State Killing.

         The present system we live under is a mish-mash of inequality and injustice, poverty in the midst of opulence, managed and administered by soulless freaks of inhumanity. In a system so riven with greed, they put in place systems that are "supposed" to catch those who, inevitably, because of the systems structure, find themselves in need. Like everything in the system, these systems are run on economic factors, never on humanity, the result being inevitable poverty, deprivation, misery and on occasions, death, these deaths should be listed as state economic killings..
        It is easy to find cases where this gross inhumanity takes your anger to boiling point, but then what? What do we do about the avoidable death of a young mother because of the system's lack of humanity? What do we do about a young child being robbed of its mother, because the system doesn't care enough? What do we do about a family buried in grief because of a system run by emotionless economists, who can't see the misery inherent in their system?
       The following case is just one of the multitude of cases of misery and deprivation spawned by this exploitative economic system of greed.
         The following report by the BBC:

 

Photo courtesy of BBC

 

        A single mother with mental health problems took a fatal overdose after failures in the benefits system, her family has claimed. Philippa Day, from Mapperley, Nottingham, applied for a new benefit last year but saw her payments cut from £228 a week to £60.
          Her family believes she took her own life over her debts and after a request for a home assessment was denied. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it could not comment.
          Miss Day, 27, died in October last year. She had been in a coma for 10 weeks after being found collapsed at home. She had been diagnosed with emotionally unstable personality disorder, said her family. Her sister, Imogen Day, said Philippa's mental health had deteriorated with post-natal depression and she was unable to work.
         She had been receiving disabled living allowance (DLA) payments as she had type 1 diabetes. Those payments stopped after she made an application for a personal independence payment (PIP) in January 2019.
        The correct forms were not received and her payments were reduced to a standard living allowance of £60 a week, said the family. "In the months leading up to her death we only spoke about the PIP claim, we only spoke about the fact my sister had no money and she was unable to live a life with any kind of quality," said Imogen. Philippa's family say her mental health deteriorated after she was left living on £60 a week
      She said the family believed her sister's death was triggered when a request for a home assessment was rejected by the DWP. Imogen said the family was arguing that the DWP "broke Article 2 of the Human Rights Act - which is a right to life".
      "They're trying to argue they were unaware of my sister's vulnerable circumstances, which is incorrect," she said. "With all her dealings with the DWP, both her psychiatric nurses and my sister were very clear that it was impacting her mental health and was making her feel more suicidal." Imogen added: "I would like them to overhaul the entire claimant process to protect vulnerable people."
        A DWP spokesperson said: "Our condolences are with Miss Day's family. As the inquest process is ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment at this time."
        An inquest into Miss Day's death will open on 7 December.

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

No Vote.

 

        At the moment all the bubble and squeak on the media is "the election" who will be voted in to wear the crown for American imperialism. What seldom hits the headlines is who, with power over our lives, we never get the opportunity to vote in or out. The financial institutions, investment banks, fund managers, the corporate CEOs, a coterie of parasites that make up the financial Mafia that control the levers of this economic system called capitalism. That gang of expensive suits that make their decisions behind closed doors, far from the prying eyes of the public, but who control how the society that public inhabits, will be shaped. They dictate directions to elected parties by means of extravagantly funded "lobbyists", all legal, but with gifts, opportunities and donations as persuaders, to oil the greasy hands of our political ballerinas. There is no such thing as a poor member of Parliament, all those who enter that edifice to imperialism, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, leave much richer than when they entered.

        Instead of concentrating on those participants in our national farce of "Lairs and Corruption" competitions, sometimes known as elections, we should be paying much more attention to those we don't get an opportunity to vote on, the parasite class, the financial mafia and their bedfellows. That's where the real power in this greed driven insanity lies, that's the ones who hold and the reigns of power, who hold the wealth and bask in a swath of privileges, all gleaned from the toil and sweat of you and I. 

 

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An Illusion.

  

Who needs Trump?

 

         The media has us all in a frenzy about the US election, will Trump win again or will he be history. Of course the truth is, that Trump was never the real problem. Approximately 50% of the American population voted for him, he increased his share of the vote compared to 2016. All those people were not born or manufactured, the day that Trump got elected, they were there living in America with the same value structures that they hold today, just waiting for their mouthpiece, their cheerleader. Should Trump leave the White House, all those people will not disappear or suddenly abandon that value structure that they've held most of their lives. They will still be racist, misogynist gun-tottin' believers in American exceptionalism, and a very large slice of them will be steeped deep in their fundamental religious beliefs.

 

 Pre-Trump and post-Trump

 

        The deep rooted belief in American exceptionalism is the real problem. The belief that the "Founding Fathers" were moralistic, fair and just people, a group that gave birth to a land of African slavery, genocide of the indigenous people, and lynching as an acceptable act of justice and the highest number per head of population incarcerated. What is more they exported their belief in this exceptionalism in the form of Agent Orange, napalm, carpet bombing, then there was Abu Ghraib, and let's not forget, the only nation on earth to drop nuclear bombs on the citizens of to cities.
     We might be able to wave farewell to Trump, but the brutal American imperialist military machine, built on that belief of American exceptionalism, and lives in the sewers of a corrupt society, will continue its blood and thunder where it feels the need, no matter who wears the crown in the White House. While we can expect that 50% or so of the American population to cheer and applaud at ever brutal "victory" and honour that brute force. 

       If we accept that Trump was the real problem and his views and actions unacceptable in this "land of the free", he should have disappeared without trace at this election, but the truth is there for all to see, approximately 50% of the American people want him back in the Oval Office, what does that tell you? This election like every one before it, will mean let's embrace change, but make sure we stay the same. 

 

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Accepted Violence.

          Why do we need a police force, and if we have one how do you train them? It seems that certain police forces in America use quotes from Adolf Hitler and Mein Kampf, trains recruits to kill without emotion, and to see killing as the probable outcome of their interaction with the public. Of course ever political alive person is fully aware of why we have a police force, it's there to protect the managers of the system and their wealth, power and privileges. It is the first line of defence should the ordinary people get pissed off with the gross inequality and try to do something about eliminating that inequality. When you create a state police force, you eliminate any possibility of democracy, democracy and police authority are totally incompatible.

       The following is a quote from an interesting article by World Socialist Web Site:

 

      Killing and a well-known police trainer. Grossman’s “teachings” have been used by the US military to train recruits to kill without thinking.
       Grossman has argued, without evidence, that policing is more dangerous than in previous decades and therefore cops must be prepared to use more, not less, force. During a PBS Frontline interview in 2004 Grossman argued that he was not conditioning soldiers and police to kill without hesitation, but to embrace the responsibility of killing stating: “Killing is not the goal, but we all understand that killing is the likely outcome.”
       He, along with his business partner, Jim Glennon, a Chicago Police officer for 21 years, have been elevated to bring the training and “lethality” they learned in the military to the “homeland” to be used against the domestic working class.
       It is notable that Hall’s training curriculum was used by the KSP during the administration of former Democratic governor Steve Beshear, and was only brought to light years later upon an open records request. There is no doubt that similar curriculums are currently in use by police agencies throughout the country.
     While the Democratic party occasionally pays lip service to the idea of “reforming” the police, the fact is the police are the frontline troops of the bourgeoisie, given immense power and virtual legal immunity to beat, assault and kill workers and youth. It was the Obama/Biden administration that oversaw the militarized crackdown in Ferguson, Missouri and of Native American and other protesters during the Standing Rock demonstrations in North Dakota. They also oversaw the transfer of 460,000 pieces of military equipment to local police departments under the 1033 program.

       The defeat of fascism and the elimination of police violence is bound up with the abolition of capitalism. Those who are interested in joining this struggle must break from the Democratic Party, and all their pseudo-left hangers-on,

Red the full article HERE:

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Blood Land.

 

 

      That patch of the planet that has been known as Canada, is a plot of land, soaked in blood, grabbed by brutality, home to native people for centuries before the savage colonialists set their conquering boot on its soil. The cancer of colonialism festers on centuries after the land grabbing began. Blood was shed away back then by the intruders as they stole what they wanted from those who had the right to live there, and the blood is still being shed to this day. Now the fight back by the indigenous people is gaining strength. No doubt with the colonialists history, there will be more blood, as they brutally attempt to hold onto the land the purloined from the native indigenous people, and have continued to exploit to the enrichment of the few. The struggle of the indigenous people is our struggle, a struggle for justice and an end to exploitation. They demand and deserve our solidarity and support.

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

Keelie 12.

       Well that wee pocket rocket, the paper with a punch, The Glasgow Keelie, issue No.12 has just been released. Sadly due to the pandemonium pandemic it is still an online version. However we do hope to be back in the pubs, clubs, and cafes etc. soon, until then enjoy and be informed in the comfort of your own home.

The Glasgow Keelie webpage can be enjoyed HERE:    http://glasgowkeelie.org/

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

Tomorrow?

        Today is the day that most ordinary people have been dreading, Saturday, October, 31st., no, it's not trick-or-treat at your door, it's the end of the governments support schemes. Mortgages holidays and furlough end on this date, and that raises the anxiety level on millions across the country. Yes there are new support schemes being put in place but, they fall short of the schemes that are ending. At present millions are suffering and struggling to keep the heads above water, who knows what tomorrow will bring.
         Of course you can blame the covid19 for all this suffering, but in fact it can be squarely laid at the feet of the capitalist economic system that dominates our lives. Under this insane, exploitative system, our quality of life depends on money, and that depends on you selling yourself to someone else or a corporation who will only use you if it makes more money for them, and of course they will always pay you the least that they can get away with. So your quality of life depends on someone needing you to enrich themselves. 

 

 
       Imagine living in an anarchist-communist society where money has has gone, you don't have to depend on it to survive, a society that works to see to the needs of all the people, no matter those needs. Covid19 would not mean losing your home, it would not mean you and your kids going hungry. The stress, misery and anxiety that results from the lack of sufficient money in this society would just not happen. The present system is crumbling before our eyes, we can try to struggle on with the present unfair, unequal, system of dependency on our corporate bosses, or we can take this opportunity to bring this system of exploitation, anxiety, poverty and misery, crashing down. Take control of our communities, organise through mutual aid, take control of our workplaces if it is a benefit to our communities. We don't need CEO, shareholders and bankers, they are the parasites eating away at the produce of our labour. Think of tomorrow as ours, shape it to our needs, not that of the capitalist economy. Two paths are open, one, continue with the stress, struggle, anxiety and impending poverty of the present system, or, take control of our lives and shape society the way that sees to all our needs, without carrying on our backs an army of plundering parasites who live the life of opulence. Unlike some people believe, capitalism will not fall, it will have to be brought down by the people organising in solidarity against the system.

 

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

Why Work.

          Lock-down, partial lock-down, half lock-down, tiered lock-down regional lock-down, all shaped to try to keep you going to work, all those who can’t work stay in your cell and don’t socialise. There is an attempt to stop this virus but not at the expense of the economy. The economy must be protected at all costs, and that cost is billions of pounds of taxpayers money being pour into the coffers of big business, and continual spikes in deaths. As the various fiddling with measures give the impression that our lords and masters are working for your benefit. However we have the farcical “test and trace”, billions handed to corporate buddies and the result a scheme that is laughable if it were not so tragic. It’s safe to go to work on public transport, but not safe to go on public transport to visit your granny, one helps the economy, the other doesn’t. You can mix with strangers in a cafe, at a distance, but can’t visit your neighbours or your family down the road, again one helps the economy, the other doesn’t. Of course they will give you the "science" behind these decisions, but science like anything else has a variety of avenues, and there are several scientific views on these matters. Our lords and masters will pick the one that suits them, and interpret it according to their desires, which is, save the economy.
          Covid19 is a virus that spreads by close contact, it doesn’t select those that mix socially rather than those obliged to mix to keep the economy going. As long as the plan is to keep getting people out to work, rather than the number one priority being save people’s lives, we will see continual decreases and spikes. Sadly these rather innocent sounding terms and simple graphs, “spikes” and “hospital admissions” refer to human beings, members of families being struck down by a very serious and debilitating disease, and in some cases death. No economy is worth that cost. Why should you be the one to risk you and your family’s health for the benefit of “the economy”, remember as a worker mixing with others in what could be described as rather dubious conditions, go home and take what infections you may have picked up back with you. Who benefits most from you risking you and your family’s health, you or your employer? 

 

         Let’s screw the economy and look after each other. We can use this pandemic to change the structure of society by building on mutual aid and seeing that anything that is necessary for the well being of the public is taken into public ownership and run by the communities on a non-profit basis. We don’t need fat profits, greedy CEO and other members of the parasite class. Why risk your and your family’s health and well-being to keep the tills of a coterie of parasites ringing, so that they can live in the sort of luxury they think they deserve. Our new normal that sees to the needs of all our people, is what we should be aiming for, not a return to their exploitation and profit driven greed economy normal.

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

Serfs.

       It's a cruel illusion that is woven around us, as we are continually told, by the mainstream media and political propaganda, that we live in a free democracy. Yet a simple look around, and you see gross inequality, where the majority strive with sweat and blood producing an abundance of wealth, but live a life of constant struggle in an attempt to gain a half decent life. We know we produce a mountain of wealth, we see it all around us, in the shape of large mansions, super sports cars, private jets, luxury yachts, etc. and that small coterie of individuals living the high life in luxury and opulence.
      Are we still living away back in he middle ages of serfs, with a few trimmings of "modernity" but all the power and wealth still in the hands of our lords and masters? Has the structure really changed, we are as free as the cattle in the field or the sheep in the pen, there to be used as our masters see fit. They'll feed us, just enough as long as we are of value to them, when we are surplus to their requirements, they will dispose of us in various ways, or simple leave us to rot. We are the 21st century serfs, we struggle just to survive, placated by trinkets, mere popcorn and bubble gum in the form of mobile phones, laptops, etc. the usual bread and circuses, from world cups, to Olympic Games, all just paracetamol to make us feel better however remedying none of our problems, but all money making exercises for our lords and masters, for which we pay,

       The following food for thought from Acorn, Winter Oak.

 

 

         Inspired by Gerrard Winstanley who was born 411 years ago in Wigan.
         Most are happy to say they belong to a ‘nation’ or ‘country’ and feel a strong sense of pride in their connection to its land and shared ancestry. We think the times when monarchs and lords made claims on everything and everyone living on the land have long since gone and that these ‘nobles’ now ‘serve’ us and there are laws and safeguards to stop this kind of wicked exploitation happening again.
      What if on the surface it only looks like this but, in reality, these old ruling elites have found more covert ways to exploit us, keeping us in a similar state to how we were back in the dark and middle ages only with a veneer of modern state crafted respectability?
     Are modern day ‘nations’ no more than ‘mega brands’ that can be owned and managed for personal gain? Does state propaganda, and a corrupted mainstream media convince us that we have more freedoms than we in fact do, and that by voting once every 5 years, we have a say in who governs us when really we don’t? 

       You only have to look at current leaders like Boris Johnson and Donald Trump to wonder how they got to these important positions on which so many lives depend. Do these wily old families continue to benefit unfairly from the most constant and lucrative revenue stream available to a people? That is, its collective creative energy; namely the taxes we all pay on everything we earn, spend and own… For which we receive very little in return.
     Where does all this money go? How is our country still in debt after all this time, and the hard work we all put in? To give recent and obvious examples of everyday corruption, we know that £12 billion has just been spent on a phone app and £103 million was spent on a ferry company with zero ferries and so on… This list is in fact endless! Is something still ‘Rotten in the State of Denmark?’ as Shakespeare said? It appears it most definitely is.
     If it is the case, it means countries are more like fiefdoms and our common status that of chattels rather than a modern citizenry. In other words, 21st century slaveism.
      Perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves some pertinent questions. Are we falling for a very clever marketing con trick that makes us feel free and empowered when the reality is that a few power-obsessed and stupidly rich groups are still running everything behind the scenes, while life for the rest remains a constant struggle on an increasingly damaged Earth? How far have we come as a society when the weak are still made to carry the strong? You have to ask – and keep asking.

 

 

C.D.

      “England is a prison; the subtleties in the Laws are the bolts, bars and doors of the prison; the Lawyers are the Jailers; and Poor Men are the prisoners”. Gerrard Winstanley. (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676)

         Of course for "England", substitute the patch of land on which you live.

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

Twins.

       It is sometimes difficult when you see our so called "political representatives", in their fine clothes and polite civilised manner, that they oversee and manage the cruel, vicious and barbaric prison system. A system deeply rooted in violence and inhumanity, a relic from our more barbaric past, but which our well manicured "political representatives" deem necessary to keep them in their privileged position of wealth and power. Prisons are institutions of violence, repression and  intimidation, and are intended to be so, as a deterrent to those who would dare to challenge the status-quo. As long as the state survives, the savagery and barbarity that is the prison system will persist, they are inseparably linked like Siamese-twins.  

The following from Act For Freedom Now: (Translation is not perfect, but you grasp the viciousness) 

 Rotative Hunger strike in spanish prisons

        From last 1st of September on at least 14 prisoners, mostly anarchists, take actually part of a new rotative hunger strike against the precarious health conditions in the spanish prisons. They reinvicate also a 14 point program against isolation custody (FIES/DERT), tortures and physical and psychical violence from the prison guards, dispersion of prisoners far from their home, etc. Every comrade is doing a 10-days-hunger strike, one following other, every month 3 prisoners.
      Violence in spanish prisons is very common, every year 200 prisoners die inside spanish prisons violently or from drugs, no medical attention or diseases. Actually in corona times, the conditions in jail are mostly insupportable (bad food, no activities, no visits…).
        Last month of August our comrade Carmen Badía Lachos was violated from a prison guard inside the ‘hospital’ part of the Zuera-prision (Zaragoza).
      She suffers cancer and use a wheelchair to move, so this psychopath had an ‘easy game’ to act like a coward. Carmen did a public communicate about this machist crime. Last year Carmen did a very long hunger strike (more than 2 month) to denounce her health conditions to get released from prison because of her incurable cancer. The prison-administration denied her petition… The violator got threats to kill from an anonymous prisoner.
       Long term prisoner Claudio Lavazza in August was brought back to Spain after being judged in Paris for a big bank-robbery (in 1978) and he got sentenced 41 years later to ten years of prison in France! Claudio was arrested in 1996 after a bank-robbery in Cordoba where died 2 cops in a battle of gun-fire.
        Also still in prison our anarchist comrade Gabriel Pombo da Silva, actually in the jail of Leon. He got transferred from Aachen/Germany in 2013 to Spain with the special condition that he had to finish just his sentence from Germany in spanish prisons and then he’d be free from all anterior sentences. So in 2016 he became free. But his freedom in Spain didn’t have a long stand… just because one judge from Girona opinion that Gabriel should finish his 30-years-sentence from 1990… that would be 16 years more behind bars! But his friends and comrades try to bring the case to the superior tribunal of justice, so the last word is still not spoken.

Solidarity with the anarchist/revolutionary prisoners all around the world!

Down all prison walls!

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

Bloody Friday.

          Bloody Friday is a date that is branded on the psyche of Glasgow's working class, January, 31st. 1919, (or should be) when people from Glasgow and all around gathered in George Square holding a mass peaceful demonstration in support of the 40 hour week. When some individual among the higher echelons of power, for reasons known to them, ordered the police to attack the crowd. They went in with batons swing and all hell broke loose. Fighting spread across the city and well into the night as the people vented their anger on the police and the authorities. The powers that be got extremely nervous, fearing a revolution being sparked in the Red Clyde and spreading. Their answer was troops, armed with fixed bayonets on the streets of Glasgow, tanks stationed in a warehouse in the east end of the city, and armed soldiers at the gates of docks and other places that the powers that be, deemed strategic.
       I know it's not January, an anniversary or anything like that, but it is an event that we should always try to bring to the attention of the young taking up the struggle for a decent life for all. Though it has been written about by many people I thought it would be nice to hear a voice of one who was there at the time, A Glasgow working class fighter and writer/poet, someone I have admired since I first came across his name while researching the subject at the Caledonian University many years ago, Tom Anderson.

 Bloody Friday.

The Judas Iscariots, disciples of Christ,
Sent out the “Blue Legions”, bought at a price,
To maim and to kill at pleasure of will
The people unarmed who before them stood still.
The “Arm of the Law” read words from a “writ”
Empowering their legion to kill and to whip.
To cover their deeds, the press cried aloud,
“Save, save our good City from Bolshevik shroud!”

The knaves in chorus joined in with the throng:
“Machine them, baton them, drive them along;
Strike down the damned strikers, vermin at that,
The army’s behind you, make good your part.”
“The soldiers of freedom” - - - Christ! What an affair - - -
Stood waiting for orders, to “charge over there.
And sad was the sight, at the dead of night,
Slaves dressed in khaki, without human right.

They marched Khaki slaves through our streets day and night,
To show us the strength of their power and might;
And the poor slaves, bowed down with bayonet and gun,
Felt now they were the plundering Hun.
Christ Almighty! Was there ever a plot so foul,
They played with our men as a fox with a fowl.
Then down came their swoop with an avalanche tread;
And Kirkwood went down, and they cracked Willie’s head.
We fear not their law, nor yet their great men;
We fear not their prisons or blood-gallows pen;
We fear not their priests, or parsons or spies;
We fear not their land away up in the skies.
We laugh at their army, and navy, and king;
We laugh at the god to whom these thieves sing
We laugh,and in earnest we strive for the day
To wipe out the tyrants who do our class slay.

                                                                                Tom Anderson.

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

Take Sides.

       You don't like violence, then few people do, so when looking at the violence in our world, where should you direct your anger? At the unimaginable brutal, savage violence of states that bomb cities and countries killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people for power and wealth, that put police armed like robo-cop on the streets of our communities, or those same states that promote and protect corporate organisations that plunder the planet to the extinction of our ecosystem? Or those who would pick up a stone and throw it at the openly violent face of that state apparatus, or who attack the symbols of that violent state machine in hope of bring an end to the whole violent structure of the modern corporate/state system of capitalism? The state is violence, it can only survive by the violent repression of dissent, the state and capitalism are two fangs of the same vicious economic system that spawns mass poverty, deprivation, homelessness, wars, divisions between people across the planet, gross inequality and injustice, these are all degrees of violence. So why shouldn't those at the receiving end of this brutal system take to self defence and fight to destroy it, in an attempt to bring peace and equality to to all our people. When you stand and condemn violence in our society, be thoughtful and careful with which side you stand.

The following from Anarchists News:

Death to the State! Solidarity with Mónica and Francisco.
        Throughout history, anarchists have always suffered persecution by the State. This is because the simple idea of a world, free and in solidarity, where the coercive power of the State is not only unnecessary, but undesirable, is in itself a threat for those who hold power. And those people who put these ideas into practice and confront State violence can take for granted that they will catch the attention of the State's repressive apparatus.
        Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar are going through that. They were kidnapped by the State on July 24th, 2020. Now they risk spending various years in some Chilean prison.

Freedom for Mónica and Francisco!

         All the support to the struggle of the mapuche people which also suffers the repression of the Chilean State!
         This video was made as part of the Day of Agitation and Propaganda for Anarchist prisoners, August 14, 2020.

[Video transcript and translation below by Anarchist News:]

       Quote on screen: "It's not cruelty, nor thirst for blood, nor any other criminal tendency, what induce a man to attack organized power. On the contrary, it's above all due to a strong social instinct, due to a strong abundance of love and an overflowing of sympathy with the pain and sorrow that surrounds us" - Emma Goldman
Narrator voice-over in Portuguese and subtitles in Spanish:
        "In the morning of July 24th, 2020, the Chilean State arrested Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar in another attempt to criminalize anarchists. The State tries to disguise all the brutality and violence inherent in its existence by accusing anarchists of violence. But there's no way to compare the violence of colonialism, the military, the police and neo-liberalism, with rocks, Molotov cocktails and other tools used by peoples that resist genocide and oppression, and the destruction of all the ecosystems that maintain all the life on Earth. And it's those same States who are responsible for the greater part of the violence in the world, who feel they have the right to judge us and call that "justice".
        Freedom for Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar and for all the people that were kidnapped by States!"
       Mónica Caballero addressing the court: "Death to the State and long live anarchy!"
        Francisco Solar addressing the court: "Long live anarchy!"

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

Ye're Heroes.

          While my thoughts were wandering through events during this pandemic, I kept remembering all the lauding of the health and care workers. Clap for the NHS, every one a hero, all get together and praise their gallant work. Not for one minute am I suggesting that they didn't deserve all that praise for their unstinting efforts day in day out, to try and protect the communities. However, a decent life with security and income with full safety on the job, would have done them more good than hurray and clapping.
       It's something our lords and masters are good at, their hypocrisy knows no depth to which it will sink, when they need you most expect praise a plenty and clapping a loud, but not much more. This lead me to remember a poem written by James Mitchell, during the time when coal was the fuel that fed the economy and the state war machine, then, miners were heroes.

 

                                                 The Miners.

Ye’re heroes, aye, Ye’re heroes,
When workin’ doon the mine.
They slap yer back an’ praise ye,
Ye’re gallant lads an’ fine,
Toilin’ there among the damp
Where nane o’ them wid daur,
Ye’re heroes, aye, ye’re heroes,
When getting’ coals for war.

They humour ye, praise ye,
as ye keep the bunkers fu’,
An’ the convoys bring the foodstuffs
that they ration out to you;
Or the troopships tak’ yer brithers
To the battlefields afaur,
Ye’re heroes, aye, ye’re heroes
When getting’ coals for war.

They’ll promise ye high heaven,
As the furnace flames ye feed,
In a world that’s mad wi’ murder,
Truth is sacrificed to greed;
As factories belch their smoke-clouds,
An’ their profits daily soar,
Ye’re heroes, aye, ye’re heroes,
When getting’ coals for war.

                                                                                 James Mitchell.

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

Decisions.

          In this world of wars, poverty, deprivation, homelessness, injustice and inequality, for the many, and wealth, opulence, power, pomp and privilege for the few, people across the world take different actions to try to remedy this gross distortion of humanity, which is based on an economic system of insanity. There is dialogue, meetings, debates, protests, pamphlets, direct action, rebellion and insurrection, somewhere in that mix lies the answer to all our problems. We have to decide which road will lead to freedom, justice and equality for all, perhaps it is a mix of all these coming together in solidarity that is the answer. But the debate has to take place and be acted upon in unity, if we want that better world for all, and time is not on our side. 

        As part of that debate Rumoer Issue 2, is worth a read.

 

       The second edition of the anarchist publication Rumoer is out! A publication which will hopefully provoke discussion, irritation, inspiration, agitation, and attack. Because we do not want a raise in wages, but the destruction of work. Because we do not want to shout ‘boo!’ but want to hear BOOM! We want a confrontation without compromise with the system that is destroying our lives and the planet.
      In this issue some extra attention for the rampaging Covid-19 virus. But also just the ongoing anarchist interventions and other topics: an interview with a graffiti maker in Lebanon, the fight against Shell, post-gentrification and the use of the Signal app.
       If you want to receive the new Rumoer, send an email to: rumoer (((A))) riseup /// net. Since most social centres are currently closed, we ask you to help spread the latest edition. Order some extra copies and bring it to your neighbours, isolated family, friends and comrades.
       You can also download the new Rumoer or print it yourself. The link to the downloads can be found at rumoer.noblogs.org
        Remember, the streets are empty, the possibilities are open. Keep 1.5 meters away, but always at least ten times as much from the police!
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  Radio on
Smartphones on
Films on
Tablets on
Travels bought
Cars bought
Houses bought
Furniture bought
For what?
Trains going
Dollars flowing
Machines going
People toiling
Motors made
Canons made
For whom?
Destroy what destroys you
Bombers flying
Tanks rolling
Cops hitting
Soldiers falling
Stocks protected
Managers protected
The state protected
Against us?
Destroy what destroys you

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