Goodbye, and good luck

Dear readers

thank you for having been with me through the 3 years or so I wrote this blog.

As you might have noticed I haven’t written on it in a while, posting only links to articles on other websites. Despite my best intentions I find myself unable to carry on writing and translating for this blog. The last year has been full of changes and quite precarious work-wise and I haven’t had energy or time to dedicate to my little creature. The way things are going, I am not sure I ever will again.

I have decided to spend the little spare time I have when I’m not desperately looking for a decent job by getting back into doing some activism in my local community. I am a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World and in 2015 I will focus on creating support groups for European migrant workers in the city where I live. Think globally, act locally, as they say.

This doesn’t mean I have lost interest in what’s going on in Italy and Europe – the opposite. If you are still interested in my thoughts you can still find me on Twitter with a slightly different name: @Ita_Pasionaria.

Once a partisan, always a partisan.

Palermo is a laboratory for the precariat by Jamie Mackay on openDemocracy

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/jamie-mackay/palermo-is-laboratory-for-precariat

Rome’s rebel lake is a parable of the contemporary commons | openDemocracy

Earlier this year, activists in Rome won the right to self-manage a vast lake in an impoverished area of Rome. Read Jamie Mackay’s editorial on openDemocracy:

Rome’s rebel lake is a parable of the contemporary commons | openDemocracy

Like father, like son: Fascists of the 3rd Millennium

Two policemen are under investigation for covering up a fascist brawl that involved Rome’s Mayor’s son, Manfredi Alemanno. According to Rome’s Public Prosecutors the inquiry that had followed the event was obstructed and then buried under the sand by the Police, thanks to the withholding of evidence and false statements made by policemen Roberto Macellaro (who in his free time volunteers to be the Mayor’s personal chauffeur) and Pietro Ronca, a local Chief Inspector in Rome. These two helped Manfredi Alemanno “disappear” from the scene after the beating had concluded, and then lied about what had really happened. Continue reading

March of discontent: lessons in work struggles

sciopero-22

March 22 2013: let’s dump the bosses
Logistics workers strike
Block the goods, generalise the struggle, united we win!

The working class is awakening, and the mobilisations of the last few days among the logistics sector workers in Emilia Romagna are the first signs.  Recently, we have seen two different images of work struggles: the Peugeot workers in Paris clashing with the police on one hand; and the sad, resigned-looking picket organised by Fiom outside a Fiat establishment in Italy, on the other hand. Both are fighting for their jobs, but the differences are clearly visible and stimulate many diverse reflections. The French workers’ determination in defense of their rights and dignity has spread to the Italian logistics sector workers’ mobilisation on March 22, and manifested in their determination to defeat the enemy. Workers of different backgrounds and origins, Italians and migrants, have united against the exploitation carried on by the “cooperatives” (employment agencies) owners and the main cooperative, the Coop. Continue reading

The Italian Carnival of 2013: Articles On The Elections

Italy

Viareggio’s Carnival

Here is a collection of articles on the Italian elections from the media and some fellow bloggers. I don’t necessarily share the views expressed in all these articles, but they make for some interesting reads. Continue reading

24 Grana – Loop

I think the Soul
is something that moves
slower than our thoughts
It fluctuates slowly
and the mind game
makes it distant from the truth

Apart from this, the Word
forever directs its fast programming
to the images that it remembers from time immemorial
I think the Soul
walks as fast as the rhythm
in a very slow sound mixing

I feel elevated by thinking
about the circular movement
of the waves… Continue reading