Thursday, January 24, 2013In the afternoon of January 24, the Greek government via the ministry of transport ordered the civil conscription (i.e. the forced return to work) of the workers at the Athens Metro, who had been on strike for the past eight days. In response, the workers in all other mass transportation mediums in the city (buses, metro green line and tram) have also joined or extended their strikes. The workers at the Athens metro are calling all those in solidarity to gather at the main metro depot in Sepolia (by Kifissos Ave).
Read the full article HERE:Our comrades are still imprisoned across the world. Many of our self-organized spaces are being raided or evicted, our infrastructure is under siege, and our counter-information media are censored or hindered. Whenever we express our ideas in public, uniformed robocops are lurking everywhere. Surveillance machinery follows every single move we make, while the State counts on the support of an armed fascist mob… But our existential fight is more than defence of solid spaces.
Remember, Greece is not the victim of an insane policy of austerity but a shining example of the benefits of fiscal readjustment.
"Someone must have been burning a door with the windows still set in," she says. "When the girls and I were walking home, it was hard to breathe. We used our coats as masks."
Greeks may actually be burning old furniture to stay warm, says Stephanos Sambatakakis of the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scientists are studying the particles in the noxious fumes, which could soon leave people suffering from inflamed eyes, respiratory problems, headaches and nausea, he says. Long-term effects could include lung inflammation and, "in extreme cases, lung cancer," he says.
Colonial Irony: the case of Mali
Western media always ALWAYS claim that the natives warmly welcome the Western invaders but the invaders always leave humiliatingly after being chased out by armed natives. Here is the NYT on the French invaders in Mali: "“I want to thank the French people,” said Mamadou Traoré, a Diabaly resident. He said French airstrikes had chased away the militants without harming any civilians, a claim echoed by other residents." And do you notice that Western media talk about being invited by the "Mali government" (just as the Soviets invaded Afghanistan after being invited by Babrak Karmal) as if the coup leaders were democratically elected.
‘Islamist terrorists’ etc., etc.
The public relations version of the French et al invasion is a familiar refrain. “Islamic terrorists” and “jihadists” have taken control of northern Mali and are a threat to international security and to the wellbeing of the local population. Terrible atrocities against the local populace are alleged and given wide publicity by corporate media. Similar myths were peddled by the war makers when they invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.
It is true that Islamic fundamentalists have ruled northern Mali with an iron hand since taking over in 2012. But the reasons for this latest intervention lie in the determination of the world’s imperial powers to keep the human and natural resources of poor regions of the world as preserves for capitalist profits. West Africa is a region of great resource wealth, including gold, oil and uranium.
The uranium mines in neighbouring Niger and the uranium deposits in Mali are of particular interest to France, which generates 78 per cent of its electricity from nuclear energy. Niger’s uranium mines are highly polluting and deeply resented by the population, including among the semi-nomadic Touareg people who reside in the mining regions. The French company Areva is presently constructing in Imouraren, Niger, what will become the second-largest uranium mine in the world.
-------As early as 1925, the founder of French anthropology, Marcel Mauss was famously advocating the alternative morality of stateless societies in his “Essay on the Gift”. His study of gift exchange in kinship societies – like the potlatch of the American Indians of the Pacific Southwest and the elaborate Kula rings of the Trobriand Islanders – challenged the universal assumption that economies without markets or money must operate by means of barter. Far from seeking to engage in market behaviour, in which each party strives to get the best goods possible at the least cost to themselves, Mauss postulated that gift economies were not based on calculation at all, but on a refusal to calculate. It was not that they had failed to develop a system sophisticated enough to yield profit in an efficient way, but rather that these exchange systems were rooted in an ethical system which consciously rejected the basic notions on which we generally believe economics to be based.
Mauss, a revolutionary socialist, aligned himself with many classic anarchist positions, but he never actually described himself as one. Significantly, another Frenchman, Pierre Clastres – who was a self-proclaimed anarchist – became well known for making a similar argument to Mauss on a political level. Whilst Mauss used anthropology to illuminate ways in which it was possible to build an anti-capitalist economy (as a response to the crisis of Lenin’s socialism), Clastres used anthropology to demonstrate how it was possible for power to operate in an egalitarian, non-coercive manner. By considering the power structures of stateless societies on their own terms Clastres found a way to politicise primitive societies. In doing so, he radically challenged the notion, outlined most prominently by Thomas Hobbes, that state power is a necessary illusion.
21 01 2013
Members of Britain’s Socialist Workers Party are resigning from the party in droves, says duvinrouge. The impetus comes from a sexual assault allegation against a senior member of the party, & allegations that it wasn’t investigated properly. But unpinning this is the discontent due to the lack of party democracy.
Read the full article HERE: disillusionedThe SWP is a Leninist party & therefore internally organises in a way that is termed democratic-centralism. The basic idea being that the majority decision is decided upon & then there is unity of action led by a central committee. It actual fact it’s a fig-leaf ideology to allow a few to justify their life as professional revolutionaries, dreaming of their place in history, whilst the rank & file members sell the paper to fund this lifestyle. It’s much like parliamentary democracy’s claim to represent the wishes of the people & gives us the illusion of having a say.
"This is the best exhibition I've seen in this space. More please! Well done to all involved."
"Loads of informative, inspiring and funny stuff - It's good seeing the creative output of Glasgow's radicals."
"Great stuff. Thanks for putting this together and getting it displayed."
"Very interesting exhibition, cleverly presented. Would love to see more from you."
"Excellent, thanks for holding it."
"Great work, need a bigger exhibition!!!"
"Enjoyed it, more on John MacLean."
"Fantastic! Good to know that a people's history gets a voice in Glasgow!"
"Very interesting - fantastic to see this stuff in public view!"
"Brilliant, we need more exhibitions like this showing Glasgow's REAL history."
There are many more comments all in the same vein, but two that more than pleased me were the two from visitors from the other side of the world, Columbia,
"Thanks for this exhibition and also for keeping the archive. This is crucial work and it is exciting to see that the materials are being preserved, made accessible and disseminated in the same spirit that produced them."
"Amazing view of a hundred years of resistance! It is great to see clarity, cleverness and sense of humour that keeps rising amongst the radicals."
All must work! Declares the cabinet of millionaires. 'Workers not shirkers!, they implore. 'Strivers not skivers!' The divide and rule rhetoric trying to pit those in work against those without is as relentless as it is transparent. But what's so good about work anyway?
Read the full article HERE:Junge Linke's short piece skewers how attempts to mobilise resentment of claimants and the unemployed undermine even those in work who aren't claiming benefits. What I'd like to focus on is two perspectives on what an explicitly anti-work politics might look like.
Citizens in Glasgow are up in arms over a council proposal to transform historic George Square, into a corporate “retail-led” space with crass “public art”. Many rightly see it is an attempt to drive the political and social life of the city out of this important square.Read the full article HERE:
George Square has been the centre of struggle in the city from the 1919 uprising to demonstrations against the poll tax and Trident. Most recently, it was the site for the Occupy movement’s actions in Glasgow.
Without any consultation, the Labour-controlled council has unveiled six options, each more corporate than the one before, in a £15 million project, most of which will be borrowed against future business rates income.
In the evening of January 15th, 2013 antifascists confronted a Nazi group of the Chrissi Avgi/Golden Dawn party in the city of Heraklion, on Crete.Read the full article HERE:
Approximately 30 fascists were passing out their texts for the second time on one of the city’s avenues. A group of nearly 60 antifascists attacked the Nazis, who wore helmets and carried sticks with the national flag. The Nazis ran away in fear, after a five minute’s clash. Only when fascists retreated did two anti-riot squadrons intervene and try to chase off the counter-protesters (as usual, cops and fascists had coordinated themselves well beforehand). After the crackdown of the police that used tear gas and stun grenades, the dastardly Nazis began to throw stones at the comrades from a distance and urged cops to pursue the antifascists.
More than five Nazis were wounded and needed stitches, while they received concussions and had broken limbs, too. At the same time, three antifascists got injured from the stones and needed stitches. Both Nazis and counter-protesters ended up in the same hospital which was on duty, where two anti-riot squadrons made their presence again, in order to safeguard the Golden Dawn members. While solidarians waited for the injured antifascists to leave the hospital, they slashed the tires of four cars belonging to Nazis outside.
There was a report half way through the war of an Italian refugee charity arriving at the border of Kosovo with a camera crew and ambulance, and spiriting away an old woman refugee who’d collapsed – all of it faithfully filmed for Italian TV. It was the first time during the war the charity had done anything. It turned out that the woman had merely fainted – and, as a result of this dramatic intervention she became extremely upset, hardly surprising, since she’d been separated from her family who, in the meantime, had been shoved off to some other refugee camp, and no-one knew where they were. Once you enter this world of TV, of image, of the appearance of goodness, “care”, “charity” & “humanitarianism” are but masks for indifference: everything’s just a photo-opportunity. The more all-pervasive these role-bound relations are the more such functionalising of people appears as ‘natural’. The media is simply an arm of the State, making modern alienated spectacular relations seem reasonable and inevitable.
An article from a former soldier in Bosnia said that when an American TV crew turned up at his base they asked to see a burnt-out village previously inhabited by Bosnian Muslims – which they were duly shown. When the UN soldiers asked if they wanted to take photos of a burnt-out village previously inhabited by Bosnian Serbs the journalists refused, saying it would confuse the issue: their viewers wanted clear ideas about what was going on. The soldier then went on to say that this was a typical American desire for black and white opinions. In fact, this American TV crew were merely being loyal servants of their masters, the US ruling class, loyal servants of dominant ideology, which is not simplisticly a lie, but a half-truth that omits any facts that contradict the official “truth”.
