The Game Is Loaded, But Not In Our Favour.

-----------Let's not forget that the IMF is not participating in the third memorandum agreement or in its funding mechanism. So, could somebody explain to me why legislation has been passed which requires that any political decision that is made in Greece must be first sent to the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB), who must then agree on these proposals? This is part of the third memorandum agreement. Could somebody explain to me how the Greek government is supposed to clash with the IMF when this very same government has signed an agreement where the IMF still has the power to accept or reject political decisions made in Greece? The subservience of the Greek government has surpassed even that of the Quisling regime.
           The only way in which this situation can change is if the Greek people find a way to overturn this government, as soon as possible. They have a responsibility to do this, before we see the situation get even worse.-------

Read the full article HERE:

           The above statement highlights the squabbling that goes on within the financial Mafia, in the mean time the people of Greece see their assets being sold off to satisfy the greed of the German section of the Mafia. The German section will under no circumstance countenance the thought of that mountain of Greek debt they hold, being written off, or down. However, debating in financial terms, about the problem the people of Greece face, is just a discussion between money lenders who placed some lousy bets based on greed, and want their money back. It will in no way help the people of Greece to alleviate their poverty and deprivation. Even if all of the Greek debt was written off, they would no doubt be loaded with a massive new debt to “build their economy”. Framing the game in the financial Mafia’s rules, will never solve the people’s problems, the financial Mafia is a big part of that problem.

          The last couple of sentences of the above statement, (The only way in which this situation can change is if the Greek people find a way to overturn this government, as soon as possible. They have a responsibility to do this, before we see the situation get even worse.) is hardly an answer at all, if that means replacing it with another set of career suits, who talking and thinking financially, will take up the debate in the same language as before. As long as we, the ordinary people, play their game, to their rules, we will always come out at the bottom of the heap. What the people of Greece, as well as the rest of us, have to do, is not overturn the present government in favour of another cabal of lords and master, but to overthrow the entire system based on this financial insanity. In simple words overthrow capitalism.

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Workers Know Your History, Gaetano Bresci.

 

      May 22^nd. 1901, Gaetano Bresci was found dead in his prison cell, it has never been agreed whither he committed suicide or was murdered by his guards. Bresci was in prison for assassinating King Umberto 1 of Italy, shortly after the massacre of more than 90 demonstrators out side the palace. 

From Wikipedia:

          In 1898, high bread prices led to demonstrations all over Italy. In Milan, an unarmed crowd of protestors marched toward the palace, which was surrounded by a strong military force under the command of General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris. The crowd ignored the order to disperse, whereupon Bava-Beccaris gave the signal to fire with muskets and cannons, resulting in a massacre of the demonstrators, in which more than ninety people died.
Umberto I's killing
         King Umberto later decorated Bava-Beccaris, complimenting him upon his "brave defense of the royal house" — as a result of which Bresci became determined to kill the king. Bresci had his loan to the paper returned (without telling his comrades why), and with the money he went to Italy. In Monza, where the king was visiting on July 29, 1900, he shot him four times with a five-shot .32 revolver. A monument, the Cappella Espiatoria, has been erected in the exact spot the king was murdered.[3]

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Nothing Is Forever!!

 

        Some thoughtful words from Not Buying Anything. Which one are you betting on, who'll take the bet, who will pay out?

           What will be our final dance, what will burst our illusion of invincibility? 

        It is a race now. A race to see what does us in first. To see what brings us chaos and completion.
       Will it be climate change that forces our hand? Or will inequality blow us apart first? Or will Monsanto kill us before that? Or war?
     Living simply, generously and compassionately could help, but it is not a very popular solution.
       I wonder - will I have the luxury of passing away peacefully in my sleep due to old age some day, or will some other human-caused gong show cause my early demise?
      Who knew the end times would be so exciting? I am sure there are people right now betting on the eventual outcome of this experiment we call life on planet earth. They might think they can enjoy their profits before the whole thing finishes off with a mighty fizzle.
       It is a race. A race to the end. It will not be televised. Many won't even know it is coming, even though for many others it will not be a surprise.

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"We Ask For Nothing, We Are Taking It All".

        Only those unfortunate souls who glean their information from the babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, see the system as working fine, but with odd and rare blips of some sort of “crisis”. They live in the smoke and mirrors of the propaganda fog produced by that mouth piece of the system, that wonderful illusion creating machine they call “The Media”. Cast your eyes towards the real world, and you see a different picture. You see poverty, deprivation, brutal wars, and state violence, a world awash with inequality and injustice, you also see a system in its death throes. However, you also see resistance, resistance to this continuous exploitation of the many by the few. Across the globe people are rising up and not demanding change, but creating change, you can’t demand freedom from a system that is built on, and can’t survive, without power and authority, you have to take it. There can be no compromise between capitalism and justice, the are totally incompatible.
        From Russia to Canada, from Norway to Mexico, people are waking up to the fact that they hold the power, all they have to do is use that power, they now realise that capitalism is not the only game in town, it was not created in tablets of stone by some deity, it was man made, and can be man destroyed, for people to have justice and freedom, capitalism must go. However, the beast will not go quietly, it will not relinquish its power and privileges without a fight, it will use every dirty trick in the book backed up with raw brutal force. That's the price of justice and freedom.

 This from Act For Freedom Now:

         These last two months (March-April) the streets of major cities in France have been transformed into fields of resistance, where mass protests and clashes are taking place in the framework of the general strikes which are against the new labour legislation of the government. Barricades, luxury cars and police cars burnt, cops and undercovers beaten, banks smashed, people masked up with stones in their hands, are some of the images that prove to us that in every corner of the earth the war against the state and capital still rages and that nothing is over…
       “We ask for nothing, we are taking it all”, “No insurrection without fire”, “Destroy wage slavery” etc, are some of the chants from the black bloc and the anarchist groups that clash and express their
refusals in the street. As was expected, all that’s taking place could not be without the labour leaders and reformists who speak of provocateurs, liken the black bloc with the fascists, condemn the violent practices against the state and at the same time have relations with the police. Because, fortunately or unfortunately, pacifists and deniers of violence – whose existence clearly favors the rulers – are a global phenomenon. The time is near when they will get what they deserve.
          At the same time, the forces of oppression use plenty of teargas, brutally beat protesters and arrest people. In a nutshell, they do everything under the orders of their superiors in order for them to protect their bosses and the peaceful citizens-subjects. It is more than obvious now that the economy is collapsing, resulting in it showing its real face: Hunger wages combined with wretched working conditions, that contribute to an inhumane middle ages-like work environment, where the worker is the modern slave on the production line. At the same time, repression intensifies and strengthens, in order for the police-state in the streets to become a daily routine and for whoever seeks the attack on the world of authority to hesitate to take action.
End the false dilemmas. Whoever chooses inactivity, chooses their chains. The moment is now, the place is here. From the streets of France to the alleyways of Chile, from the mountains of Mexico to the avenues of Athens. The whole world is a field of unrest! 

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Everything Is Fine, Just Watch Your TV.

He's only doing his job, which just happens to be kicking the shit out of people.!!!!

           France’s “socialist” government is trying hard to follow the dictate of the financial Mafia, to “reform” labour relations, which translates into slashing working conditions to suit the corporate cabal, that own EU governments. Such “reforms” as longer working hours, pay cuts, no overtime payments, are among the “reforms” to help “the economy”. That phrase, “helping the economy”, is supposed to make you fall in line, as if this was for your benefit. However what it really means is slashing workers conditions so that the corporate greed machine can scoop up ever better profits.
       Despite the fact that the people of France are not taking it lying down, are taking to the streets in their thousands, and have been for weeks, in the process being brutally assaulted by riot police, tear gas, water cannon and truncheon, our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, doesn’t seem to notice, its all about football, vitriolic bile about Brexit, BAFTAs and the Queen’s speech. We can’t be giving the plebs over here any idea that things aren’t going well with the system. Everything is just fine, keep looking at your TV, chatting on your mobile, and gaming on your laptop, that way you might not notice that you are being shafted. What is happening in France, is being repeated in Greece, Spain, Italy and here in the UK, as well as other countries across the planet, it is just a matter of different stages, different paces, but the end game is the same, the destruction of social welfare and poorer working conditions for all the ordinary people, in doing so, increasing profitability of the big corporations. When will we ever learn???

      Riot police in Paris used water cannons and tear gas to disperse protesters who had hurled rocks and other objects at officers. Truckers blocked roadways and railroad workers joined the strikes.
       Here's the big issue — French leaders say they have to make their country's economy more flexible, competitive and productive. To do that, they say they need to end some long-standing worker protections. Legislation that's moving forward would make it easier for employers to hire and fire workers. Truck drivers would also see their overtime pay cut. 

Read the full article HERE:

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You Are Not Working Long Enough Or Hard Enough.

             I sometimes wonder if the general public are fully aware of what is happening to the ordinary people of this country, and if they are, why do they accept the humiliation and insults. Workfare and sanctions are turning us into nation of poverty ridden, low paid and/or slave labour. The full impact of universal credits has not yet hit most of us in the face, but the blow is on its way. This is legislation, that punishes you if you are not earning enough or working long enough hours, and is designed and introduced by a bunch of pampered, privileged millionaires who have never in their entire life had to sit down and try to budget a totally inadequate income in an effort to survive. Their value structure is built round the philosophy that, at their income level, to get the best out of their people you have to pay them lavish incomes, at our level, to get the best out of us, they have to punish us and threaten us with deprivation. Your an idiot if you think that running to the ballot box to replace them with another pampered, privileged cabal will make any difference. 

              This not a problem just for the unemployed, it is not a problem just for the low paid, it is not a problem just for the part-time workers. This is a problem for all the ordinary people in this country, what happens to these vulnerable groups will impact on the whole fabric of our society. Increased homelessness, increased hungry children, increased poverty across our society. Increased mental and physical health problems, putting an ever increasing strain on an underfunded NHS, children's potential stunted by lack of opportunity and proper nutrition. All in an attempt to get us to be a national workforce of subservient, low wage serfs, ever grovelling and thanking our most gracious employers for having the generous heart to giving us a miserable low paid job, or for useing us as slave labour.

          Johhny Void on his Condemned site explains the universal credit system well in his article,

The True Horrors Of In-work Benefit Sanctions Have Not Yet Been Understood
Here are a couple of extracts:

 ---------When Universal Credit is fully introduced (stop laughing) part-time workers on a low income will be expected to constantly look for more, or better paid work as a condition of receiving vital in-work benefits.  Any failure on the part of claimants to prove that they carried out constant job searching in the hours they were not working will mean benefits are sanctioned.
         For claimants who are unemployed the sanction system will remain largely unchanged under Universal Credit.  Those without health problems who are sanctioned will lose all of their personal benefits except what is required to pay for housing costs or children.  This will mean a childless claimant will have no money at all once they have paid their rent – although they may be eligible to apply for emergency Hardship Payments of around £40 a week.  It is this nasty regime that has led to the explosion in foodbanks and been linked to a growing number of suicides.----

and:

---------Take a single, childless person in Bristol working at the current minimum wage for 20 hours a week and paying £120 a week in rent – the local housing allowance rate in the area for a claimant over 35.  Under Universal Credit this person will have a weekly income of £244 made up of £144 a week in wages and £100 a week in benefits.  Once their rent is paid this will leave them with £124 a week.  If they are sanctioned however they will lose £73.10 leaving them with just £50.90 a week to live on.  That’s over £20 a week less than the current dole and just £10 a week more than Hardship Payments.  Universal Credit will therefore not make work pay for those who have been sanctioned.  It will however make work compulsory.----

Read the full article HERE:

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Squats, A Starting Point.

               Squats; seeds, dreams, hopes, a doorway, a pathway, a factory for the imagination.

           More on squats from 325 by CCF, (Conspiracy of Cells Of Fire) 

      Some thoughts on the invitation sent by the comrades of Papamichelaki Squat, of Teflon Library, of Radiofragmata and of Continuous Deconstruction, about the Squatting issue.

        The following text corresponds to snapshots and features that we can find in the current squats in Greece.
I) Property is theft.
       “Property is theft” says one of the oldest anarchist slogans. It is the theft of collective life, it is the abolition of community, it is the refuge of taking distance from the commons, of fear.
         Property and its twin sister power, gives birth to the distinction of people based on titles, positions and privileges… Just like the sky has no borders, the land should not be owned. A human from a collective being becomes an owner. An owner not of their life but of walls, windows and furniture…
Squats have begun as a form of denial of property, and of self-organised expression. The course of the squat movement has many shades… Some of them are more militant, others are more harmless… There are anarchist squats and alternative squats, squats which are cores of lawlessness and squats which are dehydrated cultural centers.
         Today in Greece there are much more squats than in the past, not only in Athens but also in many cities.

       Every squat begins with an act of war. It annuls property (cornerstone of state power) and releases the ground from contracts, taxes, accounts, legality…         But the bet is exactly starting from that moment on… Squatting and the self-management of a place is a sharp tool, that can either stab the world of property or just become a souvenir and rust… Certainly, a squat is changing our own small-world, but as long as our world is bordered with the world of state power, if it doesn’t arm itself in order to attack, it will become a vision of an oasis surrounded by the desert of the existent.

II) The House of Anarchy.

        State power, in order to maintain its throne produces destruction. It separates people through laws, rules, racism, insecurity, locks, showcases, screens…          State power manufactures the loneliness of the crowd… “Each one alone … each one for himself.” The absolute principle of “Divide and Conquer…”          A Squat can become a meeting point without separations, an open chance to rediscover our collective self, to create communities again.

Read the full article HERE:

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Fit The Box, Or Be Abused.

        The smooth talking, unbending, rule following, rule enforcing, stooges of this authoritarian system, are its pillars and its lubrication. Without them the system crumbles, they deserve our venom and our anger. They follow a rule book devoid of humanity, intended to humiliate and repress those who may not fit into the little box that the system has prescribed them. It is a case of fit in, or be abused.

        This is well portrayed in this short extract from Ken Loach's film, "I, Daniel Blake"

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Top Shop Is Bottom Of The Barrel.

       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. 

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Too Much Power.

 

Charlie tried hard in his own way, and kept the message amusing.

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Simple Is Beautiful.

          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.

Removed bus ticket "validating" machines.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

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.

AGAINST COMMODITIES AND SELF-ORGANIZED,

WE ARE TAKING OUR LIVES INTO OUR OWN HANDS.

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Glasgow Primary School Janitors' Strike.

         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.

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This Sunny Scotland!!!

       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. 

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US Prison System And Environmental Damage.

          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. 

This by Panagioti Tsolkas, in "The Campaign To Fight Toxic Prisons".

       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.

Read the full article HERE:

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We Are Drowning In Hyperbole And Hypocrisy.

 

        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.

A chat between Yanis Varoufakis and Noam Chomsky, May, 26th. 2016.

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