Aparthied.

  

   Just in case you missed this little lot. 

Just another day in aparthied Israel: A "settler" vigilante noticed a 'suspicious' Palestinian – and shot him dead

Just another day in aparthied Israel: 11-year-old girl attacked as illegal, Israeli squatters storm Palestinian village

Just another day in aparthied Israel: : Israeli education minister bans rights groups from schools after B'Tselem's damning 'Israeli apartheid' report

Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine constitute violation of intl. : UN chief “The establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory, - has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law,” Guterres said

UN urges Israel to ‘halt, reverse’ new illegal settlements in occupied West Bank

Fundamentalist Israel Is No Longer Jewish, Says Avrum Burg. On Jewish Supremacy, Democracy and Diaspora ; Former Jewish Agency chairman says he wants no part in Israel's 'new Judaism,' which ignores minorities and undermines democracy.

How Israel is harming the war on antisemitism

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

The Matrix.

      Hi-tec has defined the way we live our lives and has shaped us to suit that platform. Just as the industrial age shaped us and our culture, so has the screen and the micro-chip shaped the present generation. At least the industrial age was mobile and social to a degree, today's world of micro-chips and screen is becoming more sedentary, less actual social contact. Thousands of friends but never met any more than a handful, all very surreal. A handful of high-tec designers are shaping the world for us, and it is not a pretty world, a world of a fast and furious avalanche of bite sized information. Before you can digest it you are buried under another cascading waterfall of bite sized info. Who are we, where are we, where are we going, who decides?

        Some words of wisdom from Not Buying Anything: 

 

        Want to get an up to date, accurate assessment of humanity's current state of affairs so you can help change the world? Don't go to social media for answers, that's blue pill stuff.
        The place we need to go is BOOKS, because so many are red pill material. Power brokers know we don't read books much any more, and therefore have not been aggressively censoring them.
      Our attention span has been reduced to the size of a pea, consuming information in smaller and smaller bites, bits, and microbits. It is imposible to get a big picture look at things. They think that if we are confronted by anything longer than a meme or tweet, we will lose concentration and wander off.
       But we can still read books, can't we?
      I am going to give it a go because you never know when they will stage real and/or digital conflagrations to eliminate inconvenient ideas. I am leaving a link to a book that I have been looking at recently, because I am all about taking that red pill and escaping the matrix.
      2021. The Year Humanity Escaped The Matrix, after 6000 long years. 

      Here's the link to a free online copy of Escaping The Matrix: How We The People Can Change The World by Richard Moore.

http://docs.cyberjournal.org/Documents/ETM_Book.html

        "We need a culture based on mutual understanding and cooperation rather than on war and conquest, a culture based on common sense rather than dysfunctional doctrine, on respect for life rather than the pursuit of profit, and on democracy in place of elite rule.
       After six thousand years of domestication, we sheep must finally cast aside our illusions, recognize our condition, and reclaim our identity as free human beings.
        In reclaiming our identities we will also be redefining our cultures."

- Richard Moore

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

Poison Tactics.

        One thing we should always remember about fascists is that they are opportunists, they will jump on any bandwagon that will give them publicity, and a hope of control in pushing their agenda, sadly so many people will jump on the fascist bandwagon, seeing it as a vent for their anger, without realising the true agenda of the various fascist groups.

The following is an extract from an article on Enough is Enough:

     ------This leads directly to the next serious problem. In light of the obvious far-right wing connections this march had, there was a much smaller, but dedicated counter-protest. Chanting anti-fascist and anti-capitalist slogans, the counter demonstration was accompanied by massive police presence. After speeches by various activists concerning the failure of this government to act in a humane way to this situation, and calling for a response to the pandemic that values human lives over profits – all while being continuously heckled by Covid deniers – a plan formed to blockade the Ringstraße in Vienna, along which the “sceptic march” intended to parade. What happened then was that within minutes there were hundreds of riot police with dogs at the meeting point who then chased the activists through a snowy park and eventually kettled a group of activists for multiple hours. The fact that this mean that it was made impossible to maintain a safe distance to each other during a pandemic, or that the temperature was below zero degrees seemed to be irrelevant to the officers that formed a tight circle around the activists. Every now and again you could see officers forcefully drag protesters from the kettle towards the vans. According to a statement issued by the police directory Vienna, everyone within the kettle was charged. All this happened in order to ensure the safe passage of a group of 10 000 people, who were actively breaking the law by not wearing facemasks to a demonstration. This very clearly goes to show that the state was more concerned with cracking down on any form of left-wing resistance than they were about a rise in prominence of fascism. On the Sunday following the protests, the government held a press conference to announce the next extension of a complete lockdown of the country. The minister for the interior did not attend.
          As much as it is portrayed as such, nobody is claiming that what we saw was a march of 10 000 right-wing activists on Saturday. What we saw was a mass event of thousands of people during a pandemic that had been co-opted by the fascist right. And that in itself is almost more worrying. Because it is important to remember that history has shown us that no matter where you look, the fascists were never the majority, but they do understand very well how to use anger. Fascists do not want to hold governmental power so much as they want to be able to wield governmental power to break down any resistance against them. So while the police may claim to have tried to “keep the peace” by making sure active fighting did not break out between anti-fascists and corona sceptics, the overwhelming disparity of numbers and force between the two demonstrations clearly showed that left-wing positions are not welcome in a neo-liberal state. Hardened fascists will never outnumber their resistance, but the events on January 16 have shown that there is a vast amount of people who do not mind backing fascists if they agree on a topic they are angry about, and those people in turn are happily backed by the executive arm of the law. Make no mistake, what we saw was not a demonstration of middle-class anger, what we saw was the largest fascist march in Austria in a long time, not because all of them were fascist, but because enough people don’t mind marching with fascists.

  Read the full article HERE: 

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

Voltairine.

           Lifted straight from the Facebook page of ANARCHISM:

 

          "As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no", the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed."

From: A LECTURE. Delivered in New York, Dec. 16. 1894. BY VOLTAIRINE DE CLEYRE.

• Voltairine de Cleyre, a video essay from Cristina Urquieta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPeZ5dxhI_I...

• Why I Am an Anarchist by Voltairine de Cleyre: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/.../voltairine-de-cleyre...

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

Solidarity.

        Anarchism knows no borders, nor does its solidarity and support, we are all one. To quote someone who was no anarchist,  "If you don't know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he's just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It's one world, pal. We're all neighbors."  Frank Sinatra.

The following from Anarchist News:

 

         Antijob.net has been known on the Russian-speaking Internet for almost 20 years. For example, in 2019, the site received 8 million unique visitors. We received and processed more than 20 thousand responses manually. When the media write about labour conflicts, they use testimonials from our website. In this way, we help workers' voices be heard. We also run groups on social networks where we talk about injustice, capitalism, and class struggle. The total number of readers of our social networks is about 34 thousand subscribers.
        Thus, we, as anarchists, are always on the side of the worker, and people are aware of this. Antijob.net is affiliated with the working class, and we also work with independent trade unions. Previously, we also organized actions of the Solidarity Networks, in which our associates pressured employers to return unpaid wages to their workers. At the same time, we do not cooperate with employers and the police, for which our site is often attacked and banned (we are banned in Belarus and Kazakhstan, several times a year we are blocked in Russia). We often receive threats from employers, courts, and police.
       Why do you need to donate? Antijob.net is now in dire need of technical improvement. It should work faster, be comfortable for workers. We need to have the best places in the search engines Google, Yandex. We recently made a complete redesign of the site, but this is still not enough.
       Support us and help us become a better feedback site so that more workers know about anarchism. Help us continue to unite workers in the class struggle because we want to bring social justice to this world. Help us and we will strike against the power of bosses and other deceivers harder.

THE ROAD MAP:

February 1th: Refinement of basic functionality

        Website optimization (frontend and backend) Server optimization and service tuning Improving usability Editing design and layout

February 15th: Mirrors and decentralization

        Moving the database into a separate secure service Creating mirrors for the case of state's blocks

March 15th: New user features

      User notification system, Spam Complaints System,Modification of the Telegram bot, Geo-optimization of content for the user's city Improvement of user statuses

April 30th: Database restructuring

       Creation of company entities, API-integration of information about companies
Expansion of the feedback form Addition of rubrication with tags Bot optimization for changes

May 31th: Analytics

      Automatic analysis of the uniqueness of reviews
Checking spam and automatizing analysis of bot-attacks
Publicly available analytics by problems, regions, companies, and spheres of work

June 15th: Legal services

      Legal FAQ,  Functionality of automatic complaints to the Labour Office and the Prosecutor's Office

Donate here:
https://www.firefund.net/antijob

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

Black Blocs.

        Organisation, strategies, tactics, solidarity, communication and knowing your enemy's strengths and weaknesses, all necessary for success in our struggle for that better world. One tactic that seems to have fired up the attention of the mainstream media is the "black bloc". Not a new video, but never the less interesting.

Who's Afraid of the Black Blocs? Anarchy in Action Around the World [Book Trailer] from Josh Lyon on Vimeo.

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

Guns & Laws.

        The Americans right to bear arms is a very one sided right according to the state. U$A does pass gun control laws, but they are usually in response to "non-whites" following that 2nd amendment, the right to bear arms.

The following from It's Going Down:

           On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with two members of the Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), about the organization and more broadly, about what it means to create an anti-racist current both within (and against) the current mainstream gun culture which largely has been occupied by the far-Right. The SRA currently has about 10,000 members and is a pan-Left organization, made up of anarchists, Marxists, and socialists. For a history of the group and a look at where they are coming from, we encourage people to read this interview several members conducted with the Anti-Fascist Network in the so-called UK.

From the interview:

         It is important to understand that gun rights were enshrined in the US 2^nd Amendment partly because of a need for armed violence at the frontier to continue the genocide of Native peoples, as well as Southern fears of slave uprisings. Gun rights were largely reserved for white people for most of US history, and during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, Black people who armed themselves for community defense were often massacred and disarmed by white mobs and police. Attempts by Black people and other marginalized groups to arm themselves have often led to increased gun control; the National Firearms Act of 1934 was partly justified by crime committed by Italian and Irish immigrants; the Gun Control Act of 1968 was partly put in place due to Civil Rights riots; the Mulford Act was passed in California and signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1967 in response to the Black Panthers; ‘Saturday Night Special’ laws banning inexpensive small caliber handguns were passed in the ‘70s in response to Black people in cities preferring those firearms. The history of gun control in America is the history of white people owning guns to oppress marginalized people; Black people and other marginalized folks acquiring guns to defend themselves; and white people then passing laws to disarm the marginalized.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Our History.

 

       We should always remember our own, no matter how little or how much they gave, they were on our side. Some give what they can when they can, others dedicate their entire life to the just cause of freedom and justice for all. Their stories must be told, remembered and recorded, it is our history, one way to destroy a movement is to destroy its history, we can never let this happen, we owe it to those who walk that path before us, and to those who will follow. We are where we are because of those who cleared a path before us.

 

 The following from Act For Freedom Now:

         Italy: In memory of anarchist comrade Marilù Maschietto
        The following are the words with which two comrades wanted to remember Maria Ludovica Maschietto, known as Marilù (February 14, 1932 – December 29, 2020).
        Farewell Marilù, with you another piece of my anarchy dies. Thank you for always being a safe haven for me and the people I loved.
        Thank you for snatching me away from apathy and disillusionment when I was 18 years old and the anarchists seemed to me a bunch of wordsmiths and idiots.
        And thank you above all for teaching me the critical spirit and that anarchists need no leaders, that contempt and superiority towards the naive and clueless must not find room in our hearts.
        I wanted to tell you looking into your eyes but I didn’t have time… forgive me.
        I owe you a lot, I love you, I will not forget you.

Alfredo, prison of Ferrara
        Forgive me if I take the floor reading a text and not by improvising a speech as it would deserve a comrade who has lived an entire life giving all he could – in terms of forces, means, ideas – to the anarchist movement with the same naturalness with which she spoke in the living room at home.
        Marilù knew she was leaving us. The last words she said to me a few days ago were: «Always remember me». But despite this awareness she continued to make plans, to try to give until the last moment her contribution to the fight for anarchy.
        Remembering Marilù is difficult, indeed very difficult, because her is not just a personal story, but is part of the historical heritage of the revolutionaries. It is made of links, intertwining of stories, especially collective, but also clashes. She left us testimony of the experience of Azione Rivoluzionaria, including through books, contributed to the birth of the “Gianfranco Faina” Committee Against Prison and Repression, standing by the prisoners throughout her life.
        I knew the history of the anarchist movement from her lips, even before books. Some might say that it is biased history. Yes, it is. This is because it is the story told by those who have always supported the anarchist action without being a mere spectator, between the pleasure of an achieved hit and the pain of seeing the comrades die with weapons in hand or in jail or, even worse, distance themselves from the revolutionary practices.
        So, thanks to her stories, I tried to live with the same passion, I learned to defend the same principles, as well as to hold the same grudge.
        Remembering Marilù, as she asked us to do, is therefore to defend the revolutionary hypothesis, to put it into practice knowing that it is full of choices to be made. A certain partisanship is not only inevitable, it is a must. Because if there must be a passing of the baton – as is customary to say on such occasions –, then we must make the history of the revolutionaries our own, with all that this entails. We must have the courage to choose, to know how to be on the side. On the side of the exploited, but even more so on the side of those who, among the exploited, have abandoned all hesitation, embracing the fight for freedom, without compromise and especially without denying anything.
       To you Marilù, to the comrades who died but lived fully, to those who still pay the price for their choices.
        You do not deserve our tears, but those of fear of the oppressors.

Marco

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

By Any Means.

           The current situation in states across the world is that they are moving further to the right. In turn that means that any form of opposition to the existing order will be seen as something that must be stamped out, by any means available. Their specially sculptured judicial system will keep introducing laws that can clamp down on dissent of any form, by financial or custodial means, or both. Our very few freedoms are are risk, unless we show solidarity and organisation across borders. The following report is from Spain, but just as easily could have been from Greece, Itally, Uk, U$A or any of the other variations of  protectors of the status-quo.

         The following report is from Anarchists News, translation is not perfect but good enough to let you know what is going on.

       “They ask the union for almost 600,000 euros and jail sentences for the complainant worker and union members, a total of 8 people,”

Prison sentences for unionism

          It all started with different labor irregularities and an alleged sexual harassment at work, a complaint currently filed. A worker went to the union at the beginning of 2017 to comment on what was happening to her at Pastelerías La Suiza, in Gijón. ” ..The union requested additional information to support the version of the worker, after which, it met with the company to discuss the issue, unsuccessfully which led to the beginning of a union mobilization campaign and several concentrations of complaint were held, “nothing that is not usual in union action,” the unionists declare. 

       However, “the attacked women became aggressors from one day to the next, when denounced by the businessman on numerous occasions,” the CNT denounces. “They ask the union for almost 600,000 euros and jail sentences for the complainant worker and union members, a total of 8 people,” they detail from the anarcho-syndicalist central, “some penalties that are beyond all logic.”
       Behind the claim that asks for years in jail for unionism allegedly could be the Gijón hotel trade union, people with a clear conservative orientation, who “have accused the CNT of extorting, of being ETA, and have tried to outlaw the union for a crime of illicit association ”.
       In fact, they have hired, as a lawyer to exercise the private accusation against the union, the former magistrate of the National Court, Mr. Javier Gómez Bermúdez, “star judge and now Jaime Botín’s lawyer”, highlights the anarcho-syndicalist organization. 

       “This case is another step in the outlawing of trade unionism, either directly or by putting trade unionists in jail and financially condemning them,” denounces the CNT. For this reason, they appeal to class solidarity and the fraternal support of all the trade union centrals, in order to try to stop this aggression and to disseminate as much as possible what is going to be judged as of Monday 18.

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

Insurrection??

          There has been a lot of coverage of the "insurrection" in Washington DC on January 6th.. So it is good to hear an analysis of the events from anarchists and those of that ilk from that side of the pond, They'll be much more in touch with what goes on in that patch of the planet.

This from It's Going Down:

 

      

        A critical anarchist analysis and critique of the recent events in Washington DC and the response from the political Center and mass media. 

 

       So much could be said about the spectacle recently witnessed at Washington, DC’s federal capitol building, however we will write a quick statement, hoping to further understand the situation as well as to assert a need on behalf of comrades in the States who face both imminent and ongoing grassroots violence and parallel state repression. Essentially, what we saw was not an insurrection or revolt; what the world witnessed was a permitted fascist temper tantrum.
      On January 6th, 2021, the American government gathered for its ritual of certifying the Electoral College results, signifying the transfer of power to a new president. It is an archaic ritual that—because it began prior to modern travel, and faraway states needed the months after the election to travel across the country by horse and carriage to participate—is held in January rather than immediately following the election’s outcome in November. This event was seen by both Trump and his followers as the last ‘hoorah’ to disrupt the transfer of power from the far-right Republican Party to the moderate right-wing Democratic Party.

       The US security state’s very different approach to the MAGA mob versus an antifascist, anarchist, or abolitionist demonstration was made quite overt on the 6th. It was so obvious, in fact, that mainstream media outlets have seized upon it, in their embarrassing public displays of trying to grasp just why the police put on their kid-gloves with these self-indulgent cowards seeking to reinforce the very worst of what already exists in the US, storming a building that has its very own police force (with an annual budget of more than $500 million).
     The police tolerance exhibited for Trump’s supporters was purposefully obvious. It has been public information that the extreme Right in the US have chosen to infiltrate law enforcement and political positions of power (even cited in a report by the FBI) ever since the fall of the guerrilla neo-Nazi group The Order in the mid-1980s and white supremacist Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 that killed 168 people. Both were inspired by the white supremacist bible at the time, the fictional novel The Turner Diaries (1978), which featured a similar assembling of fascists identifying as ‘Patriots.’ Apart from formally rampant white supremacy throughout the American police force, every single police union had endorsed Trump in the US in the run-up to the 2020 election. While police tend to be more diverse in the US compared to many countries around the world, the original purpose of the police in the US was to catch slaves and crush unions, so it is inevitable that regardless of race, there is an element of fascism in such a uniform.
       If Black Lives Matter, anarchist, or anti-fascist banners were raised on this day, there would have been mass arrests, far more intense brutality, and a likely massacre. While five people have died due to the events of the 6th, one being a police officer who died due to being beaten to death with a fire extinguisher*, and only one demonstrator due to police violence; the other three literally died due to their own stupidity and maintained their white privilege even in their humiliating deaths. If this was not a white supremacist event—or an ostensibly fascist event—dozens would have been killed by the police.
       Apart from the daily mass murder of people of color and poor people in the US by police, the fates of Kyle Rittenhouse and Michael Reinoehl, for some very recent examples, help to explain the behavior of the police on that day, how they acted in parallel to their grassroots fascist counterparts.
      Kyle Rittenhouse murdered two people during a demonstration against the shooting of Jacob Blake—a Black man shot seven times in the back in front of his children by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The event left Blake paralyzed, but the officer who shot him will face no charges despite video evidence. Rittenhouse is currently on trial for his murders, and was allowed to move freely past the police line just shortly after killing people. Michael Reinoehl, on the other hand, was a self-proclaimed antifascist from Oregon, who in self-defense shot a fascist during a Trump protest. Reinoehl went on Vice News shortly after the event to proclaim the action was in self-defense, and one day later, he was shot over 50 times by federal police. Trump openly bragged about Reinhoel’s assassination. With few exceptions, his fate was rarely discussed in the media, but shows the obstacles and struggle revolutionaries face versus the permitted ‘rebellious’ behavior of fascists and other fanatics for the misery of the world today. The courts are no different. The sentencing and investigations that inevitably follow the actions of the right are managed in a way resembling obligation, rather then the passionate and brutal judicial attacks by the state on revolutionary movements seeking liberation.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Your Thoughts?

         As stated earlier on this blog, the latest issue of the Glasgow Keelie came out on January 6th.. I'm sure a lot of you will have already popped your nose into this great wee paper, (online at the moment). However there may be some who haven't yet had a wee look, so to tempt you to look in that direction, here is an article from that new issue. If you find the subject matter is something you would like to say something about, then drop your thoughts to the Glasgow Keelie or on the comments of this blog. You can state whether you wish it to be published or not. We are always keen to hear your opinions on anything we publish. Go on have a look at the Keeli, then say something.

Keelie 14:

THE KEELIE REPORT

The Urge to Self-Destructis Not a Creative Act

           It is no accident that two-thirds of drug deaths were born in the period 1966 to 1985.De--industrialization and a decline in the typical job opportunities for school-leavers without qualifications drove many to seek escape and construct a new harsh self-destructive culture. 1979 witnessed the Tory Government that brought Thatcher and her cronies to power. The Blair Government acted to accelerate globalisation and market forces. 'Lame Duck' industries were obliterated, some like the Miners through confrontation, but more usually by jobs being exported to countries by Multinationals with lower wage costs and social security. It is also no coincidence that after urban riots in the early to mid-80s, when collective resistance was a possibility that supplies of street heroin increased at affordable prices. Throughout history, people have been drawn to experience substances and out of body experiences. The Late 60s glamourised recreational drugs like LSD and Marijuana as pathways to self-exploration & enhanced consciousness. From a communal experience it has become an individualised or sub-group expression of alienation. Males are brought up to act ‘tough' not share feelings, and drugs and alcohol are escapes from hurt and confusion. It is a challenge that those with radical politics are not meeting. This is especially true in housing schemes where anonymity is more difficult with sectarian or drug dealers attacks more likely. There are exceptions, as with the motorway protests in Pollok in the 90s, the Independence referendum five years back, but it can quickly dissipate. A culture of education, resistance and local agitation is largely absent. Living Rent is a cause of hope, such as in The Wyndford in Maryhill

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

The Music Weapon.

        They say music makes the worlds go round, it certainly can be inspiring, and it certainly can bring people together, a weapon to energise a group, a community, a city or perhaps raise an idea to popular acceptance, like Love Music-Hate Racism.
          New album form Love Music-Hate Racism, worth a wee listen, It is available as digital download or LP, from £10.

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

World Strike.

Photo courtesy of BBC.

        Surprise, surprise, the world's largest workers strike doesn't get much media coverage. The Indian farmers' strike where somewhere in the region of 200,000 took strike action against the implementation of new government legislation opening up India's agriculture to the free market. This strike has been ongoing since November 26th 2020, and farmers are still camped outside the capital Delhi demanding a complete withdrawal of this legislation. All rounds of talks with the government have so far failed to reach any agreement.
      So far they managed to get the court to implement a stay of the legislation "until further notice" and the court has set up a committee to attempt a deal between the farmers and the government. Meanwhile the government has ruled out any roll back of this legislation, while the farmers have repeatedly stated that they will settle for nothing less than the complete withdrawal of this free market legislation. The court has also agree to hear a multitude of petitions against this legislation.
       Agriculture should be for sustainability and self sufficiency, not about mass markets for export to enhance corporate coffers. The "free market" in agriculture has nothing to do with sustainability and self sufficiency, it's all about large corporations dominating the production of food for profit.
      The determination of the farmers is borne out by the period over which the strike has persisted and the hardship the strikers have endured. At least four farmers involved in the strike camp outside Delhi have committed suicide, many others have died from various illnesses and from the bitter cold winter conditions. This legislation would be the death knell for thousands of Indian farmers.
        This strike should be receiving world wide solidarity and support, of course a world wide strike would be one answer. The free market is an enemy of the ordinary people and puts more of the world's resources in the hands of the ever greedy and powerful corporations. They already control vast swaths of our resources and wield tremendous power over our lives, for the benefit of all humanity, we have to reverse this march of the corporate world.  

                                     Photo courtesy of BBC

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

Two Faced Society.

        Wrote this little piece five years ago, I like to drag these past rants out just to see what has changed. However over my 86 years I have heard all these promises of pie in the sky spewing from the mouths of our political ballerinas, over and over again, "We will eradicate the scourge of child poverty", "We will end homelessness in X number of years", but nothing much changes. These two-faced careerists either have very short memories or are just barefaced liars. They know it has all been promised before and they know that these inhumane injustices are still with us today, and if we continue with the present system they will be with us tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

My rant form 10 January 2016. 

        This winter may have been mild, but it is Scotland, and it is winter, cold and damp, not the sort of conditions anyone should find themselves homeless. While our parasitical politicians tell how well everything is doing, spouting, everything is on the up and up, some facts contradict that propaganda. The number of homeless people is rising, rising homelessness can never equate with an improving society. Glasgow City Mission, a charity that helps provide temporary shelter for homeless people, claims to have had a 60%+ increase in the number of rough-sleepers seeking a bed for the night. The charity claimed that, December 2015, saw 711 individuals came to them seeking a bed, compared with 437 December 2014. The quietest night this December saw 14 individuals seek a bed for the night, last December that figure was 4. While the busiest December night this year the figure was 31, compared with last December when there were 21.

 

        Not a very flattering picture of Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, and an indictment of the system we live under. Glasgow has an abundance of glossy, glitzy, shopping malls, lots of fancy expensive restaurants, car parks littered with luxury cars, yet hunger and homelessness stalks its streets. Under the neon lights a doorway can be a shelter from the cold and damp, a dark lane, a bed for the night. There is an invisible army of enforced hungry, lurking in the shadows of abundance. It is totally unacceptable that hunger's vicious claws tear at an individual a hands throw away from a warehouse of food. It is totally unacceptable that someone should lay their head on cold wet stone for a bed, when the city abounds in empty accommodation.

        This cruel injustice is the law of capitalism, no matter your needs, you will have to do without, if you can't pay. You can't be provided for if there is no profit in it for somebody. In this insane system, you can die from hypothermia and/or hunger, while shelter lies empty, and food rots next door. Why do we tolerate this?

         The figures may be different today but the injustice and inhumane callous cruelty persists, ah, that's capitalism for you. With the present pandemic creating a whirlwind of unemployment and austerity, we can expect the usual result from capitalism, more child poverty, and more homelessness to help to "balance the books".

The Homeless

 
Tenebrous spectres, they exist, out there,
on the crumbling edge of chaos.
A father, a son, a brother,
a daughter, a sister, a mother.
Fragments of some shattered family structure;
waste products
from a society being driven to destruction
by a hurricane of greed,
living a life that wears out life,
dying,
the devious death of exhaustion from existence.

http://radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.co.uk/.../wealth-and...

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

Asset Strippers.

         Glasgow City council, like most city councils I suppose, has been merrily selling off public land to private developers. What this means is that the council, supposed caretakers of the citizens publicly owned assets, are in fact disposing of them to groups who will make a fortune from those asset. As this continues, we will reach a stage where there will be no public owned assets, other than those that can't make a profit. We the citizens will be lumber with costs but nothing of value, we will live in a privately owned city, where every step will cost you money. We have a housing crisis, we have homeless families and others living in inadequate housing while others are forced to live in ever increasing rented accommodation, stuffing the private landlord's coffers. We need all that publicly owned land, it is ours, we need it for social housing giving the citizens decent affordable accommodation. Private land developers are not philanthropists, you could call them asset strippers, they are out to make a fortune at our expense. Why let the council assist them in their plundering of the public purse.

Meeting Info:

 

 

         Living Rent have been battling to stop this site in Marhill which was once the site of council houses to stop its sale to private housing. We need our land to build council houses, not sold to rip-off landlords. We need reasonable rent council houses if not for our selves, for our young folk who have little enough to look forward to without just working to pay the rent. Wages going down rent going up! Time to stop the give away! It would be zero cost to the council to postpone the sale and listen to us.

Townhall Meeting For Maryhill

Invited speakers:
Bob Doris MSP, Cllr John Letford, Patrick Harvie MSP and candidate Keiran O'Neill are all confirmed as coming. Now is the time to make the community's view heard. Are you coming?
The Council spoke to just 69 people over 13 years to come up with their sell off plans for bought housing. Now is the time to show the community's real view and decide the site's future. Try to be there. 6:30pm, Tues 12th, meeting link at www.livingrent.org/collinastreet

Sign the petition:
https://www.livingrent.org/halt_the_sale_of_collina_street?fbclid=IwAR2Jc-fNLYznYA3a_J8AbenhXsvOIUIjLMsf1e4vS5-UCQeRJmQZ_Xz1wAQ

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