Resist.

 

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

 

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

State.

            The state would wither away if it didn't continually tighten its control over it citizens. anything that might try to shift the power away from the establishment, the rich and powerful, towards the communities and the ordinary people will always be seen as the real enemy. To expect other than this is failing to understand the true nature of the state. It fights to have the monopoly on power, the sole right to create laws and regulations, which will always be there to protect the status quo. The state has a whole box of tricks in its various appendages, its loaded judiciary, specially constructed "laws" its uniform thugs and its inhumane prisons, all there to protect the state and its privileged and powerful managers.

The following from Enough is Enough:

          Lyon. France. “We must rely on the state to contend with fascists!” liberals will tell you. “To fight bigotry and fascism, we have to give the authorities the legal powers to combat them for us!” they say. So what happens when a state has the legal authority to decide whether a political group has the right to exist in society? Who will the state wield that power against?

Originally published by International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund.

          If you’re an anarchist or if you live in Lyon then you already know the answer. The French state reserves for itself the right to ban or “dissolve” any group it deems to be “extremist.” The dissolution laws have been criticized by radical, extremist organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for their incompatibility with French republican values like freedom of association.
          The city of Lyon has been a hotbed of fascist violence as of late. Last year, les fachos mobbed up to attack a pro-choice/pro-LGBTQ+ march; destroy a Kurdish community centre, injuring the volunteers working there; and wreck a left-wing bookstore (something the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund stepped in to assist with afterwards). So it would stand to reason that those would be the groups the French state would target for dissolution, not the groups opposed to them.
        Wrong. Last month Groupe Antifasciste Lyon et Environs (GALE) were informed that the state had dissolved them. Their rationale? GALE had been involved in a concert months before where a hiphop artist performed got the crowd to join in chanting “toute le monde detestes les flics!” (“everybody hates the police!”). That was literally all it took for the state to target GALE and ultimately declare them dissolved. This is the first time we have heard of an anti-fascist group being “dissolved” by the state.
        GALE plan to appeal this draconian crackdown via the French courts and have set up a crowdfunder to help pay for that appeal; the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund unanimously decided to make a sizeable contribution to that appeal. If you support the values upon which the French republic was established, you should do likewise.

Visit ann arky's home at http://strugglepedia.co.uk  

Solidarity.

          When someone gets enmeshed in the state judicial system and are sentenced to a prison term, there is no guarantee that they will be released on that date. The state assumes the right to prolong that term on a bunch of arbitrary decisions.  You could find yourself held for years after the original term expires, because of a legal this or that. Prisons are the states citadel of repression and intimidation and they hold all the cards, make all the rules and change them as they see fit. All those entangled in this state repression system must have our full support and solidarity. No civilised society can exist while one prison still stands.

The following from Act for Freedom Now:

                                              POSTER PDF

         From January 7, 2022, a period of solidarity with anarchist comrade Claudio Lavazza will begin. Claudio was first imprisoned by the Spanish then by the French State, and has already served over 25 years in detention. Although the doors of prison should have already opened last December 11, the prosecutor of Mont de Marsan – the emissary of State vengeance that is following his case – continues to keep him behind bars.
       To raise awareness about the solidarity needed for our comrade, a poster with an international scope has been printed (at the moment in Italian, Spanish, English and French). Those who share it and wish to spread it, can request copies and more information at this email address:
inattuali (at) riseup (dot) net
         It is very important to not leave Claudio alone in this moment and to not make him look isolated to his captors. We here publish his new address, as we think it is essential that he receives letters:
Claudio Lavazza
n. ecrou 11818, CD 1 cellule 5, 1D
CP de Mont-de-Marsan
Chemin de Pémégnan
BP 90629
40000 Mont de Marsan (FRANCE)
 

        Solidarity and freedom for Claudio Lavazza!
Freedom for all!
Some anarchists in solidarity.

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

Anger.

            Across the globe, people are angry and taking that anger to the streets. To more and more people it is becoming obvious that the dominant economic system on the planet is not working for the better good of the many, but simply protecting and enhancing the wealth, power and privileges of the few. Of course as the anger among the people grows, so the repression of the state increases. Any written word, spoken word or action, that attempts to end this exploitation of the people and the plundering of the planet is now labelled criminal, or terrorist, allowing the state to unleash its brutal forces of intimidation backed up by its loaded so called judicial system.  However the rebellion continues. The youth of France are angry and on the streets, the Yellow Vests are still on the streets in vast numbers. Russia has mass demonstrations against state repression. People's anger walks the streets of Greece, South America is in a constant state of rebellion No state is immune from the anger of the people and it grows by the day. When will this storm of anger finally wash away the greed, inequality, injustice and brutality of this economic system of privilege and insanity. When will we end this economic system that spawns wars, brutality, deprivation and obscene inequality. 

From Italy:

Sibilla predict a storm?
       At dawn on 11 November, a number of searches were carried out in various Italian cities and six comrades were served with orders for precautionary measures: in prison for Alfredo, under house arrest for Michele, and an obligation to remain and sign three times a week for four other comrades.
The comrades are suspected of the crime of art. 270 bis (subversive association for the purpose of terrorism and subversion of the democratic order) for the conception, editing, printing and dissemination, including via computer and telematic tools, of the anarchist paper “Vetriolo“, for wall writings with content considered outrageous and instigatory and for an episode of damage. They were also charged with Article 414 (incitement to commit crimes), for drawing up and disseminating communiqués containing incitement to commit crimes against the State in person, for the purposes of terrorism and subversion of the democratic order.
      In addition to this, two counter-information websites, roundrobin.info and malacoda.noblogs.org, were obliterated because they were considered an aggravating factor in the specific crime of incitement (through a digital instrument).
       The investigation starts in the year 2017 in Milan, from the beginning of the newspaper’s editorial experience, then was passed to the Perugia prosecutor’s office until today, and reviews the content of the anarchist propaganda articles that are declared dangerous for their communicative effectiveness and the spreading of the radical idea.

Read the full article HERE:

 

Visit ann arky's home at
http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page  

No Photos!!

          For as long as we have had police, we have had police violence, it's nothing new, it's just that the public are now more able to record it, and spread far and wide, photos and videos of that violence. This in turn raises the public anger and leads to much larger protests against this whole rotten system. The powers that be, who have no intentions of curbing that violence against the public, are looking around of ways and means of stopping the spread of the images.
        France has come up with what it believes is a great idea, make it illegal to film/photograph police on duty. Certainly a great idea to blind the public to the truth, but hardly a democratic and fair way to deal with the situation of police violence. Of course the good people of France are not idiots and can see through this autocratic measure to curtail, even more, what freedoms they have.
        So for weeks now the people from that patch on the planet, have been taking to the streets in their thousands and facing off the violent police. They know of the violence, the feel the violence on a daily basis, and they are determined that it will be recorded and made public.
       This new law does not just hamstring the general public, but obviously journalist, and observers are also covered by this, nothing short of, fascist law. It is always the only direction states can take, greater restrictions on the public, greater control of the public, a subservient public is necessary for the state's survival. That's why it is important for us not to be submissive, not to yield their desire to strangle the public from thinking for themselves, we must continually circulate what we consider important, and take what action we think is necessary, to right the wrongs in society.

A demonstrator in Paris holds an umbrella and a sign reading: "For your safety you will have no more freedoms". [Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters]
 

            Thousands of people across France have protested against a proposed security bill that would make it more difficult to film police officers. Media freedom and human rights groups have led protests for weeks to have the government scrap or revise a bill that would restrict the filming of police, saying it would make it harder to prosecute cases of abuse.
       The interior ministry said about 52,350 people demonstrated around France, including 5,000 in Paris. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said at least 64 people had been arrested across the country and eight police officers were injured. In the western city of Nantes, two riot police were injured, one of them with a Molotov cocktail, French media reported. In a tweet, Darmanin praised the police for facing down “very violent individuals”.
        In the capital Paris, protesters on Saturday set fire to several cars, pillaged a bank and tossed objects at police – the second consecutive weekend of violent protests against the draft bill. French police had been deployed to avert trouble after violent clashes erupted during the demonstration in Paris a week ago that saw dozens wounded. The new clashes came after Macron gave a much-anticipated interview on Friday to Brut, a video-based news portal aimed at young people.

Read the full article HERE: 

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 

Endless Babble.

      One thing this pandemic has done is blow a large hole in the illusion that we live in a democracy. The hypocrisy is laid bare, the phony lies become obvious, the callous blundering ineptitude is clear for all to see, government by dictate is the rule. The following extract is about France, from Freedom For Farida, but does it not sound familiar, the ruse of shifting the focus from the depleted and impoverished health service to all in unison, clapping the health workers as heroes.

     On Thursday, June 16, 2020, after months on the front line fighting to save lives threatened by the COVID-19 virus, hospital workers in France took the streets. They wanted to defend their rights and denounce the lack of funds and staff that have plagued French public hospitals for decades.
     Whenever a new government comes to power in France, they repeat the same old song: there’s no money for public hospitals. As a result of these policies, health care workers continue to work tremendous amounts of overtime hours with less and less means to offer patients proper treatment.
    The COVID-19 pandemic compounded their problems—yet at the same time, the French government was glorifying hospital workers as heroes on the front lines of the war against the virus, making promises to improve their conditions and proclaiming that the government would do everything possible to help hospitals. The authorities even asked people to stand at their windows every night at 8 pm and clap their hands to express solidarity with healthcare workers. Many hospital workers understood that this new rhetoric was just political theater aimed at manipulating the public. In fact, the government had no real plan to improve their conditions. Rather than words, healthcare workers wanted action, concrete changes that would improve the situation of healthcare workers.

Read the fullarticle HERE:

   

     One advantage of growing old is the fact that you are living long enough to see the empty rhetoric and hypocrisy being repeated election after election, with nothing changing. The same shiny faces in nice suits pouring out lies and phrases they think the public want to hear. Sadly over the years most of the public have swallowed these lies and empty promises and ran to the ballot box to elect the new Messiah. Remember the euphoria as "things can only get better" smiling Blair rose to the throne in the house of lies, now a hated war criminal. Then the crazy scenes as the pope of hope, the prince of peace, Obama walked six feet above the earth, who went on to continue the killing in the name of the corporate greed machine.

      How long will it take for the people to realise that to be governed by wealthy privileged self seeking greed merchants, spells doom and misery for the ordinary people. Perhaps these recent uprisings against police brutality, will help them grasp the fact that the police are not the real problem. It is the established bureaucratic institution of the state, that is the real problem. It needs the police they are there to protect the pampered privileged wealthy power mongers and will be legislated to do what is necessary to subdue and keep control over the population. Exploitation, inequality and injustice would not be tolerated by the mass of people if there was not the threat of the state's loaded judicial system to come down hard on the dissenters.  

Endless Babble

The questions arise, Why the hunger?

Why does poverty continue to linger?

Why such need in a world of wealth? 

Why put a price on a child's health?

Confused and angry the public stand

gazing in disbelief at this pathetic band.

Those shiny politicians designed by spin

their street credibility paper thin,

the great persuaders looking the mood

struggling so hard just for our good!

Masters of the art of wheeling and dealing

exceptional experts at legal stealing.

Enter the media, drowning us all in trivial text

everything you need know

of scandal and sport, crime and sex.

Together they create a world of confusion

all fashion and style, a vicious illusion.

So no matter how often we point at need,

we always drown in a sea of greed,

no debate entered into, no answers found,

 the waffle and babble goes round and round. 

 

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

Our Rights.

       No doubt we all have our opinions on what is happening to our society and why, what should be done and what shouldn't be done, also when does our rights need to be sacrificed and why. Also we need to ensure that whatever rights we lose, must be restored as their suspension is no longer required. The state has a nasty habit of stating it is necessary to curtail our  rights because of this and that, but failing to return those rights when the "emergency" is over. The present situation gives the state complete control over all aspects of our lives, even to when we can leave our home, where we can go and what we can do. Surely an unacceptable situation to be tolerated for any length of time in any society. Who will be the ones to say when we have our rights restored, obviously it must be us, the people, we can't trust the state as its aims are always control of the population. Be prudent, but be vigilant. 

 This from Act For Freedom Now:

France: “The Worst Virus Ever… Authority…”

About COVID-19, authoritarian delusions and the shitty world we live in…        The macabre death toll increases day by day, and in the imagination of each person takes place the sensation, at first vague then always a little stronger, of being more and more threatened by the Great Grim Reaper. For hundreds of millions of human beings, this imagining is certainly not new, that of death that can strike anyone, at any time. Just think of the damned of the earth sacrificed daily on the altar of power and profit: those who survive under State bombs, in the midst of endless wars over oil or mineral resources, those who coexist with invisible radioactivity caused by accidents or nuclear waste, those who cross the Sahel or the Mediterranean and are locked up in concentration camps for migrants, those who are reduced to pieces of flesh and bone by the misery and devastation caused by agro-industry and the extraction of raw materials…And even in the lands that we inhabit, in times not very long ago, we have known the terror of butcheries on an industrial scale, bombings, extermination camps… always created by the thirst for power and wealth of States and bosses, always faithfully set up by armies and police.
     But no, today we are not talking about those desperate faces that we constantly try to keep away from our eyes and minds, nor about a history that is now past. Terror is beginning to spread in the cradle of the kingdom of commodities and social peace, and it is caused by a virus that can attack anyone – although of course, not everyone will have the same opportunities to cure themselves. And in a world where people are used to lying, where the use of figures and statistics are one of the main means of media manipulation, in a world where truth is constantly hidden, mutilated and transformed by the media, we can only try to put the pieces together, to formulate hypotheses, try to resist this mobilization of minds and ask the question: where are we going?
      In China, and then in Italy, new repressive measures were imposed daily, until they reached the limit that no State had dared to cross yet: the ban on leaving one’s home and on moving around the country except for work reasons or absolute necessity. Not even during war would there have been consent to the acceptance of such far-reaching measures by the population. But this new totalitarianism has the face of Science and Medicine, of neutrality and common interest. Pharmaceutical, telecommunications and new technology will find the solution. In China, the use of geo-locating to report any movement and any case of infection, facial recognition and e-commerce are helping the State to ensure that every citizen is locked up in their own home. Today, the same states that have based their existence on confinement, war and massacre, including of their own population, impose their “protection” through prohibitions, borders and armed men. How long will this situation last? Two weeks, a month, a year? We know that the state of emergency declared after the attacks [translation note: originally imposed in 2015 following the Islamic State terrorist attacks in Paris] has been extended several times, until the emergency measures were definitively incorporated into French law. What will this new emergency lead us to?
       A virus is a biological phenomenon, but the context in which it originates, its spread and its management are social issues. In the Amazon, Africa or Oceania, entire populations have been exterminated by viruses brought by settlers, while the settlers imposed their domination and way of life. In the rain forests, armies, merchants and missionaries pushed the people – who previously occupied the territory in a scattered way – to concentrate around schools, in villages or towns. This greatly facilitated the spread of devastating epidemics. Today, half the world’s population lives in cities, around the temples of Capital, and feeds on the products of agro-industry and intensive livestock farming. Any possibility of self-sufficiency has been eradicated by States and the market economy. And as long as the mega-machine of domination continues to function, human existence will be increasingly subjected to disasters that are not very “natural”, and to a management of them that will deprive us of any possibility of determining our lives.
        Unless… in an increasingly dark and disturbing scenario, human beings decide to live as free beings, even if it is just for a few hours, days or years before the end – rather than shutting themselves up in a “natural” world, of fear and submission. As did the prisoners in 30 Italian prisons, faced with the ban on visiting rooms imposed because of Covid-19, by revolting against their jailers, demolishing and burning their cages and, in some cases, managing to escape.

NOW AND ALWAYS FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM!
[Originally published on Nantes Indymedia on 13.03.2020]

via Sans Attendre Demain, translated into English by Anarchists Worldwide

Read the original French script HERE:   

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

111 Days, Still Going.

       Not a lot reported in our mainstream media of what is happening in Chile. This is to be expected, since the media is the propaganda mouthpiece of the state and the capitalist system. Whenever People rise up against the authority and corruption of the state and the capitalist system, the media looks the other way, it seeks out some popcorn and bubblegum incidents to try to hold your attention, for fear that you might side with the insurrection happening elsewhere.

    It must be getting harder for them to do so as in more and more places across the globe, people are taking to the streets in anger against this exploitative and destructive system that controls our lives.

    For a few years the UK media had Brexit to plaster all over the outlets, now they have coronavirus, punctuated with some celebrity crap and a few reports of sexual exploits of stars and politicians.

    However, the protests, the insurrection and the anger on the streets continues. More than a year in France and long spells of uprisings spreading across the planet. In Chile despite the silence from the Western media, the anger has not subsided. After 111 days, the people are still on the streets taking on the brutal attacks from the state, day in day out. The state's response is ever more vicious attacks, ever greater surveillance, ever more draconian laws, but still the people's anger only grows.

     The following from Enough is Enough:

111 days of social revolt.

THE INSISTENT INSURGENT SPARKS!
        During the weekend there were clashes between soccer fans and the police, like outside the National Stadium and in San Carlos de Apoquindo. In Quillota there were riots and smoking barricades. Bands, chants against the government, invasions on the playing field and fights with the guards and even with fans of the same clubs that disapproved of the protests.
         On Dignity Square on Saturday and Sunday masked people intercepted a bus throwing stones, on Sunday it went further and a bus was partially set on fire. All this in spite only a few people who took part in the protests during those days. There are also discussions between demonstrators to ask for money from the drivers passing through the zero zone.
        In the commune of Pudahuel the rage does not end and a public transport bus burned down, just like in La Pincoya.
       In Melipilla, on Saturday, an attempt at collective expropriation of a supermarket ends with four wounded people, one with a bullet in the groin and three with rifle impacts in their face, neck and arms.
       On Sunday, hundreds of cyclists arrived to protest outside the house of the judge who solved the case of the murder of “Neco”. The murderer was allowed to leave with a weekly signature.
      The government announces the installation of hundreds of facial-recognition cameras on the streets. In the summer festivals the fascist animator and boss behind the scenes “Kike” Morandé joins in, people threw stones against a humorist for being misogynistic and macho, forcing him to withdraw.
       On Monday, an ambush at Dignity Square. More than thirty masked people were arrested.
      On Monday and Tuesday, students protest against the PSU (University Selection Test) at its third day, disturbances and minor skirmishes are recorded off-site. They also protest inside several subway stations and panic takes hold of those in charge, who order them to close.
      Police train military, sailors and aviation agents in anti-riot tactics, the armed forces spend millions on implementation of social control.
      In Congress the constitutional accusation against Intendant Guevara (1) is rejected, some opposition senators are absent or abstaining. For lack of a quorum, the intendant (accused of domestic violence) goes unpunished for the thousands of injuries that resulted from the application of his “copamiento” tactic at Dignity Square.
      Serious incidents in the University of Chile’s Pre-Libertadores match, clashes between “barras bravas [soccer fans] and guards outside the National Stadium, in the gallery a cabin burns down while the game continues.
       Fans of the Südkurve (2) Zürich waving tissues in solidarity and memory of ‘Neco’ and Ariel. Masked people attack a Presbyterian church in Antofagasta.
       In another case of an attack by state mercenaries, a young hospitalized man denounces that at least six uniformed men struck him and left him with a punctured lung, this occurred in Puente Alto.
       On Wednesday night an individual gets out of his car and threatens members of “La primera línea” (3) with a gun. This happens right in front of the place where they murdered “Lambi”, when the individual left he fireds a shot. At dawn a group of unknown people set fire to three buses of the locomoção (4) collective in Recoleta.
        A 73-year-old threatens protestors with a gun from a bus , and is insulted by the driver and passengers.
        On Thursday dozens of floral arrangements give life and colour to Dignity Square. They are in honor of all those who were killed during the Revolt.
      One of the policemen of the group that murdered Alex Nuñez, admits that his colleagues have arranged to testify against him in the case. Alex was killed by cops in Maipu on October 20, 2019.

As you read this report, the president of Chile goes on vacation…

NOTHING IS OVER, EVERYTHING KEEPS GOING.

      Giannis Michailidis and Konstantina Athanasopoulou were arrested in Greece… This one goes for you too.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

France Today.

        According to our mainstream media, everything in France is running as usual, the capitalist country is just getting on with the daily exploitation of the subservient public. Of course if you look a little closer you will find that particular narrative is a load of bullshit. Once again the media propaganda machine proves it is the illusion creator for the capitalist system, by omission and false reporting.

       This summary of what is really going on in France will give some idea of how far from reality or mainstream media is. It only reports revolution and insurrection in those countries that are on their list of "enemies".

       This from 325:

Compilation of resistance in progress

The rage is infinite. Every day, a blow, a strike, a revolt in the country. In order that the many initiatives do not fall into oblivion, and to give an account of the social situation, here is an attempt to compile the strikes and actions that have been taking place in France since December 5th:

RAILWAY: RATP (public transport in Paris, Enough 14) strikes for 45 consecutive days; Paris virtually paralysed during public holidays. Daily blockades of bus stations, often suppressed. A strike at the SNCF lasting several weeks, the like of which has never been seen before. Railway workers multiplying the actions all over the country. The strike was “interrupted” on January 20th to forcus on blockades. On December 5, the Paris-Lyon-Marseille TGV line was sabotaged. At the end of December, traffic on the lines in eastern France was considerably slowed down by bang signals. Several stations were attacked by protestors, particularly in Savenay, Bordeaux and Paris.

ENERGY: Several blackouts in December, notably in the Prefecture of Nantes during a demonstration and in the Bordeaux police station. Targeted blackouts in January: at the Rungis market, the CFDT (French Democratic Trade Union Confederation), Orly airport, etc. Power was cut off during the “low-traffic hours” for hundreds of thousands of households. On January 15th, the Gravelines nuclear power plant was blocked by employees, with fireworks being fired in front of the buildings. Other power plants threaten to shut down. In the refineries, rotating strikes have been taking place since December. The announced fuel shortage is not on the agenda for now.

PORTS AND DOCKS: Operation ‘ports morts’ in most major port cities. On January 15th, in Le Havre, dockworkers attack the New Year celebrations of the employers in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry by throwing big fireworks and smoke. The celebrations are cancelled. Several blockades in Montoir de Bretagne and Fos. Still in Le Havre, the strikers invade city hall and gobble up pastries and champagne of the mayor’s New Year reception.

EDUCATION: The premises of the academic inspection of Alès have been walled in. Outdated books were thrown on the rectors’ offices. Various flash mobs. Selective support of high school students who block their schools. In several schools, teachers are preventing students from taking the baccalaureate exams from January 20th. The minister promises “warnings” and “complaints”. Resignations demanded.

CULTURE: The Paris Opera gave a series of street concerts. Open-air performance of “Swan Lake” with orchestra and ballerinas at Christmas. The choir of Radio France interrupted the New Year’s speech of the boss on January 8th with the performance of Verdi’s “Slave Choir”. On January 17, striking technicians and artists disrupted the programme of the Rouen Opera House and gave a concert in the street. The Louvre is blocked. The castle of Versailles on strike. The French National Library is on strike and has hung banners.

JUSTICE: Lawyers are camping out in front of the court in Bobigny on January 15th. The lawyers of Paris confiscate the files in the “comparution immédiate” (practice of immediate presentation to a criminal judge in case of arrest), plead in many cases for non-appearance and have the accused freed. In Rennes the lawyers plead for the release of all foreigners who are imprisoned in prison camps. In most courts the lawyers’ robes are laid down. The New Year’s speech of the Minister of Justice was interrupted in Caen. All 164 bar associations are on strike.

INDUSTRY: Work stoppages and strikes. On January 17, workers in the aeronautics industry in Clermont-Ferrand threw down their overalls.

HOTEL BUSINESS: On January 20th, Macron invites the bosses to Versailles. Two workers refuse to serve the prime minister: They were fired on the spot. Others write protest messages on their plates, causing great tension in the organisation of the ceremony.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: More than one million protestors were in the streets on December 5. Almost 2 million on December 17. In the following days of the general strike, more than one million people demonstrated. Serious clashes in Paris, Rennes and Nantes in December. Record number of burned cars on New Year’s Eve. On January 7, the multinational BlackRock is attacked by railway workers . On January 9, several trade unionists were injured during horrific repression in Paris. Numerous offices of En Marche (La République en Marche, Macron party) were attacked. Emmanuel Macron was evacuated from a Paris theatre on January 17. A journalist arrested / The presidential restaurant La Rotonde burned down the same night. Heavy repression against the yellow vests demonstrating in Paris on January 18.

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

Bloody Democarcy.

         From our daily bilge feed from our mainstream media, it would appear that all is fine and dandy in France, and the people are quietly getting on with their servile existence. Of course nothing could be further from the truth, the people of France are angry and showing it on the streets. It is over a year since the yellow vests started their mass protests, and they are still continuing, recently they have been joined by massive union presence on the streets, taking on the government for its unjust, corrupt, anti-worker and profit oriented polices. Of course France being a member of the phony democracy club, comes down hard with unleashed police brutality against the any form of dissent. 

     The following video is of one of the many protests happening on a continuous basis. This altercation took place at the corner of rue Jeanne d'Arc and rue du Gros-Horloge in the city centre at around noon local time on the 9th of January 2020.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1215252368381612033

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

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:

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

It's Time To Show Your Righteous Anger.

 

     I would say with confidence that our planet has never before seen such violent mass protests, with such prolonged intensity over such a wide area against the established authorities. This is something that we anarchists can take heart from, vast numbers of populations are taking to the streets not on single issues but simply against the established system, they are throwing off the yoke of authority, not asking for more favours from the powers that be.
     Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Haiti, France, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, and other areas are seeing the people in their thousands and more on the streets, like I said, not asking for more crumbs, but trying to put an end to this brutal neo-liberal authoritarian nightmare that has held the world in its grip for so long. Now India has joined the fray, the country that carries that phony label of the largest democracy in the world. How long before others take to the streets and display their righteous anger, hatred and disgust of a system of enslavement, poverty, deprivation and wars?

 

      An article by Pankaj Mishra from Bloomberg Opinion:

      India has exploded into protests against a citizenship law that explicitly discriminates against its 200 million-strong Muslim population. Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has responded with police firing on demonstrators and assaults on university campuses. The global wildfire of street protests, from Sudan to Chile, Lebanon to Hong Kong, has finally reached the country whose 1.3 billion population is mostly below the age of 25. The social, political, and economic implications couldn’t be more serious.
       It was only last month that students on the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University were throwing petrol bombs at the police, and fielding, in turn, teargas, rubber bullets and water cannons.
      This violent resistance to an authoritarian state is novel to Hong Kong. The Umbrella Movement that in 2014 first expressed a mass sentiment for greater autonomy from Beijing was strikingly peaceful. The campaigners for democracy in Hong Kong today have also traveled very far away from the Chinese students who occupied Tiananmen Square in 1989, and to whom they have been wrongly compared.
       Those students back in 1989 were deeply respectful of their state: Photographs of student petitioners kneeling on the steps of the Great Hall of the People are no less eloquent than the iconic picture of a protester facing a tank. That acknowledgement of the state’s authority as ultimate arbiter is now rapidly disappearing, in not only Hong Kong, but also India and many other countries. It is being replaced by the conviction that the state has lost its legitimacy through cruel and malign actions.
      Today’s protesters, who are overwhelmingly young, are usefully compared to the French student demonstrators in Paris in 1968. The latter occupied places of work and study, streets and squares. They also met police crackdowns with makeshift barricades and Molotov cocktails.
      Like today’s protesters, the French students erupted into violence amid a global escalation of street-fighting; they claimed to reject an older generation’s values and outlook. And they, too, couldn't be simply classified as left-wing, right-wing or centrists. Indeed, the French radicals confused many people at the time because they loathed the French communist party almost as much as they did the parties of the right. The French communists, in turn, dismissed the protesting students as “anarchist.”
    This commonplace pejorative confuses anarchism with disorganization. It should be remembered that anarchist politics is one of the modern world’s oldest, if little remembered, political and intellectual traditions. Today, it best describes the radical new turn to protests worldwide. Anarchist politics began to emerge from the mid-19th century onward, originally in societies where ruthless autocrats were in power — France, Russia, Italy, Spain, even China — and where hopes of change through the ballot box seemed wholly unrealistic.
     The anarchists — one of whom assassinated U.S. President McKinley in 1901 — sought freedom from what they saw as increasingly exploitative modes of economic production. But, unlike socialist critics of industrial capitalism, they aimed most of their energies at liberation from what they saw as tyrannical forms of collective organization — namely, the state and its bureaucracy, which in their view could be communist as well as capitalist.
      As Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the pioneering thinker of anarchism (and robust critic of Marx), put it, “To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.”
     For many anarchists, the state, the bureaucracy and security forces were the deepest affront to human dignity and liberty. They sought to achieve democratic freedoms by a drastic reduction in the power of the hydra-headed state, and a simultaneous intensification of the power of individuals from below through coordinated action.
       Democracy for the anarchists was not a distant goal, to be reached through vertically integrated political parties, impersonal institutions and long electoral processes. It was an existential experience, instantly available to individuals by jointly defying oppressive authority and hierarchy.
       They saw democracy as a permanent state of revolt against the over-centralized state and its representatives and enforcers, including bureaucrats and the police. Success in this endeavor was measured by the scale and intensity of the revolt, and the strength of solidarity achieved, rather than by any (always unlikely) concession from the despised authorities.
      This is also how protesters today seem to perceive democracy as they struggle, without much hope of any conventional victory, against governments that are as ideologically driven as they are ruthless. Let there be no doubt: More open and unresolvable conflicts between ordinary citizens and authorities are likely to become the global norm rather than the exception. Certainly, militant disaffection today is not only more extensive than it was in the late 1960s. It also connotes a deeper political breakdown.
     Negotiations and compromise between different pressure groups and interests that have defined political society for ages suddenly seem quaint. Old-style political parties and movements are in disarray; societies, more polarized than ever before; and the young have never faced a more uncertain future. As angry, leaderless individuals revolt against increasingly authoritarian states and bureaucracies from Santiago to New Delhi, anarchist politics seems an idea whose time has come.

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