Occupy Spring in Barcelona: Multi-Cine successfully Liberated

La Cinètika     Last Saturday a gigantic 10 screen cinema was occupied as an autonomous social center in Barcelona. The abandoned building is owned by the City Council who had failed to find a use for it. en català per sota
vegan lunch at the ocupied multi-cinema
vegan lunch at the ocupied multi-cinema

The action began as an advertised 4 day series of debates and workshops, meals etc… with a whole range of strikers, squatters, immigrants, feminist struggles etc.. taking part.. all to be held in a local square, and beginning with a street parade around historic struggle sites.,.

The parade ended with the Cinètika occupation

The liberated area, with thousands of square meters and ten cinemas will become, henceforth, an open space in the neighborhood. The promoters of the project want to build a squatting assembly, feminist and outside the institutions. No alcohol will be sold at the venue, as the group believes that “alcoholism and drugs are a problem in the workers neighborhoods.”CfHeBW3W8AA-yDm

True to its name (in classical Greek “that which moves”) the Cinètika hosted during the whole weekend a whirlwind of activities that have combined cleaning and clearance of the facilities with big publiv meetings on  making the independent anti capitalist Palomar barrio, a series of lectures, meals and screenings of documentaries scheduled until Tuesday.( see poster)

The lobby was filled with talks and debates  which have included the participation of the workers in the Telefonica struggle, the Barcelona Metropolitan Transport strikers(TMB), the  Auditorium and Liceu conflicts,  the movement against mortgage evictions PAH, the Union of Popular Street Vendors , All Strike, the Stop the Fare Rises platform, the writer Joni D. and the bus driver and the councillor Josep Garganté CUP.

the barrio ..'St Andrew of the Pigeon Loft'
the barrio ..’St Andrew of the Pigeon Loft’

“Refuse to continue watching passively the media circus of symbolic televised statements of the ‘new left’ institutions, while on the street there is no change in our living conditions which continue to worsen,” states the occupation manifesto entitled ‘End of the show: a letter to the districts from the new squatted cinema in Sant Andreu, published by Cinètika on Indymedia Barcelona.

“We want to equip ourselves with the tools and weapons necessary to build neighborhoods and strong communities […] able to build ways of living and meet their needs apart from and against relationships of domination and oppression that characterize today’s society “.

the agenda..to be held in a local square!
the agenda..to be held in a local square!

Regarding the legal aspects, sources have told the group that “although we have seen police and plain clothes patrols around the cinema, to date there has been no incident. Neither have we received messages from the City Council. ”

Indeed the City Council is in an awkward position, controlled by Barcelona en Común, and led by Ada Colau, herself an ex squatting activist against mortgage evictions , which makes an immediate eviction unlikely, but there must be intense pressure to stop the wave of occupations getting out of hand.

How is it possible to seize a multi cinema in Barcelona, but unthinkable in most other cities? The occupiers in San Andreu barrio have been active and trusted for many years, their tactics are excellent and there is a long history of anarchist type self organisation in the city.

Cinètika make this assessment of the progress of the project. “In the cracks of the Barcelona Brand Name  we are making combative living spaces: a cinema opened up to fill it with life,”

@La CinètikaLaCinetika

Cinema occupied for an autonomous, feminist, anticapitalist space in Sant Andreu.   Rambla Fabra i Puig, 32 (M L1 Fabra i Puig)

There’s a lot more local squatters news here…

The squatted bank Banc Expropriat, free social center in Gracia Barrio is threatened again after winning last year by huge public support.

a dozen demos called by the Expropriated Bank for if they are evicted
a dozen demos called by the Expropriated Bank for if they are evicted
A large building in the city center has been occupied by students for autonomous assembly run living space, etc.
The Transformadors anarchist CSO was evicted while empty.
A center in Sabadell city was attacked by 50 nazis who were driven off quickly by 200 anti-nazis called on Twitter.

The classic Rimaia  CSO, site of the Free University, has been re-occupied for the 5th time and is being refurbished.

the Rimaia is now re-occupied... again
the Rimaia is now re-occupied… again

The Can Vies anarchist social center, site of the 2014 eviction, riots, semi demolition and triumphant counter occupation is still being rebuilt amid a host of new activities……

Can Vies 'Flowers from the Rubble'
Can Vies ‘Flowers from the Rubble’

 

original i més info en catalá

Primavera okupa a Barcelona

La Cinètika obre les portes dels antics cinemes Lauren a Sant Andreu de Palomar i l’Assemblea de Joves de Cassoles ja té casal. Aquest matí, l’Ajuntament ha desallotjat un CSOA Transformadors buit

Pas de la cercavila per la plaça Orfila, on es va fer memòria de les càrregues de la Guàrdia Urbana després del desallotjament del CSO La Galia, a principis dels 2000

1-2. No és el resultat d’un partit de futbol, sinó el balanç que fa dels darrers tres dies el moviment okupa de la ciutat. Dissabte al matí, una cercavila finalitzava amb l’obertura al públic del cinema abandonat del passeig de Fabra i Puig, rebatejat com la Cinètika, on se celebraran fins dimarts les Jornades per un Palomar Autònom i Anticapitalista. El mateix dissabte a la tarda, l’Assemblea de Joves de Cassoles alliberava un local al carrer Bertran, que esdevindrà el nou casal juvenil de Sant Gervasi. Avui al matí, al Fort Pienc, l’Ajuntament ha fet efectiu el desallotjament del CSOA Transformadors, i s’ha trobat l’edifici buit. L’assemblea del centre social ha convocat una concentració de resposta avui dilluns a les vuit de vespre davant la seu del Districte de l’Eixample.

Les darreres setmanes s’han obert les portes de grans edificis abandonats, com la Nova Rimaia, a Sant Antoni, o la Residència d’Estudiants Okupada, al cor del Raval

La revifada de l’okupació és un fet als barris de Barcelona. Les darreres setmanes s’han obert les portes de grans edificis abandonats, com la Nova Rimaia, a Sant Antoni, o laResidència d’Estudiants Okupada, al cor del Raval. L’alliberament d’immobles buits per transformar-los en habitatges també és una tendència creixent a barris com Vallcarca i Sant Andreu. Els moviments socials de la Vila de Gràcia s’organitzen davant l’amenaça de desallotjament imminent del Banc Expropiat, que crida a apropar-se a l’exsucursal de Travessera de Gràcia tan bon punt arribi la comitiva i a manifestar-se a les 20 h del mateix dia a la plaça Revolució. L’endemà, estan convocades, de moment, concentracions solidàries a mitja dotzena de barris de Barcelona.

Aquesta darrera onada d’usurpacions arriba marcada per un element característic: molts dels nous espais alliberats són propietat de l’Ajuntament de Barcelona. És el cas de Transformadors, la Cinètika, un immoble okupat a Sarrià o l’antiga comissaria de la Policia Nacional espanyola que acull des del novembre el Casal Popular Tres Lliris, al carrer Torrent de l’Olla. Avui a les 9 del matí, el govern de Barcelona en Comú complia amb el seu propòsit de desallotjar el primer d’aquests espais, el CSOA Transformadors.

Palomar autònom

Fa cinc anys que una tàpia envolta els abandonats multicines Lauren del passeig de Fabra i Puig. Durant aquest temps, l’Ajuntament de Barcelona, propietari de l’immoble, parlava de diversos projectes per donar-li ús, però tot havia quedat en res… fins dissabte. La inauguració de la Cinètika va posar la cirereta final a una cercavila que va recórrer els carrers de Sant Andreu de Palomar fent parada als indrets més significatius de la memòria anticapitalista i autònoma de l’antic poble del pla de Barcelona. El cinema alliberat, amb milers de metres quadrats i deu sales de projecció, esdevindrà, a partir d’ara, un espai obert al barri. Les impulsores de l’okupació volen construir un projecte assembleari, feminista i al marge de les institucions. No es vendrà alcohol al recinte, ja que el col·lectiu considera que “l’alcoholisme i les drogues són un problema als barris populars”.

A la Cinètika, no es vendrà alcohol, ja que el col·lectiu considera que “l’alcoholisme i les drogues són un problema als barris populars”

Fent honor al seu nom (en grec clàssic, “la que es mou”) la Cinètika ha acollit tot el cap de setmana una voràgine d’activitats, que han combinat les tasques de neteja i habilitació de les enormes instal·lacions amb els actes de les Jornades per un Palomar Autònom i Capitalista, una sèrie de xerrades, àpats i, projeccions de documentals, programades fins dimarts. El vestíbul s’ha omplert de xerrades i debats que han comptat amb la participació de les treballadores en lluita de Telefònica, TMB, l’Auditori i el Liceu, així com de l’Obra Social de la PAH, el Sindicat Popular de Venedors Ambulants, Vaga de Totes, la Plataforma Stop Pujades, l’escriptor Joni D. i el conductor de bus i regidor de la CUP Josep Garganté.

Una de les sales dels multicines Lauren del passeig de Fabra i Puig, abandonat des de fa cinc anys fins a l’okupació del passat cap de setmana / Marc Rude

“No volem continuar contemplant passivament el circ mediàtic de les declaracions simbòliques i televisades de la ‘nova esquerra’ institucional, mentre al carrer no canvia res i les nostres condicions de vida continuen empitjorant”, expressa el manifest titulat Fi de l’espectacle: una carta als barris des del nou cinema okupat de Sant Andreu, que la Cinètika ha publicat al servidor Indymedia. “Volem dotar-nos de les eines i les armes necessàries per a construir barris i comunitats fortes […] capaces de construir formes de viure i satisfer les seves necessitats al marge i en contra de les relacions de dominació i opressió que caracteritzen la societat actual”.

Pel que fa als aspectes legals, fonts del col·lectiu ens han explicat que “tot i que hem vist molta presència de patrulles i secretes als voltants del cinema, fins ara no s’ha produït cap incident. Tampoc no ens ha arribat cap missatge de l’Ajuntament”. A la Cinètika fan una molt bona valoració de la marxa del projecte. “En les escletxes de la marca Barcelona creixen espais vius i combatius: obrim un cinema abandonat per omplir-lo de vida”, expressava el col·lectiu des del seu compte de Twitter.

Cassoles ja té casal

Dissabte a la tarda, un grup de joves de Sant Gervasi de Cassoles –o simplement Cassoles, en toponímia laica– alliberaven un local per tal d’obrir-hi un casal, al número 24 del carrer Bertran. L’Assemblea de Joves del barri, impulsora de la iniciativa, feia tres anys que patia la mancança d’un espai on desenvolupar la seva activitat, després del desallotjament del Casal Popular Manuel de Pedrolo, situat al mateix carrer.

L’Assemblea havia engegat la campanya “No tenim lloc” per reivindicar la necessitat de locals, però denuncien que el govern municipal no ha respost a les seves exigències

Vinculada a esplais i caus de la zona, l’Assemblea havia engegat la campanya “No tenim lloc” per reivindicar la necessitat de locals pels col·lectius i entitats cassolencs. El govern municipal, però, no ha respost a les seves exigències. “Davant d’aquesta situació precària i indigna, hem decidit donar vida a un espai mort des de fa més de vuit anys. Entenem que la falta de voluntat resolutiva de l’Administració davant les demandes que hem presentat és un senyal inequívoc d’immobilisme enfront del jovent del barri, i la negació d’un dret bàsic com el que reclamem. La solució és clara: o ho solucionem nosaltres mateixes, o ens esperen més hiverns al carrer”, exposa l’Assemblea de Joves de Cassoles en un comunicat.

“Transformadors”

El juliol de l’any passat, una vintena de persones van okupar l’edifici de Transformadors, al carrer Ausiàs March. Els fets van generar una polèmica important al barri, ja que feia anys que diversos col·lectius i entitats reclamaven a l’Ajuntament, propietari de l’immoble, que els cedís l’espai. Avui a les nou del matí, agents de la Guàrdia Urbana han accedit a l’edifici, que en aquell moment era buit.

 L’entrada al CSOA Transformadors, custodiada per la Guàrdia Urbana després del desallotjament / Jesús Rodriguez

A les dotze han arribat dos camions de BAGURSA, la societat mercantil encarregada de l’àmbit urbanístic de l’Ajuntament de Barcelona, i els operaris han començat a tapiar portes i finestres. Poca gent s’ha quedat a testimoniar el desallotjament. El col·lectiu ha valorat els fets a través del seu blog: “Tracten així de sepultar l’accés a una cultura lliure i llibertària per la qual nosaltres seguirem lluitant”. L’assemblea de l’espai convoca també una concentració avui dilluns a les vuit del vespre a les portes de la seu del Districte de l’Eixample, al número 311 del carrer Aragó, “en rebuig a aquest desallotjament i en suport a tots els espais autogestionats que practiquen l’autonomia real”.

Will Monsanto’s Cancer Chemicals be approved? Glyphosate banned in 50 Spanish Cities

Monsanto Causes CancerCorporate Looting  vs  Public Health

Demonstrators protest Monsanto Co. in Paris on May 23. The company says it will appeal a ruling by a French court that its herbicide Lasso poisoned a French farmer. (Mal Langsdon/Reuters)
Demonstrators protest Monsanto Co. in Paris last year
Last year the World Health Organisation finally labelled the biggest selling weedkiller Roundup as ‘probably cancer causing’. This after decades of sellout to Monsanto’s tame scientists and the incalculable suffering of millions of people. (The word ‘probably’ is just to defend against the lobby’s legal machine, there are thousands of documented deaths).
Nowadays Roundup is everywhere, cumulative and persistent, in your food, in parks, crops, picnic spots, roadsides… By chance its authorization in the EU has just come up for renewal and all hell has broken loose as Monsanto tries everything to covertly bribe or threaten officials (ie. lobbying) and citizens and victims campaign try to ban it.

The owners of this US corporation have made countless billions and continue selling a product they KNEW FROM THE BEGINNING causes cancer and all kinds of deformations Continue reading “Will Monsanto’s Cancer Chemicals be approved? Glyphosate banned in 50 Spanish Cities”

1.2 million on streets in French Strikes. First ‘Nuit Debout’ occupations evicted

direct.loi-travail.plus-de-600-kilometres-de-bouchons-en-france

Nuit Debout (‘WideAwake Night’): police evict the ’15 -M ‘in Paris. At 18:00 1st April reconvening

By Kaos. International .  google translationThe new law will allow companies to fire workers by reducing benefits without going into losses and sick leave depend only on collective agreements and cease to be guaranteed by law. Compensation for unfair dismissal will also be reduced: it will take a minimum of 12 months’ salary for 6 months and only if the worker had at least two years in the company.

The state of emergency, labor reform, opposition to the construction of a new airport in Nantes and the convergence of many more struggles have crystallized in a camp in the Place de la Republique in Paris. The Convergence of struggles group called not go home after the general strike on March 31 against the labor law and stay up all night (Nuit Debout). Although the original call was limited to Paris, they had called in at least 20 other cities. The protest only caught on in Paris, Lyon and Nantes. In Bordeaux and Caen demonstrators they were evicted by police. A theater has been busy in Toulouse.

direct.loi-travail.affrontements-toujours-en-cours-nantes-et-rennes
direct.loi-travail.affrontements-toujours-en-cours-nantes-et-rennes

Between 5 and 6 am, concentrations in Paris and Nantes have been evicted by police peacefully. More than 100 riot police have surrounded the audience and forced to go underground, pushing the shields to those who offered passive resistance. It has lived a moment of tension when a fall occurs in the descent to the subway but the incident has not gone higher. The police have forced the last protesters who chose not to disperse to enter trains  . After the eviction, protesters called to meet again today 1st April at 18.00 in the Plaza of the Republic for another night stands. Continue reading “1.2 million on streets in French Strikes. First ‘Nuit Debout’ occupations evicted”

Immigrant Solidarity holds Rebel Street market in Barcelona

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On Saturday we made a political act of disobedience with the popular Guild of Barcelona Street Vendors
and the ‘Blamket Stall’ collective in their support and in response to the police and City Hall repression suffered by colleagues Continue reading “Immigrant Solidarity holds Rebel Street market in Barcelona”

Free Zapatista Freedom School Texts Download HERE (English)

Put on your thinking caps because all four Zapatista textbooks from the  widely popular escuelita (little school) have been translated to English.

For those who are not yet familiar, the Zapatista Escuelita (Zapatista little school),brought 1630 students from around the world to learn what it really means to be Zapatista. Contrary to what some might believe, there’s a lot more to the Zapatista than “smashing the state” or looking good doing it!

You can download the four books by clicking the corresponding links below.

The Dispossessed… + The Day Before The Revolution…READ HERE


”I started by reading a whole mess of utopias and learning something about pacifism and Gandhi and nonviolent resistance. This led me to the nonviolent anarchist writers such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman. With them I felt a great, immediate affinity. They made sense to me in the way Lao Tzu did. They enabled me to think about war, peace, politics, how we govern one another and ourselves, the value of failure, and the strength of what is weak.

So, when I realised that nobody had yet written an anarchist utopia, I finally began to see what my book might be. And I found that its principal character, whom I’d first glimpsed in the original misbegotten story, was alive and well—my guide to Anarres. [4]”

EM: The Dispossessed is one of your most well-known works. Was there any novel which explored anarchism so explicitly before then?

UG: I don’t think so. That’s one of the reasons I thought of writing it. I’d been educating myself about pacifist anarchism for a year or more. I started reading the non-violence texts—Ghandi, Martin Luther King and so on—just educating myself about non-violence, and I think that probably led me to Kropotkin and that lot, and I got fascinated. Portland used to have a hundred independent bookstores, and one of them was rather political, and in the back room, if he knew you, he would take you in to see his anarchist stuff.

EM: When would this have been?

UG: When was that book? The early 80s? Late 70s? That store had some wonderful stuff, which at the time was very hard to find. Not so much anymore. And of course I found out about some of the modern anarchist writers. I was excited following that up. And then at the same time I was reading utopias. And there was a utopia for every political thing you could think of, but not for anarchism. Isn’t that odd? Well maybe I should write one. So then I had to re-read and read things to plan how on Earth would you organize an anarchist society, which was a lot of fun, but difficult.

EM: Especially on the scale of a world.

UG: Even a very thinly populated planet, there’s a lot of people to organize.

EM: You said in an essay that a Utopia, with a capital U, should be a practical alternative. That really struck me.

UG: I’d have to think about that. In my own mind I’ve moved on quite far from the utopia of The Dispossessed to the semi-utopia of Always Coming Home, where I did try to make it simply a lifestyle. There was no political basis at all, in the sense of European or large nation politics, therefore people think that I was trying to idolize the American Indians or something.

What I took from the Indians was, essentially, running your lives without a central government and using consensus as the basic mode, which you can’t do in a big society, it’s a matter of numbers. But I wanted to think out what it might be like. I think the lack of politics, for some of the readers, makes them think that it must be primitivist, and it ain’t necessarily so.

EM: It’s been influential in bringing the dialogue into the mainstream.

UG: Yeah. Writing a serious utopian novel that is an anarchist novel. It hadn’t been done, and there were hardly any anarchist texts that weren’t non-fiction, so just having a big fiction work that’s all about anarchists, I think made quite a difference.

EM: Especially with things like gender-neutral pronouns. It’s a conversation that’s been happening for a while, but is getting louder now. It shows how important linguistics is.

UG: Oh gosh yes. When you start looking for languages which have a gender neutral common pronoun, what have you got? Some kinds of Japanese and Finnish… I believe Finnish is gender neutral, which is cool. So translating The Left Hand of Darkness is a cinch for them.

 

   The Dispossessed. Ursula Le Guin’s anarchist utopia…Free Download HERE:

The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed   or

Listen to Thye Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin at Audiobooks.com

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed.leguin-the-dispossessed

Thoughts on The Dispossessed
There are some books that even with my untrained, unskilled and inexperienced eye can detect and confirm are true works of art, mastery in literature. Continue reading “The Dispossessed… + The Day Before The Revolution…READ HERE”

Human pack animals at Europe’s 6m high Spanish Gates

Earning a living on border of Morocco’s Spanish enclave

For Moroccan porters, smuggling goods through the border of Melilla exacts heavy toll and brings a meagre income.

from Jose Colon  at AJE with thanks

A man at the border pushes back some women trying to cross with packages on their backs. [Jose Colon/MeMo/Al Jazeera]

Melilla, Spain – At 6:30am, the sun has not made its appearance yet  and the border of Melilla’s Chinatown quarter is illuminated by the orange glow of street lamps.

The border crossing is a maze of wires and winches that convey a sense of unease and fear.

The  six metre-high border fence across the road, contributes to the feeling of a hostile environment that surrounds Melilla, the tiny Spanish enclave in the northeast of Morocco. Ahead, on the Moroccan side, the murmur of distant shouts and blows can be heard.

A man with a whip strikes at the load carriers. It is believed that local authorities hire Moroccan enforcers to keep order. [Jose Colon/MeMo/Al Jazeera] Continue reading “Human pack animals at Europe’s 6m high Spanish Gates”