Terrorists.

          The most dangerous terrorist groups on the planet, the most heavily armed, and the ones that have caused more destruction across the world, that no other terrorist group could hope to match. Of course it is the various states. Iranian state has started executing protesters, Italian state condemns prisoners to total sensory deprivation, Greek state shoots teenagers, Israeli state kills and maims Palestinians on a daily basis. Various state bomb countries into the stone age, killing thousands of innocent people and displacing millions. All this is done with the stamp of legitimacy that the various states bestow on their every action, no matter how brutal, callous or inhumane. Yet we tolerate this most savage of terrorist groups to shape our society, to control our every movement, because we seem to accept its claim to a total monopoly on violence that it backs it up with a loaded judicial system. Accepting such a structure in our society is denying our freedoms, our rights to self determination, denying justice and equality for all. We are complicit in this violence from the state's terrorist actions, as long as we pay lip service to this insanity, to be civilised we have to destroy this terrorist structure and build a society on mutual aid, co-operation, between our communities and workplaces, base our society on justice and equality and seeing to the need of all our people, humanity and sustainability.

The following extract is from Enough is Enough.

Poster and flyer distributed and posted up in Lecce

The State is the slaughterer!

          December 12 marks the anniversary of what is known as the “mother of all massacres”, the one in Piazza Fontana, at the Banca dell’Agricoltura in Milan, in 1969. Planned and carried out by fascists in collusion with State apparatuses, many more followed and over the following decade much blood was shed. These were scientifically planned massacres that attempted to impart an even more authoritarian turn to the young Italian Republic.
         On December 5 in Turin, the courts began deliberating the sentencing of two anarchist comrades – Alfredo and Anna – accused of “political massacre” for having placed two explosive devices outside the carabinieri school near Cuneo in 2006, without causing any fatalities or injuries. They both risk life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Alfredo is being held under the 41 bis regime since May.
         It seems logically absurd to hold a trial for a massacre without a single death, but not when the defendants are anarchists. The State wants to imprison them for life, not for what they have allegedly committed, but for the ideas they carry in their hearts and the actions that are an expression of those ideas.

 Continue reading.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Gamblers!!

 

 Image courtesy of Daily Mail.

            It is par for the course for greed to prevail in the capitalist system. Cast your mind back to 2007-2009 financial crash. The banking system went bust, they had been dealing in dodgy packages, selling them on and hoping nobody looked inside the packages, as they were worth nothing, but generated cash for the big banks. However some people did look inside the packages and found the had been sold a pig in poke. And the system collapsed under the weight greed driven gambling. In steps you and I with our tax money and bailed the banks out to the tune of approximately £140 billion. This lead to ten years of austerity as we paid the price of the greed driven gambling frenzy of the financial institutions. So the banking system was looked at and lo and behold, it was found to be lacking in any regulations to stop this crazy greedy driven gambling with our money. So regulations were brought in to tighten how the financial Mafia used our money and prevent this happening again, and it seemed to work. 

Image courtesy of The Mirror.

         However our political masters have decided that the banking industry is far too regulated, so are setting about removing all those regulations to prevent insane financial gambling by the financial Mafia. Now they can let rip all the greed driven insanity in making a quick buck at any expense. Hold on to your braces, another crash is now very much a possibility, and once again you and I will be expected to bail them out. If we do this time, then we deserve all we get. We should never have our lives dictated to us by the millionaire/billionaire parasites. They gamble to get rich quick, smiling as they go, as they believe, they are to big to fail. Surely enough is enough, it's time to bring this whole madhouse of greedy driven economic insanity crashing down around the heads of the parasitic few. We don't need them to tell us how to live our lives, we can make a much better job on our own. We know the society we want, mutual aid, sustainability, co-operation, equality and justice and seeing to the needs of all our people. We will never get it under the corporate capitalist/financial Mafia yoke

Image courtesy of Daily Mail.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Murder.

 

Alexis Grigoropoulos

 

          I was in Athens on December 6th 2008 when 15 year old kid Alexis Grigoropoulos was out for a Saturday night coffee with his friend, Nikos Romanos, in the district of Exarchiea, when laughter turned to tragedy, when a police officer shot young Alexis dead, he died on the street in the arms of his friend Nikos. This brutal state murder brought the people of that country onto the streets in a display of united anger and disgust. I joined some of the protests in Athens during that December, and you could feel the anger. It was awe inspiring to see so many people demonstrating their fury at this callous murder of a youth. Greece was seized by riots for weeks on end.
        Jump forward almost 15 years to the day of that callous brutal act and it seems history repeats itself. In Thessoloniki, on the 5th. of December, this year 2022, a police officer shot a 15 year old youth twice in the head, shot for 20 Euros of petrol. Is there any wonder that the people of that country are angry, furious, disgusted at this repeat of the callous act of 2008. We too should be angry, for it is now common for the police armed like the military parading through our streets, we too have individuals shot and killed on our streets. The state says the police are there to protect us, when in fact they intimidate and terrorise the general public. 

 

Niko Romanos

  The following from Enough is Enough.

           It was during the early hours of Monday 5 December 2022, when a 16 year old kid was shot in the head by a greek police officer of the DIAS motorcycle unit during a car chase in Thessaloniki. He was accused that he filled his pick-up truck with 20 euros worth of petrol and left the petrol station without paying.
           Following the news and his dire physical condition, riots erupted in the city of Thessaloniki, located in the north of Greece, later on the same day. At the same time, in Athens, several different protests were held in the evening of December the 5th. The protest in Exarcheia, held in front of the memorial of Alexis Grigoropoulos, (a 15 year old kid that was shot dead by a cop on 6 December 2008, sparking the events that would lead to massive riots all over Greece, known as the December Revolt) soon turned into a march that led to a riot, as seen in the video.
        It has to be noted, that today 6 December, protests have been planned in dozens of cities and towns all over Greece, in remembrance of the December Revolt and the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the police in Exarcheia 15 years ago to this day.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info 

masses.

                                           Image courtesy of We Are In The Crowd.

      Listening to the venom spewing from the mouths of our lords and masters that frequent The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, at those on strike for a decent life, such as holding the country to ransom, playing into Putin's hands. We should perhaps remind them of the irrefutable truth. Those on strike and all other workers built this world by sweat and blood, theirs and the forbearers. It's time we took it back.

image courtesy of The Manchester Evening News.

 

 WE THE LABOURING MASSES.

We the people have, every brick laid,
have fed the world with sweat and spade,
every instrument played in every band
created by the skill of the craftsman's hand.
We made every truck and every load,
our toil our effort every winding road,
every ship that ever sailed the sea,
our power our imagination made it be.
Cities and towns large and small,
our labouring hands fashioned them all,
every home, every spire,
luxury mansion or humble byre.
No matter what dreams the mind might spawn
without labour's hand, never see the light of dawn,
without labour's strength and labour's skill,
we would be foraging beasts in a jungle still. 

Image courtesy of The Guardian. 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Double-Speak.

Image courtesy of Clean River Trust.

          Once again the UK state shows its true colours, it spouts green renewable policies but decides to open up another coal mine. All this while experts say that climate catastrophe could happen at much lower temperatures than first predicted. The usual mantra is repeated, "it will bring jobs and help the economy". Help the economy really means allow the millionaire/billionaire class to make heaps more money, as for the jobs, it will be dirty, dangerous, unhealthy and unnecessary jobs. We all know that wars bring jobs and helps the economy, the rich getting richer, but nobody in their right mind wants jobs at that price. The same logic should apply in the case of coal mining, pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating the climate catastrophe that is heading our way.
          Why do we allow these money grabbing mobsters of parasites to dictate our future, to bind us to extinction via climate disaster, just so they can enhance their already extreme ill-gotten wealth. Surely we could do better without them and their leeching greed. We can build a fairer society based on mutual aid and co-operation between communities, a society that sees to the needs of all our people. Of course it will never happen as long as we leave this bunch of greed driven parasites holding the reins of power. As always, the choice is ours, knuckle down and grin and bear it, or stand up and take the fight to them, on the streets, in the workplaces and in our communities. The future is ours to grasp, it will never be given to us.

 Image courtesy of Manchester Evening News. 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info

Fail 19.

           System Fail 19, the latest from SubMedia now available. As usual it covers a range of topics. This episode looks at the pandemic, riots in China and Elon Musk's take-over of twitter. System Fail is a window on our world, always worth a viewing.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

To The Right!

            As the state here tightens its legislation on protests, trying to make it impossible to protest against any injustice, and demonises those who dare to take strike action in a struggle for a decent life, labelling them enemies of the state, as well as accusing them of playing into the hands of Putin, we must remember, this is not a local problem, it is happening across the world. Here in Europe and in America the various states are marching to the right, as is happening elsewhere. Anarchists always come in for some of the harshest treatment. In Italy a law, 41-bis, brought in to attack the mafia, after a string of assassinations is now being used against anarchists. In Greece it is practically a military operation with guns and all the brutal appendages the authoritarian state can muster to destroy free autonomous spaces and brutalise those who defend those spaces. This is an on going threat that we ignore at our peril. Our limited liberties are being trashed, if this happens, it will be a harder fight to get them back. Much better to defend what you have rather than try to retrieve what you have lost. This fight is of the most urgency, the various state are marching right at an ever increasing pace.

The following extract from Enough is Enough.

Originally published by Communıty of Squatted Prosfygıka.

We are still here … The Community remains strong and united … Prosfygika will win!!!!

            On 22/11/2022, at 5.45 am, all kinds of police forces, riot police MAT, state security, Delta, OPKE and EKAM, invaded the squated neighbourhood of Prosfygika on Alexandra Avenue and more specifically the 7th block, on Tikhonidos Street (behind the Elpis Hospital). They broke through the outer door of the building, breaking it. Then they went up to the second floor where two community companions, the arrested companion and another refugee from Iran live. They kidnapped both of them and proceeded to carry out a thorough search of the building. At the same time, the entire neighborhood was surrounded by the repression forces, not only at the site of the search but in total, attempting to occupy it.
        The operation was spotted by the community’s daily morning patrol who began to inform the neighborhood. Comrades and compañeras took to the rooftops to wake up the rest of us. Not knowing exactly what was happening, we recognized that the operation was limited to a specific building, but we also realized the serious possibility of a general attack. In retrospect, we judge that the invasion that took place was premeditated from the morning. All the time that elapsed until the moment of the invasion was the result of preparation, judgment on costs and gains, as well as a measurement of our determination, by the officials of the GADA and the ministry.
        As time went on, the situation seemed to get more difficult. The comrade remained inside the building, the police forces were not removed and the encirclement remained. The neighbourhood was becoming suffocating with the situation. We attempted to contain the riot police further in from Kuzi Street, that is, the vertical street that centrally separates the refugee blocks, so as to open up vital space for the neighbourhood, without obstructing the investigation, but making our presence felt. This allowed the neighbourhood to slowly leave their homes, some to go to their jobs and others to take their children to school. It also stopped the torture of our comrade, who was under captivity in his house for about 3 hours. At least as he informed us later, then, after the fireworks, they stopped and took him to GADA.
       At the same time we were receiving more and more information and indications of a second operation that had been predecided and which would take place after 3.00 p.m., after the partial eviction of the two hospitals of St. Sava and Elpis. Around 12.00 noon we held a march through the neighbourhood and called an emergency advocacy meeting at the community shelter in the 6th block for 4.00 p.m. At 5.00 p.m., during the open publicly announced meeting, the repression helicopter and drone attack began in the air. The guarding shift resisted as best they could given the circumstances, using every means of non-criminal force, not only to protect against persecution disproportionate to the litigation, but also to protect the entire community, its children and patients, and the wider neighbourhood in general. A wave of terrorism fell upon the 5th and 6th blocks that left children and other people in the neighborhood in panic attacks that continue to this day. The Hellenic Police assassins broke down apartment doors with guns drawn, threatening anyone in sight, and attempted to impose a regime of terrorism. A sick woman in a wheelchair and her daughter, a family holding their children in a panic attack, a mother beaten and thrown to the floor in front of her 12-year-old son after their door was broken, migrants and refugees spilling into their homes and on the stairs, like an invasion of Gaza.

 Continue reading.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Good Read.

 

           December, so another Read of the Month from Spirit of Revolt. This month we bring you Manifesto of Libertarian Communism by Georges Fontenis, ACE, Anarchist Communism Edition No·3, from our K M Collection, T SoR 4-1-3. An excellent read for those who want to know more about Libertarian Communism, or refresh their thoughts on the subject. You can of course delve into our website where you will find a multitude of information on Anarchism and Libertarian Socialism and the people and struggles involved in that struggle for that better world for all.

 READ ON LINE.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Gifts.

            Well it is that time of the year when people buy presents for friends and family, call it what you will, I like Winter Solstice. Choosing a present can be difficult, so let me help you. A wonderful book to give to your friends, family comrades or for yourself, would by the book by James Kelman and Prof. Noam Chomsky, "Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime, Why Ideas Matter", published by PM Press.

         Apart from seeing this book as an essential read for all left radical thinkers and activists, I have another motive for suggesting it as a wonderful Solstice gift. The authors have kindly stated that the proceeds from the sale of the book go to Spirit of Revolt as a donation. Spirit of Revolt is probably the largest anarchist, libertarian socialist archive in Scotland, we record, preserve and make easily available, your history, your struggles for that better world for all. We rely totally on donations from friends and supporters. we receive no funding from unions, businesses or councils and our team are all unpaid volunteers. See our donation page. All donations, one-off or direct debit, no matter how small are really appreciated.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Rising??

  Food for thought as we face a winter of cold and hunger, midst abundant wealth.

 “Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture...
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away...”- 

 Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Spaces.

        The following article doesn't just apply to Exarcheia in Athens, what they are facing is happening to every city across the globe. The drive to turn public spaces into profitable entities, not for us all, but for the already very rich and powerful. These decisions are made by bureaucrats and politicians who see only economic growth for profit, although these decisions impact on our quality of life the decisions are made over our heads. It will take  a well organised mass movement to stop this trend of profit before the quality of life of those impacted by these bureaucratic decisions. If we want quality of life over profit, then we will have to take to the streets and force the change, it will not come from the politicians and the bureaucrats who are blinded by the profit motive.

The following from Freedom News.

Exarcheia, the subway station, and public space

 

 

Analysis, Dec 2nd
                First of all it is important to underline that public transport (tram, subway, bus) is immensely important as it allows for ecological and inclusive movement throughout the city. With the usage of all the different types of public transport a vast and comfortable transportation network can be developed to challenge the domination of the private car on our streets – domination that makes urban life worse by air and noise pollution, frequent accidents, and the exclusion of the most marginalised economically.
              For quite some time now, in the historic Exarcheia neighbourhood of Athens, home to countless anti-authoritarian and anarchist collectives, squats, and social centres, there has been a struggle directed against the construction of a metro station on the district’s central square. How does an area with such a libertarian history oppose the expansion of public transport, one might ask; but the truth is that the problem is not the subway as such, but the way the decision to build was made and what will came after it.
             Firstly, many of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, in coordination with architects and urban planners, have proposed another place of the neighbourhood (Archaeological Museum) as a place more suitable and rational for a subway station. The people of Exarcheia understand the ecological and inclusive dimensions of public transport; what they disagree with is the political way through which this, and other, decisions are being made – decisions, made by a handful of politicians and businessmen, that will shape our common ground for generations to come, without the participation of all of us who inhabit it.
            Secondly, the inhabitants are in opposition to the urban vision promoted by those in power: with most striking example being the Kotzias square right in front of the Mayor’s building in Athens. We speak of a place that does not feel nor look like square any more. There are no trees or benches, so one can pass through it on their way to somewhere, but not spend time in it, as there is no protection from summer’s blazing sun or anywhere to sit. This is in line with the project of “touristisation” that the Greek authorities have been implementing for years all around Athens. In this project the pubic spaces are an obstacle to economic growth: tourist shops, restaurants, cafeterias all generate economic revenues from tourists, while squares, with their benches and trees, serve the communal (often non-economic) needs of the inhabitants. This is what the inhabitants of Exarcheia do not want to happen to their square – but what the restructuring of it, due to the subway station, will most probably bring. The vision that local authorities envision will not solve any of the problems of the area, it will simply lay the foundations of yet another urban desert, where there is barely any vegetation and no place where one can sit for free.
             There is also a third dimension of this project. The Greek state, under different governments, has continuously been in opposition to the autonomous movement in all its expressions. As is well known, Exarcheia is both a point of reference and a symbol of this movement. In this line of thought the decision, taken without any sort of public deliberation and despite strong opposition, to place a metro station in an irrational place, is also seen by the authorities as an excuse to militarise the district with heavy police presence and suffocate any effort of self-organization.
              The case of the construction of a subway station at Exarcheia square comes to show that under the conditions of oligarchy and capitalism even sustainable means of transportation can be used to destroy public spaces and gentrify neighbourhoods, just as renewable energy sources are used to destroy mountainous areas in order to generate profits for investors far away. What is crucial to understand is that this is all a question of politics: of who gets to shape our city – a handful of bureaucrats and capitalist investors, or the vast majority of a district’s inhabitants. It is this political question that frames the content and the outlook of urban space.

Yavor Tarinski

Image: Pithari Stories

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

The Street?

          We, the ordinary people are at war. I'm not talking about the war of missiles and drones, but the war we have fought for generations, the class war. Year in year out the conglomerate of corporate beasts have have grabbed more and more of the world's resources and in their never ending drive to increase profits, we have been hit time and time again with punishing austerity, inflation, cuts to social services, which translates into poverty and destitution for millions. Once again with great viciousness, the attack is on the ordinary people, and as winter approaches we are facing cold homes, insufficient food on the table, with the result being stunted children and elderly and vulnerable people dying earlier than would be normally.
           This is a constant fight and it will not be won in the marble halls of power, nor in the debating rooms of unions. It will be won on the streets, we surrender the streets at our peril. It is important that we take our anger and frustration on to the streets in organised vast numbers. To win that decent life for all, we must be prepared to do our debating with direct action on the streets, in our communities and workplaces. The good life will not be handed to you by the wealthy and powerful, we'll have to take what we create and turn it into a society of mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people.
          Perhaps we can learn something from recent history, the mass protests of Gilets Jaunes

The following from Enough is Enough. 

           On November 17, 2018, a new kind of movement exploded in the face of many observers and took the trade unions and political parties, who were convinced they had a monopoly on protest, by surprise: the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement.

Originally published by Contre Attaque. Translated by Riot Turtle. 

 

         Officially 287,710 demonstrators, probably 10 times more, had spread around 2000 traffic circles across the country, created new spaces for discussion. The demonstrations were heterogeneous, many of them were not used to protesting. We all remember the call of truck driver Ghislain Coutard improvising a rallying symbol, the yellow safety vest. His anger and his genius call “We all have a yellow vest in the car! Put it on your dashboard in front of you all week long. It will be a little color code to show that you support the movement”.
        In the weeks that followed, a strange phenomenon: we all looked at each other on the streets, as if to count ourselves. And there are many of us… You know the rest: 65 weeks of mobilization, thousands of injured demonstrators and an estimated 1.800 injured among the forces of order. The mobilization was unprecedented, but so was the violent repression.
        In 2018 alone, the police fired 19,071 LBD bullets and launched 5,420 rounds of grenade ammunition. Total repression. The victories, unfortunately, are not as numerous. Although the carbon tax has been buried, the list of 42 demands has remained largely unheeded.
        The few measures that have been saved at the simulacrum of a citizens’ assembly will be further eroded by amendments in Parliament. Not sure that this is what the Gilets Jaunes had in mind when they demanded more direct democracy.
        4 years later, most of the initial Gilets Jaunes groups don’t exist anymore, but some activists persist and don’t hesitate to support other militant collectives. From their chaotic course, let us retain that the Gilets Jaunes movement knew how to show all the old street movements the need to renew the way to mobilize. A lesson still far from being integrated if we observe the success of the last call of the CGT in France…
          It would be good not to leave the monopoly of mobilizations to these union organizations again, who usually organize nice demonstrations and then leave. The success of the Sainte-Soline mobilization shows it, we have to fight in a different way. Mobilize people who use different strategies and create cohesion between “peaceful” and “determined” protests. The Gilets Jaunes knew how to blow on the embers of social movements, it’s up to us to set things on fire!

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Capitalism.

 

 

           Explaining the flaws in capitalism to a believer that accepts that it's the only game in town, can be difficult. They arrive at their decision from the propaganda machine, mainstream media, government policies, the menagerie of parliament, corporate advertising and I suppose we can add Hollywood.  That's why I like reading  Caitlin Johnstone she seems to have this ability to spite out the truth and make it readable and obvious. I love her quote, "Why does China keep aggressively surrounding itself with US military bases"

 

 

Image courtesy of Counter Punch

 

The following is a short extract from a longer article by Caitlin  

            The claim that capitalism is the best system for generating profits is basically correct; it’s hard to beat greed and starvation as a carrot and stick to get the gears of industry whirring. The issue here is that merely generating profits won’t solve most of the world’s problems, and in fact many of our problems come from the fact that capitalism is too effective at turning the gears of industry. Our biosphere is dying largely because capitalism values making lots of things but not un-making things; we’re choking our ecosystem to death because it’s profitable.
           Capitalism has no real answers for problems like ecocide, inequality, exploitation and caring for the needful. Yes “let the markets decide” will generate lots of profits for those set up to harvest them, but profit-seeking cannot address those very serious problems. The “invisible hand of the market” gets treated as an actual deity that actually exists, with all the wisdom necessary to solve the world’s problems, but in reality the pursuit of money lacks any wisdom. It can’t solve our major problems, it can only make more stuff and generate more profit.
              Find me a capitalist business plan for leaving a forest untouched. Find me a capitalist business plan for keeping someone free of illness, for ensuring that someone with nothing gets what they need, for giving resources to a struggling parent. You can’t. Capitalism can’t do this. These are the most important things in the world, and no possible iteration of capitalism has any solutions for any of them whatsoever, apart from “Well hopefully rich people will feel very charitable and fix those problems.” And how is that solution working out? It’s a joke.
            The “Maybe the very rich will feel charitable and fix our problems for us” solution assumes that the very same people who are wired to do whatever it takes to claw their way to the top of the ladder will suddenly start caring deeply about everyone they stepped on to get there. Capitalism elevates sociopaths, because profit-seeking competition-based systems reward those who are willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead. That’s why we are ruled by sociopaths, and it’s why looking to “philanthropy” as a solution to our problems is a ridiculous joke.
          When capitalism proponents tell socialists and communists “You don’t understand economics,” what they really mean is “You don’t understand that capitalism is the best system for generating profits.” But socialists and communists do understand this; it’s just that generating profits, in and of itself, is not sufficient.
            If lack of wealth is your major problem, then capitalism can be a tool to address it; that’s what China is temporarily doing to keep up economically with the western forces who wish to enslave it. But such measures won’t solve ecocide, inequality, exploitation, and caring for the needful. For that other measures are needed.
         If you want to make more of something (money, material goods), then capitalism can be a good way to do that. But if you need to make less of something (pollution, inequality, exploitation, sickness, homelessness, etc) it’s worthless, and other systems must be looked to.

 READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info