Julian Assange.

        Those who still hold on to the illusion that we here in the UK live in a democracy just have to take a good look at the way in which the British state  is dealing with Julian Assange. Consider the length of his incarceration and the treatment during that unjust incarceration. He is being treated worse and under more restrictive conditions than the way the state treats the most violent of offenders, and we all know that their treatment is unjust and brutal. Julian Assange is not a violent and dangerous man, but the state treats him worse than a wild animal. This is a deliberate attempt to silence those who might consider exposing the dirty secrets of the state. The state always murders democracy.

The following extract from an article by Finian Cunningham:

       The persecution of Julian Assange is one of those breakthrough moments when suddenly people realise that almost everything they have been told to believe is not true.
       This week the Australian-born journalist and publisher has been subjected to a show trial in a British court with the threat of extradition to the United States looming. If he is extradited, the 48-year old is facing 175 years – a death sentence – in prison on wholly contrived espionage charges.
       Assange is being persecuted for the sole and simple reason that he exposed war crimes and systematic corruption by the US government and its Western allies. His years of arbitrary detention and the torture endured over the past year while in solitary confinement in a British dungeon are a grim warning to all citizens. The warning is that their supposed democratic rights are non-existent as far as the powers in Washington and London are concerned. If you dare speak truth to power, then this fate will also be yours.
       Thus, when it gets down to it, the harsh reality is that there is no such thing as democracy in the US or Britain. Elections and media are but window-dressing to hide the brutal truth that fundamental, basic democratic rights of free speech and due legal process are not inalienable principles, but rather are dispensable privileges whenever the powers-that-be ordain so.
       Julian Assange’s incarceration and pillorying is like an inquisition from medieval times happening in the year 2020. He dared expose the rampant, systematic crimes of so-called authorities through his Wikileaks site. His blasphemy was to expose the charlatans and mass-killers who masquerade as pious leaders. --------

Plot to kill Julian Assange

More on Julian Assange from Craig Murray.

     Mark Summers QC outlined that in the case of Belousov vs Russia the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg ruled against the state of Russia because Belousov had been tried in a glass cage practically identical in construction and in position in court to that in which Assange now was. It hindered his participation in the trial and his free access to counsel, and deprived him of human dignity as a defendant.
      Summers continued that it was normal practice for certain categories of unconvicted prisoners to be released from the dock to sit with their lawyers. The court had psychiatric reports on Assange’s extreme clinical depression, and in fact the UK Department of Justice’s best practice guide for courts stated that vulnerable people should be released to sit alongside their lawyers. Special treatment was not being requested for Assange – he was asking to be treated as any other vulnerable person.
     The defence was impeded by their inability to communicate confidentially with their client during proceedings. In the next stage of trial, where witnesses were being examined, timely communication was essential. Furthermore they could only talk with him through the slit in the glass within the hearing of the private company security officers who were guarding him (it was clarified they were Serco, not Group 4 as Baraitser had said the previous day), and in the presence of microphones.----------

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I Am The Crowd.

 

       Mass protests started in Chile in October 2019, the public rage carried it forward to an insurrection, as banks, metro stations, police stations, petrol station etc. were torched, shops looted and set on fire. The states response was savage, brutal and persistent, at least 31 people died, thousands were injured and tens of thousands arrested. The new year saw a lull, but it appears that the people's anger is rising again, with protests increasing in regional cities including Valparaiso and Antofagasta. Also in Santiago Square, which was the focal point of last year’s protests saw another large demonstration.  

       The anger and the problems of the people have not been resolved, the fire still burns, and will continue to burn until the people find justice, freedom and peace, which can only be found outside the economic system of capitalism. 

The following from 325:

Letter to a Chilean about the current situation (IIIsytem of capitalism.and last)’ by Gustavo Rodriguez
—To Joaquín García Chanks and Marcelo Villarroel Sepúlveda, comrades and co-conspirators.
       “Let’s continue the assault on the existent with all means, undeterred by those who would silence us with weapons from the stockpile of reaction, be they the kick of the democratic jackboot, the empty chatter of opinion or the siren calls of the candy men of hope.” Jean Weir; Tame words from a wild heart.
     “Whomever is determined to carry out their action is not a brave person, they are simply someone who has clarified their ideas, who has realized the futility of striving to play the role assigned to them by Capital. They are aware, and attack with cold determination. And in doing so they realize themselves as a human being. They realize themselves in pleasure. The kingdom of death disappears before their eyes.” Alfredo Maria Bonanno; Selected Texts.
       “Let us put a stop to the conjuring tricks of dialectics. The exploited are not carriers of any positive project, be it even the classless society … Capital is their only community. They can only escape by destroying everything that makes them exploited.” At Daggers Drawn
      When history is written – with capital letters, the one that the victors have always written and will write – about the generalized insurrection in Chile at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it will have to be read with extreme meticulousness, since it will be reflected in the supposed motivations of the “crisis” that produced the revolt.
      Once again, the economic analysis will prevail – with emphasis on “the obscenity of misery” that has caused that uncertain denomination they call “Neo-Liberalism” – and, the poor negotiating capacity of a superb government that failed to meet popular demands and chose for the continuity of a regime of corruption and impunity, a (constitutional) heir of one of the bloodiest fascist dictatorships in the Americas.
      However, nothing will be recorded of that anonymous power that shaped the anger of despair, of the nihilistic actions that transformed into a sweeping energy which disrupted normality whilst mercilessly attacking the reality that oppresses us.
      This power will be made invisible (at best) and / or, reduced to a mob of “anarchist and lumpen elements, in addition to groups allied to drug traffickers to unleash looting and vandalism”(1), and stifled in the peaceful condition of “Legitimate” protests and the transcendental importance of the new constitutional fetishes as a legal guarantor of “The needs of the People”.

Read the full article HERE: 

I Am The Crowd.

I am the crowd

I swim in the quagmire of poverty

its hooks, its barbs, tear at my flesh

rupture my dreams,

I hold my breath for centuries

hoping to break through, gasp pure air.

Through the murky mire

I see bright things, shiny things, sparkle

I see women in fine dresses, men in silk shirts.

I ask myself,

why do I swim in this cesspool?

I want the light and warmth of rectitude

to caress my labouring body,

seeds of my dreams to bloom

like wild flowers in a meadow.

One day, I will use my boundless strength

to haul this torn, battered being

out of the morass

onto the warm grassy bank,

when I do;

woe betide you, women in fine dresses

woe betide you mister in your fine silk shirt

should you ever try to get in my way,

for I am the strength of the world,

I am the crowd.

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

Smiling Thieves.

      There are endless of ways to point at the insanity of our current economic system of capitalism, to point to its savage cruelty, to its gross inequality, its destruction of our ecosystems, its exploitation of people, its plundering of the Earth's finite resources, its endless wars, its infinite catalogue of other crimes against humanity. Lots of us have been doing so for many years, more and more are joining in this cry for sanity, and an end to our demise at the hands of insane greed. No doubt many more will join us before we finally end this darkest hour in human history.

       I like this accurate assessment of our economic system from Not Buying Anything:

             No one earns billions of dollars. You have to steal that kind of money.

      There is nothing to admire in the money hoarding, cheating ways of the billionaires.
      They want us to believe that their business model is based on their hard work. They want us to believe that they are richer than us, because they are better and smarter than us.
       Their story claims that they are "self-made".
      Their story is false - they have stolen their wealth using capitalism's bogus business model.

Capitalism's Bogus Business Model

- exploit workers, crush unions, don't pay a living wage, gig economy
- never acknowledge responsibility, or pay for, environmental damage
- avoid and evade taxes
- push for more government subsidies and bailouts
- privatize profits, publicize losses
- employ shady accounting practices
- use corruption, lies, coverups and cheats
- sell junk/planned obsolescence
- debut constant upgrades
- spend $1 trillion/yr on mind and behaviour altering advertising and propaganda
      We have all been the victims of the billionaire's bogus business model, which is premised on endless growth, based on infinite resource extraction from a finite planet. We can now see that model has lead us to the brink of collapse.

      As hard as it may be, we need to end this parasitic relationship. You may feel that what is happening in the world of business is not right. Trust that you are correct in feeling this way. There is nothing right about the billionaires.

     It is important for us to ground ourselves in our own reality, and have a support network that allows us to join together to cooperatively figure things out. They want us atomized and weak, so joining together in solidarity is the obvious response.
     We are pleased that this a place where that can happen. It wouldn't be possible without you, and we are grateful for your participation in this project.
     It is more effective to light the candle of truth, than to curse the darkness of the billionaires plan for us.

         "Anyone who cheers for any billionaire to win anything is a pathetic bootlicking loser. Billionaires are worthless, parasitical, untalented, unnecessary middlemen.
        “Philanthropy” is just another billionaire narrative control tool, same as buying media outlets and funding think tanks.
         Build a library named after yourself and you’ve got this “philanthropist” label that pundits use so that people call you that instead of “parasitic sociopath”.
        If wealth had anything to do with hard work, single moms would be the billionaires."
- Caitlin Johnstone 

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

Support Antifascists.

       Fascists raise their vile brainless shit heads from time to time, it seems as if the powers that be whistle these dogs in whenever there is a hint of anger and unrest among the population. Invariable it is those who resist the fascist scum that get treated to the harshest treatment from the forces of "law and order", that gives you a fair idea where their real support comes from.

A call for solidarity and support from Sweden:

        For a few years Gothenburg was one of the focal points of neo-nazi activity in Sweden. The bombings of a leftist book cafe and two refugee camps in 2016 were followed by a period of intense pursuits at establishing the so called Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) on the streets of our city. The NRM is a violent pro-Hitler sect consisting of racist maniacs threatening, attacking and in some cases even killing its opponents. No one in their right mind wants them around.

Originally published by Anarchist Black Cross Gothenburg.

       Their efforts reached its climax with the attempt to arrange a big nazi march in the autumn of 2017. But they underestimated the collective rage and resistance of everyday people. Almost 20,000 people claimed the streets, stepped over public order fences or took some part in blocking every chance for the march to succeed. Since then, their presence is limited to night time actions and short visits to nearby towns. We halted the establishment of a local nazi movement, but it has not stopped.

      In 2018 a group of nazis, some belonging to the NRM, tried to break into a syndicalist may day-celebration. They were efficiently stopped by people in the demonstration, and one of our comrades is now awaiting trial for an alleged assault.
     In 2019 the NRM held a demonstration on the first of may in our neighbouring town Kungälv, hoping every left leaning antifascist would be busy. But thousands of people, local and traveling from Gothenburg, made their day a miserable failure. They have since announced they will not come back to Kungälv this year. At least one comrade from Gothenburg is however awaiting trial for allegedly resisting the police, and more accusations may likely come following what was described as a riot.

      With trials coming up, and assuming that the confrontations above will likely not be the last, we ask for your support. A series of support parties in Gothenburg have already begun, but knowing that the Swedish state is happy to set an example with antifascists, we suspect this will be expensive.
        Every euro raised will be used to first pay for fines and second to cover the costs associated with prison sentences. Should there be money left over, it will be used to help cover similar cases in the future.

Crowdfunding campaign:

https://www.firefund.net/gothenburgafa
Anarchist Black Cross Gothenburg

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

Open Savage Insanity.

       Apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, call it what you will, the Zionist state of Israel's treatment of the people of Palestine doesn't contain any shred of humanity. It defies all human decency, it is a vicious psychotic policy built on the insane belief that approximately 2,000 years ago, an invisible man in the sky gave these lands to them and them alone. Based on this insane illusion a nation state and its supporters are quite prepare plunder, brutalise, dispossess and murder all those none Jews that live on those lands. Sadly it is the people of Palestine that are standing in the way of this psychotic nation from realising its insane fantasy dream. All this takes place in full view of the rest of the world, and the other nation states either look the other way, or openly applaud and support this psychotic nation's fantasies. This is usually done for power and profit, no other reason, humanity doesn't appear on their to do list. When will the revulsion of the ordinary people rise up in righteous anger, and put a stop to this psychotic inhuman brutality.

This from PressTV: 

Israel approves 1,800 settler units as elections near

      Israeli forces have injured dozens of Palestinians during clashes with protesters across the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces on Friday stormed al-Arma Mountain in a village in Nablus, where dozens of Palestinians had been staging a sit-in since last night in protest against settlers’ plans to seize the area.

      The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that 134 people were injured during the clashes in the village of Baita near Nablus. Most of the wounded either suffered suffocation due to inhaling tear gas fired by the Israeli forces or were hit with rubber bullets. According to the report, one of the wounded was a teenage boy who was hit in his back with a live bullet.

     Palestinian media reports said the clashes were ongoing and the Israeli regime declared the area a “closed military zone” until Friday night. Israeli forces also attacked an anti-settlement rally in the village of Kafr Qaddum in Qalqilya, leaving tens of Palestinians injured. Murad Eshtewi, the head of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee in Kafr Qaddum, said clashes erupted after the Israeli soldiers dispersed a weekly rally by using live and rubber bullets as well as tear gas. One of the injured was hit with a live bullet, while six others were wounded by rubber bullets. Moreover, 33 Palestinians suffered suffocation due to inhaling tear gas.

      The West Bank sees weekly rallies in the lands that the Israeli regime has decided to seize to build settlements on. 

       More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

      Emboldened by US President Donald Trump, Israel has stepped up its settlement construction activities in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which pronounced settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds “a flagrant violation under international law.”

      Israeli troops also dispersed another rally in the center of the city of al-Khalil (Hebron), which had been staged to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre and to condemn the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

      On February 25, 1994, an Israeli settler randomly opened fire at Muslims observing the dawn prayers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in the holy fasting month of Ramadan, killing 29 worshipers and injuring 150 others. Later in the day, Israeli forces killed an additional 21 Palestinians who took to the streets across the occupied lands to protest the al-Khalil bloodshed.

      Thousands took part in the Friday’s rally, which also called for an end to the Israeli occupation and condemned Trumps’ Middle East plan. The Israeli forces used sound bombs and rubber bullets against the protesters. They also physically assaulted them.

     Trump unveiled his plan on January 28. The so-called deal would have, among other contentious things, enshrined Jerusalem al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allowed the regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley.

All Palestinian groups have unanimously rejected the plan.

Laugh In Their Face.

       Despite the unbridled brutal repression from the Greek state's minders, against autonomous spaces, migrants, squats and self organising communities, the people of Exarcheia, and further afield, are determined to hold on to these features of their lives and are resisting and fighting back. In the face of the authoritarian, repressive state they are showing it the two fingers. Their struggle and determination should be an inspiration to us all to stand up and resist the ever encroaching tentacles of the state. 

This from Act For Freedom Now:

 

      On Saturday 29/2 at Exarchia Square we will burn our own “cop-carnival-dummy”. We come with our friends, our children, our nephews, our grandmothers and grandfathers, and take back the square from the occupation forces and all those trying to make repression a permanent reality in our neighborhood. We bring our drinks, our masks, our music instruments and all of our toys for a frantic carnival from two in the noon until late in the afternoon!
         Oust the fear, the streets will win!
     Open assembly of squats, collectives,internationalists, migrants and solidarians

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

The Perennial Question.

The Warmth Of A Dream.

He lay in a dark doorway, dreamed of home,

night frost locked his joints

morning rain chilled the marrow of his bone.

In the dream there was a sister,

a pram in a garden, a crowd of youngsters

who called him "mister", a time of little pain.

Are these youngsters the same young men, who

now laugh at him, throw beer cans,

piss on him as he lies dunk in some dark lane?

When was that first step down this slippery slope,

when was that first step to no forgiveness.

No will to rise to beg for food,

numbness kills the pain.

The dream brings a warmth that feels good,

dark fog shades out consciousness,

an ambulance carries off a body washed in rain.

       Homelessness is back in the news again, with our new bunch of pampered, privileged parasitical government ministers in control spouting how they are going to resolve this problem and the money they will throw at it. At the tender young age of 85, 86 next month, I wish I could remember how many governments I have heard spew out this mantra, but the problem still remains. It is the same with child poverty, each new bunch of political ballerinas pledges how they will end the scourge of child poverty, alas-alack, it is still with us. 

      It is now being stated that the official figures for homeless are inaccurate and a gross under estimate, as if we didn't know. The truth being that the true number of homeless in this country as away far beyond "shocking", it is a criminal indictment against the system. Homelessness is a rather tame word, it belies the underlying world contained in that simple word. The true meaning of homelessness is, a miserable existence, a life of anxiety, a blighted life, a damaged health, a stunted potential, and in many cases an early death.

      As long as wealth governs quality of life, there will be those with no quality of life, such a system breeds and fosters homelessness. Glasgow is no stranger to this avoidable punishment inflicted on some unfortunate individuals and families.  

      This from Glasgow Live:

 

       New figures have revealed an increase in the number of homeless deaths in Glasgow.
     Statistics published today by the National Records of Scotland show there were 100.5 estimated deaths per million population in Glasgow in 2018, considerably more than any other city in Scotland. This compares to 63.5 estimated deaths per million in Glasgow in 2017.
     Aberdeen was second behind our city in terms of the 2018 stats, with 67.8 estimated deaths per million. The Scottish average was found to be 35.9. East Renfrewshire was the only council area with no homeless deaths in either year.
    Meanwhile, there were an estimated 195 deaths of people experiencing homelessness across the country in 2018, an increase from the 2017 figure of 164. Scotland had the highest rate of homeless deaths of all GB countries in 2018, with a rate of 35.9 per million population compared to 16.8 in England and 14.5 in Wales.

   Should I see another 85 years and we are still persisting with the same economic system, then I will still be hearing how our lords and master are going to get rid of child poverty and end homelessness. Surely by now anyone with a shred of intelligence and a slight grasp of our history would come to the conclusion that this present economic capitalist system can't solve our problems and has to be demolished once and for all.

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.  

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

The Long Struggle.

Photo courtesy of Telesur

        The people of Haiti have been in struggle since and before they proclaimed the island as a republic. A slave population that took control of their own lives and freed themselves from French imperialism. Well not quite, France forced the people of Haiti to pay reparations to the slave owners for the loss of their slaves, or face military destruction. Those payments went on until 1947 continually dragging the economy of the island down and enforcing poverty on the people.

        Now the continuing struggle of the people has taken a new twist as the police fight the military on the streets of Port-au-Prince. Only the people can determine how this stage of their battle will resolve itself. These are a people dragged from their homes and families in Africa, sold into slavery on the other side of the world, battled and struggled to be free, and still their struggle goes on. Imperialism doesn't loosen its grip freely or quickly, it will do its damnedest to squeeze the last drop of blood from its conquests. 

        Which ever way this stage of their struggle goes, the people of Haiti deserve our fullest and continuous solidarity and support.

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

Crime And Punishment.

     It may seem an odd question, "Should criminals be allowed to punish those who expose their crimes?", but in this crazy corporate/state world we live in, that is the question that is being debated. Another excellent article from Caitlin Johnstone, certainly well worth the time spent reading it in full.

      We’re Asking One Question In Assange’s Case: Should Journalists Be Punished For Exposing War Crimes?

By Caitlin Johnstone 

       This is a speech I gave yesterday at a demonstration for Assange with the Socialist Equality Party Australia.

      Tomorrow in the UK a judge will start the process of answering a very important question. It’s a question that many of us knew was the heart of this debate back in 2010, ten years ago, when this all started. It’s a question that they have been obfuscating, bloviating, huffily denying, smearing, gaslighting, and distracting from–basically doing anything they can to hide it from view. It’s a question that they don’t want the public to know that we are answering. A question that goes to the heart of democracy, and to the heart of the role of the fourth estate, journalism. And that question is this:
      Should journalists and publishers be punished for exposing US war crimes? And, ancillary to that question: should we allow them to be punished by the very people who committed those war crimes? Is that something that we want for our world, ongoing? Because our answer to this question is going to shape our society, our civilization, for generations to come. There is no coming back from this for a very long time should the answer be, “Yes! Yes, it’s fine, war criminals should go ahead and punish journalists for publishing true facts about their war crimes.”
      If we allow the answer to be yes, then we’re stuck with the endless stupid wars that everyone wants done with, from Melbourne to Kabul, from Sydney to Syria–right across the world people are done with these stupid wars for profit. Even the people like us who are very insulated from the effects of war want them over with, let alone the children of Pakistan who fear a sunny day because drones only fly in a blue sky, or the children of Syria whose country is being terrorized by “moderate rebels” armed and funded by the US war machine, or the starving children of Yemen who are being bombed constantly by munitions made in the good ol’ U S of A.
      No one wants war except those who make big bucks from it. It’s the most evil thing that humans are capable of. It is murder. It is theft. It is rape. It targets and traumatizes and displaces our planet’s most vulnerable populations. It destroys the environment. It leaves behind cancer-causing waste. It’s like as if the worst serial killer is going on the worst killing spree while dumping planet-killing chemicals behind him, but instead of running from the cops, he’s been given a trillion-dollar budget and immunity from prosecution. This is already happening. This is the world we have currently. The question that is being posed in Assange’s case is, should we be allowed to question this? Should we be allowed to expose it? Should we be allowed to stop it?
       Julian Assange’s case is a nexus point of where to next.
      I was thinking on the way over here what I would most like to say to Julian if I had the chance. If I could tell him anything right now it would be, “Rest now, mate. You’ve done all you can. We’ve got you. Let us take it from here.” Assange acted as a kind of lightning rod for all this bullshit for all those years, and through what they did to him, we saw their true face. We saw their true evil. We know what they are now, and we know how they do it, we’ve seen enough to know how they operate. And in the end it’s never about one man, it’s always about the movement. It’s our job now to stand up now and say as one “We do not consent”, and carry him out of there ourselves if we have to. This is where we’re at. We need to decide, do we evolve, or devolve? Do we pivot towards utopia, or dystopia?
      The persecution of Assange is so blatantly, obviously wrong that the only thing stopping people from seeing it is empire propaganda. You don’t have to be well-read. You don’t even have to be smart. You just have to have to have eyes that are unfiltered by narrative manipulation. Anyone with common sense and a beating heart in their chest can see this is wrong. Should journalists be tortured and imprisoned for life when they expose war crimes? The answer is not complicated. It’s obvious to anyone who hasn’t been propagandized out of their own clarity.
      Assange’s plight only looks complicated when you add on layers of narrative and verbiage. “Ah but Sweden stinky, stink man, hacker not a journalist! Mueller sexist Trump poop on the walls, Nazi Putin!” Without all the spin it’s very obvious he’s being torturously, unjustly persecuted. It really is an “emperor has no clothes” thing. The court propagandists fill our ears with fancy words about what a bad man Assange is, and why he must be dealt with, they’re trying to tell you that the emperor’s clothes are invisible to those aren’t educated. But the unpropagandized just yell “Hey! Why is the emperor ass-dick naked? Dude, I can see him! I can see his willy! ”
     This is why there are no counter protests here today. There are no regular, every day citizens taking to the streets with signs saying “Jail all the journalists! Endless war for all!” Some people still have strong feelings about Assange, but they’re just feelings, and you’ll find that it’s usually about only one or two of the smears, and if they turn and try to find evidence for the particular smears that have snagged them, they find nothing. That’s why Nils Melzer, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, is such a courageous figure to me. When people first approached him to look in to Assange’s case, he was reluctant because he too had been affected by the smears. When he turned to the evidence though, he found no substance there.
       Because of his honorability, though, he felt through the embarrassment of being duped, and being wrong, he swallowed his pride and he changed course. And he very quickly became one of our most powerful allies in the fight to expose war crimes, expose propaganda, expose the modern-day mobbing and torture tactics used against Assange, and expose the precedent that Assange’s prosecution will set for journalists and publishers world wide. And you know what? I think the power behind his testimony comes from the fact that he realized that he had been duped, and if he, a very intelligent, well read, worldly, informed and educated person could be duped, then anyone can be.
      No one is immune. Human minds are hackable. We’re all very busy with our lives. We’re all kept busy by capitalism, and very few of us have the time to do what he did and sit down and take a look at the facts and assess them. And even if they did that, even fewer of them have had the courage of their convictions to put up with the social consequences of changing course. Being manipulated isn’t immoral, being a manipulator is. People feel ashamed when they’ve been conned, but it’s not their fault; it’s always the fault of the con man. That’s why fraud is the crime, and being defrauded is being a victim of that crime.
       In order for people to see this question that we’re asking ourselves–the question of whether journalists should be punished for exposing war crimes–clearly they have to admit that they have been victims of propaganda. It’s not their fault, but they will be embarrassed to admit it. This shame underpins a lot of reluctance to join us here today, so I think it’s important to outline. So when you’re talking to your friends and family, keep in mind that they’re hurting. They’re afraid of feeling the shame of having been duped, because in our crazy, ass-backwards culture, being duped is considered shameful while duping people just makes you a productive member of society.
     Be gentle with them. Reassure them that it’s not going to be the end of the world if they change their mind. In fact, it may be the end of the world if they don’t. That’s why I find Nils Melzer’s testimony to be so powerful: because it exposes the abusive nature of propaganda, and he modeled how to act when we find ourselves on the wrong side of the debate. His very existence gives me hope because it means that there are others like him waking up all over the world. Actually, I’ve seen it already myself. There’s a huge movement in Germany gaining traction supporting Assange. It was the prisoners of Belmarsh who organized three separate petitions and got Julian out of solitary (how’s that for grassroots activism?). Just on Friday Alan Jones posted a poll on Facebook that posed the question “should the Australian government do more to help Julian Assange and bring him home?”. Thousands of people answered and there was a 75 percent “Yes! Yes we should bring him home.” Underneath the poll there were hundreds of comments in support of Assange.
      So the tide is changing. Is it enough? I reckon it might be. But we have to keep pushing on it like our lives depend on it, because they do.

Viva Assange!      Thank you.

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

Savagry Of Patriarchy.

         In Mexico city, on Friday February 14th. 2020, president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, while inside the National Palace, giving his morning press conference, probably thought all would be quiet. What he didn’t expect was a group of brave and very angry women attacking the palace doors. This attack was in response to the brutal killing of 25 year old Ingrid Escamilla, who was murdered in the north of Mexico. Suffering the brutal death didn’t seem to be enough for the media, the Mexican newspaper La Prensa published photos of Ingrid’s mutilated body.
      In Mexico around ten women are are killed every day, over the last four decades, femicide has increased exponentially, patriarchy is very much alive in Mexico. However patriarchy’s tentacles slither through the fissures in every country in the world, its distorted value structure, quietly accepting the dominance of one section of our species over another. The deep ingrained protocols continuing the dominance of male over female. and all the injustices that follow from this irrational man made value structure.
      The attacks by these brave women on the national palace were just a part of the much larger day of protests, showing their solidarity with Ingrid and all other women who have suffered the brutality and death of a male dominated society.
     In Mexico city, women from all over took to the streets and filled metro stations to display their rage at a society that looks the other way when it comes to the brutal treatment and death of women. Part of the women’s anger was seen widely when they set fire to a La Prensa truck outside the newspaper's offices. These protests are not an isolated incident but part of series of ongoing strikes and protest at several university campuses across the city. The women's anger is at the macho violence and against the state and universities ignoring this endemic savagery.
       It is suggested that you watch Mexico City as International Women’s Day, March 8th. nears, and support these women who are taking direct action in the face of brutal state repression, to carry on this fight for justice, and against the rampant patriarchy and savage state violence. They deserve our full solidarity and support. 

 

 

 

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I Want To Believe.

      Wrote this little piece in 2017, film is informative, and my feelings expressed in the print are still the same.

Deep In Our Hearts:

        I have always maintained that we are all born anarchists, but the society we grow up in bids us bury those feelings and desires somewhere deep in our hearts. However we do carry them with us through out our lives, they are there ready to sprout and grow if we can create the right circumstances. These occasions rise in all parts of the world, sometimes in small groups that grow and then some fade under pressure from without. Other times it is a mass movement that can only be crushed by the military might of an authoritarian regime. No matter what, we should always remember deep in all our hearts there is a desire to live, with each other, in peace, in caring, sharing communities.

I Want to Believe!

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in hearts that live in dark valleys,

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

In spite of war, in spite of greed

The essence that is humanity struggling to be free.

All around death arrives in many guises,

Silent as the frost poverty kills,

The ruthless march of war

With every drum beat seeks God’s blessing,

While the God fearing kill the God fearing,

Slaughter in the name of the greater good.

I want to believe

All that is good is out there

Sleeping in the hearts that live in dark valleys

About to blossom like some magic woodland,

Not just as the dream of poets.

 

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A Method Of Control.

     The state, any state, will do all that is necessary, "legal", by their own written laws, or "illegal" by their own written laws, to protect its power and the wealth and privileges of those who hold the power. Each state points to other states for useing torture to achieve their aims, but none are immune from this inhuman tactic. The British imperialists were pass-masters at it, controlling vast swaths of the planet by subtle and dubious means or open callous brutality to control populations. They have never lost that acquired ability. We can point to Russia, China and other states for their, so called "abuse of power" and "illegal" methods of controlling their populations, but the British state's hands are ever deep in the sewer of this inhuman method of repression to guard their power and privileges and maintain the status-quo. We can and do fight the open and known injustices inherent in the state system, but we must always be alive to the their many and varied, more underhand, hidden, callous methodology they use to try to create that subservient population. First they came for the anarchists----.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

       On Saturday the 22nd of February there was a protest held outside the Russian embassy in Dublin, Ireland in solidarity with anarchists and anti-fascists being persecuted by the Russian state.
       On the 10th of February, as part of “The Network” show trials and ongoing repression since 2017, seven anarchists were convicted on fabricated lies created by the Federal Security Services (FSB) the successors and continuity of KGB.
       Dimitry Pchelintsev received 18 years, Ilya Shakursky 16 years, Arman Sagynbaev 6 years, Andrei Chernov 14 years, Vasily Kuksov 9 years, Mikhail Kulkov 10 years and Maxim Ivankin 13 years imprisonment.
      The main “evidence” used against the seven were:
    1) “Confessions” that were tortured out of the accused. Torture, which includes beatings, sleep deprivation and what could only be described as sexual assault from electric shocks to bodily parts.
     2) Materials planted in the homes of the accused.
From the very start of the trial and throughout, the defence for the accused attempted to have the “confessions” thrown out of the trial as evidence. The court refused. Its clear the state had them guilty before they were even arrested!
       At the Russian embassy in Dublin the police were there before our arrival. Throughout the protest embassy staff continuously came out to take pictures of us. The repression and tactics used by the Russian state are nothing new. Throughout the world, states fabricate “evidence” to remove anyone deemed as a danger to the power of the state.
     In Ireland this can be seen in recent years with the case of the Craigavon 2, who the British state blamed on killing a cop in Craigavon, Armagh. The only evidence the state used against the two was a statement made by an individual whos father came out publicly calling his son a liar and in the trial the same witness contradicted himself. The rest of the evidence was circumstantial. The British intelligence service even had a tracking device on the car of one of the accused on the night of the shooting, which the data on the device mysteriously went missing. The Craigavon Two are still in jail doing life.
      Also in Ireland in the last few days a republican Paul McIntyre was arrested and charged with the murder of journalist Lyra Mckee who was shot dead in Derry during a riot that erupted after a series of police raids on homes. The police have publicly said they have no evidence linking Paul McIntyre to the killing other than picking up shell casings. This is yet a new case of repression by the British state against their political enemy.
       We send our solidarity to our comrades in Russia as well as across the world and to all those fighting oppression and being persecuted.
YOUR TORTURE WILL NOT KILL OUR IDEAS

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

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