Saturday, 18 April 2009

MAKE GREED HISTORY!

Finally the mainstream media show a little of the violent police attack on peaceful demonstrators at the Climate Camp during the G2o. It's only taken them two and a half weeks.

Maybe our society can now focus on the fact that this was organised police violence, not a few bad apples. In all of the incidents we have seen, no officer was prevented from being violent or chastised by their colleagues. They clearly thought they were acting with impunity and obviously believed they were following orders. Thank goodness there were no other deaths.

http://tinyurl.com/ccspu2

Also see this story about indiscriminate violent attacks on the media. This particular journalist thinks the purpose of the attacks on demonstrators is to discourage them from protesting:

http://tinyurl.com/ch6dtx


Here is a wonderful clip of the courageous and dignified parents who staged a sit-in leaving the schools at Wyndford. The fight is not over:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgk0JHeiAzQ

And here is a lovely account of the sit-in from last week's Sunday Herald.

http://tinyurl.com/ckqwe5

Wednesday, 15 April 2009

The Fight Goes On!

See this article headlined "Disbelief as schools fight ends in defeat": http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2502124.0.0.php

But in this report earlier in the Herald, the parents and communities are determined to fight on: http://tinyurl.com/cgsnw6

Labour should hang their heads in shame, for taking resources away from deprived communities. The birth rate has gone up, so we need to keep schools open, not close them. These children have done nothing wrong, but they are being made to pay for the excesses of obscenely wealthy high financiers - the sort of people New Labour throw billions and billlions of pounds of our money at.

You can protest tomorrow at the SECC in Glasgow at 11am. Gordon Brown will be there.

Saturday, 11 April 2009

NEW LABOUR MEDIA ATTACK GLASGOW SCHOOL CAMPAIGNERS

Below is some of the most breathtakingly sick media coverage I have seen in a long time.

It seeks to stigmatise the ordinary people working hard in the campaign to keep Glasgow schools open, by making them out to be dupes who are being used by drug dealers. And to not so subtly brand and stigmatise the campaigners by associating them and their communities with the scourge of drugs.

It is heartbreaking that people and communities who have had it drummed into them for decades that they don't matter, have finally got up off their knees to fight for something they care about and this is how they are branded. Labour who have betrayed the poor in Glasgow for generations are the ones who have to answer for the widespread drug problems. The fact that drug addiction is such a big problem in Glasgow makes it all the more despicable that New Labour plans to close schools that are a resource for the communities.

But let's not get it out of perspective - drug problems still cost only a fraction of what perfectly legal alcohol use costs us. The harm from all substances is concentrated in the poorest areas, where the people need extra resources, not robbed of their schools by New Labour who are giving public money away to property developers in Gasgow.

I wasn't planning to buy the Daily Record just now anyway, because of the despicable treatment of workers who are currently in dispute and who are being threatened and thrown on the scrap heap by a profitable company. But I don't know when I will feel like buying the Daily Record again, after this.

The Save our Schools campaigners might want to consider a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, on the grounds that there was insufficient balance in the story and it stigmatised a whole community. This story was clearly politically motivated, as the Daily Record is a New Labour paper and the powerful New Labour administration in Glasgow are currently being kicked up and down the park by this popular campaign.

How difficult would it have been to get a quote from a parent (perhaps anonymously) saying something along the lines of: "We completely condemn drug dealing that blights the lives of so many young people. We want a decent future for our kids and that is why we are fighting these school closures which we are opposed to because of x, y, z....."

I have total respect for the Save our Schools campaigners. The video of these couragous women (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhGGqgGE3R0 ) reminded me of learning about the Glasgow women who organised Rent Strikes in the early 20th century. I hope they take some comfort from the fact that when the media come after you like this, it usually means your actions are having an impact. All that good coverage the campaigners have achieved elsewhere in the media obviously has New Labour rattled.

FROM THE SCOTTISH DAILY RECORD:
Exclusive: Anger as notorious crime family hijack school closure campaign as cover to sell heroin
Apr 10 2009 Chris Musson
A CRIME clan have hijacked a campaign against school closures as cover to sell heroin.
The notorious Fox family have put up a poster outside their drug-den home saying: "Save Our School".
They have even started a petition protesting against planned primary and nursery closures in Glasgow.
But their interest in the campaign is simply an excuse for the stream of addicts turning up at their door.
A neighbour said: "It's an absolute joke. They are putting word about to go to the house and ask to sign the petition.
"It's so obvious what's happening but they seem to be getting away with it.
"They think the poster and petition gives them the perfect excuse for people coming and going all the time.
"But the idea that these rats care enough about their community to campaign against school closures is actually offensive.
"They have caused misery on this scheme for years and it beggars belief this latest trick is allowed to go on."
The Fox family have been dealing drugs in Calton, in Glasgow's east end, since the 1980s. They were unmasked by a Record investigation.
Yesterday, we watched addicts come and go while the Foxes flew the flag for the school closure protest.
The clan have a fearsome reputation for violence and are known for blatant drugdealing and threats to locals.
Their house on Millroad Street is home to Billy Fox, 32, and his brother John, 42.
John and brother Andrew, 39 - known as Sanny - were freed from prison on March 12 after serving three months each for dealing cocaine.
They have launched themselves straight back into the family business and backed Billy's plot to use the school closures campaign as cover.
The poster on the house gates says: "Save our School" and "20's plenty in a class".
It refers to Calton's St James's primary and nearby Queen Mary Street nursery.
Glasgow City Council plan to shut the schools and send pupils elsewhere.
Law-abiding locals are protesting against the closures and they say the small class sizes - currently 18 at St James's - benefit pupils.
Campaigners say as a last resort, the schools could be housed in the same building - the "Let 2 Become 1" reference in the Foxes' poster.
Another local said: "They think this campaign gives the house some sort of immunity.
"They're actually laughing about it, thinking how clever they've been.
"Parents at the school are disgusted and are ashamed that they've got a poster up. It doesn't help the cause." Billy and John took over the house after crime family head Ronnie, 72, died in 2007.

(ALSO THIS EDITORIAL:)

Get them out
Apr 10 2009
RecordView
The notorious Fox clan have been exposed numerous times by this newspaper for their drug-dealing and criminal lifestyles.
They are scum of the lowest order.
But even they have surpassed themselves with their latest scam to drum up customers for their dope pushing operation.
They're pretending to front a campaign to save their local school and have put up a poster calling on residents to sign a petition.
The reality is this lot don't care a jot about the school. It's just a front to cover the fact that the steady flow of punters to the house are there to buy tenner bags of heroin and the other drugs that the Foxes sell to hopeless addicts.
This violent crime clan have brought nothing but misery and degradation to the Calton area of Glasgow, where they rule by fear.
Locals are terrified and generations have been lured into drugs by their presence.
They've been kicked out the area before, thanks to ASBOs. But they've continued to control the area through their extended family and associates.
It's long overdue the police got a special hit squad together, battered down their doors, rounded up the lot of them and cleared them and their allies from the area once and for all.

Thursday, 9 April 2009

Resistance Everywhere!

It's good to see ordinary people fight back against the greedy system that blights our lives. From peaceful young protesters shaming thuggish police at the Climate Camp in London, to the Visteon workers who have occupied their factories and further afield, to the Strasbourg protests against war-mongering.

Here is a particularly heart-warming video of ordinary people empowering themselves to resist attacks on their communities. These mothers have given up their Easter holidays to take part in an occupation to save primary schools and nursery schools all over Glasgow from an ill-conceived closure plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhGGqgGE3R0

Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Maybe he had an Exceptionally Thin Skull.......

And the Guardian needn't bother coming over all radical and pro-human rights now. They were very happy to print police lies and slanders about protesters in the first instance.

Is there any footage of protestors impeding medics? Not yet? Strange that.

So sorry for the suffering of Ian Tomlinson and his loved ones. And sorry I called him a protester when he wasn't.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/07/video-g20-police-assault

What are we to make of the Met's original assertions that officers had no contact with Ian Tomlinson until after he collapsed? Does that mean that no officer challenged the one who assaulted Tomlinson when he had his back to them, walking away from them, presenting no threat? Does it mean that no officer spoke up afterwards about what happened?

And what of the police post mortem? No bruises worth mentioning? Or not worth mentioning until after the G20 media circus has left town?

Thursday, 2 April 2009

More on the G20 Protests

I suggest you check out Indymedia UK, Harpy Marx (http://harpymarx.wordpress.com/author/harpymarx/), Infantile & Disorderly (http://www.infantile-and-disorderly.blogspot.com/) and Lenin's Tomb (http://leninology.blogspot.com/), if you haven't already.

This video from Indymedia is probably the best piece of reporting from the G20. Gordon Brown etc keep using phrases like "we will do whatever is necessary." Now we can be sure what they mean by that.

http://london.indymedia.org.uk/videos/993

I don't believe the media or the police about the death of the protester. If he was illegally detained by the police in a crowded space for seven hours, surely we should wait for the results of a post mortem, to see if he did in fact die of natural causes. I certainly don't believe protesters hampered rescue or resuscitation efforts. Remember Harry Stanley and John Charles de Menezes. (I don't mean that they were shot. I mean the lies the police told and how happy the media were to circulate those lies.)

Well done to all the protesters. You have kept the spotlight on the impact this crisis of capitalism is having on ordinary people.

Wednesday, 1 April 2009

London G20 Protests

I strongly suggest you check out the Socialist Unity blog for eye witness accounts of the demonstrations and the conduct of the police: http://www.socialistunity.com/

This is courtesy of Al Jazeera.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adi2i8qyerU

(Also, Yahoo had reports that bankers were waving tenners at the protesters.)

It's a bit much when our supposed democratic right to protest becomes the privilege of being detained en masse, in an enclosed space, then subjected to police aggression. These protesters will be hungry and tired, etc. Let them go. And well done on them for upstaging the G20 gravy train coverage.

Excuse me if I cannot get excited about the cost of a few broken RBS windows, compared to the cost of the massive economic vandalism wrought by the ruling class.

I can't get excited about Channel 4 News either. The best part of an hour to watch the rich squabbling amongst themselves about the virtues of more bailouts to the rich,or some limited banking regulation. And why was John Snow going on about how beautiful the Russian first lady is? Is that what counts for balanced reporting these days, since they also mentioned Michelle Obama's sequins?

Still, I suppose we should be grateful for the 30 seconds or so devoted to the voices of ordinary people at the London demos, and on rooftops defending their jobs at Visteon. Well done to all of them.