Wednesday 29 April 2009

Chapter 4 - How the System Works

Chapter 4: How the System Works

But take a closer look at it and see how the system 'works'.

Consider how life and its real meaning have become turned upside down and topsy-turvy. See how your own existence is poisoned and made miserable by the crazy arrangement.

Wherein is the purpose of your life, where the joy of it?

The earth is rich and beautiful, the bright sunshine should gladden your heart. Man's genius and labor have conquered the forces of nature and harnessed the lightning and the air to the service of humanity. Science and invention, human industry and toil have produced untold wealth. We've bridged the shoreless seas, the steam engine has annihilated distance, the electric spark and gasoline motor have unfettered man from the earth and chained even the atmosphere to do his bidding. We have triumphed over space, and the farthest corners of the globe have been brought close together. The human voice now circles the hemispheres, and through the azure there dart-fleet messengers, carrying man's greeting to all the peoples of the world.

Yet the people groan under heavy burdens, and there is no joy in their hearts. Their lives are full of misery, their souls cold with want and need. Poverty and crime fill every land; thousands are a prey to disease and insanity, war slaughters millions and brings to the living tyranny and oppression.

Why all this misery and murder in a world so rich and beautiful? Why all the pain and sorrow upon an earth so full of nature's bounty and sunshine?
'It's God's will,' says the church.

'People are bad, 'says the lawmaker.

'It must be so,' says the fool.

Is it true? Must it really be so?

You and I and each of us, we all want to live. We have but one life and we want to make the best of it - rightly so. We want some joy and sunshine while we live. What will happen to us when we are dead, we don't know. No one knows. The chances are that once dead we'll stay dead. But whether so or not, while we live our whole being hungers for joy and laughter, for sunshine and happiness. Nature has made us that way. Made you and me, and millions of others like us, to long for life and joy. Is it right and just that we should be deprived of it and forever remain the slaves of a handful of men who lord it over us and over life?

Can that be 'God's will', as the church tells you?

But if there be a God, he must be just. Would he permit us to be cheated and despoiled of life and its joys? If there be a God, he must be our father, and all men his children. Would a good father let some of his children go hungry and miserable while others have so much they don't know what to do with it? Would he suffer thousands, even millions, of his children to be killed and slaughtered, just for the glory of some king or the profit of the capitalist? Would he sanction injustice, outrage, and murder? No, my friend, you cannot believe that of a good father, of a just God. If people tell you that God wants such things they Just lie to you.

Maybe you say that God is good, but it is people who are bad, and that is why things are so wrong in the world.

But if people are bad, who made them so? Surely you don't believe that God made people bad, because in that case he himself would be responsible for it. Then it means that if people are bad, something else has made them so. That may well be. Let us look into it

Let us see how people are, what they are, and how they live. Let us see how you live.

From your earliest childhood it has been drilled into you that you must become successful, must 'make money'. Money means comfort security, power. It does not matter who you are, you are valued by what you are 'worth', by the size of your bank account. So you have been taught, and everybody else has been taught the same. Can you wonder that every one's life becomes a chase for money, for the dollar and your whole existence is turned into a struggle for possession, for wealth?

The money hunger grows on what it feeds. The poor man struggles for a living, for a bit of comfort. The well-to- do man wants greater riches to give him security and protect him against the fear of to-morrow. And when he becomes a big banker he must not relax his efforts, he must keep a sharp eye on his competitors, for fear of losing the race to some other man.

So every one is compelled to take part in the wild chase, and the hunger for possession gets ever stronger hold of man. It becomes the most important part of life; every thought is on money, all the energies are bent on getting rich, and presently the thirst for wealth becomes a mania, a madness that possesses those who have and those who have not.

Thus life has lost its sole true meaning of joy and beauty; existence has become an unreasoning, wild dance around the golden calf, a mad worship of God Mammon. In that dance and in that worship man has sacrificed all his finer qualities of heart and soul - kindness and justice honor and manhood, compassion and sympathy with his fellow-man.

'Each for himself and the devil take the hindmost' - that must perforce become the principle and urge of most people under such conditions. Is it any wonder that in this mad money chase are developed the worst traits of man - greed, envy, hatred, and the basest passions? Man grows corrupt and evil; he becomes mean and unjust; he resorts to deceit, theft, and murder.

Look closer about you and see how many wrongs and crimes are perpetrated in your city, in your country, in the world at large, for money, for property, for possession. See how full the world is of poverty and misery, see the thousands falling a prey to disease and insanity, to folly and outrage, to suicide and murder - all because of the inhuman and brutalizing conditions we live under.

Truly has the wise man said that money is the root of all evil. Wherever you look you will see the corroding and degrading effect of money, of possession, of the mania to have and to hold. Every one is wild to get, to grab by hook or crook, to accumulate as much as he can, so that he may enjoy to-day and secure himself for to-morrow.

But can you therefore say that man is bad? Is he not compelled to take part in this money chase by the conditions of existence, by the crazy system we live in? For you have no choice - you must get into the race or go under.

Is it your fault, then, that life forces you to be and act like that? Is it the fault of your brother or your neighbor or of any one? Is it not rather that we are all born into this mad scheme of things and that we have to fall into line?

But is not the scheme itself wrong that makes us act like that? Think it over and you will see that at heart you are not bad at all, but that conditions often compel you to do things that you know are wrong. You would rather not do them. When you can afford it, your urge is to be kind and helpful to others. But if you should follow your inclinations in this direction, you would neglect your own interests and you would soon be in want yourself.

So the conditions of existence suppress and stifle the instincts of kindness and humanity in us, and harden us against the need and misery of our fellow-man.

You will see this in every phase of existence, in all the relations of men, all through our social life. Of course, if our interests were the same, there would be no need of any one taking advantage of another. Because what would be good for Jack would also be good for Jim. To be sure, as human beings, as children of one humanity, we really do have the same interests. But as members of a foolish and criminal social arrangement, our present-day capitalist system, our interests are not at all the same. In fact, the interests of the different classes in society are opposed to each other; they are inimical and antagonistic, as I have pointed out in preceding chapters.

That is why you see men taking advantage of each other when they can profit by it, when their interests dictate it. In business, in commerce, in the relations between employer and employee - everywhere you will find this principle at work. Every one is trying to get ahead of the other fellow Competition becomes the soul of capitalistic life, beginning with the billionaire banker, the great manufacturer and lord of industry, all through the social and financial scale, down to the last worker in the factory. For even the workers are compelled to compete with each other for jobs and better pay.

In this way our whole life becomes a struggle of man against man, of class against class. In that struggle every method is used to achieve success, to down your competitor, to raise yourself above him by every means possible.

It is clear that such conditions will develop and cultivate the worst qualities of man. It is just as clear that the law will protect those who have power and influence, the rich and the wealthy, however they got their riches. The poor man must inevitably get the worst of it under such circumstances. He will try to do the same as the rich man does. But as he has not the same opportunity to advance his interests under the protection of the law, he will often attempt it outside of the law and he will fall into its meshes. Though he did nothing more than the rich man - took advantage of some one, cheated some one - he did it 'illegally', and you call him a criminal.

Look at that poor boy, for instance, on the street corner there. He is ragged, pale, and half-starved. He sees another boy, the son of wealthy parents, and that boy wears nice clothes, he is well fed, and he does not even deign to play with the poor kid. The ragged boy is angry at him he resents and hates the rich boy. And everywhere the poor boy goes he experiences the same thing: he is ignored and scorned, often kicked about - he feels people don't think him as good as the rich boy, to whom every one is respectful and attentive. The poor boy gets embittered. And when he grows up, he again sees the same thing: the rich are admired and respected, the poor are kicked about and looked down upon. So the poor boy gets to hate his poverty, and he thinks of how e might become rich, get money, and he tries to get it in any way he an, by taking advantage of others, as others have always taken advantage of him, by cheating and lying, and sometimes even by committing crime.

Then you say that he is 'bad'. But don't you see what made him bad? Don't you see that the conditions of his whole life have made him what he is? And don't you see that the system which keeps up such conditions is a greater criminal than the petty thief? The law will step in and punish him, but is it not the same law that permits those bad conditions to exist and upholds the system that makes criminals?

Think it over and see if it is not the law itself, the government which really creates crime by compelling people to live in conditions hat make them bad. See how law and government uphold and protect he biggest crime of all, the mother of all crimes, the capitalistic wage system, and then proceeds to punish the poor criminal.

Consider: does it make any difference whether you do wrong protected by the law, or whether you do it unlawfully? The thing is the same and the effects are the same. Worse even: legal wrongdoing is the greater evil because it causes more misery and injustice than illegal wrong. Lawful crime goes on all the time; it is not punishable and it is made easy, while unlawful crime is not so frequent and is more limited in its scope and effect.

Who causes more misery: the rich manufacturer reducing the wages of thousands of workers to swell his profits, or the jobless man stealing something to keep from starving?

Who commits the greater wrong: the wife of the industrial magnate spending a thousand dollars for a silver collar for her lapdog, or the underpaid girl in the magnate's department store unable to withstand temptation and appropriating some trinket?

Who is the greater criminal: the speculator cornering the wheat market and making a million-dollar profit by raising the price of the poor man's bread, or the homeless tramp committing some theft?

Who is the greater enemy of man: the greedy coal baron responsible for the sacrifice of human lives in his badly ventilated and dangerous mines, or the desperate man guilty of assault and robbery?

It is not the wrongs and crimes punishable by law that cause the greatest evil in the world. It is the lawful wrongs and unpunishable crimes, justified and protected by law and government, that fill the earth with misery and want, with strife and conflict, with class struggles, slaughter, and destruction.

We hear much about crime and criminals, about burglary and robbery, about offenses against person and property. The columns of the daily press are filled with such reports. It is considered the 'news' of the

But do you hear much about the crimes of capitalistic industry and business? Do the papers tell you anything about the constant robbery and theft represented by low wages and high prices? Do they write much about the widespread misery caused by market speculation, by adulterating food, by the thousand and one other forms of fraud, extortion, and usury on which business and trade thrive? Do they tell you of the wrong and evils, of the poverty, of the broken hearts and blasted hearths of disease and premature death, of desperation and suicide that follow in constant and regular procession in the wake of the capitalist system?

Do they tell you of the woe and worry of the thousands thrown out of work, no one caring whether they live or die? Do they tell you about the starvation wages paid to women and girls in our industries, pittances, that directly compel many of them to prostitute their bodies to help eke out a living? Do they tell you of the army of unemployed that capitalism holds ready to take the bread from your mouth when you go on strike for better pay? Do they tell you that unemployment, with all its heartache, suffering, and misery is due directly to the system of capitalism? Do they tell you how the wage slave's toil and sweat are coined into profits for the capitalist? How the worker's health, his mind and body are sacrificed to the greed of the lords of industry? How labor and lives are wasted in stupid capitalist competition and planless production?

Indeed, they tell you a lot about crimes and criminals, about the 'badness' and 'evil' of man, especially of the 'lower' classes, of the workers. But they don't tell you that capitalist conditions produce most of our evils and crime, and that capitalism itself is the greatest crime of all; that it devours more lives in a single day than all the murderers put together. The destruction of life and property caused by criminals throughout the world since human life began is mere child's play when compared with the ten millions killed and twenty millions wounded and the incalculable havoc and misery wrought by a single capitalist event, the recent World War. That stupendous holocaust was the legitimate child of capitalism, as all wars of conquest and gain are the result of the conflicting financial and commercial interests of the international bourgeoisie. It was a war for profits, as later admitted even by Woodrow Wilson and his class.

Profits again, as you see. Coining human flesh and blood into profits in the name of patriotism.

'Patriotism!' you protest; 'why, that is a noble cause!'

'And unemployment,' inquires your friend, 'is capitalism responsible for that, too? Is it the fault of my boss that he has no work for me?'

Libcom.org

MUSIC- La Roux (RMX by SKREAM) - In for the Kill - DOPE!

Check this shit out son;

MUSIC- First Blood Interview Video

Dope interview Video with Carl from First Blood;

MUSIC- First Blood Video/Song + Lyrics 'SUFFOCATE'

Yet more First Blood genius;
Song- 'SUFFOCATE' (About pollution perhaps?)
Album- 'KILLAFORNIA'

Lyrics -
The polluted face of life hiding in black clouds unknowingly killing you, killing me
HIS FILTHY HANDS are wrapped around our trusting throats but the last thing that we need is another liar breathing the fire...
SUFFOCATE... of death down below
Suffering in solitude as your last breath slips away... with no one ever knowing
From the last generation, turning their backs to the truth, to the new generation, continue to spread the truth
Suffocate on lies with your rebellion against the truth...
Ignorant minds hide from the truth...
Angry minds defy the truth...
Greedy minds deny the truth... as we all SUFFOCATE

Video -

Tuesday 28 April 2009

Chapter 3 - Law and Government

Chapter 3: Law and Government

Yes, you are right: the law forbids theft.

If I should steal something from you, you can call a policeman and have me arrested. The law will punish the thief, and the government will return to you the stolen property, if possible, because the law forbids stealing. It says that no one has a right to take anything from you without your consent.

But your employer takes from you what you produce. The whole wealth produced by labor is taken by the capitalists and kept by them as their property.

The law says that your employer does not steal anything from you, because it is done with your consent. You have agreed to work for your boss for certain pay, he to have all that you produce. Because you consented to it, the law says that he does not steal anything from you.
But did you really consent?

When the highwayman holds his gun to your head, you turn your valuables over to him. You 'consent' all right, but you do so because you cannot help yourself, because you are compelled by his gun.

Are you not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you, just as the highwayman's gun. You must live, and so must your wife and children. You can't work for yourself, under the capitalist industrial system you must work for an employer. The factories, machinery, and tools belong to the employing class, so you must hire yourself out to that class in order to work and live. Whatever you work at, whoever your employer may be, it always comes to the same: you must work for him . You can't help yourself You are compelled .

In this way the whole working class is compelled to work for the capitalist class. In this manner the workers are compelled to give up all the wealth they produce. The employers keep that wealth as their profit, while the worker gets only a wage, just enough to live on, so he can go on producing more wealth for his employer. Is that not cheating, robbery?

The law says it is a 'free agreement'. Just as well might the highwayman say that you 'agreed' to give up your valuables. The only difference is that the highwayman's way is called stealing and robbery, and is forbidden by law. While the capitalist way is called business, industry, profit making, and is protected by law.

But whether it is done in the highwayman's way or in the capitalist way, you know that you are robbed.

The whole capitalist system rests on such robbery.

The whole system of law and government upholds and justifies this robbery.

That's the order of things called capitalism, and law and government are there to protect this order of things.

Do you wonder that the capitalist and employer, and all those who profit by this order of things, are strong for 'law and order'?

But where do you come in? What benefit have you from that kind of 'law and order'? Don't you see that this 'law and order' only robs you, fools you, and just enslaves you?

'Enslave me?' you wonder. 'Why, I am a free citizen!'

Are you free, really? Free to do what? To live as you please? To do what you please?
Let's see. How do you live? What does your freedom amount to?

You depend on your employer for your wages or your salary, don't you? And your wages determine your way of living, don't they? The conditions of your life, even what you eat and drink, where you go and with whom you associate, - all of it depends on your wages.

No, you are not a free man. You are dependent on your employer and on your wages. You are really a wage slave.

The whole working class, under the capitalist system, is dependent on the capitalist class. The workers are wage slaves.

So, what becomes of your freedom? What can you do with it? Can you do more with it than your wages permit?

Can't you see that your wage - your salary or income - is all the freedom that you have? Your freedom, your liberty, don't go a step further than the wages you get.

The freedom that is given you on paper, that is written down in law books and constitutions, does not do you a bit of good. Such freedom only means that you have the right to do a certain thing. But it doesn't mean that you can do it. To be able to do it, you must have the chance, the opportunity. You have a right to eat three fine meals a day, but if you haven't the means, the opportunity to get those meals, then what good is that right to you?

So freedom really means opportunity to satisfy your needs and wants. If your freedom does not give you that opportunity, than it does you no good. Real freedom means opportunity and well being. If it does not mean that, it means nothing.
You see, then, that the whole situation comes to this: Capitalism robs you and makes a wage slave of you. The law upholds and protects that robbery.

The government fools you into believing that you are independent and free.
In this way you are fooled and duped every day of your life. But how does it happen that you didn't think of it before? How is it that most other people don't see it, either?

It is because you and every one else are lied to about this all the time, from your earliest childhood.
You are told to be honest, while you are being robbed all your life.

You are commanded to respect the law, while the law protects the capitalist who is robbing you.

You are taught that killing is wrong, while the government hangs and electrocutes people and slaughters them in war.

You are told to obey the law and government, though law and government stand for robbery and murder.

Thus all through life you are lied to, fooled, and deceived, so that it will be easier to make profits out of you, to exploit you.

Because it is not only the employer and the capitalist who make profits out of you. The government, the church, tend the school - they all live on your labor. You support them all. That is why all of them teach you to be content with your lot and behave yourself.
'Is it really true that I support them all?' you ask in amazement.

Let us see. They eat and drink and are clothed, not to speak of the luxuries they enjoy. Do they make the things they use and consume, do they do the planting and sowing and building and so on?
'But they pay for those things,' your friend objects.

Yes, they pay. Suppose a fellow stole fifty dollars from you and then went and bought with it a suit of clothes for himself. Is that suit by right his? Didn't he pay for it? Well, just so the people who don't produce anything or do no useful work pay for things. Their money is the profits they or their parents before them squeezed out of you, out of the workers.
'Then it is not my boss who supports me, but I him?'

Of course. He gives you a job; that is, permission to work in the factory or mill which was not built by him but by other workers like yourself. And for that permission you help to support him for the rest of your life or as long as you work for him. You support him so generously that he can afford a mansion in the city and a home in the country, even several of them, and servants to attend to his wants and those of his family, and for the entertainment of his friends, and for horse races and for boat races, and for a hundred other things. But it is not only to him that you are so generous. Out of your labor, by direct and indirect taxation, are supported the entire government, local, state, and national, the schools and the churches, and all the other institutions whose business it is to protect profits and keep you fooled. You and your fellow workers, labor as a whole, support them all. Do you wonder that they all tell you that everything is all right and that you should be good and keep quiet?

It is good for them that you should keep quiet, because they could not keep on duping and robbing you once you open your eyes and see what's happening to you.

That's why they are all strong for this capitalist system, for flaw and order'.
But is that system good for you? Do you think it right and just? If not, then why do you put up with it? Why do you support it? 'What can I do?' you say; 'I'm only one.'

Are you really only one? Are you not rather one out of many thousands, out of millions, all of them exploited and enslaved the same as you are? Only they don't know it. If they knew it, they wouldn't stand for it. That's sure. So the thing is to make them know it.

Every workingman in your city, every toiler in your country, in every country, in the whole world, is exploited and enslaved the same as you are.

And not only the workingmen. The farmers are duped and robbed in the same manner.

Just like the workingmen, the farmer is dependent on the capitalist class. He toils hard all his life, but most of his labor goes to the trusts and monopolies of the land which by right is no more theirs than the moon iS.

The farmer produces the food of the world. He feeds all of us. But before he can get his goods to us, he is made to pay tribute to the class that lives by the work of others, the profit-making, capitalist class. The farmer is mulcted out of the greater part of his product just as the worker is. He is mulcted by the land owner and by the mortgage holder; by the steel trust and the railroad. The banker, the commission merchant, the retailer, and a score of other middlemen squeeze their profits out of the farmer before he is allowed to get his food to you.

Law and government permit and help this robbery by ruling that the land, which no man created, belongs to the landlord; the railroads, which the workers built, belong to the railroad magnates; the warehouses, grain elevators, and storehouses, erected by the workers, belong to the capitalists; all those monopolists and capitalists have a right to get profits from the farmer for using the railroads and other facilities before he can get his food to you.

You can see then, how the farmer is robbed by big capital and business, and how the law helps in that robbery, just as with the workingman.

But it is not only the worker and the farmer who are exploited and forced to give up the greater part of their product to the capitalists, to those who have monopolized the land, the railroads, the factories, the machinery, and all natural resources. The entire country, the whole world is made to pay tribute to the kings of finance and industry.

The small business man depends on the wholesaler; the wholesaler on the manufacturer; the manufacturer on the trust magnates of his industry; and all of them on the money lords and banks for their credit. The big bankers and financiers can put any man out of business by just withdrawing their credit from him. They do so whenever they want to squeeze any one out of business. The business man is entirely at their mercy. If he does not play the game as they want it, to suit their interests, then they simply drive him out of the game.

Thus the whole of mankind is dependent upon and enslaved by just a handful of men who have monopolized almost the entire wealth of the world, but who have themselves never created anything.
'But those men work hard,' you say.

Well, some of them don't work at all. Some of them are just idlers, whose business is managed by others. Some of them do work. But what kind of work do they do? Do they produce anything, as the worker and the farmer do? No, they produce nothing, though they may work. They work to mulct people, to get profits out of them. Does their work benefit you? The highwayman also works hard and takes great risks to boot. His 'work', like the capitalist's, gives employment to lawyers, jailers, and a host of other retainers, all of whom your toil supports.

It seems indeed ridiculous that the whole world should slave for the benefit of a handful of monopolists, and that all should have to depend upon them for their right and opportunity to live. But the fact is just that. And it is the more ridiculous when you consider that the workers and farmers, who alone create all wealth, should be the most dependent and the poorest of all the other classes in society.

It is really monstrous, and it is very sad. Surely your common sense must tell you that such a situation is nothing short of madness. If the great masses of people, the millions throughout the world, could see how they are fooled, exploited and enslaved, as you see it now, would they stand for such goings on? Surely they would not!

The capitalists know they wouldn't. That is why they need the government to legalize their methods of robbery, to protect the capitalist system.

And that is why the government needs laws, police and soldiers, courts and prisons to protect capitalism.

But who are the police and the soldiers who protect the capitalists against you, against the people?

If they were capitalists themselves, then it would stand to reason why they want to protect the wealth they have stolen, and why they try to keep up, even by force, the system that gives them the privilege of robbing the people.

But the police and the soldiers, the defenders of 'law and order', are not of the capitalist class. They are men from the ranks of the people, poor men who for pay protect the very system that keeps them poor. It is unbelievable, is it not? Yet it is true. It just comes down to this: some of the slaves protect their masters in keeping them and the rest of the people in slavery. In the same way Great Britain, for instance, keeps the Hindoos in India in subjection by a police force of the natives, of the Hindoos themselves. Or as Belgium does with the black men in the Congo. Or as any government does with a subjugated people. It is the same system. Here is what it amounts to: Capitalism robs and exploits the whole of the people; the laws legalize and uphold this capitalist robbery; the government uses one part of the people to aid and protect the capitalists in robbing the whole of the people. The entire thing is kept up by educating the people to believe that capitalism is night, that the law is just, and that the government must be obeyed.

Do you see through this game now?

Libcom.org

Monday 27 April 2009

Chapter 2 - The Wage System

Chapter 2: The Wage System

Did you ever stop to ask yourself this question: why were you born from your parents and not from some others?

You understand, of course, what I am driving at. I mean that your consent was not asked. You were simply born; you did not have a chance to select the place of your birth or to choose your parents. It was just chance.

So it happened that you were not born rich. Maybe your people are of the middle class; more likely, though, they belong to the workers, and so you are one of those millions, the masses, who have to work for a living.

The man who has money can put it into some business or industry. He invests it and lives on the profits. But you have no money. You have only your ability to work, your labor power.

There was a time when every workingman worked for himself. There were no factories then and no big industries. The laborer had his own tools and his own little workshop, and he even bought himself the raw materials he needed. He worked for himself, and he was called an artisan or craftsman.

Then came the factory and the large workshop. Little by little they crowded out the independent workman, the artisan, because he could not make things as cheaply as the factory - he could not compete with the big manufacturer. So the artisan had to give up his little workshop and go to the factory to work.

In the factories and large plants things are produced on a big scale. Such big-scale production is called industrialism. It has made the employers and manufacturers very rich, so that the lords of industry and commerce have accumulated much money, much capital. Therefore that system is called capitalism. We all live to-day in the capitalist system.

In the capitalist system the workingman cannot work for himself, as in the old days. He cannot compete with the big manufacturers. So, if you are a workman, you must find an employer. You work for him; that is, you give him your labor for so and so many hours a day or week, and he pays you for it. You sell him your labor power and he pays you wages.

In the capitalist system the whole working class sells its labor power to the employing class. The workers build factories, make machinery and tools, and produce goods. The employers keep the factories, the machinery, tools and goods for themselves as their profit. The workers get only wages.

This arrangement is called the wage system.

Learned men have figured out that the worker receives as his wage only about one-tenthof what he produces. The other nine-tenths are divided among the landlord, the manufacturer, the railroad company, the wholesaler, the jobber, and other middlemen.

It means this:

Though the workers, as a class, have built the factories, a slice of their daily labor is taken from them for the privilege of using those factories.That's the landlord's profit.

Though the workers have made the tools and the machinery, another slice of their daily labor is taken from them for the privilege of using those tools and machinery. That's the manufacturer's profit.

Though the workers built the railroads and are running them, another slice of their daily labor is taken from them for the transportation of the goods they make. That's the railroad's profit.

And so on, including the banker who lends the manufacturer other people's money, the wholesaler, the jobber, and other middlemen, all of whom get their slice of the worker's toil.

What is left then - one-tenth of the real worth of the worker's labor-is his share, his wage.

Can you guess now why the wise Proudhon said that the possessions of the rich are stolen property? Stolen from the producer, the worker.

It seems strange, doesn't it, that such a thing should be permitted?

Yes, indeed, it is very strange; and the strangest thing of all is that the whole world looks on and doesn't do a thing about it. Worse yet, the workers themselves don't do anything about it. Why, most of them think that everything is all right, and that the capitalist system is good.

It is because the workers don't see what is happening to them. They don't understand that they are being robbed. The rest of the world also understands very little about it, and when some honest man tries to tell them, they shout 'anarchist!' at him, and they shut him up or put him in prison.

Of course, the capitalists are very much satisfied with the capitalist system. Why shouldn't they be? They get rich by it. So you can't expect them to say it's no good.

The middle classes are the helpers of the capitalists and they also live off the labor of the working class, so why should they object? Of course, here and there you will find some man or woman of the middle class stand up and speak the truth about the whole matter. But such persons are quickly silenced and cried down as "enemies of the people', as crazy disturbers and anarchists.

But you would think that the workers should be the first to object to the capitalist system, for it is they who are robbed and who suffer most from it.

Yes, so it should be. But it isn't so, which is very sad.

The workers know that the shoe pinches somewhere. They know that they toil hard all their lives and that they get just enough to exist on, and sometimes not even enough. They see that their employers can ride about in fine automobiles and live in the greatest luxury, with their wives decked out in expensive clothes and diamonds, while the worker's wife can hardly afford a new calico dress. So the workers seek to improve their condition by trying to get better wages. It is the same as if I woke up at night in my house and found that a burglar had collected all my things and is about to get away with them. Suppose that instead of stopping him, I should say to him: 'Please, Mr. Burglar, leave me at least one suit of clothes so I can have something to put on', and then thank him if he gives me back a tenth part of the things he has stolen from me.

But I am getting ahead of my story. We shall return to the worker and see how he tries to improve his condition and how little he succeeds. Just now I want to tell you why the worker does not take the burglar by the neck and kick him out; that is, why he begs the capitalist for a little more bread or wages, and why he does not throw him off his back, altogether.

It is because the worker, like the rest of the world, has been made to believe that everything is all right and must remain as it is; and that if a few things are not quite as they should be, then it is because 'people are bad', and everything will right itself in the end, anyhow.

Just see if that is not true of yourself. At home, when you were a child, and when you asked so many questions, you were told that 'it is right so,' that 'it must be so,' that 'God made it so,' and that everything was all right.

And you believed your father and mother, as they had believed their fathers and mothers, and that is why you now think just as your grandfather did.

Later, in school, you were told the same things. You were taught that God had made the world and that all is well; that there must be rich and poor, and that you should respect the rich and be content with your lot. You were told that your country stands for justice, and that you must obey the law. The teacher, the priest, and the preacher all impressed it upon you that your life is ordained by God and that 'His will be done.' And when you saw a poor man dragged off to prison, they told you that he was bad because he had stolen something, and that it was a great crime.

But neither at home, nor in school, nor anywhere else were you ever told that it is a crime for the rich man to steal the product of the worker's labor, or that the capitalists are rich because they have possessed themselves of the wealth which labor created.

No, you were never told that, nor did any one else ever hear it in school or church. How can you then expect the workers to know it?

On the contrary, your mind - when you were a child and later on, too - has been stuffed so full of false ideas that when you hear the plain truth you wonder if it is really possible.

Perhaps you can see now why the workers do not understand that the wealth they have created has been stolen from them and is being stolen every day.

'But the law,' you ask, 'the government -- does it permit such robbery? Is not theft forbidden by law?'

Libcom.org

Quote of the Day 27/4/09

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

VIDEO - Here it fuckin' comes



For the record, how much of a mug does Gordon Brown look?

Operationmindseed.com

VIDEO - Dead Poets Society

Just got a glimpse of this video, and I liked it so much I'm going to check the whole film out.
It's true, for all of you that read this that are younger than most, you too will soon lose your voice if you don't use it.

Chapter 1 - What do you want out of life?

Chapter 1: What Do You Want Out Of Life?

What is it that every one wants most in life? What do you want most?

After all, we are all the same under our skins. Whoever you be - man or woman, rich or poor, aristocrat or tramp, white, yellow, red or black, of whatever land, nationality, or religion - we are all alike in feeling cold and hunger, love and hate; we all fear disaster and disease, and try to keep away from harm and death.

What you most want out of life, what you fear most, that also is true, in the main, of your neighbor.

Learned men have written big books, many of them, on sociology, psychology, and many other 'ologies', to tell you what you want, but no two of those books ever agree. And yet I think that you know very well without them what you want.

They have studied and written and speculated so much about this, for them so difficult a question, that you, the individual, have become entirely lost in their philosophies. And they have at last come to the conclusion that you, my friend, don't count at all. What's important, they say, is not you, but 'the whole', all the people together. This 'whole' they call 'society', 'the commonwealth', or 'the State', and the wiseacres have actually decided that it makes no difference if you, the individual, are miserable so long as 'society' is all right. Somehow they forget to explain how 'society' or 'the whole' can be all right if the single members of it are wretched.

So they go on spinning their philosophic webs and producing thick volumes to find out where you really enter in the scheme of things called life, and what you really want.

But you yourself know very well what you want, and so does your neighbor.

You want to be well and healthy; you want to be free, to serve no master, to crawl and humiliate yourself before no man; you want to have well-being for yourself, your family, and those near and dear to you. And not to be harassed and worried by the fear of to-morrow.

You may feel sure that every one else wants the same. So the whole matter seems to stand this way:

You want health, liberty, and well-being. Every one is like yourself in this respect.

Therefore we all seek the same thing in life.

Then why should we not all seek it together, by joint effort, helping each other in it?

Why should we cheat and rob, kill and murder each other, if we all seek the same thing? Aren't you entitled to the things you want as well as the next man?

Or is it that we can secure our health, liberty, and well-being better by fighting and slaughtering each other?

Or because there is no other way?

Let us look into this.

Does it not stand to reason that if we all want the same thing in life, if we have the same aim, then our interests must also be the same? In that case we should live like brothers, in peace and friendship; we should be good to each other, and help each other all we can.

But you know that it is not at all that way in life. You know that we do not live like brothers. You know that the world is full of strife and war, of misery, injustice, and wrong, of crime, poverty, and oppression.

Why is it that way then?

It is because, though we all have the same aim in life, our interests are different. It is this that makes all the trouble in the world.
Just think it over yourself.

Suppose you want to get a pair of shoes or a hat. You go into the store and you try to buy what you need as reasonably and cheaply as you can. That is your interest. But the store-keeper's interest is to sell it to you as dearly as he can, because then his profit will be greater. That is because everything in the life we live is built on making a profit, one way or another. We live in a system of profit-making.

Now, it is plain that if we have to make profits out of each other, then our interests cannot be the same. They must be different and often even opposed to each other.

In every country you will find people who live by making a profit out of others. Those who make the biggest profits are rich. Those who cannot make profits are poor. The only people who cannot make any profits are the workers. You can therefore understand that the interests of the workers cannot be the same as the interests of the other people. That is why you will find in every country several classes of people with entirely different interests.
Everywhere you will find:

(1) a comparatively small class of persons who make big profits and who are very rich, such as bankers, great manufacturers and land owners - people who have much capital and who are therefore called capitalists. These belong to the capitalist class;

(2) a class of more or less well-to-do people, consisting of business men and their agents, real estate men, speculators, and professional men, such as doctors, lawyers, inventors, and so on. This is the middle class or the bourgeoisie.
(3) great numbers of workingmen employed in various industries- in mills and mines, in factories and shops, in transport and on the land. This is the working class, also called the proletariat.

The bourgeoisie and the capitalists really belong to the same capitalistic class, because they have about the same interests, and therefore the people of the bourgeoisie also generally side with the capitalist class as against the working class.

You will find that the working class is always the poorest class, in every country. Maybe you yourself belong to the workers, to the proletariat. Then you know that your wages will never make you rich.

Why are the workers the poorest class? Surely they labor more than the other classes, and harder. Is it because the workers are not very important in the life of society? Perhaps we can even do without them?

Let us see. What do we need to live? We need food, clothing, and shelter; schools for our children; street cars and trains for travel, and a thousand and one other things.

Can you look about you and point out a single thing that was made without labor? Why, the shoes you stand in, and the streets you walk on, are the result of labor. Without labor there would be nothing but the bare earth, and human life would be entirely impossible.

So it means that labor has created everything we have - all the wealth of the world. It is all the product of labor applied to the earth and its natural resources.

But if all the wealth is the product of labor, then why does it not belong to labor? That is, to those who have worked with their hands or with their heads to create it - the manual worker and the brain worker.

Everybody agrees that a person has a right to own the thing that he himself has made.

But no one person has made or can make anything all by himself. It takes many men, of different trades and professions, to create something. The carpenter, for instance, cannot make a simple chair or bench all by himself; not even if he should cut down a tree and prepare the lumber himself. He needs a saw and a hammer, nails and tools, which he cannot make himself. And even if he should make these himself, he would first have to have the raw materials - steel and iron - which other men would have to supply.

Or take another example - let us say a civil engineer. He could do nothing without paper and pencil and measuring tools, and these things other people have to make for him. Not to mention that first he has to learn his profession and spend many years in study, while others enable him to live in the meantime. This applies to every human being in the world to- day.

You can see then that no person can by his own efforts alone make the things he needs to exist. In early times the primitive man who lived in a cave could hammer a hatchet out of stone or make himself a bow and arrow, and live by that. But those days are gone. To-day no man can live by his own work: he must be helped by the labor of others. Therefore all that we have, all wealth, is the product of the labor of many people, even of many generations. That is to say: all labor and the products of labor are social, made by society as a whole.

But if all the wealth we have is social, then it stands to reason that it should belong to society, to the people as a whole. How does it happen, then, that the wealth of the world is owned by some individuals and not by the people? Why does it not belong to those who have toiled to create it - the masses who work with hand or brain, the working class as a whole?

You know very well that it is the capitalistic class which owns the greatest part of the world's wealth. Must we therefore not conclude that the working people have lost the wealth they created, or that somehow it was taken away from them?

They did not lose it, for they never owned it. Then it must be that it was taken away from them.

This is beginning to look serious. Because if you say that the wealth they created has been taken away from the people who created it, then it means that it has been stolen from them, that they have been robbed, for surely no one has ever willingly consented to have his wealth taken away from him.

It is a terrible charge, but it is true. The wealth the workers have created, as a class, has indeed been stolen from them. And they are being robbed in the same way every day of their lives, even at this very moment. That is why one of the greatest thinkers, the French philosopher Proudhon, said that the possessions of the rich are stolen property.

You can readily understand how important it is that every honest man should know about this. And you may be sure that if the workers knew about it, they would not stand for it.

Let us see then how they are robbed and by whom.


libcom.org

Chapter 2 tomorrow chums.

Sunday 26 April 2009

REMEMBERING NEVER - 4 ALBUMS



Came across a DOPE band last night from Florida, USA, called 'REMEMBERING NEVER'.
Well, a little research and I found all 4 of their albums available for download.
This is their myspace.

To download their music, just enter their myspace URL into www.file2hd.com and download the tunes! Easy!

Peace And Rice,

MUSIC - First Blood Video/Song + Lyrics

Perhaps one of the favourite Hardcore bands right now, First Blood hailing from California's Bay Area. Just check out this song and the lyrics;



Lyrics;

They drew first blood NOT FUCKING ME
The institutions that try to decide how I should live my life
With their traditions they expect me to fall in line, but their will, their way is not for me
Anyone thinking with an open mind is often ostracized
So my decision just to stay within my own kind is justified
They drew first blood it wasn't me
I didn't ask for all these things to be part of this world OR PART OF ME
And who are they to protest me when all I want is to live peacefully
JUST LEAVE ME BE
Born in this world with innocent eyes
The more I see it becomes more clear to me I cannot trust powers that be
Taught to embrace with open arms a society that does not have a place for me
I didn't ask for this social divide and all the racists and the scum of mankind
But now I know, I'm on my own, so leave me be, and I'll live my own life
This is the way things have to be
All because they drew THEY DREW FIRST BLOOD
As corporations gain control of the world, the more and more the common good is not served
They won't dictate or brainwash me to buy their dreams and consume 'til I die
The best advice given to me is never serve who is not there to serve me
They drew first blood it wasn't me
They drew first blood NOT FUCKING ME

Hazardous Davis gives talk at Sussex University

As part of Sussex Uni's 'Green Week' this year, Hazardous Davis popped over to give a talk about Freeganism and Dumpster Diving.
The talk went well, everyone seemed interested, and from what it looked like, a shit load of notes were being taken with regards to the Brighton-bin's locations.
It was a good day,
Thanks to Becca for sorting it out and for Sussex Uni's Eco-Society for putting the Green Week on, oh and to that cute blonde girl with the curly hair who sat up front.

H is going on a mission tonight, so check the blog tomorrow for the latest finds,

Peace and Rice,

Wednesday 22 April 2009

FREEGANISM RESOURCE - VIDEO - I LOVE TRASH

Check out this dope documentary. Two guys who furnish an empty flat with nothing but trash for three months. No money. Just trash.



IndieFlix.com

FREEGANISM RESOURCE - VIDEO- Surfing The Waste

Check out this pretty crazy Dumpster vid, Surfing the Waste


FREEGANISM RESOURCE -Latest Freegan Efforts

Here's a few photos from a session the other week, french bread pizzas and bruschettas! Yeeeeah.










Monday 20 April 2009

Video;- A bold plan for the adoption of electric cars

Interesting video for the proposal of introducing electric cars to the West.
This will take about 18 mins of your time.

Friday 10 April 2009

Mark Thomas Video - 'OUR JOB IS TO KILL NEO-LIBERAL CAPITALISM'



Wow, straight fire!

Police Kettling: In the shadow of death

Original location here, including links.

The ‘kettling’ of protesters at the G20 protests in London – police penning them for hours, refusing to let anyone leave and periodically attacking those at the edges – has caused widespread concern.

Duncan Campbell reports that

One officer, asked why people were not allowed to leave under their own steam, replied: "They might fall over." People were then asked for their name and address and required to have a photo taken. Those who refused were put back in the pen.



It seems clear that the police’s aim is to minimise the number of demonstrators. Having talked up a riot in advance, they discourage many people who are sympathetic to the cause from coming out of fear of injury. Then, on the day, by inciting a riot, kettling the crowd or other methods of physical abuse, they discourage people from coming to similar events in future.

They always say in advance that they will ‘facilitate peaceful protest’, but blocking people in for hours on end in blazing sunshine with no water or toilets is not facilitating anything except their ill health and anger.

John O’Connor, a former Flying Squad commander, defended kettling in extraordinarily totalitarian terms, saying that

using these tactics in a non-selective way does cause inconvenience to persons who are legally trying to make their point, but it is effective in controlling the troublemakers.



The same could be said of subjecting the entire population to house arrest or amputating the limbs of anyone not in the police. Certainly, what he says is a clear admission that kettling does not ‘facilitate peaceful protest’.

ADVANCE EXAGGERATION

The police’s pre-protest claims are commonly fabricated tosh made to sound plausible by the inclusion of very specific details. For the G20 we had 1990 Poll Tax rioters ‘coming out of retirement’. Naming a particular ancient riot implies the police know their identity and are watching them.

For last year’s Climate Camp there was a ‘hard core of 150 individuals’ who were going to hijack the event and cause a riot. That’s a very precise number, again implying that they have definite intelligence to that effect. And, again, it was a complete fabrication. In the end, not even the police’s violent storming of the site could elicit a riot from the Campers. MP Norman Baker was there and told parliament ‘I witnessed unnecessarily aggressive policing, unprovoked violence against peaceful protestors’.

Conveniently, the next day the police announced the discovery of ‘a cache of weapons’ near the Camp. Of course, a block of kitchen knives, a padlock and chain could be used as weapons, but it’s hardly their primary purpose and it takes a particular bias from the police to describe them as such.

MEDIA SCARE STORIES

The media love these threats and talk them up as much as they can. In 1999, The Sunday Times reported that Reclaim The Streets were stockpiling CS gas for the London protests to coincide with the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. Just like the police, such reports use precise details to give themselves an air of factual accuracy.

In two separate transactions in the past six weeks, at least 34 containers of CS gas and four stun guns… were imported from France and sold by a gang of nightclub doormen working in the Euston and Camden Town areas.



It was complete fiction, but the Press Complaints Commission said that as Reclaim The Streets wasn’t a formal organisation, nobody could have been defamed by the story.

The Evening Standard reported that the 2007 Heathrow climate camp planned to plant hoax bombs in the airport. In that instance, the Press Complaints Commission ruled in the strongest terms that the story was without basis, but their judgement is a minor detail months later. When the PCC throws the book at you, it’s like one of those little books of cats you get next to the till in Borders. The Standard can well afford a tiny little slap on the wrist, a small price to pay for the extra sales the sexy scare story generated.

I genuinely believe they write much of the riot reports in advance. For the G20, the Evening Standard’s front page story begins with a description of how 'police were bombarded with bricks, bottles and planks of wood'. In the detailed report on page six, though, they can only cite 'fruit and paint bombs' as missiles, and later on say 'one officer was struck with a pole'. But bricks and bottles, it just sounds right for a riot, so they can write that in advance and if it doesn't turn out to be true, well, who's going to complain?

After the October 1994 riot at a demonstration against the Criminal Justice Bill in London's Hyde Park, the Daily Star reported that 'railings were used as spears'. Sounds so plausible for a riot in a park, doesn’t it? The fact that Hyde Park’s railings are in squared welded sections, whose only possible alternative use could be very small ladders, didn't get in the way of what makes a good riot write-up.

THE LESSON OF HILLSBOROUGH

This month is the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. The prime reason for the tragedy was the policing on the day. But to place the blame solely there is to miss the real root cause.

The crowd could not escape the crush because there were ten-foot fences at the front of the terraces. These were in place because of a common vision at the time – led by the police, amplified by media scare stories – that football crowds were not a gathering of people to be facilitated but a security problem, a volatile feral bunch that needed caging.

This attitude was reinforced by media stories of hooliganism, which in turn led to heavier policing, and the vicious cycle accelerated. Certainly, there were violent elements in football crowds. There still are. As Justin McKeating points out

Thousands of people descend on a city to express their passion. A small minority come for trouble and the police present are attacked with bricks and glass bottles. Twenty-seven people are arrested. They were Swansea FC supporters having a day out in Cardiff last year.



In the police-media talking-up of football hooliganism in the 80s, they discouraged people from coming to the match who didn’t want to be caught up in it, and in policing aggressively they encouraged aggression. Like the police’s treatment of demonstrations today, similarly exaggerated by the media’s fetishisation of violence, to a sizeable extent it self-fulfilled.

Even though there was no violence from fans at Hillsborough, police refused entry to ambulances, claiming fans were ‘still fighting’. If the police had treated football fans like human beings no lives would have been lost that day. But that sort of disaster was waiting to happen, and if it hadn’t come at Hillsborough then the attitude underpinning the police strategy ensured it would occur somewhere sooner or later.

The tactic of kettling stems from viewing all protests in that same way, and will just as surely lead to death. A man died at the G20 protests, and the circumstances are still unclear. But whether or not kettling had anything to do with the death of Ian Tomlinson, it makes no difference to the grave danger of the tactic. In the City people were held in continuous sunshine for hours with no access to water. People with medical conditions were not allowed to leave. If Ian Tomlinson was not the first to die in those conditions, someone else soon will be.

BATON DOWN

It’s not just kettling that hangs a sword of Damocles over protesters. Before the G20, representatives of the Climate Camp met with the senior officers in charge of policing the protests. They asked for three assurances. Firstly, that all officers have their numbers visible at all times. Secondly, it be recognised that legal observers – people provided by the camp to take notes in case of future court cases – should not be impeded. Thirdly, the use of batons on peaceful protesters is not proportionate; cracking open someone’s head for standing in the road is excessive.

The police agreed to the first two, but not the third. Why else would they do that, except that they do want to baton peaceful protesters?

At the G20 climate camp protest, come 7pm after the workers in the overlooking buildings and most of the media had gone home, the police tried to start a riot. The protest had not moved, nor were the police wanting the protesters to clear the street. They just waded into the crowd, punching and batoning people. And, as with police incursions into the climate camps at Heathrow and Kingsnorth, the crowd didn't behave like a textbook mob. They neither dispersed or attacked, but determinedly stood their ground, held their hands in the air to show they were unarmed and chanted 'this is not a riot'.


This is part of a police stategy that Commander Simon O'Brien called 'polite, proportionate and pragmatic'.

The climate camp was later sealed off in the same manner as had been used at the Bank of England earlier in the day. Police used dogs and batons on the hundreds of protesters who were outside the cordon. In a truly dystopian scene, protesters were spotlighted from a helicopter, dogs were set on them and then riot police charged, batoning anyone within reach in a chase lasting over a mile, only letting up when the last of the protesters were as far as Hoxton. Those inside the cordon were violently removed an hour later.

The practice of batoning heads, like kettling, will kill someone sooner or later. A single hard blow to the head can be fatal. You'd be unlucky to have it happen in a solitary strike, but it has happened before, with the death of Balir Peach at a London Anti-Nazi League demonstration.

When you multiply it by the thousands of such blows that strike the heads of peaceful protesters every year, the odds are tipping ever further towards death.

Indeed, as death from head injuries often happens later after a period of internal bleeding, it is quite likely that batons have already killed. But if the routine use of indiscriminately beating heads continues then, just like kettling, we will inevitably see people die on the street.

The sick irony is that when that happens it will, in turn, advance the police’s cause of discouraging people from coming on future demonstrations.

Sweeping it under the carpet...until we lift it up

Another gut wrenching look at how the IPCC, the body that you, as a citizen, are supposed to be allowed to report to, to complain about police and indecent procedures, tried to denounce Tomlinson's death as 'Natural Causes', here.

What you should be afraid of instead of terrorists

Original location here

Are you an American who worries about terrorism? Stop. If you want to worry about something, here's John Goekler's Counterpunch article on the statistically likely killers that you need to fear:

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, between 310,000 and 580,000 of us will commit suicide by cigarette this year. Another 260,000 to 470,000 will go in the ground due to poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. And some 85,000 of us will drink to our own departure.

After the person in the mirror, the next most dangerous individual we're ever likely to encounter is one in a white coat. Something like 200,000 of us will experience "cessation of life" due to medical errors - botched procedures, mis-prescribed drugs and "nosocomial infections". (The really nasty ones you get from treatment in a hospital or healthcare service unit.)

The next most dangerous encounter the average American is likely to have is with a co-worker with an infection. Or a doorknob, stair railing or restaurant utensil touched by someone with the crud. "Microbial Agents" (read bugs like flu and pneumonia) will send 75,000 of us to meet the Reaper this year.

If we live through those social encounters, the next greatest danger is "Toxic Agents" - asbestos in our ceiling, lead in our pipes, the stuff we spray on our lawns or pour down our clogged drains. Annual body count from these handy consumer products is around 55,000...

Imagine what the world could look like if we made a conscious choice to live out whatever time we have with courage, compassion, service and joy.

Terrorism is an act of the weak. But so is walking through the airport in our socks.


Wow, what a quote to finish on.

Links to do with Ian Tomlinson's death here

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2009/04/ian_tomlinson.asp

'This is exactly why photographing police should not be illegal...'

Video of police assault on Ian Tomlinson, who died at the London G20 protest

This is what it's coming to folks, dark, dark shit.

Police kettling: the shadow of death

Taken from here.


A great piece by Merrick on police tactics at demonstrations and the complicity of the media.

It seems clear that the police’s aim is to minimise the number of demonstrators. Having talked up a riot in advance, they discourage many people who are sympathetic to the cause from coming out of fear of injury. Then, on the day, by inciting a riot, kettling the crowd or other methods of physical abuse, they discourage people from coming to similar events in future.

Quote of the Day 10/4/09

'The Anglo-Saxons later adopted the practice (of branding) and vagabonds, gypsies and brawlers were branded with a large 'V' on the breast.' - Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands

Quote of the Day 9/4/09

'The term brand originates from the ancient Norse term brandr, meaning literally 'to burn' - Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands

Quote of the Day 8/4/09

'To early European slave-traders, a burnt mark on the skin legally dehumanised a person to mere livestock, owned and sold for arbitrary use and abuse' - Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands

Quote of the Day 7/4/09

'Very rarely will you come across a person without branding. In today's world it's practically impossible. However, a person with no discernable brands upon them would still project a message to me - non-conformer, hippy, alien from a distant planet...' - Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands
Q

Monday 6 April 2009

Everythinng's Amazing, Nobody's Happy

Quote of the Day 6/4/09

'For all the expectation built around celebrity, I was surprised how little effect meeting the likes of Robbie Williams had after the initial 'Wow-factor' '- Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands

Sunday 5 April 2009

Quote of the Day 5/4/09

'Total UK personal debt at the end of 2007 - £1.4 Trillion' - Neil Boorman Bonfire of the Brands

Saturday 4 April 2009

Report on G20 from Veganarchists

Communiqué from some veganarchists on the G20 riots and resistance:

As veganarchists, we show solidarity with fellow anarchists (green, red, purple, pink or otherwise), and all the radicals and militants who shunned pacifism for a productive day of direct action against the G20 in London.

The day of mass actions began with mass kettles. For the marches opposing climate chaos, borders and the economy; activists were beaten if attempting to leave and told of no reason for being held. These are standard police state tactics, using violence to protect corporate assets, whilst attempting to contain those expressing desire to revolt.

It could well of ended as it started; the people’s anger pacified and made ineffective against the human, white, male supremacists. You know, those bastard elites who rule our planet and oppress the population that inhabit it. Fortunately, this was not to be. The animal instinct known as self-defense was applied allowing for social war in London to become yet again recognized as an ongoing battle against the state and its capital. Thank fuck we didn’t take their shit any longer.

RBS was the first bank to fall into the hands of angry anarchists on the green march. Windows were smashed, walls were painted “class war”, “thieves”, “burn a banker”, “@”, amongst many other slogans. Furniture, computers, phones and other equipment were trashed and used as ammunition, smashing more windows, as cops plotted not knowing what to do. They must of thought we were joking when we said ‘Storm the Banks’ – as others climbed in painting walls and burning blinds. A petrol bomb was finally thrown in, but unfortunately failed to ignite.

Cops are common scum who live by authority, on the contrary we act independently as covert cells. This is why we will always win in these situations, and they will always loose.

Blocs continued to push, dismantle and dismember police pens, as we refused to act like domesticated creatures that become slaves to their masters. Many times cops were surrounded and paid the price for the violence they initiated. Injuries were sustained on both sides as we eventually got to the core of the city. It was then attacked by the masses.

Down at the exchange, HSBC was smashed and slogans were painted all around the area as we began to take back the streets. For hours the police lines were penetrated, breaking out to further areas of the city, as an anarchist flag waved high from a flagpole.

What went wrong then? We didn’t all continue to resist. As the evening approached, agitation, fear and anxiety became the illness that infected many of our number. Some dispersed as others continued to resist.

As many pens closed in despair settled on the streets. Countless white, middle class pacifists and their supporters released frustration and energy to the ground in front of the fascist police, creating a brief and temporary standoff. This was clearly regretted by many, as police batons continued to wave against protesters in other corners of the pen who refused to submit to violence.

So we continued to riot against the police, with another wave of dissent. Barriers were dismantled and thrown at cops, injuring some more fascist scum, with surges against the lines creating small gaps. A banker effigy was then burned from a traffic light, using a leg to set a cop on fire (apologies for no picture). As we nearly got out after increasing the offensive, the police did the same, which was taken by many by surprise. ‘Flighting’ became the norm as fighting disappeared from the fear and panic in the air, at the same time police eventually began releasing people one by one.

Unlike our fellow comrades kettled at the Bank of England, the majority of our number were merely ‘spot checked’ through a FIT parade as we were released back onto the streets, instead of stop, searched and harassed for our personal details by the Forward Intelligence Team.

This is an example of why we resist – because we are not just a number. We may not of entirely ‘broken the spell’ like in Seattle, but we got very close. If it weren’t for our mistakes - backing down - that bleak time when we failed to make plans, we would of taken back part of the city for much longer. In time, we will destroy every aspect of this brutal civilisation.

Despite what our oppressors spew out through the media, the majority of arrests were made on the 2nd, not the 1st, which took place at the G20 Convergence Center and RampArt. More activists would have found themselves in cages that night if it weren’t for the continued resistance when kettled under pressure from thugs with battons.

In memory of Ian Tomlinson who had a heart attack and died because police initially refused to help and release him from a kettle.

Full solidarity with all those arrested!
We are the fury that will continue this social war!

Original link

Quote of the Day

'Britain's personal debt is increasing by £1 billion every 4 minutes' - Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands.

Friday 3 April 2009

NEW Hazardous Pioneers VIDEO; Final Round

The last of the 'Hazardous Davis does Hong Kong' vids;

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day;

'86% of British people admit to buying clothes that they would never wear, a total cost of £7.3 billion a year!' - Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands

Thursday 2 April 2009

Quote of the day

Quote of the day;

'3/4 of the UK's consumer debt is from purchasing fashion and grooming products'- Neil Boorman, Bonfire of the Brands

G20 Meltdown Photos and Videos; from the net

Some of my favourites from yesterday's action;

Dope video from the guardian


http://www.youtube.com/v/gTRVVUE4qV4&hl=en&fs=1

Check this one at 1.04


http://www.youtube.com/v/a3aApIJnRLI&hl=en&fs=1
Police storming in.

BBC on the front lines:
http://www.youtube.com/v/1ERi35GYExs&hl=en&fs=1

Some photos;


'Fuck you piggy.'


SNOOZE YOU LOSE!




Dance Fatties


'Consequently I couldn't give a fuck about the Riots, because I am the Queen, and within these walls, I am safe'


Smash Itttt








'ittttitttt


The 'We are SHAFTING you' Handshake



Amen


This is my kind of woman.


SNOOZE YOU LOSE.






SMASH CAPITALISM



BlackBloc; United we stand.


Definitely not working.


Moneyshot.


SNOOZE YOU LOSE!


Go on son!