Anarchic update news all over the world - Part 1 - 8.11.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  FA, Lyon, etincelle-noire - Russie, Arman Sagynbayev: I Was
      Tortured by the FSB (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  US, black rose fed: REVIEW: THE NEXT REVOLUTION BY MURRAY
      BOOKCHIN (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Poland, rozbrat: The police are invigilating and
      intimidating activists [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Poland, rozbrat: The police are invigilating and
      intimidating activists (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  US, m1 aa: The Elections are a Shell Game By BD of the M1
      Michigan Collective (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #287 - Webradio: On the
      black screen of our ears (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  [Finland] "Putin, your hands are stained with blood" By ANA
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1





Antifascist and anarchist Arman Sagynbayev, who was arrested and remanded in custody as 
part of the Penza-Petersburg "terrorism" case, had until recently admitted his guilt. On 
September 4, he withdrew his confession, explaining that initially he had been tortured 
into testifying against himself and other young men arrested in the case, and then had 
been afraid to go against case investigators. His defense counsel has sent a statement to 
the Russian Federal Investigative Committee. Mediazona has published Sagynbayev's 
deposition to his lawyer, in which Sagynbayev recounts how FSB field agents tortured him 
after detaining him in Petersburg. ---- In November 2017, officers of the Russian 
FSB[Federal Security Service]used unlawful investigative methodw (torture) against me. The 
circumstances were as follows.
On 5 November 2017, at approximately six o'clock in the morning, the doorbell of an 
apartment at[omitted]in St. Petersburg, where I was located at the time, rang. I opened 
the door, since when I had asked who was there, I was told the neighborhood beat cop was 
at the door. As soon as I opened the door, at least four men burst into the apartment. 
They yelled that they were from the FSB. They pushed a weapon (pistol) into my face before 
making me face the wall and handcuffing me with my hands behind my back. The men searched 
the apartment.
When the search was over, I was taken to a burgundy colored minivan parked next to the 
house whose address I have given. I would be hard pressed to name the vehicle's make and 
model. A cloth sack was put over my head when I was in the vehicle. One of the men hit me 
in the body and head, demanding I tell them where I actually lived in St. Petersburg.
I could see through the fabric of the sack over my head that the man beating me was 
thickset and had blue eyes. I also made out the tattoo on the backside of his left hand: 
"For the Airborne Forces." Later, I heard the other FSB officers call him[omitted].
Unable to withstand the beating, I told them where I actually lived in St. 
Petersburg:[omitted]. I was taken to the address I gave them, and there the men conducted 
a search without producing a warrant and without having official witnesses present[as 
required by Russian law].
When the search was finished, I was again put in the minivan and the sack was put over my 
head. At some point, I realized we were leaving St. Petersburg, but I had no way of 
knowing where we were going. I had a sack over my head and was handcuffed during the 
entire trip.
As we drove, I noticed that the man with the Airborne Forces tattoo, who had assaulted me, 
pulled a brown box from under his seat. There were two switches of some kind on the sides 
of the box. I cannot say what they were for. It is possible they controlled the intensity 
of the electrical current. Two wires came out of the box, which were attached to my 
thumbs. I was told they would check whether they had a current or not. I then experienced 
agonizing pain. I realized they were shocking me with electric currents. Meanwhile, the 
men in the vehicle asked me different questions. For example, I was asked to identify 
people whom I did not know, and when I said I did not know them, I would be shocked with 
the electrical current.
The men also hit me hard over the head with an object that resembled a day planner. When 
they realized I could not identify the people they named, they asked me other questions, 
for example, how to manufacture explosive devices and what parts were used in those 
devices. When my answers did not satisfy the men, I was hit over head and shocked with 
electrical current until I told them what they wanted to hear. They also told me that if I 
were not cooperative, they could do anything whatsoever to me and my loved ones, and they 
would get away with it, because I was a terrorist. They told me they could rape 
("gang-bang") my girlfriend[omitted], cut off her hands and my hands, and burn us with a 
soldering iron.
The torture lasted for around four hours, but I cannot say for sure, since I had no way of 
keeping track of the time, and I was in a great deal of pain.
When I was delivered to Penza Regional Remand Prison No. 1, there were burns from the 
electrical shocks on my hands, but no one paid any mind to these injuries, and the doctors 
did not record them when I was given a medical exam. Since I have been in custody in Penza 
Regional Remand Prison No. 1, no more illegal actions-beatings, torture, etc.-have been 
taken against me.
Fearing for the lives of my close relatives, for the life of[omitted], and for my own 
life, due to my health, which has worsened due to a serious illness, and due to the 
torture I endured, I testified against[Dmitry]Pchelintsev and myself, saying we had 
organized the so-called Network,  which was not really true.
Attorney Timur Miftakhutdinov: Did you report the circumstances you have described and the 
unacceptable investigative methods used on you to the public defender and the case 
investigator?
Saginbayev: I told attorney O.V. Rakhmanova everything and showed her the injuries from 
the electrical shocks on my hands. But I flatly refused to file a statement about the 
incident, since I still feared for the lives and safety of my relatives and the people I 
love. I thus forbade attorney O.V. Rakhmanova from reporting the incident to anyone and 
especially from sending complaints to the prosecutor's office and the Investigative 
Committee. That was why I wrote to you in February 2018 that I had not been subjected to 
torture.
Miftakhutdinov: What position do you now intend to pursue with regard to the criminal case?
Saginbayev: My position, which I communicated to the case investigator when I was 
interrogated, has not changed for now.  I ask you to stick to it.
The deposition was conducted on May 31, 2018. Since then, Arman Sagynbayev has changed his 
stance. On September 4, 2018, he denounced his confession and decided to file a torture 
complaint.
The Penza-Petersburg "Terrorism" Case
The criminal case against the so-called Network "terrorist community" was launched by the 
FSB in October 2017. Over the course of a month, Yegor Zorin, Ilya Shakursky, Vasily 
Kuksov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, and Andrei Chernov were detained in Penza. Arman Sagynbayev 
was detained in Petersburg and extradited to Penza. Two Penza residents, Maxim Ivankin and 
Mikhail Kulkov, left Russia and were put on the wanted list.
In January 2018, Viktor Filinkov and Igor Shiskin were detained in Petersburg as part of 
the same case. On April 11, 2018, charges were filed against another Petersburger, Yuli 
Boyarshinov.
Most of the young men charged in the case are antifascists and anarchists, and many of 
them share a passion for the game airsoft. The FSB claims that all the arrested men 
belonged to an underground organization known as the Network and, allegedly, had plans to 
"arose the popular masses to further destabilize the political situation" in Russia and 
instigating an armed revolt by setting off a series of explosions during the March 2018 
Russian presidential election and the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The Network supposedly had 
cells operating in Moscow, Petersburg, Penza, and Belarus.
The relatives of the accused in Penza have related that when the young men were detained, 
weapons were planted in their homes and cars, and late they were tortured. Viktor 
Filinkov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, and Ilya Shakursky have provided detailed accounts of their 
torture at the hands of the FSB. Ilya Kapustin, who was released as a witness, also spoke 
of being interrogated by the FSB as they tasered him. Like Filinkov's wife Alexandra, 
Kapustin subsequently left for Finland, where he requested political asylum.
Pchelintsev and Shakursky claimed FSB officers tortured them with electrical shocks in the 
basement of the Penza Remand Prison. Shishkin made no statement about torture, although 
doctors found that the lower wall of his eye socket had been fractured, and that he had 
suffered numerous bruises and abrasions. Members of the Petersburg Public Monitoring 
Commission who visited him in remand prison noted numerous traces on his body of what 
looked like electrical burns.
The Investigative Committee has refused to open criminal cases in connection with Filink 
and Kapustin's claims of torture. The lead investigator decided that in Filinkov's case 
the taser had been employed legally, while the spots on Kapustin's body had been caused by 
flea bites, not electrical burns.
Valery Tokarev heads the team of investigators handling the case in the FSB's Penza 
office, while in Petersburg the investigation has been led by Investigator Gennady Belyayev.
The relatives of the accused have formed a support committee known as the Parents Network.
The accused have been charged with violating Russian Federal Criminal Code Article 205.4 
Part 2, i..e., involvement in a terrorist community, which carries a punishment of five to 
ten years in prison.
Source: https://avtonom.org/en/news/arman-sagynbayev-i-was-tortured-fsb

http://etincelle-noire.blogspot.com/2018/11/russie-arman-sagynbayev-i-was-tortured.html

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Message: 2





Review of The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy by 
Murray Bookchin. Edited by Debbie Bookchin and Blair Taylor, preface by Ursula K. Le Guin. 
Verso, December 2014. Free PDF of the book here. ---- By Anarcho ---- Murray Bookchin 
(1921-2006) was for four decades a leading anarchist thinker and writer. His many articles 
and books - Post-Scarcity Anarchism, Toward an Ecological Society, The Ecology of Freedom 
and a host of others - are libertarian classics and influential in the wider green 
movement. However, in 1995 he became involved in a vicious polemic over various negative 
aspects of (primarily American) anarchism with the publication of his Social Anarchism or 
Lifestyle Anarchism which, in 1999, saw him break with anarchism completely, denouncing it 
as inherently individualist. Still considering himself a libertarian socialist, he now 
called his politics "Communalism" rather than "Social Ecology" or "Social Anarchism."

This context is important in order to understand this often contradictory collection of 
essays, for the work combines articles written between 1992 and 2002 and so ones before 
and after his break with anarchism. This means he indicates the anarchist pedigree of his 
"Commune of communes" in some chapters (63, 95) while proclaiming anarchism as being 
against organization in others. So following a preface by the late, great, Ursula Le Guin 
and an introduction by Debbie Bookchin and Blair Taylor, we have  nine chapters by 
Bookchin on a range of subjects written over a range of times and this produces the key 
flaw in the work: denunciations of anarchism sit next to praise for it.

What of these denunciations? It is hard to take them seriously. It is depressing to read 
someone who has actually read anarchist thinkers come out with the same sort of nonsense 
as a hack of a Marxist party parroting claims made by others about people they have 
obviously never read. Just as sad is that every one of his claims against anarchism can be 
refuted by quoting from his early works. For his list of anarchist flaws - individualism, 
primitivism, etc. - were once directed at his own ideas by Marxists and he refuted them 
with flair.

Contradictory Conceptions
Space precludes using Bookchin to refute Bookchin, so I will concentrate on a few issues.

Sadly, post-break Bookchin is not above selective quoting when it comes to anarchism - for 
example, he quotes Kropotkin on rejecting majority rule (10) when he surely knew that on 
the page in question Kropotkin was discussing "parliamentary rule, and representative 
government altogether." Also, after decades of denouncing syndicalism for impoverishing 
anarchism, he turned around and proclaimed the superiority of the former as regards the 
latter - while also ignoring how he had shown that the first of the revolutionary 
anarchists had advocated syndicalism as a tactic. Likewise, Bookchin asserted post-break 
that "anarchists conceive of power essentially as a malignant evil that must be destroyed" 
(139) yet also quotes Bakunin on the need for the "development and organization of the 
nonpolitical or antipolitical social power of the working class in city and country." (12) 
As he himself noted long ago, "power" can mean two things, power to do and power over, and 
for the former to flourish, it needs the latter to be destroyed. So power over - hierarchy 
- must be destroyed if we want power to manage our own lives.

Bookchin points to the Spanish Revolution as evidence of Anarchism's failure here. Yet his 
discussion of this ("Anarchism and Power in the Spanish Revolution") ignores the 
circumstances in which the CNT decided to postpone the social revolution in favor of 
caricatures on anarchist theory. He position is that anarchism is blind to the need for 
institutions to replace the State and this blindness lead the CNT not to "seize power." 
Yet anarchism has anyways been clear on what to do in a revolution - replace the State by 
federations of workers' organisations. The CNT obviously failed to do so in July 1936 with 
obvious negative results - but the question, as Bookchin surely knew, is why they failed 
to apply anarchist ideas. To understand that needs context - essentially fear of isolation 
and the real possibility of having to fight both the Republic and the Fascists if social 
revolution was pursued - which Bookchin fails to provide.

Instead, we get the same superficial analysis that embarrasses Marxist journals. The only 
difference is that Bookchin calls this new system a "government" rather than "state." So 
Bookchin post-break was against the State but for government - "government" being used to 
describe collective decision making. Just as Engels equated agreement with authority, 
Bookchin came to equate governance with government. This is hardly convincing.

So the post-break articles present a travesty of anarchism by someone who knew better. 
Given Bookchin's revisionism, it is unsurprising that the authors of the introduction 
assert that popular assemblies were "viewed with suspicion by anarchists." (xviii) This in 
spite of Proudhon praising the popular clubs of the 1848 revolution, Bakunin urging 
federation by quartier (neighbourhood) and Kropotkin pointing to the popular assemblies of 
the Great French Revolution - just as Bookchin did!

Ironically, many of the traits of "anarchism" Bookchin came to deplore and which caused 
his break with anarchism could be traced to certain elements of his 1960s works - even if 
these were selectively used and exaggerated to the point of travesty by others, they were 
there as his critics in the 1990s reminded Bookchin in their polemics against him. 
Bookchin seems like someone who found it hard to admit being wrong - and so broke with 
anarchism rather than admit this. Yes, some self-proclaimed anarchists have silly notions 
(primitivism obviously springs to mind) and some tendencies can have little in common with 
the main current of social anarchism. Likewise, some anarchist have little time for long 
term strategy and involve themselves in small-scale, insular projects. Yet this is not 
anarchism as such. Rather than expect all anarchists to come together it is far better to 
organize with like-minded people and ignore those whose politics and activities are a 
dead-end. Instead, Bookchin rejected anarchism - talk about cutting off your nose to spite 
your face!

So what of any substantive points between his new politics and anarchism? This are just a 
few. One is the question of "majority rule." As he put it in a particularly overheated 
passage:

‘It is primarily by giving priority to an ideologically petrified notion of an "autonomous 
individual" that anarchists justify their opposition not only to the state but to any form 
of constraint, law, and often organization and democratic decision-making based on 
majority voting. All such constraints are dismissed in principle as forms of "coercion," 
"domination," "government," and even "tyranny"-often as though these terms were coequal 
and interchangeable.' (160-1)

Ignoring the awkward fact - which Bookchin was once aware - that the likes of Proudhon, 
Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, etc. not only did not speak in those terms but also 
explicitly attacked such notions, we should note that majority decision making within 
freely joined associations is hardly the same as majority rule. In addition, anyone acting 
in the manner Bookchin describes within an anarchist group would be asked to leave, and 
rightly so. Nor, for that matter, is "consensus" an "authentic" anarchist principle (25) - 
you would be hard pressed to find any classical anarchist thinker - "authentic" or 
otherwise! - discussing it. Kropotkin mentions it in passing, when discussing the Russian 
mir and that is about it.

Why are anarchists concerned about talk of majority rule? It is quite simple: majorities 
have often oppressed minorities - we need only think of sectarianism, sexism, racism, 
homophobia and such like to see that the majority need not always be right. Ironically, 
Bookchin admits this (94) but does not attempt to square it with his fetishization of 
"majority rule." And this is an issue. For example, he proclaims that a community which 
joins a confederation "may withdraw only with the approval of the confederation as a 
whole." (15) So Bookchin's "libertarian" confederation provides less rights than the UK 
(with regards the referendum on Scottish independence) and the European Union (with 
regards Brexit). Yet why is it just at a confederal level? If this is a good and 
democratic principle, why does it not apply to every association? So a worker can only 
leave their job if the majority of the workplace agrees? So a family can only leave a 
community if the majority of the local citizenry approve? A wife or husband from a family? 
Simple: for it would clearly be unfree.

Similarly, his "libertarian" democracy appears less than that guaranteed by our statist 
ones for he argues that after losing the debate "the minority must have patience and allow 
a majority decision to be put into practice" (61) and there would be "the commitment of 
municipal minorities to defer to the majority wishes of participating communities." (88) 
Yet, today, the right of minorities to protest exists (if always under threat by the 
State, always ready to proclaim its "undemocratic" nature). Would libertarian municipalism 
really not allow minorities to protest, to use direct action, when the majority acts in 
ways which we cannot wait addressing or simply cannot be undone?

A more flexible perspective is needed, particularly given Bookchin admits that there is no 
"guarantee" that "a majority decision will be a correct one." (88) What if the majority 
make racist, sexist, homophobic or ecologically destructive decisions? Can an "unswerving 
opposition to racism, gender oppression, and domination as such" (135) be limited to mere 
words or can minorities protest against them by direct action? If so, then his 
fetishisation of majority rule needs to be reviewed. True, Bookchin stressed the 
importance of minority rights (25) - but to do so automatically means admitting 
(implicitly at least) the flaws of his position and the validity of anarchist concerns 
over terms like "majority rule."

Still, this has little bearing on the day-to-day decisions of freely joined associations 
in which majority-decision making will, undoubtedly, be the norm - with even a written 
constitution, when appropriate - in the struggle against oppression today and any future 
free society. Those who fetishise consensus (and there are a few, I am sure) can associate 
with those who feel the same - and leave the others to get on with changing the world 
rather than just discussing it.

Yet does Bookchin actually advocate majority rule? The answer is no, for he indicates 
(52-3) that all revolutions are the work of active minorities and that he does not expect 
the majority of a population to take part in his neighbourhood assemblies. So we have 
decisions being made by a majority of a minority, in other words minority rule. So for all 
his bluster, his "democratic" politics ends up recognizing the key role minorities play in 
social change and that they often have to push forward in the face of the indifference of 
the majority: as Kropotkin, Goldman and many other anarchists indicated.

So we are left with Bookchin agreeing that the majority cannot, say, ban women from 
leaving the house without being accompanied by a man nor that neighborhood assembly 
decisions are invalid unless a majority of people in the community attend. Which makes you 
wonder why he was so focused on majority rule to the extent of destroying his own legacy.

The Weak Embrace of Libertarian Municipalism
As for "libertarian municipalism," it is clear why few anarchists embraced it: 
"Communalists do not hesitate to run candidates in municipal elections who, if elected, 
would use what real power their offices confer to legislate popular assemblies into 
existence." (30) The notion of standing in local elections as a means of creating popular 
assemblies and then federating them was always unconvincing. Particularly given the 
all-to-correct predictions of anarchists on the effects of electioneering. Indeed, 
Bookchin himself repeats these and provides examples of it (83-4) - but seems to think 
this only happens at a national level. He also seems unaware that the national State can 
and does control the autonomy of local municipal councils and this strategy could easily 
mutate into national electioneering in the mistaken view of ensuring needed reforms for 
the local strategy. Electioneering is indeed a slippery slope which even the repeated 
experience of history does not seem to affect.

Anarchists, regardless of Bookchin's revisionism, are well aware of the need for 
federations of community assemblies in both the struggle for liberation and as part of the 
structure for the post-capitalist society. Kropotkin, for example, discussed their role in 
his book The Great French Revolution and indicated that "the libertarians would no doubt 
do the same today." However, these were viewed as a genuine dual-power created in 
opposition to the State - a community syndicalism, as it were - rather than something 
bestowed by a suitably enlightened local municipal council[city government]. Nor was this 
considered the only means - Kropotkin also advocated a syndicalist strategy as both a 
means of winning reforms now and for providing the framework of managing workplaces during 
and after a social revolution. Bookchin knew all this and so it is depressing to read him 
pretend otherwise.

Rejecting Bookchin's electioneering does not mean rejecting building federations of 
community assemblies, especially within the context of building other federations of 
associations (such as radical unions). Likewise, his notion of dissolving all associations 
into a single communal one does not take into account the complexities of modern life. 
Such community assemblies would be the forum for overseeing the others - to protect 
against, say, workplaces becoming proprietary as Bookchin rightly warns (19, 72) - but 
they can hardly be called upon to actually manage them on a day-to-day basis.

Kropotkin and other anarchists bemoaned the State and its attempts to centralize all 
aspects of social life and place them in the hands of a few representatives who had no 
real notion of what they were deciding upon. Doing the same but at the base of society may 
not be as problematic but it does have issues - not least, the volume of issues that would 
need to be discussed. So there is a pressing need for a functional federalism as well as a 
communal federalism. This suggests a diverse associational life embracing all aspects of 
the world - so if Kropotkin and Malatesta argued that syndicalists focused on one aspect 
of society (the economic) and ignored the other two (community and leisure), Bookchin 
likewise focused on one (the community) at the expense of the others.

Bookchin's Legacy?
So, to conclude. This is a mixed selection of articles - with the pre-break ones being by 
far the best. The post-break ones often just repeat what Bookchin previously - rightly! - 
called anarchism but with snide anti-anarchist remarks added.

I still remember the joy I experienced reading Post-Scarcity Anarchism thirty years ago - 
here was someone who both understood anarchism and built upon it. Yet in the last decade 
of his life he produced works which were marred by anti-anarchist tirades which he surely 
knew were nonsense. Which leaves us with a conundrum: if you utilize his earlier works, 
could not his later works be quoted to show that even a leading anarchist eventually saw 
its deep flaws? If you embrace his later anti-anarchist works, how could you reference in 
good-faith his earlier contributions?

Yes, Bookchin did do the latter but then he also sought to rewrite his past to suggest he 
had seen through anarchism at a very early stage or had never "really" been an anarchist 
at all. This was all very unbecoming - particularly given the numerous quotes from the 
early 1990s proclaiming his long-standing and continuing commitment to anarchism.

Ultimately, Bookchin left a wealth of books and articles between the 1960s and 1990s which 
anarchists today can draw upon, even if his strategy of "libertarian municipalism" is 
deeply flawed. So while The Next Revolution does contain important pieces which activists 
today would benefit from reading, it pales against his earlier works. These should be read 
first, simply to ensure that when reading the anti-anarchist remarks in this book the 
pre-break Bookchin will be fresh in your memory to refute them.

http://blackrosefed.org/review-next-revolution-bookchin/

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Message: 3






For several days, we have been getting disturbing information about new surveillance, 
repression and intimidation of police activities. So far, they have touched an activist 
and activist associated with the Poznan libertarian environment. ---- Police giving 
incomplete and contradictory explanations appeared at the reporting addresses of two 
people. On the spot, she tried to get information from relatives about activists. They 
asked about whether they would participate in the anti-fascist protest on November 11 in 
the capital or whether they plan to protest against the meeting - COP24: UN climate summit 
2018, which is to take place in December this year in Katowice. The relatives were given 
erroneous and untrue information, apparently deliberately misleading, which probably aimed 
at facilitating these operational activities of the officers.

It is obvious that such advances take place in an absolutely unlawful mode. No formal 
appeal was sent to either of them as a witness or accused. The incidence of relatives, 
arousing in them, as well as in the activists of anxiety, giving contradictory and 
misleading information, can be perceived only as a form of intimidation and surveillance. 
In connection with the above, we remind:The police have no right without a formal search 
order or reasonable suspicion of a crime to enter the apartment. Both relatives and people 
who the police wants to hear should demand a formal, written request. The request should 
include the designation of the sending authority, an indication of the matter, at what 
time and place the challenged person is to appear and instructions about the consequences 
of the failure to appear. Such a summons should specify in which mode - the witness or the 
accused - the interrogation should be conducted. Under no circumstances is there any 
obligation or reason for providing a police phone number.

We appeal to inform us of any cases of police incursions. We do not accept that the 
representatives of uniformed services abusing their rights, intimidate and invigilate the 
libertarian environment. We would like to remind you that only a few days ago two 
activists associated with the Silesian anarchist movement were arrested because of their 
participation in Antykongres - a protest and an alternative to the European Economic 
Congress 2015 (EEC). A Poznan anarchist was recently detained and beaten by the police. 
There are still legal proceedings pending against those who co-create the Poznan Anarchist 
movement, among others for participation in the so-called Black Protest. All these actions 
of the apparatus of justice and its subordinate services will not lead to the cessation of 
our activities. We will continue to engage in the defense of workers 'rights, tenants' 
rights, ecological protests, pro-minorist protests,

We will not be intimidated. Solidarity with our weapons!!!

http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/poznan/4646-policja-inwigiluje-i-zastrasza-aktywistow

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Message: 4






For several days, we have been getting disturbing information about new surveillance, 
repression and intimidation of police activities. So far, they have touched an activist 
and activist associated with the Poznan libertarian environment. ---- Police giving 
incomplete and contradictory explanations appeared at the reporting addresses of two 
people. On the spot, she tried to get information from relatives about activists. They 
asked about whether they would participate in the anti-fascist protest on November 11 in 
the capital or whether they plan to protest against the meeting - COP24: UN climate summit 
2018, which is to take place in December this year in Katowice. The relatives were given 
erroneous and untrue information, apparently deliberately misleading, which probably aimed 
at facilitating these operational activities of the officers.

It is obvious that such advances take place in an absolutely unlawful mode. No formal 
appeal was sent to either of them as a witness or accused. The incidence of relatives, 
arousing in them, as well as in anxiety activists, giving contradictory and misleading 
information, can only be perceived as a form of intimidation and surveillance. In 
connection with the above, we remind:The police have no right without a formal search 
order or reasonable suspicion of a crime to enter the apartment. Both relatives and people 
who the police wants to hear should demand a formal, written request. The request should 
include the designation of the sending authority, an indication of the matter, at what 
time and place the challenged person is to appear and instructions about the consequences 
of the failure to appear. Such a summons should specify in which mode - the witness or the 
accused - the interrogation should be conducted. Under no circumstances is there any 
obligation or reason for providing a police phone number.

We appeal to inform us of any cases of police incursions. We do not accept that the 
representatives of uniformed services abusing their rights, intimidate and invigilate the 
libertarian environment. We would like to remind you that only a few days ago two 
activists associated with the Silesian anarchist movement were arrested because of their 
participation in Antykongres - a protest and an alternative to the European Economic 
Congress 2015 (EEC). A Poznan anarchist was recently detained and beaten by the police. 
There are still legal proceedings pending against those who co-create the Poznan Anarchist 
movement, among others for participation in the so-called Black Protest. All these actions 
of the apparatus of justice and its subordinate services will not lead to the cessation of 
our activities. We will continue to engage in the defense of workers 'rights, tenants' 
rights, ecological protests, pro-minorist protests,

We will not be intimidated. Solidarity with our weapons!!!

http://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/poznan/4646-policja-inwigiluje-i-zastrasza-aktywistow

------------------------------

Message: 5






The elections are a shell game. I've seen it my whole life: from Eisenhower to 
Kennedy/Johnson to Nixon to Carter to Reagan and Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama to 
Trump. It's a back and forth. It's a death spiral. The whole process moves to the right. 
The reaction becomes more reactionary, more backward, more ignorant and more dangerous. 
The liberal response, the Democratic Party response is to move to the center/right. 
Their"opposition" is pre-existing conditions and trying to stay quiet on immigration. And 
running CIA fucking agents and bragging about it. The Democratic Party, defenders of the 
FBI and the CIA, and that's what really matters. ---- And here's what I learned coming of 
age in 1968, LBJ and the Democrats, were the party of the war on Vietnam. Hey, hey LBJ, 
how many kids did you kill today? It's US imperialism we're up against; it's the Democrats 
and the Republicans. Both parties support Israel and Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It's the 
government we're up against; it's the Democrats and Republicans. The CIA installed 
Pinochet and the terror in Chile in 1973. The FBI engineered the attack on the Black 
Panthers and the Black liberation movement and the murders of Fred Hampton, George Jackson 
and many others. The Democrats and the Republicans are the CIA and the FBI. The murders 
continue today in Gaza, in Yemen, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia. The 
Democrats and the Republicans, the state, US imperialism, all responsible. The cops who do 
the killing in every city, brought to you by the Democrats and Republicans.

The Republicans and Democrats sometimes have strategy differences, but all are agreed on 
defending U.S. imperialism and the U.S. empire. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, 
support CIA actions to protect U.S. imperial interests. The Democrats and Republicans have 
collaborated to support U.S. imperialism and reaction and to oppose liberation and freedom 
and self determination, worldwide.

The point is the back and forth, the ability of the system in the U.S. to maintain itself 
and for the ruling classes which profit from the system to maintain their rule and their 
wealth and privileges. But the system is in crisis, and the U.S. is in decline. The 
pressure for constant investment for increasing profits and returns on investments hits 
limits. Economic crises, deindustrialization, chasing profits, speculation take a toll. 
The rulers seek to increase their wealth at the expense of people with disabilities, 
low-income families, students, teachers, seniors and the working classes. To deflect anger 
from themselves, the rulers seek scapegoats: immigrants, the Black community, Muslims, 
women, the trans community, the caravan, the media.

Trump represents a new level of reaction, a new level of open white supremacy and white 
nationalism. Racists and fascists are encouraged to attack our communities. What were dog 
whistles are loud, clear, open and direct. Men are encouraged to disregard women and to 
assert domination by violence and all methods. This is reaction. This is a failed Reality 
TV guy, a slumlord millionaire, in charge. This is a real estate developer, a dealmaker, a 
parasite, in charge. This is the decline of US imperialism in full view. This is the 
alliance of reaction and racists and semi-fascist governments and rulers in the U.S. and 
Europe and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Israel and beyond.

This is fascism and authoritarianism on the rise and capitalism in decline in the U.S. and 
worldwide. The Democrats support the alliance with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The 
centrists in Europe want more controls on immigrants and refugees and demand assimilation 
and securing the borders. The Democrats support detentions and deportations and ICE raids. 
Obama and the Democrats helped to fuel the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim bigotry, along 
with the Republicans. I've seen Democrats on TV saying the timing of the caravan from 
Honduras is suspect, implying the Republicans are somehow responsible for the caravan for 
the purpose of hurting Democrats.

Liberals, social democrats and "popular" governments worldwide have failed and have no 
answers to the crisis of capitalism, the crisis of the system. The government and the 
rulers point to immigrants and Muslims and the Black community and the other as the enemy. 
The liberals and Democrats and centrists have no answer, because the enemy is the system, 
is the capitalist class, is the ruling classes, is capitalism and imperialism. The 
Democrats, the liberals, the centrists, the social democrats all support the system, and 
they do not offer or provide any alternative to the system. They are a very important part 
of the system.

The job for anarchists and revolutionaries is not to build support for the Democrats or 
the system; our job is to build the opposition to the system and to organize to overthrow 
and end the system. This is the only answer to the reaction and to fascism and to the 
ruling classes. Our job is to work to develop class consciousness, working class 
consciousness and revolutionary consciousness. Our job is to be clear that the enemy is 
the system, the ruling class, the fascists, the cops, the government, the Democrats and 
Republicans. This is the work we need to be doing.

This doesn't mean we should avoid reform struggles or defensive struggles in the working 
class. Far from it. As anarchists and revolutionaries, we need to be in the struggles 
against detentions and deportations and ICE raids. We need to be in the struggles against 
police attacks on the Black community and the police murdering Black people or any people. 
We need to oppose anti-Muslim bigotry and all attempts to demonize or criminalize 
communities or sections of the working class. We need to oppose violence against women, 
against the LGBTQ community, against the Trans community. And we need to be in the fight 
against white supremacy, male domination and fascism. We need to work to unite our forces 
to defend our communities and to oppose attacks on our communities and the working class,

And we need to defend the right to vote. White supremacists and fascists and Republicans 
are attempting to prevent Black people and Latinx people and others from voting. They 
attempt to use intimidation, violence, threats and making it difficult to find a place to 
vote or have the right "credentials" to vote. Most people who have a felony conviction are 
denied the right to vote. We oppose these attacks on a democratic right which has been 
fought for and should be defended.

Where white supremacists or conservatives or ordinary Republicans attempt to prevent Black 
people or Latinx people or anyone else from voting, we should be there to oppose the 
attack and to defend the right.

As a revolutionary anarchist, I won't vote for Democrats or Republicans because I oppose 
this system and the ruling class and the government and the parties of the government and 
the fascists and police who attack our communities. I won't vote, but I will defend your 
right to vote. All of us should defend against racist attacks and threats and attempts to 
intimidate.

Fascist attacks, racist attacks are on the rise and at an alarming rate. At a Louisville 
Kroger, a racist walks in the store and murders a 69 year old Black man who is in the 
store shopping with his grandson. The killer then walks into the parking lot and murders a 
67 year old Black woman. A Trump supporter mails bombs to Democratic Party politicians, 
CNN and others. A killer saying "All Jews must die," enters a Synagogue in Pittsburgh on 
Saturday morning and murders eleven. The killers, the racists, the fascists all are white 
men. All are arrested and in custody.

And in thousands of incidents in stores, in apartments, in parks, on the street, at 
workplaces, at schools, in places of worship, white supremacists are emboldened and 
attacking and threatening. And it's frightening, and it's very hard to know what to do. We 
don't have pat answers. We know that we cannot face these attacks alone. We must find ways 
to join together, to fight together. No one community, no one section of the working class 
can fight this alone. We need to unite our forces across Black communities, Latinx 
communities, immigrant communities, across churches and mosques and synagogues, across 
genders and identities, across the working class.

We have to do this ourselves, across borders, people from all countries together. No one 
is coming to save us. The government is the enemy as much as the fascists and the ruling 
classes. We are up against all of this. The Democrats will say all we can do is vote and 
support them. We must say all we can do is organize and fight. All we can do is to unite 
our forces to defend our communities and ourselves. All we can do is organize and join 
together to defeat the fascists and overthrow and destroy capitalism and white supremacy 
and patriarchy once and for all.

Our job is not to defend "democracy" or defend the government. Our job is not to defend 
the Democratic Party. Our job is overthrow the government, to overthrow the Democrats and 
the Republicans. The ruling classes cannot move society forward; the ruling classes are 
overseeing the decline and destruction, while they scramble to maintain and increase their 
wealth and privileges and power.

The only way to move society forward now is to end this system. The force capable of 
revolution and of ending this system is the international working class. Developing 
working class consciousness, revolutionary consciousness is our job. Participating in the 
struggles of our class, of our communities, of communities under attack is where we must 
be. Participating in and helping to build community self defense, united working class 
defense, of communities and people under attack should be our priority.

http://m1aa.org/?p=1607

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Message: 6






On the very new radiowave association Radio M'S, "  Radio Montreuil and Eastern Paris  ", 
the program Cinédrome, "  monthly chronicle of cinema margins and deviation, films out of 
the ordinary, rare, forgotten, unknown, invisible , missed or successful, bizarre, bis, or 
outright Z  " chose for his September return to honor the masterpiece of Kiju Yoshida, 
Eros + Massacre. ---- Movie-monster of the Japanese New Wave, shot in 1969, released in an 
amputated version of an hour in 1970 (that was it or the total censorship), it is finally 
visible in DVD edition in a restored version (superb photo in black and white of Motokichi 
Hasegawa) and almost complete, 9 minutes having been lost due to a degraded original coil. 
{} Excerpt from the show: " September 16, 1923, in the wake of the terrible and dramatic 
earthquake of Kanto, where the state imposed martial law to suppress all kinds of social 
outbursts, the anarchist Osugi Sakae, his mistress Ito Noe and a child, the young nephew 
of Osugi, are arrested by the military police. They will be beaten to death and thrown 
into a well. The film starts from this atrocious historical fact that has upset much of 
Japanese society. Osugi, anarchist, was also a fervent supporter of free love: Eros + 
Massacre works his political and romantic relations, with his wife Yasuko Hori, a feminist 
activist Masaoka Itsuko, and Ito Noe, also feminist and anarchist. But the film does not 
stop there and constantly navigates between a fantasy past and the present of 1969, just 
as unstable, obscure, elusive. When the film begins, Mako, "daughter or granddaughter or 
great-granddaughter" supposedly of Ito Noe, is interviewed by Eiko, a design student. This 
is the mistress of Unema, director of advertising, who pays for her sexual services, and 
Eiko, suspected of prostitution, will soon be worried by the police. But Eiko is in love 
with a friend of Unema, Wada, student, anarchist too .... Past and present will combine, 
juxtapose and telescope, and Eiko will replay / imagine many scenes of the life of Osugi 
Sakae movement, allowing itself to be penetrated by its transfigured history, recomposed 
... who pays for her sexual services, and Eiko, suspected of prostitution, will soon be 
worried by the police. But Eiko is in love with a friend of Unema, Wada, student, 
anarchist too .... Past and present will combine, juxtapose and telescope, and Eiko will 
replay / imagine many scenes of the life of Osugi Sakae movement, allowing itself to be 
penetrated by its transfigured history, recomposed ... who pays for her sexual services, 
and Eiko, suspected of prostitution, will soon be worried by the police. But Eiko is in 
love with a friend of Unema, Wada, student, anarchist too .... Past and present will 
combine, juxtapose and telescope, and Eiko will replay / imagine many scenes of the life 
of Osugi Sakae movement, allowing itself to be penetrated by its transfigured history, 
recomposed ... " That's the pitch. But the film resists any summary and any 
simplification, Yoshida resolutely turning his back on all forms of realism and historical 
reconstruction, combining political and philosophical issues of lawlessness and Japanese 
feminism of the early XX th century, those of his era, those of the multiple challenges of 
the 1970s, which echo them in a flamboyant aesthetic. To revisit or discover, therefore: a 
work of art, undeniably, and a revolutionary film, in every sense of the word. [1]

Pim Paoum

Eros + Massacre , box two DVDs, Carlotta Films, average price 10 euros

[1] You can listen to or podcast the show and all the previous ones on the internet: 
cinedrome.unblog.fr or radioms.fr

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Webradio-Sur-l-ecran-noir-de-nos-oreilles

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Message: 7






On Sunday, October 28, in Helsinki, in front of the Russian Embassy, dozens of people, 
mostly anti-fascists and anarchists from Russia and some activists from Finland, 
participated in a protest in solidarity with the actions of the Russian anti-fascist 
parents arrested in that parents. ---- There were banners and posters in English, Russian 
and Finnish: "FSB[Russian Federal Security Service]is the main terrorist!", "Freedom to 
Russian antifascists", "Freedom to political prisoners", "Solidarity has no borders, our 
hearts are with you! " There were also shouts in Russian and English: "Stop with police 
repression", "Freedom for the imprisoned antifascists", "FSB is the main terrorist", 
"Freedom for political prisoners", "Freedom for anarchist prisoners" Putin, his hands are 
stained with blood, "among others.

The action was carried out without incident.

Black Cross Anarchist Helsinki

Antifascist Initiative "Network Companions"

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