Left Forum 2015 War Normalized or Abolished
Tuesday, 2 June 2015
Left Forum 2015.
Occupy The World.
In the past workers formed unions to protect their conditions and to try to improve them. No doubt there have been bitter struggles where the union was at the forefront of those struggles. However, now-a-days, unions are big business, multi-nationals, and though they shout for change, they don't want things to change too much. They are doing very well thank you, with their fat salaries and expense sheets, making it all the more likely that they will compromise, and sell the workers short. Because of this most workers now feel they have to fight on several fronts, and take on the might of that corrupt alliance of power and wealth, the state, the corporate world, and the big unions. New methods of organising are necessary, and are developing, at ground level, in the work place, and in the community.
Mistreated by Movistar and abandoned by their unions, telephone
technicians take matters in their own hands — and occupy their
employer’s headquarters.
Read the full article HERE:Words of cynicism and distrust are repeatedly heard by activists of the country’s countless social movements, whether it is the excluded and isolated Movistar-Telefónica strikers, the powerful and popular PAH platform of indebted mortgage-holders and evictees, or just ordinary people who see the union movement as but one more player in capital-P politics — even to the extent that they form part of the hated casta, the ruling establishment.How nuanced, fair and widespread these sentiments are may be debatable and unknowable, but it is clear that the old high-level negotiations, the growing distance between workers and their union representatives, together with the bureaucratization and the awkward arrangements of public funding, have made people turn away from the traditional labor movement to develop alternative ways of pushing for social justice and equality.
The Rule Book Hasn't Been Written Yet.
The babbling brook of bullshit that is our mainstream media, always frames any discussion on our future in the language of economics. As long as we accept that frame of reference, we have lost the argument. If we desire a society of justice, freedom and equality of opportunity, we will not find it in balance sheets, we will not find it in a set of calculations devised by accountants. We have to step out of their frame of references and start our calculations based on humanity and the needs of each other. The rule book of their normality must be shredded, we have to move forward creating our own normality and it will always be a transient normality, as our humanity and needs evolve. Our normality must never become a "tradition". It must always be alive, evolving, untrammelled, flowing, guided only by our humanity and justice. We can't assume the right to lay down the rules for future generations, that is their job and their job alone.
--------There, then, where some see an opportunity, because of the economic crisis, we see a trap. A trap of sinking in the swamp of confusion, of fantasies about the social “good” deriving from Marxist analysis, of certainties about revolutionary subjects, of economism.Read the full article HERE:
First of all, the global crisis we are experiencing today is not just a crisis of numbers, financial figures and mathematics, but part of the overall crisis of values and conscience in the world of authority. It is the cannibalistic crisis of western lifestyle which after it grew big consuming blood and oil from the “underdeveloped”, it now feeds from the flesh. Today, the “developed world” not only lives in the grip of economic tyranny, but also in the desert of spiritual and emotional bankruptcy.
Unlike the Marxists and their “anarchist” great-grandchildren, who want to interpret life with the rationality of mathematics, we seek our liberation inside the blasts of a permanent existential revolt of relations, situations, values, morals, and everyday life.
Even the economy, which is the center of the tedious analysis of the communists, for us it is not a series of ordered numbers leading to the equation of the class struggle. Instead, the economy is, first and foremost, a hierarchical social relationship that speaks the language of money. Money is a symbol of accumulated power. It is a property title that owns objects, land, time, admiration, relationships, people. The anarchist challenge, then, cannot be trapped in the demand for “better wages”, “lower taxes”, “economic equality”… One cannot destroy the morality of property by making it equal and uniform to all.
The experiment of communist totalitarian regimes spawned monsters, dictatorships of the proletariat and obedient subjects. One cannot exorcise ugliness with a new ugliness, simply by changing the name to something more “social” and imagining that through the “anti-imperialist struggle”, the country won’t become a “modern colony “.
Monday, 1 June 2015
Free Film Show, Glasgow, Red Skirts.
Just a reminder of a great free event taking place in Glasgow on Thursday June 4th. In co-operation with the showing of the Red Skirts film at the Pearce Institute in Govan Road, The Fairfield Heritage Museum will be staying open from 6pm to 7pm. The museum is just three minutes walk from the Pearce Institute and is well worth a visit. Pop in and see a wee bit of Govan's history before making your way to see this excellent film Red Skirts, about the 1915 rent strikes. Details of the Film event can be found HERE:
Sunday, 31 May 2015
History Tells Us!!
There Will Come a Time.
There will come a time when the hordes remember,
who bound our grand-parents to the yoke of oppression,
who sentenced our parents to deprivation,
who bid poverty sink its teeth into our heart,
who teach our children, greed is a noble art.
Who sent our sons through the gates of hell
to a litany of cambist brawls,
crammed coffers with blood-stained gold
while laughing in Ares' halls.
"Who does these terrible things to us?" they will ask,
and when they remeber,
they'll bring an energy that is endless
to drive a fist that is fearless.
Then this merciless market-driven world will crumble
under an insurrection of integrity,
the poor will emerge from the dark husk of capitalism
to live in the light of social justice.
There will come a time when the hordes remember.
Self Expression Or Useless Work.
I saw this page in the Canadian Magazine Wreck and it made me chuckle. The rest of the magazine is a good read.
Big Brother,--The Swansong Of The Systam?
Across the planet capitalist states are tightening there security, Spain, Greece, Canada, Switzerland, America, and here in the UK we are seeing a re-vamp of the snoopers charter and anti-union legislation, making it more difficult to organise protest through strikes. Of course all this legislation is directed at you and I, though the state spouts that it is anti-terrorist. However in the eyes of the capitalist world anybody that doesn't like their brutal exploitation, falls into the category of "terrorist". We can perhaps look at this in a positive manner, as the more they tighten their big brother surveillance, the more they feel the system is threatened. As they put their surveillance into panic mode, can we see the whole rotten edifice starting to crumble and come crashing down? Only the mass of ordinary people can accelerate that process.
Big Brother--eh?
This week we break Bill C-51, down Klanada’s
sinister new law, that would give the Canucks increased spying powers
over its population. On the break, long standing hip-hop act Onyx,
returns with “Fuck The Law.” We wrap things up with an interview with
Antoine, a computer security ninja, about how we can protect ourselves
from surveillance.
For links to encryption software, to comment on this show, to sign up
to our email list, to get our fuckin show as a podcast or to find a
playlis of the music we played just visit my fuckin website stimulator.tv
Saturday, 30 May 2015
Campsie Glen.
Took the bike round the Campsie area. The usual for this year, a bit of sun and a cruel wind, it made the soup at the Campsie tearoom all the more tasty.
Old cemetery at Campsie Glen;
I Am The Crowd.
Deep in every heart lies the desire to be free, it can lie dormant for generations, but it is still there, and one day it will burst forth and its light will chase the darkness of repression and exploitation from the face of the Earth.
Gazi to Gezi – a stone’s throw away (2015)
Produced by Ross Domoney and Ozan Kamiloglu
Script written by Ozan Kamiloglu with the inspiration of Arkadas Özger
Filmed, edited and directed by Ross Domoney
Performancy by Sarah Karakus
Music by Giorgos Triantafillou
Live music performance by Iskender Ozan Toprak
I Am The Crowd
I am the crowd
I swim in the quagmire of poverty
its hooks, its barbs, tear my fleah
rupture my dreams,
I hold my breath for centuries
hoping to break through, gasp pure air.
Through the murky mire
I see bright things, shiny things, sparkle
I see women in fine dresses, men in silk shirts
I ask myself,
why do I swim in this cesspool?
I want the light and warmth of rectitude
to caress my labouring body,
seeds of my dreams to bloom
like wild flowers in a meadow.
One day I will use my boundless strength
to haul this torn, battered being
out of the morass
onto the warm grassy bank,
when I do;
woe betide you, women in fine dresses
woe betide you mister in your fine silk shirt
should you ever try to get in my way,
for I am the strength of the world
I am the crowd.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
Script written by Ozan Kamiloglu with the inspiration of Arkadas Özger
Filmed, edited and directed by Ross Domoney
Performancy by Sarah Karakus
Music by Giorgos Triantafillou
Live music performance by Iskender Ozan Toprak
I Am The Crowd
I am the crowd
I swim in the quagmire of poverty
its hooks, its barbs, tear my fleah
rupture my dreams,
I hold my breath for centuries
hoping to break through, gasp pure air.
Through the murky mire
I see bright things, shiny things, sparkle
I see women in fine dresses, men in silk shirts
I ask myself,
why do I swim in this cesspool?
I want the light and warmth of rectitude
to caress my labouring body,
seeds of my dreams to bloom
like wild flowers in a meadow.
One day I will use my boundless strength
to haul this torn, battered being
out of the morass
onto the warm grassy bank,
when I do;
woe betide you, women in fine dresses
woe betide you mister in your fine silk shirt
should you ever try to get in my way,
for I am the strength of the world
I am the crowd.
Friday, 29 May 2015
No Freedom While One Prison Stands.
Remembering the fact that America imprisons more people per head of population than any other country on the planet, almost 1 in 200 American citizens are behind bars, then it is not surprising that those caged humans do not take it in a submissive manner. Another fact about the American prison system is, on the whole, it is a corporate business and profit is God. This is also a trend that is increasing here in the UK. There has been a growing trend in America, of prison protests, and there are plenty, linking up and co-ordinating their efforts in an attempt to alleviate their brutal treatment and suffering. Demanding change can turn these inhumane cage factories into non profitable entities for the corporate world, and they will walk away. At present they are only making a profit because of the appalling conditions and the government subsides, a staggering $39 billion-a-year to fund America’s
prisons with the total budget for incarceration being $60.3 billion. By
2020, the Department of Justice reckons it will be spending 30 percent
of its budgets on federal prisons.
There is no doubt what so ever, that prisons are factories, turning out merchandise and the labour is forced and extremely low paid, if at all. By any definition, that is slavery.
The thirteenth amendment to the US constitution does not abolish slavery. It states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (my emphasis). All prison systems in the US rely on prisoner labor to maintain the facilities. It is prisoners who mop floors, fix plumbing, handle paperwork, and do the many other tasks necessary to keeping the prison running. Prisoners are also farmed out to private corporations seeking cheap labor. All this labor is grossly underpaid (if paid at all) and compulsory; as many prisoners have explained to me, it is a modern form of slavery.
There can be no place in a civilised society for prisons, prisons don't solve any problems, they only store individuals with problems, and in the process, creating greater problems for them and society in general. The dark shadow of the death penalty also hangs over the American prison system. No individual, institution or group, has the right to condemn another human to death. This barbaric tool of repression from a by-gone era, is a blot on the face of humanity. It also is an expense weapon of repression costing the American tax payer dear, New
Jersey spent $253 million-a-year at $11 million for each inmate. At the
start of 2013, 3,125 inmates were on death row. Many prisoners spend many
years in this appalling state, most spend at least a decade there, some more than 20 years, the longest time between a conviction and
execution was 36 years. There can be no freedom while one prison still stands.
Read the full article HERE:US prisons may not be able to handle these changes; the current administrators almost certainly won’t. That is not our problem. If prisons cannot run without slavery and torture, then they should not run. Mass work stoppages and hunger strikes, with outside direct action support will make prison financially untenable. We will shut the prisons down. If the increasingly unequal and largely illusory class peace of American capitalism cannot survive without its prisons, then it too should and will end. We can and will abolish slavery and torture in US prisons, along with them we will bring down whatever institutions depend on these intolerable practices.
Thursday, 28 May 2015
A Monarchy Democracy???
The Queen's speech is one of those occasions when our Lords and Masters put on a display that shows the extent of the hypocrisy in the claim that we live in a democracy. There for all to see is the plundered wealth of the established power in this country. There for you to kneel before is YOUR monarch, sitting on a throne of gold, surrounded by pampered flunkies, The sham of representative democracy displayed to the world.
How can someone sitting on a gold throne, waited on hand and foot, mouth the words about "one nation"? The words that she came out with, "My government will bring forward legislation to reform trade unions and to protect essential public services against strikes," translates as, my government will make it impossible for public sector workers to defend themselves against the on coming savage cuts to their living standards. It also makes it almost impossible to "legally" have the right to withdraw your labour in the event of a dispute with your employer. Though if workers accept this form of serfdom should be up to them to decide, time will tell.
How do you equate "one nation" with the pomp, arrogance and shear opulence of gold carriages, gold thrones, ladies in waiting and footmen, with food banks, fuel poverty, child poverty, unemployment, slave workfare and benefit sanctions? The lie is laid bare, it is their for all to see in one lavish spectacle, the inequality, the arrogant power, and they feel confident enough to say, " we don't give a shit" and flaunt it in your face. What's more, most people seem to swallow the whole spectacle as "tradition". It is a tradition that is there to let you know your place in this "one nation".
Bereft Of dreams.
Sometimes it's hard to smile.
Bereft Of Dreams.
We live in a world, where
hopes and dreams are bought and sold
commodities of a cruel market,
always struggling,
robbed of our gold
the many are excluded.
Our hopes disappear in shreds
as poverty tears with its iron claw,
plundering our heart,
devouring our dreams,
creating a land where desire fears to tread,
love dies in anguished screams;
driving us into isolation,
separating each from other,
instilling fear,
when our will would have us form a chain
drag some bright horizon near.
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
It's Just Over The Wall!!!
Everything is normal, well at first. The Glasgow slum, Garngad, where I was born, like all slums, was an unhealthy bog of deprivation, but not to me as a child, it was normal, it was all I knew. It was only when we look over the wall that we see, there is another world, and its different. Modern slavery is just like Garngad, it's the world we are born into, it is what we are trained to accept, it is “normal”. The “normal” doesn't equate with freedom. By our quiet acquiescence to institutions, traditions and the power of authority, we are enslaved, we accept the confines of our “slum”. There are those who have looked over the wall and seen a different world, a better world. Lets do to our modern slavery what we have done to our slums, knock them down and build that better world we can see over the wall.
An interesting article by Jason McQinn:
Read the full article HERE:Thus the whole set of modern institutions of enslavement (hiding behind these abstractions) have become the primary contemporary incarnation of traditionally rich and powerful bullies. This is the central fact of modern civilization, the paradigm upon which the entire social world rests: a system of enslaving institutions, in which people have been trained from birth to participate and identify, while also being trained to call the various forms of this slavery “freedom.”
Especially amongst the most depraved slaves to modern bullies – those who sing their praises the most strongly, continuously and publicly, the people who make up the modern mass media, one cannot possibly count the times that identifications with these bullies are repeated over and over and over. For those who haven’t already gotten the message through exposure to parental submission and humiliation, or private and public schooling, the mass media (including social media) insist on telling us ad nauseam that we are beholden to “our government,” “our military,” “our businesses,” “our police,” “our laws” and on and on….
In a world of modern slavery in which slavery is invisible because liberty has been largely reduced to following laws and orders issued, not (for the most part at least) by particular persons, but ever increasingly by abstractions (incarnated by institutions), is modern slavery still slavery when there are fewer and fewer people left able and willing to point it out? That remains to be decided. Where do you stand?
We can each refuse idenfication with our enslavement by rebelling against it here and now at every opportunity. By refusing to let ourselves be encompassed in the silent consent implied whenever “we” or “our” includes the abstractions or institutions of modern slavery. It’s “their” system, not “ours” or “mine.” It’s the system of those who continue to believe in it, not of those who genuinely fight it. If you identify with it, you’re a part of it. The more you refuse identification with it the more its power is reduced by each and every one of us whenever we act on this refusal.
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