A Review Of Angry People.

       This past year has seen more mass protests in more countries  than before, and most have lasted much longer than the usual bursts of anger that this capitalist system evokes. With the help of the internet other countries become aware much sooner of what is happening around the planet, this in turns leads to support and solidarity, and perhaps an encouragement to those where the anger is still bubbling just under the surface. So it is always good to review these protests that have been exploding across the planet. We can always learn from others, and it is also necessary to find that common ground with others who have given vent to their righteous anger. 

This review of some of these events comes from Anarchist Agency:

       Just when you thought it was over, they were back: France’s gillets jaunes, the direct-action protest movement that arose in opposition to the Macron government’s pro-capitalist, anti-worker policies, was supposed to be all done in 2019, neutralized by police repression and the government’s token gestures at public “consultations.” Then, in December, the yellow vests appeared again as Macron moved to “reform”—i.e. slash—French old-age pension provisions. Once again, thousands of working people were back in the streets, saying enough is enough to the global elite’s efforts to impose neoliberal policies on an increasingly angry populace.
       That’s just one example from an amazing surge of resistance in 2019. The year was full of reaction and repression all over the globe, and as the months wore on, resistance grew: in Egypt,Colombia, Chile,Ecuador, post-coup Bolivia, Haiti, Lebanon, Russia, Catalunya, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. In the U.S., Native American resistance focused on Standing Rock intensified, and antifascists made clear that they will continue to oppose the resurgent, racist far right as long as it gains strength. The specific causes were not always the same, but in every case, state repression and backing of capitalism and the right were the catalysts and direct action was the most dynamic part of the response.
      Direct action is also beginning to infuse the fight for the survival of our planet in the face of climate change, as activists everywhere become bolder at confronting a system bent on either ignoring the crisis or slow-walking its response to the point of irrelevancy.
      At Agency, throughout 2019 we highlighted the role of anarchists and the anarchist movement in this global resurgence of opposition to state repression and capitalism. Anarchists provided much of the presence in the streets against the neo-Klan, neo-Nazi shock troops of Trumpism in the U.S. In July, a Willem Van Spronson, an anarchist, was fatally shot by police after attacking an ICE immigration detention center in Washington state. Predictably, the right-wing response was to demand that antifa be declared a “terrorist” group. Anarchists continued to play a growing role in the opposition to repression of Palestinians in Israel, to anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies in America, and the resistance to xenophobia and neoliberal “reforms” in Greece, Denmark, and other countries. We’ve told this important story through the Agency newswire, syndicated articles, commentaries, press briefs, podcasts, and the harvest of stories from other media that we gather in our Critical Voices section.
      At the same time, anarchists were building a culture of freedom and mutual aid in 2019. In Athens, Exarchia continues to be the center not just of support and assistance for migrants, but of a vibrant anarchist community. The multiethnic, antiauthoritarian community of Rojava was decimated by a Turkish invasion of northern Syria, launched with the tacit approval of Washington, but not before it carried out one of the most creative experiments in self-government without the State since the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) launched in Mexico 25 years ago.
      Anarchism is about expanding our imaginations to include new forms of resistance and new ways to define ourselves as creative individuals and communities. Agency strives to tell this story as well, and we did so in 2019 by bringing together news about anticapitalist bike activism, farming as a tool against climate change, and the work of anti-fascist metal and neo-folk bands to counter the far-right in the music scene.
        All of which goes to show that the struggle against the State, capitalism and authority, against racism, colonialism, sexism and gendered intolerance, plays out in every corner of our lives, all the time. As anarchists, we work to bring these struggles closer together and highlight the many ways we are creating a new society in the process of resistance. Here are some of the stories Agency followed in 2019, and will continue to follow.

Read the full review HERE:

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News Or Propaganda?

 

Prague, November, 16th. 2019.,

     Protests are raging in numerous countries across the globe, more and more people are rising up against the intolerable inequality, injustice, corruption, wars and rampaging poverty that the present economic system creates and perpetuates for the vast majority of the people of this planet.

France:
 https://www.france24.com/en/tag/yellow-vest-protests/

Chile:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/month-protests-chile-persist-gov-concessions-191118231609475.html

Bolivia:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/16/bolivia-protests-five-killed-in-rally-calling-for-exiled-moraless-return

Ecuador:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ecuadorian_protests

Haiti:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Haitian_protests

Lebanon:
https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/after-month-protests-lebanon-what-next

Iraq:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50440110

Sudan:
https://www.voanews.com/africa/protesters-sudan-condemn-previous-days-attack-security-forces

Czech:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/19/czec-n19.html

      Of course this is not by any manner of means a definitive list, there is more, much more unrest against poverty, corruption, injustice and inequality that exists amidst unimaginable wealthy and opulence, all plundered from the work and sweat of the ordinary people. The world is exploding in mass protests.

      Watching the mainstream UK TV news recently I got, each evening, over a considerable period, a roughly 10/15 minutes slot of the protests in Hong Kong, but nothing of note on any of the other mass protests taking place across our world, I wonder why? Then of course my twisted mind went into overdrive. Could it be that the UK imperialist establishment still see Hong Kong as part of the British Empire and naively believe that the UK public will therefore be more interested in that than all this other stuff going on in other people's empires. Or perhaps it is another piece of propaganda that can be used against that, in the eyes of the Western imperialist's, great evil place called China. Who knows, but for sure it is not a balanced and fully informative coverage that we are getting. It is very selective and biased in favour of the establishment view. So can we call it news or propaganda?

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3.5%, Is This The Tipping Point?

 Chile.

Ecuador.

        Across the world the young are turning against the enforced neo-liberalism that has brought so much hardship and misery to so many. From Chile, Haiti, Ecuador, to Lebanon, Iraq and Sudan and elsewhere, people are on the streets challenging the established authority and the symbols of this brutal exploitative system. In some states in is insurrection, and others growing mass protests. Can Chile be the spark that starts the fire?

 Lebanon.

Iraq.

    An interesting article By Medea Benjamin Nicolas J S Davies

         Uprisings against the decades long dominance of neoliberal “center-right” and “center-left” governments that benefit the wealthy and multinational corporations at the expense of working people are sweeping the world.
         In this Autumn of Discontent, people from Chile, Haiti and Honduras to Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon are rising up against neoliberalism, which has in many cases been imposed on them by US invasions, coups and other brutal uses of force. While the severe repression against these activists have led to more than 250 protesters killed in Iraq in October alone, the protests have continued to grow. Some movements, such as in Algeria and Sudan, have already forced the downfall of long-entrenched, corrupt governments.
        A country that is emblematic of the uprisings against neoliberalism is Chile. On October 25, 2019, a million Chileans – out of a population of about 18 million – took to the streets across the country, unbowed by government repression that has killed at least 20 and injured hundreds more. Two days later, Chile's billionaire president Sebastian Piñera fired his entire cabinet and declared, “We are in a new reality. Chile is different from what it was a week ago.”
        The people of Chile appear to have validated Erica Chenoweth’s research on non-violent protest movements, in which she found that once over 3.5% of a population rise up to non-violently demand political and economic change, no government can resist their demands. It remains to be seen whether Piñera’s response will be enough to save his own job, or whether he will be the next casualty of the 3.5% rule.
       It is fitting that Chile should be in the vanguard of protests sweeping the world in this Autumn of Discontent, since Chile served as the original neoliberal laboratory.
       When Chile’s socialist leader Salvador Allende was elected in 1970, after a six year covert CIA operation to prevent his election, President Nixon ordered U.S. sanctions to “make the economy scream.”
       In his first year in office, Allende’s progressive economic policies led to a 22% increase in real wages, as work began on 120,000 new housing units and the nationalization of copper mines and other industrial sectors. But growth slowed in 1972 and 1973 under the pressure of brutal US sanctions, as in Venezuela and Iran today.
        Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup on September 11, 1973. The new US and Western backed leader, General Augusto Pinochet, executed or ‘disappeared’ at least 3,200 people, held 80,000 political prisoners in jail, and ruled as a brutal dictator until 1990.
         Under Pinochet, Chile’s economy was radically restructured by the “Chicago Boys”, a team of Chilean economics students trained at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Milton Friedman. US sanctions were quickly lifted and Pinochet sold off Chile’s public assets to US corporations and wealthy investors. The neoliberal program: tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, together with mass privatization and cuts to pensions, healthcare, education and other public services, was soon duplicated across the world.
          While the Chicago Boys pointed to rising economic growth rates in Chile as evidence of the success of their neoliberal program, by 1988, 48% of Chileans were living below the poverty line. Chile is currently one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, and one of the most unequal.
        The governments elected after Pinochet, from “center-right” to “center-left”, have abided by the neoliberal model. The needs of the poor and working class continue to be exploited, as they pay higher taxes than their tax-evading bosses, on top of ever-rising living costs, stagnant wages and limited access to voucherized education and a stratified public-private healthcare system. Indigenous communities are at the very bottom of this corrupt social and economic order.
        The neoliberal consensus following Pinochet has triggered a disillusionment with the traditional political process, as voter turnout declined from 95% in 1989 to 47% in the recent presidential election in 2017.
       If Chenoweth is right and the million Chileans in the street have breached the tipping point for successful non-violent popular democracy, Chile may be leading the way to a global political and economic revolution. 

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France, Haiti, Ecuador, Chile, Now Catalunya---.

 

        Across the globe people are taking to the streets, to mention a few, Haiti, Ecuador, Chile, France, and elsewhere, now Catalunya, the demands may differ, but they all have something in common, dissatisfaction with the system. A realisation that the system isn't delivering what it says it will, it is not meeting the demands of the vast majority of the people.

This from crimethinc:

 

  Catalunya: A Week of Escalation
Could the Riots Open a Horizon Beyond National Sovereignty? 

        Starting Monday, in response to draconian sentences imposed on politicians who promote Catalan independence, tens of thousands of people across Catalunya have engaged in sustained rioting and disruption. Although the majority of the movement remains pacifistic, a few thousand participants have rejected the leadership of political parties and organizations, opting for open confrontation with police. The various mobilizations are still taking place in confluence, however, making it very difficult for the police to control. Protesters have reportedly used caltrops, Molotov cocktails, and paint balloons to disable police riot vans, while keeping individual officers at a distance with lasers and slingshots and driving away helicopters with fireworks. In the following report, we review the events of the past week and explore what is at stake in this struggle.

       As anarchists, we have a more robust conception of self-determination than mere national sovereignty. All governments are based on the asymmetry of power between ruler and ruled; nationalism is just one of several means by which rulers seek to turn us against each other so we don’t unite against them. We consider it instructive that the Catalan police have worked closely with Spanish national police throughout the last several years of repression; even if Catalunya gains independence, we are certain that independent Catalan police and courts will continue to repress those who fight against capitalism and seek true self-determination. At the same time, there is a longstanding tradition of anarchist and anti-state activity in Catalunya, and we are inspired to see some of this coming to the fore in resistance to the violence of the Spanish state. It is possible that the latest escalation of conflict in the streets of Catalunya will be a step towards the radicalization of the entire movement and the delegitimizing of state solutions.

Let’s look closer to see.

A detailed day to day report on the events: 

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Ecuador, The Struggle Continues.

           Anybody who stands up to state repression or struggles for justice, knows full well that the state apparatus will use whatever force is needed to try and subdue the protestors. The state needs control of the population to safeguard its power, wealth and privileges. The people living on that plot of land called Ecuador are at present feeling the wrath of a frightened state institution as its brutality intensifies in a desperate battle to gain control of the population. Despite this force the people continue their struggle for justice and freedom.
         An extract from an article on Crimethinc:

 

 

     --------On October 8, thousands of indigenous people occupied the Parliament building in Quito. Can you describe for us what happened there?

       In fact, the Indians arrived on October 7, on Monday, and there was a pitched battle in Quito that lasted five or six hours involving students, social movements, and other residents of Quito who were trying to keep the police busy in order to enable the indigenous comrades to enter. Recall that we are living in a State of Exception, so the military is on the streets and had blocked Quito’s main entrances, the North and South entrances, to prevent indigenous people from other provinces from entering. However, the people were so well-organized that the military did not have enough intelligence at their disposal to stop them. The fact that the fight took place in the city center also opened up gaps that enabled the indigenous people to reach the historic center.
      Just as we pushed the police back, we saw the crowded trucks coming and the bikes that accompanied the indigenous caravan. It was a very exciting moment.
      They went directly to El Arbolito Park, next to the Salesian University, where logistical support for the movement is organized. The following day, a rally took place at Parque El Arbolito and people agreed to take the Assembly (the parliament building in Quito). When we arrived there, a first delegation entered, then gradually more and more people entered, while there were thousands of people at the door of the Assembly wanting to enter. Police shot tear gas canisters at people, which created a mass panic. People could have been trampled to death because many could not breathe; people ran in various directions. Meanwhile, police continued to fire tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at protesters. At that moment, a very great repression began.
      The Assembly, strategically speaking, is like a small fort perched on a hill; to protect it, the police positioned themselves at a higher point so that snipers could hit the protesters with tear gas canisters and also live rounds. As a result, the police inflicted a large number of injuries and some deaths, as they were in a strategic position.
      The idea of going to the Assembly was one of the actions that the indigenous movement had decided to carry out during these days in Quito. Until yesterday [Wednesday, October 9], there was a lot of concern because there was no clear strategy, while the government refused to back down and kept increasing the repression. The fact that police sent tear gas into shelters and peace encalves such as the Salesian University and the Catholic University caused a great deal of outrage; in a way, this was a blow to the government, because the news circulated despite the news shutdown that the mainstream media and the government have been trying to maintain.
       Today [Thursday, October 10], in the morning, eight police officers were captured by the movement and brought to the large popular and indigenous assembly at the House of Culture, where there were about 10,000 or 15,000 people. The reporters who were there ended up broadcasting the assembly live, even if they didn’t do it in the best way. In a way, this broke the media siege by disclosing, for example, the fact that an indigenous leader of Cotopaxi, Inocencio Tucumbi, had been killed. He had lost consciousness after inhaling a lot of tear gas and was then trampled by a police horse. That had not appeared in the mainstream media. Suddenly, the dead appeared on the big television channels and it became clear to the general public that—yes, the government is killing people and carrying out repression at an extreme level!--------

Read the full article HERE:

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The Struggle Of Indigenous People.

         We should share and spread this update on the growing struggle for freedom and justice in Ecuador from Roar Magazine:

 

        In the Ecuadorian Amazon, Shuar and Achuar people radicalize the strike, marching towards Puyo. Photo: CONAIE.

    Over the past days, women, children and elders from the diverse nations and Indigenous communities in Ecuador have paralyzed highways, and carried out assemblies in their communities, neighborhoods, and cities. These dignified women and men, who live at the middle of the world, have risen up to recover and take back their country, their present and their future, which is under threat once more by the same elites as always, allied to the predatory right wing patriarchs that monopolize political life.
         With the declaration of a national strike and an Indigenous uprising, they have created a powerful space of discussion that questions the nefarious Decree 883, which dictates austerity measures, the most obvious of which is a dramatic increase in the cost of fuel. “If the price of gas rises, everything gets more expensive, transportation and food get more expensive,” said one Indigenous woman into a microphone in front of a crowd of mobilized community members in the Cotopaxi region.
         Communities in the mountains, in the Amazon and along the coast are standing up together. Through their speeches, posters and songs, they are producing a plurality of meanings, and weaving rejection to the issues that affect them: resisting poverty, resisting being subjected to the economic measures and agenda of the International Monetary Fund, and stopping the extractive regime that is destroying their collective wealth.
A long term struggle has been activated
         As part of this powerful uprising, which is connected to strikes in the cities, calling up historic Indigenous struggles for land and water, and against oil and gas camps and mining projects which sow misery wherever they operate, is clear. In Ecuador we can tell that a long term struggle has been activated, because while today we see that effort and energy are devoted to rolling back economic austerity, the power of the Indigenous and community struggle demonstrates the frustration of the people with state aggression against their communities.
        On October 5, the government of Lenin Moreno declared a sixty day State of Emergency to avoid demonstrations, gatherings and public actions. In response, the president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), together with members of the Popular Front and the Unified Workers’ Front, responded: “Don’t play with fire, the destiny of 17 million people is at stake.”
     In the days following, the CONAIE has announced that Indigenous communities have also declared themselves in a State of Emergency, and stated that they will not allow police of the army to destroy the homes of those they detain, or mistreat women and children. Their communiqué makes clear that anyone found taking part in human rights violations will be brought before Indigenous justice.
        The communities that are rising up are doing so with the aim of re-establishing the order of communal life. Indigenous justice does not threaten or contradict the Constitution, nor does it allow rights and guarantees that have been won through organization to be ignored in such an arbitrary and crude manner. The State of Emergency, through an Indigenous lens, is against the detention of more than 477 people, the attacks on many others, and the killing of one.
        The images from Ecuador that are spreading around the world today show the decision and the energy of the youth, of children, of women and elders. These images have profoundly moved Indigenous people throughout the continent. The speeches of Indigenous leaders in Ecuador have been seen thousands of times on social media. Their speeches are expansive, they nurture Indigenous struggles and at the same time, they include cities in their demands.
The dignity of community struggles
       Students around the country have also powerfully spoken out. The green kerchiefs from recent feminist struggles for legal abortion can also be seen in the images of the demonstrations in the cities, as organized women add their voices and bring with them the capacity to sustain a strike. The cacerolazos (pots and pans demonstrations) convened by womens’ collectives force us to take note of the double workday and the exploitation of women via unpaid work, it also demonstrates how the paquetazo (series of economic reforms ordered by the IMF) will impact them. Urban women recognize the dignity of community struggles, and seek to add their voices, their screams of frustration, by self-organizing to take the streets.
      On October 8th, at the barricades in the Pastaza region, the people demanded the resignation of Lenin Moreno, in other parts of the country, interior ministry buildings have been occupied. The Indigenous movement entered Quito from the south, receiving support and solidarity from working class and poor neighborhoods who joined them to chant: “Join in, pueblo, join the struggle against this government that is against us.”
        Social organizations represented by workers unions and others in the cities will now join in the massive National Strike on October 9th. An Indigenous uprising is, once again, at the heart of the struggle, opening a horizon of re-appropriation in the face of an attempt to expropriate all of the peoples of Ecuador. The Indigenous mobilization calls for the generalization of protest actions so that the struggle can grow stronger.
      This moment of struggle is a moment to re-appropriate strength and self determination, a time of rebellion towards the production of a renewed sense of struggle, woven together with diverse voices that warn, clearly and firmly: “Not Moreno or Correa, not Lasso or Nebot! The struggle is ours!” This makes clear that this uprising will not end in new alliances between power brokers or in other kinds of patriarchal pacts.
        On October 7, Lenin Moreno moved the seat of his government to the coastal city of Guayaquil. His actions remind us of the nervous and fearful priests and colonial bureaucrats during the colonial period, who hid in walled houses and called for military aid, fearing the moment that Indians in resistance would, in the words of Bartolina Sisa, reign again.
        From our communities, from the cities we live in, we are and will continue to follow and express solidarity with what is taking place in Ecuador. The strength of Indigenous communities nurtures ours. We raise our voices together and show our support for popular and Indigenous resistance. Here and there, we resist being overseen by the state, and we yell once again that we are moved by a desire to change every single thing.
        ¡Nos queremos vivas, libres y desendeudadas en todas partes! We want to be alive, free and without debt, everywhere! ¡Que se sigan tejiendo entramados comunitarios y populares de lucha! May community weavings of popular struggle continue to be woven! ¡Que siga creciendo la dignidad! May dignity continue to flourish!

Signed,
Gladys Tzul Tzul, Guatemala
Raquel Gutiérrez, México
Claudia López, Bolivia
Mariana Menéndez, Uruguay
Noel Sosa, Uruguay
Veronica Gago, Argentina
Luci Caballero, Argentina
Jovita Tzul Tzul, Guatemala
Ita del Cielo, México
Victoria Furtado, Uruguay
Siboney Mora, Uruguay
Dunia Mokrani, Bolivia
Claudia Cuellar, Bolivia
Silvia Federici, United States
Dawn Paley, Canada

    

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For Human Dignity, Capitalism Must Fall.

         Ecuador, like Haiti and many other countries is in open revolt, as more and more people allow their righteous anger at the cruel injustices of this destructive economic system of capitalism, that is rapidly plunging the world into chaos, to flow onto the streets. More and more people are now realising that debating and seeking legislation to protect the poor and curtail the rampant plundering of the public purse, just doesn't work. Across the globe, living standards are falling for the majority, while the opulence of the few grows ever more grotesque. We have had centuries of "representative democracy" but still the gap between the privileged few and the vast majority grows ever wider. We the many are on an ever ending slippery slope to poverty and deprivation, as long as we tolerate this greed drive economic system of capitalism to rule our planet.

       All strength to and support for, all those we stand up and fight to end this system of greed and savage injustice. For human dignity and justice, capitalism must fall.

This from AMW:

      About 50 police officers have been taken hostage and indigenous groups have blocked roads and highways, as protests against the state’s neoliberal economic policies continued in Ecuador.

       On October 3, in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, anarchists, some carrying red and black flags, fought alongside students, setting flaming barricades and throwing rocks at riot police, who they forced to retreat. Anarchists have been on the forefront of the struggle against IMF-imposed “reforms” and against the police-state that is attempting to enforce these “reforms” with brutality.

       Protests began when Ecuador’s corrupt president Lenin Moreno announced the end of fuel subsidies. Moreno’s regime, though nominally left-wing, has strengthened relations with the imperialist United States, launching a joint security effort and intelligence sharing operation.

       President Lenin Moreno says he will not bring back subsidies and has declared a two-month national emergency.

       Some of the protests were organized by transport unions who have since stopped their action. Other sectors are calling for a national strike on Wednesday.

       An umbrella group for indigenous groups in the country, the Confederation of Indigenous Nations in Ecuador (Conaie) said it was declaring a “state of exception” in indigenous areas, where soldiers and police officers would be detained and would face “indigenous justice.”

      Luis Iguamba, leader of the Kayambi people from northern Ecuador, said they would keep up the pressure on the government.

“We are fighting for everyone and we are fighting to foresee the rights we all have and we can’t allow this. So, everyone, be on the lookout and keep up the fight. Let’s radicalise the strike,” he said.

Indigenous-led protests have toppled three presidents in the last few decades.

        Their intervention follows protests on Thursday and Friday that saw roads in the capital Quito and the city of Guayaquil strewn with makeshift barricades and burning tires.

Hundreds of people were arrested, dozens of police officers hurt, several police cars destroyed and a local government building was attacked, the authorities said.

       Ecuador’s government has agreed to cut public spending as part of a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The agreement, signed in March, allows Ecuador to borrow $4.2bn.

Anarchists and indigenous groups are likely to continue resistance against the neoliberal policies of the Moreno regime.

More information from that area: AMW

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