Rebellion.

 

    

         Riots, mass protests, open rebellion against the state and its bed partners from the corporate world of greed, these are daily occurrences across our beleaguered planet. Most of it fails to make the news with our mainstream media, they are much more tied up with imperialist pomp, sex scandals and the shenanigans of the celebrity world, a daily feed of bubble gum and popcorn.
        So we should be grateful to SubMedia for the regular rendering of that other world, the world of struggle of the ordinary people for justice and a decent life. Spread the word far and wide, the world is in revolt, justice can be ours.

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

Phony Tears.

Beirut, Lebanon, today.

 Beirut, Lebanon, July 2006 after Israeli bombing

 

Beirut, Lebanon, 2006 after Israeli bombing.

 

        I always get sick in my stomach when I hear officials of various states weep at death and destruction in other countries, when they themselves are responsible for shedding the blood of countless thousands across infrastructure they have destroyed, time and time again. Beirut has experienced a disaster of blitzkrieg proportions and its nearest neighbour, who has on several occasions devastated the infrastructure and killed thousands of citizens of Lebanon and Beirut, now stands with tears that burns holes in truth and ridicules humanity. Israel has no shame, no humanity, what has happened in Beirut has been perpetrated on a greater scale in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, time and time again by Israel. I saw no tears then, and I don't accept their tears now.

 

Gaza after an Israeli visit.

The following article first appeared in Haaretz

     Official Israel presented itself as shocked at the disaster that struck its neighbor, Lebanon, yesterday. Almost everyone put on a sorrowful face. Except for Richard Silverstein, who writes a blog, Tikkun Olam, no one accused Israel of causing the disaster. Except for Moshe Feiglin and a few other racists, no one expressed satanic joy over it. Fortunately, former Israeli army spokesman Avi Benayahu ran Feiglin out of the race: “With such statements, you don’t belong to the Jewish people,” declared Benayahu, the man of Jewish morality, and the stain was removed.
     Benayahu is right: The Jewish state never caused such disasters, and when our enemies fell it never rejoiced. The Israel Defense Forces, whose voice Benayahu was, never such caused destruction and devastation, certainly not in Lebanon, certainly not in Beirut. What does the IDF have to do with the destruction of infrastructure? An explosion in the Beirut port? Why would the most moral army in the world have anything to do with bombing population centers? And so the country’s leaders hastened to offer help to the stricken land of the cedars, such a typical Jewish and Israeli gesture, human, lofty and moving to the point of tears.
     True, the Israel Air Force thumbs its nose at Lebanon’s sovereignty and flies through its skies as if they were its own. True, Israel has devastated Lebanon twice in war, but who’s counting. Israel’s president issued a statement of condolences to the Lebanese people, the prime minister and the ministers of foreign affairs and defense said they had “given instructions to offer humanitarian and medical assistance to Lebanon.”
     As if all this beneficence was not enough, the mayor of Tel Aviv ordered the municipality building illuminated with the colors of the Lebanese flag. Words fail. All past hatred has been set aside, Israel is now a friend in need to its suffering neighbor. Maybe it was Tu B’Av, the holiday of love, marked yesterday. But still, a vague memory threatens to spoil the how-beautiful-we-are party, which we love so much around here.
      Was it not that same defense minister that only last week threatened that same Lebanon with destruction of infrastructure? Didn’t the prime minister also threaten Lebanon? And how does destruction of infrastructure look in Lebanon? Just like what was seen in Lebanon on Tuesday. The sound of thunder shook the city, black smoke billowed over it, destruction and devastation, civilian blood spilled, 4,000 injured at hospital doors, as described in horror by the ambassador of a European country in Beirut, who had previously served in Israel. She was injured Tuesday in the blast and was in shock.
    Half of Israel and the entire IDF General Staff know how to recite the acclaimed Dahiya Doctrine. Every second politician has threatened to carry it out. That is our language with Lebanon and Gaza. It’s the doctrine espoused by the Israeli Carl von Clausewitz, former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, the current hope of the Israeli left, when he was chief of the Northern Command.
     And what is this sophisticated doctrine? It’s the use of disproportionate, unbridled force against infrastructure, the sowing of destruction and shedding of as much blood as possible. “Flattening” – to teach the enemy a lesson “once and for all.” The IDF has tried this more than once in the past, in Lebanon and in Gaza, and it was a dizzying success story. It looks just like what was seen in Beirut on Tuesday.
     Not a week had passed since Israel threatened to destroy infrastructure in Lebanon if Hezbollah dared avenge the killing of one of its fighters in a limited military action on the border, and Israel the destroyer becomes Israel the merciful. Would you accept humanitarian aid from such a country? Is there a more sickening show of hypocrisy?
    When Israel demolished Dahiya and other neighborhoods in Beirut, the Tel Aviv Municipality building was not illuminated with the colors of the Lebanese flag. When Israel killed thousands of innocent women and children, old and young, in Gaza during the criminal Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge, the municipality was not lit up in the colors of the Palestinian flag. But on Wednesday we were all so humane, so Lebanese for a moment. Until the next Dahiya.

     Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories. - "Source" -

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From Baghdad To Beirut---

Iraq 2019.

 

      It is difficult to grasp the full extent of what is happening in Iraq, Iran and other places where the people are battling the state on the streets. Most of our information is filtered through the mainstream media, and as most of us realise, that comes with its own particular bias. Getting information from the place of struggle can be difficult and can pass through many hands, receiving a little distortion as it travels.
 

 Iraq 2019.

 

      This morning I received this unsolicited email this morning, it may seem to be rather long, but certainly contains passion and appears to be from the area, and perhaps gives us a little bit more insight to what is going on. It is not my place to edit it, but I feel it is my place to pass it on, and hope you do likewise.

   I particularly like the paragraph---- This proletarian struggle is not an “anarchist” struggle, it is neither a “socialist” struggle, nor a struggle for the sake of democratic power, or the national State – it’s a revolutionary, class and international struggle against the capitalist dictatorship over life (over the Earth)… It is a struggle to liberate life from all forms of human slavery…

"From Baghdad to Beirut, no Shia no Sunni, let's continue the struggle."

    The Iraqi government is made up of all bourgeois factions in Iraq, and it is accepted by regional forces and the world bourgeoisie, but the proletariat tried to bring it down… The “Green Zone” in Baghdad is the centre of the world capitalism; the proletariat tried to occupy it and lost a lot of lives for it…The port of Basra is a global corridor for oil exports and international trade and proletariat blocked it, and tried to control it.
     The Iraqi police, security forces, special forces and military forces are forces of global capitalism (with the participation of Shia, Sunni, Christian, Kurdish, and Turkmen bourgeoisie, with a large numbers of regional and international forces, including troops of America and Europe, Turkey, Iran, etc.), but the proletariat attacked them, their centres and detachments in the streets, and as many as 650 proletarians have been killed by them and more than 20 thousand wounded (this is not to mention the number of abducted and imprisoned…).
      The proletariat in all rebellious areas of Iraq burned down the headquarters of the political parties (religious and national without exception), they burned down the houses of members of parliament and State officials and they also attacked security and police stations, media, judicial institutions and the Ministry of Justice, newspapers and television stations… By doing this, the proletariat attacked the whole State.
    According to the prime minister Adel Abd al-Mahdi, this movement destroyed the national economy (capitalism) in all its aspects. The proletariat in its struggle attacked without exception everything, any symbol, any person, any base attached to the history of the authority and repression including military, diplomatic institutions, trade centres and secret services, internal as well as external. All the attacks on the repressive forces of Pasdaran in the city of Karbala are not really anti-Iranian as the media said, but it is a part of the class action against the repressive forces and centres in all their forms just like the attack on the Green Zone and the other places. Isn’t it clear from proletarian united action and its slogans: “Down with all the thieves”, “From Baghdad to Beirut, no Shiite and no Sunni”, “No country, no work, we all stay in the street!”, “No country, no work until the downfall of the system” – that the proletariat targets counter-revolution in its totality, just like it did in Basra in September 2018!?
    The bourgeoisie has always tried to distort the class path of our revolutionary movement. They have resorted to various methods to empty the revolutionary content of our struggle; they create stories of conspiracy and call it names. All of this in order to cover up its bloody crackdown and the destruction of our revolutionary movement in bourgeois conflicts. The proletariat has risen up on a social level against all the exploiters and it intends to terminate the whole of their power.
      The proletariat understands very much that external and internal capitalists (Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Jews…), the wealthiest from all over the world are part of the State and they are all united in exploiting the humanity, therefore, proletarian struggle is without a doubt a united struggle against all of them…
    The militant proletariat does not allow anyone to represent it; it has no demands and it does not negotiate. It is not attached to any political programme… Isn’t this rebellion a deep class struggle against the capitalist system in its entirety? The only programme of the proletariat is its determination to continue and direct the unified struggle against the dictatorship of Capital and State.
     “We are against all of you, and we take everything.” That’s the autonomy of the class and the strength of the struggle of our movement… And therefore, it is not easy for the State to extinguish or to root out this movement. The proletariat is not in a waiting situation or in a depressed mood… Since the beginning of the movement and until now, even with massive repression and murdering of the State, this movement continues and it is expanding the scope of its struggles and tactics day after day. For example, in Baghdad, the movement formed combat units and spread all around the city to interrupt the traffic, and take control of the bridges and important points. It set up its collective coordinating activities to extend and expand its struggle to plan the next day and the next target, it published leaflets about its struggle, and it treated injured comrades… all of this is the coordination, organization and expansion of their struggle capacity.
     The proletarian struggles in the past always took energy from each other. That is how the struggle continues and exercises its class interests and internationalism as well. By breaking the geographical borders, ideological, economical and democratic frameworks and the national State… this movement targets the Capital and global capitalism. And today the exactly same struggle exists in reality. The proletariat nowadays (from Haiti, France, Hong Kong, Egypt, Latin America, Lebanon to Iraq and Iran) is in the same struggle, we are fighting the same enemy, we have the same interests and the same hope: the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of community of human life without wage labour, exploitation, profit, Capital, work, pollution, injustice, wars and destruction.
     This proletarian struggle is not an “anarchist” struggle, it is neither a “socialist” struggle, nor a struggle for the sake of democratic power, or the national State – it’s a revolutionary, class and international struggle against the capitalist dictatorship over life (over the Earth)… It is a struggle to liberate life from all forms of human slavery… If today young militants have come out on the street and they take a lead in the struggle and heavily participate in it, it is something natural!
      Because this generation, while running daily from the catastrophe of capital, is dreaming of life. They are those who have no stability in life… what they have today may not last until tomorrow. What they feel was close to them today; tomorrow seems to be very far. The greed of capitalism, its wars, and its successive disasters left them in a constant struggle. This situation intensifies more and more at the global level and becomes a hell that pushes the proletariat into the struggle… Their struggle is a struggle of life against this capitalist hell. The proletarians in the struggle understand capitalism and its catastrophe and they feel alive and they are happy in their struggle for life.
     The proletarian struggle is the struggle of the exploited class against the world capitalism. It is a struggle for life, against the exploitative and deadly relations of the global Capital. The proletariat continues to struggle: from France to Lebanon, from Iraq to Chile, from Hong Kong to Iran… and calls upon all other neighbouring areas where it is possible to unite and to co-ordinate class action in this struggle against capitalism.
     From our region the participation of the proletariat in Turkey, Israel and Iran… blocks the possibilities of the capitalist war and pushes our international class war towards a better perspective. Down with exploitation and oppression… Down with war… Down with capitalism… For the continuation of the class war all over the World.

From the comrades of international struggle

Internationalist Proletarians

Middle East

November 2019

International and Class Communication: internationalist@riseup.net

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

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. 

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

Israeli State, The Fire Raiser.

  

 Syria, home to millions of ordinary people, like you and I.

 

     The Middle East region is a powder keg, it is in fact where World War3 is, for the time being, being fought. Conflicts rage across the region with every major power involved in some way or another, and this weekend Israel threw petrol on the fire. That Zionist apartheid state, this weekend carried out a series of attacks on three nations, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as well as Sections of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the Palestinian PELP-GC. Of course it couldn't do this without a nod of approval from it financial banker, the US.

      Despite this ruthless escalating series of illegal attacks, the western nations will sit back and do nothing, some of the poodles that head these governments may nod their heads in disapproval, but will continue to call Israel their friend and ally and continue making lucrative arms deals for Israel to continue its attacks on any and all Arab nations. We are being dragged to destruction by two psychopathic entities, Israel and USA and their poodles in the EU.

This from Antiwar: 

        The weekend marked a precipitous escalation in Netanyahu’s promise to attack all perceived “enemies.” From Saturday evening into late Sunday afternoon, Israel carried out strikes against three separate nations, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. By Monday morning, he had also attacked forces from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, as well as Palestinians from the PFLP-GC. That’s a lot of enemies to wage war against all at once.
        Rumors of Israeli attacks against targets in Iraq over the last few weeks came to a head last week, when US and Israeli officials confirmed that the attacks were taking place. This led to some complaints from Iraqi officials, but Israel is hardly backing away from this policy.
       Indeed, with Israel’s election less than a month away and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his allies trailing substantially in most polls, it appears the policy is to escalate its attacks across the region, hoping to secure more votes from the hawkish right.
        The biggest attacks came Saturday, when Israel launched a series of attacks against a village near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The attacks were drone bombings, with Israeli drones laden with explosives flying into the target, crashing and detonating.
       Israel attacking Syria is common enough, but the real news was the Israeli military commenting directly, claiming they’d attacked an Iranian site, intending to preempt an Iranian attack on northern Israel on Thursday. Iran denied everything, including that they’d been hit in the strikes.
      It makes sense why the Netanyahu government would want to make this the case, as while he’s got mounting political opposition, he likely believes war with Iran is still a platform that would benefit him in the election. Indeed, if the war actually was ongoing against Iran and basically all Shi’ites, it would probably guarantee his reelection.
     But it didn’t stop with an attack in Syria, nominally on Iran. On Sunday, Israel carried out attacks against the Lebanese capital of Beirut, targeting Hezbollah. Israeli drones also slammed into Western Iraq, killing at least one member of a Shi’ite militia there.
      That bought Israel into engagements in three distinct countries, targeting Iraqi Shi’ite militias, Hezbollah, Syrian, and Iranian forces. Adding a fifth faction, early Monday morning Israel attacked a Palestinian base in northern Lebanon.
       That’s almost everyone in the region that Israel could attack, but this week will probably see a continuation of such strikes. Israel has also indicated an interest in starting to attack the Shi’ites in northern Yemen, even though they are not the same type of Shi’ites, so that too is likely to be a priority target.
       So far there has been no reaction from Israel’s opposition parties, and it puts them in an awkward position, as historically attacking anything is relatively popular in Israel, and it is considered unthinkable for the opposition to chime in on that in anything but enthusiastic support.

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An Anarchist At Heart.

 

     Kahil Gibran was not a proclaimed anarchist, but like all honest people, he was an anarchist at heart. His poetry speaks of a universality, a common bond between all people, as one of his favourite quotes makes clear, "I am not a politician, nor do I wish to become one" and "Spare me the political events and power struggles, as the whole earth is my homeland and all men are my fellow countrymen". Where ever he stands on the political spectrum, enjoy his poetry.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Kahlil Gibran (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931)

ann arky's home.

 

A HIDDEN SLAUGHTER.

     A more detailed article on the brutal deaths of thousands of Palestinians 30 years ago at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. We should never allow this savage massacre to be airbrushed out of history.

This from US Palestinian Community Network:

     On this day, 30 years ago, the soil of Lebanon was quenched with the blood of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese. It is said that chrysanthemums burst out of the earth at the place where martyrs’ blood flows. In the year 2012, however, no chrysanthemums are blooming in Sabra and Shatila. This bloody crime on the hands of the Israeli state, its US funder, its Lebanese proxy forces and the complicit Arab regimes that created the conditions for the massacre of 1982, is carefully skirted, quietly spun and wrapped in a cloak of silence. We are asked to forget our people or confuse the events surrounding their sudden disappearance; we are invited to debate these matters as a subject for narratives, disputes and counter narratives.

Read the full article HERE:

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