Right Wing Pedos Once More!

More evidence that the authoritarian mentality and pedophilia are connected. See

http://www.armchairsubversive.org/

Manifesto of solidarity with Venezuelan Anarchists and Social Movements

One disturbing aspect of the article below are the disputes within Venezuelas small anarchist movement. There are, as I pointed out on a number of occasions in this blog, anarchist groups which give a certain amount of critical support to the Bolivarian Revolution. El Libertario is highly critical of the Chavistas. This article denounces El Libertario's anarchist opponents as “ fictitious groups paid for by the state” and considers them an aspect of Chavista repression against themselves. The critically pro-Bolivarian anarchists in turn call them “liberals” , “anti-working class tools of the right” etc. To me this all smacks of sectarianism and hence any articles coming out of the Venezuelan anarchist milieu have to be taken with a grain of salt. (1)

The newspaper Tierra y Libertad, mouthpiece of the Iberian Anarchist Federation, published in edition 227 of June 2007 this manifesto of the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF-IFA; www.iaf-ifa.org) in support of those who in Venezuela today confront the bureaucratic capitalist project of the Chavez government as well as their social democrat and right wing opponents.

In the first three months of 2007, 23 popular demonstrations were repressed by the Venezuelan government and 99 activists were detained. This fact speaks of the growing unease as well as the criminalization of social struggle in this Latin-American country, in a reality masked by the propaganda and mystification of a regime that paints itself as the vanguard of ‘21st Century socialism’ with the support of different groupings and persons associated with the authoritarian left throughout the world.

However, those who are concerned with the real situation of the oppressed and exploited in Venezuela know the inconsistencies and contradictions of the populist government led by the militarist Hugo Chavez. Far from structurally advancing the reduction of inequalities and the increase of possibilities of social development, the government in power in Caracas continues to maintain one of the most unjust systems of distribution of wealth in the continent, further deepening the role assigned to the country by economic globalization as a secure and trustworthy provider of energy to the global market, with trans-national oil corporations as pampered partners and principal beneficiaries of the actions of the Venezuelan state. After eight and a half years of a government relying on high oil prices with the highest financial income in national history, the social results of Chavez’s politics are mediocre, the most notable being the apparition of a new parasitic bourgeoisie of the client state, the ‘bolivarian bourgeoisie’.

According to recent government reports and statistics, over 5 million workers, 46.5% of the labour force remain in the informal sector of the economy, 43% of workers receive a salary under the legal minimum wage, a little less than 200 dollars per month, 2.5 million people lack suitable housing, 18% of the population suffer malnutrition, the network of public hospitals displays needs and limitations of every type, 90% of the indigenous population live in poverty, more than 400 people die violently each year in prison and there is an average of 15 people assassinated every month by repressive organs of the state.

The Venezuelan government has maintained over the last five years an inter-class dispute with certain traditional sectors of the local bourgeoisie which, in the midst of a strong political-electoral polarization, has allowed the division, immobilization, and recuperation of the country’s social movements. Any critic of the corrupt, inefficient and wasteful official bureaucracy would immediately qualify it as being ‘at the service of imperialism’, and with the excuse of confronting possible ‘coup’s and ‘reactionary provocations’, they have announced diverse laws that penalize with greater vigour street actions and strikes in the basic state industries. These are part of legal mechanisms that since 2006 have been used against popular mobilizations which, trying to recuperate their own demands, demonstrate every week for the right to personal security, decent housing, work and decent working conditions. The response of the government has been with tear gas grenades, gunshots and arrests.

Faced with the deceitful polarization experienced in this country, and specifically as a response to the presidential mandate to dissolve previously existing parties and groupings in order to integrate them in to the single party of Chavism, with the acronym PSUV, diverse Venezuelan organisations are trying to create autonomous spaces for the social movements. Amongst these are the efforts of the anarchists who from separate initiatives, such as the publication El Libertario (www.nodo50.org/ellibertario) are building an alternative that is as removed from the social democrat and right wing opposition as it is from the capitalism of the Bolivarian state. This effort by the anarchists to construct alternatives and routes that are consistently autonomous implies risks: El Libertario, for example, must face a systematic campaign of recriminations and disrepute from fictitious groups paid for by the state, thus there is a growing harassment of anti-authoritarian activism.

This manifesto wishes to remind our libertarian brothers and sisters inside Venezuela, as well as the various grass roots autonomous organisations that they have our appreciation, support and solidarity. Our anarchist organisations and initiatives will denounce, in every way they can, the incoherence and demagoguery hidden behind the alias of the ‘bolivarian revolution’, activating the necessary support mechanisms in response to every government attack against the concrete aspirations of social justice and liberty of the Venezuelan people.

1. Just how vicious sectarianism can be within the anarchist movement can be shown by the splits within the Spanish CNT back in the 1980's. The old guard attacked the group which later became the CGT as “traitors,” “anti-anarchist” and the two groups physically attacked each other. In the 1990's, the minority split-off from the French anarcho-syndicalist CNT slandered the majority as “fascists”. The International Workers Association (AIT) to which the Spanish CNT belongs, forbids its members from attending conferences sponsored by non-AIT anarcho-syndicalist unions. The AIT is notorious for its sectarianism. It is believed that El Libertario has some connection to the AIT. I should point out that only a minority of anarchists engage in this sort of thing and that most try to work together.

Aboriginal People and Canadian Genocide

This is a note to inform you that a Googlevideo version of UNREPENTANT is available. For those of you unaware of this prize winning film, it is an hour and a half documentary about the murder of 50,000 or more Aboriginal children in the residential schools, the attempts to cover up these crimes and the attacks upon the courageous few who have spoken up. Please copy this video and distribute it far and wide. Let the world know the truth about Canada's genocide! See:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6637396204037343133&hl=en

William's Windmill

Thanks to Red Jenny http://redjenny.blogspot.com/2007/07/good-thing-they-have-us.html this really inspiring blog about a young fellow in Malawi who has developed his from scratch wind mill power generator. See

http://www.williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

Environment and Class War

This has also been posted at the Carnival Of Anarchy http://carnival-of-anarchy.blogspot.com/

The natural environment is the key issue today. This is not to reduce all other struggles and problems to it in a reductionist way, however. But what happens to the environment will have a determining effect upon the nature and direction of social change for the next generation, if not sooner.

We are facing two interrelated natural environment based crises – global warming and peak oil. Nothing real is being done about either, and the authorities are not preparing the population for a possible dire future. The orthodox left – social democrats – mainstream Greens - trumpets band aid solutions – Kyoto, hybrid cars, wind power etc. all well and fine in their way, had they been introduced 30 years ago! Only the minority; radical Greens, socialists, anarchists, decentralists, are really telling the truth to the people – that the auto, imported food, suburban sprawl, Walmart life style has to go and has to go now, otherwise heavy times ahead.

This brings me to class struggle. Of course, it goes on all the time, the ruling class or elite warring against the populace and the people fighting back with absenteeism, other forms of sabotage, and strikes. 98% of the aggression come from the rulers, however. The people tend to respond in a reactive manner. One can hold a romantic view of the proletariat, but nonetheless the previous statement is true, If you look at history. The people seem to go on the offensive only after a serious shock like a lost war, an attempted right-wing coup, or a bone-grinding economic depression. This reactive nature is understandable. Most people are not ideological and only wish to go about their daily lives. They will put up with an incredible amount of abuse as long as they are allowed some minimal level of “normal” existence. What I am suggesting is that the combined crises of peak oil and global warming will be such a shock.

We don't know the severe the crisis will be, but some people who have studied the issue, such as James Howard Kunstler, imply it will be the most severe crisis humanity will have faced since the Late Middle Ages, when the people endured famine, war and plague as a result of climate change, over-use of the land and the cutting down of the forests.

What type of reaction occurs really depends upon us, the libertarian-decentralist minority. The better prepared areas will pull through easier than those that have not prepared. Those of us who work to build community and support for local food production, farmers markets, public transit and struggle against developer-idiocy, will have in the long term, saved lives. Masses of people will turn against the rulers, finally realizing they have been lied to. Much of the true-believer Hummer - MacMansions crowd will turn to fascism. Of course, some are 90% there already.

Whether the mass of the people turn to fascism or communitarian socialism, will in some way depend upon how we tackle this issue now. And tackle it we must. I suggest a place to begin would be a sticker with the slogan “Is Your Town Prepared for Peak Oil?”, in smaller print below, “Or Is It Still All Shopping Mall and Suburban Sprawl?” and the web address of one of the peak oil sites. (Something similar about global warming for those areas that will be effected the most.) This could be followed up with a poster listing suggested actions that could be taken to survive peak oil/global warming.

Sarcophagus Wins Majority

Bad news! French President Nicolas Sarcophagus appears to have won a clear majority (330-230) of seats in the National Assembly. This evil, sick, treasonous piece of shit will now have a clear hand, in the Assembly at least, to turn France into a clone of the US. You would think that the people that voted him in would have learned from the mess created by Thatcher in the UK and Bush in the Empire, but evidently hatred toward immigrants, the left, etc takes precedence. (Is this the return of Vichy?) However, the French can be counted on to fight the destruction of their way of life in the streets. Maybe we will get a repeat of 1968.

Polynesians Beat Europeans to America

Chicken bones found in Chile prove that Polynesians visited America at least 100 years before Columbus. DNA analysis shows that the chicken was of Polynesian and not of a European variety. C14 dates it between 1320 and 1410. See story

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070604-chickens.html