The Only Home We Have.

        Regarding the previous post and the comment made by Loam, I have to answer it this way, as at the moment I don't seem to be able to comment or reply to comments on my own blog, Ah the wonders of the internet. 

      Thanks for the comment Loam,  I agree wholeheartedly, the title was more of trying to grab attention, to the fact that we all need to play our part to save where we live, for our sake. (I suppose I could have put it better.) There is no doubt that this little rock will continue to spin, the sun will continue to rise and set, many, many centuries after we have decimated its ecology and disappeared from history. We all need to play our part in trying to preserve the only home we have. We should do well to remember, "Spaceship Earth has no escape capsule".

     Now two wee poems that I hope, put my position more clearly.

Tomorrow’s World!

See the fat cat’s grinning smile

as Corporate Capitalism runs amok,

Chasing profit as it goes

firing millions of ordinary folk.

Raping and polluting land after land,

starting bloody wars.

Toxic waste, sweat shop wages

and oil covered sea shores.

Where have all the flowers gone

beneath this ozone free sky?

To join the birds, to join the fox

on yonder plutonium field to die.

Mercury fish, strontium lamb

trees that never show a leaf,

radio active beaches, toxic streams

good lean BSE-antibiotic beef.

In a world of epidemic, plague and famine

it’s bottled water and chemical food.

Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice

so you know its got to be good.

Beneath a sky that’s always black,

hurricane winds and endless drought,

its oxygen masks for the toxic air,

corporate profit’s what its all about.

Grand Plans

In this world where we serve oblivion

with a blind pride and sure conviction

creating plans to land a man on Mars

grandiose schemes to conquer the stars

eyes on horizons ever further afield

believing, to us the universe will yield.

Yet here on Earth we fail to see

a chaotic world of human debris,

our magnificent results thus far

a planet dying from a human scar,

oblivious that our plans sublime

are mere litter scattered in space and time.

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Your Planet Needs You!!

      The following statement was issued from one of the Hambach Forest  protectors following the recent death of a Hambach Forest protector, during an ongoing brutal police eviction process. This long standing struggle deserves all the support and solidarity we can muster. There are no borders in the struggle to preserve the ecological diversity of the planet. When part of the planet is plundered and decimated to the point of elimination of vast swaths of our ecological heritage, we are committing ecological suicide, we all suffer, this generation, and the following generations.

      This from one person in the Hambach Forest, via Contra Info:

Statement from one person in the forest

        Throughout a history of relentless and brutal police interventions, those occupying Hambacher Wald in opposition to RWE’s ecological devastation and structural violence, have been forced to seek recourse in even more inventive methods of non-violent resistance, often putting their own safety at risk.
      Over the years many of us have been physically violated, persecuted and put in jail for defending life in Hambacher Wald and beyond. Incessantly the police has chased us down – in this fatal instance in a tragically literal sense.
        Even if no direct causation can be established between police activities and Stefan’s lethal fall, throughout the current police operation a series of life-threatening interventions have been observed, such as the cutting of traverserses with people in them and – Germany, what?! – the emission of carbon monoxide in a subterranean chamber.
How many more broken bones do we need, how many more fatalities, until we will collectively open our eyes to the reality of police violence, to the role of the police in perpetuating mass-destructive corporations structural violence and to the police’s institutional function of protecting the interests of the wealthy to the detriment of the oppressed?      The sudden death of Stefan has not altered our initial motivations for being here. However shamelessly the police may proceed to evict the Hambacher Wald occupation, we shall not flinch, we shall not surrender – we are here, and if we must, we will come back. For the forest and for Stefan.

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Prison Island, UK.

       Looking at the policy of the British state regarding prisons, the impression one gets is that the UK population is the most criminal in Europe. The massive increase in the UK  prison population, up 82% in the last 30 years, puts England and Wales as the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe, with Scotland coming in as the third. However it is the definition of criminality that sets the standard. In the UK, those in prison with mental health problems is as high as 80%, prison is the last place for such vulnerable people. A very high proportion of the remaining approximately 20%, are there because  of social and economic problems and injustices.

    Prisons are not there to take "bad" people out of society and reform them, but are there as instruments of repression, to protect the wealth and power of the cabal of corporate and land owning parasites that control the economic system.      The UK state is involved in a massive expansion of prison building, because they see the need to be more repressive to contain the anger and frustration of the ordinary people, they see that anger and frustration as a possible threat to their privileges and power. So it must be contained. More and more legislation, more and more ways of taking people of the street, of closing down opposition. More and more surveillance tracking your every move. More and more prisons to deposit those caught up in their all encompassing dragnet. While a prison stands, nobody is free, the prison shadow hangs over us all. 

This PDF from Prison Watch gives greater detail to the march of the UK repressive state.

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The Heavy Price Of The Better World.

       The struggle for that better world always comes with a heavy price tag, on too many occasions it comes with the ultimate price, life itself. A very sad piece of news from the Hambach Forest eviction.

This from Contra Info:

19.09.18
        “A friend who has accompanied us as a journalist for a long time in the forest, fell today from a suspension bridge over 20 meters high in Beechtown and died. At that time police and RWE tried to evict the tree house village. The SEK was in the process of arresting an activist near the suspension bridge. Our friend was apparently on the way there when he fell.
      We are deeply shaken. All our thoughts and desires are with him. Our  compassion goes to all the relatives, friends and people who feel concerned.
       We urge the police and RWE to leave the forest immediately and stop this dangerous operation. No further lives may be endangered.
What is needed now is a moment of rest.
       Even if this is difficult for you at the moment, just as it is difficult for us to give such a factual hint: We recommend, in order to protect all activists, do not give any statements, nor even make any testimonies at the police. The accident must and will be reappraised, but the police are not the place to do that. Their interest is to blame activists.”
       Update: The deceased was a photographer and longtime friend of the occupants and he was doing a report on the eviction of tree houses. He fell on his back from a height of about 20 meters, not having resisted his injuries. The police invasion is over for now.
More information: https://hambacherforst.org

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Anarchist Gems To Read On Line.

 

       Spirit of Revolt members are as always, little beavers, while the archivist sorts things out, others are diligently scanning documents/pamphlets/booklets, etc., then seeing they are loaded onto the website so that you, no matter where you live, can read, enjoy and learn.

    We have just added a list of pamphlets, etc., in the Charlie Baird Collection, T SOR-6, to our "read on line" feature. These are very interesting and informative works on various aspects of anarchism, from law to economics. So visit the Charlie Baird Collection, and just scroll down and drink in the info.

T SOR-6-7-1, Bolshevism Promises and Reality: An Appraisal of the Results of the Marxist Dictatorship over Russia. G. Maximov.

T SOR-6-7-4, Anarchism and Formal Organizations. Research Group One. No. 23.

T SOR-6-7-5, Selected Writings. Errico Malatesta.

T SOR-6-7-6, Anarchism & Law. Alexei Borovoi.

T SOR-6-7-7, Catechism of the Revolutionist. Sergei Nechayev.

T SOR-6-7-10, Anarchism: arguments for and against, Albert Meltzer

T SOR-6-7-13, Introduction to the Anarchist Communist Association.

T SOR-6-7-14, Anarchist Economics: an alternative for a world in crisis. Abraham Guillen.

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Workers Remember Your History, Ricardo Flores Magon.

  Farewell

We cannot break our chains with weak desire,

With whines and supplicating cries.

'Tis not by crawling meekly to the mire

The free-winged eagle learns to mount the skies.

The gladiator, victor in the fight,

On who the hard-contested laurels fall,

Goes not into the arena pale with fright

But steps forth fearless, defying all.

O victory, O victory, dear and fair,

Thou crownest him who does his best,

Who perishing, still unafraid to bear,

Goes down to dust, thy image in his breast.

Farewell, O comrades, I scorn life as a slave!

I begged no tyrant for my life, though sweet it was;

Though chained, I go unconquered to my grave,

Dying for my own birthright- - - -and the world's.

Ricardo Flores Magon.

      

       Written just before his death while incarcerated in the Federal prison, Leavenworth, Kansas. At the behest of the Mexican Government, the US Government seized him, its agents fiercely beat him and held him for years until his death.       

        In anarchism, we are very fortunate, we have a rich well of activists that we can be rightly proud of and can take inspiration from, individuals who filled our history with ideas and ideals. There is a valiant history we can delve into and come up richer in ideas and stronger in our principles. Thanks to those tireless people who dedicated their lives trying to create that better world for all, we have a path, and are not walking blind.

      We should always remember them and record their lives. The following is taken from Libcom, one of the many individuals, from whom we should take inspiration, Ricardo Flores Magon.

 

      A short biography of Ricardo Flores Magon, the Mexican anarchist who took part in the Mexican revolution and was imprisoned several times throughout his life.

Written by Alan MacSimóin
Edited by libcom 

 Ricardo Flores Magon
Born 1879 - Mexico, died November 22nd 1922 - Kansas, USA
       Inside modern Mexico the name of Ricardo Flores Magon is well known. But outside Mexico few have heard of him. Born to a poor family in 1873, he became a journalist on the opposition paper 'El Demócrata' after finishing school. In 1900, along with his brother Jesús, he founded "Regeneración', a radical paper opposed to the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz.
      After release from a second prison sentence arising from his campaigning journalism, he moved across the border to the USA. Despite continual persecution and imprisonment by the U.S. authorities, at the instigation of the Mexican dictatorship - who had put a price of $20,000 on his head after he wouldn't be bought off with the offer of a place in the government. He would not be silenced.
     In 1905, Magon founded the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), a reformist organisation opposed to the excesses of the regime, which organised two unsuccessful uprisings against Diaz in 1906 and 1908. During his early years of exile he became acquainted with the legendary anarchist Emma Goldman, and it was partly through her that he moved from reformism to become an anarchist.
      With the outbreak of the revolution of 1910, the revolution that he and the PLM more than any other group or person, had paved the way for, Magon devoted the rest of his life to the anarchist cause. Through the influence of his ideas, large areas of land were expropriated by the peasants and worked in common by them under the banner of 'Land and Liberty', the motto of the PLM. This motto was later adopted by Emiliano Zapata, whose legacy inspires the EZLN rebels of the 1994 Southern Mexican uprising whose struggle continues today.
       As the revolution began on November 20th 1910, Magon summed up the aims of PLM: 

"The Liberal Party works for the welfare of the poor classes of the Mexican people. It does not impose a candidate (in the presidential election), because it will be up to the will of the people to settle the question. Do the people want a master? Well let them elect one. All the Liberal Party desires is to effect a change in the mind of the toiling people so that every man and woman should know that no one has the right to exploit anybody."

      A fortnight later he explained the difference between the PLM and other opposition movements: 

        "Governments have to protect the right of property above all other rights. Do not expect then, that Madero will attack the right of property in favour of the working class. Open your eyes. Remember a phrase, simple and true and as truth indestructible, the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves".

        By January, PLM forces were fighting in six of Mexico's states. Major towns, as well as rural areas, were liberated by anarchists. In March a peasant army led by Zapata, and influenced by the Magonistas of the PLM, rose up in Morelos. By now the nationalist opposition of Madero had turned some of its guns away from the troops of Diaz and begun to attack the anarchists of the PLM.
     In April, the PLM issued a manifesto to "the members of the party, to the anarchists of the world and the workers in general". Vast quantities were produced in Spanish and English to explain their attitude to the revolution:

      "The Mexican Liberal Party is not fighting to destroy the dictator Porfirio Diaz in order to put in his place a new tyrant. The PLM is taking part in the actual insurrection with the deliberate and firm purpose of expropriating the land and the means of production and handing them over to the people, that is, each and every one of the inhabitants of Mexico without distinction of sex. This act we consider essential to open the gates for the effective emancipation of the Mexican people."

       In massively illiterate Mexico, where many villages had only a handful of people able to read, the circulation of "Regeneración" had reached 27,000 a week. When Tijuana was liberated in May, most of Baja California came under PLM influence. They issued a manifesto "Take possession of the land...make a free and happy life without masters or tyrants".
      That month saw Madero sign a peace treaty with Diaz and take over as President of Mexico. Military attacks on the PLM increased, and towns were retaken by government troops. Prisoners were murdered by the new regime, sometimes after being made to dig their own graves. At a meeting in Los Angeles, Magon was asked to accept the treaty but replied "...until the land was distributed to the peasants and the instruments of production were in the hands of the workers, the liberals would never lay down their arms".
       Along with many leading PLM organisers, Magon was arrested (again) by the US authorities. The rebels were slandered as "bandits" and repression in both Mexico and the US reached new heights. Despite the setbacks caused by their relatively small size in a gigantic country, the attacks they suffered from the armies of two countries, and the terrible revenge exacted by the rich and their agents, new uprisings broke out in Senora, Durango and Coahuila.
      Such was the support for their ideas, that even the conservative British TUC felt obliged to invite Honore Jaxon, Treasurer and European representative of the PLM, to address their 1911 conference. One solidarity action especially worth mentioning was the 24-hour strike by two army units in Portugal protesting against the arrest of PLM militants by the US government.
         A new manifesto, emphasising their anarchism, was issued in September:

       "The same effort and the same sacrifices that are required to raise to power a governor - that is to say a tyrant - will achieve the expropriation of the fortunes the rich keep from you. It is for you, then, to choose. Either a new governor - that is to say a new yoke - or life redeeming expropriation and the abolition of all imposition, religious, political or any other kind".

       PLM and Zapatista rebellions continued until 1919, but their numbers and inadequate arms were not sufficient to defeat the state forces. However all was not in vain. In 1922 the anarchist CGT trade union was founded in Mexico city, and today the rebellion in the state of Chiapas can be seen as, partly at least, a continuation of Magon's struggle.
       During the years of struggle Magon opposed and fought successive so-called "revolutionary regimes," resisting both the old and new dictatorships with equal vigour. Imprisoned by the U.S. authorities in 1905, 1907, and 1912 he was finally sentenced to 20 years under the espionage laws in 1918. He died, apparently after suffering beatings, in Leavenworth Prison, Kansas, on November 22, 1922.
      When his body was brought back across the border, every town where the cortege stopped was decked out in the red and black flags of anarchism. In Mexico City, 10,000 working people escorted his body to Panteon Frances where it is buried. A flame had been lit that will not burn out until liberty becomes a living reality.

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Robbery With Violence.

 

     My few days escape was extremely pleasant, and it took the mind, momentarily, away from the manufactured, yet inevitable turmoil, inequality and horror of the capitalist system, even although it was still all around me. However, no matter where you hide you head, that capitalist nightmare is still there, biting at your backside. 

      Ten years since the so called "financial crisis", a euphemism for the gamblers vast loses, a period that seen the financial mafia demand that the various states reimburse them with what they had lost in their gambling frenzy. The public would have to pay for their greed driven gambling disaster. The plundering of the public purse would be politely know as "austerity". Ten years on and the gamblers are richer than ever, and the ordinary people are poorer than ever, and the mountain of debt that the financial Mafia ran up and was responsible for their plight, is now greater than ever. Considering the damage and misery inflicted on the ordinary people by this deliberate action, it is in fact robbery with violence.

     The financial Mafia is now merrily repeating its greed driven gambling frenzy, but with larger sums, while we the ordinary people continue our downward slide, thanks to the mountain of debt heaped on us by the mobsters of the financial world. So it is inevitable that another "financial crisis" is thundering along towards us. Do we accept a repeat of the last "solution", once again pile the debt into the public purse, while emptying the public coffers to reimburse the gamblers? Surely not, we must have learnt something from the last ten years.

      An extract from another interesting article from Roar Magazine by Jerome Roos.

      With inequality on the rise, global debt higher than ever and international tensions intensifying, the political backlash to the crash of 2008 has only just begun.

And:

       ------This new radical politics first showed its face in the global uprisings that rocked the established order from 2011 onwards. It has recently begun to consolidate itself in the form of vibrant grassroots movements, progressive political formations and explicitly socialist candidacies that collectively seek to challenge the untrammeled power and privileges of the “1 percent” from below.
        Even in the midst of the Syrian civil war, the bloodiest and most intractable conflict to have emerged in the shadow of the Great Recession, in a region so often deprived of hope for a better future, the struggle for democratic autonomy by the Kurds and their allies has demonstrated the concrete possibilities of a revolutionary political project in these tumultuous times.
      At this point, it is still far too early to tell whether this emerging anti-capitalist politics of the twenty-first century will be able to succeed in the face of a powerful nationalist backlash. But if the dramatic events since 2016 are anything to go by, the political fallout of the global financial crisis is only just getting started. The real confrontation, it seems, is yet to come.-------

It is well worth reading the full article HERE:

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See Yea.

        Off for a few days to visit a few of our favourite spots on the east coast, Arbroath, Dundee and St Andrews. So my wee rants will fall silent for a while.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

 

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