A chaotic struggle is ongoing between local State confinement, backed on one side by the small middle class and state and salaried workers, against those in favour of allowing the pandemic virus to kill the poor, backed by President Bolsonaro in his luxury walled area, by the tiny ruling land and property owners, and the mass of poor informal or day workers holding -Work or Starve- demos.
Brazil in times of the #coronavirus: Caught between isolation and rush, workers under dispute during the #pandemic
Brazil. Since last week, President Jair Bolsonaro has stirred spirits in the country by proposing to end the measures taken to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Against the quarantine decreed by city and state governments, which shut down all sectors of society not deemed to be “essential activities”, the President has proposed the adoption of “vertical isolation”, restricted to groups at risk, urging others to return immediately to work.
Brazil 4/12/2020
20,964 cases
1,141 deaths
The death rate in Brasil soared to 1,141 by 12th April 2020.. It is still unknown whether the Covid virus will explode in tropical and sub tropical regions as it has in the northern hemisphere. If this is true Brazilians could face a terrifying nightmare, caused largely by the insane policies of the far right rulers under Bolsonaro.
Photograph Source: Fibonacci Blue – CC BY 2.0 by Matt Smith Counterpunch Amazon and its contractors have a pattern of retaliating against and intimidating employees who speak out. I know – because they also tried to do it to me. Last week, my Amazon coworkers in New York took the courageous step of walking off […]
Shocked by the massive success of the Spanish feminist movements in holding two successful General Work and Social Strikes on Womens Day 2017 and 2018, the far right controlled police and legal system continues a wave of repression against women.
The feminist movement in the Catalan speaking areas faces huge fines and prison sentences
Various feminist groups from across the Catalan speaking area of trhe Spanish State face exorbitant economic fines, some of which amount to 26,000 euros; and possible sentences of up to five years in prison. Most of the sanctions have stem from the two historic feminist days of 2018 and 2019
Valencian feminists organized a performative action to denounce the police crackdown on March 8
from La Directa by German Caballero and Tere Albero. translation by TheFreeorg. April 7, 2020
Action before the UV’s administration, on March 8, 2018
Numerous feminist groups are reporting repression by the Security Forces and legal bodies of Spain, under Organic Law 4/2015, , popularly known as the Gag Law . Collective groups accumulate economic sanctions that amount to large sums of money.
\For example, fines against strikers in the Feminist Assembly of Valencia now amount to 11,000 euros, penalties against feminists in the Horta district of Barcelona have increased to 20,000 euros, and feminist militants in Sant Cugat (Vallès Occidental) are fined 26,000 euros to, as well as up to five years in prison.
In Valencia, the Feminist Assembly will finally go to trial on September 22, 2020.Three of the fines have already been resolved by administrative means . For the newsletters organized by the feminists during the March 8, 2018 strike, they received 12 fines; in addition to the ongoing harassment of the Spanish National Police, which produced moments of great tension at the doors of the rectorate of the University of Valencia minutes before the convocation of a unitary rally.
A Convoy of vehicles is one way to BREAK THE BAN on demonstrations
On the 8th of March, a noisy car caravan took to the streets of DC, demanding that all prisoners in the DC Jail and in Central Cell Block be released immediately so they don’t contract the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus.
This is a life-and-death matter! There are 126 people currently quarantined in the DC Jail after contact with a “staffer” who tested positive for the coronavirus. .
There are now 28 confirmed positive cases in the jail, which could easily detonate into infection of nearly every prisoner if they are not quickly released from close confinement with each other. The DC Jail has been described as a coronavirus death trap given these statistics.
Kamal Dorchy, an inmate at the D.C. Jail, suffers from leukopenia, or a lowered white blood cell count. And as the count of coronavirus cases climbs past three dozen at the jail facilities, he fears the worst.“Every day a new person gets sick, and if I get sick, I fear that I will die due to my fragile health,” he wrote in a declaration to the D.C. District Court. “I am preparing for my death.”
Most of the 1,600 prisoners in the jail are awaiting trial and legally presumed innocent, yet facing a death sentence due to the virus. A few are serving sentences for minor offenses, none of which would provike any court even in the US to issue a sentence of death.
Author: Ron TaborTitle: In Defense of AnarchismSubtitle: A Reply to Chris DayDate: July 28, 1996 (original); September 11, 2018 (revised)Notes: This is a reply to The Historical Failure of Anarchism written by Chris Day.Source: Retrieved on 2020-04-07 from blackrosefed.org Preface from Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation Twenty years after its demise in 1998 the Love…
Lesvos. Greece. April 7, 2020. The prisoners detained in Moria pre-removal detention centre (PRO.KE.K.A) in Lesvos have been on hunger strike since 5th April 2020. The PRO.KE.K.A hunger strikers demand their immediate release to avoid the disastrous consequences of a virus outbreak in the prison. Originally published by Deportation Monitoring Aegean. According to the hunger strikers,…
The strike wave is here. The strike wave is real. Can workers take the next steps toward a General Strike?
The current crisis is a rare opportunity for us to build a movement both outside of electoral politics and based on an organizing model. That matters because the biggest shortcoming of the left and the social movements is our lack of organizing.
Organizing can do what good intentions or radical theory or electoral campaigns cannot: turn solidarity from a dream into a living thing. But without some serious solidarity, all our hopes for a General Strike will fail to materialize.
.@PaydayReport is proud to launch an interactive map tracking the growing strike wave across the US.
The map has links to stories on over 30 Wildcat Strikes that have happened since COVID-19. https://t.co/LLoY3txU83
As we build the solidarity infrastructure needed for a General Strike lets not lie to each other. It’s called “class struggle” for a reason. Strikes are painful with workers pitting their sacrifice and suffering up against the bosses’ profits. Strikes are no party.
But, general strikes, while rare, are a good match for the unprecedented interlocking crises we face. There is an answer to our problems. It’s the age-old working-class answer: “solidarity forever.” But, never forget that solidarity is forged in sacrifice too. Solidarity is not simply passing a resolution or staking a claim — it is actions like boycotts or mutual aid efforts or sending money to those at the front lines or going on strike yourself.
The Strike is Back
After a long period of retreat, the strike has returned with a vengeance. In 2018 West Virginia teachers kicked off a strike wave the likes of which we have not seen for decades. And like today’s strikes, the leadership is coming from the rank and file — not union officials.
In this moment of pandemic panic strikes and unrest are focused on immediate demands. We want a general strike and that is a great thing but we have to pave the way between the largely defensive strikes that actually exist and the political offensive that is the heart of a general strike.
General strikes contest for power by explicitly raising class consciousness and proposing system-wide reform, economic democracy, maybe even social transformation. The political task is to build the transition between the defensive strike wave and the offensive general strike we need. We can find the path by starting down the trailhead right in front of us.
If we want to engage people we have to listen carefully to what they say and do. The strongest currents of resistance that I see are actions, demands, and tactics around the immediate life and death questions of safety, protection, and survival:
Protective equipment, sick benefits, hazard pay.
Strike as “sick out” that withholds labor until we break the back of the pandemic.
Strikes, slowdowns, rolling job actions or staying home. Let the workers decide.
Increase wages for essential workers.
The conversion of production to ventilators or masks or tests.
Universal health care
No rent, no evictions, no vacancies
Mutual Aid to serve the people
These may be immediate demands but in them we can imagine the possibilities of the General Strike. In these demands, (and in the bosses’ rush to get us back to work) we can see that labor creates all wealth. We can see that workers are essential and bosses are disposable. When workers demand that they switch production to ventilators or masks — the seeds of worker control are taking root. Housing and health care are revealed as demands of direct interest to everyone, not just a moral stand. If the General Strike is the front-line Mutual Aid is the quartermaster providing aid and comfort to the troops and showing us what a democratic economy looks like.
Taken together these actions and demands are the beginnings of a struggle for economic, workplace and community democracy. Call it Freedom and Democracy, call it Socialism or Revolution, call it Reason or call it Treason — I don’t care what you call it.
Its Solidarity Forever or General Strike Never
“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” ― Lilla Watson
Solidarity is not simply good intentions or the fine speeches that politicians sometimes make. Solidarity grows by acting on the principle that “your liberation is bound up with mine.” With solidarity, a new world is possible — without it we surrender to corporate power.
By all means, have your steering committee pass a resolution but real solidarity can only be achieved by organizing and activism. Here are a few possibilities:
We need to coordinate strategic boycotts targeting Amazon, Whole Foods and other corporate criminals. We need a huge email list and a website updated daily to select targets and coordinate timing. Who will take up this work?
In 2016 the Sanders campaign proved that a presidential campaign could be crowdfunded by millions of small donations. Can we set up a funding mechanism to funnel money to striking workers trying to last “one day longer” than the boss?
Solidarity with strikers means building networks, coalitions, Mutual Aid and communal efforts, and Unemployed Councils.
The Crisis Cannot Be Resolved by Normal Means
When compared with the narrow vision of the electoral arena (with the vast majority of politicians from both major parties still opposing universal healthcare) even these initial spontaneous uprising are full of ideas for redistributing wealth and power. Even in the depths of the crisis, unanimous Congressional action could deliver nothing greater than temporary cash payments so meager as to exaggerate the very wealth inequality that made our world unsustainable in the first place.
These tasty crumbs are welcomed aid to workers but were also a good move by the ruling class to calm things down. Without real resistance, our rulers got away with tossing us the bare minimum necessary to engineer consent so they could gain a far bigger prize: the further consolidation of 40 years of corporate power.
It’s not that progressive Democrats produced nothing. They moved the discourse in important ways. But the unanimous consent to the corporate bailout signals the limits of even well-meaning electoral activity under existing conditions. And that is why the strike wave is so important. Direct action gets the goods. And, the torch is passed back from celebrities and politicians to the unknown everyday people that were always the true leaders of the working-class.
The left needs Ella Bakers’ vision. Do we have the capacity to “pick up the pieces or put together pieces?”
What will help the millions move? What will build the capacity for self-organization? We need to learn and quick. Because it is when millions move — then and only then — that we will unleash the enormous creative energies of the people. They will find the way forward.
The people are telling us where to find them. Can we catch up? Its due time for all organizers to engage, listen, learn from and stand with our new leaders. There is no greater solidarity than this.
The strike wave is here. The strike wave is real. Can workers take the next steps toward a General Strike? The current crisis is a rare opportunity for us to build a movement both outside of electoral politics and based on an organizing model. That matters because the biggest shortcoming of the left and the […]
