Black August event wins support for Black Power 96.3 FM Radio

Click here to access article from Burning Spear News.

I offer this as an excellent example of a grassroots community coming together to organize their own media. Americans of African ancestry have organized their own radio station in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Our biggest goal was to raise $1000 in donations and pledges for Black Power 96 Radio during the Black August celebration.

Our team has an undying faith in the people, not only was our goal of $1000 met, but we nearly doubled the amount with $1800 raised! This was accomplished with the generous contributions from the attendees in the room, as well as the viewers online who watched live from theburningspear.com.

The community really responded to our message. They understood that having our own voice––our own radio station––is a critical form of resistance and part of the struggle to win self-determination.

The success of our Black August event clearly illustrates the power of the black community.

Capitalist ruling classes certainly know the importance of propaganda. They've invested billions in it throughout the world to infect people with their ideology and to dumb down people so that they will serve capitalist interests, not their own. 

Zapatistas: Truth and Justice Will Never, Ever, Come from Above

Click here to access article by the Zapatistas from the region of Chiapas, Mexico.

We in the more "advanced" Western countries have much to learn from the Zapatistas--first, and foremost, are the insights contained in this article:

We as Zapatistas, women and men, did not trust those above before, nor do we now, nor will we ever, regardless of the color of their flag, regardless of their style of speech, regardless of their race. If one is above, it is because s/he is oppressing those below.

Those above have no trustworthy word, no honor, no shame, no dignity.
Truth and justice will never, ever, come from above.

We will have to construct them from below.

It's clear to me that many of us living in the "advanced" Western countries have, through many years of indoctrination and propaganda, come to accept as normal total obedience to, and trust in, the authorities who rule over us and control our lives. Their power is based on their private "ownership", under the rules of capitalism, of economies which in reality is a social legacy created by many generations of humans from the advent of human existence over 150,000 years ago. 

The real movement we need

Click here to access article by Phil of Liverpool, England from libcom. 

Phil's essay supports his major insight about the difference between grass-roots organizing versus organizing within a labor union whose operations are bound by capitalist ruling class laws.

There are too choices here. We can...build a movement in order to divert people's hope, optimism and energy to the benefit of the Labour Party. Or we can build a real movement to win improvements for our class and take on the present conditions. These two movements aren't the same. They don't even overlap. They are actively at odds.

On America: I hate my job

Click here to access article by "Chili Sauce" posted on libcom. 

When it comes to problems on the job, we're generally given few options: quit, vote, join a union. Here's why that's not good enough.

The Zapatistas on Elections and a Look Toward the Capitalist Hydra

Click here to access article by Zapatistas from Upside Down World. 

From reading this piece by the Zapatistas, it is clear that the rest of the world's activists have much to learn about participating in capitalist elections, self-governing, and bottom-up political structures from these people in Chiapas, Mexico.

Referring to naive leftist activists and reformers in their area, they say this:

You can see that they don’t realize that that if they get rid of the bad parts of capitalism, then it won’t be capitalism. And I’m going to tell you why: because capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, of the many by the few. Even if they include women, it’s the same. ....

But there are more than the two ways that they describe (the armed path and the electoral path) to get into government. They forget that the government can also be bought (or they’ve already forgotten how Peña Nieto got there?) And not only that, but perhaps they’ve also forgotten that it’s possible to rule without being in government.

If these people say that it’s only possible with weapons or with elections, the only thing that they’re actually saying is that they don’t know their history, that they haven’t studied well, that they have no imagination, and that they have no shame.

It would be enough for them to see just a little of what happens below. But their necks are already cramped from looking up so much.

That is why we, the Zapatistas, don’t get tired of saying organize yourselves, let’s organize ourselves, each person where they are, let’s struggle to organize ourselves, let’s work to organize ourselves, let’s begin by thinking about how to start to organize and let’s gather together in order to unite our organizations for a world where the people command and the government obeys.

Cracking Capitalism vs. The State Option

Click here to access this interview with John Holloway by Amador Fernández-Savater posted in Guerrilla Translation (run by a cooperative based in Spain).

This is the best article I've found which offers the best explanation of Holloway's basic views regarding issues related to building an alternative to capitalism.

In 2002, John Holloway published a landmark book: Change the world without taking power. Inspired by the ‘¡Ya basta!’ [Enough is enough!] of the Zapatistas, by the movement that emerged in Argentina in 2001/2002 and by the anti-globalisation movement, Holloway sets out a hypothesis: it is not the idea of revolution or transformation of the world that has been refuted as a result of the disaster of authoritarian communism, but rather the idea of revolution as the taking of power, and of the party as the political tool par excellence.

He discerns another concept of social change is at work in these movements, and generally in every practice—however visible or invisible it may be—where a logic different from that of profit is followed: the logic of cracking capitalism. That is, to create, within the very society that is being rejected, spaces, moments, or areas of activity in which a different world is prefigured.

He counter-poses his ideas with the failed history of worker's taking control of the state.

If we’re not going to accept the annihilation of humanity, which, to me, seems to be on capitalism’s agenda as a real possibility, then the only alternative is to think that our movements are the birth of another world. We have to keep building cracks and finding ways of recognising them, strengthening them, expanding them, connecting them; seeking the confluence or, preferably, the commoning of the cracks.

If we think in terms of State and elections, we are straying away from that....

I think that this is correct simply because the "state" is a creation of capitalism. The state is to capitalism what kingdoms were to feudalism. Creators of a new societies must build their governing/coordinating institutions on an edifice of bottom-up authority. Federated communities? Who knows? Holloway doesn't know, and I don't know. That, in addition to weakening capitalist rule, is another task awaiting all revolutionaries and creators of a new world.

In Greece, as the state collapses, the neighborhoods organize - An interview with a member of the Athenian assembly movement

Click here to access article translated and posted on Libcom. (Note: this interview with a member of the Greek Assembly Movement was first published in a French periodical, Z, in 2013.)

Although US conditions do not favor neighborhood organizations yet, this article is highly recommended to all community activists and organizers because of its many hard fought experiences of organizing within a larger collapse of Greek ruling class institutions. Also, it is clear that Greek organizers have drawn on the experience of organizers in several other countries.

The assembly movement owes a great deal to what took place in Argentina. Although there is no direct connection, the influence is real. During the first general strikes, we were inspired by the Argentinian experience, and later also by the Tunisian and Egyptian events. Another important influence was the self-reduction movements in Italy during the seventies: groups organized to not pay rents, electric bills or transport fares. In our assembly, particularly, many people were inspired by the Zapatista struggle in Mexico and its quest for autonomy. We participate in solidarity actions with these struggles in our neighborhood.

“An injury to all”: the class struggle is back in Italy

Click here to access article by Alfredo Mazzamauro from Reflections on a Revolution.

The author reports on the current class war being waged in Italy due to the acceleration of  contradictions resulting from the recent economic collapse and austerity policies. Workers are organizing and fighting back while capitalists are employing their usual divide and rule strategies.

As Renzi’s center-left government intensifies the project of neoliberal restructuring, a wave of self-organized class struggle takes off across Italy.

Makerspaces: More Than a Fad

Click here to access article from LocalOrg.

While the business model aspect of a makerspace can be compared to a health club, the output of a makerspace is quite different. While makerspaces are meeting and workspaces where both business and socialization (and a combination of the two) can occur, they also serve as local educational institutions, SME (small and medium enterprises) incubators, skill training centers, as well as a focal point where communities can gather and collectively pool resources and pragmatically, technologically solve problems.

Here are some other illustrations of this concept:

Farewell Marcos, long live Subcomandante Galeano!

Click here to access article by Leonidas Oikonomakis from Reflections on a Revolution.

“At 2:08 am on May 25, 2014, at the southwestern combat front of the EZLN, I declare that the one known as Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos no longer exists,” he said in an enigmatic — as usual — communiqué in his first public appearance since 2009.

....

“So, now he is… gone? Like… gone for good?” my friends immediately started asking me.

Well… I don’t know. The Zapatistas, and Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos himself, have never ceased surprising us. However, what I do know is that their words, just like their actions, have always been a bit enigmatic and need deciphering.

That I will try to do with this article. 

Disaster communism part 1 - disaster communities

Click here to access article by "Out of the Woods" from Libcom.

In part one of this three-part article, we look at the concept of disaster communism as it relates to the communities of solidarity and mutual aid typically formed in disaster situations.

This series appears to be very timely given the fact that we humans face a future filled with disasters due to the accelerating destabilization of the climate. 

Ruling classes have successfully dominated societies since the advent of civilization. The current capitalist class in their limitless hubris, or maybe a hardcore addiction to power and profits, thinks it can control nature, that they can come up with a technological fix that will allow them to continue to exploit nature on our finite planet. Whereas we humans seem too willing to submit to domination and exploitation by our fellow humans, nature will not tolerate abuse and will always rid itself of creatures who violate, or cannot adapt to, her laws.