We Pay.

        We have all accepted that our lords and masters who are in the UK cabinet lead by bumbling Boris, are a bunch of inept, ideologically driven, fundamentalist right-wing, self serving, privatisation worshippers, Brexiteers, callous and ruthless to a pathological level.  We also know that their handling of the Covid19 pandemic was never based on the welfare of the people but more to suit their own profit motivated privatisation ideals and for the benefit of their  corporate buddies.

     However, it is always good to see it in print and explained in detail for all to see.

The following article is from The New York Review of Books: 

      London—“There are plenty of things people will say we got wrong,” Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, said of the nation’s coronavirus response in a recent speech. In one of the world’s worst affected countries, much of the focus has been on government mismanagement. Johnson’s inexperienced cabinet, selected for fealty to Brexit over anything else, has proved inept and out of its depth. With the Downing Street inner circle dominated by hardliners of the Vote Leave campaign, the response to the crisis was botched and negligently slow—the Brexit preoccupation diverting resources from pandemic planning. Before even any official inquiry is under way, many regard Johnson himself as ultimately responsible: quoted in a damning investigation by the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper in April, a senior adviser to the government condemned the prime minister’s fecklessness: “He didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be.” 

      Britain’s official toll of Covid-19 deaths has passed 44,000. Going into lockdown late may have cost thousands of lives. Releasing potentially infected hospital patients into elderly care homes exposed the most vulnerable to risk—more than one in twenty of nursing home residents are believed to have died from Covid-19, a figure roughly thirteen times higher than for the same population in Germany. But the serial mismanagement of the crisis, as disastrous as it’s been, conceals a deeper failing, one driven by ideology.

Read the full article HERE: 

       Of course we pay for this ideological blundering and ineptitude. When will we ever learn?

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Righteous Rebellion.

        You don't have to have the grand plan of the future before your rebel against the present, you don't have to lay the foundations for that future Utopia before you decide the present situation is unacceptable. However you have to take steps to bring to an end the injustice, the inequality, the corruption and the endless wars and slaughter that goes hand in hand with the present economic system that blights so many lives. You do have to rebel against a system that panders to the few to the detriment of the many. To rebel in this society is more a duty to your conscience, a necessary part of common humanity. You don't need a label, a manifesto, or a union rule book, common decency says this must end, but it will only end by your action of rebellion, your act of rebellion should be an act of love for humanity, all humanity.

         Chile: Spreading Ideas Against Power and Their Society  the following from July 20, 2020 by actforfreedom:

         Actforfree received by email: Introduction to Estallido Antisocial / Antisocial Outburst, a new anarchist publication from Chile. Translation: anarchistsworldwide.noblogs.org  

      SPREADING IDEAS AGAINST POWER AND THEIR SOCIETY
       From autonomous initiative as ungovernable individuals we spread anarchy without expecting the progress of the “social struggles” that leads to an illusory future state of “welfare and progress.” The images and feelings of thousands of people fighting in the streets of Chile before the COVID-19 pandemic are still fresh in our memories. Also fresh is the conviction that our lives have been in revolt since long before October 18, 2019, and that in our wild journey we have wielded a theoretical and practical arsenal that has long since ceased to be determined by levels of social and citizen acceptance of violent protest.
      We are no longer lost in the absurd idea of considering any person just for the fact of living in society and we are always happy that more people are rebelling against normality by vandalizing buildings state and corporate, looting or attacking the police. However, this does not mean that we are willing to let the revolts, our ideas and practices mingle in the midst of mass discourses, humanitarians or reformists who do not represent us. 

       This is why we deny all typecasting: we are not the people, we are not a class, we are not a vanguard, we do not proclaim ourselves part of a “glorious front line” or any other fictitious social or idealized category to homogenize individuals in the midst of the revolt.
       We rebel against all social norms and impositions, aiming at the formation of associations that are free and consistent with our essence: individuals in struggle living the revolt as a continuous present that forges its own evolution in the destruction of the existent, in constant conflict with authority and hierarchical ways of relating, and for the permanent construction of anarchic links of autonomy and horizontality in the here and now.
Nothing more, but also nothing less.
      We open this space of communication and dissemination to connect with other like-minded people, collectivizing ideas, tensions and proposals that move us away from comfort and stagnation. For the permanent tension against the State, power and the society that gives it life.
       Against all forms of authority, we constantly strive to bring Anarchy to life.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Green Illusion.

       I like visiting Not Buying Anything site, I usually get some calmly delivered, topical, rational information, built on commonsense. Today I detect a little hint of frustration and anger in his words, that's great by me, we will never sort out this insanity we live in with smiles and polite dialogue alone.

      Could there be a better symbol of the futility of a mandatory car-based transportation system than the latest "big idea" out of the vehicle industrial complex? How desperate, or out of touch are they?
      Yes, here is their answer to the ongoing ecocide brought on partly by powerful interests limiting our transportation alternatives in order to sell more of their killer product.
     No, there will not be a resurgence of trains, or improved public transportation, or more bicycles, or staying home more often, or working closer to where you live. Or working from home permanently.
     Those are all bad, dumb ideas that will "wreck our economy", which by the way, is more important than the climate, and recently, even more important than people's lives.
      The manufactured for profit mandatory car culture will try to push the inevitable implementation of those ideas down the road another few decades, because the real solution is almost here.
     Yes, the real solution coming from the private mobility/ego-stroking industry is... wait for it...

- an electric Hummer!

       It will have a 1000 horsepower motor, and goes from 0 to stupid in 3 seconds.
      Buyers will be able to choose a one, two, or three motor unit, because you can't have too many motors on hand when you go to pick up your groceries, or the kids from school (if the kids ever go back to school).
      You can even take the roof panels off to "let the world in".
     "Look kids, it's the world!"
    The coal-stained air is stinging my eyes, daddy, please put the panels back on."
     Wow! The world is crumbling before our very eyes - but roof panels on an electric hummer! I'm forgetting about pollution and the pandemic already.
    But the best part is yet to come. This electrified hunk of wastefulness on steroids starts at "only" $70,000 dollars. A bargain!
       Who doesn't have 70 grand to throw around these days, speaking of waste?
       Where I live, that kind of money, if anyone actually had it, could buy a piece of land and old house. I guess one could live in the truck, but where would you put the garden?
     I wouldn't be surprised if a halo and green monks robe was included with each electric big truck purchase because the more you drive your new glorified shopping cart, the more you're saving the Earth.
     Because it's green!
    Like baby poop, except green baby poop isn't a sign that anything is wrong, and a hummer definitely is, electric or not.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Righteous Robber.

 

      You work away diligently and relentlessly and then you  read about someone else's life, and you suddenly feel you haven't done enough. While you might think you're a bright spark, there is always someone who is a shining beacon, an inspiration.

       The following Published by Enough is Enough:

         Social rebel, counterfeiter, bandit, modern Robin Hood – the list of titles with which our anarchist comrade Lucio Urtubia was honoured is long. His life, which sounds like an adventure novel, is a mirror of the revolutionary movements in Europe in the second half of the 20th century. Lucio Urtuba passed away today. Rest In Power Lucio! 

     

       Lucio Urtubia was born in 1931 in a small village in Navarre and grew up in poor conditions. When he was called up for military service, he deserted to France shortly afterwards, where he worked as a bricklayer from then on. He came into contact with anarchist groups and met his political foster father: the legendary Sabaté, who organized the armed resistance against the Franco dictatorship from France. Forging documents, hiding underground fighters and illegal fundraising activities play a major role in his life from then on. Numerous resistance organisations, which have a base of operations in France or are looking for a place to retreat, benefit from his skills: Black Panthers, Tupamaros, European guerrillas. Lucio’s solidarity is with every act of revolt aimed at a more just social order.
      In 1962, he proposed to Che Guevara, then head of the National Bank of Cuba, to flood the world market with counterfeit dollar bills in order to destabilize the US economy. The proposal meets little approval on the Cuban side, but the idea remains alive in Lucio. In 1980 he succeeds in his greatest coup: by printing traveller’s cheques from Citibank with a value of several million dollars he brings the then most powerful bank in the world on its knees.
     But the list of his activities is not completed. Lucio is also a master of conspiracy, however, who manages to spend only a few months in prison in his not exactly law-abiding life. He breaks the silence at the age of well over 70. There is a book and also a movie (Watch here) about Lucio Urtubia.

Lucio, The Good Bandit: Reflections of an Anarchist

       Outspoken and charismatic, Lucio speaks like a true anarchist. When asked what it means to be an anarchist, Lucio refutes the misperception of the terrorist, “The anarchist is a person who is good at heart, responsible.” Yet he makes no apologies for the need to destroy the current social order, “it’s good to destroy certain things, because you build things to replace them.”

Lucio has old friends in the Southern Cone. Funds from the forgery operatives helped hundreds from revolutionary organizations exile and finance clandestine actions against the bloody dictatorships which disappeared ten thousands of activists, students and workers during the 1970’s throughout Latin America. In Uruguay, funds from falsified Citibank travelers’ checks funded the guerilla group Tupamaros, in the US the Black Panthers and other revolutionary groups throughout Europe.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Rich And Riots!

      Actor and comedian  Chris Rock once said, “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.” Well I think they should know just how unequally the wealth of this country is sorted out.

        Let's look at the UK, we know that in the UK approximately 25% of our children live below the poverty line, food banks are growing at an alarming rate, homelessness is on the increase, there are 14 million people living in poverty in UK. However there are those UK individuals who don't know anything about that sort of world. They are the 150 billionaires that live in the UK, people who live off the backs of others sweat and toil. Meanwhile,  Here is a small peek at some of those UK billionaires.

Hinduja family	22 billion	Industry and finance
Jim Ratcliffe	18.2 billion	Chemicals
Leonard Blavatnik	14.4 billion	Investment, music and media
James Dyson and family	12.6 billion	Household goods and technology
Kirsten and Jorn Rausing	12.3 billion	Inheritance and investment
Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken	12 billion	Inheritance, brewing and banking
Alisher Usmanov	11.3 billion	Mining and investment
Roman Abramovich	11.2 billion	Oil and industry
Mikhail Fridman	10.9 billion	Industry

         Of course we shouldn't forget our "aristocracy" they grow fat on lands they stole from others or were gifted by some monarch or other who had stolen them previously. How else do you get to own acres an acres of surface of the planet, who is the estate agent that sells slices of the planet, who owns the planet in the first place, and where does the money from the purchase go?

       Let's start with that young blue blood 28 year old Hugh Grosvenor, he tops the list of very rich aristocrats and goes by the title of 7th Duke of Westminster with a nice bank balance of £10.1 billion

       Other blue blooded aristocrats follow in his wake. This according to the Sunday Times Rich list:

 

       Do you happen to notice how the vast majority of this mob, see their wealth grow considerably, a few see it drop, but what's a million or two when you have loads o'money, none of those whose wealth dropped will be visiting a food bank near you any day soon.

         This of course is just a snippet of the wealth of the pampered, privileged parasite class. We know that the rich and powerful have a tendency to squirrel away their wealth in dark and secret tax haven holes, hidden from the prying eyes of the world at large.  

       Well citizens of this fair democarcy, there is a little picture of how rich the rich really are here in the UK, are you any nearer Chris Rock's prediction?

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Protest And Death.

          It is becoming more obvious that the police are now running out of control, all with the blessing of the state. As unrest rises, due to the deteriorating conditions and freedoms of the ordinary people, the state needs to intimidate those who would dare to object to these conditions. The state is in no way capably of remedying  the failings of this economic system, as it blunders from crisis to crisis. So it must bludgeon you into accepting your lot as it unfolds during this latest crisis. The state must defended this decaying system to keep the wealthy and powerful in their privileged positions, and it will fight tooth and nail to ensure that it maintains its wealth, power and privileges right where they are at the moment, in the hands of the pampered, privileged parasitical few. 

The following report from Act For Freedom Now:

July 16th, 2020

Vasilis Maggos was savagely beaten by riot cops at a solidarity demo.
1 month later he is found dead

      The video that you’ll see depicts the brutal riot police attack against 27-year-old Vassilis Maggos on Sunday, June 14, 2020 in the Greek city of Volos, during a rally of solidarity to the detainees of the previous day’s protest (13/6) against the polluting garbage burning by LAFARGE / AGET companies and against the creation of an SRF factory by the Municipality of Volos.

      According to myvolos. net, Vassilis Maggos was found dead in his room by his mother yesterday evening (July 13, 2020). “The mother tried to bring her son back to life and notified the emergency services, but it was already late. The police rushed to the spot and examined the area, ruling out any criminal activity and requested an autopsy – necropsy to determine the causes of death of 27-year-old Vassilis Maggos, who almost a month ago had been recorded to be brutally attacked by the riot police outside the Courts of Volos.

      According to a post at the time by the “People’s Assembly against Garbage Incineration” the originally posted the above video on June 14, 2020, The young man was savagely beaten in front of passers-by in the center of Volos and was taken to the Magnesia Police Department. In the car that transported him, according to his father’s testimony, the police continued to beat and abuse him. The severe beating continued inside the police headquarters building. They beat him mercilessly, breaking his ribs until the young man shouted “I cannot breathe”. At the height of the violence, the police tortured him. When he asked for water, they took him to the freezer and gave him water drop by drop just to torture him and while he could not stand on his legs. In the end, they released him so that he could be taken to the hospital, because he needed immediate medical treatment. His condition was so dire that the doctors were afraid that his broken bones may pierce his vital organs”. “Amongst his injuries, he had suffered 7 broken ribs and vital organ injuries”.

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Democracy?

        What does a thug look like? Does wearing a uniform change them into honourable citizens? Well it seems so in this so called democracy, in this modern supposedly civilised Europe, wear a uniform, get paid by the state, and you can get away with murder. A daily occurrence somewhere in the EU.

The following from Anarchist News:

       15 July 2020, Athens, Greece: This is what democracy looks like. No, really. This is what democracy looks like. These public servants called "officers of the law" are agents of a democratically elected government. Their acts -regardless of the fact that they are dressed, look and act like a criminal gang and regardless of the fact that if these exact same acts were to be committed by citizens, they would be deemed as crimes according to the law- are authorized and take orders by democratically elected governments all over the world, every day, for decades and decades now. Face it. The fact remains, that although many would not characterize this as "democracy", because it so obviously arbitrary and unjust, it is actually Democracy.
       Okay, to exercise this kind of brutal violence on your fellow human beings, as a policeman, (as depicted in the video), you have to have the predisposition in mind and soul to be barbaric, beastly, cruel, brutal, sadistic, savage, violent, vicious, ruthless, monstrous, inhuman, evil, heinous, merciless, remorseless, heartless, cold-blooded, crooked, immoral, foul, wrongful, vile, dishonourable, horrible, corrupt, depraved, malicious, despicable, shocking, atrocious, brutal, murderous, abominable, disgusting, hateful, contemptible, loathsome, repugnant, gruesome, sickening, nauseating, hideous, horrid, gross, appalling, terrible, horrendous, intolerable, shameful, disgraceful, unworthy, immoral, undignified, debasing, indecent, grotesque, horrific, repulsive, repellent, awful, terrible, detestable, malevolent, execrable, teratoid. Nevertheless, these peoplee people are civil servants and they carry out orders of a democratically elected goverment.
      Orders, that in this case, concerned the protection of a racist demonstration in Victoria Square, in the center of Athens, Greece, called by the Golden Dawn neonazi party and several other racist groups, against the refugees forced to stay homeless in that square. The refugees that were thrown in the streets and forced to sleep on the ground due to a recent law by the greek government of “New Democracy”. Eventually, about 20 racists (no kidding) gathered. And all these 20 racists, “cuddled” with an “army” of dozens of armed policemen. And all of them together, on a common front against approximately 400 anti-fascists holding a counter-protest.
        The rally was coming to an end and while the riot policemen were looking ready to attack the antiracists, many people decided to leave in a coordinated manner, in order to disband outside the Athens University of Economics (ASOEE) located a few blocks away. With a defensive stance, as it can be clearly seen in the video. When the anti-fascist bloc was approaching ASOEE, followed by ten police bikes and dozens of riot cops, suddenly the bikers increased speed, ramming people with their motorbikes, chasing and attacking with batons those who began running, and in the midst of suffocation by the asphyxiating gas grenades and the noise from the flash bang grenades, they arrested and savagely beat two protesters.
      The bikes do not start out of the blue to develop speed and ram protesters a few minutes before they disband, without even a teeny-tiny reason. Policemen follow orders. We have a democracy. And this is what democracy looks like.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Another Pandemic.

        All the talk at the moment is about the covid19 pandemic and its various stages, with a hope that it will all end well. However there is another pandemic that is rife throughout the world and its virus is called "inhumanity in prisons", but there is no massive and determined drive to eradicate it, it goes unchecked and ignored by the various states. There is an unending litany of cases of barbarity within the prison system and stands as testament to how the state treats those who would dare to break its rules and regulations, no matter how unjust these may be.

     This is just another case from the many thousands that happen day and daily across the planet. Another symptom of the inhumane and barbaric nature of the state system and its thirst for authority and control. 

     This case just happens to be in Italy, but no state is immune from this type of savagery.  

The following is from Act For Freedom Now:

        Italy: Letter of Beppe from Pavia prison, July 4th, 2020

       July 17, 2020
       The following text is a letter from the anarchist Giuseppe Bruna, imprisoned since May 21st, 2019, for the «Prometeo» repressive operation, currently imprisoned in Pavia prison. To write to him: Giuseppe Bruna, C. C. di Pavia, via Vigentina 85, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
     Dearly beloved,
     I hope this one of mine finds you well!
    I am writing to report a serious situation (yet another!) that I found myself facing between the afternoon of July 3rd and midnight of July 4th! As you will be aware, I have been locked up since about a year in a cell alone in the «protected» section [a section where are held ex-cops, infamous, pedophiles, rapists, ecc.] of Pavia’s jail!, I have always refused such placement by putting in place various forms of struggle (hunger strike, air strike, etc.).
    The [incomprehensible word, probably could be «direction»] health care of the Pavia jail, even though I was never underwent any medical examination (even if there was a specific request of the judge for the preliminary investigations, Basilone), stated that I am under treatment (with what?) for my thyroid lymph node (which has never been checked here) and that I had a serious form of bronchopneumonia and in case of need they would have provided to help me!
     On Friday (July 3rd), in the afternoon, a big storm arrived on Pavia with gusts of wind, not making time to close the window, the wind closed the blindo [armored door] of my cell, here it often happens when there is a lot of wind… I must point out that the bells to call the guards do not work, you just have to scream! In this case the working prisoner warned the guard on duty, telling him that I was «closed», I heard it from my cell… I haven’t called a guard since I’ve been locked in this sewer, their presence irritates me… Waiting that they would have deigned to reopen the armored door as for everyone in the section, I take care of something else in the cell, knowing that around 9:00 p.m. they would have passed by anyway with the nurse who distributes psycho-pharmaceuticals… at about 8:30 p.m. the zealous guard opens the spyhole of the armored door and I immediately tell him to open the door like all the others, that I am very agitated and I can’t breathe! He answers with a «Yes» and then disappears! Around midnight, when the guards make the count and changed shifts… I don’t know what happened, I don’t remember anything, I found myself on the floor full of slime with 4-5 guards who kept calling me, someone said that maybe I was dead!
     They never called the doctor, nor the nurse, I have never been examined even under these circumstances… I have long ago understood why I was placed in this section of this prison! At about 10:30 a.m. (July 4th, 2020) I was called to the infirmary, after having informed the nurse of my illness and about losing consciousness during the night. In front of the doctor on duty I say what happened during the night: there is the nurse and a «graduated» guard who attends the conversation; while he take the parameters I manifest to the doctor a strong pain in my forehead for the blow taken with the fall, the nurse tells me that there’s nothing visible, and in explaining that the guards would come at midnight, when I was lying on the floor, that is how I was when they found me the guards on duty, maybe now they could have made sure of my health! At this point the guard present intervenes and with a threatening tone he tells me that «I talk too much» and that I have to talk only about medicines!, the doctor on duty and the nurse (who seems to be the wife of a guard) are present, they remain impassive! I asked for the medical records, let’s see if they bring them to me! I hope this letter gets to you and doesn’t disappear!
       I ask you to be involved with me against the placement in this section and in this jail!
      Send this letter as many people and websites as possible!
     Prison kills!
      I rise with my head up high, vomiting all my hatred against the placement in this section!
      Freedom for the comrades of Rome!

Beppe

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Lives Matter.

       "Black Lives Matter" was a call that was long over due and certainly a worthy cause. The injustice and brutality that this group of people suffered because of the colour of their skin was vicious and blatant inhumanity. Then again, this entire system is based on injustice and inhumanity, I fear however that the cry for justice for one group, no matter how deserving, takes the focus off all the other injustices that riddle this flawed system. We have gross child poverty, extreme over surveillance, out of control policing, persecution of "whistle blowers", a judicial system that favours the wealthy, homelessness, evictions, unemployment, over crowded prisons, detention centres for migrants fleeing death and persecution, crumbling social services, a decaying education system, we have highly mechanised armies of our youth dying while creating havoc and bloodshed in other countries, at the dictate of the pampered and privileged few. We have a class of wealthy, powerful parasites who manage this system, are aware of the savagery, inequality and injustice, but they rely on them to uphold and bolster their over privileged position. We may get "justice" for black lives, to the phony standard of justice within this unjust system, then what? It would be another paracetamol for the people, making them feel better, but doing nothing to cure the ills that plague them.  

    Isn't it time we all cried, "Human Lives Matter", and start to dismantle this entire system of injustice, inequality, inhumanity and brutality, and get rid of that class of pampered, privileged parasites that grow fat from these cogs of their inhumane system.

 Quote from John W. Whitehead:

     The powers-that-be want us to believe that our job as citizens begins and ends on Election Day. They want us to believe that we have no right to complain about the state of the nation unless we’ve cast our vote one way or the other. They want us to remain divided over politics, hostile to those with whom we disagree politically, and intolerant of anyone or anything whose solutions to what ails this country differ from our own.
     What they don’t want us talking about is the fact that the government is corrupt, the system is rigged, the politicians don’t represent us, the electoral college is a joke, most of the candidates are frauds, and, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we as a nation are repeating the mistakes of history—namely, allowing a totalitarian state to reign over us.

    Former concentration camp inmate Hannah Arendt warned against this when she wrote, “Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.”

     As we once again find ourselves faced with the prospect of voting for the lesser of two evils, “we the people” have a decision to make: do we simply participate in the collapse of the American republic as it degenerates toward a totalitarian regime, or do we take a stand and reject the pathetic excuse for government that is being fobbed off on us?
      Never forget that the lesser of two evils is still evil.

       His description of the state system and its operators  fits equally this country or any other country on the planet, not just the US.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Price Of Conscience.

 

 

     There were those who through WW1 and WW2 were reviled, insulted, beaten up, imprisoned, and treated to a whole host of other brutal and degrading treatments. There crime, they were conscientious objectors and refused to kill other human beings on the dictate of the state. The state takes a very strong dislike to those who will not kill on its orders. The state always demands obedience, submission and subservience, it must always have control over the population. it is estimated that there were approximately 60,000 men registered as conscientious objectors during the first world war.
     Conscientious objectors are humans with a conscience, something that will not be tolerated by the state in times of its wars of plunder and power grabbing, which takes in almost all wars.
     Anarchists feature strongly in that band of conscientious objectors, as did Quakers. These people were usually labelled cowards, though the courage they showed in the presence hatred and abuse demanded much more courage than to submit and become a subservient order taker.
     Some did take their place in the military, but usually only as medics and ambulance drivers. Which ever road the took, it required courage, determination and perseverance. Their history is seldom, if ever, written in that frame.

      A brief sample of their history can be found here and also found HERE:

     As one small glimpse of those labelled cowards who opted for non-combatant roles and went as medics etc. this extract gives a tiny insight into the falseness of that label. others of course faced brutality  in prisons up and down the country.  

The burial detail, which had come for the corpses in the pigpen, was surprised. The “dead” were getting up and speaking English. Qu’est-ce que c’est? Ah, they were an ambulance crew. British volunteers, in the trenches with the French Army on the Western Front. In the ruins and wreckage near the front lines, they’d found nowhere else to sleep.

The medical corpsmen were all pacifists, serving humanity even as they refused to serve in any military. Still, they lived like the troops. They bunked in rat-infested dugouts, on the floors of shelled buildings, in hay-filled barns. They dove for cover when incoming shells moaned and screamed, and struggled with their masks when the enemy fired gas canisters. At any moment, they could be called to go to the front lines, gather wounded men, and drive—lights off on roads cratered by shells, packed with trucks and troops, with every jostle making the blood-soaked soldiers in the back cry out in pain—to a hospital.

      Today it is more obvious than ever that all wars are fought to enhance the wealth and power of the privileged, to protect or increase the resources to be exploited for those same privileged, to increase their power over competitors. However they are never fought by those privileged, there aren't enough of them to protect their wealthy and privileged position, hence their demand that we the ordinary people do the fighting for them. We are tasked with killing ordinary people from over there, so that our pampered, privileged lords and masters can maintain their powerful and wealthy position.  Still so many still fall for this preposterous policy, the reality being that the only war that the ordinary people should fight is the class war.

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Viva l'anarchie!

       Emile Henry was Guillotined in Paris on 21st. May 1894. His last words were reputed to be "Courage, comarades! Vive l'anarchie!" (wikipedia) His crime, placing a bomb in a cafe in Paris.

       What drove Emily to carry out this act was his hatred and anger at the corruption, injustice and inequality that he saw all around him in society. All this existing behind an illusion and veneer of the opposite values. This hatred of what he saw and his desire for justice, equality and freedom drove him to desperate acts. Here we are 126 years on from his execution, if Emile could come back and view today's society, what would he think and what actions would he take?
       Today the injustice has been magnified a thousand fold across the globe, avoidable inequality has ran rampant and reached unimaginable levels, corruption is so blatant that it seems to be the accepted way of life. I fear dialogue and debate will never remedy this state of affairs.

Two quotes by Emile Henry from his trial:

       “I had been told that our social institutions were founded on justice and equality; I observed all around me nothing but lies and impostures… I brought with me into the struggle a profound hatred which every day was renewed by the spectacle of this society where everything is base, everything is equivocal, everything is ugly, where everything is an impediment to the outflow of human passions, to the generous impulses of the heart, to the free flight of thought”.

And:

      “You have hanged in Chicago, decapitated in Germany, garotted in Jerez, shot in Barcelona, guillotined in Montbrison and Paris, but what you will never destroy is anarchy. Its roots are too deep. It is born in the heart of a society that is rotting and falling apart. It is a violent reaction against the established order. It represents all the egalitarian and libertarian aspirations that strike out against authority. It is everywhere, which makes it impossible to contain. It will end by killing you”.

Drawing by Phil May, 1894.

Death For Profit.

      I wrote the following article ten years ago, if you read it, can you tell me, what has changed for the better? If anything I believe it has got much worse, as the greed driven system of capitalism is still hell bent on profit and growth before human welfare.

        We all know that the corporate greed machine is capable of and indulges in the rape and plunder of the planet, and those who are informed are aware of the thoughtless damage it will inflict on individuals in its pursuit of profit. However, how many are aware that it is also poisoning the world’s population and future generations it its drive to fatten shareholders bank balances?
       In the years prior to World War 2 the annual worldwide use of pesticides was almost nil. At present it now runs at about 500 billion tons and increasing year on year. One result of this is that there are, in America alone, approximately 315,000 cases of pesticide poisoning a year. The symptoms of pesticide poisoning are varied and many, some being, memory loss, altered personality, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, headaches, wheezing cough, hyperactivity in children, liver damage, kidney damage, constipation, diarrhoea, severe muscle weakness, decrease sperm count, loss of sex drive and cancer. The worldwide death rate from pesticide poisoning is over 200,000 a year and rising.
      The Environmental Protection Agency states that 30% of all insecticides, 60% of all herbicides and 90% of all fungicides are carcinogenic. Still the march of pesticide production and use thunders on, seeking ever wider and wider markets in search of ever fatter and fatter profits..
       In her book “Silent Spring” published in 1962, Rachel Carson states, “Can anybody believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poison on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life.” Today we produce pesticides at a rate of more than 13,000 times faster than we did in 1962.
       A recent study presented at a national meeting of the American Chemical Society stated, “Remnants of Prozac are flushed from the body and travel in wastewater that reaches streams and rivers — (and) cause female mussels to release their larvae before they’re able to survive on their own.”
       It is now obvious that the corporate world, in its avaricious and never ending pursuit of profits, is poisoning the world. It is your children that are being slowly poisoned, being deprived of their full potential, being dragged into a life of illness and pain, being made intellectually inferior, and of course subsequent generations will suffer even more so unless we can call a halt to this insanity in search of profit.
        Only when we destroy this insane system of profit before the welfare of the people, put an end to the stupidity and greed of the capitalist system and restructure our world on a basis of mutual aid and sustainability will this murder of future generations stop.

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Lies of War.

     For centuries we have lived in a war ravished world, a world where states preach war as noble, and dying for such noble events is a sacrifice that enhances the human spirit. Though the truth is well known to those who have been there and fought the battles, and the millions of civilians that have perished needlessly in savage brutality, the state still persists in this lie, this illusion, that to die for your country is a noble and honourable sacrifice. Patriotism is usually the banner under which war is given the stamp of legitimacy

      Against the lies and deceptions of the state to sanitise and ennoble war there have been an army of poets, and others, who told the truth and said it like it is, state murder, pointless savagery and bloodshed in the name of the wealthy, powerful and privileged.

        Among them my favourite probably is Siegfried Sassoon, however, this poem that captures the horror of war in one incident of the first world war by Wilfred Owen, probably stands out as a most graphic description of the horrors of the first world war. Sadly these horrors have grown in savagery as wars have moved with the technological advances in killing techniques.

DOLCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double. like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-keed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our back

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstacy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,

And flound'ring like a manin fire or lime . . .

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning,

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some deserate glory,

The old lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori. 

        "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" meaning: "Sweet and beautiful is to die for the fatherland" from a verse of an ode by Horatio.

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The Coming Pain.

         I have always maintained that this pandemic was a wonderful opportunity for the state to shovel billions of pounds into the belly of the corporate beast, money that you and I will be told we must pay back to the international money lenders. Before this pandemic, the capitalists system was well on the way to a massive recession and here was the golden opportunity to bail it out in so many different ways. The corporate overlords were given the opportunity to shed labour, grab taxpayers money, and start to dismantle working conditions to make labour cheaper for them. Of course some businesses will go to the wall, but in a recession that would have happened anyway, the big boys don't mind that, they have sufficient reserves to take up the slack, should business start to improve, as it probably will with cheaper labour costs, and employees spread more thinly on the shop floor, and a fat injection of tax payers money.

     The other golden opportunity went to the state, aware that recessions tend to bring unrest and anger to the streets, and this pandemic accelerating the unemployment, they had to prepare for that eventuality. So the introduction of a draconian range of population controls. Some obviously make sense under the conditions of a pandemic, but some will be in place much longer than the pandemic, some people will start to accept some of these conditions as the "new" normal, this will make it all that easier for the state to control that unrest and anger that will inevitable surface as the pain starts to hit the standard of living of millions in this country. The pain is coming, all that money thrown at maintaining businesses and keeping people of the streets by paying them not to work, will be a massive bill that will land at the feet of the taxpayer.

   Some governments have taken the precautions to smother public protests further than others, the others will follow suit as the conditions change. The Greek state for example has introduced a ban on protests that are not sanctioned by the police, you can be arrested for attending a protest if the police haven't given it the nod of approval. Of course the citizens of that patch on the earth controlled by the Greek state are not taking it lying down, I love the people of Greece. The other day there was a massive protest outside the parliament building in Athens. As expected, the police moved in with brutal force, batons swing and gas canisters flying, resulting in a riot situation, with lots of arrests.

The following report from Act For Freedom Now:

          9 July 2020, Athens, Greece: Proposed by a self-proclaimed socialist Minister of Public Order (Michalis Chrisohoidis), taking part in a right wing government (News Democracy), assisted by the votes of the self-proclaimed socialist party (KINAL), the greek Parliament approved a junta-inspired bill on Thursday imposing new restrictions to quash and destroy the right to protest, a right integral to the so-called democracies, eg. under the provisions of the new law you will be arrested for joining a protest that hasn’t been authorized by the police. For dozens of years across the world, this has been called a Police State or a Dictatorship but then again the greek governing party’s name is “New Democracy”, which probably means the same, when someone feels the need to affix the word “New” to the political theory of “Democracy” that has been solidified for more than 2.500 years.
       As a result, thousands of people marched through central Athens denouncing the new law, and managed to approach in great numbers the greek parliament at Syntagma Square, during the discussion of the bill. The sight of hundreds of policemen that flooded the area around the parliament, during such a sensitive topic of protest, aggravated things and soon the protest turned in to a riot, making the atmosphere unbearable to breath, while the riot police “bombarded” the area with asphyxiating gas grenades.
       After a decade long financial crisis, Greece is expected to suffer a new major recession this year due to the impact of the pandemic. The new law that was passed yesterday seems to aim exactly towards what’s coming. The strong reaction of the greek society, for all the money that were thrown away by the greek government and Athens mayor (Kostas Mpakogiannis) during the quarantine and what followed. It’s no wonder that the greek government chose to hire thousands of new policemen, rather than nurses and doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, then again, as it was aforementioned the governing party’s name is “New Democracy”…

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Twins.

       The misunderstood and misrepresented, the inseparable twins, anarchism, and autonomy.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk