The people of Haiti have been in struggle since and before they proclaimed the island as a republic. A slave population that took control of their own lives and freed themselves from French imperialism. Well not quite, France forced the people of Haiti to pay reparations to the slave owners for the loss of their slaves, or face military destruction. Those payments went on until 1947 continually dragging the economy of the island down and enforcing poverty on the people.
Now the continuing struggle of the people has taken a new twist as the police fight the military on the streets of Port-au-Prince. Only the people can determine how this stage of their battle will resolve itself. These are a people dragged from their homes and families in Africa, sold into slavery on the other side of the world, battled and struggled to be free, and still their struggle goes on. Imperialism doesn't loosen its grip freely or quickly, it will do its damnedest to squeeze the last drop of blood from its conquests.
Which ever way this stage of their struggle goes, the people of Haiti deserve our fullest and continuous solidarity and support.
The final day of campaigning in the crooks and liars competition, or as the media portray it, the general election, so I'll make my pitch. Not for your vote, but to ask you to stop handing your power over to a bunch of very rich prancing political ballerinas and start to organise your community and society the way you want it to be, by coming together and doing it yourselves, We do not need them, they need us.
The quest of our political system---
My pitch:
Why Anarchism?
Freedom and Equality Fundamentally, anarchism is the struggle for freedom. Freedom from rulers and corporations who dominate our lives and are destroying our earth. Freedom for workers, women, and all oppressed people in all parts of the world. We believe that this sort of freedom can only be achieved together with equality and a fair distribution of resources.
Individual and Collective Anarchists believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of the individual. But this dignity and humanity can only be fully realised in a co-operative, egalitarian society. This is why we are in favour of working together collectively and being organised. It is incorrect to equate anarchism with individualism or chaos.
Revolution Anarchists understand that this truly free and equal society can only be achieved through revolution – meaning a complete transformation of society. This society cannot be ‘given’ to the people by politicians or bureaucrats. It must be built by people from below.
Change by Direct Action Anarchism opposes the violence which is an integral part of capitalism and the state (this violence comes in many forms: war, patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends – in other words, the way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action – action taken by everyday people to address the power imbalance in present day society. This includes strikes, boycott’s, work-to-rule’s and occupations.
The Past Both authoritarian communism (as in Russia, China etc.) and ‘labourism’ (ie. The labour parties of the world), have failed to solve our global crisis. We need a different path to a better world. Anarchism offers itself as a guide on that path.
Some mornings I turn me face away from the world I live in, and try to see another world. This is a morning I turned my face to poetry, and pocked my nose into some of the poems of El Salvadorian poet Roque Dalton born 1935, murdered 1975.
IX Love Poem
The ones who widened the Panama Canal
(and were put on the silver roll and not on the gold roll),
the ones who repaired the Pacific fleet
at the military bases in California,
the ones who rotted in jail in Guatemala,
Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua
for being thieves, smugglers, scammers,
for being hungry,
the ever-suspicious ones
(‘I bring forth this individual
arrested for being a suspicious bystander
with the aggravation of being Salvadorian’),
the ones who filled the bars and brothels
of all the ports and capitals in the region
(The blue cave, The panty, Happyland),
the ones who grew corn in foreign jungles,
the kings of the crime section,
the ones who no-one ever knows where they’re from,
the best craftsmen in the world,
the ones who were mowed down with bullets while crossing
the border,
the ones who died from malaria
or scorpion or snake bites
in banana plantation hell,
the ones who cried drunk for the national anthem
under cyclones in the Pacific or snow in the north,
the freeloaders, the beggars, the potheads,
Salvadorian sons of bitches,
the ones who barely made it back,
the ones who were a bit luckier,
the eternal illegals,
make-all, sell-all, eat-all,
the first to pull out a knife,
the saddest sad people in the world,
my countrymen,
my brothers. This from Cordite Poetry Review:
As far as tragic poets’ stories go, Roque Dalton’s (El Salvador, 1935-1975) is perhaps the most tragic in Central America. In the 1950s as a Law student, he was the brightest of a literary movement which is now referred to as the Committed Generation, a group of militant leftist writers who saw art as a revolutionary act. ‘Commitment’ meant joining the cause of a communist revolution. Since any kind of dissent had been outlawed by military dictatorships in El Salvador since the 1930s, signing up to such an endeavour led to prison, exile or death. Dalton embodied the movement’s spirit of radical, experimental and bohemian writing – he is equally known for weaving uncompromising leftist politics into avant-garde free verse as he is for a life of drink and escapades in various soviet-aligned countries. He called some of his collections ‘literary collages’, by which he meant a combination of found poems (historical documents, news, old poems, etc) and his own poetry around a theme, whether it was Communism in Latin America, the history of El Salvador or life in exile. With a conversational style that reneged of the overly poetic (Dalton claimed to have ‘nothing to do with the Neruda family’) he borrowed from Salvadorian slang and celebrated a devious way of life with a brash sense of humour. His poems, though sometimes dated for the references to communism and revolution, still resonate with a common Latin American experience: a history of corrupt governments kept in power by a small group of wealthy families or the U.S. with the complacency of subservient middle classes and ineffective bureaucrats. Names of presidents and generals he mentions only need to be changed to current ones. In Roque Dalton’s world reality in El Salvador was so mad that your options were to laugh or join the revolution. Or both. Dalton joined the People’s Revolutionary Army (Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo or ERP), one of five clandestine groups that eventually formed the FMLN guerrilla in the 1980s, now the political party in government. The ERP was regarded as the most extreme faction of El Salvador’s left wing movement. The tragedy of Dalton came abruptly in 1975, when, after returning to El Salvador after years of exile or jail, he was murdered by his own comrades who accused him of being a CIA agent. The circumstances of his killing are sketchy due to the secretive internal workings of the ERP and the fact that his alleged killers, (the ERP leaders) have never stood trial.
Haiti over the centurieshas had more than its fair share of problems mainly from three imperialist powers, Spanish, French and American. Its people are among the poorest on the planet. 59% of the people of Haiti live in poverty, around 25% live in extreme poverty, and less than 50% of households have access to clean water. On top of this they have had years of corrupt puppet governments looting the wealth of the country. So it should be no surprise that the people are erupting in righteous anger. Born from a slave rebellion its people are once again in rebellion.
At the moment the people of Haiti are destroying the institutions of a capitalism and a corrupt state. Petrol stations are burning the Haitian Union Bank has been looted and set on fire
Revolutionaries destroyed police headquarters, attacked
residences of government officials, and burned a jail and courts to the
ground in different parts of Haiti on Friday. Insurgents are fighting to
overthrow the corrupt right-wing regime of Jovenel Moise, who is backed
by the US. Four people died in clashes in recent days, with many
reports of injuries. In June, judges of Haiti’s High
Court of Auditors said in a report that Moise was at the center of an
“embezzlement scheme” that had siphoned off Venezuelan aid money
intended for road repairs, laying out a litany of examples of corruption
and mismanagement. The aid money came through Venezuela’s PetroCaribe
program, which had allowed Haiti to buy petroleum products at discount
and on credit. However, the program has now been
suspended for more than a year because of the interests of US
imperialism, which backs the Haitian regime and has supported coup
attempts to install a right-wing regime in Venezuela. The suspension has
meant that Haiti’s long-suffering people have been faced with an extra
burden: an ever-worsening fuel shortage that has resulted in closed
service stations, rising prices and long lines to buy petrol.
In the wealthy suburb Petion Ville, entire blocks were set
ablaze. Protesters successfully drove the police out of Cité Soleil,
Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhood. Revolutionaries completely
destroyed the UDMO/police headquarters. Heavily armed units of police
abandoned it after hours of attacks by residents with molotov cocktails
and showers of rocks. The UDMO (Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of
Order), who have murdered many Haitian people to protect the corrupt
Moise regime in power, have been trained by the US state in Austin,
Texas where an “Executive Leadership” training course was set up for
Haitian security forces. In Gonaives, a city in
northern Haiti, government offices were burned. In Port-Au-Prince, all
government offices were closed, as protesters sang and danced in streets
for the fall of the US/Trump-backed government of Moise.
Revolutionaries have blocked roadways with barricades, using anything in
their disposal from debris to burning tires since early on Friday. The
central court and jail have been burned to the ground in Jacmel,
southern Haiti after prisoners arrested in the last round of protests
were liberated. Police reportedly were met with armed
resistance in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Armed
individuals also reportedly attacked residences of government officials,
including the head of the courts responsible for clearing Jovenel Moise
of PetroCaribe corruption charges, Pierre Volmar Demesyeux.
Revolutionaries destroyed police headquarters, attacked residences of
government officials, and burned a jail and courts to the ground in
different parts of Haiti on Friday. The courthouse in the community of
Petit-Goâve, southwest of Port-au-Prince, has also been set ablaze,
according to people on the ground. Two Sogebank
branches in Haiti were attacked by insurgents on Friday. They are no
longer simply demanding the resignation of the fraudulently installed
puppet president, but the end of the looting by oligarch families, like
the owners of this bank, who steal 90% of the wealth.
As Haiti comes to the brink of revolution, overthrowing the regime of
Moise, insurgents are also attacking the systems of capitalism and
imperialism that have enforced the poverty and despair of the Haitian
people.
The following lines do not constitute a programme. They have no other purpose than to justify the usefulness of elaborating a draft programme which would be subject to the study, to the observations, to the criticisms of all communist revolutionaries. Perhaps, however, they contain one or two considerations that could fit into the project that I am asking for. We are revolutionaries because we want justice and everywhere we see injustice reigning around us. The products of labour are distributed in an inverse ration to the work. The idler has all the rights, even that of starving his neighbour, while the worker does not always have the right to die of hunger in silence: he is imprisoned when he is guilty of striking. People who call themselves priests peddle miracles so that they can enslave intellects; people called kings claim to be from a universal master to be master in their turn; people armed by them cut, slash and shoot at their pleasure; people in black robes who say they are justice par excellence condemn the poor, absolve the rich, often sell convictions and acquittals; merchants distribute poison instead of food, they kill in detail instead of killing in bulk and thereby become honoured capitalists.[2] The sack of coins is the master, and he who possesses it holds in his power the destiny of other men. All this seems despicable to us and we want to change it. We call for revolution against injustice. But “justice is only a word, a mere convention,” we are told. “What exists is the right of force!” Well, if that is so, we are no less revolutionary. It is one or the other: either justice is the human ideal and, in this case, we claim it for all; or else force alone governs societies, and in that case we will use force against our enemies. Either the freedom of equals or an eye for an eye [la loi du talion]. But why the rush, all those who expect everything in time tell us, to exempt themselves from taking action. The slow evolution of events suffices for them, revolution scares them. History has pronounced [judgement] between us and them. Never has any partial or general progress been achieved by mere peaceful evolution; it has always been made through a sudden revolution. If the work of preparation takes place slowly in minds, the realisation of ideas occurs suddenly: evolution occurs in the brain, and it is the arms that make the revolution. And how to bring about this revolution that we see slowly preparing in Society and whose advent we are aiding with all our efforts? Is it by grouping ourselves in bodies subordinate to each other? Is it by constituting ourselves like the bourgeois world that we fight as a hierarchical whole, with its responsible masters and its irresponsible inferiors, held as tools in the hand of a boss? Will we begin to become free by abdicating? No, because we are anarchists, that is to say men who want to keep full responsibility for their actions, who act in accordance with their rights and their personal duties, who impart to a [human] being his natural development, who has no one as a master and is not the master of others. We want to free ourselves from the grasp of the State, no longer to have above us superiors who can command us, putting their will in the place of ours. We want to rip apart all external law, by holding ourselves to the conscious development of the inner laws of our nature. By suppressing the State, we also suppress all official morality, knowing beforehand that there can be no morality in obeying misunderstood laws, in obeying a practice which they do not even try to justify. There is morality only in freedom. It is also by freedom alone that renewal remains possible. We want to keep our minds open, amenable in advance to any progress, to any new idea, to any generous initiative. But if we are anarchists, enemies of every master, we are also international communists, because we understand that life is impossible without social organisation. Isolated, we can do nothing, while through close union we can transform the world. We associate with each other as free and equal men, working for a common task and regulating our mutual relations by justice and reciprocal goodwill. Religious and national hatreds cannot separate us, since the study of nature is our only religion and we have the world for our homeland.----
We the ordinary people have a history we can be very proud of, and we should do what we can to remember those who helped make that proud history. We should tell their stories and keep their ideas alive, we are still struggling to achieve their ideas and dreams. Their lives can inspire us and point us in the right direction, the lives they lived should not be in vain. There are those today who are writing that rich history of the ordinary people in their struggle for justice and freedom, we must offer up our solidarity. It is our duty to carry that battle forward for that better world for all. The final chapter in that history will be our victory over injustice, exploitation, authority, poverty and wars.
From
the barricades of the Paris Commune to anti-colonial resistance in the
South Pacific, Louise Michel was one of the most important
revolutionaries of the 19th century.
Louise
Michel, born on 29 May, 1830, is today remembered as one of the most
influential and charismatic revolutionaries of the 19th
century. Her role in the Paris Commune of 1871 — first in the ambulance
service and later on the front lines with the National Guard fighting
against the Versailles troops — eventually led to her capture and
deportation from France to a penal colony in New Caledonia.
It
was during her exile that Michel turned towards anarchism, which would
continue to dominate her writing and organizing for the rest of her
life. In 1880 she was granted amnesty, and upon her return to France she
continued her revolutionary activities, writing articles, giving
speeches, setting up a soup kitchen for impoverished ex-prisoners who
returned from exile, and traveling across Europe delivering her
revolutionary message to large audiences. In 1890 she opened the International Anarchist School
for children on London’s Fitzroy Square, before returning to France in
1895. Michel died on 10 January, 1905, after which her funeral in Paris
was attended by more than 100,000 people.
Michel’s revolutionary defiance is clearly expressed in her defense speech before the 6th council of war after her capture during the defeat of the Paris Commune:
I
do not wish to defend myself, I do not wish to be defended. I belong
completely to the social revolution, and I declare that I accept
complete responsibility for all my actions. I accept it completely and
without reservations.
You accuse me of having
taken part in the murder of the generals? To that I would reply Yes, if I
had been in Montmartre when they wished to have the people fired on. I
would not have hesitated to fire myself on those who gave such orders.
But I do not understand why they were shot when they were prisoners, and
I look on this action as arrant cowardice.
As for
the burning of Paris, yes, I took part in it. I wished to oppose the
invader from Versailles with a barrier of flames. I had no accomplices
in this action. I acted on my own initiative.
I am
told that I am an accomplice of the Commune. Certainly, yes, since the
Commune wanted more than anything else the social revolution, and since
the social revolution is the dearest of my desires. More than that, I
have the honour of being one of the instigators of the Commune, which by
the way had nothing–nothing, as is well known–to do with murders and
arson. I who was present at all the sittings at the Town Hall, I declare
that there was never any question of murder or arson.
Do
you want to know who are really guilty? It is the politicians. And
perhaps later light will be brought on to all these events which today
it is found quite natural to blame on all partisans of the social
revolution…
But why should I defend myself? I have
already declared that I refuse to do so. You are men who are going to
judge me. You sit before me unmasked. You are men and I am only a woman,
and yet I look you in the eye. I know quite well that everything I
could say will not make the least difference to your sentence. So a
single last word before I sit down. We never wanted anything but the
triumph of the great principles of the revolution. I swear it my our
martyrs who fell at Satory, by our martyrs whom I acclaim loudly, and
who will one day have their revenge.
Once more I
belong to you. Do with me what you please. Take my life if you wish. I
am not the woman to argue with you for a moment….
What
I claim from you, you who call yourselves a Council of War, who sit as
my judges, who do not disguise yourselves as a Commission of Pardons,
you who are military men and deliver your judgement in the sight of all,
is Satory where our brothers have already fallen.
I
must be cut off from society. You have been told to do so. Well, the
Commissioner of the Republic is right. Since it seems that any heart
which beats for freedom has the right only to a lump of lead, I too
claim my share. If you let me live, I shall never stop crying for
revenge, and I shall avenge my brothers by denouncing the murderers in
the Commission for Pardons….
Fundamentally, anarchism is the struggle for freedom. Freedom from
rulers and corporations who dominate our lives and are destroying our
earth. Freedom for workers, women, and all oppressed people in all parts
of the world. We believe that this sort of freedom can only be achieved
together with equality and a fair distribution of resources.
Individual and Collective
Anarchists believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of the
individual. But this dignity and humanity can only be fully realised in a
co-operative, egalitarian society. This is why we are in favour of
working together collectively and being organised. It is incorrect to
equate anarchism with individualism or chaos.
Revolution
Anarchists understand that this truly free and equal society can only
be achieved through revolution – meaning a complete transformation of
society. This society cannot be ‘given’ to the people by politicians or
bureaucrats. It must be built by people from below.
Change by Direct Action
Anarchism opposes the violence which is an integral part of
capitalism and the state (this violence comes in many forms: war,
patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends – in other words, the
way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also
why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian
political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action –
action taken by everyday people to address the power imbalance in
present day society. This includes strikes, boycott’s, work-to-rule’s
and occupations.
The Past
Both authoritarian communism (as in Russia, China etc.) and
‘labourism’ (ie. The labour parties of the world), have failed to solve
our global crisis. We need a different path to a better world. Anarchism
offers itself as a guide on that path.
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.
Though this article from Its Going Down, original source, Anathema, was referring to America, it applies to the entire capitalist world. The three pillars of the capitalist cathedral that are necessary for its survival are, increase market share, reduce costs, and increase profit margin. Of course these are impossible to maintain in a finite world. Disaster for the many is the only outcome of such an insane system, its destruction is the only road open to a sane and just world, and that task is up to us, the ordinary people of this world, the corporate parasites will fight tooth and nail to hold on to their privileged insanity.
The following essay from Anathema
argues that the success of “our” economy that we are told about over
and over, from a variety of parasites, is nothing more a cycle of boom
and bust that is designed to explode every few years, trapping us both
in poverty and jobs that we hate. Despite constant
governmental controversies and the raging disaster that is the global
capitalist system, in late August President Trump was able to announce
record-setting economic success as the U.S.’s bull market became the
longest running in its history. For those struggling to find work and
stay afloat, it may be surprising to hear that the economy is doing
better than ever and unemployment at an all-time low. How is that
possible? To start with, the stock market is not an accurate
indication of how well the economy is actually doing. Even to many
capitalist experts, the current valuations of the market seem like a
serious stretch. But more importantly, to correctly assess current
economic phenomena would require a historical perspective on capitalism
and certain insights into its tendencies that no mainstream economist is
willing to take on — hence professional analysts’ sometimes amazing
inability to understand or predict economic trends. A basic
tendency of the capitalist system is that it needs to keep expanding in
order for it to preserve itself. At this point in its history, global
capitalism has been struggling for some time to find new markets and
other ways to continue growing profits at the massive rate that is now
necessary. Its growth has happened through increasingly constricting
labor costs in a number of ways – through employers decreasing full-time
jobs with benefits, automating more jobs, and employing temporary,
part-time, or even unpaid labor, as in the notorious case of prison
inmates. Some specific manifestations of this have been the rise of the
gig economy, which, in promoting “flexible” working arrangements, cuts
the costs and responsibilities that corporations would have if they
maintained a permanent workforce; the adjunctification of labor in
universities, in which professors are hired on a cheaper, temporary
basis instead of the university maintaining tenure-track lines; and a
major shift towards what’s called just-in-time production, which
similarly involves a dramatic increase in temporary work, as employers
adjust their workforce based on supply and demand. So the fact
that Walmart is posting high earnings does not mean, as mainstream
analysts are suggesting, that consumer power is up and the economy will
keep doing great. It just means that Walmart is a corporate distributor
using just-in-time supply chains to crush labor and reduce costs to the
absolute minimum. Meanwhile, news media is reporting unemployment in the
U.S. is at 3.9%; it seems poised to hit 3.7%, the lowest it’s been
since 1969. As we’ve written previously, this low number is actually the
result of more and more people giving up on looking for work and no
longer being officially counted in the “workforce.” This number has
nothing to do with the total population of the U.S. and the significant
actual changes in the nature of labor mentioned above. It is
hopelessness and misery that are spreading, not the number of jobs.
At what point will global growth actually peak, and another recession
kick in? The U.S.’s current economic success is in part the result of
the Trump administration’s massive tax cut, spending increases, and
aggressive stance on trade, all of which have been calculated to grow
the market for now without necessarily holding up well in the long term.
Moreover, trade tariffs and the looming reality of Brexit
stand to lead to a loss of investment confidence and tank the markets;
however, it seems very possible that the escalatory trade threats with
China are just Trump politicking and that nothing will actually happen
until after the midterm election. The real sign of a looming recession
is wage inflation, meaning the rise in the price of goods that happens
when wages increase. It seems obvious, given the reality of
employment conditions in this country, that there will not be any
significant wage growth any time soon. Average hourly wages have risen
only 2.7% in the past year, which is much lower than usual in a strong
economy. What the current market’s success really indicates, then, is
ongoing success by employers in keeping their workers underpaid and
unstable, while pushing more and more people out of the job market
altogether. While labor organizing and reforms may occasionally still
have some successes, to reverse these trends and go back to better labor
conditions under capitalism is structurally impossible for the
capitalist system, which depends on increasingly minimizing labor costs.
The only way forward for this economy is for the obscenely
rich to get richer through devastating the livelihoods of more and more
of the world, crushing the ability or will of the latter to do more than
survive, let alone rebel.
The two sides of the cancerous capitalist nightmare, the privileges of corporate parasites depend on the poverty of the many.
Fundamentally, anarchism is the struggle for freedom. Freedom from
rulers and corporations who dominate our lives and are destroying our
earth. Freedom for workers, women, and all oppressed people in all parts
of the world. We believe that this sort of freedom can only be achieved
together with equality and a fair distribution of resources.
Individual and Collective
Anarchists believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of the
individual. But this dignity and humanity can only be fully realised in a
co-operative, egalitarian society. This is why we are in favour of
working together collectively and being organised. It is incorrect to
equate anarchism with individualism or chaos.
Revolution
Anarchists understand that this truly free and equal society can only
be achieved through revolution – meaning a complete transformation of
society. This society cannot be ‘given’ to the people by politicians or
bureaucrats. It must be built by people from below.
Change by Direct Action
Anarchism opposes the violence which is an integral part of
capitalism and the state (this violence comes in many forms: war,
patriarchy etc.). We believe that means shape ends – in other words, the
way we struggle will shape the outcome of the struggle. This is also
why we do not support the seizure of State power by authoritarian
political parties. However, anarchists do believe in direct action –
action taken by everyday people to address the power imbalance in
present day society. This includes strikes, boycott’s, work-to-rule’s
and occupations.
The Past
Both authoritarian communism (as in Russia, China etc.) and
‘labourism’ (ie. The labour parties of the world), have failed to solve
our global crisis. We need a different path to a better world. Anarchism
offers itself as a guide on that path.
Why no hordes on the streets, why no peasants with pitchforks, why no revolution? It is not as if the death and destruction is invisible, or the exploitation unfelt and unseen, or the gross inequality in living standards hidden, it is all there glaringly obvious for all to see. We are awash with information, we see through the lies and illusions, we accept that the propaganda portrayed world and the real world we, the ordinary people live in, are universes apart. Still the vast majority conform to the biased rules, turn up at work, pay their taxes, and run to the ballot box to make their X in the appropriate spot, believing that somehow, this time it will be different. It is a puzzling phenomenon. The Invisible Committee have already produced two excellent thought provoking pamphlets/booklets, the first, The Coming Insurrection, the second one, To Our Friends, they have recently come up with a third, Now. Again, interesting, insightful, and thought provoking. The following is an extract from the chapter called Tomorrow Is Cancelled.
TOMORROW IS CANCELLED
All the reasons for making a revolution are there. Not one is
lacking. The shipwreck of politics, the arrogance of the powerful,
the reign of falsehood, the vulgarity of the wealthy, the cataclysms
of industry, galloping misery, naked exploitation, ecological
apocalypse—we are spared nothing, not even being informed about it
all. “Climate: 2016 breaks a heat record,” Le Monde announces,
the same as almost every year now. All the reasons are there
together, but it’not reasons that make revolutions, it’s bodies.
And the bodies are in front of screens. One can watch a presidential
election sink like a stone. The transformation of “the most
important moment in French political life” into a big trashing fest
only makes the soap opera more captivating. One couldn’t imagine
Koh-Lanta with such characters, such dizzying plot twists, such cruel
tests, or so general a humiliation. The spectacle of politics lives
on as the spectacle of its decomposition. Disbelief goes nicely with
the filthy landscape. The National Front, that political negation of
politics, nowthat negation of politics on the terrain of politics,
logically occupies the “center” of this chessboard of smoking
ruins. The human passengers, spellbound, are watching their shipwreck
like a first-rate show. They are so enthralled that they don’t feel
the water that’s already bathing their legs. In the end, they’ll
transform everything into a buoy. The drowning are known for that,
for trying to turn everything they touch into a life preserver. This
world no longer needs explaining, critiquing, denouncing. We live
enveloped in a fog of commentaries and commentaries on commentaries,
of critiques and critiques of critiques of critiques, of revelations
that don’t trigger anything, other than revelations about the
revelations. And this fog is taking away any purchase we might have
on the world. There’s nothing to criticize in Donald Trump. As to
the worst that can be said about him, he’s already absorbed,
incorporated it. He embodies it. He displays on a gold chain all the
complaints that people have ever lodged against him. He is his own
caricature, and he’s proud of it. Even the creators of South Park
are throwing in the towel: “Its very complicated now that satire
has become reality. We really tried to laugh about what is going on
but it wasn’t possible to maintain the rhythm. What was happening
was much funnier that what could be imagined. So we decided to let it
go, to let them do their comedy, and we’ll do ours.” We live in a
world that has established itself beyond any justification. Here,
criticism doesn’t work, any more than satire does. Neither one has
any impact. To limit oneself to denouncing discriminations,
oppressions, and injustices, and expect to harvest the fruits of that
is to get one’s epochs wrong. Leftists who think they can make
something happen by lifting the lever of bad conscience are sadly
mistaken. They can go and scratch their scabs in public and air their
grievances hoping to arouse sympathy as much as they like; they’ll
only give rise to contempt and the desire to destroy them. “Victim”
has become an insult in every part of the world.
A little article from the Freedom Socialist Party, that helps you understand the plight of the billionaire. I think we should take them up on the last statement in the article. Go on, I dare you.
Paraisopólis shantytown next to its wealthy neighbor Morumbi, in São Paulo, Brazil. PHOTO: Tuca Vieira
Most of you out there have no idea what it is like to be a billionaire. OK, none of you do. You may think it is easy to have a mansion or six on every continent, to own your own islands, to blow 10 grand a day on champagne, and to get down with Bono at the World Capitalist … er, I mean, Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. What you just don’t understand is that the more mansions you have, the more “help” you employ, and the more they want to stay in the main house. Why is it my problem that they have to take five buses to get to work every day? All right, I do admit that “home” is a generous word for a shack made of scrap wood. But they wouldn’t have those issues if they’d made the same career choices I did! But here’s the thing that really chaps my ass: taxes. Finally, those clowns in Congress gave me some relief. It took them long enough! After countless dinners at my penthouse in Miami Beach with Marco Rubio, and what seems like millions of hours playing pool and drinking single malt with that boring Mitch McConnell, and even taking Bob Corker to strip clubs in Dubai — I’m exhausted. It costs me weeks of therapy to get over all this! Tax bill goodies. I may already have more money than I know what to do with, but this thing signed by Trump on December 22 is going to deliver some serious coin. I was flying on my G6 to Monte Carlo on Christmas Eve when I watched Trump on satellite say, “You just got a lot richer” to the crowd at his “winter White House” in Mar-a-Lago. Let me be brief, cutting the top corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 per cent is solid gold. Not to mention that we often don’t pay these taxes anyway. But the seismic change in the new tax plan is the 20 percent cut in “pass-through” income. Pass-through corporations are a special classification in the tax code. It turns one part of a huge corporation, like a single Trump hotel, into a separate “small business,” which only has to pay taxes on 80 percent of its income. And I won’t have to pay a battalion of lawyers to dodge the rules and sneak money into tax havens. That’s good business. Trump boasted about the new tax bill being good for workers and the “middle class.” Not that I care, but spare me! The cuts to individual taxes are mostly temporary, and the paltry $75 a year that working families earn from the increase in the child tax credit may just pay for part of a week’s worth of groceries. Some say it was cruel to halt deductions for teachers who pay for classroom supplies with their own money. But hey, they can always change jobs if they don’t like it. Anyway, this deduction was retained at the last minute. Trump plans to slash $2.5 trillion from Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security over ten years in order to pay for tax cuts to the wealthiest. They say that at the end of ten years, people living in poverty in the U.S. will increase 10 or 20 million from the current 43 million, and the number of homeless may increase to two million from 550,000 today. But giving a tax break to people who already have nothing is condescending at best. It’s unfortunate, but someone’s got to pay for my way of life, and I guess that someone is you! A hustle here and a hustle there. Don’t tell anybody I said this, but in my most introspective moments, I admit I really don’t need tax relief. Like I said, I am really, really rich. But I have an economic system and my own comfort to uphold, so I have to take as much as I can. Besides, if I don’t, others will. It’s eat or be eaten, I always say. Let’s do some basic math. In 2017 alone, I personally earned $800 million. Even if the Feds taxed me at 90 percent, I would still have cleared $80 million. Yes, I said “Eighty Million.” I am no Bolshevik, but it seems to me the commies got it right. If you tax me to the hilt, those who work for us could get living wages, free healthcare instead of the private insurance charade, and free education. But you can’t have that. Where’s the profit? The Democrats didn’t mobilize against this great new tax plan, content to plead helplessness because they’re outnumbered in Congress. And neither did the official union heads. I’m not surprised. In business, we eat labor bureaucrats and politicians like this for lunch, and maybe you should do the same with these bozos. But you didn’t hear this from me. In the meantime, we businessmen make sure you’re swamped with propaganda about how we rich are “job creators” and you need to give us more money, so we can “invest in the economy and create growth,” and “raise all boats,” blah, blah, blah. In fact, I have never invested in anything, anyone, or anywhere that didn’t yield the maximum return for me and me alone, and I don’t plan to stop now. My sole aim is profit, whether I’m producing cookies or guns, and whether I get it from the United States, the Congo, China or anywhere else on the planet. Want a piece of my action? Gonna’ take a revolution to get it. Go ahead, I dare you.
Happy New Year to all the world. Well 2017 has gone and 2018 comes with all our hopes and desires, the gift of tomorrow is ours if we desire it enough, but you have to admit, that was one helluva party!!
Following on from parts one and two of Daily Motion's three part history of the anarchist movement, here is part 3. The three part series is quite an extensive cover of the anarchist movement world wide, well worth viewing and spreading the word.
An interesting article from "The Conjure House", I'm sure it will cause controversy and debate among the left, but of course that is what we should be having. It does however, offer food for thought, how far down the road to total control do you go, how much venom do you swallow before you turn, and how will you counter act the control, and the venom, is there a limit, or is this the way of life? This article is based on the American situation at the moment, but the epidemic that is sweeping America, has started to infect the rest of the Western world, do we have the antidote, or, are we to entering a world where non-compliance and "mis-fits" must be exterminated?
----Imagine for a moment you’re at a bar and there’s an immigrant in front of you. He’s quiet, but not antisocial, casually dressed but not sloppy. He
seems just like anybody else except he isn’t. What you don’t know is
he’s been working as an aviation programs engineer and even helped
design fly-by-wire planes, in which manual controls are entirely
replaced by computers. Smart guy, very talented, “high energy” as Il
Duce might say; a success story from India and right out of American
mythology.
Now, behind him, a new sound; old, fearful, you hear a hellish cry: “GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY!”
Who the fuck was that? There appears to be a bit of a scuffle in the
back, some guy hassling the immigrant you were just studying, but the
bar manager seems to take care of it. The man, who appears to be just
some old white dude, looks pissed. There’s something about him, but you
can’t seem to place it. The man leaves, but in a few minutes comes back
through the door. Perhaps he left something?
Maybe you’re at a protest this time, holding your sign and feeling
the electric current of hundreds of other bodies joined in solidarity. A
man emerges from the crowd, egging you on to hit him. He spits at you
like a diseased raccoon and curses like a fucking sailor. Maybe he’s
drunk you figure, or at least too high to really know what’s going on.
Someone else pushes him away.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re not even a full year into
the reign of a new emperor and already the political climate has become
practically poisonous, a vile and noxious cloud not only choking the
most at risk in our communities but the people seeking to defend them.
People have called for Antifa to be declared a terrorist organization; state governments are writing bills that allow protesters to be run over and have their property stolen from them.
“Against us, all arms are good; we are in an enemy camp,
surrounded, harassed. The bosses, judges, soldiers, cops unite to bring
us down.”
To be a thinking person in this country of barbarians is to be a
criminal and with ever-increasing fervor the tribes loyal to the new
Emperor aim to make war upon us. There are millions of people sitting in
front of televisions as I type these words that would see nothing wrong
with a few hundred lives sacrificed every year to “keep people in line” and you can be sure that folks like you and I will be among them. The cops don’t stop them, they exchange racist texts with them; they console men who kill unarmed black children and tell them what they did was just.
No matter the words or the phrases used, in capitalism the aim and direction is always the same, increased wealth to the pampered parasites that control the system. "Austerity" is an avenue to privatisation, privatisation of all valued assets is the ultimate desire of that cabal that sits in those marble halls of power shuffling their money to the detriment of the planet and its people. No matter the policy, whether it is "reform", "efficiency", "austerity", "balancing the books", "growing the economy", it will always take us down the road to privatisation. Privatisation is a method of re-capitalising their bankrupt system, a way of making money from everything thing we do. Everything we need to survive, must produce a profit for the system. Mutual aid and social services are an anathema to the system, they are entities that could be transformed in to money making enterprises.
The methods to attain their dream of a money making world vary, but one method is to deprive a service of sufficient funds to function properly, complain about the falling service, demand reforms, finally coming up with the answer that private capital is the only remedy. It is certainly not that we can't afford the best social services, we are awash in wealth, we are surrounded by opulence, all produced by your labour, and we are the 5th richest country in the world, again because of your labour.
It is policy, it is ideology, that drives us down the road of "austerity" and privatisation, it is not necessity. However, if you are expecting the direction to change, you will be sadly disappointed. These decisions are not made in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, they are made elsewhere, by the members of the financial Mafia, in the form of the IMF, International Mankind Fuckers, ECB, Excessively Conning Banksters, EC, European Cartel. Your local political ballerina, is merely there to carry out the dictate of the said financial Mafia.
If you want justice, and a society that sees to the needs of all our people, then you are going to have to work very hard to get rid of this cancer that parades under the name of capitalism. The beast will not change its spots, nor will it give up it its privileges lightly. Revolutions never come with flowers alone.
