There are individual anarchists that work away quietly trying to build that better world for all, then there are anarchist groups that do the same. Then there are anarchist groups that create real problems for the status quo as they work tirelessly to create that better world for all. Then there those individual anarchists that dedicate their life to doing the utmost damage to the system, by what ever means available to them, selflessly and daringly trying to create that better world for all by attempting to bring the capitalist system to a state of confusion hoping it will eventually collapse. One such anarchists was Lucio Urtubia master forger, bank robber, splitting the proceeds to anarchist groups, friends in prison and their families, the rest to those who carried out the operation. With his forged City Bank travellers cheques, he created real problems for the big City Bank. There is a film based on his actions, A Man of Action, which is now streaming on Netflix.
This so called democratic system we live under is stinking rotten to the core. Our lives are shaped by corruption, self seeking power mongers, authoritarianism, and that deadly virus patriotism, all this officiated over by funny people in funny clothes. This seemingly invincible edifice to power, privilege and wealth, is vulnerable in so many ways. We can attack the system in so many ways from disturbing the placid followers of the system as they blissfully ignore the real world around them. Its lines of communication are vulnerable, strikes can disrupt its flow of money to the parasites, Go slow working to rule rule can play havoc with their production of crap for sale to the gullible public. If we wish to rid ourselves of this cancerous exploitative, greed drive system, we have to use every means at our disposal, just as the system uses ever means at its disposal to control and intimidate the population into a homogeneous placid obedient mass.
Interruption of a performance at Teatro Argentina in solidarity with the imprisoned anarchists on hunger strike against 41bis (Rome 26th November 2022) Today, 26th November 2022, the play ‘Hamlet’ was interrupted at Teatro Argentina in Rome. In spite of the fact that the theatre workers turned into a real security line-up to protect the bosses’ interests, we determinedly managed to get on stage and unfurl a banner that read “Something is rotten in Italy: NO to 41 bis”, throw leaflets and read part of the communique which we are reproducing in full here below: We are here because Alfredo Cospito is under 41 bis. 41 bis is a prison regime specifically designed to annihilate the individual. We are here because Alfredo has been on hunger strike for over a month. We are not here to cry over an injustice suffered by our anarchist comrade, because it is not such. Just as it is not a legal aberration. It is the logical reaction of the democratic State to the attacks launched by Alfredo. First physical, with the wounding of the bureaucrat Adinolfi, at the time CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare, for which he has finished serving the time he was sentenced to. Then in the words through which he contributed to the debates of the anarchist movement while in high security detention. 41 bis to Alfredo is not just revenge, is also the will to take away the word. Because the word, when it does not remain a mere rhetorical exercise, is a weapon. Alfredo has been on hunger strike for over a month to obtain his reclassification and against life imprisonment without parole. He has been joined by the anarchist prisoners Juan Sorroche, Ivan Alocco and Anna Beniamino. They are using the hunger strike because in the condition of isolation in which they find themselves it is perhaps the only form of struggle available to them. With strength and courage they are risking their safety, their lives… while you are sitting here watching a sham and do not realise that everything is such. Every day something is taken from you, for the time being, it does not affect you and so you look the other way. Blinded by your privileges you think that democracy is the best possible system and you look indignantly at exotic nations where people are being trampled on. You want truth and justice for Giulio Regeni and don’t give a damn about the 14 deaths in prison on the 8th of March 2020 by Italian democracy. You don’t give a damn about the 80 prison suicides from January to today. You don’t give a damn about the migrant concentration camps scattered around the Bel paese. We have not come to sensitise you. If you are sleeping soundly… we will spoil your entertainment.
Let’s break the social peace in which you are basking.
The most dangerous terrorist groups on the planet, the most heavily armed, and the ones that have caused more destruction across the world, that no other terrorist group could hope to match. Of course it is the various states. Iranian state has started executing protesters, Italian state condemns prisoners to total sensory deprivation, Greek state shoots teenagers, Israeli state kills and maims Palestinians on a daily basis. Various state bomb countries into the stone age, killing thousands of innocent people and displacing millions. All this is done with the stamp of legitimacy that the various states bestow on their every action, no matter how brutal, callous or inhumane. Yet we tolerate this most savage of terrorist groups to shape our society, to control our every movement, because we seem to accept its claim to a total monopoly on violence that it backs it up with a loaded judicial system. Accepting such a structure in our society is denying our freedoms, our rights to self determination, denying justice and equality for all. We are complicit in this violence from the state's terrorist actions, as long as we pay lip service to this insanity, to be civilised we have to destroy this terrorist structure and build a society on mutual aid, co-operation, between our communities and workplaces, base our society on justice and equality and seeing to the need of all our people, humanity and sustainability.
Poster and flyer distributed and posted up in Lecce
The State is the slaughterer!
December 12 marks the anniversary of what is known as the “mother of all massacres”, the one in Piazza Fontana, at the Banca dell’Agricoltura in Milan, in 1969. Planned and carried out by fascists in collusion with State apparatuses, many more followed and over the following decade much blood was shed. These were scientifically planned massacres that attempted to impart an even more authoritarian turn to the young Italian Republic. On December 5 in Turin, the courts began deliberating the sentencing of two anarchist comrades – Alfredo and Anna – accused of “political massacre” for having placed two explosive devices outside the carabinieri school near Cuneo in 2006, without causing any fatalities or injuries. They both risk life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Alfredo is being held under the 41 bis regime since May. It seems logically absurd to hold a trial for a massacre without a single death, but not when the defendants are anarchists. The State wants to imprison them for life, not for what they have allegedly committed, but for the ideas they carry in their hearts and the actions that are an expression of those ideas.
It is par for the course for greed to prevail in the capitalist system. Cast your mind back to 2007-2009 financial crash. The banking system went bust, they had been dealing in dodgy packages, selling them on and hoping nobody looked inside the packages, as they were worth nothing, but generated cash for the big banks. However some people did look inside the packages and found the had been sold a pig in poke. And the system collapsed under the weight greed driven gambling. In steps you and I with our tax money and bailed the banks out to the tune of approximately £140 billion. This lead to ten years of austerity as we paid the price of the greed driven gambling frenzy of the financial institutions. So the banking system was looked at and lo and behold, it was found to be lacking in any regulations to stop this crazy greedy driven gambling with our money. So regulations were brought in to tighten how the financial Mafia used our money and prevent this happening again, and it seemed to work.
However our political masters have decided that the banking industry is far too regulated, so are setting about removing all those regulations to prevent insane financial gambling by the financial Mafia. Now they can let rip all the greed driven insanity in making a quick buck at any expense. Hold on to your braces, another crash is now very much a possibility, and once again you and I will be expected to bail them out. If we do this time, then we deserve all we get. We should never have our lives dictated to us by the millionaire/billionaire parasites. They gamble to get rich quick, smiling as they go, as they believe, they are to big to fail. Surely enough is enough, it's time to bring this whole madhouse of greedy driven economic insanity crashing down around the heads of the parasitic few. We don't need them to tell us how to live our lives, we can make a much better job on our own. We know the society we want, mutual aid, sustainability, co-operation, equality and justice and seeing to the needs of all our people. We will never get it under the corporate capitalist/financial Mafia yoke
I was in Athens on December 6th 2008 when 15 year old kid Alexis Grigoropoulos was out for a Saturday night coffee with his friend, Nikos Romanos, in the district of Exarchiea, when laughter turned to tragedy, when a police officer shot young Alexis dead, he died on the street in the arms of his friend Nikos. This brutal state murder brought the people of that country onto the streets in a display of united anger and disgust. I joined some of the protests in Athens during that December, and you could feel the anger. It was awe inspiring to see so many people demonstrating their fury at this callous murder of a youth. Greece was seized by riots for weeks on end. Jump forward almost 15 years to the day of that callous brutal act and it seems history repeats itself. In Thessoloniki, on the 5th. of December, this year 2022, a police officer shot a 15 year old youth twice in the head, shot for 20 Euros of petrol. Is there any wonder that the people of that country are angry, furious, disgusted at this repeat of the callous act of 2008. We too should be angry, for it is now common for the police armed like the military parading through our streets, we too have individuals shot and killed on our streets. The state says the police are there to protect us, when in fact they intimidate and terrorise the general public.
It was during the early hours of Monday 5 December 2022, when a 16 year old kid was shot in the head by a greek police officer of the DIAS motorcycle unit during a car chase in Thessaloniki. He was accused that he filled his pick-up truck with 20 euros worth of petrol and left the petrol station without paying. Following the news and his dire physical condition, riots erupted in the city of Thessaloniki, located in the north of Greece, later on the same day. At the same time, in Athens, several different protests were held in the evening of December the 5th. The protest in Exarcheia, held in front of the memorial of Alexis Grigoropoulos, (a 15 year old kid that was shot dead by a cop on 6 December 2008, sparking the events that would lead to massive riots all over Greece, known as the December Revolt) soon turned into a march that led to a riot, as seen in the video. It has to be noted, that today 6 December, protests have been planned in dozens of cities and towns all over Greece, in remembrance of the December Revolt and the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the police in Exarcheia 15 years ago to this day.
Listening to the venom spewing from the mouths of our lords and masters that frequent The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, at those on strike for a decent life, such as holding the country to ransom, playing into Putin's hands. We should perhaps remind them of the irrefutable truth. Those on strike and all other workers built this world by sweat and blood, theirs and the forbearers. It's time we took it back.
We the people have, every brick laid, have fed the world with sweat and spade, every instrument played in every band created by the skill of the craftsman's hand. We made every truck and every load, our toil our effort every winding road, every ship that ever sailed the sea, our power our imagination made it be. Cities and towns large and small, our labouring hands fashioned them all, every home, every spire, luxury mansion or humble byre. No matter what dreams the mind might spawn without labour's hand, never see the light of dawn, without labour's strength and labour's skill, we would be foraging beasts in a jungle still.
Once again the UK state shows its true colours, it spouts green renewable policies but decides to open up another coal mine. All this while experts say that climate catastrophe could happen at much lower temperatures than first predicted. The usual mantra is repeated, "it will bring jobs and help the economy". Help the economy really means allow the millionaire/billionaire class to make heaps more money, as for the jobs, it will be dirty, dangerous, unhealthy and unnecessary jobs. We all know that wars bring jobs and helps the economy, the rich getting richer, but nobody in their right mind wants jobs at that price. The same logic should apply in the case of coal mining, pouring more CO2 into the atmosphere, accelerating the climate catastrophe that is heading our way. Why do we allow these money grabbing mobsters of parasites to dictate our future, to bind us to extinction via climate disaster, just so they can enhance their already extreme ill-gotten wealth. Surely we could do better without them and their leeching greed. We can build a fairer society based on mutual aid and co-operation between communities, a society that sees to the needs of all our people. Of course it will never happen as long as we leave this bunch of greed driven parasites holding the reins of power. As always, the choice is ours, knuckle down and grin and bear it, or stand up and take the fight to them, on the streets, in the workplaces and in our communities. The future is ours to grasp, it will never be given to us.
System Fail 19, the latest from SubMedia now available. As usual it covers a range of topics. This episode looks at the pandemic, riots in China and Elon Musk's take-over of twitter. System Fail is a window on our world, always worth a viewing.
As the state here tightens its legislation on protests, trying to make it impossible to protest against any injustice, and demonises those who dare to take strike action in a struggle for a decent life, labelling them enemies of the state, as well as accusing them of playing into the hands of Putin, we must remember, this is not a local problem, it is happening across the world. Here in Europe and in America the various states are marching to the right, as is happening elsewhere. Anarchists always come in for some of the harshest treatment. In Italy a law, 41-bis, brought in to attack the mafia, after a string of assassinations is now being used against anarchists. In Greece it is practically a military operation with guns and all the brutal appendages the authoritarian state can muster to destroy free autonomous spaces and brutalise those who defend those spaces. This is an on going threat that we ignore at our peril. Our limited liberties are being trashed, if this happens, it will be a harder fight to get them back. Much better to defend what you have rather than try to retrieve what you have lost. This fight is of the most urgency, the various state are marching right at an ever increasing pace. The following extract from Enough is Enough.
We are still here … The Community remains strong and united … Prosfygika will win!!!!
On 22/11/2022, at 5.45 am, all kinds of police forces, riot police MAT, state security, Delta, OPKE and EKAM, invaded the squated neighbourhood of Prosfygika on Alexandra Avenue and more specifically the 7th block, on Tikhonidos Street (behind the Elpis Hospital). They broke through the outer door of the building, breaking it. Then they went up to the second floor where two community companions, the arrested companion and another refugee from Iran live. They kidnapped both of them and proceeded to carry out a thorough search of the building. At the same time, the entire neighborhood was surrounded by the repression forces, not only at the site of the search but in total, attempting to occupy it. The operation was spotted by the community’s daily morning patrol who began to inform the neighborhood. Comrades and compañeras took to the rooftops to wake up the rest of us. Not knowing exactly what was happening, we recognized that the operation was limited to a specific building, but we also realized the serious possibility of a general attack. In retrospect, we judge that the invasion that took place was premeditated from the morning. All the time that elapsed until the moment of the invasion was the result of preparation, judgment on costs and gains, as well as a measurement of our determination, by the officials of the GADA and the ministry. As time went on, the situation seemed to get more difficult. The comrade remained inside the building, the police forces were not removed and the encirclement remained. The neighbourhood was becoming suffocating with the situation. We attempted to contain the riot police further in from Kuzi Street, that is, the vertical street that centrally separates the refugee blocks, so as to open up vital space for the neighbourhood, without obstructing the investigation, but making our presence felt. This allowed the neighbourhood to slowly leave their homes, some to go to their jobs and others to take their children to school. It also stopped the torture of our comrade, who was under captivity in his house for about 3 hours. At least as he informed us later, then, after the fireworks, they stopped and took him to GADA. At the same time we were receiving more and more information and indications of a second operation that had been predecided and which would take place after 3.00 p.m., after the partial eviction of the two hospitals of St. Sava and Elpis. Around 12.00 noon we held a march through the neighbourhood and called an emergency advocacy meeting at the community shelter in the 6th block for 4.00 p.m. At 5.00 p.m., during the open publicly announced meeting, the repression helicopter and drone attack began in the air. The guarding shift resisted as best they could given the circumstances, using every means of non-criminal force, not only to protect against persecution disproportionate to the litigation, but also to protect the entire community, its children and patients, and the wider neighbourhood in general. A wave of terrorism fell upon the 5th and 6th blocks that left children and other people in the neighborhood in panic attacks that continue to this day. The Hellenic Police assassins broke down apartment doors with guns drawn, threatening anyone in sight, and attempted to impose a regime of terrorism. A sick woman in a wheelchair and her daughter, a family holding their children in a panic attack, a mother beaten and thrown to the floor in front of her 12-year-old son after their door was broken, migrants and refugees spilling into their homes and on the stairs, like an invasion of Gaza.
December, so another Read of the Monthfrom Spirit of Revolt.
This month we bring you Manifesto of Libertarian Communism by Georges
Fontenis, ACE, Anarchist Communism Edition No·3, from our K M Collection,
T SoR 4-1-3. An excellent read for those who want to know more about
Libertarian Communism, or refresh their thoughts on the subject. You can
of course delve into our website
where you will find a multitude of information on Anarchism and
Libertarian Socialism and the people and struggles involved in that
struggle for that better world for all.
Well it is that time of the year when people buy presents for friends and family, call it what you will, I like Winter Solstice. Choosing a present can be difficult, so let me help you. A wonderful book to give to your friends, family comrades or for yourself, would by the book by James Kelman and Prof. Noam Chomsky, "Between Thought and Expression Lies a Lifetime, Why Ideas Matter", published by PM Press.
Apart from seeing this book as an essential read for all left radical thinkers and activists, I have another motive for suggesting it as a wonderful Solstice gift. The authors have kindly stated that the proceeds from the sale of the book go to Spirit of Revolt as a donation. Spirit of Revolt is probably the largest anarchist, libertarian socialist archive in Scotland, we record, preserve and make easily available, your history, your struggles for that better world for all. We rely totally on donations from friends and supporters. we receive no funding from unions, businesses or councils and our team are all unpaid volunteers. See our donation page.All donations, one-off or direct debit, no matter how small are really appreciated.
Food for thought as we face a winter of cold and hunger, midst abundant wealth.
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
Pity the nation that raises not its
voice
Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero
And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture...
Pity the nation oh pity the people
who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed
away...”-
The following article doesn't just apply to Exarcheia in Athens, what they are facing is happening to every city across the globe. The drive to turn public spaces into profitable entities, not for us all, but for the already very rich and powerful. These decisions are made by bureaucrats and politicians who see only economic growth for profit, although these decisions impact on our quality of life the decisions are made over our heads. It will take a well organised mass movement to stop this trend of profit before the quality of life of those impacted by these bureaucratic decisions. If we want quality of life over profit, then we will have to take to the streets and force the change, it will not come from the politicians and the bureaucrats who are blinded by the profit motive.
Analysis, Dec 2nd First of all it is important to underline that public transport (tram, subway, bus) is immensely important as it allows for ecological and inclusive movement throughout the city. With the usage of all the different types of public transport a vast and comfortable transportation network can be developed to challenge the domination of the private car on our streets – domination that makes urban life worse by air and noise pollution, frequent accidents, and the exclusion of the most marginalised economically. For quite some time now, in the historic Exarcheia neighbourhood of Athens, home to countless anti-authoritarian and anarchist collectives, squats, and social centres, there has been a struggle directed against the construction of a metro station on the district’s central square. How does an area with such a libertarian history oppose the expansion of public transport, one might ask; but the truth is that the problem is not the subway as such, but the way the decision to build was made and what will came after it. Firstly, many of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, in coordination with architects and urban planners, have proposed another place of the neighbourhood (Archaeological Museum) as a place more suitable and rational for a subway station. The people of Exarcheia understand the ecological and inclusive dimensions of public transport; what they disagree with is the political way through which this, and other, decisions are being made – decisions, made by a handful of politicians and businessmen, that will shape our common ground for generations to come, without the participation of all of us who inhabit it. Secondly, the inhabitants are in opposition to the urban vision promoted by those in power: with most striking example being the Kotzias square right in front of the Mayor’s building in Athens. We speak of a place that does not feel nor look like square any more. There are no trees or benches, so one can pass through it on their way to somewhere, but not spend time in it, as there is no protection from summer’s blazing sun or anywhere to sit. This is in line with the project of “touristisation” that the Greek authorities have been implementing for years all around Athens. In this project the pubic spaces are an obstacle to economic growth: tourist shops, restaurants, cafeterias all generate economic revenues from tourists, while squares, with their benches and trees, serve the communal (often non-economic) needs of the inhabitants. This is what the inhabitants of Exarcheia do not want to happen to their square – but what the restructuring of it, due to the subway station, will most probably bring. The vision that local authorities envision will not solve any of the problems of the area, it will simply lay the foundations of yet another urban desert, where there is barely any vegetation and no place where one can sit for free. There is also a third dimension of this project. The Greek state, under different governments, has continuously been in opposition to the autonomous movement in all its expressions. As is well known, Exarcheia is both a point of reference and a symbol of this movement. In this line of thought the decision, taken without any sort of public deliberation and despite strong opposition, to place a metro station in an irrational place, is also seen by the authorities as an excuse to militarise the district with heavy police presence and suffocate any effort of self-organization. The case of the construction of a subway station at Exarcheia square comes to show that under the conditions of oligarchy and capitalism even sustainable means of transportation can be used to destroy public spaces and gentrify neighbourhoods, just as renewable energy sources are used to destroy mountainous areas in order to generate profits for investors far away. What is crucial to understand is that this is all a question of politics: of who gets to shape our city – a handful of bureaucrats and capitalist investors, or the vast majority of a district’s inhabitants. It is this political question that frames the content and the outlook of urban space.
