The U.S. Prison System: A Multimillion-Dollar Industry

   Taken from; http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/the-u-s-prison-system-a-multimillion-dollar-industry/ 

     The U.S. prison system is not simply a method of punishing and detaining criminals, but is also a profitable, multimillion-dollar industry. This leads to some problems.

     The number of private prisons have sprung up in recent times. While in 1998 there were only 5 private prisons, by 2008 the number jumped to 100. According to journalist and author Eduardo Galeano in his book Upside Down, the private U.S. prison company Corrections Corporation of America was one of the five highest priced companies on the New York Stock Exchange by the end of the twentieth century. In fact in 1996, World Research Group held a conference to discuss how to maximize profits in this burgeoning industry.

     What's wrong with the privatization of prisons? It creates a financial incentive to keep people behind bars, regardless of whether they deserve to or not.

      While crime rates have gone down, the number of people incarcerated has gone up. According to Human Rights Watch, 2.3 million people were incarcerated as of 2007. The United States has the largest incarceration rate in the world with a staggering 762 per 100,000 residents. Compare this to the U.K. whose rate is 152 per 100,000 residents, or Canada whose rate is 102.

      So many prisoners create a large workforce. According to the Left Business Observer, the federal prison industry is responsible for the production of war supplies such as military helmets, ammunition belts and bullet-proof vests. In addition they also produce equipment services, body armor, medical supplies and more. From an employer's perspective, prisoners create the ideal workforce -- no need to give them benefits, compensation or reasonable wages.

      While few would argue that dangerous criminals should be allowed to roam the streets, keeping people in prison for the sake of maximizing profits is immoral and unjust. Incarceration takes a toll on families and communities, and the formerly incarcerated experience great difficulty in getting hired to new jobs once released. In addition, overcrowding in prisons leads to security concerns for inmates and officers alike.

Simply put, a person should be incacerated for the crime committed, not for profit.

ann arky's home. 

PRIVATE CAPITAL, PUBLIC MISERY.

Extract from an old article on : http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=3768

      Throughout the world, public services have been under attack for the past twenty years. Forming a central plank of the capitalist globalisation agenda, ‘privatisation’ and ‘competition’ are the seemingly unchallenged dogma of modern capitalism. The levels of privatisation which have taken place worldwide are absolutely mind-blowing. During the 1990s alone over $900 billion worth of public assets were transferred into private hands. Globally this agenda is pushed by the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The basic theory by which these bodies operate is that all decisions should be made on the basis of profitability alone. Economies in the so-called ‘developing’ world have been carved up under re-structuring deals called Structural Adjustment Programmes which have been like manna from heaven for international business. The World Bank website(1) , for example, “provides information on more than 9,000 privatisation transactions in developing countries from 1988 to 2003”. This information is presented as ‘revenue generating opportunities’ for international capital. The current phase of the WTO’s strategy for the imposition of its privatisation agenda is the General Agreement on Trade in Services – which looks to sell off such basic services as healthcare, education, housing, water supply, waste management etc. This strategy is driven not in the interest of the ordinary people of these countries but by the needs of international capital. As David Hartridge, Director, WTO Services Division put it quite succinctly: “Without the enormous pressure generated by the American financial services sector, particularly companies like American Express and Citicorp, there would have been no services agreement and therefore perhaps no Uruguay Round and no WTO.” (2)

      This privatisation agenda has had disastrous consequences for many peoples and communities in the developing world. According to journalist John Pilger,

“The introduction of school fees where there was previously free education has driven many poor families to withdraw their children from school, while hospital fees have put basic health care beyond the reach of millions. Although they acknowledge the harm which privatisation has brought to poor communities in the Third World, the World Bank and IMF still insist on prescribing it as an economic model. Water privatisation is just one example. The World Bank notes that water in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince costs up to 10 times as much from the private sector as it does from the public supply, and that poor families in Mauritania now have to spend a fifth of their household income on water. Yet both the World Bank and the IMF continue to force water privatisation on developing countries. During 2000 alone, the IMF made water privatisation or full cost recovery a condition of loan agreements to 12 African countries. The World Bank has promised Ghana an extra $100 million in loans if it privatises its water supply.”

 ann arky's home. 

MIXING WITH THE PLEBS!!

        Recently the media has been blabbing on about a certain member of the parasite class, a Sir Nicholas Winterton, conservative MP for Macclesfield who stated that it was infuriating that he had to pay to travel with his class of person. This “gent” also said, passengers with cheap train tickets are, “a totally different type of people.” Another of his comments that no doubt came from his heart, was, Those in standing areas had, “a different outlook on life” compared with first class passengers. This old windbag and parasite also stated, “They may read a book, but I doubt whether they’re undertaking serious work or study, reading reports or amending reports that MPs do when they travel.”
        Why there should be such surprise or shock at such remarks is what shocks me. This is the real values these people have. They DO believe they are a better class of person, they do feel they have the right to all the privileges and perks that are going. They just don’t say it out loud in the wrong company and that was the mistake of this particular parasite. They smile and spout drivel pretending to engage with the peasants and show a little courtesy now and then as the last thing they want is for peasants with pitch forks arriving at their door. Which would be no bad thing under the present circumstances.
 

ann arky's home. 

BIG BROTHER IS HERE!!

       In Britain today we are a nation of the observed, there is one cctv camera for every 14 people, making a total of 4.2 million cameras watching you go about your business, more than any other country in the world. It is not unusual for an individual to be captured on more than 300 cameras on one day. There are now plans to to expand the capacity to read vehicle number plates from an amazing 35 million per day to 50 million by 2008.

      You are also being recorded in other forms, the national database holds more than 3.5 million profiles of individuals. Since 2002 there have been more than 8 million criminal records checks on those applying for jobs. By the end of 2002 law enforcement bodies had made more than 400,000 requests for data from mobile network operators. This year to April, 631 adults and 5,751 juveniles had been electronically tagged.

     We have kids being fingerprinted at school on the pretext that it makes it easier for them to use the library, (how did you use the libraries in the past?) and some schools using palm prints for ID.

     Is your personal data safe, the simple answer is NO. As more and more private companies enter the security field the sharing of data becomes more widespread, the more it is shared the more it leaks into other hands, plus data is valuable on a commercial basis and companies will pay good money for information about you and what you get up to.

      At present there are 216 catalogue companies in the UK that are part of the Abacus data-sharing consortium with information on more than 26 million people. All this available to those how have the money to pay. You can also rest assured that there are lots of other organisations collecting your details to sell to the big companies, if there’s a profit in it, somebody will do it.

     It is all about control, control of you and me, that’s why the state backs every one of these activities. To know where you are, should you be there, have you permission to move to another point, are you doing what you should be doing at that given time, and all verifiable and therefore can be enforced.. Such activity is repugnant to any society that professes to be free, this society is obviously not free. Until we dismantle the state and all its attendant apparatus and replace it with a system of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid, the growth of this type of activity is inevitable. Use your imagination, think where can it further expand to in you personal life, perhaps your living room? Big brother would like that!!

 

ann arky's home. 

THE BRITISH IMPERIAL STATE, A BENEFACTOR??

      It is always good to know your history, it smashes so many myths.

      Britain’s Imperial history is always portrayed as a force for good, a paternal approach. Taking care of the colonies for their own good, a civilising process until they were able to look after themselves. Of course those who know their history are fully aware that the reality is a far different scenario.

     Mike Davis’s book, Late Victorian Holocausts, published in 2001, details famines that killed between 12 million and 29 million inhabitants of the Indian continent. He clearly shows that these people were murdered by the British state. When the drought of 1876 impoverished the farmers of the Deccan plateau India had a net surplus of rice and wheat. The then viceroy, Lord Lytton, insisted that nothing should stand in its way as it was exported to England. In 1877 and 1878, at the height of the famine, grain merchants exported a record 6.4m hundredweight of wheat. As the peasants began to starve, officials were ordered "to discourage relief works in every possible way". The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited "at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices". The only relief permitted in most districts was hard labour, from which anyone in an advanced state of starvation was turned away. In the labour camps, the workers were given less food than inmates of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1877, monthly mortality in the camps equated to an annual death rate of 94%.

     As millions died, the imperial government launched "a militarised campaign to collect the tax arrears accumulated during the drought". This collected tax, which ruined those who might otherwise have survived the famine, was used by Lytton to fund his war in Afghanistan. Even in places that had produced a crop surplus, the government's export policies manufactured hunger. In the north-western provinces, Oud and the Punjab, in spite of the fact that they had brought in record harvests in the preceding three years, at least 1.25m people died.

      The same type of imperialist policies are still employed today by the western corporate world. The continents of Africa and South America can bear witness to the poverty inflicted on millions of people to feed the corporate greed machine. Only when we as ordinary people come together and organise at community level and co-operate with each other on a global scale creating societies based on mutual aid and sustainability, undermining the festering marriage of state and corporate greed and so consigning it and its wars, exploitation and greed, that is part and parcel of that system, to the dust bin of history and perhaps remembering it as man’s darkest hour will we see a world fit for all our children and grandchildren.

 

ann arky's home.

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE STATE.

    It won’t come with jackboots and book burnings, with mass rallies and fevered harangues. It won’t come with “black helicopters” or tanks on the street. It won’t come like a storm – but like a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: everything is the same, but everything has changed. Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality has taken its place.

    As in Rome, all the old forms will still be there; legislatures, elections, campaigns – plenty of bread and circuses for the folks. But the “consent of the governed” will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small group of nobles who rule largely for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.

    So whenever some big media beast or Democratic “leader” steps forward now to say, “Gee, we were misled by these guys” or “Boy, if I’d only known before,” or some other craven, mealy-mouthed expression of self-justifying ignorance – tell them to their face that they lie. If they were ignorant, it was a willful ignorance, a co-opted ignorance, a bribed and bought ignorance, born from their desire to keep on feeding from the trough of power and privilege just as long as the slops keep coming. Wadded with power, privilege and nice pay packets, they were willingly deceived.

(Extract from: http://www.chris-floyd.com/
 
ann arky's home.

THE BRITISH STATE AND ITS EMISSARIES.

     Three recent books - Britain's Gulag by Caroline Elkins, Histories of the Hanged by David Anderson, and Web of Deceit by Mark Curtis - show how white settlers and British troops suppressed the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya in the 1950s. Thrown off their best land and deprived of political rights, the Kikuyu started to organise - some of them violently - against colonial rule. The British responded by driving up to 320,000 of them into concentration camps. Most of the remainder - more than a million -were held in "enclosed villages". Prisoners were questioned with the help of "slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging until death, pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight, and burning eardrums with lit cigarettes". British soldiers used a "metal castrating instrument" to cut off testicles and fingers. "By the time I cut his balls off," one settler boasted, "he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket." The soldiers were told they could shoot anyone they liked "provided they were black". Elkins's evidence suggests that more than 100,000 Kikuyu were either killed or died of disease and starvation in the camps. David Anderson documents the hanging of 1,090 suspected rebels: far more than the French executed in Algeria. Thousands more were summarily executed by soldiers, who claimed they had "failed to halt" when challenged.

       Extract from an old The Guardian, Tuesday December 27 2005.

       The history of British Imperialism is littered with such horrors, as is all the empires of the past. Today we have the new imperialism, American Imperialism, and its more recent history in South America, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East show that it is following in true brutal and ruthless imperialist fashion.

 

ann arky's home.

THE NEW WESTERN FASCISM.

     Warrantless searches, phone tapping, torture, kidnapping, indefinite imprisonment without charges, denial of legal representation, a continuous assault on our civil liberties, you name it, all part of the free democratic West. We slumbered, we are now in the grip of neo-fascists with an agenda aimed at protecting a privileged elite and using the unbridled power of an authoritarian government to enhance and protect their wealth.

    They are not wearing black shirts, nor stomping down our main streets in their shiny black boots and they are not burning books. To most people Fascist means swastika waving rallies and chants against the Jews. They are wrong. Today’s fascists are radical, conservative, corporate, authoritarian nationalists. They always play the fear card, terrorists from abroad, al-Qaeda, the continuous war against the enemy over there, then claim they need the power to protect us.

    The longer we slumber the tighter their grip until all freedom and civil liberties are a thing of the past. They will not reverse the trend of their own accord, they will never willingly relinquish their power. This is no time for slumber, this is a time to challenge that power, the gangrenous marriage of state and corporate power must be broken, dismantled, atomised and buried in the dustbin of history. Power must belong to the people who make up our society or it belongs to the putrid, pampered, privileged parasites of the new era of the fascist/corporate/state. If we continue to slumber our children will inherit a world of violence, deprivation, control and punishment, while the elite gorge on the fruits of our children’s labour.

 

ann arky's home.

SCOTLAND AGAINST FASCISM.

SCOTLAND UNITED AGAINST RACISM & FASCISM

SAT 20 FEB ASSEMBLE 11.30am ~ Ross Bandstand ~

Princes St Gardens ~ Edinburgh

RALLY AT NOON FOLLOWED BY MARCH

NO  TO RACISM & FASCISM

NO  TO ISLAMOPHOBIALEAGUE

NO  TO THE ENGLISH/SCOTTISH DEFENCE LEAGUE

YES  TO A MULTICULTURAL, MULTIRELIGIOUS, MULTIRACIAL, UNITED SCOTLAND

J O I N A DAY O F C E L E B R AT I O N

w w w. s c o t l a n d u n i t e d . o r g 

ann arky's home.

WHAT THE ARMY WON'T TELL YOU!

WHAT THE ARMY WON'T TELL YOU!

Look at the eyes, he’s shit scared, so would you be.

He’s trying to kill somebody and they’re trying to kill him.

 

. Do you want to know about death injury and trauma

. Do you know you’ll be cannon fodder for big business

 

Don’t listen to the spin, forget the travel and the training in trade skills. Think of Iraq and Afghanistan, think of more than 3,700 US soldiers dead, more than 320 UK soldiers dead, more than 25,000 US wounded and more than 8,500 UK soldiers wounded. Think of over 20 UK Iraqi vets. who have committed suicide.

Think of over 1,000,000 Afghan and Iraqi men women and children killed

The army is there to serve the needs of big business but we pay in taxes and if your foolish enough, you’ll pay in blood. Your life is worth more than cannon fodder for big business, embrace life not death.

THERE TO SERVE THE CORPORATE WORLD.

ann arky's home.

STATE TERRORISM.

If we want an end to terrorism we have to stop killing other peoples children.

Our state terrorism kills more children than the suicide bombers.

ann arky's home.

THE NEXT REVOLUTION!!!

      There never has been a more critical time in humanity’s history, we are at the point of no return, if it is not already too late. We the ordinary people must create the next revolution which must be a revolution of consciousness. We have to break the mind set moulded by state power and corporate greed. A mind set that sees war as a means of progress, war as a means of sorting out international problems. War has never been to the advantage of the mass of ordinary people who are called upon to sacrifice their lives. The plunder always goes to those who advocated war but never see the front line at the time of conflict. They call on the people to make the sacrifice while they themselves walk the corrupt corridors of power, safe while they wait for the glory and the gold. It is time to see state organised violence at the behest of corporate greed abandoned as the last vestiges of our darkest hour, an era when we lost our humanity and allowed acquisitiveness to run rampant across the world.

     We have to realise that to allow the festering marriage of state power and corporate greed to exist is to continue the rape of the planet, the exploitation of its people and the spiral of violence and corruption. We have to come together to undermine the state and all it stands for, remove its strangle hold over our lives and take control of our own lives and the environment. The corporate world must be transformed by the workers into organisations controlled by those who work in them and for the benefit of all the community. We don’t need kings, presidents, prime ministers or boards of directors and their sweaty palmed shareholders to tell us how to live our lives. Their records can’t stand scrutiny, it’s a catalogue of arrogant cronyism, corruption, self centred greed, exploitation and violence.

   There is an alternative in spite of the established pack of rapscallions trying to preach “free market capitalism” as the only way. Control and decisions must come from the bottom up, we must take control of our communities and work in confederation with other communities to create a society based on free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid. Anarchism points the way, its the tool to create that better world of peace and justice for all. Only we, the ordinary people, can create a diverse and colourful world free for all our diverse and colourful human family to enjoy. We have to wake up to the fact that it is their world or it is our world, there can be no compromise, no half measure, tomorrow is ours or there is no tomorrow, and time is running out.

ann arky's home.

AN APPEAL TO LABOUR PARTY MEMBERS.

     To all those socially minded Labour Party members and supporters let me remind you where you are. You are in or supporting a Party that lied this country into an illegal, unjust and unnecessary war, with all the bloodshed and misery that has unfolded since. You give strength to a Party that has introduced extraordinary rendition, torture and secret prisons at the core of its “anti-terrorist” strategy. You are the life blood of Party that is, according to Amnesty International, ripping up the precious freedoms of this country. Your Party bailed out the banks and because of that is about to embark on a series of savage cuts in the living standards of the ordinary people.

       To stay comfortable in such a Party you have to swallow the lies and the spin and the sickening self justification and you will continually bleat about change from within. Such bleating has been heard from the loyal members and supporters since before the 60s. In all that time your Party has continually moved to the right. It isn’t working.

     Take your socially mind conscience out of the Party and on to the streets, join the thousands, perhaps millions would be more accurate, who wish to see real change by community based non hierarchical direct action. Grow up, cut the umbilical cord between you and the Party system, be a free thinking compassionate human being.

 

ann arky's home.

WHY ANARCHISM?

Freedom and Equality: F u n d a m e n t a l l y, anarchism is the struggle for freedom. Freedom from the rulers and cor­porations who dominate our lives and are destroying our earth. Freedom for workers, women, and all oppressed people in all parts of the world. We believe that this sort of freedom can only be achieved together with equality and a fair distribution of resources.

Individual and Collective: A n a r c h i s t s believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of the individual. But this dignity and humanity can only be fully realised in a co-operative, egalitarian society. This is why we are in favour of working together collectively and being organ­ised. It is incorrect to equate anarchism with individualism or chaos.

Revolution: Anarchists understand that this truly free and equal society can only be achieved through revolution - meaning a complete trans-formation of society. This society cannot be ‘given’ to the people by politicians or bureaucrats. It must be built by the people from below.

Violence and Direct Action: A n a r c h i s m opposes the violence which is an integral part of capitalism and the State (this violence comes in many forms: war, patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends - in other words, the way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action - action taken by everyday people to cause immediate problems for the rulers of our lives. This includes strikes, boycott’s, work-to-rule’s and occupations. Both authoritarian communism (as in Russia, China etc.) and ‘labourism’ (ie. the labour parties of the world), have failed to solve our global crisis. We need a different path to a better world. Anarchism offers itself as a guide on that path.

What Might an Anarchist Society Look Like?

    The world’s resources would be held in common and shared with all the diverse life on Earth; People would manage their own lives, work and communi­ties, and everyone would have a say in decision making through decentralised forms of organisation;Relationships in all areas of life would be based on mutual respect and equality, regard-less of gender, skin colour, sex­ual orientation, disability, age, culture etc.; Work wouldn’t be boring and repetitive, but instead would be a means of voluntary self-expression and fulfillment; unpopular or difficult jobs would be shared; Education would be integrat­ed into daily life to produce free individuals who think for our-selves; Goods and services would be produced ecologically for human needs based on the principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need”.

ann arky's home.

SOCIETY BASED ON CAPITALISM, RELIGION, AUTHORITY & PATRIOTISM

SOCIETY BASED ON CAPITALISM, RELIGION, AUTHORITY & PATRIOTISM
CRAP for short. 

        Any alien looking in on our society must come to the conclusion that we earthlings love CRAP. It is all they will see as we scurry about working in CRAP jobs for CRAP wages and in what little “leisure” time we have we rush around buying CRAP. We spend precious time discussing the benefits of this piece of CRAP as opposed to that piece of CRAP. We weigh up the difference between this pair of CRAP trainers and that pair of CRAP trainers, this CRAP label and that CRAP label. We consider we have choices when we select this CRAP newspaper or that CRAP magazine from the avalanche of CRAP paper pulp on offer. One CRAP supermarket after another offers us an array of CRAP food and TV vomits endless CRAP into our homes and we flick from CRAP Big-Brother to CRAP house make-overs, from CRAP lifestyle programs to CRAP celebrity chat shows.

       Move to the realms of the “serious” CRAP and we have on offer CRAP political parties throwing up an display of smiling CRAP politicians, who, come election time, prance about offering CRAP policies in the hope that they can take their place in that CRAP institution at Westminster. What we get from the CRAP government of the day is such things as the CRAP war on drugs, that doesn’t work, CRAP tough on crime, that criminalizes poverty, CRAP war on terrorism, that is counterproductive,

    Capitalism, can produce nothing but an abundance of CRAP as profit is the only motive.

    Religion, produces CRAP freedom destroying dogma, based on the supposed mutterings of some airy-fairy gods.

    Authority, gives us a CRAP life based on surveillance and strict unbending laws.

    Patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel, gives us CRAP racism and generates canon fodder for the state’s endless wars.

     Is this the type of society that we want to bequeath to our children and their grandchildren? Should we not be taking control of our own affairs and producing to our needs based on sustainability? A world of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid is possible, a world that accommodates us all as equals and prepares the world for the next generation rather than rob them of an existence. First we have to get rid of    C. R. A. P. Let’s start now.

ann arky's home.

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS!!!!

ann arky's home.

ARE YOU ANGRY??? IF NOT, WHY NOT???

      The people are angry. The kids are angry because they have nowhere to go in this system, and the adults are angry because nowhere is their existence. Dead-end jobs mixed with broken down schools in this endless competition to see who can end life with the most possessions. It begins with compulsory education, with the idea that indoctrination is the same as education. Feeling trapped in the endless work load, in the endless department stores, surrounded by nothing but millions of people doing the same thing and consuming the same way, there should be no need of explanation why we're angry. It's about the government detaining citizens on nothing more than a hunch. It's about police officers having the malicious control over the life and death of those around them. It's about the richest people in the world getting rich from the work of others. It's about getting kicked out of the park by cops because you deter tourism and you're homeless. It's about travelling four thousand miles around the world so you can fight in a war only to enrich Western capitalism. It's about working all your life struggling to bring up your family then being told you need to bail out the banks and pay for it in cuts to your pityfull standard of living.  It's about getting beat up and torn apart, tortured and vivisected, thrown to the gutter after exploitation. And it's about swarms of people doing nothing but going along with it, buying the products that support the rich who bribe the ruling class. It's about. Consume. Obey. Exist. Consume. Obey. Exist. Consume. Obey. Exist.

THINK!

Commercialism!

"Since the 1970s the US oil company Occidental has been drilling in the Peruvian Amazon area. During that time it is estimated that Occidental has dumped 9 million barrels of toxic waste into the streams, land and rivers of the Achuar people."

UNDERSTAND!

State Power!

"Since 2001, more than 4,000 US troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 260 UK troops have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 1,000,000 Iraqis and Afghans have been killed in illegal invasions.”

QUESTION!

Religion!

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence." -- 1 Timothy 2:12

There are thousands of reasons why we are angry, pick one and join us.

ann arky's home.

WORLD STRIKE 2012!!!

     It is up to you.

The only way for this plan to work is for the message to be spread. The idea is for everyone in the world to know about the strike by the summer of 2012. Then, within a very short time, a new moneyless system will be brought about that will change the world completely.

FIRST: Ask in conversation whether the person you're speaking to would like the idea of a world where money does not exist; where everything is free; a world without rich or poor; where all human needs are met by society working together as a whole; a world without boundaries, people living together in peace and harmony.

      Most people will say yes. Basically, probably all human beings are anarchists at heart. But, they will say, it wouldn’t be impossible.

NEXT: Tell them about the Strike for a Moneyless World in 2012. If they like the idea, tell them to tell their friends. Those friends will tell others, and by the year 2012 everyone on the planet will know, and decide whether they are for or against the idea.

You might make copies of this flyer -

*WORLD STRIKE 2012*

If you agree that the abolition of money would be a fine solution to most of our problems, and that we could create a much better system where EVERYTHING - food and drink, clothing and housing, water, heating, education,health-care and entertainment - shall be FREE for EVERYONE - why not join the World-Wide Strike on the opening day of the Olympic Games in 2012?

The Strike will begin the moment the symbolic Olympic flame is lit - the signal for all who support the abolition of money to stop work and demand a new fair world of true freedom and justice.

*WE WANT A MONEYLESS WORLD*

http://yabanji.tripod.com/id10.html
 
ann arky's home.

LEGAL MURDER.

     The state of California recently reached a total of 700 people on death row It is astounding that a state within what is supposed to be the leader of the "free democratic world" can have 700 people lined up for execution, judicial murder. California now has more than twice as many death row prisoners than the so called “death” state of Texas, which had 331 as of January 11th. Florida, the state with the second largest number of death row prisoners, has 391 as of January 13th. almost half that of California.

     In these three states alone, there are 1422 people waiting to be executed by the USA. These figures are appalling and are showing an increase. In California the number of death sentences increased by 50% for 2009 compared to the last few years. Add to these figures the fact that America has more of its people locked up per head of population than any other country in the entire world and you begin to see the shape of that society. Of course the vast majority of all prisoners including those on death row come from the poorest section of the community. Even a blind greed drive politician can surely see this as disproportionate and also there must be a link between poverty and violence. These figures are not just a blip of statistics, it is probably no coincidence that the prison system in America is big business and there is money to be made from the incarceration of people, so no doubt this merciless medieval behaviour will continue to rise until we put an end to this whole greed driven, unjust, barbaric system under which we live.

 

ann arky's home.

REPORT FROM LONDON LAUNCH OF ID CARDS FOR 16-24s

    This Monday (8th Feb) the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) began the next phase of the ID Card Con - targeting 16-24 year olds living in London. Minister for Identity, Meg Hillier invited the media to come and see the first 'volunteer' be fingerprinted at 8:30am. A dozen or more hardy NO2ID supporters mounted a chilly white protest in biting winds and the odd flurry of snow outside Victoria passport office. IPS security

decided to stay in the warm, and keep an eye on us through the window. Getting there half an hour before the minister meant we caught the media going in - and also coming out. Phil Booth gave interviews to ITV news and the Press Association cameras, and reporters from several London university newspapers. Guy Herbert spoke to news radio.

    Inside the passport office, according to one person watching, the volunteer actually referred to himself as a guinea-pig. Shame he didn't get the full message on the flyers we were handing out, which is *don't* be a guinea-pig. Bizarrely, one young man walking past our protest waved what looked like an ID card at us. He was turned away from the front door, but headed in by the side entrance. Members of the media said later he was a member of an IPS Public Panel - "independent scrutiny" groups, hand-picked by IPS - which may explain how he came to be issued with a card before the 'first' volunteer...

Glimpsing Ms Hillier through the glass around 9:30am, we rapidly relocated our protest round the corner. But to no avail. The Minister snuck out another way, leaving another decidedly low-key media event

without directly engaging her critics.

   For more information, flyers to download and print off, and notice of upcoming 'Stop the ID Card Con' events in London and across the North West, please visit: http://www.no2id.net/idcardcon/

ann arky's home.