Today's Topics:
1. US, black rosefed: The "Democratic Road to Socialism" and
Bernie Sanders (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Coronavirus and emergency: we don't forget which side of the
barricade we are on - statement by FAI Italy (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #303 - Municipal
elections: Libertarian communists have a say (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. i-f-a: More of the state you've got (while mutual aid grows
to tackle coronavirus) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. In the face of the pandemic and the continuing
state-capitalist crime ... Society will win! By APO [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - UCL press release,
Domestic violence: The hassle for those who stay at home (fr, it,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland): The Covid-19 global
health crisis is one that required a global response led by
health workers but with the consensus of almost everyone.
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
As the prospects for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign has once again been dashed by the party establishment this discussion of the
"inside/outside" strategy advocated by left activists provides much needed commentary. ---- By Julian Merino ---- With the Democratic Party
establishment closing ranks around centrist candidate Joe Biden and the viability of Bernie Sanders fades, an assessment is needed of left
electoral activist's arguments around whether the campaign offers our best hope for social change in decades. Sanders has provided verbal
support to striking workers while consistently promoting progressive policies like Medicare for All, tuition-free higher education, and
changes to labor law that potentially facilitate unionization and encourage workplace democracy. From a policy perspective, Bernie's
credentials outweigh those of his liberal challengers. It's only logical that socialists believe a Sanders presidency would be an
improvement upon the Trump administration and preferable to that of any other Democratic contender.
Implementation of a Sanders program, however, would require more than a successful presidential run. At minimum, it would involve Democrats
taking control of the Senate. Even if that were to happen, a Sanders administration would then be confronted with a Democratic Party that
remains deeply beholden to bourgeois interests. The finance, fossil fuel, insurance, pharmaceutical, and weapons manufacturing companies
will use all their leverage upon all the other political structures that Sanders would depend on. Substantial congressional opposition to
Sanders's legislation is therefore all but guaranteed. Only a dramatic shift in the balance of class power would see politicians change
course and side with proposals for major change.
We simply cannot buy loyal politicians. Our ability to wrest back control over our lives therefore depends on our capacity to act in an
independent, collective, and large-scale fashion. If you can't persuade policymakers with financial carrots (large campaign contributions)
or sticks (non-investment), you're forced to rely on the disruptive potential of self-organized action. Regardless of who sits in the oval
office, only this fear of popular retaliation can ensure politicians' acceptance of measures for reforms. We must be insistent about this
fact and oppose any kind of deferential or accommodating attitude to state officials, be they Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative,
or "democratic socialists."
Inside Outside Strategy?
Certain Bernie fans seemingly acknowledge some of these dynamics. Hence the title of a forthcoming book written by two of the Senator's
DSA-based supporters, Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht's Bigger than Bernie: How We G from the Sanders Campaign to Democratic Socialism.
Although their book is scheduled to be released in late April, excerpts published online provide an opportunity to engage with the strategic
orientation of those pursuing what they call "the democratic road to socialism," a political project claiming to involve both the electoral
campaigns of social democratic politicians as well as grassroots organizing and direct action.
The "inside/outside" strategy they advocate is a mistaken answer to the question of how we maximize our power to build a classless society.
While Day and Uetricht explicitly identify popular power as an essential component of socialist transformation, their proposed "democratic
road to socialism" fails to take the implications of this belief seriously. And their claim that "elections can be used to build mass
working-class movements" is off target. It's an assertion that considers complementary what are in fact divergent forms of political
engagement with distinct means and ends.
Ultimately, the independent strength and mentality of working-class movements will determine our ability to reclaim our lives. That strength
and mentality are simply not being nurtured when we're mobilizing to elect and legitimate what we hope to be benevolent leaders. This is not
to say that Sanders wouldn't be better than Trump or Biden. Rather, it is to suggest that winning fellow working-class people over to
socialist ideas and putting those ideas into practice demands something different than what democratic socialists promote.
For example, some of the more creative members of Obama's 2008 campaign team held similar sentiments to the one animating Uetricht and Day's
approach: "What if Barack Obama could become not only the first Black man elected president, but the first president in history
to[help]organize an enduring grassroots movement that could last beyond his years in office?" That "grassroots movement" never materialized.
Regardless of the excuses enthusiasts put forth, its failure to appear is at least partly attributable to the nature of campaigns for
government office.
Power and Deeper Organizing, Not Elections
Electoral campaigns are "get out the vote" (GOTV) efforts. They are fundamentally transactional, mobilizing voters by promising someone else
will act in their interest. This kind of GOTV initiative can only ever superficially engage people around the problems they are confronting
in their everyday lives. Without a deeper organizing commitment, people are not moved to grapple with the fact that those problems are
rooted in a power imbalance. "Here's why you should vote for X" or "Bernie vs. the Billionaires" is a different conversation than one that
deals sincerely with people's everyday issues with their bosses, landlords or the police - which raises the inherent conflict between
working class people and the power of capital and the state.
More importantly, prospective voters certainly aren't encouraged to see self-organized action as the potential solution to their problems.
On the contrary, electoral activism sends exactly the opposite message. This explains Obama's thousands of grassroots activists calling into
campaign HQ and asking "what next?" after election day, only to then disengage when no answer was available.[1]These individuals were
mobilized into the campaign but not given skills and/or determination needed to act autonomously because electoral campaigns aren't
interested in developing grassroots leadership and movements.
Micah Sifry, author of the article on "Obama's Lost Army," highlighted the crux of the problem when explaining why higher ups in the
campaign chose not to continue encouraging the popular forces arrayed behind them: "What if Obama's base didn't like the health care reform
he came up with and rallied independently around a single-payer plan? Besides, grassroots movements, no matter how successful, don't
reliably yield what political consultants want most: money and victories for their candidates, with plenty of spoils for themselves."
Bernie supporters will certainly counter that he's a different kind of candidate, a fact encapsulated by his foregoing Super PAC money and
his campaign slogan - "Not me. Us." We can acknowledge that although a President Sanders certainly wouldn't be spending his time organizing
alongside "us," his rhetorical support for some social movements is genuine. Regardless, if we're going to build our power, if we're going
to increase the capacity of working-class people to determine their life conditions, we need to develop the leadership self-organized action
requires.
The fact remains that there's only room for one in the voting booth. What we need is to expand the number of grassroots organizers who
understand that capital and its state are the problem and that mass working-class and explicitly socialist movements are the answer. That
entails a deep, long-term commitment to organizing where we work, study, stay, and pray, a commitment to spreading socialist understanding
while encouraging direct action in those spaces we pass through every day. This is what "bring[ing]the Left into the mainstream" and making
socialist practice a lived reality for our class necessarily looks like, and not building a social democratic voting bloc.
State Officials Won't Voluntarily Bring Us Closer to Socialism
A common retort suggests "we can do both!" - yet there are several problems with this response. First, "we" have finite time and energy that
we must use in a way that most effectively brings us closer to our goals. The electoral cycle is quite literally never-ending and the
proponents of the "democratic road to socialism" acknowledge that the legislative majority they seek can only come about over "multiple
contested elections," likely occurring over many years. The time horizon isn't the problem here, the commitment is. Having thousands of
conversations with other workers where you're sending wrongheaded messages is not only wasteful but counterproductive.
This brings us to the second weakness of electoral activists' "both/and" rebuttal. Canvassing is counterproductive because electioneering
inherently serves to shore up the legitimacy of the American state. You can't pursue a dramatic redistribution of power while legitimating
the existing power structure's foremost office (the U.S. presidency). For example, a Bernie presidency will not bring an end to our
murderous border regime, but Sanders's apparent sympathy for working-class citizens might make it more tolerable in the eyes of regular
people. The point is neither that Trump is preferable nor that we shouldn't fight for reforms that change the lives of working class people
for the better. Rather, as socialists we must remain honest and consistent about the illegitimacy of these institutions if we're to
effectively organize our movements and international solidarity we need.
Democratic socialists argue that this leads to self-isolation since "mass numbers of people treat elections as the main arena for their
political frustrations and aspirations. The question," they claim, is about "whether we join them in the democratic sphere, giving socialist
and class-struggle character to fights playing out in the electoral arena, or sit out and miss the opportunity to engage with people." There
is an unspoken and deep-seated conservatism at play here that refuses to embrace the hard work of winning people over to a socialist
mentality and practice. Instead, the suggestion is that of the opportunist: "many people consider the system legitimate so let's take our
bearings accordingly and look for efficient ways to reduce harm." If you're serious about transforming the power structure, you have to
commit to organizing the class to act independently.
A Path Toward Revolution?
We now come to the issue presumably separating democratic socialists like Day and Uetricht from more traditional social democrats, a
question with which the Sandernistas deal in cavalier and contradictory fashion - that of revolution. Democratic socialists claim
"anti-capitalist change will necessarily require... a revolution to defeat the inevitable sabotage and resistance of the ruling class." Yet
Day and Uetricht seem to flinch at the implications, suggesting that "pull[ing]off a revolution in our circumstances" demands "popular
support... be mobilized both inside and outside of government." The confusion here may come from misunderstanding the relationship between
revolution and the state. There can be no "inside government" amidst a process defined by the suspension of state authority.[2]We cannot add
clarity to this kind of muddled thinking by acknowledging the repressive capabilities of the American state and suggesting that a revolution
would therefore have to look different.
You don't need to speculate about likely forms of revolutionary change to deliver this crucial socialist message: only we - working-class
people - are capable of organizing our lives to meet our needs in a free and equal manner. There are no shortcuts. No politician can give us
a classless society, but they will attempt to codify realities on the ground if we can build movements with enough teeth to beat back the
bosses' offensive. We must be clear that popular forces are the decisive agents of socialist transformation and organize ourselves
accordingly. Any message to the contrary functions to keep a boot on our necks, even if democratic socialists want to claim it's "the
people's boot."
Julian Merino is a Chicago-based anarchist. He is currently active in the labor movement and engaged in local migrant solidarity and
anti-police organizing.
If you enjoyed this piece we recommend our more in depth readers on left electoralism which includes fourteen articles with contemporary and
international analysis, "Socialist Faces in High Places: Elections & the Left."
Notes
1. This quote from "Obama's Lost Army" is particularly revealing: "On November 5, the day after Obama's victory, his headquarters in Chicago
was deluged with phone calls and emails from supporters asking for guidance on how to keep going. Exactly as Edley had feared, no answers
were forthcoming-not even about whether the tens of thousands of volunteers who had built personal fund-raising groups on MyBO would be able
to continue them. "We're all fired up now, and twiddling our thumbs!" wrote one frustrated volunteer from Pennsylvania. "ALL the leader
volunteers are getting bombarded by calls from volunteers essentially asking: Nowwhatnowwhatnowwhat?""
2. To put this another way, a "revolutionary state" or "revolutionary government" is a logical impossibility. Revolution is necessarily the
work of the popular classes.
https://blackrosefed.org/democratic-road-to-socialism-bernie-sanders/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2020 08:58:39 +0300
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) Coronavirus and emergency: we don't forget which side of
the barricade we are on - statement by FAI Italy
Message-ID: <mailman.17684.1585807125.3032.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
The following article was written about one week ago by our comrades in the Italian Anarchist Federation (Federazione Anarchica Italiana)
and translated by them (original in Italian). Much of this will ring true for those of us living in the UK or elsewhere in Europe. We are
seeing some differences, notably the strikes of factory, construction and other workers over the neglect of their safety by bosses, whereas
many of these same workers are casualised or self-employed and not unionised in UK. And prisoners are rioting. But the deadly effect of an
minimally funded health system under neoliberal policies is a clear warning for those of in countries who are catching up with Italy on the
exponential spreading of illness. The British media, in its unquestioning support for the military can only talk of the selflessness of the
army who are now drawn in to deliver goods for the NHS, more for propaganda than anything. By linking the lack of resources during this
outbreak to militarism, the FAI are showing the importance of the broader critique of heavily militarized states which may seem to sit in
the background out of mind, when not engaged in expensive and bloody wars, but which can easily be called into action for internal
repression too.
In the face of this crisis, state and capital are showing, with unprecedented evidence, all their enormous limitations and their structural
inability to take into account people's needs and health.
In Italy, the political choices of governments have constantly cut public health (more than public, state). Part of the few resources have
been diverted to private healthcare, even during the current emergency. The contemporary "regionalization", according to a
corporate-capitalist model, has then made this service (which in theory should be universal) strongly differentiated between regions and
regions, between rich and poor regions.
Patients have become clients and care services monetized within a general framework of competition and profit.
This approach to the health service reveals its true face at this dramatic moment, leaving us all at the mercy of its philosophy, which is
certainly not that of human piety and the recognition of the other as our fellow human beings, but that of calculating the minimum material
requirements for maximum profit, which now translates into the lack of equipped facilities, the lack of hired staff, the lack of consumables
goods in warehouses.
The result is that the increasingly limited funds and increasingly reduced staff, already exploited to the limit in the ordinary, leave no
margin for emergency situations. Except then to admit that the places in intensive care are running out, the staff is scarce, the
respirators are not there and it will be necessary to make choices on who to treat, because is not possible to treat everyone. And all this
when the State pays 70 million euros a day for military expenses. With the 70 million spent in just one of the 366 days of this leap year,
six new hospitals could be built and equipped and there would be some money left over for masks, analysis laboratories and swabs for real
screening. A respirator costs 4,000 thousand euros, so you could buy 17,500 respirators a day, many more than you need now.
In recent weeks we have witnessed a total quackery of the political class in dealing with the emergency, with exponents from all political
parties who have said everything and the opposite of everything, calling for closure and opening depending on what the opponent was calling
for. We have seen the government appeal against the closure of schools by the Marche regional administration and then close the whole
country a few days later, we have seen repugnant opportunisms and now we are witnessing the rhetoric of "we will make it".
If we do it, it will certainly not be thanks to national and regional governments. It will certainly not be thanks to the massive
militarization of cities and borders. It will certainly not be thanks to the companies that, through Confindustria (association of
industrial employers), have thrown down the mask by explicitly choosing profit. They have stated it clearly and distinctly, without lapses
of words, without shame: let us not close down, production must go ahead. This has led to spontaneous strikes in many companies, with the
big union centers chasing the struggles of workers who did not want to succumb to employers' claims. The pursuit of the regime unions has
reached the goal of the ridiculous protocol signed on March 14, containing only obligations for workers and only recommendations for companies.
This disgusting cynicism, this hunger for profit combined with contempt for the health of those who work, precisely because expressed at
such an exceptional time, must not pass, and they must be held accountable.
This crisis is being paid for, above all, by those who work in health care and are under constant pressure from gruelling shifts and
increasing cases of contagion and deaths among the staff themselves.
No mainstream media has taken up the complaint of the lawyers of the nurses' association, an institution that has nothing subversive about
it. In the dominant narrative nurses and nurses are described as heroes, as long as they get sick and die in silence, without telling what
happens in hospitals. Nurses who tell the truth are threatened with dismissal. Those who are infected are not recognised as having a
workplace accident, so that the hospital company is not obliged to pay compensation to those who find themselves working every day without
protection or with totally inadequate protection.
This crisis is being paid for by those who have an occasional or precarious job, currently without income and without any certainty of
getting their jobs back after the epidemic has ended.
It is being paid for by those who find themselves at home in telework having to reconcile an often very complex home presence with children
or people to look after and contemporary productive obligations.
It is being paid for by those who are forced to go to their workplace without any guarantee of health.
Those who are poor, homeless, those who survive on the street or in a nomad camp are paying for it.
Workers are paying for it. Workers went on spontaneous strikes against the risk of contagion and were reported by the police for violating
government edicts because they were demonstrating on the streets for their health.
The prisoners of the democratic state are paying for it. Prisoners have given rise to riots in 30 prisons in defense of their own health.
During the riots there were fourteen dead. Fourteen people who - they tell us - would all have died from an overdose from self-induced
drugs. Fourteen people subjected to the responsibility of a system to which perhaps it did not seem true to be able to apply other
containment measures with an iron fist, not so much of the infection but of the prisoners themselves.
In an explosive situation due to the already unworthy conditions that have been living inside prisons for years - in a structural and not
exceptional way - the government has thought well to stop all visits without taking effective measures to protect the health of the prisoners.
Unfortunately, we are well aware that once this emergency phase is over, it will always be the same people who will lose out in terms of
impoverishment and further exploitation. Because even if none of us have the crystal ball, it can already be predicted that they will use
the excuse of "recovery", "economic recovery", "overcoming the crisis", to increasingly compress the spaces for struggle in the workplace
and civil and political freedoms. It will not be a surprise if the rhetoric of "responsibility" will be used to further refine the
disciplinary and social control mechanisms, to further restrict freedom of movement, to further restrict the freedom to strike and
demonstrate, which is now in fact suspended. Already now the number of those reported for violation of the decrees exceeds that of those
infected. On this we will be called upon to proactively monitor and act without hesitation.
We are in solidarity with all those who at this moment are risking their lives to save others, with all the personnel working in hospitals,
with those who work and strike to guarantee safety conditions for themselves for others, with all those who cannot afford to #restareacasa
(stay at home) because they don't have a home. We are in solidarity with those who are afraid because they fear for themselves and their
loved ones. We sympathize with all those who have fallen ill and have been torn away from home without being able to have contact with their
loved ones because of the absence of protective equipment, we sympathize with all those who are dying with palliative care because of the
absence of adequate emergency facilities and we sympathize with those who have had to make decisions about the lives of others on who to
intubate and who not in a desperate attempt to reduce the damage to a minimum when the damage is certain.
We will not forget who is responsible for what happens today: governments and states have sacrificed the health of us all by choosing
profit, war and strengthening their power.
Governments and states must not delude themselves: the struggles will not go into quarantine.
Correspondence Commission of the Italian Anarchist Federation - FAI
20 March 2020
http://afed.org.uk/coronavirus-and-emergency-we-dont-forget-which-side-of-the-barricade-we-are-on-statement-by-fai-italy/
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2020 09:02:54 +0300
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #303 - Municipal
elections: Libertarian communists have a say (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation]
Message-ID: <mailman.17704.1585807379.3032.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
The next municipal elections bring a lot of promises and negotiations from the various candidates with a view to being elected. Libertarian
communists can take over public space to defend their anti-capitalist and self-managing ideas. Another management of the municipalities is
possible, it will go through the struggle and the change of mentalities. ---- Municipal elections begin on March 15. As with all polls,
abstention is generally massive (36.45% in the first round in 2014). And as always, election campaigns are an opportunity for candidates to
multiply promises that they will quickly forget once elected. Why then should we be interested in it, as libertarian communists ?
On the one hand, it is nevertheless a photograph of the political power struggles of the period that we need to analyze. On the other hand,
it is a period during which political discussions will be more frequent than others, and it is an opportunity to highlight our watchwords
and analyzes.
In particular, the specificity of this election, in terms of scale and proximity of candidates (to very different degrees of course
depending on the size of the municipalities) can allow us to initiate discussions on themes that are at the heart of our concerns: direct
democracy, self-management, control of mandates.
The first salient aspect is already the slap that is about to receive the Macronie. Lyon is the only major city in which a LREM candidate is
placed first in the polls, in the person of Gérard Collomb, credited with 23% of the vote. And again, this is more a phenomenon of local
notability and anchoring than the sign of adherence to the government's political project. Almost everywhere else, LREM is either confined
to supporting roles, or totally absent, its expected candidates withdrawing in favor of LR candidates.
Several conclusions can be drawn from this. On the one hand, government policy is overwhelmingly rejected, the LREM label locally appearing
to repel. On the other hand, LREM, by its very form, is cut off from the country, and incapable of standing out from the crowd of candidates
known to the inhabitants. Finally, the game of alliances reveals LREM for what it is: a political force anchored on the right.
A slap for LREM
The problem is that the political force in ambush, and which is doing well, is still the RN. Every election shows it to us: the neoliberal
policies pursued for 40 years are pushing more and more voters into the arms of the fascists. Despite the catastrophic record of the " brown
town halls ", the so-called electoral " glass ceiling " of the RN is, in many aspects, giving way. A recurring phenomenon is helping him
there: calls from both sides for joint applications with LR.
At this stage, if LR still favors alliances with LREM, one can only note the multiplication of union lists between candidates RN and ex-LR,
especially in medium-sized cities (Sète, Lunel, Arras...). Only positive sign: it would seem that, as for other parties, the RN label is
difficult to wear for candidates, including in RN bastions, and that they prefer to do without it, for fear of reprisals....
A new progression for the fascists
On the LFI side, and after the European debacle (6% of the vote), it is modestly said that this is an " intermediate step " before the
presidential election. The instruction is to merge into " citizen " lists , without putting forward the LFI label.
The PCF, despite the well-established tradition of " municipal communism ", continues to unravel, and is preparing to lose bastions again,
like that of Ivry-sur-Seine. On the far left, the scores for LO, POID or NPA should be insignificant, with the exception of Philippe Poutou
in Bordeaux, who is approaching 10% in the polls (with the support of LFI).
Finally, a dynamic continues, and must question our positioning as libertarian communists: that of the " participatory " lists which claim
to be of " municipalism ".
First, it is a context of significant local politicization. Leaflets are distributed in mailboxes, in the markets, political discussions are
taking place between neighbors. It is an opportunity for us to seize it, each political discussion being an opportunity to bring our
interlocutors to critical positions with regard to the capitalist system. More precisely, the scale of the ballot and the concrete nature of
the issues help to put forward our conception of power.
No, democracy is not, for us, to elect a person who will then be unsustainable for six years. No, democracy is not, for us, to circumscribe
the debates on the urban environment, ecology, educational policy, road and waste management to the restricted circle of the municipal
council, or worse delegate behind closed doors to the agglomeration community or communes.
Yes, democracy is, for us, the construction of checks and balances, the self-management of public services, the taking in hand of the
ecological question by all and everyone, the revocability of elected officials.
" Municipalist " inclinations
Finally, these elections raise the broader question of the political project that can be carried out at the municipal level. We are
referring here to a doctrine which is debated by libertarian activists and which irrigates in citizen circles, and in particular among the
partisans and supporters of " participatory " lists mentioned above: " libertarian municipalism ", theorized in particular by Murray
Bookchin.
If we have to sum up his ideas in a few words, here is the diagram: local struggles lead to electoral forces opposed to the capitalist
system ; these forces operate on the principle of assembly ; once elected, they federate at the higher, regional, national or international
level, with mandated and revocable delegates ; occupying positions of power, they come to necessarily confront the regulatory institutions
of capitalism.
This strategy, which has only been implemented a little, should not make libertarian communists forget that the main terrain of the class
struggle is the economic terrain and not institutions, even in the hands of citizens with the best of intentions. . Without any contempt for
those who vote, let us remember that social conquests, and even revolutionary experiences, were obtained by collective struggles, and not by
ballot boxes.
Jules (UCL Montreuil)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Elections-municipales-Les-communistes-libertaires-ont-leur-mot-a-dire
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2020 09:03:55 +0300
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) i-f-a: More of the state you've got (while mutual aid
grows to tackle coronavirus)
Message-ID: <mailman.17710.1585807439.3032.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
Original article by Anarchist Federation (Britain) on 15 March 2020: http://afed.org.uk/more-of-the-state-youve-got/ ---- As various
governments leap into action, or not, over the reality of the coronavirus pandemic, it's evident that the different approaches to
containment and delay have a heavy ideological component. ---- The mass surveillance approach of China has seen blocking of criticism of the
state on the widespread social media platform WeChat and citizen reporters being taken off the streets, whilst the e-commerce app Alipay
(like Paypal in UK) platform has been commandeered to build and track individual movements. It is doing this by assigning a ‘Alipay Health
Code' status of Red, Yellow or Green which is then being used to control access to work, public facilities and movement in general.
In the UK, the central government's approach is equally ideological, strongly criticised last week for being too ‘laissez-faire', seemingly
having more concern for the economic system than its people, especially with the idea that letting the population reach a ‘herd immunity' is
almost something to encourage, which would be a death sentence for many people who are immuno-compromised or have particular disabilities or
long-term conditions. Added to this is the state's health ministry choosing to inform itself by expertise in behavioural economics and
public health ‘nudging' to try and encourage citizens to do the right thing. As a result, action to stop social contact has been led as much
by non-state decision making such as the decision of sporting bodies to cancel games and fixtures into the future.
In Italy, the government has moved to being more controlling, introducing fines and threatening prison time for people who don't adhere to
the new travel bans.
For anarchists then, a ray of sunshine must be the evidence of rapid formation of mutual aid groups across the country, especially on
Facebook. Freedom has published a list of these which is growing very fast indeed:
https://freedomnews.org.uk/covid-19-uk-mutual-aid-groups-a-list/
Mutual aid has been forced on us by the state's neoliberal approach to public services and life in general during the last decade of
austerity. The idea from HM government that older people over 70 years old will be asked to begin isolating themselves"within the coming
weeks" for "a very long time" is obviously going to create worry and practical difficulty that will require a huge community effort to
overcome. But many people are already involved in mutual aid activities such as food banks. Existing tenants', neighbourhood and church
groups are likely to be at the forefront of rapid response. Anarchists, with our experience of running local solidarity networks, are
already involved in setting up or supporting new groups. These groups will help ensure people who are vulnerable will be fed and get their
medication, and can coordinate things like childcare for healthworkers and others.
Workers are also taking action, pushing their employers to do the right thing more quickly. It was evident in the University strikes last
week that strikers on picket lines had used the solidarity and communications on the ground to make bosses act more quickly to close off
things like ‘open days' that would have seen mass movements of potential students and parents across England. All over Italy, workers in
factories, steel works and docks who are not able to do their jobs at home, are striking over their bosses lack of care.
Coronavirus won't be beaten by community mutual aid alone, but groups that are involved in direct communication are surely a vital public
health resource that will help counter fear and dampen the noise of bad information more effectively than direct marketing or broadcast
media messages. More optimistically, if not too optimistic in this present crisis, these types of groups may well act as a springboard for
the better social cohesion that is part of what it will take to achieve social revolution in the future. Hopefully too, mutual aid of the
kind envisaged by anarchists will also realise a vaccine in due course, by means of scientific cooperation. On the other hand it will be
important to learn from the different ways states are responding to the outbreak because the measures being put in place will no doubt be
applied in the near future to control borders and movement, whether for the purpose of internal repression within states or regions or to
deal with the climate emergency or other yet unknown crises that capitalism will create.
Read in Italia. Translation by FAI/Umanita Nova:
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2020 09:06:17 +0300
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) In the face of the pandemic and the continuing
state-capitalist crime ... Society will win! By APO [machine
translation]
Message-ID: <mailman.17726.1585807581.3032.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
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We have been confronted with the specter of the deadly evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic for several weeks. A virus that mainly affects
vulnerable groups of the population, but not only. The great social and class majority are at risk of disease and thousands of people in our
class are dying en masse around the world, having been deprived of the means necessary to protect them. ---- Today, the complete antisocial
and murderous nature of the state-capitalist system, whose orientation is not only to satisfy the needs of the social majority, but
especially in times of crisis, is being tragically restricted and deprived of its reach. social and class base, his parasitic existence upon
her, committing yet another crime against her.
The depletion of the enormous socially generated wealth and resources available from the economic and political elites, the
over-concentration of populations in major cities, the workplaces, prisons and concentration camps for immigrants and refugees, the
time-consuming underpinnings of health systems and the for themselves the opportunity to enjoy the best possible care, demonstrate how: The
state and capitalist system of organizing society, which already condemns millions The death toll from starvation, disease and war
operations fights not against the evolving pandemic, but to keep their privileges, their position politically and financially strong.
This is also confirmed by the government's war-time announcements, which on a daily basis recall the enormous economic crisis hit by the
crisis and attempt to draw consensus on the overall social restructuring that is being prepared to materialize. support capital because of
its decline in profitability. In the wake of the evolving pandemic, a new round of attacks on workers and society is being prepared. What
are today presented as 'solidarity benefits' to the social base, tomorrow we will have to pay multiple times the enormous cost to the lives
of millions of people who are already suffering from the uneven battle of our day.
Because the reality is that the battle against the evolving pandemic is given by the social and class base, despite the adverse conditions
imposed by its perpetrators. The battle against the evolving pandemic is won by many and many who understand the danger to their neighbors
take the necessary measures of individual and collective self-protection, giving their backstory to buy what should be readily available to
all. .It is given by doctors and nurses who, with self-sacrifice and tremendous personal fatigue, give each group of their energy by
themselves to save lives. It is given to all employees and employees who are forced to go to work, courier services, take-away catering
shops, mass media and supermarkets that keep the supply chain at risk for their health, the farmers and cleaning workers.
It is the social and class base that under such difficult conditions highlights its enormous potential, struggling to withstand a pandemic
in the midst of a state of general poverty and poverty. And it is the state and capital that continue to reproduce themselves, not the
solution to the pandemic, but the obstacle to dealing with it.. Depriving food, medical supplies, available forces from this battle,
invoicing human lives and speculating on death. All they have to promise is the complete militarization of society, the repression of those
who survive. They are already preparing the next massacres, imposing dystopia by funding armies instead of hospitals, cops instead of
doctors. They favor businesses and bosses, while at the same time plundering labor conquests, with employer arbitrariness and nonsense
gaining in the midst of a pandemic, with layoffs, uninsured labor, over-exploitation. They are still going on crackdowns on militants,
scattering immigrants, hitting and seriously injuring anti-fascists like in Rethymnon.
They themselves have for years tried to dismantle public health structures through underfunding, layoffs, and hospital closures. The result
is that few intensive care beds are available, relative to real needs. Working doctors and nurses give a titanium fight and we stand in
solidarity with each of them.We demand immediate and unconditional mass recruitment (instead of limited-time contracting and voluntary work)
of medical and nursing staff and the provision of all the necessary resources and resources to meet the needs of the population for care,
heavy and unhealthy stamps health personnel as well as care not to lead to total exhaustion and to serious risks and to their own health.
They are the ones who have trapped tens of thousands of people in extremely dangerous conditions. Their health due to inclusion conditions
is at even greater risk and we will not accept them as consumable populations. We demand immediate support measures for prisoners and the
release of prisons. We demand the release of refugees and immigrants from concentration camps and the deployment of empty hotel units to
protect them from the pandemic, as well as the creation of special health structures for all.
They are the ones who have made poor and unemployed people in extreme poverty so they are at risk of starvation. We demand that wages be
paid to employees regardless of the state of the business in which they work and special care for the needy and the unemployed. It is
imperative that every available resource be stolen from the stolen social wealth that the politically and economically powerful have
gathered in their hands and made available to the social body.
And the possible continuation of the repressive campaign by the state against the fighters and structures of struggle within this treaty
falls under the category of war crime and as such will be recorded and dealt with. Arrests and extraditions under the 'business as usual' of
the PRO.PO Ministry it means that they do not hesitate to consciously and by plan put at risk the lives and health of the fighters and
therefore of the society at large, in order to achieve their long-term goals.
Collective and individual self-protection measures in the midst of an unprecedented situation that endangers the lives of too many, in no
way mean surrendering to the sentiments of state and capitalist dictatorship, which will seek to impose even more onerous conditions for the
vast majority of the social population. Our self-limitation at home is for reasons of social conscience that are not at all frank with the
hypocritical interest of the state and the bosses who still force much of the social and class base to go to work, while their field of work
is not related to meeting the pressing needs of society, (by merely displaying the relevant attestation) at the real risk of its
life.Quarantining the population but making no progress in improving the health system, either by recruiting new staff, opening new beds in
ICUs or supplying medical equipment. The guardian of social conscience and solidarity is not, and could never be, the state and the police.
We are in favor of creating special solidarity groups that will take all the necessary precautionary measures to help those most vulnerable
to their basic needs.
Resources for the protection of the community as a whole exist and have been produced by the workers, but their management is in the hands
of the few who have repeatedly shown that they are indifferent to human lives, in front of their power and profits . So we know that the
state and capital are only forced to provide the elementary, only after social pressure, because they prefer to maintain the power and
wealth of a minority minority instead of the health and lives of many thousands, when and where conscientious reasons dictate. we go out on
the road to fight for life and against death, but taking all necessary individual and collective precautionary measures against the pandemic.
The battle of the social and class base against the epidemic is the first necessary step for life to continue. It will also be necessary to
wage a second battle against the state and capitalist system that imposed those conditions to make the spread of the virus far more deadly,
much more massive, and which now requires total control over us.
Solidarity, mutual help and struggle are neither forbidden nor quarantined. The class war, especially on the part of the authorities, has
not been quarantined and must not be stopped unilaterally.
We will continue as human beings, not as personalized cannibals, as resisters and not surrendered and fearful, as anarchists, for the
struggle for a society of free equality with the priority of protecting the vulnerable, as the first and foremost interest in the needs of
the community as a whole, as its primary concern is the prosperity and service of society, not a powerful caste that drives humanity into
the dystopia of death, misery and control.
No fired, no homeless, no hungry, no helpless and abandoned lonely in pandemic
THIS STEP BACK TO OUR NEEDS
FOR ALL
NUTRITION, HEALTH, CARE
FROM THE DOUBTS OF MODERN INTEGRITY, TO STATE AND CAPITAL BARBARITY PRODUCING DEATH ...
SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AND CLASSICAL SELF-ORGANIZATION
Anarchist Political Organization - Federation of Collections
March 2020
site: http://apo.squathost.com/ | Mail: anpolorg@gmail.com | fb: anpolorg | Twitter: @anpolorg
http://apo.squathost.com/
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Message: 6
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2020 09:06:48 +0300
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - UCL press
release, Domestic violence: The hassle for those who stay at home (fr,
it, pt)[machine translation]
Message-ID: <mailman.17730.1585807613.3032.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
Whether they continue to work or whether they are at home, women are on the front line in the fight against the pandemic but also the first
victims of the current health crisis. ---- The unequal distribution of tasks will not be resolved due to confinement. Remember, women
perform a large majority of domestic tasks and childcare, including when they are in a relationship. In the case where both parents are
teleworking, one can easily imagine how the tasks can be distributed among the couples where they are already taken care of by women the
rest of the time ! The feedback from many teachers is formal: it is mainly mothers who contact them, ask them questions and follow up on
homework. Added to this is the management of household tasks which does not leave much time to telework for those who can claim it !
In addition, single-parent families (with 82% of women at their head) are the first to be affected by poverty, and therefore many of them
occupy substandard housing, too small (compared to the composition of the family) and poorly equipped to cope digital needs.
The risk of an explosion of violence against women ...
Widespread confinement represents an additional risk for those who experience violence within the couple.
Specialized associations, which support women victims of violence, sounded the alarm as soon as the confinement was announced. The absence
of a moment of respite represented by the working hours outside the victims and / or the aggressors, living together continuously, will
mathematically increase the number of acts of violence (whether psychological, physical or sexual). In a context of total isolation, where
the key word is not to go out (and especially not with children), without the possibility of hiding to call associations, hotlines or the
police, vigilance and intervention by the neighborhood are crucial. More than ever the eviction of the domicile of the violent spouse must
be the rule to protect women but also children,
More than ever, the police and gendarmerie officers must be reactive when they are called for cases of domestic violence, especially in this
period when taking refuge with a loved one is difficult or impossible.
In addition, social networks are teeming with testimonies from women with a violent ex-spouse: many are threatened with filing a complaint
if they refuse to entrust their child (ren) to an ex who cannot receive them or transport them to appropriate safety and hygiene conditions.
Some of them are bombarded with messages, calls and emails so that they derogate from the rule of not leaving the children, including when
the father continues to work and therefore risks contaminating the children. This period is therefore a difficult time for these women whose
exs are taking advantage of the situation to put pressure and try to keep them under control.
... And with regard to children and young people
Parental violence can also explode during the confinement period. For many children, school time is a time to breathe while escaping, even
temporarily, from violence. School closings therefore mean that thousands of children are locked up permanently, for several weeks, with
adult aggressors. In the same way, the closure of boarding schools and many university residences which can be a refuge for young people
with family breakdown (due to violent, toxic parents ...) is a real hell. The same goes for many LGBTQI youth who are forced to return to
their families who do not accept their identity or sexual orientation. Returning to the family represents a very high risk of violence.
The PJJ (acronym to be explained in the footnote) and ASE (idem) services are cracking down due to the lack of means and staff to welcome
and follow up young people who are permanently vulnerable. They fear the tensions between these young people but also an increase in
suicides among those in precarious and distressed situations.
For isolated minors, whether in homes or in diffuse housing, the lack of means is also glaring. In some homes, collective meals are no
longer insured ; they have to manage to find food outside while the eating places are closed.
If confinement is necessary to slow the spread of the epidemic, it cannot be done without specific measures for the attention of women
victims of patriarchal violence and young people in distress. Wherever possible, let us be vigilant and united so that this period of
confinement is not unbearable for those who are already oppressed and abused.
Libertarian Communist Union, March 27, 2020
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Violences-domestiques-La-galere-pour-celles-qui-restent-a-la-maison
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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2020 09:06:57 +0300
From: a-infos-en@ainfos.ca
To: en <a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
Subject: (en) Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland): The Covid-19
global health crisis is one that required a global response led by
health workers but with the consensus of almost everyone.
Message-ID: <mailman.17732.1585807622.3032.a-infos-en@ainfos.ca>
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Instead we face a piecemeal response, often in the form of repressive policing solutions that are not even particularly effective and where
the borders between the states have undermined collective action and allowed the virus to multiply in the gaps. ---- Fear has led many to
wish for harder state clampdowns as if a policing apparatus had any hope for substituting for collective solidarity between neighbours. The
very ideology of neoliberal capitalism and its mantra of everyone looking after themselves has cut into the sort of community solidarity
essential to popular enforcement of physical distancing. Thankfully in Ireland we discovered this process was not complete and a sufficient
sense of solidarity remained that almost everyone implemented physical distancing measures before the state backed that process.
This virus is not a threat at the distances of national borders but in the short space between us and our friends, neighbours and fellow
workers. Rather than wishing for the state to get tougher policing that space, we need to think and act collectively to organise this
ourselves by building a common consensus around what needs to be done.
Popular action
This has already happened in some places where popular action was ahead of state action, in Hong Kong in the early days and in Ireland in
March where against all stereotypes popular demands mobilised through social media saw just about every pub close its doors ahead of the St.
Patrick's Day weekend. We would presume there are many, many other examples yet to reach our ears, but stories of people self-organising
seldom make it into the media.
None of this is to deny a potential need for draconian action in self defence. If the anarchist army of Ukraine could summarily execute
those who spread anti-Semitic propaganda to prevent pogroms being triggered we are in no way uncomfortable measures to lockdown the virus.
While we would prefer to be in an anarchist society where these would be by popular consensus this is not yet the world we are living in so
we are no more necessarily against justifiable state measures in this context than we are against laws requiring the observation of traffic
lights or banning drunk driving. Our role thus is not some sort of absolutist opposition but rather to push for popular alternatives and
limits on attempts to expand state power in anything but the most temporary and medically justified way.
On the other hand we don't see the state as a solution and this crisis illustrates that. States in general have made things worse by
covering up and preventing action in several places. State imposed lockdowns have not been very successful where community consensus did not
exist. How would you impose them between neighbours without either popular consensus or a cop in every household. And who then watches those
cops.
Border racism
Of course shut the border racists have tried to use the crisis for fascist propaganda but any reasonable analysis shows this distracted from
the real long distance routes of transmission. The virus did not arrive in Ireland via the highly policed, slow and murderous routes
refugees are forced to follow but via the fast jet travel of wealthier Irish citizens who were taking skiing holidays in northern Italy.
Many of these were school kids, did those who saw closing the borders as a magic solution, were they seriously proposing leaving 10,000
school kids locked out of the country? It is clear that was an impossible ‘answer' to long distance transmission - and distracted from what
was needed and later introduced, a requirement that anyone arriving isolate themselves as far as possible for the subsequent two weeks.
Indeed in a general sense border racism has magnified the threat we all now face. Greece which has over the last couple of years created
super concentrated unsanitary camps where refugees have been packed in and restricted. These camps are places where the people living there
cannot self isolate or even regularly wash their hands. The people in these camps need to be allowed to disperse immediately and hotels and
ferries provided so they can reach ‘own door' shelter where those who become infected can self-isolate. This is not only essential for their
survival but also for ours.
On a local level the long standing acceptance of racist structures has left us less rather than more vulnerable as a collective. In
particular the cruelty of Direct Provision has created overcrowded conditions where self isolation is impossible but out of which a section
of the capitalist class has made huge profits from such suffering. The halting sites where many Travellers live are over crowded and
underfunded, and thus an example where our unique Irish acceptable racism has now magnified the risk we collectively face. Neoliberal
Capitalism and increasing rents have created conditions where we have over 10,000 people in emergency accomodation, and increasing numbers
of people who are homeless in our republic. In such conditions Covid 19 will rip through the most marginalised and discriminated people in
our society.
Profits & rents
A minority making huge profits from rent & low wages has meant many of our often migrant hospitality workers have been forced into living
4-6 to a room and afraid to call in sick when as a collective we need them to be able to. Again a situation that many of us have simply
tolerated as it has worsened over the last decade.
Chronic underfunding of the health service will mean many many more deaths and it's not just ICU shortages, it becomes clear that the HSE
had no stocks and no realistic plans for acquiring PPE equipment in the context of a pandemic. Rather than levelling with health workers,
and telling them the truth as the facts emerged they sought to silence them while lying to the public. Another example of where in this war
we need to dispense with spin and communications gurus and be transparent and honest with the workers and the public. The current hope is
that all volunteer crews of Aer Lingus workers will save the day by flying multiple flights to China to collect essential PPE supplies while
having to live aboard their planes.
What can and should anarchists do? A lot of us are already doing it. Help organise community solidarity, build the power of health and other
frontline workers, guard against state attempts at power grabs that go beyond immediate threat, expose dangerous racist lies that obscure
what needs to be done to halt the virus.
The Direct Provision and overcrowding crisis means that vacant apartments, particularly REIT ones kept empty to evade rent controls must be
put into use to provide homes that small groups can self isolate in. Hotels may be used to allow the population in homeless shelters to
disperse to their own door rather than shared rooms.
Workers and activists in those sectors will have a much better sense of what should be demanded and routes of implementation but clearly we
can say no one should be in unsafe overcrowding while potential homes lie empty to protect profit. National Traveller organisations are
already trying to ensure provisions are made for Travellers in this pandemic.
We can support actions where workers self-protect - eg in Finland bus workers and elsewhere transport workers refuse to collect fares and
ask that people access & leave the bus by the middle or back doors and not the front door which is beside them. Workers on construction
sites and sanitation workers are still expected to work without it seems even basic steps like the provision of PPE, staggered lunch breaks
& shift starting times to avoid overcrowding and the end of work that cannot be done safely because of the need to maintain physical distances.
Our only power is collective
What the Covid-19 virus does not do is discriminate. All humans can be infected, regardless of wealth, class, where you live, what you do,
or how you think. Therefore, it will not be defeated by us acting as individuals, it will only be defeated by us acting collectively. As
anarchists, we have always maintained that power resides in the collective, and in these conditions, given what we know about this, we the
people are doing the right things, to prevent the virus spreading. This is done from a basis of self-defence, but it also resides on the
foundation of solidarity. Together we are stronger. There is an Irish - saying that goes ‘Ní neart go cur le Chéile' - There is no strength
without unity. That goes back to the 12th century long before Capitalism, but not before plagues like the black death which wiped out half
of all Europeans in the 14th century. Now, in the 21st we face this enemy again, and we know that it is only by facing it as a collective
that we will prevail.
Above all else though we need to prepare for the time after the virus. A lot of things like eviction bans that our rulers insisted were
impossible have suddenly turned out to be almost instantly achievable. The health crisis has laid bare the unequal nature of our society and
the way that inequality puts us all in danger. Authoritarian politicians turned out to be incapable of acting rationally and fast, organic
grassroots responses were swifter and more effective. A lot of people have noticed these things and with all those people we need to draw
everyone into a conversation about what sort of society we want to live in, one that no longer treats the economy as a separate sphere best
left to find its own way. The strength that we will draw on as a collective in this time will be brought to bear on this system which is
proving, at this time of greatest need, to be unfit for purpose.
facebook.com/andrewnflood/posts/10159667602308378
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