PROTO-FASCISM.

 Page 94/95;    

   Neoliberalism is not only an economic policy designed to cut government spending, pursue free trade policies, and liberate market forces from government regulations. It is also a political philosophy and ideology that affects every dimension of social life. Neoliberalism has heralded a radical shift that defines the citizen as consumer, disbands the social contract in the interests of privatized considerations, and separates capital from the context of place.Within this discourse, as Jean and John Comaroff have argued, "the personal is the only politics there is, the only politics with a tangible referent or emotional valence. It is in these privatized terms that action is organised, that the experience of inequity and antagonism takes meaningful shape." Unnder such circumstances, neoliberalism portends the death of politics as we know it, strips the social of its democratic values, and reconstructs agency in terms that are utterly privatized. It provides the conditions for an emerging form of proto-fascism that must be resisted at all costs. Neoliberalism not only enshrines unbridled individualism as a central feature  of proto-fascism, as Herbert Marcuse reminds us, it also destroys any vestige of democratic society by undercutting its "moral material and regulatory moorings," and in doing so, offers no language for understanding how the future might be grasped outside the narrow logic of the market. But there is even more at stake here than the obliteration of public concerns, the death of the social, the emergence of a market-based fundamentalism that undercuts our ability to understand how to translate privately experienced misery into collective action, and the elim ination of the gains of the welfare state. There is  also the growing threat of displacing "political sovereignty with the sovereignty of the market, as if the latter has a mind and morality of its own.'" As democracy becomes a burden under the reign of neoliberalism, civic discourse disappears and the reign of unfetered social Darwnism, with its survival-of-the-slickest philosophy, emerges as the template for a new form of proto-fascism. None of this will happen in the face of sufficient resistance, nor is the increasing move toward proto-fascism inevitable, but the conditions exist for democracy to lose all semblance of meaning----

Extract from; 
AGAINST THE NEW AUTHORITARIANISM   by HENRY GIROUX   1-894037-23-5

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DEATHS FROM "FRIENDLY FIRE".

     In war we always seem to accept killing but deaths from "friendly fire" are always considered more deplorable. They will make headline news and the inevitable enquiry will follow. But how much more "friendly fire" can you get than being killed by your own family?

     According to the United Nations Population Fund there are an estimated 5,000 women killed each year in what distorted minds call "honour" killings.  Figures from The United Nations Development Fund for Women state that 22 women a day are killed in India because of dowry related affairs. While in South Africa one woman is murdered every six hours by a family member or partner. United Nations special adviser, Asma Jahangir, in a report to the the Commission on Human Rights said, "The perpetrators of these crimes are mostly male family members of  the murdered women who go unpunished or receive reduced sentences on the justification of having murdered to defend their misconceived notions of family honour."

   No country seems to be immune to these male murders of females, a recent survey of cases that received media coverage between 1998 and 2007 concluded that in the UK there were an average of 12 cases investigated a year.

    What state has our civilization reached when we still have male family members killing their own female family members on some personal and transitory notion of honour?

    Of course it will continue as long as we have two classes of citizens, one the so called dominant and the other, the expected to be, submissive. It will only change when each human being respects and accepts as equall all other human beings, giving to each the rights that they claim for themselves.

    Of course you and I know that the present system doesn't lend itself to all being equall, we are graded according to our consumer ability, our macho attitude, our success at exploiting others, possessions mean power, power gives you extra rights.

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TO DIE EARNING YOUR DAILY BREAD.

        Day and daily we hear of deaths across the world, Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine etc. and they often make headline news. However closer to home the deaths continue, day and daily, ordinary folks die at work, often due to lack of or faulty safety equipment, over-worked through pressure from bosses causing mistakes and a multitude of other avoidable reasons. Today we pay our respects to another worked killed at work but we will probably not read about it in the press.

       Ray Jessop  died yesterday following an  accident at work. Ray, a painter by trade, he fell from a  ladder and died of his injuries soon after.

       Ray was a founder member of the short-lived Hull GMB.  He signed up in January 2002, and was one of only three  members who stayed with the OBU after the collapse of the  Hull branch. Few of the the current membership would have  known him; his last attendance at an event outside of Hull  was at the pre-onference "way ahead" meeting in July 2004. Also he was not in his element at meetings: in  the minutes of the 2003 AGM he is listed as "Softly spoken bloke with long hair and earrings (who the minute-taker couldn't hear)".  But he could always be relied to take part in direct action. He was up for anything in that line. Many causes  have benefitted from his support, practical and financial.  He was a stalwart of the animal rights movement, of the campaign against the arms trade, of the Palestine Solidarity movement. He will be missed in the ranks of these and other radical organisations.

     Ray was 51 years old. As far as I know he leaves no partner or children. Although he was a very outgoing and sociable fellow, we never seem to have got round to discussing his private life.
Details thanks to IWW members.

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A SUGAR COATED BUSH??

     I have always maintained that voting at elections to change a leader is much the same as voting for a new suit for a psychopath. Nothing really changes, it is just at first it looks a bit different. Watching the hysteria after the Obama election I felt saddened that so many people could be fooled by this switch of clothes, same old shit, nice new suit. Now we have Obama, a sugar coated Bush, preaching the " just war", extolling the self sacrificing America giving up its young folks to help the world, and for this duplicity he receives the Nobel Peace Prize and you can feel your stomach churn. The best comment I have read of the Obama acceptance speech at the Nobel Peace Prize event is here

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OGIES OF REPRESSION.

       As states feel the crunch of collapse they muster their repressive forces, aware of the fact that the people will only take so much. The closer to collapse the state goes the more severe the repression. The police are given a free hand, the military sit in the background waiting their comands, the media pours out its disinformation, all the right wing fascist groups are encouraged to come out of the sewers on to the streets.  Divide, intimidate and misinform the usual strategy of the state is put into overdrive as the survival of the system is what matters, not the will and welfare of the people. As Greece races forward to defaulting on its debt the powers that be are aware of what that will mean, the collapse of any form of social services. so it will try to pre-empt the people's dissatisfaction by every repressive means available. Control  in any form is the states only means of survival. Greece is just a little further down the road than lots of other states, but most are facing the finacial crunch that will put people under stress and onto the streets. We should watch very carefully what is happening in Greece and learn how to be one step ahead of the brutal reprssion that is coming our way.

   More from Greece:
9-12-2009 : RECENT DAYS HAVE SEEN
INCREDIBLE JUNTA ORGIES IN GREECE.
EXAMPLES:
1) Cops with guns in the demonstrations.
2) Motorbike raids against protesters.
3) Cops following peaceful demonstrators in their tracks, wild and indiscriminate arrests.
4) Staged events such as the alleged assassination attempt against the rector of the Pritanea.
5) An enormous number of vague and even criminal charges and arresting people young and old.
6) Closing schools on the pretext of swine flu and the merciless beating of students who wanted to get to their schools.
7) Undercover cops kidnapping young protesters.
8) Higher level visible collaboration between Golden Dawn neo-nazis and the Police.
9) Secret meetings between Chrysohoides and the bosses of the TV channels and journalists to decide on how TV reporting was going to be done over these days.
10) Secret covert cameras and helicopters hovering constantly.

Read the full article here:  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10260

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TERRORISTS IN UNIFORMS.

The Greek assasination from an eye witness,

this story should be widely distributed ;

       An Exarchia resident whose balcony overlooks the spot where Alexis Grigoropoulos was murdered.

I'm not so involved in any political activities. I'm not an activist. I can only speak about the killing. I can't take a position on all the other things that happened because all these other things are very complicated and I don't have clear thoughts on them.

Exarchia has always been an alternative, counterculture neighborhood. For many years it was a frequent occurrence that something would happen on a street corner in Exarchia and suddenly everyone from the cafes and the bars and the sidewalks would pour out into the streets and run to see what was happening. Usually it was incidents between people and police, some fights, confrontations, insults, shouting matches. In the old times it happened very often. Then there was a period when this didn't happen so much, but in the last years it has started becoming more common again.-----

 

    Read the full story here;  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/10247

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Bankers bonuses my f**=>^****"

    All this talk of hitting bankers' bonuses is just hogwash. It makes people think that somebody is being made to pay for the real mess and pain that is coming our way. So the bankers are whinging about their £1.5 million bonus being cut to a mere £750,000 each, (gee, how unfair, how will they ever manage) and we are supposed to think that they are hurting?? They will be laughing and in clover for the rest of their lives while you and I face savage cuts to all social services, wage freezes/cuts plus high unemployment. Do we need the bankers and their dodgy dealings, ripping off all and sundry? Forget the bankers and their bonuses, it is the system that has to be destroyed, don't expect the corporate world or the financial institutions to be altruistic, ethical or even honest, that would be bad for their businesses. We need a fairer, more humane and just system that sees to the needs of all our people, not one that tends to the needs of a bunch of greedy parasites. We can create a social system based on mutual aid, voluntary co-operation and sustainability, a system freed from the corporate greed and profit motive of this system of sweaty palmed money crazy shareholders.

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CRISIS/OPPORTUNITY?

        Workers today have a great opportunity to compare the present with the past and to be alive to the acts of imperialism that might have, in an earlier time, gone un-noticed by vast swathes of the people of the planet. We the workers have a greater connectivity through the internet and therefore can react more quickly in solidarity with our comrades across the globe.

       No longer can the imperialist conceal their deeds by semantics, censorship and propaganda, the world has shrunk, the internet has turned it into a village and we are aware of the village bullies. We are aware of the rising corporate fascism, regionally and globally, backed up by the militarization of the state. We are also aware of the ever deepening crisis in the capitalist system and know that it needs wars, war contracts feed the shareholders of the military industrial complex that is capitalism today. We have become aware of the continuing rhetoric pouring from Western leaders referring to the peaceful West yet we can’t recall a year when the West was not involved in a war somewhere in the world.

       The workers of the world are now becoming conscious of their homogeneity, perhaps it is the brutality of a system that we created that is causing this consciousness and also the knowledge that we have the ability to destroy such a man made system and create a more just, moral, humane and sustainable system. A system based on mutual aid and voluntary co-operation rather than the profit and greed of the present system.

      However the change must come in the near future if we are to prevent WW3. The crisis the corporate world is facing means that the competing imperialists cannot compete in friendly fashion, they must win to survive and each will do what it believes is necessry to survive and expand. In the eyes of the imperialists, the destruction of the people is an acceptable price to pay for the survival of the system.

 

ann arky's home.

Politicians and freedom of speech don't go together.

It seems that the truth and freedom of speech can cost you your job. According to a recent ITN news report:

     A Labour election candidate who called the Queen a "parasite" and "vermin" has been sacked. Would-be local councillor Peter White was axed by party bosses after being forced to apologise for an online rant about the monarch. A Labour spokesman said: "Mr White appeared before a panel of the regional board of the London Labour Party who, after hearing the evidence, decided to remove him from the panel of candidates." The 26-year-old had been due to fight for a seat on Havering Borough Council in east London next year. His comments were posted on the Facebook page of Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, who is campaigning for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee to be marked with a public holiday. Mr White posted: "What is the point of celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of someone who is born into a position of privilege? She is a parasite and milks this country for everything she can."

    He added: "Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with a public holiday but lets (sic) have one that means something, rather than celebrating vermin." 

 

    So there you have it, Labour does not support freedom of speech.  Indulge in that sort of thing and it could cost you your job.

 

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PATRIOTISM.

PATRIOTISM.

No, I shall not die for the fluttering flag,

if truth be known, ‘tis nothing but a multi-coloured rag

held aloft by some foolish hand

inciting worker and peasant to kill

on some green and wooded hill,

peasant and worker from some other land.

Nor shall I shed blood for the fluttering rag

that brings out fools to stand and brag

of brutal deeds painted grand,

deeds where rustic and craftsman lie so still

killed by my brothers' misguided hand.

No allegiance have I for the Nation

this man made autocratic creation

that divides my brothers in a world so small,

binds us to a country's cause, right or wrong,

bids us follow its drum, sing its song,

then sheds our blood in some border brawl.

No, I'll be no slave to flag or nation,

have no ear for power oration,

though its iron heel is on my breast,

my back feels its leather thong,

at patriotism's barracoon, I'll be no guest.

 

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CO2 and War.

       So Copenhagen is going to save the planet? They will go into a huddle and dine and wine and have some photo shoots then announce their plan to save the planet. The rich and powerful developed will help the poor and weak to develop while at the same time curtailing the profits of the big corporations so that we cut CO2 emissions and we will all live happily ever after. Well so some sort of fairy tale goes. What they don’t mention is that the rich and powerful need the poor and weak for cheap material and goods, it is this continual searching for cheaper labour and cheaper materials that makes them rich and powerful.

      Of course if they are rally serious about CO2 emissions then they will have to put a ban on wars!! Any scientist worth his salt will tell that what ever savings you make in your CO2 is massively off set by a war. The actual war, manufacturing tons of munitions, all that moving thousands of tons of equipment and arms across the world to be destroyed, shipping all the thousands of people involved, some of them never to return alive or in an able bodied condition, then ensuring they are fed, is an enormous explosion of CO2 into the atmosphere. Then of course you start to blow up all those munitions and keep replacing them, manufacturing more and having them shipped across the world in a continuous logistic nightmare. Then when the explosions stop and the dust settles, and you start to ship what is left back home leaving behind a devastated landscape and thousands of dead, and the need for a colossal rebuilding program, if the poor devastated country can afford that.

       So all the crap that will come out of Copenhagen will not address in any way one of the most gigantic waste of time and resources known to man, war. It will talk of wind turbines and aid to the poor, which will never materialise. Remember the summit to lift Africa out of poverty? They’re still waiting for all that aid that was promised. Summits are great fun for the pompous and the arrogant, it helps to create the illusion that they are actually doing something about the problems we face, when in fact the are the reasons we have these problems.

 

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