#Worldwide #Information #Blogger #LucSchrijvers: #Update: #anarchist #information from all over the #world - 22.04.2020

Today's Topics:

   
1.  UCL Bordeaux-Gironde press release, Facs between educational
      injunctions and student precariousness: inequalities are widening
      (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL translation -
      Colombia: it was not a massive escape, it was a state massacre !
      (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Britain, Class Warr daily 15 April -- TORIES TOUT ANOTHER
      DECADE OF CUTS (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Britain, Manchester Solfed: PPE AND AGENCY WORKERS
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #304 -
      Antipatriarchy, Sexual assaults: victims, we believe you ! (fr,
      it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  London Anarchist Communist Group ACG: Jackdaw + Virus online
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  Britain, anarchist communist ACG: Not with a bang but a
      whimper - Bernie Sanders' campaign ends (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - Webdito, Covid-19:
      Chronology of a health disaster (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1


Universities, like other educational establishments, were among the first to close. Taken as a matter of urgency, this decision led to
others which should have been the subject of more collective discussion. We are thinking here of the famous "  pedagogical continuity  " or
the desire not to derogate from the imperative of grading. This haste having left the teachers alone has also led to the neglect of the most
precarious students. ---- The directives were rapid, it was necessary to act quickly and to make arrangements so that an "  educational
offer  " was maintained. This injunction was unfortunately made without taking into account the limits of demand and the existence of a
substantial number of students still today deprived of Internet connection and who can neither access online courses, nor respond to
assessments.

A botched teaching continuity injunction
In Bordeaux Montaigne, for example, teachers had to fill out forms to explain how they intended to take their lessons, otherwise they would
risk losing their salary. This especially affected the most precarious, in particular temporary staff who already suffer throughout the year
from a delay in payment of their salary sometimes spanning half a year (a single salary payment per semester). Worse, the management of this
university announced that if the teachers (lecturer and professors) would be paid on time, the temporary workers would have to wait more
than usual. Also, without collective reflection on the digital tools to be used, many teachers found themselves alone having to manage this
sloppy educational continuity, without formal consultation with their colleagues. Everyone must do their own thing, which has contributed to
an involuntary multiplication of teaching spaces (Zoom, Discord, Virtual Office, E-campus and other non-free online services). This
situation has again largely lost the students.

The issues are the same for exams. Instead of believing that an exceptional situation could lead to exceptional measures, we are asking in
the middle of a period of confinement and generalized stress that student assessments be maintained by continuous monitoring. Many seem to
view and send an image of the University as a machine for producing exams, not knowledge. Some TD instructors then continue to give notes,
although others are refused as in sociology. But some directorates continue to announce that there will be exams but not for everyone and
then finally so ... in short, a situation that leaves room for cacophony.

Growing inequalities
Stress only goes up for everyone. However, the University would have to turn "almost" as if nothing had happened. But still it was necessary
that students had access to the internet. This implies not being in the white zone, having an internet package, sufficient speed and above
all a computer ! Something that is not easy for precarious doctoral students who for some are supposed to give lessons on vacation without
having a salary at the end of the month. As for the assessments, the students must be able to carry them out, namely being able to
concentrate or how is this possible when an entire family is confined in a small apartment? Likewise, while the libraries are closed,
denying access to cellular internet which have no connection but above all preventing access to books, students are asked to make
presentations, finish their dissertations and continue theses. In no way do we think for master's and doctoral students to make this period
a dead time. Worse, we ask the masters to pass their defense.

Precarious and foreign students at risk
While student precariousness is already visible throughout the year, with confinement it has become even more significant. For years in
Bordeaux, students have had nothing to stay in, sleep in the university courtyard, live in trucks in the parking lot of the Pessac campus,
in squats, with friends, in sum are found in the street. With the closure of shops, bars and restaurants, many have lost their jobs and can
no longer support themselves. This again raises the question of the status of "  employed student "»Put on the table many times by the
unions since the student status prevents them from touching unemployment, yet paid on wages. In terms of student accommodation, it has been
reported that students have even been threatened with expulsion by the CROUS. The public student accommodation service must not fire those
who host it but must relax the rents of students who no longer receive income and respect the winter break.

This is how the situation became untenable. A group of activists mobilized against the pension reform was responsible for creating a kitty
to buy and distribute food and basic hygiene items (soap, toothpaste, tampon, towels) to students who for certain had not eaten for days
[1]Among these most precarious are foreign students who could not return to their country. Loneliness sometimes leads to the worst, as in
Villeurbanne where a Senegalese student was found dead in his CROUS room and whose causes of death are not yet known [2]. But also two
Parisian students whose isolation and the pressure for success led to suicide[3]. Foreign students must be informed of the functioning of
the health system and accompanied. We cannot forget these young people in their 9 m² rooms and must set up an effective mutual aid system.

Online courses and the pursuit of exams are vectors of inequality. Educational monitoring can only be done by listening to and taking into
account the opinions of higher education teachers and students who are the first to be affected by the situation described. The University
is not a machine for producing notes, it is a place for the production and transmission of knowledge in the ideal to all, without
distinction of class. We demand that all evaluation procedures during this period be suspended, that university fees be reimbursed and that
the precariousness of students be taken into account. Ultimately, we demand real scholarships that do not require you to be paid and
end-of-the-month wages for all college staff.

Libertarian Communist Union Bordeaux-Gironde, April 14, 2020.

Validate

[1] South West: 4/04/2020: Students confined to Bordeaux: "  urgent nothing more to eat  ", when hunger comes before the coronavirus

[2] Le Progrès 04/11/2020: A student found dead in his Crous studio in Villeurbanne

[3] Le Parisien 7/04/2020: Confinement in the Yvelines: a student kills himself on the HEC and RTL campus 04/01/2020: Paris: a student found
hanged in his dorm room

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Facs-entre-injonctions-pedagogiques-et-precarite-etudiante-les-inegalites-se

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Message: 2


For weeks, Colombia, like the rest of the world, has been suffering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the arrival of the
epidemic in the region, detainees have been demonstrating to demand massive releases. On March 21, in several prisons, the detainees stood
up and the administration's response was bloody repression. At the end of March, the first deaths from the epidemic were detainees. We sign
and distribute this press release from Acción Libertaria Estudiantil, a student libertarian communist organization: solidarity crosses all
walls and all borders ! ---- All over the world, prisons are burning and the cries of prisoners rise up against the system of prison
domination. In prisons around the world, the suspension of visits and the negligence of prison administrations in the face of the sanitary
situation led prisoners to collectively protest against the potential centers of mass contagion.

In Colombia, at nightfall on Saturday March 21, men and women from across the country made the prisons ring with their cries of dignity,
freedom and justice. In the midst of the global panic due to covid-19, they wanted to challenge this same society which overwhelmingly
condemned them for belonging to the working classes. They shouted against a prison system created to deny all their rights.

Faced with the just demands of the detainees, the State responded as it knows how to do best: with bullets and blood. This state massacre
resulted in 23 deaths in the Modelo prison in Bogotá and 2 more in the Cómbita prison in the department of Boyacá. To these are added more
than 80 injured according to official data. The message from the State in the hands of the INPEC[prison administration]is clear: death will
be the price of collective struggle in the prisons. As if nothing had happened, the Minister of Justice hinted that the operation which had
caused this massacre, it had taken place under control and had been successful, proclaiming what had made it possible to prevent "  criminal
escapes  ".

In reality, indiscriminate killing of prisoners was certainly not the result of a panic of the warders. It was a strategy of repression,
aimed at crushing the revolt, dividing the prisoners between those who participated in the protest movement and the others, generating
rancor and incomprehension, thus imposing a state of terror. Beyond the terrorist assassinations, through torture and humiliation, the INPEC
imposes its power on the bodies of detainees. This situation takes the role of the prison as an institution of domination of the poor, the
deviant and the racialized to an extreme. In La Modelo, on March 21, the prisoners were no longer people, but disposable bodies, at the
mercy of the sadistic violence of the INPEC and the police.

This murder perpetrated by the Colombian state could constitute one of the worst massacres against the prison population of the country in
recent times, with those committed by the paramilitaries between 1999 and 2001 in La Modelo [1]. However, faced with such events, the
mainstream press devoted its articles to the first Colombian death of the virus and reinforced the authoritarian rhetoric of the state,
unable to recognize the unprecedented scale of the massacre perpetrated by the INPEC. In fact, at the time of writing, the prisons had
killed more than the Covid-19 in Colombia. If society normally disregards the lives of prisoners, the lack of political reaction reduces the
victims to unimportant lives. In the logic of capitalism, only the lives that produce in the market system are important, and it is in this
sense that the barbaric acts of the prison system are justified.

Prisoner protests resulted in the declaration of a prison state of emergency in the country, a measure by which between 4,000 and 15,000
prisoners could be released from prison: a significant advance in the reduction of prison overcrowding which guarantees healthy conditions
for those who live in them. This is not due to the government, which insists on ignoring the critical reality of Colombian prisons. It is a
victory of the prison movement, of the men and women who have chosen to claim their dignity behind bars.

For this reason, we want to send a message to victims of the prison system who are fighting for their lives and their dignity. We support
collective mobilizations and legitimate defense against mass killings by INPEC. In our struggles, we will never forget those who were killed
by the prison administration. We will always carry in our hearts the pain of this repression which leaves us speechless.

To the parents of the victims of this state massacre, we express our solidarity and our affection. We support your requests for justice and tru

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Colombie-ce-ne-fut-pas-une-evasion-massive-ce-fut-un-massacre-d-Etat

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Message: 3



YESTERDAY the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, told the media that he wanted to be "honest about the hardship ahead". This is more
evidence that the Tories have not suddenly swung to the left just because they've increased public spending to such levels it even gets
Momentum members aroused. ---- Once the virus is no longer the only news story, we are going to see headlines about austerity, public sector
job cuts, tax rises, pension cuts and pay freezes. We must not let the Tories get away with it. They will not unleash this hardship on their
donors and the multi-millionaires they speak for. They will try to force the hardship on to us. Ironically, they all claim to suddenly
embrace public service and all the workers associated with keeping the country ticking over during lockdown. What are they going to do to
reward the nurses, care home staff, delivery drivers, postal workers and so on? We aren't going to be fobbed off.

It is these workers that have
been denied vital equipment
to keep themselves and others
safe. It is these workers who
are at greatest risk because the
government, led by that fuck-
ing oxygen-stealing clown,
Boris Johnson, failed to
stockpile the equipment they
needed despite ample warning
the virus was coming.
Just like Sunak, we also
intend to be honest. We want
this government of cunts
and chancers out of office
and made to pay for their
negligence over the virus.
By hook or by crook, we
must get them. We must all
keep shouting about what
they've done.
We shouldn't be surprised
either that the bastards
who fiddled their expenses,
unleashed austerity on us,
kept their money in offshore
tax havens, failed to act on
Grenfell and destroyed lives
through Brexit suddenly
want to be "honest" about the
hardship they intend to hand
to us as a reward for surviving
a global pandemic. The Tories
are fucking sick.

At the first available op-
portunity we need to be on
the streets to bring down this
government of utter bastards.
We owe it to every worker and
we owe it to all those who have
suffered this virus. We will not
forget the dead and we will not
forgive the Tory gobshites who
made this disaster worse by
their actions and their inaction.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HGJ0u7QeFP235X76jhlIG2GaVV1FUann/view?

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Message: 4



We have received enquiries from agency workers asking whose responsibility it is to provide them with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE):
Is it the employment agency or the end-user? Under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, the employment agency is
responsible for ensuring any necessary PPE is provided to agency workers. ---- However, the responsibility for PPE does not end with the
employment agency. Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, companies should set up suitable and sufficient
arrangements to protect the health and safety of people at work, including temporary workers. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) states
that end-users must ensure the safety of their temporary workers, as it does that of its own employees. As such, the end-users are
responsible for ensuring that agency workers are protected, which includes ensuring they are being provided with the correct PPE while
working on their premises.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) fully recognises the joint responsibility of both the employment agency and the end-user for ensuring
agency workers are provided with the correct PPE. The HSE states that the employment agency and the end-user should work together to ensure
that they "provide protective equipment, at no cost to the temporary worker, agreeing arrangements for supplying and maintaining it".

Clearly then, the responsibility to provide PPE to agency workers rests with both the employment agency and the end-users. When organising
to demand the provision of PPE, it may therefore make sense for agency workers to target both the employment agency and end-users,
especially if the end-user is a large company with deep pockets and open to pressure from media campaigns. In this case agency workers can
demand the end-users provide PPE and later charge the employment agency for any PPE they provide.

If you are interested in organising in your workplace and want to know how to go about it, the Solidarity Federation runs a number of
workplace organiser training courses. For more information contact: solfed.training@gmail.com.

https://www.facebook.com/manchestersolfed/photos/a.1798044547106885/2659077841003547/

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Message: 5



Sexual violence committed by men is not an isolated individual behavior, but a systemic phenomenon, which is both the result of patriarchy,
and a vector that strengthens its grip. Contrary to the dominant discourse, our feminist political choice is to say to the victims of sexual
violence: we believe you. ---- Sexual violence makes system by their number and because they are much closer to the daily life of women than
what we often imagine. Some figures[1]: more than 70% of rapes or attempted rapes of women were committed by a loved one, only 10% of
victims have physical injuries, between 25% and 43% of men say they have perpetrated at least one sexual assault or rape in their lifetime
(figures certainly underreported).
Sexual violence feeds the grip of the class of men over that of women. This is the case with the mechanisms that convey a distorted image of
sexual violence. This is the case with the criminal handling of complaints, the stigmatization of the victims, suspicions of falsehood,
value judgments, orders to tell the facts in detail in defiance of the suffering that this may generate. These mechanisms are effective:
women are most often silent. Only 5 to 13% of rape victims, and 2 to 10% of victims of sexual assault file complaints in France.

Allow speech freedom
In view of this state of affairs, the postulate of supporting the victims, by not contesting their word, to allow their release, is a
political imperative for any organization which intends to fight against patriarchy. The positioning of the man who committed the sexual
violence cannot change this assumption. If he disputes the facts, this is not the sign (and even less the proof) that the victim would lie,
but only that of a complex situation (the fact that he did not perceive non-consent, that he denies the reality of the victim's experience,
that he does not assume responsibility for his actions...). It should also be remembered that the "false " denunciations»Of sexual violence
are rare, while denying or minimizing the seriousness of the facts are tactics commonly used by men accused of sexual violence.

"Sister, I believe you ! "
To question is to silence
To allow the aggressors to question the words of the victims, under the pretext of the need to prove the reality of the facts, and to avoid
the sanction of a man who did "nothing", amounts to inflicting new violence against the woman who had the courage to denounce the assault
she suffered. It is also a reminder to all those who remain silent that denouncing would mean putting oneself in danger. It means making all
women, who already live with the fear of being attacked, even more insecure. It is, for all of them, to tell them that they cannot hope to
find the support and the listening that they might need.

Julie (UCL Nantes)

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[1] The figures cited in this article come from Noémie Renard, Ending the Culture of Rape, Les petits matins, 2018.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Agressions-sexuelles-victimes-on-vous-croit

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Message: 6



The most recent issue of the ACG newsheet Jackdaw is available digitally here:
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Jackdaw_Issue_No07_WEB-1.pdf ----------- Virus in the Body Politic Issue 1 now
online ---- Issue 1 of our magazine Virus in the Body Politic can be read by following this link: VITBP 1
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/VITBP-Issue-No01-Web.pdf ---- At 54 pages, it contains articles on:
Beyond XR
Capitalism, Land and Climate Change
The Yellow Vests: Where Now?
Anarchy, Punks and Sweatshops
Organising to Win
Dossier 1919: a Year of Struggle
Anarchist Communism and the Struggle Against Oppression
What is Fully Automated Luxury Communism?
The Socialism of Intellectuals: Jan Waclaw Machajski
Book Reviews

anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/04/virus-in-the-body-politic-issue-1-now-online/

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Message: 7



Just as Jeremy Corbyn's last few months as leader of the Labour Party will be noted for their lack of tarnish, so too Bernie Sanders
campaign to be Democratic Presidential candidate has ended in similar circumstances. ---- In a parallel development to the growth of
Corbynism, was the emergence of Bernie Sanders as a credible Democratic candidate. Sanders, a lawyer (why are so many of the political class
lawyers?) and millionaire, described himself as a democratic socialist and was able to unite the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
behind him. ---- hat is the DSA? It originates within the Socialist Party of America, whose most famous leaders were Eugene Debs and Norman
Thomas and who were able to at one time to gain many thousands of votes during US elections. When that party changed its name to Social
Democrats, USA and moved rightwards, one of its leaders rejected that drift and formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC)
in 1972. At first small in numbers, it was able over the course of time to become the largest social democratic organisation in the Unites
States, due partly to its merger in 1982 with the New American Movement (NAM) formed mostly of intellectuals who had a past in various
socialist and communist parties. This merger led to the creation of the DSA, with 5,000 ex-DSOCers and 1,000 ex-NAMers.

The DSA grew further after an influx of young people after the victory of Trump in 2017, boosting it to a membership of 32,000 and with now
a current membership of around 50,000. Over the years, the DSA has endorsed various Democratic presidential candidates, including Jesse
Jackson, Barack Obama and now Bernie Sanders.

In reply to the question on their website "Aren't you a party that's in competition with the Democratic Party for votes and support?" The
DSA answer: "No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labour, civil rights, religious, and community
organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party's left wing,
represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus."

Also backing Sanders was the important democratic socialist magazine Jacobin, close to the DSA and with a paid circulation of 40,000 and a
large readership of its website, and the Trotskyist party, Socialist Alternative.

Sanders' rise was similar to that of Corbyn. After he announced his decision to stand as Democratic presidential candidate in early 2019,
over a million people signed up to volunteer to help in his campaign and he raised $4.7 million in individual donations. In the same
euphoric atmosphere as reigned within Corbynism, Sanders was seen as the great saviour of the USA, indeed many Corbynites here expressed
their support for him.

The end of Sanders' campaign was a complete capitulation to the establishment presidential candidate, Joe Biden. Sanders agreed to endorse
Biden and made no criticism of his policies whatsoever, saying that he would swing his supporters behind Biden in the forthcoming election
in autumn.

Just like in Britain, where leftists like Owen Jones, Paul Mason and Novara Media have moved from support for Corbyn to support for Starmer,
so too in the USA. Articles have appeared in Jacobin supporting Biden. Already Biden's advisers are parleying with those of Sanders, to
bring Sanders' forces in behind Biden. Another leading Democrat politician and DSA member, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also swung in behind Biden.

Sanders' campaign does indicate the mounting anger among the American working class, experiencing austerity, unemployment and the
coronavirus crisis. Just as in Britain, where Corbynism acted as a diversion from the creation of grassroots movements in the workplaces and
neighbourhoods, so too has the movement around Sanders demobilised rising anger. The end result has been the same, in Britain the
endorsement of the Blairite Starmer, in the USA the endorsement of the right wing-Democratic Biden.

The only gleam of hope in all of this is that many of those who supported Sanders as an expedient against Trump, will be reluctant to
support Biden and begin considering relinquishing work within and support for the Democrats and start looking towards radical alternatives.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/14/not-with-a-bang-but-a-whimper-bernie-sanders-campaign-ends/

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Message: 8


According to the State, no one would be responsible for the health crisis, no one could predict this pandemic. However, by studying more
closely the chronology of the successive reforms which the public health service underwent, and the various alarm signals which go back to
2006 with the alerts which followed the influenza A-H5N1, the report is without ambiguous. Those in power for 15 years have had the
information for a long time and have only worsened the state of the health system by removing thousands of beds and applying their
accounting logic to the Hospital. ---- UCL Sciences working group, April 16, 2020 ---- Sources of this chronology: Coronavirus: chronicle of
an announced catastrophe , The enraged ones of the ecology on April 5, 2020. ---- (1) Launch of the first global rapid alert system for zoonoses
(2) National Plan for Prevention and Control "  Pandemic Influenza  "

(3) Establishment for preparing and responding to health emergencies

(4) Hospital reform: the measures of the Bachelot plan

(5) Statistical summary: Census of respirators, beds and staff in intensive care units, continuous monitoring units and post-operative
treatment rooms.

(6) Opinion of the High Council for Public Health on the strategy to be adopted concerning the stock State of respiratory masks

(7) Health system modernization law

(8) Hospitality capacities

Health personnel and equipment (INSEE 2010)

Health personnel and equipment (INSEE 2015)

(9) Doctrine for protecting workers from highly pathogenic respiratory diseases

(10) Global rise in human infectious disease outbreaks

(11) The Establishment for Preparing and Responding to Health Emergencies (EPRUS): how to invest in the health security of our fellow citizens ?

(12) Health personnel and equipment (INSEE 2015)

Health personnel and equipment (INSEE 2020)

(13) Industry. Honeywell confirms closure of Plaintel plant: 38 jobs threatened

(14) Closure of the Luxfer factory in Gerzat (Puy-de-Dôme): 136 jobs threatened

(15) "I congratulate those who had foreseen" the pandemic "once it has taken place": the barely veiled Scud from Macron to Buzyn

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Covid-19-Chronologie-d-un-desastre-sanitaire

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