Scottish Anarchoblogs

     

     Nothing much changes in imperialist thinking, it is always a matter of expansion into other imperialist states and resistance to the expansion of other imperialist states.

     1914 the “GREAT” war, was nothing other than a clash of two aggressive imperialist powers over territory, colonies and markets, a crime against humanity. A struggle that went on until 1918 by which time 9 million troops had died for “their” country, with no gain to the working class where the vast majority of the 9 million deaths came from.

     We are told there was peace from then until the 1939 world war. Of course during this time the imperialist powers continued the slaughter in their respective colonies as they ruthlessly attempted to put down any action for independence from within “their” colonies and so the crime against humanity continued.

     1939 the 2nd world war, again was a clash of imperialist powers, this time a re-emerging imperialist power demanding more territory, colonies and markets and the established imperialist powers resisting with all the force they could muster. The result was a crime against humanity, an unimaginable slaughter of humans, again we are talking about the working class. The Russians alone lost 23 million of their people. This carnage continued until 1945 when it ended with the dropping of 2 atomic bombs on Japan.

    The empires change but imperialism continues, today America is the new imperial power and from the end of the 2nd world war up to the present has continued the imperialist tradition of expansion with what ever slaughter it takes. The continent of South America has borne the brunt of this new imperialist slaughter but has not been the only territory to feel the pain of American imperialism.

    2003 saw American imperialism supported by its hangers-on, occupy Iraq. The occupation is a crime against humanity, a resource grab, an attempt to gain strategic military power over one of the world’s largest oil reserves. This action has been responsible for the slaughter of over 2,600 imperialist troops, working class people, and at the most conservative estimate over 65,000 Iraqi working class people. The imperialist occupation continues.

    The imperialist state with the aid of the media create and spread myths about “great” battles and “great” victories in an attempt to convince people of the need for sacrifice in the “national interest”, they spout patriotism to coerce people into supporting “our troops” and stifle resistance to these unpopular wars. The media peddle the lie that we the workers have the same interests as our bosses, an imaginary common national identity.

    The workers of the world are on the same side, we should refuse to fight fellow workers around the world just to assist our bosses competitive position. We should reach out to workers in other countries as friends, not arrive on their shores as imperialist killers. We should organise a revolution that will destroy the festering marriage of state and corporate capitalism that is the driving force of imperialism and create a world where boundaries melt and no one need die for “their” country.

      The European Commission has just approved growing genetically modified crops in the European Union for the first time in 12 years putting the GM lobby's profits over the health concerns of the public. Click below and help build a one million strong citizen's petition calling for independent research and strong regulation of GM foods: Caving to the GM lobby, the commission has ignored 60% of Europeans who feel they have to get the facts first before growing foods that could pose a threat to our health and environment.

     A new initiative allows 1 million EU citizens to make official legal requests of the European Commission. Let's build a million voices for a ban on GM foods until the research is done; they will be delivered to the President Barroso of the European Commission. Sign the petition and forward link to friends and family: http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_health_and_biodiversity/?vl

     Consumers, public health, environmental and farmers groups have long rallied against a few international GM companies having such significant influence over European agriculture. Concerns about growing GM crops include: contamination of organic crops and the environment; their impact on climate due to the excessive need for pesticides; the destruction of biodiversity and local agriculture; and the effects of GM food on public health. EU member states have voiced strong opposition to last week's decision to authorise BASF's potato and Monsanto's maize -- Italy and Austria are opposed, and France said it would ask for further scientific research. There is still no consensus on the long-term effects of GM crops. And it is the GM industry, pursuing profits not public well being, that is funding the science and driving the regulatory environment. That is why European citizens are calling for more independent research, testing and precaution before crops are unleashed onto our land. Now, the "European Citizens' Initiative" gives 1 million EU citizens the opportunity to submit policy proposals to the European Commission and offers us a unique chance to drown out lobbyists' influence. Let's raise 1 million voices to put a moratorium on the introduction of GM crops into Europe and set up an independent, ethical and scientific body to research and determine the strong regulation of GM crops. Sign the petition now and then forward it widely: http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_health_and_biodiversity/?vl         With determination, entire Avaaz team.

    

 More information:

Last Eurobameter Survey 2008 'Attitudes of European citizens towards the environment', page 66: http://bit.ly/aMkeVJ

The Independent, Fury as Brussels authorises GM potatoes: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/fury-as-eu-approves-gm-potato-1915833.html Reuters, France blasts GM crop approvals by EU agency: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6241ZQ20100305

New Report: GMOs Causing Massive Pesticide Pollution:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/new-report-gmos-causing-m_b_362888.html

Summary of the International Assessment on Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, including critics of GMOs use in agriculture:

http://globalpolicy.org/social-and-economic-policy/international-trade-and-development-1-57/genetically-modified-organisms.html#key

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  Is the State necessary? We the ordinary people of this country, as in all countries, have a choice, we can continue to allow ourselves to be governed by the State that will always put the corporate business world first. Will always protect big business as it rapes and pollutes the planet in its quest for ever bigger profits. Will stand by and watch the corporate world create wide spread poverty as it continually seeks ever cheaper labour and resources for the benefit of its share holders. Or we can call a halt to this madness, mayhem and plunder by taking control of our own lives. Because the exercise of freedom is morally valuable, the burden shifts to the State to justify the use of the law to constrain or control it. If we build our societies on federated communities based on free association and voluntary co-operation that justification cannot be made. At best the State becomes redundant, at worst, as it is at present, a hindrance to freedom. The State has no place in matters of personal choice, it is an autocratic institution whose main purpose is to maintain the status quo, making sure that power and wealth stay where they are. The State will always fight its people when they try to take its authority away and take control of their own lives. To do this it continually introduces legislation to control its people not to protect them. The State is a hierarchal system, a power structure, which in itself is a contradiction of freedom. The State institutions of all the developed countries represent the multi-nationals, the corporate world, the world of finance, not the people. The State has lead working class youth into war after war slaughtering working class youth from other nation States. Always the guise is the defence of freedom, whose freedom? It is the freedom of one power block to wrest control of markets and resources from another power block. Freedom to wage war to tighten that grip on those markets and resources.

      If we care to look beyond the shopping malls and the mainstream media we can see that corporate capitalism with the blessing of the State, is responsible for countless thousands of deaths from poverty, not because there isn’t enough to go round, it is just simply that there is no profit in it. In the world today twenty two children die from starvation every minute of every day while excess food in the developed world is stockpiled. Have you ever asked yourself “Why?”. What kind of system would tolerate such blatant cruelty, what kind of people would tolerate such a system? The answer is of course, the State and corporate capitalism is the system, we are that people. How much longer can we allow this to continue? We can stand by and watch this world being dominated, exploited and destroyed, its peoples being divided, slaughtered and impoverished to the advantage of the privileged few, or we can stand up, claim it is our world, link hands, resist, organise, agitate, and revolt so crushing and sweeping away this festering corrupt marriage of corporate finance and State power.If we wish a fair and decent world for our children and grandchildren we have to put an end to the continual greed for profit and power and shape the world according to our needs with the preservation of the planet in mind. We must come together as individuals and communities and break this cycle of State/corporate/business/exploitation/profit/power. We have the ability and the resources to make this world a fair and just place for all, the choice is ours. We have to decide, it is their world or it is ours. The ordinary people across the world have a common cause, the final war must be the class war that abolishes the Nation State. Advocating peace between nations will only allow the exploitation of people to continue. The State will always come up with some pretext or other to call its people to arms, big business will demand it to increase its markets and resources. Big business and the State need the people to produce the profits that continually increase their power over us. The people who produce everything do not need the State nor big business. We are capable of producing and distributing everything we need in a much more fair and just manner with no thought to profit and share holders. We don’t need Kings, Presidents, Leaders or sweaty-hand share holders to tell us how to live our lives, their track record is one of wars, greed and exploitation. Let’s sweep them away into the dustbin of history. We the ordinary people must be the decision makers and organise for an era of mutual aid across all cultures, organise at community level in federation with other communities. Let’s see an end to the Nation State and with it national wars, patriotism and boundaries, a free and colourful world that belongs to free and colourful people. The anarchist principles of free association, voluntary co-operation and mutual aid are the only basis for such a society.

 

 

      

       Anarchism in Glasgow has a long tradition and can trace its roots back to the late 1800s. Since then Glasgow anarchists have been involved in all the major struggles of the Glasgow people. Whenever Glasgow’s citizens have been in conflict against exploitation, oppression, injustice the Glasgow anarchists have been at the forefront of that struggle. The support for anarchism, its ideas, its practice and theory have gone in waves, rising and falling as circumstances within society have changed. Today, in common with the rest of the world, Glasgow is seeing a revival of anarchist ideas.

       It is not difficult to understand why there is such a revival. More and more people are becoming completely disgusted at the blatant greed and deceit of the very politicians who are supposed to be their representatives. They are angry at a party political system that sees the power of the party and it’s “leaders” as more important than the people. A system that is in cahoots with and does the bidding of the corporate world whose greed is running rampant across the world destroying our communities and the environment in the name of profit.

     Anarchists have always pointed out the fact that the party political system will always fail the people, as it removes power from the people to an elite group. Changing the party or the leader will not interrupt the power of the corporate world as they fund the politicians.

      If you are aware of this corruption and deceit, of this plundering and rape of our planet, and you want a better world for all our children and our grandchildren then why not join us in trying to create an alternative, based on the will of the people. Based on free association, voluntary co-operation, mutual aid and sustainability

      We in the West tend to think that other regimes are much more repressive than our "free", "democratic" Western societies. However, all the research that comes out seems to paint a different picture. Perhaps our noses are too close to the picture to grasp the reality of the scene. The information is out there. The following very interesting extract is taken from: secure.cryptohippie.com/pubs/EPS-2010…  where the full article can be read.

● France and the EU have given themselves over to central bureaucratic control.

 

   There is no end to the creeping surveillance that is penetrating every fibre of our society. This wee piece from NO2ID,  is what to expect to become the norm for visits to the cinema, supermarket and libraries etc. Unless of course we resisit and refuse. They need us more than we need them. 

   News that the Soviet Union is planning to introduce authoritarian ID checks for drinkers in Consett, County Durham may sound like the plot of a dodgy spy novel - but it's true. A 'No ID No Entry' scheme is being proposed in Consett which would mean visitors to the Soviet Union bar would have to have their passport or driving licence scanned into a computer system before they can enter. The system called 'Clubscan' is increasingly being rolled out across the UK as civil liberties are traded for booze. Of course if enough customers refuse to submit to these arbitrary ID checks then the clubs and pubs will have to remove the systems.

 Workers Initiative, Poland.

Sent: Tue, 9 March, 2010 11:05:20

Subject:  Poland: City is not a company! - 37 anarchists arrested in Poznan

      City is not a company!” - 37 anarchists arrested in Poznan after clashes with cops. On Monday, 8th March, about 50 people from Rozbrat squat Collective made a demonstration in front of the gate of Poznan International Fair Center, where a congress of local councils from all over Poland was taking place. Shouting slogans “City is not a company. Rozbrat stays!”, the anarchists blockaded the gate. Many cars with the officials were forced to turn back. After a while, the protesters decided to walk inside the premises of the Fair, they were not stopped by anyone. Then, they tried to go inside the building where the congress was taking places. They were attacked by the police. Some of the anarchists were heavily beaten up, 37 were arrested and driven to three different police stations. Most of them are already released with minor charges. From the information we were able to gather, 3 people will be charged with an attack on a functionary, those three are still in jail.

      The demonstration's aim was to show that the city council in Poznan is not interested in developing the social-cultural side of the city but they only care about the profits coming from the wealthy investors. Activists from

Rozbrat have been coming to the meetings of the city council for over a year now and the officials have never been interested in doing anything about our situation. They have been debating over a local development plan for the district of Solacz, where Rozbrat is situated and this debate has been taking them so long only because so many ordinary people have come and have been opposed against it. According to the plan, there will be a villa neighborhood on the premises of Rozbrat. Meanwhile, another culture center, the Inner Spaces gallery, which was renting a bulding from the city, has just been removed and the city decided to rent that space to a restaurant. Two independent and long-running cinemas Malta and Amarant also have to close down because they have been dominated by the big multiplex cinemas and they also haven't received any support from the city council. Still, the authorities are standing for the title of the Cultural Capital for Poznan in 2016. Monday's action was a call for the demonstration on the 20th March. We won't give up without fight!