Eliminate The Collective.

 

      What some people still don't seem to understand is that the present economic system is hell-bent on eliminating any form of public or community entities. The drive is to make everything and anything that can generate profit to be in the hands of the corporate world. To create a population of individuals with no stake in the world they live in except there labour power, which they will sell to the highest bidder in competition with all the other dispossessed. Then when you are no longer suitable for hire, you can survive as best you can on charity. You should be quite clear in your mind, that in this economic system you are seen as units of production, nothing more and nothing less. If you can't produce for them, you are useless. Welcome to the corporate world's dream, or don't, but instead fight against that corporate dream, which is your worst nightmare.

 This from Roar Magazine:

        Last month, the French philosopher Jacques Rancière addressed a general assembly of striking railway workers at the Montparnasse train station in Paris.

       If I am here today, it is, of course, to affirm my total support for an exemplary struggle, but also to say in a few words why it seems to me to be exemplary.
       I have spent a number of years of my life studying the history of the workers’ movement and it has shown me one essential thing: what we call social benefits is much more than benefits acquired by particular groups — it was the organization of a collective world governed by solidarity.
      What is this special benefits scheme for railway workers that is presented to us as an archaic privilege? It was part of an organization of a common world where the things essential to everyone’s life were supposed to be everyone’s property. The railroads, for example, belonged to the community. And this collective ownership was also managed by a collective of workers who felt committed to that community; workers for whom the retirement of each one was the product of the solidarity of a concrete collective.

Demolish piece by piece

      It is this concrete reality of the collective, united in solidarity, that the powerful of our world no longer want. It is this edifice that they have undertaken to demolish piece by piece. What they want is for there to be no more collective property, no more workers’ collectives, no more solidarity from below. They want there to be only individuals left, possessing their labor power like a small capital that can be made to bear fruit by renting it out to bigger people. Individuals who, by selling themselves day after day, accumulate points for themselves and only for themselves, in anticipation of a future in which pensions will no longer be based on labor but on capital, that is to say on exploitation and self-exploitation.
       That is why pension reform is so decisive for them, why it is much more than a concrete question of financing. It is a question of principle. Retirement is how working time produces living time and how each of us is linked to a collective world. The whole question is to know what makes this link: solidarity or private interest.
      Demolishing the pension system founded on collective struggle and solidarity organization is the decisive victory for our rulers. Twice already they have thrown all their forces into this battle and they have lost. We must do everything possible today to ensure that they lose a third time and that this loss helps them lose their taste for this battle once and for all.

       This text was originally published in French by Le Monde. English translation for ROAR by Joshua Richeson.

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Inspiration And Solidarity.

       In  this exploitative economic system with its state backed callous repression, two things we need much more off, inspiration and solidarity. Below is an example of each, both from Anarchists Worldwide.

Inspiration:

Koukaki fell heavy on them.

 

 

        Since 2017, the Koukaki Squat Community (Matrozou 45, Panaitoliou 21, Arvali 3) set up adifferent competitive example of communal life in the center of Athens. Through horizontal procedures, collective work and persistence, it set up open and social projects of communal housing, public bath and laundry, clothes sharing, spaces for public events and a multilingual library. Operating in an area which has been transforming from residential neighborhood to first-class tourist resort, the Koukaki Squat Community raised an embankment against the repressive and economic policies of the state and the bosses, against fascism, racism, and patriarchy. A living hearth of resistance, it also actively supported and connected with other struggles, political projects and public assemblies [1].
      Such an active community of equality and solidarity could not go unnoticed. As many other squats and political projects in Athens, the squats in Koukaki were targeted multiple times by the state, both by syriza and nea dimokratia governments, as well as through fascist attacks [2]. Facing evacuations and repression, the comrades resisted and defended their community by retaking the houses and through dynamic interventions. Their strong resistance came to become a central political issue on 18/12/2019, when the police evacuated all three squats, and on 11/1/2020, with the spectacular police operations to evict the houses of Matrozou 45 and Panaitoliou 21, both of which had been retaken by comrades earlier that day.

Read the full article HERE:
Solidarity:

Berlin, Germany: 

Reflections on the Occupation of the Greek Consulate on 23.12.2019.

       On 23.12.2019, we tried to interrupt the normal operation with a symbolic occupation of the Greek consulate in Berlin, After several, also brutal, evacuations of occupations in Greece, we decided to set a sign of solidarity on this way. Even though the action was successful, we decided to publish our collective reflections here to give the chance to follow the whole action and our thoughts about it.
      We entered the building at 11 a.m. with 17 people and calmly asked the staff to stop working for the day. The aim was to disturb the smooth running of the procedure, but without causing further damage. The consulate is located on the 4th floor of an apartment building in Möhrenstraße 17 in Berlin-Mitte. As soon as we entered the rooms, we covered the cameras, explained our reason of the occupation to the staff, hung a banner with the words “Solidarity with the Squats” out of the window and threw out flyers. We made no demands whatsoever, but took the room to spread our ideas and show our solidarity.
     The supporters down the street distributed flyers and our statement to the pedestrians. As soon as the rooms were occupied, we sent our text (https://en.squat.net/2019/12/23/berlin-greek-consulate-occupied-solidari…) to all ministries in Greece via fax and e-mail and also to some of the mass-media, because we discussed beforehand if we want to use the media to propagate our action and decided to send the text to some of them.
       In the first minutes of the occupation several visitors came to the consulate, almost all were asked to leave and come back another day, the reactions were different. One visitor refused to leave the premises and remained alone in the visiting room all day.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Our Green Future.

        A green plan is the only way to save the planet, and of course those who have destroyed the planet, the corporate capitalists, rush forward to state that only they can be the saviour of the planet, all they need is more taxpayers money. Their propaganda machine goes into overdrive to convince us that our interests and their interests are the same, and we can trust the corporate beast to be our knight in shining armour and herald in the new beautiful green world. Of course this bullshit, sadly, is swallowed by many.

      The following article from Acorn, with lots of links to follow for further information, may help to shovel the bullshit out of our path.

Gaetano Salvemini.

        “The world nowadays teems with people who have fits of enthusiasm whenever they hear of state intervention, planned economy, five-year plans, and the end of laissez-faire. They do not care to ask who are the social groups in whose interests the state, ie. bureaucracy and the party in power, is to intervene and plan. “Yet the first question which should be asked when invoking the end of laissez-faire is precisely this: in the interests of whom should such abolition take place?”
      When Gaetano Salvemini wrote these words, he wasn’t referring to the 2020s, but he might as well have been. There are plenty of anti-capitalist comrades out there, who, even when they oppose the limited content of a Green New Deal or a New Deal for Nature, are tempted to give such schemes the benefit of the doubt in that they appear to be a step in the right direction, away from the unchecked market forces of “laissez-faire” capitalism.
      But, as Salvemini points out, we need to look carefully at who exactly is pushing these economic plans and whose interests they are designed to serve. Here, the hard work has already been done for us by investigative journalist Cory Morningstar and other writers featured on our Climate Capitalists page of links. 

     The briefest dip beneath the fake green surface of this contemporary political pond reveals it to be less a source of environmental and social hope than a rancid cesspit of private interests. We find ourselves deep within a massive global network of organisations and initiatives with names like the World Resources Institute, The B-Team, We Mean Business, Tomorrow’s Capitalism, The Natural Capital Coalition and Corporate Impact X. Here we can have the pleasure of meeting a former CEO of Unilever, the daughter of a CIA-backed Latin American president, the powerful founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum or a Silicon Valley billionaire hoping to get even richer through a “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. In this strange upside-down world, in which Big Business is going to “save the planet”, we come across brave “solo” campaigners supported and promoted every inch of the way by international PR professionals, youth movements described as “grassroots” which are in fact funded and steered from above, high-profile activist “rebellions” cheered on by venture capitalists.
        We hear talk of “exponential opportunities“, “the investment of trillions of dollars“, and a “transformation unlike anything humankind has experienced before... a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres”.
      In short, as Morningstar explains, the so-called Green New Deal is being promoted “as the catalyst to unlock the 100 trillion dollars required to unleash the ‘fourth industrial revolution’. This project, of unparalleled magnitude, is the vehicle to save the failing global capitalist economic system and bring in the financialization of nature”. Having found the answer to the question recommended by Salvemini, we might reflect that it is not exactly surprising to find capitalism manoeuvring to incite state support for its money-making activities.
      It was in 1469 that the banker Lorenzo Medici observed: “Things can go badly for the rich if they don’t run the state”. It is a big mistake to fall for the capitalist lie that their world of “market forces” somehow operates independently of the existence of states. We perhaps might expect that naivety from advocates of the oxymoronic absurdity known as “anarcho-capitalism”, but it is strange to witness anti-capitalists likewise imagining that the involvement of state machineries in capitalist activities will inevitably act as some kind of brake on profiteering.
      Capitalism has always depended on the existence of a state in order to impose and enforce its domination. Indeed, we would argue that the state only exists in the first place as a tool of the wealthy elite. Its role has always been to rubber-stamp, with its self-proclaimed “authority”, the theft from the majority carried out by a greedy and self-interested minority. It is the state that announces that “property” is sacred and lawful and that any attempt to take it back amounts to “crime”. It is the state that physically protects the property and wealth of the rich by employing gangs of thugs to intimidate, attack or imprison anyone who threatens to confiscate it, by whatever means.
      It is the state that legitimises and enforces the expulsion of people from their land, that cuts them off from subsistence, from communal autonomy, and forces them into the waiting jaws of capitalist wage slavery. It is the state that raises armies and navies to conquer foreign lands so that its capitalists can plunder, cheat and exploit still further afield. It is the state that taxes the population, ostensibly in “our” interest, only to divert vast amounts of collective wealth into the pockets of capitalists, whether via their highly lucrative construction schemes (needed for “our” infrastructure), via their profitable arms dealing (needed for “our” defence) or, today, via their pseudo-green technologies (needed to save “our” planet).
      When state and capital work together in a more visible way, as with the planned “Green New Deal” and “New Deal for Nature”, this does not mean that capitalism is on the retreat. It just means that, in order to get through a period of crisis, capitalists are, once again, pretending that their interests are “our” interests, that we are all facing an “emergency situation”, that “our” future is at risk and that, therefore, trillions of dollars of public money should be stuffed, by the state, into the pockets of our capitalist saviours.
      Gaetano Salvemini book Those who persist in seeing a state-intervention version of capitalism as necessarily a step in the right direction, would do well to heed Salvemini’s study of one particular “limited planned economy deferential to capitalism”, which just happened to be the Fascist regime in Italy.
      He wrote: “Italy has never seen anything similar to the type of planning exhibited by the government of Soviet Russia. When an important branch of the banking system, or a large-scale industry which could be confused with ‘the higher interests of the nation’, has threatened to collapse, the government has stepped into the breach and prevented the breakdown by emergency measures.
      “The policies of the Italian dictatorship during these years of world crisis have been no different in their aims, methods, and results from the policies of all the governments of the capitalistic countries. The Charter of Labour says that private enterprise is responsible to the state. In actual fact, it is the state, i.e. the taxpayer, who has become responsible to private enterprise. When the depression came, the government added the loss to the taxpayer’s burden. Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social”.
       Salvemini summed up the overall impact of Fascist state intervention in the dealings of “laissez-faire” capitalism, by concluding: “The intervention of government has invariably favoured big business”. (3)
     Why would we expect things to be any different today?

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Anti-Prison Week.

         Prisons are symbols that we live in an authoritarian society, prisons are totally unacceptable in a free and democratic society. Locking people in cages can never be seen as an acceptable answer to any problem when we live in that free and democratic society. Today prisons are not the monopoly of the state, though the state holds the sole right to send you there, it has handed the running of prisons over to money seeking shareholders. They in turn will seek to expand the prison system and to increase its capacity, all in the drive for more profit. A typical capitalist profit making entity from dehumanising people. Freedom can only grow from the ashes of the prison system, only when the last prison lies in ruins can we say, we are truly on the road to freedom.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

 

     The anti-prison week is in less than a month! It will happen from 2 to 8 march 2020 in the old train station of Luméville, close to Bure, place of a struggle against a project of a center for burrying nuclear waste.
       The idea is to take time to meet, between people and groups from different countries, have formal and informal times of discussions, workshops, movie screenings, readings. You can come to the week with your own proposals, with or without telling us in advance. Zine distros are also very welcome.
     We received criticisms regarding the lack of topics related to racism in prison and state racism in the program of the week, considering the key role that racism play in penitentiary systems. We would like to make more space for these topics, so if you think you have something to contribute on these topics, please contact us.

Program

      We are currently contacting the groups that will take part in the week to know when each workshop or discussion will happen. This section will be updated regularly between now and the beginning of the week.

Monday
An update on the struggle in Bure, the Cigéo project, the events of the last few years.
More info soon.

Tuesday : repression and anti-repression
More info soon.

Wednesday : (No) Borders
More info soon.

Thursday : gender issues, LGBTQ+, women’s prisons
More info soon.

Friday : about being “on the run”
More info soon.

Saturday : anarchist views on justice, law, crime / how to get out of a punitive system
More info soon.

Sunday
More info soon.

Practical informations

Coming to the place of the event

       The old train station of Luméville is located in Meuse, France, close to the village of Luméville-en-Ornois, on the left of the road leading to the village of Mandres-en-Barrois. You can enter it by car. We will put up signs so you can’t miss the entry ways.



Food

        There will be vegan food from sunday 1st in the evening to monday 9th in the morning. We will provide the food and cooking equipment but cooking will be participatory and rely on self-organization. You will be able to put money in a free price box to help us cover the expenses of the week.

Sleeping

       There will be sleeping places in a building on the place of the event, but not enough for everyone. There will also be sleeping places in other collective houses in villages around (at maximum 8km). There is a lot of space on the place of the event if you can come with a tent, a camper or a truck (bring blankets if you can!).
      If you need sleeping places in the building on the place of the event, please tell us in advance how many places you need so we can organize.

Translations

     Translations will be provided as much as possible in french, english, german and italian. If you plan to come to the week and are able and motivated to do translations during discussions, you can tell us in advance when you would come and from which to which language you can translate.

Legal information

       We published an article about legal information and police controls in the context of the week. You can read it here.

See you in march!

 The Anarchist Bure Cross

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

Injustice Of The Justice System.

        We all know that the state's loaded judicial system, and its corporate and state owned coercive prison system, both run by stooges of the state, are there to punish those who dare to oppose their system of population control.  Dare to challenge the state's power and you will feel the full force of its vicious power in the form of callous physical and psychological violence.

       Nothing is too low or too brutal, no sewer too deep to trawl, to use as they pursue their objective of a submissive and and subservient population. Their vicious deeds sanitised by their phony stamp of legitimacy, as they lay claim to the monopoly on violence and brute force.

      Move from state to state and you will always find these cases of human degradation and callous savagery by state institutions. Here in the UK we have Julian Assange find more on Julian Assange HERE among others, being dehumanised for telling some dark secrets of the state's duplicity.

       The following case is from America, though look elsewhere and you will find more.

From Anarchists Worldwide:

 Joseph Dibee was arrested in August 2018 after more than a decade on the run. 

        He is accused of being part of a group that organized arson attacks against earth destroying and animal murdering enterprises. He is accused, for example, of taking part in the arson against the Wild Horse Meat Slaughterhouse in Oregon that was completely destroyed by fire and never reopened.
          He has been locked up since his capture even though he has not had a trial yet. In January, Joseph was attacked by a “white-power” piece of shit. His jaw was shattered to bits and he suffered multiple skull fractures. His mouth is wired shut. He is stable, but needless to say he went through a very scary and terrible experience.
       This comes as no surprise since the FBI has insisted on plastering the media with his full name (Joseph Mahmoud Dibee) alongside the word “Terrorist”. They have paved the way for Joseph to be continuously attacked in prison because of this. They are utilizing any tool (in this case, the spread of anti-Muslim and neo-nazi philosophy) to make Joseph suffer as much as possible.
        His lawyer has insisted to the judge over and over that Joseph is not a risk to society and that he has changed his life around, helping build solar and thermal systems in Syria and working as a teacher whilst on the run. The judge did not care and decided to keep Joseph locked up waiting for trial. We will say it again, he has not even been found guilty and he is supposed to pay the price.
       Joseph could do with letters of support and love. Nobody should be writing anything related to direct action or to his case, but sending letters explaining how the day has been might be a good start to make him feel better.

Here is the address to send letters:
Joseph Dibee #101799,
Inverness Jail, 11540 N.E.
Inverness Drive,
Portland, OR 97220

Remember that “Support the ALF” isn’t just a fucking t-shirt!

PRISONS ARE FOR BURNING

UA.

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Anarchy Is For Lovers.

 

     So many people still see anarchism as that unruly individual, hell bent on destruction because they want to do what they want and screw everybody else. This is the picture painted by the pro-establishment mouthpiece the mainstream media, in its determination to maintain the status-quo. 

     Of course anyone who has looked seriously at anarchism knows that this a deliberate fabrication to defile and destroy the only real road to a free society based on co-operation, mutual aid, equality of opportunity, sustainability and peace.

This quote from Anarkismo, puts it better than I could.

**Many people regard anarchism and socialism as contradictory programs. This is based on the conception of "socialism" as state ownership of the economy. Yet historically, anarchists have regarded this program as "state socialism" or "authoritarian socialism." They have rejected such views in favor of "anarchist-socialism" or "libertarian socialism." This concept of anarchism as a variety of socialism remains important today in opposition to pro-capitalist "libertarianism" and to "democratic socialism"--that is, reformist state socialism.**

Read the full article HERE:

      Perhaps we are to blame for not getting the true principles of anarchism across as the accepted view. Taking a leaf out of the capitalist book, propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, we should still be flooding the streets and workplaces with those bits of paper that proclaim anarchy is for lovers. Lovers of humanity, lovers of respect for the individual, lovers of co-operation to our mutual benefit, lovers of mutual aid, lovers of organisng together to solve our problems, lovers of our planet and its sustainability. Who in their right mind would object to joining such a group.  

A Needless Sea Of Tears.  

Though we live in a world of callous commerce 

and know justice

is an altar where the caring are sacrificed,

see freedom as a river that runs parched

in the fierce desert of poverty,

our thoughts cannot be chained

our dreams will not be caged.

We will think beyond the profit race

dream beyond the market place

in friendship clasp each human hand

with compassion try to understand

our differences, our hopes, our fears,

dragging this world from its needless sea of tears.

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

If Only---.

 Paris.

       If only it was happening here in Glasgow, London, Edinburgh, Leeds, as well as Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, Canberra, Washington, and all cities and towns across the globe, at the one time, then tomorrow might look a lot brighter.

Albania.

Thanks Loam for the link.

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

An Ever Widening Gap.

       I penned this little piece ten years ago, and today I can honestly say that the chasm between the ordinary people and the parasite class is wider and ever more unbridgeable than it was then. There is no common ground what so ever between that bunch of pampered and privileged leeches that control our lives and the folks who do their damnedest to scratch out a decent living under their exploitative yoke. Ballot boxes, dialogue and parliamentary activity have all proved that they are unable to do anything to bridge that chasm, it is now up to us.

A backward look at 2010, Nasty Protestors:

         Why do the authorities come down so heavy on protesters? A protest is really no more than a group of people wishing to be involved in the decision making process, and in an authoritarian system, that can't be tolerated. It might catch on! There is of course, always the possibility that a handful of protesters might trash a few precious trinkets of society, a society that deserves no more respect than the garbage it produces. A society that trashes the lives of the protesters' families, neighbours and friends. A society that trashes communities, villages and towns for economic reasons, example, closing factories and re-opening the other side of the world for cheaper labour.

       The heavy handed treatment also depicts a nervous ruling class, a ruling class that is aware of the threat to its power and privileges. No longer are the police mere stewards at protests, the powers that be have dropped all pretence, they know it is a class war, and now shamelessly treat it with a military response. Police supported by others in full riot gear, backed up by mounted police, with other instruments of force in the background waiting their call to action. The sooner we the exploited and controlled, accept that it is a class war the sharper and more successful our strategies will become.

       There can be no social solution to this situation because there is no longer any common ground, language or experiences between the milieus of groups and individuals that make up “society” and that other group, the parasites, the “ruling elite” that wish to continue controlling “society”.

       It can no longer be stated that a fissure exist between the two classes, it is an unbridgeable chasm, The truth of the situation is that they, the “ruling elite” need us to maintain their parasitical lives of opulence, but we have absolutely no need what so ever of them. Our lives become richer when they finally enter the dustbin of history.

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

The Flickering Flame Grows.

      Although the protests in France have been going on for more than a year, and covering all major cities and towns, it is still difficult to know exactly what is going on. The reason of course  is our media stay silent on such affairs especially if they are near to home, for fear of contagion. They know the population are angry, and here that anger is still simmering beneath the surface, the last thing they want is to give fuel for that anger causing it to burst onto the streets.

       If you are interested in what has been happening and is still happening in France, then the list of some of those actions over the year are listed by Anarchists Worldwide. It makes for interesting reading, showing the mosaic of direct actions and how they morphed in this highly technical society. It would appear that direct action of resistance is keeping pace with rapid changing technology that shapes and controls our lives.

The Anarchist Worldwide list in PDF form can be downloaded HERE: 

That was the year that was---

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Spirit of Revolt Outreach.

        The first of this year's Spirit of Revolt outreach events was a stall at Workers Theatre Group Ceilidh, (Roma dancing) on Saturday night, 15th. February. A well attend affair and the dancing proved to be energetic to say the least, lots of fun and a real good workout for those wishing to keep fit and/or lose weight.

    We managed to put out lots of free info leaflets and raise some funds for the Spirit of Revolt Archive.

    The coloured lighting made taking photos difficult but here are a few.

         Our next outreach event will be the Dundee Anarchist Bookfair, March 14th. Again we will have a stall manned by members of Spirit of Revolt, all eager to talk to you about our Archive, what we do and how you can get involved. Also with merchandise to sell you also lots of free leaflets and info to give you. So come along and chat to us on the day, we'd be delighted to have a chat. 

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

Dogs As Weapons.

      One thing we should all be clear about, the state will use whatever it thinks will work to subdue a population that is resisting its authority, it will attempt to instill fear and stifle any form of resistance to its control mechanisms over the population. Armour clothed robotic looking police, shields, long batons, rubber bullets, and on occasions lethal live ammunition. Dogs are also used to intimidate, they seem to be blind to their hypocrisy, that possessing an aggressive dog can lead to it being destroyed, and then they train dogs to be aggressive and patrol them in public places to try to intimidate the general public. Training a dog to be aggressive is both cruel and against any semblance of animal welfare, but then again, the state and its minders consider themselves above all laws.

    It is good to see that there are people taking a stand against this cruel practice of training animals to be aggressive, and then useing them as weapons against the public.

    This from Athens via Act For freedom now:

      The police have painted targets on anyone who slightly defies the law and order regime. This week marks an imposition of mass patrols designed to sow fear and violence. And worse they have brought trained attack animals onto our streets to roam among crowds. We gather and impose ourselves into and against their narrative.
      Let’s be clear that training animals to be aggressive and placing them in dangerous situations is abuse.
     This weekend 2/15 9pm Plateia Exarcheia against law and order
Against the use of animals as weapons
      We act for Exarcheia, for anarchy
update 15.2.20: About 60 people came through over the call for an hour. We hung three banners in Plateia exarxeia, read statements and listened to music. Was good. Thanks to everyone who came.

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

Poetry Night Glasgow.

       A date for your diary, for next month, March, well better to be organised. One of Glasgow's literary radicals and well know poet, Jim Ferguson, is having a book launch of his new collection of poems. "Poor Wurld". The book is published by Speculative Books

     Always an enjoyable evening when Jim is reading and his book of poems are always well worth reading. On this particular evening, Jim will be joined by others, looks like a great evening.

  Ferguson is an itinerant, surreal, Dadaist, whose words are sewn together with a radical thread that espouses ideals and takes no prisoners: - rebels against the status quo, and ensures the reader is always engaged by his giving the man (and woman) on the street a voice. Brian Whittingham.

Details:
Date,        Saturday 28th March 2020.
Time,        7:00pm-10:00pm.
Venue,      Calton Bar, London Road, Glasgow.
Reading,  Jim Ferguson, Ruby McCann, Derek Brown,
                   others to be confirmed.

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

Vultures Don't Feed Lambs.

       The Mirror newspaper published an article recently, and I wonder why, perhaps they thought it was "news". What the Mirror doesn't seem to realise is that every ordinary person in the UK knows that poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that child poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that pensioner poverty has rise sharply. Every ordinary person in the UK knows that people with disabilities are finding it harder to make ends meet. So where is the news? It would have been better had they pointed to the real causes and the only remedy, get rid of the economic system that creates these problems.
       They take their facts from a recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report. The report states that over the last 5 years poverty has increased for pensioners and children. It also states despite rising employment, in-work poverty has also risen, and it doesn't take an economic expert to see this is down to the fact that inadequate pay, hours and/or both these factors. It has now reached the point where more than 50% of the people living in poverty are in a working family, this is up from 39% 20 years ago, now there's capitalist progress for you.

      Other interesting facts from the every day life of people in the UK, there are more than 4,500 people sleeping rough on the streets of England alone. 14 million people here in the UK are living in poverty, an increase of 400,000, over the last 5 years, there are 4 million children living in poverty, an increase of 300,000 over the same period. The report also states that people are more likely to be living in poverty if they are in a family where there is a disabled person or a carer.
     Now try as you may to equate that with one of the richest countries in the world  and a supposed highly developed and civilised country. We live in a society where deprivation and opulence live cheek-by-jowl and the capitalist system has proved over the centuries that it can't remedy this disparity. This inequality has increased and will continue to increase as long as we tolerate a economic system that has as its foundation the creating of wealth for the few at the expense of the many. the building bricks of capitalism is exploitation of the many by the few, and the above figures are not an unavoidable accident, they are an ideological choice, the inevitable consequences of such an economic system. How much longer will we accept the poverty of our friends and family, the stunting of the potential of our children and the abandonment of our elderly, while the perpetrators live a life of obscene opulence with private jets, luxury yachts and  private estates. The remedy is in our own hands, don't expect the vultures to feed the lambs.

   

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