Global Action Against Zionist Genocide.

    A call for global action against the Zionist genocide taking place in Gaza.

      ACTION ALERT UPDATE from USPCN: Our organizing is working! Ship delayed. Come out to West Oakland BART station at 3 PM Saturday, NOT 5 AM. Bring your friends and family to this historic action! "With community backing, the International Longshoremen Workers Union refused to handle cargo from South African ships in the 1980s, spurring an international boycott that helped end the apartheid regime in South Africa,” says Monadel Herzallah of the US Palestinian Community Network. “We hope that this action and many others like it will encourage organized labor to join the global BDS movement to end Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”

      USPCN strongly encourages the broadest possible mobilization and support for this critically important action in Oakland! For those who cannot make it, please see below for events in other cities:

Stop Israel at the Port

Zionism isn't welcome on our Coast!

West Coast Blockade of the Israeli Zim Ship

Port of Oakland

Saturday, August 16th

3 PM (TIME CHANGE)

Meet at West Oakland Bart and march to Berth 57

     Participants:Those planning to participate: subscribe to text-alerts and receive live updates about the 8/16 Block the Boat, text "join" to (510) 346-5951.

Livestream:

KFPA will be livestreaming the action at www.kpfa.org/kpfa-live-stream-channel.

Also follow @BlocktheBoat for live tweets.

Volunteers and Support: Fill out form to volunteer with transportation assistance. Email info @ araborganizing.org to support with food donations. Contact AROC to pick up posters and postcards for outreach.

Donations: Donate here to help with event costs.

STOP THE SIEGE ON GAZA!

END THE COLONIAL OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE!

RIGHT OF RETURN FOR ALL PALESTINIAN REFUGEES!

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!

BOYCOTT, DIVEST, SANCTION!

Global Statements

-  Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions - Gaza Strip
-  Palestinian and South African Trade Unions
-  Labor for Palestine
-  Congress of South African Trade Unions
-  National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa
-  Transport Workers Solidarity Committee
-  UNITE, British Trade Union

Other cities' actions:

New York, NY, US

Saturday, August 16

1:00 PM

Israeli Consulate (Block the Boat Solidarity)

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/429725363832321/

Miami, FL, US

Saturday, August 16

5:00 PM

Torch of Friendship (Block the Boat Solidarity)

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/316267675214918/

Chicago, IL, US

Saturday, August 16

11:00 AM

North Avenue Beach Bridge

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/937841456231113/

Los Angeles, CA, US

Saturday, August 16

1:00 PM

Hollywood and Vine

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1482387852007381

Seattle, WA, US

Saturday, August 16

12:00 PM

Westlake Center

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/665212870225672/

Hamtramck, MI, US

Saturday, August 16

12:00 PM

Caniff St and Joseph Campau

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/457504094391468/

Tacoma, WA, US (Block the Boat)

Wednesday, August 20

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/678819478876975/

Seattle, WA, US (Block the Boat)

Friday, August 22

More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/678819478876975/

What's happening?

     The world has watched in horror as Israel has continued to bombard and devastate Gaza. Millions around the globe have come out in support of the Palestinian people and against the Zionist regime, holding massive marches, demonstrations, and actions. Here in the Bay, San Francisco witnessed some of the biggest mobilizations in recent years, with a series of marches, each bringing out thousands of people. It's time to step it up.

Call to Action

      Palestine is calling us to action! Palestinians laborers, Palestinian General Federation Trade Union (PGFTU), have called on workers around the world to refuse to handle Israel goods. Palestinians throughout Gaza, the West Bank and 1948 Palestine have demonstrated their unity in the struggle against Apartheid Israel and have taken to the streets in the tens of thousands, bravely facing Israeli military armed with US made weapons to call on the international community to stand with them as they resist Zionism throughout all of historic Palestine. We will be answering this call by organizing community pickets at the Port of Oakland, asking the longshoreman to honor this request and to stand with the people of Palestine as they have done in the past.

Historical Background

      During apartheid in South Africa, ILWU workers made history when they refused to unload South African cargo in San Francisco in 1984. This action was a major catalyst for international anti-apartheid solidarity and struggle worldwide. In 2010, after a Turkish flotilla, the Mavi Marmara, was attacked by Israel for attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza, we built on ILWU's history and successfully blocked the Israeli Zim ship from being unloaded at the Port of Oakland - the first time in US history an Israeli ship was blocked. We will be continuing this legacy by organizing to block the Israeli ship once again. And just as apartheid fell in South Africa, so too it will fall in Israel!

Sustained BDS in the Bay

      If there is one thing that the latest Israeli attacks show, it's the power of Palestinian resilience. The resistance in Gaza is still alive and thriving, despite Israel's ongoing attempts to destroy it. But we should always remember that the Palestinian resistance did not begin with Israel's latest bombardment, nor did it begin during the last bombardment. It has been going on since 1948, since Israel came into existence. And it will not cease until Israeli apartheid falls.

We refuse to allow Israel to conduct its business as usual, here in the Bay and everywhere!

      Every Saturday, the Israeli owned Zim shipping line docks and unloads its cargo at the Port of Oakland. Let this action be the beginning of a sustained campaign to stop the Israeli ship from ever unloading in our town.

From Seattle to Oakland to Los Angeles - turn the Israeli ship around!

Not in Palestine

Not in the Bay

Not Anywhere

Stand Against Zionism Everywhere

Endorsed by:

AF3IRM

Al-Awda New York

All African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP)

American Friends Service Committee

American Muslims for Palestine

ANSWER Coalition

Arab Youth Organizing (AYO)

AROC: Arab Resource & Organizing Center

ASATA: Alliance of South Asians Taking Action

Bay Area Women in Black

BAYAN-USA

Bay Area CodePink

Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee

Black Organizing Project (BOP)

Black Organizing Leadership and Dignity (BOLD)

Black Workers For Justice

B.U.W (BLOOK UNITY WORKERS ): PALISTINIAN INDEPANDENCE TRADEUNION ORGENIZATION IN WESTBANK AND GAZZA AND JEROZALIM

Catalyst Project

CodePink Washington

Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism (CODZ)

Communist Party of San Francisco

Critical Resistance – LA

Critical Resistance – Oakland

Critical Resistance – Portland

Descoloniza a Oakland/Decolonize Oakland

Free Palestine Movement

Freedom Archives

Friends of Deir Ibzi’a

Fuerza Mundial/Pueblos en Movimiento

General Union of Palestine Students – SFSU

Global Women’s Strike

Gray Panthers of San Francisco

Green Party of Alameda County

Haiti Action Committee

International Action Center

International Jewish Anti Zionist Network

International Solidarity Movement – West Bank/Gaza

International Socialist Organization

International Tribunal of Conscience for Camilo

ISM-Nor Cal

IWW Bay Area Branch

Jewish Against Genocide

Jews for Palestinian Right of Return

Justice for Palestinians

La Voz de l@s trabajadores/Worker’s Voice

Labor for Palestine

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace

Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

Marcha Patriotica (Colombia) – California chapter

Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA)

Movement Generation

National Lawyers Guild SFBA Chapter

Noam Chomsky

NorCal Friends of Sabeel

Occupy SF Action Council

ONYX Organizing Committee

The Palestine-Israel Action Committee

Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions

Palestinian Youth Movement

Queers Undermining Israeli Terror

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

San Francisco Green Party

School of the Americas Watch East Bay

Socialist Alternative – Bay Area Branch

Socialist Organizer

SOUL: School of Unity and Liberation

Southern Anti-Racism Network

Stanford Students for Justice

Students for Justice in Palestine – Cal

Totally Radical Muslims

UAW Local 2865 (Academic Student Workers at the University of California)

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott

US Palestinian Community Network

Veterans For Peace Chapter 69

World Can’t Wait Bay Area

Workers World Party

Xicana Moratorium

For more info: info@araborganizing.org | 415-861-7444

[ Event on Facebook]

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

Nobody Gives You Freedom.

      Israelis dancing in the streets chanting "Gaza is a graveyard", "There's no school tomorrow, because there are no children left in Gaza", tells you something of the prevailing attitude in Israel. 

         I read a lot, and view a lot, not necessarily agreeing with all I come across, but there is always information to be picked up here and there. One thing I have learnt through reading the proper history, the history of our struggle for justice, is that whatever improvements we have gained, were never given to us by benevolent powers that be, but were wrestled from them by struggle, resistance and confrontation. Without that determination, we would still be steeped in poverty and deprivation worse than the Victorian era, with little or no rights.

Riot4Gaza from the stimulator on Vimeo.

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

Gun Tottin' Cops.

      I have been silent for a few days, (you hadn't noticed), my internet connection went down for almost a week, so I had to do with the real world for a while, but I'm now back connected to the cyberworld.

.

 Inverness.

     Slowly, slowly, the guns come on to our streets. First special occasions, then routinely at airports, now walking our streets. The establishment is always fearful that the people will one day wake up and realise, we don't need our lords and masters, and then do something about it. Inverness, one of the areas with the lowest crime rate in the country, and there are cops strutting around the streets with guns strapped to their sides, Wyatt Earp's of the north. 

     The powers that be are now going to look at this. A bit late, should the issue of putting guns routinely on the streets not have been discussed before it happened, or is this sort of decision to be left to the whims of some over zealous authoritarian police chief? Sooner or later we will have an armed police force patrolling our streets. The establishment is well aware of the economic future the people of this country are facing, and the fear of civil unrest will always shape their thinking. Let's not forget, the police are not there to protect you, but to protect them, our lords and masters. 

Luton.

This from Anarchist News:

1. What happened to Mike Brown is a tragedy that can’t be put into words. A less spoken tragedy is that it’s the day to day reality for so many of us–especially those of us who are young, who are people of color, who don’t fit the cops’ idea of an acceptable, law abiding citizen. How often do the police kill someone? In St. Louis, it seems like almost every month. We often don’t do anything about it, or feel like we can. The last few days have been different.
2. People in Ferguson have shown–through gathering, talking and debating with each other, protesting and rioting– that this tragedy won’t be yet another one placed on our already over-burdened backs.
3. Day to day, we don’t have a voice. Working people, people of color, poor people, the disenfranchised – we don’t have an official media that will argue our interests like the rich and middle class. We don’t have a police force we can call like the middle class or an army like the rich. We only have each other. Large protests and rioting gives us a voice, gives us power. These actions let us take back some of our dignity.
4. The 1960s saw many urban uprisings: riots and looting where fed-up, voiceless people were able to have a voice and, for once, the nice things that are constantly kept out of our reach. One of the police and government’s biggest fears is that people will realize we don’t need them and their mentality.
5. In response to the urban uprisings of the ‘60s, police developed a two-fold strategy. First, that police from then on would have counter-insurgency training, gear and weaponry, and would use it as their day to day way of patrolling neighborhoods where poor people and people of color live. We see the effects of this constantly: getting pulled over not by one cop but 3-5 cars worth, having ourselves groped, our shoes taken off, having the doors of our homes kicked in.

Read the full article HERE:

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

The Tunnels.

       I have always maintained that Israel wants the whole of the Palestinian territory for a "Greater Israel" and what goes on in Gaza and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories is nothing short of genocide. This latest inhumane slaughter being administered by Israel on the people of Gaza, is claimed as destroying "the tunnels", which they claim are used to attack Israel and smuggle in arms. If your borders are sealed and nothing can go in or out, how do you survive? I'm a great believer in the ingenuity of the ordinary people in the face of arduous and life threatening conditions. If the means of survival can't come in by road, sea or air, then the only alternative is to die or find another way of getting those necessities of life. Perhaps the tunnels do bring in weapons, but the proof seems to be that they are mainly used to keep the people of Gaza alive. Everything from livestock to sugar, parts to fix what they already have, to cement. These tunnels are a leak in the Israeli blockade of Gaza and is allowing Gaza to survive, so they must be destroyed. The genocide goes on under a cloak of many guises, the biggest is self defence. One of the most powerful military nations on the planet, continually blasts, bombs and strangles a small territory which has no army as such, no military defence, and Israel calls it self defence, while the world looks on. Genocide, no other word fits the situation.

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

War Is The Crime.

     Yesterday, August 6th. marked the 69th anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, killing at least 80,000 people instantly, with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, dying of various forms of radiation illnesses the following years, 90% of the city was obliterated. A few days later, August 9th. the US dropped a second bomb, a plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki, instantly killing more than 40,000, and again leaving a legacy of radiation diseases for generations. We should add that the estimates of the immediate deaths vary as it is impossible to state accurately, these figures are at the bottom end of the estimates. 

        Targeting civilians is recognised internationally as a war crime, can anyone claim that obliteration an entire city in one fell swoop, is not targeting civilians? After WW2 we hung quite a few for war crimes, unsurprisingly, they were all on the other side.

      The victors write the history, and our history always tells us that what ever we do in war is honourable, and what ever our enemies do is barbaric. The fact that Nagasaki was a mainly civilian city, and ironically, a city with the highest Christian population in Japan, doesn't change that. Just like Israel today, we claimed that we were justified, no matter the cost, it was the honourable road to go.

      The entire history of capitalism, is one of deadly conflicts, with civilian casualties, seen merely as collateral damage. More and more it is the civilian population that suffers in war. Gone are the days when two vast armies faced each other across some waste land, and slaughtered each other until one could claim victory. In modern warfare the casualty rate is normally higher among the civilian population than in the military. Remember "Shock and Awe" visited on the Iraqi people, drones in Pakistan, and Somalia, and now Gaza. 

       This being the case, and targeting civilians being a war crime then it should follow that war itself, by its modern nature is one large war crime, and any state that enters into war is automatically guilty of a war crime.

Photo from Dresden after the Allies bombed the city, creating a fire storm, 1945.

         Wars are states way of cementing their power and wealth, what happens to the people is of little concern, and it will remain so, until we take control of our own lives. Until we decide that we the people should shape the world we want to live in, and base our societies on communities grounded in the fundamentals of mutual aid, co-operation, and seeing to the needs of all our people, we will be at the mercy of the power hungry, war mongering, profit seeking, greed driven capitalist system.  

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

      

Welcome To Greece's Economic Miracle.

      The Peloponnese in Greece, is probably one of the most beautiful places on earth. Breathtaking views, glorious weather, and steeped in Greek history and mythology. While the rest of Greece mires in "austerity", unemployment, poverty and deprivation, nestling in the beautiful Peloponnese is the small town of Nea Manolada. Former “Socialist” Prime Minister George Papandreou, praised the area as an "economic miracle". This little town has a turnover of more than €90 million, all from that lovely fruit, strawberries, acre upon acre of strawberries.

      While the Greek state,  under its program called, Xenios Zeus, after the ancient Greek God of hospitality, carries out mass sweeps of immigrants, rounding them up and placing them in over crowded and inhumane concentration camps, it gives the area of Nea Manolada a miss. This might seem odd as the town has a population of approximately 2,000, but a migrant population of approximately 4,000. Among and around the lush strawberries are migrant workers living under the glaring Greek sun in makeshift plastic tents, where hygiene is poor or none existent.  

 

      This is the small town in which an employer and a some of his foremen, blasted some migrant workers with shotgun pellets, for having the audacity to ask for their six previous months wages. Their case came to court recently and the result proves that the Greek judicial system is as corrupt and fascist as the Greek state. The employer was acquitted, while the two shooters were given 14 years and 8 years, but were released on appeal and ordered to pay a €5 a day fine instead.

      The Nea Manolada "economic miracle" is built on extremely low, or non-existent wages, and dreadful conditions. Greece is in the European Union, and this part of Greece is where brutal exploitative capitalism morphs into brutal capitalist slavery. The latter being the ideal conditions for maximum profit, the capitalists dream.

        These conditions, and worse, are repeated all over the world, all in the name of profit for the few, that is the system we tolerate, why?

The full story HERE:

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

Workers Know Your History.

        Despite all the pomp and ceremony marking the start of the blood letting of the imperialist land grab, that goes by the name of WW1, and the lies that they pump out, we should keep repeating, "It was the working class that stopped the slaughter", not the stupid, arrogant generals, not the so called "military strategists", it was the ordinary people in countries across the globe. It was their revulsion at the slaughter, and their desire for peace across borders, that silenced the guns, and saw the blood stop flowing. All contrary to the aims of the ruling classes and the capitalist system. 

       The struggles that brought the imperialist bloodshed to an end, are not over, the workers may have lost the first real battle, but we will win the final one, and eventually over throw this system of capitalism, which is a blot on the history of humanity.

       As I keep repeating, "Workers Know Your history."

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

Behind The Smoke And Mirrors.

        It is always good to hear some truth, coming from America and spoken by an American from the "higher echelons".

       Basically, the war machine in Washington (I call it the Warfare State), couldn't abide that. There are just too many people that operate in the devil's workshop; which is to say we have all of this capacity, we have all this machinery of war-making and of intervention and of global empire that is obsolete and unnecessary -- and yet it is manned by people who want something to do. Who need to justify budgets. Who need to pursue and prosecute missions. That is what I think is happening at the present time.

       It's just the warfare state machinery has gotten itself activated into motion and it is drastically simplifying the real facts that we face and creating a narrative that is really preposterous in terms of what our national security, the safety and security of the American people, really requires in this circumstance.

 

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

Welcome To Greeece.

       Greece, despite having a very successful tourist season, is not a welcoming country for those foreigners labelled migrants. That group can be beaten-up on the streets in broad daylight, and locked up in inhumane concentration camps. Not matter if you enjoy the hospitality of the average Greek citizen, Greek government is fascist.

       A poster that has been making an appearance on the streets of Athens tells part of the brutal story that is modern Greece.

From Contra Info where you can read the poster more clearly:

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

A Blood Stained Peace.

       All the self centred, pompous heads of state who shuffled for their moment on the podium, attempting to glorify the imperial blood bath of 1914/18, keep referring to how war brought peace to Europe and how we all live in harmony now. The so called peace that followed that dreadful avoidable slaughter, lasted a mere 21 years, before they were at it again, spreading the blood of youth  across the globe. They wax lyrically about how Europe has known peace since their last blood letting of 1939/45. That of course is a lie. There may have been peace in most countries in Europe, but we were busy doing our blood thing across the globe. The list of wars, battles, interventions, and attempts to thwart independence movements across the empire, is a long unending catalogue of bloodshed.

       This is by no means a complete and definitive list, but it does give some idea of what they mean by peace.

After the 1914/18 blight on humanity, we have had:
1918/20, Intervention in Russia civil war.
1919/23, Turkish war of independence.
1919/19, Third Anglo-Afghan war.   
1919/21, Irish war of independence.
1920/20, Somalialand campaign.
1920/20, Great Iraqi revolution.
1936/39, Great Arab revolt in Palestine.
1938/48, British Zionist conflict.
1939/45, Second World War.
1945/49, Indonesian National revolution.
1945/46, Vietnam, Operation Masterdom.
1946/47, Greek civil war.
1948/60, Malayan emergency.
1950/53, Korean war.
1951/54, Suez Canal zone emergency.
1952/60, Mau Mau uprising.
1955/60, Cyprus.
1956/57, Suez Crisis.
1962/66, Indonesia - Malaysia.
1962/75, Dhofar rebellion.
1963/67, Aden emergency.
1982/82, Falklands war.
1982/84, Lebanon.
1991/91, Gulf War.
1992/96, Bosnia.
1998/98, Desert Fox Iraq.
1998/99, Kosovo.
2000/02, Siera Leone civil war.
2001/----, Afghanistan, 4th Anglo-Afghan war.
2003/09, Iraq war.
2011/11, Libyan Intervention.

     Most of these conflicts were against people trying to free themselves from the British Imperialists. While we were merrily sending our youth to foreign shores to repress and kill, we were proudly proclaiming how we were living in peaceful Europe. As we done our imperial killing across the globe, other European countries were doing likewise, but our efforts were dwarfed by the new mighty imperial nation, US of A.

     This is the pattern of capitalist peace, slaughter for wealth and power, death for resources and profit. Nothing will change until we change the system, and consign this exploitative system of capitalism to the dustbin of history.

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

There Are Men Too Gentle.

       Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, how can we live, how can we love, when the red sunset is really the blood of others? 

   A James Kavanaugh. Quote:

“I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”

THERE ARE MEN TOO GENTLE TO LIVE AMONG WOLVES
A Poem by James Kavanaugh

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant's profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of candied apples and ferris wheels
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves.
Who devour them with eager appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant's world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove.
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant's world.
Unless they have a gentle one to love.

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

No Glory In War, No Celebration Of War.

       Monday marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the clash of empires that resulted in over 37 million, military and civilian, casualties, comprising of more than 16 million killed, and over 20 million wounded, all in just a matter of four years. Approximately 7 million of those killed were civilians, a fact not often mentioned. This 4 year blood bath called WW1, was nothing more than empires trying to grab as much of the world's resources and markets, all in the name of power and wealth for the few. There can be no glory in war, there should be no "celebration" of war. Wars are power mongers method of cementing their power, never for democracy. The war for democracy will not be fought on foreign shores, it will be fought here in each of our own territories.
       This Monday there will be gatherings across the country, against the pomp and glory of the establishments attempt to turn the slaughter of WW1 into some sort glorious part of our history, when in fact it is an indictment against the established order we live under, a blot on the history of humanity.
      Glasgow Monday 4th. August, by the Scottish Peace Network:

     If you can possibly make it, come and stand in solidarity for world peace.

In London by, No Glory In War and others:

No Glory - No More War

No Glory - No More War
Monday 4 August  6.30pm - 8.30pm
Parliament Square London

       Monday 4 August is the 100th anniversary of Britain's entry into World War One. Britain's recent record of foreign wars, its commitment to NATO expansion and its support for Israeli aggression make it essential that there is a strong anti-war message on the day.
       There are anti-war events taking place around the country to counter David Cameron's campaign to make the WW1 centenary an occasion for "celebration" and "glorification".
       In London the No Glory in War campaign will stage an event in Parliament Square at 6.30pm, just before the official commemoration, evoking the real horror of World War One, demanding that nothing like it happens again. We will be celebrating resistance to war at the time and today.
Speakers and performers at the No Glory - No More War event include actors Samuel West and Kika Markham. Jeremy Corbyn MP will read Kier Hardie's anti-war speech of 1914. Writer AL Kennedy will read Carol Ann Duffy's Last Post in honour of Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier from the First World War trenches, who said until the day he died in 2009 that war was 'legalised mass murder'.
       Also speaking are World War II Normandy veteran Jim Radford, historian Neil Faulkner and Kate Hudson from CND. Music will be performed by Sean Taylor and Gunes Cerit.
       Stop the War is asking all our supporters who are able to attend, to bring white poppies and other anti -war symbols to make sure this anniversary is marked in the only way appropriate - with a loud call for an end to foreign wars.
If you are are a Twitter user, please use the hashtag #NoMoreWar throughout the day.

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

 

Glasgow's Lost Comrades.

        Just back from our travels down south, and a wonderful time it was, the weather was great, very warm. So much so that I burnt my baldy head and was forced to buy a "bunnit", which seemed to create a considerable amount of laughter each time I placed it on my head. Which made me all the more determined to wear the thing.

       Our first stop was Warwick University Archive department, where we spent some time prowling through old issues of the Freedom paper, 1900's. What surprised me was the amount of names that appeared from Glasgow. It would appear that there were a considerable amount of active comrades in Glasgow at that time, who seem to have been lost to us, or at least to me.

      In Glasgow there were at one time, three names of individuals from whom you could get your Freedom. There meetings being arranged and literature being published by people we seem to have forgotten, that shouldn't happen. Perhaps it is my ignorance. I would be delighted if anyone anywhere, can provide any detail to the names that follow. Any information, date of birth, death, where, and if they worked, family, activities, addresses, writings, etc., of course photos would be icing on the cake.

     Blair Smith, 15 Sunnybank Street Dalmarnock and Paisley, seems to have been very active around 1902/03, he also published a pamphlet in September 1900, called "Direct Action Versus Legislation" it would be great if somebody could tell me where I can lay my hands on a copy. Also, P. Josephs 198 Main Street Gorbals. Other names that cropped up in articles/letters etc., are, Moscow, John Turner, Arthur St. John, Fred Charles,  McKay, Paisley/Glasgow 1904, Macfew Seklew, listed as "Individualist", A. P. Howie, 91 Aitkenhead Road also 69 Toryglen Street, 1905, and 99 Trongate 1905, (Seems Tronagte was a popular address from those comrades.). There was a J. Docherty, who wrote in Freedom, "Notes from Scotland" May, 1903.

     There was a D. Baxter 126 Trongate, around 1903, also listed at 127 Trongate, perhaps a typo, George Dallas, also listed as 126 Trongate, published Voice of Labour, 1904. Was 126 Trongate an office or book shop or a residence, or what, was Howie's 99 Trongate a typo?

       I hope someone, out there somewhere, can come up with some details, anything so as to get a better picture of who they were and of Glasgow at that time. I would be delighted if I could add them to Strugglepedia.

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

The Start Of WW1.

      For those interested in the start of WW1, the should look no further than the excellent film by Robert Newman, "The History Of Oil". As any informed person knows, we can all say, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, my arse. He also touches on the Iraq invasion and why.

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Global Fuckin' Warming.

       From Damming rivers to tar-sands, from fracking to de-forestation, the corporate Mafia are screwing the planet, and their puppets the national governments are putting the stamp of legitimacy on the rape and plunder of our world. They use the euphemism, "progress", which really translates as, greed for profit. What world will we hand to our grandchildren?

This from "The Stimulator":

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Seasons Such As These.

 

           Most people would agree that Willie Shakespeare had a way with words, and some of those words are just as relevant today as they were on the day that he wrote them. How about a few lines from "Seasons Such As These".

Poor naked wretches, wherese're you are
that hide the pelting of this pityless storm,
how shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
from seasons such as these.

           As the Cameron cabal carry out the merciless plan of the financial mafia, under the guise of "austerity", we  see poverty sink its pityless teeth ever deeper into the fabric of our way of life. Day and daily fears of poverty become reality, the spectre of homelessness a way of life. Benefit cuts, sanctions on the unemployed, workfare for no wages, zero hour contracts, dragging more and more families into he dark pit of deprivation. Food banks a necessity, loan sharks arrive in the guise of a saviour. We are in the midst of a man made season of wretchedness. Only the ordinary people can move us to that season of a bountiful spring.
              A  quote from "Freedom" November 1903, by someone who signs him/herself, "anarchist".

He who would be free
Himself must strike the blow

Here we are,111 years on, and we have still to strike that blow. 

Still No Democracy.

 
         Still down south sipping coffee and reading papers, among other things. It was while doing the coffee, paper thing that I came across an article in The Times of July 28th.. which I had to spout my view on. They had a photograph and a full page article on the Bullingon Club, mentioning that a high percentage of those in the photograph had died in the first world war. The article seemed to convey the notion that the war had claimed the lives of all classes. This may be true, but without a shaddow of doubt, it was the ordinary people who paid the highest price by a very large margin.
        There is also another difference. Since this war was nothing other than an imperialist scramble for wealth, power, resources and markets, for thos imperialists and their parasite friends, and the Bullingdon Club was stuffed full Princes and other friends and members of that imperialist class, they are the ones who should have done all the fighting. It was their war, they stood to gain or lose imperial wealth and power. On the other hand, the ordinary people, who died in their millions, came from poverty, and after the greed driven avoidable blood-bath, those who returned, returned to unemployment and poverty.
        I personally, have no sympathy, nor will I shed any tears, for those of the imperialist parasite class, who died fighting an imperialist greed fest, which they engineered. They were defending theur own position of wealth and power, or trying to gain more. They ordinary people, on the other hand, were hoodwinked and bullied into believing they were defending something they never had, and still do not have, namely, "dwmocracy"
      The article is just another plug at the establishment propaganda line, "we're all in this together", pure unadulterated bullshit.