march 2018

 

frankfurt cop carsSS162CL

fete du feu iran

 

2018  2017 2016 2015 2014 2013

“March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again”     

–  Tracy Chevalier

(February here  &  April here)

31/3/18:

China, Shanghai: partial victory for 6-day sanitation workers’ strike (long report on strikes in China)

US, Sacramento: sheriff’s car deliberately hits protester Florida: how to spoil a good walk spoilt

Albania, Kukes: toll booths torched as protesters against higher tolls  clash with cops “This is theft,” an angry protester told reporters. “This tax damages all the Albanians in Kukes and Dardania (Kosovo),” opponents said of the fees, ranging from 2.5 euros for a motorcycle to 22.5 euros ($27.72) for heavy trucks.”

toll booth, Kukes (Albania)

30/3/18:

US, Kentucky: teachers go on wildcat strike over pensions law manipulation More here. Doubtless there’ll be loads of radicals of various stripes talking of how this could develop into something BIG like was fantasised about West Virginia earlier this month or Wisconsin 7 years ago. Obviously it could, like so many struggles that have some element of independence. However, unless optimism of the will is tempered by pessimism of the intellect, and proletarianised teachers or whoever stop  accepting the manipulations of union bureaucrats etc., and go beyond the hesitations that repeatedly make them stall before the immensity of their tasks, it could very well fizzle out. A million times workers have complained of being “sold out” by union bureaucrats and Democrat or other politicians, as if they hadn’t already sown the seeds of being sold out by tolerating – and looking for help from –  these 2-faced creeps whose fundamental social function is always to keep their struggle under hierarchical control, and to sell a “sell-out’ as the most realistic option. Everyone fears the relatively unknown. But avoiding the relatively unknown, succumbing to the fear of fighting without and against external authority, is the enemy within each proletarian that s/he has to combat if s/he is not to fall into the sense of demoralisation that comes from a very predictable sell-out. “Will alone does not suffice to provide oneself with courage and remove fear; truly one must toil to consider the reasons, the aims and the examples which are able to convince one that danger is not overwhelming, that there will always be more safety in defence than in escape; that one will gather glory and joy as a winner, whereas in escaping one can only expect regret and shame”  (Descartes)Sacramento: Black Lives Matter organisers repress anger on demo again “…several hundred protesters marched through downtown streets for nearly four hours, with Black Lives Matter Sacramento leaders defusing tensions on several occasions to keep the march peaceful.” See entries for 29/3/18, 23/3/18 & 22/3/18

Greece, Athens: students clash with cops as they try to enter Tsipras’s office More here

Nigeria: 100 electricity transformers belonging to electricity company vandalised over 2 month period “he… also decried the rising rate of energy theft by consumers that had continued to by-pass prepaid meters, regretting that JEDC could not collect up to N1 billion for the N4.5 billion worth of energy it distributed in February.”

29/3/18:

South Africa, Eastern Cape: service delivery protesters block major road with with burning tyres, cement blocks & tree branches “…the burning of tyres on public roads during protest actions constitutes contravention of Act No. 18 of 2015, and any person who is found guilty for the offence may be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of up to 30 years, or in the case of a company a fine not exceeding R100 million.”

US, California: protesters against cop murder of unarmed black guy block roads, but Black Lives Matter leaders, and their followers, preach against blocking of basketball game See entries for 23/3/18 & 22/3/18 More on this here, under the section marked “Sacramento Spring”Washington: university admin building occupied in protest against financial “scandal”

Zimbabwe, Mazowe: bourgeois shithead’s farm looted

28/3/18:

Greece, Piraeus: football fans clash with cops, disrupt Finance Minister Scores of soccer fans clashed with police in the Greek port city of Piraeus, near Athens, on Wednesday as they tried to disrupt a speech given by the country’s finance minister. Police fired tear gas to disperse the youths, who threw rocks and set fire to trash bins. The violence broke out a day after the government ended a two-week suspension of the Greek soccer league after saying it had received a commitment from clubs to crack down on violence.”

France, Bordeaux: cops intervene against high school blockade; blockade of university continues; clashes with cops on small student demo against cop/fascist  attacks on students; journalist truncheoned, after cops steal journalist’s & students’ mobiles Lille: clashes between students and cops on small demo

UK, London: wildcat strikers win what looks like an, at least, partial but very speedy victory Details hereGlasgow: partial critique of bureaucracy and bureaucratic manipulation at student conference

Venezuela, Valencia: cops teargas and fire rubber bullets at families of prisoners after at least 68 die in prison riot “…when distraught family members showed up at the attached police station demanding answers, police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. The riot began on Wednesday morning in a jail in the northern city of Valencia, a once-vibrant industrial hub that has been devastated by the country’s multiyear economic crisis. The jail, which is attached to a police station, was designed to hold just 60 people. At the time of the riot, it contained around 200….the chaos began when inmates took a prison guard hostage and threatened to kill him if their demands were not met. Some inmates set mattresses on fire, and the blaze quickly grew out of control.”

Valencia, 28/3/18

27/3/18:

Chile, Santiago: heavy clashes between students and cops as court rules universities can operate for profit “Riot police used water cannons to disperse the protesting students. …The ruling is a blow to free tuition reforms.”

UK, Buckinghamshire: David Bowie tagged Karl Kraus said: “… the only productive deed left to an empty time like my own would be using a Rembrandt canvas to cover somebody’s freezing feet, for no matter how low man had sunken, the preservation of his life was still the supreme value” But nowadays, ars longa vita brevis, means that aesthetics is the supreme value and a homeless, possibly freezing, wo/man’s life is secondary. Art , like Dracula, is dead, but it gives the appearance of life, and sucks the blood out of the living. Under austerity, 12,000 more people die each year than over any one of the previous 10 years, but £100,000 on a statue celebrating some dead millionaire pop idol helps keep people’s priorities right: Down with Life! Long live Art!Liverpool: cop cars vandalised

France, Montpellier: at the “liberal studies” faculty of the University,  2 to 1 majority to have indefinite occupation voted at unprecedentedly large (perhaps 3000 people) General Assembly Tags include “kill the spectator in yourself”, an idea very few took up.

26/3/18:

India, Lahore: massive sit-in by female health workers outside Punjab Assembly blocks traffic for hours The protest continued till late night as negotiations with the government officials remained inconclusive. President of LHWs [Lady Health Workers] Association Rukhsana Anwar has announced continuing the sit-in till acceptance of all demands. Hundreds of LHWs from across the province gathered outside the PA in the morning to press for the demands of payment of outstanding dues, scale upgrade and implementation of service structure.”

Saudi Arabia, Ryadh: 32 workers arrested in rare workers demo

South Africa, Western Cape: police station and library torched in land squat attempt Once again, the demagogic EFF were involved in this, but it’s unlikely that they were the only participants.

25/3/18:

Greece, Athens: 3 cop cars destroyed in anarchist attack on police station At around the same time, a group of hooded anarchists attacked the riot police unit stationed in the corner of Patission and Tositsa streets in Athens, next to the National Technical University of Athens. The assailants threw molotov cocktails and rocks at the police. The exchange of fire bombs and tear gas between the two sides lasted for almost three hours.”

US, California: prison riot

Niger, Niamey: heavy clashes between state and protesters at banned demo against new tax on poor; TV station reporting clashes closed down by state

Canada, Ontario: antifas clash with cops in counter-demo against racists supporting local businesses that had been attacked on 3/3/18 

Brazil, Fortaleza: courthouse & municipal building torched, 45 motorbikes & a dozen cars burnt The official line is that this is part of a war between drug gangs, but do drug gangs torch courthouses and municipal buildings as part of their rivalry?

24/3/18:

UK, Bolton: it’s just not cricket 

Vietnam, Dong Nai Province: 1000s of footwear workers on wildcat strike blockade major highway and win temporary victory A total of 314 wildcat strikes took place across the country last year, with disgruntled workers demanding better pay and working conditions and protesting against overtime, according to the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. The number was up by nearly 10 percent from the previous year”

South Africa, Johannesburg: roads blocked, clashes with cops, during attempt to occupy land Unfortunately this involves the political racket, the EFF, though it’s not clear how much involvement they have had in this.

23/3/18:

US, California: traffic blocked as protests against cop killing of black guy continues

France, La Réunion: bins etc. burnt, as over 200 youths party-riot through the night

22/3/18:

South Africa, Western Cape: housing and service delivery protests turn “violent”

US, California: 100s block freeways and 1000s from entering basketball game in anger at another cop killing of unarmed black guy

France, Montpellier: occupation at the Law Faculty attacked very violently by masked fascists led by the Dean Apparently, the Dean asked the cops to go in, but they said they’d only go in with the agreement of the Prefecture, which  refused to order them in. So the Dean sent in 20 masked and hooded fascist students, including  professors (one being a professor of health law, no less), to beat the shit out of the occupying students, using truncheons, tasers, etc. The Dean then locked himself up with these hooded scum inside the faculty, protecting them from the police who had just arrived.  3 students were hospitalised. Undoubtedly the best lesson in law studies that the students could ever have, including “health law”: “justice” is determined not by “rights” but by the balance of force(s), and the same goes for health (though very differently).  Added 26/3/18: The Dean has now been forced to resign; apparently 4 professors were involved in the fascist violence; and no-one was kept in hospital for longer than 24 hours. The university authorities have temporarily closed down the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Science. The main student resistance is at Paul Valery (Faculty de Lettres – basically, all the “liberal” subjects such as sociology, art, etc.) The fascists are likely to continue their defence of “education” however, despite the fact that, because of the massive media focus on this unprecedented attack (unprecedented in post-WWll bourgeois demockracies, at least) some of their number have so shitted themselves that they’ve decided it best to grass up their fellow fascistsclashes on demos in Nantes, Rennes & Paris during one-day so-called “general strike”Video of cops using water cannon etc in NantesVideo of Parisnew president of Socialist Party forced, by boos & projectiles, to leave demoLots of high schools and universities blockadedToulouse: university occupation threated with intervention of riot copsSome details in French here Paris: Railway and public sector workers gathered this Thursday afternoon in Paris [while the demonstration called at Nation at 11am split after a few hundred meters into two wild and angry demonstrations that re-grouped at the Gare de l’Est…] But also in nearly 180 towns in France. According to the Ministry of the Interior some 320,000 people were mobilized 400,000 according to the CGT. This mobilization was followed in the SNCF [France’s railways]  but also in schools and air transport. Students and high school students also initiated a mobilization on March 22, the fiftieth anniversary of the student uprising that launched the events of May 1968…a bank branch was “ransacked”…Disruptive elements clash with the police…Police respond with water cannon and tear gas…An insurance agency on Beaumarchais Boulevard is targeted by hooded “casseurs”, breaking the window and entering the premises…projectiles fired at the police … They responded  using teargas grenades…a vehicle was set on fire…hooded groups attacked two bank branches and billboards and threw projectiles at the CRS. Shortly before noon, the police charged the protesters and used tear gas.” Should be pointed out that there were lots of public sector workers who did not go on strike – in some sections, a majority. Nantes: “…clashes occur between a few hundred protesters and police…projectiles and paint were thrown onto the facade of the police station…at the prefecture,  the demonstrators were greeted by water hoses. “We’ll keep going, we’re not afraid of getting wet,” the crowd chanted. The police repeatedly used tear gas, causing panic… Numerous firecrackers, smoke bombs and projectiles…degradations and tags…”

https://attaque.noblogs.org/files/2018/03/nantes-22-3-2018-morts-pour-rien.jpg“Dead for nothing…” – tag on war memorial, Nantes

This strike was called above all by the CGT union, a critique of which is now largely taboo in the so-called anti-authoritarian milieu in France. For a critical history of the CGT up until the end of the 2016 movement against the labour law, which I wrote a few months ago, see this.

Grenoble: cops beat up protesters against Frontex  150 people gathered in front of IMAG building of the University of Grenoble, in which was held a university symposium of those enacting the militarization of the borders (Frontex, Euromed police, Europol, etc) which was titled “From Frontex to Frontex , towards the emergence of a new European body of coast guards “. In particular, the President of Euromed Police and the Director of Legal Affairs of Frontex were present. Slogans, a press table and leafleting were on the agenda that afternoon.  The organizers of the conference chose to keep it under police surveillance, the entrances being infiltrated by members of the BAC. Around 4 pm, the group of more than thirty people went to the conference room to disrupt the intervention of the head of Euromed police, and to appeal to the members of the conference. Participants then opened the doors to the protesters who came in, chanting slogans for about ten minutes and leaving time for a tag in the room saying “FRONTEX kills”. Police in riot gear intervened, hitting protesters without warning to get them out. Blocked against a wall, dozens of people had to face the police without being able to avoid blows. Many people were injured and some of them had to be hospitalized. It seems that there were no arrests.

21/3/18:

Zambia, Lusaka: students riot; 333 arrested

Tunisia, Gafsa: cop station torched during sit-in, after sit-inners prevent phosphate workers going to work See entry for 18/3/18

Spain, Madrid: cops injured as Senegalese migrants help fellow migrant resist arrest When agents of the Municipal Police have tried to identify a person who threatened them, several people have started throwing stones, objects and chairs against the agents.See entry for 15/3/18.

Greece Athens: clashes during anti-foreclosure protests

20/3/18:

South Africa, KwaZulu Natal: lectures suspended after heavy clashes between students and campus “security” A group of around 200 students disrupted lectures, demanding that their fellow students join the protest action.The students say poor conditions at the residences and problems with the payout of some students’ National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) allowances led to the protests….Another student from the Westville residence said living conditions there were deplorable. “There has been flooding and no repairs. The roof is not fixed and we are tired of living this way”

Bolivia: clashes with state following siege of coca plant control building “The siege of the APEPCOCA grounds began eight days ago…headed by female coca growers.”  Video here

19/3/18:

US, Hollywood: a critique of celebrities? “The “You Are the Star” mural sits at Wilcox Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. It features classic Hollywood legends like Charlie Chaplin, James Dean and Richard Pryor sitting in the audience at a theater looking at the viewer of the mural. Someone painted yellow bars over the faces of several stars, including Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Shirley Temple, among others. Other walls and street objects in the area were also vandalized. The same yellow paint was also splashed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame near Art Linkletter’s star. A trail of yellow footprints leads away from the spill.” See also “blinded by stars” “The celebrity is the role model broadcast non-stop advertising the positive value of total identification with modern alienation….the carrot of “fame” … invariably makes even those who reach stardom at best comfortable and complacent towards their unhappiness.”

Indonesia, Sulawesi: locals clash with cops as state demolishes houses The clash began when the execution team, comprising thousands of police and military personnel, was intercepted by a group of women who protested the demolition…Later, the residents and the police and military joint troops shoved each other. The residents also threw rocks at the police, prompting them retaliate with tear gas. The tear gas failed to stop the residents, who went on to burn tires on the streets.”

South Africa, KwaZulu Natal: toll gate workers on strike burn tyres at some tollgates

France, Toulouse: up to 100 youths attack cops with stones, fruit and veg, trying to stop arrest2 youths cut down high surveillance camera post

18/3/18:

Tunisia, Gafsa region: 2nd day of clashes with cops as locals demand jobs and investment On Saturday night, police fired tear gas at protesters who tried to block trains that were transporting phosphate. Sunday’s protest, attended by many young men and women, broke down into clashes after some demonstrators threw stones at police, who again used tear gas to disperse the crowd.”

17/3/18:

Israel/Palestine, Jerusalem: 1,500 march against planned deportation of 40,000 asylum seekers. See also this analytical text about migrants in Greece & Germany.

16/3/18:

India, Maharashtra: farmers occupy land they’d been manipulated to sell in scam

Senegal, Mbour: over 120 schoolkids hospitalised due to teargas inhilation after cops clash with striking taxi drivers

Iran: list of mainy proletarian protests going on over last 2 days  (from a repulsive pro-Western “demockracy” site, which nevertheless has interesting information, even if published for utterly opportunist reasons)

15/3/18:

Spain, Madrid: migrants riot against cops after cops murder migrant fly pitcherThis says the filth beat him on the head until he was unconscious and adds, “for this reason they had a salary increase”. Should be pointed out that over the last few years throughout the world, there have been several riots by illegal street vendors against heavy cop clampdowns; those lowest in the hierarchy are always subject to the worst intensification of state/economic terror in order to frighten those above them into subservience for fear of sliding further down the slippery pole. Equally, the lies about those lower in the hierarchy give those above them some pretense to some innate superiority to compensate for their passivity towards their own misery.

France: several universities blockaded – BordeauxMontpellierToulouseRennesNantesBesancon: several inscriptions on the walls of the college from the start of movement: “Let’s be wild; We are nothing let’s be crazy; What do you learn in college, if not to submit?; We are not students, we are delinquents; Let’s live let’s block everything.” To the usual tags done during the occupations at night or in the middle of a “normal” day of classes was added the destruction of various instruments of technological alienation: more than 40 computer screens were smashed in three computer rooms in the Mégevand area; in other rooms overhead projectors were torn from the ceiling, damaged and stolen. At the Arsenal area rooms were sprayed with extinguishers. In addition, food and beverage dispensers and coffee machines were regularly emptied and ransacked. The damage amounts to tens of thousands of euros.In addition, the offices of the Dean of literature André Mariage and head of the administrative staff Thierry Liégeois, were tagged and their locks glued.”

…probably others. In Montpellier, students cut off electricity to the admin block. These blockades and occupations are against a new law intensifying selection for university places. Included in the criteria for selection will now be such things as showing how much voluntary work you’ve done – i.e your being prepared to be a total arse-licking slave….Lyon: football fans clash with cops

UK, Brighton: students occupy half-built accommodation block in solidarity with lecturers’ strike and against 75% rent increasesNottingham: another student occupationGlasgow: and yet another Updates on these occupations etc. here. Depressingly there doesn’t seem to be any critique of the form and content of what passes for “education” at all, the goal of which is to support, in a vast variety of ways, the totality of  hierarchical power,  class society, the commodity economy and the roles necessary to merely survive, producing and consuming our alienation. Is it that all the marxists, libertarian communists, anarchists and whateverists involved in these events feel the need to uncritically support some vaguely radical action in order to later win people over to their more radical critique or have they long repressed this critique? Are they cowards or have they adopted a political mentality that sees struggles in terms of stages and feel fearful of “alienating” those who merely want a temporarily  easier adaptation to their alienation. Of course, the attacks of capital on pensions etc. and its constant creation of  financial insecurity for those not at the top of the shitheap  has to be resisted, but it’s obvious that it’s not enough.  How can one expect anything to advance if you don’t contribute to this advancement? How come there’s no critique of the lecturer role, the intensification of reification by “science”, the distortion  of creativity by  the arts, the use of leftist “critical” sociology by the powers-that-be, etc. etc. Sure, everyone has to find a way of surviving, of making money, but reducing struggle – particularly in the university – to just that ignores a million questions. Response to this on the Cautiously Pessimistic site or below in the comments box . Also, this (below).See also this  – academia, sociology & the muddle class,  written in 2012; though obviously not sufficient it’s maybe some kind of framework or springboard for developing in relation to current struggles.

South Africa, KwaZulu Natal: farms torched, roads barricaded with burning tyres, after poacher is shot dead by security guard

14/3/18:

Bolivia, Santa Cruz: state kills 6 prisoners in prison riot “…a group of inmates set fire to containers and began shooting at the police when they became aware of the operation”

Morocco, Jerada: clashes between cops and locals, including miners,  protesting about safety after a series of “accidental” deaths in mines. Video here Cops are using jihadist tactics against the miners etc: driving their cop vans at high speed at protesters; several injured, but protesters throw stones etc. at cops…this (in English) says that 5 cop cars were torched

US: brief school walkouts throughout country in protest against gun laws As I said back in February: It’s difficult to unweave  the subtleties (or lack of them) of the NRA v. liberal gun control debate – but  from the point of view of radical opposition neither side makes sense, surprise surprise. Trump, at the end of February, declared he would have law enforcement seize the arms of anyone who (through the eyes of whatever means the US government possesses) constitutes what  the government deems to be a threat, without due process. All the focus on “gun control”, without looking at how the state will selectively enforce such control according to its own needs and criteria, merely reinforces the illusion of the state as protector. What convenient selection of gun control could this mean?  At the moment one can only speculate. But it could well mean that antifa groups like the Redneck Rebels could be disarmed (perhaps using statutes originally created to attack “criminal gangs”) while ultra-right filth like the now legally bulletproof Bundys will get a green light or even be allowed in as part of the posse. And how will they enforce this “gun control”? Probably by the use of even more highly technified, intrusive and slimey means of collecting information, and even more aggressive physical invasions of property (infoshops, squats, homes). All this contributes to repressing a community of resistance the growth of which would be the main atmosphere which could help stop the increased atomisation of increasingly mad and even psychotic individuals submissive to the individualist tastes produced by this insane society. [my thanks to G. for most of this]

South Africa, Cape Town: street barricaded with burning tyres as informal settlers resist cop demolition of shacks

Greece, Lesbos: anti-cop riot in migrant camp “the clashes broke out after some 150 people started to protest that they were trapped in the camp indefinitely and charged at police who arrived at the center, and set fires to dumpsters.” See also this analytical text about migrants in Greece & Germany.

Germany, Donauwörth: about 50 migrants clash with cops most of the day trying to prevent deportation of migrant denied asylum

13/3/18:

Panama, Colon: cop car burnt during riot and general strike against lack of infrastructure “Demonstrators are angry over what they see as the slow pace of a project to revitalize Colon’s collapsed sewer system, deficient water supply and crumbling housing. Ditches left open for protracted periods have regularly filled with dirty water and flooded streets, giving off a foul stench and making life more unpleasant in an already dilapidated city. A march called by a social and labor movement ended without incident in the city center. Protest leader Edgardo Voitier called on supporters to return to the streets Wednesday and announced that a general strike in Colon province would continue for another 24 hours. But splinter groups of protesters broke off and threw rocks at police, set at least one patrol car aflame, burned tires and wooden pallets and looted some businesses.”

Senegal, St.Louis: clashes between students and state over non-payment of grantsYeumbeul: state sector high school & middle school students on strike in support of teachers’ demands in confrontations with private schools scabbing on strike This report is, probably deliberately, confusing, saying that the school students were denouncing the strike at the same time as supporting the teachers against the state. Reading between the lines, the “denunciation’ is more of the state forcing the teachers to strike because the state hasn’t honored its contract with themFatick: school students clash with cops over same issue

Algeria, Constantine: students, trying to blockade university, clash with cops during 5th month on strike protesting withdrawal of  guarantee of post graduation jobs

Iran, Tabriz: clashes with state during annual fire festival, now banned (video)

Iran fire festival

UK, York: another student occupation in solidarity with lecturersDundee: and yet another. See also comment below.

Eire, Dublin: students occupy dining hall in movement against £450 fee for resitting examsYesterday was the third day of protest over the issue: students had previously blocked access to the Book of Kells and blockaded entrances to the university.”

France, Mayotte (French overseas department): immigrants riot, burn cars, as local population embark on reactionary general strike against immigrationBordeaux: 82 prisoners refuse to return to cells after exercise yard “free” association, in protest at changes to exercise time (3 hours once, rather than 1½ hours twice a day)

Mali,  Bamako: Algerian embassy attacked and partly burnt during demo by people from Mali expelled from Algeria

12/3/18:

UK, Cambridge: 30 students occupy part of uni in solidarity with lecturers’ strike These people are from “Cambridge Defend Education” – well , I suppose an occupation is giving them a bit of an education, but what is currently defined as “education” is mostly, with a few exceptions, merely inculcation into some precarious role necessary for maintaining the fundamentally anti-educational weight of this society, not worth defending at all. And defence of Cambridge university is a defence of elitism at its worst.

11/3/18:

Zimbabwe, Mutasa: high school students riot on 3rd day of demos against expulsion of students for drug possession Security guards and school authorities who tried to restrain the riotous students were pelted with an assortment of missiles. The students vandalised the security fence around the learning area”

Venezuela, Valera: demonstrations in several parts of city against electricity cuts are followed by riots and looting of various shops and a major shopping centre

Iran, Tehran: clashes between students and state’s morality filth over imprisonment of students

Bangladesh, Gazipur: garment workers in new clash with state and bosses Workers of ATS Apparels Ltd observed strike and staged a demonstration in front of their factory as their arrears were not paid in due time, which ended on Saturday. The demonstration turned violent when police tried to disperse the workers. Meanwhile,  the agitated workers vandalized the factory and blockaded the Dhaka-Tangail highway. Nur-e-Alam Siddiqui, assistant superintendent of industrial police in Gazipur, said: “Police fired several rounds of rubber bullets and tear gas shells to bring the situation under control.” He added that seven police members were injured in the clash. The injured workers and policemen were admitted to several local hospitals and clinics.”

10/3/18:

South Africa: a critique of the electoral circus? A voting station in the Free State was torched and several others closed across the country on the first day of voter registration In the Free State, a tent erected as a temporary voting station in Harrismith was burnt down, another was stolen in Kroonstad by residents and a third was demolished and destroyed by residents… In Gauteng, seven voting stations in Ward 55 in Katlehong, on the East Rand, were affected by ongoing community protests;   Community residents in Ntabankulu in the Eastern Cape shutdown activities in voting stations…Parts of Wonderkop in the North West were also closed; Gazebos had to be erected by staff in Tongaat in KwaZulu-Natal when communities threatened landlords of venues used by the IEC; Dunoon residents in the Western Cape forced an evacuation of election staff by police; One tent was vandalised overnight and another stolen in Kimberly, Northern Cape; On-going protest over municipal demarcation in Vuwani, Limpopo have affected 10 voting stations which remain closed”

Greece, Thessaloniki: cops throw stun grenades & teargas 2000 anarchists protesting nationalism “…the anarchists… barricaded themselves at the University of Thessaloniki. Police are prohibited by law from entering the campus to make arrests. The gathering of Balkan anarchists was organized after far-right activists burned down an anarchist collective’s premises during a January rally protesting the use of the name Macedonia by Greece’s northern neighbor.”  Videos here. Black-clad rioters were seen throwing petrol bombs, fireworks and other missiles at Greek police”

9/3/18:

Mexico, Durango: clashes as locals and others resist construction of cyanide factory For hours, in the town of Dinamita, of the Aurora Ejido, in the municipality of Gómez Palacio, residents of this community blocked the road that connects to the  Chemours Company, dedicated to processing cyanide, which announced that it would manufacture 65 thousand tons of this chemical a year, which alarmed the public. At the beginning, talks began so that the demonstrators could withdraw; however, minutes later, the security forces were attacked with sticks and stones, to which the anti-riot group of the Preventive Police reacted, resulting in three of the protesters being arrested and four officers injured.

8/3/18:

Brazil, Rio: 800 landless women & supporters occupy media giant’s newspaper HQ

Cambodia, Kratie province: 8 villagers killed by security forces backing rubber plantation company’s destruction of village  “…the authorities “confiscated our smart phones and destroyed them,” apparently in a bid to prevent video of the incident from being made public….The Kratie provincial government also released a press statement denying the claims and calling earlier reports “fake news.”

South Africa, Pretoria: evicted informal settlers block roads with burning tyres etc.Western Cape: students block roads, clash with cops, in protest against lack of accommodation

7/3/18:

India, Tamil Nadu: 1000s block major highway, clash with cops after cop causes death of pregnant woman “The situation turned violent as some of the agitators started pelting stones at some other police vehicles. The police too retaliated with lathi charge to clear the protestors, severely injuring many.”Aurangabad: cops injured in clashes over waste dump “The villagers also pelted stones at the trucks dumping garbage and police vehicles. They also set ablaze two vehicles.”

Greece: more protests against home auctions

6/3/18:

France, Bordeaux: riot cops called by uni  admin to violently evict students during General Assembly and amphitheatre occupationMarseille: 40 youths surround and throw stones at cops during arrest

Ivory Coast, M’Bahiakro: public buildings (including gendarmerie and sub-prefecture) ransacked & burned by youths after discovery of victim of ritual killing

Colombia, Bogota: major street closed, windows & bus stop smashed, part of university wrecked in demo against reduced university funding.

See also this anarchist report

US, W.Virginia: school teachers win wage rise for all state workers…paid for out of cuts to Medicaid (wonderful!) Report on end of strike here.Illinois: part of university occupied in protest against underfunding

UK, Somerset: 100s of construction workers occupy nuke power building site over unpaid wages

5/3/18:

Italy, Florence: centre of town smashed up a bit by 100 or so migrants furious about racist murder of Senegales street seller by shopkeeper

Argentina, Bariloche: cops fire teargas & rubber bullets after courthouse attacked, bank windows smashed, cops attacked with sticks following court decision to extradite Mapuche chief to Chile

US, Michigan: antifas clash with fascistsWisconsin: street shut down by 100s demonstrating support for illegal immigrants outside House Speaker’s offices

UK, Exeter: students occupy admin building in pensions movementBristol: similar events here

Australia, High Wycombe: school closed due to vandalism

1970s graffiti:

“VANDALS – ‘The urge to destroy is a creative urge’ SIGNED: BAKUNIN, MARX, the Situationists, the insurgents of Watts ’65, FRANCE MAY ’68, Port Talbot ’69,  PORTUGAL ’74-’75, SOWETO & HULL ’76”

4/3/18:

Iran, Haft Tapeh (Khûzistân): management flee their building after workers smash windows in conflict over unpaid wages

US, W.Virginia: a 2nd section of this state’s working class go on strike

3/3/18:

Bosnia: 4th day of blockading of main junctions connecting cities throughout country by vets demanding benefits for unemployed former soldiers

France, Bure: clashes renewed at this nuclear waste site following expulsion Seems that there’s an element of fixated activism on the part of these militants – the land is barren and besides, many of the people in the area have been bought off, and without that support, the struggle against this nuclear waste site seems like banging your head against a brick wall just to show how radical you are.

Canada, Ontario: yuppie businesses attacked on anti-gentrification demo “a masked mob caused an estimated $100,000 in property damage….”On Saturday night, I met up with a group of people in the Durand neighbourhood, strolled along Aberdeen and up some of the side streets attacking the luxury cars and mansions we found there, making noise with a portable sound system and loads of fireworks,” the post reads. “The march then turned down Locke and attacked as many yuppie businesses as we could before deciding to disperse.”

2/3/18:

US, W.Virginia: teachers vote to occupy state capitol as “wildcat” school strike continues In fact, according to this fairly detailed take on the strike“Rather than a wildcat, this has been and remains an illegal strike with the full support and participation of the 3 trade unions involved.” However, as far as I can tell, this is “wildcat” in the sense that the main bureaucracy  has not officially given it its blessing, but the local union has. In fact, the “leadership” at state level seems to be playing a confusing 2-faced, “wanting their cake and eating it”-type game – if this report is anything to go by, though this is probably justified by them on the basis of not wanting to be taken to court and receiving a hefty fine: “…the wildcat strike has the support of the teacher unions’ leadership. “The union leadership is still negotiating with the state, the governor and with the strikers…When the continuation [of the strike] was announced, yes it was a wildcat. And yes, even though those extra days have not been authorized by the union, the union leadership is going to stand by its members”.  More here “It gets emotional for us, because West Virginia is deep, history runs deep, and strikes are not unknown to our working people here…People died on the lines fighting for what they believe in.” It’s good to be reminded of the fact that when people start to move a bit, when they start to make history a bit, they also begin to rediscover the history of past movements. However, it’s also indicative of this thoroughly counter-revolutionary epoch that the hierarchical form and ruling ideological content of education is largely unquestioned, very rarely subject to critique even amongst “anarchists”, as it was so often during the late 60s – 80s: historical memory has yet to reach such depths.

Eire, Dublin: Lidl looted More here “Stolen substantial digging equipment was used to bulldoze into the side of a Lidl store in Tallaght in Dublin, and the store was then looted, including the store’s safe which the criminals attempted to break open using that same digging equipment. Gardaí later confirmed that six people were arrested at this scene, with a further three arrested at another looting scene at a Centra Store in Jobstown, at which someone who cut open the shutters with a con saw….the first responding officers to arrive were then attacked by people at the scene, and the Gardai drew ASPs (batons) and pepper spray for personal protection but did not use them and were forced to retreat. Civil Defence and Defence Force trucks and snowploughs had to be utilised to bring Garda reinforcements to the scene and arrests were then made.”

Nigeria, Anambra: 2 youths and cop killed, cop vehicle destroyed, in clashes at club The trouble started about 4:30pm on Friday when a Hilux vehicle owned by SARS [Special Anti-Robbery Squad] parked at the famous joint in the village known as Guzoro Ministry with the policemen harassing people. Their action allegedly infuriated the youths who had earlier last two months held a peaceful protest and rejected the services of the police, SARS or any law enforcement agency in the community. They barricaded the arena and resisted any attempt to arrest any patron of the joint, an act which did not go down with the SARS operatives. The operatives allegedly shot five youths, which infuriated the youths leading to a riot and the death of one SARS officers. Their Hilux van was sent ablaze, which forced the security operatives to flee the community.”

 

1/3/18:

Nepal, Hetauda: community cop station attacked, 5 cops injured

Greece, Athens: list of interesting actions in solidarity with anarchist prisoner on hunger & liquids strike See also entry for 28/2/18. Hunger/thirst strike won

US, W.Virginia: teachers’/school employees’ strike becomes a wildcat as strikers reject union sell-out (see entry 2/3/18 above for modified take on this)

Nevada: well-executed detournement of gun ad It’s difficult to unweave  the subtleties (or lack of them) of the NRA v. liberal gun control debate – but  from the point of view of radical opposition neither side makes sense, surprise surprise. Trump, at the end of February, declared he would have law enforcement seize the arms of anyone who (through the eyes of whatever means the US government possesses) constitutes what  the government deems to be a threat, without due process. All the focus on “gun control”, without looking at how the state will selectively enforce such control according to its own needs and criteria, merely reinforces the illusion of the state as protector. What convenient selection of gun control could this mean?  At the moment one can only speculate. But it could well mean that antifa groups like the Redneck Rebels could be disarmed (perhaps using statutes originally created to attack “criminal gangs”) while ultra-right filth like the now legally bulletproof Bundys will get a green light or even be allowed in as part of the posse. And how will they enforce this “gun control”? Probably by the use of even more highly technified, intrusive and slimey means of collecting information, and even more aggressive physical invasions of property (infoshops, squats, homes). All this contributes to repressing a community of resistance the growth of which would be the main atmosphere which could help stop the increased atomisation of increasingly mad and even psychotic individuals submissive to the individualist tastes produced by this insane society. [my thanks to G. for most of this] See also this.

Arizona: massive prison riot; 1 dead “…hundreds of inmates attacked guards and set fires…Some threw rocks, lit mattresses and other property on fire and some broke into the prison’s health care unit. The damage included broken windows, sinks, toilets, fire alarms and flooding.”

UK, Reading: students occupy vice chancellor’s office building in solidarity with lecturers’ pension struggle More on these struggles here

Comments

63 responses to “march 2018”

  1. MTC avatar

    We received and reproduce here an open letter to the British anarchists:

    “We are the proletariat. We are engaged in a mortal fight with the capital that has historically exploited us. Our ultimate aim is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the destruction of all capital—ownership of the means of producing things—resulting in communism.

    As a class we abolish all barriers resultant from class division and by so doing have become truly social, truly human. The alienated concept of wage labour transforms to become mere human activity. We have abandoned political activity and organisation in favour of an organic whole.”

    Movement of Theocratic Communism

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      It seems ever so slightly contradictory to expect to abolish all barriers resultant from class division and by so doing become truly social, truly human through a a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, with the God’s or deity’s laws being interpreted by the ecclesiastical authorities (definition of “theocratic”). You can’t base humanity on humanity and on God at the same time, a minimum basis of critique since Marx’s “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” (1844) . I’m getting fed up with these pointless posts.

      1. James MacBryde avatar

        Good morning/evening Sam,

        As author of the text cited by the Movement of Theocratic Communism I am happy to answer your queries regarding the statement but can do nothing to appease your disgruntlement at it’s appearance on these pages.

        Simply quoting the title of an obscure 19th century philosophical text is unconvincing argument. To assume separation between Man and god denies the existence of pantheism and Spinoza. As for our learned rabbi Marx, he early embraced the concept and centrality of mystical consciousness in his letter to Arnold Ruge and thereby recognised the essential nature of god in the struggle for communism:

        “our motto must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analysing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to itself, whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form. It will then become evident that the world has long dreamed of possessing something of which it has only to be conscious in order to possess it in reality. It will become evident that it is not a question of drawing a great mental dividing line between past and future, but of realising the thoughts of the past. Lastly, it will become evident that mankind is not beginning a new work, but is consciously carrying into effect its old work.”

        Perhaps it is your White image of God that is creating a stumbling block?

        1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

          Maybe you think it’s funny to mis-quote Marx – it’s impossible to know , since you live in a separate world utterly defensive against any outside influence, and hence you are equally incapable of influencing.

          And, by the way, I have no image of God – pink, brown, male, female, heterosexual or gay, with 3,000,000,000,000 eyes or just one.

          1. James avatar

            An internet forum or website is an utterly separate world, for me as for everyone else. It is not reality. My real life consists of work and rest; drinking and sleeping; dreaming and occasionally envisaging; looking people in the eyes, engaging others in conversation without electronic mediation. A rich life full of sensory perception and occasionally extra-sensory perception. This tapping away is poverty in my experience and I look forward to its cessation.

            The White God is not god. It is illusory and therefore has no image.

            I quoted Marx to illustrate that Marx conceived of something beyond the material realm — he expressed it as mystical consciousness. It is therefore not a misquote.

            1. James avatar

              As you happened to mention the personification of god, I reproduce here a comment out of context from another Forum:

              > Be merciful my Catholic brother, I am a Jew. As I understand it the Holy Trinity is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Collectively these are Yahweh god. The original commenter stated that the soul and the [holy] spirit are separate. Yet David sang a psalm extolling Yahweh and his own soul, as one.

              In order to demonstrate why the spirit is not the giver of life I would need to express my own conception of the female aspect of god, which many here would find heretical and I have no wish to offend readers.

  2. Jack Sprat avatar

    Eire, Dublin: Supermarkets ransacked

    Dissident Republicans?

    1. Jack Sprat avatar
      Jack Sprat

      With reference to the editor’s accusation that the above is a “pointless” comment, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the point of it, and I must hope other posts I have made. Our editor and owner cites the story of the robbery and destruction of the Lidl store in the north of Ireland as an example of News of Opposition. This is a most dubious presumption. Was the Brink’s Mat robbery also an example of opposition? Fair enough I know a few proletarians that might have got a little bung out of it but that doesn’t qualify it as proletarian opposition to capital.

      In a time of social peace forms of opposition to capital take more covert forms than some of the purported news of opposition on these pages.

  3. Jimmy Spats avatar

    You raise the Black flag there; we’ll keep the red, gold and green flag flying here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeX-SzAICdw

  4. Jack Sprat avatar
    Jack Sprat

    https://ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/iran-protests/24435-strike-and-clashes-at-iran-s-major-sugarcane-factory

    However praiseworthy our actions may be in opposition to capital we must be constantly vigilant of the motivations of those that brings us “news” of our actions whether these be anarchist or democratic. Every man have a price, and he will sell you out.

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      Another non-sequitur, referring to…what exactly?

  5. I-dem avatar

    We received and reproduce here:

    “A very last word: the proletariat as a revolutionary class has no interest in frontally confronting the state and its central repressive apparatuses. What we have to develop on the contrary is revolutionary defeatism, that is to push the dissolution of bourgeois armies (especially while weakening discipline and coherence within them) by means less costly in human life, through violent methods of course, through direct action, sabotage, generalized and insurrectional strike, etc, in the armies, factories, mines, offices, schools…; anywhere we suffer exploitation from this world of death and misery…; but also through the force and energy of the movement developing its class perspectives. Don’t forget one thing people, it is this: where there are warplanes and warships, machine guns, missiles and poison gas to repress our class movement, behind them there are always and ever will be men and women who have to produce them, to transport them to their destination, to fuel them. It is our duty as struggling proletarians to prevent the war machine from killing our fellow brothers and sisters and ourselves, stopping the system of production from working and functioning.”

  6. Jack Sprat avatar
    Jack Sprat

    Note: Autonomy and spontaneity, secrecy and suddenness, are key aspects to distinguishing between our class action and petty bourgeois politicking.

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      And yet another non-sequitur.

      You provide no context for this comment – it has no concrete meaning as it is, but comes over as yet another of your abstractions. For one thing, “secrecy” is something that petit-bourgeois politickers are as involved in as some people who contribute to “our class action”, and suddenness is not innately one thing or the other either. Moreover, “spontaneity” can often be a false understanding of the moment when proletarian desires become public – they are often the result of long conversations over long periods of time as well as forms of subversion or experiment that remain largely hidden to anyone outside those directly involved but when they eventually become public are seen as “spontaneous”. But abstraction is almost all you ever seem to express, in a way that makes you seem to believe that what you are saying is somehow profound (eg what you said about Iraqi Kurdistan – http://dialectical-delinquents.com/articles/class-struggle-histories-2/latest-on-uprising-in-iraqi-kurdistan/#comment-273881 – was neither analysis nor has proved to be true so far, but somehow you thought you were saying something more profound than my self-admitted limited take on the situation).

  7. Gerrard Winstanley, Theocratic Communist avatar

    “A Declaration to the Powers of England, and to all the Powers of the World, shewing the Cause why the Common People of England have begun, and gives Consent to Digge up, Manure, and Sow Corn upon George-Hill in Surrey; by those that have Subscribed, and thousands more that gives Consent.

    O thou Powers of England, though thou hast promised to make this People a Free People, yet thou hast so handled the matter, through thy self-seeking humour, That thou has wrapped us up more in bondage, and oppression lies heavier upon us; not only bringing thy fellow Creatures, the Commoners, to a morsel of Bread, but by confounding all sorts of people by thy Government, of doing and undoing.”

  8. Cautiously Pessimistic avatar

    It’s been an interesting 24 hours or so in the uni dispute – obviously lazy comparisons can conceal as much as they illuminate, but it is very difficult not to be reminded of that moment in the WV teachers’ strike when the union leadership started coming out with statements about how a deal had been reached and the strike was over, only to be universally told to fuck off by the membership. I think Thursday 15th in Brighton will be interesting – uni management have already announced they’re closing the whole uni down for the day on safety grounds: https://twitter.com/sanjeedah/status/973570040372047872

  9. James avatar

    Sam, old boy,

    Hows about I get my own slot on this site, so I stop interrupting the earnest intentions of this page? I would like to call it Jews’ Corner.

    Please Sir!

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      Why don’t you just get your own site so you “stop interrupting the earnest intentions of this page”?

      1. James avatar

        I wouldn’t know how to get my “own” website and to be honest I think that the internet is a meaningless distraction to proletarian revolution.

        During the last wave of insurrection in my country those that profess most loudly to be revolutionaries were busy tapping away on keyboards while proletarians themselves were the main protagonists of the insurrection.

        1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

          If “the internet is a meaningless distraction to proletarian revolution” why do you feel the need to be distracted meaninglessly from proletarian revolution by throwing out your self-contradictory unnuanced meanderings here on the internet. Just to annoy me and anybody else bothering to wade through all this meaningless distraction or what? Just stop.

          1. James avatar

            Sam man, I’m enjoying myself. Why stop?

            Does a thing have to have meaning, have delineation, to be?

            Where is the spirit of anarchy then?

            Seeing as I am no longer anonymous, and on the off chance anyone that knows me is reading, greetings friends and comrades, and good morning Sam.

            1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

              “Does a thing have to have meaning, have delineation, to be?”

              – and yet it was you who said

              ” the internet is a meaningless distraction to proletarian revolution.”.

              To which you could well have answered yourself with

              “Does a thing have to have meaning, have delineation, to be?”

              You’re so into reducing critique to a pointless and self-defeating ego battle that you can say one thing one moment and the opposite the next just to feel you’ve got one up on me. Pathetic.

              1. James avatar

                You are the one that has constantly slung insults at me from the moment we started a correspondence. I need look no further than this one page of your site to find numerous. And now you accuse me of one-up-manship:

                “Pathetic”

                “Annoying irrelevance”

                “Pointless”

                “Self-defeating”

                “Lack of desire”

                “Private joke”

                “Ramblings”

                “Weirdness”

                “eccentricity”

                “Monologuing”

                “Non-sequitur” (I actually don’t know what that means but I am presuming on past form that it is insulting)

                1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

                  Get the chronlogy of events right – you started insulting me last month – my insults follow this and your utter refusal to genuinely grapple with what I said in an email to you. As for not knowing the meaning of non-sequitur – it takes less than a minute to copy it and paste it into google and find out the meaning.

                  1. James avatar

                    I looked up non-sequitur. It didn’t help. Something about formal logic which is all Greek to me.

                    As far as insults go, perhaps you didn’t openly insult me but from the first letter I received from you I find you acerbic. That’s OK, I’m acerbic too.

                    To start off on a different footing, I totally agree with you on the ongoing protests on the campuses. The demands are petty and the critique of the whole education system goes nowhere to challenge this society of death. This is not new, it goes all the way back to the protests in 1968.

                    This may not be the right slot to put it in but I’d like to say a little about reggae music. There is definitely a regressive trend in the music to religiosity and platitudes; at the same time there are still artists that hold firm to the rebellious nature of the foundations of the music. I heard a tune for the first time this morning and for those with ears to hear, here it is:

                    “They spend all our money the war and attack…

                    If you reply that the demand for jobs and work is reactionary then I ask you, have you ever phoned up for a job only to be asked where you live? When you tell them a ghetto address they ask no more question and that the vacancy is filled.

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6NE0IDTIwI

  10. James avatar

    Here is a taster of what one could expect to read at Jews Corner:

    It’s been another day of struggle down here in Babylon.

    We found out today that our yid has been held in class this week for his five minute (sick) morning break because he did not do his twenty minutes reading at the weekend because he went to see his Nana amongst other tings.

    I was feeling a little blue and disgusted so I payed a visit to our friends to spill my troubles on their shoulders. Lo and behold the same thing had happened to their little girl and her friend — both five — ended up crying as a result.

    A trouble shared is a trouble halved; and the rich are storing up their reward for the day of judgement.

    Jesus Christ!

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      Another private joke. Do you get a kick out of all this annoying irrelevance? Refusing to be influenced by my long email is also indicative of your lack of desire to influence. You seem to be devoid of any self-consciousness (ie consciousness of self and how you come over to others). I guess you’re hoping to be banned so as to bathe in some fantasy martyrdom.

      “Self-consciousness exists in itself and for itself only insofar as it exists in and for another self-consciousness; that is, it exists only by being recognized.”

      —Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit

      See especially this (even if you’ve already read it, it’s worth reading it again): http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/9.htm

      1. Jack Sprat avatar
        Jack Sprat

        If you think the intensification of school work is a “private joke” that is a reflection of you,not me.

        I am not seeking banishment but homecoming.

        What you describe as self-consciousness appears to me as navel gazing.

        1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

          You provide no context for your ramblings – I thought you were referring to something on this page; but no – when you said “our yid” you were referring, I suppose, to your kid being given some kind of detention for not doing some crappy homework; but you do nothing whatsoever to put yourself in the position of someone reading what you say (a notion of self-consciousness which has fuck-all to do with navel gazing), so it’s no wonder I couldn’t make head or tail of your desire to make public whatever happens to pass through your head at any one time. And really – why do you bother?

          1. James avatar

            That comment was supposed to be in reply to Cautiously Pessimistic you egotistical loaf. I would have deleted and allocated the comment under the comment it referred to but no, your site does not have that facility, except of course for its Chief, and Only, Editor and Author.

            Are all booksellers as grumpy as you? I met another one today licking some rich ladies arse in Bath today who took afront to some prole offering him money for his overpriced wares.

          2. James avatar

            “I suppose, to your kid being given some kind of detention for not doing some crappy homework”

            Yet, by some miracle, you understood my ramblings. You must have superior insight. [Sarcasm]

            1. James avatar

              Have no fear, here is Guy Lebore to clear up the whole confusion:

              ‘219

              The spectacle, which obliterates the boundaries between self and world by crushing the self besieged by the presence/absence of the world, also obliterates the boundaries between true and false by repressing all directly lived truth beneath the real presence of falsehood maintained by the organization of appearances. Individuals who passively accept their subjection to an alien everyday reality are thus driven toward a madness that reacts to that fate by resorting to illusory magical techniques. The essence of this pseudo-response to an unanswerable communication is the acceptance and consumption of commodities. The consumer’s compulsion to imitate is a truly infantile need, conditioned by all the aspects of his fundamental dispossession. As Gabel puts it in describing a quite different level of pathology, “the abnormal need for representation here makes up for a torturing feeling of being on the edge of existence.” ‘

              1. James avatar

                The Theses actually have some practical purpose: to spur one to action. This prick Debord just serves to heighten the ego of egotists.

                1. James avatar

                  Thinking about it — Situationism — the idea of formalising the proletarian practice of “situationism” in a series of situationist theses is utterly negating and contradictory to the practice itself. Where’s the fun in it? Especially when it become so long winded and incomprehensible as it does with Le Bore.

  11. James avatar

    I followed the link above to your site and was affronted by the slogan:

    FREE RUSSIAN ANARCHISTS

    What about the rest of us?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5233D8Ifws

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      I followed the link above to your site

      What link above to my site? Once again you make no attempt to help people know what you’re talking about. I imagine (without, of course, knowing) you find this often in your daily life, but people probably tolerate this weirdness, put it down to some “eccentricity”. The fact that you “reply” above, using a different name (Jack Sprat) is indicative of the fact that you really are just monologuing with yourself.

      1. James avatar

        That comment was supposed to be in reply to Cautiously Pessimistic you egotistical loaf. I would have deleted and allocated the comment under the comment it referred to but no, your site does not have that facility, except of course for its Chief, and Only, Editor and Author.

        Are all booksellers as grumpy as you? I met another one today licking some rich ladies arse in Bath today who took afront to some prole offering him money for his overpriced wares.

  12. James avatar

    Getting back to business, I notice from the video (https://vimeo.com/259969265) linked above under the entry dated 13/4/2018 that the ban on celebrating the feast of Chaharshanbe Soor was ignored nationwide.

  13. Cautiously Pessimistic avatar

    Current list of student occupations stands at 13: Exeter, Bath, Dundee, Aberdeen, Cambridge, Queen Mary, York, Stirling, Sheffield, Reading, Edinburgh, Kings College London, and Surrey. Unconfirmed rumours about Queens in Belfast as well.
    Also, for anyone who enjoys cops having a bad day, the NYPD and their bootlickers are absolutely fuming right now about Herman Bell being granted parole.

    1. James avatar

      Exeter, Bath, Cambridge, Queen Mary, York, Edinburgh, Kings College and Queens. Well lardy fucking dah! The gentry are fucking revolting!

  14. James avatar

    On University occupations:

    Babylon System
    Bob Marley and the Wailers
    We refuse to be
    What you wanted us to be
    We are what we are
    That’s the way it’s going to be, if you don’t know
    You can’t educate I
    For no equal opportunity (talkin’ ’bout my freedom)
    Talkin’ ’bout my freedom
    People freedom and liberty!
    Yeah, we’ve been trodding on the winepress much too long
    Rebel, rebel!
    Yes, we’ve been trodding on the winepress much too long
    Rebel, rebel!
    Babylon system is the vampire, yea! (vampire)
    Suckin’ the children day by day, yeah!
    Me say de Babylon system is the vampire, falling empire,
    Suckin’ the blood of the sufferers, yeah!
    BUILDING CHURCH AND UNIVERSITY, wo, yeah!
    Deceiving the people continually, yeah!
    Me say them GRADUATING THIEVES AND MURDERERS
    Look out now they SUCKIN’ the blood of the sufferers (sufferers)
    Yea!…

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      “…it is to Jamaica we must turn to find the most perfected example in modern times of state patronage of contemporary music. Under Michael Manley’s populist social democratic regime (1972/80) reggae, though sustained totally by private capital became a focus of political patronage. Manley made it his duty to put in appearances at special reggae concerts gaining a political benefit from his overtures to Rastafarianism and recourse to patois. In the One Love Peace Concert held in 1978 accompanying the riddims’ were huge placards exhorting the people to “Build Jamaica with Discipline” – “Work Together for Self-Reliance” – “Forward With the People’s Constitution”.

      These concerts may still prove to have been a politico/aesthetic experimental prototype giving a renewed lease of life through the glitter wax of art to this ‘battle for production’ analogous to Stalinism. Needless to say the revolutionary contents of these festivals are nil.

      But the ease with which Manley and the PNP (People’s National Party) manipulated reggae musicians meant forfeiting some of their radical claims. The rush to patronise reggae by Manley and the PNP more or less coincided with a draconian IMF loan leading quickly to a further fall in working class living standards (during the 8 years of ‘democratic socialism’ the cost of living increased 320%), which lost Manley a lot of support. Manley had tried hard to manipulate the more corporate aspects of “black consciousness” in Jamaica (including calling himself “Joshua”) but in the last analysis religious and racial mystification were unable to make good rising working class discord.

      Behind the tough exterior, reggae has a party political soft – Manley’s premiership proceeds from reggae musicians performing at these politically inspired concerts went towards social work and job creation schemes. In fact the politics of reggae has for a long time been taken up with the management of the unemployed – and its special message for the unemployed has always been to “simmer down” (the title of Marley’s first record a tranquilliser for Kingston’s rude boys).

      Without seriously affecting reggae’s doctrinal credibility, Jamaican faultfinding has on the whole been far more of an open secret on the UK scene. There is in Jamaica an organised interface between unemployment and political gangsterisms (prior to the election in 1980 as many as 700 people, the majority of them poor were killed by armed gangs of JLP – Jamaican Labour party – and the PNP) which provided a platform from which reggae musicians without losing face can call for peace.”

      – from here – http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/recent/34-archivelocal/37-like-a-summer-with-a-thousand-julys

      This quote is followed by a photo of the One Love Peace Concert, Spring 1978, showing Bob Marley with the Jamaican PM and leader of the Peoples’ National Party, Michael Manley and the future PM and leader of the Jamaican Labour Party, Edward Seaga.

      1. James avatar
        James

        It is true that political parties in Jamaica have coopted reggae music for political gain but there are few instances where the artists themselves have cooperated in this. After all, the artists themselves are notoriously deprived of the product of their “labours”. One notorious exception is Max Romeo who was carried along by the social democratic wave and put his backing behind the Michael Marley electoral campaign. This is nothing more than we the proletariat has not also of been guilty of.

        The Wailers track, Simmer Down, was not directed at the general ghetto population but against the lumpen element within the ghetto — the rude boys:

        ‘The song was directed to the “Rude Boys” of the ghettos of Jamaica at the time, sending them a message to cool down or “Simmer Down” with all the violence and crime going on in Kingston.’ Wiki

        If anyone thinks that roots reggae is a palliative they don’t know the genre very well at all.

        Bob Marley, Burnin and Lootin:

        This morning I woke up in a curfew;
        O God, I was a prisoner, too – yeah!
        Could not recognize the faces standing over me;
        They were all dressed in uniforms of brutality. Eh!

        How many rivers do we have to cross,
        Before we can talk to the boss? Eh!
        All that we got, it seems we have lost;
        We must have really paid the cost.

        (That’s why we gonna be)
        Burnin’ and a-lootin’ tonight;
        (Say we gonna burn and loot)
        Burnin’ and a-lootin’ tonight;
        (One more thing)
        Burnin’ all pollution tonight;
        (Oh, yeah, yeah)
        Burnin’ all illusion tonight.

        Oh, stop them!

        Give me the food and let me grow;
        Let the Roots Man take a blow.
        All them drugs gonna make you slow;
        It’s not the music of the ghetto. Eh!…

        1. James avatar
          James

          Seriously, who wrote this Shit. No wonder they prefer to remain anonymous to the public:

          In fact the politics of reggae has for a long time been taken up with the management of the unemployed…

          Reggae management have one primary concern, monetary: getting punters through the gate and vinyl out the door.

          The politics of reggae is simple: the negation of politics.

          1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

            “No wonder they prefer to remain anonymous to the public”. As usual you make statements that you haven’t bothered to verify: it doesn’t take more than a minute to find out that this site is not at all anonymous but is the work Dave and Stuart Wise. Also you ignore what they said about Bob Marley – despite writing about burnin’ and a lootin’ he collaborated with the 2 main political parties as the photo in this section of “Like a summer with a thousand julys” clearly shows. You don’t at all respond to this, preferring to maintain your blinkered defence of your reggae hero. You clearly not only have no understanding of the notion of recuperation but have no desire to understand: professional rebels of all stripes represent and commodify rebellion, make a lucrative career out of this; Marley’s song was just indicative of that and only that.

  15. James avatar

    WILDLY OPTIMISTIC

    1. Sam FantoSamotnaf avatar

      Another non-sequitur. You really don’t care whether anyone can understand you or not. What’s “WILDLY OPTIMISTIC” – you? me? Coronation Street? Colgate toothpaste?

      1. James avatar
        James

        You are Cautiously Pessimistic; I am wildly optimistic.

        Yes, I don’t care:

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UE_Pm-nEvOc

  16. James avatar
    James

    15/3/18

    Sam: ‘Depressingly, there doesn’t seem to be any critique of the form and content of what passes for “education” at all…’

    It is true that there is no critique of present day education but is it depressing? Only if one expects to find a critique of bourgeois education from these quarters, which I for one don’t expect to.

  17. Cautiously Pessimistic avatar

    Cross-posting my (somewhat messy) reply to you here:
    I’m trying to think of any examples, and one of the things that really strikes me is that I genuinely don’t know where to look for such critiques – I imagine that there must be some interesting conversations happening in at least some of the occupations, but I don’t know where such conversations or their outcomes would be recorded for outsiders to see, without doing a vast amount of trawling through twitter/facebook. I did notice that Plan C have just published a piece called “Professionalism and alienation: How to maintain capitalist relations” – but that then turns out to be a piece written by a domestic violence worker, which while interesting in itself is not directly related to the topic of academia.
    One of the more interesting elements of the strike has been the organising of alternative “teach-out” type events, which, while pretty variable in content, at least point to some desire to experiment and imagine how things could be done differently, but again there’s no kind of a central hub (which I think is not entirely a bad thing), so you have to go digging through various local accounts to find out what’s on – so for instance I’ve found a few things from Sheffield: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYUZq3vXUAEJKhM.jpg:large
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXvwhGvWkAIFmKB.jpg:large
    which range from discussions of “how can we liberate our curriculum?”, “who’s subsiding who? A naive melody on higher education and ‘lifelong learning’”, and “self-harm: cutting overdosing and neoliberalism”, all of which sound potentially quite interesting… to a session presented by Paul Blomfield MP.
    Similarly, here’s the Leeds programme, which sounds like it might have some worthwhile content: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_JVAZ4bTBSeGQ096f7NGm39n6Fh0Ve4GU6EqQUhK_EU/edit#gid=0
    Not sure how many other places these things happened in or whether there’s any sort of national-level guide to them. From a brief look, here’s the programme for KCL: https://www.kclsu.org/asset/News/6015/KCL-Teach-Out-Programme.pdf and Cambridge: https://cambridgeucuaction.wordpress.com/teach-outs/
    But again, those are mostly just titles and brief descriptions, so for those who can’t attend, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the content’s like, apart from sessions where you recognise the speaker’s name, for better or for worse.
    The USS strike solidarity blog also has a few posts that at least vaguely gesture towards a critique of the university, with titles like “The university is a factory”, “Universities, solidarity and my mental health”, and “Pensions strike hits the neoliberal university”… but then we also get “How Corbyn helps the strikes – and vice versa”, just to remind us that this is the British left in 2018 so everything always comes back to Labour.

  18. Cautiously Pessimistic avatar

    On the other side of the Atlantic, if you haven’t seen it already, there’s this: https://cuttingclass.noblogs.org/post/2018/03/14/nationalwalkoutday-roundup/
    Collected by some people who have a very open and direct critique of education: https://cuttingclass.noblogs.org/about/

    1. James avatar
      James

      Cutting Class:

      “…the university is bankrupt.”

      The implication being that it was once solvent.

      “For an education that liberates. For a classroom that no longer spectates. For house parties where students [students are not workers: school work is not work?], workers, and faculty [sic] can throw down together. For a campus culture that terrifies the board of trustees. For a campus that celebrates life.”

      What wonderful ideals!

      For the worldwide shaking off of the bourgeois yoke in all its guises: conservative, reformist and radical…

  19. James avatar

    Sam Fanto, 15/3/2018:

    “…those lowest in the hierarchy are always subject to the worst intensification of state/economic terror in order to frighten those above them into subservience for fear of sliding further down the slippery pole. Equally, the lies about those lower in the hierarchy give those above them some pretense to some innate superiority to compensate for their passivity towards their own misery.”

    Isn’t it simply the case that I can kick my dog with more impunity than I can kick my child? The fact that I kick my dog does not imply a conspiracy to frighten my children into subservience. Does the fact that I kick my dog necessarily give my children a sense of superiority, especially as I am more than likely to kick the children too?

    Whatever the answer to these questions may be the fact remains that what I am describing is the normal workings of bourgeois society and not the revolutionary movement against it — i.e. News of Opposition.

    It is when the dog turns on me and bites back that the revolutionary scenario opens up, as is the case with this uprising in Madrid.

  20. Cautiously Pessimistic avatar

    Oh, and just spotted this observation from Edinburgh:
    ““Why is it that so many of us feel we have learnt more in the last six days of occupation than in the past semester or year at uni?” – widely held feeling at our general assembly right now.”
    Of course, we can ask how much more they might learn if they, and the movement they’re part of, were to come up with a means of circulating and discussing ideas that’s better than just having everything spread across a hundred different twitter accounts, each subject to that site’s ridiculous limitations – but still, it’s a start.

  21. James avatar

    A short note on the deceptive nature of terminology:

    The terms “democracy” and “theocracy” when spoken through the lips of our Good Bourgeois take on a meaning quite opposite to what the words actually mean. Bourgeois democracy is not rule by the people — those with no special status within society — but quite the opposite, it is the rule of those with special status within society, i.e. the capitalists. Bourgeois theocracy is not the rule of god but the rule of the bourgeois representatives of their God, capital — the clergy and clerics.

  22. James avatar

    19/3/2018: “Residents clash with police personnel in land execution in C. Sulawesi”

    EDITORIAL OMISSION in curly brackets

    “The clash began when the execution team, comprising thousands of police and military personnel, was intercepted by a group of women who protested the demolition.

    {MERCENARY WORDS OF LAWYER OMITTED. The women recited a prayer, and other groups of residents yelled “Allahu Akbar [My god of salvation is greater]”}

    Later, the residents and the police and military joint troops shoved each other. The residents also threw rocks at the police, prompting them retaliate with tear gas.

    The tear gas failed to stop the residents, who went on to burn tires on the streets.”

  23. James avatar
    James

    18/3/2018:

    ‘ “Work, freedom, national dignity,” protesters chanted in Mdhilla [Tunisia], demanding that a portion of revenues produced from phosphate mining in the region be allocated to its development.’

    Social democratic demands hold sway in periods of reaction.

  24. James avatar

    29/3/2018:

    “US, California: protesters against cop murder of unarmed black guy block roads, but Black Lives Matter leaders, and their followers, preach against blocking of basketball game…”

    One might get the impression from your headline, Sam, that BLM had interjected into a spontaneous autonomous proletarian protest against police oppression but the protest has from the start been orchestrated by the social democratic lovechild of George Soros.

    “Mi nah trust Babylon fi nah a second….”:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E1UdI_9Ej8

  25. James avatar

    30/3/2018:

    Palestinian authorities issue workers with flags instead of guns and orchestrate demonstrations at the national border with Israel. As would be expected Israeli authorities answer these lambs to the slaughter with tear gas and live fire killing at least 20 and injuring over 500.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.