Today's Topics:
1. Union Communiste Libertaire Rennes: We'll be there! (fr)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - Social, On the
housing front: a big requisition takes place (fr, it, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #301 - Editorial:
Governing over the ruins (fr, it, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. Britain, wessex solidarity: A SHORT REPORT FROM THE UK
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group: EASTERN AUSTRALIA ON
FIRE by ablokeimet (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
On January 2020, 11, in Paris, let us respond to the call of the movement of Kurdish women to a big demonstration to demand from the French
government all the light on the triple murder in 2013 of the three revolutionary activists fidan dogan, Sakine Cansiz and leyla saylemez.
---- For several years, thousands of people, mainly from the Kurdish Diaspora, have joined Paris from all over France, Germany, Belgium,
Switzerland... they walk to get truth and justice. They walk to remember that a people are fighting for freedom and dignity. And that this
struggle has led to a revolutionary, Federalist, antipatriarcale and democratic experience that impressed the whole world. ---- On the
occasion of this great demonstration, the movement generally expresses its solidarity, but too modest, limit it to a small delegation. Let's
do more and better!
See you on January 11, 2020, at 10 pm
In Paris, Gare Du Nord,
In the red and black pole of the demonstration.
For more info: https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Verite-justice-et-revolution-le-11-janvier-a-Paris-avec-la-gauche-kurde
https://www.facebook.com/events/464613360918152/
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Message: 2
Sunday January 5, in the middle of winter, in the midst of a strike in defense of pensions, the Right to Housing (DAL) requisitioned a vast
empty building in the heart of Paris. Forty poorly housed families bring another aspect of the social question to the public square. ----
The Right to Housing informs : ---- Forty families and single homeless began to set in, quietly, at 18 Crescent Street, in the 2 th
arrondissement of Paris, in a building of about 2500 square meters. These are former administrative premises belonging to the international
chain CitizenM Hotels, established in major world cities, specializing in luxury and "affordable" tourism (between 125 to more than 250
euros per room depending on the season, in France).
CitizenM is 25% owned by a Singapore sovereign wealth fund, as well as a pension fund that manages the pensions of Dutch civil servants
following the pension reform in the Netherlands.
The Indo-Dutch founder-director of this company directed, owned and sold the Mexx company, specialized in luxury products (1 billion euros
in turnover). This building has been vacant for several months, while a building permit was deposited in 2016.
The building, at 18 rue du Croissant, was once a police station.
Photo: NnoMan Cadoret / Reporterre
It is situated at the 2 th arrondissement, in a sector in serious shortage of social housing, with a rate of 6%, while the vacancy rate
exceeds 12%. More than a quarter of the dwellings are "unoccupied" (vacant + second or occasional residences, ie 26.5%).
On the whole of Paris, the vacancy rate rises to 8% (or 110,000 vacant accommodation) and that of vacancy to 15%, not counting vacant
premises and offices (not listed).
The 2 e borough is harshly impacted by mass tourism, with tourist furnished rentals and the development of this single activity, generating
pollution, residents leaks, school closures, openings of luxury shops or dedicated to tourism ...
Families and people settled are the victims of the housing crisis generated in particular by the insufficiency of social housing, the high
rental prices, speculation, stimulated by international tourism.
They have submitted requests for social housing, are for the most part priority DALO (right to enforceable housing), and have their right to
decent housing flouted.
Right to Housing (DAL) supports them until their relocation, and made public this Sunday occupancy 5 January with the support of
personalities like the mayor of the 2 e district, Marina Vlady, Vikash Dhorasoo and activists from different associations and organizations.
Droit au logement denounces the hypocrisy of the government, which leaves tens of thousands of people on the streets in the middle of
winter, instead of requisitioning vacant homes and premises in our country (3.2 million empty homes ...) .
Resettlement of occupants
Application of requisition law
Respect for DALO law and the right to accommodation
A roof is a right !
Right to housing, January 5, 2020
Photos from a Reporterre.net report . https://reporterre.net/
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Sur-le-front-du-logement-une-grosse-requisition-s-opere
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Message: 3
No matter what the umpteenth saucepan, an accumulation of undeclared capital is replaced by some henchman, servile as it should be. A puppet
replaces a puppet. ---- No matter the subtleties of the political strategy, divide and conquer, the government is marching on the head of
the reformist union leaderships, the usual mops of power, who only asked to collaborate. ---- The authorities no longer even bother to play
"democracy" because those days are over. This arrogance is based on mirages: those of seeing in the angers expressed only simple localized
anger and taking for silence the majority of others ; those of believing in the eternal resilience of the system they serve and their total
immunity, far from the cold and sharp blade of the guillotine.
This power however governs only on the ruins of capitalist illusions, and holds only by its police and its justice. "So far so good," he
said to himself. But anger overflows and still seeks their common bed.
And the time is coming when disarticulated clashes will be replaced by big battles. We want the total collapse of capitalism, we want the
end of this iniquitous world, and on its ruins, to build a better world.
UCL, December 23, 2019
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Edito-Gouverner-sur-les-ruines
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Message: 4
We wrote this short report about the elections and the aftermaths for comrades abroad... ---- Johnson won the election with the easiest of
all promises: if you get me a majority I will get Brexit through parliament within weeks and after that I will spend money on hospitals and
the police. This manifests a populist turn within the conservative camp. The Tory's strategy worked out, but their success is based on
drawing a new political boundary around the English nation, to the disadvantage of other regions of the United Kingdom. Johnson's Brexit
Deal sold out the integrity of the United Kingdom and thereby also helped the Scottish nationalist SNP to their election success. The SNP
benefits from Johnson's announcement that there will be no second referendum on independence - the whole thing might turn into a lamer
version of the Catalan national dispute. The fact that shortly before the election Johnson sent parliament into a prolonged (and unlawful)
holiday didn't do his popularity any harm, amongst people who see the current political class as incapable and arrogant and who don't think
much about the political system in general. Three years of farcical Brexit negotiations were frustrating and many people wanted the result
of the referendum to be recognised, even if they themselves had voted to remain within the EU. Labour lost more votes to ‘remain'-parties
(LibDem, SNP, Greens) than to the Tories, but probably even more to people who could not to be bothered to come out to vote. The turnout
decreased from 68.8 percent in 2017 to 67.3 per cent in December 2019. The media showed on which side they were on. The left keeps pointing
out that since Murdoch holds a monopoly position in the media no Labour candidate apart from Tony Blair has won an election - and that Blair
acted as the godfather to one of Murdoch's brats.
The majority of Tory voters is over 45 years old, with relatively more modest levels of education, have voted for Brexit and don't live in
metropolitan cities. The Labour left ask themselves why the marginalised part of the population voted for an elitist clown like Johnson and
not for a party program that promised them free access to broadband internet and universities and the defence of the iconic NHS. There are a
few explanations out there that go beyond blaming bad electoral marketing. Workers in the destitute regions of the country don't trust the
political apparatus that Labour now wants to use in order to provide them with new welfare handouts. There is little connection between
popular participation and the state administration, which means that the Labour manifesto appeared as a pre-Christmas wish-list. Labour
didn't present an explicit class enemy who would have to be beaten in order to obtain the necessary financial means for the party program.
In contrary, Labour spoke of an alliance with creative entrepreneurs and small businesses and McDonnell announced with certain pride that a
significant share of bankers would be sympathetic to his program. Indeed, after the collapse of the private service provider Carillion in
May 2018 even the finance sector saw a partial re-nationalisation of outsourced infrastructure as a viable option.
In the end the only thing that Corbynism managed to re-nationalise was the fringe left. The election campaign was frenetic, thousands of
volunteers took days of to travel across the country to knock on doors in marginal seats. There are only few people on the fringe left who
didn't take part in the campaign and the hectic euphoria in one way or the other. For them the election results are a kick in the teeth. At
least the election results created a bit of collective debate, not just about the outcome, but about politics in general. Brexit had already
forced the left - and workers in general - to get their heads around banalities such as the composition of the national economy, e.g. the
question of whether their diabetes medication is imported or produced locally. Now the election results force the left to look at something
akin to class composition, even though their view is distorted by the lenses of electoral politics. What makes the political outlook of a
younger and more educated working class in the metropolitan different from the older and more provincial generation? The latter don't see
much of the metropolitan wealth (which could be re-distributed) and don't witness the few moments of collective action, such as strikes at
the universities or the London riots. This gap cannot be bridged by a few days of electoral safari into the ugly hinterland. These are more
intelligent considerations. A different part of the Corbyn-project, under ideological leadership of people like Paul Mason talk about the
necessity of ‘progressive alliances' against the far-right in government and call for the Labour Party to shift back into the central ground
of politics. Others, such as the Stalinist conman George Galloway form the Workers Party of Great Britain for a left-wing Brexit, pandering
to the ‘real' working class that drinks beer, watches football and speaks in local dialects. In her first candidacy speech Long-Bailey, the
leadership candidate who is widely seen as the true representative of Corbyn's line, talks about the need for a ‘progressive patriotism',
flirting with a similar cultural understanding of what constitutes the working class. These political deviations aside, many now talk about
the need for a ‘real rooting process' within the class. Community organisations, such as Acorn which organises tenants' unions amongst other
things, have seen a significant increase in membership since the election result. While ‘getting rooted' within the class is a good step,
the question remains how and with what aim. Acorn originates in the US where the organisation collected voter data for the Democrats. In the
UK their initial funding allegedly came from governmental sources of Cameron's ‘Big Society' project. The irony here is that the initial
decision to get engaged in electoral politics does not go hand in hand with serious and rooted efforts to build class power, but divert
strength and focus from it. It is astonishing how many young ‘democratic socialist' comrades tell us that the social transformation from the
neoliberal status quo to a socialist government will take 20 to 30 years. Where is the youthful spirit and impatience?! Similarly, in
discussions some of these comrades describe the strikes of the ‘Winter of Discontent' of 1979 as ‘lamentable', as they helped to get the
Thatcher government into power.
While the left heals their wounds the government creates facts. Johnson not only managed to get his deal through parliament, but also a new
law which limits the period of negotiations for a new trade agreement to eleven months. This means that the gamble of a ‘no-deal Brexit' is
still on the table. Johnson has nothing else to offer but reckless acceleration while approaching a brick wall. In the political declaration
of his deal Johnson agrees that the UK and the EU would avoid a downward spiral of competition by lowering environmental and other
regulatory standards. The EU bureaucrats can use this as a formal plug which they can pull once negotiations would not go their way. Trump
in turn announced in October that the Johnson deal won't allow for any trade agreements with the US, given that it would prevent an
expansion of US exports of agricultural or pharmaceutical products. The EU accounts for 49% of the UK's foreign trade, the US for 15%, and
the production system of the EU and the UK is much more intertwined. It will turn out sooner rather than later that even a considerable
majority in parliament is a paper tiger when it comes to ‘getting Brexit done'. The aftermaths of the recent US military strikes show that
the UK political class is squeezed between the US regime, which relegates them to the position of a junior partner, and the EU bureaucracy,
which can use the UK's economic dependency as political leverage.
While the prolonged debate about ‘voting' and elections spread depression and anxiety amongst the (former) radical left it created
frustration amongst workers in four food factories where our comrades tried to organise a strike for £1 for all. Comrades organised family
picnics, cricket matches and factory gate protests in order to mobilise their co-workers. The trade union leadership and management forced
workers to cast their vote for an indicative ballot (this is still only a test match, not the real deal!) to decide whether or not to accept
the measly wage offer from management. This meant that the wage negotiations dragged out over a year. Management was happy with that and the
GMB was afraid of legal consequences in case they didn't exhaust all avenues of negotiations. The GMB requires a 66% participation in
indicative ballots (while real ballots legally require only 50%) out of fear of ‘losing a ballot'. They definitely made workers lose this
ballot by delaying it until everyone was thoroughly fed up, when a strike would have little impact, and people just want money in their
pocket. In the end the workers accepted a 16p pay increase above the current minimum wage. Down with the election circus! A few days after
workers accepted the offer the Johnson government announced a raise in the minimum wage by 6% to £8.74 - a 53p increase. Now the food
factory management will have to pay what they said they would not be able to pay - and many workers believed them. To the women on the
assembly lines it is a sign that they can expect more from a populist government than from their ‘own' trade union. It is time to organise
class power beyond the frustrating procedures of parliamentary and trade union politics!
https://wessexsolidarity.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/a-short-report-from-the-uk/
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Message: 5
This article first appeared in The Anvil, vol.8 no.6, published on 22nd December 2019. Since then the fires have spread even further and the
death toll has risen markedly. ---- For the last six weeks, the eastern States of Australia have been suffering an unprecedented wave of
bushfires. There have also been a number of bushfires in Western Australia. One of the driest winters on record has been followed by a warm
and dry spring. This has led to huge areas of the continent being tinder dry and ready to catch fire far earlier than for a normal fire
season. What we are seeing is unprecedented in its breadth, intensity and timing. ---- Sydney has been shrouded in smoke for over a month.
The Gospers Mountain mega-fire has burnt out 450,000 so far. The Commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service says they have dealt with 8,500
fires this season already - and it's only the start of summer. This is climate change in action.
In recent years, firefighting in rural areas in Australia has been put on a much more scientific basis than previously. More thorough and
intensive organisation has meant that fewer people die and fewer houses are lost. The firefighting effort in this fire season has been
massive, with overwhelming community support for the volunteers and professional firefighters working day and night to protect lives, homes
and livelihoods. Nevertheless, even this has been insufficient to prevent deaths in this unnatural disaster.
The political situation is spinning out of the control of the denialists in the Government and the media. The initial statements pointing
out the connection between the unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the unprecedented severity and earliness of
the fire season were met by a storm of Right wing propaganda criticising them for "politicising the tragedy of the bushfires". As the fires
have continued, though, this position has become unsustainable. Volunteer firefighters, the United Firefighters Union and the chiefs of
emergency services bodies have pointed out the connection. Some people who have lost their homes to bushfire have taken the burnt wreckage
of their houses to Canberra and placed it outside Parliament House. The denialists have been reduced to muttering rather than shouting
everybody down.
The forces of climate change denial were cocky after the Liberals won "the climate election", with some even claiming the issue was dead.
This was delusional thinking. A single hot summer was always going to pull the rug out from under them and hammer home the fact that climate
change is real and happening. Before summer had even started climate change was back and big. The question of the moment is: what should we
be doing?
The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group believes that the School Strike for Climate movement has great potential and that it should be
joined wholeheartedly by the unions. School strikes should be turned into workers' strikes. In Australia, the next global school strike day
should be the occasion for mass co-ordinated strikes by workers from as many industries as possible. They should build towards a general
strike. The power of capital arises in the workplace and it is only by organising there that workers can wrench power away from the
capitalists and wield it themselves.
To achieve this objective, Anarchists need to be active in their unions, pushing for rank and file groups to work with communities in
planning for a Just Transition. They should also be forming rank and file groups to press their unions to join the strike movement. These
groups also need to be ready to bypass the officials if they won't act. The capitalists won't save us - the workers have to do it themselves.
https://melbacg.wordpress.com/2020/01/03/eastern-australia-on-fire/
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