Greek Summer.

      While tourists fly in to Greece and its beautiful beaches and islands, perhaps they should take a moment and have a look at what is happening to the ordinary people who inhabit that little patch of the planet.
        Police violence is not something that is limited to any one patch on this planet, every state has it array of armed thugs, and experience tells us that violence by police is part and parcel of their routine. They must serve their master, the state, obediently and wholeheartedly.

The following extracts are from crimethinc: 

 Summer in Greece: New Democracy Edition.

          In Greece, following the accession of the New Democracy party and a ban on freedom of assembly, the simmering conflict between anarchists and the far right continues, even in the middle of summer. In this report, we cover gentrification, escalating tensions with Turkey, ecological struggles, refugee and prisoner solidarity, the eviction of the historic Terra Incognita squat, and more.
         The Greek government and its bootlickers and beneficiaries are stumbling towards disaster. The economic crisis of 2008 will soon be seen as easier times. While tourists wander Greece dropping coins into the pockets of the bosses, only half of society can afford to take a holiday this year—something considered indispensable in the hot Greek summer. COVID-19 cases are at record highs. The daily infection rates are much higher than they were when the country was in formal lockdown back in March. Yet the state continues cutting hospital budgets in order to redirect funds to police agencies, focusing on its human opponents rather than the virus.
        In Greece, as elsewhere in the world, revolutionaries, the excluded, and the exploited struggle with self-preservation both materially and psychologically in the face of the slow-motion COVID-19 apocalypse and the right-wing police state. While new measures are going into effect and a second lockdown seems likely, we find strength in understanding that both our precarity and the struggle against it are shared globally. The struggle here is rooted deep in the discontent of countless beautiful hearts and a history in the streets: “Even if we never win, we will always fight!” -------

Police Violence:   Rest in Power, Vassilis Maggos 

 

 

     ---------As described in our last report, the anarchist Vassilis Maggos was brutally beaten by police during a demonstration expressing solidarity with those arrested while protesting a cement factory in Volos. He suffered intense psychological trauma while in recovery from the beating. Police seized his body from his family in order for the police to use their own coroner, following a public outcry about the 26-year-old’s death. The police brought in Eleni Kalyva to conduct the autopsy—she is a well-known ally that the police have repeatedly employed to investigate controversial cases in which officers may have been at fault. She is known to have fascist sympathies and a close relationship with the current government.
       Eleni Kalyva’s conclusion was that Vassilis died of acute pulmonary edema. The police claim that this was not due to the beating; however, the full investigation has not been made public, and his family is seeking outside help. Vassilis spent his final weeks of his life recovering from the pain and trauma of being beaten by police. Using a familiar playbook, right-wing social media have cited personal issues such as drug use as a way to suggest that Vassilis was responsible for his own death. Even if drug use had something to do with his passing, the trauma of being beaten and tortured by police was clearly the cause of his tragic death, and drug use or other issues do not diminish the responsibility of the police.
       The police also brought Eleni Kalyva to investigate the murder of a girl in Trikala in late July, when a 16-year-old girl who was known to have a relationship with a police officer was found dead outside of a church. Kalyva was called in to investigate her death after suspicions began to circulate that the girl had been murdered by her police officer boyfriend. Now we are told that the girl climbed to the top of the church and killed herself—which would be a surprising feat, given the details of the situation, but Kalyva confirmed the claims of the police.
      Anarchists and anti-fascist football fans have spread murals, banners, and graffiti across Greece remembering Vassilis Maggos. A Molotov cocktail attack against a government building in Volos took place in this his name, as well as an arson attack on a bank in Marroussi, Athens. He will be remembered.-----

The world-famous Terra Incognita squat before its eviction.

Conclusion 

         It’s August in Greece and most people are away from their homes—or wish they could be. It’s hot and the situation is grim. Yet even amid the harsh summer, there have been demonstrations against the bill described in our previous report banning unpermitted protests. Fresh graffiti all over the country expresses insurrectionary discontent.
      The church and the far right count on the neo-liberal New Democracy administration to coddle them. Greece received some seventy billion euros in COVID-19 relief from the European union, but we know that money will chiefly serve to provide more contracts to the wealthy and to hire more police to protect their power and enforce their laws. Whatever happens in the coming months, we hope the fall will see a new wave of resistance ignite in Greece and around the world.

Read the full article HERE: 

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

Tory War.

       Party political politics have never been my strong point, but I can't help take a little giggle of glee at the possibility of the coming war within the Tory party. The financial pundits of both sides are as usual clamoring to get the "national" debt under control. However that's where the split comes. The two factions are gearing up for a fight, on the one side is the bumbling buffoon Boris brigade, sailing along on his ginormous ego. Boris's election promise stated that there would be no return to austerity, he promised more jobs with massive spending on infrastructure projects and his ego demands that, come what may. Of course that requires more money, so his camp want to plunder the middle class with more taxes etc. Most financial pundits agree that to try and plunder the poor would be unpopular, but also impracticable, as there is not enough avenues there to sort out the £2trillion UK debt. The other side in this party squabble claim that a policy of plundering the middle class would damage the crumbling economy even more. Of course that last statement translates into hurting some of their friends and perhaps costing them their comfy job in parliament.

      Which ever way it goes the real financial Mafia will demand that they get back their £2trillion they loaned the UK treasury for their covid19 pantomime, no matter who the Tory party decide to screw. So you can rest assured that they will, and we the ordinary people will feel the pain, come what may. Of course decimating the middle class will more or less display what anarchists have always said, in this society there is only two classes. All this working class, middle class and upper middle class, is just an illusion based on propaganda to create that vision of the ladder you can climb to get to the top. However it is extremely difficult to climb a ladder made of illusions.

       So who is going to win, the Boris brigade plundering the middle class to pay off the debt, and at the same time, spend, spend more debt on infrastructure. Which is just another method of taking public money and handing it to their corporate buddies. Or the good old fashion die-hard Tories who see the plundering of the poor the only decent solution to their crumbling sacred economy and ever growing debt. 

     Of course we, the ordinary people, could throw a spanner in both their plans, by deciding to take control of our lives and sorting out our problems all by ourselves, without any political party's blessing.

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

1820 Remebered.

 

        Yesterday, Sunday 30th August was the 200th. anniversary of the state murder of one of the radicals that played a role in the 1820 Insurrection. He was James "Purlie" Wilson.
        To mark this barbaric act by the state and to honour his memory, there was an event near the spot on Glasgow Green where the state carried out this barbaric act of murder, by first hanging him, and then be-heading him. To honour this defiant radical, there was a Tree of Liberty planted near the spot. The state as usual believes that by killing the person and making an example of them, they will kill the ideas that they stood for, freedom, justice and equality for all. Of course they are deluded.
       James "Purlie" Wilson made a defiant speech from the dock, which was repeatedly interrupted by the judge in an attempt to stop his words from being made public. Again they failed miserably.

       We had an unexpected privilege at the event as one of James "Purlie" Wilson's descendants turned up.

Jimmy Carruthers, descendant of James "Purlie" Wilson, standing beside the newly plant Tree of Liberty planted in honour of his ancestor.

       James "Purlie" Wilson's speech from the dock.

       "I am not deceived. You might have condemned me without this mummery of a trial. You want a victim. I will not shrink from the sacrifice. I am ready to lay down my life in support of these principles which must ultimately triumph."
       "My Lords and Gentlemen, I will not attempt the mockery of a defence. You are about to condemn me for attempting to overthrow the oppressors of my country. You do not know, neither can you appreciate, my motives. I commit my sacred cause, which is that of freedom, to the vindication of posterity."
     "You may condemn me to immolation on the scaffold, but you cannot degrade me. If I have appeared as a pioneer in the van of freedom's battles; if I have attempted to free my country from political degradation; my conscience tells me that I have only done my duty.
      "Your brief authority will soon cease, but the vindictive proceedings of this day shall be recorded in history. The principles for which I have contended are as immutable, as imperishable, as the eternal laws of nature. My gory head may in a few days fall on the scaffold and be exposed as the head of a traitor, but I will appeal with confidence to posterity.”
      "When my countrymen will have exalted their voices in bold proclamation of the rights and dignity of humanity, and enforced their claim by the extermination of their oppressors, then, and not till then, will some future historian do my memory justice, then will my name and sufferings be recorded in Scottish history - then my motives will be understood and appreciated; and with the confidence of an honest man, I appeal to posterity for that justice which has in all ages and in all countries been awarded to those who have suffered martyrdom in the glorious cause of liberty."
      Crowd shouts Murder …."Murder", and "He is a murdered man",
     Cries of sympathy exuded from the gathering and "Shame, Shame, he dies for his country!" could be heard as Wilson climbed the scaffold. The crowd's noisy manner caused an officer of 3rd Dragoons to panic, and surmising that a rescue was about to be attempted, ordered his men to charge and disperse some of them. The mass of people remained sullen but tense. Not able to be quartered due to the agitation of the crowd Executioner stated "This is the head of a traitor" responding Crowd Vehement cries of "It is false, he has bled for his country!",
     In the gloaming of that same day, Purlie Wilson's daughter and niece reopened the grave and manoeuvred the coffin over the cemetery wall into a waiting cart that was probably owned by Wilson's friend, William Fleming. The remains were back in Strathaven before dawn where a large crowd waited to show respect to the deceased. There was no demonstration, a condition made to allow the "stealing" of the body. When the coffin lid was raised, it was noticed that the dropped handkerchief had been retrieved to cover the deceased's countenance. (This handkerchief is preserved and can be viewed in the John Hastie Museum, Strathaven.)
        The next day James "Purlie" Wilson was buried in the Old Graveyard just a few metres from his back door, not as a traitor, but as a revered patriot. Mrs. Wilson never recovered from the tragedy and spent many a sad and weary night mourning by her husband's grave.

Some photos from the event:

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

Left Unity.

 

      Left politics and right politics, where does the right stop and the left begin, how far left is still right, is left unity just another branch of the right, seems an odd way of classifying your political thoughts. Do you stand for no authority over others or just a little, do you think people need to be lead, or do you think that they can handle things by themselves. Do you think the people need some sort of leader to point the way and make sure they don't get it wrong, or do you think that people should be left to shape their own future, based on respect, equality, free association and responsibility, mistakes and all. I stand firmly in with latter.

The following is from Raddle:
Submitted by ziq in Anarchism (edited ) 

          The disturbing trend of anarcho-tankies we've been seeing can be traced back with a straight line to the proliferation of "left-unity" spaces
The biggest one is r/chapotraphouse and its spinoffs, along with r/dankleft, r/breadtube, r/genzanarchist, and probably leftbook and several youtube channels.
         Red fascists infiltrate the mod teams of these spaces and initiate left unity policies that successfully ban all criticism of their backwards conservative views. The more vocal opponents of the new policy are quickly purged for breaking left-unity, leaving a more passive audience who are ripe for indoctrination.
       Then the propaganda starts. Endless authoritarian memes to normalize gulags, guillotines, firing squads, violent struggle sessions and genocide. Tomes of nonsensical ideological "theory" that serves to brainwash young people who are starved for identity and belonging. Almost immediately, any ideas that conflict with the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Xi create desperate cognitive dissonance in their minds and the kids angrily lash out at the unindoctrinated for being "libs" and "imperialists" rather than risk parting with their new-found identity.
        Once the majority in the space are comfortable joking about murdering "kulaks", and quoting Chinese state media to counter "western propaganda", the shaming campaign begins.
        Anyone in the space who breaks with the tankie party line is lambasted and ridiculed into submission. The remaining anarchists in the space now find themselves hopelessly outnumbered by smug middle class white genocide fetishists telling them they're imperialist CIA stooges for thinking the Uighurs maybe shouldn't be put in concentration camps.
        In order to not be shunned by their peers, the anarchists adopt an obscene anarcho-tankie ideology that allows them to favor libertarian writers like Chomsky and Kropotkin, while embracing the authoritarian third positionist dogma enforced from the top down by their chosen community.
       Uncritical support for every nation (and empire) that opposes the "West", the insistance that anarchism and communism are one and the same because "they have the same end goal", the claim that anarchist communes and an ML state can co-exist in harmony, the attempt to whitewash authoritarian concepts like the dictatorship of the proletariat and the vanguard, the nonsensical belief that they can be an anarchist and also a Marxist. Suddenly they're able to take completely contradicting ideas and fuse them together in order to be accepted by the red fash echo chamber they so desperately want the approval of.
       The conflicting ideas grow increasingly out of whack the further down the rabbit hole the left unity space takes them, and the ridicule they get for their remaining libertarian attachments begins to eat at their ego, until finally they post "How I went from an anarkiddie to a principled Marxist-Leninist" and the transition is complete.
       Tldr: Left-unity is a deliberate ploy by disturbing groomers to indoctrinate impressionable young minds into their authoritarian third positionist fascist ideology and force them to abandon any libertarian beliefs they once had in order to be accepted within the collective's rigid hierarchy and not be branded a liberal or an anarkiddie for forming their own thoughts or questioning their leaders narratives in any way.
      "Left unity" is nothing more than tankie doublespeak for "obey us or be purged".

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

Wee Poem.

And now for something completely different.

Mirror Mirror On The Wall.

I can’t help but watch him
that old man
as he staggers across the room
with that unusual gait
punctuated by the odd stumble
I hear his groans and feel his pain
sometimes with a few profane words
he drags himself from the couch or chair
pauses for a moment to regain his balance
I sense his reluctance to bend down
and pick things off the floor
I’m fascinated by those hands
light brown withered looking bony structures
with their pronounced veins
running along the back of them
and up his slim arms
I sense his annoyance
that they’re not as strong as they used to be
I feel his regret
that he can’t do the things he once did with ease
I often think
that to have lived that long
he must have a chest full
of memories and experiences
that should be worth something
but what puzzles me most
is when
I look in the mirror
I see him and not me.

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

Solidarity.

       We are controlled mainly by our national police, but the day is not far off when that control will be in the hands of an international police force, European states are welding together an efficient police force that knows no borders. Borders are there for control of us, the populations, hemming us in as more easily controlled groups, for the state's own power. The international police will be there to control those who would dare to cross their designated border lines, without their masters permission. The framework is already there and functioning well. the following from Act For Freedom Now:

 France / Italy: Letter from Imprisoned Anarchist Comrade Carla

Fresnes, 19.08.2020
Salut!
      After 536 days on the run, I was arrested on July 26th near Saint-Etienne. I experienced the arrest as the first performance of a scene repeated a thousand times in my head, or rather 536 times? Everything seemed to happen in slow motion: the hooded cops pointing their rifles at me, put me down and ask me the name that I’ve so often been called lately. It felt strange to pronounce it.
    I was then brought to Paris by the SDAT [Anti-Terrorist Sub-Directorate], four hours of travel handcuffed behind my back in the company of their balaclavas. They blindfolded me for the last few kilometers that separated us from their premises in Levallois-Perret. They were the ones who took me to court two days after the arrest, then to Fresnes prison.
      At the hearing, I accepted the extradition without hesitation. I had followed the events surrounding the arrest of Vincenzo Vecchi (whom I greet in passing) closely, but he had refused, offering himself a chance to remain free in France. For me, the choice was between waiting for the trial in France or in Italy, where the other defendants in Operation Scintilla are, all of them free except Silvia, who is still under judicial supervision.
      It seems that in recent times, arrest by means of a European arrest warrant and subsequent extradition have become mere formalities for the European justice system. We have seen this recently in Italy on several occasions, but also in the repression that followed the Hamburg riots or in Greece and Spain. European police forces are refining their weapons and their collaboration seems to be getting closer, exchanging tips and services. So it seems to me that it is up to us to look into the matter and study the mechanisms.
    I discovered the prison at the time of the coronavirus, the regulation fortnight in the new arrivals’ quarter, the mask during all movements, including the walk for that length of time, the suspension of all activities, the cell 22 hours a day.
     At the end of my fortnight, and on the eve of the scheduled date of my extradition, the other arrivals and I were placed in sanitary isolation on the grounds that we had shared a walk with a new arrival who turned out to be infected. Tests were only offered to us once this case was confirmed and have been the rule for all new arrivals ever since. We were initially told that they couldn’t test everyone. Unsurprisingly, it seems that the prison administration (PA) is behind schedule.
      In the spring, the measures taken by the PA in response to the arrival of the coronavirus led to situations of mutinies, revolts and solidarity. Unfortunately, here at least, it seems that living with the virus has become the norm, and the fear that a newcomer could bring the virus with her is coupled with the fear of being suspended from the visiting rooms, as was the case with us this week. The meagre compensation that the PA gave in the form of telephone credit in the spring is no longer relevant, as a group of isolated newcomers is so small compared to the strong mobilisations of last March.
     I’m expecting extradition again any day now and I know that a third isolation ward will probably be reserved for me when I arrive in Italy. I take advantage of the expressions of solidarity that join me today after so much silence. In spite of the publications on the subject, which are precious, the escape is still too often considered a romantic adventure and the companions concerned are often thought of as free. During this year and a half, I have never lacked solidarity and warm support, I have never lacked anything, but one is not free when one is deprived of one’s life.
      I would have liked to have been on the street with my comrades during the demonstrations in reaction to the eviction of Asilo, I accompanied the hunger strike of Silvia, Anna and Natascia with my thoughts, I thought every day of the comrades arrested in successive waves. I would have liked to have been by my family’s side when they went through difficult times and to have heard from them when we were all confined. Today I am ready and determined to face the next few months, but my thoughts are with those who are still on the run, often far from their loved ones. I hope that their journey will be as long as they want it to be, and that the encounters they make will give them the warmth they deserve and the energy to continue to fight.
     Carla
 

      On Tuesday 25 August 2020, Carla, arrested on 26 July, was finally extradited to Italy. She is now incarcerated in Vigevano prison, near Milan, in the AS3 module (alta sicurezza 3).
This high-security isolation section is initially reserved for prisoners accused of belonging to the mafia. Since the closure of the aquila, the AS2 sections, reserved for detainees considered political by the state, hardly exist for women, with the exception of Rebbibia (Rome) where Flavia and Anna are. Anna is only there for a few weeks because the Italian state has chosen to dispatch the companions, which is why most of them, including Carla, end up in AS3.
Carla wrote a letter from Fresnes prison which we reproduce below.
Let us continue to write to her and express our solidarity!
To write to her :
Carla Tubeuf
casa circondariale di Vigevano Centralino
via Gravellona 240
27029 Vigevano (PV), Italy

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

I Awake.

        Woke up this morning, as usual, sat in front of the computer, as usual, and as usual the familiar thoughts started to flood through my mind.
     Anger at the unnecessary injustice, inequality, poverty and deprivation heaped on the many by the greed driven few.
      Hatred at the hypocrisy, indifference and greed of the wealthy plundering parasite class and their engineered wars, where they never lift the gun.
     Anguish at the suffering of the countless innocent millions mutilated, maimed and slaughtered, young and old, who never desire war and gain nothing from those wars.
       Sorrow at those migrants fleeing wars, death and destruction, whose journey is drowning, hatred and concentration camps.
       The longer we accept this engineered pattern of plundering, the deeper the pool of blood we wade through, the heavier the burden of complicity will weigh on our shoulders.

The Seeds We Sow.

Because of my ignorance, I sowed the seeds of anguish,
while my self indulgence planted the vine of pain,
my disregard of the future laid sorrow’s foundation.
Suddenly the future slaps me in the face,
while my children eat the food of that anguish
and chew the leaves of that vine,
as the sea of sorrow washes around their feet.
My yesterday shaped their tomorrow
My ignorance laid their path
and now my self indulgence is their burden.
It would appear that,
these failings of the father are burdened on his heirs.

    We all know that we could distribute the resources of this world in a more humane and fairer manner. Their is enough to see to the needs of all our people, our crime is we leave that distribution to the greedy plundering parasite class. To often those suffering the most, the marginalised, those with the greatest need for our assistance, somehow are hidden from view, unless we take a deeper look around us.

The Invisible.

We live there— yes— there
A little bit above the dead
But quite a bit below the living
Where poverty is a dream
Deprivation a reality
Our daily bread an illusion
We sigh--we weep—
As ruthless poverty
With its cold claws
Tears the heart from our children
We ask—WHY?
Surrounded by opulence
Invisible to arrogant greed
Anger simmers beneath the surface
We seek equality
We will have justice
If blood is the price
So be it. 

      We have the numbers, we have the power to change this weary and blood stained world to one of humanity, co-operation and justice for all. We have that better world drifting around in our hearts and heads, all we need is the will and solidarity to act now. Of course we can accept their tomorrow.

We Have The Power.

Empty streets,with empty shops,
queues forming at the job centre,
doorway beds and hungry children,
watched over by mean eyed cops,
foodbanks growing by the hour.
City razzle-dazzle just rusty remnants,
shopping malls now empty caverns,
home to starlings, pigeons, magpies,
zero hours, part-time workers live in,
homes where ambition fails to flower.
Shiny politicians peddling illusions,
grin and bear it, there’s pie in the sky,
follow the Messiah, he’ll get you there,
quietly swallow their empty promises,
so they can live in their ivory towers.
This world exists by our acceptance,
blindly following their biased rulebook,
failing to realise that we the people,
builders of the world by sweat and pain,
are the ones who really hold the power.

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

Apartheid.

       Apartheid in South Africa may have, in law, said to have been abolished, but the infrastructure that was built up supporting it is still there. The poor and native population still live in mainly overcrowded shanty town dwellings while the white settlers live in the more prosperous areas. Those in the outskirts of Capetown have to make a long, tiring and some times hazardous journey to earn their daily bread. However could these crowded shanty towns with their forced living together, be the phoenix of anarchism that could spread the flames of freedom across the continent and further afield? As they say, hope springs eternal.

        Zabalaza centres on a simple part of Cape Town life: the daily commute to work. It’s something many of us have the privilege not to worry about, other than gripes about sitting in traffic while in our air-conditioned, almost-luxury cars. This is in stark contrast with the experience of the people of Khayelitsha, who are far removed from their places of work in suburbs like Newlands and the Cape Town CBD after decades of race-based spatial planning. Using simple footage of Khayelitsha residents trying to make their way to work, Zabalaza captures how truly gruelling the daily commute can be for Cape Town’s working class – and just how out of touch their places of work are when compared with their own homes.

- Michelle Solomon, City Pres

Filmed, Edited and Directed by Jenna Bass w/Soundz of the South
       Anarchist Hiphop collective, SOUNDZ OF THE SOUTH announce music video, ZABALAZA, a politically-charged, visual testimony to stark inequality in the City of Cape Town. Soundz of the South (SoS) is an anarchist collective working to build an international working-class counter-culture that is anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-sexist. They seek to foster new social values and new forms of collective organising, which will become the socio-political infrastructure of the free society.
      Zabalaza’s lyrics call on workers and unemployed workers to free themselves from the bondage of capitalism, whilst also celebrating workers’ self-initiatives to resist oppression.
      The track features MC’s Karl Myx, Tsidi and Anela, and was produced by DJ Cingle. Shot in Khayelitsha Site C, Newlands and the Cape Town CBD, the video depicts the daily commute of workers between two worlds: from their extremely poor communities to their workplaces in the city centre or the wealthy suburbs before travelling back home again.
      The combination of aerial and slow-motion imagery captures the reality of township life, from endless queues for public transport or the local clinic to workers awaiting casual labour jobs on the highway, while over-loaded trains and morning traffic pass below. The cycle of poverty and wealth is both poetic and sad, a combination of structural violence and inertia.
     SoS’s tracks can be streamed via Band Camp: https://sos1.bandcamp.com/

For more information about SoS:
https://www.facebook.com/soundzofthes...
IG: soundzofthesouth
Twitter: S_OS

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

Solidarity.

 

     August 25th. to August 30th. a week of international support for all anarchist prisoners. Across the planet there are uncountable thousands of these state institutions of repression. Institutions of arbitrary violence, devoid of justice, sparse on medical care, dark dungeons where the state incarcerates those who would dare to challenge its vice like authority. Prisons are just one of the states many tools to create a submissive population, to repress dissent, to silence opposition to its plunder of the the poor in favour of the wealthy few. Just one of its lines of defence of the parasite class that hold the levers of power in this economic system of exploitation, poverty, war and plunder. Those who make a stand against this gross injustice, who stand up and defy the state's manufactured monopoly of control over our lives, deserve all the support and solidarity that we can muster, their struggle is our struggle, we must show which side we are on.   

The following from Anarchists Worldwide:

 

     Chile: Letter from Anarchist Comrade Juan Flores Riquelme about the Arrest of Mónica and Francisco

        We knew that by choosing the path of struggle against capital, our lives would develop against all odds, and it was not unknown to us that prison could be a possible destination.
      We questioned this humiliating reality and its so-called “social peace”, we severely questioned the enrichment of the bourgeoisie and their power. There are really too many questions to take a stand against the prevailing order. Countless have been the assassinations by the repressive forces of the power, countless those insurgents who have given their lives looking for the sharpening of the conflict against the states.
     Did the elite of this country believe that we would stand idly by after all their years of misery, alienation and neoliberal exploitation? How could we not try to be the stumbling block against the uninterrupted advance of capitalism and the states?
     A constant attack against the enemy we have made of our lives, which extend infinite complicities of an idea that lives in a multitude of hearts, a consequence of the reality of positioning against the enemy. This is how our lives are, this is how we chose it, against all odds we will advance without restraint along the path of subversion, beyond its borders, beyond its criminalization and Hollywood investigations, beyond its convictions and prisons, reality demands action from us. Our only option is to maintain the struggle for total liberation, facing with dignity the consequences that this may generate in our lives.
       These words are addressed to those daredevils who, without looking back, have defended anarchic and anti-authoritarian ideas with their teeth and claws. Monica Caballero and Francisco Solar are hermanxs [brothers & sisters] with deep convictions and critiques that are impossible to break with this new blow of power to their lives.
      To the comrades of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and Revolutionary Struggle, imprisoned in the prisons of Korydallos Greece. To the anarchist brothers and sisters imprisoned in Ferrada Prison, Italy. To all the prisoners who were filled with anger and faced off against the police during the recent revolt in October.
     Warmly greeting the initiative of the International Week for Anarchist Prisoners, which is being carried out from the 25th to the 30th of August, I say goodbye for now.

Juan Alexis Flores Riquelme
High security prison.

(via Contra Info, translated into English by Anarchists Worldwide)

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

Seeds Ye Sow.

        Perhaps, if anybody feels they need it, that today's struggles of the ordinary people for justice, freedom and equality, has been one continuous struggle for many generations, these few verses might support that proof. We can perhaps forgive Percy Bysshe Shelley for the hint of patriotism in the title of this piece, but the sentiment is universal, and the content of the poem/song, is the problem we have to solve. Three verses from Men of England, by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.

Sow seed—but let no tyrant reap:
Find wealth—let no imposter heap:
Weave robes—let not the idle wear:
Forge arms—in your defence to bear.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells—
In hall ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

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Resistance.

      The full blown war being waged by the Greek state against any autonomous spaces, any self organising by the ordinary people, any solidarity shown to migrants, has been running for a year now. What this has meant is that the state uniformed thugs and accomplices heaping torment and anguish as well as savage brutality on all who struggle for that freedom and solidarity that is nurtured in these autonomous spaces, self organising groups, and migrant solidarity and support groups. It is all the state can offer to those who seek freedom to organise their own lives, who seek solidarity and co-operation between all peoples. How long will we let these state thugs, puppets of the billionaire corporate beast, chain our lives to their greedy profit drive system of exploitation? Resistance and solidarity are the keys to freedoms door.

   The following on Greece from Act For Freedom Now:

  10, 100, thousands of squats

One year of resistance against state terrorism
     Today 26.8.20 marks one year since the armed hooded men of Chrysochoidis invaded the refugee squat of Spyrou Trikoupi 17 and the neighboring Transito squat. It was early in the morning when they forcibly pulled out families with young children from their beds–people who after much hardship and suffering had found a place to grow roots again in these buildings. They took them from their home and distributed them in miserable camps to live in the dirt and with indifference in canvas tents. Since then, a barrage of state terrorist attacks on refugee and political squats has led to evacuations, snatching of people, beatings, and arrests.
     The refugee squats have functioned for many years as unprecedented experiments of practical anti-racism and anti-fascism, self-organization, and solidarity. These spaces have given thousands of people the opportunity to regain their stolen autonomy and the right to define their own lives away from human guards and charity contractors. And almost all of them were evacuated.Families with babies, single women, LGBTQI+ people, the sick and disabled, survivors of torture were all brutally detached from their daily lives and relationships and were trapped in nothing but state mercilessness.
Political squats that formed cells of social action in neighborhoods, challenging the prevailing ideas of tourism, private property, and commercialization, which turned cities into concrete class pyramids of solitary depravity and social rivalry, were also evacuated. Those who defended these squats faced harsh repression. But this also extended to simple neighbors, as it happened in Koukaki.Bricks were placed where there were open doors.Where once voices, songs, and laughter were heard, only silence echoes now.Where life spread its wings, they left only the dust of desolation.The targeting of squats through the monstrous lies of the media is an integral purpose of the state, which wants to crush any spatial, social, and ideological sphere, that shows and proves that there is another way to live, away from gender, class, ethnicity, and religious hierarchies. That our passage through the world deserves to be more than constant anxiety of survival and a lesson in obedience, that we can throw the weights of artificial suspicion to express, to create, to dream collectively. At the same time, it is an integral part of the most disgusting but also the purest face of power, of raw authoritarianism.
        The plan for mass evacuations of squats coincides with the militarization of entire areas, with the expansion of the supervisory-repressive mechanism, and the police barbarity it inflicts on the bodies of fighters.In the past year, at Notara 26 the housing squat for refugees and migrants, we mourned for every space of struggle that fell into the hands of the enemy. We mourned for every human who lost hope, for every hope for a better life that was tarnished under police boots. We felt anger for those injured with opened heads, the sad looks in the police buses and cages, the locked doors. We were moved by every act of resistance and an attempt to reclaim stolen land. We know very well, however, that no idea, no movement is evacuated. We ourselves accept daily the increasing pressure of the government with threats of evacuation, insulting comments against residents and people of solidarity, thrashings, attempts of invasion, constant harassment, and even Nazi slogans we have witnessed by the sad entourage of the Police shouting outside the squat.A year later we are still here, stronger, more united, more determined than ever with an immense wave of solidarity embracing us, forming a circle of care around us.
We are part of a multifaceted movement that is “not afraid of ruins” because it knows how to rebuild, who finds crevices to escape from all the jail cells, who will always haunt the empty houses and the nightmares of the torturers.The liveliest firework in the thickest darkness!
source

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Fake News.

       There's news and fake news, there's propaganda and downright lies, we have to sift through the garbage to find those gems of truth, sometimes very difficult, other times impossible. But what we do know is that all states have secrets from their population, all states carry out underhand actions and surveillance against other states, all states are corrupt  and are not fully accountable to the people. All states have their propaganda machine to hoodwink the population, and what one state accuses another state of, you can rest assured they themselves, have carried out similar actions. That's how states work, it's their method of holding onto power.

From Moon Over Alabama:

Navalny Was Not Poisoned
       On Thursday morning the Russian rightwing and racist rabble rouser Alexey Navalny fell ill during a flight from Tomsk in Siberia to Moscow. He eventually went into a coma. The plane had to be rerouted for an emergency stop in Omsk. Navalny was brought into a clinic and put on a ventilator.
       Meanwhile his spokeswomen Kira Yarmysh claimed, without evidence, that Navalny had been poisoned: 

      Yarmysh believes Navalny, who showed no symptoms prior to the flight, was "poisoned with something mixed into his tea” as it was “the only thing he drank this morning.” In the middle of the journey, she wrote later, he began sweating, went to the toilet, and apparently lost consciousness for a period. RIA Novosti reported that Navalny did not eat or drink anything on the flight.
      The doctors in the intensive care unit in Omsk had difficulties to stabilize Navalny. A number of tests were made but no poisons were found. Yesterday evening the patient had stabilized. On request of his family he was transported to Germany where he is currently undergoing treatment.
     The hospital in Omsk said that Navalny had experienced severe hypoglycemia:
     The head physician of the Omsk emergency hospital, Alexander Murakhovsky, said that Alexei Navalny’s condition was caused by a sharp drop in blood sugar. Hypoglycemia is also known as diabetic shock: When a person experiences diabetic shock, or severe hypoglycemia, they may lose consciousness, have trouble speaking, and experience double vision. Early treatment is essential because blood sugar levels that stay low for too long can lead to seizures or diabetic coma.
       Hypoglycemia can sometimes happen rapidly and may even occur when a person follows their diabetes treatment plan. A diabetic shock happens when someone with diabetes has taken too much insulin or has eaten too little. My father had diabetes and I have seen him experiencing this problem several times. He always carried a piece of sugar with him to use it as soon as he felt the first symptoms. My mother taught me the basic first aid I would have to to apply should my father be unable to help himself. Thankfully I never had to use it. It is important that the measures are taken immediately. A prolonged coma can lead to brain damage. As Navalny was on a plane up in the air it took quite a while to get him into a hospital. His prolonged coma may have created additional damage to his body.------

------/Update/
Intellinews reports that Navalny has diabetes: Navalny said himself that he suffered from diabetes in 2019, giving some credence to this explanation.

Read the full article HERE: 
This from the BBC:

       Several prominent critics of Kremlin policies - ex-spies, journalists and politicians - have been poisoned in the past two decades. In the UK, two Russian ex-secret service agents were targeted: Alexander Litvinenko fatally with radioactive polonium-210 in 2006, and Sergei Skripal with the toxic nerve agent Novichok in 2018. The Kremlin denied any involvement.
      Alexei Navalny, who has been physically attacked before, appears to be the latest victim. Yet much remains unclear.
     Mysterious poisonings involving Russians often remain mysterious - a distinct advantage for assassins, compared with say an old-fashioned shooting in the street. Prof Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told the BBC that "poison has two characteristics: subtlety and theatricality".
      "It's so subtle that you can deny it, or make it harder to prove. And it takes time to work, there's all kinds of agony, and the poisoner can deny it with a sly wink, so everyone gets the hint."
Thorn in Kremlin's side
      Alexei Navalny is Russia's best-known anti-corruption campaigner and opposition activist. His slick, hard-hitting videos on social media have drawn many millions of views, and made him a thorn in the side of the Kremlin.

Read the full article HERE:

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Misconceptions.

Anarchy is for lovers.

    It's common practice for the media and political pundits to "blame" anarchists for any violence that happens at demonstrations. Seldom a reference to why there is such underlying anger and rage in this society and a total ignorance of what anarchism is and stands for, its ideology, its aims and dreams.

     Although the extracts below are references about America, they equally apply in all states. The open sustained brutality and repression by the state apparatus against anarchists in Greece, Italy, Germany, Russia and Italy, to name a few, is testament to this violence against and hatred of anarchists by the establishment. The establishment in no way will allow the freedom and justice that anarchism has to offer.

The following extracts are from an article by Kim Kelly:

       Stop blaming everything bad on anarchists

       A demonstrator wearing black and holding a black flag stands facing a police cordon at an anarchist protest in front of the Polish Parliament during a demonstration demanding that the poorest be included in the government's assistance program during the coronavirus pandemic. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images)

       As protests continue to sweep the nation, a narrative has emerged blaming alleged “anarchists” for stirring the pot. They are, the story goes, materializing out of nowhere to sow chaos, put marginalized people at risk and generally make more peaceful protesters look bad. On June 1, President Trump retweeted a video implying that a man who later explained that he was helping other protesters buy medical supplies was instead paying them to incite violence. In his tweet, Trump added, “Anarchists, we see you!” After surveying damage to city property, Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price declared, “It’s not protest, it’s anarchy.” The next day, Post opinions contributor Helaine Olen wrote that Trump is “the real anarchist.” Her only basis for making this claim appeared to be the common use of “anarchy” as a flawed synonym for “chaos.”
        This reflexive tic to associate anarchism with thoughtless discord betrays a profound ignorance of leftist ideology. The problem is that no one seems to understand what anarchism is or what its adherents are seeking to accomplish — and that lack of understanding is going to end up endangering a lot of people. We’re rapidly approaching a point in which dissent is further criminalized, the justified rage and pain fueling these protests is further delegitimized, and anyone who engages in any form of protest outside the preapproved liberal template becomes a target for surveillance, or worse. On June 3, with zero evidence backing its claim, the White House Twitter account trumpeted: “Antifa and professional anarchists are invading our communities, staging bricks and weapons to instigate violence. These are acts of domestic terror.” At least one of the supposed weapons caches appears to have been part of a security barricade in front of a Jewish community center.-------

And ------

     -----So what is anarchism? As I’ve explained before, it is a radical, revolutionary leftist political ideology that advocates for the abolition of government and all other unequal systems of power in favor of a society organized around direct democracy and voluntary association. Though it encompasses many schools of thought, most anarchists are committed to a basic set of beliefs. Key anarchist principles include mutual aid (a reciprocal approach to community care in which people share resources), direct action (the use of political protest to achieve a goal) and horizontalism (a non-hierarchical organizational system in which decisions are made by consensus). Anarchists advocate for abolishing institutions such as prisons, police and the military, which they hold to be inherently oppressive. Anarchists are by definition anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and directly opposed to all other forms of bigotry and oppression. They are anti-fascist (though not all anti-fascists are anarchists!), which opens up another potential avenue for repression now that the president has fixated on antifascists, or “antifa,” and law enforcement has continued to surveil and target leftist activists.
        In practice, to be an anarchist is to dream of a kinder, more equitable society, and to do one’s best to get us closer to making that dream a reality. For every minute of protest footage showing anarchists out in the streets, there are untold hours spent attending endless meetings (anarchists love meetings), cooking and delivering food and supplies to those who need it, researching far-right groups, planning demonstrations, providing child care and other support to comrades, and taking part in other communally minded projects. It may sound hokey, but anarchism is about love as much as it is rage; there is a certain utopian romance to it.-----

And:----

     -------All of this obfuscation and misinformation is a shame, because anarchism has many lessons to offer about caring for our communities and all of those in need. The concepts that make up its core have become increasingly popular, even as anarchism itself has been dismissed as a mere thirst for destruction. As long-running anarchist collective Crimethinc wrote in their anthology “Expect Resistance: A Field Manual,” “No one is more qualified than you are to decide how you live; no one should be able to vote on what you do with your time and your potential unless you invite them to.”
      As others survey the smoldering ruins of the American Dream and beg politicians to take mercy on the most vulnerable, it’s worth reminding people that life doesn’t have to be this way. The government has shown that it won’t save us. We know that the rich won’t save us. But if we embrace the true spirit of anarchy, maybe, just maybe, we can save ourselves.

Read the full article HERE:

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