The Free

Elbit’s drone factory landlords targeted in UK- Boycott Israeli Arms Suppliers!

from thefreeonlinetps Nov 27th Freedom News

The Birmingham offices of property company ‘LondonMetric’ have been shut down this morning by Palestine Action, with a lock-on action to disrupt another link in Israel’s weapons supply chain. The offices’ windows have been smashed, and the building covered in blood-red paint, as activists have prevented access to the premises at 55 Colmore Row, Birmingham. The site has been shut down in opposition to LondonMetric’s partnership with Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems.

Weapons factory protesters on trial for Elbit occupation | Morning Star

LondonMetric owns the land and building at Unit F, Meridian Business Park, Meridian E, Leicester LE19 1WZ, from which Elbit operates their UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS) drone factory. U-TacS exports millions of pounds worth of drone technologies annually to Israel, including parts for armed Hermes drones. These drones have well-documented links to war crimes and are sure to play a significant role in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which so far has cost the lives of over 20,000 Palestinians. By leasing the Leicester U-TacS factory to Elbit, LondonMetric is in part responsible for the deadly products manufactured there and the Palestinian lives lost as a result.

LondonMetric’s Birmingham offices have previously been met with protests by the group Youth Front For Palestine, and action by Palestine Action will continue until the company end their association with Elbit. This strategy of expansive direct action, targeting companies which facilitate Elbit’s British operations, has seen Elbit’s property managers, recruiters, logistics providers and others met with resistance, calling for the cessation of their partnerships with Israel’s arms trade, as Palestine Action seeks to make the environment inhospitable for companies complicit in war crimes.

Barcelona 30/11- 6.00am – 50 Vans of Riot Cops Expected!- Our Houses are Trenches! Resistance against Bank which has 57K empties .

STOP 2nd Eviction Attempt! La Ruïna and el Kubo WILL NOT DIE

from thefreeonline on 26th Nov 2023 by La Ruïna and el Kubo at squat.net/ and anarchistnews.org/

Barcelona: Our Houses are Trenches! Mass Eviction Resistance against Bank which has 57K empties .

We will turn our houses into a battlefield, el Kubo and the Ruïna will not fall. See you on November 30 at 5:30 a.m. in Uri Caballero square, Vallcarca metro station in Barcelona. If el Kubo and La Ruïna fall, the neighborhood will burn. OKUPA Y RESISTE!

Statement made in February 2023, La Ruïna and el Kubo threatened with eviction:

Our Houses are Trenches.

Here we go, they are going to try to evict us.

In 2016, an office building was squatted for the first time in the Sant Gervasi neighbourhood and we called it El Kubo. The Kubo has been the home and place of passage of more than a hundred people in the more than 6 years that it has been in existence.

This has been the home and trench of many people. It has been an oasis of resistance in the bourgeois quarter of Barcelona for many years and this has not been easy. “Squat and resist” defines the history of the Kubo very well.

During all these years we have faced two evictions and the constant siege of extreme right-wing groups, capitalist press and political parties. And despite the hostilities we have reoccupied and resisted this house all this time.

The Kubo has been the satellite and fundamental point for the birth and resistance of what is now the CSO La Ruïna in 2019. (CSO = Occupied Social Center)

This space was abandoned by SAREB for more than 15 years. ( SAREB is a Bank set up by the State to handle ‘repossessed property’)

La Ruïna has also been home to many people for four years and a space that has tried in the most coherent way possible to stand up to gentrification and speculation in our city, in the neighbourhood with the highest per capita income in Barcelona.

The story of La Ruïna cannot be understood without El Kubo and vice versa. And this is why it is so difficult for us to separate the two houses, since for many years we have worked as families who feed off each other in the struggle for the defense of squatting and direct action, specifically, in a neighborhood that, as we have said before, has not ceased attacks since we arrived.

We believed, and still believe, that we need to have a presence and occupy spaces where we are not wanted.

Where the businessmen, the politicians, live. Where the embassies are, where the wealth is, where there is confrontation and where we have a remarkable impact.

The two properties belong to the SAREB, which currently has around 57,000 empty properties spread throughout the state, to which we point directly and tell them that we are not going to leave, that we are going to defend our homes and our social centers as if it were a trench since we are certain that they are worth fighting for.

Control of our Borders, or Bored of our Controllers? When a Migrant Flood is really a Trickle: The UK migrant Scam

thefreeonline on 26th Nov 2023 by Makhno Makhno Makhno at AnarCom Network

On the day that far right Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration Freedom Party (PVV) looked set to win 37 seats in the country’s general election, making them the largest party, the BBC News website decided to lead with some far right “populism” of their own, running the headline “UK net migration in 2022 revised up to record 745,000”.

It’s worth taking this figure into context. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) estimates that the current population of U.K. in 2023 is 67,736,802, a 0.34% increase from 2022.

On the other hand, the global population growth is around 0.88%, so the UK increase rate is still much less than half the general world increase rate. This is not expressed in the news items, which are left context-free.

Here the BBC is playing to the right-wing narrative of Farage, Sunak and Braverman.

We in the ACN are very clear that we want an end to capitalism. But even in capitalist terms, and plain old racism aside, the fear-mongering over immigration does not make sense. “They are taking our jobs” is the implication, but that doesn’t happen. The size of the workforce does not stay static while the population rises.

In 1960, the UK population was 52,543,017. The workforce (16 – 64 year-olds in employment) was around 25,250,000. When the population rose to the estimated 67,826,318, the number of jobs in the economy did not remain at 25,250,000. The number of 16-64 year-olds currently estimated to be in work is 75.7%, compared with 72.8% when the population was 15 million less. Of course, employment rates go up and down, but this is the result of the inherent booms and busts of capitalism, and does not correlate with population growth.

It’s worth noting that under capitalism, people on low to average earnings spend more of their money than the rich do. The wealthy tend to save it, or worse still send it to tax havens, out of reach of the economy.

If an immigrant is allowed to work (and remember the rules do not allow asylum seekers to do so), they buy food, clothes, bus fares. This is money that goes into circulation, unlike the tax haven hoardings of the rich which goes out of circulation.

Please note, we are not making an argument for capitalism, just describing how things work at the moment.

So, the argument that immigrants are a drain is false. Of course, it could be argued that there is not sufficient infrastructure. But that is a political decision. A decision not to invest in primary health, or hospitals, or schools. Governments could decide to spend that money if they wanted, but they’d rather subsidise the wealthy. Those same wealthy who are hiding their fortunes from the revenue in tax havens.

Thus, we have demonstrated that even by the standards of capitalism, immigration is not too high. It is therefore just another scare story to divide the working class against itself.

Were governments actually concerned about immigration, rather than just using it to divide and rule, then they would act now on climate change. For as more and more areas of the globe become inhospitable, more and more people will inevitably flee to the temperate zones.

But ask yourself this. What would it take you to flee your home and community with barely any possessions, and take desperate chances on dangerous sea crossings? Would you do it on a whim or for an “easy life”? You would not. And so, we must act with human compassion and with human solidarity for those driven to do so.

And we must recognise that as capitalism continues to destroy the planet more and more people will need our compassion and solidarity.

Tiny Fraction Of Global Elites pontificate on Climate Chaos as they Emit As Much Carbon As Bottom Two-Thirds Of Us

from thefreeonline on 26th Nov 2023 By Tom Ozimek at The Most Revolutionary Act

It turns out that the world’s richest 1 percent emit about the same amount of carbon as the world’s poorest two-thirds, according to an analysis from the nonprofit Oxfam International.

This means that a small sliver of global elites, or 77 million people, have produced as much carbon as the 5 billion people that make up the bottom 66 percent by wealth, per the study.

*Carbon emissions of richest 1 percent surged to 16 percent of world’s total CO2 emissions in 2019. *Their carbon emissions are enough to cause 1.3 million excess deaths due to heat. * Unequal countries suffer seven times more flood fatalities than more equal countries. *Fairly taxing the super-rich would help curb both climate change and inequality.

The richest 1 percent of the world’s population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 than the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity, reveals a new Oxfam report today.

It comes ahead of the UN climate summit in Dubai, amid growing fears that the 1.5°C target for curtailing rising temperatures appears increasingly unachievable.

The study also estimates that it would take roughly 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99 percent to produce as much carbon as the wealthiest billionaires do in just one year.