The death of Khmer Rouge executioner Comrade Duch, aged 77 in Cambodia (Kampuchea), reminds us of a failed experiment at agrarian communism which sought to eradicate the city-dwellers under western influence. Over 35 years ago Here & Now magazine was launched in Glasgow. the collective, from issue 5 expanded to include heretical thinkers in Leeds, some associated with the Pleasure Tendency. In issue 1 the centre page article by AD, examined Khmer "communism". Well worth a read
In England 92% of the land and 97% of rivers are owned by a small, extremely wealthy, bunch of pampered privileged parasites, Scotland is much the same. I have always been puzzled by somebody owning a large slice of the planet. Who did they buy it from, who held the original deeds, was it God? or did a bunch of thieving scoundrels just steal it, then gave bits to their friends and buddies. I think the latter. Isn't it about time we reversed that situation and became the land grabbers and take it all back into common ownership for the benefit of all?
In the U.K., folks can wander over private property without asking permission. This is called “the right to roam” and its legal legacy can be traced back to a grassroots movement started by Benny Rothman in the 1930s. Rothman was a member of rebellious group of Manchester factory workers who called themselves “ramblers”. The ramblers sought to get out of sooty Manchester on their time off in order to see the beautiful Peak District that surrounded them. The problem was that almost all of this land was in the hands of private landlords who hired game keepers to keep walkers (and possible poachers) at bay. This had not always been the case. Some 300 years earlier, most of the land in the UK has been part of the Commons where people could graze livestock and hunt as they could. Beginning in the mid-18th century, however, the Enclosure Movement worked to privatize most common land in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. This has been described as "a revolution of the rich against the poor," and it transformed the countryside
The pillars of our wonderful capitalist system is the financial giants, our honourable banks. They oil the wheels of capitalism, they feed the growth of the parasites' wealth, and now we find that they are up to their necks in wheeling and dealing with criminal and corrupt elements, laundering trillions of their ill gotten gains of this festering mess we call capitalism.
UK bank shares have taken a hitafter some of the world's largest lenders were accused of allowing criminals to launder dirty money. Over 2,100 suspicious activity reports (SARs) covering more than $2trn (£1.5trn) in transactions were leaked to BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). These reports, and more than 17,600 other records obtained by the ICIJ, allegedly show how senior banking officials allowed fraudsters to move money between accounts in the knowledge that the funds were being generated or used criminally. Five global banks were named in the investigation: JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon.
Their greed and brass necks allow them to follow the money, no matter where or how it was generated, more funds in the bank means higher share prices, then bigger bonuses for the masters. To expect other than this from these financial vultures, is being rather naive. After all they firmly believe that they control the world.
The ICIJ reported that some of the banks named continued to work with
"mobsters, fraudsters or corrupt regimes" even after they were warned by
US officials that they would face criminal prosecutions for doing so.
The sums involved are no trifling petty cash, but vast fortunes,
and they are not one or two isolated incidents, it is hundreds of
transactions over a considerable lapse of time.
Looks like Deutsche Bank could be the biggest money laundering machine in the world. So what does all this tells us, well nothing new, we should all be aware that the entire capitalist system is built on exploitation, though some of that exploitation receives the stamp of legitimacy from the state, others are given the badge of criminality. The latter are simply cash making exploitations that the state feels it has not got control of, nothing to do with morality, ethics or any of that stuff. Of course pursuing these types of affairs creates the illusion that the state is the guardian of the purity of our capitalist system. Will they pursue all those who made money from the rising shares and bonuses, as the stinking trillions flowed smoothly through the system?
So the covid19 pandemic again grows, did we really expect it would be other? A pandemic that has political ballerinas at the helm is bound to be a disaster. Especially if those same political ballerinas have a vested interest in the growth of the economy. All the decisions made in this fight against the pandemic will be made by people who have shares in companies, friends and family who own, run and/or are shareholders in businesses. Their decisions will be shaped by these facts, the strategy tainted by these influences, the economy will play an important part in all their decision making. This will move the health and welfare of the people down a notch, where as it should be at the top of the agenda. We have seen enough suffering and deaths with this method of trying to control this pandemic, it’s time we took the decision making out of the hands of economic vested interest and put full control in the hands of the medical and scientific minds, those who are experts in the field of disease and human health and welfare. Our political ballerinas will always feed you this crap about saving jobs, opening up the economy, which translates as, ”Get out there and get those tills ringing, our friends are losing money” and with scant regard to the results on the people. Only when the results, which were predictable, start to alarm the people, do they start to apply a temporary brake to their profit orientated strategy.
We have to demand that we take the economy out of the equation, and put the full strength of the medical and scientific establishment to takeover the tackling of this pandemic. Otherwise it will be a continual rivalry between those with power and wealth protecting that wealth and power and the risks to the general population. To date billions of tax payers money has been handed to big business, with the bullshit tag “to save jobs” We are always being told of the wonderful capitalist system, well let’s remind them this is capitalism, if your business isn’t making money then it should go bust. If it has an essential function for society, then take it into public ownership. All those billions should have gone into the health and welfare of the people, in the battle against this pandemic, which will never be won if the political ballerinas continue to hold control. So let's screw the economy and save the people.
It is accepted that prisons are places of violence, brutality and arbitrary justice, state institutions of repression and intimidation. However during this pandemic, prisons have become places of death sentences through the covid19 virus. Over crowded, insanitary conditions, poor or non-existent health care, is the perfect mixture for the spread of the virus, with the inmates having no possibility of self isolating. Cold blooded inhumanity, upheld by laws and regulations administered by the state. Like all repression, there comes a time when the only road to survival is rebellion.
219 prisoners escaped from Moroto Prison on Wednesday after prisoners were exposed to coronavirus. One soldier was killed by prison rebels, who stormed an armory and seized over 15 weapons and ammunition. Only seven out of 219 prisoners who escaped from the prison in north-eastern Uganda have been recaptured. Two prisoners have also been murdered during their escape attempt. The prison, which usually imprisons 600 people, is on the foothills of Mount Moroto, on the edge of the town. The escape was triggered by the transfer of 60 other prisoners to Jinja Referral Hospital for treatment after they tested positive for COVID-19. There was exchange of fire between security and the prison rebels who were scaling up mountain Moroto. The prisoners who escaped had been tested, but their results were withheld, leading to their decision to escape. As prisons around the world are turned into death traps by guards who infect prisoners with the deadly coronavirus, prison rebels will increasingly be forced to escape and fight back in order to survive.
Name your country, and migrants will be seen to be treated as less than human, a group to be feared, despised, rejected, a threat to your "way of life" and stripped of their human rights. The richest and most developed countries are among the worst offenders. With the means available to offer shelter and integration, they do the opposite, they herd them as cattle, intimidate and harass them under the guise of their legal system designed to protect the status-quo, however, where there is inequality and a state, there can be no real justice, no freedom.
In the following report from Greece, anarchists describe the burning of the refugee camp, Moria, and the response countrywide, as well as the latest chapter in other struggles against state repression on a variety of fronts. A report by Radio Fragmata. Another month, another report on the situation here in Greece. There has been no pause in the repression of the state, nor any peace for the marginalized and excluded. Another historic squat has been evicted, the economic despair many already face is becoming generalized, society drifts towards the right at the guidance of state and corporate media, and the largest concentration camp housing migrants in all of Europe has been engulfed in flames, displacing thousands. As in the rest of the world, each morning brings new concerns, new disasters, new forms of precarity. We share the following information in the pursuit of a relentless and borderless solidarity.
-Radio Fragmata, September 2020
Moria Burns—The Greek State Plays Victim
The refugee camp Moria on the island of Lesvos has burned down.
The state claims this was the result of
demonstrations by desperate people inside the camp reacting to new
measures the police had opportunistically declared in response to an
inevitable and now unavoidable outbreak of COVID-19 inside the camp.
Some 35 cases have been made public as of early September;
considering the intense overcrowding of the camp, the number should
be assumed to be much higher. Some wonder whether nearby fascists
took the opportunity to set fires under the cover of the refugees’
protests. It is certain that some of the villagers wanted those
fleeing the flames to burn alive, as they pushed those who tried to
flee to the nearby village of Mytilene back towards the blaze.
If the government’s claim that the fire started from the
demonstrations is correct, we can understand this as an act of
desperation on the part of individuals protesting against an
unbearable situation. Out of all the concentration camps where
refugees are contained on islands near Turkey or out of the view of
the public on mainland Greece, Moria is by far the most famous, both
for its size and for the severity of the conditions. Moria housed
over 13,000 refugees, though it was designed for only around 3000. It
is a symbol of the racism and dehumanizing policies of exclusion that
comprise the basis of modern Europe.
It was inevitable that COVID-19 would enter Moria. Imposing
additional restrictions on the already forcibly isolated and
controlled camp brought an already dire situation to the brink. Now
thousands are going hungry without shelter, including many children.
Facing fascist and police violence, they find themselves in an even
worse situation than before.
In some ways, the New Democracy administration has used the Moria
camp to claim that the EU has failed Greece in the so-called “refugee
crisis” dating back to 2015. At the same time, the administration
has used the camp to fan the flames of xenophobia, framing the
conditions in the camp and the desperation of those who occupy it as
self-inflicted. The state shifts between these narratives according
to what is politically expedient.
The plight of migrants so often is well under the radar of the mainstream media, and sadly of the public. This lack of information does not mean that all is well and quiet. The hell that countless thousands of migrants face on a daily basis is a crime against humanity, their numbers are vast, their treatment is deplorable. It so often is a life of harassment, fear, deprivation, brutality and isolation from friends and family. In most cases they are fleeing repression, war, deprivation and death, their journey is fraught with incredible hardship and danger and requires tremendous courage. On arrival at "civilised" and democratic Europe, their misery and danger so often continues at the dictate of the various state's apparatus, shunted from concentration camps to special pre-removal detention centres, brutalised and permanently damaged, continually struggle for their right to be treated as human beings.
No human is illegal, borders are power mongers weapons of control, this planet has one human race, we are all brothers and sisters.
Tonight 14/8/20, some prisoners are telling us that there were fires following the beating of prisoners in the red area. They tell us that there is fire every night in the CPR of Gradisca. Every night, after a day of heavy abuse, small revolts break out in the Gradisca CPR. However today the repression seems to have been even more violent and the fire a little bigger: in the attached video you can see a boy getting out of a cell and being targeted by two cops one after the other; after he goes back into the cell he remains there bleeding and asking for his rucksack. We are also sharing the pictures of another prisoner standing on the floor foaming at the mouth. To protect his identity we won’t include the videos that the pictures were taken from, but this person seems in need of urgent help. We have no idea how he is or where he is now! Someone do something if they can! We think cell phones may have been confiscated from some prisoners. At 2 the situation appeared more calm but by midnight it was still not over. Wires were being cut with a radial and firemen went into some of the cells. Yet again the local media spread a partial version of events, showing a carabiniere as victim and the prisoners as torturers. Without the courage of the prisoners who risk their safety to get news to the outside, we would never know the daily atrocities that go on in the concentration camps and the history of CPRs would be written by the guards alone. Even when no one dies the CPRs are places of death and oppression, but in Gradisca two people have died already. Today a month has passed since the death of Orgest Turia. Violence is a constant in CPRs, continuous abuse adds to unfair treatment and the fear of being deported (according to what we have been told, food is given out under the bars in the CPR of Gradisca. People are held in cages all day long, changes of clothes and sheets are not given, medical care is poor and is not easy to obtain, the food causes intestinal problems and much more). It seems that in recent days some people who’d just arrived at Lampedusa were taken to the CPR directly. CPRs are deadly concentration camps. May the walls of all CPRs fall down and all the prisoners be free! View video HERE:
It doesn't get a lot of coverage in our mainstream media, but South America, that land of American engineered coups, has been the scene mass uprisings across most of the countries in that area. Some have lasted months others shorter, the Covid19 bring many to a slow-down, or halt, that doesn't mean the anger has gone away or the problems have been resolved. Far from it, the anger still bubbles underneath the surface and will no doubt explode once more.
The Uprising in Colombia: “An Example of What Is to Come.
A Report and Interview on the Background of the Revolt
The police protect us? NO, the cops repress, mutilate, rape, and kill.”
The streets of several Colombian cities have erupted into conflict in the last two days in response to the brutal police murder of 43-year-old Javier Ordóñez, a lawyer and father of two in Bogotá, the nation’s capital. Ordóñez was peaceably drinking in the street in front of his friends’ apartment when police arrived and, without provocation, beat him and tased him 11 times. By the time he arrived at the hospital, after a further beating at the police station, he was already dead. Video captured by Ordóñez’s friends and shared widely on social media sparked widespread protests in Bogotá, Cali, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Popayán, Ibagué, Barranquilla, Neiva, Tunja, and Duitama. In Bogotá alone, 56 police substations, called CAIs (Comandos de Atención Inmediata) were damaged, most of them burned. Although mainstream news is reporting eight people killed by police or paramilitaries on the first night, images circulating in Colombia on Thursday claimed 10, all but one of whom have been identified. The numbers of wounded vary by source. The New York Times claimed that a further 66 had suffered bullet wounds the night of September 9, with over 400 wounded in total. Colombia has an intense history of violent state and paramilitary repression, which has only intensified during the pandemic. Under current president Ivan Duque, widely seen as a continuation of former president Álvaro Uribe’s corrupt narco-administration, the Colombian government has failed to uphold its side of the peace accords with demobilized guerrilla forces, and murders and disappearances of activists, dissidents, and revolutionaries have increased significantly. In the following report and interview, we explore the background and implications of the latest chapter in a global wave of revolts against police and state repression. Background: The 2019 Paro Nacional On November 21, 2019, taking inspiration from the Chilean revolt and uprisings across South America, broad swaths of Colombian society took to the streets. The protests, which often took a militant tone and lasted roughly a month, were not over any one specific grievance but in response to multiple factors that had made life in this war-torn country unbearable. Duque’s government was trying to push through an unpopular packet of austerity measures, students were demanding better funding for education, and murders of activists, Indigenous people, and ex-guerrillas by the state or paramilitaries had increased. The month-long mobilization came to be called the paro nacional or national strike. More than the duration, its significance lay in the fact that it was the first time in decades that anyone had seen such an autonomous mass mobilization. For years, militant resistance had been monopolized by specialized, armed guerrilla groups such as the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army, the ) and the ELN (National Liberation Army). The strike represented the return of more generalized street confrontation that lent itself to much broader participation.
A demonstrator in Bogotá uses a spray can to fan the flames of a burning police station on September 10. Photo by Nadège Mazars.
A Year of Revolt in South America Colombia’s paro nacional should be seen in the context of the movements shaking other South American countries at the time. While the Chilean insurrection lasted longer and reached further in terms of self-organization and militancy, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay all saw widespread protests in 2019. In Bolivia, a complex and highly charged conflict led to a bloody coup by right-wing Christians. As in Colombia, there were several longstanding causes behind the mobilizations. Latin America has suffered astronomical rates of violence and inequality for decades—really, for centuries. Thanks to austerity policies, the brunt of recenteconomic stagnation has been intentionally forced on the most marginalized. The examples of revolt in other South American countries, as well as from Hong Kong and beyond, helped spark the month of protest in Colombia late last year. The new tactics popularized in Hong Kong and Chile were reflected in Colombian rebels’ effective use of the primera linea shield bloc tactic. Chile’s months of unrest, which were only halted by the pandemic, provided an inspiring horizon for those in South America and around the globe. On the other end of the scale, the nightmare that Bolivia has lived over the past year is a sobering reminder that political coups and openly racist regimes pose as much of a threat as ever. The stakes are high, as Colombians know all too well from years of state and paramilitary violence.
September 10, 2020: 10 people murdered, Bogotá, Colombia. Justice and stop the genocide.
It is easy to find inequalities and injustices in this society, they are all around us. Some glaringly obvious, but others tucked away in some idyllic spot on the planet. These short quotes from a Financial Times article 12th.-13th. September, yes I do read it from time to time, highlights the gross inequality that is created by our billionaire parasite class.
"When the world is so affected [by Covid19] we have no right to rejoice," said one private banker. "But we will have a very good year" sales of Monaco's notoriously expensive apartments are also holding up."
Among the UK's ultra-rich who make Monaco their safe, secure bolt-hole is Philip Green, of BHS pension fund fame.
"The pandemic has plunged economies into recession but the strong performance of global financial markets has in many cases increased the wealth of the ultra-rich, and highlighted the attractions of bolt-holes such as Monaco that promise personal safety through strict policing and video surveillance as well as as financial protection and excellent healthcare"
and
"Herve Ordioni, who heads a committee for promotion of Monaco as a financial centre and is also chief executive of the local operation of Edmond de Rothschild, said that his staff had to deal with six times as much trading as normal during the lockdown. "It was massive," he said. "We had an unbelievable amount of activity." "
All this luxurious pandering, financial security, excellent healthcare, to a small parasite class, while in this country, as in ever other country, millions are struggling to put food on the table. Millions face a life of misery, deprivation and absolutely no security what so ever. Can anyone explain to me why we should put up with such a callous, brutal, exploitative system. Especially when we know there are alternatives. There is not enough outright anger on the streets yet, but hopefully it is coming and soon.
How about one of these, just to get away from it all for a while?
On reading this my hatred of this system that breeds authoritarianism, intolerance, violence and a host of other injustices and inhumane actions, has grown to unimaginable levels. I didn't think that was possible, but the deeper this system sinks into the dark morass of callous and brutal inhumanity, the more the anger and hatred becomes uncontrollable.
A 13-year-old boy in Glendale, Utah, was shot several times by police officers after his mother called 911 for help with his mental health crisis.
Linden Cameron, who has Asperger's, a form of autism, is now in a serious condition in hospital, his mother said. Golda Barton said she had believed police attending on Friday night would use "the most minimal force possible". Salt Lake City Police Sgt Keith Horrocks told reporters that the incident was now being investigated. Speaking to local CBS-affiliate KUTV, Ms Barton said she told the 911 operator that her son needed to be taken to hospital for treatment. He was experiencing a crisis because it was her first day back at work in almost a year and "he has bad separation anxiety", she said. "I said, he's unarmed, he doesn't have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming," Ms Barton said. "He's a kid, he's trying to get attention, he doesn't know how to regulate." At a press conference,Sgt Horrocks said officers were called to a "violent psych issue"and reports that a boy - who they did not name - had made "threats to some folks with a weapon". He added that there was no indication when they attended that the boy was armed. An officer shot the boy when he tried to flee on foot, Sgt Horrocks said. According to an online fundraiser set up to raise money for medical bills, Linden Cameron has suffered "injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, intestines and bladder". "The long-term effects of his injuries are still unknown, but it is likely that his recovery will be long and require multiple kinds of treatment," the page, set up by a friend of the family, says. According to data compiled and regularly updated by the Washington Post, 1,254 people with a mental illness have been shot dead by US police since the beginning of 2015. This represents 22% of all people shot and killed by police across the country over that period.
Solidarity, unity, co-operation and no borders are the foundation stones of our victory over this economic system that condemns millions to a life of misery. A system that has only one aim to increase profit, wealth and power to the few. As the inequality grows so does the anger and the resistance, however, likewise the state, the corporate beast's minder, increases it repression, surveillance and brutality to meet that resistance. It is aware of the rising anger and resentment, if unchecked could bring its plundering to an end, so it will increase its viciousness and brutal repression in an attempt to hold onto its very survival and to retain its wealth, power and privileges.
We either accept the life of inequality, injustice, mass poverty, murderous deprivation, total surveillance, and continuous wars, that this system hands us, or we resist with all the strength we can muster, and take our anger to the streets. Our world of resistance may seem fragmented, but make no mistake, it is the same battle across all borders, a struggle for justice, equality and the right to a decent life for all.If these struggles happening across the globe, cometogether across all states enforced borders, our victory is assured. The alternative is unacceptable.
A call with passion and from the heart from Berlin.
International Call for Action and Discussion Days in Berlin 30.10.-01.11.2020 International Demo in Berlin 31.10.2020 UNITED WE FIGHT! Connect Urban Struggles – Defend Autonomous Spaces Over the last years we experience a global resurgence of reactionary politics. State and capital, in a constant process of intensifying exploitation and expanding repression, used the global capitalist crisis, which started a decade ago, as a chance to further restructure relations of power in their advantage. Their political answer is materialized in a shift to the right, with a political alliance of neoliberal economic policies coupled with strong nationalistic narratives and repressive policies against resistance and progressive movements. The new face of authoritarianism has unleashed an all out attack against individuals it considers unnecessary or those that choose to resist and collectivize against the ruin of their lives. In our current period, states the world over used measures against Covid-19 to extend repression, policing and surveillance against societies. At the same time, the failings of neoliberal healthcare systems have led to masses of deaths and increasing inequality due to access to healthcare. To all of this, people in different areas of the world answer with massive resistance on the streets. Movements with different perspectives have revolted, for example in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, or more recently in France and the USA. The common thread of all these movements is their distance from institutionalized and systemic politics and the choice of self-organization and horizontalism in the fight against authority. The movement in Germany is fighting against exploitation and oppression in the belly of the beast. Since the movement reached a climax of mobilization against Hamburg’s G20 summit in 2017, the German state intensified and broadened its repressive arsenal with the goal to suppress and isolate the movement: this has seen the biggest public manhunt since the state repression since the 1960s and 70s, widening of police measures such as preventative arrests and extrajudicial surveillance, increased penalties for crimes against police and the ban of the popular German indymedia website “linksunten”. In the city of Berlin over the past years the movement has come under constant attack through the eviction of its infrastructure, with gentrification manifesting itself in an attack on marginalized and struggling parts of society: rising rents making life unbearable, more than 5.000 forced evictions of houses per year, increased policing of public spaces and an overall changing social geography in the city. On the one hand this destroys or displaces spaces that the movement uses to support itself. Through heavy policing and state repression, subversive lifestyles and political organization is made impossible within public spaces. On the other hand capital is given space to invest and increase profitability through real-estate, privatization of security through cameras, fences and walls, smart city developments and big public-private partnership projects. The struggle of self-organized spaces in Berlin has developed against this background. The eviction of the bar collective Syndikat last August, and the broad mobilization of the movement against the eviction, was only the start of the upcoming fight for our infrastructures. The anarcha-queer-feminist house project Liebig34, the autonomous youth center Potse and the bar collective Meuterei are threatened by imminent evictions. The house project Rigaer94 was again raided in July, in an attempt to use the background of the raid several vain attempts to evict squatted flats were made without any success, since all flats could be held by the people inside or taken back. This phase of evictions might become the biggest attack on the autonomous infrastructure in Berlin since the 1990s. These collective spaces have chosen to stay and fight back in different ways. Their struggle has rallied the movement German-wide as a fight we are all a part of: against private property and capital, against the displacement of people from their houses, against gentrification of our neighborhoods, against a patriarchal and racist system which marginalizes, silences and oppresses the voices of those being exploited or deemed expendable for the system. Against this the projects put forward self-organization and solidarity, defiance of property and confrontation with the state and a direct attack on the oppressive social structures of hetero-patriarchy, nationalism and individualism. We are traversing a critical period, both for society and for radical movements worldwide. Under the dogma of “law and order”, state and capital are intensifying their attack on society and trying to further their dominance of all aspects of everyday life, stopping every collective vision and claim, and every perspective of resistance and struggle. Recognizing Berlin as the capital of one of the most dominant capitalist countries worldwide, we aim to intensify the social struggle in the heart of the beast. Giving a strong answer and creating perspectives against one of the most unbearable states of the world, that consists a model for many countries worldwide and which through its bureaucracy and structures infiltrates all the aspects of our lives leaving no space for self organization and anti-institutional struggles, will create a legacy not only for the local movement but for every rebellious cell worldwide. By the end of October an official eviction date of Liebig34 may be public. We will get together to prevent this. And if it has already been evicted in the weeks prior, we will take it back! We need all the force we can and call for support to defend our projects. Borderless solidarity is one of our strongest weapons. We want to use this opportunity to make the anarchist perspective more visible and bring the discussion about our ideas, praxis and strategies forward. The days prior to the demonstration on 31.10. will offer space for a plenary assembly, exchange, discussions and ways of actions on our common goals, strategies, occupying ground and collective defense. We consider this demonstration as an opportunity to come together to create a breach in their plans and multiple moments of ragefull, dynamic and militant experiences in which we abandon the defensive role and instead take the street as an active and offensive movement. Thus we hope to make these days part of a continuous discourse and not yet another unconnected event with no followup. For these reasons we call for people to take the streets and destroy their plans of evictions. Although our fights in different corners of the worlds take different characteristics as we struggle in different contexts, borderless solidarity and the bridging of our struggles has been possible in the past, and is necessary for the future. Let’s choose confrontation and resistance, and seek them in collective moments beyond borders; let’s make their plans a disaster. We join the call of Terra Incognita to turn this year’s October into a month dedicated to solidarity and standing up for every occupied ground threatened by repression. Lets bring our rage together! Berlin 30.10.-01.11.202 International Demonstration 31.10.2020 via Liebig34.
The Greek "New Democracy" government is continuing it ruthless policy of trying to eliminate all Squats, autonomous centres and voluntary migrant support groups. Far from this being a police operation these evictions look more like a military operation. Greece is not alone in trying to eliminate these self organising centres, it is the aim of all states to have everybody to follow the rules of the state, to survive. It and it alone needs to have the monopoly on how our lives are shaped. Leaving people to plan and shape their own lives would be the demise of the state. It will muster whatever savagery, terror, and intimidation, with the necessary brutality to ensure its own survival. The state exists by subservience and blind obedience.
Not the best quality of video but you grasp the numbers protesting.
They evacuated a squat but didn't expect 2000 people protesting on the same day...
Following the police raid and evacuation of Terra Incognita 16 years old squat in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 17 August 2020, the police invasion at Libertatia Squat in Thessaloniki on 23 August 2020 and the arrest of 12 people rebuilding the roof that had been burnt by fascists during an attack, another squat was raided on Saturday 5 September 2020, this time in Chania, Crete where Rosa Nera Squat stood ground since 2004. Few hours later, following the police raid, hundreds of people marched in solidarity through the small greek island town in the afternoon and held a public assembly in the evening to decide the next steps of resistance.But that was not the end. The public assembly decided for another protest through the center of Chania on the same night, where beyond the greek government and police expectations more than 2.000 people took part in the small town of approximately 55.000 residents, marching in solidarity to the “Rosa Nera” Squat. The mass participation in the protests and assemblies is a clear sign of the Squat's openness and interconnection with society and the people's reaction to the plans of turning this historic building into a hotel owned by an Israeli company. During the last years, all the greek governments have carried out several campaigns of elimination of the self-managed spaces. What they want to achieve is that people find themselves only in the cafes, in the bars, and in the shopping centers as just consumers and customers. Consequently, the offensive that Rosa Nera is facing in Chania is not fortuitous. The Rosa Nera building belongs to the Polytechnic School of Chania, and for 16 years has been a place of struggle and emblematic culture, also covering accommodation needs. In its facilities, the tireless people who have worked hard to give life to the building have created a theater, a library and reading room, a space for presentations (of artistic creations), a children’s park, a construction workshop, a free bazaar of gifts and a communal kitchen for the production of bread. In these 16 years hundreds of events, concerts, presentations, debates, workshops, parties, cafes to support collectives and actions have been organized. All have had an anti-commercial character contrary to the government’s and the University of Crete plans to convert the squatted building into a hotel, so that only those with pockets full of money may enjoy the beautiful view from the Kasteli hill, where the Squat is located. To turn something which is free and accessible to everyone in the town, to a restricted area for the few willing to pay to enjoy it. The Rosa Nera Squat kept and ensured the free for all character of the place intact. And that is why you see so many people in the streets protesting the eviction.
Politicians and Councillors must hate old people, the older we get the further back our memories go. I presume my memories go back before some of our Councillors and politicians, who are now "re-imaging" Glasgow, were born. This "re-imaging" involves changing public assets to money making entities or selling off some of those assets. In such deals you can bet that the private sector gain immensely from this "re-imaging". So a wee delve into one of those memories, Robroyston Hospital, it treated tuberculosis, among other forms of illnesses and for a time 1918-1919 handled these poor souls who were maimed, broken and blind from WW1, built 1918, sold off 1977. Public opinion was against the closure of this hospital, but it went ahead. Decisions made behind closed doors never work out in the best interest of the general public. Hansard:
I am glad to have this opportunity to raise in the House the subject of the proposed closure of Robroyston Hospital, Glasgow, and I can tell the House at the outset that I have here a telegram from the local health council supporting me in my efforts to prevent its closure. That in itself is an indication of the way in which the decision has been carried along. The first that the staff of the hospital, the local health council, local councillors and I knew of the proposed closure was when we read about it in the Press.
The hospital covered a large expanse of land to the north of Glasgow, it consisted of two main buildings, one brick built E-shaped the other H-shaped, and a series of nine brick built houses for wards. An additional eight houses were built to the NE and at a later some thirteen wooden huts were added to the N. All of the above were set within extensive gardens and grounds. The facilities for patients at the hospital included two tennis courts, a bowling green and a putting green.
The sad tale of the usual rip-off of the public sector by the private sector at the hands of our corporate minded, bumbling politicians.
TABLE THE spectre of a 15-year-old property deal hangs over any plans which the Greater Glasgow Health Board might have to dispose of two of its prime hospital sites. In 1977, the Government sold the 600-acre site of the former Robroyston Hospital in the north of Glasgow to Aberdeenshire-based property developers Elinacre for #410,000. Mr Ian MacDonald, Elinacre's principal, who died in 1988, then sold on parcels of land to housing developers for #2m.
Of course we will be told that safeguards have been put in place so that such bungling ineptitude and cavalier attitude to our public assets, can't happen again, but the same private plundering of public assets still goes on. This is not going to change until we change the entire economic system to one of public ownership freed from the profit motive.
Prisons are state institutions that are meant to subdue dissent, create subservience, breed submission. History has proved that these institution have, very often failed in their purpose. The human spirit so often overcomes attempts to shackle its desire for freedom and justice. I have no doubt that this desire will eventually win, and we will pull down the walls of these symbols of state control and cruelty, along with the system that requires them for its very existence. There is no place for prisons in any civilised society, they are there to protect the status-quo, to keep wealth and power where it is, clasped in the greedy hands of the pampered, privileged, parasite class.
Santiago, Chile: Letter from Anarchist Prisoner Mónica Caballero Palabras de la compañera Monica Caballero desde la cárcel de San Miguel ($hile) For those opposed to this system of terror, prison is always a bitter pill and it always hurts. Prison and I are old acquaintances, on more than one occasion I have sat at his table, over the years we have changed and we have both learned from one another… but no matter how much time I spend in prison, I remain the same. Prison is still the monstrous phagocyte of power that grows with submission and repentance, and I continue with the same seditious desires of yesteryear. The powerful succeeded in locking up my restless body, they tried to guard it for many years, but even though it is caged, my heart is still out there far from fences, high walls and watchful eyes… the grey of this place only touches me superficially. The prison is another place of struggle on the road to confrontation, the anti-authoritarian confrontation for me has not finished, it has only changed shape. DearJuan Aliste, Joaquín García, Marcelo Villarroel and Dinos Giagtzoglou‘s words are a breath of fresh air in this cell. There is still much to build and to destroy! Active solidarity with the Mapuche political prisoners on hunger strike
Long live Anarchy!
Monica Caballero S. Anarchist prisoner. Santiago Chile September 2020.
