Ah, the Kyles of Bute.

       Heading off for about a week, so the wee blog will have a rest for a while. I'm deserting the city I love, Glasgow, for the tranquillity of Tighnabruaich on the shores of The Kyles of Bute. If you have ever sailed the Kyles of Bute, you have had a wee slice of paradise. We will be staying just two miles outside Tighnabruaich. It will be a case of books, paper and pen, and when weather permits a bit of walking, though that gets harder these days. Looking forward to the wee break, and from the madness of this time of year, midst the mayhem of consumemas.

A Revolution With A Laugh.

     There are lots of ways to get your message across, demos, protests, meetings, occupy, leaflets, discussions, forming groups, direct action, solidarity groups, etc., etc.. However, has it all become too po-faced and serious? Anarchists are people with a rough road map to that better world, but perhaps where a more serious approach fails, we should launch a giggle fest, and capture people's imagination with a laugh. Humour is a rich and fertile field, parody and satire are sharp weapons, ridicule can destroy the the persona of the pompous, and it can all be very enjoyable. Remember Emma Goldman's quote; “If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution”, though there is doubt she actually said those words, but you get my drift.

This article by @muse from Anarchist News:

Anarchists storm, occupy, helium factory

       Why are anarchists so serious all the time? Where are the flash mobs, the parodies, the theatre? Pranks are fun to execute with friends and also a great way to fuck with the State.
       Many are familiar with the Situationist concept of detournement, but what about when Crass spliced together audio from speeches given by Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher and released it anonymously and the tape was taken seriously by the government as legitimate soviet propaganda?
      Jello Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco with the slogan "There's always room for Jello." All he needed was 1500 signatures or $1500 to receive equal airtime as other candidates, which he spent thoroughly mocking the entire political process. He finished third out of tenth place.
     Jello may have been inspired by the Yippies, who threw fistfuls of money from the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange. Imagine witnessing the traders, some of them booing, as others scrambled to grab as much as they could, clutching the notes in greedy fists.
      Not only were these pranks hilarious, but they earned political, social, and media attention in a way that in their frame of history protected them from the negative legal ramifications.
      Why don't we do more fun things? Must everything be so clinically serious and/or dangerously illegal? Is there room in the gray for cutting up and showing spoof to power?
     Oscar Wilde is incorrectly quoted as saying, "If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." Regardless of whether this was said or not, there is a point: sometimes you can say things in jest that you can't say seriously. It's not currently illegal to make audio projects that challenge the boundaries of free use and copyright law, or to run for political office as an art stunt, or to parody famous figures to highlight their absurdity. Stunts like these are fun, and they also capture the attention of broader audiences because they disrupt assumptions on all sides–they make people laugh, and then they make them think. Is there room for innovation in the vacuum of dry, serious, deliberation?
       What are some of your favorite historically acknowledged pranks? Are there still opportunities for more? What fantasies might you unleash as pranks that seriously stick it to the State?

Revolt in Songs, A night To Remeber.

 

 

       Well last night's Spirit of Revolt, Revolt in Songs event, was a resounding success, a full venue, and a range of performers from all airts an' pairts o' the country, a wonderful night. I would like to thank all the performers for coming along and doing their thing with passion, skill and gusto, A big thank you to all those behind the scenes who made it happen, a special thanks to Brendan our MC for a great job, as well as entertaining us with some fine songs and excellent guitar playing. A special thanks to all those who turned up at the door, paid their money, and I know they had a great time. I'm sure we will do it again. The Spirit of Revolt calendar at £5, went well on the night, to all those unfortunate individuals who missed this great night, but would still like to purchase a calendar give us a wee call at john(dot)c(dot)at95@btinternet.com or through Facebook, and if you're local to Glasgow, we will get it to you in a couple of days.

 For some reason the 8 is missing on this photo, but it is on the calendar.

        Once again a great big thank you to all those involved, in which ever way.

        Unfortunately the lighting in the venue did not lend itself to good photos, at least not for an amateur like me, but Bob recorded it, so there will be a wee video of the event coming out soon, thanks Bob.

Some of the performers, I apologise for not getting them all, and sorry for the poor quality of photographs:

Solidarity.

     We have a problem, what's the answer,--solidarity. State repression is increasing, what's the answer,--solidarity. The corporate world is destroying the planet, what's the answer,--solidarity. Our people are being brutally exploited, what's the answer,--solidarity. The powerful and wealthy are screwing us, what's the answer, --solidarity. 

     I don't think we can ever over estimate the importance of solidarity in our fight to rid this world of the festering cancer of capitalism, it is our most powerful weapon, it doesn't recognise borders, like the poem says, "You are many, they are few", in solidarity we can reshape this world and create that better world for us all.

     So with that thought in mind, I thought I would go into over-kill, with some videos that bring a bit of a glow to the heart. Thanks Loam for the links.

There Can Be No Compromise.

 

         As the old year starts to fade and the new year beckons, it is a time for anarchists to reflect on the struggles of the past, our successes and how to improve on them, our failures and how to reverse them. It is also time to analyse the weakness and the strengths of our adversary, the economic system under which we live. Weakness there are plenty, its only strength is our apathy. We are all aware that the state is ramping up repression, as more and more people become not just disenchanted with the government, but disgusted by its callous support for the corporate world at the expense of the people. Deteriorating conditions among our people is encouraging more and more individuals to get involved in this battle for justice and equality. Our vision of justice and equality must see through all borders, we can never recognise those arbitrary lines drawn on the planet's surface by power mongers. Also we must not forget those comrades who have paid dearly in this struggle for a better world, some paid by being imprisoned, others paid with their life.
      These are very dangerous times, capitalist power blocks are vying to increase their dominance in certain areas, and are defending their bases in others, with the extremely high risk of existing wars escalating in to a globe catastrophe. A reshuffling of the power mongers territory is usually done by shedding the blood of millions of our people. 

      So let’s come together in the knowledge that the capitalist system is in turmoil, with chaos the main ingredient, and the various states are struggling as the illusion of their legitimacy evaporates like fog in the sun. It is an ideal time to increase our actions, but only after, with a critical eye, we reflect on where we are, and where we want to go, and how to get our communities more involved.
       Dangerous times, but times loaded with opportunities, their chaos and turmoil is our garden of opportunity, we have nothing to lose, and a world to gain, but that takes critical analysis, organisation, solidarity, community involvement and determination. It is their world, or it is our world, there can be no compromise.

 

A Night To Remember, And A Calendar!!

 

           The last count down to the musical event you will not want to miss, Spirit of Revolt's fund raiser, on Wednesday 20th December, at The Old Hairdressers, 20-28 Renfield Lane, doors open 6:45, the show gets under way 7pm. It is shaping up to be a night you will remember, see you there.

         Spirit of Revolt is run by volunteers, with no affiliation to political parties or trade unions, we rely on our friends and comrades donations and our fund raising efforts to keep this valuable resource growing and available to the general public. This year as well as our annual raffle, we have put together a special Calendar, (A4 size) that no self respecting anti-authoritarian would want to be without. It is unique and informative, it will be on sale at the event on Wednesday, but for those poor individuals who will miss the event, but would like the calendar, drop us a line, john(dot)c(dot)at95@btinternet.com and if you are local to Glasgow we will get it to you within a couple of days. This brilliant anarchist calendar will only cost you a miserly £5.   

The program for Wednesday evening:

Locked In A Cage Of Cameras.

         Our cities and towns are festooned with CCTV cameras, your every move is recorded, where you were, who you were with, what you were up to, all data stored for use by the state. Dates, times, and frequency of visit to this and that, without your consent, you are under total surveillance. You would be a rather naive fool if you thought this was all for your protection. Each city and town in this country spends millions of pounds of public money on installing and manning this state surveillance monster, no austerity there. Its main purpose is control, and protection of the established power structure. We pay to protect our over lords and masters' power and privileges.

      Communities are well capable of looking after themselves, if they come together, and organise how they want their community to be shaped, they don't need big brother to do that for them. We have allowed ourselves to be slowly trapped in a cage of a million cameras, each camera is a bar in your cage, our over lords and masters are not going to open the cage door and let us be free, we will have to do that ourselves, assuming you wish to be a free individual in a free society, rather than a possible suspect to be monitored and controlled. 

         This from Act For Freedom Now:

        Yesterday, 13.12 (ac.ab), we decided to honor the night by interfering with our neighbourhood by destroying 4 cameras on Zaimis Street. One of the reasons we live in Exarchia is certainly the avoidance of technofascism and avoiding being watched on a continuous basis without our will.
          We do not want security cameras to protect property, which will end up in the hands of the police in case of thivery.
      We promote autonomous patrols, communication between residents and solidarity. And we would like to tell you that the cameras you put,put them in your house or they will end up broken as yesterday and tomorrow. With a small walk we saw around 20 cameras …!
           Our move is in solidarity to the hunger strikers Nikos Maziotis Pola Roupa,to the tortured by security forces arrested on December 6, and people who realize that a free neighbourhood is won by struggle.
       Autonomous Politically Conscious Residents of the Neighbourhood of Exarchia.

A Call For Solidarity.

        A call for solidarity from Athens, as usual the state comes down hard on those who resist the state's attempted hold on the monopoly on violence.  I am sure that within the anarchist movement world wide we can raise the necessary funds for this comrade.

This from Insurrection News:

        On the night of the 6th of December a comrade was arrested during the demo and he is now accused of throwing molotov cocktails at the cops. He is now facing years in prison if he doesn’t pay the 3000 euro fine he got sentenced to by the justice. He doesn’t have the money to pay the 3000 euro bail. So we are gonna throw a solidarity party next weekend to try to raise money for the case but we are scared that there wont be enough money to be able to avoid prison for him. During the court he told the scum of a judge that he was an anarchist and that he was in Exarcheia to defend the neighborhood against the presence of the police who are only serving the interests of the rich capitalists and who are constantly attacking the poor. We need to raise the money before the 24th of December otherwise our comrade will go back to prison. We are people from the squat Rosa de Foc, we are anarchists and we need your help.To find out more information about the squat and our politics visit https://rosadefoc.noblogs.org/about-us/

To join us solidaritygreece6december2017@riseup.net

We created a paypal account so people can support him PayPal.Me/george1312

Fire to the prisons! Long live the international anarchist movement!

The Bellgrove Hotel, Five Stars For Degradation.

 

The Homeless.

Tenebrous spectres, they exist,     out there,

on the crumbling edge of chaos.

A father, a son, a brother,

a daughter, a sister, a mother.

Fragments of some shattered family structure;

waste products

from a society being driven to destruction

by a hurricane of greed

living a life that wears out life,

dying,

the devious death of exhaustion from existence.

 

        How we treat the vulnerable and the needy in this society challenges all sense of decency. The homeless can be shoved in any hovel or dismal infested hell-hole, if it makes money for its unscrupulous owners, it will survive, if they can't make money from their little venture, the the homeless are back on the streets. 

 The picture belies the interior horror. Photo by Nick Ponty.

        The Bellgrove Hotel, in Gallowgate Glasgow, is one such large establishment that houses homeless men. Over the years it has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and is once again in the news, It is claimed that the owners of this festering disease incubator, Stuart Gray and his cousin Alison Barr, have received the tidy little sum of £1.5 million in housing benefit, in gratitude from the state.

       The latest scandal to hit the headlines is the fact that several of the men being housed in that garbage can have contracted  Group A streptococcal infections, also known as a flesh eating disease.  

         FRESH calls to shut down a notorious Scottish homeless hostel have been made following fears that residents have been put at risk of contracting a deadly flesh-eating disease. NHS Scotland confirmed that four residents of the privately-run Bellgrove Hotel, which houses almost 140 homeless men in Glasgow have been treated for Group A streptococcal infections, which can cause mild symptoms but in vulnerable drug users can infect wounds and lead to fatal conditions including infections of the blood and necrotising fasciitis (flesh-eating disease).

        Homeless people are mired in a range of complicated problems, all of which require compassion, a variety of specialised care, and a safe place to lay their head, however in this society they are at the mercy of money making dens, a handful of caring individuals, charities, or the streets. This country has enough resources to end this criminal act of using the vulnerable as a money making unit, but chooses not to, by dogmatic ideology. A homeless person is a human being, and as such should be treated as one, with dignity, compassion and equality. this society fails on all fronts. As long as we tolerate this greed driven capitalist system, individuals will find themselves at the mercy of hell-holes like the Bellgrove Hotel, while the owners lap up the money with impunity. 

The Disease Of Consumemas!

       The retail trade is sitting biting its nails, the last weekend before Christmas is now visible on the horizon, it is the last chance for Santa Clause to empty the public's wallets and purses, the last chance for Santa Clause to get the punters loaded up with debt, the last big binge before it starts all over again with the January sales. Whatever Christmas is supposed to mean is irrelevant, what really matters is to get the consumer binge through the roof. Get the public moving through the shopping malls like stampeding cattle, grasping at colour boxes that are somehow meant to produce happiness, endless bottles of odours all supposed to have their own special magic. The stress levels go through the roof, the debt mountain goes strata-strophic, but the colour boxes and odour filled bottles fail to bring that special magic and fail dismally  to create that higher level of happiness. Come January the bubble bursts, the illusion evaporates. Why are so many still captured by the same illusion each year? By now we should all know that coloured boxes don't bring happiness, and odour filled bottles don't contain magic, but vast consumerism does destroy the planet. It also increases the power of the corporate world, who live and grow fat by our gullibility. Celebrate the winter solstice in a community manner, no need to come bearing gifts of the latest "thing", bring companionship and plan for a future without consumerism.

       This breath of common sense comes from the site Not Buying Anything:

Creating art from found natural objects can be a meaningful new Winter Solstice ritual that costs nothing.

       Is there any Christmas left in Christmas? It is more like Consumemas now. It is all about the presents, the loot, the haul, the stuff. Shopping, wrapping, unwrapping, throwing away - same futile cycle with the same futile results. Within a few days all that remains is the debt and damage.
        It is no wonder many people find this madness to be depressing and demoralizing. But we can rise above Consumemas, and reclaim this special time of year for our own. It truly is an event worth celebrating, as humans have for millennia, before Christmas, or Consumemas, ever existed.
        And while gift giving may be involved, it does not have to be all about the gifts. Indeed, gifts are not a required part of enjoying this time of year. While the social pressures are great, many are breaking free from the burden of mandatory (and often mindless) gift giving.
        Those with experience have found that involving a group of people in the discussion surrounding radically changing winter celebration traditions can be fruitful and liberating. Often they find that they aren't the only ones wondering how they can stop others from buying them things they don't want, or need.
        I got the following email reminder from Adbusters concerning #BuyNothingXmas:

       "The malls are full of anxious sweat. The throngs are out and about for the final shopping "rush", hunting the aisles with a tense urgency that's inimical to the spirit of giving. But another Christmas is possible. Another way of being is possible.
       Reclaiming the ritual of this magical season – consciously and deliberately – is a radical, emancipatory choice. Since manufacturing and consumption are responsible for more than half of the global carbon dioxide emissions, choosing to buy nothing this Xmas may give Gaia some much needed relief.
       And if you still need to be convinced to consume less – consider that if we heat up just 4 degrees more, we will witness a total and irreversible collapse of human civilization. We're killing ourselves – but even as the denial about global warming is slowly breaking over us, we still choose – sheeplike – to join the madness in the malls.
      Consumerism is the opiate of the masses. Without significant rituals, we clamour to participate in the only ones we have, like the Christmas shopping binge, driven by our desire for meaning – of which our culture is devoid.

          #BuyNothingXmas gets to the heart of this matter.

        As the much awaited solstice arrives and Christmas nears, can you find the strength to break the addiction, to wake up from the nightmare ... will you be brave enough to plant the seed of a new way of being? Make your life a demonstration, a defiance, a piece of art, a heroic journey.
        Start this Christmas – dare to gather your friends and family together and vow to do it differently this year."
         There are many meaningful ways to celebrate at this time of year. Conspicuous consumption does not have to be one of them.
“Creating a new tradition that brings more peace and heart to your holidays could also bring you closer to family and friends.
          Sharing a ritual founded on love of nature, on respect for the always renewing cycles of life, and on faith in the future has a way of bringing out the best in people.”
 Deena Wade

Anarchists, Why Do We Do It?

 

         Taking an overall view of this world we live in gives us a frightening picture, so much deprivation, so many wars, such glaring inequality, so many actions driven by greed, so many actions driven by hatred, so much callous inhumanity. To see a world of equality, justice and peace seems an impossible dream, the present seems to belie that dream. However, there are those who will always strive for that dream, no matter how dark that road may appear. They will hold onto that dream with passion and conviction, they will shape their lives round that dream, they are the ones that keep that dream alive, and to them we must be grateful. No matter how daunting the task we must always believe in that dream and each little step that shines a light on it, increase the belief that we can create that dream.

          I found this article from Birds Before The Storm, by Margaret Killjoy, said a lot of what I believe myself, but said with much more eloquence than my voice. 

 Strategic Optimism.

         I want to die in bed, a hundred years old, having lived most of my life in a stateless, anticapitalist society. This is possible. Authoritarianism is not unconquerable. I don’t believe in utopia, per se, and I don’t think an anarchist society would be perfect, but I believe we could live a lot healthier, happier, and more freely than we do now. So I want to win. I believe it’s possible for us to win.
       On the other hand, I don’t expect to.
      I came to terms a long time ago with my investment in this hopeless cause. Even when I was an eager and innocent baby anarchist, I never believed that a beautiful, black-and-red dawn was about to break across the horizon. I cut my teeth getting my ass kicked by cops trying to stop a war and trying to stop corporate globalization, then moved on to the insurmountable task of trying to slowly shift culture towards anti-authoritarian values. I never expected to win. I try to fight like I’m going to, though.
       Fighting to win, and fighting for what I actually believe in instead of some watered down compromise, has proven to just outright be a better way to live. Furthermore, acting as though winning is a serious possibility is the only way for it to become even the barest possibility.
       My optimism is a cynical optimism, a strategic optimism, but it’s optimism nonetheless.
       When I was a teenager, I had an art teacher who instilled in me a respect for process-oriented thinking. “The point of painting is the act of painting,” he told me, “not the act of having painted.” This was true across mediums and applicable to life itself… after all, the final result of life is death. One ought not live for one’s legacy, but for one’s life. Yet, with painting and most everything else, the goal mattered too. The goal informs and enriches the process, and the goal is only achievable by staying focused on the process.
      We tell one another about the golden land that lies beyond the horizon not to convince ourselves that the place exists exactly as we imagine it, but because those stories give us a direction to walk and a reason to walk. The walking itself is what matters, of course. The process is what matters.
      This is hard for me to reconcile with my anarchism, sometimes. Some of my friends are in it for the fight, but I’m not a fighter by natural temperament. I’m too anxious, these days, to spend much of my time on the front lines of anything. I hope we win soon, so I can find ways to be socially useful and keep myself entertained without the threat of prison looming like death in the shadows.
        Still, absent of living in the society I desire to live in, I do find value and meaning in struggle, in walking, in imagining possibilities. I’ve probably never experienced this contrast between my cynicism and my hope more clearly than I have in terms of how I engage with activism. For years, I was engaged in direct action activism — in campaigns to save this or that forest or mountain, to keep this or that development or youth jail out of this or that neighborhood, to save some person or keep some draconian law from passing. Activism, even of the direct action variety, tends not to be revolutionary. It tends to stay on the defensive. It tends to burn people out, expose people to risk, and use up a ton of resources. It’s certainly not going to save the world.
       To any extent that I engage with activism today, I engage in activism without illusions. Though I know we’re not going to stem the tide of global catastrophe, direct action activism often accomplishes its immediate goals. I know people who still live on their farms because of activism. I know of community gardens that still exist. I know of stands of old growth forest that are still standing. Those trees will likely survive until human-driven climate change destroys them in a few years time — and that’s the problem with activism. It’s never enough.
     Still, without optimism — cynical or not — and its attendant courage, none of that would have been accomplished, and that’s not nothing. There’s an undeniable value there. There’s also a value in the unruly encampments we set up and a value in the connections we made with other communities. Direct action activism is one way to engage with passionate people, passionately, and to live life to its fullest. I have no illusions about it, but I don’t regret a moment of it.
      I believe that we can win. I believe another [end of the] world is possible. I don’t always know what to do with this optimism. How do we accomplish it? Anarchism is not heaven. We don’t get there by just being good people and accepting Bakunin as our personal lord and savior. We get there by thinking seriously about strategy and by making plans. We get there by working at it, in whatever ways suit us or are appropriate to our circumstances. Whatever chance we’ve got of getting there, it’s by each of us trying what we can and seeing what works, it’s by supporting those of us who are trying in ways we aren’t.
      When I die, not in bed, not a hundred years old, not in a society free of hierarchy, I’ll be able to say… well I probably won’t be able to say much of anything, because I’ll be busy dying, but let’s pretend I’ve got my wits about me… I can say I fought to win.

The Earp Gang Hit Scotland.

      On the whole, crime in Scotland is falling, but the powers that be are intent on increasing the number of police carrying fire arms, there seems to be a contradiction in there somewhere. Not only are the number of armed police being increased, but we will see more of them on the street, attending no violent incidents. 

HUNDREDS of armed officers will be routinely deployed to incidents that do not involve firearms for the first time ever. In in a major shift in policy, police with weapons will now be allowed to attend non-violent incidents if they are nearer the scene than unarmed colleagues.
Police Scotland chiefs have revealed that 399 officers have now been approved to carry guns which is a rise of 124 and they will now be used more frequently in routine investigations.

      We should not be surprised at this trend, slowly, slowly, we will have a fully armed police force. The state will always want its first line of defence to be armed to the hilt. Batons and riot shields might be intimidating to some, but guns are even more so. That is the purpose of the police force, forget the catching the bag-snatcher, or the violent drunk, these are just by-products of the system. Its real purpose is to be the first line of defence against any threat to the established power. When silencing dissent, repressing protests and creating submission, guns speak louder that batons. So watch out for your local Wyatt Earp, strutting his/her stuff down you local high street.

      A couple of the Earp gang seen in the wild west town of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.