Today's Topics:
1. Greece, Libertarian Syndicalist Union Imathia: For Robin,
self-management and solidarity - A comprehensive briefing on the
project (gr) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. US, First of May Anarchist Alliance: TO HELL WITH THEIR
ELECTIONS; CLINTON AND TRUMP GOT NOTHING FOR YOU by Bob D.*
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Chile, gestalibertaria: OPINION: ON PHILOSOPHY IN SCHOOLS by
Alvaro Stateless. (ca) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
We regret to throw in a text about the evolution of the game of Robin factory or former
employees in Papadopoulos-Bottle factory in Imathia Fatherland. - To say that we
participate in solidarity with workers from the first moment and who knows people and
things always acted with a view to meeting merikoteron but their overall initial
objective, namely the self-works. - This objective was clearly formulated and the creation
of initiatives of solidarity, for which there was a clear position that whenever the
workers decided to change their orientation, the initiative will aftodialyotan. ---- Two
separate lines on which the initiative was set up was the clear position of the face of
nationalist and fascist ideas and the direct-democratic character.
Since the beginning of the effort of the workers of the former factory
canteen-Papadopoulos appeared within their ranks two trends. One was in the sense of self
as sets the indu and the other in the sense of co-works with one of the two former bosses,
Papadopoulos. From what we understand both reasonably supported each by two employees. The
other employees seemed to waver between two logic, depending on the developments, internal
conflicts and possible to accept the pressures in their daily life. We also found that
employees with the shape of co-management with the boss discussed with him the
developments at the plant. This not imagined but they informed us the rest of the factory
workers. In Figure codetermination there was also a worker who in the posts on her
personal page and a blog had made clear nationalist fascist positions and sympathy to the
National Socialists of the Golden Dawn. As solidarity and solidarity in that first
substantial crisis of the project we asked and we think we got clear positions on the part
of workers that do not want shared with former boss and that remains vertically against
fascism.
It is reasonable that workers and solidarity marched together in the street, who had
decided the first of several contradictions and tensions in a number issues, which were
created at other times of the first and other times by their solidarity. Throughout the
effort the employees were part of a sub-groupings and allilokatigorountan aisles for pimp,
theft, acts of selfishness, etc. Our position against these phenomena was clear that
everything had to be discussed at the meeting and whether it considered to informing
solidarity on any matter came into conflict with the fundamentals of solidarity: the goal
of self-management, the antifascist their placement, direct democracy. We never asked - on
our part at least - to go along at any reasonable fit our beliefs about the struggles that
we gave. Instead we insisted from the beginning that the workers had themselves to plan,
decide and control their light their own decisions and beliefs, but the steps are
contemplating to enter into production. That's why we also insisted on not foolish and
barren controversy on whether and at which they will discuss with the daily sovereignty
bodies - municipal factions, mayors, political parties, parliamentarians, church or
whatever else decide. All that was constantly asking for the respect of the axes of
solidarity and of course the public placement and updating of solidarity initiative and
society for everything decided and planned.
One of the primary weaknesses of the task that had to be solved in a short time was right
to strengthen the workers' assembly, which would allow them to overcome and improvisation
issues, gossip, blame etc. and bring together their common goal. Epanellimena some workers
pointed to the fact of their inability to make assembly, even our everyday conversation is
accustomed nearby paradegma of indu for the design and implementation of their decisions.
This appeared in several of the common worker-solidarity assemblies which come with
different placements to serious issues for them.
It is obvious to all and all those involved in our horizontal movements that the weakening
and the indifference of the meeting results in strengthening internal hegemony, fatriakon
confrontations, disorientation, misery and eventually into the swamp.
Another weakness of former Papadopoulos workers - Bottle was poor if not complete absence
from workers' and social struggles that took place in the region, although many of the
institutions of the "bottom" (base clubs, hangouts, refugees, etc.) found by principle in
their side. Here to say well enough built a direct relationship of trust with the indu but
with moments of Skouries movement. Positive was their attitude to the strike gathering in
May. However from our experience epanelleimeni call be placed next to the workers'
struggles and the refugees found the door closed. And certainly this the first time could
be justified by the lack of organization, orientation, targeting, etc., but can not be
justified by a point and then slowly when the task seems to be a hierarchy of priorities.
And here we come to the near past and the present.
Early May the woman who spoke with the boss leaves the enterprise without ever explaining
the reasons, which made two months after the recent intervention of the email list of the
initiative, using without a decision of the Assembly in meil of Robin. Shortly after and
one employee even expelled from their assembly on charges of collusion with the former
boss. After this case another worker leaves for unspecified reasons to us.
From about the beginning of June and after, in front and in the solidarity caravan
design in Athens with indu-Robin, employees of former Papadopoulos-Bottle factory
gradually cease their meetings with solidarity. So for such an important event that would
force the government to take place towards the demands of the recovered companies are
former employees of Papadopoulos-Bottle indifferent. We do not know whether this time they
made the same meeting. If we believe their words, rather there were doing.
And where the few remaining workers seems determined to continue to advance the project,
we are informed that there is a subterranean discussion with business consultants, MPs,
local actors complacent with the example of EN.KLO for:
financing of the operation, unspecified sources
changing the relationship with society and the solidarity and effort of Robin to approach
bishops, MPs, MEPs, etc. to enhance their public image,
changing the production from wood processing in manufacturing wooden small items.
This discussion also confirmed by one of the factory workers who now accused of financial
irregularities.
In our repeated attempts to contact to discuss with their employees and to answer our
questions, their answers are contradictory and ambiguous and clearly show, in our opinion,
to change their attitude towards us.
As solidarity-ies and insisting on our initial attitude, we are not the ones to indicate
to their former employees Papadopoulos Bottle-how to formulate their struggle. But we
understood that we had the solidarity and society as a whole to inform themselves Robin
for all their discussions, changing their targeting, their individual decisions. Their
sincerity was enough for us to redefine our attitude towards them. Instead, a game
continues between the invective that culminates with meil sent to one of two workers who
aspire to co-manage the business with his former boss. The meil it denounces two workers
for financial irregularities and rewards indirectly the role of the second co-worker
calling with Papadopoulos. In communication we had with the workers realized the following:
the meil not sent by a decision of the Assembly,
sent by a particular person continues to be at the meeting and has previously been accused
of stealing money,
It has come back to shape the discussion of shared management with the boss,
that there is debate on the implementation of a design EN.KLO type.
And here all the project weaknesses return to a level that whole contest the initial
mutual commitment employees - solidarity in the way of self-management and the struggle.
We considered prior to any final assessment of the project to cite a series of events as
we experience them all this time. The facts we can easily conclude that essentially the
Robin, as an example of a recovered business on the road of the struggle for self, no.
Something else has emerged in its place. But we also believe that the final word in this
have the factory workers who have all the right themselves to decide on their lives. As
people see the self-organization of labor and social struggles and self the way our total
liberation from the chains of exploitation, we would like a clear positioning of the
workers of the former factory of Papadopoulos-Bottle in relation to suspicions that exist
around the their attitude.
Employees and workers, unemployed-ies as oppressed and repressed realize that every race
that comprises means of the issue of survival, begins a defensive position. We will
respect each place provided that it is clear towards us, towards the movement of
solidarity and the whole of society "from below". Let's respect and ourselves that we have
all the right to know what they want to do, and that they have no right to play games with
solidarity, dignity and ideas of a movement that comes through history and in our opinion
rewrites timidly new pages to it.
Libertarian Syndicalist Union Imathia
August 2016
http://esehmathias.espivblogs.net/2016/08/24/για-τους-ρομπέν-την-αυτοδιαχείριση-κα/
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Message: 2
The following is a discussion document drafted for both First of May Anarchist Alliance
and the movements we are participants in. We welcome feedback. ----“The Democrats and the
Republicans are both the parties of the ruling class and the billionaires. They just have
different strategies on how best to contain and oppress the working classes and poor
people. The Democrats use the “smile in your face and stab you in the back” philosophy,
talking about being concerned about “middle class families” and communities of color,
while the Republicans don’t smile and just stab us in the back. Choose your poison. ----
What is different in the current election is the upsurge in struggle from Ferguson to
Baltimore to Minneapolis to Milwaukee and beyond. Hundreds of thousands across the country
have taken to the streets to resist the ongoing police attacks on communities of color and
poor people. And the usual ruling class strategies are wearing thin.”
The longest election campaign in the history of the universe is now within 90 days of
actually taking a vote. Jesus. None of the candidates have anything to offer the working
class and communities of color. Clinton and Trump and the minor party candidates all
represent the ruling class, the billionaires and the status quo. None of the candidates
represent the interests of the working class.
Trump is a right wing opportunist who is flirting with fascism and has won the Republican
nomination for president. This is cause for very serious concern. Trump is dangerous.
Ordinary people in this country have been hit hard by the economic downturn of recent
years and, by and large, have not recovered. Middle class jobs have been lost, good paying
working class jobs have been lost, professionals and the petit bourgeoisie (small business
owners) have been hit. Jobs have been lost, incomes are down, replacement jobs don’t pay
as well, benefits and pensions have been cut, homes have been lost to foreclosure and
small businesses have closed. This hits all working people: Black, Latino, Arab, white and
everybody else. This is the source of widespread anxiety and insecurity across the population.
The rulers, the billionaires, the corporations, their government, the privileged few, Wall
Street and the capitalist class and capitalist system are the sources of these attacks.
Trump talks about trade and government and outsourcing of jobs, but he talks mainly about
immigrants and the undocumented and Muslims and so on. When Trump says “make America great
again,” what he means is make America white again. Trump gained a lot of traction a few
years ago with the birther stuff, saying Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. Now he is gaining
support with his attacks on immigrants and Mexico, with all his talk of “building the wall
and making Mexico pay for it” and with his proposed ban on Muslims entering the U.S.
These are proposals of a new sort. He is speaking to the anxieties felt by whites and
providing people of color as scapegoats. When Trump talks about bringing back the American
dream, he is talking about strengthening and defending white supremacy. He is telling
white folks, stick with me and you’ll get yours and we’ll take it from immigrants and
Mexico and Muslims and blah blah.
Trump is flirting with fascism. He is running as a Republican, but when he was asked to
disavow David Duke’s endorsement, Trump waffled and said he needed to see what the group
was about. This was a clear signal to the Klan and Nazis and white nationalists that they
were welcome to the Trump camp, and many are actively supporting Trump. Duke, a former
grand dragon of the Klan, is running for the senate in Louisiana as a Republican, again,
and says Trump is saying what Duke and the Klan have been saying for years. When Trump
says raise your right hand and pledge allegiance to me, he is doing a takeoff on Hitler at
Nazi rallies and imitating the Nazi salute.
Trump says we need a strong leader, and he presents himself as the strongman. Many of his
supporters appear to embrace the idea of an authoritarian leader and believe Trump may be
the guy.
Trump is running on the idea and the fact that demographics in America are changing, that
white folks will no longer be the majority. He is urging his supporters to join in the
fight to defend and continue and reinvigorate white supremacy. He is saying don’t fight
the billionaires or the capitalist system, fight the immigrants, fight the Muslims,
rebuild white supremacy and make it last.
Several million people already have voted for Trump in the primaries. He has broad
support. Some of his supporters may be more enthralled with his business experience or his
stance on trade, but, unfortunately, it appears most of his supporters like what he is
saying about immigrants and people of color and, less explicitly, about standing up for
white people. Klan supporters and Nazis and others are coming to his rallies and are
engaging in attacks on the opposition and especially people of color in the opposition.
Trump says “this is a movement.” He may be right.
Trump is not a fascist, but he appears to be taking notes from the right wing nationalist
parties in Europe, especially in the attacks on immigrants/the other. He is mobilizing,
calling out and unleashing what looks to be a mass base for fascism in this country. There
will be more battles, and we have our work cut out for us. We don’t want to overstate what
is happening, and we don’t want mistaken analysis. But we do not want to understate. This
is real and dangerous.
At recent rallies in Pennsylvania, Trump called on his supporters to mobilize on Election
Day to watch the polls in “certain areas” to look for voter fraud. This is Trump calling
on his supporters to be present at polling places in Black and Latino neighborhoods and to
attempt to intimidate voters and prevent people of color from voting. This is not new;
Republicans have been doing this in the past few elections. But what is new are the Trump
supporters, the Klan and Nazi types who support him, the white supremacists who are
mobilized/unleashed and who will be attempting to intimidate voters in neighborhoods of color.
The Trump candidacy makes fascism appear as mainstream. Some fascists openly support Trump
and appear at his rallies. The Klan and the Nazis are organizing openly in many
communities around the country. A white guy in Raleigh, North Carolina stands in his
garage with a shotgun and murders a young Black man who is walking past, leaving a party
in the neighborhood. A racist killer in Tulsa, Oklahoma runs down an elderly woman, his
neighbor, who is an immigrant from Lebanon, calling her a “dirty Arab.” The woman
survives, but the cops and the courts release the racist and he shoots and kills the
woman’s 31 year old son, who is simply standing on the porch of his own home. This is the
atmosphere Trump and his supporters are encouraging and unleashing.
The Democrats will not protect us and will not fight the fascists. Elections won’t protect
us or solve the problems. We need direct action and community self defense to defend our
communities against the fascists, the police and all predators and oppressors who attack
us. This oppressive system survives because much of the working class remains tied to the
Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucrats, the civil rights bureaucrats and the
other misleaders and agents of the capitalist class.
Hillary Clinton is the candidate of Wall Street, the banks and the status quo. She
represents more of the same and worse: more austerity, more cuts, more attacks on
communities of color and more police murders with a candy coating only the Democrats can
offer. In fact, Hillary’s campaign looks like Republican campaigns of the past. Her
campaign trumpets “Republicans for Hillary” and brags about the endorsements from
billionaires like Warren Buffett, Mark Cuban, Michael Bloomberg, Meg Whitman and others.
Since the Democratic convention and the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, Clinton has moved
predictably and certainly to the right. Her main argument is that she is not Trump.
The Democratic Party under Obama and now Clinton has led the charge against the working
class for the past eight years. They bailed out the banks and big corporations after the
crash of 2008, but they have done nothing to bail out workers and communities of color.
The Democrats took charge of the foreclosure crisis and stood up for the banks by standing
on the necks of working class homeowners and pursuing a policy of foreclosures, evictions
and attacks on working class communities. The Democrats continued the policies of U.S.
imperialism in the Middle East and elsewhere with Obama carrying out a policy of more
drone strikes and murders of civilians throughout the region. Here at home, the Democrats
and Obama have expanded the attacks on undocumented workers and their families and Latino
communities with record numbers deported and incarcerated.
The Democrats run most of the cities in the country, and they have carried out massive
attacks on public education and teachers. The Democrats are pushing schools of choice and
privatization of public schools and call it “education reform” in true double speak.
Public schools throughout the country but especially in the cities are in a shambles
thanks to the policies of the Democrats and Republicans. When the Democrats come with a
“reform,” look out because it means an attack on the working class.
The Democrats have specialized in supporting the police attacks on communities of color,
while claiming to be concerned about those same communities. The police murder of Freddie
Gray in Baltimore is a clear example of the policies and role of the Democratic Party in
upholding the system of white supremacy. After the police broke Freddie Gray’s neck during
a brutal takedown and arrest, they threw him in the police van. Freddie Gray’s neck
already was broken when they threw him in the van. The damn police nearly tore his head
off when they threw him down during the arrest, knees on his back and yanked his head
back. When they dragged him to the van his legs were limp and he was in extreme pain.
Freddie Gray didn’t break his own neck while in the van; the police broke his neck before
they threw him in the van.
When the people of Baltimore rose up in response to the police murder, when the people of
Baltimore were in the streets and fighting the police, the Democrats did their job for the
ruling class. The mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, urged the people to end
their resistance, told the people to be calm and let the investigations continue and
unleashed the murdering police to attack the people in the streets. The Democrats rewarded
her by letting her open the Democratic Party convention this summer. The prosecuting
attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby, also a Democrat, did the best service to the
system. Remember? While the people of Baltimore were in the streets and fighting, the
prosecutor came out and said she was indicting the police officers who were responsible
for the murder of Freddie Gray and she would get justice. This was conscious deception to
get the people of Baltimore off the streets. The prosecutor followed the false narrative
that Freddie Gray was fine when the cops put him in the van and that Freddie Gray broke
his own neck because the cops didn’t buckle him in. The judge acquitted the cops of this
charge, and the prosecutor said she had done her best. No cops are held responsible for
the murder of Freddie Gray because the cops and the mayor and the prosecutor acted
together to defend the police and to mislead and attack the community.
And the Obama administration did its part at the end of this fiasco by issuing a report
saying the Baltimore police have violated the civil rights of Black people in Baltimore
and they will have to do better. The role of the Democrats could not be clearer. They
defend the police and the police murders of Black people by claiming to be concerned about
the Black community and urging people to “respect the rule of law.” This is the role of
the Democratic Party, of the mayors and prosecutors in our cities, and of Obama and
Clinton. They try to sugar coat police murders of Black people, claiming they will
investigate, and all the while the Democrats support and defend the police and carry out
these attacks on our people and our communities. What prevents us from building a more
massive movement to fight this system is the fact that the trade union bureaucrats and
civil rights bureaucrats remain in the pocket of the Democratic Party politicians and lead
our communities from one disaster to another. To build a revolutionary movement for
justice and freedom, working people and communities of color must break from the
Democratic Party and all illusions in the party of Wall Street and the billionaires, the
party of Obama and Clinton.
The Democrats and the Republicans are both the parties of the ruling class and the
billionaires. They just have different strategies on how best to contain and oppress the
working classes and poor people. The Democrats use the “smile in your face and stab you in
the back” philosophy, talking about being concerned about “middle class families” and
communities of color, while the Republicans don’t smile and just stab us in the back.
Choose your poison.
What is different in the current election is the upsurge in struggle from Ferguson to
Baltimore to Minneapolis to Milwaukee and beyond. Hundreds of thousands across the country
have taken to the streets to resist the ongoing police attacks on communities of color and
poor people. And the usual ruling class strategies are wearing thin. The scenario and the
narrative repeat. The cops kill a Black person for no good reason. People in the community
are outraged and take to the streets in anger and frustration. The cops explain that the
person killed was no good or was out of place or resisted or had been arrested before. The
corporate media spreads the cop message. But this doesn’t work anymore. People expect this
and are aware of this police tactic. Then the police say the person the cops murdered had
a gun or was threatening or deserved it. The community doesn’t buy it anymore. Everyone
knows the cops are lying and always lie and nothing the cops say can be believed.
Then the Democrats and Republicans and the corporate media all chime in and say this will
be investigated and this is complicated and this will take time and the rule of law and
law and order must prevail. But this is wearing thin also, because time after time as in
every time, the investigations find that the police acted lawfully and feared for their
safety or if a charge is brought the cop or cops are acquitted or there is slap on the
wrist. Our people know that this system does not provide justice for members of our
community murdered by the police. The police get away with murder and are supported in
this by the Democrats and the Republicans and the media.
We will not gain our freedom, we will not end oppression, and we will not destroy
capitalism and white supremacy through elections or through the Democratic Party or
Hillary Clinton or her agents. Elections are a dead end and a safe out for the
capitalists. It’s not just elections or politicians or Democrats or Republicans that keep
us in chains, it’s electoralism as a whole. It’s electoralism as the alternative to
organizing and direct action and fighting this system. When workers rise up, as in
Wisconsin a few years ago, militants call for direct action and a general strike, but the
trade union bureaucrats and the Democratic Party say, no do the recall campaign against
the Republican governor instead. These recall campaigns, as much as voting for capitalist
politicians, are the death of our movements and the death of our strength. Electoralism
and elections are a dead end for the working class and help to save and prop up the
capitalist system and white supremacy.
The struggle against fascism and the struggle against capitalism are also the struggle
against white supremacy and patriarchy. There is no way forward for working people in this
country other than by destroying the system of white supremacy, which is intertwined with
the capitalist system and always has been here. We have to win white workers or a good
chunk of them to the understanding that the enemy is the class enemy, the billionaires and
wall street and their system, and that the rest of the working class, Black, Latino, Arab
and internationally, are working class allies in the struggle for revolution. There is no
shortcut. We have to urge white workers and all workers to join the fight to destroy white
supremacy. That’s the only way forward to liberation for all of us, and the only way
forward in the fight against fascism and capitalism.
* member of First of May Anarchist Alliance and an eviction defense activist in Detroit
http://m1aa.org/?p=1203
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Message: 3
(Note Libertarian Gesta: Our organization plays on its website reflections of its members,
many of which will debate each other, as an attempt to strengthen ideological discussion
within anarchism, revolutionary and working class, so which these articles do not
necessarily reproduce the official opinion of the organization and adheres only to the
policy who writes about various topics position. the invitation is not afraid to discuss
and argue) ---- a few days ago we learned of the proposal of the Ministry of Education to
eliminate the teaching of Philosophy common plan for the middle cycle and more critical
that we can be the educational system structurally and categorically do not need to go far
to understand the danger of such a measure and what are the messages you are transmitting
the bourgeoisie and the state with these new policies.
While it's no secret the systematic elimination of hours of arts, philosophy, music,
physical education and even history curriculum, this shows the determination of a minority
to educate young people for a slaving system and perpetuate inequality by within the
system in general. This is evidenced by warning that: firstly, the branches that could
contribute to the formation of any student a minimum of human integrity, have become
obsolete to the logic voracious to stretch to the young people on standardized tests (such
as SIMCE and PSU) in order to measure the "quality" of establishments and the
"performance" of the student through logics of competition; and secondly, the resulting
nonviable economically, socially and politically that anyone can think, feel or express.
It is necessary to realize how grossly wicked this decision reflects both the stubbornness
and stupidity of the political caste-and his mob of technocrats inescrupulosos- when
thinking about the education of the people because, with this measure, it is removed root
any possibility of understanding the reality of a more complex way or completed. Another
perspective, you close the doors to the young people even understand them and themselves
within a context determined by a multiplicity of phenomena that are characteristic of the
human intellect. This is founded on the fundamental philosophy that it is for the
sciences, mathematics, economics, ethics, or any human activity.
And even though philosophy as a discipline has found its development within capitalist
society, it is this that has allowed us to define, understand and critique the deepest
places the reality of exploitation and has provided us with tools to venture to dream of a
world where any remains abolished slavery.
The response on our part should be emphatic. Once again it has become clear the need to
form a political front to be able to fight for the education you need the working class to
break their chains. Education under the control of students, teachers, parents and
workers, who dreams not only with the expansion of knowledge and understanding of young
men and women, boys and girls, but with sweeping definitively with the rotten ruling class
and its appetite insatiable for us and we extract even the smallest gain: we must fight
for a libertarian education.
https://gestalibertaria.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/opinion-por-la-filosofia-en-las-escuelas/
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