Racism.

         Everywhere the "white" man (no sexism intended, we also have "white" women racists.) has taken to settling in another's land they have seen the indigenous people as inferior, and steadily went about taking over their lands, destroying their way of life and culture, and so it goes on today.
        Canada, despite its portrayal of a friendly, peaceful land, is steeped in brutal racism, managed and legislated by a racist state, always has been from the first settler to the present day. The indigenous peoples have been pushed aside, marginalised and treated with savagery and brutality and are still seen in that category of inferior. Never have we stepped onto another people's territory and seen them as having a long traditionally developed sustainable culture, something we could learn from, nor have we asked to co-operate with them. We enter on the belief of our superiority and our right to do as we wish, where ever we land. That is our history, and that is what we have to eradicate.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

       Right now in Mi’kma’ki, commercial fishermen are physically threatening, intimidating and harassing Indigenous people over their livelihood catch of lobster. The violence has escalated in the past few days, and seems likely to continue to escalate. The RCMP have been filmed allowing commercial fishermen to steal and poison lobster, burn vehicles, smash windows, throw rocks at Mi’kmaq people and attack chiefs and women.
       What’s happening in Mi’kma’ki is a prime example of how race operates in so-called Canada, with the state protecting the side of big business and using white working-class people to project their force onto the non-white population. Examples of this can be found all over the country.
        In August, 27km camp on Wet’suwet’en yintah was burned to the ground by arsonists, and somehow the state has no leads or interest in pursuing the case, even though there were public facebook posts calling for that specific action to be carried out.
      In Secwepmeculecw the Tiny House Warriors have faced near constant harrassment from white supremacists who even set up a camp and barbeque within a stone’s throw from Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit folks in order to harass and intimidate them.
       In Algonquin territory non-Indigenous hunters continue to disrespect and threaten Indigenous people on their own territory, who are protecting the moose population from being over-hunted.
         In Six Nations territory the police continue to harass and arrest Indigenous people, unchecked by us the greater community at large.
        When is enough enough? Why aren’t we shutting the country down? The white supremacist settler state cannot continue unchecked. There must be action. This is a callout to all settlers and supporters to take actions where you stand, how you see fit. Transportation routes are vulnerable, we proved this in the spring. It doesn’t take many people carrying out subversive actions to cause the state immense damage.

Take action now. What are we waiting for?
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Toblerone.

         Switzerland, most people view it as a rather idyllic small country, a picturesque land of mountains, loved by climbers, artists and photographers, famous for chocolate, cheese with holes in it, and the cuckoo clock. However it has another side, it is famous among the rich and powerful for its dark and secret dens where they hide their money. Millionaires, billionaires aristocracy, and others of that ilk, can, in this small state, stash their ill gotten gains far away from the prying eyes of the tax man and many, many do. This is not a box beneath somebodies bed in a mountain village, this is a very lucrative money making racket for the powers that be in picturesque Switzerland, a big slice of its economy. Like all other nation states, perhaps a little different in its structure, it has all the trimmings of the state and its repressive apparatus, also like any other capitalist country, it has inequality, injustice, and repression, and like any other capitalist state, the people there are taking to the streets to voice their desire for a fair and just system that benefits all our people.
         The following from Act For Freedom Now:

 

         On 1st August about 300 people took to the streets in Bern against the myth of Switzerland. Our criticisms were addressed to the main four subjects of the Swiss history. Colonialism, reification, antisemitism and patriarchy. But these are only few of the many reasons why Switzerland shouldn’t be celebrated as such. In the end police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators because of a little paint against Amtshaus [district office] thereby deliberately putting people’s lives at risk. Police also lined up outside symbolic buildings during today’s demonstration, thus showing that they defend the history of oppression and are behind it.
      Unfortunately, due to the heat and the short duration of the mobilization we couldn’t reach all the people we mentioned in today’s appeal. Many questions posed by the demo couldn’t be transmitted as we would have liked, for example with creative slogans or speaking. However, today’s demonstration was necessary, and through the solidarity of those there it was able to give a necessary signal in the times of the Coronavirus crisis.

 

       In spite of Corona we were not few today and gave an example against the history of Switzerland with a militant demonstration. With this demonstration we wanted to show why States must not be celebrated. They promote and support forms of oppression in order to use them in order to exist. Society is formed by capitalism and the State in such a way that it cannot function according to solidarity but can only serve profit. Those who don’t serve exploitation fall into the trap of the system. This inhumanity occurs every day all over the world. For this reason we don’t support the system of States, we fight it. Covid19 shows us that the system is fragile and is not there to support us. The health of millions of people could not and cannot be guaranteed and many companies have proceeded with massive layoffs – many more will follow in order to save the system. The countries where the health system is in an even more disastrous condition due to the exploitation of the West are faring even worse.
         All over the world it is clear how the concept of State is only being kept alive through the suffering of the many. Protests against State authority have been increasing all over the world in recent months, but instead of taking these protests seriously governments are violently trying to silence the demonstrators. We are in solidarity with all these protests and today, also in Switzerland, we gave a signal against the politics of oppression and exploitation carried out through capitalism, racism, sexism and many more isms.
Source: Barrikade.info
Translated by act for freedom now!

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk     

Farce.

         It seems that despite the covid19 lockdown, there is a long running farce continuing in Belgium. Though I have no doubt, even with the pandemic, such theatricals are being performed in cities across the world. If it was not so pathetic, vindictive and cruel, we could laugh.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

 

The one spectacle that continues despite viruses and lockdowns (Belgium)

         While the cultural sector is still debating social distancing restrictions with whatever politician appears to be in charge, one venue keeps on hosting its spectacles in spite of everyone. So we are disgusted to announce to you the upcoming theatrical performance taking place on the 8th and 9th of October 2020 in the Palais de Justice in Brussels (that Moloch built on top of the proletarian Marolles and adored by many authoritarians for its oppressive bombast).
        Since it concerns an appeal case there will be no original content, alas! But be prepared for the rerun of unbelievable acts by the magician and prosecutor Malagnini. Watch as he just needs to add one person to another to create the illusion of an organization, while putting one accusation he just came up with on the table to suddenly find yourself faced with a criminal organization. (His previous act where he would demonstrate the existence of a terrorist organization got cancelled after even the managers of the venue thought of it as too far fetched.) Stand in amazement how fireworks in solidarity with locked-up immigrants gets twisted to fit the incredible story of an arson attack against those same people. Be blown of your feet by how the simple fact that there is no proof is, in fact, … the proof. (“Of course, since the modus operandi of the accused is that they remain unidentifiable. A proven hypothesis because we could not identify them. Aha!”) Wait with anguish for the appearance on stage of the magician’s assistant and investigative magistrate Panou. See how she is able (is she though?) to explain that an investigation going out on a fishing expedition to find accusations against persons is not at all proactive (gathering intelligence in view of deeds that didn’t happen yet or are unknown) but indeed reactive (starting from specific acts to identify their authors). (“Yes, your honour, a proactive investigation would have been illegal under the circumstances. But! Somewhere, at some moment, something happened. So! It is a reactive investigation, in hindsight …”)
        This is only a small and bitter taste of the infamous show that is already going on in Belgium since 2009 in the police departments and since 2016 in the juridical corridors. A show that distorts years of struggles and combative bounds against deportations, prisons, borders and other institutions of this oppressive society. We know that our individual lives and collective experiences will never fit their narrative, even if the collaborators in the rewriting of this clueless plot are eager to unveil their culprits to the audience.
         So we invite you to do as you please on the 8th and 9th of October (the accused will do the same).
We’ll speak,
       Anarchists concerned (more or less) by current events in Brussels, but not exclusively.

P.S. A verdict will be expected in the month following the pitiful event.
P.S.2 More information on the trial: https://actforfree.nostate.net/?p=33414 & https://actforfree.nostate.net/?p=33891

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Organise.

          In this cesspool of an economic system, organised and managed by corrupt and repressive state apparatus, to cross, uninvited, one of their imaginary lines called borders, places you in the category of a no-human, a being devoid of rights, driven to live in the margins, to be invisible just to survive, or end up in one of the thousands of concentration camps dotted around the world. There you will be brutalised, devoid of basic rights, hygiene and health care, cramped into grossly overcrowded conditions, subject to arbitrary beatings. Because of the human desire for decency and freedom, these conditions inevitably lead to drastic measures by the imprisoned, in an attempt to end their pain and anguish. Hence the burning of the Moria concentration camp on the island of Lesbos, and similar actions in other camps across the globe. Desperate actions to try and alleviate desperate conditions.
      If only we the ordinary people were as well organised as our exploiters and oppressors, you have to hand it to them, they come together, discuss and organise and then ruthlessly carry out their grand plans. You have the World Bank, the IMF, Davos World Economic Forum, Bilderberg Group, then you have their International Arms Fairs where all and sundry of the power club come together to display their latest means of control and domination and offer them to the highest bidder. Then you have these imaginary lines called borders to be taken care of, so the experts on surveillance and border control mechanisms, all come together to discuss how they can tighten the controls of those imaginary lines, this year there will be one of these meetings of authoritarians in Athens, 24th.-26th. November. If we organised as they do, we would win hands down, as there are much more of us than there is of them, we could destroy this brutal insanity of a system and replace it with fairness, justice, freedom and sustainability, freed from the shackles of profit, endless wars, borders and the illusion of perpetual growth creating a structure that sees to the needs of all our people. Let's try.

The following from Act For Freedom Now:

PDF

 

Poster spread in Athens in Greek & English

 Camps are for burning…
           Inhabitants of the Moria refugee hell on the Island of Lesbos recently gave the most honest and firm response to the war that is waged against them by the European states. Arson within the camp caused two nights of fires finally leading to its total destruction. Faced with prison conditions some chose for a direct and non-negotiated attack. In Moria a completely unbearable situation was all these years imposed as normality by those in power. Intimidation was part of its management.
         Administrative blackmail was part of its management. Beatings were part of its management. Humiliation was part of its management. Starvation was part of its management. The refugee camp of Moria continuously showed us the uncovered face of the system we are all living in.
       Reminding us in harsh ways that people become dispensable once they are declared enemies by domination, unwanted by the ruling logic.

The merchants of misery work around the corner
        But in this society the loss of one is the other’s gain. Border control is key in the organization of a society which is based on exploitation and oppression. This control needs to be under constant development to retain some effectiveness. But who is doing this, how and where? A good example is an upcoming conference on the 24th till the 26th of November in the Divani Caravel hotel in Athens (www.world-border-congress.com).
         National and international politicians, high placed representatives of different policing institutions, but also business leaders of the security industry come together to discuss the advancement of the border control complex, of identification and registration, imprisonment and deportation. These are the merchants of misery, building their careers on the backs of imprisoned refugees everywhere, of those hunted and shot against the unwanted. Let us sabotage this gathering and those who participate in it, in all the ways and moments we see fit, using our creativity and determination as our compass.
        Because the fires that were lit in Moria light up our spirits and inspire our actions.

… Down with all borders!

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Misery.

   

      I found the article ‘The Rebellions of Misery’ by Gustavo Rodriguez extremely interesting and very informative. Taking history and portraying it like a long string with lots of knots along its length, which we have to untie. Though quite long, I consider it well worth a read in full. After all trying to understand what and why people will finally rebel, what is the trigger, what is the spark that will ignite the fire, and what direction will it burn, is always the enigma we have to solve.

 

 
The following is a short extract from Act For Freedom Now:

‘The Rebellions of Misery’ by Gustavo Rodriguez

The rebellions of misery.
      “All control systems are based on the punishment/award binomial. When punishments are disproportionate to rewards and when employers no longer have any rewards left, uprisings occur.”
Burroughs(1)
      In the second decade of this century, urban revolts are becoming more frequent throughout the global geography, with subtle variations in duration and intensity. Hong Kong, France, Algeria, Iraq, Haiti, Lebanon, Catalonia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Sudan, Chile, Belarus, and now the United States of America, have been the sites of massive protests widely reported in the means of mass domestication. As I have pointed out on other occasions, these demonstrations have very particular motivations that explain them; however, it is indisputable that they all possess an intangible link that serves as a common denominator of most of these mobilizations: the weariness and rage of despair.
        Far from the leftist rhetoric that insists against all evidence that “as long as there is misery there will be rebellion”, what has really motivated the recent rebellions has not been “misery” but the conjunction of weariness and despair. These two factors – which drive the nostalgia for the “devil you know” and yearn for the return to the welfare state, to industrial capitalism and to the society of labour – are the causes of the widespread unrest that has led to the global revolt of our days.
        It is increasingly axiomatic that “misery” only produces “misery”. That is to say, servitude, begging and even the loss of all dignity. As the proverb goes, “hunger is a bad counsellor”. She is the mother of all those specimens that hang a sign around their neck that says “I will do any work” (even for the SS, as George Steiner reminds us). Therefore, instead of creating rebels and refusers, misery breeds disease, malnutrition, mortality, fear, sexual exploitation, corruption, soldiers, police, informants and voters: human misery.
         This is why misery is exalted by the left, knowing that the future is fattened in its jaws, as that is where future votes are counted. All we have to do is to consign some “prizes” and, to state abracadabra: the corpse-like clientele will remain guaranteed for a relatively long period of time, until “there are no more prizes” (Burroughs dixit) and the uprisings return.

 Read the full article HERE:

 Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

How Long?

       As sates across Europe and elsewhere march in lock-step with each other at trying to crush any and all self organising autonomous structures and individuals, it sometimes appears as if one state is trying to out do the other in the expanse and severity of their actions, with the terrorist label attached to any voice of dissent. Greece appears the worst, then it looks like Germany is trying to lead the pack, and so it goes on, ever lurching to the right and further draconian acts to control the population. How much longer will the people accept this goose-stepping to fascism, how much longer will we let our anger simmer below the surface. No state is immune from this thrust to the right.

This report from Act For Freedom Now, on Germany:

      The most revolutionary thing one can do is to proclaim always loudly what is happening.” Rosa Luxemburg
    On Monday, August 31, cops attacked 27 objects, 24 of them in Hamburg and one each in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia. The reason for the searches is the investigation against the Roter Aufbau Hamburg for the formation of a criminal organization.
    These investigations are a further escalation of an authoritarian formation in Germany. The aim is to smash emancipatory structures and to ensure that fascistization continues to proceed. In this context, stand also the investigations on 129a here in Frankfurt, which have the sole aim of criminalizing and smashing left structures. With our solidarity, however, we are taking the wind out of the sails of repression – widespread and united against this class justice.
We send solidarity greetings to those affected by the raids and wish you a lot of strength!
     Solidarity with the Roter Aufbau Hamburg! Fire and flames to the repression! United we Stand – United we Fight!
We are all 129a!

       This from another part of this world of neo-liberalism from one who has often felt that brutal lash of state authoritarianism and remained loyal to freedom and justice. 

       San Miguel Prison, Chile: New Drawing by Anarchist Prisoner Mónica Caballero

[Prisiones chilenas] Dibujo de la compañera anarquista Mónica Caballero

        The prison and I are old acquaintances, on more than one occasion I have sat at their table, over the years we have changed and we have both learned from each other…but no matter how much time passes essentially the prison and I remain the same. Prison is still the power-sucking monster that grows and spreads submission and repentance, and I continue to have the same seditious desires as before.

Mónica Caballero, anarchist prisoner

 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

No Borders.

 

        Solidarity, unity, co-operation and no borders are the foundation stones of our victory over this economic system that condemns millions to a life of misery. A system that has only one aim to increase profit, wealth and power to the few. As the inequality grows so does the anger and the resistance, however, likewise the state, the corporate beast's minder, increases it repression, surveillance and brutality to meet that resistance. It is aware of the rising anger and resentment, if unchecked could bring its plundering to an end, so it will increase its viciousness and brutal repression in an attempt to hold onto its very survival and to retain its wealth, power and privileges. 

       We either accept the life of inequality, injustice, mass poverty, murderous deprivation, total surveillance, and continuous wars, that this system hands us, or we resist with all the strength we can muster, and take our anger to the streets. Our world of resistance may seem fragmented, but make no mistake, it is the same battle across all borders, a struggle for justice, equality and the right to a decent life for all. If these struggles happening across the globe, come together across all states enforced borders, our victory is assured. The alternative is unacceptable.

 

 

         A call with passion and from the heart from Berlin.

The following is from Act For Freedom Now:

International Call for Action and Discussion Days in Berlin 30.10.-01.11.2020
International Demo in Berlin 31.10.2020
UNITED WE FIGHT!
       Connect Urban Struggles – Defend Autonomous Spaces
Over the last years we experience a global resurgence of reactionary politics. State and capital, in a constant process of intensifying exploitation and expanding repression, used the global capitalist crisis, which started a decade ago, as a chance to further restructure relations of power in their advantage. Their political answer is materialized in a shift to the right, with a political alliance of neoliberal economic policies coupled with strong nationalistic narratives and repressive policies against resistance and progressive movements. The new face of authoritarianism has unleashed an all out attack against individuals it considers unnecessary or those that choose to resist and collectivize against the ruin of their lives. In our current period, states the world over used measures against Covid-19 to extend repression, policing and surveillance against societies. At the same time, the failings of neoliberal healthcare systems have led to masses of deaths and increasing inequality due to access to healthcare.
To all of this, people in different areas of the world answer with massive resistance on the streets. Movements with different perspectives have revolted, for example in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, or more recently in France and the USA. The common thread of all these movements is their distance from institutionalized and systemic politics and the choice of self-organization and horizontalism in the fight against authority.
     The movement in Germany is fighting against exploitation and oppression in the belly of the beast. Since the movement reached a climax of mobilization against Hamburg’s G20 summit in 2017, the German state intensified and broadened its repressive arsenal with the goal to suppress and isolate the movement: this has seen the biggest public manhunt since the state repression since the 1960s and 70s, widening of police measures such as preventative arrests and extrajudicial surveillance, increased penalties for crimes against police and the ban of the popular German indymedia website “linksunten”.
In the city of Berlin over the past years the movement has come under constant attack through the eviction of its infrastructure, with gentrification manifesting itself in an attack on marginalized and struggling parts of society: rising rents making life unbearable, more than 5.000 forced evictions of houses per year, increased policing of public spaces and an overall changing social geography in the city. On the one hand this destroys or displaces spaces that the movement uses to support itself. Through heavy policing and state repression, subversive lifestyles and political organization is made impossible within public spaces. On the other hand capital is given space to invest and increase profitability through real-estate, privatization of security through cameras, fences and walls, smart city developments and big public-private partnership projects.
      The struggle of self-organized spaces in Berlin has developed against this background. The eviction of the bar collective Syndikat last August, and the broad mobilization of the movement against the eviction, was only the start of the upcoming fight for our infrastructures. The anarcha-queer-feminist house project Liebig34, the autonomous youth center Potse and the bar collective Meuterei are threatened by imminent evictions. The house project Rigaer94 was again raided in July, in an attempt to use the background of the raid several vain attempts to evict squatted flats were made without any success, since all flats could be held by the people inside or taken back. This phase of evictions might become the biggest attack on the autonomous infrastructure in Berlin since the 1990s.
       These collective spaces have chosen to stay and fight back in different ways. Their struggle has rallied the movement German-wide as a fight we are all a part of: against private property and capital, against the displacement of people from their houses, against gentrification of our neighborhoods, against a patriarchal and racist system which marginalizes, silences and oppresses the voices of those being exploited or deemed expendable for the system. Against this the projects put forward self-organization and solidarity, defiance of property and confrontation with the state and a direct attack on the oppressive social structures of hetero-patriarchy, nationalism and individualism.
      We are traversing a critical period, both for society and for radical movements worldwide. Under the dogma of “law and order”, state and capital are intensifying their attack on society and trying to further their dominance of all aspects of everyday life, stopping every collective vision and claim, and every perspective of resistance and struggle.
       Recognizing Berlin as the capital of one of the most dominant capitalist countries worldwide, we aim to intensify the social struggle in the heart of the beast. Giving a strong answer and creating perspectives against one of the most unbearable states of the world, that consists a model for many countries worldwide and which through its bureaucracy and structures infiltrates all the aspects of our lives leaving no space for self organization and anti-institutional struggles, will create a legacy not only for the local movement but for every rebellious cell worldwide.
       By the end of October an official eviction date of Liebig34 may be public. We will get together to prevent this. And if it has already been evicted in the weeks prior, we will take it back!
       We need all the force we can and call for support to defend our projects. Borderless solidarity is one of our strongest weapons. We want to use this opportunity to make the anarchist perspective more visible and bring the discussion about our ideas, praxis and strategies forward. The days prior to the demonstration on 31.10. will offer space for a plenary assembly, exchange, discussions and ways of actions on our common goals, strategies, occupying ground and collective defense.
        We consider this demonstration as an opportunity to come together to create a breach in their plans and multiple moments of ragefull, dynamic and militant experiences in which we abandon the defensive role and instead take the street as an active and offensive movement.
         Thus we hope to make these days part of a continuous discourse and not yet another unconnected event with no followup.
For these reasons we call for people to take the streets and destroy their plans of evictions. Although our fights in different corners of the worlds take different characteristics as we struggle in different contexts, borderless solidarity and the bridging of our struggles has been possible in the past, and is necessary for the future. Let’s choose confrontation and resistance, and seek them in collective moments beyond borders; let’s make their plans a disaster.
        We join the call of Terra Incognita to turn this year’s October into a month dedicated to solidarity and standing up for every occupied ground threatened by repression.
Lets bring our rage together!
Berlin 30.10.-01.11.202
International Demonstration 31.10.2020
via Liebig34.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk   

Solidarity.

       We are controlled mainly by our national police, but the day is not far off when that control will be in the hands of an international police force, European states are welding together an efficient police force that knows no borders. Borders are there for control of us, the populations, hemming us in as more easily controlled groups, for the state's own power. The international police will be there to control those who would dare to cross their designated border lines, without their masters permission. The framework is already there and functioning well. the following from Act For Freedom Now:

 France / Italy: Letter from Imprisoned Anarchist Comrade Carla

Fresnes, 19.08.2020
Salut!
      After 536 days on the run, I was arrested on July 26th near Saint-Etienne. I experienced the arrest as the first performance of a scene repeated a thousand times in my head, or rather 536 times? Everything seemed to happen in slow motion: the hooded cops pointing their rifles at me, put me down and ask me the name that I’ve so often been called lately. It felt strange to pronounce it.
    I was then brought to Paris by the SDAT [Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate], four hours of travel handcuffed behind my back in the company of their balaclavas. They blindfolded me for the last few kilometers that separated us from their premises in Levallois-Perret. They were the ones who took me to court two days after the arrest, then to Fresnes prison.
      At the hearing, I accepted the extradition without hesitation. I had followed the events surrounding the arrest of Vincenzo Vecchi (whom I greet in passing) closely, but he had refused, offering himself a chance to remain free in France. For me, the choice was between waiting for the trial in France or in Italy, where the other defendants in Operation Scintilla are, all of them free except Silvia, who is still under judicial supervision.
      It seems that in recent times, arrest by means of a European arrest warrant and subsequent extradition have become mere formalities for the European justice system. We have seen this recently in Italy on several occasions, but also in the repression that followed the Hamburg riots or in Greece and Spain. European police forces are refining their weapons and their collaboration seems to be getting closer, exchanging tips and services. So it seems to me that it is up to us to look into the matter and study the mechanisms.
    I discovered the prison at the time of the coronavirus, the regulation fortnight in the new arrivals’ quarter, the mask during all movements, including the walk for that length of time, the suspension of all activities, the cell 22 hours a day.
     At the end of my fortnight, and on the eve of the scheduled date of my extradition, the other arrivals and I were placed in sanitary isolation on the grounds that we had shared a walk with a new arrival who turned out to be infected. Tests were only offered to us once this case was confirmed and have been the rule for all new arrivals ever since. We were initially told that they couldn’t test everyone. Unsurprisingly, it seems that the prison administration (PA) is behind schedule.
      In the spring, the measures taken by the PA in response to the arrival of the coronavirus led to situations of mutinies, revolts and solidarity. Unfortunately, here at least, it seems that living with the virus has become the norm, and the fear that a newcomer could bring the virus with her is coupled with the fear of being suspended from the visiting rooms, as was the case with us this week. The meagre compensation that the PA gave in the form of telephone credit in the spring is no longer relevant, as a group of isolated newcomers is so small compared to the strong mobilisations of last March.
     I’m expecting extradition again any day now and I know that a third isolation ward will probably be reserved for me when I arrive in Italy. I take advantage of the expressions of solidarity that join me today after so much silence. In spite of the publications on the subject, which are precious, the escape is still too often considered a romantic adventure and the companions concerned are often thought of as free. During this year and a half, I have never lacked solidarity and warm support, I have never lacked anything, but one is not free when one is deprived of one’s life.
      I would have liked to have been on the street with my comrades during the demonstrations in reaction to the eviction of Asilo, I accompanied the hunger strike of Silvia, Anna and Natascia with my thoughts, I thought every day of the comrades arrested in successive waves. I would have liked to have been by my family’s side when they went through difficult times and to have heard from them when we were all confined. Today I am ready and determined to face the next few months, but my thoughts are with those who are still on the run, often far from their loved ones. I hope that their journey will be as long as they want it to be, and that the encounters they make will give them the warmth they deserve and the energy to continue to fight.
     Carla
 

      On Tuesday 25 August 2020, Carla, arrested on 26 July, was finally extradited to Italy. She is now incarcerated in Vigevano prison, near Milan, in the AS3 module (alta sicurezza 3).
This high-security isolation section is initially reserved for prisoners accused of belonging to the mafia. Since the closure of the aquila, the AS2 sections, reserved for detainees considered political by the state, hardly exist for women, with the exception of Rebbibia (Rome) where Flavia and Anna are. Anna is only there for a few weeks because the Italian state has chosen to dispatch the companions, which is why most of them, including Carla, end up in AS3.
Carla wrote a letter from Fresnes prison which we reproduce below.
Let us continue to write to her and express our solidarity!
To write to her :
Carla Tubeuf
casa circondariale di Vigevano Centralino
via Gravellona 240
27029 Vigevano (PV), Italy

Visit annn arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Resistance.

      The full blown war being waged by the Greek state against any autonomous spaces, any self organising by the ordinary people, any solidarity shown to migrants, has been running for a year now. What this has meant is that the state uniformed thugs and accomplices heaping torment and anguish as well as savage brutality on all who struggle for that freedom and solidarity that is nurtured in these autonomous spaces, self organising groups, and migrant solidarity and support groups. It is all the state can offer to those who seek freedom to organise their own lives, who seek solidarity and co-operation between all peoples. How long will we let these state thugs, puppets of the billionaire corporate beast, chain our lives to their greedy profit drive system of exploitation? Resistance and solidarity are the keys to freedoms door.

   The following on Greece from Act For Freedom Now:

  10, 100, thousands of squats

One year of resistance against state terrorism
     Today 26.8.20 marks one year since the armed hooded men of Chrysochoidis invaded the refugee squat of Spyrou Trikoupi 17 and the neighboring Transito squat. It was early in the morning when they forcibly pulled out families with young children from their beds–people who after much hardship and suffering had found a place to grow roots again in these buildings. They took them from their home and distributed them in miserable camps to live in the dirt and with indifference in canvas tents. Since then, a barrage of state terrorist attacks on refugee and political squats has led to evacuations, snatching of people, beatings, and arrests.
     The refugee squats have functioned for many years as unprecedented experiments of practical anti-racism and anti-fascism, self-organization, and solidarity. These spaces have given thousands of people the opportunity to regain their stolen autonomy and the right to define their own lives away from human guards and charity contractors. And almost all of them were evacuated.Families with babies, single women, LGBTQI+ people, the sick and disabled, survivors of torture were all brutally detached from their daily lives and relationships and were trapped in nothing but state mercilessness.
Political squats that formed cells of social action in neighborhoods, challenging the prevailing ideas of tourism, private property, and commercialization, which turned cities into concrete class pyramids of solitary depravity and social rivalry, were also evacuated. Those who defended these squats faced harsh repression. But this also extended to simple neighbors, as it happened in Koukaki.Bricks were placed where there were open doors.Where once voices, songs, and laughter were heard, only silence echoes now.Where life spread its wings, they left only the dust of desolation.The targeting of squats through the monstrous lies of the media is an integral purpose of the state, which wants to crush any spatial, social, and ideological sphere, that shows and proves that there is another way to live, away from gender, class, ethnicity, and religious hierarchies. That our passage through the world deserves to be more than constant anxiety of survival and a lesson in obedience, that we can throw the weights of artificial suspicion to express, to create, to dream collectively. At the same time, it is an integral part of the most disgusting but also the purest face of power, of raw authoritarianism.
        The plan for mass evacuations of squats coincides with the militarization of entire areas, with the expansion of the supervisory-repressive mechanism, and the police barbarity it inflicts on the bodies of fighters.In the past year, at Notara 26 the housing squat for refugees and migrants, we mourned for every space of struggle that fell into the hands of the enemy. We mourned for every human who lost hope, for every hope for a better life that was tarnished under police boots. We felt anger for those injured with opened heads, the sad looks in the police buses and cages, the locked doors. We were moved by every act of resistance and an attempt to reclaim stolen land. We know very well, however, that no idea, no movement is evacuated. We ourselves accept daily the increasing pressure of the government with threats of evacuation, insulting comments against residents and people of solidarity, thrashings, attempts of invasion, constant harassment, and even Nazi slogans we have witnessed by the sad entourage of the Police shouting outside the squat.A year later we are still here, stronger, more united, more determined than ever with an immense wave of solidarity embracing us, forming a circle of care around us.
We are part of a multifaceted movement that is “not afraid of ruins” because it knows how to rebuild, who finds crevices to escape from all the jail cells, who will always haunt the empty houses and the nightmares of the torturers.The liveliest firework in the thickest darkness!
source

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Phony Justice.

 

     In this world of pampered privilege for the wealthy few and bare knuckle treatment for the poor, justice is a word of many interpretations. Innocent until proven guilty sounds fine, but that doesn't mean that you are free until proven guilty. The following case is not unique where individuals are held in high security sections of prisons for over a year, while waiting for that verdict, guilty or not guilty. All this on the whim of one or group of those wealthy pampered privileged few. Those tasked with administering this loaded justice, wear fancy clothes, sit in high chairs and dispense their brand of justice written by the wealthy pampered privileged few, to protect their wealth and power. This is not justice, this is bare faced protectionism by a powerful, wealthy clique.

The following is from Act For Freedom Now:

 

 

        A preliminary hearing for the ”Prometeo” investigation was held on 29th July at the court in Genoa. Videoconferencing was imposed on Beppe and Nat, and given the charges against them (article 280, with aggravated and continued circumstances) this is likely to continue throughout the trial.
         During the hearing lawyers raised a technical issue which has been going on for months, i.e. that no one has been able to access environmental and telephone bugging yet, considered “evidence” on which a good part of the accusatory structure is based. Moreover, with the change of public prosecutor, a good part of the material had not even reached pm Federico Manotti, now in charge of the investigation. The investigating judge therefore postponed the preliminary discussion and the choice of trial procedures by setting two hearings: the first on 11th and the second on 18th [August] for any reruns.
         After over a year in prison, the investigating judge ordered an extension of the custodial measure for Beppe and Nat on the eve of the detention period expiry term, justifying it with the usual “risk of escape” due to the accuseds’ lifestyles: owning a camper van that can be used for travel and for undertaking seasonal work abroad has become the pretext for justifying the escape risk and handing out more days of prison as though they were sweets.
      An appeal hearing concerning Natascia’s remand will be held on 14th August.
      Meantime, while these gentlemen are taking their time, Natascia remains locked up in the AS3 unit in the prison of Piacenza, and Beppe in the secure unit in Pavia: in spite of Beppe’s two hunger strikes and repeated requests from lawyers, the Director of Prison Administration persists in holding him in there.
As always, and even more so in anticipation of the trial, we are renewing the call for solidarity with the accused comrades.
FREEDOM FOR ALL!
To write to the comrades still locked up in jail:
NATASCIA SAVIO
C.C. SAN LAZZARO
STRADA DELLE NOVATE 65
29122 PIACENZA
ITALY
—————-
GIUSEPPE BRUNA
C.C. DI PAVIA
VIA VIGENTINA 85
27100 PAVIA
ITALY
To contribute to support them:
– Postepay evolution
Account name Vanessa Ferrara
Number 5333 1710 9103 5440
IBAN: IT89U3608105138251086351095
– Postepay evolution
Account name Ilaria Benedetta Pasini
Number 5333 1710 8931 9699
IBAN: IT43K3608105138213368613377

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Condemn Or Else.

         In today's society it seems that if something happens the state doesn't particularly like and you don't jump up and condemn the action, then your are a suspect. 

The following article appeared on the site, finimondo, 

English version from Act For Freedom Now:

Lecce, Italy: A stupendous thought
August 2, 2020 by actforfreedom
        Some local news. We don’t know when, we don’t know who, we don’t know why, we only know where. And that alone is enough to open your heart, even if what happened seems not to have been very successful. But, as is well known, in some things it’s the thought that counts.
      A thought like the one someone left on the wall of a company in the outskirts of Lecce last weekend. It wasn’t a poster, or a slogan, no, it was a pot full of petrol with a couple of gas canisters attached to it, equipped with a rudimentary, possibly defective, fuse. There was a big blaze, but no explosion. The local media have no idea when it happened. Um, between the evening of Friday April 24 and the morning of Monday the 27th? They don’t even say who it could have been, or for what reason. Um, an act of intimidation or retaliation by some criminal or unbalanced element? On the other hand, they were very precise about where it occurred: in via del Platano 7, in the Castromediano district, headquarters of Parsec 3.26.
       But what is it involved in, this Parsec 3.26? It is a computer company specializing in digital technologies for the local authorities. For example, it created the software that is used by the police and the banks for the facial recognition of those filmed by video surveillance cameras. Ah, that’s all? Could it have been targeted because of, as we learn by browsing the site with the dreadful techno-Anglo-cretinising language, its “passion is E-Government”?
       Just because «it has started a division called Reco 3.26, active in the production of software systems in the field of smart recognition … in research in biometric systems and makes use of interdisciplinary teams that include Engineers and Scientists … The sectors in which it is currently introducing this technology are transport, finance, security (public and private). Growth is driven primarily by governments’ security initiatives. Companies belonging to sectors such as retail and banking are adopting facial recognition systems for identifying customers and monitoring their behaviour. To date, the solutions produced by Parsec 3.26 represent the state of the art of recognition technologies in Italy for public security. In fact, the company has distinguished itself for having created a biometric recognition solution currently used by the Ministry of the Interior – Central Anti-Crime Direction within the SARI system “?
        Is it possible that there is anyone hostile to this “distinguished” society just because it helps the State to fill the prisons and the banks to protect their safes? Whoever would have thought such a thing!
        Here, the fact that in times of confinement, checkpoints, self-certifications, tracking, surveillance with drones and so on … — stuff to shame those weaklings of the totalitarian regimes of the past — someone who had such a thought shortly before, during or after the anniversary of the Liberation from nazifascism, leaves us spellbound. Perhaps it was just a blaze, but how much splendid light amidst the darkness of today’s voluntary servitude.
        Light of revenge, light of dignity, light of freedom.

        Some time after the article was published the writers were paid a visit. The following is their report of the incident, again from Act For Freedom Now: 

Lecce, Italy: A little thought
        This is what the investigators looking into the unexpected blaze at the Parsec 3.26 on April 27, on the outskirts of Lecce in full lockdown, have had. And since Finimondo published a text which did not condemn what happened and were not outraged by it, quite the contrary, and as the animators of Finimondo live not far from the headquarters of that company whose social and economic reason for being is to embody Big Brother, you want to bet that 1 + 1 +
      So today, Monday July 27th, we were dragged out of bed early in the morning. No, it wasn’t the alarm clock, it was the Digos [political police]. They came to carry out a search and to give one of us a notice of investigation. They suspect he was the one who left “a pot containing petrol and two camping gas canisters” near the techno-cop company in Salento. The search, particularly attentive to computer equipment (which allows “understanding of the actual purposes of the act”) and clothing (being strangely attracted to multicolour, black must have gone out of fashion), had a positive outcome. No, but what are we saying, positive is too little, we would go as far as to say very positive. In fact, it seems they have discovered that there are traces of Finimondo’s text on the computer used by the suspect who has fired the Prosecutor’s imagination so much (you don’t say?). Moreover two camping gas canisters were seized (oh really?). Finally – you will never believe it! – they even found pots in his kitchen (seriously?). They didn’t seize them, only photographed them, for everlasting evidence. As we anticipated, 1 + 1 + …

Continue reading: 

 

       So just remember, when you see or hear of something the state doesn't like just whisper, "shame on you", you may be able to sleep longer in the morning.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Every Lidl Helps.

          Those large sprawling supermarkets, are they as innocent as the seem? Where ever they open their mammoth consumer machines, local businesses close and local producers suffer. Food is grown in massive agribusinesses usually useing cheap labour, it is packaged and transported thousands of miles, polluting the planet, for no other reason than to monopolise the food chain and create massive profits for the parasite class. They are part and parcel of the corporate capitalist movement to turn our towns and cities into money making consumer munching plots. 

         Following article from Act For Freedom Now:

Received on 23/7/20
     In the night of July 23rd we spayed slogans in solidarity to the squats Liebig34 and Rigaer94 in Berlin on the LIDL supermarket in Neos Cosmos / Athens. After we destroyed all windows with hammers.
     Every eviction has its price. This is a message do all responsibles for the aggressive gentrification of many european cities, which allways goes on with the eviction of squats, the state terror against the radical movement and the rising of rents. We noticed the eviction thread against Liebig34 in Berlin and the attack by so called owners and their companies together with the cops against Rigaer94. With the eviction of Dervenion56 in Exarchia the government of ND continious its operations against the combative and solidarity resistance, which we allways will be – with squats or without.
     One of many answers to an evicted squat is the destrucion of a consuming symbol the capitalist system offers to the inmates of the prisons called Metropolis. To support the struggle of our comrades in Berlin we found a german company, but it can be also real estate agencies or luxury cars or tourism.
    The LIDL supermarkt chain was targeted allready some time ago in Germany because of its bad working conditions for their employees. This action is a solidarity offer to this aggressive campain against the working contitions in LIDL WORLDWIDE. 8 to 10 hours per day with a fake smile for pity money, sitting in front of hundreds of products, in a cashier, becoming a robot which just counts and counts. Or lifting big weights destroying your back. Why all these? Which is the role of supermarkets ?
      Supermarket are big financial mechanisms which seem very innocent to the majority of the people. The truth is, they are not.
Colonilization
      Supermarket are colonilizing the economies of local societies in all the earth. All the small markets, grocery stores and other kind of shops are shutting down whenever a new supermarket is opening. There is no need for a new supermarket in most of the areas, its just matter of expanding and absorbing. Also, is reducing the use of local products and producers. Slowly slowly, the residents of an area are becoming workers, mainly women, of this industry, losing all their indepentace (even in liberal terms)
Anti-ecological
     The opening of chain supermarkets, local or multinational, is also increasing importing of products. This is happening because the production companies are exploiting people in a cheaper way in other countries, or because they make better offers to a multinational company because of the massive consumation. What is happening at the end is a big consumption of petroil by the ships to transfer products all around the world. The paradox of capitalism, the fact that a product from 2000 miles far is cheaper than the local, is killing faster the nature.
Food Control
     All these brings us to the bigger problem. Supermarkets are the greatest tool for multinational food companies to takeover all of our nutrition process. We eat shit, we don‘t produce anything, we need money to buy everything, we need to work for them for ever to be able to buy them and cure our selves from the sickness their food is creating
Do we smash supermarket?
    Yes we do. But we have to know that most of the people will not understand why. So we must do more propaganda against this mechanism. And for sure it is better to smash without people being inside. Our target is to spread fear to the side of the bosses not to the side of the random population. But if somebody break a supermarket with people inside without putting someone in danger, its okay, we can overpass it.
       Solidarity to Liebig34 and Rigaer 94
We hit the german interests in solidarity with the resistance in the german controlled territory
       Solidarity to Dervenion 56 and all the evicted and the still resisting squats in Greece
Support to the workers that suffer in the food and product industry worldwide

source Greek original text: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1606472/

 Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Righteous Rebellion.

        You don't have to have the grand plan of the future before your rebel against the present, you don't have to lay the foundations for that future Utopia before you decide the present situation is unacceptable. However you have to take steps to bring to an end the injustice, the inequality, the corruption and the endless wars and slaughter that goes hand in hand with the present economic system that blights so many lives. You do have to rebel against a system that panders to the few to the detriment of the many. To rebel in this society is more a duty to your conscience, a necessary part of common humanity. You don't need a label, a manifesto, or a union rule book, common decency says this must end, but it will only end by your action of rebellion, your act of rebellion should be an act of love for humanity, all humanity.

         Chile: Spreading Ideas Against Power and Their Society  the following from July 20, 2020 by actforfreedom:

         Actforfree received by email: Introduction to Estallido Antisocial / Antisocial Outburst, a new anarchist publication from Chile. Translation: anarchistsworldwide.noblogs.org  

      SPREADING IDEAS AGAINST POWER AND THEIR SOCIETY
       From autonomous initiative as ungovernable individuals we spread anarchy without expecting the progress of the “social struggles” that leads to an illusory future state of “welfare and progress.” The images and feelings of thousands of people fighting in the streets of Chile before the COVID-19 pandemic are still fresh in our memories. Also fresh is the conviction that our lives have been in revolt since long before October 18, 2019, and that in our wild journey we have wielded a theoretical and practical arsenal that has long since ceased to be determined by levels of social and citizen acceptance of violent protest.
      We are no longer lost in the absurd idea of considering any person just for the fact of living in society and we are always happy that more people are rebelling against normality by vandalizing buildings state and corporate, looting or attacking the police. However, this does not mean that we are willing to let the revolts, our ideas and practices mingle in the midst of mass discourses, humanitarians or reformists who do not represent us. 

       This is why we deny all typecasting: we are not the people, we are not a class, we are not a vanguard, we do not proclaim ourselves part of a “glorious front line” or any other fictitious social or idealized category to homogenize individuals in the midst of the revolt.
       We rebel against all social norms and impositions, aiming at the formation of associations that are free and consistent with our essence: individuals in struggle living the revolt as a continuous present that forges its own evolution in the destruction of the existent, in constant conflict with authority and hierarchical ways of relating, and for the permanent construction of anarchic links of autonomy and horizontality in the here and now.
Nothing more, but also nothing less.
      We open this space of communication and dissemination to connect with other like-minded people, collectivizing ideas, tensions and proposals that move us away from comfort and stagnation. For the permanent tension against the State, power and the society that gives it life.
       Against all forms of authority, we constantly strive to bring Anarchy to life.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk