Anarchist history is varied and exciting and on many occasions has changed society dramatically. The Paris Commune is just one example and well worth remembering and celebrating, even if the end was a bloody massacre. The spirit lives on. This from SubMedia, with the promise of more to come.
Just released, System Fail 25, again a wide spectrum view of our world that mainstream media seem to overlook. This issue covers the riots in France, climate catastrophe, and Bolivia. Well worth viewing and spreading around.
We live in a very unequal society, a world of inequality that stretches across the planet with its ensuing misery and deprivation for the majority. What our plunderers and pillagers of the corporate parasite class and their state bed companions should do well to remember is that an unequal world is an unstable world. Fractures are already appearing and the anger is simmering just beneath the surface, occasionally bursting forth in riots, insurrection and resistance, built on a shared burden of struggle. As the capitalist system is utterly incapable of creating an equal society as it is based on profit from exploitation, it is also incapable of creating a stable and fair society. It becomes ever more obvious that if we want a fair and just society we will have to dismantle the present economic system of profit which is driven by greed and self interest. There is no magic wand, nor will the change come from above with a bunch of roses. The change we want will have to be wrestled from the hands of the plundering capitalist system we must replace. Banners and polite marches with snap slogans will not force the plunderers to relinquish their opulent lifestyles in favour of equality and fairness. It will take the mass of the population to rise up and in solidarity state that enough is enough, we will be free and live in a fair society that sees to the needs of all our people.
The Invisible.
Everybody surely knows that there is something dangerously wrong with our present economic system. It has in the past, present and will in the future fail miserable to see to the basic needs of all of humanity and the survival of humanity itself. If you are a member of that strata of people at the receiving end of the economic system’s free hand out of poverty and deprivation, you’ll understand what I’m saying.
Why does this system persist despite in vicious disregard for the vast majority of humanity? It spawns wars across the globe from South America to Africa, the Middle East to Europe, wars that only the privileged few gain from, but the vast majority suffer the consequences the deaths, injuries and devastation. We are prisoners of a system owned and controlled by a small number of very rich individuals and massive international monopoly corporations. The only result from such plundering and pillaging the Earth’s resources is to deny the vast majority of humanity a decent standard of living.
This system persists because of our subservience to the illusions peddled by its propaganda machine and the control by the various states that manges the population with laws, rules and regulations that perpetuate the existing status-quo. Change will only come when we start to see through the illusions and help others to join us in dispelling myth and replacing it with facts. Awakening to the fact that our acceptance of this system of injustice and savage brutality is not laid down in tablets of stone from some immutable design, it is human designed system and can be changed only by human intervention on a massive scale. We have to abolish borders, erase racism, grow our solidarity for all repressed people and build on co-operation, sustainability and justice for all. We accept the inequality and injustice and hand it down to our children and grandchildren or we stand up, join hands, get organised on a massive scale and make the changes we need and are due, as we are the creators of all the wealth on this planet. Organised solidarity is our winning weapon.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Maya Angelou
In that patch of the planet that goes by the name of Greece, a member of the EU, is a prime example of the direction Western democracy is travelling, further to the right and more authoritarian. What is happening in Greece is happening in all other states, it is just a matter of degree and timing. All states want total control of the population, a subservient populace that can be used to fuel the wheels of the capitalism's exploiting mechanisms. There are two roads open to us the ordinary people, submit and be an obedient subservient digit in their system, or resist by what ever means are available to us, destroy this burden on humanity and build that better world for all, a society that sees to the needs of all our people and stops feeding millionaire/billionaire parasites. Rest assured, we are not going to win that better world for all, at talking shops, nor by waving banners, they have too much to lose and will fight a bitter brutal battle to keep what they have plundered.
The following extract from Act for Freedom Now.
Financial support of the four comrades in pre-trial detention
https://www.firefund.net/4pretrialThe following text is the political view of the Assembly in Solidarity with the four comrades in pre-trial detention Fotis D., Jason R., Lambros V. and Panagiotis V.
On November 14th, 2021 an unmarked police vehicle rammed into the comrades Fotis D. and Jason R. as they were in motion and then they were taken to the General Police Department of Attica. There, the uniformed garbage of the Greek Police proceeded to mandatory fingerprinting and DNA sampling, in order to link them to the attack on the Piraeus traffic police on the same night. In a process that took only half a day, they raided their homes, making sure to plant incriminating evidence, thus building a weak case against them. At the same time, the media indulged in their usual vile role, talking about homes being bomb and explosives manufacturing facilities, in an attempt to normalise the new criminal code in the public mind (which upgrades the possession and use of Molotov cocktails to a felony). It is worth noting, that the code came into force the day before their arrest. For the millionth time, the fabrication of guilty people by the media, has socially reinforced the prosecution’s argument and created the appropriate ground for the pre-trial detention of our two comrades, who have been held captive for 15 months in the Korydallos and Avlona hellholes.
With the trial date not being set and the case file still open, the interrogator had room to implicate more people. Following a prosecution conducted by the interrogator, on Tuesday morning 20/9, state cops accompanied by a prosecutor, stormed into the house of comrades Panagiotis V. and Lambros V. The comrades were arrested and detained in GADA, where for several hours the reasons for their detention were not known and they were not given the right to communicate with their lawyers or their close ones. The next day, they were tried by the Single-Member Plenary Court in Evelpidon for violation of the weapons law and were later released.
It is normal practice for the state to keep asking the people to make sacrifices, Put up with low wages so that we can beat inflation and get the economy growing, accept a crumbling health service because there is not enough money until the economy grows. We the ordinary people are the ones who are told to sacrifice ourselves in capitalism's continuous wars while the rich and powerful organisers and perpetrators of the war sit back and reap the benefits in blood soiled gold. Always pie in the sky, for you and I, never a realisation of that imaginary time when the economy is super producing and all our ills are sorted. Our end of this arrangement is that we continue to struggle for a decent life while the rich get richer. If we have to live a life of continuous sacrifice and struggle because of the economy, then screw the economy. To grow the economy translates into helping big corporate business to get bigger and richer at our expense. We are fed crumbs so that we can get on with growing the economy all to their advantage. Why not put up with sacrifices to bring down this economic insanity and build society based on mutual aid, co-operation, freed from the poison of profit and one that sees to the needs of all our people. Struggle for revolution rather than struggle to grow the economy under its present exploitative rules and structure.
Capitalism is continuous competition for markets and resources and that competition takes on an ugly and brutal form in wars. War is just a continuation of capitalist competition. Another aspect of capitalism when we, the ordinary people are asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. There is a better way to organise our society, we should make that choice, sacrifice for capitalism, or sacrifice for revolution.
This Edition:
Artificial intelligence reaches a new and unexpected milestone while the human condition continues to worsen.
As supply chains are pushed to the brink, working people around the globe struggle with new realities of stagnated wages and out of control inflation. While oil corporations celebrate record profits, the people of Ecuador are fighting back with work stoppages, road blocks, and riots across the country.
Meanwhile, in Tanzania, tensions have flared as the government tries to displace many indigenous Maasai people from their ancestral homelands for yet another playground for capitalist elites.
Finally, we follow up with our coverage of Giannis Michailidis, anarchist prisoner in Greece, who has now been on hunger strike for over a month.
Sometimes a few verses can say more than a few volumes. Poetry is a wonderful way of expressing those deeper emotions and thoughts, that halfway house between music and conversation.
Not So Long Ago
Woke one bright morning not so long ago;
Heard the sound of shooting out on the street below;
Went to the window and saw the barricade
Of paving stones the working people made not so long ago.
Met a man that morning not so long ago;
Handed me a leaflet on the street below;
Lean and hard-faced working man with a close-cropped head;
Held me for a moment, eye to eye, then said,
“Read it. Read it. Read it and learn
What it is we fight for and why the churches burn.”
Out on the Ramblas, she passed me on her way,
Weapon cradled in her arm; it was but yesterday.
“Not just for wages now and not alone for bread.
We’re fighting for a whole new world, a whole new world,” she said.
On the barricades all over town not so long ago,
The time had come to answer with simple “Yes” or “No.”
They, too, were storming heaven. Do you think they fought in vain?
That because they lost a battle they would never rise again?
That the man with the leaflets, the woman with the gun,
Did not have a daughter? Did not have a son?
Hugo Dewar.
