The campaign to get rid of zero hours contracts and force the fast-food industry, among others, to pay a living wage, is certainly hotting up. Regards the fast-food industry, this is an international campaign, with a huge following in America. In the UK, Saturday 14th. May saw protests and demonstrations out side branches of Top Shop across the UK, with London probably being the biggest. Of course asking your bosses for a little more please, is not the full answer, justice in the work place will only come when we get rid of all the Philip Greens and the rest of the parasitical class that screws us day and daily. Justice for working people will only be achieved when we rid ourselves of this exploitative capitalist system. Anything less is just a compromise which can be taken back by the bosses when ever they feel strong enough. You want an end to injustice, you want an end to capitalism.
In Greece you buy your bus tickets at news kiosks and various places, you buy several at a time, to save you looking for a kiosk every time you want to travel. On entering the bus you "validate" your ticket by putting in this little machine, and that means you can't use that ticket again. If you are caught sitting on the bus and you haven't "validated" your ticket you will be fined. So some enterprising people have come up with a simple method to totally undermine that system. The beauty of simple ideas.
From the beginning of 2016, dozens of ticket machines have been removed from buses in our neighbourhoods. With simply means, by unscrewing 4
screws and cutting one wire, ticket validation machines were removed
from the buses of the local routes (250, 732, 203, 054), securing free
transport for everyone even if just for a bit. Commuting with public
transport is not strolling in the city. Commuting is a necessity which
is directly related with the search for work as well as with us getting
there on time. It is commuting for us, “those below”, the workers, the
unemployed and the immigrants who serve the profits of the bosses. That is why the ticket prices are increasing, that is why controls intensify, and that is why they establish special transport cops, leading to the
enforcing of completely controlled zones on public transport and the
increase of the cost of our lives. For us, therefore, transport is a
blackmailing social necessity and we will not tolerate it being
transformed into a daily stress about where we will bump into an
inspector, or whether or not the money is enough for a ticket.
We will not tolerate our total exclusion from something that
essentially belongs to us. This is why we factually resist and sabotage
the control systems on public transport: on the ones that already exist
(such as the pilot system of turnstiles on buses –i.e. bus 224- which
were removed as soon as they appeared) as well those to come (electronic
tickets, CCTV, cops, price increases) disrupting thus the technical
possibility of our bosses to impose on us whatever suits them. We are
not the state. We are against it, and its left wing, which shares out
crumbs for “free commute” and presents the flexible workers, the
part-timers and the workers of 300, 400 and 500 euro as privileged,
while it simultaneously promotes class exclusion for all the weak and
grabs more from their wage: with taxes, social security, illegal and
unpaid labour. Against the state which calls us to consent
and abide to its strategies for more profit and more discipline, we
propose the resistance to control, sabotaging of surveillance
mechanisms, refusing to pay as well as the factual solidarity amongst
locals and immigrants, those who resist, amongst all us who have nothing
to gain from state policies. And we call all those who want to and
possibly fear, to do their part: factually refuse the controls and
prices in our daily commutes, sabotage control systems on public
transport in every way and everywhere, individually and collectively
defend their free commuting. Because our attitude against public
transport represents our overall attitude in society and against the
structure of the state. And all of this is an inseparable piece of the
struggles we fight against the misery and devaluation of our lives,
against the employer arbitrariness and oppression, for the defence of
social reproduction and social goods.
More than 100 primary school janitors in the Glasgow area planning
to begin another three-day strike over a pay dispute. Members of the
Unison union they want extra pay for certain tasks which they claim are
"dirty, unpleasant, involve regularly working outside or heavy
lifting". They have been boycotting some of these tasks since
January and staged a walkout in March. They and UNISON are calling a
rally for 5:30 pm at the Dewar's statue on Thursday, May 19. All those in struggle against this exploitative system deserve our solidarity, I would go further and say their position demands our solidarity. It is only by the strength of that solidarity that we can win these battles.
Thursday, 19th. May, 5:30pm. Donald Dewar Statue. Buchanan Street Glasgow. Rally in support of Glasgow Primary school janitors.
Well my optimism was well founded, the sun came back. Saturday, another lovely day, plenty of sunshine heading my way. Not only that, but the wind dropped, the first time in over a week, a mere 6mph, a bit cooler, around 13 degrees, isn't life wonderful. So it was off around the familiar territory of the Campsie Hills, well why not? It is a beautiful area, and has lots of twisting turning roads with not a flat one in sight. Pot-holed roads, heavy traffic, but never the less, a magic afternoon. My optimism prevails, it is going to be a fantastic summer, just you wait and see.
An interesting article by a comrade in America who visited us in Glasgow a few years back, and we organised an event where he and his partner held a chat, questions and answers evening. He and his partner are long-term "eco-warriors, and the chat was about the attack on the environment and their tactics to fight this toxic looting and plundering of our planet. Still fighting, he draws connections between the American prison system, apart from the damage to the humans incarcerated in these monstrosities, and the damage they do to the environment.
The United States Bureau of Prisons is trying to build a new, massive maximum-security prison in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky — and there’s a growing movement to stop it. The prison industry in the US has grown in leaps and bounds in the past 20 years— a new prison was built at an average rate of one every two weeks in the ’90s, almost entirely in rural communities. As of 2002, there were already more prisoners in this country than farmers. The industry seems like an unstoppable machine, plowing forward at breakneck speed on the path that made the world’s largest prison population. Today, about 716 of every 100,000 Americans are in prison. Prisoners in nations across the world average at 155 per 100,000 people. And in the US, Southern states rule the chart. Viewing these states as countries themselves, Kentucky ranks at lucky number seven. “Sounds terrible…” you may be thinking, “But what does it have to do with the environment?” Well, this seemingly impenetrable multi-billion dollar bi-partisan government-driven industry does have a weak point: it’s a well-verified ecological mess. For a 10-year period of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Prison Initiative, prison after prison that the EPA’s inspected in the Mid-Atlantic region was plagued with violations. Violations included air and water pollution, inadequate hazardous waste management and failing spill control prevention for toxic materials. Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that the Bureau of Prisons’ latest plan for a new maximum-security federal prison is on a former mountaintop removal coal mine site, which is still being drilled for gas, and which is located amid a habitat for dozens of endangered species. Where else but Appalachia? The proposed half a billion dollar facility is to be located in Kentucky’s Letcher County. If built, this would be the fourth new federal prison in eastern Kentucky, and the sixth federal prison built in Central Appalachia, since 1992, making the region one of the most concentrated areas of prison growth in the country.
Most people accept that we are now controlled by billionaires, sitting behind closed doors, making decisions that we play no part in, or even hear the discussions, yet they shape our lives. A handful of, usually men, sit and follow ideology and dogma that is designed to increase the power and wealth of their institutions. What we do hear from the mouths of this financial Mafia is hyperbole and hypocrisy, we are supposed to accept, without question, their dictates, though we know that doing so will continually tighten their grip over our lives, and lower or living standards. We are drowning in a sea of hypoerbole and hypocrisy. Since this unaccountable cabal, (EC, Excessively Corrupt, ECB, European Conning Banksters, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers) never allow their deliberations to be made public, it is good to hear quotes of their statements, their arguments, and their ideas, from one who was there. One who for a short while sat among them, discussed and listened to their hypocritical vomiting, and is prepare to repeat in public, some of those statements.
This film might be a bit on the long side for some, but it is well worth listening to the full discussion and the questions and answers that follow.
Things are tough, very tough for countless millions of people on this earth, even in the "rich developed" countries millions live below the poverty line, surrounded by unimaginable wealth. Practically everybody knows the system is unfair, corrupt and exploitative, yet in these "rich developed" countries, only thousands resit and protest, Why? What is it that makes millions accept their state of poverty, their lack of control over their own lives? Is it fear, or is it a feeling of hopelessness that you can't win against the system. Our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, tries hard to portray that illusion, that challenging the status-quo is only done by hooligans and terrorists, and is always forcibly put down by a strong state apparatus, as it defends us against these hooligans and terrorists. How does the majority of people get to see through this illusion, this weaving of smoke and mirrors, and realise that the real power lies with them, they can take control of their own lives, and can shape society to a fairer and more just system that sees to the needs of all our people.
------Unlike a more abstract analysis of "the Spell," which could be thought through in terms like those found in The Ego and Its Own, by Max Stirner; this Spell was thought of in terms of more specific context, not just another spook
attempting to win an individual's allegiance. The Spell wasn't a matter
of believing in another's Cause, it was a matter of believing that we
are too weak to pursue our own cause(s). It was a belief that was
reinforced throughout all of the institutions we are expected to
embrace: schools, churches, every branch of government, work, and
especially through mainstream media. It wasn't a moral injunction that
one shouldn't fight against these things, it was a repetitive practical demonstration that one can't revolt to any acceptable consequence.------
Up early this morning, sitting at the computer, looking out the window, yes, this is Scottish weather. It is all very grey, the grass is wet and I'm thinking of a heavy woollen top, though, the eternal optimist, it will clear up again soon, and the sun will return. Or, were all those wonderful bike runs of the last ten days, in glorious sunshine at 18/20 degrees, all a dream? Was it all wishful thinking and the product of an over active imagination? A glance at my arms, traces of sunburn, then there are the photos, so, yes it really did happen. Yesterday's magnificent sun, a total contrast from today, saw me around the Campsie Hills area, AGAIN, the countryside looked gorgeous, the array of colours, the changing contours, the glowing sun, a paradise. Of course nothing is perfect, the wind was 20mph exacerbated by occasional sudden gusts, so I had to work very hard on stretches of the road, but so what, I was out on the bike in a half-sleeve top, in glorious sunshine, ain't life wonderful.
Radiofragmata: International Call for Action about Squats (Greece)
The anarchist squats ought to be a thorn for the repression
mechanisms, against every dominant expression of the existing system.
All things considered, they ought to be thorns against the social
norm, against the alienated everyday life of decay that the social
norm itself produces.
Regarding the link of dynamics of the
people who take action in squats and choose to clash with the above
aspects of the dominant complex, we believe that a necessary tool is
the coordination of individualities and groups which act within and
around the squats, so as to able to form a living organism with
direct offensive reflexes. The coordination and the interaction
between squats mustn’t be determined by the attacks from the state
and its mechanisms -official or unofficial- but to form a cell of
essential political fermentation and a meeting place of our
individual and collective negations and desires.
It is necessary again to overcome the pathogenic characteristics
of introversion and institutionalization that are making their
appearances even within the occupied spaces of the Greek landscape.
The continuous gamble that the squats are being asked to win is the
one regarding the clash with authority, the one of our theoretical
and insurrectional development, the overcoming of the social
automatisms which constitute takeoffs of a social web’s miniature
that we detest. These squats are able to form a new field of creative
development and confrontation against the existing system. For these
squats, the authority is going to bleed if they ever attempt to take
them back, because they will be liberated centres of struggle of the
polymorphous anarchist action, vital parts in other words, of a wider
range of a combative network of liberated spaces that won’t bargain
their life over obedient submission.
We, as Radiofragmata, since we are a vital part of an occupied
space (the one of the polymorphous anarchist action at Zaimi 11,
Exarcheia, Athens), support and constitute an active mosaic of this
call, in which the comrades of the Anarchist Library Teflon,
Papamichelaki Squat and Continuous Deconstruction are equally taking
part, that places the issue about squats at the epicenter, the
coordination amongst them and the need for intensification of their
offensive characteristics.
What is happening in Greece should be of interest to all of us, who wish to bring about justice, freedom, co-operation and sustainability, in other words, who wish to bring about the end of capitalism. Greece is at the forefront of the " refugee crisis" but is also at the forefront of the financial Mafia's attempt to recapitalise it institutions at the expense of the people. How the people react to this criminal act of looting, is something we can learn from.
This statement is based on our personal and shared collective
experience of the current situation of anarchist struggle in Greece,
Athens and Exarkhia. We did not neither had the time to consult and
agree with the older Greek crowd of anarchists and radicals, and is only
our sentiment as mostly international people with little experience and
limited knowledge of the dynamics within the militant crowds. We are an ad hoc collective of international squatters in Exarkhia
who just opened a new occupation in a lofty house at 119 Zoodorou Pigis,
three weeks ago, pitted together by the necessity of developing a place
where to live and organize, with the desire to spread anarchy against a
ruthless State at the very entrance of Fortress Europe, and its armies
of civil and uniformed minions. This squat 'til now has been an awesome
adventure filled with creative energies and has helped several anarcho
street travellers as well as refugees to have a stay, be a stake up
against society and in the process build ties with new people, something
that had become nearly impossible these days in Athens due to not just
State repression but also the internal politics of the well-known squats
and the demotivation/demobilization of many anarchists in Exarkhia.
Look around and what we see is blatant greed and corruption by the wealthy and powerful, with the people growing more and more aware of this looting and a realisation that the ballot box is just an illusion to fool the subservient. So protests grow, turmoil increases and the system cracks and starts to crumble. In the capitalist system protest and direct action is the only road to real change, justice and freedom. The states answer to this threat is to lock more people up in cages, believing this will solve the problem. However, people in cages are still people, and their resolve to be treated as such will always be there and grow.
Across the system those locked up are also turning to direct action as much as they can within the confines of the brutal state incarceration. Prisoners direct action is growing, in Greece there is a constant battle within the prison system in America across several states prisoners are on strike, and the latest in Europe is in Belgium, where several prisons have prisoners roiting, to the extent that the Belgian government has sent in the troops. Slavery is not dead as long as we have prisons and those locked up used as productive units to make profit for large corporations, as happens in every country in Europe. In America, prisons are nothing more than large production units useing the inmates as slave labour. All those who are protesting, striking, taking direct action, within the prison system must be able to call on the support and solidarity of all those outside the cages, we are all fighting the same system, exploitation,injustice and corruption.
On Monday 25th of April, the prison guards of all prisons in the
French speaking parts of Belgium went on strike, in total 21 prisons.
The prisoners are confined in their cells. All activities, like the
walk, shower, visit, legal counsel, are cancelled. The police took
over the control of the prisons to assure security.
After one week of guards on strike, and with conditions rapidly
deteriorating inside, incidents start to spread in many prisons. In
some prisons, the situation could be called catastrophic. Prisoners
only receive food once a day, didn’t go out of their cells in more
than ten days, hygienic conditions are terrible with infections and
diseases spreading.---------
Alabama prisoners who have been on strike for 10 days
over unpaid labor and prison conditions are accusing officials of
retaliating against their protest by starving them. The coordinated
strike started on May 1, International Workers’ Day, when prisoners
at the Holman and Elmore facilities refused to report to their prison
jobs and has since expanded to Staton, St. Clair, and Donaldson’s
facilities, according to organizers with the Free Alabama Movement, a
network of prison activists.
Prison officials responded by putting the facilities on lockdown,
partially to allow guards to perform jobs normally carried out by
prisoners. But prisoners told The Intercept that officials
also punished them by serving meals that are significantly smaller
than usual, a practice they have referred to as “bird feeding.”----------
Texas.
Claiming that they are treated like slaves, inmates from up to five Texas prisons have
orchestrated a historic workers’ strike. A lack of access to
quality food and water, low wages, overcrowding, and poor working
conditions were among their complaints.
Striking inmates are refusing to leave their cells for work
assigned by Texas Corrections Industries (TCI), a publicly traded
company.
Established in 1963 under the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, TCI uses prison labor to make a variety of products “from
hand soap to bed sheets, from raising livestock to making iron
toilets and portable buildings,” all of which are sold to local,
state, and federal government agencies, as well as public schools,
and hospitals ‒ and prisoners receive none of the profits,
according to a letter outlining
the reasons for the strike.--------
PRISON INMATESaround the country have called for a
series of strikes against forced labor, demanding reforms of
parole systems and prison policies, as well as more humane living
conditions, a reduced use of solitary confinement, and better health
care.
Inmates at up to five Texas prisons pledged to refuse to
leave their cells today. The strike’s organizers remain anonymous
but have circulated fliers listing a series of grievances and
demands, and a letter
articulating the reasons for the strike. The Texas strikers’
demands range from the specific, such as a “good-time” credit
toward sentence reduction and an end to $100 medical co-pays, to the
systemic, namely a drastic downsizing of the state’s incarcerated
population.
“Texas’s prisoners are the slaves of today, and that slavery
affects our society economically, morally and politically,” reads
the five-page letter announcing the strike. “Beginning on
April 4, 2016, all inmates around Texas will stop all labor in order
to get the attention from politicians and Texas’s community alike.”---------
Let's hope that this most unusual Scottish weather continues. Another lovely run out on the dream machine, again the wind was not playing ball with us cyclists, approximately 20mph, not a nice companion when pushing up a hill. Another shocker, tearoom at Campsie shut again. So I just sat in the sun for a few minutes contemplating the dire effects of not having the obligatory plate of lentil soup. Obviously none, as I just got back on the bike and cycled home.
However, I think it is time that we cyclist and you motorist got together and took the various councils to task on the state of our roads. Surely the councils have a duty to keep the roads "fit for purpose". I know that motorists don't always feel the bumps in the roads the way a cyclist does, but the damage to the suspension system and wheels of cars must be an ever increasing cost. To the cyclist it is a bit more than an uncomfortable ride, and a bit more than damage to wheels etc, it is a matter of life and death. While cycling on our roads it is hard to believe that we live in the 5th. richest country in the world. The cyclist has to manoeuvre and zig-zag through an array of potholes, cracked tarmac, rough troughs, sunken drain covers, tarmac patches that are raised abruptly above the level of the road, and general crap rough surfaces, all the while being very much aware of fast flowing traffic that flies past you with very little space between you and the vehicle. All this while councils and government bodies are spouting that more people should take to cycling.
I consider it criminal neglect on behalf of the councils to allow our road system to fall into such a state of disrepair. In doing so they are risking the lives of cyclists and other road users. Somehow, we must be able to hold them to account. Any ideas?
Having been a regular visitor to Greece over the years, and enjoyed the pleasantries of that country and the generosity of its people, I have watched the people of Greece being cruelly sacrificed on the altar of big finance, and my mind can’t help revisit the present problems faced by the people of Greece. The general perception by the people of the rest of Europe is that we have generously pour billions into that country and they are still in a mess. Of course the truth is far removed from that piece of chicanery and illusion. What we should all be aware of is that the “rescue packages”, were really designed to save the private investors and the banks, the people of Greece don’t come into the equation. According to research done by the European School of Management and Technology, of the first two aid packages amounting to more than €215 billion, a mere €9.5 billion went to assist the people of Greece, the remainder went to interest payments and to service old debts, in other words, it went back to the banks.
Greece is no longer a sovereign country, its so called socialist government is merely there to implement the dictate of the financial Mafia, the Troika, (EC, European Commission, ECB, European Central Bank, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers) and they are determined to gut and clean out any assets left in that country and in the process totally destroy the already shattered social welfare structure of Greece.
Even in the “refugee crisis”, Greece has been left to sort it out by itself. While Turkey got a deal of €6 billion to tidy them through, Greece got bus loads of advisers to help them stream line the paper work and processing of that tragic army of desperate people landing on the shores of Greece in their hundreds of thousands.
Yet we have that member of the financial Mafia, Wolfgang Schauble, German finance Minister, stating, “we were very generous with Greece.”, helping to weave the cruel illusion that the problem is really all about the nasty, lazy, inefficient, bad managers that is Greece.
Greece is the perfect example of how the financial system that controls our lives, is hell bent on attempting to secure its debt laden banking system at the expense of the welfare of the people. For the same reason, all our welfare systems are under attack, the financial Mafia will continue to push for more and more “austerity” which translates as, “send all the money to the banks” to prop up the phoney crumbling house of cards.
Let’s look at Greece in honest detail and ask, why do we tolerate such a vicious, unjust, corrupt system that openly only benefits the pampered parasites who are looting the earth at everybody’s expense. If you say you want justice, then you have to say, you want an end to the capitalist system.
