Pentagon's Worry, A Population Too Unfit To Fight!!

       Received this info from a comrade, thanks Bob. I felt I had to post it in full, as I believed I would be doing the American people an injustice if I didn't try to help to expose how the people are exploited, abused and suffer under the yoke of the world's largest economy and strongest military power. Like Professor Hynes says, it is ironic that the Pentagon is the one establishment apparatus that raises the alarm on this situation, albeit, for all that wrong reasons. It is cold comfort to realise that capitalism will eventually produce a population that is so unsuited to fight its imperialist  battles. 

      Of course America is not unique in this dispossing of the people, it is the inevitable pattern of all capitalist/corporate imperialist nations, it just a matter of pace, some slowly, some more rapidly. In its blind greed driven quest for profit, it is a case of the capitalist system killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

H. Patricia Hynes: Youth & the Pentagon       To my astonishment, I began receiving daily news updates from the Pentagon, innocuously named the Early Bird Brief, about a month ago. One particularly perverse news brief warrants mention: the number of out-of shape and unfit youth is an imminent national security crisis, (not because they matter for themselves), but because they are “too fat tofight,” as one writer put it.
         According to a report commissioned by the Pentagon, 7 of 10, or more than 24 million young Americans between the ages of are 17 and 24, are not qualified or eligible to join the military because of inadequate education, overweight, poor health and criminal records. (1)
       Let’s dig more deeply into this, particularly in the light of the Pentagon’s overfed budget while education, health and social services budgets are starved of funding, and in the face of evidence that our government cares more about weapons and wars than the health and wellbeing of our children and youth.
Education
       The 2015 high school graduation rate, which ranged from 66% – 94% in the 50 states and District of Columbia, ranks near the bottom when compared with other industrial countries. A recent international study found that American students with a high school diploma had math skills equivalent to those of high school dropouts in other comparable countries. They fell significantly below international students in literacy skills and scored last in technology skills. (2)
Physical Activity and Overweight
       Nationally, almost 1 in 3 youths between ages 10 and 17 are overweight or obese. Recent national surveys find that high school students are spending more recreational time on computers, watching less television, and getting little physical activity. (3) Less than 8% of youth between 16 and 19 meet national guidelines for 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous physical activity. (4)
Nutrition
    Unhealthy foods are heavily marketed to children, with 91 percent of American children having poor diets according to national reports on child obesity. One in 5 U.S. children (more than 15 million) live in poverty and “food-insecure” households — having limited access to adequate food and nutrition due to cost and local availability. Low-income children generally live in low-income neighborhoods; and they are much more likely to be overweight or obese with limited access to sidewalks, parks, recreation centers and quality food stores. (5)

The trends in inequality are criminal: 

      While the stock market nearly doubled between 2008 and 2014, the number of American children living below the federal poverty level increased by 18%. (6)
Health
    One in 8 U.S. children and teens had a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in 2011, an increase of 43 percent since 2003. This condition can cause learning setbacks, behavioral difficulties and result in excessive medication of children. (7) The percentage of U.S. children with asthma doubled in the 1980s and 1990s and has increased steadily since then. The reason for the increase is poorly understood, but many possible factors include exposure to secondhand smoke, obesity, poor housing (mold, mildew, infestation), air pollution and children’s immune systems failing to develop properly. The prevalence of asthma among 15 to 19 years olds is about 10%. While there has been increased slowing, asthma rates are highest among African American, Puerto Ricans and poor families. (8) Asthma is the primary reason that children miss school – and thus, a real setback in learning. The Pentagon’s chief concern: asthmatic youthare “too sick to serve.”
Crime
      The Mapping Police Violence project has correlated the impact of police in schools with the criminalization of youth. Over the past two decades, 10,000 police have been stationed in schools. In that same period, there has been no impact on violence in schools. Yet, one million students have been arrested, with black students much more likely to be arrested than white students, for behavior that prior to police presence warranted detention or suspension. (9) So what’s the remedy, according to the Pentagon, for their shortage of recruits? Improve education, nutrition and physical exercise; reduce youth crime and drug use. But doesn’t this border on insanity to have the military, among all the federal agencies, sound the alarm of this multiple youth crisis – in education, health, nutrition, fitness and crime – when their mission is to arm youth and send them to war from which many will return with brain injuries and traumatized (PTSD).
Further, where will the funding for improved education, nutrition, physical exercise and crime reduction come from, given our federal budget loots education, environment, health and housing while expanding military spending? The recent Congressional budget deal allots 54% of the discretionary budget to the military and 5% each to education, housing and health. Trump’s 2019 budget request lards the defense budget even more while reducing education by 14%, health by 26%, housing and community programs by 35%, and energy and environment by 36% as compared to the 2017 budget. (10) Some might call this psychotic, or more politely, cognitive dissonance.
Meanwhile, 

      Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign to address childhood obesity and lack of exercise to improve children’s health has not been sustained by the Trump administration. As of December 2017, the administration had not appointed new directors to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. Further, Trump’s 2019 budget, a massive entitlement program for the weapons industries and private military contractors, proposes eliminating 14 environmental programs, among them ones that worsen air pollution and indoor environment of low-income homes – triggers for asthma and poor lung function. (11) The epidemic in massacre of children and youth in schools and elsewhere in our society is rooted in our national metastasis of guns. Since 1963, three times more children and teens have been killed by guns in this country than U.S. soldiers died in wars abroad. (12) Even with the most recent school shooting, Congress would not pass a gun control law; and the president reflexively called for arming teachers and then backed down from gun reform after meeting with the NRA. The youth of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who confronted U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on lack of national gun control, held press conferences and achieved limited gun control legislation in Florida; the high school students from Maryland and Virginia who staged a demonstration and die-in in front of the White House and the U.S. Capitol; and the students across the country who will march in protest on March 24 – are the wise ones. Soon, as they have said, they will vote; and then they will run for office. And they, hopefully, will extract the rotten roots of this country awash in war, weapons, gun violence and a hornets’ nest of gun and weapons lobbyists.

Pat Hynes, a retired professor of environmental health from Boston University, directs the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, http://traprock.org.

 

 

1. https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-looming-national-security-crisis-young-americans-unable-serve-the-military

2. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/03/10/469831485/americas-high-school-graduates-look-like-other-countries-high-school-dropouts.

3. https://stateofobesity.org/childhood/

4.http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wltr/files/201801which_u.s._states_pose_the_greatest_threats_to_military_readiness_and_pu.._.pdf

5. https://stateofobesity.org/childhood-obesity-trends/

6.https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/01/29/six-big-losers-our-booming-economy

7. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151208150630.htm

8. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/asthma
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/12/28/460845335/childhood-asthma-rates-level-off-but-racial-disparities-remain

9.http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43732-killing-children-in-the-age-of-disposability-the-parkland-shooting-was-about-more-than-gun-violence

10.https://www.nationalpriorities.org/analysis/2018/trumps-fy2019-budget-request-has-massive-cuts-nearly-everything-military/

11.https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Fourteen+Environmental+Programs+Eliminated+in+Trump%27s+Budget+Proposal&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

12.http://www.childrensdefense.org/newsroom/child-watch-columns/child-watch-documents/ViolenceAgainstChildren.html

 

 

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In Memory Of Lambros Foundas.

       In memory of Lambros Foundas, shot by the police in Athens, on March 10th. 2010. The state will always justify its killings, and demand a sole monopoly on violence, it is its only means of survival. Its existence is built on control, force and repression, to try to eliminate state violence, but leave the state in place, is futility in the extreme.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

 

In life thunder
Charged with
genuine anguish for the choices, the tomorrow, the comrades, the struggle.
With sharp thoughts, forged in the bowels of personal labour and the movement.
With decisive acts, firm, flaming.
You showed with your life that the way of the revolutionary is to say little, to act with rage and devotion. With rage and conscience.
In your memory fists tighten…
Tears become weapons…
And the old Case becomes more imperative.
And in death a wolf
One
breath was enough for you, one decision and the iron will.
With the weapon in your hand and freedom in your eyes you chased your dreams to the end.
As you lived, this is how you left. Wild and free.
When revolutionaries die
they are not lost
They ride a star and draw courses of freedom in the indefinite.
They draw with their blood what each one of us dreams but is afraid to dare.
They are fireflies in the darkness of inertia.
They are the fire, the struggle, the street.
Lets all take the fire from their fire…
lets not forget – lets act.
Honour to anarchist
Lambros Foundas
The struggle continues.

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Spaceship Earth Has No Escape Capsule.

 

       States, councils and corporate bodies, talk the talk on climate change, but never walk the walk. Grand words, but actions that are mainly to protect the profits of the large corporations, who have billions wrapped up in fossil fuels. As the corporate juggernaut grinds its way through our planet, plundering for greed driven profit, our planet limps to a dubious future, where human life is doubtful. All unnecessary, all preventable, if we act now, but time is running out. We would do well to remember, spaceship Earth has no escape capsule. This is our only place for humanity, there is no other planet waiting for the Earth's population. Screw this one up and we are finished, no second chance. If this generation allows this greed driven suicide to continue, we condemn our grand children to an unimaginable, unlivable dystopia of our own making, surely they deserve better. 

        There are those who are fighting this murder by profit, our solidarity should be guaranteed and unstinting, more power to their efforts. This from Enough is Enough:

Climate protectors occupy coal-ship transfer port in Rotterdam
       Rotterdam: This morning (March 9) dozens of climate activists from ‘We Stop Coal’ occupied the coal-ship port of the EMO Rotterdam. The participants of the protest state that it is time to break the power of the fossil industry. They say they will not leave until this renewed contract of EMO is made public and destroyed. There has been a huge international outcry about the continuation of the biggest coal harbour of Europe.
       If the Netherlands wants to take their responsibility regarding limiting the warming of the planet by 1.5 C°, then the port of Rotterdam should stop facilitating fossil fuels as soon as possible. “The port of Rotterdam and counsellor Visser are guilty of climate destruction. By not acting on their responsibility regarding the lease contract of the EMO transfer company they are equally responsible for the destruction of our Earth. People in the Global South and our children will be the ones facing the costs of the decisions of EMO.” Albeit spokesperson Maria Rietberg. “This is a Code Red for the climate. Rotterdam is the biggest coal dealer in Europe. If the government does not take action, it is up to us.”
       The port of Rotterdam is a crucial cross-section of the global fossil fuel trade. “Fossil fuels belong to the past. If we do not intervene right now, our planet will slide into a situation where their inhabitants are unable to live any longer”. Says Rietberg. “Rising sea levels, melting icecaps, millions of people on the move because of hunger due to failed harvest: the cause of this is partly to be found in Rotterdam.”
In the city council of Rotterdam, the behaviour and (lack of) responsibility of D66 councillor Adriaan Visser have triggered antipathy and a feeling of disbelief. Many local political parties urged their followers to take part in the climate march for a coal-free Rotterdam. The march is organized by the Climate Initiative and will leave this afternoon from the City House towards the port company at 13:00 h.
        In the port of Rotterdam, 28 million tonnes of coal is transferred yearly. The burning of this coal equals 47% of the total Dutch CO2 emissions. The majority of this coal is exported by train and inland ships to Germany. In November, hundreds of Dutch citizens joined the protests during the climate summit in Bonn at the Ende Gelände coal mine actions. Four thousand citizens joined the demonstration against the RWE brown coal mine. These people forced RWE to stop their destructive work.
German outrage
       The passive display of the Rotterdam city board has caused international dismay, both in Germany and England. In an open letter, international environmental organizations called upon mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, port company director Allard Castelein and the city council to phase out the coal transfer. “The international willingness for action to come to the Rotterdam port for big scale actions has increased enormously” Albeit spokesperson Micha Vos. “International anti-coal coalitions state that the Netherlands is avoiding their responsibility. With this unacceptable decision, the City Council acts against the Paris climate agreement.
Just transition for the port workers
       ‘We Stop Coal’ aims for a just transition. The coal port workers whose families depend on their income can be part of the immediate transition to renewable energy. The action group supports the call of the FNV -the workers union, for a Coal Fund for the workers of the coal branch. “We think it is necessary that the shareholders give a compensation back to the workers; have they not profited for years from their labour?” states Vos. “Renewable energy provides many opportunities for a new future in the port. The continuation of the status quo through failing government policy has enormous consequences. That is why we now stand up for the climate and demand climate justice for everyone”, albeit Rietberg.
We put a Stop to Coal, March 9, 2018.

Tomorrow’s World!

See the fat cat’s grinning smile

as Corporate Capitalism runs amok,

Chasing profit as it goes

firing millions of ordinary folk.

Raping and polluting land after land,

starting bloody wars.

Toxic waste, sweat shop wages

and oil covered sea shores.

Where have all the flowers gone

beneath this ozone free sky?

To join the birds, to join the fox

on yonder plutonium field to die.

Mercury fish, strontium lamb

trees that never show a leaf,

radio active beaches, toxic streams

good lean BSE-antibiotic beef.

In a world of epidemic, plague and famine

it’s bottled water and chemical food.

Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice

so you know its got to be good.

Beneath a sky that’s always black,

hurricane winds and endless drought,

its oxygen masks for the toxic air,

corporate profit’s what its all about.

It doesn't have to be that way.

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We Must Not Let History Repeat Itself.

       History repeats itself, just as the capitalist/imperialists in 1936 turned a blind eye or actively indulged in the destruction of the Spanish revolution, NATO, America, and Russia turn a blind eye while the dictator Erdogan  unleashes his Western kitted out military machine, against the people of Afrin. No alternative to capitalism will ever be allowed to survive, no matter the cost to human life, if the capitalist/imperialist cabal of this world has its way. In their rules it is capitalism or death. Surely the line must be drawn somewhere?

Insurrection News-Received on 09.03.18:

          For more than 6 weeks we have had to watch the Turkish state attack and occupy, together with Islamist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaida, Afrin, the most western canton of Rojava. In this extermination campaign, the invaders are neither deterred by the deliberate bombardment of civilians nor by the use of chemical weapons. The Islamist mercenaries and fascist Turkish soldiers leave a trail of devastation, plunder, rape and murder, they practice an ethnic cleansing of the territory of Kurds. So far, more than 300 civilians and many militants have given their lives, dozens of villages have been destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people have had to leave their homes.

          Despite the determined resistance of Afrin’s people and their YPG / YPJ / SDF defense units, the Turkish army manages to gain more ground every day. While the Turkish offensive was stuck in the border area of the canton for the first month, in recent days important small towns such as Raco and Shera have been conquered by the invaders. Their destination is Afrin City, the place where civilians have fled the villages and small towns they have conquered so far.

        This is made possible by the massive use of modern NATO technology such as fighter jets, artillery, tanks and drones. The fascist-Islamist war of aggression against Afrin is not only Erdogan’s attempt to destroy the Kurdish freedom movement; While Russia opens the door to the Turkish Air Force and the Syrian Assad regime is de facto inactive, NATO actively supports this war with intelligence information, military technology, weapons and ammunition from Western factories. The hypocritical messages from the palaces of power can not hide the fact that this war is nothing but the reckoning of the rulers with the revolution of Rojava. It is a reckoning with the attempt to counter the capitalist system with a self-determined alternative of radical democracy, women’s liberation, real gender equality, and social ecology.

         As radical left in Europe, we should be aware of the historical significance of these days. The attack on Afrin is an attempt to destroy the most promising revolutionary project of our generation. The Rojava Revolution is not only the only significant emancipatory perspective in the Middle East, but also one of the worldwide last remaining glimmers of hope for another world.

        Like no other revolution of the last decades, Rojava has inspired us and shown us how radical and beautiful the struggle for the liberation of a society can be. The heroic resistance of YPG and YPJ in Kobani and the self-organization of the population under the initiative of self-liberating women cast a spell over thousands of leftists, anarchists, socialists and feminists. Worldwide, this revolution was discussed, admired and given solidarity, hundreds of people made their way to Rojava and participated in the resistance against ISIS and the building of a new society. In spite of all the contradictions, the Rojava movement, with its determination, its attachment to the people and the concrete implementation of our utopias, has become the most important focal point of the global struggle against capitalism, patriarchy and racism.

         Today, this project is standing with its back to the wall. The war over Afrin is a struggle for existence or not-existence for the revolution in Rojava. If Afrin falls, Minbij will fall as well. With a victory for the Turkish state west of the Euphrates, American imperialism will also rethink its regional strategy and consider to hand over northern Syria to Turkey-affiliated Islamist militias under the FSA label aka ISIS and Al-Qaida / Al-Nusra. This would not only be the beginning of ethnic cleansing and the bloody end of the Rojava revolution, but also the beginning of a new phase in the development of Turkish fascism as a source of worldwide Islamism – Erdogan’s dreams of the new Ottoman Empire with him as Sultan at the head would no longer have any counterpart. The dictatorship inside would be consolidated for decades, the colonial expansion would be extended to the outside. The Middle East would be driven deeper into the chaos of war and annihilation without a force that can develop an emancipatory alternative.
        The fact that developments in the Middle East have a direct impact on political and social processes also in Europe and other parts of the world has not only been shown by the attacks of ISIS in recent years. The rise of racism, sexism and antisemitism in European societies, the new militarism and the ever-increasing calls for the authoritarian state and thus the comeback of the radical right, are directly related to this. We must be aware that the conditions under which we, the radical left, are struggling in the centers of power are also shaped by the international balance of power. And the same is true of the political conditions in the metropolises of capitalism, which influence the conditions under which our friends fight in Afrin.

        The people of Rojava are still standing, YPG / YPJ / SDF are opposed to these developments. And this resistance has so far only been successful because people have decided to give everything for it. However, they will not be able to defend against the brutal superiority of the attacking Turkish army and their Islamist helpers without international support. But despite weeks of worldwide protests, the states of North America via Europe to Russia hold on to their cruel decision to end this revolution, and seem to have sealed the fate of the people in Rojava. The resistance in Afrin will only succeed if we are ready to give it all, even if it is the most valuable.

         We will not continue to watch this injustice passively. We will not leave the people in Rojava and our fighting comrades alone, because the war against Afrin is just as much a war against us. The Turkish attack on Afrin is NATO’s political, economic and military push into the heart of our revolutionary struggles, dreams and hopes. We will carry this war back to where it is approved, supported, legitimized and produced. We will drive up the costs for those who benefit from this war. We will hold to account those who endorse the murder of civilians and legitimize them as a supposed “war on terror”. And we will make the deafened European public listen up and remind our societies that we all have a responsibility for what governments are doing on our behalf.

         In this sense, we call upon all emancipatory forces worldwide to break the silence and give a voice to the people of Rojava that no one else can ignore. If not us, who else will be able to remind our societies of their responsibilities? The situation in Afrin is an existential threat to all our revolutionary perspectives – when, if not now, is it time to risk everything? If Afrin falls, it will be too late. Only if we give everything, we will be able to win everything.

The past solidarity actions with the resistance in Afrin have been right and good. We greet all the comrades who have been organizing, demonstrating and carrying out direct actions for weeks. These were important moments, but they are not enough. In the current situation, the murderous silence and the support of fascist Turkey by the international community forces us to other means. We must exercise our right of self-defense of our hopes.

         Direct actions can not only be a concrete intervention in the war and propaganda machinery of the Turkish state and its helpers, but have much more potential to draw attention to the extraordinary urgency of the situation. Burning Turkish consulates, sabotaged armaments companies and mass militant actions against the symbols of capitalist and imperialist rule will break the silence and make the atrocities of Turkish fascism no longer ignorable. The system in Europe thrives on us to engage and stun, to pacify conflicts and contradictions – let this false illusion of social peace go up in flames. Let us show the rulers that we will resist the attacks with the people of Rojava and defend by all means the revolution in Rojava, which is also our revolution.

         We call on Monday, 12.3.2018 to start with this militant campaign wherever we can hit the rulers: Radical, creative and courageous, involve you and organize local actions as a prelude to a resistance that will show the powerful of this world that Afrin is not alone. Like the people of Rojava, we also say: “Together we will fight, together we will lose, or together we will win”.

Afrin will not fall!

Biji Berxwedana Afrin!

Long live the international solidarity!

Radical cells in the heart of the beast
8.3.2018

        We will collect all direct actions in solidarity with the Afrin resistance and possible targets at: fight4afrin.noblogs.org

Contact: fight4afrin[at]riseup.net

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The State And Its Fear Of Anarchists.

         As I stated before, in state after state, the rise of the right goes on well financed and unchecked, while anarchists and others, whose main aim is a free, sustainable and fair society, something the state can't tolerate, are hounded, persecuted and imprisoned. No state is immune from this repression of anarchists, though at the moment Russia is well to the fore as a regime that encourages brutal torture, false evidence, backed up with a corrupt judicial system.

This from Contra Info:

         Moscow Anarchist Black Cross released the review of repression of anarchists by Russian state in 2017 and early 2018. During this period, the authorities continue to frame and persecute the Russian comrades. Anarchists are also a subject of repressions in prisons. Here is the extract of recently published list of repression in Russia.
St. Petersburg and Penza
In October 2017, Russian Special Services (FSB) fabricated a large-scale criminal case against anarchists and anti-fascists, whom they declared members of the terrorist organisation called The Network. Russian authorities allege that the accused planned and prepared terrorist acts to be conducted during the coming presidential elections in March 2018 and the World Cup over Summer the same year.
In Penza, Yegor Zorin, Ilya Shakursky, Vasily Kuksov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, Arman Sagynbaev and Andrei Chernov were detained. In St. Petersburg, the cops arrested Victor Filinkov and Igor Shishkin. Ilya Kapustin is currently a witness.  The relatives of the arestees reported that their loved ones were tortured in order to extract confessions from them. All detainees in this case are in a difficult situation, under the threat of repetition of tortures, and very much need your support – and your solidarity. You can make a donation towards their legal costs here. The arrested will also be delighted to recieve letters of support. Here are their addresses:
St. Petersburg:
191123, St. Petersburg, Shpalernaya St., 25 PKU SIZO-3 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia
Shishkin Igor Dmitrievich
Filinkov Victor Sergeevich
In Penza:
PKU SIZO-1, st. Karakozova, 30, Penza, Penza region, Russia, 440039
Shakursky Ilya Alexandrovich
Pchelintsev Dmitry Dmitrievich
Chernov Andrey Sergeevich
Sagynbaev Arman Dauletovich
Moscow
Two activists, Elena Gorban and Alexei Kobaidze, are charged with criminal damage of Putin’s United Russia Party offices. They were charged after, at the end of January 2018, unknown activists smashed the window of one of the branches of the United Russia Party in Moscow and threw a fire inside in protest against the upcoming presidential elections.
“No matter who becomes president, their policy is always the oppression and exploitation of a simple working people. We, as anarchists, offer self-government and direct democracy in exchange for presidents and other state institutions. Join our fight! “- the people responsible for that action said in their statement.
The police broke into the apartments where Gorban and Kobaidze lived on February 13. After the interrogations, the activists were released on bail, and now they are on the run.
Chelyabinsk: criminal case for anti- FSB banner
In Chelyabinsk, five activists were detained on 19th February 2018 after the action near the local branch of the FSB. Persons unknown hanged a banner saying “FSB – the main terrorist” and threw a smoke bomb over the fence of the FSB property. The action was held in support of the anarchists arrested in Penza.
The activists, who prefer their names to be published, reported that the FSB officers tortured them with a taser gun, demanding that they admit that they hung the banner. They were eventually released on bail, but with a condition preventing them from leaving the country or changing address. You can help them with legal costs by transferring money to the account of ABC.
Crimea: Yevgeny Karakashev arrested for “justifying terrorism”
In February 2018, Crimean FSB arrested anarchist Yevgeny Karakashev. He is accused of “inciting hatred” and “justification of terrorism”, or in other words, posting a video on Russian social media page VKontakte. Karakashev is currently under arrest.
Eugene has been busy with activism for some time. Prior to his arrest, he took part in a picket near the FSB building in Crimean city Simferopol, and in November 2016, along with like-minded people, planned to hold a picket “against police arbitrariness in the Crimea” near the building of the Ministry of the Interior. This picket was banned by the local authorities.
Administrative Persecution of Anarchists
In Janury 2017, on the anniversary of the political assassination of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, there were memorial events across the country, which the cops tried to break. Anarchists were detained in Moscow, Petersburg, Murmansk and Sevastopol. The police conducted more arrests this year during commemoration actions for Markelov and Baburova.----

Read the full article HERE: 

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

  

Capitalism A Failed System.

 

       There are lots of methods by which you can asses that capitalism is a failed system. Probably the greatest indictment against the system is its continuous wars, wars are just an ongoing aspect of capitalism. It is always there in some form or other in some part of the world, with all its attendant features of misery, trauma, death, destruction, and massive profits to the corporate world. 

       Another measure of its failure is its gross inequality, from state to state, you have opulence and deprivation living side by side. In this insane system, since money is the main ingredient in the quality of your life, you have to prostitute yourself as a productive unit to some corporate body, or live in poverty. However even here they system fails, by being unable to to allow everybody the necessity of being a productive unit, it functions by leaving a pool of individuals with no means of survival except charity or some form of miserable state hand out.

      The EU is one of the worlds most developed capitalist power blocks, but even here, unemployment is rife, which in turn means poverty and deprivation are endemic. The EU is a rich capitalist enclave of 511.8 million people, with the vast majority of its members states having unemployment above 13%, the EU average is 7.3%, that is approximately 40 million people excluded from the possibility of a decent standard of living in the midst of a very rich enclave.

       More than 117 million people across EU member countries (or 23.4% of the population) were living at risk of poverty in 2016, according to the Eurostat statistics agency.

     Of course the unemployment average doesn't tell the true story. Looking at figures in individual member states, you start to see the real horror of being dumped as "surplus to requirements".

        Greece leads the field in having the largest percentage of unemployed with a staggering 20.7% of its population dumped as "surplus to requirements", Spain following close behind with 16.4%, Cyprus 11.3%, and Italy 10.8%, and so it goes on.

       If you happen to be among the youth of this very rich bastion of capitalism, the EU, then you are in an even more precarious state than the population at large. The EU average for youth unemployment is 16.1%. If we look at individual states within the EU, then we see the real plight of the youth of this vast rich corporate body. Once again, leading the charge at destroying the next generation by killing off their potential, Greece is at the front with 40.8% of its youth dumped in that "surplus to requirements" category. Spain next with 36.8%, Italy with 32.2%, Cyprus 25%, Croatia 24.5%, France 22.3%, Portugal 22.1%, Finland 19.9%, and on it goes. That is 8 countries in the very rich EU, with approximately a quarter or more of the youth population unemployed, a quarter of its youth population facing daily poverty and deprivation and a monumental struggle to survive. Unless otherwise stated, all the above figures are for 2017.

     Surely that is cause enough to state unequivocally that capitalism has failed and failed miserable to see to the needs of the people. It is a destructive, unfair, unjust, corrupt, exploitative system that grossly over benefits a small army of parasites to the great disadvantage of the many. Its total destruction is the only way to resolve the problems it has created.

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

The All Seeing Eye Of The Internet.

          Most of us love the Internet, most of us hate big brother, most of us detest the 24 hour surveillance society. There is some sort of contradiction in there, that needs to be resolved.

       An interesting article from Bob Morris at Politics in the Zeros:

        Silicon Valley wants 24/7 surveillance, as do governments. How convenient.

         Maybe it’s not so strange that a technology, the internet, that was started as a way to watch the public, continues to do exactly that, often with governments concealed behind the curtains as we get distracted by all the shiny new online toys.

        There is, of course, no going back. And the internet absolutely does many wonderful things for us. However we are being watched 24/7 and there’s no way to know who has that data and what they are doing with it. People on all sides of politics are getting alarmed. Joel Kotkin, a conservative, writes in the Orange County Register about the sinister side of Silicon Valley.

       How Silicon Valley went from ‘don’t be evil’ to doing evil
At the same time these firms are fostering what British academic David Lyon has called a “surveillance society” both here and abroad. Companies like Facebook and Google thrive by mining personal data, and their only way to grow, as Wired recently suggested, was, creepily, to “know you better.”
Whether one sits on the progressive left or the political right, this growing hegemony presents a clear and present danger. It is increasingly clear that the oligarchs have forgotten that Americans are more than a collection of data-bases to be exploited. People, whatever their ideology, generally want to maintain a modicum of privacy, and choose their way of life.
We have traveled far from the heroic era of spunky start-ups nurtured in suburban garages. But a future of ever greater robotic dependence — a kind of high-tech feudalism — is not inevitable. Setting aside their many differences, conservatives and progressives need to agree on strategies to limit the oligarch’s stranglehold on our future.

Yasha Levin’s new book explores the roots of the current surveillance.

       In Surveillance Valley, Yasha Levine traces the history of the internet back to its beginnings as a Vietnam-era tool for spying on guerrilla fighters and antiwar protesters–a military computer networking project that ultimately envisioned the creation of a global system of surveillance and prediction. Levine shows how the same military objectives that drove the development of early internet technology are still at the heart of Silicon Valley today. Spies, counterinsurgency campaigns, hippie entrepreneurs, privacy apps funded by the CIA. From the 1960s to the 2010s — this revelatory and sweeping story will make you reconsider what you know about the most powerful, ubiquitous tool ever created.

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

I Can Shoot You In A Kneecap!!

          Across this capitalist controlled planet, while the far right grows, the various states are coming down hard on anarchists. You can pick you state controlled patch, and you will find anarchists at the receiving end of repression, no where more so than Russia.

      This info from Pramen, Anarchist Group:

“I can shoot you in a kneecap” – how Belarusian cops intimidate youth for alleged contacting with anarchists

       We already wrote about a case of a “The network”, in which Russian secret service FSB is fabricating the case about “terrorist anarchists”, knocking out false evidence from the accused by beatings and tortures.

        Apparently, the punishers in our country, having seen enough of the methods of work of their colleagues from Russia, decided that they can act in the same way: in Stolin, Brest region, the cops decided to become famous in the field of struggle against anarchists with the help of firearms. The ABC-Belarus received anonymous information about the intimidation of a young man from Stolin by Brest policemen. The man was threatened with a gun as the cops tried to force him to be a snitch for money. Here is his story.

       “Today, on February 23, 2018, at 11-50 am a call came in, the Investigative Committee of the city of Brest introduced themselves and asked where I was? Also they said that they were coming.

I went to the car, my father came out from there, they had taken him from work. My father was told that he was free, and they asked me to sit in the car.

– Tell me
– Tell you what?
– You know everything, tell me!
– I do not understand what’s going on.
– Who are you in life?
– Human.
– In what subculture are you, man?
– Punk.
– Anarchist?
– No.
– Do you know any of the anarchists?
– No.

          Then they took the mobile phone and began to flip through the photos, simultaneously asking who was on them. During the conversation they started asking about some leaflets.

I said that I did not know anything about them. To this the answer followed:

– Do not turn on the fool!
– I really do not know and I have nothing to do with this at all.

          Further, a policeman named Alexander said that he could shoot me a knee, and he has this authority. I did not react to this in any way.

Then they started asking questions about other people I know. We did not have a dialogue, they demanded from me the names of anarchists, to which I replied that I do not know anyone.

One of them (Alexander Nikolaevich) ordered: “We’re going to the forest.”

            They told me to fasten my belt and put my hands on the glove box. In the wood he told me to get out of the car and keep my hands in sight, later he gave me a cigarette and said to walk slowly forward, I listened to his orders.

         Soon he stopped and said: “Your last words?” I said nothing. There was a click (it seemed to me that he removed the gun from the fuse), I felt that a muzzle was leaning against my back.
– Any questions?
– No.

         For some time we stood in this pose and he tried to find out something I vaguely remember what it was. Then we got into the car and drove 100-200 meters away. We stopped and they began to threaten me with my relatives’ dismissal from work and apply other psychological pressure. Alexander Nikolayevich took me out of the car and said he wanted to talk to me “honestly.” He said that I’m a normal guy, and he does not want to make normal people suffer because of the Anarchists. Then they asked me to leak information to them, to which I replied that I was not going to leak.

-How much time do you need to find anarchists in your town?

           They said that they would contact me later and, while foisting me off 10 rubles so that I would remain silent about everything that was happening between us.

I did not answer.

           If you happen to have such stories, you are summoned to talk to the authorities, offered cooperation or if they try to put pressure, be sure to write to us at belarus_abc@riseup.net »

Source: www.abc-belarus.org

         Using such an “excellent” reason, you can contact the Investigation Committee on Brest and ask them questions about the incident, as well as express their opinion on the police system as a whole.

br@sk.gov.by – e-mail

(80162) 27-37-00 – telephone of the duty station
(80162) 27-37-24 – group on work with citizens’ appeals in the Brest region
(80162) 27-37-15 – Chief Inspector for Information and Public Relations (e-mail m.drankova@sledcom.by)

224016, city of Brest, ul. Pushkinskaya, 63 – address

(801655) 6-04-69, 6-16-71 – Stolin District Department of the Investigation Committee

225510, Stolin, ul. Tereshkova, 47 – the address

• ← Criminal case allegedly started for “the insult of Lukashenko” against a 19-year old vlogger
• 15 March — International Day Against Police Brutality

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

Some Events This Week In Glasgow.

        Some up and coming events in Glasgow in the coming week, taken from the Autonomy List, all these events are worthy of you support, the snow is disappearing, so get out there and do your thing.

1. Against the National Project film screenings

Tuesday 6/3/18

18.30-21.30

CCA Glasgow, 350 Sauchiehall Street

Against the National Project:
Memory and Mobility in Contemporary Colombian Cinema

      Archivist and curator Juana Suárez (NYU Tisch School of the Arts) presents a programme of four recent short films by Colombian filmmakers living abroad. Works by Juan Soto, Laura Huertas Millán, Camilo Restrepo and Gonzalo Escobar unsettle established narratives of national cinema though counter-hegemonic perspectives. Experimental uses of archives, intersections with video art, and explorations of texture and place characterise this radical and developing body of work.
Introduction by Juana Suárez
Q&A with filmmaker Juan Soto
        Supported by the University of Stirling, University of Glasgow, and Leverhulme Trust
          Suggested donation £5, concessions £2, but please come anyway if you can't afford to donate, it's all good.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/322366381586202/

2. Red and Black Song Club: International Women's Day songs

Wednesday 7/3/18

19.00-21.00

Glasgow Autonomous Space, 53 Kilbirnie Street

        Join us to practice some songs to sing at the International Women's Day event to be held 4.30pm on 8th March at La Pasionaria sculpture on Clyde Street.
         No musical experience or knowledge necessary just enthusiasm! Players of any instrument are more than welcome to bring them along. Have a favourite radical song to share? Bring some copies along too.
        No fixed charge. Donation for room and expenses according to your means.
          Please share the event and invite your friends.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2037858379828500/

3. Solidarity with IWW member standing trial - Free the Pride 5

Thursday 8/3/18

09.00-12.30

Glasgow Sheriff Court
          Panos Theodoropoulos of the IWW was arrested while attempting to prevent the harassment and unjust arrest of a 16 year old during the Glasgow Pride march. The 16 year old had been targeted for holding a sign with the slogan ‘This Faggot Fights Fascists’. The police used extensive physical force on Panos, tackled him to the ground, and subsequently held him in custody for over 30 hours. Thankfully, the police dropped all charges on the 16-year-old, though they still see the need to drag Panos through the courts, for attempting to prevent what they basically admitted was a wrongful arrest!
          The arrested comrades were participating in the ‘Red and Black Bloc’, organised by queer members of the IWW as an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist presence in an increasingly commercialised and depoliticized Pride.
         In the same Pride march the police arrested 3 trans activists protesting Pride’s decision to have police lead. These arrestees have not been issued court dates as the police continue to ‘search for evidence’. We know from experience that the police don’t like attempts to undermine them or their attempts at ‘community outreach’. We are committed to ongoing solidarity with these arrestees, along with all those in the trans community who face harassment from the police.
       At the same time, the fact that Panos’s court date is set for International Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to highlight how seemingly different struggles are intimately connected. Patriarchy, racism and heteronormativity are crucial elements of the system of repression we are living in. As imprisonment and social control increasingly penetrate our precarious lives, we extend our solidarity to the increasing number of women prisoners in the UK and to the members of the trans community who are not only imprisoned but also suffer from being misgendered by the authorities and disproportionately experience violence and harassment. We therefore encourage everyone to participate in the various events organised around Glasgow for IWD (provided below).
        When activists are targeted simply for protesting, court solidarity becomes a crucial part of the fight to defend our fundamental rights to protest. Let it be shown that the movement refuses to accept the criminalisation of protesters, whether now or in the future. Let us lay the foundations, in our budding movements, for lasting, practical political solidarity.

As the IWW slogan goes, ‘an injury to one is an injury to us all’.
DROP ALL CHARGES!

JOIN US AT THE SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE GLASGOW SHERIFF COURT ON THE 8TH OF MARCH AT 09.00!

Facebook event at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1602005823251977/

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

Reminder, International Women's Day, Glasgow Event.

        International Women's Day is just three days away, March 8th. and Glasgow is marking this day with an event in the city centre. So come along celebrate this international event, come and meet like minded people, come along and have a chat, make new friends, meet old friends, stand up for equality, and you don't have to be a women to come and support this event. Let's make it a big happy event.

         An International Women's Day event, initiated by the Equality Officers of the Clydeside Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, will be held on Thursday, the 8th of March.
            The rally and Walk of Pride will assemble at 4.30 pm at the La Pasionaria statue located on the north bank of the River Clyde next to Glasgow Bridge, opposite the Custom House on Clyde Street.
          This site was chosen because of the prominent role Dolores Ibarruri, called La Pasionaria ('The Passionate Flower') played in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, in defense of the Spanish Republic; and because the statue of her by sculptor Arthur Dooley so beautifully represents the revolutionary woman of courage that she was-- and that many of us strive to be.
            The rally will also honour the Scottish revolutionary, Ethel MacDonald, who was a key figure in the Scottish anarchist movement and in the Spanish Civil War. In 1936 she was sent by the United Socialist Movement to Barcelona where she became world-renowned as the English-speaking reporter for an anarchist radio station. She also remained an activist, daringly organising hunger strikes among the political prisoners, smuggling in letters, and helping some escape .

          The rally will feature a banner that says Celebrate International Women's Day For a World Free from Capitalism and Patriarchy, singing, and an open mic.
         At 5.30 pm we will start our Walk of Pride, with banner and placards, to George Square where we will join up with the Scottish Irish Abortion Rights campaigners for a #Solidarity4Repeal demo at 6 pm-- thus linking it to one of the most critical issues of the day: access to abortion as a woman's right. Throughout the afternoon, we will be proudly expressing our belief that Sisterhood, and Comradeship, are Powerful!

          All are welcome to attend. Please spread the word.
More information is available from
doraziosusan92@gmail.com

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

University Strike, Glasgow-Dumfries.

        The strike at UK universities goes on from strength to strength. To those who have shown solidarity with the strike, there is still a need to continue, and those who have not yet, should get behind the  strikers, as the action has moved nearer a successful conclusion, but it isn't there yet, solidarity can win the day. Some further info on what is happening at Glasgow University, Dumfries.

       Just a bit of information about the 4 days of industrial action planned this week at the University of Glasgow in Dumfries.
       1) First, the strike has been broadly successful. Employers' have been brought to the negotiating table - and talks begin tomorrow, something the union has long been asking for, but only got through industrial action. However, nothing has been decided and it is important the campaign stays as strong as possible to put as much pressure as possible on the employers representatives.
       2) We plan to have a picket on each day of the strike outside the main University of Glasgow buildings on the Crichton Campus. Please do op by and say hello.
        3) There will be a TEACH OUT at the Theatre Royal, Dumfries (Tuesday and Thursday), with talks and discussion away from the strictures of the University. If you want to run a session do let me know. Do come along and please let others know. It is free. There's also tea and coffee.
        4) Please use social media and your networks to let people know about the industrial action and the TEACH OUT.
 All the very best

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

 

Mental Illness Or ??

 

           Following on from Killer Cops And Gun Control:

 This from Its Going Down:

        This is a discussion paper written by a member of the Twin Cities General Defense Committee, Local 14. It therefore does not represent the official positions of the Twin Cities GDC, the General Defense Committee in general, or the Industrial Workers of the World.

By Erik D.

          We can’t eliminate exceptional violence without eliminating systemic violence. We must fight for liberation, not smaller boxes guarded by white men with guns.

Introduction – We Must Connect The Struggles for Peace

       On February 18th, 2018, A nineteen year old white man entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with his rifle, and murdered 17 people. He was later arrested peacefully by police. The shooter’s social media profiles indicate a racist obsessed with white nationalism and a hatred of women, and a promoter of fascist messages and imagery. He was reportedly obsessed with guns, and his behavior had been reported to law enforcement repeatedly. Law enforcement never took action, which has itself been widely criticized. The reasons for this inaction are not hard to pin down for those willing to look: Cruz, the shooter – was a white man with a gun, and therefore not a threat. In the aftermath, a Neo Nazi organization calling itself the Republic of Florida claimed Cruz as a member. This was quickly refuted when it became clear that their troll leader was merely seeking attention. Many stopped paying attention to that aspect of Cruz’ history as a result. But a peek at Cruz’ social media history demonstrates his independent hatred of black people and women. Or the swastikas he etched into his firearm ammunition magazines.

          In the aftermath, student survivors have successfully seized the national spotlight for the moment, and are demanding steps that will end the shootings that they have grown up with. This is a quest – to stop the violence in our society – that must be supported, and accomplished. But in order to accomplish it, we must be frank with ourselves about the causes of these shootings. The causes are white supremacism, male supremacism, and the history and present of firearms in the USA.

          Compare the spotlight these high school students have successfully seized with the response of mostly black women and men, including many youth, after the murder of Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Mike Brown, Jamar Clark, Sylville Smith, and so many others. The “Ferguson moment,” started with the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, transformed into a national movement against police murder of black people in the US by law enforcement. In contrast to the brave students of Stoneman Douglas High, the brave youth declaring that Black Lives Matter were demonized, and the militarized weight of the state was brought to bear against them repeatedly.

If our goal is to eliminate or at least massively reduce the epidemic of violence in our country, we must connect these struggles. Without connecting their gun control efforts to the concerns and needs of the Movement for Black Lives, the Stoneman Douglas students will substantially fail. Perhaps more ominous is the probability that they win some of their their demands without connecting them to the systematic violence that underwrites our entire country’s history and culture.

The problem is not mental illness

         A major concern in the post-massacre coverage has been the near-universal discussion of the shooter’s mental state. Many assume that merely because someone engages in an aberrant act, they are mentally ill. This is very far from the case. Breivik, the Norwegian neo-Nazi who in 2011 murdered 77 people – mostly leftist youths – was clearly not mentally ill. Neither was Dylan Roof, when he sat through a prayer meeting at the historic AME church founded by the great Denmark Vesey, and then opened fire, murdered all present except one person, whom he intentionally left alive as a witness. Neither were the Columbine shooters – those who are often held up as the originators and paradigm of modern school shootings in 1999.

         What they all had in common was not mental illness, but a hatred of non-white people and women. This is a through-line so consistent in mass shooters that it is very difficult to find exceptions. Those few apparent exceptions, such as Elliot Rodger, the Isla Vista mass murderer who targeted women, and whose mother is Asian, nevertheless adopt the particular hatreds of the masculinist and white supremacist culture in which they are raised. Rodgers frequently made racist and sexist statements, including specifically against Asian people.

Read the full article HERE: