London Bookfair ‘Won’t Happen In 2018’!!!

 

        To all those who are familiar with the London Anarchist Bookfair will be aware that this year it was different, and seemed to descend into chaos and bitterness, not anarchist objectives. Stories vary of what and when, this and that happened, but what is clear is a lot of it shouldn't have happened in an anarchist environment.

       The London Anarchist Bookfair has run for 34 years, however after this year's outcome, the collective that organises the Bookfair have decided not to do so again. This is sad to say the least, for years it was a wonderful focal point for anarchist ideas, comradeship, renewing contacts and making new ones. We need more of these events, not less. Let's hope that dialogue and anarchist principles will sort this problem out and we will see an even greater Anarchist Bookfair arise from this unfortunate episode, perhaps another city might take up the baton or London will see the re-birth of a greater event.

     This is a short extract form a statement by the collective:

--------We have been accused of “protecting a fascist” and of being transphobic ourselves. All of us in the collective have physically confronted fascists on the streets, at meetings and in print, and we are baffled and upset by these accusations. Accusing a person of being a fascist because you don’t like their views is dishonest and dangerous. We are not going to apologise for protecting someone being mobbed by a group of up to about 30 people, and, along with others, preventing an ugly situation from deteriorating further.

Obviously a lot of people are going to disagree with this, but anyone who seriously thinks that up to about 30 people shouting and threatening one woman, and in the process intimidating disabled comrades and children, was a “beautiful moment of direct action” should consider taking a look at themselves and their politics.

Finally to those who decided to smash and set off the fire alarm, and to anyone who thought it was clever – have you thought about the effect it had on the creche and older kids space, the numerous meetings taking place at the time, or relations with the venue? A number of children having to be led out of the older kids space were crying and talking about Grenfell. They thought it was a real fire and were really scared. This action definitely didn’t make it a safe space for them.

The end

We are unsure how this debate within our movement (and beyond) will work itself out, as there is a wide range of strongly held views. What we are sure of is that next year there are people who would want us to ban those sharing the views of the leafleteers or those who stickered the loos, others who would want us to ban people who were in the group of up to about 30 or those who set off the fire alarm. We are not prepared to ban any of these people, and, while people think the way to resolve their differences is to disrupt and shut down meetings, like the Syria meeting last year, or the whole Bookfair this year, by shouting at and fighting each other, we haven’t the appetite or the energy to organise next year’s Bookfair.

More positively and perhaps unsurprisingly we have had contacts from a range of people who do see the need for debate and discussion on the issues and the events. We don’t think our collective is the right facilitator but are prepared to work with anyone who, like us, would like to look at ways we work these (strongly felt) disagreements within our movement out face to face. If we don’t, the only winners will be capitalism and the state.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

The Cruelty Of Crimeless Detention By The State.

 

      You move to another part of the planet, you cross those imaginary lines on the planet's surface, lines drawn by power mongers in the struggle for wealth and power. The minions of the power mongers decide that you shouldn't be on this part of the planet, so you are detained, locked up, you are "illegal", you will be forcibly transported back to where you came. No thought of why you left/fled your home, no thought to the relationships and friendships you have created on this part of the planet. The powers that be, decree that you are illegal, you don't fit their self-interested criteria, so you will be shipped back shackled if need be. 

      Of course, before you are packaged like luggage and dispatched, you will be detained, how long, you don't know. The conditions will be deplorable, there will self harming, suicides, mental breakdowns, violence and "unexplained" deaths. Your contact with the outside world will be censured, you are now a non-person, a piece of luggage to be delivered elsewhere.

    This indignity, injustice and inhumanity goes on in out of the way establishments, meant to be kept from the prying eyes of the public. It is done in our name by the the puppets of the establishment. No person is illegal, borders are arbitrary lines drawn on paper maps by powerful elites, with no other purpose than to protect their wealth and power. Detention centres are unjust, inhuman and part of the vindictiveness of the state. They are prisons, and like all prisons the should be demolished. 

       Two dates to mark in your diary:

We Will Rise - Dungavel Demo Info + Dinner
11/11 17.30-20.00 Kinning Park Complex

Ahead of the demo at Dungavel on Saturday 18th November, come down to KPC to ask questions, get information and have dinner!
We will hold workshops on:
+ What to expect on the day
+ Legal questions about protesting and the police
+ why we are going to Dungavel
Followed by a tasty meal and maybe even some dancing!

Surround Dungavel - End Detention
18/11 11:00-18:00
Dungavel House Immigration Removal Centre, ML10 6 Strathaven

And:

Surround Dungavel - End Detention

WE DEMAND AN END TO DETENTION! 
NO MORE DEATHS! 
WE DEMAND ANSWERS AND JUSTICE FOR THE DEATH IN DUNGAVEL!



Brick by brick, wall by wall, detention centres have to fall 

In September, an unnamed Chinese
National was found dead in Dungavel. Yet we have been given no reason, no information. We need a full invesitgation. WE NEED ANSWERS!

Locking people up due to their immigration status is racist, there is no way to operate a humane or safe detention system. 

Lets protest to shut down detention centres and end the inherently abusive and violent system of immigration detention that criminalises, detains, and imprisons people simply because they have chosen or been forced to migrate. 

The demonstration will take place outside Dungavel detention centre, in direct solidarity with the people who are currently detained. In solidarity with their protests against imprisonment and deportation, such as hunger strikes and resistance to forced removals. To make it clear that people on the outside want to come together in fighting against detention and deportation.

This year has seen four deaths in immigration.This is a crucial time to send a message that Scotland does not want detention in any form, that no person is illegal. 

Surround Dungavel will be happening at the same time as Surround Yarl’s Wood, to show the Home Office that from Scotland to Bedford, Portsmouth to Gatwick. Their walls will fall.

We are arranging coaches and we will release tickets closer to the date, but spaces are limited, so please if you can make your own way there do! Spaces for people who have experience of the immigration system will be FREE, to enable this to happen please support

here 
https://www.chuffed.org/project/surround-dungavel


We hold in our hearts those who are now or have been detained.

YOU. ARE NOT. ALONE!

END DETENTION NOW. 

We aren’t calling for a limit, we are saying “SHUT THEM DOWN”

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

Death By Ideology.

      A young woman, mother of four, Elaine Morrall, aged just 38, dies. No doubt in some grand office the details will be recorded, name, address, date of birth, date of death, cause of death, then it will be filed, then forgotten. It will not be recorded as another unnecessary death from this cruel, vindictive ideology of capitalist greed and inhumanity.

      Elaine had health problems, was on benefit, but had her benefits stopped because she missed an appointment regarding universal credit. Why did she miss her appointment? Well because she was in intensive care, in hospital. Elaine died alone, in her home, wrapped in a coat and scarf, she wouldn't put the heating on until her kids came home from school, she couldn't face the bills to keep warm. This is not an accident, this is cruel deliberate punishing the poor and vulnerable. There is not just the fact that Elaine died a horrible lonely death, but what will happen to her kids? Their lives have been difficult up to this moment, living in circumstance where their mother had to choose between eating, heating, now their lives will be shattered by the loss of their mother under these circumstances, what of their future, carrying the trauma of this ideological driven callous blow. No doubt our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, will cry "SHOCK", "DISGRACE", then move on to the latest the rapturous news of the new addition to the UK's biggest benefit family, the Windsor mob, the latest sex scandal and how much such and such a football club paid for a player. But, will anything change?

        This unnecessary tragedy is played out with callous vindictiveness, performed by puppets who see fit to carry out the ideology of their lords and masters, regardless of the consequences to those involved. This all takes place to a backdrop of millionaires and billionaires who shuffle their ill gotten gains from tax haven to tax haven, so as to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Our country is awash with wealth, while unfortunate individuals wrap themselves in coats and scarfs to keep warm, because they can't afford to pay the heating bills.

      This is 21st. century Britain, the sixth richest country on the planet, a country where an army of parasites, the few, enjoy private jets, multi-million pound yachts, millions stashed in off-shore tax havens, pomp and ceremony of royalty, and the many struggle with poverty and deprivation, choices of eating or heating in our cold cruel winter.

     Elaine Morrall's death is not an anomaly, it is the pattern of our society, for the vast majority, it is day to day struggles for a decent living, while we are surrounded by wealth plundered from the efforts of the ordinary people. This is capitalism, this is how it has always functioned, centuries of a system that fails miserable to see to the needs of the ordinary people. It would be naivety in the extreme to think that it can function other than it does. For justice for Elaine and the countless thousands in similar circumstance, capitalism must be destroyed and replaced by a system based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and freed from the cancerous greed driven motive of profit. only then will we be able to see to the needs of all our people. Will we wait for another few Elaine Morrall type deaths, how many will it take?

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

A System Beyond Reform.

         Got up this morning, sat down at the computer, looked out the window. I’m comfortable, my window looks out across Littlehill Golf Course, a public owned golf course, a beautiful scene of undulating hills of grass and different types of trees, but Scotland’s winter had laid her icy hand across the area, the grass was white with frost. In conditions like this, how can you not think of those unfortunate individuals who find themselves sleeping rough, how do you not feel the frost savagely biting at the marrow of their bones, it is a lonely, slow, cruel death situation. It is difficult to grasp the fact that we, living in the sixth richest country on the planet, still tolerate such a cruel, unnecessary injustice. They suffer this vicious injustice not through lack of resources, but because of ideology.

The Homeless.

Tenebrous spectres, they exist,   out there,

on the crumbling edge of chaos.

A father, a son, a brother,

a daughter, a sister, a mother.

Fragments of some shattered family structure;

waste products

from a society being driven to destruction

by a hurricane of greed

living a life that wears out life,

dying,

the devious death of exhaustion from existence.

        No doubt, like me, you have listened to our political ballerinas spouting their hypocritical mantra, about what they are doing to help the homeless. They do this without shame or conscience, fully aware of the fact, that in the UK, since 2010, homelessness has increased by a staggering 34%. This massive increase can be laid at the feet of the government, through their welfare changes, introduction of Universal Credit, housing benefit cuts, etc.. Though these are not the only reasons for this increase, you can’t solve homelessness without building affordable homes. Our system of profit from houses is much more important than actually housing everybody, it is a system devoid of human compassion. It is much more profitable to have hordes of people chasing an small limited number of homes, this drives the prices up, big bucks for developers and estate agents. It pushes up rents, big bucks for landlords, why would they want to change such a lucrative system? It is a fact that the ideology of our political ballerinas, has driven the building of affordable homes to a 24 year low. It is also a fact that approximately one third of those homeless today will still be homeless a year on.

         It is an indictment on this system of profit before humanity, when we are looking at more than 300,000 people in this country waking up having spent the night, crammed with their families into hostels or dingy temporary rented accommodation, and these are the lucky ones, others will have spent the night on a pavement, doorway, dark lane, and if they wake up, in this weather, that is not guaranteed, it will be to face a cruel world, where their struggle for survival will be dependent of others and charity.

          This is capitalism, this is the system we tolerate, we know its injustices, we are aware of its inequality, we can see the suffering it inflicts on so many. We know within our hearts we can create a better, fairer system, a system built on compassion, mutual aid and co-operation, a system that will see to the needs of all our people, a system freed from the cancerous burden of profit and exploitation and free from the yoke of rich over privileged parasites, that suck the blood from all of our lives.

       Capitalism cannot be reformed, we have had centuries of reforms, the poverty, deprivation and wars are still with us. The only answer is the total destruction of this man made system of greed and exploitation. The next step is up to us.

The Warmth Of A Dream.

He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,

night frost locked his joints

morning rain chilled the marrow of his bone.

In the dream there was a sister,

a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters

who called him "mister", a time of little pain.

Are these youngsters the same young men, who

now laugh at hime, throw beer cans,

piss on him as he lies drunk in some dark lane?

When was the first step down this slippery slope,

when was that first step to no forgiveness.

No will to rise to beg for food,

numbness kills the pain.

The dream brings a warmth that feels good,

dark fog shades out consciousness,

an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain. 

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

First They Came For The Anarchists----.

 

       The venomous tentacles of the state always reach further and deeper into the fabric of society. Total control is the desired aim, control of your actions and control of your thoughts, that means control of information that you receive. The state's legislation put in place in pursuing certain Islamic groups, will now be geared up to attack all groups and individuals they see as potential voices of dissent, that wonderfully vague term "extremists" will now be used as a wide brush to sweep up any and all opposition to the the state's ceaseless march for control. For full control, all voices of dissent must be silenced. Naturally, anarchists, who are always vociferous in their opposition to this strangling control by the state, will be targeted, and are being targeted, in various countries across the capitalist globe.

      Europe has upped its attempt to silence anarchist media centres, autonomous centres, and any group or individual that challenges state control,  Italy, Spain, Greece, France and Germany, have all in recent times stepped up a gear in repression of these forms of expression. Now more than ever, we should all remember:

First they came for the anarchists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not an anarchist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

First they came for the anarchists. 

This from Bordered By Silence: 

      Over the past couple of months, there have been several acts of repression aimed at autonomous media project in the territory controlled by the French state. Below are two translated texts dealing with this.
        The first discusses criminal charges brought against an anarchist comrade for texts published on the long-running anarchist website cettesemaine.info. This site recently decided to stop publishing, while making clear that it is not because of the repression they face, but rather with the limits of counter-info projects and dissatisfaction with how much importance the internet is given in the anarchist space. The comrade’s trial is this Wednesday, November 8, in Paris.
      The second is from Indymedia Nantes about their decision to ignore a legal demand from the French cybercrime division ordering them to remove communiques about attacks and announcing contingency plans in case their site is blocked in the coming days.
      This repression follows on the German government’s recent decision to shut down Indymedia Linksunten and in a context in France where the current government has bypassed the usual democratic steps to write parts of the State of Emergency (that has been in effect for a year and a half) permanently into criminal law. Some see this as a broadening of the repressive measures developed for use against Islamist groups to include anarchists and social movements.
      As an anarchist involved in counter-info projects, as an anarchist period, I feel solidarity with the comrades at Indymedia Nantes and especially with the person being dragged before a judge this week in Paris. Fuck all courts and the world that needs them. One way of showing this solidarity is to share information about the situation and to make plans for how we can continue communicating in a context of increasing repression, while never forgetting that solidarity means attack.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

What Is The War On Drugs?

       This is not a new article, it first appeared in January 2015, it is as relevant today as it was the day it was printed. It is taken from a  collection of communiqués released by Chicago-based anarchist group Semillas Autónomas between 2014 and 2017. Some were flyers announcing or calling for specific actions, others were flyers distributed during actions, etc. One statement was written to be read at the Asamblea Popular to be held inside the consulate once it was breached, and was only circulated by video recording. For more information, visit semillasautonomas.org

 

 

Read version HERE:

Print version HERE

 What is the War on Drugs?” (January 2015)

The Mexican government claims to be fighting a war against narco traffickers. But the government has always been in the drug business, and cartels now control government officials and institutions across the country. The narco-state is indeed waging a war – but it is a war in the interest of the big players of global capitalism. It is part of continuing and enforcing trade agreements such as NAFTA, which force open all of Mexico to the unhindered extraction of profit. The function of the war is to impose a political and economic restructuring of Mexico in the interests of transnational capital. This war is good for big business. This is what social movements call narco-capitalism a form of globalization in which national governments are key players in the global drug trade, and the drug trade plays a key role in expanding the control of transnational corporations over land, resources, and people. Meanwhile, these same governments adopt an official policy of “War on Drugs” as a pretext for increased militarization and for subjugating their people.
        The US-sponsored War on Drugs in Mexico since 2006: 100,000+ people murdered and 30,000+ disappeared; mass graves in Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, and other states; a rise in attacks against transmigrants; increase in torture and executions; expansion of the drug trade and of extraction industries; mass economic displacement, land and water dispossession of indigenous peoples and campesinxs; neoliberal “reforming” of education, labor, judiciary, energy and finance.
       The United States has been funding this war through the Merida Initiative and other “anti-arcotics” programs. About $3 billion has gone to transnational logistics and consulting firms that “restructure” Mexican society to make it friendly to foreign investment, or to buying weapons from US manufacturers and paying private military companies. The same thing happens with the $11.3 billion that Mexico has spent. This is public money, money stolen from people on both sides of the border – and it is going directly to Boeing, Raytheon, Blackwater, Halliburton, and others. The US private sector and government also facilitate the transfer of military-grade weaponry into the hands of the drug cartels – over 90% of the weapons used in narco killings originate in the United States.
      The US sponsors the slaughter, thus justifying an increase of military intervention. As in the case of Colombia, an increase in US-backed (para)militarization correlates with high levels of displacement and dispossession of people, especially indigenous people, living in areas of strategic economic importance, and these displacements serve the interests of mining companies and other transnationals. As the war on drugs expands, transnational corporate control over entire regions expands, and exploitation of the people and the resources deepens.
        The United States has a history of training military and paramilitary forces in the use of terror. The governments tell us that terror is the product of cartel violence and that state military+police forces are the only possible solution. But government forces also strategically use disappearance, execution, torture, and mutilation against specific populations. They target students, workers, campesinxs, indigenous peoples, activists, all those who resist or who could resist, including communities organizing armed self-defense. The goal of terror is political: it is not only about killing people, but also about silencing, intimidation, eliminating political resistance, and destroying lifeways. The United States has perfected the use of terror over decades of experimentation in Central America and the Middle East: it is called counter-insurgency.

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

Athens, Insurrection Festival.

 

        If you can be in Athens around 12-14 November, you could be in for a wonderful few days experience. That's the dates of the of the Insurrection Festival, being held in the Athens Polytechnic University. Three days of everything from music, information, talk, discussion, workshops, theatre, fun and chat. What more could you ask for?

SUNDAY 12 NOVEMBER

16:00 Security on cellphone and internet / Digital sabotage
Bring your laptop or smartphone, and a usb stick (4 Gb enough)

19:00 ZAD Bure (France)
Story telling of rural conflicts in the struggle against the project of nuclear waste burial

22:00 Theater team Tsiritsantsoules
THE RHYME OF SAINT EVAΝGELOS SO-CALLED ALSO AS A SQUATTER by loyis lazarou

00:00 Music installation μουσική εγκατάσταση
URBAN CHAOS

MONDAY 13 NOVEMBER

16:00
The depiction of the relationship between insurrection and revolution in the historical experience of barricades, as a limiting point of the social-
political relationship

19:00 Projection
Adapt and destroy. The doctrine of counter-insurgency Introduction and conversation around the greek example

22:00 Past & Present
The organization of Exarchia’s defense on 6 December 2016 and the open social conflict fronts today

01:00 Projection
NO GOD NO MASTER ‘a history of anarchy’. Part 1o THE PASSION FOR DESTRUCTION (1840-1906)

TUESDAY 14 NOVEMBER

16:00 10 YEARS FROM THE INSURRECTION AT MALANDRINOS PRISON
The conditions that create the Insurrection, the battlefield and the de-briefing.

19:00 Intervention from political prisoners
INSURRECTION AND THE PRISON’S STRUGGLES TODAY

22:00 An attack to Florence Carabinieri station
A bomb outside the fascist library that ends up with the serious injury of a cop & and the repression wave that follows with squat evacuations and imprison of 2 comrades.
    Information and discussion with the participation of prosecuted comrade from Italy.

01:00 LIVE
ΟΧΕΤΟΣ
NOVA ROMA
LA RU
CASE
ΚΑΡΤΑΣ
-StreetDog (marocco)
-Ex-nihilo
-DOXA from Brava (france)
-16 MONKEYS ARMATA (italy)

DURING the festival
      free price brochures, books from movement publishers, workshops, collective kitchen.

insurrectionfestival@riseup.net

https://insurrectionfestival.noblogs.org/

Act for free receive by mail

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

Trees Or Tarmac??

 

       The destruction of the Hambach Forest continues, vast areas of rich forest land are being clear to create profit for RWE energy and construction company. This has been going on for some considerable time, but has been slowed down by persistent and determined opposition from locals and supporters from further afield. There is always a call for support to toughen and prolong the resistance to save what they can of this vast important wild habitat. Its destruction would be an ecological disaster, not just to the area, but would be another massive step in the deforestation of our planet. To survive on this planet we need more trees, not more concrete and tarmac. The corporate world will relentlessly devour all natural habitats, denuding our planet of green, and turning into a useless tarmac lifeless ball, all in the quest for profit. An insanity that only we, in our solidarity, can stop.

Dueren, Germany: 
Call from the Hambach Forest: We need all of you!

      From the 21st of November onwards we need all of you to help stop the cutting season this year!
      In three weeks there is going to be a trial concerning the lawsuit of BUND against RWE’s planned destruction of the Hambacher Wald this cutting season. The court published a “verdict” that already shows what kind of result we can expect: a piece of the forest that is not even in the existing cutting zone shall be protected. We expect RWE to try to start the destruction as soon as the trial on the 21st of November finishes. This year RWE plans to cut the oldest parts of the forest and all of the tree house villages.
      We have already constructed tree houses on many strategic points and more are planned. Now we need the voices and actions of as many people as possible to save the forest.
     We are going to demonstrate that this kind of exploitation of habitats for the purpose of profit can not happen without massive resistance. The struggle here is concerning everyone. One third of the German CO2 emissions are caused by lignite mining and the resulting damages to the climate are causing death, destruction, and forcing people from their homes worldwide.
     Get ready to come protect the forest in the middle of November. Organize yourselves in affinity groups in advance. Put your mobile numbers on the eviction list and spread our call to allies and friends.
    Everyone can support us in whatever way they feel comfortable. The tree houses are well equipped, open for everyone, and serve as safe spaces. We share the burdens of repression together. We have organized Out of Action places all over Germany. If you can’t come to the forest you can support us from your city through actions of solidarity and other means.
      We will keep the cutting zone squatted till the end of the cutting season. We will bring so much life to the forest RWE will not be able to carry out its plans this year. We will spread what happens during the cutting season with the help of diverse media coverage so that the whole world knows what crimes RWE is committing in the name of profit.
       In case of a widespread eviction we will reoccupy the forest on the forth weekend after day X with your help. Stay informed and spread the news to family, friends and allies. Solidarity is our strongest weapon.
        Together we will stop this crucial cutting season. Turn your theory into practice and live resistance.
       In the Hambach Forest and everywhere.
      Find more information about the cutting season and how to prepare: hambachforest.org/cutting-season-17
       All means to contact us: hambachforest.org/contact/

Useful information from a previous call for support:

       We have put together a call to action and translated it into different languages. Please help us spread it!
         We do not only want people to come, but we want everyone to be able to be active in the best way possible. That’s why we put together a plan and hope we’ll be able to realise it together with you

October onwards

        Beginning in October and continuing to the end of the cutting season, we will bring life to the area designated for deforestation to such an extent that RWE won’t be able to cut. To achieve this, we want to occupy as many trees as possible, so that they first have to evict the entire area before starting to cut. We will accompany any evictions with our own media channels. We will show the world that RWE wants to profit from destruction at every price. Our strongest weapon is, that we take care of each other. Everyone should only do actions with which they feel comfortable. The large tree houses should be accessible for everyone and be used as spaces for relax and take a break. We will try to carry repressions communally. We have organised out of action spaces throughout Germany.
       We believe that we can stop deforestation as a group! Turn theory into praxis and live a life of resistance! In Hambach and everywhere else.

Pack list
       If you want to come by during the cutting season, the following things might come in handy:
Any medicine you need to take
Water tight shoes, even better if you’ve got two pairs, in case one needs to dry…
Rain clothes
Sleeping bag
(Air) matress
Camouflage clothing (trousers, jacket, balaclava)
Knife
Head torch
Lighter
Toothbrush
If you’ve got one, a tent, otherwise we’ll find a place for you to sleep
If you have allergies, food that is suitable for you
small book for personal notes
sturdy, robust clothing
harness, if you’ve got one. There are some communal ones in the forest
Working gloves

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

Not Buying Anything - Still Legal!

         Consumerism is the drug that keeps this insane system going, consumerism is the idiotic process whereby we suck the planet dry, just to fatten the parasites that control the self destruct system under which we live.
        One of the many sites I enjoy visiting is "Not Buying Anything", when I visit it, it is like opening a window in a smoke filled room, you suddenly get a breath of fresh air.
       This latest piece is just another such, breath of fresh air.

"This isn't about your stealing anything. It's about your not buying anything."

        The system makes it very difficult to not buy anything, but it is still legal. They can't actually force us to be consumers.        Capitalist interests have pretty much wrapped it all up - you have to pay for everything. Some cities have even made it illegal to sleep outdoors, meaning you are going to have to pay someone to get off the street. What if you can't afford what they are asking?       Pay to sleep. Pay to eat. Pay to drink water. Pay to move. Pay to stand here. Pay to park there. They are always making it easier to buy and pay for things. Pay up, be imprisoned, or die. Pay more while you make less. Sick and tired, you try to break free.       Harvesting rainwater is illegal. Governments use satellite imagery to find, and tax, your backyard garden. Building codes make it impossible to build your own tiny home. When you are down to living in your car, you find it is illegal to sleep in your parked vehicle in many locations.       However, resistance is not futile. People in hyper-consumer systems have lived successfully without money all together. It is a full time job to resist so actively. The payoff is not being complicit in the sickness that is making our planet terminally ill.        Consumerism, and the ecocide that it is causing, is what should be illegal. It is clearly immoral to try to kill Mother Nature, and this heinous violent crime has billions of victims. Perhaps this crowded planet should have new laws concerning taking more than ones fair share of Earth's gifts.      Imagine if security staff thanked you for not buying anything on your way out of the store.

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

The State Can Never Be A Vehicle For Freedom.

         Anarchists are, at least consistent in one thing, the state can never be a vehicle to freedom. Be it a "socialist" state, Communist" state, a "representative democracy" state, they all walk the same road, control of the people in the hands of the few. For this consistency, many anarchists have paid with their lives, "revolutionary" state after "revolutionary" state, has hounded, exiled, imprisoned and murder anarchist, whose crime has been the belief that the people should control their own lives.

    Crimethinc has produced a excellent article highlighting some of those anarchists from the past, who paid dearly for their continuing struggle for freedom in the face of "revolutionary" states.

Restless Specters of the Anarchist Dead

A few words from the undead of 1917.

          This year is the centennial of two revolutions in Russia: one in which the people toppled the Tsar and another in which the Bolsheviks seized state power. Within twenty years, the Bolsheviks had executed or imprisoned most of those who carried out the revolution. Today, as the hashtag #1917live trends on twitter, we should remember the #1917undead, the anarchists who strove to warn humanity that statist paths towards social change will never bring us to freedom. Some of them, like Fanya and Aron Baron, were murdered in cold blood by authoritarian communists in the Soviet Union. Others managed to survive, betrayed by their supposed comrades, to witness the totalitarian results of the Bolshevik coup. Their voices cry out to us today from the grave. Let’s listen.

Read the full article HERE:

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A Divided London Anarchist Bookfair?

        I wasn't at the London Anarchist Bookfair this year, but from reports I have heard, I don't think I would have enjoyed it. Reports that I hear are all about confrontation between elements within the anarchist movement, hardly advertises solidarity and co-operation. However, like I said, I wasn't there and am going on second hand version of events. What follows is a first hand account, from somebody who was there, that I found interesting, especially the bit about reaching out to the local community. I post it in full, not to knock the London Anarchist Bookfair, but in the hope that others may come forward with their stories and help to address the problems, that seem to have arisen, find answers and build on what has gone before, making the London Anarchist Bookfair the magnet for activists and a platform to further our ideas out to the public at large.

 From On Uncertain Ground:

          This piece has been prompted by our experience on the joint South Essex Radical Media / Basildon & Southend Housing Action (BASHA) stall at the London Anarchist Bookfair – http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/ – on Saturday 28th October. We went along to this event to talk to people about our grassroots approach to promoting our politics. This year, we produced a special edition of the Stirrer paper to explain our approach and deal briefly with our frustrations with what passes for the anarchist ‘movement’: Here it is… https://southessexstirrer.wordpress.com/2017/10/29/here-it-is/
        The London Anarchist Bookfair has grown from humble beginnings to a large, packed event. The question that should be getting asked every year is this – what should the bookfair be trying to achieve? From our experiences of being on a stall, talking to punters and just generally people watching, our impression is that the bookfair seems to be an event put on by anarchists and radicals for the benefit of other anarchists and radicals. On the one hand, it does provide an opportunity for activists to meet, catch up with each other, swap ideas, debate issues and on occasions, start scrapping with each other (more on this later). On the other hand, if you were a non-political person curious enough to attend the event to find out what anarchism is and whether it’s something you’d want to pursue, would you leave any the wiser?
       From what we’ve seen of the bookfair over the last few years, the answer to that question is that someone wanting to find out about anarchism would more likely than not be leaving not much the wiser. Granted, with the range of groups and individuals attending and speaking at the bookfair, getting a coherent vision of what anarchism is across to a newcomer is a tough call. That’s partly down to the range of interpretations of what actually constitutes anarchism. We don’t have a problem with that – anarchism is something that should be constantly evolving and trying out different strategies and tactics to see what does and doesn’t work. However, we all could be better at communicating the fluidity of anarchism and how it evolves and develops to newcomers.
       For the last two years, the London Anarchist Bookfair has been held in an area of Harringay that so far has escaped the ravages of gentrification and still feels like a community. For the last two years that we’ve been to the bookfair in Harringay, it feels as if it’s an alien presence that has landed in the middle of a neighbourhood but has yet to develop any real connection with it. Given what’s been going on in the area with the Harringay Development Vehicle which is the local (Labour controlled) council offloading housing estates and other assets to Lendlease, a development company, the bookfair should be an ideal opportunity to get local community activists talking to anarchists and vice-versa.
      Granted, some activists we know in the area were pulling out the stops to do that and their work deserves to be applauded. Also with some of the talks and film showings, there was a decent effort to put class politics back on the agenda which has to be welcomed. There were some positive signs at this year’s bookfair of a recognition of the need to engage with working class people if we’re ever going to build a movement that will bring about real change. However, walking back down West Green Road to Seven Sisters station on the way home, the disconnect between the attendees at the bookfair and the people out and about on the surrounding streets was only too clear. If the bookfair is going to continue to be located in Harringay, there has to be a concerted effort from the organisers to engage the local community.
     You don’t need us to tell you that we’re living in uncertain, unpredictable and increasingly dangerous times. The kind of times when the need for a viable, progressive political alternative is greater than ever before. The kind of times when the varying strands of anarchism that make up the movement need to have a sense of urgency and be pulling out the stops to reach a wider audience. The kind of times when some of the navel gazing that characterises certain strands of anarchism and radicalism needs to be put to one side. The kind of times when an anarchist bookfair should be throwing its doors open to the working class community that surrounds the venue by involving them in organising the event so their voices are heard.
       We judge events like the London Anarchist Bookfair on the basis of whether we’d bring along a new, relatively apolitical contact from one of the estates we operate on with BASHA to give them a flavour of what anarchism is about. If we’d brought someone along in the morning and they’d departed by the early afternoon, given what the event was like up until that point, they could well have left with a fairly positive impression. If they’d been around after the early afternoon, they would most likely have been lost to the cause of anarchism for good.
     From what we can gather, there was an ongoing confrontation resulting from a number of radical feminists targeting transgender people. From mid-afternoon onwards we kept hearing shouting and heard anecdotal reports of people being verbally abused, shoved and mobbed, and stalls disrupted. Fortunately, our stall was located a fair way from the main locus of the confrontations and we were able to carry on operating but the deterioration in the atmosphere was noticeable. As we’re mainly class struggle and housing activists, albeit with some green tinges, we’re not well versed as to why some radical feminists have such a problem with transgender people and target them in the way they do. We’re doing some reading up on the matter and the more we read, the more baffled we are as to why, given how charged the whole issue is, material that any neutral observer would have seen as provoking confrontations was allowed to be circulated.
       If I was a curious newcomer to the bookfair, one not well versed in gender politics, and was a witness to what went on with the confrontations, my reaction would have been ‘what the ***k is going on here?’ and my response would have been to walk out and dismiss the idea of anarchism as a viable political option. Seriously, is this the face the London Anarchist Bookfair collective wants to show to newcomers, particularly new contacts we may want to bring along in the future and especially to anyone from the estates surrounding the bookfair venue? What happened from mid afternoon onwards hasn’t done the movement any favours at a time where we have to be focused on drawing in as many people as possible…

Dave (the editor)

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

Singing Rebels.

 

      It's November, just a wee reminder, to all you hairy rebels that have not been knighted, but want to wobble your dulcet vocal chords. This month sees the relaunch of the Red and Black Song Club.

     It is a libertarian left choir indulging themselves in songs of struggle, anti-fascism, and solidarity. No need to brush up your skills, just turn with skills or without experience in the the world of warbling.

     Tonight November is the first meet up, then it will be 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month, the venue will be the Glasgow Autonomous Space, (GAS).

    More info on Facebook @redandblacksongclub

 For directions to Glasgow Autonomous Space better to visit their site.

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

There Is Something Rotten At The Heart Of The Sytem.

        Well here we are, the clocks have gone back an hour, the kids come home from school in semi-darkness, and Scotland's cold, raw, damp winter starts to inextricably envelop us. All very well if you can don decent winter clothing, and turn the heating up in your home. However, this is 2017 Britain, where thousands can't afford that nice warm winter jacket, where thousands of households are wrestling with eating or heating, an inhumane cruel choice. It is an indictment on this country that to be in a home without adequate heating or food can be considered fortunate, for let's not forget, there is an army of homeless and rough sleepers who will face this winter seeking out shelter of some sort, perhaps a doorway, a quiet lane, or under a bridge. This in 2017 in the sixth richest country in the world.

     In our cities we have an abundance of empty properties, from shops, warehouses, workshops, offices and houses, but still we tolerate people sleeping rough and dying on our streets and lanes. Our political ballerinas have evolved a system whereby property is worth more than human life, and they have put in place a legal code that guarantees that relationship will be enforced. It is midnight, mid December, the temperature is plummeting, you are walking the streets seeking somewhere to lay your head for the night, you probably know that a night on the pavement might kill you. You come across an small empty, disused locked workshop, you enter find a corner and try to get some rest and survive. You are now a criminal, you could be forcibly removed, charged with criminal damage, and/or breaking and entering, the sanctity of that property is worth more than your life.

 Image by Robert Perry.

      Having lived a long life can be seen as a curse or a benefit, as it comes with memories. I think of all those children in poverty, the hungry families struggling as best they can in a cruel unforgiving system, the wandering homeless, that have plagued our country throughout my life, and I still hear, echoing from the that distant past, that looped tape, from the mouths of our parasitic political ballerinas, "we will end child poverty", "we will fix the housing problem", "we will eradicate poverty". They never seem to tire of mouthing their vacuous mantras, yet the must know within their hearts, that they are spouting, unmitigated, unadulterated, vicious bullshit.    

       The system will not allow for those unnecessary cruelties to be resolved, profit is the guiding factor, and history tells us that the gap between the rich and the poor is an ever widening chasm. A system that creates those who can purchase multi-million pound yachts, and fly in private jets to their private islands, needs the many to be exploited. We the many, produce an abundance of wealth in this world, the more the parasite class cream off for themselves, the less there is for us, the many. Until we crush and obliterate this system of profit first and foremost, we will continue to hear the false cruel mantras of our political ballerinas, "we will end child poverty", "we will fix the housing problem", "we will eradicate poverty" and we will continue to have some of our people die on the streets of our cities.

Image by Robert Perry.

      It is estimated that approximately 5,000 individuals rough sleep in Scotland each year. This year Winter Night Shelter, which is run by Glasgow City Mission stated that last year was their busiest year ever, with 605 people using their service on 4060 occasions. This is a staggering increase of 94% on the previous year. This is our country, the sixth richest country in the world, in 2017, there is something rotten at the heart of the system. 

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