Capitalism A Failed System.

 

       There are lots of methods by which you can asses that capitalism is a failed system. Probably the greatest indictment against the system is its continuous wars, wars are just an ongoing aspect of capitalism. It is always there in some form or other in some part of the world, with all its attendant features of misery, trauma, death, destruction, and massive profits to the corporate world. 

       Another measure of its failure is its gross inequality, from state to state, you have opulence and deprivation living side by side. In this insane system, since money is the main ingredient in the quality of your life, you have to prostitute yourself as a productive unit to some corporate body, or live in poverty. However even here they system fails, by being unable to to allow everybody the necessity of being a productive unit, it functions by leaving a pool of individuals with no means of survival except charity or some form of miserable state hand out.

      The EU is one of the worlds most developed capitalist power blocks, but even here, unemployment is rife, which in turn means poverty and deprivation are endemic. The EU is a rich capitalist enclave of 511.8 million people, with the vast majority of its members states having unemployment above 13%, the EU average is 7.3%, that is approximately 40 million people excluded from the possibility of a decent standard of living in the midst of a very rich enclave.

       More than 117 million people across EU member countries (or 23.4% of the population) were living at risk of poverty in 2016, according to the Eurostat statistics agency.

     Of course the unemployment average doesn't tell the true story. Looking at figures in individual member states, you start to see the real horror of being dumped as "surplus to requirements".

        Greece leads the field in having the largest percentage of unemployed with a staggering 20.7% of its population dumped as "surplus to requirements", Spain following close behind with 16.4%, Cyprus 11.3%, and Italy 10.8%, and so it goes on.

       If you happen to be among the youth of this very rich bastion of capitalism, the EU, then you are in an even more precarious state than the population at large. The EU average for youth unemployment is 16.1%. If we look at individual states within the EU, then we see the real plight of the youth of this vast rich corporate body. Once again, leading the charge at destroying the next generation by killing off their potential, Greece is at the front with 40.8% of its youth dumped in that "surplus to requirements" category. Spain next with 36.8%, Italy with 32.2%, Cyprus 25%, Croatia 24.5%, France 22.3%, Portugal 22.1%, Finland 19.9%, and on it goes. That is 8 countries in the very rich EU, with approximately a quarter or more of the youth population unemployed, a quarter of its youth population facing daily poverty and deprivation and a monumental struggle to survive. Unless otherwise stated, all the above figures are for 2017.

     Surely that is cause enough to state unequivocally that capitalism has failed and failed miserable to see to the needs of the people. It is a destructive, unfair, unjust, corrupt, exploitative system that grossly over benefits a small army of parasites to the great disadvantage of the many. Its total destruction is the only way to resolve the problems it has created.

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The All Seeing Eye Of The Internet.

          Most of us love the Internet, most of us hate big brother, most of us detest the 24 hour surveillance society. There is some sort of contradiction in there, that needs to be resolved.

       An interesting article from Bob Morris at Politics in the Zeros:

        Silicon Valley wants 24/7 surveillance, as do governments. How convenient.

         Maybe it’s not so strange that a technology, the internet, that was started as a way to watch the public, continues to do exactly that, often with governments concealed behind the curtains as we get distracted by all the shiny new online toys.

        There is, of course, no going back. And the internet absolutely does many wonderful things for us. However we are being watched 24/7 and there’s no way to know who has that data and what they are doing with it. People on all sides of politics are getting alarmed. Joel Kotkin, a conservative, writes in the Orange County Register about the sinister side of Silicon Valley.

       How Silicon Valley went from ‘don’t be evil’ to doing evil
At the same time these firms are fostering what British academic David Lyon has called a “surveillance society” both here and abroad. Companies like Facebook and Google thrive by mining personal data, and their only way to grow, as Wired recently suggested, was, creepily, to “know you better.”
Whether one sits on the progressive left or the political right, this growing hegemony presents a clear and present danger. It is increasingly clear that the oligarchs have forgotten that Americans are more than a collection of data-bases to be exploited. People, whatever their ideology, generally want to maintain a modicum of privacy, and choose their way of life.
We have traveled far from the heroic era of spunky start-ups nurtured in suburban garages. But a future of ever greater robotic dependence — a kind of high-tech feudalism — is not inevitable. Setting aside their many differences, conservatives and progressives need to agree on strategies to limit the oligarch’s stranglehold on our future.

Yasha Levin’s new book explores the roots of the current surveillance.

       In Surveillance Valley, Yasha Levine traces the history of the internet back to its beginnings as a Vietnam-era tool for spying on guerrilla fighters and antiwar protesters–a military computer networking project that ultimately envisioned the creation of a global system of surveillance and prediction. Levine shows how the same military objectives that drove the development of early internet technology are still at the heart of Silicon Valley today. Spies, counterinsurgency campaigns, hippie entrepreneurs, privacy apps funded by the CIA. From the 1960s to the 2010s — this revelatory and sweeping story will make you reconsider what you know about the most powerful, ubiquitous tool ever created.

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I Can Shoot You In A Kneecap!!

          Across this capitalist controlled planet, while the far right grows, the various states are coming down hard on anarchists. You can pick you state controlled patch, and you will find anarchists at the receiving end of repression, no where more so than Russia.

      This info from Pramen, Anarchist Group:

“I can shoot you in a kneecap” – how Belarusian cops intimidate youth for alleged contacting with anarchists

       We already wrote about a case of a “The network”, in which Russian secret service FSB is fabricating the case about “terrorist anarchists”, knocking out false evidence from the accused by beatings and tortures.

        Apparently, the punishers in our country, having seen enough of the methods of work of their colleagues from Russia, decided that they can act in the same way: in Stolin, Brest region, the cops decided to become famous in the field of struggle against anarchists with the help of firearms. The ABC-Belarus received anonymous information about the intimidation of a young man from Stolin by Brest policemen. The man was threatened with a gun as the cops tried to force him to be a snitch for money. Here is his story.

       “Today, on February 23, 2018, at 11-50 am a call came in, the Investigative Committee of the city of Brest introduced themselves and asked where I was? Also they said that they were coming.

I went to the car, my father came out from there, they had taken him from work. My father was told that he was free, and they asked me to sit in the car.

– Tell me
– Tell you what?
– You know everything, tell me!
– I do not understand what’s going on.
– Who are you in life?
– Human.
– In what subculture are you, man?
– Punk.
– Anarchist?
– No.
– Do you know any of the anarchists?
– No.

          Then they took the mobile phone and began to flip through the photos, simultaneously asking who was on them. During the conversation they started asking about some leaflets.

I said that I did not know anything about them. To this the answer followed:

– Do not turn on the fool!
– I really do not know and I have nothing to do with this at all.

          Further, a policeman named Alexander said that he could shoot me a knee, and he has this authority. I did not react to this in any way.

Then they started asking questions about other people I know. We did not have a dialogue, they demanded from me the names of anarchists, to which I replied that I do not know anyone.

One of them (Alexander Nikolaevich) ordered: “We’re going to the forest.”

            They told me to fasten my belt and put my hands on the glove box. In the wood he told me to get out of the car and keep my hands in sight, later he gave me a cigarette and said to walk slowly forward, I listened to his orders.

         Soon he stopped and said: “Your last words?” I said nothing. There was a click (it seemed to me that he removed the gun from the fuse), I felt that a muzzle was leaning against my back.
– Any questions?
– No.

         For some time we stood in this pose and he tried to find out something I vaguely remember what it was. Then we got into the car and drove 100-200 meters away. We stopped and they began to threaten me with my relatives’ dismissal from work and apply other psychological pressure. Alexander Nikolayevich took me out of the car and said he wanted to talk to me “honestly.” He said that I’m a normal guy, and he does not want to make normal people suffer because of the Anarchists. Then they asked me to leak information to them, to which I replied that I was not going to leak.

-How much time do you need to find anarchists in your town?

           They said that they would contact me later and, while foisting me off 10 rubles so that I would remain silent about everything that was happening between us.

I did not answer.

           If you happen to have such stories, you are summoned to talk to the authorities, offered cooperation or if they try to put pressure, be sure to write to us at belarus_abc@riseup.net »

Source: www.abc-belarus.org

         Using such an “excellent” reason, you can contact the Investigation Committee on Brest and ask them questions about the incident, as well as express their opinion on the police system as a whole.

br@sk.gov.by – e-mail

(80162) 27-37-00 – telephone of the duty station
(80162) 27-37-24 – group on work with citizens’ appeals in the Brest region
(80162) 27-37-15 – Chief Inspector for Information and Public Relations (e-mail m.drankova@sledcom.by)

224016, city of Brest, ul. Pushkinskaya, 63 – address

(801655) 6-04-69, 6-16-71 – Stolin District Department of the Investigation Committee

225510, Stolin, ul. Tereshkova, 47 – the address

• ← Criminal case allegedly started for “the insult of Lukashenko” against a 19-year old vlogger
• 15 March — International Day Against Police Brutality

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Some Events This Week In Glasgow.

        Some up and coming events in Glasgow in the coming week, taken from the Autonomy List, all these events are worthy of you support, the snow is disappearing, so get out there and do your thing.

1. Against the National Project film screenings

Tuesday 6/3/18

18.30-21.30

CCA Glasgow, 350 Sauchiehall Street

Against the National Project:
Memory and Mobility in Contemporary Colombian Cinema

      Archivist and curator Juana Suárez (NYU Tisch School of the Arts) presents a programme of four recent short films by Colombian filmmakers living abroad. Works by Juan Soto, Laura Huertas Millán, Camilo Restrepo and Gonzalo Escobar unsettle established narratives of national cinema though counter-hegemonic perspectives. Experimental uses of archives, intersections with video art, and explorations of texture and place characterise this radical and developing body of work.
Introduction by Juana Suárez
Q&A with filmmaker Juan Soto
        Supported by the University of Stirling, University of Glasgow, and Leverhulme Trust
          Suggested donation £5, concessions £2, but please come anyway if you can't afford to donate, it's all good.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/322366381586202/

2. Red and Black Song Club: International Women's Day songs

Wednesday 7/3/18

19.00-21.00

Glasgow Autonomous Space, 53 Kilbirnie Street

        Join us to practice some songs to sing at the International Women's Day event to be held 4.30pm on 8th March at La Pasionaria sculpture on Clyde Street.
         No musical experience or knowledge necessary just enthusiasm! Players of any instrument are more than welcome to bring them along. Have a favourite radical song to share? Bring some copies along too.
        No fixed charge. Donation for room and expenses according to your means.
          Please share the event and invite your friends.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2037858379828500/

3. Solidarity with IWW member standing trial - Free the Pride 5

Thursday 8/3/18

09.00-12.30

Glasgow Sheriff Court
          Panos Theodoropoulos of the IWW was arrested while attempting to prevent the harassment and unjust arrest of a 16 year old during the Glasgow Pride march. The 16 year old had been targeted for holding a sign with the slogan ‘This Faggot Fights Fascists’. The police used extensive physical force on Panos, tackled him to the ground, and subsequently held him in custody for over 30 hours. Thankfully, the police dropped all charges on the 16-year-old, though they still see the need to drag Panos through the courts, for attempting to prevent what they basically admitted was a wrongful arrest!
          The arrested comrades were participating in the ‘Red and Black Bloc’, organised by queer members of the IWW as an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist presence in an increasingly commercialised and depoliticized Pride.
         In the same Pride march the police arrested 3 trans activists protesting Pride’s decision to have police lead. These arrestees have not been issued court dates as the police continue to ‘search for evidence’. We know from experience that the police don’t like attempts to undermine them or their attempts at ‘community outreach’. We are committed to ongoing solidarity with these arrestees, along with all those in the trans community who face harassment from the police.
       At the same time, the fact that Panos’s court date is set for International Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to highlight how seemingly different struggles are intimately connected. Patriarchy, racism and heteronormativity are crucial elements of the system of repression we are living in. As imprisonment and social control increasingly penetrate our precarious lives, we extend our solidarity to the increasing number of women prisoners in the UK and to the members of the trans community who are not only imprisoned but also suffer from being misgendered by the authorities and disproportionately experience violence and harassment. We therefore encourage everyone to participate in the various events organised around Glasgow for IWD (provided below).
        When activists are targeted simply for protesting, court solidarity becomes a crucial part of the fight to defend our fundamental rights to protest. Let it be shown that the movement refuses to accept the criminalisation of protesters, whether now or in the future. Let us lay the foundations, in our budding movements, for lasting, practical political solidarity.

As the IWW slogan goes, ‘an injury to one is an injury to us all’.
DROP ALL CHARGES!

JOIN US AT THE SOLIDARITY DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE GLASGOW SHERIFF COURT ON THE 8TH OF MARCH AT 09.00!

Facebook event at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1602005823251977/

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Reminder, International Women's Day, Glasgow Event.

        International Women's Day is just three days away, March 8th. and Glasgow is marking this day with an event in the city centre. So come along celebrate this international event, come and meet like minded people, come along and have a chat, make new friends, meet old friends, stand up for equality, and you don't have to be a women to come and support this event. Let's make it a big happy event.

         An International Women's Day event, initiated by the Equality Officers of the Clydeside Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, will be held on Thursday, the 8th of March.
            The rally and Walk of Pride will assemble at 4.30 pm at the La Pasionaria statue located on the north bank of the River Clyde next to Glasgow Bridge, opposite the Custom House on Clyde Street.
          This site was chosen because of the prominent role Dolores Ibarruri, called La Pasionaria ('The Passionate Flower') played in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, in defense of the Spanish Republic; and because the statue of her by sculptor Arthur Dooley so beautifully represents the revolutionary woman of courage that she was-- and that many of us strive to be.
            The rally will also honour the Scottish revolutionary, Ethel MacDonald, who was a key figure in the Scottish anarchist movement and in the Spanish Civil War. In 1936 she was sent by the United Socialist Movement to Barcelona where she became world-renowned as the English-speaking reporter for an anarchist radio station. She also remained an activist, daringly organising hunger strikes among the political prisoners, smuggling in letters, and helping some escape .

          The rally will feature a banner that says Celebrate International Women's Day For a World Free from Capitalism and Patriarchy, singing, and an open mic.
         At 5.30 pm we will start our Walk of Pride, with banner and placards, to George Square where we will join up with the Scottish Irish Abortion Rights campaigners for a #Solidarity4Repeal demo at 6 pm-- thus linking it to one of the most critical issues of the day: access to abortion as a woman's right. Throughout the afternoon, we will be proudly expressing our belief that Sisterhood, and Comradeship, are Powerful!

          All are welcome to attend. Please spread the word.
More information is available from
doraziosusan92@gmail.com

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University Strike, Glasgow-Dumfries.

        The strike at UK universities goes on from strength to strength. To those who have shown solidarity with the strike, there is still a need to continue, and those who have not yet, should get behind the  strikers, as the action has moved nearer a successful conclusion, but it isn't there yet, solidarity can win the day. Some further info on what is happening at Glasgow University, Dumfries.

       Just a bit of information about the 4 days of industrial action planned this week at the University of Glasgow in Dumfries.
       1) First, the strike has been broadly successful. Employers' have been brought to the negotiating table - and talks begin tomorrow, something the union has long been asking for, but only got through industrial action. However, nothing has been decided and it is important the campaign stays as strong as possible to put as much pressure as possible on the employers representatives.
       2) We plan to have a picket on each day of the strike outside the main University of Glasgow buildings on the Crichton Campus. Please do op by and say hello.
        3) There will be a TEACH OUT at the Theatre Royal, Dumfries (Tuesday and Thursday), with talks and discussion away from the strictures of the University. If you want to run a session do let me know. Do come along and please let others know. It is free. There's also tea and coffee.
        4) Please use social media and your networks to let people know about the industrial action and the TEACH OUT.
 All the very best

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Mental Illness Or ??

 

           Following on from Killer Cops And Gun Control:

 This from Its Going Down:

        This is a discussion paper written by a member of the Twin Cities General Defense Committee, Local 14. It therefore does not represent the official positions of the Twin Cities GDC, the General Defense Committee in general, or the Industrial Workers of the World.

By Erik D.

          We can’t eliminate exceptional violence without eliminating systemic violence. We must fight for liberation, not smaller boxes guarded by white men with guns.

Introduction – We Must Connect The Struggles for Peace

       On February 18th, 2018, A nineteen year old white man entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with his rifle, and murdered 17 people. He was later arrested peacefully by police. The shooter’s social media profiles indicate a racist obsessed with white nationalism and a hatred of women, and a promoter of fascist messages and imagery. He was reportedly obsessed with guns, and his behavior had been reported to law enforcement repeatedly. Law enforcement never took action, which has itself been widely criticized. The reasons for this inaction are not hard to pin down for those willing to look: Cruz, the shooter – was a white man with a gun, and therefore not a threat. In the aftermath, a Neo Nazi organization calling itself the Republic of Florida claimed Cruz as a member. This was quickly refuted when it became clear that their troll leader was merely seeking attention. Many stopped paying attention to that aspect of Cruz’ history as a result. But a peek at Cruz’ social media history demonstrates his independent hatred of black people and women. Or the swastikas he etched into his firearm ammunition magazines.

          In the aftermath, student survivors have successfully seized the national spotlight for the moment, and are demanding steps that will end the shootings that they have grown up with. This is a quest – to stop the violence in our society – that must be supported, and accomplished. But in order to accomplish it, we must be frank with ourselves about the causes of these shootings. The causes are white supremacism, male supremacism, and the history and present of firearms in the USA.

          Compare the spotlight these high school students have successfully seized with the response of mostly black women and men, including many youth, after the murder of Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Mike Brown, Jamar Clark, Sylville Smith, and so many others. The “Ferguson moment,” started with the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, transformed into a national movement against police murder of black people in the US by law enforcement. In contrast to the brave students of Stoneman Douglas High, the brave youth declaring that Black Lives Matter were demonized, and the militarized weight of the state was brought to bear against them repeatedly.

If our goal is to eliminate or at least massively reduce the epidemic of violence in our country, we must connect these struggles. Without connecting their gun control efforts to the concerns and needs of the Movement for Black Lives, the Stoneman Douglas students will substantially fail. Perhaps more ominous is the probability that they win some of their their demands without connecting them to the systematic violence that underwrites our entire country’s history and culture.

The problem is not mental illness

         A major concern in the post-massacre coverage has been the near-universal discussion of the shooter’s mental state. Many assume that merely because someone engages in an aberrant act, they are mentally ill. This is very far from the case. Breivik, the Norwegian neo-Nazi who in 2011 murdered 77 people – mostly leftist youths – was clearly not mentally ill. Neither was Dylan Roof, when he sat through a prayer meeting at the historic AME church founded by the great Denmark Vesey, and then opened fire, murdered all present except one person, whom he intentionally left alive as a witness. Neither were the Columbine shooters – those who are often held up as the originators and paradigm of modern school shootings in 1999.

         What they all had in common was not mental illness, but a hatred of non-white people and women. This is a through-line so consistent in mass shooters that it is very difficult to find exceptions. Those few apparent exceptions, such as Elliot Rodger, the Isla Vista mass murderer who targeted women, and whose mother is Asian, nevertheless adopt the particular hatreds of the masculinist and white supremacist culture in which they are raised. Rodgers frequently made racist and sexist statements, including specifically against Asian people.

Read the full article HERE:

One World, One People.

        In our struggle to defeat this capitalist cancer that is devouring our planet, we are complimented by many courageous individuals, but they need our committed solidarity, it is our struggle. To those who struggle for that better, fairer world, borders are invisible, it is one world, one struggle. A pipeline in Dakota, a privatisation in Greece, sweatshop conditions in Pakistan, it is the one fight to end the plunder of the planet and the exploitation of its people.
This from Enough is Enough:

          Support Happi with this You Caring Link
       Happi is currently being held captive by the U.S. Empire around his traditional Lakota homelands (so-called Bismarck, North Dakota). He is in Burleigh / Morton County Detention Center. Any and all funds will be used for his freedom. As a frontline warrior, he took courage during the #NoDAPL struggle by putting his body in front of earth-destroying construction equipment and stood up for the people. Happi continues to inspire with his humble and happy spirit.
        Lakota Warrior Happi American Horse Is being framed By The Morton County Police.
         Write Happi: Burleigh Morton Detention Center -Dale AmericanHorse JR- PO Box 2499 Bismark ND 58502
          Leave Happi A Free Message: 701 354-3292

Donate To legal Fund: Support

Support Committee: https://happisupport67127223.wordpress.com/

Contact Support Committee: happisupport@riseup.net

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Killer Cops And Gun Control!!

        When you consider that in the last ten years or so, the police in America have killed more Americans than all the mass shooters and terrorists put together, you have to ask yourself, if America considers gun control, where should it begin?

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Solidarity, Our Winning Weapon.

            The treatment of Konstantinos Giagtozglou and his hunger strike which sparked acts of solidarity across Greece and elsewhere, show once again that solidarity is a winning weapon. His demand to be moved to Korydallos Prison, to be nearer his family, comrades and friends, would have failed had he been an anonymous individual trapped in the states clutches of repression. Rebellion inside the prison and acts of direct action outside the prison stated loud and clear, he was not alone. 

        Received and translated by Insurrection News on 03.03.18:
    According to information from Athens Indymedia, comrade Konstantinos Giagtozglou will end his hunger and thirst strike after the Prison Transfer Committee met today on Friday, March 2nd and accepted his demand for transfer to Korydallos Prison, which will be made effective on April 10th.
       The comrade who is accused of belonging to the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and sending explosive packages to European institutions and to the former Greek Prime Minister was on hunger strike from February 21st and on thirst strike since February 25th demanding his permanent transfer to Korydallos Prison so he could be near his family and friends.
       There is no doubt that the offensive actions of solidarity carried out by comrades in Greece both inside and outside the prisons was an element of important pressure for the decision that was finally made in Dinos’ favour.
        We will share more information as new updates are disseminated about the case.
         We send greetings to the comrade and to all those who showed forms of solidarity and did not remain indifferent to the comrade’s hunger strike.
Sin Banderas Ni Fronteras, cell of anti-authoritarian agitation.

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New Nega-zine.

          I have always spouted that in spite of the internet and social media, anarchists should be flooding the streets and our communities with paper. There is something special about being on the street and handing a complete strange a paper with your ideas. Social media tends to be a closed circle, the same people pushing around the same ideas, it has its place, but should always be complimented by that paper on the street, in the workplace. I have left my paper on public transport, stood outside bus and train stations, walk through the city centre handing it out. Every one that accepts it is a complete stranger I would probably never have contacted on social media, and who knows how many hands it will pass through after that.

           So it is with delight that I read of a new anarchist magazine, Nega-zine, though it is not the sort of thing you might hand out on the streets, it is something that you can circulate among comrades, friends and associates, adding to the sum total of our ideas that are circulating on a permanent basis, it is available from Elephant Editions.

         When reading the following pages it would be well to put everything that we already know about technology aside. Indeed, what knowledge or hypothesis passed off as certainty makes up the scientific aspect of technology? Not much.
        Negazine is not an easy read. On the contrary, reading it requires a certain level of effort and the will to put oneself on the line. And it couldn’t be otherwise, given the subjects it goes into. Negazine offers neither certain answers nor slogans to write on the next wall.
The main theme (but not the only one) of this first issue is technology. The central point of the discussion is the difference between the various techniques (the single capitals and the techniques that they develop, often in conflict with each other) and technology as such, which is an anonymous process devoid of a centre, a process that is continually eroding reality and replacing it with virtual pre-confectioned surrogates.
       Technology’s action goes deep. It is not simply the way that it supplies power with the means for more control. In fact, this is perhaps its least important aspect. The main point is the way in which technology is modelling and rendering inoffensive individuals, acting on their tastes, their desires and reducing their critical and cognitive capacities, uniforming them and flattening them through quite visible processes. All said and done, the technological utopia will be nothing other than a world of idiots where repression will simply be superfluous.
        Other arguments are faced as well as technology: culture (and its significance for the individual and power), the role of drugs in anarchist circles, the future migratory surge – where will the anarchists be?, as well as aspects of anarchist ‘information’.
It should be clear that these questions are not being taken up for the love of discussion but to give one more weapon to individuals who want to attack. It is a question of acutening one’s vision in order to identify an enemy which often passes off as invisible, in fact which has in its invisibility its main point of strength.
        Even if faced only in passing, the ‘when’ to attack is clearly now. ‘How’, although not gone into explicitly, remains affinity and informal organisation, small attacks spread throughout the territory in an insurrectionalist projectuality that has been experimented by many anarchist comrades in recent years. What has been lacking, leading to a generalised stagnation, has not been the methods of attack but what to attack: where and in what form does the enemy manifest itself today.  These are the convictions that Negazine starts off from and which should be borne in mind to understand the sense of what is written.
          The journal is coming out in both Italian and English, now the world lingua franca, with the explicit desire to address oneself to all comrades interested, in spite of the fact that the context in which they find themselves living and acting are very different.
Contents
 Editorial
Technology
Two languages
Technological control
Sleeping
Drugs
Litanies
Seeing
How, when, why and if it still makes any sense
And now?

Negazine n.1 / 2017
68 pages  19-28cm
4.50 (5.00 including UK postage)
For distribution:
5 copies – 12.00       (15.00 including UK postage)
 Contact: Elephant Editions
 elephanteditions@riseup.net

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Tomorrow Is Cancelled.

          Why no hordes on the streets, why no peasants with pitchforks, why no revolution? It is not as if the death and destruction is invisible, or the exploitation unfelt and unseen, or the gross inequality in living standards hidden, it is all there glaringly obvious for all to see. We are awash with information, we see through the lies and illusions, we accept that the propaganda portrayed world and the real world we, the ordinary people live in, are universes apart. Still the vast majority conform to the biased rules, turn up at work, pay their taxes, and run to the ballot box to make their X in the appropriate spot, believing that somehow, this time it will be different. It is a puzzling phenomenon.
       The Invisible Committee have already produced two excellent thought provoking pamphlets/booklets, the first, The Coming Insurrection, the second one, To Our Friends, they have recently come up with a third, Now. Again, interesting, insightful, and thought provoking. The following is an extract from the chapter called Tomorrow Is Cancelled.

 

 

TOMORROW IS CANCELLED

         All the reasons for making a revolution are there. Not one is lacking. The shipwreck of politics, the arrogance of the powerful, the reign of falsehood, the vulgarity of the wealthy, the cataclysms of industry, galloping misery, naked exploitation, ecological apocalypse—we are spared nothing, not even being informed about it all. “Climate: 2016 breaks a heat record,” Le Monde announces, the same as almost every year now. All the reasons are there together, but it’not reasons that make revolutions, it’s bodies. And the bodies are in front of screens. One can watch a presidential election sink like a stone. The transformation of “the most important moment in French political life” into a big trashing fest only makes the soap opera more captivating. One couldn’t imagine Koh-Lanta with such characters, such dizzying plot twists, such cruel tests, or so general a humiliation. The spectacle of politics lives on as the spectacle of its decomposition. Disbelief goes nicely with the filthy landscape. The National Front, that political negation of politics, now that negation of politics on the terrain of politics, logically occupies the “center” of this chessboard of smoking ruins. The human passengers, spellbound, are watching their shipwreck like a first-rate show. They are so enthralled that they don’t feel the water that’s already bathing their legs. In the end, they’ll transform everything into a buoy. The drowning are known for that, for trying to turn everything they touch into a life preserver. This world no longer needs explaining, critiquing, denouncing. We live enveloped in a fog of commentaries and commentaries on commentaries, of critiques and critiques of critiques of critiques, of revelations that don’t trigger anything, other than revelations about the revelations. And this fog is taking away any purchase we might have on the world. There’s nothing to criticize in Donald Trump. As to the worst that can be said about him, he’s already absorbed, incorporated it. He embodies it. He displays on a gold chain all the complaints that people have ever lodged against him. He is his own caricature, and he’s proud of it. Even the creators of South Park are throwing in the towel: “Its very complicated now that satire has become reality. We really tried to laugh about what is going on but it wasn’t possible to maintain the rhythm. What was happening was much funnier that what could be imagined. So we decided to let it go, to let them do their comedy, and we’ll do ours.” We live in a world that has established itself beyond any justification. Here, criticism doesn’t work, any more than satire does. Neither one has any impact. To limit oneself to denouncing discriminations, oppressions, and injustices, and expect to harvest the fruits of that is to get one’s epochs wrong. Leftists who think they can make something happen by lifting the lever of bad conscience are sadly mistaken. They can go and scratch their scabs in public and air their grievances hoping to arouse sympathy as much as they like; they’ll only give rise to contempt and the desire to destroy them. “Victim” has become an insult in every part of the world.

Read the complete chapter HERE:

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A Red Sunset Of Blood.

 

        Today our senses are numbed by the suffering of the people of Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, the 6.5 million displaced persons, the sea of the fleeing who end under the banner of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers, and so it goes on, a litany of misery, death and destruction. Even in the midst of the rich developed countries, supposedly to be at peace, we find poverty, misery and deprivation. It seems there is no spring, no summer, no autumn, only cruel winter. How do you absorb such suffering how do you comprehend such a large section of humanity living on the edge of chaos, misery and death? All the actions that are responsible for this tsunami of unimaginable suffering, are no accident of nature, no inevitable sequence of events, but are the results of deliberate actions by people with power, they have names, they have faces, but they hide in the marble corridors of corrupt power. With no regard for humanity, but a constant eye on the balance sheet, they calculate the profit and loss, and see all this human suffering as acceptable collateral damage. That is the nature of the capitalist beast, power and wealth to be protected and increased at all costs. The beast will devour us all, unless we slay the beast before it is too late.

       It is difficult to love when you realise that the bright red sunset is the blood of the innocent.

Winter

Dark malefic clouds crowd the sky

winds carry the stench of carrion to every nostril,

the crazy ape has followed the faculty of hawks.

All around stand crows, magpies, jackdaws, vultures,

edacious eyes anticipating their putrid feast.

A weary Cassandra laments;

doves, hearts weeping for a better yesterday

forsake their olive branches.

 

 

The Barbarity Of The State.

          Prison is a form of state torture, from its barbaric past, to which it has held on to as a strategy for repression, solitary confinement is an added savagery to that torture, to which no human should be subjected in a civilised society, but evidence tells us, we obviously do not live in a civilised society. All those subjected to these inhumane state devices of torture and repression, demand our total and unconditional solidarity. Solidarity is one of our best winning weapons, and we should remember it takes many varied forms and is limited only by your imagination.

 Received on 01.03.18, from Insurrection News:

        Comrade Konstantinos Giagtzoglou was transferred to the hospital today after a serious fainting incident he had while resting in his cell. The officials of the Justice Department informed the comrade’s lawyers that the council which is going to decide whether Dinos will be transferred permanently to Korydallos prison or not, will meet on Friday, 4 days after the promised day (Monday). Dinos will be on hunger strike for 9 days and on thirst strike for 5 days on Friday.

The struggle committee of Korydallos prison issued a statement informing the Justice Department that if the council doesn’t meet on Friday, there will be prison rebelions all across the country.

The central building of the National University of Athens remains occupied and another series of actions and attacks have taken place:

• About 250 anarchists marched through the central streets of Athens yesterday in solidarity with Dinos
• A group of anarchists smashed several shop windows on Ermou street (it’s the central comercial street of Athens)
• Α group of anarchists raised barricades in Egnatia avenue in the center of Thessaloniki
• A group of anarchists blocked a central street in Patras
• A group called “Workers of the Night” torched a private security car and a diplomatic vehicle on 21/02 and 25/02 in Thessaloniki
• A group called “Anarchist Fraction for Political Self-defence” smashed the windows of two banks on 27/02 and on 28/02 in Athens.
• A group called “Informal Anarchist Network – Commando Haris Temperekindis” torched a private security car and attacked the central offices of the same private security firm (G4S) with Molotov cocktails on 27/02 in Athens.
• A group called “Anarchist Cells in Solidarity and Conspiracy” torched an ATM, threw 10 Molotov cocktails at a branch of the Agriculture Department, smashed the windows of a super market and torched the personal vehicle of a cop on 28/02 in Patras.
• A group of 40 anarchists occupied the offices of “Avgri (Dawn)” newspaper which is the official newspaper of Syriza, for a couple of hours in Athens.
• A group of anarchists canceled the speech of N.Voutsis, current president of the Greek parliament and one of the most well-known members of Syriza, by blocking the entrance of the hotel where the speech was scheduled to take place.

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The Unbalanced Scales Of Justice.

 

 

        The idea that justice is blind, and all are treated the same before the scales of justice, is one of those enduring illusions and fantasies of the modern society. Justice has never been equal to all in society, wealth, privilege, and position in the ranks of society, all play their part on how that so called blind justice will deal with you. More and more, the modern state sees anarchists as needing a different type of justice from others, the state fears most, those who see another world beyond the authoritarian system of state/capitalism, and are prepare to struggle for that better world. A world that would destroy the privileges, wealth and power of the parasitic leeches that hold the reins of power in present day society.

Greece: 

            Letter from anarchist prisoner Kostantinos Giagtzoglou, on hunger strike since 21/2/18, and updates. 

         This moment I am in the prison of Larissa after the operation that the Special Anti-Terrorist Police Unit carried out early this morning in the isle “A” of Korydallos prison where I had been transferred for court reasons. The cops invaded the isle and the cell I was in, while I was bed-ridden as I was in hunger strike, after a faint episode I had last night, they pulled me out of prison, they hit me and they threw me into the transport vehicle. I tried to resist as much as I could and at the same time I was demanding to take my personal items (shoes, clothes, medicines, etc.) which never happened. They did not allow me to even take a bottle of water I had in my cell although they were aware of my hunger strike and my burdened health condition. As far as I am concerned, I declare that the regime’s attempt to bend my morals will not work.
        “At the moment of dedication, the whole universe conspires to help you”- Johann Wolfgang Goethe
       “Those who oppress their desires, they do so, because their desires are so weak, that can be oppressed” – William Blake
        First of all my captivity does not in any way mean that I am defeated morally or politically. As long as I stand on my feet and my lungs are able to breath, my values and my principles are not negotiable, because my decision to revolt against authority will not be stopped by dungeons and “exiles”. And this is a promise to all comrades.
          It seems though, that my imprisonment alone, as well as my long standing conviction, which has been announced by the police investigation authorities (in the indictment prepared, it is stated that the acts for which I am accused of, seek life sentence) are not enough for the regime. The statists desire to impose on me an unofficial “exile”, apart from the deprivation of my physical freedom. Therefore prosecutor Raikou, instead of ordering my preventive detention in Korydallos Jail, where people arrested in Athens and are awaiting trial shall be detained in custody, she decided to exile me in Larissa jail. An “exile” that aims to:

1. Keep me apart from my familiar faces, making visits practically impossible by forcing my relatives to travel enormous distances crossing half the country with the expected financial and physical burden, to be able to see me just for a few minutes behind a window glass.
2. Alienate me from the complex and massive file of the case that keeps me imprisoned, as my lawyers are not able to travel to Larissa so as to have frequent and uninterrupted communication with me. Also the very nature of the case file (thousands of pages in electronic form, video, etc.) makes it impossible for me to access it, even after so many months, from Larissa’s prison as there is no proper equipment.
   
3. Facilitate the supervision, control and severe restriction of my contact with comrades who stand in solidarity and other imprisoned anarchists, by trying to isolate me.

        Ultimately they are aiming to convict me before the court decision does, in a forgetfulness regime, “forgotten in a depository of defective and human leftovers” …
      This practice of authority is not something new. However, its strong imposition by the Greek state was evident during 2010-2011, when dozens of anarchist comrades were arrested and then dispersed in several greek prisons (Grevena, Malandrino, Corfu, Trikala, Komotini, Domokos etc.) while they were facing common accusations for the same cases. A role model to this practice was the anti-rebellion repressive method applied by other states abroad, for example in Spain, with the isolation of the separatist ETA fighters at distances of 700 kilometers from the Basque country so that they cannot have any visits and any form of communication between them.
       In my case, the unofficial “exile” (which is not the only one that has taken place recently) seems like and experiment on the authority’s behalf , in view of the adoption of the new correctional Code, since in some way this is a condition for some of its provisions. In particular, authority reopens the exception regime for anarchist prisoners. It has not been many months since the anti-criminal policy secretary, Eftihis Fytrakis of the ministry of justice, declared that “Anarchist prisoners will not be accepted in Korydallos prison”. Today I face my “exile” in Larissa, in the future we’ll see specialized isles for all political and disobedient prisoners. Of course, the experimentation previously mentioned is based on the calculation of our reactions, and especially of the anarchists’ reflexes outside the walls and the solidarity movements to the struggles of the prisoners.
       Also, my transfer to Korydallos prison for another court case of mine (arrest in clashes with the police after an anti-memorandum demonstration on 11 May 2011) took place just one day before, and this did not happen accidentally. It is indicative of the fast track procedures they want to apply in my case, as it seems that there are political pressures from high levels of the regime and their “justice” works on demand …
      “The moral determination of who attacks and gives up on the structures of power is a perception, a moment in which he perceives the beauty of his comrades and the misery of obedience and submission.” I rebel, therefore i exist ” is a phrase of Camus that never ceases to fascinate me, in a way that only a reason to stay alive could. In a world that presents ethics as an area of power and law, I think there is no other moral dimension than rebellion, risk, and dream. The survival in which we are imprisoned is unfair because it is abusive and disfiguring”
Massimo Passamani

        For all these reasons, I REFUSE to passively accept the regime of “exile” and the transfers – abductions in one night. Against these practices I become a 90 degree barrier with my words and actions. As my deep belief is that our actions and attitude should not be orientated in the repression-antirepression dipole, but penetrate every aspect of our being, I wish my struggle will be seen as one more base to attack and open cracks of freedom in the multiple and multiform cells within society – prison. An attack, a result of the rebellion, which, if it doesn’t take place now, it will never be a future option…
       The fact that I am a prisoner of war of the greek democracy does not mean that I left my dignity at the prison’s entrance and backed away. On the contrary, in prison, in the yard, in the cell, in the transport van, I carry with me the pure lust for freedom, every gesture of solidarity, every act of revolutionary complicity that lowers the walls of the prison and the decision to fight for anarchy UNTIL THE END.
      This is the reason why, I started a hunger strike from 21/02/2018, with a request that my transfer to Korydallos prison will be official and the regime of “exile” in which I am in, will be terminated. The transfer request I had applied since my first week in jail of Larissa was rejected, confirming the decision of the authority to put me in a “political quarantine” in Larissa’s prisons and to “be forgotten” there. But the power and the will for a constant anarchist rebellion is capable of reversing every decision made by those who think they can have power over our lives without consequences. Not a single enemy of freedom stays on the safe side and not a single imprisoned comrade is alone…
       I also announce that from tomorrow, Sunday 25/2, I will begin a thirst strike as an escalation to the hunger strike I’m already undergoing. I thank from the heart the thousands of Korydallos prisoners who reminded all of us, today, with their mobilization, that when they hit and treat unfairly one of us it is like hitting all of us. United we will win. Their strength gives me the power to reach to the end in order to win my struggle.

MIND, BODY AND SOUL FOR EVER IN THE STRUGGLE

SOLIDARITY TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN GREECE

STRENGTH TO MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS TO CHILE AND ITALY

STRENGTH TO ANARCHISTS WHO FACE THE REPRESSIVE OBSESSION OF THE RUSSIAN STATE

THE RIGHT IS ON THE SIDE OF THOSE WHO REBEL

VICTORY TO PRISONERS’ STRUGGLE

AGAINST THE NEW CORRECTIONAL CODE

Konstantinos Giagtzoglou. 24/02/2018

All political prisoners deserve our unfailing support and solidarity.

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