Today's Topics:
1. Czech, AFED: Drapes against the logic of money [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #303 - Digital,
Smart-city: Big Brother beat (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Naked greed: the
boss class exposed (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Poland, Poznan, rozbrat.org, coronavirus: EVERY FACE MASK
FOR WEIGHT [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Workplace notes -
Despite the coronavirus, workers continue to fight back against
the employing class. (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - press release,
Covid-19: validism at the heart of the crisis (fr, it,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. icl-cit: [Italy] Statement by USI-CIT health workers
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
8. Greece, Thessaloniki Freedom Initiative: Within 10 days,
legends of decades have fallen. [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Solidarity, mutual assistance and self-organization as a denial of the ruling ideology on the example of a plain veil ---- It is tragicomic
to see how any right-winger takes the word solidarity these days, which these people have always put in a dictionary of dirty and taboo
words. Thirty years of ideological massage, building on the worst of economism reducing society to a mere set of competing individuals, left
hardly erasable traces on society, but despite every effort it did not destroy it to fulfill the sacred Thatcher slogan that nothing like
society exists. ---- But crises of various kinds show that neoliberal ideological lessons simply do not apply. They show that many people
still do not want to see each other as a competitor and therefore an enemy. They show that things do not necessarily follow the logic of
money. They show that profit is not everything. John Holloway to do this in his book In Capitalism. Against capitalism. Beyond capitalism
(we will bring the review in the coming days), he says: "Our creative ability is not lost in the capitalist system, we overflow it. We cross
it, exist beyond its borders, and that is exactly what we are trying to do here: we are trying to create something that does not follow the
logic of capital. "
For decades, neoliberalism has been trying to keep the state from its punishing hand, which would control the population and, in case of
dissatisfaction, take care of its pacification and, above all, the protection of private property, which has accumulated in an incredible
way . In a crisis, the state is often caught up in a helpless and incapable of effective aid. Unless it is about helping those above to
protect their investment and well-being. And it does not matter whether we are talking about the economic crisis in 2008, the hurricane
Sandy ravaging the US east coast in October 2012, or the refugee crisis in the Balkans in 2015. In all these situations, the most affected
state did not help. On the contrary, there has always been a wave of solidarity and bottom-up mutual assistance.
And it is no different today. The state finds, even if its representatives hypocritically beating their breasts, that they care about their
citizens, that they do not have the means to protect them. But at the same time, day in and day out, something for the capitalist system is
totally heretical. People are starting to help each other. Whether it is volunteers to help seniors or something as ordinary as sewing
masks. People are able to agree among themselves on what they can produce, where to deliver substances and other materials, and how to
distribute the resulting products. They exchange know-how and sew selflessly for their neighbors, for colleagues at work, for seniors in the
neighborhood, for healthcare facilities, for shop assistants. People are able to provide what their employers are unable to provide to
protect the life and health of their human resources. Instead, they are trying to get the most out of them. That's why there are sources in
capitalism.
This solidarity of self-organization is completely beyond the logic of money. It goes completely beyond the capitalism in which we are
otherwise forced to live. This non-capitalist "robe economy" is attended by individuals and groups who do not care for their own benefit,
but find it normal to do something freely for their surroundings, for a society in which, through solidarity, endangered groups of people
pushed by capitalism are marginalized. such as seniors or homeless people.
One of the chapters of Holloway's book is entitled "We are a crisis of capital and we are proud of it". Yes, as a society we have again
shown that even though capitalism subdues us at various levels, we can overflow it and become a crisis. Let us not forget the ties we have
created, let us not forget a single stitch on the veil, let us not forget the feeling we have experienced by engaging in solidarity
assistance, let us not forget the joy of giving and receiving beyond the logic of money. Let us not forget all this when politicians boast
about how heroically they have managed and hunt for political points when they are repulsing their neoliberal innovations about the nature
of social inequalities and the benefits of dripping wealth from top to bottom.
While veils will not protect anyone from infection 100%, nor will they lay down capital, which will surely find a way to heal the ordinary
people. But looking at the veil, let us remember that we are a crisis of capitalism, and let us be proud of it.
Related Links:
A3: The
FNB Social Quarantine continues to help the most vulnerable
Digital Infrastructure for Solidarity Action
https://www.afed.cz/text/7147/rousky-proti-logice-penez
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Message: 2
Last September, UCL joined the campaign against "technopolice". Far from being an above-ground whim, here is a concrete example of the
implementation of the safe city in Angers. ---- "Angers Intelligent Territory". ---- Great words that ultimately say nothing ! Or perhaps
if, one thing: highlighting the nonsense of technological solutionism in the service of a political project. Recently, from France Inter to
Courrier de l'Ouest , the media of all kinds have used superlatives to praise the choice made by Angers Loire Métropole to go to a group of
industrialists, Engie at the head, the pretty pactole of 178 million d 'euros. A nice sum which should allow the territory to become
"intelligent".
Suppose it has been stupid so far. But what does this intelligent territory cover if we blow on the curtain of media smoke? First of all,
that the elected officials of the urban community have all given in to the sirens of the blah blah marketing surrounding the concept of
smart-city. Indeed, if we take a look at what it covers, we see that for the Angevin case, it is more or less than replacing streetlights.
We exaggerate a little, but not that much. What will they have in mind about these new candelabras ?
They will have the intelligence to go out when it is dark (sic). It should also be added that the agents in charge of installing, repairing,
etc., street lamps are passed on to these manufacturers. A small flea market on the run from our public services. Smart, isn't it ?
Smart street lights and cameras
No, for us, it's rather silly ! A new break in public services for the benefit of a handful of capitalists and to the detriment of the very
notion of general interest. Suffice to say that this is not very reassuring. There is not much missing in the end so that the future
management of our municipal and inter-municipal services (garbage collection, management of water networks, etc.) is thrown into grazing
ground by this group of private actors.
All of this is going to be watched - but in the meantime, we are going to be watched. Because in these promises of intelligence, there is
the systematic use of video surveillance - already present in Angers, but which must therefore be reinforced. It is notably planned to
install a hypervision center. What is it about ? To put it simply, a technological panopticon at the service of a stinking political ideal:
trimming public liberties.
Because we have to be clear on the subject: the cameras will continue to push the better, like weeds. And if, for the moment, the magic
expression "facial recognition" has not yet been really pronounced, it will not be long before it comes out of the hat. In fact, by choosing
Engie, the community also made the choice to entrust the management of these cameras to a specialist in the matter. In short, all this is
not pleasing and the argument engaging ecological promises is very clearly to be put into perspective.
The few euros saved with these low-consumption light bulbs will be tiny compared to the energy cost of the technical infrastructure to
operate the video surveillance system.
In the meantime, a final question: would the municipal and inter-municipal services have not been able to carry out the expected
infrastructural renovations ? Yes, because certain technological transformations could just as easily have been carried out without
jeopardizing public freedoms and breaking public services.
Developments that we could imagine to be emancipatory and developed with the aim of giving back to the agents sense of their action and the
mastery of their working tools. Collective intelligence at the service of the common is a political project that would have had a completely
different face.
UCL Angers
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Smart-city-Big-Brother-beat
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Message: 3
Whilst on one hand we see the development of mutual aid networks among the working class, on the other hand we see the obscene slavering
greed of our masters. ---- Take Richard Branson (Sir pronounced cur). He announced that staff at his airline, Virgin Atlantic, must take
eight weeks unpaid leave as a result of the coronavirus crisis. He also cut sick pay from 6 months full pay to 3 months. ---- Following a
wave of outrage, Branson was forced to dip into his $690 million personal fortune to fork out $250 million for a rescue package. He then
begged the government for a handout of £5 billion to £7.5 billion of credit facilities. Branson earns £9.9 million alone on his £8 billion
net worth if he secures a 2% interest. ---- Meanwhile his Virgin healthcare group has paid not a penny in corporation tax whilst being
handed £2 billion worth of NHS and local authority contracts.
Another drooling social vampire is the boss of Wetherspoons, Tim Martin. Concerned about losing some of his profits, Martin was keen to keep
his pubs and hotels open, whilst other businesses were closing, putting profit before health. With the closure of his pubs, he then
counselled his workers that they should go off and get jobs with the supermarkets, to avoid him paying any sick pay. He refused to cover
this for his 43,000 workers until the government gives him a handout, which may not be until late April.
Another ravening hyena is Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley. At first he said he was keeping his stores open because they were "essential
services" (he meant a hole in his profits). He was then forced to reverse this decision. Thousands of Sports Direct workers are on zero
hours contracts which means they receive no pay if they don't work, and they will be paid for March but not after that.
Meanwhile, many US senators started selling stock off after receiving a briefing about the pandemic. Among these was the Senator for North
Carolina, Richard Burr. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee he received daily briefings on the spread of coronavirus. He sold
off between $628,000 and $1.72m of his holdings, a week before the stock market crashed because of the pandemic. Burr and other Senators,
both Republican and Democrat, chose to make money rather than warn the public about the looming crisis.
We need to finish with this sick society that breeds apologies for human beings like all of these, whose greed runs to the sociopathic, and
create a new society, built on mutual aid, community and solidarity.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/03/25/naked-greed-the-boss-class-exposed/
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Message: 4
Hospitals, clinics, and outpatient facilities have been underfunded by governments for years. When in January this year there was
information about a new epidemic (announced by WHO for many years), the government did not make any moves to secure an adequate reserve of
masks and coveralls. Stocks in wholesalers were bought out by "businessmen", who sold them up to 1000 times more expensive when the virus
appeared in Europe. It is a price that is beyond the reach of homeless shelters or social welfare centers. ---- On March 14, when the
coronavirus actually arrived in Poland, hospitals and aid centers were already reporting mask deficiencies. To patch up the hole and ensure
safety for medical services and excluded people, we decided to sew them ourselves.
mask 2 gls
We began to organize as part of the "We take matters into our own hands" campaign. At this moment, from Wednesday (18.03) last week to
Monday (23.03) we distributed 1,400 masks made socially; some non-woven, some cotton and we have added 4000 non-woven filters to the latter.
We collect and sterilize ready masks under a hospital UV lamp so that they can be used immediately. Currently 50 sewing people plus a dozen
or so in logistics are involved in the campaign. In the meantime, seeing increasing demand and subsequent requests, we also started
production on Rozbracie. However, we do not produce as much as we would like because of insufficient space. We also manufacture disinfectant
liquid.
mask 3 gls
The socially produced masks went to, among others, rescuers from Winograd, the hospital at Przybyszewskiego Street, the hospital in Sroda
Wielkopolska, to the Homeless Center No. 1 or to the Nursing Home in Falmierów near Pila. We are currently preparing a batch of 700 pieces
for homeless shelters in Poznan, for the Greater Poland Tenants' Association, for an ambulance organized by the Acceptance Foundation.
Further needs are reported to us by other organizations, municipal institutions and medical services.
The action is gathering pace, other people are happy to help via e-mail support.wzajemna.poznan@gmail.com
Funds for materials are obtained through the collection of:
HTTPS://POMAGAM.PL/PRODUKCJAMASECZEK
Be solid - sew with us!
https://www.rozbrat.org/informacje/poznan/4705-kazda-maseczka-na-wage-zycia
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Message: 5
Tower Hamlets ---- Refuse workers in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets ended their strike on 24th March after days out. Their
employer, Veolia, which sub-contracts to Tower Hamlets Council, had been denying holiday pay arrears and in some instances owed individual
workers as much as £9,000. The dispute has been going on since August 2018, with Veolia forcing workers to engage in litigation in order to
get their pay. A ballot in February resulted in a majority for strike action (96.5% of 70 % turnout) with 150 workers still being owed for
holiday pay. ---- An initial eight day strike took place, with rubbish piling up in the streets. Workers then again went out on strike and
in recent days 41 refuse trucks were put out of action in a Veolia yard by persons unknown.
Veolia's refuse division made profits of over £1 billion in the first half of 2019 but the company went to great lengths to rob workers of
their holiday pay.
Veolia came to an agreement with the Unite union under pressure of mounting piles of refuse during the Coronavirus on 24th March, although
we are not at the moment aware of the details of the deal. The contract is being taken away from Veolia and returns in-house next month.
Bexley
Refuse workers in the south east London borough of Bexley employed by the sub-contractor Serco went out on strike on Wednesday March 18th
after they discovered they were receiving up to £4 an hour less than their counterparts in neighbouring Greenwich.
They returned to work after a guarantee of sick pay to any worker who had to self-isolate because of the coronavirus agreed by Serco and
Bexley council. The well supported strike and the concessions won increased workers' determination to continue the fight after the end of
the crisis and to battle against zero hours contracts, lack of sick pay and low wages.
Wirral
Refuse workers on the Wirral in Merseyside are voting in a ballot for a strike over better pay in a dispute with sub-contractor Biffa.
Depending on the vote, workers may come out on strike immediately after the Easter holiday.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/03/25/workplace-notes-4/
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Message: 6
The capitalist society in which we live is an eminently validist society. Validism is an oppression that affects people with disabilities
(physical or mental, visible or invisible). Capitalism encourages and supports validist structures, to the extent that it validates
individuals according to the capacities which make them productive or exploitable in the sphere of wage-earning. People who do not meet
these standards are properly invalidated, and thus excluded, marginalized or marginalized. ---- The responses of states and institutions to
the Covid-19 pandemic are fundamentally validists. Witness the reactions at the start of the epidemic which minimized its severity by
pointing out that the virus was fatal mainly for the elderly and the frail. So we see again that for capitalism, lives have value and can be
hierarchized.
This is also evidenced by the spencerist strategies [1]defended by states like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which calmly plan to
let thousands of people die in order to bring about a "group immunity" - a strategy whose efficiency is also disputed by scientists. For the
benefit of economic productivity, capitalism applies, as elsewhere, the law of the strongest and advocates social Darwinism.
Validist measures.
The French State has chosen a containment strategy, but the measures decided on do not take into account the most vulnerable people, and in
particular:
people affected by mental or physical disability, locked up in institutions, who face obvious dangers due to overcrowding, lack of material
and human resources and reinforced by the health crisis. This lack of means leads to institutional mistreatment and prevents access to the
sanitary equipment necessary to limit the spread of the disease.
people with physical or mental disabilities, confined to their homes, already confronted on a daily basis with the lack of accessibility of
society, who today face confinement measures which do not take them into consideration.
psychologically compromised people, who undergo an interruption in their follow-up in an extremely psychologically trying period
drug users, faced with the stress of the situation, the drastic reduction in the support they received (reception, monitoring, distribution
of equipment, etc.) and the difficulties in obtaining substitution treatment ( initially excluded from simplified renewal procedures),
illegal substances and sterile injection equipment, posing a huge health and contamination risk to these populations.
A break in health ...
Finally, the lack of means of the health services, wanted and imposed by austerity policies, prevents treating everyone. In the event of an
aggravation of the epidemic, the nursing staff say so, they and they could be led, as it is already the case in certain hospitals, to have
to sort the patients, to choose who to let die. There is much to fear that among the victims of this sorting imposed by policies of
destruction of the public hospital will count the oldest, the chronically ill, the "people at risk" and the handicapped.
The state already has blood on its hands.
Libertarian Communist Union, March 23, 2020
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Covid-19-le-validisme-au-coeur-de-la-crise
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Message: 7
At least 37 billion euros, or 43,000 workers, which means the loss of 70,000 beds, including 3,000 in intensive care. In recent years, these
have been the cutbacks to the healthcare system. ---- For years, we have been getting ready, with "scientific rigour", so that we wouldn't
have enough resources to deal with a health emergency like the present one. In these days of the coronavirus outbreak, the alarm caused by
the massive cutbacks to the health system must take centre stage. Now, every problem is evident, as well as the shortcomings it brings
about. ---- RelatedPosts ---- [Italy] Strike in Ferrari ---- [Italy] The reasons for the suspension of the general strike of 9 march ----
The continuous cutbacks to the National Health Service and the systematic reduction of human and technological resources, due to cuts in the
Health Fund, have led to a widespread collapse of the healthcare system. As a result, access to treatment has been reduced for an increasing
number of people. Today it is the coronavirus, tomorrow it could be another virus or even any trivial disease: to maintain only Essential
Levels of Care (ELC) is to sign a death sentence. When deaths take place gradually, it may not be so obvious. But now, deaths because of the
coronavirus are numerous and in a very short time.
Now, at the height of the emergency, the importance of public health is undeniable. Health workers are praised as heroes, but they have
endured abysmal working conditions for years: lots of stress, emotional blackmail, harassment in the workplace and penalties from the
management, which uses report cards to evaluate performance (and their subsequent effect on wages) and appalling contracts that have not
improved for years.
Workers in public and state-funded private healthcare have been affected by a process of deconstruction of the system. Even worse, abandoned
and neglected, they have had to adapt the health response to the country's needs. But, what about the needs of those who provide the
service? More than ten days after the start of the coronavirus outbreak, health workers had to work without masks and with insufficient
protection. As a result, more and more doctors and healthcare workers became infected and at risk of infecting patients and their families.
Healthcare workers who may be exposed to infection are no longer tested. Exhaustion is rife, both physical and mental, and pills are used to
sleep for a few hours between gruelling shifts, when it is impossible to stop thinking about what has been witnessed. Experienced co-workers
are seen crying, patients are abandoned in the corridors, alone, far from their loved ones. Death from coronavirus is a lonesome death.
Health workers are in the front-line trenches, under relentless shelling. We are witnessing a merry-go-round of regulations and protocols,
sometimes contradictory, between regional administrations and the central government. They all complain very loudly about the lack of
supplies, only to mask a chronic shortage that they did not even consider replenishing after the outbreak of the epidemic in China.
We have denounced for a long time, together with other class unions, what those years of devastation of the national health system could
mean. These days of the coronavirus emergency, our reasons to raise the alarm about the massive cuts are making themselves evident.
Governments and politicians in general are to blame, of course, but not only them. Brunetta, the Secretary for Public Administrations under
Berlusconi, used to say that health workers were lazy, parasites, crooks who got paid for doing nothing and other such epithets, and he
enjoyed a good deal of support.
Every time we stood by when a hospital bed was lost, we were feeding our fear and desperation of today. Over the past few years, groups and
strikes in defence of the health system were not supported enough. Now, people are coming to cheer health workers... The legacy of this
pandemic must be a widespread struggle to demand and recover an effective and universal health service, ready to deal with any possible
emergency.
->http://usi-cit.org/index.php/1664-comunicato-usi-sanita-emergenza-sanitaria-covid-19
USI-CIT Milan Hospitals and USI-CIT Health Workers
https://www.icl-cit.org/italy-statement-by-usi-cit-health-workers/
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Message: 8
The myth of the state whose duty it is to protect citizens. The myth of market self-regulation. The myth that the privatization of basic
social goods like public health is done for the public good. The myth of EU solidarity. The list is not over. The restriction measure
imposed on Sunday 22/3/20 crushes the last legend left in the liberal oligarchies calling themselves "democracies", the so-called freedom of
man within the state-capitalist network. Of course this measure was not accompanied by the closure of the businesses where the workers are
stacked, apparently the invisible hand of the market prevents the spread of coronavirus in a crowded enclosure. Nor, of course, is the
blockade of prisons and the abolition of immigrant concentration camps where tens of thousands of people are left to die helplessly. In this
way the naked truth emerges, the state exists to guarantee the freedom of commodity production, the extraction of surplus value and, through
social control, the perpetuation of socially separated power in every sphere of life. Death politics is the essence of the state and this is
more evident than ever. the posting of goodwill and, through social control, the perpetuation of socially separated power in every area of
life. Death politics is the essence of the state and this is more evident than ever. the posting of goodwill and, through social control,
the perpetuation of socially separated power in every area of life. Death politics is the essence of the state and this is more evident than
ever.
We are fully aware of the panic of Power. A panic that comes not from the so-called individual irresponsibility as the media has been for
days (all these days it has shown tremendous social responsibility and enormous self-discipline in doctors' appeals) but from its structural
choices. The dismantling of the health system, the overthrow of any concept of social welfare and the protection of the weak, the pillaging
of the social base are the causes of panic. Power is well aware that the only paper left to face in the coming tragedy for which it bears
responsibility is the ideological warfare through the ideology of "individual responsibility" (which puts into effect the doctrinal doctrine
"there are no societies, only people ") and social automation in the body of the social base.
To end with lies. Anyone who says that the health system is prepared to deal with the situation while health workers (s) are almost begging
for help with materials, ICUs and staff is a criminal. Anyone who embarks on the development of solidarity and mutual assistance that has
made a dynamic appearance in recent days is a criminal. Anyone facing a public health crisis with police measures instead of massively
testing the population to help stop the spread of the virus is taking the army to the streets. Whoever forces workers to work under these
conditions, without full employer status and without the minimum means of self-protection (while there is strong evidence that the outbreak
of the outbreak in Italy in recent days is banned by this route) is criminal. Anyone who practices or promotes blackmail or believes that
the crisis generates opportunities is a criminal. So we are absolutely convinced that soon the social base and its organized forces will
confront these criminals. We will count very hard, be sure of that. So we are absolutely convinced that soon the social base and its
organized forces will confront these criminals. We will count very hard, be sure of that. So we are absolutely convinced that soon the
social base and its organized forces will confront these criminals. We will count very hard, be sure of that.
SOLIDARITY - SOLIDARITY - SELF-ORGANIZATION
FAILURE TO OPEN - NOBODY IN BUSINESS
FROM THE STATE AND CAPITAL DEALING OF LIFE, TO PROVIDE SOCIETY'S NEEDS
Anarchist Federation
Site: http://www.anarchist-federation.gr
email: anarchist-federation @ riseup.net
Twitter: twitter.com/anarchistfedGr
Fb: facebook.com/anarxikiomospondia2015
Youtube: Anarchist Federation
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2020/03/23/
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