Bookfair.

           Anarchist bookfairs are great events, bringing together all shades of the libertarian left for exchange of knowledge, swapping info, spreading our literature, making new friends and contacts and renewing old acquaintances, or just mingling and learning. However it has been a while since Glasgow held its own bookfair, that is about to change.
           Come May 7th. Glasgow will be home to the Red and Black Clydeside Bookfair. Here is our chance to showcase what the libertarian/anarchist folks have to say. We can and should make this a resounding success, today more than ever we need a strong and powerful resistance to the onslaught of hardship that is speeding towards the ordinary people of this country, and further afield.
To make it a success you need to get involved, so if you want to get a stall, hold a meeting, open a discussion or contribute in any way, please get in touch. It is our bookfair, let's get it off the ground with a roar, not a whisper.

Get in touch, glasgow@anarchistcommunism.org

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

It Works!

 

       There are those who say "capitalism isn't working", this is flawed analysis, capitalism is working perfectly as it was intended to do, create vast wealth for the few at the expense of the many. Look around you, it has been a roaring success. The proof is every where, vast luxury million £ yachts, private jets, luxury mansions and an abundance of billionaires, side by side with millions living in poverty and destitution, bloody wars where the many shed their blood so that the rich and powerful can keep their power and privileges. The economics of the insane.

           To be living under the yoke of this exploitative capitalist system is to be in a state of perpetual war. Even if we submit subserviently to the dogma of the system, we fight to have a decent standard of living. If we resist the continual onslaught on our living standards and our freedoms, we are engaged in a constant battle. Human decency and justice are incompatible with the drive and desires of the corporate capitalist system, greater production, consumption and ever growing profit. Somehow this seems acceptable, and war in some shape or form is normalised into everyday life. Co-operation and mutual aid are replaced by competition. Make it big, get very rich, become a celebrity and somehow you are applauded, struggle with your daily life and you are not worthy of recognition. Your quality of your life is dependent on wealth and wealth is gained by exploitation, a constant system of battle to gain over the other. A constant state of war, in some shape or for, seems to make it much easier to accept the bloody wars created by the system as it tries to dominate resources to continually grow its wealth, power and privileges.
           Only when we replace this system of insane economics will we be able to live in peace, building a world on mutual aid, co-operation and respect for all life, only then will we be able to see to the needs of all our people, without the need for competition, exploitation, power, privileges and obscene wealth. 

Image courtesy of Counter Currents.org

Quote:
“He who is not armed dies…and he who does not die is buried alive: in prisons, in reformatories, in suburban hideouts, in – bought on credit – fully equipped modern kitchens and palatial bedrooms.”

Ulrike Meinhof – RAF

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

Ukraine.

  

        To most people viewing the present Ukrainian troubles, the history of that country is sketchy to say the least. However we still see people taking sides and they usually fall into two camps, the nasty evil Russia, or the vicious American imperialism. The truth lies somewhere else and is many faceted and extremely complex, but as usual boils down to interference from powerful outside forces with their own agenda, to expand their control and influence over the planet and its resources, A conflict between opposing power blocks, with little or no regard for the ordinary people of their target area. It would also be good if we note the powerful influence the IMF, (International Mankind Fuckers) have on these situations, no prizes for guessing on whose side they stand.

          By posting this video I'm not jumping into any of the camps portrayed, but I do feel it does show up the insidious and complex workings of the powerful players and their disregard for the people. We should look and learn, and open our eyes to the poison that is patriotism. War is power's answer to all its problems, but it is the people's blood that spills over the land.

         It is worth viewing the complete film, to get a clearer picture of the history of Ukraine.

 

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

subMedia.

          subMedia, always a great place to visit for the latest in videos, anarchist comment and discussion, they have revamped their website so why not take a look.

          We’re stoked to announce that we now have a new website! As always, you can find us at http://sub.media/ We’ve been working our asses off getting this together so let’s go over exactly what changes we made.
The most important thing we did was move our entire back catalogue of videos over to the Kolektiva severs! It was an enormous pain but we really needed to find a solution that supported subtitles/closed captioning after JWPlayer dropped that functionality from their last update. (Fuck you JWPlayer)
         Then we had to update all the embed codes on all the videos on our site. Since we had to do this on hundreds of videos, our resident social media troll still has carpal tunnel.
          Then we cleaned up a ton of broken links to old articles and also took a bunch of 3rd party videos off of our site. But don’t worry, those OPV’s (other people’s videos) can still be found on Kolektiva!
          When you’re on the homepage the 1st thing you may notice is a huge image for a video that will eventually slide to reveal more videos. This will always have be our most recent content! Below that are sliders for our videos organized by category.
          At the top of the site, we have a header bar with drop menus, links to about us, our contact page, our shop and a donate button (it’s pink!) You can now support us monetarily by clicking a more aesthetically pleasing pink donate button, wink wink. We also added new ways for people in the US and Canada to donate by accepting Venmo, Cashapp, and Interac E-Transfers
        You might also notice we have a language tab. There is now a Portuguese translation of our website and much of our content. We're working on adding Portuguese subtitles to even more!
         Thank you so much for your ongoing support of subMedia! We hope that this website is more accessible, easier to navigate and will help new people find engaging anarchist and anti-colonial content for years to come!

The Crew at subMedia

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

Dirty Cop.

                In every police force in every country, they are at it, trying to create a crime where no crime exists. Undercover police and entrapment is part and parcel of their methods. These tactics are used mainly against left thinking groups, obviously the powers that be see those as the ones most likely to pose a challenge to their authoritarian grip on society. We have had them here in the UK, cops infiltrating left think groups and entering into relationships with members of the group, their duplicity knows no bounds, their moral compass has long since rust and disintegrated. This recent case in Colorado, is just another of the countless examples of dirty tricks by corrupt police forces, whose only duty is to protect the pampered, privileged, wealthy and powerful parasites that direct our society and live of the backs of the ordinary people.

The following from It's Going Down:

        The CSPD undercover wasn’t going around smashing windows or planting piles of bricks in order to justify violent police repression, she was quietly surveilling everyone she could, asking for personal information, adding folks on social media, and as we’ve recently learned, working to get local leftists to buy firearms for her illegally. Officer April Rogers repeatedly asked about levels of gun knowledge, about building firearms, and suggested making straw purchases. She also spoke about some kind of front range gun running operation, and suggested starting a leftist “militia.”
       We’ve attached statements from two leftist organizers who had the misfortune of being targeted by Officer April Rogers posing as Chelsi Kurti. These statements provide an important look into the tactics of the police, and show that they’ll create crimes where there are none. The idea that your group is above ground and therefore you were never in any danger is incredibly naive.

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

Our Enemy.

 

             So often many people are taking sides in this latest imperialist blood-letting, "nasty evil Russia" or bully "American imperialism". We would do well to remember that no matter the excuses raised for war, it is always the ordinary people who shed their blood and it is always the rich and powerful who reap the blood stained spoils. The only side we should take is against all states and borders, against all power groups of state/corporate plunders of the planet, we have no enemies among the ordinary people, our real enemy is the borders raised by the privileged, rich, powerful groups who shape the direction of society, all to enhance their already over privileged and powerful positions. When it comes to supporting a war, the motto of the ordinary people should be Non Serviam, I will not serve, that doesn't mean we should be apathetic and ignore the blood letting by the pampered privileged parasites of this world. We should direct our anger at the power mongers, the state apparatus and their bedfellows, the corporate world. We have no fight with teachers, bus drivers, farmers or lorry drivers, our fight must be with rich and powerful who foster and ferment wars and divisions between ordinary people of the world.   

The following from Act For Freedom Now.    

            The war has finally arrived. After two years of preparations for war, chants, flags, discipline, the «we are at war» announced since spring 2020 is finally real. The tragic news coming from Ukraine is the trigger they were seeking for the definitive militarization of our society.
           Wars are always a bloodbath for the exploited and profitable business for the bosses. We are not interested in the contrasting reasons of the propaganda made by the belligerents. The exploited in Russia as well as in Ukraine, Italy and the United States are our brothers, their blood is our blood. Governments, generals, businessmen, financiers are our enemies, our executioners, those who starve us.
The arrogant insatiable thirty-year old NATO expansion and Russia’s internal crisis were the mixture for the explosive situation which we find ourselves thrown
          On the one side, a long series of imperialistic precedents such as the bombardments in Serbia, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the support of criminal gangs such as those ruling Ukraine, where trade unionists are burnt alive; on the other, regimes such as Putin’s and Lukašenko’s, which hold together with the glue of encirclement paranoia and imperial nostalgia, where anarchists and opponents are arrested and tortured. In the face of all this filth no front is ours. Our enemies are not the exploited on the front, but all rulers, starting from those in our country.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Our World.

                                                  

                                                Tinsel Cities.

In the city of tinsel and bright lights
midst the playthings of the rich
just beyond the champagne bubble
out of earshot of the butterfly people
in the dark shadows where no one looks
there you’ll find poverty and destitution
dance a macabre dance of survival.
In Mammon’s city of grand illusions
where rivers of wealth feed frivolity
in its twisting dark and musty lanes
where the light of hope seldom shines
an army of the living dead sweat and toil
polishing the tinsel, changing light bulbs
refilling the champagne bottles
nothing must stop the flow of frivolity
or the butterfly people will die.

         Everybody knows that the ordinary people are facing a crushing blow to their standard of living. The media and the various state mouthpieces keep telling us that this is a crisis and we are all in it together. Of course this is utter bullshit, yes it is a crisis, but a crisis of capitalism, created by capitalism. However the cost of this crisis is being passed onto the backs of the ordinary people. The crisis is simple a squabble between the various power blocks that control the world's resources as they each try to expand or defend their grip on their slice of the ever diminishing planet's resources. This bloody squabble is going to create shortages and to maintain their profits, the various corporate juggernauts are simply passing that extra cost on to the ordinary people. We will suffer while the billionaire parasite class continue in their plundering and pillaging of the Earth's resources and fattening their ever growing bank accounts. Increased prices does not equate with increased cost of production, This parasite's squabble creates shortages, but instead of decrease in income, they simple put the price up to protect their sacred god, "profit".
         We, the ordinary people of the world are being forced to pay for this inherent malaise in the capitalist system, the need for ever increasing profits. We will pay for it in the privatisation of our public assets, the closing of amenities, failing health services, crumbling education system, and of course the stratospheric rise in prices for the every day necessities of life.

                                                 Image courtesy of The Herald.

           We can accept this crushing burden and allow the system to try to sort itself out by means of wars and ever increasing austerity for the majority and greater wealth, power and privileges for the few. We can knuckle under and play the role of the subservient humble citizen and pass a heritage of poverty and submissiveness onto the next generation. Or we can stand up and take what we have earned and that is everything ever made on this planet. we created it all, the wealth and the necessities, by our sweat, blood and tears. We do not owe the corporate parasites anything. Our response must be anger, anger that spills over onto the streets, the parasites will not give up their privileged positions of power and wealth without a fierce struggle. There is no alternative, it is our world, or it is their world, there can be no compromise. We are, at this moment in time, living with their compromises, poverty and hardship for the majority, privileges, power and wealth for the few. 

 WE THE LABOURING MASSES.

 We the people have, every brick laid,
have fed the world with sweat and spade,
every instrument played in every band
created by the skill of the craftsman's hand.
We made every truck and every load,
our toil our effort every winding road,
every ship that ever sailed the sea,
our power our imagination made it be.
Cities and towns large and small,
our labouring hands fashioned them all,
every home, every spire,
luxury mansion or humble byre.
No matter what dreams the mind might spawn
without labour's hand, never see the light of dawn,
without labour's strength and labour's skill,
we would be foraging beasts in a jungle still.

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

March 8th.

        Today, March 8th. is the day we raise our glass and say thank you to those countless women that stood up and broke their shackles, not for themselves, but for all the downtrodden and marginalised, They saw and felt the injustice, they saw that better world and boldly marched towards it, no matter the opposition.
       There are legions of them, some we remember with pride, others have slipped off the pages of history, though their deeds didn't, their effort has moved forward the realisation of a free and just world for all.
       So a big show of gratitude to the Lousie Michel's of this world, the bold and the fierce ones, the quiet and determined ones, The well known and the forgotten.

 

Claire Lacombe, actress, whose greatest role was revolution.

Extract from: History.com 

        It was a steaming July day in Paris in 1792. In the midst of a meeting of the revolutionary Legislative Assembly, a beautiful, unknown black-haired woman with the mannerisms and rich voice of a seasoned performer stood up to speak:
        “Legislators! A Frenchwoman, an actress at the moment without a part; such am I; that which should have caused me to despair fills my soul with the purest of joy. As I cannot come to the assistance of my country, which you have declared to be in danger, with monetary sacrifices, I desire to offer it the devotion of my person. Born with the courage of a Roman matron and with hatred for tyrants, I shall consider myself happy to contribute to their destruction…Perish all despots to the last man!”
       For the next three years, Claire Lacombe, a struggling provincial actress, would become a star among the most extremist elements of the French revolution. Known as “Red Rosa,” she danced atop the ruins of the Bastille, was shot in the arm during the storming of the Tuileries, and co-founded the radical, influential feminist “Republican Revolutionary Society” (also known as the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women). These “enraged” women of the maligned lower-class fought for equal rights and the destruction of all aristocrats.
        Militant and fierce, Lacombe and her “dragoons” terrified the men of the revolution. In 1794, Lacombe was thrown in jail, and women’s clubs were outlawed. When she was released 16 months later, “she mingled with the crowd outside,” Lacombe’s biographer Galina Sokolnikova wrote, “and vanished into obscurity.”

Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison,
With heated heart arouse all women’s spirits.
Alas, this delicate kerchief here,
Is half stained with blood, and half with tears.

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

Bad News.

          With all the propaganda spewing out of most of the mainstream media, it is necessary that we develop our own media, podcasts/videos/newspapers and get our point of view across. From the streets to the communities, from meetings to workplaces, we need to communicate our ideas for that better world for all, via our own channels and short circuit the main avenues of corporate and state propaganda.

        Bad News is a regular and well informed source of information , we should support it and create other avenues for propagating our ideas.

Bad News: Episode #53: Welcome to the 53rd edition of Bad News. This is our Angry Voices From Around The World for February, 2022. A report from the international network of anarchist and anti-authoritarian radios.

Visit ann arky's home at:
http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page     

WW3.

          Just to clarify my position, I’ll start by saying, this piece in no way, manner, shape or form, supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, events are not happenings that just pop up out of nowhere, they are usually points on a chain of events.
        Let’s go back to WW2 and remind ourselves of the fact that is seldom admitted to in the West, Russia won the second world war. Russia managed to push the Nazi military machine more or less from Moscow to Berlin in less time that it took the allies to push them from Calais to Berlin. At the final stages of the war, the Americans realised that the Russians would reach Berlin before they did and could therefore lay claim to the capital. So the Americans sent a dispatch rider with the American flag to Berlin ahead of their forces so that he could plant the flag in Berlin and claim that they had also reach Berlin. Hence the split of the capital into East Berlin and West Berlin.
        From that day forward, America saw Russia as a threat to its global power, and labelled Russia as an enemy.
        Since then it has done everything in its power to weaken Russia, destroy its economy and remove it from being a threat to American hegemony, It has applied various sanction, and moved its military might ever closer to the Russian border in the form of its puppet organisation NATO. Everybody knows, push a tiger into a corner and it will pounce. Russia pounced and Ukraine is where the blood is shed.
 

 

       Call it what you will, but world war 3 is in progress and the American imperialism is winning and most of the public seem to think this is a good thing. What fails to register on the public consciousness is the fact that America has invaded more countries than any other nation on the planet. America has attempted to destroy more countries economies by sanctions and threat of force than any other country on the planet. America is an imperialist nation that has imprisoned a far great proportion of it own citizens that any other country on the planet. Every analysis of the American prison system comes up with the same result, it is nothing less than a cheap slave labour institution which makes billions of dollars for the corporate world.
        American imperialism is achieving what it has always wanted, the destruction of the Russian economy and it is succeeding with the co-operation and blessing of most Western countries. It can now turn its attention to its next rival for world domination, China. America has already surrounded China with a ring of fire in the form of missile bases, see John Pilger’s Coming War on China,
         American imperialism will go to any lengths to destroy any power group or country that should dare to challenge its hegemony. It will sacrifice populations in bloody wars, it will starve the population by means of sanctions, to maintain its dominant position on the planet. Not for the benefit of the people, but for the enrichment of the corporate world of billionaires and the protection of their wealth, power and privileges.
         Peace will only come when we get rid of nation states, national borders and see the world as one village where we all benefit from co-operation and mutual aid, freed from higher authorities and the profit motive. Our obedience to their rules and propaganda, to their flag honouring and the poison of patriotism is the foundation of their success.

Patriotism

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,
if truth be known, ’tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag
held aloft by some foolish hand
inciting worker and peasant to kill
on some green and wooded hill,
peasant and worker from some other land.
Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag
that brings out fools to stand and brag
of brutal deeds painted grand,
deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still
killed by my brothers' misguided hand.
 

No allegiance have I for the Nation
this man made autocratic creation
that divides my brothers in a world so small,
binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,
bids us follow its drum, sing its song,
then sheds our blood in some border brawl.
No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,
have no ear for power oration,
though its iron heel is on my breast,
my back feels its leather thong,
at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

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

The Match.

 

         Our history is very important we can all learn from the struggles of the past, that is why Spirit of Revolt works hard at preserving the history of the Glasgow/Clydeside anarchist and libertarian socialist struggles and activists. We also have a wealth of international publications along side our local material, all adding up to a deep well of knowledge and information on our website and we try to make it all easily accessible and free for all to enjoy and learn from. Hence our "Read of the Month" to give you a wee lead in to the wealth of material available in our collections.

        For the March 2022 “Read of the Month”, Spirit of Revolt offers up an anarchist magazine from November, 1987, “The Match”, issue No. 82. 31 pages of articles on a variety of subjects all of interest to those seeking that better world for all.

Read online HERE:.

       While on our site why not just spend an hour or two browsing our collections, or visit our “Audio/Video” section.

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

March Keelie.

 

          Read all about it, read all about it, The Glasgow Keelie has it all, news, views, info and the dirt on our Kremlin in George Square. All things that matter to the citizens of our fair city and beyond. The March issue of the Glasgow Keelie is now out, and can be had on the street at demos, protests, street corners, cafes and pubs. It can also be downloaded from here; https://glasgowkeelie.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/keelie-28-final-keelie-28-final.pdf also freely available at the Ruchill Community Centre this Sat. 5th Mar.

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

Just War??

 

          I just wish those calling for an end to the war in Ukraine would widen their call to end war. It is not just in Europe that countries are being bombed, the population being slaughtered. Let's look a little further afield, Yemen, 24 MILLION Estimated number of people in need of assistance Source, 100,000 Estimated number of people killed since 2015 Source 4 MILLION Estimated number of displaced people, Still the bombing goes on, but it is done by one of our "friendly" nations, Saudi Arabia, so turn a blind eye. Somalia, a civil war raging since the 1980's,  Casualties: 300,000 (SFG)–400,000+ (AFP) Displaced: 1.1 million+, various nations giving support to try to prop up a government that will work with them, not the for people of Somalia. Rojava, a region in northern Syria that has claimed independence and is being bombed by Turkey on a daily basis in an attempt to crush and destroy any idea of Kurdish independence. Then let's not forget the Israeli genocide on the people of Palestine, with daily killings and land grabs by the Israeli Zionist apartheid regime, and the West again turns a blind eye, because Israel is one of our "friendly" nations.  

       It seems that Europe is sacrosanct so a war in Europe is of greater importance than any war else where. Are European lives worth more than Yemen citizen, Somalia citizens, Kurdish citizens, or Palestinian citizens? Direct our anger at the imperialist power blocks that are trying to tie up the planet in their own  particular power block, and will take any action they deem necessary to maintain  and further their control of the planet and its resources. You and I are the pawns in their cruel, despicable and vicious  plans and are called on to rally behind what they deem a "just war" and getting us to condemn what they deem to be an "unjust war", we are also the cannon fodder in their greed driven desire for world control. There is no such thing as a "just war", slaughter of innocents is never and can never be, just. 

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

Our Green.

         The citizens of Glasgow, like those of other large cities have a myriad of likes and dislikes, loves and hates, but one thing you can count on is the general love of Glasgow Green by the majority of Glasgow's citizens. "The Green" as it is referred to is steeped in Glasgow's history It has been a place of celebration, family outings, a place in the city centre where you can walk with kids cycle, have a picnic. However there is another aspect the "The Green" that endears it to the people of Glasgow. It has been a place of struggle, a rallying point for all manner of radical actions. It has hosted thousands on May Days, anti-war protests, suffragette rallies, freedom of speech battles. It is also the place where the state carried out some of its "legal" murders of radicals. Over the years there has been fights with the Glasgow council to save "The Green" for what it was intended, the free use by people. There have been attempt to sell off parts, even, at one point considering starting a coal mine, all resisted by the good people of Glasgow.
       The battle still continues as the council have let the gem in the centre of "The Green", The People's Palace and Winter Gardens, fall into a state of disrepair, trashing the Winter Gardens completely, and a battle rages to have it opened in its original form and for what it was, a centre of history of the ordinary people of Glasgow, and a place for all to relax in its lovely Winter Gardens, FREE for all of Glasgow citizens. Meanwhile the council has ideas to "reimagine" it and turn it into a commercial venue where the citizens will pay to enter and make lots of money for some corporate mob. 

 

 

     You can enjoy Spirit of Revolt's "Radical History on Glasgow Green, HERE 

      Also you can enjoy this new addition to the Spirit of Revolt's Video collection

 

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

Disobey.

          The media and our political ballerinas keep telling us that times will be hard. We the ordinary people will struggle to heat our homes, and cook warm meals, It will be difficult to pay for the food to cook, even to eat cold. normal things for the kids will be curtailed considerably as we struggle just to survive in a much more impoverished manner. We will worry about those energy bills that are going through the roof, worry about the things we can no longer put on the dinner table, worry about our rent, our mortgages and paying just to get to work. Of course those who manage this system of insane economics, our Right Honourable PMs, I doubt if any of them will be worried about their energy bills nor will they miss a meal so as to turn on the heating. They are doing all right with their salary of approximately £82,000 plus expenses and cheap meals in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, and in lots of case, making just as much again and in some cases more than their salary from second and third and in some case fourth jobs.

 

       Another group that are doing very well thank you, are the energy companies. I may be ignorant on this, but I don't think it cost any more today then it was a few weeks ago, to get the oil and the gas out of the ground, but the price per barrel and per therm has rocketed to somewhere in the stratosphere, Shell and BP's combined profits for the year, amounted to £40 billion. Somebody is making a killing at our expense. Of course the energy industry is not the only group that are plundering and pillaging at our expense. Rio Tinto will be handing its investors a neat little bonus of £16.8 billion for year 2021. Barclays more than quadrupled its profit to £1.1 billion.

How else can you get about?

 

If you wish to go a little further afield.

 

       So you see, it is not all gloom and doom, if you're in the millionaire/billionaire club, life is looking good. If however you happen to be one of the ordinary people of this country, then are you in for a very rough time friend. Of course it doesn't have to be like this, The reason we are where we are is our obedience to the greed driven insanity of capitalist economics, which over the centuries has kept amassing more and more wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and driving more and more into poverty and destitution. Sick and tired of being the ones who do all the hard work and watch the wealth from that work flow into the hands of the millionaire/billionaire class of parasites. Well sticking to their rules will just perpetuate the insanity of this situation. Non-Serviam, I will not serve, would be a better approach. 

Visit ann arky's home at

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