IT'S A MAN MADE SYSTEM OF EXPLOITATION.

        All the reporting and discussion on the "crisis" always refers to the situation as if it were something mechanical, beyond the ability of us mere humans to control or even alter. What they never hint at is that it is not mechanical but human. It is human decisions made for short term selfish human gain. Individuals sitting in their marble halls making decisions as the shift billions in cash around the world, with no other reason than to increase those billions. The human cost, the effect on the lives of the billions of people adversely affected by those decisions is of no consequence. They neither notice nor care, unless it might adversely affect their gambling results. It is not something set in tablets of stone that we have to sit around soaking up the punishment inflicted by the financial mafia, we can take control of all the production and distribution setting up a society based on communities that see to the needs of all our people. We don't need the cabal shareholders that live like parasites of our labours, but they do needs us. Capitalist economics is not some phenomenon of the natural world, it is a man made system of exploitation, it could be wiped away if the will of the people so desire. A better world is possible, just think of a world based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and humanity. Or we could accept this world of injustice, poverty and inequality and leave our grandchildren, a world of exploiation devoid of hope.

        The following is from "This is our job", originally translated from Liberación Total

        Street protests against the attacks of capitalist States on our living conditions have recently spread throughout Europe. Despite the strikes, actions, and massive demonstrations, and despite the broad movements that haven’t even expressed any grand revolutionary aspirations beyond the mere defence of minimum basic necessities, the States have responded with indifference.

        Appealing to confusing economic formulas, numbers, statistics, and abstract concepts, those States have tried to locate the problem’s origin in inaccessible, metaphysical realities. However, the origin and causes of our daily problems have no metaphysical foundation whatsoever. Poverty, exploitation, repression, and systematic abuse are the results of very concrete structures, of specific decisions taken by specific people who have specific interests.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.

        As the dogs of war howl at the gates of Iran their thoughts are never on the "after", the blood, death and the chaos, such thoughts are alien to them. Such thoughts are for that quieter breed, those that keep this world turning, those that just want to get on with their lives.

The End and the Beginning.

 

 

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.
Someone has to push the rubble
to the sides of the road,
so the corpse-laden wagons can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa-springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls how it was.

Someone listens

and nods with unsevered head.

Wislawa Szymborska

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - EVERETT MASSACRE, 1916.

           On reading the earlier post "WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON" you should not be fooled into thinking this is a new phenomenon, that it is only today that the state and it apparatus tries to repress the struggle of ordinary people as they attempt to better their conditions. The bosses and the establishment have always come down hard on any individuals who find themselves at the forefront of the constant struggle of trying to defend the conditions of the ordinary people. This constant opposition to the aspirations of the people, is the most glaring proof of the diametrically opposed positions of the capitalist system and the state on the one side, and the living standards and ideals of the ordinary people on the other. Our history is a rich heritage of struggle and suffering at the hands of the bosses and their minders, the state. We would do well to remember and honour that struggle and to repeat the stories of the determination in the face of that brutal repression that goes hand in hand with the state. Only by realising that it it is not a new struggle but the next chapter in the continuing struggle of the people, will we bring an end to that struggle and victory for the people.

The Everett Massacre:

In 1916 in Everett, Washington, a passenger ferry loaded with Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) free speech activists attempted to dock. On the dock, the local sheriff, along with armed deputies and armed guards hired by local businesses, attempted to block the ship from docking. According to lore, when the sheriff asked, “Who are your leaders?” the response from the ferry was a shout from everyone aboard, declaring, “We are all leaders here.” As folk musician Utah Phillips explains, “that scared the tar out of the ol’ law you know”[1] and as a result, a gunfight ensued. The gunfight left at least five IWW members dead and became known as the “Everett Massacre.” In the documentary film The Wobblies (Bird and Shaffer 1979), which tells the story of the early years of the IWW, two IWW members recount their experience in the “Everett Massacre.” Years later, Utah Phillips recounted this story on a collaboration album with popular musician Ani DiFranco, spreading the story and message to a new generation.

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A PERSON IS A PERSON, IS A PERSON, IS A PERSON!!!

Stop the evictions

No deportations

End destitution now

 

Rally and protest

Red Road / Petershill Rd

Thursday 12 April 5.00 – 7.00pm

Called by:

Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees,
National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns,
The Unity Centre,
YPeople Glasgow Residents Association

       Up to 140 Glasgow asylum seekers are to be evicted by their landlord, Ypeople, in the next few weeks, and left without home, and without access to work or any benefits or state support whatsoever.  

     These people have had their claim for asylum refused even though most are unable to return to their countries because they are too dangerous. They include Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Zimbabwe and others. 

      Ypeople, a charity funded to provide accommodation to vulnerable people, claims they have to do this before handing over the housing of asylum seekers to Serco, a giant multinational making money for its shareholders out of running prisons and detention centres. 

The handover period runs to November, yet Ypeople have decided to evict everyone right now. Community groups say they will not be able to cope.

     We call on Ypeople to act with humanity towards these extremely vulnerable people and on Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government to step in and stop this disaster before it happens. What kind of city and what kind of Scotland are they governing that allows this kind of humanitarian outrage to occur? 

      Finally we call on the British government to honour its international obligations in the spirit as well as the letter by granting protection and the right to work for all people seeking sanctuary.

      Come and support the demonstration next Thursday. Bring friends, family, workmates, trade union branches, churches and other organisations, banners, placards etc.

If you wish to add your organisations name to the list of supporters of this demonstration, please email ncadc@ncadc.org.uk

Please circulate this message round your networks.

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WHOSE SIDE ARE THEY ON??

Not everybody is enjoying the holiday weekend. It is the measure of a any society when those who struggle to improve the conditions of the ordinary people are victimised hounded and imprisoned. It is these cases that make it glaringly obvious on which side the powers that be stand, it is a display of their real intentions. An appeal from Labour Start.

        It's a long holiday weekend for many of us, a chance to celebrate the holidays with our families and friends.  I hesitate to write to you, to interrupt the festivities, but this is urgent.

        A week ago, the leader of the metal workers union of Kosovo, Hasan Abazi, was travelling to a meeting of European trade unionists in Zagreb, but on his way was arrested by the Serbian government. He was held for 50 hours without even the chance to talk to a lawyer. Now, he's being held in solitary confinement.

        Serbia has committed itself to allow free movement of Kosovars through its territory. That's part of what it needs to do to become a full member of the European Union.

        The International Metalworkers' Federation has issued an urgent appeal for his release. [*]

        Amnesty International has condemned the arrest. [**]

Please take a moment to send off a message of protest to the Serbian authorities:

http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=1338&src=lsmm

         Then, please publicize this to your friends, workmates and fellow union members by email, Twitter, Facebook, and word-of-mouth. If we can flood the inboxes of Serbian government ministers this weekend with our protest messages, they might be compelled to re-think this outrageous arrest and to let Hasan go. They don't want to risk Serbian membership in the EU -- a point we mention in the message to them.

Thank you -- and a very happy Easter and Passover to all of you.

Eric Lee

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A GOOD EDUCATION - IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY.

            Here in the UK we pride ourselves on being a civilised country yet our elected millionaire representatives are creating an education system that is tiered according to you place in the class system, a class system that they rigorously adhere to, it is built into the way they think. Since this bunch of millionaire parasites came to power, this country by 2014/15 will have seen, in real terms, a 13% cut in public spending on education. What this does is create a very high level of education for those super rich friends of the millionaire cabal in charge, a second, and lower level of expensive education for the lower caste, (middle class) and the lowest level of poorly funded sticking plaster education for the peasants, the “untouchables”, in this class ridden society that we tolerate.

       Dr Bousted, who heads the most moderate of the three teachers' unions stated: "This Coalition Government's attack on poor children is a blight upon our conception of ourselves as a civilised society. They remind me of a former Prime Minister who said there was no such thing as society." She also stated that among cuts that had affected the poor were:

A 22 per cent cut in grants to Sure Start centres designed to give the under-fives a good start in life. This has led to the closure of 124 centres;

The removal of the ring-fence on funding for school meals at a time when the number of children entitled to free food at school has risen by 110,000;

Cuts in local authority funding which have led to one in five councils axing the supply of library books to primary and secondary schools;

The withdrawal of education maintenance allowances of up to £30 a week which encouraged poorer students to stay on in post-16 education;

A real-terms cut of 13 per cent in public spending on education by 2014-15.    

        What we should never lose sight of is fact, that this “deficit reduction” is all to save the bankers and bond holders from losing any of their ill gotten gains. So on who side does that put our elected millionaires? Just whose benefit are they working for, those that they throw into the dustbin of society through unemployment, decimated health care, underfunded education, or their millionaire friends the bankers and bond holders who get all that public money?

        Since they believe in, and work at perpetuating a class system, then we have no alternative but to recognise that fact and to engage in earnest in class war.

ann arky's home.

WHAT PRICE A LIFE?

ATHENS (Reuters) - A cash-strapped Greek pensioner shot and killed himself outside parliament in Athens on Wednesday saying he refused to scrounge for food in the rubbish, touching a nerve among ordinary Greeks feeling the brunt of the country's economic crisis.

Picture courtesy of Teacher Dude & BBQ.

        He played their game to their rules, he worked hard, got a “decent” job, he was a pharmacist, and brought up his family within the rules of their game, and in his old age, callously they threw him into deprivation. What more could he have done - nothing -. to the financial markets he is worth nothing, a disposable unit, of no consequence. To those who knew him, he was a dignified man, to his family, a loving member, to the general public, a decent human being destroyed by a system that is immoral, unjust and inhumane. The media may focus on this betrayed and destroyed elderly man, but across this continent millions are rapidly dropping to his level of despair, fear and deprivation, for what? To save the bankers from losing their wealth, to keep an unjust immoral and inhumane system functioning. How many more will be driven to take such action as this elderly retired pharmacist? When will we turn on the perpetrators of this hideous crime and bring them to justice?

Picture courtesy of AE TV.

           When do we take control of our lives and build a society that sees to the needs of all our people. It is possible, there is an alternative to this parasite breeding, greed infested repressive system. Capitalism is not some plan of the Gods, it is a man made economic system the fails the majority of the people. Before many more of our people are driven to the depth of despair, to the end of their tether, let's dismantle this cruel killer of an economic system and replace it with one built on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and humanity.

ann arky's home.

WHAT LABEL HAS THE SYSTEM PUT ON YOU?

1. We are alone.
We are told not to act.

2. We want to be together.
We want to act.
3. We want to act together.

4. When we go to mass actions, we look for people with whom to act.
Our attendance is a search not necessarily for those who want to act in the same way and for the same reasons, but rather for those with whom we can act in harmony.

5. This is not a search for friendship.
O my friends, there is no friend.

We are not necessarily looking for those who want to listen to music with us
(though soundtracks make actions way cooler)
or who want to smoke cigarettes with us
(though that’s fun, too)
or who want to sit in meetings with us
(though planning helps, some times).

6. This is a search for affinity.
7. There are many ways of engaging in this search.
Some of us hold signs.
Some of us bring sign-up sheets.
Some of us wear black.

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WAR IS TERRORISM.

DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST NATO 

From Stop the War Coalition:

Saturday May 19th Troops out of Afghanistan,

Don't Attack Iran,

No intervention in the Middle East

         The occupation of Afghanistan has passed crisis point. Afghan soldiers are turning their guns on NATO troops, negotiations with the Taliban have broken down and protests against occupation are continuing.
        Meanwhile, further war in the Middle East is terrifyingly close. The debate about war on Iran in Israel is more about when rather than whether to attack. In the US there is also a sense of inevitability about war. Officials in the International Atomic Energy Agency say their leadership is being used by the US to justify war on Iran. The US is opposing direct intervention in Syria for the moment, but this can change and meanwhile Western allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar are arming the Free Syrian Army.
      Stop the War is calling a day of protest on Saturday May 19th to coincide with big protests in Chicago against the NATO summit.

Details will be announced in the next few days.

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ECONOMIC WAR IS CLASS WAR.

            The mainstream media is still not telling the truth, they still don't report the human side of all this "deficit" reduction, they still try to create the impression that everything is going well, with a few protesters creating trouble on the streets. It is those nasty unions trying to undermine the growth strategies of the good and benevolent IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) and their henchmen the financial Mafia. Yes, they have a growth strategy, it is the growth of their already obscene wealth and power. Does it matter if a generation or two of young people are thrown into the whirlpool of despair, that poverty ravages the homes and lives of millions? The don't enter the equation, mere pawns, to the power mongers. People can become an inconvenience, they have to be controlled or they might rebel. That's where the national governments come in, they are merely there to keep control of the civil population, so as to allow the corporate fascists to plunder all public assets and rape the planet. All this in the name of greed, there is nothing on their agenda that is for the benefit of the ordinary people. But the last thing they want you to know is that the people across Europe are rebelling, they are taking to the streets in ever increasing numbers. The people are demanding change, but demanding is not enough, we have to create that change we want. To millions this world system means poverty, deprivation and repression, we can create that other world, a world of mutual aid, free association, voluntary co-operation and sustainability, a world system that sees to the needs of all our people, a world where the parasites have been permanently removed from our backs.

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EUROPEAN PEOPLE UNITE FOR CHANGE.

         The people across Europe are beginning to realise that they cannot solve their problems nationally but have to unite across borders and work together internationally to stop this onslaught against their living conditions. March 31 was the first attempt at a Europe wide demonstration and it had an excellent response. In cities across Europe people took to the streets, there were protest actions in most major cities in Europe. Some small groups of pickets targeting specific corporate bodies. In other cities the protesters numbered in their thousands. We always here of how Germany is doing great and the rest of Europe has to get their houses in order so as to do likewise. Well the German people were on the streets with the rest of Europe, they are suffering like the rest of us, it is all a matter of degree. Capitalism can't work for the benefit of the people, it has to be abolished and a system based on mutual aid, sustainability and co-operation built in its place. Asking the government to "please be kinder to us" will only result in more of the same. Any attempt to modify capitalism will just move the suffering around, it will not get rid of the problem. Do we take on the struggle now, or do we leave it for our children and grand children?  This report from Frankfurt: 

(Reuters) - At least 15 German police officers were injured, one seriously, during rioting that lasted into Sunday morning, following an anti-capitalist protest in Frankfurt, police said. Demonstrators threw paint bombs at the European Central Bank and attacked emergency vehicles on Saturday in violence which escalated after police tried to arrest several protesters in the heart of Germany's financial capital. Battles stretched through the night and one officer was taken to intensive care after being singled out by a handful of demonstrators. Officers who went to his aid were met with massive violence, police said. Saturday's clashes mark one of the first significant outbreaks of violence in Germany connected to recent anti-capitalist demonstrations inspired by the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement. Police said they arrested 465 people during the "anti-capitalist day" march. A spokesman for the organisers, anti-capitalist alliance M31, said a group of around 200 protesters broke off the 6,000 strong demonstration and headed to the city centre.

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CAPITALISM DOESN'T WORK FOR US.

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WHY ASK FOR WHAT IS YOURS?

          Any protest within the capitalist system should not be about asking for a little more, or a slight improvement in our conditions. We produce and distribute everything, it is ours by right, we should be aiming to take control of all we produce and distribute. Our struggle must be to change the entire structure of the system we live under, and to shape society so that it sees to the needs of all our people. Capitalism is no more than a man made economic system and from our personal experiences we are fully aware that it doesn't work in the interests of the ordinary people. It is a system that enslaves the individual in the service of a small cabal of parasites. Why ask for cheaper bread when you make the bread?

The following is from disaccords.

Manado, Indonesia: translation of anti-authoritarian flyer from fuel price demonstrations

Anti-Authoritarian Flyer

       For us, protesting the increase in fuel prices is merely one partial action that is not essential. For us, being trapped in the logic of the economy and political issues is a shallow analysis of the commodification of life under capitalism and the State. Whether the price of fuel rises or not, it won’t change the fact that each of us remain consumers whose only role is to buy. Each of us remain low-cost workers whose role is to produce the commodities that we will buy. Each of us remain zombies who don’t have anything other than the obligation to continue being ruled, oppressed, tortured, consumed and to accumulate all the things we don’t need.

The deprivation of lives, their dreams and loves, is too simple if merely contained in economic issues such as rising fuel prices. We are too angry to understand that it is far more important for us to define and reclaim our lives, than simply following the glamour party of false opposition: to protest or support raising the price of fuel.

Demand more! This is an attempt for the possible to break out of impossibility, and the hypocrisy and shallowness of life at present.

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BIG BROTHER BITES DEEPER.

        It doesn't matter which party is in power, the state always wants more power over your life. The last Labour government tried to introduce this draconian control over our use of phones and Internet. However, for the usual party political motives the Tories and the LibDems opposed it, now they are in power and they plan to introduce the self same plans. This is probably the biggest step the state can take to pocking its nose right into your private and personal affairs. Every text, phone call, e-mail will be scrutinised, every web page you look at will be reported. Not only what pages, but how long you stayed on that page and how often you visit the page. All those silly little personal texts, and e-mails, all those very intimate phone calls, will be read and listened to by a bunch of prying government eyes and ears.

        This is the sort of thing that our so called democracy spouts its mouth off about when it happens in some other repressive regime, calling it an attack on the human right of expression.  It is bad when it is done overseas, but necessary when it is done here, hypocrisy rules as Big Brother bites deeper. George Orwell, why didn't we listen?

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WORKFARE = SLAVE LABOUR.

         Our friends in the corporate world simply love the ConDem's slave labour scheme that goes by the name of "Workfare", however some of them have been dropping out of the chance of some free labour, not because of any moral judgement, but because of the bad publicity from pickets and protests. Bad publicity might damage their stand in the "market place". So they'll make phony excuses, curse under their breath and walk away. All the more reason why we have to keep up the pressure on those still determined to milk the slave labour scheme. Holland & Barrett is one such corporate greed merchant.

          Members of Clydeside Industrial Workers of the World, the Anarchist Federation and Solidarity Federation picketed the Queen Street branch of Holland & Barrett at lunchtime on Saturday 31st March. We managed to turn some people away at the entrance. We had placards proclaiming 'The H&B Workfare Deal, Employ Three, Get One Free' in the style of Holland and Barrett advertising as Holland and Barrett plan to have a quarter of their workers as unpaid labour. Another placard said, 'Say No To Workfare At Holland and Barrett'. We gave out 500 leaflets detailing Holland & Barrett use of unpaid labour. A number of people stopped to ask what the picket was about. A member of the Holland & Barrett staff was one of these people on her way in to start her shift. She said that one girl had been on work experience at the store, but that she had got a permanent job. We pointed out generally Holland and Barrett have not given permanent contracts to 80% of people on work experience, their plans to introduce a 1000 more work experience people in the next year and how that could affect the hours of the permanent staff. The manager tried to tell us to move away from the entrance, but we just ignored her. In a final pathetic attempt to show us who was boss she bluffed that the police were on their way, even though there was nothing remotely illegal about what we were doing.

      There were over 20 actions against workfare over the weekend around Britain that will be part of an ongoing campaign. These actions were part of a national day of action called by the Solidarity Federation. The actions tied in with the international days of action against austerity called by the International Workers Association that included the general strike in Spain on March 29th, and the M31 European Day of Action Against Capitalism.

 

 

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IT'S SCOTLAND'S CROOKS AND LIARS SEASON.

        It is about a month to the Scottish local elections, that mini-farce, the small-fry competition of Crooks and Liars. The big national competition of Crooks and Liars, where the Oxbridge brigade of millionaires run around the country telling us how they really care for us ordinary peasant, is still some way off. However we should enjoy this local theatre production of Crooks and Liars and have some fun. We could turn up at their performances and have a good laugh and expose it for the smoke and mirrors illusion that know it to be. We could also spend the month in a concerted effort to reveal the hypocrisy, corruption and self serving reality of the Crooks and Liars competition they call elections.

       

This from Australia Indymedia:

         In the lead up to the Queensland State Election on March 24, a group of Brisbane Anarchists launched an anti-election campaign. In the week prior to the election, anarchists began pasting up a couple of thousand anti politician and anti voting posters all throughout the city. Political party placards erected throughout Brisbane were torn down or defaced with anarchist and anti politician messages. Anti-voting and anarchist graffiti was scrawled and sprayed across walls, billboards, electricity boxes and telephone booths.

      A banner reading "Vote 4 Nobody" was dropped over a railway bridge in Bowen Hills, where it hung for 3 days, before we reclaimed it at dawn of election day and hung it off a platform made of scaffolding in Highgate Hill, in preparation for Nobody to declare victory.

       As the polling booths opened at 8am, a number of anarchists defaced the all party advertising on display at 3 different polling locations, as well as stealing propaganda, party buttons, and "how to Vote" pamphlets from various party tables.

      After fleeing the polling booths, leaving a general mess behind them, other anarchists then began handing out anti voting leaflets and zines explaining Direct Action and Self-Organisation as a counterpoint to the pointless pathology of casting a ballot every few years for someone you know is lying to you.

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