The Savage March Of Raw Capitalism.

      The previous post was on the insane savage destruction of the Amazon forest, however, it's what capitalism does, destroys. Destroys communities, environments eco-systems, fauna and flora, defacing the earth, all in the name of profit for the few. The 21st. century juggernaut capitalism, raw capitalism, capitalism with the gloves off, people and communities can be cast aside, villages removed, every action assessed as how it will show up on the financial statement of the corporate world. When and where does it stop, when the last tree has been logged, the last green spot concreted? 

Part one of a two-part Shoal report from Germany.

Hambach mine: destroying communities

             The bus stops remain, but the buses don’t call any more in the little rural village of Manheim in Nordrhein-Westfalen. The pub is still there, but permamently shut. The same with the shops. The village church is still standing but was desanctified in May this year and will never host another service. Only a handful of houses show any signs of occupation. The rest are deserted, boarded up, surrounded by bleak wastelands of rubble where once stood family homes.

 

 

        Manheim is, in fact, in the process of being completely demolished. Why? It is the latest human settlement to get in the way of the massive Hambach opencast lignite mine, which is busily laying waste to 85 square km of German countryside to extract “brown coal” used for fossil fuel power stations. Trees, wildlife, communities – nothing can ever be allowed to get in the way of industrial capitalism and its insatiable need to destroy all that is living.
       Operator RWE, whose entire executive board joined the Nazi Party en masse on May 1 1933, knows that electrical and political power always go hand in hand and thus far has been given free rein by the authorities, despite much local opposition. The human beings whose homes got in the way of their profits have been resassigned to Manheim-neu, a new settlement 7km away on the other side of the A4 motorway. 

      Just as clear-cut forests can apparently safely be replaced by planting saplings on a different site, so can people’s lives be neatly rearranged to suit the financial needs of the ruling industrial capitalist elite. An environmental activist who has been visiting Manheim for several years told me of his sadness at the death sentence imposed on the community. “You really saw the decline of the village. At some point you could not buy bread any more. People were really depressed. They said their grandparents were born there, their parents as well, they had lived there all their lives.
      “There are not a lot of old buildings in Germany because so many were destroyed in the wartime. Where I live, you need permission to paint your house – not just the colour but the kind of paint. “Here, 60km away, they are destroying whole villages. It all depends on who is wanting to do what”.
       There were attempts to protect Manheim. As well as residents determined to defy the compulsory purchases, supporters squatted some houses but were rapidly evicted and the buildings immediately rased to the ground to stop them coming back. RWE and the authorities insist that that the destruction of Manheim, with all the human trauma it involves, is for the “common good”. 

 

    Passers-by we spoke to didn’t seem to agree. One referred to RWE as “criminals”, while another preferred to describe them as “the mafia”. He noted that they ruthlessly threw people out of their homes in Manheim and then adopted a “human” approach when it came to the question of destroying Hambach Forest, arguing that the jobs were good for the local “community”. The political situation has shifted a little in Germany in 2019. Rising awareness of climate change, and the environmental crisis in general, means there is currently a question mark over the ongoing expansion of the Hambach mine. But nobody seems to have have told the people demolishing Manheim. We watched as their bulldozers tore into the walls of a place that somebody once called home. Before long, even the firm soil it stood on will have been ripped away by RWE’s enormous and brutal machineries. Is this what progress looks like? Replacing a community with a massive hole in the ground?

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Time To Stop The Real Criminals, The Real Perpetrators Of Violence.

 

      A moving letter from a Hambach Forest protector, it may be personal, but they speak for all of us who see the injustice, the stupid suicidal actions, the greed driven desires, of this insane economical system that is plundering the Earth's resources at an ever increasing unsustainable rate. It rightly asks, "Who are the criminals?" "Who is inflicting the violence?". Though to those with eyes, the answers are obvious, it is the bastard twins, the corporate conglomerates, and their powerful henchmen the various states. While we, the ordinary, the many, seek a future for our kids and grandkids, the state/corporate juggernaut crashes on, its only aim, power and wealth for the few, as it destroys all our futures.

Visit  https://hambachforest.org/ for more information.

 

From Contra Info,  source: abcrhineland.blackblogs.org

     You lock us up and punish us, because we think and act independently, and decide ourselves, what is right and what isn’t. This is what makes us human: Ethics, autonomy, independence, empathy, thoughts about justice for the future, our unity of body, soul, and spirit.

       With all of these abilities come a very special responsibility, and you want that I throw this responsibility to the site, and act ruthlessly and egoistic? You want that I close my eyes and ears? An empty case, a robot, that only follows orders? This I can’t do.

      How can you demand, that I deny my humanity, or subordinate myself to the profit-motive of a single company, or power-hungry politicians? How can you demand, that I should act as if tomorrow didn’t matter, even though everything in our system is based on a future?

       Otherwise, what is insurance, wills, or pensions? We are humans, and we know what “future” is.

        So how can you demand of me, to take part in the destruction of the livelihoods of ourselves and our children, to destroy my own future?

       I haven’t always known this, but we need the forest so much. In regions far from the coast, no forest means too little rain. Without rain no agriculture, without agriculture there is too little food. And we can’t eat or drink lignite-coal. You don’t want this to be true, for you it is only trees. You will first understand this, once it is too late.

       You are telling me, that what I am doing is good, but that it is the wrong methods. That they are too extreme. Hmm. How extreme is this eviction then? As I was driven away from the forest, I could see the long line of police-cars, machines, eviction-tanks, etc. again. And I knew that it was just a fraction of these, that were inside the forest.

I almost had to laugh, that’s how ridiculous it was. Because I knew that we are winning, no matter how it ends.

      For you have nothing to fight for. You call us extreme, because we are different, because we are consistent, because we defend what we believe in. Because we can’t stop, otherwise we would betray ourselves. We were sitting in the lock-on, could barely move. Could barely turn. We could only look at each other, share words of courage and consolation. You came from all sides, slashed the roof over our heads, cut down the walls behind us. You have torn our lives apart. And then you accuse us of violence?

      Sometimes in the mornings I said thanks to Kontiki. For a wonderful restful night, for waking up in the right place, for the great feeling of safety and satisfaction, that it has given me. I never knew: am I speaking with the tree-house or with the tree? It was a creature. A creature that carried something we built, a creature with which we lived together, dreamed together. We were so anxious for the trees, when it wasn’t raining. We thought, at some point they will just fall to the ground, powerless. They were turning yellow, but they are so strong. They had to go through so much. It is an injustice to pump out ground-water, it is such a huge injustice!

       You were laughing, as we were screaming in panic, that you were bringing the life of our friend on the Skypod in danger. We were screaming and screaming, and you cut the rope. Only the friction held it up. Who is committing the crimes?

     We are making you afraid, because we don’t fit inside your schemes, because what we are fighting for isn’t power or money, but the love of life itself, the wild urge for freedom, and the rage towards those who want to take all of this away. If I give you my identity,

     I will be get out of here. So probably a lot of you will say, it is my own fault that I am sitting here. But my identity isn’t something written on a piece of paper. My identity is that which makes me human, my essence, my soul, all that I have learned in this forest, all that the people there have showed me. All of that, which I would lose, if I told you who I am. To reduce myself to these few words. I will not use the unjust privilege of a German passport. I will stay in solidarity with those, who because of repression cannot give their identity. I am a human and I fight for the preservation of this earth. Everything else is irrelevant.

Winter

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk 

They Weave A Poisonous Web.

        The state makes the rules under which we are meant to be servile, when that servility doesn't happen, they simply change the rules. Legislation enacted via the state's protective wing, the judiciary, will be woven in whatever pattern is seen to safeguard their power and privileges. Under the state system, justice, is woven as a straight-jacket, to restrict and repress all and any action that is seen as a threat  to the continuing exploiting of the people, it is meant to eliminate any active resistance against their plundered wealth, their hold on power, and their unearned privileges. They will create the "justice" that cements their position of injustice and inequality. The more they criminalise the population the more the people will see that the state has to go.

This from Contra Info:     

Hambach Forest: 
Two anarchists, evicted from the Hambach Forest, imprisoned

        For two weeks RWE, with the assistance of a large police-deployment from all over the country, has been evicting the Hambach Forest-occupation, near the city of Cologne. Since Sunday 9/16 further two people are in custody jail. This means that all in all five activists are imprisoned in custody jail.

       The police arrested the two anarchists on Saturday. They are not officially known by the police. They allegedly locked-on together in a tree-house, in the occupation “The North”. The state prosecutor and the judge are accusing them both of “Strong case of resistance towards enforcement officials (Vollstreckungsbeamte)”, §113 Abs. 2 StGB.

      The imprisoned activist Winter, became an internet-sensation, as a moving speech directly after the arrested was shared on social media. “They are probably thinking that they have won, but they can’t win, because they need the forest just as much as we do. They also can’t win the fight, because so many people out there stand behind us. And they just don’t understand, that we don’t fight for just us, but for all of us,” said Winter at the arrest.

      Landing in custody jail on the background of these allegations, is only possible through the law-change of the “Penal code (StGB)” from the end of May 2017, where the minimum sentence for “Resistance against enforcement officials” was raised to 6 months. Furthermore, there was the decision by the Higher Regional Stuttgart, in the context of the “Stuttgart 21 Protests”, in which locking-on “in anticipation of police-deployment” was valued as equal to “violent resistance”. Both of these are sharpenings of the law, that particularly are directed towards leftist activists.

       For three days the accused were not given the possibilty of contact with their lawyer – also in front of the judge & magistrate. Jazzy said, that she throughout the days clearly had demanded to see her lawyer, and stuck to her right to legal defense. In her speech, Winter talked about not identifying yourself: “They will never understand, how it is to live with people, for whom it doesn’t matter what your name is.”

       The Anarchist Black Cross, in its role as prisoner-support, gives the advice: “No person must assist in their own legal prosecution. On this question we point to §136 StPO, which gives the elementary right not to give your identity, even though this is often misused or forgotten in trials. We are asking all people close to the imprisoned people, to accept and support the wish of Winter.”

More information about the Hambacher Forst prisoners under: abcrhineland.blackblogs.org

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Your Planet Needs You!!

      The following statement was issued from one of the Hambach Forest  protectors following the recent death of a Hambach Forest protector, during an ongoing brutal police eviction process. This long standing struggle deserves all the support and solidarity we can muster. There are no borders in the struggle to preserve the ecological diversity of the planet. When part of the planet is plundered and decimated to the point of elimination of vast swaths of our ecological heritage, we are committing ecological suicide, we all suffer, this generation, and the following generations.

      This from one person in the Hambach Forest, via Contra Info:

Statement from one person in the forest

        Throughout a history of relentless and brutal police interventions, those occupying Hambacher Wald in opposition to RWE’s ecological devastation and structural violence, have been forced to seek recourse in even more inventive methods of non-violent resistance, often putting their own safety at risk.
      Over the years many of us have been physically violated, persecuted and put in jail for defending life in Hambacher Wald and beyond. Incessantly the police has chased us down – in this fatal instance in a tragically literal sense.
        Even if no direct causation can be established between police activities and Stefan’s lethal fall, throughout the current police operation a series of life-threatening interventions have been observed, such as the cutting of traverserses with people in them and – Germany, what?! – the emission of carbon monoxide in a subterranean chamber.
How many more broken bones do we need, how many more fatalities, until we will collectively open our eyes to the reality of police violence, to the role of the police in perpetuating mass-destructive corporations structural violence and to the police’s institutional function of protecting the interests of the wealthy to the detriment of the oppressed?      The sudden death of Stefan has not altered our initial motivations for being here. However shamelessly the police may proceed to evict the Hambacher Wald occupation, we shall not flinch, we shall not surrender – we are here, and if we must, we will come back. For the forest and for Stefan.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

A World Of Trees Or Tarmac, The Choice Is Ours.

      The Hambach Forest has been a battle ground for a number of years now. The resistance by people from all over against the turning the largest forest of its kind into a mining area has been constant. However, over the last year or so, the authorities have stepped up their brutal and forced eviction. As usual the authorities are on the side of big business and will bring the full force of their trained thugs down on those who resist the march of the corporate world, as it decimates and plunders our world to the detriment of all life.

     This is a call out from the resisters still fighting, against overwhelming odds, within the forest, as there position is being met with consistent and ever increasing force. This is not just about the Hambach Forest, this is about our planet and the well being of all life, it is a battle for a sustainable life or a corporate world of  barren tarmac and industry.

This from Contra Info: 

       Right now a large scale police action in the Hambach Forest occupation is taking place! The protest camp fighting against energy company RWEs destruction of land and climate must be sustained until the last tree is standing! The eviction of the occupation is coming ever closer, and the struggle is becoming clearer every day now.
         Climate change does not stop at the borders, and neither does our movement! Therefore we are calling for actions of solidarity to take place all over Germany, all over Europe, and all over the world!
The Hambach Forest occupation has become a focal point in the struggle for climate justice worldwide, and now, as we are preparing for the struggle to come, we need all your support!
      So whether you are climate activists, anarchists, anti­police­brutality organizers, or you simply believe in fighting for justice, the callout is clear:
Organize yourself, take action, and show your solidarity!

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Trees Or Tarmac And The Power Of Resistance.

 

        The only way to stop the capitalist system from turning the planet into a tarmac ball is to resit it at every turn. When money is the driving force all other values sink into the swamp of greed, If tarmac and concrete can create more wealth and power for those who already control most of the wealth on the planet, then that is what you will get, more treeless landscapes, more high-rise real estate. Their greed sustains them, and they are blinded by their own illusions of greatness, they fail to see that they are the creators of their own destruction, as well as that of humanity.

      It might seem a daunting task to stop the capitalist juggernaut of greed, but resistance is growing, along with determination. More and more people see the looming disaster, the glaring inequality, the savage injustice of the system, and are venting their anger and joining in the that resistance. We can all play our part, by joining and/or supporting the resistance wherever it appears, or creating our own pressure point on the system. 

      An on going struggle of resistance that is coming under ever increasing pressure is the struggle to save the Hambach forest. The brutish forces of the state are increasing their attempts at eviction, they can only be defeated by solidarity and increased support for the resistance.

   This call for support from Contra Info:

9 activists in pre-trial detention, after being arrested during a barricade-eviction in the occupied Hambach Forest, Germany.
        The activists are accused of ‘obstructing the work of police officers’, during the barricade eviction on Monday the 22. of January.

Arriving early in the morning, the cops were met with activists occupying blockading-infrastructure, including 2 tripods, 3 monopods, a skypod, and a 3 meter deep tunnel.

         The cutting of the Hambacher Forest was officially stopped early this season, on a court-decision, postponing cutting until October 1st 2018, however the risk of eviction of the occupation is as great as ever.

        The ‘Hambi 9’ would love to get mail! Exact information, including adresses and languages, can be found on the blog of ABC Rhineland.

 More photos HERE

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

In Defence Of Hambach Forest.

        The corporate bodies that rape and plunder our planet are, if nothing else, persistent, they are unrelenting in their drive for ever greater profit. They set their plans in motion to desecrate an ancient forest to further their profits, the public protest and set up resistance, five years on the corporate juggernaut is creeping ever closer to those fighting to save the forest. All this is done with the backing of the state, an institution whose prime purpose is to keep the lid on the civil population, should they attempt to protect their country's forests, mountains, rivers and ecosystems from the devouring corporate monster. The state is the corporate plunders minders, stemming the flow of resistance, to allow the unbridled greed of their corporate masters to go unhindered in its rape and plunder of the planet. The state and capitalism will never allow rationalism, freedom and sustainability to enter the debate, perpetual growth is the only game in town, to the detriment of all that is natural and necessary for our survival. Just as the corporate juggernaut is relentless and persistent, so is the resistance of the people, and those who put their time, energy and lives on the line to protect our natural environment, deserve all the support and solidarity we can muster.

This from Squatting Will Stay:

 Call for defending the occupation of the Hambach Forest

       The Hambach Forest has been occupied for five years. For five years people have been building and defending tree houses in order to protect the trees they are living on. For five years diggers, cops, and secus have kept coming closer. Officially, the forest is owned by RWE, a multinational energy company that does not only want to kill the thousands-of-years-old forest, destroy habitats, dispossess and displace residents from the surrounding villages to generate power. With it’s production of lignite in the Rhineland along it is responsible for 30% of Germany’s CO2 emissions. A company that does not shy away from exploiting the entire world in order to maximise its profits. It is a company that significantly contributes to generating situations forcing people to leave their countries of origin. Because the people who first have to deal with the consequences of global warming are not those profiting from coal, but people from the global South. This makes our struggle part of the struggle against imperialism, against oppression and racism. What happens here does not happen by accident. It is a symbol of the capitalist system. And we are working on means of attacking it.       For five years we have not only been attacking RWE, but a system of hierarchy and exploitation that facilitates the company’s mania for profit. It is very clear for us that the fight for climate justice is intimately linked with the struggle for a world without hierarchies, a world far away from capitalistic coercion where major companies do not yield any power over human beings and nature! It is intimately linked to a world where everyone has the right and courage to defend their opinions and principles without being silenced by repressions from the state and system! The fact that the occupation is still alive after five years is proof for the fact that it is possible to resist, that it is possible to dedicate your life to your own maxims and that we will succeed in turning theory into praxis. Only by organising collectively and through courage were we able to fight for this freedom and free space and to maintain it. Despite repressions, despite many of us having been beat up, abused and imprisoned, we are here and will stay here!

Continue reading: 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

Hambach Forest Campaign.

      And so it goes on, under the false flag of "democracy", corporations and governments working hand in hand to enrich their millionaire friends. All this is backed up by the governments' hit squads, under the pseudonym "law enforcement", whose job it is to repress any resistance to their destructive plundering of the planet. European "democracy" will stand no interferences to greed driven march of corporations, as they rip the heart out of our environment, screwing up the climate, and speeding the demise of species after species, with our own species on the list.

 

On the Hambach Forest campaign, this from Contra Info:

       After the courtcase of LAUtonomia activist Sara on the 22nd of march at Cottbus district court, our compa Huba got arrested. Sarah was released and got arrested straight away again for something else, but we don’t have info on why and for what. Sarah was in jail for a month for not giving ID after getting caught shoplifting. When leaving the courtroom civil cops and the screws held Huba at the door and confronted him with a warrant for his arrest. The same day he was before a judge in Cottbuss. He came as a spectator for the court case and left in handcuffs.

       Right now he is in the JVA Wriezen and will be transported to Aachen this week. He is charged with violent assault that allegedly happened the 11th of November, in the cutting area of the Hambach forest.

       We do not know how long it will take for Huba to arrive in Aachen. prisoner transport normally takes quite a long time. Huba will be transported from prison to prison where he will be put in one person cells with no access to books, sports or other things that you would normally get when you are in jail. When arriving in Duren he will be before another judge.

       We do not know how this is going to develop, what we do know is that this tactic of accusing activists of violent assault is very common in the Rhineland region (Hambach forest). These confrontations with security and police are not filmed and the activists get accused of all sorts of stuff, then need to prove their innocence whilst on remand in jail until the court case which can take months.

      This shit is getting fucking old and also annoying. Our comrades get run over by jeeps [and kidnapped], get their noses broken, get beaten up in the copshop, don’t get to see doctors, all of this from the side of freaking RWE, and their fucking rented army of dumb security douche-bags, backed up by the cops. These evil companies and people are protecting one of Europe’s biggest Co2 emitters (RWfuckingE) that are killing the freakin’ planet. And now they started to call us terrorists.

       You can post letters to Huba to the WAA and when there will be a post address available they will send the letters to the prison. When there is more information about Sarah we will make this known. But for now:

       Send letters, make actions, be creative, write a song, talk about this stuff, get involved in struggle or campaign.

ABC Rhineland
z.Hd.: Huba
Kallsgasse 20
52355 Düren

Solidarity

none are free until all are free

abcrhineland.blackblogs.org lautonomiaen.blogsport.eu
hambachforest.blogsport.de

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Murder Of A Planet.

        It is now obvious that the corporate world, is destroying the planet. Ground water is contaminated, rivers are polluted, oceans and seas are poisoned, glaciers are melting, forests are stripped bare. Natural habitats disappear under a carpet of tarmac and industrial constructions, more and more species become extinct. All this is done for profit to benefit the few. If we continue as we are doing, it is only a matter of time before the species responsible for this insane destruction of our planet will join the ever growing list of extinct species.
       Where does the state stand in all this? Take a glance around and it becomes obvious. Where resistance to this killing of the planet grows and gets in the way of corporate profit, the state apparatus, as the corporate world's hit squad, moves in and attempts to crush that resistance to the corporate greed and insanity.

       This appeal for solidarity from the Hambach Forest, where mining is set to destroy the entire forest.

 Info

            Short facts about the lignite mining in Rhineland (Germany)
           In the Rhineland in Germany, the company RWE is running 3 lignite mines where they extract around 100 Mio. t of lignite each year. Furthermore they run 5 power plants where the coal is being burned in order to produce energy. This industry causes aroung 100 Mio. t CO² per year, sets free a lot of fine dust as well as heavy metals, radioactive elements and other pollutants.
         To preserve the mines from flooding with water the ground water level of the region is being lowered to a depth of around 500m, which brings heavy consequences for the nature.
In addition many villages are being „relocated“ which means that the people there are forced to move and the land is being destroyed and contaminated.
       For the biggest nowadays running mine there – the mine ‚Hambach‘ – the forest ‚Hambacher Forst‘ is being cut since 1978. The plan of the company is to completely clearcut the forest until 2018.

The world's is largest digger at the RWE mine in Hambach Forest.

Second Day of Evictions! Support needed!

        Yesterday morning the meadow occupation was surrounded by police. This turned into a huge police operation: All main paths in the forest were cleared, fixed and broadened,, all barricades and tripods destroyed. Until today three unoccupied occupations were evicted (Crusty Town, Pizza, Molly). Police forces are still present all around, chasing people who try to build new barricades.

       This is an urgent call-out for all kinds of support! What has happened the last two days is a massive attack! Because all the roads are cleared and passable for big machinery it’s important to protect the forest occupations NOW!

         Come to the Hambach forest, we need food, water, blankets and most of all more people with fresh energy!

15.03.2016

19:30 For now the situation is calm again, seems like the cops left the forest.
17:10 Police chases activists who are trying again and again to barricade the roads.
17:00 Cops cut a rope in Oaktown and peppersprayed one other. This is hindering
food/water supply, climbing up or down is impossible now.
14:30 evicted until now: Crusty Town, Molly, Pizza (all platforms were not occupied at that time)
the meadow is surrounded again by cops, some on horses
tunnel near Molly is destroyed
11:00 copcars are patrolling in the forest

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk