Anarchic update news all over the world - 27.09.2018

1.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #286 - Industrial wind
      turbines: A ZAD in Aveyron ? (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  anarchist communist group ACG:The Dead End of Corbynism -
      ACG meeting: London 20/10/18 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Nothing Replaces a Strong and Organized People by Brazilian
      Anarchist Coordination (pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL - ecology, Make Rojava
      Green Again: it goes ahead and it publishes (fr, it, pt) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  Poland, rozbrat.org: Anarchist Federation - Poznan section:
      Pretty police brutality! Stop repressions! [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL - 9 October: a day to
      revive social mobilization ! (fr)[machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  anarchist communist group ACG: ‘No Money, No Food!' London
      UberEats workers on strike (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  bangladesh asf: In Defense Of A/S: Is Anarcho-syndicalism
      Outdated? (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





State of play and return on the history of a challenge to a large unnecessary and imposed 
project (GPII). Given the important deadlines confronting this struggle, such an exercise 
is necessary for the clarity of the debates. ---- The village of Saint-Victor-et-Melvieu 
(350 inhabitants) is one of its territories that has all the qualities required to go 
unnoticed. Located on the heights of Saint-Affrique, it has been coveted for ten years by 
well-placed companies on the very lucrative market of industrial wind turbines. ---- The 
Transmission System (RTE) has chosen it as a playground to implement a second transformer, 
the first not being powerful enough for its financial ambitions in the field of renewable 
energy. The purpose of this development is to redistribute non-storable electricity on the 
grid. He targeted it, thinking he had found a docile territory. Indeed, the heroic and 
massive struggle against the Larzac camp is far and some elected officials are not looking 
at the fact that the promise of public-private partnership must mainly benefit the bigwigs 
of the sector as the reporter Reporterre Grégoire Souchay in a field survey on the subject[1].

Industrialization of the countryside
Everything was going well in the best of all worlds until a villager elected to the city 
council put her nose in the file and noticed in 2009, that by signing the " marriage 
contract ", the municipality would impose peasants to give up part of their farmland ; 
that the village would house new high-voltage lines and that the green electricity 
produced would result from the installation of more than 1,000 wind turbines distributed 
between the different surrounding cantons. Residents who are opposed to the project then 
create the "Boosted Plateau " association to defend themselves and defeat the project.

They are joined in 2014 by a group of autonomous activists, ecologists and libertarians 
who create the Amassada (assembly in Occitan). The said assembly opens to the population 
and settles on the 10-hectare site targeted by RTE with the benevolence of the new 
municipality, the old one just disavowed by the voters for having too copyle with RTE.

The Amassada discovers that Saint-Victor is an essential node on the wind turbine highway 
that extends from Sweden to Morocco and is at the heart of a capitalist strategy of 
industrialization of the countryside. What is at issue is not renewable energy, the only 
viable and opposable alternative to nuclear power, but a logic of accumulation that will 
make it possible to increase the share of nuclear energy to 50% instead of 75% without 
even reducing the nuclear power generation. QED.

RTE has promised to start its work in the autumn of 2018. However the opponents do not let 
go. Certain.es have made the choice to reside on the plateau where backhoe loaders are 
expected. Two new lawsuits against RTE are under investigation. A march against the 
industrialization of the countryside and for a collective use of the territory will take 
place Saturday, September 22 from Saint-Affrique to Saint Victor. It will also expose the 
police harassment of which some and some opponents (Amassada, Plateau Boosted and 
Alternative Libertarian) are the subject.

LE (AL Aveyron)

[1] Grégoire Souchay, The Mirages of the Aeolian, Seuil, 2018.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Eoliennes-industrielles-Une-ZAD-en-Aveyron

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Message: 2






1pm on Saturday 20th of October, as part of the "Not the Anarchist Bookfair" festival, the 
ACG will be holding a public discussion meeting at: ---- The May Day Rooms ---- 88 Fleet 
Street ---- London EC4Y 1DH ---- The Dead End of Corbynism ---- The Anarchist Communist 
Group notes the recent trend of many on the Left (including some who call themselves 
anarchists, libertarian socialists and anti-authoritarian communists) seeing a Corbyn led 
Labour Party as a great step forward in the class struggle. In this meeting, the ACG will 
be hosting a discussion on why the Labour Party can never offer hope for anti-capitalists 
in the UK and we will be looking at what we should do instead. ---- Not the Anarchist 
Bookfair  - Friday 19th to Sunday 21st October ---- The London Anarchist Bookfair has been 
a crucial fixture in the anarchist calendar since 1983. This year the bookfair is on what 
-we hope- is a very brief hiatus. It is vital the tradition remains and the work of 
spreading anarchist ideas continues. To go some small way to filling the gap, the 
organisers of the London Radical Bookfair have proposed having a decentralised festival of 
anarchist ideas and action, involving as many of London's anarchist leaning bookshops, 
social centres and campaign groups as are willing to take part. More info and listings 
available from https://anarchistfestival.wordpress.com/

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2018/09/21/acg-meeting-london-20-10-18-the-dead-end-of-corbynism/

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Message: 3





FIGHTING FOR REAL CHANGES ---- It is general the feeling of revolt by the heavy routine of 
those who were not born in a cradle of gold. Life is more expensive, hard and suffering 
for most of the Brazilian people. For most people, that's not the same as saying "for 
everyone". While poverty and the many forms of oppression attack us everywhere a small 
elite of rich and powerful make the binge over the misery of the people. Representation is 
part of a system of fraud, privilege and corruption that does not obey what the people say 
and do. ---- Our campaign has no party fund money and no help from entrepreneurs. Not to 
ask for votes. We want and bet on an outlet built with more popular participation, massive 
and independent struggle as the oppressed and exploited class that we are. Nor the 
election farce of a bourgeois democracy that asks us to vote every four years, let alone a 
crushing authoritarian, repressive and police. We campaign for direct democracy. Another 
way for people to do politics, more rights and freedoms, bottom-up organization, decision 
on projects, services, more public investment to attack social inequalities at the root.

By direct democracy we want to affirm: 1) the construction on the ground of equality of a 
strong popular movement that fights and organizes independently of governments and bosses; 
2) the popular right to take decisions by councils and grassroots organizations to 
overturn the adjustment that increases social inequality, massacre the lives of the 
poorest and liquidate the rights of the workers; 3) the fundamental principle of popular 
participation, the defense of broad freedoms of manifestation, association, expression, 
diversity, social and individual rights.

Uniting and organizing with your neighbor, co-worker, affinities, companion, and companion 
in every day's struggle is the beginning of a change that depends on collective construction.

To cancel the labor reform, the law of outsourcing and the freezing of social spending!
United fight against racism, machismo, homophobia and fascism!
Void vote on the electoral farce. Direct Democracy with the force of the streets.

AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE INCREASE OF THE COST OF LIFE

The newspapers do not tire of saying that the crisis has passed, but what we live and feel 
on the skin is that unemployment remains strong, those who work lose rights and power of 
salary and the price of things only increases. The gas cylinder, for example, is already 
almost turning into a luxury item. If the crisis has passed, it was only the big 
businessmen, who never really stopped profiting. They want to give "jobs" as long as the 
working class accepts defeat and sinks into poverty. For the people, for the poor, life is 
increasingly difficult, regardless of what the president says, ministers or the Jornal 
Nacional da Globo.

FIGHT NOW TO DO NOT LOSE THE FUTURE

In recent years, they have already frozen investments in health and education, have 
already wiped out workers' rights, have already delivered the pre-salt and still want to 
end people's retirement. This is all the same as condemning our people to an even more 
miserable future than the present. As an exercise in direct democracy, where the people 
are called to decide their future (instead of trying to find a candidate who promises to 
do so), it is vital to make repeal plebiscites of laws that do away with our rights. The 
rich want to decide the end of the future of the poor, so the time is to say that the 
present is a struggle and in our future nobody moves!

INSUBMISSAS: WOMEN RESIST IN THE FRONT OF SOCIAL STRUGGLES

In recent years and in different places on the planet, we women have been the spearhead of 
many social struggles and staged major demonstrations. We have fought in the streets and 
everywhere we work for the right to our bodies, against the withdrawal of labor rights, 
against the adjustment and repression of the police, for health and quality education, for 
the preservation of the nature and sovereignty of our territories, by legal abortion, 
against the conservative advance in the anti-fascist struggle ... We have shown in 
practice the importance of being organized using traditional methods of resistance from 
and from underneath such as lockups, strikes, occupations, marches. We have pointed out 
that resistance and combative struggle is done independently of governments, parties, 
bosses, and religion. The political choices of direct democracy through instruments such 
as self-organization in collectives and popular assemblies, contrary to what preaches 
representative (indirect) democracy, should be a political lesson for all popular 
movements in different struggles. Let us be indignant bodies. It is with the collective 
force on the streets that we move forward!

THE SUPER RICH MUST LOSE THE WEALTH TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Poverty is a social relation determined by violence and exploitation. It is not the merit 
that makes 1% of society so rich and owner of everything, while Brazil returns to the 
world hunger map, child mortality grows, more than 27 million unemployed and beaked 
workers, black and peripheral youth is the the main target of 60,000 deaths a year, when 
it is not easy prey to the penitentiary system, especially by the drug law.

When the health budget is 130 billion, the education 110 billion and the entrepreneurial 
bourse that the central government donates to the bourgeoisie class exceeds 280 billion, 
there is something wrong. What about then of almost 1 trillion paid in public debt in 2017 
to fatten the parasites of the financial system. From 10 reais raised to the country's 
public fund at least 4 are to join the wealth in the hand of few.

Poverty and racism that condemn our people to live as defendants are daughters of social 
inequality.

KILLING OF OUR BLACK AND POOR PEOPLE

They talk a lot in public safety, but the truth is that those who are being exterminated 
are the poor, especially the black people. Whether by the hand of the police, or by urban 
violence itself, it increases with the criminalization of drugs and the failure to repair 
a historical debt to slavery. The periphery is bleeding from the stolen life of its young 
people. Not to mention the murders in the countryside where the quilombola indigenous 
peoples and the poor who fight for the right to a piece of land and the world are victims 
of the greed of the great landowners and their jaguncos. The drug war arrests and kills 
ever more. It turns a public health problem into a police case. It condemns our people to 
live in the sights of repression and youth to the hell of the disputes of the traffic and 
the eternal flight of a law made to catch favelado.

Brazil needs to decriminalize drugs and to combat in depth the injustice, punishment and 
violence in which it threw black people from the periphery of cities.

THE POLICE STATE ADJUSTS THE ECONOMY WITH PRIVATIZATION AND MISERY

While with one hand governments and bosses take from the poor the right to health and 
education, with the other hand they have the right to sit down and forbid us to complain. 
They are the same people who cut money from health posts and hospitals, from schools and 
teacher salaries, for example. But they fill the military police with cars and weapons and 
send up the hills and kill the crooked and right. It only increases the misery and 
precarious life of the people, the racist slaughter of the black people, feminicide and 
the explosion of gender oppression. The police state is the order of silence for the mass 
of dissatisfied and the security of profits, business and luxury life for half a dozen. 
Neither the PT nor the PSDB nor Bolsonaro and the racist, chauvinist, anti-poor hate group 
face the high-ranking thugs who are the great landowners, judges, state authorities, 
owners of wealth and power. Dictatorship or authoritarian rule fights poverty by killing 
and stripping the skin of the poor of everything that is different. The change does not 
wear farda and boot, it only comes with more popular participation, more direct management 
and democracy of the workers and the community on the economy and the public money.

MILITARY INTERVENTION IS STATE TERRORISM. ONLY THE PEOPLE SAVE THE PEOPLE

We are also in favor of a break, of a BASTA in the way things go. But the army IS NOT the 
way out. They were never in favor of the people, and when they were called to the scene it 
was always to keep the miserable order of things. Against all illusions of military 
intervention, as well as of their puppies that run to the polls today, we say that ONLY 
THE PEOPLE SAVE THE PEOPLE with DIRECT DEMOCRACY and the formation of an independent and 
strong popular movement.

Nothing to imitate the bourgeois parties, their governments and parliaments. A united 
front of the oppressed to resist. Unions of the class, without privileges of leaders, 
bureaucracy and fights. Black movement against state racism. The womanate participating 
and fighting for social equality. Communities organized from bottom to top by assemblies, 
base commissions, area coordinations. Youth struggling in the street, study, culture, 
communication.

https://anarquismo.noblogs.org/?p=957

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Message: 4





To work for the reforestation of the Kurdish cantons of Syria - deforested by the policy 
of monoculture of the Baas regime - is the ambition of a civil campaign led by 
internationalists, in consultation with the Democratic Self-administration. They are 
looking for funds to move forward and release a book. ---- Since the article published in 
Alternative libertaire in June on the environmental project Make Rojava Green Again , 
carried by the Internationalist Municipality of Rojava , work has progressed. ---- The 
construction of the academy is now complete and a second cycle of education will be 
completed within a few days. Tree shoots are growing in nurseries and garden vegetables 
have been harvested throughout the summer. ---- The earth was prepared to plant this 
autumn 2,000 trees around the town. A memorial garden for internationalists who fell in 
Rojava was also built.

Many and many internationalists have joined the municipality. Those who have been educated 
are now working throughout the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, in different 
civilian areas. Others have returned to Europe to promote democratic confederalism.

Read: "  Make Rojava Green Again: supporting the ecological revolution  " , in Alternative 
Libertaire , June 2018

The green Make Rojava Green Again campaign is also making progress. A book in which are 
presented - among others - the result of research on the ecological problems of Rojava and 
solutions to help solve them is in the final phase of proofreading in several languages 
(English, Kurdish, Arabic, French, German, Russian , Swedish, Spanish, Italian ...).

The crowdfunding to finance the publication of the English version is completed, remains 
that for the French version .

The profits from sales of the book will be used to finance various ecological projects, 
particularly in the field of reforestation. If we raise enough money to print the book at 
an affordable price, it will be available in French bookstores, on the internet, or 
downloadable online for free. An excerpt from the English version is available online.

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Make-Rojava-Green-Again-ca-avance-et-ca-publie

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Message: 5





During the night of Thursday to Friday (September 21-22, 18), an incident occurred on 
Wroclawska street, which is part of another example of the abuse of powers and the 
escalation of police violence. ---- Two activists associated with the Poznan libertarian 
environment were detained for routine control. The pretext was allegedly reporting the 
theft of bicycles - both detainees were driving bicycles. However, they quickly showed 
that the bikes were their property, so apparently there was some misunderstanding. Police 
officers from the beginning of the intervention showed that the reason for detention may 
be different than the one provided by them. From their lips, the following statements were 
made several times: "Do we know each other somewhere?" Or "We have already seen each 
other". It is natural that such behavior could only increase anxiety and distrust on the 
part of detainees. They wanted to know the actual reason for the intervention of police 
officers and demanded explanations from them regarding the reason for their legitimacy.

The situation escalated, clearly due to the behavior of officers, who took out the 
documents shown by men and pushed one of them into the police car. Stopped there - Bartek 
- was first hit by a policeman. The second of the legitimates was not detained, the 
aggression and attention of the officers focused on Bartek, who was probably already 
recognized by police officers as a person associated with the anarchist milieu. Certainty 
about the fact that it was the views and socio-political activity that were the source of 
exceptional aggression and the whole spectrum of actions taken by the police officers 
towards Bartek, can be acquired after what looked like the further course of events at the 
police station: the aggression and attention of the officers focused on Bartek, who was 
probably already recognized by police officers as a person associated with the anarchist 
milieu. Certainty about the fact that it was the views and socio-political activity that 
were the source of exceptional aggression and the whole spectrum of actions taken by the 
police officers towards Bartek, can be acquired after what looked like the further course 
of events at the police station: the aggression and attention of the officers focused on 
Bartek, who was probably already recognized by police officers as a person associated with 
the anarchist milieu. Certainty about the fact that it was the views and socio-political 
activity that were the source of exceptional aggression and the whole spectrum of actions 
taken by the police officers towards Bartek, can be acquired after what looked like the 
further course of events at the police station:

At the command I learned what the real reason for detention was: political activity. I was 
greeted by officers present on the site as "rozbratowiec", "anarchist", "antifa-hiva". 
They knew perfectly well who I was, they knew my data, political views, affiliation to the 
Anarchist Federation. They reminded me of the demonstrations I participated in, and of 
which I was the organizer. They asked if I was going to Warsaw to fight against the 
nationalists on November 11.

The dispatcher decided in advance that I should be arrested.

I was detained in a small room in the basement, without any monitoring. There, they could 
beat and humiliate me with impunity. I was hit twice in the back of my head, they knocked 
me down once, pressed my knee face to the floor, and they bent my hands. My hands were 
handcuffed on my back, and on my head they put on a sports protector so that they would 
not leave any marks on my body. They insulted me and threatened me. When my friends 
appeared at the police station, I started shouting that they were beating me. I was 
quickly silenced. I wanted to call an ambulance, I felt bad. Two medics arrived, fellow 
officers. They stated that I am fine, I only pretend, they demanded a mandate for me for 
an unsubstantiated call. Protocols were drawn up, the police officers were wondering what 
to charge me with. Riding a bicycle on the sidewalk? Urination in a public place? Both 
proposals fell off, I could prove on the basis of monitoring recordings that these are 
just lies. Well, one came up with the idea that I was offended by him, in the end no sound 
is recorded. Together, they laughed at the epithets I was supposed to use. The ready 
protocols told me to sign. With false testimonies. They threatened that if I did not sign, 
they would not let me go. I refused. I have heard earlier that the duty officer made a 
decision in advance that I am supposed to hit the hole. From conversations between police 
officers, I learned that I would be taken to custody in Sroda Wielkopolska. I was 
transferred to the patrol car and drove. First to the Ministry of Internal Affairs 
Hospital at ul. Getting there (I'm not entirely sure if I was on the floor in the police 
car) to confirm, that my state of health allows me to spend the night in custody. I 
refused to conduct research. Two officers locked themselves with the doctor in the office 
and tried to persuade him to issue an opinion without inspection. He refused, as one of 
the police said later: "he protected his own ass". In this situation, the plant in Sroda 
refused to accept. They were looking for a plant to accept me, they said they would send 
me to Warsaw. Did not work. They were ordered to return to the police station on ul. St. 
Mary Magdalene. There we waited until around 8 am, after which I was transported to the 
police station on ul. Sniadeckich, where after a long wait in the parking lot another 
branch took over me. After some time I was introduced to the audition. I have been 
charged. I did not confess and refused to sign. The officers who were escorting me said 
among themselves that I should now get a hearing request and be released. However, under 
the room in which I was interrogated, there was a humming, various policemen were 
entering, closing the door behind me so that I would not hear anything while sitting in 
the corridor. When they left, I was again transferred to the police car. When I asked 
where they were taking me, one of the policemen put a finger on his lips so that no one 
would tell me anything.

Finally, Bartek was released after a sleepless night at 10:30 on Friday. The police, once 
again with all their intervention, wanted to prove that he stands above the law and 
functions according to his own rules. According to these rules, Bartek, from the victim of 
an unjust, high-probability prejudice of the police officers of the intervention, is 
changed into an aggressor. If in his case and in the case of an intervention, which 
fortunately has a witness, it can not be suggested that he committed physical aggression 
against police officers, then you can "at least" accuse him of insulting and insulting an 
officer - that is, an offense under art. 226§1 kk.

In this way, Bartek becomes another person who will have to stand trial and try to prove 
his innocence, having confessions of police officers against each other for 
incomprehensible reasons treated by the judiciary as more credible. Meanwhile, the 
escalation of impunity and police brutality can only lead to further tragedies. In the 
case of Igor Stachowiak, who was murdered at the Wroclaw headquarters, there was also talk 
of a situation in which the policemen torturing him probably mistook him for the escaped 
seeker. It was the desire to take revenge on a person already known to police officers 
that aggravated their aggression and the need to prove "that they rule here." The 
policemen, who did not hide their prejudices against Bartek, also insistently wanted to 
prove to him that "he has now come to naught". In a country where leading politicians, 
including the head of state, they use political opponents with contemptuous and hateful 
expressions such as "lewactwo", revealing their reluctance towards the activities and 
political views of the detained Bartek is part of a very dangerous scheme. A further part 
of such a scheme is after intimidation and violence against the detainee indictment. It is 
not enough for an opponent to be exposed to physical violence or psychological harassment, 
and it is also necessary to direct violence against the justice system. This justice 
system puts Bartek in a losing position. In this system, the prosecutor's office routinely 
and without trial discontinues or refuses to initiate cases against police brutality. In 
this system the courts give faith even to the most incoherent explanations of the police 
officers.

Despite this and that is why we do not intend to stop the protest and socio-political 
activity aimed at this unjust system. According to Bartek: "Injured" officer tried to 
intimidate me, that if I describe this situation anywhere, I will sue me with civil 
action. (...) I have already done a medical examination of all other traces in my body. I 
underwent x-rays, CT examination. In the next days, I will report to the prosecutor's 
office about any abuses committed by officers taking actions against me. "

We oppose police brutality and repression against activists.

PRESS THE POLICE BRUTALITY! STOP REPRESSION!

Anarchist Federation - Poznan section

Anarchist Black Cross

http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/poznan/4634-do-brutalnoci-policji-stop-represjom-

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Message: 6






New pension reform, job cuts and massive job insecurity in the civil service, attack on 
the rights of the unemployed and unemployed, blockage of pensioners' pensions .. The 
grinding machine must be stopped !

PDF version:

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/IMG/zip/2018-09-22_relancer_la_mobilisation.pdf.part.zip

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?9-Octobre-une-journee-pour-relancer-la-mobilisation-sociale

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Message: 7






On Thursday 20th September, the biggest ever UberEats strike entered its second day. 
Almost exactly two years since the August 2016 Deliveroo strike that first showed that 
food platform workers could organise and fight, workers in London downed tools again. ---- 
The strike was provoked by a sudden change to the payment system used by UberEats. The 
minimum delivery guarantee used to be £4.26. Now, under the new system, orders are being 
paid at rates as low as £2.62. This dramatic decline amounts to a 40% pay cut. In 
response, workers have mobilised. Their demands are as follows: a flat minimum rate of £5 
a drop, a £1 per mile distance payment, an end to the ‘boost' system which fluctuates the 
rates of pay every hour, and no victimisation of striking workers.

At 1pm, workers assembled from across London at an Uber ‘greenlight hub' in Aldgate. The 
crowd of mostly migrant workers aimed to force the company into negotiations. For the time 
being, Uber held out, with a manager refusing to speak to the workers collectively. In 
order to ‘facilitate' one-on-one discussions with riders about the new pay scheme, Uber 
wanted their account details. Workers refused. They wanted collective bargaining, and they 
knew very well that handing over their details might lead to them being sacked for going 
on strike. Uber handed out a letter claiming that they had ‘spoken to hundreds of 
couriers' about the changes. Riders ripped it up. At one point, workers cornered the Uber 
manager who was attempting to bring people inside for one-on-one discussions. They asked 
him if he would work for £2.50 a drop. His only response was to run away, behind the 
protection of security guards and big glass doors.

After an hour and a half of frustrated back and forth, the workers' set off in a huge 
moped convoy for Aldgate Tower, home to Uber's high level management offices. On arriving 
they blocked the major junction of Whitechapel High Street and Commercial street, just up 
from Altab Ali park. Another group of workers surged up to the front doors, and before 
long the whole tower was on lockdown. The police arrived and belatedly cleared the 
junction. At 3.20pm, they imposed conditions on the demonstration: the UberEats workers 
would have to move on by 4pm, or they would face arrest.

In response to this threat, workers set off on another flying picket, this time down to 
Parliament square. Meanwhile, other workers were picketing restaurants in their local 
areas. Picket lines have been confirmed at multiple McDonalds across the capital. The 
strike is expected to continue into its third day, with a demonstration being called for 
the same time same place as yesterday - Aldgate, EC3A 7DT at 1pm.

The larger context for this strike is the impending public offering of Uber shares in 
2019. In the run up to this crucial moment, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has increased 
business focus on UberEats. The latest payment structure change seems to be an attempt to 
cut wages in order to increase profitability. The change comes at the same time as rumours 
emerge that Uber is in talks to buy Deliveroo's European operation. Deliveroo, valued at 
over two billion dollars, is one of UberEats' main UK competitors. A merger would 
constitute a huge consolidation of capital and a significant step towards monopolisation 
in food delivery platforms.

This strike, following hot on the heels of strike action by couriers in Glasgow, shows 
that the trend towards militant action amongst food platform workers isn't letting up. 
Over the past few years, strikes have spread across the UK - from London to Bristol, 
Leeds, Brighton, Cardiff, Glasgow, Plymouth, and Southampton. Workers in may more cities 
have taken small scale informal action and are in the process of getting organised. Few 
sectors have a comparable claim to such sustained working class self-organisation. The 
next substantial development would be for these city-wide fights to link up nationally, 
and take on UberEats together.

Source: Notes From Below

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2018/09/23/no-money-no-food-london-ubereats-workers-on-strike/

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Message: 8





The first in a series of articles defending Anarcho-syndicalism, this time addressing 
whether Anarcho-syndicalism is outdated. ---- This article will be the first in a 
consistent series on this blog that will be updated as ideas come to the author. It's 
title is "In Defense Of A/S". The aim will be to evaluate counter-arguments to 
Anarcho-syndicalism and sufficiently defend Anarcho-syndicalism against these arguments. 
One can think of it as a sort of frequently asked questions pertaining specifically to 
criticisms of Anarcho-syndicalism. In this vein some criticisms addressed in this series 
will be commonly made criticisms of Anarcho-syndicalism. Some criticisms will be less 
commonly made and may only come from a specific individual, or group of individuals. The 
ambition is to provide a hefty counter-weight to theories and practices opposed to 
Anarcho-syndicalism that acts as a resource which Anarcho-syndicalists can draw from in 
making convincing arguments for our cause. The argument addressed in this addition of In 
Defense is the argument that Anarcho-syndicalism is outdated.

This was all prompted by a comment that was left on my recent article about Noam Chomsky. 
I will quote the comment in full:

"As much as I agree with the author here, isn't calling someone or oneself nowadays an 
‘Anarcho-syndicalist' somewhat like wearing a bowler hat? Just like ‘capitalism' is so 
dramatically changed from that era that one really should use a different word (though we 
keep using the same one). Syndicalism is highly relevant historically, but today consider 
the diminution of actual (human) production jobs, rise in bullshit jobs, along with the 
exponential debt enslavement, acute wealth extraction, and annihilation of the planet - 
problems that were slight back then. The article author keeps rolling back to reference 
the 1930s as if it is the handbook for 2018. I get it, but I also feel like it is spinning 
the tires a bit. Perhaps the idea of scaling down productivity and abandoning it 
altogether is a strategy for saving the earth. Maybe this would mean less emphasis on 
traditional unionization and syndicalism and more on general assemblies based around job 
obsolescence, debt, and climate crises."

This is a common criticism made of Anarcho-syndicalism. Since traditional Marxism and 
Anarcho-syndicalism first developed at a relatively early stage of capitalism's existence 
which is depending on how you chart the development of these ideas, between one and two 
centuries ago, both are viewed as fossils of bygone leftist politics. When comrades from 
my organization, Workers' Solidarity Alliance, published a critique of Center For A 
Stateless Society one of it's major figures, Kevin Carson, argued in turn that 
Anarcho-syndicalism is a "dinosaur". To quote Corson; "It's ironic that they describe my 
practical vision as "far removed from reality" - and use the term "fantasy" in their title 
- because those are exactly the terms I'd use for the anarcho-syndicalist model they 
advocate. This is a heroic Old Left fantasy based on an obsolete mass-production 
technological model that resembles the real world less and less every day. And the authors 
ignore left-wing currents around the world that have developed specifically in response to 
the obsolescence of their model." Ecologist Murray Bookchin made very similar arguments in 
1992. According to Bookchin Anarchist proximity to Marxists in the first International 
Workingmen's Association lead Anarcho-syndicalism to develop out of Marx's preoccupation 
with an industrial proletariat concentrated in European factories in the 19th century. 
"Marx and Engels personally eschewed terms like "workers," "toilers," and "laborers," 
although they were quite prepared to use these words in their popular works. They 
preferred to characterize industrial workers by the "scientifically" precise name of 
"proletarians" - that is, people who had nothing to sell but their labor power, and even 
more, who were the authentic producers of surplus value on production lines (an attribute 
that even Marxists tend to ignore these days). Insofar as the European proletariat as a 
class evolved from displaced preindustrial strata like landless peasants who had drifted 
toward the cities, the factory system became their economic home, a place that - 
presumably unlike the dispersed farmsteads and villages of agrarian folk - "organized" 
them into a cohesive whole. Driven to immiseration by capitalist accumulation and 
competition, this increasingly (and hopefully) class-conscious proletariat would be 
inexorably forced to lock horns with the capitalist order as a "hegemonic" revolutionary 
class and eventually overthrow bourgeois society, laying the foundations for socialism and 
ultimately communism. However compelling this Marxian analysis seemed from the 1840s 
onward, its attempt to reason out the proletariat's "hegemonic" role in a future 
revolution by analogy with the seemingly revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie in feudal 
society was as specious as the latter was itself historically erroneous (see Bookchin, 
1971, pp. 181-92). It is not my intention here to critically examine this fallacious 
historical scenario, which carries considerable weight among many historians to this very 
day. Suffice it to say that it was a very catchy thesis - and attracted not only a great 
variety of socialists but also many anarchists. For anarchists, Marx's analysis provided a 
precise argument for why they should focus their attention on industrial workers, adopt a 
largely economistic approach to social development, and single out the factory as a model 
for a future society, more recently in particular, based on some form of "workers' 
control" and "federal" form of industrial organization."

The chestnut is that since Anarcho-syndicalism was developed first in the late 19th 
century and was carried forth in major ways in the early 20th century that it is only 
suited to deal with the economic and social reality of that time. If this were true then 
Anarcho-syndicalists all around the world might as well pack it in. If our ideas can't be 
applied to the modern world, then what's the point? Luckily for us just because a school 
of thought and practice was developed a long time ago, doesn't mean it stopped developing 
since then. If one can seriously, and in good faith, claim that Anarcho-syndicalism is 
"outdated" and not significantly developed since the Spanish Civil War, then one clearly 
has not familiarized oneself with modern Anarcho-syndicalism.

International Anarcho-syndicalism was destroyed by the second world war. Fascist 
governments repressed Anarcho-syndicalist organizations, the war destroyed their 
homelands, and the International Workers' Association which organized the 
Anarcho-syndicalist movement into one international organization essentially fell apart. 
After World War Two the international re-organized itself and it's member organizations 
got back on their feet with new organizations sprouting up. Throughout much of the 20tth 
century since the Spanish Civil War Anarchism had been marginalized by State Socialism, 
War, and Fascism to a few small groups in different corners of the world. In the 1980s 
Anarchism sprouted up once again as a popular alternative to State Socialism and 
neoliberal capitalism.

In the new era Anarcho-syndicalism adapted to questions of racism, patriarchy, and the 
environment. The aforementioned international used to be called the "International 
Workingmen's Association" as a nod to the first international of Marx, Engels, Proudhon, 
and Bakunin, but changed the name out of consideration for gender equality. A variety of 
Anarcho-syndicalism has cropped up called "green syndicalism" which puts defense of the 
environment from capitalism on the agenda of the revolutionary libertarian workers' 
movement. Anarcho-syndicalist environmental activist Judi Bari worked to synthesize 
defense of the earth with working class organization working with workers to help them see 
their exploitation as workers and the exploitation of the earth as intertwined. The 
International Workers' Association is still thriving today despite recently going through 
a major split. It regularly puts out statements arguing against racist anti-immigrant 
sentiment and for international solidarity among workers. Recently, in Bangladesh, an 
Anarcho-syndicalist federation has been organized. The polish revolutionary union, ZSP, 
has been organizing postal and supermarket workers against attacks by bosses. With the 
help of Anarcho-syndicalists in Indonesia of PPAS a militant union called "Kumon" was set 
up for Uber drivers and a large scale Uber strike took place. We could go on.

The reason that the Anarcho-syndicalist movement has carried forth into the 21st century 
is because the relevance of Anarcho-syndicalism is not dependent on the particular stage 
capitalism finds itself in. It is only dependent on the existence of capitalism itself. 
Bookchin claims that Marx's argument about the proletariat is based on workers being 
congealed into large factories during the industrial revolution. This is a misreading of 
Marx. Though Marx and Marxists after him would underestimate the role of the peasantry in 
revolution, Marx's argument for the working class as the "revolutionary subject" was far 
more fundamental than the specific conditions of the time he conjured up his theories in. 
Marx's argument was that the working class is deprived of all means of subsistence in 
capitalist society. They have no control over the tools of production and must rent out 
their time to those who own production as private property in order receive an income that 
allows them (workers) to live. This means workers have every interest in organizing 
together to abolish capitalism and take control of and then run production themselves. 
Volume 1 of Marx's capital states "The transformation of scattered private property, 
arising from individual labor, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process 
incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult than the transformation capitalistic 
private property, already practically resting on socialized production, into socialized 
property". He goes on; "In the former case, we had the expropriation of the mass of people 
by a few usurpers; in the latter, we have the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass 
of people".

The relevance of Anarcho-syndicalism lies in the fact that workers would do much better to 
organize in their own self-managed associations to struggle against capitalism and 
institute a world where they collectively control the means of living then continue to 
suffer the exploitation and domination of capitalist relations of production. This will be 
the case as long as capitalism exists.

Bibliography:

https://c4ss.org/content/46875

The Ghost of Anarcho-syndicalism, Murray Bookchin

1860-Today: The International Workers' Association

Green Syndicalism - An Alternative Red-Green Vision, Jeff Shantz

http://www.iwa-ait.org/content/police-and-state-lnstrument-class-war-and-oppression

http://www.iwa-ait.org/content/may-day-and-libertarian-workers-movement

http://www.ainfos.ca/en/ainfos35596.html

http://www.bangladeshasf.org/

http://www.bangladeshasf.org/news/in-defense-of-as-is-anarcho-syndicalism-outdated/

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