Mutual Aid against Capitalist Vultures in Brazilian Climate Chaos megaflooding – Crimethinc

Anarchists in Southern Brazil on the Floods of May 2024 – The rich stand by while people save each other – 171 deaths – 614,000 made homeless, …

from thefreeonline on 29th June 2024 by Anarchist News From CrimethInc. (see The Free on Telegram: t.me/thefreeonline)

The Disaster is Already Here

Anarchists in Southern Brazil on the Floods of May 2024

In the first days of May 2024, the territory known as Rio Grande do Sul in so-called Brazil suffered the biggest climate catastrophe in its history.

More than a week of intense rain caused several rivers to overflow, wrecking dozens of cities and destroying everything in their path, before flowing into the Guaíba River, causing the biggest flood ever recorded in the Greater Porto Alegre region.

By June, 171 deaths had been confirmed. Thousands of people lost everything; 614,000 were rendered homeless; over two million were impacted. The force of the waters erased entire cities from the map. More than 90% of the industry of the state of Rio Grande do Sul was flooded.

This is the greatest economic and structural damage a climate event has ever caused in Brazil. Reckoning by the number of people affected and the material damage, the tragedy already surpasses the destruction that Hurricane Katrina inflicted on New Orleans in 2005.

https://kolektiva.media/videos/embed/498f73ad-4a7c-48db-a159-b210fb5af403

A video about the flood by the Antimídia collective.

https://kolektiva.media/videos/embed/498f73ad-4a7c-48db-a159-b210fb5af403

The state and the capitalist mode of production are directly responsible for the devastation of the planet. They have cut down forests to make way for cattle, monoculture, and mining, degrading the soil with urban expansion. They are producing more and more catastrophes like the one that struck Rio Grande do Sul. Amid all the horror, we see the complete failure of the ruling class to care for our lives and our environment.

The Municipality of Lajeado after the waters of the flood receded.

At the center of this tragedy, anarchists, Indigenous communities, quilombos, and social movements have been organizing solidarity efforts as they try to rebuild their lives and their territories—soliciting and distributing donations, calling for joint efforts for cleaning and reoccupying affected properties, and organizing new occupations of empty buildings to house those who lost their homes.

Here, we explore how capitalists and the state have taken advantage of the catastrophe and how grassroots movements have responded to it, and present an interview with anarchists impacted by the flooding.

If you are dismayed or inspired by what you read here, please considering supporting anarchists in southern Brazil here as they address the ongoing impact of the floods.

The State

Whenever a “natural” disaster strikes, we see once again that the priority of the state has never been to protect our lives. For decades, the Brazilian government ignored warnings about the dangers of environmental destruction and climate change and failed to take effective measures to prevent catastrophes like this. On the contrary, it played an active role in the destruction—sometimes at a slower pace, sometimes devouring the land voraciously.

This contempt for life and hatred of nature was blatant in Bolsonaro’s neo-fascist government. But even social democratic regimes, including progressive governments involving parties like the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers Party, or PT), contributed heavily to global warming, relying on the automotive industry, oil extraction, and other energy sources with a high environmental impact to boost economic growth.

In 2015, during the tenure of the PT’s Dilma Rousseff, scientific reports warning that climate change would cause floods were shelved as “too alarmist.”

At the state and municipal levels, the government’s continuous negligence has an immediate impact on our lives. Despite threats from one weather system after another, the governor and mayor did not develop adequate evacuation plans or warnings.

They did not even invest in the most minimal steps to protect the population. The current governor, Eduardo Leite (from the right-wing Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, Brazilian Social Democracy Party, or PSDB), shredded the state’s environmental legislation in order to favor businesspeople and reduced investments in Civil Defense during his government.

Confronted by journalists, Leite tried to justify this by claiming that “There are these studies that, in some way, warn, but the government also has other agendas.”

In Porto Alegre, the dam floodgates that protect the city failed due to lack of maintenance and closing errors. This became even more serious because the last administrations of Porto Alegre city hall had scrapped the DEP (Department of Storm Sewage), the body responsible for the system of dikes, floodgates and pumping stations that protect the capital of Rio Grande do Sul against floods, which imposed further demands on the DMAE (Municipal Department of Water and Sewage). According to experts, the city would not have flooded if the system had been properly maintained and managed.

Making matters worse, the mayor of Porto Alegre, Sebastião Melo, only decreed water rationing after 85% of the city was already without access to drinking water.

The populations of some neighborhoods were only notified that the pumps that prevented the flooding of their homes had been turned off after the fact, giving them no time to evacuate.

The Impact of Capitalism

The capitalist mode of production is the cause of climate shifts that threaten all life on earth. At the same time, the corporations and executives that profit from it are doing very little to mitigate the suffering of the population. In this case, if anything, they have made the situation even worse.

The capitalists failed to keep the supermarkets that were still operating stocked. Since they were interested in making a quick profit on people’s despair, they allowed those with money to buy up all the available water and supplies.

At the same time, dozens of stores were flooded while they were still filled with food, water bottles, and other essential items for the population, which had been locked inside under the protection of police and security guards armed with rifles—who had formed paramilitary groups to prevent hungry people from accessing food or other resources destined to rot in water.

The corporations and the state were more interested in protecting these goods than saving the lives of those who needed them, even if the items were bound to be discarded and compensated for by insurance companies.

flooded prison… Imagem do Complexo Penal de Charqueadas inundado em 4 de maio de 2024 | Foto: Divulgação/Susepe

A civil police officer shoots in the direction of a person suspected of looting a supermarket in Porto Alegre.

Continue reading “Mutual Aid against Capitalist Vultures in Brazilian Climate Chaos megaflooding – Crimethinc”

EZLN: 40 years after its founding and 30 years after its rebellion

By Gilberto López y Riva | La Jornada In Mexico, a democratic transition does not take place with the collapse of the state party regime, upon the arrival of Vicente Fox to the Presidency of the Republic. There is a rotation of State parties, in which there is systemic continuity, a mere replacement of political […]

EZLN: 40 years after its founding and 30 years after its rebellion

A History of Class-Struggle Anarchism – Zoe Baker

‘The libertarian socialists came to be called “anarchists” because that’s what they were called by their enemies’.

June 2024 by Z Network by Tom Wetzel at Anarchist News. 36 comments from thefreeonline on Telegram here: t.me/thefreeonline

Zoe Baker’s book and videos Means and Ends are a comprehensive look at the revolutionary class-struggle anarchist movement as it existed and developed in the period from the International Workingmen’s Association of 1864-78 to the defeat of the anarchist and syndicalist-inspired revolution in Spain in 1939.

Although the book is not about the writings of famous anarchist authors, she often uses quotes from people like Emma Goldman, Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta to illustrate points. The author concedes that she only knows English and thus could not consult writings that have not yet been translated into English.

The book does not talk about all the various political tendencies that have used the “anarchist” label but mostly focuses on the main class-struggle oriented tendency which she calls “mass anarchism.”

Because the retreat from class is a common feature in the writing of various anarchists since World War 2 — from George Woodcock to Murray Bookchin and contemporary post-modernist anarchists — I have chosen to use “class-struggle anarchism” to refer to the political tendency this book is about.

People in that movement did not use the term mass anarchism which was first coined by Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt in Black Flame.  This term makes a certain sense, though, because of the orientation of that movement to mass struggle and building and participating in formally organized, democratic mass organizations such as worker unions, tenant unions, and independent women’s groups.

Origin

Zoe Baker starts out by honing in on the very specific anarchist tendency that her book is about. This political tendency first emerged as an organized political force within the framework of the International Workingmen’s Association (“First International”).

At a congress of the International in 1869, the majority of the delegates voted in favor of ownership of land by the whole society. This viewpoint was called “collectivism.” Among this collectivist majority, a tendency emerged who opposed a strategy oriented to the politics of parliamentary elections and parties and opposed the goal of gaining state power. This tendency often referred to itself by labels such as “federalist” and “revolutionary socialist.” The word libertarian was first used as another name for anarchism by Joseph Dejacque in 1857.

Thus “libertarian socialist” or “libertarian communist” were also labels used by this tendency.(p. 24) Many did not call themselves “anarchists” initially because anarchism was identified with Proudhon at that time. This emerging federalist, libertarian socialist tendency had significant disagreements with Proudhon.

From the 1840s on, Proudhon had advocated a strategy called mutualism. This was a gradualist strategy of social change through the building of worker cooperatives, with the aid of loans from a “people’s bank.”  Proudhon thought the cooperatives could grow to eventually take over more social functions.

Proudhon opposed social ownership of the land, advocating private ownership by those who work the land, such as a peasant farmer. The federalist libertarian socialists did not support Proudhon’s mutualism but “advocated revolutionary…unionism and the simultaneous abolition of capitalism and the state through an armed insurrection, which would forcefully expropriate the capitalist class.” (p. 24)

As Baker points out, the opposition to Proudhon is an example of why the emergent class struggle-oriented federalist socialist or anarchist tendency cannot be defined simply by their proposal for abolition of the state as other socialists also advocated this.

Baker uses the term collectivist in two different ways. She initially defines it as proposing social ownership of the land. Later she talks about an internal disagreement among the class-struggle oriented anarchists between “anarchist collectivists” and “anarchist communists.” Here she is using a distinction explained by Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread. In Kropotkin’s terminology, “collectivists” were people such as James Quillaume. Nestor Makhno or Ricardo Mella who advocated remuneration for work effort in a libertarian socialist society (p. 90).

Workers would be given certificates based on hours worked which they could use to obtain consumer goods. This is similar to Marx’s proposal in A Critique of the Gotha Program. Kropotkin, on the other hand, advocated a proposal of free-to-user provision for all needs — in keeping with the principle, “From each according to ability, to each according to need.”

Kropotkin explicitly opposed remuneration for work effort. People advocating Kropotkin’s view were called “communists.” But according to the original definition of “collectivist,” “communists” would also be “collectivists” since they advocated social ownership of the land. In reality, the principle of remuneration for work effort and the principle of free-to-user pubic goods and services are compatible. Indeed, the Spanish CNT “libertarian communist” program of 1936 advocated both.

Continue reading “A History of Class-Struggle Anarchism – Zoe Baker”

Thousands of Palestinian children buried under rubble in Gaza: UNICEF

from thefreeonline 29 Jun 2024 By Al Mayadeen English from Uprooted Palestinians Listen

UNICEF’s deputy executive director underscores the severe toll on Palestinian children amid widespread death and destruction due to the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza.

100 children killed or injured every day in Gaza: UNICEF

Chaiban mentioned that over 23,000 cases of children being killed or injured in 2023 remain unverified due to insecurity, movement restrictions, and significant risks faced by humanitarian personnel working in Gaza.

“The bodies of thousands of missing children remain buried under rubble, and none of this includes the thousands of violations reported so far in 2024,” he stressed.

Continue reading “Thousands of Palestinian children buried under rubble in Gaza: UNICEF”

War on Citizens: How the junta’s VPN ban is strangling communication in Myanmar

The measure exposes some desperation bythe military regime

from thefreeonline 28 June 2024 by The Irrawaddy ….. (NEW- The Free is now on Telegram: https://t.me/thefreeonline)

This article by Mi Ei Thinzar Myint was originally published in The Irrawaddy, an independent news website in Myanmar. This edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Myanmar’s military regime blocked Facebook and other messaging apps following the 2021 coup in a bid to restrict freedom of expression and communication that it believes threatens its rule.

The people of Myanmar were using virtual private networks (VPNs), either paid or free versions, to bypass the restrictions.

However, the regime recently banned the use of VPN services in the country, and residents are now reporting difficulties accessing Facebook and other social media platforms.

Ma Wai Phyo Myint, Asia Pacific Policy Analyst at Access Now, which promotes digital rights around the world, recently talked to The Irrawaddy about how the VPN ban will affect people’s access to information and the ability of resistance groups to coordinate their efforts.

The Irrawaddy (TI): People are reporting difficulties using VPNs. What is happening?

Ma Wai Phyo Myint (MWPM): The regime blocked access to websites, Facebook, WhatsApp and other messaging platforms in 2021 and 2022. They used blacklisting and whitelisting, handing lists of websites that they wanted blocked to telecom operators and internet service providers. This time is different. They have bypassed telecom operators and internet service providers and are directly controlling [the internet] from [the capital] Naypyitaw. We are waiting to see if they will deploy firewalls like China.

TI: People say they can’t use certain VPNs. Which ones?

MWPM: Local organizations are checking. Some VPNs can still be used. Local organizations say the regime listed VPN servers in late 2023 and early 2024. It has blocked access to widely used VPNs including Psiphon. This includes the paid version [as well as the free version]. The point of using a VPN is to make your browsing history and location untraceable by military and government organizations. Your data are not safe unless you use a secure VPN. So, why haven’t they blocked access to widely available VPNs yet? Perhaps they want to keep monitoring, which is a cause for concern.

TI: People in China can still access banned sites despite the VPN ban? Is there any way to bypass the restrictions in Myanmar?

MWPM: This is a technical issue and we are still trying to figure out what exactly the regime is doing. Then, we will talk with VPN service providers about how they can help to restore VPN access in Myanmar. Neither local organizations nor VPN service providers can explain the details now.

TI: Why is the junta banning VPNs?

TI: Are there other ways people can use to share information?

MWPM: We heard that Facebook use has significantly declined due to the VPN problem.

Thanks to technological advances, even China’s government can’t completely ban VPNs. People can switch to other VPNs, and the regime won’t be able to block all the new technologies. There will be impacts, but people will be able to find ways [to evade the VPN ban] over time.

It is very costly to build firewalls. The regime doesn’t have sufficient resources to deploy firewalls in the long run. People should not underestimate what the regime is doing. Yet at the same time, they should not succumb to unwarranted fear. The regime can’t control everything.

Anti-regime forces are trying to use internet service providers that are not controlled by or tied to the regime. They are trying to get satellite phones and satellite internet, which have become accessible both technically and financially. The regime can’t shut down all the channels.

TI: The junta has been promoting a social media app called MySpace. How far can it go?

Continue reading “War on Citizens: How the junta’s VPN ban is strangling communication in Myanmar”

Gaza: People Endure ‘Subhuman Conditions’ amid Ongoing Genocide

Earlier on Wednesday, at least 15 people have been killed in Beit Lahia after the bombardment of the Abu Awad family home sheltering about 40 people,

from thefreeonline on 27/6/24 by SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM at Uprooted Palestinians – ( See on Telegram t.me/thefreeonline)

Desperate search for clean water amid war and blistering heat in Gaza

The Gaza Strip remains at high risk of famine as the Israeli war on the besieged enclave persists and access to aid is restricted, with international organizations warning that the Gazans endure subhuman conditions.

More than 495,000 people across the besieged Palestinian territory are facing “catastrophic food insecurity,” according to the United Nation’s hunger monitoring system, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

That is down from a forecast of 1.1 million in the previous update three months ago, but is still more than one-fifth of Gaza’s population, the IPC said on Tuesday.

Households suffer an extreme lack of food, leading to acute malnutrition in young children, an imminent risk of starvation, and deaths, it reported.

More than 20 percent of people reported going entire days and nights without eating. Overall, about 96 percent of the population will continue to face high levels of acute food insecurity until September.

Citing the IPC’s report, the Mercy Corps aid group said that people in Gaza are “enduring subhuman conditions” with a third of the population picking through trash to survive in the oppressive summer heat.

“The fact that the entire population of Gaza is at emergency levels of hunger with nearly 500,000 people starving should come as no surprise, as the world has been watching Gaza’s humanitarian crisis worsen for nine months,” Mercy Corps’ Vice President of Global Policy and Advocacy, Kate Phillips-Barrasso, said.

“People are enduring subhuman conditions, resorting to desperate measures like boiling weeds, eating animal feed, and exchanging clothes for money to stave off hunger and keep their children alive,” Barrasso added.

Continuous Bombardment

Continue reading “Gaza: People Endure ‘Subhuman Conditions’ amid Ongoing Genocide”

100% proof- 74% of Sudden Deaths Directly Linked to Covid Vaccination !

Explosive Study Once Removed by Lancet within 24 Hours, Now finally Peer-Reviewed and Public

from thefreeonline by Jim Hoft on 27/6/24 by StuartBramhall 1933 Comments – (The Free is on Telegram: t.me/thefreeonline)

A previously censored paper from The Lancet has now undergone peer review and is available online.

Did 5, 180, 893 of us DIE from the Covid Vaccine ?

Total reported Covid 19 deaths to April 2024 are 7,010,681 according to worldometers.info/c.. Divided by 73.9% rate of deaths in the Autopsy Findings that would add up to 5, 180, 893 Covid Vaccine Deaths if all had been allowed autopsies...

Most of those unnecessary deaths could have been avoided if the Lancet had not censored the Report and the vaccination campaign had been suspended. But of course doctors, hospitals, Vaccine firms and all their elite shareholders would have lost out on their bonanza profits.

And extrapolating the findings we can guess at tens of millions of us crippled and still suffering today, millions of stillbirths and miscarriages destroying women’s lives..

An ongoing humanitarian tragedy due to an experimental vaccine that we knew was obviously deadly from the start. ( In the safety tests “all the animals died”.)

Instead of endless coverups and even plans for a new ‘Pandemic $$ Feeding Frenzy’ a mass jailing of the beneficiaries of letting millions of us die for profit might go some way to restore some credibility to the US Empire of Lies.

The study, titled “A Systematic Review of Autopsy Findings in Deaths After COVID-19 Vaccination,” analyzed 325 autopsy cases and found that a staggering 73.9% of deaths were either directly due to or significantly contributed to by the COVID-19 vaccination.

The paper’s lead author, Dr. Nicolas Hulscher, faced significant opposition in bringing these findings to light. After initially being downloaded over 100,000 times, The Lancet removed the paper within only 24 hours, according to Dr. William Makis. 

According to The Daily Sceptic, the reason given at the time was, “This preprint has been removed by Preprints with the Lancet because the study’s conclusions are not supported by the study methodology.”

Without further detail from the Preprints with the Lancet staff who removed the paper it is hard to know what possible substance, if any, the claim that the conclusions are not supported by the methodology really has.

A number of the authors of the paper are at the top of their fields so it is hard to imagine that the methodology of their review was really so poor that it warranted instant removal at initial screening rather than being subject to full critical appraisal.

It smacks instead of raw censorship of a paper that failed to toe the official line. Keep in mind that the CDC has not yet even acknowledged a single death being caused by the Covid mRNA vaccines.

Autopsy evidence demonstrating otherwise is clearly not what the U.S. public health establishment wants to hear.”

In a post on X Friday, Dr. William Makis shared the shocking news.

“BREAKING NEWS: Our LANCET CENSORED Paper is now peer reviewed and available online!” Makis wrote on X.

“Incredible perseverence by first author Nicolas Hulscher who didn’t give up after LANCET pulled our paper within 24 hours after 100,000 downloads for no legitimate reason. Big pharma put the squeeze on The Lancet but has failed to stop us.”

“Our paper was delayed by one year, and those actions of CENSORSHIP and CANCELLATION led to many deaths that could have been prevented. This paper could be a game changer,” Makis added.

According to the study:

Methods

We searched PubMed and ScienceDirect for all published autopsy and necropsy reports relating to COVID-19 vaccination up until May 18th, 2023. All autopsy and necropsy studies that included COVID-19 vaccination as an antecedent exposure were included.

Because the state of knowledge has advanced since the time of the original publications, three physicians independently reviewed each case and adjudicated whether or not COVID-19 vaccination was the direct cause or contributed significantly to death.

Results

We initially identified 678 studies and, after screening for our inclusion criteria, included 44 papers that contained 325 autopsy cases and one necropsy case. The mean age of death was 70.4 years.

The most implicated organ system among cases was the cardiovascular (49%), followed by hematological (17%), respiratory (11%), and multiple organ systems (7%). Three or more organ systems were affected in 21 cases.

The mean time from vaccination to death was 14.3 days. Most deaths occurred within a week from last vaccine administration.

A total of 240 deaths (73.9%) were independently adjudicated as directly due to or significantly contributed to by COVID-19 vaccination, of which the primary causes of death include sudden cardiac death (35%), pulmonary embolism (12.5%), myocardial infarction (12%), VITT (7.9%), myocarditis (7.1%), multisystem inflammatory syndrome (4.6%), and cerebral hemorrhage (3.8%).

According to the VAERS COVID Adverse Event Reports that track all of the COVID-reported vaccine deaths and complications, 37,647 people have died from the COVID-19 vaccine – as of May 31, 2024.

These are the vaccine-related deaths that were reported.

It’s now official. The Covid shots infest the entire body. But they really like the liver and ovaries Posted by Lou on June 24, 2024