Double-Speak.

Image courtesy of Clean River Trust.

          Once again the UK state shows its true colours, it spouts green renewable policies but decides to open up another coal mine. All this while experts say that climate catastrophe could happen at much lower temperatures than first predicted. The usual mantra is repeated, "it will bring jobs and help the economy". Help the economy really means allow the millionaire/billionaire class to make heaps more money, as for the jobs, it will be dirty, dangerous, unhealthy and unnecessary jobs. We all know that wars bring jobs and helps the economy, the rich getting richer, but nobody in their right mind wants jobs at that price. The same logic should apply in the case of coal mining, pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating the climate catastrophe that is heading our way.
          Why do we allow these money grabbing mobsters of parasites to dictate our future, to bind us to extinction via climate disaster, just so they can enhance their already extreme ill-gotten wealth. Surely we could do better without them and their leeching greed. We can build a fairer society based on mutual aid and co-operation between communities, a society that sees to the needs of all our people. Of course it will never happen as long as we leave this bunch of greed driven parasites holding the reins of power. As always, the choice is ours, knuckle down and grin and bear it, or stand up and take the fight to them, on the streets, in the workplaces and in our communities. The future is ours to grasp, it will never be given to us.

 Image courtesy of Manchester Evening News. 

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Fail 19.

           System Fail 19, the latest from SubMedia now available. As usual it covers a range of topics. This episode looks at the pandemic, riots in China and Elon Musk's take-over of twitter. System Fail is a window on our world, always worth a viewing.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info  

To The Right!

            As the state here tightens its legislation on protests, trying to make it impossible to protest against any injustice, and demonises those who dare to take strike action in a struggle for a decent life, labelling them enemies of the state, as well as accusing them of playing into the hands of Putin, we must remember, this is not a local problem, it is happening across the world. Here in Europe and in America the various states are marching to the right, as is happening elsewhere. Anarchists always come in for some of the harshest treatment. In Italy a law, 41-bis, brought in to attack the mafia, after a string of assassinations is now being used against anarchists. In Greece it is practically a military operation with guns and all the brutal appendages the authoritarian state can muster to destroy free autonomous spaces and brutalise those who defend those spaces. This is an on going threat that we ignore at our peril. Our limited liberties are being trashed, if this happens, it will be a harder fight to get them back. Much better to defend what you have rather than try to retrieve what you have lost. This fight is of the most urgency, the various state are marching right at an ever increasing pace.

The following extract from Enough is Enough.

Originally published by Communıty of Squatted Prosfygıka.

We are still here … The Community remains strong and united … Prosfygika will win!!!!

            On 22/11/2022, at 5.45 am, all kinds of police forces, riot police MAT, state security, Delta, OPKE and EKAM, invaded the squated neighbourhood of Prosfygika on Alexandra Avenue and more specifically the 7th block, on Tikhonidos Street (behind the Elpis Hospital). They broke through the outer door of the building, breaking it. Then they went up to the second floor where two community companions, the arrested companion and another refugee from Iran live. They kidnapped both of them and proceeded to carry out a thorough search of the building. At the same time, the entire neighborhood was surrounded by the repression forces, not only at the site of the search but in total, attempting to occupy it.
        The operation was spotted by the community’s daily morning patrol who began to inform the neighborhood. Comrades and compañeras took to the rooftops to wake up the rest of us. Not knowing exactly what was happening, we recognized that the operation was limited to a specific building, but we also realized the serious possibility of a general attack. In retrospect, we judge that the invasion that took place was premeditated from the morning. All the time that elapsed until the moment of the invasion was the result of preparation, judgment on costs and gains, as well as a measurement of our determination, by the officials of the GADA and the ministry.
        As time went on, the situation seemed to get more difficult. The comrade remained inside the building, the police forces were not removed and the encirclement remained. The neighbourhood was becoming suffocating with the situation. We attempted to contain the riot police further in from Kuzi Street, that is, the vertical street that centrally separates the refugee blocks, so as to open up vital space for the neighbourhood, without obstructing the investigation, but making our presence felt. This allowed the neighbourhood to slowly leave their homes, some to go to their jobs and others to take their children to school. It also stopped the torture of our comrade, who was under captivity in his house for about 3 hours. At least as he informed us later, then, after the fireworks, they stopped and took him to GADA.
       At the same time we were receiving more and more information and indications of a second operation that had been predecided and which would take place after 3.00 p.m., after the partial eviction of the two hospitals of St. Sava and Elpis. Around 12.00 noon we held a march through the neighbourhood and called an emergency advocacy meeting at the community shelter in the 6th block for 4.00 p.m. At 5.00 p.m., during the open publicly announced meeting, the repression helicopter and drone attack began in the air. The guarding shift resisted as best they could given the circumstances, using every means of non-criminal force, not only to protect against persecution disproportionate to the litigation, but also to protect the entire community, its children and patients, and the wider neighbourhood in general. A wave of terrorism fell upon the 5th and 6th blocks that left children and other people in the neighborhood in panic attacks that continue to this day. The Hellenic Police assassins broke down apartment doors with guns drawn, threatening anyone in sight, and attempted to impose a regime of terrorism. A sick woman in a wheelchair and her daughter, a family holding their children in a panic attack, a mother beaten and thrown to the floor in front of her 12-year-old son after their door was broken, migrants and refugees spilling into their homes and on the stairs, like an invasion of Gaza.

 Continue reading.

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Good Read.

 

           December, so another Read of the Month from Spirit of Revolt. This month we bring you Manifesto of Libertarian Communism by Georges Fontenis, ACE, Anarchist Communism Edition No·3, from our K M Collection, T SoR 4-1-3. An excellent read for those who want to know more about Libertarian Communism, or refresh their thoughts on the subject. You can of course delve into our website where you will find a multitude of information on Anarchism and Libertarian Socialism and the people and struggles involved in that struggle for that better world for all.

 READ ON LINE.

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Gifts.

            Well it is that time of the year when people buy presents for friends and family, call it what you will, I like Winter Solstice. Choosing a present can be difficult, so let me help you. A wonderful book to give to your friends, family comrades or for yourself, would by the book by James Kelman and Prof. Noam Chomsky, "Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime, Why Ideas Matter", published by PM Press.

         Apart from seeing this book as an essential read for all left radical thinkers and activists, I have another motive for suggesting it as a wonderful Solstice gift. The authors have kindly stated that the proceeds from the sale of the book go to Spirit of Revolt as a donation. Spirit of Revolt is probably the largest anarchist, libertarian socialist archive in Scotland, we record, preserve and make easily available, your history, your struggles for that better world for all. We rely totally on donations from friends and supporters. we receive no funding from unions, businesses or councils and our team are all unpaid volunteers. See our donation page. All donations, one-off or direct debit, no matter how small are really appreciated.

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Rising??

  Food for thought as we face a winter of cold and hunger, midst abundant wealth.

 “Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture...
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away...”- 

 Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet

 

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Spaces.

        The following article doesn't just apply to Exarcheia in Athens, what they are facing is happening to every city across the globe. The drive to turn public spaces into profitable entities, not for us all, but for the already very rich and powerful. These decisions are made by bureaucrats and politicians who see only economic growth for profit, although these decisions impact on our quality of life the decisions are made over our heads. It will take  a well organised mass movement to stop this trend of profit before the quality of life of those impacted by these bureaucratic decisions. If we want quality of life over profit, then we will have to take to the streets and force the change, it will not come from the politicians and the bureaucrats who are blinded by the profit motive.

The following from Freedom News.

Exarcheia, the subway station, and public space

 

 

Analysis, Dec 2nd
                First of all it is important to underline that public transport (tram, subway, bus) is immensely important as it allows for ecological and inclusive movement throughout the city. With the usage of all the different types of public transport a vast and comfortable transportation network can be developed to challenge the domination of the private car on our streets – domination that makes urban life worse by air and noise pollution, frequent accidents, and the exclusion of the most marginalised economically.
              For quite some time now, in the historic Exarcheia neighbourhood of Athens, home to countless anti-authoritarian and anarchist collectives, squats, and social centres, there has been a struggle directed against the construction of a metro station on the district’s central square. How does an area with such a libertarian history oppose the expansion of public transport, one might ask; but the truth is that the problem is not the subway as such, but the way the decision to build was made and what will came after it.
             Firstly, many of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, in coordination with architects and urban planners, have proposed another place of the neighbourhood (Archaeological Museum) as a place more suitable and rational for a subway station. The people of Exarcheia understand the ecological and inclusive dimensions of public transport; what they disagree with is the political way through which this, and other, decisions are being made – decisions, made by a handful of politicians and businessmen, that will shape our common ground for generations to come, without the participation of all of us who inhabit it.
            Secondly, the inhabitants are in opposition to the urban vision promoted by those in power: with most striking example being the Kotzias square right in front of the Mayor’s building in Athens. We speak of a place that does not feel nor look like square any more. There are no trees or benches, so one can pass through it on their way to somewhere, but not spend time in it, as there is no protection from summer’s blazing sun or anywhere to sit. This is in line with the project of “touristisation” that the Greek authorities have been implementing for years all around Athens. In this project the pubic spaces are an obstacle to economic growth: tourist shops, restaurants, cafeterias all generate economic revenues from tourists, while squares, with their benches and trees, serve the communal (often non-economic) needs of the inhabitants. This is what the inhabitants of Exarcheia do not want to happen to their square – but what the restructuring of it, due to the subway station, will most probably bring. The vision that local authorities envision will not solve any of the problems of the area, it will simply lay the foundations of yet another urban desert, where there is barely any vegetation and no place where one can sit for free.
             There is also a third dimension of this project. The Greek state, under different governments, has continuously been in opposition to the autonomous movement in all its expressions. As is well known, Exarcheia is both a point of reference and a symbol of this movement. In this line of thought the decision, taken without any sort of public deliberation and despite strong opposition, to place a metro station in an irrational place, is also seen by the authorities as an excuse to militarise the district with heavy police presence and suffocate any effort of self-organization.
              The case of the construction of a subway station at Exarcheia square comes to show that under the conditions of oligarchy and capitalism even sustainable means of transportation can be used to destroy public spaces and gentrify neighbourhoods, just as renewable energy sources are used to destroy mountainous areas in order to generate profits for investors far away. What is crucial to understand is that this is all a question of politics: of who gets to shape our city – a handful of bureaucrats and capitalist investors, or the vast majority of a district’s inhabitants. It is this political question that frames the content and the outlook of urban space.

Yavor Tarinski

Image: Pithari Stories

 

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The Street?

          We, the ordinary people are at war. I'm not talking about the war of missiles and drones, but the war we have fought for generations, the class war. Year in year out the conglomerate of corporate beasts have have grabbed more and more of the world's resources and in their never ending drive to increase profits, we have been hit time and time again with punishing austerity, inflation, cuts to social services, which translates into poverty and destitution for millions. Once again with great viciousness, the attack is on the ordinary people, and as winter approaches we are facing cold homes, insufficient food on the table, with the result being stunted children and elderly and vulnerable people dying earlier than would be normally.
           This is a constant fight and it will not be won in the marble halls of power, nor in the debating rooms of unions. It will be won on the streets, we surrender the streets at our peril. It is important that we take our anger and frustration on to the streets in organised vast numbers. To win that decent life for all, we must be prepared to do our debating with direct action on the streets, in our communities and workplaces. The good life will not be handed to you by the wealthy and powerful, we'll have to take what we create and turn it into a society of mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people.
          Perhaps we can learn something from recent history, the mass protests of Gilets Jaunes

The following from Enough is Enough. 

           On November 17, 2018, a new kind of movement exploded in the face of many observers and took the trade unions and political parties, who were convinced they had a monopoly on protest, by surprise: the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement.

Originally published by Contre Attaque. Translated by Riot Turtle. 

 

         Officially 287,710 demonstrators, probably 10 times more, had spread around 2000 traffic circles across the country, created new spaces for discussion. The demonstrations were heterogeneous, many of them were not used to protesting. We all remember the call of truck driver Ghislain Coutard improvising a rallying symbol, the yellow safety vest. His anger and his genius call “We all have a yellow vest in the car! Put it on your dashboard in front of you all week long. It will be a little color code to show that you support the movement”.
        In the weeks that followed, a strange phenomenon: we all looked at each other on the streets, as if to count ourselves. And there are many of us… You know the rest: 65 weeks of mobilization, thousands of injured demonstrators and an estimated 1.800 injured among the forces of order. The mobilization was unprecedented, but so was the violent repression.
        In 2018 alone, the police fired 19,071 LBD bullets and launched 5,420 rounds of grenade ammunition. Total repression. The victories, unfortunately, are not as numerous. Although the carbon tax has been buried, the list of 42 demands has remained largely unheeded.
        The few measures that have been saved at the simulacrum of a citizens’ assembly will be further eroded by amendments in Parliament. Not sure that this is what the Gilets Jaunes had in mind when they demanded more direct democracy.
        4 years later, most of the initial Gilets Jaunes groups don’t exist anymore, but some activists persist and don’t hesitate to support other militant collectives. From their chaotic course, let us retain that the Gilets Jaunes movement knew how to show all the old street movements the need to renew the way to mobilize. A lesson still far from being integrated if we observe the success of the last call of the CGT in France…
          It would be good not to leave the monopoly of mobilizations to these union organizations again, who usually organize nice demonstrations and then leave. The success of the Sainte-Soline mobilization shows it, we have to fight in a different way. Mobilize people who use different strategies and create cohesion between “peaceful” and “determined” protests. The Gilets Jaunes knew how to blow on the embers of social movements, it’s up to us to set things on fire!

 

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Capitalism.

 

 

           Explaining the flaws in capitalism to a believer that accepts that it's the only game in town, can be difficult. They arrive at their decision from the propaganda machine, mainstream media, government policies, the menagerie of parliament, corporate advertising and I suppose we can add Hollywood.  That's why I like reading  Caitlin Johnstone she seems to have this ability to spite out the truth and make it readable and obvious. I love her quote, "Why does China keep aggressively surrounding itself with US military bases"

 

 

Image courtesy of Counter Punch

 

The following is a short extract from a longer article by Caitlin  

            The claim that capitalism is the best system for generating profits is basically correct; it’s hard to beat greed and starvation as a carrot and stick to get the gears of industry whirring. The issue here is that merely generating profits won’t solve most of the world’s problems, and in fact many of our problems come from the fact that capitalism is too effective at turning the gears of industry. Our biosphere is dying largely because capitalism values making lots of things but not un-making things; we’re choking our ecosystem to death because it’s profitable.
           Capitalism has no real answers for problems like ecocide, inequality, exploitation and caring for the needful. Yes “let the markets decide” will generate lots of profits for those set up to harvest them, but profit-seeking cannot address those very serious problems. The “invisible hand of the market” gets treated as an actual deity that actually exists, with all the wisdom necessary to solve the world’s problems, but in reality the pursuit of money lacks any wisdom. It can’t solve our major problems, it can only make more stuff and generate more profit.
              Find me a capitalist business plan for leaving a forest untouched. Find me a capitalist business plan for keeping someone free of illness, for ensuring that someone with nothing gets what they need, for giving resources to a struggling parent. You can’t. Capitalism can’t do this. These are the most important things in the world, and no possible iteration of capitalism has any solutions for any of them whatsoever, apart from “Well hopefully rich people will feel very charitable and fix those problems.” And how is that solution working out? It’s a joke.
            The “Maybe the very rich will feel charitable and fix our problems for us” solution assumes that the very same people who are wired to do whatever it takes to claw their way to the top of the ladder will suddenly start caring deeply about everyone they stepped on to get there. Capitalism elevates sociopaths, because profit-seeking competition-based systems reward those who are willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead. That’s why we are ruled by sociopaths, and it’s why looking to “philanthropy” as a solution to our problems is a ridiculous joke.
          When capitalism proponents tell socialists and communists “You don’t understand economics,” what they really mean is “You don’t understand that capitalism is the best system for generating profits.” But socialists and communists do understand this; it’s just that generating profits, in and of itself, is not sufficient.
            If lack of wealth is your major problem, then capitalism can be a tool to address it; that’s what China is temporarily doing to keep up economically with the western forces who wish to enslave it. But such measures won’t solve ecocide, inequality, exploitation, and caring for the needful. For that other measures are needed.
         If you want to make more of something (money, material goods), then capitalism can be a good way to do that. But if you need to make less of something (pollution, inequality, exploitation, sickness, homelessness, etc) it’s worthless, and other systems must be looked to.

 READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE:

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End Wars.

   

            In yesterday's post I emphasised, to end wars, we need to strangle the military industrial complex here at home, without that beast, there would be no wars. However there are other ways to help to bring an end to wars, we must give all the support we can to draft dodgers and deserters. An increase in these numbers would certainly have an effect on the war machine. If they know they have support, then we might see a trickle become a flood. Nobody should be forced to kill someone they don't know on the orders of another.

This extract from tridni-valka-en

 Appeal: Days of international solidarity with deserters

 

           The war in Ukraine continues with all the negative consequences for much of the world. However, acts of desertion and draft evasion also continue, which, if widespread, could lead to the end of the war. Anarchists from the Central European region are therefore publishing this call to organise active support for deserters. Wherever we live, let us make every other day a day of international working-class solidarity and resistance against the war. Let us organise in workplaces, schools and streets to strengthen the influence of desertions. Let us fight for dignified conditions for all who refuse to serve as a cannon fodder in the inter-imperialist war.

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Our War!

             War is in the air, rumblings of nuclear war, our insane war mongering politicians playing the tune of the corporate and imperialist masters, spout the phoney mantra about defending freedom. If you want to stop this psychopathic society of perpetual war, then I'm afraid calling "Stop the War" from the streets will have no effect what so ever. Remember Iraq, millions in the UK and millions more across the globe took to the streets and shouted "No War". What did our democratic leaders do, why they stuck two fingers up at the public and went ahead and obliterated Iraq's infrastructure, killed thousands of innocent people and displaced millions, turning Iraq into a religious faction fighting ground, while at the same time devouring its natural resources. All this on a lie. 

Image courtesy of Arab News.

            Wars don't just happen in other places, they start right here in our own land. The war machine has tentacles that feed through the fibre of our society, without which it could not function. As long as we tolerate this breeding ground for the war machine to freely function in our own country, we are complicit in the wars in other lands. To stop the wars, we have to strangle the war machine at home. The powers that be will preach about how the "arms" industry creates jobs, grows the economy, but do you want jobs and a strong economy that relies on the brutal bloodshed of innocents in other lands? To stop wars, we have to change society completely, rebuild it from the bottom up, dispense with the capitalist greed system and replace it with a society built on mutual aid, free from borders and the profit motive. A society that sees to the needs of all our people, no matter from what part of this tiny planet they live. That will take massive direct action on a prolonged scale, the alternative is to continue with this cancerous capitalist system with its military industrial complex that breeds poverty and destructive wars.

An interesting article from Greece via Act for Freedom Now.

            In the days of commemoration of the Polytechnic, we must not forget the anti-militarist implications of the uprising. In the midst of military dictatorship, one of the central slogans of the occupied Polytechnic in ’73 was “Out with NATO”. Picking up this thread, anarchy today must find a way of direct action against those who profit and gain from these wars.
          While we try to develop anarchist considerations and analyses of every interstate war conflict, one of the most important aspects of the multifaceted anti-military struggle is often ignored: sabotaging the death machine on the ground we are on.
          Since we are in NATO’s territory of influence, we have a duty to sabotage everything used by the armed forces of the Greek state and its allies, the arms industry, the financiers and those who give orders and make decisions.
          Alongside the Russian state’s invasion of Ukrainian territory, the Turkish state’s war against the Kurdish people is raging, while the USA is waging wars all over the planet. In all these cases, DB Schenker is actively involved, supporting and profiting from these wars. It is a German state-owned company, owned by Deutsche Bahn (DB, the German railway company) and controlled by the German Ministry of Transport. It is a company responsible for war crimes during World War II, and today, it maintains supply chain hubs in dozens of places around the globe, transporting and delivering war equipment, weapons as well as parts of vehicles, tanks and war planes. In 2019, DB Schenker received an award from the U.S. Department of Transportation for its cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense, as there seem to be very few transnational wars in which DB Schenker does not transport weapons to the front lines.
           The parent company, Deutsche Bahn, is responsible for the ‘Tren Maya’ project, the development of railway lines on Mexican territory, including the Chiapas region, lines that will serve the Mexican military.
          This project will destroy huge tracts of forested land, and the lands are home to thousands of people. It obviously serves as the basis of a wider plan to pressure the Mexican state against the liberated Zapatista land, and resistance against it has already begun.
           While the Greek police were gradually occupying Exarcheia, in an attempt to suppress the memory of the resistance against the junta, on the morning of 15 November, we carried out an arson attack on a DB Schenker truck on Baltinon Street in Gyzi. While we know that a destroyed truck alone will not stop any war, we have a duty to recognize the cogs that set the state war machines in motion and dismantle them piece by piece.

Solidarity with the struggle of the Kurdish people against the Turkish state.

Solidarity with the prisoner Dimitris Hatzivassiliadis

We support the 4 imprisoned comrades in the case of the Piraeus traffic police.

Victory for the hunger strike of Alfredo Cospito.   Anarchists

via: athens.indymedia Translated by Act for freedom now!

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Anti-Racism.

 

   
         Day by day it becomes more obvious that our state apparatus is a blatant racist organisation. The legislation being churned out by one Suella Braverman, another Cambridge educate millionaire, yes a millionaire with a net worth of approximately £3.5Million, is unflinching racist. Her legislation treats refugees as less than human. She considers it a legal policy to lock them up in camps, etc. denies them access to normal human decency or health care. She does this in the tradition of the UK state apparatus and is backed up by her political cohorts. The UK welcomed refugees from Ukraine, offering them places in the homes of ordinary people, but locks up those refugees that don't quite fit the European mould. All the more why we must continue to bring racism and its cancerous results into every debate on how we organise our society.       

The following is an extract and images from Unions Against Racism

          Here is a force that can defeat the hostile environment and the government's racist offensive. Well done to the up to 2000 anti-racists who came to Glasgow today to #MarchAgainstRacism and say #AllRefugeesWelcome & #BlackLivesMatter. We are the majority and we will #StandUpToRacism Stand Up To Racism Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) #WorldAgainstRacism #Unions4Unity #UnionsAgainstRacism 

 

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Keelie 37.

 

             Glasgow Keelie 37 is on the streets, look out for it, you'll find it at picket lines, protests, strikers support rallies, in cafes, pubs and on the street, watch out for it and grab your free copy of Glasgow's own radical newspaper. Find out what's happening in our city and further afield, and how to get involved, a pocket rocket of a newspaper jam packed with info. If you think you can contribute, or would like a few copies to distribute among your mates, please get in touch at glasgowkeelie@riseup.net Read it on line at https://glasgowkeelie.org You can also find us Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. 

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info