Pomp Privilege And Greed.

         I wrote this little piece away back in November 2012, can you tell me what has changed, other than new names being admitted to the Privileged Parasites Club? It is odd that we struggle to have a half decent life but allow this pomp and privilege to go on at our expense. Why don't we grow up and get rid of this bunch of pompous privileged shysters?

         Imagine you get a nice easy job, you get paid for turning up, you can if you wish just sleep on and off and hobble off to the bar now and again and it pays well. You start to fiddle the expenses, get caught and sentenced to 9 months in prison. You are released after 9 weeks and you wander back to your old job, move in and carry on as if nothing had ever happened. Fantasy? Well no, it is the rules in that club of pomp and privilege, the House of Lords.

         Take the case of one Paul White, last year he got convicted of fraudulently claiming £14,000 worth of false expenses at his place of work. Straight from prison after serving nine weeks of a nine month sentence, back to his old job and for the months of April and May he claimed £4,596 in expenses and for June this year has claimed £3,600 in expenses. The June expenses were for turning up on 12 seperate days at £300 a day, plus £285 travelling expenses. That's a total of £8,481, not bad for 3 months part-time “work”.

       How does he do it? Well he is one of those privileged parasites who has those magic four little letters in front of his name, “LORD” . Paul White, is better known as Lord Hanningfield, and the House of Lords is his nice little earner, of course it is tax payers money that he is pocketing and it is just for turning up.

 It's tough trying to adjust after prison.

     However I don't want you to think that Lord Hanningfield is alone as the only privileged benefit cheat. His Lordy pal Lord Taylor of Warwick, not only a cheat, but a liar, done for lying about where he lived and fiddling £11,000, served 3 months of a 12 month sentence, and in June this year his fingers were in the honeypot again, claiming £2,100 in expenses.

     Of course there more of these members of this privileged parasite club that have fiddled and the went back to business as usual. One Baroness Uddin, though not prosecuted, was told to pay back fiddled expenses to the tune of £125,349, has this June claimed £1,800 in attendance allowance. Try to think of who you know in your neighbourhood, that might have in some way fiddled at work, went to prison and then back to their old job, no questions asked? So why do we tolerate a bunch of parasites washed in pomp, privilege and impunity, all at our expense.

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The Police And Deaths.

        Deaths after police contact is a subject that the media doesn't pay too much attention to, perhaps they don't want to spoil the illusion of the friendly cop on the beat. However those deaths are there and rising, which should be ringing alarm bells in the heads of the general public. Police custody deaths for 2017-2018 was the highest for a decade, a total 23 people died in or after police detention, an increase of 14 on the previous year.
       Deborah Coles of Inquest stated that austerity was a factor in this increase, due to mental heath services being under funded and overwhelmed. A high proportion of those individuals who died after police contact had mental health issues, drug and/or alcohol problems.
     Another disturbing fact regarding deaths after police contact is the disproportion of these are from ethnic minorities. A record number of black people died after use of force or restraint by officers. Last year the number of deaths after use of restraint or force also rose, 2016/17 of deaths from force or restraint, 5 out of 15 were from ethnic minorities, up from 3 out of 11 for 2015/16.
      While death after contact with the police is not a rare event, a police officer being prosecuted is a very rare thing, to be found guilty is even more rare. It is almost 50 years since a police officer has been prosecuted regarding death in police custody, this despite innumerable unlawful killing verdicts and the fact that there have been more than 3,000 such deaths since 1969. Deaths in police custody and deaths from direct contact with the police, it doesn't seem to make much difference, if there ever is a prosecution we should expect a not guilty verdict to come up.
      How far back do we go? Blair Peach 1979, killed by a baton blow to the head, Stephen Waldorf, 1983, shot by police officers, James Ashley, 1998, shot, Harry Stanley, 1999, shot, Jean Charles De Menezes, 2005, shot making his way to work, Abdul Kahar, 2006, shot, Mark Duggan, 2011, shot, and of course the 2009 assault and death of Ian Tomlinson. From that list, one prosecution and a not guilty verdict. 

 Death of Ian Tomlinson at the hands of the police.

       Ian Tomlinson's death at the hands of a police officer must be the first where there was clear video evidence of the assault and dozens of eyewitnesses but that didn't make any difference, the verdict was still not guilty, later we get the full story, PC Harwood, it seems, had a record of violence with 10 formal complaints against him. Ten complaints, one videoed assault and death, one prosecution, one not guilty verdict. The British judicial system at work.
     Of course the police are the police the world over, from recent figures it appears that in America, an African American dies in an extra-judicial police killing every 36 hours. Who are they protecting?

Total deaths in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police, England & Wales, 1990-date   Type         Met Police   Other forces   Total Custody           273             832             1105 Pursuit              54             355               409 Shooting           30               42                 72 All deaths        382           1346             1728  Total deaths in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police England and Wales 2019.    RTI=Road Traffic Incident. Type           Met Police   Other forces    Total Custody             2                  10              12 Pursuit              4                   11             15 RTI                    4                     1               5 Shooting            1                    2               3 Total                 11                  24             35

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The Hungry Keep Feeding Capitalism.

       Surely if in the richest capitalist country on the planet there are millions of the population going hungry, it should be blatantly obvious that the capitalist system doesn't work for the people. Country after country sees continuing and rising poverty and homelessness, and still we are sold the myth that capitalism is the best economic system for this planet. Do we honestly believe that this system of inequality and injustice and growing poverty and hunger is the best that the human mind can come up with? Ask anybody if they can think of a better way of distributing the wealth that we create and I'm sure they will come up with an answer, but we put that aside and accept the lies and illusions spun by the rich and powerful parasite class. Why?

This from Global Research: 

      In July of 2013, Rose Aguilar wrote a wonderful article for al-Jazeera (1), in which she discussed the dire hunger crisis that envelops the US today. In her article, she brought back a memory of something I had long forgotten, an event that so outraged the American public that the government was temporarily forced to respond with more humane policies. That event was a 1968 CBS special hour-long documentary called Hunger in America, in which viewers literally watched a hospitalized child die of starvation. Nixon responded because the public outrage left him no choice, but Reagan quickly dismantled those improvements.
      When Reagan came to power in 1980, there were 200 food banks in the US; today there are more than 40,000, all overwhelmed with demand and forced to ration their dispersals. Before 1980, one out of every 50 Americans was dependent on food stamps. Today, it is one out of four. Before Reagan, there were 10 million hungry Americans; today there are more than 50 million and increasing. A substantial part of the Great Transformation included not only tax cuts and other benefits for the wealthy, but a simultaneous massive reduction in budgets for social programs – in spite of the fact that Reagan and the secret government were creating the conditions that would desperately require those same social programs.
     That 50 million hungry Americans today includes the 25% of all children in the US who go to sleep hungry every night. About 25% of the American population today cannot buy sufficient food to remain healthy, with most of these being hungry for at least three months during each year. It is so bad that many college students have resorted to what we call “dumpster-diving” – looking in garbage bins for edible food.
      In 2013, America’s largest food bank in New York City delivered more than 35 million Kgs of food, and still 1.5 million of the city’s 8 million inhabitants are hungry. After that CBS documentary and prior to Reagan’s appearance, New York had almost no need for emergency food services, and had only 28 food agencies. Today that number is more than 1,000. The problem is so serious that many agencies fear that desperation for food will lead to increasing violence.
     By contrast, only about 5% of Chinese said there had been times during the previous 12 months when they had been hungry, while in the US that number is now 25% and still rising. Maura Daly, a social agency spokesperson said,
      “People have a lot of misimpressions about hunger in America. People think it’s associated with homelessness when, in fact, it is working families, it’s kids, it’s the disabled.”
        Perhaps even more alarming was the release of study data in the middle of 2014 documenting that 25% of the US military members are also dependent on food stamps, food banks and other civilian welfare projects for their survival. After compiling four years of data, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, released its largest and most comprehensive study which showed, among other things that 15% of all Americans rely on food banks for all their basic nutrition. In other words, no other source of food. But perhaps the most shocking revelation was that 25% of military personnel were in the same financial position. Of course, the Pentagon was quick to take issue with the study’s methodology, using statistical babble to cloak their embarrassment.

       Across the other side of the planet, India, another super rich capitalist country, there is an army of hungry mouths while the wealth piles up in the bank accounts of the few.

India: Violations of the Right to Food and Work Rampant Across the Country, Made Worse by Aadhaar

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Athens, State Brutality Continues.

     The latest from Athens, where the state has unleashed a brutal attack against all autonomous centres and squats. It is being met with counter attacks by various members of the public.

From Act For Freedom Now:

       Athens, Greece: The greek government has gone into war with anarchists and anti authoritarians, following the end of a 15 days ultimatum issued by the Ministry of “Public Order”, towards the dozens of political and refugee squats across Greece (some of them more than 30 years old), threatening them with violent evictions by the riot police and police special forces, if they did not evacuate within the deadline. The deadline ended on Thursday night on the 5th of December 2019, a political decision by the greek State aiming to agitate and create an “explosive atmosphere”.
       Following the first wave of attacks and evictions, mainly against squats housing refugees during the fall, the second wave of attacks has just begun, this time against political squats and social centers. Coinciding with the arrest of antifascists and the proposed judicial acquittal of neonazi leaders in the Golden Dawn trial, the right wing greek government and its self proclaimed socialist Minister of Public Order have proceeded with the eviction of “Kouvelou Mansion” Squat in Marousi, Athens on Tuesday 17 December, while another three squats have been evicted today 18 December in Koukaki, Athens, following a massive police operation, that terrorized a whole neighborhood with police brutality, attacking people living in adjoining houses that were no squats. Brutal images of greek SWAT policemen having their boots on people’s heads on the ground and a mother bound on the floor of her terrace with a hood on her head, reminiscing of Abu Ghraib torture images, have been circulated in the media.
        While this info text is being written it has become known that at about 22:00 today 18 December, people attacked shops and banks near the main square of Athens at Syntagma,
       while also the christmas tree at Exarcheia Square in Athens has been set on fire. While the greek government has proclaimed that more than 20 squats, just in Athens, will be violently evicted until the end of 2019, the police attacks seems like the match that will put fire in an already explosive situation during Christmas and New Year’s festivities.

 

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The Violence Of Democracy!!

   In Athens the Greek state's war on freedom of expression and dissent continues with renewed savagery all dressed up as making the city safe, and clearing it of criminals and terrorists. The latest squats to be evicted have been long standing community centres, hubs of alternative culture and co-operation among local residents. Once again we see how representative democracy works with its usual iron fist against any attempt to live outside its dictate and control.  

     In one recent eviction an incident not reported here, the anti-terrorist police entered a neighbour's yard and when she asked to see a warrant for entering her property, she was wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and arrested. The face of representative democracy.

This from SquatNet:

      Today in the early morning hours, Villa Kouvelos in Marousi (northern part of Athens) was evicted by a strong state anti-terrorist police force.
The empty and dilapidated building was squatted by anarchists in April 2010 and quickly developed into a nationally known social center, providing the district with concerts, lectures, discussions, political events, etc.
      The villa has also been the target of attacks by right-wing groups such as the Golden Dawn. In the north of Athens, Villa Kouvelos was an institution and its eviction is a catastrophe for the neighborhood in cultural terms alone, leaving behind – similar to the eviction of the Villa Zografou – a socio-cultural desert. As far as is known, there is also no special reason for the eviction, there are no plans to use the building or sell the land. The eviction is therefore a purely populist act.
       A few minutes after the arrival of the cops at 7:30 am, residents gathered in front of the building to express their solidarity. Flyers were distributed and the city council meeting of the Nea Dimokratia (ND, New Democracy) responsible for the eviction was disturbed. A spontaneous demonstration was called at 6 pm, attended by about 300 people. The demonstration went loudly through the neighborhood, slogans were sprayed and some banks were smashed.
        Yesterday ND announced the eviction of another 28 squats by the end of the year, which after the events in Exarcheia and the eviction actions so far is tantamount to a further declaration of war on the scene, on alternative life and on all progressive people in Greece. A foretaste of the reaction was already given in the last few days, with smaller attacks throughout the city – and a clear warning on 6 December with 12,000 anarchists in front of the parliament.

And:

Three more evictions in Koukaki. Cops terrorized neighbours

Athens – Greek police evicted 3 more squats in the Koukaki district this morning (December 18th). Neighbours were terrorized by the cops, some of them were also arrested. On Exarcheia square the Nea Demokratia regime put up a Christmas tree. Tonight there will be an emergency meeting in the Gini building in Athens.

---

Some squats in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR/squated/squat
Groups in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/GR
Events in Greece: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/GR

---

https://de.indymedia.org/node/54093 https://enoughisenough14.org/2019/12/18/athens-3-more-evictions-in-koukaki-district-cops-terrorized-neighbours/

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Between Dignity And Poverty.

 

       Most times it is difficult to express fully your anger, disgust and frustration at a system that spawns a sea of inequality, injustice and corruption, that by ideology manufactures millions of marginalised, and creates a multitude of exiles in their own country, simple by the gross, deliberate and callous unequal distribution of wealth. The desire to shout it from the roof tops, rant about it at bus stops, street corners or wherever. splatter it across social media or perhaps write reams of paper spewing out all that hatred, disgust and anger. However, sometimes, to recoil from it and try to express it in a simple short poem seems the right thing to do to placate all those bitter emotions.

Between Dignity and Poverty

In this metropolis of wealth with its fountains of opulence
We are the excluded army that walks that tightrope
Between dignity and poverty.
The excluded, the marginalised, the forgotten,
Regulated by mercenaries, some with guns, others with pens.
They know not, we are their brothers and sisters.
Nor do they know,
Our strength is forged in the humiliation of the bread line
Our daily question, will there be food,
Or will the pangs of hunger stay.
We exist in a system of numbers and balance sheets,
Our lives, dehumanised statistics,
Catalogued and filed by a blind accountant.
When asked to count our dead, do we count the living dead?
Will this tightrope be the inheritance to our children
Or shall our tortured journey lead us from anxiety to revolt
Will the anguish of our children feed our righteous anger
Causing us to tear asunder this fabricated web of injustice 

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Gather at The Winter Solstice.

      2019 Winter Solstice is hovering on the near horizon, a time to get together, renew friendships, make new friends, as the light is being renewed to us. Try to see the world as you would like it to be, then work towards that as the light is returning, and beyond. Some friendly advice from my friend at Not Buying Anything:

      This weekend those of us in the northern hemisphere will experience the darkest day of the year. December 21, 2019 is Winter Solstice, the celestial holiday celebrated through the ages as the beginning of light.
      It is the oldest known winter celebration, and its influence can be seen in many of the ways we respond to this time of year today.
       Here are 10 natural and mostly free ways to enjoy this important day in our annual voyage around my favourite star in the whole Universe, the Sun.

10 Ways To Celebrate Winter Solstice

      1. Stay up all night to welcome the return of the light at daybreak (see Stargazing below). Whoever falls asleep first makes breakfast after the sun comes up.
     2. Decorate an outdoor edible Solstice Tree for wildlife. Strings of popcorn, suet balls, bird feeders, peanuts and other foods are appreciated by local animals during cold days and nights.
      3. On the night of Solstice light a candle. Make it your only light. Have a candle light dinner. Eat seasonal foods, drink seasonal beverages, and sing seasonal songs. Use care. With the candles and everything else.
     4. Eat a Solstice Orange. See if you can get the whole skin off without breaking it. Oranges at this time of year represent little, tasty orbs of sunlight. You can taste the photons in there.
      5. Stargaze. The Ursid meteor shower, considered a minor shower of 10 to 20 shooting stars per hour, peaks right at Solstice. It will be a nearly moonless sky, so viewing will be good if you have clear skies. Best viewing time is in the early hours Sunday morning.
       6. Light a bonfire. Or have a fire inside in your wood stove or fireplace. Can't do either? Settle in and watch a Yule log burning on video.
      7. Go out at noon on Solstice and throw a shadow, if it is sunny. Because the Sun is the lowest in the sky that it will get, your shadow at noontime will be the longest of the year on this day.
      8. Take a hike. Watch for signs of wildlife, and collect natural objects of beauty. Back at home, decorate a space with your items such as spruce twigs, winter berries, and animal scat (ok, kidding about the scat. But it is fun to see and identify what dropped it). Acorns and pine cones can add a nice touch (to the decorations, not the scat).
      9. Rest, recharge, go within. The dark days outside invite us to contemplate the dark space inside, between our ears. Be like bear and seek refuge in your hibernaculum. As you lay low, breathe and flow.
      10. Reflect. This is a great time to review the past year, and make your intentions known for the year ahead. What did you learn during the last trip around the Sun? Think about all the things you are grateful for in 2019, and about the richness of life that you will attract over the coming year.
      However you choose to celebrate at this time of year, chances are you will be enjoying something derived from the original Pagan winter Solstice rituals. That is because they are a meaningful and enduring part of an Earthling's experience.
      On the weekend we mark the changing of seasons, the return of the light, and our connection to both the past, each other, and the greater natural world.

Happy Solstice. 

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The State, No Room For Dissent.

 Your friendly cop on the street, Greek style?

 

      Since the recent election in Greece where the "New Democracy" Party gained power, the Greek state has moved rapidly to the right and joined that band of brutal authoritarian repressive regimes. All states will attempt to stifle dissent, some more savagely than others, and those most vociferous in their struggle against the injustice, inequality and corruption within the present system, will receive the harshest of treatment. At present the Greek state is in open battle against any voice or action of dissent and at the forefront of that brutal battle are anarchists, migrants and autonomous centres. The "New Democracy" Party has made it an open statement that it will crush all anarchists and there autonomous centres, putting then under the label of criminals and terrorists. So there is now a concerted effort to crush that avenue of resistance and dissent. The present police system in Greece was formed during the military junta era and were 90% ultra nationalists. When the junta was overthrown and the representative system formed, the police system was never reformed and today the majority of the police force are members of "New Dawn" the Greek fascist party. So they will do the state's bidding with relish and brutality.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

        After the solidarity gathering in Evelpidon on the 7th of December, I went to my second home in order to avoid going to my home in Ano Patissia. Usually, there is a cop bus parked right in front of the building entrance, so in order to enter the building I have to pass right in front of the MAT (riot police) unit there. They were there on the 7th too, but this time they spoke to me and by spoke I mean harassed verbally. They told me in English “We will send you in prison, like your friends, or we will make you disappear like your friend Dimitris (Ch.)“. I didn’t respond and I just entered the building.
It’s obvious to me that they’re trying to intimidate me in order to either repress myself or do something that will expose me and give them the reason to take me once and for all. Targeting me will not stop my presence in the movement and not my solidarity towards my comrades. What is not obvious to me is whether the threat was an initiative by the cop or an order. In any case, it’s an effort by the state to terrorize me.
Solidarity to comrade Dimitris Ch. and Vangelis St.
Abtin Parsa, 15/12/19
via: Athens Indymedia

More info on Abtin Parsa's situation:

        Days after being followed and days after my home in ano patissia was being watched by the anti-terrorist unit, I published a political statement that also includes a report about the events on 27/10/2019. https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1600684/
       Later, 09/11/2019, the anti-terrorist cops that were near my house started acting differently. At the same time, anti-terrorist unit repression against the movement became more severe, like arresting comrades with the accusation of being involved in the revolutionary organization “Revolutionary self-defense”.
       10/11/2019, 22:00 to 22:30, while I was going home, I saw many undercover cops around my home, more than usual in the past few weeks. I decided to not go home and publish immediately the information in indymedia athens about this event. https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1601003/
       11/11/2019, in the evening, while my flatmate and his friend were coming out of the building, 15 to 20 anti-terrorist cops stopped them. First, anti-terrorist cops handcuffed them, put them in the car and probably 30 minutes later the anti-terrorist cops entered my home with the key that they took from my flatmate. Anti-terrorist cops started searching the house. After that, they arrested my flatmate with the accusation of having a military knife that was found in our home.
      12/11/2019, my flatmate had a trial in the court of evelpidon, building 7, and he will have another court sometime soon (in one of the previouw updates that I published in indymedia Athens, I wrote that my flatmate got arrested because of a gun, but it was wrong information given to me by the lawyer and when days later I found my flatmate, he corrected me).
      After the raid of the anti-terrorist unit in my house, these things were missing:
1) all my legal papers that recognized me as a legal refugee in greece
2) personal things like a toothbrush, a pillow and some clothes
3) a laptop
4) some money
5) some political texts
6) a cell phone (not smartphone)
      I am an anarchist political refugee who has been imprisoned and tortured for 1 year and half in the secret prison of IRGC in iran. I was arrested at the age of 16, in 2014, in zarghan city in iran, accused of insulting the religion and with activity against the iranian regime. In 2016, I escaped from iran to greece. I was in the concentration camp of samos for 8 months, and during this period, I got the political asylum from the greek state. In 2017, I arrived in athens and since 2017 I am active in the local anarchist movement.
       The regime is trying to terrorize the movement but the regime should know that for those who have nothing left to lose, fear does not exist. The resistance will survive and the system will die because our will for freedom is stronger than its weapons and its cops. I will continue participating in the movement. If I get abducted by the anti-terrorist unit, I will immediately start hunger striking.
      Solidarity to comrades who got arrested or are wanted by the anti-terrorist unit.
Abtin Parsa 23/11/2019

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The Pragmatic Anarchists.

A message from A Pritchard at Anarchist Studies Network:

      Ken Barlow, one of the commissioning editors at Pluto, has been in touch to ask if I knew of anyone that would be interested in writing a primer on anarchist praxis. I said I'd put out a general call if he could tell me what exactly he was after. This is what he said:

     "The image the general public have of anarchists (if they think of them at all) is often of 'all or nothing,' sometimes violent, diehards who are only willing to operate through complete non-compliance with the state. In reality, anarchist/non-hierarchical practice can be applied widely in day-to-day life to make the world a better place, even in contexts of having to engage with the state, and even by those who might not consider themselves 'anarchists'.  I am therefore envisaging a book (provisionally entitled 'The Pragmatic Anarchist') aimed at a wider (i.e. general, non-anarchist) readership that addresses this misnomer.

      Such a book would make the case for a 'practical' anarchism that acknowledges (which is obviously not the same as liking) the current primacy of the state, and in this context setting out how ordinary people can make use of anarchist ideas and principles 'pragmatically' in everyday life, whether in their social, work or political environments. The above is just a sketch of the book as I envisage it, and I would be open to alternative avenues drawing on the same theme."

           If you're up for it, I'm sure he'd like to hear from you (no need to email me). Ken Barlow <kenb@plutobooks.com>

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Magic Winter Morning Light.

 

      And now for something completely different. This morning sitting at the computer I became aware of the strange magic light that only a winter morning can produce. The dark winter cloud covered sky, and the dazzling sun low in the sky. It passes so quick, so I just had to open the window and grab a few photos. The photos were taken around 9:15am. by 9:45am. it had gone and it was that familiar Scottish dull greyish morning, which has its own beauty of course. Hope you get as much pleasure from the photos as I got from the window view.

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The Human Right To A Safe Home.

        What right does a landlord have to evict an elderly, 67 year old tenant of 27 years residence, in the middle of our Scottish winter weather? Our laws seem to allow that to happen, then the system sheds crocodile tears for the homeless. Of course as a citizen of this democratic country you can challenge that decision in our loaded judicial system, but first you have to arrive there with a suitcase of money, not everybody's possible option. The insanity and inhumanity of this profit driven, greed infested system.

From Andy Whightman's Blog

 

 

     Over the past few months I have been assisting a constituent to resist a Notice to Quit served on him to evict him from his home. I have set a Crowdfunder up to raise funds to pursue a legal case on human rights grounds to halt the eviction of 67 year-old Colin Brown from his home of 27 years in Leith, Edinburgh.

We are raising funds via Crowdjustice here
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/colinbrown/

       Colin’s landlord is a company called Express Investment Company Ltd. The
company owned 29 residential properties as at March 2018 and is disposing of all of them. In the case of eleven tenants who have secure tenancies, their homes have been sold with the sitting tenants remaining in their homes. Notices to Quit on the remaining properties have been served and the tenants have left. Colin Brown is the last remaining tenant. He is challenging his eviction in the First Tier Tribunal at a hearing on 17 January 2020.

      This crowdfunder is not concerned with this tribunal hearing but with a wider planned challenge to the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988 on the grounds that in the circumstances of this case, the legislation violates Colin Brown’s human rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 8 Right to Respect for Private and Family Life and Article 1 of Protocol 1 Protection of Property).
      We believe that it may not be proportionate under Article 8 to evict a tenant who is 67 years old and has lived in his home for over 27 years. We believe that it may violate Colin’s rights under Article 1 of Protocol 1 as it may be disproportionate to remove his property rights (the 27 year tenancy) in favour of a corporate landlord who by definition cannot e.g. live in the property.

Why does this matter?

     This case clearly matters for Colin Brown but it could also be of wider significance to the 15% of the Scottish population who live in the private rented sector. We believe that there are elements of private tenancy law that do not adequately uphold the human right to a home, to a private and family life and to possessions because it is too easy in too many cases to evict a tenant at short notice.

What do we propose to do?

       We propose to obtain an Urgent Opinion by a leading Advocate as to the likely grounds and chances of success of this action. We have already secured pro bono advice from a leading academic authority in the field of ECHR.

How much we are raising and why?

 

      We propose to raise £10,000 to secure this Opinion and to review the options open to use once it has been given. if we then decide to proceed to litigation, we will launch a new and separate crowdfunder. This is about the worst time of year to ask anyone to donate money but Colin faces eviction and too many other private tenants live insecure lives. Thank you for whatever support you are able to provide.

Crowdfunder here:

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/colinbrown/

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Public Being Groomed To Do Cops' Work.

     Facial recognition is the new eyes of big brother, and in this society big brother  is co-joined twins, one the state, the other big corporate business, they are joined at the hip. Each piece of technology sold to the public finds itself firmly linked to the state surveillance wing, and the public are the unsuspecting assistants in the control and monitoring of the population. Your are monitored and profiled every where you go, from the CCTV in places indoors and out, and there is always the cop in your pocket, the smart phone. Believe we it is smarter than you could believe.

      Now their is a new toy being sold by big business that is being incorporated into the state surveillance system, the door bell camera.

This from325:

      Report from insurrectionary anarchist publication Anathema on the growth of networks of surveillance being developed by Amazon and local police departments.
     In November, The Intercept reported that internal documents at Ring, the home security company owned by Amazon, reveal that the company is planning to create automated neighborhood “watch lists” by incorporating facial recognition technology into its increasingly vast network of “smart home” doorbell cameras. The feature would alert camera-owners via smartphone when someone deemed “suspicious” pops up on their cameras. Like the old-fashioned “neighborhood watch” that Ring wants to replace, the feature would extend the power of the police and as well as make certain areas of town more dangerous for anyone Ring camera owners deem “suspicious.”
      Ring’s documents do not define what “suspicious” means. In practice, this will likely be defined by gentrifiers and cops, whose systemic racism is well documented. At its core, the watch list would identify people who “don’t belong” in certain areas; this means black and brown people, poor people, and anyone whose appearance deviates from social norms. Ring’s Neighbors program — an online discussion forum between camera owners — is already well known for its aggressive racism and for generally heightening distrust and paranoia within neighborhoods. For many people, Ring’s new feature would make it dangerous to be in certain neighborhoods at all — a victory for the forces of gentrification everywhere. Ring doorbell cameras have already allowed police to significantly expand their operations, simply by appropriating private citizens’ technology for no additional expense. The technology therefore has immense “value,” not only for the company, but for the state. For decades it’s been steadily expanding policing in order to keep its increasingly immiserated people under control, while struggling to balance its own budgets.

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Anarchist Bookfaiirs, Where?

     Anarchist Bookfairs, great events for meeting like minded people, new people, swapping ideas, getting your nose into other people's literature and pushing your own. However, surely the whole idea is to bring new people to anarchism, not to fly around in the same circle. So where should they be held. In some back street squat, a small autonomous centre, a hired room in a local pub? I have always felt that we should be more ambitious and go as much in the mainstream as possible and meet the unconverted, the apolitical, the apathetic, the one searching for something different. We live in a capitalist society, so cost of course plays a part in where they can be held, perhaps we could all take a leaf out of the recent Manchester and Salford Anarchist Bookfair. 

     

One person's opinion from Anarchist News:

 

       The 9th Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair was dedicated to Donald Rooum (1928-2019), illustrator and long term anarcho. His image of anarchism's three personas (the punk, the bomber and the academic) was used on the bookfair's flier, and a very nice flier it was too. While it’s true that Rooum's work is often associated with the red and black Freedom, it's less well-known that Rooum himself identified as ‘a Stirnerite anarchist, provided "Stirnerite" means one who agrees with Stirner's general drift, not one who agrees with Stirner's every word.’ I’ll come back to that later.
      After following my friend’s directions from the tram stop, I was surprised to find the venue this year was not the backroom of a pub or the basement of a ‘social centre’, but was a museum in the centre of town. Maybe this says something about anarchists' desire to move from the fringes; maybe it's about the public opinion of anarchists in 2019. Either way, the People’s History Museum couldn’t be further from the underground Euro squat aesthetic of last year’s venue. I'd heard rumours that it was going to be hosted at the university this year, so it sounds to me like the organisers were trying their best to move from the Partisan into a more accessible, more mainstream location, and were somehow able to come up with the large deposit needed to book a space like the PHM. As I met my friend in the museum's hall, they admitted they missed the dinge of previous venues, but I for one was glad to be able to see the books and faces in the sunlight, and to be able to breathe as I moved from stall to stall.
      There were around thirty stalls in total, including Freedom up from London, Active Distro from Bristol, AK Press from Edinburgh, and PM Press from the North East. The other stallholders ranged from definitely anarchist (Elephant Editions), through questionable (Anarchist-Communist Group), to definitely not anarchist (New Internationalist). Also present were MARC and Footprint, two local printers who have long provided anarchists with affordable zine and booklet printing; Advisory Service for Squatters keeping it real in the back corner; Hunt Sabs with their latest Saboteur magazine plus fox teddies(!), and many more. Looking at the lineup, one can't help but wonder whether it is really a ‘book’ fair or is, in fact, an ‘organisation’ fair under a different name. One curious friend who came along for the morning noted that ‘lots of people here are determined to make more anarchists’ - I told them to be glad they’ve never been to the London ‘book’ fair, where the organisations wanting to sign you up outnumber the book publishers/distributors two to one. Next year I’d like to see fewer membership forms and more zines, magazines, booklets and books.
      Alongside the stalls were a series of talks and workshops that I didn’t attend. The ‘Education Space’ included book launches by PM Press (‘Journey Through Utopia’) and Ruth Kinna (‘Government of No One’ on Pelican), and a Q&A from The Anarchist Party (sadly not a rave but an actual political party). I heard The Anarchist Party were given hell by the audience for ‘working with the enemy’, which seems kind of hypocritical considering how many of the organisations present directly engage with the state and capital as their modus operandi. Speaking of which, a talk by the IWW’s local branch was apparently planned but didn’t go ahead. The final talk of the day, and the busiest, was by D. Hunter about Lumpen Magazine. I regret missing this one - Hunter's work articulates the horror of the daily grind like no other I’ve read this year.
       Bookfairs in the UK are mostly the same rotation of stallholders travelling from city to city with mostly the same stock and having mostly the same conversations. I’m always on the lookout for people who are doing something different. If, like the late great Donald Rooum, they are more into Stirner than they are into Bakunin and Bookchin, all the better. This year I found three: Elephant Editions, Gay Plants, and Forged Books. Elephant Editions you know. The other two I’ll let you discover yourself. Enjoy, you rebels, and let’s hope the organisers can tempt out Return Fire next year.
        As the day came to an end, I sat in the PHM’s cafe and wondered why so few bookfairs have a space like this, where you can retreat from the fray and read your new books. Am I meant to wait until I’m home? I spent the last hour sat sulking over a coffee, a slice of toast and At Daggers Drawn. There was no official afterparty, but Radical Routes had an evening film showing nearby, someone called ‘MCR Punks 4 West Papua’ had a gig in town, and Partisan had a queer karaoke a bus ride away. Tempting as all three were, come closing time I said my goodbyes and, with a pile of books under my arm, disappeared into the frozen northern night.

Till next year.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Austerity, Nothing New!!

       Workers rights are being shredded across Europe and elsehwere, no matter the particular colour of the cabal in power, right, left, centre, centre right, centre left, the legislation is much the same. Easier to be fired, more casual, precarious and part-time jobs, longer hours, less attention to health and safety, and much more. It's called reforming working conditions, according to the corporate bosses it will boost efficiency and profitability, though nothing there to improve the living standards of the ordinary people, on the contrary, we pay for the so called boost in efficiency and profitability by deteriorating living standards.

           Though it would be foolish to think this is a phenomena of today. Far from it, it has been the pattern since the start of this insane, unjust system of capitalism first raised its ugly head. The system has always been to get as much labour and effort out of the employee for as little an outlay as possible. That is the foundation stone of capitalism. Austerity has been part and parcel of the capitalist system, it just that it has gone under different names. Its true title should be plundering the poor.

         If we look back at the trend of wages away back  in the 1800's we will see the same pattern, wages going up and then down, according to what the bosses could enforce. It has never been an ever growing improvement in our living standards. Yes, conditions have improved, but always on the back of determined struggle of those employed, not through the generosity of the boss.

Wage trends (weekly)

1836-37

1841-42

1846-47

Cotton spinners (machine)

35/-

25/-

26/-

Cotton spinners (power)

11/-

7/-

8/-

Coalminers

25/-

15/-

20/-

Bricklayers

21/-

21/-

24/-

Joiners

20/-

?

22/-

Stone masons

22/-

18/-

22/6

Handloom weavers

6/-

6/-

7/-

Railway labourers

14/-

?

15/-

Railway masons

21/-

21/-

31/-

    Looking at these rates and comparing it with my wage as a first year apprentice in the shipyards in 1950, it appears I was living in the 1800's as my princely sum was 19/- a week. 

      Our income from our selling our skills to the parasite class has stagnated, risen and then fallen, and this pattern has continued right up to today. Though I believe to day it is becoming more brutal as capitalism struggles to survive with its need for ever expanding growth in a world of finite resources.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Murderers In Fine Suits.

    They walk around in expensive suits, live in large mansions, are driven around in limousines, are seen as "respectable" members of the community. They are paid unimaginable wealth, CEO and high-flyers in the arms industry. Their wealth is produced by the deaths of thousands if not millions. They grow fat on the destruction of towns and cities, the pile of their wealth is only out sized by the pile of maimed and dead children. With a smile and a friendly hand shake, they sign another contract and another city is crushed, its inhabitants, killed maimed and displaced. Their vile business is seen as a vital part of the "economy" in this insane world of wealth before morality. If you make weapons of mass destruction and their ancillaries, you are complicit in the deaths of millions of innocent people, every penny you have is stained in blood, you are a murderer in an expensive suit. Those victims of your crimes will seek justice.

      This from Act For Freedom Now:

PDF Flyer EN, + ES, IT
     “On the altar of technological development we are sacrificing
every breath of our individual freedom and the possibility
to live a life that is really worth it.”
NICOLA GAI.

      “Anarchy rejects that life becomes an ideology,
shit or a little more, at best, an impotent exit for frustrated men and women.”
ALFREDO COSPITO.

      It is a fact that the Italian war industry represents one of the “excellencies” of the national economy, as it is one of the few sectors that knows no crisis, it is certainly not a novelty, this field of investment that produces such high profits that are considered indispensable for the economy of any government, of any colour, with the due respect of all those who enjoy, for example, the hypocritical condemnation of the aggression carried out by Turkey towards the inhabitants and rebels of Rojava and who call for the formal blockade of the export of weapons produced in Italy to Turkey announced by the current government.
     And if it is true that “the war begins here”, which is where the weapons are produced, this is even more true because here, in Genoa, is one of the offices of Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica), a state-controlled company, which is a world leader in the research and production of advanced technological systems for the military industries and for social control: Helicopters, fighter jets, drones, radars, attack systems, military land and sea vehicles, ammunition, electronic warfare systems and tele-operated, coastal and border protection systems, electronic social control systems to be applied in cities, ports and airports, and much more; Their catalogue is very wide.
    Leonardo “guarantee the principles of democracy in the digital society” (as the company slogan says) and they produce weapons of mass destruction responsible every day for the death of men and women on the borders of the European Fortress and in several corners of the world, just to give some examples; from Rojava to Syria, from Libya to Yemen.
     The company also manages and controls many other war-related companies, including Agusta Westland, Selex Es, Oto Melara and many others.
    Until 2017, the Leonardo-Finmeccanica group had control of Ansaldo Energia based in Genoa, a company that produces structures for power plants, thermal plants and, especially with the Ansaldo nuclear division; Another company that produces death, desolation and the devastation of nature through technological progress that is necessary and essential for subsequent and unstoppable industrial development.
    And for this reason, right here in Genoa, on May 7, 2012, two anarchists decided to specifically express their rejection of this techno-industrial system by confronting Roberto Adinolfi, CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare at home, and returning to him, with a pistol shot to the leg, a sample of the harmful effects of the company’s projects he has guided and sown around the world.
      For this reason, Alfredo Cospito and Nicola Gai were arrested on September 14, 2012. On October 30, during the first hearing of the trial, the two fellow anarchists claimed responsibility for the attack on Ansaldo Nucleare and Finmeccanica, membership of the Olga Cell FAI / FRI and were subsequently sentenced to 10 years and 8 months prison for Alfredo, 9 years and 4 months for Nicola. They are charged for a criminal terrorist attack (without the possibility of having access to parole, house arrest, conditional release, etc.).
     They are still detained in the high surveillance section of Ferrara prison. Since then, they never stopped making their voices heard, by participating, from behind those walls, in the anarchist debate about the radical fight against state repression, about solidarity inside and outside prisons, about the ways to oppose the system’s domination of individuals and to recover the possibility of a life free from authority. From Alfredo’s statement read in the courtroom: “There are many ways to objectively oppose nuclear energy (and not only that, we would say), by blocking trains that transport waste, to sabotage of the pylons that transport the electricity produced by atomic energy. It occurred to me to hit the biggest person responsible for this disaster in Italy: Roberto Adinolfi, CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare.”
     And again: “The time has come for the great rejection, a refusal made of a plurality of resistances, each of which is a special case; some are possible, necessary, unlikely; others are spontaneous, wild, lonely, concerted, explosive or violent. Ours was lonely and violent.”
      In our opinion, any struggle that, rightly, opposes the production of death and destruction through which these monstrous companies accumulate their profits, cannot ignore solidarity activities to those who have tried to jam the gears of this industrial techno-system: This system will not fall by itself, it will not extinguish itself. Only the action of men and women of certainty, based on the rejection of slavery to the authorities and who reject the commitments imposed by the system itself, and generous in their action, can undermine this prevailing logic of profit and technological order.

FREEDOM FOR ALFREDO AND NICOLA

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk