Some Unimaginative Anarchists Think the May Day Smashfest Is Going to Be Awesome
By Ansel Herz
Riot porn is how some Seattle anarchists are promoting May Day, which is next Sunday:
The Hague, the Netherlands: arrest on suspicion of spreading Anarchist Wallpaper
Last Sunday night (April 24th) one person was arrested in The Hague (Netherlands) on suspicion of pasting The Anarchist Wallpaper. He is being charged with instigation against authority, inciting violence and pasting of a poster. On Thursday the person who got arrested will be brought in front of the examining judge, who will decide whether to release him or transfer him to preventive detention.
Mask For Zapata
Anarchy Radio 04-26-2016
LISTEN HERE: CLICK ME
No broadcast next week (5/3) due to travel. Earth Day? There's an app for that. Shootings, recalls news. Suicide rate climbing, life expectancy slipping. Read my "Modernity Takes Over." DeLillo's "Zero K" novel questions tech's ultimate claims. Lies about urbanism courtesy of techno-ideology
#48: From Democracy to Freedom Audio Zine
From CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective
Welcome back to the Ex-worker! We’re eschewing our typical format once again to bring you our second audio zine, a production of Crimethinc.’s new text From Democracy to Freedom. This release coincides with the announcement of an online platform for participating in decentralized reading groups and online discussions on this text as well as the others in the series exploring questions around democracy, and how we relate to it as anarchists. {April 26, 2016}
Text of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire for the Court of Appeal (Greece)
On the 20th of April starts the second grade trial not only for the C.C.F. Case and some of its actions, but also for some other different cases of anarchists accused for actions of revolutionary violence. All these cases were attached to each other in a single trial, in order to serve many different and parallel judiciary manipulations against all those accused.
Mexico: Explosive attack against CORTV Oaxaca by Informal Anarchic Individualities
from Insurrection News
Received and translated on 25.04.16:
In the early hours of April 23 we placed a homemade explosive device on the premises of CORTV Oaxaca, a media / manipulation chanel working in the service of the state.
France’s ‘Nuit Debout’ movement & anarchist critiques of direct democracy (+related news)
From Rable.org.uk and other sources at end
The wave of rebellion unleashed in France in response to the El-Khomri labour law has been impressive. The fighting spirit and political acuity shown by many of those blockading their colleges, blocking the railway lines, looting supermarkets and distributing the goods, attacking police stations, and disseminating tracts against work itself is beautiful. But since 31st March, a new, friendlier-looking trend has emerged alongside the riots. On that night, people responded to a call for a ‘Nuit Debout’ (night on your feet) to occupy something after the day’s demos. In Paris it led to a large and continuous occupation of Place de la Republique. People had discussions, partied, and even prevented the eviction of Stalingrad migrant camp (note: the camp at Stalingrad is populated by several hundred refugees, many of whom have fled police harassment and eviction in Calais, and it & other migrant squats in the city have has been evicted at least 18 times(!) since last June). The occupations grew in size and spread rapidly over France and into Belgium and Spain.
There Never Was a West
From The Anarchist Library by David Graeber
Or, Democracy Emerges From the Spaces In Between
What follows emerges largely from my own experience of the alternative globalization movement, where issues of democracy have been very much at the center of debate. Anarchists in Europe or North America and indigenous organizations in the Global South have found themselves locked in remarkably similar arguments. Is “democracy” an inherently Western concept? Does it refer a form of governance (a mode of communal self-organization), or a form of govern ment (one particular way of organizing a state apparatus) ? Does democracy necessarily imply majority rule? Is representative democracy really democracy at all? Is the word permanently tainted by its origins in Athens, a militaristic, slave-owning society founded on the systematic repression of women? Or does what we now call “democracy” have any real historical connection to Athenian democracy in the first place? Is it possible for those trying to develop decentralized forms of consensus-based direct democracy to reclaim the word? If so, how will we ever convince the majority of people in the world that “democracy” has nothing to do with electing representatives? If not, if we instead accept the standard definition and start calling direct democracy something else, how can we say we’re against democracy—a word with such universally positive associations?