Today's Topics:
1. Britain, class war: The great Class Debate @ the Oxford
Union: Lisa McKenzie vs Norman Tebbit, 24 November
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire - The Spanish war and
self-management on November 18 in
Le Puy-en-Velay by AL Auvergne
(fr, it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Novembre - Antipatriarcat:
Against violence by men (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Palestine, A Funny Thing Happened in the Jordan Valley Last
Thursday - I found myself standing in front of a military
bulldozer like this: (fr) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
This House Believes The Class System is Static Irrespective of Wealth Acquisition ----
Speakers in Proposition: ---- Dr Lisa McKenzie - Author and research fellow at LSE
specialising in class inequality ---- Kate Fox - Co-Director of Social Issues Research
Centre and social anthropologist ---- Speakers in Opposition: ---- Lord Norman Tebbit -
Former Chairman of Conservative Party and Employment Secretary ---- Tim Lott - Author,
journalist, broadcaster and weekly columnist for The Guardian's ‘Family' section ----
Start date: 24/11/2016 20:30 Location: The Oxford Union ---- [Not sure if we can get
tickets or if its membership-only. Will keep you informed!]
http://www.classwarparty.org.uk/great-class-debate-oxford-union-lisa-mckenzie-vs-norman-tebbit/
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Message: 2
It began 80 years ago in Spain a war against fascism and for emancipation. In the cities
and the countryside, self-management is taking place at a much faster scale. ---- In this
time of rising fascist, representative elections cans, it seemed interesting to question
this time to reinvent self-management. ---- So we will screen a film clip of Juan Gamero,
Living Utopia (1997), and we will debate it in stride. ---- So that everyone can
participate, a child care service will be set up time of the evening. ---- Read: "1936:
Spain between war and revolution" in Alternative Libertaire from July to August 2016. ----
Read also: "1936: the Spanish Revolution under the sign of libertarian communism" in
Alternative Libertaire October, 2016. ---- PROJECTION DISCUSSION ---- Friday, November 18,
2016 at 19:30 ---- Pierre-Cardinal Centre, 9, rue Jules-Vallès, 43000 Le Puy-en-Velay
The FB event
provided daycare services
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?La-guerre-d-Espagne-et-l
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Message: 3
Soon November 25, annual International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Events, surface action ads, depressing statistics and ... that's it. Let's talk about the
violence committed by men to seek real solutions? ---- On 25 November, there will be
protests against violence against women everywhere in France, ask for details. Slogans
will argue that violence against women is unbearable, need other laws. The government will
add perhaps a measure of awareness or a monitoring unit to existing devices. Some show
their solidarity "Woman, when you hear a woman screaming, do not let her alone,
solidarity," others their ras-le-bol "Raped, beaten, harassed, women have had enough,"
some will link with capitalism "money against violence, not for the world of finance."
Years of demonstrations, lobbying and petitions demanding a framework law against violence
culminated in 2010 with a law strengthening the protection of victims, well below claims.
Violence against women - physical and psychological - are countless and affect all areas
of their lives, all the places where they circulate, are all concerned regardless of age
and social status. They share one characteristic: their number does not decrease, in the
statistics, it even increases due to better recording of facts by the police and associations.
Multidimensional attacks
The first dimension is the place where they occur: work, family, family, friend-es group,
study places, streets and public transport, care of premises, institutions such as the
police, justice ... a second dimension is the type beatings, sexual violence, rape, bought
rape, sexual harassment or moral, medical abuse, denial of justice, other psychological
violence ... a third dimension reflects the violence exercised specifically (and more) in
the characteristics of the women concerned: racialized women, women with disabilities,
pregnant women, elderly women, lesbians ...
Fight against violence against women is therefore presented as a multitude of struggles of
a multitude of outreach workers. There are associations of women or feminists whose
specialty, for example (and so far not exhaustive) AVFT (European Association against
violence against women at work), the National Federation for Women's Solidarity which
groups the associations fighting against domestic violence, the feminist collective
against rape, the association women to tell women to be defending the rights of disabled
women, Mom all equal in defense of Muslim discriminated, general collective who are also
fighting against violence women: World March of women, National collective for women's
rights ... and so many other small or large group, more or less radical, more or less
reformist, who are doing their best but never manage to empty the sea with their spoons.
And then there are the government measures. In his most recent "Notice for a just social
and judicial condemnation of rape and sexual assault" of October 5, the High Council for
equality between women and men advocating primarily a campaign like the one made against
harassment in transport. It also advocates the formation of professional-the-s (as usual),
accompanying victims (as usual), a modification of the judicial treatment consisting of
... clarify definitions of the terms of rape, and also lengthen the limitation period and
ensure that rape is considered a crime. Expect the plan.
There is a "plan against violence against women" with accommodation, emergency number,
telephone great danger of intervening stakeholders and training to the cops ... which does
not look like a plan fight against, but to attempt a plan to reduce the consequences.
There is also a "plan against gender harassment and sexual violence in public transport",
with, in addition to awareness, telephone and digital alert tools (surely a new
application for smartphones), a working monitoring, better trained personal (but not
more), more women among the staff. Training, awareness, listening to victims. As usual.
Measures without any preventive effect
also exists "the Interministerial Mission for the protection of women against violence and
the fight against trafficking in human beings" who "collects, analyzes and disseminates
information", it "evaluates devices" and also defines "an outreach plan and training
professionals on violence against women. " Awareness and training, as usual.
Awareness-raising and training allow the detection of violence and victim support but have
no preventive effect.
Of course sanctions exist in law for some violence, but ... but on the more than 80,000
annual rape (estimate) only 10% are the subject of a complaint, and 10% of complaints
result in a conviction. The stories of the women unraveled with the police and justice
give explanations: it is always the responsibility of the victim being studied. And rape
continues to be decriminalized for being treated as a crime.
The murders of women who have already filed a complaint for domestic violence and were not
protected there.
Sexual harassment, it is quite tolerated by the authorities. MEPs have just voted against
the sanction of ineligibility. Harassment is generally not taken seriously and gives rise
to color jokes.
Attacks against racialized women are encouraged by the State racism, contempt for the
disabled or big is not the subject or indignation or awareness campaign, and homophobia
seems to only affect men.
Awareness of violence against women is low, enforcement is weak, societal tolerance is
high. No reason that the facts diminish.
Shoot down the patriarchy
Perhaps we must stop talking about violence against women and talk about violence
committed by men against women. Several causes are intertwined: men are humans who commit
most of the violence (including against other men), men abuse their women, women do not
have a collective defense organization.
The truly effective plan against violence is simple.
First, we must ensure that men are not more aggressive and violent than women. The recipes
are known: education that encourages gentleness and patience, clothes hamper to limit
physical development, promotion of figure skating more than football, encouragement for
indoor crafts and uncompetitive ... But suddenly would apply absurd. Education must reduce
aggression and violence permitted to men, and increase those authorized to women. The aim
should be to allow humans and human harmonious coexistence with the differences in
behavior result not only individual interests and abilities and not learning imposed by
the said sex.
Then you have that men who escape to education to the softness no longer feel authorized
to brutalize women. This implies a real education for equality that is not made within the
school system and stopping incitement to girls and young women as sex objects rather than
thinking and active beings. Other common sense measures are needed, for example: ban the
staging of women in advertising, ranking X films that do not meet the test Bechdel[1],
prohibition of all commercial products for transform girls into sex objects such as padded
bras for girls 8 years.
In summary, we must break down the patriarchy.
But that will not happen right away. Meanwhile, the repression of violence must be real.
Punishment is not necessarily a libertarian dream, but we do not live in a libertarian
system. The men that hit their partners must be really punished and the masculinist lobby
groups must be countered in their attempts to impose conservation links mothers victims of
violence. Men who harass should be punished too, and the sneering and other support
prosecuted for incitement. No violence should not be classified.
Women's ability to defend individually and collectively can be strengthened. The girls
must be encouraged to learn a fighting sport. Women's solidarity will deter attackers.
Fear will change sides!
Christine (AL Orne)
[1]A film passes the test of Bechdel if there are at least two female characters who have
a name, if they speak together and anything else that a male character.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Antipatriarcat-Contre-les
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Message: 4
Cat and mouse, the Jordan Valley, 10/13/2016. Photo: Guy Hirchfeld, Ta’ayush
https://radicalmonkeyclown.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/tianament-square.jpg ---- It was 42
degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) in the Jordan Valley. We went for another day of work
and accompaniment with the villagers who face constant harassment from Israeli
authorities, and we happened to be there when the Forces of Israeli Defense came to
demolish a gravel road, the only access road to Al Hadidiyye, a village which has no water
supplies except for the overly priced water tanks delivered on this gravel road. ----
Ro’i, the neighbouring Jewish colony, receives subsidized water. Their main industry is
fishkeeping. Yes, they grow ornamental aquarium fish in the desert like this: ---- Clown
fish. Image captured in a Youtube video promoting the Israeli fishkeeping industry.
A quick search in the online Israeli “Yellow Pages” reveals that some of the fish they
grow is exported via businesses which are registered in Jerusalem and Rosh Ha’ayin, on the
other side of the ’49 armistice line. Just an example showing that the boycott movement
should focus on the Israeli economy as a whole, and not attempt the logistically
impossible task of differentiating settlement products from products produced in so-called
“Israel proper.”
Back on the gravel track. I happened to stumble sideways when the bulldozer turned its
claws to reach the gravel road from a different direction. We ended up playing a weird
kind of cat-and-mouse game, with the bulldozer playing the role of the mouse. The mouse
has to reach the cheese – the gravel road – on the other side of the cat. If the cat
stands in the way, the bulldozer has to stop, reverse, and try a different route. The
problem is that in this version, if the bulldozer stops a moment too late, the cat turns
into crushed human flesh. A similar kind of game resulted with the death of Rachel Corrie.
The bulldozer operator was playing with a big smile on his face, dangerously testing the
limits. Unlike Rachel Corrie, I am a Hebrew speaking Israeli Jew, so the next time he
stopped I came by to try to converse with him, at which point he opened the door like this:
Israeli military bulldozer operator. Photo: Guy Hirchfeld, Ta’ayush ----
https://radicalmonkeyclown.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/dozer-operator.jpg?w=545
And yelled at me to get out of the way. I said that my conscience doesn’t allow me to
abide by his venerable orders, and I mentioned Rachel Corrie and how he wouldn’t want to
have a similar incident on his conscience, and I advised him to stop the engine and relax
and have a smoke until the police arrives. He had heard about Rachel Corrie, and after
some cordial yelling, he turned off the motor. His colleague, wearing a glowing yellow
vest over his uniform, came to converse with me.
“Bro, are you out of your mind? Do you wanna get hurt?” He said.
“You know that they don’t have running water in this village?” I asked.
“Why do you answer a question with a question?”
“A rabbi was asked why do Jews always answer questions with questions. ‘Why not?’ said the
rabbi.”
They chuckled.
“Seriously,” I say. “A couple of months ago they connected water pipes to ‘Atuf nearby.
They installed water meters to pay for it and everything, but you came and destroyed it.”
“They didn’t get permission for it.”
“It’s a basic human right!”
“They shouldn’t be here. Why don’t they go to Jordan?” he said.
I’ve been trolling the Israeli military for years, and I still haven’t gotten used to
these common revelations that simple bottom-of-the-pyramid soldiers are harbingers of the
ethnic cleansing of Palestine. When it comes to the army, the tree doesn’t fall far from
the bad apples, as this deranged culture is deeply embedded throughout the chain of
command. The last time I visited Al Hadidiyye, our host Abu Saqr took us on a tour to see
water cisterns which were demolished in the early years of the ’67 occupation. Some
diseased bureaucrat actually sat and mapped all of the water cisterns used by Abu Saqr and
all other Palestinians in the Jiftlik-Tubas-Tamun area, and ordered to systematically
destroy them all. What that war-criminal understood in his sick mind was that if you
deprive a people of water and livelihood, you can quietly displace them in a way that is
invisible to international media. “Before 1967 there were over 2,000 of us in Al
Hadidiyye,” Abu Saqr told us. “Today we are 98.” Al Hadidiyye is like a microcosm of the
Jordan Valley as a whole: as shown in this OCHA report, between 200-300,000 Palestinians
were displaced from the Jordan Valley since ’67. And still people look at me like a loony
doomsayer when I talk about an ongoing process of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
But then something quite incredible happened. The bulldozer operator, having been
listening to my trolling, apparently decided he’s sick of serving an apartheid system that
literally deprives children of drinking water during the hottest year ever measured,
turned the bulldozer around and back up the hill, lowered the blade and plowed through the
military base until no structure stayed standing, then went back to Al Hadidiyye, gave Abu
Saqr all the cash he had on him, advised him to connect a pipe to the nearby Mekorot water
drilling facility funneling drinking water from the traditional wells for the settlement’s
swimming pool and ornamental fish aquariums, told him that if anyone comes to mess with
the pipe he’ll return with his bulldozer to teach them a lesson, and then drove off to the
horizon, blade up high, far away from the suicidally racist regime that sought to rob him
of his youth and turn him into a war-criminal.
Just kidding. Actually he yelled “What do I care?!” and waited for another unit to come
and push my lanky bones out of the way so he could resume the work of turning Al Hadidiyye
into a ghetto.
https://radicalmonkeyclown.wordpress.com/2016/10/27/a-funny-thing-happened-in-the-jordan-valley-last-thursday/
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