Anarchic update news all over the world - 3.08.2017
Today's Topics:
1. black rose fed - ANARCHISM IN LATIN AMERICAN: THE
RE-EMERGENCE OF A VIABLE CURRENT (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Poland, rozbrat: Repressions - arrests after demonstrations
in Hamburg! by Anarchist Black Cross [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL sp�cial de juillet-aout
Standards of Oppression: The Dictates of Fashion (fr, it, pt)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. wsm.ie: Anarchism and Elections - WSM Position Paper: Passed
by National Conference, July 2017 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. wsm.ie: State and Democracy Position Paper - Passed by
National Conference, July 2017 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Anarchism Latin American is a forthcoming book scheduled for release in December 2017 by
AK Press. Written by Argentinian philosopher and author Angel Cappelletti and translated
by the US based Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez, the work includes an introduction by Black
Rose/Rosa Negra members Romina Akemi and Javier Sethness-Castro. This new translation
offers a country-by-country overview of anarchism's social and political achievements in
fourteen Latin American countries and is the first book length history of it's kind
published in English. Below we offer an excerpt of the introduction and hope that this
will spark your interest. ---- The Re-Emergence of Anarchism as a Viable Current ---- This
book follows on the heels of other publications by AK Press, including the English
translated editions of Horizontalism that was edited by Marina Sitrin, Oscar Bayer's
classic Rebellion in Patagonia, Juan Suriano's Paradoxes of Utopia, among other
publications. However, anarchist history and theory produced in Latin America, past and
present, is extremely vast and difficult to detail. It should be noted that Cappelletti's
book marks the beginning of a reengagement with libertarianism after decades in being
overshadowed by Marxism. The 90s anarchist revival went beyond the social movement arena,
as more people sought to revisit their anarchist predecessors once deemed "ultra-leftists"
or proto-communists, engendering new research by academics and worker-intellectuals alike.[1]
The rerise of anarchism in the 90s was a worldwide phenomena has some noted commonalities
that include the failures by Marxism exemplified in the fall of the Soviet Union, the
aggressive spread of neoliberal policies disguised as globalization, and the breaking down
of class identities that asserted individual identities and activism, as well as support
for specific causes. There is a tendency to assume that these patterns manifested in the
same way across the world as in the US. However, the over-individualistic modality seen in
US anarchist circles are not readily seen across the Americas, where anarchism remained as
a political ideology and not an individual identity or lifestyle. This is not to say that
squats and communal living did not spread across the continent because they did,
especially in the early 2000s; since living together did not create de-facto prefigurative
politics, but fighting together to demand housing and land rights was an important
foundation. As Sitrin covers in Horizontalism, that the deep economic crisis experienced
in Argentina in the 90s impulsed many to organize and create new forms of social movement
organizations that were rooted in autogesti�n, becoming the living embodiment of popular
power.
Cappelletti's book ends around the middle of the twentieth century. For those unfamiliar
with anarchist and autonomist organizing since then, we will offer some highlights. In his
chapter on Uruguay, he notes the formation of the Federaci�n Anarquista Uruguaya (FAU),
founded in 1956. The FAU, after surviving state terrorism and dictatorship, proved
influential in the development of organized anarchism across the southern region. FAU was
founded by mostly Spanish anarchist refugees fleeing General Franco's fascist forces who
realized the need for a specific anarchist organization that they termed especifismo.
Their social insertion work has centered on constructing autogesti�n neighborhood
(territorial) centers and social insertion work in industrial unions constructing a
militant class independent politic. For young libertarians seeking guidance on how to
build an organized presence within their class, pilgrimage to the FAU headquarters in
Montevideo became a common experience in the 90s and 00s. FAU's steady work with young
anarchists in the neighboring Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul led to the eventual
formation of the Federa��o Anarquista Ga�cha (FAG) in 1996. The FAG militants eventually
influenced the formation of especifista groupings in Brazil, including the Federa��o
Anarquista do Rio do Janeiro (FARJ). During the FARJ's 2008 congress, the document "Social
Anarchism and Organization" emerged from their discussions about strategy, rooted in their
current organizational and social movement experiences. They eventually joined efforts
made by the Forum of Organized Anarchism (FAO) that evolved into the larger federative
network-Coordena��o Anarquista Brasileira (CAB)-that includes locals from 11 cities. In
the realm of anarchist stratagem to organize for revolution, the FAU's main contributions
were especifismo, while the FARJ, in discussion with other libertarian militants in
Brazil, gave social insertion greater context as a method of struggle to insert ourselves
into the organizations and movements that are the best expressions of resistance by our
class. Social insertion is both a commitment to those spaces to flourish into healthy
organizations and, at the same time, assert our core ideological principles as we fight
for the hearts and minds of the working class.
The other region with an important organized libertarian prominence is Chile. The
continual presence of anarchism within the labor movement from the 1950s to the 1990s is
owed to syndicalists such as Clotario Blest, Celso Poblete, Ernesto Miranda, Jos�
Ego-Aguirre, and Hugo C�rter. Ego-Aguirre and C�rter, older anarcho-syndicalists,
influenced a group of young people in the 1980s that led to the foundation of the Hombre y
Sociedad (Man and Society) newspaper that ran from 1985 until 1988, with financial support
from anarchists exiled in Europe, including Nestor Vega and Urbano Burgos.[2]From then on,
other small publications emerged across the country, including El Acrata and Acci�n
Directa. The multi-generational formation associated with Hombre y Sociedad became an
important confluence of experience and new ideas.
According to the Chilean anarchist Jos� Antonio Guti�rrez Danton, the 90s is best
described by "a virtual �boom'" of anarchist ideas and practices" and a "rediscovery" of
anarchism as a historical current in Chile. In 1998 the publication of George Fontenis's
El Manifiesto Comunista Libertario sparked polemics among libertarian circles and helped
consolidate those interested in forming an anarchist-communist organization, motivating a
sector that were mostly punk rock anarchists to become serious political actors. The
Congreso de Unificaci�n Anarco Comunista (CUAC), founded in November 1999, marked an
important moment by a new generation of libertarian revolutionaries who attempted to
better position their political work they were carrying out within various social sectors
and united by agreed upon principles in a single organization. CUAC was formed in the
construction workers union hall, FETRACOMA, that also functioned as the CUAC headquarters,
which allowed for deeper bonds and integration into the labor movement. CUAC owes a
greater deal of its political development from Chilean Marxist organizations such as the
Movimiento Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR) and the Frente Patri�tico Manuel Rodr�guez
(FPMR). CUAC played a key role in initiating discussions about the need for organized
presence within the burgeoning student movement that led to the formation of the Frente de
Estudiantes Libertarios (FEL) in May 2003.[3]The CUAC split in 2003 that led to the
formation of two currents: the Organizaci�n Comunista Libertaria (Communist Libertarian
Organization - OCL) and the Corriente Revolucionaria Anarquista (Anarchist Revolutionary
Current - CRA), while FEL's association remained with OCL. The eventual explosion of a
militant high school student movement in 2006 calling for free education that evolved into
a well-strategized (yet very top-down) university student movement that reached is zenith
in 2011 assured anarchism's ideological viability that continues to be felt today in Chile.
2013 marked another important turning point in organized anarchism in Chile when a sector
within OCL and FEL called Red Libertaria (Libertarian Network - RL) who "firmly and
enthusiastically joined the �Todos a la Moneda' (Everyone to La Moneda) platform, whose
candidate was Marcel Claude."[4]In an article penned by Guti�rrez Danton and Rafael
Agacino, they underscore, "But it was not only the decision itself to participate in an
election that produced this seismic reaction within the Chilean libertarian movement, it
was the manner in which the decision was made," especially the secrecy by a sector within
OCL and FEL that left many of their comrades dumbfounded and feeling betrayed. Those who
questioned the creation of RL and a move toward electoralism were expelled which sparked
resignations. The expelled grouping, along with other collectives and individuals not
associated with OCL, organized the Communist Libertarian Congress over the course of two
years that led to the founding of Solidaridad-Federaci�n Comunista Libertaria (Solidarity
- Communist Libertarian Federation) in January 2016.
This organizational split placed the FEL in a difficult position when anarchists gained
the presidency of the Chilean University Student Federation (FECH) with their candidate
Melissa Sep�lveda; a feat not accomplished since the 1920s. A decision was made to hold on
to a FEL split until the end of Sep�lveda's term. Sep�lveda, who ran on an explicit
feminist and anarchist platform, was a political departure from Camila Vallejo, a
Communist Party member and FECH president in 2011 who received international attention.
Sep�lveda publically supported student-worker alliances and autonomous organizing amongst
the working class. At the end of her term, Sep�lveda, along with other FEL dissidents who
opposed the electoralism move, founded Acci�n Libertaria (Libertarian Action - AL) in
early 2015.
In Mexico, in parallel to the contemporary authoritarianisms that took the lives of
thousands in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, the "Dirty War" of the 60s and 70s saw
the full repressive power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) directed against
leftists, youth, organizers, and the landless peasantry in the wake of the Tlatelolco
massacre of October 2, 1968. The State murdered hundreds of students in Mexico City that
day, and the PRI forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed thousands more as part
of its counter-insurgent strategy to suppress the generalized societal outrage provoked by
the same.[5]The EZLN itself was founded in 1983 as a union between landless indigenous
Chiapanecxs and urban-based mestizo and European-descended militants from the Fuerzas de
Liberaci�n Nacional (FLN), which had been created in 1969[6]-much as the ten-year
Colombian civil war known as La Violencia that claimed thousands of lives catalyzed the
founding in 1964 of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN
(National Liberation Army).[7]The neo-Zapatista insurrection on January 1, 1994,
proclaimed a radical halt to the ceaseless ethnocide targeting indigenous peoples since
the Spanish conquest. The rapid response of domestic and international civil society to
the uprising limited the intensity of direct repression by the Mexican Army, resulting
paradoxically in the PRI's resorting instead to employing paramilitary terror against
Zapatista support-bases and Zapatista-sympathizing communities in Chiapas-a strategy that
continues to this day. Following the inevitable breakdown of negotiations with a racist
State failing to observe the San Andr�s Accords (1996), the EZLN focused intensely on
furthering communal autonomy by strengthening the participatory alternate institutions
that comprise the movement which exists alongside the military structures, including
cooperatives, autonomous education, the public health sector, and popular assemblies. This
project of autonomy advanced importantly in 2003 with the announcement of the
Good-Government Councils (JBG's), comprised of delegates, sometimes as young as
adolescents, who rotate in the administration of the five regions of Chiapas in which the
EZLN has a presence.
Hence, while it is true that the EZLN's initial uprising sought to inspire a regional- or
country-wide revolution to take over the State-with the Zapatistas hoping to march on
Mexico City and liberate it once again-the neo-Zapatista movement has distinguished itself
from other Latin American guerrilla struggles by the anti-electoralism and anti-statism
that has defined the development of its autonomy. A decade ago, the EZLN launched La Otra
Campa�a as an effort to unite a nation-wide anti-authoritarian left alternative to
political parties and the State amidst the ongoing battle for power between the right-wing
National Action Party (PAN) and Andr�s Manuel L�pez Obrador, the social-democrat
candidate, in the 2006 elections. In parallel, la Sexta Declaraci�n de la Selva Lacandona
(Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle[2005]) proudly declared the movement's autonomy
in search of a new constitution that would meet its original thirteen demands.[8]Yet now,
after having championed autonomous social organization as a viable alternative for over a
decade, the EZLN joins its comrade-representatives from the National Indigenous Congress
(CNI) in endorsing the proposal for an Indigenous Government Council (CIG) and in
presenting the Nahua traditional healer Mar�a de Jes�s "Marichuy" Patricio Mart�nez as CIG
spokesperson, councilor, and candidate for the 2018 presidential elections.[9]The CNI
describes this move as "going on the offensive," and it paradoxically claims not to want
to administer power but rather to dismantle it. Since the announcement, Marichuy and
comrades have stressed that the focus is not on the ballot but rather favoring
"organization, life, and the defense of territory." Yet the conclusion of the Fifth CNI in
early 2017 is clear: the CIG is meant to "govern this country."[10]It remains to be seen
how this move will play out, and how it will affect the Zapatista movement and autonomous
indigenous movements elsewhere in Mexico and Latin America. We imagine that this shift
toward electoralism is being met with a degree of resistance within Zapatista ranks,
particularly among the youth who have been raised with the JBG's and la Sexta.
[1]There are numerous authors and some already listed in previous footnotes: V�ctor Mu�oz
Cort�s, Sin Dios Ni Patrones: Historia, diversidad y conflictos del anarquismo en la
regi�n chilena, 1890-1990 (Valpara�so, Mar y Tierra Ediciones, 2013); Sergio Grez Toso,
Los anarquistas y el movimiento obrero: La alborada de "la Idea" en Chile, 1893-1915
(Santiago, LOM, 2007).
[2]"Platformism without illusions: Chile, Interview with Jos� Antonio Guti�rrez Danton,"
Common Struggle/Lucha Com�n, nefac.net, Published May 23, 2003, http://nefac.net/node/424.
[3]"The Process of the Initial Construction of FEL," Struggle/Lucha Com�n, nefac.net,
published January 14, 2012, http://nefac.net/node/2576.
[4]Jos� Antonio Guti�rrez D. and Rafael Agacino, "Some reflections on libertarians in
Chile and electoral participation," libcom.org, January 4, 2017,
https://libcom.org/library/some-reflections-libertarians-chile-electoral-participation.
[5]Elena Poniatowska, La noche de Tlatelolco: testimonios de historia oral (M�xico, D.F.:
Ediciones Era, 2012[1971])..
[6]Ra�l Romero, "EZLN: 17 de noviembre de 1983," Rebeli�n, November 17, 2012.
[7]Chris Kraul, "The battles began in 1964: Here's a look at Colombia's war with the FARC
rebels," Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2016.
[8]These are shelter (or housing), land, food, health, education, information, culture,
independence, democracy, justice, freedom, and peace. Comit� Clandestino Revolucionario
Ind�gena-Comandancia General del Ej�rcito Zapatista de Liberaci�n Nacional (CCRI-CG EZLN),
"Sexta Declaraci�n de la Selva Lacandona," June 2005. Available online:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/sdsl-es/.
[9]CNI y EZLN, "Lleg� la hora," Enlace Zapatista, 28 May 2017. Available online:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2017/05/28/llego-la-hora-cni-ezln/.
[10]Ibid, "Convocatoria a la Asamblea Constitutiva del Concejo Ind�gena de Gobierno,"
Enlace Zapatista, April 2, 2017. Available online:
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2017/04/02/convocatoria-a-la-asamblea-constitutiva-del-concejo-indigena-de-gobierno-para-mexico.
http://blackrosefed.org/latin-american-anarchism-re-emergence-anarchism-viable-current/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Still in jail about 20 people. Among the detainees is a Pole - Staszek Baldyga. Nearly
three weeks after the arrest, no charges were filed against him. Police and prosecutors
make contact with family difficult, they do not provide any information. ---- Staszek was
detained for several hours after demonstrations at the train station as part of a mass
police round-robin, which was taking place not only in Hamburg but in other major German
cities. People were arrested at railway stations or airports by accident, as well as by
roundups on motorways. ---- Ask for justice. No one has the right to violate civil
liberties. The boundaries are between classes, not nations. ---- Write a letter of
indignation to the German embassy and demand the release of all prisoners, including
Staszek. Make pickies under German institutions in Poland.
Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Warsaw:
address: ul. Jazd�w 12, 00-467 Warszawa
tel .: +48 22 700 5841
Fax: +48 22 739 5841
E-mail: info@warschau.diplo.de Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ambasadaniemiec/
Consulate General of the Republic Federal Germany in Wroclaw: address: ul. Podwale 76,
50-449 Wroclaw tel .: +48 71 377 27 00 fax: +48 71 342 41 14 e-mail: info@breslau.diplo.de
Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany in Opole: address: ul. Strzelc�w Bytomskich
11, 45-084 Opole tel .: +48 77 423 27 20 fax: +48 77 453 19 63 e-mail:
Info@oppeln.diplo.de Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Gdansk: Al.
Victory 23, 80-219 Gdansk tel .: 48 58 + 340 65 00 + 48 58 340 65 10 + 48 58 340
65 20 fax: + 48 58 340 65 38 E-mail: info@danzig.diplo.de Consulate General of the Federal
Republic of Germany in Cracow: address: ul. Stolarska 7, 31-043 Krak�w tel .: +48
12 424 30 00 fax: +48 12 424 30 10 e-mail: info@krakau.diplo.de + 48 58 340 65 10, + 48 58
340 65 20 Fax: + 48 58 340 65 38 E-mail: info@danzig.diplo.de Consulate General of the
Federal Republic of Germany in Krakow address: ul. Stolarska 7, 31-043 Krak�w tel .: +48
12 424 30 00 fax: +48 12 424 30 10 e-mail: info@krakau.diplo.de + 48 58 340 65 10, + 48 58
340 65 20 Fax: + 48 58 340 65 38 E-mail: info@danzig.diplo.de Consulate General of the
Federal Republic of Germany in Krakow address: ul. Stolarska 7, 31-043 Krak�w tel .: +48
12 424 30 00 fax: +48 12 424 30 10 e-mail: info@krakau.diplo.de
http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/ruch/4551-represje-aresztowania-po-demonstracjach-w-hamburgu
------------------------------
Message: 3
It's summer. The opportunity to remind women that their bodies need to be transformed,
standardized, to the maximum benefit of operating systems. ---- When summer is
approaching, it is not the weather that informs us. Advertising posters and press gathered
urge women to start the annual takeover (at the time you read me, it's too late) to be
beautiful in swimsuit. And to be beautiful is not to be at ease, to go well, to enjoy
one's body, to be happy. Stories of inner beauty are tales for children. ---- Slimming as
ideal first ---- To be beautiful is first to be thin. Elle magazine, June 8, titled " 3
kilos before the jersey ", the site of Cosmopolitan displays on June 12 " 7 tricks
slimming to be the most beautiful in jersey ". In other seasons, it would be necessary
to be thin for the beginning of the school year or Christmas Eve, but this is especially
necessary when the body is bare. No cellulite, no bead, just enough muscles to keep the
under arms from hanging ... Most absurd regimes, restrictions, ineffective but expensive
creams, gyms. Slimming is a necessary struggle and round women have no will.
A result known to all: a woman never foresees a menu, Never commands a dish without
thinking of its line (it dismisses or not this thought but it necessarily has it). As for
the mixed group, there is a predictable distribution of salads and fries around a table
gathering guests of both sexes (both sexes but conditioned by the patriarchy to be what it
is necessary to be in this system). 80% of the operations done to make lose are done on
bodies of women whereas the proportion of obese is approximately equal for the two sexes.
Another proof that the norms weighing on the bodies of women are more constraining. But
obviously being thin is not enough. The standards imposed on the bodies of women by
advertising and the cosmetic industry are countless. Light but visible makeup; Hairstyle
according to the diktats of fashion in terms of color and length; Epilation from
everywhere, including the mount of Venus or the stripe of the buttocks - suddenly one
regrets the time when only the lower legs were the object of this harassment ; Tanning -
that must be prepared before the summer and afterwards maintenance ; Eternal youth thanks
to anti-wrinkle creams without effects and overpriced ; Sexy but not vulgar clothing ;
Femininity - a trick not clearly defined pertaining to pleasing to straight heterosexual
men ; Pretty breasts but not falling ; No odors ... I certainly forget. Today, progress
is not stopped, there are also norms regarding the conformation of the vulva:
Many beauty standards
To these traditional norms of feminine beauty are added the norms imposed in addition to
the racialized women to approach the Western physics, norm of the world beauty of course:
straightening of the frizzy hair and lightening of the skin for the black women, Eyes and
leg lengthening for the Chinese. Again, I certainly forget. There are still some " local
" norms that are no more rewarding, nor more to defend, but here as elsewhere, the
tendency is to crush the cultures by Western capitalism. All these standards are
underpinned by the idea that a woman's body is ugly, dirty and stinky. This does not help
to have a good sense of self. We can count on the arrival soon of norms concerning the
interior of the body, a radiological beauty.
The conditioning to these norms and the fight lost in advance to reach them produce
several benefits for the systems of oppression.
Women are convinced that they must meet the commercial criteria of heterosexual seduction
in order to be able to mate, which must be their main aim, and thus provide domestic
labor, the basis of patriarchal exploitation. This need for co-ordination is further
accentuated by the lack of confidence in their ability to live alone and autonomously
since many of the social mechanisms work to convince them that they are not of sufficient
value, aesthetic in the case in hand, But also intellectual. Women are convinced that they
must meet the commercial criteria of heterosexual seduction in order to be able to mate,
which must be their main aim, and thus provide domestic labor, the basis of patriarchal
exploitation. This need for co-ordination is further accentuated by the lack of confidence
in their ability to live alone and autonomously since many of the social mechanisms work
to convince them that they are not of sufficient value, aesthetic in the case in hand, But
also intellectual. Women are convinced that they must meet the commercial criteria of
heterosexual seduction in order to be able to mate, which must be their main aim, and thus
provide domestic labor, the basis of patriarchal exploitation. This need for co-ordination
is further accentuated by the lack of confidence in their ability to live alone and
autonomously since many of the social mechanisms work to convince them that they are not
of sufficient value, aesthetic in the case in hand, But also intellectual.
Great benefits for oppression systems
They enrich the cosmetics industry, whose global market amounts to more than 400 billion
euros, a little more than the cost in Europe of extreme weather events between 1980 and
2013 (heat waves, intense rains and floods, storms ...) . Cosmetic surgery sales in France
in 2015 amounted to 7.5 billion euros, to which must be added four times more money for
cosmetic medicine. We can add seventy women's press titles, which cost 22 million euros to
their readers. Add to that the money put in hair dryers and razors (roses), gyms,
aesthetic salons, the world of fashion, accessories (jewelry, leather goods ...). It is a
fortune that women devote to their appearance.
Racism is also reinforced by the world of beauty. If western aesthetics is the only one
that is worth, how not to despise oneself and oneself when one is far from its norms.
Above all, women devote considerable time and energy to controlling their bodies, leaving
men free to control the world and lead it to catastrophe. English-speaking feminists are
misusing the relatively untranslatable summer standards in French: " How to have abeach
body ? Have a body, and go to the beach . " Here is a possible translation, but less
funny, since French does not have the sobriety of English: " How to have a body ready
for the beach ? Have a body and go to the beach. " If western aesthetics is the only one
that is worth, how not to despise oneself and oneself when one is far from its norms.
Above all, women devote considerable time and energy to controlling their bodies, leaving
men free to control the world and lead it to catastrophe. English-speaking feminists are
misusing the relatively untranslatable summer standards in French: " How to have abeach
body? Have a body, and go to the beach . " Here is a possible translation, but less funny,
since French does not have the sobriety of English: " How to have a body ready for the
beach? Have a body and go to the beach. " If western aesthetics is the only one that is
worth, how not to despise oneself and oneself when one is far from its norms. Above all,
women devote considerable time and energy to controlling their bodies, leaving men free to
control the world and lead it to catastrophe. English-speaking feminists are misusing the
relatively untranslatable summer standards in French: " How to have abeach body? Have a
body, and go to the beach . " Here is a possible translation, but less funny, since French
does not have the sobriety of English: " How to have a body ready for the beach? Have a
body and go to the beach. " Women devote considerable time and energy to controlling their
bodies, leaving men free to control the world and lead to disaster. English-speaking
feminists are misusing the relatively untranslatable summer standards in French: " How to
have abeach body? Have a body, and go to the beach . " Here is a possible translation, but
less funny, since French does not have the sobriety of English: " How to have a body ready
for the beach? Have a body and go to the beach. " Women devote considerable time and
energy to controlling their bodies, leaving men free to control the world and lead to
disaster. English-speaking feminists are misusing the relatively untranslatable summer
standards in French: " How to have abeach body? Have a body, and go to the beach . " Here
is a possible translation, but less funny, since French does not have the sobriety of
English: " How to have a body ready for the beach? Have a body and go to the beach. " "
How to have abeach body? Have a body, and go to the beach . " Here is a possible
translation, but less funny, since French does not have the sobriety of English: " How to
have a body ready for the beach? Have a body and go to the beach. " " How to have abeach
body? Have a body, and go to the beach . " Here is a possible translation, but less
funny, since French does not have the sobriety of English: " How to have a body ready for
the beach ? Have a body and go to the beach. "
A fight that passes in the midst of ourselves
Fighting these standards seems simple enough, just despise them. But how to disconcert
that if one piles the legs, it is because one personally finds it prettier ; If one makes
up makeup it is because one wants it ; If one is on the diet it is actually because one
would feel better with less weight ... The standards of beauty have that of insidious that
they are incorporated. And to explain that they are variable in time and in space does not
help to detract from it. Every woman is free of the choices she makes for her body
obviously. But one must be clear about the fact that most are absolutely conditioned by
the systems of oppression. Let us grant ourselves the right to be shaggy, uncapped and
dressed in the men's department stores, The items are so much more comfortable!
Christine (AL Orne-Sarthe)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Normes-d-oppression-Les-diktats-de-la-mode
------------------------------
Message: 4
This paper sits under the State & Democracy paper. Have a look at that to understand
contexts that are not repeated here. ---- 1. What is Electoralism and WSM Participation
---- 1.1 When we talk of electoralism we mean those methods that seek change through
putting forward individuals for representative forms of government under class rule, i.e.
parliaments and town or regional councils. ---- 1.2 We have two fundamental issues with
these institutions: 1. They exist in order to manage capitalism through the state in a way
that minimises conflict between the capitalist class and dampens conflict between that
class and the rest of society. 2. They are constructed so that representatives cannot be
mandated by those who elect them or recalled as soon as they break such mandates. This is
by design, these methods of 2 rule are intended to be unaccountable so that those in them
can make decisions in favour of the capitalist class that may be at odds with the wishes
of those who elected them.
1.3 For these reasons we do not run candidates for election, and in almost every
circumstance we do not advocate people vote. The only exceptions being the rare occasions
where an election is in effect a referendum in a hyper-polarised society, one example
being the 1994 election in South Africa that was deeply connected to the movement to end
apartheid.
1.4 Referendums are different in that the people get to directly vote on an issue, thus
making the decision themselves. While fundamentally different this is not to say
referendums do not have their own problems including: 1. The question to be voted on is
generally formulated by politicians and may well be worded to exclude best options. 2.
They still take place in class society and within the constitutional limits imposed by
that society. This means they can only be about redividing the small share of the cake
given to the working classes rather than seizing the bakery. 3. In many countries
including Ireland referendums can only be called by politicians and needed referenda can
thus be delayed for years and even decades.
2. Opposition to Electoralism
2.1 We generally won't run high profile �spoil your vote' campaigns as while these can
have an educational aspect they also tend to create unnecessary hostility with other
groups and individuals on the left who engage in electoralism. For that reason we are
unlikely to engage in active mass outreach around the anarchist criticism of electoralism
while campaigning is in progress, holding off until polls close or before such campaigns
are really underway.
2.2 Our focus is generally on: 1. Showing electoralism to be a carefully constructed
mechanism for managing capitalism and minimising dissent. 2. Showing that participation in
electoralism de-radicalises organisations and individuals over time. Electoralism restores
faith in the system, fosters a culture of �Someone Else Will Do It', and incentivises
political opportunism.
3. Arguing that the decision to abstain far from being apathetic can be based on an
understanding of how the system really works which is far more accurate than left
electoralism.
4. Contrasting electoralism with systems of real democracy that give people a direct say
in governance.
https://www.wsm.ie/c/anarchism-and-elections-0
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Message: 5
Anarchists reject the current political system. In short we oppose the state but fight for
real democracy. ---- 1. What is the State? ---- 1. The current political system is one
defined by the institution or collection of institutions known as the state. The state has
many definitions. ---- 2. It is a coercive institution whereby a minority rules the
majority. ---- 3. It is the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. ---- 4. The state is
basically a group of people, much smaller than the total population, with an established
set of practices who tell other people what to do. Most do what they're told because they
believe in the authority of the state or depend on its resources, and those who don't obey
are punished as a warning to other would-be rebels. ---- 5. The state has the innate
tendency to centralise and bring more and more aspects of society under its jurisdiction
and hence control.
6. We know the modern state by its �political' decision making bodies, such as
parliaments, local councils, royalty, along with its unelected bureaucracy which
administers the system across governments, its system of laws adjudicated by courts and
enforced by police, its military, its borders with other states, and its running of
various businesses and services. This can be summarised as legislature, executive,
judiciary, military, and administration.
7. The state has existed in different forms for thousands of years. However, it is not a
natural and inevitable fact of human society, existing roughly 1% of the time humans have
been around. For close to 200,000 years humans lived without the state, generally being
understood to have arisen so the privileged could manage the social inequality which arose
when human societies began to produce a material surplus.
8. In its modern form the state has only existed for several hundred years. That nation
state has changed significantly in the past century to adopt service provision and welfare
roles as one of its core expectations. This was a compromise to avoid socialist revolution.
9. The state presents itself as a �nation'. The nation ties the organs of the state into a
wider cultural phenomenon. The formation of a nation state involves forcing a uniform
national �culture' on people, an official genetic lineage, religion, language, history,
and artistic tradition. Hence the nation is inherently divisive and exclusionary. The
residents of a nation have an expected duty to that particular nation above any other.
This is the basis of nationalism.
2. Why Anarchists Reject the State
1. Anarchists reject the state for many reasons.
2. We oppose the state on a direct ethical basis because the state is a largely
unaccountable gang of strangers who control our lives without our consent. The liberal
notion of a �social contract' is an illusion.
3. Anarchism is defined by the opposition to hierarchy, i.e. relationships of power, and
the state is a rigidly hierarchical institution which ties other power systems together.
4. The state allows for the widespread entrenchment of prejudice and discrimination by use
of institutional force. Without the state, patriarchy, racism, and ableism, would have a
much weaker grip on human society. The state is ultimately the enemy of every oppressed
person.
5. The division of global human society into separate nation states forces people of
different nations to compete against each other needlessly in pursuit of the narrow
national interest, instead of unleashing enormous value by co-operating and instead of
recognising our common cause against the class system, war, racism, queerphobia, sexism,
and ableism.
6. The state is a dull, inefficient, irrational, institution which causes stagnation in
society.
7. It deprives the vast majority of us of our initiative. As a centralised institution,
the state deprives us of community and the opportunity to work together as equals. Hence
it encourages apathy, ignorance, passivity, mutual suspicion, and loneliness.
8. Concentrating power is an atrocity waiting to happen, and so power should be spread
out, or de-centralised, as much as practicable.
9. We reject the old attitude of liberals and authoritarian socialists alike, that without
the state humans couldn't work together on a large scale, being that most people are too
stupid and lazy, and need to be lead and forced not to rip each other to shreds. Humans
have demonstrated well enough that we don't require a central authority to peacefully and
creatively co-exist.
10. We remember that much of what we now most value in the state was originally created by
volunteers, such as ambulances, fire brigades, and public libraries, as well as fought for
tooth and nail by social movements, such as environmental and health and safety regulation.
3. State and Revolution
1. As revolutionaries, anarchists assert it's impossible to use the state to reform our
way to liberty.
2. Equally we are against seizing the state to further revolution. We have a unique
approach to the state to both because destroying the state is a key objective of
revolution in its own right and because the state is a counter-revolutionary institution.
3. This sets us apart from authoritarian socialists who critique the capitalist state but
accept the state by itself - whether formally or just in practice - as a neutral
institution which can be used to further the aims of communist revolution if in the hands
of the working class, or more accurately in the hands of the revolutionary party which
claims to represent the class.
4. History has proven again and again that when socialists seize the state it leads to the
red bureaucracy or socialist tyranny which anarchists predicted decades before the USSR
proved it in reality.
5. The Leninist idea that the state will �wither away' after proletarian revolution is
pure idealism and doesn't bear out in practice (or make sense in theory).
6. We do not see a state operated by a socialist ruling class, such as that suffered in
the USSR, Maoist China, or Cuba, as any improvement over capitalism. We work to overthrow
capitalism because we want to be free, which means no rulers whether capitalist or
socialist. We would be fighting for revolution, against alienation, within the USSR as
much as within the USA or Ireland today.
7. Furthermore, the state in the hands of socialists has been instrumental in crushing
worker self-management and maintaining a form of state capitalism instead. This tragic
error has been repeated enough times for us to consider the case closed on this issue.
8. Our strategy for revolution is broadly to create the new world within the shell of the
old. A real revolution can only happen from the bottom up. It can't be forced from the top
down by an enlightened elite. This means building our own grassroots, democratic counter
power of workers' councils and neighbourhood councils which will replace capitalism and
the state.
9. Thus an integral part of anarchist revolution is smashing the state when the
opportunity arises. That means that in a revolutionary upheaval where democratic working
class institutions have gained enough power to rival capitalist institutions (a dual-power
situation), the working class should dismantle the state and take over the running of
society with our own self-managed collective bodies. Otherwise we risk being crushed by
the state.
10. The only way the abolish the state is to take over its valuable functions, disrupt its
operation, and undermine its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of people, replacing
that with the legitimacy of libertarian institutions.
11. The fundamental role of the police is to repress the working class in the service of
the ruling class. As such we don't see police as ordinary workers, but as class enemies.
4. Anarchism and Democracy
1. We oppose the state but seek to create a new highly organised society which is truly
democratic.
2. Anarchists advocate for democracy because in a society it is necessary to make
decisions together, and democracy is the fairest and most effective method of doing so.
3. The real democracy we advocate is often called �direct democracy' or �participatory
democracy'.
4. Democracy is based on the principle that people should have a say in decisions in
proportion to how much they're affected. Therefore, decisions should be made at the lowest
effective level in society, for example in the neighbourhood assembly rather than in
parliament.
5. Hence democracy is not mob rule. True democracy must respect personal freedom and
dignity. For example, straight people should have no say in what gender someone else's
romantic partner can be.
6. As democracy is the best form of collective decision making, it belongs as much in the
workplace (�economic democracy') as in the general political decision making bodies
(�polity').
7. The organs of so-called �democracy' in statist society are not democratic in a
meaningful sense.
8. Modern �representative' democracy was developed in the transition between feudalism and
capitalism as a way for the most privileged in society to still rule while giving the
appearance of democracy to appease the masses. It was never intended to be democratic.
This is illustrated by the fact that the first representative democracies only allowed
property owning men to vote.
9. Democracy is self-rule, not picking rulers.
10. Real democracy requires that the overwhelming majority of the population regularly
discuss and make decisions together. This is in stark contrast to every 4-5 years picking
which tiny group of strangers will make decisions about our lives far away from us.
11. In order to have large-scale democracy, we favour a system of delegates rather than
�representatives'. Delegates are people chosen to obediently convey the views of the
people who elected them. Those views are called a �mandate'. Delegates can be immediately
recalled, or otherwise penalised, for breaking this mandate. This can be scaled up across
larger regions and numbers of people in a similar fashion.
12. A large scale contemporary example of this direct, delegate-based, participatory,
democracy is TEV-DEM in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (Rojava), but history
abounds with examples of direct democracy in action. The Paris Commune showed it could
work back in 1871. Other examples of varying character include the factory councils and
peasant communes of revolutionary Russia and Ukraine 1917-20, the CNT neighbourhood and
workplace councils in Spain 1936-7, Hungary �56, and the Zapatistas 1994-today, among others.
13. The democratic organisation of human society doesn't require political borders between
regions. They are a fantasy, and responsible for the deaths of thousands of migrants, as
well as even more in violent geopolitical conflicts. We are working towards a borderless
planet - as it is seen from outer space - with freedom of movement for all.
https://www.wsm.ie/c/state-and-democracy
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