” the most detailed fictional treatment of the movement from a world recognizably like our own to an anarchist society that I have read.. imagined strongly enough to allow readers to believe that events could happen this way.”
One of the thorniest issues faced by anarchists is imagining a viable process by means of which the contemporary world of dominance and oppression passes into a world of freedom and equality. Is the process to be evolutionary or revolutionary, and if the latter, is it to be violent or non-violent? Interestingly, not many anarchist fictions are dedicated to describing such a transformative process. Most either assume that the anarchist society already exists and devote little attention to how it came about, or they posit some catastrophic event that ends the old order and allows a new one to emerge.
Rarely does an author patiently outline a process of transformation that shows a continuous progress from something like the current state of society to an anarchist one. 1*
It is for this reason that M. Gilliland’s The Free merits an essay here.2.*
It is the most detailed fictional treatment of the movement from a world recognizably like our own to an anarchist society that I have read. More importantly, it is imagined strongly enough to allow readers to believe that events could happen this way. That is to say, it gives plausible answers to the two most important questions regarding such a transformation: under what preconditions is it likely to occur, and once it starts what factors most contribute to its success? After a brief summary of the plot, I trace the answers that The Free gives to these questions.3*…
Today’s super-rich are the most privileged and powerful group of people in history. If you’re a billionaire, you can even decide an election by funneling a little bit of your money into the race. You can choose to pay 0% tax. You can sway public opinion by buying up media outlets, and by using think tanks to influence schools and news sources. You can mobilize law enforcement agencies towards targeting your enemies, that is anyone who annoys you.
They are criminals, even the very few with a conscience give away just a fraction of their ill-gotten loot. Even today, with many states openly run by neo racist, sexist and militarist neo fascists, it’s popular to campaign against the astounding and ballooning wealth and power of billionaires. Unmasking these mega robbers helps unite us and at least slows down the trend to dictatorial rule.
The eight richest people in the world hoard more wealth than the bottom 50% of humanity combined .. they are playing with fire..’.
Extreme inequality and declining living standards have happened everywhere that neoliberalism has been imposed, including in the Scandinavian countries that have tried to “reform” capitalism. While the world’s eight richest men now have the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of humanity, the world’s poorest 3.6 billion people are currently getting poorer.
Some call it Moneyland, others see a return to feudal times. The offshore world could also be compared to the two-tiered architecture of imperial Panem in Suzanne Collin’s dystopian Hunger Games trilogy, which is said to reflect the workings of the Roman empire.
Income inequality is at its highest level in at least 50 years, according to one measurement from the government’s Census Bureau. Oxfam reported that the world’s wealthiest 26 individuals, as of 2018, had the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the US population, which is supposedly the richest state. There were 2,153 billionaires as of March, with the ultra-rich worth $8.7 trillion, according to Forbes.
Everyone pays for the rich to get richer. We pay with our labor, working to fill their pockets. We pay with skyrocketing rent as they gentrify us out of our homes. We pay with the destruction of the environment, the erasure of our communities, the stress in our day-to-day lives. We pay for things that used to be free, like water. We pay taxes so they can hire more cops to terrorize us. Everyone pays, but only they benefit.
With an increasing media spotlight + growing actions across the US + the world, we caught up with several #Seattle anarchists to learn why people are pushing for a fare strike, police off mass transit, and increased + totally free service. #NoBodyPayshttps://t.co/rpZ7LmOuBY
Maria
Meza, a migrant woman from Honduras, runs away from tear gas with her
five-year-old twin daughters Saira and Cheili at the US-Mexico border on
November 25, 2018 [File: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon]
Last December, the Trump administration enacted a scheme requiring Central American asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their legal proceedings drag on indefinitely in the United States.
The Migrant Protection Protocols policy – a
handily perverse euphemism – is the approximate equivalent of calling
the Exxon Valdez oil spill the Marine Life Protection Initiative. As
various human rights and advocacy organisations have pointed out, the
border programme has exposed tens of thousands of asylum seekers to violence; including rape, kidnapping and assault, in the unsure border regions of Mexico.
In light of the surplus of rapes and other abuses already documented
as a result of so-called “protection”, the International Day for the
Elimination of Violence against Women – marked annually on November 25 –
is an ideal occasion to reflect on the violence facing migrant women in
an era of mass migration.
Pervasive violence
As the UN Women website observes : ” Rape
is rooted in a complex set of patriarchal beliefs, power, and control
that continue to create a social environment in which sexual violence is
pervasive and normalised.”
The feminist revolution in Rojava, N.Syria, shows how patriarchy can be defeated, even in a rural and strictly religious society. The revolution is now being destroyed by a Turkish invasion with a strongly patriarchal mentality. The Rojava kurds formed the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) in 2015 and welcomed dozens of Arab, Assyrian, yazidi, Christian..militias into a common front, spreading their revolutionary methods (eg in Manbij Council).Yazidi women victims have formed their own militia within SDF and recently the first arab women’s militia has been formed (July ’17). There are profound feminist implications in the context of previous extreme social repression.
For an idea of the extent of normalisation, just recall Patriarch-in-chief President Donald Trump‘s own previous advice about fondling women without their consent: “Grab ’em by the p****.”
Migrant women, of course, are particularly
vulnerable to “grabbing” – and much worse – especially given that crimes
against migrants are not generally reported or prosecuted. And for
Central American women transiting Mexico to the US border, sexual
assault is frequently par for the course.
On the 25th of November 1960 the tyranny of the dictator Trujillo, a symbol of the systematized patriarchy, killed the Mirabal sisters through a conspiracy. Their resistance and their murder increased the struggle against the fascist dictatorship. Six months after they were killed, the organized force of the people brought an end to the dictatorship. The Mirabal sisters continue to be one of the biggest sources of hope for the fight of all women in the world against patriarchal violence and its organized forms of fascism and dictatorship.
Hevrîn Xalef
Hevrîn Xalef
Today, our region has become a war zone of international hegemonic forces. We as women in the region face the most heavy, organized, brutal and intensive sides of the violence in this war zone. In North and East Syria, in the occupational and genocidal war that Turkey started on the 9th of October; from the use of prohibited chemical weapons, torture, organized attacks and rapes, forced displacements and murders, women and children faced and continue to face various kinds of attacks.
International Call: Rise Up, Defend Rojava!.. .ANF NEWS DESK
💥On 12th & 19th October will be worldwide action days. If democratic movements decide to put the issue on the agenda, then we can develop a worldwide front against #Turkey’s war.
The SDF coalition of militias, of Rojava/Autonomous Administration(AA) though 70,000 strong, are facing a giant 639,551.[8] strong modern NATO army , led by an openly fascist, racist, misogynist and mass murdering expansionist regime, as being illustrated daily in Afrin, which in principle should destroy them in days.
The SDF has very few armoured vehicles, tanks or heavy artillery and of course no air force at all, while Turkey is the second biggest NATO force with tens of thousands, now poised to take over Rojava and northern Syria.
21:41 10 Oct 19:Fighting resumes between Manbij Military Council fighters and the occupation forces in Ceblê, Hemra, Til Torîn and Boxaz villages of Manbij that were attacked with heavy weapons. Manbij Military Council fighters are retaliating in kind.
Most of Turkey’s weapons are US, and there are no restrictions, so in replacements the US, and personally Donald Trump, stand to gain a bonanza from a genocidal massacre they permitted, and could have prevented with just 1000 of their million strong military.
The SDF should therefore probably go for a guerilla resistance from the beginning, as any set battles in the open countryside could be suicidal. However this is do or die for them, and for their amazing human revolution. Everything else has been tried. There is no other choice but total resistance.
Another tactic then may be to extend the battlefield, on all levels.. all the long border, in Afrin, in Iraq, in Iran and across Europe and the world, with all, including me and hopefully you, resisting at their own level.
Rise Up For Rojava !
@RojavaNetwork+++Turkish occupation army has captured the village “Bir ‘Ashiq”, east of the city Girê Sipî.
10 Oct ’19 A Civilian victim in Qamislo of Erdogan’s terrorist invasion of Nth Syria
@RojavaNetwork SDF Military source: “SDF stunned Turkish forces and confused them by extending the front line to 650 km while Ankara planned to 80 km, so the SDF opened more than eight battle fronts while the Turkish army planned one.”
@RojavaNetwork Afrin Liberation forces: “A convoy belonging to the Turkish occupation army were targeted in Afrin, casualties unknown, at the same time our forces has eliminated four and wounded two Turkish-backed militants”
@RojavaNetwork +++People protection units (YPG) has infiltrated in the city Cizre (Cizîr) in Turkey. YPG has raided and surrounded a police station, clashes continue. #Twitterkurds#Rojava#SDF#Turkey#TSK#Syria
Donald Trump has betrayed the heroic fighters who fought and died to save us from ISIS.
To do this he will have personally signed a paper allowing Turkish jets and helicopters to invade the airspace and murder countless innocent people. Donald Tump is now a war criminal and mass murderer.
Protesters, predominantly from the Kurdish town of Ras al-Ayn, marched several miles to reach a base placed on the border with Turkey. Protesters presented a petition calling on coalition forces to halt the rumoured Turkish operation.
[BREAKING] US allows Turkey to attack Rojava! The White House just announced that US “will no longer be in the immediate area” of Northern Syria, allow Turkey to launch an invasion in the region#riseup4rojava
@RISEUP4R0JAVA
A new illegal and genocidal Turkish invasion also helps ISIS fighters to escape. It serves terror and is a real opportunity for Daesh to reorganize itself and thus take control of large areas of Syria. The declaration of war on #Rojava is a threat to the whole world. #riseup4rojava
The US has given Erdogan free rein to flood Rojava with his fast growing mercenary army of jihadi Syrian militias, including many ISIS and Al Qaeda and militias now holed up in Idlib. Erdogan is paying the terrorists 500 Turkish dollars a month and offering loot, land and power destroying Rojava. Especially evil is the promise to destroy the unique womens’ liberation movement, returning women to semi slavery under medieval jihadi rule and implicitly offering the terrorist mercenaries the right to kidnap, rape and torture the heroic YPJ womens defense militia, as is already happening in Afrin.
All they asked for was peace and democracy: This is what Erdogan did to Kurdish cities just over the border in Turkey in 2015.
Erdogan has already taken over Afrin, Al Bab, Azaz, Jarablus and much of Idlib and has openly boasted he will conquer all lands once held by the Ottoman Empire …At home he has gained total dictatorial control, /destroyed Kurdish areas killing thousands and ordered the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of people on suspicion.
What can we do, reading this in some safer and stabler part of the world?
by It’s Going Down .. If the Turkish government and its henchmen expect their extermination fantasies to become reality, they have not taken into account the resistance of the women’s and people’s defense units (YPJ/YPG) and especially the resistance of the people in Northern and Eastern Syria.
Those who have defeated the Islamic state through the sacrifice of thousands of martyrs and the courageous resistance of the population will defend the self-governing areas against a Turkish invasion.
We must all do our part and fulfill our responsibility of defending this revolution!
The military, economic and diplomatic cooperation between Turkey, the USA, NATO and European countries must be exposed and politically attacked. No support for Erdogan, his regime and his war!
No arms supply and no financial or political aid to the Turkish extermination policy!
If democratic movements decide to put the issue on the agenda: in the media, on the streets, in the factories, businesses and classrooms of their countries, then we can develop a common force against Turkey’s war plans.
We must build a permanent political resistance capable of preventing cooperation with Turkish fascism in our countries.
Should it come to Day X, the beginning of a Turkish invasion: take to the streets, take actions, occupy, disrupt and block! Show those responsible in the government offices and company headquarters what you think of their war!
Together we can stop the war of aggression of Turkey! No war against Northern Syria!
The revolution in Northeast Syria will win, fascism will be smashed! ”
”In the event of a Turkish invasion, you can use every means in your power to discredit and impede the Turkish state, Erdogan, Trump, Putin and the others who paved the way for that outcome.
Even if you are not able to stop them—even if you can’t save our lives—you will be part of building the kind of social movements and collective capacity that will be necessary to save others’ lives in the future.
In addition, you can look for ways to get resources to people in this part of the world, who have suffered so much and will continue to suffer as the next act of this tragedy plays out.
7 Oct 2019. Yesterdays massive protests against imminent illegal Turkish Invasion in Sere Kaniye/Ras al-Ayn border.
Erdogan is still being courted by both the US and Russia who see Turkey as strategic, he has defied with impunity the now embattled Trump on the S400 deal and on buying Iranian oil, and now demands permission to use Syrian air space to again bomb the Syrian people before invading.
But over and over he previously claimed he wants to expel the local Kurdish population. ”cleanse Rojava” and restore the Ottoman Empire and is proving his wish in ‘turkifying’ Afrin, so this new senseless invasion would be more ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide.
Erdogan has gained much needed support (his AKP party lost Istanbul city council) by complaining often about the 3.5m Syrian refugees in Turkey, although they are less than 5% of the Turkish population in a huge area. Turkey has already received 6,000,000,000 euros by blackmailing EU taxpayers to support them.
Refugees used again as Human Blackmail by Erdogan to extract money and impunity for Rojava invasion
Meanwhile they are forced to work black for starvation wages, boosting the economy and forcing salaries down for everyone. (The over 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey (actually a tiny minority in a population of 81 million compared with the IDP’s hosted in Rojava and formerly Afrin) are being cruelly exploited as virtual black slave labour while being subsidised with billions of euros by the EU taxpayer with continuous blatant blackmail threats to ” flood Europe” with them.)
And now he is using them as a ridiculous excuse for a new illegal invasion, this time in NE Syria. (The idea of ‘settling’ 2,000,000 refugees in an already occupied rural semi desert region with no resources might appeal to Erdogan’s favourite historical figure: Adolf Hitler).
Lebanon for example has nearly half its population Syrian refugees and gets little aid or attention. Afrin, before the ongoing invasion by Turkey, had nearly doubled its population hosting a huge number of Arab, Christian, Assyrian and Turkmen refugees and was hailed as a model of direct democracy, gender equality and religious and ethnic tolerance.
Despite a siege blockade the Afrin population nearly doubled (172k to 323k ) while Turkey’s has only increased by 4.4% (3.5 million out of 80 million). (The total population of Afrin as of 2005 was recorded at only 172,095 people Wikipedia.) The Turkish takeover has forced a mass exodus of refugees from Afrin amidst documented reports of mass murder, widespread looting , kidnapping, rape, a continuing guerilla war and pillage by the Turkish contracted Jihadi mercenaries and Turkish military.
Once invaded Turkey will NEVER LEAVE, and a guerilla war will continue indefinitely. For example, Turkey refuses to leave Nth Cyprus, or its illegal bases in Iraq,or Afrin, Al Bab, Jarablus, Azaz.. or of course the Syrian province of Hatay, now 80 years invaded and ethnically cleansed.
Erdogan forced more than half Afrin’s population to flee and they still survive in tent camps, seizing their property and importing thousands of jihadi mercenaries, Al Qaeda ex ISIS guerillas, and sponsored the Al Qaesa mini state in Idlib….
…and now has the utter hypocrisy to complain about refugees and announce a new invasion ‘to settle them in a safe area’.
Not only have land grabbers , illegal loggers and big ranchers been given immunity ‘on the nod’ and urged to attack and murder locals and indigenous and burn the forest.. but also, in this case, the police and army are acting illegally on behalf of the local corrupt oligarchy.. Bolsonaro should be tried for crimes against humanity and the planet.
(edited translation) Last week, the National Army, and the Military Police Tactical Force evicted 400 families from the Boa Esperança Camp in Porto Velho, Rondônia.
The residents report that the military acted violently and set fire to the area, arresting Delson Pinto de Souza, a farmer who has been harassed and persecuted for years and has legal ownership of the Boi D’Água area where the Boa Esperança camp is located.
The families were not squatters, De Souza allowed the homeless to build the camp on his land but says that land grabbers in the region have persecuted him as a result. In the past, agents of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio, administrative arm of the Ministry of Environment) have threatened the camp in attempts to force the people off their land. Continue reading “BRAZIL: Army and Military Police evict 400 families in Porto Velho”
![Maria Meza, a migrant woman from Honduras, runs away from tear gas with her five-year-old twin daughters Saira and Cheili at the US-Mexico border on November 25, 2018 [File: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/11/25/16a247b20d24445182983ac12bc41b1b_18.jpg "Smash the patriarchy to save the planet")
community, you can contribute HERE
Barcelona demo 17.00 7th Oct
Defeated but defiant. Massacres by Turkish troops and the mercenaries of FSA 
The Free 