dear visitor: this blog is now ‘deranked’ by Google so it’s hard to find. If you like it please follow or link.. thanks..
The Free is a book and a blog. .” the most detailed fictional treatment of the movement from a world recognizably like our own to an anarchist society that I have read.. imagined strongly enough to allow readers to believe that events could happen this way.” 281,720 blog reads so far.The updated edition is out, you can read it here.
An aerial insecticide spraying campaign began at dawn this morning in Florida to kill mosquitoes that might be infected with the zika virus. The spray will cover a 10-mile area in Miami. Health officials claim the the chemical to be sprayed, an organophosphate neurotoxin called Naled, is “safe” to breathe and no one really needs to take any special measures while they are being sprayed like bugs (although it has been “recommended” that people with allergies stay inside).
Activist and prolific writer Janet Biehl has famously taken up the theory and practice of Municipal Anarchism, as theorized by her companion Murray Bookchin in his lifetime. Recently the ideas have been taken up by the Kurdish leader Ocalan and enthusiastically implemented in the Rojava Revolution and Nth Kurdistan.
Radical Cities and Social Revolution:
An Interview with Janet Biehl
The abstractness and programmatic emptiness so characteristic of contemporary radical theory indicates a severe crisis in the left. It suggests a retreat from the belief that the ideal of a cooperative, egalitarian society can be made concrete and thus realized in actual social relationships. It is as though – in a period of change and demobilization – many radicals have ceded the right and the capacity to transform society to CEO’s and heads of state.
Janet Biehl’s new book, The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism, is an affront to this. It challenges the politically resigned with a detailed, historically situated anti-statist and anti-capitalist politics for today.
I asked Biehl about her new work in the fall of 1997 by email. ~ Chuck Morse
Your book is essentially programmatic: you set libertarian municipalism in a historical context and offer concrete suggestions for practice. What political circumstances made it seem especially important to produce this book now?
As the political dimension of social ecology – the body of ideas developed by Murray Bookchin since the 1950s – libertarian municipalism is a libertarian politics of political and social revolution. It constitutes both a theory and a practice for building a revolutionary movement whose ultimate aim is to achieve an equal, just, and free society. My book is intended as a simple articulation of these ideas, which Bookchin himself has expounded elsewhereContinue reading Radical Cities and Social Revolution: An Interview with Janet Biehl→
Sweet potatoes have been cultivated for thousands of years in Central and South America. They are one of the oldest vegetables known to man. In recent years, sweet potatoes have gained a lot of traction among the health-conscious eaters.
If we take a closer look at their nutritional value, it’s no surprise that sweet potatoes often make it to the top of healthy food lists. According to The World’s Healthiest Foods, one serving of this ancient food packs 214 percent of your daily value of vitamin A, 52 percent of your vitamin C, and decent amounts of manganese, calcium, potassium, and fiber while adding no fat. Continue reading Yummy Yams: Sweet Potatoes are Perfect in your Garden→
This morning we have released a video that accuses the BBVA bank of cheating, fraud and stripping the people of their homes. (see below)
PAH is the Movement of Mortgage Victims is many local assembly-run groups which combat criminal practices of banks and politicians with joy and originality. (Famously the new mayoress of Barcelona is an ex militant leader of the PAH,controlling the city police but not the Catalan cops).
Today we have accompanied the release of the video with the occupation of a branch office of BBVA in the center of Barcelona, located at number 84 Paseo de Gracia.
After a day of pressure, BBVA has been in contact with PAH. Again, BBVA assured us of its intent to resolve eight specific cases of affected families for whom we have been campaigning with daily occupations of BBVA banks.
Against this declaration of intent, we have demanded results. The 8 cases of which we speak have been battling for a solution for more than three years.
Their demands are minimal: dation in payment (ie. to stop the abuse in Spain that on default you lose your house but have to keep on paying the mortgage debt for decades), a social rent (ie. not impossibly high due to market speculation) , and IPRH annulment (IRPH is one of many bankers scams: clients were persuaded to sign mortgage agreements by which you pay 200 to 300 euros a month more than with the standard Eurobor interest rate fixing system).
Until the BBVA undertakes to solve the eight cases, we continue with our pressure campaign. At the moment, we are still holding out today in the Barcelona office against a possible eviction by the Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalan police. We will continue campaigning against BBVA till we get solutions for the affected families.
Yes We Can DO IT!
#PAHrap # RíndeteBBVA
Half a million evicted.. and counting
When the property bubble burst and Spain was ”bailed out” it was on condition it be written into the constitution that these new mega debts must have their interest paid before anything else ,(like health, pensions education) the total for all banks is over 100 billion!
The sacred Constitution (“impossible to alter’ when it comes to a demanded referendum in Catalonia) was changed in one day flat to protect the dirty scams of the corrupt elite
So Spain, like Greece, is a financial colony, a reliable a ‘cash cow’ being milked forever by international banks and funds. The PAH activists point out that the banks were gifted with billions in public tax money.
Also that Bankia, Sareb, etc were set up or bailed out by the public so their assets of evicted houses should belong to the people, and should not be sold off dirt cheap to international property sharks and corporations. (by Thefreeonline)
Aquest matí realitzem el llançament d’un videoclip que senyalitza al BBVA com un banc que enganya, estafa i tira a la gent de la seva casa. Pràctiques criminals que la PAH combat amb alegria i originalitat: avui mateix hem acompanyat el llançament del videoclip amb l’ocupació d’una oficina del BBVA al centre de Barcelona, situada en el Passeig de Gràcia número 84.
Després de tot un dia de pressió, el BBVA s’ha posat en contacte amb la PAH. De nou, el BBVA assegurava tenir voluntat de resoldre 8 casos de famílies afectades per les quals hem estat ocupant diàriament oficines del BBVA.
Enfront de la seva declaració d’intencions, nosaltres hem exigit resultats. Els 8 casos dels quals parlem porten batallant per una solució desde fa més de tres anys. Les seves demandes són de mínims: dacions en pagament, lloguers socials, quitacions i la nul·litat del IPRH.
Fins que el BBVA es comprometi a donar solució als 8 casos, pensem continuar amb la nostra campanya de pressió. De moment, ens quedem avui en l’oficina de Barcelona sota un possible desallotjament per part dels Mossos d’Esquadra. Continuarem senyalitzant al BBVA fins a aconseguir solucions per a les famílies afectades.
We shouted “Jail, internment, raids and borders! .. thst’s how Europe’s wealth is built! We also chanted “No street vendor in prison!” and “Surviving is not a crime!”.
This Sunday afternoon July 31, 2016 there was a demonstration around the Barcelona Modelo Prison where Lamine Sarr, spokesman for the Popular Union of Street Vendors, and 3 union comrades were incarcerated yesterday.
noisy Barcelona demo for imprisoned immigrant street vendors
This has been the most repressive week of the last 10 years for us immigrant street vendors: a companion imprisoned in the Center for Internment (CIE) another with a broken leg (due to a police charge), a spokesman and four street vendors in the Modelo prison due to police frame-ups (counting Sidil who is another ‘mantero’ already serving time in the Modelo).
On Friday 3oth July another ‘Occupy Street Market’ was held in the Barcelona Rambla, with demonstrators against detentions of immigrants protecting from the police and supporting as hundreds of ‘manteros’ (immigrant street vendors) did a roaring trade with the tourists
Sobrevivir no es delito! #LibertadManteros (VÍDEO) Manifestación alrededor de la cárcel Modelo de Barcelona: ¡Los manteros no están solos!
Por Okokitsme/ Sindicato Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes
Se ha gritado “¡Cárcel, CIEs, redadas y fronteras! Así se construye la riqueza europea! También se ha gritado “¡Ningún mantero en prisión!” y “¡Sobrevivir no es un delito!”.
Esta tarde de domingo 31 de julio de 2016 ha habido una manifestación alrededor de la cárcel Modelo de Barcelona donde ayer ingresaron en prisión preventiva Lamine Sarr, portavoz del Sindicato Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes, y 3 compañeros más del sindicato.
surviving is NO CRIME.. All out against Racism and Abuse… no human being is illegal… persecute bankers not immigrant street vendors…
Ésta ha sido la semana más represiva de los últimos 10 años para los manteros: un compañero en el CIE, un compa con la pierna rota, un vocero y cuatro manteros en la cárcel Modelo por montajes policiales (contando que Sidil es otro mantero que ya lleva tiempo en la Modelo).
¡Los manteros no están solos!
Nit @Nitsuga000
Sobrevivir no es delito! #LibertadManteros
18:29 – 31 jul 2016 · Barcelona, Spain, Spain
98 98 Retweets 37 37 me gusta
Ver imagen en TwitterVer imagen en TwitterVer imagen en Twitter
Protesta de vendedores ambulantes y activistas, ayer, frente a la cárcel Modelo. JOAN SÁNCHEZ
Nit @Nitsuga000
Para que te quede claro:
LOS MANTEROS NO QUIEREN SER MANTEROS, lo que quieren es SOBREVIVIR @dacaro05 @ximoberna
20:28 – 31 jul 2016
7 7 Retweets 5 5 me gusta
Información suministrada por @joanpeiro11
As explained by the Marea Refugees Support Collective, thirty people have been expelled to other “unspecified” camps and there have been some 50 arrests.
translated from La Marea with thanks redaccion@lamarea.com
Three houses where dozens of refugees were staying in Thessaloniki have been vacated by order of the government of Tsipras , according to reports from support collectives on the scene.
old photo of the evicted Orphanage
One building, a former orphanage, is being demolished. As they explained to La Marea, 32 refugees have been transferred to other “unspecified” camps and there have been around fifty arrests.
In protest, support groups, refugees have occupied the headquarters of Syriza: “In quick response to government action to evict the squatters for refugees, have occupied the headquarters of Syriza in Thessaloniki, demanding the release of our colleagues and halt the demolition of Orfanotrofio, because within it has been a lot of material necessary for the daily life of refugees (clothing, food, medicines …) “they say. Continue reading Protests as 3 Refugee Occupations evicted in Greece→
At least 26 anarchist activists cleared by Greek court after being arrested for pro-refugee solidarity action
A Greek court has released 26 anarchists who had disrupted a Sunday Orthodox church service to protest against refugee evictions, a judicial source said.Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government’s evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]
The activists ran into the Thessaloniki cathedral on Sunday, scattering leaflets that read “Solidarity with the refugees”, before they were arrested by anti-riot forces.
The entrance to the EL CHEf food collective in Athens’ Exarcheia neighbourhood [Sorin Furcoi/Al Jazeera]
Among those arrested were nine foreigners from Austria, Britain, Germany, Morocco, Spain and Switzerland.
![Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government's evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]](http://web.archive.org./web/20160806052003im_/https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2016/8/1/052e744d5ee046b4bdf2410314df4573_18.jpg "Greece: Refugee solidarity activists cleared by court")
Refugees and activists who live in squats have protested the Greek government’s evictions [File: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA]
