Tuesday, August 9, 2011

On the ground in Burning London



Violence spreads to Liverpool, Birmingham

Rioting broke out in the English cities of Liverpool and Birmingham as the worst violence in London in years threatened to spread to the rest of the country on Tuesday.

West Midlands Police confirmed they had made 87 arrests as youths ran amok in Birmingham centre overnight, smashing shop windows and looting merchandise.

The force also said that a police station in the central England city was on fire.
Meanwhile, Merseyside Police confirmed Tuesday they were dealing with unrest in the northwestern city of Liverpool with several cars set alight.

"We will not tolerate any violence on the streets of Liverpool and have taken swift and robust action in response," police spokesman Andy Ward said.

Riots have been ongoing in London since Saturday night after protests against the death of a man in a police shooting turned violent, but Monday saw an escalation in hostilities.
Fire engulfed many areas of the capital as police fought pitched battles with thousands of looters and gangs of youths in the third day of serious disorder.


London Riots Speak: UK Systemically Racist , Policing & Lack of Opportunity

London police said Monday that about 100 people had been arrested in a second night of rioting in London, condemning it as a "copycat criminal activity."

The violence, which broke out Saturday in the multi-ethnic northern district of Tottenham, spread to other parts of the capital on Sunday evening, with hundreds of youths looting, burning shops and attacking police officers.

Across the city, shops and businesses were targeted, as people, many of them teenagers, took advantage of a breakdown in law and order to loot.

Local media contained many eyewitness accounts of young people breaking into high street businesses and making off with goods.

An eyewitness reporting from the south London area of Brixton claimed that mobile phone shops had been especially targeted and that there was only a small police presence on the streets.
The weekend riots began when a peaceful protest led by relatives of 29-year-old Mark Duggan, who was shot dead on Thursday night by police in the Tottenham area of north London, turned violent.

Rioters attacked police, set two cars alight, burnt a double-decker bus and looted high street shops.

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Monday condemned the riots in London over the weekend, calling the rioting as "needless opportunistic theft and violence."

"It is completely unacceptable and the people who have suffered are those who have lost their businesses, shopkeepers who have lost their shops, families who have lost their homes and many people who felt very frightened in their own neighborhoods," Clegg said.

The government stood "side by side" with the victims in utterly condemning the rioting and looting, he said.

However, some have already started criticizing the government's own austerity measures, coupled with high unemployment and resentment of the police, for creating a "social division" which forced the police into conflict with communities.

"I am concerned that there is growing social dislocation in London and a threat that the police will be forced into escalating conflict with some London communities," former London mayor Ken Livingstone said on Sunday.

"We do not want to go back to the 1980s," he said, referring to a string of riots that swept across urban centers of Britain 30 years ago which affected largely West Indian communities in Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds as well as the Brixton area of London.

Lack of jobs and prospects against a backdrop of racism in the wider society and aggressive and sometimes racist policing are now recognized by the authorities and experts as the triggers for the 1981 riots.

The weekend's riots in Tottenham and north London also came after a winter which saw five major demonstrations in London.
Four of those five demonstrations were organized by university and school students angry at reforms to funding for their education which would see them pay substantially more money.
These demonstrations led to clashes with the police, not seen on British streets in a political context for 20 years.

A later demonstration in early spring, by trades unions against coalition government cuts in public spending in order to reduce the huge public-spending deficit, passed peacefully, but small breakaway groups, often of anarchists or extreme political groups, engaged in vandalism of shops and banks in London's West End shopping district.

Alexander Kazamias: A Greek Political Scientist in Britain Talks about the Egyptian Revolution, the ‘Movement of the Indignant’ and the Greek Left
"...Popular anger is also evident in the fact that for the first time in Greece’s 37-year-old democracy, former and current government ministers are physically attacked in the streets by ordinary citizens, including some, like Apostolos Kaklamanis, Costis Hatjidakis and Andeas Loverdos, who are among the least likely suspects of involvement in corruption. The same is also happening to leading trade unionists who are regarded as lackeys of the PASOK government or to journalists who write for the establishment press. The other day, Greek ΜPs were forced to leave Parliament late at night, through the back doors leading to the National Park, because they feared the angry demonstrators. It is clear from these and other incidents that the hoards of unemployed and underpaid young men and women consider most parliamentarians, trade union bosses and journalists as belonging to the same corrupt elite which brought Greece to its financial ruin..."

Anonymous - OpGood Morning! ♥ Καλημέρα! ♥ Guten Morgen!

Relations between humans go from bad to worse, we walk in the street alone, and between "strangers" we feel "strangers" ourselves... holding our head and eyes looking down!

We live in blocks of flats not greeting anyone no more, talking to no one any more ...

We fear even ourselves, our own shades... even giving a morning smile to our neighbours seams terrifying!

We are driven away each day even from ourselves and in result from the rest of our society.

We are afraid to say GOOD MORNING to "strangers" those who walks beside us at the same pavement, those who eat with in a restaurant, those who buying the same groceries with us...

Let's try to restore our human social relations in the point from where they began saying a simple "Good Morning"! Overcoming that "virtual" distance that the system has created for us and wants to have between us!

If we don't restore the "broken web" between us how are we going to have "revolution"? Can we change the world alone?

Our goal here is that we must restore the confidence in between us; to "heal" the wounds of communication in between us that each day bleeds.

So, Good Morning to you all!


To somebody this idea likely appears ridiculous but we believe in human relations because this will bring the change that all we want!
Perhaps saying just "good morning" makes the start...

Date: Every Day!

Is Revolution Back on the Agenda?
Every attempt to go beyond capitalism has ended in failure. But are capitalism's present problems putting anti-capitalist revolution back on the agenda?
To answer this question, this article looks at past revolutions, with emphasis on aspects rarely considered by the left. These include humanity's origins, gender and military history and the revolutionary transcendence of work and democracy.

When youth culture stood up to tyranny
Can hip-hop help modernize the Middle East? A veteran observer suggests music and comedy shaped the Arab Spring

The Spanish Revolution continues

Thousands of Spanish "indignados" marched in Madrid on Sunday July 24, 2011. The peaceful march began near the Atocha station at 6 p.m.and ended in Puerta del Sol square at 9 pm.
Protesters have gathered in Madrid after spending a month marching from across the country to the capital in protest at the government's handling of the economic crisis, struggling for a real democracy and asking social justice.
Seven columns of marchers converged on the city late Saturday and met at the square where thousands camped out for three weeks in May.

Madrid: Protests Continue at Puerta del Sol [Hassan Ghani, PressTV]

Back in Sol Square, Spain's 15th of May movement seems to have won the fight for the right to protest in the heart of Madrid.

US gave fake 'moon rock' to Dutch museum
A treasured piece of moon rock showcased in a key Amsterdam museum is nothing but petrified wood, museum authorities said of a gift made to a former Dutch prime minister by a US envoy.

8 Reasons Young Americans Don’t Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance
The ruling elite has created social institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance.

Second night of Israeli strikes on Gaza after rocket fire
Israel has carried out a second night of air strikes against targets in the Gaza Strip.

Priest says Hell is an invention of the church to control people with fear

John Shelby Spong

Yippie-Dee-Doo-Dah, Part 3: When The Yippies Invaded Disneyland

WAR IS A RACKET!

"I was a Racketeer for Capitalism. I suspected I was part of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service." Smedley Butler

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC 1881 - 1940

Double recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force--the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was part of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service." Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940)

THE SMEDLEY BUTLER SOCIETY
dedicated to peace------- anti-war--------- anti-intervention---------pro-Constitution
http://warisaracket.org

The Light of the World,Movie(Full Length)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWO_peGaGvg

The Revolution, The Anti War movement, and the harsh reality of wars


Life In A Day

http://tiny.cc/ff9l3

Apollo 13 commander: 'In space you need faith in fellow man'

James Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 mission which failed to land on the moon because of an explosion, shared his recollections with RT and explained why faith matters on a space mission.

The mission, which was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 11, 1970, was however aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command Module depended. It happened at a distance of 321,860 kilometers (199,990 miles) from Earth and more than halfway to the moon. The explosion caused limited power, a loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water and the need to jerry-rig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew landed safely on Earth on April 17.

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