Migrants, Squats.

           Name your country, and migrants will be seen to be treated as less than human, a group to be feared, despised, rejected, a threat to your "way of life" and stripped of their human rights. The richest and most developed countries are among the worst offenders. With the means available to offer shelter and integration, they do the opposite, they herd them as cattle, intimidate and harass them under the guise of their legal system designed to protect the status-quo, however, where there is inequality and a state, there can be no real justice, no freedom. 

The following from 325:

   



In the following report from Greece, anarchists describe the burning of the refugee camp, Moria, and the response countrywide, as well as the latest chapter in other struggles against state repression on a variety of fronts.
        A report by Radio Fragmata.
      Another month, another report on the situation here in Greece. There has been no pause in the repression of the state, nor any peace for the marginalized and excluded. Another historic squat has been evicted, the economic despair many already face is becoming generalized, society drifts towards the right at the guidance of state and corporate media, and the largest concentration camp housing migrants in all of Europe has been engulfed in flames, displacing thousands.
       As in the rest of the world, each morning brings new concerns, new disasters, new forms of precarity. We share the following information in the pursuit of a relentless and borderless solidarity.

-Radio Fragmata, September 2020

Moria Burns—The Greek State Plays Victim

       The refugee camp Moria on the island of Lesvos has burned down.

       The state claims this was the result of demonstrations by desperate people inside the camp reacting to new measures the police had opportunistically declared in response to an inevitable and now unavoidable outbreak of COVID-19 inside the camp. Some 35 cases have been made public as of early September; considering the intense overcrowding of the camp, the number should be assumed to be much higher. Some wonder whether nearby fascists took the opportunity to set fires under the cover of the refugees’ protests. It is certain that some of the villagers wanted those fleeing the flames to burn alive, as they pushed those who tried to flee to the nearby village of Mytilene back towards the blaze.

     If the government’s claim that the fire started from the demonstrations is correct, we can understand this as an act of desperation on the part of individuals protesting against an unbearable situation. Out of all the concentration camps where refugees are contained on islands near Turkey or out of the view of the public on mainland Greece, Moria is by far the most famous, both for its size and for the severity of the conditions. Moria housed over 13,000 refugees, though it was designed for only around 3000. It is a symbol of the racism and dehumanizing policies of exclusion that comprise the basis of modern Europe.

       It was inevitable that COVID-19 would enter Moria. Imposing additional restrictions on the already forcibly isolated and controlled camp brought an already dire situation to the brink. Now thousands are going hungry without shelter, including many children. Facing fascist and police violence, they find themselves in an even worse situation than before.

      In some ways, the New Democracy administration has used the Moria camp to claim that the EU has failed Greece in the so-called “refugee crisis” dating back to 2015. At the same time, the administration has used the camp to fan the flames of xenophobia, framing the conditions in the camp and the desperation of those who occupy it as self-inflicted. The state shifts between these narratives according to what is politically expedient.

Continue reading full article and more reports HERE: 

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

Migrants.

         The plight of migrants so often is well under the radar of the mainstream media, and sadly of the public. This lack of information does not mean that all is well and quiet. The hell that countless thousands of migrants face on a daily basis is a crime against humanity, their numbers are vast, their treatment is deplorable. It so often is a life of harassment, fear, deprivation, brutality and isolation from friends and family. In most cases they are fleeing repression, war, deprivation and death, their journey is fraught with incredible hardship and danger and requires tremendous courage. On arrival at "civilised" and democratic Europe, their misery and danger so often continues at the dictate of the various state's apparatus, shunted from concentration camps to special pre-removal detention centres, brutalised and permanently damaged, continually struggle for their right to be treated as human beings.

      No human is illegal, borders are power mongers weapons of control, this planet has one human race, we are all brothers and sisters. 

(CPR) Pre-removal detention centres. 

This from Act For Freedom Now: 

 

         Tonight 14/8/20, some prisoners are telling us that there were fires following the beating of prisoners in the red area. They tell us that there is fire every night in the CPR of Gradisca. Every night, after a day of heavy abuse, small revolts break out in the Gradisca CPR. However today the repression seems to have been even more violent and the fire a little bigger: in the attached video you can see a boy getting out of a cell and being targeted by two cops one after the other; after he goes back into the cell he remains there bleeding and asking for his rucksack.
          We are also sharing the pictures of another prisoner standing on the floor foaming at the mouth. To protect his identity we won’t include the videos that the pictures were taken from, but this person seems in need of urgent help. We have no idea how he is or where he is now! Someone do something if they can!
We think cell phones may have been confiscated from some prisoners. At 2 the situation appeared more calm but by midnight it was still not over. Wires were being cut with a radial and firemen went into some of the cells. Yet again the local media spread a partial version of events, showing a carabiniere as victim and the prisoners as torturers.
           Without the courage of the prisoners who risk their safety to get news to the outside, we would never know the daily atrocities that go on in the concentration camps and the history of CPRs would be written by the guards alone.
Even when no one dies the CPRs are places of death and oppression, but in Gradisca two people have died already. Today a month has passed since the death of Orgest Turia. Violence is a constant in CPRs, continuous abuse adds to unfair treatment and the fear of being deported (according to what we have been told, food is given out under the bars in the CPR of Gradisca. People are held in cages all day long, changes of clothes and sheets are not given, medical care is poor and is not easy to obtain, the food causes intestinal problems and much more).
It seems that in recent days some people who’d just arrived at Lampedusa were taken to the CPR directly.
CPRs are deadly concentration camps. May the walls of all CPRs fall down and all the prisoners be free!
View video HERE:

        Or HERE: 

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

Columbia.

         It doesn't get a lot of coverage in our mainstream media, but South America, that land of American engineered coups, has been the scene mass uprisings across most of the countries in that area. Some have lasted months others shorter, the Covid19 bring many to a slow-down, or halt, that doesn't mean the anger has gone away or the problems have been resolved. Far from it, the anger still bubbles underneath the surface and will no doubt explode once more.

This report from Crimethinc: 

The Uprising in Colombia: “An Example of What Is to Come.

A Report and Interview on the Background of the Revolt 

 

The police protect us? NO, the cops repress, mutilate, rape, and kill.”

  

    The streets of several Colombian cities have erupted into conflict in the last two days in response to the brutal police murder of 43-year-old Javier Ordóñez, a lawyer and father of two in Bogotá, the nation’s capital. Ordóñez was peaceably drinking in the street in front of his friends’ apartment when police arrived and, without provocation, beat him and tased him 11 times. By the time he arrived at the hospital, after a further beating at the police station, he was already dead.
     Video captured by Ordóñez’s friends and shared widely on social media sparked widespread protests in Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Popayán, Ibagué, Barranquilla, Neiva, Tunja, and Duitama. In Bogotá alone, 56 police substations, called CAIs (Comandos de Atención Inmediata) were damaged, most of them burned. Although mainstream news is reporting eight people killed by police or paramilitaries on the first night, images circulating in Colombia on Thursday claimed 10, all but one of whom have been identified. The numbers of wounded vary by source. The New York Times claimed that a further 66 had suffered bullet wounds the night of September 9, with over 400 wounded in total.
      Colombia has an intense history of violent state and paramilitary repression, which has only intensified during the pandemic. Under current president Ivan Duque, widely seen as a continuation of former president Álvaro Uribe’s corrupt narco-administration, the Colombian government has failed to uphold its side of the peace accords with demobilized guerrilla forces, and murders and disappearances of activists, dissidents, and revolutionaries have increased significantly.
     In the following report and interview, we explore the background and implications of the latest chapter in a global wave of revolts against police and state repression. 
Background:
      The 2019 Paro Nacional On November 21, 2019, taking inspiration from the Chilean revolt and uprisings across South America, broad swaths of Colombian society took to the streets. The protests, which often took a militant tone and lasted roughly a month, were not over any one specific grievance but in response to multiple factors that had made life in this war-torn country unbearable. Duque’s government was trying to push through an unpopular packet of austerity measures, students were demanding better funding for education, and murders of activists, Indigenous people, and ex-guerrillas by the state or paramilitaries had increased.
      The month-long mobilization came to be called the paro nacional or national strike. More than the duration, its significance lay in the fact that it was the first time in decades that anyone had seen such an autonomous mass mobilization. For years, militant resistance had been monopolized by specialized, armed guerrilla groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army, the ) and the ELN (National Liberation Army). The strike represented the return of more generalized street confrontation that lent itself to much broader participation.

A demonstrator in Bogotá uses a spray can to fan the flames of a burning police station on September 10. Photo by Nadège Mazars.

       A Year of Revolt in South America
      Colombia’s paro nacional should be seen in the context of the movements shaking other South American countries at the time. While the Chilean insurrection lasted longer and reached further in terms of self-organization and militancy, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay all saw widespread protests in 2019. In Bolivia, a complex and highly charged conflict led to a bloody coup by right-wing Christians.
     As in Colombia, there were several longstanding causes behind the mobilizations. Latin America has suffered astronomical rates of violence and inequality for decades—really, for centuries. Thanks to austerity policies, the brunt of recent economic stagnation has been intentionally forced on the most marginalized.
       The examples of revolt in other South American countries, as well as from Hong Kong and beyond, helped spark the month of protest in Colombia late last year. The new tactics popularized in Hong Kong and Chile were reflected in Colombian rebels’ effective use of the primera linea shield bloc tactic.
        Chile’s months of unrest, which were only halted by the pandemic, provided an inspiring horizon for those in South America and around the globe. On the other end of the scale, the nightmare that Bolivia has lived over the past year is a sobering reminder that political coups and openly racist regimes pose as much of a threat as ever. The stakes are high, as Colombians know all too well from years of state and paramilitary violence.

September 10, 2020: 10 people murdered, Bogotá, Colombia. Justice and stop the genocide.

 

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Bolt-hole.

        It is easy to find inequalities and injustices in this society, they are all around us. Some glaringly obvious, but others tucked away in some idyllic spot on the planet. These short quotes from a Financial Times article 12th.-13th. September, yes I do read it from time to time, highlights the gross inequality that is created by our billionaire parasite class.

     "When the world is so affected [by Covid19] we have no right to rejoice," said one private banker. "But we will have a very good year" sales of Monaco's notoriously expensive apartments are also holding up."

     Among the UK's ultra-rich who make Monaco their safe, secure bolt-hole is Philip Green, of BHS pension fund fame.

    "The pandemic has plunged economies into recession but the strong performance of global financial markets has in many cases increased the wealth of the ultra-rich, and highlighted the attractions of bolt-holes such as Monaco that promise personal safety through strict policing and video surveillance as well as as financial protection and excellent healthcare"

   and

       "Herve Ordioni, who heads a committee for promotion of Monaco as a financial centre and is also chief executive of the local operation of Edmond de Rothschild, said that his staff had to deal with six times as much trading as normal during the lockdown. "It was massive," he said. "We had an unbelievable amount of activity." "

     All this luxurious pandering, financial security, excellent healthcare, to a small parasite class, while in this country, as in ever other country, millions are struggling to put food on the table. Millions face a life of misery, deprivation and absolutely no security what so ever. Can anyone explain to me why we should put up with such a callous, brutal, exploitative system. Especially when we know there are alternatives. There is not enough outright anger on the streets yet, but hopefully it is coming and soon. 

     How about one of these, just to get away from it all for a while? 

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

Psychos.

    On reading this my hatred of this system that breeds authoritarianism, intolerance, violence and a host of other injustices and inhumane actions, has grown to unimaginable levels. I didn't think that was possible, but the deeper this system sinks into the dark morass of callous and brutal inhumanity, the more the anger and hatred becomes uncontrollable.

This From The BBC

 

Linden Cameron, courtesy of Golda Barton.

        A 13-year-old boy in Glendale, Utah, was shot several times by police officers after his mother called 911 for help with his mental health crisis.

    Linden Cameron, who has Asperger's, a form of autism, is now in a serious condition in hospital, his mother said.
     Golda Barton said she had believed police attending on Friday night would use "the most minimal force possible".
      Salt Lake City Police Sgt Keith Horrocks told reporters that the incident was now being investigated.
      Speaking to local CBS-affiliate KUTV, Ms Barton said she told the 911 operator that her son needed to be taken to hospital for treatment.
       He was experiencing a crisis because it was her first day back at work in almost a year and "he has bad separation anxiety", she said.
       "I said, he's unarmed, he doesn't have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming," Ms Barton said. "He's a kid, he's trying to get attention, he doesn't know how to regulate."
       At a press conference, Sgt Horrocks said officers were called to a "violent psych issue" and reports that a boy - who they did not name - had made "threats to some folks with a weapon". He added that there was no indication when they attended that the boy was armed.
        An officer shot the boy when he tried to flee on foot, Sgt Horrocks said.
      According to an online fundraiser set up to raise money for medical bills, Linden Cameron has suffered "injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, intestines and bladder".
      "The long-term effects of his injuries are still unknown, but it is likely that his recovery will be long and require multiple kinds of treatment," the page, set up by a friend of the family, says.
      According to data compiled and regularly updated by the Washington Post, 1,254 people with a mental illness have been shot dead by US police since the beginning of 2015. This represents 22% of all people shot and killed by police across the country over that period.

 

Time To Rage.

Time to rage, like a river running wild.

Time to rise, to save the child.

Time to rage, like a mountain flood.

Time to rise, to stop the blood.

Time to rage, with righteous anger.

Time to rise, to point the finger.

Famine, misery, sickness, death,

stretch across these pleasant lands;

war, greed, hunger, blood,

sour the lovely desert sands,

Charity, chat, quiet dismay

is not enough

prayers, thoughts, what MP’s say

is useless stuff.

Time to rage, like a river running wild.

Time to rise, to save the child.

Time to rage, like a mountain flood.

Time to rise, to stop the blood.

Time to rage, with righteous anger.

Time to rise, to point the finger.

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

No Borders.

 

        Solidarity, unity, co-operation and no borders are the foundation stones of our victory over this economic system that condemns millions to a life of misery. A system that has only one aim to increase profit, wealth and power to the few. As the inequality grows so does the anger and the resistance, however, likewise the state, the corporate beast's minder, increases it repression, surveillance and brutality to meet that resistance. It is aware of the rising anger and resentment, if unchecked could bring its plundering to an end, so it will increase its viciousness and brutal repression in an attempt to hold onto its very survival and to retain its wealth, power and privileges. 

       We either accept the life of inequality, injustice, mass poverty, murderous deprivation, total surveillance, and continuous wars, that this system hands us, or we resist with all the strength we can muster, and take our anger to the streets. Our world of resistance may seem fragmented, but make no mistake, it is the same battle across all borders, a struggle for justice, equality and the right to a decent life for all. If these struggles happening across the globe, come together across all states enforced borders, our victory is assured. The alternative is unacceptable.

 

 

         A call with passion and from the heart from Berlin.

The following is from Act For Freedom Now:

International Call for Action and Discussion Days in Berlin 30.10.-01.11.2020
International Demo in Berlin 31.10.2020
UNITED WE FIGHT!
       Connect Urban Struggles – Defend Autonomous Spaces
Over the last years we experience a global resurgence of reactionary politics. State and capital, in a constant process of intensifying exploitation and expanding repression, used the global capitalist crisis, which started a decade ago, as a chance to further restructure relations of power in their advantage. Their political answer is materialized in a shift to the right, with a political alliance of neoliberal economic policies coupled with strong nationalistic narratives and repressive policies against resistance and progressive movements. The new face of authoritarianism has unleashed an all out attack against individuals it considers unnecessary or those that choose to resist and collectivize against the ruin of their lives. In our current period, states the world over used measures against Covid-19 to extend repression, policing and surveillance against societies. At the same time, the failings of neoliberal healthcare systems have led to masses of deaths and increasing inequality due to access to healthcare.
To all of this, people in different areas of the world answer with massive resistance on the streets. Movements with different perspectives have revolted, for example in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, or more recently in France and the USA. The common thread of all these movements is their distance from institutionalized and systemic politics and the choice of self-organization and horizontalism in the fight against authority.
     The movement in Germany is fighting against exploitation and oppression in the belly of the beast. Since the movement reached a climax of mobilization against Hamburg’s G20 summit in 2017, the German state intensified and broadened its repressive arsenal with the goal to suppress and isolate the movement: this has seen the biggest public manhunt since the state repression since the 1960s and 70s, widening of police measures such as preventative arrests and extrajudicial surveillance, increased penalties for crimes against police and the ban of the popular German indymedia website “linksunten”.
In the city of Berlin over the past years the movement has come under constant attack through the eviction of its infrastructure, with gentrification manifesting itself in an attack on marginalized and struggling parts of society: rising rents making life unbearable, more than 5.000 forced evictions of houses per year, increased policing of public spaces and an overall changing social geography in the city. On the one hand this destroys or displaces spaces that the movement uses to support itself. Through heavy policing and state repression, subversive lifestyles and political organization is made impossible within public spaces. On the other hand capital is given space to invest and increase profitability through real-estate, privatization of security through cameras, fences and walls, smart city developments and big public-private partnership projects.
      The struggle of self-organized spaces in Berlin has developed against this background. The eviction of the bar collective Syndikat last August, and the broad mobilization of the movement against the eviction, was only the start of the upcoming fight for our infrastructures. The anarcha-queer-feminist house project Liebig34, the autonomous youth center Potse and the bar collective Meuterei are threatened by imminent evictions. The house project Rigaer94 was again raided in July, in an attempt to use the background of the raid several vain attempts to evict squatted flats were made without any success, since all flats could be held by the people inside or taken back. This phase of evictions might become the biggest attack on the autonomous infrastructure in Berlin since the 1990s.
       These collective spaces have chosen to stay and fight back in different ways. Their struggle has rallied the movement German-wide as a fight we are all a part of: against private property and capital, against the displacement of people from their houses, against gentrification of our neighborhoods, against a patriarchal and racist system which marginalizes, silences and oppresses the voices of those being exploited or deemed expendable for the system. Against this the projects put forward self-organization and solidarity, defiance of property and confrontation with the state and a direct attack on the oppressive social structures of hetero-patriarchy, nationalism and individualism.
      We are traversing a critical period, both for society and for radical movements worldwide. Under the dogma of “law and order”, state and capital are intensifying their attack on society and trying to further their dominance of all aspects of everyday life, stopping every collective vision and claim, and every perspective of resistance and struggle.
       Recognizing Berlin as the capital of one of the most dominant capitalist countries worldwide, we aim to intensify the social struggle in the heart of the beast. Giving a strong answer and creating perspectives against one of the most unbearable states of the world, that consists a model for many countries worldwide and which through its bureaucracy and structures infiltrates all the aspects of our lives leaving no space for self organization and anti-institutional struggles, will create a legacy not only for the local movement but for every rebellious cell worldwide.
       By the end of October an official eviction date of Liebig34 may be public. We will get together to prevent this. And if it has already been evicted in the weeks prior, we will take it back!
       We need all the force we can and call for support to defend our projects. Borderless solidarity is one of our strongest weapons. We want to use this opportunity to make the anarchist perspective more visible and bring the discussion about our ideas, praxis and strategies forward. The days prior to the demonstration on 31.10. will offer space for a plenary assembly, exchange, discussions and ways of actions on our common goals, strategies, occupying ground and collective defense.
        We consider this demonstration as an opportunity to come together to create a breach in their plans and multiple moments of ragefull, dynamic and militant experiences in which we abandon the defensive role and instead take the street as an active and offensive movement.
         Thus we hope to make these days part of a continuous discourse and not yet another unconnected event with no followup.
For these reasons we call for people to take the streets and destroy their plans of evictions. Although our fights in different corners of the worlds take different characteristics as we struggle in different contexts, borderless solidarity and the bridging of our struggles has been possible in the past, and is necessary for the future. Let’s choose confrontation and resistance, and seek them in collective moments beyond borders; let’s make their plans a disaster.
        We join the call of Terra Incognita to turn this year’s October into a month dedicated to solidarity and standing up for every occupied ground threatened by repression.
Lets bring our rage together!
Berlin 30.10.-01.11.202
International Demonstration 31.10.2020
via Liebig34.

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

Rosa Nera.

       The Greek "New Democracy" government is continuing it ruthless policy of trying to eliminate all Squats, autonomous centres and voluntary migrant support groups. Far from this being a police operation these evictions look more like a military operation. Greece is not alone in trying to eliminate these self organising centres, it is the aim of all states to have everybody to follow the rules of the state, to survive. It and it alone needs to have the monopoly on how our lives are shaped. Leaving people to plan and shape their own lives would be the demise of the state. It will muster whatever savagery, terror, and intimidation, with the necessary brutality to ensure its own survival. The state exists by subservience and blind obedience.

The following from Anarchist News:

Not the best quality of video but you grasp the numbers protesting.

      They evacuated a squat but didn't expect 2000 people protesting on the same day...

       Following the police raid and evacuation of Terra Incognita 16 years old squat in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 17 August 2020, the police invasion at Libertatia Squat in Thessaloniki on 23 August 2020 and the arrest of 12 people rebuilding the roof that had been burnt by fascists during an attack, another squat was raided on Saturday 5 September 2020, this time in Chania, Crete where Rosa Nera Squat stood ground since 2004.
     Few hours later, following the police raid, hundreds of people marched in solidarity through the small greek island town in the afternoon and held a public assembly in the evening to decide the next steps of resistance.But that was not the end. The public assembly decided for another protest through the center of Chania on the same night, where beyond the greek government and police expectations more than 2.000 people took part in the small town of approximately 55.000 residents, marching in solidarity to the “Rosa Nera” Squat.
     The mass participation in the protests and assemblies is a clear sign of the Squat's openness and interconnection with society and the people's reaction to the plans of turning this historic building into a hotel owned by an Israeli company.
     During the last years, all the greek governments have carried out several campaigns of elimination of the self-managed spaces. What they want to achieve is that people find themselves only in the cafes, in the bars, and in the shopping centers as just consumers and customers. Consequently, the offensive that Rosa Nera is facing in Chania is not fortuitous. The Rosa Nera building belongs to the Polytechnic School of Chania, and for 16 years has been a place of struggle and emblematic culture, also covering accommodation needs. In its facilities, the tireless people who have worked hard to give life to the building have created a theater, a library and reading room, a space for presentations (of artistic creations), a children’s park, a construction workshop, a free bazaar of gifts and a communal kitchen for the production of bread.
     In these 16 years hundreds of events, concerts, presentations, debates, workshops, parties, cafes to support collectives and actions have been organized. All have had an anti-commercial character contrary to the government’s and the University of Crete plans to convert the squatted building into a hotel, so that only those with pockets full of money may enjoy the beautiful view from the Kasteli hill, where the Squat is located. To turn something which is free and accessible to everyone in the town, to a restricted area for the few willing to pay to enjoy it. The Rosa Nera Squat kept and ensured the free for all character of the place intact. And that is why you see so many people in the streets protesting the eviction.

This video from Squatting Will Stay.

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

Robroyston.

       Politicians and Councillors must hate old people, the older we get the further back our memories go. I presume my memories go back before some of our Councillors and politicians, who are now "re-imaging" Glasgow, were born. This "re-imaging" involves changing public assets to money making entities or selling off some of those assets. In such deals you can bet that the private sector gain immensely from this "re-imaging". So a wee delve into one of those memories, Robroyston Hospital, it treated tuberculosis, among other forms of illnesses and for a time 1918-1919 handled these poor souls who were maimed, broken and blind from WW1, built 1918, sold off 1977. Public opinion was against the closure of this hospital, but it went ahead. Decisions made behind closed doors never work out in the best interest of the general public.
Hansard:

       I am glad to have this opportunity to raise in the House the subject of the proposed closure of Robroyston Hospital, Glasgow, and I can tell the House at the outset that I have here a telegram from the local health council supporting me in my efforts to prevent its closure. That in itself is an indication of the way in which the decision has been carried along. The first that the staff of the hospital, the local health council, local councillors and I knew of the proposed closure was when we read about it in the Press.

      The hospital covered a large expanse of land to the north of Glasgow, it consisted of two main buildings, one brick built E-shaped the other H-shaped, and a series of nine brick built houses for wards. An additional eight houses were built to the NE and at a later some thirteen wooden huts were added  to the N. All of the above were set within extensive gardens and grounds. The facilities for patients at the hospital included two tennis courts, a bowling green and a putting green.

     The sad tale of the usual rip-off of the public sector by the private sector at the hands of our corporate minded, bumbling politicians.

The Herald:

     TABLE THE spectre of a 15-year-old property deal hangs over any plans which the Greater Glasgow Health Board might have to dispose of two of its prime hospital sites. In 1977, the Government sold the 600-acre site of the former Robroyston Hospital in the north of Glasgow to Aberdeenshire-based property developers Elinacre for #410,000.
       Mr Ian MacDonald, Elinacre's principal, who died in 1988, then sold on parcels of land to housing developers for #2m.

       Of course we will be told that safeguards have been put in place so that such bungling ineptitude and cavalier attitude to our public assets, can't happen again, but the same private plundering of public assets still goes on. This is not going to change until we change the entire economic system to one of public ownership freed from the profit motive. 

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

Libertad.

      Prisons are state institutions that are meant to subdue dissent, create subservience, breed submission. History has proved that these institution have, very often failed in their purpose. The human spirit so often overcomes attempts to shackle its desire for freedom and justice. I have no doubt that this desire will eventually win, and we will pull down the walls of these symbols of state control and cruelty, along with the system that requires them for its very existence. There is no place for prisons in any civilised society, they are there to protect the status-quo, to keep wealth and power where it is, clasped in the greedy hands of the pampered, privileged, parasite class. 

The following from Anarchists Worldwide:

Santiago, Chile: Letter from Anarchist Prisoner Mónica Caballero
Palabras de la compañera Monica Caballero desde la cárcel de San Miguel ($hile)
       For those opposed to this system of terror, prison is always a bitter pill and it always hurts.
      Prison and I are old acquaintances, on more than one occasion I have sat at his table, over the years we have changed and we have both learned from one another… but no matter how much time I spend in prison, I remain the same. Prison is still the monstrous phagocyte of power that grows with submission and repentance, and I continue with the same seditious desires of yesteryear.
     The powerful succeeded in locking up my restless body, they tried to guard it for many years, but even though it is caged, my heart is still out there far from fences, high walls and watchful eyes… the grey of this place only touches me superficially.
      The prison is another place of struggle on the road to confrontation, the anti-authoritarian confrontation for me has not finished, it has only changed shape.
Dear Juan Aliste, Joaquín García, Marcelo Villarroel and Dinos Giagtzoglou‘s words are a breath of fresh air in this cell.
       There is still much to build and to destroy!
Active solidarity with the Mapuche political prisoners on hunger strike

Long live Anarchy!

Monica Caballero S.
Anarchist prisoner.
Santiago Chile
September 2020.

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

Oh Jesus.

     I posted this little video away back in July, 2012, because I found it amusing, I still do. Anything for a wee giggle in these tying times. If the Jesus guy did come back today, what would he be like, I think all Christians should be prepared for the fact that, unlike them, he may have moved with times.

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

Tax Money.

       Covid19 might be a stressful period for most ordinary people, but to the government and large companies it’s an opportunity to shift taxpayers money into the corporate coffers. March this year our financial wizard, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, came up with, Covid Corporate Financial Facility, CCFF for short, a scheme to help what he considered large companies that were important to the UK economy, small companies were not included, just the big rich mob. This handout was given with minimum conditions. 

 

       While receiving billions from the taxpayers, through the CCFF scheme, these rich companies saw fit to pay out approximately £11.5 billion to shareholders and investors, and in gratitude for this taxpayers handout, they paid off thousands of employees. It is reckoned that of 26 companies involved in this CCFF taxpayers gift to big rich companies, have paid of approximately 43,000 workers.
       While this money plundering was going on the NHS was desperately crying out for PPE, struggling with staff shortages and lack of equipment. Care home residents and the staff were being denied testing facilities and left to suffer and die. This is capitalism, the economy is sacred, the corporate is valued above the well-being of the people. Every penny of the billions spent by the government in handouts to big business will have to be paid back to the financial mafia by you and I, the taxpayer. We will pay for it with unemployment, severe cuts to social services and the selling of public assets.

 

         No doubt, bumbling Boris and his rich coterie will be shouting about investing in massive infrastructure projects, to get the economy growing, what this translates as, is handing more billions of taxpayers money to large corporate very rich companies to build a host of showpiece entities that will be of little or no use to the ordinary people. HS2 springs to mind. 

 

      Surely if people look at how the system works they must draw the conclusion that this has to stop, this insane economic system of greed that feeds a small clique of parasites to the detriment of the many, has to be destroyed.

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

Mr. President.

      Most people seem to accept that Trump is the worst President of the USA ever. That's quite an accolade considering the liars and butchers that have held that post before him. To me the main difference with Trump and the other  figureheads of American imperialism, is the fact that he has a big mouth and doesn't hide his racism and fascist and homophobic views, he openly revels in them.

The following extracts are from Arrezafe:

Monday, April 16, 2018: Peace protesters trying to tear down the Truman statue in Athens

       Two days ago, Greek police forces, on orders from the SYRIZA-ANEL government, brutally attacked anti-war protesters as they tried to topple the statue of US President Harry Truman. This 3.2-meter statue - "a fossil of bloody US imperialism" , as the KKE called it in a statement - has been in the center of the Greek capital since 1963.
      Recent events give us an opportunity to remember who Harry Truman really was. A representative of US imperialism, Truman was the author of the most horrendous war crime of the previous century. We refer to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

         "Being in possession of a bomb, we have used it ... We will continue to use it until we completely destroy the military power of Japan. Only its surrender will stop us ... We thank God that he has placed it in our hands, and not in the hands. of our enemies, and we pray that He guides us to use it in his path and for his purposes . "

        These gruesome words were spoken on August 9, 1945, by the President of the United States, Truman, during a radio address to the American people. It was three days since the terrorist Enola Gay had dropped the atomic bomb called “Little boy” on Hiroshima and another bomb was sowing death, destruction and chaos in Nagasaki.-------

And:

  ----------Numerous American officials, as well as academics, have exposed Truman's blatant lies. For example, the US Strategic Bombing Survey group, which had been assigned by President Truman himself to study air strikes in Japan, was writing in a report prepared in July 1946:
      "Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the opinion of the Study that certainly before December 31, 1945, and in all probability before November 1, 1945, Japan it would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not gone to war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated . "
       For his part, the then Supreme Commander of all Allied Forces who later became President of the United States, General Dwight Eisenhower, said: "The Japanese were ready to surrender and there was no need to hit them with that hideous thing . " We could cite many testimonies from various officers of the United States Army (Admiral Leahy, General MacArthur, Under Secretary of War McLoy, etc.) that confirm all of the above.
       History has documented the tremendous effects of the nuclear holocaust on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman and his administration are responsible for more than 200,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of radiation-related post-attack casualties.-------

And: 

      "Hero" for the Greek bourgeoisie - "Butcher" for the people.

      The war criminal Harry Truman, who sowed destruction in Japan, is the same butcher who, three years later, ordered the bombing of the heroic guerrillas of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) in the mountains of Grammos. It was during the Greek Civil War that the United States intervened to help the Greek bourgeois class against the Democratic Army of Greece . In February 1948, American General James Van Fleet arrived in Athens and became the commander-in-chief of the Greek bourgeois army. 

         In 1949, the Grammos Mountains in northern Greece became the field where the American air force first used Napalm B bombs. In just one battle, in Grammos, the Americans dropped 338 napalm bombs from US positions. DSE. Years later, napalm bombs were used by American assassins in numerous imperialist wars: from Korea to Vietnam and from the 1991 Gulf War to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

      Quite a record for a fundamentalist Christian, one of the many who have no problem with mass killings and then asking their god of love and peace to bless their actions. Trump is at home, among a long line of liars, hypocrites and mass murders, who have sat on that throne of savage American imperialism.

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

Proactive.

      With the big social media platforms, all run by billionaires, who, to put it mildly, have no love of anarchists, ever tightening controls on who gets in and who doesn't, should we now be organising to walk away before the kick us all out? Proactive rather than reactive. We know that it is coming, it's just a matter of time.

The following food for thought from Anarchist News:

      Last week, after Crimethinc, IGD, Enough is Enough and others were banned from Fedbook, our friend Ziq gave us food for thought with this post on raddle:

      We can't keep expecting platforms owned by far-right billionaires to stay honest. Anarchists are the biggest threat to any capitalist, so of course they're going to shut us down at every opportunity.
      [There are many important anarchist projects, each serving a different purpose], but they can't continue to exist in a vacuum while the social media behemoths are busy closing ranks to ensure all our efforts are stifled...
      [raddle has] always encouraged anarchists to use our platform to grow their own platforms. But it's not a one-way street. There needs to be a concerted effort between all the aforementioned anarchist venues to amplify each other's voices. Cross promotion is the only thing that will keep us all alive and kicking...

        If you were to promote other anarchist sites/venues/projects/whatever, how would you do it? Would it look like Facebook and Twitter, Cabal and Plemora, banner drop and billboard, or something completely different? What are the pros and cons of each?
       Who would you promote? Who would you not? Let's not just have a list of names; let's hear why you chose this one over that one, why anews was on top of your list, and why you'd never in a thousand years amplify [you name it].
        Does amplifying voices mean banding together, like Ziq suggests, or does it mean going it alone, but louder?
      Who already does promotion the way you'd like it to be done? Who does it in a way that you can't stand?
       Is it as important as Ziq says to cross promote each other's voices? If you think it is, how would you like to see it play out in the days ahead? If not, what are otherways of keeping us all alive and kicking?

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

Hit The Needy.

        It is a strange and unjust society that when savings and cuts have to be made, it is always the most vulnerable and those in need that have to take the hit. Glasgow City Council are proposing saving money by closing all but two of the city's Citizens Advice Bureaus and cutting support to rape crisis centres among other things that the ordinary people sometimes have to rely on. Now you don't get any prizes for guessing who is most likely to visit these places. You wont find Jim Ratcliffe, Scottish billionaire, waiting, or any of his clique hanging around in the queue. They will always have their team of expensive expert lawyers to sort out any problems they may encounter.

       It always appears beyond Councillors and MP's imagination to find ways of getting those savings and administering cuts from that upper echelons of the wealthy bunch that sit very comfortably with no need for such common things as Citizens Advice Bureaus. 

       Today, Wednesday 2nd. of September, there was a small group outside Glasgow City Chambers protesting these unfair and unnecessary attacks on the most vulnerable in our society. It was a day of torrential rain and I admire their dedication and sincerity for holding this protest in such appalling weather. However, I feel that it was the wrong place and the wrong time. The City Chambers was empty and locked up, the meeting regarding these cuts will be held via virtual conferencing, with the participants unaware of any protest. No doubt the virtual meeting will make it extremely difficult or impossible to hear what is being said, nor will the public be able to contribute to the debate. Perhaps I'm wrong on that and they will send out the link to the virtual meeting to ever citizen of Glasgow. I'm sure Billy Connolly could turn these city chambers actions into a joke, well basically that's what it is, a sick and cruel joke at that.

Some photos of those intrepid protestors:

 

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