How Long?

       As sates across Europe and elsewhere march in lock-step with each other at trying to crush any and all self organising autonomous structures and individuals, it sometimes appears as if one state is trying to out do the other in the expanse and severity of their actions, with the terrorist label attached to any voice of dissent. Greece appears the worst, then it looks like Germany is trying to lead the pack, and so it goes on, ever lurching to the right and further draconian acts to control the population. How much longer will the people accept this goose-stepping to fascism, how much longer will we let our anger simmer below the surface. No state is immune from this thrust to the right.

This report from Act For Freedom Now, on Germany:

      The most revolutionary thing one can do is to proclaim always loudly what is happening.” Rosa Luxemburg
    On Monday, August 31, cops attacked 27 objects, 24 of them in Hamburg and one each in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. The reason for the searches is the investigation against the Roter Aufbau Hamburg for the formation of a criminal organization.
    These investigations are a further escalation of an authoritarian formation in Germany. The aim is to smash emancipatory structures and to ensure that fascistization continues to proceed. In this context, stand also the investigations on 129a here in Frankfurt, which have the sole aim of criminalizing and smashing left structures. With our solidarity, however, we are taking the wind out of the sails of repression – widespread and united against this class justice.
We send solidarity greetings to those affected by the raids and wish you a lot of strength!
     Solidarity with the Roter Aufbau Hamburg! Fire and flames to the repression! United we Stand – United we Fight!
We are all 129a!

       This from another part of this world of neo-liberalism from one who has often felt that brutal lash of state authoritarianism and remained loyal to freedom and justice. 

       San Miguel Prison, Chile: New Drawing by Anarchist Prisoner Mónica Caballero

[Prisiones chilenas] Dibujo de la compañera anarquista Mónica Caballero

        The prison and I are old acquaintances, on more than one occasion I have sat at their table, over the years we have changed and we have both learned from each other…but no matter how much time passes essentially the prison and I remain the same. Prison is still the power-sucking monster that grows and spreads submission and repentance, and I continue to have the same seditious desires as before.

Mónica Caballero, anarchist prisoner

 

 

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Barcelona.

       I'm a lover of Kate Sharpley Library and eagerly await their latest bulletin, they have just released their September, 2020,  issue, No.102. The poem below is from that edition. Very relevant today 

Barcelona 1936

Woke one bright morning – not so long ago
–heard the sound of shooting from the street below.
Went to the window and saw the barricade
of paving stones the working men had made – not so long ago.

Met a man that morning– not so long ago –
handed me a leaflet, on the street below.
Lean and hard-faced working man with a close-cropped head-
--held me for a moment eye-to-eye, then said:
Read it, read it, read it, and learn
what it is we fight for, why the churches burn.

Down on the Ramblas, she passed me on her way,
weapon cradled in her arm – it was but yesterday.
Not just for wages now, not alone for bread
-- we’re fighting for a whole new world,
A whole new world, she said.

On the barricades all over town – not so long ago
–they knew the time had come to answer with a simple Yes and No.
They too were storming heaven – do you think they fought in vain;
that because they lost a battle they would never rise again;
that the man with the leaflets, the woman with a gun,
did not have a daughter, did not have a son?

Hugo Dewar (1908-1980)

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You-topia.

 

        I found this film, informative and inspiring, though there is hardship and bitter struggles, it unfolds in poetic beauty, its narrative is woven with hope and determination and a strong reminder, as the film says, "Remember, you are the You-topia." I hope you get as much from it as I did.

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

Be Prepared.

       As the covid19 pandemic creates economic hardship for the many, states across the world are tightening their methods of repression and joining forces across borders, they are well aware that with hardship for the many, comes anger. To keep control of their wealth, privileges and power, they will need to crush that anger. The pandemic is an ideal opportunity for them to put on open display, their authoritarian apparatus, engineering consent by fear. Their actions will be given credence by the mouthpiece of the state, the mainstream media. At the forefront of their attack will be all those freethinking individuals, autonomous spaces, self organising groups, migrant support groups and squatted community help centres, anywhere that the people try to organise their lives outside this festering malaise they call capitalism. Of course the word terrorists will be banded about freely by the powers that be. We must be prepared for ever greater brutality and invasive procedures by nervous states, fearful of the strength of angry people united. 

The following article from Enough is Enough:

       On Wednesday, September 16, 2020, several apartments were raided in Berlin and Athens. The accusation of the German Federal General Prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice is “formation of a criminal organization” according to §129 StGB. In Athens, at 6 a.m. German time – 7 a.m. Greek cops of the anti-terrorism authority (D.A.E.E.B.) and one cop of the German Federal Criminal Police (BKA) stormed two apartments to execute search warrants against three accused and at least one other person affected.
The accused, as well as the other persons present in the two apartments, were taken to the headquarters of the cops in Athens by the cops and were brought to the rooms of the (anti)terror cops on the 12th floor.
       After 10 hours of waiting, 2 people were released and the remaining three were officially arrested on the basis of pepper spray that was found in the apartment (violation of the Greek weapons law) and two pocket knives, and were also charged for refusing to give fingerprints. After another 6 hours, the persons were transferred to the prison wing on the 7th floor. The next morning, all three were dressed in a film-like manner with bulletproof vests (typical for a presentation by the anti-terrorism authority), tied up and brought to court by a heavily armed squad. At the end of the production, the court decided to postpone the trial and to release the prisoners.
      As part of the Kafkaesque game, both the German and Greek media fulfill their role as henchmen of the system, as expected. The state’s attacks on the movement have always been accompanied by the mainstream media, so that the sovereignty of information and the definition of the relevance of the situation should lie with the cops and the state. In the proceedings here, the little information the cops released was enriched in populist articles with also false statements and assertions in order to give the desired impression to a wide audience.
     The cooperation between German and Greek authorities is certainly nothing new. Not surprisingly, but still worth mentioning, we find the common organization of the different authorities. They use a single procedure to implement the political interests of the security authorities and the state in both countries.

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

Glasgow Green.

        A month or so ago, Spirit of Revolt put up a new film, made by one of our members, on the history on Glasgow Green. Sadly I made a few mistakes in posting it, and it had to be pulled down. It is now back up and is well worth a viewing. A Radical History on Glasgow Green plots a trail of events that tie the Green to the hearts, folklore and history of the people of Glasgow, how it shaped them and they shaped it. A valuable trip through some of Glasgow's history and that of the ordinary people, a heritage of which we should never lose sight and be very proud.

 View the film HERE:

  https://spiritofrevolt.info/radical-history-on-glasgow-green/

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

Khmer Rouge.

 

        The death of Khmer Rouge executioner Comrade Duch, aged 77 in Cambodia (Kampuchea), reminds us of a failed experiment at agrarian communism which sought to eradicate the city-dwellers under western influence. Over 35 years ago Here & Now magazine was launched in Glasgow. the collective, from issue 5 expanded to include heretical thinkers in Leeds, some associated with the Pleasure Tendency. In issue 1 the centre page article by AD, examined Khmer "communism". Well worth a read

     September Spirit of Revolt, “Read of the Month” is an article on the Khmer Rouge, taken from the magazine “Here and Now” held in our Archive.

You can read the article HERE

Read the The full magazine HERE:

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

This Land--.

     In England 92% of the land and 97% of rivers are owned by a small, extremely wealthy,  bunch of pampered privileged parasites, Scotland is much the same. I have always been puzzled by somebody owning a large slice of the planet. Who did they buy it from, who held the original deeds, was it God? or did a bunch of thieving scoundrels just steal it, then gave bits to their friends and buddies. I think the latter. Isn't it about time we reversed that situation and became the land grabbers and take it all back into common ownership for the benefit of all?

 

 

       In the U.K., folks can wander over private property without asking permission.
       This is called “the right to roam” and its legal legacy can be traced back to a grassroots movement started by Benny Rothman in the 1930s.
      Rothman was a member of rebellious group of Manchester factory workers who called themselves “ramblers”. The ramblers sought to get out of sooty Manchester on their time off in order to see the beautiful Peak District that surrounded them. The problem was that almost all of this land was in the hands of private landlords who hired game keepers to keep walkers (and possible poachers) at bay.
       This had not always been the case. Some 300 years earlier, most of the land in the UK has been part of the Commons where people could graze livestock and hunt as they could.
        Beginning in the mid-18th century, however, the Enclosure Movement worked to privatize most common land in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. This has been described as "a revolution of the rich against the poor," and it transformed the countryside 

 

 Thanks loam for the video link:

 

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

Funny Money.

 

        The pillars of our wonderful capitalist system is the financial giants, our honourable banks. They oil the wheels of capitalism, they feed the growth of the parasites' wealth, and now we find that they are up to their necks in wheeling and dealing with criminal and corrupt elements, laundering trillions of their ill gotten gains of this festering mess we call capitalism.  

 

         UK bank shares have taken a hit after some of the world's largest lenders were accused of allowing criminals to launder dirty money.
        Over 2,100 suspicious activity reports (SARs) covering more than $2trn (£1.5trn) in transactions were leaked to BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
       These reports, and more than 17,600 other records obtained by the ICIJ, allegedly show how senior banking officials allowed fraudsters to move money between accounts in the knowledge that the funds were being generated or used criminally.
        Five global banks were named in the investigation: JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon.

      Their greed and brass necks allow them to follow the money, no matter where or how it was generated, more funds in the bank means higher share prices, then bigger bonuses for the masters. To expect other than this from these financial vultures, is being rather naive. After all they firmly believe that they control the world.

        The ICIJ reported that some of the banks named continued to work with "mobsters, fraudsters or corrupt regimes" even after they were warned by US officials that they would face criminal prosecutions for doing so.

       The sums involved are no trifling petty cash, but vast fortunes, and they are not one or two isolated incidents, it is hundreds of transactions over a considerable lapse of time. 

The top 10 banks represented in the FinCEN Files include:

Institution	Number of SARs	Amount flagged
Deutsche Bank	982	$1.3 trillion
BNY Mellon	325	$64bn
Standard Chartered	232	$166bn
JP Morgan	107	$514bn
Barclays	104	$21bn
HSBC	73	$4.4bn
Bank of China	35	$1.3bn
Bank of America	35	$384m
Wells Fargo	21	$57m
Citibank	18	$251m

Data compiled by Buzzfeed News

       Looks like Deutsche Bank could be the biggest money laundering machine in the world. So what does all this tells us, well nothing new, we should all be aware that the entire capitalist system is built on exploitation, though some of that exploitation receives the stamp of legitimacy from the state, others are given the badge of criminality. The latter are simply cash making exploitations that the state feels it has not got control of, nothing to do with morality, ethics or any of that stuff. Of course pursuing these types of affairs creates the illusion that the state is the guardian of the purity of our capitalist system. Will they pursue all those who made money from the rising shares and bonuses, as the stinking trillions flowed smoothly through the system?  

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

My Moan.

 

         So the covid19 pandemic again grows, did we really expect it would be other? A pandemic that has political ballerinas at the helm is bound to be a disaster. Especially if those same political ballerinas have a vested interest in the growth of the economy. All the decisions made in this fight against the pandemic will be made by people who have shares in companies, friends and family who own, run and/or are shareholders in businesses. Their decisions will be shaped by these facts, the strategy tainted by these influences, the economy will play an important part in all their decision making. This will move the health and welfare of the people down a notch, where as it should be at the top of the agenda.
        We have seen enough suffering and deaths with this method of trying to control this pandemic, it’s time we took the decision making out of the hands of economic vested interest and put full control in the hands of the medical and scientific minds, those who are experts in the field of disease and human health and welfare.
       Our political ballerinas will always feed you this crap about saving jobs, opening up the economy, which translates as, ”Get out there and get those tills ringing, our friends are losing money” and with scant regard to the results on the people. Only when the results, which were predictable, start to alarm the people, do they start to apply a temporary brake to their profit orientated strategy. 

 

          We have to demand that we take the economy out of the equation, and put the full strength of the medical and scientific establishment to takeover the tackling of this pandemic. Otherwise it will be a continual rivalry between those with power and wealth protecting that wealth and power and the risks to the general population. To date billions of tax payers money has been handed to big business, with the bullshit tag “to save jobs” We are always being told of the wonderful capitalist system, well let’s remind them this is capitalism, if your business isn’t making money then it should go bust. If it has an essential function for society, then take it into public ownership. All those billions should have gone into the health and welfare of the people, in the battle against this pandemic, which will never be won if the political ballerinas continue to hold control. So let's screw the economy and save the people.

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

Survival.

        It is accepted that prisons are places of violence, brutality and arbitrary justice, state institutions of repression and intimidation. However during this pandemic, prisons have become places of death sentences through the covid19 virus. Over crowded, insanitary conditions, poor or non-existent health care, is the perfect mixture for the spread of the virus, with the inmates having no possibility of self isolating. Cold blooded inhumanity, upheld by laws and regulations administered by the state. Like all repression, there comes a time when the only road to survival is rebellion. 

The following from AMW English: 

        219 prisoners escaped from Moroto Prison on Wednesday after prisoners were exposed to coronavirus. One soldier was killed by prison rebels, who stormed an armory and seized over 15 weapons and ammunition.
       Only seven out of 219 prisoners who escaped from the prison in north-eastern Uganda have been recaptured.
        Two prisoners have also been murdered during their escape attempt.
       The prison, which usually imprisons 600 people, is on the foothills of Mount Moroto, on the edge of the town.
       The escape was triggered by the transfer of 60 other prisoners to Jinja Referral Hospital for treatment after they tested positive for COVID-19.
     There was exchange of fire between security and the prison rebels who were scaling up mountain Moroto.
     The prisoners who escaped had been tested, but their results were withheld, leading to their decision to escape.
     As prisons around the world are turned into death traps by guards who infect prisoners with the deadly coronavirus, prison rebels will increasingly be forced to escape and fight back in order to survive.

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

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: 

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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