"Legitimate" Violence.

       It is difficult to get your head round the amount of inhumanity, brutality and vindictive savagery that is perpetrated by so called "legitimate States". Every country that you care to mention, there you'll find  a callous, dictatorial authoritarian, establishment, that shows complete disregard for the human rights of those who choose to criticise the state. At the moment, across the globe anarchists are being particularly hard hit by these so called "legitimate states". This hard war against the critics of the system tells us that they are worried, they see the rising discontent among the ordinary people, and are trying to defuse that discontent and anger, they are aware of the crumbling of their system and their power, and will brutality try to hold on to their power, wealth and privileges. Apart from the police brutality on the streets, there is the callous vindictive brutality of their incarceration system, the institutions of repression that fly under the flag of the "judicial system" are an abomination on the face of any society that wants to wear the label of "civilised". 

     Surely the time is fast approaching when we collectively put an end to this inhumanity by the privileged pampered few, the opportunity is here now to change the direction of our society and create that better way to live. A society where humanity reigns, and sits on the foundation stones of justice, equality, and attention to everybody's needs. Free from the cancerous profit motive fed by greed and upheld by wealth, power and privilege.

      The article below is from Belarus, but name your territory and you can repeat the article over and over again, brutal power, intimidation and repression are the necessary survival tools of this exploitative system. 

The following from AMW: 

 

 Anarchist Prisoners Ivan Komar and Nikita Emelyanov on Hunger Strike in Belarus

Information came to our mail that anarchist prisoners Nikolai Emelyanova and Ivan Komar went on a hunger strike on June 16 in solidarity with the detained and arrested activists. The girlfriend of political prisoner Yana Chulitskaya also joined the hunger strike:

“Due to the fact that political prisoners anarchists Ivan Komar and Nikita Emelyanov go on hunger strike in protest against an unjust sentence, against violation of their rights, obstruction of correspondence, and also due to the fact that recently the state has declared a hunt for dissidents (everyone who is against the dictatorial regime of Lukashenko) and they are kept in inhumane conditions, I inform you that I, Yana Chulitskaya, born in 2001, giving full report to my actions, being in my right mind, deliberately went on a hunger strike from June 16, 2020.

I demand:

1. Adequate review of the cases of Emelyanov and Komar in their presence, and the replacement of their punishment, not related to imprisonment.
2. Stop the detention of people for expressing their opinions. Ensure respect for the rights of detainees for peaceful assemblies.

I beg:

Respond to the application, send a written or oral response. Notify doctors in my area about monitoring my health.”

From: https://abc-belarus.org/?p=12874

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Direct Action.

     Over your lifetime how many peaceful marches and peaceful demonstrations have you attended, and how many have abysmally failed to bear fruit? How many school closures etc. have gone ahead despite strong local peaceful demonstrations against this happening? At the age of 86 I've lost count. The establishment has no fear of peaceful marches and demonstrations, even when you march to their citadels of power and stand there peacefully holding your banners and flags. One of the recent most obvious proof of this, was before the start of the illegal invasion of Iraq. Millions across the planet marched, probably the largest world protest up to that time, and peacefully let it be known that they did not want this illegal invasion and resulting carnage to take place, but all that was ignored and to this day we still see the bleeding wound that is Iraq. The establishment may from time to time rough up those peaceful marches/demonstrations, more as a deterrent to others in an attempt to stop them from gaining public support, not from fear of the peaceful demonstrators. I often think that the establishment is quite happy for the odd mass peaceful march/demonstration to take place. I believe they may see it as a public paracetamol, it makes you feel better but does nothing to sort out the real problem.

     A not too distant event that shows that to really bring about effective change, your peaceful march/demonstration has to move to a different level. The poll-tax was being forced down the throats of the people in this country. Peaceful marches and demonstrations, burning of poll tax demands etc., all went for nothing. Only when the people moved to the level of open rebellion and took to the streets to forcefully demonstrate that they were not going to accept this injustice, did anything change, the poll-tax quickly died. Direct action is the weapon the establishment fear most.

The following is an extract from an article on Crimethinc:

 

Together, we are unstoppable: Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Effectiveness of Insurrection
      Where one reformist campaign after another has failed, the courage of those who burned down the Third Precinct in Minneapolis has catalyzed an unprecedented movement for social change. The victories of the first week of the movement alone surpass what other approaches had accomplished in years. We should not underestimate the contributions of abolitionists who have labored for decades to make it possible for people to imagine doing without police and prisons, but many of those who set this movement in motion do not think of themselves as activists at all.
      The past three weeks have offered the most persuasive demonstration of the effectiveness of direct action in decades. Liberals will try to represent the strength of the movement as a mere question of numbers, but these numbers only came together because daring rebels showed that they could defeat the Minneapolis police in open combat. The idea of abolishing the police was deemed inadmissible until it became conceivable that rioters could overthrow the police by main force. Then, and only then, police abolition became a widespread discussion item.
      So direct action gets the goods—and everyone knows it now. It will be very difficult to put this genie back in the bottle. From the centrists who are suddenly struggling to reduce police abolition to a matter of “defunding” to Donald Trump himself, who was forced to make a show of calling for police reforms yesterday, there is no denying that the riots have changed everyone’s priorities. Rather than alienating people, as critics always alleged it would, confrontational direct action has won millions over to ideas and values they might never have considered otherwise.
     This will have long-term effects on a global scale as movements all around the world internalize these lessons. International solidarity actions have already taken place in over 50 other countries, some of them including massive riots.

Read the full article HERE: 

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Who Shapes?

       Today, across the world, we are certainly in the process of seismic changes, we could let them unfold without any input from us to shape those changes and accept the world that forms. Or we could be the driving force to shape those changes to the benefit of all. You can rest assured that the rich and powerful are already doing their best to shape those changes to the benefit of their parasitical class. We should be grateful for those millions across the world that have taken to the streets with a concerted effort to grasp control of those changes and drive them in the direction of the better world for all.
       Anti-police brutality needs to be looked at from the point of view of why the police are there in the first place, who needs them most and why. The police are not an entity that exists in a vacuum, they are part and parcel of a system. A system that shaped them the way that they seen best to fit their purpose, a system that needs that reserve of violence for its existence. We don’t have a racist brutal police force, we have a racist brutal system, of which the police are an integral and necessary part. We should never lose sight of the fact that we will never be rid of police brutality as long as we tolerate this brutal capitalist system.
     Perhaps we should all carry with us, to shape our actions, a few lines from Adrian Mitchell’s book, Heart At The Left.

My brain socialist
My heart anarchist
My eyes pacifist
My blood revolutionary.

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Death Sentence.

     How many prison riots are we going to see repressed with savage brutality before we all stand up and say, enough is enough. Prison conditions across the planet are all in various degrees of overcrowding, unhygienic, coupled to lack of proper health care, all administered with vindictive and arbitrator rules that are intended to humiliate and intimidate. Prisoners have been rioting from Italy to America, from the UK to Australia and rightly so, as their conditions are now life threatening with the threat of covid19. The unacceptable conditions in prisons are a breeding ground for the virus and next to nothing is being done  to remedy this unacceptable and inhumane situation. A prison sentence is now becoming a death sentence, and this must be stopped. Our full solidarity and support must get behind the prisoners and their demand for justice.
      We have to end this system that depends on brutality for survival, an end to prisons and the system that creates and needs them.

      This short report from prisoners rioting in Australia who are being brutally crushed by the state's violent minders.

  The following from Anarchists Worldwide.

      So-Called Australia, 08.06.2020: Riot cops and IAT (Immediate Action Team) have brutally crushed a prisoner revolt that had spread to 3 separate yards at the notorious Long Bay Prison located about 14km south of Warang / Sydney. During the revolt, prisoners used prison-issue towels to spell out BLM (Black Lives Matter) in one of the yards so it could be seen by media helicopters.
     Update 1 – There is an ongoing Black Lives Matter uprising at Long Bay Prison, NSW. There is massive resistance.
     The Immediate Action Team (IAT) who killed David Dungay Jnr on 29/12/15 and the Riot Squad are deploying massive amounts of tear gas and other chemical weapons into the yards to break the resistance ~ so nobody can breathe.
      Children and elderly people in the surrounding suburb of Malabar are also struggling to breathe.
      Update 2: The IAT and Riot Squad have used attack dogs, indiscriminate use of riot batons and held a gun capable of firing baton rounds to the head of people who had already surrendered and were restrained.
      One person is in hospital with severe dog bite injuries.
     The uprising spread over three yards at Long Bay in scenes reminiscent of the Attica Uprising.
    The indiscriminate use of tear gas in Long Bay is being inflicted on the people most at risk of contracting and dying from Covid 19.
      Some people in neighboring suburbs have fled as tear gas has contaminated large parts of Matraville and Malabar.

 (via Abolitionist and Transformative Justice Centre / Facebook)

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BLM & The Green.

 

       Glasgow's mass BLM protest held on Glasgow Green Sunday 7th June, was a well attended and peaceful affair, and what's more and unusual for Glasgow, the weather was kind. I wasn't there but a report from a friend who managed to attend, said that their estimate put the attendance at between 2,000 and 3,000. My friend also said that on the whole most people kept a reasonable distance apart, as did the police, patrolling in twos around the crowd.

        Let's hope that this coming together of all shades of humanity to protest the injustice and brutality inherent in this economic system we live under, stays together as a cohesive body. Let's hope that they continue their presence on the street and in their communities, not just against the police brutality but recognizing that the police are just a strand of this system and one the establishment hold sacred. The system sees the police as a necessary force to allow the powers that be continue their looting of the public purse and the exploitation of the people. It should be our aim not to change the police, but to change this entire system of privilege based on wealth and power.  

      As with all Glasgow protests, there is a plethora of hand made placards, snappy slogans, short to the point statements, which I always find fascinating, opinions scribbled on cardboard, cheap, easily and quickly made.

      Here are some of the placards from Sunday's protest, thanks to my young friend.

 

  

Hope.

        As the mass protests and outrage at the public murder of George Floyd by the police, started to spread across the world, that little glimmer of hope that I always had, that one day all the single issue politics would disappear and become one mass worldwide protest movement against this savage, brutal and exploitative system and end it once and for all, that little hope grew brighter. Here at last the ordinary people of all the shades of humanity were coming together, this illusion of race was evaporating before our eyes. Perhaps now we would all see that the only real division in the human race is class. Though the hope is still there, I never underestimate the subterfuge, devious and brutal nature of the other class, the "establishment", the millionaires and billionaires the corporate bodies and their minders, the state. That is what we should be watching for, there underhand, hijacking and false propaganda to divide and undermine that unity.

The following is from FSP, (revolutionary feminism.)

The Barricades Are Burning.

       On Saturday, May 31, the world witnessed an historic event – the fires of mass rebellion broke out a few hundred yards from the White House.

Donald Trump, the political head of the most powerful imperialist state that economically and militarily lords over the whole Earth, was escorted to the secure bunker inside the White House fearing that the angry masses of Black, Latinx and poor white Americans would attempt to settle accounts with their president.

     Thousands of Black working-class youth have led massive protests composed of workers and the unemployed of all races due to the Covid-19 pandemic since the American dream has become a nightmare of growing poverty, the loss of housing, the lack of jobs, the super-exploitation of part-time employment, and the absence of adequate healthcare. Brave young people – both citizens and immigrants – faced off against brutal, murderous men in uniform to avenge the death of George Floyd by shouting, “No more police killings!”

      In a May 30 statement, the National Comrades of Color Caucus of the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women wrote that, “The police have always been in the service of capitalism and white supremacy since its origins as the slave patrols of the South. Ever since, the corrosive power of white supremacy has been used to delude working-class whites into thinking that their interests lie with rich whites instead of their own class brothers and sisters of color.”

       Now the monumental crisis that the capitalists have created in the world economy that delivers its most violent and terrible blows to the lives of most the humble and dispossessed has drawn a clear line between the rich and poor, the exploiters and exploited, the oppressors and oppressed. 

The class interests of workers in the U.S. are beginning to overcome the racial barriers that the U.S. bourgeoisie has maintained to divide poor whites from poor Blacks since the founding of the nation.

      The moving expressions of solidarity around the world clearly illustrate that the working class is a single class and international. Let no wall stand in the way of grief over the death of George Floyd, a Black man; nor impede solidarity with the oppressed and exploited in the United States. The same state that drains the livelihood of workers in other countries beats and strangles its own people.

        It is time for working people around the world, united in suffering and pain, to stand up against capitalism that destroys and kills and end all oppression by building a socialist world.

Workers of the world, let us unite!

Committee for Revolutionary International Regroupment (CRIR)

Partido Socialismo y Libertad – Argentina
Partido Obrero Socialista – México
Freedom Socialist Party – United States and Australia

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Watts,1965.

        What we are looking at in the wide spread riots and mass protests following the public murder of George Floyd by the police, is a mirror of Los Angeles, 1965, only on a much larger scale. It becomes obvious that in this capitalist economy nothing changes in the relationship between the state and the general population. The only change seems to be in the growing inequality and the more brutal and draconian methods to keep the system going in the same ruthless manner. I have no doubt these events will keep repeating themselves until we finally get rid of the root cause, the state/capitalist economic system that is driven by greed and profit, and has shackled our lives for centuries.

    Some photos from those Watts riots, 1965.

Rare footage from Watts 1965:

      The following is an extract from quite a long article, but well worth reading, from "Bureau of Public Secrets" on those 1965 riots in the Watts district of Los Angeles.

The Decline and Fall of the
Spectacle-Commodity Economy
     

  August 13-16, 1965, the blacks of Los Angeles revolted. An incident between traffic police and pedestrians developed into two days of spontaneous riots. Despite increasing reinforcements, the forces of order were unable to regain control of the streets. By the third day the blacks had armed themselves by looting accessible gun stores, enabling them to fire even on police helicopters. It took thousands of police and soldiers, including an entire infantry division supported by tanks, to confine the riot to the Watts area, and several more days of street fighting to finally bring it under control. Stores were massively plundered and many were burned. Official sources listed 32 dead (including 27 blacks), more than 800 wounded and 3000 arrests.
        Reactions from all sides were most revealing: a revolutionary event, by bringing existing problems into the open, provokes its opponents into an inhabitual lucidity. Police Chief William Parker, for example, rejected all the major black organizations’ offers of mediation, correctly asserting: “These rioters don’t have any leaders.” Since the blacks no longer had any leaders, it was the moment of truth for both sides. What did one of those unemployed leaders, NAACP general secretary Roy Wilkins, have to say? He declared that the riot “should be put down with all necessary force.” And Los Angeles Cardinal McIntyre, who protested loudly, did not protest against the violence of the repression, which one might have supposed the most tactful policy at a time when the Roman Church is modernizing its image; he denounced “this premeditated revolt against the rights of one’s neighbor and against respect for law and order,” calling on Catholics to oppose the looting and “this violence without any apparent justification.” And all those who went so far as to recognize the “apparent justifications” of the rage of the Los Angeles blacks (but never the real ones), all the ideologists and “spokesmen” of the vacuous international Left, deplored the irresponsibility, the disorder, the looting (especially the fact that arms and alcohol were the first targets) and the 2000 fires with which the blacks lit up their battle and their ball. But who has defended the Los Angeles rioters in the terms they deserve?
        We will. Let the economists fret over the $27 million lost, and the city planners sigh over one of their most beautiful supermarkets gone up in smoke, and McIntyre blubber over his slain deputy sheriff. Let the sociologists bemoan the absurdity and intoxication of this rebellion. The role of a revolutionary publication is not only to justify the Los Angeles insurgents, but to help elucidate their perspectives, to explain theoretically the truth for which such practical action expresses the search.

Continue reading HERE: 

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The Murmur.

      As I have always said, nobody knows the spark that will ignite the fire. Police brutality goes on day and daily, in country after country, and there is an angry murmuring. George Floyd's public murder by the police, thanks to modern technology, circulated the world, that was the spark that ignited this fire. This was not a sudden and unexpected explosion, this is the release of decades of pent up discontent and anger, decades of having injustice heaped on you on a daily bases. George Floyd threw open a door through which our anger could run free and express itself and attack the causes of those decades of brutality and injustice. 

     Of course you'll get the so called voices of "reason" condemning the destruction and looting, but where were they when for centuries the wealth created by the many was continually being looted by the few, where were their voices when the few, through the state and corporate bodies heaped destruction on our home, the planet? In a society where the majority are continually being looted of the wealth they create, what the apologists for the state, the media, call "looting" is merely taking back some of what you created. The trillions paid to the corporate world as a "bailout", is nothing more than looting the public purse by the state to comfort the wealthy few. 

      Yes, this anger may subside, and authority take back control, if that happens, then the brutality, the plundering of public wealth, the gross inequality and injustice will return, and you will have to accept it, or ignite another fire. The state authority and its accompanying brutality will not melt away because you desire it to do so, it will require the full force of your anger to rid ourselves of that scourge. 

      This could be the birth pangs of a new world as it struggles to be born, trying to push its way from the darkness to a bright new future. The choice is ours.

The Murmer Of The Poor

Brokers, bankers, Earls, Dukes,
callous, mercenary, pirate crew
gasconading through the land
Bloated, pampered, privileged few.

Striding with selfish arrogance
plundering as you go
grasping at the fruits
the common people sow.

Take heed, you swaggering fat cats
in our world you don't belong,
that murmur you hear is the poor
rehearsing an angry song.

The day is fat approaching
when our chorus loud you'll hear,
then all your greed and treachery
will surely cost you dear.

A price you'll pay for being blind
to the hungry at your door,
oh, haste the day our angry chorus
becomes a mighty roar. 

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State Violence.

       Solidarity knows no borders, that doesn't just apply to those imaginary lines drawn by the various states across the planet. It must also apply to those borders between those under state incarceration and those on the other side who are still able to roam the streets. The prison population has been growing in most countries and most prisons are overcrowded, conditions are unhygienic and deteriorating, rules are vindictive and manipulated to repress and humiliate, they are cesspools of official callous violence. Added to this is the now constant threat of covid19 rampant in unhygienic, overcrowded conditions, with inadequate health care.
     Now more than ever those enmeshed in the states savage prison regime need and deserve our full solidarity until we finally bring down that border between incarceration and freedom. 

A poem by Eric King:

 

  

“If Tamir was named Andy from the Hamptons”

Every breath is an air of defiance
sparks flying I breathe fire
What happened in the Lorraine
happened in Ferguson & Batton Rouge
Police keeping cities safe
passing out freedom bullets
Black bodies not regarded as anything
more than click-bait and hot topics
If Tamir was named Andy
from the Hamptons
maybe it’d make a fucking difference?!
This isn’t gang violence, its state violence
its race violence, it shouldn’t exist but
so often does happen without outrage
from the privileged to well off
to be outspoken
This isn’t new it’s just finally on the news
cause people took to the streets
& when told to disperse they refused
So painful but its true
Blue Lives Murder

 

      The following open letter from Eric King anarchist prisoner in U$A and published in 325:

     This is my sixth year in prison and has easily been the hardest. After being accused of assaulting a lieutenant on August 17, 2018, I’ve been in the SHU since. The past two years have shown me a wide scope of state brutality: physical beatings and tortures, psychological games like being kept in bare rooms with no contact to the free world, and their legal power – bringing serious new charges that could carry 20 additional years. Resistance is not a game.
      During this time I’ve learned a lot; that A LOT of people get set up this way, that prison support is priceless, that they can always turn it up, and that WE can always turn it up also. Despite the harsh sanctions and restrictions, I’ve refused to be a wilting willow. Now has been the time to face them head on – whether legally with motions and pressure; casual bucking; hard bucking; leading protest for basic rights; having long talks about social, class, and prisoner consciousness; and organizing the other prisoners. Anarchists don’t hide.
     One thing I couldn’t have done this without has been the outpouring of support. Fiscal support to my canteen and legal fundraiser (keep it coming pls), the uptake in letters, those who sent magazines, books and articles after we won those rights. I let me supporters and Team know this wasn’t going to be a smooth ride, that resistance is in my blood, and they’ve stuck it out. People new and long lasting have shown up when needed most. We cannot fight on the inside, without you on the outside. We are fighting cases, fighting injustice, fighting the same battles happening in the streets, inside, in close quarters.
    Prisons need to be demolished, it’s a fight that can only be won on two fronts – unity inside and solidarity outside. We chop this dragon’s head off, relegate it to horror stories and museums of resistance. Together, it’s possible.
     Thank you to everyone who has helped in any way, whether being kind to my partner, donating funds, showing up to trail (August 10th, see you there!).

Let’s take FTTP literal, shall we?

Until All Are Rubble,

EK
Fire Ant Collective
IWOC

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Social Control.

      We can be sure that the state will use this pandemic as a platform for experimenting with new social controls that it can tweak and introduce after this pandemic is over. Social distancing, limited numbers at certain events, will continue for quite a while, and will be enhanced and modified to increase control over the population. The longer it goes on, the more they hope the public will become accustomed to some form of these measure. We have to vigilant and determined to ensure that all those restrictions introduced because of the pandemic must be totally scrapped as soon as this pandemic is under control. They will not do this willingly, it will require our determined and organised effort to unsure this happens.

      The following is an extract from an article on the Greek state's actions during this pandemic, from Crimethinc: 

 

 

       Night is especially scary; teams of Delta police can be seen riding around in motorcycle gangs, beating and arresting people at random, chiefly non-white immigrants. On top of this, gatherings of 30 to 50 cops can be seen at various checkpoints, flagrantly violating the social distancing protocol that is the justification for the lockdown in the first place. This sort of opportunism would be comical if it weren’t so oppressive for the most vulnerable residents.
     However, disdain for the police behavior is widespread, even among residents who were annoyed by Exarchia’s squats and riots in the past. We are certain that when the lockdown measures are eased, resistance will return with a vengeance.
      The state has done everything it can to blame the public if social distancing efforts fail. The state and corporate media have spread fabricated videos of people not respecting social distance in order to turn Greek society against itself. The state is using this pandemic to experiment with martial law, even enforcing prohibitions on swimming and fishing. Such measures serve to test what Greek people will put up with in order to refine plans for future authoritarian efforts to change this society, especially considering that the IMF now anticipates an even worse economic downturn than the recession of 2008.
    All across the country, Greek police are ticketing homeless people for violating the lockdown as a consequence of lacking shelter, ticketing immigrants at a higher rate and targeting the most vulnerable on the pretext of enforcing safety measures. The Greek state has also evicted student housing throughout Athens, a step they likely hope will make it easier to privatize the university system in the future. They are also using the text message system via which residents request permission from the state to go outside to collect information about the general population.
     In short, the Greek state that slashed funding for medical facilities and accelerated the privatization of health care is dealing with the pandemic by escalating state control and social manipulation. In early April, when doctors and other workers at the Evangelismos hospital in central Athens tried to stage a demonstration demanding more protective equipment, an army of police swarmed in to shut it down. In addition to ordering direct assaults on medical staff, the authorities have also told Greek medical workers that they are forbidden to speak publicly to the press about issues relating to the pandemic.

Well worth while to read the full article HERE: 

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Beneath The Surface.

        The media still put out picture that we, on the whole, are quietly accepting our new enforced "normal", with a "we are all in this together" spirit. Of course this isn't quite an accurate picture of what is happening on the ground, there is considerable discontent and anger bubbling just below the surface. People are starting to move a little further from the rules, there have been riots in various cities across the globe, prisoners around the world are rioting, migrants in camps are rioting, and beneath the surface there is a growing desire to break out of this enforced straight jacket. The latest flash point in Europe has been Paris, after an incident with the police in a Paris suburb.
      There has been four nights of riots in the suburbs of Paris, the police being the main target of the youth from these areas. The riots began on Saturday evening after an incident that people saw as a police officer deliberately injuring a young local motorcyclist. The suburbs of Paris and many other French cities are usually very poor areas with poverty being a way of life for many struggling families. This lockdown has cost many of the residents, already poor, to lose their incomes. In these areas there has always been tension between police and residents, this has been exacerbated by the extra police presence to enforce the virus lockdown. The authorities are concerned that this situation could escalate, and there is every possibility that it will.

 

Reports HERE,  HERE, HERE, HERE,  HERE, HERE,

Photo from Sky News

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