A Police State?

 

        In this wee posting I don't intend to say anything, just post three wee videos and let you ponder them and come to you own conclusions. Note police gathering in close proximity with no thought to distancing and no masks?

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State Killings.

       Prisons, those state institutions of repression, often run by private corporations who, as usual, make profit from people's misery, are harsh and brutal places. However, a prison sentence should not mean a death sentence, but all too often it does. To be locked in a cage is inhumane enough, but to die locked in such conditions is a criminal indictment against the state and its festering apparatus.

   The recent death in a Turkish prison, of a musician, must surely shock all those who hear of this tragedy, and voices must be raised in anger.

Istanbul, Turkey: Helin Bölek Dies After 288 Days of Hunger Strike

Posted on 04/04/2020 by anarchistsworldwide

 

 

      After 288 days on hunger strike, comrade Helin Bölek died today, Friday the 3rd of April, 2020.
      Helin was a member of the left-wing music group “Grup Yorum” in Turkey. She was not the only hunger striker, other members of the music group are still going. With their hunger strike they demand the release of the imprisoned group members and an end to the criminalization of their group. Today, 1000 people in Istanbul took to the streets and held a memorial service in spite of coronavirus and police repression.
      Grup Yorum are banned from performing because they are accused of being members of the banned Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C). Grup Yorum makes music for workers and they convey political content. This is a crime in the Turkish state today. The group members protest against this draconian treatment with a hunger strike. For some of them, forced feeding has been ordered by the state, this measure can also end in death.
       This cruel inhumanity affects us. The workers’ choir of the IWW Bern (Industrial Workers of the World) calls for as many people as possible to show solidarity with the hunger strikers. Raise you voice – worldwide! It is not too late to fulfill the demands of the group and save them from death.

Freedom for all prisoners!
An attack on one is an attack on all!

www.wobblies.org
www.facebook.com/iwwjam

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Hand-To_hand.

      During this pandemic, people's thoughts fly in different directions, and rightly so. This whole episode in our lives is certainly food for thought, the failings  of our society, the possibilities of dramatic change to the way we structure our society, the need for the ordinary people to take control of the decisions that shape our lives, build a world free from the profit motive, bring an end to the ruthless financial Mafia that at present dictates the shape of our world to the benefit of the few. 

    With all of this and more running through my head as it does in others, there is one thought that persistently pushes itself to the front of my mind. We don't produce enough anarchist literature, that hard copy, that tangible thing of paper that we can read and pass from one to the other. I know, the internet is there, but not everybody walks that road. Anarchism is a big field and it grows a wide and varied harvest, let's throw its fruits far and wide. The leaflet, pamphlet, flyer, booklet, serial, are all every bit as necessary and as productive as as the blog, social media etc.

    So I'm always delighted when a new issue appears, whether it is a first or the next issue of anarchist thought, action, tactics, strategies deeds, I don't have to agree with everything that is published, but they can be handed hand-to-hand and should open the door to discussion of our ideas at cafes, bars, workplace, meetings and households, etc. we have a bottomless pit of ideas for that better world for all, let's throw them around more freely.      

    The second issue of RUMOER is now available

       The second edition of the anarchist publication Rumoer is out! A publication which will hopefully provoke discussion, irritation, inspiration, agitation, and attack. Because we do not want a raise in wages, but the destruction of work. Because we do not want to shout ‘boo!’ but want to hear BOOM! We want a confrontation without compromise with the system that is destroying our lives and the planet.
       In this issue some extra attention for the rampaging Covid-19 virus. But also just the ongoing anarchist interventions and other topics: an interview with a graffiti maker in Lebanon, the fight against Shell, post-gentrification and the use of the Signal app.
       If you want to receive the new Rumoer, send an email to: rumoer (((A))) riseup /// net. Since most social centres are currently closed, we ask you to help spread the latest edition. Order some extra copies and bring it to your neighbours, isolated family, friends and comrades.
       You can also download the new Rumoer or print it yourself. The link to the downloads can be found at rumoer.noblogs.org
      Remember, the streets are empty, the possibilities are open. Keep 1.5 meters away, but always at least ten times as much from the police!

Destroy what destroys you
Radio on
Smartphones on
Films on
Tablets on
Travels bought
Cars bought
Houses bought
Furniture bought
For what?
Trains going
Dollars flowing
Machines going
People toiling
Motors made
Canons made
For whom?
Destroy what destroys you
Bombers flying
Tanks rolling
Cops hitting
Soldiers falling
Stocks protected
Managers protected
The state protected
Against us?
Destroy what destroys you

You can download the English version HERE:

Cover
Print PDF
Read PDF

 

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Where Is The Anger?

       The following video (thanks Loam for the link) could be about any country in the developed world, the numbers may vary, but the procedure is the same. A crisis is bailout time for the corporate moguls. What I particularly like about this video is not just the facts, but the anger, not enough of us are getting angry at this mechanism of "crisis = plunder of the public purse" by the wealthy and powerful. The multi-billionaires just love a crisis, they know that they will be handed the keys of the public coffers, not because they are poor and suffering, but because they are rich and in control. It is so blatantly obvious I don't understand the lack of outright anger, the media will keep you preoccupied with stories of all those brave people putting their lives on the line to save people, with scarce resources, an underfunded health service and a decimated social services system, but very little of how much the billionaires will plunder from the ever dwindling public purse.

     Just one putrid example is multi billionaire Richard Branson, he owns an island, uses it as a tax haven for his corporate empire, made lots of that billionaire loot from his Virgin Airline, and now when his money machine is slowing down he wants the UK tax payer to help supplement his income. Where is our righteous anger, we should be taking him to the public square and putting him is the stocks for people to vent their anger on. A man with unbridled greed and conceit, applauded by the media as a celebrity and successful businessman.  

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk  

Insane On A Whim.

 

       The situation is serious, regarding the draconian legislation brought in on the pretext of fighting the pandemic, your basic rights are being eradicated. One individual can now decide who should be sent to a mental health institution, thereby stripped of all their rights, and forced take medication, at the whim of one individual, possible not fully trained in these matters. Difficult individuals, awkward people as seen by the state and its minions, prisoners that are a nuisance to the system, individuals that question authority, all can fall foul of this new legislation. We must ask ourselves, is this authoritarian step necessary to control this pandemic, or is it just another weapon in the state's toolkit for total control of the population, should the public get really angry as this mess drags on, and the aftermath  is rampant unemployment, endemic poverty and a society that is knee deep in deprivation. This was nodded through by a bunch of wealthy political ballerinas that are well protected from the devastating ravishes of the aftermath that will follow on from this collapse of the existing system, that is sure to follow this pandemic.

The following from 325:

Prison-state UK comes into law: coronavirus.

       The Coronavirus Act 2020 in the UK is now in force for the next two years. It is a totalitarian coup by a right-wing government which has already shown it’s utter contempt for the judiciary, for parliament and for the people. Many of the provisions of this Act are already experienced by those on the margins of society, by dissidents, those in the prison and criminal justice system, the poor, and ethnic groups consistently disposed of by the police and the system, through poverty, imprisonment and death. Now the grand experiment is whether the kind of control infrastructure and total suspension of rights already administered to particular groups can be rolled out to the entire population.

     The most manipulable provisions come, as ever, under the Mental Health sections. Always a good catch-all since dissidence, illegality and criticism of the existent is already considered by the system to be tantamount to mental illness, people can now be hospitalised and medicated on the say-so of a single approved clinician. This power of one also decides the fate of those awaiting trial, convicted persons (we wonder whether that refers to anyone with a criminal record regardless of their current status) and those currently serving prison time: the Act allows a single person to sign off on a transfer from a prison to mental hospital. To the cynical, it might imply that unruly prison populations or undesirables (either currently or historically) are now living under the threat of being summarily detained or if already detained, then transferred and sedated with a no-questions-asked decision by a single clinician.

      Under coronavirus, the criteria that elects someone to the status of a person approved to implement these laws is considerably relaxed. Under the emergency laws, a person applying to volunteer as a health worker or social worker can be approved by a single senior administrator who believes the person is “fit, proper and suitably experienced”. Moreover, this administrator can approve a group of people who have organised themselves as such, presumably concerned ‘citizens groups’, without assessing each individual within that group. While the public health sections appear not to allow forced medical treatment, although it does allow for forced screening and assessment including the taking by force of biological samples from your body, the mental health provisions do allow people to be medicated by force, again to be decided by a single officer.

Dissidents and undesirables will also fall foul of the sections dealing with Potentially Infectious Persons (PIP), again this designation to be the whim of a single official. As they roll out their totalitarian nightmare under the guise of coronavirus, all civil liberties are suspended. They do not expect this strange compliance to last. It cannot last. In the UK, there is barely any social welfare for people being rolled out and a huge swathe of the population, already broken by a decade of Tory rule, are hungry now. There have already been riots.

       There are infectious diseases and there are infectious ideas: it is the latter that they are most keen to contain. For either, just read ‘Potentially Infectious Person’! The new Act allows for arrest and detention, new search and entry laws, and retention of an potentially infectious person’s things. Detention has a time limit but can be extended… and extended… and extended with no legal rights. Restrictions on a potentially infectious person’s movement, place of residence, activities and social contact, previously reserved for those leaving prison but still on licence, could now be rolled out for anyone with potentially infectious ideas under the guise of public health concerns.

       We are witnessing the building of a new wall where borders can be and are closed at a moment’s notice. Countries are being sealed off overnight. This is how the horror happens. One day you enjoy “free movement”, the next it is punishable by the law, if not death. The same status that refugees and undocumented people fleeing wars and shot at the borders have, blamed and vilified for the problems of the capitalist society.

      The new laws surrounding the registration of death and disposal of bodies are some of the darkest pieces of this legislation. In essence, there is no longer a need for an inquest, no investigation into suspicious deaths, there is no safeguard surrounding the recording of a cause of death which can simply be written by a temporarily registered medical practitioner (not the doctor attending the death), no medical certificate is required for cremation or burial and the disposal of remains and the place of disposal is taken out of the hands of relatives and given to national or local authorities regardless of the wishes of the deceased or relatives. How easy it would be to disappear us under such conditions.

      Totalitarianism is born under the pretence of necessity, of protection, of security. This moment is no different. Whatever the truth of the deadliness of this virus, the world created by this new legislation, the willingness of the people to accept it and the potential abuses written into it, are sobering. It reveals if not the plan then the opportunism of the totalitarian project which underlies the techno-industrial civilisation: immediate suspension of elections and referendums, no right of assembly or protest (which lockdown conditions have already illegalised), the implementation of the virtual and cashless surveillance society, the army on the streets as a matter of course, a police state whereby every move is monitored, absolute and unmitigated powers of detention (which must be experienced in isolation) and subjection of the individual to medical intervention, complete and punitive control of the movement, activity and association of individuals and groups, and a dismantling of safeguards over causes of death, recourse to an inquest and disposal of bodies. As scared and confused as people are by this pandemic, we must remember that the measures introduced by dictatorships to control populations often seem reasonable or even laudable at the time and are born of an irresistible logic that is embraced by the good citizen, whether that is the logic of communism, nationalism, protectionism or the logic of infection.

       We must also remember that throughout history people fought back against the false logic of their social and political reality. They also risked being detained, medicated, tortured, and killed. The states of emergency being rolled out by our national governments are in danger of becoming the new normal if we do not fight back. We are always facing death, both physical and metaphysical. This is an extraordinary moment in which we may find we have more comrades than we know as the system’s collapse reveals not only people’s crippling dependence on it, but also the forms of our potential liberation as critical masses experience new ways of being, new priorities and desires, that will not be met by a post-pandemic return to business as usual and also will not tolerate this state of emergency for long. As ever, our task is to find our leverage in this situation, to find our opportunities to engage according to our own anarchic principles, to organise against and despite of the tightening of control, to expose it for what it is and to break out of our isolation and the state of fear that is the real virus.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Blood Technology.

     It is a rather dim-witted person that is unaware of the Israeli apartheid state's ongoing genocide of the people of Palestine, This is carried out in front of the eyes and ears of the so called free democratic world, and they do nothing but collude with this vile regime. Most states gain from the expertise the Israeli state has gleaned by testing and experimenting with its various new surveillance, control and war technology, on the Palestinian people. States across the globe eagerly purchase and install this blood stained technology to help control their own populations.

    Only the people can stop this money for misery experiment, to rely on the users is naivety in the extreme.

This from BDN

 

Dear Supporter,
       Our thoughts are with people everywhere fighting the coronavirus. Israel’s apartheid regime has used the pandemic as a smokescreen to intensify its oppression of Palestinians, with even more impunity than ever. Palestinians count on your continued support during this difficult period, including through online actions you can take from home to end international complicity in Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

     Decades of Israeli military occupation and apartheid have devastated Palestinians’ health infrastructure, particularly in the Gaza Strip. The first coronavirus cases have been detected in Gaza while Israel continues its siege on two million Palestinians imprisoned there.

      Israel's largest arms company, Elbit Systems, profits from the siege on Gaza — “battle-testing” its killer drones, white phosphorus, sniper bullets and fighter jet parts, all deployed by the Israeli occupation army to murder or maim Palestinians. Elbit Systems’ Hermes 900 drones were among Israel’s drones that murdered 164 Palestinian children in Gaza in 2014.

     Now the European Union is using Elbit’s Hermes 900 drones to implement the EU’s deadly anti-migration policies.

Sign a petition telling the EU: Don’t finance Israel's military industry, respect refugee rights

    Elbit’s drones are used for aerial surveillance of refugees in the Mediterranean. The EU is betraying its legal and ethical obligation to save lives, replacing boats with Israel’s killer drones, turning the Mediterranean into a cemetery.

Share the petition with others: The EU must say no to Elbit’s killer drones

    Elbit Systems also produces surveillance technology for Israel’s apartheid wall, fence around Gaza and military checkpoints, enabling Israel's apartheid rule.

    In the US, Elbit provides surveillance technology for Trump’s wall with Mexico, which is destroying the land of Arizona’s indigenous Tohono O’odham Nation, and preventing refugees from seeking safety in the US.

Share the news: Elbit spreads deadly repression, we spread solidarity and compassion

     Human rights campaigns are scoring wins in efforts to #StopElbit. Major European pension funds and banks have divested from Elbit. In 2018, the French insurance giant AXA, which calls itself “the most ethical insurer in the world,” divested from Elbit, but only partially, failing to live up to its motto.

Tell AXA to fully divest: insurance companies should invest in life, not in Israeli arms

     Our thanks to Visualizing Palestine for their valuable new infographics showing how Elbit Systems profits from grave human rights violations.

In solidarity,

Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

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Our New Normal.

      We have to be ever vigilant to make sure this new framework that has been imposed on us does not become the "new normal". These new measures that we were first asked to comply with and now have to obey by enforced legislation, like all controls brought into being by state legislation, have a habit of remaining on the statute book. They remain there in the tool kit of the state to ensure control over the population. It is up to us to make sure that, when this is over we reclaim our lives and live them as we wish, but with society structured differently to ensure that we finally see the shackles of this present oppressive and exploitative system dumped in the bin of history with the label, "Our Darkest Hour", after all, having exploited us for centuries, it failed us drastically in our hour of need. We know we  can build a better and fairer world, we just have to come together in communities of co-operation and mutual aid, freed from the cancerous profit motive. We the ordinary people must create our own "New Normal".

This from Acorn, Winter Oak:

    We don’t want your “new normal”.
    We don’t want the “smart” fascist future you have been trying to sell us for so long and which you are now trying to force upon us with lies, fear and all your infrastructures of control.
     We don’t want to be little submissive cogs in your machineries of greed and exploitation.
      We don’t want to be told how to live and what to think.
     We don’t want to be locked up indoors at your majesties’ pleasure, only allowed out of our cells to labour for your profit.
      We don’t want to be distanced, isolated and alienated.
     We don’t want to be the individually-wrapped slices of human flesh on which you gorge.
     We didn’t want your first industrial revolution – when you threw us off our land and caged us in your dark satanic mills – and we certainly don’t want your fourth.
     We don’t want to be cut off from the living world and confined to your sterile fake reality.
     We don’t want to be policed and preached at by your drones and robots.
     We don’t have to ask your permission to enjoy the world in which we belong – we will do so whenever, however and with whomever we choose.
    We are not prepared to be patronised, humiliated or microchipped.
    We refuse to plug ourselves meekly into the matrix of your total control.
    We want you to bear in mind that you do not own us, that you cannot buy us and you will never control us.
      We want you to know that we are free and will remain so unto the grave.
      We want you to realise that when our time comes, we will make you pay for what you are doing to us. And we want to remind you that there are very many more of us than of you

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Solidarity Virus.

       The coronavirus and the state imposed lockdown has quietened must streets across the world, but in Chile where a full blow insurrection was being played out before the pandemic struck, has not followed the majority of countries. The anger is still being played out on the streets, with supermarkets being looted and police attacked, the people's anger is still determined to bring the system down. There are times when public anger will not be pacified by state legislation, even when that legislation is backed up by brutal state repression.

The following from Anarchists Worldwide: 

Solidarity is the Virus that Capitalism Fears

 

       A day of robberies in big chain stores to distribute to homeless people. Audio-visual material recorded in the streets of Santiago, $hile in times of quarantine and militarized curfew under the pretext of the Covid-19 virus.

      All sanitary measures were taken to avoid harming the street people in terms of hygiene and viruses, but the use of white overalls is a gesture of rebellion and action against the power here in the territory governed by the $hilean state. Many high school students resist and attack the police in their jails-schools while wearing these clothes that the police hate and fear. Here is a video for those who didn’t know and to give some context.

 

Long live the violent war against authority and power!

As long as misery exists there will be rebellion!

Prisoners of war to the streets!

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Love Virus.

       The coronavirus is a problem that must be faced by all of us, and while the medical profession and scientists work feverishly to protect and take care of us, while diligently seeking that cure, the rest of us can see the coronavirus as a spotlight that allows us to focus on the structures we live under and why they have failed us so drastically. Obviously a profit motivated system will not have as its priority the well being of all our people, and so the very foundations of how we structure society must be brought under scrutiny. Any aspect of the system we create that in anyway produces inequality must be jettisoned, only those structures that nurture caring, co-operation and consideration for all must be built into our future structures. As human beings, sharing, caring and friendship create feelings of well-being, and must be the foundations of our future society. However this can only be brought about be the determined will  of the people and their direct action, to fall back and rely on those architects of the present obviously flawed and failed system, would be to create the same mistakes as before. 

    I have always maintained that we are all born anarchists, but we allow the present society to shape us to its needs. Let's start to look for that child anarchist in our hearts and make it our life. After all in reality anarchism is for lovers, and that should be the foundation of our society. The vaccine for the ills of this society is mutual aid, across the board. Let the Love-Virus run free.

    The following is an extract from an article in Void Network 

 

 

      -----We would feel safer if we knew that our country and other countries had not destroyed public health for years, if we knew that we had free electricity, water and telephone in our homes, if we did not have to pay 80% of our wages each month for rent and bills. We would feel safer if we knew we had adequate Intensive Care Units, if we knew we had a large number of doctors, teachers, nurses, cooks, artists, poets and happy grandparents whispering to our children fairytales. There are many questions about how a society ultimately manages every health, economic and social crisis – what we consider important and what is insignificant. How do we meet the medical and living needs of the population? How do we protect the weak, the poor, the elderly from the speculators, the opportunists, the exploiters? How do we heal this world from social injustice?
      Confronting the upheaving coronavirus epidemic cannot be a matter of restrictions, but of research for medication and for vaccines and of their free distribution for all; a matter of equipping the Health Care with the necessary medicines and protective equipment and the requisition of the private sector clinics, by strengthening the health system with human resources and new public hospitals. We need to produce and hand-out a completely free test for everyone – for, everyone has the right to know whether they are sick or not. Let’s be brave and think: Our living conditions are changing, today let us launch a new survival plan. Let society decide, not the rulers. Surely, from now on, anyone who talks about “private hospitals” will be considered a criminal. Surely, tenants must stop paying rent and bills until the crisis is over and demand a total rent reduction after the end of the pandemic. A huge rent strike is currently underway around the world. It is our duty to support it.
      Let us express our deep gratitude and admiration to all medical staff, medical students, people working in welfare, those who participate in self-organized solidarity structures, and all those who will save human lives by risking their own, every single person in the neighborhoods who will help to alleviate the pain of others. Void Network as an affinity group promise that we will strive to be among those who will help in every possible way.

That’s what we need – care and treatment.

Long Live Human Freedom, Equality, Mutual-help and Love.
       Each of us carries a story, of our own pain. Now we all have a common History. Let’s take these moments to get to know the world better. This whole adventure will be over, let us improve ourselves, let us create relationships and social structures for a more just and cooperative world – a world that stands against social injustice, inequality and the repression of liberties.
      It takes patience; we need to look at life in a new way. We are sure we will meet again. Let’s prepare our future plans solely on the basis of love and kindness.

We will hug each other again!

LOVE – POWER

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Self-Absolution.

           One thing this insane society has been persistant on is spending vast amounts of money on armaments, massive aircraft carrier, updating trident nuclear submarines, then there is the trillion dollar F35 fighter jet, to name but a few, billions spent on sending our young people to foreign countries to “fight terrorism”. All this was sold to us as keeping us safe and now when a real emergency attacks our country, we find ourselves completely naked and vulnerable, and at the mercy of a pandemic. No doubt all our political ballerinas who supported the vast cuts to the NHS, benefits and social services, and voted for all that military spending, will in no way feel any guilt. One thing our politicians are really good at is practicing self-absolution, what is more, we let them get away with this self cleansing and allow them to merrily go on pontificating in the marble halls of power, and drawing their bounty with privileges.
         The ravages this country and others are now facing, can be placed firmly at the feet of those political ballerinas. They must have been aware that our health services were near breaking point, our decimated social services creating ever increasing numbers of vulnerable people. However, it mattered not, as their vested interests focused their attention on “growing the economy” that magical altar where their cronies and bedfellows worship at, as they make their billions, and to hell with society.
        Now surely is the time of reckoning, now is the moment when rebuilding is on the horizon, that we, the ordinary people cry out, “enough is enough” and start to dismantle this edifice to greed, corruption and plundering of the public purse by the privileged pampered few. There is another way.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Now Or Never?

       It must now be obvious to even the most the apolitical and apathetic of our society, that the way our society is structured has failed miserably to protect the vast majority of our citizens. This economic system has allowed our pampered privileged parasite class, through corruption and greed, to plunder the public purse and exploit the majority, for nothing more than personal gain. They have squandered the tremendous ingenuity, productivity and industrious effort of the vast majority on nothing more than personal opulence and phony grandeur.

    We are now faced with a choice that has to be made quickly, do we continue to allow this to happen, or do we call a halt, and take control of our lives ourselves. The coronavirus has not brought about society's failings, it has merely shown them in great detail to the vast majority of our people.

      As always in times of disaster and upheaval, the public react with mutual aid and co-operation, despite the failings of the system. This time we have the opportunity to expand these groups and link up, spreading this human idea of mutual aid to all aspects of our society, shaping that society in a more fair and humane manner. Capitalism, the cause of inequality, injustice and wars, is in crisis, it is up to us to ensure it dies, and is replaced with a society that sees to the needs of all our people, one based on mutual aid, co-operation, sustainability and free from the profit motive. Let's see this pandemic as an opportunity to rid ourselves of the real disaster of capitalism and all that it entails, from corruption, inequality, unbridled greed and endless wars.  

The following call from Greece:

Anti-Covid19: Network for Mutual Aid and Struggle (Greece)

       In the unprecedented social conditions we are living in, the spread of coronavirus has taken critical dimensions for the national healthcare systems and the capitalist mode of production as well as social organisation in general. For the system to survive, state and bosses implement totalitarian politics and a further devaluation of our lives.

– Lack of health facilities for the big majority of the population

– Militarisation of our everyday life, with a ban on transportation enforced through economic, surveilled and penal repression

– Mass layoffs, intensification and dire conditions for those working in hospitals, super markets, fast food restaurants, telecommunications

– Creation of concentration camps for migrants and mass incarceration in prisons without any health provision

– No meaningful measure for the homeless, drug users, sex workers

– Increase of domestic and gender violence cases as well as psychological breakdowns due to the prolonged confinement of people in their homes

       All of the above make up a dystopia to which we deem necessary to respond to in a direct and collective way, self-organised and in solidarity with every subject that is experiencing the physical, psychical and mental consequences of totalitarianism; and at the same time to fight to break the unproductive and totalitarian management of the present crisis by the state. For these reasons we want to communicate and create a network for solidarity and struggle, with initial aims the following:

         Food and medicine collection and delivery; or meals from social kitchens

Psychosocial support. Converstation through phone and even face-to-face private meeting, adhering to the healthcare measures

       Reporting domestic and gender violence cases and direct interventions

Collect and publish information from concentration camps and prisons

The responsibility is not collective as the state is shamelessly trying to manipulate us through the horror-loving coverage of the virus by the media, but it is first and foremost the state’s responsibility. The pointed shifting of responsibilities from the state and its representatives to each individual for the acquittal of the systematic underfunding and understaffing of the healthcare system is unacceptable and vile. We are not to blame for the shortages of permanent medical staff, intensive care units, medical equipment but the particular governements that spent thousands of euros to save banks or for military equipment instead of staffing undervalued public hospitals.

       We put forward as a direct collective action a freeze in payments, debts, rent, electricity, water, internet, public transportation. According to us these basic services should be free anyway and let alone in a situation of financial destabilisation like this. All people of the exploited and non-privileged class have to spare their money for basic consumer goods like food and medicine, since the future is uncertain.

WE DEMAND FROM THE STATE AND THE BOSSES

        Permanent socialization of all private healthcare facilities and health products units.

         Unemployment benefit to all laid-off workers and the unemployed.

All goods to be sold at cost price, super market bosses do not profit off our backs.

       Compliance with the demands of workers for pay, working time, even the cessation of employment for their self-protection.

       Closure of all capitalist structures (factories, shops etc.) that don’t cover basic needs.

       Compliance with the demands of prisoners and release of all high-risk individuals, prisoners with charges of less than 5 years, and all those who await trial. Setting up healthcare facilities for prisoners and provision of sanitary products.

        Closure of all concentration camps and papers to all migrants.

Transformation of airbnb and hotels to self-containment facilities for people with symptoms, high-risk groups, people affected by domestic and gender violence and people facing housing issues.

       Tsiodras shed crocodile tears for the people who are to get sick and invited us all to assume our responsibilities for the protection of public health. Recognising that public health includes also people in factories, prisons and concentration camps, we announce that if the state doesn’t care about public health in total, we have the collective responsibility to take actions to ensure this. We also inform that we will necessarily move on to organise and escalate similar actions in case the state continues the exploitation of the state of emergency to repress its political enemies, anarchists and fighters, and to pass laws that it wouldn’t be able to pass in times of mobilisation. The movement and the people of the social base are already organising mutual-aid and resistance structures for the current crisis and the upcoming impoverishment and no martial law can stop them. The survival of the repressed and the exploited in times of a general crises depends directly on their self-organisation, thus any attempt to repress must be answered in defiance of any restrictions.

Phoneline: 00306945276127

Email: synsquat@riseup.net

FB: https://www.facebook.com/AntiCovidAidNetwork/

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A Long Struggle.

      Proclaiming to be an anarchist in this system of economic madness is seen as being a threat, and a reason to have you silenced in one way or another, preferably locked up. The case of John Bowden is one glaring example. John Bowden has served 40 years in prison and had four parole requests rejected. The main reason for those rejections was not that he was a possible threat to the public, but that he held anarchist views and was in frequent contact with anarchist groups such as Anarchist Black Cross. Four parole requests rejected simply on the bases of his political views, not his threat to the public, says a lot about our loaded judicial system. In this so called "democracy" holding a political view that fights for equality and justice, and in doing so threatens not the public but those pampered privileged parasites that hold the levers of power, is seen as a crime and must be silenced. They have failed in the past, and they will always fail to silence the human cry for justice, freedom and equality.

A now defunct poster, sadly there are many others to take its place.

 

This from Act For Freedom Now:

       On the 20th February, the Parole Board finally agreed to my release after forty years of my imprisonment and four previous parole hearings when my release was denied not because I represented a risk or danger to the public but because I was labelled an “anti-authoritarian” prisoner with links to anarchist and communist groups on the outside, specifically Anarchist Black Cross and the Revolutionary Communist Group.
      Following a parole knockback of my release last year, I instigated a Judicial Review of the decision. Which although it did not succeed fired a judicial shot across the bows of the Parole Board and Ministry of Justice. And persuade them that future decisions on my release or not would have to be based on proper legal criteria. Specifically, whether my continued imprisonment could be justified in the Interests of public protection and-not just because I was labelled a “difficult prisoner” by the – prison authorities.
      So, the parole panel considering my case in February of this year had to admit there was no real lawful justification for my continued imprisonment and so reluctantly agreed to my release. However, in its written decision, the Parole Board claimed that my “current risk factors” included “anti-authority views” and “attitudes supportive of the use of violence.” It also wrote: “During your sentence, you have evidenced that you have a mistrust of those in authority and professionals have previously reported that if you felt unfairly treated or discriminated against, coupled with any engagement with anti-social peers, then this could increase your risk of violence. Your attitude towards authority and your personality characteristics have also been considered by professionals to present a potential challenge in your future risk management.”
       Focusing specifically on my contact with prisoner support on the outside the parole decision report says:. ‘it is clear from official reports that you have passionate political views and during your sentence, you have engaged with groups that have been described as anarchist groups (specifically Anarchist Black Cross). You stated that these groups could be forthright and radical in their protests, but they were not terrorist groups and did not advocate violence.
You told the panel that you’ve had a lot of time on your hands in prison, and this has facilitated your contact with such groups and your general interest in criminal and social justice, equality, unfairness and inequality.” It then concludes with “The panel accepted that your passion for standing up for people whom you believe need support is unlikely to impact adversely on your risk to the outside community. However, the panel was mindful that when you were previously at large having escaped you were helped considerably by associates you had met through these groups and therefore it would need to be borne in mind that you might be provided with assistance if you disengage with supervision in the community”.
        However, in its final decision, the parole Board admitted that my actual risk or danger to the public was minimal and therefore there was no lawful reason why I should remain imprisoned, and on the 13th March the Ministry of Justice agreed to my release.
       Despite 40 years of imprisonment I finally emerge from prison unbroken and my political integrity uncompromised and unyielding, and I want to deeply thank all the comrades who have supported me during my long imprisonment and provided me with the strength to maintain my struggle, especially comrades in Anarchist Black Cross and the Revolutionary Communist Group. I salute you, comrades!
John Bowden
HMP Warrenhill
March 2020
Source: Brighton ABC… please visit
https://www.brightonabc.org.uk/john/ileave.html
Additional note: John was released yesterday. Please check Brighton ABC
website for future statements… https://www.brightonabc.org.uk/
email brightonabc[at]riseup.net

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Food For Thought.

 

     We can look at this pandemic as something that is happening to us, or we can see it as something that is showing up the glaring inadequacies in the present structure of society, forcing us to think again about how we function as a society. It is obvious that the existing structure of the way we live is incapable of dealing with this sort of event, due in some great measure to the value given to profit rather than worth to humanity. Wealth accumulation for the individual is seen as success, rather than improving the quality of life for all, thus producing a society of inequality and insecurity. In the aftermath of this pandemic, is that what we want to rebuild? I recently heard a comment that made perfect sense to me, "If you live in a shanty town and a hurricane comes along and completely destroys your shanty town, when it has past and you realise that you will have to rebuild, do you rebuild another shanty town, or do you try to build something better?"

Some food for thought from Anarchist News:

 1. A pandemic isn’t a collection of viruses, but is a social relation among people, mediated by viruses.

Nothing is inevitable, inescapable, or immutable about the coronavirus pandemic unfolding everywhere around us, simply because the pandemic is social. The endless posts and announcements marshalling us to help “flatten the curve” are at least enough to make clear that the historical consequences and human costs of the pandemic entirely depend on the ways we collectively choose to live in relation to it. Because the pandemic doesn’t simply happen to us but is instead something we partake in, a first step forward in these times is to refuse to curtail our thinking to how each of our individual lives may be particularly impacted by the virus and to begin to contemplate the potential we collectively share to change the course of the pandemic as well as to shape the new society that emerges from it.

2. At the very least, the expanding suspension of social, economic, and political norms and laws provides each of us with a unique opportunity to question the pre-pandemic world we had all grown accustomed to living within.

What is the value of work? How might we allocate resources differently if we didn’t have to consider price? Is privatized healthcare defensible? Are prisons truly necessary? As we witness the cancellation of utility, mortgage, and rent payments, the public takeover of private healthcare systems, the cessation of arrests for low-level offenses, and the calls for the cancellation of all debt, what else might we call into question and, perhaps more importantly, imagine taking hold in their place? If those in power are so willing to upend social, economic, and political norms and laws in the interest of defending the world they upheld, then we must be equally willing to upend them and spread the imagination of something otherwise. In this short time, we can already see that the only truly certain thing in the pandemic is that nothing will ever be the same again.

3. As nation states prove unwilling and/or incapable of supporting life, our immediate and urgent priority must be to organize mutual aid, solidarity, and care using whatever means necessary.

It truly didn’t take long for the specters of pandemic darwinism and viral malthusianism to surface, finding support in politicians around the world who tell their citizens that they are on their own. If the state and the market economy prove to be unable to provide the diverse forms of care upon which all life depends, we must find ways of providing that care without concern for who owns what or whether it is legal. In this sense, the struggle to defend life in the pandemic will at times necessarily take shape as a direct struggle against the logic of capital, the violence of law, and the abstraction of price. We must learn about our own needs and the needs of those we are capable of caring for, find ways of producing, expropriating, and distributing goods that satisfy the needs of interconnected and interdependent communities, and be willing to simply take what is needed whenever it is denied to us.

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