You May Have To Die, Your Insurance Doesn't Cover This Illness!!!

        We continually hear the two faced lying parasites, wallowing in the perks of that cesspool of self interest, that goes by the name of The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, spout, "the Health Service is safe in our hands ". However, anybody with two brain cells is well aware that the NHS is up for sale, and will be privatised, over a period of some years. The latest gift from the Cameron cabal, to their corporate buddies, is a nice slice of child care in Wiltshire. Come April, child care in Wilshire will become a money making machine for billionaire, Batty Branson, and will fly the flag of "Virgin Care". 

      NHS staff working in child health services in one West county have been told they have a new boss – Richard Branson – after health chiefs unilaterally privatised their entire department in a £64 million deal.
      All community child health services in Wiltshire will be privatised, with council and NHS bosses defending their decision saying it was the best way to ensure a consistent service across the county.
     But leaders representing the staff being transferred said they had real fears the move would mean a worse service for more money, which they said was what happened when taxes were paid for 'profits and shareholders.
      Until now, all the services from Cricklade to Salisbury had been run by five different NHS organisations. The services now part of the deal include children's specialist community nursing, health visiting and speech and language therapy.    

      This piece of slicing and dicing of the NHS for corporate profit is not new, nor is it likely to be that last. The final aim is the total privatisation of health care in this country. Your only purpose in this society is to make profit for the multinational corporations, if you can't do that by working for crap wages, then you can do it when your ill. You are just a money making entity, or you are useless, superfluous to requirements. Is that the society you want?

       The NHS has been legally abolished. Perhaps most controversial is the opening up of NHS contracts to unlimited privatisation. Last year alone, out of £9.63bn worth of NHS deals signed, £3.54bn (nearly 40% of them) went to private firms. Private providers are cherry-picking lucrative services to boost their profits leaving the NHS with less money to provide comprehensive care. This neatly ties in with the next aspect of the legislation.

        This continual strangle hold of corporate power over all aspects of our life will continue, health care, education, social services, all to be turned into money making machines for the financial Mafia. If you don't like that, then you will have to stand up and fight one helluva battle, not just to save your NHS, but to save your children and grandchildren from the future enslavement under the yoke of corporate capitalism. Forget attacking the nasty branches of capitalism, we must destroy the root itself. Until we bring about the destruction of capitalism, and send it to the dustbin of history, as man's darkest hour, our conditions are on a downward spiral, with no other purpose than to enhance the wealth of an army of worthless, greedy parasites. 

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

A Date For Edinburgh.

Field punishment. 

        In memory of those heroes that the establishment would like you to forget, those who stood up against the first world war, voices for peace, punished, and suffered, as attempts to silence them increased, with the final humiliation, being erased from history. We can never let that happen.

The World Is My Country Exhibition
Thurs 25 Feb - Sat 12 March
Free Exhibition Launch
6pm Thursday 25 February
With graphic artist Emily Johns, Gabriel Carlyle, and Protest in Harmony.
Scottish Storytelling Centre
43-45 High St, Edinburgh EH1 1SR
The Exhibition celebrates, in stories and pictures, the people and movements that opposed the First World War. Featuring disobedient soldiers, feminist peace initiatives, a Maori princess, a famous Cambridge philosopher, and the striking graphic art of Emily Johns. Plus designs for the Conscientious Objectors Memorial in Edinburgh by pupils from St Thomas Aquins Secondary School. Launch with an interactive presentation by Emily Johns and Gabriel Carlyle. Wine & Food. Free. Donation requested.
Join & Share Event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1575076856117731/

Songs of the Unsung Heroes

Jane Lewis and Penny Stone from Protest in Harmony lead a fun and inspirational afternoon of songs celebrating the movements and people who opposed the First World War. Learn songs about the men and women who refused to fight and those involved in the broader movements for equality and social justice that move us closer to a world without war. In conjunction with The World Is My Country exhibition.

All welcome, no previous experience necessary.

Scottish Storytelling Centre

Full Price – £12.00
£10 Network Members
http://www.tracscotland.org/scottish-storytelling-centre/centre-events/4588/songs-of-the-unsung-heroes

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

Blood Buys Big Yachts.

 

        We all know that war is big business, and an extremely profitable one at that. The arms industry is massive and involves multi billions of pounds from the large financial institutions who invest extensively in the this destructive industry. So peace is not something they welcome. Their friends with their fingers in the arms industry pie are part of, or are in there lobbying, governments, to take action in this country and that country, spouting high morals and ethical causes for such intervention, but with one eye on the share price of their investments in the arms industry. So don't expect any steps towards peace to come from that cabal of millionaires, that sit in the corridors of power with their blood stained hands on the decision making levers. War means increased bonuses to shareholders.

        According to The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the arms trade has seen a 14% increase over the last five years, compared to the previous five years. What would other industries do for that sort of increase?
       The US is the big boy in the arms export business, away ahead of any of its rivals. From 2011-2015 the US took 33% of the world's market in the blood industry, also showing a 27% increase in its exports of these instruments of death over the last five years. It would seem that the US showers the world in arms, then as the world's biggest imperial power, spends billions more in arms, going round the world smashing these arms. Quite a lucrative procedure for the arms industry.
         Of course we in the UK are not sleeping in this lucrative world of death. We are a small country, but as the millionaire cabal in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption keep telling us, we punch above our weight. This small island, is responsible for 4.5% of the world's arms exports, showing a whopping 26% increase over the last five years. Again, what would other industries do for that sort of increase?

        No, I'm sorry, all you people who are fighting for peace, without working for the destruction of capitalism, are doomed to failure. Wars are such a profitable arm of corporate industries, there is no way that they will legislate to get rid of their goose that lays the golden egg. Corporations are not ethical beasts, nor are they patriotic, like they ask you and I to be. They care nothing for the death and destruction, after all there is profit in rebuilding all that destruction, and to them, people are irrelevant.
       You want peace, then join hands in getting rid of capitalism, there is no other way.

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

The Rent Strike, A Tool In Our Armoury.

Brooklyn 2012.

       I hope, after Spirit of Revolt's recent exhibition on the Glasgow 1915 Rent Strike, that more people are now aware of the rent strike as a tool, a weapon in the struggle of the ordinary people. What we tried to get across was that the 1915 rent strike was not a unique event, not a one-of happening. The rent strike has been used to defend tenants rights across the world long before 1915, and is still used today. It is a powerful weapon and should always be in the armoury of the ordinary people. The 1915 victory in Glasgow did not end the exploitation of tenants, the greed of landlords is just as virulent today as it was back then. It is still the same struggle today, a struggle for a decent standard of life and the right to have a home to lay your head down in security and comfort. To make my point about the longevity of the rent strike here is a short video of one that is taking place today in San Francisco.

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

Millions Die, And We Don't Give A Shit.

      Another excellent and informative video from, "It's The End Of The World As We Know It And I Feel Fine"

         Like the man said, there are literally millions of people on this planet facing a slow agonising death by starvation, while we in the West, throw away and destroy tons of food, though it is the man made system of capitalism that is the root cause, we by our acceptance of that system are complicit and responsible. When do we sort it out, when do we turn our eyes to the starving millions of men women and children, who are slowly starving to death in a world of plenty?

        In this sedition of ITEOTWAWKIAIFF we look at the growing class unrest in Hong Kong that kicked off a massive rebellion in the lunar new year. Also street battles   in Athens, where anarchists and farmers stormed the Greek capital in reaction to Syriza’s structural adjustment policies. On the music break we drop the now classic Dead Prez track: Malcolm Garvey Huey. We continue with an examination on how white supremacy plays a role in the mass starvation of people in the African continent and we wrap things up with Ajamu Nangwaya, an anarchist, educator and writer from Toronto, who spoke to us about black history in so called “Canada,” the similarities of black struggles between peeps down in the US, and the role of celebrities in visibilizing radical politics. Click here to download our entire interview with Ajamu. TRIGGER WARNING: cursing, street fighting, blood, politicians, images of children starving.

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

Revolutionary Feminism.

       The latest issue of The American magazine Freedom Socialist, The Voice of Revolutionary Feminism, is now available as an audio file. This issue covers, as usual, a wide range of topics, including, state terrorism.

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

Don't Get Angry, You May Be Investigated.

      Angry with your government? Careful, you could be seen as a threat by the security services. This article refers to America, but what crazy idea flies over there, has a habit of landing over here.

From Polizeros:

      The Pentagon, in its usual dimwitted yet dangerous way, is mining social media to determine if citizens are angry at the state and thus, presumably, a threat. Let’s unpack this foolishness, shall we? NSA has been trying to do the same thing for years, slurping down every conceivable piece of data on us in hopes it can be used on a real-time basis to identity threats. So far they have failed miserably and have admitted that all their operations has not produced any actionable information that stopped terrorists. However, the genuinely dangerous thing here for citizens is the Pentagon assumes if you are angry at the government that you are a potential threat and must be investigated further. No matter if your anger may be justifiable, no, just being angry at the government means you are guilty of pre-crime, which means what Big Brother in the Pentagon wants it to mean. The real problem is such intrusive techniques, spying on the citizenry constantly, is useless for catching terrorists. But it keeps people in the Pentagon employed and defense contractors happy with big contracts, even as it essentially is security theater.

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

The State And Repression Go Hand In Hand.

 

       Scan the map of the Earth, pick your state, no matter which one you select, you'll find it indulges in brutal repression, cruelty and inhumane treatment of its own people. The state apparatus has to, to maintain its hold over the people, to allow freedom of speech and expression would be the demise of the state and its corrupting, debilitating influence. Violence and repression are the state's weapons of survival.

An appeal from ABC Istanbul:

     Vegan anarchist prisoner Osman Evcan was recently exiled (aka transferred) from Kandıra prison No.1 to Silivri L-type closed prison No.6, and has suffered repression such as naked body search, cameras in cells, ban on letters and visitors, and blocking of vegan food. He has undertaken hunger strike since February 22nd 2016 to resist this oppression. Help spread the word!

More info HERE:

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

Boycott Israel, Stop The Genocide.

Want to support Palestinian freedom, justice and equality?

Join #IsraeliApartheidWeek 2016

        Each year, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) takes place in more than 150 universities and cities across the world. With creative education and action, IAW aims to raise awareness about Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people and build support for the nonviolent Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

        In response to the impressive growth of BDS in the last few years, Israel and its right-wing allies in the west have launched repressive, anti-democratic attacks on the movement and the right to boycott, instead of fulfilling their obligations to end Israel's violations of international law. This makes this year's #IsraeliApartheidWeek more crucial than ever.

Support Palestinian popular resistance to oppression--join IAW 2016.

      Check out apartheidweek.org and #IsraeliApartheidWeek to find out what's happening in your area. More events in different cities are being added all the time, so do check back if there's nothing in your city listed yet. 

Want to organise #IsraeliApartheidWeek events on your campus or in your city? Register your organisation here and you'll receive an info pack full of ideas about how to organise #IsraeliApartheidWeek.

Dates:
UK: February 22-28
Europe: February 29-March 7
Palestine: March 1-10
South Africa: March 7-13
Arab World: March 20-26
US: various, including March 27-April 3
Latin America: April 10-24
Canada: various throughout March, check with local organisers

The following video was published October, 12th. 2015. 

Notice

• Age-restricted video (based on Community Guidelines).
  

        Ahmad Manasra, 13 years old, was shot and injured by a settler this Monday in occupied East Jerusalem, along with his cousin Hasan, 15 years, who died of his wounds. The settler alleged that the boys charged at him with a knife although there is no credible corroboration of this allegation. 15 year-old Hassan died of his wounds. The video shows Ahmad, struggling for breath and crying, while an Israeli settler films him and shouts profanities at him and the boy stays on the ground without receiving any medical help. In the past two weeks, several Palestinian civilians were killed and injured from fires shot by armed Israeli settlers and soldiers who allege similar

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

The Question, Trees Or Tarmac, Life Or Profit?

 

      Developers are greedy, they will gobble up green land, from the small, Glasgow's North Kelvin Meadow, to the large, ZAD. The North Kelvin Meadow is not a massive space, but in the context of our city it is large enough to be very important to the well being of our citizens. Zad, on the other hand is extremely large, it is massive. A whole swath of green land will become a matrix of motorways, airport runways, warehouses, docks and the concrete infrastructure to support all this tarmac development. The people of France have been fighting this monster destruction of nature for 40 years, and the fight still goes on, and the support for the protester is growing all the time.

       Both these projects, and thousands of similar projects across the planet are all linked, it is the plunder by capital, they are happening, not for the good of the people, but for the benefit of the corporate world's coffers, profit is the only motive, and it reaps the destruction of the planet. 

her yer ZAD her yer direnis!
Posted by Sadik Celik on Sunday, 21 February 2016

The ZAD - to the developers it is the Zone d’Aménagement Différé’, the differed development zone and for us it’s a Zone À Défendre: a zone to be defended. Either way, it’s a part of the countryside close to Nantes in France, which according to the decision-makers should make way for an international aiport.

Their construction project "Grand Ouest" is an economic platform of international importance stretching from Nantes to Saint-Nazaire, which will form a singular, huge metropolis. Fulfilling this project means taking over the sky, the sea and the land in replacing the current airport in Nantes with a new one at Notre-Dame-des-Landes, but also enlarging the port at Saint-Nazaire and constructing new roads and highways...

Our goals, in coming to live here on the proposed site of the airport, are many: to live on a protest site, where we can be close to those who’ve been opposing the project for 40 years and to have the power to act when construction happens; to make use of abandoned spaces to learn to live together, to cultivate the land and to be more autonomous from the capitalist system.

Most texts and infos are published in french and everything is not always translated, sorry. So if you want to be sure wether there’s new info, have a look on the french website. Also, if you want to help translating, you can get in touch with us !

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

Trees Or Tarmac, Which Is Best For Our Kids?

        The battle to save North Kelvin Meadow, is one that we have got to win, this is a beautiful green public space within our city, a place used by kids and adults alike. A place where kids can safely run wild and have fun, a place where they can learn about nature, a healthy family space, open to the public to enjoy and nurture. We have very few of such places left in "that dear green place", Glasgow, one by one they have been disappearing under the concrete and tarmac of the private corporate world. We have to call a halt to this plunder of our public spaces by the corporate developer. Please throw your support behind this public campaign by signing the petition, and show solidarity in what ever way you can.

Hi all,

*Update: *

        As many of you will know Glasgow City Council Planning Committee approved New City Vision (NCV) Ltd planning application to build 90 flats. They also approved The Children Wood Group planning application to keep the land as a wild greenspace and for the community. Our emphasis has now changed. Its now all about lobby the Scottish Government so as they do what they said they would consider back in 2013 and "call in" the NCV Ltd application and throw it out.
        Therefore please sign the petition below and if possible try to get 5 others you know to as well. If you can visit any MSPs at their surgeries that would be even better. Our local MSP Sandra White is key to us in getting this called in - so feel free to contact or visit her. Plus paper petitions can also be created and signed if that is easier.

*Petition*

        Help us to persuade the Scottish Government to ‘call in’ and reject the plans to build 90 residences on North Kelvin Meadow and The Children’s Wood by signing our petition:

http://bit.ly/callinmeadow


     *Thunderclap *(a modern way to get noticed outside your usual group!)

        If your on Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr then click on link below so we all put out a one off message at the same time i.e. a thunderclap, and so get the petition noticed and hopefully a few more signatories. The message goes out on 29th February at 10am so obviously you need you to register before then.

http://thndr.me/wIBqUx

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

Watch The By-stander Behind You.

 

YPG and YPJ fighters in Kobane. Photo: via Derek Wall / Open Democracy.

        In the broth-pot of factions and power mongers that is the Syrian conflict there are so many interested parties with their own agenda. At least ISIS knows who its enemy is, the Western imperialists know who their enemy is, the Assad regime knows who its enemy is, but the Kurds in Syria, they have to look in all directions, their enemies wave many flags. The Western imperialists are not keen on them getting too strong, Assad would like to see them subjugated within his domain, ISIS would like to wipe them of the face of the planet, but they also have to look at those not openly involved in the power struggle that is decimating the land and the people of Syria.

 This from ANF NEWS:

YPG emplacements east of Hesekê bombed by an unidentified jet

      The General Command of YPG (People's Defense Units) has reported that their emplacements to the east of Hesekê were bombed by an unidentified jet on 19th of February.

Sunday, February 21, 2016 10:30 AM

NEWS DESK - ANF

      The General Command of YPG (People's Defense Units) has reported that their emplacements to the east of Hesekê were bombed by an unidentified jet on 19th of February.
      According to the statement, the YPG emplacements in the area of Hekil Tişrîn were attacked by an unidentified military jet at around 09:30 of 19th February.
       While the jet continued flying over the mentioned area for half an hour, it hit the YPG emplacements firstly with hand grenades then with bullets, which left 3 YPG fighters dead and 2 others wounded.
       A committee of investigation formed after the incident continues its analysis of the unexploded hand grenades fired by the jet in order to find out to which state the jet belongs. YPG said they knew that the jet was not affiliated to the international coalition formed against ISIS.
       YPG stressed that they will treat the attack as a hostile approach and adopt a stance accordingly.

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Rojava From The Inside.

      To know what is really going on in Syria at the moment is very difficult as each faction puts its own spin on the events that are being played out in that unfortunate and blood sodden land. To those who seek real democratic change, the area known as Rojava is of the most interest. Whatever is going on there, it appears that they are not trying to fashion a new nation state, but an alternative bottom up form of of community living. Which of course would be a breath of fresh air in that part of the world which has been sliced and diced by imperialist ambitions for generations. So any information from anybody on the ground in that area, is always very welcome.

This article is from Project Muse:

       The Kurdish movement takes every opportunity to espouse that they are not in the business of creating a new state for the Kurds, and a deep critique of the nation-state is quite prevalent in the recent writings of Öcalan. In his widely read 5th Defense “The Kurdish Problem and the Democratic Nation Solution”, he elaborates that “The greatest weapon which capitalism has to make itself the reigning system is to turn state power into a nation-state power. The nation-state is possible by spreading its power to the capillaries of society…. The national borders, the national army, the centralized civilian bureaucracy, central and local administration, the national market, monopoly economic domination, national currency, passport, national identity, national places of worship, primary schools, a single language, symbols of flags, all of these come together to operate capitalism’s maximum profit rule over society. This process, defined by modern sociologists as a way of overcoming traditional societies and presented as the formation of modern homogenous societies and the primary indicator of progress, in essence, represents a society locked in an iron cage.”3
         This is the ideology at battle in a region where many nation-states are involved in a civil war and where the Kurds are having to make uncomfortable alliances for mere survival. Flowing from this proclaimed statelessness and emphasis of autonomy, many anarchists and libertarian communists have begun to identify with the revolution in Rojava. Various leftist factions have argued over the anti-capitalist and anti-state credentials of what is happening in Rojava, and in some ways Rojava can resemble more the latter than the former. Regardless, based on my own experiences and observations in Rojava, it is obvious that the sentiment captured by the quote at the onset of this article is real and that the challenges of a revolution lie beyond the trenches. This brief essay will attempt to contribute to this discussion.

Read the full article HERE:

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

       

Colnbrook, A Prison For The Innocent.

      Separated from family and friends, isolated from friendly contact, in a foreign land, and suicidal, it would seem only human to offer comfort, compassion and understanding. However among us are those who in "doing their duty" are nothing more than sadistic, psychopathic, dehumanised brutes. Behind closed doors the obedient "duty-doers" spawn misery, physical and mental cruelty and death, what stories do they go home and tell their families? If it looks like a prison, acts like prison, then it is a prison, not a "detention centre".

This from Act For Freedom Now:

       Yesterday (Wednesday 17 February) in the early morning a man named Amir died in his cell in Colnbrook detention centre, one of the UK’s migration prisons near Heathrow Airport, managed by outsourcing corporation Mitie.
       Mitie and the Home Office are saying very little, apart from stating that he was on suicide watch. (See article from “politics.co.uk” here.) But prisoners have a lot more to tell about how he was killed: abused, humiliated, drugged and then denied medical treatment by screws and collaborating medical staff. The account below was posted today on the Detained Voices website, which transmits messages from those inside the UK’s migration prisons.

NB: Healthcare (sic) at Colnbrook is run by CNWL (Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust), which is run by these people.
It took him three weeks to get like this while he was here, and he died.
      That guy he came about three weeks ago. He came and they put him straight in the health care centre. Room three. Since when he came the officers watch him for 24 hours a day, maybe because he said he was going to kill himself. When someone says they are going to kill himself they are watched the whole day, everywhere they go.
      For the first week, week and a half he was fine. Then he was sleeping and snoring too much. He slept long hours. I believe the medication they gave him was not the right medication. Yesterday about 6:30 in the afternoon he came in from the yard, for the fresh air, with three officers and he was vomiting. The officer said he was an idiot. He was not an idiot, he was sick. Either from the medication or food poisoning. The officer said the nurse knows better. But the nurse didn’t know better.
       The officer she denied him everything, all night. He died in her name and on her neck. I promise in the name of Allah he died in the hands of that woman. Mr ****** died because she refused to call the nurse again. The nurse only came twice. When she came out she said ‘don’t call me again’. The officers complied with that.
         In the medical centre there is a room for each person. He was in number three. The nurse and doctor here are denying everything. There was an officer watching him 24 hours. The doctor came for five minutes. ‘Hello, hello, hello’ to everyone and then he leave. At 6 o’clock Mr ****** had some medication. Went out into the yard and then he was vomiting. I believe that medication make him sick. He came back in and his snoring wasn’t right after that. I said to them to check him because he wasn’t sounding right and I thought he might have a heart attack or something. I was told to look after myself and not worry about anyone else.
      About 1 o’clock in the night I heard him screaming because he couldn’t breath. She said to him – the officer told him to stop panicking and go to sleep. How can he sleep when he is coughing and vomiting and he can’t breath?
        They say he killed himself. That is not right. I’ll tell you how. He had nothing in his room. He wasn’t allowed to move from his bed, get some water or go to the toilet without someone watching him. He had no razor. If he wanted to shave they give him an electric razor and anyway he didn’t shave the whole time he was here because he had a big beard.
         He was vomiting because of food or medication. When he came to this centre he was fit. It took him three weeks to get like this while he was here, and he died. I saw his face it was all red and he couldn’t breath. Everyone is denying everything in here. 6:30 in the afternoon exactly till 4 o’clock in the morning till he died.
        6 o’clock the police come here in the morning. They open our door at 8 o’clock in the morning. In the morning they don’t want me to talk to the police and they take me out of the centre to outside and when they let me back at 12 noon they lock me in my room immediately so I can’t talk to the police. The doctor and the nurse was not allowed to come in to the centre. The police were taking photos of his room. They came at 6 in the morning and left at 2 in the afternoon. Thats when they opened the doors again and I saw them leave.
       The officers watching him, they changed every one hour. They moved between watching him and behind the desk.
The officer, she said to someone in another room ‘I’m not going to give you anything. Im going to give you punishment.’ He is going to die soon, he will try kill himself, he gets a lot of punishment from her. I don’t hear his voice in the day, he is very quiet usually, only when she is here he screams and shouts all the time. She wants to give him hassle and he has cut himself too many times, all over his face. You wouldn’t recognise him from the person that came in. He is unwell and she makes him more unwell. Always screaming and shouting – he smashed the door on his hands and legs. She makes him crazy, more crazy. Officers get paid to look after us. They lock us behind the door like the devil and treat us so bad. I’ve never seen this in my life. Me, I never ask her for anything because I know the result.
         I asked the officer how Mr ****** died and he said he killed himself. I asked how he killed himself when he is watched the whole time? He said he kept his pills and took them all at once. That’s not possible. We are given our pills by the nurse with a glass of water and they wait till we have swallowed them all. These nurses are really experienced, they know when you have pills still in your mouth. I have five pills and I was swallowing them with the water and one didn’t go down. The nurse, they waited there till the last one went down. It is like they are in your mouth – they know what is going on in there. Mr ****** couldn’t have kept all the pills. It was the pills that was making him sleep so much and snore like that. I am very sorry what happened to Mr ******. He was a very gentle man, really.

And a letter from a survivor of Colnbrook:

 Dear Colnbrook,
        I’ve got a few questions for you in relation to the three and a half months you held me in detention.
      Why were the Officers at the induction unit so mean and unwelcoming to me? I remember asking for a bed sheet and was given a pillow case. I remember asking for a tooth brush and waiting patiently for over 72 hours. I was treated harshly and spoken to rudely. Were you trying to give me a terrible first impression of Colnbrook, or did that just happen by mistake?
        Why was my asylum claim treated in isolation to my family asylum claim? I claimed asylum as part of a family but was detained and dumped at Colnbrook all by myself. Were you just trying to scare me because I was so young?
        Why did you only tell me I was on the Detained Fast Track after ten days of being on it? I hear it has been abolished now for being unlawful. Did you know how unfair and unjust it was when you put me on it? Every day, I watched your staff go home to their safe beds, and to their families, and then return the next morning. How did they live with that knowing what we were going through?
Why were we locked up in the room from 9pm to 8am every day? What was the point of this? Where were we going to go? Up and over the barbed wire? What message are you trying to send to the people they detain?
        The officers at Colnbrook would always say ‘this is a high-security detention centre’. It wasn’t. It was a high security prison. I even had PRISON NUMBER printed in bold on the front page of my medical report. And yet, I have no criminal record, I haven’t committed a crime. I guess my question is, despite this, did you see me as a criminal?
        I saw an old man in his late seventies with a walking stick. I saw a guy who had just had a major operation who struggled to pick up his medication. There was a survivor of torture, covered in scars. I heard people screaming at night because they were going mad inside in Colnbrook. What exactly is your definition of ‘vulnerable’ if you are detaining these kinds of people?
       I prefer to call ‘Healthcare’ in Colnbrook, the ‘Inhuman Treatment Centre’. Are the staff there medically trained? Are they aware of medical ethics? Do you know that once I was given the wrong medication, complained of dizziness, and the doctor checked my medication and after 5 mins told me “yes, sorry the nurse gave you the wrong medication.” Really?! Do you know how many times I left ‘Healthcare’ with tears running down my cheeks simply because I was terrified I’ve been given the wrong medication again?
        Do you think you’d be able to talk about your problems with someone who is doing everything they can to tell you they don’t like you?
        Why are the nurses at Colnbrook so quick to dispense medications before listening to the patients, acting like they already knew what was wrong with them? I ended up feeling that their evil was intentional and a calculated attempt to terminate my life or create complications for me.
         Were the staff in Colnbrook told to try and make my life, and the lives of my family, an agony? Were they just following orders?
Why was I given the opportunity to work and earn £1 an hour in Colnbrook but now that I am out of detention, I have automatically been stripped off this same right?
        I met lots of people who had lost hope because they didn’t know when they were getting out. Is this why you don’t have a time-limit? So that people give up?
        Even though I’ve been out now for two months, do you know I still have panic attack every time I think about the horror I went through in your detention centre? Three weeks ago I almost fainted at the police station where I usually sign, just because I saw two immigration officers walking towards me. In that moment, I thought I was going to be arrested. I thought I was going to see you again.
        Goodbye Colnbrook. I hope I can clear your horror from my memory. I hope we never meet again.
Yours,
John.

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

Lost My Smart Phone, How Can I Live!!

       It may be strange to use social media to ask, is social media playing to dominant a part in our lives? Are we being shaped by social media rather than our own experiences? By sitting and responding to what we are fed on social media, we actually believe we are doing something, we feel we belong, we are involved, but the world is still out there made up of real people doing real things. I personally still believe that on the street handing out your paper or leaflets is the best way to reach people, you are meeting people who are outside your own little circle. Perhaps I'm old fashioned.

Thought this was an interesting article from It's Going Down:

        In the 90s, there was a kind of rowdy spirit of anarchism that I often felt like Profane Existence kind of typified. Building through the late 90s that started to transition towards this Crimethinc. styled personal revolution. I feel like that kind of paved the way towards blogs and social media: a focus on the individual over the ideas. That flows directly into what praxis looks like and action falls by the wayside.

         In hindsight, it almost looks like this master plan: channelling this voracious, rowdy movement into online posturing. Whether that was the goal or not, who knows, but it echoes through civilization at large. There’s unquestionable intention in creating the social media world but I don’t want to sound convoluted in thinking it was aimed at anarchists, it just turns out that it worked out the same. No doubt something that would be considered an added bonus from the eyes of the State.
        So you have the interplay of two things: the rise of repression and the rise of social media. In my eyes, it was the combination of the two that really decimated this milieu. In some regards, it could very well die on Facebook. Everything becomes so absolutely personal in nature and so tied to the individual that we lose the ability to even think about these ideas as existing in their own merit. You don’t have arguments: you just have reactions. So you go round and round with the same argument, but it doesn’t matter. What is being said matters less than who is saying it.
        That opens the door for a ramp up in oppression politics to further those divides. The ideas and the drive are what suffer. Arguments replace discourse. Praxis becomes impossible. So when everyone who laid low in the mid-00s started coming back around and saw what the “anarchist milieu” currently looks like, they just kept moving. Why wouldn’t they? We’ve just opened ourselves up to external influences to the point where repression, by and large, isn’t even complicated. A couple Facebook profiles and the State can just undermine anything.
       So long as we use social media as the platform for communication, then we have no ground to stand on. No traction, no hope for meaningful dialogue and certainly not any kind of engagement. Having a critique of technology or capitalism doesn’t make you exempt from its consequences. Get off of social media is definitely my weakest call to action, but it’s sadly a necessary one. If we want to move forward, we have to recognize this.

Read the full article HERE:

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