An Anarchist Welcome.

        Probably everybody has seen what is happening in Lesbos, with an array of small craft landing desperate people on its shore, and the chaos in the authorities handling of the situation, well I thought this might put a more pleasant slant on what is going on in tiny Lebos.

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

The Cruel Lottery Of Asylum.

         Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media is pouring out stories and images of the suffering of "migrants", in Europe's "migrant crisis". This does two of several things, one, creates the vision of Europe being hit by a problem from somewhere else, and two, it's because of "migrants", these are groups of people different from us. What they never focus on is the fact that the "migrant crisis" is the result of Western, (Europe and America) foreign policy in the region where the vast majority of those people are coming from, and two, they are not different from us. They are ordinary everyday people fleeing from a region that has been brutally and savagely, over a considerable time, bombed back into the stone age, been turned into a fertile breeding ground for religious fundamentalist factions, fighting for power and territory, and to add insult to injury, most of these fighting factions, are armed by Western arms companies. Europe's "migrant crisis" is a problem of Europe's making, driven by Western imperialism's lust for wealth and power. 

      The latest issue of the French anarchist bulletin, Lucioles, has an interesting article on the "migrant crisis".

       However, the most twisted card played by the State was that of division and recuperation: the card of asylum. It seemed that some of those living in the slum of La Chapelle were entitled to be granted asylum, having come from war-torn countries. Obviously, that ‘right’ is not guaranteed to all and resembles more of a lottery, paid for by the obedience of those that request it. But this trap served more than anything to separate the good refugees with the right of asylum from the bad sans-papiers that needed confining to detention centres and loading onto planes. It is understandable that people who are blackmailed for survival every day, faced with the threat of deportation back to the horrors they fled, would hang on to the hope of asylum. But we need to be clear that even if this is a partial solution for individuals, it merely reinforces the state’s anti-immigration policies. Sadly, it works. Already the fact that those supporting the sans-papiers refer to them as ‘refugees’ and demand their ‘rights’ is the sign that everything is geared towards the recognition of these famous ‘rights’ by the State. Rights that will be paid for by responsibilities and the exclusion of all those – the vast majority – who cannot access them. Power gives us crumbs to calm the passions and to distract us, while it continues to imprison and deport at all costs.

Read the full article HERE:

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Kill Or Be Killed.

      An entrenched power, with unimaginable wealth, creates and holds that wealth by brutal exploitation, its wealth grows, as that which finds its way down to the ordinary people ever diminishes. This power's only aim is to increase that wealth and power, it will attempt by subtle or brutal methods, to crush any resistance to its dream of the perpetual growth of its wealth and power. Will we be able to persuade that power to abandon its selfish plundering and forego its power, simply by petitioning it, or by peacefully marching from A to B, chanting slogans and waving banners? Do we believe that we can change this gluttonous monstrosity that is capitalism, into a sharing, caring compassionate system? I think history tells us that we are dreaming if we accept that stand point.   

        Capitalism will not fall all by itself, it will not slowly or suddenly collapse, it can continue to morph into unlimited variations on the same greed driven theme, exploitation. It will only disappear when the people decide it is time to pull it down, and destroy every vestige of its stinking carcass. There will have to be a revolution of consciousness, a new way of seeing the world, a world that is based on respect for each other, a world with the desire to share and guard against authority and exploitation, built on mutual aid and co-operation. As the powers that be continue their quest for ever greater wealth and power they will destroy the planet, our only chance of survival is to tear up the existing rule book, be bold enough to have that revolution of consciousness and creating that better world now.

From SubMedia.TV:
 

         This week we re-think our critique of the People’s Climate March, then we go to Germany where trouble makers have been regularly shutting down Europe’s largest source of CO2. Then on to Greece, to look at a growing resistance against a gold mine and finally to the longest running blockade of oil and gas pipelines in Turtle Island. On the music break, we have Alas and Savage Fam with “Go Away.” We conclude with a special report from Ecuador, where indigenous peeps opposed to extractive industries, blockaded roads last month, paralyzing the country.

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Left Government, A Contradiction.

         What will the September 20th. elections in Greece bring for the people of Greece? They have had governments of varying shades, from the "right", up to the latest "left" Syriza, and all that has happened is deterioration in the living standards of the people of Greece. The so called radical left of Syriza proved to be a short lived animal, once it stepped into the position of government playing the game according to the rules of the Troika, (EC, European Commission, ECB, European Central Bank, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers). It was certain death as the power mongers make the rules, so there is no way they can lose. Reformist governments following the rules of the financial Mafia can never bring equality and justice to the people. To create that better world for all, we have to step outside the rules created by those who wish to control and exploit us, we have to write our own rules according to OUR needs. The idea of a "left" government is a contradiction of terms.

With the help of the financial Mafia, I'll lead you to the promised land.

This from The Barbarian Times:

Concerning the New Memorandum and the Elections of 20 September

         The 3rd Memorandum signed by the SYRIZA government marks the complete political bankruptcy of the left regime and the chimerical aspirations for a more “humane” capitalism. After taking office last January, this marks the collapse of the attempted Syriza management of the defeat of the popular social movements from the period 2010-2012. For those who had no illusions, this whole period until the adoption of the 3rd Memorandum represents simply a waiting period for the predicted backtracking, where the campaign promises to repeal or renegotiate the Memorandum and partial cancelling of the debt along with a parallel policy for the relief of the poor was first followed by the agreement of February 20 which extended the second memorandum, and then came (despite the disapproval of 62% of the voters in the referendum of July 5 rejecting the proposals of lenders) the third memorandum which is much worse than the measures rejected in the referendum.

     Within a few months, Syriza crossed over its “red lines” in complete retreat and acceptance of the creditors’ demands, towards the acceptance of a Memorandum far more brutal than that which was voted by the previous Samaras government.

      “First time left” [note: πρώτε φορά αριστερά- a popular Syriza slogan claiming that they were for the first time a left government in Greece’s history, as if they were somehow different from PASOK] and the total humiliation of the will of the social majority to get rid of Memorandum policies that make them serfs of the markets is unprecedented.

    “First time left” and there was a quicker and more resounding denial and betrayal of expectations than all prior governments in political memory.

Read the full article HERE:

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Capitalism, The Juggernaut Of A Corrupt Gambling Casino.

      We all know, or should know, that capitalism is corruption personified, a juggernaut of a gambling casino, a sewer from which the rich and greedy feed off the backs of ordinary people. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, spews out figures about the "markets", trying to cloak them in some form of science and legitimacy. When in fact, the "markets" are just a horde of very rich individuals and institutions, shifting their unearned wealth around the tables of the large gambling casino, in an endeavour to get more unearned plunder, or to re-coup their losses. Of course under the rules of capitalism, while this bunch of parasitic leeches, play their gambling games, millions of ordinary people suffer from these adjustments and shifting of capital.

      Should the "markets" collapse, the plundering pirates of the corporate and financial world lose lots of their unearned booty. However the factories, mines, oilfields, farms and orchards, and all the means of production and distribution would still be there. All we would have to do is take them over, and organise them to cater for the needs of all our people, and create the type of society WE want. We are lead to believe that the "markets" are important to us, so we follow their narrative and share the greedy leeches concerns, this in turn perpetuates the whole stinking system of greed and corruption.

In saying that, here is an interesting article from Anarkismo:

       It was long ago stated that capitalism came into the world dripping in blood and dirt, from every pore, from head to toe. While it has demonstrated that it won’t simply collapse under its own weight, the recent goings-on around the current capitalist crisis have shown that with age it has become even more hideous. Capitalism is now rank with massive state intervention required to simply keep its rotting body moving: through states propping up the financial sector and deepening the colossal attack on the working class.

Fallout from Chinese stock markets

     The goings-on that have once again highlighted capitalism’s depravity, are the turmoil – starting in China – that has occurred over the last few weeks on stock markets; including the underlying causes that led to it, and the actions that the ruling classes have taken since then to try and end it, or at least alleviate it.

Read the full article HERE:

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Britain's Costliest Benefit Family.

        That babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media is wetting itself with excitement, they are all of a dither, why, because the queen is Britain's longest reigning monarch. Switch on the radio, and there it is spewing out at you, how wonderful it is to have sat on a throne, at public expense, for 63 years, the TV is awash with the vomit of pomp and ceremony, with commentators slobbering at the mouth in adulation, at the fact that one woman has managed to survive on public benefit for 63 years. All I can say to the British public is, "shame on you", you should have remedied this anomaly years ago.

 

 On benefit, as far as I know, none have signed on, none have been sanctioned.

       The Royal family are showered with privilege and wealth, beyond the average persons wildest imagination, its affairs are shrouded in secrecy, and they cost you and I the tax payers, millions ever year. This for a family that is really a collection of non-entities, none, as far as I am aware have ever excelled at anything in the arts, music, or the sciences. Though some are pretty good at horse riding, shootin' and fishin'.

This from Common Space:

There exists an ongoing controversey over the costs and benefits of the royal family to the British economy.

Campaign group Republic estimates the average cost of the monarchy to be £300m, around nine times the figure published by the royal household and 100 times the cost of the Irish head of state.

For their part, the royal household (a corporate term for the large royal staff since the family themselves seldom give interviews or communicate with the press) claims that the family’s upkeep is £35.7m a year, or 56p per tax payer, and it’s this figure that is frequently reported by the media.

        Politically, they certainly can't stand up and say they believe in democracy, so where do their political sympathies lie? Well we all know about some of their members being on good terms with Hitler. The affairs of some members of "The Royal Household" and some of their privileged cronies, during that period just before the 2nd world war, is swept under the carpet. An apt phrase to remember, should you ever be allowed inside their palatial homes, would be that John Cleese one, "Don't mention the war".
From Common Space:

The recent appearance of a photograph of the royal family in 1933, including a young Elizabeth II making fascist salutes, caused enormous controversy. But they point to a much darker truth about the monarchy’s past and about aristocratic European society in the pre-war years.

King Edward VIII, who features in the photograph teaching the salute to his neices, was forced to abdicate in part because of the political scandal he had created through his friendship with German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Hitler’s favourite court intellectual, Albert Speer, later said in his book, ‘Inside the Third Reich’, that Hitler viewed Edward VIII as instrumental in attempts to maintain peace with Britain before World War II.

Speer quoted Hitler as saying: “I am certain through him permanent friendly relations could have been achieved. If he had stayed, everything would have been different. His abdication was a severe loss for us.”

Read the full article HERE: 

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Yes, It Is Class War, And We Are Losing.

       Is there anybody out there who still isn't convinced that we are in the midst of a class war?  For years now we have seen wages frozen/cut, any wage increases have been below inflation, benefits are being cut, attacking the poorest in our communities, those on benefits are be sanctioned, (benefits stopped) on the most trivial and inane excuses, over a million workers are on the uncertainty of zero hours contracts. Then there is the slave labour of workfare, workers forced to work for no salary. All this while the rich get richer.

      These conditions would automatically trigger resentment among the workforce, and should push them to take action to protect their standard of living. However our corporate loving Bullingdon Club boys, who rule the roost at the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption are taking action to make sure that anger can't transfer into action. Their new anti-trade union laws will not only tie the hands of the employee by making it almost impossible to take "legal" strike action, it will hand the employer the tool to break any strike action by the workers to defend themselves. Employers will be allowed by law to employ agency workers during a strike action, effectively neutralising the effect of the strike action. Do you consider these action to be the actions of a neutral government, or the actions of a bunch of very rich people with interests in the corporate world, creating a subservient cheap labour force for their corporate buddies, in other words, open and brutal class war.

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

Let's Walk With The Poets.

 

        I believe that today is National Literacy Day, that's as good an excuse as any for a poem.

WALK WITH THE POETS.

My head has had enough of you,

you doomsday sooth-sayers, and

rationalists, that trap us in the world that is.

Go weave your tales of “can't be done”

to the dead, and those of no imagination.

I want to walk with the utopian,

the dreamer and the poet,

laugh with the child and sing with the wind.

Run with the deer, not with “the market trend”

Enough of, “this is the way it has to be”,

a world of poverty, wars and inequality.

Now, I'll create the world I want to see,

A world of sharing, peace and liberty.

I want the children to plan tomorrow,

the adult help them get there,

trees and flowers our treasured possessions,

with birds and animals their keepers.

Who wants a world that chains us to mortgage,

binds us to a labouring day, just to eat bread?

Who wants to spend their life, feeding fat-cats

while their own children go hungry?

No, this is not the world that has to be,

in our foolishness and misplaced trust,

this is a world that has slithered over us,

poisoning our mind, putrefying our spirit.

Let's call on the poet, let's welcome the dreamer,

let's take council with the utopian,

They'll help us create a better world for all.

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

A Land Of Perpetual Sunshine!!!

       Yep, another beautiful day, just one after another, I know, I know, it's Scotland, it can't possibly last, but we can dream. Today I took the bike again on familiar territory, around the Campsie area, lovely. What more can you say about the place?

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

Western Imperialism, Plain And Simple.

      The working class should take a few lessons from the UK state apparatus, they never give up. They spout about listening to the will of the people, but when the people say something they don't like, they just wait a bit and then after an avalanche of propaganda, ask again. So the people have spoken, Britain will not bomb Syria, well let's beef up the propaganda of fear, and then ask again. 

A modern graveyard of ordinary people.

      They will destroy Syria, well it is practically destroyed already, but they still want rid of Assad and his cronies, and the rat bag of fundamentalists aren't doing it quick enough. So they need to up the stakes, to complete their original plan, get rid of Assad and claim the oil and gas fields for Western corporatism. Compare this approach with that taken by the UK state on the Scottish independence vote, the people have spoken, it should not be raised again at least for a generation, no matter if circumstances change. They are obviously keener on bombing other sovereign states than they are at allowing a people their independence.

The shape of Western freedom in the Middle East.

       We must stop this insanity being piloted by Cameron and his cronies, we the people of the UK have nothing to gain from blasting the civilian population of any other country. Make no mistake, if UK imperialists start bombing Syria, it will be civilians that will feel the brunt of that savage brutality. Like Iraq, towns and cities will be crushed beneath the power of modern day weapons. It will be ordinary men, women and children that will lie beneath the rumble. The officer and political class will be well protected from the Armageddon spawned by the destructive power of modern weaponry.

No politicians here.

     The gainers will be the Western arms industry and the oil and gas corporations, none of whom will ever be at the forefront of the brutality and savagery of modern warfare. 

Iraq, 17 August 2015.

         The UK state has been at war continuously for centuries, this is just another imperialist venture on top of the hundreds of others. A continuous sacrifice of the lives of ordinary people to further the wealth and power of corporations, floated on the illusion of fighting for democracy, and bring freedom to other people. It will continue as long as we touch our forelock and bend our knee in submission to the state and its brutal, imperialistic apparatus.

        To end this insanity, greed and brutal scramble for power and wealth, we have to sweep away the state, all its control, power and surveillance apparatus, its borders, and that divisive man made creation, the nation state. One world, one people, living in communities linked by co-operation, mutual aid, free association and seeing to the needs of all our people. 

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

Glasgow, Night At The Movies.

          Tuesday night, not much on, well why not get along to Govan Road, and see the trials and tribulations when a poor guy gets his bike pinched.

COMMON GOOD FILM NIGHT CONVERSATIONS:

THE BICYCLE THIEF
Tuesday, 8th of September at 18:30
The Portal Plantation Productions, 987 Govan Road, G51 3AJ
        Unemployed Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. Disaster strikes when Antonio's bicycle is stolen.
Nice film this.

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Scumbags In A Human Skin.

      It is, and has been for centuries, a common tool of the state, the embedded spy. The strange low life breed of human, who lives a lie for years, a form of scum that lies through their teeth, to worm their way into the confidence of people, so that they can betray them to the state. No act is too low, no lie to big, no trick too dirty, in their attempt to ensnare and condemn those who believe they have a friend. They are the obedient lapdogs of the state apparatus, the vilest of creatures with no mind of their own, just a script handed to them by their masters.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

Hamburg: New case of cop infiltrating ‘Rote Flora’

This is far from being a first … We learn in a statement of August 26, 2015, that a police agent infiltrated the autonomous area and ‘Rote Flora’ between 2009 and 2012. The undercover cop Maria Böhmichen rubbed shoulders with anti-capitalist activists / anarchists during this period and embedded herself in their private spaces. Under the name of “Maria Block”, she has participated in several international mobilizations over recent years, such as during the protests against the UN climate conference in Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2009, during the ‘No Border’ camps on the island of Lesbos (Greece) in 2009 and in Brussels (Belgium) in 2010.

 Besides having created bonds of “friendship” and having had at least one sexual relationship within the community, she was able to gain access to private areas of activists and infiltrate the organization and execution of direct actions (not penalised). She also participated actively in meetings, demonstrations and events concerning anti-fascism and anti-racism, as well as in anti-nuclear and environmentalist struggles.

 This new case of an undercover cop comes less than a year after comrades exposed the infiltration of cop Iris Plate into the autonomous milieu in Hamburg in December 2014. This one had been embedded for six years, between 2000 and 2006, under the name of Iris Schneider. So this is the second case of spookery under the leadership of Senator of the Interior Neumann of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

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The Beaty Of The Loch.

The Ben peekin' its heid above the parapet 

        What a great day, what a great climate, what a great country. Another glorious day on the bike, again it was "The Loch" cloudless blue sky all the way and back. On the way home, at Duck Bay, met two guys on nice road bikes, they had cycled up from Abington and wanted to know if they were OK for Luss, where they had booked into a hotel for the night, before continuing their ride to John O'Groats. Nice wee run.

My favourite refuelling stop when in Tarbet.

Must We Bend Our Knee At The Altar Of Capital?

      If ever we needed proof that social reformist parties functioning within the capitalist rule book, just don't work, we need look no further than Greece today. What was a genuine explosion for real change from the people of Greece, was channelled into a party political farce, where the only change was the face of the new messiah. Once again a cartload of promises evaporated in the labyrinth of the state apparatus. Once again the people are expected to bend their knee before the altar of capital. The financial Mafia cracked their whip and the government obeyed. 

 Kneel before your new Messiah.

This from Void Network:

Election Boycott against Capital and the State
    The approval of the third memorandum by the SYRIZA—ANEL coalition government clearly destroys the reformist delusions. Very few continue to believe that under the domain of global capitalism, the European Union, and contemporary totalitarianism, that government programs could possibly satisfy the needs of the exploited. Through their facetious referendum, the Left government transformed the social effervescence of the “NO” into a resounding “YES” for emiseration. Now they are preparing for new elections, showing how quickly they have learned to take advantage of the rules of the bourgeois political game. In the same moment, a section of SYRIZA has split off, trying to renovate faith in the prospect of leftwing management of capitalism. They continue to cultivate the delusion of delegating the solution of social problems to self-proclaimed saviors, within a populist-nationalist program of interclass collaboration. But it is now clear that the neoliberal path as well as the statist alternative converge in their goals of capitalist growth and the further devaluation of our labor and our lives.
        It is more urgent than ever to understand that we can only rely on our own power. To prevent social cannibalism, it is necessary to organize the self-defense of the exploited and oppressed. Networks of social solidarity based in direct participation that take a position against the philanthropic logic of NGOs and the Church, can create a common field of defense and reproduction of our class in conditions of crisis and the assault of Capital. Simultaneously, we must sabotage the plans of the State and Capital, and organize our attack. With base unions and workers' initiatives that will attack the bureaucratic, state-legitimized syndicalism and organize in the workplace, with public assemblies that will turn neighborhoods into zones of resistance, with federated political groups, with all of these we have to reorganize every aspect of social life, and to organize our attack against the dominance of State and Capital. Inseparable from our self-defense as a class is the defense of the devalued segment of our class: the immigrants and the refugees. We will not allow the fascists to ever again appear in public space, promoting as always the interests of the bosses.

      In this year's Thessaloniki International Trade Fair, we make our first appearance in the movement as the Initiative for the Creation of the Anarchist Federation, emphasizing the collective organizing of our needs and the coalescence of the struggles of our class against contemporary totalitarianism. We support the uncompromising and independent social and class struggles, such as the struggle of the workers of the self-organized, occupied factory of BIO. ME. that of the residents of Halkidiki against the goldmine in Skouries, and all of the other self-organized initiatives from below, with which we will struggle together against the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair. Against the State, the European Union, local and international capital, we walk towards the social revolution, anarchy, and communism.
WE WILL NOT LIVE LIKE SLAVES.
FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION,
FREEDOM, AND COMMUNISM—ANARCHY
      Open invitation to participate in the demonstration against the Thessaloniki International Fair*, Saturday, 5 September 2015, Kamara, 6pm
     *The Thessaloniki International Trade Fair is an annual meeting of investors and business owners, important in the Balkan and east Mediterranean region.
    Anarchist Group Thrialida (Fuse) (Athens), Anarchist Group Kathodon (On the Way) (Athens), Anarchist Group from Nea Filadelfia Athens, Anarchist Group Rubicon (Athens), Anarchists for Social Liberation (Athens), Void Circle (Political Section of Void Network, Athens), Libertarian Initiative of Thessaloniki, Anarchist Group Oktana (Crete), Libertarian Initiative Against State and Capital “No Man's Land” (Patras)

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Food For Thought.

      Do you think the problem with anarchism is anarchists? It is certainly a multifaceted avenue to walk, a many coloured mosaic, but are its variations, its strength or its weakness?

An interesting article from libertarian-labyrinth:

        As for energy and perseverance, I can honestly say that I have never been more in love with the ideal of anarchy or more convinced of the possibility of its practical application, provided people actually want it. I feel like I have a clear sense of the general lines of the tradition and, somewhat surprisingly, that the elements that originally drew me to that tradition were no so marginal to it as I had been led to believe. I find myself curiously mainstream, with a line of influences running right through the heart of the “classical” part of the tradition (roughly Fourier—Proudhon—Bakunin—Mella—Nettlau—> .)
        The last couple of years have been like a homecoming, though perhaps a little light at times on the welcome. The last couple of months have been about getting okay with all of that.
        It’s not so easy to feel like you have finally reached the sort of understanding you’ve been struggling toward, and to end up feeling more than a bit lonely when you get there. It’s easy to imagine that, even among anarchists, failure to conform is failure. But I’ve come to believe, over time and through periods of wrestling with facts and stakes, that it is unfortunate, but not unlikely that coming to terms with the ideal of anarchy, in the midst of a world that is so firmly set against it, should be an isolating affair. I’ve spent a lot of time, particularly quite recently, in the context of some other anarchists’ explorations of similar concerns, thinking about what “not giving up” and “not burning out” might look like, and also what it might look like it the burn-out was more general than individual. And I’ve reached my own conclusions, for better or worse, and this time around I really think that, well…

Read the full article HERE: 
(It appears that this article has been removed from The Labyrinth.)

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