The Brutal Chilean State.

      Some images showing the brutal repression by the Chilean state against the population protesting against poverty, injustice and corruption. These mass protests in Chile have been going on for months, just one of the many countries where the population have taken their anger to the streets. See arrezafe for more details.

         On the repression that exists in Lo Hermida, Gonzalo Llancoa a doctor and a young villager talked with left Diario and counted the plight of constant police repression faced by and neighbors of Lo Hermida, and includes dozens injured with buckshot, people who are attacked by carabinieri in their own homes, fields and plazas violence against children, adolescents and people of the sector, among others.

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Pomp Privilege And Greed.

         I wrote this little piece away back in November 2012, can you tell me what has changed, other than new names being admitted to the Privileged Parasites Club? It is odd that we struggle to have a half decent life but allow this pomp and privilege to go on at our expense. Why don't we grow up and get rid of this bunch of pompous privileged shysters?

         Imagine you get a nice easy job, you get paid for turning up, you can if you wish just sleep on and off and hobble off to the bar now and again and it pays well. You start to fiddle the expenses, get caught and sentenced to 9 months in prison. You are released after 9 weeks and you wander back to your old job, move in and carry on as if nothing had ever happened. Fantasy? Well no, it is the rules in that club of pomp and privilege, the House of Lords.

         Take the case of one Paul White, last year he got convicted of fraudulently claiming £14,000 worth of false expenses at his place of work. Straight from prison after serving nine weeks of a nine month sentence, back to his old job and for the months of April and May he claimed £4,596 in expenses and for June this year has claimed £3,600 in expenses. The June expenses were for turning up on 12 seperate days at £300 a day, plus £285 travelling expenses. That's a total of £8,481, not bad for 3 months part-time “work”.

       How does he do it? Well he is one of those privileged parasites who has those magic four little letters in front of his name, “LORD” . Paul White, is better known as Lord Hanningfield, and the House of Lords is his nice little earner, of course it is tax payers money that he is pocketing and it is just for turning up.

 It's tough trying to adjust after prison.

     However I don't want you to think that Lord Hanningfield is alone as the only privileged benefit cheat. His Lordy pal Lord Taylor of Warwick, not only a cheat, but a liar, done for lying about where he lived and fiddling £11,000, served 3 months of a 12 month sentence, and in June this year his fingers were in the honeypot again, claiming £2,100 in expenses.

     Of course there more of these members of this privileged parasite club that have fiddled and the went back to business as usual. One Baroness Uddin, though not prosecuted, was told to pay back fiddled expenses to the tune of £125,349, has this June claimed £1,800 in attendance allowance. Try to think of who you know in your neighbourhood, that might have in some way fiddled at work, went to prison and then back to their old job, no questions asked? So why do we tolerate a bunch of parasites washed in pomp, privilege and impunity, all at our expense.

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The Police And Deaths.

        Deaths after police contact is a subject that the media doesn't pay too much attention to, perhaps they don't want to spoil the illusion of the friendly cop on the beat. However those deaths are there and rising, which should be ringing alarm bells in the heads of the general public. Police custody deaths for 2017-2018 was the highest for a decade, a total 23 people died in or after police detention, an increase of 14 on the previous year.
       Deborah Coles of Inquest stated that austerity was a factor in this increase, due to mental heath services being under funded and overwhelmed. A high proportion of those individuals who died after police contact had mental health issues, drug and/or alcohol problems.
     Another disturbing fact regarding deaths after police contact is the disproportion of these are from ethnic minorities. A record number of black people died after use of force or restraint by officers. Last year the number of deaths after use of restraint or force also rose, 2016/17 of deaths from force or restraint, 5 out of 15 were from ethnic minorities, up from 3 out of 11 for 2015/16.
      While death after contact with the police is not a rare event, a police officer being prosecuted is a very rare thing, to be found guilty is even more rare. It is almost 50 years since a police officer has been prosecuted regarding death in police custody, this despite innumerable unlawful killing verdicts and the fact that there have been more than 3,000 such deaths since 1969. Deaths in police custody and deaths from direct contact with the police, it doesn't seem to make much difference, if there ever is a prosecution we should expect a not guilty verdict to come up.
      How far back do we go? Blair Peach 1979, killed by a baton blow to the head, Stephen Waldorf, 1983, shot by police officers, James Ashley, 1998, shot, Harry Stanley, 1999, shot, Jean Charles De Menezes, 2005, shot making his way to work, Abdul Kahar, 2006, shot, Mark Duggan, 2011, shot, and of course the 2009 assault and death of Ian Tomlinson. From that list, one prosecution and a not guilty verdict. 

 Death of Ian Tomlinson at the hands of the police.

       Ian Tomlinson's death at the hands of a police officer must be the first where there was clear video evidence of the assault and dozens of eyewitnesses but that didn't make any difference, the verdict was still not guilty, later we get the full story, PC Harwood, it seems, had a record of violence with 10 formal complaints against him. Ten complaints, one videoed assault and death, one prosecution, one not guilty verdict. The British judicial system at work.
     Of course the police are the police the world over, from recent figures it appears that in America, an African American dies in an extra-judicial police killing every 36 hours. Who are they protecting?

Total deaths in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police, England & Wales, 1990-date   Type         Met Police   Other forces   Total Custody           273             832             1105 Pursuit              54             355               409 Shooting           30               42                 72 All deaths        382           1346             1728  Total deaths in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police England and Wales 2019.    RTI=Road Traffic Incident. Type           Met Police   Other forces    Total Custody             2                  10              12 Pursuit              4                   11             15 RTI                    4                     1               5 Shooting            1                    2               3 Total                 11                  24             35

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The Hungry Keep Feeding Capitalism.

       Surely if in the richest capitalist country on the planet there are millions of the population going hungry, it should be blatantly obvious that the capitalist system doesn't work for the people. Country after country sees continuing and rising poverty and homelessness, and still we are sold the myth that capitalism is the best economic system for this planet. Do we honestly believe that this system of inequality and injustice and growing poverty and hunger is the best that the human mind can come up with? Ask anybody if they can think of a better way of distributing the wealth that we create and I'm sure they will come up with an answer, but we put that aside and accept the lies and illusions spun by the rich and powerful parasite class. Why?

This from Global Research: 

      In July of 2013, Rose Aguilar wrote a wonderful article for al-Jazeera (1), in which she discussed the dire hunger crisis that envelops the US today. In her article, she brought back a memory of something I had long forgotten, an event that so outraged the American public that the government was temporarily forced to respond with more humane policies. That event was a 1968 CBS special hour-long documentary called Hunger in America, in which viewers literally watched a hospitalized child die of starvation. Nixon responded because the public outrage left him no choice, but Reagan quickly dismantled those improvements.
      When Reagan came to power in 1980, there were 200 food banks in the US; today there are more than 40,000, all overwhelmed with demand and forced to ration their dispersals. Before 1980, one out of every 50 Americans was dependent on food stamps. Today, it is one out of four. Before Reagan, there were 10 million hungry Americans; today there are more than 50 million and increasing. A substantial part of the Great Transformation included not only tax cuts and other benefits for the wealthy, but a simultaneous massive reduction in budgets for social programs – in spite of the fact that Reagan and the secret government were creating the conditions that would desperately require those same social programs.
     That 50 million hungry Americans today includes the 25% of all children in the US who go to sleep hungry every night. About 25% of the American population today cannot buy sufficient food to remain healthy, with most of these being hungry for at least three months during each year. It is so bad that many college students have resorted to what we call “dumpster-diving” – looking in garbage bins for edible food.
      In 2013, America’s largest food bank in New York City delivered more than 35 million Kgs of food, and still 1.5 million of the city’s 8 million inhabitants are hungry. After that CBS documentary and prior to Reagan’s appearance, New York had almost no need for emergency food services, and had only 28 food agencies. Today that number is more than 1,000. The problem is so serious that many agencies fear that desperation for food will lead to increasing violence.
     By contrast, only about 5% of Chinese said there had been times during the previous 12 months when they had been hungry, while in the US that number is now 25% and still rising. Maura Daly, a social agency spokesperson said,
      “People have a lot of misimpressions about hunger in America. People think it’s associated with homelessness when, in fact, it is working families, it’s kids, it’s the disabled.”
        Perhaps even more alarming was the release of study data in the middle of 2014 documenting that 25% of the US military members are also dependent on food stamps, food banks and other civilian welfare projects for their survival. After compiling four years of data, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, released its largest and most comprehensive study which showed, among other things that 15% of all Americans rely on food banks for all their basic nutrition. In other words, no other source of food. But perhaps the most shocking revelation was that 25% of military personnel were in the same financial position. Of course, the Pentagon was quick to take issue with the study’s methodology, using statistical babble to cloak their embarrassment.

       Across the other side of the planet, India, another super rich capitalist country, there is an army of hungry mouths while the wealth piles up in the bank accounts of the few.

India: Violations of the Right to Food and Work Rampant Across the Country, Made Worse by Aadhaar

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Athens, State Brutality Continues.

     The latest from Athens, where the state has unleashed a brutal attack against all autonomous centres and squats. It is being met with counter attacks by various members of the public.

From Act For Freedom Now:

       Athens, Greece: The greek government has gone into war with anarchists and anti authoritarians, following the end of a 15 days ultimatum issued by the Ministry of “Public Order”, towards the dozens of political and refugee squats across Greece (some of them more than 30 years old), threatening them with violent evictions by the riot police and police special forces, if they did not evacuate within the deadline. The deadline ended on Thursday night on the 5th of December 2019, a political decision by the greek State aiming to agitate and create an “explosive atmosphere”.
       Following the first wave of attacks and evictions, mainly against squats housing refugees during the fall, the second wave of attacks has just begun, this time against political squats and social centers. Coinciding with the arrest of antifascists and the proposed judicial acquittal of neonazi leaders in the Golden Dawn trial, the right wing greek government and its self proclaimed socialist Minister of Public Order have proceeded with the eviction of “Kouvelou Mansion” Squat in Marousi, Athens on Tuesday 17 December, while another three squats have been evicted today 18 December in Koukaki, Athens, following a massive police operation, that terrorized a whole neighborhood with police brutality, attacking people living in adjoining houses that were no squats. Brutal images of greek SWAT policemen having their boots on people’s heads on the ground and a mother bound on the floor of her terrace with a hood on her head, reminiscing of Abu Ghraib torture images, have been circulated in the media.
        While this info text is being written it has become known that at about 22:00 today 18 December, people attacked shops and banks near the main square of Athens at Syntagma,
       while also the christmas tree at Exarcheia Square in Athens has been set on fire. While the greek government has proclaimed that more than 20 squats, just in Athens, will be violently evicted until the end of 2019, the police attacks seems like the match that will put fire in an already explosive situation during Christmas and New Year’s festivities.

 

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The Violence Of Democracy!!

   In Athens the Greek state's war on freedom of expression and dissent continues with renewed savagery all dressed up as making the city safe, and clearing it of criminals and terrorists. The latest squats to be evicted have been long standing community centres, hubs of alternative culture and co-operation among local residents. Once again we see how representative democracy works with its usual iron fist against any attempt to live outside its dictate and control.  

     In one recent eviction an incident not reported here, the anti-terrorist police entered a neighbour's yard and when she asked to see a warrant for entering her property, she was wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and arrested. The face of representative democracy.

This from SquatNet:

      Today in the early morning hours, Villa Kouvelos in Marousi (northern part of Athens) was evicted by a strong state anti-terrorist police force.
The empty and dilapidated building was squatted by anarchists in April 2010 and quickly developed into a nationally known social center, providing the district with concerts, lectures, discussions, political events, etc.
      The villa has also been the target of attacks by right-wing groups such as the Golden Dawn. In the north of Athens, Villa Kouvelos was an institution and its eviction is a catastrophe for the neighborhood in cultural terms alone, leaving behind – similar to the eviction of the Villa Zografou – a socio-cultural desert. As far as is known, there is also no special reason for the eviction, there are no plans to use the building or sell the land. The eviction is therefore a purely populist act.
       A few minutes after the arrival of the cops at 7:30 am, residents gathered in front of the building to express their solidarity. Flyers were distributed and the city council meeting of the Nea Dimokratia (ND, New Democracy) responsible for the eviction was disturbed. A spontaneous demonstration was called at 6 pm, attended by about 300 people. The demonstration went loudly through the neighborhood, slogans were sprayed and some banks were smashed.
        Yesterday ND announced the eviction of another 28 squats by the end of the year, which after the events in Exarcheia and the eviction actions so far is tantamount to a further declaration of war on the scene, on alternative life and on all progressive people in Greece. A foretaste of the reaction was already given in the last few days, with smaller attacks throughout the city – and a clear warning on 6 December with 12,000 anarchists in front of the parliament.

And:

Three more evictions in Koukaki. Cops terrorized neighbours

Athens – Greek police evicted 3 more squats in the Koukaki district this morning (December 18th). Neighbours were terrorized by the cops, some of them were also arrested. On Exarcheia square the Nea Demokratia regime put up a Christmas tree. Tonight there will be an emergency meeting in the Gini building in Athens.

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Some squats in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR/squated/squat
Groups in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR
Events in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/GR

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https://de.indymedia.org/node/54093 https://enoughisenough14.org/2019/12/18/athens-3-more-evictions-in-koukaki-district-cops-terrorized-neighbours/

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Between Dignity And Poverty.

 

       Most times it is difficult to express fully your anger, disgust and frustration at a system that spawns a sea of inequality, injustice and corruption, that by ideology manufactures millions of marginalised, and creates a multitude of exiles in their own country, simple by the gross, deliberate and callous unequal distribution of wealth. The desire to shout it from the roof tops, rant about it at bus stops, street corners or wherever. splatter it across social media or perhaps write reams of paper spewing out all that hatred, disgust and anger. However, sometimes, to recoil from it and try to express it in a simple short poem seems the right thing to do to placate all those bitter emotions.

Between Dignity and Poverty

In this metropolis of wealth with its fountains of opulence
We are the excluded army that walks that tightrope
Between dignity and poverty.
The excluded, the marginalised, the forgotten,
Regulated by mercenaries, some with guns, others with pens.
They know not, we are their brothers and sisters.
Nor do they know,
Our strength is forged in the humiliation of the bread line
Our daily question, will there be food,
Or will the pangs of hunger stay.
We exist in a system of numbers and balance sheets,
Our lives, dehumanised statistics,
Catalogued and filed by a blind accountant.
When asked to count our dead, do we count the living dead?
Will this tightrope be the inheritance to our children
Or shall our tortured journey lead us from anxiety to revolt
Will the anguish of our children feed our righteous anger
Causing us to tear asunder this fabricated web of injustice 

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Gather at The Winter Solstice.

      2019 Winter Solstice is hovering on the near horizon, a time to get together, renew friendships, make new friends, as the light is being renewed to us. Try to see the world as you would like it to be, then work towards that as the light is returning, and beyond. Some friendly advice from my friend at Not Buying Anything:

      This weekend those of us in the northern hemisphere will experience the darkest day of the year. December 21, 2019 is Winter Solstice, the celestial holiday celebrated through the ages as the beginning of light.
      It is the oldest known winter celebration, and its influence can be seen in many of the ways we respond to this time of year today.
       Here are 10 natural and mostly free ways to enjoy this important day in our annual voyage around my favourite star in the whole Universe, the Sun.

10 Ways To Celebrate Winter Solstice

      1. Stay up all night to welcome the return of the light at daybreak (see Stargazing below). Whoever falls asleep first makes breakfast after the sun comes up.
     2. Decorate an outdoor edible Solstice Tree for wildlife. Strings of popcorn, suet balls, bird feeders, peanuts and other foods are appreciated by local animals during cold days and nights.
      3. On the night of Solstice light a candle. Make it your only light. Have a candle light dinner. Eat seasonal foods, drink seasonal beverages, and sing seasonal songs. Use care. With the candles and everything else.
     4. Eat a Solstice Orange. See if you can get the whole skin off without breaking it. Oranges at this time of year represent little, tasty orbs of sunlight. You can taste the photons in there.
      5. Stargaze. The Ursid meteor shower, considered a minor shower of 10 to 20 shooting stars per hour, peaks right at Solstice. It will be a nearly moonless sky, so viewing will be good if you have clear skies. Best viewing time is in the early hours Sunday morning.
       6. Light a bonfire. Or have a fire inside in your wood stove or fireplace. Can't do either? Settle in and watch a Yule log burning on video.
      7. Go out at noon on Solstice and throw a shadow, if it is sunny. Because the Sun is the lowest in the sky that it will get, your shadow at noontime will be the longest of the year on this day.
      8. Take a hike. Watch for signs of wildlife, and collect natural objects of beauty. Back at home, decorate a space with your items such as spruce twigs, winter berries, and animal scat (ok, kidding about the scat. But it is fun to see and identify what dropped it). Acorns and pine cones can add a nice touch (to the decorations, not the scat).
      9. Rest, recharge, go within. The dark days outside invite us to contemplate the dark space inside, between our ears. Be like bear and seek refuge in your hibernaculum. As you lay low, breathe and flow.
      10. Reflect. This is a great time to review the past year, and make your intentions known for the year ahead. What did you learn during the last trip around the Sun? Think about all the things you are grateful for in 2019, and about the richness of life that you will attract over the coming year.
      However you choose to celebrate at this time of year, chances are you will be enjoying something derived from the original Pagan winter Solstice rituals. That is because they are a meaningful and enduring part of an Earthling's experience.
      On the weekend we mark the changing of seasons, the return of the light, and our connection to both the past, each other, and the greater natural world.

Happy Solstice. 

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