Today's Topics:
1. Black rose fed: #REDFORED - TEACHER STRIKES SHOW SOCIAL
MOVEMENTS THE WAY FORWARD By Michael Reagan
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #282 - Three sources of
libertarian pedagogies (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. wsm.ie: What Happened When Portugal Decriminalised Abortion?
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. wsm.ie: Repeal and the online battle - when become a
billionaire isn't an option (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. wsm.ie: Maser's Repeal the 8th mural covered jump again but
who regulates the regulator? (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. wsm.ie: Health minister targeted with graphic posters as No
to Repeal campaign turns nastier (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
There have been growing calls for electoral participation in the wake of the Trump
presidential victory and the horrendous political and social climate that have come in its
wake. Most of these voices encourage a social movement strategy called "inside/outside"
organizing which argues that protest, mobilizations, and disruptions are good, but that
social movements also need "inside" political actors - elected officials - who are
sympathetic to movement goals and can help push progressive agendas forward. Many call for
supporting progressive democrats. Some favor breaking from democrats and creating a third
party. ---- As logical as the "inside / outside" strategy is, it is a deeply flawed, and
the movements of teachers and education workers in the "Red for Ed" movement show an
improved way forward.
A Striking Turnaround
Arizona teachers just won a 20% pay increase after a week long strike that shut down the
state's schools. Like much of the country, teachers in Arizona faced miserable working
conditions and underpay, a crisis that only got worse since the 2008 crisis. Their strike
turned that around. In addition to a 20% pay increase, the state has put hundreds of
millions of dollars forward for increased education spending, including fully funding the
cuts from the 2008 crisis, providing tens of millions of building renovation and renewal,
and millions for improved student mental health resources on campus.
No Allies in Arizona
What is most remarkable, they won in a deeply red state. The state governor, Doug Ducey,
is an arch-conservative. His policies have included attempts to repeal the Affordable Care
Act, to support keeping up confederate monuments (Arizona was not in the confederacy), and
state wide austerity policies that led to 400 firings of state workers. The state
legislature is dominated by some of the worst republican toads in the country, including
senator Steven B. Yarbrough who as recently as 2015 argued for harsh cuts to the state
budget, and JD Mesnard who worked to restrict voting access in his own district. Even with
these republican conservatives dominating state politics, teachers have won tremendous
policy transformations.
Outside and Organizing
Why? Because political power is more than just who holds office - it is about building
power with each other - in the streets, for massive mobilizations and demonstrations - but
in our jobs too. When we take workplace action like this, our schools, business, and the
state governments cannot function. This is a tremendous source of power that "trumps"
whoever may be in office. As the late Howard Zinn wrote, "what matters most is not who is
sitting in the White House, but "who is sitting-in" - and who is marching outside the
White House, pushing for change."
The Arizona teachers show this so clearly, as do those of Oklahoma, and West Virgina. So
too for the students from Parkland Florida, who have transformed their republican
governor's stance on guns through their direct action.
Instead of "inside / outside" we need a movement strategy that builds organization and
protest, an "outside & organizing" framework. When we fight this way, we win.
Micheal Reagan is a Seattle based historian and organizer. You can follow him on Twitter
at @reaganrevoltion
http://blackrosefed.org/teacher-strikes-social-movements/
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Message: 2
Let's take a little detour through our past ! We will briefly see how three classical
authors define education as essential to the construction of a society free from
oppression and exploitation, and libertarian education as an essential piece of the
struggle for a libertarian socialist project. ---- - Stirner, Proudhon and Bakunin - will
establish that freedom must be articulated with education. These historical references,
which are certainly not the only ones but have marked their time and ours, will establish
the relationship between education and revolution, and challenge the Marxist principle
that education will be modified when the economic order capitalist will have been
overthrown. ---- It would be illusory, as J.-M. Raynaud and G. Ambauves remind us in a
1978 issue of Spartacus, to think that pedagogy and school alone can give birth to a
libertarian society. If " the school problem is a vital problem " according to Stirner,
it is because the school plays a crucial role of integration into society.
As the one we have around us is authoritarian, his school will be able to train only a few
private donors and especially cohorts of servile performers, dispossessed in their
youngest years of their freedom of fully realized individuals. The freedom of the child
is, therefore, a condition sine qua non for having free men.
For Proudhon, education, in order to escape from this trap of the formative school of
insane men, must be a class education. Popular and giving back to work its true value, the
school according to the libertarian typographer must propose an education - integral based
on the " polytechnic " a free choice of disciplines without any discrimination between
those more manual and the others, more intellectual - and, d on the other hand, must
enable lifelong learning. It is only on this condition that we can end the distinctions of
knowledge that lead directly to the distinctions of powers ... and to all the inequalities
and oppressions we know.
For the Russian revolutionary Bakunin, following Proudhon, the education must be integral
and, therefore, not content to provide knowledge but also and especially aim to train the
characters to accustom them to the exercise of the freedom conquered by learning, thanks
to the erasure of the figure of the master. Comprehensive education which also includes
the possibility of error in orientation since, in this context, " if they[the
children]are wrong, the very mistake they have made will serve as an effective teaching
for the child. future, and the integral instruction they have received serving as light,
they can easily return to the path indicated to them by their own nature ... ": principle
of trial and error and fruitful error that will not deny, a few decades later a French
educator nourished revolutionary syndicalism, Celestin Freinet.
Three figures hardly sketched here, three important marks of our movement which show us,
if need be, that we must combine the efforts for a libertarian society with the struggles
for an emancipatory and self-managing pedagogy.
Accattone
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Trois-sources-des-pedagogies-libertaires
------------------------------
Message: 3
With the referendum to repeal the 8th amendment on May 25th drawing nearer, it's with
great interest that we look at the experience of other countries which have struggled
against an abortion ban like ours, to learn from the lessons of the campaign, and to ‘look
into the future', as it were, and see the result of decriminalising abortion. As such,
here are some brief notes on Portugal. ---- On 11th February 2007, in a national
referendum, the Portuguese voted in favor of the decriminalization of the "voluntary
interruption of the pregnancy" (VGI). It was the end of more than 30 years of struggles,
advances and retreats, with many public debates dividing several quarters of Portuguese
society. ---- Eleven years after this historic moment, the information available in the
Direcção Geral de Saúde (DGS) website, the governmental health agency, shows that the
number of abortions has been decreasing while contraception has increased. Most pregnant
people who resort to VGI do it once and safely, and there is no record of any death
related to abortion since 2012.
In Portugal, the number of women who voluntarily had abortion procedure fell to 15,873 in
2015, less than in 2008 (18,607 abortions), according to the information available on the
government website (of which nothing is included about trans men or non-binary people). On
the other hand, the number of abortions performed by migrants increased and represents
18.5% of the cases.
Although abortion is present in all classes of the society, it prevails with highest
incidence among the unemployed, with 20.4% of cases, but fell by 1.2% in 2014. Among women
who performed a VGI in 2015, 70.1% had never had any other abortion.
The Sexual and Reproductive Health Program in Portugal also includes the free distribution
of contraceptives for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies.
Based on the report made available by the DGS, it is possible to state that there is a
decreasing trend in the number of abortions performed during the first 10 weeks of
pregnancy, which puts Portugal below the European average. However, there is still a long
way to go in terms of availability of information and conditions for women's access to
health services, especially when there are language barriers, cultural differences or a
lack of knowledge about the functioning of the health system.
1998 and 2007 Referendums
The first referendum for the decriminalization of voluntary interruption of pregnancy took
place on June 28, 1998. "No" was the winner with 50.09% of the votes, but only 31% of the
electorate voted.
Referendum numbers revealed a country divided in two. North, Central Portugal and islands,
regions where the Catholic Church has more influence, voted overwhelmingly for the "No"
and in the South, more secular, the "Yes" was a clear winner.
Several authors place abstention as the main cause of the referendum outcome, which can be
explained by the lack of involvement in campaigning of the largest left-wing party, the
Socialist Party, but also because of the country's dictatorial past and the consequent
lack of popular participation in decision-making moments. Also, the overconfidence of the
pro-choice movement, which felt too comfortable with the successive polls revealed during
the campaign, or either the fact that some quarters of the Portuguese population
considered that the issue of abortion "only" interests women.
There are many factors that can help explain the outcome of the 1998 referendum and what
is certain is that Portugal had to wait until February 2007 for a new referendum, now with
a different result. Although the country remained divided, the "Yes" won with 59.25% of
the votes and with a popular participation percentage of 43.6%, which was not enough to
make the result binding. But, the Portuguese Parliament respected the decision and
approved, by a large majority, the legalization of the interruption of pregnancy until the
tenth week, if the person wishes, regardless of the reasons.
The issues of the decriminalization of abortion were never uncontroversial because they
challenged the moral principles established by the catholic church, which helps to explain
the delay and the controversies generated within Portuguese society. The political parties
did not want to confront the catholic hierarchies and forces, clearly conservative and
dominants, showing full reverence.
Looking at the two referendums, we come to realize that the discourse was more victimizing
than vindictive. Abortion was mostly addressed as a health issue, rather than a human
right. For example, the right to one's own body and sexual self-determination were omitted
from the campaigns, and centered only in the perspective to not send the pregnant person
to jail.
It is possible to establish parallels between the Portuguese and Irish realities. We can
not allow more people to risk their lives in clandestine clinics due to lack of access to
safe and legal abortion procedures, to get a 14 year prison sentence by taking abortion
pills, or force them to travel to other countries to do it safely. The decision to
terminate the pregnancy lies with the pregnant person, therefore it is not the role of the
state to prohibit or penalize those who take this decision.
References
http://www.saudereprodutiva.dgs.pt/publicacoes/interrupcao-da-gravidez.aspx?v=a6753495-088f-4cb0-9651-e3e122dbb2aa
ALVES, Magda and Others - A DESPENALIZAÇÃO DO ABORTO EM PORTUGAL DISCURSOS, DINÂMICAS E
ACÇÃO COLECTIVA: OS REFERENDOS DE 1998 E 2007 - Available here.
MONTEIRO, Rosa - A descriminalização do aborto em Portugal: Estado, movimentos de mulheres
e partidos políticos (Análise Social, 204,xlvii (3.º), 2012 ) - Available here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Portugal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_abortion_referendum,_2007
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_abortion_referendum,_1998
http://www.apf.pt/aborto-e-interrupcao-da-gravidez
https://www.pordata.pt/Portugal/Interrup%c3%a7%c3%b5es+volunt%c3%a1rias+da+gravidez+nos+estabelecimentos+de+sa%c3%bade-1511
https://wsm.ie/c/what-happened-portugal-decriminalised-abortion-anarchism
------------------------------
Message: 4
Over the last few days the mainstream media in Ireland has finally woken up to the way
money from far right US evangelicals is being used to buy the No vote in the referendum
campaign. Here we show you how to see how you are being targeted and discuss what this
means for the referendum and any conception of democracy not based on the ‘one dollar, one
vote' favoured by the elite. ---- The story breaking in mainstream media scares the No
campaigns, their initial reaction was to try and bully the media by announcing they would
no longer talk to to the first outlet to seriously break this story, the Times Ireland
edition. This Trump like tactic tells us a lot about the elitist attitude of those running
the No campaign, people used to using their power to get their own way and enraged when
this is called out.
But first an explainer on how you can see how you were targeted for a particular ad here
on Facebook. When you see an ad click on the three grey dots on the top right corner. From
the menu that then appears choice ‘Why am I seeing this'. Facebook will then give you some
rather limited information as to targeting.
The example we choose here comes across our feed this morning. You'll note its an ad by a
fundamentalist religious organisation which runs counter to the dishonest ‘It's not about
religion' messaging of the No campaigns. Which is why the targeting matters here, they
paid to just show this ad to people who are ‘interested in anti-abortion movements'. We
weren't meant to see this ad. With Trump and Brexit this sort of targeting was used to
display racist messages to racist voters but without the vote losing cost of people who
might be shocked by such messaging seeing those ads. This sort of targeting allows hate to
be used by a campaign without the usual cost that being seen to spread hate would come with.
e estimate the No campaign has spent millions on online advertising. Colm O'Gorman of
Amnesty International tweeted this morning that the knew of a single No youtube channel
that was spending 3,000 euro per day on pushing ads. Much of this is coming from groups
like ‘White Flag Movement' who are not registered with SIPO and are probably serving as
channels for US dollars to swing the referendum to no. SIPO is a joke - not even 10% of
the No spend visible to SIPO due to non-registration and channelling spend though
unregistered groups that control groups that have registered for PR reasons.
Facebook has been having a terrible PR problem recently because of its role in Brexit and
Trump and in particular the revelations about Cambridge Analytica. As usual Facebooks
response is to pretend to do something and a few minutes ago Facebook said it would "begin
rejecting ads from foreign groups seeking to influence the referendum on the Eighth
Amendment." This will make things slightly more complex for the US dollars, which is no
bad thing, but its easy enough to get around by transferring the money to anyone resident
here. And Facebook is only one aspect of the problem, Youtube and children games have also
been bombarded with Vote No ads.
Some social media commentators have been l suggesting on Twitter that the Yes campaign
needs to fundraise so it can outspend No. This is naive and based on a lack of
understanding that while Yes is dependent on pub quiz and online fundraisers, which are
SIPO compliant, the No side has been accepting huge amounts of US money for years. Far
right US evangelicals see Ireland as crusade to control women that they can win and have
been pumping money in for decades, at least since 1992. They have got better at covering
their tracks but there is still so much money being pumped in that years before the
referendum was called that cash was paying for offices and multiple full time workers.
Several core Irish anti-choice campaigners have well paid life long careers off the back
of those US dollars.
This means the No side have money to burn and they are burning it, spraying advertising
onto every available platform be that offline in the form of posters, advertising
hoardings and expensive newspaper ads. Or online by clogging up every available channel
from Youtube to Instagram with often misleading No messaging.
The key point to understand before examining what can be done is that fundraising ability
isn't symmetrical. The willingness to run rings around SIPO to bring in huge US
evangelical & far right funds means No can't be competed with in the online auctions that
determine which ads are shown. Together for Yes can not and should not attempt to wage
symmetrical warfare though desperate plans for more funds to outbid No. The No campaign -
and the social media companies running the ad auctions - would win that battle.
This was an expected problem, one we have written about for over a year when the first
massive anti-choice ad spend came to attack #Strike4Repeal. It appears the Together for
Yes response is to focus on volunteer based activity like canvassing where they have the
advantage of having far more willing volunteers. With their being no ‘become a
billionaire' option this asymmetrical response to the huge wealth of the No side may be
the best one available.
A plan to raise equivalent amounts of cash under such conditions may only serve to
demoralize already overworked volunteers. Indeed the successful Together for Yes online
poster fundraiser illustrates scale of problem as the 550k raised hardly scratched the
problem that No could spend so much as to have a poster on every poll and hundreds of
advertising hoardings.
Cash has always bought elections & referenda, indeed this along with capitalist ownership
of the media is the basis of parliamentary democracy. It's why we are governed by parties
that represent landlords, minimum wage employers & the tax dodging millionaires &
multinationals when most of us are know of these things. It's a hard system to beat on its
own rules which is why anarchists steer clear of elections if not referenda.
We are not arguing against any spend on online advertising, just that limited resources
means what Together for Yes spends will need to be strategic and targeted rather than the
No firehose of ‘every man in Ireland' approach. The celebratory based ad of recent days
make sense in this context because the celebratory presence means that unpaid ‘organic'
reach will substitute for the paid reach of the No campaign. Amnesty and TMFR are both
running crowdfunded appeals at the moment to run their own online advertising campaigns.
But a final ‘things to do' note to end on is that you should simply make sure you engage
with any useful pro-choice content you see. Simply liking such a post will be worth
between one and and ten euros in paid promotion because your like will get it seen by
additional people. And sharing and commenting on posts is more powerful again. Even if you
are house or office bound and unable to canvass, poster or leaflet simply engaging with
posts in that manner will contribute to a Yes victory. For sure its clicktivism but when
connected to offline organising even clicktivism has a role to play and come May 26th
every vote will be counted.
Subject: Repeal 8th, Facebook
Topics: Gender
Geography: National
Source: Opinion
Type: Analysis
Author: Andrew N Flood
https://wsm.ie/c/repeal-online-battle-facebook
------------------------------
Message: 5
There is a poetic symbolism to the images here of the artist Maser's Repeal the 8th mural
at the Project Arts centre. (additional images in comments section) The art is covered up.
A government body orders a theatre space to cover up a mural of a heart, leaving just half
a heart in its wake. ---- The line from the Charities Regulator is that the Project Arts
is excluded from taking a stance on Repeal because that would be ‘advancing a political
cause' that does not relate to their charitable purpose of their arts space. ---- Ludices,
qui iudicat in veritate - who judges the judges? Here we have the Charities Regulator
making that determination of who or what lies within the charitable purpose of an
organisation. It was with some interest that we learned that the current CEO of the
Charities Regulator is John Farrelly, a man who has three books published by Veritas. When
you go to the Veritas website and check on their links with various charities, the
anti-choice group Family & Life are the first on that list, and describes itself as:
"focused on protecting human life and helping women, children, unborn babies and families
in vulnerable situations. "
This is like being a detective in ‘The Wire'. We really need to set up a situation room,
complete with the corkboard, and follow all the connections between the various power
brokers, because this is a case that goes back to the start of this State. What we are
going against here is an established network of power, which has inculcated itself into
the machinations of the State. Generations of fundamentalist catholics in government
departments, in the judicial system, in every root and branch of the State acting in the
interest of the Catholic Church. From the 1920's the Catholic church was invited in, and
it fitted itself into the role of social guardian like a hand into a welcoming glove.
The decision to invite them into that role has never really been examined, but it is a
decision which has caused untold damage in our society. What followed that was a culture
of repression and suppression. A culture of cover-ups. In this way it is apt that half a
heart lies in Temple Bar, where once there was a full one raging against the 8th.
Anyone who has been paying attention over the last half century that has elapsed since
1967, when abortion was introduced in the UK, will know the book of evidence which we can
all lay at the feet of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Words that are like triggers
because of the trauma they bring with them, words for their institutions, like industrial
schools, in the mother & baby homes, and in the Magdalene laundries. Places like
Letterfrack, Goldenbridge, or Tuam are now synonymous with the cruel and brutal treatment
of women and children. This is part of our history and the relationship between the
Catholic Church and the Irish State was so much like a partnership, that on the last day
of a Fianna Fail government in 2002, the agreement reached was that compensation to
victims of this abuse, would be split between the State and the various religious orders.
After the publication of the Ryan report, the amount owed by the Religious orders was
increased. As of 2015, only €85 million of the €226 million has been paid over. Apparently
only 13% of this redress scheme has been paid by the Religious orders.
‘History is the nightmare from which I am trying to awake', wrote Joyce. The repeal
referendum in many ways is the collective awakening of the Irish people from the horror of
this history.
This was present at the very origins of the State, as the Catholic Church were put into
this position of the moral authority over people, by the Cumann na nGaedheal government.
That was built around a core ideology of misogyny, that saw women as the moral corrupters.
The Catholic Church had a deeply sexist view of women in society. As the sociologist Tom
Inglis (1998) points out, they portrayed women as "fragile, weak beings" and "for women to
attain and maintain moral power it was necessary that they retain their virtue and
chastity." In order to enforce these attitudes, the church portrayed sex as unclean and
immoral and ultimately, women's bodies were something to be ashamed of.
Suppression of sex was a priority. The aim was to make Ireland into the best Catholic
nation in the world, and sex could be only about procreation. From the outset sex outside
of marriage, became targeted by the moral guardians of the Catholic Church, and the aim
was to suppress all sexual activity that they deemed illicit. Censorship was introduced by
1923 in films, imagine what they needed to ban in silent moving pictures of that era?
The Church succeeded in imposing that view into the subsequent laws which quickly
followed, such as a strict censorship in films, by 1923. The very subject of sex was
repressed through the power of the Church and through the laws enacted by the state.
Divorce disappeared in a ban imposed in 1925, as did access to contraception and there was
a ‘crusade' against the red light district of Dublin's Monto. What all this did was to
repress all discussion of sex, so that the subject became synonymous with ‘filth and sin'
and imorality. By 1930 there was a report produced into sexual crimes in Ireland. The
Carrigan Report revealed widespread sexual abuse of children. It was decided by the
Department of Justice not to publish it. The culture of cover ups had started and so it
would continue.
By the mid 1930's our state had begun to target "matters which might tempt its citizens to
engage in any sexual relations" namely dancing. (P. Conroy, p37, The Abortion Papers Ireland)
Pauline Conroy summarises this activity neatly here:
"A comprehensive array of laws in the sphere of employment, citizenship and fertility
control were adopted by the Oireachtas and founding fathers of the state in the 1920's and
1930's which fixed and subordinated the status of women in Ireland for the subsequent five
decades and more." The Repeal referendum echoes back to this time and it is part of the
process that we have to go through as a people to address these injustices. A woman's role
in Ireland was fixed at the very start of this country's life, and the 8th amendment needs
to go because it is a law that actively subordinates women.
A cover-up of a Heart mural for repeal was so apt. It follows a policy that has been
handed down since the inception of the Irish state. We were encouraged to see new Repeal
murals spring up in Dún Laoghaire, by the artist Holly Peireira, (image in comments) and
another one the Amnesty building.
We should not underestimate the struggle that is ahead of us in this campaign to repeal
the 8th. Neither should we underestimate the powerful network between Church and state
which oppose us. That is why we need to rise up as a people, and say no to all the cover
ups. No to not discussing matters openly and acknowledging the reality of the need for
abortion as part of free caring health care system within Ireland.
--
TEXTS consulted:
https://www.wsm.ie/c/authoritarianism-women-early-irish-sta...
The Abortion Papers Ireland: Volume 2, Attic Press 2015, Pauline Conroy: Dúirt Bean Liom
...A woman told me..Punishing the Productive and Reproductive
Inglis, T. Moral Monopol: The Rise of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland, 1998, Dublin
UCD press
Veritas Charities links http://www.veritasbooksonline.com/charities
Subject: Repeal 8th, Art activism
Topics: Culture
Geography: Dublin
Source: Opinion
Type: Analysis
Author: Dermot Freeman
https://wsm.ie/c/maser-repeal-8th-mural-covered
------------------------------
Message: 6
As the referendum to remove the 8th amendment approaches in Ireland the No campaign are
turning to increasingly nasty shock tactics. The 8th amendment passed in 1983 removes
healthcare control from pregnant people and puts it in the hands of the courts, it was
inserted to ban abortion but in fact impacts every aspect of pregnancy. ---- In the latest
in a series of disgusting stunts No campaigners have put graphic posters up all around the
Health minister's constituency and in particular his office. In the posters an image of
what is probably a miscarried foetus has been placed behind his standard election image.
We've blurred that part of the image out here because such images can be traumatic,
particularly for those who have had miscarriages or sought abortion because of fatal
foetal abnormality.
This is part of an escalating campaign of shock tactics by the No campaigns which have
also seen multiple pickets of maternity hospitals using similar images, even when the
hospitals themselves have requested they cease.
Such images which typically show dismembered foetuses at advanced stages of development
are nothing new, Youth Defence, the main organisation behind Save 8, displayed them
outside the GPO in Dublin for many years. Their use in this manner reminds us that the
referendum is not simply about restoring control to pregnant people over their own
healthcare but also a vote on what sort of Ireland we want to live in. Their Ireland is
the one of industrial schools, the mass grave in a septic tank at Tuam and the covering up
of clerical child abuse. They are as much fighting to restore that as to defeat this
particular referendum.
Subject: Repeal 8th, Bigots
Topics: Gender
Geography: National
Source: News alert
Type: Analysis
Author: Andrew N Flood
https://wsm.ie/c/bigots-target-health-minister-repeal
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