#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #US #USA #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) UK, ORG: Roe Vs Wade: Handmaid's Tale 1 - Liberalism: 0 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The US Supreme Court's onslaught against women in overturning Roe v Wade is not

just an impending death knell of American liberalism, but a wake-up call to the
myth of 'Rights'. The next targets in the US are avowedly proclaimed as
fertility, contraception, gender identity, and civil rights across the gender and
sexuality spectrum. Speech and labour will be targeted after that, as it always
has been, then ethnicity. The story is recounted in our recent past, in living
memory. ---- Liberals and the left have led us into this cul-de-sac for over a
century. Participation not resistance, acceptance not rebellion, reform not
revolution. It has generally only found success in the metropolitan centres of
global power, those that can afford liberal magnanimity whilst remaining free to
divide and plunder the rest of the world.

Rights are generally granted during a time of working-class potency and
assertiveness or pressure on the control throttle of the state, which then lauds
its capacity for reform and progress. Then follows toleration during a moment of
apparent social peace. In a time of crisis, capitalism's natural state,
economically, socially and politically, the tolerated are scapegoated and
sacrificed to first divert, then appease the frightened mob. Populism.

This isn't new. We can see it in the LGBT history from the Russian revolution to
Stalin, from the Weimar Republic to Hitler. The path to fascism is filled with
protestations of exaggeration. How it happens only becomes apparent in retrospect
as reflected on, post WW2, by German Pastor Niemöller, an early sympathiser and
later opposer of Nazism:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a
socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out- because I was
not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me."

Too dramatic? Who foresaw Trump, the storming of the Capitol building, the
ostentatious rollback of queer rights in the eastern flank of the European Union?
Let alone post Cold War Russia invading Ukraine! The reversal of Roe versus Wade
50 years after its inception (black voting rights have been rolling back and
forth for 60 years) is part of the same drama. Capitalist reaction is on the script.

Should we defend 'rights' when we hold the concept in such contempt? Of course we
bloody should, and do! We defend every inch, every foot, every yard of gain! Like
every minute off the working hour and every penny on an hours' pay! But we do not
pretend that this eases capitalism's relentless war against us to solve its
endless crises! That's why anarchist communists don't campaign for reform, we
share our struggles on every level in solidarity with those struggling around us
towards the revolutionary overthrow of the dictatorship of capitalism and its
state in all its forms.

This attack is clearly not being taken lying down. California Governor Newsom's
warning that "Next, they are coming for you!" resonates as spontaneous
demonstrations erupted across the metropolitan centres as some abortion services
started closing their doors. The left's solution is 'vote in the November ballot'
but that would just be a doubtful beginning of a lengthy process costly in
woman's lives.

This assault on the gains of generations of struggle is global, but so is the
response to it. Against the current capitalist backlash rises a tide of new class
conflicts, strikes and militancy which are spreading and inspiring resistance to
hunger, poverty and increasing repression everywhere. We must hope and encourage
the escalation and coordination of demands across sectors and communities. A
generation of fear and relative passivity is ending as new voice and confidence
grounds itself. Reform will cheat us, continuous class combativity will not.

Our birth right, as fought for through generations before us, is liberty,
community and universal access. Our history, not as anarchist communists, but as
the best people we can be, is reciprocity and solidarity in struggle. No "right"
is asked for nor expected from those who stole that birth right and no compromise
is offered in exchange for their abolition!

Humanity and the best it offers is what we demand, now, before and always. Our
"right" is liberation, our task, expropriation!

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/06/25/roe-vs-wade-handmaids-tale-1-liberalism-0
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