Time For Righteous Anger.

        It has always amazed me just how much suffering, poverty and deprivation our society will take before it explodes into righteous anger, and tears down the system responsible for all this unnecessary suffering. Our babbling brook of bullshit the mainstream media throws up everything for discussion, as long as it doesn't mean changing the system. Our political ballerinas, depending which colour of tie is in power, will utter platitudes, from "what needs to be done" to "what we are doing to remedy the situation". However, nothing changes, the suffering goes on, poverty's teeth still bites into our communities, and deprivation still push people to an early grave. In the UK we are fast reaching the level of poverty and deprivation of the 20's and 30's. After a few years of gains, from what were sometimes very bitter struggles, we are now sliding back to Dickensian style poverty. 

           Perhaps when our babbling brook of bullshit swings into full "consume for Christmas" mode we can reflect on the following. Recent figures show that in Glasgow  from May 2016 to March 2017, 39 homeless people died on its streets, in Edinburgh it was 18 homeless deaths for 2015/16.  

       Charities claim that estimates that 5000 people in Scotland sleep on the streets in the course of a year are likely to be "the tip of the iceberg" with a recent study by Heriott Watt University for Crisis predicting rough sleeping will double from 800 across Scotland on any one night – already a 10 percent rise for the first time in ten years – to 1500 by 2041.

      The Edinburgh winter shelter, run by Bethany Christian Trust, has already reached capacity on several nights since opening in October and will increase capacity from 49 sleeping mats to 75 on Monday. In Glasgow the winter shelter run by Glasgow City Mission at the Lodging House Mission day centre in the Gallowgate opened on Friday night.

Read the full article HERE:

      While our pampered political parasites squabble "Brexit" and spew about the illusion of how to make Britain great again, poverty takes a bite out of an ever larger section of our communities, with the resultant suffering and early deaths.

     Recent figures show that one fifth of the UK population is now living in poverty, and we are witnessing the worst decline in living standards for children and pensioners in several decades. 

        Nearly 400,000 more children and 300,000 more pensioners are now living in poverty than five years ago, during which time there have been continued increases in poverty across both age groups – prompting experts to warn that hard-fought progress towards tackling destitution is “in peril”. 

       The report, by the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), shows that a total of 14 million people in the UK currently live in poverty – more than one in five of the population. While poverty levels fell in the years to 2011-12, changes to welfare policy – especially since the 2015 Budget – have seen the numbers creep up again.

     UK to experience longest fall in living standards for over 60 years---

Read the full article HERE:

      This is capitalism, after centuries of of producing unmeasurable wealth, the majority of citizens still struggle to survive, while others suffer poverty and deprivation, with its attendant miseries, diseases and early deaths, and the few wallow in unimaginable opulence. How many more centuries are we going to tolerate this greed driven insanity, expecting it to somehow change and see to the needs of all our people. It isn't going to happen, capitalism cannot be reformed into a caring system, a history of centuries of exploitation should be proof enough. When will we see that explosion of the people enjoying the ecstasy of their righteous anger, and building that better world. We are producing ever more wealth and it is going somewhere, but not to the masses who produce all that wealth, where is it going, who is living off your sweat and tears? think about it, get angry.

Time For Righteous Anger.

We talk of justice, we ooze compassion

you and I. Our comfort sure

with a gracious smile a token give

those, SO deserving poor". 

Where is compassion when children lose

carefree innocent play,

where is justice when children meet

hunger along the way?

Children who, in this world of excess

create a newsreel scene

cradled in a starving mother's arms

expiring on your screen.

Forget the famine rationale

in a sickly syrup word,

mouthed by those crazy apes

until the truth is blurred.

Feel the anguish of the other

hear their pitiful cry

see hunger steal their future;

loudly cry out,   why?

Deaths From Criminal Gambling Casinos.

 

        "Austerity", a word that the West has come to live with for almost a decade now. Those in the gilded cage of privilege and power weave an illusion round the word, slipping it in as, "balancing the books", "living within your means" or "getting the economy back on its feet", all of which is hogwash and cod-swill. It is actually the public banded about word that replaces the use of the truth, that it is an ideological plank for the rich and powerful to recoup their gambling loses, by plundering the ordinary people of this world. 

       The system by which the quality of our lives depend is one large gambling casino, where the rich and powerful shuffle trillions of dollars around the various gambling tables within the casino. These are called stock markets, hedge funds, and financial investment funds, and other such fanciful names. Of course they don't sit up all night bleary eyed personally shuffling their ill-gotten gains, they have financial institutions that do all that for them. From this casino, unlike the ones that the more pleb like individuals frequent, they make vast amounts of money from this casino. Periodically the system goes wrong and the lose big time. That's when "austerity" comes in, they have got to get their money back, unlike you when you leave  gambling casino with empty pockets. Since their system is bust, the only place left to rip-off is the public purse.

        So what "austerity" really means slashing money from public services. We are brain washed into accepting that there is no money, so all social service have to be cut, savings have to be made, efficiency cuts have to be administered, but we always have enough money for wars. What the word "austerity" translates into is poverty and deprivation for the many, death to many others and endless wars.  "Austerity" is a crime, it is not a victimless crime, people die from the direct results of "austerity". Recent studies by Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the University of London, have revealed the staggering cost in human life by the obnoxious word "austerity".

This from World Socialist Web Site, thanks for the link Loam: 

       A joint report by Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the University of London (UCL) finds that savage cuts to the UK National Health Service (NHS) and Social Care provision could result in nearly 200,000 “excess” deaths by the end of 2020 in England.

“The effects of health and social care spending constraints on mortality in England: a time trend analysis,” published in the British Medical Journal, BMJOpen, estimates 45,000 extra deaths have occurred between 2009 and 2014 and predicts a further 152,141 deaths from 2015 to 2020—a staggering 100 a day.

The research links increasing mortality rates to the cuts to health and social care spending, first begun under a Labour government, then continued by successive Conservative governments to pay for the £1 trillion bailout of the banks after the 2008 global financial collapse.

“From 2001 to 2010,” it states, “the absolute number of deaths in England decreased by an average of 0.77% per year. From 2011 to 2014, the number of deaths increased by an average of 0.87% per year.”

       "Austerity" is a crime carried out deliberately, by people, fully aware of the consequences on other people, it is not the result of some natural law, though the rich and powerful would like you think it was. Those imposing, administering, and enforcing the policies necessary for their "austerity" recouping plan are criminals in every sense of the word. However, it is only the people that can bring them to justice by bring down the the whole festering cancer that is the gambling casino, and that can only be down if we bring down capitalism the greed driven system that feeds the casino.

       For more damning figures that flow from the criminal act of "austerity" read the full article HERE:

 

Revolt In Songs.

         Well it is fast approaching, Glasgow's radical musical event of the year, a night to remember, songs, music and poetry in tune with the title of the event. I am of course talking about Spirit of Revolt's December do, Revolt in Songs. Apart from a wonderful talented and varied list of performers, there will be an open mic slot. 

      So don't be the one that missed it, mark your diary, write it on your wrist, tell your friends to remind you, but be there. If you don't make it this is what you will be missing:

Julie Anne McCambridge
John David Player
Chris Fear
Callum Baird
Dirt Roadsters
Jim Ferguson
Rab Fullerton
James Kelman (tbc)
Brendan McLaughlin
Paul Tasker
Glasgow Glam Rock Dialogues

Also you, turn up on the night and perform a song/poem/instrument, on the open mic.

£5 entry (or £10 including fund-raiser donation to SOR)

When:  Wednesday, December 20th. 2017.

Time:    Doors open, 6:45 for 7pm. start.

Where: The Old Hairdressers, 

              20-28 Renfield Lane, 

              Glasgow G2 6PH.

Cost:    £5, or £10 including fund-raiser donation to SOR. 

             Where in this country, in the city, will get such a talented and varied nights entertainment for such a meagre price. You and your chum go for a coffee and scone and you have spent more than a tenner, think about it?

A "MIXED RACE" Princess!!!!

       Not a subject that I tend to get involved with, except to show my disgust. However, sometimes it is difficult to keep your mouth shut. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media is gushing and glowing with their favourite subject, the UK's largest benefit family, the Windsors. It seems that one of their family has selected his heir producing machine, much to the jubilation of the rest of the family and the established power mongers. My my, aren't our royals very modern, this is the first time in its long history of parasite living, that one of the inner circle has chosen a bride of "MIXED RACE", how daring, how modern. I got a bit confused, I thought that there was only one race, the human race. Of course being a member of a family that presided over an empire where we had to control and exploit millions of "lesser beings", it must be difficult for them to see those lesser beings with a different coloured skin, as equal, after all we used to own them. The fact that this "MIXED RACE" is mentioned just puts on display the rampant racism among this whole circle of parasites and their puppets.

      I wonder how many of our ordinary citizens have been equally "modern" by marrying a partner of "MIXED RACE", but never got a mention in our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media?

     This whole charade of "special" people awash in wealth plundered from the public purse, that we are obliged to continue to fund and hold in some special respect belongs to a rather distant past, and is due being dismantled. How do you respect parasites of these gigantic proportions?

 By the people for the people! So we pick up the bill.

Just another day in the life of an ordinary family, but we pick up the bill.

A friendly chat before heading off to the pub, but we pick up the bill. 

 

Trees Or Tarmac, Forests Or Profit, You Choose.

        Sorry I'm a bit late with this one,  as it is believed that the state authorities will move in today, Monday, to evict the defenders of the Hambach Forest. This has been a long drawn out struggle to stop the corporate plunders from destroying this wild and wonderful forest area. the profit grabbers want to go in and start clearing the forest to add to the ever creeping de-nuding of the planet, in the name of big business. Leave them alone and our children's inheritance will be a desert.

 This to this in the name of corporate greed!!

From Contra Info:

        The court case which gave the Forest of Hambach a little more time to prepare for cutting season is lost. RWE started today with clearing bushes to prepare for total cutting. The preparations for an massive police action are obviously. They announced that they want to evict the whole occupation. We expect them latest on Monday for evictions. They are already in the forest protecting machinery.

But to make it possible that Hambach Forest stays we need you and your friends/comr@des!

At best come around.

At best bring with you:

• sleepingbad, matress
• your friends
• an idea of what you wanna do (the Infrastructre of RWE is too huge as
  they could protect all)
• waterproof boots, camouflage-cloths
• camera (for recording police violence)
• working gloves
• toothbrush
• 1st aid stuff
• rainstuff
• a small tent (not necassary but if you have)
• no drugs
• no passport (if you need it for travelling, bury it somewhere in the
  woods)

What you can do from outside:

• spread the news
• do what ever you like to show solidarity
• distract police forces (they will need cops from all germany to evict us)
• attack the veins of capitalism & its fossil fuel industry
• dont get caught
• dont forget them in the cages

See you on the barricades

A Live Ticker to the Start of the Deforesting Season

The most actual on top

November 27th
general info:
there is a daily protest vigil/picket from 8:00 – 17:00 at the crossing of Werkstraße with the road to Morschenich. Telefone: 0152 18 99 50 45

9:17 beautiful trees are being transported away from the border of the mine, at the level of the occupied forest

9:00 Cutting has started northeast of the old highway, protected by police and factory security sevice, media representatives have been told to leave
8:40 police at the trainstation and at the road from Buir towards the mine

8:20 7 vans and 4 vehicles from the security firm are parked near deathtrap (near the parking place Mahnheimer Bürge). 3 security workers are inspecting the trees to the entrance of the forest

8:00 3 copvans are parked at the crossing between the Werkstraße and the road that goes to Morschenich and they controll vehicles. 1 police van is on the end of the Securoad, 2 on fields in front of the meadow, and one one the western end of the forest. The helicopter is gone.

7:00 a police helicopter is hovering over the western part of the occupied forest

6:30 a.m. 18 police vans are on their way from Morschenich to the forest. 2 heavy transporters reached the eastern part of the securoad (used to be L276),mobile phone reception is still working. Random identity controls to be expected.

November 26th

01:15 p.m. All activists have been released from the presentation. 09:20 The presentations before the magistrate start at 11:30 in Düren.

November 25th

22:30 3 prisoners remain in custody overnight and will be presented

tomorrow (time still unknown) to the committing magistrate (the one who decides if they have to stay in custody or not).

21:00 The police refuse to give out any information about the prisoners as well as to give them the number of their lawyer. As the responsible official is asked for his name, the line is interrupted. Law probably does not apply to those who are tasked with its enforcement.

5:25 p.m. Finally we were able to contact all the prisoners.

5:20 p.m. One of the arrested people was only allowed to telephone now, more than twelve hours after the arrest.

04:10 p.m. One more activist released, three still in custody. Although people were waiting outside the police HQ, the cops brought him to the other end of Aachen.

03:00 p.m. One more activist released. Four are still in custody.

02:30 p.m. One activist was released.

01:00 p.m. Some information in the earlier ticker has been corrected (deliberately false information by police). The railroad blockade is completely evicted, it is not sure since when. Already very early, paramedics were arrested, this information reached us only now because they were not allowed to call us. All activists from the rail blockade are in police custody in Aachen. Come along and show your solidarity!

11:30 Police and Secus withdrawn from the forest.

11:00 Barricades were built near the exit of the former motorway behind the earth ramparts. The police tried to stop this, both police and activists have withdrawn. Several barricades were erected.

10:35 3 Police vans in Miketown.

10:10 Many Secus at Miketown, police protection spotted for the clearing work.

09:55 Security near people at a barricade at Miketown.

09:50 Two further clearing machines spotted near Miketown, driving east.

09:45 Machines withdrawn after successful blockade.

09:20 RWE begins to clear the undergrowth near Miketown.

09:20 Police are at a tree house at the edge of the forest. Three police vehicles.

08:45 The rail blockade is still standing. The technical unit seems to be stuck in a traffic jam.

08:30 There is still no contact with the blockade, but the tracks are still blocked.

Murder By "Legal" Hands.

      The 6th. of December is approaching, a date that should be etched on the memory of every freedom loving individual. It should be a date when the haters of repression and lovers of justice carry forever in their minds. It was on an evening on Saturday, December 6th. 2008, in the district of Exarchia in Athens that the young 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos and some friends were out having a coffee, then at point blank range, he was shot dead by a serving policeman. He died on the street in front of his young friends, a cold blooded murder of a youth by a state employee. The state's history is a litany of murder by its bully boys in uniform, we must call out, "enough is enough".

      What followed was the unleashing of pent up hatred of police brutality and state injustice, Greece was gripped by an outpouring of weeks of riots, demonstrations and protests, that went to the very brink, and spread to other countries. The murder of young Alexis Grigoropoulos was the spark that lit a ferocious fire that had been simmering beneath the surface for years. The riots ended but still beneath the surface rumbles the murmur of discontent and anger, that the riots of 2008 did not resolve. The police brutality remains, the state repression goes on, the injustice keeps growing, the poverty and deprivation is endemic. What spark will it take to finally bring this festering cancerous system to an end, how many young Alexis must die before we put an end to the barbarity of capitalism? Let us mark the anniversary of Alexis Grigoropoulos's cold blooded murder with righteous anger. 

From Gatorna, a partial list of murders at the hands of state employees. 

        We call for an international day of action against state terrorism
in rememberance of...
Santiago Maldonado kidnapped and murdered by paramilataries, Argentina 2017
Pellumb Marinkolla thrown out of a police station window, Greece 2016
Remi Fraisse killed by stun grenade, France 2014
Ilia Kareli tortured to death by prison guards, Greece 2014
43 young students kidnapped and murdered by cops, Mexico 2014
Michael Brown shot by cops, Ferguson (USA) 2014
Berkin Elvan shot by teargas canister by riot cops, Istanbul 2013
Mark Duggan shot by cops, UK 2011
Dimitris Kotzaridis killed by teargas, Athens 2011
Lambros Fountas shot by cops, Greece 2010
Stefano Gucci tortured to death by police, Italy 2009
Inigo Cabacas killed by rubber bullet, Basque country 2009
Giuseppe Uva beaten to death in a police station, Italy 2008
Alexis Grigoropoulos shot by cops, Greece 2008
Gabriele Sandri shot by cops, Italy 2007
Oury Jalloh burned alive in his cell by the cops, Germany 2005
Federico Aldrovandi beaten to death by cops, Italy 2005
Carlo Gulliani shot by cops, Italy, 2001
Sole e Baleno led to suicide in prison, Italy 1998
Christophoros Marinos excecuted by cops, Greece 1996
Halim Dener shot by cops, Germany 1994
Conny Wessmann killed by car when chased by cops, Germany 1989
Michalis Kaltezas shot by cops, Greece 1985
Iakovos Koumis beaten to death by riot cops, Greece 1980
Stamatina Kannelopoulou beaten to death by riot cops, Greece 1980
Francesco Lo Russio shot by cops, Italy 1977
Isidoros Isidoropoulos killed by car when chased by cops, Greece 1976
...and of all the unkown and unnamed ones. We don't forgive. We
don't forget. No step back.

Read the article HERE:

Our Inheritance.

Now is the time to arm our desire with anger

time to claim our rightful inheritance.

Inheritance, built by generations of poverty and toil,

river of wealth channelled to financial institutions,

stolen by the power crowned few.

Treasure fearlessly wrestled from angry seas.

Riches, arduously torn from the bowels of the earth.

Bounty laboriously scratched from unforgiving land.

Assets, ours by right of life and limb.

Our toil sent a director's son to Eton.

Our poverty paid his daughter's dowry.

our sweat created the plunderer's sea of plenty.

Our humility gave his crime legality.

Now is the time to arm our desire with anger

time to claim what's ours, with fist and fire.

Olympia Commune Demands.

        The blockade of the port of Olympia started spontaneously about a year ago, November, 2016, it is still there. An extract from short article on how it sprang up:

        It started out simply enough. Someone ran in front of the tracks and stopped a train. The grain cars attached to the engine were going to be filled with proppants for oil fracking and shipped off to North Dakota. It wasn’t difficult to stop the engine, but there was no one else around, just two workers from the train company guiding the engine into the Port of Olympia. It was the afternoon of November 7, 2016.

Read the full article HERE:

Where they are now:

        It is worthwhile to consider the desired goals of the blockade, in order to give some clarity and direction to our activity at the camp. Is the goal to stop fracking and military equipment from moving through the port? Is the goal to clog an artery of a global regime of resource extraction and exploitation? Is the goal to create an autonomous power base, to enable us to seize control over our own lives and communities? For those interested in truly stopping the world that needs fracking, the answer is: all of the above and more. And as the Earth is being murdered in the name of profit, nothing short of a fundamental transformation in how society is organized is worthy of being taken seriously.
       And so how do we grow the blockade into a model for how we want to live, how we want to treat each other, and how we want society to be organized? To a large extent this work has already begun in the camp. In order to build our collective power to resist the exploitation and ecocide of this world, we have to build the alternatives to sustain us. This is why the blockade has largely been recognized to have taken on the form and function of a commune. It is the natural structure that arises from a zone of collective care, which departs from the laws and logic of capitalism and the state. If the commune is the form that our transformative social organizations take, then we should ask ourselves in earnest: how do we expand the commune?
       The question of sustaining and expanding the commune inevitably leads us to the issue of dealing with those who would crush this project before it begins.

Full article HERE:

      They now have come up with some demands that might be worth other anarchist groups adopting.

Dear City of Olympia,
some of us at the Olympia Commune have come to the understanding that “no demands” is an incoherent strategy which does not lend itself to “”progress”” or “”results”” with this bright, new understanding, we have investigated our desires and come up with some ideas about what we really want the result of this blockade to be
our demands are innumerable; here are just a few:
1. make the port a beach again
2. blow up the sun
3. the complete destruction of time itself
4. a brick for every window
5. a wrecking ball
6. that, while science still exists, one of us be endowed with an Adamantium laced skeleton
7. a swift and brutal end to the exploitation commonly referred to as “science”
8. the destruction of all dams, and the return of the salmon
9. no motor boats ever again
10. that fascists and politicians spontaneously combust
11. compost the police
12. release of all prisoners and the Total Destruction of prison, in all of its forms
13. cessation of all space exploration
14. the return of the Tasmanian wolf, the aurochs, the dodo bird, the coral reefs, and all other creatures and habitats that have ceased to be
15. the wilderness
16. total freedom
17.
18. the liquidation of Pacific Union’s assets, to be equally distributed among all children
19. mandatory clown uniforms for all Olympia parking employees
20. that steve hall fight a bear

Glasgow's Anti-Racism March, 2017.

      Saturday, a cold and at times icy, 25th. November, saw Glasgow's annual anti-racism march through the city. As usual there was the variety of colourful banners, though this year there seemed to be an absence of the hurriedly hand made placards, pity, for sometimes they are the most inventive. Also in my estimation there was a drop off in numbers compared to last year, this is sad, because racism hasn't gone away, it is still there raising its ugly head at any opportunity. 

      The last couple of years I have been unable to march with them, merely handing out leaflets at the start of the march, then leaving them to do the saunter through the city centre. Afterwards I usually meet up with several comrades in a café for a bite and a blether. This years was same as usual in that respect.

       Well done Glasgow, but let's get the numbers up for next year and hopefully reach the point where we don't need an anti-racism march, as that particular nasty disease has been written into history as a blemish on our past.

       Some photos from the day:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Cruel Barbarity Of National Borders.

 

        This is not  new post, but I feel it has to be repeated, to highlight the plight of refugees fleeing death and destruction, and trying to start a new life in Europe. Bearing in mind that most of the death and destruction they are fleeing is the direct result of Western foreign policy. The silence on this engineered tragedy from our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, is nothing short of criminal. Human suffering and deprivation on a massive scale, here in Europe and it is ignored. It is however what we expect from this system of nation states, that differentiates people according to nationality, grading humans as acceptable and not acceptable, depending on which spot on the planet they happen to be born. As long as we tolerate this system of nation states, we are complicity in the suffering of all refugees.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

           Following the death of a 5 years old child on the 10th October from a cause as yet unknown, one more was added to the previous ones in the detention centre of Moria. On Friday 20th October a 55 -year-old Iraqi passed away, being the 13th death in the concentration camps of the island. The medical exams showed a heart problem as the cause of death, while his co-detainees say that he had been complaining to the authorities and the NGOs over the last week without being given any attention. Same complaints exist for the death of the 5yr old girl, who had to sleep in a summer tent with her parents and 5 brothers, that were asking for blankets without being heard either. The authorities try to claim that the deaths in the detention centres are the result of natural causes or from chronic diseases; however they are nothing less than the transfer of the antimigration death-politics from the borders of Greece and EU on its own grounds. Thousand of migrants are trapped in detention centers, living under wretched conditions, exhausted by prolonged detention, and desperate from the uncertainty that surrounds them. The only cause of death is the devaluation of their lives from the racist policies of the state. As “foreign bodies” they are not entitled to have the same needs as all others, such as shelter, food, or access to the health system.
         As arrivals have increased significantly lately and asylum rates are frighteningly slow, more than 5,500 migrants are stowed away in Moria’s detention center, with its actual capacity not exceeding 2,500. This condition has made the situation intolerable for most of them posing beyond the other, and serious security issues for the weakest ones. A mixture of intertwined powers and repressive means is used to discipline immigrants, without however being always applicable.

        The latest example is the latest protest of some 150, mostly afghans, migrants, which has been going on since Friday 20/10. A serious fight between arab-speaking migrants and afghans in the detention center has led many of the detainees to refuse to spend any more days in it. Initially, they occupied the street in front of the center for a night, urging authorities to speed up their asylum claims, but also move them to safer places as there were many women and children among them. On Saturday morning they tried to march down to the city of Mytilene for a protest, but they were blocked by police forces at the entrance of the city. When the road opened again, they continued their march to Sapfo Square, the main square of the city where they decided to stay until their demands were met. From the beginning, the police presence was very intense in their attempt to terrorise the migrants but also the people that were coming to show their solidarity. Many of them had to pass from identification checks. However, the constant arrival of more and more people has led the police to withdraw from the square and the migrants spent the night in the square. Since Sunday morning and while police pressure against the people that were coming for solidarity continued, the authorities tried to convince them to abandon the square by promising them to speed up their procedures and transfer them to Kara Tepe’s center. Meanwhile, several migrants, with children among them, had to be transported to the hospital due to exhaustion. A serious hurdle for some of their demands to be met is being played by the UNCHR, which, according to reports, denies the registration of the protestors in Sappho Square for their transfer to Kara Tepe’s camp, asking them to return in the Moria centre, because they are afraid that this would set an example for other migrants as well.
        With the weather conditions being expected to worsen over the next days, the only solution for the migrants and the people in solidarity that stand next to them is the strengthening of the struggles. Against the state-capitalist barbarity, the culture of the borders, the nations and the nationalisms.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

To The System, Refugees Are Non-Productive Units.

       Although our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, like the European states, have long since abandoned the refugees that are scattered around the EU, the misery and deprivation is still there. No more so than on the Greek islands. Where they are held in camps and in some cases in prison. Herded like cattle in unhealthy and totally inadequate conditions for the winter weather, their plight is real, but hidden. In this capitalist system refugees in such numbers are surplus to requirements, so can be left to rot, only when the system sees a way to make a profit from them will they become of some interest to the pundits of our corporate financial Mafia. Humans are no more than productive units in this callous system of exploitation. Cease to be productive and you can rot in hell.

        This from Enough is Enough:

       The protests of refugees on Lesvos island continue. In the past days conditions at the Moria refugee camp even got worse because of heavy rainfall. According to a post by Arash Hampay on Facebook. Hesam (who is on hunger strike) was questioned about his refusal to eat. Hesam replied that, “Until you set me free I will stay on hunger strike, because I didn’t do any crime, and if you deport me I might die there,” to which the policeman replied, “Ok. So you will die.”

        The protests of refugees on Lesvos island continue. In the past days conditions at the Moria refugee camp even got worse because of heavy rainfall. According to a post by Arash Hampay on Facebook. Hesam (who is on hunger strike) was questioned about his refusal to eat. Hesam replied that, “Until you set me free I will stay on hunger strike, because I didn’t do any crime, and if you deport me I might die there,” to which the policeman replied, “Ok. So you will die.” 
Lesvos solidarity – Pikpa wrote on their Facebook page yesterday: “Protests and fire in Moria camp last night. Amidst rain and tear gas, several families were brought to the nearby community centre of Humans 4 Humanity. Together with many different groups, we all helped and came together to respond to the emergency: with tents for the families, food, water, medical assistance,…
Today the municipality organised a protest and called for a general strike, to demand the central government to decongest the islands. At the same time, refugees are protesting for their rights and to open the islands.
      How many more emergencies, protests, distressed families, cold and wet nights, speeches, marches? We need immediate action. #opentheislands“

      Arash Hampay wrote on his Facebook profile that yesterdays protests were confronted with counter protests but the refugees avoided any kind of confrontation with the “anti-refugee” protesters: “The anti-refugee protesters want to do their protest at the same place that we are, so we decided that when they start their protest, we will collect our stuff from there and let them do their protest, to show that we are respecting the people who are living there and who are born there. We also want to show that our protest is peaceful. Therefore, we will wait until the end of their protest before we begin ours.” The goal of yesterdays refugee demonstration was clear: “To be free from Moria Camp and Karatpe Camp and, of course, from Lesbos prison. They will use the following slogans: #Opentheborder #Opentheisland #Freetherefugees.”

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Universal Credits And The Cull Of The Poor.

        An excellent article by Libcom, on "Universal Credits", is well worth reading in full. It charts the devious road of the state trying to appease the discontent that poverty nurtures, callously trying to keep the lid on things, while it gets on with the usual capitalist exploitation. 

        The official line is that universal credit is being introduced to make things easier, simpler, gather a multitude of payments together to benefit people generally. As if fine-tuning bourgeois bureaucracy is a matter for anyone apart from itself and those it serves. The reality for those on the receiving-end is catastrophic to say the least.
       Right from the start the scheme as a whole failed its own timetable time after time. For anyone relying on state benefits, especially new claimants, the system has become increasingly erratic, unfathomable and more and more subject to the arbitrary whims of individual bureaucrats. A sociologist might tell us that the delivery of a service, its timeliness and serviceability, are less important than the self-aggrandising machinations of bureaucrats and ministers and their staffs. Of more significance to us, however, is what it tells us about the state of capitalism in the so-called advanced world today.
       Despite its name, the universal credit project runs completely against the professed ideal of the post-war welfare state: that a wage worker who becomes unemployed should be compensated with an income adequate for subsistence as a right, i.e. without means testing. Even if the 1946 National Insurance Act didn’t exactly see things in terms of basic human rights – it was conceived as an insurance scheme run by the state where the pay-outs would come from a fund based on the sizeable fraction deducted from workers’ wage packets. Anyone who had been earning a wage [well, at any rate adult males and single women] was entitled to ‘the dole’ simply by registering as unemployed. (Though this in itself was not always without stigma and unconditional payments for “interruption of earnings” did not last beyond six months or a year.) This is not a small point. The end of means testing was a key part of the post-war vision of Britain outlined in Beveridge’s famous 1942 report which gave the state responsibility for eliminating the five giant evils of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. The Beveridge Report was not just discussed by bureaucrats in some obscure parliamentary committee. Thousands of copies and summaries of it were published and widely distributed to reach a working class audience – including amongst serving soldiers and sailors. Hence the prospect of a benign welfare state capitalism in place of mass unemployment, poverty and the workhouse, became a key part of government propaganda to keep the working class committed to “the war effort”.
       And so what Margaret Thatcher later called “the nanny state” came about, though it never fully matched Beveridge’s paternalistic vision. It didn’t last of course. But the reason is economic. The heyday of state-funded provision for the welfare of all citizens coincides with the period of post-war reconstruction and boom. The return of capitalism’s inbuilt structural crisis at the beginning of the 1970s undermined Keynesian economic theory and the state welfare policies that went with it. On the employment front, a more or less manageable situation of “full employment” (defined as a situation with no more than 2-3% of the work force unemployed) quickly gave way to mass unemployment on a par with the 1920s as industry after industry was restructured, dismantled and production ‘outsourced’ to cheap-labour economies in the rest of the world. This, coupled with rampant inflation [over 25% by the mid-1970s] which quickly undermined the value of unemployment benefit, put an end to any idea that national insurance could cover the cost of maintaining the unemployed, especially as many workers faced long term unemployment and could hardly be considered as ‘between jobs’. To this day, despite all the fiddling with official figures and measures to disguise it, unemployment and under-employment are intrinsic to the UK economy as in all the capitalist heartlands, as the table Unemployment and Insecurity in the UK Labour Market from the Centre for Social Investigation, Nuffield College, Oxford at the top of this article shows.
         The old ‘family wage’ is long gone. Minimum wage or not, for decades now the take-home pay of a growing portion of the workforce has not been enough to live on without some form of additional state ‘benefits’. Today more people in a job than without a job are officially classified as ‘poor’. Together they make up well over a sixth of the workforce. (5.8 million out of a work-age population of 38 million people.) For decades too the state has been trying to disguise and manage the situation. Not always successfully. In 2011 riots of the dispossessed in various London districts echoed events in Toxteth and Brixton of thirty years earlier. No government dare withdraw the state support cushion altogether but nowadays nobody who loses their job is entitled to income adequate to live as a right, no matter how much national insurance they have paid. Instead a sophisticated form of means testing and monitoring by state agencies of people’s personal circumstances has become the norm.
        The whole panoply of benefits, allowances, credits claimable/available to individuals and/or families on low pay, to ‘jobseekers’, invalids, disabled … at the discretion of a state bureaucrat … has mushroomed out of the National Assistance scheme that was originally set up in 1948. Basically this was a bureaucratic afterthought to cater for a minority of people with “abnormal needs” not covered by national insurance. Anyone with an ‘abnormal need’ would have to undergo a means test. In 1966 National Assistance morphed into Supplementary Benefits. In 1988 Supplementary Benefits became Income Support. Since the introduction of ‘austerity’ following the financial crash a decade ago, the various Tory-led governments have been working on the introduction of Universal Credit.

Read the full article HERE:

It closes with the statement:

         All of this needs to be set against the continuing capitalist crisis. Capital always has to find ways to ease its own pains even if it causes misery and more to the working class. All of these measures have been a way to impose new rules on those with little. The British capitalist class and its uncivil servants have placed a new name at the head of a new set of rules designed to force people into a situation where it “pays” to work longer hours for less – the capitalist ideal! The Tories have been shown on a regular basis to be incompetent, callous, unprepared and heartless. Well, nothing new there! But the solution for the working class is not the very same system managed by pious Labour technocrats – there is no comfort zone – the solution lies in recognising that we have to get rid of capitalism, wage labour and its corollary, unemployment altogether.

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Today City Plaza Hotel Is One And a Half Years Old.

 

         Having spent a considerable time in Greece over the years, some of that time on some of the islands, but mainly in Athens, I have great admiration for the activists there. They seem to be able to mobilise in numbers, and to hold onto what they have won, of course it is the numbers and the solidarity they show to each other, that brings them victories.
        One such action which I consider a remarkable achievement is the City Plaza Hotel. Back in 2008, when the financial Mafia went with demand notices to the various states, insisting in getting back their gambling losses, the following "austerity" ideology decimated lots of countries, in Europe, Greece was the worst hit. unemployment rocketed, hotels, shops and workplaces closed their doors, evictions mushroomed, plus Greece was facing a vast influx of refugees. That's when the local activists stepped in, occupied a large empty hotel in the centre of Athens, and housed lots of refugees. That was in April 2016, they are still there today.
      The logistics to keep such an enterprise going over this period of time is a considerable achievement, but they have done it, and are still doing it. The City Plaza Hotel is home to hundreds of refugees, in the centre of Athens, thanks to the local activists, refugees and their supporters.

This from Squatnet:

        On April 22, 2016, 250 activists and refugees took over the hotel City Plaza in the center of Athens. A hotel which like many other businesses stood closed for 6 years after the economic collapse and the government’s policies of austerity. This abandoned hotel was transformed into a Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Space. Since then the solidarity initiative has, for more than 500 days, provided free and decent housing to over 1700 people in the center of Athens, irrespective of their nationality and residence status. These people are housed in the hotel’s 120 rooms, 350-400 persons at a time, a third of whom are children.
       There are other ways you can measure what’s been happening here over the past 18 months; with the 385,000 warm meals served by the kitchen group or with the 35,000 working hours spent at security posts by the hotel’s entrance and on the balconies of the building. With the 13,560 hours of shifts at the reception desk or with the more than 32,700 rolls of toilet paper distributed by the warehouse team. It can also be counted in 156 full van-loads of fresh vegetables and meat; or in the countless hours spent cleaning the building, or in the medical center, in the hours spent teaching in the two classrooms, or in the women space and in the playground or with the 18 tons of heating oil used in the boilers and radiators.

Read the full story of this wonderful achievement:

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