Same Old, Same Old, Capitalism.

          It is claimed that Puerto Rico is a poor country, a small country mired in debt, stated to be $90 billion, but how can you be poor if, in the last 20 years, you produced $600 billion tax free profit for corporations? How does that work? Well, Puerto Rico is a colony of imperialist America, like all colonies, it is plundered to enrich their imperialist masters. Puerto Rico is basically owned by big corporations. A mere 10% of that plunder would clear all Puerto Rico's debt. The people of Puerto Rico like all subjugated people of colonies across the world, can't solve their problems, as long as control over their daily lives and their assets lies in the hands of their imperialist masters and the big corporations. This slave master relationship comes, as always, at great cost to the people. Recently, because of the ever recurring crisis in capitalism, the people of Puerto Rico have had to bear the usual “austerity” plan. This is devastating when the standard of living is among the poorest in that area, estimates show 44%+ of the people living in poverty. They have been attacked by increase sales taxes, a reduction in the working day, with the subsequent drop in income, a considerable drop in health and education services, the dismantling of labour rights, the destruction of their pension system, and a host of other life destroying measures. Although lots of Puerto Ricans live in homes that would not be classified as homes in the "developed" world, there has been a recent surge in homelessness. A population trying to exist in dire poverty and deprivation, while the wealth of their country is sucked straight into the corporate world's bank accounts.

        Puerto Rico is just another example of a capitalist system riding roughshod over people to maximise profits, aided and abetted by the military power of imperialism. Until we sort out in our minds that such a system has to go, one way or another, before the people of this world can see justice, and reap the benefits of their own labour. A better world is possible, it is up to us, the ordinary people of this planet, to come together in solidarity, and create that better world, that sees to the needs of all our people.

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Charlie Baird Sn.

 

      Spirit of Revolt has for the latest "Read of the Month", posted, Charlie Baird Sn.: An Interview. Charlie was a Glasgow anarchist from the WW2 period through to the 60s, a very colourful period in Glasgow anarchist history. It should be of interest to younger activist in the city and wider afield. If anybody has a photo of Charlie, I'd love to have a copy.

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It's Going Down.

         There is no doubt that capitalism is destroying the earth, turning into a planet that can't support civilised human life. A depressing statement, but is there anybody out there that can see the future blossoming into a world fit for all, under the present economic system? Save humanity, kill capitalism, save the planet, kill capitalism, I don't see any alternative. The time may never be better to bring an end to capitalism, as at present it is facing major crisis after major crisis, it lurches from disaster to an emergency situation, the world's debt keeps spiralling into the stratosphere, though poverty runs ragged over the world, production keeps producing more than people can buy. If it were a beast, it would be humane to put it out of its misery. Only then will the ordinary people of this world be able to bathe in the warmth and light of justice and freedom.

This from Kickstarter:

A magazine of anarchist news & practice across so-called North America, compiling the best texts published to itsgoingdown.org

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World Banking Explained.

     Modern world commerce explained in a very brief video. The only criticism I would have with this, is the statement that capitalism isn't the real problem, it's just a nasty form of capitalism that is the problem. The truth is that there is only one form of capitalism, and that is very nasty indeed.

World banking explained in less than 2 minutes...
World banking explained in less than 2 minutes...An animated interview of IMF whistleblower John Perkins, author of 'HoodWinked' and 'Confessions Of An Economic Hitman'Feel free to share, to educate others... For more info like this, please visit: Wesley Hall: The Voice Of Treason
Posted by Wesley P P Hall on Sunday, 27 September 2015

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Tomorrow, January 22nd. Trans Prisoner Day Of Solidarity.

       Society is not civilised as long as it locks people up in cages. All those unfortunate enough to find themselves locked up under some state legislation, suffer humiliation, trauma and violence, both mental and physical. For some the experience can be even more brutal, those who society considers not to fit the "norm", can find prison an unbearable experience, and in many cases, their experience ends in suicide. This type of treatment is intolerable in a modern civilised society. We have a duty to stand up for those put through this repressive state treatment, and show our unstinting solidarity.

Download and distribute this pdf zine in low-res (6mb) or high-res (24mb)
This zine will be distributed to folks both inside and outside prison walls.

       January 22nd 2016 will be the first annual Trans Prisoner Day of Action: an international day of action in solidarity with trans prisoners. This project was first imagined by Marius Mason, a trans anarchist prisoner in Texas, USA. Since then, through his friends and supporters, an international collective of people both inside and outside of prison walls have come together to make this day a reality. A preliminary list of trans prisoners can be found here.

 

US prisons: 
Statement from Marius Mason for the Trans Prisoner Day of Action and Solidarity January 22nd 2016

        Happy New Year, Family and Friends! Many, many thanks for so much support and care over this year from both long-standing friends and new pen pals. I feel very grateful and am always humbled by the encouragement and resources sent my way by folks who are doing so much already to increase our collective chances for survival. The news has been full of stories about someone winning the big money pool that has accumulated for the US Lotto – but the most important “win” has nothing to do with money. I am betting on the movement to win big this year: in getting more control over their communities and defending against police brutality and racial inequality, in winning more victories for animal and in the defense of wild spaces, in creating social relations based on respect, dignity and compassion for all people… irregardless of their race, orientation, creed or gender presentation.       Thank you for coming together today, to hold up those members of our community who struggle so hard behind walls to keep their sense of self intact. Sovereignty over our selves, our bodies is essential for any other kind of liberty to be possible. By reaching out to trans prisoners, you affirm their right to define themselves for themselves – and defend them against the overwhelming voices who claim that they do not exist, that they must allow others to define them. In the isolating environment of prison, this is toxic and intimidating, and amounts to the cruelest form of psychological torture. By offering your help and solidarity, you may just save a life. I know that for the last year and a half, as I have struggled to assert myself as a transman, as I have advocated for the relief of appropriate medical care for my gender dysphoria – it has been the gentle and loving reminders of my extended family of supporters who have given me strength and courage to continue. Please join me in offering this help to so many others who need it to keep going. Never underestimate the healing power of a letter, those letters have kept me going…and I want to pass that gift on, if you will help me.
       Thank you again for coming together on this day, for connecting to those on the inside who truly need you, who need you to see them as they really are and striving to be. Until the prisons are gone, we need to work hard to support those of us inside – especially those of us who are not always as visible to the rest of the world. We are always stronger together.
Marius Mason
January 2016

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London Anarchist Black cross.

From London Anarchist Black Cross:

       Two anti-fascist prisoners currently serving a custodial sentence in relation to a fight with the South East Alliance in London during the summer of 2014. If you would like to write to either K or D, address envelopes to one of them and send to Freedom Bookshop. They will then be forwarded on to them. Remember to include a name and address on the card/letter for the prison to accept it. 

ADDRESS:
K or D,
c/o Freedom Bookshop,
Angel Alley,
84b Whitechapel High Street,
London, E1 7QX.        We at London Anti-Fascists believe history has taught us that anti-fascist action is ALWAYS self-defense. It’s in that radical tradition of confronting fascist’s and their ideas that we organise to create a space for working class organisation in order to realise a world without hunger or fear.
Solidarity!

About londonabc

       London Anarchist Black Cross, is a collective set up with the aim of supporting prisoners: political prisoners, people in detention centres or just people fucked over by the capitalist system.

View all posts by londonabc →

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Internationalists With A Hatred Of Nations.

        Anarchists are individuals, anarchists are internationalists, internationalist that drive towards the obliteration of nations. Just as we see no boundaries to our solidarity, we see no borders between patches of soil on the planet, we are blind to ethnicity, the only category we desire is comrade. We are people on a planet that belongs equally to us all. There can be no nobler dream, than to see all, as free as we wish ourselves to be. It is to that end anarchists strive.

This from Insurrection News:

       From the movement in solidarity with Sacco and Vanzetti when sabotage were realized, among others, by the anarchist circles close to the journal Culmine to the sabotage actions in solidarity with the hunger strikes of the Greek comrades, from the coordination and support between comrades of the United States and Mexico to organize and propagate the insurrectional upheavals of 1910 – including the support to comrades on the run or in prison – to pamphlets in solidarity with the comrades of the 5E-M in Mexico, anarchism has showed clearly that there exist no borders for solidarity and coordination, that is to say, for the struggle itself. From comrades in Norway or Finland, countries where social pacification is strongly spread to comrades in Turkey, Syria or the Arab countries which are since years finding them-selves in a logic of all out war, we anarchists are not going to create social or ethnic categorizations, neither are we going to reproduce those categorizations that the capitalist system has created to divide. We are not going to treat comrades as little bourgeois due to the fact that they are born in a place different than ours, just as we are not going to discriminate (“positively” moreover!) others who are born in much more catastrophic and rotten places than where we are living.
       It is clear that each place has its own characteristics that in a certain way define the conditions of the struggle and that the insurrectional project has to be adapted to this characteristics, but even as such the anarchist struggle does not only correspond to local outlines of struggle. On the contrary: the struggle tries to be global reality of attack against State and Capital. As such, anarchy is far away from leftist realism, that left realism which incites passivity, waiting, reformism and kills all dreams and desires for a life of quality through the speech of what is possible and what can be done based on “the reality we are living”.

Read the full article HERE:

 

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Yap.

        If your not political, you're a zombie!!!

Another episode from Circled A Radio.

          He’s a philosopher, an established spoken word artist who’s performed at many festivals, a solo musician and most notably The front man of rap nu-metal band called One Minute Silence based in London.
LISTEN HERE; 

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

Anarcha-feminism.

         Information from ASN on their 4th International Conference, so start writing your papers and booking your seats, I'm sure you have something to say on the matters mentioned.

** PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY **

Anarchist Studies Network :: 4th International Conference
Loughborough University, U.K. – 14-16 September 2016
Central theme: Anarcha-feminism
Call for Papers and Sessions

      The global resistance faces turbulent times, as the balance of hope teeters between inspiring mobilisation and reactionary retrenchment. In Rojava, Kurdish communities are implementing libertarian socialism and feminist leadership on a scale unseen since the Spanish civil war, while world powers bomb the democratic Syrian opposition alongside ISIS. The mobilisation of African Americans against police brutality goes beyond liberal platitudes to highlight systemic racism, while competitors for the Republican candidacy outdo one another in barefaced bigotry and misogyny. And while anarchists were encouraged by the resurgence of popular protest in the wake of the global financial crisis, much of that energy has been absorbed by electoral initiatives from Greece and Spain to the UK and US, vindicating longstanding concerns about the co-optation of movements who expect too much of the state. In these uncertain days, the elaboration of anarchist analysis which bridges theory and practice and speaks to the needs of social movements assumes increasing importance.
      The 4th International Conference of the Anarchist Studies Network will be held at Loughborough University between 14-16 September 2016. Proposals are welcome for individual papers, panels, and streams of several panels. We especially encourage panel proposals, to include 3-4 presentations drawn together around a common theme, although individual paper proposals are of course also welcome.
      Contributions from both within and outside the official academic sphere are invited from any scholarly discipline(s), on any topic relevant to the study of anarchism.
       The central theme for the conference is anarcha-feminism. The purposes are twofold: to stimulate discussion of a form of oppression that anarchists oppose but which continues to be felt in anarchist organising; and to welcome individuals, groups and communities who have not previously participated in ASN events. By recognising the legacy of anarcha-feminists/anarchist feminism and women's activism in anarchism we want to strengthen the ties between contemporary anarchists and feminists in the struggle against oppression and use the recognition of misogynist practices and hierarchical gender structures to open up the event to other marginalised peoples. We therefore particularly encourage submissions from women, trans and non-binary people, queer activists, collectives, people of colour, people with disabilities and we strongly encourage panel and panel stream organizers to overcome exclusion. We are also especially interested in presentations that are concerned with anarchism and one/more of the following:

*Anarcha-feminist and queer theory
*Anarcha-feminist critiques of the state
*Anarcha-feminist histories
*Ecofeminism, individualist anarcha-feminism, anarcho-primitivist feminism,     posthuman, cyborg and sci-fi anarcho-feminism
*Feminist critiques of anarchism and anarchist engagement with feminism
*Intersections between gender, sexuality, race, class, abilities and anarchism
*Local anarcho-feminist struggles / experiences
*Love, sex, relationships (or resistance to)
*Masculine and feminine representations and the movement between them
*Sex work and reproductive rights
*The role of women and non-binary people in the struggle against capitalism
      In addition, we welcome contributions on any other topic relevant to the study of anarchism, with or without connection to anarcha-feminism.
      ASN conferences aim to breach new frontiers in anarchist scholarship, and encourage cross-pollination between disciplines. As well as submissions that bridge the gap between ‘academic’ and other forms of knowledge, we also welcome proposals for workshops, art events/performances and experimental pieces and are happy to discuss ideas that you might have.
    Please send abstracts of up to 250 words per paper (multiply for panel/stream proposals) to ASN Co-convenor Uri Gordon at u.gordon@lboro.ac.uk by 14 March 2016

Anarchist Studies Network: http://anarchist-studies-network.org.uk/

Uri Gordon
Lecturer in Politics and Senior Tutor
Department of Politics, History & International Relations
Loughborough University
LE11 3TU
United Kingdom

 

Tel. +00 44 (0)1509 223656

http://lboro.academia.edu/UriGordon/

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Ungovernable.

       Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, don't give us much of what is happening in Spain, other than some tourist information about "cheap" flights, but nothing about what the people of Spain are going through, nor their resistance to the authoritarian cabal that sits in Madrid. Recently Spain has introduced some extremely draconian legislation, in an attempt to crush that resistance of the people. However, the people will not be crushed, the resistance continues.

        I received this video, Ungovernable, in a comment from comrade Loam at arrezafe, though I don't speak Spanish, the film makes its story very clear, poverty, inequality, repression, and most of all, resistance to a system that must die, if freedom is to live.

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An Important Date For Your Diary, January 26.

         Another call from North Kelvin Meadow for solidarity on Tuesday, 26th. January. This is a very important day for the Meadow, and the residents of the area, indeed for Glasgow. On that day, the men in suits are coming out of their corridors of power at the Kremlin in George Square, to view the meadow, to see how best they can carve it up, to hand to their corporate friends, the developers. Year by year community green spaces disappear from our city, to be replaced by business premises or houses that the locals can't afford. So bit by bit all public assets vanish into the clutches of the corporate world. The city without its green spaces is a tarmac privately owned market square, where you have access by their permission, permission that they can withdraw at any time. We must always defend what green spaces we have within the city, not just as public assets, but for the quality of life, for the health and well-being of our kids, and future generations.

North Kelvin Meadow

Hi
         Please come out to show support when the Council's Planning Committee come to make a site visit at *approx 9.45am on Tuesday 26th January 2016* . They will come and leave by bus, parking at the Kelbourne street entrance to the land.
        *Also please come to a demo straight after, outside the City Chambers on George Square as the Planning Committee meet inside at 11.30am* to discuss whether the land be sold off to New City Vision Ltd to build 90 houses. They will also decide on The Children Wood Group's planning
application which is wanting to keep the land as it is, a wild green space for community use.
        Ian Black will be making the presentation at the hearing on behalf of North Kelvin Meadow. Ian lives on Sanda Street and was actually the person who organised the original planting of trees and grass back in 1994. The wood and meadow we see today comes from that initial seed source. They were spurned on to do that by the Council taking away the goal posts in 1993 as they didn't want to maintain it as a sports pitch.
       Needless to say this is a crucial time for the land and its future. We feel over this last 8 years in particular (North Kelvin Meadow started in Oct 2008) we've made a very strong case for the land to remain as it is and not get destoyed. Council and Government policy backs that up but alas sometimes Councils don't follow their own policy!
       Thats why we need you out that morning, to show your support so we win this planning committee vote. There will be A3 posters given out on the day for you to hold up should you wish.

Douglas
Douglas Peacock

northkelvinmeadow@gmail.com
Keep in touch with the latest on North Kelvin Meadow
Web: <http://www.northkelvinmeadow.com>
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Polite, Well Dressed, Enemies Of Freedom.

        I don't know about others, but I can't quite get my head round  those who seem to think they have the right to tell other people what and what they can, and can't do, with their body. One type of individual that really screws my mind is the male, who decides he has the right to tell a woman, what control, or lack of control, she has over her body. John Deigan is such a man, he is CEO of SPUC, Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, his previous position was The Parliamentary Officer for the Bishops' Conference of Scotland. Therefore, we are to assume that he got the details of his mission from that male chauvinist guy in the sky. So John is a holy Joe, a devout Catholic, a man of God, this, he believes gives him the right to control the lives of others who may, or may not, share his beliefs. He has made the statement, "There is no evidence that abortion has ever saved one woman’s life and we’ve now had 8.2 million of them in the UK." His ultimate position is: "There is never any reason for an abortion."  This, in my book, puts him in the category of a dangerous authoritarian control freak. 

        John's SPUC, is one of a coalition of religious fundamentalist groups, behind the Don't Stop A Beating Heart campaign, who are banding together to push harder for turning the clock back to the days when abortions were band outright, where the fundamentalist Catholic church view is law. These people are dangerous, the have the wealth of the church behind them, they worm their way into positions of influence and authority, they are the enemies of democracy and freedom of choice. No gods, no masters.

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

     

Kids As Cannon Fodder For Imperialism!!!

      Everybody knows, or should know, that the British military is there to defend and further the British imperialist state, forget that crap about defending peace and democracy, we have never had either. So it seems, that more and more people are staying clear of the military recruiting offices. However, this is a problem for the state, it needs cannon fodder to do its dirty work, when it comes to defending its plunder in other countries, or when it feels it can move in and grab some more of other countries' natural resources, Iraqi and Libyan oil to mention just a couple. They come up with totally misleading propaganda adverts, appealing to the easily misguided or vulnerable of our children, promising comradeship, free travel and learning a valuable skill. No mention of authoritarian brutality, sexual and physical assaults, depression, suicides, and trauma, let alone death and injury.  Even their expensive glossy misleading adverts don't seem to be doing the job. The new targets are our schools, the imperialist cabal in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, are planning to launch military cadet units in our secondary schools, mainly in the working class areas of the country. This callous bunch of parasites, are well aware that the kids in the poorer areas of the country are facing a life of fewer and less rewarding opportunities, just what they consider to be, ripe pickings for the cannon fodder to defend their imperialist plunder here and abroad. All this while the hypocrites gasp in mock horror about "boy soldiers" in other lands. 

From The Herald:

      With the army and reserve forces struggling for recruits, the Tory government has launched a £50m Cadet Expansion Programme (CEP) to establish 500 school cadet units across the UK by 2020, with schools in “less affluent” areas being prioritised.
      Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, said its members would also oppose anything that smacked of the armed forces trying to recruit within schools.
      With around 100 units recently established in England, and many more already in place in private schools, the UK government needs 145 more state cadet units to hit its target.
       It has now turned its attention to Scotland’s 360 secondaries to help make up the numbers. 

        This callous duplicitous action should be a battle ground for us, it is blatant class war, we have to see it for what it is, getting the poor trained, to defend the wealth of the rich. On no account should the teachers, friends and families of our school kids allow this scooping up of our young impressionable kids, to carry out the brutal, dangerous, dirty work of defending the ill-gotten gains of the wealthy and bloated parasitical rich. Keep the military well away from our schools, we don't struggle to bring up our kids to have them sacrificed on the bloody altar of imperialism. 

 

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

 

Migrants And Self Organisation.

 

       Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, on occasion do carry articles about the "migrants" ( wrong word, people fleeing the result of Western imperialism, would be a more apt description.) entering Europe. On some occasions they focus on the conditions, sometimes the hostility, but never about their fight back and self organisation. What they never want to emphasise is the fact that people will fight back, and will organise themselves, they must always be seen to be standing about waiting for the state and its apparatus stepping to sort things out, waiting for the state to make their lives better. Of course we all should know, the state will never come up with a proper humanitarian answer, on the contrary, their answers will always be laced with racism, patriotism and, economics that suit the corporate greed machine.

Another episode from Anarchist Radio Berlin:

     The following audio is a recording made by activists of the self-organized refugee squat Orfanotrofeio in Thessaloniki Greece. This material has been made available to us by our comrades at Crna Luknja, the anarchist radio show at Radio Student in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
        The comrades of Orfanotrofeio tell about the conditions that led to squatting this place in Thessaloniki in the beginning of last December and about their struggle to keep the place despite of all obstacles.
Please send feedback and comments at: aradio-berlin/at/riseup(.)net

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The Sham Of Austerity.

       So a fourth health board in Scotland is facing a financial nightmare and is attempting to balance the books by making savings of tens of millions of pounds. No doubt those "savings" will impact on the service the people receive, and the staff who have to deliver that service. Meanwhile, our lords and masters, tell us there is no other way, we have to swallow austerity to "balance the books". This "economic plan" is no more than a smokescreen for their economic ideology. The ultimate aim is privatisation, privatisation of everything that they can squeeze a profit from. The strategy is the same across the range of social services and councils, under the guise of efficiency and "balancing the books" all are starved of funding, making it more and more difficult to deliver those services, things start to collapse, complaints rise, and then the call goes up, the only answer is to introduce the knight in shining armour, "private capital". With a gush of humanity, in rushes the big corporate Mafia, and with a few flicks of a bankers pen, voilà, privatisation across the board.

      There is no need for "austerity" even under this stinking system of capitalism, we are a very, very wealthy country, we have billions upon billions to spare for nuclear weapons and continuous wars, but seemingly, not enough for the welfare of the people. It is an ideology driven by the financial Mafia to transfer all public assets into private hands, asset stripping on a vast scale. No matter what they say, or what they come up with, the end aim is privatisation, and this will continue until we, the people decide enough is enough and take matters into our own hands by taking control of our lives, in the communities and in the work places. Until we decide we will shape our society the way we want it, we will have to swallow the punishing regime of every tighter "austerity" until we are shorn of all our assets and at the mercy of the big corporate greed machine. 

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