Today's Topics:
1. anarkismo.net: Party of Which People? by Wayne Price
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Britain, Class War: Protest Cancelled! UVW strike at 100
Wood Street is over! (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Czech, afed.cz: Story from the court [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. France, Alternative Libertaire AL n° spécial 2016 - 2016,
2010, 2003 ... Ruptures carriers of meaning (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. fda-ifa: Anarchistische Föderation Rhein/Ruhr - Solidarity
with evicted squats in Thessaloniki by comrades in Cologne
(Germany) 28.07 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Review of Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal: Or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?
---- Review of Frank's "Listen, Liberal." A leading liberal journalist, he exposes the
Democratic Party as dominated by a section of the capitalist class, namely the top of the
professional-managerial sector. He demonstrates its acceptance of inequality and its
rejection of the working class. ---- During this wretched election season of 2016, I have
been looking for a nonacademic and readable book which gives a reasonable explanation of
the current political situation. Thomas Frank is a left-liberal—he describes himself as “a
person of vivid pink sentiments.” (29) In this book, however, he does not provide another
report of the horrors of the right-wing movement which has culminated in the crazed,
ignorant, candidacy of Donald J. Trump (which he had previously written). Instead, in this
work he focuses on the weaknesses of the Democratic Party. “Our current situation
represents a failure of the Democratic Party as well.” (8) He was the author of the
popular book What’s the Matter with Kansas? which went over some of these issues. Of
course, as a liberal, he does not consider replacing capitalism with cooperative, workers’
managed, industries, or replacing the bureaucratic-military state with a radically
democratic, federation of workplace councils and neighborhood assemblies. But he is a
good, and interesting, liberal.
Frank focuses on the growth of “inequality” and the failure of the Democrats to do
anything about it. “Inequality is not an ‘issue’…; it is the eternal conflict of
management and labor, owner and worker, rich and poor—only with one side pinned to the
ground and the other leisurely pounding away at its adversary’s face.” (7) Inequality is
one-sided class struggle, the attack on the working class by the capitalists. While the
conservative Republicans have been the cutting edge of this attack, the liberal Democrats
have still been part of the blade.
He sees the Republicans as pretty directly representing the “One Percent.” They pretend to
represent their popular “base,” sections of the white working class, lower middle class,
and small businesspeople. But their real program is directly based on the needs of the
upper bourgeoisie (such as tax cuts and deregulation).
Frank’s main thesis is that the Democratic Party now represents “the Ten Percent, the
people at the apex of the country’s hierarchy of professional status.” (16) “The views of
the modern-day Democratic Party reflect, in virtually every detail, the ideological
idiosyncrasies of the professional-managerial class.” (29) The lower ends of the
professional-managerial class is, I would say, “middle class,” most of which is actually
“white-collar” working class. These people work for a salary and take orders from bosses.
But the upper end reaches into the One Percent. “Certain lucky professionals in Silicon
Valley happen to be our leading capitalists. And the gulf between professional hedge fund
managers and the rich folks whose money they invest is small indeed….The top ranks of the
professions are made up of highly affluent people.” (24)
The Two U.S. Parties
Many U.S. people see the political parties as a conflict between the good guys and the bad
guys. Instead, radicals see them as representing competing factions of the U.S. capitalist
class, or, rather, competing coalitions of factions of the capitalist class. In the case
of the Republicans, a sector of its capitalist leadership has chosen to whip up its mass
base into nativist hysteria. This was helped along by that base’s awareness that the
Republican establishment’s conservative promises have led to no real improvement in their
lives. The conservative (really reactionary) establishment is now appalled at the result,
as embodied in Trump’s campaign. Liberals such as Paul Krugman have argued that the
conservative leadership has been “enablers” for the Frankenstein’s Monster they
created—through their own appeals to nativism, racism, religious bigotry, homophobia,
opposition to the right to abortion, and militarism. However, if the Republican mainstream
leaders have been enablers for Trumpism, then the Democrats have been enablers of the
enablers.
Frank claims that “between ’68 and ’72, unions lost their position as the premier interest
group in the Democratic coalition….” (46) “Leading Democrats actually chose to reach out
to the affluent and to turn their backs on workers. We know this because they wrote about
it….” (48) “Neglecting workers was the opening that allowed Republicans to reach out to
blue-collar voters with their arsenal of culture-war fantasies.” (47)
In many ways, the top of the professional-managerial class is culturally liberal. Its
members are against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sexual
orientation, and gender. However, “on anything having to do with organized labor…they are
downright conservative.” (30) Their ethic is one of individual striving, winning in
competition, being personally educated, and having talent. This view, Frank says, rejects
the ethic of solidarity, mutual aid, and common struggle, which is at the heart of a
working class and pro-union perspective. (One reason the professional liberals are so
enthusiastic and uncritical about international free trade.)
The ideology of the upper professional-managerial class focuses on more education and
training as the main solution to social problems. “This education talk is less a strategy
for mitigating inequality than it is a way of rationalizing it….[It] remove[s] matters
from the realm of, well, economics and…relocate[s] them to the provinces of personal
striving and individual intelligence.” (70) Supposedly it is not that some people have
power over others but that some people just don’t have the talent, education, and
willingness to work hard to “improve” themselves. Its mantra is the need to encourage
“innovation” due to the initiative of entrepreneurs, inventors, and investors. “Innovation
liberalism is ‘a liberalism of the rich’….a more perfect meritocracy.” (196) And yet there
has been no wage improvement over decades even as productivity has been rising. “The real
problem was one of inadequate worker power, not inadequate worker smarts.”(73)
The Democratic Presidents
Frank reviews the history of the Democrats in power and out, from the late ‘60s on. Jimmy
Carter, “once in office, he broke with the New Deal tradition…cancelling public works
projects and conspicuously snubbing organized labor. With the help of a Democratic
Congress, he enacted the first of the era’s really big tax cuts for the rich and also the
first of the really big deregulations….In 1980 he and Paul Volker, his hand-picked Fed
chairman, put the country on an austerity diet that was particularly punishing to the
ordinary working people….” (54) Similar policies were advocated by “the budget-balancing
Walter Mondale” and “the technocratic centrist Michael Dukakis.” (55) When they lost
elections, the Democratic leadership claimed that they had been “too liberal”!
The election of Bill Clinton was the victory of the professional-managerial wing of the
capitalist class. “He was the leader of a particular privileged swath of his age group—the
leader of a class.” (79) He is remembered well because the economy seemed to be booming
for a while, but now we know what came after and consider how his policies led up to later
disaster. Working with both Democrats and Republicans, “it was Bill Clinton’s
administration that deregulated derivatives…and put our country’s only strong banking laws
in the grave. He’s the one who…taught the world that the way you respond to a recession is
by paying off the federal deficit. Mass incarceration and the repeal of welfare [are] two
of Clinton’s other major achievements….He would have put a huge dent in Social Security,
too, had the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal not stopped him. If we take inequality as our
measure, the Clinton administration looks not heroic but odious.” (84) Of course, as the
“co-president,” Hillary Clinton was involved in, and supported, all aspects of the Clinton
presidency.
Frank’s chapter on the Obama presidency, referring to the Great Recession and what came
after, is “How the Crisis went to Waste.” (139) Frank notes all the things which Obama
might have done or tried to do, but did not. Obama brought in leaders of finance and
business, top professional economists and reputable experts in all fields, due to his high
regard for specialists and the educated—and they cautioned against any innovative
initiatives. He was cautious in all his proposals and desperately sought to make common
cause with the immovable, fanatical, Republicans. “…Obama and his team didn’t act
forcefully to press an equality-minded agenda in those days and in the years that followed
because they didn’t want to….” (158)
Frank goes into details (the limited initiatives on the recession, the rejection of
Medicare for all and the compromises which whittled down the Affordable Care Act, the
attack on teachers’ unions, the massive deportations of undocumented immigrants,
rejections of unions’ programs, and of course the war waging), but I will not go into
these here. There is a rationalization which says that Obama meant well but was frustrated
by the Republicans. But the Democrats had both houses of Congress for the first two years
of Obama’s administration. Even after they lost the House, they still had the Senate but
they gave the Republicans a veto (the “filibuster” which made them need 60% of the vote
instead of 51%). And Obama continued to try to make nice to the Republicans because he
really did not want to fight them. “He and [his team] didn’t do many of the things their
supporters wanted them to do because they didn’t believe in doing these things.” (158)
Now Hillary Clinton is running for office, claiming that she will carry on the successes
of the Obama years and do even better. Frank summarizes her strongly pro-business history.
He notes that “she has made a great effort in the course of the last year to impress
voters with her feelings for working people. But it’s hard, given her record, not to feel
that this was only under pressure from primary opponents to her left. Absent such
political force, Hillary tends to gravitate back to a version of feminism that is a
straight synonym of ‘meritocracy,’ that is concerned almost exclusively with the struggle
of professional women to rise as high as their talents will take them. No ceilings!” (243)
Her program—not her election rhetoric, but her actual program—has little to offer those
women who are stuck on the floors of the giant corporations.
At the July Democratic National Convention, delegates from across the country gathered.
They included many young people and working class people who supported Bernie Sanders, who
had identified as a “democratic socialist” advocating a “political revolution.” Meanwhile,
wealthy donors congregated in suites to raise big bucks for their candidate, Hillary
Clinton. “Democratic donors congregated in a few reserved hotels and shuttled between
private receptions with A-list elected officials….Center City Philadelphia evoked the
world as it still often is: a stratified society with privilege and access determined by
wealth.” (NY Times, Confessore & Chozick, 7/29/2016; A1) This was the real convention.
Conclusion
In this fine book, Thomas Frank offers little hope. “Even if Democrats do succeed in
winning the presidency in 2016 and the same old team gets to continue on into the future,
it won’t save us….Their leadership faction has no intention of doing what the situation
requires.” (255) Their elitist rejection of the working class will continue to make it
difficult for them to effectively oppose the right wing. In the current election, Hillary
Clinton has to work hard to stay barely ahead of Donald Trump, despite his crackpot
policies and bizarre behavior.
Frank’s liberalism leads him to misunderstand much that is going on. The Democratic Party
was never a “Party of the People,” nor a “left” party, as he claims. It has always been a
party of the ruling rich. In the New Deal, its aim was to save capitalism from itself, as
the system collapsed and the working class rebelled. The New Deal did not end the Great
Depression—it took World War Two, an inter-imperialist war, to end it. The working class
became more quiescent during the post-war prosperity (built partially through a vast
spending on armaments). The unions became conservatized and bureaucratic, tied into the
Democrats. In the gigantic corporations and the state, there grew a large layer of
middle-class professional-managerial personnel.
Around 1970 (the time when Frank sees a change in the class orientation of the Democrats)
the post-war boom came to an end. The economy turned increasingly stagnant and
unprofitable. Money switched from investing primarily in the stagnant “real economy”
(which made things and provided services) to speculation and “finance” (a fictitious
economy in which money and paper are exchanged without producing things). To improve
overall profitability, an attack on the working class began—to lower their wages, break
their unions, and cut their social services. The Republicans were (and are) the cutting
edge of the attack, but the Democrats are also part of it, pushing the unions and workers
out of their coalition and following anti-working class policies.
Frank does not see a way out. “There is little the rest of us can do, given the current
legal arrangements of this country, to build a vital third-party movement or to revive
organized labor, the one social movement that is committed by its nature to pushing back
against the inequality trend.” (256) His only goal is to expose the limitations of the
leadership of the Democratic Party.
I agree that the leadership of the Democrats—or even an alternate leadership, such as
Sanders offered—will not be enough to stop the continuing decline and decay of U.S.
capitalism. Nor will the defeat of Trump end the right-wing threat. (Note similar
phenomena happening in European politics, with different parties and personalities.)
But I have not lost hope. I do not expect anything from “third-parties” but I see the
beginnings of a revival of organized labor. And there are indications, even in the
conservative United States, of an increasing radicalization and militancy among People of
Color, youth, LGBT people, women, immigrants, and others who are dissatisfied with the raw
deal they have been getting from all sections of the U.S. capitalist class, whether
plutocrats or the upper professional-managers. A popular revolution to take away the
wealth of the capitalists is not around the corner, nor inevitable at any time, but the
possibilities are improving.
References
Frank, Thomas (2016). Listen, Liberal: Or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?
NY: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt.
written for www.Anarkismo.net
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/29505
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Message: 2
After 58 days of strike action by the cleaners at 100 Wood Street, UVW is pleased to be
able to issue the following statement: ---- “The dispute at 100 Wood Street between the
cleaners, members of United Voices of the World the union, and their employer, Thames
Cleaning and Support Services Limited, has now been resolved. As a result we are pleased
to announce that all advertised protests have now been cancelled and the picket line at
100 Wood Street has now been lifted.” ---- This was the longest strike in the history of
the City of London and the longest strike by an entirely migrant workforce in the UK. ----
Thank you everyone for all your amazing support and solidarity! This wouldn’t have been
possible without you!
from UVW facebook here
More info on Living Wage struggles here
http://www.classwarparty.org.uk/protest-cancelled-uvw-strike-100-wood-street/
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Message: 3
On 2. 8. 2016 began trial in the case Phoenix. Trial Chamber Chairwoman Han Hrncírová all
the time behaving like a nervous teacher just before the holidays. We felt like pupils
fifth A. ---- day One ---- We chose the class of which it is otherwise very interested, so
they went in staff (three-member Court of Appeal and prosecutors Flint), members of the
Parent-Teacher Association (lawyers) and all our 5th A. Excluded were one infant. In the
5th A new teaching is used terrorist method (Phoenix), so that teaching came to see and
journalists. ---- Nejzlobivejší pupils sat as always in the front row. Hrncírová did
attendance. She said that naughty pupils were present in person and Extra-Curricular
Interest Ignacák was "properly presented" (led him heavily armed prisoner escort the dog).
Then she said flint to start teaching. Teaching material was subject to indictment, and he
talked about connecting students from the front bench in the international alliance (CCF /
IRF), a class giggled. "If you do not rest, and the soil outside," she told us Hrncírová.
Flint read about the burning of police, said the word "penis". And he said the word
"molotov". Then she began Hrncírová cause. The board went first Pavlovská. She said that
was expressed, but nothing will respond. She talked a lot about Peter and Robert, who in
this teaching method called police provocateurs. The jerky teacher asked her if Peter owl
or agent. He responded perfectly.
Calling continued and Hrncírová with everyone asking if the paper you have in your hand
will read it (read the paper may in fact with us just teachers). The board went Zezulová
who forgot pupil. Does frequently watch. Just knew that her classmates are playing the game.
Then she went to the blackboard Šcambová. The most talked about male. Hrncírová but he did
not include the students, even if he knows anything about the bottles together in what
were digging. Induced said that if she had on a trip with some bottles of classmates said
he has to guard, guarded by a dog. Then ringing for a little break and let us Hrncírová
the hallway.
* * *
After the break, he went to the blackboard Ignacák. They tried him out as samýho ZEZULOVÁ.
"We played the game, I caught it in violation of the law and the provocation of crime," he
said. Hrncírová wanted to read a name, but could not.
The board went Sova. He spoke at large. An agent or how police provocateurs wanted to
defend the rights of animals and ate at the roadhouse sirloin cooked from dead animals. In
his report too it was said that provocateurs wanted Nazis allegedly breaking legs. "That's
about the style police, but not ours. Sorry. "He said that the police say that there is a
network of revolutionary cells," and he knows about her fart "(no wonder they have to sit
in the first pew when this speaks during testing). The paper concluded by explaining that
the anarchist movement protects against the elements, such as the police. Then it was the
big break.
* * *
After the break, was the substance of interpretation. Hrncírová mad, because of stupid
reading the paper and someone from SRPŠ it to my attention. Then began a little batter
into trídnicí department. Interpretation of the theme, we had reports of experts
(forensic) you read the syllabus for the subjects ballistics (ammunition, explosives,
pyrotechnics) Health - psychiatry and psychology, cybernetics. The board went several
times Sova.
* * *
Even today, we did not write dictations because Hrncírová sometimes can not read difficult
words. She really did not go insurekcionismus, environmental voice of anarchopacifism,
administrative, ostracism or subversion.
* * *
Extra-Curricular Interest on Ignacák perhaps sat down, only allowed to drink in class. And
it all just drink water. When she finished school and went from class, in the hallway
stood a police dog. As he saw Pazourek angrily barking. Flint said: "I guess I'm not
popular." One of our 5th and called to him: "Even the dog knows that the application is
built on shaky legs."
day two
Today in class dealt little clothing. Submachine gunners insisted that he present a
schoolgirl on the last bench to take off hats, mediation and asked the janitor (Judicial
Guard). Even on the bulletin board in the courthouse but they say that the pupil can keep
headgear, so it retained. At his insistence, the new arranged for removing caps Hrncírová.
* * *
Interpretation of new substances in the midst concerned insurrectionary anarchism and the
fifth column. Picture of the fifth column we find eg. The calf pupil Owls. The figure
falls between key cog wheels, which would logically occurred jams. Sometimes, instead of
using the keys carrots. The board went Sova. Key and carrots complement the book and fork.
Hrncírová read style aliases, who complained about the roommate who is very wrong. The
class laughed. Hrncírová us as always admonished, just as you would normally say that the
land behind the door, but let vacate the hall.
* * *
From the following audioexpertízy we can not remember anything, and nobody went blackboard.
Hrncírová said, what's next to come out of the spa: testing agents VO-0049, VO-0101,
VO-0105, no. 312 Alexandra mask (no, we actually do not), frontal interpretations external
teachers (forensic experts) in the field of transport and Forensic Medicine, testing
witnesses, kite CDs (the music). The board went Sova. He proposed to come and Pálfyová
Commissioner and Chief Inspector Korinek. Then he went to the blackboard still Ignacák
that he would like to try out more recordings, especially those in the summer. Flint said
that the homework SROC probably true. Then the bell rang at the big break.
* * *
The last hour before the holidays was addressed poškola (Defendant's request for release
from custody). Flint began, then was called notorious Extra-Curricular Interest Ignacák,
then spoke nicely member SRPŠ (his lawyer). The class applauded. Then we had all the class
and stayed there only Hrncírová and two others. When we let go to class, Hrncírová and the
two confirmed poškolu (rejected a request for release from custody). He reasoned that the
Court of Appeal directed the opinion of the Supreme Court and the guarantee him enough.
Class hummed, Hrncírová shouted, "Quiet!"
Even when the bell rang, I did not want us in the class, because we're having to leave the
Extra-Curricular Interest kulometcíkama. We stayed until we Hrncírová oust the hallway.
When he was taken away by the escort car, at least we cried out to him.
Holidays will be until October 3 to 9.30. We'll be in our new classroom, they call it the
courtroom and can be found on the third floor no. Three hundred and first
Related Links: The Case of Phoenix in court: an agent we all knew in Prague court began
with alleged leftist terrorists. They want to attack the train Kauza Phoenix: small Czech
monstrous main trial: Peter S. et al, or they call it terrorism
https://www.afed.cz/text/6498/povidka-ze-soudu
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Message: 4
The movement against the Labour Law is double sided. Less than mobilizing the great social
struggles against the CPE or in defense of pensions, it is nevertheless hopeful its
duration (four months already!) And the radical turn of the fight. ---- For our class
enemies, the instrumentalization of history is useful to try to belittle those who
question their legitimacy. For them the case is heard because the current struggles are
minority in 2006 against the First Employment Contract, CPE) and in 2010 (against breakage
pensions) and the country is not blocked. It is undeniable that the difficulty in mass and
block the capitalist machine is real. ---- This is explained by the fact that France has 5
million to 6 million unemployed-including his nearly half are not compensated-es, a
massive number of workers, its precarious, a union repression that helped weaken capacity
of struggle and organization of the working world, but also by the lack of alternative
making sense for a significant part of the oppressed are.
Provided these arguments batons rained on by the power can not hide the disarray that is his.
Unprecedented radical face "left"
Comparing 2016 to 2010, 2003 or even 1995 and 1986, the first time that a challenge as
strong and determined exerted against the second right embodied by a PS to implode who
dares say "left". And this is the first lesson of this cycle of struggle and protest
initiated on 9 March. In this sense we can speak of clarification. The latter extends the
union spectrum. A fiction of the Inter dominated by the tandem CGT-CFDT succeeded an
alliance of seven organizations, not without contradictions, but at least clearly marked
by the slogan of withdrawal of the Labor Law.
This clarification has taken place under the leadership of individuals, collectives and
organizations, stakeholders and not of unionism. This is true for the 9th March for Night
stand which promoted the convergence of struggles for many union teams and for calling the
union "is blocking everything! "Who helped build a majority of ideas in favor of the
general strike and the blocking of the economy in the protest camp. This weighed on the
confederal CGT congress in April and the Inter, and even if they have not openly called
for the general strike, they are more favored the development of strikes and an overall
movement as before.
A questioning of representative democracy
But one of the biggest advances is the fact that the challenge exceeds the questioning of
the Labour Law. This is related to the fact that the system of political representation is
to end and that capitalism, which never ceases to charge his attacks, is increasingly
targeted. Clashes with police and mayhem targeted against capitalist signs are not new,
but their scale has helped to strengthen the level of conflict.
All these advances offer hope for the future regardless of the outcome of the struggle
against the labor law. The mobilization has awakened both the will to fight, the
self-organizing ability (albeit insufficient) and the desire for utopia, self-management
and direct democracy.
The challenge of the fight
It is around these ideas but also through the feminist, environmentalist and anti-racist
struggles that these ideas build majorities. Powerful breakthroughs were made with the PS
and yellow unionism. It remains to subvert the political field more accentuating the
crisis of institutions and projects within the field of governance.
2017 In this sense, can be an opportunity not to participate in the electoral farce
disaster, but to take initiatives likely to strengthen the anti-capitalist and
extra-parliamentary left. For this it will be creative and creative in our revolts, our
words and our actions, but also to establish and build everywhere combative unions and
libertarian organization capable of carrying a project of emancipation. It is this
challenge that Alternative Libertaire wants to find ways to succeed in changing scale.
Laurent Esquerre (northeast Paris)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?2016-2010-2003-Ruptures-porteuses
------------------------------
Message: 5
Again a left government showed its real face: On wednesday morning they evicted three
squats in the city of Thessaloniki, which were being used as shelter for refugees.
With this action they are destroying selforganized structures that are more than nessecary
not just because of the fake left government in Greece but also because of national
isolation politics of the European Union. With their violent forms of repression in
Thessaloniki like in Berlin they try to shut us down but we won’t be quite!
We want to show our solidarity with all refugees, political prisoners and people fighting
for freedom and human dignity in greece and all over the world. ---- “NO GOVERNMENT IS
LIKE NO GOVERNMENT” ---- Wir möchten unsere Solidarität mit allen Refugees, politischen
Gefangenen und Menschen die für Freiheit und Menschenwürde in Griechenland und der ganzen
Welt kämpfen teilen. ?#?freebalu? ?#?freeaaron?
Über Anarchistische Föderation Rhein/Ruhr
https://fda-ifa.org/solidaritaet-aus-koeln-mit-geraeumten-besetzungen-in-griechenland/
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