The Nobodies.

        Most of the time we are preparing for, going through, or analysing the results of "an election" somewhere in the world, it's like an epidemic we can't quite cure, and we are told this is democracy.

 

 Myth of Democracy.
      We no longer have a political party system, it is a corporate state. No matter what party you elect and no matter the different and wonderful manifesto promises, after the election it is just as before with perhaps a little plus or minus this way or that. The smile on the face of the new messiah may look more radiant than the last, but the price of bread still goes up. The few over privileged parasites that have control of all the institutions in our society have bought the political parties and are in bed with the military. Big business is all, and war is big business, so we will have war, bloating the coffers of the corporate greed machine until they bleed us all dry. To the corporate world people are dispensable, profit is the name of the game.
       Turning to this or that political party creates the myth of democracy and the results prove that it is no more than a myth, an illusion spun by the media, another institution, which is hardly likely to speak against its master and owner the corporate world.
     If we want a better world where we see to the needs of all our people then we have to break the hold of that corporate beast. Communities have to take control of all those institutions and run them in federation with each other based on sustainability. We have to eliminate the profit motive from all we do, and create for the benefit of all, mutual aid being the key. No matter how you try to shape capitalism, no matter how green you think you can make it, it is unsustainable and will never work for the benefit of all, it is an elitist and exploitative system that works for the privileged few parasites who own those corporations.

Why Wait For History's Verdict?
       It is obvious that when historians come to write about the capitalist era it will be written up as a dreadful failure for humanity. They will be able to write about the fact that at its period of highest development, approximately one third of the world’s population were well fed, one third were hungry and one third were starving. They will be able to detail the misery of those fifteen million children who died of hunger every year. In their learned papers they will catalogue the enormous wealth poured into unbelievable destructive weaponry and they will calculate that in the midst of all that hunger and starvation, the price of one missile could have supplied 100 nutritional meals every day for five years. No doubt their findings will also include that to feed this grotesque beast of privilege and greed it was necessary to pollute and plunder the earth’s resources to the extent of destroying the planet’s ecosystem. Their conclusions will obviously be that it was a cruel, vicious, unjust, hypocritical and unnecessary system inflicted on the population of the planet by a small band of greedy, power hungry, over privileged parasites.
      Why do we have to wait for the historians verdict? We are now aware of the type of system that has been created and the misery that it inflicts on vast swaths of the world’s population. We know that the greatest benefits go to the smallest group, a useless, pampered bunch of parasites. We also know that it is a man made system, not something written in tablets of stone. It is well within our power and our imagination to dismantle this abomination of greed and hypocrisy, and replace it with a system of mutual aid. A system based on free association, voluntary co-operation and sustainability that sees to the needs of all our people, a system freed from the greed driven motif of profit.
      We have the imagination, the ability, and the resources, all we lack is the will.

       I see this poem by Eduardo Galeano as encapsulating the foundations and the structural fibres  of capitalism.

 

The Nobodies

      Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.

The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.

Who are not, but could be.

Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.

Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.

Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.

Who don’t have culture, but folklore.

Who are not human beings, but human resources.

Who do not have faces, but arms.

Who do not have names, but numbers.

Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.

The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them. 

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

Wyatt Earp In Uniform.

 

       The gun totting cop is becoming more prevalent on the city streets across the world. However I think that America still holds that accolade of the most Wyatt Earps in uniform roaming the streets. We must always remember that these macho psychopaths are armed, trained, supported and payed for by the state, (your tax money) as its guard dogs. I must admit that on my many visits to Athens, I always felt a little bit apprehensive when approaching the Greek police. I just didn't like their menacing swagger, usually in twos or threes, all with their guns strapped to their sides. There has been various cases of where the Greek police have shown their idiotic unbalanced macho instincts when confronted with something they just don't like, remember Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15 year old teenager shot dead by an armed cop, while out having a coffee with his friend. 

     Another incident of the Rambo attitude of the Greek police came quite recently and was met with mass resistance from university students and joined by others.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

       It all started on Monday 24 February inside the grounds of Athens University of Economics, when an off duty cop in plain clothes got off his bike and began harassing an immigrant street vendor outside the front gate. The policeman was spotted by anarchist students due to his boots and his helmet that bore the police insignia and was immediately confronted. In his panic, he began running inside the university grounds and managed to trap himself in a dead end corridor, pulled a gun on students and with his finger on the trigger threatened to shoot them while pointing the gun at them for at least 5 minutes, while desperately calling his colleagues on the phone to come and rescue him. The students, not losing their cool, but at the same time not taking a step back demanded he puts the gun down and exits the university grounds. Few minutes later scores of riot policemen stormed the university and attacked students during school hours with flash bang grenades and asphyxiating gas creating chaos because of one imbecile cop that thought he was a cowboy.
       Following these events, that shook the academic community, a protest was called by students on Wednesday 26 February from Athens University of Economics, that the incident took place, to the greek police headquarters, (2.5 km away). Thousands of people took part in the protest, demanding the university asylum to be reinstated (forbidding the police to enter any university grounds, as it was the case for decades, until few months ago, when the new right wing government abolished it).
      When the protest reached the police headquarters and after the main body of the demo had passed in front of the building, several anarchists attacked it with stones, using fire extinguishers to fog the policemen’s vision.
      Riot police brigades and police bikers charged into the crowd with their bikes, ramming people with them as a weapon and throwing them to the ground, chasing, attacking and arresting anyone they could. Many students managed to get into the metro subway station nearby but the police started to throw asphyxiating gas grenades inside the station and while they gave an order for the passing trains not to make a stop, in order to trap hundreds of people down there, in a horrific atmosphere of people breathing with difficulty due to the gas, while at the same time, disrupting the public transport by creating a problem to hundreds more passengers that were planning to get off the tube at that specific metro station.
        Following the events the students decided to occupy the Athens University of Economics on Thursday and Friday, 27 and 28 of February 2020. On Thursday, February 27, 2020, along with many people in solidarity from the occupied “Athens University of Economics” the squatters of “Vancouver Squat” that was evacuated by the greek riot police on November 2, 2019, took the riot police by surprise and symbolically reoccupied the squat lighting flares on the rooftop.

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

Isreali's Apartheid.

 

      Any observer of elections in the "democratic representative" style governments, will know that they change nothing. They may tinker around the edges, but will leave the power structure as before. What they can sometimes tells us is the way the majority think. The recent Israeli elections, as expected, left the Israeli state much as it has always been, but it did tell us that the majority of the population of Israel are right wing, believers of land grabbing and the persecution of those on the land they wish to grab.

     During the recent Israeli elections, Netanyahu made no secret of his plan to grab more Palestinian land for Jewish settlements and get rid of those who have lived there for centuries. Still the people of Israel said yes, that's what we want.

His nearest rival in the election was another right wing authoritarian, with just a slightly different shade of racism and race supremacy. How do you deal with a people with that mind set? 

I think Gideon Levy's article hits it on the head.

       You can be disgusted, you can be fearful, you can even be shocked, but you can’t deny his incredible talent: Benjamin Netanyahu the wizard struck again. Now he’s also an alchemist – take a serious indictment, scatter incitement, and win the admiration of the masses. You can be contemptuous, you can denounce it, you can even rise up against the nation that voted that way, but you have to respect its choice. To bow your head. It’s the will of the people. The people want Netanyahu.
      The time has come to recognize that fact: Israel is right-wing, hard right. Racism is politically correct, personal corruption makes no difference, as long as you guarantee the continuation of Jewish supremacy, rule over another nation, arrogance and hatred. Peace, equality and justice are for the weak. Not for most Israelis. They said it loud and clear on Monday, more decisively than in the two previous election campaigns: Netanyahu is our king. Netanyahu is the king of most Israelis.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Not News!

    This is just a wee blast from the recent past. I penned this about three years ago, but felt I wanted to spout it all again, as it is a train of thought that never leaves my mind. "When will we ever learn"

Too Old For The News.

    Something about living a long time, news never seems like news. Recently the Joseph Rowntree Foundation announced that almost one third of the UK population are living on an inadequate income. In its statement it said that during 2014-15, approximately 19 million people were surviving on less than the Minimum Income Standard (MIS). Mired in that 19 million group of desperate people are six million children, roughly 45% of all UK children, and 1.8 million pensioners. These depressing figures are up from six years ago when they were quoted as, 15 million, or 25% of the population.  

       Why do I not see this as news? Well has it ever been other? It is just bubble gum and candy floss to plaster across that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media. Through the years, as I have seen governments come and governments go, I have been reading figures like this. Under one government the figures improve slightly under the next they deteriorate, so we switch governments again, and the process goes boringly but brutally on its destructive way. Yes we the ordinary people wrestle small gains here and there, but slice by slice they are taken away from us, and we have to start all over again in the constant struggle to try and get a decent standard of living. Poverty has soared and then slightly abated, homeless has grown and then slightly abated, child poverty has increased and then slightly abated. However, none of these problems have ever been addressed  and solved. Nor can they, the system is incapable of solving these problems, or surely it would have done so by now. Have no illusions, the system has the wealth and the resources to sort it all out, but doesn't. Based on the profit motive, these problems are actual results of the system, a few must gain while the majority must lose, that's capitalism. So if you wish to see that 45% of UK children ceasing to be a statistic on a poverty scale, if you wish to see those 1.8 million pensioners live the remainder of their lives in reasonable comfort, don't ask for better allowances, organise to destroy the system that is responsible for these statistics of misery and anxiety. We must accept that it is a class war, and at the moment we are losing, but we have the numbers, the ability, the resources and the imagination, to turn that tide and be the winners of that better world for all.

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

The West And Slavery.

 

     Libya has slipped out of the media glare, except for the odd report about the nasty Haftar, who is attacking the "legitimate" government of Libya. For "legitimate" translate as hand pick Western stooges who were planted in to facilitate the Western imperialists wishes. This so called "legitimate" government has never had control of the whole country just a slice around Tripoli. The rest of the country is controlled by various factions, tribes, war lords, all squabbling for power. Haftar has more or less taken control of the oil, as far as the West is concerned, that's all that matters about Libya, oil. Though, for the moment, this bloody episode in Libya has stalled into a death creating stalemate.

    What the media has put into "forgotten memory" is why Libya is in such a state of turmoil, poverty, violence, corruption, destitution and death. This is all down to the West's engineered disposal of Gaddafi. Though I'm not one who kneels at the feet of Gaddafi, this western lead blood bath has been responsible for turning a country with a developed health service and education system, where the majority of the people were living in reasonable conditions, into a quagmire of poverty and violence, where the ordinary people are suffering death and destitution on a daily basis. Libya is now a territory controlled by warring factions, who see violence as their road to power. It is now a territory where slave trading is carried out openly, where African migrants are openly sold to the highest bidder.

    All this misery, deprivation, violence and death lies clearly at the feet of the Western "democracies" who engineered and supplied the armoury and the devastating air power to destroy this once developed country. The people of Libya continue to live under this quagmire of violence, corruption and misery, while the West has moved on to destroy our countries in its march for control of resources.

Libya's slave trade:

    By the time his Libyan captors branded his face, Sunday Iabarot had already run away twice and had been sold three times.The gnarled scar that covers most of the left side of his face appears to show a crude number 3. His jailer carved it into his cheek with a fire-heated knife, cutting and cauterizing at the same time.

From Ted Galen Carpenter:

A new report from the United Nations bluntly conveys the extent of the continuing chaos in Libya and the suffering it has caused. Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Libya, stated that the impact on civilians of the country’s nine-year internecine war “is incalculable.” That horrible situation is the long-term outcome of U.S. and NATO actions, and it is well past time that guilty officials are held accountable for their disastrous policies.

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

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.----------

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

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