The parties and the media have united to promote a violent hysteria against the few squatters. Just a few criminal incidents are enough to blame everyone, while 700,000 evictions, 3.5 million vacant homes and impossibly high rents are ignored.

The Shocking Facts from the article below

1. Occupied dwellings without a contract represent 0.34% of the total. And the number of supposedly conflictive occupations, about 8,500, is absolutely ridiculous given the more than 700,000 families evicted.
2. Most of that 0.34% of occupied houses belongs to banks, vulture funds and large companies.
3. The number of empty houses according to the latest census is 3.5 million, a third of the uninhabited houses in all of Europe. What is surprising is that the number of occupations has not skyrocketed.
4. In fact, vultures and professional politicians tend to coincide in the same power circles: Aznar, Aguirre, Pujol or Zaplana … they are all surnames that abound in the boards of directors of vulture funds.fondos buitre.
5. Why are they preying on that minority of squatters with no alternative instead of addressing the problem of vulture funds or the 165 evictions a day, which are now, above all, due to non-payment of rent.
6. Real estate profits have tripled, laws have been changed to attract vulture funds and tenants’ rights have been taken away. 65% of evictions have been carried out by rescued banksbancos
7. Public housing barely reaches 2% of the total stock, light years away from the European average (15%).

Squatters: the great montage of the populist right

by Jaime Palomera / Diana Virgós 05/26/2019
by . agora.ctxt.es.shared with thanks. Added illustrations

It is increasingly common, especially during the electoral campaign: rallies arrive and reactionary populism takes out old ghosts for a walk to divert attention from the causes of our problems. To hide their lack of proposals and even defend occurrences that, under normal circumstances, would be inadmissible.

Continue reading “Violent Hysteria against the few Spanish Squats: the great Montage of the Populist Right”

Tell the People That the Struggle Must Go On: The Thirty-Fourth Newsletter (2020)

20 August 2020 — by Tricontinental, shared with thanks.,

Thami Mnyele (South Africa), untitled, pen and ink, Gaborone, Botswana, 1984.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Young children marvel at an obvious contradiction in capitalist societies: why do we have shops filled with food, and yet see hungry people on the streets? It is a question of enormous significance; but in time the question dissipates into the fog of moral ambivalence, as various explanations are used to obfuscate the clarity of the youthful mind.

The most bewildering explanation is that hungry people cannot eat because they have no money, and somehow this absence of money – the most mystical of all human creations – is enough reason to let people starve. Since there is ample food to eat, and since a lot of people do not have enough money to buy food, the food must be protected from the hungry people.

To that end, we – as human beings – allow for the creation of a police force and for the use of violence to defend food against the hungry. In one of his earliest journalistic reports, Karl Marx wrote of the violence used against the peasants of the Rhineland who collected fallen wood to feed their fires.

The peasants, Marx wrote, know the punishment – including death – but they simply do not know the crime. For what reason are they being beaten and killed? The collection of wood that has fallen on the forest floor cannot be seen as an act of criminality, nor can the basic human need for hungry people to forage for food.

Continue reading “‘Tell the People That the Struggle Must Go On’: whole Communities Evicted in Brazil and Sth Africa”

Los partidos y los medios se unen para levantar una histeria violenta en contra de los pocos okupas. Solo faltan unos incidentes de unos criminales para culpar a tod*s, mientras 700,000 desalojos, 3.5 millones de casas vacías y los alquileres imposiblemente altos son ignorados.

Los Datos Espantosos del artículo abajo

1. Las viviendas ocupadas sin contrato representan un 0,34% del total. Y la cifra de ocupaciones supuestamente conflictivas, unas 8.500, es absolutamente ridícula ante las más de 700.000 familias desahuciadas.
2. La mayor parte de ese 0,34% de casas ocupadas pertenece a bancos, fondos buitre y grandes empresas.
3. El número de casas vacías según el último censo son 3,5 millones, un tercio de las viviendas no habitadas de toda Europa. Lo sorprendente es que la cifra de ocupaciones no se haya disparado.
4. De hecho, buitres y políticos profesionales suelen coincidir en los mismos círculos de poder: Aznar, Aguirre, Pujol o Zaplana... son todos apellidos que suenan en los consejos de administración de fondos buitre.
5. ¿Por qué se ceban con esa minoría de okupas sin alternativa en lugar de abordar el problema de los fondos buitre o los 165 desahucios al día, que ahora son, sobre todo, por impago de alquiler.
6. Los beneficios inmobiliarios se han triplicado, se han cambiado las leyes para atraer los fondos buitres y han quitado los derechos a los inquilinos.65% de los desalojos han sido protagonizadas por bancos rescatados
7. La vivienda pública apenas llega al 2% del parque total, a años luz de la media europea (15%).

Okupas: el gran montaje de la derecha populista

por Jaime Palomera / Diana Virgós 26/05/2019

por agora.ctxt.es. compartido con agradecimientos. Ilustraciones añadidos

Es cada vez más habitual, especialmente en campaña electoral: llegan los mítines y el populismo reaccionario saca a pasear viejos fantasmas para desviar la atención respecto a las causas de nuestros problemas. Para esconder su falta de propuestas e incluso defender ocurrencias que, en circunstancias normales, serían inadmisibles.

¿Que no quiero ver tantos pobres? Agitamos el espantajo del racismo. ¿Que la natalidad está por los suelos? Agitamos entonces la prohibición del aborto. Dime de qué careces y te diré qué miedo difundes.

el trifachito ha decidido ponerse la máscara de Halloween para meternos miedo: cuidado, que vienen los okupas

El problema de la vivienda no está a salvo de estas maniobras inspiradas en Trump. Y no deja de sorprender. Cuando apenas hemos salido de una estafa hipotecaria brutal y ya nos encontramos en una burbuja del alquiler, debería ser fácil deducir que algo falla en el sistema.

Sin embargo, antes de que nos dé por reflexionar sobre cuál es el origen de nuestra crisis habitacional, el trifachito ha decidido ponerse la máscara de Halloween para meternos miedo: cuidado, que vienen los okupas.

Pero, ¿son las ocupaciones de primeras y segundas residencias un problema de primer orden, como dicen PP, Ciudadanos, Vox, e incluso PDeCat o PNV?

Nada más alejado de la realidad. Las viviendas ocupadas sin contrato representan un 0,34% del total en todo el Estado. Lo decía el estudio del Institut Cerdà en 2017, financiado nada menos que por Banc Sabadell (entidad poco interesada en minimizar las ocupaciones). Y entre esas casas, solo una de cada diez es identificada como problemática.

Continue reading “Histeria violenta en Contra de los pocos Okupas: el gran montaje de la derecha populista”

Translations from KurdisCat shared with thanks

• 1)The Kurdish guerrillas confirm the death of 7 of their members in a Turkish bombing
• 2)Interview with Newroz Ehmed, new Commander-in-Chief of the YPJ
• 3)Turkey kidnaps YPJ’s niece Salih Muslim, leader of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan)
• 4)The guerrilla Amara Roj dies in combat against the Turkish occupiers
• 5)Youth of Afrin canton appeal to all young to join the “We Will Win” campaign

7 Kurdish guerrillas killed by Turkish bombings, 6 of them women

The Eastern Kurdistan Protection Units Command (Yekîneyên Rojhilata Kurdistan, YRK) today revealed the identities of seven of its fighters killed in Turkish airstrikes on August 7 near the village of Qamish, 50 kilometers north of the city of Sulaimaniyya, Kurdistan of Iraq.

The fighters include six women and a man, Hours after the attack, Turkey’s Defense Ministry claimed it had “neutralized” seven PKK fighters. Turkey launched its current air offensive in the Kurdistan region on June 15, with the stated goal of removing PKK fighters from the border areas.

Continue reading “Womens revolution news.. 7 Kurdish guerrillas killed by Turkey, 6 of them women ..+ +”