Today's Topics:

  
 1.  anarkismo.net: Australia: Working class, immigration crisis
      - Some initial thoughts by Dimitris Troaditis (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  US, black rose fed: A PODCAST INTRODUCTION: THE IDEAS AND
      HISTORY OF ANARCHISM (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  zabalaza.net: Fuelling the fires: South Africa in class war
      by Shawn Hattingh (ZACF) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Greece, APO: Information from the mobilization against the
      dams and the diversion of Acheloos (Messochora, June 4)
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1




... no longer see car queues of workers waiting every morning to go through the factory 
gate. No more factories. They have closed or transferred to Southeast Asian countries. 
Public banks and utilities have left the country or are about to leave. The trade union 
movement, which once covered half the employed workforce and rivaled the state for 
economic power, mostly located in disorderly retreat. ---- at the end of the 18th century, 
the English working class (the weavers, the laborers, the workers in the steel industry, 
miners and other sectors), lived largely in the province. There was employed at home or in 
small workshops, with strong connections to the village or the life of the local parish. 
However, by the early tou1830, many worked in large factories under the discipline of the 
superintendent and mechanical watches.

They began to live in squalid cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds. Thousands and 
thousands of workers and their families huddled in dangerous slums where they died young 
and poor. The old world had now begun to transform.

The EPThompson tells us that in the long run and on average, that the Industrial 
Revolution did the British richest, but it was through a rampant exploitation and a 
callous violence, a series of economic ideas imposed from above, completely hostile and 
foreign to any sense of belonging to a certain joint project for the good of all. An 
ideology that espoused that all kinds of bosses and only them.

Why start this our presentation on the situation of the English working class? But simply 
because it has been and continues to exist (any mutatis mutandis) and Australia's problem 
too. Because something similar to the story of EPThompson in England during the first 
three decades of the 1800s occurred in Australia and throughout almost the 20th century, 
but especially since the mid-1980s until today.

And the procedure does not take into account both the degree of misery, but the pace and 
scale of social and economic changes that have occurred. The transformation from 
industrial to post-industrial era was so integral that it is no exaggeration to say that 
from a sociological point of view is equivalent to a disappearance, genocide.

At just 30 years-the same time period extending from the mid 1980s until today an economy 
previously served in one way or another (always mutatis mutandis) the entire community, 
now serving a small group of investors , capitalists, bosses generally enslaving them 
almost all the rest.

A little history

But how Australia was created as we know it? To understand more or less how the Australian 
state was created, the economy and, basically, imperialism (in the wider Southeast Asia) 
will cite some historical data.

It is estimated that before the arrival of white colonists in Australia, in 1788, lived 
across the country, in harmony with the natural environment, hundreds of thousands of 
indigenous people (300,000 for some, for others up to 1,000,000) 50,000 years. They 
indigenous Australian peoples milousanperissoteres than 250 languages and 700 dialects, 
had their own social and economic organization, their own nomadic and collective culture. 
These people gradually decimated because of the violent colonization of white 
Vretanoafstralon, deliberate spreading infections in their ranks, epidemics and all kinds 
of diseases and the current cultural genocide policies against them.

They spent several decades by the social and political awakening and emancipation 
movements to kick start their struggle from the 1930s yet, that Australian Aborigines 
officially rejoining the map of the country with the 1967 referendum, when it was decided 
to be counted for the first time in inventories (!) and their issues to handle the federal 
government of the country. Today, about 700,000 of the 24 million inhabitants of the 
country, define themselves as "native" or "indigenous origin". Year milestone in their 
relations with whites was the 1992 decision of the Supreme Court of the country, according 
to which Australia was not «terra-nullius» (license earth as claimed whites), before the 
British arrival and indigenous land rights are sovereign and can claim compensation 
(although under certain conditions).

Decisive steps institutionalized exploitation of

the Province of Australia was formed in 1901. Bases were, on the one hand, the church and 
state separation, legislating, but, on the other, the concept of the country's citizens 
mainly based on this white Vretanoafstralou. This policy prevailed and dominated until the 
Second World War. For argument's sake, one of the first acts of the new state, was to 
restrict immigration. The country had to settle white people coming mostly from Europe.

Also, in the early 20th century, people with different racial and cultural 
characteristics, were considered alien and inferior to the established and prevailing 
Anglo-Celtic tradition and potentially dangerous.

The stranger, the immigrant, the racially outside the dominant vretanoafstralianis society 
is partly socially acceptable, but only as a law abiding entity, only, that is, as a 
worker and, indeed, multiple operator. Neither reason is for the maintenance or 
development of specific ethnic and cultural origins and traditions and in any cases 
allowed such a thing, it must be consistent and comply with the prevailing policy.

Beyond that, the 'gigantism' Australia becomes an issue and economic development and 
protection of so-called national security. This made war with the mass migration programs 
are epic. On one hand, the Australian state managed, among other things, to triple the 
population of the country and bring the country immigrants from more than 150 and most 
diverse countries on the other, however, it was achieved without altering the dominant 
Anglo-Celtic character of the Australian society.

So while the stranger, the immigrant, is quite visible in the newly established state, 
indigenous, indigenous, however, rendered and institutional invisible without recorded its 
presence in inventories until 1967 without the right of ownership is recognized - in his 
own earth-until 1992!

But even for white loyalists Southern European immigrants (Greeks, Italians, Yugoslavs and 
others), the pre-war Australia was particularly harsh and inhospitable country. The 
profiling and restrictions that time, violent riots and explosions against non-British 
immigrant origin, especially the period of World War II, some illustrative cases of open 
hostility.

The establishment of immigrant communities and their leading role can, on one hand, be 
aimed at maintaining the cultural identity of immigrants, but targeted and their cultural 
discipline, namely the promotion of good model, collaborative, law-abiding, submissive and 
non-Protestants to the dominant culture and view immigrant. This position was supported 
and continues to advance and so far from the immigration newspapers and the media, the 
church and the leaders of immigrant organizations and bodies.

Multiculturalism in neosyntirismou service and personalization

war, in response to the experience of the Second World War, the alliance relations of 
Australia with several European countries (including Greece) and the beginning of mass 
immigration, which was absorbed in every aspect of economic activity mainly in the area of 
unskilled industrial work (automotive, and construction of major projects), proved really 
more than profitable, highly auriferous policies for the Australian capital.

To proceed, even more in the direction of ever increasing profit, the Australian capital 
assisted by the state, and to achieve it as painlessly as possible, adopted from the early 
1970s until the mid-1990s-period where he rose to the surface neosyntiritismos- the 
principle of liberal multi-ethnism / multi-culture, an ideology that aftoprovlithike as 
neutral guarantor of educational, cultural, labor and other rights of old and new 
immigrants, without, of course, as we said before, lose or abandon the white 
vretanoafstraliana features.

Thus, by a very personalized "egalitarianism" and "fairness" of immigrants, the non 
vretanoafstralianos population of the country led to a much painless incorporation trunk 
white Vretanoafstralias. At the same time the dominant whites freed from the burden of 
violent conquest and exclusion of indigenous and this is because the rulers are the only 
whites and already proven social group that can guarantee national cohesion of the country.

On the other hand, the old immigrants still basically remain eternal foreigners, 
since-especially in the last 15 years- relatively new immigrant communities (mostly 
Muslims) are treated suspiciously by the dominant nationality as the potentially dangerous 
terrorists, subversive "eternal foreigners".

The destruction of community spirit

So we arrived at the current point where many Australians now enjoy the benefits of 
secure, full-time - although most already marked disturbing vibrations.

This is because we no longer employee car queues waiting every morning to go through the 
factory gate. No more factories. They have closed or transferred to Southeast Asian 
countries. Public banks and utilities have left the country or are about to leave. The 
trade union movement, which once covered half the employed workforce and rivaled the state 
for economic power, mostly located in disorderly retreat.

The security, full employment, holidays, sick leave and all that, in many sectors have 
been eliminated or tend to be eliminated. The dream of the working class for housing, for 
social advancement through acquiring cheap land, equal educational opportunities and 
others are into steam.

In just 30 years, the Australian working class, with the factories and trade unions, the 
quality of public services and communities, has almost disappeared ... With a 
"revolution." The Australian working class has been a serious identity problem.

On the other hand, politicians and economists have brought the Australian working class in 
this situation, shamelessly call them all "great era of economic reform." Never afraid to 
proclaim the "hits" them. Anyone who knows English and can get on the web sites of 
newspapers such as the Australian Financial Review or The Australian, any day of the week, 
can clearly determine it. However, none of this does not reflect the full story.

And the full truth is more dramatic, more morally loaded and less one-sided. The period 
between 1983 and 2015, Australia has experienced not just a benign economic reform, but a 
social and economic revolution as great as ever in its history, which of course has done 
good and could have been done differently. This is the true story of modern Australian 
political, social and economic history: here occurred a revolution in which the people 
were defeated.

Will lead to new poverty?

Three decades ago, the average wage in Australia was $ 12 an hour for a full-time 
employee. Although the country is on track continuous development for almost a quarter 
century, the structural changes in the labor force of the country have led to the 
emergence of a new class of low-paid workers who attributed the phenomenon of falling 
prices of a range of goods and services.

This, however, is a double-edged sword because you low wages to foster the competitiveness 
of the economy at the same time, however, undermine domestic demand and growth. Employers 
treat many means to reduce labor costs, either by hiring more part-time or casual workers 
or trainees and / or immigrants with temporary visas. Specifically, in the retail and 
catering sector, the trend is to base the market in low paid work force.

?Recently, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the national wage report, which 
records the lowest growth rate in its history: 0.5% for the first quarter of this year, or 
2.1% by June.

Most importantly, this trend is not only continuing, but increasing. In the survey of July 
recorded drop of 0.1% in unemployment, due to the increase of part-time, which is longer 
to the 32% of workers, i.e. one in three people. This increase in the partial time at the 
expense of full time.

Attempting to dispel impressions, the federal government, through the Finance minister, 
Scott Morrison, said that this means that Australia has a more flexible labor market, 
which is good, both for workers and for employers.

?"I know some see some chores derogatory, but I do not. A job is a job and to have more 
good, "said the minister.

The position is fully in line with the theory that wants part-time work and lower-paying 
positions better than unemployment, but does not reach the critical question about the 
impact of this on the purchasing power of workers and the threat to the overall 
consumption may cause stagnation of economic growth.

Is the home the bomb in the foundations?

Also, Australia is in the middle of a crisis in terms of affordable housing. Rents in 
almost all cities of Australia are unaffordable for the low paid. These have soared to 
such heights that some tenants are forced to pay up to 85% of their income to stay somewhere!

According to various bodies and studies have found that "middle-income employees are 
driven under stress, as high rents" chew "their incomes that can not compensate for the 
rise in housing costs. Over the past decade, rents in the States capitals of the country 
have increased by 52%, forcing many people to live outside city centers and creating huge 
mortgage stress to those who stay in them.

The high rates of home ownership make unrealistic dream for many. The average ratio of 
house prices to income in Sydney nine to one, compared with 6.2 for one in New York and 
7.3 to one in London. Even Adelaide is more expensive than New York!

On average, home prices reach $ 995 804 in Sydney and $ 726 962 in Melbourne. Many 
households already have huge debts to the fulfillment of the "Australian dream". The debts 
on mortgages is now 120% of GDP in Australia, the highest rate in the industrialized world.

It not excluded that in the next decade, Australia may face wave of home foreclosures and 
bankruptcies, similar to those in the US and Europe.

According to a recent study of Bill Randolph and Laurence Troy (the Futures Research 
Centre, published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper last March, named series of 
government policies -as called negative gearing and the discount of 50% on capital gains 
tax the property-investors as responsible for the economic crisis and fidelity.

the Randolph and Troy described the deteriorating situation, which is "both profitable and 
subsidized by the government", "taxation madness and national scandal." there is no doubt 
that housing policies that give priority to investors at the expense of the welfare of 
ordinary people, have fueled the housing crisis. Since the 1980s, both of the major 
parties in Australia (Liberals and Labor - which is the only alternating the government) 
have implemented a policy under which reduced tax revenues, but also the real estate 
speculation fueled.

https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30331

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Message: 2




Looking for a detailed and to the point introduction to anarchism and it's ideas? Say no 
more. ---- Sitting down with the Revolutionary Left Radio podcast, historian and author 
Mark Bray gives an overview of the origins, history and ideas of anarchism. Topics 
discussed are: Bakunin and Marx, the first international, the Spanish Civil War, 
Stalinism, listener questions, the anarchist view of the State, Occupy Wall Street, 
Antifa, and more. Bray is also a member of Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation. 
Click the graphic below to listen. ---- Mark Bray is a historian of human rights, 
terrorism, and political radicalism in Modern Europe. He completed his PhD in Modern 
European and Women's and Gender History at Rutgers University in 2016, and is currently 
finishing his manuscript "The Anarchist Inquisition: Terrorism and the Ethics of Modernity 
in Spain, 1893-1909."

"The Anarchist Inquisition" explores the emergence of groundbreaking human rights 
campaigns across Europe and the Americans in response to the Spanish state's brutal 
repression of dissent in the wake of anarchist bombings and assassinations. At GRID, he 
will begin work on his next project which explores the cultures of violence and street 
resistance that emerge in the social movements of postwar Western Europe and their impact 
on conceptions of leftist masculinity in the context of the emergence of competing 
conceptions of feminism. Bray is the author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook (Melville 
House, 2017) and Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street (Zero Books, 
2013) as well as the co-editor of the forthcoming Francisco Ferrer and the Modern School 
(PM Press, 2018).

#TryAnarchism #Anarchism #StudyToStruggle

http://blackrosefed.org/podcast-intro-to-anarchism/

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Message: 3




The hope that the end of apartheid would herald a better life for the oppressed in South 
Africa has evaporated. Their conditions today are materially as bad as under apartheid - 
and even worse in some cases. But the upper classes are having the time of their lives. 
Working class struggles should be intensified and linked, based on self-organising and 
direct democracy to bring about real change. ---- Wave after wave of community protests 
have been taking place in South Africa from Orange Farm in the Vaal, to Eldorado Park 
outside Johannesburg, to Khayelitsha in Cape Town. People are angry that after more than 
20 years of so-called freedom they are still confined to living in shacks, having to 
deficate in communal plastic toilets, sharing a standpipe for water with thousands of 
neighbours, and having essential services terminated when they can't afford to pay.

What fuels this anger further is that on the other side of the cities and towns of South 
Africa, in the old white-only suburbs, the elite and middle classes flaunt their wealth. 
In such suburbs people live in the lap of luxury - well-manicured gardens, swimming pools, 
maid's quarters and luxury cars are the order of the day. Under such circumstances, it is 
not hard to see why South Africa is ranked as one of the most unequal societies in the 
world; it is literally in your face.

Yet the ruling class - white and now black capitalists, top state officials and 
politicians - have waged an incessant war against the working class, and the black section 
in particular, to deepen this inequality. The reason they have done this is to increase 
their wealth - this class war lies at the root of the protests we have seen.

Many of the people that have been involved in the recent waves of protests - or their 
parents - had hoped for a better life with the fall of apartheid. Under that vile and 
horrific system, the black working class (workers and the unemployed) was subjected to a 
harsh racial oppression and exploitation. It was cheap labour, in the form of the black 
working class, which generated huge profits for corporations - owned by foreign and local 
white capitalists. To ensure the lowest costs of the reproduction of this exploited class, 
the apartheid state forced people to live in homelands and townships in which the most 
threadbare services were provided. The consequences were that the black working class was 
deliberately mired in poverty and when they rose up they faced the gun barrels of the 
apartheid state.

Fast forward to today. One can scarcely believe the reality in which the black working 
class finds itself in today, which materially is as at least as bad as under apartheid and 
in some cases even worse.

As part of this, since 1994, the portion of Gross Domestic Product which goes towards 
wages has declined. The implications of this are that in real terms the wages of the black 
working class have been in decline since the fall of apartheid. With this too, 
unemployment has exploded as capitalists in South Africa have reduced their labour force, 
mechanised, and implemented flexible labour to boost profit rates.

The post-apartheid state has been central to the war on the black working class. It has 
actively redirected wealth upwards towards the ruling class. It has done this through 
various means, which have included massive spending on infrastructure for corporations, 
the introduction of laws that allow labour flexibility and tax breaks for corporations. In 
fact, since 1994 the tax rate for corporations has been driven down from 49% to 28%. This 
is money that could have been used to improve the lives of the poor through providing, 
amongst other things, decent services and housing. At the same time, however, Value Added 
Tax, a tax that targets the working class, has contributed a larger and larger part of the 
state's revenue. Far from being an under resourced and poor state, the South African state 
has actively been shifting wealth from the working class to the ruling class at an 
increasing rate.

At the same time as assisting the rich, the state has also been very active in attacking 
the poor. In real terms (inflation adjusted) spending on services for the working class, 
and the black working class in particular, has remained largely stagnant and in some cases 
even declined since 1994. As a matter of fact, on average the state under the ANC has 
allocated less than 2% of the budget to housing for the working class. As such, services 
like water, electricity, housing, sanitation, healthcare and education for black working 
class areas, including places such as Eldorado Park, Ennerdale, and Orange Farm, are a 
shambles. The national state under the stewardship of the ANC has also dramatically 
reduced the amount of money that it transfers to local governments to deliver services 
such as sanitation and refuse removal. This has been done to please international 
capitalists in the form of speculators. Speculators tend to target buying the bonds of 
states with low debt levels. To keep debt levels as low as possible at a national level, 
the South African state slashed transfers to local governments.

This means local municipalities have less in real terms for service delivery. To try and 
generate income, local governments across South Africa have aggressively adopted cost 
recovery for services to the working class, such as electricity, water, sanitation and 
refuse removal. The consequences are, if you can't afford to pay you don't get the 
services. Linked to this, more cruelly, pre-paid metres have been installed in working 
class areas across the country and cut people off from the basics of life, such as water, 
if they can't pay. This is a form a systemic violence that degrades the everyday lives of 
people.

While doing this, however, most municipalities spend funds derived from their cost 
recovery schemes to build and maintain infrastructure for corporations. In cities like 
Cape Town, central business districts are kept plush, while the townships remain in a 
state of degradation. Local governments too continue to allocate far more resources per 
household to formerly white suburbs than townships. This means, insanely, the Johannesburg 
Municipality per household spends more on Sandton than it does on Soweto.

Making matters worse is that at the level of local government, municipalities have 
followed rabid outsourcing of basic services. For a connected local elite, usually linked 
to the African National Congress or in some areas the Democratic Alliance, this has been a 
godsend. This has seen contracts for housing and service delivery at a local level being 
handed out to those who have connections to politicians. Nepotism, corruption and 
patronage have become rife; and so too has graft. The consequences of these neoliberal 
policies at a local level is that service delivery is abysmal.

The reality is that the state does this, at a local and national level, because it is an 
instrument of the ruling class. States only exist to enforce the rule of a minority elite 
over a majority. Even in a parliamentary democracy, it is the elite that indirectly and 
directly control the state and they use it to increase their wealth and bolster and 
solidify their power. In the case of South Africa, politicians also use the state directly 
for self-enrichment.

Of course states do provide some services to the poor. These are and were, however, 
concessions that have been forced on the ruling class by the working class through the 
history of struggle. Indeed, the black working class only receives some support from the 
state - although meagre - because of the history of struggle in the country. Under 
neoliberalism though, these concessions are being rolled back, and it is this that is once 
again fuelling protests.

The role that the state plays in protecting the ruling class can be seen in how the police 
have reacted to the protests. Most people involved in protests usually try to follow the 
state's prescribed procedures to air their grievances, for example engaging in Integrated 
Development Plans and petitioning local councillors - and only embark on protest once 
these proved to be dead-ends; which they inevitably do as the state and politicians could 
not give a crap about the plight of people except at election time. But once people 
protest, as we have seen, the police react violently, firing rubber bullets, tear gas, 
stun-grenades and even live bullets at protestors - protestors, who it must be remembered, 
are merely asking to receive the basics of life.

The working class, however, has proved that it won't lie down under the fire from the 
ruling class. This is where hope lies. What is needed now is for these struggles that we 
have been seeing across the country to link, based on self-organisation and direct 
democracy. There are many challenges to this, including toxic party politics, but if 
society is too change it will have to be done. Indeed, the fire of resistance needs to 
burn; and to do so struggles need to link and become a force capable of blunting the 
attacks of the ruling class in South Africa. Through this, hopefully, a basis can be set 
for a broader struggle against exploitation and all forms of oppression; and for human 
liberation in which no-one lacks the basics of life such as housing, water, and sanitation.

https://zabalaza.net/2017/06/09/fuelling-the-fires-south-africa-in-class-war/#more-5287

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Message: 4




The threat nowadays definitive destruction of Acheloos river through the autonomous 
operation of the Y / The dam in Messochora, Y / H plant and the artificial reservoir on 
the upper reaches area will bring incalculable damage both to the mountain valleys, 
natural ecosystems and human settlements (most notably the compulsory acquisition, the 
evacuation and the village flood Messochora) caging them in the mud, and in the vulnerable 
delta estuary of the Ionian Sea where unique form wetlands. ---- Today, this catastrophic 
prospect area is more visible since they started made giant H / The dams in the late 80s. 
The current government SYRIZA - ANEL, fully aligned to neoliberal antisocial policies 
looting of the natural world and the world of work, imposed by all previous governments, 
the EU and the IMF, which includes the completion of Y / H projects and privatization the 
completed release procedures Y / Mesochora the dam of the overall work of diversion, which 
has been temporarily blocked by the Council of State, to work out - as have announced from 
October 2015, the peripheral reiarchis Thessaly K. Agorastos and vice PPC C. Andriot.

For this reason, Sunday, June 4, held a nationwide demonstration in Y / The dam Mesochora 
with the participation of several villagers and collectives and activists from different 
regions of the country.

As Autonomous Race Meeting, assuming our racing presence in the area where the crime dams 
committed and diversion necessary and useful for the development and growth of both the 
struggle for the defense of Acheloos and local communities in more than the other, and for 
defend the natural world and society comprehensively, we participated in this mobilization 
with our distinct  reason  and  call , forming autonomous block with central banner that 
read:  "State capital and plunder the land - Against" Fr. Racine "development, dams and 
diversion - Achelous will win."

Protests against the exploitation of the natural world and of human society from the state 
capital, against antisocial designs of power, whatever form this takes and sent solidarity 
and interface message with the social struggles for the defense of nature and of the same 
life.

Against the false expectations that attempt to cultivate prospective mediators and 
handrails of social struggles, we preceded social self-organization, the militant and the 
lower resistance and solidarity as the only realistic prospect of those who struggle with 
dignity against the plunder of nature and society.

Renewed the appointment racing where you state capital have launched the destruction of 
the river, the surrounding area and the village. This year in August, as every year, the 
Independent Race Meeting will hold its mobilization organized by the Assumption in 
Mesochora, with camping on the river Achelous, from 9 to 14 August 2017. On Friday 11/8 
and Saturday, the 12th / 8 will be events in the village square, while Sunday 13/8 will be 
the concentration; and the path to the electricity dam on the Acheloos.

AGAINST DAMS AND DIVERSION

Defeating The ACHELOOS! To live MESOCHORI!

Bring down the DAM!

AUGUST 9-14

Camping on the banks of Acheloos in Mesochora

11 and 12 August EVENTS IN square

SUNDAY 13 AUGUST, COURSE IN DAM
INDEPENDENT RACE MEETING

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