Today's Topics:
1. black rose fed: SYRIAN WAR IN YEAR 7: THE AGE OF CYBER
WARFARE (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. wsm.ie: Solidarity Times is now only visible you are in
Ireland (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #282 - Utilities: A March
22 at the height of the attacks ? (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. anarkismo.net: Book Review: Radical Unionism by LAMA - AWSM
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Ireland, derry anarchists: New Derry anarchist badges now on
sale (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. anarkismo.net: Will the revolution be
anarchist/libertarian-communist/socialist? by Ilan S.
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Demonstrations against Syria's Assad Regime in Argentina. pic. ---- We are reposting this
critical analysis of the struggle over representation of the Syrian Revolution online
which engages with pro-Assad and pro-Russia vantage points, as well as ‘neutral' and
pro-solidarity perspectives. This was originally published by the Alliance of Middle
Eastern Socialists, 13 April 2018. ---- By Joanna Aziz ---- We have now entered the 7th
year of the Syrian war. We find ourselves caught between the crossfire of two battles; one
that is annihilating forms of life in Syria, the other is the battle of ideas conflicting
in cyber spheres. In recent years, the virtual world has become a defining space to
exercise free thought and political debate. But as the Cambridge Analytica scandal
revealed, the virtual world just like the material world, under capitalism is sold to the
highest bidder. This makes it susceptible to extortion, exploitation and manipulation.
Media propaganda and Russian-backed disinformation campaigns have successfully manipulated
public opinion and paralyzed humanitarian response to the ailing Syrian population. What
started with a group of highschool boys in the small city of Daraa in Syria has ended in
one of the deadliest wars of the 21st century, a safe space for dictators and a playground
for global powers.
During the past 7 years, the human casualties of the Syrian war has amounted to over
500,000 deaths including more than 3000 this year alone, 6 million internally displaced
and 5 million refugees world wide. The Syrian Network of Human Rights (SNHR) has reported
an estimate of70,000 barrel bombs dropped by the Assad Regime since 2012. The use of
arbitrary and discriminatory weapons has extended to the deployment of chemical gas such
as sarin and phosphorus gas. Rescue workers have reported at least 70 people killed and
1000 injured in a recent chlorine attack on the city of Douma earlier this month of April,
2018. The Syrian government, supported by Russia and Iran, has responded that such claims
are "farcical." Moreover fabrications propagated by the U.S. Social media has been
utilized as a mechanism to disseminate fake news resulting in the saturation of empirical
truths across the internet. This left many people in the East and West in a state of
confusion and skepticism when it comes Syria.
In this article, we will expand on 3 main stands adopted by people in relation to the
Syrian war.
1. The pro-Assad anti-U.S imperialism Stand
A brief look at online discourse will show that many have adopted a pro-Assad anti-U.S
imperialism stand. This is due to 3 main reasons:
Overall decrease in trust in institutions and mainstream media
Syrian and Russian-backed disinformation campaigns
US history of instigating wars in the Middle East
During the past few years, we have witnessed a drastic decrease in trust in government and
mainstream media. In fact, nearly 70% people worry about fake news being used as "a
weapon.". This runs especially true for the U.S which saw a 37 point drop in trust across
all institutions according to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer . Richard Edelam, CEO of
the Edelman company, attributes this ‘crisis of trust' not to economic issues but ‘lack of
objective facts and rational discourse.'
This was the main incentive behind Russian disinformation campaigns. That is to populate
the online world with conflicting narratives so that the value of objective facts
decreases. From what we can deduce from online opinion on the Syrian chemical attacks and
the White Helmets , the formula works.
News channels like RT and Sputnik have repeatedly dismissed chemical attacks by the Syrian
Regime as fake news. The news media proceeded to cultivate an understanding that the lies
about chemical attacks are attempts by the U.S to enter Syria under an imperialist agenda.
Videos shared on social media by pro-Assad outlets like Syrian News1 present the chemical
attack as a fake scene acted out by children who are instructed by anti-government
‘terrorists.' It's not difficult to spot the differences between real videos of the
chemical attack and the one published by Syrian News1. For one, the message delivery of
the video shared by the pro-Assad regime isn't exactly subtle. Huge pro-revolution flags
are visible in the background and close-up shots of children fake twitching spoon feed the
audience. Secondary, examining the real video shows infants of 3 months lying in a
lifeless state for over a minute. That is impossible to fake unless that child was in
reality dead, in this case, murdered. Unfortunately, many people are sharing the Syrian
News1 video believing the chemical attacks are fake and indeed a ploy by Trump.
Syria News1
Fake News pushing for war again
Fake News pushing for war againWho do they work for?via H. Rodham? @SavedRepublic
Posted by Syrian news 1 on Sunday, April 8, 2018
Douma Chemical Attack
The poisonous gases again on Ghouta Today, the world lies in the accountability of Bashar
al-Assad
Posted by xxxxx on Saturday, April 7, 2018
The Syria Campaign and The Guardian have both reported on how smear campaigns connected to
pro-Kremlin troll accounts manufactured a divisive online climate regarding The Syrian
Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmet. A tool called Hoaxy was developed to chart
the spread of misinformation online. It found that tweets attacking the White Helmets by
linking them to terrorist organizations have reached an estimated 56 million people. The
report also exposes how ‘rumours, conspiracy theories and half-truths bubble to the top of
YouTube, Google and Twitter search algorithms.'
This was the narrative dominating online media making it the main source of information
being consumed by people. Combining falsehoods with a realized history of US-led
imperialist intervention in the Middle East led many to support Bashar Al Assad. When
compared with US imperialism and terrorist organizations, this narrative paints Bashar al
Assad as the lesser of two evils and a combatant against imperialist agents.
Strangely enough, this stand has been adopted by Left and Right wing political parties.
Author and columnist Ruslan Trad has condemned this stand and proclaimed it hypocritical.
"Historically, the Western left has sided with the oppressed Palestinians and such choice
couldn't be more logical -yet- modern anti-imperialists claim that Russia is necessary to
keep the balance. Do we really need to choose between the US and Russian imperial doctrines?
Ths stand fails to acknowledge the oppressive reign of the Assad regime and the struggles
that lead to grassroot movement in quest for self-determination in Syria.
2. The Silent Stand
The scale of suffering experienced in Syria is insurmountable. Doctors have coined a new
term "Human Devastation Syndrome" to better explain it. They stated that Syria's children
have experienced more trauma, physical and emotional pain, than any medical professionals
or possibly soldiers have seen during wartime.
"We have talked to children who have seen dismantled human beings that used to be their
parents, or their siblings A lot of them have physical impairments. Amputations. Severe
injuries. And they've made it to the refugee camp somehow. The suffering of Syrian
children then continues as they endure poverty and exploitation of life in a refugee
camp," said Doctor Hamza.
Earlier this week images of men, women and children suffocating with pinpoint pupils,
convulsing, twitching and foaming at mouth have surfaced. Video of piles of dead bodies as
a result of the recent chemical attack circulated the web yet silence is echoed back. For
the past 7 years, the International Community has watched the humanitarian crisis in Syria
intensify and worsen without interference. Some people are aware of the situation yet do
not register its impact and refrain from taking any action.
Satellite images and drone footage of Raqqa shows an inhabitable city in devastated ruins.
Footage from MiddleEast Eye
On the individual level, this phenomenon can be explained by two psychological
perspectives; Bystander Effect and Compassion fatigue. Bystander effect is a social
psychological phenomenon detailing the unwillingness of a person to intervene during a
time of emergency or crisis. Diffusion of responsibility and acting correctly become an
inhibiting catalyst preventing many from recognizing the veracity of a situation. We have
experienced this form of stifled response in other massacre cases like the Rwandan
genocide which oversaw the murder of 800,000 people.
Compassion Fatigue is the notion that individuals have a limited capacity of empathy
towards others before they get desensitized. In his latest article, CNN correspondent Nick
Paton states, ‘The West needs to stop pretending it's heartbroken over the Syrian conflict
and just accept that it doesn't care.' He further explains that serious action has not
been taken because the events (in Syria) are not personally affecting people's lives.
I would like to extend Paton's proposition and suggest that the current overlaying
inaction is due to a eurocentric perspective, rise in nationalism and anti-refugee sentiment.
3. The Solidarity Stand
The case of the Syrian revolution is one for the books. Amidst the suffering is an
undeniable fighting spirit. One that is finding contagion and support across continents.
The values of the revolution that lie in liberty and cooperation against a despotic regime
is signaling the possibility of alternative systems.
Below is a collection of statements from activists and people expressing their solidarity
with the Syrian people and their revolt.
Lyon, France
Moscow, Russia
Barcelona, Spain
Belgium
Azerbaijan
We recommend reading our other blog posts related to Syria and Rojava or the related
article by Frieda Afary, also from the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists: "Victory of
Assad Regime in Ghouta is Major Defeat for Those Fighting Racism and Capitalist
Authoritarianism Globally."
http://blackrosefed.org/syrian-war-in-year-7-the-age-of-cyber-warfare/
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Message: 2
A few minutes ago we made Solidarity Times Facebook page invisible to people who are
outside of Ireland. This post explains why we did this, but remember you can still see all
the content by following our WSM Ireland page so don't panic! ---- The image is the
example we are going to use to illustrate what we write here. Its our reports from the
wildcat secondary picketing action by Bus Eireann strikers at the end of March 2017,
posted as news broke this was happening. We published more or less identical stories on
the strike to both our pagse but as you can see from he graphic above the number of people
each story reached was very different, in particular note the small page reached much
more. ---- At the time Solidarity Time had just under 10,000 follower but the story
reached almost 25,000 people. For every two followers of ST we reached 5 people.
At the time the WSM page had 66,000 followers but the story only reached 8,500 people. For
every 30 followers of the WSM page we only reached 4 people,
The difference in the number of people reached per follower is about 21 (or 2100%). Which
is huge. And as we are all volunteers and no one is getting paid here the only reason we
write & publish is to reach people so if something has that big an impact we have to act.
What happened here is something Facebook called Edgerank. It's a calculation Facebook does
on every page and every story posted to every page that determines how many people will be
shown that story ‘reached'. Essentially YOU generate our Edgerank score both for the page
and for each story by deciding to engage or not engage with each story we post that
Facebook shows you.
Engagement means clicking Like, Share or commenting on the story when you see it. When you
do that
A) Facebook adds to the Edgerank score of the page meaning you will be more likely to see
future stories from us
B) Facebook adds to the Edgerank score of the story meaning that it will show that story
to more people later on in the day.
If a lot of people are shown a story but don't engage with it Facebook decides its not an
interesting story so shows it to fewer people. More damaging if this happens with a
several stories Facebook decides the page is not that interesting and so shows all stories
to fewer people. So you can see why Edgerank score is important.
Back at the start of 2015 we became aware that the WSM page which had a huge following of
around 50,000 people had a problem. If we posted a story about a big international
struggle, say Palestine, it got a lot of engagement and a lot of people where then shown
it. If we posted a story about anarchist history the same thing happened. But if we posted
a story about a strike in Ireland there was very little engagement and very few people saw
that story. This was bad news for us as a lot of our day to day work is organising here in
Ireland and we clearly need to be able to reach people in Ireland.
We knew that 70% of our following on that page were people outside Ireland so it made
sense that they would be interested in a big international struggle or anarchist history
(a lot of them are anarchists). And it also made sense that they might not understand the
detail or significant of a local strike and almost certainly would have nothing to say
about it and no reason to share it.
We knew a bit about Edgerank so we decided to launch a page that would just be directed at
people in Ireland just telling them about struggles here. This is what became Solidarity
Times. We were careful not to promote the page to people outside Ireland, we avoided
sharing to pages & groups with big international followings. When we share stories to our
profile we often set them only to be visible to people in Ireland.
This worked very well, as the Bus Eireann strike result demonstrates we are able to reach
21 times more people and almost all of these people are living in Ireland. We can get
stories about Irish struggle to ‘go viral' even though they are pretty meaningless to
people outside Ireland. We need to retain that ability.
It appears about 8,000 of our 10,000 followers live in Ireland. We'd guess that maybe 50%
of the remaining 2000 are people from Ireland who have migrated out of the country in the
last few years. And the other 50% are people who have never lived in Ireland but who found
and followed the page either because they are anarchists and so interested in WSM or
because they are activists around a global issue that has had a manifestation in Ireland
which we reported on. So for instance people who oppose oil companies might have followed
us because we reported on the struggle against Shell in Rossport. And right now pro-choice
activists in other counties are following us because we are reporting on the struggle to
get rid of the 8th amendment.
And there perhaps you see our problem. There are a lot of pro-choice activists
internationally, hundred of thousands if not millions. As May approaches our local
struggle to Repeal the 8th is going to be on all of their radars and if we are continue
our work we will be an excellent source of news that is not being covered elsewhere. Our
80% ‘in Ireland' following could be very very quickly reduced to a tiny percentage and
once the referendum is over those new follows are not likely to be that interested in our
coverage of other struggles here. Meaning our future stories are no longer able to reach
many people. Our previous experience suggests that could be a huge drop off, we could lose
95% of our reach.
So we are acting now by changing our page settings to make posts only visible to people
living in Ireland. We'd prefer another solution and we may well remove that restriction
after the referendum but for now its what is going to happen in a couple of days. But if
you are outside Ireland you can still get the same stories by following our WSM Ireland
page where we will repost content from this page. In fact if you aren't from Ireland you
may find the versions there more useful as we often add some explanation when we copy over
material to explain local terms and contexts. And - but normally a bit later - we will add
the same stories to our website - which in the current period acts as an archive.
https://wsm.ie/c/solidarity-times-only-visible-ireland
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Message: 3
By contributing to lower wages through the increase of the CSG, the increase of the civil
pension contribution rates, the reinstatement of the days of deficiencies and the wage
freeze planned for 2018, the government is counting on the departure officials. ---- The
government is demonstrating its commitment to destroying public services by cutting
120,000 government positions through voluntary redundancy plans and increased recourse to
contract workers in all sectors of the public service. Added to this is the amplification
of public service delegation to the private sector and / or the drastic reduction of
certain missions. ---- In the hospital, many services are already mobilized to protest the
budget restrictions, leading professionals to work in conditions of reception of patients
worthy of the nineteenth century.century. Hospital staff also have to deal with the
suicides of their colleagues and burn-out, which the government refuses to recognize as an
occupational disease. Activity-based pricing, merchandising, competition between
establishments and the fall in resources organized by previous governments were not enough
in the eyes of Macron and his henchmen: they also organize the package care path, stalled
on the lowest costs. Not a penny more for health, and 30% of the activities must
disappear. Sleeve effect, to hide his criminal abuses,
Strike rate up to 25 %
In the National Education, the same demands on wages. In addition, the reform of high
school and high schools is disastrous with a challenge to the status of teachers, a
decrease in schedules and therefore posts, increased inequality between students and
between institutions. As for the selection at the university, it is the guarantee of the
destruction of public higher education for the benefit of the private sector, which will
receive moderately well-financed graduates and graduates. In the public finance sector,
16,000 to 18,000 jobs are expected to disappear.
In this context, March 22 was fairly well followed with 300,000 protesters and strike
rates of up to 25 %. However, we still have a street demonstration in support of an
inter-union that asks the government to resume a social dialogue he does not want.
The stakes are thus clearly identified for the trade unionists of struggle: to build the
mobilization by holding general assemblies in the services and establishments, to assert
local and national demands, to engage in a multiplicity of actions decided as close as
possible to the field by the incumbents and precarious themselves and themselves.
Marie-Line (AL Lyon)
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Services-publics-Un-22-mars-a-la-hauteur-des-attaques
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Message: 4
This is a critical review of 'Radical Unionism' by Ralph Darlington, arguing that while it
contains useful descriptive elements regarding the early Syndicalist movement, it also has
severe analytical weaknesses. ---- BOOK REVIEW ---- R. Darlington, Radical Unionism: The
Rise & Fall of Revolutionary Syndicalism (Chicago, 2013) ---- Syndicalism isn't known by
most people today. It sounds like ‘syndicates' and therefore English speakers might say
it's something vaguely connected with the mafia or maybe groups of people who like playing
lotto. It is actually a form of revolutionary or radical unionism that flourished
internationally (including in Aotearoa) for a period of about 20 years at the start of the
20th century. ---- Hundreds of thousands of workers in a wide range of employment joined
syndicalist unions. They struggled for both immediate gains and for the longer term goal
of a total social and economic transformation. They wanted the overthrow of the capitalist
economic system and its replacement by a co-operative society controlled by workers as a
whole. They had successes and in some countries such as Spain, forms of syndicalism played
a significant role in major revolutionary outbreaks, though in the end they failed to
reach their maximum goal and made mistakes.
Ralph Darlington is an academic who has written a number of articles and books about
Syndicalism. In ‘Radical Unionism' he divides the book into two parts, the first is
largely descriptive and the second analytical. In the first half of the book he seeks to
fill some of what he perceives as the gaps and weaknesses of much of the existing academic
writing on the topic. For example, rather than writing individual country accounts, he
attempts to provide an overarching international view of the movement via case studies of
six countries (USA, Britain, Ireland, Italy, France, Spain) (pp. 6-8) . It is possible to
complain that the author has neglected to include some interesting or important
geographical locations in his review of international syndicalism. South America had a
strong movement and Australia and New Zealand were part of the scope of events too.
However, there has to be some limitations in order to avoid a work being unwieldy or
tipping into critical incoherence. In addition, Darlington has chosen places with a wide
range of experiences in the history of syndicalism and he has not gone for obscure or soft
options in his choices (p. 9).
As noted, the first half of the book is essentially descriptive. The first chapter for
example describes aspects of syndicalist philosophy and practice. These include their
emphasis on class war (pp. 19-21), rejection of parliament under capitalism (pp. 22-24),
autonomy from political parties (pp. 25-28), direct action (pp. 32-39) and the role of the
General Strike as a revolutionary technique (pp. 39-42). When he does venture explicit
biases, the author provides a largely sympathetic account of the Syndicalists. For
example, he defends them against those who wish to marginalise the importance of the
movement due to never gaining the support of the majority of unionised workers. As he
states, it may be true they failed to get numerical majorities in most cases but their
moderate and reformist opponents didn't either. In fact the syndicalists achieved
remarkable influence over working class struggle despite their sometimes small numbers (p.
150). There are also instances where Darlington makes valid and thought provoking
criticisms that still have relevance for today's radical movements. Syndicalists were
often weak in relation to gender roles and race issues, for example (p. 104-111).
Darlington's sympathy towards the syndicalists, needs to be understood and approached with
caution. Syndicalism had an eclectic range of influences upon it, including to a large
degree anarchism but the author identifies a Marxist inspired strand as being important
too. Early in his text Darlington acknowledges he is a Leninist. Since Leninism sees
itself as Marxist and Darlington has identified a Marxist component to syndicalism, his
approach to the movement could not therefore be wholly negative. Yet as a Leninist, he
views syndicalism as an inadequate transitional form of struggle. This is not, as some
cruder Marxist theorists have claimed because its proponents represented a primitive stage
of economic activity, but because it failed politically. He patronisingly explains the
latter's two decades of predominance as being because it "...emerged at a time of
stagnation in socialist thought, in the gap between pioneering revolutionary Marxist ideas
and the triumph of the Leninist concept of the revolutionary party that reached its
culmination in the Russian Revolution of 1917" (p. 61).
This leads to the second half of Darlington's book. In this part his Leninist conception
of politics seriously skews his explanatory credibility. Again, he is unable to completely
jettison sympathy for elements of syndicalism but ultimately denies its value due to the
alleged superiority of his own politics (p. 279). The writer follows the Trotskyist
variant of Leninism. He therefore tries to deny any continuity between those with initial
ascendency in the Bolshevik party and the Stalinists who soon rose to the fore once Lenin
was dead and Trotsky exiled. Thus he claims that Lenin and Trotsky engaged in a
"...relatively comradely approach...aimed at trying to win over the syndicalists through
fraternal argument on the one hand..." whereas those who later sided with Stalin had a
"...bureaucratic sectarian bullying[approach]on the other" (p195). The saintly Lenin
engaged in "patient dialogue" (p. 197) with syndicalists, while others engaged in
vituperation. Anarchist claims of persecution by the Bolsheviks is characterised by
Darlington merely as "alleged" (p. 173 & 192) as if there was not a shred of evidence to
support the claims. Further, he posits the standard Trotskyist position that the Bolshevik
regime degenerated only under Stalin. He claims it wasn't until 1927-29 that "Workers were
denied the right to strike and trade unions lost any independence from the state" (p. 287)
as if this phenomenon came out of nowhere.
Darlington's crude black and white separation between Lenin and Trotsky on the one hand
and Zinoviev and other pro-Stalin Bolsheviks, is denied by the behaviour of the Bolsheviks
collectively from their very assumption of power. They manipulated organs of power such as
the soviets that were established during the revolutionary period or simply shut them
down. Rival left-wing parties were intimidated into submission and strikes were crushed
using the secret police or army. Further, dissident leftists such as the sailors of
Kronstadt were in the approving words of Trotsky "shot down like partridges". The
anarchists of the Ukraine were also militarily attacked by Trotsky in his capacity as head
of the Red Army during the Civil War period. All of this has been well documented for
decades. Darlington's picture of a gentle Lenin and Trotsky trying to quietly win people
over by persuasion strains credibility to breaking point!
Darlington is correct however in highlighting the success of the Bolsheviks in taking
power in Russia as part of the reason for the decline in support for Syndicalism. The
victory of the Bolsheviks and eventual consolidation of their regime caused huge
re-assessments on the part of every kind of political current internationally, from the
extreme Right to Liberals, Social Democrats and the Left. Those who had been involved in
the syndicalist movements in Ireland, USA, England, France, Italy and Spain also had to
consider how they could approach this new force. Many succumbed to the attractiveness of a
regime that had achieved power and used many progressive sounding buzz words to describe
itself. The Bolsheviks had been clever at various points to lure potential supporters from
outside their small numbers. It is understandable some syndicalists would be among those
who succumbed to that allure. As detailed above, subsequent events were to prove the
latter sadly mistaken. While Syndicalists failed to promote a strategy of seizing state
power as an objective, the conduct of the Bolsheviks and the way the revolution played
out, show this as more a strength than the weakness Darlington claims.
It needs to be noted that syndicalism was more closely aligned to anarchism than any other
political movement in terms of its methods and goals. It was in fact the
anarcho-syndicalist variety of syndicalism in Spain that gained the biggest number of
supporters of any of the nationally based movements. It also briefly had the greatest
opportunity of putting its ideas into practice. This came in the middle of 1936, in
reaction to a right-wing military uprising. It saw thousands of ordinary workers take
control of factories and other workplaces and successfully manage them in their own name
for a period. It was primarily militants from the anarcho-syndicalist CNT union who took
the lead in this process.
Despite some political affinity, syndicalism in its various forms has been criticised from
the outset by various anarchists. In the ‘classic' period of birth and growth at the turn
of the 20th century, syndicalism was criticised by the likes of the Italian activist
Malatesta, during the events in Spain by dissident anarchist factions, and in more recent
times by people such as Murray Bookchin and Joseph Bonanno. It is not the place within
this current book review to detail the full extent of these criticisms. In brief they
include the idea that syndicalism can never be fully revolutionary because of its tendency
to compromise with the status quo in pursuit of a degenerated trade union mentality that
wishes to achieve immediate gains. In that sense its role is to negotiate the rate of
exploitation with the capitalists rather than truly overthrow them. Another relates to the
idea that syndicalism is no longer valid due to structural changes in post-industrial
capitalism. Interested readers are welcome to investigate in greater detail the views of
the anarchist thinkers mentioned, to get a fuller picture of what they believe. The point
is that the criticisms made by the latter are more in tune with a positive approach to the
task of changing society than the agenda Darlington reveals in ‘Radical Unionism'.
Given the evident weaknesses in Darlington's perspective, is his book worth reading? Yes.
Firstly because there are very few newish books at all on this subject, academic or
otherwise. Given a certain affinity between aspects of anarchism and syndicalism, any new
text on the latter should be of interest to anarchists. Secondly, the first half of his
book in particular often has excellent descriptions of what the syndicalists believed.
This is helpfully marshalled into an international overview while looking at significant
national cases relevant to the movement. Thirdly, some of his criticisms are worthwhile
acknowledging and thinking about. Lastly, nobody genuinely interested in politics should
fail to engage with the ideas of opponents in some way and reading such a book fulfils
that role in this case.[END]
Related Link: http://www.awsm.nz/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30921
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Message: 5
New anarchist badges now on sale from Barricade Distro. These are limited edition enamel
pins/badges.
For more details:https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302704287367
This is an enamel badge with the iconic FREE DERRY WALL in Anarchist Black and Red
colours, small anarchist flag at the top.
size 30 mm x 27.4 mm (brooch fixing)
History and background to Black & Red Free Derry Wall:
http://derryanarchists.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/black-flag-of-anarchism-flys-over-free.html
http://derryanarchists.blogspot.co.il/2018/04/new-derry-anarchist-badges-now-on-sale.html
------------------------------
Message: 6
The revolution that will put end to the global capitalist system will survive if it will
succeed in a very short time to replace the authoritarian power structure with a direct
democracy one, in a big enough part of the developed world, that will be able to survive
independently and protect itself. ---- The organised direct democracy will have to
reconstruct the system of production and services from the capitalist one oriented for
profits to the socialist/communist/libertarian oriented to supply the needs of the people.
---- Whether it will distribute the products according to efforts/contribution of
"socialism" or according to the communist principle of needs, will be decided by the
direct democracy. ---- As the monitoring of "personal efforts contributed" in a modern
economy is nearly impossible and as the supply of basic needs according to needs is
essential for solidarity, the option for remuneration according to efforts will be
possible only according to extra hours of work for extra quota of the luxury. This will
abolish the difference between "socialism" or "the pseudo lower level of communism", and
"high level of communism".
The speculations-predictions of previous revolutionary writers of 150 years ago or even
100 and 50 are so outdated that it is absurd to look to their writings for prescriptions.
The imaginary dream of a communist system which will abolishing the need for people to
work, will be replaced by a rational approach about a small quota of weekly work hours
people will be mandated to their tasks by their communities.
The dream about unlimited plenty which will enables everyone to take what one wants will
be replaced (due to unlimited urges and limit in resources), by a two-level system in
which part of the products and services - the basic ones, will be supplied according to
needs, the urges and wants beyond the basic needs will be supplied as equal quota of
"luxuries", to be chosen from by each (as Issac Puentes wrote in 1934).
Related Link: http://ilan.shalif.com/anarchy/glimpses/glimpses.html
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/30906
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