Leaflets?

            Visited Paisley yesterday, Saturday January 28th. To give a wee bit of support to the "Support the Strikers" Demo. Though not a vast number, it was good to see such diverse groups out to give their support to the strikers. A good array of flags and banners. After a few impassioned speeches, the demo moved on and marched through the main street in Paisley to Gilmour Street Station and ended there with a few more very impassioned speeches.
           Who are the strikers? they are not some alien group from some other place. They are your neighbours, they live up the street from you, you meet them in the pub, supermarket, on the bus and you stand next to them at the football matches. Your kids play with their kids, they are us. This is not a struggle between a group of workers and their employer, this is a struggle for a decent life for us all. For generations we have struggled and sweated to try to have a decent life for our families, and we have seen the rich get richer while we continue to get poorer. We have seen the social fabric of our society being shredded to appease the financial markets, we have seen the rich get bigger yachts, bigger mansions and more luxurious private jets. While we on the other hand struggle to heat our homes, struggle to put food on the table. So it is with enthusiasm that we greet the strikes and we must support them with determined solidarity, join them on the picket line in the streets, shouting loud and clear, Enough is Enough

Some photos from Paisley.

 

          If I have one criticism of the event it was what to me was missed opportunities. We must always realise that the aim of these demos is not to speak to the converted, but to reach out the those not yet involved, the passers-by. Where the demo gather at first, there were leaflets and papers being handed out to those passers-by. However when they marched off down the main street they seem to forget that they were walking with lots of people moving up and down the street on both sides, all potential supporters, if we can hand them a leaflet or some literature. There should have been individuals on the edge of the march pushing leaflets and papers into the hands of those casual passers-by. The same criticism can be said when the passed the open air market, people gathered there, the march should have stopped and made sure as many as possible had a leaflet of some sort, then continued their march to the station. If we don't reach that great silent majority, we are going nowhere. Leaflets and papers are our broadcasting system.

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

My God!

         To day around the world there are glaringly obvious, brutally glaringly obvious, examples of why we should never allow religious groups to hold power. In Afghanistan we have the Taliban who enforce savage punishment on all and sundry from removing a persons hand to forbidding women to be educated. In Iran we have the Mullahs who preside of a regime that can accept young women being beaten to death for not covering their hair in the Mullah's desired fashion and kills and executes those who dare to oppose this insanity of religious dogma. Then there is Israel, with this insane belief that about 2,000 years or so ago, God gave them all the land that was Palestine and they have that god given right to take it all back no matter how much suffering or how many deaths this takes. In this country, the UK, the state still pays homage to the religious dictators that hold sway over millions of ordinary people trying to channel the public's thoughts along the strict dictate of their chosen God. All religions claim to be followers of a loving God of peace, but all religions have blood soak history they all have killed and will again, they'll kill those who dare to oppose them. The world is soaked in blood from religious wars, and it still divides the people of the world. Freedom, peace and justice cannot coexists with religion.
          The UK state hands 26 seats in the House of Lords to bishops of the Church of England. These planted members can and do vote on legislation, make interventions, but also they lead prayers at the beginning of each day's sessions. This puts UK on a par with the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the only two states on the planet that give clerics of the established religion automatic seats in the legislatures, where they can vote and shape legislation.

         Some of the religious conflicts that have soaked our planet in blood, taken from Andrew Holt, Ph.D.'s article, "Religion and the 100 Worst Atrocities in History"

"Taiping Rebellion- 20,000,000 Deaths (Rank- 6th)
Thirty Years War- 7,500,000 Deaths (Rank 17th)
Madhi Revolt- 5,500,000 (Rank 21st)
Crusades (in the East)- 3,000,000 Deaths (Rank- 30th)
French Wars of Religion- 3,000,000 Deaths (Rank 30th)
War in the Sudan- 2,600,000 (Rank 35th)
Albigensian Crusade- 1,000,000 Deaths (Rank- 46th)
Panthay Rebellion- 1,000,000 Deaths (Rank 46th)
Hui Rebellion- 640,000 Deaths (Rank 66th)
Partition of India- 500,000 (Rank 70th)
Cromwell’s Invasion of Ireland- 400,000 Deaths (Rank 81st)"

         So it should be obvious that this is a very toxic mix, capitalism, state and religion, none of these entities offer freedom of thought or action, all of them are authoritarian and will always stand against the free expression of thoughts and deeds. To hold onto their power they need obedience from the "flock". Do we wish to be a "flock", do we need a shepherd. If we desire freedom and justice for all we have to smash these authoritarian establishments, whose foundations are power, privilege and a subservient population, and their aim is to hold on to those, privileges and that power and enhance their wealth.

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

Paper.

          I have often spouted about getting our message on the streets, and the need for greater leaflets, pamphlets, poster to proliferate on the streets and workplaces. They are our broadcasting system, our quiet teacher spreading our ideas and hopes. The anarchist movement owes a lot to those back allay, back shop, underground and open printing places. those dedicated individuals who spent hours printing and distributing our message, our hopes, our ideas. The printed word is as valuable as the meetings, street demonstrations and protests etc.. The printed word can quietly find its way into homes, workplaces and communities. It is difficult to imagine where we would be without those little presses churning out leaflets, periodicals, posters and pamphlets.
           So I am delighted that someone has brought together a history of those printing presses and the important part they played in getting those anarchists, ideas, hopes and visions to an ever increasing public. I for one will be ordering the book when it comes out.

 

London's anarchist HQ, 127 Ossulston Street, 1894-1927

Image courtesy of Libcom.

Article taken from Anarchist News.

From University of Hawai'i News

            Anarchist letterpress printers and presses from the late 1800s through the 1940s is the focus of a new book by a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Political Science and Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty member.
          Professor Kathy Ferguson’s work Letterpress Revolution: The Politics of Anarchist Print Culture, details the importance of printed materials that galvanized anarchist movements across the U.S. and Great Britain. The book will be released on February 24, and is published by Duke University Press.
          Anarchism is a political movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and holds all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary. Ferguson shows how printers arranged text, ink, images, graphic markers and blank space within the design of a page. Their extensive correspondence with fellow anarchists and publishing their radical ideas brought the decentralized anarchist movements together. By diving deeper into the practices of anarchist print culture, Ferguson points to possible methods for cultivating contemporary political resistance.

 

Professor Kathy Ferguson.

               “The anarchists organized a remarkable political movement largely through their print culture: writing, printing, distributing, reading, and archiving their publications brought them together. Their success suggests that the act of making things together generates political energy,” Ferguson said.
              Ferguson is the author of several books, including Emma Goldman: Political Thinking in the Streets, which is about a central figure in the anarchist movement. She is working on another book on women in the anarchist movement whose contributions have been underrated or lost. Ferguson’s goal when writing these two books is to bring women more fully into anarchism, and at the same time to bring anarchism more fully into feminism. She hopes to bring these radical histories to light to make our understanding of them more robust so that we can use them better today.
            The Department of Political Science and Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies are housed in the Mānoa College of Social Sciences.

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