Anarchist Guide.

       There are lots of thoughts, ideas and desires, in the thinking of the coronavirus and the next stage, how to survive this crisis, where do we go from here, what shape do we want the new normal to look like. So some sound advice and fresh ideas are always welcome and as anarchists we should be leading the way in those ideas and actions, pointing to that new normal.

    The following is a short extract from an excellent article from Crimethinc 

Surviving the Virus: An Anarchist Guide
Capitalism in Crisis—Rising Totalitarianism—Strategies of Resistance

     The pandemic is not going to pass in the next few weeks. Even if strict confinement measures succeed in cutting the number of infections down to what it was a month ago, the virus could resume spreading exponentially again as soon as the measures are suspended. The current situation is likely to continue for months—sudden curfews, inconsistent quarantines, increasingly desperate conditions—though it will almost certainly shift form at some point when the tensions within it boil over. To prepare for that moment, let’s protect ourselves and each other from the threat posed by the virus, think through the questions about risk and safety that the pandemic poses, and confront the disastrous consequences of a social order that was never designed to preserve our well-being in the first place.
This text offers medical advice for dealing with the virus; this one addresses the importance of mutual aid. You can find a list of mutual aid initiatives in the US here and in Germany here. Learn more about rent strike initiatives here and here. You can print out a zine version of this text here. For an introduction to anarchism, try this.

Continue reading HERE:
And a message from Thessaloniki: 

 Thessaloniki: Against the authority virus

Here is a translated excerpt :
       Interventions with sprays and pamphlets outside: Agios Dimitrios hospital, the Euromedica clinic on Lambraki str, Bioiatriki on Olympiados str, a medical equipment store on Egnatia street and various pharmacies.

« A cage went in search of a bird »

      So where are we at? We, who compromised by changing at least a little of our lifestyle. Because we got scared, because we found excuses, because maybe we found comfort in this inactivity, because this, that. However the time has come. The time when the numbness goes away and anger overflows. And it is up to us to find paths within this and every other unprecedented condition. So as to break the monotonous sound of the tv news bulletins, the sound of the sirens of the cop vehicles, replacing them with those of running to exhaustion, noises of racing feet, our breaths, our lives.
     The day that is arising is ominous. So, it’s time to discover our capabilities and act, holding our anarchist consciousness as a compass.
    Beyond blind obedience, the State infrastructure, the mechanisms of domination, the permit papers. Carving our own paths, away from the suggestions of the State and the technocratic system.
      Time to remember that the fires that weren’t lit are our fault and that always when silence falls, we must become the flashbang that breaks it.

LET’S FIGHT WITH ALL OUR STRENGTH AGAINST THE AUTHORITY VIRUS

“DISEASE” IS BLIND OBEDIENCE

Anarchist Assembly Against the State Machine

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

Death Sentence.

        In this pandemic battle most governments boast of their varying degrees of success in the midst of abject failure. However practically none of them are doing anything to relieve the conditions of prisoners, locked up in over crowded, unhygienic conditions, with poor to non-existent health care, despite the fact that they are all aware that the virus is inside most of these hell-holes and the conditions are ideal for it to spread. Imagine what it must be like to be confined to this obvious danger and being unable to do anything to protect yourself.

    Naturally across the world those unfortunate enough to be enmeshed in these institutions of state repression are doing the only thing open to them, rioting in protest at this callous and barbaric treatment. Prisoners have families, they are human beings, but in this type of society all that is denied. 

    This action by prisoners to draw attention to their avoidable situation is happening across the world, this report from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

      The following from The Plague And The Fire:  

      In the prison of Villa Devoto, Buenos Aires, an uprising broke out after a prison guard was infected with coronavirus. The protest spread to various pavilions and inmates took control of at least two floors of the building, demanding transfers and health checks for fear of mass contagion. The prisoners then climbed onto the roof of the section from which they unrolled various banners “We don’t want to die in prison” “Genocide Judges. Silence is not my language.” They then started throwing stones and various objects. Mattresses were set on fire. Eleven guards were apparently injured.

      Two days ago, another violent uprising took place in Florencio Varela prison, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. To cause it, the fake audio message from a fake doctor reporting the presence of the coronavirus in the prison.

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-argentina-prison/we-refuse-to-die-in-jail-argentine-inmates-set-fire-to-prison-in-coronavirus-protest-idUSKCN226310

 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/21/richard-garside-uk-lagging-behind-europe-coronavirus-prisons

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

Hold To Account.

      As most people stay with the "guide lines" it is good to see that around my local patch some people or person is useing their walk and exercise time in a positive way.

     Clapping and praise are all well and good, and without a doubt those frontline workers deserve it all. However, all the clapping and verbal praise will not sort the problems within our NHS. Instead of words and patronising phrases from our political ballerinas, we need to see loads of cash being thrown at the NHS, to make up for the plundering this bunch of hypocritical politicians have carried out over the last ten years or more. Dedicated to their ideology of private good, public bad, and to hell with the consequences to the general public, they are responsible for bring the NHS to its knees and are therefore responsible for the resultant deaths, they must be held to account.

      He and his coterie of rich buddies have to be brought to account for their careless, idiotic and vested interests method of handling one of the biggest crisis to hit the world's population in generations. Hundreds of thousands of deaths can't go unanswered or shrugged off as, Oh, it was the pandemic. 

     Let's hope that the public's revulsion at the handling of this crisis by our lords and masters is enough for them to clear our society of this profit driven scum, and change forever the way we structure our society.

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

Inhumane System.

 

      This coronavirus has put some fear in most people as they realise that it can and does mean death to many people. So people take precautions, isolate, good hygiene and clean conditions. Imagine if you're in a situation where you are not allowed to isolate, the hygiene is dubious at best, and the conditions are over crowded and far from clean. You know how this virus spreads and you are aware of these conditions you are forced to live under, what do you do? 

      Prisoners across the globe are crammed in over crowed, insanitary  conditions with insufficient health care and rightly so are rebelling, they have been sentenced to prison not to a death sentence, they are all human and all deserve to be treated as humans. Their conditions at present are a criminal act by the various states.

Thebes, Greece: Rebellion in the women’s prisons of Eleonas in Thebes following the death of a prisoner – Announcement of women prisoners
      9/4/20, The uprising continues in the Women’s Prisons of Eleonas, Thebes. It broke out in the morning, after the death of a 38-year-old prisoner, who developed fever and shortness of breath and died in the ward of the E΄ wing, in front of 20 prisoners. The prisoner died of coronavirus. The other prisoners set fire to mattresses and clothes, while damaging the prison’s refrigerators. A prosecutor has now arrived at the jail and a medical examiner has gone to perform an autopsy. Strong police forces – MAT – who rushed to the prison to prevent the spread of the women’s uprising to all the wings of the prison, carried out extensive beatings and – despite the repression that took place – the uprising spread throughout the prison.
Announcement of women prisoners
      9/4/2020 “Today, April 9, prisoner Azizel Deniroglou died in her ward, helpless, as she also had heart problems and a high fever. She had been begging for help all night as she had chest pains and could not breathe.
According to testimonies, they did not even measure her temperature and we are unaware of the real causes of her death. The shift manager threatened her with a report, because it bothered her. The lifeless body of our fellow prisoner was dragged out with a sheet in front of the shocked eyes of the whole wing. This tragic incident took place in the E wing, where about 120 people are stacked. The prisoners revolted and the uprising spread throughout the prison. Another prisoner died a month ago. The criminal indifference to the prisoners and their health has resulted in the death of many detainees, the government and the Ministry are responsible for sentencing them to death. The government and the Ministry are responsible for the death of this prisoner. We demand the immediate release of patients, mothers with their children and the elderly, who are considered vulnerable, a groups, a total of 1/3 of the prisoners. We will not return to our cells until the end! ”
      Pola Roupa, a political prisoner and member of Revolutionary Struggle, also complained that another woman had died in prison about a month ago. She stressed that: “Despite promises of prison decongestion due to the coronavirus pandemic, nothing has been done yet. Hospitals do not accept inmates from prisons, there is no doctor in Thebes. The vulnerable groups should have been released. ” We are imprisoned. We were not sentenced to death.”

Italy – Revolt in the CPR of Gradisca d’Isonzo
       30/03/2020 Last night prisoners in the CPR of Gradisca, on hunger strike for some days, made their anger and desperation heard again by lighting fires in the cells.
      Police with military back-ups intervened to repress the protest and the fire brigade rushed to extinguish the flames at 9pm, 10pm, midnight and 2am. Furniture, mattresses, and plastic skylights were burning and some cells were damaged. The day before yesterday a person who tested positive to coronavirus and had been taken to the centre from Cremona and put in isolation according to the authorities, suffered a deterioration of his condition, with a high temperature, and was taken to hospital in Cattinara.
      According to what we know, some guards were also put in quarantine, but nothing has been done for the other prisoners of the CPR.
hurriya

 Photo from the Guardian.

 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/01/prison-riots-break-around-world-coronavirus-spreads/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/10/us-prisons-coronavirus-uprising-riot 

https://observers.france24.com/en/20200407-covid19-riots-iranian-prisons-deaths

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/life-lockdown-coronavirus-sparks-fears-uk-prisons-200406220723216.html

        The list could go but all it would do is re-enforce the fact that we live with a system that has no humanity, a system that sees certain lives as expendable, as long as it works to their rules.

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

State Repression.

       I know everybody is preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, and rightly so. However the state functions at different levels, and the brutality and savagery of its mercenaries continues, pandemic or no pandemic. Migrants are still badly treated and in some cases viciously repressed. Migrant camps are dotted all over Europe and the conditions are far from acceptable, but in some cases it is reminiscent of nazi concentration camps. This latest report from  the detention centre Paranesti Dramas in Greece should not go unmarked because we are suffering from a pandemic. These are human beings, their lives are being made a living hell by the same state apparatus that spouts how it is trying to save us all from this pandemic, of course all, doesn't include migrants. 

 Paranesti Detention Centre.

The following report from 325:

       Following our communication by phone with many migrant prisoners in the Paranesti Detention Center, we were informed of the following events that took place on Friday 3rd of April. In the aforementioned camp there are 6 wings in which are places 7 to 8 containers, and in each one are cramped together 15 persons. The living conditions are terrible and the people are lacking basic resources for survival.
        Under conditions of life threatening detention, the authorities on top of this, ceased to accept any asylum claims a month ago and they ordered confinement due to the corona virus. As a result the migrants were confined inside the containers without any hope of freedom. No information was given to them about the reasons they were quarantined, about what is going on outside or even what they should be doing to protect themselves from the virus.
       In a climate of general upheaval and uncertainty, on Friday 3rd of April they decided to react initially regarding the terrible food that they are given and then, in coordination, 500 to 600 people in all 6 wings refused the meals. They made known to the Administration the reasons of their mobilization and the authorities reacted immediately telling them their demands would be met and convincing them to accept the food temporarily.
       Later the same day they were given the same inedible food to eat and so, realizing the intentions of the Guards, they decided to declare hunger strike not only for the meals but also demanding to be informed about the health situation and the reasons for their isolation.
     The managers of the concentration camp, as true heirs of their fascist predecessors, locked up the migrants inside the containers, aiming to isolate and terrorize them so as to stop their mobilization. Moreover, as punishment they cut the supply of food in the super market.
      What followed is worthy of the Nazi tradition in the concentration camps. After keeping them imprisoned for hours inside the containers, around 9 pm the riot squad came along with the OPKE (heavily armed units) cops and 2 vans full of fully armed cops. Savage beatings followed with the repression forces opening the doors of the containers one by one and dragging out of them the migrants one by one beating them up. They would enter the containers, 6-7 cops together beating indiscriminately everyone in their sight. Then they would drag them outside beating them on the head, the legs, the body and wherever their batons would strike. The migrants say that even tasers were used against them.
     The whole operation lasted 2 to 3 hours, and when the cops took out all their fury, they decided to elaborate their torture, by keeping some migrants outside on the containers in the cold until the middle of the night, while locking others inside.
      Many of the migrants were badly hurt and taken the next day to hospital, some were punitively transferred to other detention centers while some were taken to the cells of police stations. Some were transferred to the nearest clinics for their wounds. In this way they dispersed them, isolating them so as to not have any contact between them and so as to silence the events.
     This violence, the repression against hunger striker migrants should not pass!

We don’t forget, we don’t forgive.
Bastards of the police, we are drops of the coming storm.

 

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

They Failed Us.

   

     The lockdown rumbles on, the deaths keep being reported, and no end in sight. Whatever your views on this pandemic you have to lay the largest slice of blame on our various governments and their wholehearted support of the Neo-liberalism foisted on the world for the benefit of the rich and powerful. It was their policies that hollowed out the health services to breaking point, it was their deliberate actions to destroy social services, all in the aim of increasing profits to the big corporate plunderers. We can also lay the blame at their feet for their incompetent, confused, delayed and vested interests approach to the pandemic when it first raised it dangerous head.

    As the cry for seeing things back as usual increases, we would be full blown idiots if we even considered that return road to be lead by the incompetent, crew with their vested interests that brought us to our knees in the first place. There can be no place in our plans for that new normal for the crew of the institutions that through their greed and vested interests driven policies, gross incompetence and inhumanity, brought misery and death to many more families than would have been the case had the situation been handled by well funded health services and social services, co-operation between countries and done rapidly.

      No, we can't reward greed and incompetence, our new normal must in no way resemble the old corporate greed normal of the rich and powerful, that has heaped so much misery, death and poverty on vast swaths of the world's population, and at the same time creating an ecological disaster we might not be able to repair. 

The following is an extract from an article by Paul Craig Roberts

•       We are hearing from many that the world after Covid-19 will be different. The question is: Different in what way? Will it be better or worse?
        Elites are working to make it better for them, and worse for the rest of us. About that the evidence is clear. The Big Boys are being bailed out and their debts covered. Everyone else, except those already marginalized and without a recent work record and fixed address, got a month’s rent and extended unemployment benefits.
          Big Pharma sees massive profits in the virus, Government sees more power to control
          But the disparity in economic benefits is only a part of it. Powerful vested interests, such as Bill Gates and Big Pharma, are determined to vaccinate us all, and to control our movements with an internal passport called “vaccinated, health cleared” or other words to that effect. New tracking procedures and technologies are to be put in operation reminiscent of the “mark of the beast” to police the access of varous categories of people to various areas and benefits.
         Experts point out that just as we cannot be vaccinated against the common cold, except perhaps for the past year’s version we cannot be vaccinated against Covid-19 and other mutating viruses, but the experts are already being shouted down. No expert opinion is to be permitted to stand in the way of vaccination profits.
         Neither will nutrition and vitamin advocates be allowed to get in the way. Bill Sardi predicts that orchestrated scares generated by mandatory recalls of “toxic” vitamins await us (https://knowledgeofhealth.com/modern-medicine-laid-bare/). Big Pharma is determined to acquire control over vitamins and homeopathic remedies, and the FDA is Big Pharma’s likely pawn.
         Vaccination has been elevated above cure, as Big Pharma and its shills such as CNN shout down the positive experience doctors report of successful treatments with Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin, and the effectiveness of Vitamin C, Vitamin D3, and Zinc in strengthening the ability of immune systems to fight off the virus. Big Pharma-influenced medical orthodoxy cannot get out of the box it has been put into. When new thinking and experimentation are needed, those capable of thought are hasseled and even blocked by FDA regulations and dogmatism.
        The permanent government and its security agencies see in the population’s fear and confusion opportunities to put into place more tyrannical measures, more set-asides of Constitutional Rights, more impairments on free speech. The ability of freedom to resist oppression is ever diminished.
  Various descriptions of the expected dystopia are offered on the Internet. But it does not have to turn out this way. It is up to us. Demoralized and fearful, we can accept more government power as we did after 9/11. Instead, we can collectively recognize the massive failure everywhere of Western leadership and construct a more livable and sustainable society.
         The failure of leadership is an opportunity for real change
        CNN, the New York Times, and the rest of the controlled media tell us every day that President Trump represents the failure of leadership. But the failure of leadership goes beyond all the leaders of the last 30 years and resides in the system itself. Global, “self-regulating,” greed-driven, financialized, soulless capitalism cannot unite people into a sustainable community. 

Continue reading HERE:

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

The Illusion.

 

 

     What a strange phase capitalism is going through, always the call for less state interference in the market, let the corporate bosses rule and everything will be alright. Now in one of the biggest crisis to hit capitalism, this pandemic, and the hands of the corporate beast are stretching out for the state to bail them out and save the shareholders from losses. Across the developed world countless trillions are being thrown at big business to prop them up, and a pittance being sprinkled among the ordinary people. Another alien thought to the capitalist mind that is being floated, the state could buy up shares in failing businesses to get them on their feet again, then when they start to make a profit, sell them back to the shareholders. Everything must be done to save the shareholders and financial institutions from losing too much of their ill gotten loot.

 

     All this is floated as trying to save jobs to help you and me. They know we are just desperate to get back to miserable wage slavery to ensure our bosses can live in the luxury to which they have been accustomed. Perhaps we could keep all these jobs going not by the state buying into failing businesses with tax payers money, but us the ordinary people simply taking over all the business and running the ones we deem necessary as non-profit entities on a co-operative basis. That way we wouldn't need to bother about the parasitical shareholders and their lavish life styles. They could eat their luxury yachts. 

    We will be hit time and time again, us, the poor, the struggling, the ordinary citizen, with demands to use taxpayers money to bail out the rich and powerful as long as we tolerate this insane system of capitalism. History tells us that it lurches from crisis to crisis, each one worse that the previous, and the answer is always the same, we tighten our belts so that the rich and powerful can hold on to their wealth and power. "When will we ever learn"

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

Treason.

         Whilst we are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Spirit of Revolt volunteers, like so many others, have been working from home when and where possible. Our archivist, Paula, is beavering away on a laptop at home, others are trawling through our catalogue to see where we can find improvements, and of course being another month, we can’t forget our “Read of the Month”.

        For April we have chosen, Treason: Against the State. No. 7  a 1981 pamphlet from our Bratach Dubh Collection.  

       These are trying times and with the confined to barracks regime in place at the moment, perhaps you are looking for something interesting to do. Well why don’t you spend some time perusing our catalogue, there are thousands of articles, papers, pamphlets, booklets, etc. to read your hours away, at the same time learning something about our history, the history from below, the history the ordinary people in their day to day struggles for that better world for all. With today’s conditions what better time to start to think of how we can change the system to one that benefits us all. Happy reading, stay safe.

Treason: Read on line

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

Insane On A Whim.

 

       The situation is serious, regarding the draconian legislation brought in on the pretext of fighting the pandemic, your basic rights are being eradicated. One individual can now decide who should be sent to a mental health institution, thereby stripped of all their rights, and forced take medication, at the whim of one individual, possible not fully trained in these matters. Difficult individuals, awkward people as seen by the state and its minions, prisoners that are a nuisance to the system, individuals that question authority, all can fall foul of this new legislation. We must ask ourselves, is this authoritarian step necessary to control this pandemic, or is it just another weapon in the state's toolkit for total control of the population, should the public get really angry as this mess drags on, and the aftermath  is rampant unemployment, endemic poverty and a society that is knee deep in deprivation. This was nodded through by a bunch of wealthy political ballerinas that are well protected from the devastating ravishes of the aftermath that will follow on from this collapse of the existing system, that is sure to follow this pandemic.

The following from 325:

Prison-state UK comes into law: coronavirus.

       The Coronavirus Act 2020 in the UK is now in force for the next two years. It is a totalitarian coup by a right-wing government which has already shown it’s utter contempt for the judiciary, for parliament and for the people. Many of the provisions of this Act are already experienced by those on the margins of society, by dissidents, those in the prison and criminal justice system, the poor, and ethnic groups consistently disposed of by the police and the system, through poverty, imprisonment and death. Now the grand experiment is whether the kind of control infrastructure and total suspension of rights already administered to particular groups can be rolled out to the entire population.

     The most manipulable provisions come, as ever, under the Mental Health sections. Always a good catch-all since dissidence, illegality and criticism of the existent is already considered by the system to be tantamount to mental illness, people can now be hospitalised and medicated on the say-so of a single approved clinician. This power of one also decides the fate of those awaiting trial, convicted persons (we wonder whether that refers to anyone with a criminal record regardless of their current status) and those currently serving prison time: the Act allows a single person to sign off on a transfer from a prison to mental hospital. To the cynical, it might imply that unruly prison populations or undesirables (either currently or historically) are now living under the threat of being summarily detained or if already detained, then transferred and sedated with a no-questions-asked decision by a single clinician.

      Under coronavirus, the criteria that elects someone to the status of a person approved to implement these laws is considerably relaxed. Under the emergency laws, a person applying to volunteer as a health worker or social worker can be approved by a single senior administrator who believes the person is “fit, proper and suitably experienced”. Moreover, this administrator can approve a group of people who have organised themselves as such, presumably concerned ‘citizens groups’, without assessing each individual within that group. While the public health sections appear not to allow forced medical treatment, although it does allow for forced screening and assessment including the taking by force of biological samples from your body, the mental health provisions do allow people to be medicated by force, again to be decided by a single officer.

Dissidents and undesirables will also fall foul of the sections dealing with Potentially Infectious Persons (PIP), again this designation to be the whim of a single official. As they roll out their totalitarian nightmare under the guise of coronavirus, all civil liberties are suspended. They do not expect this strange compliance to last. It cannot last. In the UK, there is barely any social welfare for people being rolled out and a huge swathe of the population, already broken by a decade of Tory rule, are hungry now. There have already been riots.

       There are infectious diseases and there are infectious ideas: it is the latter that they are most keen to contain. For either, just read ‘Potentially Infectious Person’! The new Act allows for arrest and detention, new search and entry laws, and retention of an potentially infectious person’s things. Detention has a time limit but can be extended… and extended… and extended with no legal rights. Restrictions on a potentially infectious person’s movement, place of residence, activities and social contact, previously reserved for those leaving prison but still on licence, could now be rolled out for anyone with potentially infectious ideas under the guise of public health concerns.

       We are witnessing the building of a new wall where borders can be and are closed at a moment’s notice. Countries are being sealed off overnight. This is how the horror happens. One day you enjoy “free movement”, the next it is punishable by the law, if not death. The same status that refugees and undocumented people fleeing wars and shot at the borders have, blamed and vilified for the problems of the capitalist society.

      The new laws surrounding the registration of death and disposal of bodies are some of the darkest pieces of this legislation. In essence, there is no longer a need for an inquest, no investigation into suspicious deaths, there is no safeguard surrounding the recording of a cause of death which can simply be written by a temporarily registered medical practitioner (not the doctor attending the death), no medical certificate is required for cremation or burial and the disposal of remains and the place of disposal is taken out of the hands of relatives and given to national or local authorities regardless of the wishes of the deceased or relatives. How easy it would be to disappear us under such conditions.

      Totalitarianism is born under the pretence of necessity, of protection, of security. This moment is no different. Whatever the truth of the deadliness of this virus, the world created by this new legislation, the willingness of the people to accept it and the potential abuses written into it, are sobering. It reveals if not the plan then the opportunism of the totalitarian project which underlies the techno-industrial civilisation: immediate suspension of elections and referendums, no right of assembly or protest (which lockdown conditions have already illegalised), the implementation of the virtual and cashless surveillance society, the army on the streets as a matter of course, a police state whereby every move is monitored, absolute and unmitigated powers of detention (which must be experienced in isolation) and subjection of the individual to medical intervention, complete and punitive control of the movement, activity and association of individuals and groups, and a dismantling of safeguards over causes of death, recourse to an inquest and disposal of bodies. As scared and confused as people are by this pandemic, we must remember that the measures introduced by dictatorships to control populations often seem reasonable or even laudable at the time and are born of an irresistible logic that is embraced by the good citizen, whether that is the logic of communism, nationalism, protectionism or the logic of infection.

       We must also remember that throughout history people fought back against the false logic of their social and political reality. They also risked being detained, medicated, tortured, and killed. The states of emergency being rolled out by our national governments are in danger of becoming the new normal if we do not fight back. We are always facing death, both physical and metaphysical. This is an extraordinary moment in which we may find we have more comrades than we know as the system’s collapse reveals not only people’s crippling dependence on it, but also the forms of our potential liberation as critical masses experience new ways of being, new priorities and desires, that will not be met by a post-pandemic return to business as usual and also will not tolerate this state of emergency for long. As ever, our task is to find our leverage in this situation, to find our opportunities to engage according to our own anarchic principles, to organise against and despite of the tightening of control, to expose it for what it is and to break out of our isolation and the state of fear that is the real virus.

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

The Love Virus.

       The coronavirus is a problem that must be faced by all of us, and while the medical profession and scientists work feverishly to protect and take care of us, while diligently seeking that cure, the rest of us can see the coronavirus as a spotlight that allows us to focus on the structures we live under and why they have failed us so drastically. Obviously a profit motivated system will not have as its priority the well being of all our people, and so the very foundations of how we structure society must be brought under scrutiny. Any aspect of the system we create that in anyway produces inequality must be jettisoned, only those structures that nurture caring, co-operation and consideration for all must be built into our future structures. As human beings, sharing, caring and friendship create feelings of well-being, and must be the foundations of our future society. However this can only be brought about be the determined will  of the people and their direct action, to fall back and rely on those architects of the present obviously flawed and failed system, would be to create the same mistakes as before. 

    I have always maintained that we are all born anarchists, but we allow the present society to shape us to its needs. Let's start to look for that child anarchist in our hearts and make it our life. After all in reality anarchism is for lovers, and that should be the foundation of our society. The vaccine for the ills of this society is mutual aid, across the board. Let the Love-Virus run free.

    The following is an extract from an article in Void Network 

 

 

      -----We would feel safer if we knew that our country and other countries had not destroyed public health for years, if we knew that we had free electricity, water and telephone in our homes, if we did not have to pay 80% of our wages each month for rent and bills. We would feel safer if we knew we had adequate Intensive Care Units, if we knew we had a large number of doctors, teachers, nurses, cooks, artists, poets and happy grandparents whispering to our children fairytales. There are many questions about how a society ultimately manages every health, economic and social crisis – what we consider important and what is insignificant. How do we meet the medical and living needs of the population? How do we protect the weak, the poor, the elderly from the speculators, the opportunists, the exploiters? How do we heal this world from social injustice?
      Confronting the upheaving coronavirus epidemic cannot be a matter of restrictions, but of research for medication and for vaccines and of their free distribution for all; a matter of equipping the Health Care with the necessary medicines and protective equipment and the requisition of the private sector clinics, by strengthening the health system with human resources and new public hospitals. We need to produce and hand-out a completely free test for everyone – for, everyone has the right to know whether they are sick or not. Let’s be brave and think: Our living conditions are changing, today let us launch a new survival plan. Let society decide, not the rulers. Surely, from now on, anyone who talks about “private hospitals” will be considered a criminal. Surely, tenants must stop paying rent and bills until the crisis is over and demand a total rent reduction after the end of the pandemic. A huge rent strike is currently underway around the world. It is our duty to support it.
      Let us express our deep gratitude and admiration to all medical staff, medical students, people working in welfare, those who participate in self-organized solidarity structures, and all those who will save human lives by risking their own, every single person in the neighborhoods who will help to alleviate the pain of others. Void Network as an affinity group promise that we will strive to be among those who will help in every possible way.

That’s what we need – care and treatment.

Long Live Human Freedom, Equality, Mutual-help and Love.
       Each of us carries a story, of our own pain. Now we all have a common History. Let’s take these moments to get to know the world better. This whole adventure will be over, let us improve ourselves, let us create relationships and social structures for a more just and cooperative world – a world that stands against social injustice, inequality and the repression of liberties.
      It takes patience; we need to look at life in a new way. We are sure we will meet again. Let’s prepare our future plans solely on the basis of love and kindness.

We will hug each other again!

LOVE – POWER

Read the full article HERE:

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Now Or Never?

       It must now be obvious to even the most the apolitical and apathetic of our society, that the way our society is structured has failed miserably to protect the vast majority of our citizens. This economic system has allowed our pampered privileged parasite class, through corruption and greed, to plunder the public purse and exploit the majority, for nothing more than personal gain. They have squandered the tremendous ingenuity, productivity and industrious effort of the vast majority on nothing more than personal opulence and phony grandeur.

    We are now faced with a choice that has to be made quickly, do we continue to allow this to happen, or do we call a halt, and take control of our lives ourselves. The coronavirus has not brought about society's failings, it has merely shown them in great detail to the vast majority of our people.

      As always in times of disaster and upheaval, the public react with mutual aid and co-operation, despite the failings of the system. This time we have the opportunity to expand these groups and link up, spreading this human idea of mutual aid to all aspects of our society, shaping that society in a more fair and humane manner. Capitalism, the cause of inequality, injustice and wars, is in crisis, it is up to us to ensure it dies, and is replaced with a society that sees to the needs of all our people, one based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and free from the profit motive. Let's see this pandemic as an opportunity to rid ourselves of the real disaster of capitalism and all that it entails, from corruption, inequality, unbridled greed and endless wars.  

The following call from Greece:

Anti-Covid19: Network for Mutual Aid and Struggle (Greece)

       In the unprecedented social conditions we are living in, the spread of coronavirus has taken critical dimensions for the national healthcare systems and the capitalist mode of production as well as social organisation in general. For the system to survive, state and bosses implement totalitarian politics and a further devaluation of our lives.

– Lack of health facilities for the big majority of the population

– Militarisation of our everyday life, with a ban on transportation enforced through economic, surveilled and penal repression

– Mass layoffs, intensification and dire conditions for those working in hospitals, super markets, fast food restaurants, telecommunications

– Creation of concentration camps for migrants and mass incarceration in prisons without any health provision

– No meaningful measure for the homeless, drug users, sex workers

– Increase of domestic and gender violence cases as well as psychological breakdowns due to the prolonged confinement of people in their homes

       All of the above make up a dystopia to which we deem necessary to respond to in a direct and collective way, self-organised and in solidarity with every subject that is experiencing the physical, psychical and mental consequences of totalitarianism; and at the same time to fight to break the unproductive and totalitarian management of the present crisis by the state. For these reasons we want to communicate and create a network for solidarity and struggle, with initial aims the following:

         Food and medicine collection and delivery; or meals from social kitchens

Psychosocial support. Converstation through phone and even face-to-face private meeting, adhering to the healthcare measures

       Reporting domestic and gender violence cases and direct interventions

Collect and publish information from concentration camps and prisons

The responsibility is not collective as the state is shamelessly trying to manipulate us through the horror-loving coverage of the virus by the media, but it is first and foremost the state’s responsibility. The pointed shifting of responsibilities from the state and its representatives to each individual for the acquittal of the systematic underfunding and understaffing of the healthcare system is unacceptable and vile. We are not to blame for the shortages of permanent medical staff, intensive care units, medical equipment but the particular governements that spent thousands of euros to save banks or for military equipment instead of staffing undervalued public hospitals.

       We put forward as a direct collective action a freeze in payments, debts, rent, electricity, water, internet, public transportation. According to us these basic services should be free anyway and let alone in a situation of financial destabilisation like this. All people of the exploited and non-privileged class have to spare their money for basic consumer goods like food and medicine, since the future is uncertain.

WE DEMAND FROM THE STATE AND THE BOSSES

        Permanent socialization of all private healthcare facilities and health products units.

         Unemployment benefit to all laid-off workers and the unemployed.

All goods to be sold at cost price, super market bosses do not profit off our backs.

       Compliance with the demands of workers for pay, working time, even the cessation of employment for their self-protection.

       Closure of all capitalist structures (factories, shops etc.) that don’t cover basic needs.

       Compliance with the demands of prisoners and release of all high-risk individuals, prisoners with charges of less than 5 years, and all those who await trial. Setting up healthcare facilities for prisoners and provision of sanitary products.

        Closure of all concentration camps and papers to all migrants.

Transformation of airbnb and hotels to self-containment facilities for people with symptoms, high-risk groups, people affected by domestic and gender violence and people facing housing issues.

       Tsiodras shed crocodile tears for the people who are to get sick and invited us all to assume our responsibilities for the protection of public health. Recognising that public health includes also people in factories, prisons and concentration camps, we announce that if the state doesn’t care about public health in total, we have the collective responsibility to take actions to ensure this. We also inform that we will necessarily move on to organise and escalate similar actions in case the state continues the exploitation of the state of emergency to repress its political enemies, anarchists and fighters, and to pass laws that it wouldn’t be able to pass in times of mobilisation. The movement and the people of the social base are already organising mutual-aid and resistance structures for the current crisis and the upcoming impoverishment and no martial law can stop them. The survival of the repressed and the exploited in times of a general crises depends directly on their self-organisation, thus any attempt to repress must be answered in defiance of any restrictions.

Phoneline: 00306945276127

Email: synsquat@riseup.net

FB: https://www.facebook.com/AntiCovidAidNetwork/

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Economy V People.

      Different countries respond to the coronavirus pandemic in different ways, it appears that the more capitalist developed a country is the more helping the economy is seen as a must, with the health of the people trailing behind. The more socialist orientated, then the more the health of the people is first and the economy trailing behind. Add to this the situation in the capitalist world of vested interests in the economy and crass stupidity of those in power, shaping the decisions made by our lords and masters and you can understand why some countries are facing a greater disaster than others.

     The following is an interesting article by Leonardo Flores from CODEPINK:

       Within a few hours of being launched, over 800 Venezuelans in the U.S. registered for an emergency flight from Miami to Caracas through a website run by the Venezuelan government. This flight, offered at no cost, was proposed by President Nicolás Maduro when he learned that 200 Venezuelans were stuck in the United States following his government’s decision to stop commercial flights as a preventative coronavirus measure. The promise of one flight expanded to two or more flights, as it became clear that many Venezuelans in the U.S. wanted to go back to Venezuela, yet the situation remains unresolved due to the U.S. ban on flights to and from the country.

       Those who rely solely on the mainstream media might wonder who in their right mind would want to leave the United States for Venezuela. Time, The Washington Post, The Hill and the Miami Herald, among others, published opinions in the past week describing Venezuela as a chaotic nightmare. These media outlets painted a picture of a coronavirus disaster, of government incompetence and of a nation teetering on the brink of collapse. The reality of Venezuela’s coronavirus response is not covered by the mainstream media at all.
      Furthermore, what each of these articles shortchanges is the damage caused by the Trump administration’s sanctions, which devastated the economy and healthcare system long before the coronavirus pandemic. These sanctions have impoverished millions of Venezuelans and negatively impact vital infrastructure, such as electricity generation. Venezuela is impeded from importing spare parts for its power plants and the resulting blackouts interrupt water services that rely on electric pumps. These, along with dozens of other implications from the hybrid war on Venezuela, have caused a decline in health indicators across the board, leading to 100,000 deaths as a consequence of the sanctions.
     Regarding coronavirus specifically, the sanctions raise the costs of testing kits and medical supplies, and ban Venezuela’s government from purchasing medical equipment from the U.S. (and from many European countries). These obstacles would seemingly place Venezuela on the path to a worst-case scenario, similar to Iran (also battered by sanctions) or Italy (battered by austerity and neoliberalism). In contrast to those two countries, Venezuela took decisive steps early on to face the pandemic.
      As a result of these steps and other factors, Venezuela is currently in its best-case scenario. As of this writing, 11 days after the first confirmed case of coronavirus, the country has 86 infected people, with 0 deaths. Its neighbors have not fared as well: Brazil has 1,924 cases with 34 deaths; Ecuador 981 and 18; Chile 746 and 2; Peru 395 and 5; Mexico 367 and 4; Colombia 306 and 3. (With the exception of Mexico, those governments have all actively participated and contributed to the U.S.-led regime change efforts in Venezuela.) Why is Venezuela doing so much better than others in the region?
      Skeptics will claim that the Maduro government is hiding figures and deaths, that there’s not enough testing, not enough medicine, not enough talent to adequately deal with a pandemic. But here are the facts:
      First, international solidarity has played a priceless role in enabling the government to rise to the challenge. China sent coronavirus diagnostic kits that will allow 320,000 Venezuelans to be tested, in addition to a team of experts and tons of supplies. Cuba sent 130 doctors and 10,000 doses of interferon alfa-2b, a drug with an established record of helping COVID-19 patients recover. Russia has sent the first of several shipments of medical equipment and kits. These three countries, routinely characterized by the U.S. foreign policy establishment as evil, offer solidarity and material support. The United States offers more sanctions and the IMF, widely known to be under U.S. control, denied a Venezuelan request for $5 billion in emergency funding that even the European Union supports.
       Second, the government quickly carried out a plan to contain the spread of the disease. On March 12, a day before the first confirmed cases, President Maduro decreed a health emergency, prohibited crowds from gathering, and cancelled flights from Europe and Colombia. On March 13, Day 1, two Venezuelans tested positive; the government cancelled classes, began requiring facemasks on subways and on the border, closed theaters, bars and nightclubs, and limited restaurants to take-out or delivery. It bears repeating that this was on Day 1 of having a confirmed case; many U.S. states have yet to take these steps. By Day 4, a national quarantine was put into effect (equivalent to shelter-in-place orders) and an online portal called the Homeland System (Sistema Patria) was repurposed to survey potential COVID-19 cases. By Day 8, 42 people were infected and approximately 90% of the population was heeding the quarantine. By Day 11, over 12.2 million people had filled out the survey, over 20,000 people who reported being sick were visited in their homes by medical professionals and 145 people were referred for coronavirus testing. The government estimates that without these measures, Venezuela would have 3,000 infected people and a high number of deaths.
         Third, the Venezuelan people were positioned to handle a crisis. Over the past 7 years, Venezuela has lived through the death of wildly popular leader, violent right-wing protests, an economic war characterized by shortages and hyperinflation, sanctions that have destroyed the economy, an ongoing coup, attempted military insurrections, attacks on public utilities, blackouts, mass migration and threats of U.S. military action. The coronavirus is a different sort of challenge, but previous crises have instilled a resiliency among the Venezuelan people and strengthened solidarity within communities. There is no panic on the streets; instead, people are calm and following health protocols.
      Fourth, mass organizing and prioritizing people above all else. Communes and organized communities have taken the lead, producing facemasks, keeping the CLAP food supply system running (this monthly food package reaches 7 million families), facilitating house-by-house visits of doctors and encouraging the use of facemasks in public. Over 12,000 medical school students in their last or second-to-last year of study applied to be trained for house visits. For its part, the Maduro administration suspended rent payments, instituted a nationwide firing freeze, gave bonuses to workers, prohibited telecoms from cutting off people’s phones or internet, reached an agreement with hotel chains to provide 4,000 beds in case the crisis escalates, and pledged to pay the salaries of employees of small and medium businesses. Amid a public health crisis - compounded by an economic crisis and sanctions - Venezuela’s response has been to guarantee food, provide free healthcare and widespread testing, and alleviate further economic pressure on the working class.
      The U.S. government has not responded to the Maduro administration’s request to make an exception for Conviasa Airlines, the national airline under sanctions, to fly the Venezuelans stranded in the United States back to Caracas. Given everything happening in the United States, where COVID-19 treatment can cost nearly $35,000 and the government is weighing the option of prioritizing the economy over the lives of people, perhaps these Venezuelans waiting to go home understand that their chances of surviving the coronavirus – both physically and economically – are much better in a country that values health over profits.

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