Libertarian.

        We are still locked out of our archive because of this covid19 beast, though things are looking brighter. However we at Spirit of Revolt still manage to keep things moving, as best we can under the circumstances. One thing we can still do is bring you our monthly gem in the form of our "Read of the Month".

        For this month's “Read of the Month”, April, we have chosen a small booklet from our John Cooper Collection, “Libertarian Communist Review”, from away back in 1974. Though written back then, it is still as relevant today as the day it was written, so is well worth a wee read. While on our website, why not browse the many artefacts, leaflets, booklets, posters and thousands of other parts of our anarchist/libertarian socialist history. It is a wealth of information all relevant to today’s struggles for that better world for all.

Read on line HERE:

 

 

 

 

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

Insurrection.

Issue No.4.   

 

       For those who may not know of it, "Insurrection" was a first class magazine produced by Elephant Editions. A gem of information, ideas, reports, theory, tactics and strategies. Sadly, Spirit of Revolt only has two of these magazines in its collections, No.4 and No.5, both in our Dek Keenan Collection. The good news is you can now read both of these issues on  Spirit of Revolt website Just click on HERE and then scroll down to Dek Keenan Collection -1-60, there you will also find a link to other issues which you can read courtesy of Elephant Editions Archive. sadly we don't have these other issues in our collection. Any body having any other issues of Insurrection and would like to give them a good home please get in touch HERE.

 

Issue No.5

 

          ‘Insurrection’ is an anarchist magazine of the 1980’s which was edited by Jean Weir of Elephant Editions, UK. Amongst agitational news reports of rebellion and repression, the publication carried some of the first English language translations of the work of Italian anarchist insurrectionist, Alfredo M. Bonanno, and remains an example of a high-quality revolutionary anarchist publication which has a confrontational analysis coupled with lasting insight.
         ‘Insurrection’ is the first publication to carry the key basic perspectives of anarchist insurrectional theory and methodology emerging at that time. Texts such as ‘Affinity Group’, ‘Why Insurrection’, ‘Beyond Workerism, Beyond Syndicalism’, ‘Informal Organisation’, ‘Beyond the Structure of Synthesis’, ‘Towards A New Projectuality’ and ‘Autonomous Base Nucleus’, all back to back with action reports informing and illuminating these theoretical ideas which have developed and spread around the world, becoming ‘dangerous’ tools in the hands of uncontrollables everywhere.

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

Toothless Protest.

           A comedian once said that if the people you are protesting against are happy with your protest method, then you’re not protesting, you’re just having a shit day out. I’m inclined to agree with him. All the legislation brought in regarding protests is to make your protest acceptable to those you are protesting against. In other words, turning your protest into a shit afternoon out. The establishment would be happy with you quietly, in limited numbers, marching from A to B, of course you will achieve nothing. That is the aim of this new legislation being introduced by bumbling Boris’s gang. Giving you the right to protest as long as you don’t upset, inconvenience or annoy anybody, do it quietly, when and where the police tell you and in numbers decided by the police. Their vision of tomorrow’s protests is groups of six or so people walking quietly and sedately, saying excuse me to everybody they pass, this will be permitted for approximately 15 minutes, then you will be asked to disperse or face the heavy hand of the law. The new democracy fit for a fascist state.

 

 

             The following is an extract from an article by  Adrian Kreutz published in Roar Magazine.

London — 1936. In what we know today as the “Battle of Cable Street,” the Metropolitan Police protected Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists against almost 20,000 anti-fascist protesters, including socialist groups, Irish dockworkers, British Jewry and anarchist and trade unionist groups. That day, 3,000 paramilitary “Blackshirts” marched through a Jewish neighborhood. Mounted police charged at a crowd of peaceful counterprotesters, and many of the arrested reported violent treatment at the hands of the police.
       Following the events on Cable Street, the Public Order Act of 1936 forced organizers of large protests to obtain prior police permission and gave the police broad powers to arrest people for “insulting or abusive” speech. The ambiguity of the word “insulting” meant that the Public Order Act could be applied in a range of cases.
       London — 2021. Social movements protesting for racial and environmental justice disrupt public transport, deface the statues of slave traders, spread banners over Westminster Bridge and block the entrance to parliament. In response, the Johnson administration proposes the “Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill,” popularly know as the “Crackdown Bill” or “Protest Bill.” It fits the draconian script of recent years — the concentration of power, the limiting of government accountability and multi-pronged attacks on human rights.

Read the full article HERE:

 

 

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

Obituary.

 

          Pompous, pampered, privileged parasite prince, who gave nothing and took all he could get, lived a life of self indulgence at taxpayers expense, totally ignorant of his own uselessness. Existed in a bubble of opulence and splendour, part of the plundering imperialist establishment. unaware of the lives around him, he cared even less. Lover of killing wild life, collector of guns, his life and that of those in his gang exists in a bubble of luxury, that sadly the ordinary people supplied the air to keep it afloat. When will we refuse to keeping their luxurious useless bubble afloat?

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

H.R.H.

         So Prince Philip has died, no doubt there will be thousands eager to get in the picture by outpourings of adulation. Adulation for a man who was recognised as from a family well connected to the Nazi regime. His many public remarks were at best rude, but often seen as upper class snobbery with hints of racism. Of course never having been in his company who am I to judge, but I can form the opinion that he was a pompous pampered, privileged, parasite. who done very well for himself at the expense of the tax payer. Those with a grain of intelligence and some rationale, realise that the picture created of the whole royal entourage is an illusion. They are a ruthless family of very rich people who have never done a days work in their lives yet wallow in unimaginable splendour and opulence, none of it earned. Their wealth is gleaned from the spoils of imperialism and the enslavement of millions of indigenous peoples. Even today, if you die without a will, your estate goes to the Queen, unless you lived in the land commandeered under the Duchy of Cornwall, then your estate goes to Prince Charles. A nice little earn over the years.

The Duke at one of his favourite pastimes, killing wild life. He bagged a lot.

         The following film is not new, and is a bit on the long side, but is well worth sitting through, especially at this time of media wall to wall coverage of what a wonderful a man was the Duke of Edinburgh. 

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

Legacy.

          Sunny Florida, still in the grip of covid19 has now been hit with another emergency. It appears that a 77 acre reservoir holding millions of gallons of water containing phosphorous and nitrogen from an old phosphate plant is leaking into the surrounding neighbourhood, mainly agricultural land. A state of emergency has been declared, more than 300 homes have been evacuated and a highway closed.
         The Governor's statement saying that it was mainly salt water, mixed with "legacy process water and storm water run off", was I suppose meant to calm the residents. However, that is only part of the truth, The area where the leak was found is in a stack of phosphate-gypsum, a radioactive waste from the manufacture of fertiliser. That to me is not just salt water. Once again the mass corporate production leaves behind it a legacy of destruction, pollution and poison and little regard to the consequences of their profit seeking process.

The leak was discovered at the reservoir at Piney Point.  Reuters photo.                               
 

         This capitalist system seems to be excellent at coming up with processes that are supposed to enhance our lives but leave a trail of pollution and poisons that will destroy the life of the planet. Our world is awash with chemical dumps, arms dumps, nuclear dumps and other waste dumps, all growing by the day, and all in the name of profit. The corporate bodies reap the rewards, the public reap the whirlwind of ever occurring disasters. To clean up these "waiting in the wings" disasters, we need to clean up our economic system.
          We need to move away from the profit motive for everything, to a mode of production that is controlled by the people and for the needs of all the people in a sustainable manner. We need to remember that capitalism is just a man made economic system, that fails to meet the needs of all our people and can easily be replaced with another man made economic system that puts fairness and the needs of all our people as its aim, but based on the fact the planet is our only home and we must preserve and nurture it for our survival and that of the coming generations. 

 

Tomorrow’s World!

See the fat cat’s grinning smile
as Corporate Capitalism runs amok,
chasing profit as it goes
firing millions of ordinary folk.
Raping and polluting land after land,
starting bloody wars.
Toxic waste, sweat shop wages
and oil covered sea shores.
Where have all the flowers gone
beneath this ozone free sky?
To join the birds, to join the fox
on yonder plutonium field to die.
Mercury fish, strontium lamb
trees that never show a leaf,
radio active beaches, toxic streams
good lean BSE-antibiotic beef.
In a world of epidemic, plague and famine
it’s bottled water and chemical food.
Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice
so you know its got to be good.
Beneath a sky that’s always black,
hurricane winds and endless drought,
its oxygen masks for the toxic air,
corporate profit’s what its all about.

 

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

Korea.

      I don't post this as an admiration of North Korea, but as a reminder as to how it came to pass that there are two Korea's. It was a Western imperialist engineered creation, all to suit the West's fear of anything resembling a people's movement within a country. Today most people see Korea as two countries, a North Korea and a South Korea, and just accept it as that is the way it has always been. However, that is far from the truth, for centuries it was one country, one Korea, one culture, traditions and history. As usual it was Western imperialism that changed the geography and created this long running fault line that sits on a hair trigger and could escalate into a full blown war.
         It is Seventy-three years ago, April 1948, the people of the Korean island of Jeju rose up against the dividing of their country into two opposing sides, it ended in a blood bath of the people wishing to remain a one Korea. Nothing would get in the way of the Western imperialists to grab half the country for their own ends, and so it has remained. The resistance of the people of Jeju deserves to be remembered.

People’s Republic of Korea

The Jeju uprising, remembered in Korea as “The April 3rd Uprising and Massacre.” 

             Immediately after Japan’s defeat and retreat, while Kim Il Sung and other socialist leaders were beginning to reorganize society in the north, a provisional government was formed by movement leaders in the south. The People’s Republic of Korea (PRK), as it was called, set up People’s Committees all over the south.
         They called for land held by Japanese owners and collaborators to be seized and redistributed to peasants. They set out to establish equality for women, strong labor laws, an end to child labor, an eight-hour workday, and above all, independence and self-determination.
          But the U.S. refused to acknowledge the PRK, and set up a U.S. military government, whose true goal was to crush the Korean people’s movement. Within a couple of months the U.S. had banned and forcibly dissolved the PRK. But that didn’t slow down resistance or quell the hunger for self-determination throughout the south.
        Widespread and constant rebellions and strikes by workers, peasants and students were a huge challenge to the U.S. occupation government. As months and then years wore on, they were barely — and only through terrible, brutal repression — holding back a revolution that inevitably would have led to the reunification of Korea and an end to capitalist ownership and exploitation
         While trying to contain the movement, the U.S. military began to cobble together repressive forces made up of those Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese — right-wing paramilitaries — and began to put together a South Korean army and put in place a pro-U.S. South Korean government.
         Under cover of the United Nations, they set up an election that resulted in Syngman Rhee being “elected” in 1948. Rhee had lived in the U.S. for years and was selected as figurehead of the Korean government.

The Jeju Rebellion

           It was this sham of an election that was the tinder for the Jeju Rebellion. The island was populated by about 300,000 people and was known to be a stronghold of communist and socialist sentiment. The organization and ideas put forth by the progressive PRK government had taken root on Jeju more than any place.
           People’s movement leaders knew months before the scheduled election that a Rhee victory was inevitable and that it would mean the division of north and south. In April 1948, a series of events, in which protesters on Jeju Island were attacked and killed by police aligned with the U.S. occupation forces, led to an island-wide insurrection.
          With hunting rifles and sometimes bows and arrows, the Jeju islanders’ insurrection lasted more than a year. Police buildings and other government institutions were all attacked and burned. Even though they were outgunned, the revolutionary side shook the U.S.-backed Korean forces.
            It took the combined fire power of right-wing Korean gangs called the Northwest Youth League that had been recruited by U.S. operatives, and an army quickly cobbled together by the United States Army Military Government of Korea with Syngman Rhee as the nominal head, primarily made up of forces from Japan.
           Though the U.S. occupation troops refrained from frontline battles, the occupiers provided aerial surveillance and were in fact the organizers of the counter-insurrection.
           In early 1949, a division of the new U.S.-backed Republic of Korea army was ordered by Syngman Rhee and the U.S. military to attack the Jeju guerillas, but they mutinied instead. Mutineers fought against Syngman Rhee’s forces on the mainland and killed most of their commanders. Many were believed to have fought their way all the way to the north and remained there.
          The Jeju insurrection was ultimately drowned in blood. The death toll was terrible — at least 10% of the island’s population, that is, some 30,000 people, were killed, according to Columbia University professor Bruce Cumings, who has written and spoken widely about it.
         Jeju was not the last of Korean resistance to U.S. occupation. The Korean people’s struggle for self-determination and reunification is long, inspired and heroic. Like many chapters of Korean history, Jeju is seared in the memories of Koreans everywhere.
        The entire history of the role of U.S. imperialism in dividing Korea, the grave threat that the presence of U.S. troops and weapons are to all Korean people, the deaths of millions of North Korean people at the hands of the U.S. military during the war — all of it flies in the face of the phony U.S. narrative of the Pentagon being needed to protect South Korea from North Korea.
Long live the heroic memory of Jeju! Korea is one!

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Shut Down!

        The blood stained hand of the police state ever tightens its grip, only strong united resistance and solidarity will stop its intended paralysis of freedom. This morning when I visited a site I often visit for information of what is happening across the world, Act For Freedom Now, I was greeted with this message:

       The server on which this website was hosted was confiscated by the Dutch police on March 29th, 2021 for reasons unknown so far. The website will be reconstructed as soon as possible. Please be patient.
nostate.net

       I suppose innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply any more. How many times have we seen sites and information shut down on the say-so of the rich and powerful, and it would be foolish to think it is done to protect the ordinary people.
That is why it is so important that we the ordinary people come together and join in the campaign, in which ever way we can, to "Kill the Bill" another draconian piece of legislation that strengthens the hands of the police and its attendant apparatus at the expense of the ordinary freedoms we sometimes take for granted.

Demonstrators during a ‘Kill The Bill’ protest in Finsbury Park Credit: Aaron Chown/PA

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

April Keelie.

       The April issue of the Glasgow Keelie is now on line, this is a must read, covering climate change, pollution of our coasts, migrants, workers deaths from corporate negligence, and much much more Please read and spread far and wide, it is a pocket rocket of information that should be more widely known.

Read it HERE:

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

Police State.

         In towns and cities across the country people are organising "Kill the Bill" protests. This is not about a few lefties protesting, this is about climate change, working conditions, wages, peace movements, equal rights, injustices, corruption, about your right to display your anger or dissatisfaction with the way our country is being run. This is the 2021 poll-tax, it affects everybody and it must be resisted with the same anger and determination that brought down the poll-tax. You and everybody else has the right to protest, it is protest that brought about wage increases, better working conditions, end to slavery, end to child labour in mines and other industries, all real change for the benefit of the ordinary people was brought about by protests, they were never given to the people in a benevolent manner by the system. This bill will kill the right to protests as and when we feel the need, in this society, without protests we are at the mercy of the state and its corporate buddies who will milk the situation for their benefit, all to the detriment of our freedoms and conditions.
      The importance of killing this bill can't be emphasised enough, it puts the public in a straight-jacket and gives free rein to the state, it is the rock solid foundation of the police state. Total control of where you can meet up, how many and what sort of noise you can make, if any, and for how long. Our freedoms in this society are limited enough without taking away the one that has in the past allowed us to make progress in our desire for a free and fair society. Lose that right at your peril. "Kill the Bill", think poll-tax.

 

Leeds: 

 

Manchester:

 

Newcastle:

 

Bristol:

        Let's grow this list, make it cover every city, town and village in the UK. This will be the most important protest in defence of your freedom and your right to public assembly and protest. Kill the Bill, kill the police state.

 

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

You Bet!

       I sympathise with all those addicted to gambling and those who find themselves in debt because of it. Even those who do their wee bet on this and that they should perhaps look at how there money funds unbridled greed. Taking one example, Bet365, part owned by Denise Coates, she worked so hard at getting her hands on your money that she "earned" an salary of £421 million to year ending March 29th.. Of course there are other little benefits in being CEO and a shareholder as a shareholder she also earned a nice little dividend of £48 million, bring her total income for the year from her wee bookies business to a nice tidy sum of £469 million. Of course the establishment love her, hence the title Denise Coates CBE, honours for greed and plundering. How hard would you have to work to earn that sort of pay packet?

         This shows up the inherent greed built into this capitalist system when this sort of thing is applauded by the the greed driven corporate gurus. Even if you say that there is nothing wrong with a wee bet, perhaps the betting business should be owned by the community and that £469 million could be ploughed back into the community, and likewise with all the other betting businesses being run on the same basis. Of course in a truly just and fair moneyless society the urge and imagined need to bet would appear ridiculous. In the mean time, the pundits of this society start salivating at the mouth at the mere thought of plundering the poor and getting their hands on that sort of money, no matter the cost to others. In capitalism greed reigns supreme.

 

 

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

Told You.

         For many many years anarchists have been saying "We told you so". The party political system is on a circle as the one group of parties keep moving right and the other group of parties keep moving left, they eventually meet and surprise, surprise, as far as the lives of the ordinary people are concerned, their is no real difference between the two, authoritarian communism or Fascism. Bumbling Boris, the dangerous buffoon, proves this by surrounding himself and his right-wing cronies with members of the revolutionary communist network. The supposedly revolutionaries are now part and parcel of the Gove/Redwood/Rees-Mogg brigade. Of course it isn't difficult for them to mix, they are both a bunch of authoritarians, and we anarchists will say it again, "We told you so"
       The following article, though not knew, gives a good insight to the shenanigans of the dance macabre of the right-wing political parties and the left-wing political parties. Thanks Stevie for the link.

 http://brockley.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-rcps-long-march-from-anti.html

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

Unacceptable.

 

         I doubt I have agreed with one word Bumbling Boris ever spoke, until now. I whole heartedly agree with his statement that the scenes of violence witnessed at the "Kill the Bill" protests, in Bristol and Manchester are unacceptable. The sooner that we get those thugs with their helmets, shields and flaying batons, off our streets the better. We then can get on with allowing the people to protest what is obvious a very undemocratic draconian piece of legislation, which is taking us deeper into the controlled police state.

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