Today's Topics:
1. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL AL #310 - Culture,
Read: Öcalan, "The Communalist Revolution" (de, it, fr,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Read: Öcalan, "The Communalist Revolution" (de, it, fr,
pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL AL #310 - Culture,
Read: Bihr, Husson, "Thomas Piketty. An illusory critique of
capital" (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
Read: Bihr, Husson, "Thomas Piketty. An illusory critique of
capital" (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. UK, AFED: Organise! #93 - ANOTHER FINE MESSPublications
(written just before the second lockdown in England).
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
(written just before the second lockdown in England).
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Canada, Collectif Emma Goldman - LNG, Saguenay Energy:
Divide (the project) for better reign (de, it, fr, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Divide (the project) for better reign (de, it, fr, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #310 - Ecology and
animal cause debate (2/2) (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
animal cause debate (2/2) (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. Greece, Libertarian Initiative of Thessaloniki: Labor
interests ahead! We support the strike on 26/11. [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
interests ahead! We support the strike on 26/11. [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL Montpellier -
International Day Against Violence Against Women
International Day Against Violence Against Women
LET'S BREAK THE
PATRIARCHY! (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
PATRIARCHY! (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
8. freedom news: Carrying the war into Africa? Anarchism,
Morocco, and the Spanish Civil War (Part Two)
Morocco, and the Spanish Civil War (Part Two)
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
In this first collection of texts to appear in French, Abdullah Öcalan, founder
of the PKK, tackles with great clarity the concept of democratic confederalism,
linked to the essential revolution of women. ---- The Kurdish question through
history and a peaceful solution to the conflict, the concept of democratic
confederalism, linked to the essential revolution of women, another conception of
the nation that is not articulated with the State and is characterized neither by
culture nor by ethnicity, such are the four main questions addressed by this
first collection of texts to appear in French by Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the
PKK and inspirer of the revolution underway in Rojava.
Another conception of the nation
He briefly reviews the history of the Kurdish people, from 6000 BC to the
division of Kurdistan by the establishment of borders between Iran and Turkey
with the Treaty of Qast-i-Chirin in 1639, then the end of the Ottoman Empire,
when England and France redraw the borders of the Middle East by placing
Kurdistan under the yoke of the Turkish Republic, the Iranian Peacock throne, the
Iraqi monarchy and the Mandate Franco-Syrian, which put an end to the Kurdish
emancipation efforts. These hegemonic powers then denied the Kurds and their
existence as an ethnic group, banning the practice of their native language, used
religion and nationalism to preserve their supremacy. Now, for the PKK, founded
in 1978,
Democratic confederalism is the "co-ordinating model of a non-state democratic
nation" in which minorities, religious communities, cultural or gender-specific
groups can organize themselves autonomously. The federal governance model can
then extend across borders to create international democratic structures.
Considering that the Kurdish question could not be resolved by violence, the PKK
proposed to Turkish society that the Kurds could be free to organize themselves,
without calling into question the framework of the secular Republic.
The nation-state, which replaced the feudal order, "is a centralized state, with
almost divine attributes, which has totally disarmed society and monopolizes the
use of force" . It assimilates all cultures in order to create a unique culture
and national identity, imposes a homogeneous citizenship. Democratic
confederalism is, on the contrary, "an act of self-defense against this history"
, a flexible, multicultural and anti-monopoly system based on consensus.
Abandon the dominant male figure
Likewise, Abdullah Öcalan recalls how the five thousand year history of
civilization can be summed up in the history of the enslavement of women, slavery
constructed and perpetuated, at the ideological level, by the use of force and
then by controlling the economy. The "primitive socialism" characterized by
equality, sharing and freedom, which did not allow property or a division of
labor between the sexes based on power relations, existing in the Neolithic
period has been replaced by a provision hierarchical and patriarchal, built
around the ideology of male domination, thanks to an alliance between the shaman
and the "elder".
Then, the reduction to the status of housewife represented the first form of
slavery and the "first major sexual rupture" . The monotheistic religions then
intensified the patriarchy, accomplishing the second great sexual rupture. If
each family has developed like the small state of each man, Abdullah Öcalan does
not however propose to overthrow this social institution but to transform it by
abandoning the "claim of property over women and children" for a "natural
companionship" . Man must transform himself by abandoning "the figure of the
dominant male"and thus achieve the third great sexual rupture. Work of great
clarity, universal in scope while illuminating a local context.
Ernest London (UCL Le Puy-en-Velay)
Abdullah Öcalan, The Communalist Revolution - Writings from prison , Libertalia,
2020, 258 pages, 10 euros.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Ocalan-La-Revolution-communaliste
------------------------------
Message: 2
If the star economist of the media has met a number of critics to his right, few
opponents have pointed out the crucial limits of his reading of capitalism and
the idealism of his analysis as well as of his political proposals. Respectively
sociologist and economist, Alain Bihr and Michel Husson tackle it in an incisive
essay. ---- First presenting itself as a review of the latest work by Thomas
Piketty, Capital et ideologie , devoted to the ideological justifications of
social inequalities, the essay by Bihr and Husson constitutes a much more
ambitious critique of the ideological matrix of the economist. most famous French
in the world. Point by point, he demonstrates Piketty's theoretical weakness and
in particular his superficial knowledge of the conceptions of Marx and Engels.
Dedicated to "capital" and "ideology", it is striking that the imposing volume
does not include any relevant definition of the two concepts and only provides a
reading of inequalities reduced to only income inequalities. Strolling through
History as in the sky of ideas, Piketty leaves aside the objective existence of
social relations of production, reduced to arbitrary choices of society and to
purely ideological conflicts. An "intellectual swindle little fragrance" smells
of pikettysme, whose analysis of the relationship between social conflict and
political ideas seems to refer us to the beginning of the XIX th century.
Piketty's theoretical weakness
Consequently, his work presents itself as a series of historical diagrams as
curious as they are binary. With the revolutions of the XVIII th and XIX th
centuries, we'd gone from "ternary companies" to "owners of companies", as if the
medieval tripartition between those who work, those who pray and those who fight
were an anthropological universal or even a social reality: historians know very
well that it was above all a discourse and not a structuring real, the different
medieval orders being very heterogeneous and not constituting social classes. The
socio-economic factors which led to the birth of capitalism are royally ignored
by an author who is nevertheless an accomplished statistician, so that our mode
of production is curiously described as a "society of owners" .
Piketty sometimes simply fails to address the central subject of his book:
ideology. Leaving aside the great justifications for poverty provided by Burke or
Malthus, he arbitrarily focuses on the evolution of political institutions,
resulting in a very poor understanding of bourgeois ideology. Likewise, the
social reforms of the interwar period were approached with disconcerting
idealism. The development of the workers' movement, favored by the concentration
of the proletariat in factories where productivity is the watchword, is reduced
to a simple "context" . We cannot therefore understand the development of the
fiscal and social state.
Our own historical sequence suffers from the same flaws in analysis: the fall in
the rate of profit observed since the 1970s, which led the capitalists to
increase the rate of exploitation of the proletariat in order to maintain its
returns, is still left on the bench. touch. As a result, the development of the
world market and credit as well as the stagnation of investment remain
unintelligible. From this misreading of the long history of capitalism, Piketty
draws a series of candid propositions. Restricting itself to a "parametric reform
of capitalism " , its "participatory socialism" deludes himself on the merits of
German-style co-management and would at best lead to a restricted capitalism
where employees would be forced to self-exploit.
a misreading of the history of capitalism
The conditions for the realization of certain ambitious proposals, notably on
European unification, are not made explicit, again reflecting an intellectualist
belief in the omnipotence of ideas. In short, Piketty is one of the many
intellectuals who strive weakly to save capitalism from itself. Although they
sometimes make Piketty's quotes say a little more than they really seem to say,
Bihr and Husson demonstrate it with cutting edge and rigor, in a very Marxian
controversy.
Mathis (UCL Grand Paris Sud)
Alain Bihr and Michel Husson, Thomas Piketty. An illusory critique of capital ,
Syllepse and Page 2, 196 pages, 10 euros.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Bihr-Husson-Thomas-Piketty-Une-critique-illusoire-du-capital
------------------------------
Message: 3
As we approach 9 months since the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in the UK and
a little over 7 months since the government started to take it seriously, most of
Europe is gripped by the predicted resurgence of cases, hospital admissions and
fatalities. The Conservative government acted late and dropped restrictions
quickly in favour of getting ‘back to work', now that has been reversed it is
predominately working class people who are paying the price. With an economy
greatly built on services and consumerism, a lot of which has stalled, those of
us with jobs in hospitality, entertainment or shops who cannot work from home
have relied on the Furlough Scheme, Self-Employment Support Scheme grants and
other measures to keep money coming in. Of thecompanies that are still running,
many are doing so with some workers on furlough, or have already made lay-offs.
As a result, some workers are on lower pay, unemployment is rising overall and
many households are feeling the pinch.
The neoliberal ideology that is rife within the Conservatives has been challenged
by capitalism's need for a propped-up real economy, while the Party cannot bring
itself to give more to local councils many of which are Opposition controlled,
especially in the cities. This has been disastrous for the tackling of the
pandemic; with a highly inefficient track-and-trace in the hands of a centralised
system run by a mishmash of private companies and most recently we have witnessed
the Government's brutal approach to ‘negotiating' council financial support
within the Tier system.
Even while a laissez-faire attitude exists, the state is having to accept that
many more people are at risk of poverty, including core voters and some that the
Tories wooed in the last General Election, including those areas that had
suffered under Thatcher and then became disillusioned with Labour. The Government
has temporarily increased Universal Credit entitlement by £1000 until April 2021
and removed the minimum income floor until next month (13th November). Housing
benefit has also been changed to reflect current rents which have increased
hugely in London over the past decade. This said, UK welfare support for workers
is still low compared to many rich countries and even if all this was made
permanent it would not reverse the cuts in benefits over the last 5 years, and
the ending of temporary increases will cut incomes by 13% if and when the
measures end, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The more neoliberal end of the Tories are clearly squirming from all of the
public spending and this must be part of the reason for so much media time being
spent on the ludicrous ‘let it rip' idea for the pandemic, propagated most
recently by a right-wing libertarian-sponsored ‘Great Barrington Declaration'. If
allowed to happen for a magical goal of herd immunity in young workers, the virus
would more likely infect thousands more vulnerable people through community
transmission and leave others, including younger people, with the health effects
of Long Covid and could even lead to more dangerous strains of the virus
developing before a vaccine is found.
The next few months are full of uncertainty which is not surprising as the virus
is getting more out of control, not only in UK but across the world. In Europe
and the Mediterranean, overnight curfews of the like not experienced since WWII,
have been introduced or extended in France, Greece (including islands and Crete),
Italy, Sicily, Cyprus and most recently, Spain.
The AF has been meeting with our comrades in the International of Anarchist
Federations to analyse what anarchists can say and do about the situation. There
are good examples of mutual aid which have been talked about elsewhere, including
in the UK with examples including Green Anti-capitalist Front's squatted social
centre in London, GRASS, that adapted as a mutual aid centre, and Bristol's ‘BASE
and Roses' initiative that is delivering over a hundred each of food boxes and
cooked meals to people in need in working class communities, this only
highlighting the wealth inequalities mentioned above.
It is clear that much of room to make a difference the depends on the State
you've Got as we wrote inOrganise! at the start of the pandemic. For example,
Slovenia has seen waves of public protest during the pandemic and the Federation
of Anarchist Organising has been influential in challenging the lockdown by means
of physically-distanced cycle protests earlier this year, and then getting feet
on the streets in mass demos, helping to ensure that any anti-quarantineposition
is not given over the ‘antimasker' right-wing or conspiracy-mongers. Another
important question for anarchists is one of borders, internal as well as nation
state ones. Who would have thought we'd have border controls between England and
Wales in addition to the mess Brexit is creating between the North and South in
Ireland? Similar regional border controls were evident in Italy in the early
parts of the pandemic. Countering the threat of internal borders is in addition
to the need for solidarity with migrants from further afield. Keeping ‘No
Borders' thinking alive is important to counter the rhetoric of the right which
tries to embed the idea of migrants spreading diseases and appeals to a
patriotism whereassumptions are made about who is in and who is not welcome
amongst its intended audience.
In Latin America our IFA comrades are reporting on continued state-sanctioned
grabs of indigenous people's land, which are seen as a way out of poverty by
farmers in rural areas, especially in Brazil but also due to mining operations in
Argentina. There are some gains too though. In Mexico, Zapatista communities have
been tackling Covid with Autonomous Clinics. Anarchists in self-organised
community groups are distributing masks, food and medication in São Paulo favela
areas. Elsewhere in Argentina agricultural and workers' co-operatives which
formed during class struggle in the 2000s are finding a place in supporting local
communities during the pandemic.
We know the rich have hunkered down with their assets and cash waiting for the
new ‘opportunities' afforded by the crisis, while some such as the online giants
are doing well out of the pandemic. While we look forward to what lies ahead with
a lot of uncertainty, we do so with the knowledge that any new normal should not
be capitalist business as usual.
http://afed.org.uk/another-fine-mess/
------------------------------
Message: 4
Last year, the commentators of the Quebecor group had a lot of controversy around
Greta Thunberg (see the text: Climate emergency: who's afraid of Greta Thunberg
). This year, pandemic obliges, all questions related to the climate emergency
have been relayed behind the scenes. But for some time, between two news dealing
with the COVID-19 pandemic, we can hear climate skeptics rallying to the Legault
government's green plan. Also, there is the work of the Office of Public Hearings
on the Environment (BAPE) on the Saguenay natural gas liquefaction and export
complex project. ---- Divide (the project) for better reign ---- The promoters
pride themselves on having a carbon neutral project[1]. However, in their
communications resumed in unison by the forces to maintain the status quo, they
are careful not to tell us that the marine natural gas export project will be
exploited by hydraulic fracturing in Alberta. In an article published in Le
Devoir, Alexandre Shields states that, taken as a whole (operation, treatment and
transport), the Énergie Saguenay project: " could increase Canadian GHG emissions
by approximately 8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. per year. This is equivalent
to the annual average emissions of 3.46 million cars or 2.4 million light trucks
(sports utility vehicles). ".
We are far from the cut to the lips! The only sustainable things in this project
are the maintenance and use of fossil fuels. Note that we are not even talking
here about the mortal danger that this project poses to the beluga population[2],
the devastation of the habitat of several endangered species that are found on
the route of the gas pipeline or the fact that the project is on the unceded
territory of Nitassinan (see:[Nitassinan]Railway blockage against the GNL Quebec
project) .
With all due respect to the polemicist and eventual leader of the Conservative
Party of Quebec (PCQ), Éric Duhaime, the CAQ is far from being "manonmassé".
Indeed, the first disaster Legault and the members of his business cabinet did
not wait for the end of the work of the BAPE to multiply the declarations of
support in favor of the realization of the LNG Quebec project.
Marie-Ève Proulx, Minister Delegate of the Government and also a member of the
Ministerial Committee for the Economy and the Environment, said about the
project: " We must see what this can bring for Quebec and everyone is of the
opinion that it can bring enormous benefits to the economy of the regions. I am
of the opinion that we must succeed in diversifying our economy, but this project
is a promising project for the future of Quebec ".
But what future for Quebec and the region are we talking about?
It would be good to remember that the environmental impacts linked to the
increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) go far beyond the borders of the "kingdom",
that from 3 degrees, the effects of global warming could lead to, of by 2050, the
collapse of Amazonian forest ecosystems, the partial or total melting of arctic
permafrost (the world's main methane reserve) as well as the melting of all the
Himalayan glaciers. If our regional and national elites will perhaps have the
means to protect themselves for a time from climate change, this is not the case
for the vast majority of people (racialized people, the poor, women). So what
good is it having a handful of new jobs, some economic spinoffs and good returns
for shareholders if ultimately what is threatened,After capitalism: " it is the
very capacity of ecosystems to self-regenerate at a rate fast enough so that the
earth can continue to be habitable for human beings.»(Madelin, p.12).
In this context, the only right thing to do is to repackage this project first
and leave the fossil fuel reserves in the ground. But let's face it, our way of
life in the West is neither sustainable nor universal (Madelin, p.60). It is the
dynamic of economic growth that destroys the environment and even a hypothetical
energy transition is far from sufficient. Because as Madelin reminds us: " The
sun will not shine for everyone, the wind will not blow for everyone [...]
without energy decrease, no energy transition can be sustainable, and even less
fair [...] " (Madelin, p.57).
We, the dispossessed ...
" Today, the satisfaction of the least of our basic needs - water, electricity,
habitat, food, heating - depends on complex and fragile political, industrial and
economic systems (the crises and the present pandemic remind us) over which we
have no control "(Madelin, p.19) mentions Pierre Madelin. Every aspect of our
lives tends to be subordinate to market logic. To meet the challenge linked to
climate issues, we must not only point the culprit, that is to say the capitalist
modes of production and distribution, but fight against this dispossession and
strengthen the capacity of individuals and communities to ensure them. - even
their material and symbolic reproductions... in short, autonomy.
The continuation in a future text.
[1]The project on Quebec soil should be around 500,000 tonnes each year.
[2]The project will involve at least 320 passages each year for vessels 300
meters in length and 50 meters in width. This component raises questions about
the protection of marine mammals in the St. Lawrence, including the beluga and
other endangered species.
The duty. "Quebec rejects the idea of a moratorium on the increase in maritime
traffic on the Saguenay"
The duty. "The Legault government pleads in favor of GNL Quebec"
The duty. "LNG Quebec: impossible to specify the climate assessment of the project"
by Collectif Emma Goldman
http://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.com/2020/11/gnl-energie-saguenay-diviser-le-projet.html
------------------------------
Message: 5
Jocelyne Porcher (Inrae): "Peasant breeding in coexistence with cellular
agriculture is illusory" ---- What role for animals in human societies ? It is a
central point of ecological reflection, where two major ethical questions
converge: that of animal suffering and exploitation on the one hand, and on the
other, that of animal husbandry as it is. is determined by capitalism, where
peasants are just as much exploited subjects by a system. Is it a question of
managing the breeding as it exists, of reducing its ecological footprint, animal
and human suffering ? On the contrary, is it a question of completely breaking
away from this model ? And how ? Alternative Libertaire invites this debate in
its columns. ---- Jocelyne Porcher is a researcher and sociologist at the
National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE).
She works on human-animal relationships and on the issue of industrial animal
production. In her latest work, Cause Animale, Cause du Capital , she highlights
the existence of links between activist organizations for the "animal cause", a
certain branch of agro-industry and agricultural start-ups. expanding cell phone.
Read also: "Combining animal cause and anticapitalism" , Alternative libertaire,
November 2020.
Libertarian alternative : First of all, how did you come up with the idea of
working on this subject?
Jocelyne Porcher, Animal cause, cause of capital,
Le Bord de l'eau, 2019, 120 pages, 12 euros.
Jocelyne Porcher: In fact, the idea runs through my head over the long period of
my research on the process of industrialization of breeding. In the XIX th
century, animal science theorizes the animal as "animal machine" and assigned to
work with the target animals to produce animal matter and profits. In this logic,
I already underlined the possibility of a production of animal matter without
animals, with cell culture, in Death is not our profession[1], which I published
in 2003. But it is from of the first press articles published on "meat in vitro",
that in 2010 I really tackled the subject by publishing a first paper[2].
Who are the groups working today for the development of cellular agriculture and
what are their ambitions?
Jocelyne Porcher: Cellular agriculture (cell-ag), which designates the production
of substitutes for animal products (meat, milk, eggs, cheese, etc.) resulting
from biotechnology, is presented as a modern form of agriculture. Unlike "factory
farming", which serves as a foil, it claims to be good for animals, humans, the
planet. It is because it presents itself as an innovative form of agriculture
that the term "cultured meat" is preferred to that of "in vitro meat" or even
clean meat .
The groups interested in this production are both the new entrants - biotechs,
start-ups supported by billionaires and by investment funds - but also meat and
milk manufacturers who, while waiting to see how the tide will actually turn,
also invest in substitutes. Their common ambition is profit. There is no other,
despite the big claims of cell farming investors in favor of animals. If the fate
of animals interested them, they could have acted for fifty years. Cellular
farming risks increasing our food subjugation to multinationals to a point that
some seem to fail to appreciate.
Can we say that there is a collusion of interest between the anti-species
movement and these industrialists?
"Unlike 'factory farming', which serves as a foil, 'cell-ag' claims to be good
for animals, humans, the planet."
Jocelyne Porcher: The collusion of interests between the promoters of cell-ag and
the theorists and associations claiming the animal cause is obvious. This is
easily understood because they have the same objective: to set up farming without
livestock. Because "breeding", always taken by its opponents as a generic term
without distinction between the fact of raising animals and the production of
animal matter, is supposed to destroy animals, "the planet" and human health. .
Both have the same arguments and rely on the same theoretical sources.
In France, two examples illustrate this collusion. First of all, the financing of
L214 by an American foundation, the Open Philanthropy Project (1.1 million
euros). This sum was allocated to support campaigns to "unveil" poultry sectors
in France. The information leaked onto the internet in 2017 and L214 was forced
to justify itself and be accountable.
As I show in Cause Animale, Cause du Capital , the role of associations is to
criticize "factory farming" so that, by contrast, cell-ag ultimately appears
preferable to consumers. This is also happening with the "referendum for animals"
concocted by three French billionaires. This referendum illustrates in an
uninhibited way the links between investment funds and animal rights associations.
It is apparently a question of demolishing the "factory farm". But to replace it
with what? No word on this subject in the referendum proposal, except for an
"open air" obligation in 2040! Moreover, the term "open air" does not refer to
necessarily non-industrial farming systems, and by 2040, there is a good chance
that store shelves have already been invaded by cell-ag products.
What is the social project, at least from a nutritional point of view, that these
groups propose?
Jocelyne Porcher: This referendum allows us to understand precisely the
underlying societal project. It's about supposedly changing everything so that
nothing changes and business stays business. Why does the referendum proposed by
billionaires and animal rights associations not include an article promoting
peasant breeding ? For example, industrial systems would be demolished and
replaced by thousands of peasant farms.
None of this in their project. It is indeed, implicitly, to replace industrial
systems by cell-ag. Their project therefore continues the current pattern. To put
it quickly: industrial biotech food for some and quality products for others.
Except that to imagine being able to sustainably preserve a peasant breeding in
coexistence with cell-ag is perfectly illusory. Multinationals don't want a piece
of the pie, they want the whole pie.
In your opinion, what would be the alternatives to promote, as anti-capitalist
activists, so as not to get stuck between the agro-industry on one side and the
food start-ups on the other? vitro?
Jocelyne Porcher: Really support peasant breeding. It represents the only
non-capitalist alternative to industrial systems.
Interview by Vincent (UCL Var), Agriculture working group
Validate
[1] Jocelyn porcher, Death is not our job , L'Aube, 2003.
[2] "Meat in vitro, the final stage ? », The Political and Parliamentary Review n
° 1057, 2010.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Jocelyne-Porcher-Inrae-Un-elevage-paysan-en-coexistence-avec-l-agriculture
------------------------------
Message: 6
State and capitalist totalitarianism is determined to widen the class gap between
capital and labor, for the economic reconstruction and profitability of the
capitalists. The rulers are cynically trying to exploit the numbness of the poor
masses who see that beyond their work (those who have jobs, as there have been
countless redundancies and terminations of contracts, with the result that
unemployment rates have skyrocketed even higher) their health is underestimated
and eventually their very lives are devalued. The state aid concerns only the big
capital, the shipowners, the tourism industry and the big clinicians who are
adventurously hoarding from the rented rents of their private clinics, which the
government boldly calls orders. Money goes to the regime media to cover up and
beautify the criminal and irresponsible policy of the government. So, while the
people are being exterminated, huge sums are being spent from the state budget,
from the public funds, that is, for new recruitments of military and police, for
military equipment. This is money at the expense of the popular needs intended
for the state suppression of social and class resistance and the preparation for
the impending imperialist conflicts that concern exclusively the interests of the
multinationals and monopoly groups. from public funds, that is, for new
recruitments of military and police, for military equipment. This is money at the
expense of the popular needs intended for the state suppression of social and
class resistance and the preparation for the impending imperialist conflicts that
concern exclusively the interests of the multinationals and monopoly groups. from
public funds, that is, for new recruitments of military and police, for military
equipment. This is money at the expense of the popular needs intended for the
state suppression of social and class resistance and the preparation for the
impending imperialist conflicts that concern exclusively the interests of
multinational and monopoly groups.
The intensification of the class struggle is a fact. In the midst of a pandemic,
with a universal lockdown, a crackdown on demonstrations and strikes, bourgeois
politicians, the New Democracy government, launched a new round of attacks on
workers, the poor and the destitute. With the new bankruptcy code, the crows of
the banks want to strike a deadly blow to the first home and to the universal and
inalienable social right to housing, which is a basic condition for the dignified
living of every human being.
The next blow dealt by the government is aimed at labor rights, further
devaluation of the labor force, the undermining and curtailment of class trade
union action and strikes. The new labor bill Vroutsi submitted to the Parliament
for a vote by the government institutionalizes the complete deregulation of labor
relations and creates the conditions required by the capital for its profitable
productive reconstruction. The new anti-labor bill is going to intensify in even
more unbearable terms the middle of the exploitation of our paid work, regulating
the 10-hour work without additional pay. Unpaid overtime can be "redeemed" in the
form of leave within 6 months, while the limit of legal annual overtime will be
increased to 120. New business sectors will be added to operate on Sundays, thus
circumventing the Sunday holiday for which the labor movement fought hard. In
addition, the new bill provides for the removal of responsibilities from the
Labor Inspectorate, which will be transferred from now on to the Mediation and
Arbitration Organization, with the result that the resolution of labor-employer
disputes becomes more time-consuming from a legal point of view and from material
point of view more favorable to the bosses. Finally, the government, at the
request of the capitalists, aspires to immobilize the class trade union activity
of the workers, by launching the electronic file of the workers' trade union
through their inventory in the already legislated General Register. Therefore,
The right of collective bargaining will be recognized only in the organizations
that will be registered in the legalized digital registers. The trade unions will
be forced, based on the bill submitted for voting, to decide through electronic
voting with what this means for the obstruction of their militant direction, the
disengagement of the workers and their further bureaucratization. The decision to
strike, therefore, will only be taken through electronic voting. As if that were
not enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole
(Public, Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is
required, which will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike.
based on the bill submitted for voting, to decide through electronic voting with
what this implies for the obstruction of their competitive direction, the
disengagement of the employees and their further bureaucratization. The decision
to strike, therefore, will only be taken through electronic voting. As if that
were not enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole
(Public, Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is
required, which will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike.
based on the bill submitted for voting, to decide through electronic voting with
what this implies for the obstruction of their competitive direction, the
disengagement of the employees and their further bureaucratization. The decision
to strike, therefore, will only be taken through electronic voting. As if that
were not enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole
(Public, Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is
required, which will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike.
therefore, it will only be taken by electronic voting. As if that were not
enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole (Public,
Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is required, which
will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike. therefore, it will
only be taken by electronic voting. As if that were not enough, in sectors that
are defined as critical for society as a whole (Public, Local Government, NPDD)
the work of at least 40% of employees is required, which will function as "basic
operating staff", in case of strike.
The report of the technocrat economist Pissaridis foreshadows the next attacks
planned by the government against the working class, as the Prime Minister
publicly stated that the proposals of the report are the necessary steps to
overcome the obstacles that hinder investments and the profitability of business
groups. The report, entitled "Development Plan for the Greek Economy", codifies
the demands of the bourgeoisie and the government's forthcoming reform goals.
With the aim of promoting entrepreneurship in the context of international
economic competition, this report provides for the reduction of insurance
contributions and the reduction of employees' gross salaries (ie reduction of
their salary, of which insurance contributions are a part). The state and
employers are gradually withdrawing from employee insurance, which is now
becoming an individual matter. From 1/1/2021 the insurance contributions will be
reduced by 3 percentage points, while they had already decreased by 0.9
percentage points in June 2019. It is also planned to reduce OAED revenues by 1.2
billion euros in 2021. OAED is clearly transformed from an organization for the
support and protection of the unemployed into an organization for financing
business groups and finding cheap labor. There are currently 1,100,000 registered
unemployed. Only 16% of them receive a meager allowance of 200-499 euros. This
means that at least 875,000 unemployed people are completely unprotected. The new
state budget, in fact, provides for reductions in unemployment benefits from
2,148,000,000 to 1,328,000. 000 euros. At the same time, however, the fund of
active employment programs that strengthen business groups is increasing. From
453,000,000 it increases to 500,000,000 euros for 2021. This year's state budget
also provides for a reduction of 600,000,000 for health needs! 2,067,000,000
euros will be cut from pensions. In the midst of this rift of anti-popular and
anti-labor policies, the government is throwing a few crumbs at the poor, in
order to extract their consent to the state subsidy, rescue and tax exemption of
large capital. Thus, the contributions of employees who receive a basic salary
will be reduced by 8 euros per month, those who receive 800 euros per month will
have a monthly reduction of 13 euros in their contributions, while those who
receive 1000 euros per month will give 16 euros less per month for insurance
contributions. All this is happening at a time when 12% of employees are paid 200
euros per month!
The Pissaridis report claims that it was written with the aim of stimulating the
labor market and creating an attractive environment for hiring employees. The
plan of the Pissaridis committee also provides for the modification of the
payment of the unemployment benefit, so that it is granted for 6 months and not
for one year. In the next 6 months, a certain amount of money will be paid to
those who participate in training programs, after first being positively
evaluated by a KEK. Other bonuses should be cut and merged. At the same time, the
imposition of a capitalization system for supplementary pensions, the adjustment
of the system for calculating the main pensions and the cessation of early
retirements are being used. The amount of the minimum wage will be determined by
a board of experts, redundancies will be released under the guise of public
health and safety, maternity leave will be limited to the public sector and their
costs will no longer be borne by companies but only the state. In addition, this
report pushes towards the inclusion of higher education in the needs of the
market and the elaboration of university research on behalf of companies, as well
as the acceleration of public works with the participation of the private sector.
The coordinates and goals of the capitalist restructuring that the government is
trying to implement are clear both from the labor bill submitted to the
Parliament for a vote and from the report of the Pissaridis committee, which is
fully adopted by the government, as it reflects its strategic core. its policy.
They are a barbaric attack on the world of work, the poor, the unemployed and
retirees and on their class interests. The government does not care about the
health, livelihood and survival of the people. It acts exclusively on the basis
of serving capitalist interests. The working class, productively active or not,
can not, however, look stunned. Facing the imposed working middle age, growing
poverty and misery, the deterioration of public health and the devaluation of
human life, we must collectively raise our class resistance. To strengthen the
classes of proletarian and popular self-defense and counterattack, by
participating in unions, workers' initiatives, student groups and neighborhood
assemblies. Guided by the community of our class interests and solidarity to
block the attacks methodized by the state and the bosses, defending the rights
and the conquests of our struggles. In this direction, therefore, we support the
strike mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and struggle are one way! Now we have to
deal with the bourgeoisie! participating in unions, labor initiatives, student
groups and neighborhood assemblies. Guided by the community of our class
interests and solidarity to block the attacks methodized by the state and the
bosses, defending the rights and the conquests of our struggles. In this
direction, therefore, we support the strike mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and
struggle are one way! Now we have to deal with the bourgeoisie! participating in
unions, labor initiatives, student groups and neighborhood assemblies. Guided by
the community of our class interests and solidarity to block the attacks
methodized by the state and the bosses, defending the rights and the conquests of
our struggles. In this direction, therefore, we support the strike mobilization
on 26/11. Resistance and struggle are one way! Now we have to deal with the
bourgeoisie! we support the strike mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and struggle
are one way! Now we have to deal with the bourgeoisie! we support the strike
mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and struggle are one way! Now we have to deal
with the bourgeoisie!
On Wednesday 25/11 we hung banners, threw T-shirts and wrote slogans in Ano
Toumpa, Triandria, Naples, in the center and in Agios Dimitrios for the
propaganda and support of the strike on 26/11.
WILL LIVE slavery - WILL DOULEFOME AS SLAVES
UNDER THE NEW anti-labor BILL
NO MISUSES OF LABOR OUR RIGHTS - NO FINANCIAL STRANGALISMOS SOCIAL BASELINE
PUBLIC, FREE AND DECENT HEALTH FOR ALL AND ALL - DIRECT epitaxy PRIVATE CLINICS -
DIRECT, MASS AND PERMANENT RECRUITMENT PERSONAL HEALTH
CRISIS of capitalism and COVID-19 tO pAY tHE mEMBER AND bOSSES
Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative (member of the Anarchist Federation)
e-mail contact:lib_thess@hotmail.com
blog: libertasalonica.wordpress.com
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2020/11/25/
------------------------------
Message: 7
November 25 is the International Day for Combating Violence Against Women by Men.
Every day in France, women are victims of psychological, verbal, economic,
obstetrical, gynecological, physical or sexual violence. A woman dies every 3
days murdered by her companion or her ex-companion (87 known feminicides as of
November 22). 60% of women have been victims of sexual harassment at work. 4
million people in France have been victims of incestuous rape. ---- On average,
the number of women who, during a year, are victims of rape and / or attempted
rape is estimated at 94,000. Whether it takes place at home, at work or on the
street, violence is the product of the patriarchal system. They are aggravated by
the management of the health crisis, the social crisis, the ecological crisis.
Our mobilizations in recent years, in France and around the world have succeeded
in bringing gender-based and sexual violence out of the shadows, and finally
bringing the voice of women to the fore. However, public authorities and
employers are limited to short-lived commitments. The President of the Republic
appoints a Minister of the Interior accused of rape and turns his back on his
so-called great national cause and men, in power or not, do not take up the issue
and do not clean up in their ranks.
Patriarchy also hits LGBTI people with force: homophobia and transphobia are thus
often a source of social exclusion and lead to difficult life courses, a
situation worsened by the health crisis. Lesbian, bisexual, and / or transgender
women are thus subject to both sexism and LGBTphobias. In several cities,
initiatives around TDOR, a day celebrating the memory of trans people murdered
around the world (350 known transphobic murders as of November 20), were
associated with those of November 25 to show these convergences with trans struggles.
Women can also be victims of racism. Whether they are migrants or not, with or
without papers, they are exposed to multiple forms of violence, insecurity,
during migration and in France. The neocolonial policy of the French state
worsens the situation of women in Africa, the Near and Middle East. Military
interventions kill, increase chaos! Rape as a weapon of war and human trafficking
are becoming commonplace.
But women are also on the front line in the struggles.
The hospital workers, the teachers, the housekeepers at the Ibis hotel, at the
Mac Do's, and at H&M are fighting for their working condition and against sexist
and sexual harassment at work. The devaluation of jobs with a female majority is
the breeding ground for gender and sexual violence. On all continents, in Chile,
Brazil, Algeria, Poland, women stand up to denounce injustices, gender and sexual
violence, rape, feminicides!
Today we are in the streets to recall our fundamental right to live and work free
from violence : women, now victims of violence, can be protected and the
perpetrators of violence must be punished. In all living spaces, the question of
violence must be raised. And processed. The Union Communiste Libertaire
participates in these struggles! And we will prepare a real March 8 of struggle.A
real general strike by women to say stop to abuse, violence, poverty,
inequalities. A general strike by women to tell men: enough is enough, stop
hurting us. To say to those who don't: get moving, don't let them do it anymore.
A general strike by women to feel our strength, because if we all stop,
everything stops. A general women's strike to take a day to talk to each other,
to organize themselves, to prepare for the fight after. A general strike by women
against violent men, against passive men, against complicit institutions, against
our exploitation and finally for our emancipation.
Let us prepare the strike funds for the poorest among us. Let's talk in our
clubs, our unions and our neighborhoods. Let's invent visible and powerful,
strong and wild street actions. Let's refuse to be gentle and kind and let our
anger explode and take it all away!
Tract-25-nov-UCL Download
By Sylvain Anti-patriarchy Feminist Commission Press releases UCL Luttes Sociales
Against violence against women: Confined but not gagged!
Nov 21, 2020
Women represent 39% of jobs held in the world but 54% of jobs lost as a result of
Covid-19. 4 million people in France have been victims of incest, 94,000 women
are victims of rape or attempted rape each year (ONDRP, 2017), 32% of women have
already suffered sexual harassment at work (Ifop, 2018) and all the 2 days, a
woman dies assassinated by her companion or her ex-companion[1]. Transphobic and
lesbophobic insults increased by 36% in France in 2019.
This year, let's mobilize en masse for the international day against violence
against women! Confined, but not gagged!
Libertarian Communist Union November 20, 2020
[1] see the list
By Sylvain Anti-patriarchate Feminist Commission Press releases UCL Social
struggles Health
http://unautrefutur.org/category/vie-de-lorganisation/communiques-ucl/
------------------------------
Message: 8
‘Much has been written about the Moors in various sections of the Left-Wing Press
in this and other countries. They have been called the "scum of the earth,"
"black riff-raff," "mercenaries," and other such names[...]It is not the
politically backward Moors who should be blamed for being used by the forces of
reaction against the Spanish workers and peasants, but the leaders of the Popular
Front, who, in attempting to continue the policy of Spanish Imperialism, made it
possible for Franco to exploit the natives in the service of Fascism.' ----
George Padmore, ‘Why Moors Help Franco', 1938 ---- In part one of this article, I
provided a summary of Garcia Oliver's reception of Moroccan nationalists in
Barcelona and his attempts to establish an agreement that would see a rising in
Franco's rearguard in exchange for a declaration of independence for Spanish-held
Morocco. During these weeks at the end of August and the beginning of September
1936, the CNT's newspaper in Catalonia, Solidaridad Obrera, carried reassurances
of the organisation's good faith. On 28 August, the paper's back page drew
attention to the ‘reign of terror' that the fascists had implanted in Morocco,
and in an article on ‘the right of peoples to rule themselves', called ‘for the
independence of the Riff.' This was followed on 30 August by the optimistic
headline: ‘The rifenos, understanding the liberatory movement in Spain and its
true significance for the self-determination of peoples, are preparing an armed
insurrection to finish off the fascists in Morocco.' On 1 September the paper
carried a verbatim record of a speech given in Paris by Pierre Besnard in which
he urged the French working class ‘not to allow the workers of the Rif to be
forced to kill their Spanish worker brothers. It is important that you know that
the workers of the Rif are mistreated, exploited and persecuted on a daily basis
by their executioners at Franco's orders.'
Not everyone had got the message, however. In a speech broadcast on Radio Madrid
and published in Solidaridad Obrera, Federica Montseny, speaking in the name of
both the CNT's Regional Committee and the FAI's Peninsular Committee, drew
attention to the ‘lack of Spanish sentiment' on the part of the military rising:
‘if they were Spaniards, if they were patriots, they would not have unleashed
the... Moors on Spain, imposing on Spain their fascistic civilisation, not as a
Christian civilisation but a Moorish civilisation'. Montseny was part of a
tendency among some educated anarchists whose glorification of ‘science' entailed
an acceptance of racism. Her parents had once argued that doubting the existence
of superior races based on ‘the shape of the brain' was tantamount to denying
Darwinian selection. Montseny's reading of the civil war in civilisational terms
would become dominant over the course of the conflict, and the othering of
Moroccan troops fighting for the Nationalists - referred to as ‘Moors' - was
common (see Martin Baxmeyer's chapter in Reassessing the Transnational Turn:
Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies, ed. by Constance Bantman
and Bert Altena[PM Press]).
Nor should such instances of racism be written off as mere rhetorical excesses
inevitable in wartime. Recent research by Ali Al Tuma indicates that the racism
propounded in the rearguard translated into discriminatory violence at the front
when Moroccan soldiers were captured. This, in turn, was a disincentive to
Moroccans either crossing the lines or surrendering. I have found only one
instance of protest against the othering of Moroccan troops in Republican
propaganda (which is not to say that there are not more examples). In response to
recruitment posters in the Republican zone urging men in Madrid to enlist to
prevent ‘their' women from being ‘despoiled by the Moors', the anarchist women's
group Mujeres Libres put out the following appeal: ‘Comrade, brother: do not join
the struggle out of fear of the Moorish "razzias," the bane of Christian women...
you do not need the encouragement of opportunists who, to win a victory - almost
always for their party - resort to the lowest of incitements... You are
struggling for yourself; out of your deepest conviction and not because of the
ridiculous threats, of greater or lesser accuracy and terror, of humiliation to
your wife who, what is more, shares your ideal and knows how to defend it and
herself.'
By the end of 1936, when this statement was published, such principled positions
were unlikely to be echoed in the official newspapers of the CNT. Prior to the
organisation entering the central Republican government in November, with
Montseny and García Oliver taking on ministerial roles, the editorial board of
Solidaridad Obrera had been cleared out. One member of the replacement team was
Salvador Cánovas Cervantes, a dubious character who considered anarchism to be a
‘racial', indigenously Spanish movement. Another was Jacinto Toryho, who in
January 1937 introduced a speech by the veteran geographer Gonzalo de Reparaz,
which was subsequently published by the propaganda department of the CNT-FAI with
the title ‘What Spain could have done in Morocco, and what it has done.' This
curious pamphlet lamented the missed opportunity of Spanish colonialism, which,
had it been more enlightened in Morocco, might have turned the protectorate into
‘the cradle of a new Spanish empire.'
It is worth considering whether the extension of such civilisational thinking in
the anarchist movement, and particularly among some of those in positions of
influence, may have been an obstacle to a more coherent approach to Morocco
during the war. But even if we disregard such examples as regrettable anomalies,
the alternative conceptualisation of Moroccans as allies which briefly flourished
when championed by García Oliver, was also limited. For one thing, it glibly
assumed a commonality of interests and purpose among self-appointed
representatives of the Moroccan nation in the Moroccan Action Committee and the
tribespeople of the Rif who had fiercely resisted incursions into their territory
in the previous two decades. This was not the case, as the historian Maria Rosa
de Madariaga has made clear. García Oliver, remembering his meeting with the
urbane and multi-lingual Moroccan Action Committee, was disappointed that they
were not the kind of rabid and fanatical nationalists he had hoped to encounter.
He later reflected in a letter to Abel Paz that the failure of the entire episode
had less to do with the anarchists or the Republic than with the fact that ‘the
Arabs and Moroccans were still in the midst of a secular dream, from which they
would only be awakened by the Jews with the creation of the state of Israel.' We
can read this as one more facet of the exoticisation of Moroccans that had served
other sectors of the CNT as justification for paternalist colonialism and racist
propaganda, or a comforting counter-narrative designed to shift responsibility
for defeat; quite likely it was both.
The role of Morocco in the Spanish civil war is one element in the longstanding
tendency to look back at the war and pose counter-factual arguments that result
in a comforting parallel universe in which fascism lost. Collaboration with the
Republican state is another. The latter limited the autonomy of Spanish anarchism
and prevented the movement as a whole from acting in accordance with its
principles. A declaration of independence for Spanish Morocco and its
unpredictable consequences is one imagined scenario that may have resulted from
an alternative path. This is possible but closer examination of the history
provides no comforting assurances. Collaboration encouraged and made hegemonic
tendencies that were already present in the movement: the most relevant to this
article being an understanding of civilisation that carried with it nationalist
and racist baggage. The fact that the biggest and most successful anarchist
movement in history was unable to completely overcome these obstacles to
libertarian communism is perhaps unsurprising given the movement's international
isolation and the predominance of racist ‘common sense' in the period. While the
ease with which anarchists were able to draw on their own tradition to justify
nationalist positions is unsettling, the internationalism promoted in the pages
of Solidaridad Obrera in the summer of 1936 and articulated alongside an
interconnected anti-sexism and anti-racism by Mujeres Libres provide resources
that may help guard against complacency on these issues today.
Danny Evans
https://freedomnews.org.uk/carrying-the-war-into-africa-anarchism-morocco-and-the-spanish-civil-war-2/
------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
In this first collection of texts to appear in French, Abdullah Öcalan, founder
of the PKK, tackles with great clarity the concept of democratic confederalism,
linked to the essential revolution of women. ---- The Kurdish question through
history and a peaceful solution to the conflict, the concept of democratic
confederalism, linked to the essential revolution of women, another conception of
the nation that is not articulated with the State and is characterized neither by
culture nor by ethnicity, such are the four main questions addressed by this
first collection of texts to appear in French by Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the
PKK and inspirer of the revolution underway in Rojava.
Another conception of the nation
He briefly reviews the history of the Kurdish people, from 6000 BC to the
division of Kurdistan by the establishment of borders between Iran and Turkey
with the Treaty of Qast-i-Chirin in 1639, then the end of the Ottoman Empire,
when England and France redraw the borders of the Middle East by placing
Kurdistan under the yoke of the Turkish Republic, the Iranian Peacock throne, the
Iraqi monarchy and the Mandate Franco-Syrian, which put an end to the Kurdish
emancipation efforts. These hegemonic powers then denied the Kurds and their
existence as an ethnic group, banning the practice of their native language, used
religion and nationalism to preserve their supremacy. Now, for the PKK, founded
in 1978,
Democratic confederalism is the "co-ordinating model of a non-state democratic
nation" in which minorities, religious communities, cultural or gender-specific
groups can organize themselves autonomously. The federal governance model can
then extend across borders to create international democratic structures.
Considering that the Kurdish question could not be resolved by violence, the PKK
proposed to Turkish society that the Kurds could be free to organize themselves,
without calling into question the framework of the secular Republic.
The nation-state, which replaced the feudal order, "is a centralized state, with
almost divine attributes, which has totally disarmed society and monopolizes the
use of force" . It assimilates all cultures in order to create a unique culture
and national identity, imposes a homogeneous citizenship. Democratic
confederalism is, on the contrary, "an act of self-defense against this history"
, a flexible, multicultural and anti-monopoly system based on consensus.
Abandon the dominant male figure
Likewise, Abdullah Öcalan recalls how the five thousand year history of
civilization can be summed up in the history of the enslavement of women, slavery
constructed and perpetuated, at the ideological level, by the use of force and
then by controlling the economy. The "primitive socialism" characterized by
equality, sharing and freedom, which did not allow property or a division of
labor between the sexes based on power relations, existing in the Neolithic
period has been replaced by a provision hierarchical and patriarchal, built
around the ideology of male domination, thanks to an alliance between the shaman
and the "elder".
Then, the reduction to the status of housewife represented the first form of
slavery and the "first major sexual rupture" . The monotheistic religions then
intensified the patriarchy, accomplishing the second great sexual rupture. If
each family has developed like the small state of each man, Abdullah Öcalan does
not however propose to overthrow this social institution but to transform it by
abandoning the "claim of property over women and children" for a "natural
companionship" . Man must transform himself by abandoning "the figure of the
dominant male"and thus achieve the third great sexual rupture. Work of great
clarity, universal in scope while illuminating a local context.
Ernest London (UCL Le Puy-en-Velay)
Abdullah Öcalan, The Communalist Revolution - Writings from prison , Libertalia,
2020, 258 pages, 10 euros.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Ocalan-La-Revolution-communaliste
------------------------------
Message: 2
If the star economist of the media has met a number of critics to his right, few
opponents have pointed out the crucial limits of his reading of capitalism and
the idealism of his analysis as well as of his political proposals. Respectively
sociologist and economist, Alain Bihr and Michel Husson tackle it in an incisive
essay. ---- First presenting itself as a review of the latest work by Thomas
Piketty, Capital et ideologie , devoted to the ideological justifications of
social inequalities, the essay by Bihr and Husson constitutes a much more
ambitious critique of the ideological matrix of the economist. most famous French
in the world. Point by point, he demonstrates Piketty's theoretical weakness and
in particular his superficial knowledge of the conceptions of Marx and Engels.
Dedicated to "capital" and "ideology", it is striking that the imposing volume
does not include any relevant definition of the two concepts and only provides a
reading of inequalities reduced to only income inequalities. Strolling through
History as in the sky of ideas, Piketty leaves aside the objective existence of
social relations of production, reduced to arbitrary choices of society and to
purely ideological conflicts. An "intellectual swindle little fragrance" smells
of pikettysme, whose analysis of the relationship between social conflict and
political ideas seems to refer us to the beginning of the XIX th century.
Piketty's theoretical weakness
Consequently, his work presents itself as a series of historical diagrams as
curious as they are binary. With the revolutions of the XVIII th and XIX th
centuries, we'd gone from "ternary companies" to "owners of companies", as if the
medieval tripartition between those who work, those who pray and those who fight
were an anthropological universal or even a social reality: historians know very
well that it was above all a discourse and not a structuring real, the different
medieval orders being very heterogeneous and not constituting social classes. The
socio-economic factors which led to the birth of capitalism are royally ignored
by an author who is nevertheless an accomplished statistician, so that our mode
of production is curiously described as a "society of owners" .
Piketty sometimes simply fails to address the central subject of his book:
ideology. Leaving aside the great justifications for poverty provided by Burke or
Malthus, he arbitrarily focuses on the evolution of political institutions,
resulting in a very poor understanding of bourgeois ideology. Likewise, the
social reforms of the interwar period were approached with disconcerting
idealism. The development of the workers' movement, favored by the concentration
of the proletariat in factories where productivity is the watchword, is reduced
to a simple "context" . We cannot therefore understand the development of the
fiscal and social state.
Our own historical sequence suffers from the same flaws in analysis: the fall in
the rate of profit observed since the 1970s, which led the capitalists to
increase the rate of exploitation of the proletariat in order to maintain its
returns, is still left on the bench. touch. As a result, the development of the
world market and credit as well as the stagnation of investment remain
unintelligible. From this misreading of the long history of capitalism, Piketty
draws a series of candid propositions. Restricting itself to a "parametric reform
of capitalism " , its "participatory socialism" deludes himself on the merits of
German-style co-management and would at best lead to a restricted capitalism
where employees would be forced to self-exploit.
a misreading of the history of capitalism
The conditions for the realization of certain ambitious proposals, notably on
European unification, are not made explicit, again reflecting an intellectualist
belief in the omnipotence of ideas. In short, Piketty is one of the many
intellectuals who strive weakly to save capitalism from itself. Although they
sometimes make Piketty's quotes say a little more than they really seem to say,
Bihr and Husson demonstrate it with cutting edge and rigor, in a very Marxian
controversy.
Mathis (UCL Grand Paris Sud)
Alain Bihr and Michel Husson, Thomas Piketty. An illusory critique of capital ,
Syllepse and Page 2, 196 pages, 10 euros.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Bihr-Husson-Thomas-Piketty-Une-critique-illusoire-du-capital
------------------------------
Message: 3
As we approach 9 months since the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in the UK and
a little over 7 months since the government started to take it seriously, most of
Europe is gripped by the predicted resurgence of cases, hospital admissions and
fatalities. The Conservative government acted late and dropped restrictions
quickly in favour of getting ‘back to work', now that has been reversed it is
predominately working class people who are paying the price. With an economy
greatly built on services and consumerism, a lot of which has stalled, those of
us with jobs in hospitality, entertainment or shops who cannot work from home
have relied on the Furlough Scheme, Self-Employment Support Scheme grants and
other measures to keep money coming in. Of thecompanies that are still running,
many are doing so with some workers on furlough, or have already made lay-offs.
As a result, some workers are on lower pay, unemployment is rising overall and
many households are feeling the pinch.
The neoliberal ideology that is rife within the Conservatives has been challenged
by capitalism's need for a propped-up real economy, while the Party cannot bring
itself to give more to local councils many of which are Opposition controlled,
especially in the cities. This has been disastrous for the tackling of the
pandemic; with a highly inefficient track-and-trace in the hands of a centralised
system run by a mishmash of private companies and most recently we have witnessed
the Government's brutal approach to ‘negotiating' council financial support
within the Tier system.
Even while a laissez-faire attitude exists, the state is having to accept that
many more people are at risk of poverty, including core voters and some that the
Tories wooed in the last General Election, including those areas that had
suffered under Thatcher and then became disillusioned with Labour. The Government
has temporarily increased Universal Credit entitlement by £1000 until April 2021
and removed the minimum income floor until next month (13th November). Housing
benefit has also been changed to reflect current rents which have increased
hugely in London over the past decade. This said, UK welfare support for workers
is still low compared to many rich countries and even if all this was made
permanent it would not reverse the cuts in benefits over the last 5 years, and
the ending of temporary increases will cut incomes by 13% if and when the
measures end, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The more neoliberal end of the Tories are clearly squirming from all of the
public spending and this must be part of the reason for so much media time being
spent on the ludicrous ‘let it rip' idea for the pandemic, propagated most
recently by a right-wing libertarian-sponsored ‘Great Barrington Declaration'. If
allowed to happen for a magical goal of herd immunity in young workers, the virus
would more likely infect thousands more vulnerable people through community
transmission and leave others, including younger people, with the health effects
of Long Covid and could even lead to more dangerous strains of the virus
developing before a vaccine is found.
The next few months are full of uncertainty which is not surprising as the virus
is getting more out of control, not only in UK but across the world. In Europe
and the Mediterranean, overnight curfews of the like not experienced since WWII,
have been introduced or extended in France, Greece (including islands and Crete),
Italy, Sicily, Cyprus and most recently, Spain.
The AF has been meeting with our comrades in the International of Anarchist
Federations to analyse what anarchists can say and do about the situation. There
are good examples of mutual aid which have been talked about elsewhere, including
in the UK with examples including Green Anti-capitalist Front's squatted social
centre in London, GRASS, that adapted as a mutual aid centre, and Bristol's ‘BASE
and Roses' initiative that is delivering over a hundred each of food boxes and
cooked meals to people in need in working class communities, this only
highlighting the wealth inequalities mentioned above.
It is clear that much of room to make a difference the depends on the State
you've Got as we wrote inOrganise! at the start of the pandemic. For example,
Slovenia has seen waves of public protest during the pandemic and the Federation
of Anarchist Organising has been influential in challenging the lockdown by means
of physically-distanced cycle protests earlier this year, and then getting feet
on the streets in mass demos, helping to ensure that any anti-quarantineposition
is not given over the ‘antimasker' right-wing or conspiracy-mongers. Another
important question for anarchists is one of borders, internal as well as nation
state ones. Who would have thought we'd have border controls between England and
Wales in addition to the mess Brexit is creating between the North and South in
Ireland? Similar regional border controls were evident in Italy in the early
parts of the pandemic. Countering the threat of internal borders is in addition
to the need for solidarity with migrants from further afield. Keeping ‘No
Borders' thinking alive is important to counter the rhetoric of the right which
tries to embed the idea of migrants spreading diseases and appeals to a
patriotism whereassumptions are made about who is in and who is not welcome
amongst its intended audience.
In Latin America our IFA comrades are reporting on continued state-sanctioned
grabs of indigenous people's land, which are seen as a way out of poverty by
farmers in rural areas, especially in Brazil but also due to mining operations in
Argentina. There are some gains too though. In Mexico, Zapatista communities have
been tackling Covid with Autonomous Clinics. Anarchists in self-organised
community groups are distributing masks, food and medication in São Paulo favela
areas. Elsewhere in Argentina agricultural and workers' co-operatives which
formed during class struggle in the 2000s are finding a place in supporting local
communities during the pandemic.
We know the rich have hunkered down with their assets and cash waiting for the
new ‘opportunities' afforded by the crisis, while some such as the online giants
are doing well out of the pandemic. While we look forward to what lies ahead with
a lot of uncertainty, we do so with the knowledge that any new normal should not
be capitalist business as usual.
http://afed.org.uk/another-fine-mess/
------------------------------
Message: 4
Last year, the commentators of the Quebecor group had a lot of controversy around
Greta Thunberg (see the text: Climate emergency: who's afraid of Greta Thunberg
). This year, pandemic obliges, all questions related to the climate emergency
have been relayed behind the scenes. But for some time, between two news dealing
with the COVID-19 pandemic, we can hear climate skeptics rallying to the Legault
government's green plan. Also, there is the work of the Office of Public Hearings
on the Environment (BAPE) on the Saguenay natural gas liquefaction and export
complex project. ---- Divide (the project) for better reign ---- The promoters
pride themselves on having a carbon neutral project[1]. However, in their
communications resumed in unison by the forces to maintain the status quo, they
are careful not to tell us that the marine natural gas export project will be
exploited by hydraulic fracturing in Alberta. In an article published in Le
Devoir, Alexandre Shields states that, taken as a whole (operation, treatment and
transport), the Énergie Saguenay project: " could increase Canadian GHG emissions
by approximately 8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. per year. This is equivalent
to the annual average emissions of 3.46 million cars or 2.4 million light trucks
(sports utility vehicles). ".
We are far from the cut to the lips! The only sustainable things in this project
are the maintenance and use of fossil fuels. Note that we are not even talking
here about the mortal danger that this project poses to the beluga population[2],
the devastation of the habitat of several endangered species that are found on
the route of the gas pipeline or the fact that the project is on the unceded
territory of Nitassinan (see:[Nitassinan]Railway blockage against the GNL Quebec
project) .
With all due respect to the polemicist and eventual leader of the Conservative
Party of Quebec (PCQ), Éric Duhaime, the CAQ is far from being "manonmassé".
Indeed, the first disaster Legault and the members of his business cabinet did
not wait for the end of the work of the BAPE to multiply the declarations of
support in favor of the realization of the LNG Quebec project.
Marie-Ève Proulx, Minister Delegate of the Government and also a member of the
Ministerial Committee for the Economy and the Environment, said about the
project: " We must see what this can bring for Quebec and everyone is of the
opinion that it can bring enormous benefits to the economy of the regions. I am
of the opinion that we must succeed in diversifying our economy, but this project
is a promising project for the future of Quebec ".
But what future for Quebec and the region are we talking about?
It would be good to remember that the environmental impacts linked to the
increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) go far beyond the borders of the "kingdom",
that from 3 degrees, the effects of global warming could lead to, of by 2050, the
collapse of Amazonian forest ecosystems, the partial or total melting of arctic
permafrost (the world's main methane reserve) as well as the melting of all the
Himalayan glaciers. If our regional and national elites will perhaps have the
means to protect themselves for a time from climate change, this is not the case
for the vast majority of people (racialized people, the poor, women). So what
good is it having a handful of new jobs, some economic spinoffs and good returns
for shareholders if ultimately what is threatened,After capitalism: " it is the
very capacity of ecosystems to self-regenerate at a rate fast enough so that the
earth can continue to be habitable for human beings.»(Madelin, p.12).
In this context, the only right thing to do is to repackage this project first
and leave the fossil fuel reserves in the ground. But let's face it, our way of
life in the West is neither sustainable nor universal (Madelin, p.60). It is the
dynamic of economic growth that destroys the environment and even a hypothetical
energy transition is far from sufficient. Because as Madelin reminds us: " The
sun will not shine for everyone, the wind will not blow for everyone [...]
without energy decrease, no energy transition can be sustainable, and even less
fair [...] " (Madelin, p.57).
We, the dispossessed ...
" Today, the satisfaction of the least of our basic needs - water, electricity,
habitat, food, heating - depends on complex and fragile political, industrial and
economic systems (the crises and the present pandemic remind us) over which we
have no control "(Madelin, p.19) mentions Pierre Madelin. Every aspect of our
lives tends to be subordinate to market logic. To meet the challenge linked to
climate issues, we must not only point the culprit, that is to say the capitalist
modes of production and distribution, but fight against this dispossession and
strengthen the capacity of individuals and communities to ensure them. - even
their material and symbolic reproductions... in short, autonomy.
The continuation in a future text.
[1]The project on Quebec soil should be around 500,000 tonnes each year.
[2]The project will involve at least 320 passages each year for vessels 300
meters in length and 50 meters in width. This component raises questions about
the protection of marine mammals in the St. Lawrence, including the beluga and
other endangered species.
The duty. "Quebec rejects the idea of a moratorium on the increase in maritime
traffic on the Saguenay"
The duty. "The Legault government pleads in favor of GNL Quebec"
The duty. "LNG Quebec: impossible to specify the climate assessment of the project"
by Collectif Emma Goldman
http://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.com/2020/11/gnl-energie-saguenay-diviser-le-projet.html
------------------------------
Message: 5
Jocelyne Porcher (Inrae): "Peasant breeding in coexistence with cellular
agriculture is illusory" ---- What role for animals in human societies ? It is a
central point of ecological reflection, where two major ethical questions
converge: that of animal suffering and exploitation on the one hand, and on the
other, that of animal husbandry as it is. is determined by capitalism, where
peasants are just as much exploited subjects by a system. Is it a question of
managing the breeding as it exists, of reducing its ecological footprint, animal
and human suffering ? On the contrary, is it a question of completely breaking
away from this model ? And how ? Alternative Libertaire invites this debate in
its columns. ---- Jocelyne Porcher is a researcher and sociologist at the
National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE).
She works on human-animal relationships and on the issue of industrial animal
production. In her latest work, Cause Animale, Cause du Capital , she highlights
the existence of links between activist organizations for the "animal cause", a
certain branch of agro-industry and agricultural start-ups. expanding cell phone.
Read also: "Combining animal cause and anticapitalism" , Alternative libertaire,
November 2020.
Libertarian alternative : First of all, how did you come up with the idea of
working on this subject?
Jocelyne Porcher, Animal cause, cause of capital,
Le Bord de l'eau, 2019, 120 pages, 12 euros.
Jocelyne Porcher: In fact, the idea runs through my head over the long period of
my research on the process of industrialization of breeding. In the XIX th
century, animal science theorizes the animal as "animal machine" and assigned to
work with the target animals to produce animal matter and profits. In this logic,
I already underlined the possibility of a production of animal matter without
animals, with cell culture, in Death is not our profession[1], which I published
in 2003. But it is from of the first press articles published on "meat in vitro",
that in 2010 I really tackled the subject by publishing a first paper[2].
Who are the groups working today for the development of cellular agriculture and
what are their ambitions?
Jocelyne Porcher: Cellular agriculture (cell-ag), which designates the production
of substitutes for animal products (meat, milk, eggs, cheese, etc.) resulting
from biotechnology, is presented as a modern form of agriculture. Unlike "factory
farming", which serves as a foil, it claims to be good for animals, humans, the
planet. It is because it presents itself as an innovative form of agriculture
that the term "cultured meat" is preferred to that of "in vitro meat" or even
clean meat .
The groups interested in this production are both the new entrants - biotechs,
start-ups supported by billionaires and by investment funds - but also meat and
milk manufacturers who, while waiting to see how the tide will actually turn,
also invest in substitutes. Their common ambition is profit. There is no other,
despite the big claims of cell farming investors in favor of animals. If the fate
of animals interested them, they could have acted for fifty years. Cellular
farming risks increasing our food subjugation to multinationals to a point that
some seem to fail to appreciate.
Can we say that there is a collusion of interest between the anti-species
movement and these industrialists?
"Unlike 'factory farming', which serves as a foil, 'cell-ag' claims to be good
for animals, humans, the planet."
Jocelyne Porcher: The collusion of interests between the promoters of cell-ag and
the theorists and associations claiming the animal cause is obvious. This is
easily understood because they have the same objective: to set up farming without
livestock. Because "breeding", always taken by its opponents as a generic term
without distinction between the fact of raising animals and the production of
animal matter, is supposed to destroy animals, "the planet" and human health. .
Both have the same arguments and rely on the same theoretical sources.
In France, two examples illustrate this collusion. First of all, the financing of
L214 by an American foundation, the Open Philanthropy Project (1.1 million
euros). This sum was allocated to support campaigns to "unveil" poultry sectors
in France. The information leaked onto the internet in 2017 and L214 was forced
to justify itself and be accountable.
As I show in Cause Animale, Cause du Capital , the role of associations is to
criticize "factory farming" so that, by contrast, cell-ag ultimately appears
preferable to consumers. This is also happening with the "referendum for animals"
concocted by three French billionaires. This referendum illustrates in an
uninhibited way the links between investment funds and animal rights associations.
It is apparently a question of demolishing the "factory farm". But to replace it
with what? No word on this subject in the referendum proposal, except for an
"open air" obligation in 2040! Moreover, the term "open air" does not refer to
necessarily non-industrial farming systems, and by 2040, there is a good chance
that store shelves have already been invaded by cell-ag products.
What is the social project, at least from a nutritional point of view, that these
groups propose?
Jocelyne Porcher: This referendum allows us to understand precisely the
underlying societal project. It's about supposedly changing everything so that
nothing changes and business stays business. Why does the referendum proposed by
billionaires and animal rights associations not include an article promoting
peasant breeding ? For example, industrial systems would be demolished and
replaced by thousands of peasant farms.
None of this in their project. It is indeed, implicitly, to replace industrial
systems by cell-ag. Their project therefore continues the current pattern. To put
it quickly: industrial biotech food for some and quality products for others.
Except that to imagine being able to sustainably preserve a peasant breeding in
coexistence with cell-ag is perfectly illusory. Multinationals don't want a piece
of the pie, they want the whole pie.
In your opinion, what would be the alternatives to promote, as anti-capitalist
activists, so as not to get stuck between the agro-industry on one side and the
food start-ups on the other? vitro?
Jocelyne Porcher: Really support peasant breeding. It represents the only
non-capitalist alternative to industrial systems.
Interview by Vincent (UCL Var), Agriculture working group
Validate
[1] Jocelyn porcher, Death is not our job , L'Aube, 2003.
[2] "Meat in vitro, the final stage ? », The Political and Parliamentary Review n
° 1057, 2010.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Jocelyne-Porcher-Inrae-Un-elevage-paysan-en-coexistence-avec-l-agriculture
------------------------------
Message: 6
State and capitalist totalitarianism is determined to widen the class gap between
capital and labor, for the economic reconstruction and profitability of the
capitalists. The rulers are cynically trying to exploit the numbness of the poor
masses who see that beyond their work (those who have jobs, as there have been
countless redundancies and terminations of contracts, with the result that
unemployment rates have skyrocketed even higher) their health is underestimated
and eventually their very lives are devalued. The state aid concerns only the big
capital, the shipowners, the tourism industry and the big clinicians who are
adventurously hoarding from the rented rents of their private clinics, which the
government boldly calls orders. Money goes to the regime media to cover up and
beautify the criminal and irresponsible policy of the government. So, while the
people are being exterminated, huge sums are being spent from the state budget,
from the public funds, that is, for new recruitments of military and police, for
military equipment. This is money at the expense of the popular needs intended
for the state suppression of social and class resistance and the preparation for
the impending imperialist conflicts that concern exclusively the interests of the
multinationals and monopoly groups. from public funds, that is, for new
recruitments of military and police, for military equipment. This is money at the
expense of the popular needs intended for the state suppression of social and
class resistance and the preparation for the impending imperialist conflicts that
concern exclusively the interests of the multinationals and monopoly groups. from
public funds, that is, for new recruitments of military and police, for military
equipment. This is money at the expense of the popular needs intended for the
state suppression of social and class resistance and the preparation for the
impending imperialist conflicts that concern exclusively the interests of
multinational and monopoly groups.
The intensification of the class struggle is a fact. In the midst of a pandemic,
with a universal lockdown, a crackdown on demonstrations and strikes, bourgeois
politicians, the New Democracy government, launched a new round of attacks on
workers, the poor and the destitute. With the new bankruptcy code, the crows of
the banks want to strike a deadly blow to the first home and to the universal and
inalienable social right to housing, which is a basic condition for the dignified
living of every human being.
The next blow dealt by the government is aimed at labor rights, further
devaluation of the labor force, the undermining and curtailment of class trade
union action and strikes. The new labor bill Vroutsi submitted to the Parliament
for a vote by the government institutionalizes the complete deregulation of labor
relations and creates the conditions required by the capital for its profitable
productive reconstruction. The new anti-labor bill is going to intensify in even
more unbearable terms the middle of the exploitation of our paid work, regulating
the 10-hour work without additional pay. Unpaid overtime can be "redeemed" in the
form of leave within 6 months, while the limit of legal annual overtime will be
increased to 120. New business sectors will be added to operate on Sundays, thus
circumventing the Sunday holiday for which the labor movement fought hard. In
addition, the new bill provides for the removal of responsibilities from the
Labor Inspectorate, which will be transferred from now on to the Mediation and
Arbitration Organization, with the result that the resolution of labor-employer
disputes becomes more time-consuming from a legal point of view and from material
point of view more favorable to the bosses. Finally, the government, at the
request of the capitalists, aspires to immobilize the class trade union activity
of the workers, by launching the electronic file of the workers' trade union
through their inventory in the already legislated General Register. Therefore,
The right of collective bargaining will be recognized only in the organizations
that will be registered in the legalized digital registers. The trade unions will
be forced, based on the bill submitted for voting, to decide through electronic
voting with what this means for the obstruction of their militant direction, the
disengagement of the workers and their further bureaucratization. The decision to
strike, therefore, will only be taken through electronic voting. As if that were
not enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole
(Public, Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is
required, which will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike.
based on the bill submitted for voting, to decide through electronic voting with
what this implies for the obstruction of their competitive direction, the
disengagement of the employees and their further bureaucratization. The decision
to strike, therefore, will only be taken through electronic voting. As if that
were not enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole
(Public, Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is
required, which will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike.
based on the bill submitted for voting, to decide through electronic voting with
what this implies for the obstruction of their competitive direction, the
disengagement of the employees and their further bureaucratization. The decision
to strike, therefore, will only be taken through electronic voting. As if that
were not enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole
(Public, Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is
required, which will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike.
therefore, it will only be taken by electronic voting. As if that were not
enough, in sectors that are defined as critical for society as a whole (Public,
Local Government, NPDD) the work of at least 40% of employees is required, which
will function as "basic operating staff", in case of strike. therefore, it will
only be taken by electronic voting. As if that were not enough, in sectors that
are defined as critical for society as a whole (Public, Local Government, NPDD)
the work of at least 40% of employees is required, which will function as "basic
operating staff", in case of strike.
The report of the technocrat economist Pissaridis foreshadows the next attacks
planned by the government against the working class, as the Prime Minister
publicly stated that the proposals of the report are the necessary steps to
overcome the obstacles that hinder investments and the profitability of business
groups. The report, entitled "Development Plan for the Greek Economy", codifies
the demands of the bourgeoisie and the government's forthcoming reform goals.
With the aim of promoting entrepreneurship in the context of international
economic competition, this report provides for the reduction of insurance
contributions and the reduction of employees' gross salaries (ie reduction of
their salary, of which insurance contributions are a part). The state and
employers are gradually withdrawing from employee insurance, which is now
becoming an individual matter. From 1/1/2021 the insurance contributions will be
reduced by 3 percentage points, while they had already decreased by 0.9
percentage points in June 2019. It is also planned to reduce OAED revenues by 1.2
billion euros in 2021. OAED is clearly transformed from an organization for the
support and protection of the unemployed into an organization for financing
business groups and finding cheap labor. There are currently 1,100,000 registered
unemployed. Only 16% of them receive a meager allowance of 200-499 euros. This
means that at least 875,000 unemployed people are completely unprotected. The new
state budget, in fact, provides for reductions in unemployment benefits from
2,148,000,000 to 1,328,000. 000 euros. At the same time, however, the fund of
active employment programs that strengthen business groups is increasing. From
453,000,000 it increases to 500,000,000 euros for 2021. This year's state budget
also provides for a reduction of 600,000,000 for health needs! 2,067,000,000
euros will be cut from pensions. In the midst of this rift of anti-popular and
anti-labor policies, the government is throwing a few crumbs at the poor, in
order to extract their consent to the state subsidy, rescue and tax exemption of
large capital. Thus, the contributions of employees who receive a basic salary
will be reduced by 8 euros per month, those who receive 800 euros per month will
have a monthly reduction of 13 euros in their contributions, while those who
receive 1000 euros per month will give 16 euros less per month for insurance
contributions. All this is happening at a time when 12% of employees are paid 200
euros per month!
The Pissaridis report claims that it was written with the aim of stimulating the
labor market and creating an attractive environment for hiring employees. The
plan of the Pissaridis committee also provides for the modification of the
payment of the unemployment benefit, so that it is granted for 6 months and not
for one year. In the next 6 months, a certain amount of money will be paid to
those who participate in training programs, after first being positively
evaluated by a KEK. Other bonuses should be cut and merged. At the same time, the
imposition of a capitalization system for supplementary pensions, the adjustment
of the system for calculating the main pensions and the cessation of early
retirements are being used. The amount of the minimum wage will be determined by
a board of experts, redundancies will be released under the guise of public
health and safety, maternity leave will be limited to the public sector and their
costs will no longer be borne by companies but only the state. In addition, this
report pushes towards the inclusion of higher education in the needs of the
market and the elaboration of university research on behalf of companies, as well
as the acceleration of public works with the participation of the private sector.
The coordinates and goals of the capitalist restructuring that the government is
trying to implement are clear both from the labor bill submitted to the
Parliament for a vote and from the report of the Pissaridis committee, which is
fully adopted by the government, as it reflects its strategic core. its policy.
They are a barbaric attack on the world of work, the poor, the unemployed and
retirees and on their class interests. The government does not care about the
health, livelihood and survival of the people. It acts exclusively on the basis
of serving capitalist interests. The working class, productively active or not,
can not, however, look stunned. Facing the imposed working middle age, growing
poverty and misery, the deterioration of public health and the devaluation of
human life, we must collectively raise our class resistance. To strengthen the
classes of proletarian and popular self-defense and counterattack, by
participating in unions, workers' initiatives, student groups and neighborhood
assemblies. Guided by the community of our class interests and solidarity to
block the attacks methodized by the state and the bosses, defending the rights
and the conquests of our struggles. In this direction, therefore, we support the
strike mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and struggle are one way! Now we have to
deal with the bourgeoisie! participating in unions, labor initiatives, student
groups and neighborhood assemblies. Guided by the community of our class
interests and solidarity to block the attacks methodized by the state and the
bosses, defending the rights and the conquests of our struggles. In this
direction, therefore, we support the strike mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and
struggle are one way! Now we have to deal with the bourgeoisie! participating in
unions, labor initiatives, student groups and neighborhood assemblies. Guided by
the community of our class interests and solidarity to block the attacks
methodized by the state and the bosses, defending the rights and the conquests of
our struggles. In this direction, therefore, we support the strike mobilization
on 26/11. Resistance and struggle are one way! Now we have to deal with the
bourgeoisie! we support the strike mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and struggle
are one way! Now we have to deal with the bourgeoisie! we support the strike
mobilization on 26/11. Resistance and struggle are one way! Now we have to deal
with the bourgeoisie!
On Wednesday 25/11 we hung banners, threw T-shirts and wrote slogans in Ano
Toumpa, Triandria, Naples, in the center and in Agios Dimitrios for the
propaganda and support of the strike on 26/11.
WILL LIVE slavery - WILL DOULEFOME AS SLAVES
UNDER THE NEW anti-labor BILL
NO MISUSES OF LABOR OUR RIGHTS - NO FINANCIAL STRANGALISMOS SOCIAL BASELINE
PUBLIC, FREE AND DECENT HEALTH FOR ALL AND ALL - DIRECT epitaxy PRIVATE CLINICS -
DIRECT, MASS AND PERMANENT RECRUITMENT PERSONAL HEALTH
CRISIS of capitalism and COVID-19 tO pAY tHE mEMBER AND bOSSES
Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative (member of the Anarchist Federation)
e-mail contact:lib_thess@hotmail.com
blog: libertasalonica.wordpress.com
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com/2020/11/25/
------------------------------
Message: 7
November 25 is the International Day for Combating Violence Against Women by Men.
Every day in France, women are victims of psychological, verbal, economic,
obstetrical, gynecological, physical or sexual violence. A woman dies every 3
days murdered by her companion or her ex-companion (87 known feminicides as of
November 22). 60% of women have been victims of sexual harassment at work. 4
million people in France have been victims of incestuous rape. ---- On average,
the number of women who, during a year, are victims of rape and / or attempted
rape is estimated at 94,000. Whether it takes place at home, at work or on the
street, violence is the product of the patriarchal system. They are aggravated by
the management of the health crisis, the social crisis, the ecological crisis.
Our mobilizations in recent years, in France and around the world have succeeded
in bringing gender-based and sexual violence out of the shadows, and finally
bringing the voice of women to the fore. However, public authorities and
employers are limited to short-lived commitments. The President of the Republic
appoints a Minister of the Interior accused of rape and turns his back on his
so-called great national cause and men, in power or not, do not take up the issue
and do not clean up in their ranks.
Patriarchy also hits LGBTI people with force: homophobia and transphobia are thus
often a source of social exclusion and lead to difficult life courses, a
situation worsened by the health crisis. Lesbian, bisexual, and / or transgender
women are thus subject to both sexism and LGBTphobias. In several cities,
initiatives around TDOR, a day celebrating the memory of trans people murdered
around the world (350 known transphobic murders as of November 20), were
associated with those of November 25 to show these convergences with trans struggles.
Women can also be victims of racism. Whether they are migrants or not, with or
without papers, they are exposed to multiple forms of violence, insecurity,
during migration and in France. The neocolonial policy of the French state
worsens the situation of women in Africa, the Near and Middle East. Military
interventions kill, increase chaos! Rape as a weapon of war and human trafficking
are becoming commonplace.
But women are also on the front line in the struggles.
The hospital workers, the teachers, the housekeepers at the Ibis hotel, at the
Mac Do's, and at H&M are fighting for their working condition and against sexist
and sexual harassment at work. The devaluation of jobs with a female majority is
the breeding ground for gender and sexual violence. On all continents, in Chile,
Brazil, Algeria, Poland, women stand up to denounce injustices, gender and sexual
violence, rape, feminicides!
Today we are in the streets to recall our fundamental right to live and work free
from violence : women, now victims of violence, can be protected and the
perpetrators of violence must be punished. In all living spaces, the question of
violence must be raised. And processed. The Union Communiste Libertaire
participates in these struggles! And we will prepare a real March 8 of struggle.A
real general strike by women to say stop to abuse, violence, poverty,
inequalities. A general strike by women to tell men: enough is enough, stop
hurting us. To say to those who don't: get moving, don't let them do it anymore.
A general strike by women to feel our strength, because if we all stop,
everything stops. A general women's strike to take a day to talk to each other,
to organize themselves, to prepare for the fight after. A general strike by women
against violent men, against passive men, against complicit institutions, against
our exploitation and finally for our emancipation.
Let us prepare the strike funds for the poorest among us. Let's talk in our
clubs, our unions and our neighborhoods. Let's invent visible and powerful,
strong and wild street actions. Let's refuse to be gentle and kind and let our
anger explode and take it all away!
Tract-25-nov-UCL Download
By Sylvain Anti-patriarchy Feminist Commission Press releases UCL Luttes Sociales
Against violence against women: Confined but not gagged!
Nov 21, 2020
Women represent 39% of jobs held in the world but 54% of jobs lost as a result of
Covid-19. 4 million people in France have been victims of incest, 94,000 women
are victims of rape or attempted rape each year (ONDRP, 2017), 32% of women have
already suffered sexual harassment at work (Ifop, 2018) and all the 2 days, a
woman dies assassinated by her companion or her ex-companion[1]. Transphobic and
lesbophobic insults increased by 36% in France in 2019.
This year, let's mobilize en masse for the international day against violence
against women! Confined, but not gagged!
Libertarian Communist Union November 20, 2020
[1] see the list
By Sylvain Anti-patriarchate Feminist Commission Press releases UCL Social
struggles Health
http://unautrefutur.org/category/vie-de-lorganisation/communiques-ucl/
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Message: 8
‘Much has been written about the Moors in various sections of the Left-Wing Press
in this and other countries. They have been called the "scum of the earth,"
"black riff-raff," "mercenaries," and other such names[...]It is not the
politically backward Moors who should be blamed for being used by the forces of
reaction against the Spanish workers and peasants, but the leaders of the Popular
Front, who, in attempting to continue the policy of Spanish Imperialism, made it
possible for Franco to exploit the natives in the service of Fascism.' ----
George Padmore, ‘Why Moors Help Franco', 1938 ---- In part one of this article, I
provided a summary of Garcia Oliver's reception of Moroccan nationalists in
Barcelona and his attempts to establish an agreement that would see a rising in
Franco's rearguard in exchange for a declaration of independence for Spanish-held
Morocco. During these weeks at the end of August and the beginning of September
1936, the CNT's newspaper in Catalonia, Solidaridad Obrera, carried reassurances
of the organisation's good faith. On 28 August, the paper's back page drew
attention to the ‘reign of terror' that the fascists had implanted in Morocco,
and in an article on ‘the right of peoples to rule themselves', called ‘for the
independence of the Riff.' This was followed on 30 August by the optimistic
headline: ‘The rifenos, understanding the liberatory movement in Spain and its
true significance for the self-determination of peoples, are preparing an armed
insurrection to finish off the fascists in Morocco.' On 1 September the paper
carried a verbatim record of a speech given in Paris by Pierre Besnard in which
he urged the French working class ‘not to allow the workers of the Rif to be
forced to kill their Spanish worker brothers. It is important that you know that
the workers of the Rif are mistreated, exploited and persecuted on a daily basis
by their executioners at Franco's orders.'
Not everyone had got the message, however. In a speech broadcast on Radio Madrid
and published in Solidaridad Obrera, Federica Montseny, speaking in the name of
both the CNT's Regional Committee and the FAI's Peninsular Committee, drew
attention to the ‘lack of Spanish sentiment' on the part of the military rising:
‘if they were Spaniards, if they were patriots, they would not have unleashed
the... Moors on Spain, imposing on Spain their fascistic civilisation, not as a
Christian civilisation but a Moorish civilisation'. Montseny was part of a
tendency among some educated anarchists whose glorification of ‘science' entailed
an acceptance of racism. Her parents had once argued that doubting the existence
of superior races based on ‘the shape of the brain' was tantamount to denying
Darwinian selection. Montseny's reading of the civil war in civilisational terms
would become dominant over the course of the conflict, and the othering of
Moroccan troops fighting for the Nationalists - referred to as ‘Moors' - was
common (see Martin Baxmeyer's chapter in Reassessing the Transnational Turn:
Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies, ed. by Constance Bantman
and Bert Altena[PM Press]).
Nor should such instances of racism be written off as mere rhetorical excesses
inevitable in wartime. Recent research by Ali Al Tuma indicates that the racism
propounded in the rearguard translated into discriminatory violence at the front
when Moroccan soldiers were captured. This, in turn, was a disincentive to
Moroccans either crossing the lines or surrendering. I have found only one
instance of protest against the othering of Moroccan troops in Republican
propaganda (which is not to say that there are not more examples). In response to
recruitment posters in the Republican zone urging men in Madrid to enlist to
prevent ‘their' women from being ‘despoiled by the Moors', the anarchist women's
group Mujeres Libres put out the following appeal: ‘Comrade, brother: do not join
the struggle out of fear of the Moorish "razzias," the bane of Christian women...
you do not need the encouragement of opportunists who, to win a victory - almost
always for their party - resort to the lowest of incitements... You are
struggling for yourself; out of your deepest conviction and not because of the
ridiculous threats, of greater or lesser accuracy and terror, of humiliation to
your wife who, what is more, shares your ideal and knows how to defend it and
herself.'
By the end of 1936, when this statement was published, such principled positions
were unlikely to be echoed in the official newspapers of the CNT. Prior to the
organisation entering the central Republican government in November, with
Montseny and García Oliver taking on ministerial roles, the editorial board of
Solidaridad Obrera had been cleared out. One member of the replacement team was
Salvador Cánovas Cervantes, a dubious character who considered anarchism to be a
‘racial', indigenously Spanish movement. Another was Jacinto Toryho, who in
January 1937 introduced a speech by the veteran geographer Gonzalo de Reparaz,
which was subsequently published by the propaganda department of the CNT-FAI with
the title ‘What Spain could have done in Morocco, and what it has done.' This
curious pamphlet lamented the missed opportunity of Spanish colonialism, which,
had it been more enlightened in Morocco, might have turned the protectorate into
‘the cradle of a new Spanish empire.'
It is worth considering whether the extension of such civilisational thinking in
the anarchist movement, and particularly among some of those in positions of
influence, may have been an obstacle to a more coherent approach to Morocco
during the war. But even if we disregard such examples as regrettable anomalies,
the alternative conceptualisation of Moroccans as allies which briefly flourished
when championed by García Oliver, was also limited. For one thing, it glibly
assumed a commonality of interests and purpose among self-appointed
representatives of the Moroccan nation in the Moroccan Action Committee and the
tribespeople of the Rif who had fiercely resisted incursions into their territory
in the previous two decades. This was not the case, as the historian Maria Rosa
de Madariaga has made clear. García Oliver, remembering his meeting with the
urbane and multi-lingual Moroccan Action Committee, was disappointed that they
were not the kind of rabid and fanatical nationalists he had hoped to encounter.
He later reflected in a letter to Abel Paz that the failure of the entire episode
had less to do with the anarchists or the Republic than with the fact that ‘the
Arabs and Moroccans were still in the midst of a secular dream, from which they
would only be awakened by the Jews with the creation of the state of Israel.' We
can read this as one more facet of the exoticisation of Moroccans that had served
other sectors of the CNT as justification for paternalist colonialism and racist
propaganda, or a comforting counter-narrative designed to shift responsibility
for defeat; quite likely it was both.
The role of Morocco in the Spanish civil war is one element in the longstanding
tendency to look back at the war and pose counter-factual arguments that result
in a comforting parallel universe in which fascism lost. Collaboration with the
Republican state is another. The latter limited the autonomy of Spanish anarchism
and prevented the movement as a whole from acting in accordance with its
principles. A declaration of independence for Spanish Morocco and its
unpredictable consequences is one imagined scenario that may have resulted from
an alternative path. This is possible but closer examination of the history
provides no comforting assurances. Collaboration encouraged and made hegemonic
tendencies that were already present in the movement: the most relevant to this
article being an understanding of civilisation that carried with it nationalist
and racist baggage. The fact that the biggest and most successful anarchist
movement in history was unable to completely overcome these obstacles to
libertarian communism is perhaps unsurprising given the movement's international
isolation and the predominance of racist ‘common sense' in the period. While the
ease with which anarchists were able to draw on their own tradition to justify
nationalist positions is unsettling, the internationalism promoted in the pages
of Solidaridad Obrera in the summer of 1936 and articulated alongside an
interconnected anti-sexism and anti-racism by Mujeres Libres provide resources
that may help guard against complacency on these issues today.
Danny Evans
https://freedomnews.org.uk/carrying-the-war-into-africa-anarchism-morocco-and-the-spanish-civil-war-2/
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