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

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3.5%, Is This The Tipping Point?

 Chile.

Ecuador.

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

 Lebanon.

Iraq.

    An interesting article By Medea Benjamin Nicolas J S Davies

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

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When Is The Time To Vent Your Righteous Anger?

        As a rule most people want to get on with their lives, see their friends and family, indulge in some sort of pastime, listen to a bit of music, whatever. What they don't want is to confront armed police, face brutal beatings, arrests and killings. However when a population comes on to the streets in vast numbers, and faces these situations, then you must accept they are very dissatisfied, angry and want something to change. 

This photo is actually from Catalunya, not Chile, but state treatment of protestors is the same.

 

      Even in the appearance of placidity that that goes as normal in most societies, for the ordinary people, in this capitalist society there is always struggle, and there is always a rumbling undercurrent of dissatisfaction and anger. Sometimes it doesn't take much of a spark for that anger to vent itself, in Chile it was the increase in fares on public transport. Once that anger is out, the original spark can fade into insignificance and all the other resentments and injustices come out into the open. That is what is happening in Chile today.

      If anyone wants to see who our so called democracies deals with those who show anger and discontent with the system, need look no further than what is happening in Chile right now, twenty first century representative democracy at work.

  This from Act For Freedom Now

        There is a State of emergency currently in Chile, decreed by the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera as a result of the outbreak of a revolt that exploded on Friday October 18 2019.
        This text is born from the need to communicate the situation that currently exists in this territory with comrades in various latitudes of the world. We are sharing what we consider to be some of the main points to be made known to contribute to understanding the present moment from an anarchist viewpoint.
        PRELUDE: THE YOUTH IN STRUGGLE AND THE SPARK THAT LIT THE FIRE
     After a week of mass fare evasions of the underground train service, mainly by high school students during the month of October before the price increase in the transport services, multiple episodes of individual and collective disobedience spread through various parts of the city of Santiago that resulted in destruction of infrastructure and clashes with police forces inside and outside underground train stations. On Friday, October 18, the spread of these massive evasions and the level of radicality they reached was a surprise for many and unforeseen by the government which, along with its loyal journalists and social researchers, still can’t explain why these events led to a situation of widespread chaos that is still going on to this day.
       ACT ONE: OUTBREAK OF A REVOLT WITHOUT PRECEDENT IN POST-DICTORSHIP CHILE
       On Friday, October 18, the revolt radicalized at the moment when clashes with the police and the destruction of capitalist infrastructure took the streets of Santiago city centre. Initiated outside the government palace, actions of street violence quickly spread well into the night in various parts of the city. Faced with a situation of widespread rebellion and diffuse chaos in multiple urban sectors, the police forces were unable to contain the explosion of rage. Since that day this has infected broad sectors of a society that had seemed to be sleeping, tired by various forms of oppression and precariousness of life that originated in the continuity of the neoliberal economic system and from the police State installed in Chile during the recent civil and military dictatorship (1973-1990). These conditions of existence and domination were then strengthened by the centre left and right governments that have alternated in power since the return to democracy.
      To the disturbances that exploded in the city centre were soon added thousands of people demonstrating in the neighbourhoods, banging on empty pots as a form of protest. Outbreaks of rebellion, arson and destruction materialized concerning dozens of buses; public and commercial buildings were attacked, looted and burned, and, crucially, dozens of underground train stations were vandalized and set fire to by hordes of enraged individuals until late into the night.
       Clearly surpassed, the government did not lose much time before decreeing a State of emergency in the city of Santiago, a state of exception that includes the military in the streets and the armed forces in charge of order. However, a wild, inorganic, massive and unprecedented revolt in the post-dictatorship scenario was already underway, destroying in practice the obedience submission and fear imposed by decades of capitalist dominance in Chile.
   ACT TWO: EXTENSION OF DESTRUCTIVE INSUBMISSION AND BEGINNING OF THE CURFEW
      On Saturday, September 19, in the face of the persistence and heightening of the unrest the armed forces deploy in various points of the city. Soldiers guard the streets, commercial facilities and underground train stations in the centre of Santiago and suburbs. However, the protesters of every kind do not retreat and all repudiate the military presence with the vivid memory of the repression experienced a few decades ago during the years of the dictatorship. That same day the number of buses, cars and underground train stations burned by protesters increases. In parallel, the looting of supermarkets and huge shopping centres becomes uncontrollable and the image of hundreds of people taking back their lives by snatching goods in the centres of consumerism has been one of the most transcendent images of the days of revolt and were an important factor for the government, overwhelmed by the looting violence, imposing the curfew in the city of Santiago that same night.
      Quite unashamedly the President and the military chief in charge of the city communicate to the media that the restriction of “civil liberties” would take effect that day from 7 pm until 6 the next morning. That night, the demonstrations, riots, looting, fires and clashes with the repressive forces continued again into the small hours of the morning all over the city.
     Between Saturday and Sunday the spark of rage spread even more, igniting mass demonstrations and scenarios of wild violence in other parts of the country. This gave way to an ensuing moment of generalised chaos with multiple acts of rebellion and riots in various cities within a couple of days, leaving a good part of the urban infrastructure under siege, in ruins and ashes with barricades, vandalism and incendiary attacks on municipal dependencies, government buildings, shopping centres and official media premises.
      By that time the revolt had gone beyond any specific demands, meaning that people from diverse origins and places find themselves and others amid protests and riots opening up a huge critical fracture in the Chilean neoliberal system and its model of capitalist/ extractivist exploitation that affects the whole territory.
      From Sunday October 20, the State of Emergency and a curfew were decreed by the government against the cities in revolt, but nevertheless the riots continued to extend until late into the night, ignoring the impositions and demonstrating that the rage and violence unleashed by people against the established order had broken the fear and passivity that had reigned for decades in broad sectors of the Chilean population.
      ACT THREE: DIGNITY AND STRUGGLE AGAINST THE STATE’S STRATEGY OF REPRESSION
      Since the beginning of the state of emergency, State repression has heightened and has also spread openly to the various territories in revolt.
      As anarchists, we are clear that we do not hold a victimistic position, however, it is always good to share information about the tactics that dominion puts into practice as part of the confrontation with the insurgents, the rebels and the population in revolt generally.
      In the current context, the repressive arsenal of the Chilean State has materialised as:
        – More than two thousand people arrested and more than 15 people killed in addition to an unknown number of people reported missing.
      – Shooting with various types of projectiles, including tear gas bombs, rubber pellets and weapons of war against protesters leaving an increasing and not known number of people injured and killed in public roads in addition to animals and people living in the street also wounded and killed as shooting targets.
       – Beatings and physical, psychological and sexual torture in the road and inside police vehicles and police stations against people who were detained.
        – People kidnapped inside police and civilian vehicles. Images have been seen of persons being locked inside the trunks of police vehicles.
        – Shooting from behind of people in the street who are given a false chance to escape arrest.
        – False police and military authorizations to loot supermarkets that end with arrests and murders later reported as deaths from the riots.
        – Fires in large commercial premises caused by repressive forces so that companies can claim insurance. Burned corpses have appeared in some of these fires.
       – Throwing people out of moving police cars then shooting them.
       – Hanging of bodies of people killed in abandoned sites and of people alive in police barracks.
       The widespread use of social networks on the internet such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook has allowed immediate circulation of massive audiovisual evidence of the situations described above, which is being disseminated by “alternative” groups and linked to struggles, succeeding in breaking through the communication strategy deployed by the government and historically supported by the official media in the service of power.

Read the full article HERE: 

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Workers Know Your History, Hamburg, 1923.

         An email from a comrade in Germany marking October 23rd 1923, uprising in Hamburg 

1923 - 2019  

    

       We commemorate the Hamburg uprising 96 years ago. In the early hours of October 23, 1923, our comrades stormed Hamburg police stations and disarmed the police. The signal for the revolution was to come from Saxony, but there was no revolutionary uprising.

       In Hamburg it was believed that there was fighting everywhere. But only in   Hamburg was fighting. For 3 days the workers fought against a heavily armed superiority.
       If there had been our German October 1923, how much suffering would have been spared mankind. No fascism, no support for Franco by the Nazis, no World War II and no Auschwitz...

     In the district of Barmbeck, which Ernst Thälmann called "immortal" in his 1925 speech on the Hamburg Uprising, the fiercest battles raged. Today, when I walk through the streets of this, my district, I feel sadness and pride, but no resignation. Our struggle is just, whether here or elsewhere in the world.

Larissa Reissner wrote about the Hamburg uprising.

Red greetings from Hamburg ! Reinhardt

Read Larissa Reissner's rendering of these heroic fighters HERE:

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Coming To A Street Near You.

         It is now obvious that the powers that be in the West are preparing for the army to be ready to function in civilian areas, in the event of civil unrest or threat of insurrection. They are always better prepared than we the public are, they do their planning well in advance and with unlimited funding. We tend to react to circumstances that are forced on us, rather than accept that there is a class war already operational at the moment. It is sold to us in various guises, austerity, national emergency, privatisation, gentrification, balancing the books, etc. when these start to hurt and anger rises, we react, but they are well prepared to quell that anger by force. What are our preparations for self defence?

      This from Act For Freedom Now:

 Coming to a street near you.

         For decades France has been one of the most important arms suppliers to the four corners of the world. With a flourishing industrial-military complex, it regularly carries out wars, supports irregular troops (such as that of general Haftar in Libya) and is also training on its own territory… and that of its neighbours. In the context of the ‘Motorized Ability’ program signed in June 2019 with one of NATO’s privileged partners, Belgium, it will supply the latter with 450 armoured vehicles (382 Griffon troops transporters and 60 Jaguar recognition vehicles), which will be delivered from 2025. Another aspect of this agreement is the strengthening of ‘strategic partnership’ between French and Belgian ground troops, which takes form in particular with conjoint training. This might seem quite banal, were it not for the fact that the army decided to train not only in barracks and appointed centres [1] that reproduce cities in miniature… but directly among the civilian population by performing exercises on a real scale.That’s how more than 1,000 Belgian and French military will occupy the provinces of Namur (ten municipalities located in the triangle Walcourt-Hastière-Couvin) and Hainaut (triangle Beaumont-Chimay-Froidchapelle) from 18th to 25th September 2019.

         ‘The goal is to start a French-Belgian military cooperation by integrating units in both countries in a civilian environment. It will also allow us to exchange skills and improve our inter-operations action in many sectors, such as radio communication and weapons use’. Yes, you read right, the goal is that of operating on a large scale ‘in a civilian environment’ as happened after the 2015 attacks, but above all that of carrying out an operation meant to improve ‘weapons use’. More precisely, 150 vehicles and 600 soldiers (fifty fifty for each of the States involved) will be deployed in twenty villages, with over 300 taking care of assignment (personnel, examiners, logistics) and… and… and… 100 soldiers who will play the part of rural insurgents euphemistically called ‘opponents’, who hide among the population.

         This military training operation, called ‘Celtic uprise’ (a reference to Brexit), has ‘a fictitious country in crisis’ as its scenario, and the goal of the murderers in uniform is no longer simply hidden behind vague humanitarian pretexts to aid the population, as it was years ago, but this time it also officially includes ‘patrolling, making sensitive points secure’ and of course ‘antiterrorism actions’. It’s been known for some time that the army has been preparing for interventions within the European borders in case of urban insurrections or rural guerrillas, scenarios that even NATO projections took seriously. As for us, it’s time we took seriously the proposals that insist on the need to be involved in it now [2]; to map carefully industries and technological companies, but also everything that is sensitive to the correct operational functioning of domination: communication networks, transport routes, resources and energy networks, strategic supplies of raw material and food; to develop technical skills and precise knowledge in order to put them out of use; to think today of forms of informal coordination and develop anarchist projectualities, valid in times of peace as well as of war, because the distinction between the two is no longer appropriate…

          [1]. Such as the 12,000 hectares of CENTAC (combat training centre) in Mailly-le-camp (Aube) and the 6,000 hectares of CENZUB (urban action training centre) in Sissonne (Aisne).

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Anger And Frustration Will Open The Gates to Change.

Today's Western Democracy. 

 

      It should be obvious to all that the idea of voting for a different party to "govern" you, will only produce the same tasteless loaf of bread, just cooked in a different oven. Real change can never come from keeping the same basic principles of profit and continuous growth. Likewise relying on those parties which wish to participate in the management of this system will only lead to new faces sitting on the throne of power. As this awareness grows it becomes obvious that it is not party ideology that will force change, it is anger and frustration. Only when the people start to say to hell with this being shit on generation after generation, and decide to do something about it, without waiting for their esteemed leaders to tell what and when, only then will we see real change. The first burst of anger may not be successful but it will set the pattern as people start to feel the strength and power they hold. They will forge their own answers in the heat of struggle, there will be no need to stop to see what the rule book says. Each answer will be born from the problems that arise.

      All the more reason we should be paying particular attention to the Yellow Vests actions and seeing the possibilities inherent in that form of struggle. The new future can only come about by destroying the corrupt and decadent present. The Yellow Vests may not be the birth of the new future, but it could be the consummation of that birth, that is up to all of us.

       Anarchist News has is a well documented and detailed article on the Yellow Vests which is well worth reading in full:

       Since November, France has been shaken by the yellow vest movement, a grassroots reaction to President Macron’s proposal to increase fuel taxes in order to force the poor to pay for the transition to “ecological” technologies. Like the Occupy movement, the yellow vest movement cohered around shared tactics and frustration rather than common goals or values; consequently, the movement has been a battleground for many different political agendas and factions. The far right initially took advantage of the movement’s “apolitical” character to gain influence, especially online; but as the movement spread and the clashes with the police intensified, anarchists and other uncontrollable rebels also staked out ground within the movement.

Continue reading HERE:

https://anarchistnews.org/content/yellow-vest-movement-showdown-state 

       

         Also worth a read is the article by David Graeber:

       If one feature of any truly revolutionary moment is the complete failure of conventional categories to describe what’s happening around us, then that’s a pretty good sign we’re living in revolutionary times.

      It strikes me that the profound confusion, even incredulity, displayed by the French commentariat—and even more, the world commentariat—in the face of each successive “Acte” of the Gilets Jaunes drama, now rapidly approaching its insurrectionary climax, is a result of a near total inability to take account of the ways that power, labour, and the movements ranged against power, have changed over the last 50 years, and particularly, since 2008. Intellectuals have for the most part done an extremely poor job understanding these changes.

Continue reading HERE:
http://news.infoshop.org/europe/the-yellow-vests-show-how-much-the-ground-moves-under-our-feet/?platform=hootsuite

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The Many Facets Of Struggle.

 

         Anarchist Nikos Romanos, despite more than four years in high security prison and a life threatening hunger strike that brought him near to death, is still vociferous in his condemnation of the state/capitalist system. His writings from prison are still forged with hatred of this exploitative system and a desire to bring it down by all means available, a desire to see freedom for all blossom across the globe. A desire to see our communities shaped by the communities free from fear and repression.

     Nikos as a teenager, was a close friend of murdered teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos, and was with him at the time of his cold blooded murder by a police officer. He saw at a very personal level, and at close quarters, the savagery of the state's protecting minions. I have no doubt this brutal action helped to shape and fashion his anarchist philosophy.

        In June 1914, Nikos penned the article, "The Question of Dignity" well worth a read by all anarchists. The following is an extract from that article:  

Scattered thoughts surrounding the belligerence of today…
        Closing this text I would like to comment on some things concerning the current status quo. Therefore I am looking for words to successfully describe the main characteristics of this monstrosity. Total social control of bodies and minds. Economic crisis, techno-scientific plague, police and military operations, clashes of geo-political interests, diplomatic incidents, generalized unrest, raw violence, diffused confusion and mass disorientation. We are at a critical point of the historical zeitgeist, many analyses have been publicized about the way in which the state is restructuring and fortifying at all levels, as well as the tendency of capitalism to spread its militarization beyond the exploited territories of the third world to the interior of the metropolises, in this way responding to the political instability which is spreading rapidly. Besides the different words and the deviation of some points of view there is a coercion of perceptions concerning the severity of our times. The problem is that even so we are unable to rise to the occasions and challenges of this time and remain trapped in perceptions that feed the cycle of inactivity and introversion. Personally I believe that it is necessary for us to organize through networks and fronts of action which will be coordinated based on minimal political agreements promoting campaigns of multiform action against the spearheads of modern tyranny and answering commensurately to the repressive attacks. By abolishing the bureaucracy of central organization we arm our initiatives and we coil or create fronts for action where we see it necessary. Whether it concerns current matters. (i.e. C type prisons) or thematics of the wider anarchist struggle (i.e. antifascism). In the attempt to break the circle of self-reference we must try to connect all the fires lit against civilization, from militant protests, assemblies and clashes up to armed attacks, a revolutionary attempt for the spreading of militant anarchy. Because what unites us is more than what divides us and since our aim is none other then the full frontal attack on the system, all attempts that are carried out independently of political tension must connect under the vision of absolute freedom. This of course does not retract our critique on incidents, it simply confirms that when critique is combined with dynamic interventions it is more effective because it aims at the spread of revolutionary thought to those who diverge from the dominant dogmas and are seeking ways of clashing with the existent. Placing thus the prospect of connecting our desires in unions of free individualities that collectivize heading towards the chaotic paths of creative destruction. In this attempt we must politically clash with the hysterical reactions of the reformist wing of the anarchist movement that rushes to sign legitimacy certificates to the State. Remembering the political competitiveness of the most intense condemnation from the parliamentary parties after each armed revolutionary action. We have seen written by “anarchist” spaces, phrases such as terrorists and murderers, reproducing the language and arguments of power. It seems that it is not only power that is terrorized but also the reformist wing of the anarchist movement that fears maybe “their shops will be flooded”. It seems that all these prefer the role of the eternal victim, a political masochism that is aroused by taking photos of beaten faces and stabbed bodies from the attacks of the fascists and cops. To conclude, multiform struggle means struggle by all means, nothing more, nothing less. Whoever is not shocked by the thousands of suicides of the economic war in times of “peace”, the drowned immigrants at the sea borders, the torn bodies of the people caught up in the expansion wars of the capitalist superpowers, the animals that are skinned alive inside the multinational industries, the murderous violence of the police, by everything happening in this system, and is shocked – for example – by the bodies of two fascists, that is their problem. The revolution is a constant war for a slave-less life which despite whatever temporary retreats, does not stop fighting and opening ways for our small and big raids. It is not pleasant strolls under the influence of alcohol in order to be obsequious to an invisible ghost called capitalist society. Besides, there are many student magicians of political deceit, more skilled and with more gifts. The above also has the aim of showing that opposing poles between new and old anarchy is false and the only real current question is either with the revolutionaries who fight or with the charlatans of conventionalism. Anarchy therefore that fights is separated from this perversion and transfers its rage to every corner of the world. The rage expressed in the forceful voices in a solidarity protest, the fire that torches the temples of money and symbols of wealth, the personal attacks on State officials and their armed dogs, the ruins left behind by a mechanism that exploded at one of the bases of the ruling class.
      We continue all together, free, wanted and hostages, the struggle for the destruction of capitalist society.
      Signals of solidarity, insurrection and love To all the comrades and friends of the Network of Fighter Prisoners.
      To the Italian anarchists for the upcoming week of international solidarity (16–24 May)
     To anarchist fighter Claudio Lavazza, Monica Caballero and Francisco Solar.
      The comrades from the security case and to Tamara Sol.
       To unrepentant saboteur Marco Camenisch.
       To every imprisoned anarchist at every corner of the world who I unwillingly forgot.
        With my mind on all the anarchists on the run.
        Strength to all those who arm their refusal against the system.
      Honour for ever to Sebastian Oversluij who fell while fighting during a bank robbery.
       Honour for ever to all those who died in the revolutionary war.
Long Live Anarchy!

Nikos Romanos, May 2014

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Yellow Vests.

       When ever there is a grassroots movement, protest or open people's struggle in another country it is always difficult to get at the truth of what is really happening. The main reason of course being that babbling brook of bullshit our mainstream media, where some people look for information and receive nothing but distortion and establishment propaganda. They will certainly not paint nice colours around any protests that threaten the power of Western governments.

       So it is always welcome when you get a report from somebody who is there.

This report from Anarchist News:  

 

 

       A statement from the Yellow Vests shows the political sophistication we must develop as similar social struggles emerge in the declining United States.
        An excellent friend in Paris forwards this:
Pour transmettre aux anglophones qui seraient intéressés…
Call from the Yellow Vests of Commercy to set up popular assemblies
“We will not be ruled. We will not be divided and bought off.”
NO TO RIP OFF! LONG LIVE DIRECT DEMOCRACY!
NO NEED FOR REGIONAL ‘REPRESENTATIVES’!
          For nearly two weeks the movement of yellow vests has brought hundreds of thousands of people in the streets all over France, often for the first time. The price of fuel was the drop of diesel that set the plain on fire. The suffering, the enough-is-enough, and the injustice have never been so widespread. Now, all across the country, hundreds of local groups are organizing themselves in their own different ways.
       Here in Commercy, in the Meuse, we have been operating from the beginning with daily popular assemblies, where each person participates equally. We organized to block entrances to the city and service stations, and filtering road blocks. In the process, we built a cabin in the central square. We meet there every day to organize ourselves, decide next actions, interact with people, and welcome those who join the movement. We also organize “solidarity soups” to live beautiful moments together and get to know each other. In equality.
      But now the government, and some parts of the movement, propose to appoint representatives for each region! That is to say a few people who would become the only “interlocutors” to public authorities and summarize our diversity. But we do not want “representatives” who would end up talking for us!
       What’s the point? At Commercy a punctual delegation met the sub-prefect, in big cities others met directly with the Prefect: they ALREADY have conveyed our anger and our demands. They ALREADY know that we are determined to finish off with this hated president, this detestable government, and the rotten system they embody!
       And that’s what scares the government! Because he knows that if they begin to give in on taxes and fuels, they will also have to back down on pensions, the unemployed, the status of civil servants, and all the rest! They also knows VERY WELL that they risk intensifying a GENERALIZED MOVEMENT AGAINST THE SYSTEM!
      It is not to better understand our anger and our demands that the government wants representatives”: it is to supervise and bury us! As with the union leadership, they look for intermediaries, people with whom they could negotiate. On whom they can put pressure to appease the eruption. People that they can then buy off and press to divide the movement to bury it.
      But that’s without counting on the strength and intelligence of our movement. It’s without counting that we are thinking, organizing, developing our actions that scare them so much and amplifying the movement!
         And above all, there is a very important thing: everywhere the movement of the yellow vests demand in various forms, something that is well beyond the purchasing power! This thing is power to the people, by the people, for the people. It is a newsystem where “those who are nothing” as they say with contempt, regain power over all those who stuff themselves, over those who rule, and over the money powers. It’s equality. It’s justice. It’s freedom. That’s what we want! And it starts from the grassroots!
        If we appoint “representatives” and “spokespersons”, it will eventually make us passive. Worse: we will quickly reproduce the system and act from top down like the scoundrels who rule us. These so-called “representatives of the people” who are filling their pockets, who make laws that rot our lives and serve the interests of the ultra-rich!
         Let’s not put our finger in the gear of representation and hijacking. This is not the time to hand over our voice to a handful of people, even if they seem honest. They must listen to all of us or to no one!
        From Commercy, we therefore call for the creation throughout France of popular committees, which function in regular general assemblies. Places where speech is liberated, where one dares to express oneself, to train oneself, to help one another. If there must be delegates, it is at the level of each local yellow vests people’s committee, closer to the voice of the people. With imperative, revocable, and rotating mandates. With transparency. With trust.
         We also call for the hundreds of groups of yellow vests to have a cabin as in Commercy, or a “people’s house” as in Saint-Nazaire, in short, a place of rallying and organization! And that they coordinate themselves, at the local and departmental level, in equality!
         This is how we will win, because that, up there, they are not used to manage it! And it scares them a lot. We will not let ourselves be ruled. We will not let ourselves be divided and bought off.
          No to self-proclaimed representatives and spokespersons! Let’s take back the power over our lives! Long live the yellow vests in their diversity!

LONG LIVE PEOPLE POWER, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE!

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Sexism In Anarchist Circles!

         Yes, sexism does exists in anarchist circles, and should be constantly challenged, it is encouraging to see it challenged in such an open and powerful manner. This from Mpalothia:

Mexico: 

Communique from the Informal Insurrectionist Anarcha-Feminist Coven.

       Public response to a misdiagnosis that circulates on the internet. To the anarchists of Mexico and the world, to all the witches fighting in the universe.

 «My Mother, go to your room and take care of your work, the loom and the spinning wheel (…) The word must be a thing of men, of all, and above all of me, of whom is the power of this palace». – Telemachus, The Odyssey

---------Thus, the Bolshevik libertarians try and prevent our participation in the anarchic war and ask us to return to the school, to the metate, to the molcajete, to caring for our daughters and darning socks. Like Telemachus to Penelopes, they send us to the knitting room. Once again, the cry of patriarchal power disguises itself as ‘libertarian’ and condemns us to shut us up and keep us from ‘the things of men’.
       Before continuing we want to clarify that we are not Rodriguistas, and not because we don’t share the theory of compañero Rodriguez but because we are not Bakunistas, nor are we Malatestas, we are not Magonistas, nor are we Goldmanistas. We follow ideas not people.
       We are anarchists and we believe that there is only one way to confront power and authority, and that is the anarchic insurrection, that is why we conceive anarchic organization in an informal way through collective affinities and permanent conflict against the patriarchal civilization as a whole. That is why we reject the misogynist authoritarianism of the these Bolshevik libertarians, and why we do it publicly. To fight against sexism and misogyny is to fight against gender, and to fight to destroy gender is to also fight to destroy the whole patriarchal civilization.
        We do not represent all the insurrectionist anarchist comrades, we only represent a collective of affinity based in the central region of Mexico. We recognize the struggle of all the other anarcha-feminist insurrectionist compañeras, from those who individually confront the patriarchal civilization, to the compañeras who do it in anonymous collectives and those who have decided to group themselves under new acronyms and claim their actions.

Our fight is the same.
Neither God, nor State, nor Master!
Against the patriarchal civilization!
For the control of our bodies and our lives!
For the destruction of gender!
For the anarchic insurrectional tension!
For Anarchy!

Informal Insurrectionist Anarcha-Feminist Coven

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Get Out Of My Country!!

 

      An interesting article from "The Conjure House", I'm sure it will cause controversy and debate among the left, but of course that is what we should be having. It does however, offer food for thought, how far down the road to total control do you go, how much venom do you swallow before you turn, and how will you counter act the control, and the venom, is there a limit, or is this the way of life? This article is based on the American situation at the moment, but the epidemic that is sweeping America, has started to infect the rest of the Western world, do we have the antidote, or, are we to entering a world where non-compliance and "mis-fits" must be exterminated?

      ----Imagine for a moment you’re at a bar and there’s an immigrant in front of you. He’s quiet, but not antisocial, casually dressed but not sloppy. He seems just like anybody else except he isn’t. What you don’t know is he’s been working as an aviation programs engineer and even helped design fly-by-wire planes, in which manual controls are entirely replaced by computers. Smart guy, very talented, “high energy” as Il Duce might say; a success story from India and right out of American mythology.

       Now, behind him, a new sound; old, fearful, you hear a hellish cry: “GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY!”

Who the fuck was that? There appears to be a bit of a scuffle in the back, some guy hassling the immigrant you were just studying, but the bar manager seems to take care of it. The man, who appears to be just some old white dude, looks pissed. There’s something about him, but you can’t seem to place it. The man leaves, but in a few minutes comes back through the door. Perhaps he left something?

He shoots 3 people, two of them Indians who he mistakenly took for Muslims.

         Maybe you’re at a protest this time, holding your sign and feeling the electric current of hundreds of other bodies joined in solidarity. A man emerges from the crowd, egging you on to hit him. He spits at you like a diseased raccoon and curses like a fucking sailor. Maybe he’s drunk you figure, or at least too high to really know what’s going on. Someone else pushes him away.

He pulls out a pistol and shoots them. He’ll only be charged with assault.

        This is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re not even a full year into the reign of a new emperor and already the political climate has become practically poisonous, a vile and noxious cloud not only choking the most at risk in our communities but the people seeking to defend them. People have called for Antifa to be declared a terrorist organization; state governments are writing bills that allow protesters to be run over and have their property stolen from them.

It’s a situation not unlike the one faced by French Illegalists at the turn of the century:

“Against us, all arms are good; we are in an enemy camp, surrounded, harassed. The bosses, judges, soldiers, cops unite to bring us down.”

        To be a thinking person in this country of barbarians is to be a criminal and with ever-increasing fervor the tribes loyal to the new Emperor aim to make war upon us. There are millions of people sitting in front of televisions as I type these words that would see nothing wrong with a few hundred lives sacrificed every year to “keep people in line” and you can be sure that folks like you and I will be among them. The cops don’t stop them, they exchange racist texts with them; they console men who kill unarmed black children and tell them what they did was just.

Well worth reading the full article HERE:

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Greece, December 2008, A Prelude.

 

 

Athens December 2008.

 

          I was in Athens that December 2008, on the streets around Syntagma Square, the atmosphere was electric, awe-inspiring, walking and chatting among those thousands of people from all walks of life, it was easy and wonderful to get drunk on this new elixir, an elixir that is there for us all. I had never felt a feeling like it before in my life, and I have never felt anything like it since. Deep inside you felt that something wonderful was about to happen, something new and empowering was about to be born. Sadly it didn't happen that month, or the next. The process is still going on, still forming, still waiting to burst forth and create that new world we all hold in our hearts.

There Will Come a Time

There will come a time when the hordes remember,

who bound our grand-parents to the yoke of oppression,

who sentenced our parents to deprivation,

who bid poverty sink its teeth into our heart,

who teach our children, greed is a noble art.

Who sent our sons through the gates of hell

to a litany of cambist brawls,

crammed coffers with blood-stained gold

while laughing in Ares’ halls.

“Who does these terrible things to us?” they will ask,

and when they remember,

they’ll bring an energy that is endless

to drive a fist that is fearless.

Then this merciless market-driven world will crumble

under an insurrection of integrity,

the poor will emerge from the dark husk of capitalism

to live in the light of social justice.

There will come a time when the hordes remember.

Athens December 2008.

The following from Contra Info:

 

        I hate the individual who bends his body under the weight of an unknown power, of some X, of a god. 

        I hate, I say, all those who, surrendering to others, out of fear, out of resignation, a part of their power as a man, are not only crushed themselves but crush me, and those I love, under the weight of their frightful cooperation or their idiotic inertia. 

      I hate, yes, I hate them, for I sense it, I do not bow before the officer’s braid, the mayor’s sash, the capitalist’s gold, moralities or religions; for a long time I have known that all of this is just baubles that can be broken like glass.
— Joseph Albert (Libertad)

       There are times in history when the randomness of some events can cause dynamic variables, able to almost entirely paralyse the social space-time.
      It was Saturday night, on 06/12/2008, when the culmination of a conflict between two worlds took place in just a few moments. On one hand, the youthful, enthusiastic, spontaneous and impetuous insurrectionary violence; on the other hand, the official state institutional organ that, legitimately, claims the monopoly on violence through repression.
       No, it was not about an innocent kid and a paranoid cop found in the wrong place at the wrong time, but a rebellious young comrade who attacked a patrol car, in an area where clashes with the forces of repression were common, and a cop who patrolled the same area and, out of a personal perception about the honour and reputation of the police, decided to confront the troublemakers on his own. It was a conflict between two opposing forces: on one Insurgency, on the other Power, with the main protagonists of this conflict each representing their own sides.
     The murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the cop Epameinondas Korkoneas, and the large-scale riots that ensued, caused a powerful, high-tension social electroshock, because the image of “social peace” was shattered and the existence of these two opposing worlds was made visible, in the most manifest way, triggering situations from which there was no easy return, at least not without a creation and manifestation of events whose momentum nobody could any longer pretend they did not notice, they did not see, they did not hear, they did not take into account.
     The 2008 rebellion rocked a society that, in its majority, still enjoyed their consumerist bliss and the culture of western lifestyle, and ignored the unbearable consequences of the coming economic crisis. It caused embarrassment, numbness and perceptive paralysis, since the majority of the social body was unable to comprehend whence sprang so many thousands of rioters, who were creating disturbances of such a tension.
      In the aftermath of the rebellion, a number of intellectuals, political analysts, professors, sociologists, psychologists, criminologists, and even artists, each taking advantage of their own professional prestige and renown, joined the public debate, not only in order to interpret December ’08, but also to de-signify it by slandering its occurrence and condemning violence altogether, from wherever it may come, making it clear what their real social role is.
      There is much more to be said about December ’08 and its insurrectionary heritage, as manifested through the dozens of direct action groups which proliferated explosively across the country, creating a front of internal threat. A period when anarchist direct action undermined the social normalcy almost on a daily basis. But what we want above all is to remember…
      To remember what December ’08 was and how anarchy, having a leading role, contributed to the manifestation of dynamic situations, which gained resonance in the international anarchist movement.
      To remember the time when anarchy overcame the fear of arrest, captivity and violent repression, and therefore acquired a tremendous self-confidence, moving on to actions and gestures that, until then, seemed impossible; a self-confidence which was manifested in the whole range of anarchist polymorphous action, from simple public interventions to all kinds of occupations, and from spontaneous confrontational practices to more organised offensive actions.
       We want to remember our young comrade who was guilty of his spontaneity, which he paid with his life. Under other circumstances it might have been us in his place, as the same insurrectionary enthusiasm pervades us since then, and besides, EVERYONE should remember their origins instead of exorcising them.
      We want to remember the beauty of paralysing the social space-time through smaller or larger social short circuits.
     We want to remember how dangerous anarchy may become, when anarchy wants to…
      We want to relive the days when “death shall have no dominion, and dead men naked they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon, and they shall break in the sun till the sun breaks down”
(paraphrased verses from a poem by Dylan Thomas).

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