Today's Topics:
1. France, Alternative Libertaire AL #290 - Comic Strip:
Zerocalcare, "Beyond the rubble" (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. US, black rose fed - GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN: A
FAILING AMERICAN
DEMOCRACY SHOULD SOUND THE CALL FOR REVOLUTION
By Frank Ascaso
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Greece, Vogliamo tutto e per tutti: Update and photos from
strike-guarding on Sunday, January 20 at Factory Outlet in
Piraeus [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Czech, AFED: Dilemma arrested -- Belarusian ABC commentary
on the repression of anarchists [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. vrije bond: [Hamburg] Verdict in appeal procedure noG20
activist Peike! (nl) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
We had already reviewed and interviewed the Italian comic book author, Zerocalcare, on the
occasion of the release of Kobane Calling . In Beyond the Debris , Zerocalcare keeps this
style well mixed with autobiography and fiction ; private jokes on the counter-manifs of
the Genoa G8, references to pop culture and piquant self-mockery, are present in all his
work. ---- Knowing an important success that has profoundly changed his life, he recounts
here the difficulties to manage this success and the anxieties which accompany it without
denying oneself. At the wedding of an old friend, he realizes how much his band of
thirty-year-old friends remains, in turn, undermined by precariousness. Small jobs and
wages of misery, impossibility to project oneself, to found a family ...
It is a whole generation that is portrayed by the author who shows how much precariousness
instituted by the structure of capitalism affects all aspects of our lives, our friendly
and loving relationships, our desires and our trust. Beyond the rubble questions what is
at the heart of generational neurosis and disappointed hopes in the Italian context of "
economic crisis ", closure of Centri Sociali and decline of the left.
As usual, Zerocalcare punctuates its narrative of spooky allegories to image complex
feelings or events. It is a work as funny as it is moving and authentic where one can
easily identify with the characters and the situations lived. The style of drawing remains
simple, accessible, percussive and never locked in the boxes.
In short, we are still a fan and we are waiting for the volume 2 impatiently !
Ben (AL Angers) and Lucie (AL Saint-Denis)
Zerocalcare, Beyond the rubble , Editions Cambourakis, 187 pages, translation of Brune
Seban, 22 euros
http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Bande-dessinee-Zerocalcare-Au-dela-des-decombres
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Message: 2
A response to the government shut down from an anarchist and libertarian socialist
perspective. ---- It's now been more than a month of federal government shutdown.
President Trump and the Democrats of the House are in a standoff over funding the border
wall, and they are holding the federal budget hostage. Trump wants $5.7 billion from
Congress to pay for the wall, while the Democrats say they will provide a much smaller
amount for "border security." The strategy for the Democrats is to fund the government,
minus wall funding, and leverage the outrage into a 2020 victory at the polls. Meanwhile,
Senate Republican leaders in the midst of the crisis have tried to pass a bill to force
poor women not to have abortions and pretend as if the government shutdown crisis isn't
happening.
But the shutdown is happening and the impacts are harmful. In schools across the country,
children have had food taken away from them. Federal safety workers are furloughed or
working without pay; many now struggle to make rent or pay for health, food, and other
necessary costs. Unemployment claims by federal workers have skyrocketed 400%. Hurricane
rebuilding efforts in places like North Carolina are stalled. Local mass transit agencies
are going without repair and operating funds. The effects of the shutdown are beginning to
impact the economy, with banks reducing their economic forecasts for the year.
Immediate Impacts, Broader Crisis
These impacts are real, and hurting working people, but the government shutdown also
serves as a symbol of the failures of the US constitutional system. As we enter 2019, we
are heading over the cliff of potentially catastrophic climate change and the sixth great
planetary mass extinction that threatens humanity's very survival. While we likely only
have ten years to turn that picture around, politicians twaddle about a completely fake
security crisis at our border.
Indeed, the shutdown shows us that, on nearly every major issue facing humanity today, the
US political system is failing us.
"The government and politicians, even very progressive ones ... aren't going to do it for
us. We ourselves have to make the future we want to see. ... The only way we can properly
fight back is in open revolt. We need to threaten and scare the rulers that our precarity
is their precarity."
In the economy, we are experiencing a "Second Gilded Age" where the rich get
astronomically richer and the rest of us are left to suffer and struggle to survive with
poor wages, increased uncertainty, lack of jobs and careers, outrageous housing costs,
ballooning student debt, and inaccessible health care. These pressures are having
psychological and social impacts, with rising rates of suicide and drug overdose, as well
as decreases in the national birth rate and in the divorce rate as people stay together to
pool their economic resources. And these are supposed to be "good" economic years. Many
indications point to a recession just around the corner in 2019 or 2020.
For African Americans and people of color, this situation is far worse. Black unemployment
rates are twice that of white workers: their uncertainty is high even in "good" times.
Black people face higher mortality, including infant and maternal mortality, and worse
health outcomes across the board than whites do. On top of this, police murder and mass
incarceration has taken the place of racial segregation and Jim Crow, as black communities
are hounded by hostile and violent police forces.
For women, Justice Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court means that their
reproductive health and rights are under immediate threat. Women have already seen an
increase in mortality in the US- a moral crime in a rich, industrialized country- and this
includes increased rates of maternal mortality, higher even still for black women.
Meanwhile, the #MeToo movement has exposed how prevalent sexual violence and sexual
assault are for women at the highest levels of social achievement, as actors, politicians,
and executives have all assaulted women working for them in a pattern that is widespread.
And, much like black women facing police violence, trans people also face increased rates
of violence and homicide from police and intimate partners.
The Immigrant Crisis?
As a nation of immigrants, the descendants of enslaved people, native peoples, we are
failing its historically proclaimed "responsibility" to protect and provide for the
world's most vulnerable. Instead, this nation locks up children, as young as six years
old, separates them from their families, and leaves them to die in cells from medical
neglect. Immigration rates to the US are down, but the cause of many seeking refuge in
this country is its own foreign policy, where wars, coups, and support for dictators force
many to flee in search of security.
Militarily, the US government has been involved in our nation's longest running and most
costly wars, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria, where the US military has killed
countless people, destabilized the Middle East and Central Asian regions, and created the
ongoing humanitarian and refugee crises there. Meanwhile we spend billions and billions in
the furtherance of war, bloodshed, and imperialism.
Politically, our systems are failing us too. Trump was elected president despite losing
the popular vote by more than 3 million votes. Our Supreme Court is now home to men who
sexually assault women and don't care for the normal rules of appointment, denying seats
to President Obama, but giving new ones to Trump- and there will likely be more like this.
At the local level, the criminal justice system harshly penalizes young men of color for
drug crimes, but when major banks, like HSBC, launder billions of dollars of drug money,
there is no criminal prosecution. And for Trump, too, who has clearly violated campaign
finance laws, and the Clintons, who appeared to give special privileges in exchange for
foundation donations, there have been no criminal repercussions. Indeed, it is not
surprising that major watchdog agencies have downgraded their assessment of US democracy
to "flawed" two years in a row.
The Problem is the System
This crass insensitivity to the suffering caused by the US government is not an
aberration, a mistake, of the US constitutional system. It is how the US government was
designed. It was baked into our system hundreds of years ago by slave-holding framers who
were more concerned about protecting their power than about creating a truly democratic
system. The electoral college, the Senate, the Supreme Court, are all mechanisms to keep
power out of the hands of working people and in the hands of a privileged elite. And the
failures of the government shutdown makes this all the more clear to us. People are
suffering while politicians dither.
But there is more than one way to shut down a government. We, the working people, need to
organize, to agitate, to get active, and to build the healthy communities and sustainable
futures we want to see. The government and politicians, even very progressive and
comparatively benevolent ones, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, aren't
going to do it for us. We ourselves have to make the future we want to see. And we can do
it. By getting involved in our workplaces, in our communities, in our schools, and with
the people we know and care about, we can transform this system into something better. The
only way we can properly fight back is in open revolt. We need to threaten and scare the
rulers that our precarity is their precarity.
Indeed, in places all over the world, in Paris, in Sudan, in India, working people are
taking to the streets and winning change from their governments. We need to do the same.
And we don't need to stop with change; we can start to demand something new, something
that works for us, not against us. We need a new world, one organized on the principles of
libertarian socialism, a world beyond capitalism, and Trump, and shutdowns. The government
shutdown shows that the system was already failing us. It's time we create something better.
Frank Ascaso is a historian, educator and member of Black Rose Anarchist Federation based
in Seattle, Washington.
http://blackrosefed.org/government-shutdown-revolution/
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Message: 3
The fight to defend Sunday's holiday continues! Response from Factory Outlet strike, Sun
20/1 ---- On Sunday, 20/1, a Day of Pan-Hellenic trade strike, colleagues and business
colleagues, as well as trade unions, assemblies and collectives involved in the
"Coordinating Action Against the Abolition of Sunday Holidays and the Liberalized Hours",
we held a strike- at the Factory Outlet on Pireos Street in Renti. Our mobilization comes
as a follow-up to the labor concentration that we held in the same workplace on Wednesday
2/1, a day of customary holiday for decades in the commerce industry. In this particular
mobilization on 2/1, our colleagues and colleagues have massively and formally expressed
their opposition to the employability approach, which for three years steals our holiday.
The workers 'assembly also decided the workers' determination to defend the right to the
Sunday holiday. Based on this decision, we asked the sectoral / business associations to
declare and prepare the 20/1 strike on time, we went on a series of informative
interventions in workplaces (eg, Ermou, Factory Outlet etc.) informing about the strike
and preparing in our cooperative terms our strike mobilization.
Our strike began at 9 am. It is worth mentioning that from the beginning we were faced
with police forces who tried to challenge the terms of our strike by either "adultery" or
attempted physical violence against colleagues who guarded the entrances of the shop. In
both cases, the police's repressive efforts under the orders and the strong support of
Factory Outlet's Employers fell into a vacuum! Our message, as in our strike action for 5
years, was clear: in a strike day, the strikers and the workers struggling strike at work.
They decide, they act, they are responsible for the characteristics of the strike and the
struggle they are conducting. Employers and their guards are a foreign body in labor
assemblies, meetings, mobilizations! So, very soon, the police and its principals received
the message of our protection with clarity and compassion.
At 10.30, the joint workers' assembly of Factory Outlet began with colleagues and
colleagues from other workplaces as well as solidarity workers from other industries.
While the store opened at 11.00, we were informed that the employers had begun to inform
colleagues that the Factory Outlet would eventually remain closed! At the same time, he
informed that anyone who wishes may work "at the option" at the airport store! The labor
assembly continued with the following elements:
-the determination of colleagues to support the striking space security
-the defense of our self-evident rights and our refusal to move to another place of work,
rejecting the extortion of employership.
-the creation of Factory co-workers' banners set up at the main entrance " No work on
Sunday, right to the holiday. To turn the sun wants a lot of work " by signing" Workers at
Factory Outlet ".
-the need to exploit communication networks between our colleagues so that we can
constantly and constantly coordinate our daily problems
-the need to prepare for any possible employers' aggression from the ownership of the
Follie-Follie Group on the grounds of its bankruptcy scenarios.
At the same time, the strike mobilized at the same time in Public Kallithea was carried
out by the Association of Book and Paper Employees of Attiki Digital Media (SYVXPSA) and
the workers 'demonstration organized on 16/2 by workers' unions with a peak in wage growth
and Collective Work Contracts.
It is worth mentioning the attitude of employers through the director of commerce, who,
from very early in the morning to the end of the strike, chose to hide in the dark and
empty shopping center rather than come to the light of the workers and to listen to their
concerns and concerns.
Already at 12.00 and while Factory Outlet's employees had officially announced the closure
of the shop to employees and customers, the Workshop cycle appreciated the success of
strike strikes and the importance of spreading its promising message to all colleagues and
industry co-workers.
We have demonstrated in the most clear and illustrative way that our employers are afraid
and count us more than they are showing. We have shown that the struggle to defend the
Sunday holiday remains more relevant than ever, and this struggle is given to workplaces,
labor assemblies and strikes. We have proven to ourselves that when we think of groups as
solidarity prevails, then bosses are greatly agitated! We have shown that class solidarity
is the solution of our problems, in our collective struggles our hope.
We continue to defend what remains self-evident in the whole world of work: Sunday is a
holiday. We are conquered by races and we will defend it through races.
We close our response with an extensive quote from our strike announcement on the 20/1 strike.
"- We do not let our new colleagues consider Sunday work as self-evident. We collectively
learn what a holiday means and why we need it. We organize ourselves, exercise
collectively our legitimate right to strike and defend all our holidays in practice
(Sundays, Clean Monday, 26/12, 2/1, 6/1). We broaden and strengthen strike outlets in
stores! We actually block the employers' indecision!
- We think as groups, not as units. Per shop, per chain, per department store, per trade
zone, we create visible or invisible race committees. We take advantage of our contacts
with colleagues from other stores / chains / bands and we inform about our problems and
the approaches of each employer. We take advantage of our colleagues' moves to broaden the
communication and communication network between us. We actually break our fragmentation!
-We do not let any colleague / s himself / herself into the director's vengeance, the
stolen day off, the pardon, the dismissal. We do not sign shameful individual contracts
and any harmful change in our contracts. We are preparing for any possible mass layoffs,
new contracts, bankruptcy or redemption of the business we are working on. We got our job
done, we did not get it. We give a collective response to the demands of the employer!
- We are addressing our clubs to support our racing initiatives. We take the fight and the
claim in our hands. We support fellow-team racing initiatives from other stores by any
convenient means: transferring our experience by bringing together colleagues together,
and publishing employers' approaches. We are rallying in our clubs in a racing / strike
direction, making our struggle more massive, more dynamic, more insidious.
The struggle for defending hours and holidays is an integral part of the struggle for
Collective Labor Agreements based on our needs and not the crumbs and lies shared by their
bosses and ministries! We will not allow employers to hand-hand contracts with the
Ministry of Labor that will turn the current situation into regularity with the
"consensus" of the workers . For us, collective agreement means collective claim! And at
the core of our collective claim is Sunday-holiday and the defense of all our holidays,
the elimination of hours-tire and all kinds of elastic work (slaves, voucheretc), wage
increases based on our needs and many other things that have stolen or need us. We give
these struggles, we are advancing these claims.
Colleagues, no right will be given to us, no employer and no government will make us
"dust". That won, will be won with our struggles. And we believe that the only guarantee
of our interests is our collective organization and resistance to workplaces. "
THE SUNDAY SUCCESS HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL, WE WILL NOT WANT IT TO EMPLOYMENT
SOLIDARITY OR SYNDELFICIUM IN THE BENEFITS WILL TAKE TRARACHI!
EMPLOYEES - EMPLOYEES WORKERS
e-mail: orthostasia@yahoo.gr / blog: https://orthostasia.wordpress.com/
fb: Protection Collaboration of Employees
https://vogliamotutto.espivblogs.net/2019/01/24/enimerosi-kai-fotografies-apo-tin-apergiaki-sygkentrosi-perifroyrisi-tin-kyriaki-20-genari-sto-factory-outlet-stin-peiraios/#more-2095
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Message: 4
The case of the "Network", made by Russian repressive forces, in which ten anarchists and
anti-fascists were detained, is being written all the time. The arrests once again testify
to other people, they testify for the second time and describe the torture they are
exposed to, and then take their statements again to soon dementia the previous
information. ---- Igor Shishkin, one of the defendants, was sentenced to three and a half
years in prison for a five-year sentence. He guessed it through an agreement with the
investigators. He himself said: ---- "It was that I started cooperating with FSB RF
operatives and the preliminary investigation authorities after the arrest. So far I have
been cooperating with operatives and helped them to uncover people hiding in the territory
of the Russian Federation, and I also provide explanations for the implementation of
operational-search measures. I am ready to testify in court with other members of the
"Network" terrorist community in Penzen and St. Petersburg, which will soon be held. I
investigated and helped determine the guilt of each member of the terrorist community,
participated in confrontations, insights of material evidence, and gave detailed and
complete testimonies. I admitted my guilt and felt sorry for what I did. "
In May 2018, there was a message of a sort of Victoria Frolov, who knew Penzy arrested,
summoned to question in October 2017, but she went to Ukraine. On May 24, she returned to
Russia to visit her parents and was detained in an attempt to return to Ukraine. It
subsequently turned out to testify against the Penzy arrested, and then let her go again
to Ukraine. The question remains under what conditions. Should it be remembered that the
testers were given the testimony at the right time? Virtually a few days before, the two
arrests in the Penze refused to testify. Victory's reckless behavior to return to Russia
has destroyed the attempted arrest, at least in some way, to defend itself from the
excitement of investigators - for refusing to testify from them required great courage and
power of will ...
According to various reactions and information on the web, many people take all the people
caught up in the case, including witnesses, as victims of injustice. It is true, but we
should not forget that the situation and the fate of other victims depend on the behavior
and attitude of one victim. History is full of examples of how it is generally benevolent
to those who care for their own benefit more than the freedom (and life) of their friends.
In fact, it is also the intention: people cooperating with investigators do it in the hope
of getting rid of fear, getting faster from the stressful situation, rescuing. But their
salvation is fully dependent on the amount of information they can provide about other people.
The following scheme works almost 100% and is called "the dilemma of the arrested":
In a situation where a group of people is arrested, the amount of punishment depends on
each of them on two things: how many of them are trying to save themselves and what they
are willing to sacrifice for others. The betrayal dilemma strongly dominates betrayal of
mutual support, so the only possible balance is the betrayal of both. Simply put, if the
other behaves in any way, everyone wins more if they betray. Because it is more
advantageous to betray than to support each other in any situation, all rational players
choose betrayal.
But if they act rationally individually, they will come to an irrational solution: when
they both betray, they have a smaller win than they would have backed each other. And that
is the dilemma.
It is no secret that the basis of evidence (95 percent) in many criminal cases is the
testimony of people involved in the process (defendants, suspects, witnesses). There are 5
percent of material evidence. Therefore refusing to testify against each other and others
increases a great deal of success. When the participants in the case decide to protect
individually and not collectively, the highest punishment will be given by the one who
speaks at least. This scheme worked 100% in 2010, when repression began in Belarus after
an attack on the Russian embassy. According to the investigators, Igor Olinevic, Maxim
Vetkin and Denis Bystrik made it. The last named remained in the position of a witness and
left Belarus, Maxim Vetkin received four years of moderate regime. They both spoke against
Igor Olinevic, although Denis Bystrik later dismissed his testimonies. Igor Olinevic did
not admit blame and did not tell anyone. He received eight years of imprisonment. The same
thing happened to Nikolai the Dadok. Junes Akdif and Zachar Konofalski admitted to
attending a direct action, but remained in the case only witnesses on the grounds that
Nikolai the Daddock "was in jeopardy." The grandfather received four and a half years of
imprisonment, did not blame and did not confirm his or their participation in the events.
All other evidence was either doubtful or indirect, so witnesses had to confirm it. It is
very likely to say that in the case of "Networks", the dilemma of the arrested will work
exactly like this. not guilty and not confirming his or their participation in the events.
All other evidence was either doubtful or indirect, so witnesses had to confirm it. It is
very likely to say that in the case of "Networks", the dilemma of the arrested will work
exactly like this. not guilty and not confirming his or their participation in the events.
All other evidence was either doubtful or indirect, so witnesses had to confirm it. It is
very likely to say that in the case of "Networks", the dilemma of the arrested will work
exactly like this.
In some countries, the co-operation system with investigators is even more sophisticated -
sometimes it is possible to avoid a court and "agree" on the amount of the sentence,
thanks to an interview with the investigators. In detail about this system in the US, he
tells the story of Better This World about two anarchists who took the FBI.
That is why we do not hold the view that "when the investigators know everything, the
testimony will not get worse," or "I said what the fighters wanted", "I have only
confirmed the testimonies of the accused" ...
In the "Network" case, there is enough violence and threatening torture. But it is not
possible to compare all the investigated, because torture and threats lead them to
different reactions: someone chooses mutual support and someone is betrayal. The one who
has the opportunity to follow the case from outside has the unique opportunity to learn
how to analyze the situation and the strategy of the cops, to reassess what is honesty and
principality, but also how the disclosure of information on hidden police choices helps to
stop this offense. We learn from those who find strength in resistance. They do not have a
special genre of "an irreconcilable anarchist" that would allow them to overcome fear and
pain. Anyone of us can be like them, just want to know psychological fins, have a strong
will and support for friends. Instead of trying to understand and apologize to those who
have chosen to betray (there is no need to be extraordinary to feel comfortable with a friend,
Source: https://abc-belarus.org/?p=11634
https://www.afed.cz/text/6944/dilema-zatceneho
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Message: 5
Last Monday, January 21 2019, the final hearing in Peike's higher appeal took place. To
support Peike while he received the verdict, around 40 friends and allies from Hamburg,
Amsterdam and several other European cities were present. ---- Peike was sentenced to one
year of unconditional imprisonment and a suspended prison sentence of 9 months. In line
with Peike's first courtcase, the prosecution again demanded a prison sentence of 1 year
and 9 months. However, since the judge has now decided to suspend the final part of the
sentence (the 9 months that Peike has not served yet) Peike will not have to go back to
prison. ---- It became clear from the judge's statement that the evidence the defense has
given during the higher appeal (that lasted almost a year) does not matter to her at all.
To the judge, Peike's being present on the crossing that night carries so much weight that
all of the contradictions in the given testimonies mean nothing to her, even though those
testimonies are the only "evidence" that support the claim that Peike is "guilty." Once
more, everyone who was present was presented with the not matching suspect description,
the "resistance" during the arrest (lying on the ground in fetal position) and the severe
damage that the thrown bottles possibly could have led to. Again, just like in the first
verdict Peike received, this was deemed enough to convict him for aggravated assault,
resisting arrest and disturbance of public order.
All further updates will be published on this website. (At this time it is still a
possibility that an appeal in cassation will follow.) Additionally, all upcoming benefits
will be announced here: money is still needed to cover the costs of the lawyers.
Freedom for all noG20 activists!
Against the G20, against every state.
https://www.vrijebond.org/hamburg-uitspraak-in-hoger-beroep-nog20-activist-peike/
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