THERE IS A BETTER WAY!!!

Help Build the STUC Demonstration Against the Cuts

Wednesday 17th August -

7pm - STUC building, 333 Woodlands Rd. Glasgow.

Speakers:

Dave Moxham (Deputy General Secretary Scottish Trade Union Congress)

Graeme Kirkpatrick (Deputy President National Union of Students Scotland)

Mhairi McAlpine (Campaigner and Coalition of Resistance Activist)

Hi,
        The STUC has organised a demonstration against the cuts on the 1st of October under the slogan

PeopleFirst: There is a Better Way.
         

SOLIDARITY.

       This is a chance to mobilize the whole of Scottish society against the austerity agenda. And the demonstration takes place in the context of a new financial crisis, riots breaking out across cities in England, and the prospect of serious coordinated strike action against the government in the Autumn. There could not be a more important time to bring everyone together.

         It is absolutely vital that we all make sure that this is one of the biggest demonstrations in Scotlands history. To that end Coalition of Resistance in Glasgow has organized a mobilizingmeeting to build support for the march this Wednesday 17th August. Please come along and join the discussion. This is an opportunity to bring together people from many different backgrounds to discuss how we can all build this demonstration into the biggest protest Scotland has ever seen.

Yours, Peter Ramand

(secretary, Coalition of Resistance | Glasgow)

ann arky's home.

PROFIT FROM KILLING!!!

        We all know that the corporate world is not a compassionate beast and it will try to squeeze a profit out of anything, including wars, death and destruction. However there must be limits and making investments in cluster bombs when over 100 countries have banned them, is surely the bottom of the barrel, even for the greed merchants in the corporate world.

The following appeal is from Amnesty International.

        Cluster bombs kill and maim indiscriminately – 98 per cent of victims are civilians and a third of those are children. This is why over 100 countries – including the UK – have signed up to an international treaty banning their manufacture and use.

       Yet over a year after this treaty came into force, and despite the fact that cluster bombs are now banned in the UK, some UK-based banks continue to invest in companies which make them.

Stop investment in companies that make cluster bombs

        The worst of these is the Royal Bank of Scotland – which, don’t forget, is now over 80 per cent owned by UK taxpayers. RBS is known to have invested $80 million in companies which manufacture cluster bombs in the past year¹.

Take action: email the Chief Executive of RBS now

        Cluster bombs can remain deadly for years, much like landmines. So civilians in places like Georgia, Kosovo, Lebanon and Laos are at risk long after the fighting has ended. As a member of the global Cluster Munition Coalition², we’re working to end the suffering cluster bombs cause. But we need organisations like RBS to take responsibility for the part they play.

        Should a taxpayer-funded bank be investing in companies making weapons which are banned by this country? Should any bank invest in companies which make these appalling weapons?

If you think not, please take action now

Thank you.

1. Worldwide investment in Cluster Munitions: a shared responsibility – May 2011 update [IKV Pax Christi (the Netherlands) and Netwerk Vlaanderen (Belgium)]

2. The Cluster Munition Coalition is an international civil society campaign working to eradicate cluster munitions, prevent further casualties from these weapons and put an end for all time to the suffering they cause. The Coalition works through its members in around 100 countries to change the policy and practice of governments and organisations towards these aims and raise awareness of the problem amongst the public.

ann arky's home.

ONE LAW FOR THE RICH - ONE FOR THE POOR.

            

 In the Jon Snow blog he refers to  a sense of one law for the poor and one law for the rich. If you live in one of the poorer areas this will be blindingly obvious to you, but if you are one of that bunch of privileged parasites that make up our political class and the corporate world, you will be unaware of that. You will expect the law to protect your haul and the means by which you procured your loot. You will expect the law to keep the riffraff well away from your locality and from your little empire. You will expect it to keep the place safe for you to continue your looting career. Many of the cheating MPs, when found out, simply handed back what they had stolen and that was that, will the individuals that took part in the riots be given the option of handing back what they have stolen and that will be that???  SNOWBLOG is worth a wee read.

            There is a sense in Britain too of a widening gap in both wealth and law – that there is a that there is one law for the elite and one for the poor. Take the MPs’ and Peers’ expenses scandal. A tiny handful of the expenses abusers have gone to jail. The vast majority have been allowed to pay stuff back or retreat to the political undergrowth. How many of the looters will be allowed to bring their plasma screens and running shoes back in return for their freedom? And yet it is the very unpunished abuse of the state by its elected and unelected elite which many argue is part of the landscape that the recent riots played out across.

             We are told thousands of rioters and looters have been arrested. Hundreds have been charged, some have already been punished – many cases are still in train.

Many have pointed to the reality that an even smaller handful of bankers have faced the law even than those politicians who have been prosecuted. No British banker is in jail for what happened in 2008. And as financial upheaval cascades before us all over again, almost no serious measures have been taken to stop the same people from doing it to the people all over again.

ann arky's home.

WHOSE "MORAL COMPASS"!!

I am delighted that our millionaire public school thugs, Cameron and Co. are going to look at our “broken society” they are going to discuss the loss of our “moral compass”. That must be great news for all the ordinary people in this country, perhaps they will start by looking at our MP's fiddles, their massive expenses, unbelievable pensions and their rather generous pay-offs. They could then move to the corporate world and question their ever increasing greed and power, the way the drive down wages, increase the work load and export jobs, creating unemployment, all to satisfy the greed of their shareholders. Then of course there is the subsidies to the private schools for the rich and the deprivation of our public education system. They could also look at the millions that they are spending bombing and killing in Afghanistan and Libya while cutting social services here. Let's hope they don't forget to look at the culture of jobs for the boys among their political and corporate millionaire friends. Yes, there seems to be a group in this country that have lost their “moral compass” but somehow or other I don't think that our millionaire lords and masters will be looking in that direction. To them all that is just fine, it's those bloody youths that seem to be taking a leaf out their masters rule book, and helping themselves to what they want, that will come under the millionaire cabal's scrutiny. It is single mothers that will be criticised, it will be the unemployed for not looking hard enough for a none existent job, and those rascals on sickness benefit that have to be sorted out. Somehow or other I don't think the millionaire public school thugs' “moral compass” will look anything like mine. Theirs will point them in the same old direction, legislating so that the rich can get on with their plundering and looting and the poor can be kept in control.

ann arky's home.

CORPORATE LOOTERS.

          QUOTE;    “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X

         Our millionaire lord and master Cameron, believes that those who were involved in the disturbances across England last week should be evicted from their home. All the family, even if it was just one member of that family who was involved. He also believes that if they are on benefit, they should lose their benefits. One council has already served an eviction notice on one family.

         This is the usual revenge response that we expect from the right wing millionaire Oxbridge brigade. Well over 1,500 have been arrested in connection with the disturbances, does that mean we will now have over 1,500 more homeless families wandering our streets begging? According to “one-response” millionaire Cameron, that should sort the problem. Having made them homeless will the council now by law be obliged to find them temporary accommodation? Perhaps the millionaire Cameron cabal think that 1,500 extra penniless homeless families wandering our streets, will benefit our society. Perhaps they would care to explain, but explanation is not their strong point.

Looters, I know what I'd do with the buggers.

 

        This right-wing mob of millionaires only have one response, revenge, hit hard. They will sit in the security of their wealth and enjoy all the opportunities that their wealth offers, spouting morality. A morality that sees their wealth protected at the cost of social services, the public education system and our NHS. So, groups of youths looted some business, what about Oxbridge Cameron and his millionaire friends in the corporate world that have for generations looted our communities of jobs, opportunities, hope. Shifting their wealth to where it will make the greatest profit for their own selfish desires. What has done the greater damage to our society, a group that shut down coal mines, shipyards, steel works, and in the process devastated communities for generations, driving them into abject poverty and deprivation. Or several small groups that looted some stores and smashed up some businesses? Let's focus on the greater damage and get our priorities right.

ann arky's home.

TO LOSE A SON.

A call to pay our respects and show our sympathy for the family and a lifelong activist and friend, his dad.

KAYES -

                Suddenly, after his long struggle, on Saturday, 6th August, David (aged 19), beloved son of Tommy and Elaine Kayes, brother of Fiona, much loved grandson, nephew and cousin. A Service will be held at the Co- operative Funeralcare Parlour, Greenock, at 1.00 pm, on Friday, 12th August, thereafter at Knocknairshill Cemetery.
We would love everyone who knew him to come.
Published in Greenock Telegraph on August 10, 2011 Follow this Obituary
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ONE DIMENSIONAL ELITIST RESPONSE.

      

      As the political class make their usual one dimensional responses to the events in England of the last fews days, it is good to be able to read something with a little more depth. I always maintain that our over lords and masters, the political and corporate class, know nothing of the society that you and I  inhabit. Our millionaire elitists that sit and pontificate in marble halls, somehow believe that they know the answers to our problems when in fact they don't even know the problems. They are in fact the biggest part of our problems. They enforce a system that creates inequality, and continually widens that gap. They legislate to protect their wealth and privileges and when people object to this unjust, immoral situation, they jump up and shout "crimminality" "thug" "full force of the law" and other meaningless crap.  Those who are shouting loudest are part of a band that fiddled their expenses, get into bed with bankers that laughingly take tax payers money and then pay themselves bonuses that to the ordinary guy, are monopoly money figures. What is more they don't understand why when they talk of respect, most people just get angry.

      The following is a short extract from an article on Libcom and is well worth a read. 

Writer and poet William Wall explores the link between neoliberalism and the UK riots.

            One of the many things that we hear repeated ad nauseam in the context of the present rioting in London is that the rioters are ‘feral’, ‘yobs’, ‘thugs’ or more generously ‘disaffected youth’. All the talk from Cameron and his cohorts is of crime and punishment and ‘the full force of the law’ - as if these young people did not encounter the full force of the law on a daily basis. We are told variously that there is no political context, no political motive, no political enemy – it is ‘criminality pure and simple’. This is because violence against the police (and therefore the state) is not considered in itself to be political. It is because the envy of, the desire for and the acquisition of luxury goods such as plasma TVs and jewellery is not considered political. The political class and the commentariat cannot conceive of themselves as enemies of the people who live in areas like Tottenham where Tory cuts are closing youth centres, which suffer massive unemployment even while the City is booming, and which are the objects of legislation designed to disadvantage them even further.

ann arky's home.

AND BORIS SET FIRE TO THE TOILETS.

       Listening to Cameron spout his usual one dimensional response to the events unfolding in some of the English cities it was difficult not to laugh. Standing there in front of the world's press and stating that violence and criminality are unacceptable and will feel the full force of the law, he surely should have remembered a previous statement that he made;  "Things got a bit out of hand. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets"

D Cameron,Oxford,1986.

 No doubt his violence and criminality was just a bit of jolly good fun. He also talks of responsibility of parents towards their children, does he and his millionaire cabinet not have a responsibility to those parents. The same parents that he is slashing their social services, educaution sytem, and privatising their health service and seeing millions condemnd to a life on the dole. What Cameron and his cabal fail to recognise is that when he talks of society there are in fact at least two. one in which he and his millionaire friends inhabit with all the comforts, security and opportunities that come with money in this capitalist system. Then there is the other society the one that they try to rule over, the disenfranchised, the disconnected, the struggling mass that see little opportunity, no security and with ever increasing fuel bills very little comport. Our millionaire over lords have no conception of what life is like in that other society, they can't unvisage the problems let alone come up with the answers and quite frankly, the don't give a shit as long as it doesn't threaten their comfort, wealth, security and opportunities.  

      As far as the events of the last few days are concerned, I feel that the posting that I put up on December 11 2010 after the students demonstration applies equally well in this situation: THERE IS NO LAW AGIANST SELF DEFENCE. 

ann arky's home.

THE BROADEST SHOULDERS!!!

“it's fair that those with broader shoulders should bear a greater load” (David Cameron, justifying the cuts, Conservative party conference 6 Oct 2010)

'The Broadest Shoulders?'
By Camcorder Guerillas - Scotland 2011 - 4 mins.

They gambled an' lost, an' we've to pay??

         How cuts in benefits will affect disabled people “we are not cheats… we are not scroungers… it’s us who need supporting not the banks” In October 2010 the coalition Government announced public sector cuts of £81 billion, including £18 billion cuts to benefits. Whilst the rich avoid £120 billion of taxes and bankers continue to award themselves huge bonuses, “disabled people are facing the biggest attack on their rights since the 1930s”.

Join us in speaking out against the cuts.

        Share the film with others, Post the film to your facebook, twitter or myspace site. Click on the “Share” Icon. More info on how to share the film vimeo.com/​275807
        Embed the film in your website or blog. Click on the “Embed” icon. More info on how to embed the film vimeo.com/​help/​faq#what_is_embedding

      Distribute our poster at your workplace, college, union and neighbourhood. Get in touch info@camcorderguerillas.net to discuss organising a screening event.

          

The Broadest Shoulders? from Camcorder Guerillas on Vimeo.

ann arky's home.

MEDIA = PROPAGANDA.

       Those who know me will be well aware of my loathing for what is generally called "mainstream media".

        It is of course, no more than the propaganda machine for our wonderful billionaire corporate fascism, a mouth piece for our Western imperialism. I have spouted my mouth off about it, written about it and even written poems about it. While browsing I came across this "media dictionary" it makes very enlightening reading.

        I have posted a couple of wee poems that might help to give a better desription of the mainstream media.

By John Hartfield.

ENDLESS BABBLE.

The questions arise. Why war and hunger?

Why does poverty continue to linger?

Why such need in a world of wealth?

Why put a price on a child’s health?

Confused and angry the public stand

gazing in disbelief at this pathetic band.

Those shiney politicians designed by spin

their street credibility paper thin,

the great persuaders looking the mood

struggling so hard just for our good!

Masters of the art of wheeling and dealing

exceptional experts at legal stealing.

Enter the Media, drowning us all in trivial text,

everything you need know

of scandal and sport, crime and sex.

Together they create a world of confusion

all fashion and style, a vicious illusion.

So no matter how often we point at need,

we always drown in a sea of greed,

no debate entered into, no answers found,

the waffle the babble goes round and round.

ROBOTS.

With spin doctors now in full flight

we’ve entered a new era, a brand new age,

no need to think just follow the plan

experts will guide you through the difficult stage,

soon dear consumer, you’ll see the light.

Let Fashion Gurus dictate your style

the colour the length where to be seen

the music you buy the games you play

who to worship from the silver screen

the latest icon, just for a while.

The Media teaches us all we need know

of scandal and sport, crime and sex

who slept with who and where,

who kiss and tell just for the cheques,

depicting society as a smutty peepshow.

Mindless telly invades your home

banal boring bromide, cliched crap

trifling trite trivia and petty pulp

sport, sex and violence always on tap,

churning your brain to a frothy foam.

Programmers with programmes you must pursue

specialists have advice you must take,

freethinking at all cost must be avoided

spontaneity is obviously a mistake

our Leader’s voice the only view.

Each of us, a programmed dual-purpose robot

some to serve, some to produce,

all to function as constant consumers

our first, our last, our only use

in this cabal of cambist’s insidious plot.

ann arky's home.

MONOPOLY FOR MILLIONAIRES.

        As I keep spouting, this “financial crisis” is the corporate world's opportunity to plunder all public assets, and further proof comes in the words of committee secretary Eric Pickles, who has called on all councils to make a list of all their public assets. Land, buildings, art treasures, etc. and to have a look at them to see what can be sold off to raise money to help the council through these hard times. On the understanding that the councils are suppose to represent the people and to look after their assets, how can selling them off to millionaire spivs benefit the people in the long run?

         This is just another opportunity for the millionaire cabal in the Westminster Houses of Corruption and Hypocrisy to sell off what is left of the country to their millionaire chums in the corporate world. The know their class and they will be loyal to their class, they know how to fight a class war. This is a continuation of the public school thugs 1980's game of monopoly, sell sell, sell, but what they are selling to their millionaire chums is not theirs to sell, it is ours and we are not even invited to the game.

          We are heading rapidly to a corporate world where there will be no public spaces, no public assets, where society will have a notice, if you can't afford the price, then stay out. Welcome to corporate fascism. Is this what we want to bequeath to our children and grandchildren?

   ann arky's home.

EDINBURGH ANTI-FASCISTS.

Dear Friends

         You may have heard that the Scottish Defence League want to march in Edinburgh on the 10th September. Below is a Unity statement we would ask you to sign personally or if possible on behalf of your organisation, also please circulate for support. By uniting against the SDL we prevented them
marching or congregating in Edinburgh before, we must do the same again.

Best wishes
Graham
On behalf of UAF Edinburgh

Edinburgh Unity Statement

        We the undersigned strongly oppose plans by the Scottish Defence League (SDL) the Scottish arm of the racist English Defence League (EDL) to march in Edinburgh on 10 September 2011.

       The EDL was a group admired by the Norwegian far right terrorist Anders Breivik. As well as attending a number of EDL events, meeting EDL leaders etc. Breivik openly expressed his wish to start a racial war and praised the EDL’s strategy and tactics.

        The latest rally by the SDL in Irvine on 30 July 2011 saw members hold placards aimed at stirring up hatred against Islam and sporting Blood and Honour (Nazi) tattoos.

         Islamophobia - bigotry against Muslims - is as unacceptable as any other form of racism. It divides and weakens our society by making scapegoats of one community, just as Hitler's Nazis did by targeting Jews in the 1930s. Today the SDL threatens Muslims; tomorrow it could be Jews, Hindus, Sikhs,
black people, lesbians & gay men, travellers or Eastern Europeans.

       There is no place for racists or fascists in Edinburgh’s multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious community. That is why we stand in solidarity with Edinburgh's Muslim community and against the poisonous bigotry of the SDL.

Initiated by Unite Against Fascism-Edinburgh.
Email: uafedinburgh@riseup.net if you would like to add your name to this
Unity Statement.

ann arky's home.

TWO FACED MEDIA.

           Some years ago during a demonstration in London, Churchill's statue had a piece of green turf placed on its head, giving it a sort of punk hair cut look. The media here referred to it as a shameful act of vandalism. However on Wednesday 3 August The Times had a photograph of a a statute of Hosni Mubarak which had been defaced. The comments were not a reference to vandalism but how this shows the feelings of the people. When ever any protests take place in this country the media always focus on what violence they can find on the demonstrators side and portray the authorities as the victims. Shift the scene to any country we are meant to dislike and they reverse their point of view. The protesters are always the victims and the authorities the purveyors of violence. The usual double standards of the media, you simply can't believe what you read. We should know by now that authority is always the purveyor of violence when ever the people decide to show their anger or even dislike of what that authority is up to. Authority, i.e.; the state, can only remain the authority by calling on force as soon as the people wish change, more say in their affairs, or control of their own lives. Until the people have control over their own lives and remove the state, we will always have this confrontation of authority and the desire of the people to be free, with the media backing up the authority.

ann arky's home.

THE EPIDEMIC DISEASE OF CAPITALISM.

       The propaganda from the proponents of capitalism continually spout that capitalism will bring prosperity to all. Yet across the globe poverty is on the increase. As poverty increases so does all the health problems that go along with poverty, mental health problems as well as physical. Figures show that suicides and depression are on the increase, there is no doubt that enviromental problems of the individual play a big part in bring about these conditions, the sort of things that are part and parcel of capitalism, unemployment, competition, the illusion that happiness comes in nice fancy wrapped boxes at a price, and the constant fear of deprivation, diseases that could be called the capitalist epedemic. The following is an extract from an article published in LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal the full article makes excellent reading.

By Mark Harris

July 23, 2011 -- www.resistance.au -- There is no denying it, depression is on the rise across the world. The World Health Organization says depression will be the second largest contributor to the global burden of disease by 2020. For young people this is already the case. Depression leads to about 850,000 deaths every year.

But why is depression on the rise? In some instances it is a product of more readily available methods of diagnosis and public understanding of the disorder. But increases in suicide rates and other indicators suggest that the increase in depression is well beyond this statistical readjustment.

Depression is not always caused by a chemical imbalance or as a result of human biology. It is a result of social factors such as loneliness, lack of social support, financial strain, lack of purpose and unemployment. These are endemic under capitalism.

Even in a wealthy country like Australia, youth often look to a future that is at best unfulfilling. Furthermore, capitalism is based on competition. In all sorts of ways we can only succeed if someone else fails. Obvious examples are job interviews or exams to get into uni.

BLOOD ON HIS HANDS.

       Since the British troops have left Iraq our mainstream media tends to put Iraq in the after-thought category. The fact that the country is now a shattered country where violence is endemic and the infra-structure is in tatters is of little concern to our media pundits. However we should not forget that the Iraq war has resulted in over a million dead, four million refugees and left the Iraqis with a totally devastated country, while the corporate West has managed to commandeer Iraq's huge oil reserves. Probably the largest and most brutal plunder in 100 years. We can continue to look at the disaster that is Iraq but we should also be pointing fingers.

       Mogul Murdoch's media empire have supported all the US/UK wars over the last 30 years or more. From Thatcher's Falklands ego trip, 1982, through G. Bush Snr's first Gulf war 1990/91, Clinton's Yugoslavia venture1999 plus his undeclared war against Iraq 1998, The support continued through the Bush Blair twins', Iraq and Afghanistan brutal wars, and at present is still throwing his media muscle behind the present day Obama Afghanistan and Iraq wars and Obama and Cameron's Afghan and Libyan wars. That is 30 years of cheering leading 7 or more wars.

By John Hartfield.

       Murdoch doesn't hide his support for war, he more or less admitted this at the World Economic Forum in Davos when during a televised debate he said that his media empire had tried to shape public opinion in support of the Iraq war. This makes him guilty of contravening Article 20 of the UN International Covenant on Political and Civil rights which states, “Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.” Without a doubt, there is blood on the moguls hands.

 ann arky's home.

ANARCHISM, A CRIME????

          It seems that the police have decided that being an anarchist is a crime, and if you know of any you should immediately report them to the police. Last week according to the Guardian the Metropolitan Police issued to businesses and members of the public in Westminster a leaflet asking for anti-anarchist whistleblowers. It went on to say “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.” Well at least they got the aims of anarchism correct. I doubt if any anarchist would disagree with the first part of that statement. However should holding that belief mean you automatically fall into the criminal category? By linking anarchists with Islamic fundamentalists on their leaflet it would appear that they are attempting to create an impression in the public mind, that there is a connection between Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and anarchists. Of course anybody that has an inkling of an idea of what these two groupings are about will know that is utter gibberish.

        Anarchists have always stood with the people against any authority that would attempt to restrict the freedom of the people, whither that be the churches in their various guises or the state in its many shapes and forms or corporatism in its greed quest, it makes no difference. No group has a right to to restrict the freedom of the people of any country. If any authority stands up and says, that is a crime, it lays bare it own desire to control and restrict the freedom of the people. Today's state does not represent the people, it is a festering marriage of wealth, religion and corporate fascism, that represents wealth and big business and protects the status quo. To say so is to state the facts as we see them, but in this society stating such facts is now becoming a crime, verifying the beliefs of anarchists.

You can read Ian Bone's take on this  HERE. 

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