Crooks & Liars!!

 

Image courtesy of University College London.

        Once again, in this country, we are approaching what they call elections, what I prefer to call "National Crooks and Liars" competition. Having been aware of these competitions since my teens and now 90 years old it is obvious to see the pattern. The contestants raise themselves into a frenzy, spouting the most barefaced lies with such conviction as they can muster, wear a particular colour tie to denote which camp they are aiming to be part of hoping for a lucrative job and fat pay check with pension and expenses.

       Flunkies leading the Crooks and Liars to their new lucrative job.

                                                      Image courtesy of The Guardian.

          You have all heard the lies and should know them off by heart. "We will end child poverty in X number of years", "We will end the scourge of poverty across our land in X number of years". There other favourite lies they like to spin, "We will end homelessness in X number of years by building X number of house every year." Of course after the "Crooks and Liars Competition" is over things settled down to the usual backhanders to friends and cronies, double dealing and second and third jobs with the various companies that bought them during the competition to safeguard their wealth and profit making. So where does that leave you and I, well as usual right where we always end up, struggling for a decent life.

         The following information is taken from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2024 report.
            Poverty has increased, close to pre-pandemic levels
2021/22 22% approximately 1 in 5 UK population were living in poverty, that accounts for 14.4 million people.
Among them 8.1 million working age adults app 2 in 10 living in poverty. 4.2 million children (app. 3 in every 10)
It has been almost 20 years and 6 prime ministers since the last prolonged period of falling poverty
          In the 1980s, under the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher, there was then an unprecedented rise in poverty even at a time of high income growth, This has not been reversed, meaning current levels of poverty are around 50% higher than they were in the 1970s. 

            Lots of people will give reasons for The Thatcher push to poverty, but rest assure none of these reasons were for the benefit of the ordinary people.
          So, with these facts in mind, do you think it is worth bothering to support any of those in this ridiculous charade of "Crooks and Liars" Competition??

 

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Bakunin.

 

            Latest addition to Spirit Of Revolt Archive, read on line is Basic Bakunin, Anarchist Communist Editions No.1. Published by the Anarchist Communist Federation. From https://spiritofrevolt.info John Cooper Collection T SOR 3-52-14-1 Check the website for a host of free to read on line in anarchist literature and much more.

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info.  

Paris Commune.

 

 

               Anarchist history is varied and exciting and on many occasions has changed society dramatically. The Paris Commune is just one example and well worth remembering and celebrating, even if the end was a bloody massacre. The spirit lives on. This from SubMedia, with the promise of more to come.

                    

                     It is worth remembering the Spirit of Revolt is probably the largest archive of Anarchist and Libertarian Socialist history and memorabilia in Scotland. Why not have a browse.  

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Free Event.

           Anarchist Film Group are holding a free event/PowerPoint talk followed by a discussion, in the Electron club CCA 350 Sauchiehall Street, Tuesday 26th March 7pm.
            It's on direct action and community activism with specific examples covering housing issues, the 1984/85 miner's strike and the Poll Tax. The Speaker will be John Cooper, long standing member of https://spiritofrevolt.info He will be using material from our John Cooper Collection T SOR 3 and his own personal experiences. This is a must and should prove very interesting.
            If anyone is interested they are welcome to attend.

 

Image courtesy of The Guardian.

 

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The Source.

 

          Although they missed a few months of "Read of the Month" the small band of Spirit of Revolt volunteers have not been idle. They continue to organise free monthly events, among other things. The next free event is April 11th 6:30-9:00pm at the Electron Club in the CCA 350 Sauchiehall Street Glasgow. The subject matter for this talk/discussion/questions/chat will be "A Short History of May Day" the speaker will be Dek Keenan. Come along, learn, have your say, make new friends. Back to "Read of the Month", We catch up with March offering, so here is Spirit of Revolt, March issue of “Read of The Month”  The Source: Independent Monthly Magazine. No. 1. From our Charlie Baird Collection T SOR 6-7-25. Enjoy and perhaps have a wee browse through the other gems held in the Spirit of Revolt Archive, an be surprised at the extent of the content we hold on Anarchist and Libertarian Socialist history and events. 

READ ONLINE.

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Kill Kids!!

 

         Zionism is psychopathic cult, day and daily we hear quotes from its advocates and its leaders. the brutality in their proclaimed beliefs grates against any glimmer of humanity. They are devoid of any traces of decency and humanity. The following quote from "The Cradle" is not unique to this particular individual but is repeated by members of the Zionist government of Israel on a regular basis.Making perfectly clear their real aim in Gaza, the elimination of the Palestinians and claim their land as part of greater Israel.

       

       Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, head of the Shirat Moshe yeshiva (religious school) in the occupied city of Jaffa, called on the Israeli army to kill everyone in Gaza, including babies.
        During a conference on 8 March, Mali said that “according to the halachic principle (a religious-ethical system of legal reasoning in Judaism), all residents of Gaza must be killed.”
        When asked during the conference if babies should be killed as well, he said: “The same thing. You can't be clever with the Torah. Today he's a baby, tomorrow he's a fighter. There are no questions here. Today's terrorists were previously 8-year-old children.”
         “Those who create the terrorists” should also be killed, he said in reference to women in Gaza.

Image courtesy of VOA News.

        How long can the so called civilised world allow this regime of killers to continue with their genocidal policies, which they pursue with open vigour, laughing at the Western imperialists who supply them with the money and armaments. Governments that ignore the cry for justice and peace from the vast majority of its citizens? 

 Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Blood Oil.

Image courtesy of Palestine Chronicle.

           So the very compassionate good old U$ of A is building a port on the beaches of Gaza and will protect it with their war ships. The pretext is that they will deliver aid to the Palestinians, however, they won't stop the genocide, for in all honesty that would upset their real plans. Once the Zionist psychopaths have destroy Gaza and dispersed its population, then the U$A is in a wonderful position, with a ready built port, to extract the riches of the Gaza oil fields just of the coast of Gaza and ship it to their markets around the world. A nice wee boost for the economy of the U$A.

 Image courtesy of Human Rights Watch.

 

           The callous barbarity and inhumanity of the western imperialists knows no bounds. Profit overrides the lives of thousands of innocent civilians and the starvation of children. U$A can stand by and let the Zionist psychopaths do the killing, while they wait in the wings to reap the blood soaked spoils of this brutal genocide. Throughout this entire inhuman genocidal attack on the civilian population of Gaza, U$A and its Western puppets have supported the slaughter to the hilt, stood by and arm the aggressor and now they are getting ready to collect their pay back, the riches of the Gaza oil fields. Endless wars are rich pickings for this blood soaked insanity of an economic system. Its total destruction is the only answer to get to a society of fairness and justice for all. A society built on mutual aid, co-operation, that sees to the needs of all our people.

 

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

 

 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Keelie 47.

 

                Once again the great wee pocket rocket of a newspaper, your newspaper, the Glasgow Keelie hits the street. Issue 47 now available at pickets, demos, on the streets, seek out your copy, you won't be disappointed, From what your council gets up to, how we are continually ripped-off by this insane economic system that feed the rich at the expense of the poor. Contact with those who on a daily basis fight the injustices and call for justice and peace. Of course we support Palestine and demand a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Zionist perpetrated genocide.
           You can also read it on line at Glasgow Keelie, ask for copies to distribute among you friends, communities and workplaces, all for free. Or get in touch and gives your grip about the injustice we the people suffer on a daily basis, tell us your story, articles welcome. 

 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

History!!

Words of wisdom from the past.

An extract from an undated article by Bobby Lynn.

“War is the health of the state” wrote Randolph Bourne.

--------- When the Labour fakirs took the reins of government in 1945, within six days it sent conscript troops into the Surrey Docks in London to break a ten week old strike against a wage cut. Three months later a national dock dispute brought more than 45,000 militant port workers out on strike. In both these cases as with many others the workers left their battle stations, their place of work. The Labour government took advantage by again sending conscript troops to break the strike. A fair percentage of workers now realise that the point of production is their fortress. There will always be a vertical bar between the haves and the have nots as long as the working class is “legally robbed” by the captains of industry. -------

 

Image courtesy of LibCom.

 

 Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Joe Hill.

          

         Mark your diary, the next free Spirit of Revolt event is Thursday 7th March, 6:30 to 9:00 in the Electron Club, CCA 350 Sauchiehall Street. As usual we keep the variations going in the past free monthly events we have covered such subjects as occupations, Calton Weavers strike, veganism, punk do it yourself music scene. This Thursday's free event is a short film about Joe Hill, followed by the usual talk/discussion/questions/chat. Come along and have your say, hear other people's views, get to know some new friends.
        Since its formation, 12 years ago by a small group of unpaid volunteers, Spirit of Revolt has put on numerous events from talks to exhibitions in The Mitchell Library and other venues, also had stalls at other groups events. Along with exhibitions in the Mitchell Library we have run a series of events in the Mitchell Library called "Show and Tell" where we arranged events round material in the archive with relevant material on display for people to examine. Today it is still the same small group of unpaid volunteers plus the occasional help from, very welcome supporters who give us a few hours of the time to help out, all very much appreciated.
        Since the beginning we have always been part of the Anarchist, Libertarian Socialist Movement, and proud to be so, doing our utmost to preserve the history of the struggles of the ordinary people and the activists in their midst. We also try to digitise everything we can, and make it easily and freely available on our website.
       Why not have a browse through the website, check out Our Catalogue, Audio-Video section, Read of the Month, Strugglepedia, see the wealth of information available. Sadly we live in a capitalist system and all this cost money. If you like what we do and think we are doing a good job and would like to see this archive grow, then perhaps you could see your way to make a small donation. A one off, or a monthly direct debit, say the price of a pint or a couple of cups of coffee, every little helps us build on what we have already done.

        To help out, visit our DONATE page. Thanks. 

        Below is a photo of one of our poster from an earlier exhibition on "The Rent Strikes". 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Memories!!

          I've lived a long time, 90 in about 3 weeks time, and all my adult life I have listed to election and party political speeches and broadcasts. Why politicians hate old folks, they have memories, and lots of my memories are of those political out bursts by the pompous political ballerinas. Along come an election and out they spout, "We will end child poverty 5 years" "We will eliminate poverty if 5 years." "We will end homelessness by building 300,000 new homes a year over the next 5 years". I've heard this so often, the number of years quoted may vary, but the vacuous promise is usually there.

Image courtesy of Salvation Army.

 

        Here we are 2024 approaching that 90 mark and what I see is child poverty is increasing, poverty across the population is growing, homelessness is growing, more and more household are anxious and stressed as they try to make ends meet, food banks have sprung up and are overwhelmed. With all these phoney promises doing nothing to change this situation, why do we keep repeating the same mistake of voting for them. They say that the first sign of insanity is to keep doing the same thing but expecting a different result, are we really that insane? 

Image courtesy of Metro.

 

       Why in the name of any logic or rational should we even listen to this bunch of so called representatives, who in actual fact only represent themselves and their rich cronies.

Image courtesy of The Guardian.

 

       Let's prove how sane we are by pulling the plug on this burden and restriction on our lives, stop voting, become ungovernable, organise within you communities and workplaces to take control of own lives and shape society they way we want it to be. Fair, just, co-operative based on mutual aid, and seeing to the needs of all our people. Tell me "why not"?

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Tomorrow!!

    

 

Image courtesy of Al Jazeera.

             Gaza today, Palestine for 70 years of ethnic cleansing, unimaginable bloodshed suffering and deaths in an act of genocide in which the Western imperialist are totally complicit. The future as seen by those Western imperialists, domination by hi-tec devastating armaments. Is it the future the people want? I doubt that very much, so we have to assert ourselves and become the dominate power on this planet, people of peace and equality, sharing, mutual aid, co-operation and seeing to the need of all our people.   

This from SubMedia. 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Democracy??

 

 

Image courtesy of The Independent.

 

Representative Democracy?

Day in day out without a doubt there they yelp

Inside their privileged Hallowed Halls of pomp

safe in their protective bubble of lavish pensions

extravagant expenses fat salary and backhanded perks

with theatrics, arguing nuances of deprivation and poverty

with straight faced skill weaving illusions to fool the populace

using genocide and ethnic cleansing for scoring party points

ignoring the blood of innocents that is a land’s poison

with composure complicit in the slaughter of a population

Right Honourable Gentlemen, Members of Parliament

“Representative Democracy” truly a misnomer ,so please,

spare us your devious vacuous fanciful platitudes

self indulgent arse licking pimps of pomp and power. 

 

Image courtesy of The Independent. 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info

Murder?

        

Image courtesy of Counter Fire.

              So we are in recession, should we be worried? I say be very worried, as this means that most business are shrinking, rather than growing, which in turn means that the government will be looking at ways to boost big business. The only way they know how to do that, is plunder the public purse of tax payers money and hand it out to the big businesses. So look forward to more poverty, harder struggles to pay your bills and feed your family. Despite this "recession" some business are doing very well thank you. British Gas has announced that its profits for the year have grown 10 fold, thanks to our hard struggle to pay our bills. Will this vast increase in profit mean that our energy prices will drop 10 fold, my arse. Another attempt to plunder the public purse is the Chancellor, he is considering a squeeze on social service to fund tax cuts, to help his corporate cronies. All their plans are to help big businesses and to hell with the effect on the general public The public purse is there, in their opinion to be used to feed their corporate cronies in the wealthy parasite class.
           With this system of corporate capitalism, we the general public are only there if we can earn money for the corporate bosses and pay taxes to help fund their continuous plunder of the public purse. When we are not doing that, we are disposable, we can scratch a living as best we can, live a life of dire poverty, watch our kids lead a stunted life and slowly move to an early grave. Any government that forces this on the public when it can be avoided is surely guilt of killing them, not by bullet or bayonet, but by denying them a decent life when that government could remedy the situation with the resources of our tax money. However, that will never happen unless we, the public, take control of all the wealth we produce and see that it's fairly and justly distributed to see to the needs of all our people. We don't need the parasite class, they need us, but we let them plunder and abuse us.

                                            Image courtesy of Independent.

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Glasgow??

So you know Glasgow? Well, do you!!

Glasgow, the name.

        Glasgow can trace it history back to at least the 4th century, it was at that time a certain St. Ninian stopped by the Molendinar Burn, where the Cathedral is today, and consecrated a piece of land there as a Christian burial ground. Some hundred years or so later a St. Kentigern brought the body of a holy man Fergus to be buried at the St Ninian spot. St Kentigern stayed and set up a Christian community in the area. He later became known as St Mungo patron saint of Glasgow.

        The name 'Glasgow' has gone through considerable changes over the centuries. The earliest Charters refer to the city as 'Glaschu', while the earliest seals give several different spellings. In the seal of 1180 the spelling is 'Glesgu', and the seal of 1325 it is 'Glagu'. In 1297 the Earl of Warrenne and Surry to the English King refers to 'Glasgeu' in another letter from the same Earl it becomes 'Glascu'. In a letter from Hugh de Cressingham in 1297 to the King of England it has the spelling 'Glasgu'. In the Charter of 1324 by Robert the 3rd it is written as 'Glasgw'. Another Charter of 1419 by John Stewart, Lord Darnley has it as 'Glaschow'. Yet again the spelling changes in the will of Archbishop Betoun where he refers to himself as Archeuesque de Glasco.
 

Origins of the name

           It is generally accepted the name is not from Gaelic, as at the time of its formation this area was a Welsh settlement. It is probably from the Welsh 'Glas', and 'cu' or 'gu'; translates as 'Beloved Green Place' and is referring to the spot where Kentigern met Columba thus Kentigern becoming the Patron Saint of Glasgow. 

Radical Glasgow.

Mention Glasgow and various stereotypes jump to mind, dreadful slums, hard drinking, random violence, razor gangs, shipbuilding, locomotive makers and other heavy industries. What else is written about the city usually refers to captains of industry, architects, inventors, and medical men of note. Scratch the surface however, and you find another Glasgow with a long tradition, the real Glasgow, 'Radical Glasgow'.

          Glasgow can boast of a long tradition of radical movements growing from the ranks of ordinary people. People struggling not only to improve their own conditions but that of all working class people.

          Glasgow can lay claim to a series of firsts. Besides being the birthplace of the 'European Temperance Movement', the following are just some other firsts that can be added to its roll of honour: Birth of the Scottish Labour Movement.
First effective trade unions formed.
First trade union papers printed.
Scottish Co-op movement first established.
Scottish Labour Party founded.
First Trades Council in Scotland.
History of Glasgow Green

         The Glasgow Green has always been a focal point for the people of Glasgow and a cradle of social movements throughout its history. The following list is but a hint at the history of the Green: Through the 1700 and 1800s, the various reform movements.
Pre-1914, the woman’s suffrage movements.
1916, rent strikes.
1938 anti-fascist movements.
1971 U.C.S. crisis.
1984 miner’s strike.
 

Conclusion

        Both the above lists could be expanded depending where you place your focus, and no doubt will continue to expand as the people of Glasgow go on to face new challenges.
        I hope the following articles give at least some insight into that other Glasgow, the Glasgow that does not always find its story in the mainstream literature about the city, but is the true heart of the City of Glasgow, the city of compassion and vision. 

This article was lifted from Strugglepedia at https://spiritofrevolt.info 

 

Visit ann arky at https://spiritofrevolt.info