Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL Octobtre - Repurchase
Monsanto Bayer: Towards a monopoly on life (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. US, black rose fed: SOLIDARITY NETWORK OR SOLIDARITY
ADVICE?: ON THE CHALLENGES OF BUILDING A SOLIDARITY NETWORK
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. sosyalsavas: Budapest: “Refugees Welcome” banner from
anarchists (tr) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Greece, APO: Occupation of the offices of the Commercial
Association of Thessaloniki (gr) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. anarchist theatre fest: A discussion with Cara Hoffman
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
In September, the announcement of the merger between the two giants has created a stir,
not only because of its huge price. If the string of monopoly is obvious, it is also
worrying that the former manufacturers of Agent Orange or mustard gas will be able to
produce together. ---- The spectacular repurchase Monsanto in September, Bayer giant,
world number 2 of agrochemicals, would also become the number 1 seed. Note that the
economic war that are dedicated apparently large groups rather reflects a logical
overlapping interests: his side, Monsanto escapes an economic imbalance, who faced a
consumption crisis for farmers, due to the fall agricultural production prices. Bayer,
Monsanto merger is therefore used for both groups to maintain their rank within an
enhanced competition in the sector of the chemistry of life (agrochemicals, seeds, medicines).
Moreover, mega-companies Dow Chemical and Dupont, and Syngenta or ChemChina seeking to
merge or have done. So all this is about money, or rather the history of money who wants
to bury traditional agriculture. For those groups who assume the responsibility to feed
the world, owning 25% of the global agricultural market is a bit replace nature.
Introduce and generalize new GMOs
But that illusion - and the conquest of markets - is complete, it should probably forget
Monsanto, which crystallizes the oppositions. In addition to all these scandals on its
chemicals - even Roundup weedkiller is suspended, its marketing has been endorsed by force
by the European Commission - Monsanto is also the former uranium supplier to the US A bomb
and now is a juicy and criminal monopoly on seed markets. Especially the constant pressure
to introduce and generalize new GMOs ... So may be that the name change will finally allow
him to enter the European market with a good local banner: Bayer. If palmares of Monsanto
products is well known to the public, Bayer has remained relatively in the shadows. But
this company does is any less harmful. Bayer has seated its activity in pesticide stocks
through wars and defoliants becoming bulky in closets. The products of this madness has
indeed been dumped on plants and fields. To improve its image, the company has become a
purveyor of health "Supradyn to stimulate physical and mental alertness." Behind the
constant obsession to "improve" cultures, humans, animals, hide itself capitalist
destruction mechanisms.
Also, regardless of the size of these firms, we must not forget the substantive issues:
the death of peasant agriculture and the patenting of life. We must not forget that the
big unions are in the same light. The national farmers' representative in the committee
which rules on the conflict of interest is Beulin Xavier, patron of the FNSEA, local head
of the FDSEA, head of the group in April (biodiesel leader and semen in France), the port
boss La Rochelle ... at his accession to union power, he condemned the existence of farms
of less than 4 hectares, and seek Parliament suppression of peasant status!
And commodification of nature appropriation
Gard for Alternative Libertaire, the proposed merger between Bayer and Monsanto is a real
provocation that highlights the masquerade of rhetoric from the COP21. At blows of
propaganda, leaders of countries and companies present themselves as defenders of ecology
to better conceal it is to maintain the accumulation of wealth by the capitalists and to
silence the protests. This merger is a step closer to the commercialization and
appropriation of nature, the power monopoly, towards a totalitarian and destructive
project company in the world in the service of the wealthy. This is what dreams these
large groups, it is against this that we must fight.
AL Gard
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Rachat-de-Monsanto-par-Bayer-Vers
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Message: 2
The article originally appeared under the title "Building a solidarity network is harder
than it seems" in the September 2013 issue of the IWW newspaper, the Industrial Worker. It
is a review of the pamphlet Build Your Own Solidarity Network by two members of Seattle
Solidarity Network and discusses the authors experience in building a Solidarity Network
in Iowa City. Ryan Spourgitis is a former member of Wild Rose Collective and Black
Rose/Rosa Negra. ---- By Ryan Spourgitis ---- The Seattle Solidarity Network (SeaSol) is a
"workers' and tenants' mutual support organization that fights for specific demands using
collective direct action." SeaSol has a dedication to direct action and emphasis on
empowering workers and tenants, and they have a very high success rate. Given this, the
"SeaSol Model" seems to embody an inspiring new mode of class struggle for the
increasingly precarious-it is no wonder it has been exported all over the world and become
a popular project for many, anarchists and other anti-capitalists in particular.
The 2011 pamphlet "Build Your Own Solidarity Network," written by SeaSol members Cold B
and T Barnicle details SeaSol's strategy for taking on fights well (the pamphlet is online
here).
In November 2010 a group of us in Iowa City, Iowa, began forming a solidarity network.
Thinking strategically about what you can or cannot accomplish in a project, and the steps
taken to get there, were not things I was used to when we started our own solidarity
network. Building a solidarity network was part of an important shift in my politics. It
meant going from issue-based activism and one-off campaigns or protests to direct action
work on immediate economic demands at the point of exploitation. This work aligns with IWW
practice. The descriptions of demand-delivery and section titled "Agitate - Educate -
Organize" will be familiar to those who have been through the Organizer Training 101.
The guide has nuts-and-bolts information about group-based tasking and organization, which
many of us spend years learning the hard way. Granted, only reading about it falls short
of doing it, but the importance of these lessons should not be understated. Seemingly
small items like encouraging group members to take on key tasks, following up with them,
and running efficient, well-moderated meetings are necessary to a functioning organization
of any sort, and it is refreshing to see this plainly laid out.
My experience building a solidarity network substantially differed from what was described
by the SeaSol organizers in this pamphlet. There were difficulties we did not anticipate,
and while we did not expect to adapt the model whole cloth to our area and be immediately
successful, there were recurrent issues that hampered our ability to build fights from the
network that the pamphlet does not address. I suspect that our experiences with this
solidarity network model are not wholly unique and I hope that others will write more
about their experiences with these types of projects so that we may refine our strategies
and tactics. In Iowa City, we experienced tensions within the solidarity network model and
these experiences are probably similar to others who have not had the successes with this
model that Seattle has.
"People wanting to know how SeaSol got started often ask whether we had funding, whether
we had an office, or whether we had extensive legal knowledge. We had none of these
things, and we didn't need them."
It is a strength of the model that a solidarity network can begin with few existing
resources. One thing the pamphlet stresses is that a key strategy to success is
identifying what you can win, which is perhaps harder than it sounds and often requires a
kind of resource. Specifically, it requires at least some legal knowledge of tenants' and
workers' rights. In Iowa City, not having much familiarity with the specifics of our state
and local law, particularly housing, quickly became a problem. We realized early that we
needed to know if what people were contacting the solidarity network about could be built
into a fight, and the law was a factor in this. Through online research we found relevant
housing code and labor law to our area. We then produced a booklet that went into an
on-call book of sorts, with a notepad for people's information, and a list of area aid
agencies.
The vast majority of our calls were housing related-around 90-95 percent of them. It
became apparent that the tenants contacting us were usually not experiencing illegal
actions on the part of their landlords, such as refusal to renew leases, hiking rents with
lease renewals, giving bad referrals or threatening to call the police for minor
infractions. In our area these are legal actions, even as they are terribly exploitative
and oppressive for these tenants. As the SeaSol model is based on being winnable, this
meant not taking on these cases. The emphasis on taking on "winnable fights" in effect
translated to fighting against illegal actions and it was rare that this was blatantly the
case.
The solidarity network model seeks to embody the principle of "solidarity not charity."
The fact that we work together as fellow tenants and workers to put pressure on those
bosses and landlords screwing us over, instead of mediating through official channels, is
a powerful thing. In practice, I found this is somewhat misleading about the realities of
this work. Contrary to the principle underlying the model, we often fell into a
distinctively service-led approach. None of the organizers' workplaces or housing
situations were built into fights, and so instead of fighting where we live and work, we
ended up trying to assist others to fight where they live and work. We encouraged those
who contacted us to become involved in the network, but this was never sustained beyond a
meeting or two. One lesson here may be that when an individual meets with a network
devoted to resolving their grievance-even if this network has a combative class-struggle
approach-he or she is not unfairly expecting specialists of some kind. If the network
explains that it does not specialize in this particular grievance, that does not change
what the individual is expecting from that network.
This service role was exactly what most people who contacted us expected from us. It was
notable that when we told contacts we want to follow their lead and described the demand
delivery and escalating tactics approach, there was a sudden drop-off in interest.
Although the authors of the SeaSol pamphlet say "people who have taken the initiative to
contact us are more likely to be people who are prepared to play an active role in a
campaign," our experience was almost anything but this.
There were a handful of people we met with who had very clear, winnable-sounding fights.
In these instances, the individual either handled it themselves or went through another
channel to resolve their grievance. There were also those who contacted us and we waited
too long to respond. Sometimes, we followed up with them immediately and never heard back.
Given the immediacy of their need and seriousness of the living situation, it was
understandable that we were not always equipped to help, even in a charitable, service-led
capacity.
It should be pointed out that we were aware of these problems at the time. We worked on
improving our response time. We did some of the things suggested in the guide, such as
changing the wording on our flyers and flyering more consistently. Since we seemed to get
many people in tough situations but which we couldn't help, we changed them from saying
"Problems with your landlord?" to "Stolen deposits or unmade repairs?" This did not have
an appreciable difference in the type or volume of calls we would receive.
Being that so many of the contacts were renting units in apartment complexes, something we
discussed was the need to build collective action with committees of tenants from the
apartments-much like described in the "Inside Organizing" section at the end of the guide.
Unfortunately, we never connected with a single tenant willing or able to build such a
committee, let alone a group of them. This is not to say those tenants are not out there,
but they did not contact us.
Our area is like many places in the United States, there are no tenants' unions or
associations. There is a Housing Authority directly complicit with the police and the
major property management companies, and a handful of neighborhood associations devoted to
immediate need programming and state social workers. As a result, there is little to no
recourse for the injustices dealt to tenants. I have to wonder if such a lack of social
services and mediation, as disempowering and meager as they are, differs from other places
and led us to be expected as another service.
Additionally, our immediate region is undergoing big changes in its racial composition. As
gentrifying efforts have stepped up in major metro areas, recent years have seen an
increase in Black and Latino residents in Iowa City (67 percent and 97 percent increases
respectively between 2000-2010). There is a more complicated picture behind these
demographic shifts and their causes and effects than I can do justice to in this brief
review. Still, it is clear that for many new residents to the area that the structural
racism of local power is felt from the police, schools, city services, and, of course, in
housing.
I illustrate this local context because nearly all of the few contacts we met with were
Black women. Conversely, our solidarity network was made up of a majority male, entirely
white grouping. This is not intended to lament our group's dynamics or to advocate
retreating into inaction based on white guilt, but it would be dishonest to omit such
marked differences of race and gender between solidarity network members and our contacts.
This fact comes to mind when the authors suggest door-knocking and more heavily flyering
apartment complexes with known problem landlords. At times we did flyer specific areas,
but taking that recommendation to its fullest extent in my opinion would have amounted to
some of the worst kind of white radical paternalism. While efforts were made to include
the women we met with in our organizing, these could have been stronger. However, an
individual or two does not represent a community, and the divide of white radical
activists and a majority people of color service community remain as a fact of this
organizing experience.
The Iowa City Solidarity Network operated for a little more than a year. In that time, we
learned about our area and the reality of engaging local struggles to a depth
unappreciated before. Occupy Iowa City emerged in late 2011 and our efforts shifted to
that project. Given the frustrating and lackluster experience of the solidarity network,
it was something we decided to close in December of that year.
Reflecting on this model, I think there are aspects indicating more individualized service
work than is appreciated, as the single individual with a legally legitimate grievance
calls in for support and the solidarity network organizers act as specialists in struggle.
There is more at work here than the SeaSol model, though. There are bigger issues with the
project which span the anti-capitalist left: organizers lacking real connections to
working-class communities-not forced or imaginary ones-the lack of a recent shared history
of collectively fighting back, and the lack of a material support system for those willing
to take risks in their jobs or living situations, to name a few.
The SeaSol model may be useful in other places. IWW people considering a solidarity
network may want to find out what services already exist for tenants and workers in their
area to determine if they are prepared to handle people in crisis mode looking to them for
service and if they are equipped to mobilize a number of people for a public showing of
solidarity. Additional questions or criteria are probably needed for an IWW branch to
consider it, such as if fights will come from their own membership or outside and if the
latter how to handle people new to the IWW coming in for their workplace or housing grievance.
At this stage of class struggle, different approaches in different places are worth trying
and a solidarity network might be a useful one indeed.
http://www.blackrosefed.org/3917-2/
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Message: 3
Today, the referendum which is related to the EU refugee quota is happened in Hungary. The
referendum, which asks Hungarians to accept 1.294 refugees legally into their country, is
transformed as an anti-refugee campaign by the government of Victor Orban. Both the EU
quota and the referendum leave the future of oppressed to the decision of oppressors. We,
as the activists who are in Hungary, do not accept the borders which are defined by states
and the law. It does not matter the result of the referendum, we keep our struggle and
solidarity for no-border, no-deportation, and no-exploitation earth.
Neither the Dictatorship of Orban nor EU Democracy!
Viva for the
Earthlings!http://sosyalsavas.org/2016/10/budapeste-anarsistlerden-multeciler-hosgeldiniz-pankarti/#more-30375
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Message: 4
This morning took occupation of the Commercial Association of Thessaloniki, against the
abolition of the Sunday holiday, the Collegiality anarchists from the east and the
Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative (member of the Anarchist Federation). - The abolition
of the Sunday holiday, one of the main objectives of the bosses in the years of capitalist
crisis is but one more piece of the overall offensive of capital against the working
class. - Within the capitalist crisis, the only way for bosses is the devaluation of
labor, intensification in order to increase the "productivity" and it's "development".
---- "Productivity" and "development", two words positively charged by the dominant
ideology hiding behind them black and uninsured labor, unemployment, the blackmail of wage
slavery, the transformation of people into cogs inevitably trapped in capital flows.
Associations, labor collectives and policies and coordinating action established for that
purpose, entered from the first moment in the struggle against the abolition of the Sunday
holiday. With strikes, marches and blockades shops on Sundays tried, and often failed, to
sabotage the opening of shops and make it clear that none of the gains of workers will not
be lost without a fight. Reactions to the Sunday paper, they were and from parts of the
established order as the Church (!), SYRIZA, and the Commercial Association. For SYRIZA
the situation is more or less known. They exploited as much as possible the resistance
movement to come to power. Half years after the election of the "first government of the
left" promises to ensure Sunday holidays remained promises.
The Commercial Association reacted supposedly having driven the interests of small traders
representing, to protect them from the onslaught of big business. After a series of
regressions in recent years, ended in September 2016, to propose and enforce the opening
of stores in Thessaloniki 2 Sundays TIF. Thereby made clear and rooftop naive that despite
its internal antagonismous- chapter has a uniform strategy and this is the attack on
workers' rights.
There were those who had -or still- have the illusion that it is possible to fight
together with the regime mikroafentika parties and the interests of workers. The only ones
who have reason to join us in this struggle are the workers in trade (the now industry is
affected by the measure) to be extorted under threat of dismissal to squander their
Sundays to bring more profits to their masters . Are those workers -even though most of
them are afraid even to strike them share the same needs and the same solidarity looks
every time we make exclusions in shops that work. It is these workers who invite to
organize themselves in their struggles and to walk together in order to counterattack our
class. The counterattack against Sunday work Sunday, the wage and pension cuts,
privatizations, increased cost of living, the flexible working hours, to change the
insurance, the continuous devaluation of our workforce.
The fact that we have no illusions about "common interests" of the workers and small
entrepreneurs, although the latter argue that "knocked together" of the crisis, means that
it will not stoically observe the movements of the bosses. For this reason today,
Wednesday 10/05/2016, we capture the offices of the Commercial Association of Thessaloniki
as a direct response to the opening of shops on Sundays 2 TIF and as a warning not to
happen again in the future. No movement of the bosses will not remain unanswered. We pitch
appointment next Sunday the shops are open on November 6.
The fight against Sunday work is part of more comprehensive struggle against state and capital
We will not live like slaves
Collegiality anarchists from east
Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative (member of the Anarchist Federation)
https://libertasalonica.wordpress.com
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Message: 5
Montreal September 30th 2016 - At 7pm on October 27th 2016, the events committee of
L'Insoumise anarchist bookstore and DIRA anarchist library invites the public to a
discussion about the book So much Pretty with its author Cara Hoffman. Carole Lamoureux,
who leads many book clubs, will also participate. This free event will take place at DIRA
anarchist library at 2035 St-Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. ---- This book has been
acclaimed by American critics for its strong political connotation and its strength. The
evening will be the occasion to hear Cara Hoffman talk about her creative process as an
author and as an anarchist. Since this novel has been translated into French, the event
will be bilingual: Carole Lamoureux will read parts of the book so that we can feel the
power of its text in Moliere's language. Whispered translation will be available for both
languages.
CARA HOFFMAN was born and raised in a small town in northern New York State. She is the
author of the critically acclaimed novels So Much Pretty and Be Safe I Love You . She has
written for the New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Salon and Marie Claire;
has appeared on NPR, Canadian Broadcasting, ABC News and the BBC World Service. She is the
recipient of numerous awards and accolades including a Folio Prize nomination, and a
Sundance Institute Global Filmmaking Award. She has also been a visiting writer at
Columbia, St. John's and University of Oxford.
CAROLE LAMOUREUX, who has a masters degree in Literature, has been teaching literature at
University of Sherbrooke campus for 15 years and leads book club discussions in Montreal
and Laval. Her approach is feminist and socio-historical.
The events committee of L'Insoumise anarchist bookstore and DIRA anarchist library has
volunteers from those two organizations. Its objective is to organize events at DIRA with
the aim of animating a cultural and political anarchist scene.
For more information please contact Sandy:
festivaltheatreanarchiste@yahoo.ca
Events committee
2033 St-Laurent Bld
Montreal, QC
H2X 2T3
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