All posts by Act for freedom now!

About Orwell and the case of Mónica and Francisco

That every metropolis fulfills all the criteria of a panopticon, well, that is not really saying anything new. The question becomes, which city has a higher density of surveillance technology at its disposal and how intensively is it used?

Therefore, it is obvious that Orwell’s ideas of a completely monitored society were accurate, but not in the dimension that he imagined, or the foundations for it. In particular, dictatorship is unnecessary, which for him would be an important basis of this complete surveillance, to bring it about. Complete surveillance is therefore not an expression of a specific system of capitalism, but it is inherent to its political administration and articulation, namely, the state. So it is a false dichotomy to think that complete surveillance would only be the result of a more “authoritarian” system. Such a way of thinking only feeds on the desire and ideology that the state in better hands could wear a friendly mask. We see this also in the midst of the debate about the corona virus, where leftist groups, but also anarchists, see the saber-rattling of the repression, the introduction of curfew, of quarantine, etc., as a protofascist development and do not want to understand that the state, no matter which – whether democratic or other varieties – always carries such mechanisms and powers (as a monopoly) to guarantee its survival. The political administration and the organization of the State always remains the same, only the criteria and the ideologies of the political forces in power change, this would no longer be a false dichotomy. The State has historically used all the means at its disposal to guarantee the smooth running of its business. The nation-state is therefore the logical consequence, as well as the class society, of capitalism and not the other way around.

We consider this important to say yet again because we never get tired of wanting to understand the basis of the state and capitalism in order to be able to destroy it in real terms. There are far too many foolish historical examples that show us what paths are taken when this is not clear from the beginning.

Now to the case of Mónica and Francisco

On July 24 [2020], Mónica Caballero and Francisco Solar were arrested in Chile. We have extensively dealt with their detention trial, which was broadcast live on television. This detention trial is in no way comparable to what we are familiar with in Germany or other EU countries. If we think about the fact that such a detention examination here lasts about 10 minutes, simply to clarify whether an accused person is to be remanded in custody because, for example, there is a risk of flight or a risk of collusion, this is apparently different in Chile. It is not clear to us if there is always a live broadcast on television, or if it is due to the covid measures.
Continue reading About Orwell and the case of Mónica and Francisco

March and rally (Romería) in commemoration of September 11 (Chile)

March and rally (Romería) in commemoration of September 11

via:informativoanarquista

On September 11 of this year a march to the General Cemetery (romería) took place, displaying banners, posters, pamphlets and setting up barricades and confrontations against the presence of Carabineros (COP).

Continue reading March and rally (Romería) in commemoration of September 11 (Chile)

Aufstand! For Anarchy

Aufstand! For Anarchy

aufstand.blackblogs.org

So what should tempt us to think that the Internet in particular would be a place where today’s revolutionary awakenings would take place? And certainly we are not so short-sighted as to seriously consider this to be the case. Nevertheless, we observe with a certain uneasiness that both the real and the virtual spaces of exchange among anarchists of the German-speaking contexts are fading away. Even though individual projects still receive some attention and almost every tendency of informally organized anarchism has created its own web presence – even though there are still one or two printed and regularly published newspaper projects and dozens and dozens of brochures, books, flyers, newspapers, posters and stickers which are connected to the anarchist idea and wander from hand to hand among companions – we ask ourselves, to what extent these succeed in carrying the anarchist debate into the public more than sporadically, in the (desperate) attempt to inflame at least a few hearts with the spark of the anarchist idea.

Repeatedly in the past it has been proven that if there is no better alternative, platforms like de.indymedia also have to be used for anarchist exchange. The problem is that anarchist contributions are often deleted there or – perhaps even worse – stand beside deeply authoritarian submissions that absolutely contradict the anarchist idea. No wonder: de.indymedia has always been a platform of the left and will consequently remain so. The fact that more and more decentralized (radical left) alternatives to de.indymedia are currently developing is, in our view, just as incapable of remedying the problem as other strangely conceptualized attempts to create synthesist platforms or even websites of unified organizations selling themselves as contributions to an anarchist debate.

Continue reading Aufstand! For Anarchy

Santiago, Chile: Incendiary attack burns six trucks and a butcher’s meat packing plant + Claim leaflet

During the early morning of Monday, September 19, even with the patriotic feast in the air, a group of at least 6 anonymous encapuchados (hooded ones) completely overtake the Susaron butcher’s shop on Matta Avenue, Quilicura commune.

With firearms they managed to reduce the guard, and then spray and set fire to about 6 trucks of the meat company.

Before disappearing completely from the place, they throw pamphlets for animal liberation, while the flames begin to spread, setting the meat packing plant on fire.

Continue reading Santiago, Chile: Incendiary attack burns six trucks and a butcher’s meat packing plant + Claim leaflet

Feu à la colonisation ! [29/09 à 18h] Bibliothèque anarchiste Libertad (Paris,France)

Discut’ à la bibli le jeudi 29 septembre à 18h

Feu à la colonisation !

Autour des luttes menées au Canada par les « populations autochtones » contre l’État ces dernières années et des contributions anarchistes à ces luttes.

Discut’ introduite par des compagnon-nes d’outre atlantique de passage à Paris (en anglais et en français, avec traductions).

Bienvenue !

Bibliothèque anarchiste Libertad,
19 rue Burnouf, 19ème arrondissement.
Métro Jaurès ou Belleville
Permanences les mardi de 17h à 20h

bibliothequelibertad

EN/IT,France: A letter from Anarchist Comrade Ivan, from the prison of Villepinte

via:lille.indymedia Translated by Act for freedom now!

notes: the letter is be update with some corrections come to us today.

———-

A letter from Ivan, from the prison of Villepinte

I am writing to share a few thoughts and to send some news.

I’d like to begin with something that illustrates the methods of the legal system very well. A few days after my arrest the judge conducting the enquiry, Stéphanie Lahaye, sent two cops of the SDAT [the Anti-terrorism Sub-Direction of the judicial police] (among whom judicial police officer «RIO 1237232»  – like machines, they are called by numbers) to interrogate my daughter and her mother. Obeying her orders, following the procedures of the State justice system they tried to put pressure on a young girl of 12 years. They wanted to question her alone. Her mother
obviously refused to abandon her.

An ordinary procedure, banal, a necessary act to establish the truth according to judges and cops. In my opinion, an attempt to spread fear. A warning to my dear ones and to everyone that, in the inquisitorial logic of the Law, persons who are or who put themselves alongside an anarchist accused of direct actions are suspect and must be inconvenienced. Continue reading EN/IT,France: A letter from Anarchist Comrade Ivan, from the prison of Villepinte

Exarcheia turned into a battleground following the State’s decision to destroy its historic square (Athens,Greece)

https://youtu.be/3SfC5BLD3Wo
Video from the protest and the riot that followed on Saturday 24 September 2022 in Exarcheia, (Athens, Greece) against the State’s decision to destroy the historic Exarcheia Square under the excuse of constructing a metro station on top of it.

This was the 3d big protest against the metso on Exarcheia Square since August 2022. In the first one approximately 1.000 people took part, in the 2nd more than 2.000 and in this 3d one approximately 4.500 protesters. Following this big protest in the streets of Exarcheia in downtown Athens, riots broke out.

Originally published by Perseus999.

THE ALF SABOTAGES TWO PHEASANT PENS. September, Norfolk UK.

THE ALF SABOTAGES TWO PHEASANT PENS.

September, Norfolk

“The ALF strikes again, sabotaging two huge pheasant release pens in the Norfolk countryside.

Car batteries and electric wiring removed and cut, mesh torn away, anti fox grates and pop holes destroyed.

Trail left to give the birds the best chance of getting to safety.

See it, sab it, save them 👊🏼”

via:unoffensiveanimal

Gers, France: ‘Inevitable Anarchist Fire’ – Relay antennas destroyed by Group FAII ‘Inevitable Informal Anarchist Fire’

Walking in the Gers.
We destroyed some relay antennas.
Solidarity is the attack.
Ivan, we think very strongly of you.
We wanted to create here and now a space for you, for Alfredo, and for all the comrades incarcerated or on the run.

Group FAII

Inevitable Informal Anarchist Fire

Source: lille.indymedia

via: https://darknights.noblogs.org/post/2022/09/25/gers-france-inevitable-anarchist-fire-relay-antennas-destroyed-by-group-faii-inevitable-informal-anarchist-fire/

Microphone solidarity with the uprising in Iran |Saturday 24/9 13.00 Monastiraki Area (Athens,Greece)

May the flame of the uprising in Iran spread across the earth

The assassination of Masha Amini by the vice police, has sparked a giant uprising in the territory of the Iranian State in recent days. Large-scale demonstrations, wild clashes with the repressive apparatus, attacks on police stations, destruction of State and capitalist targets make up a mosaic of a spontaneous anti-state uprising, which puts God and the State in the crosshairs. It sets its sights on decades of cruel repression and oppression.
In recent decades the rulers of the Iranian State have chosen religious fundamentalism as a mechanism of governance. A counter-revolutionary strategy by which those in power try to present exploitation, oppression, murder as divine and virtuous work. They impose national unity around a common religion so as to conceal social and class antagonisms. They divide them from below by creating false juxtapositions such as the issue of faith, reinforcing the oppression of women with their total control by men and of course by the State. The extreme oppression of femininity, heretics, those who deviate from official doctrine is the daily life of those from below in this corner of the world. It is precisely in this context that the horrific murder of Masha took place.

One cannot help but be outraged and disgusted by the hypocritical condemnations of Western States and political parties, calling for more rights for women and condemning religious fanaticism. The same States that fostered fundamentalist movements as a counterbalance to the growing radical movements and struggles in the `60s and `70s across the Middle East. The same ones that in their territories breed the whole world of patriarchy, carry out genocide and State murder of those who are left over or resist, the same ones that are waging and preparing to wage bloody wars for the interests of their masters and their power. The same States that have repeatedly bloodied the Middle East and plundered the “third world” so that the people uprooted by this Religious Fundamentalism and wars drowned in the Mediterranean, were trapped in fences, left to die by the thousands out of indifference.
Continue reading Microphone solidarity with the uprising in Iran |Saturday 24/9 13.00 Monastiraki Area (Athens,Greece)

Arson attacks at Liceo de Aplicación, Barros Arana and Manuel Barros Borgoño boarding schools (Chile).

Arson attacks at Liceo de Aplicación, Barros Arana and Manuel Barros Borgoño boarding schools
September 12, 2022
On September 12 at the Liceo de Aplicación and Manuel Barros Borgoño pamphlets and banners were thrown and barricades and confrontations were mounted against the presence of Carabineros (COP).

At the Barros Arana Boarding School (INBA) a group of students marched to the Museum of Memory and Human Rights to commemorate those murdered and disappeared 49 years after the coup d’état.

Continue reading Arson attacks at Liceo de Aplicación, Barros Arana and Manuel Barros Borgoño boarding schools (Chile).

Arson attack at USACH and march through Alameda and Providencia (Chile)

Arson attack at USACH and march through Alameda and Providencia
September 10, 2022

On Friday, September 9, barricades and confrontations with Molotovs were carried out against the presence of Carabineros (COP) in the vicinity of the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH).

High school students marched along Alameda towards Providencia, demonstrating in the vicinity of the Costanera Center and political parties such as RN (Renovación Nacional)

via:informativoanarquista

Translated by Act for freedom now!

France / Italy : Alfredo Cospito fuori dal 41-bis : Solidarity from Comrades from Bure.

Alfredo Cospito fuori dal 41-bis : Solidarity from Bure
Revolutionary solidarity is a sailboat without borders that rides the waves of the storm!

From Bure, we wish to send all our solidarity to our comrade Alfredo Cospito, who is currently in solitary confinement (called “41-bis”) in the prison of Sassari in Sardinia (Italy) for having shot the CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare, designer and builder of nuclear power plants, for having claimed his action and for having greatly contributed, from prison, to the debate on our modes of action, the diversity of tactics, internationalism and the revolutionary perspective of the anti-nuclear movement.

Any attempt to isolate one of our comrades will fuel our anger and revive the sparks that drive us to act. Alfredo Cospito’s struggle is also our struggle: against nuclear power and the technocrats who rule the world.

While the extraction of uranium and other rare-earth elements continues to ravage territories and destroy bodies, while nuclear “tests” or bomb trainings have contaminated the regions and inhabitants of Quirra in Sardinia, the Hoggar mountains in Algeria, Moruroa and Fangataufa in Polynesia, and other territories taken over by the imperialist powers, while in its war against Ukraine, Russia is using nuclear power plants as a sword of Damocles, Europe agrees that nuclear power is a “green” energy, France is rushing head first to build new reactors and Italy is questioning the shutdown of its production (after all, it didn’t mind continuing to build power plants in other countries, so why continue to pretend to have stopped, right?). The projects of burying radioactive waste, in Bure (France) and now also in Italy, are not a search for solutions to the contaminations that nuclear power has produced, but tools to allow nuclear power to develop, more and more.
Continue reading France / Italy : Alfredo Cospito fuori dal 41-bis : Solidarity from Comrades from Bure.

Towards subversive abstentionism (concerning elections)

Towards subversive abstentionism

The electoral mechanism is not just an adjustment of government strategy. On the contrary, it is one of the most significant moments of the whole repressive strategy. In practice, the State’s increasing intervention in the affairs of capitalism with the aim of putting some order in its contradictions not only has the effect of rationalising dominion but also opens up another set of contradictions, first in the State itself then in capitalism in the long run. Here the reduction of parliament’s powers and the enormous growth in the powers of the executive becomes of great interest to us. This is quite logical as the State is first and foremost an executive instrument then, at the level of the mass as the enclosure of dominion, it is also an instrument for obtaining consensus. The State cannot function without consensus, nor can it do so without an executive. This often makes it favour the second aspect, leading to certain contradictions such as those that claim to keep the government working when there is no longer any  agreement between the different delegating processes (party, union, economic, ideological, etc.).

The loss of contact between the grassroots and the instruments that filter the executive’s decisions (parliament in the first place) would appear to be due to a lack of political agreements and insufficient balance of party forces, while in actual fact it is due to the worsening of the underlying conditions (price levels, unemployment, declining investment, lack of support for demand, imbalances between areas with unequal development, uncontrollable social tensions, disproportionate repression, regurgitation of authoritarian methods, inadequate methods of assemblear control, etc.). These conditions of malaise are transferred to the executive through representative structures which take on the character of a pulley of inefficiency or an instrument of control of the inadequacy of plans, precisely at a time when they are losing their original significance as the management of consensus. The paradoxical – and contradictory – case occurs where the very presence of the filter mechanism (parties and trade unions first and foremost) has a kind of induced effect that ends up blocking the executive’s ambitions to fly forward.
Continue reading Towards subversive abstentionism (concerning elections)

[EN+IT] Interruption of a democratic kermesse in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito (Rome, Italy, September 20, 2022)

Interruption of a democratic kermesse in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito (Rome, Italy, September 20, 2022)

On the evening of September 20, in Rome, we interrupted a democratic kermesse that took place at the Troisi cinema. The evening’s special guests were the critical philosopher Noam Chomsky and the committed filmmaker Ken Loach. We stormed in with a banner that read ‘Against every prison. 41 bis = torture. Freedom for Alfredo’, threw leaflets and read the following text.

ALFREDO OUT FROM 41 BIS
FREEDOM FOR EVERYONE

Since May 5, our comrade Alfredo Cospito has been imprisoned under the 41 bis regime.

The 41 bis is a regime of institutionalised torture, created to isolate, silence and annihilate the prisoner, thus trying to bring him to collaboration with justice. We do not want to demand more comfortable cages, nor do we want to be victims. We are against all prisons, we would like to see them burn. We are not surprised or outraged, we know very well that all this happens within a democratic regime. Democracy is based on the annihilation of the internal and external enemy. This is not a novelty linked to the advent of the so-called pandemic, this mechanism is inherent to representative democracy which, because it provides for representatives, necessarily creates an unbridgeable gap with the represented. Quite simply, for the past two years, we think that democratic regimes have dropped their masks: repression for all, permanent states of emergency, compulsory vaccination, green passes, persecution of those who do not play by the rules, rationing, etc. The situation is self-evident.

Continue reading [EN+IT] Interruption of a democratic kermesse in solidarity with Alfredo Cospito (Rome, Italy, September 20, 2022)