Update: anarchist news and information from all over the world - 9.11.2019

Today's Topics:

   
1.  US, black rose fed: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS GAVE RISE TO THE
      "TEACHERS' REVOLT, " NOT BERNIE (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  cnt.es: CNT will call a general strike in Euskal Herria for
      decent pensions (ca) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Anarchistische Groep Amsterdam: Anarchist Film Festival -
      program (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Against State Repression NO SURRENDER - NO TRUCE Solidarity
      With Squats ¡NO PASARAN! By A.P.O. [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  CNT-AIT Catalunya: new issue of Solidaridad Obrera, number
      375 (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  [Greece] Demonstration in solidarity with Chilean rebels in
      the streets of Athens By ANA (pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1






With the 2020 election already on the horizon we republish this commentary responding to
the deeply flawed narrative that Bernie Sanders' campaign played a key role in the teacher
strike wave rather than social movement organizing with much deeper roots. The authors are
a West Virginia teacher active in the 2018 strike and an education scholar - both are
collaborating on a forthcoming account of the strike. ---- By Michael Mochaidean and Erin
Dyke ---- In Eric Blanc's recent article for Jacobin Magazine titled, "How Bernie Helped
Spark the Teachers' Revolt," Blanc condenses one of the primary claims he originally made
in his book, Red State Revolt (2019): that Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential run is one of
the singular reasons for the recent resurgence of educator militancy. Such a claim is
ultimately harmful to contemporary educator movements because it short-circuits our
understandings of the often gendered labor, historical underpinnings, and complex
relationships that entail igniting, organizing, and sustaining these movements.

What we need, in this moment, are public thinkers who can pose and contribute to questions
that educator organizers are grappling with in their everyday work, to produce knowledge
useful for growing our movements. Making instrumental use of contemporary educator
movements to forward a political candidate sounds a lot, to us, like a familiar strategy
that many educators have already resoundingly refused through striking.

In the following, we strongly disagree that Bernie Sanders played a central or significant
role in sparking and sustaining the education strikes (while we appreciate his
enthusiastic endorsements). Instead, we suggest that the involvement of many educators in
intersecting social movements -including the movements for Black lives, ethnic studies,
labor and economic justice, and immigrant justice, among others - is what sparked and what
will sustain the potency of the educator uprisings.

First, we address his oft-repeated claims that key West Virginia educators' political
activism originated with the Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Next, we consider the
context of Kentucky and the roots of its 2018 educator insurgency in the movement for
Black lives (a context that Blanc glances over in his book and recent writing). Finally,
we draw on the rigorous, empirical research of many movement scholar-activists, including
Lauren Ware Stark, Rhiannon Maton, Dana Morrison, and others to illuminate how the recent
strikes are significantly indebted to a constellation of local, national, and
transnational movements. These movements informed the creation of a network of social
justice caucus and educator organizing efforts across the nation, which have been
important in articulating common good demands in the recent educator strikes.

West Virginia: Organizing for Rank-and-File Power in the Union
In his book, Blanc suggests that the moment when West Virginia educators balked at their
state union's calls to return to work with only a verbal agreement was "the continuation
of a movement that started with Bernie Sanders and is going to result in a power shift
from the elite wealthy to the working people (p. 100-101, emphasis added). He continues
this framing in his recent Jacobin piece, writing: "Bernie's 2016 primary run played a
crucial role in legitimizing class-struggle politics and inspiring strike leaders in each
of the red states that experienced illegal statewide walkouts in early 2018 - West
Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona."

As he does in Red State Revolt, Blanc tries to show that a small select group of
organizers in these three states played an outsized role in their formation and ultimate
success (the "militant minority" thesis). His writing further implies that the origins of
the strikes that have taken place in the last two years are neatly located in the 2018 red
state strikes.

To make these "origin" claims, Blanc cites West Virginia educator organizers Emily Comer,
Jay O'Neal, Nicole McCormick, and Matt McCormick. In the quotes that he selected from
these four, Blanc asserts that Bernie is what tied these four teachers together to
organize, plan, and fight to win a successful strike, primarily on the now-famous "West
Virginia Public Employees UNITED" Facebook page.

Both Jay O'Neal and Nicole McCormick knew each other prior to the November 2016 election,
and as Jay has reiterated in interviews conducted for our own research, he had always been
an active union member. Coming to West Virginia, he saw the West Virginia Education
Association (WVEA), a National Education Association (NEA) affiliate, incapable of making
necessary changes to restructure itself for the needs of its membership. Other disaffected
members, such as Brendan himself, saw this first-hand at the 2017 WVEA Delegate Assembly.
His report on the Delegate Assembly led Jay to reach out to him over the Summer of 2017 to
inquire about starting an online space for a couple other angry union members hoping for
greater action.

This is what would become the UNITED page, but at a time when only a dozen or so members
were active online. Likewise, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members joined the
Facebook page, too, people that had known each other through teaching in the Kanawha
Valley region but who had no ties to one another politically, ideologically, or through
the Sanders campaign. Some of these members without ties to the Sanders campaign are still
active administrators on the UNITED page two years later, and have likewise played active
roles organizing in their counties before, during, and after the 2018 walkouts. The
Sanders' campaign could not have brought together these organizers beforehand because none
of these individuals met up as a result of his campaign at the time.

Blanc refers to the four West Virginians he interviews as "strike leaders" throughout this
article and elsewhere, but the linguistic challenge of such assertions must be raised:
what good is a leader in a leaderless movement? In West Virginia, there were no "strike
captains" that could be accounted for during the walkouts, no prior organizational flow
chart to speak of. There was simply an online platform for members to voice their anger
and organize organically, independent of the prying eyes of union leadership. Brendan,
Nicole, Jay, Emily, and Matt were leaders as much as the many other members who were
actively aware of the situation day-in and day-out, and were unwilling to compromise with
reactionary politicians or intransigent union leaders. Blanc conveniently leaves out the
hundreds of other leaders, who will never be named, because they do not fit his narrative.

Kentucky: Seeds in Organizing for Black Lives
In the Summer of 2017, at the same time that West Virginia activists were building the
UNITED page, Katie Hancock, a social worker, created a similar group for Kentucky public
employees: KY United We Stand. Her page would act as the primary online catalyst for
information sharing and digital organizing prior to the 2018 walkouts. It was so
successful that it helped bring together a loose coalition of public employees and other
trade unionists at a 2017 rally to block Governor Bevin's upcoming special session.

Years prior, Black Lives Matter activists and Louisville educators had organized locally
to combat systemic racism in their school district. Tia Kurtsinger-Edison and Tyra Walker,
two Black educators and Louisville activists, had been working with the Jefferson County
Teachers Association (JCTA), an affiliate of the Kentucky Education Association (KEA), to
prevent statewide takeovers, implement restorative justice programs, hire more Black
educators, and create spaces within the union for Black educators to present their
concerns in a safe environment. Their fight brought in a local activist, Gay Adelmann, who
would become the creator of several popular online pages for Kentucky education activists.
Their gathering together was forged due to a common fight against austerity and racism,
much as Hancock's online space was created due to a state law banning public employees
from collective bargaining.

These online spaces were the germination for what would later become KY 120 United, a
structured, independent group of public employees led by Nema Brewer. KY 120 United broke
away from KY United We Stand and Adelmann's various groups to implement a coordinated
effort to find local representatives in each school, county, and congressional district
capable of leading a statewide walkout. The success of this new group helped to shut down
thirty school districts one day and the entire state the next. It was only after the 2018
Labor Notes Convention that Nema redirected KY 120 United away from direct action and
towards conciliatory actions to the anger of others in the movement.

In our interviews with Kentucky education activists and organizers, none of the
respondents listed above who helped act as leaders, insofar as the term is defined loosely
by Blanc, took their inspirational cues from Sanders or his 2016 presidential run.
Kentucky's inability to capitalize on the similar successes of West Virginia can be
attributed far more to pre-existing racial and geographic divides than a lack of class
consciousness on the part of their organizers.

Kentucky's walkout presents serious problems for Blanc's claims about Sanders' role in
sparking the recent upsurge of teacher strikes. It is therefore no coincidence that, after
his interview with Nema in April 2018, he has refused to write about Kentucky's role in
the so-called "red state revolts."  Indeed, Kentucky's example can act as a measured
counterweight to Blanc's narrative. Whereas the WVEA (and AFT-WV) leadership was much more
hostile to rank-and-file actions, the KEA worked to smooth over tensions between
themselves and KY 120 United's membership. The friction between leadership and membership
in West Virginia was not replicated in Kentucky, nor were the racial divides between a
large, predominantly Black city and a rural, white state.

To better understand the complex social issues and movements that sparked and fuel
contemporary educator movements, Tithi Bhattacharya's analysis of the racial politics of
Kentucky and the red state strikes is an excellent place to start. While Eric suggests
that race was not an issue in his books and other writing, Bhattacharya argues, "Race is
not an add-on to the struggle for wages. It shapes the terrain of struggle."

Understanding the Role of Social Justice Caucuses and Solidarity Associations
In Red State Revolt, Blanc spends the first chapter outlining the devastating impacts of
neoliberal austerity politics on his three surveyed states, alongside a policy-deficient
Democratic Party that continuously sided with corporations over working-class interests.
He avoids discussion of the already-in-motion community organizing that has long been
fighting these impacts on the frontlines, long before Sanders' 2016 run.

Scholar, high school teacher, and organizer with Social Equity Educators (SEE), a
rank-and-file caucus of the Seattle Education Association, Lauren Ware Stark has spent
years traveling across the U.S. studying social justice caucuses and the development of
the United Caucuses of Rank-and-File Educators (UCORE). Caucuses are groups of educators
within a union with shared affinities or political perspectives which work to steer the
priorities and resources of the union. Social justice and rank-and-file caucuses, like the
Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), are often behind demands that reach far beyond
"bread and butter" wage issues. CORE, via the mobilization of community-based and
grassroots organizing with students and community organizations, led the 2012 and 2016
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strikes, and the most recent strike, which made such radical
demands as rent control for educators, staff and families in a rapidly gentrifying city.

Stark's ethnographic studies have illuminated that the proliferation of social justice
caucuses has important connections to the 2011 Occupy movement and the 2012 CTU strike and
the rise of CORE. Further, Elizabeth Todd-Breland's recent book on the history of
education organizing in Chicago argues that Black women's organizing, historically and
today, has been central to these efforts. Rhiannon Maton, and Dana Morrison, in their
respective work, illuminate that educators' experiences in and inspiration from
intersecting social movements in their cities have led to the creation of educator-led
organizations that aim to address the neoliberal urban policies that impact their schools
and their students' lives.

Educators, Staff, and Social Movements Gave Rise to the Strikes, Not Bernie
In Oklahoma and Arizona, two other prominent states Blanc suggests the Sanders campaign
inspired to walkout, in-depth conversations with organizers suggest similar complexities
as West Virginia and Kentucky.

In Arizona, one of the key organizers of the Arizona Educators United (AEU), the
solidarity association working in tentative partnership with the NEA-affiliated state
union, Vanessa Arrendondo-Aguirre became involved after seeing year after year of
decreasing resources for her students, particularly her emergent bi- or multi-lingual
students. New to organizing (but not to leadership work), Vanessa organized an intricate
communication network among more than two thousand school liaisons. "It started with
asking people to volunteer to work as liaisons. We are a grassroots movement, " she said.
"People slowly started volunteering, I created a list, with two lists, one for charter and
one for public, which helped people to see which schools were missing liaisons. And then
others stepped up and started getting themselves organized." Vanessa's organizing labor
and sophisticated use of technology in building this communication and decision-making
infrastructure enabled the AEU to practice a radically democratic approach in the lead up
to and during its statewide strike in 2018.

In suggesting Sanders started the teachers revolt, Blanc erases and diminishes the massive
amount of heavy lifting, tedious organizing, and emotional labor undertaken by so many,
especially women, educators fighting and striking for a better world. Further, Blanc
ignores the immense amount of scholarly labor that many, like Todd-Breland, have
undertaken to illuminate the silenced histories of women, especially women of color,
organizing in education.

West Virginia educator Emily Comer learned much about class warfare as a community
organizer, just as key Arizona organizer Rebecca Garelli did as a rank-and-file educator
in the 2012 CTU strike or her earlier participation in anti-war activism, two people Blanc
cites repeatedly as evidence for Bernie's ability to spark class struggle in young
radicals. How does suggesting that the Sanders' campaign "started" or "helped spark" the
movement honor and enable others to learn from the skillful knowledge and intense, messy
relational labor that Vanessa, Rebecca, Emily, Tia, Tyra, Gay, Nema, Nicole, Matt, Jay,
and so many hundreds of others poured and continue to pour into the educator uprisings in
their respective places?

If Blanc is truly interested and invested in understanding and supporting the ongoing
educators' revolt, he might use his access to media and idea dissemination to sincerely
and descriptively center the perspectives and analyses of those organizing in and for the
rising tide of social movement unionism in education.

Brendan Muckian-Bates is a West Virginia teacher and West Virginia United Steering
Committee member. Erin Dyke is an assistant professor of curriculum studies at Oklahoma
State University. The interviews cited in this piece are part of research conducted by
Brendan and Erin for their forthcoming book, Rank-and-File Rebels: Theories of Power and
Change in the 2018 Education Strikes, with Colorado State University Open Press. This
article originally appeared in New Politics.

For related reading we recommend the articles "Red State Revolt: An Essential But Flawed
Story of the Teacher Rebellion," "Strike To Win: How the West Virginia Teacher Strike Was
Won" and "Do All Organizing Roads Lead to Bernie?"

http://blackrosefed.org/movements-gave-rise-to-teachers-revolt-not-bernie/

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Message: 2






The CNT-Regional North union will take an active part in what will be a hot winter in
defense of pensions. ---- The anarcho-syndicate has decided to call the future general
strike raised by the group of pensioners, initially planned for the month of January. ----
The CNT North Regional Confederation, after several meetings with the pensioners movement,
has expressed its intention to officially call, together with the rest of the trade union
and social movement, a general strike throughout Euskal Herria, that is, Vizcaya,
Guipúzcoa, Álava and Navarre. «Today, more than ever, mobilization is necessary to defend
decent pensions» - he stressed, emphasizing the demand for a minimum pension of 1080 euros
and a minimum salary of 1200 euros. ---- " The fight for pensions not only affects
pensioners now, but we are also setting a precedent for women workers who are active
today, " he said.

Precisely, CNT has also called to participate in the demonstrations called by the
pensioners movement for November 16. «We will continue walking and supporting the demands
of this group» -subrayó.

https://www.cnt.es/noticias/cnt-convocara-huelga-general-en-euskal-herria-por-unas-pensiones-dignas/

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Message: 3






The program for the film festival is here! Scroll down to find the full list of screening
times and descriptions of the films. More detailed info will be published on our
newsletter. See you at the festival! ---- Please join us for our three day Anarchist Film
Festival, with a special 6 hour screening on Monday, featuring a broad spectrum of
anarchist film, ranging from deceptively childlike animations to in-your-face soft porn,
from candid documentaries to surrealist explorations of human nature. ---- Alongside the
movies on Fri/Sat/Sun we will have vegan food and baked goods and merch stands for groups
like Abortion Network Amsterdam, the Spanish CNT and the Zapatistas National Liberation
Army! ---- Don't miss out! ---- PROGRAM ---- FRIDAY / 15th November ---- 16:00 ---- A
self-critical squatting memoire. + Crowbar - French squat documentary.

17:30

Documentary on the Kurdish liberation movement in Bakur. + Distant - The female Kurdish
militia defending Kobane against the Isis terrorists

20:30

The story of a police investigation into consensual homosexual sadomasochism.
+
Raspberry Reich - Exploring the innate radical potential of homosexual expression.
/
23:00 MUSIC - MC MUSTAJ

A queer electronic musician and rapper based in Amsterdam, bringing sexy beats, hardcore
bass, souly vocals and tight rhymes filled with hope, using music to share, to connect, to
dance, to release and as a weapon against the structures of oppression, in particular
those of gender and racism, this society is based on.

PARTY - until 1:00
//
SATURDAY  / 16th November

12:00

Brazilian documentary and fictional animation on globalization.

14:00

The Fig House - Documentary about a Greek squat for migrants and their cat.

17:00

Hamburger Gitter - G20 documentary.

19:30

A documentary on liberation from colonialism and neocolonialism.

21:30

Thriller: Surrealist existentialism in Franco's Spain.
/
23:30 MUSIC - OUST

Generic pissed off raw punk destruction from Amsterdam and Nijmegen.
https://oustpunx.bandcamp.com/releases

PARTY - until 1:00
//
SUNDAY  / 17th November

12:00

Homotopia - A love story for radical queers fighting homonormativity + A queer punk SciFi
inspiring a generation of feminists.

14:30

Earth liberation front documentary on radical environmentalism.

16:30

Animated comedy-action fantasy film on fighting urban development.

19:30

Lifeboat - A migrant sea rescue documentary.

21:30

An anti-misogynistic Iranian Vampire Western.
//
MONDAY  / 18th November

17:00

A historical re-enactment of the radical revolution and extreme heartbreak of the working
class in 19th century Paris.
///
Tickets -

€3 - €5 suggested donation. First come, first serve.

All proceeds are going to the Anarchist Defence Fund.

Sign up for a Volunteer shift!

We will be needing a few extra hands during the festival- we might need help with the bar,
stands, or a quick trip to the supermarket. Each volunteer will get two free movie tickets!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0D4DAEAB23A5FB6-anarchist

https://www.agamsterdam.org/anarchist-film-festival-program/

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Message: 4





DEMONSTRATION ---- Saturday, November 9th, 2019, Monastiraki, Athens, 12:00 ---- LET'S
RAISE A BARRICADE OF SOLIDARITY AGAINST ---- * wars in the capitalist periphery and the
racist policies of Europe-Fortress, the thousands murders in the borders, the
concentration camps, the evictions of squats for refugees and immigrants. ---- * the
anti-social policies of restructuring in favor of the bosses, the attack to the university
asylum, the effort to repress class struggle from below and the weapon of strike ---- *
the police occupation of the neighborhood of Exarcheia, the invasions to squatted spaces
of the struggle and structures of the movement, the constant fortification of the legal
arsenal of the state, the attempt to neutralize social and class resistance and terrorize
the whole of society.

Anarchist - Antiauthoritarian space «ANTIPNOIA», Squat LELAS KARAGIANNI 37, Squat for
Refugees & Immigrants NOTARA 26, Squat for Refugees/Migrants SPIROU TRIKOUPI 17, CLASS
COUNTERATTACK (Anarchists and Communists group), Anarchist Students' Assembly ARODAMOS,
K*VOX Squatted Social center, ANTIFASCIST-ANTIAUTHORITARIAN ASSEMBLY OF N.
IONIA-HERAKLEIO, Comrades

AGAINST STATE REPRESSION AND THE IMMINENT POLICE INVASIONS IN SQUATS
iNO PASARAN!
LELAS KARAGIANNI 37 SQUAT DOES NOT SURRENDER - FIGHTS!
DEMONSTRATION in solidarity with squats, self-organized spaces of struggle and social and
class resistance: SATURDAY NOVEMBER 9TH, 2019, MONASTIRAKI, 12:00

DEMONSTRATION
IN DEFENSE OF LELAS KARAGIANNI 37 SQUAT
Tuesday, November 12th, 2019, LK37 squat, 18:00

http://apo.squathost.com/against-state-repression-no-surrender-no-truce-solidarity-with-squats-no-pasaran/

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Message: 5





The new issue of Solidaridad Obrera (founded in 1907!),paper of CNT-AIT of Catalonia, has
just been released. On the menu:  news of social struggles (protests against pension
reform, struggles in SMEs, international: ecuador, chile, ...) ---- Editorial:  To disobey
is not always revolutionnary ---- The independentist discontent experienced in Barcelona
has led some, especially those who faced the repressive bodies from the front line, to
live it as if it were a revolution. Others, including part of the anarchist movement,
praised the disobedience of the protesters, congratulating themselves on the combative
capacity of a new generational sap, even knowing that the purpose of this movement was
nothing other than to claim the right to self-determination for Catalunya to form a State
and to request the freedom of the politicians who promoted it. The faces of this
politicians, silhouetted in black and white, evokes the propaganda of Basque
independantists and this, in turn, the mythical image of Che that today can be found
stamped everywhere.

Often, the symbols end up becoming a consumer claim and the actions end up in trends to
follow. We live in a context in which we have more access to information than never, where
tactics matter more than principles and purposes, where that informative immediacy is an
advantage, but perhaps, also, an inconvenience that prevents us from a more unhurried
analysis of what happens around us.

We should not rush into making definitive proclaiming. From experience we know that the
anarchist revolution needs formation, collective conscience and an assembly and horizontal
structure in order to sustain itself. Without that background every revolt ends up losing
strength, like the carbonate end up evaporating after you open a soda bottle. Disobeying
to reclaim what others are prescribing us, has nothing revolutionary ... ".

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Message: 6






On Friday, November 1, a demonstration took place near the Chilean Embassy and a march in
Exarchia in solidarity with the Chilean rebels. ---- Approximately 100 companions gathered
at 5:30 pm at the exit square from Evangelismos Metro Station in Athens. Some of them
carried banners and distributed pamphlets to the population. Following the protesters
walked to the Chilean Embassy. The group, however, was barred a few blocks earlier by
police. The act near the embassy lasted about an hour. ---- The protesters then marched to
the Exarchia neighborhood, along several roads. The protest was accompanied by MAT
battalions, who were looking for reasons to attack. However, there were no confrontations
or arrests, the group of comrades kept their positions calm, chanting in support of the
Chilean insurgency.

Related Contents:

https://noticiasanarquistas.noblogs.org/post/2019/11/02/grecia-video-intervencao-do-rouvikonas-na-casa-do-chaixador-chileno-em-kolonaki/

https://noticiasanarquistas.noblogs.org/post/2019/11/02/grecia-atenas-intervencao-in-stacao-de-metro-da-universidade-solidariedade-com-rebeldes-chilenos/

anarchist news agency-ana

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