The Crowd.

        I have always maintained, in this capitalist society, that dissatisfaction and anger is always present, simmering just below the surface. Sometime it displays itself in a small burst, isolated and then quietly fades, sometimes it can be a mass display by a large group of people, finds its way into the media, and then disappears. Then there are those times of course when it is an explosion of released energy fueled by anger and fury, thousands take to the streets and, like in Chile recently, attack the symbols of the system, they burn banks, police stations and loot shops. No matter how small or how large, they are all part of that discontent and subdued anger. Sooner or later it will explode and the existing system will not be able to put its exploitative and repressive parts together again. Well that, in my mind, is the aim of all those bursts of anger, large or small.

I Am The Crowd.

I am the crowd

I swim in the quagmire of poverty

its hooks, its barbs, tear my flesh

rupture my dreams,

I hold my breath for centuries

hoping to break through, gasp pure air.

Through the murky mire

I see bright things, shiny things sparkle

I see women in fine dresses, men in silk shirts

I ask myself,

why do I swim in this cesspool?

I want the light and warmth of rectitude

to caress my labouring body,

seeds of my dreams to bloom

like wild flowers in a meadow.

One day I will use my boundless strength

to haul this torn, battered being

out of the morass

onto the warm grassy bank,

when I do;

woe betide you, women in fine dresses

woe betide you mister in your fine silk shirt

should you ever try to get in my way,

for I am the strength of the world, I am the crowd. 

       The following is a piece on one of those small bursts of anger, a small display of that underlying discontent that one day will explode.

From 325:

Amazon Vans Sabotaged in Solidarity with Striking Workers by Lorenzo Orsetti Anarchist Brigade: North Carolina (USA)

      We are seldom compelled to claim the ways we choose to attack. We are not specialists, nor anarchists isolated from the acts of sabotage and theft that we know occur daily by employees within the Amazon monster. We generally prefer our actions to be just another strike amongst the many, adding to the already existent chorus of rage and discontent. As the crisis deepens and the feelings of isolation and helplessness appear to be sinking in, it is important to remember that one way of regaining agency in our lives is through attack and disruption.

      It is not only the corona virus that is making our lives unbearable, but even more so, it is our continued daily lives under capitalism and state control. Amazon and other tech companies are exploiting the virus, accumulating unheard- of profits and pushing their nightmare tech world. Amazon claims to provide a safe future for society all the while continuing to put its lowest paid employees in danger of infection, biding their time until they can eliminate those positions completely and replace them with automation and robots.

Along with all these reasons, we chose to sneak into one of Amazon’s parking areas and slash the tires of eight delivery vans – for the sheer pleasure of feeling alive and for the continuation of resistance during a confusing time. We know this is just one drop in a vast sea, but to quote a fallen comrade, “Always remember that ‘every storm begins with a single raindrop.’ And try to be that raindrop yourself.”

In solidarity with the striking Amazon workers!

       For ourselves and towards an eternal mayday for all of us!

– Lorenzo Orsetti Anarchist Brigade in North Carolina

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Whose Script?

     At the moment we are in the midst of a world moving event, opportunity, for who, or disaster, for who. The aftermath of this world moving event could be much worse than the event itself. Fortunately the script has not yet been written. how we fare will depend on who writes the narrative. It is up to us the vast majority of the population to take charge of that pen and write our script the way we wish to shape our story.

     All pulling together should remain as it is during this event, doing it to help each other, it should not be used to help pull the system back to what it was, the opposite must be our aim, to bury the past normal and build our own.

The following is an extract from:

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions:

      Resistance; To those who say that now is not the time for “civil unrest,” that division is unhelpful, that we must keep going... we say: now is the time for it all. Mutual aid and solidarity can be no more than acts of charity if they are not combined with resistance in this current context. Carefully, whilst being safe and thinking of others... rebel, resist, and plan. Find the gaps, use the skills and networks you have. Keep yourself sane and your rebellious heart burning, because when the virus eases, the police state will continue, and food parcels and lending books are not going to dismantle it. Stay sharp.COVID-19 is in many ways a global gift to all leaders and politicians seeking to ramp up social control. After the virus eases, we will see unprecedented changes on a global scale as legislation that was rushed through hangs over us like a spectre and people obediently go about their business, terrified of Covid-20. We hope that we will never be too scared to resist. Corona shows us that the system is fucked. Will you kick it while it’s down

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Little Sparks!

 

     It is only a matter of time. The cracks are beginning to appear, how much longer will compliance be the accepted norm? You can rest assured as more and more people stretch the rules, the police, in their usual arrogant heavy handed over reaction, will do their best to intimidate and subdue any infringement. Don't expect the state to rebuke the police, their mouthpieces will always loudly acclaim that it was the public that was at fault, and the villains are being dealt with severely. Fear is their weapon.

   We can rest assured that this incident reported from Turin in Italy, is not the only one on this planet of lockdown, but don't expect the mainstream media to inform you of these "infringements", they would much prefer to push the scenario of all happy happy, clappy clappy, we're all in this together, to conceal their total ineptitude and stupidity and their complete inability or desire, to create a system that would protect the public from such a situation in which we now find ourselves.

The following from Enough is Enough:

#Turin #Italy – Giulio Cesare street is just the beginning.
           Turin. Italy. April 19. 2020. The now unbridled power of the police has manifested itself today in a catch that tasted like an assault. Shortly after lunch, under the occupation of 45, Giulio Cesare street, a dozen policemen stopped two men with an exaggerated exercise of force and without paying attention to the precautionary anti-infection measures. The violence of the action was such that it aroused the attention of the people in the area who, although locked in their homes, did not remain silent and many took to the streets.
        Originally published by Macerie. Translated by insuscettibile di ravvedimento.
        Among them also some comrades who began to rage against that brutality aggravated by the total and contemptuous disregard for the possible contagion. It is precisely those who effectively impose the lockdown and have the complete management of what happens in the streets of the cities that represent a further danger to health, beyond what their role normally grants them. Numerous police and army vehicles arrived as reinforcements and, in the face of a neighbourhood that was clearly hostile to them, began to put pressure on comrades who were thrown to the ground, dragged and taken away.
       Dozens and dozens of individuals remained in the street and together with a few sympathizers who arrived later and hundreds of residents at the windows created a real protest.
       With incredible speed came the first statements by the city citizen politicians from the right and left who, compete in a disjointed manner for the title of who, over the years, have invoked the repression of anarchists most tenaciously. It seems clear that they are frightened by scenarios that they cannot even imagine because in Aurora neighbourhood the measure seems to be full and after weeks of forced domicile in narrow apartments, a life now literally reduced to starvation, towards the State and its representatives in uniform are beginning to see unequivocal signs of not forbearance.
      In the popular neighbourhoods of the cities this could be just the beginning. In fact, there is news of a group of comrades who, in Milan, in the late afternoon, went from courtyard to courtyard, in the neighborhood of Ticinese, to tell about the events in Turin with a megaphone and that the response from the houses was of heartfelt and noisy solidarity with the arrested comrades.
     There is still no certain news of them, we will soon report some updates. In the meantime, the newspapers say that they are under arrest and that forty people have been denounced for violation of the rules envisaged for the current coronavirus pandemic.
      What happened today, as we said, seems to be only the beginning and it is no coincidence that it happened on the poorest streets of the city.

Freedom for Giordana, Marifra, Samu and Daniele!

Freedom for everyone!

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A Personal View.

    I have always maintained that the "lockdown" would only last so long before cracks start to appear and people start to stretch the rules a bit further and further, and if there is a heavy handed put down by the police it could all fall apart. The human is  a social creature, we live by socialising, we like to choose when and where we socialise and with who me socialise. What we are experiencing now is alien to our nature and we will rebel in one way or another sooner or later. We should prepare for that event by organising and coming together in our communities to ensure we don't turn it into a foolhardy free for all, but a determined effort to take back control of our lives in a rational and co-operative manner. I don't know the answer as to how we do that, but if we don't talk about it and prepare for it, we will never find the answer, but I do believe that mutual aid has to be the foundation stone of our new normal. The longer this "lockdown" goes on the more likely there will be of a growing desire to break out of it, we should be preparing for that event.

    In the talking and thinking about such a situation we should also be clear that we are not breaking out to go back to the old "normal", we must make sure that plan is complete killed off. We have the ability, imagination and the desire to create that better world that benefits us all, a world that sees to the needs of all our people. It is there, it is within our grasp, there has never been a better time or a greater opportunity than now to break the mould and start anew. As the Scouts say, "Be prepared".

     I think the graphic blow is a perfect reminder of the old "normal" that we don't want to go back to.

‘Betrayal’ by Mario Sánchez Nevado

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Pandemic And Revolution.

 

      Before this pandemic started its jog across the globe, the world was awash with revolt. Most countries had some sort of mass protests on their streets, people were, more or less "pissed off" with the way the world was heading, they were alive to its inequality, corruption, injustice, human made ecological disaster, and violent destructive wars, they wanted a complete change of direction. In some of the countries the protests became open rebellion, an insurrection, Chile being one of those countries, I have been interested in seeing what the pandemic  and the governments actions have done to this insurrection, Has it quelled the desire for revolution, has it subdued the rebellion to acquiescence, or has it strengthened their resolve to use this as an opportunity to continue their struggle for a free and fair society?  I like their idea of the quarantine being seen as a general strike, obviously it won't end with the pandemic.

This from Anarchists Worldwide:

 

On a particularly chaotic Friday afternoon, Piñera inaugurated the nationwide chain reaction to the pandemic. Since the beginning of March, fear of the virus has slowly entered the conversation: between the agitated return to classes that seeks to be a replica (like an earthquake) of the October Revolt, the massive feminist demonstrations, the radicalization of the reactionary sectors and the imminence of the plebiscite, it is taking on more and more importance.

The international situation is no less complex. Last year saw the beginning of a new worldwide wave of revolts against capitalist normality, and the much manipulated “institutionality” seems to be collapsing from all sides, leaving room not only for insurgent creativity but also (and never so easily differentiated) for populism and fascism of all kinds.

The economy has been losing speed for some time, but the trade war between two declining powers, the manufactured rise in the price of oil, and the paralysis caused by the coronavirus, built the perfect storm to leave the stock market and its tangle of speculative fictions in free fall.

It is in this context that the disease arrives in our territory, with the state of exception still fresh in our memories. It starts in the upper classes, and we almost rejoice before remembering that they will not be the only ones to suffer its consequences. The government, always late, announces its measures. Clearly they are not enough, and their only objective is to ensure the free movement of capital. Some (the ones who see conspiracies at every corner) whisper that it is a strategy to cancel the plebiscite, that is apparently so dangerous. But we are clear that the intelligent fascist votes to approve, and that the government’s incompetence requires no more justification than its own class interests.

However, we have also seen how the situation has developed in other countries with a more advanced stage of infection. Simulations of insurrection, urban warfare and absolute states of emergency have been deployed on the streets of China, Italy and other parts of the world, with varying degrees of success. The Chinese state, famous for its repressive capacity, concentrated all its efforts on the containment of ground zero but, juggling to keep its economy afloat, left its regional governments free both to resume production and to sustain the quarantine. Beyond this it has been by far the country whose quarantine has been most efficient and effective (we won’t mention the United States, whose public policy is reduced to covering its ears and shouting loudly).

The Italian case is notable, more than anything else, for its resistance to quarantine measures and “social distancing”, a nefarious euphemism that refers to self-isolation, forced precarization disguised as “tele-working”, hoarding of essential goods, and the denial of any form of community. When the prisoners (who have always been overcrowded and immuno-compromised) were banned from receiving visits, the biggest prison revolt of this century began: 27 prisons were taken over, many people were killed, police and prison officers were kidnapped and hundreds of prisoners escaped.

In Chilean territory, the situation is uncertain. Pharmacies and supermarkets that were recently looted will soon be out of stock due to widespread panic. Public transport, a permanent battleground since the beginning of the revolt, will soon be avoided like the plague. The government has already banned gatherings of more than 500 people, but by now anyone who is listening to the government is listening. The military, who we assume have refused to leave again to keep what little legitimacy they have left and to be able to preserve their privileges in a new constitution, will not have so much shame if they can disguise their actions as public health. Real public health, on the other hand, weighs less than a packet of cabritas (translation note: a popular popcorn snack). And we have no idea what will happen with the plebiscite.

If elsewhere the pandemic was a trial of insurrection, here the insurrection seems to have been a trial of pandemic and economic crisis. Let’s keep the flame of revolt alive, and organize to survive.

We will now outline some measures that we consider worthy of generalization, more of an inspiration than a programme:

• Looting and organized redistribution of basic goods
• The use of student occupations as collection centres, shelters for homeless people and, of course, street fighters.
• The boycott of any form of distance work or study, so that the quarantine becomes a general strike.
• The immediate release of all prisoners as a central demand.
• Mass evasion in private clinics, free medical care for all.
• Rent strike, taking over empty houses.

The hood is the best mask! Evade the isolation of capital! Deny immunity as a police device! The crisis is an opportunity, raise your fist and attack!

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Ecuador, The Struggle Continues.

           Anybody who stands up to state repression or struggles for justice, knows full well that the state apparatus will use whatever force is needed to try and subdue the protestors. The state needs control of the population to safeguard its power, wealth and privileges. The people living on that plot of land called Ecuador are at present feeling the wrath of a frightened state institution as its brutality intensifies in a desperate battle to gain control of the population. Despite this force the people continue their struggle for justice and freedom.
         An extract from an article on Crimethinc:

 

 

     --------On October 8, thousands of indigenous people occupied the Parliament building in Quito. Can you describe for us what happened there?

       In fact, the Indians arrived on October 7, on Monday, and there was a pitched battle in Quito that lasted five or six hours involving students, social movements, and other residents of Quito who were trying to keep the police busy in order to enable the indigenous comrades to enter. Recall that we are living in a State of Exception, so the military is on the streets and had blocked Quito’s main entrances, the North and South entrances, to prevent indigenous people from other provinces from entering. However, the people were so well-organized that the military did not have enough intelligence at their disposal to stop them. The fact that the fight took place in the city center also opened up gaps that enabled the indigenous people to reach the historic center.
      Just as we pushed the police back, we saw the crowded trucks coming and the bikes that accompanied the indigenous caravan. It was a very exciting moment.
      They went directly to El Arbolito Park, next to the Salesian University, where logistical support for the movement is organized. The following day, a rally took place at Parque El Arbolito and people agreed to take the Assembly (the parliament building in Quito). When we arrived there, a first delegation entered, then gradually more and more people entered, while there were thousands of people at the door of the Assembly wanting to enter. Police shot tear gas canisters at people, which created a mass panic. People could have been trampled to death because many could not breathe; people ran in various directions. Meanwhile, police continued to fire tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at protesters. At that moment, a very great repression began.
      The Assembly, strategically speaking, is like a small fort perched on a hill; to protect it, the police positioned themselves at a higher point so that snipers could hit the protesters with tear gas canisters and also live rounds. As a result, the police inflicted a large number of injuries and some deaths, as they were in a strategic position.
      The idea of going to the Assembly was one of the actions that the indigenous movement had decided to carry out during these days in Quito. Until yesterday [Wednesday, October 9], there was a lot of concern because there was no clear strategy, while the government refused to back down and kept increasing the repression. The fact that police sent tear gas into shelters and peace encalves such as the Salesian University and the Catholic University caused a great deal of outrage; in a way, this was a blow to the government, because the news circulated despite the news shutdown that the mainstream media and the government have been trying to maintain.
       Today [Thursday, October 10], in the morning, eight police officers were captured by the movement and brought to the large popular and indigenous assembly at the House of Culture, where there were about 10,000 or 15,000 people. The reporters who were there ended up broadcasting the assembly live, even if they didn’t do it in the best way. In a way, this broke the media siege by disclosing, for example, the fact that an indigenous leader of Cotopaxi, Inocencio Tucumbi, had been killed. He had lost consciousness after inhaling a lot of tear gas and was then trampled by a police horse. That had not appeared in the mainstream media. Suddenly, the dead appeared on the big television channels and it became clear to the general public that—yes, the government is killing people and carrying out repression at an extreme level!--------

Read the full article HERE:

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The Financial Mafia Fiddles While The World Burns.

       Our system propaganda machine, the mainstream media, continues to paint a picture that all is well within the system, with a few hiccups here and there. This despite the obvious impending collapse of the financial system that will bring extreme hardship and deprivation across the globe, moving it right across the developed world instead of containing it mostly, as it tries at present, in the poorer countries of the world. On top of that, there are massive uprisings across the globe by the people, against the brutal exploitative system that has for generations, heaped so much misery and deprivation on so many while lavishing untold wealth on the few. It is obvious to the thinking observer that something has to break and that break is not far off.

This from Its Going Down:

          The Demise of U.S. Hegemony: Analysis of a Revolutionary Heat Wave in Haiti, West Papua, Mexico and Beyond

Filed under: Analysis, The State

— Abolition Media Worldwide 

A look at recent revolts in Haiti, West Papua, and Mexico and how they are linked to the decline in US imperial power.

       A massive revolutionary heat wave has swept the globe this summer, as militants have risen up with the intent to overthrow their colonial and imperialist foes. In the face of gruesome and relentless State repression, the people are nevertheless holding and gaining ground. From West Papua to Mexico, from Haiti to Colombia, from Honduras to Sudan and beyond, those who have long suffered the violence and indignities of occupation are declaring, unequivocally, that they have had enough. These and other uprisings around the world herald the demise of U.S. hegemony.

Recent Events in West Papua, Mexico, and Haiti

        On September 23rd, 2019, West Papuan revolutionaries burned down an Indonesian colonial government building in Wamena, as the insurrection in West Papua that began last month gained new momentum. In August, racist attacks against West Papuans in cities on the island of Java prompted widespread protests in the provinces, and roughly 2,000 West Papuan students studying in Java headed home early. Indonesia’s colonial occupation of West Papua and the racist violence stemming therefrom have propelled these protests into a full-on insurrection— and the Indonesian State has responded accordingly.

The State remains unable to suppress the revolution, despite many feverish attempts. At least 35,000 West Papuans have been forced from their homes, and an additional 6,000 Indonesian police and military personnel were deployed to West Papua earlier this month. Still, when police murdered sixteen West Papuans after students protested against racism, the people administered revolutionary justice in the form of flaming barricades and the torching of several buildings, including a government building and the airport.

         In Mexico, on the fifth anniversary of the disappearance of 43 Normalista students from Ayotzinapa, militants attacked the national palace where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador currently lives, a Christopher Columbus statue, and other commercial and government buildings in Mexico City. The Normalista students disappeared on September 26th and 27th of 2014; last week, roughly 4,000 people, including students and anarchists, took part in enacting revolutionary justice against the State on their behalf.

Targeted offices included those of Secretariat of Welfare, the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among other government agencies. In all, roughly thirty businesses and public offices were affected.

          On Friday, September 27th, revolutionaries throughout Haiti destroyed police headquarters, attacked residences of government officials, and burned a jail and courts to the ground. Insurgents there are fighting to overthrow the corrupt right-wing regime of Jovenel Moise, who is backed by the U.S. Four people died in clashes in recent days, with many reports of injuries. Moise’s government had siphoned off Venezuelan aid money that came through Venezuela’s PetroCaribe program, which had allowed Haiti to buy petroleum products at discount and on credit. The program has now been suspended, owing to both the U.S.’s interest in overthrowing the current Venezuelan government in order to install a new far-right puppet regime and its support of the Haitian State.

Faced with devastating fuel shortages and prices, the people of Haiti have set the island ablaze. In the capital city of Port-au-Prince, police were met with armed resistance; in Jacmel, the central court and prison were burned to the ground, while prisoners arrested during the last round of uprisings earlier this summer were liberated. In Thomonde, revolutionaries disarmed the police, who fled as their vehicles and substation were set on fire. And in Les Cayes, the office of USAID NGO Caris Foundation was ransacked and their vehicle was set on fire.

The Death of U.S. Hegemony

        While circumstances vary from one to another, these struggles are united in myriad ways. Not only are they all instances of anti-imperialist rebellion, but also among the sinister empires at the root of the oppression endured in West Papua, Mexico, and Haiti alike is none other than that of the United States.

        In 1957, eight years after having recognized Indonesia’s independence, the Dutch empire began a process that would allegedly allow independence for West Papua in 1972. What the Dutch did not know at that time was that twenty-one years earlier, a 1936 expedition had discovered an ertsberg (ore mountain) on West Papua. While various territorial claims had been made, the mountain remained uninhabited for over twenty years.

         Enter the twin demons of capitalism and imperialism.

The United States mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold negotiated with Indonesian army general Suharto to allow prospecting on the mountain. In 1962, after Indonesia declared war on the Netherlands, the U.S. and U.N. predictably conspired to have “interim” control of West Papua signed over to Indonesia. The Indonesian State, having just over a dozen years earlier liberated itself from Dutch colonial rule, donned the colonizer’s clothes and viciously repressed the people of West Papua, making acts such as singing the West Papuan anthem and flying the West Papuan flag illegal.

General Suharto, no doubt thoroughly a U.S. stooge by this time, became president of Indonesia in 1968.

            Similarly, the U.S. empire also colonized Haiti through both stooge deployment and theft of resources. In 2015, the U.S. successfully installed its Haitian stooge, Moise, by enabling former president Martelly— via his goons— to frighten and intimidate Haitians into voting for Moise (who Martelly also backed). In 2010, Canadian and U.S. mining companies unearthed gold, silver, copper, and other valuable metals— roughly $20,000,000,000 worth— in Haiti. This was just after the devastating earthquake that instantly killed up to 300,000 people and from which Haiti has yet to fully recover.

Roughly 15 percent of Haiti’s territory was under license to North American mining firms and partners as of December 2018, including the U.S. company VCS Mining, the Canadian company Majescor, and their subsidiaries. Predictably enough, as the people of Haiti struggle harder and harder to meet their most basic needs, North American colonizers continue to profit wildly from the island’s resources.

Hillary Clinton’s brother, Anthony Rodham, was a prominent player in the mining scheme, according to corporate VCS documents. (It should come as no surprise that Rodham has no background in mining whatsoever.) Rodham joined the advisory board of VCS Mining in October 2013, and a 2014 VCS memorandum touts his influential connections to the Clintons’ “inner circles” and “power bases.”

While President Obrador (AMLO) was fashioned in the style of a left-leaning crusader for justice during the most recent Mexican presidential elections, he has unwaveringly done Trump’s bidding since taking office. AMLO, who vowed not to do Trump’s “dirty work” with respect to abusing and oppressing migrants while on the campaign trail, has been deploying unprecedented levels of troops throughout Mexico, including his newly-formed and contentious Guardia Nacional (National Guard): an amalgamation of existing federal, military, and naval police.

         In spite of ample promises made to respect the autonomy of indigenous people, AMLO created the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples to manage indigenous affairs— an obvious attempt to undermine organizations such as the National Indigenous Congress, an anti-capitalist indigenous resistance movement focused on defending land and resources and protecting indigenous culture. In April, AMLO announced a series of megaprojects he claimed would improve regional development: the Maya Train, a new refinery in Tabasco along the Gulf of Mexico, the Trans Isthmus corridor, and the Plan Integral Morelos— all of which involve dispossession of farmers and indigenous communities. In some cases, construction and management have already opened to bidding by transnational corporations, including many that are U.S.-based.

        Trump personally sent a message to AMLO to assure the latter that the U.S. would invest in the Maya Train in particular. The area it will cover— approximately 1,500 kilometers, from Palenque to Cancún— is already overrun by big-box hotels, fine-dining restaurants and nightclubs which allow tourists from advanced capitalist societies to enjoy luxury on the cheap. By comparison, local economic benefits from this arrangement are minimal. Tourists are spared the sight of the wretchedly under-serviced neighborhoods outside of town that are home to the army of service, maintenance and construction workers whose starting salary ranges from $180 to $420 per month for a six-day week. One can imagine how far that goes in a city dominated by international tourism.

        That this by-colonizers-for-colonizers railway invokes the name of the first indigenous people of Mexico pours salt on an ever-widening wound. (It is fitting that so many harbingers of the end of the U.S. empire’s dominion should occur as we approach Indigenous People’s Day, October 7th— a day the State calls Columbus Day and that was meant to celebrate Columbus’s enslavement and murder of indigenous people, but is now being reclaimed by U.S.-based anti-imperialists as a day to commemorate indigenous martyrs and express solidarity with ongoing indigenous struggles unfolding across the globe.)

One remarkable thing about the present moment is that the three revolutionary uprisings explored above do not even amount to half of the total number taking place worldwide:

        On September 20th and 21st, thousands of people in at least eight Egyptian cities took to the streets to demand the removal of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a fascist who won both the 2014 and 2018 “elections” after running against no serious contenders and amid widespread voting boycotts.

Two days later, on September 23rd, students in Colombia rebelled in the capital city of Bogota and defended themselves in the face of violent repression by the police. This was the second clash between students and police there this year, and the third since current President Ivan Duque took office. (Under his regime, repression of student protests of any kind has become increasingly merciless.)

Three days later, on September 26th, roughly two thousand people demonstrated in Khartoum, Sudan to demand the immediate release of Waleed Abdelrahman Hassan, a Sudanese student who had been detained by Egyptian authorities and delivered a coerced confession on television.

         Still, this list is not exhaustive.

Revolutionary anarchists stand in solidarity with all oppressed people, and recognize the potential contained in this moment. We mourn those who have already fallen in these struggles, but are buoyed by the knowledge that the Age of Empire is coming to a definitive end. The revolutionary heartbeat is palpable and thunderous, pulsing across oceans, deserts, mountains, and hills; igniting fortitude and resilience like wildfire. Neither individual State actors nor their imperial puppet-masters can put out the fire that burns in the chest of the People.

We welcome the imminent demise of U.S. hegemony, and support all of those who continue to fight for liberation!

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201182814172453998.html https://sfbayview.com/2018/12/merten-mercenaries-marionettes-and-the-media-blackout-on-haiti/ https://truthout.org/articles/amlo-in-office-from-megaprojects-to-militarization/

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There Will Come A Time!!

 

         When looking at the subservience by vast swaths of the population, to this brutal and exploitative system, that mires the people in permanent poverty,  I'm reminded of an Oscar Wilde quote: 

       "The difference between the common people and university professors is that the latter have arrived at ignorance after long and painful study"

        Perhaps that is a bit harsh as "The common people", those so mired in poverty, find it hard to do anything except try to survive in this cesspool of greed. However, beneath that subservience lurks a seething anger, not ignorance, and sooner or later that anger will seek answers to its pain. No one knows the spark that will ignite that anger, when it does ignite, we as anarchists had better have our answers on the table or chaos will surely reign, as the false Messiahs will appear eager to lead them back to a new "improved" version of the status-quo, or worse.

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.

 

 

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Rebellious Working Class Ended WW1.

        When it comes to WW1, most people in UK think it ended in victory for the "allies", the word "armistice" doesn't seem to register. What really brought an end to that particular imperialist bloodbath, was the collapse of discipline. Mutiny and rebellion were breaking out everywhere, troops had had enough, orders were ignored, officers were ridiculed, and the various states were anxious as to their survival. It was a class thing that finally put a nail in that particular psychopathic imperialist endeavour. 

       The following is an excellent article on libcom, posted by Jared, well worth reading in full, as we head into the hypocritical pomp and ceremony of establishment's charade of caring, that will be on display in the next few days. That babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, will wallpaper our lives with banal, patriotic jingoism and empty rhetoric, which we are supposed to swallow. Those who engineer and benefit from wars, will take the stand with bowed heads, who knows, perhaps thinking of the next great plunder and how they can get away with it all.

       I make no excuse for posting this in full, it should be writ large in the minds of this generation, as we stand looking at bloody war after bloody war, with the high possibility of even more devastating conflicts looming.

Some images of WW1 mutinies.

From libcom:

The untold history of armistice 

and the end of World War I
         ‘The best antidote to ideology is detail,’ writes Paul Mason. And the detail that’s missing this Armistice Day is that working people, when they take power into their own hands, can end whatever catastrophe is imposed on them.
        In 1918, after four years of slaughter, deprivation and hardship, the Central Powers of Austro-Hungary and Germany were rocked by strikes and mutinies. In February, a naval mutiny broke out at Kotor and sailors shot their officers; by October, the Austro-Hungarian army had collapsed from mass desertions and political upheaval. Soon afterwards a mutiny by German sailors at Kiel merged with other uprisings and quickly escalated into a full-scale rebellion against the imperial state, sparking the abdication of the German Kaiser and the proclamation of a workers’ republic on 9 November 1918.
       Preferring peace to full-scale revolution, an armistice with the Allied powers was signed two days later, on 11 November 1918. Working-class revolt had helped to end the First World War.
      Not that you’d know this from New Zealand’s centennial commemoration of armistice Day, Armistice 100. People across the country will take part in a number of sanitised official events, from joining the ‘roaring chorus’ to texting the Armistice Beacon. They’re unlikely to learn much about the strikes, mutinies and resistance from below that toppled both generals and governments.
      I’ve searched the program resources in vain for any reference to how and why armistice came about. Among messages of peace and the standard script of sacrifice and loss, there is a notable silence when it comes to the masses of working men and women who contributed to the war’s end. Instead, peace seems to fall upon the war like a happy sun-shower. The surrenders of the various Central Powers seem to just … happen.
       Why is there such a gap in the historical narrative? Surely it is not for lack of time or information. We’ve had four years of commemoration and some big spends to go with them (although not as much as Australia, whose $1.1bn dwarfs the $31m spent in New Zealand). It’s not as if the date crept up on us.
      Perhaps I’m being far too critical of the Armistice 100 program and the small pool of public historians working on WW100-related events. After all, I’ve been one of them, although if I’m honest, the feature on censorship and its marginal references to dissent during the First World War was possibly too little, too late.
      It would be wrong to see this glaring omission as some devilish scheme designed to serve the interests of capital and the state. There’s no conspiracy at play here. Instead, official historians are often hamstrung by codes of conduct and the mythical stance of neutrality, or by what is or isn’t palatable to their managers and their manager’s managers. Histories of social revolution, radical ideas, and the agency of everyday, working-class people are hardly the thing of monthly reports or ministerial press releases. And despite the big-ticket items of commemoration, the long, hard slog of quality, in-depth research is like the work of any modern workplace – of trying to do more with less.
       Perhaps, too, there’s something in the turn away from class as a framework of analysis – that is, if class was ever a frame of analysis in the first place (we have, after all, had numerous historians tell us that New Zealand was a classless society, free of a bourgeoisie and proletariat). As Paul Mason notes, ‘the termination of war by working-class action fits uneasily at a deeper level: for most of history the existence of a workforce with its own consciousness and organisations is an afterthought, or an anomaly.’ Instead of exploring the final months of the war through the experience of class or capitalist social relations, we have instead been fed a discourse that historian Charlotte Macdonald believes ‘has come to be strongly characterised by rather too neatly drawn themes of consensual patriotism, duty and sacrifice.’
      Yet if we centre class, and class conflict, in our reading of armistice, the history it reveals is somewhat different to the official account on offer.
       A few examples will suffice. On 16 October 1918, 14 men of the 1 New Zealand (Divisional) Employment Company were charged with mutiny after ‘combining together not to work in the NZ DIV laundry when it was their duty to do so.’ The men, most of whom were labourers, were all sentenced to six months imprisonment with hard labour for their collective work-refusal. That their sentences were later remitted does not negate their struggle.
       Three days after armistice, on 14 November 1918, a riotous throng of men from the New Zealand Division gathered in the town square of Beauvois, France. Monty Ingram, a bank clerk from Whakatāne, recorded the event in his diary. ‘A great gathering of troops were harangued by a chap in the Dinks, who, standing on a box in true labour agitator style’ called on the military authorities to send them home. After a Padre was physically prevented from speaking and a staff officer was howled into silence, the men, now in their thousands, marched on Division Headquarters ‘and swarmed over the place like bees around a honeycomb.’ When Major General Andrew Russell finally appeared in the doorway, he was ‘badly heckled by all sorts of interjections thrown at him and by being called all the b-b-b’s under the sun.’ Russell’s speech fell on deaf ears. Instead, the crowd ordered their general to get in touch with the War Office and cancel any orders sending them to Germany. According to Christopher Pugsley, appeals to the honour of the Division and the threat of dire punishment prevented further action. Still, Russell recorded in his diary: ‘must watch for Bolshevism.’
      This temporary levelling of rank was triggered by frustrations about demobilisation, but class was ever present. As Dave Lamb notes, the widespread mutinies across the Allied forces broke out too soon after armistice for delay in demobilisation to be the sole cause. ‘Antagonism towards officers, hatred of arbitrary discipline, and a revolt against bad conditions and uncertainty about the prospect of being sent to Russia all combined with the delay, confusion and uncertainty about demobilisation.’
        Observed William Wilson, a farmer: ‘Codford [Camp] the last few weeks has been unbearable, discipline has gone to the pack and the troops don’t care a damn for officers and NCOs.’ Strikes by British dockers and seamen caused further delays, and further examples of direct action. There was conflict in Bulford and Sling camps, where New Zealand troops were charged with ‘endeavouring to persuade persons to mutiny’ and sentenced to hard labour. And on the transport ships home, unpopular officers found themselves victim to collective justice. In these moments, when the soldiers took power into their own hands, the generals were powerless to act.
       Back in New Zealand, the sudden end to the war, coupled with the influenza pandemic, also tested the home front military command and their ability to enforce discipline. Two weeks after armistice, the Chief of General Staff, Colonel Charles Gibbon, found himself rushing to Featherston Military Camp, where the troops were mutinous. 5000 men had staged a ‘violent’ demonstration in front of camp headquarters and presented a list of demands to the commandant. Gibbon and Defence Minister James Allen endured a stormy confrontation with the men’s delegates. In the face of mass protest, Gibbon and Allen gave in to some of the soldiers’ demands around demobilisation. By December, the recruits were marching out of Featherston at the rapid rate of 500 a day.
      The militant self-activity of working people – whether they were soldiers, industrial workers, or both – was a deeply entrenched concern for the New Zealand government. The upheavals of 1918, home and abroad, fed into a developing ‘red scare’. By 1919, red scare rhetoric came to dominate the public sphere. Prime Minister William Massey urged his Reform Party faithful to ‘secure good men to stem the tide of Anarchy and Bolshevism’. Allen believed ‘there was so much lawlessness in the country that the only thing that could save [it] from going to damnation was the drill sergeant.’
      Wartime regulations were extended into peacetime. The power to deport undesirables was legislated in 1919. Distributing revolutionary books or pamphlets remained seditious. And now that soldiers trained in killing had returned to their jobs and their pay disputes, firearm acts were passed allowing the state to clamp down on whole working-class neighbourhoods.
     Fear of working-class resistance strengthened the apparatus of state surveillance. Meetings of radicals were secretly attended by police and fortnightly reports were sent to Police Headquarters. Detectives in each district systemised this work by compiling an index of individuals who had ‘extreme revolutionary socialistic or IWW ideas’. This signaled the formation of New Zealand’s first ‘Special’ Branch and laid the groundwork for all future spy agencies in New Zealand. The unrest unleashed in the final months of the war directly influenced the monitoring of dissent in New Zealand for years to come.
       This is a small taste of the untold history of armistice and the end of the First World War. Instead of learning about it, the turbulent events leading up to and after armistice are turned into joyous celebration. Cloaked in the language of peace, Armistice Day becomes an official exercise in justifying the insane loss of life.
      We might even be tempted to see Armistice 100 as an example of what Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and scholar Viet Thanh Nguyen calls the ‘industrialisation of memory’. In his book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, Nguyen also examines the ‘memory industry’ – the museums we take our children to visit, the sculptured grounds of Pukeahu National War Memorial, the Armistice Day parades at sunset. For Nguyen, at the root of this industry is the industrialisation of memory.
Quote:
      Industrialising memory proceeds in parallel with how warfare is industrialised as part and parcel of capitalist society, where the actual firepower exercised in a war is matched by the firepower of memory that defines and refines that war’s identity.
        In other words, memory and the memory industry are weaponised. And while the memory industry produces kitsch, sentimentality, and spectacle, the industrialisation of memory ‘exploits memory as a strategic resource’.
        It is how bodies are produced for current and future wars.

        ‘The best antidote to ideology is detail,’ writes Paul Mason. And the detail that’s missing this Armistice Day is that working people, when they take power into their own hands, can end whatever catastrophe is imposed on them.
        First published by Overland Literary Journal. Jared Davidson is a labour historian and archivist based in Wellington, New Zealand. His forthcoming book, Dead Letters: Censorship and subversion in New Zealand 1914–1920 is out March 2019

Posted By Jared
Nov 10 2018 04:20

 

Screw The Sytem, Get Messy.

       Modern capitalist society functions better when we are all controlled, predictable, and set in our routine of work and consume. It starts to fall apart when we are self thinking, unpredictable free agents, who don't follow their rules. It makes the system difficult  to manage when they can't fit us into nice little boxes of predictable productive units. So screw the system, be unpredictable, think for yourself, for get their rules, choose your path, be alive to the possibilities that a free life has to offer. It might not be the easiest path but it will be the most exciting, and it will be the real mixed up existence, the way our lives are supposed to be, we are humans, social creatures who enjoy challenges.

The usual words of wisdom from Not Buying Anything:

        I have always thought that the luxurious, easy, prosaic predictable life was the kiss of death. Humans were designed to be challenged. We are actually good at it, and grow stronger through overcoming adversity.
       To be easy is to be on auto-pilot. Challenges build character, creativity, and resilience.
         That is why I am looking forward to a messy new year in 2018. This year I will enjoy slogging through the mud pit of life, interacting with real things and real people. I will get messy, and I will know that I am alive.
        Nassim Nicholas Taleby said, “Provided we have the right type of rigor, we need randomness, mess, adventures, uncertainty, self-discovery, near-traumatic episodes, all these things that make life worth living..."
       The quote continues, "...compared to the structured, fake, and ineffective life of an empty-suit CEO with a preset schedule and an alarm clock." But not many of us are CEOs, while all of us are expected to be worker drone/ultra-consumers.
         I would amend that to read, "...compared to the structured, fake, and ineffective life of empty consumers with a preset list of aspirations that keep them diligently working at unloved jobs and careers."
         Life is increasingly random, messy, and uncertain with weekly or daily near-traumatic episodes. And I don't think it's just me. We might as well make all that work for us, and embrace it as part of the human experience.
      Will I have an easy, uneventful and predictable new year? I hope not.
        An adventurous and rigorous simple life provides everything that makes life worth living.
      Happy simple messy new year to everyone. Linda and I look forward to sharing it all with you in the coming year.

        When you realise that you are in a cage of conventions and illusions, when you are bound by habit and ritual, the only dignified response is rebellion.

THE REBEL

Rebel rebel break the rule,
What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.
Not for you the herd’s dull beat
Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,
Living out the life of a clone
Marching with the crowd but always alone.
Shaping your life from some dusty tome
Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule
Swim in the sea, never the pool.
Live your emotions, feel the surge
Follow your dreams, chase the urge.

Make life though short, an exciting game
Not a mad march for fortune or fame.
Capture the moment, live it now
Being alive your only vow.
Rebel rebel break the rule
In the end, you’re humanity’s jewel.

Free The Rebel In You.

      After the Crooks and Liars competition is over, and the insanity is once more slightly hidden, we should not sink into the apathy that keeps this stinking system going. We should pump up the rebel in us all, it is our only hope of saving ourselves from the shackles and poverty of capitalism. forget conformity, forget the rules of this cruel game, forget respect for uniforms, flags and badges, open up ridicule for religion, encourage anger at the pomp and arrogance of monarchy, spit venom at inequality, let your disapproval be loud, spread dissent. 

The Rebel

Rebel rebel break the rule,

What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.

Not for you the herd’s dull beat

Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,

Living out the life of a clone

Marching with the crowd but always alone.

Shaping your life from some dusty tome

Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule

Swim in the sea, never the pool.

Live your emotions, feel the surge

Follow your dreams, chase the urge.

Make life though short, an exciting game

Not a mad march for fortune or fame.

Capture the moment, live it now

Being alive your only vow.

Rebel rebel break the rule

In the end, you’re humanity’s jewel.

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