Today's Topics:
1. Britain, brighton solfed: Plenty of bluster: Brighton Solfed
unimpressed with legal threats by Cafe Plenty
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. ias romania - RADICAL QUEER COMMUNITY AND
CLASS STRUGGLE: A LINK TO BE CREATED - BY GAYGE OPERISTA [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Poland, rozbrat.org: The Rodrigo Lanz case NK
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Greece, Liberta Initiative of Thessaloniki - Anarchist
Federation: Solidarity in the struggle of members of the EA N.
Maziotis - P. Roupa (gr) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 10:13:13 +0200
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) Britain, brighton solfed: Plenty of bluster: Brighton
Solfed unimpressed with legal threats by Cafe Plenty
Message-ID: <mailman.5902.1514016812.22007.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
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Cafe Plenty issued legal threats just hours after Brighton Solfed tried to talk to them
about £4,400 they owe a former worker. Having made clear they were unwilling to resolve
the matter, the cafe's bogus threats triggered a campaign of protest highlighting the
plight of the former worker organising with Solfed. ---- A Solfed member involved in the
case explained what happened: "In late November, a couple of us went to hand them a letter
about the £4K they owe the former worker. Our approach is always to try to resolve things
amicably, by talking to them first and give them a chance to rectify their mistake. Since
the owner wasn't there, we just left the letter with a helpful member of staff. ---- "We
didn't hear anything from the cafe, so 5 days later, two of us went back - apparently the
owner wasn't there again, so we handed out information about basic workplace rights and
the case to cafe workers, who were amused about this. Then a couple of hours later, the
owner sent us a strongly worded but ultimately bogus cease and desist notice!"
The letter entitled "Notice to Cease & Desist Trespass, Harassment, Intimidation and an
attempts to pervert the course of Justice" claimed that Brighton Solfed and the former
worker were "engaged in a campaign of physical and electronic interference, harassment and
intimidation against[Cafe Plenty], their employees and customers".
As a Solfed member commented, "to be honest, it all seemed slightly over the top to me -
we hadn't even managed to give him our letter! Also, I must have missed the day they made
asking to get paid for your work an attempt to 'pervert the course of justice.' "
The Cease & Desist letter claimed that "all matters relating to the[case]" were "under
police investigation" and that "therefore the actions and activities of Brighton
Solidarity Federation and by implication D. are alleged attempts to prevent[sic]the course
justice".
Cafe Plenty claimed they would issue a file "to the investigating officer for East Sussex
Police", citing an officer's name, a crime number, and a seperate reference number.
"We've received several spurious legal threats this year" a Solfed member said, "and
adding a crime reference number was a nice touch. But actually that's how we knew the
threats were phoney. A crime number is issued on any 101 call, whether you're issuing
awareness of a vulnerable person, think you've found a watch in the street or are
reporting something that happened 3 years ago."
"Crime reference numbers have a specific format that usually includes the date it is
issued, and neither of the two numbers they gave followed that format. Also, the police
don't issue separate crime numbers and reference numbers - we think it could have been
made up or reused from something else. So we realised the threats were just bluster trying
to intimidate the worker."
"Whatever happened with that crime reference number, no crime has been committed - except
for the £4K wage theft by the Cafe."
"Since they preferred bullying instead of owning up to their mistake, we knew there was no
point in trying to reach out to them any further. The next day, we were outside the cafe,
handing out leaflets to potential customers about how they treated their former worker."
It is the practice of Brighton Solfed to publicise legal threats received in the course of
disputes. As an anarcho-syndicalist union, Solfed is in solidarity with hospitality
workers - Solfed's practice is firmly opposed to all harassment or intimidation of staff
employed by businesses that Solfed is in dispute with.
Solfed members have not entered Cafe Plenty since the owner first implied Solfed were not
welcome on trespass accusations. However legal threats will not make Solfed cease or
desist organising in solidarity with workers who have been wronged.
Brighton Solfed started informational pickets of the cafe on 30. November, making
customers aware of the dispute. The vast majority of customers and passersby have been
supportive of the dispute. Two weeks later, after fruitless talks with the owner, the
campaign was stepped up, naming Cafe Plenty online for the first time.
Despite Brighton Solfed's flagrant non-compliance with the cease and desist letter, at
this point we are not aware the cafe have taken any further legal steps.
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/plenty-of-bluster-brighton-solfed-unimpressed-with-legal-threats-by-cafe-plenty
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 10:13:20 +0200
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) ias romania - RADICAL QUEER COMMUNITY AND CLASS
STRUGGLE: A LINK TO BE CREATED - BY GAYGE OPERISTA [machine
translation]
Message-ID: <mailman.5904.1514016821.22007.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
While the number of queer individuals identifying themselves with anarchism,
anti-authoritarianism, and / or anti-capitalism seems to be increasing, there is, however,
a profound lack of understanding of class struggle within queer radical circles and a lack
of class analysis that hurts both queer queries as well as anticapitalism as a whole. Let
us admit, the task is not to make the queer anarchy, this term (anarchism) becoming an
indicator for every existing, shocking and counter-cultural activist project to such an
extent that it has now come to have equally uncommonly understood among radicals, such as
the queer term. The task is to turn queer radical people into class struggling militants.
We have to make a conscious move towards a holistic queer practice, a practice that
examines the living conditions of all queer people, and which also places those lives in
the wider context of the struggles of all workers / workers and oppressed people. This is
not just a position in terms of solidarity and a refusal to leave other queer people
behind, but also the awareness that the release of queer persons is inextricably linked to
the self-emancipation of the working class.
Queer people, like other oppressed groups, are particularly affected by capitalism, and
this applies especially among queer people who are often invisible, ignored, or left
behind by queer and feminist movements: queer people color, trans and non-binary persons,
queer persons with disabilities, and queer / sexual workers. Many queer and other
anti-capitalist anarchists come from anti-oppression spheres, and although analyzes in
anti-oppression circles continue to improve, and explanations of intersectionality
continue to be the rule in those circles, a good and critical anti-oppression analysis is
not enough. We must be anti-capitalists and understand how capitalism works to truly
understand the living conditions of the working class, from people who struggle with
multiple oppressive systems to the "middle class" that is in a position (much too often
temporary) privileged in the suburbs. With this understanding of class struggle, we can
contribute to the creation of mass movements aimed at collective liberation.
Without this understanding of class struggle, our criticism of the state can only be wrong
and limited; we need to have an understanding of class struggle to see the state as an
instrument of class domination over all other classes, and for our anti-state project to
consist of the need to destroy the bourgeois state, which is inseparable from the project
of abolishing all classes. This is a social project, not an antisocial one. In order to
paraphrase Kropotkin, we want no longer the leaders, not the abolition of the rules, and
the failure to take into account the class struggle leads us to consider the state as an
independent institution and not an instrument of class domination. This can also lead to a
glorification of the antisocial deeds considered a form of resistance to the state, when
in reality they are just juvenile, useless and reactionary. Unlike the Leninists, we do
not want to take over the state power or replace it with a "proletarian" state. We are
aware that if the class continues to exist after the revolution, and if there is a need
for a hegemonic governing body separate from people in order to maintain social relations,
in that case the revolution has failed.
However, many queer people end up in anticapitalist movements keeping the liberal ideas
about the class and the way capitalism works, considering class just another way in which
one can be oppressed or privileged, and not in terms of a ratio to the means of production
that is in constantly reproduced. Applying an anti-oppression analysis to the class
becomes problematic in many ways. This determines us to continue to use the definitions of
the class used by the bourgeoisie (capitalist class) for us, some looking for the division
of the working class and the determination of its members to act against their own class
interests. This prevents us from explaining how and why some queer people are so badly hit
by capitalism,
The solution to these problems is, of course, to educate us about the struggle of class
and capitalism and to consider the queer movement as an indispensable part of the
struggles of the working class.
About "classism"
A standard practice in anti-oppression circles is to create a list of oppressive forms to
which we oppose, and often "classism" is included in that list. Leaving aside that lists
are necessarily incomplete, capitalism is a different structure as a form of white
supremacy or heteropatriarch, for example. We do not want to stop taking part in the
heteropatriarchal abolition practices we now call queer; the goal of the anti-capitalist
struggle must be first and foremost the denial of the capitalist class (by taking over the
means of production) and then the subsequent denial of the working class once the
exploitation of labor ceases by controlling its own labor and the needs of life, with the
abolition property and the socialization of the means of production. To strive for less is
simply to fight against class elitism, it means simply wanting the rich to treat us better
so that the lives of the poor are not so severe. This is not the essence of our wishes. We
want a world without the rich and the poor, and it is time for our analysis, our
organization and our actions to reflect this!
Moreover, because of class analysis taken from liberal or reformist analyzes, there is a
tendency to use classmation accusations to maintain divisions within the working class,
silence, wipe, or deprive power of marginalized populations, as well as to invisible a
wide variety of queer person experiences. And all of this comes from erroneous class
analyzes. The post-belly restructuring of the working class, especially in the
post-industrial world, has led to increasing levels of education among the working class
and increasingly widespread employment in the service and technical sectors. Meanwhile,
many stereotypical industrial jobs have moved to developing countries or replaced by
automation. The sociological definitions of the class based on outdated stereotypes about
education and the work done not only conceal social relations but also confuse the reality
of the proletariat in the post-industrial world. Moreover, suppositions of who is "true
proletarian" and what are "truly proletarians" capable intellectually insult those who do
manual work and serve the implantation of anti-intellectualism in mass movements and
preservation of intellectual work as in a specialized field of academics. Also, with the
increasing privatization of education and the rapid increase in the cost of public or
private higher education, student debts become an increasingly important factor in
proletarian struggles, and to claim that there is a mythical "middle class" of which all
those who are not tape laborers - fewer in number - are separating us from a whole variety
of battle fronts. Too often our class discussions turn into a competition to determine
whose childhood has been heavier, to the detriment of finding solutions to free ourselves.
And while there are real socio-economic differences between different groups within the
working class, we can not allow this to obscure our analysis of the class as a whole. to
the detriment of finding solutions to free ourselves. And while there are real
socio-economic differences between different groups within the working class, we can not
allow this to obscure our analysis of the class as a whole. to the detriment of finding
solutions to free ourselves. And while there are real socio-economic differences between
different groups within the working class, we can not allow this to obscure our analysis
of the class as a whole.
To overcome all these internal conflicts, this flawed analysis, and these overlooks, we
need a truly anti-capitalist class analysis. We need to understand how capitalism created
a class system based on the relation to the means of production and to realize that an
essential component of the class struggle of the proletariat on the way to the destruction
of capitalism is to win daily struggles such as working days shorter wages, higher
salaries, safer and more comfortable working environments, to the extent that these things
reduce the amount of surplus value the class of capitalists derives from us and can be won
directly without any mediation. Another goal of daily struggles is to create and maintain
effective forms of self-organization. Winning these intermediate struggles does not take
the workers out of the working class and can lead (even have to lead if we want to
self-emancipate as a class) both in improving the conditions against which we fight and
building the capabilities and abilities necessary to fight by encouraging ourselves -our
organization as a class. It is ridiculous to adhere to the same logic that the class of
capitalists uses to divide us to our detriment.
Another error of this sociological / liberal analysis of the class as a mere other form of
oppression is that it represents the first step in destroying our solidarity with the
whole proletariat. When we look at the class as a way in which the poor are oppressed and
the so-called middle class and capitalists are privileged (in which capitalists are just a
little more privileged than the middle class), we inevitably fall into contradictory
discussions to determine who does part "enough of the working class"; the queer person who
grew up in poverty in a single-parent home ceases to be part of the working class when he
studies and becomes a teacher? Is it unlawful to fight a person who is unable to find
stable labor in capitalism for the simple fact that they have grown up in a household with
two parents in a suburb? Are we giving up the white cishero workers because they are "too
privileged" to be in the same fight with us? Do queer white people continue to fetishize
black people by combining race with class without an analysis of how capitalism built and
continues to maintain racism? We can not find answers to these things in queer anarchist
circles as long as we do not give up class analysis taken from anti-oppression policies
grounded in sociology and liberalism.
The most serious mistake, however, of giving the class a simple status of oppression,
consists of the failure to achieve, to paraphrase Marx, that the workers are those who are
radically chained; that the exploitation of the working class represents the entire
foundation of the system that we want to destroy, and that only by identifying, fighting
and destroying those chains can we be released any of us. Once we realize this, we can
begin to understand how stratification based on race, gender, and sexuality was built into
the working class as a means of exercising control, and how much this stratification was
the midwife that helped to bring about capitalism.
Beyond the limits of identity policies
The term "queer" was born in the idea of criticizing the suppositions underlying identity
politics. These suppositions stated that the oppressed groups are well defined, have clear
boundaries, that all members / members of a oppressed group have common desires and needs,
and that a small part of a group can thus speak for the whole group. "Queer" was
deliberately claimed to be a term of solidarity and struggle, and to include gays,
lesbians, bi / pansexuals, and transsexuals or other non-conforming people. Initially,
there was recognition that these groups had different wishes and needs, but formed a
unified coalition around gender-based oppression and sexuality. However, the queer
liberation movements that remain rooted in our identity policies have led us to debate the
exact boundaries of queerness and arguments to determine who they are legitimate about to
claim at the same time that we are not taking part to identity policies, and to be able to
ignore all the very real differences of power in the queer community. In order to break
the negative aspects of identity politics, we must look at the material conditions and the
specific effects on certain subgroups and struggle from those material conditions. so that
in all this time we can claim that we do not take part in identity politics, and so we can
ignore all the very real differences of power that appear within the queer community. In
order to break the negative aspects of identity politics, we must look at the material
conditions and the specific effects on certain subgroups and struggle from those material
conditions. so that in all this time we can claim that we do not take part in identity
politics, and so we can ignore all the very real differences of power that appear within
the queer community. In order to break the negative aspects of identity politics, we must
look at the material conditions and the specific effects on certain subgroups and struggle
from those material conditions.
Moreover, by defining a common struggle based solely on the queerness lines, we are faced
with the question of whether we want to organize ourselves for the same struggles as queer
bourgeois people. While queer anarchist / anti-authoritarian / anti-capitalist circles
place a great emphasis on the discourse of "anti-assimilation" and anti-capitalist, often
the analysis decays in syntagms such as "being heterosexuals is bad" and "capitalism is
bad." Generalizing heterosexuals on a coherent group that hegemonically oppresses queer
people and that the reason why we do not want to be assimilated is that we do not want to
be like them,
We must oppose the institution of marriage sanctioned by the state because it strengthens
the nuclear family in the form of consumption and reproduction of capitalism, not because
many heterosexuals marry. Trying to reverse the hierarchy of relationships to blame people
who are happy in a long-term relationship and sharing a household with a partner does not
bring us anything closer to the end of capitalism or the destruction of oppression. It's
just a way for queer people to control the identities, expressions, and life forms of
people inside our community. If anti-assimilation is to have value, it must be built on
the idea that we want to destroy the current order and help build a better world,
It is also necessary to take into account our class interests; no matter how much the
queer bourgeoisie would try to play the role of a "radical" queerness, we can not find
anything in common with their class interests, and we are fighting them, not with the
heterosexual members of the working class. If we accept that our common interests are in
our queerness, not only can we be forced to ignore the other ways in which we are
oppressed, it is also to accept that the queer bourgeoisie are our allies and the hetero
persons to which we belong of the working class are our enemies, when we want only one
thing from the queer bourgeoisie - to take back what legitimately belongs to us and share
it among us based on our needs.
Without incorporating an analysis beyond identity, we are unable to overcome the
limitations of identity policies. While an understanding of intersectionality helps us
understand that some people queer have problems that other people do not have,
cross-sectorality is not enough because it does not address the fact that queer bourgeois
interests are in direct opposition to the interests of most queer people, and this
conflict can only be solved by sharpening the class struggle, and ultimately through a
social revolution. We need to be cautious when criticizing identity only to create a
singular inner group and a singular outer group, and where the composition of that inner
group has more to do with hipness and popularity at the expense of sexuality or gender.
Fighting autonomously, or "Who's queer after all?"
It is often necessary for oppressed groups to participate in class struggle autonomously -
to organize themselves on the basis of specific material conditions, to fight against
them, and to re-integrate their struggle within the whole working class. Although I have
just as much interest in discussing the exact definition of the queer as I have for
discussion of the maximum number of angels that can achieve group masturbation on a pin of
a needle, it is quite clear what it means to be queer in general - being non-heterosexual,
and / or the state of being transgender, genderqueer, or not conforming to a gender. This
is the great definition that has been used for queer as a claim for solidarity by queer
communities who have fought for decades.
Queer communities in the working class have often been attacked on both sides, first by
bourgeois LGBT organizations seeking membership and legitimacy, and by radical
organizations seeking to coop queer and queerness people with whom they feel comfortable.
Both camps wipe and silence those queer people they do not feel comfortable with.
Eventually, queer people in the working class need the ability to self-organize, and to do
so they must not be controlled by bourgeois LGBT organizations or by radical organizations
coming from outside to lead them. Although there are of course queer queer people in the
working class within radical organizations,
While queer communities have often defined "queer" too narrowly - examples of groups
excluded from lesbian communities are bisexual, femmes, butch / butch and femme / femme
couples at certain moments butch and femmes, and trans females - we must not be so
extensive that the term becomes meaningless; we have to keep a queer notion that
emphasizes separation from traditional family notions and additional reproductive labor
(in the sense of being able to reproduce the next day's work power) that comes from
belonging to a oppressed group that is in danger constantly from a hostile world and
lacking traditional means of support.
If we want queer people to be able to participate in wider class struggle (not as if we
have not been part of it all the time), we need spaces and organizations where we can
tackle class struggle from the perspective queer people in the working class. We need
spaces where we can raise questions about what it means to be a queer person in the
working class for our material conditions, for our exploitation in capitalism. To really
be able to do that we need spaces where we can form organizations that do not have to make
any hetero radical feel comfortable, and spaces that are not controlled by queer
bourgeois. If we / ourselves will give birth to those spaces, we will be able to organize
our own struggles, connect them to the wider battles of the class, and bring queer
fierceness back to class struggle. We do not need anyone outside to lead us; we will do
what we need not by focusing on academic definitions of what it means to be queer but
rather on the material conditions of queer people's lives.
The impasse of anti-assimilationism
Anti-assimilation as long as it was a critique of bourgeois co-optation of queer
liberation movements was valuable. Anti-assimilation as long as it was hostile to the
integration of queer battles as part of the wider class struggle and how long it
controlled the identities of queer individuals by removing those who could go as
heterosexuals, trans migrants seeking medical transition, queer monogames , queer people
who have to hide in their professional lives to keep a job, was an impediment. Dialectic
assimilation / anti-assimilationism is not useful. The right questions we have to ask
about queer organizations, movements and queer battles are: What is class composition? Are
forms of organization an advantage or a hindrance to proletarian class struggle? Would the
objectives strengthen the working class or the bourgeoisie? In which of our struggles are
our revolutionary efforts most useful in achieving our ultimate goal of communism? We also
need to ask ourselves how we can expand the battle - what opportunities do each of the
queer struggles have to spread to the rest of the working class?
These are more important questions to me than if the queer people participating in the
struggle reach an adequate level of anti-assimilation purity, which is often only a
reflection of the stratification that is built inside the working class, twisted to the
surface, but faithful to that stratification in its depth. Another problem with
anti-assimilation purity is, as I mentioned earlier, the idea that there is a need for
queer people to discipline themselves to adhere to a hegemonic idea of queerness that is
opposed to a hegemonic idea of heterosexism. We are in danger of removing many more queer
people whom we should want to fight against those people with whom we do not want to fight,
Lastly, we must bear in mind that any movement that is considered to be broken by class
struggle, which does not integrate an understanding of the logic of capital within its own
organization and purposes, will serve the bourgeois goals as it will be easy to co-opt or
will be able to expand to other sectors of the working class and to satisfy demands that
capital can easily satisfy without being weakened. The task of queer communist people in
relation to queer movements is to place themselves in mass organizations, to support
important topics for the queer working class in hetero-dominated organizations, and to
support a truly anti-capitalist analysis, the action direct and uninterrupted struggle
within queer organizations. We can not afford to separate ourselves into a radical queer
bubble, broken by both heterosexual persons and queer non-personalized individuals; nor
can we afford to dilute our policies into schematics such as united fronts. Instead, we
note the need to form both specific political organizations with a high degree of unity
and to support our revolutionary ideas in mass organizations.
Questions to Ask
Of course, we have long passed the days when any Communist seriously considers queerness
to be a "bourgeois deviation." However, although we have anarchist and Marxist feminism on
which to rely, we remain with a queer theory that is totally broken by class and
transfeminism without a solid class foundation, and a queer movement that has abandoned
its roots in queer working class. All this leaves us with many questions that still need
to be addressed.
At the theoretical level, we have questions about how queerness affects the conditions of
productive and reproductive labor of queer people in the working class. Questions such as
"how to choose not to form the same type of long-term romantic relationships as to how it
impacts the way someone's work is exploited (harder exploitation, less work-related
assistance, and loss of family support)? Or when both partners are perceived as women or
women, and we assume that none is the main source of income, and how in that way those low
wages and the way they are thrown into a maternity role in the workplace bring that
alienation into relationships our social? Or the unpaid extra reproductive labor (in the
sense of reproducing the next day's work power) that is necessary when you live in a world
that is hostile even to your existence? "Must be addressed and analyzed in the hope that
they can guide us in our struggle.
At a somewhat more practical level, questions such as "where can the potential for
widespread wars that are initiated by queer people from the working class remain? How has
the process that the queer movement has lost its revolutionary character and developed a
reactionary process? Which forms of self-organization would be most useful to us as queer
people in the working class? "Although these questions may seem more pressing than the
theoretical ones previously suggested, just as non-practical theory is useless, and
practice without a theory will always leave running in all directions and incapable of
identifying the best places and moments in which to concentrate our energies. If we really
want to build a queer movement with a proletarian character and bring back the queer
fights in the proletarian struggle we will need both.
Conclusion
Queer anarchists are faced with an election: do we remain an identity-based analysis and
regard our liberation as an independent entity? Or are we directly involved in class
struggle alongside the rest of the working class, and regard our liberation as impossible
to separate from the liberation of all? One of the choices isolates us at the political
level and can lead us to make alliances with the capital that exploits us and attacks the
self-organization of mass movements; the other has the potential to lead us to a true
release, because we are divided, but united / nothing in this world does not move without
the sweat on our foreheads.
That does not mean that queer people can only receive from class struggle and have nothing
to offer in their turn. Many of us have been excluded from our home families and can
provide a wealth of practical experience in creating new communities based on mutual help
and solidarity. We bring our own unique points of view on the process of oppression, and
by observing how it has created divisions within our own communities and has undermined
our struggles for liberation, we can provide a great deal of direct knowledge of how
oppressions intersect, and power imbalances can damage and derail the struggle of the
proletariat. We have in the past mobilized large numbers from our ranks when our community
was threatened, recognizing the power imbalances within our community, how parts of our
community have been disproportionately affected, and how the crisis went beyond our
community. We joined together to respond to the initial phase of the AIDS crisis and to
fight directly with the neglect of the state and profit corporations, but then, with the
power and influence of the queer bourgeoisie and their organizations, we were sent to go
attention to getting married and armed, against our interests, and abandoning those of us
who are marginalized in multiple ways. We can take that power back by identifying ways in
which queer members of the working class are affected by struggles around unions (and
struggles to create workers' organizations that are not just a negotiator between struggle
and capital), housing , access to health care, disproportionate effects of environmental
damage felt by the working class and oppressed groups, and controls on immigration and a
world without borders in the form of nation states and against identities that constrain,
limit and control. By identifying how queer people are affected by these struggles, we can
create real solidarity ties with other communities in these struggles, communities that
already have many of us.
For me, someone who is devoted to the destruction of all forms of oppression and the
destruction of capitalism and the bourgeois state and the realization of communism - a
classless society without states where production is organized according to our abilities
and strictly for the satisfaction of human needs, the choice is obvious; as a queer
communist, I must participate in the class struggle and take part in the self-organization
of the working class, for it is not enough for me as a queer person to be in the same
circumstances as a heterosexual in the same social position - nothing besides a social
revolution will not be enough. And the only way in which that social revolution can take
place and can be successful is to fight ourselves from our own material conditions and by
expanding that struggle throughout the working class.
Recommended Bibliography and Resources:
"Queers Read This," ACT UP NY, http://www.actupny.org/documents/QueersReadThis.pdf
(accessed January 26, 2012).
Deric Shannon and J. Rogue, "Refusing to Wait: Anarchism and Intersectionality,"
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Deric_Shannon_and_J._Rogue__Refusing_to_Wait__Anarchism_and_Intersectionality.html
(accessed January 26, 2012).
Queers Without Borders, http://www.queerswithoutborders.com (accessed January 26, 2012).
Pink Is a Shade of Red, http://queeranarchism.blogspot.com/ (accessed January 26, 2012).
Author's blogs at Autonomous Struggle of the Glitter: http://glittertariat.blogspot.com
We can not hope to understand the capitalist mode of production without some familiarity
with Marx; While there are some good books, lectures, and / or blogs about how to read
Marx's Capital, we should start with reading and, indeed, with the effort to go through
the first volume of Capital without it be interpreted by someone else. Among the
guidelines for Marx's Capital, Harry Cleaver's - Reading Capital Politcally is probably
the best.
Caliban and the Witch: Women, the body and the primitive accumulation of Silvia Federici
detailing the bloody birth of capitalism in feudalism, the beginnings of a new patriarchal
age, and the way primitive accumulation has embedded the race and gender hierarchies
within the proletariat - can not be recommended enough.
Libcom ( http://www.libcom.org ) has a vast library of Communist libertarian writings -
the work of anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-communists, left-wing Communists, autonomists,
council communists, ultra-left Marxist humanists, etc. . which I strongly recommend and
where interesting and clear topics can be found.
Gayge The Operaist is an autonomous Marxist and Italian Butch who engages in many sexual
pleasures in New England. Is a street doctor, botanist, wildlife educator, health care
educator, and student student, as well as verbal poet and organizer, involved in a form or
another organization for more than a decade. He is a member of IWW, formerly organizer of
TransFix NorCal and former Camp Trans organizer. The main topics of his work are the
organization of nurses, the organization around personal assistance, the dissemination of
knowledge to enable the members of the community to be part of, to provide each other with
more assistance and support, to contribute to the formation of those mutual aid networks,
https://iasromania.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/comunitatea-queer-radicala-si-lupta-de-clasa-o-legatura-ce-trebuie-creata-de-gayge-operaista/
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 11:44:09 +0200
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) Poland, rozbrat.org: The Rodrigo Lanz case NK [machine
translation]
Message-ID: <mailman.5933.1514022280.22007.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
For more than a week, the Spanish media has been pursuing a purely political campaign
where the cyclist Rodrigo Lanza, 33, was in the eye. Active on the anti-fascist and squat
stage, from Chilean descent and now a resident of Zaragoza. Literally in a few days he was
hailed as the killer of 55-year-old Victor Lainez, a 30-year-old active member of
Falangia, a former special forces soldier, member of Los Templarios motorcycle club -
linked to the extreme right, not covering his racist and xenophobic views. ---- Wanting to
understand the broader context of the events of the night from 7 to 8 December 2017 in the
Tocadiscos bar, we must go back to 2006 and Barcelona. Because Rodrigo Lanza lived in this
Catalan town earlier. Barcelona was a city experiencing rapid changes in the structure of
the city itself and its tissue. The soap bubble of inflated construction investments and
unsecured mortgages has not yet broken. In the very center of the old part of the city,
there was a battle with devolators and the town hall. The place known as Forat de Vergonya
was such a sensitive point. A symbol of the struggle of the inhabitants and the squatting
movement with neoliberal changes. The year 2006 was a year of direct clashes and
demonstrations and the rejection of political, half-problem solutions.
In the vicinity of Forat there was a building at Sant Pere de Més Alt, a palace known as a
theater. The town hall tolerated the occupation of the building from 2002, which was his
property, because it was good for him for years. Weekly loud parties were held there. It
was a strong factor of pressure on residents from neighboring tenements to be deported. On
February 4, 2006, one of such weekend techno parties was held. There were several hundred
people in the middle of the building. There was a local intervention of the City Guard
(one of the municipal police formations). The guards were sent without intervention to
helmets against the rules. From the balcony and the roof, objects in this huge flowerpot
flew. One of the guards was wounded in the head and fell unconscious. At that time, his
colleagues and previously called reinforcements arrested people in front of the building.
In total, 9 people were detained for various accusations. Three of them who received the
heaviest allegations came from Latin America, two boys, 20 years from Chile and one from
Argentina. Among them was the 21-year-old Rodrigo Lanza. History student. In addition to
the three, there was also a citizen of Germany and several Catalans. Two people were
detained in one of the local hospitals and allegations were made on the basis of messages
from a mobile phone and hairstyle, among others a young poet, Patrycja Hares. Only
recently she came from Madrid to her girlfriend. She was not present at all at the scene.
The demonstration process has begun. Detainees were tortured physically and mentally.
Among other things, by guards Víctor Bayon and Bakari Samyang convicted after years of
imprisonment with torture son diplomat (at one of the subsequent cases of racist arrests
and torture at the police station went to the wrong person, son diplomats from Trinidad
and Tobago). It was attempted to put pressure on those arrested to admit to the attack of
guards on the street and the serious injury of one of them. The judge herself told Rodrigo
Lanzie: "Even if there were 1000 people like you, I already have the papers ready." During
the investigation, the original version with a pot, which he confirmed, at the very mayor
himself, was disapproved, claiming that he received it from the police officers present on
the spot. Some witnesses were not allowed to give evidence. The entire lawsuit was
conducted so that these young people would go to prison. There must have been someone who
would answer on one hand for incompetence of the police and carry out the action without
the required helmets, and on the other, that the guilty should not fall on the mayor of
the city and the town hall as the owner of the building - it would mean paying an
exorbitant civil penalty to the victim and his family. The accused of hitting the guard
from a distance of 10 m in the face was given to Rodrigo (although medical forensic
experts considered this version of the event impossible). The process itself lasted a very
long time, 4 people were given a different length of prison sentence. Rodrigo has been
sitting in the detention cell for two years, his friends too, Patrycja shorter but also
went to a female prison for 18 months. so that the guilty party does not fall on the mayor
of the city and the town hall as the owner of the building - it would mean paying an
exorbitant civil penalty to the victim and his family. The accused of hitting the guard
from a distance of 10 m in the face was given to Rodrigo (although medical forensic
experts considered this version of the event impossible). The process itself lasted a very
long time, 4 people were given a different length of prison sentence. Rodrigo has been
sitting in the detention cell for two years, his friends too, Patrycja shorter but also
went to a female prison for 18 months. so that the guilty party does not fall on the mayor
of the city and the town hall as the owner of the building - it would mean paying an
exorbitant civil penalty to the victim and his family. The accused of hitting the guard
from a distance of 10 m in the face was given to Rodrigo (although medical forensic
experts considered this version of the event impossible). The process itself lasted a very
long time, 4 people were given a different length of prison sentence. Rodrigo has been
sitting in the detention cell for two years, his friends too, Patrycja shorter but also
went to a female prison for 18 months.
After the defendants left, there was an appeal in the Supreme Court, but this one,
contrary to the defendants' expectations, only raised the penalties. Patrycja did not
endure psychologically another return to prison and on 26 April 2011 she jumped out of the
window. She wrote: "My kingdom is helpless and poisoned like my whole being ... I know I
am defeated." Rodrigo did not sign any papers that would have made it easier for him to
serve in a restricted branch. He served 5 years. He was released from prison in December
2012. A film about the whole process was filmed. For more than two hours, the documentary
"Ciutat Morta" (there is also a version with subtitles in English) was supposed to open
the eyes of Spanish society to the racist and class arrangement at various levels of power
and the apparatus of injustice. A system which 3 people deprived of several years of life
and future prospects (Rodrigo will forever have a crime and an exorbitant penalty to pay 1
million 130 thousand euros) and Patricia led to suicide. Although the document provoked
indignation in society, he was rewarded horror by the same hypocrites from the town hall,
he did not help in the revision of the investigation, the revocation of the
once-established fabricated version.
Now, years later Rodrigo Lanza returned to the front pages of newspapers and screens.
Another process is waiting for him. This time for murder, he faces 10 to 25 years in
prison. The system that destroyed his youth again has him on the bench of defendants. The
media perform the ritual murder of the hated embarrassing emigrant. In the country after
the recent referendum in Catalonia and the tightening and polarizing of the political
situation, he is badly needed for political cleansing at various levels. He is the
scapegoat of this convenient right wing, to deal once and for all with the entire spectrum
of the left and parliamentary in the style of Podemos or CUP in Catalonia as well as the
radical without representation. That is why political games take place on various levels.
And the old Víctor phalanxist integrated with the national movement is growing in the eyes
of the right wing for a new enemy killed by a leftist emigrant. He is a comfortable hero
for the entire right. Why? Because every branch of this Hydra can find in it what it wants
to identify with. For some, as a phalanx, it can be the one that will serve to inflame the
situation among groups with different ideologies on the street and direct confrontation.
For the second, old military, Catholic patriots faithful to their homeland, hating
everything that is foreign, expatriates, it can also be what resisted the leftist
pestilence, proudly wearing braces in the colors of the national flag and paying for it
with life. This flag, which the various separatists so hate, especially those from
Catalonia and which is indifferent to the part of society, including the emigrants. For
those who do not go down from the couch but vote for a conservative right in the
parliament and believe in monarchy, he can be the older sympathetic motorcyclist who gave
his life in unequal struggle with radical youth wanting to destroy their world rooted in
the history of victory in Civil War and years Franco dictatorship. They will not let their
world collapse and defend it like one. That is why Rodrigo media have already accused and
convicted. Without a process even faked, assembled. This process has been there before,
now the new one is no longer needed. Nobody has to try to fabricate evidence. It's enough
that we have a fatal victim. She alone sanctifies everything here and, at the same time,
she vulgarizes her eloquent symbolism. And the truth? Who cares the truth and what
happened that night from 7 to 8 December? Nobody but a group of friends and family. The
Left did not stand behind Rodrigo: either he is silent, or he criticizes or expects
something to be cleared up. That's why I am writing this text. Because I know that no
process based on any facts will be. The political situation is so and not different.
Either us or them. Spain sooner or later threatens to break up if now it does not
concentrate all national and patriotic forces, the PP government (Partido Popular) and the
rest of the right wing know it. When in the 1970s, anarchist Salvador Puig Antich was the
last prisoner of Frankism, who was officially crushed the spine in the death room, nobody
thought we would return to this type of demonstration in the 21st century. It was then
attempted to save the dying regime. Rodrigo is now a living example that Salvador was not
the last symbolic victim of Frankism. I am afraid that this is already the 25 years signed
and maybe then deported to prison in Chile.
facts:
On the night of December 7, this year, in the center of Zaragoza in the Tocadiscos bar,
there is an accidental encounter between Rodrigo Lanci and Victor L. There is a 5-minute
exchange, Víctor challenges Rodrigo from the shitty southerner (an offensive phrase for
South Americans, something like " ciapata "), and he Victor from the fascists. Who who
approached and accused whom he / she is for the moment unclear, testimony is
contradictory. There are also many unknowns, because the testimonies do not coincide.
Rodrigo says he wanted to avoid further confrontation when he saw that Victor was calling
friends and went out with two other people from the bar outside. Then someone warned him
that Victor had a knife in his hand. First he pushed him away and then kicked. Víctor L.
has fallen. Rodrigo says he only defended himself against the attack. The version of the
second page is that that Rodrigo attacked from the back with a metal rod or a saddle from
Victor's bike and hit him on the neck and then with the others kicked the man lying down.
There are two completely different versions of events that are confronted. No rod, no
saddle or knife has been found so far. The victim was in a coma in the hospital and was
detached after a few days from the apparatus at the request of the family. Rodrigo is in
solitary custody without the possibility of bail. For a few days there was no contact with
him, even the lawyer could not get permission. He will probably stay there for a few
months. Mother's visit was allowed. On December 16, a mini-manifestation of the right in
Zaragoza took place. Less than 20 people came. The police had to escort them because the
neighbors did not wish their presence. The Rodrigo family gets continuous threats.
Rodrigo Lanza's situation seems to be extremely difficult. We will try to inform you about
the development of accidents as new information becomes available.
http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/miedzynarodowe/4588-sprawa-rodrigo-lanza
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2017 11:44:16 +0200
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) Greece, Liberta Initiative of Thessaloniki - Anarchist
Federation: Solidarity in the struggle of members of the EA N.
Maziotis - P. Roupa (gr) [machine translation]
Message-ID: <mailman.5934.1514022287.22007.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
In 2015, an important struggle was given to Greek prisons and beyond. After almost 3 years
of Syriza we can unfortunately say that this fight was perhaps the only one that did not
know the defeat. The only social struggle that has won, in part, a demanding framework in
the wake of the new Social Democrats of the Memoranda that swallowed within the ballot any
social dynamics of resistance had developed in the previous Memorandum. ---- The state,
however, has continuity and memory. He never understands his retreats as definitive. He
waits at the right time and responds appropriately. It is obvious that the issue of
prisons, social rights that strive to balance the most extreme manifestations of
suppressive barbarity, the state counter-attack has begun to emerge. Here we have to
observe, once again, the value of social democracy over time for the regime. At the same
time that the right candidates for power and their propaganda escalated their hysterical,
terrorist campaign on the occasion of the two-day leave (with 7 years of delay) by D.
Koufondina, while Syriza was "proudly" defeating the supposed " right "profile, at the
same time, Syriza was promoting the new correctional code that satisfied the most
suppressive oppressive desires of its opponents in bipartisation. But it is not only the
"big" and the obvious that the approach seems to be. They are also "small", personalized,
"photographic".
The hunger strike of members of the Revolutionary struggle of N. Maziotis and Polos Roupa,
apart from the issues of the new Penitentiary Code, also highlights these "small" and
their great importance. Their demands are as follows:
* The photographic provision should be withdrawn in Article 11 (6) (e) and (4) in the same
Article as regards detention in police stations. Do not return the prison regime C type.
* Nikos Maziotis should be taken out of isolation where he is detained by a decision of
the ministry since last July.
* Set up a correctional code for the elasticisation of visitors' hours based on the
frequency of visits a prisoner has. For example, a prisoner who has one (1) time per month
visit or can not at all extend the time of the meeting.
* There is a special meeting room for parents to meet with their children (there is no
such place in the Korydallos men's prison) and when the frequency of meetings is rare, the
meeting time increases accordingly.
We should never forget the particular danger that social democracy makes in relation to
repression. And it is not just the "right" anti-dispersion tactics, nor the insidious and
silent method. It is the fact that especially Syriza with his many years of parasitic
operation in the world of the fight before coming into power, has a much wider perception
of the field than the right. He can also understand when and who must press, exploit to
the utmost fault and kin fighting collapses and isolates and thus creates "res judicata"
with the least possible reactions. The case of the members of the EA. Maziotis and Roupa
are indicative. The militant attitude and intransigence before and after the encroachment,
which always motivates state vengeance in combination with various conflict events in
their movement, makes it ideal candidates for targeted repression that hopes to find the
way open. Conflicts within the movement are not a sideline. Many times they also act as
promoters of developments. In any case, however, there is a major and minor one. The major
moment is to break the isolation of Maziotis, to gain elementary human rights in the
contact of prisoners with children and their families. The greatest is to crush every hope
of salamizing the resistance of those struggling with social democracy. The major thing is
to close every crack in the battle against the new correctional code, which, with a
tactical move,
We stand in solidarity with Maziotis-Roupa's struggle and hunger strike and demand the
immediate satisfaction of their demands. We call the world of struggle and anarchist space
first of all, each with its terms, to fight to win this battle. For anyone who prefers the
minor from the major is doomed to have the low to ceiling of his subversive struggle.
Solidarity with hunger strikers and members of the EA. N. Maziotis - P. Roupa
Immediate satisfaction of their requests.
Against the plans of repression.
Anarchist Federation
anarchist-federation.gr[
info@anarchist-federation.gr
twitter: witter.com/anarchistfedGr
fb: facebook.com/anarxikiomospondia2015/
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2017/12/17
------------------------------
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Anarchic update news all over the world - Part one - 23.12.2017
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