Capitalism Has Crashed, Install New System.

          Here we are in the 21st. century, and nothing has changed, the poor still have to pay for the mistakes of the rich. How the rich make the poor pay for those greed driven blunders, can be subtle and/or brutal, sleight of hand by legislation put out by their minders, the “government”, or simply brutal pay-offs and redundancy. Most of the methods being used to bludgeon ordinary people into paying for the blunders of the rich parasites, do permanent damage to lives of those affected. They also come in many guises, for example, the bedroom tax, benefit sanctions, leaving individuals with no means of support, attacking the sick as they lose their meagre benefits to the callous, Work Capability Assessment. Working hours are increased while wages decrease, the uncertainty of zero hours contracts and part-time working, and the doubt to whether you will have a pension or not. These are all part and parcel of making the poor pay for the rich life style of the parasite class. Then there is the bonus to their rich corporate friends, through the Workfare schemes, offering their rich buddies free labour, why pay employees, when your friends in government are handing you free labour? 

      Invariably these cuts and schemes come down hardest on the poorest sections of our community, forcing them to make choices between, to eat or heat, increasing homelessness, and mental and physical health problems. Slowly and surreptitiously, public services vanish, day centres, care homes, libraries, become memories. The education budget diminishes, forcing councils to introduce unqualified teaching staff, to the detriment to the pupils potential and development. Any wonder anguish and pain multiply, suicides increase, this is the price the people pay for the crass greed of an army of rich parasites. To add insult to injury, when they create the conditions when our NHS is in greater need, they start to dismantle it, slicing and dicing it up into bite size pieces for their rich corporate henchmen to gobble up, privatisation by sleight of hand. They can now make large profits from the sick and injured as the whole ethos of the NHS is swung towards profits. 

      This is also handed out as the only way possible, there is no other game in town, which we all know is utter rubbish. There is a better way, there is a better world waiting for us, it is up to us to start moving in that direction. We have the ability, the imagination, the resources, the the numbers, all we need now is the will. We know we can create a world based on mutual aid and respect, co-operation across and between communities, a world of no borders where we see to the needs of all our people, a world freed from the profit motive and built on sustainability. We have the plans in our hearts and our heads, we made and distributed everything in this world, we know we could do a much better job if we decide to start again working from the base of decent humanity. 

       I have hope, I see people fighting back, direct action, protests, strikes and taking up arms, we all know, capitalism has failed miserably, we all know reformism has failed miserable, the next stage is to get rid of the whole stinking system. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Troops To Libya, Replace Trident- We Have Lots Of Money!!!

       Why isn't there thousands on the streets of our country? Our psychopathic imperialist lords and masters, scheming in the corridors of power in that edifice to imperialism, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, are now deliberating whether to send 1,000 British troops into Libya. Having bulldozed the will of the people and started bombing Syria, they now want more blood. Having failed to get the compliant government they wanted in Libya after they bombed it back to the stone age, they want another crack at it. They want to implant some sort of submissive regime that will do their bidding and allow them trouble free access to Libya's rich oil fields.
       There will be no thought of the blood that will flow, both British young men and women, and innocents in Libya, the action will be whitewashed and delivered with smoke and mirrors, as helping the people of Libya. Their country is already a disaster area, which we helped to bring about, the last thing the people of that country want is a bunch of armed to the hilt, foreign troops blasting their way through their towns and cities, what's left of them.

This from Stop The War:

Get involved with Stop the War where you are
       The establishment's appetite for yet more war hasn't subsided. Despite the catastrophic failure of military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, which are ongoing, the UK elites are now also considering whether they might be able to bomb Libya again.
      The anti-war movement continues to be a vital democratic force and a thorn in the side of the pro-war establishment. There is going to be a series of Stop the War events on the "war on terror" and on Trident across the country. Get involved where you are.

Stop Scapegoating Muslims: Islamophobia, Prevent and the War on Terror

Public meeting
Tuesday 10 March • 6.30 pm
Bloomsbury Baptist Church
235 Shaftesbury Avenue
London, WC2H 8EP

Speakers:
• Salma Yaqoob
• Lindsey German
• Moazzam Begg
• Kevin Courteney
• Sabby Dhalu
• Mohammed Umar Farooq

         We are also supporting the Stand up to Racism demonstration against racism on 19th March and the People's Assembly march for health, homes, jobs and education on 16 April.

Stop Trident demonstration - 27th February, Central London

        Despite what the pro-war media are telling us, polls show that the majority of the population opposes Trident renewal. An organised anti-war response can continue to seriously influence the debate.

You can get involved in the following ways:

• Share the Facebook event on social media and invite all your friends
• Check the transport map to see if a coach has been booked from your area. If not, how about arranging one yourself?
• Arrange a leafletting session
• Contact your local media to promote the event
• Check local meetings
• Attend the Stop Trident rally on 19 February
  

        Replacing and maintaining Trident may cost us £183 billion. It would be far more useful to humanity if these gigantic resources were instead invested in cancer research (for example). Instead of producing weapons of mass destruction, we could use this money to save millions of lives.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Our Must Win, Transnational Battle.

 

         Act For Freedom Now has produced it first printout, a catalogue of resistance and insurgency from across the world, against a system that has only one aim, the exploitation of the planet and the majority of its population for the aggrandisement of the few. Actions of resistance have a myriad of variations, but a common aim, the destruction of a system that is destroying our planet and the lives of its population. One thing that comes across is that it is a transnational struggle, by those living in the poorest of conditions in the "developing countries" to those with better conditions in the "developed countries". The desire is always the same, a decent life for all, free from repression and authority, an opportunity to have control over our own lives in co-operation with others, based on mutual aid and respect, developed in a sustainable manner.

This from Act For Freedom Now:

About act for free!
       “In the chaos of our own existence we are a part of the imponderable element which organizes subversion, plans mutinies, that leave even ourselves dazed. The translation of texts, letters, communiqués, etc. so that comrades in other countries around the world can read about the desires and ideas and projectuality of the comrades in Greece, is one more weapon at our disposal. What began as a simple desire and a challenge, has brought us into a new field of experiences, acquaintances and responsibilities. Now that we’re here, they will not get rid of us easily.
        We have become another aspect of the asymmetric threat. The war to the end, has already begun. …”
         This is why, as individuals with our actions and solidarity, we will continue with all means possible as anarchist revolutionary insurrectionalists, to express our thoughts and desires, whether it’s through the letters-texts of our fighting comrades who are hostages in the hell-holes of Greek democracy and all over the world, or through the actions of the comrades everywhere outside in the streets day and night with all means until social liberation for Anarchy.
Act for freedom now!

Download the pdf  : ACT FOR FREEDOM NOW!1 A4

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

Farewell To A Working Class Warrior.

 

      Yesterday, Monday, February 1st., the funeral of Les Foster, 1919-2016, took place at Maryhill Crematorium, approximately 50 family, friends and comrades attended, but I have no doubt, there were many many more there in spirit and thought, Les was a giant in the working class struggle.
     These words by James Kelman give us an insight into the life of Les Foster, a working class warrior.

       Leslie was born in Maryhill 1919. His father and grandfather came from Leith, had a blacksmith’s shop at the corner of Bilsland Drive. They held the contract for shoeing soldiers’ horses at Maryhill Barracks, circus horses at the Kelvin Hall Zoo. His grandpa was over 6 feet tall, “a believer in physical force.” He once caught a burglar in his house and dropped him out the window.
     Leslie’s mother’s people were Munros from Brora. This coastal region in Sutherland is where thousands ended up waiting to be shipped to Canada, cleared off the land by the worst of landowner aristocracy. Some stayed and tried scratching a living off the shore and the sea. Grandpa Munro was a stonemason; he moved to Glasgow and found work at Maryhill Barracks.
     Les and brother Archie attended Garrioch Primary then Allan Glen’s. “We saw the light of day inside a two-storey tenement house at 970 Maryhill Road... The Kitchen window looked down on the blacksmith’s shop ...” Archie was seven years older and a bit of hero to the young Leslie. Not only did he go to Glasgow University he was a hustler at snooker, learned at Johnnie May’s billiard saloon which was just along the road, in that one-storey building next to the garage. Les didnt have much time for school, nor its “history books...‘Gung Ho’ propaganda tracts” he called them, “heavily laced with Rule Britannia. Our tiny feet marching to the strains of Onward Christian Soldiers.”
      He went his own way; left school early. “Sometimes I feel like throwing up when I hear pundits talking about the Dignity of Labour. One Monday morning I sold my dignity to a company called the Saracen Foundry, by the time Friday came round I asked for it back...I began to study the moulders’ physique...a complexion of ashen grey, sunken cheeks, backs permanently bent, old before their time...sparks flying all over the place, odd bits of burning ingot dropped onto the floor. I asked the Gaffer for my cards - and got them.” Later he entered the building trade as a plasterer’s labourer, reading voraciously, keeping his eyes and ears open”
      His own family moved to Milngavie but his heart was in Maryhill. He was a fund of local knowledge, from cinemas and backstreet singers to the political agitations. George Millar stabbed to death by a blackleg during the 1833 printers’ strike at Dawsholm, buried at Duart Street. Keir Hardie’s remains? Right here in Maryhill. A Memorial stone to Donald Macrae, the Alness Martyr? Right here, where they buried him. What about the Chartist leader Arthur O’Neil leading off the Maryhill contingent from Gilshochill, led by an Orange flute band, probably from the same Lodge that stares back at ye to this day, when ye look up the hill at Sandbank Street.
      Les laughed at that. At the same he could be touchy on certain subjects and in conversation ye had to tread cautiously. But he was always interested in people themselves. His first questions were on your family and his interest was absolutely genuine.
       He was a passionate man. Completely non-sectarian. In football his position was along the lines of: I’m not biased, I dont care who beats Rangers and Celtic. What a memory! Rhyming off the great players of the past. Never mind Hibs’ Famous Five what about the 1950s Third Lanark team, or the Ansell Babes of Motherwell.
      The professional game nowadays left him cold. But he still loved football. Nothing gave him more pleasure than watching Maryhill Juniors at Lochburn Park. It was getting out to watch the ‘Hill that helped him through the worst period of his life, the dark time following the death of his beloved Gracie, almost 20 years ago. Her family were the James’s and McLeans from Lambhill. Gracie made her home in Milngavie and was well-known there - far better than Les, and he enjoyed that.
      He was 18 when his dad died. Him and his mother flitted to Garnethill. She was politicised, came to political meetings: a friend of Johnny Muir of the Clyde Workers’ Committee. When Les got involved she encouraged him. He became Secretary of the City Branch of the Communist Party in his early twenties, met with Jimmy Mclaren, later Hugh Savage. The three were close pals. Until tragically Jimmy McLaren died of TB at the age of 28.
      Like many young Glasgow Communists Les and Hughie were taught to be wary of Harry McShane. He had a reputation for ‘awkward individualism’. He said what he thought, and acted accordingly, and it didnt go down too well with Party chiefs. But the ability to think for yourself went down well with Les and Hughie; avid readers, avid thinkers; activist to the core. They had the utmost respect for McShane and were close friends to the end.
      “The Grand Hotel at Charing Cross was used as a club by the American Army during the War. Later it stood empty - a must for potential squatters. So Harry McShane, Bill McCulloch, Bob Saunders and myself broke in through a side door taking in tow a fair number of families. Crowds gathered, the Police arrived, sirens blazing. Several Party Leaders stood there without lifting a hand to help. When the Assistant Chief Constable saw Harry McShane come out the front door he said, I might have known...”
      Les was a Shop Steward; a leader of the Merrylee Housing struggle of 1951 along with his comrade Ned Donaldson. The Tory Council wanted to sell off 622 council houses at a time when 100,000 people were on the waiting list in Glasgow. “In those days workers did not get pestered by the absurd rigmarole of postal ballots. Decisions were made at the point of production. After discussion and debate a vote was taken. Those in favour one side...those against the other. The strike lasted ten days.” Guy Aldred’s Strickland Press printed 30,000 leaflets for the strike and when told the committee were skint Guy [said] forget it, it’s a worthwhile cause.” The Tories lost that one but in the aftermath Les was sacked; him and Ned, blacklisted. Les joined British Rail and stayed until retiral.
       In 1953 he, Hugh Savage and Bill McCulloch resigned from the CP alongside Harry McShane and took to spreading the message; chalking pavements, publishing The New Commune, the Socialist Revolt. “Lenin’s Last Will and Testament had been suppressed by the Soviet Communist Party. The British Party made sure it never saw the time of day. In the Will, Lenin, after making a number of serious criticisms said that Stalin was dangerous and unfit to don the mantle of Leader. We procured the text and published.”
      One night Les, Hughie, Harry and Matt McGinn were up in Bill McCulloch’s house planning stuff. A chap at the door. Gerry Healy of the WRP, the Workers Revolutionary Party, up from London on a recruiting mission. He was wasting his time. They had had enough of Vanguards. “Our aim was to go it alone, no pretensions or ambitions...we thought there was a great need for Socialist Propaganda, and nothing more than that.... We took to the Soap Box holding regular open air meetings at the corner of Drury Street. Controversy was encouraged, questions never fudged.” At one such meeting in bleak November two hundred people turned up on the anniversary of John Maclean’s death.
     “Sometime after the Hungarian events the Socialist Workers Federation ran into hard times. We ran out of cash...our paper The Socialist Revolt was put to sleep. Alas only three of us soldiered on, Hugh Savage, Harry McShane and myself - we still remained Revolutionary Socialists.”
       Meantime Les continued in British Rail, always working on his own research and writing projects, contributed to the Glasgow Labour History Project; wrote on the 1911 Clydebank Singer Strike and the crucial role of women there, the SLP and the Wobblies. He did a history of the NUR, did the Introduction for McShane’s 3 Days That Shook Edinburgh. He and Hughie published a life of the forgotten 19th Century Marxist, Willie Nairn who influenced a generation of working class activists, including John Maclean, Arthur McManus, Willie Paul, Neil Maclean and Tom Bell.
       In the 1980s Les, Hughie and Ned came out of ‘political retirement’ and were in at the early stages of Workers City, with Janette McGinn, Freddie and Isobel Anderson, Farquhar McLay and other friends and comrades. Les wrote a couple of pieces for that scurrilous rag of fond memory, The Keelie! Les even found time to write his autobiography and left unpublished articles. At the very end he was talking football, politics, music, and memories. Plus he was reading Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread. At 96!
      He had been in hospital since August; in a Maryhill nursing home since early December, a stone's throw from the old Bilsland Drive smiddy. He was making the best of it. But a few days ago that was him transferred to the Royal, back with the breathing mask and still with the tubes. Purgatory. He was fed up with it all. Plus the knowledge once recovered it was back to the nursing home. No, it wasn’t for him.
       His generation spoke about ‘contributions’. The big compliment to pay a comrade? What a contribution! To the Labour movement and to the Socialist movement, a lifetime’s commitment. Leslie Forster - what a contribution!

Like I said before on hearing of his death, a brick has fallen from our wall of resistance, will we find one strong enough to fill the gap, let's work towards that.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Stench From That Thing Called Governemnt.

 

         Big business and government are so intertwined, that it is impossible to separate them. Corporations spend millions, if not billions, on lobbyists, politicians are offered lucrative positions, and little perks here and there, but of course, they'll tell you, that they are not influenced by these matters. They'll deal with each issue on its merits, with the welfare of the country and its people always to the fore, and the corporations will still continue to spend those millions or billions, just as a kindness to politicians, and get nothing in return. Isn't it a wonderful world? It is safe to bet that all politicians are relatively rich, most will have their filthy lucre, stashed away in shares in those very corporations that are pouring money into their little slush fund. We are expected to believe that none of these politicians would ever nudge legislation in the direction of helping their share portfolio, and might at times move to jeopardise their little stash. 

          A world built on corruption, designed to further the wealth of big business and protect the wealth of those in power. It is not with little thought that I refer to our lords and masters place of business as the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. Those who enter its marble halls by on large are very rich, when they leave, they are invariably, extremely more rich than when they entered. Big business makes sure of that. Out of generosity of course.
        If all this lead to was a group of parasites getting richer under false pretences, then it would be bad enough. However, their wheeling and dealing, their slicing and dicing, plays havoc with the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to represent. Decisions are made that drive people into poverty, ill-health, homelessness and of course heap the brutality of war on millions. History tells us the tales of hypocrisy and corruption are at the heart of governments, of the festering marriage between large companies and governments, but we never seem to learn. 

       The following from the Politics in the Zeros site, is a case in America, but you are an idiot if you think this is unique to America, this is the way the game is played nowadays. Governments are not inanimate objects, nor are they fixed by the power of the holy tablets of stone. They are made up of people, usually very rich, very ambitious and very greed people, they play the game with the big boys, corporations, and in return for their obedience to the cause of profit, they are rewarded. 

       Gosh there’s no conflict of interest here. Nearly a third of members of the federal Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee have financial ties to companies selling opoid drugs. In a shocking coincidence the panel has strongly opposed federal plans to recommend doctors scale back on prescribing legal heroin. Because that’s what these opoids are.
        Our government is essentially a drug pusher for highly addictive drugs. The FDA approved OxyContin for children without bothering to convene a panel of experts to make recommendations. Opiate addiction from legally prescribed pills is a major health problem nationwide among adults, to such an extent we have the obscenity of TV ads offering drugs to help with constipation caused by using opiates.
      Any relation between this and a government that actually cares about the health of its citizens is of course strictly coincidental. And if this happened in a Third World country, we’d laugh at how corrupt they are.

The government advisory panel consists of federal scientists, outside academics and patient representatives. Of the 18 committee members at a recent meeting to discuss the government’s handling of pain issues, at least five had drug-industry connections.

One, a pain specialist from Duke University, has received thousands of dollars in payments from drugmakers, including OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, which sells generic painkillers. Another, a patient advocate, holds a nonprofit position created by a $1.5 million donation by Purdue.

        We should always remember, we are governed by consent, we can withdraw our consent at any time of our choosing, and start to take control of our own lives, how about now!

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

The Rent Strike To Bloody Friday, Part Of The Same Struggle.

 

     Friday, January, 1919, a date that we should never forget, that was the day that brought about the stationing of armed troops on Glasgow's streets, they were also stationed at entrances to the docks around the city. As is usual in these situations, it was the workers that had come up with the rational decision, To help alleviate the unemployment situation after WWI, the idea was to cut the working hours and try to soak up the unemployed. A 40 hour week was the suggestion, but the state and the employers would have none of that. By 30, January, 1919, 40,000 workers in the engineering and shipbuilding industries in Clydeside were out on strike, plus approximately 36,000 miners from the coalfields in Stirlingshire and Lanarkshire, who were also on strike. 

        On the Friday, January, 31, a demonstration, of an estimated 60,000 citizens, in support of the shorter working week took place on George Square. Unexpectedly and unannounced, the police attacked the demonstrators, an action that lead to all hell breaking out.

THE DEMONSTRATION, BLOODY FRIDAY.
On Friday 31 January 1919 upwards of 60,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square Glasgow in support of the 40-hours strike and to hear the Lord Provost's reply to the workers' request for a 40-hour week. Whilst the deputation was in the building the police mounted a vicious and unprovoked attack on the demonstrators, felling unarmed men and women with their batons. The demonstrators, including large numbers of ex-servicemen, retaliated with whatever was available, fists, iron railings and broken bottles, and forced the police to retreat. On hearing the noise from the square the strike leaders, who were meeting with the Lord Provost, rushed outside in an attempt to restore order. One of the leaders, David Kirkwood, was felled to the ground by a police baton, and along with William Gallacher was arrested.

       The situation was volatile, and the authorities were getting very nervous indeed. Our lorda and masters in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, feared what the state always fears, that the people were taking control of their own lives. Something had to be done, and the only answer the state ever has, is violent repression, and has no qualms about turning the military on its own people.

RIOTS AND ARRESTS.

After the initial confrontation between the demonstrators and the police in George Square, further fighting continued in and around the city centre streets for many hours afterwards. The Townhead area of the city and Glasgow Green, where many of the demonstrators had regrouped after the initial police charge, were the scenes of running battles between police and demonstrators. In the immediate aftermath of 'Bloody Friday', as it became known, other leaders of the Clyde Workers' Committee were arrested, including Emanuel Shinwell, Harry Hopkins and George Edbury.

TROOPS.

The strike and the events of January 31 1919 “Bloody Friday” raised the Government’s concerns about industrial militancy and revolutionary political activity in Glasgow. Considerable fears within government of a workers' revolution in Glasgow led to the deployment of troops and tanks in the city. A full battalion of Scottish soldiers stationed at Maryhill barracks in Glasgow at the time were locked down and confined to barracks, for fear they would side with the rioters, an estimated 10,000 English troops, along with Seaforth Highlanders from Aberdeen, who were first vetted to remove those with a Glasgow connection, and tanks were sent to Glasgow in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Friday. Soldiers with fixed bayonets marched with tanks through the streets of the City. There were soldiers patrolling the streets and machine guns on the roofs in George Square. No other Scottish troops were deployed, with the government fearing fellow Scots, soldiers or otherwise, would go over to the workers if a revolutionary situation developed in the area. It was the British state’s largest military mobilisation against its own people and showed they were quite prepared to shed workers’ blood in protecting the establishment.

        Of course "Bloody Friday" should not be seen in isolation, it didn't just spring up from nowhere, it was just one flashpoint along a long road of struggle by the ordinary people for a better life.

        Like all the events in political struggle it is difficult to trace the thread back to what brought it to this stage, Bloody Friday 1919 is no different. This was not just an attack on a large demonstration in Glasgow, it was the culmination of a series of radical events in Glasgow and the Clydeside area where the state showed its brutality. Perhaps we could even take it back to the 18th century and the radicals like Thomas Muir and others. However we can certainly take it back to the rent strikes of the first world war, the forming of the Labour Withholding Committee, (LWC) The Clyde Workers Committee (CWC) and the political climate of that period. 

A warehouse in the east end of Glasgow 1919.

    All of these events are lesson for us to learn from, solidarity, organisation, co-operation across our communities and our workplaces. Something we have to get to grips with in this more fragment type of society that we find ourselves living under. 

      Something else we should never forget, this wasn't the first time that the British establishment had brought out the military to break a strike. During the 1911 dockers strike, the military shot dead two strikers on the streets on the street in Liverpool.

Liverpool during the 1911 strike.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Next Stage Of The UK State's Cull Of The Poor.

 

        The British state, under the stewardship of the Oxbridge millionaire cabal, has spent considerable money, time and effort demonising the unemployed by grouping them under the banner of "benefit scroungers". It has attacked the disabled by stripping them of their benefits, under the callous guise of "helping them back to work". Now they are cranking up their attack on those who do work.

        This new element of their class war attack, will now penalise those it deems to be, not working hard enough. You might be in work and because of circumstances, you work part-time, in doing so, because of crap wages, perhaps you receive some form of benefit pittance. This will put you on their hit list, you could face sanctions, if you are deemed not to be looking hard enough for more hours to sell yourself for another pittance of crap wages. So working, but because of the slave labour wages, you get benefits to help you survive, be aware, you are in their sights, work harder, take on more hours, or be sanctioned and lose your benefits.

      This latest attack on the ordinary people of this country must surely convince the majority of people in this country that we are in the midst of a class war, and should organise and respond accordingly.

This from The Herald: 

       THE TORY government been attacked over plans to extend controversial benefit sanctions to claimants with jobs, with critics warning introducing the "shockingly harsh" penalties risks plunging workers into poverty.
      A number of pilot schemes are currently being carried out in the UK – including in Inverness – to assess a new scheme which the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) says is aimed at helping workers on low earnings take on more hours and increase their income.
       Benefits can be stopped if claimants fail to meet requirements outlined by the DWP – such as missing Jobcentre appointments or failing to show evidence of looking for more work for a certain number of hours a week, on top of their usual job. The in-work regime, which is expected to eventually apply to around one million people, is being trialled as part of Universal Credit, the new type of benefit which is being rolled out across the country.
        The DWP says its aim is “redefining the contract between claimants and the welfare state” and helping work to pay. The radical scheme - one of the first of its kind in the world - means for the first time those in part-time employment will have to meet certain conditions or risk losing support from the state.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

The Ceaseless March Of Corporatism.

        An appeal from Global Justice Now, or should we take this as a warning, if we don't stop the march of corporatism in its tracks. 

       Next week, the Scottish Parliament will be discussing TTIP’s little brother CETA, the Canada-EU trade deal that includes all the same worrying things that TTIP does.
       If CETA is passed it could threaten public services in Scotland, the moratorium on fracking, and some of Scotland’s most iconic produce, such as Stornoway Black Pudding and the Arbroath Smokie.
       So, we’ve teamed up with 38 Degrees to run a petition calling on the Scottish Government to oppose CETA.  Click here to sign the petition.  And if you’re in or near Edinburgh on Thursday morning, please join us at 11.15am outside the Scottish Parliament to hand in the petition.
         CETA, like TTIP, will hand power from democratically elected governments to big business.  And CETA is due to be passed this year, ahead of TTIP.  Help us stop CETA.
Many thanks,
Liz
P.S. You can read more about CETA and its impacts on Scotland here Join Global Justice Now:
Become part of the movement for a more just and equal
world by joining as a member today. Join now.

Connect with us: Twitter | Facebook

Our mailing address is:
Global Justice Now Scotland
Thorn House, 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PR
Phone: 0131 243 2730

We used to be the World Development Movement. Find out more.

    Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Political Illiterate.

         You have all heard it, you have all come up against them, the idiot that says, they are not interested in politics. The fool can't grasp that everything that happens in our modern world is the result of politics, the price of toothpaste, the homeless, how long your working day will be, how many holidays you can have, the price of bread, will there be war or peace, who your enemy will be, all of it, is shaped by politics. Sadly, in this society it is the politics of big business that shapes our world, faceless members of the financial Mafia and puppet politicians, who do take an interest in politics and make sure they control the outcome to their benefit.

       For any ordinary person, not being interested in politics, is a dereliction of duty to your fellow citizens, you are leaving them to fight your corner for you, while you strut about in your stupid arrogance, believing that you are above politics.

Bertolt Brecht sums it up nicely:

― Bertolt Brecht

       “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Closed Supervision Centre Is Torture.

        All prisons are inhumane, some worse than others, and at the pinnacle of this barbarity is the CSC, Closed Supervision Centre.

 Closed Supervision Centre, Woodhill.

This from 325:

JOIN THE PROTEST in support of Kevan Thakrar:

Thursday Feb 18, 12:30-2:30 pm
HM Prison Service Headquarters
Clive House, 70 Petty France London SW1H 9EX

Directions:
- Nearest Station: St James’s Park underground station, a 5 minute walk to Clive house.
- Buses: Any buses stopping at New Scotland Yard then continue along Victoria Street then turn left on to Caxton Street then turn right on to Palmer Street, continue until you will reach Petty France.

Kevan Thakrar Needs Your Support!
Kevan Thakrar was found not guilty of attacking three prison officers and vindicated by evidence that showed he acted in self-defence after months of racial, physical and psychological abuse. Any court ruling that goes against prison officers is VERY unusual. Kevan continues to be held in isolation in the prison services ‘Close Supervision Centres’ more than six years later, no doubt as retribution for his court victory. See here for more info about Kevan’s wrongful conviction and fight for a new trial:

www.justiceforkevan.com
www.facebook.com/JusticeForKev
Please sign the petition: www.change.org/p/justice-for-kevan

Read the full article on the racist abuse inside Wakefield Prison.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

A Home, A Money Making Commodity, Or A Right??

        Homelessness is part and parcel of this system of exploitation that we live under, a home is not seen as a basic right, but as a source of wealth creation for a handful of greedy individuals. Nor will the powers that be ever resolve the “housing crisis”, as that would interfere with the profitability of house building companies and developers. As long as there is a “scarcity” of houses, the price of buying and renting, will continue their upward surge, more profit for that brand of business. The so called housing problem is not a problem, it is a policy. Are our learned politicians sitting in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, telling us that there is not enough raw materials in the country to build enough houses, or are they saying we don't have the skills? We can build expensive abodes for those with deep pockets, we certainly can create opulence for the few, but are deemed incapable of creating decent houses for the many? Without the building of more homes for the ordinary people, people will obviously look to solve the “problem" by themselves. Our cities and towns are awash with empty premises, people are without homes, put the two together and we have a temporary solution, until we can take control of our own society, and create that basic right of all, a decent place to lay your head. 

      Squatters of London Action Paper (SLAP!) is a new London freesheet for squat news, actions, history and events. Paper copies soon available at Freedom Bookshop in Whitechapel and 56a Infoshop in Elephant and Castle. (Read Slap! First issue pdf)

     At worst, homelessness can mean sleeping rough on the streets.
Government statistics show 2,744 people slept rough in England on any one night during 2014 - a 55 per cent rise on 2010
Local agencies report 7,581 people slept rough in London alone throughout 2014/15 - A 16 per cent rise on the previous year, and more than double the figure of 3,673 in 2009/10 However, the problem of homelessness is much bigger than that of rough sleeping.
More on rough sleeping
In England:
     112,330 households applied to their local authority for homelessness assistance in 2014/15, a 26 per cent rise since 2009/10.
        The vast majority of single homeless people who are not entitled to housing, as well as those who, for a variety of reasons do not even apply for homelessness assistance, end up surviving out of sight.
       Many stay in hostels and there are just over 38,500 be spaces in hostels for single homeless people in England but there are other ways to get by. This might mean staying in squats or B&Bs, in overcrowded accommodation or ‘concealed' housing, such as the floors or sofas of friends and family.
        If you do not qualify for local authority housing assistance, if you are sleeping rough, staying in a hostel, a squat or some other form of unsatisfactory or insecure accommodation, then you are one of the countless thousands of hidden homeless people.
More on hidden homelessness More on hostel accommodation More on squatting

 

 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk