Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Decembre - Anarchism in
Belgium (2): A memory problem (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Workers Solidarity Movement: Ireland is in the depths of a
severe homelessness crisis, with 7, 000 people without a home.
With the government refusing to act, some activists in Dublin
did. (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Britain, afed: 2017: WHAT IT HOLDS, AND WHAT ALL ANARCHISTS
CAN DO ABOUT IT (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Greece, Rosinante: The workers' interests always ahead on
January 2 to go to work the bosses (gr) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. WHAT ANARCHISTS HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS, AND WHAT
LIBERALS NEED TO START HEARING December 8, 2016 (de)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Brazil, Federacao Anarquista Gaucha FAG: Extinctions and
dismissals in RS (pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. Britain, class war: We've got to get rid of the rich!
Harrods, Saturday 7th January 2pm (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
8. APO: On the verdict of Hüseyin Civan, editor of the
anarchist newspaper Meydan (gr) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
The Belgian libertarian movement suffers from a deficit of transmission of the militant
tradition. After the first phase last month, following the long section of the collective
Alternative Libertaire Brussels. ---- In addition to suffering from a hostile political
environment, the Belgian anarchist face an empty memorial. Each generation has more or
less start from scratch, without benefit of advice and the legacy of the previous
generation. While this can have benefits, such as the doctrine renew and adapt to the
present time, it gives the impression especially to activists that anarchism springs
suddenly before disappearing, he has home a volatile and unsuitability to be a stable
revolutionary posture. ---- We can go far to understand this fact. Belgian anarchists were
very active in the labor movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As
in France, they catered especially around newspapers and in the trade union movement -
during the execution of Francisco Ferrer in 1909, for example, the houses of the people of
Hainaut basin are covered with black flags. Some experiments of alternative communities
have even been tempted near Brussels, combining self-management, economic solidarity,
vegetarianism or even nudism. But even at that time, Belgium was very dependent on its
large southern neighbor and even the rest of Europe. Land of exile, she hosted many
foreign anarchists who sought refuge, especially in Brussels, following the adoption of
rogue or various laws revolutionary actions carried out in Spain or Italy.
Personalities such as Reclus or Buenaventura Durruti have a lasting influence on the
Belgian anarchism; along with hundreds of strangers whose names have not been preserved
but have followed the same path and broke bread with their peers overseas Quiévrain.
Crossroads of European revolutionary groups, Brussels has paradoxically been few
significant figures, in the sense that they have been perpetuated in the imagination and
the Belgian memory; include Ernestan or Émile Hatter. This "absence" is also due to the
difficult transmission of revolutionary memory that we suffer today - Belgian anarchists
would be hard to mention the name of some of their ancestors.
Like many other European countries, the World War permanently weakened the movement,
eliminating the trenches and prisons many anarchists. Although the Belgian government has
always repressed the revolutionary movements, the war provided him with radical means to
weaken its "internal enemies" - a situation we know today with the state of emergency. The
next generation, that of the interwar period, was bled white by World War II and, for
obvious reasons, by the German occupation. It is especially from the time a flood cycle
and decline is taking place. Even in 1968, which also hit Belgium, will not allow a
sustainable resettlement of an anarchist movement whose last representatives of the golden
age dies in the early 1970s, without really met and passed the torch to new and new
libertarians.
Build bridges to the past
Today anarchists are overwhelmingly young and came to anarchism later on. Older, including
sixty-huitards, locked themselves in "festive" versions of rebellion or have completely
abandoned the revolutionary ideal. We can not rely on the transmission of a memory of
struggles, strategic and theoretical experiments that were conducted before us. This
memorial nothingness is also not the preserve of anarchists, popular memory, if it exists,
lack of channels to be broadcast and to stay alive through his reincarnation in the present.
This presents us with precisely the question of how it is transmitted: the world of the
Belgian edition is moribund, but even if it were also living in France, the book seems to
be the best way to transmit the memory . We're way behind on computer media, such as
videos or mini-documentaries, which are proving very effective in reaching new generations
of activists.
The role of a collective like Alternative Libertaire Brussels is not only to rebuild a
public space of Francophone Belgian anarchism but also to pick up the thread of memory.
Ensure its sustainability for future libertarian, an anchor in the course of the
contentious history in Belgium, an impression of participating in a momentum that
transcends the years. Also seeking to exhume the history of the Belgian anarchist
tradition, we can build bridges to the past and learn from our predecessors. We hope that
in the future, anarchism is not only a political solution that emerges every ten or
fifteen years but a revolutionary project of transformation of society, permanently
present, with a knowledge of its past and perspective for its future.
Thibault (AL Brussels)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Anarchisme-en-Belgique-2-Un
------------------------------
Message: 2
Apollo House was occupied by Home Sweet Home Eire on the 15th December, to intervene in
the housing crisis and to save lives. ---- There are around 190,000 vacant buildings in
Ireland, that's 27 houses for every homeless person. ---- The wealth divide is growing in
Ireland and the lives of the homeless mean nothing to a government that values profit over
people. For instance, Dublin is in the world's top 15 for concentration of millionaires,
something only intensified as the wealth trickled up after the financial crash. If it is
shocking that the rich have become richer as the rest of us have gotten poorer, this is
because of the class divide built into our society. When the capitalist class gains, the
working class loses.
Around 40 people a night have found a home in Apollo House, in the coldest time of the
year. People in desperation are coming to it for shelter, rather than to the state which
is officially, legally, tasked with ensuring their welfare. There's no doubt that Apollo
House shows us the effectiveness of direct action. Where the government fails the people
can provide.
And futher still, the Apollo House occupation demonstrates through action a different
ethic, of ownership through use, and exposes the terrible contradiction of the private
property system where there can be people without homes yet homes without people. We get
so wrapped up in the way things are, how things are supposed to be done, what's legal and
illegal rather than right and wrong. By reclaiming this building and collectively running
it according to the needs of the people, Home Sweet Home are injecting a vital dose of
compassion and humanity back into our society.
True revolutionaries serve the people, and that's exactly what Home Sweet Home are doing.
Full support and solidarity from the Workers Solidarity Movement. Better to squat than let
homes rot!
wsm.ie
------------------------------
Message: 3
2016 was a really frightening year, and 2017 will see the awful realisation of much of
what it set in motion. The political culture of Europe, not least the UK within it, and of
the US, involved the open embracing of racism on a scale we have not seen for decades; the
open refusal to extend even the most basic compassion towards people fleeing parts of the
world which our nations have over-exploited and destabilised; the normalisation by all
parties of the idea that immigration is a ‘problem' and that the ‘British nation' is
damaged by it; the associated racist abuse and assault; and an apparent shoot-to-kill
police policy against People of Colour. Repressive religious forces are created and thrive
in response to this racism, as well as to twisted ideologies concerning how we should all
live, and justify the mass murder of civilians. We are losing more freedoms to
surveillance, social control and militarisation under the pretext of protecting us from
such ‘religious extremism'.
The emerging realignment of global powers with the desire and capability for mass
destruction, beyond even the horrors of Syria, now actually seem to desire nuclear war.
The over-arching structures on which we are supposed to rely for ultimate justice - the
European courts, the United Nations etc. - have become increasingly powerless as dictators
do as they like. Patriarchy, ‘family values' and the oppression of gender and sexual
diversity thrive as parallel reactionary processes, and violence against women becomes
normal where our leaders encourage it. The health and social care system is about to
finally collapse, which is apparently our own fault for living longer. The fate of the
planet at this crucial ecological tipping point is in the hands of climate change deniers
and short-sighted profiteers.
Over all, we have witnessed both the normalisation of horror, and the normalisation of
bare-faced lying about it. It has been the active strategy of capitalism not only to shape
the world in its image, but to make it impossible to change direction and take another
path, because it controls and restricts education, media, freedom of speech and political
reform. It doesn't matter how many scandals are exposed, ‘legal' and ‘democratic' channels
do nothing to stop it. This too has changed in very recent history; no one likes the world
as it is, or the way that those running it act, but we have come to think it is a waste of
time trying to change it. The case against global Capitalism, for example, has been won
over and over again by the various international and interconnected protest movements that
have arisen since 2008. The vast majority of people affected by its excesses accept that
at best it does human society and social economy more harm than good. But the state
pro-actively and increasingly bails it out and props it up where it fails even on its own
terms, and passes meaningless legislation against things like tax evasion which the
internationally-greedy and their lawyers simply laugh at. Everyone shares this knowledge
and few people disagree with the analysis. But far from being united by anger, it feels as
though everyone is responding by looking out for themselves. We seem further from
collective and sustainable class working class self-activity and revolutionary action than
ever.
This despondency is understandable, but it is a mistake. True, whatever our rhetoric, we
are very far indeed from a social revolution. So how do we change things? It is not
unreasonable for anarchists to point out that we wouldn't start from here! All other
political systems have had their chance, and all of them have actively driven our ideology
underground because of the threat posed to them by the possibility of a society which
consists of BOTH maximum individual freedom AND social and economic equality. No other
political system can offer this, but very few people have even encountered the notion. We
have to continue to use whatever avenues we can to spread the message that it is both
possible and realistic and take action to make our way of thinking more influential. So
here are a few thoughts about how anarchists can improve the possibility of more
significant change.
First, remember that there have been successes. It is vital that we recall and understand
these, use what we have learned, generalise from them, and respond to and support new
resistance when it occurs. The international working class and all the various people who
are oppressed globally can't all be kept down at the same time. Where resistance emerges
there is greater potential than ever to spread it globally; witness the Arab Spring,
Occupy movement and Black Lives Matter. We have a great deal to offer such movements
because they naturally tend towards horizontal organisation, at which we excel. We can
also protect them from the emergence of regressive hierarchies because we understand the
basis for these arising and how to stop them. We can suggest structures within which
everyone is accountable and has responsibilities, and can express and realise their own
needs and desires as well.
We perhaps need to concentrate most urgently on succeeding where we have failed most
seriously, which is in responding to the reasons why Brexit and Trump have happened. There
is a vast proportion of the population that is sick of feeling exploited and having no
control over our lives, whilst a privileged minority dominate and rip us off. But this is
the same demography that anarchists traditionally come from and identify with! To us, that
demography is where the revolutionary potential lies. We are still trying to understand
how and why this has changed. Why did so many people apparently become racist, nationalist
and isolationist at the ballot box? It is no use reinterpreting statistics either; enough
people voted for Brexit and for Trump that it is certain that a dramatic shift to the
right has taken place. But we don't believe that the (largely) white working class is
‘naturally' racist, nationalist and isolationist. It has been made that way by the people
who run the world. So this is where we can intervene. Anarchists have to expose the voices
that divert social anger and the desire for change towards the acceptance of systematic
racism, patriarchy, transphobia and homophobia, and the rejection of basic human
compassion. We have to revive the most effective anarchist weapon - propaganda, and use it
to demonstrate the most basic anarchist truth - that we all have more in common than we
are led to believe, and that dividing us is an explicit function and policy of the state.
Our counter-media has never been more important than now. But whereas anarchists and other
radicals were amongst the first to set up our own electronic media - Indymedia and various
forums, well before even social media as we know it - now that this media is used so
widely, we have to find ways to compete to show that we make the most sense.
In fact anarchists are pretty much obliged to expose and counter reactionary ideas as
individuals too. We must declare zero tolerance on racism, sexism and any other ideas and
actions which denigrate and oppress, wherever we encounter them. We should actively call
out even ‘casual racism' in the working class as well as in the elite; and similarly the
notion that feminism has ‘made its point' and is less important than class struggle (as
though they are different); and that it is normal to put ‘our' nation first. We have to be
ready with arguments to counter it not just in our publications but as individuals. This
is the case however much it isolates us at work, in our social group, at home, or even in
political parties, because these positions are more and more evident on the ‘Left' too.
Anarchists spend a lot of time discussing whether and how to engage in reformist
struggles, which we know will improve immediate conditions for some people but not
necessarily contribute much in terms of lasting social change. We will now encounter
plenty of people in them who have moved to the Right. By definition, quite a few of them
are people moved to ‘stand up' for something and are often also involved in reformist
campaigns over services, education, in the workplace etc. and we will encounter them
there. We can't simply shun these people or denounce en masse everyone who voted Leave as
ignorant bigots. The point is that we have something in common with them. If we are not
there when they realise that the people they voted for don't in fact have their interests
at heart, and that they have been played, there is no reason that they will come towards
our position naturally. In fact, history shows that a further move to the right is likely.
Acting in these principled ways, we can engage better as anarchists at those intersections
between the economic struggles of working class people (at the point of production and
exploitation, in receipt of benefits, or on exploitative contracts), and working class
people as people fighting gender or sexual oppression, as People of Colour or
non-nationals, as people with disabilities, and increasingly as others who have
traditionally fared better in our own society than they now do, i.e. people who are sick,
old, isolated and otherwise dependent on rapidly collapsing forms of social provision, and
also all school children who are being failed. It will become increasingly impossible for
any one section to fight effectively in its own interests in isolation. If we come to
understand ourselves as individuals fighting on numerous levels and against the various
forms of oppression that we each face, we will increase the possibility of these struggles
being successful.
The need for long-term specifically conscious anarchist organisation and, in our view,
anarchist organisations like the AF is crucial. Within them we come to useful analysis
through systematic and serious study and engagement. We develop our ideas and practice
symbiotically. We learn from each other as anarchists, not just as friends or people we
share some other rebellious affinity with. We have a way of analysing the past and present
that is materially instructive and useful. By organising together in structures which
don't fizzle out once a struggle is won or lost, we build a greater presence for our ideas
in society. It is also important how we represent anarchist organisation and
organisations. At present, we are portrayed as sinister, especially when we organise
together, and being a ‘subversive' only has negative connotations. Many people we need to
work with will consider us extreme and even threatening at first, but they will also have
got to know us personally, as people also involved struggle. So, on the one hand, we are
serious and principled individuals, and on the other we are part of what the rest of the
working class is taught to fear. But by being the former, we are ambassadors for the
latter. This is the sort of way in which we can act as individuals to make the case that
the destruction of the state and capital is a positive and constructive We can point out
what we have in common with other marginalised people locally and globally who are
involved in better thought-out ways of opposing the ‘elite', ways which actually empower
the working class rather than drain it of its potential
Finally, by being honest and assertive about our politics in the ways above, even if we
don't see revolution in our lifetime, we can significantly shift the political middle
ground away from the right. Here is an apparent paradox for anarchists. We are not trying
to return to a more ‘liberal' society where ‘moderate' values dominate. But we are
recognising that in the here and now, even reformist action is needed to put the brakes on
what could be a shift towards the most extreme right-wing politics since the 1940s. By
being radical, ever-present and vocal at one political extreme (libertarian communist),
that is to say, making our ideas more commonplace, we can shift the most commonly
encountered social discourses away from the right. Remember that anarchism has redrawn the
lines in many historical situations. We reject the sort of approach taken by the
authoritarian left, which is that the present polarisation within the working class makes
it more likely that Capitalism can be overthrown, i.e. when Brexit kicks in economically,
the class will revolt. This is many ‘socialists' actually voted for it. But not only is it
just as likely to produce a rightward shift as it did in the 1930s, in this approach to
revolution, People of Colour, gender oppressed people and others become collateral damage.
Instead, we need to create hostility to Capitalism and the Right at the same time as
fighting where our own oppressions overlap. This gives power to otherwise vulnerable
groups. It does not take place at the point where we are about to descend into fascism,
but instead at points where ALL oppressed people are at their strongest.
2016 was very demoralising, and 2017 is looking worse. Anarchists have tended to be
enduringly optimistic about the revolutionary potential of the working class. Now it seems
to be at an all-time low. But this only makes revolutionary analysis and social activism
more important than ever. It is time to work out what to do for the best in the new
political environment, and to do it.
https://afed.org.uk/2017-what-it-holds-and-what-all-anarchists-can-do-about-it/
------------------------------
Message: 4
In the trade sector, the bosses decided to open the stores on January 2, the day
traditionally is a holiday to rest employees and workers two days after the debilitating
hours of Christmas and New Year. --- On the last Sunday of the year, from 2013 onwards the
shops open. --- But this year this Sunday coincided with the day of Christmas, which is
well established holiday and not transferred to another Sunday, as the law says, so in
order not to lose their profits employers, ignoring the needs of workers, open the their
shops on January 2. --- Slowly first with initiatives by employers themselves as the
multinational MEDIA MARKT group last year opened its stores at 2/1, continuing radical
change processes and ultimately money every outrageous desire of capital to increase
profits for the maintenance and reproduction of the altar of the national economy.
This year, therefore, after the "vanguard" of the above group follow and others as the
group INDITECH (Zara, ZaraHome, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarious, Bershka, Oysho, Pull & Bear,
Uterque) and H & M thus anticipate that in 2/1 of shops will always open apparently with
some reform / modification bill will vote in the State.
It is also not at all strange that State to legislate the changes that the Fund has
already imposes on the lives of workers. The same happened to Sundays from no were eight,
then 10 and the target is 52 working Sundays per year.
The white and the red night, black Fridays, hours and working days are shaped according to
the needs of the bosses, reduced stamps, unpaid overtime and you are experiencing
wage-pocket money form the labor reality, not only for the shop assistant but for the
entire world of work.
Do not allow the application of the new anti-worker law that provides release redundancies
and increase the threshold of 5% to 10% further reduction of abject minimum wage of 586
euros and new ypokatotatou salary for neoprosleifthentes, remove those benefits are left,
slaughtered welfare benefits, complete dominance of civil and business contracts even
greater reduction of the average wage.
To prevent the implementation of the new trade union law which limits and almost prohibits
industrial action giving the "right" to employers to respond to lock out the workers'
struggles.
The Interprofessional Union of Anarchosyndicalist Rosinante Initiative calls to
mobilization at the headquarters of INDITEX, on Monday, January 2 at 10 a.m., and Aeolus
Stadium, against the intensification of work undertaken by their employers.
-The Tenacious struggles of the working class is the only way to break the rules of the
employers' arbitrariness.
-The Struggle of our class annul practically every anti-labor law every employer terrorism.
-Kamia Discount on our labor rights.
-Mideniki Tolerability appetites of Capital.
Anarcho-syndicalist Initiative Rosinante - Interprofessional Union
http://rocinante.gr
------------------------------
Message: 5
On Wednesday, December 7th at Texas A & M University, as FBI agents monitored hundreds of
protesters from the tops of roofs, heavily armed riot police clashed with demonstrators
bent on disrupting and shutting down an event organized by Preston Wiginton, a 51 year old
former student of the campus and long time white supremacist. The event featured a talk by
Richard Spencer, a leading ideologue within the growing “Alt-Right,” which attempts to
re-brand fascist, Neo-Nazi, and white nationalist ideas for the millennial generation in
order to create an all-white fascist “ethno-state.” ---- The clashes that erupted on the
campus are just the latest in a string of growing confrontations between autonomous
revolutionaries and the racist far-Right which is acting as an auxiliary force of the
Trump regime while attempting to push it farther to the right. Suddenly, anarchists and
antifa, who have been demonized and sidelined by the wider Left have been hearing from
liberals and Leftists, “you’ve been right all along.” But while revolutionary anarchist
ideas are starting to have a broader currency, many of the things that people are starting
to pick up on, we have been saying for years.
And the stakes are only getting higher. Far-Right forces are growing, both here in the
United States and around the world, but they are growing in the context of a drastic
failure of both neoliberalism and socialist and Left parties which grew out of social
movements like Syriza and Podemos. All of this plus the continuing fallout of a
restructured economy that has left behind literally billions of people. Moreover,
industrial production and extraction of resources which propels this system forward has
continued to launch itself into overdrive. This year marked a horrific turning point, as
we officially hit the 400 parts per million carbon milestone. Now, many scientists and
even government institutions are predicting drastic climate change in our lifetimes as
unavoidable and weather patterns are currently already changing rapidly. Revolution, in
the sense that everything will be turned upside down, is inevitable. The question is, what
kind of revolution will it be?
As ecological apocalypse lies on the horizon, all other signs point towards the continued
growth of the wealth gap, inequality in all aspects, and increasing insecurity and
precarity for workers and the poor. This is as true in urban centers as it is in
Appalachia. On a base line level, wages have stagnated or fallen, poverty and homelessness
has grown, gentrification runs rampant, and overall conditions have continued to erode for
many Americans while the most wealthy have grown even richer. Moreover, repression on the
streets of the US continues to ramp up, as the government continues to amass more powers
of surveillance and spying, the prison population soars, police kill on average around 3
people per day, and law enforcement becomes more and more militarized. In short, for most
people, things are getting worse, not better.
The coming to power of Donald Trump only signals an acceleration of all of these
realities. Trump’s plan includes pushing through more resource extraction projects, while
seeing the finishing of the Dakota Access Pipeline. He has made it clear that he intends
to erode democratic rights and further grow surveillance powers, while attacking women,
queer people, immigrant workers, and Muslims. These measure will come coupled with broad
sweeping attacks on the entire population as unions are assaulted, basic social welfare
programs are eroded, and wealth continues to flow out of our hands and into the pockets of
the rich.
In the face of all of this, from a growing insurgent far-Right, to the current ecological
collapse, broad attacks on workers, the poor, the environment, and those most vulnerable,
many ask: where is the opposition? The answer is clear as day, but it isn’t in the halls
of power, in the politicians, the leaders of the unions, or in the big NGOs. Instead it’s
in the rioters. The blockaders. The people in ski masks and in the streets. The ones on
the front lines fighting with the cops. The people attacking, defending, organizing,
building, and growing.
We live in a time that is marked by not only increasing crisis and growing reaction, but
also in explosive and insurrectionary mass resistance and refusal. At the same time, as it
has never been so clear to so many, the institutional and electoral Left is utterly and
completely, useless.
The crisis we face is not only one of capital or industrial civilization, but that of its
oh-so loyal opposition, the Left.
Perhaps now, you’ll finally start listening.
THE STATE ISN’T NEUTRAL
Government has never been a tool to change people’s lives; it’s always been a force which
organizes them for the interests of the wealthy and powerful.
A State is a collection of hierarchical apparatuses that holds a monopoly of violence in a
given territory and has the ability to enforce its power through policing. States exist to
ensure that the divisions that exist within society don’t make the overall power structure
fall apart. As Prole.Info wrote:
No matter who is in government, government has its own logic. The fact that this society
is divided into classes with opposing interests means that it is always at risk of tearing
itself apart. The government is there to make sure that doesn’t happen. Whether the
government is a dictatorship or a democracy, it holds all the guns and will use them
against its own population to make sure that we keep going to work.
But liberals paint a much different picture. They instead present a democratic State as a
neutral institution that simply needs enough good people to become involved in it. As
someone wrote in After Bern:
There is an immense system of violence and domination in place over us that keeps the
wheels of this system running. While it appears we have a hand in shaping our lives, in
reality there are clear systems of control and management in place to make sure that the
overall structure of this society is not threatened. No matter who is elected, no matter
what political party you join, the appearance of popular control, of democracy, is a total
illusion.
But a State isn’t a neutral coming together of human-beings; it is instead an instrument
of colonial and class dictatorship. This is how the American State has always been organized:
America is a settler nation created out of colonies managed by imperial powers. As one of
our founding fathers, John Jay put it, “The people who own the country ought to govern it.”
The reasons that everyday working-class and poor people can’t get ahead in politics is not
because not enough people don’t get involved in changing or participating within the
State, but because the people that run this government have invested interest in keeping
the status-quo. This has not been made anymore clear than with the election of Donald
Trump, as the entirety of the political class lines up to work with a billionaire
proto-fascist in order to preserve the social peace.
The State is designed to ensure the the ability to govern and police a territory through
force and violence for the interest of those in power; it is not a means in which our
lives can be changed for the better.
ELECTORALISM DOESN’T LEAD TO SOCIAL CHANGE
The belief that the ballot box is the single best way to not only create change, but also
hold on to gains made by everyday people is a complete sham. It is also a hallmark of
liberalism and much of the Left. Democracy is simply the window dressings we use to cover
the dictatorship of everyday life. As Scott Campbell wrote in Trumping Fear, Finding
Safety in Resistance:
With tens of millions feeling burned by Trump’s election, and most of those not resonating
with the slower death offered by Clinton, criticisms of the electoral system are running
rampant: the convoluted primary system, the corruption of the Democratic National
Committee, the anachronism of the Electoral College, etc. Yet these objections seek only
ameliorative change, taking the current construct of governance as a given.
Rather than pointing to specific flaws within an oppressive framework, it is more
constructive to acknowledge that the system actually worked as designed and provided
voters will two physical representations of the core tenets of the United States. On one
side was the neoliberal imperialist and on the other the misogynistic white supremacist.
As the saying goes, “No matter who you vote for, they win.” The source of our discontent,
dispossession and death cannot be resolved at the ballot box. Social constructs of race
and gender cannot be voted out of existence any more than capitalism can be undone with
the flick of a pen. Third parties are nothing more than the system’s pressure valves,
designed to channel dissenting energies into the electoral process where they can be
rendered non-threatening.
The illusion of choice and agency inherent in voting are rather acts of disempowerment and
surrender. Now that the disillusionment is spreading, the opportunity is available to
further ingrain this electoral dissatisfaction and offer alternative proposals for social
functioning before the system has its next go at recuperation in two years when, “We’ve
got to take back the House…” Part of this is to challenge narratives around voting, to
counter the myth that the civil rights and Black Power movements were about the right to
vote, that democracy is the highest expression of human organization and freedom, and to
undermine the psychic weight and value that voting carries in this society. To vote or not
vote is not the issue, rather it is to de-reify voting and properly situate it in our
current context while suggesting that the real work happens everywhere except at the
ballot box.
If it didn’t have such real consequences, from a step back electoral politics would be
laughably absurd. The notion of selecting one person to rule over 320 million people based
on the fact they all reside in a single, arbitrary territorial configuration is
antiquated, incoherent with the current world system and dictatorially unrepresentative.
As Scott Jay writes:
Electoral strategies always seem to focus on funding and promoting themselves, with just
enough lip service to give them a gloss of social movement relevance, but not much more.
Instead of being a launching point for social struggles, electoralism has been a one-trick
pony whose only concrete strategies feed directly back into itself and not into something
greater. Rather than providing a strategy for propelling social movements, it is almost
exclusively a justification for its own continuance. In the context of a country dominated
by two parties, this often means at some level feeding back into the Democratic Party,
reluctant to harm the only game in town.
Nowhere does this become more clear than with the campaign of Bernie Sanders, as it was
used to march millions of young, poor, and working-class voters back into the arms of the
Democratic Party after 8 years of being betrayed by a President who ran on “hope” and
“change,” but delivered the opposite. After Sanders was purposely destroyed by the DNC, he
then turned around and campaigned for Clinton, and has now even embraced working with Trump.
Regardless, most people in the United States wanted nothing to do with the election and
didn’t even bother to vote. As the blog, Where the River Frowns pointed out:
Estimates indicate that 128.8 million people voted in Tuesday’s Presidential election,
which is 55.6% of the voting-eligible population. However, if people who are typically
overlooked for reasons of age and felony status are included, the percentage drops to only
39.6% of the total U.S. population having voted. Of those who voted, 59 million voted for
the winner–a mere 18.2% of the total population. According to a survey from the PEW
Research Institute from late October, of those who support a particular candidate, only
55% or 56% “strongly support” their candidate of choice. This brings the proportion of the
U.S. population who strongly support the President-elect to 10.2%.
Moreover, whether in the Civil Rights or Labor movement, it was rioting, occupations, and
mass resistance and disruption that forced the State to grant concessions, not the slow,
long march through the institutions. Furthermore, the democratic process has only allowed
rights, living standards, and better conditions to slowly be whittled away by more
powerful forces backed by the State itself. In short, undemocratic means forced the hand
of the State, while over the decades as struggle receded back into politics, these gains
were lost.
What this means is exactly what anarchists have been saying all along. That not only does
the electoral path not lead to social change, to say nothing of ‘revolution’ – but
overall, the vast majority of Americans reject the “democratic” two-party sham that most
liberals and the Left cling to or think they can create an alternative to within its confines.
WE NEED TO BUILD A MOVEMENT OUTSIDE OF POLITICAL PARTIES AND POLITICS
Electoral politics feeds off of grassroots social movements and struggles, not into them.
As Scott Jay wrote:
[E]lectoral activism feeds into electoral activism. It relies on itself to further itself.
It attracts people who are attracted to electoral politics and generally does not attract
people engaging in class struggle. It does not need, nor does it feed class struggle,
except to the extent that it might be able to take advantage of the sacrifices of
militants in order to declare itself a proper representative of a social movement it did
not create.
This past 8 years we’ve seen a wide variety of social movements rise and fall, all to be
recuperated and cast aside by electoralism and crushed by the State. After the economic
crisis hit, we saw the spread of occupations of college campuses and the explosion of the
Occupy Movement. Obama, with the help of Homeland Security, fusion centers, and a
collusion of local police departments, crushed the encampments in a wave of violent
repression.
Several years later, we saw the explosion of the Ferguson Insurrection, which then quickly
spread to Baltimore, Oakland, Charlotte, Milwaukee, and elsewhere. Other mass struggles,
movements, and upheavals soon followed, from the #PrisonStrike, to #NoDAPL, to the mass
disruptions and riots that followed the election of Donald Trump. Again, Scott Jay:
[T]here are young people around the country who have risen up in rebellion against the
police killing them over the last few years. They probably did not bother to ask
themselves whether their actions were going to hurt the Democrats’ chances in getting
reelected. They are living in completely different worlds, one where people fight for
their lives against a system trying to destroy them, another where people draw up
blueprints for national organizations with no discussion as to who is actually going to
build the thing. The youth in the streets have been less concerned about ballot access and
more concerned about challenging the system that is trying to kill them.
But in all of these struggles, their logical and ethical conclusions come not through
politics, the election of a politician, or through the State – but in an insurrection and
overthrowing of these systems of power, exploitation, and policing.
In all electoral campaigns, we see the opposite growing of what is needed however. As
After Bern commented:
Across the United States, the Sanders campaign has raised over $207 million dollars.
People knocked on doors, they put up stickers, they organized rallies, and they made phone
calls.
What if we had put all of that [wasted] time, energy, and organization in building
something that wasn’t based around electing a politician? What if we put that time,
energy, organization, and hundreds of millions of dollars into building organizations that
can fight, win, and seize land?
For all the rhetoric of the Sanders campaign, his use of language of Occupy and Black
Lives Matter, both movements that the Democrats helped to crush under their own heels,
there was not a “political revolution.” But moreover, those energized by Sanders are now
free to be led directly into the Democratic Party machine…
We need to build up strong, dynamic, and grassroots organizations, crews, networks, and
movements from the ground up, not from the top down. These need to be based in our
neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, and communities, not in the halls of power. We need to
find ways to come together to amplify our collective power and strength, not piss it away
in votes.
We need fighting movements with teeth, not pathetic attempts at taking a seat at the table
of power.
------------------------------
Message: 6
The struggle and resistance efforts of thousands of state civil service workers were not
enough to contain Sartori's (BPDB) liberal and privatist sanha. The Legislative Assembly
of the RS approved, on Tuesday (20) and the fourth, (21) another series of measures
included in its package. ---- PL 246 were approved (were extinguished as of Economics and
Statistics Foundation (FEE), Zoobotânica Foundation (FZB), Piratini Foundation (TVE and FM
Culture), Science Foundation and Technology (Cientec), Foundation for the Development of
Human Resources ( FDRH) and Metroplan); The PL 248 that extinguished Fepagro (State
Foundation for Agricultural Research) and FIGTF (Gaucho Institute of Tradition and
Folklore Foundation); The PL 244 that extinguished CORAG (Companhia Rio Grandense de Artes
Gráficas); The PL 251 that ended the SPH (superintendence of ports and waterways) and PL
301 that extinguished the FEPPS (State Foundation for Production and Research in Health.
With the approval of these projects, the dismissal of about 1.2 thousand state public
servants is already counted. Not to mention so many other layoffs (like the workers at the
Rio Grande shipyard). Added to this is the non-receipt of the 13th salary and the
increasing indebtedness that are subject to and the employees of the functionalism so that
they can pay their bills and the recurrent borrowings of banks like Banrisul. A true
CRISIS for the low ones, while the upper ones will continue to receive tax exemptions, tax
evasion, profit on what should be a public patrimony, here understood as non-state public!
The struggle of the workers to the Sartori package unfortunately did not reach a
resistance to the intransigence of this government. The union leaders, most of whom are
bureaucrats, such as the Cutista do Cpers / Sindicato (one of the largest trade unions in
Latin America category) did little or nothing to mobilize their base (tired of so much of
their Build a reference mobilization for the other categories of public service. Once
again, they channeled their work into the parliament, exchanging the direct fight in the
streets for the shouts and speeches of cabinet in the galleries of the plenary of the
Alergs. As if the ears and eyes of the government were sensitive and shouts and slogans
written on posters.
But the fight continues and the resistance will be more and more urgent and necessary!
https://federacaoanarquistagaucha.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/extincoes-e-demissoes-no-rs/
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Message: 7
HARRODS, 87 - 135 BROMPTON ROAD, KNIGHTSBRIDGE, LONDON SW1X 7XL Come and demand that
Harrods stops stealing their waiters' tips! Harrods steals up to 75% of the 12.5% service
charge it adds to the bills of diners in its luxury restaurants, in which a steak can cost
up to £300 ... ---- That 75% means that every year the Qatari royal family, which owns
Harrods, is taking up to £5,000 worth of tips from every chef, waiter and porter. ---- The
law locks up the man or woman --Who steals the goose off the common --But leaves the
greater villain loose --Who steals the common from the goose ---- Acting in solidarity
with Harrods UVW members on Saturday January 7th CLASS WAR will seal off Harrods with
scene of crime tape and invite the many hundreds of police present to investigate the
theft of £5,000 from each and every employee by management.
We invite comrades to bring crime scene tape and noise makers - alarm, hooters, megaphones
- so we can alert the rest of KNIGHTSBRIDGE to Harrods criminality.
At 2pm masked members of Harrods staff - masked to avoid the sack - will appear to read a
statement. Comrades we must give them every possible support.
http://www.classwarparty.org.uk/weve-got-get-rid-rich-harrods-saturday-7th-january-2pm/
------------------------------
Message: 8
About a year ago, in Istanbul launched an investigation by the head of the prosecution
service, the anarchist newspaper Meydan -the which was shut down once the Turkish state,
but in spite of repression comrades / sses to put into operation; again occasion of the
publication of articles "the beginning and the end of the state due to fear", "Prohibited
until further notice" and "Rebuilding life" published in the thirtieth edition, December
2015. --- This issue brought thematic "by prohibiting all 'and the power mechanisms hasten
Erdogan him confirm, ended survey to impeach the anarchist editor Hüseyin Civan and
sentenced to 1 year and 3 months on charges" propaganda structure for scheming terrorist
organization which constitute intimidation, violence and threats by using the money of
approbation or encouraging the use of these methods "
This prison is a direct consequence of the totalitarian policy of Erdogan and his party
(AKP). A policy that seemed from the bloody events of the two elections a year ago, where
he tried to break the resistance and political opponents, with a show of military and
political power. Exclude entire villages with tanks of the Turkish army and launched
simultaneous attacks blocked Kurdish province of Diyarbakir and in southeastern Turkey and
established the state of emergency within. Those who were the target of this policy was
the left, actors and Kurdish parties, such as the HDP and the PKK -where the attack
becomes increasingly sfodri- and anarchist organizations. On the one accept the repression
and murderous mood of the Turkish police and the gray wolf and the other
counter-revolutionary attacks of ISIS in the consistent and continuous cooperation with
the Turkish state. Nobody forgets neither the suicide attack at the press conference in
July '15 for the troupe in Sourouts urging the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations
and members of socialist and anarchist organizations or attack with two bombs in the
planned peace march in Istanbul in October '15 against hostilities in southeastern Turkey
urging the Confederation of Public Employees, the Chamber of Architects and Engineers, the
Federation of Revolutionary Trade Unions and the Union of Doctors Turkey.
This policy came to be fixed, the failed coup of July 15, organized by serving senior
military accused by the state that participated in the Gulen movement. From that moment
on, Erdogan accused his political opponents of trying to overthrow and uses the failed
coup to become the absolute ruler, a sultan. As such, ensure the one to clean the entire
state firmament of his opponents, kathairontas entire senior staff of the army, half the
public sector, the judiciary and much of the police. On the other directed against the
internal enemy, pieces struggling. It triggers his followers with gray wolves lintsaroun
and attack the neighborhoods and places of leftist and anarchist activists and
organizations. These attacks, however, have failed to terrorize the world of race
resistivity not folded and has continued to be on the road. Begins mass imprisonments and
persecution to writers, journalists, even in people-users of social media, many Turkish
and Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Democratic party HDP, the band members GRUP YURUM
and anarchist militants. Attacks in Rojava now "shield Euphrates" and re bombing in
positions of the PKK in the region Bakur.
For our part, we show our full solidarity to the brothers and sisters in our neighboring
country daily face the fear and fight against the fascist state and para-state of Turkey.
We express our solidarity with comrade and anarchist fighter Hüseyin Civan, where he was
imprisoned for the position taken in the social-class war, the position behind the
barricades, along with the world of the race
we express our solidarity with the comrades of DAF (Devrimci Anarsist Faaliyet) where
although faced with totalitarianism do not bend and the resistors are not bent and their
struggle becomes more timely and more necessary than ever.
Can a sea separates us but unites us solidarity and determination to jointly fight for
another world.
A world of equality, solidarity and freedom.
Freedom for anarchist Hüseyin Civan
STRUGGLE FOR THE WORLD SOCIAL REVOLUTION
FOR ANARCHY AND libertarian communism
Anarchist collectivity Omikron72
member A.P.O. | Federation collectivity
http://omikron72.espivblogs.net/
https://twitter.com/AnsOmikron72
http://ainfos.ca/gr/ainfos02793.html
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» Anarchic update news all over the world - Part 1 - 9 January 2017