Mutual Aid Is A Natural Human Attribute.

 

 

          When it comes to the welfare of the people, time and time again, self organising, mutual aid and co-operation, comes out on top, well above and beyond any state run operation or corporate financed endeavour.

        The ravaging of Puerto Rico by hurricane Maria, left the people of Puerto Rico without electricity, among many other things. It has taken the state almost a year to get most of the country back on grid. In the meantime, anarchist mutual aid groups have sorted the problem for some of the smaller villages, months ahead of the state run operation. Whats more, the electric grid system installed by these groups belongs to the community. If only the majority would learn this lesson and act upon it, what a different world we would inhabit.

This from Anarchist News:

         In August, nearly one year after Hurricane Maria wrecked Puerto Rico’s electrical grid and plunged its 3.4 million residents into darkness, island officials heralded a milestone: The lights were back on. The state-owned electric company even tweeted a photo of a smiling family it said was the last to receive power.
          But Christine Nieves, an activist in Mariana, didn’t celebrate. She and her small mountain community near the southeastern coast had already restored electricity—on their own. Tired of waiting on the government’s halting repairs, she worked with a band of self-described “anarchistic organizers” from the mainland to install a small solar grid, one of more than a dozen like-minded efforts across Puerto Rico. By the time electric workers showed up, Mariana was two months ahead of them. (The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority declined to comment for this article.)
        The power uprising over the second largest blackout in world history provides a window into the civic and political landscape in a place where government institutions, saddled by bankruptcy and a federally appointed management board, failed in devastating ways. It also underscores a sobering reality a year after Maria: Many Puerto Ricans are, to some extent, still on their own. For eight months after the storm, Mariana residents lived without stable means of lighting, refrigeration or laundry. “People were on the verge, psychologically and physically,” says Nieves.
         She and her partner established Proyecto de Apoyo Mutuo, or Project for Mutual Aid, to coordinate clean-up efforts, prepare meals and check on locals after the storm. The initiative attracted the attention of a mainland group called Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, whose founding members did disaster relief work in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. To MADR co-founder Jimmy Dunson, Nieves’s efforts echoed his own group’s “anarchistic organizing”—revolution with more purpose than protest. MADR volunteers were already in Florida, helping in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, when family and friends alerted them of the dire situation in Puerto Rico. They pooled their own money and solicited donations to purchase water purifiers, solar power equipment and plane tickets to the island.
          “It was quite surprising when they showed up to our operations, and they kept coming back,” says Nieves. Together, the two organizations distributed food and water and provided basic health care, setting up a key project: the installation of a solar-powered “micro-grid” in Mariana, a self-sustaining electric system owned and managed by the community.
           Working with local construction workers, electricians and even firefighters, volunteers overcame understaffed ports and destroyed roads to import a solar array, battery bank and storage container to protect all of the equipment from future storms. Total cost: $60,000, funded by donations. The grid now powers an abandoned school turned communal kitchen, a laundromat and an office, where residents can charge their electronics and tools. The system does not reach individual homes, but its modular design can be expanded or transported to where need is greatest.
          Twenty miles to the northwest, volunteers have installed a smaller system in Caguas, a city in the heart of the island. Despite police efforts to block them, locals seized a building and turned it into the Centro de Apoyo Mutuo, or Center for Mutual Aid. “There are over a dozen mutual aid centers all throughout Puerto Rico,” says Dunson, “and if the funding comes in, we will work with each and every one of them to set up similar photovoltaic systems.”
            While there’s been little proselytizing in Mariana, radical ideas are in the air. “What we have talked about is self-governance,” Nieves says, “and we’ve talked about self-organizing.” She uses the Spanish term autogestion, or self-management, which anarchists have advocated since the time of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the 19th-century French philosopher who was the first to describe himself as an anarchist. Is the movement supported by authorities? “That question assumes that local government and police are actually involved and active,” says Nieves with a laugh.
         Elsewhere on the island, law enforcement has pushed back. Dunson describes one incident from October: Arriving in several vehicles, including an armored car, police conducted a night-time raid on a church that MADR was using as its base of operations in Guaynabo, a municipality west of San Juan. According to Dunson, officers claimed they were acting on a call about kidnapping and questioned the volunteers at gunpoint, asking if they were building bombs, involved in “antifa” or advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government. After searching their belongings without consent, Dunson says, police evicted them from the church, threatening them with arrest if they returned. (Calls to the Puerto Rico Police Press Office went unanswered.)
            While Dunson acknowledges that authorities sometimes assisted MADR by providing volunteers with food, water and other supplies to distribute, he argues that government is nevertheless poorly suited for disaster relief. The state-owned electrical grid, for example, was allowed to fall into such disrepair that even after Maria passed, it suffered at least two more big outages following patchwork repairs.
             “The government has access to a vast quantity of money and supplies,” he says. “But even if everybody in that institution had the best of intentions, due to their top-down nature, they do not have the fluidity or flexibility that more grassroots initiatives have.” He cites reports of supplies rotting in government offices and accusations that both island agencies and federal authorities hoarded desperately needed construction materials.

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

I Want To Walk With The Poets And The Dreamers.

 

        Sometimes I look around at the shear scale of the misery, poverty, deprivation and savage deaths that haunt this world, and I'm filled with a feeling of dread and hopelessness, but then again, I think, "no this world has an abundance of wonderful people who are pushing towards that better world for all."  Some may be dreamers, some poets, but all are fashioning a better, a fairer world that we can create.

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 radicalglasgow.me.uk

Pinochet Lives On.

       Margaret Thatcher's buddy, the psychopath Pinochet is dead, but his legacy marches on. The present government of Chile has held onto a lot of Pinochet's dictatorial laws and agenda. The people fought the dictator Pinochet when he was  alive, the vicious structure he created aided and abetted by the power mongers of the United States of America, are still being struggled against on the streets of Chile today. The people of Chile have existed in a blood soaked society through the Pinochet era to the present day, but they are battle hardened, and the youth of the country has taken up the struggle with determination.
This from Enough is Enough:

 

       The Chicago Conspiracy takes its name from the approximately 25 Chilean economists who attended the University of Chicago and other prestigious universities beginning in the 1960s to study under the neoliberal economists Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger. After embracing Friedman’s neoliberal ideas, these economists returned to assist Pinochet’s military regime in imposing free market policies. They privatized nearly every aspect of society, and Chile soon became a classic example of free market capitalism under the barrel of a gun.

The Chicago Conspiracy is about today. We began this documentary with the death of a dictator, but we continue with the legacy of a dictatorship.

       The Chicago Conspiracy is about the Day of the Youth Combatant. On this day, two young brothers and militants of the MIR, Rafael and Eduardo Vergara, were gunned down by police as they walked through the politically active community Villa Francia. March 29 is not only about the Vergara brothers—it is a day to remember all youth combatants who have died under the dictatorship and current democratic regime.

      The Chicago Conspiracy is about the students who fight a dictatorship-era educational law put into place on the last day of military rule. Over 700,000 students went on strike in 2006 to protest the privatized educational system. Police brutally repressed student marches and occupations.

       The Chicago Conspiracy is about the neighborhoods lining the outskirts of Santiago. They were originally land occupations, and later became centers of armed resistance against the military dictatorship. A number of them, such as la Victoria and Villa Francia, continue as areas of confrontational discontent to this day.

      The Chicago Conspiracy is about the Mapuche conflict. The Mapuche people valiantly resisted Spanish occupation, and continue to resist the Chilean state and the multinational corporations who strip Mapuche territory for forestry plantations, mines, dams and farming plantations. The government has utilized the dictatorship-era anti-terrorism law to jail Mapuche community members in struggle. Two young weichafes (Mapuche warriors), Alex Lemún and Matías Catrileo, were recently killed by Chilean police—one in 2002, the other in 2008.

         The Chicago Conspiracy is a response to a global conspiracy of neoliberalism, militarism and authoritarianism.

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

Couriers Unite

          Our corporate masters never miss a trick when it comes to cutting workers conditions and unloading their responsibilities. So along comes the "gig" economy, sold to the workers as freeing them up, allowing maximum flexible working conditions. Of course what they don't mention is that there is no sick pay, no paid holidays, no guaranteed income, and no protection if anything happens while you are working.  The bosses get a workforce that they have no responsibility for, no national insurance, no responsibility for accidents happening while on the job. It is a win win case for the boss. 

         The conditions that gig economy couriers work under can be dangerous, exhausting, and leave them struggling to pay their way. Most of them come out well below the living wage. However, Glasgow couriers that are tied into the UBER yoke are getting organised, fighting back, and demanding a fair deal. Though that desire in capitalism, is as rare as a two headed hippopotamus flying over Glasgow. That doesn't mean of course, that we should not get organised and take on the bosses for the right to decent working conditions.  

         Let's all get behind the couriers, and give them maximum support, and stand with them in solidarity, their struggle is our struggle.

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

Basra, Iraq's Spark Of Democracy?

     March 21st. 2003, the American imperialist military machine, with the support of its puppet allies, started operation "Shock and Awe", which rained down an unprecedented destructive barrage of modern weaponry on the people of Baghdad. The citizens of that country were being introduce to "democracy" Western style.

       Fifteen years of violence, corruption, exploitation, misery and death, and the country is still a quagmire of violence, death and battling power factions, some, of those factions that sing America's tune, backed by the West, others not.

       However the people are beginning to organise against the violence, corruption and inequality that the West spawned in that country. The protests in Basra have been ongoing for a couple of months now, and what is shaping is a mass protest that has dropped the barriers of religion and ethnicity. How long before the propped up puppet government asks its American master to go in and destroy this mass popular uprising, is another question. It is well worth reading the article in full, but here are a couple of extracts.

This from Enough is Enough:

      “Out Iran out out, Basra lives free” this is one of the main chant thousands of the protesters were shouting. The strong protesters back to the streets in the afternoon of Tuesday, 10/09 when the Prime Minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi failed to deliver his promises to meet people’s demands of July.

       Since the beginning of the protests on Tuesday,10 protesters killed and over 100 injured. They cut off the road of Umm Qasr on Wednesday, 04/09. Umm Qasr Port is part of the city of Umm Qasr and one of the couple ports in Iraq for entering goods to Basra and the rest of Iraq.

        The protests are getting bigger. They are very angry because they are lack of every basic service including clean water electric power. In this very hot weather while the temperature still reaches 50 degree people has no enough power. The concerns of people in Basra mentioned in my initial report of July still have not been taken in to the consideration by the Iraqi government.------

And:

     ----There are also unconfirmed reports of entering the US forces into the city of Basra watching the situation closely. Other reports are talking about fleeing most of the MPs, the chiefs of the political parties, heads of the companies and the directors of main services in the city. There is other report talks about fleeing government’s agents while some of the protesters found their places where they work and live.
      While I am not justifying violence from the protesters but the true is the police, securities and the Militias of the political parties have been very violent from the beginning of the protests in the afternoon of 04/09. There is other reason for the people in Basra to get very angry. They are very desperate and frustrated while for the last 15 years whoever came to power locally and centrally failed them. The people in Basra on one hand see themselves have been deprived almost of everything; on the other hand they see a tiny minority of their people have been beneficiary from the situation and living highlife.
      The true and the right thing is people in Basra regardless of their differences have been united, fighting back the local and central government for their legitimate and natural demands. It did not last long for them to realize the religion and the nationalism do not worth a single bread, single tablet, free education, free treatment, freedom and the rest of basic rights. 
      The protests and the demos have not been controlled by any political parties or any other side from the foreigners. They have so far rejected them because they have 15 years of experience with the regime. But they need to organize themselves in non-hierarchical independent groups in wherever possibly they can to coordinate their action against the state and its powers.

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

 

The Struggle Continues.

        One of the pleasures, and there are many, of working in the Spirit of Revolt group is that you get to read a tremendous amount of interesting material from the activities of anarchist from the present to the distant past.
      Recently while preparing images to put on our "Read of Line" facility I came across images of a booklet called "The Struggle Continues". As a lover of poetry this booklet held me up for quite a wee while in my processing, as I had to read it in full. It contains several wonderful poems, the first one was a particularly long poem called "The Devil's Cathedrals" by Patrick William Bradley Jnr. giving the poet's view on the missile silos and the world they can create.
      To give you a wee sample of the content I have chosen a few shorter poems from this wonderful little booklet.

A Class Act

The Wall Street Journal reports that
none of these fellows from
Groton and St. Marks
Williams and Yale
are suffering any ill effects
from their Vietnam service;
the War has helped them make
"the tough decisions/'
1 don't doubt that it has.
Surely when you've napalmed
some fishing village on the Mekong or
thrown a VC
out of a helicopter
it must be nothing
to tell the Economics Minister of Mexico
that he has to double the price of bread
or inform the Argentine Minister of Finance
that his steel workers will have to accept
a 40% reduction in wages.
Vietnam, South America or South Brooklyn
these guys have "no problem with that." 

Russell T Harrison.

IF

If you drive us crazy
and we kill you
you have committed suicide.

By Joseph Epperson

Marxist Humor

Dear Owners: Sorry,
but it doesn't look like
there's enough recent production
from your side
for us to keep your positions
open. Once again, sorry.
Yours Truly, THE WORKERS.

By Pamela Bond

 

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More On The Destruction OF The Planet For Profit.

 

      It is obvious to any intelligent observed with a modicum of integrity who views this insane economic system, that it will deliberately destroy the planet in its drive for corporate power and increased profit, the system cannot survive otherwise.

     It has a variety of ways of increasing profit, slashing workers conditions, increasing production efficiency, (throwing more workers on the dole) and of course, wars, probably the biggest corporate growth method in their armoury. At no time is the plight of people in this mad drive for increased profit and power a consideration, they are simply dispensable units of no consequence.

Another interesting article on planet destruction from 325: 

      For a few years now the TAP question has jumped to the headlines.

Precisely since 2013, the TAP consortium was chosen to carry out the construction of a gas pipeline through Turkey, Greece, Albania, the Adriatic Sea right to Italy, with Salento as its final destination so that it could be linked to another gas pipeline, the TANAP, which joins Turkey with Azerbaijan (where natural gas fields are to be found), and finally become SNAM, going up through the Italian Apennines, the so-called ‘Adriatic network’ – up to Austria.

      Thousands of kilometres of pipelines, gas pressurization and depressurization plants, thrust wells, micro tunnels to link the mainland and the sea, optic fibres cables along the whole route, construction sites that will destroy landscape and local environments, high risk of accidents and explosions, air pollution, heavy vehicles on the roads for years to come, exponential increase of police forces, industrial transformation of the economy of a whole area and consequent loss of all choices for the people who live there. An example of this is ILVA in Taranto, a few kilometres from Lecce and Melendugno, where the gas pipeline will arrive.

         Boasted to be the vanguard of progress in the 60s, ILVA, the biggest European iron and steel plant, has left only a desert, animated by a high concentration of tumours and diseases and no other possible means of survival compatible with the plant. For a number of years this has also been happening in the Lecce area. The Xylella affair and the withering of the olive trees, strongly suspected, even by the judiciary, to have been started by and continues with the aim of benefitting big agro-pharmaceutical multinationals such as Monsanto, Bayer and others, along with the TAP gas pipeline, give an idea of an attempt to dramatically transform a territory, probably considered unproductive by an economic model accustomed to exploiting every possible square centimetre. A recent bill of the Italian minister for Agriculture which, to tackle the Xylella problem imposes massive use of pesticides, from roadsides to the countryside, and failure to do so implies huge fines, is an absolute confirmation of this. So-called renewable energy with its wind and solar energy farms, biomass-fuelled plants and the massive concreting over and privatization of the coast, the latter destined to favour the tourist industry, are important parts of this picture.

Energy

         But if a local look can help, it turns out to be absolutely limited and limiting if we want to better understand what the TAP gas pipeline is, its implications and reasons for being, mainly the same as those of the sources that produce and transport energy. This society or system, which many consider inseparable from the State apparatus, the international and economic bureaucracies that dictate the rules on a global financial level, is a heavy devourer of energy and will become so even more; and it takes little to realize how this reflexion is unquestionable. Two examples more than others show how the need for energy is considered irrevocable, and consequently strategic, primary.

        The fact that the capitalist economy feeds off war is nothing new. Wars are often waged precisely in order to give new lymph to state economies in crisis, through the production of weapons and machinery. Or else, it is precisely the research, possession and management of fossil energy sources that dictate the calendar of some wars. Consider for example what’s happening in Syria, precisely where there are huge deposits of natural gas and the population has been slaughtered in a forgotten war for a long time. Whatever the reasons that feed a war conflict and the resulting dose of death and devastation, this cannot take place without an impressive use of energy. A single bomber fighter (an F-15 fighter uses 7,000 litres of kerosene per hour) can give a good indication. ---------

Read the full article HERE: 

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

    

 

A World Of Trees Or Tarmac, The Choice Is Ours.

      The Hambach Forest has been a battle ground for a number of years now. The resistance by people from all over against the turning the largest forest of its kind into a mining area has been constant. However, over the last year or so, the authorities have stepped up their brutal and forced eviction. As usual the authorities are on the side of big business and will bring the full force of their trained thugs down on those who resist the march of the corporate world, as it decimates and plunders our world to the detriment of all life.

     This is a call out from the resisters still fighting, against overwhelming odds, within the forest, as there position is being met with consistent and ever increasing force. This is not just about the Hambach Forest, this is about our planet and the well being of all life, it is a battle for a sustainable life or a corporate world of  barren tarmac and industry.

This from Contra Info: 

       Right now a large scale police action in the Hambach Forest occupation is taking place! The protest camp fighting against energy company RWEs destruction of land and climate must be sustained until the last tree is standing! The eviction of the occupation is coming ever closer, and the struggle is becoming clearer every day now.
         Climate change does not stop at the borders, and neither does our movement! Therefore we are calling for actions of solidarity to take place all over Germany, all over Europe, and all over the world!
The Hambach Forest occupation has become a focal point in the struggle for climate justice worldwide, and now, as we are preparing for the struggle to come, we need all your support!
      So whether you are climate activists, anarchists, anti­police­brutality organizers, or you simply believe in fighting for justice, the callout is clear:
Organize yourself, take action, and show your solidarity!

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

Phoney Figures Conceal The Savage Insanity.

        Though this article from Its Going Down, original source, Anathema, was referring to America, it applies to the entire capitalist world. The three pillars of the capitalist cathedral that are necessary for its survival are, increase market share, reduce costs, and increase profit margin. Of course these are impossible to maintain in a finite world. Disaster for the many is the only outcome of such an insane system, its destruction is the only road open to a sane and just world, and that task is up to us, the ordinary people of this world, the corporate parasites will fight tooth and nail to hold on to their privileged insanity.  

        The following essay from Anathema argues that the success of “our” economy that we are told about over and over, from a variety of parasites, is nothing more a cycle of boom and bust that is designed to explode every few years, trapping us both in poverty and jobs that we hate.
        Despite constant governmental controversies and the raging disaster that is the global capitalist system, in late August President Trump was able to announce record-setting economic success as the U.S.’s bull market became the longest running in its history. For those struggling to find work and stay afloat, it may be surprising to hear that the economy is doing better than ever and unemployment at an all-time low. How is that possible?
       To start with, the stock market is not an accurate indication of how well the economy is actually doing. Even to many capitalist experts, the current valuations of the market seem like a serious stretch. But more importantly, to correctly assess current economic phenomena would require a historical perspective on capitalism and certain insights into its tendencies that no mainstream economist is willing to take on — hence professional analysts’ sometimes amazing inability to understand or predict economic trends.
       A basic tendency of the capitalist system is that it needs to keep expanding in order for it to preserve itself. At this point in its history, global capitalism has been struggling for some time to find new markets and other ways to continue growing profits at the massive rate that is now necessary. Its growth has happened through increasingly constricting labor costs in a number of ways – through employers decreasing full-time jobs with benefits, automating more jobs, and employing temporary, part-time, or even unpaid labor, as in the notorious case of prison inmates. Some specific manifestations of this have been the rise of the gig economy, which, in promoting “flexible” working arrangements, cuts the costs and responsibilities that corporations would have if they maintained a permanent workforce; the adjunctification of labor in universities, in which professors are hired on a cheaper, temporary basis instead of the university maintaining tenure-track lines; and a major shift towards what’s called just-in-time production, which similarly involves a dramatic increase in temporary work, as employers adjust their workforce based on supply and demand.
       So the fact that Walmart is posting high earnings does not mean, as mainstream analysts are suggesting, that consumer power is up and the economy will keep doing great. It just means that Walmart is a corporate distributor using just-in-time supply chains to crush labor and reduce costs to the absolute minimum. Meanwhile, news media is reporting unemployment in the U.S. is at 3.9%; it seems poised to hit 3.7%, the lowest it’s been since 1969. As we’ve written previously, this low number is actually the result of more and more people giving up on looking for work and no longer being officially counted in the “workforce.” This number has nothing to do with the total population of the U.S. and the significant actual changes in the nature of labor mentioned above. It is hopelessness and misery that are spreading, not the number of jobs.
         At what point will global growth actually peak, and another recession kick in? The U.S.’s current economic success is in part the result of the Trump administration’s massive tax cut, spending increases, and aggressive stance on trade, all of which have been calculated to grow the market for now without necessarily holding up well in the long term.
       Moreover, trade tariffs and the looming reality of Brexit stand to lead to a loss of investment confidence and tank the markets; however, it seems very possible that the escalatory trade threats with China are just Trump politicking and that nothing will actually happen until after the midterm election. The real sign of a looming recession is wage inflation, meaning the rise in the price of goods that happens when wages increase.
       It seems obvious, given the reality of employment conditions in this country, that there will not be any significant wage growth any time soon. Average hourly wages have risen only 2.7% in the past year, which is much lower than usual in a strong economy. What the current market’s success really indicates, then, is ongoing success by employers in keeping their workers underpaid and unstable, while pushing more and more people out of the job market altogether. While labor organizing and reforms may occasionally still have some successes, to reverse these trends and go back to better labor conditions under capitalism is structurally impossible for the capitalist system, which depends on increasingly minimizing labor costs.
      The only way forward for this economy is for the obscenely rich to get richer through devastating the livelihoods of more and more of the world, crushing the ability or will of the latter to do more than survive, let alone rebel.

        The two sides of the cancerous capitalist nightmare, the privileges of corporate parasites depend on the poverty of the many.

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

In This Economic System Brutality Repeats Itself.

 

        There is always talk of change, but in this capitalist system, certain things never change. I wrote this little piece back in 2012, and here we are in 2018 and the same  basic structure still continues. Wealth and power control our lives, that wealth and power is created by the daily grind of the ordinary people. We furnish them with the wealth and power to continue exploiting and controlling our quality of life.

February 2012:

       We should never forget that in any industrial struggle you are not only fighting your employer, but the powers that be. The authorities will always throw the full extent of their power in support of the employer and against the workers. You elect them and they support your employer, that's how the system works. That power can be police intimidation/brutality/provocation, to bringing the troops onto the streets to crush the resistance of the group in dispute. Britain is no different in that respect, we have had the troops on the streets on numerous occasions. Troops were put on the streets in Liverpool during the 1911 dockers strike, resulting in two strikers being shot dead on the street. Later in Glasgow 1919 during the 40 hour week struggle, once again the state brought troops on to the streets. That event in Glasgow became known as Bloody Friday. We can go away back to what was probably the first organised strike in the country and the then authorities ran true to form and brought the troops out against the strikers, that was the 1787 Glasgow weavers strike. Don't ever expect "YOUR" elected representatives to support you in any workers dispute, they support the system, which is one of exploitation and business orientated, your are just the replaceable wee cogs in their greed machine.

Let's jump forward, 1984/85 miners strike

       Of course it is not just industrial disputes that the full force of the wealth and power cabal will come down on the public. Any resistance to whatever  legislation they wish to force on to the public will be met with the same brutal onslaught, jump forward to 1990, remember the poll-tax? In that case it was a victory for the people.

       Real change for the benefit of all our people will only come when we demolish this greed driven exploitative, unjust system, and replace it with a society that is free from the profit motive, sees to the needs of all our people, and is built on sustainability.

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

Under The Fifth Rib.

 

         September, another month, another opportunity to poke you nose into one more of Spirit of Revolt’s little gems from the past. This month we have chosen a 1939 publication by the Glasgow Anarchist Communist Federation, Under The Fifth Rib, by H. T. Derrett. It is part of our Charlie Baird Collection, T SOR-6-7-23. The Glasgow Anarchist Federation had their address as, 287 Netherton Road Glasgow, has anybody any idea if it is still there, and if so, who or what occupies the place? Enjoy and learn and perhaps peruse the catalogue while there, as over the last month or so we have added a considerable amount of new "Read on line" documents. This is an ongoing process, so keep coming back and do a wee bit of browsing. I'm sure what you find will be rewarding.

Under The Fifth Rib, by H. T. Derritt.

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

Edinburgh Is ACE!!

        As usual, our friends in Edinburgh are busy, the hub of that activity being ACE. Here is the latest list from that hive of activity.

 ACE OPEN SATURDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER
        ACE is open tomorrow Saturday 1st September 1pm – 4pm. You will be able to access and borrow books from the Scottish Radical Library and also look at the Autonomous Archive of pamphlets, magazines, news-sheets and leaflets. Other ACE facilities will also be available including the Info Shop with books and pamphlets for sale and free leaflets, info on the grass-roots and revolutionary groups which meet in ACE and are active in Edinburgh, Chiapas Solidarity merchandise and info, free use of broadband computers etc..
       We hope to open regularly on the first Saturday of each month. This is dependent on having enough volunteers and this is where you can help – no experience needed as you would be on the shift with someone who was a regular at ACE. If interested in volunteering then please leave a message on ACE facebook, ring ACE on 0131 557 6242 during opening times, or email ecap@lists.riseup.net (ACE email not working).
ACE OPENING TIMES
        Every Tuesday 12-3pm. The last Thursday each month 6pm – 8pm. We are no longer open on the second Thursday of each month. Watch out for news on further Saturday opening.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Sat 1 September:
     Ace Saturday Opening Everyone welcome to pop in & check us out 1 - 4 pm
IWW in the Park BBQ
     The Meadows, hosted by Edinburgh IWW 2 - 6 pm
Mon 3 September: 
     ECAP monthly meet At ACE 7 - 9 pm (meetings first Monday each month)
edinburghagainstpoverty.org.uk
Thurs 6 Sept: 
      Living Rent Housing Protest, Muirhouse high rise council tenants demanding the Council end dampness and carry out much-needed repairs
Fidra Court, Pennywell Medway, Muirhouse EH4 4SE
1pm - 2.30/ 3 pm all welcome
Buses 37, 16, 27.
Wed 12 September: 
ATH Meeting ACE 7 - 8:30 pm
Sat/Sun 22/23 September: 
      Social Centre Conference At GAS, Glasgow --
Check out ACE on facebook @AutEdinburgh for news of the many regular events held at ACE including public discussions and film screenings.
         We also recommend you checking out the sites and facebooks of the several great groups based at and associated with ACE which include Action for Trans Health, Sisters Uncut, the International Womens Strike , Edinburgh Antifa, the Industrial Workers of the World, Oficina Precaria, the Anarchist Federation, Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group, Migrant Pride, Edinburgh in Protest, Decolonising Discussion Group, Anarchist Feminist bookfair, the Spit collective and ECAP.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglashow.me.uk

Don't Ask For The Right To Strike, Take It.

       It is a strange thought that in a so called democracy, you can be employed but if a difference between you and your employer arises, you can't stop working to try and get the situation resolved. The law, as in slave society, forbids you to stop working, you first have to jump through hoops organised by the state and your employer.

     The right to strike has continually been attacked by employers and this mindset has always had the backing of the state as it continually tightens the legislation governing our right to strike. The aim of course is to destroy one of the main tools in the armory of the workers as they struggle to hold onto, or improve their conditions. Their idea is that during disputes you just keep working while the employers indulge in so called talks, that can drag on indeterminately while you still keep producing their profit, and your grievance becomes a pantomime of talking shops.

     Most Europeans consider Sweden to be one of the more socially conscious states on the continent, but even there, the right to strike is under fierce attack, sadly backed by the big unions.

This from Gatorna:

        This is a video in English about the Right to Strike rally in Sweden and the demonstration that was held on Saturday August 25 in Stockholm by anarchist and autonomous organizations, unions and individuals. 2000 people joined the demo. STRIKE BACK was a mass action with the purpose of defending worker's rights in Sweden. Recently the heads of the swedish trade union confederacy made a deal with the employer's confederacy severely limiting the right to strike. While it hasn't been turned into law yet, any plausible government alternative after the election this September are likely to pass it.We see this development as part of a larger pattern of impeding working class struggle across Europe, as seen in the development in countries such as France or Poland in the last years. See the call for the action bellow.

        We publish the call for a nationwide social strike on the 25th August in Stockholm, launched by the “Strike Back” movement against the project of a law that drastically limits the right to strike. The law was proposed as a response to the mobilizations of the dock workers in Gothenburg, to close down the already limited possibilities for workers to call for a legal strike. This proposal is but one episode of a longer series of attacks to the right to strike in several European countries in the last years. As the call implies, if they attack us in the workplaces, we will bring the strike into the streets, taking up the determination to reinvent the strike expressed recently in Sweden by the young Afghans striking against deportations and globally by the women’s strike. How the limitations to the right to strike are part of an overall transformation that tries to turn workers into a just in time asset, how to join forces and confront the attacks to the strike on a transnational level, these are for us the open questions we are looking forward to discuss in Stockholm in autumn.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

The Release Of Some Bile.

        This little piece is just the release of some bile that has been bothering me for some time now.

       Europe, one of the supposed centres of the civilised world, an extremely wealthy enclave. The usual story put about of how the Europeans came so wealthy is that here was the heart of the industrial world, a continent of hard working intelligent people who introduced the world to a multitude of inventive industrial processes.
        Of course this mythical history of Europe, is built on a series of massive lies. The wealth of Europeans, was 100% built on savage brutality. We Europeans sailed forth and landed on a continent we called America, plunder it is lands and brutally killed its people, genocide was the foundation of the wealth that flowed from there to Europe, bolstered by the savage growth of slavery. It is estimated the the indigenous population varied between 5 million and 15 million, but by the end of the "Indian Wars" it had dropped to a little over a quarter of a million. We arrogantly rampaged through Arab Africa treating the indigenous population as lower animals slaughtering where we felt necessary, to allow us to plunder their resources. Sub-Sahara didn’t escape the European blood lust, we moved into a land where people had live for countless centuries and called it ours. Any resistance to this mindset was met with savage slaughter and genocide. In that vast and ancient country of India, once again we moved in, called it ours and subjected its people the some of the most horrifying slaughter imaginable, countless millions dying as our iron grip milked the country for the benefit of the wealthy Europeans, in this case mainly British. China wasn’t over looked in the European arrogant attitude of superiority, Asia and China received the same treatment as we intended to call the part of the world ours, and plunder with impunity. As usual local resistance would be met with the customary European savagery.
        The wealth of the Europeans is soaked in blood, for centuries we have prospered on the suffering and death of countless millions, and most of the conflicts across the planet today, are actions of that arrogant bunch of Europeans, (of course that includes those who settled in America), as they try to hold onto what they see as their right to plunder and control the world’s resources. Nothing has changed in the arrogant attitude of the established wealth of the Europeans, and nothing will change until we recognise that no group has the right to dominate any other group. Nothing will change until we get rid of this unjust system of arrogant wealth and power accumulation, and replace it with a system of social justice, a system built on sustainability and the needs of all our people.
Burrp. 

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