If you want to free the weed clap your hands.. CLAP CLAP.
Yesterday saw the SSY organised Legalise Cannabis – End the War on Drugs demo take to the streets of the west end of Glasgow, with between 300-350 mostly young people turning out for the biggest march of its kind Scotland has seen for a number of years.
The demo left University Avenue in the west end of the city at around 1pm with a small police escort, before marching via Byres Road and Dumbarton Road to Kelvingrove Park. Indeed, the marchers then proceeded to er, legalise cannabis, with the police adopting a very welcome non-interference approach to anyone lighting up in the park!
Across the world, the tide is beginning to turn against blanket drugs prohibition. An ever increasing number of countries are opting to decriminalise possession and start treating drugs as a social and health issue, rather than a criminal one, with harm reduction at the fore. This couldn’t be further from the truth in the UK, however. None of the big four parties are willing to go anywhere near a policy of relaxing our backwards drugs laws – displayed all too recently in the rush to ban mephedrone, or m-cat, flying against the advice of top scientists and even the government’s own drugs advisory board, several of whom resigned in protest, but happily going along with the agenda of right-wing tabloids.
This is why we felt it especially important to take the message to the streets again this summer that there is a real alternative to the madness of drugs prohibition – to legalise, regulate and control drug use, rather than pushing the whole industry underground and into the arms global crime syndicates.
Saturday’s demo got a great reception from passers-by – afternoon shoppers on Byres Road applauded the march as it passed, while groups of young people charged over the street to join it as it went by. The fact is, most people know that cannabis is not a dangerous drug, and if the reception SSY have got on the streets over the past few weeks is anything to by, most people know it should legalised too.
For as long as the UK government continues on their ridiculous and, ultimately, flawed approach of criminalising young people who smoke the occasional joint, forcing heroin addicts into a life of crime and prostitution, and wasting vast amounts of police time and resources on a pointless “war on drugs” that fuels conflict across the world, SSY will continue to campaign for sweeping reform to the drugs laws. See youse all next year.
M-CAT NOT FAT CATS! The march sets off from Uni Avenue
When I say LEGALISE, you say.. CANNABIS!
The PA system that totally worked the whole time and that there was absolutely no problems with. Uhuh
Yesterday saw the biannual Glasgow LGBT Pride march in the city.
Held in cities all over the world every summer, Pride marches are traditionally an assertion of LGBT rights and a celebration of LGBT culture. The marches themselves have their origins as annual commemorations of the Stonewall Riots, a series of demonstrations against police oppression of the LGBT community in New York, in 1969. However, over the past two decades, the marches have, from their radical origins, been gradually become more and more commercial, with corporate sponsorship and more emphasis on cheap drinks offers and goody bags than remembering the radical history of the LGBT rights movement.
In Glasgow yesterday, SSY took our ‘Pride not Profit’ message to the Pride demonstration, as well as our witty Hate Mail spoof newspaper, which lambastes Tory homophobia and right-wing tabloid bigotry, which is sadly still all too prevalent.
By Andrew McPake, additional writing by me, blogging fae Athens on today’s demonstrations protesting the Greek parliament’s vote to bring in destructive “austerity measures” in the wake of Greece’s near-financial collapse.
PAME demonstration of around 10,000 in central Athens
Athens is a city that is acquiring a reputation for itself. When a taxi driver asked where we were headed with our suitcases, our response prompted him to ask “Athens? Will you no get caught up in they riots out there?”. It would seem that the combination of constant reporting of Greece as overtaken by bomb-strewn madness and the main Scottish reference point when it comes to riots – the Poll Tax Riots – has given people a distorted view of what’s really going on here. The fact is, the IMF are being sold Greece under the table by the ‘Socialist’ government (Read: Greek version of the Labour Party), and their conditions for giving Greece money to bail out its failed banks is that the Greek government goes about systematically destroying any vestiges of a welfare state. It’s understandable why the people are angry. But they are expressing it in a way that is altogether more concise and class conscious than any pictures of anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails at riot police while stray dogs look on cooly can convey.
What we attended today was not a Poll Tax riot. No banks were burnt down, no statues were defaced. What we attended was an eye opening experience that allowed us to see two things:
The diversity and competence of the Left in Greece
The sheer extent of the unbalanced and jaundiced way in which the international press have reported this situation.
Here at Leftfield, we try very hard to see the funny side of many things. We had a good chortle at the fact that noted racist shit bag Eugene Terreblanche had gone to the big Bantustan in the sky, for example. We also made light of the fact that Nigel Farage, the leader of the barely concealed far right party UKIP, had been in a comedy plane crash (and survived!)
So we’re no strangers to sailing close to the comedy wind. Something even we think is outside of the realm of potentially funny things is last week’s brutal assault on a ship full of charity workers by Israeli naval commandos that left at least 9 dead. To try and justify the unjustifiable, the Israeli propaganda machine has tried to create all kinds of lies about these humanitarians, who aimed to bring aid to the people of Gaza suffering in the world’s biggest prison camp, under Israeli siege.
The Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post doesn’t agree, apparently. Caroline Glick has created something which is up there as a contender for most offensive thing on youtube (and we all know that’s a stiff competition.) Her video, ‘We Con the World,’ mocks the dead murdered by Israeli forces.
In the past, Glick has claimed in articles that there is a “totalitarian jihadist ideology which is ascendant throughout the Islamic world.” She’s advocated the unilateral bombing of Iran by Israel. Among the lyrics of the song in this video are “Itbach el Yahud!” (slaughter the Jews!) It also claims that children in Gaza lack “cheese and missiles.” This at a time when 65% of babies in Gaza suffer from anemia, according to the UN, as a result of the Israeli blockade.
The video is supported and endorsed by the Center for Security Policy and Christians United for Israel. Glick is a former Assistant foreign Policy adviser to far right Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. Maybe that’s why the PM’s press office “inadvertently” circulated the video to journalists on Friday night. On her blog she says:
“We think this is an important Israeli contribution to the discussion of recent events and we hope you distribute it far and wide.”
Well yes Caroline, we intend to do just that, in order to expose you as an unfunny, unpleasant, propaganda mongering racist knobhead. Here’s the offending video:
At times like this though, it’s really important to remember that not all Israelis are bastards. Many of them are extremely unhappy about the actions of their far right government, and have come out on to the streets to say so. On Saturday night over 6000 Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest the raid on the aid ship. Among their banners were slogans like “The government is drowning us all,” “We must stride for peace,” and “A right wing government = clear and immediate danger to state security.” Although right wingers did try to attack the demo, hurling abuse and a smoke grenade, they were greatly outnumbered by the left wing protesters.
Below is footage shot by the Latin American TV network TeleSur, (which was established with the help of the revolutionary government of Venezuela to bring news that wasn’t just western propaganda to the Spanish speaking world.)
At 4am this morning, armed commandos from the Israeli army (IDF) stormed a convoy of boats owned by the Viva Palestina aid organisation, killing at least 19 and injuring at least 50. The boats were in international waters, 90 miles away from the intended destination of Gaza, and contained activists that hoped to deliver aid to desperate Palestinians, forced out of their homes and into dire situations by the aggressive Israeli state. Attacking boats in international waters is not within the legal power of the IDF, and as a result has drawn criticism from even those who would normally defend Israel’s right to murder on solid land, although of course anyone should know better than to expect unbiased reporting from major news sources where Israel is concerned.
Today (Monday 31st) there will be several demonstrations against Israeli state terrorism in towns and cities all over Scotland. So far demonstrations at 5pm have been announced in:
Edinburgh - Assemble 5pm at the Foot of the Mound, Princes Street (07958002591)
Glasgow - Assemble 5pm at George Square (07870701011)
Dundee - Assemble 5pm at City Square (07941751452)
Aberdeen - Assemble 5pm at St Nicholas Square (07980253337)
Moffat - Assemble 5pm at 2 Holm Street (07786508715)
Inverness - Assemble 5pm at the Townhouse (07881527062)
Banff - Assemble 5pm at Low Street, Council Buildings
Stirling - Assemble 5pm at Foot of King Street
If you condemn the murder of peaceful activists trying to deliver aid into Gaza, please take some time to come along and show our government that we don’t support Israel’s aggressive actions and continued oppression of Palestinian people.
You can keep up with new protests in other towns being announced here. There will also be a national demonstration this Saturday, 5th June, in Edinburgh at 2pm -- again assembling at the foot of the Mound.
Apparently under the NATO charter the attack on a NATO flagged ship in international waters puts all of NATO in a state of war with Israel. Somehow we doubt this will result in severe repercussions for Israel, who have the support of the most powerful Western governments, but we’ll be watching intently to see how many people now begin to realise that Israel officially went ‘too far’ quite a long time ago. Viva Palestina!
Yesterday tens of thousands of Greeks were again in the streets in protest at the IMF/EU imposed package of attacks on the working class.
Around 40,000 people demonstrated in Athens as part of another general strike, with thousands more in cities around Greece.
The strike was timed to coincide with the debate in parliament over changes to pensions. These would force people to work over 40 years of their lives, increasing the retirement age for women to 65 and for both men and women to an as yet undetermined level from 2020. At the same time, the amount of money received by pensioners will be reduced. Also, currently there is a list of dangerous and difficult jobs from which workers have certain rights to retire early – this list is to be abolished.
Members of the All Militant Workers’ Front (PAME) occupied the Ministry of Labour in protest, hanging a banner from the window read “Reject the Measures.” The building was engulfed by a river of strikers during the day.
Although the strike was strong and the mood is still militant, a lot of damage was done by the deaths of two bank workers in a fire during strikes two weeks ago. As we reported at the time, despite the fact these workers were locked in their work to act as a human shield against demonstrators anger by their scumbag boss, the government has exploited the incident massively to paint strikers as violent terrorists. Another issue the government has shouted about is the impact of the strikes on the Greek tourist industry, while at the same time they take away from Greek workers the “luxury” of holiday time or the ability to afford one.
Police repression was heavy yesterday. Hundreds of people were detained in order to stop them from joining the marches. A group of pensioners trying to join were violently beaten by riot cops. There are reports that members of the Greek anti-capitalist party SYRIZA were arrested en masse. A group of students were arrested as they left the Polytechnic School. Police once again invaded the Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia, home to many socialists and anarchists, and occupied the streets in order to stop residents from being able to demonstrate.
The river of red shows Communist demonstrators last Saturday, something the Greek media thought wasn't newsworthy
The media has also imposed a virtual blackout on much of what’s going on. Last Saturday the Greek Communist Party (KKE) held a huge march through Athens that received zero coverage. And again yesterday, much of what happened was not reported.
But despite the repression, the government propaganda and media silence, it’s clear that the Greeks are still not going to just sit back and accept their rights being taken away. As one banner on the march put it: “These measures take us back 150 years.” The Greek working class is fighting not just for themselves but for us too, as we prepare on Monday to face the first of many rounds of cuts by the ConDem government, and we need to work out ways of linking our joint struggles across borders.
Protest camps in the Thai capital Bangkok are under a full scale siege by the army, as the unelected government has declared that the pro-democracy demonstrators must disperse today or face the cutting off of food and water supplies.
As Leftfield has extensively reported, there’s been a standoff on the streets between the forces of the Thai government and the National Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, known as the Red Shirts for the colour they wear, since they established their camps on March 14th. The Red Shirts argue that the current government is illegitimate, having come to power on the back of a military coup. The coup displaced a government which, although far from perfect, had won the support of the poor by measures of wealth redistribution and establishing Thailand’s first ever system of national healthcare.
The aim of the protests was to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva (who was in the same year at Eton as Boris Johnson, and the year above David Cameron) to resign. They demand immediate new elections, an end to government censorship of opposition TV stations and websites, and the government officials responsible for the deaths of protesters in violent crackdowns to be brought to justice.
It appeared the situation had been resolved last week when the PM made his first attempt at a compromise: to hold early elections in November. The Red Shirts responded positively to this offer, stating they were happy to enter negotiations with the government. However, wisely they opted not to trust the government completely. They demanded the government stop blocking their sites and allow their TV station to return to the air. Crucially they also demanded that a firm date for the dissolution of parliament was set by the electoral commission, rather than a vague promise by the PM, which he could easily go back on once the protesters had dispersed (a prediction which has proved prescient since). They also demanded that the deputy PM, Suthep Thaugsuban, should give himself up for trial for the deaths of protesters on the streets, something the government could not stomach.
The government’s agenda was clearly about clearing the protesters, who were overwhelmingly the urban and rural poor, off the streets of Bangkok’s shopping district, and getting business back to usual. When they realised that they had not been able to buy off the Thai workers, they went ballistic, proving the government was never serious about its proposed plan for resolving the situation.
Thai PM, and schoolmate of David Cameron and Boris Johnson, Abhisit Vejjajiva
Abhisit has now announced that he has cancelled his offer, and has set a deadline for today for the Red Shirts to disperse. Last week it looked as if he had skillfully managed to defuse the opposition to his rule, and with it the revolutionary potential represented by thousands of poor people permanently occupying the streets. Now it looks like he has thrown that victory away, and the situation is being pushed towards breaking point.
The army has begun to surround the protest camps with troops and razor wire. They have vowed to begin cutting off supplies of food, water and electricity.
“This is a full-scale measure to limit the freedom of protesters and to close down the area 100%, starting at midnight,” said Colonel Sansern Kaewkamnerd.
One of the Red Shirt leaders, Weng Tojirakarn, responded: “The prime minister must not threaten us and must not disperse us. If he wants more deaths, so be it. I don’t.”
Leftfield will bring you updates on the situation as we get them.
Update: It’s being reported that the army have put off the plan to cut off food and water. The camps are in the middle of the Thai shopping district, also home to several luxury hotels. Apparently, the government hadn’t considered that turning off the water to this area would affect some of their own supporters in the bourgeois classes. D’oh!
“On cutting off water supplies and power, we decided that the protesters will be less affected than residents, so we have postponed it for now,” said Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd.
Update, Thurs 13th: The government is reported to be moving armoured personnel carriers and snipers with live ammunition into position around the protest camp.
Red Shirt spokesman Nattawut Saikua, told reporters that “We have made a decision to hold our ground here to call for justice for our people. We are going to stay here no matter what happens.”
Bonus: This piece by Giles ji Ungpakorn, a Thai socialist living in exile since being charged with criticising the monarchy, outlines what the Red Shirt movement should do next. Although it was written before the compromise position began to unravel, its suggestions are still good ones.
A disenfanchised voter pulls a face of rage. In the background, Bill Oddie agrees.
In all the confusion about who had won, something that is easily forgotten was that one of the biggest stories of last Thursday’s election was the hundreds of people turned away from busy polling stations, unable to excercise their right to vote.
You might remember from the live coverage we gave in our liveblog that a constant theme that kept emerging throughout the night was the anger, and direct action, taken by people across the UK. We’ve tried to round up some examples of just what people did to protest the election chaos.
For the past couple of days Leftfield has been a bit distracted by the minor matter of whether the hated Tories are going to form an unelected government over Scotland. One of the consequences is we haven’t been able to bring you updates about what’s been going down in Greece since Wednesday’s general strike.
Just to recap: Greece is being forced by the IMF and EU to undergo the harshest programme of cuts, job losses, tax rises and general shitness imaginable. This is so the Greek government can receive a package of loans from the other European countries, in order to continue paying its debts to foreign and Greek banks.
On Thursday, despite a solid general strike and massive anger on the streets, the Greek parliament voted through the cuts package, by 172 to 121.
The so-called “Socialist” government (in fact a bunch of sellout traitors, comparable to New Labour) expelled 3 of their own MPs for voting against the measure. It was passed with the support of the far right.
Meanwhile, outside, 30,000 ordinary Greeks rallied to show their rage at the actions of the government, chanting “They declared war, now fight back!” The demo was the victim of a totally unprovoked assault by riot cops, as you can see in some of the footage below (again, the bangs you can hear are stun grenades fired by the cops):
The cops over recent days have been fulfilling their role as the armed force that enforces state policy. They’ve gone on the rampage in Exarcheia, an Athens neighbourhood that’s inhabited by loads of young socialists and anarchists. The area houses ‘The Haunt of the Migrants’, a social centre used by immigrants rights groups, Left wingers, LGBT and feminist groups, as well as for free Greek language classes for migrants. On Wednesday cops smashed their way in and attacked people inside chanting “Tonight we’ll fuck you.” Police also attacked an anarchist squat, arresting 70 people and using live ammunition and grenades. And in the video below, you can see cops smashing a popular cafe in Exarcheia. At the end of the footage the following dialogue takes place:
[riot police man] Erase it now, right now. Why are you filming? Who gave you permission?
[camera person] Why?
[riot police man] Because I fucking say so.
Following Thursday’s votes unions have put their members on alert for another general strike. On Monday the Greek government is meeting to finalise plans for cutting pensions, making survival for older viewers difficult. The next general strike will probably be on the day when these proposals are brought to be voted in parliament.
The All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME in Greek), an alliance of trade unionists and activists, and one of the most radical groups of unions, has called for a massive rally of Greeks on May 15th. In a statement they said:
“The only solution now is the escalation of the class struggle of workers, self-employed poor farmers, women and young people for the rupture and the overthrow of monopolies’ policy and power.”
“The only guarantee for democracy is the people, organised around a programme of struggle with a specific direction, and endurance in that struggle for the change of class power.”
If only he had a taser I'm sure this incident would have been better handled
SSY today condemned the growing burden that interfering in politics is having on police officers.
This follows the latest attempt of a top cop to influence government policy. Les Gray is the Chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, and used the organisation’s annual conference as an opportunity to call for a crackdown on the right to protest, “officer discretion” in cases of domestic abuse, and for cops to be issued with tasers.
SSY think it’s ridiculous Les was stuck behind a podium trying to influence government policy, when crimes are being committed on the streets. If elected, an SSY Prime Minister would pledge to put bobbies on the beat, and leave defending democracy to those who know what they’re doing.
The most ill judged of Les’ comments were on the right to march and protest. As Leftfield has reported before, the right to protest is under severe attack throughout the UK. For several years now governments have used the fear of terrorism as a cover to bring in laws that restrict the right of people to express dissent. It’s now harder than ever to get official permission to protest. On a local level, this has been played out by the pledge of Glasgow City Council to cut the number of marches in the city centre by 90%, meaning groups like teachers and other public sector workers have been unable to take to their own streets to protest cuts.
Les called for this undemocratic situation to get WORSE. Speaking to the Herald he exposed the real agenda of cops working with anti-democratic governments in both London and Edinburgh:
“We need to drastically reduce the number. There is no point in doing half a job. It needs to be reduced to single figures so the bigger organisations would have fewer than 10 a year and others would have even less.”
Referring to the cost of policing protests and marches, he invoked the mythical “hard working tax paying law abiding majority who don’t want to see their hard earned tax money being spent in this way” of the Daily Mail. He left out the bit he was thinking about how anyone that wants to oppose government policy are workshy, dolescum hippie bastards.
He did at least crack one joke though, claiming “marchers only have three months on their calendars, namely, January, February, March, March, March, March and March” [dadum tish, thankyou, thankyou. But seriously folks. . .]
Of course many of the marches that take place in Glasgow and across Scotland are not political protests that SSY would support, but Orange Marches. Many who are genuinely offended by the politics of Orange Marches and some of the behaviour that goes on when their taking place might think restricting their number wouldn’t be that much of a shame. But in his actual speech Les had an interesting proposal to make on how to make sure marchers are still able to take to the street:
“We need to see a significant reduction in such events and if the marchers are so hell bent on marching, let them pay for it in the same way as football clubs and others do.”
If this plan was implemented there’s little doubt who would be hit hardest. As permanent organisations dedicated to marching, Orange Lodges almost certainly would be able to raise enough money to be able to keep a fair few marches on the streets. However, groups of ordinary people trying to protest cuts, or those who have little experience running political organisations, or indeed campaigning groups operating on a shoestring budget, would be the ones hit hardest. It’s a measure that would be blatant class discrimination, preventing people on lower incomes from having the right to protest on their own streets.
One of the ways that Les would like to see the money saved from less policing of protests is on high tech weapons. In one of the most clearly political of his interventions, he directly attacked those who have raised concerns about police using the “less lethal” electroshock weapons, Tasers.
“I take great exception to some of the ill-informed comments made by Amnesty International and others. I invite them to join us on the streets of Scotland and see for themselves what it’s like to deal with drug and or drink fuelled violent individuals armed with firearms, swords, axes, baseball bats, knives or other deadly weapons. Perhaps they could show us how to disarm such individuals without the necessary equipment. Minister, I don’t think Amnesty International will be reporting for duty anytime soon. We need to have the right equipment to do the job and we are convinced that includes Taser.”
Again, there’s clearly a hidden subtext here: Amnesty and people who don’t want tasers are all bleeding hearts who have no idea what it’s really like on the streets. His comments of course ignore the fact that many of those of us who are extremely worried about cops being issued with potentially deadly electroshock weapons do themselves live in these same communities, and are well aware of the dangers of violence that are out there. However, living in a poorer urban area also gives you a big insight into what the causes of the violence are (alienation caused by poverty, people who don’t receive proper support for drugs, alcohol and mental health problems, lack of community facilities, hopelessness to name but a few), and how little is done by the state to tackle these problems. Getting to the root of why people end up in situations where they behave violently would be a better use of public money than equipping cops with a nasty new weapon.
However, not all forms of violence are of the same concern to Les. In his speech, he also spoke about the “bureaucratic nightmare around domestic abuse.” He said:
“There is no such thing as a standard case of domestic abuse. Each case will have its unique features and deserves to be dealt with uniquely. We need to simplify how we deal with domestic abuse. We need to reintroduce officer discretion and do away with the pointless bureaucratic quagmire that has developed recently. Let us deal with each case in its own right and take the appropriate course of action if and when required.”
Officer Discretion
Nobody is claiming the way the police deal with domestic abuse is perfect, but there is a reason that their procedures have been forced to change in recent years. That reason is that campaign groups and women’s support organisations have worked for years to expose the abysmal record of the criminal justice system in protecting people abused in their relationships and holding abusers to account for their behaviour. What Les is saying is that he wants cops to have the right to ignore complaints if they think that’s appropriate.
Now you might think that cops are the best placed to decide if someone is really being abused or not. But the fact is cops are just as much a product of our sexist, patriarchal society as anybody else. Do we really want to go back to the days when a police officer has the right to decide whether an abuse allegation should just be swept under the carpet?
Domestic abuse is a problem that is at virtually epidemic levels; in his speech Les said that police in Scotland investigated 55, 000 incidents last year. In the face of this, the solution is not to look away and pretend that some of it isn’t happening. Les described policing domestic abuse as “an absolute nightmare”. Perhaps he ought to think about what a nightmare it would be to have your abuse not dealt with properly at an officer’s “discretion.”
The big theme running throughout Les’ speech was that the police are, like all other areas of the state, having to face up to the massive cuts the next government is going to impose on public services to pay for the bail out of banks. While the police, as the frontline forces of the state, are likely to be slightly more protected than other public services, they’re going to be under pressure to cut costs.
Les’ solution? Get the savings from restricting people’s democratic rights and reducing protection for the vulnerable. In the conclusion he said that police forces are “in relatively good shape and are up for the fight.” If that fight is about our right to take to our own streets, or to be free from fear of having an electroshock weapon used on us, then SSY are well up for the political fight as well.
If you want to free the weed clap your hands.. CLAP CLAP.
Here at Leftfield, we try very hard to see the funny side of many things. We had a good chortle at the fact that 
Protest camps in the Thai capital Bangkok are under a full scale siege by the army, as the unelected government has declared that the pro-democracy demonstrators must disperse today or face the cutting off of food and water supplies.
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