#Worldwide #Information #Blogger #LucSchrijvers: Part2 #Update: #anarchist #information from all over the #world - 2.05.2020

Today's Topics:

   
1.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #304 - 1919: Gustav
      Landauer, in the heat of the German Revolution (fr, it,
      pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Workplace Notes
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Anarchist Communist Group (ACG):Fight for the City FREE
      Download (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Britain, AFED, organise magazine: The politics of pandemic |
      Current Events (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  New Zeland: Tamaki Makaurau Anarchists: Who are we
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
6.  France, Union Communiste Libertaire - UCL press release: No
      to StopCovid, yes to real health measures (fr, it, pt)[machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
7.  A-Radio Berlin: B(A)D NEWS - Angry voices from around the
      world - Episode 33 (04/2020) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
8.  India, MUKTIVADI EKTA MORCH - MEM: Demands and statements
      regarding the Kovid-19 epidemic. (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1



Little known in France, where he is marginalized in the anarchist pantheon, Gustav Landauer was however in Germany, a leading player. Author
of an original thought, sometimes complex, never separated from concrete action, he will be unfailingly loyal to his ideal of libertarian
socialism, emancipating as much from capitalism as from a certain Marxism, until his murder by the bodies francs, at twilight of the
ephemeral Republic of the Councils of Bavaria. --- Alternative libertarian has already devoted an article to the German Revolution [1]and
its betrayal by the Social Democratic Party (SPD). We will only come back to shed light on the era and the challenges of Landauer's journey.
---- The time ? It was that of the euphoria of German unification that the Prussian Bismarck shaped with great blows of inter-German wars
from 1864 to 1866, then the Franco-Prussian of 1870 which completed unity with the foundation of the German Empire. William II.

The era was one of the brutal transition from an agricultural society to a heavily industrialized, militaristic, ultra-authoritarian and
conservative world. It is that of a monstrous technical modernity and a deleterious political and social archaism, to which the best
organized working class in Europe is opposed, the most aware of its revolutionary role, and of which the SPD is the main incarnation at the
turn of XX th century. More reformist than revolutionary, statist, of an aggressive Marxist orthodoxy, the SPD is an instrument of conquest
of power. The anti-socialist laws (1878-1890) did little to change the proximity of the SPD to German institutions.

But the era was also horrified amazement at the damage of capitalism - the collapse of old solidarities, the advent of a new slavery with
ever more brutal and subtle forms, physical and mental pathologies linked to industrialization, the destruction of nature. The artistic
bubbling bears witness to this, produces expressionism and dadaism, which alerts with crudity, urgency, even with violence, of the murderous
and alienating tomorrows that this new world is preparing.

Its themes are only political: anti-militarism, anti-capitalism, workers 'solidarity, utopia, madness, violence, hope ... Because it was
also the era that saw the birth of the theory of workers' councils ( Arbeiterräte ) on the model of the Russian Soviets of 1905, and which
will be placed at the center of the idea of workers' self-organization.

With anti-parliamentary socialists
It was at the advent of this changing world that Gustav Landauer was born in 1870 into a non-believing Jewish family.

At 22, he joined the Jungen ("  young people  "), anti-parliamentary socialists excluded from the SPD the previous year, and conceived a
hostility for life for social democracy. At the age of 23 (1893) he took over the management of the newspaper Der Sozialist, the organ of
the Circle of Independent Socialists, which he led with Rudolf Rocker. The imperial police see him as " the most important agitator of the
radical revolutionary movement ".

Militant frenzy: he animates popular theaters, writes, sees himself as an anarchist delegate of metallurgical workers at the International
Socialist Congress in Zurich (1893), sees himself excluded from it, with all and all anarchists, by the parliamentary socialist majority.
The ensuing demonstration and call for a general strike landed him in prison for two consecutive sentences. He took the opportunity to write
a novel and study Marx.

 From 1895 to 1900 he perfected a vision of a "  new, experimental and cooperative socialism  " [2]as an alternative to the only logic of
class antagonism entirely determined by the world of work, the infernal cycle of production-consumption, by capitalism.

The term "  socialism  " will henceforth be synonymous for him with anarchism, anti-authoritarianism and self-organization of the
proletariat. To test his collectivist theories he created the consumer cooperative Befreiung (emancipation) in Berlin. He translated
Kropotkin, supported the great strike of workers in the clothing industry, returned to prison, founded, with the poet Erich Mühsam and the
philosopher Martin Buber, the New Community, a group of artists whom he quickly left in because of " sectarian " excesses .

He works, goes into exile in England, pulls the devil by the tail without ceasing to write or to militate. In 1907 he published La
Révolution , then in 1908 he created with Mühsam and Buber, in particular, the Socialist League and relaunched Der Sozialist which became a
leading libertarian newspaper. Its aim is to reorganize society " by leaving capitalism ": not to wait " for revolution for socialism to
begin, we start by making socialism a reality so that the great upheaval of the world will happen!" "

In March 1919 the red soldiers, supporters of the workers' councils, confronted the free corps, supporters of the capitalist order, in Berlin.
At the height of its activity, the Socialist League will have created fifteen community groups responsible for experimenting with utopia,
exploring the possibilities of undoing a system whose "  cogs intrude even in our most intimate relationships[...]a way to re-examine the
links that we are... to regenerate them by multiple revolutions  " [3].

In 1911 appeared The Call to Socialism where he definitively articulated the main themes of his anarchism: socialism did not depend on a
stage of development of the proletariat, nor on an inevitable collapse of capitalism, but on a desired construction .

Landauer responds to this necessary, structural, " wait-and-see " attitude when times are ripe, responding to the need to develop " cultural
and community " socialism [4], capable of bringing about a " spirit " ( Geist ), that is to say a collective ideal, shared, born of
emancipated subjectivities, voluntarily separated from the capitalist world and experienced right now, concretely, in real communities.

Faced with war, resolute pacifist
In 1913, the world knew that it was going to war. For Landauer, a resolute pacifist, it is obvious that the commitments of the European
proletariats not to fight for imperialist interests will not be kept, as they are embodied in " party socialisms " whose aim is never more
than the takeover, " regime of violence both inside and outside ".

" There are wars only because there are states ...[which have]violence for task and vocation ". " Peace is not pure negation[but]the
positive organization of freedom and justice. Peace is the building of socialism. " [5].

When war broke out Landauer remained firm in his non-violent convictions, via a German offshoot of the human rights league, or by sketching
out the outline of a League of Nations which he submitted to US President Woodrow Wilson. In 1915, Der Sozialist suspended its activity.

Throttled by war and its privations, the Landauer family must settle in Bavaria, where his wife died in 1918.

The war has made Europe bloodless, mutinies are increasing in both camps. The 1917 revolution in Russia is seen by some as an immense hope,
for others, German Orthodox Marxists, it is almost a scandal.

It contradicts all the forecasts of a doxa which would have liked it to happen in Germany precisely, where the proletariat is the most
enlightened and the industry most in conformity with a historical trajectory described in detail by Marx.

The fact remains that it is a serious game changer for this global conflict. Ludendorff, the "  occult chancellor  " of Germany, persuades
the generalissimo Hindenburg and the emperor to bring back the social democrats to the government to negotiate the armistice and to
discharge the army from this shame.

The attempt to avoid a revolution in the rear fails. The German masses are exhausted, but also enraged by the successive strikes ending in
massacres, by the executions of the sailors of September 1917, the decimations, the privations.

In December 2018, the provisional government, held by social democracy, forged its weapons against the workers' councils. Here, soldiers
loyal to power, on duty in Berlin.
In November 1918, the officers of the Kriegsmarine wanted to launch the Baltic fleet in a last stand-off. In three days the sailors mutiny,
take the fleet, the platforms then the station of Kiel. November 5 is the German Revolution: on November 7 it is in Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover
; 8 in Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, 9 in Berlin.

The whole territory is taken by the soldiers 'and workers' councils, while the government of Friedrich Ebert (SPD) tries to " submerge " the
revolution. Always on November 9, the Republic is proclaimed against Ebert's advice, it is indeed the revolution that seems to overwhelm the
social-democratic " order ".

All the power on the boards
But on the night of November 9-10, SPD propaganda turned the army against " the council monster ". The counter-revolution is on the move.
The skirmishes between army and councils became an open repression. The sinister Noske is charged with assembling free corps to strangle the
revolution.

Professional but disparate troop stuck with far right volunteers, they will form the basis of future Nazi SAs. On January 12, 1919 the SPD
massacre workers and workers, sailors and revolutionary soldiers, and took over the prefecture of Berlin. On January 15 Rosa Luxemburg and
Karl Liebknecht are assassinated. Despite the general strikes and the resistance, the aftermath is known, and the social democratic terror
kills, despairs, betrays.

Meanwhile, in November 1918, Kurt Eisner, the emblematic head of the Republic of the Bavarian Councils, hired Landauer to join the
Revolutionary Workers' Council and the Provisional National Council.

February 21, 1919 Eisner is assassinated, the people rise, the councils compensate for the vacancy of the capacity and Landauer wants to
thwart the counter-revolutionary effort by the socialization of the means of production. On April 7, the Republic of the Bavarian councils
was born, on the 13th an SPD putsch tried to overthrow it, the Communists won the bid by proclaiming the second Republic and dismissed Landauer.

On 1 st  May onslaught of social democratic troops because of the Bavarian revolution. Landauer is arrested and will be horribly murdered
the next day by the free corps.

Against a scientist view of history
Landauer neither denies the mechanism of the class struggle nor the reality of class consciousness, misery and relations of domination. But
he questions their centrality in Marxism because it affects the whole strategy of the proletariat by determining it in the very terms of
capitalism, in its categories: work, wage labor, production, working conditions: to see oneself only as " worker " .

For Renaud Garcia [6], this is one of the essential points of Landauer's thought: getting out of capitalist determinism. " The union
struggles, the demands which arise there, prove to be absolutely necessary and are often defended in a heroically eminently respectable
manner ... ".

But " all this never leads to turn around in circles binding of capitalism; it can only deepen the functioning of capitalist production,
never get it out . "

Gustav Landauer (1870-1919)
We can reproach him with a prophetic tone, typical of his time, as we must reproach him for his "  proudhonian  " blindness with regard to
the cause of women.

But to the scientist idea that History would follow an implacable theoretical linearity, all tended towards progress, Landauer affirms that
it is not a question of relegating in the past the collective spirit which makes humanity, but of immediately update the socialism that we
want to see happen, by leaving the game proposed by capitalism, by refusing any "  role  " to which its ideology wants to reduce
individuality and relationships, thinking of them from consumption and not production.

Separation from the capitalist world, concrete experimentation of the collective, primacy of the human in its relational, sensitive
thickness, against the abstract individual both capitalist and Marxist ... Are there points that do not find a clear echo in the zapatism or
the Kurdish communalist experience, this desire for socialism.

Cuervo (UCL Marseille)

Validate

[1] " November 1918: bourgeois democracy or social revolution in Germany? ", Alternative libertarian, November 2008.

[2] Helmut Rüdiger in Gustav Landauer, an anarchist from the back , À contreetemps / Éditions delatlat, 2018.

[3] Jean-Christophe Angaut, translator of Appel au socialisme , La Lenteur, 2019.

[4] Ibidem .

[5] G. Landauer, Der Sozialist , March 1913.

[6] Renaud Garcia, " Gustav Landauer: an appeal to socialism ", Ballast, January 13, 2020.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?1919-Gustav-Landauer-au-feu-de-la-Revolution-allemande

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Message: 2



London Bus Drivers Act to Protect Themselves (and Get Free Transport for All!) ---- After the death of at least 26 London bus drivers from
coronavirus, their colleagues had had enough. They forced Transport for London (TfL) and the London bus companies to ensure that front doors
on buses stayed shut, so that passengers could enter by middle and back doors and avoid contact with drivers. For this to happen, it was
necessary to stop paying fares. TfL was reluctant to do this, because of loss of revenue, but they had to back down under pressure. ----
However, some 2,000 buses in London have entry by front door only and bus workers want these routes to be suspended unless multiple door
buses can replace them. ---- TfL and the bus company bosses were also forced to give workers sick pay from day one if they are forced to
self-isolate.

TfL have introduced air filters on buses that run on routes serving hospitals. However, this is on a mere 1000 out of 9,000 buses in London
and bus workers are pushing for their installation on all buses, to reduce air pollution. In addition, bus drivers need more PPE equipment,
especially for drivers who have to use buses themselves to get to work or change buses.

At the moment bus drivers are working long shifts of up to 10 to 12 hours. This increases exposure to the coronavirus. Bus drivers are
calling for shorter working hours with no loss of pay.

Bus workers assembled outside Holloway bus garage in north London on Thursday April 16th to demand more PPE equipment for bus drivers.

Posties revolting? Bring in the riot squad!

Two postal workers at the South Midlands Mail Centre refused to move after management wanted them to move to another area and be replaced by
agency workers. Management then called the police who turned up in a riot van! The postal workers were then removed from the building by the
cops and suspended. This has caused outrage among workers at the Centre. The two workers had their suspensions lifted last week. As we said
in our article on Coronavirus and the Police, cops are not there to help us but to repress us.

Health Workers in Tooting

Health workers organised in the grassroots union United Voices of the World at St George's medical school in Tooting, south London, are
demanding PPE equipment. These workers are on zero-hour contracts and are hired by outsourcing outfit Bidvest Noonan. The campaign has
included some workers walking off the job. Bidvest Noonan has failed to give any guidance on safety. And workers are becoming increasingly
frustrated at the dangerous situations they are constantly facing, with no suspension of visits to students at the school, and no suspension
of postal deliveries as demanded by the workers.

In addition to these concerns of the coronavirus, workers are demanding six months sick pay, 28 days holiday a year and a better pension
scheme, the same conditions as permanent staff. At the end of March, Bidvest Noonan made an offer of 3 weeks sick pay but with the loss of a
paid lunch break. Workers are disgusted by the high-handed attitude of this company.

Leeds Health Workers

Workers on mental health wards in Leeds refused to turn up for shifts after not being provided with PPE equipment and after a mental health
nurse there died of COVID-19.

France

Teachers are preparing for an official strike after President Macron announced the re-opening of schools in May. They are demanding that
adequate safety conditions are established in schools before they will return to work.

Merthyr Tydfil council workers

Council workers employed by Merthyr Tydfil council protested over the re-opening of waste and recycling centres at Dowlais and Aberfan. The
council was forced to back down and had to cancel the re-openings.

French teachers prepare to strike

Teachers are preparing for an official strike after President Macron announced the re-opening of schools in May. They are demanding that
adequate safety conditions are established in schools before they will return to work.

Mexico

We recently reported on strikes over safety concerns over the coronavirus in factories along the border with the USA. Now strike action has
spread to the important local city of Ciudad Juarez. Here, 327 factories employ over 300, 000 workers. Whilst some tens of factories have
ceased production because of the pandemic, there are many others reluctant to close despite a government order that all non-essential
businesses should shut down.

As a result, workers at the US company Electrical Components International (ECI) protested for four days at several factories demanding that
the firm shut its plants and that they be sent home with full pay. At least 30 workers in eight different factories in Ciudad Juarez have
died from COVID-19. The wildcat strikes that have erupted in the borderlands have involved hundreds if not thousands of workers. Wildcat
strikes also took place at the Honeywell smoke alarm factory, at Regal Beloit which produces electric motors, at wire harness manufacturer
Amphenol CTI, wind turbine manufacturer TPI Composites, welding and joining outfit Norma Group, Syncreon warehousing and Critikon medical
supplies firm.

Amazon workers in USA

Amazon workers at 50 different warehouses took part in a "sick out" (phoning in sick) on Friday April 24, over concerns about safety
conditions in their workplaces. Over 300 workers took part in the sick out.

American Shipyard Workers Act

Shipyard workers in Norfolk, Virginia, went out on wildcat strike for 6 days from April 14th. After a fellow worker died from coronavirus,
his colleagues, employed by defence contractor, General Dynamic, demanded PPE equipment. The employers said in a press statement that they
had provided gloves, masks and hand sanitiser but workers are saying that this is not true. It appears that, unfortunately, safety
conditions at the shipyard have not improved since the strike.

Boeing

The plane manufacturers Boeing decided to re-start production last week. They are the first industrialists in America to do so during
lock-down. This eagerness to make profits was not shared by many of their workers, who refused to turn up to work.

Philadelphia Health Workers

Health workers at the St. Monica nursing home in South Philadelphia said they were ready to strike over safety conditions, after fellow
workers tested positive for coronavirus.

anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/25/workplace-notes-6

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Message: 3



Our pamphlet Fight for the City covers all issues related to the city as a site of class struggle, housing, gentrification , social
cleansing, privatisation of space, the general takeover of the city by corporate interests, crackdowns on social movements, demonstrations
and fightbacks against all this. ---- Britain and other western countries have seen a massive increase in the cost of housing, increases in
evictions and homelessness, whole council estates torn down and sold off to private developers, overcrowding in squalid accommodation, city
centres privatised and transformed into sanitised shopping malls, business centres and tourist destinations, attacks on the poor - cuts in
benefit, the bedroom tax, low wages, fewer green and open spaces and more sky scrapers, increased pollution, police violence, and increased
surveillance.

The print edition has sold out but can now be downloaded for free.

Download your copy HERE
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Fight-for-the-city-A5-web-version.pdf

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/04/28/fight-for-the-city-free-download/

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Message: 4



"I found a stock of masks that was available and Americans - I'm not talking about the American government - but Americans, outbid us, ...
They offered three times the price and they proposed to pay upfront. I can't do that. I'm spending taxpayers' money and I can only pay on
delivery having checked the quality... So we were caught out." ---- Those were the words of Valérie Pécresse (the president of the
Île-de-France region, which includes Paris) in an interview with BGMTV as she discussed the critical lack of Personal Protective Equipment
(PPE) in hospitals last month. Shortly after, the French weekly L'Express reported that Paris, which has requisitioned all masks amid the
shortage, seized stock from Swedish producer Molnlycke that was headed for Spain and Italy.

The reality is that the USA, like much of the world discovered too late that they were unprepared, as doctors and nurses were forced to work
in bin bags, they had to do something radical to save face. The solution was to spit all other their own free market bullshit.

At the start of April the Trump administration ordered 3M, a Minnesota-based manufacturer, to stop exporting protective masks to Canada and
Latin America on Thursday. Trump has invoked the Defence Production Act to stop exports of critical equipment which allows the state to
dictate the manufacturing and distribution processes of private companies.

It didn't stop there, true to form the belligerent behemoth took to piracy and economic force to cover up the failures of the Trump
government. They began outbidding on PPE being shipped in from elsewhere. Shipments destined for Canada turn up light, Trudeau making it
clear in a statement that the US has simply paid a higher price during transit and left their partners in the lurch. The German's were
similar done over when the USA seized 200,000 N95 masks mid transfer in Thailand. Commenting to RTL radio regarding how American officials
had swooped on a Chinese airport to take away a planeload of masks that France had ordered. Dr Jean Rottner described the methods they are
using;

"On the tarmac, the Americans arrive, take out cash and pay three or four times more for our orders"

The nature of the international mask trade right now is clear. We're seeing spy agencies such as Israel's Mossad enlisted to secure
coronavirus testing kits (as reported by La Figaro) and wilf scenarios as the one described by Peter Pellegrini, prime minister of Slovakia
until just a few days ago, who told a Slovakian TV channel "We were already preparing cash worth 1.2 million euros in a suitcase. We planned
to use a special government flight and go get the masks ... However, a dealer from Germany came there first, paid more for the shipment, and
bought it".

We're not special either, I'm told by government insider that "boxes of PPE landed in Heathrow, due for the DHSC to go to NHS stockpiles and
were recalled. They never left Heathrow. Everyone on our side was fuming" The PPE was already paid for and tracked, none the less, they were
re-called mid flight. So much for international solidarity eh?

Perhaps one could forgive a desperate state taking desperate measures, however we have to remember that they see the world through the lense
of capitalism. In a press briefing last week the Trump administration confirmed that they were in fact giving these very stockpiles to
private distributors who would then sell the PPE in, as the questioning reporter had described, "Ebay style auctions". Their defence was
simply that these corporations had more capacity to distribute across some 600 warehouses.

The reality is that hospitals and services that serve poor communities, have no chance of keeping adequate supplies. We're seeing "mask
deserts" where entire regions are suffering critical lack of PPE while affluent and high prestige areas (as well as private enterprises)
have no concern. Once more the class disparity and inherent racism in the state logistics of the USA become all too painfully clear.

This self serving attitude is especially problematic for small nations such as Barbados who had a shipment of ventilator seized despite
having been paid for and places such as Cuba and Pakistan than still remain the victim of embargos. Foreign governments using the working
classes as political collateral in their ongoing political pissing contests.

Back in blighty?
It's no better. The Department of Health outright rejected advice from Nervtag, in 2016/7 to renew stockpiles of PPE because it would be too
expensive. Nervtag were established the review government policy and provide recommendations in case of a influenza pandemic, however in a
meeting in June 2017 They were told by Jeremy Hunt to "reconsider" their formal recommendations due to as a health department official
present stated "the very large incremental cost of adding in eye protection."

A minute from the meeting stated that "a subsequent internal DOH economic assessment has revealed that following these recommendations would
substantially increase the cost of the PPE component of the pandemic stockpile four-to six-fold, with a very low likelihood of cost-benefit
based on standard thresholds."

The cost-benefit there refers to the fact that providing adequate eye protection to NHS staffers was deemed a bit costly. The direct result
of this three years later is the deaths of over a dozen NHS doctors and nurses, sacrificed to Tory cost cutting measures. Nervtag also
advised that intensive care units (ICUs) should be designated "hot spots" carrying out aerosol generating procedures. Therefore, FFP3
respirators "should be recommended for all staff at all times in these areas when a patient with pandemic influenza is present". Meanwhile
we have dozens of reports of NHS staff having to buy their own, battling the ever inflating prices with one nurse in Yorkshire telling the
Guardian she had to spend £100 to buy a FFP3 respirator online.

Now of course the government is scrambling for PPE, caught out by their lethargic response to a looming pandemic only too late did they
realise the situation, now the government tenders site is full of emergency requests for respirators, eye protection, gowns and body bags.

Their deepest fear is being caught out in their lies and cost cutting. They fear the bad press caused by such horrific revelations as the
three nurses stateside who were forced to wear bin bags for PPE and who are now all ill with Covid -19. Even as similar stories pour in
here, even those that have ended in death, the government is in deep denial. Last Sunday Hancock sayid that 5.7% of hospital doctors were
off sick or absent because of Covid-19, however the Royal College of Physicians held a survey of more than 2,500 medics found the rate was
almost three times that - 14.6%.

Protect the NHS?
Of course now they've had a few weeks to get their act together, now they want to praise the NHS, tell us they care. The repeated lies and
manufactured mythos of a Tory part on the side of the NHS, alongside sympathy for Boris, seemingly earning them the favour of the house
bound votership. This is utterly laughable considering they have been such prominent agents in is destruction. Over the past thirty years
we've seen successive Labour and Tory governments undermine the NHS, seeing the number of beds halved and countless jobs discarded. Most
recently we've seen the ever growing threat of full privatisation begin slicing the NHS apart with huge chucks of it's operation sold to the
highest bidder, farmed out for private tender so corporations can get fat on the labours of the national treasure. It's nothing but an utter
disgrace.

The bastards laughed, clapped and cheered as they blocked a pay rise for nurses.

To help us in forgetting the past few years with Brexit exiling thousands of staff and disgusting racist policies sending home yet more, the
government have doubled down on their ersatz solidarity. "Protect the NHS" indeed.

More like treat our doctors and nurses like sacrificial lambs to the slaughter, let them die a noble death protecting the community just as
long as no one things to blame the government for their critical lack of support and essentially kneecapping the service. To aid this new
narrative they've started portraying our doctors and nurses as soldiers, giving their lives in the "war against Covid 19". We've seen over a
dozen NHS workers die during the pandemic and they've been held up as "front-line heroes", warriors who willfully gave their lives to save
us all. It's a lie in the truth and political spin bullshit to displace the truth.

They are using the language of military stoicism to make their deaths lamentable self sacrifice instead of what they actually are which is
entirely preventable results of systematic undermining by a state which has persistently chosen to restrict the funding of the NHS over
actually providing them with the means to save lives. They want us to forget that our doctors and nurses are dying because they didn't care
to support them... they want them to become simply numbers, an anonymous figure they can list of those who died fighting Covid 19.

Each death should be sending ripples of revolutionary rage across the country but instead with been corralled into the grim acceptance,
"people die in war, thoughts and prayers, nothing can be done. Oh well".

This separation from reality and projection of war time self sacrifice is infectious mind and it's not just the cabal at the top of the
Tories, were seeing the same in reports from the BBC and in the tabloids, heck even Queenie references Vera Lynne in her speech and across
the pond Trump stands at a podium and makes the same pantomime;

"You watch them and they are putting their outfits on , putting their masks on and it's incredible. It's like no different than you watch
the war movies, the old clips of war - running up hills, to me it's the same thing."

It's a powerful narrative that parasites can call upon to stir up some sense of duty in the proles they were quite happy to sacrifice to
herd immunity. Early on in the crisis the shortage of workers was concerning farmers, hoisted on their own petard, they found themselves
without a wealth of foreigners to abuse all day for shit pay. They began a campaign to recruit volunteers for the now jobless British
population, when that didn't work they petitioned for more flights to bring eastern European workers over, now as they empty milk into
drains and letting veg rot they are calling the campaign to hire housebound Brits "the land army".

Remember that this is the government that was quite seriously considering doing very little to stymie the spread and once again weighting up
protecting people vs damage to the economy. Until early March Cummings and co we're looking to sacrifice a projected 250,000 people, in a
policy which would, as Boris would describe to Philip Schofield as "...perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and
allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population...". Ofcourse this was before Hancock actually listened to some specialists
and managed to get the crew to instigate social distancing and lock down policies, bringing the projected deaths down to 20,000. It was only
at the end of March they began robust testing after much pressure and the numbers tested remain depressingly low.

Even this was presented in a politically wet manner, the threat Covid-19 presented undermined, that if we got ill we'd only have to spend 7
days in isolation (the W.H.O. advise being 14 days at the time). Don't get worried at all, we don't want to hurt the economy too much eh?
The subsequently national holiday saw Snowden break records, nothing to worry about tho eh, it's not all that bad, they've not even said
wear a mask! ... the job don. We went into lock down.

It's time to blame the working class!

By week two this came with a sickening implication that it's the public who go outside during lock down who are killing the doctors and
nurses. Why aren't you supporting the troops they bleet, while Hancock gets caught out on TV having not even bothered to caught how many
nurses had died. Don't blame the consistent undermining of the state, it's Steve whose popped to the shop for a none essential item whose to
blame. The Met. police have been inundated with snitches dobbing in people walking down the road or stopping for a breather.

The papers are full of sub bathers being shamed while flights continue to come in, their passengers heading unchecked down onto public
transport on their journey home. As we stand 2 meters a part to head into the shops were working with cling film screens between us and
workers on job sites up and down the land having the concerns about PPE and no social distancing dismissed by the bosses are "wet" and "fear
mongering" meanwhile Transport for London alone has lost atleast ten members of staff. Call centres act as a breeding ground for
contamination, and the construction sites are still open. The working class ever expendable exposed to risk to keep their money flowing
while the upper management work from home scratching their arse on zoom, slightly more valuable to capitalists as they are.

Overwhelming it's women on the front lines too, occupying the majority of healthcare and service industry roles as the residue social
reality of centuries of enforced social division continue to sow discord, or that early figures suggest that black and minority ethnic
members of our community are over represented in the figures of infected and dead. No, we don't have to talk about that because Steve's
nipped out to Daves for a none essential bag of grass and some coppa has been breathed on, the latter incident resulting in a summary
sentence of 3 months banged up as examples need to be made.

The cops new found powers to stop and hassle anyone they fancy has been taken to, shall we say, over zealously with countless reports of
harassment for perceived offences. The threat of imprisonment and huge fine used to control people with fear. Sure we should be maintaining
isolation and sure people have ignored the threat, but to use the threat of violence to impose the states will? No, that isn't OK.

What adds to this distrubing series of events if just how much they are being applauded. The hostility and rage spewing out from social
media on anyone who steps out of line is sickening and all to quickly we have people celebrating the police using drone to track people and
CCTV vans driving through parks. Justice has been summary and the punishments utterly disproportionate to the offense. This new was of
draconian authourity has entierly embraced the digital age too with Google utilising it's tracking features to monitor peoples movements and
provide data on where people congregate to officials and policy makers.

In South Korea several websites have sprang up so you can check how close you've been to someone with Covid-19. These sites use information
from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and pin point visited locations and travel routes of people diagnosed with
coronavirus using a color for each patient.

This is by no means a solitary example of how the desire to collecting data under the guise of "security" is inflicting very real threat to
basic liberty. On March 17th, Israel's Netanyahu approved a very broad set of surveillance measures which he described himself as
"invasive". In Iran, people were instructing to download an APP called AC19. It pretended to be a diagnosis tool but was infact malware
beaming their real time location to the state. Given that Iran is currently in a state of near civil war it's easy to see how this data
could be weaponised. In Taiwan it's mobile tracking they've labelled an "electronic fence", Poland? Send in a selfie to prove you are in
quarantine. In Austria they are mass monitoring peoples movements via telecom networks as are Italy, Belgium and Germany. The UK government
is deep in talks with the likes of Google, O2 and EE to mass collect tracking data and the NHSX, the digital arm of the NHS, are developing
a contact tracing app, It'll be opt-in but thats moot when everyone is playing snitch and the social obligation to download and play along
with be overwhelming.

Meanwhile pundits on the TV are now asking how long we're going to keep hurting the economy by protecting vulnerable members of our
communities and when it's not about the economy we have the emotional black mail such as this charmer from Graham Medley;

‘We will have done three weeks of this lock down so there's a big decision coming up on 13 April. In broad terms are we going to continue to
harm children to protect vulnerable people, or not?'

That's right, why aren't you thinking of the kids at a time when we're heading into the projected height of the death toll. This unsettling
narrative pushing us all to "get on with it" is going to lead to an second wave if we rush back into protecting the economy from it's own
lack of redundancy.

Pretty soon the same parasites who laid off thousands will be blowing their own trumpet and talking about how they're offering jobs and
helping the economy. #ClapforBoris for getting us through it eh? Now, download the app and get back to work, aren't you happy to get out of
the house? We got through it together didn't we? The stoking of nationalism fever already well in effect and at the end of the day only
serving to keep the capitalism thriving. We've already seen independent and small businesses shut up shop (especially pubs and cafes) as the
market leaders continue on strong, ever increasing their market dominance and reducing competition into a handful of corporations who
control pretty much everything, much as we saw in the food industry over the last 25 years. Remember to that the DOW had is best day since
1933 closing 2,112.98 points higher - or more than 11% - at 20,704.91. Meanwhile, Somerset Capital Management, which Rees-Mogg has a 15%
stake in, said that the crisis was a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity to profit from stocks in emerging markets such as Brazil and South
Africa. Someone sure is suffering here and it ain't the toffs.

The questions now are whether or not we'll let them get away with this murder and the theft of liberty?

Will we forget the austerity policies of parasites and how they used fear to enforce a police state?

Will we act as the memory of a working class who are tired of being chewed up and spat out, neither forgiving nor forgetting?

That choice is yours. ?

Peter Ó Máille

http://organisemagazine.org.uk/2020/04/26/the-politics-of-pandemic-current-events/

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Message: 5


Tamaki Makaurau Anarchists believe in and strive for a society in which people are in charge of their destinies collectively in their
communities, regardless of who they are. This means a society free from oppressive hierarchical systems, such as the state and capitalism.
Such a radical change cannot be achieved from within the institutions which maintain this order. ---- Instead, we seek a revolution from the
bottom up where regular people free themselves by actively constructing a new free society together. Our organization should not be the
institutionalization or substitution of this revolution, which can only be based on the self activity of people and workers in their
communities or in mass movements. Instead, this group's purpose and aims are to be a space to bring together, support, build and help
theorize this revolution.

Our Principles
We recognize Maori as the mana whenua, and the original inhabitants, of this land known as Aotearoa.
We acknowledge Maori never ceded sovereignty of this land, which means that those who arrived in the process of colonization (including
today) come fundamentally as guests in relation to Maori.

We work actively to redress the fundamental wrongs of colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy in all their forms, within these lands
and elsewhere.
We support Maori initiatives to regain and restore mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga and aid these efforts as appropriate, as a first
priority, as part of broader indigenous and anti-colonial struggles around the world. We oppose all forms of racism and white supremacy and
actively promote and engage in decolonisation and indigenisation.

We work towards a society that restores humanity as far as possible to a healthy place within the ecosystem.
We recognize the current destructive path of human activity caused by the excesses of capitalism, which endangers not only our existence as
a dependant species but also all other beings, who are of equal consideration.

We fight for a free society based on cooperation, communal decision making and mutual aid rather than competition, oppression and hierarchy.
We see the current capitalist system, based on the authority of the state, private property and capital, as being antithetical to full human
flourishing and seek its replacement with voluntary communities based on full and equal participation and control over the economic, social,
cultural, and political conditions that affect our lives.

We believe the radical change needed will come from the self-organization of ordinary people, not from above or from existing institutions.
We unflinchingly state that a revolution is necessary, and will only happen successfully through the initiative of people in their
communities and workplaces through direct action and by establishing dual power. We reject the centralisation of power and the hierarchies
this establishes.

We advocate for the abolition of gender norms and roles while strongly resisting the heteropatriarchy of our current society.
We have no tolerance for oppression, discrimination and violence committed on the basis of gender or sexuality within our organization and
in society as a whole and fight it wherever it is as a top priority. We reject misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and any discrimination
based on a person's sexual orientation, sex or gender expression.

Diversity has always existed and is necessary for existence. We acknowledge and encourage genuine pluralities in our society.
We reject oppression and discrimination of any kind. We acknowledge the different skills, abilities and ways of being that constitute
humanity and reject any hierarchies based on these.
We understand that a plurality of perspectives are needed to keep our communities and discourses open and to constantly update our theories
based on practice and current and historical conditions.

Our own organization actively works along the lines of these principles.
Just as any future society must be free from the scourges of oppression, our group and its members, as an example, must as far as possible
strive to work according to these principles and eliminate hierarchies and imbalances of power (formal/informal).

Our work is rooted in a love for all beings and a belief in the tendencies for humans to cooperate, and to have positive relations within
our communities as part of the social world from which we cannot be divorced.
We believe that problematic behaviours are largely systematic in origin rather than individual. Therefore, we believe in transformative
processes within our community, in a way that doesn't reproduce the negative conditions that helped to construct these behaviours. This
comes with the acknowledgement that this is not always possible or safe at any given time.

We believe in the abolition and replacement of the state, and state borders. We reject state violence in all its forms; structural, physical
and epistemological. We want a internationalist federation of free communities.
The state is an oppressive institution as it is politically monopolistic and socially compulsory, meaning that it is coercive, violent,
punitive and dominating. The state is an inextricable part of supporting and sustaining capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy,
heteropatriarchy and all others forms of oppression. We do not seek to incite violence but do not hesitate to use it in the defence of the
oppressed from attack by the more powerful.
https://tamakimakaurauanarchists.org.nz/

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Message: 6


The Libertarian Communist Union is firmly opposed, like the vast majority of the associative, union and political left, to the filing of the
population allegedly in the name of the health emergency. On the contrary, we are asking for real follow-up measures and more human and
material resources. To the blind faith in technological solutionism, we oppose the safeguarding of the population against mercantile
interests. ---- For a few days now, the debate around the StopCovid patient tracking software has ignited. Experts, epidemiologists or
computer scientists, supporters of the project or critics of it, express themselves in the columns of the major national media such as Le
Monde [1]or Liberation [2]; the CNIL expresses its usual "reservations" [3]without ever getting too involved ; associations for the defense
of liberties such as the League for Human Rights [4]or Framasoft [5][6]and union structures such as the Union Syndicale Solidaires [7], the
National Union of Journalists, the SNJ-CGT, the Syndicat de la Magistrature, the Syndicat des Avocats de France, the Confédération Paysanne,
Solidaires Informatique [8]or the UGICT-CGT [9][10]multiply the press releases sounding the alarm bell ; thetech capitalists, Google & Apple
[11]but also for example the Toulouse Sigfox, are on the contrary competitors of StopCovid and hope to win the jackpot - Sigfox offers
nothing less than replacing the smartphones (smartphones) with electronic bracelets [12]!

The security illusion then the authoritarian drift
We obviously make our arguments from our camp, which have been around a lot in recent days and which we will therefore not repeat here. We
loudly proclaim that StopCovid must be massively rejected by the population. In the immediate future, because it is a false solution, whose
effectiveness is far from proven, and which even risks giving a false impression of security to the population, which could go as far as to
favor the emergence of a second epidemic wave. In the longer term, because the database thus created will further lengthen the unfortunate
list of already existing files which will sooner or later be stolen by malicious individuals, resold by digital manufacturers or even
hijacked by a government in full authoritarian free fall ,

One point seems important to us: whether or not the project is adopted by the National Assembly on Tuesday April 28 matters little, since it
seems almost guaranteed at this stage that the installation of StopCovid will not be compulsory.

Against the coronavirus: masks, tests, caregivers
No application, no electronic bracelet, will work miracles: to fight the epidemic, you must start with basic sanitary equipment (masks,
tests, etc.) and adequate human resources (caregivers, researchers , etc.). The French State today sorely lacks all of this and refuses to
give itself the necessary means: requisitioning of businesses, hiring and massive funding, etc. This is why the government is hiding in the
"technological solutionism" so dear to the capitalists and to Silicon Valley, hoping to convince the population that the world can be saved
by software and Bluetooth. We are not fooled, and their world, we do not want to save it.

UCL Librism Commission April 28, 2020

Validate

[1] StopCovid: understanding the debate on the hopes and fears of tracing French people by their phone , Le Monde April 25, 2020

[2] To make war on the virus, let's digitally arm health investigators , Liberation April 26, 2020

[3] Publication of the CNIL opinion on the "StopCovid" mobile application project , CNIL on April 26, 2020

[4] The health crisis does not justify imposing surveillance technologies], La Quadrature du Net[[Our arguments for rejecting StopCovid , La
Quadrature du Net April 14, 2020

[5] Tracing apps: scenarios for non-specialists , Framablog April 24, 2020

[6] StopConneries , Framablog on April 22, 2020

[7] "Stop Covid" application: No to digital tracing ! , Union syndicale Solidaires April 27, 2020

[8] STOP-COVID APPLICATION: A liberticide experiment, a technological illusion , Solidaires Informatique on April 20, 2020

[9] "StopCovid is a disastrous project piloted by sorcerer's apprentices" , UGICT-CGT and La Quadrature du Net on April 25, 2020

[10]Acouple of things about contact tracking applications during the epidemic , Stéphane Bortzmeyer on April 19, 2020

[11] Google and Apple detail their contact tracing tool, still incompatible with StopCovid , Numerama on April 24, 2020

[12] "We will say that I sell my soup, but a bracelet is better than a tracing app" , Les Échos April 21, 2020

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Non-a-StopCovid-oui-a-de-vraies-mesures-sanitaires

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Message: 7



Dear all, ---- Episode number 33 (04/2020) of "B(A)D NEWS - Angry voices from around the world", a monthly news program from the
international network of anarchist and antiauthoritarian radios, consisting of short news segments from different parts of the world, is now
online. ---- Length: 1:19 h ---- You'll find the audio on A-Radio Berlin's new website: ----
https://www.aradio-berlin.org/bad-news-episode-33/. ---- Or directly on the networks website: ----
https://www.a-radio-network.org/bad-news-angry-voices-from-around-the-world/bad-news-episodes/episode-33-04-2020/. ---- In this episode you
will hear contributions from: ---- 1.?rna Luknja sharing a thought on how does corona virus influence our society and thoughts on how to
intervene politically in state of emergency - from Federation for Anarchist Organizing from Slovenia and part of Croatia.
2. 105fm (Mytilene, Lesvos) for the general situation in Lesvos,
situation in Moria camp and hunger strike in Moria's prison.
3. The Final Straw Radio sharing a short description of recent covid-19
subjects in the US and some commentary by anarchist prisoner Sean Swain
on how to make it through isolation more safely.
4. R.O.S.E. (Athens) with updates and news from Athens.
5. A-Radio Berlin on a commentary about the global situation these days.
6. Free Social Radio 1431AM (Thessaloniki)
* about the cut of power supply in BIO.ME. (an occupied and
self-organized factory in Thessaloniki)
* movements and struggles in prisons during the quarantine and corona-virus.
* repression in so-called Greece during the quarantine and corona-virus.
* arrests of Kurdish and Turkish comrades in Athens.
* evictions of migrant's "home" squats.
7. Dissident Island (London) focuses on issues around housing in the UK,
discussing moves the state has made to protect landlords, the lip
service paid to renters and homeless folk, and the self-organised
solutions that are emerging through rent strike and mutual aid groups.
8. Frequenz A with an interview with somebody of the anarchist network
Dresden (germoney) about their initiative in their neighborhood during
the covid-19 crisis.
9. Radio Fragmata (Athens) with an introduction on the socio-political
situation and struggles in greek territory.

Other audios from A-Radio Berlin in English here:
https://www.aradio-berlin.org/en/audios-2/.

Or visit the anarchist 24/7 online stream from the Channel Zero Network:
http://channelzeronetwork.com/

Enjoy!

A-Radio Berlin

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Message: 8



Coronavirus and the effect of the lockdown implemented without proper and adequate planning are proving fatal to the working class. In Delhi
alone, one lakh workers have to sit at home without pay, due to the shutdown. ---- Not only this, due to the closure of public transport
means such as rail and interstate buses, many workers have to return to their villages on foot hundreds of kilometers! This crisis is
equally serious in Madhya Pradesh.---- Health workers stand in the forefront of this crisis. Due to the negligence of the government
machinery, they do not even have adequate protection equipment. Apart from this, the workers delivering all kinds of essential services to
the people are also facing constant danger.---- The Muktivadi Ekta Morcha (MEM) together with the workers demand from the Central and Madhya
Pradesh government special protection and care for these insecure and brave laborers.

Our demands:

1. Companies and the government should ensure that workers in the informal sector, whether their company gives them ‘laborer' status or not,
get a monthly compensation of Rs 7000.

2. High quality safety gear - mask, gloves etc. - should be provided to all delivery personnel, cleaning personnel and workers employed in
all essential services.

3. During this epidemic - and even further - workers like cleaning and delivery workers get regular laborer status and increase their wages,
delivery rates and boost rates so that they do not have to work for 12 hours to sustain themselves.

4. Minimum monthly allowance should also be given to irregularly employed or unemployed laborers.

5. Free ration, fuel, medicines and care should be provided immediately to all the workers' families and their dependents.

FILED IN STATEMENTS | TAGGED COVID-19, DELIVERY WORKERS, HEALTHCARE WORKERS | COMMENTS (0)
Principles and Aims
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
PRINCIPLES AND AIMS.

This statement expresses a shared political perspective of Muktivadi Ekta Morcha.

Anti-Capitalism:
MEM stands for the abolition of capitalist system of exploitation. Against its alienating labor, wage system and dictatorship of the boss,
any managerial class or the state. We stand for control of the industry, its goods and, services by the workers and the communities.

https://muktivadi.blackblogs.org/2020/03/28/ncov/


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