Category: social revolution

TATACTICAL BRIEFING #27 – #LAUGHRIOT

Alright you wild cats, nimble dreamers and jammer tacticians,

In a sudden about-face, the United States has conceded a victory to Occupy and moved May’s G8 summit to Camp David, an impenetrable military base in rural Maryland. Wow! Looks like the specter of 50,000 occupiers ready to swarm with a list of demands has turned the climactic Showdown in Chicago into a humiliating G8 Backdown. Bravo! Splitting the G8 and NATO summits was a deft move… but now we’ve got a major tactical rethink on our hands.

The big question is do we follow Mao’s advice (“when the enemy retreats, we pursue”) or Sun Tzu’s (“Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight”)? We’ve heard persuasive arguments on all sides. Some occupiers say the movement should lay chase and go for #OCCUPYCAMPDAVID against all odds … a month of tree-sits, lockdowns and nomadic encampments in the woods and nearby Thurmont. Others believe it’s best to up the ante with #OCCUPYCHICAGO: an even bigger mobilization beginning with the May Day General Strike. Still others advocate an unpredictable everywhere-at-once global insurgency of anarchic swarms throughout the month of May.

When Ben Ali first attacked then tried to hide from his people, he was toppled. When Mubarak refused to negotiate and tried to beat his people back into line, he was deposed. Now the White House and the G8 are repeating the mistakes of last year’s autocrats … first they try to scare us with tough talk of repressive anti-Occupy ordinances, crowd suppression technologies and paramilitary policing, then they make a hasty retreat to the safety of Camp David.

The world’s leaders flee from us … so what do we do? Maybe we just laugh at them?

On May 18, the day the G8 leaders meet in Camp David, why don’t we, the people of the world have a #LAUGHRIOT. Let roars of laughter rise up from towns and cities everywhere at the spectacle of the world’s leaders trying to crisis manage the economy from behind closed doors and razor wire fences.

Laughter is one of the most powerful tactical weapons of memewar … it signals supremacy and loss of fear. So let’s pull off the greatest comedy of howling flash mobs, riotous street parties and hysterical pranks the world has ever seen. May 18 could be a monumental tipping point… an ahahaha! moment when the people of the world have a collective epiphany, and from that point on start thinking differently about how the world should be governed.

Jammers, whatever we do this Spring, let’s float like butterflies and sting like bees! Let’s bend the G8 and NATO to our will with shock tactics and audacious culture jams that capture the imagination of the world. We may be far closer to a Global Spring than any of us has so far dared to imagine …

for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ

OccupyWallStreet.org / Tactical Briefing #25 and #26 / OccupyWallst.org / G8Protest.org / OccupyChi.org / CANG8.org / Takethesquare.net / OccupyMay1st.org / MayDayNYC.org / Facebook / Twitter / Reddit

PS. Tell us your strategy for the Global Spring … and send your funniest G8/NATO spoofs, memes and jams to kono@adbusters.org and let’s get ready to laugh til it hurts.CTICAL BRIEFING #27 – #LAUGHRIOT

 

‘The Free’ now Available as a Book! (+ free ebook)

March 2012

Happy to let you know ‘The Free’ is now IN PRINT, on request,  as a real ‘dead tree’ book… Just in time to take part in the ‘Occupy 2012’ movements planet wide!!


Available here: https://www.createspace.com/3702134    costs 10€, or $14, + post. (postage may be cheaper from Amazon here http://www.amazon…. )

..one lonely, abused schoolgirl occupies her own life..and sets off an explosive social and economic revolution


Also it’s Out Now as a free download for Ipad, iPhone, Sony, Kobo, Nook,, etc. Available here:http://www.mediafire.com/?9sdkp1dyhtjbiym for ePub (colour) costs nothing.


Also it’s in Kindle Stores (costs 3€)› US  › UK  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007EHCF14


And still a free pdf download from its website here: https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/testing-downloads/ 362 page colour 100 illustrations +all info.


Hope you enjoy the adventure, and build on its ideas to exploit the inevitably coming collapse of capitalism

Best of luck to you all…..mike gilli

Would you like to HELP DISTRIBUTE the printed book? You could just tell your friends.. or ask your local bookstore to stock it by ordering through them. Or ask a library to get it.  Trade stocking details ’The Free’ ISBN 978-1466409323                   .CreateSpace. Direct Reseller Application https://www.createspace.com/pub/l/createspacedirect.do?rewrite=true Also trade distributors like http://www.ingrambook.com/retailers/orderingi.aspx(from April 2012) which unlike Createspace should take returns.  For Libraries the agent is http://www.btol.com/ts3/

CNT calls a General Strike in Spain, March 29

by Phil Dickens  The CNT rejects any kind of negotiation over the rights conquered by the working class through years of struggle. We call for this strike with the primary objective of immediately repealing the the labor reform that was approved yesterday by the Parliament, which we consider a head-on assault against the working class. This reform continues the measures started by the previous government, such as the labor reform of 2010 and the cuts to public employee salaries, to pensions, and to public services, cuts which are being deepened by the current government.

bloggers note..This article misleads a little. The big unions finally and reluctantly confirmed the General Strike for March 29th 3 days ago and the CNT is joining in.

The CNT demands the end of an economic policy designed to make the workers pay for the crisis of the banks and the employers. This policy has led to an unacceptable number of unemployed workers, a number which does not stop growing, as well as to an impoverishment and worsening of the working class’s living conditions.

The CNT also calls this strike against the cuts. The strike will happen the day before the setting of the General State Budget which will incorporate a brutal attack against public services and social rights.
The CNT rejects the agreement reached in February between the CCOO and UGT unions and the employers’ confederation, the CEOE, as well as the amendments that those unions have presented to the parliamentary process of the labor reform. The CNT rejects these amendments as a valid alternative, since they share the spirit of the reform and assume the logic of the employers and the government, who suppose that the only escape from their crisis must come through the workers surrendering their rights, placing the working class into a position of weakness from the start. The same logic has already led these unions to accept the raising of the retirement age to 67, even after the general strike of September 29, 2010.

For the CNT, the strike on March 29 must be only the beginning of a growing and sustained process of mobilization, one which includes the entire working class and the sectors that are most disadvantaged and affected by the capitalist crisis. This mobilization must put the brakes on the dynamic of constant assaults on our rights, while laying the bases for the recovery and conquest of new social rights with the goal of a deep social transformation.

All of these reasons have led the CNT to make this call for March 29 on its own account. With this call the CNT wants to give coverage to everyone who is taking up positions for a real and continued confrontation that will pay back the assaults on the working class with the same force with which we are receiving them, together with all workers’ organizations that share these objectives and reject the policies of agreement and social peace……

….,It’s time for all workers – unemployed or employed, retired, on the black market, students, and the precarious – to say “Enough!” We must seize the streets rather than abandon them in order to impose our strength and our demands.

March 29 – everyone in the street, everyone on the strike.

http://cnt.es/en/news/cnt-calls-general-strike-march-29

Dale Farm: The human cost of racist prejudice

As the displaced residents of Dale Farm in Essex face another round of forced evictions, Elly Robson talks to some of the families and examines the discrimination they face

The storming of Dale Farm by hundreds of riot police at dawn on 19 October 2011 was the money shot that the press had been waiting for following weeks of legal proceedings; the next day they all went home. But three months down the line, the eviction continues for the Dale Farm community, unreported. Their former home has been systematically destroyed by Constant & Co. bailiffs, who have transformed this once vibrant and close-knit community into a sewage-filled bombsite.

  1. With nowhere else to go, the vast majority of the displaced Travellers now live on the private road (owned by them) leading to Dale Farm and on their friends’ plots on the neighbouring Oak Lane site. Living in overcrowded conditions, they lack adequate access to water and toilet facilities, the only electricity supply is through noisy and expensive generators, and many of the young children and elderly people are ill. It is an unreported refugee camp, just thirty minutes away from London.

Arriving at the site last week, we were greeted by an elderly man who looked up at the remnants of the children’s rope swings hanging from the trees and said ‘What is there to live for? What hope do we have? My wife and I have talked seriously about ending it all. This is no way to live.’ While the trauma of the eviction is still vivid for the residents, it is what happens next that worries them most of all.

Kathleen, an articulate five-year-old with an acute awareness of the challenges facing her community, explained the situation to me: ‘Basildon Council and the police came and they broke everything. They broke the walls, and my granny’s caravan, and they broke all the ground, and even my mum’s back [Kathleen’s mother was hospitalised with a fractured spine during the policing operation]. We were crying and we were so scared. Now, Basildon Council want to move us again, but they can’t put us out on the road because where can we go?’…………………………..

READ FULL ARTICLE AND COMMENTS HERE   (with thanks to Red Pepper

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/dale-farm-the-human-cost-of-prejudice/

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Dublin Occupiers still EVICTED

The eviction of the Occupy Dame Street camp

A large force of Garda and council workers were deployed at 3.30am today, International Women’s Day, to clear Occupy Dame Street (ODS) camp. The camp was completely demolished in the course of the eviction, campers intimidated and their personal property stolen.

This was a level of force way out of proportion with the numbers in the camp (about 15 people) and stands in contrast with the lack of resources put into investigating what happened at Anglo, the collapse of which has left a debt of 26,000 Euro on every single person in the country.

The small Garda team ‘investigating’ what happened at Anglo only includes one forensic accountant. As far as anyone can tell they have yet to get into the computers that were encrypted and which the bank has refused to hand over the passwords for. This certainly tells us whose interests those in power protect and that the Garda will ‘just follow orders’ even if they are individually included amongst the 99% of us who have been screwed over.

Media coverage of the eviction suggests that it was a fairly low key affair with an overwhelming number of Garda (around 100) compared to campers (about 15) but commentary from the campers and a video interview published by the Irish Times suggests that a significant level of physical intimidation & force was used by Garda. Campers talked of pick axes being used to break into structures while they were still inside and of the seizure of mobile phones, lap tops, clothes, minutes & contact books and even bicycles that were chained on the square. This happened without warning, while people were sleeping. One of the campers said of the police that “they came like volatile bullies & terrorists .. they behaved like animals”

Updated 14.30: In a second video interview from this morning two women from ODS talked about how the Garda had arrived wearing balaclava’s, didn’t poduce the court order until they had dragged everyone off the site and had twisted their arms and stamped on their hands when they attempted to sit on the street.  Just before lunch a small group were forcibly prevented from putting up tents.  A number of witnesses have said that last night some of the Garda appeared to be carrying guns.

  Latest UPDATE
GARDAÍ IN DUBLIN city centre are preventing the protest group who had camped outside the Central Bank’s headquarters from 8 October until this morning from erecting any more tents at the property.

The camp was dismantled by dozens of gardaí at around 3.30am today and the area was subsequently cleaned by Dublin City Council workers.

Mulheres marcham por direitos e contra o Novo Código Florestal

março 8, 2012

por Rachel Duarte,  Sob sol intenso, mais de mil mulheres do campo e da cidade marcharam por mais amor à vida e à terra, nesta terça-feira (6), em Porto Alegre. O grupo ocupou a frente da sede do Incra (Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária) para sensibilizar as autoridades locais sobre os danos da estiagem aos pequenos produtores e a falta de políticas públicas preventivas à seca.

Mulheres marcham por direitos e contra o Novo Código Florestal

O CEA esteve presente com a militante Cintia Barenho que contribuiu com a formação das mulheres discutindo o que está em jogo no Código Florestal  agora que tramita novamente no Congresso Nacional.

Após uma hora e meia de caminhada – em meio a alguns gritos masculinos pedindo para que elas “fossem para casa trabalhar” -, as mulheres se dividiram em grupos temáticos na Praça da Matriz e organizaram a pauta reivindicatória da Jornada Nacional de Lutas das Mulheres do Campo e da Cidade, organizada pela Via Campesina por ocasião do Dia Internacional da Mulher, 8 de março. Este ano, as mulheres cobram fundamentalmente o veto da presidenta Dilma Rousseff ao Novo Código Florestal.

Mais de mil mulheres camponesas marcharam contra o Novo Código Florestal e outras lutas./Foto: Leandro Silva.

“Começamos e não vamos parar mais. Este papel de luta e esforço está na história das mulheres”, disse a representante do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Silvia Marques. Ela explica que tradicionalmente as mulheres dos principais movimentos sociais de trabalhadores aproveitam a proximidade com o Dia Internacional da Mulher para sensibilizar a sociedade e autoridades sobre as políticas de gênero necessárias nas intervenções do estado. “Somos nós que cuidamos do alimento e nos preocupamos com aquilo que está indo para a mesa. Temos pesquisas que apontam que são utilizados 5,2 litros de veneno por ser humano nos alimentos. Nós estamos querendo produzir alimentos saudáveis, mas, precisamos de condições para isso”, cobra Silvia.

Além do uso de agrotóxicos, as trabalhadoras cobram ações preventivas para evitar os danos aos pequenos produtores que sofrem há oito anos com a estiagem no RS. “Se tivéssemos um plano de irrigação não teríamos este problema. Mas, só tem nas grandes lavouras. Nestas não falta água. Nós já perdemos a segunda safra. Perdemos tudo”, lamenta a trabalhadora Adriana Pereira, do MST. Ela afirma que uma pauta específica do MST, referente ao assentamento de mil famílias prometido pelo governo gaúcho seria entregue nesta terça.

“Esperamos que a Dilma se sensibilize”

Via Campesina ocupa por uma hora e meia a Praça de Pedágios da empresa Univias, na BR 290…

PODE LEER MAIS…http://centrodeestudosambientais.wordpress.com/category/codigo-florestal/

 

 

ocupado y colectivizado,Somonte Finca, occupied and collectivized

Hoy domingo 4 de Marzo a las 11 de la mañana unos 500 miembros del Sindicato de Obreros del Campo – Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores hemos ocupado la finca Somonte en el término municipal de Palma del Río. Esta finca propiedad de la Junta de Andalucía sale mañana a subasta. Privatizan la tierra mientras la gente del pueblo sufre un paro extremo de 1.700 personas en Palma del Río y más de 4.000 personas paradas en los pueblos de alrededor. Están vendiendo más de 20000 hectáreas en Andalucía quedando aún unas 8.000 sin subastar. Ante este atropello el SOC-SAT se va movilizar durante estos días y el próximo jueves a las 11 de la mañana hará una manifestación en la Consejería de Agricultura de Sevilla pidiendo que se paralice esta venta de tierras y que en lugar de pasar a banqueros y terratenientes sean trabajadas por cooperativas de jornaler@s en paro.

Sunday March 4 at 11 am about 500 members of the Laborers Union City – Union Workers Andalusian Somonte have occupied the farm in the town of Palma del Río. This property owned by the Junta de Andalucía leaves tomorrow for auction. Privatize the land while the common people suffer extreme arrest 1,700 people in Palma del Rio and more than 4,000 people standing in the surrounding villages. They are selling more than 20000 hectares in Andalusia leaving about 8,000 still without offers. Before this attack the SOC-SAT will mobilize these days and on Thursday at 11 am will be a demonstration at the Ministry of Agriculture asking Sevilla to a standstill this sale of land and instead of going to bankers and landowners are farmed by cooperatives of agricultural laborers s unemployed.

A partir de esta ocupación unas 30 personas de Posadas, Palma del Río y otros pueblos se han quedado en esta finca con el objetivo de permanecer en ella y comenzar a trabajarla. Pensamos que esta es la única forma de llevar a cabo nuestras ideas consecuentemente ya que la tierra tiene que ser autogestionada por los propios trabajadores y trabajadoras para crear el máximo número de empleo y favorecer el desarrollo de la economía local y comarcal. El terreno de Somonte tiene 359 has. de secano y 41 has. de regadío. La parte de regadío podría dar en una primera etapa unos 50 puestos de trabajo mediante el cultivo de espárragos, cebollas y otras hortalizas. A medio plazo se podría generar mucho más empleo a través del cultivo social de todo el terreno, de agroindustrias y comercialización de los productos por medio de las inversiones necesarias

From this occupation about 30 people from Posadas, Palma del Rio and other peoples have been on this farm in order to stay there and begin to work it. We think this is the only way to carry out our ideas accordingly as the land has to be self-managed by workers themselves to create the maximum number of jobs and helping to develop local and regional economy. The field has 359 Somonte you. rainfed and 41 hectares. irrigated. The share of irrigation could result in an early stage about 50 jobs through the cultivation of asparagus, onions and other vegetables. In the medium term it could generate more employment through the social culture of the whole land, agribusiness and marketing of products through the necessary investments.

Desde el SOC-SAT hacemos un llamamiento urgente a la solidaridad de Palma del Río y los pueblos de alrededor y a todos los compañer@s de la provincia de Córdoba y de Andalucía para que apoyen estacausa viniendo a sumarse a la lucha y el trabajo en la finca de Somonte presionando a los órganos de poder, difundiendo la noticia y apoyándonos materialmente: comida, semillas, plantas, materiales, dinero y lo que se vea posible.

Esta acción debe ser el comienzo de la revolución agraria que en este momento de paro, penurias y estafa neoliberal tanta falta nos hace. Hoy en día cualquier alternativa para sobrevivir con dignidad debe pasar por la lucha por la tierra, la agricultura campesina, la soberanía alimentaria y el desarrollo que genera como ha pasado y vemos cada día en Marinaleda y otros pueblos de Andalucía.

Animamos a tod@s los trabajadores y parad@s de Andalucía a que luchen por la tierra pública o privada para su colectivización por parte del pueblo.

SI EL PRESENTE ES LUCHA, EL FUTURO ES NUESTRO

¡VIVA ANDALUCÍA LIBRE!

From the SOC-SAT we urgently appeal to the solidarity of Palma del Rio and the surrounding villages and all the comrades’ s the province of Cordoba and Andalusia to support this cause coming to join the fight and work in the estate of Somonte pressing the organs of power, spreading the word and supporting us materially food, seeds, plants, materials, money and see what is possible.

This action must be the beginning of the agrarian revolution in this time of unemployment, hardship and neoliberal scam we need so badly. Today any alternative to survive with dignity must go through the struggle for land, farming, food sovereignty and development that generates as has happened and see every day in Marinaleda and other towns of Andalusia.

We encourage tod @ s workers and parad Andalusia ‘s fight for public or private land for collectivisation by the people.

IF THIS IS FIGHT, THE FUTURE IS OURS

ANDALUSIA LIVE FREE!

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