Opinion.

My Humble Opinion From What I’ve Seen.
        Why I think protests against closures are bound to fail. Councils are by law prevented from running a deficit, they are compelled to balance the books, and the financial structure is engineered so that each year, because of inflation, rising wages (meagrely) maintenance and repairs etc. they have to make savings, “efficiency saving” which translates into closures and/or lay-offs of staff. Barmulloch community centre is closing, let’s suppose that the whole district mobiles to such an extent that the council concedes and keeps it open, it still has to look elsewhere to swing its axe to balance that inefficient budget. Should the council decide, to hell we will run a deficit for a few years and try and sort this out, then the government sends in its “managers” to run the city over the heads of the people. Remember Derek Hatton and Liverpool in the 80’s. 

  

 

     On a national government front, the game is rigged in favour of the large financial institutions who have the power to bring a country to economic disaster. Some 30 years ago approximately, these same financial institutions decided that privatisation was the best way to re-capitalise the system and more or less dictated to states that they had to follow this policy or find themselves outside the financial markets, economic doom. Of course they can force the issue in other ways, remember Greece 2010, Greece according to the EU financial mafia, was carrying too much debt, so sent in a team of their financial managers to sort it out, over the heads of the elected government, how it should be tackled, ordering the privatisation of lots of Greece’s profitable assets, altering labour laws etc. while loading them up with more debt, “the bailout”, so the privatisation policy continues merrily on its way. This debt of course has to be paid by the people. Some ten years on by 2017, unemployment in Greece was still at 22% and one third of the population still living below the poverty line, conditions haven’t changed much since then, this is how states repay their debt to the financial Mafia. You’re appealing to the minions who are forced to follow the rules set my the financial Mafia. They may now and again get some bubble gum and popcorn, but those who dictate the direction of the governments are sitting in their grand mansion counting their pieces of gold, and they like what they have and are not in any shape or form going to change the system that has given them such wealth, power and privileges. They will gladly bring down a country, should they not play be their rules. The UK is not immune, remember 16th September 1992, Black Wednesday? UK joined the European Exchange Rate against the wishes of the financial Mafia, who then engineered a fall of the pound to such an extent that the Chancellor raised interest rates three times in one day in an attempt to save the pound from becoming worthless, eventually gave up and withdrew from the European Exchange Rate. Privatisation is the direction set out and being implemented, and it is not going to stop because you shout at a councillor. Public assets will be disposed of one way or another, either by phoney community takeover or straight privatisation and placards are not going to stop the relentless march of the corporate world to gain all public assets of any worth.
        So what should we do? I suppose be anarchists and have one aim and one aim only, not to appeal to the system to be fairer, not to encourage people to follow a doomed path of asking to be treated fairly, but work hell for leather on destroying the system completely. The system will not change in any dramatic manner by dialogue, appeals and petitions, the system can cope very well with these methods of protest, and if the powers that be think these are getting too nasty for their liking, they have the armoury to stifle it, police, judiciary, prison system. 

           I tend to think that people of Peru and Colombia are getting close to the direction by burning police stations, banks, corporate buildings and looting supermarkets, but first you have to flood the streets with your anarchist ideas, literature, meetings, stalls etc. until there is enough of the population who have finally realised, the system has to be destroyed, not petitioned, if we want a free, fair, just, sustainable world, that sees to the needs of all our people. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info     

Rip-Off.

 

          Following on from my previous post on that group of useless prats, those pampered, privileged parasites that live in opulence off the sweat of our labour, I thought this little video would help to make the point. Thanks Loam for the link.

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Loot.

 

How to get out and about.

           Today I was reading the Financial Times, yea, the Financial Times, I do read it from time to time. This paper is obviously put together for that stock-market, banking, CEO brigade of parasites and their corporate cronies. So it feeds them lots of info, some of it interesting for those looking for the blatant rip-off and plundering that keeps the poor poor, and fattens the off shore bank accounts of the parasite class.

A life on the ocean waves.

       One little article that caught my eye, Vitol, a London based oil trading company, after a bumper year has decided to pay its executives and staff the equivalent of more than $7 million to each of its almost 400 London based trading partners. That's a lot of loot, to the ordinary person $7 million is nothing, it is just an unimaginable entity, a lot of zeros on a piece of paper. Where did all that money come from? Why from you and I, of course, where else. Money does nothing unless we sell our selves to the corporate beast and take our pittance to spend in their shops and malls. Meanwhile they shovel mountains of pounds/sterling into their favourite off-shore tax haven, or perhaps buy a new £100 million yacht. 

If you are in a hurry to get to another country.

       Bearing in mind that is just one company among thousands that garner plunder from our labour, and salt it away for the pampered privileged few. Just imagine if all that loot, that you and I created went to social services instead of Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars, private jets and fancy mansions on some idyllic island. Do you think it would make a difference to the lives of the ordinary person, who happens to be the essential element in creating that wealth? Without the workforce of millions, they would just be a bunch of useless twats, but of course, they already are. It is the wealth that we create that gives them their power and privileges, why don't we take it away from them and share the fruits of our labour across our own communities, creating the style of society we want, one that see to the needs of all our people, and not just to that useless pampered, privileged parasite class.

 A simple place to lay your head.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info     

Rage.

 

             One aspect of our lives that has seen remarkable growth is the surveillance camera, they are everywhere. It would be difficult to take a walk through your city, town, village and not be photographed, recorded, stored for future profiling. It is no longer just photos, the technology has moved rapidly in an insidious manner, it is now videoing your every move with face recognition, profiling you according to mannerism etc. following you into shopping malls, pubs, on transport, there is no escaping the all seeing eye of Big Brother. How anyone can be aware of this all encompassing state, council, private companies recording your every move and still believe they live in a free society, beggars belief. A proliferation of surveillance is incompatible with individual freedom, it is the hall mark of state control, but somehow we have accepted this 24 hour prying eye of the state and its partners to invade our every move. If we wish to live in a free society then we will need a concerted effort to rid our lives of the all encompassing, invasive prying state eye. 

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

         As long as there are forms of police control over our lives, whether widespread or not, there will be people trying to prevent them from doing harm.

Download PDF HERE:    PDF: ‘Rage Against Video Surveillance’

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http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page   

Free Speech.

            I have just started reading "Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent during World War1, by Eric T, Chester. This is a meticulously detailed book backed up by extensive research. It highlights the extent the state will use its apparatus, police, judiciary and military to stifle dissent, and how it will raise its level of suppression in times of war. Among other events, t he book draws attention the savage brutality used against IWW and peace campaigners during WW1. One interesting fact that I was unaware of was how the American state looked to the UK for methods of suppression, as they considered the UK to be a master at the devious art of suppression of dissent. This book is well worth reading, though it refers mainly to WW1, similar methods are still being used today with the added benefit to the state of modern surveillance technology. To understand their methods is a step to being able to counter them and defend what freedom of speech we have and perhaps one day bring about complete freedom of speech unfettered by state legislation.
        It is available from the usual online outlets and W. H. Smiths, prices vary according to where you make you purchase, so it pays to shop around.

Book Details:
Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent during World War 1
Publisher: Monthly Review Press.
ISBN paper: 978-1-58367-868-8
ISBN cloth: 978-1-58367-869-5 

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Black flag.

        Lots of people recognise the Black Flag, but not so many are aware of its origins or the thoughts behind the choice. It's a symbol that is unmistakably anarchists, but where did it come from?
        Maurice Dommanget, claims Louise Michel was among the first to announce the black flag as a symbol of the anarchist movement, though there is some evidence of the Black Flag being present at earlier revolts, riots and revolutionary actions. At the twelfth anniversary of the outbreak of the Paris Commune Louise Michel made speech stating;

“No more red flags, wet with the blood of our fighters. I will raise the black flag, in mourning for our dead—and for our illusions."

Newspaper coverage depicting Louise Michel at a rowdy demonstration on March 9, 1883.

       An excellent article on the history of the Black Flag here on Crimethinc: 

       In the first article in this newspaper, entitled “The Premier of the Black Flag: To Anarchists,” the editors spelled out their aspirations:

           Is there a need for a program when we take the title “The Black Flag” for our newspaper; are we not already indicating what our course of action will be? In taking this title, we were inspired by the local history of the city of Lyon, because it is on the heights of Croix-Rousse and Vaisse that the workers, driven by hunger, displayed it for the first time, as a sign of mourning and revenge, and thus made it the emblem of social demands. By taking this title, therefore, it means that we will always be on the side of the workers against the exploiters, on the side of the oppressed against the oppressors.
         It is a commitment that we will not fail, taking inspiration from the campaign that our predecessors started with The Social Duty, The Revolutionary Standard, and The Struggle; we will see The Black Flag fly at the front in the assault that the anarchists carry out against this corrupt old society, which is already trembling on its foundations; an organ of struggle and combat, The Black Flag will wage war on all the abuses, all the prejudices, all the vices, all the hypocrisies, which, under the name of social institutions, are currently joining forces to delay the fall of this rotten old world, which, left to its own devices, would soon collapse under the weight of its infamies.
         Supporters of absolute freedom, we will wage war on all those pseudo-liberals, makers of laws, who only understand freedom when it is well regulated, for we believe that freedom is only real if it is unhindered; we will wage war on laws, codes, judges, police officers, and all institutions, in the end, whose real goal is to restrict this freedom, which we proclaim so loudly, and to promote the exploitation of the masses by a privileged minority.

Tina Modotti, “Woman with Flag”—a photograph of a woman walking “with the black flag of the Anarcho-Syndicalists” in Mexico City in 1928.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

More Fair.

 

         Just a few more photos from Glasgow's Radical Fair, such a great fun and positive day, let's stop the closures.   

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The Fair.

          Glasgow's Radical Fair went ahead in what was unusual weather for the Glasgow Fair, (second fortnight in July), the Glaswegians always expect it to rain during their annual holiday. However we had a wonderful sunny day and a good response, the Big Yin's boots proved very popular with passers by enjoying getting their photo taken wearing his big banana boots. Of course they all went away with some free literature in their hand. John MacLean managed a visit to show is disgust at the Glasgow City closures and the Bailie didn't look to happy about the comments on these savage cuts to the much need amenities in our fair city. We have to keep shouting loud and clear, we won't accept this harsh austerity being piled on the people of Glasgow, all to meet some financial Mafia's idea of economics.
       All in all a very pleasant and I think, productive event. Hope you enjoy the photos as much as we enjoyed being there.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info