Well we had our May Day Picnic on The Green, and what a great afternoon it turned out to be. Last year was our first attempt to get May Day back on the Green as a people's affair, and it was a success, this year we more than trebled our performers and more than doubled the turnout. So a big thank you to all the performers and those who behind the scenes worked hard at organising the event, and a special big thanks to all those who turned up to enjoy our May Day Picnic on The Green. Here's to a bigger one next year.
These are just a few of the photos from the afternoon, there will be more posted tomorrow when I have a bit more time to sort them out.
Once again, thanks to all for making this the best May Day Picnic on the Green, and a real, people's affair.
The Israeli State is a non-state, it is the Western imperialist's policeman in the Middle East. It was created by the West to gratify the whim of a handful of Zionist fundamentalists. Like all policemen, they get out of control, and now that policeman is hell bent on the genocide of the Palestinian people and the seizure of their lands. A glance at the changing map of Palestine over the years is irrefutable proof of this cruel and bloody land grab. Apart from the theft of their land by the Zionist state of Israel, the Palestinian people have to contend with bombings, tanks, and aircraft bombardment, they continually face harassment and imprisonment backed up with torture, on a daily basis. This treatment is inflicted on every family of the Palestinian people living in that area.
The following article from 325, is a letter of support from anarchist prisoners in Korydallos Prison in Athens, Greece, to the Palestinian hunger strikers.
The struggles of the Palestinian political prisoners are directly
and inextricably connected with the overall struggle of the
Palestinian people. 70 percent of the Palestinian families have at
least one member that has been imprisoned for action against the
state of Israel. 20 percent of the total population has been
imprisoned at least once in their life while according to other
estimations 40 percent of the male population has been imprisoned at
some point in their life within the past 30 years.
Another revealing manifestation of the situation the Palestinian
strugglers find themselves in while inside the Israeli prisons is the
fact that until 1999 “mild torture” during interrogation was
considered legitimate practice by law. These tortures included- among
others – deprivation of sleep, immobilization in an uncomfortable
body posture, loud music, exposure to extremely cold or
hot
temperatures, placement of malodorous cloths over the face
etc. In 1999 the supreme court of Israel upheld that in certain cases
these practices were illegal and thus imposed some restrictions.
These restrictions did not, however, rule out force-feeding as
illegal in accordance with the UN provisions.
On the 1st of May 2000 almost 1000 out of
the 1650 Palestinian political prisoners participated in a
large-scale hunger strike that lasted one month, demanding better
living conditions, better treatment by the guards, family visits,
abolition of the solitary confinement, access to healthcare and
release of political prisoners. During the solidarity demonstrations
seven Palestinians lost their lives while one thousand got injured.
Meanwhile, sixty Israelis got injured, too. On the 31st of the same
month the government of Israel satisfied some of the demands.
In February 2012 around 1800 Palestinian political prisoners
started a hunger strike against the regime of administrative
detention. That is, incarceration without evidence to back a charge,
without specific accusations, without trial and without sentence,
meaning they would remain detained for an indefinite amount of time
as ordered by the military authority of Israel. Out of the 4500
prisoners in total, 310 remained in prison under the status of
administrative detention. Among their demands was the ability of
those family members who resided in Gaza to be able to visit their
relatives in prison- a fact that was impossible since, as residents
of Gaza, they were not allowed by the state of Israel to leave Gaza-,
the termination of solitary confinement and the release of those kept
under administrative detention.
On the 24th of May of the same year and after a several-day huger
strike, the strugglers managed to strike a deal with the state of
Israel, which pledged to bring the maximum duration of administrative
detention down to 6 months if sufficient evidence were not provided
in between. Moreover, the family visits expanded and those in
solitary confinement returned to the regular blocks.
Today, 1500 Palestinian political prisoners have been on hunger
strike since the 17th of April and their number is expected to climb
up to 200 within the following days. United in a single battlefront
and despite their internal disputes and confrontations, members of
Fatah, Hamas, PFLP and Islamic Jihadists participate in a common
struggle as political prisoners.
Their demands resemble those of the previous mobilizations and
have to do with the prisoners’ access to telecommunication and the
placement of payphones in every block, in particular. Also, they
demand that they have visits from their relatives, who must get a
permit to enter the occupied territories –applications for such
permits are usually rejected and the visits are, in reality,
impossible
since the prisons are located inside the occupied
territories. Finally, they demand access to healthcare, the abolition
of administrative detention and solitary confinement. The state of
Israel has so far reacted with unannounced transfers of the prisoners
and their placement in solitary confinement.
We, as anarchist prisoners of the Greek prisons, can only join our
voices with the voices of the Palestinian strugglers. Beside our
straightforward and unconditional solidarity with the forces of
resistance against the forces of imposition, with the forces of
slings and knives against the forces of bombs and tanks, the forces
of the oppressed against the forces of state brutality, the forces of
the Palestinian people against the forces of the Israeli state, we
also express that we have yet another reason to support every act of
resistance against the state of Israel. The technology of
surveillance, the apartheid know-how, the derogation regime, the
interweaving of social and geographical marginalization, the
imposition of militarized control upon whole populations, the
administrative detention -which makes a come-back in Europe as a
tool to manage migration- and the overall dystopian reality that the
state of Israel imposes upon the people of Palestine constitute a
compass for those in power as well as an experimentation that the
rest of the states will eventually be called on to implement
elsewhere.
Victory to the struggle of the Palestinian political
prisoners
Victory to the arms of the Palestinian resistance
Andreas-Dimitris Bourzoukos,
Antonis
Stamboulos,
Argiris Dalios,
Dimitris Politis,
Fivos
Harisis,
Giannis Michailidis,
Giorgos
Karagiannidis,
Grigoris Sarafoudis,
Tasos Theofilou
Well here we are, Saturday 29th. May, on the eve of Glasgow's STUC sanitized and choreographed sedate May Day march through the city. Naturally it will not be on May Day as our political parties and trade unions usually avoid celebrating on that particular day, so as not to disturb the consumer process. This year by a drastic blunder, in the plans of the STUC, their slow trudge through the city will start at George Square, 11:30am but because they failed to book a suitable venue in time, it will end up, against their better wishes, in the open air, at the bandstand in Kelvingrove Park. However there is a group of Glasgow's fair citizens who feel that May Day should always be celebrated on May Day and in the open-air, in a free come as you please, friendly fashion. So to that end there will be a May Day Picnic, on The Green, on Monday, May 1st. May Day. It should kick off at around 2pm, so bring what you expect to find, and enjoy songs, music, poetry and friendly chat. May Day on the Green, by the people, for the people, free from our political messiahs, and their vacuous promises to lead us to the promised land.
Yesterday, 26th. saw my first run out on the bike since returning from Athens, unfortunately I came back from Athens with a lousy cough, so the bike runs were postponed. My first run was the familiar territory of the Campsie area, it was really a bit too cold for my creaking bronchial system, 9 degrees, but I loved it, and had a wonderful run, great to feel the pedals turning again.
Wheelcraft is a well known bike shop in Clachan of Campsie, frequented by cyclist from a wide area. Big Al, who runs the place is credited with being the best wheel builder in Scotland, if not the UK. The racing fraternity, and other cyclists, pop in to see him as he always has a pot of coffee standing by for all and sundry, while he usually sits with a wheel spinning in front of him. The pater is always about how long a distance they have covered or how fast they covered it.
Along the road a bit from Big Al's there is what used to be part of a working farm, the farm is still there, but part of it has become an overpriced bundle of bricks in front of which people park rather expensive cars.
A corrupt government, so what's new, across this ailing planet, people are governed by despot dictators, moronic monarchs, unbalanced and irrational presidents, and corrupt governments, that is the norm. This results in misery, poverty, repression and endless wars, for the ordinary people, so that these degenerate cabals can hold onto their wealth, power, unearned and undeserved privileges. When will the fury of the people erupt, when will that subservience explode, tearing apart these edifices of exploitation and corruption? For how much longer will we hand this legacy to our grandchildren. Are we going to continue to wait for that legion of Messiahs to come along and rub some soothing balm on our chains, and then be forever grateful? Shelley said it, "Ye are many, they are few", we are governed by consent, that governing is killing us, we can withdraw our consent. Thanks for the link Loam.
There Will Come a Time
There will come a time when the hordes remember,
who bound our grand-parents to the yoke of oppression,
who sentenced our parents to deprivation,
who bid poverty sink its teeth into our heart,
who teach our children, greed is a noble art.
Who sent our sons through the gates of hell
to a litany of cambist brawls,
crammed coffers with blood-stained gold
while laughing in Ares’ halls.
“Who does these terrible things to us?” they will ask,
and when they remember,
they’ll bring an energy that is endless
to drive a fist that is fearless.
Then this merciless market-driven world will crumble
under an insurrection of integrity,
the poor will emerge from the dark husk of capitalism
The latest issue of Fifth Estate, North America's longest running Anarchist Newspaper is now available. Great to see longevity in an anarchist printed word, 50+ years of permeating the public mind with anarchist ideas and actions. How many of those issues are still around and still being read, still influencing? We at Spirit of Revolt have a back collection of Fifth Estate and are in the process of scanning them to make them easily available to read on our website, they should appear in the next month or so. Well that's the plan.
The most recent issue of Fifth Estate — North America’s longest running anarchist publication — is out now.
Issue #398 features the usual mix of articles, reviews, and
announcements. The issue is themed “Revolutions, Riots, &
Rebellions”. Consider a subscribing to support Fifth Estate’s 50+ years
of publishing.
Australia is a country that we don't hear much about in our neck of the woods, unless of course you're into cricket and/or rugby. For most people here in the UK, there is this perception of Australia as a sunny land with the good life. However, Australia is a capitalist country and so comes with all the usual capitalist baggage, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, inequality and discrimination.
Australia has a population of approximately 24.5 million, and they don't all live the good life. The people of that country are going through the same "austerity" treatment that we are going through, with much the same results, increase in poverty and homelessness. Australia's "middle class" is shrinking and over the last decade, the bottom 5% of income earners have become poorer. Sound familiar? The Australian headline poverty rate in 2014 was 13.3 percent, or 2.99
million people up from 11.8 percent in 2003-04, while children in poverty in one-parent families, rose from 36.8 percent in
2012 to 40.6 percent in 2014. Same old capitalist story.
According to the The Australian Council of Social Service report 2016, In international perspective, Australia’s poverty rate remains
above the OECD average, despite the country's relative prosperity. Ah well, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
It is not just in poverty and homelessness that Australia follows the capitalist mode of society, it is also in discrimination. Australian Indigenous people are at the receiving end of a brutal discrimination. In 2000, life expectancy of Indigenous Australians was some 20 years below that of other Australians. All the socio-economic indicators such as income, employment, housing, education and health show considerable disparities between Australia's Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. In fact, Australian Indigenous poverty ranks alongside countries as poor as Bangladesh where absolute poverty is real.
From FTP No. 8.
However, Australians, like people across the globe, don't all sit and take this savage exploitation with complete subservience, they fight back. If you are interested in finding out about some of that fighting back then the zine FTP is worth a read and No. 8 is now available.FTP is a “bi-annual report
on indigenous, ecological & anti-capitalist resistance in the
occupied territory known as Australia.” As such, this zine features a
wide-range of actions compiled from communiques and news reports. There
are a lot of photos interspersed with the text, making this a great way
to learn about what is happening in Australia. I'm all in favour of our ideas and actions finding their way onto print and being circulated, the printed word finds its way into places the internet can't.
Well worth a wee read, here is the introduction and contents:
Introductory notes Clearly we are living in critical times. Even from abroad, it’s
clear to see that the election of Trump, coming as it does in the
epicenter of Imperial power, signifies that we are at a major historical
turning point. One might even say that the post-modern era is ending.
All the beliefs and practices that we once presumed normal are
dissolving and giving way to a social outlook that may previously have
been dismissed as irrelevant. For one, Trump’s victory totally stunned an impotent post-modern
Left, but it did not really surprise any of us. To be honest, those who
predicted otherwise were shocked, first and foremost, only with how out
of touch they were with social reality. This is the first time in recent
memory that a Western superpower has elected a head of state that
represents such a clear departure from the politics of ‘business as
usual’, even though this new direction is doubtlessly towards something
quite foreboding. What is now undeniable is that, rather than going with
a more conventional option, people are evidently calling for something
much crazier. On top of this, the rise of Trump is only one of the many symptoms
of an era that seems to be defined, more than ever, by the slow-motion
collapse of civilization in general. The wars are becoming ever more
widespread and violent, environmental disasters multiply whilst the fish
are disappearing from the oceans, and, in combination with protests
that are growing ever more violent, there is ever less hope of society
and its Left gaining a few more years of peace with its hypocrisy and
pacifism. As things descend into chaos, leftists present themselves as
skilled strategists by telling people to peacefully vote in (generally
rigged) elections for thirdplace parties… We can only hope that now the mask is off the illusions of easy
solutions will also disappear. There are no more charismatic candidates
to delicately conceal the dystopia that we were already living in
anyway. The state and society have taken further steps toward
totalitarianism shedding their few remaining inhibitions along the way.
In such times the only honorable response to the state and its class of
rulers can be resistance. Those invested in the existence of the state
can plead patience if they want but the ultima ratio of princes and
peoples is sorting from its long slumber: popular uprising is the only
solution to today’s problems, the only way to end this depraved and
crumbling oligarchy. Meanwhile, with attention switching to the core capitalist states
Greece seems to have drifted back to the periphery of interest. For some
Leftists, the situation is an embarrassment best not mentioned. By this
point few are paying attention to the latest re-run of negotiations,
the government’s stage managed heroic resistance is just as boring as
the next inevitable honest compromise is spineless. Those who do glance
at Greece after two years of Syriza see a population demoralized,
disorientated and demobilized. The great humanitarians have become the
prison guards of Europe while large layers of society get ever poorer.
They have done nothing but pave the way for the restoration of the old
regime which waits excitedly in the wings. However, we do not have to look far for a response to this bleak
picture. We see it in the honest defiance of the political prisoners,
the barricades of Exarcheia, continued resistance to austerity, and the
everyday humanity and solidarity which contrasts with the government’s
hypocrisy. These call us to rethink, regather our strength and continue
along the difficult path of struggle that lies ahead. In these difficult
times, let’s focus on pluralism, respectful disagreements, and positive
acts. With that being said let’s go on . . .
My previous post was in response to the coming UK general election, but this farce, this charade, this competition of liars, is not confined to the UK, it is a world wide illusion, a disease of humanity, a disaster of gigantic proportions, that is rapidly destroying our planet. We recently had "an election" that put a narcissistic unstable moron on the throne of the most powerful imperialist power on Earth. While waiting for the stage production from the UK theatre of lies, we are having the French presidential election spewed over us. None of these events have any possibility of solving the problems we face as a civilisation, all are concerned with the control of power in their personal fiefdoms. All they do is gratify a few messiahs and aggravate the problem that we as a civilisation are now facing.
The following is from an interview first translated by Ill Wind Editions:
By the way, the book, "The Coming Insurrection" if you haven't yet read it, is well worth getting your hands on.
Editor’s note: The trial of Julien Coupat
and Mathieu Burnel, known as the “Tarnac affair”, has dragged-on for over
eight years now. On the 10th of January, the Court of Appeals deemed
that it was no longer to be classified as a terrorism case. Assumed by many to
belong to the Invisible Committee—whose first opus, The Coming Insurrection (2007), was a resounding success—they here take
a critical look at the presidential campaign. Their newest book, Maintenant [Now], is due to hit the shelves next week. *** Le Monde: What do you make of the
presidential campaign? What campaign? There was no campaign.
There was a soap opera, a fairly worn-out one at that, to tell the truth, full
of twists and turns, scandals, dramatic tension and suspense. Much brouhaha, a tiny
frenzy, but nothing that managed to pierce the wall of generalized confusion.
Not that there is any lack of followers for each candidate, tossing-about with
varying degrees of fanaticism in their virtual bubbles. But this fanaticism
only deepens the feeling of political unreality.
A graffiti that went up in Place de la Nation during the Mayday demonstration last
year stated: "There will be no presidential election”. It suffices to project
ourselves ahead to the day after the final round of the election to grasp what’s
prophetic in this tag: whatever happens, the new president will be as much a puppet
as the current one, the legitimacy of their governance will be just as lacking,
just as minoritarian and impotent. This fact isn’t solely due to the extreme withering
of politics—to the fact that it has become impossible to believe honestly in all
that is done and said there—but is likewise due to the fact that politics is a
derisory means of confronting the depth of the current disaster.
What can politics and its proclamatory universe do when confronted by the
concomitant collapse of ecosystems and subjectivities, of the wage society and
the global geopolitical order, the meaning of life and the meaning of words?
Nothing. It only adds to the disaster. There is no "solution” to the
disaster we’re going through. To think in terms of problems and solutions is only
one more aspect of this disaster, a way of safeguarding us from any serious
questioning. What’s called into question by the current state of the world is
not merely a political system or a certain form of social organization but a whole
civilization, that is to say, ourselves, our ways of living, of being, of
relating and thinking. The buffoons who mount their platforms to boast of the “solutions” they’ll
be strong enough to enact once elected are only pandering to our need for
illusion, our need to believe that some kind of decisive change exists that
would spare us, and spare us above all from the need to fight. All the
“revolutions” that they promise us are only there so that we may
avoid changing who we are, to relieve us of any physical or existential risk.
They’re candidates for the deepening of the catastrophe. Seen in this light, it
would seem that for some people the need for illusion is virtually insatiable.------
As the states across the West, and elsewhere, turn sharply to the right, we will see from them, a more brutal response to dissent, dissent in any form. Harsher sentences, shifting to minor offences being dressed up as serious offences, large sweeping arrests, and catch-all charges. The charade of "due process" will evaporate as guilt by association will become the norm. Most states stand up and spout about their adherence to the "letter of the law", the only problem with that is they keep shifting and changing those "letters" to their advantage. They make the laws, so they are always on the right side of "the law", to protect and enhance their grip on power. This happens under all manner of guises, subtly, by small unannounced degrees, under the cover-all banner of state security, "anti-terrorist" legislation, or the ever increasing "state of emergency". Procedures introduced under these banners are seldom, if ever, relinquished, they are kept on the state's agenda for further use, and in most cases, become common practice. The following article refers to America, but can equally apply to almost any state, for example, France's now year long "state of emergency", Turkey's new massively increased powers to the President, Italy and Spain's sweeping up of anarchists. They are all at it, as dissent rises, so does the harshness of the state, eventually we see the raw power and authority of the state institution. Don't expect the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media to get all hot and bother about this ever diminishing rights of the citizen, they are there to protect the established power structure, and no matter what, will continue to spew out their usual illusions, sweared with bubble-gum and popcorn crap.
"It's crazy, a few windows got smashed," 23-year-old Olivia Alsip said, two months after her arrest on felony riot charges. "Why are 214 people looking at ten years in prison?" Alsip only knew one other person at the protest march that day. The political science graduate student from the University of Chicago had met her partner in November, when the two had joined the camps at Standing Rock opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. When they heard about calls to protest Donald J. Trump's inauguration in D.C. on January 20th under the banner "Disrupt J20," they felt they had to be there. "I identify as an anarchist, and I've been an activist for women's and queer rights since the 8th grade," Alsip told me over the phone from Chicago. Alsip is among 214 defendants facing felony riot charges, up to a decade in prison and a $25,000 fine for their participation in the anti-capitalist, anti-fascist march, which ended with a mass arrest on the morning of Inauguration Day. As far as the student understands, the evidence against her amounts to little more than proof of her presence at the unruly protest, as indicated by her arrest. Like the vast majority of her co-defendants, Alsip didn't break or throw anything. Now she lives in shock over the steep price she and her fellow protesters might pay as the new administration and police forces set the tone for how they will deal with the spike in organized dissent. Anarchists and anti-fascist activists across the country have responded to Trump's ascendancy, and particularly the attendant emboldening of white supremacists, with confrontational protest. Rivers of digital ink were spilled approving and denouncing the meme-friendly punch delivered to neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, as well as the militant demonstrations that prevented far right troll Milo Yiannopoulos from waxing hateful at UC Berkeley. But while scattered vandalism and punching (a neo-Nazi) were deemed headline-grabbing militancy, the media relegated the most extreme incidents involving anarchists and antifascists—namely, recent treatment of them—to footnotes. A New York Times article published two weeks after the inauguration about anarchist protests accorded just half a sentence to the fact that a Yiannopolous supporter in Seattle shot and seriously injured an anti-fascist activist, and has yet to face charges. Fifteen paragraphs down, a mere mention was given to the mass arrest of the 200-plus anti-fascist protesters on Inauguration Day. The fact that these arrestees now face felony riot charges went unmentioned by the Times—blanket charges, which carry a heft unheard of in the last decades of protest history. "In my over thirty years of practicing law, I've never seen anything like this," said veteran D.C. attorney Mark Goldstone, of the charges. Goldstone, who has defended dozens of activist cases and is representing six of the J20 defendants, called the charges "unprecedented territory." Dragnet arrests at protests are nothing new—recall the arrest of over 700 Occupy protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge. Nor is the leveling of serious criminal charges to demonstrators accused of property damage. With a legal logic seemingly opposite to that in the J20 cases, just one man was blamed for the $50,000 of property damage wrought during the 2009 Pittsburgh G20 Summit; he was convicted of felony criminal mischief and three misdemeanors. But the charge of felony riot is in itself rare, let alone when applied to over 200 people.
So the UK is to have another election, BORING, BORING, BORING. Does anybody honestly believe that after this latest theatre of lies and hypocrisy, that we will see an end to poverty, an end to homelessness, an adequate health service, and an education system helping all kids to a freethinking maturity? Or will it be business as usual, ordinary people struggling for a decent life, while the rich swagger all the way to the bank. You have seen it all before, pompous messiahs offering you the gift of equality, that they can never deliver. The babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, trying to work the public into a frenzy of choosing between tweedle-dum or tweedle-Dee. How many elections and how many Prime Ministers will it take for the message to sink in, they change nothing, the system stays the same.
These elections are all about making sure you believe in the illusion that you live in a democracy. We live in that smoke and mirrors of illusion that we the people are calling the shots when it comes to an election, but what is on offer is more of the same, with perhaps little tweaks here and there to suit the taste of a particular messiah. However, the basic structure of exploitation, inbuilt poverty and gross inequality remains the foundation of our society. When has it ever been different.
These party political elections are capitalisms greatest trick, a necessary illusion for capitalism's survival. Without that illusion that we the people are choosing, the whole festering ruthless system of greed and exploitation would be exposed. When we take part in this theatre of lies and subterfuge, we are complicit in our own exploitation, and we deny our children the future they rightly deserve, a world of justice, freedom from deprivation and exploitation. Our inability to see beyond the capitalism/state monopoly on power, guarantees our future generations a continuous life of struggle for what is their right, a society that sees to the needs of all our people.
As usual, ACE in Edinburgh puts on a great array of events, always interesting, always informative, the end of April is no exception.
Wednesday 19 April
Stop Arms Sales to Saudi demo
Stop Arms Sales to Saudi: From Scotland with Shame Demo Wednesday 19
April - Scottish Parliament
Take Action!
From Scotland with Shame:
Demonstrate to call for an end to Arms Exports from Scotland
Wednesday 19 April from 12 noon – 2pm.
Outside Scottish Parliament.
https://www.facebook.com/events/100896443796519/
More info at the bottom
Thursday 20 April
Scrap the Family Cap and the “Rape Clause”
There will be a demo against the family cap on Child Tax Credits and
'rape clause' at Scottish Parliament from 12:30 - 13:30 this Thursday
20th April, to coincide with First Ministers Questions.
Info on opposing these horrific measures at
https://www.facebook.com/scotwomensaid/
Thursday 20th April.
Basta! - After the Bolivarian Revolution, with Clifton Ross
We'll screen part of a new documentary, "Yukpa: Blood on the Mountain"
by Arturo Albarrán and Clifton Ross. Ross, also the author of "Home from
the Dark Side of Utopia" (2016, AK Press) will talk about the break-down
of 21st Century Socialism, the rightward swing in Latin America and rise
of indigenous resistance throughout the continent.
Free. All welcome.
Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (ACE), 17 West Montgomery Place EH7 5HA
Thursday 20th April, 7pm – 9pm
Organised by AK Press
