Showing posts with label mass protests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mass protests. Show all posts

Tuesday 6 June 2023

Fail 22.



  
      System Fail 22 just released and as usual packed with information that the mainstream media turn a blind eye to, to bring you bubble gum, popcorn and celebrity frivolity, with an overdose of Western propaganda.
       This episode of System Fail has a wide coverage, highlighting the tensions between Indigenous communities and the settler colonial state in Brazil. The lower house of Brazil's congress passed a bill, PL 490, which aims to open up Indigenous territories for mining and capitalist development, subjecting established Indigenous land claims to legal challenges. The Indigenous communities have resisted the bill through blockades and protests.
       Next it cover the Bwa Kale movement in Haiti, where residents take up arms against gangs terrorizing their communities, liberating their neighbourhoods and building up organization of community self-defence.
       Lastly, riots erupted in Cardiff, Wales, following the deaths of two teenage boys who crashed their e-bike while being chased by police.


For more on the Bwa Kale movement in Haiti:

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Sunday 9 April 2023

Resist.

 

                   There should be no doubt in anybody's mind that we are in the midst of probably the most brutal class war for some considerable time. The system is determined to recapitalise after some nasty shocks to their money making system of exploitation. The same cry comes from government after government, there is no cash for social services, health care, education, pensions and community services. However there is billions in subsidies for energy companies, who are making record profits in the billions, tax breaks for multi million corporations, unlimited cash for weapons for a bloody war in Ukraine, where the ordinary people are maimed and killed while the industrial military complex feeds its shareholders extra bonuses, to them war is profit. The powers that be are well aware that it is a class war, they are plundering everything that is public and transferring that wealth to the private corporations and billionaire/millionaire parasite class. The technique is quite simple, freeze wages, increase prices, raise the pension age, all this increases profit margins. Cut taxes, increasing big business and wealthy billionaires income, but this cuts spending on social care and this again increases profit margins.
           This will not stop because we are suffering, or if we appeal to the wealthy power mongers, it will continue until their is nothing left to milk and we find ourselves in a society where the health, education and social care you get will totally depend on how much you have to spend. We can accept this future for ourselves and our grand kids, or we can stand up and challenge, disrupt, damage beyond repair, their greed drive economics of exploitation of the many for the few. At the moment, there are mass protests and strikes in most countries across Europe, at the moment, France being the most determined and forceful. It is up to us to join hands and bring this together as one mass European revolt against injustice, inequality and exploitation.

 


Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Sunday 12 March 2023

Munroe!

 



          SubMedia, System Fail 20, takes a look at the carnage, corruption and plundering the Munroe Doctrine has heaped on South America, with a look at Greece that authoritarian EU member regime that teeters on the verge of collapse. Again, all material that the mainstream media seem not to notice or care about.




Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Wednesday 11 January 2023

Power.

     

                                                                                                                                        
                                       Image courtesy of 38 Degrees.                                                                                                                                                                                                  With the savage attack on our living standards by the wealthy parasite class and workers striking to defend the living standards of all ordinary people, we would do well to remember, we hold all the power, all we have to do is use it to bring down this festering greed driven system of capitalism. 


We Have The Power.

Empty streets,with empty shops,
queues forming at the job centre,
doorway beds and hungry children,
watched over by mean eyed cops,
foodbanks growing by the hour.
City razzle-dazzle just rusty remnants,
shopping malls now empty caverns,
home to starlings, pigeons, magpies,
zero hours, part-time workers live in,
homes where ambition fails to flower.
Shiny politicians peddling illusions,
grin and bear it, there’s pie in the sky,
follow the Messiah, he’ll get you there,
quietly swallow their empty promises,
so they can live in their ivory towers.
This world exists by our acceptance,
blindly following their biased rulebook,
failing to realise that we the people,
builders of the world by sweat and pain,
are the ones who really hold the power. 
 
         Bearing in mind what this savage attack on our living standards is doing to the health and well being of our kids and elderly, we must be prepared to bring about justice and fairness by any means possible. We owe that much to the next generation. We can stop them laughing at us by acting on our righteous anger.


The Invisible.

We live there— yes— there
A little bit above the dead
But quite a bit below the living
Where poverty is a dream
Deprivation a reality
Our daily bread an illusion
We sigh--we weep—
As ruthless poverty
With its cold claws
Tears the heart from our children
We ask—WHY?
Surrounded by opulence
Invisible to arrogant greed
Anger simmers beneath the surface
We seek equality
We will have justice
If blood is the price
So be it. 
 
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Rebel.

 

         The Government has decided to take the gloves off and use dictatorial methods to stop the workers from defending themselves against greed driven exploitation. The anti-strikes legislation going through parliament at the moment is a direct attack on workers rights, it moves the UK state into the realms of a despot regime. This legislation is at the behest of the state's bed partner the big corporations. They are desperate to re-capitalise their rotten splintering system of capitalist exploitation. Big business wants a free hand to savage the pay and conditions of the workers in an attempt to fatten the bank accounts of the millionaire/billionaire parasite class. The only way they know how to do this is to exploit and squeeze the workers pay and conditions. 

Image courtesy of Labour Unions.

         This legislation must be destroyed, not just by the workers, but by all the ordinary people, as it is an attack on all our conditions, an undermining of our standard of living, for nothing other than profit for the few. We are expected to accept whatever the corporate world throws at us and submit docile fashion to allow them a free hand in plundering the conditions of the ordinary people of this country. We must organise in our communities and workplaces to support every strike action, every workers dispute, and make it clear, that enough is enough, our time has come. If we allow this legislation to work in any shape or form, it will be proof that they are laughing at us, while we crawl in search of crumbs.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info 

Saturday 7 January 2023

Our Time.

 


                                             Image courtesy of The Mirror.

            The capitalist system is in crisis and it is relying on its minder the state apparatus to come to its aid. As the insane economics of the capitalist system tries to re-capitalise by squeezing the workers and ordinary people, the workers are resisting by strike action and other means. The state’s part in this domination of the people for profit is to create legislation to make strike action more difficult or impossible. The present members of The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption are doing their capitalist master bidding and are drawing up draconian anti strike laws. This should be a rallying call for all ordinary people in work or not, to get behind the strikers and organise in their communities and workplaces and make this new legislation unworkable, this is not a struggle between workers and employers, this is a struggle for a decent life for all. We have had centuries of exploitation and struggle for a decent life while watching the rich get richer. Our world today is controlled by billionaires drunk on their greed driven profit seeking mania and a cavalier attitude to the suffering of others. The only voice that the establishment should hear is the rallying call from the ordinary people, enough is enough, our time has come.

                                                     Image courtesy of CNN

 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info

Friday 6 January 2023

Barbarism.

          In Italy the vindictive state sits silent, and callously watches a man slowly die, when it is their hands to prevent this state murder. This is raw cold-blooded state power in action, This brutal act is for no other reason than to uphold the rotten stinking carcase that is the state institution and its bed-fellow, capitalism. There is no way of reforming the festering marriage of state and capitalism, as they are so intricately intertwined and interdependent. The only way to stop these acts of vindictive barbarism is the total destruction of that blight on humanity, state and capitalism. We all have to choose which side we are on, barbarism and exploitation, or freedom and justice for all, there is no middle ground.

The following from Act For Freedom Now.

DEMONSTRATION IN SOLIDARITY WITH ALFREDO IN THE CENTRE OF MILAN


         This evening [December 29th, 71st day of hunger strike by Alfredo Cospito] a presence of about 300 comrades gathered at the end of via Torino, on the edge of piazza Duomo, heavily enclosed for the occasion by almost 30 armoured vehicles and a large contingent of police agents. After an hour of speeches under the shadow of Milan’s cathedral in solidarity with Alfredo’s struggle against the 41 bis prison regime, we moved in a demonstration along the crowded via Torino. Amidst slogans, chants, firecrackers and speeches by the various groups and collectives that were present, the demonstration moved to piazza XXIV Maggio, where it disbanded.

       We relaunch the mobilisation and invite everyone to the demonstration in Rome on December 31st under the DNAA, ‘National Anti-Mafia and Anti-Terrorism Directorate’!

Alfredo out from 41 bis!
Everyone out from 41 bis!
Against every prison!


Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Sunday 25 December 2022

Ne'erday.

 


         Winter Solstice just gone past and ne'erday  galloping towards us, I thought it would be a good time to wish all my relatives, friends, comrades, associates and strikers, all the very best in the coming year. Hoping it is a year of solidarity and mass activity to right the wrongs in this capitalist system by bring an end to it and its greed driven exploitation.

Image courtesy of my young comrade Adrian.


Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Thursday 15 December 2022

Madness!

 


           Centuries ago,when capitalism first got a grip on humanity, the people have petitioned, protested and marched, and all that has happened is that capitalism has grown in strength and tightened its grip on humanity. If we continue quietly petitioning, marching and protesting, we can expect the same pattern to be repeated. They say the first sign of madness is to keep doing the same thing but expecting a different result, are we mad, will we continue the same old routine?
           If we expect capitalism to desist from plundering the planet, exploiting the population and grasping ever great slices of the Earth's resources, and at the same time creating ever great wealth for that handful of privileged parasites, then we will have to think of a different way of destroying the voracious beast that is capitalism.
           It may seem that capitalism is so strong and powerful that it is impossible to be removed, but there were those who thought that the divine right of kings was impossible to remove, but it has gone, into the dustbin of history. Capitalism may seem invincible, but it has many weakness, many points that are vulnerable, many ways that it can be brought to its knees, we have the numbers, we have the desire, and I'm sure we have the intelligence and imagination to bring this festering cancerous economic system of insanity to a few footnotes in a dusty old history book.

The following article from Anarchist News 

 From La Nemesi Via Dark Nights


          Capitalism is voracious, our rage ferocious. Claim of the incendiary attack against four CAT machines, by the Informal Anarchist Conspiracy (Fivizzano, November 2022)
          The Informal Anarchist Conspiracy is anarchist and informal, therefore without organisational programmes or leaders, the result of the free union of individuals moved by their own will and reciprocal felt need to strike at those responsible for the misery.
          In November, one year after the burning of two vehicles at the Boccanaglia Alta quarry, the Informal Anarchist Conspiracy celebrated its birthday by doubling down on the avenging fire. Four CATs from the Walton quarry in Castelbaita (Fivizzano – MS) were completely burnt.
          Unfortunately, apart from the birthday, there is little to celebrate. Tons of mountain pieces are taken away every year, with terrible consequences for nature in all its complexity. Also paying the price are the inhabitants who find themselves without drinking water or with floods that will continue to hit the area.
          Marble mining is part of the capitalist system of exploitation, to the point of depletion of every cm of soil, water, subsoil and so-called resources. The extractive economy is directly linked to the wars that from Yemen to Ukraine fatten the bosses. Every single industrialist is responsible for climate change, as well as for the existence of borders and the thousands of people slaughtered in the Mediterranean and in lagers defending borders.
            It is known that the bosses are hypocrites and fill their mouths with deceitful words. Big speeches about energy transition, emission reduction and other green masks are on the lips of politicians, bosses and phoney environmentalists. They propose and promise reconversion. They practice the destruction of this planet, the moon, the universe and everything. They talk a lot about alternative energies but never about alternatives to capitalism. Because according to them, this is the best of all possible worlds. We remind ourselves that exploitation and devastation is done on the skin of the many for the profit of a cowardly few.
          Last year environmentalists cried scandal over the violence against the bosses. This year they are crying for the right to work. These jackals only want to keep the world as it is. Any compromise with the ravagers of the earth is complicity. Every river, every forest and every mountain in the world shouts this.
          By letting the bosses make their profits, we all lose out (animals and humans). We lose slices of mountains crumbled and chewed up for construction, cosmetics for the toilets and yachts of the rich. We lose slices of the possibility of a better and beautiful world to live in. It is the worst one can live in. And so we regret to admit that the violence we deploy is still too weak a response. We conspire and will continue to conspire in the knowledge that if a violent fight against society does not open up the present, then the future will be rotten and poisonous.
         Immediate closure of every quarry and every industry. Against labour and society no reconversion or wait-and-see. Direct action and social war.
         To bosses and lackeys: this time we hit the means you use for your dirty deeds but we are clear that it is your hands that move them.
        With this action we say greetings to all our prisoner comrades. In particular Alfredo, Anna, Juan and Ivan.
         Immediate declassification of Alfredo from 41 bis.
         We greet with joy the Anna Maria Mantini autonomous cell in Germany – the Negra Venganza in Chile – the Augusto Masetti FAI/FRI Brigade in Italy.

Forward Comrades!

LONG LIVE THE FAI/FRI.
LONG LIVE THE BLACK INTERNATIONAL!


Informal Anarchist Conspiracy

[Taken from “Bezmotivny“, internationalist anarchist fortnightly, year II, number 23, 5 December 2022]
 
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info    

Thursday 8 December 2022

Murder.

 


Alexis Grigoropoulos
 
          I was in Athens on December 6th 2008 when 15 year old kid Alexis Grigoropoulos was out for a Saturday night coffee with his friend, Nikos Romanos, in the district of Exarchiea, when laughter turned to tragedy, when a police officer shot young Alexis dead, he died on the street in the arms of his friend Nikos. This brutal state murder brought the people of that country onto the streets in a display of united anger and disgust. I joined some of the protests in Athens during that December, and you could feel the anger. It was awe inspiring to see so many people demonstrating their fury at this callous murder of a youth. Greece was seized by riots for weeks on end.
        Jump forward almost 15 years to the day of that callous brutal act and it seems history repeats itself. In Thessoloniki, on the 5th. of December, this year 2022, a police officer shot a 15 year old youth twice in the head, shot for 20 Euros of petrol. Is there any wonder that the people of that country are angry, furious, disgusted at this repeat of the callous act of 2008. We too should be angry, for it is now common for the police armed like the military parading through our streets, we too have individuals shot and killed on our streets. The state says the police are there to protect us, when in fact they intimidate and terrorise the general public. 
 
Niko Romanos

  The following from Enough is Enough.


           It was during the early hours of Monday 5 December 2022, when a 16 year old kid was shot in the head by a greek police officer of the DIAS motorcycle unit during a car chase in Thessaloniki. He was accused that he filled his pick-up truck with 20 euros worth of petrol and left the petrol station without paying.
           Following the news and his dire physical condition, riots erupted in the city of Thessaloniki, located in the north of Greece, later on the same day. At the same time, in Athens, several different protests were held in the evening of December the 5th. The protest in Exarcheia, held in front of the memorial of Alexis Grigoropoulos, (a 15 year old kid that was shot dead by a cop on 6 December 2008, sparking the events that would lead to massive riots all over Greece, known as the December Revolt) soon turned into a march that led to a riot, as seen in the video.
        It has to be noted, that today 6 December, protests have been planned in dozens of cities and towns all over Greece, in remembrance of the December Revolt and the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the police in Exarcheia 15 years ago to this day.

 


Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info 

Tuesday 6 December 2022

Fail 19.


           System Fail 19, the latest from SubMedia now available. As usual it covers a range of topics. This episode looks at the pandemic, riots in China and Elon Musk's take-over of twitter. System Fail is a window on our world, always worth a viewing.


Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

Thursday 1 December 2022

The Street?

          We, the ordinary people are at war. I'm not talking about the war of missiles and drones, but the war we have fought for generations, the class war. Year in year out the conglomerate of corporate beasts have have grabbed more and more of the world's resources and in their never ending drive to increase profits, we have been hit time and time again with punishing austerity, inflation, cuts to social services, which translates into poverty and destitution for millions. Once again with great viciousness, the attack is on the ordinary people, and as winter approaches we are facing cold homes, insufficient food on the table, with the result being stunted children and elderly and vulnerable people dying earlier than would be normally.
           This is a constant fight and it will not be won in the marble halls of power, nor in the debating rooms of unions. It will be won on the streets, we surrender the streets at our peril. It is important that we take our anger and frustration on to the streets in organised vast numbers. To win that decent life for all, we must be prepared to do our debating with direct action on the streets, in our communities and workplaces. The good life will not be handed to you by the wealthy and powerful, we'll have to take what we create and turn it into a society of mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people.
          Perhaps we can learn something from recent history, the mass protests of Gilets Jaunes

The following from Enough is Enough. 

           On November 17, 2018, a new kind of movement exploded in the face of many observers and took the trade unions and political parties, who were convinced they had a monopoly on protest, by surprise: the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement.

Originally published by Contre Attaque. Translated by Riot Turtle
 

         Officially 287,710 demonstrators, probably 10 times more, had spread around 2000 traffic circles across the country, created new spaces for discussion. The demonstrations were heterogeneous, many of them were not used to protesting. We all remember the call of truck driver Ghislain Coutard improvising a rallying symbol, the yellow safety vest. His anger and his genius call “We all have a yellow vest in the car! Put it on your dashboard in front of you all week long. It will be a little color code to show that you support the movement”.
        In the weeks that followed, a strange phenomenon: we all looked at each other on the streets, as if to count ourselves. And there are many of us… You know the rest: 65 weeks of mobilization, thousands of injured demonstrators and an estimated 1.800 injured among the forces of order. The mobilization was unprecedented, but so was the violent repression.
        In 2018 alone, the police fired 19,071 LBD bullets and launched 5,420 rounds of grenade ammunition. Total repression. The victories, unfortunately, are not as numerous. Although the carbon tax has been buried, the list of 42 demands has remained largely unheeded.
        The few measures that have been saved at the simulacrum of a citizens’ assembly will be further eroded by amendments in Parliament. Not sure that this is what the Gilets Jaunes had in mind when they demanded more direct democracy.
        4 years later, most of the initial Gilets Jaunes groups don’t exist anymore, but some activists persist and don’t hesitate to support other militant collectives. From their chaotic course, let us retain that the Gilets Jaunes movement knew how to show all the old street movements the need to renew the way to mobilize. A lesson still far from being integrated if we observe the success of the last call of the CGT in France…
          It would be good not to leave the monopoly of mobilizations to these union organizations again, who usually organize nice demonstrations and then leave. The success of the Sainte-Soline mobilization shows it, we have to fight in a different way. Mobilize people who use different strategies and create cohesion between “peaceful” and “determined” protests. The Gilets Jaunes knew how to blow on the embers of social movements, it’s up to us to set things on fire!
 



Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Sunday 27 November 2022

Our War!

             War is in the air, rumblings of nuclear war, our insane war mongering politicians playing the tune of the corporate and imperialist masters, spout the phoney mantra about defending freedom. If you want to stop this psychopathic society of perpetual war, then I'm afraid calling "Stop the War" from the streets will have no effect what so ever. Remember Iraq, millions in the UK and millions more across the globe took to the streets and shouted "No War". What did our democratic leaders do, why they stuck two fingers up at the public and went ahead and obliterated Iraq's infrastructure, killed thousands of innocent people and displaced millions, turning Iraq into a religious faction fighting ground, while at the same time devouring its natural resources. All this on a lie. 

            Wars don't just happen in other places, they start right here in our own land. The war machine has tentacles that feed through the fibre of our society, without which it could not function. As long as we tolerate this breeding ground for the war machine to freely function in our own country, we are complicit in the wars in other lands. To stop the wars, we have to strangle the war machine at home. The powers that be will preach about how the "arms" industry creates jobs, grows the economy, but do you want jobs and a strong economy that relies on the brutal bloodshed of innocents in other lands? To stop wars, we have to change society completely, rebuild it from the bottom up, dispense with the capitalist greed system and replace it with a society built on mutual aid, free from borders and the profit motive. A society that sees to the needs of all our people, no matter from what part of this tiny planet they live. That will take massive direct action on a prolonged scale, the alternative is to continue with this cancerous capitalist system with its military industrial complex that breeds poverty and destructive wars.

An interesting article from Greece via Act for Freedom Now.

            In the days of commemoration of the Polytechnic, we must not forget the anti-militarist implications of the uprising. In the midst of military dictatorship, one of the central slogans of the occupied Polytechnic in ’73 was “Out with NATO”. Picking up this thread, anarchy today must find a way of direct action against those who profit and gain from these wars.
          While we try to develop anarchist considerations and analyses of every interstate war conflict, one of the most important aspects of the multifaceted anti-military struggle is often ignored: sabotaging the death machine on the ground we are on.
          Since we are in NATO’s territory of influence, we have a duty to sabotage everything used by the armed forces of the Greek state and its allies, the arms industry, the financiers and those who give orders and make decisions.
          Alongside the Russian state’s invasion of Ukrainian territory, the Turkish state’s war against the Kurdish people is raging, while the USA is waging wars all over the planet. In all these cases, DB Schenker is actively involved, supporting and profiting from these wars. It is a German state-owned company, owned by Deutsche Bahn (DB, the German railway company) and controlled by the German Ministry of Transport. It is a company responsible for war crimes during World War II, and today, it maintains supply chain hubs in dozens of places around the globe, transporting and delivering war equipment, weapons as well as parts of vehicles, tanks and war planes. In 2019, DB Schenker received an award from the U.S. Department of Transportation for its cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense, as there seem to be very few transnational wars in which DB Schenker does not transport weapons to the front lines.
           The parent company, Deutsche Bahn, is responsible for the ‘Tren Maya’ project, the development of railway lines on Mexican territory, including the Chiapas region, lines that will serve the Mexican military.
          This project will destroy huge tracts of forested land, and the lands are home to thousands of people. It obviously serves as the basis of a wider plan to pressure the Mexican state against the liberated Zapatista land, and resistance against it has already begun.
           While the Greek police were gradually occupying Exarcheia, in an attempt to suppress the memory of the resistance against the junta, on the morning of 15 November, we carried out an arson attack on a DB Schenker truck on Baltinon Street in Gyzi. While we know that a destroyed truck alone will not stop any war, we have a duty to recognize the cogs that set the state war machines in motion and dismantle them piece by piece.

Solidarity with the struggle of the Kurdish people against the Turkish state.

Solidarity with the prisoner Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis

We support the 4 imprisoned comrades in the case of the Piraeus traffic police.

Victory for the hunger strike of Alfredo Cospito.   Anarchists

via: athens.indymedia Translated by Act for freedom now!
Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info