Sunday 8 August 2021
Keelie.
Vote???
For centuries now we have had capitalist representative democracy as the model for the world, what we should note is that this is a very clever pseudonym to give it appeal, it is not representative, nor democracy, but it is capitalism. What it has produced is a world with vast swaths of the planet living in poverty and deprivation, endless wars, a ruling cabal of ruthless billionaires and a planet that is heading for ecological disaster. This only exists because of our submissive attitude to the ballot box, the vote is the establishments hand out of paracetamol to the public, it makes them feel better but does nothing to cure their ills. Isn't time to change the way we structure our lives? Isn't it time we brought an end to this human disaster. Let's fashion our world on the bases of equality, justice, sustainability and humanity, free from the capitalist profit motive.
The following from Enough is Enough:
Text from the German territory, where elections will take place in September: Who ever you vote for, we will be ungovernable! Going to the polls always means choosing the lesser of two evils. We don’t want to choose evils!
#UNGOVERNABLE.
Originally published by Indymedia DE.
Going to the polls always means choosing the lesser of two evils. We don’t want to choose evils!
For centuries or even millennia, we have stood up for the equality of all living things, for the freedom not to harm ourselves and others, for fraternity worldwide!
Freedom cannot be chosen, freedom has always been the freedom of those who take it. No matter which government plays its power games, we do not let ourselves be governed!
We don’t let ourselves be banned from saving people on the high seas any more than we let ourselves be banned from creating places where people can get access and care, regardless of their purchasing power.
We fight for a good climate of tomorrow, so that all those who come after us have a chance to live on a planet that we are willing to protect.
We do not ask about origin, who you are is important, where you were born is not. The nation is against us, the nationality is only a game of the rulers to divide and disempower us.
We empower ourselves, against any authority!
We are paramedics, authors, lawyers, musicians, workers, anarchists, educators, artists, freelancers and many more!
The ruling conditions are against you. If you are not useful to them, you will also be sorted out hard.
We do not vote for the tyrants and their systems, for capitalism and its destructive power, for the authoritarian state and its oppression. We vote all this out and fight for a world society without domination of people over people!
For a world in which it is worth to live. For a future full of meaning and valuable experiences.
No government can ever bring us freedom, we can never be absorbed in their prefabricated identity structures. Only under.
Who ever you Vote for, we will be #ungovernable! No matter who we vote for, we will remain ungovernable!
Join the campaign and post your actions, events and practices from the world of tomorrow under the hashtag #ungovernable
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Friday 6 August 2021
Green???
The world faces a crisis in CO2 emissions and the people are crying out for an end to fossil fuels among other methods of cutting those emissions, and hopefully in doing so save the planet and humanity. However, as we approach COP-OUT26, to be held in Glasgow later this year, the UK's response to this impending doom is to build a third runway at Heathrow to increase air traffic, have you ever seen a green jumbo jet? Another plan by the UK government that will be a slap in the face of those trying to cut emissions and end the of burning fossil fuels, is that they plan to drill more oil wells in the North Sea. At the same time they spout about being the greenest government on the planet, all hog wash and bullshit. These plans of insanity go ahead because a few millionaires could become billionaires and a spin off to their greedy leeches and hangers on. They are blind to the fact that they are driving at speed to suicide, which would be well and good, but sadly they will take us all with them, but we will not share in their looting of the planet. Not that it will make much difference, after the demise of humanity.
The capitalist world will never work at saving the planet, there is too much profit to be made from plundering the earth's resources for personal gain. The profit grabbing enterprises of the capitalist economic system offers the corporate plunderers far too much wealth, power and privileges, at the expense of everybody and everything else for them to stop, they are junkies on a trip of power and wealth, fed by the sweat of you and I. We have to be the ones to stop this madness before it destroys us all and all life on the planet. This is not a painting of doom, this is a statement of facts.
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info
They Laugh.
During the pandemic while you and I struggled as best we could, the one class that saw their wealth balloon was the billionaire class. Just a couple of headlines make this very clear: Billionaires' wealth rises to $10.2 trillion amid Covid crisis and The billionaire boom: how the super-rich soaked up Covid cash and COVID-19 has made the super-rich richer. It’s time for a billionaire wealth tax and Billionaires got 54% richer during pandemic, sparking calls for "wealth tax" of course you and I know, there will be no wealth tax, and if there is it will be some small change they have in their pocket. That suggestion is just a paracetamol for the public, it makes them feel better but does nothing for their problem.
If nothing else, this pandemic showed up the glaring inequalities inherent in this economic system. While you and I struggled to survive this pandemic the billionaire class and their government cronies, were laughing at us. It is long past the time when we should stand up and wipe that smile of their smug faces. The efficiency savings and our struggle for a decent life will continue and that struggle will become more difficult, unless we take on this billionaire driven system of greed, inequality and exploitation. It is a man made economic system, not the words from above written in tablets of stone. Let’s organise to bring it crashing down once and for all, we can create that better world for all.
Thursday 5 August 2021
War.
A poem by a poet I know nothing of, Corbin Owens, but would like to know more, any info would be much appreciated.
A short man from Texas
A man of the wild
Thrown into combat
Where bodies lie piled
Hides his emotions
His blood is running cold
Just like his victories
His story unfolds
Bright, a white light
If there'd be
Any glory in war
Let it rest
On men like him
Dead men will never come back
Crosses grow on Anzio
Where no soldier sleeps
And where hell is six feet deep
That death does wait
There's no debate
So charge and attack
Going to hell and back
A man of the 15th
A man of can do
Friends fall around him
And yet he came through
Let them fall face down
If they must die
Making it easier
To say goodbye
Bright, a white light
If there'd be
Any glory in war
Let it rest
On men like him
Who went to hell and came back
Crosses grow on Anzio
Where no soldier sleeps
And where hell is six feet deep
That death does wait
There's no debate
So charge and attack
Going to hell and back
Oh gather 'round me
And listen while I speak
Of a war where hell is six feet deep
And all along the shore
Where cannons still roar
They're haunting my dreams
They're still there when I sleep
He saw crosses grow on Anzio
Where no soldier sleeps
And where hell is six feet deep
That death does wait
There's no debate
He charged and attacked
He went to hell and back
Corbin Owens
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Tuesday 3 August 2021
Blind Eye.
By Gideon Levy
"Haaretz" Israeli terror is at it again. The Israel Defense Forces’ death squads chalked up another successful week: four bodies of innocent Palestinians piled up between the two Fridays. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between the four incidents in which four sons were killed, but the link cannot be broken.
In all these cases, soldiers chose shooting to kill as the preferred option. In all four cases another way could have been chosen: Arrest them, aim for the legs, don’t do anything or simply don’t be there at all. But the soldiers chose to kill. It’s probably easier for them that way.
They come from different branches of the army with different backgrounds, but they share the incredible ease with which they kill, whether they have to or not.
They kill because they can. They kill because they’re convinced that this is how they’re expected to act. They kill because they know that nothing is cheaper than the life of a Palestinian. They kill because they know that the Israeli media will yawn and not report a thing. They kill because they know that no harm will come to them, so why not? Why not kill a Palestinian when possible?
They killed a 12-year-old boy and a 41-year-old plumber. They killed a 17-year-old youth and a 20-year-old young man attending a funeral, all in one week. An Israeli slogan during the 1948 war went “To arms, every good man,” leading later to the concept of the IDF’s “purity of arms.” Four in one week, for no reason, with no hesitation, with no terrorist facing them. Four executions of young men with dreams, families, plans and loves.
None of the four endangered the soldiers, certainly not in a way that justified lethal fire. Thirteen bullets at a car driving by innocently, carrying a father and his three small children. Shooting a plumber holding a wrench and claiming that he was “moving rapidly toward the soldiers.” Three bullets at the stomach of a 17-year-old who was on his way to take his brother home.
All this can be called terror; there is no other definition. All this can be called the actions of death squads; there is no other description. It sounds horrible, but it really is horrific.
It could be less horrific if the Israeli media bothered to report on it, possibly shocking Israelis. It could be much less horrific if IDF commanders took the necessary steps given their army’s murderous recklessness. But most of the media believed that the killing of a child interests no one or is unimportant, or both, so this shocking incident wasn’t reported on.
If the soldiers had shot a dog – also a shocking act, of course – it would have attracted more attention. But a dead Palestinian child? What happened? Why should it interest anyone, why is it important?
“Are you working for the Arabs?” journalist Yinon Magal maliciously tweeted, addressing Haaretz’s Hagar Shezaf, virtually the only journalist who covered the boy’s funeral. This is the new journalistic ethos: Reporting the truth is tantamount to working for the Arabs.
Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Sunday 1 August 2021
A Jury?
An interesting post from Craig Murray:
I want to make one or two points for you to ponder while I am in jail. This is the last post until about Christmas; we are not legally able to post anything while I am imprisoned. But the Justice for Craig Murray Campaign website is now up and running and will start to have more content shortly. Fora and comments here are planned to stay open.
I hope that one possible good effect of my imprisonment might be to coalesce opposition to the imminent abolition of jury trials in sexual assault cases by the Scottish Government, a plan for which Lady Dorrian – who wears far too many hats in all this – is front and centre. We will then have a situation where, as established by my imprisonment, no information at all on the defence case may be published in case it contributes to “jigsaw identification”, and where conviction will rest purely on the view of the judge.
That is plainly not “open justice”, it is not justice at all. And it is even worse than that, because the openly stated aim of abolishing juries is to increase conviction rates. So people will have their lives decided not by a jury of their peers, but by a judge who is acting under specific instruction to increase conviction rates.
It is often noted that conviction rates in rape trials are too low, and that is true. But have you ever heard this side of the argument? In Uzbekistan under the Karimov dictatorship, when I served there, conviction rates in rape trials were 100%. In fact very high conviction rates are a standard feature of all highly authoritarian regimes worldwide, because if the state prosecutes you then the state gets what it wants. The wishes of the state in such systems vastly outweigh the liberty of the individual.
My point is simply this. You cannot judge the validity of a system simply by high conviction rates. What we want is a system where the innocent are innocent and the guilty found guilty; not where an arbitrary conviction target is met.
The answer to the low conviction rates in sexual assault trials is not simple. Really serious increases in resources for timely collection of evidence, for police training and specialist units, for medical services, for victim support, all have a part to play. But that needs a lot of money and thought. Just abolishing juries and telling judges you want them to convict is of course free, or even a saving.
The right to have the facts judged in serious crime allegations by a jury of our peers is a glory of our civilisation. It is the product of millennia, not lightly to be thrown away and replaced by a huge increase in arbitrary state power. That movement is of course fueled by current fashionable political dogma which is that the victim must always be believed. That claim has morphed from an initial meaning that police and first responders must take accusations seriously, to a dogma that accusation is proof and it is wrong to even question the evidence, which is of course to deny the very possibility of false accusation.
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info
Pegasus.
Big Brother just gets cleverer and smarter and more devious. The latest invasion of your privacy comes from the home of an Israeli company NSO with its latest spyware Pegasus. It is capable of spying on and stealing data from any phone on its list without the owner having the slightest idea of what is going on. Each day reveals an ever growing list of journalists, activists, politicians, etc. names popping up as more is revealed of this underhand grab by anybody who can afford to purchase the spyware. There may be an outcry against this insidious infringement of our privacy, but big money is lining up to try and buy the company, as the financial Mafia know very well that there is big bucks to be made in snooping into other people's lives. That is the shape of the society we tolerate, it stinks, it is rotten to the core. For decency and justice, for personal lives free from prying eyes of corporate or state power mongers, we have to destroy it, root and branch.
The following from KNOWLEDIA:
NSO's Pegasus spyware, a cyberweapon enabling state-sponsored terrorism against civil society, has outraged the world. In Israel, there's complicity – or complete indifference. NSO's Pegasus spyware, a cyberweapon that hacks cellphones and enables state-sponsored terrorism against civil society, has outraged the world. In Israel, there's complicity – or complete indifference.
"The violation of Israeli settlers' right to ice cream": The Ben & Jerry's "outrage" is what most of Israel's media, government and the Israeli public have been obsessing over for the last 24 hours, while in the rest of the world, newspapers headlines have been publicizing Israeli surveillance company NSO's complicity in the political persecution of journalists, lawyers, politicians and human rights activists.
Since 2017, when NSO's involvement in political persecution in Mexico was exposed, there has been a steady flow of investigations around the world into its other human rights violations, and every few months more findings have been published. And in Israel, there was, and is, general indifference, both in the public square and in the political sphere. Was Israel Aware of NSO Clients' Surveillance Targets? || NSO's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week Is Just the Start
A charitable explanation of that indifference in Israel would be based as stemming from the (mistaken) belief that these were isolated, exceptional cases, or that the publications that exposed the misdoings were inherently "anti-Israel."
But even now, when the trickle of information about NSO has become a tsunami, in particular its Pegasus spyware (believed to have been acquired by numerous authoritarian governments as a spyware weapon to target political opponents, journalists and human rights activists), Ben & Jerry's decision to stop selling its products in the occupied territories is still the most discussed issue in Israel – and the trigger for the loudest outrage.
Activists and journalists protest outside Mexico's Attorney General's Office after a criminal complaint following a report their smartphones had been infected with spying software made by Israel's NSO Carlos Jasso/…
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info
More Anger.
Some more photos from the event.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk
Saturday 31 July 2021
Angry.
What is happening is the plundering of public assets, which will end up in private hands, and the diminishing of the quality of life for those who live in this city and to whom these assets belong, a slashing of the quality of life for the next generation. What is the council for if it is not to service and maintain the services and facilities for the people who live in the city. If they can't do that then then the city council is superfluous to requirements.
It is time to stop being polite and time to take to the streets with your righteous anger and force the take back of all our assets into the control of the all of the people of our city. Glasgow, get angry, you have every right to be ferociously angry, and show it on the streets of our city and in our communities. It is your health and welfare and that of your children that are going to suffer from this plundering of the public purse.
Friday 30 July 2021
Glasgow.
Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk