It's Hard To Be An Anarchist.

      Having been conditioned in our early years through the state education system, and other established institutions, it is hard to be an anarchist. It is extremely difficult to wash out all that subtle, and not so subtle, conditioning, shaping and moulding, it is a continuous process. Then there is always that avalanche of distractions thrown at us by the capitalist mode of society. A lot of these trinkets and baubles showered on us, at first glance, seem to make our life easier and "prettier", but in fact that is the illusion, they merely shift freedom and self determination further to the horizon. The trinkets and baubles of capitalism are pacifiers, attempts to keep the beast quiet and subservient. Soon, like junkies, we can become dependent on what the system feeds us. A caged animal, fed sweet tit-bits, is still a caged animal.

      If anything anarchists are optimists, believing, one day, one day, that dream that lurks in every human heart, will burst forth, we will throw away those trinkets and baubles of capitalism, and we will see each other as we really are, brothers and sister of the same village. Until then, we each have to struggle on.

From Act For Freedom Now: 

      Without a doubt, vanity and capitalism distort solidarity, confusing it with trivial acts like going to a football match or a concert, trying to appear in photographs and be famous for a moment or feel a momentary surge of energy in observing an artist or intellectual throwing out easy discourses, applaud strongly then go home and continue with their daily routine.
     Or those who show their support by buying a t-shirt with some small text without clarifying that with this, instead of supporting a struggle one is only supporting capitalist industry. And we could mention many similar examples … but this does not happen among anarchists … or does it?

Read the full article HERE:

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Our Shitty Situation.

      The latest from The Stimulator, covering a range of topics from police, oil price, economic chaos, and Greece. Enjoy:

Our shitty situation from subMedia.tv on Vimeo.

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When Workers Kill Workers.

    On most occasions, war, in our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is portrayed as something heroic, with our side standing tall on the moral high ground, and the enemy crawling from the sewers with mean and nasty tactics. How else could they keep recruiting fresh young blood. We can be thankful for that band of heroes the poets, who experience war in all its brutality and record it, as viewed through the eyes of a human being, seeing the destruction and death of another human being.

    One such poet was the Gaelic poet George Campbell Hay, 1915-1984, born in Elderslie and brought up in Kintyre. Due to his pacifist values, for more than a year during WWII, he had tried to avoid conscription. Faced with prison, he opted for non-violent service in the army. George was sent to North Africa and given the job as night watchman. The events of the night May 7th. 1943 traumatised him, and he was never the same again. The event he witnessed was the allied saturation bombing of the German occupied  town of Bizerta.  

What is their name tonight,
the poor streets where every window spews
its flame and smoke,
its sparks and screaming of its inmates,
while house upon house is rent
and collapses in a gust of smoke?
And who tonight are beseeching
Death to come quickly in all their tongues,
or are struggling among stones and beams,
crying in frenzy for help, and are not heard?
Who to-night is paying
the old accustomed tax of common blood?

    Of course we  have to ask ourselves, why in Gaza and many, many more places on this planet, can these words still be applied.

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An Experiment In Living.

     Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is always eager to go into the brutal and gory details of ISIS's actions, and how the US lead bombing raids are all that is happening in that region. However in the region of Rojava, there is something else happening, something that our Western masters are not keen on you hearing about. an area struggling to create a new type of society, free from the shackles of the state and free from an institutional police force and prisons. This is an area of approximately 4.6 million people and they are radically changing the nature of society, a massive experiment in living, and our babbling brook of bullshit, can't bring themselves to tell us about it, the blood curling details of war, as far as they are concerned, makes better news. Under no circumstance would they inform us that there is a region where the people are trying to take control of their own lives, it might catch on.

This from Cvlt Nation:

      In the cantons of Rojava, there is a small central government with an absolute minimum of 40% female delegates, but most of the day-to-day work of running society happens at a local level, street by street and village by village. Democratic Confederalism's chief architect, Abdullah Ocalan, says that “Ecology and feminism are central pillars” of the system he has spearheaded, something that you would have to go very far to the margins to hear from Western politicians. In Rojava, men who beat their wives face total ostracism from the community, making their lives in a highly social, connected society virtually impossible. Instead of a police force and jails, 'peace committees' in each municipality work to defuse the cycles of inter-family revenge killings by consensual agreements between both sides – and it works.

Read the full article HERE:

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Big Brother Lives In Glasgow.

Is this what you pay your taxes for?
ISRAELI SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY IN GLASGOW

       CCTV cameras in Glasgow City Centre are now linked to a central operations room where ‘emotional recognition’ software identifies the name and mood of pedestrians, including demonstrators, and can then link the person on the camera with social media postings, phone calls,
emails, police records, and more. Details are not being made public, but the UK Government may have paid as much as £24m to install this sinister surveillance system from Israeli company, NICE Systems. As with Thatcher’s poll tax, the Cameron Government is piloting the NICE surveillance system only in Scotland, in Glasgow.

      Israeli Army Brigadier General Elkabetz told an audience of potential customers for Israel’s surveillance technology: “We have learned lots from Gaza. It’s a great laboratory.” Glasgow is now also a laboratory for Elkabetz’ latest goods; we are the guinea pigs to test technology that was developed by the Israeli military to carry out, according to Amnesty International, ‘crimes against humanity’ in Palestine.
 

      There has been no debate in the Council on a system of oversight of this technology. NICE Systems Vice-President told Glasgow City Council that they “look forward to a continued partnership with the city of Glasgow...fully utilizing the capabilities that NICE Situator can provide.” £24m for intensified surveillance at a time of rising demand for food banks and cuts to basic services
Go to www.coordin8.org.uk to send a letter quickly and easily to all your councillors to demand a public discussion of the NICE contract, not just in Glasgow but other Councils before they also sign up with no public discussion.
www.scottishpsc.org.uk - glasgow@scottishpsc.org.uk

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The Financial Mafia Rules.

    A rare scene took place in Greece yesterday, February 5th. thousands of people gathered in Syntagma Square in front of the Greek parliament to voice their support for the new government's anti-austerity policies. When have we seen people gather in their thousands to support the Greek government?

The People.

     Greece's new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has returned from his European tour with not much to show for his efforts. He got rumblings of support from those countries who, like his country, are circling the drain-hole in this world of financially controlled madness, but short shrift from the one that holds the purse strings, Germany. Meanwhile, the Greek banks are re-assuring the public that the Greek banks are safe. That may come back to haunt them if there is no agreement by February 28.

    All these brute force tactics by the financial Mafia, fighting to protect is precious bond market bubble, goes on while the people of Greece and other European countries suffer ever increasing poverty and deprivation. In the world of the financial Mafia, the people count for nothing. This battle between the Greek government and the Western Financial Mafia makes clear who controls the show, it is certainly not the elected government of any European country.

 Rulers of the World.

      What we are witnessing is the true picture, the financial Mafia attempting to keep its control over the economies of European countries intact, in a bid to protect itself. The elected governments are expected to follow the dictate of the financial moguls, irrespective of the wishes of the people. Failing this the financial leeches will heap greater misery and deprivation on the people. Suffering of the people is not on their balance sheets. Our so called democracy is an illusion and it is wearing ever thinner.

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

Politics.

Quote:

      “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”
― Bertolt Brecht

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First They Came For------!!!

      The latest on the Spanish state's repressive Operation Pandora, aimed at anarchists.

This from Contra Info:

      In the night of January 30th, 2015, the 7 comrades who were still imprisoned following the arrests on the 16th of December 2014 as part of Operation Pandora were released.
One day before, the instructing judge of the Audiencia Nacional (Madrid) permitted access to the investigative file, and what we know at the moment is what has been circulated through the website of Mossos d’Esquadra in a press communiqué. They are facing charges such as membership in GAC (Coordinated Anarchist Groups), attacks against banks, posting parcel bombs (one to the Archbishop of Pamplona, one to a member of the fascist congregation Legionaries of Christ, and others to Italian companies), while “they are linked”—always according to the police—with the explosive attacks against the Cathedral of Almudena in Madrid (February 7th, 2013) and the Basilica of the Pillar in Zaragoza (October 2nd, 2013), the latter having led to the indictment and pretrial detention of our comrades Mónica and Francisco.
      The police statement ends with a victorious “according to the investigators, the structure of the GAC/FAI-FRI is disrupted in Catalonia, the stronghold of this criminal organisation with terrorist purposes against the Spanish State”. What these servants of Power do not recognise (and never will) is that they sought to generate fear to all other comrades with this operation, which not only failed, but we can say without a doubt has generated the opposite effect.
No doubt their release from prison and to receive them amongst us is an opportunity to celebrate, because they are no longer locked up, as much because they are with us again to fight shoulder to shoulder against this world of shit. But it is a “celebration” which remains incomplete. The charges remain, as do the bail conditions—obligation to sign three times a week, passport confiscated, etc. Furthermore Mónica and Francisco are still incarcerated… not to mention all the comrades who risk other prison sentences in other cases, and those who have already been convicted.
UNTIL WE’RE ALL FREE!
originally in Spanish

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I See Misery And Hate.

 Saw this on Contra Info.  
Untitled, needs no explanation.

looking around i see misery and hate
public thugs and their parastate
neo-nazi terror with blunt state support
make no headlines in their media of distort

migrants get murdered in the street
a result of the nation’s deadly seed
‘the people’ alerted by mass migration
cries for fascist laws for the national salvation

hierarchical unions’ are busy to propagate
social peace for the nation’s and bosses’ sake
working until death and working poor
that’s the bosses’, the unions’ and the nation’s lure

all parties and their lulling campaign pledges
cheap confidence tricks and capitalist patches
corrupted and fat thanks to each voice
becoming their toy is the voter’s own choice

together they tighten the belt around your neck
let their national boat suffer a shipwreck
no fatherland, no bosses and no state
join the struggle for freedom and terminate

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SolidarityThe Winning Weapon.

An appeal for solidarity from SACC:

Thur 5 Feb, from 1pm - SUWN Protest, Arbroath Job Centre Arbroath Job Centre, Chalmers Street, Arbroath
     SACC supporter Tony Cox has been threatened with arrest if he attends the scheduled SUWN (Scottish Unemployed Workers Network) protest in Arbroath on Thursday. He was arrested outside the centre last Thursday. He had been at the centre to assist and advocate for a vulnerable claimant. Centre staff denied his right to do this and called the police. He has been charged with threatening behaviour, refusing to give his name and address and resisting arrest.
     Tony was visited by two police officers on Wednesday evening to warn him that if he attends the scheduled protest meeting at Arbroath JC this Thursday he would be risking arrest for breaching his bail conditions. In fact, there is nothing in the bail conditions that forbids him from being in the vicinity of Arbroath JC. Tony says he will therefore be going along to the protest.
     Please go along to show your solidarity if you can, and circulate to anyone you know who lives near Arbroath.
Event on Facebook
    We trust that the police will facilitate this legitimate protest and will respect Tony's right to participate in it.
SUWN Defence Campaign meeting, Wednesday, 4th February, from 7pm, The Clubbie, Raglan Street, Dundee.
Event on Facebook
Report in the Courier

 

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We Can Withdraw Our Consent.

 

      The state at first glance, holds all the power, it has the best of repressive gear, it has all the organised institutions of repression, but we should never forget we have the numbers and the solidarity. We are only governable by consent, we can at any time, withdraw that consent. The state is aware of this situation, hence its attack on those most vociferous in the demands for freedom from that state. Anarchist don't hide their intentions, to work towards a life free from the burden and repression of the state. Hence the state's attack on those of that ilk. Who will be next?

February 6th, a date for your calendar:

Invited by Jacque Swartz
Solidarity Protest MEET: Spanish Consulate, 63 North Castle St, Edinburgh EH2 3LJ FRIDAY 6 Feb – FROM 12:00noon

[see also: Sun 8 Feb 7pm - Film showing - 'Cuitat Morta' [Dead City] (documentary) at The Banshee Labyrinth, EH1 1LG https://www.facebook.com/events/807425185972477] HARASSED! CHARGED! IMPRISONED! FOR BEING ANARCHISTS!
by ‘operación Pandora’ in Spain

      ‘Un movimiento que olvida a sus presos está condenado a la derrota’ ‘A movement that forgets its prisoners is doomed to defeat’

     On 16/12/2014 Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan “independent” police ‘squaddies’) stormed 14 homes and social centers in Barcelona and Madrid, destroying or stealing everything of value. Without concrete accusations and with the greatest secrecy, 11 anarchists (7 women and 4 men) were sent to a High Court in Madrid. 4 were released two days later with charges - and 7 stayed in prison until they were eventually released on extortionate bail of €3000 each on 30/01/2015, one is a member of the CNT-AIT Union. The anarchists continue to endure harassment, charges and secretive Court proceedings because of their criticism and opposition to capitalism and the state. DROP THE CHARGES!

Edinburgh Solidarity Federation, c/o ACE, 17 West Montgomery Place, Edinburgh EH5 7HA | edinburghsf@riseup.net | www.solfed.org.uk

International Workers’ Association, Targowa 22 lokal 27 a03-731 Warszawa, POLSKA | secretariado@iwa-ait.org | www.iwa-ait.org

further information: efectopandora.wordpress.com

http://www.solfed.org.uk/edinburgh/fri-6-feb-12noon-edinburgh-solidarity-protest-drop-the-charges-against-the-anarchists

http://www.solfed.org.uk/edinburgh/sun-8-feb-7pm-film-showing-cuitat-morta-dead-city-documentary-at-the-banshee-labyrinth-eh1

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

Cages For People.

Korydallos Prison Hospital, Greece.

        Prisons in Greece are probably the worst in Europe, the prison hospital is more or less a death camp, from totally inadequate, to non existent care, is the norm. To die in prison because of lack of medical care is a crime, and those responsible must be held to account. Locking people in cages is unacceptable in any modern so-called civilised society.

Domokos Prison Greece.

        From 325 - Statement of prisoners
 in Wing E1, C Type jail of Domokos (Greece)

     We, the prisoners, who live and die like animals in these prisons – warehouses of humans, are denouncing those who created these prisons, first of all the former Minister Athanasiou, as responsible. These proper ones have spent huge amounts, especially for electronic surveillance and exterior security by over-equipped special police forces, however they are criminally indifferent to our life and health. Also, they ignore their own laws, prison codes and internal adjustments, which provide to ensure the medical and pharmaceutical care for prisoners.
     So, in Domokos prison there are no doctors, neither nurses nor even social service. Therefore, in the Greek legislation there may not exist a death penalty, but in Greek prisons that penalty is imposed in practice.
     Today, in the morning, at 4:00 a.m., another fellow inmate was lost, Mexas Alcibiades, 52 years old in D2 wing. Since 12 at noon, yesterday, he was requesting for a doctor, a doctor who we never had in this prison.
     For this death, which could have been avoided, we consider those responsible, except from the political leadership of the Ministry, the manager Kostara Th., also the prosecutor Theologiti, for the non-timely transportation to the hospital. This death comes to be added to a long list of dead prisoners, with recent the death of Galanis Manolis, also from the wing D2, two months ago.
     We urge the Justice Minister, Nikos Paraskevopoulos, to be committed in public, that there will be 24 hour medical coverage of the prison. Also, we call him to visit himself the prisons to see their tragic and criminal deficiencies.
      Until then, we declare that we refuse to enter the cells and get the rations of the prison.
All prisoners of Wing E1
Vasileios Varelas
Kostas Gournas
Mohammed Eltsimpah
Dimitris Koufontinas
Nikos Maziotis
Alexandros Makadasidis
Alexandros Meletis
Konstantinos Meletis
Merkoyri Ramadan
Giannis Naxakis
Georgios Sofianidhs

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Fight For Aylesbury.

 

From “Fight for the Aylesbury”       occupation website.

      Since the “March for Homes” demo on 31st January, we have re-opened and occupied a part of the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark, South London.

     We are tenants, squatters, and other people who care about how our city is being grabbed by the rich, by developers and corrupt politicians, socially cleansed and sold off for profit.

    The Aylesbury Estate is where Tony Blair made his first speech as Prime Minister in 1997, making empty promises about social housing. Since then, for the past 18 years, Southwark Council and their developer friends have come up with one scheme after another. All with the same aim: to dispossess the residents, demolish their homes, and sell the land.

      In 2002 Aylesbury tenants fought and won a campaign against demolition and voted down the original scheme in a ballot. But now big areas of the estate are emptied and sealed up awaiting the bulldozers, while residents are “decanted” away from the area.

       The same bullshit that we have seen on the nearby Heygate estate, and all across London.

No demolition of the Aylesbury.

No yuppy flats.

Homes for all.

We are here to fight for the Aylesbury.

We are here to fight for our city.

We are here to liberate this space and bring it back to life. Come and join us.

PS: Thank you to everyone who has come down to show support, to all our neighbours and to those who have even come from as far away as Hackney bringing tea!

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

A Scar On The Face Of Humanity.

      The state's brutal repressive tool, prison, has no place in a civilised society. Forget the crap about correcting behaviour, rehabilitating people back into society, it is a hammer that is used to bludgeon people in to submitting to the state's dictate. Inhuman warehouses to instil subservience. Institutions whose only outcome is to de-civilise its captives, prisons are scar on the face of humanity.

"Up the ante" an article by Michael Kimble from  his blog Anarchy Live:

       If we’re serious about destroying oppression in its many forms, prisons are the starting point, especially since the many forms are more concentrated in prison than anywhere else in society, and prisoners are the most defenseless targets of these oppressions, one could argue. Many people try to separate prison struggles from the overall struggle for freedom and call it “The Prison Movement.” I’ve been guilty of this myself at times, but we can’t divorce it from the overall struggle. As anarchists we attack all forms of oppression simultaneously. We try to understand the nexus of the many forms of oppression so we can overcome them, as well as a way to practice freedom NOW, rather than relegating it to some distant future.

       Prison has swallowed up millions of people. Those who have been lucky to survive them have problems with housing, jobs, and education, among many other problems stemming from being held captive by the state. Once one has been digested by the state into their prisons, they are forever more targeted for discrimination and further oppression by society. Prisons must be abolished and the only way to end prisons is to destroy the state. Reform is the only outcome of “Prison Movements.” We have to up the ante. We have to make this muthafucka ungovernable.

      “They call us criminals and indeed we are criminals when we act outside of laws made by the state. We are free only when we act outside of laws made by the state.”

Update On Net Neutrality.

     The latest on net neutrality, keep up the pressure, this from Fight for the Future:

Hey,
     I know Evan emailed you earlier today, but this is urgent. Media reports are coming out about FCC's forthcoming rules, and for the most part they sound really, really good. But, there’s one important detail, a loophole that might still let Comcast mess with services like Netflix. Can you send the FCC an email right now? We need you. Click here to tell the FCC: "Don't mess with Netflix"
         (In most email apps–including gmail–this will start a new email to a list of key FCC employees. Then just click send. If it doesn’t work, reply to let us know.)
Things are moving really fast right now, and we’ll know more soon. But journalists at the Wall Street Journal have been briefed on the FCC’s latest plans, and it looks like the FCC will be giving cable companies like Comcast some ability to charge “interconnection fees.”
These fees are the reason Comcast forced broken and “buffering” video on millions of its own customers, just to extort money from Netflix.
      We still don’t know the details of the rules yet. Probably even the Wall Street Journal hasn’t seen the exact text. And, if early reports are true, we could be looking at a huge victory for net neutrality. The rules look better than anybody ever thought the y’d be.
      But we wanted to sound the alarm. As we move into the end game, we need the FCC to know we’re watching, and that we’re dead serious about getting net neutrality done right, with no loopholes for the cable companies to exploit. If there’s a big loophole (and it looks like there might be) let’s do everything we can to fix it right now. Are you with us?
We need you. Click here to tell the FCC: "Don't mess with Netflix"

Thanks for doing this.
Sincerely,
Holmes Wilson and the Fight for the Future team.
      If the links above don't work for you, here's the text of the email and who to send it to:

Subject: Don’t mess with Netflix
To: wheeler@fcc.gov
BCC:jonathan.sallet@fcc.gov,debra.weiner@fcc.gov,jacob.lewis@fcc.gov,
michele.ellison@fcc.gov,mignon.clyburn@fcc.gov,adonis.hoffman@fcc.gov,
rebekah.goodheart@fcc.gov,louis.peraertz@fcc.gov,daniel.alvarez@fcc.gov,
ruth.milkman@fcc.gov,gigi.sohn@fcc.gov,philip.verveer@fcc.gov,
maria.kirby@fcc.gov,diane.cornell@fcc.gov,renee.gregory@fcc.gov,
matthew.berry@fcc.gov,nicholas.degani@fcc.gov,ajit.pai@fcc.gov,
mike.orielly@fcc.gov,amy.bender@fcc.gov,shannon.gilson@fcc.gov,
mark.wigfield@fcc.gov,kim.hart@fcc.gov,jonathan.chambers@fcc.gov,
jon.wilkins@fcc.gov,julie.veach@fcc.gov,matthew.delnero@fcc.gov,
roger.sherman@fcc.gov,kris.monteith@fcc.gov,team@fightforthefuture.org

Dear FCC,
          I don't want Youtube, Netflix, Vimeo or *any* online video to look like this: http://gph.to/1D7oxY7
        If you let cable companies charge interconnection fees, Comcast will keep slowing sites down until they cough up more cash.
        Every American Internet user will suffer, and they’ll blame the FCC (and, likely, Obama) for not closing this loophole when they had the chance. I sincerely hope that the Wall Street Journal is wrong, and that your rules will ban these shakedown tactics outright.

Sincerely,
Everyone who watches video online.

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

Solidarity Wins The Day.

     It is always a good feeling when we can mark up a success in our struggles against the corporate greed machine. It is obvious that it was solidarity across borders that help bring this particular struggle to a win situation for those workers involved.

This from IUF:

 

     Worker occupation at food flavours TNC ends with strong union agreement

      Members of Australia's National Union of Workers occupying the International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF) factory in Dandenong ended their 5-day occupation by signing a new agreement which meets their bargaining demands and more.

      Faced with a united workforce backed by strong local community and national and international union support for their action, regional management flew to Australia to meet with the union. Workers ended the occupation and marched out of the factory on Friday night, January 30. On Saturday, negotiations began at the Fair Work Commission, and on Sunday workers voted to accept an agreement which brings a solid wage-increase over three years and retains all conditions which management had sought to erase.

     The union has warmly thanked the more than 6,000 supporters who quickly responded to the IUF call for messages to the company.

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