arab American Action Network
ATTN: Rasmea Defense Fund
3148 W. 63rd Street, 2nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60629

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Army And Police Against Strikers.

An appeal from Labour Start:

 

Striking workers at one of the world's largest paper mills need our support.

      In March, Indonesian paper workers went on strike to demand that management return to negotiations, and to discuss the minimum wage rate established in the district Governor.
     Four rounds of negotiations failed and the company called in the army and police against the strikers and declared the strike illegal.

       These workers are asking for each of us to take less than a minute of our time and send off messages calling on management to reopen negotiations, to stop criminalizing the strike and to end repression. 
Please click here to do so:

http://www.labourstart.org/go/app

     After you've supported the campaign, please share it with your friends, family and fellow union members.

Thank you!

Eric Lee

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Athens, A Failed Consumer City.

       I keep going on about Greece and how we should not take our eye of that battlefront of "capitalist correction", and we should realise that it is not a unique situation. "Capitalist correction" is taking place all over the planet, it is just that Greece was the first and most severe in Europe. It is all a matter of degree, and that "correction" is still going on throughout Europe. We are all walking the same road as Greece, under the banner of "austerity" but like people, countries walk at different paces, however, we will all get there in the end. 

          By looking at Greece, (with Spain, Italy, Portugal, all close behind) we can learn and organise to be be prepared to turn the "capitalist correction" process to our advantage by creating alternative structures, free from the deadening shackles of consumerism and  the illusion of eternal growth.

       The following extracts are from an article I found extremely interesting, it is well worth reading it in full:

-------The years of the Athenian spectacle ended violently and abruptly in December 2008, uncovering various underlying tensions and contradictions, not least in the consumption-led model of urban development (see Vradis and Dalakoglou, 2012). Capitalist “cracks” (Holloway, 2010) and “societies within societies” (Papi, 2003) began to appear in various parts of Athens and beyond. One of the most striking examples, for instance, was what is now known as “Navarinou park” or “the park”, a former parking lot that was turned into an open squat by Exarcheia-based residents (and other enthusiastic supporters) who, in the aftermath of the 2008 riots: “….united to squat on the space and demand the obvious, that the parking turns into a park! They broke the asphalt with drills and cutters, they brought trucks carrying soil, planted flowers and trees and in the end they celebrated it”ⁱⁱⁱ. Operating on the basis of self-management, anti-hierarchical structuring and anti-commercialisation, the park aspired to be:

… a space for creativity, emancipation and resistance, open to various initiatives, such as political, cultural and anti-consumerist ones. At the same time, it aspires to be a neighbourhood garden which accommodates part of the social life of its residents, is beyond any profit or ownership-driven logics and functions as a place for playing and walking, meeting and communicating, sports, creativity and critical thinking. The park defies constraints relating to different ages, origins, educational level, social and economic positioning^iv.----------

 

-----Indeed, Athens is now by and large inhabited by people who can no longer fully express themselves on the basis of what they consume and where. Their city is no longer a “world-class” city for consumption (Miles, 2010) and cannot pretend to be so either. After all, it is the capital and by far most populous city of the first developed country to be downgraded to “emerging” market status^v. By 2014, the average Greek salary was reduced by 40%^vi. In many ways, the consequences are far more pronounced in Athens than anywhere else. The once well-to-do Athenian middle-classes now parallel the world’s so-called “emerging middle-classes” in reverse, experiencing everyday precariousness and the fears of “falling from the middle” (Kravets and Sandikci, 2014)―and straight onto the poverty zone―in an unprecedented magnitude and scale. Increasingly, Athenians approximate Europe’s “defective” and “disqualified” consumers (Bauman, 2011, 2007), unable to fully define themselves neither in terms of what they consume nor what they produce: with unemployment rates hitting a record 27% across the entire population and over 50% among the youth^vii.
Present-day Athens is the world’s “failed” consumer city par excellence: comprising “zombie” retailscapes for increasingly disempowered consumers who still mourn the dramatic decline of their spending power and unfulfilled consumer desires that seem all the more unreachable. I have seen, for instance, various individuals visiting gifting bazaars and desperately trying to revive consumer fantasies and a “customer ethos” remnant of a not-so-distant past where much of their leisure time was spent around department stores. I have heard of others that walk into stores and pay a small deposit to reserve items, pretending they don’t know that they know it is no longer possible to return to buy them. In a (European) society of consumers, “a world that evaluates anyone and anything by their commodity value” (Bauman, 2007, p. 124), both Athens and its residents have comparatively little, if any, status.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Games Monitor Meeting.

Note from Glasgow Games Monitor:

Hi all,

     Apologies for short notice... Meeting Tonight: 7.15-9.00, Monday 5th May, Please Note!!!!! Normally we meet at John Smith House (address below), but because of the May Day holiday, we'll be meeting instead at the 'Pot Still' pub, 154 Hope Street, very nearby: http://www.thepotstill.co.uk/ We will be waiting at John Smith House until about 7.10 in case anyone comes by who hasn't seen this mail, then heading to the 'Pot Still' to start at 7.15. Meet us at either point. All welcome! John Smith House, 145/165 West Regent street, Glasgow, G2 4RZ Cheers,http://gamesmonitor2014.org/meetings/

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Circled A Radio, Violence In The Left.

       Violence is a many coloured, many faceted beast, it taints many avenues of this society. Subtle under ground, quietly in the back ground and sometimes in your face at home, at work, and various organisations, some that wear the badge of equality, and of course, the top of the tree, the state.

      This week Circled A Radio discusses two cases of violence in "left" organisations, the RTM and SWP.

Listen to the discussion HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk