Activist and prolific writer Janet Biehl has famously taken up the theory and practice of Municipal Anarchism, as theorized by her companion Murray Bookchin in his lifetime. Recently the ideas have been taken up by the Kurdish leader Ocalan and enthusiastically implemented in the Rojava Revolution and Nth Kurdistan.
Radical Cities and Social Revolution:
An Interview with Janet Biehl
The abstractness and programmatic emptiness so characteristic of contemporary radical theory indicates a severe crisis in the left. It suggests a retreat from the belief that the ideal of a cooperative, egalitarian society can be made concrete and thus realized in actual social relationships. It is as though – in a period of change and demobilization – many radicals have ceded the right and the capacity to transform society to CEO’s and heads of state.
Janet Biehl’s new book, The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism, is an affront to this. It challenges the politically resigned with a detailed, historically situated anti-statist and anti-capitalist politics for today.
I asked Biehl about her new work in the fall of 1997 by email. ~ Chuck Morse
Your book is essentially programmatic: you set libertarian municipalism in a historical context and offer concrete suggestions for practice. What political circumstances made it seem especially important to produce this book now?
As the political dimension of social ecology – the body of ideas developed by Murray Bookchin since the 1950s – libertarian municipalism is a libertarian politics of political and social revolution. It constitutes both a theory and a practice for building a revolutionary movement whose ultimate aim is to achieve an equal, just, and free society. My book is intended as a simple articulation of these ideas, which Bookchin himself has expounded elsewhereContinue reading “Radical Cities and Social Revolution: An Interview with Janet Biehl”
This morning we have released a video that accuses the BBVA bank of cheating, fraud and stripping the people of their homes. (see below)
PAH is the Movement of Mortgage Victims is many local assembly-run groups which combat criminal practices of banks and politicians with joy and originality. (Famously the new mayoress of Barcelona is an ex militant leader of the PAH,controlling the city police but not the Catalan cops).
Today we have accompanied the release of the video with the occupation of a branch office of BBVA in the center of Barcelona, located at number 84 Paseo de Gracia.
After a day of pressure, BBVA has been in contact with PAH. Again, BBVA assured us of its intent to resolve eight specific cases of affected families for whom we have been campaigning with daily occupations of BBVA banks.
Against this declaration of intent, we have demanded results. The 8 cases of which we speak have been battling for a solution for more than three years.
Their demands are minimal: dation in payment (ie. to stop the abuse in Spain that on default you lose your house but have to keep on paying the mortgage debt for decades), a social rent (ie. not impossibly high due to market speculation) , and IPRH annulment (IRPH is one of many bankers scams: clients were persuaded to sign mortgage agreements by which you pay 200 to 300 euros a month more than with the standard Eurobor interest rate fixing system).
Until the BBVA undertakes to solve the eight cases, we continue with our pressure campaign. At the moment, we are still holding out today in the Barcelona office against a possible eviction by the Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalan police. We will continue campaigning against BBVA till we get solutions for the affected families.
Yes We Can DO IT!
#PAHrap # RíndeteBBVA
Half a million evicted.. and counting
When the property bubble burst and Spain was ”bailed out” it was on condition it be written into the constitution that these new mega debts must have their interest paid before anything else ,(like health, pensions education) the total for all banks is over 100 billion!
The sacred Constitution (“impossible to alter’ when it comes to a demanded referendum in Catalonia) was changed in one day flat to protect the dirty scams of the corrupt elite
So Spain, like Greece, is a financial colony, a reliable a ‘cash cow’ being milked forever by international banks and funds. The PAH activists point out that the banks were gifted with billions in public tax money.
Also that Bankia, Sareb, etc were set up or bailed out by the public so their assets of evicted houses should belong to the people, and should not be sold off dirt cheap to international property sharks and corporations. (by Thefreeonline)
Aquest matí realitzem el llançament d’un videoclip que senyalitza al BBVA com un banc que enganya, estafa i tira a la gent de la seva casa. Pràctiques criminals que la PAH combat amb alegria i originalitat: avui mateix hem acompanyat el llançament del videoclip amb l’ocupació d’una oficina del BBVA al centre de Barcelona, situada en el Passeig de Gràcia número 84.
Després de tot un dia de pressió, el BBVA s’ha posat en contacte amb la PAH. De nou, el BBVA assegurava tenir voluntat de resoldre 8 casos de famílies afectades per les quals hem estat ocupant diàriament oficines del BBVA.
Enfront de la seva declaració d’intencions, nosaltres hem exigit resultats. Els 8 casos dels quals parlem porten batallant per una solució desde fa més de tres anys. Les seves demandes són de mínims: dacions en pagament, lloguers socials, quitacions i la nul·litat del IPRH.
Fins que el BBVA es comprometi a donar solució als 8 casos, pensem continuar amb la nostra campanya de pressió. De moment, ens quedem avui en l’oficina de Barcelona sota un possible desallotjament per part dels Mossos d’Esquadra. Continuarem senyalitzant al BBVA fins a aconseguir solucions per a les famílies afectades.
As explained by the Marea Refugees Support Collective, thirty people have been expelled to other “unspecified” camps and there have been some 50 arrests.
translated from La Marea with thanks redaccion@lamarea.com
Three houses where dozens of refugees were staying in Thessaloniki have been vacated by order of the government of Tsipras , according to reports from support collectives on the scene.
old photo of the evicted Orphanage
One building, a former orphanage, is being demolished. As they explained to La Marea, 32 refugees have been transferred to other “unspecified” camps and there have been around fifty arrests.
In protest, support groups, refugees have occupied the headquarters of Syriza: “In quick response to government action to evict the squatters for refugees, have occupied the headquarters of Syriza in Thessaloniki, demanding the release of our colleagues and halt the demolition of Orfanotrofio, because within it has been a lot of material necessary for the daily life of refugees (clothing, food, medicines …) “they say. Continue reading “Protests as 3 Refugee Occupations evicted in Greece”
At least 26 anarchist activists cleared by Greek court after being arrested for pro-refugee solidarity action
A Greek court has released 26 anarchists who had disrupted a Sunday Orthodox church service to protest against refugee evictions, a judicial source said.Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government’s evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]
The activists ran into the Thessaloniki cathedral on Sunday, scattering leaflets that read “Solidarity with the refugees”, before they were arrested by anti-riot forces.
The entrance to the EL CHEf food collective in Athens’ Exarcheia neighbourhood [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
Among those arrested were nine foreigners from Austria, Britain, Germany, Morocco, Spain and Switzerland.
International: About 40 percent or 2 out of 5 of the world’s gay people live in countries where being gay can result in a prison sentence and only 14% live in places where they have some rights and legal protections.
There is no global count of how many people are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, reports ampp3d.mirror.co.uk.
Hardly any countries count their own LGBT populations and estimates of LGBT people as a percentage of the population typically vary from 0% to 10%.
To get an idea of the global LGBT population, the percentage used was the British government’s figure of 6% – the one they used when calculating the impact of Civil Partnerships in the UK in 2004, said the report.
There are five countries which are known to kill citizens for being gay: Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Mauritania and Iran. We estimate that a potential 10 million LGBT people…
The successor to Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s former chief exorcist for 25 years, has come out in condemnation of fantasy novels and yoga, declaring both to cause demonic possession.
Speaking to The Independent (UK), Father Cesare Truqui explained
‘Devil Worshipers’ , according to the Vatican
how the Roman Catholic Church has seen a steady uptick in reports of demonic possession all around the world, and that popular culture pastimes like reading Harry Potter novels and engaging in Vinyasa are largely to blame. Continue reading “Vatican’s chief Exorcist declares Yoga to be ‘Satanic’”
– “…The tactics also echo those of the original scramble for Africa, with the U.K. government backing profit-hunting firms to the hilt…Historian and development expert Mark Curtis…argues that “British companies now control Africa’s key mineral resources, notably gold, platinum, diamonds, copper, oil, gas and coal.”
(Six Countries that Grew Filthy Rich from Enslaving Black People*)
Slavery transformed America and European nations into an economic superpowers. American alone stole over $100 trillion worth of forced labour. Here are 6 nations that got where they are today because of the work done by enslaved Africans.
hwaairfan.wordpress.com
Related….
New Colonial Carve-up of Africa? British firms vying for £1trn Natural Resources*
British government-supported firms are engaged in a piratical contest for African natural resources as part of a new colonialist “scramble for Africa,” a major new report claims.
Development NGO War On Want published its latest cutting report, titled ‘The New…
![Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government's evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2016/8/1/052e744d5ee046b4bdf2410314df4573_18.jpg "Greece: Refugee solidarity activists cleared by court")
Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government’s evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]
