It's Insane To Call It Democracy.

       I find it fascinating how the wrong meaning of a word can come into normal use. Take the word "democracy", ask anybody in the street what "democracy" means and they'll probably give a fairly accurate definition, then ask them if we live in a "democracy" and you'll be surprised how many say "yes". Of course our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, continually  reinforce this misuse by their constantly referring to the "Western Democracies". The UK version of "democracy" is one where there are seats of power, and practically all those seats of power are filled from a small pool of rich pampered parasites, and most of them come through that elitist sausage factory known as "Oxbridge". Once the rich pampered parasites are processed through the Oxbridge sausage factory, they then spend a few years playing with their pals, and are then slotted into a position of power, over a section of the country that they nothing about. That my friends is UK "democracy".

       Only around 7% of the UK population attend private fee paying schools, yet many of the UK's judges, journalists, public officials, armed forces chiefs, media executives, are all privately educated before heading to the finishing process at the Oxbridge sausage factory. A report by Social Mobility and Child Poverty Group, concluded that Britain's elite is still  "formed on the playing fields of independent schools" and "finished in Oxbridge's dreaming spires". 

 

      Other figures from the report state that 71% of senior judges, 62% of senior armed forces officers, 55% of government permanent secretaries, 53% of senior diplomats, 45% of public body chairpersons, 44% of The Sunday Times Rich List, 43%  of newspaper columnists, as well as 26% of BBC executives were all privately educated. All that power lying in the hands of a group drawn from a very small 7% privileged bunch, and they call that "democracy".

      Another statement from the report says:  "Our research shows it is entirely possible for politicians to rely on advisors to advise, civil servants to devise policy solutions, and journalists to report on their actions having all studied the same courses at the same universities, having read the same books, heard the same lectures and even being taught by the same tutors."

     Where do we the ordinary people come in on this, when those making the decisions that shape our lives, have no experience of the world in which we the ordinary people live. 

      This ties in with another finding, that as all the countries in the world develop towards being more equal, the divide between rich and poor within each country is getting wider. This model of "democracy" means that the elitists in each country look after their own class, strengthen their power and grow their wealth at the expense of the vast majority of the world's population. How long can this privileged bunch of parasites continue to suck the wealth from the majority into their private coffers, before that majority steeped in ever deepening deprivation, rebel, and change things to a proper "democracy"? 

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

What Is TTIP?

     What is TTIP? Well if it is being discussed and developed in secret, behind closed doors, between transnational corporations and governments, you can rest assured it will not be for the benefit of the ordinary people. It will in fact, shred what little protection we have against the ruthless drive for profit by those transnational corporations.

An appeal from 38 degrees:

      Three days and counting: on Saturday, 38 Degrees members in Glasgow North East are meeting up to spread the word about a sinister EU-US trade deal called TTIP. [1]

       The deal is huge, and almost no one knows about it. [2] And that’s exactly what the powerful interests behind it want. So a whopping 8,018 38 Degrees members are volunteering in almost every constituency in the UK on Saturday. They’ll be talking to their neighbours and ramping up the pressure just before MPs come back from their summer holidays.

       Here’s how you can help. Every volunteer, like John who live near you, is getting a pack of materials in the post - leaflets, posters, badges. Each pack costs just £3.27. They’re as cheap as they can be, but they aren’t free.

     Could you help cover the cost of a pack or two? For £6.54, you could pay for 200 leaflets: that’s up to 200 more people who’ll know how dangerous this behind-closed-doors deal is. Not bad for £6.54.

Please click here to chip in now:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/TTIP-chip-in

      38 Degrees is funded entirely by people like you. [3] Not by big business, or by political parties. That means we’re free to hold anyone and everyone to account: including those behind TTIP (who are desperately hoping ordinary people don’t get involved).

      Saturday’s day of action against this sinister trade deal will echo across the country. 8,000 ordinary people will be hitting the streets to talk to their neighbours. That’s people power in action.

       Can you help it happen by chipping in to fund a couple of packs of materials today? Please click here to make a secure donation:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/TTIP-chip-in

Here’s to Saturday,

Susannah, Nat, Megan, Barney, Blanche and the 38 Degrees team

NOTES
      [1] Are you free on Saturday to join in? Click here:
http://ttipaction.38degrees.org.uk
       [2] TTIP - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - is currently being negotiated between the US and the EU. If it goes through without any changes, it’ll make privatisation of services like the NHS and National Rail irreversible. It’ll also allow big corporations to sue our government if they make changes to the law which affect businesses' profits - like raising the minimum wage.
The Independent: British sovereignty ‘at risk’ from EU-US trade deal: UK in danger of surrendering judicial independence to multinational corporations, warn activists:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-sovereignty-at-risk-from-euus-trade-deal-uk-in-danger-of-surrendering-judicial-independence-to-multinational-corporations-warn-activists-9057318.html
       [3] You can read our donations policy, and see a copy of our audited accounts, here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/pages/donations-to-38-degrees 

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

Hold Israel Accountable.

        So Israel has agreed to open the border of Gaza to let in humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials, how generous. What about normal legal trade, freedom of travel to and from Gaza? I suppose now that they have conceded to the most basic minimum, that will be that. No reparations for 50 days of horrendous, brutal destruction and over reaction, more than 2,000 dead, with more than 70% civilians, including approximately 500 children, 17,000 Palestinian homes destroyed and 25% of the people of Gaza now displaced. Then there is the matter of 40% of Gaza's infrastructure destroyed, schools, hospitals, power station and water works, leading to no sewage disposal, and little or no electricity, for what?

     The cease fire should not be the end of the matter, Israel must be held responsible for its policy of genocide, its ruthless destruction, its continual stealing of Palestinian land, and its imprisonment of the Palestinian people. Of course the American administration, by its words and deeds, is complicit in this on going slaughter and destruction. Recently US Congress passed a resolution backing Israel's actions, and voted to send more money for arms for the Israeli state, while at the same time sending jet fuel, grenade rounds and artillery. Meanwhile Secretary of State, John Kerry, referred to Israel's actions as, " appropriate and legitimate."

       Of course the UK government is also in on the money from bloodshed, as we continue to supply Israel with all manner of equipment to assist them in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

     The British government will not block companies exporting arms to Israel, despite previous warnings that arms licenses would be rescinded if fighting in the Middle East continued.

     Despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas being broken on Tuesday, a government spokesperson said the licenses have not been suspended.

      “We said we would suspend licenses if there was a significant resumption of hostilities,” a government spokesperson said.

Business as usual: UK arms factories 'profit' from Palestinian bloodshed

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

Self Interest Based Compassion.

       Just as a by-the-way, once again my broadband has been behaving like an bad buy, second hand car. Down for the last three days, after being fixed last week, after a ten day breakdown. All is not perfect in our world of hi-tec.

      Bloodshed across the Middle East and Ukraine, among other places, and talk of having a look at highly militarised police forces. Talk of saving this group but not bothering too much about that group, compassion based on self interest, that's the game of world politics. 

An Interesting article from Reader Supported News, by William Boardman:

 

       Rescuing 20,000 or so Yazidis matters more than bringing relief to almost two million Gazans in cities under siege by a relentlessly expansionist, right-wing Israeli government bent on ethnic cleansing? Well, maybe that’s not exactly what Tel Aviv/Jerusalem is up to, but decades of repetitive behavior that includes repeated war crimes is anything but reassuring. How is it better to keep arming Israel, the better to kill Palestinians, or at least to kill those Palestinians who survive the lethal and illegal Israeli occupation and blockade, when the alternative is to support the United Nations and perhaps prevent more atrocities?

       Rescuing 20,000 or so Yazidis matters more than protecting at least as many Americans in Ferguson, a city under siege by white privilege? Saving the Yazidis for now matters more than bringing justice to African-American Americans who have suffered their country’s crimes against their humanity for longer than the United States has existed? How is it better to arm local police with the weapons of international war in a country where police already commit the atrocity of killing a black man on average every 28 hours?

Read the full article HERE:

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

Till All Are Free.

US Prison.

      Most countries across the world are increasing the number of people that they incarcerate. A sign that we are becoming a more criminal people, or that governments are becoming more authoritarian, I think we can take it to be the latter.

 Greek prison hospital.

         America leads the world in percentage and number of people that it locks up, with the figures for 2011 being 2,266,500, with a further 4,814,200 on probation or parole, there are also 70,792 juveniles in detention. This accounts for 25% of the entire world's prison population. Here in the UK we are likewise, a "lock 'em up" state, The figures for 2011 show that we managed to incarcerate 97,000 people, we have 4,635 women in prison. The year to June 2014 saw a 2% increase in the UK prison population, the fastest growing age group in UK prisons are the over sixty's. It is the one thing that we lead Europe on, our prison population is the highest in Europe. 

 UK prison.

       With this in mind there is an appeal from Act For Freedom Now: 

      We take this moment to echo the call-out from various collectives of solidarity with prisoners and anarchist prisoners from different parts of the world. It is for a week of solidarity from August 23 to 30 (commemorating that August 23 was the date of the execution of the Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the United States):
       Given the nature and diversity of anarchist groups around the globe, we have proposed a week of common action rather than a single campaign on a specific day making easier for groups to be able to organise an event within a longer target period. Therefore, we call on everyone to spread the information about the Week for Anarchist Prisoners among other groups and communities and think about organising event(s) in your city or town. The events can vary from info-evenings, screenings and benefit concerts to solidarity and direct actions. Let your imagination run free.

 UK prison.

Till all are free.

Read the full article HERE:

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

A Saturday Date For Edinburgh.

An appeal from UAF Edinburgh:

     No one wants racists and Nazis in their city, but if you want to publicly demonstrate your opposition to of the Scottish Defence League, who are to bring their brand of intolerance and bigotry to Edinburgh this Saturday, then you need to be on the anti-racist counter protest.
     Let’s turn Saturday into a positive peaceful day when Edinburgh and Scotland says loud and clear we do not want fascists on our streets or in our
communities. We stand united.

 

Saturday 23 August
Assemble 1pm, Chambers Street.
1.30 March to Parliament

We have had great support for our Unity Statement opposing the SDL (see below) but we need to turn this into feet on the street. So please do everything you can;

Ask others to come along
Forward this email to friends family, networks or groups you are involved in.

Share the event page
https://www.facebook.com/events/506518372826916/

Download leaflets
http://www.scribd.com/doc/236718768/Nae-Nazis

    Join us before the protest for some last minute leafleting of festival goers.
11.30 Chambers St (George IV Bridge end)

 

Unity Statement
http://www.scribd.com/doc/236642868/Unity-Statement-v2

Community Groups
Edinburgh Central Mosque, Muslim Women's Association of Edinburgh, Norman
Crane (Edinburgh Liberal Jewish Community), Edinburgh Muslim Association of
Britain, Women's Federation for World Peace, Hollaback Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Stop the War & Young Fathers (Scottish Album of the Year 2014), Iqra Mosque,
Radio Ramadan (Edinburgh)..

Politicians
Kenny MacAskill (Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Justice & MSP SNP); Malcolm Chisholm (MSP Labour); Sarah Boyack (MSP Labour); Mark Lazarowicz (MP Labour); Nick Gardner (Labour councillor Leith Walk); Mike Corckart (MP Lib Dems); Marco Baigi (MSP SNP); Colin Keir (MSP SNP).

Trade Unions
STUC (Scottish Trade Union Council); Grahame Smith, General Secretary STUC;
Mike Kirby, Scottish Secretary of UNISON Scotland; Lynn Henderson, PCS
Scottish Secretary; City of Edinburgh UNISON; Midlothian TUC; Dumfries TUC;
Berwick upon Tweed TUC; Dumfries & Galloway EIS; John McFadden- UAF Scotland; Pat Rafferty, Regional Secretary and Jackson Cullinane, Political Officer, Unite the Union Scotland,

 

Facebook: EdinburghUAF
Tumblr: Edinburgh UAF
Email: uafedinburgh@riseup.net
Twitter: @UAFScot

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

 

Financial Mafia's World Wide Slavery.

      

      We all know that policies such as Workfare, and Work Related Activity Group, create slave labour, misery and stress, and this is aggravated by sanctions. People point the finger at the Cameron Cabal, as if this was their creation and if we could just get rid of that bunch of Oxbridge parasites, it would all be better. What we should realise is that these policies are not indigenous to the UK, the Cameron Cabal don't have the brains to think up such devious ways of getting the corporate wage bills down, they merely follow the instructions of the financial Mafia. These policies are taking place in other countries.

Some Pas Forgione quotes from Australia:

     The federal government has plans to expand Work for the Dole. From July next year it will be compulsory for job-seekers aged 18-30 to do 25 hours of work a week.

        In the same week that employment minister Eric Abetz announced the government would expand Work for the Dole to all job seekers under 50 and that job seekers would have to apply for double the number of jobs than previously, billionaire miner Andrew Forrest released his own recommendations for welfare reform — some of the most punitive ever proposed.

       The federal government is considering a proposal to force young unemployed people into strict military-style boot camps. The plan is an inadequate, simplistic response to the complex problem of youth unemployment. The fact that Labor is seriously exploring the scheme is another indication of how increasingly right-wing the party has become on welfare policy.
    The proposal, promoted as a “possible vote winner” to be announced before the upcoming election, would force early school leavers aged 15 to 21 into tough, hard-line boot camps, though precise details remain sketchy.

 
      So it is not our little bunch of Oxbridge millionaire parasites that are responsible for the misery and exploitation heaped on us, it is the world wide system of the festering marriage of capitalism and state. The shape of our society and the quality of our lives are decided in the grand marble halls of the faceless financial Mafia. Until we, across the globe, sort out that mob, our lives will continue down the spiral of exploitation and poverty.   

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

The Wall Must Fall.

 

       It is now more than ten years since the International Court of Justice declared the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank as illegal. It demanded that the wall be torn down, and called for the international community to enforce Israeli compliance. What we have seen since then is ten years of international community silence on the matter, giving Israel a free hand to continue with its brutal, illegal, apartheid policies.

 

      Ten years of ignoring the International Court of Justice on this matter, knowing that the international community will turn a blind eye, encourages the Israel State to continue with its building the largest open prison on the planet. It is time for accountability, but we can't expect our governments to put the pressure on Israel, it will have to be growing public opinion. An intensified popular struggle, forcing more boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions. 

 

    The Palestinian people are people like you and I, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, plumbers, teachers, farmers, carpenters and shop assistants. They must not be walled in like an ancient leper colony, at the whim of some Zionist illusion.

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

Ouroboros, The New Israel.

      What happens to a nation that dehumanises another nation, how does that society come to terms with its brutal treatment of other human beings. how does it justify its savagery? What is happening to the people of Israel as they get behind their government's inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people?

 

“Tomorrow there’s no teaching in Gaza, they don’t have any children left,” chanted supporters of the attacks on Gaza, waving Israeli flags. 

This from Roar Magazine:

Of course, none of this is unique to Israel. War and occupation have always brought out humanity’s inner bestiality — from Auschwitz to Abu Ghraib, from Hiroshima to Vietnam. (And no, observing that simple historical fact is not the same as equating Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust.) The same fundamental human bestiality has been an undeniable feature of all massacres and all colonial regimes. Not too long ago, great thinkers like Paulo Freire, Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon observed with great lucidity how the European colonizer, by brutalizing the colonized, ended up brutalizing himself. Running a colonial regime, they noted, requires not just the dehumanization of the oppressed, but — much more importantly — the thorough dehumanization of the oppressor. Human affects like empathy must be actively repressed to keep the colonial order intact; not only to justify the brutality ideologically, but simply to cope with one’s own atrocities emotionally.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Once Upon A Time.

        Looking around the world plagued with war, violence, greed, corruption and natural disasters, can sometimes put one in a depressing frame of mind.

Our Future.

Once upon a time,

in our not so distant past

stood a beautiful, a unique world,

laden with promise,

a world where our future was open,

our potential vast.

Now, seduced by glinting tinsel of the mad

our reason quivers

on the edge of a dark abyss.

We have created a world

where wastelands abound,

where we

the many, the marginalised, the ordinary,

struggle to survive in voracity that astounds,

are seduced

to create wastelands in our minds,

slowly accepting chaos

in a world of insanity.

Here corporate monsters

of hypocrisy, contradictions,

sever the fragile cord

that unites being with being.

But hope and friendship usually disperse the fog.

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

Who Pays For The UK's Growth?

       So the EU recover has stalled, while the UK's growth and GDP outstrips the rest of Europe. Feeling good? Me neither, as members of the financial Mafia rub their grubby, sweaty hands in glee at the UK "growth", you and I see incomes shrink as increases, if any, are away below inflation rate. We are facing eternally growing fuel bills, increased food bills, cuts in social services and benefits. This is the fruits of their "growth", corporations making millions as their labour cost drop at our expense. All this waffle about growth is intended to mask what is really happening, all the wealth is being syphoned upwards from the public to the systems wealth hoarders.

       One feature of the UK growth was revealed in a recent report. Every day nearly 600 household in England are at risk of losing their home. Figures from the Ministry of Justice reveal that last year, 210,000 homes in England were at risk of repossession or eviction. Figures from Shelter state that in Scotland, every hour, a family losses their home.  Figures are similar else where in the UK.    

 

 

       This is just one of the many stresses that are heaped on the ordinary people of this country because of the economic system that we tolerate. This is the true face of "austerity", their plan to create a low wage, sweatshop economy.

      No individual or family should have to face the threat of eviction, a policy that is there, with no other purpose, than to safeguard the members of the financial Mafia, and to protect their plunder and looted gains.

      You know we can do better than this, all we have to do is get all those greedy wealth laden parasites off our backs, and take control of our own lives. We don't need them, they are superfluous to requirements. 

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