Showing posts with label environmental destruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmental destruction. Show all posts

Sunday 22 March 2020

Tomorrow's World!!

      I penned this little depressing piece a good few years ago, but now feel it is more relevant today than it was when I first scribbled it down on paper. Of course we know the answer to our problems, get rid of the root cause, capitalism. You know it makes sense, your kids lives depend on it.  

Tomorrow’s World!

See the fat cat’s grinning smile
as Corporate Capitalism runs amok,
Chasing profit as it goes
firing millions of ordinary folk.
Raping and polluting land after land,
starting bloody wars.
Toxic waste, sweat shop wages
and oil covered sea shores.
Where have all the flowers gone
beneath this ozone free sky?
To join the birds, to join the fox
on yonder plutonium field to die.
Mercury fish, strontium lamb
trees that never show a leaf,
radio active beaches, toxic streams
good lean BSE-antibiotic beef.
In a world of epidemic, plague and famine
it’s bottled water and chemical food.
Of course, it’s all tested on rats and mice
so you know its got to be good.
Beneath a sky that’s always black,
hurricane winds and endless drought,
its oxygen masks for the toxic air,
corporate profit’s what its all about.


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

Tuesday 23 July 2019

Lunacy And Environmental Violence Of HS2.

       What would the ordinary person consider an extra £100 billion should be spent on to improve our society? Health care, education, better environmental homes, eliminating carbon emitting fuels from our society, more youth clubs and social centres, and so the list goes on, but how about a fast train from London to Birmingham?? HS2, or the idiotic dream of our privileged parasites sitting in The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, £100 billion, to save 20 minutes travel time between London and Birmingham, it could be more, who knows for sure.  Thanks Loam for the link:



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

Sunday 24 March 2019

Solidarity Knows No Borders.

         Ah, a beautiful beach, a magnificent forest, a lovely meadow. However in this greed driven capitalist system, they are useless, they don't make any money. So let's build a sports stadium on the beautiful beach, an open cast coal mine in the magnificent forest, and an airport on the lovely meadow. That way they become useful assets to the vulture financial Mafia and the corporate juggernaut. The ethos of today's society is to turn everything into a profit making entity for that small band of multi billionaires, and to hell with the well-being of the people.
     Andalucia: Two comrades sentenced in Arraijanal (Spain)
         On February 2018, Arraijanal, one of the last parts of natural beach on the coast of Andalucia (Spanish state), was squatted to protect it from the attempt of environmental destruction in order to build a football stadium and sports town on this area. Some centenary trees were cut down and the area was fenced in, but that didn’t stop the activists from establishing a permanent protest camp.
      This protest camp have been evicted several times, but our comrades managed to reoccupy it and keep the struggle during six months, and for now the building works have been stopped.
         On May 24th, two comrades involved in this project got arrested while the police was trying to remove banners and camping material from the occupation. That resulted in a court case in which they are accused of resistance, offense against authority and bodily harm to the cops proceeding this arrest.
        What the public prosecutor was asking for were two years and a half of prison, another year on the matter of a fine, worth 12 euro per day for each one of them and an a compensation to the cops about being injured of 40 euro day if they could work and 60 if they couldn’t. Gotta add that this harm suffered by the cops consists in two between four of them declaring that they couldn’t go to work during a month for being hurt on their pinky finger.
         Today, 5th of March, they got offered an agreement on court that would consist on 720 euro of fine, the compensation mentioned before and 21 months of prison sentence on probation for three years for one of them and 490 euro of fine plus compensation, and 6 months of prison sentence on probation for two years for the other. The money of the compensation still need to be stipulated by the judge but our estimation is that would be of around 4000 euro in total.
        After a lot of pressure from the court, threatening them with a larger prison sentence with no possibility of probation for one of them, they took the agreement.
         So now on, we’re calling for solidarity for facing this case. You can help by spreading this information, or donate money to support the accused with the coming court costs and fines.

https://salvararraijanalya.wixsite.com/absolucion/blog/defending-nature-is-not-a-crime-stop-repression-arraijanal-resists-ecologists-absolution

        Love and rage from the Mediterranean coast. Against environmental destruction, smash capitalism, smash the state.

soli bank account ES34 0049 6589 9123 9513 0424
ANTONIO FERNANDO AGUILERA PARRILLA
Banco Santander

concept SalvarArraijanal

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

Friday 28 September 2018

Forest Protectors Call For Solidarity.


        As the struggle intensifies, the Hambach Forest protectors are calling for a massive show of solidarity on September 30th. This is just one part of the struggle for that better and sustainable world that we all desire. The forest destroyers are at work across the globe, they are international conglomerates backed up by state power. Only by the combined power of the ordinary people can they be defeated. Their desire is for increased profit, power and control for the few, and to hell with the many and the planet. Our solidarity is the winning weapon we possess.  
 

Originally published by Ende Gelaende. 
         Dear climate activists, forest protectors, environmental, anti-coal, anti-nuclear, anti-racists groups and local Ende Gelände groups!
           For Sunday 30.9.2018 Ende Gelände is calling for a big, decentralised day of action under the slogan „Hambi stays! Coal phase out now!“ We do not want a coal phase-out by 2038 nor 2030, rather we want to get out of coal immediately. We need to get out of this globally devastating dirty energy that has no future.
        RWE, the utility responsible for lignite mining in the area, and the provincial government of North Rhine Westphalia are harming the climate and the future for short term profit – this is resulting in the destruction of the ancient forest Hambacher Forst and the ruthless eviction of the tree houses.
         For the decentralised day of action on the 30.09. we are calling on people in many different cities in Germany and Europe to march for an immediate coal phase out and for the protection of the Hambacher Forst!
       On the same day there will be a traditional forest walk – a weekly demonstration which is slowly but surely turning into a massive demonstration against the eviction and the upcoming cutting season. For updates about the forest walk in Hambacher forest on September 30, see the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/744218195930655/, For the coming months, there is also a permanent climate camp nearby in Manheim (not Mannheim) where you can pitch your tent if you want to come earlier or stay later.
         Most importantly: organise marches and creative solidarity actions in your cities!
          Be loud, be visible and say „Hambi stays! Coal phase out now!“
        If you create a Facebook event or Tweets, please share your stories and pictures and let our press and social media gang know, so we can help spread word: presse@ende-gelaende.org (PGP-Key), socialmedia@ende-gelaende.org
 
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Monday 24 September 2018

A Sunday Walk In The Forest--Accompanied By 4,000 Cops.

 
     More on the Hambach forest protectors, the struggle continues with thousands of supporters turning up for a Sunday walk in the forest. The walk went ahead despite a police ban, and more barricades were built. 

This from Enough Is Enough:

      Hambacher Forest, September 23: On Saturday the cops banned the weekly Sunday forest walk and announced that they only allowed a stationary gathering. Thousands went into the forest in an act of mass cicil disobedience. The cops lost control for hours.
       When we ( a team of 2 persons today, I was one of them) arrived the cops had installed a checkpoint at the opposite of the permanent vigil (video in Tweet below). More and more people arrived and it was pretty clear to us the cops would not be able to check all people. The road was to small and the open fields at both sides of the road were too difficult to control. On Saturday cops damaged one of our camera’s at a checkpoint, so we were even less enthusiatic about checkpoints as we normally are. But often it’s not that difficult to pass on alternative routes without being checked.
          The stationary gathering was scheduled to start at 11:30, but more and more people crossed the fields to avoid being checked and to get into the forest (Image below. Image by @infozentrale).

      We were among the first ones that arrived in Hambacher forest and at that moment the army of 4000 cops were still controlling the forest. They checked us 2 times in the forest but didn’t stop us.
       We didn’t visit the memorial for Steffen in Beechtown until Sunday and we felt that we had to go there first. At the memorial is was very quiet. Some tears, sorrow-stricken faces. Personally I had a mixture of feelings.. Still shocked, grieve and rage. Speechless…
      We left Beechtown and went to Cosytown. Some of the tree houses were evicted in the past weeks, but not all. Soon people started to build barricades to protect one of the two tree houses that was not evicted until now. More and more people came and more and more barricades were build. A few police vans arrived, but retreated again after a few minutes. To much determined people.
       Many many people were building barricades everywhere around us. After the cops retreated, more and more barricades were build on the road between Beechtown and Cosytown. NRW state minister of interior, Herbert Reul, told German media several times that the eviction stop is temporarily, exploiting Steffen’s death by saying that he is even more convinced that the tree houses have to be evicted “because they are to dangerous”. Last night RWE’s (Reul) puppet even told WDR media that the eviction has nothing to do with uprooting Hamacher forest.
     We decided to go to Lorien. During our walk to Lorien we saw small groups of riot cops standing around. It looked pretty planless what the cops were doing. Around the small treehouse village people were digging trenches and improving barricades.
      We walked through the forest again, saw new tree houses and barricades on two sides of police vans. That explained why the cops acted planless for hours: Many of them were trapped between barricades.
      As an armored vehicle came into the forest, people climbed on the armored vehicle and were dancing on it. The armored vehicle retreated again. We passed the cops that were trapped between the barricades, a female cop complained to her colleagues: “They can’t let us stand in the rain for hours and hours, we will all get sick.” When we passed the last barricade we noticed that even the police vans that were not trapped had problems with the rain. The forest road had turned into mud and we saw 4 cops that had to push their van.
      At T-Town the cops started to remove barricades (Video in Tweet below). But they stopped and headed to Beechtown/Cosytown, where the cops had lost control for hours. The cops were desperate and even started to confiscate canvas to protect people from the rain. The pouring rain didn’t stop and in the afternoon the wind was getting stronger. Hard conditions for everybody.
      We went back to the road between Beechtown and Cosytown. Soon the cops started to reinforce and attacked people with pepper spray. The cops also came to the memorial for Steffen at Beechtown. In full riot gear. No respect.
      More and more cops arrived, they had to walk though the forest, because their vans were still trapped between barricades. After we left the area two groups were kettled at Cosytown and cops started to remove barricades.
     We walked through the forest and saw new barricades everywhere. People didn’t only defy the ban against the forest walk, there was spontaneous mass civil disobedience in Hambacher forest. We saw people building barricades, who probably did nothing like that before in their life. We saw cops loosing control for hours that didn’t know how to respond for a long time.
       The fight against uprooting the Hambacher forest is far from over. The determination of so many people was impressive and when Reul gives a green light to continue with the evictions, he will only make people even more angry.
Hambi will stay!    Written by riot turtle
More photos, tweets and videos HERE:
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Friday 7 September 2018

More On The Destruction OF The Planet For Profit.

 
      It is obvious to any intelligent observed with a modicum of integrity who views this insane economic system, that it will deliberately destroy the planet in its drive for corporate power and increased profit, the system cannot survive otherwise.
     It has a variety of ways of increasing profit, slashing workers conditions, increasing production efficiency, (throwing more workers on the dole) and of course, wars, probably the biggest corporate growth method in their armoury. At no time is the plight of people in this mad drive for increased profit and power a consideration, they are simply dispensable units of no consequence.
Another interesting article on planet destruction from 325: 


      For a few years now the TAP question has jumped to the headlines.
Precisely since 2013, the TAP consortium was chosen to carry out the construction of a gas pipeline through Turkey, Greece, Albania, the Adriatic Sea right to Italy, with Salento as its final destination so that it could be linked to another gas pipeline, the TANAP, which joins Turkey with Azerbaijan (where natural gas fields are to be found), and finally become SNAM, going up through the Italian Apennines, the so-called ‘Adriatic network’ – up to Austria.
      Thousands of kilometres of pipelines, gas pressurization and depressurization plants, thrust wells, micro tunnels to link the mainland and the sea, optic fibres cables along the whole route, construction sites that will destroy landscape and local environments, high risk of accidents and explosions, air pollution, heavy vehicles on the roads for years to come, exponential increase of police forces, industrial transformation of the economy of a whole area and consequent loss of all choices for the people who live there. An example of this is ILVA in Taranto, a few kilometres from Lecce and Melendugno, where the gas pipeline will arrive.
         Boasted to be the vanguard of progress in the 60s, ILVA, the biggest European iron and steel plant, has left only a desert, animated by a high concentration of tumours and diseases and no other possible means of survival compatible with the plant. For a number of years this has also been happening in the Lecce area. The Xylella affair and the withering of the olive trees, strongly suspected, even by the judiciary, to have been started by and continues with the aim of benefitting big agro-pharmaceutical multinationals such as Monsanto, Bayer and others, along with the TAP gas pipeline, give an idea of an attempt to dramatically transform a territory, probably considered unproductive by an economic model accustomed to exploiting every possible square centimetre. A recent bill of the Italian minister for Agriculture which, to tackle the Xylella problem imposes massive use of pesticides, from roadsides to the countryside, and failure to do so implies huge fines, is an absolute confirmation of this. So-called renewable energy with its wind and solar energy farms, biomass-fuelled plants and the massive concreting over and privatization of the coast, the latter destined to favour the tourist industry, are important parts of this picture.
Energy
         But if a local look can help, it turns out to be absolutely limited and limiting if we want to better understand what the TAP gas pipeline is, its implications and reasons for being, mainly the same as those of the sources that produce and transport energy. This society or system, which many consider inseparable from the State apparatus, the international and economic bureaucracies that dictate the rules on a global financial level, is a heavy devourer of energy and will become so even more; and it takes little to realize how this reflexion is unquestionable. Two examples more than others show how the need for energy is considered irrevocable, and consequently strategic, primary.
        The fact that the capitalist economy feeds off war is nothing new. Wars are often waged precisely in order to give new lymph to state economies in crisis, through the production of weapons and machinery. Or else, it is precisely the research, possession and management of fossil energy sources that dictate the calendar of some wars. Consider for example what’s happening in Syria, precisely where there are huge deposits of natural gas and the population has been slaughtered in a forgotten war for a long time. Whatever the reasons that feed a war conflict and the resulting dose of death and devastation, this cannot take place without an impressive use of energy. A single bomber fighter (an F-15 fighter uses 7,000 litres of kerosene per hour) can give a good indication. ---------
Read the full article HERE: 
Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk
 
    

 

Wednesday 12 April 2017

Here, There, The Thoughts The Same.

 
Our smart bombs bringing democracy to the Middle east.

        Hi all, I'm back after a break away from the normal routine, it does wonders for you mind, clears out some fixed ideas that you're not too sure why they are fixed in the first place, gives birth to new ideas, you wonder why you never thought of them before. No matter where we hide, the destruction and misery that is capitalism continues. However, in my case, no matter where I escape to, the focus is always the same, unnecessary injustice, avoidable misery, implemented poverty, and the horrors of the power struggles that spawn avoidable wars, with all their attendant suffering, trauma and countless violent deaths of innocent bystanders, and what we can do about them. These are all symptoms of the festering disease, born of the cancerous marriage of the nation state and capitalism.
       Capitalism is blind, irrational, and destructive, it will race towards the precipice, unwilling and unable to stop before the edge, it is only after it has crashed does it pause to see how to modify itself, to continue on its course of total destruction. To allow this to continue will obviously lead to the destruction of everything, from climate, environment and human civilisation. To hope for anything else from this system is naive in the extreme.
       Frankie Boyle is a Glasgow comedian I much admire, as well as making us laugh, he uses his skill with words, to make us think, pointing at things with his own brand of humour and wit. Humour can be a great weapon against authority and its corrupt thoughts and decisions, and against the woven illusions, and smoke and mirrors, of that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media. I repeat here his latest piece.


 Frankie Boyle
A column I wrote about Trump and Syria:
Nothing more perfectly embodies White America than a 70 year old golfer firing missiles at the Middle East from his country club. Some sticks in the mud probably expect a host of formalities to be gone through before attacking another country: a UN investigation, or congressional approval perhaps, but personally I'm just glad to see a guy with the temperament of a mistreated circus animal launching ballistic missiles on a hunch. It seems statesmanlike and decisive. It's difficult to tell what Syria's moderate rebels are really like, as journalists can't really be embedded with them, because they'd be beheaded. But I refuse to be cynical: there's every chance that Assad's end will see a peaceful, pastoral period for Syria once groups like Allah's Flamethrower and Infidel Abattoir get round the table and good-naturedly sort out their deep seated differences on the finer points of Islamic Law. Perhaps this is a period which Syrians will one day look back on and laugh, if laughter is still allowed.
Not only will Democrats support any war Trump chooses to start, they'll be outraged by any voters who hold it against them at the next election. Hillary Clinton called for the airstrikes immediately before they happened. We'd do well to listen to the woman who is the architect of modern Libya, where her neoliberal intervention introduced the principals of the free market with such clarity that the country now has several different governments competing for the right to kill everybody. Clinton was criticised for running a tone-deaf, aloof campaign but Democrats have rallied, pointing out that many people didn't vote for Hilary because Trump is a Russian spy, and people who didn't vote for Hillary are Russian stooges, and people who voted for Hillary but not very enthusiastically are also Russian stooges, and slowly but surely the goodwill has begun to return.
Personally, I think it would be great if Putin was controlling Trump. I'd love to think there was a rational, malevolent actor directing him rather than just a combination of his own blood sugar levels and the concept of vengeance. I honestly think we'd be in less trouble if he was being controlled by the dark wizard Thoth Amon, or if his body had been taken over by a sentient bacterial civilisation that was using him as a kind of Lifeship. I'm not saying it's impossible that Trump was moved by the plight of Syria's children, perhaps in the same way that Tony Soprano got really upset when that guy killed his horse, it's just that the balance of probabilities is that he doesn't care about them, even enough not to ban them from entering his country.
The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that the UK government had close discussions with the US over the few days running up to the attack and had been given "advance notice of the President's final decision". Odd then, that immediately after the chemical attack the Guardian cites Downing Street officials (on a tour of despots with the prime minister in the Middle East) who, when asked about military reprisals, said “nobody is talking about that”. Sort of makes you wonder if there's any contempt that can be shown by the US that will stop us drooling about our "special relationship" like we're some kind of stalker. I doubt the Americans see us as a valued ally. We're just somewhere that they stick a few missiles. My best guess is that they think of us in the way that we would think of a shed.
At the prospect of a war, the media reacted with the exuberant joy that I remember fights bringing to a school playground. War copy sells well, and is easier to write. A good way to get a handle on the media's attitude to conflict is to try to write a thousand words on a United Nations sponsored bilateral negotiation, then the same on a missile cutting a hospital in half. The Guardian exuberantly described the "pinpoint accuracy" of Tomahawks. I'm not sure accuracy is strictly relevant when you're delivering high explosives, the ultimate variable. In the West, we've never needed the military spectaculars favoured by Soviets and dictators; the news has always been our missile parade. On MSNBC the launch of the Tomahawks was repeatedly described as "beautiful". And there is a certain beauty at that point in their trajectory. Perhaps we should focus on some other point. It would be nice to see a shot of them ten seconds before they drop on their screaming victims. Or two days later when bodies are being pulled from the rubble. Maybe a shot from ten years down the line when the shell casings form part of a makeshift gallows, reflected in the glass eye of an implacable amputee warlord. Perhaps our whole fucked up attitude to war comes from only ever seeing our missiles taking off, only ever seeing our soldiers setting out.
Ignoring international law is bad for all sorts of reasons, not least because it's the same position as Assad's. Knowing that our own resolve is only strengthened when people attack us and expecting other people's to be weakened is suggestive of a kind of racism. Pouring arms and bombs into an intractable conflict means that you are happy for it to be prolonged and worsen. Britain's activities in the Middle East historically mean we almost can't imagine what a moral position might look like. We have a huge navy that we could use to pick up the thousands of Syrians, Libyans and others scheduled to drown in the Mediterranean this year, for a fraction of the cost of the bombs we've dropped on them. I wonder if those people know, clambering onto boats with their frightened children, many of whom have never seen the sea before and will never see land again, that we aggressively tune out images like this, should they ever reach us at all. That we see all these lives we could save as part of a chaotic, insoluble mess, better not thought about; we who focus so intently on the sleek, clear lines of bombs.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Saturday 17 December 2016

The Lie We Live.

        I posted this video near the beginning of the year, It seems even more relevant now that it was then. So I thought it might be a good idea to do it again, near the end of the year. Who knows, perhaps we will eventually realise that the Earth has no escape capsule, and do our utmost to sort out the mess we have created.

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

Sunday 4 December 2016

The World's Eyes On Standing Rock.

 
      The camp set up by the water protectors at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline is facing a critical stage, as December the 5th, is the date set by the Army Corps of Engineers and North Dakota Governor, Jack Dalrymple to evict the water protectors. Solidarity, and publicity are needed now more than ever. Let's raise their voices across the planet. Support is growing in America, there are thousands of US veterans now arriving at the camp, there solidarity is welcome and needed. 

-------the announcement comes as thousands of U.S. Army veterans are expected to arrive at the Oceti Sakowin camp this weekend in anticipation of the Dec. 5 eviction notice given to the camp by the Army Corps of Engineers and North Dakota Governor, Jack Dalrymple. 
      Another show of solidarity comes from a delegation of Cuban trained doctors, who are heading for the camp to lend their expertise and support. Monday will be a very testing day, will the US state unleash its usual militarised violence against such large numbers, including thousands of its veterans, on its on soil? history should give us a dire warning. If the eviction goes ahead as stated, it will not be a quiet affair. What ever happens, let's make sure the world is watching.
       a delegation of doctors trained at the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba announced they will head to Standing Rock to “serve in solidarity.”
        In a late Thursday Facebook post, a group of U.S.-based medical professionals trained at Cuba’s famous Latin American School of Medicine, or ELAM, announced they will head to Standing Rock “to humbly serve in solidarity with the Sacred Water Protectors on the front lines of the current human rights and ecological crisis occurring right now in North Dakota.”
       Dr. Revery P. Barnes, a graduate of ELAM, said in a post on Facebook, “We answer the call to serve in alignment with the mission and core principles of our alma mater and dedication to our commitment to serve underserved communities in our HOME country.” The delegation will work in collaboration with the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council.
      “While Cuba instilled in us an unwavering commitment to internationalism, with the acceptance of a full scholarship to medical school at ELAM, we made the moral commitment to respond to the needs of our most vulnerable communities here at home in the U.S.,” the statement continued.
          On Wednesday, the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council – which has been providing emergency and chronic health care services to the thousands of water protectors gathered at Standing Rock – issued a warning about the grave health and safety threats posed by escalating use of violence by Morton County Sheriff’s Department and Dakota Access Pipeline security personnel, whom they described as creating “war-like conditions.”



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

Tuesday 8 November 2016

Time To Tighten The Screw On Pensioners.


 


      Anyone who lives in the world of ordinary people is well aware that the vast majority of pensioners are not rich, a considerable number of them live in poverty, some in dire poverty. However, that does not stop the well heeled parasitic politicians with their grand salaries and lush pensions from putting pensioners in the line of attack in their pseudo science of economics. They have devised a method of stripping the unemployed of their benefits through workfare and sanctions, they have implemented a system to deprive the sick of their benefits by means of assessments and sanctions, so now it is time to attack the pensioners. They started by raising the age at which you can receive your pension, now, their latest manoeuvre to comply with the ideology of their pseudo economics, it is time to destroy the "triple lock" system, by which pensioners are guaranteed an increase in their meagre pensions each year. All this at a time when inflation is predicted to shoot up.

     Piece by piece our communities are attacked, section by section they are dealt an economic blow, all done under the financial Mafia's, "austerity" banner, wafted by the breeze of illusion called "balancing the books". If by some weird twist of the mind, our lords and masters were trying to "balance the books", there is no problem, our country is awash with money. We have billions for nuclear weapons, billions for bombing Libya, billions for war in Syria, billions to subsidise the corporate greed machine, but by their reckoning, not enough to see the the welfare of the needy in this country. 
       This "triple lock" attached to pensions has, since its inception, stuck in the throat of many of those well-heeled politicians, their twisted minds were mulling over the point, "why should pensioners get some sort of guaranteed increase each year, while we are screwing the rest of the population". So it is time to start turning the screw tighter on the pensioners. 
       By any measure, this system is insane, but worse, it is vicious, savage and brutal, to those who create all the wealth there is in this land. Are we to believe the blurb put out by the billionaire owned media, that this is the only way we can function as a society? It is simply a man made system of exploitation that creates wars, spreads poverty and spawns misery, for the benefit the few, at the expense of the many. I know we have the imagination, the ability and the resources to create a better world that cares for all, that takes care of the needs of all our people. All it lacks is the will of the people to take that step and demolish this insane creator of wars, misery and poverty. As long as we tolerate capitalism we will suffer poverty and deprivation, we will endure wars, and destroy the environment. Why?  
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Sunday 6 November 2016

Mass Action, November 15th.


      A call for support from the thousands standing together against the degradation of the land and polluting of the water by the Dakota Access Pipeline. As expected. the state's response to the will of the people, when that will is at odds with the corporate world, is to come down heavy on the people. The water protectors need all our support, either to be there, or to publicise  this one more plundering and polluting of our environment. This is not just Dakota, this is a world wide event as the corporate world decimates the planet in its ever increasing and desperate, insatiable greed for profit.


From the water protectors:
Published on Nov 2, 2016
      On Tuesday, November 15th, join a massive day of action across the country to demand that this administration and the next reject this pipeline. Join an action near you - and if one doesn’t exist, organize an action in your community.

Thursday 3 November 2016

Clean Drinking Water, Or Shareholders Bonuses?





        No you wont hear or see much of it in our babbling brook of bullshit that is the mainstream media, but there is a battle of resistance going on in Dakota that involves hundreds of people, has lasted for months and is still going on, in spite of a massive militarised police force doing its damnedest to break that resistance.  According to the indigenous people of the area and other experts, the Dakota Access Pipeline, apart from going through their sacred ground, will pollute the water supply of the area and further afield, as it crosses the Mississippi River. However, this is capitalism, and the welfare of the many must be sacrificed for the profit to the few. You can rest assured that the state will do the bidding of the corporate bodies who want this pipeline, and come down hard on those who will be harmed by its construction. As the resistance grows, so the state repression will morph into a brutal attack on their rights. Those resisting need all the support and solidarity that can be mustered, this is a battle for the rights of ordinary people against the juggernaut of the corporate world and its minders, the state.

This from Act For Freedom Now:
 
 Report Back from the Battle for Sacred Ground.
      For months, hundreds of people, including members of nearly a hundred different indigenous peoples, have mobilized to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. On October 27, police raiding the Sacred Ground camp encountered stiff resistance. We’ve just received the following first hand report from comrades who participated in the defense of the camp. Describing some of the fiercest clashes indigenous and environmental movements in the region have seen in many years, they pose important questions about solidarity struggles.

The Battle
     When we arrive on Wednesday, October 26, we can’t find our contacts, the friends and friends of friends who have been vouched into the secretive Red Warrior camp. Word around the camp is that eviction is imminent for Sacred Ground, the only camp in the direct path of the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. The tribe claims this land is territory granted to them in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, and that they were using their own “eminent domain” to take it back when they set up the camp. We decide to set up at Sacred Ground and to figure out how to make ourselves useful in stopping its eviction.
The Sacred Ground camp is located about two miles north of the main camp on highway 1806. The main camp itself is just north of the Standing Rock Reservation, where two more NoDAPL camps, Rosebud and Sacred Stone, are located. Before arriving, we had seen images of barricades blocking Highway 1806 to the north of the Sacred Ground camp.
         When we walk to that site, however, we find those barricades have been pushed to the sides of the road, the northernmost one turned into a kind of checkpoint. According to the people at the checkpoint, they were ordered to remove the blockade by the camp leaders, who plan on allowing the police to enter and evict the camp.
      The “camp leaders” are hired Nonviolent Direct Action consultants. They are utilizing a classic strategy of nonviolent civil disobedience: they hope that the images of police evicting people in prayer will win them the sympathy of the public. The people we speak with at the checkpoint are clearly not buying this. But what can they do? Their elders have hired these people to stage-manage the moment.
         After some conversation with the folks on the barricades and with the “camp leaders,” it is decided that we’ll leave the road open until the police actually arrive, and then we’ll build up the barricades quickly in order to slow their progress. This will hopefully buy time to allow the people who want to get arrested while in prayer to assemble and prepare themselves. For what its worth, this plan was crafted with the approval of the “proper channels.”
         As soon as this course of action is proposed, some new organism bursts into life, and thirty people we’ve never met are loading logs and tires and barbed wire onto trucks in the middle of the night. A plan comes together for when and how to start blocking the road. The energy is electric; the possibility of a real physical defense of this strategically decisive camp is in the air and in people’s conversations.
“I don’t know who those ‘leaders’ are,” a Native guy tells us as we throw tires on the side of the road. “They’re not my elders. I came here to defend this camp, and I’m going to do what I have to.” We still don’t know where the fabled Red Warrior folks are, but we feel that we’ve found people we want to support in this battle.

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Monday 31 October 2016

Attack The Root Cause.

 
        We should never forget that the most efficient method of tackling a problem is to attack its root cause. We can try to control it, trim round its edges, but it will continue to grow. The root must be destroyed. I lifted this straight from arrezafe.

        "In ecological ethic, the great moral question is not " what I do against the recycling bin " , but " what I do against the bank headquarters " . What is behind the devastating ecological crisis that is sweeping the biosphere is the self - expanding dynamics of capital. "
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Wednesday 12 October 2016

Where Do We Live When We Finally Screw The Planet?

 
       A call for all you environmentalists, Earth Firsters, etc., to share you ideas, actions, hopes and fears. Magazines like Earth First can only survive because of people like you, if you like and want the magazine, then put pen to paper, of course today it might be finger to keyboard, but you know what I mean.

We want your writing!
For a semi-regular zine of activist reflections and actions.
       This is an invitation for articles offering a critical analysis and reflections on Earth First! and related environmental and social justice direct action movements, how we organise and the actions we take. Contributions can be about actions in the UK or international. We also welcome book reviews, activist resources, short rants, illustrations, cartoons, poems and photographs. We suggest 500 – 2000 words for articles, but contact us if you want to do something longer.
        We aim to have a zine in print and online by the Earth First! winter moot 2017. All articles will be copyleft and you can choose whether to write anonymously. Deadline November 30 2016.
      Also contact us if you want to join our editorial collective or offer us funding.
zine@earthfirst.org.uk or contact us if you want to send an article by snail mail.
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Saturday 8 October 2016

Capitalism Is Exploitation And Destruction.

 

       Every now and then our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, spout an amazing disclosure, of a large company exploiting its workers. Of course this dreadful revelation implies that all the other companies and corporations are behaving impeccably, regards their treatment of their employees. The latest one for the UK is ASOS, facts are revealed about how shockingly the workers are treated. The nice little scheme devised by the firm who runs their warehouse, called "flexing", means being asked, at times at very short notice, to work overtime, and the extra hours will be paid to you away in the future. Of course refusing to "flex up", can see your job in jeopardy. Not so long ago it was Sports Direct and its policies of zero hours contracts, penalties and intimidation.
        Of course we all know, or should know, the entire capitalist system is based on exploitation. As far as these two greedy arsehole companies are concerned, they are small fry. It is their immediate employees that they try to screw. However, the big boys in the capitalist game, well, they go for anybody and everybody. The general public, employees, the environment, all fair game to be polluted, exploited, plundered and left to stew the mess the corporate greed machine leave behind. Remember Bhopal?
       The entire list of large corporations can all be stood in the court of decent human behaviour and be found guilt. The ravishes inflicted on our planet, the destruction of the entire world environment, causing unpredictable climate change, the pollution being spread across the earth, causing illnesses and suffering, and the extinction of thousands of the planet's species. All this is not a natural phenomenon, it can all be laid at the feet of the greed driven corporate world and the system of capitalism on which it is based.
This from Labour Rights:
Coca-Cola

       Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.
        In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.
         Coca-Cola is also one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions.
       For more on the companies that make up the world's 14 worst corporate, people and planet destroyers, well known names such as, Nestles USA, Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Pfizer, Kellogs group, and see the true face of the capitalist cancer that is killing the population and destroying the planet, 
Read HERE:
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