STOP DAWN RAIDS! STOP DETAINING CHILDREN!

STOP DAWN RAIDS! STOP DETAINING CHILDREN!
Come to the protest Monday 21 November, 10.00 am at Festival Court

        Following the dawn raid on two families early last week Unity is calling for a protest outside of the UKBA reporting centre and headquarters of the Immigration Enforcement Team on Monday 21 November. Unity hopes it will be a well-attended protest that will make it clear once and for all that the UKBA using dawn raids and the detention of families is just not acceptable. Monday 21 November is the next working day after the UN's Universal Children's Day on 20 November - a day set aside for promoting the welfare of the children of the world. (http://www.un.org/en/events/childrenday/).

SOLIDARITY.

        We want as many people as possible to come to Brand Street on Monday to make a noisy colourful protest against the resumption of dawn raids that the UKBA cannot ignore. More information about how Funke and Joseph were treated can be seen below this call-out. People involved with Unity are particularly angry that the dawn raids were carried out on families containing young children who were asleep when immigration officials forced their way into the homes. The children were woken up by immigration officials wearing uniforms and stab-proof vests only to see their mothers being handcuffed.
       This barbaric treatment of families who have not been convicted of any crime is something many people thought had disappeared following widespread community protest and opposition from all Scottish political parties in 2006. We want the protest on Monday to be a big day-long action, so tell as many people as possible. The protest will continue into the afternoon so even if you can't make it for 10am, come along when you can.
        Join the protest outside the UKBA office on Brand Street from 10am on Monday 21 November to show your opposition to dawn raids and child detention. We will be running a banner and prop making workshop and preparation meeting from 1pm on Sunday afternoon. If you'd like to come and help then please contact Unity to find out details of the venue.
And if you'd like to come from out of town - we can provide accommodation!

Just get in touch J
Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=272568582785246

Unity!
         The protest on Monday is being held outside the UKBA reporting centre at 200 Brand Street, Ibrox, Glasgow. It is very close to Cessnock underground station and less than 100 metres from the Unity Centre. There is a map and directions on how to find the centre on our website at http://unitycentreglasgow.org/?page_id=16
          Funke Olubiyi and her son Joseph were forcibly removed from the UK on Saturday evening despite a last minute attempt to get an injunction on medical grounds. Speaking from Nigeria, Funke described how nine immigration officials and guards and a doctor accompanied her and her son onto the plane. On the phone Funke thanked everyone who had tried to fight for her and told us that she was OK for now and staying with friends.
        Funke and Joseph were the first family from Scotland known to have been detained in the new family detention centre called 'Cedars' in the village of Pease Pottage close to Crawley in Sussex.
The family had been detained following a 'dawn raid' at their home when little Joseph aged only 5 and 2 months had been asleep in his bed. Funke had been preparing to have a bath and had been undressed when seven immigration officials forced their way into the family's small flat on Shaw Street in Govan. Joseph was not allowed to have any breakfast in his house and was only given some food after the family had been taken to the reporting centre at Brand Street.
         A day earlier the UKBA had detained another single mother and baby during a dawn raid but she had managed to convince the immigration officials to realise her after being held at Brand Street with her baby for over seven hours. These two raids mark the return of dawn raids to Glasgow following a period of several years when the UKBA had almost totally stopped raiding asylum seeker families. Despite holding Funke and Joseph for three days and three nights in their 'pre-departure accommodation' at Cedars which with its 2.5 metre tall perimeter fence is run by security firm G4S the UKBA still insist "We do not detain children for immigration." Unity calls on all campaigners and supporters to work to make sure that for once this becomes a reality.

Come to teh protest on Monday 21 November.

The UNITY Centre
30 Ibrox Street
Glasgow
G51 1AQ

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EX-CIA AGENT ON THE MIDDLE EAST.

       An interesting interview with an ex-CIA agent. He seems to talk with a load of common sense and in a way that so many of the ordinary people with a little political savvy talk. Of course I don't think that he will get much cover in our mainstream press.

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LOCK THEM UP - MAKE A PROFIT??

         I am always appalled at the fact that locking people up can be a lucrative business. Our corporate world knows no limits, if it can make a buck, then it will, no matter the method. The corporate prison business in America, as else where no doubt, is pouring large sums of money into lobbying to have new laws passed that will hand out bigger sentences and leave fewer opportunities for parole. That is one business plan to increase you business, of course the fact that it is human misery that you're creating as a by product, doesn't in the least matter. Immigrants are seen as another possible growth area.

       A Corrections Corporation of America report from 2010 actually stated that;

“The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by---leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices---”

Read the full report here.

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ANOTHER PROFIT BEFORE WELFARE.

        An appeal from IUF for your show of solidarity. Unfortunatly these types of brutal attacks on the living conditions of the ordinary people will continue in all countries across the world until we get rid of the capitalist system of exploitation.

        The New Zealand lamb processor, CMP, has brutally locked out 111 workers at its plant in Marton in order to force them and their union, the New Zealand Meatworkers Union, to sign off on pay cuts and unacceptable changes to terms and conditions.
To learn more and send a message to CMP's parent company, ANZCO Foods, demanding an end to the lockout and a return to the bargaining table, click here!

Ron Oswald
General Secretary, IUF

International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)

8, rampe du Pont-Rouge
1213 Petit Lancy, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 793 22 33
Fax: +41 22 793 22 38
website: www.iuf.org

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CAPITALISM - PROFIT = MISERY.

           The capitalist system is in crisis, it sounds all so rational and academic, but what it means is that across Europe people are suffering in ever increasing numbers, and to an ever degrading degree. Country after country comes under the spotlight of the media and all the talk is about the “debt” crisis, never the human side. In Greece, a country with an unelected Prime Minister, unemployment has risen from 6.6% in 2008, to 16.6% in 2011, while youth unemployment went from 18.6% to 40.1%, and heroin addiction rose by 20% during the same period. Add to this human disaster the fact that the government during the same period has cut the health budget by 40% and reduced the street-work programs by 33%. Put that toxic cocktail together and you have human suffering and deprivation approaching third world proportions. Spain fares little better, with unemployment at 20%, and 10% of families with no wage earner, plus, during 2011, 1 in 8 business closed. Italy another country with an unelected Prime Minister, is about to embark on a series of vicious slashes to public spending, which will heap more people on to the already mountainous mound of misery that exists in Europe. Here in the UK we have now passed 2.6 million unemployed, 8.3% and rising. Our youth unemployment is now over 1 million and rising, add to this our wage freeze/cuts and an inflation rate of 5% and you can see the misery indicator shooting up. Meanwhile our Millionaire cabinet cabal, keep blaming the Euro-Zone for all our ills. The fact that growth in Europe is above that in the UK, and inflation is lower than the UK, doesn't seem to register with them, it is all Europe's fault.

CRISIS? What crisis?

         The simple fact is that capitalism is crisis, it can't work for the benefit of the ordinary people, it is basically a system that feeds the rich at the expense of the poor. Profit is the aim, not human welfare, and as such, that profit must be protected at all costs. The human misery resulting from this type of value structure is never taken into account on the balance sheets of the corporate world. Throughout the entire period of history where capitalism has been the main system we have had continuous wars, raging poverty, mass unemployment and the resulting misery such circumstances produce. Of course the numbers who gain a reasonable life varies from time to time, but it is a temporary respite, soon along comes another recession, or crisis and the numbers change again, with poverty and misery growing, wiping out any benefits that some of the ordinary people had fought for and temperaly gained.

        If we want to fix the “crisis” so that all the people will benefit, then we have to demolish the present system and change our value structure to one of profit free thinking. The only answer is to create a society of mutual aid and co-operation based on sustainability. The present “crisis” of the system can only be remedied by eliminating capitalism and building a needs based system. Only then will be see an end to the misery of deprivation, only then will our youth be able to flower to their full potential.

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ROSA PARKS LIVES.

      

       Another post on the Palestinian's fight against the Israeli state's apartheid. Apart from all its other injustices against the Palestinian people, the country that shouts about being the only democracy in the Middle East, doesn't let Palestinians ride on the same buses as Israeli settlers, and those courageous individuals that set about challenging that injustice have been forcibly removed from the buses by the Israeli army and the Israeli police, then arrested. Democracy my arse. This report from the CodePink Group.

Dear John,

       I just returned home to Washington after spending 72 hours in Israeli prison. Why? Because I was aboard the Canadian boat that tried to sail to Gaza, part of the most recent “Freedom Waves” flotilla that was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters, breaking international law. I was the only American civilian delegate* on the boat and am returning to the US with a clear message for our lawmakers: Tell Israel to lift the unlawful blockade on Gaza and stop enabling Israeli war crimes!

        There’s another dangerous passage – this time over land – that just happened this morning: six courageous Palestinian activists boarded a settler-only public bus and attempted to sit down and ride it from the Ramallah area into East Jerusalem, in the great tradition of the Freedom Rides that challenged segregation in the South. At approximately 5:15pm in the occupied West Bank today Israeli military forces boarded the buses and violently arrested the Freedom Riders. They were taken to a detention center at Atarot Prison and held for hours. Replay the livestream here.

► URGENT: Send a letter to the State Department.► Tweet this!
► Find local actions planned around the US today here. CODEPINKers plan to join actions in NYC, DC, LA, and SF.

       Want to do more? Palestinian Freedom Riders will be riding Veolia and Egged buses – Veolia is the target of an international BDS campaign. Are there Veolia buses, offices, or SuperShuttle (a Veolia subsidiary) in your city? Click here to download an organizing toolkit from Jewish Voice for Peace and find out how to participate in the Veolia boycott here. You can also make your local bus a vehicle for change: Join DC CODEPINK, Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine, Sabeel and allies to bring this ad campaign to your public transit.

        This courageous action is part of the Week Against the Apartheid Wall. Last week the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, held in South Africa, concluded that the situation in Palestine and Israel is apartheid. Read the findings here. Testimony on Ahava by CODEPINK’s Nancy K and Rae is included in a new book from the Russell Tribunal titled Corporate Complicity in Israel's Occupation.

* Would you like me to speak in your community or school? Email me at marnykit@gmail.com – I’m eager to share my experience on the flotilla, and also during past trips to Gaza with CODEPINK.

Riding the waves of change,
Kit Kittredge

… and the CODEPINK Middle East Team: Alli, Kristen, Nancy K, Medea, Rae, Sasha, and Tighe
PS: More breaking news: Occupy Wall Street was raided by police last night. Support the national day of action at the Occupy near you Thursday, Nov 17. Follow @womenows for the latest updates.

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EXPLOITATION -- SHE GOT IT RIGHT.

          It is strange that the Western mainstream media made very little, if any mention, of the Occupy Wall St movement. That is until the eviction in Wall St., then, lo and behold, there it was on my TV  midday news. Now it was just an argument between some protesters and the city authorities. To have reported on the occupation before the evictions would have meant discussing why they were there. That is not what the media want to do, they don't want to show ordinary people being organised and conducting themselves in a democratic and dignified way, putting forward coherent and valid arguments against the present system. Much better to show them in conflict with the police. So as the evictions move across the American continent we can expect to see more cover in the mainstream media. However what we should take from this is that it is a national movement, across the whole country, and not as they would have us believe, a bunch of young hippies. Not only is it happening in America but it is also happening in Europe, and with the "austerity cuts" set to bite harder in Greece and Italy, almost immediately, and then to other countries, we should hope to see that the ordinary people across America and the whole of Europe will take the occupy movement to its natural and logical conclusion and occupy everything.

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DIAMONDS AND DEPRIVATION??

         An item of news that might not catch the eye of those at the receiving end of the financial Mafia’s drive for austerity cuts, I'm referring to the coming sale of the Sundrop yellow diamond. This is quite a pretty piece of shiny stuff, kinda like yellow glass. This piece of carbon rock that was dug out off the ground, might not be your thing or mine, but, it is expected to go in the auction for somewhere around £7 million. So as you and your friends sit around discussing the hardships being inflicted on you, don't for one moment think we are all in this together. The hardship is for you and I, the fat-richcats, responsible for devising these austerity cuts, have no intention of including themselves. They and their millionaire friends will be at the diamond auction, throwing in a bid or two for that Sundrop yellow diamond. After all, what is £7 million here or there for such a lovely piece of rock.

Times are hard, I had to drop out of the Sundrop diamond auction.

      Wages cut/frozen, pensions cut, education decimated, health care privatised, libraries closed, social benefits slashed, uneployment rising, the very fabric of what little social justice we have won, being viciously removed, and Victorian poverty the only future our kids are being offered. That's the deal, you sink in the shit, and those who created this mess and pass the legislation to ensure your poverty and the protection of their wealth, flutter around the diamond markets of the world nodding a million bid here and a million bid there.

       I see this diamond auction as a graphic display of all that is wrong in this corrupt and exploitive system. The few throw millions at trinkets, while the millions struggle to live a half decent life, and in most cases, fail miserable. Their failure is not down to their lack of ability, but directly linked to the grasping greed of those in control of this stinking system, the ones who throw the millions at glossy trinkets.

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ISRAELI APARTHEID.

 

         Day and daily the Palestinian people face the harsh and brutal repression of the Israeli apartheid system. It took many years of struggle by the people of South Africa to dismantle the apartheid system in that country, and let's not forget the civil rights movement in America to break down such a system in that country, here we are in the 21 century and the stench of apartheid has not been removed from the earth. The fact that such an inhumane system is still pursued is not just an indictment against the Israeli state, but also an indictment against the international community, that includes you and I.

This is an appeal for support for the Palestinian people from AVAAZ.

  

Dear friends,

In hours, brave Palestinians will risk attack and arrest to board public buses that are forbidden to Arabs. This could be the beginning of a game-changing, non-violent Palestinian spring -- direct action to win freedom and a new state. Avaaz is webcasting the action LIVE -- click to watch, and provide the global solidarity the activists need to win:

     In the next few hours, history could be made in Palestine. A small number of brave Palestinians will risk attack and arrest to commit a forbidden act -- they will board a public bus.
     Lacking their own state, Palestinians are forbidden to use buses and roads reserved for non-Arabs -- part of a host of race-based rules that US President Jimmy Carter has called "apartheid". 50 years ago, African-Americans in the US challenged these rules by simply and non-violently refusing to follow them. In a few hours, Palestinians will take the same approach, and their actions will be live webcasted by Avaaz teams at the link below.
    As diplomats stall in the fight for a Palestinian state, the Palestinian people are taking the fight into their own hands, one public service at a time. And they're doing it with the simple, elegant and unstoppable moral force of non-violence in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The Palestinian spring begins right now - click below to watch it LIVE, register support, and give these brave activists the global solidarity and attention they urgently need to win:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/palestine_freedom_riders/?vl

     Non-violence is the game-changing force in this long-standing conflict. Boarding buses is a symbolic act, but so was Gandhi's salt march, and Rosa Park's own courageous ride on a segregated bus in the US. Just as non-violent protest was able to topple dictators in Egypt and Tunisia, so can it finally free the Palestinian people from 40 years of crippling military oppression by a foreign power.
     There are many dangers. Israel has been arming the extremist settler population, a tactic which is likely, if not intended, to provoke awful violence that will draw the news cameras away from the brave acts of non-violence. Even the Palestinian authorities are pushing back on the action which they fear will start a democratic protest movement that they cannot control. But these few brave Palestinians have had enough, and if we stand with them now, we can help them ignite a flame that will burn its way all the way to a free and peaceful Palestinian state:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/palestine_freedom_riders/?vl

     We have no idea what will happen in the next 24 hours. Maybe the authorities will crush this brave action. Maybe it will spark into a massive conflagration. Maybe it will sow the first seed of an unstoppable movement with tremendous integrity. But we can watch it live, and lend our voices to the effort. And maybe one day, we can tell our grandchildren that we were there when Palestinians boarded the buses that would ultimately take them to freedom.

With hope and determination,
Ricken, Emma, Alice, Raluca, Pascal, Diego and the rest of the Avaaz team

 

Sources:
I Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Set on Freedom
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clarence-b-jones/i-woke-up-this-morning-wi_b_1087407.html

Freedom Riders: 1961 and the struggle for racial justice
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/books/review/19foner.html

Palestinian Freedom Rides echo the Civil Rights Movement
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3888-freedom-rides

'Freedom Rides' to Resume in Palestine
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=17242

---

 

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POLICE BRUTALITY.

This short video speaks for itself. Whether it be at a protest, on the streets at night, police brutality is brutality and has no legal basis and is unnecessary and provocative. Minimum force is the only way to treat another human being.

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THE PRIVATISATION OF OUR HEALTH SERVICE.

        The privatisation of the National Health Service is steadily moving along. It is of course disguised as many things, from incompetence of management, inefficiency of all the staff and the service they give, and of course the big propaganda lie, that the corporate world could do it all much better and much cheaper. The fact that our health service probably rates with the best in the world, is never taken into account, we still have to move towards the American model. America, a country where there are over 46 million people who have no health cover what so ever.

       Our millionaire ConDem cabinet, of course will do everything in their power to see that the corporate world gets its greedy hands on all our public assets, and the Health Service is seen as a prize gem, where billions can be made. After all those who rule the corporate world are the friends and old school mates of our millionaire cabal in the Westminster Houses of Corruption and Hypocrisy. So they will do what they can to help their friends, and besides, most of them will have a million or two invested in the various private healthcare companies across the globe.

        Reading the letters in The Guardian on line, recently, there were two that I thought threw a lot of light on the subject of the National Health Service privatisation, here they are.

Your report (11 November) that the management of Hinchingbrooke hospital will be taken over by the private company Circle Healthcare and that the government sees this as a solution for "cash-strapped NHS hospitals" like this one which "has accumulated debts of £40m" fails to question the economics behind this idea. Surely, as a service free to patients, an NHS hospital cannot make money or get into debt.

The 20 hospitals said to be struggling financially are short of cash because of the artificial constraints of the internal market initiated under John Major, much loved by New Labour and currently being converted towards full privatisation under the Con-Dem government. For 30 years our governments have told us to love the free market, but privatised public services are run under rigged markets to allow private companies to profit at the expense of taxpayers. Now the economic imbalances of the NHS's internal market are being used as propaganda in moving towards full privatisation of health on the disastrous American model, a real free market that favours the rich.

When will the media attack the gobbledegook economics of Cameron and Lansley? A free NHS has the amount of money the government decides to spend on it. Its hospitals do not get into "debt".
Name omitted. London

• It is perhaps little wonder Circle Healthcare was given the go-ahead to run the Hinchingbrooke hospital. The company recruited a former aide to health secretary Andrew Lansley as head of communications. Christina Lineen spent two years working for Lansley prior to him becoming health secretary. In addition, Conservative MP for Boston & Skegness Mark Simmonds, who was a minister when the healthcare reforms were drawn up, was paid £50,000 a year to work just 10 hours a month as "strategic adviser" to Circle Healthcare. These cases are of course not alone; members from all main parties have direct links to companies that will benefit from the increase in NHS privatisation. Our democracy is broken.
Name omitted. London

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NATO, TRIBAL WARRIORS, AND OIL.

          After 7 months of NATO blasting the infrastructure of Libya so that a mixed bag of rival tribal groups and religious fundamentalists could take over, Libya is not a peaceful place. Over the last 4 days or so there have been clashes in and around Tripoli with armed groups firing all manner of weapons at each other. To the west of Tripoli there has been fierce fighting between the city of Zawiya and the tribal lands of Warshefana which was still continuing today Sunday. The residents of Tripoli are complaining that armed groups have taken over many “desirable” locations in the city, including a gated seaside resort.

        This is the bunch of self interested groups, now armed to the teeth, that we have unleashed on the Libyan people. We spent billions of our tax payers money destroying many of the Libyan towns and cities, then handed the rubble to tribal warriors and religious fundamentalists, but we did get our hands on the oil. The oil that gave the Libyan people free health care, free education, a lump sum on the birth of their first child, a deposit for newly weds to help to purchase their first house, cheap fuel and free clean drinking water. Now that the West controls the oil, and now that Libya has joined the “free democratic capitalist West” how much of the oil money will the Libyan people see, and how much will go towards their “free” infrastructure and social services,? Oh, and bye-bye 19p a gallon petrol. That's capitalism for you.

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AUSTERITY MEASURES = DANCING IN THE STREETS!!!

       After the Italian parliament passed the legislation to introduce “austerity measures” demanded by the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) The mainstream media started spouting such headlines as “Italian austerity measures welcomed”. I wonder who was welcoming them, I doubt that the ordinary Italian will welcome them, I don't see them dancing on the streets once these “austerity” measures bite. So after the coup in Italy by the corporate financial world, the people's living standards are to be slashed, and the measures are “welcomed”. It is obvious who they are talking about, it's got to be the wanker bankers. It is only natural that they will want the tax payers money to end up in their coffers rather than being spent on such wasteful things as the fabric of civilised society. Health care, education, pensions, if people want such luxuries then let them buy them from the corporate world at a profit, that makes sense to to the financial Mafia. The concept of social care and mutual aid are abhorrent to those who have money flowing through their veins.

These are difficult times, we welcome austerity measures.

         A coup by the corporate financial world in two European countries in recent weeks, first Greece, now Italy, who is next to see the thin veneer of democracy thrown aside? Is the elected government of Spain in their sights, are they the next government to be forced to set aside the elected government and set up an unelected “interim” government of “intellectuals”? By that they mean someone that the IMF consider a safe pair of hands to do the transfer of taxpayers money to the banks, after all they need liquidity, and what better kind than that which comes free from the tax payer. Of course these countries in which there has been or will be a coup, will be allowed to have elections AFTER the full set of “austerity” measures are in place and there has been a fire sale of all their public assets. I believe the proper name for such a system is corporate fascism. 

 

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TURNING PAPER INTO MONEY.

         Like you I have always been puzzled by money, how does it come about, and why can one bunch print paper and call it money and if I or any other bunch of people do it it is an offence. This little video is a simple lesson in capitalist economics. I particularly like his theory that a man's willy is central to holiness!!

 

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POMP, PRIVILEGE, PARASITES AND PISS ARTISTS.

          Is this the inside story of Eton, the training ground for the off-spring of parasites. Eton, where privilege is taught as a given, a place where its output, is people who have never lived a day in the real world, but get handed the job of telling people in the real world how to live. Eton, the home of pomp, privilege, parasites and piss artists.

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THE ANARCHIST CRITIC.

The latest issue of The Anarchist Critic, Issue 95, can be viewed and downloaded as a PDF HERE.

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OCCUPY WALL STREET.

       The Occupy movement is still growing, it may be stagnant in some towns and cities but that's not the story in most cities, irrespective of what the mainstream media spout. This a report from the Occupy Wall St event by somebody who is there doing his thing. It would be good to give live reports from all over the world a much wider audience, so that the public are aware of what is going on and encourage more to participate.

Listen to internet radio with polizeros on Blog Talk
Radio

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