Today's Topics:
1. France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #305 - Antifascism,
Manipulations: The virus and the brown plague (fr, it,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Britain, CLASS WAR DAILY FRIDAY 29 MAY 2020
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Czech, AFED: A3 ( May 2020) - Drought in the heads of
technocrats [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Britain, anarchist communist group ACG: Identity politics
and anti-Semitism on the left (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Britain, AFED, organise magazine: Street Anarchy pt.2 -
Social Struggle | Theory and Analysis (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Greece, liberta salonica: Intervention of EPTH at FOXOSMALL
on the occasion of animal abuse [VIDEO] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
The fachosphere is trying to link the pandemic that affects us all to its usual chimeras: working-class neighborhoods, foreigners,
racialized people. Even confined, one must keep a particular vigilance vis-à-vis fascist speeches. If revolutionary messages are spread
thanks to the work of activists, the fachos are not to be outdone. Fortunately, many organizations are doing this monitoring work. The task
force against the far right of the Union Syndicale Solidaires has produced a text that summarizes the positions of the various factions of
the right of the right in this period of crisis. From the National Rally to Michel Onfray, everything is there. ---- In this period of
health crisis, while the social movement is trying to continue to provide the necessary solidarity, it may be useful to take a look at what
is said on the far right, and what theses circulate in these circles and, alas , well beyond. Unsurprisingly, the different galaxies resume
their usual obsessions, each seeing in the current situation the confirmation of their speech.
The National Rally (RN) continues to say everything and its opposite, as shown by the many reversals of Marine Le Pen, especially on the
period of "confinement" that we live. According to her, it would have been implemented too late when she herself declared on February 27
that this was not a solution. In the series of "do what I say, not what I do", while the bars and restaurants were closed, and the "barrier
gestures" were imposed on everyone, Steeve Briois made the Coq Lille reopen to celebrate his re-election at Hénin-Beaumont and guincher with
other RN MEPs.
The National Rally is also riding the wave of "ambient conspiracy", more or less finely according to its leaders. In a context of health
crisis, but not only, the "conspiratorial" theses are developing, reinforced by a chaotic government communication and while most of the
"big media" are content to relay the word of power. For the RN leadership, it is important not to cut themselves off from their electorate:
an IFOP survey for the Jean-Jaurès Institute and Conspiracy Watch indeed shows that 55% of supporters of the National Rally subscribe to the
thesis according to which the new coronavirus was developed in the laboratory, 40% in an "intentionalway "And 15%"accidentally". Questioned
on March 30 on the advice of her electorate, Marine Le Pen first kicked in touch before adding that " it's a matter of common sense".
Less subtle, Gilbert Collard rushes into the debate on chloroquine, and the role of laboratories, asking "what wrath animates the Buzyn-Lévy
couple against Professor Raoult ?" " As if that was the real issue.
The fachos openly let go
Riposte laïque obviously gives free rein to his racist delusions, speaking of the "coronavirus" which would be more dangerous, denouncing
"the confinement reserved for the only true French" , and wondering "what are the cops waiting to shoot the scum?" , Thus taking up the idea
that "the coronavirus is a globalist strategy to destroy Western societies" . Inventing scenes of looting in the working-class districts of
Seine-Saint-Denis, Riposte laïque did not however reproduce the hallucinating tribune of Michel Onfray denouncing the "lost territories of
the Republic"where the young people would have barbecues every evening, between two attacks and visits to the mosque. If Riposte laïque has
a significant audience which is confined to the most rancid fringes of the fachosphere, we can only worry about the respect (and the
invitations that go with it) which continues to benefit Michel Onfray in numerous editors.
Alain Soral, on his Equality & Reconciliation site, expresses in a modestly titled video "Soral is (almost always) right - Thoughts on the
couillonavirus" that those who control our health system (Ashkenazi Jews) would have an interest in the virus spreads, while making a daring
and abject parallel with Schindler's list: "We have the gang that is in charge of state medicine: Buzyn, Lévy, Bauer, Hirsch, Jacob, Guedj,
Solomon ... This is the Schindler's list! » , Up out the myth of the poisoning of wells by Jews invented the XIV th century.
Bunk
In this video, we learn, importantly, that confinement annoys Alain Soral since he can no longer go to eat at a restaurant... He therefore
has no other solution than to have prepared meals delivered to him: we can therefore proclaim anti-system and enjoy it in its most
caricatural! Another convulsive anti-Semite, Boris Le Lay could not do less, and for him, it is sure, it is a blow of the central banks
"which bought all the markets and carried out the biggest heist in history on a panic mounted from scratch» . For "proof", the New York
Stock Exchange experienced a 20% rebound following announcements of government support for the American economy. And who says Wall Street
Stock Exchange obviously says "Jewish bankers", CQFD.
Anti-Semitism does not necessarily feed its man, so if you can take advantage of the health crisis to make some money, why deprive yourself
? The anti-Semitic swindler Dieudonné sells masks imported from China (unlikely that customers will receive them under the new legislation)
four times more expensive than what can be found elsewhere on the Internet.
As always, the extreme right, like conspiracy, shows that they are primarily used as a diversion. To make believe that it would be the fault
of the Jews and the Jews, Moslems and Moslems, of an "elite" or the illuminati, it is to refuse to denounce a system, capitalism, which
shows once again its great share of responsibility in the difficulties we have in coping with the crisis, and therefore, strengthening it.
Union Syndiques Solidaires anti-fascism commission
This text is also available in the Covid 19 brochure - A very political virus , published by Syllepse, as well as on the Vigilance and
anti-fascist union initiative (VISA) website
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Manipulations-Le-virus-et-la-peste-brune
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Message: 2
Today in Class War Daily: ---- Will we still be allowed to complain about poor resources and potentially unsafe working conditions now we've
had clapping?: an interview with NHS paramedic ---- How do we revolt when the left won't fight? ---- Dominic Cummings as a caring parent?
---- Got a text for us? Email classwardaily@gmx.com ---- https://classwar.world/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CW-Daily-38-200529.pdf ---- In
early April Class War Daily ran a detailed report from a paramedic revealing just how ill-equipped NHS staff were to deal with the emerging
coronavirus crisis. Here we catch up with him for an update. ---- Did your PPE ever arrive? If so, does it work? ---- Good question!It'sbeen
OK - not as bad as someNHSworkers who've been asked to go without or reuse equipment. We have had
enough, although afewtimes
the stores have been empty a
couple of hours before delivery
of newstock.It'sstill very
inadequate: flimsyapronsthat
blow up in your face, and ill
fitting mask and visors. I've been
tested for mask fitting to get
the correct-size twice now and
failed on both occasions as they
have only had the largest-size
mask. At the start of the shift
we have to report to our control
room what PPE we have and if
we have been tested, and even
though I've failed the fit test I still
get sent to confirmed Covid-19
cases. AsI'vefailed my fit
test twice,I'vebeen given
a high-tech ventilator mask
with a completely air-tight
seal which is very safe.
Unfortunately youcan'twear
glasses underneath, so for
me it's pretty useless for doing
fiddly invasiveproceduresor
reading drug ampules.
It's really hard to breathe with it
on, so a bit of CPR or anything
else physical and you are out
of breath within a few seconds.
And with a one-piece suit and
hood,it'spretty hot! We get
dailybulletinsaround what
PPE we should wear but it's
more around our supply than
evidence-based.Luckilywe
are seeing lessCovidpatients
now and we wear PPE as a
precaution against spreading
infection.
Are you getting tested and
if so, how often?
No,I'venot been tested.
We are very late with this. I
think I did have Covid but I
was too unwell to get out of
bed - let alone drive halfway across London - for
an antigen test, so no test
there. The other test is for
antibodies to see if you've
hadCovidand therefore
have possible immunity
in the future -it was supposed to be rolled out last
week to NHS staff but
we haven't seen that yet either. Othercountries like
Germany have hadrigoroustesting in the community and contact tracing and
have containedCoviddisease a lot more successfully.
Is your workload still as
heavy as last time you
spoke to us? Are callouts forCovidcases going down? Have call-outs
for heart attacks, strokes,
fallsetcstarted to go up
again?
That's quite interesting. For
anumber ofreasons our
workload is very low. No
one is taking leave, training
is cancelled and we also
have firefighters driving
ambulances, spreading
clinicalstafffurther. But
patients are still not calling
due to fear of infection. If
we do see patients, it's very
hard to convince them to go
to hospital for treatment
and I don't blame them.
I'm seeing a lot less cases
ofCoviddisease in the
community,butwe feel
there could easily be an
increase when schools start
returning and shops reopen.
Suddenly there seems to
be a lot of money being
thrown our way by a
government desperate to
be seen to do the right
thing. We are getting loads
of financialincentivesto
work now, which isgreat.
All temporary, of course,
and when it's withdrawn
there will be a huge
problem: staff will not
come in, they will take
leave, the pubs will open
and all hell will break
loose. We have seen this
situation before, with
major incidents, terror
attacks and SARS - it's
quite often after the event
when things return to
normal problems arise.
We now have firefighters
keen to do their bit driving
ambulances. The unions
in London have always
insisted on two clinicians
on a vehicle to ensure best
patient care, but this could
be the start of a new trend
to have oneclinicianon a
vehicle, its okay most of the
time but when the shit hits
the fan you really do need
two medically trained staff
per patient as a minimum.
Have the NHS started
testing every patient
before they are taken to
hospital? Or is it still the
case that they are only
tested once they are in
hospital and only if they
are showing symptoms?
Some A+E departments
assess the patient
forCovidon the vehicle
and divert them from the
ambulance to a ‘clean'
or ‘dirty' department.
This is great -it means
intheoryCovid/nonCovidpatients don't mix.
But some hospitals have
nothing: everyone in the
same department, with
nurses goingfromone
bed to another. And some
hospitals aresomewherein
between, with staff in
various levels of PPE
ranging from something
that looks like a space suit
tonothingat all. It really
gives a mixed message as
well asinconsistentcare.
Only one hospital I know
of istestingpatients with
ultrasound scans of the
lungs to check forCovid.
The restwon'tget a test
unlessCovidis suspected
and it seems that hospitals
all have their own procedure
- very inconsistent.
What are your thoughts
about lockdown being
eased? For example, have
you seen anything to suggest that it is or isn't
safe to send kids back to
school?
The lockdown has pretty
much fallen apart in London
with vague, confusing
messages from Boris
Johnson; people really don't
know where we at now.
Some of my colleagues
have children who are still
at school. Thereisn'tany
social distancing with kids
and as a result 65 education workers have died
ofCoviddisease that have
been reported - I would imaginethe real figure is
higher. One colleague
recently sent her child
back to school and they
hadCovidsymptomswithin two weeks.Covidseems
to affect adults more than
children, butthose childrenwill still be spreading
the coronavirus toteachersandfamilies, andnationally onechild a day is
stilldyingfromCoviddisease.It'sinteresting to see
that the Government is keen
to reopen state schools but
not private schools - this
has very much been about
one rule for them and another for us.
How are your staffing
levels now? Have you still
got a third of the crews off
sick?
We still have a lot of
staffself-isolatingor sick
withCovidsymptoms.
We've had four deaths in the
London ambulance service
including paramedics, calltakers and logistic staff.
Others on ventilators, some
have taken the virus home
and had fatalities there.
Some have lost lung function
which has had a massive
impact on their life, making
basic exercise difficult in
the future.Fivehundred
staff were randomly tested
and it was disturbing how
many had the coronavirus
with no symptoms - if
you have no symptoms
youwon'tknow you have
been spreading thevirus.
Somecolleagueshave
been asked to leave
theiraccommodationby
their landlords, making
them homeless; others have
gone into hotels to avoid
infecting vulnerable family
members; others have taken
a risk andcontinuedto
seefamilyand
partners.It'shaving an
impact on the mental
health of NHS workers.
There has been two suicides
that I know of among NHS
staff in south London, with
staff taking their own lives
at work, sending a clear
message that the problem is
work-related.
The founder of Clap
for Carers is calling for it
to end this week. What are
your thoughts on it?
Any community action
is positive, I think.
Neighboursmeet whilst
clapping and chatting across
the street, asking each
other how they'recoping,
whichends up with
communities supporting
eachother.I know that
many of my colleagues
appreciate the clapping,
saying that they feel moved
and grateful.
But there are others - like
me - whose response is
that it is a sentimental
distraction from the issues
facing us. The shame of not
clapping in your community
is an issue, with my friends
andneighboursadmitting
they felt guilt from missing
lastweek'sclap, though
it has been fun watching
the Tories clapping for the
NHS through grittedteeth.
Igenuinelybelieve most
people are decent, butin
previouspandemics like
the AIDS crisis NHS staff
were treated like outcasts -
we get abused and assaulted
on a regular basis; I've even
been shot at. I hope after
the pandemic the respect
and appreciation shown
now will continue.
Will we still be allowed
to complain about poor
resources and potentially
unsafe working conditions
now we've had clapping,
rainbows, free doughnuts and
a centenarian walking round
his garden forus?Ohand
ground control to Major
Tom: I'm sure he is a lovely
man with great intentions,
but the NHSisn'ta charity
- wepayour tax for health
care. You are really annoying
and youreffortsare not
appreciated, now we
havecopycatcharity events
raising money for the NHS.
If it hadn't been so neglected
and stripped of its assets
bysuccessivegovernments,
people wouldn't feel the
need to dip in their pockets
to support it.
The Tories are tripping
over themselves to
condone this extra source
of income by bestowing
the Major with military
promotions,knighthoods,
fly-pasts and god knows
what else. The constant
military references to
NHS is also horrible and
manipulative. We are
notheroes, we are doing a
job we are trained to do, and
we are not on a frontline, we
are patient-facing. Calling
us heroes just makes it easier
to swallow when we die.
https://classwar.world/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CW-Daily-38-200529.pdf
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Message: 3
Climate change is affecting the landscape, but those above only offer old, ineffective "solutions". Download, print and distribute the May
issue of the A3 wall newspaper! ---- The last five years are the driest things that our written records remember. We are watching the
climate crisis live. What awaits us has been known in scientific circles for many decades. And it won't change a handful of scientists and
pirates who try to deny human influence on the climate and who are paid by fossil fuel corporations. Recent studies even show that the
original predictions of the climate crisis have been greatly underestimated and its catastrophic consequences come much earlier and with
much greater force.
It is necessary to act immediately. This has also been known for many years. International conferences are held, meetings of world leaders,
agreements are being signed, such as the Paris one. But in reality, nothing much is being done to save the planet, nature, and therefore
humanity. If we do not take into account that instead of reducing the production of greenhouse gases, there is an increase in their release
into the atmosphere.
The hopelessness of the overall situation is also underlined by the fact that in large industrialized countries, smug kashparos rule, who
care only about their power and position. The fate of future generations is completely stolen from them. Instead, they measure their pins
and compete to do more mischief that would do even more damage to the planet and its inhabitants. The narcissistic tragedy Donald Trump, the
half-mad clown Boris Johnson, the calculating Si Jinping, the self-obsessed Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the unscrupulous Vladimir Putin or the
fascist Jair Bolsonaro, who is destroying the rainforests there in Brazil as well as their original inhabitants. They all lead the planet's
fate in full steam to disaster.
We didn't win it in the local areas either. The clique of old technocrats, who love mining, monocultural fields and forests, and everything,
if possible, cast in concrete, is still in power. They are only able to invent so many dams for the drought that is destroying the
landscape, in which a lot of cement will drown and the management of large corporations will grease their pockets. And again, in the field
of energy, they can do nothing but come up with other nuclear reactors and, if possible, let coal-fired power plants puff as long as
possible so that coal-mounted coal-doctors can do their thing, regardless of the interests of the rest of the people, both here and
globally. And the fact that the Czech Republic is too small for its activity to have an impact on climate change is a rather awkward excuse
to continue to generate profits for several individuals,
But instead of further centralizing energy and the problematic core, we need to decentralize energy as much as possible through renewable
electricity sources, and support the electricity system so that it is ready for a new mode of operation. And above all, we need a good
savings plan so that the gigawatt hours saved do not have to be produced at all.
Instead of the unmissable yellow fields, thanks to which Prime Minister and billionaire Andrej Babiš is turning the country into degraded
land and millions more into his piggy bank, we need organic farming that takes into account the landscape, soil and food quality and the
sustainability of agriculture without the need for chemical intervention.
Instead of dams, which do not benefit rivers very much and increase evaporation areas, we need local plans to retain water in the landscape.
Instead of drainage works, we need landscaping, green vegetation and nature, which itself can hold water where it is needed.
But drought is not just bothering the landscape, it is also bothering the brains of technocrats, who unfortunately decide everything, as
they learned decades ago in the age of would-be-socialism focused on heavy industry and megalomaniacs. Unfortunately, even in the West, they
were often not spared a similar trend. This, in turn, was a generous public contract, ie pouring public money into private pockets. With
Klaus's transformation, this quickly caught on with us as well. Sadly, many technical schools run in these dormitories and megalomaniacal
technocratism continues to fill young people. It is no wonder that technocrats of this type are the ones who attack the humanities the most,
without really knowing what they are dealing with.
Cooperation in the humanities and technical fields can be a hope. Some can explore what is best for the landscape and the people, and others
can design and implement technical solutions based on it. But in addition to outdated technocratism, there is one more obstacle to a
sensible and necessary solution - a profit-oriented system, where the strongest players already have their paths trodden and are often the
ones who influence or directly determine the rules.
The A3 wall newspaper is published by the Anarchist Federation every month. They are intended mainly for dissemination through stickers in
the streets or posting in workplaces and schools.
https://www.afed.cz/text/7179/sucho-v-hlavach-technokratu
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Message: 4
Bakunin wrote, in The Capitalist System, "What is it that brings the capitalist to the market? It is the urge to get rich, to increase his
capital, to gratify his ambitions and social vanities, to be able to indulge in all conceivable pleasures. And what brings the worker to the
market? Hunger, the necessity of eating today and tomorrow. Thus, while being equal from the point of juridical fiction, the capitalist and
the worker are anything but equal from the point of view of the economic situation, which is the real situation". ---- This simple pair of
observations is at the core of a class analysis of power in society. Distilled further into just one word, it is this: ownership. Class is
not an identity; it is a relationship. It is a relationship with that noun: ownership.
Somehow, for some people, that glaring fact is missed. For them ownership is not the cause of the disease, it is a symptom. They look past
it for the cause. They ask: "what is it these powerful people have in common?" and instead of seeing that ownership is the cause of their
power, they look for other commonalities. Their lack of clear thinking leads them to a misdiagnosis.
Forgetting the backgrounds of all the Bill Gateses and Jeff Bezoses, the Warren Buffets and the Armancio Ortegas, the Bernard Arnaults and
the Jim and Alice Waltons, they see not capital but ethnicity, and everywhere they think they see Jews. This is because that's what they're
looking for. Like the pessimistic driver who remembers only the red lights they get stuck behind and not the green lights they sail through,
they see only what they're looking for. Their selection bias not only fails to see non-Jewish billionaires, it also fails to see non-capital
owning Jews.
This much should be obvious. This much should be common sense, and there should be no issue about it, were it not for the foaming-mouthed
conspiracy theorists who abound on the internet, who disregard the obvious explanation we started with, and look instead for cabals of Jews,
writing off any evidence to the contrary.
And yet we have that seemingly anomalous phenomenon that was brought blinking into the light during the accident-prone period of Corbyn's
leadership of the Labour Party: the issue of anti-Semitism on the broader "left".
This came as a surprise to some as anti-Semitism has been more associated with the right in recent decades. However, we need look no further
than identity politics for the insidious reach of anti-Semitism on the so-called left.
It is a logical extension of identity politics being accepted as the only way to do solidarity that blame ends up being apportioned
according to identity. We can call this ethnic nationalism, or we can call it racism, but whatever we call it, it is not anti-racism.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is a subject for another article. Suffice it to say, the Israeli state has indeed run an apartheid-like
campaign of oppression against the Palestinian people. We stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers, as with all workers.
But a problem arises when we see identities before we see relationships with ownership. Disparity in power is put down not to ownership, but
to ethnicity.
In the so-called left's anti-Semitism morass, there are three strands that some people seem to find it difficult to disentangle.
1. The disingenuous labelling of all criticism of the Israeli state, its actions and policies, as necessarily anti-Semitic.
2. The actual anti-Semitism that exists on the left, often associated with Palestinian solidarity (which does not have to be in itself
anti-Semitic); the blind eye turned to it; the dodgy alliances thereby arrived at.
3. The use made of both of the above by anti-Corbyn forces inside and outside of the Labour Party.
Corbyn and his team were at the very least accident-prone on dealing with this. They were especially inept at dealing with 1 and 3 because of 2.
We've all seen 2. It does us no favours to keep saying "but 1" or "but 3". As revolutionaries, we, unlike the former Labour leadership, need
to deal with 2, and decisively, no matter whence it has arisen.
Because it did not go away when Corbyn left the Labour leadership.
The following passages from Malik's piece on anti-zionism and antisemitism are particularly worth picking up in this context, but it's only
a short piece and worth reading in full.
"Particularly in sections of the left, anti-Zionism has more and more appropriated, often unrecognised, anti-Semitic tropes."
"There are, in other words, many forms of anti-Zionism, some progressive, some anti-Semitic. What has shifted is that left wing ideas of
anti-Zionism have become increasingly colonised by anti-Semitic forms. The reasons are complex, ranging from evolving notions of
‘anti-imperialism' to the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories."
"Identity politics has led many to target Jews for being Jews, especially as they are seen as belonging to a group with many privileges to
check, and to hold all Jews responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. Many who support the Palestinian cause, including many
within the Labour party, seem genuinely unable to distinguish between criticising Israel and sowing hatred against a people."
We in the ACG are critical of the ideologies and alliances that Trotskyist sects brought into campaigning organisations. Many of us found in
our dealings with the Stop the War Coalition, for example, that the Trotskyists who overran that organisation had become bogged down in
multiculturalism and identity politics. In their desire to seek alliances with reactionary Muslim groups, suddenly homophobia, sexism,
misogyny, and so on was overlooked when it came from certain quarters. This reactionary gunge came spilling from the belly of the Trotskyist
Trojan horse like rancid offal.
Nira Yuval-Davis and Sukhwant Dhaliwal also noticed it:
"The issues that we had raised in our critique of multiculturalism became accentuated as the number of ‘religious leaders' and
representatives increased exponentially. They became a critical part of New Labour's neo liberal instrumentalisation of ‘community' and they
were given additional spaces within which to manoeuvre."
"...we also opposed the way in which the Stop the War Coalition responded to this new security state by building an alliance with factions
of right wing Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami networks in Britain. At the time, there was little scrutiny of global fundamentalist
networks by either anti-racist or feminist academics and activists."
"However, there has been an entrenchment of religious identity politics - something we spent decades contesting."
"Asserting that rights need not be justified by religious texts or frameworks, but must simply be available to everyone, requires new
struggles."
So how do we voice our opposition to what we used to safely call Zionism?
Let us leave to one side for now our opposition towards the concept of states. States exist, and we need to work within the reality we have
before us. We argue that the current state of Israel is a racist endeavour: it seeks to be a Jewish state. If it sought to be a state in
which Jews (and other residents) could live and exercise self-determination, that would be a different matter. A secular,
non-discriminatory, democratic state of Israel is acceptable (in the context of a world at least espousing those values). A racist,
apartheid state is not.
The question we are left with is what does the term "anti-Zionist" look like to the casual reader? Technically we might be "anti-Zionist",
but like it or not, arguing for the technical meaning of this phrase is closing the trap door when the Trojan horse has long ago spilled its
decaying guts. To the casual observer, in the context that has been bequeathed to us by the Labour Party's mishandling of the furore, using
the term makes us look like barking xenophobes. We argue that it is far safer to use more precise and unambiguous phrases like opposing the
Israeli state, its policies, or its actions.
That way we raise ourselves above the identity politics mire.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/05/28/identity-politics-and-anti-semitism-on-the-left/
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Message: 5
[translator's note: Ruymán is a member of FAGC (Federación Anarquistas Gran Canaria or Gran Canaria's Anarchist Federation), which centres
most of its activity around the issues of housing, rent and homelessness. They are known for housing homeless people in squatted buildings
run along anarchists' principles without the members needing to share the same ideology. The biggest one so far, La Esperanza, houses more
than 260 people, around 160 of them minors. More recently the FAGC has called for a rent strike to demand better conditions for renters
during the COVID-19 crisis. The strike is supported today by more than 60.000 tenants. This is the second of a series of three articles
written in 2015 where Ruymán explains how the FAGC sees the way forward for anarchism based on their experience these years]
"To-morrow for the young the poets exploding like bombs,
The walks by the lake, the weeks of perfect communion;
To-morrow the bicycle races
Through the suburbs on summer evenings. But to-day the struggle."
(W.H. Auden, Spain, 1937).
Let's start by pointing out that the person speaking to you about social struggle fancies himself an individualist. I am an individualist
because I am wary of my independence and personal criteria, but also for pragmatic reasons. When you implicate yourself in the social
struggle is necessary to retain a large dose of individualism: to not become corrupted, to avoid letting yourself be dragged by gregarious
impulses and majoritarian urges, to know why you do the things you do.
But I am sickened by aristocratism; I am an individualist because I want, for every single person, a unique and strong personality, and let
everyone develop their own "self" without environmental limits or impediments. But how to tame the environment so that it is individuals who
shape it and not it that shapes the individuals? By implicating ourselves in the social struggle, there's no other way.
Our contempt for the current society can lead us to resignation. Be it through a satisfied nihilism ("there's nothing to be done and it's
better to vegetate and occasionally make an appearance on social media or a well written article") or the castaway attitude ("even if we
don't like it this is our habitat, let's adapt to it and save whichever furniture washes on the shore"). To ask for everything to burn
without raising a finger or entangle yourself in electoral reforms or popular electoral reforms are examples of both attitudes. Resignation,
more or less an active one, but resignation nevertheless.
To resign oneself is to surrender, and that is as if one is dead inside. We need to implicate ourselves in the social struggle because only
then we'll be able to change something, even if it's only a part of the portion of the world we've been given by chance. But we have to
implicate ourselves with a big dose of realism; so much realism it sometimes hurts.
We need to know that you can implicate yourself, succeed, change people's lives and still not change anything on their minds. A petty person
who is hungry is not different than one that is fed, except in their material capacity to hurt. They might have more or less possibilities,
different priorities, but they are fundamentally the same. To idealize the "working class" (category that if it's not limited to set the
line between the oppressed and oppressors is of no use) is absurd. The male worker is not the character from the soviet posters nor is the
female worker the one from the american WWII propaganda. The excluded and marginalized, the "class-less", among whom I include myself by
birth and calling, don't fit the fixed romanticized vision of nomads and free spirits. We are beings of flesh and bone that cannot be
observed from the outside, only lived from within.
To assign virtues and defects when they are not inherent is a source of injustices and frustrated expectations. Those of us who work for
revolution need to have something clear: it won't be done by nietzschean supermen; it will be done by people with prejudices, full of
taboos, burdened by sexist, racist and xenophobic ideas. This is the human material of revolutions because people don't change from one day
to another no matter how much you try to change the circumstances. The initial enthusiasm mitigates these attitudes, but without a previous
pedagogy we can't expect people to throw away their emotional baggage instantaneously.
Are we sure that by changing material conditions we won't be capable of changing subjective conditions? Not necessarily. Kropotkin is one of
my favourite thinkers, and after studying him and trying to apply some of his proposals -those that seemed to me more urgently realistic- I
can confirm that at least in some of the presuppositions of The Conquest of Bread¹ (1892) he was wrong. Or rather, to be fair with
Kropotkin, the error is not on the main thesis of of this work (fundamental, otherwise), according to which the first question to solve
during a revolution is that of bread; we are the ones who are wrong if we believe that just by being the first question must be the only
one. The first question of the revolutionary phenomenon certainly has to be to satiate the basic necessities, but we would be naive to think
that this fact alone will abolish all forms of hierarchy. If Tolstoy reminded us you cannot speak about non-edible things to someone with an
empty stomach², we also can't expect that by filling up that stomach we will obtain a behavioural change in that person. We can give
shelter, roof and bread like Kropotkin recommends, but if the capitalist mental structure hasn't been shaken, the improvement of the
material conditions won't have substantially changed the nature or the aspirations of the those affected. We can create a society of
satisfied needs and economic equality, but that alone, without doing background work, won't eradicate power and submission. Kropotkin used
to say that if people had the means of production they wouldn't have to kneel in front of someone like Rothschild; they may not grovel for
bread, but they can still be made to submit by brute force, fear or deception. Economical equality doesn't eradicate authoritarianism or
hierarchical vices, nor does it swiftly erase capitalist tics.
This can be seen in the example of the communes and resistance communities. A microsociety that organises with an anarchist model, one in
which this model proves itself efficient and effective, can be a showcasing of how anarchy works "too well", because it's capable of
improving the conditions of the lives of those affected, of satiating their needs, but with very little effort required of them. You can't
create an oasis of anarchy surrounded by a desert of capitalism, because sooner or later the sand seeps through the door.
Most of the libertarian communities of the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, and even more so the hippie communities of the
second half of the last century, failed for a clear reason: they constituted themselves in closed communities, isolated, without realising
that people don't leave their "old mentality" at the entrance. This was already explained by Reclus in his text The Anarchist Colonies4
(1902). A society doesn't have a life of its own independent from its members, although there is some kind of collective group psychology
that makes it behave like a living organism. As such, it dies if it stays closed off and can't breathe, and lives when it lets air come it,
can breathe and nourishes itself from the outside.
This centrifugal and centripetal qualities I spoke of on the previous article are not only applicable to different kinds of anarchism, but
also of communities and militancies. In my experience on communities I've been able to experience how the periods of forced isolation and
endogamy encourage depression and immobility, but when you interact with the environment you are part of and receive stimuli from the
outside the organism that is the community renovates and revitalizes itself. Same thing with militancy. The activity centred on your own
group, which doesn't open and expand itself nor wants to interact with the outside, is useless and engenders calcification. It's essential
to move towards the outside, to irradiate. The blood that doesn't flow coagulates and causes gangrene; movement is the basis of life, the
basis of change.
But I will be asked: why should we get involved in the social struggle if material change doesn't have the intended immediate results? And
even if it were desirable, what strategy to follow?
The great aspiration for revolutionary anarchism, and for most social movements, is to reach the people. It may be true that through the
social struggle, by helping them and promoting ideas of self-management, their mentality won't change. But that's the only way of
establishing contact with them. I understand the good intentions, but to a family searching for food in the trash, who is trying to separate
the rotten from the decomposed, you cannot tell them about the virtues of veganism or the pernicious effects of transgenics; it sounds like
an insult or a macabre joke. These things, which are really a display of your consciousness, are relevant when you have your basic needs
satisfied and a stable status; the malnourished are only interested in not starving to death. When you speak of things detached from the
immediate reality of people and try to drag them into our politics, instead of evaluating what can our worldview offer to them, we are
establishing a line of separation between the people without ideology and the anarchist. Which mentally, is not that different between the
one there is between the dispossessed and the proprietor: different interests if not directly opposed.
We have to analyse what legitimate interests people have that may intersect with our ideas and praxis and try to get involved. Back in 2011
the FAGC realized the alarming need of housing that there was in the Gran Canaria Island: between 25 and 30 evictions every day while there
are 143,000 empty homes in the archipelago. The people needed a roof; so that's what we had to offer to them, because ours ideas are perfect
for it and because historically, from the Paris Commune to the squatters movement, it has been part of our tradition.
I've already said that the politics of bread, even if they are a priority, are not enough on their own. We need to use big doses of pedagogy
(steering away from indoctrination and proselytism), socialize formative tools, strengthen people's independence and create committed
circles willing to defend their gains. Yes, bread is not everything, but it's the only way for that formless and ineffable mental construct
that we call "the people" to take you into consideration and be able to tell you apart from all the other snake-oil salesmen. Yes, the
propaganda by the deed has limits, and showing the correct path and taking it is not enough to get others to do it themselves; but it's the
most honest and coherent way of spreading an idea and trying to get people to adopt it. The experiential way, of doing what you preach, is
the only one that gives you the right to put a proposal in front of people. If you haven't lived it before, don't sell it to me. To give
basic necessities the priority it deserves, and not to offer poetry, liturgy or scholastics to someone who is in need of protein is the only
way to start being serious, the only way to not appear detached from reality.
Certainly the capitalist reflexes and the bourgeoisie tendencies can persist in the mind of the person who just stopped being destitute
thanks to your help. LIberated from hardship maybe their consumerist mentality will be strengthened. But if they managed to change their
living situation through libertarian means, with direct action tactics away from legality, the reality is that the example remains and
survives; and that serves as evidence that even if the human material fails, the ideas and practices don't. And anyway, if the seed of your
example of mutual aid and autonomous organisation only germinates in one in every ten people, that's enough for the social struggle you
started to have been worth it.
Wilde speaks in his "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"5 (1890) about how boring the "virtuous poor" were. To demand for the poor to be
virtuous, on top of being poor, is not a matter of being "boring", but of brutal and unjust insensibility. In the social struggle you'll
discover people who haven't had any contact with anyone for years, who have been excluded from basic comforts, who have been in a permanent
state of war for decades, who feel that everything that surrounds them is hostile. We should not be surprised if they have difficulties
trusting and even take advantage of the people lending them a hand; it would be more surprising if they didn't jump to your jugular
immediately. But instead, many people who have been treated like wild animals since they were kids, constantly harassed by their
environment, become inspired by a solidarity given in exchange for nothing, except compromise, and by a way of acting that rejects any kind
of leadership and servislism. They learn to help others, they open houses for homeless families just like they were opened for them. They
realise the next step is to protect themselves autonomously; the illegality they were forced to use before now serves a deeper objective.
Maybe they'll become interested in the ideas that took them this far and they'll start talking about anarchism. And if not, they no longer
ignore the meaning of the word or fear it. Inside them a change of paradigm takes place.
Despite that, something should be made clear: the anarchist model we propose doesn't need to convert people into anarchists to work; that
would be abhorrent. Anarchism for the anarchists is chauvinism. Anarchism becomes useful when is directed towards those that aren't and will
never be anarchists. That is when a project or model proves it works.
Our objective is to reach those who have nothing, not to turn them into conscious anarchists, but because only them, those who suffer and
struggle the most, have objective motivations to want to change their life and reasons to obsessively tear down everything. The anarchist
message of freedom and autonomy is for all of humanity; the one about three meals per day and a roof over your head can only be for those
who lack that. The anarchy for the satiated, for the intellectually bored, is an useless artefact. The libertarian principles can be taken
by everyone, they can change the inner life of anyone who consumes them no matter their ascendency. But its economic and social program is
directed towards changing the life of those who today have to eat mud. That's why it is important to intervene in that fight; there's no
other way to change what is around us.
How to do it? From the inside, without paternalism or impositions. The "parachute" tactic that jumps into a conflict, coming from the
outside, will lead to failure. You only have the right to intervene when you have been seen to get your hands dirty, sweat and bleed; and
not even that will dispel all suspicions. We need to create a project in which the difference between the anarchists who initiated it and
the people with generally no ideology who join it gets blurred over time, without ranks, vanguardism or primacies.
By taking interest in the real worries of the people, the ones that come from them, and not the ones you want to introduce them to from the
outside. Once we have taken part in their interests, their fight, their demands, our mission as anarchists is to take them a bit further, a
step beyond. Malatesta understood this clearly:
"Let us make everyone who dies of hunger and cold understand that every product that stokes the warehouses belongs to them, because they are
the ones who produce everything, and let's encourage and help them to take it all. Whenever there's a spontaneous rebellion, as has
sometimes happened, let's hurry to mingle in in it and to try to turn it into a coherent movement by exposing ourselves to the danger and
fighting together with the people. Later, through practice, ideas emerge and opportunities present themselves. Let us organise, for example,
a movement to not pay the rent; let's persuade the field workers to take crops back to their houses and, if we can, let's help them carry it
and to fight against the owners and guards who don't want to allow it. Let us organise movements to force the municipalities to do
everything big and small that the people desire, like for example to lift the taxes for essential goods. Let us remain always among the
popular masses and let's make them accustomed to take by themselves those liberties that could never be gained by legal means. To summarize:
everyone should do whatever they can according to the place where they are and the environment around them, taking as a starting point the
practical desires of the people, and always inspiring new desires"6
What the FAGC tried to do with the "Group of Immediate Response against Evictions" and the "Renters and Evicted Union" was to intervene in a
real aspiration of the population (housing) while staying away from the moderate and legalist proposals from the local platforms and
collectives, to bring the fight for a place to live to new presuppositions, deeper and more radical. This is the first phase of our fight.
By stopping evictions in a combative way and rehousing people without a home in individual houses expropriated from the banks, we started
the contact with the people and demonstrated that things could be done in a different way, one that is more committed and efficient.
While embroiled in the popular aspirations for housing we started the phase of the "La Esperanza" Community, because we needed to make a
show of force with a project big and showy enough that it couldn't be hidden from public opinion no matter how hard anyone tried. Rejecting
the victimism of thinking that no matter what we do we'll be silenced, we've tried to show that regardless of the manipulations and
misrepresentations of the media, if you do something of enough magnitude it is impossible to shut it down and sweep it under the rug (to
this we must obviously add a great capacity to work and know how to design a good "media war"). After that comes a third phase that I'll
explain in the last article of this series.
What was done in this second phase has is importance and meaning, not only for its obvious social dimension of giving a roof to such a huge
number of adults and minors, but also in other aspects. In our movement it seems like some think tanks squabble over a ridiculous hegemony.
They invalidate what the competitor says with words, always with words. If a proposal looks to them to be too radical or too reformist they
don't try to oppose it by comparing it with a practical example that proves it wrong, they oppose it with another idea. When they criticised
the legal reform proposed by the PAH (Platform of People Affected by Mortgages) to regulate housing in Madrid for being too useless and
legalistic, that criticism may have been correct (in fact it was), but if you don't present an alternative the people will have no option
but to go with the only alternative that is in front of them. We criticised the legal reform and as evidence to back our criticism we
created, for example, the "La Esperanza". What we need is an action tank, action groups that take actions to validate our theories, an
activist backing with real and quantifiable results. That is what validates your proposal; everything else is rhetoric, verbiage and paper,
and that has the same weight as banging your fist on the table at a pub.
But we have to be realistic: if the division in the lived experience between the anarchists and the rehoused must be erased (as this is the
only way of not only avoiding vanguardism but also of promoting self-emancipation and engaging those affected to the fight for their own
cause), we have to be able to detect differences and similarities between our aspirations; there lies the limits of the social struggle.
Personally, as an anarchist, and in relation to the "La Esperanza" Community, I could prefer an occupation sine die, a constant challenge
against the state and the financial institutions, surviving in a constant emergency situation. But precisely as an anarchist I don't like
declaring a war on behalf of someone else. I cannot throw people, with kids of their own, to fight against windmills spurred on by my ideas.
I must know and understand what are their real aspirations and how far they are willing to go. And if they've already gone as far as they
can, I can't force them to engage in ways of struggle that haven't yet develop within them. The necessity creates the means, and those ways
will develop naturally when it is the right moment. I need to understand that if for me illegality is an option and a resource to defend,
for them it is an obligation born out of necessity. After the war people want peace and we can't criticise them for that. With that in mind
I redact legal documents that disgust me because the community I'm part of needs them and trusts me to give them substance. "La Esperanza"
has decided to regularize their situation, going in with everything: if it goes wrong, it'll continue existing outside of the law and won't
abandon the apartments; if it goes well it will have successfully challenged the system and forced it to give in to their demands.
Will achieving those demands be the end of everything? As a community, maybe yes, but as part of the global strategy of the FAGC obviously
no. Achieving this victory will be an example of what can be accomplished through squatting, by making the banks and the political powers
submit to a policy based on proven facts. It must and can be reproduced in other places. But if we don't give this strategy a final twist,
its practical result, if it were to be successful and go viral, would be to increase the number of council homes in the State and grow the
public housing sector. And that's not our objective. Our objective is to give a roof to the families, but under a completely different
social paradigm.
When you intervene in workers union organising and try to achieve an improvement of working hours or salaries, what we achieve if we win is
a partial victory and a show of strength. What matters is getting that practical experience, building the muscle. But if we limit ourselves
to reduce the hours or increase the salaries, we will only be reinforcing the capitalist model of work. If we decide we have other
aspirations, we'll have to prove it with something more than declaring your intentions. It's the same thing with housing. The idea is for no
one to die in the street, that's the priority; but understanding that what causes that to happen is the current model, and therefore we
shouldn't just treat the symptoms but also cure the disease. By giving a roof and stopping the reshoused person from being evicted from
their home, we show strength and respond to an atrocity by tackling it directly; but if behind that there is not a third movement, that
demonstration will go no further. It'll remain as an end in itself.
The struggle is not something automatic (struggling for its own sake). You struggle to destroy barriers and reach objectives. When do you
know if the struggle is important? When you've reached that objective and yet you have the feeling you are just getting started.
Make way then for the third movement! ?
Ruymán Rodríguez
Read Part One:- "Two Anarchisms"
More information about the Federación Anarquistas Gran Canaria can be here www.anarquistasgc.noblogs.org or on their Facebook.
¹ Digital edition on the Anarchist Library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread
² "Before we give the people priests, soldiers, judges, doctors and teachers, we should ascertain if they happen to be dying of hunger" (The
Triumph of the Farmer or Industry and Parasitism, 1888)
³ Although truth be told, unless there is a difficult global revolution, any form of anarchy will alway initially occur surrounded by
capitalism, be it at a small two, a big city or a whole region. It changes the resources, the competencies and the scale, but its
imperfection is a manifestation of anarchy. That's why I can maybe say to have lived in anarchy, and that is beautiful and hard
4 Digital edition on libcom: https://libcom.org/library/anarchist-colonies-elis%C3%A9e-reclus
5 digital edition on project gutemberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1017
6 In Times of Elections, 1890
http://organisemagazine.org.uk/2020/05/29/street-anarchy-pt-2-social-struggle-theory-and-analysis/
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Message: 6
It is not the first time - and, unfortunately, we are not sure that it will not be the last - that we are confronted with the absolute
sadism that some people show towards the other living species of this planet. We often hear or see colonies putting nests, killing stray
animals, throwing puppies or kittens in the bins, in order to mash them when they fall into the garbage collection vehicles, as well as
unthinkable cases of abuse that make our hair stand on end. ---- One of these stories concerns the FOXOSMALL store on Edmundou Rostan
Street, number 9 in Thessaloniki. The owner of the store decided that because he did not like a kitten that was circulating in the
neighborhood, the solution is to kill it and tried to trap the animal in the store's drywall and let it die there for days. In particular,
this guy was seen many times chasing the animal with a broomstick. After failing to do so and seeing that the kitten had entered through a
hole behind the plasterboard of his store, he took the polyurethane foam (a chemical used for insulation and has the ability to solidify
extremely quickly) and included it. , immobilizing it. He then blocked the hole from which he entered, leaving the animal screaming
completely helpless and unable to move within the wall for 4 whole days. During those days, neighbors repeatedly tried to contact him to
free the animal, but he claimed that "it was missing in Halkidiki." On Friday 22/5, a team of firefighters, with the help of a veterinarian,
who was forced to drug the animal, as the chemical foam had stuck to its fur, cut the drywall and rescued the animal. To remove the
substance from him, the doctor had to use knives and diluents. Coincidentally, the owner, who was "absent from the city", got into a fight
and went to his shop just a few minutes after the firefighters started cutting the drywall! In the next few days, instead of loafing,
On Tuesday 27/5 we decided to pay a visit to this guy, to explain to him that what life counts and what he doesn't will not be decided by
him and the like.
Human arrogance towards all other kinds of life is a given. We do not hope that as long as there is capitalism and the system of "values"
that it breeds and instills in the social base ("values" that want nature and animals to be simply raw material for the production process,
for the profits of our bosses, that is, a raw material that can be used as much as the human species wants) these perceptions will disappear.
But we know that such sediments will not stop behaving sadistically in animals, they will not stop believing that they have the right to
take a life, because it "bothers" them, unless they are afraid, if they know that our gaze is on them. and these murderous practices do not
go hand in hand. And that's exactly what we went to tell him: Kathiki, we see you. The next time you touch an animal, you will receive the
appropriate response.
Thessaloniki Freedom Initiative (member of the Anarchist Federation)
email: lib_thess@hotmail.com
blog: libertasalonica.wordpress.com
https://youtu.be/snk6QFtkA-E
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2020/05/27
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