https://anathema.noblogs.org/post/2022/10/24/volume-8-issue-2/
In this issue:
What Went Down
Interviews from the Meadows
Alabama Prison Strike
The Social and Survival: On Becoming a Threat
When One Door Closes….Break It In: Thoughts on the Criminalization
of Abortion
The Conscious Soldier-Brother: Puerto Rican Struggle
Cospito on Hunger Strike
Service
A.F.F.N received by email:
Anouncing the opening of a new anarchist space in Amsterdam ‘De
Verdieping’ at Kaboem.
Some say that we are running out of time. Some say the anarchist idea and the fight for a social revolution belong to past centuries. Some say that authority is annihilating and alienating all life on this planet to a point of no return. Some say that digital distraction and its convenient confusionism have replaced our capacity to imagine an autonomous and free life. Some say that there is no way out of the deadly logics of progress, power and profit. Some say that we live in a world of sheep and wolves, and there are no other forms of relationships possible.
The horizon of events. Incendiary thoughts scattered over the last drops of fuel of capitalism
Here the english translation of the article by Lunanera, “L’orizzonte degli eventi. Pensieri incendiari sparsi sulle ultime gocce di carburante del Capitalismo” (published in “Bollettino”, no. 7, Biblioteca dello Spazio Anarchico “Lunanera” and Archivio di Documentazione “Franco Di Gioia”, Cosenza, Italy, March 2022). The translation, made by “Act for freedom now!” (which we thank very much!), has been revised and corrected in some passages by some comrades and re-published online in “La Nemesi”.
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The horizon of events
Incendiary thoughts scattered over the last drops of fuel of Capitalism
If it is true that States and governments are ‘groping in the dark’ with regard to the pandemic, now of secondary importance compared to the new emergency priorities, on the other hand the bosses are showing great efficiency in safeguarding old privileges and no scruples in grabbing new ones. War and imperialism have become the new parameters of collective security in a matter of days.
On the one hand, the scientists of the pharmaceutical companies are revealing failure concerning the plan of action against the virus: the nanotechnological product, the new miracle commodity commonly referred to as the ‘vaccine’ is not so effective in realising expectations that it would stem the pandemic. On the other hand, the political world must declare that something good has been done and that institutional bodies are still necessary. They serve to say, for example, that ‘everything will be fine’.
La Nemesi is a website run by anarchists and dedicated to publishing texts about the conflict against the state, capital and all authority. With the opening of this website we intend to go beyond the characteristics of so-called counter-information, giving more space to texts and contributions that more often than not, in the counter-information spaces that populate the virtual world, end up being buried in the vagueness generated by the telematic tool.
La Nemesi was thus created with the aim of publishing and spreading claim or informative texts concerning actions and sabotage, as well as articles, reports and correspondences from uprisings and insurrections all over the world. It is a kind of ‘bulletin’ of the anarchist revolutionary struggle and more generally of the social war waged by the oppressed.
Equally space will be dedicated to the publication of statements and documents written by anarchists imprisoned in state prisons, as well as updates on the prison situation of comrades, mobilisations and initiatives in solidarity, past, present and future anti-anarchist repressive operations, and in general the repression against the movement.
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
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)
Release of Anarchist Newspaper “Tinta de Fuga” Number 4
Tinta de Fuga. Anarchist newspaper against prisons and prison society. N°4. August. Second half of 2022.
This fourth issue of Tinta de Fuga is a special issue against the military justice system’s sentences of Marcelo Villarroel, against justice, the military and prisons. With 2,000 copies for free distribution we have expanded the places where you can find the publication in the territory dominated by the Chilean State:
La Serena: Umberto Marzocchi Bookstore.
Valparaíso: Espacio Flora/ Serrano 591. Of.9
El Tabo: Antro Libros/Feria artesanal La Casona. Of.9
Santiago: Pensamiento y Batalla, Feria Anticarcelaria, Editorial Memoria Negra, Librería Desquiebre and Sebastián Oversluij Library.
Concepción: Jane Vanini Bookstore
Villarrica: Biblioteca Lectura Súbita
Continue reading Chile: en/es/ Release of Anarchist Newspaper “Tinta de Fuga” Number 4
THE TRUE FACE OF THE MULTINATIONAL DRUG COMPANIES
The term ‘Big Pharma’ refers to the multinational pharmaceutical corporations whose stories of experimentation in the Global South, corruption, falsified publications and various nefariousness deserve to be highlighted so as not to forget who we are dealing with, especially at an historical moment in which they are presenting themselves as the saviours of humanity. These unscrupulous companies have amassed immense fortunes over the years, thanks to which they have carved out a central role for themselves in management and political and social organisation at global level. This power places itself far above States and governments, managing to impose its will through funding and publications in every context.
FINANCING AND CORRUPTION: HERE’S HOW IT WORKS
Believing there is any control over the activities and products of Big Pharma is a mere illusion, as the so-called control bodies that are supposed to check drugs’ safety before they are put on the market and the various health protocols to be followed are lavishly financed by the pharmaceutical companies themselves.
On doing a little research, one discovers that the EMA, the European Medicines Agency, is more than 80% funded by Big Pharma and that a quarter of its administrative board members have links with it. Even the WHO is corrupt and financed 80% by private individuals: of these, the ‘Bill and Melinda Gates’ foundation alone covers 10 per cent of it and, although at first sight it appears to be a small part, it comes to billions, more than enough to decide on priorities.
To confirm the fact that the decisions of this body are always in favour of the financiers and not in the interest of the population are the very words of former WHO director Margaret Chan: “my budget is directed towards what I call donor interests”.
In total silence from the media and politics on 23 April 2020, the training of doctors and the reorganisation of the healthcare system in Italy has been entrusted to Sanofi Italia, a giant of the pharmaceutical industry. The stated aim is to ‘train the doctors of the future on constantly evolving clinical issues’. Simply put, it can officially decide which drugs doctors should prescribe, effectively allowing this multinational drug company to manage the healthcare system in its own interests.
Continue reading THE TRUE FACE OF THE MULTINATIONAL DRUG COMPANIES (ITALY)
Volume 8 Issue 1 (PDF for printing (11×17)
In this issue: