Today's Topics:
1. Russia avtonom: Festival in support of anarchist prisoners
"Black Ice" [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. A.P.O. - OS: Pietro Gori, Messina, Aug. 1, 1865 -
Portoferraio, January 8, 1911 [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Greece, a-g Vogliamo tutto e per tutti: DECLARATION of
resistance and memory for the 6 years since the murder of
immigrant-worker Sahitz Lukman-Saturday 19 January,
pl. Merkouri,
12pm [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #290 - La Poste: A model
of privatization of public services (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. US, black rosefed: ABOLISHING ICE BY FUNDING IT
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Many people know that today in Russia people are imprisoned and tortured only for their
views. You can look at it and treat it differently, close your eyes and pass by, calming
your conformist principle, or look at things boldly and clearly and refuse to put up with
the existing injustice. You can show solidarity and support those who have been the victim
of this outrage. ---- Together with comrades and comrades, we invite you to the festival
in support of anarchist prisoners in Russia - "Black Ice", in order to help all together
comrades in the dungeons. You can support them with warm words: sign or draw cards, write
letters, or in rubles, buy merchandise or just donate a small amount, any help is very
important. ---- The program of the frimarket festival, poetry readings from the poets
Mayakovsky readings, and in the evening a concert with groups - Diablo in costa,
Cart-Blansh, The Reaction, Black Kassidy and Arkady Kots.
January 20, in the Sakharov Center, at the address: Moscow, ul.Zemlyanoy Val, 57, p. 6
https://avtonom.org/news/festival-v-podderzhku-zaklyuchennyh-anarhistov-chyornyy-lyod
------------------------------
Message: 2
Italian lawyer and charismatic orator, anarchist propagandist, organizer, publisher,
journalist, writer, poet and lyricist of the 19th century. ---- EARLY YEARS ---- Born in
Messina, Sicily, Francesco Gori (Francesco Gori, a former Risorgimento fighter) and Julia
Lusoni, who after a few years in 1878 settled in Livorno ). Being a particularly anxious
spirit and characterized by high intelligence and eloquence, he received classical
education, participated in his teenage age in a monarchy organization but from which he
dismissed him because of "unpalatable behavior" and then began writing in the central
newspaper of Livorno " Reform "(" La Riforma "). In 1886, at the age of 20, he enrolled in
the 'University of Pisa' ('L' Università di Pisa ').
ACCESSION TO THE SUNDAY
At the law school of the University of Pisa he came into contact with his anarchist fellow
students, joined Anarchism and the following year (1887) he was arrested for the first
time for his post for anarchist witnesses of May Day in Chicago and against the presence
of American ships in his harbor Livorno. Without being hurt, Gary continued with
libertarian publications and
(1888), as a secretary of the "Student Association", he organized with his fellow students
a philosophical memorial to Giovanni Bruno, a full-fledged martyr of the free spirit.
In 1889 he received a degree in law with his bachelor's thesis "La miseria e il delitto"
and went on to practice in law, while in November of the same year he published the
pseudonym "Rigo" ("Rigo", anagramism his first name) his first essay entitled
"Revolutionary Thoughts" ("Pensieri ribelli"). For the latter he was arrested once more
with the class of excitement of political passions, but he was acquitted in the trial that
followed, after the excellent defense given to him by his best teachers. His third arrest
took place on May 13, 1890, with 27 others students on the grounds that they had organized
the May Day demonstrations in Livorno with a view to provoking a rebellion and the
subsequent trial sentenced to one year's imprisonment.
ACTION IN MILAN
Immediately after his release, Gori left for Milan, where he found work as a lawyer at
Filippo Turati's socialist office (1857-1932), and on 4-6 January 1891 he participated in
the conference of the Swiss city of Capolago, in which approximately 80 representatives of
Italian groups were founded by the short-lived "Socialist Anarchist Revolutionary Party"
(PSAR) under the influence of Errico Malatesta.
Throughout the year, he and Turati participated in the legal defense of political
prisoners, and he had already published his competing poetry collections "La Conquista
dell' avvenire" (1890) and "Prisons and Fights" Prigioni e battaglie: versi, 1891), which
had become outraged, selling 9,000 copies each.
In 1891 he also participated with Turati at the Congress of the Italian Partido Operaio
Italiano (POI), 1882-1892 in Milan, translated the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels
and began to publish the socialist - anarchist magazine called "L 'Amico del Popolo",
1891-1892, of which almost all 27 issues were confiscated shortly after their release by
the police and costing their publisher with new arrests, trials and small-law suits, while
as early as 22 November 1891 a secret instruction by Interior Minister Luigi Pell oux
asked the local authorities to closely monitor it. As a result of this directive, Gory was
arrested several times "for prudential reasons", notably during demonstrations and labor
gatherings,
On April 4, 1892, he participated in Milan at the conference "Socialismo legalitario e
socialismo anarchico" for a reformist or anarchist Socialism, where he advocated the
second trend, which he defended and followed on August 14 in Genoa "National Congress of
Labor and Socialist Organizations ", Opposed to the proposal to set up the reformist"
Socialist Party of Italian Workers "(PSLI, 1893-1895), a precursor of the" Partito
Socialista Italiano "(PSI). Known for his anti-reformist positions, he became unwanted in
the premises of parliamentary socialists, resulting, like Amilcare Cipriani, 1844-1918, to
be expelled in August 1893 by the Zurich Socialist Congress. In response, he also
published the short-lived magazine "Social Welfare" (Lotta Sociale), which had a fate
similar to "Friends of the People", with successive seizures of his writings.
Earlier in the same year, in May 1893, he had defended as an attorney, despite the
ideological differences with him, the incivil-based anarchist Paolo Schicchi (1865 - 1950,
opposing Malatesta's views on an organized and socialist anarchist movement). The latter
had dropped a small (no dynamite) bomb at the Spanish consulate in Genoa as a vengeance
for torture by the Barcelona police and, despite Gori's efforts, he was finally sentenced
to 11 years of forced labor.
BURN IN LUGGANO
In the early months of 1894, Gory defended some of his comrades, for example. from March
22 to June 8, Luigi Galleani, 1861-1931, in Genoa, and Chieti's typographer and editor of
the newspaper "Il Pensiero" by Camillo Di Sciullo, 1853-1935, on April 6, who was acquitted.
In July 1894, however, the Italian government passed three anti-anarchist laws, with which
political rights and freedom of expression were very limited, and very soon, in the
context of their implementation, the conservative newspapers began to target the annoying
lawyer and finally ended up blaming him openly as the moral instigator of the murder in
Lyon on 24 June 1894 by Francois Sadi Carnot, 1837-1894, by Sante Geronimo Caserio,
21-year-old Italian anarchist, 1873-1884.
Chased by the Italian police as a "collaborator" of Caserio, with only "incriminating"
evidence that he had composed a song about the latter, his trial and his execution
("Ballata per Sante Caserio", "Ballad for Santé Caserio "), Gori was forced to flee to
Lugano, Switzerland, while many of his likeminders had already been arrested in Milan.
His persecution by the Italian authorities, however, did not stop even in the
Italian-speaking Lugano, where at some point even attempted to kill him by two unknowns
who shot him unsuccessfully with revolvers. Eventually, strongly pressed by the Italian
authorities, the Lugano police arrested him in January 1895 with 17 other political exiles
like him and expelled them after two weeks in Germany. In his adventure, Gori made her
singing, one of the most famous anarchist songs, the famous "Addio a Lugano", composed in
prison:
ENGLAND AND THE USA
From Germany, Gori passed to Belgium and ended up in London, where he met many exile
figures of the international anarchist movement, such as Louise Michel, 1830-1905, Pyotr
Alexeyevich Kropotkin, 1842-1921, (Sebastien Faure, 1858 - 1942), et al. and then barking
from the port of Hull as a sailor on the merchant ship "Neuland", crossed the other side
of the Atlantic, in New York, from where he began a long tour across the US. and Canada,
giving more than 400 lectures in just one year, while making publications in Patterson,
New Jersey, "La Questione Sociale".
He returned to London on July 18, 1896, to participate in the 4th International Conference
on Workers' Unions (July 27 - August 1, 1896) as one of the seven representatives of the
American but after repeated recriminations he was expelled from work, as did all other
anarchist congressmen, as they were considered "annoying" by the dominant Marxists. He
followed a long hospital stay in the "National Hospital" after his complete physical
collapse due to overexploitation, although even hospitalized he did not fail to send his
writings to the anarchist magazine "The Torch" (London), which was published in London
young Italian women sisters Roséti (Olivia and Helen Rossetti).
RETURN TO ITALY
After pressure from some socialist MPs, the Italian government finally ceased all his
persecution and allowed him to return to Italy in the autumn of 1896, although initially
he remained confined to the island of Isola d 'Elba. When in December 1896 he finally
found himself with freedom of movement in the main Italy, he returned to his old political
action centered around Milan, organizing new groups in the place of those who had
dissolved the laws of 1894 and publishing his texts in thriving anarchist newspapers of
the era, such as the Ancona "L 'Agitazione" published by the team around Errico Malatesta,
1853-1932, Emidio Nemo Recchioni, 1864-1934, and Cesare Agostinelli, 1854-1932 ). By
mid-1898, Gory had struggled to reconnect the anarchists with the workers and also
defended a number of political trials of several striking laborers and peasants, as well
as several of his like-minded, the "L 'Agitazione" publishers or the anarchist brokers
accused of the 1894 uprising in Carrara.
NEW LEATHER IN ARGENTINA
The sudden rise in cereal and bread prices in the spring of 1898 became the occasion for a
series of hectic protests organized by the Left, culminating in the March 7, 1898
demonstration in Milan, whereby commander General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris, , the army
opened fire against the crowd, killing about 300 protesters. There was a violent police
crackdown on revolutionary organizations and newspapers, and finally Gori left Italy when
he predicted early that he would be imprisoned (due to his fiery articles in the newspaper
"Agitazione" and indeed sentenced in absentia to 12 years in shells). Through Marseille he
ended up in Argentina for a few years, where he founded in Buenos Aires the scientific
legal journal "Criminalogia Moderna"
NEW RETURN IN ITALY
Taking advantage of a political amnesty, he returned to Italy in 1902 and after a few
months he founded in Rome, together with the 25-year-old then Luigi Fabbri, 1877-1935, the
theoretical anarchist magazine "Il Rensiero" was released from 1903 until 1911.
In 1905, he participated in the Bologna Trade Union Congress, which examined the union's
relationship with political organizations, in 1906 he published Socialismo legalitario e
socialismo anarchico and in 1907 he pioneered the demonstrations on the island of Elba
(where he was in 1906 for reasons health) as a result of industrial accidents.
Until his death, he remained politically active, acting organisationally, writing (leaving
behind a huge work with theatrical works - political one-sided, theoretical essays and
poetry), but also legally defending his various persecuted homosexuals. Part of his
lyrical work are some famous anarchist songs such as "Stornelli d 'esilio", "Ballata per
Sante Caserio" and "Addio a Lugano" (" Goodbye to Lugano ").
The so-called "Anarchist poet" died early on from an organic collapse due to his chronic
over-exhaustion, at the age of 45, in Portoferraio shortly before dawn on 8 January 1911,
in the hands of his sister Bice (Pietro Castiglioli). His body was transported by rail for
burial in his mother's home, Rosignano Marittimo, and at every stop were waiting for him
large crowds of homosexuals who had never been gathered for similar occasions to tell him
the last "Hail".
THEN AFTER DEATH
For a whole decade after his death, his memory was celebrated by numerous gatherings in
almost all of Tuscany, in many towns and villages of which monuments, busts and
commemorative plaques had been dedicated to him, and his name had been given in several
squares and their roads. These symbols of popular worship for the "idealist knight" (as
the people called him) later became the target of the rising fascists of Benito Mussolini,
although later the fascist regime even attempted to appropriate it, presenting it as an
ideological "precursor" . Today, in Rosenheim Maritimo there is a name of the municipal
museum ("Museo Pietro Gori"), where his personal objects, photographs, letters and his
library are displayed.
Vlasis G. Rassias, 2009
ERGOGRAPHY:
«Misery and crime», 1889
«Rebel thoughts», 1889, u? ?? ???????u? «Rigo»
«The conquest of the future», 1890
«Prisons and battles: verses», 1891
«Hymn of the first ?aggio», 1892
«Objections to Anarchy. Polemics with a monarchist - collectivist», 1893
«Our trial: the defense of Pietro Gori», 1894
«May Day. Dramatic sketch in one deed», 1896
«Ciencia y religion», 1896
«Proximus tuus. Social sketch in one deed ", 1898
" La Anarquia ante los tribunals ", 1898
" Without a homeland. Social sketch in one deed», 1899
«Las bases morales y sociologicas of Anarquismo», 1900
«Our Utopia», 1901
"Ideal. Poetic sketch - single act with prologue», 1902
«The songbook of the rebels», 1903
«Humanism and militarism», 1904
«War on war!», 1904
«Emilio Zola», 1904
«New songs», 1904
«Your order and our disorder», 1905
«Anarchists are criminals?», 1905
«Waiting for the sun!», 1905
«May Day legend», 1905
«Honest people. Scenes from bourgeois life in three acts», 1905
«Ideals and battles. Selected Poems», 1905
«In Defense of Life», 1905
«Are Anarchists Socialists?», 1906
«Songs of Exile», 1906
«Sante Caserio: Historical Notes», 1906
«Legalistic Socialism and Anarchist Socialism», 1906
«The woman and the family», 1906
«A page of history of the Anarchist Socialist Party», 1908
«Il canto dei lavoratori da mare», 1908
«In morte di Messina: ritmi e rime», 1909
«Calendimaggio: drammatiche scene. In 1910
«By the life and death of Francisco Ferrer», 1910
«Francisco Ferrer: in memory», 1910
«Prisione: versi», 1911
«Ceneri e faville: prosa», 1911
«Sociological Criminal», 1911
«Social Bozzetti», 1911
«Anarchic Sociology», 1912
«Pagoda di vagabondaggio», 1912
«Political Conferences I» , 1912
Political Conferences II, 1912 (post-mortem)
"Nuovo canzoniere rivoluzionario internazionale", 1914 (after death)
"Liberta e uguaglianza", 1945 (after death)
"La Comune", 1946
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
https://ipposd.wordpress.com/2019/01/07/
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Message: 3
for S. Lukman, P. Fissa, G. Kostopoulos / Zackie Oh, E. Topaloudis, P. Zifle, A. Petrou
---- To crush fascism and the system that gives birth to and nourishes it. ---- 6 years
since the assassination of immigrant worker Sahitz Lukman, by the fascists Dionysis
Liakopoulos and Christos Stergiopoulos on January 17, 2013 in Ano Petralona. ---- Fascism
is an integral part of the puzzles made up of rulers and "democratic bows," judges, cops,
the church. He works as the most loyal servant of capital both in parliament and on the
streets. It is a necessary tool of power against "intruders". It is the long hand of the
repression and the inter-state mechanism that every state Leviathan needs to terrorize,
control and neutralize those who question the status quo. The fascists are part of the
bourgeois regime that builds concentration camps, suppresses labor struggles, uses
paratrooping mechanisms, humiliates, tortures, imprisons, murders.
The issue of the name of the neighboring country, which was reopened to serve the
economic, military and political interests of the sovereigns and the nationalistic
upheaval, gave the fascists the opportunity to return to the public space. At the same
time, the left-wing managers of power, paved the way for nationalist excitement, trying to
put themselves as authentic patriots and principal constituents of the constitutional arc.
Six years after Lukman's murder, communist wrangling, racist delirium, and declared hatred
of anything that does not fit into patriarchal, orthodox, ethno-normanism, have led to the
depreciation of human life and have armed every fascist, racist, rapist, boss, cops.
As the wind blows for the far right in the western world and in a world landscape with
wars, economic and military interventions, and the continual exacerbation of intrusive
antagonisms, the redistribution of world control and hegemony, the dilemma remains: Or
with power or with the racing and subversive part of society. The enemy is not national,
it is class. Our struggle is against their state, capital and their fascist reserves. It
is against the exploitation and oppression of man by man, for a world of equality,
solidarity, justice and freedom. It is against what separates people, against homelands
and borders, against nationalism and intolerance.
To set up mounds against nationalism, fascism, intolerance and war, to fight for the
overthrow of state and capitalist barbarism, for the social revolution, for anarchy and
communism.
Thursday, January 17, 2019, 7pm, Concentration at the site of the murder of Sahitz Lukman
, by the fascists Dionysis Liakopoulos and Christos Stergiopoulos in the Three Hierarchs
and Burials, in Ano Petralona.
DECLARATION of resistance and memory for the 6 years since the assassination of
immigrant-worker Sahitz Lukman Saturday, January 19, Merkouri, 12pm
anarchist collectivity Vogliamo tutto e per tutti
https://vogliamotutto.espivblogs.net/2019/01/08/loykman-demo-2019/
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Message: 4
The State intends to withdraw from the capital of La Poste via a capital increase in the
public company by the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. The consequences for the public
service will be proportionate to the demands of the future majority shareholder. ---- The
opening of the capital in 2010 had already traced the future of this public service, that
of a term privatization. The various " reforms " that take place at La Poste have
already been applied in other administrations (eg staff appraisal). The step taken with
this privatization in the long term, could give ideas on methods to change the vision of
public services. ---- What is behind this project ? ---- Not easy to summarize the project
of the government, especially that the latter, the departments of the Post and the CDC are
hiding behind a slogan that might seem quite attractive to some: " the establishment of a
public financial pole . " All the more misleading as this slogan was brandished by two
trade unions at La Poste, the CGT and SOUTH PTT for a while. This was also issued in the
debates during the opening of the capital by SUD PTT.
Now, if there is a public financial pole in words, on paper it is rather non-existent. The
project is primarily a project increasing the considerable weight of the Bank in the
accounts of La Poste.
Far from sticking to a programmed upheaval of the habits of the population, it is a
strategic choice of the company and the state. To move towards a more and more
financiarized company, whose funds will be used above all to acquisitions whether it is
international or in the field of the services of the person which would constitute, in the
long term, according to the president of La Poste a fifth public postal service.
The public service will drink ...
This project will inevitably impact the public service. The management and the government
ensure the maintenance of the distribution 5 days out of 7. It even ensures that it is
this purchase by the CDC which will guarantee the durability of the distribution of the
mail. But the successive reorganizations and the implementation of a reorganization called
piloted distribution, already impact, this public service since the directions can keep in
the " fridge " of the mail when they consider that the distribution is not profitable in
view of the quantity to distribute ...
On the financial side, even if the public service has been moving away for a long time,
the management will increase its pressure to serve only profitable clients.
... and the staff too
Follow the Franchise Postale , blog of LA activists working in the postal sector
In this configuration, the postal staff will be hit hard by the reorganizations and
productivity demands of the future majority shareholder. Even if it is not new, they will
increase inevitably. For example, at La Banque Postale, while the profitability (operating
ratio) will be at the same level as the other banks, the director of financial services
stated at a Board of Directors that postal workers La Banque Postale will have to continue
making efforts.
The management's policy has so far been to handle the carrot by making waves of promotion.
But this policy is starting to dry up. The carrot begins to get smaller and on the other
side the stick has come out by an authoritarianism more and more urgent in the services.
Faced with this, trade unions applaud with both hands.
While during the project of opening of the capital, a rather important arc of circle had
been found to fight the project of the direction and the government, there it was strongly
reduced ... FO, the CFDT that it is by their representative · The union or elected members
of the board of directors are behind the management to lead this project, such as CFTC,
GSC and UNSA. The elected representatives SUD and CGT voted against the Board of Directors
while the other unions voted for. These union positions do not bode well to fight the
project in the company and perhaps there remains only an outside mobilization to fight the
fight of a public postal service defined by the population and the postman. e · s in the
service of the population. SOUTH PTT started this battle by occupying the CDC on November
22nd.
Antero (postman at AL)
You can also find this article on the Franchise Postale , the blog of LA activists working
in the postal sector.
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?La-Poste-Un-modele-de-privatisation-des-services-publics
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Message: 5
In spite of promises to "Abolish ICE," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other newly elected
progressive Democrats voted to fund it on their very first day in office. Some may find
the arguments presented in this commentary about AOC surprising but this fits well within
the statements she made in a recent 60 Minutes interview that "She'd rather become an
influential insider than stay an outside agitator." For those looking to investigate
deeper into critiques of left electoralism we recommend our 13 article reader "Socialist
Faces in High Places: Elections & the Left." ---- By Scott Jay ---- Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez made quite a stir in her surprise victory in New York's 14th Congressional
district last year. Most notable was her radical-sounding declaration that she wanted to
"Abolish ICE," the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency responsible for rounding up
and deporting undocumented immigrants.
Back in July, I wrote somewhat skeptically about this slogan emanating from Ocasio-Cortez,
and taken up by many other Democrats. Now, we can begin to judge exactly what the slogan
would mean in practice.
It turns out, she along with the entire Democratic Party caucus in the House of
Representatives voted to fund ICE on their very first day in office.
This was not a catch-all bill to reopen the federal government, which has been shut down
for weeks while Trump refuses to sign a budget until he gets funding for a border wall.
That was a different vote. No, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scheduled an entirely separate
vote solely on funding the Department of Homeland Security. This is the department which
oversees ICE as well as US Customs and Border Protections. And it passed with support of
every Democratic member of Congress, including democratic socialists Ocasio-Cortez and
Rashida Talib, as well as a number of other self-proclaimed ICE "abolitionists."
And yes, there have been other advocates of "abolitioning ICE" in the Democratic Party
over the last few months. For a few months it seemed like a growing waive in the party as
even mainstream Democrats and likely Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten
Gillibrand took up the slogan.
But a funny thing happened. The Democrats - and I know this is going to come as a shock to
many - chickened out. A bill was even presented in Congress but the
then-Republican-dominated House actually scheduled a vote on their bill, at which time our
would-be abolitionists announced that they would vote against their own bill.
Vanishing From the Radar
Unfortunately, we will not get much of an analysis of this turn of events from Jacobin or
The Nation, who are too busy enthusing over this false promise in their unending quest to
elect their fellow Democrats. Instead, sadly, we are once again left to reading the
capitalist press to understand what is actually going on.
NBC News noted just before the election in November, "With just days to go before the
midterm elections, the ‘Abolish ICE' issue has all but vanished from the radar." It turned
out that what they really wanted to do was to point the finger at Trump - and thereby win
seats in the next election - rather than fundamentally or even superficially transform the
US immigration system. They also found that pointing the finger at ICE was akin to
attacking law enforcement because really, what are ICE agents but cops who enforce laws
against immigrants? And nobody (in Democratic Party politics) wants to attack cops.
So the slogan was dropped and on day one of the most diverse Congress in US history, the
Democrats voted to fund ICE and border patrol and the rest of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS). And if anybody wants to point out how ICE and DHS are not the same thing,
and that DHS is more than just ICE, they are more than welcome to explain how DHS as a
whole has contributed so much to humanity while the rest of us wait patiently.
It is worth noting what effective maneuvering this was by Nancy Pelosi, who out-maneuvered
her colleagues to both her right and her left. Specifically setting aside vote for funding
DHS-but without any funding for a border wall-forced the Republicans to vote no on DHS
funding, as most of them did. It also bolstered her party's credentials as being the
better managers of national security, especially with her caucus entirely voting in
support of the measure. And who would want to vote no in this situation? You would have to
be really radical to want to do that. Better to be a team player and give the immigration
and drug war machine its rightful funding.
Screen shot of the Ocasio-Cortez's vote for the DHS funding appropriation.
Sources: HJ Res 1, recorded vote, DHS Budget
Not Burning Down the House
But was this simply an inopportune moment to raise abolishing ICE? Hardly. This was a
perfect moment for radicals (if they really want to be radicals) to throw a monkey wrench
into the entire operation and expose the policies of Pelosi and the rest of Democratic
Party. If that is what they really wanted to do. But Ocasio-Cortez already announced that
this is not what she wanted to do, as she told Vanity Fair: "There are certain issues
where I'm going to make some Democrats mad if they're trying to deliver paydays for Wall
Street donors. But that doesn't mean I'm going to burn the house down over it." In other
words, the goal is putting pressure on the Democrats while supporting their election
campaigns.
Some may have been inspired, or rather fooled, by Ocasio-Cortez's visit to a sit-in at
Pelosi's office demanding swift action on climate change. But even this was hardly the
radical swipe at the Democratic Party leadership that it seemed. "Should Leader Pelosi
become the next speaker of the House," Ocasio-Cortez said to the assembled protesters, "we
need to tell her that we've got her back in showing and pursuing the most progressive
energy agenda that this country has ever seen." A few days later, Ocasio-Cortez announced
that she would endorse Pelosi as the next Speaker of the House. This was not a protest
against Pelosi, rather it was merely a friendly nudge.
There has rarely been such a gap between style and substance, which is not to denigrate
the talents of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She can be a great communicator for basic
socialist ideas when she wants to be, but far too disappointing a conciliator, far too
often instead. And while it is nice to hear her talk about a 70% top tax rate on the rich,
and it would be even better to see such funds go toward social welfare programs, we often
need to remind ourselves that revolts do not happen because people are convinced that a
better tax policy is possible. Revolts occur when ordinary people can no longer tolerate
living as they have been, when there is no alternative or hope in the powers that be, when
there is no faith in the two parties or in social reformers with big promises that they
fail to keep.
That is something still worth hoping for.
Scott Jay is an independent socialist living in Oakland and was previously active with
Occupy Oakland. This article was originally published at libcom.org and has been edited
for length and clarity.
http://blackrosefed.org/aoc-abolish-ice-vote/
------------------------------
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