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It brings a tear to your eyes ...

Fight for Prisoners' Rights and Critically Support Striking Prison Officers!

I have two articles this week with a broadly 'crime and punishment' theme.

"It is a long-held maxim that you can gauge the nature of a society - measure its ‘civilisation quotient’ - by examining its penal system, particularly the way it treats its prisoners. Judged by this criterion, there can be no doubt that the UK stands condemned as a barbarous society, and furthermore as one which is steadily deteriorating to ever lower standards. In danger of becoming a giant island prison camp moored off the more enlightened European continent, the UK seems addicted to an ultimately self-defeating regime of punitive and cruel incarceration - lock ’em up and make ’em suffer". READ MORE:
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/795/rehabilitation.php

"We oppose any demands of the Prison Officers Association that could only come at the expense of prisoners - like yet longer lock-up times or additional refinements to the means of oppression (bigger and harder batons/shields, use of water cannons or tear-gas, etc). But at the same time we will critically support those demands - as we would for rank and file police officers - that act to cohere intra-solidarity against the senior officers/wardens and thus help to undermine and eventually split the state machine. So, yes, we are definitely fully in favour of prison warders and members of the police force having the right to form and join trade unions and the right to go on strike. It is logically analogous to our demand that members of the armed forces also be given such rights". READ MORE:
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/795/criticalsupport.php

Recent(ish) Books on Leon Trotsky & Trotskyism

You may have heard of him (and possibly the other fellow as well)

http://tinyurl.com/ybfpvds
http://links.org.au/node/1366
http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2884

The Situation - In a Nut Shell

The War on Weed: Marijuana Is Basically Harmless -- The Monumentally Stupid Drug War Is Not

Robert Crumb's Despair

Latest Issue of the Weekly Worker!

Throw your hats in the air, ladies & gentlemen - yes, the latest dazzling issue of the 'Weekly Worker', the weekly organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain (deep breath) Provisional Central Committee is upon us yet again. Not to immediately consume its entire contents in a single semi-feverish sitting is to officially consign you to the status of a Very Boring Person Indeed.

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/

My Hero!

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy, Will Phillips, has decided that he cannot in good conscience pledge allegiance to the flag as long as the country for which it stands refuses legal equality to its  gay & lesbian citizens. Good on you Will! (though of course he almost certainly have the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, etc, closely monitoring him for life as a Commie).
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/arkansas-10-year-old-won%E2%80%99t-pledge-allegianc

Get the Troops out of Afghanistan Now!

"EVERY YEAR on Remembrance Sunday the establishment and its media hypocritically pretend to be against war. As church leaders eulogise, wreaths are laid, solemn speeches given and heads are bowed towards the Cenotaph, the blood-stained past and crimes of British imperialism are written out of history. Dying and suffering hellishly, the millions butchered and sacrificed by the ruling class over the decades becomes obscenely transformed into a noble endeavour for peace and freedom.
This year, though, the ritual had particularly pertinent overtones, and for one simple reason - the ongoing disaster that is the war in Afghanistan, which has seen 230 British army fatalities since 2001. Indeed, you could even say that Remembrance Sunday was more like What Do We About The War in Afghanistan Day, as splits and divisions within the establishment become increasingly prominent and visible". READ MORE:
http://tinyurl.com/yfgwpp2

INCREDIBLE Animated Film "Ryan"!

Yes, a truly amazing animated film based on the life of the Canadian animator, Ryan Larkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Larkin).You MUST watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvfgLBMmtVs&feature=player_embedded

Legalise ALL drugs now!

"We in the CPGB unequivocally call for the immediate legalisation of all drugs - not just cannabis or ecstasy. Openness, legality and full, uninhibited, debate provide the best conditions for the assessment of the relative dangers of this or that drug, habit, practice or pastime - and, where necessary, what would constitute the most effective course of treatment and rehabilitation: not stigmatisation or punitive measures.
Drinking a pint of beer or smoking a joint poses no inherent dangers - either to yourself or society as a whole. Any more than horse-riding or kite-flying. Hence for communists the crucial struggle is for the socialisation of drug-taking - whether it be alcohol, cannabis or ecstasy. In that way, ‘drugs’ can help us to live a full, rounded, joyful life - as opposed to diminishing or even destroying us". READ MORE:
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/792/fatuous.php