God Gave It To Me.

 

 The shrinking country of Palestine.

        The Israeli Palestine situation, is one where the babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, has drowned the truth in a sea of biased propaganda unprecedented in modern history.  The picture of a country with one of the most powerful armies in the world being continually under threat from a fragmented dissipated country whose people are enslaved, is surely the pinnacle of illusion creating. A lie so gigantic, propagated for years by false and distorted "information". The web of lies, selective reporting and exaggeration is so vast and widespread, that those who try to disentangle it in an attempt to produce the truth, are deemed insane. 

        This short little video goes some way to explain, in very simple terms, the the Israeli position and the media response.

 Not Aleppo, Gaza.

Not Aleppo, Gaza.

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The Hand Of Hypocrisy.

 

        I wrote this post, The Hand of Hypocrisy, away back in March, 2011, since then we now know that our policy in Libya has borne the fruit of chaos, the disintegration of civil society, continuous bloodshed, misery and death, but it has now disappeared off the scene from our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media. We set off to do the same in Syria, but those nasty Russians jumped in to upset the equation. So now the Syrian people will just have to tolerate a longer, darker hell, and greater bloodshed. From 2011  to 2016, can anybody tell me what has changed in this imperialist world?

 The Hand of Hypocrisy:

         As Western Cruise missiles blast holes in Libya's infrastructure, killing Libyans to save Libyans, and possibly laying the ground work for a civil war, nobody is saying where they go from here. How long will the no-fly zone last, don't know. What do we do if the Libyans killing Libyans drags on in a long stalemate, do we send in the Western cavalry to take sides and give one side a wee push, more or less guaranteeing a prolonged civil war and possible occupation. Just to keep the peace mind you. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, the moral policemen are up to the necks in shit. The idea that this will be a nice clean surgical operation with all of Libya being ever thankful to the West is an illusion. We have been “policing” Iraq since 1991 and Afghanistan since 2001. When does our involvement in Libya end and at what cost? Not counting the Libyan deaths and injured, there is already one American plane down with one pilot missing, and we have just started.

        Setting aside the human horror of what is happening in Libya and casting a glance at the financial side, there must be questions. Each time a Tornado jet runs a sortie it takes approximately £30,000 of fuel. How many have we run so far? If a Tornado is brought down there is the £50 million cost of a replacement. Each cruise missile that is fired cost £500,000. There have been more than 110 cruise missiles fired so far. A quick calculation comes up with £55 million already up in smoke and misery from cruise missiles alone, with the arms industry rubbing its hands at the thought of all those being replaced. I don't know what proportion of those cruise missiles were fire by the UK but I reckon that we would fire our fair share. Then of course we have our submarines out there in the Med. and I have no doubt our boys wanted a shot at firing their gear off, I wonder what it cost to send a sub to the Med. and then fire off a few £500,000 missiles? While this little pygmy war is being played out in Libya, let's not forget our long running and on going £4 billion a year affair in Afghanistan.
        I know you can't put a price on human life but at a time when we in the UK are being faced with draconian cuts to every fibre of the social structure of our society, wage cuts and mass unemployment, is this the right policy. Can we in the UK really afford to strut around the world bombing democracy into other countries? When we look at the figures of death and misery resulting from our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan can Libya be justified?
      Meanwhile in nearby Yemen and Bahrain protesters are being brutally crushed but no call for a no-fly zone. Well Bahrain is really a US naval base, which is very handy to have so near all that oil, and Bahrain is also on best buddy terms with that other autocratic despot regime, Saudi Arabia. So we don't want to upset that little power structure do we? Then of course no call for a no-fly zone over Israel while it carried out its policy of genocide in Gaza 2008/09
      It's all hypocrisy and is really about oil, resources and power, the Western powers have proved often enough that when it comes to the people of the Middle East and Africa, they don't give a shit.

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The Liars And Cheats Competition.

 

          The Western electoral system of "representative democracy" is sold as a system where the people are in control and decide who should run the country, However it is a system that the rich and powerful bunch of parasites, love and endorse, why? Simple because it creates that illusion of people controlling their destiny, and in no way changes who is actually in control. Elections are merely a platform for the various factions within the power mongers club, on what little variations they wish to make in their carving up the wealth of the country. A slight shift in power from one bunch of over privileged parasites to another, without the need for blood. What is more, the wealth they are slicing and dicing to their own particular advantage, is a wealth that is totally created by the individuals that vote and support the illusion, and have no real say on how that wealth should be divided. Elections are nothing more than a liars and cheats competition, the group that can convincingly spout the greatest lie, is usually the group that gets the bosses seat, until the next election charade. 

         An extract from an interesting article on the American election from Anarkismo.net:

       In demonstrations across the United States, protesters have raised signs saying, “Not My President!” Obviously they are not denying that state machinery has given Donald J. Trump the position of head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, ruler of the mightiest and wealthiest state in the world. What they are denying is Trump’s legitimacy for the position, his moral right to claim the presidency.
     Under the capitalist system, electoral democracy serves several purposes. One is that it permits factions of the ruling capitalist elite to struggle over their different programs (based on differing interests) and to make final decisions—without civil wars or establishing a dictatorship (both of which can be costly).
      Another major purpose of capitalist democracy is that it fools the people into thinking that they run the country. It lets them think that they are free people, not subjects of a very rich minority. It distracts them from the fact that the day after an election, most adults go to work (those who have jobs) and take orders from unelected bosses. This goal requires that they see the government as legitimately representing the voters.
      That became an issue even before the end of the campaign. Expecting to lose, Trump insisted that the election was “rigged.” He refused to say whether he would accept the results if he lost. Politicians and pundits, Democrats and Republicans, were aghast! They cried that it was contrary to the whole system to not accept the election results. It was essential to peacefully hand over power. They reminded us how George W. Bush had lost the popular vote to Al Gore, but that the Supreme Court majority had given the election to Bush—and that Gore, as a loyal supporter of the system, had not fought it. Even earlier, Richard Nixon believed that he had lost to John F. Kennedy only because (Nixon told close friends) the Daley machine in Chicago had fraudulently over counted votes for Kennedy. But Nixon did not make a fuss. That was supposedly the American way!

The Rigging of the 2016 U.S. Election

       The most obvious aspect of the unfairness of the 2016 election results is that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. She won almost 3 million more votes than Trump. Due to the distribution of the votes, however, she lost in the archaic Electoral College. In the 18th century, this was originally created to be a buffer between the voters and the election of the president, to be a compromise between large and small states, and to strengthen the power of the slave-holders. The distorting influence of the Electoral College is increased by the “winner take all” rules of almost every state, so that Democrats in Texas and Republicans in New York might as well stay home. No other capitalist democracy has such an indirect system; in all others, the “popular vote” is just the “vote.” Despite its obvious injustices, the establishment has never made an effort to alter or abolish the Electoral College.

Continue reading HERE:

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America's Full Spectrum Domination.

          I have no doubt what so ever, that Trump will continue America's imperialist pedigree, the question is, just how brutally will he pursue that policy of American aggrandisement, just how savagely will he use its horrendous military power.        

       It didn't take America long to go from a colony to a coloniser. This fresh new nation born around 1783, in just over 100 years went from a British colony to a colonial power. Its first conquest was the brutal conquest of the Philippines in 1898-1902, the first time American troops fought on foreign soil. That seems to have turned its lords and masters in to colonial addicts, and set the pattern for this "fledgling" nation. From then until the present day, America has invade, occupied, propped up vile dictators, overthrown elected regimes to set up puppet regimes, all to the greater glory of America's wealthy elite. It would be difficult to find a country in Europe, Far East, Middle East, South America, that doesn't have a US military presence on its soil. American military personnel are based in more countries than any other nation on the planet. America is truly the world's  largest imperial power, ever. Anybody who sees America other than a powerful imperialist nation, is not looking at the truth history tells us.

        The main sources of information on these military installations (e.g. C. Johnson, the NATO Watch Committee, the International Network for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases) reveal that the US operates and/or controls between 700 and 800 military bases Worldwide.
       In this regard, Hugh d’Andrade and Bob Wing’s 2002 Map 1 entitled “U.S. Military Troops and Bases around the World, The Cost of ‘Permanent War’”, confirms the presence of US military personnel in 156 countries.
       The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries.
        In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.
        These facilities include a total of 845,441 different buildings and equipments. The underlying land surface is of the order of 30 million acres. According to Gelman, who examined 2005 official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of 737 bases in foreign lands. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the Pentagon one of the largest landowners worldwide (Gelman, J., 2007).

       No country in modern times has ever invaded more countries than America, its list of military interventions and occupations outstrips all others. Though never invaded, it has never been at peace, its invasions and intrusions into other countries are an ongoing litany of death, destruction and misery, a modern Dante's Inferno, for other nations and their people.

       The Global Policy Forum list more than 200 American military and clandestine operation in foreign countries from its birth up to 2004, since 2004, we are all well aware of America's military interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere. 

        This is the lie that the West, lead by America, is a force for peace and democracy, it is in fact, just another phase of brutal imperialism. The only thing new about this phase, is its world wide domination, and its unimaginable military destructive power. Until we all take up the struggle to get rid of the nation states, and take control of our own lives, we will have to live the lie, and live in the fear of Armageddon. 

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The Lie We Live.

        I posted this video near the beginning of the year, It seems even more relevant now that it was then. So I thought it might be a good idea to do it again, near the end of the year. Who knows, perhaps we will eventually realise that the Earth has no escape capsule, and do our utmost to sort out the mess we have created.

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When The People Strike Back.

        Well as 2016 draws to a close, I think that one thing we can say about the year, is that it wasn't a quiet year on the streets across the world. Europe, South America, Africa, they all saw people in protest against the established system. What will 2017 bring? It certainly hasn't got any better for the ordinary people of this world, so one should expect the protests to increase in numbers, duration and grow in determination and in anger.

       From the "Fishball Revolution" in Hong Kong to the massive labour reform protests in France, 2016 was a riotous year. The counties included in this edition are Greece, France, Belgium, Italy, Chile, Turkey, Bahrain and South Africa. Music: Funky Shit by The Prodigy 

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Interesting Times Ahead.

         I have never said much about Trump, what can you say, except that he is the manifestation of the inherent insanity within in the system. We can be sure that his rule on the throne of the American Empire will not be a quiet one.

     This summing up of his coming reign, from 325, by American, William T. Hathaway, gives us some idea of the "interesting" times ahead, and how we got here.

      “May you live in interesting times” was a curse the ancient Chinese hurled at their adversaries, wishing them strife, oppression, and struggle. It applies to us now because for all the uncertainties a Trump presidency holds, it will certainly be an interesting time, filled with opportunities for resistance and perhaps revolution.
Big T’s pedal-to-the-metal exploitation of humanity and the planet will accelerate the vicious policies of his two predecessors, poisoning the environment, forcing our financial will around the world, killing thousands of people in imperialist wars, manipulating other nations, modernizing our nuclear weapons, and jailing dissenters at home. Fortress America will continue to expand globally as prison, sweatshop, and fire base.
       After all our years trying to change this country, how could we end up with this?
     To answer this question and avoid falling into catatonic despondency or self-destructive rage, we need an historical perspective. What we are experiencing now is the long war the ruling elite is fighting to maintain its grip on the world. The current phase began with the collapse of Keynesian capitalism, which flourished from the 1950s into the ’70s, when the primary consumer market was in the capitalist headquarter countries of North America and Western Europe. Corporations were able to stimulate domestic consumption and quell worker discontent there by acceding to labor’s demands for better wages and conditions. That led to a 30-year bubble of improvement for unionized workers, predominantly male and white, that began to collapse in the ’80s as capitalism gradually became globalized.
        Then to maintain dominance Western corporations had to reduce labor costs in order to compete against emerging competition in low-wage countries such as China, India, and Brazil. Also international consumer markets became more important than the home market, but reaching them required low prices. So capitalist leaders reversed hard-won reforms, forcing paychecks and working conditions in the West down. And they tried to keep control of crucial Mideast oil resources by tightening their neo-imperialist hold on that region: overthrowing governments, installing dictators, undermining economies.
     This aggression generated armed resistance: jihadist attacks against the West. Our response has been the current holy war against terror. All of this horrible suffering is just one campaign in capitalism’s long war for hegemony. Any dominator system — including capitalism, patriarchy, and religious fundamentalism — generates violence.

Continue reading HERE:

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The State, The Strangulation Of Freedom.

         I often rant about the state, and how it doesn't serve the people, but serves a bunch of over privileged parasites. I spout about how it is at the root of wars, repression, genocide and strangles individual freedom. I go on about its desire for control and standardisation, its lack of humanity, and by its festering marriage with corporate capitalism, how it turns each human into an economic unit, which becomes superfluous if non-productive. No matter how I try, I can't put it as fluently and as eloquently as  anarchist/poet/writer, Jesús Sepúlveda does in his book, The Garden of Peculiarities.  

       This is a short extract, from that book, on the state:

       The State exists because it territorializes itself. It builds itself through colonizing territorial expansion. This expansion comes about through the forced deterritorialization of the original inhabitants from the lands that the state has appropriated. This appropriation implies the mobilization of military force that the state can use to expand or maintain its territory. This has meant wars and genocide. But the state also has its experts to write history; they turn the facts around so as to justify their atrocities and obligate following generations to repeat the meaningless official litanies written by the experts.

       Education, then, is nothing more than the institutionalization of disciplines of training and domestication, a training ground where children and adolescents are taught to perpetuate the dominant system. There they learn to give way to the dominant order and they begin the process of reification. On these parade grounds or schools of social indoctrination, the ideology that legitimates the system is reproduced. New members of society internalize a false consciousness, which inflates in them like a lung until everyone repeats with more or less success the same discourse. Its idea is that everyone says, dreams, and thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds. And if it has its faults, it doesn’t matter because they can be fixed. Thinking anything different is to be part of the anarchistic ranks, to go crazy or to call to insurrection. According to Adorno, standardization obliges the subject to choose between mercantilization or schizophrenia. There is no exit from this binary mold. In this society, preferring the garden to cement is seen with distrust. And depending on the political wind of the moment, this preference can cost one’s life. When the system breaks and sheep escape from the flock, prisons grow with criminal efficiency, as well as coups d’etat, raids, tear gas, repressive measures, war, etc. While all of this is occurring, the state rein forces its propaganda through radio, television and newspapers. And so the state materializes itself in the minds of individuals.

      Nation states assemble their repressive apparati—police and military—to protect the transnationals and expand a lifestyle of standardization based on the reduction of humans into economic units of production and consumption. With this, a new kind of territorialization and labor slavery is produced. The technology and the goods that the global minority, dominant class uses are manufactured in sweatshops that operate with the logic of exploitation. Schools and factories are centers of control imposed by the state. In order to abolish the state, it is necessary to abolish factories and schools. The authoritarianism that the civilized order reproduces in these institutions is responsible for ethnic cleansing, political genocide, and social exploitation. In order to construct a work without hierarchies, jails, propaganda, or coups, it is necessary to sweep, away the state. And it depends on us to wipe it off the face of the earth.

Continue reading HERE:

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Rebel Rebel, Break The Rule.

        In this society we have choices, well at least two, subservience or subversion, which road will you choose and where will it lead you? In subservience you abandon your inner self, you bow your head to the will of others. you are a neat unit in a controlled society, your role is handed to you. In subversion you reach into that inner self, you seek the real you, you choose the shape and pattern of your life, you seek to realise your potential, you live your life.

This from The Bureau of Public Secrets:

      The dance of revolution is a continuous project, floating free, perpetually changing, always focused. The music it moves to is pure energy, weaving three interdependent melodies: participation, founded on the passion of play; communication, founded on the passion of love; and realization, founded on the passion to create. Refusing the value of appearances, the dance makes itself invisible to those who see only appearances; the spectacle of the commodity cannot defend itself. The dance can never be a closed system, it never mystifies itself; rather, it realizes itself in its own supersession, in the sublime movement of subversion, where a pirouette returns to itself not as itself, not as it was born, but changed, reconceived in a limitless perspective. Subversion devalues each fragmented element in the hierarchy of appearances; each isolated commodity — whether it be inanimate objects or objectified human beings selling themselves in the marketplace — is projected into the significance of the WHOLE, all possible connections are made as we dance closer to the totality of our lives. Subversion is the only language, the only gesture, that bears within it its own critique. Its force is pleasure seeking itself. In the language of subversion we begin to sing, our whole lives begin to move in the rhythm of the song: thus we create the dance: thus the revolution becomes our daily life.

[February 1970]

The Rebel

Rebel rebel break the rule,
What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.
Not for you the herd’s dull beat
Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,
Living out the life of a clone
Marching with the crowd but always alone.
Shaping your life from some dusty tome
Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule
Swim in the sea, never the pool.
Live your emotions, feel the surge
Follow your dreams, chase the urge.
Make life though short, an exciting game
Not a mad march for fortune or fame.
Capture the moment, live it now
Being alive your only vow.
Rebel rebel break the rule
In the end,      you’re humanity’s jewel.

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Another Massive Oil Spill.

         I have no doubt that there are lots of people, spouting the wonders of modern technology. who considered that the water protectors trying to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock were over reacting for some ulterior motive. Well not a stones throw from the stand off between the water protectors and the oil greed juggernaut, the wonders of modern technology have let us down again, with disastrous effects. A massive oil spill, estimated at more than 170,000 gallons of crude oil has just leaked into a tributary of the Little Missouri River and over a hillside. It appears that the monitoring equipment failed to detect the leak, so nobody is sure for how long it has been leaking. So far two dead cows have been found at the site. Thanks for the link Loam.

This report from Mint Press News:

        A pipeline just two and half hours’ drive from the Indigenous water protectors’ ongoing stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline has leaked over 170,000 gallons of crude oil into a tributary of the Little Missouri River and into a hillside, it was reported late Monday.
       Monitoring equipment failed to detect the leak, and it is unknown how long the spill near Belfield, North Dakota had gone on before a local landowner discovered it on December 5.
       At least two cows have been confirmed dead near the site of the spill, reports the Pioneer Press.
       The Belle Fourche pipeline is operated by the Wyoming-based True Companies, which is the same company behind the 2015 pipeline rupture in Montana that sent over 40,000 barrels of crude into Yellowstone River. Indeed, at that time it was reported that the operator had a “checkered environmental history,” with 30 recorded pipeline leaks and multiple federal fines on its record.

Read the full article HERE: 

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No Borders.

 

      The "migrant" question is still top of the agenda for most of the political parties, the usual cry being, "control must be restored" which is an admission that the state's control is far from complete, they always wish to go further down that road. A excellent excuse for more draconian rules and regulations, which don't just apply to migrants, but can be used in a blanket form against the general public. What always puzzles me is the wide acceptance across the population, of these new Orwellian rules. The "Calais Jungle" may have gone, but the people are still in transit, and still branded as illegal. Instead of congregating in self managing groups, they are being transferred to state managed "detention centres", in simple language, prisons. The following is an extract from an interesting article from Bordered by Silence.

Anarchist texts on the Calais Jungle
       Although by now the Jungle of Calais has been destroyed, these two texts by Paris Sous Tension are still very relevant for understanding the situation of migrants in France today from an anarchist perspective. Many of the migrants were moved from the Jungle to various detention or housing centres, but all of those spaces are temporary and they will soon be back with the others in the camps that appeared or grew following the Calais eviction. In November, several thousand people were evicted from the Stalingrad neighbhourhood of Paris, where a camp had grown on the grassy medians of busy commercial streets. With right-wing politics ascendant here in the lead-up to presidential election in the spring, it is likely that the attitude of the state towards the migrants will harden and that the two strategies described in these articles, repression and management, will take on an increasingly violent character. 
“I don’t want to go there. That camp is a prison, a sneaky way of imprisoning us.” from Paris Sous Tension, January 2016
       In Calais, the year 2016 begins in the same way the previous ended: by further repressive measures against the undersireables (undocumented people, outlaws, rebels…), by declarations of war against them by the government and its police. All with the explicit support of the most despicable segment of the population, those who have turned to xenophobia to soothe their miserable existence and who rejoice to see the government — who, in their opinion, never does enough —  go all out and resort to drastic measures. Those who, when things get serious, always line up behind the state and demand as the price of their passive adherence that the order be restored. Their only concern is to preserve their small comforts, their precious bank balance, their precious car and daily routine, their precious space of mental peace that all allows them to live their lives without paying attention to the world around them.
       Like many places around the world, people have been flocking to Calais for years now in hopes of crossing to England, crossing a border that is closed to them because they don’t have the required documents, because they don’t meet the legal requirements , because they don’t have a degree or a resume to help them sell themselves on the labour market, or rather because keeping this cheap labour pool living day to day and in fear is a good way to domesticate them and keep them readily exploitable. For years, these people have been organizing among themselves for survival, in hopes of managing to slip across the border illegally, of overcoming the many obstacles that separate one bit of territory from another for those who are seen as undesireable by the state and the market. And as is often the case in hostile situations, there is strength in numbers and so they’ve come here by the thousands (between 4500 and 6000 [1]) in an informal camp in an area now known as “the Jungle”. The cops, who used to simply destroy cabins and tents back when they were isolated from each other, don’t dare to enter “the Jungle” to evict the inhabitants. And these inhabitants, no longer being chased off every few days, are now able to organize themselves in small groups to sneak into cargo trucks in order to enter the tunnel under the English channel or to enter the port.
        And so we see in the past few months that companies like Eurotunnel and the SNCF rail network have restricted access to the tunnel and drastically increased security — the former by hiring a hundred dog handlers and the latter by erecting barriers along the roadways that are several metres tall and topped with barbed wire. As for the cops, more numerous and recently equipped with drones, they are happy to take advantage of a decree (a gift for the cops as part of the state of emergency) allowing them to stop any pedestrian on the road leading to the port and to pass them on to their friends, the judges, who can then condemn them to six months in prison. Oh joy, proclaim the the president of the region (who is calling for the support of the army to main-tain or-der!), the mayor of Calais, and the police chief  as they demand the deportation or imprisonment of every migrant found guilty of: trespassing around the port or near the Eurotunnel (which is necessary, considering the absence of a space-time portal to cross the border); conflict with the police (which has become necessary in order to access the sites in question, in addition to its general value); vandalism; or “by-law violations” (healthy reactions in the face of frustration, disappointment, anger, despair, rage…). It’s a way of oiling the judicial meat grinder, to wave the cleaver of prison or expulsion (which means, at the very least, starting again) over the heads of those migrants who don’t act the way the bureaucrats, functionaries, judges, and politicians expect: as victims.
        Governments of all stripes dream of order and pacification, but this isn’t in the cards for the near future. As proof, on December 17, about a thousand people set out along the highway towards the tunnel. With Christmas approaching and big traffic jams all around the commercial centres, they figured there would be more chances to sneak onto a truck. But the police didn’t agree, which lead to hours of confrontation. Same thing on December 25, 2500 people passed through the centre of Calais to reach the tunnel under the channel, but the police pushed them back. On their return trip, cars payed the price of their frustration and rage: rear view mirrors and windshields smashed, wipers bent back. A few uniformed goons were hurt. In these dark days, the blindest hatred meets the pettiest arrogance and cowardly submission prospers in the absence of any broader hope for a radically different life. We didn’t have to wait long to hear the half self-interested, half indignant grumbles and squeals of the peaceful and hardworking population as they lined up on the side of order.

Read the full article HERE:

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Common Cause.

 

         We volunteers at Spirit of Revolt always try to get what is in our archive out to the general public. We do this among other ways, with exhibitions, on line cataloguing, and displays at various events. Why do we do this, well we believe that the grass-roots history of the ordinary people is extremely important. It is a powerful history of our past struggles from which we can learn much. It is also a history that would be lost, leaving a large gap in our true story. Without our true history we are a false people.

     Another way we try to get people interested in what we hold in the archive is the spot on our website called, "Read of the Month". Here we select a pamphlet, paper, small book or whatever, and put it on Read of the Month in the hope that it will raise you interest, pushing you to explore much deeper. 

      This month it is a small magazine covering community and industrial struggles from South Wales, Common Cause, No.2, 1978. Have a look, and if you like what you see, perhaps you can let your curser slide along to the "Donate" button and give a little to help us to continue doing what we are always trying to do, preserve and make easily and freely available, our history of struggle.

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Our Orwellian Society.

We all know that the state's "secret services" work in secret, that goes without saying, so we the people never know what they are up to, what we can be sure of is that they are not working for the public at large, but working to maintain the established power structure. So the various laws covering their actions are not laid down to tell them how they will work, but to protect them should they get caught snooping where we don't believe they should. Therefore legislation covering the "secret service" will always get ever more invasive as technical abilities allow ever great surveillance, Stingray, for example. Keep the state and you keep the cancer of "secret services"  For this reason I'm not a great lover of petitions as they never remove the real threat, the state, but what they can do is help highlight the murky details and intrusive nature of the state and its cavalier attitude to our liberties.        So I sign this petition and help broadcast it, not because I think it will sort the problem of state mass surveillance, but hoping it will alert more people to the truth about the illusion of democracy and the type of secret surveillance society we live under.  This from Care 2:        It's "worse than scary": This is the UN privacy chief's response to the UK government's new Investigatory Powers Bill, also known as the 'Snoopers' Charter'. The bill means an unprecedented loss of privacy within the UK, allowing police to hack computers and phones and to turn on microphones and bug conversations. If you have a modern mobile phone you are now vulnerable to police secretly recording your conversations wherever you are. Innocent or guilty, we are now under inescapable scrutiny. Please sign this petition to demand that the government repeals the Investigatory Powers Bill. The new surveillance laws will mean that everyone's web browsing histories will be stored for 12 months, and security services will have full access to this personal data. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group said, "it is one of the most extreme surveillance laws ever passed in a democracy." This bill is not designed to protect us, it's designed to take away our freedom. Please sign this petition to demand that the bill be repealed. If enough people sign, it will send a clear message to the UK government that the world is watching and we will not accept this stripping away of our rights. Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk