The Madness Of Frenzied Consumerism.

        You can already hear the rumble of the consumerism sewer pipe, as the garbage flood that is Black Friday starts to attempt to poison the minds of all living under the deluge of pointless corporate consumerism. They must raise the panic level, they must infest your mind, don't be left behind, get out there and grab your happiness from the avalanche of super bundles of trinkets. Get in there with flaying arms and blind determination, the bigger the box the greater your happiness, don't let yourself be beaten in the frenzy of insanity, walk over the elderly, crawl under your neighbour. The rush, the shove, the push, the trampling, must mean there is something of value there for ME. A day of insanity, all to help feed the already overflowing coffers of the greedy corporate world. It is the festival of candy-floss and bubble gum, the main produce of the capitalist consumer world.

       Of course this insanity should be resisted at all costs, let them fill their selves with their trinkets, candy-floss and bubble gum, and watch their panic as it continues to sit on the shelves. Who knows, if we resist their intended greed fest, we may see a few CEO jump from their penthouse balconies.

On this subject, I re-post this from Not Buying Anything:

It's coming again - Black Friday.

      Yes, yet another apocalypse of extreme shopping that transforms regular people into consumer zombies. Why bother getting trampled or having an arm taken off by a falling television when you could avoid the shops entirely and do something infinitely more constructive?
Naturally, I have a few suggestions:
         Plan a White Friday, white being the colour of peace. Reach out to someone you are experiencing conflict with and extend an olive branch. Donate money to a non-profit that promotes peace around the world. Practice forgiveness for the whole day.
         Make it a Blue Friday. Know someone that is feeling down? Do something to make them feel better. When you are done you will feel better, too.
        Have a Green Friday and do something for the environment. Ride a bike instead of driving, start a recycling program, tell someone about something green that you are doing. Go for a walk, hike or roll.
         Make it a real Black Friday and have a lie in while in a darkened room. Get up when you are rested, and not a moment before.
          After you get up, sit quietly and explore the black space between your ears for a while. Repeat throughout the day. Nothing pays off as much as discovering more about the workings of the black box of your mind. Tracing your thoughts and pin-pointing your motivations means that you can better understand and choose your behaviour. You will make yourself more impervious to advertisement and propaganda, like the kind that leads to bizarre behaviours such as the consumer madness represented by Black Friday.
       That is black as in emptiness, the void, and the dark side of destruction. Why would one consciously choose that when there are so many alternatives?

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

 

Trying To Make Sense Of Insanity.

       As always we get a one sided self righteous monologue from our millionaire owned babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream Western media, that it so refreshing to hear an alternative view. Most people would agree that what is going on in the Middle East is some kind of insane nightmare, and for the ordinary person on the street it is extremely difficult to get your head round it all and make some sense out of what is actually going on. Of course being fed a diet of downright lies and distortion, and being unaware of the hidden agenda and the hidden power influences at work, it is almost impossible for us to to grasp the whole picture.

      Perhaps the following video might help to shape that picture a little bit more accurately.

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

The State's Assumption Of The Monopoly On Violence.

      Since that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, continues its coverage of the Paris massacre, with its one sided hypocritical, self righteous view of the world, I feel it is only right that other views must also be heard.

       Again I repeat, without losing or diminishing the sympathy for all those who suffered in that brutal massacre in Paris, and certainly in no way condoning the savage viciousness of the religious nutters who perpetrated this insanity, we should not forget, the French Republic is built on bodies of the innocent and cemented with their blood. An imperialist state where the red of its flag is the blood of innocents. Like all imperialist powers, it is a power structure held together with repression and brutal violence for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful. Like all states, it will not hesitate to use its power against it own people, as they have all done in the past, and then lie about the deaths of innocents, or classify their deaths as "unavoidable collateral damage". The imperialist powers of the world assume a monopoly on violence and stir up hatred by their savage plunder of others' lands in their never ending greed for more wealth, power, resources and markets. The imperialist world of competition for power and and wealth is insanity in the extreme, and we should not be surprised that it spawns violence in all the corners of the planet. This being so, why not here on our own doorstep? The system is our problem, not the people on the planet. 

Photos from the the October 1961 Paris massacre of anti war demonstrators.  

The following from Contra Info:

https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/25877/17+October+1961%3A+Massacre+in+Paris

Neither their War, nor their Peace!

“We must annihilate the enemies of the Republic… and strip those who besmirch the French spirit of their nationality.”
Manuels Valls, Prime Minister, 14th of November 2015

         If one has to recognize a certain continuity of the French Republic, its for sure the continuity of mass murder. From the State Terror of 1793-1794 which gave birth to the word terrorism to the slaughter of the insurgents of 1848 and those of the Commune of 1871; from the colonisation or the deportation of Jews made possible by prior screening and filing to the massacres of Algerian demonstrators in 1961 in the heart of Paris, all French Republics have massacred without counting so that the powerful might continue to dominate and exploit everyone. The French Republic is a mountain of corpses of which the filth that composes the summit has only be able to stay in place by crushing its true enemies, the rebels and revolutionaries who fought for a world of justice and freedom. The “French spirit”, if this enormous stupidity would ever exist, would be a closet filled up until the point of bursting with voices crying for vengeance against the bourgeois, the politicians, the cops, the soldiers and the priests who have trampled them to establish their power.
       Ah, but that’s all rubbish from the past, isn’t it? Do the decades of civil participation, commodity integration and generalised dispossessing really made forget those who still preserved a slightest touch of sensibility that firing randomly into the crowd is not an exclusivity of remote terrorists? That since several years the French State is making its great return on the international scene of state terrorism by multiplying its military attacks in the four corners of the globe (Libya, Mali, Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Central Africa, Iraq, Syria)? The pretext changes each time, but the reasons stay the same: to maintain control of strategic resources, to win new markets and influence zones, to preserve its interests against competitors, to avoid that insurrections are transformed into experiments of freedom. And if it was still needed, warnings have been given also to avert the indolent that this war logic will not know any territorial limit: the death of a demonstrator last year in Sivens or the bodies riddled with shrapnel in Notre-Dame-des-Landes and in Montabot recall that the offensive grenades in khaki do not hesitate, also not here, to be launched against crowds as to sow terror.

Read the full article HERE:

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

A Wet And Windy Walk Of Pride.

       Glasgow's Walk of Pride, yesterday, November 17th. was not as well attended as we would have liked, nor did as many people turn up that said they would. Perhaps the weather had something to do with that, as it was dreadful, cold, windy and wet. Never the less, all in all about 20 people braved the Scottish crap weather, and Walked with Pride, carrying their banners and making the symbolic noise of an odd racquet and whistle, down to the City Chambers in George Square. So marking that wonderful working class victory won in 1915, 

         A big thank you to all those who left the comfort of their home and braved the lousy Scottish November, and a thank you to all those who helped organise the event. 

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

An Orgy Of Illusionary Superiority.

       Once again I repeat, without losing any sympathy for the innocent people who suffered in the Paris massacre, and without condoning the brutal carnage carried out by the religious nutters responsible, we have to look back at history, and remember France is an imperialist power. France, like all imperialist powers, is guilty of brutal and vicious repression of the people of its colonies. Like all Western imperialists, it still stokes the fires of racism, and administers the policy of divide and conquer, to maintain its influence in its former colonies. History shapes our present, history is a step to our future, violence begets violence, war breeds war, repression spawns blowback. We reap what we sow, and we the ordinary people are now reaping the seeds of imperialist greed, and vicious brutality. How many deaths can be laid at the feet of the British Empire, The French Empire, and the American Empire? Brutal repression enters the consciousness of people, memories move from generation to generation.

      While we applaud and encourage, working class memories of capitalist repression in our own lands, we are not so aware of colonial people's memory of imperialist repression. However, we ignore it at our peril. We have to break out of this insane circle of patriotism, state power, one state dominating another, for the benefit of a small elite. We have to start and start now, and build that world of no borders, no state, no dominant force, where patriotism dies and state nor religion exerts no power over the individual. We are one species, on one small planet, with no escape capsule, we have to come together, or destroy ourselves, in an orgy of illusionary superiority.

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

Workers Know Your History, November 17, 1915, Rent Strike Victory.

A reminder, today, 17th. November, we celebrate that great victory with pride.

THE RENT STRIKE.

CAUSES.

         The first world war saw considerable change to the structure of Glasgow's working class. Youth employment was common with boys as young as 11 years of age employed as horse drawn van drivers. Also women being employed in what until then had been all male trades. Ministry of Munitions figures stated that by 1916 there were 18,500 women working in metal trades in the Clydeside area. During the war the standard of living improved considerably with near full employment, endless overtime and restricted pub hours. After the war there was a tremendous rise in unemployment and in poverty.

GLASGOW WOMEN’S HOUSING ASSOCIATION.

        In pre First World war Glasgow there were a large number of empty houses, by the year 1915 all were occupied by incoming workers to the munitions and allied war industry trades. A shortage of workers and materials saw a lack of maintenance and the housing stock deteriorate rapidly. At the beginning of the war the landlords tried to implement large rent increases, at risk were 7,000 pensioners and families whose men were fighting in France. This brought about the formation of the "Glasgow Women's Housing Association" and many local "Women's Housing Associations" to resist the increases. All manner of peaceful activities were used to prevent evictions and drive out the Sheriff's officers. There were constant meetings in an attempt to be one step ahead of the Sheriff's officers. All manner of communication was used to summon help, everything from drums, bells, trumpets and anything that could be used to create a warning sound to rally the supporters who were mainly women as the men were at work in the yards and factories at these times. They would then indulge in cramming into closes and stairs to prevent the entry of the Sheriff's officers and so prevent them from carrying out their evictions. They also used little paper bags of flour, peasmeal and whiting as missiles directed at the bowler hatted officers. These activities culminated on the 17th of November 1915 with the massive demonstration and march of thousands through the city streets and on to the Glasgow Sheriff's Court. This resulted in the immediate implementation of the "1915 Rent Restriction Act" which benefited tenants across the country. The Rent Act was to run for 6 months after the war. However immediately after the war the Glasgow Property and Factors' Association demanded large rent increases. The City's tenants organised the Scottish Labour Housing Association. John Wheatley through an ILP campaign helped to bring about the 1920 Rent Restriction Act. The intended compromise was that there would be an immediate increase of 15% plus another 25% if essential repairs were done. The tenants, however stated that there had been no repairs since 1914 and precious few before that. On the 23rd of August 1920 a General Strike was called and had a massive support in Glasgow. A large demonstration took place on Glasgow Green and "Notices of Increase" were piled up and set alight. The property owners response was to take out eviction orders in Court against tenants who refused to pay. During the period between the 1920s and the 1930s Glasgow's unemployment never fell below 20% with a population of over 1,250,000. Unemployment in the city climbed to over 25% during the thirties. The Labour Housing Association pointed out that the cases could be continued in the Sheriff Court, who were unlikely to grant thousands of decrees for eviction of unemployed tenants. It appears that the Glasgow Sheriffs were not unsympathetic to the plight of the poor tenants. The "GLASGOW HERALD" , a newspaper not noted for its sympathy towards the ordinary folk of Glasgow, carried an article on, " ...the human consequences of this endless litigation against the poor..."

LEGAL CONFUSION.

         The numerous attempts at peaceful protest to the evictions continued, using the same methods as before. Thousands of windows had notices stating, "We are not paying rent increases" . The situation with regards to tenants under Scots law was that when they signed their original tenancy agreement accepting the rent the agreement was binding on both parties as long as the tenant paid the stated rent. The factor could not alter the rent without first issuing a Notice of Removal", giving the tenant the option of accepting the new rent or vacating the premises. On the 26th of November 1920 the Sheriff-substitute Menzies of Dumbarton Sheriff Court held that the rent increases allowed by the 1920 "Rent Act" are invalid where no "Notice of Removal" had been given. Further, rent increases paid under these circumstances could be reclaimed by the tenants. At the same time, on the same day the Glasgow Sheriff Court gave the opposite ruling on an identical case involving "Emmanuel Shinwell", who was duly evicted. The Factors Association appealed the Dumbarton Court decision all the way through the legal system to the Law Lords and in each appeal the decision was to agree with the Dumbarton Court's findings. The Glasgow "Rent Strike " movement, though still continuing was now weaker than the situation in Clydebank where it remained solid and very militant.

ASSESSMENT.

         Due to the trouble and chaos of the rent situation the government in January 1925 set up a commission under "Lord Constable" to look at the whole affair of rented accommodation. This more or less brought about the collapse of the "Rent Strike" movement. The rent strikes were not led by any one person or group. This was a genuine popular struggle involving; women, housewives, the "National Unemployed Workers Movement", militants, organised vigilantes, propagandists and housing associations. 

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

To Get Beyond Two Shitty Choices.

       Without losing sympathy for the victims of violence or condoning violence, one should never forget that France is an imperialist power. It is in other lands with modern fire power defending its assets, the "collateral damage", is the deaths of innocent men, women and children, creating trauma and misery for families and friends on a greater scale than what happened in France the other night. Violence be-gets violence, war breeds war, and so the circle is perpetuated.

     Until now the fight has always been, from first to last, between existing and aspiring world powers; it has always been a struggle between a power that already oppresses us and one that will soon do so; the point, however, is to finally get beyond this stale tale of two shitty choices----

The First and Last Word on a Rotten Civilisation.  

       -------Unlike the citizens of early Mesopotamian city-states, who assembled to govern their own affairs directly and whose active consent was needed even by a demi-god ruler like Gilgamesh before he could wage war, the voters of France assemble only to labour as servants for their bosses or consume the bread and circuses they are thrown as distraction and compensation for their servitude. The rulers of European or Middle-Eastern states wage war through the passive resignation of modern plebeans, who can do no more than reap the grave consequences of decisions they neither understand nor command. A civilisation that began as a democracy of slave-holders who elected their representatives has reached perfection in a democracy of slaves who elect their masters. From this botched experiment (which has produced nothing but irresponsibility, insanity, and impotence – transmuted by the lies of history, art and political-economy into fictions with pretty names like duty, reasonableness, and maturity) there's nothing worth defending or saving.

The ferocious muslims who, unlike the era of the crusaders, now have the ability to retaliate, are right to despise it. If only they did so consistently! The first and final paragraphs from the entry for Ebla on Wikipedia read:

Ebla was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about 55 km southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center throughout the third millennium BC and in the first half of the second millennium BC. Its discovery proved the Levant was a center of ancient, centralized civilization equal to Egypt and Mesopotamia, and ruled out the view that the latter two were the only important centers in the Near East during the early Bronze Age. Karl Moore described the first Eblaite kingdom as the first recorded world power.
As a result of the Syrian Civil War, excavations of Ebla stopped in March 2011, and large-scale looting occurred after the site came under the control of an opposition armed group. Many tunnels were dug and a crypt full of human remains was discovered; the remains were scattered and discarded by the robbers, who hoped to find jewelry and other precious artifacts. Digging all around the mound was conducted by nearby villagers with the aim of finding artifacts; some villagers removed carloads of soil suitable for making ceramic liners for bread-baking ovens from the tunnels."

The villagers of Syria know how to treat the ruins of a despicable past with the disrespect it deserves. Only people able to perform this task coherently can create anything useful, beautiful and happy out of the rubble of a miserable history. Until now the fight has always been, from first to last, between existing and aspiring world powers; it has always been a struggle between a power that already oppresses us and one that will soon do so; the point, however, is to finally get beyond this stale tale of two shitty choices. Humanity will never be happy until the last Quran is used as tinder for setting fire to the presidential palace of the last democratic republic!

Read the full article HERE: 

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

 

Glasgow's Walk Of Pride.

        A rallying call, for this Tuesday, 17th. November, 12 noon, this is not a protest march, it is a Walk of Pride, a chance for all Glaswegians to show their pride in their parents and grandparents. In the struggles that they fought, the poverty and repression they endured with solidarity and dignity. The battles they won, against all the odds. November 1915 saw the rent strike victory over the greed of landlords, forcing the government of the day to introduce The Rent Restriction Act, freezing rents across the whole of the UK, until the end of the war.
       This was no mean victory, it took the combined determination and solidarity of all the women in the districts of Glasgow and Clydeside, combined with the unstinting support of the workers in the shipyards and factories of Clydeside.
       Let's hold our heads high, show our pride in that spirit of solidarity, and determination that built an unbeatable working class army of ordinary people. Let's make it a fun day, let's celebrate our history, our culture. Come along in your groups, families, friends and neighbours. Bring your noise with you, let's create that noise that rallied the women of the time to come out and face down the sheriff officers. Bring pots, pans, whistles, drums, racquets, banners and music. Let's walk with pride, it's our history, a history of solidarity. 

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

Groundhog Day.

         Recently I was given a book by a comrade/friend, thanks Tommy. It was called, Coogit Bairns, for the ill-informed, it translates as "Cowgate Children", Cowgate being a district in Edinburgh. It was a book of poems and prose by a Scottish poet Sandie Craigie, 1963-2005, a wonderful performance poet, that I seemed to have missed, one of the problems of being a loner most of my life. Her subject matter is too varied to pick a typical example, but I thought this one was quite relevant to today.

            The book is published by Red Squirrel Press and printed by Clydeside Press. 

Not 1984.

George Orwell was a clever man
we say
forgettin that the flaw in the human race
is that we tend to repeat ourselves
until we learn

Even if the words in the history books
make it sound like it wiz different
in 1916, 53, 1956, 1959, 61, 1964, 65, 70, 72, 1973, 1979 and 1980
1989, 1991, 1997, up ti and including the present day,
am ah borin ye yet?
in Ireland, Iran, Hungary, Haiti, Zaire, Brazil, Indonesia,
Cambodia, Chile
Afghanistan, El Salvador, Panama, an the Gulf
In Nagasaki, the Basque, Sudan, Rwanda, Armenia
Australia, Noreiga and the Kurdish nation
just remember that history is written
by cunts too thick ti learn
just as George Bush makes predictions
in words we ken dinny come fi him

Orwell's message wiz clear
history dizny repeat itself
it's the cunts in power
and this isny 1984
it's groundhog day
in Brilliant Technicolour
again and again and again 

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

For The World To Live, Europe Must Die.

      We are all human, and in the sea of sorrow at the suffering that occurred in Paris on Friday 13th. November, it is difficult to focus on the bigger picture, we are overwhelmed by the pain and suffering of the dead, wounded and traumatised.  We feel it greater because of the close proximity, we feel less for similar suffering far away, Iraq for example, but it is a small world. The traumatised, weeping parents, family and friends is repeated across the Middle East on a daily basis, but our mainstream media doesn't cover it in the same manner.

       I don't believe "evil",( a word I detest) pops out of a bottle from nowhere, it usually has a history, a birth somewhere in the past. Short term memory will never solve the problem, we have to look a lot deeper into the past, the seeds were sown somewhere at some point. 

     I found the article, For the World to Live, "Europe" Must Die. by Russell Means, brings clarity to this whole question of violence, placing it firmly in an historical context. 

      “The only possible opening for a statement like this is that I detest writing. The process itself epitomizes the European concept of "legitimate thinking": what is written has an importance that is denied the spoken. My culture, the Lakota culture, has an oral tradition, so I ordinarily reject writing. It is one of the white world's ways of destroying the cultures of non-European peoples, the imposing of an abstraction over the spoken relationship of a people.” -- Russell Means (in a 1980 speech)

       The following are two rather large quotes from his article, however, the whole article is well worth the time it takes to read.

       The deaths of hundreds of people in a third world country evidently do not send the world’s press into high alert. In fact, while 500,000 Iraq children died [UNICEF figure] as a result of U.S. bombing of Iraq’s power generation, water purification and sewage processing infrastructure compounded by U.S.-led U.N. sanctions/embargoes of essential food and medical supplies to Iraq, it was given coverage but not the sort of frantic coverage given by ‘terrorist attacks’ in the U.S., Britain, Spain and most recently France. It is hard NOT to compare this lack of empathy to third world citizens to the cultural genocide inflicted on indigenous peoples of North America by European colonizers.
       The attention given to terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States, that Means and Churchill refer to as; ... ‘some people pushing back’, and, ... ‘chickens coming home to roost’, .. are treated as one-offs, and are not viewed by the Western press or Western leaders as part of a ongoing conflict that began with 15th century European colonization. Instead, they are portrayed as coming out of nowhere for 'no reason' [why would anyone attack innocent others?] as if they are pre-shocks that warn of an imminent Armageddon.
        In the wake of the attacks in France, yesterday, Barack Obama’s comment was;
      Once again we’ve seen an outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians. This is an attack, not just on Paris, it’s an attack not just on the people of France, but this is an attack on all of humanity and universal values that we share.”
     ‘Once again’, ... we see Western world leaders pull out the binary ‘good versus evil’ framing, characterizing the colonizing powers and their supporters as ‘good’ and ‘innocent’ and as ‘victims’, ... while those people ‘pushing back’ are characterized in this binary framing, as ‘evil’ and ‘guilty’ and as ‘offenders’.
      Few people can help but think about themselves and their own families undergoing such horror, whether watching helplessly as their children die in the terrible conditions in Iraq arising from infrastructure bombings and embargoes, or whether slaughtered quickly and suddenly in shootings and bombings in Paris restaurants and concert halls.
       Strife is inevitable and war is hell, but pulling out this logical and moral reference framing, which Nietzsche euphemistically terms ‘a great stupidity’, amounts to such blatantly obvious denial that it can only amplify the radicalizing of some increasing fraction of the millions of those who ‘dream of pushing back’ but who, in the larger fraction, remain committed to less violent remedial paths.
     Western leaders are ‘scientific thinkers’ and their discursive reasoning is based on logical assumptions adopted by science, such as;
      “Instead of embracing in its entirety the progressive development of a phenomenon, we simply try to connect each moment with the one immediately preceding. We admit that the present state of the world only depends on the immediate past, without being directly influenced, so to speak, by the recollection of a more distant past.” — Poincare, ‘Origin of Mathematical Physics’
     Such simplification, termed ‘economy of thought’ by philosophers of science, is very convenient when one has gained the position one now has through a program of global domination via colonization [military appropriation of the lands of indigenous peoples] and cultural genocide. It is a scientific concept reinforced by the Enlightenment European view of man as an ‘independent reason-driven being’, a ‘human being’ that is fully and solely responsible for his own behaviour.
      So, look out, push back people, because the statute of limitations on prosecuting colonizer and sovereigntist atrocities expires before it starts, and where there is push-back, those who push back violently will be judged fully and solely responsible for ‘their evil and offensive behaviour’ against the ‘innocent colonizing powers and their innocent, victimized constituents’.
      This essay is NOT aimed at justifying push-back retribution in Paris, New York, London, Madrid and elsewhere. There is no support in it for Western moral judgement based retributive justice. This essay is a commentary on the hypocrisy of Western leadership and the pathetic façade of holier-than-thou innocence coupled with sternly self-righteous commitments to ‘rid the world of evil’. The physical reality of our natural experience is NOT binary; i.e. if we are to be honest we must “embrace in its entirety the progressive development of a phenomenon” and thus connect the authorship of the push-back to colonizing powers who have been spring-loading the pushers-back for a long, long while.--------

And a little further on:

       Meanwhile, global media rushes to support the bald-faced political pitch of ‘good and evil’ on each eruption of push-back violence. Nevertheless, in the intervals, even mainstream media opinion-shapers such as BBC’s Adam Curtis are making documentaries such as ‘Bitter Lake’, advertised quote/unquote as; “How Western leaders' simplistic "good" vs. "evil" narrative has failed”, and how Western political leaders have come to recognize that the source of their power has shifted from rallying people onward and upward towards a Utopian society, to defending people against a global decline and free-fall towards a horrific Dystopia.
       What is unfolding is reminiscent of Nietzsche’s predictions. Nietzsche, in the 1890s, suggested that it would take two centuries for ‘Europe to die’ in the very same sense that Russell Means intends it; to suspend this ridiculous pretense of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’ as binary realities; i.e. to restore intuition and harmony-seeking to their natural precedence over reason and morality.
      He didn’t say how it would play out, exactly, other than that there would be “devaluation of the highest values”; i.e. ‘good and evil’ ‘truth and falsehood’, morality and reason.
      Both are already looking pretty shabby on Friday, November 13th, 2015.

Read the full article HERE:

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

Rent Strikes And Walk Of Pride.

       The Spirit of Revolt exhibition being held in the Mitchell Library foyer has been running now for two weeks, and has proved popular and has had many positive comments. 

       If you have not yet made your way long to browse through the exhibits and have a chat with Spirit of Revolt members, you still have an opportunity, as it has a couple of weeks to run, it ends on November 28th.

      The main theme of the exhibition is the 1915 rent strikes, and is called, The Rent Strikes 100 Years On. It highlights the use of rent strikes across the world as a tool of struggle by people trying to improve or safeguard their conditions.  There is also display paying homage to the peace movement around the same period during WW1. As November this year marks the centenary of the execution of Joe Hill, there is a display marking some details of his life. 

      There is another event in which the Spirit of Revolt is involved. To mark the magnificent victory of the 1915 Rent Strikes. There will be a "Walk of Pride" held on November 17th. forming up at the Donald Dewar statue at the top of Buchanan Street and walking, noisily and with pride in our tradition of solidarity and struggle, making our way to the City Chambers in George Square. Do come along, bring your friends, family and the rallying implements of the rent strike, pots, pans, whistles, racquets and banners, let's reclaim that pride in our history and our working class culture.

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

Black December.

       The Greek state is preparing for Black December, the police are organising to crack down on anarchists across Greece. The crack down has been going on for a considerable time, however, the call for Black December will allow them to escalate the brutal repression.

This from Greek Reporter:

       Greek police are on alert after jailed anarchist Nikos Romanos issued a written statement calling all anarchists to wage war against the state and “…take over city halls and blow up fascists and bosses.”
      As the November 17 celebration and the anniversary of the murder of teenager Alexandros Grigoropoulos by a policeman on December 6 approach, the 22-year-old man who is serving 15 years in prison for armed robbery sent a written statement to indymedia.gr website calling all anarchists to arms.
     Given that since December 6, 2008 when Grigoropoulos was killed there are extreme riots taking place in Athens and Thessaloniki with arson and injuries of policemen, Greek police are preparing to deal with the threat.
      In the long statement coming from inside Korydallos Prison, there is mention of a destructive “action campaign called ‘Black December'” which will “restart the anarchist revolution, inside and outside of prison.”
     “Let’s smash the windows of department stores, occupy schools, universities and city halls, let’s distribute texts that spread the message of rebellion, blow up fascists and bosses,” read the message co-written by Romanos and convict Panagiotis Argyrou, member of terrorist group Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire.
        “… Let’s blow up the homes of politicians, throw molotov cocktails at cops, cover walls with messages, sabotage the normal flow of Christmas trade,” the statement continues.
        “…Let’s paint with ashes on the ugly buildings of banks, police stations, multinational corporations, army camps, television studios, courthouses, churches and charity organizations,” the statement further reads.
      Romanos was with Grigoropoulos on the night the 15-year-old was killed by policeman Epameinondas Korkoneas. Since then, Romanos pledged to avenge the death of his friend and fight against the state that killed him. In early 2013, Romanos, along with Yiannis Michailidis, Andreas Bourzoukos and Dimitris Politis were arrested during an armed robbery attempt at Velventos in northern Greece. 

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

 

Capitalism And Slave Labour Camps.

       Capitalism, where is it going? I suppose we could look at the most developed capitalist country in the world and gain some idea. America, King Capitalist, the big boy in the game, the pinnacle of capitalist development, what does it show us? Over the last six years, America's wealth has grown by over $30 trillion, a staggering 60%, over roughly the same period, the number of homeless children has grown by the same staggering figure, 60%. In 2013, 2.5 million children experienced homelessness, 1 in 30. According to UNICEF, America has the highest child relative poverty rates in the developed world.
      Homelessness in America is another indicator of what capitalism brings to people, approximately 3.5 million people experience homelessness in America each year. Roughly 15% of Americans, 4.8 million, live in poverty, with 7.7 million classified as living in poor households. These are figures from the crowning glory of capitalism.
      Apart from the poverty and homelessness in America, there is a much more sinister aspect to American capitalism, the road that we are all heading down, its prison system. America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, its recent figures stand at 2.3 million, of its citizens locked up, mostly Black and Hispanic. America has locked up half a million more people than China, which has five time the population of the US. America, with 5% of the world's population, accounts for 25% of the world's prison population.

      The prison system in America is big business, the system is highly privatised and a wonderful money maker for the corporate world. 

       “The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work, lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps.”
     The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. “This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”

        The American prison system is slave labour, with a workforce that can be paid less than a dollar a day, has no union rights or representation, never turns up late, never goes on strike, or makes demands for increase wages, and can be punished for not working hard enough. In some cases, private prison are paid by the government for the number of empty beds they have, as the government guarantees a certain occupancy rate, so logically it pays the state to fill the prisons. This of course encourages big business to build more prisons.
       The US prison business is no small-fry production unit, this is BIG business. The American prison system produces for the American market, 

     100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts pants, tents, bags and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98 percent of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93 percent of paints and paintbrushes; 92 percent of stove assembly; 46 percent of body armor; 36 percent of home appliances; 30 percent of headphones/microphones/speakers; and 21 percent of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.”
       When you can get that kind of labor for less than a dollar a day, it’s hard to see the government’s motivation for incarcerating fewer people. And it’s all done at the taxpayer’s expense.

        So let's look at America,  and see the future of capitalism, poverty, homelessness and mass slave labour camps by means of state incarceration. This is our future, unless we do something about it, and do it quick.

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