Instead of having a debate about the obvious in an attempt to justify injustice, it should invoke anger and disgust, and a desire to rid our society of such injustice and inequality, once and for all. Enjoy the ecstasy of your righteous anger.
Thursday, 11 March 2021
Racism.
Instead of having a debate about the obvious in an attempt to justify injustice, it should invoke anger and disgust, and a desire to rid our society of such injustice and inequality, once and for all. Enjoy the ecstasy of your righteous anger.
Towards Anarchism.
Have a read and perhaps delve into the multitude of pamphlets, booklets posters and other anarchist/libertarian socialist material we have on line, look, learn and act.
Read "Towards Anarchism" on line:
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Monday, 8 March 2021
Be Prepared!
A recent Oxfam study found that since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s richest 10 billionaires have seen a wealth increase of half a trillion dollars – enough to pay for every person on the planet to get a vaccine. In this UpFront special, Marc Lamont Hill discusses with economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis what is driving the staggering wealth inequalities and how governments are offering socialism for the rich, and austerity for the rest.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Sunday, 7 March 2021
Our Streets.
The following from Act For Freedom Now:
Barcelona – Update on latest arrests (Spain)
05/03/2021 posted by round robin/it)
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.ukAs part of the riots that broke out in Barcelona during the last two weeks, 8 anarchist comrades were arrested on the night of February 27th during a cop charge.
On Monday morning, the Mossos d’Esquadra (catalan police) searched two squatted warehouses, in MatarĂ³ and Canet de Mar, neighbouring towns of Barcelona, where they seized material.
After a statement on Tuesday at 5 p.m., the judge validated the arrests without bail and sent them all to preventive prison.
The charges against the 8 anarchists are: attempted murder, organized criminal asociation, conspiracy, unauthorised demonstration, aggression, public disorder, assault and violence against public officials and damages.
The comrades decided not to answer the prosecutor’s questions, but to answer only to their lawyer.
The next day, they all received a PCR test and, according to the new anti-covid rules, they were forced to get vaccinated. (?!!)
They are now in solitary confinement in Brians 1 prison and for the moment they are not allowed to receive any clothes or money.
A team of three lawyers is taking care of their defence.
Austerity Normal.
Friday, 5 March 2021
No Friend.
We can only seek freedom and justice outside a system built on, and that relies on, power and wealth, and the privileges grabbed by these conditions.Never the less it is great news that an climate activist has been freed to carry on her fight against this ecologically disastrous system of profit privileges and greed. Thanks Keith for the link.
The following from World Review:
A court ruling in India has delivered an urgent message this week - not just for their country’s own government, but for the world: “In my considered opinion, citizens are conscience keepers of government in any democratic nation,” said the judge. “The offence of sedition cannot be invoked to minister to the wounded vanity of the governments.”
With these words, the judge released on bail the 22-year-old Indian climate activist, Disha Ravi. Her alleged offence? Editing and sharing an online “toolkit” which advised fellow activists on how to support the country’s farmers’ protests’.
The protests, which farmers argue are necessary to defend their livelihoods in the face of new laws, have rocked the nation since last summer - becoming a symbol of wider revolt against both deregulated capitalism and state oppression, as Ravinder Kaur has written.
Ravi’s post was consequently widely shared, including by the Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg. Yet the kickback to the toolkit was also swift: within hours, the hashtag #GretaThunbergExposed was circulating on Twitter, implying the climate campaigner was part of an international conspiracy against India.
Effigies of Thunberg and other supportive international celebrities were burned in the streets, President Narendra Modi later appeared to echo the sentiment, claiming that some “foreign powers” were engaged in systematic efforts to “malign” the image of Indian tea, while the Delhi police alleged that Ravi was part of a global conspiracy to defame India and stir unrest.
This week’s court ruling has attempted to squash these dangerous claims: “The freedom of speech and expression include the right to seek a global audience,” added the judge.
Showdown.
However, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel as an opportunity to restructure the way we live, how we shape society for the benefit of all our people, instead of scratching a survival while we feed the ravenous insatiable appetite of a corrupt parasite class, that has plundered and pillaged the fruits of our labour for generations.
There will be choices, there will a need for decisions, and we have to be the ones that make these decisions, we have to be the ones who make those choices and they must be for the benefit of all in society. There is no compulsion to go back to the society of gross inequality, injustice and corruption. I'm sure we all have the imagination to visualise a fairer society, to organise resources in a fairer manner. All it takes is the collective power of the people, solidarity among the people, and community organisation. I doubt that there will be a better opportunity than now, for us to come together take control of our lives, and build that better world for all, free from the profit motive and the slavish dictate of "the economy".
At some point in the next few months, the crisis will be declared over, and we will be able to return to our “nonessential” jobs. For many, this will be like waking from a dream.Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
The media and political classes will definitely encourage us to think of it this way. This is what happened after the 2008 financial crash. There was a brief moment of questioning. (What is “finance,” anyway? Isn’t it just other people’s debts? What is money? Is it just debt, too? What’s debt? Isn’t it just a promise? If money and debt are just a collection of promises we make to each other, then couldn’t we just as easily make different ones?) The window was almost instantly shut by those insisting we shut up, stop thinking, and get back to work, or at least start looking for it.
Last time, most of us fell for it. This time, it is critical that we do not.
Because, in reality, the crisis we just experienced was waking from a dream, a confrontation with the actual reality of human life, which is that we are a collection of fragile beings taking care of one another, and that those who do the lion’s share of this care work that keeps us alive are overtaxed, underpaid, and daily humiliated, and that a very large proportion of the population don’t do anything at all but spin fantasies, extract rents, and generally get in the way of those who are making, fixing, moving, and transporting things, or tending to the needs of other living beings. It is imperative that we not slip back into a reality where all this makes some sort of inexplicable sense, the way senseless things so often do in dreams.
How about this: Why don’t we stop treating it as entirely normal that the more obviously one’s work benefits others, the less one is likely to be paid for it; or insisting that financial markets are the best way to direct long-term investment even as they are propelling us to destroy most life on Earth?
Why not instead, once the current emergency is declared over, actually remember what we’ve learned: that if “the economy” means anything, it is the way we provide each other with what we need to be alive (in every sense of the term), that what we call “the market” is largely just a way of tabulating the aggregate desires of rich people, most of whom are at least slightly pathological, and the most powerful of whom were already completing the designs for the bunkers they plan to escape to if we continue to be foolish enough to believe their minions’ lectures that we were all, collectively, too lacking in basic common sense do anything about oncoming catastrophes.
This time around, can we please just ignore them?
Most of the work we’re currently doing is dream-work. It exists only for its own sake, or to make rich people feel good about themselves, or to make poor people feel bad about themselves. And if we simply stopped, it might be possible to make ourselves a much more reasonable set of promises: for instance, to create an “economy” that lets us actually take care of the people who are taking care of us.
Thursday, 4 March 2021
Keelie 16.
Once again the wee pocket rocket of radical criticism and info, the Glasgow Keelie is out, its new March edition, issue No.16. now available. Info on the 1911 Singer strike, plight of migrants and asylum seekers, the world's biggest workers strike, and much, much more. Always a valuable and enjoyable read, spread the word, The Glasgow Keelie, make it your paper, send in you stories, grips and criticisms of this system of corruption and inequality that we live under.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.ukTuesday, 2 March 2021
State Control.
Concern over the government’s limitation of the right to protest during lockdown continues to mount after it emerged that the home secretary, Priti Patel, is eager to grant police greater powers to control demonstrations once the Covid restrictions are lifted.Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
In a letter to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) Patel wrote that although she appreciates protest is “a cornerstone of our democracy” she wanted to know how the Home Office could help police ensure protests in the future do not impact on “the rights of others to go about their daily business”.
In a letter to Sir Thomas Winsor, the head of HMICFRS, dated last September but just released under freedom of information laws, Patel wrote: “I would like to know ... what steps the government could take to ensure the police have the right powers and capabilities to respond to protests.”
Campaign groups such as Liberty argue that police already have extensive powers to control or ban protests and arrest individuals who stray from police-imposed conditions.
Patel recently described last year’s Black Lives Matter protests as “dreadful” after previously calling them illegal. BLM demonstrators have claimed they were subjected to intimidating police tactics such as kettling, and a report from the monitoring coalition Netpol alleged the policing of the protests was “institutionally racist”.
Patel’s letter to Winsor has prompted a review by the inspectorate into how effectively the police manage protests.
Its findings will help Patel prepare a new law to curb protests that it is understood will target those that block parliament or affect judicial hearings, among other criteria.
There is growing concern that the government has used the pandemic to suffocate protest. Gracie Bradley, the interim director of Liberty, said Covid regulations passed as emergency laws appear to create a blanket ban on organising and attending protests, which was a disproportionate restriction of human rights.
“It’s a failure to prioritise what is the exercise of a fundamental democratic right and one that is all the more important given the government’s propensity to sideline parliament in the course of dealing with this pandemic,” she said.
Sunday, 28 February 2021
Out Of Control.
The police in most countries are out of control and all with the blessing of the state. I think the Greek police are at the forefront of this charge to suppress any form of dissent. However the citizens of Greece are not taking this lying down, day in and day out they face this police brutality for simple protesting a gross act of inhumanity, and stand their ground, we owe them solidarity and support. There is a bond of unity between all police, there has to be a bond of unity between all citizens seeking that better world for all.
Athens, Greece: For the 7th time in 7 protests in solidarity to the hunger striker Dimitris Koufodinas, scores of riot policemen tried to spread fear and terror amongst those that dared to raise their voices and their feasts in the air to protest the prisoner’s imminent death, but people stood their ground, as you may see in the video. If Dimitris Koufodinas (on strike since January 8, 2021) dies it will be the first prisoner on hunger strike to die in the European Union, since the death of Bobby Sands on May 5, 1981, in Northern Ireland, under the Margaret Thatcher regime. Dimitris Koufodinas, now 63 years old, is on hunger strike for the last 50 days and has begun a thirst strike too since 23 February. His death is considered imminent. His current demand is to be transferred to Korydallos prison, as well as, an end to these arbitrary interventions against him. Even after 50 days without food and 3 without water, the greek government refuses his right to equal treatment. People that dared to protest in Athens today, 26 February 2021, were, once again, forcefully attacked by scores of policemen for no reason, just for protesting. This is the 7th time in the last few weeks that protests for Koufodinas in Athens city centre have been heavily attacked by riot cops.
- The rise of right wing fascism within the greek government -
Germany: Hundreds march in support of imprisoned Greek militant
https://youtu.be/Cu4vY9raz5c Thanks Loam for the link, but where are the others?
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Saturday, 27 February 2021
The Crowd.
What will the end of covid19 bring, will it see the underlying anger of the people explode, will it see the long suffering, exploited and marginalised take to the streets, not to demand change, but to unstoppably create change, in doing so destroy this system of greed, pillage and plunder, that for generations has stunted their lives and that of their children. Or will they humbly submit to more of the same, leaving the rich pampered parasites laughing all the way to their luxury yachts.
I am the crowd
I awim in the quagmire of poverty
its hooks, its barbs, tear my flesh
rupture my dreams,
I hold my breath for centuries
hoping to break through, gasp pure air.
Through the murky mire
I see bright things, shiny things sparkle
I see women in fine dresses, men in silk shirts.
I ask myself
why do I swim in this cesspool?
I want the light and warmth of rectitude
to caress my labouring body,
seeds of my dreams to bloom
like wild flowers in a meadow.
one day, I will use my boundless strength
to haul this torn, battered being
out of the morass
onto the warm grassy bank,
when I do;
woe betide you, women in fine dresses
woe betide you mister in your fine silk shirt
should you ever try to get in my way,
for I am the strength of the world,
I am the crowd.
The following Lifted from ANARCHISM:
London, the most unregulated city in the world - rich scum particularly welcome ★
“Give me your rich, your greedy,
Your mafia drug-gangs from every corner of the globe
yearning to launder cash,
The people traffickers who exploit the teeming shores.
Send these, the property speculators
who create the city's homeless and drive out the working class.
Bring on the economic power of right-wing churches
To buy up our cinemas, our theatres, and our music venues.
I lift the lamp of the corrupt politician
To illuminate your way!”
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Friday, 26 February 2021
Uncle Willie.
My Uncle Willie.
To those who know me there will be no doubt in their minds about my hatred of the economic system we bleed under. In my eighties now, I have seen this system destroy individuals, tear families apart, and in its voracious greed for profit and power, it has murdered and maimed countless millions in its endless wars. Each individual destroyed, each family torn apart, each war grave, and each veterans hospital are all indictments against a system where people are sacrificed to keep the system functioning for the benefit of a small cabal of over privileged parasites. You would think that our humanity would demand that the system should be altered, modified and shaped to meet the needs of the the people, not the other way round.
As we look at this society we can see all around us, those unfortunate individuals whose lives are deeply scarred by a system that uses people to perpetuate its greed driven machinations. It is so easy to encapsulate the ruthless viciousness of the system in one person's life, to me my uncle Willie is such a person. To the system, a nobody, a human being of no significance, but to those around him, a father, a son, a brother, a husband and an uncle.
My uncle Willie was my mother's younger brother, naturally I didn't know him in his early years, but I heard the stories. Willie, like the rest of my family, lived in Garngad, a Glasgow slum in the north of the city. A young man in his 20’s, he was married and had three kids, and like so many of that era, unemployed. It seems that Willie was a family man and loved his kids, he could be seen most days walking with them along the waste ground off Charles Street at the back of Glenconner Park, usually two kids running in front and the youngest on his shoulders. It seems he was an excellent snooker/billiards player, and that is where he supplemented his income, by playing round the many snooker halls in Glasgow. However to the system, he was superfluous to requirements, so could scrape a living in the slums of Glasgow as best he could.
I remember my mother, a church goer and anti-drink woman, on many an occasion, looking out the window and saying, “Oh here's Willie coming”, then a pause, then, “he doesn't look too drunk”. He would sit and chat to his big sister and myself, my mother would make him something to eat and give a cup of tea. Though it was never a full cup of tea, his hands were shaking so bad it would have been all over him, she only quarter filled the cup and kept topping it up, it was his troubled eyes that have stuck with me all these years, as he was leaving, my mother would slip a 10 shilling note into his hand.
Thursday, 25 February 2021
Coiled Spring.
A week or so ago I posted a piece referring to the pent up anger of the people, and likened it to a coiled up spring and sooner or later it will uncurl as all coiled up springs do, and the pent up anger will no longer be a murmuring under current but will become a physical event. A glance across the world and there is a realisation that the coil of anger is already releasing its energy. From Hong Kong to Ecuador people have been taking to the streets in protest at the myriad of injustices, gross inequalities, corruption, police brutality, blatant abuse by those in power and a host of other foul endemic features of this capitalist system.
Belarus: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-23/belarus-revolution-women-nina-baginskaya/13164670
Greece: https://www.voanews.com/europe/greek-students-teachers-defy-weeklong-ban-protests
Europe: https://carnegieeurope.eu/2021/01/27/europeans-right-to-protest-under-threat-pub-83735
South America: https://www.brinknews.com/why-is-latin-america-aflame-with-protests/
And of course the little reported largest workers strike in the world ever.
However, where is the anger of the people of UK, still murmuring below the surface, what little act will cause the UK pent up coil of anger to explode?
State Barbarity.
Of course the people in that patch of soil called Greece, don't take such savage barbarity lying down, and they deserve all the support and solidarity we can muster, as the face down this murderous act by the state.
The following from Act For Freedom Now:
“They follow you secretly and openly gangs and torturers and search
day and night to find you but there is no trail to follow because they
were never poets to worship the soil they tread on”
On the night of Friday 5/2 we placed an incendiary device in one of the entrances to the courts of Evelpidon (specifically that of the lawyers) wanting to support the struggle of the hunger striker Dimitris Koufontinas. The attack on the central structures of the judiciary is a response to a very clear political choice. The central governmental authority in direct collaboration with the representatives of civil justice is leading to the comrade’s death or at best to irreparable damage to his health. This political decision to assassinate Dimitris Koufontinas cannot go unanswered. Violating even their own legal tools, first legislating an photographic device to remove him from the agricultural prison now they are denying him the obvious, his transfer to Korydallos prison.
The whole bourgeoisie and especially its head viciously and vigorously seeks the physical extermination of one of its political opponents, whose contribution to class struggles and to the appropriation of revolutionary violence by the oppressed, deeply challenged the omnipotence of the State beast and practically challenged its monopoly of violence.
Their own murderous insistence must be answered with our comradely and fighters’ solidarity. We call on every part of the movement to sharpen its action and stand as a bulwark against the murder of the hunger striker. Dimitris Koufontinas is a link in the chain of the history of the revolutionary movement and part of our struggles. With this action we declare to his tormentors, blinded by authoritarian arrogance, that they must seriously consider the political costs that they will be called upon to manage if they attempt to murder the comrade.
Victory to the hunger strike of the revolutionary communist Dimitris Koufontinas
Cell of anarchist attack