Anarchic update news all over the world - 4.05.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Russia,  avtonom: May 1: where to go in Moscow [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Poland, ZSP in Lodz celebrated 1 May at the Monument to
      Revolutionary Demonstration [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  US, WSA: ideas and action: May 1, 2018 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Subject: Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group macg - May Day
      Statement 2018 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  wsm.ie: Repeal the 8th isn't in the bag yet - a warning from
      Marriage equality poll comparisons (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  [Argentina] May Day, Day of Protest and Struggle By ANA (pt)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #282 - Genocide in Rwanda:
      24 years of impunity (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  wsm.ie: Health and Happiness as a Political Organiser -
      Brief     Notes (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
9.  liberta salonica: All in May Day Tours Anarchist Federation
      --- There will come one day that our silence will be stronger
      than the voices you stifle today (gr) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





Publicly to call for participation in uncoordinated actions at the present time is 
punishable, and "Autonomus" is trying to conduct legal activities - while in Russia it is 
at least somehow possible. In addition, unfortunately, the general state of the 
libertarian movement in Moscow is not at the level to do something massive and unresolved. 
Well, it is clear that the state is absolutely not obliged to coordinate activities with 
the right initiatives. ---- As a result, at the moment in Moscow we have an agreed event 
of the "Left bloc" within the framework of the march of the United Communist Party. There, 
obviously, there will be a lot of thrash and Stalinism, but we still go there - there is 
planned a mini-block dedicated to the Penza-Petersburg criminal case .

In addition, the Sakharov Center, which has been holding its own lecture hall every month 
since September, is holding its own festival . There will be people of different views. 
Including poems will be read by Vladimir Platonenko , columnist avtonom.org, who helps the 
magazine "Avtonom" . In addition, a project on the problems of activists will be presented 
, in which the participant of the magazine's team is involved.

https://avtonom.org/news/1-maya-kuda-poyti-v-moskve

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Message: 2





On May 1, members and sympathizers of ZSP Lódz and FA honored the memory of martyrs from 
Haymarket and all workers who died in the fight for freedom, dignity and social justice.

A wreath was put up with sashes of appropriate colors at the monument of the Revolutionary 
Deed in Lódz.
ZSP Lodz and FA solidarise with the anarchists and anti-fascists who celebrated the day on 
the streets of the city, with particular emphasis on those who stopped the march of 
fascist riff in Warsaw.

http://zsp.net.pl/zsp-w-lodzi-uczcilo-1-maja-pod-pomnikiem-czynu-rewolucyjnego

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Message: 3





May Day as we know it began as ancient pagan commemoration of the start of spring, the 
season in which we reap the bounty of the Earth through cultivation of the soil, and 
rejoice in fertility and the beauty of life born anew after winters onerous cold. The 
Roman festival of the Floralia, in contrast to others dominated by the high-born and 
aristocratic, was raucous and licentious, drenched in the spirit of the plebeians, and was 
paid for by the fines levied for disturbing or trespassing on public lands. Even 
prostitutes and slaves were allowed participation. ---- As Europe was Christianized and 
finally secularized, these pagan holidays took on new meaning and expression, but retained 
much of the old symbolism. May 1st eventually became a feast day for St. Joseph the 
Worker, and although Pope Pius IX's prayer written for that day contains admonitions to 
unquestioning obedience that most anarchists and revolutionary socialists would rightly 
find contemptible, the Judeo-Christian tradition that the West inherited contains within 
it the seeds of antiauthoritarian philosophy. Indeed Bakunin called Christianity "the 
first intellectual revolt of the proletariat".

Today we circle the streets in lieu of the Maypole, celebrating the martyrs of Haymarket 
Square and all that have fallen and sacrificed their freedom fighting for a society based 
on free, non-hierarchical structures. Today we struggle to hasten the end of a system that 
is wreaking havoc upon our planet, and in the ruthless pursuit of profit is depriving us 
of our sacred birthright as human beings to manage the fruits of the commons in a just and 
sustainable way.

The demonstrators in Haymarket Square in 1886 were struggling for the 8 hour workday, 
something many people take entirely for granted. The repressive acts that followed 
catalyzed an international struggle, nurtured solidarity, and shaped the revolutionary 
consciousness of those who were to become important labor figures of the early twentieth 
century, like Emma Goldman who called the reaction, "The events that had inspired my 
spiritual birth and growth." For fifty years after the Haymarket Affair, state violence 
directed at the labor movement alongside an extravagant propaganda campaign to demonize 
those who identified with the ideas of socialism and trade-unionism was incredibly effective.

The spontaneous, radical unionism and organizing during the Depression scared the owners 
and state managers, and there was palpable fear that the capitalist system itself would 
collapse. The New Deal Coalition's recognition of labor unions and the National Labor 
Relations board created to settle disputes, "would channel the workers' insurrectionary 
energy into contracts, negotiations, union meetings, and try to minimize strikes, in order 
to build large, influential, even respectable organizations" as Howard Zinn wrote. This 
led to the co-opting and blunting of the radical energy that won the major labor struggles 
of the early 1900's, and consequently to the paralysis, bureaucratization, and class 
collaborationism we see in mainstream American labor now. The postwar period of American 
history has seen increasing state repression and surveillance at home, continuous war 
abroad enriching the defense industrial base, and the deregulation and 
internationalization of capital, pitting a disorganized American working class against an 
incredibly organized ruling class intent on maintaining its privilege.

The dominant systems of the twentieth century, corporate capitalism and state socialism, 
have both proven wasteful, unsustainable, and hostile to human dignity. Now is the time 
for the working people of the world to figure out what kind of world we want to live in, 
dismantle the primitive edifice of domination and authority, and reap the shared harvest 
of our planet and our labor in peace.

For a world without bosses, bureaucrats and states!
Workers Solidarity Alliance
https://workersolidarity.org

Post navigation
Previous Post:Working More Now But Enjoying it Less?

http://ideasandaction.info/2018/05/day/

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Message: 4





Dear Comrades in the Bcc field, ---- The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group distributed 
the following May Day Statement at the 8 Hour Monument in Melbourne at noon today: ---- 
https://melbacg.wordpress.com/2018/05/01/may-day-2018/ ---- MAY DAY 2018 ---- Posted on 1 
May, 2018 by ablokeimet ---- This statement was distributed at noon on May Day at the 8 
Hour Monument in Melbourne ---- International Workers Day ---- May Day is International 
Workers Day. It is a day for workers to come together in struggle worldwide and to 
celebrate our solidarity. It started as a campaign to free the Haymarket Martyrs, 
Anarchist union organisers who had been falsely convicted of murder in 1886 after an 
unidentified person threw a bomb at a workers' demonstration in Chicago in the United 
States. As the campaign spread around the world, the workers' movement developed a sense 
that its movement was international as its pioneering thinkers had predicted. Four were 
executed and one committed suicide, but the survivors were ultimately pardoned. August 
Spies' last words before his execution came true: "The time will come when our silence 
will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today."

The Workers' Movement

Over succeeding years, the workers' movement has waxed and waned. It has spread to new 
countries as capitalism created new battalions of the working class. It has been weakened 
by war, repression or betrayal. It has been strengthened by fresh waves of struggle. And 
all along, greater or lesser numbers have maintained the vision of an international 
movement with a global vision of a better society. We have had great victories - the 
revolutions which ended World War I, the great strike wave of the late 1960s and early 70s 
and the strikes that have driven up wages in China, Indonesia and Bangladesh in recent 
years. We have had bitter defeats, too - counter-revolution in Russia, Fascist 
dictatorship in the 1930s and the ongoing imposition of neo-liberalism in the last twenty 
years.

Today

The working class is now the biggest class in the world, larger than either the peasantry 
or the urban poor. We are still exploited. We still build unions. And we still strike. It 
is only from a narrow national view that it can be said that the working class has been 
rendered powerless or irrelevant. Globalisation has changed the game plan for workers. To 
put an end to the defeats we have suffered at the hands of neo-liberalism, workers must 
take an international perspective.

The Task Before Us

The contradiction between the global nature of production under capitalism and the nation 
state framework in which it is rooted is intensifying. A national perspective, whether it 
is "Aussie jobs for Aussie workers" or expecting a Labor Government to rescue us from the 
pressures of the global market, is a recipe for defeat. The only winning strategy is for 
workers to link across borders and use the power of the capitalists' global production 
chains against them. Our movement can unite the human race. Through taking power in the 
workplace, we can defeat capitalists and governments in all countries. We can create a 
world of peace, freedom and equality for all. We can make a revolution and create 
libertarian communism.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group

PO Box 5108 Brunswick North 3056
1 May 2018
macg1984 at yahoo dot com dot au

The  specific Australian references were made because of the audience which was going to 
be reading the hard copy version.

In Solidarity,

Ablokeimet
for MACG

https://melbacg.wordpress.com/2018/05/01/may-day-2018/

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Message: 5




Today we are warning that Repeal the eighth vote can't be assumed to be already won even 
through No have failed to increase their vote.  If the same last week shift comes into 
play as for Marriage Equality & Divorce we are looking at a result to close to call. We 
are going to explain why we are saying this in detail using polling figures from Marriage 
Equality and this campaign.  Its going to get a little scary as we go through these but 
there is hope at the end. ---- The 1995 Divorce referendum looked to be in the bag from 
advance polls with a 2:1 lead but on the day was only narrowly carried 50.3% Yes to 49.7% 
No.  A result so close that its said the difference was only one vote per polling box in 
the country.  It appears with Divorce that either the polling companies had got it wrong 
or more likely a major drop in the Yes vote happened in the last 10 days.  This was too 
long ago to draw detailed parallels between polling but we can do just this with the 
Marriage Equality polls.

Marriage Equality also saw a sharp drop in last week. There were 4 polls published a 
weekend before by the same range of companies polling this time around - the top left 
table shows each poll and then actual result first for raw data, then with Don't Knows 
excluded, as you can see all 4 polls overestimated the share of Yes by 7 to 9%.

This table below compares each companies poll with the actual result & then calculates how 
much of Don't Know became No and in the two cases where that was over 100% how much of the 
Yes vote became No.

Marriage equality as of May 16/17       SBP/RedC 11-13  SI/MB 2-15      ST/B&A 1-11     
IT/MRBI 13-14     RESULT
Yes     67      53      63      58        62
No      27      24      26      25        38
Don't Know      6       23      11      17        
                   
Excluded removed                  
Yes     71      69      71      70        62
No      29      31      29      30        38


         SBP/RedC        SI/MB   ST/B&A  IT/MRBI
Shift   N+6 Y-5 N+14 Y+9        N+12 Y-1        
Y+13 Y+4
Ratio of transfer       100% +8%        61%     100% +2%        76%


Using these percentages in the bottom table we recalculate all the polls by applying the 
error ratios for each company from the Marriage Equality referendum to each of their polls 
on the Repeal the 8th vote.  IF (ands its a big IF) it was same error this time around the 
referendum would only narrowly be carried in the B&A poll and narrowly defeated according 
to both MRBI and Red C polls.

         MRBI Jan        Red C Jan       B&A Feb B&A March       Red C March     MRBI April      ST/B&A April     Red C April
Yes     60      55      48      48      52      54      46      51
No      40      45      52      52      48      46      54      49
Adjusted figures if the polls are as far out on Repeal as they were for Marriage Equality

To be very clear this is not a prediction, simply a warning that we can't be complacent 
(who is!).  The campaigns are very different in intensity & length and there is some 
evidence in B&A polling that the Don't Knows are splitting to Yes.

One major difference is that the No campaign have ran a very intense campaign over months 
with a huge spend on misleading ads since February.  Despite this  the polls show a 
failure to increase the No vote at all.  All the variation in the polls of the last 3 
months have between polling companies. For each company their polls across the months show 
no change when you account for the 3% margin of error.

But the No campaign is not focused on convincing additional voters to No but in trying to 
make the referendum so nasty and confusing that undecided & Soft Yes voters will stay at 
home or, our of fear, opt for the status quo.    This would explain the often bizarre 
nature of the No campaign, their failure to discourage aggression, lying and indeed the 
active encouragement and even participation of their spokes people in such tactics. 
Disengagement and fear helps them, in 1983 only 54% of the population voted in the 8th 
amendment referendum which saw similar tactic and worse.

But this may not work this time around.  Much has changed in Ireland, in particular rural 
areas, and polls indicate that the Yes voters are quite determined and sure of their 
understanding of issue.  80% of Repeal voters say they would never change their mind in 
the last MRBI poll

Together for Yes is already canvassing areas that never had organised canvass teams during 
the Marriage equality referendum. Its expected that as May 25th approaches the Yes canvass 
will substantially grow in size & scope, as happened with Marriage Equality.  Canvassing 
is something you can do that will make a difference , you can sign up for.  Together for 
Yes have already distributed three times as many Yes posters as were distributed during 
entire Marriage equality campaign - in general you can say Together for Yes learned from 
and then built on the Marriage Equality ref experience.  Something that is of course also 
true of the No side, in that case its the same organisations and individuals running this 
campaign as who campaigned against Marriage equality (and indeed sex education, 
contraception and divorce, if they have been around long enough).

All the polls so far were from the period before Marriage Equality had even really 
launched but the No campaign has been in full swing since February.  So it may be we will 
see the Yes vote increase and No vote decrease in the next set of polls.

So again this scary comparison with the Marriage Equality polls in NOT a prediction but 
simply a warning that the strong and consistent Yes lead does not mean Repeal is already 
in the bag, its very much up to YOU to be part of a Together for Yes win by talking to 
friends, fellow workers and families and by getting formally involved in canvassing and 
other work.   As the referendum vote approaches people will pay more and more attention to 
whats said and written, particularly in final days.  So its not too late to get involved, 
indeed we expect that the early starters will really appreciate new faces and new energy 
in helping Yes win on the 25th.

Author: Andrew N Flood

https://wsm.ie/c/repeal-8th-warning-marriage-equality-poll-comparison

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Message: 6





May Day is a date of profound significance for the labor movement. It is the day that 
reminds us of the state-murdered martyrs of Chicago as an example for all those who 
organize and fight to change society. ---- It is a date in which all of us who struggle 
for a just world gather in the streets and squares to show that the sacrifice of those men 
who have fallen under the clutches of the state and their capitalist henchmen have not 
been forgotten any longer. ---- 133 years of the 1886 general strike and its motto "8 
hours to work, 8 hours to rest and 8 hours to give us what we wanted", and the working 
class achieved achievements such as reducing working hours, increasing salaries, paid 
vacations and Sunday rest. But also and despite everything that has been achieved to date, 
the 8 hours of work for all have not been achieved, millions of workers are increasingly 
suffering from the precariousness of work and its immediate consequences in life; slavery 
also persists in some branches such as textiles and rural - still in the Western countries 
considered "developed" - being the workers totally defenseless before unscrupulous 
businessmen to whom the fate that they generate all their wealth matters very little.

Also in these 133 years, the capitalists, the state, and the traitors of the working class 
were able to find ways to stop the advance of the labor movement that was striving for a 
complete change of society to finally end the exploitation of man by man. Through legal 
mechanisms, attempts are made to curtail the right to strike and workers' organization, to 
legislate against direct action, to regulate what types of organizations workers can have 
and what their objectives and limits should be. The various trade union bureaucracies 
around the world act as a barrage of containment of workers' demands, and when this is not 
achieved, they act as a troop of employers to frighten the workers so that they stop 
claiming and organizing.

But despite all this, the fight still stands. The memory of the Chicago martyrs reminds us 
that organized, working people can beat their exploiters and change the absurdity of 
working just to pay the right to live. It reminds us that will and thought set in motion 
will change this self-destructive capitalist society and create the foundations of a new 
just and equitable society. Those comrades were executed by the terror that the powerful 
had that their ideas of social change extended to all the population and this one got rid 
of the parasites that for centuries fed on it. But the ideas of freedom can not be 
imprisoned, restricted or much less killed, as long as the state and capitalism continue 
to exploit the people, it will rebel and find a way to break its chains.

That is why this May 1st we meet again to shout:

LIVE ON MAY 1!

LONG LIVE THE CLASS OF THE WORKER!

FOR FREEDOM OF TRADE UNION ASSOCIATION!

Enough of repression to the people!

FREEDOM TO THE DEPRECTS OF DECEMBER 14!

FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE OUTSIDE

capital.fora-ait.com.ar

Translation> Sol de Abril

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Message: 7





For the activists against the francafrique, the month of April is marked by the 
commemorations of the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, of which France was an 
accomplice ... the pinnacle of the horrors of this neocolonial system. ---- On 7 April 
1994, Hutu extremists, who held all of the country's powers, began systematically, 
planning and organizing the extermination of anyone considered to be "  Tutsi  ", as well 
as Hutus opposing the massacre about 1 million victims. ---- France had been engaged since 
1990 in a secret war alongside this extremist power and its army. Since the beginning of 
this war against the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Rwandan government has played 
amalgam between the military enemies (the RPF) and Tutsi civilians alleged accomplices " 
by nature  " ... therefore to eliminate !

French civilian and military cooperation was at a very high level from 1990 to 1994, 
closest to the Rwandan government ; and our leaders could not ignore the project of 
extermination of Tutsis.

When the April 6 attack on the presidential plane sounded the hour of the massacre, our 
decision makers chose not to denounce cooperation agreements with the genocidal state.

The French state is therefore legally complicit in genocide. Yet, twenty-four years after 
the fact, the struggle for recognition and justice seems to have only begun ; and it 
continues only thanks to the inexhaustible will of a handful of activists.

This fight is carried out on the one hand in the media and historical fields (in order to 
oppose denialist theories), and on the other hand, because impunity prevents leaders from 
learning from the past.

At present, France has only 3 genocide suspects ; of which 2 are on appeal by July, and 
one is pending cassation ... so no final sentence at the moment. In comparison, Belgium 
has already sentenced 10 people and plans several trials in 2018.

In addition, contrary to its obligations as a signatory to the international convention of 
9 December 1948 for the prevention and repression of genocide, France refuses to extradite 
genocide suspects to Rwanda, which intends to try them. As for the complaints concerning 
the French, four are under instruction: they target French military, Paul Barril 
(mercenaire close to the Elysee), or BNP Paribas for the financing of purchase of weapons. 
The complaining parties (associations and families of the victims) are confronted with 
complex procedures, diluted responsibilities, strategies of burial of files or infinite 
delay ... while the political and military leaders who implied France in this complicity 
of genocide age quietly,

Christmas Surget (AL Carcassonne)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Genocide-au-Rwanda-24-ans-d-impunite

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Message: 8






This is a quick article about some of the psychology and health issues of being a 
political organiser. There is as much to say about this topic time in the universe would 
allow, as such, this is a brief sketch which will be part of an ongoing series of articles 
dedicated to mental health and psychology with a particular focus on its application to 
political organising. ---- Political organising presents additional challenges to our 
health. As time goes on, more is said about this. However, it is not enough. As 
psychological beings, attending to the psychology of organising is as necessary as 
attending to car mechanics in Formula One. It is a movement-level issue rather than a 
personal issue for particularly sensitive and damaged people, not just in responsibility 
but in the scope of its effects.

I understand these matters can be sensitive, and I reassure the reader that the author is 
both a committed political organiser and has much experience with the grimmest regions of 
mental illness, so approaches the subject with real understanding. I am not writing this 
to preach or criticise, but because I care about you and our movement to better the world.

Why Negativity Matters

There is a lot of negativity associated with leftist political organising for a variety of 
reasons. Before discussing those reasons, let us consider why such negativity is 
important. There are three basic reasons:

We get personally weighed down, and our lives become less rich. Who wants to feel negative?
We get burned out, and hence are less able to advance our cause. What wants to be incapable?
We produce an atmosphere which many others understandably don't want to be inside. Who 
wants to be involved with a bunch of negative people?
Now, how and why does this negativity manifest? Though its effects are damaging, it is 
very understandable. Negativity both manifests in the attitudes of individuals, and in 
cultural practices within groups.

How Negativity Manifests
Political organising wouldn't be necessary unless there were many serious problems in our 
world, problems such as war, poverty, ecological destruction, fascism, and the subjugation 
of women. Even reading that short list drags one's mind down a bit.

People who get involved are often cynical from seeing so many bad things happening in the 
world. We poke holes in what we see and hear, in the normal narrative. That is good until 
we come to identify with always seeing the flaws. There is a widespread belief on the left 
that being positive means being naïve or deluded, while being negative means being savvy 
and aware. Or, that the worse you feel the more you care. This is actually completely 
incorrect, and will be addressed in detail in another article.

Often leftists can get in the habit of complaining for the sake of complaining, either 
about people in their circles, other organisations, or in general. It is not uncommon to 
sit down with a group of other leftists and engage in a whinge-fest for hours. There is a 
difference between measured commentary towards some productive end, and complaining to 
vent negative emotions. This can produce quite a toxic environment which I wouldn't blame 
anyone for wanting to avoid.

Even if we don't decide we want to be negative, it can be challenging to stay upbeat or 
calm when repeatedly engaging with injustice. It takes effort to look straight at misery 
and not produce your own misery in response. But the vast majority of us - humans, not 
just organisers - have picked up maladaptive ways of thinking and acting. We feel the 
weight of the world on our shoulders, a responsibility to make changes which, to us, do 
not happen fast enough. We hope for a better world, but are disappointed by the reality 
and the slowness of change or even regression. So we give up on hope and instead say or 
feel that there is no hope. ‘Every cynic is a disappointed idealist' as George Carlin said.

Why Positivity? (Or, Rationality, Accuracy, and Calm)
The left, being full of proud cynics, tends to think of ‘positivity' as being synonymous 
with being a fool. This is not universally the case, but is a major trend worth remarking 
upon. Being positive is seen as a ruse of the American corporate self-help industry, 
objectively functioning as a device to control people and cover up for the horrors of society.

Indeed there is a lot of garbage ‘positivity' out there, but, let us remember, there is a 
lot of garbage ‘anarchism' and ‘socialism' out there too, so let's not throw the baby out 
with the bathwater. What I am discussing here is not so much ‘positivity' as being more 
rational, accurate, and calm. Why is this important or preferable?

We will live happier lives. Who doesn't want to be content and at peace?
We will attract more people to our cause. Who doesn't want a larger movement?
We will burn out less or not at all. Who doesn't want to be capable and sustainable?
We will have a clearer understanding of the world and clearer plans when we are not 
engulfed in negative emotions which cloud our judgment. Who wants to have clouded judgment?
To settle any doubts, this does not mean retreating entirely into our own minds and 
ignoring injustices or putting a phony, cloying, happy-clappy gloss on life. We require 
neither a miserable smudge nor a happy-clappy gloss.

Helpful Ideas and Techniques
We will now briefly consider some advice from the Stoic philosophers, which was absorbed 
into CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) about 2000 years later. I will re-iterate that I 
have plenty of personal experience, enough for a lifetime, with the grimmest, nastiest, 
regions of mental illness. Accepting and practising this advice is one of the decisive 
factors in changing that situation. I say this because some readers will resist the 
following passages, and it is important that they know that I am not a naïve, whimsical, 
self-help blogger who has skimmed through life and only knows suffering from a textbook.

To begin, let us consider two of the most important facts about our universe.

Firstly, it is not things which make us feel bad, it is our responses to them. Some people 
will resonate with this idea. Others will be resistant: ‘don't tell me it is all in my 
head!'. The fact is, though, as long as we allow external events to dictate our mental 
state, we will be miserable, always chasing something external which will supposedly make 
it better. For every event, we make a value judgment, and that value judgment makes us 
feel bad (or good). Often we don't notice that we do this. Yes, burning my hand on the 
cooker will hurt. But burning my hand will not necessarily make me sorrowful, angry, 
disappointed, guilty, jealous, hopeless, ashamed, or afraid. That requires a value 
judgment. When we change the way we think about the world, the way we feel changes too.

Has a lasting, genuine, liberatory, global revolution happened yet? No. How you respond to 
that fact is your choice. The next time you feel bad, ask yourself what you are really 
worrying about, and whether it absolutely has to make you feel bad, or could you think 
about it another way.

Secondly, there are some things in our control, some things not. Oh truism of truisms! But 
as Chomsky said, the great thing about truisms is that they are true. If we cannot control 
something, why bother worrying? And if we can control it, why not change it rather than 
worry? It is useful to repeatedly consider this in our daily life. Is it in your control 
that millions of people from Syria fleeing war and then facing xenophobia in Europe? No. 
Do not worry about that. What is in your control is doing your small part to help them. So 
don't worry about that either, just do it. Or perhaps, you have enough to do already. In 
that case, none of it is in your control. Don't waste your time on worry.

The next time you find yourself worrying, carefully decide what part of it is actually in 
your control and what part of it actually isn't.

Conclusion
These two truths are simple and can be quickly and easily stated and understood. But to 
put them into practice takes work. What we might call 'practical wisdom' is a skill which 
requires training over relatively long periods of time, and really our entire lives. It 
doesn't change the fact that someone is trying to take control of your local campaign 
group, or that the government cut funding to domestic violence shelters, or that you have 
to work for a boss for 8 hours, or that you've been sleeping for at most 5 hours per night 
since you had a baby. What it does is equip you with the tools to make the best of 
whatever situation you are in, including preserving your own equanimity.

There is much more to say, but this article is supposed to be quite short. As said, this 
article is part of a series exploring such issues. Look out for further articles in the 
series, as these issues of mental health and psychology in conjunction with political 
organising will be discussed in much greater detail.

Author: Alex Amargi

https://wsm.ie/c/health-happiness-political-organiser-brief-notes

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Message: 9





More than a century after that May Day Mayday rebellion in Chicago today? We still have 
some minimal rights earned from those games. Those that, one by one, the bosses are 
getting back today. In recent years - from the beginning of the crisis until 2012 - I was 
referring to the ruling classes, without social unrest and without resistances. Very soon 
the discontinuity between the illusion that expressed the SYRIZA program (and any similar 
social-democratic program of the continuation of capitalist barbarity with a "human face") 
to the reality of modern capitalism was revealed. Its failure confirms the only truth that 
can be easily derived from the real facts: on the territory of today's universal 
capitalist crisis two roads open, either accepting the terms of global totalitarianism or 
the Social Revolution. Average road does not exist.

May Day is the day that workers around the world have to show their strength. A day of 
remembrance for those who fell, a day of proclamation of the libertarian purposes that 
were not justified. Employees and workers have a historical debt to the insurgents of the 
first mornings: their duty to remind the state and the bosses that they will always find 
us against them until the current exploitation system is overthrown. The Labor Day - from 
Chicago in 1880 to Thessaloniki in 1936 - is not just a mosaic of labor demands and 
revolutions but a lasting struggle against oblivion and power as the relentless struggle 
of the working class for its definitive liberation from the bonds of capitalism.

We will be again present, as the anarchists were present and protagonists more than a 
century before, in Chicago in 1886. But we know that racing anniversaries are nothing more 
than a symbol. But not old but new games and they can only reflect their level.

We can again experience militant, massive events if the labor struggles behind them can 
once again become the hope of the world.

We need independent labor revolutionary struggles
We need independent, class revolutionary organizations
We need an independent labor revolutionary policy
No co-operation with government and capital
No confidence in trade unionism and trade union logic
Why we are laborers, not slaves
Why should not you miss any
self-organization, solidarity , boldness

For Communism and Anarchy. For freedom.

PRICE TO THE WORLDWIDE WORKERS WHO WERE WINED AT THE WAR

Everybody in the Day of May Day

ATHENS
11:00, Museum

THESSALONIKI
10:30, KAMARA

HERAKLION
10:00, Statue of Venizelos we
support the independent class call

ANARCHICAL FEDERATION anarchist-federation.gr anarchist-federation@riseup.net twitter: 
twitter.com/anarchistfedGr fb: facebook.com/anarxikiomospondia2015 /

http://anarchist-federation.gr/archives/1761

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