Last Chance.

        International Workers Memorial Day, April 28th. has passed, but to remember and honour those who died simply by going to work to try to earn a living, the powerful exhibition to emphasise the dangers inherent in working for a living in this society, put on by the Glasgow Keelie, at Glasgow Green, on the Common Drying Green just behind what was Templeton's Carpet factory, will remain until Sunday around 4PM. It will them be removed. So you still have a chance to see this very moving and poignant display on Sunday May 2nd until 4pm. Take that chance, and perhaps be moved to remember the dead and fight like hell for the living.

 

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Attack----

          Back in December 6th 2008 Nikos Romanos was a teenage boy out on that Saturday evening for a coffee with his teenage friend Alexis Grigoropoulos. while having that coffee they had a few words with a police officer, who then drew his gun and in cold blood, shot and murdered young Alexis. Alexis died on the street in the arms of his friend Nikos. From that day on, Nikos Romanos has thrown himself relentlessly in to a constant struggle against the savage state and the violent exploitative system of capitalism that it supports. Even from the dark and brutal dungeons of that savage state he has continued to pursue that struggle for human dignity and freedom.
         The following is a short extract, taken from Nikos's booklet, "I Attack, Therefore I Am". You can find it on Act For Freedom Now,

 

 “Instead of an epilogue…”

        Comrades, the dawn of this new age arriving with the most relentless and revolting visage, while we are in the throes of condensed historical development, in this period of voracious capitalist development that destroys and flattens out all life on this planet, we simply can not speak of revolution and anarchy without promoting a consistent method of struggle that with its antagonism will make wounds on the seemingly invulnerable body of sovereignty. We live in changing times, from which can be born a liberating perspective. In this age in which we live we must make a definitive divorce with hesitation and procrastination; every lost minute,every wasted moment is ground won for the enemy. The war of all against all that capitalism promotes is not a figure from the apparently safe distance of the capitalist periphery, but a living reality experienced by millions of people who literally have had their lives thrown away on the trash heap, reported upon through statistical data extracted by technocrats and military analysts, all of which shows how economic policies and their developments are opening up fronts of a warzone. It is beyond my understanding how anyone who wants to be called an anarchist can remain unconvinced of the urgent necessity for the escalation and increase of revolutionary war, simply by taking a look at what is happening around them. Against the blind violence of wars between states, we propose the violence of insurrection that blows up social conventions. Let’s definitively break with the modern culture of subordination and degradation. The stances of each person are not views of an objective and standoffish neutrality, they demonstrate choices and attitudes related to the logic of societal conditions. Those who postpone for tomorrow in every possible way attacks against representatives of power, only give a breath of life to domination and its organization of mass extermination
       From our side, the proposal submitted did not assert a monopoly over anarchist action, but gave a view of informal organization and the possibilities we can get if we are serious and persistent in our intentions and our actions to cut the Gordian knot of introversion. We want to form an international informal coordination that will be the bridge between public and conspiratorial action, that will be the next developmental step for polymorphic anarchist struggle, attempting to fulfill and qualitatively deepen all the relevant historical experiences of the past. The fact that this text comes to an end does not mean that it dealt in detail with all the issues and thoughts it set out to deal with. Moreover, the aim is not to become one rigidly demarcated proposal, but a bet on a struggle that will be enriched and will move through actions, thus basing its direction on the one thing that can be held to be essential, the endless movement and creative destruction of the anarchist struggle.

        “Hm! And how the fools will scream: stubborn anarchists! Who can understand the storm that roars in our minds? Who could be aware of our hunger for pleasure, for life? Who can understand our defeat stemming from human cowardice? We are alone. We did not find comrades ready to participate in the struggle for the recovery of life. That is why we lost. And one of us vanished. The other remains with his eyes stuck on the horizon. He could not, and did not depart. This is our destiny. Will we find comrades? Otherwise, each of us in his own way will disappear silently or rowdily from the scene of the world. A chapter is closed. A chapter of struggle, hopes, illusions. The end, however, has not yet come. As these strange, unusual lives come to an end, we get to a point where we realize that it would have been better if they had never been born. And that’s all there was to say.” -Bruno Filippi

       Strength and solidarity to all anarchist prisoners! Let’s organize the uncontrollable freedom of human dignity! Anarchy means attack! 

    Nikos Romanos

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Blood Red Bread.

         It is such a wonderful and powerful display, so here are some more photos of the Glasgow Keelie's International Workers Memorial Day event on Glasgow Green, yesterday April 28th. 2021. The display will remain in place until Sunday, May 2nd.

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Our Daily Bread!

 

      Still more photos from the Glasgow Keelie's International Workers Memorial Day event on Glasgow Green, April 28th. 2021.

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Expensive Bread.

 

             More photos from Glasgow Keelie's International Workers Memorial Day display on Glasgow Green on April 28th. 2021.

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Price of Bread.

          April 28th. International Workers Memorial Day, was marked across the world in different ways. The Glasgow Keelie marked it a most poignant and powerful manner, taking various disasters at work places and displaying them as aprons hung on the common drying green of Glasgow Green opposite what used to be Templeton's carpet factory, site of one of the disasters. The first part of the display was made up of 29 aprons each on representing a young women killed at the Templeton' carpet factory disaster, 1889, when a wall collapsed on top of the loom shed, the ages of those killed ranged form 14 years. Each apron had the name and age of the person killed and some details of that person. The other half of the display was of aprons each representing various disasters where workers lost their lives at work, from the Auchengeich coal mine disaster to the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster. The aprons were laid out in several long lines resembling white tombstones of a national graveyard. There were other displays hung on the washing line, one giving the UN shocking statement: United Nations estimates that six thousand people are killed daily at work - three times MORE people than in WARS, drug and alcohol abuse combined. [United Nations]. An unacceptable price to pay for trying to earn your crust of bread.
        The whole display created considerable interest from those walking on the green, and shocked many of them at this relentless waste of human life for profit. The display will remain on the Green's common drying green until Sunday, so why not take a stroll in Glasgow Green and take a look at this catalogue that shows what some people have to pay in this economic system to put food on the table. 

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Vindictive State.

         Pandemics come and pandemics go, but state repression just keeps rolling along. In Greece, three anarchists have just been sentenced to long term prison sentences, as part of the states on-going strategy to create a submissive population. It's up to all of us to make this endeavour a failure and to show support and solidarity with each an every one who falls into the quagmire of the state judicial system.
        One of those who received the longest sentence, 19 years with no appeal, is Vangelis Stathopoulos, here is his statement from Korydallos Prison:

          Solidarity is judged on my person with the heaviest accusations, because I helped an injured comrade. My prosecution and trial are based solely on political criteria, on the attitude of dignity and solidarity that I have consistently followed throughout my life. I have nothing to dispose of but my own life, I have nothing to defend despite the constant struggle against the murderous rage of the State and capital! If my practical solidarity is the crime for which I am convicted and imprisoned, I declare myself unrepentant!
          P.S.: Closing here, I would like to greet from the bottom of my heart the comrades who stayed by my side, in every way, those who stood by me and continue to fight. Knowing that the conditions are adverse and things are difficult outside, they did not desist! And to renew the appointment on the streets, where I grew up and have never forgotten.
NOT ONE STEP BACK
Using the power of the opponent we reverse the terms, the shortest path is the straight one!
No battle was won without ever being given
Vangelis Stathopoulos
Korydallos Prison
STRENGTH TO THE COMRADE D. HATZIVASILEIADIS WANTED FOR THE SAME CASE
SOLIDARITY AND STRENGTH TO ANARCHIST VAGGELIS STATHOPOULOS AND TO D.M.
fire to the prisons!
Act for freedom now!

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Bloody Coal.

           We should realise that going to work can mean death, trying to earn your crust of bread, can mean death. So many ordinary people go to work and never return home alive. Your friends, neighbours, family members, set off to earn money to pay the rent, put food on the table but never come home. In this capitalist profit oriented world, health and safety at work is considered as cost and so is pruned to suit the profit margins. United Nations estimates that six thousand people are killed daily at work - three times MORE people than in WARS, drug and alcohol abuse combined. [United Nations]
         April 28th is now marked as International Workers Memorial Day, when we should all come together and remember the real cost of this economic system that favours the few. Our lives are littered with, in most cases, avoidable disasters at work. Below is just one example of the price of earning your daily bread.

 

Blood Red Coal.
          The industrial revolution was driven by power that power in a large capacity was coal. We should always realise that coal is not black, it is red with stained blood. Coal supplied the power, blood and sweat oiled the wheels. Deaths in heavy industries during the rise of the industrial revolution and well into the modern age have been horrendous, sometimes individual deaths, sometime mass deaths and mining communities are no stranger to mass deaths.
        One such disaster of mass deaths was at a coal mine just outside Glasgow near Moodiesburn, the Auchengeich pit disaster, September 18th 1959. I’m old enough to remember that day. My father was a coal miner all his working life, the last pit he worked in was the near by and sister pit, Western Aucheneich Colliery, and he had just retired a few weeks before the disaster. The mining communities are close knit communities and my father knew all of those who perished. I can only imagine the effect those deaths had on the families, I know it shattered my father.
       One event, one day, in one community and 47 men lost their lives, the youngest 22 the oldest 62. All died of asphyxiation by poisoning from carbon monoxide, from an underground fire. 47 deaths in a small community. They say lightening never strikes twice in the same place. Auchengeich Colliery disaster 22nd. January 1931: Air Tubes Destroyed- Miners' Sacrifice to Save Their Workmates : Five miners were killed and six injured in an explosion which occurred early yesterday morning in a Lanarkshire colliery. Several men escaped injury in the explosion, but returned immediately to the danger zone in an effort to assist their comrades, and were overcome by gas fumes.
       Could the second Auchengeich Colliery disaster have been avoided? Like all activities where output and profit are the motives, safety often slips down the priority list, but it is not for me to judge in this case.
       I will however quote from the official inquiry report.
Quote from official report: 2. I find that forty-seven men on a man-riding train underground in a return airway died from asphyxia due to poisoning by carbon monoxide contained in smoke from a fire which originated in the driving belt of a booster fan farther inbye and spread to wood props and laggings used as roof supports.
Quote from part of conclusions: (9) By calculation, a balata transmission belt made of 33 ½ oz. cotton duck put on after the speed-up of the fan had an excess capacity of about 50 per cent. and the 31 oz. belt which caught fire about 25 per cent. But the first of these belts lasted less than ten weeks and the other only two days.
        (10) The belt which caught fire was not of the 33 ½ oz. weight ordered by the National Coal Board and failed to satisfy completely some of the tests prescribed by British Standard 2066.
        Live link to inquiry: http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/250.html Here you will also find a list of mining disasters in Lanarkshire from the 1800’s, and there are many.

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Memorial.

International Workers Memorial Day

       Keelie’s remembered the deaths of workers in unsafe workplaces, during the afternoon on 28th April, 2021 at the drying green on Glasgow Green. This was the site of the Templeton Mill Disaster, 1889, when high winds collapsed the building on over 140 women and children weavers. They made carpets for Titanic and Cunard ships as well as Royal weddings with Company assets of £26million in today’s money. Despite huge wealth, many of their workers died on the job in fire or crushing incidents. In 1889, the rescuers included the women themselves who organised frantic search parties for sisters, daughters and mothers. Regarded as a cover up the inquest blamed ‘confused responsibilities’ between the Architect and the Engineer. Keelies hung workers' aprons to commemorate the 29 women and girls who died at Templetons and other Clydesiders including, Stockline Plastics staff, Graftons Shopworkers, Antares Trawler folk, Asbestos, Auchengeich mine disaster, and NHS COVID 19 workers, and many, many more, plus individuals like Graham Meldrum who went to work and never came home again.
      United Nations estimates that six thousand people are killed daily at work - three times MORE people than in WARS, drug and alcohol abuse combined. [United Nations]
       Keelies say most die because their employer put profit and production ahead of safety at work. We should remember them and honour them, and take this as a reason to alter the economic system that sets these priorities. WORKERS LIVES are worth much more than an economic system of profit for the few.

 

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Insurrection!

           Away back in the old olden days when crowds could meet up and you walked with carefree abandon, mask free, the year 2009, a book came out and I read it and read it again, I still have a copy. The book was "The Coming Insurrection" by The Invisible Committee. I found the facts, analysis and pointers quite inspiring. I'm delighted to say that a revamped edition of the book is back out in circulation, on line for free download and printing. Go get it, read it and think.

 An excerpt:

    In the subway, there’s no longer any trace of the screen of embarrassment that normally impedes the gestures of the passengers. Strangers make conversation without making passes. A band of comrades conferring on a street corner. Much larger assemblies on the boulevards, absorbed in discussions. Surprise attacks mounted in city after city, day after day. A new military barracks has been sacked and burned to the ground. The evicted residents of a building have stopped negotiating with the mayor’s office; they settle in. A company manager is inspired to blow away a handful of his colleagues in the middle of a meeting. There’s been a leak of files containing the personal addresses of all the cops, together with those of prison officials, causing an unprecedented wave of sudden relocations. We carry our surplus goods into the old village bar and grocery store, and take what we lack. Some of us stay long enough to discuss the general situation and figure out the hardware we need for the machine shop. The radio keeps the insurgents informed of the retreat of the government forces. A rocket has just breached a wall of the Clairvaux prison. Impossible to say if it has been months or years since the “events” began. And the prime minister seems very alone in his appeals for calm.

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