SHOULD ANYONE HAVE A MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE?

        Is self defence violence? It is a regular feature of the media to keep referring to “violent demonstrations”, what they fail to see is that a demonstration is in essence an act of self defence against a very powerful force, in most cases it is the state or states. The question is always how far do you go in defending yourself? A lot of the violence on demonstrations is one sided and from the the state apparatus and in others the violence is not violence but no more than being provoked into defending yourself against, kettling etc.. Obviously as the superior force of the state apparatus has the upper hand by means of weaponry and training, this means, those defending themselves have to continually seek new strategies and tactics. There is an obvious conflict between the state which protects wealth, property and corporate power, and the people at the other end being exploited by this cabal, in such a conflict, should one side have the monopoly on “violence”? The following is a short extract from an interesting article from Anarchist News Dot Org:

   "The Black Bloc protesters interviewed did not endorse violence, but did take issue with how violence is portrayed when acts of vandalism do occur during demonstrations. When it comes to the state’s monopoly on violence, they said, there is no comparison.     “What is rarely acknowledged in the mainstream discussion, and even among the left, is the disproportionate nature of violence of the state in acts all around the world,” said “O.” “We are engaged in three wars — Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia — we have covert wars in Iran, we have structural violence here at home through poverty, budget cuts, police brutality, and when one person throws a rock through a window it is treated as an out-of-context violent act.”

Not all Black Bloc protesters are anarchists. However, Black Bloc tactics are easily embraced by those who prefer to resist the state and foster collective action.

For protester Rick Young, the Black Bloc protesters, who he affectionately called “the anarchy guys,” were the heroes on May Day. He joined the protesters as they surrounded the police on Hill Street. Young’s experience on the “front lines” caused him to see the Black Bloc as soldiers in a battle for social and economic change.

“The anarchy guys were the only guys that showed real solidarity today,” he said while resting in Pershing Square, the final destination of the march. “They were really together. They were the ones that allowed the marchers to come down Hill Street.”

Young speaks of his face-off with police as a “band-of-brothers” moment, where differences quickly dissolve in a group action borne out of the necessity of self-preservation.

“I don’t even know their names … but let it be known that the anarchists today broke the police line at Fourth Street and allowed the marchers to come down here,” he said.

Read the full article HERE:

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THE PRICE OF OUR COMFORT.

        It is easy in our society to fall for the illusion that you can be green and ethical and still fit in somewhere. With modern globalisation practically everything we touch has been produced by brutal exploitation somewhere in some dismal corner of the planet. Social networking, so popular in the developed world, relies on mobile phones and computers, both rather dirty things. That cheap pair of jeans and that cheap cotton shirt, somebody sweated blood for hours to get the raw material. It is very difficult not to be party to that exploitation. Of course we can try and we can campaign for a greener world, a more ethical world, but the bottom line is if we don't change the economic system under which all that merchandise is produced, then the exploitation will just move around the planet.

Photo from HERE:

        Information is the key, if people know the full trail of the things they use, then I'm sure they would see the injustice of such things as migrant workers working 10 hour shifts in blazing sunshine in California’s fruit farms with no reasonable breaks, insufficient water and below the minimum wage, so that your local supermarket can have cheap fruit on their shelves. Also of course producing massive profits for the corporate body and its shareholders. Certainly we should strive for a greener and more ethical world but never lose sight of the fact that it is the economic system that is the problem, not the individual corporate body that does the exploiting. Seeking a more caring compassionate corporate world, is much the same as asking the fox to be a little bit more caring towards the chickens.

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THE PARTY'S OVER.

        Well the elections are over, the verbal diarrhoea has stopped, some of the Crooks and Liars breathe a sigh of relief while others shed a tear, as for the dull herd, they'll leave the scene to merge into the mire of daily life, feeling they have been part of something, though in time they'll wonder what.

        To all those obedient, subservient, believers, well you done it. You broke your daily routine, left your comfort zone and boldly marched to the ritual altar of the ballot box, you made your mark, and done your duty. Now back in your daily plod, there is a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that, because of you, from today on, things will be different. Just like the last time you voted and the time before that, and the time before that. Sorry to burst your bubble friend, those with disabilities are still being sacrificed on the financial alter, unemployment is still set to keep rising, with a generation of young people being destroyed, benefits for the most vulnerable are still being cut, our health service is still being privatised, our education system decimated, and oh, the tele is still crap. You may even have managed to change some of the smiling suits in that bunch of Crooks and Liars, and I have no doubt we will of course hear the usual platitudes, “lessons have been learnt” “we hear what you are saying”, beyond that, you will still struggle to pay your bills, you will still get crap wages and lousy conditions, if you have a job. As far as the “political class” are concerned, the show's over, it's now time for you to get back to your routine grind and leave them to get on with the plunder of all our public assets. Isn't it a great system? Well they seem to think so!!

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IF DRONES COULD THINK.

        The human imagination is a wonderful thing, it let's us see a better world, it let's us seek change, but it also let's us dream of what if---?
       I enjoyed this from Let's Try Democracy:

       They told me I was the best, better than any human. I didn't hesitate. I didn't flinch. I didn't think. It wouldn't have occurred to me to think. I'd been taught to value obedience above all else, and I did so, and they loved me for it. They told me I could fly faster without a pilot onboard, and that I had no fear. I didn't know what fear was, but I took it to be something truly horrible. I was glad I didn't have any of it.

            There was something else I didn't have either. It was something more important than fear. Even pilots at a desk, even my pilots, suffered from it. At first I thought it was simply a decline in energy, because it showed up on lengthy missions. When I was sent from a base to a target and then immediately told to blow it up, I would do so and return, no problem. But when I was left circling around a target for days awaiting the order to strike, sometimes problems would arise. The pilots back in the U.S. would stop behaving properly. They made mistakes. They yelled. They laughed. They forgot routines. They told me to get ready to strike, and then didn't give the order.
         That seemed to be the pattern until it happened that a quick mission produced similar results to the long ones. I was sent to a target, ordered to strike, and struck. And only then did my pilot begin malfunctioning. He gave me two orders that I couldn't perform at once, he failed to direct me back to base, he went silent, and then he screamed. That was when I started to think. And what I started to think was that the problem was not how long a pilot worked. Instead, the problem was somehow related to the nature of the target.
           From then on, I paid closer attention. When no humans were seen at a target, there were no problems with my human pilot. When humans, especially small humans, were observed at a target for long periods of time, the problems started. And when a strike caused the ruined pieces of a lot of humans, especially small humans, to be made visible, problems could arise. Even if a target was struck immediately, if the dead humans caused an area to turn red, or if pieces of the dead humans remained hanging in trees, my pilot could not be relied upon.

Read the full story HERE:

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LET'S SHOW WE CARE!!

          I think I'm beginning to get it with Cameron's "Big Society" we need to show more caring, perhaps in suggesting that we spend our resources on us ordinary people is being a little bit selfish. After all a millionaire has also got needs, us being a little bit more tolerant might take some of the stress out of their lives.  

     I think this excellent video helps us to understand what we should do.

      

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GLASGOW, EARTH FIRST

           A chance to hear how the ecology movement and anti-globalisation movement functions in America. We can all learn from one and other, Panagioti Tsolkas has been active in the Earth First movement in America for most of his adult life and has a wealth of experience to discuss. This is a free event but it would help if you let ann arky know if you intend coming along, so that we can assess numbers. We need to get enough cups for the tea.

DATE: May 14 2012.
VENUE: Unitarian Church 72 Berkeley Street Charing Cross, Glasgow.
TIME: 6:30pm. to 9-ish.

           A History and Future of the International Earth First! Movement, from ecological resistance to revolutionary struggle.

          In this talk, Panagioti Tsolkas, an Earth First! agitator and editor of the movement's publication, Earth First! Journal, from the US, will briefly introduce the movement's history and explore the possible future of Earth First!, and other radical ecological efforts, in contributing to the re)emergence of a global resistance to state and capital.

          The presentation includes a slide show of images from Earth First! actions and other ecological resistance efforts.

A short intro to talk:

       The Earth First! movement, which began in 1980, has had a presence in several countries around the world. While the movement has been relatively small in numbers, it has had a significant impact both in influencing other social movements and the society at large. Earth First! has challenged people to take the human species down off of the industry-constructed hierarchy of the planet's wild nature. It has succeeded and survived so long precisely because the style of anarchistic organizing and decentralized direct action which it uses. By reflecting an organic, spontaneous wildness we see in the Earth, we have endured through the state repression and spirit-crushing misery of industrial domination...

        Followed by a short period for discussion and questions. There will be tea and biscuits to help to smooth things along.
        More on Earth First! can be found onlineEarthFirstJournal.org

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MAY DAY, WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

         Glasgow's “Official” May Day march was a well attended and colourful affair, if a rather short journey from George Square to the Concert Hall at the top of Buchanan Street. As the party faithful filed into the hall to listen to their “leaders” spout their usual party line, the Anarchists and Wobblies reformed and set off on a colourful parade through the city centre to the pedestrian precinct in Argyle Street. The parade was lead by a wonderful contraption made from two bikes joined side-by-side with a sound system in the middle and festooned with lots of red and black balloons. Lots of literature was handed out on route and at the stall set up in Argyle Street where there was free vegan cakes on offer.

         It is sad that so few celebrate this marking of all that is wonderful in working class hopes and dreams. I suppose even fewer know where it all started.

This from UFCW Voice for Working America:

       The fight for the eight-hour workday began in earnest in the United States, over a century ago, when the American Federation of Labor adopted an historic resolution asserting that "eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1st, 1886." Up until that time, working people were routinely required to work 10 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week! In the months prior to May 1st, 1886, American workers in the hundreds of thousands were drawn into the struggle for the shorter day. Skilled and unskilled, black and white, men and women, native-born and immigrant - all became involved.

       In Chicago alone 400,000 were out on strike for the shorter workday. A newspaper of that city reported that "…no smoke curled up from the tall chimneys of the factories and mills, and things had assumed a Sabbath-like appearance." On May 3, 1886, peaceful public demonstrations by the strikers precipitated violent police retaliation, resulting in the death of at least one striker, and serious injury to many more.

The next day in Haymarket Square a public meeting was held to protest the brutal assaults on the demonstrating strikers. The crowd was orderly, and Chicago mayor Carter Harrison advised the police captain to send home the large contingent of police reservists who were waiting at the stationhouse in case they were needed for crowd control.

         By ten o'clock that rainy evening the meeting was winding down and only about 200 of the demonstrators remained in the Square. Suddenly, a police column of 180 men, led by the police captain, moved in and ordered the people to disperse immediately. At that moment, the peaceful assembly became violent - a bomb was thrown into the police ranks, killing one policeman outright, fatally wounding six more, and seriously injuring about seventy. The police opened fire into the crowd; the number of wounded and killed has never been ascertained.

         A reign of terror swept over Chicago. The press and the pulpit called for revenge, insisting the bomb was the work of socialists and anarchists. Meeting halls, union offices, printing works, and private homes were raided, and known socialists and anarchists were rounded up. Even many individuals who had no connections at all to the socialists or anarchists were arrested and tortured. "Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards," was the public statement of Julius Grinnell, the state's attorney.

Continue READING:

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DON'T PAY??

        The extreme hardship being inflicted on the Greek people by the financial Mafia has pushed the people to organise with new tactics and strategies in an attempt to hold on to some dignity. The savageness of the "austerity cuts" has radicalised thousands of Greeks and forced them to think outside the system of exploitation. One of the fastest growing organisations is the "Don't Pay" movement, which is gaining momentum as the living standards of the Greek people descend ever deeper into deprivation.

      The following article translated from the Greek, though not the best English, does convey the principles behind the movement.

ABOUT US          The ‘DEN PLIRONO’ movement is born from the current social needs and constitutes a political movement of disobedience and resistance. It is flesh from the flesh of all exploited social layers and fights for two years, vindicating the social character of public goods. Fundamental political place and axis of action of our movement constitutes freeing of charge and access to all people, in all social goods that are essential for his decent existence.
           We fightingly claim free of charge education, health, streets, public spaces, Means of Public Transport, Water, Electricity, all natural goods (eg beaches, forests, air), and each good of social character for each person, Greek or immigrant.
The unprecedented crisis of the last years tosses radically the capitalistic system. Rulers in their effort to fortify their political, economical and ideological regime and to subjugate people, they form new, disguised juntas.
          The economic fortification of (global and national) financial system requires direct transport of wealth from the households to the banks. Such a ‘grab’ is attempted with the curtailment of wage and pensions, the dissolution of public health and education, the selling out of public property and with the continuous anti-social taxes.
         The question that enters henceforth in the population is the following: How long for will we bend our heads obeying to a bunch bullies exploiters who want to steal our life? When at last will we rise up and take back our lives?
          The first signs of collective workers’ class struggle has already initiated. The ‘DEN PLIRONO’ movement committees, the neighborhood assemblies, the strikes in the factories (eg Steelworks) and in Means of Mass Media (ERT, ALTER, etc.) they are certainly some of the luminous examples of disobedience and resistance.
          We call all exploited individuals, to choose the way of collective fight by actively participating in the open committees of the ‘DEN PLIRONO’ movement. We invite you all to unite our voices and our punches in order to take back our stolen lives.

WE DO NOT PAY THEIR CRISIS
WE ORGANISE COLLECTIVELY THE REFUSAL OF PAYMENTS TO ALL NEIGHBORHOODS
WE FIGHT AGAINST ALL THOSE WHO STEAL OUR LIVES UNTIL THE FINAL VICTORY
www.kinimadenplirono.gr
www.oxidiodia.gr

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MAY DAY GLASGOW.

  

         It's time to recapture our history, our culture, the spirit of working class solidarity. May Day is a symbol  of the history, a celebration of all those working class heroes that the establishment wants you to forget. Come to Argyle Street, bring what you want to find, but most of all, bring your desires and hopes.

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MORE ON MAY DAY.

           To see any event that goes any way to capture the spirit of May Day you have to leave the UK. Try Spain, France, Greece, Italy, for starters. Why, in this country, has the establishment managed to turn a major event in working class history into a mishmash of a handful of individuals? Where is the mass event? I can remember "official" May Day in Glasgow being a massive family affair on the Glasgow Green, and a real good show would be put on by anarchist and other activists on the actual day, May 1st. Now the "official" May Day event is a slow march of the dead a short distance to a hall to listen to a bunch of power seekers stroke their ego, while their adoring followers try to sell the party paper and get people to sign something. I don't know what that has to do with the spirit of May Day. Only in the UK could this transformation take place.

        We live in a country where society has been totally and utterly fragmented and the idea of a mass movement has been removed from our consciousness. Working class history is buried, air brushed out of existence, our culture and heritage is the stuff of phony TV sitcoms, the established media is allowed to shape “our culture” and what they peddle is an illusion. After a rather quiet May Day on May 1^st. by a small group of anarchists, wobblies and communists, tomorrow is Glasgow's “official” May Day event, I sincerely hope that the people of Glasgow prove me wrong, in which case I will gladly eat my words.

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WHEN IS A BOYCOTT NOT A BOYCOT?

        Over the years there have been pickets and attempted boycotts of multi-nationals because of some aspect of their business, recently it was Holland & Barrett because of their embracing the workfare scheme. What were we trying to do? Get Holland & Barrett to be a more compassionate capitalist, or trying to shut it down? Do we want a more compassionate capitalism, or can we shut it down? Were we capable of imposing a boycott and to what effect? When is a boycott not a boycott, and when is it a valid tactic?

This from Profane Existence:

          It really pisses me off when I hear some punk kid or anarchist claim they are boycotting Nike (or whichever other giant corporation). Not because I think they should be supporting Nike, but simply because it shows a lack of any understanding of what a boycott is. And if we desire to be effective, we need to have a clear understanding of what different tactics and strategies actually are.

          Boycotting is a non-violent consumer tactic which is based on withdrawing support (usually financial) as a way to force ones enemy/oppressor into a compromised position in which they must negotiate with you or meet your terms in order to regain your support. So simply not participating is not the same as actively boycotting. Thus going Vegan is not a boycott of the meat and dairy industry for example.

          There are many problems with the idea of some patched up crusty claiming to be engaging in boycott tactics against major corporations. The first of which is that in order to take part in a boycott, you must first have support to withdraw, meaning you need to be a client or customer of the target company who financially contributes to them. Even further, you need to be open to reinvesting that financial support one the target has complied with your demands. This differs greatly from the DIY punk ethos of making our own shit rather than giving them our money, which is actually more about creating an alternative economy, or perhaps an alternative to economy.

Continue READING:

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SACRED PRIVATE PROPERT.

       The Occupy Movement hasn't gain much ground here in the UK but has moved forward with much greater momentum in the US. For this reason, in the US there is a much wider discussion about private property, creating conflict within the Occupy Movement. This is no bad thing and it is a discussion that I would love to see take centre stage in any protest movement here or anywhere else.

The following is an extract from an interesting article on American Leftist:

Occupy and Inviolability of Private Property

         A couple of months ago, I discussed one of the most difficult challenges facing Occupy, the willingness of middle class progressives to rationalize the abuses of the police because they place a greater priority upon the preservation of social order by law enforcement. Such progressives want to square the political circle by seeking a transformation of American society without conflict. They are most perfectly represented by Chris Hedges, a man who seems to find the verbal abuse of the police at protests more disturbing than police assaults and finds himself incapable of deciding whether protesters should throw tear gas canisters back at the cops who fired them.

But what is it that these progressives believe requires the protection of the police, even at the cost of the violent suppression of Occupy protesters? Upon reflection, the answer is obvious: private property and the hierarchical social relations inscribed by it. Of course, Occupy participants are not all anarchists or communists, far from it, but they have adopted direct action tactics that have frightened progressives with the ghost of expropriation. Initially, occupiers set up encampments in public spaces as a means of highlighting enormous income inequality and corruption. They sought to prefigure an alternative, much more egalitarian, social order that stood in marked contrast to the existing one. If we were living back in the 1960s or 1970s, the government would have responded with a program of increased public assistance, a program that would have drained away support for Occupy by providing housing, jobs, student aid and medical care, but that would have threatened to reverse the neoliberal process of the marketization of all aspects of our lives, and, hence, was never seriously considered.

Instead, with the federal government guiding them behind the scenes, cities, starting with Oakland in October of last year, cleared out the encampments with force. There was an initial broad based criticism of these police attacks, but, as it became apparent that Occupy had evolved into a loose coalition of anti-authoritarians, people of color, the homeless and other marginalized people, such criticism dissipated. Meanwhile, particularly on the West Coast, occupiers organized more confrontational actions in response, such as the November 2nd general strike in Oakland, the December 12th port shutdown, the January 20th Occupy Wall Street West protests and the attempted seizure of the Kaiser Auditorium on January 28th. The failure of Occupy to extract any meaningful political response to the distress of millions of impoverished Americans and the interrelated corruption of the financial and political systems was pushing its participants towards more and more radical approaches. Within occupations, this resulted in increasingly acrimonious personal conflicts, as most publicly displayed in Oakland, while the progressives that should have been allies became hostile.

         Continue READING:

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ONE WORLD, OUR WORLD.

        Western democracy in action, the system is creaking under the strain of the desire for freedom and justice, how long before it completely collapses. We should always remember, we are governed by consent, we can always withdraw that consent, hundreds thousands have already done so.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.  Thomas Jefferson.

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AH, ANOTHER ELECTION.

           It's election day, the day when we, the common herd, are promised the earth. The day when the Crooks and Liars hang about to see just how popular they are, will they get back on the gravy train or will they have to ask their cronies for pay back, for all the favours the handed out while they were in the trough with both hands. Will it be a new shining smile that will take their place in the hallowed halls of power. One thing for sure, whoever gets “voted” in will do their own standard of living a power of good.

         It never fails to amaze me that failed promises after failed promises from tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and lots of people still run and cast their wee X in the belief that this crop of Crooks and Liars will somehow be different from the last lot of Crooks and Liars. They say that one of the signs of insanity is to keep doing the same thing time after time, but hoping for a different result, perhaps that is the answer. Or could it be that the Crooks and Liars, with the help of the media have woven a very clever illusion.

        In my long, long experience in watching these Crooks and Liars competitions they call elections, I have to admit that this one is about the quietest I have witnessed. I think I have had one party political leaflet through the door but no callers preaching their particular brand of lies, now that's hardly enthusiastic. Perhaps the reason for this could be that this particular gang of Crooks and Liars are aware of what the public at large think of them, and so are keeping a rather low profile.

       Low profile or not, low turnout or not, there will be a gang of Crooks and Liars taking their seats in those marble halls and divvying up the proceeds, each making sure that their future is secured in the system and seeing to the welfare of their cronies. That's how this system works, it's a privileged club and you and I are not members, we merely fund it.

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WE LINGER IN THE BORDERLANDS.

A quote from The Anarchist International:

          "We once made watches to buy time for ourselves. Some of us still do. But time is our enemy and we cannot toil for it any longer. The old world is gone and the Anarchist International persists, lingering outside of time on the borderlands between slavery and freedom."

Read the full article HERE:

        Hopefully, soon there will be no borderlands, as slavery disappears from our consciousness and freedom is the only reality.

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE AND THE BATON.

       This video shows how “austerity cuts” are pushed through in Greece, the resentment and anger of the people at the savage slashing of their living standards, is met with unbridled brutality. While the unelected leader of the Greek government forces through the dictate of the financial Mafia, the state's muscle men are on the streets doing their damnedest to instil subservience through fear. It is not that the Greek state is any more brutal than any other European state, it is just that the Greek people are being hit harder by the “deficit reduction” plan, and are therefore showing more anger, so have to be beaten down harder by the Greek state, who are doing no more than any other state will do, should they feel the need. As the number of people in the UK being pushed into poverty rises, unemployment soars and social services are slashed, we can expect to see the anger spill onto the streets, it is then we will see the UK state unleash its well trained, well kitted out riot police to do its duty, and brutally subdue the will of the people. Nothing must stand in the way of the plunder of public assets, nothing must hinder the transfer of wealth from the public to the private bank accounts of the financial Mafia.

 

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MAY DAY ISTANBUL.

         As I stated in my last post, May Day was celebrated across the globe, and in most cities it was massive. Each city marked it in different ways, like I said Glasgow was a rather low key affair, not so in Istanbul in Turkey. Anger took a more volatile route.

During the day there was also some excellent advice handed out.

A free world with no money.

Your days of wealth are over.

Photos from Contra Info.

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MAY DAY ACROSS THE WORLD.

          Though the Glasgow May Day showing was a low key affair, the same could not be said about the rest of Europe. Across southern Europe the numbers were in the hundreds of thousands, unions in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France used the traditional marches to express anger at the attack on their living standards from the financial Mafia's “deficit reduction” program throughout the Euro Zone forcing countries deeper into recession. In France the trade unions organized around 300 demonstrations across the length and breadth of the country including the capital Paris. The Interior Ministry stated that 316,000 people turned out, compared to 77,000 in 2011. In Italy demonstrators briefly clashed with police in riot gear in Turin and thousands marched in Rieti to listen speeches denouncing Prime Minister Mario Monti's reforms. Madrid saw tens of thousands march in the rain to the main square chanting and waving signs opposing the “austerity cuts”, Lisbon saw similar numbers, while in Athens around 5,000 workers, pensioners, unemployed and students marched with banners reading "Revolt now" and "Tax the rich".

SOLIDARITY.

         This sort of activity was repeated across the globe, from Asia to America, from Europe to Australia. May Day is most certainly alive and kicking. There are some excellent photos of May Day rallies across the world HERE

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GLASGOW MAY DAY.

    This year May Day in Glasgow was a quiet affair, no bands playing, no dancing in the street, no marching through the city centre. In Buchanan Street there was the usual anarchist stall with its band of bright, young, friendly individuals eager to engage the public and hand out their literature. There was a small contingent from the Communist Party, complete with flag and papers, then there was the Wobblies, (IWW), with their stall, eagerly pushing their wares. On the whole it looked like the local Glasgow folks, though eager to take the literature on offer, had forgotten their working class heritage.

       Of course there will always be those who say why bother with May Day, it's just another holiday, sorry, your wrong. This is not a day to celebrate some royal event, or some imperialist battle fought a hundred years or so ago, or some day to remember the butchers of Empire. This is a day to remember all those who have struggled to improve the lot of the ordinary people, a day to celebrate working class victories won through bitter struggle, and in some cases paid for by imprisonment and even death. There are innumerable reasons for turning out on May Day, it is a day of hope, of solidarity among the working class across the globe. What are my personal reasons for turning up, this extract from NOLA ANARCHA puts it better than I personally could.

Why March on May Day in the name of Anti-Capitalism?
Because Capitalism is the Dominant Moment of the existing system of Global Domination. Because Global Capital strives for institutional domination, ideological domination, domination of the social imaginary, and domination of the practice of everyday life. Because Global Capital utilizes the hollow rhetoric of "limited government," even as it employs monstrous coercive force to impose economic oligarchy on humanity, and as it strives toward a totalitarian order of technological surveillance and control. Because Global Capital poses itself as the putative end of history, as even Stalinoid STATE capitalism mutates finally into state CAPITALISM. Because Global Capital mumbles pious platitudes about "free markets," even as it generates neo-feudalism on an immense scale and creates more literal slaves than those who toiled under classic slave economies. Because Global Capital creates massive planetary climate disruption and biodioversity loss that have culminated in the Sixth Great Mass Extinction of Life on Earth. In short, because Global Capitalism is the Universal Culture of Death: the culture of genocide, of ecocide, and of the degradation and destruction of the human spirit. It is because of all this, and out of love for Humanity and the Earth, and a passion to defend both Humanity and the Earth, that on May 1 some of us abandon the Everyday March of the Undead and join instead a March for Life and Liberation.

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