Today's Topics:
1. Britain, brighton sol-fed: Brighton Solfed Starts Campaign
Against The Sidewinder Pub (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. US, black rose fed: SOCIALIST DOG CATCHERS (OR PRESIDENTS)
WON'T SAVE US (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. [Switzerland] 15 anarchists in Basel sentenced to fines and
arrest By ANA (pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. [Spain] Interview with "Rojava Azadi Madrid": the role of
women in the Rojava revolution (ca, pt) By ANA [traduccion
automatica] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Bangladesh Anarcho Syndicalist Federation ASF: Bangladesh,
India, Nepal welcome climate change losses [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. US, First of May Anarchist Alliance m1aa: Recent Rise of
Visible Anti-Semitism (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. France, Alternative Libertaire AL - March 8th for strikes
and struggles (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
8. avtonom: "Yellow vests" act 16: let a hundred flowers bloom,
but all against Macron [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Brighton Solidarity Federation has opened a public campaign against The Sidewinder on
Upper St James in Kemp Town. We were approached by a worker who was immediately dismissed
just for calling in sick for one shift. The worker was also owed unpaid holiday
entitlement. ---- We wrote to The Sidewinder asking that they pay compensation for unfair
dismissal and fork out the owed holiday pay. They have now paid the holiday pay, but have
refused demands for compensation, accusing us of blackmail. Clearly, The Sidewinder thinks
that not providing employees with contracts, holiday pay, failing to follow grievence
procedures and dismissing workers for being ill is acceptable. ---- Brighton Solfed are
bored of these types of shenanigans from the bosses: pub workers need to stand together in
the face of terrible working conditions and illegal employment practices. We stand in
solidarity with workers and will not stop until we receive what the worker deserves.
An injury to one is an injury to all!
http://www.brightonsolfed.org.uk/brighton/brighton-solfed-starts-campaign-against-the-sidewinder-pub
------------------------------
Message: 2
Tags: Electoralism, Strategy, The Left in Power ---- A commentary engaging the debate
around the socialist left's relationship to electoral politics and the call for "A
Socialist in Every District." Patrick Berkman sheds new light on the history of socialist
electoralism while spelling out a clear alternative vision. ---- By Patrick Berkman ----
There's a certain type of socialist that reminds me of highway planners. For years now,
researchers have held up convincing evidence that adding lanes to highways does not
improve traffic congestion. It's counter-intuitive: certainly adding more lanes means
there's more room to drive! However, empirical studies have conclusively shown that the
result is that traffic increases to fill that extra capacity in what's referred to as
induced demand.
Press any DOT official or highway planner enough about the research and they'll gravely
nod their heads and admit that it requires a serious re-evaluation within their sector.
But it's almost impossible to find these insights incorporated into actual planning, a
seemingly permanent blind spot kept there by a combination of politics and sheer inertia.
As a city planner tells Arthur Dent in the opening pages of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy, "It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses."
Similarly, the past few centuries have provided countless empirical examples of the
futility of trying to achieve socialism through electoral pursuits. But for one reason or
another, the common wisdom many socialists cling to-that helping socialists take hold of
part of the capitalist state gets us closer to socialism-is rarely dislodged, even when
they are forced to admit the mountain of failures of the past.
The latest salvo from the electoral left comes from an expected quarter, Jacobin, but from
a not-entirely-expected source: Nathan J. Robinson, founder of Current Affairs and
self-avowed libertarian socialist.
In "A Socialist in Every District," Robinson encourages socialist electoral campaigns at
every level of government possible, a kind of red version of former DNC chair Howard
Dean's "50 State Strategy." Robinson writes:
A democratic-socialist president needs a movement behind them. They also need a Congress
that is as far to the left as possible. That's why, if socialists are going to make a
Sanders presidency succeed, we must stake out an ambitious goal for 2020: there should be
no election, at any level, without a socialist candidate running.
Every one of the 435 house seats. Every one of the 33 open senate seats. However many of
the 50 governors and 7,383 state legislators there are. The dog catcher in Duxbury.
Wherever there is a position of power democratically contested, a socialist should be
offered up as an option.
One of libertarian socialism's defining features is its rejection of both the Leninist
vanguard party and the electoral incrementalism of social democracy and democratic
socialism. Encouraging socialists to move en masse into electoral campaigns up and down
the ballot is, to put it mildly, uncharacteristic of the political tradition Robinson pins
himself to.
Robinson's key arguments are that socialist ideas are more popular and widespread than
ever before, that it's impossible to know in advance which seats are winnable, and that
even campaigns that lose are still valuable educational tools. The broad brushstrokes in
Robinson's essay have long been refuted, recently in "The Lure of Elections," written by
members of Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation.
Socialists who try to capture state power are aspiring to cut off the very branch they're
sitting on. Socialist electoral campaigns are parasitic of, and ultimately destructive to,
the working class movements upon which their momentum depends. Mitterand in France,
Papandreou and Syriza in Greece, Ortega in Nicaragua, Allende in Chile: socialists who
reach the heights of state power must either bend to the dictates of capital or they are
removed. This consistently happens on the local level too, including Bernie Sanders'
tenure as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, which was marked by the "pragmatic" abandonment of
his signature campaign pledge to stop the privatization of the city waterfront. Meanwhile,
the siphoning of social movement energies and personnel into electoral and state
apparatuses means that the one counterweight to capital-the organized working class-no
longer has the independence and clear battle lines needed to fight back. (It's long been
understood that the most effective way to impose neoliberalism and austerity with the
least pushback is to have leftist and social-democratic parties be the ones who do it.)
And as we're seeing now across Europe and countries like Brazil and Venezuela, the
inevitable stalling of the state-based left rolls out the red carpet for the forces of
reaction.
To paraphrase anarchist Rudolf Rocker: elected socialists haven't been a toehold of
socialist movement within the capitalist state, they've been a toehold of the capitalist
state within the socialist movement.
All Sewers, No Socialism
What I'd like to discuss in particular is Robinson's nostalgic invocation of the socialist
politicians of America's past. He writes:
Socialists have succeeded electorally before. There were once a thousand socialist elected
officials in the United States. Socialists in state legislatures introduced bills that got
passed. The Socialist mayor of Milwaukee served twenty-four years. The Wall Street Journal
has just published a fascinating discussion of the history of socialist congressional
representatives in the United States, from Vito Marcantonio to Ron Dellums. It's
remarkable to see the nation's business paper admit that "socialists are no strangers to
Congress."
Electoral efforts at the municipal level are often referred to as "sewer socialism," a
recognition that the actions of socialists in city councils and mayor's offices had much
more to do with public infrastructure than, say, jailing the rich and inciting workers to
seize their factories. Indeed, there was so little dangerous content in the governing
agendas of elected socialists that many of their ideas were borrowed wholesale by their
liberal political competitors (most famously in the case of Roosevelt's New Deal). The
practical exigencies of governance within the capitalist state meant that much of the
radicalism that propelled them to office was simply abandoned, and the best that elected
socialists and their constituents could hope for was a friendlier and more competent
management of capitalism. And that's a task you don't need to elect socialists to do.
Instead of "a socialist in every office," a much more interesting and urgent
call-to-action would be a union in every workplace! A tenant union in every apartment
building. A student union in every school. A mass assembly in every working class
neighborhood.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the height of American socialists' electoral
success, libertarian socialists were there too. But instead of rounding up donations and
votes for socialist politicians, Robinson's political forebears were critiquing the
practice as a counterproductive distraction from the essential task of organizing the
working class.
One of the first sewer socialists was Emil Seidel, elected Mayor of Milwaukee in 1910 and
picked as Eugene Debs' running mate in the 1912 presidential race. Coinciding with the
election of the Socialist Party's Victor Berger to Congress, Milwaukee became a mecca of
sorts for electoral socialists across the country. Despite his celebrity status, Seidel's
decidedly un-socialist tenure in office was not missed by the most prominent libertarian
socialist periodical of the day, Mother Earth. In its May 1910 issue, after listing the
key platform planks of Milwaukee's socialist politicians-spanning from cheaper gas and
trolley fares to cheaper heating fuel through the city-H. Kelly writes, "Not one of the
above reforms, promised by the new Social Democratic administration at Milwaukee, is
objectionable to the bourgeoisie as a class." Kelly's analysis is worth quoting at length,
as it applies to much more than just Milwaukee:
It cannot be urged too strongly that it is no part of the Anarchist or Socialist to
administer bourgeois government more efficiently. It is their business to destroy
capitalism, and on the ruins of that system found the Free Commune or Socialist
Commonwealth... Politics will not, because it cannot, touch fundamental questions, and if
the "Milwaukee Victory" were duplicated in every city in America, the capitalist question
would remain unsolved, unless the exploited themselves rose in revolt against their
oppressors and took possession of the land, railways, factories, etc.
[...]
Socialists all over the world will be interested in one reform Mayor Seidel inaugurated
immediately after assuming office. He increased the hours of labor for municipal employees
from six to eight a day. Every capitalist paper in the country has applauded this
"Socialist reform," as well they might, for this is "efficiency in government" with a
vengeance, and has no doubt brought the Co-operative Commonwealth several laps nearer.
True to the party platform, which calls for eight hours a day even when it means
increasing the hours instead of decreasing them.
The next year Emma Goldman, reporting on her Midwestern travels in Mother Earth, made a
similar assessment with her characteristic sarcasm:
Seriously, has anything been changed with the ascendency of the Socialist régime? Yes,
Mayor Seidel has declared that the only way the 25,000 unemployed in Milwaukee can be
helped now, is to cut the salaries of all the city employees. Really, now? All city
employees, including also Mayor Seidel, Congressman Berger and the rest of the official
staff? Nixie. No such class-consciousness for theirs. By city employees only the
two-dollar-a-day wretches are meant. Surely the Seidels and Genossen are not expected to
share their hard-earned thousands with slum proletarians. The latter must starve until
economic determinism will determine the entire machinery of government into the hands of
Socialist politicians.
All this, of course, assumes socialists are allowed to run for office and serve if
elected. The first half of the 20th century shows just how easily even sewer socialists
can be kicked out of the offices they spent so many resources to win. For example:
In January 1919, all five members of the Socialist delegation to the New York State
Assembly were barred from taking the seats they had rightfully won. The vote to suspend
them was bipartisan and almost unanimous, 140-6. Notably, in response the socialists hung
their rhetorical hat not on opposition to the rotten system itself but on being better
stewards of the capitalist state, with a Socialist Party leader claiming, "it will draw
the issues clearer between the united Republican and Democratic parties representing
arbitrary lawlessness, and the Socialist Party, which stood and stands for democratic and
representative government."
That same year, Socialist Party politician Victor Berger was barred from retaking his seat
in Congress due to his conviction under the Espionage Act for anti-war speeches. After
barring him, a special election was held for his seat, which Berger won again - and was
again denied by Congress, keeping the seat vacant until 1921. (Only the Supreme Court
overturning Berger's conviction, conveniently after World War I had concluded, allowed him
to be seated in Congress after winning yet again in 1922.)
In 1947, proportional representation in New York City was abolished, entirely due to
Democrat-stoked Red Scare threats of radicals being elected.
These kinds of procedural shenanigans are still available should individual politicians or
parties become a nuisance. In the 2000s, Democrats in Maine, faced with the first elected
Green Party member in the state House, preferred to redistrict him instead of work with
him. In Burlington, Vermont, Democrats and Republicans in city hall conspired to repeal
Instant Runoff Voting because a Progressive Party member kept getting elected mayor.
We should also be wary of the notion that socialist campaigns are, as Robinson puts it,
"educational tools," expanding the debate leftward. History is littered with left
candidates and politicians who have, when the moment was most urgent, hardened and even
narrowed the left-end of acceptable opinion. It was French Socialist Party leader François
Mitterand who, in May 1968, denounced the young workers revolting in Paris and elsewhere
as having a "mixture of imitation Marxism[and]hotchpotch of confused ideas". It was Jean
Quan who, after having won Oakland's mayoralty with a campaign touting her
union-organizing and left activist history, called in hundreds of police to violently
suppress Occupy Oakland in 2011. Indeed, the sprouting of popular movements like Occupy
Wall Street and Black Lives Matter shows just how far we can move popular opinion and
political consciousness with social movements while resisting co-optation by left
officeholders.
H. Kelly's 1910 Mother Earth article concludes by comparing the fruits of recent votes
taken in Milwaukee and those in Philadelphia. Whereas the votes cast in Milwaukee were by
citizens, sending a handful of socialists into city hall, the votes cast in Philly were by
workers of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. That vote committed thousands of
workers to the picket line and led to a citywide general strike, the conclusion of which
brought significant wage increases for transit workers across the region and reshaped the
labor landscape for the next decade. Kelly puts it succinctly:
The Socialist administration of Milwaukee has, as the first fruits of a twenty-five year
agitation, raised the hours of labor, while the strike of Philadelphia raised wages.
Confronted with the perennial failure of socialists in office, the electorally-minded
generally portray them as either sad accidents or cruel betrayals, but like the highway
planner who thinks I know the evidence, but maybe just one more lane will do the trick,
they refuse to understand that the problem is a systemic, structural one.
Understanding Libertarian Socialism
Where does this leave Nathan Robinson and his curious brand of election-friendly
libertarian socialism? He expands on his understanding of the term in an essay on Noam
Chomsky:
Libertarian socialism seems to me a beautiful philosophy. It rejects both "misery through
economic exploitation" and "misery through Stalinist totalitarianism," arguing that the
problem is misery itself, whatever the source. It's a very simple concept, but it's easy
to miss because of the binary that pits "communism" against "capitalism." Thus, if you're
a critic of capitalism, you must be an apologist for the most brutal socialist
governments. But every time there has been such government, libertarian socialist critics
have been the first to call it out for its hypocrisy. (Usually, such people are the first
ones liquidated.)
Omitting libertarian socialism's opposition to social democracy seems intentional, as
Robinson writes elsewhere, "I myself happen to be a pragmatic[socialist], who dreams of a
stateless society but thinks sensible government guided by socialist principles of
economic democracy will do in the meantime."
"Pragmatism" is a catchphrase used almost exclusively to punch left and artificially
narrow the realm of possibility, so for our purposes let us strip it of its baggage and
consider pragmatism as simply using the most-assured methods to achieve partial progress
on the way to a larger goal. In that case, the libertarian socialist theory of change
within present-day society (Robinson's "meantime") is substantially more pragmatic than
one that requires socialists to run for office. Libertarian socialists generally argue
that it is the balance of class forces, not the party composition of the political class,
that determines legislative and policy outcomes under the capitalist state. If we want
reforms in our favor, we must shift that balance through popular organization and
mobilization, regardless of who is in power. (Often a wave of new, further left elected
officials is a lagging indicator: a result of that shift, not its cause.)
In the words of anarchist Errico Malatesta, "we will take or win all possible reforms with
the same spirit that one tears occupied territory from the enemy's grasp." It's a profound
mistake to think we need a seat at capital's table to do so, and we need not look back a
century to find evidence.
Just last month the U.S. federal government's partial shutdown was ended not by Democrats,
or the Congressional Progressive Caucus, or even Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez: it was the
stirrings of wildcat strikes spreading through the ranks of federal workers and related
industries - perhaps most crucially, airline workers like those in the Association of
Flight Attendants. On similar terrain, Trump's first travel ban was put on hold in
significant part due to widespread direct action disrupting airports. And just days ago a
statewide strike by West Virginia teachers scuttled a proposed bill to gut the state's
public education system, with victory coming mere hours after the strike took effect. This
action occurred almost exactly a year after these same educators and support workers
launched a strike that both won them raises and sparked a wave of teacher strikes across
the country, in both Republican- and Democrat-controlled states, that continues to this day.
Robinson is correct that his political commitments do not oblige him in the slightest to
apologize for the authoritarian states ruled under the banner of socialism. But if he
insists on what is functionally a social democratic strategy he does need to account for
its past crimes and failures, including:
the mountains of stolen resources, the millions of exploited people oceans away, and
extracted fossil fuels that drove the taxable profits that made the welfare state hum;
the historically contingent, tenuous, and compromised basis for its successes (the
particular configuration of the world economy, the size and combativeness of labor and
other movements, the background threat of the Soviet Union, and the willingness of
capitalists to temporarily play along); and
its slide into neoliberal austerity everywhere, including Bernie Sanders' beloved
Scandinavia, teeing up the far right to gain ground.
Even more daunting for folks like Robinson is that they're then obliged to explain why,
this time, it will somehow be different. There's no reason for confidence in a social
democratic strategy to even get to the "sensible government" he hopes will get us through
the meantime, and every reason to believe such a strategy will both sabotage the basis for
positive reforms in the here-and-now and take us further from the break with capitalism
upon which humanity depends.
In the 1930s, Rudolf Rocker witnessed firsthand the profound failure of electoral
socialists, including such titans as Germany's SDP:
In Germany, however, where the moderate wing in the form of Social Democracy attained to
power, Socialism, in its long years of absorption in routine parliamentary tasks, had
become so bogged down that it was no longer capable of any creative act whatsoever...
But that was not all: not only was political Socialism in no position to undertake any
kind of constructive effort in the direction of Socialism, it did not even possess the
moral strength to hold on to the achievements of bourgeois Democracy and Liberalism, and
surrendered the country without resistance to Fascism, which smashed the entire labour
movement to bits with one blow.
Resisting the mirage of state seizure is a deadly serious imperative. We cannot afford to
repeat the mistakes of the twentieth century that left one branch of socialists wrecked on
the shoals of neoliberalism and another branch determined to remake the state as a
singular authoritarian capitalist.
Instead of "a socialist in every office," a much more interesting and urgent
call-to-action would be a union in every workplace (and prison!). A tenant union in every
apartment building. A student union in every school. A mass assembly in every working
class neighborhood. These are the building blocks for winning victories now and the
foundation for a future society beyond capitalism and the state.
There will always be liberals ready to volunteer to be the officials from whom we will
extract concessions. But while opportunists are a given, an organized and militant working
class isn't. It's up to all of us to make it happen.
Patrick Berkman does graphics design work and is a member of Black Rose/Rosa Negra based
in Burlington, Vermont. The piece was originally published here.
http://blackrosefed.org/socialist-dog-catchers-wont-save-us/
------------------------------
Message: 3
On 15 January 2019, 15 of the 18 defendants in the "Basle" case were found guilty of
intentional property damage, actual personal injury, breach of peace, multiple acts of
violence, threats against public authorities and officials and violation of traffic laws .
The absurd sentence ranges from 20 months conditionally to two years, up to 27 months
unconditionally. Thus, the three judges of the criminal court of the city of Basel
followed the claims of the prosecution most of the time. Some people even had to pay an
additional fine of 200,000 Swiss francs for violation of the ban on wearing face covers,
as well as individual fines - between five and ten daily fines instead of imprisonment -
for insults, violation of the gun control law , transgression or impediment to an official
act.
The amount of the fine seems even more absurd in the light of the judicial classification
of several allegations of prosecution as unsatisfied (for example, several attempts of
severe aggression, incursions or disturbances against public transport). The main cause
was therefore that the court upheld the controversial construction of the co-offense - so
that everyone could equally blame - and in its verdict supported this intensified
interpretation. All this despite the fact that none of the tangible crimes could be
associated with any of the accused, and moreover, the statements of one of the main
prosecution witnesses were declared unusable by the court. No evidence for the resolution
to commit a collective offense was left. Nevertheless, the court was of the opinion that,
from the damages to the property and the video recordings available, it was clear that
they dealt with a homogeneous group, which from the beginning aimed to commit criminal
property damage and attack - in case of police intervention. In that case, according to
the court, it would not have been necessary to prove the guilt of any of the accused. All
participants in the demonstration could be considered guilty only for their walk and for
their supposed ideological complicity.
Like the prosecution, the court also did not seem impressed by the fact that there was
almost no evidence of the individual's participation in the June 24 demonstration. The
guilt of the 13 people who were arrested that night in Basel seemed to be right for the
court anyway. In some cases the argument was based on traces of DNA in moving items and in
others where such traces were not found, with the alleged affiliation to the left scene,
based on assumptions of police reports or a list of convicted persons found in a house
search conducted after the demonstration.
There are millions of ways to make it possible for an item with DNA traits to reach a
certain location. Even the federal court ruled that a DNA hit does not count as evidence,
but only as a clue. However, the court did not seem bothered by this: in addition to those
people arrested that night, two other people, of whom only trace of DNA in day-to-day
items near the demonstration, were arrested as well. The acquittal was won only for the
three people who were accused of just sending an SMS to one of the other defendants on the
day in question.
Along with the horrendous fines, the people involved have to pay high negotiation costs
(about 176,000 Swiss francs) as well as claims for compensation of more than 141,000 Swiss
francs. The court upheld these demands and sentenced the defendants to a joint and
unrestricted agreement. This means that they all have to pay all claims for compensation.
Thus, private applicants can choose natural persons and burden them with the total sum of
the damage caused.
The aforementioned sentences make it clear that the court - as well as the prosecution -
wants to build a political network, depoliticize and criminalize political protest.
Punishing individuals in the most difficult forms possible is a clear threat to all who
have not been judged today: anyone resisting the authoritarian state system and its laws
will be punished and locked up!
The first act in this tragedy of provincial understanding of the law ends in this grim
note. However, during the trial, several lawyers have already announced that they will
appeal against this verdict. We hope for great resistance for all who have been tried
today and those who will continue the process!
Let's not be intimidated!
Solidarity with all the people involved!
"Ultimately, we must be able to rely on such police reports, otherwise the judiciary will
not work anymore!" - Dominik Kiener (presiding judge)
Source: https://afund.antirep.net/15-anarchists-in-basel-sentenced-to-fines-and-prison-time/
Translation> sapat @
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Message: 4
What has been the role of women in the Rojava revolution? ---- Women are the basis of the
revolution in Rojava. They are the engine of the greatest changes of the revolution. Women
of all ages, ethnicities and particularities have led to the revolution to be what it is
today. From the area of self-defense with the action of Arîn Mîrkan, to the political and
diplomatic work of FawzaYuzuf, co-president of the Syrian Democratic Federation of
Northern and Eastern Syria (FDNLS). ---- What are the demands of Kurdish women? ---- The
aim of women in the Kurdish liberation movement is to end patriarchy, state and
capitalism, and to develop what they call 'Democratic Modernity'. There are no demands
with specific priorities. It is struggling to end sexist violence, as well as fighting for
a free education. It struggles for a self-organization of women's defense, as well as
striving to recover the ethical principles of a free coexistence. It struggles for a
decentralized political self-organization, but also strives to destroy the mentality and
personality of the dominant male.
What are the particularities of Kurdish feminism?
The Kurdish liberation movement is not considered feminist, although feminism is
considered an indispensable source for Kurdish women and is an unquestionable alliance.
They have their own ideology of women's liberation, based on five principles:
a) Love of the homeland and its defense.
b) Free thinking and free will. Be yourself and get away from the influences of the
capitalist, patriarchal and state system.
c) Self-organization as a way of life, based on the fellowship between equals in the struggle.
d) The struggle is an endless path, however much progress and success, you can never stop
fighting.
e) Ethics and aesthetics: it is only through the ethical principles of love and beauty
within life that a struggle can be developed that leads to freedom.
How are women organizing after the revolution? Have you formed any institution?
The entire FDNLS system has a mixed general structure and a replica of the structure:
autonomous of women (not mixed). For each committee that exists: education, health,
politics, economy, justice, etc. there is an autonomous part of women in which men can not
comment or influence. Their decisions are autonomous and will be applied in the general
structures. Themes that relate directly to gender conflicts, such as gender-based
violence, are within the competence of women's structures, which decide and organize.
What is Jineolojî?
Jineologi is the construction of a new science, made from the point of view of women.
Through the centuries, knowledge has been stolen from women with violence. Women have been
alienated from knowledge and ostracized for the clear purpose of submission. All areas of
the social sciences have a patriarchal look that crosses them, and many of the knowledge
developed were born with the objective of subjecting not only women, but all of society,
to different forms of slavery. For these reasons Jineologê is born, because it is
necessary to review all the knowledge so far written, to detect where the system of
domination left deep marks and correct them. This is not to say that all knowledge is not
valid,
Source: rojovaazadimadrid.org/entrevista-a-joja-azadi-en-la-penultima/
Translation> POAEF
------------------------------
Message: 5
Most people in the world suffer from hunger, poverty, and distress. Now the farmers of
India, Bangladesh and Nepal are facing various problems. Only about 70 million peasants in
India's Andhra Province rely on their life and depend on agriculture. Millions of peasants
now face threats for bad weather. In this way Nepal's 3.4 million farmers, including
Bangladesh, will have to depend on other countries for food because of climate change.
---- Changes in climate change, change in weather conditions, due to appropriate change,
there is a possibility of decreasing production of crops in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.
According to Oxfam's report in Nepal, "People say that the quantity of their produce has
dropped by half compared to the previous year ... In the past year many people could
produce a food for a month." According to Oxfam's report, "many experts have warned that
people are at risk of risk, discrimination and danger".
Due to such problem, the trend of self-murder among the farmers of India's Andhra Pradesh
increased. But the real reason is that the situation of millions of peasants going bad for
the day due to bad weather. The family income in this region has dropped below two dollars
daily. Farmers are lending a lot in order to survive . Farmers' society is recruiting a
lot of pressure to recover the debt. There is not enough provision for loan in those
areas. There are 30% interest earned. The overall situation is not favorable for the
farmers. So many people choose to kill themselves.
Some data sources say that this year only 150 people are involved in self-mortality
related to climate change issues . The main reason for this is the loss of crops and the
per capita debt of the farmers. 17,500 farmers have killed themselves in India from 2002
to 2006. More than 160,000 people killed themselves in 1997 only due to extreme poverty.
They themselves often die of eating pesticides. After they die, their debt is under
pressure to understand their legacy. As a result, the pain of various types of pain
increases on the family of the farmer day by day .
The current situation in India and Nepal tells how the climate change causes problems. In
the first world people are capable of dealing with such problems because of having more
resources. But people in the third world are at great risk of this problem. People in the
first world do not care much about the problem of climate change. There is no poverty and
no fear. The people of the world are very rich because they have a recklessness among
them. So the people of the third world must solve them. Because this matter is related to
their birth death.
To solve these problems, the world will have to create tide of protest and the enlightened
people must be involved in that movement. In the third world, the brokerage that runs the
state and society, which always works with regard to the interests of themselves and their
lord, do not think of ordinary people and do not think they will have to pass on. Yet many
third world countries have semi-feudalism and commission capitalist capitalism, Nepal,
India and Bangladesh are among them. Their ruling class can not solve ongoing problems.
Only a broad-based mass movements, and shining upon the initiative of the people of Asia,
the man can bring solution to many problems, including poverty. Can bring a bright future
Here is a behind the legacy system in terms of money, and still can say that ,A planned
economy can eliminate this problem and solve the problem of ongoing problems. By
mobilizing the people's strength, instead of capitalist system, the public can implement
the system of money, and by developing technologies, it will end the complexities of
people's food, clothing, and treatment. Enlightened people's assemblage and communist
sentiment will lead South Asia forward. We have to move forward in the way of ending all
problems with climate change issues . People will have to call the general strike. Forcing
the ruling cycle to stop our favorite planets from harmful activities. There is no
nationalism to develop socialism for the protection of humanity. Let's move forward
towards the way of light on communism.
http://www.bangladeshasf.org/news
------------------------------
Message: 6
By Miriam of the Michigan Collective, a retired Jewish autoworker. Miriam was raised as a
communist in Compton, California and is now an Anarchist operating out of the Detroit
area. ---- The recent rise in visible Anti Semitism - vandalism of synagogues and Jewish
cemeteries, shooting and murder in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the fascist slogans pointing
to Jews as the enemy - shows that the ground of security is once again cracking. The
economic and social insecurities thrown up by the decay of capitalism, and its attempts to
stabilize itself globally through a neoliberal strategy, have allowed hatred of "the
other" to rise to the surface. This enables racists to publicly act out against Black
people, questioning their right to be in public places; it enables public policies to
detain, and sometimes murder, refugees seeking survival and protection; and it enables
hatred of Jews.
Israel's role in the world as agent of the United States and apologist for apartheid
allows a conflation of Jews and Zionism. They are not the same. Zionism and the state of
Israel is supported by people and institutions that are not Jewish; there are Jewish
people who do not support the state of Israel.
Currently, Jews have assimilated into the United States to such an extent, particularly
through the professional class, that they are seen as the face of authority among other
groups, who have also been othered, and discriminated against, particularly Black people.
The Jewish people have been seen as other, as heretics from their first refusals to go
along with Roman authorities during the rise of Christianity. Driven from living spaces,
corralled in ghettos (Italy) or the Pale of Settlement (Russia), the diaspora, or
dispersion, spread Jews throughout the world. Expelled from Spain (1492), they were
forbidden to live openly in Spanish colonies. They lived as secret Jews, or Marranos
(pigs), openly Christian, following Jewish traditions in secret.
The first Jewish settlement in what is now New York was in 1624. Through peaks of
nativism, hostility against Jews rose periodically. Jews were forbidden to live in certain
areas, there were quotas on their entrance to schools, they were caricatured, identified
as greedy, money hungry, sly and devious, dirty, and, of course, the killers of Christ.
Jews sought assimilation and were allowed to participate as settlers; as Europeans
displaced Native Americans across the western United States, Jews were among their number.
In order to become "white", or "truly American", one must adopt attitudes of
anti-Blackness. This was the route all settlers took as they established themselves as
Americans, as they threw off their European identities.
The first major influx of Jews to the United States was in the 1840s, primarily from
Austria and Germany, after the failed revolutions in Europe. They were primarily
shopkeepers and financially able to secure employment and businesses. In Europe Jews were
prevented from becoming farmers and were denied access to education and to the
professional classes. They sought protection from their anti Semitic neighbors by
appealing to the king or members of the king's court for protection. They were often used
as usurers, or money lenders, as this profession was forbidden to Christians. This role
linked them to banking and money in the public eye; it also linked them to the ruling classes.
This group set itself against the second wave of Jewish immigration around the late
1880s-1900s, which was larger, poorer and escaping from the Russian and Polish pogroms.
This wave also brought the anarchist and Communist influence into the Jewish communities,
into the working class neighborhoods where they settled, and into the shops they helped
organize. The many daily newspapers in Yiddish provided cultural adhesion, along with a
strong cultural practice of poetry, theater and music, and a high value placed on education.
The "Jewish Community" has always been divided among itself - culturally and by class; by
religious expression and by how it identifies itself. Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and
Reconstructionist are all forms of religious Judaism, each one seeing itself as the "true"
Jewish religion. The humanist or secular Jews also see themselves as Jews, but without a
religious identity, living within a cultural tradition.
These divisions were aggravated with the establishment of Israel as a "Jewish" state in
1948. Set up as a British and United States outpost in the Middle East, intended to
represent British interests against the rising independence movements of the Arab states
and as a place to send Jews displaced by World War 2, that were not welcome in the United
States or in Europe.
Zionism was never the ideology of all Jews. Jews hold a range of politics and opinions,
based on their upbringing and experiences, their desires to assimilate or remain a part of
a Jewish community, whether religious or secular. It has served the purposes of both
Israel and western imperialism to conflate Jews with the Israeli state and with Zionism.
This has aggravated many Jews who do not identify with either.
Jews have played a major role in the various professional layers of American society -
doctors, lawyers, businessmen, academics, movie moguls. Some have amassed great wealth and
use this for the benefit of the many right wing causes and politicians they support.
Part of the othered persona has led Jews to a role of middleman, particularly in regard to
Black people. They are the owners of stores in Black communities, the managers of
recording artists, the landlord or slumlord willing to rent to Black people when others
would not. This relationship has exacerbated a particular understanding of Jews as the
face of the white man, even when the white man does not consider the Jew white, or allow
them to live in their white only neighborhoods. Many Jews changed their names and hid
their identities in order to attend schools with Jewish quotas. The fact that they were
able to pass allowed a degree of assimilation unavailable to more recognizable groups.
Jews have also played major roles in various left wing and social justice movements,
putting ideas and bodies into the struggles for rights for working class people.
One of the lessons of the German Holocaust is that assimilation into a capitalist society
will not save an othered group from the thuggery of predators. As the right wing becomes
more empowered and feels itself enabled to be open about its politics, its root anti
Semitism once again reveals itself: in vandalism, in Nazi slogans, in murder.
http://m1aa.org/?p=1640
------------------------------
Message: 7
This year, March 8, International Day of Fight for Women's Rights, has a special
character. Between calls to the strike, denunciations of sexism and sexual violence, and
women's struggles Vests yellow, this day is part of a context of mobilization against
inequality and social violence. ---- 3:40 PM: STOP THE WORK ---- Since 2014, several
organizations are calling for a strike on March 8th. Pay inequality, sexism at work,
sexual harassment, imposed partial time, precarious work and poorly paid ... the
partriarchy has found a major ally, capitalism, to discriminate on a large scale those who
represent nearly half of the wage earners: women. ---- Given the differences in wages
(women earn 24 % less than men, all working time combined and 18 % in full-time
equivalent), we consider that women are no longer paid from 15:40 (on a typical day) and
call them to be on strike and in protest from this hour.
STRIKE OF DOMESTIC WORK
Professional inequalities go hand in hand with the unequal division of labor within the
family. The patriarchal system confines women to domestic tasks (cleaning, shopping,
meals, caring for children and ascendants ...), this work not only invisible but also
free. Women are exploited in the private sphere. Strike this work is also to make it
visible and (de) show that without women, society does not turn !
Download the leaflet in pdf
STOP VIOLENCE
Whether in the public or private sphere, women are victims of specific violence.
Psychological, physical, sexual, economic or administrative, this violence harms women who
are victims of it and have impacts on their physical and mental health. Since 1 st January
60 women died because of violence by their partner or ex-partner, a woman every other day.
A figure significantly higher than in previous years. The so-called priority of the
five-year period, the fight against violence against women is only an announcement effect
with budgets at half-mast, especially for associations that fight against female victims.
WOMEN IN ACTION
Since November 17, 2018, women are numerous among yellow vests, roundabouts and events.
Logic in view of the precariousness that affects them full force and anti-social measures
of which they are the first victims (decline in APL, price increase, increase the CSG for
retirees.es ..). Largely majority among single-parent families, part-time, minimum old
age, low wages, women have every reason to fight.
More than ever, this March 8 will be a day of struggle, mobilization and solidarity
between all women ! A day that should not remain without consequences. After the success
of November 25, it is time for women to build a unitary and massive feminist mobilization.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Pour-un-8-mars-de-greves-et-de-luttes
------------------------------
Message: 8
On March 2, in France, another rally of national protests against the policies of the
current president's administration, Emmanuel Macron, took place. According to the Ministry
of the Interior of the Fifth Republic, 39.3 thousand people took part in demonstrations of
"yellow vests" all over the country. However, the organizers of the demonstrations claim
that at least 92 thousand activists took to the streets of 150 settlements across the
country. The final results of the XVI act of performances "yellow vests" will bring on
Sunday. ---- The main action took place in Paris. The procession from the Arc de Triomphe
in the direction of the Piazza Dunfer-Rochereau - began about one o'clock in the afternoon
local time. Demonstrators carried in their hands stretch marks with the words: "A
referendum! Power to the people!", "France was plundered by oligarchs. Resistance." They
say the participants of the action. Jonathan Decker: " We will continue actions. We will
fight. All we want is for the government to pay attention to the most vulnerable part of
the population, so that the authorities stop putting pressure on us and working people can
live in dignity ."
Sophie Tissier: " We should not stop, because Macron despises us and does not hear our
demands. He does not even try to understand that there are people living in poverty, who
are in a difficult situation, and that this is unfair ."
On the eve of the speeches, the organizers of the demonstrations called them a prelude to
the "mobilization month", which, according to them, should be March. It is expected that
by the middle of the month the protest potential will grow on the wave of completion of
the national debate initiated by Emmanuel Macron. They were supposed to be a negotiating
platform between the authorities and activists, but in the end many "yellow vests" are
critical of the implementation of this initiative and call it a masquerade.
The organizers of the demonstrations said that at least 92 thousand activists took to the
streets of 150 settlements across the country. In most places, the demonstrations were
peaceful, but in a number of cities the performances of the "yellow vests" developed into
clashes with the police. Bordeaux has received reports of attacks by law enforcement
officers against a deputy to the French National Assembly and one of the journalists
covering street protests. In addition, the prosecutor's office in Paris launched an
investigation into the fact that one of the supporters of the "yellow vests" was injured
in the face. It is assumed that he was shot from a policeman traumatic gun Flash-Ball, the
use of which was repeatedly opposed by activists.
In Paris, a tense situation arose on the Champs Elysées, where the police repeatedly used
water cannons. Demonstrators blocked the Place de l'Etoile and Champs Elysees. At least 33
detainees in Paris are reported, and arrests are also reported from other French cities.
There have been cases of police using water cannons and tear gas to disperse
demonstrators. Serious clashes occurred in the 40,000 city of Ales (Gard department).
According to Deputy Prefect Jean Rampon, 15 policemen and at least one demonstrator were
injured in the run-up to action.
In Bordeaux, demonstrators temporarily occupied the railway station, and in Lille, a group
of women in red clothes depicting the symbol of the French Republic, Marianne, led a
column of protesters. All of them had their mouths sealed with a black ribbon as a sign of
the suppression of freedom by the authorities, and the body showed bleeding wounds - a
symbol of police violence.
Major demonstrations took place in Nantes, Toulouse and Bordeaux, accompanied by clashes
with the police. In each of the cities, more than 10 people were detained. In Toulouse,
the demonstration began quietly. Gathered on the boulevard of Jaurés brought posters,
banners and flowers. There were leaflets "Faches pas fachos" ("Angry, not fascists").
Again and again they chanted: "We will not retreat!", "Toulouse, Toulouse, get up!".
Police helicopters circled over the demonstrators. Soon the first explosions of
firecrackers began to be heard. Thousands of demonstrators marched through the city
center. After several hours, the procession turned into clashes with the police, like all
previous actions of "yellow vests" in this city. On the boulevards of the historical
center of Toulouse, police used tear gas bombs and water cannons to disperse
demonstrators. In response, various items flew to the police. the prefecture reported 16
arrests. 4 police officers were slightly injured. After the first clashes, the
demonstrators hoisted a banner "Amnesty for Gilettes!" To the Palace of Justice.
Violent clashes occurred in Montpellier and Alez; wounded at least 15 people. In
Montpellier, the scale of the battles were the largest. During the clashes, urban property
suffered, a tram stop was crushed. In response to tear gas, various objects flew. Street
battles continued until late evening. At 19.00, the prefecture reported that Molotov
cocktails and fireworks were flying to the police. At least 7 people were detained. Before
the start of the protest action, the police set up patrols in various strategic locations,
near the train station and shops. In the course of the demonstration, individual radical
groups caused damage in various neighborhoods of the city center. After 5 pm they set fire
to the garbage cans and damaged the city property in the quarter of Beaux Arts, and then
headed towards Louis Blanc, where they broke the windows of the tram station.
In Alez, 2,000 people showed up at the demonstration. People gathered at Crater
peacefully, with drums and music. Gendarmerie helicopters circled over the city. Then the
demonstrators marched through the city, stopping at the mayor's office and sub-prefecture.
After the march, hundreds of the most radical protesters headed back to the
sub-prefecture, which was guarded by reinforced police squads. Stones and other objects
flew to the commissariat. After 4 pm clashes broke out near Martyrs' Square and near the
city police headquarters. Police used tear gas, the protesters responded. The windows of
several cars were broken, the car in which the prosecutor was located was attacked. The
demonstrators circled around the city again and again, fighting again and again. Finally,
they dissipated, and only a small group of about 100 people returned to 6.30 to Crater. As
a result, 11 people were detained in Alez; 15 were slightly injured, including 11 special
forces police officers, a city police commissioner and 1 demonstrator.
We also publish the impressions of a well-known public activist, co-chairman of the
Teacher trade union, Andrei Demidov, on the sixteenth round of opposition to the French
state and the Yellow Vests movement on Saturday, March 2, 2019.
Unlike last week, this Saturday in Paris was not a single demonstration. The gathering
point remained the same, on the Étoile Square, but from here the human river flowed in
different directions, breaking into several branches. We walked in the largest part, as
they said, along the agreed route. Each time new routes are chosen, probably to remind of
their existence to as many Parisians as possible. It is also possible that several police
streams will be harder to control, and this will wear down the policemen more.
The thesis about the fatigue of police is actively discussed in the environment of LJ.
They say that allegedly up to one-third of policemen on Saturday take a sick-list day to
avoid duty, there is also a popular rumor that a week ago the Bordeaux police wrote a
collective report to the authorities, which indicated that the police were not effective
in relation to LJ, because that this is a political problem and requires a political
solution. It can be considered a form of psychological pumping of demonstrators, who are
also very tired of the incessant fourth month of protests. But on the website of the
radical trade union "Policemen in Anger" they really speak about the extreme fatigue of
the policemen. The indignation of policemen is caused not only by the systematic, in their
opinion, understatement by the authorities of the number of protesters, which does not
allow one to estimate the real burden on the policemen. So,
He threw some firewood into the fire of indignation of the policemen, the tireless
Minister of the Interior, Castaner (this is the one who argued for schoolchildren that
plastic bullets and grenades are almost useful for health). This time, the optimistic
minister announced that the weekly demonstrations of yellow vests are not overstretching
the police. "Us??? Yes, we are all squeezed like underwear "- the police on their website
react emotionally to this.
The confusion and vacillation in police minds is indirectly confirmed by the conversation
that took place last Saturday after the demonstration. In response to the indignation of
one of the women that the metro station was closed, the policeman standing in the cordon
reacted very emotionally: Madame, the idea of putting us here did not belong to us. We
caught the REAL criminals with much more pleasure. " One way or another, but Macron's hope
for police means of solving the problem of "yellow vests" may be, to put it mildly,
exaggerated.
And then the second baton cracked, which the authorities hoped to pillage LJ to death -
the media. The subtotal of the three-month protests is a significant drop in French
confidence in their media, you will say, this is not a big hit, it has also dropped trust
before that. So but not quite. Confidence in the media fell throughout the world until
2017, when a wave of publications about fake news, and possibly some other factors,
unfolded the trend. For the last two years, trust has grown at an average of 4% per year.
Before the LJ speeches, the trends in France were no different from the global ones. The
Reuters survey, conducted in February 2018, found a marked increase in trust by 5%
compared to the same period in 2017. But then everything changed and by the end of 2018,
while interest in news increased by 5%, confidence in all media became significantly less:
minus 6 points per year for radio, minus 8 points for print media and minus 10 points for
television.
The French do not hide, the main reason for the loss of confidence in the media is their
distorted image of the LJ movement. The main complaints of citizens about media coverage:
too much attention is paid to extreme manifestations (primarily street violence) and too
much airtime is given to representatives of extreme points of view. The meaning of the
claims is clear - instead of the endless scenes of violence or stories about anti-Semites
and anarchists who have joined the movement, they would like to know more about his
positive program, as well as about the specific steps the authorities are taking to
resolve the crisis.
Difficult dilemma for the authorities - on the one hand, it will soon need to use the full
program of the propaganda machine to present the results of the Great Debate by Macron as
the outstanding success of the "party and government" in the interests of all French
people, and on the other, if we continue In the spirit, the level of trust will drop to zero.
As for the "yellow vests", they are just full of optimism and in every possible way try to
show their supporters (and opponents) that after the 16th round they are not going to hang
on the ropes and give up. Recently, the newspaper Le Parisien published an article in
which it tries to analyze the plans of the "yellow vests." The article begins, which is
typical, with the citing of the fb page of one of the LJ leaders Eric Druet. In itself,
the discussion of a serious edition of the writer's writing with numerous spelling errors
by a suburban truck driver very well shows a revolutionary shift in the public
consciousness that LJ achieved.
The French elite, rather closed and snobbish, was suddenly forced to pay attention to the
politically incorrect and unrespectful "voice from below." So, in his videos, with the
help of which he prefers to communicate with supporters, Druet, as well as other leaders,
promise not only to maintain the weekly rhythm of the demonstrations, but also to start
holding actions between Saturdays. They talk about the return (or continuation) of
blocking toll routes (by the way, a fare reduction of 30% was recently announced,
materials in the press came out about it under the heading "Thank you, yellow vests"), but
also refineries. Transnational corporations, which, in the opinion of the French, greatly
save on taxes, can also become objects of shares. Here the government is really trying to
intercept the topic. Recently, the Minister of Economy of France announced that a bill has
been drafted on the additional taxation of the profits of transnational companies in
France. However, it is not known when it will be passed (and whether it will be at all),
and the so-called sum of 500 million euros seems to be too low for many.
Also in the arsenal should enter sit-in - sit-in demonstrations. It is possible that in
this format will take place the next Saturday action. Moreover, according to the appeals
spread by the leaders, this action is supposed to begin on the evening of March 8 and end
on Sunday morning. In fact, the warm time that has come allows the vests to turn their
shares into round-the-clock and try to occupy the squares. Also, "yellow vests" are ready
to take maximum advantage of March 8 - the international day of the struggle of women for
their rights. Earlier, they had already conducted a "women's march".
However, it was decided to culminate the mobilization the next day after the end of the
"big debate" on Saturday, March 16, for it is supposed to gather a maximum of protesters
in Paris. Parisians already signed up for protest groups are already offered to take one
or several non-resident "vests" to their place of night. Time will tell what will come of
this, but the stubbornness of the protesters and the ingenuity of their leaders are
impressive.
https://avtonom.org/news/zheltye-zhilety-akt-16-pust-rascvetayut-sto-cvetov-no-vse-protiv-makrona
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