April 9 2026 – Cainta, Rizal (We Are Loving Anarchist-WALA)

April 11 – Taguig City (We Still Exist Collective)

April 12 – Muntinlupa City (Onsite Community)

April 18 – Cubao Quezon City (Non Collective Flying House)

April 22-24 – Baler Aurora (Squat Fest)

April 26 – Morong, Rizal (Canna-Community Library event)

more dates and areas to be announced soon HERE

FREE Download the book “Gen Z Makes History” HERE

We tour to encourage people to sustain Gen Z’s heroism. Whether Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, or Gen Z, we should follow the lead taken by recent uprisings. All human beings are increasingly power-less within nation-states armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction. Global warming advances daily. As Gen Z has so remarkably illustrated, our most effective action is militant street protests.

Just when we thought that the world was going completely to hell, Gen Z uprisings swept country after country, demanding life over death. Whether the issue was elite corruption in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Philippines, police brutality in Indonesia, Israeli genocide in Gaza, increased taxes in Kenya, mandatory pension plans in Peru, scandalously underfunded hospitals in Morocco, or a lack of basic services like electricity and water in Madagascar, a new generation has emerged in the struggle for better lives.

www.voidnetwork.gr | eroseffect.com | crimethinc.com

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Generation Z was born into the digital age, and the internet has been part of their lives since day one. For this reason, Gen Z is also called the “digital Generation.” Although they have certain widely accepted general characteristics, attempting to describe them through rigid stereotypes can be misleading. Definitions that portray Gen Z solely as a group that only communicates digitally are deceptive. This generation resembles a volcanic mountain ready to erupt, with an unpredictability about when it will spring into action. That observation can be observed in the powerful actions they have already carried out around the world. They have toppled three regimes in Asia and one in both Europe and Africa. In more than 20 other countries, they have compelled governments to reform.

The superficial analyses of Gen Z produced by groups that benefit from the capitalist system—claiming that “Gen Z is individualistic,” “Gen Z is financially oriented,” that they are a “lost generation”—serve no purpose other than attempting to shape and control the new generation, just as has been done with every previous one. We must pay close attention to this. No system wants the incoming generation to disrupt its “tranquil” domination. To prevent this, it creates its own experts and academics who spread theories that discredit Gen Z, while waging special warfare through mindless Tik Tok videos, “realistic” video war games, hard drugs, and other means targeted specifically at young people to blunt their revolutionary edge.

The capitalist definitions of Gen Z reveal cynicism and fears, but many more people greet Gen Z with open arms. Decades of past struggles produced visionaries who welcome Gen Z’s energies and actions.

Characteristics and Shortcomings of Gen Z Actions

Perhaps the most important feature of Gen Z is its ability to organize extremely quickly through digital media and simultaneously to turn organization into action. Globalizing solidarity networks in a very short time, especially in many parts of Asia and the Middle East, they display fearless resistance against entrenched politicians. Unlike previous Gens, Gen Z has no single leader. They organize horizontally. Their leaderless structure makes them appear strategy-less, unplanned, and scattered, which limits their ability to achieve lasting results. Because they lack self-defense planning, they often face extreme violence. When the government changes or when the issues they protest are addressed, their dissent subsides. While a few individuals step up to exert political influence, Gen Z as a group has not generally offered alternative models for qualitative change. In Bangladesh and Nepal, a Nobel Prize winning economist and a former Chief Judge were accepted to lead interim governments. In the next part of this article, I consider the free territory in Rojava, Syria  as a genuine alternative to nation-states based upon capitalist partiarchy.

Gen Z has already proven its fearlessness by challenging governments despite enormous state violence. They have paid a high price: more than 2,000 insurgents have been killed and thousands more wounded. The most important task now standing before us is to create a livable alternative, to move from rebellion to revolution. Whenever insurgencies compel governments to retreat or reform, similar regimes inevitably return. Over time they develop corrupt and  anti-democratic practices. For Gen Z’s struggles to truly transcend capitalist modernity, it is crucial to have an alternative model of life. Anarchism, feminism, national liberation movements, Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, and previous episodes of class struggles have created a tremendously important history of resistance. Yet Gen Z — one of the major forces of resistance in the new century — needs a 21st Century orientation to make their gains permanent and sustainable. One-dimensional or ideologically “correct” perspectives fragment the movement rather than creating the necessary transformation of existing systems. Facing a multitude of problems, Gen Z needs a holistic system that can shed light on all problems and develop collective solutions.

It is vitally important that Gen Z develops a perspective that takes women’s liberation, class consciousness, grassroots democracy, and an ecological worldview as its foundations. Today, many left and socialist movements lack a strategic approach to women’s liberation. Without resolving patriarchal oppression, no radical solution is possible. Similarly, ecology either has no place or only a very limited place in the ideology of many organizations, even though the pollution and gradual destruction of nature is currently one of the world’s most critical problems.

Against capitalism’s effort to create an individualistic society in which people stay away from social issues and focus on “individual” problems, Gen Z can overcome incessant capitalist assaults by building its own communal culture. To do so requires a radical break from customary everyday life. If Gen Z truly wants a freer society, it must begin with itself. To do that, a radical rupture from the life offered by capitalist modernity is necessary. We must take a stand against the system’s materialist personalities and imposed gluttonous consumer habits, and we must overcome the values that treat women merely as commodities.

Gen Z’s Alternative in Rojava

Since 2012, diverse peoples from northern and eastern Syria have come together in Rojava to build exactly the kind of society we need. Although it began as a Kurdish majority region, today Rojava contains a mix of Muslim Kurds, Syrian Christians, Assyrian Christians, Armenian Christians, Yazidis, Turkmen, Muslim Chechens and even atheists. A total of around three million people live harmoniously within a political framework that strives to ensure everyone’s rights are protected, women have equal representation in all organizations, and ecology is a basic principle. 

An estimated 40 to 50 million Kurds in the world are divided by Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Although they lack a nation-state, Kurds have built a variety of political organizations in the four countries where they live. Creatively navigating an international constellation of forces seeking to control them, Kurds became the main ally of all forces who oppose the Islamic State (ISIS). In a region where despotic dictatorships and religious exclusivity reign, Kurds provide a refreshing alternative of diversity, tolerance and free association.

The Rojava Revolution has emerged as an alternative organizational model to nation-states. The Rojava experience is the concrete embodiment of “Democratic Confederalism” — the democratic, women-liberationist, and ecological paradigm developed by the leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan. This system embodies the paradigm of freedom in an alternative in every aspect of life. Youth, women, all religions, and all languages are free to organize in their own specific ways and live together freely. Although Öcalan and the PKK originally fought for a nation-state, today they have changed both tactics and that goal: they believe in creating liberated democratic confederations similar to the Zapatista caracoles in which people can live freely.

Nation-states are fundamentally militaristic, nationalist, sexist, and religious. Governments have made people dependent on the state in matters of security, administration, and basic needs such as water and food. Democratic confederalism is an alternative created to oppose dependency, and it is an alternative to the nation-state itself. The goal of this system is the liberation of economy, culture, politics, and every dimension of social life—and to develop necessary self-defense to protect hard-won freedoms. The basic organizational forms of confederalism are academies, cooperatives, assemblies, and communes.

Academies play a strategic role in the formation of the educational system. Cooperatives in which members share responsibilities and reap the products of their labor is another fundamental organizational tool to protect society from giant monopolies and establish enterprises owned communally. People have organized themselves into communes and assemblies in every city, every village, and every neighborhood to solve their own problems together in solidarity with one another.

Nation-states monopolize all means of defense in order to control society. That is why self-defense is one of the foundational elements of democratic confederalism. All civilian and political organizations are built from the grassroots. Over more than  a decade of repelling attacks by ISIS and other Islamists as well as Erdogan’s Turkish army and air force,  more than 11,000 Rojava communards have lost their lives. Many more Iraqi Kurds have also been killed by regimes there.

Internationalist revolutionary youth from many countries of the world (England, Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany, USA, and others) came to Rojava to embrace the Rojava revolution against the threat posed by ISIS. In 2015, the Internationalist Freedom Battalion was formed by Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, and anarchist fighters from outside Syria. Beginning on June 10, 2015, they arrived to support the People’s Protection Units (YPG) against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the Rojava War. Inspired by the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War, at least 300 international fighters were also killed in the fighting. Most of the militias fought under the umbrella of the YPG before forming into other groups such as the Internationalist Freedom Battalion. Foreigners also helped to create the Rojava Information Center (https://rojavainformationcenter.org).

So, what is the history of the Rojava Revolution?

The Rojava Revolution

Just when Gen Z was being born, popular uprisings that began in Tunisia at the end of 2010, spontaneously spread across the Middle East, and became known as the “Arab Spring,” which reached Syria on 15 March 2011. The greatest success of the uprising that turned into a bloody civil war in Syria was the Rojava Revolution. Syrian Kurds neither took the side of the Baath regime nor the gangs formed against it. Choosing the Third Way, the Kurds led the “Spring of the Peoples” with the understanding of a “democratic nation.” Ultimately, they formed the basis of today’s Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

To demonstrate their determination for revolution, Syrian Kurds established the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) and the People’s Council of Western Kurdistan (MGRK) to form their own political unity in the face of attacks from both the regime and the forces described as “opposition.” Originally launched in northern and eastern Syria, Friday marches were held across the country. Following these protests, basic services previously run by the Assad regime were taken over by popular assemblies. In Afrin, language courses in Kurdish, a banned language in Turkey and Syria, were opened. For the first time, Kurdish children enrolled in primary and preparatory schools and received education in their own language.

The People Seize Power

On July 18, 2012, a meeting in Damascus, the capital of Syria, was attended by the heads of all major regime institutions. A massive explosion occurred, killing most officials. A day later, regime forces were driven out of Kobanê, led by Kurdish youth and with the participation of the people. Following Kobanê, the people seized power in Afrin, Serêkaniyê, Dirbêsiyê, Amûdê, Dêrik, Girkê Legê, Tirbêspiyê, and Til Temîr. On the same day, the Kurds declared a people’s government in Kobanê, which they named a canton, under the slogan “Democratic Syria, Autonomous Rojava.” July 19 became the starting date of the revolution. The declaration in Kobanê was followed by the declaration of new cantons in Afrin and Qamishli. As fighting intensified, people first formed local defense units and engaged in self-defense activities in the streets. Later, the YPG and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), were officially established, although their foundations were laid years earlier during the resistance against the Baath regime’s massacres.

The first step taken in 2012 in the liberated areas, cities, towns, and villages was the establishment of People’s Houses. Through meetings and training sessions, people fully grasped autonomous administration. Security emerged as a fundamental concern. On this basis, people began to establish a self-defense system after the first steps of forming small defense groups. Another important task was to improve relations between the region’s divided communities while also taking the first steps to strengthen women’s power and to provide services to all in need.

As People’s Houses stimulated grassroots actions, the shape of autonomous administration changed. People’s Houses evolved into broader communes. Thousands of communes were established in villages and neighborhoods. Under the umbrella of these communes, education, defense, health, economy, and social services were provided. Members received training to play active roles, and separate women’s and youth communes were also created. Communes soon transformed into broader organizational structures organized as assemblies. City, village, and neighborhood assemblies were formed, consisting of representatives from communes, political parties, and municipal service institutions. Neighborhood assemblies were merged into city assemblies, and similar steps were taken at district and town levels. In December 2013, the first conference of city, district, and town assemblies was held, and a co-chair system was adopted for assemblies and communes, according to which every assembly, commune, and institution would have one female and one male co-chair. This dealt a major blow to the male-dominated mindset that had ignored women for years. Young people have continually played a major role in expanding democracy in Rojava.

Joint struggles were waged to unite ethnic and religious groups in the region, and significant progress was made fighting the provocations of Nusra (an affiliate of Al-Qaeda). The ISIS attack on Kobanê in 2014 was defeated through the unity of all peoples, beliefs, and different ethnicities in Northern and Eastern Syria. Years of fighting galvanized military units and command structures. The creation of  joint administrations to establish a free and equal lives further strengthened the military forces under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In Rojava, one observer noted “a novel synthesis, a militant vertical organization empowers a communal, horizontal politics.”[1]

After this revolutionary advance, education in peoples’ mother tongues was intensified. Approximately 100 schools were opened in the region, and approximately 1,000 teachers were trained. Significant research on regional culture was initiated. Cultural and artistic centers with music groups, folklore, theater, and children’s groups were established. Committees were established to meet the needs of the people and address social, legal, and economic issues. A “justice committee” was established as an alternative to the Syrian legal system. Furthermore, a “social justice department” was created within the Mesopotamian Academy of Social Sciences on April 4, 2013, to improve the legal system.

Women’s Organizations

Female combatants have been centrally important to the defense of Rojava. Active since the beginning of the revolution and organized under the name Yekîtiya Star,[2] they created women’s assemblies and women’s houses. Priority was given to women’s representation in people’s assemblies, and women’s science-education centers and academies were opened in many cities. Women took their places in all administrations under the co-chair system and played active roles in education, family, politics, economy, and public security through women’s institutions.

Due to embargoes imposed on the region, the population facing severe shortages of medicine, flour, fuel, and other daily needs. To organize aid coming from abroad, the Kurdish Red Crescent (Heyvâ Sor) was established to break the embargo, build a non-capitalist system, and solve daily problems. In 2013, the Economic Development Institution for North and East Syria was founded. Aiming to develop an economy based on the people, this institution gave priority to cooperatives, starting in Kobanê and Dêrik.

At the end of 2013, the autonomous administration system recognized Kurdish, Arabic, and Assyrian as official languages. Other linguistic constituencies were granted the right to learn their own languages. Women’s representation in institutions was set at a minimum of 40%, and the participation of all regional components built on three pillars: Legislative Assembly, Executive Council, and High Court. All this multi-ethnic diversity has provided challenges that demand compromises, such as reversing a ban on polygamy in Arab-majority regions. In the fight for Kobanê, the SDF agreed to accept the offer of US air cover.

Youth’s Ownership of the Rojava Revolution

The second Middle East Youth Conference was held in Kobanê on February 20, 2019. Organized under the slogan “Toward a colorful and democratic Middle East under the leadership of youth,” the conference hosted more than 300 delegates from the four parts of Kurdistan, as well as Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Armenia, Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Yemen, North Africa, and Sudan. The economic, political, and social crises in the region were discussed within the framework of capitalist modernity. In this context, solutions to the deadlock facing the Middle East were debated from fresh, youthful perspectives. At the end of the conference, steps were taken toward establishing a coordination council among youth organizations and developing joint political actions.

Led especially by Generation Z, young people organized the First World Youth Conference in Paris, France, between November 3–5, 2023. The conference brought together 400 delegates representing 95 youth organizations from 49 countries worldwide. Alongside participants from many European countries, young people from the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan, Kenya, Mali, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador met with youth from the four parts of Kurdistan. The discussions and exchanges during the conference were strongly endorsed the demand for freedom of imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. The problems faced by revolutionary youth around the world were central to the agenda, emphasizing the importance of struggling together against the fragmentation created by the system. During the conference, solidarity was declared with all oppressed peoples, particularly the Palestinian people and the Kurdistan freedom movement. It was also stated that a common struggle would be carried out to protect the gains of peoples in Rojava and in many parts of the world.

Within the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, young people work in a distinctively autonomous manner. There is no imposition or top-down direction on youth councils or youth institutions in any field. Youth organizations determine their own forms of organization and modes of action. Education, organizational activities, as well as cultural and sports programs for young people are coordinated directly by youth councils themselves. As the pioneering and driving force of the revolution, youth take an active role in post-war reconstruction efforts, organize aid campaigns for those affected by war, and carry out support and play activities for children. Within the framework of women’s liberation, young people organize activities for November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, as well as marches, panels, and street actions on March 8, International Women’s Day. The struggle against patriarchal mentality stands at the center of youth work.

In the field of culture and arts, young people play an important role in preserving the cultures of peoples by organizing music and theater festivals that include all communities and cultures, as well as photography, cinema, and painting workshops. Youth also carry out significant activities on ecology by organizing meetings, actions, and events such as tree-planting campaigns and repairing damage caused to nature by war. Through the sports tournaments they organize, youth contribute to social solidarity and healthy living. In addition, by holding commemorative events on the anniversaries of massacres and attacks to honor those who lost their lives, youth take the lead in keeping social memory alive.

Ecology in Rojava 

Ecological work in Rojava faced significant obstacles in the implementation of many projects due to attacks from various jihadist groups and Turkey. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made in the ecological field. The first steps towards ecological production were taken by the village communes that began to form in 2012. In 2014, cooperatives were established to secure the food supply, and the first decisions were made to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

The Ecology Committee was officially established in 2015, and local programs began to be developed. In 2016, a large-scale campaign aimed at planting hundreds of thousands of trees was launched. Starting in 2017, solar panel projects were developed to address power outages. Solar energy systems began to be installed at homes and cooperatives. In 2018, Jinwar, a women-run ecological village, was officially opened. This village is based on organic farming, natural building materials, solar energy, and collective living. In 2019, initiatives were launched to preserve local seeds and develop agricultural practices that reduce chemical use. Small-scale organic farming trials have begun. In 2020, campaigns against environmental pollution and waste management programs were launched. Local campaigns to reduce plastic use were also launched. The Keziyên Kesk (Green Braids) Initiative was established in September 2020 to combat the ongoing environmental destruction in North and East Syria and increase soil productivity. Its work aims to help the people of North and East Syria become more self-sufficient in agriculture, thereby strengthening their resilience to embargoes. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education in North and East Syria, it has ensured that every school has a teacher teaching social ecology. As part of the “Lungs of the Village” project, millions of saplings were planted, and teams visited villages to explain the ecological destruction and how it can be reversed. In 2021, following the region’s water crisis and the decline in the Euphrates River’s flow, an emergency ecological plan was developed. Turkey regularly disrupts the flow of the Euphrates River, posing a serious threat to the region. This impacts not only agricultural activities but also access to clean drinking water. In response, water conservation campaigns were conducted, alternative irrigation methods (drip irrigation and the use of recycled water) were promoted, and local water communes were established. Solar-powered irrigation systems were expanded, and organic agricultural production increased.

Approximately 500,000 hectares of land previously under the control of the Assad regime have been consolidated into public land. According to a report by the Public Land Administration dated December 20, 2023, approximately 80% of this land has been allocated to agricultural cooperatives, women’s institutions, families, forests/afforestation, parks, associations, and camps for internally displaced persons. Fifty per cent of the population’s vegetable needs are now met locally. Products are delivered directly to the public at fair prices through cooperatives. More than 140,000 fruit trees have been planted to increase fruit production. Production, processing, and distribution continue through cooperatives.

Rojava is now nearly self-sufficient olive oil production, along with wheat, flour, bulgur, pasta, and lentil processing facilities. The Economic and Agricultural Councils continue to work on sugar, sunflower, soybean, and cotton processing and textile production facilities. Significant progress has been made in dairy production through agricultural cooperatives; dairy processing facilities now produce cheese, yogurt, and butter. While Rojava fully meets its red meat needs, it has not yet achieved self-sufficiency in white meat. Ecological production principles continue to be implemented to secure the food supply for the people of North and East Syria.

Recognition of the Revolution

No UN member state has officially recognized Northern and Eastern Syria. However, in October 2021, the Catalan Parliament voted to officially recognize Northern and Eastern Syria. Catalonia thereby made history as the first parliament to recognize the Rojava Revolution. With this decision, Catalan MPs declared their friendship with the Kurdish people and their opposition to Turkey’s occupation policies.

While the Rojava Revolution inspires worldwide opponents of ethnocentrism, religious fundamentalism and global capitalism, some local, regional, and global powers are also hostile to the outbreak of freedom, particularly the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkey began attacking the free life of people whom they labelled “terrorists” both directly and through paramilitary proxies. With international support, Turkey continues its attacks unabated to this day. In recent years, it has been carrying out these attacks using armed drones.

Despite years of attacks by Turkey, its affiliated paramilitary forces, and ISIS, a significant ecological revolution led by Gen Z has been achieved in North and East Syria. In the face of ongoing threats and embargoes, the revolution is progressing step by step through communes. With its pillars of democracy, women, and ecology, the Rojava Revolution stands before us as an alternative that Gen Z can create elsewhere in the pursuit of freedom.

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Murat Bakur is a journalist and writer from Northern Kurdistan. His first novel, “Open Blue Freedom,” won second prize in the 5th Deniz Fırat Story and Photography Competition. Several of his short stories have been published by various news agencies. He continues his journalistic work at Medya Haber TV.

[1] Matt Broomfield, Hope Without Hope: Rojava and Revolutionary Commitment (AK Press, 2025).

[2] Formed from the combination of the words “Star” (goddess) and “Yekîtiya” (unity), the name means “Union of All Goddesses” or “Union of Women.”

The post Rojava: A GEN Z Alternative to Capitalist Patriarchy appeared first on Void Network.

Regarding the uprising in Iran, another schism is becoming apparent within the movements in the West. A schism that escalates into verbal confrontation within an extremely feverish, oppressive, and competitive environment.

Written by Thanasis Kosmopoulos / RisingUtopia– Athens Greece

Translated by Tasos Sagris / Void Network

If at least those of us who express opinions from the ramparts of the movement could manage to free our thinking from the feverish compression of these times and from the competitive-narcissistic culture that has permeated us—perhaps without our even realizing it—we could produce results through fruitful disagreements.

The schism lies in how we view the situation. Some prioritize the significance of the uprising in Iran as an expression of liberation from theocratic power, with poverty and oppression as the main causes, while those “on the other side” prioritize the geopolitical dimension, interpreting the uprising as instigated by American-Zionist imperialism in order to undermine the theocratic regime and restore the Pahlavi dictatorship.

The fact that each side focuses only on one extreme (the uprising from below), while the other focuses on something entirely different (the uprising as planned subversion), taking positions at the most extreme poles, shows how much competitive logic and self-promotion through disagreement has infiltrated the movements—even among people who are organized and know how to discuss things when they meet in person. So like imprisoned mice, we tear each other apart, each one entrenched in their own narcissism.

Setting aside, however, the “psychodynamic” fields of the outlet where this text is being written, we must take a position on the events in Iran at this time. And the position states that a mass social uprising is a reality where things are suddenly disrupted, and for the umpteenth time, in the relationship between society and power. This mass-scale uprising with hundreds of dead and wounded cannot be happening out of nowhere through manipulation by an external actor. The Americans are experts at dictatorships, at abductions, and at coup practices for changing regimes that didn’t suit them, even in mini-uprisings like Maidan, which was nothing more than the surface pretext for state overthrows that had already been prepared on the Ukrainian political stage long before.

Here it’s not the same as Ukraine. No foreign power can “stage” a mass social uprising in Iran with this altar of blood. Much less transform it so that a society of 92 million consents to the change from 47 years of theocratic power to the dictatorship of any Pahlavis. In Iran today, anti-American sentiments are far more prevalent than anti-regime ones. The US knows that even with a more easily successful military coup, Iranians would hardly accept American hegemony. The possibility of failure of an instigated practice is very serious.

There is a burden that moves Iranian society to risk their lives in the streets of Iranian cities. And as always, one of the main causes and triggers of major uprisings is the sudden decrease in income and the absence of freedom. Then no one can downgrade a mass social uprising because it is spontaneous. It is not instigated.

Some commentators, highlighting the consequences of the chronic embargo on the difficult position of the poor strata, again attribute responsibility for the social uprising to the West and its sanctions, as indirect “manipulation” toward uprising. Yes, this argument also has a basis, but the embargo doesn’t mean that the state doesn’t have the ability to find a way to fix this problem. After all, Iran has very close relations with China, participating in the Shanghai alliance.

So here there is an issue: from which perspective do we see things, and from which perspective are things actually happening.

Anyone who wants to maintain an anarchist/libertarian political identity must analyze an uprising from the perspective of the insurgents.

Freedom, the human being, the community, society—these are priorities, values, ethics, a way of seeing things. Even if geopolitics weighs more heavily on events as in Ukraine, we as libertarian anarchists must see the sufferings of societies affected by this war FIRST! The possibility of intervention by the social actor FIRST! This is the imperative of our worldview. This is what made us be with the Palestinians FIRST! We are with the Palestinians and not with their flags. This is what makes us be with the insurgent Iranians FIRST! And not with the flags of the state they are subjects of. This is our perspective. The ethics of our values above whatever geopolitical correlations.

Conversely, in the case where we view this uprising from a geopolitical perspective, it is inevitable that this downgrades the insurgents, perceives them as manipulated pawns, insults people who are giving even their blood in the struggle against the state’s forces of repression. With this logic, no uprising can fail to be instigated, since all uprisings occur under active geopolitical conditions. And the social uprising for the police asssination of 15 years old student Alexis Grigoropoulos in Greece 2008 was considered by some to be instigated by Russia while by others by Turkey. I don’t think this is the way that corresponds to the perspective of all of us who are participants in the cause of social Anarchism. I believe that by focusing on geopolitics, we have internalized a managerial conception of movements that belongs to the dominant logics of “mass management,” as well as to the detached games of the geopolitical chessboard of power relations.

Explaining the stance of many comrades on social media, I believe that during the previous period with the genocide in Gaza, some of us, beyond the historical dimension of the Nakba, belatedly discovered the geopolitical dimension of things. The tragedy of the genocide not only brought American-Zionist aggression into the frame of our political critique but also quite rightly targeted it as an axis of evil—a now established conception that is confirmed by “the Trump reality” every day.

Consequently, Gaza opened a new chapter in our political understanding, a dimension that the older ones among us had taken into account anyway, but which the younger ones didn’t have, since the social movements barely dealt with geopolitics. This new ‘discovery’ was received as a revelation, when in reality not only is this far from true, but the opposite may occur: this newly acquired analytical tool we’re so eager to showcase can actually blind us even more through our over-idealization of it. This happens because many of us treat what we previously ignored as a ‘revelation,’ when it’s actually something very old and quite leftist in origin. Because an analysis that puts societies on the margins, devaluing them as absolutely controlled and manipulated, that if it doesn’t identify them with states considers them levers of geopolitical interests, is nothing but a leftist analysis derived from the spirit of Stalinism, and later during the Cold War era.

Let’s stop “reinventing the wheel” by idealizing “our new tool” because of our previous ignorance. This way of perceiving things is wrong. Let’s do some introspection to see all those “patterns” that function permanently in our understanding, and let’s rid ourselves of them, if we want to become dangerous to the State. It’s a problem when geopolitics takes precedence over the societies. The superpowers, the regional powers, the states and their moves quite logically come to the center of our perspective through the deeper desire to see the genocidal punished, with the consequence, however, that we downgrade the subject that interests us, namely that of emancipatory uprising or the corresponding social revolution.

I would say then, recognizing that in the historical time of an uprising, the geopolitical dimension also takes place—it’s quite unlikely that Mossad units are not in the field—we must focus on what is primary, which is nothing other than solidarity with a society that is rising up for a better life and for its freedom. This in itself has value. This is axiologically our libertarian way of seeing reality, without ignoring the economic, geopolitical, religious, cultural, or historical dimension of issues. Giving honor and respect to the culture of the people of the East, divesting from our critical stance any colonial Western privileges.

In conclusion, being primarily interested in the stakes of “moving” societies does not preclude taking a position on geopolitical stakes but also on every other dimension of issues. First and foremost, we are interested in the people who are rising up and the success of their struggle for a better life; secondarily, we are interested in geopolitical conflicts, which we judge primarily based on what’s good for societies, which in reality creates that anti-colonial, anti-imperialist value code.

Yes, today American-Zionism is the matrix and source of state terrorism, neo-fascism, and wars. It is a source of oppression and misery and subjugation of many societies around the world. We will not divest ourselves of our value code by supporting its opponents and raising flags of oppressive regimes on our otherwise anarchist social media profile. Our stance cannot be determined by geopolitical dynamics, nor by the hatred we have for opponents. The opponent of my opponent cannot be my friend.

Our value system has at its center social revolution for freedom, common ownership, equality, horizontality. That is, social emancipation, which like a polar star forms an axial direction in a straight line. Imperialism, colonialism, nation-states are forms of oppression and exploitation. They can even coexist. We too can stand against them, being critical without betraying our principles.

In this way we must meet with the struggles of Iranians as well as all those who rise up against the state/capital system.

___

Written by Thanasis Kosmopoulos / RisingUtopia– Athens Greece

The post On the Uprising in Iran and the Schism Within the Movements in the West appeared first on Void Network.

The family is marketed as a safe space, a place of love and mutual care, but this is not supported by the data—How do we bring our experiences of mutual support networks to the centre of society?

~ written by Alana Queer, original text in Spanish: El Salto ~

Something is wrong. We already struggle to imagine the end of capitalism, but abolishing the family? Feminism seems to have long since abandoned this old feminist demand, and this year the LGBTQIA+ movement in Spain will celebrate twenty years of equal marriage, that is, its inclusion in this patriarchal institution of marriage and family that marks a new “homonormativity,” which is primarily a copy of heteronormativity. We’re in trouble. We lack imagination, we lack visions of other forms of coexistence and parenting.

I write this article from my perspective as a family survivor. A survivor of sexual abuse, psychological and emotional abuse and neglect, abuse that has left me with complex trauma that I am still learning to live with. To live, not just survive, as I have done for decades of my life. Writing from a survivor’s perspective, in a way, is writing from the perspective of a child, providing a counterpoint to the debate dominated by adult-centric perspectives.

When I think of family, the first words that come to mind are violence, (sexual) abuse, abandonment, mistreatment, emotional blackmail… Not for a millisecond of my life have I considered starting a family. 

While I strongly agree with the diagnosis of the family’s role in the economic and political order, as put forward, for example, by Nuria Alabao in this article or Sophie Lewis in her book Abolish the Family, in a way, this diagnosis is unnecessary. I only have to think about my own experience, look at my surroundings, my friends, and what I see is violence, mistreatment, abuse, emotional neglect, and all the resulting traumas. Is it possible that so many of us have simply been unlucky? Perhaps there is a more structural problem, that it’s not something failing in some (many) individual families, but the family system itself that is at fault?

The family, a system of mistreatment and abuse

The family is marketed as a safe space, a place of love and mutual care. Above all, it is said that the family is the best place for children. This could not be further from the truth.  According to a meta-analysis of physical violence experienced or witnessed in the family at the global level, in Europe 12.7% of children have been victims of physical violence in their family, with a higher rate for boys compared to girls (girls are not included in the analysis), and 10.5% have witnessed physical violence in their family. Another global meta-analysis of more types of abuse and neglect reaches even higher results: 14.3% of girls and 6.2% of boys had suffered sexual abuse, 27% of boys and 12% of girls had suffered physical abuse, 6.2% of boys and 12.9% of girls had suffered emotional abuse, and 14.8% of boys and 13.9% of girls had suffered neglect during their childhood. Overall, boys suffer more physical abuse and neglect, and girls more emotional and sexual abuse. Fathers perpetrate more physical and sexual abuse, while mothers perpetrate more emotional abuse and neglect.

A study in the United Kingdom concluded that 41.7% of children were exposed to some form of child abuse—physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or physical or emotional neglect. Some 19.3% witnessed domestic violence between their parents or care-givers within the family. The famous ACE Study (Adverse Childhood Experiences Study) of 1998 in the United States reached prevalence rates of 11.1% for psychological abuse, 10.8% for physical abuse, 22% for sexual abuse, and 12.5% ​​for exposure to domestic violence against the mother. Children often suffer more than one form of abuse at a time.

In Spain, an estimated 18.9% of the population has been a victim of sexual abuse in childhood (15.2% of men and 22.5% of women), more than half of whom were perpetrated by a family member. According to a report by Save the Children, more than 25% of children in Spain have been victims of abuse by their parents or care-givers.

Despite considerable variation across studies, all of them show the family as a site—the primary site—of abuse, mistreatment, and neglect. Studies that differentiate by sexual orientation, such as one from the United States, generally find much higher prevalence rates of abuse and mistreatment across all categories for LGBTQIA+ people compared to heterosexuals. And children who exhibit behaviours that do not conform to their assigned sex at birth suffer even more abuse of all kinds.

Beyond abuse, 40% of children never develop a secure attachment to one of their care-givers. According to research by the Sutton Trust in the United Kingdom, “Many children lack secure attachment relationships. Around 1 in 4 children avoid their parents when they are upset because they ignore their needs. Another 15% resist their parents because they cause distress.” According to the same research, insecure parental attachment is the most important risk factor; that is, insecure attachment is reproduced from generation to generation if parents with insecure attachment do not work on their own attachment styles and traumas.

To these figures of child abuse and neglect, we can add the high prevalence of intimate partner violence, gender violence, and domestic violence. Witnessing this violence also has negative consequences for children.

Is the family a safe place of love and care? The numbers debunk this myth. We can say that for children, the least safe and most dangerous place is their family home. With these figures—a prevalence of abuse between 15% and 40%—how can we think that something is wrong at the individual level, that the problem isn’t the structure (the family), but a lack of education, resources, etc.?

I invite you to a thought experiment. Let’s imagine a society wants to choose between several models of coexistence and parenting: tribal or community parenting, other models I have no idea what they might be, and family parenting. Predictions of child abuse are estimated for each model. Can we imagine that a model with a 25% prediction of abuse would be chosen? I doubt it.

Child abuse: lifelong damage

Child abuse leaves lifelong damage, I know this from my own experience. For example, complex trauma refers to early negative experiences involving neglect and/or abuse that occur within an attachment relationship with the primary care-giver. This means that the figure who is supposed to provide affection, love, and protection to the child is, at the same time, a source of anxiety, threat, neglect, and/or abuse, resulting in distressing experiences such as verbal abuse, abandonment, bullying, emotional invalidation, abandonment, and so on.

Because of their ongoing nature, such abuse generates a stress response that leaves a mark on the brain. Furthermore, these situations go unnoticed externally and are cumulative. In many ways, complex trauma is related to “non-events,” things that didn’t happen when they should have—a look, a smile, being considered, or a comforting hug. These non-events have a significant impact, although they don’t remain as memories beyond emotional sensations.

I know all this very well. It’s estimated that up to 7.7% of adults suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder (c-PTSD or complex PTSD) and up to 20% suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. To me, these numbers seem too low. However, it’s important to keep in mind that this isn’t a simple binary—either you have PTSD or complex PTSD according to strict diagnostic criteria, or you’re fine. Problems with emotional regulation, forming close relationships, behaviour, trust, and a negative self-image can all be present and can cause considerable problems without meeting all the diagnostic criteria for PTSD or complex PTSD.

Complex trauma, often also called complex developmental trauma or developmental trauma, is in the vast majority of cases the result of prolonged emotional abuse and neglect in childhood and adolescence. Here we see many of the 15% of children who avoid their parents because they cause distress: survivors of sexual abuse and other forms of prolonged maltreatment.

There are also other consequences for mental and physical health: eating disorders, depression, other mental disorders, substance use and abuse, and much more. From the ACE study in the United States, we know that adverse childhood experiences have a profound impact on many areas of adult health.

Towards other models

So, we abolish the family. Okay! But what do we put in its place? Sophie Lewis says: “Nothing.” Perhaps an overly simplistic answer. 

It’s true that in the current system, the family fulfils functions for which the best answer is “nothing”. As Nuria Alabao says, “The family is not a neutral institution: it is still sustained by hierarchical relations of subordination based on gender, age, and race/migration origin. […] As an institution, the family has a central economic function; it has always been essential to the reproduction of classes in capitalism, to allocate inheritances, transmit property, or guarantee the payment of debts”. These are the functions we don’t want to replace. Enough with Sophie Lewis’s “nothing.” We don’t need a gender police force, we don’t need an institution that reproduces patriarchy and prepares children to function well under capitalism.

However, there are other functions of the family in the current system, such as parenting and caregiving, which the family performs quite poorly, as I’ve shown above, but which are nonetheless necessary. We need other models of living together, of relating, of parenting, and of organising caregiving.

Today, mainstream feminism has nothing more to offer than promoting “co-responsibility” in parenting, that is, equal participation of fathers in childrearing. Where are the more radical visions?

I don’t mean that children need their mother, father or biological parent, but they do need adults who allow them a safe and stable attachment.

According to Nuria Alabao, “In 19th-century socialism linked to the labour movement, and later in the 1970s, class-based feminism called for the socialisation of social reproduction: soup kitchens, 24-hour day-care, or innovated experiences of nurturing or support on the margins”. However, even these proposals don’t question the family itself in a deeper way. They are proposals more focused on allowing women to participate in the labour market. Ultimately, they are adult-centric proposals. And, regarding the miserable figures of children with secure attachments, I fear that these proposals could even worsen the situation for children if the nuclear family model is maintained. By this, I don’t mean that children need their biological mother, father, or parent, but they do need adults who allow them a secure and stable attachment.

In this sense, it might even be helpful to “de-centre” biological parents, to think about care and parenting in a community, a tribe, parenting models that include a network, a community of adults in the children’s lives. The African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” points in this direction. Children need more secure and stable relationships with adults, beyond their parents, a “village.”

There is some research on the perspectives of children raised in consensually non-monogamous relationships. According to Elisabeth Sheff, “The presence of more than two adults in the family provides several advantages to children, such as receiving more attention, nurturing, and time from significant adults, receiving more gifts for special occasions, and being exposed to a greater number of positive role models. It also allows them to form family bonds with other children beyond biogenetic kinship and to have more siblings”.

The parenting network does not have to be limited to the sexual and emotional bonds of the parents: I am thinking of networks of relational anarchy, networks that decentralize love and the couple.

Other recent research with children says: “Children living in polyamorous households often view their parents’ romantic partners as resource persons, which fosters the development of a positive view of these adults in the child. Many children explained their affection for their parents’ partners by highlighting how these adults cared for them and supported them, emotionally and materially. This echoes studies conducted with parents practicing NMC, who described their extra-dyadic romantic partners as supportive, loving, and understanding, not only for them but also for their children.”  Thinking further, in terms of the concept of “village” or community, the nurturing network need not be limited to the parents’ sexual affective ties. I’m thinking of networks of relational anarchy, networks that de-centre love and the couple (or couples).

This isn’t so simple. Myriam Rodríguez del Real and Javier Correa Román say in an article in El Salto: “The central issue is understanding that friendship has been emptied of material content in order to centralize the couple. Societies construct systems of kinship and affinity that determine which bonds are recognized and which are left on the margins. The heterosexual monogamous couple constitutes the center of these systems, and the rest of the relationships (including friendship) are reconfigured in response to it”.

And: “Therefore, it is not simply a matter of ‘giving more importance to friends,’ but of rejecting the current configurations of both the couple and friendship to create new relational forms. We need to ‘disorient’ (…) the normative notions of affection in order to imagine other forms of relational inhabitation. Only to the extent that we think of other forms of friendship does the couple cease to make sense as the organising centre of our lives”.

In a talk about abolishing the family in Seville two years ago, considering alternatives to the family, Nuria Alabao spoke about building relationships with a reciprocal obligation (in order to assume caregiving), and that these types of relationships take time to build. We already have this obligation in today’s family, and I seriously doubt it contributes to adequate care, neither for children nor for adults or the elderly. For me, caregiving out of obligation isn’t care, but rather a sacrifice. And, today, the vast majority of women have to make this sacrifice to care for their parents or another relative.

How do we bring our experiences of mutual support networks to the centre of society? How do we change our perceptions so that we see ourselves as capable of trusting these networks?

Personally, I think more about making commitments—that is, I voluntarily make a commitment in a relationship (of any kind) that doesn’t require reciprocity. It’s more about trusting the network (of relational anarchy, of my community), that when I need care or support, there will be a person in the network (or several) who can take it on, and they don’t have to be the same people who previously received support from me. I feel like this is something we’re already trying to practice in my network.

Hil Malatino, in his book Trans Care  (Bellaterra, 2021) ,  offers this minimal definition of community: people who are re-weaving. And when I review my experience of the last nine years, facing my family traumas, it has been a constant re-weaving of my networks. Some people left my networks, others joined. Perhaps we should leave behind the idea of ​​a stable, lifelong mutual support network that should assume the care and support—emotional, financial, parenting, when we are sick—that today is assumed (often poorly) by the family, and instead rely on our networks, always fragile, always in reconfiguration, but capable of sustaining us when we need them? I don’t know. I’m still afraid of it myself, but, at the same time, my networks have sustained me over the past few years, and they continue to sustain me.

How do we bring our experiences of mutual support networks to the centre of society? How do we change our perceptions so that we see ourselves as capable of trusting these networks? How can we strengthen them?

I don’t have the answers. I think it’s about building by walking and experimenting. This is just a start. And, for me, building alternatives to family, new structures of mutual support and care, is a matter of survival. I’ve outlived my family, and I’ve gotten this far thanks to my networks.

______________

Source: Freedom Press

The post Abolishing the family: A survivor’s perspective appeared first on Void Network.

When the CEO of one of the largest medical insurance companies in the United States was gunned down on the street in Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, his death quickly turned into a larger conversation about the much-reviled industry in which he worked.

Brian Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, had been in New York City for a conference when he was killed in what police believe was a targeted shooting.

Among hundreds of posts on social media about the shocking murder, many people were moved to talk about the injustice of the health insurance industry. Often the dark jokes on X, Instagram, Reddit and TikTok spoke to how cruel medical insurance companies can be to their customers. Some even wrote folk songs about the event.

“The bullet hit the CEO outside of his allotted benefit window, so he’s not eligible for emergency treatment,” wrote one person on X in response to a post about the killing.

One Reddit user posted: “A man is dead, and no one really cares. Huh. Sounds like business as usual for United Health isn’t it?”

An announcement on the Facebook page of UnitedHealthcare announcing Thompson’s death had 42,000 laugh emoji reactions by Thursday afternoon.

Others shared personal stories about how the health insurance industry had denied coverage to their loved ones or laden them with debt.

“His company put multiple of my family members in debt they will be paying for the rest of their lives & denied care for my uncle which led to his death. Brian Thompson killed people. Full stop,” wrote one person.

“Remembering the day United Healthcare denied a one-night hospital stay for my 12yo child as ‘medically unnecessary’ following ASD heart repair surgery,” wrote another.

A post announcing the death of Brian Thompson on UnitedHealthcare’s Facebook page received more than 42,000 laugh emojis in response (Screenshot)

The response has echoes of the celebrations over the death of Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, whom many around the world held responsible for bombing campaigns in Cambodia that killed hundreds of thousands of people. When he died in November 2023, social media was similarly flooded with memes celebrating his passing.

Distasteful though they may be, the reactions to Thompson’s murder have revealed a deep anger among many Americans about the unfairness of the US health insurance industry. And among those speaking out were doctors, professors, politicians and people who’d suffered their own insurance denials.

“Currently, over 1,000 people go bankrupt daily, solely due to personal medical bills. Anyone who can make millions of dollars overseeing a system like this, and sleep well at night doesn’t deserve my sympathy,” Beau Forte, a former Green Party candidate for Congress in New Jersey who ran on a platform calling for universal healthcare, told The Independent.

Forte, who ran for office because his father was unable to receive care from his medical insurance provider after suffering a series of illnesses, was among hundreds who posted viral tweets excoriating Thompson after his death.

“How is it appropriate to ask me if I feel bad if the person in charge of the biggest company that allows this to happen if I feel bad about it? Apologies if that seems harsh, but that’s where I stand,” he added.

Forte was not alone.

“Today, we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down…. wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires,” wrote a professor at Columbia University in a post that garnered 3.5 million views.

The reaction comes amid growing complaints from consumers about rising healthcare costs, denial of coverage and high deductibles.

UnitedHealthcare itself had faced scrutiny over denying claims to its customers. A Senate committee concluded earlier this year that three major companies – UnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVS, which owns Aetna – were intentionally denying claims for nursing care to patients to increase profits.

The company was also accused in a lawsuit of using a faulty AI algorithm to deny elderly patients extended care.

A New York police officer stands outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan where Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot (AP)

Data on how many medical insurance claims are denied is notoriously hard to come by, despite attempts by the government to make the process more transparent.

The Affordable Care Act, a sweeping healthcare law passed by Barack Obama in 2010, was designed in part to prevent spurious claim denials by insurance companies and was tasked with monitoring them. It has largely failed in that effort, and evidence suggests denials are on the rise.

A study by the independent health policy research firm KFF published last year found that insurance companies denied some 17 per cent of claims from patients in 2021, even when they received care from in-network physicians. It also found that less than one per cent of consumers appealed those denials, and among those who did, insurers upheld their decision nearly 60 per cent of the time. A ProPublica investigation released last year similarly found that insurers deny between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the claims they receive, according to the limited government data available.

Those numbers obscure the many horror stories of people who suffer from ill health or die after being denied the care they need from insurers. News stories about people who died after their insurance company refused to pay for treatment are a routine sight in American media.

Even those who receive treatment and survive are often faced with massive debt due to high deductibles. Today, an estimated 100 million people in America face some kind of medical debt.

Timothy Faust, a healthcare writer and author of the book Health Justice Now, told The Independent that many Americans see medical insurance companies as the primary cause of injustice within the healthcare system.

“Health insurance companies ultimately determine, through scandal-laden cost-cutting processes, which care you are eligible to receive and to what extent it will bankrupt your family, and are understandably the entities we most associate with the injustices of American healthcare,” he said.

“From talking to people across the country, I know how many Americans feel the consequences of this arrangement within their bodies.  We have watched our loved ones suffer and die from preventable or treatable illnesses that hospitals charge too much for and insurers refuse to pay. I think a lot of latent rage generates through witnessing this depravity over and over and over again,” Faust added.

None of those issues were exclusive to UnitedHealthcare, however.

Thompson worked for UnitedHealthcare’s parent company for some 20 years before taking over at the insurance subsidiary in 2021. The company provides insurance coverage for some 49 million Americans and brought in $281 billion in revenue last year.

His role as the CEO gave him immense power over the lives of millions, most of whom likely didn’t know his name until his death.

The precise motives of the killer are not yet known, but police were given a major clue after revealing that the words “deny,” “depose,” and “defend” were carved into the live rounds and shell casings found outside the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, where Thompson was gunned down.

The three words bear a striking resemblance to the title of Jay Feinman’s book Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.

“Today the name of the game is delay, deny, defend: to improve their profits, insurance companies delay payment of justified claims, deny payment altogether, and defend their actions by forcing claimants to enter litigation,” the book’s blurb reads.

— Additional reporting by Justin Rohrlich

__________

Written by Richard Hall

SOURCE: https://www.independent.co.uk

The post When a medical insurance CEO was shot dead, people celebrated his death. What does this tell us about American healthcare? appeared first on Void Network.

We grow up hearing that hard work alone will lift us above the hardships we’re born into. But many of us also watched as our parents worked two and three jobs, relied on extended family to watch us, and still struggled to afford stable housing. Far too many of us are living that same struggle ourselves.

It’s not that we aren’t resourceful. My grandmother, who barely scraped by with factory work and countless odd jobs, pulled together with neighbors who supported each other through a mutual aid network. Thanks to her resourcefulness, our community, and luck, we had someplace to call home. That gave my mother the chance to become the first one in our family to go to college. I followed in her footsteps to attend graduate school.

We made it work. But I’ve learned through generational poverty that the lack of affordable housing is one of the biggest obstacles to thriving. I learned even more through my work with Healthy Families, a national, research-backed program.

I conducted home visits with low-income mothers, addressing maternal health, birth outcomes, and child development. Their poverty was different from what I grew up with. Many of these mothers were immigrants with language barriers and no access to the extended networks, mutual aid, or stable housing that I had.

Evictions were rampant. I saw conditions that you wouldn’t believe existed in the richest country in the world.

I’m a strong believer in mutual aid. But in the world’s wealthiest nation, should we really have to rely solely on working people sharing their meager resources among themselves? To eradicate poverty and housing instability, we’re going to need more than that.

Nationally, a worker would need an hourly wage of at least $28.58 to afford a modest two-bedroom rental — or nearly $24 an hour for just one bedroom. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Almost half of low-income renters spend over 30 percent of their incomes on housing alone.

Building on my mother and grandmother’s work in mutual aid, I’ve found community engagement to be invaluable — not only to connect families to housing, but also to organize our collective voices to push lawmakers toward solutions.

Solutions like building more affordable housing, more public housing, and more housing in general. Guaranteeing workers a living wage for their hard work. Making sure we have a strong social safety net so families can survive lean times.

Unfortunately, housing policy often takes human rights and the need for community out of the policy process. It focuses on zoning, commerce, profit-maximization, and “protecting” wealthy communities from low-income neighbors. This does a disservice to the rich sense of community affordable housing can create.

Housing should be seen as a human right and a community builder, not a wealth builder. It should be a way to lift us all up rather than segregate us and perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

The more we separate ourselves from our fellow humans, the more damage we do to all of us as a society. My mother and grandmother taught me that. I bet yours did too. So let’s work together to make the dream of housing for all a reality.

________

Kazmyn Ramos is a Program Manager for an NGO that delivers cash to people in poverty, founder of the affordable housing nonprofit Seeking 1610, and a Poverty Expert at RESULTS. She lives in Indianapolis. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.

The post Home- Should Be a Human Right and a Community Builder appeared first on Void Network.

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There are three basic freedoms: freedom to say NO; freedom to move away; and freedom to change what does not work.

Individual freedom requires social support. To say NO, you need others to respect your choice and not force you to obey. To move freely, you need others to support your movement and not erect walls and roadblocks. To change what does not work, you need others who are affected to accept the change.

Basically, freedom is a social relationship, where me having my freedom depends on you having yours. A system is required to secure this social arrangement.

Systems shape us

We create systems in order to make things happen. A system has three elements: a purpose or goal; a set of rules, policies, and procedures designed to achieve the goal; and relationships that are shaped by applying the rules, policies, and procedures.

The systems we create are not separate from us; they organize us. Consider competitive sports. There is a goal (to win). There are rules of the game and penalties for violating them. And there are participants, whose behavior and relationships are shaped by the game.

The goal of the capitalist system is to extract capital from human labor. Achieving that goal requires a system with rules, penalties, and social relationships that all support the goal.

This three-part essay examines how the capitalist system robs us of all three basic freedoms; what blocks us from claiming our freedom; and how we can create a social system that supports freedom for all.

Part 1. My Body Is Not Your Capital-Producing Machine – Or Is It?

It is commonly believed that we have little control over our work lives, but that life outside of work – family and social relationships – is ours to shape.

In reality, time outside of work is largely consumed with two things: replacing the energy we put out on the job so we can work again the next day, and raising the next generation of workers to replace the current one. Production depends on this reproduction of the worker.

The tight connection between production and reproduction is difficult to see because they are organized differently. Production is organized socially, with billions of workers linked in global chains of manufacture and distribution. Reproduction is organized privately, with individuals and families expected to replenish and reproduce themselves with no outside support.

Employers benefit from privatized reproduction. They can hire workers to produce while avoiding the cost of replacing them, even though their business depends on it. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business,

Paid maternity leave is a totally ridiculous kind of demand to expect employers to pay. Those who want to have babies should pay for them.

Because production and reproduction are differently organized, it seems they exist in two different spheres: an economic sphere of work shaped by capitalism, where one has little control; and a personal sphere of friendship and family, not shaped by capitalism, where one is presumed to have total control.

In reality, work and life-outside-of-work are parts of a single capitalist system. Despite the relentless message that we make our own lives and ‘there is always a choice,’ it is impossible to have a personal life that is separate from, or exists outside of, the capitalist system. Lack of freedom on the job requires a lack of freedom outside it.

The more authorities restrict reproduction and individual behavior, the more the myth of two spheres breaks down to reveal only one sphere, capitalism, that dominates every aspect of life.

You cannot refuse, and you cannot leave

The goal of capitalist production is to produce capital. Capital is profit that is invested to extract more profit. Profit comes from paying workers less than the value of what they produce. The lower the wages, the higher the profit.

Jeff Bezos rakes in billions of dollars in profit by paying workers far less than the value of their work. He then uses this profit to purchase other businesses that enable him to exploit even more workers and make even more profit. Bezos is accumulating capital. The more capital he accumulates, the greater his power over society.

No one freely chooses to work all their life to produce capital to make others rich. The worker must be robbed of the freedom to say no, to leave, or to change the system. To maintain this social arrangement everyone, including the worker, must do their part.

Employers rely on the State to ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. As Braverman explained in Labor and Monopoly Capital,

In the most elementary sense, the State is guarantor of the conditions, the social relations, of capitalism, and the protector of the ever-more unequal distribution of property which this system brings about.

The State gives employers the legal authority to dictate the conditions of employment. Unionized workers can modify some of these conditions, but they have no legal right to challenge the nature of the work or how it is organized, to determine staffing levels, or to curb executive pay. All major work-related decisions fall under management rights. The State uses the legal system, the police, and the military to enforce those rights.

States allow employers to use, abuse, and discard workers as the cost of doing business. When hazardous working conditions cause sickness, injury, and death, the State sides with the employer. Workers’ claims for compensation are minimized or denied, fines levied against companies are too small to change anything, and no employer ever goes to jail for killing a worker.

States use legislation and monetary policy to prevent workers’ demands from cutting into profits. The legal minimum wage sets the bar so low that the average worker must go into debt to pay for basic essentials.

The only option for those who cannot work or refuse to do so is appeal to the State for support. Such support is notoriously difficult to get and kept miserably low to deter all but the most desperate. Ontario makes it easier to access euthanasia than to access social support.

States restrict travel in order to block workers from escaping to a better situation. Around the world, millions of people are incarcerated for the ‘crime’ of crossing a border in search of a better life.

Border restrictions trap workers in low-waged areas. Employers are free to move production in and out of these low-waged areas, giving them leverage to lower the pay of workers in higher-waged areas.

States use immigration controls to manage the size and composition of the workforce to benefit employers. Lower unemployment increases the pressure to raise wages, and importing more workers lowers that pressure. Denying equal rights to newcomers enables employers to underpay and overwork them, exerting a downward pressure on the pay and conditions of all workers.

All these measures ensure that, no matter how hard they labor or how much they protest, the worker is blocked from escaping their assigned role as a capital-producing machine.

What personal life?

The concept of ‘personal life’ ignores how much our lives are restricted outside work.

The modern family is a State-regulated institution. Laws dictate who can marry and who cannot, who is a family member and who is not, and how many unrelated people may live in a dwelling. Laws enforce gender norms, restrict access to contraception and abortion, and determine at what age a person may engage in adult activities.

One cannot leave a family at will. The State can forcibly return runaway youngsters to their families, place them in alternate families, or confine them in detention centers. Spouses who want to leave their marriages and parents seeking relief from childcare duties can be held financially responsible for ‘dependents.’

The State defines what it means to be a fit parent and can remove children from those it declares unfit. The State decides if families separated by national borders will be reunited or remain apart, and whether family members will be deported.

State laws compel young people to attend school, whether they want to or not, and parents are expected to enforce this law. In Jacksonville, Florida,

if a child has more than five unexcused absences [from school] in a calendar month or 15 unexcused absences in a 90-day period, parents can be arrested, charged with a misdemeanor, and face up to 60 days in jail.

Not free to be me

Organizing reproduction in family units demands distinct gender roles; men are cast as the primary producers, and women as the primary care-givers. Someone has to care for the young, sick, and infirm, and it’s typically the lower-paid woman who is paid less precisely because of her care-taking duties.

A family system based on reproducing couples allows no room for gender fluidity or for being intersex or trans. Those who do not conform to their socially assigned gender role risk punishment in the legal system or treatment in the medical system. As long as reproduction is rooted in the family, we cannot escape the pressure of binary gender roles and all the oppression they generate.

Capitalism favors standardized production, where large numbers of identical objects can be quickly produced with less labor and more profit. To produce uniform outcomes, the worker must make the same moves over and over again. This assembly-line model has been adopted in every industry, including hospitals and schools. As one principal instructed his teachers,

When I stand in the hallway, I should be able to hear all fourth grades saying the same thing. Do not deviate from the scripted program and do not fall behind in the pacing plan.

The demand for uniformity dominates every area of life. To maximize profit, the capitalist class engineer plants and animals to eliminate variation, reduce workers to the status of interchangeable cogs in a machine, and convince people of all nations to desire the same things and behave in the same ways.

Shut up and conform

Questioning makes progress possible; it invites us to examine what we are doing and why, and to consider different options. Capitalism makes questioning policies or those who make them a serious offense, even treasonous. We cannot speak freely or share vital information. The relentless persecution of whistle-blowers Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Steven Donziger serves as a general warning not to question authority or hold it accountable.

A system that demands conformity cannot tolerate dissent or diversity. In the past, people who thought, felt, or behaved differently were considered interesting, odd, eccentric, colorful, or characters. Today, such people risk being labeled ‘mentally ill,’ forcibly drugged, and confined to a psychiatric institution, possibly indefinitely.

The social power of modern psychiatry cannot be explained on the basis of its scientific validity or clinical effectiveness, both of which are highly contested. Its influence comes from its usefulness to the capitalist system.

Since slavery days, the State has partnered with medicine and psychiatry to enforce conformity and obedience. Today, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) catalogs unacceptable behavior in every area of life, with unacceptable behavior meaning protesting how things are, or disturbing others with your protest.

Being trapped in an oppressive social system is so painful that many people break down, lash out, use drugs, escape into fantasy, and so on. Mass misery cannot be acknowledged without bringing the entire capitalist system into question. Instead, modern medical systems practice damage control, where the sick and injured are patched up and returned to the same situations that harmed them.

Controlling fertility

States control reproduction to manage the size and composition of the workforce; minimize the cost of social support; and enforce social control. What the pregnant person wants or does not want is not considered.

To lower the birth rate, China imposed a limit of one child per family in 1980. Violators could be punished with fines, job loss, forced abortions, and loss of access to social services. As the birth rate fell, the one-child policy was replaced with a two-child policy in 2016, followed by a three-child policy in 2021.

To raise the birth rate, Nazi Germany outlawed all forms of birth control, including abortion, with stiff penalties for violators. ‘German-blooded’ women with large families were awarded the Mother’s Cross: bronze for up to five children; silver for six or seven; and gold for eight or more.

To increase the enslaved labor force in the US, Black women and girls were forcibly impregnated and compelled to bear their rapists’ children. When importing enslaved people was outlawed in 1808, forced reproduction became even more important to the slave economy.

Planters advertised for [Black women] as they did for breeding cows or mares, in farm magazines and catalogues. They shared tips with one another on how to get maximum value out of their breeders. They sold or lent enslaved men as studs and were known to lock teenage boys and girls together to mate in a kind of bullpen. They propagated new slaves themselves, and allowed their sons to [do so].

To minimize the cost of social support and reduce the risk of rebellion, States sterilize those they consider ‘surplus’ or socially unfit, including Black, Indigenous, imprisoned, addicted, disabled, and poor people.

During the Great Depression, the International Congress of Eugenics met in New York City to discuss the mass sterilization of unemployed workers. One speaker declared,

A major portion of this vast army of unemployed are social inadequates, and in many cases mental defectives, who might have been spared the misery they are now facing if they had never been born.

The US-funded program to sterilize Puerto Rican women had two goals: to reduce the number of poor people on the island; and to promote the migration of women workers to New York, which would be easier if they had no children.

Between the 1930s and the 1970s, approximately one-third of the female population of Puerto Rico was sterilized, making it highest rate of sterilization in the world.

In the US today, 31 states plus Washington, DC, legally allow the forced sterilization of people with disabilities

Forced birth

When the US Supreme Court abolished the legal right to abortion, it shattered the belief that our bodies belong to us, and that life-outside-of-work is ours to shape.

When states coerce and force women, girls and people with the capacity for pregnancy to remain pregnant against their will, they create human chattel and incubators of them. By doing so, state lawmakers force their bodies into the service of state interests.

States typically prioritize the welfare of the fetus over that of the parent. Prospective parents are bombarded with advice on how to produce a healthy child and can be penalized for behaviors that risk fetal health. In the US today, a miscarriage can get you charged with manslaughter or murder. In El Salvador, a women was sentenced to 50 years in prison after a stillbirth.

Protecting the pregnant person is not a priority. There are no public warnings that pregnancy can cause severe pain, traumatic injury, hemorrhage, sepsis, sterility, disability, and death.

Women in the US are 14 times more likely to die by carrying a pregnancy to term than by having an abortion. In Mississippi, a Black woman is 118 times as likely to die from carrying a pregnancy to term than from an abortion. The United States is the most dangerous place in the industrialized world to give birth, ranking 55th overall in the world.

Because staying pregnant is more dangerous than having an abortion, a complete abortion ban in the US would increase the number of pregnancy-related deaths by an estimated 21 percent overall, and 33 percent for Black women. These figures do not include the rise in deaths from unsafe abortions.

The Supreme Court refused to consider these matters. Justice Alito wrote,

We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.

It seems counter-productive for capitalism to restrict abortion. Women need to control their fertility so they can work outside the home. Denying this control has a devastating impact on their earning potential, as well as disrupting industries that depend on female labor.

The capitalist class are not united on all things. For some sections, social control is the highest priority. They rightly fear that people who are free to choose in any area of life will push for freedom on the job. To prevent that, they claim the right to dictate what people can and cannot do, and use the State to impose their beliefs on society.

Authoritarian

A tiny elite can only rule a large majority by robbing them of the choice to live any other way. By definition, such rule is authoritarian.

As the gap grows between the wealthy capitalist class and the impoverished working class, the risk of rebellion rises. To maintain social control, governments all over the world are becoming more authoritarian. Two recent US examples include the Trump insurrection and the proliferation of forced-birth laws.

In Canada, a seemingly liberal government has adopted an unprecedented number of Secret Orders-in-Council that are never published and cannot be accessed by Parliament or the public. Secret decision-making enables elites to enact policies that ordinary people would reject, such as exporting billions of dollars in weaponry to the US and Saudi Arabia. A genuine democracy has no need for secret policies.

Technological advances make it easier to enforce authoritarian control. A 2011 report warned,

Within the next few years, it will be technically possible and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders – every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner.

Fear of majority rebellion has spurred increased funding for police and expanded police powers.

The budgets of modern police departments are staggeringly high and ever increasing, with no parallel in history, producing incarceration rates unseen around the world. If police and prisons made us safe, we would have the safest society in world history — but the opposite is true.

That is how afraid of us they are.

Fed Up

Having suffered through a lethal pandemic, most people are working harder and longer for less, while profits and executive pay soar. Inflation is rapidly rising, yet the modest demand that wages at least match inflation is rejected as excessive and inflationary. Corporate profiteers get no such criticism, even though fatter profits account for more than 50 percent of increased prices.

A US report found, “markups and profits skyrocketed in 2021 to their highest recorded level since the 1950s.” The average price markup was 72 percent higher than a company’s costs, pushing net profits to the highest value on record. The authors conclude,

Since markups are unusually and suddenly so high, there is room for reversing them with little economic harm and likely societal benefit, including lower prices and less inequality.

They must have missed the capitalist memo that profits are sacred and workers are expendable.

Instead of forcing corporations to lower prices or raise wages, officials are jacking up interest rates on loans and mortgages. This has the effect of undercutting wages, driving workers deeper into debt, and making it more difficult to pay for essentials, such as food, housing, and medical care.

Understandably, confidence in capitalist institutions is falling. Only 36 percent of Americans think the US system of government is sound, and only 13 percent of Americans are satisfied with how things are going in the US.

When the majority lose faith that the existing system can solve their problems, they look for alternatives. One result is a global resurgence of working-class rebellion with millions of people protesting their suffering and demanding fundamental social change.

__________

Written by Susan Rosenthal

___________

Source: https://susanrosenthal.com/capitalism/my-body-is-not-your-capital-producing-machine-or-is-it/

The post My Body Is Not Your Capital-Producing Machine – Or Is It? appeared first on Void Network.

Humans are an extraordinary result of evolution. It is a great power to be the most highly evolved creature in our conceivable knowledge and, in that, each one of us has a great responsibility. Problem solving is something that all humans do intuitively every day. It matters not what class, race, age, educational level; every single person can and does solve problems every day. The size, form and manifestations of those problems vary greatly but there is one major problem that transcends the rest and affects every single one of us. That problem is capitalism. This form of free-trade economics based on infinite growth models has proven to be unsustainable. A modern-day solution to the problems posed on the Earth and faced by all animals, human and otherwise, due to human activities can be found in the United Nation’s (2015) 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. There has also existed since as early as the 19th century a political philosophy that can provide a social, political, and economic framework to accompany the well-defined scientific solutions to our environmental issues. Anarchism, as a political philosophy, realizes that society is entirely able to govern itself (Miller, 2003, 3) and was originally introduced as a critique to industrial capitalism (Proudhon, 1893, 48). It is not within the realm of this essay to defend anarchism against the negative portrayal it has received*. Instead, Proudhon’s political anarchism will be used to accompany the UN’s Sustainable Development as a social, political, and economic framework for a sustainable planet.

Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls for “peace, justice, and strong institutions”. Evidently, these virtues are something the global community seemingly lacks. Conventional anarchism focuses on individual and societal cooperation and cohesion and “urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every proposition” (Goldman, 1921, 22-23). Instilling Proudhon’s anarchic political philosophy, ideologies, and practices will make achieving this goal more realistic because it has been developed through inductive reasoning (Proudhon, 1893). As seen on the “Scale of Knowledge” from Dr. Floris van den Berg, the same highly certain method of acquiring knowledge is also used in the natural sciences, such as physics and chemistry (van den Berg, 2012). In this sense, anarchism is something of the science of politics. As our species developed free-will over basic survival instincts, people were the first animals to live outside of natural law. This affords us countless innovations that provide the comfort and safety to question existence. Before science, it was widely believed that we were descendants of divine beings and, given only the condition that we follow a set of rules established by these gods, the Earth and everything on it was infinite and made for us. This anthropocentric perspective instilled with heteronomous ethics is still widely engrained in global society. However, the recognition of anthropogenic environmental impact can be dated back as far as Plato’s Critias dialogues where he unconcernedly notes soil erosion and deforestation due to agricultural advancements (Attfield, 2018, 3). The fatal flaw of humanity is the continuance of anthropocentricism. If one can only view humans as the apex of life for whom the Earth was created, as opposed to one step in evolutionary time, it is not possible to live sustainably. This alongside prescribed heteronomous ethics systematically removes the virtues of self-awareness, self-responsibility, and autonomy necessary to understand that the ecosystem is finite and that perhaps we are not the be-all, end-all of biological evolution.

Anarchism attempts to bring these virtues to the forefront of humanity by calling for the elimination of overruling heteronomous virtues found in the institutions of religion, property, and government (Goldman, 1910; Proudhon, 1892). Following the Green Revolution in the 1950s, which involved using newly developed artificial fertilizers and heavy irrigation techniques to maximize food production, the development of environmental science and concern for the effects of increased large-scale agriculture and industrialization rapidly became more prevalent. With the release of The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in 1962, the non-scientific community was able to read an alluring and beautifully written prose that clearly outlined the spread of pollutants from one side of the world to the other (Attfield, 2018, 3). In 1972, The Limits to Growth was published. Written by an international team of multidisciplinary academics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it evaluated those factors which limit growth of our species could be narrowed into five basics: population growth, nonrenewable resource capacity, industrial and agricultural production rates, and pollution output (Meadows et al, 1972, 11). Clearly, these five indicators hold true today. The Limits to Growth also set out to provide an accessible handbook for how people can “achieve a state of global equilibrium” by limiting ourselves and our production of material goods; thus, we can “live indefinitely” (Meadows et al, 1972). These texts were some of the first initiatives by environmentalists to provide complex information in a concise, accessible manner for the general public. In this sense, the various researchers concerned for the environment aimed to expand the anthropocentrism that dominated to a more “ecocentric” (Attfield, 2018, 12) worldview. While it is a much more distorted and silenced voice, anarchism (Goldman, 1910; Proudhon, 1893) recognized this ecocentric worldview by maintaining the philosophy that Gods and the State are socially constructed authoritative figures that can only exist through the peoples’ submission to the rules outlined by these archetypal figures.

Meanwhile, just around the time The Limits to Growth was published, a new ideology of capitalism had been introduced and rapidly appropriated by governments and industries worldwide. It promoted most notably three assumptions: (1) “commercial value could be maximized by handing management of companies and public policy to exceptionally smart, and highly motivated people”, (2) “commercial value, so maximized, would be a good proxy for social value without government interference”, and (3) “the redistributions of income resulting from this maximization, whether within countries or between them, were not a proper concern for economists” (Collier et al, 2021, 638). These quotations are from Capitalism: what has gone wrong, what needs to be changed, and how it can be fixed, a 2021 article in the Oxford Review of Economic Policies which poses these questions to a selection of leading capitalist economists. Their summation of these assumptions is immediately followed by the statement: “Unfortunately, no part of this new ideology proved to be correct” (Collier et al, 2021, 638). As well, the article states that these 3 main drivers of the newest manifestation of capitalism “resulted in social and political polarizations which have become unsustainable” (Collier et al, 2021, 638). It is clear there is now consensus on all sides that the current dominating economic methodology and resulting society is unsustainable and the result of misinformed, misdirected guidance (Attfield, 2018; Collier et al, 2021; Goldman, 1910; Miller, 2010; Proudhon, 1893; van den Berg, 2012). In this revelation, it gives hope that there are grounds for systemic change.

A common term used to critique globalization and free-market capitalism is ‘neocolonialism’. It describes the phenomenon wherein nations that were previously ravaged due to colonialism are now targeted for extremely valuable resources such as precious metals and oil. In statements such as, “The major untapped pool of cheap young workers for the next few decades is Africa and the region is ripe for conventional capitalism”, also extracted from page 643 of the 2021 Oxford Economic Policy Review article, it is clear we must be vigilant in deciding on a global system that will not lead us back but forward. Global free-market capitalism is seen as a “neo” or new form of colonialization. Another view of this can be found in the article in defense of capitalism in the distinction between “winners” and “large groups of uncompensated losers” under the capitalist system (Collier et al, 2021). Aptly so, the result was and is “disaffection and political activism with unpredictable repercussions” (Collier et al, 2021). No deliberation is provided in the article. The only understanding of political activism in this statement is with the vague, negative association of “unpredictable repercussions”. This presents a fallacy of what can come from positive political activism in response to unsatisfactory laws and regulations. One direct example of positive political activism by anarchists is dumpster-diving. Ann Meneley (2018) presents specifically the point of view of Danish dumpster-divers that, “It is perceived as functional, as wasting is seen as stupid”, though this is a view taken by most modern anarchists. Meneley also recognizes the group “Food Not Bombs” which is an international anarchist collective that feeds the impoverished and homeless populations with meals cooked entirely from ‘dumpstered’ food. Dumpster diving is an act of direct rebellion that only exists when a nation lives outside of its means. Educating the Stupid is a concept developed by Dr. van den Berg (2012) which discusses, in part, that the combined ecological footprint of the global population must stay within the Planet’s carrying capacity for our species. The same concept is reverberated through The Limits of Growth report. The seemingly incendiary title of this ethical concept sets to reiterate an ethical standard that has resounded in the speech of many great minds such as Albert Einstein who is famously quoted to have said: “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing”. In the age of knowledge and technology, it is no longer acceptable to feign ignorance of the various consequences of lives based on production, consumption, and infinite growth in a finite ecosystem. At this point, there is only stupidity in those of us who know and do not act.

Aside from the environmental and societal devastation caused by global trade and industry practices, the driving force of capitalism, consumerism, is inherently unsustainable. Though once viewed as a sign of wealth and well-being when a country’s citizens were able to be effective spenders, nowadays, consumerism is being discussed more frequently as a health detriment (Meneley, 2018). On one hand, citizens in impoverished regions, ie. the “losers”, live lives of “involuntary simplicity” (Meneley, 2018). Meanwhile, mental illnesses exhibited in behaviors such as hoarding and physical illnesses such as morbid obesity are rampant in wealthier nations, or the nations of “winners”. Consequently, initiatives encouraging minimalism, or “voluntary simplicity”, immerge in response to these ailments of overconsumption (Meneley, 2018). Capitalism focuses on unbridled maximization of profit through consumer spending, thus requires branding and advertising techniques to promote greater consumption. These tactics often include creating a sense of self for the consumer and encouraging “self-branding”, as the consumer should view themselves as a commodity (Meneley, 2018). Anarchism brings value to individual freedom of expression and calls for the elimination of property (Goldman, 1910; Proudhon, 1893). As expressed so eloquently by Emma Goldman, a distinguished anarchist and feminist pioneer, value is manifested by someone “to whom the making of a table, the building of a house, or the tilling of the soil, is what the painting is to the artist and the discovery to the scientist, — the result of inspiration, of intense longing, and deep interest in work as a creative force” (Goldman, 1921, 24). In other words, anarchism encourages the individual to find what work they can do that does not ultimately feel like work but feels like the fulfillment of one’s personal values. This recognition of ‘self’ in a career path allows for a level of self-responsibility and social obligation often not afforded by a consumer driven society.

So, while globalized trade ravages the underdeveloped nations, consumerism plagues the rest, and the greatest damage is incurred by the ecosystem and non-human animals. Just as no one would deny the atrocities of imperialism, colonialization, fascism, or any other form of absolute authoritative rule, the vast disparities between the winners and losers under capitalism are well-known. Additionally, the complete devastation of the planet’s biodiversity, natural resources, and the ecosystem is not news. The current world economic system and alleged lack of political interference have failed. The solution needs to be a complete reformation of these elements.

In the conclusion of the Oxford Economic Policy Review, the capitalist economists sum up three underlying issues that are commonly reported on about how “the pathologies of economics have misdirected policies”. They are in short: (1) “…inadequate depiction of the individual in conventional economics as a person preoccupied with consumption and leisure. In contrast, evolutionary biology suggests we are strongly motivated by purposes beyond consumption and leisure with a capacity to be morally load-bearing”, (2) “…widespread support for greater devolution to local decision-taking, and an emphasis on the importance of cooperation in communities. Far from being selfishly individualistic, humans have a strong capacity to cooperate in communities”, and (3) “…the human brain has evolved to be well-suited to decisions under uncertainty, and decisions devolved to teams within which people naturally cooperate enable rapid learning through experimentation and copying”, (Collier at al, 2021, 647). Conventional anarchism has always encompassed these exact ideologies, as it is a century-old political reformative plan developed due to disaffection with the capitalist economic system in an industrializing, globalizing world (Proudhon, 1893). In this, Proudhon’s anarchic political philosophy is the only available, long-standing social-political framework to achieve a sustainable planet.

Lina Miller

*See the following text for additional information on this topic:

Egoumenides, M. (2014). Philosophical Anarchism and Political Obligation. Bloomsbury Academic.

Pritchard, A. (2010). What can the absence of anarchism tell us about the history and purpose of International Relations? Review of International Studies, 37, 1647–1669. doi:10.1017/S0260210510001075

References:

• Attfield, D. (2018). Environmental Ethics. A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press
  Collier, P. et al. (2021). Capitalism: what has gone wrong, what needs to change, and how it can be fixed. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 37 (4), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grab035
• Proudhon, J.P. (1893). Property is Theft. In D. Guérin & P. Sharkey (Eds.), No Gods, No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism (pp. 48-54). AK Press.
• Goldman, E. (1910). Anarchism: What it really stands for. In H. Havel (Eds.), Anarchism and other essays (pp. 21-29). Mother Earth Publishing Association.
• Meadows, D.H. et al. (1972). The Limits to Growth: A report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Potomac Associates. https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/
• Meneley, A. (2018.) Consumerism. Annual Review of Anthropology 47, 117-132, https://doi-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041518
• Miller, D. (2003). Political Philosophy: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• United Nations. (2015). THE 17 GOALS: Sustainable Development. In Sdgs.Un.Org. Retrieved January 4, 2022, from https://sdgs.un.org/goals
• Van den Berg, F. & Meindertsma, J. (2012). Ethics: Philosophy for a Better World. [Poster for PSE2 course]. Geosciences Department. Utrecht University.
• Van den Berg, F. & Meindertsma, J. (2012). Philosophy of Science. [Poster for PSE2 course]. Geosciences Department. Utrecht University.

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As the omicron variant sweeps through American communities, many of our workplaces and institutions are grinding to a halt. With nurses, teachers and other essential workers getting ill or quarantining, we are facing disruptions at schools and in hospitals. Some employers are seeking stopgap measures, trying to hire rapidly to fill open jobs, begging for community volunteers to help keep things running and even lowering requirements for substitute teachers to get people into school buildings.

Can this be a moment for workers to demand more from shorthanded employers, whether that be higher pay, more remote work options, hazard bonuses or needed personal protective equipment to lower health risks? And how can gains gleaned in this moment be retained and even surpassed in a post-pandemic future?

Past labor shortages caused by extraordinary circumstances in other places may offer lessons. For example, in the aftermath of World War I and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, a labor shortage and strike movement in France created conditions for envisioning transformative change. French workers seized the opportunity to pressure employers as well as the state, ultimately succeeding in changing that nation’s labor code and inspiring a growing youth rebellion against work — led by a group of young veterans who called themselves “Surrealists” — that would aim at even more radical changes.

During World War I, France faced a labor shortage because of the mass mobilization of soldiers and the steep military and civilian death toll of the war. With a dearth of workers, France recruited and, in some cases, conscripted immigrant workers from the French colonies of Algeria and Morocco, Spain and elsewhere, who labored to support the war economy. But the onset of the influenza pandemic in 1918 exacerbated the labor shortage because of several conditions, including the large number of maimed veterans unable to work after the war, a low birthrate and the massive pandemic death toll.

To mitigate the labor shortfall and regulate wages, the French government accelerated the supervised immigration of mostly male workers from its empire and other nations, and, in some cases, it re-incentivized work for French women, even amid fears about declining natality.

Despite these efforts to reduce the labor shortage and keep wages artificially low during a period of rapidly rising postwar inflation, the shortfall of workers persisted. Perceiving an opportunity to gain leverage, workers organized and fought for a shorter workday and higher wages.

In a concentrated period between 1917 and 1920, French citizens ignited a protest movement in which millions of workers across sectors participated in organized and wildcat strikes, sabotage actions, walkouts, slowdowns and absenteeism.

As a result, the French labor force soon succeeded in winning a major demand: the enactment of the eight-hour workday by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau in 1919. By comparison, it took the United States two more decades to institutionalize the eight-hour day and five-day workweek, with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1940.

However, not all French workers were satisfied. Many employers refused to comply with the new eight-hour law, and as pandemic conditions waned and the labor shortage eased slightly in the mid-1920s, dissatisfaction remained palpable. Workers wanted higher wages (there was no legal minimum wage yet), the “English week” (Saturdays off, the precursor to the “weekend”) and improved conditions. Their struggle came to a head in 1936, when nationwide strikes resulted in the Matignon Agreements, which implemented significant wage increases, the 40-hour workweek and the country’s first paid holidays.

But some people had a radically different vision. In 1924, a group of young artists, writers and intellectuals, many of whom were veterans of the war, formed a cultural movement in Paris called “Surrealism,” soon declaring a “war on work” meant to battle wage-labor exploitation and what they viewed as the cult of the work ethic. In 1925, they emblazoned the cover of their journal “Surrealist Revolution” with a declaration of collective work refusal. In 1929, one member, André Thirion, penned “Down with Work!,” a powerful manifesto that echoed the 19th-century utopian socialist Charles Fourier in its demand for the essential human right to “refuse work” whenever desired.

Workers were badly needed in France’s postwar reconstruction, but the French Surrealists, most of whom were white men with some college education or professional training, attempted to abstain from further participation in what they saw as a corrupt system for workers across race and class sectors.

Disgusted by the nationalistic belligerence of wartime France that had resulted in mass death, they rallied behind the idea of a “big quit” — a radical refusal to participate in the French economy. Yet, instead of the temporary solution of voluntary unemployment, in which the worker bides time until finding a better job or higher wages, Surrealists proposed something more extreme: permanent strike.

The notion of permanent strike, or lifelong withdrawal from the workforce, meant a lifestyle of precarious labor, or what is known today as “gig work.” Their radical and utopian demand pushed up against the limits of the practical. Most Surrealists could not afford to live without earning income. Nevertheless, many deserted careers and, on principle, worked barely enough to survive. Whenever possible, Surrealists attempted to resist the allure of consumerism, believing that excessive consumption was the flip side of capitalism’s drive toward production.

For the Surrealists, the system of wage labor was historically linked to the violence of nationalism and imperialism. In 1925, they proclaimed, “We do not accept the laws of economy or exchange, we do not accept the slavery of work, and on an even wider scale we proclaim ourselves in revolt against history.”

The Surrealist goal of the permanent strike was not to pressure the boss, nor to instigate reforms, but to undermine the foundations of the capitalist nation-state altogether. This extreme position presaged (and, in some cases, influenced) the broader work refusal that characterized various youth and activist countercultures going forward in the 20th and 21st centuries — including beatniks, hippies, gutter punks, purportedly “lazy” millennials, today’s anti-work advocates and the current “lying flat” movement in China. If certain anti-work countercultures are primarily pursuing, in the words of 19th-century communist writer Paul Lafargue, “The Right to be Lazy,” the Surrealists were wage labor abolitionists who sought a utopian post-work system.

Today’s labor market differs from that of post-World War I France in almost every imaginable way, and the ongoing pandemic is playing a distinct role right now. Nevertheless, a comparison of our workforce shortages with those of a century ago is telling. The “Great Resignation” of 2021 has been likened to an “unofficial general strike.” For workers, at least, such frictional unemployment and aspirational job switching can be a good thing. Taking stock of the 1917-1920 French labor crisis and the Surrealist “war on work” provides a provocative example of how organized workers can escalate their advantage and bolster their morale during and after a shortage — and how oppositional countercultures can imagine a totally different future for workers.

______

Abigail Susik, who wrote this piece for the Washington Post, is an associate professor of art history at Willamette University and author of “Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work.”

source: https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/

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The 23-year-old, who like every other protester in this article has been given a pseudonym for their safety, uses a shield fashioned from a SkyNet satellite dish for protection against rubber bullets. The activist also wears a yellow plastic hardhat and goggles to protect his eyes from tear gas and smoke.

 “We are frontliners. We know that we can be arrested or killed by live rounds when the soldiers shoot at us, but we have to protect our friends,” he said.

While the early street protests against the February 1 military takeover remained largely peaceful, attracting people from all strata of society, the police and army have violently broken up more recent demonstrations, killing more than 70 so far. This has whittled down protests to younger, more daring groups engaging in cat-and-mouse games with security forces: making tactical retreats and reassembling the moment forces move on. To avoid death, injury or arrest, they have had to quickly adopt new methods and tools.

Mayangone Township resident Ko Phyo Tin, 25, who joins the Kyun Taw protest group every day, uses a shield improvised from a piece of steel as protection against rubber bullets and live rounds, and dons a Chinese-made combat helmet.

“Most of us are using protective equipment made in China. We don’t trust its quality but we have no alternative,” he said, adding that the group would gladly accept donations of quality gas masks, hard hats and body armour.

Women have also taken up positions as “frontliners”, the protesters bearing the brunt of the police and army assaults and shielding those behind them. They include Ma Thu Thu, 23, a founder of a team of frontliners that operates in Hlaing and Kamaryut townships, where such groups proliferate.

Thu Thu said her team comprises a core group of more than 10 people that is supported by about another 50 volunteers, who have learned from the street tactics used in dissident movements overseas.

“I saw the protests in Hong Kong and they gave me ideas about how we could defend ourselves,” said Thu Thu, whose small frame belies a capacity to endure gruelling confrontations with security forces.

She has been protesting against military rule since February 6 and is increasingly convinced that the people need protection from the lethal force police and soldiers used against striking dockworkers in Mandalay on February 20, when security forces fired live rounds on a crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators at a shipyard, killing two and injuring dozens.

On February 26, Thu Thu watched a violent crackdown by police on big crowds of protesters at the Myanigone and Hledan junctions in Yangon.

“Police opened fire to disperse protesters, who fled in chaos. Some were arrested. When I saw that, I thought we needed to be able to protect protesters during demonstrations planned for February 28, Milk Tea Alliance Day,” she said, referring to a loose alliance of pro-democracy movements in Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and now Myanmar.

“I posted [these thoughts] on Facebook and one of my friends said she would donate 30 shields. I talked with some of my male friends and we decided to volunteer as frontliners,” she added.

“When we first started posting [about our plan], about a hundred people contacted us [wanting to join]. Members of our group are from many different townships in Yangon.”

Retaking the streets

On Milk Tea Alliance Day, the group had intended to use wooden shields to defend protesters at Hledan junction, but the police and army opened fire with rubber bullets and some live rounds before Thu Thu and her team arrived, killing two kill people.

Hearing this, they discussed whether to abandon their plan, knowing that their wooden shields weren’t bullet-proof, but they decided they had a duty to protect other protesters no matter what. They took their positions at the frontline and, fortunately, police did not open fire again that day at Hledan.

The next day, they turned to homemade remedies when tear gas was thrown at protesters on a section of Insein Road, near the Butaryone bus stop in Hlaing Township.

“[At first] we suffered a lot from the tear gas so we each carried with us a can of Coca-Cola, […] prepared bags of water and wore towels around our necks,” Thu Thu said, explaining that because “many gas masks on the market are useless against tear gas”, protesters learned to douse their faces with liquid or apply a wet towel instead.

“We also switched our wooden shields for steel shields,” she said, describing how the group created a front line of shield-carriers called the “Tank” group – a reference to a battle role taken in online smartphone game Mobile Legends, which is popular among youth across Southeast Asia.

Behind the Tank is a group charged with countering tear gas volleys, including by smothering the discharging cannisters with bags of water and soaked pieces of cloth, and in some cases by dousing the cannisters with a fire extinguisher.

The frontline groups also try to erect two makeshift barriers to separate security forces from protesters.

“We need two so that when police destroy the first we can fall back to the second,” Thu Thu said, adding that they had improvised the strategy themselves.

Despite the police and army’s use of brute force, she said experience had taught the protesters that they “needed brave people more than physically strong people” to serve on the front line.

“At first, we chose the physically strong, but when police started shooting, they ran away,” she said, laughing. “In our Tank group none of the men are taller than five feet eight inches.”

“When we end a day and both the frontline defenders and ordinary protesters are okay, we regard that as a victory,” Thu Thu said, adding that they found it hard to forgive themselves whenever a protester was hurt or arrested. “We think about it until late at night. Sometimes I cry.”

Frontliners told Frontier they are not scared of the police, but if soldiers are deployed, they flee.

“If it’s just tear gas, rubber bullets or stun grenades, we aren’t afraid. But we are afraid of real bullets. That’s why we switched to steel shields,” Thu Thu said, though conceded that even those may not protect them from live rounds. This was proved on March 11, when a protester in Yangon’s North Dagon Township died when a bullet penetrated his makeshift metal shield.

While the security forces have been unable to break the resolve of protest groups like Thu Thu’s, they have increasingly cleared them from the main roads and junctions and pushed them into residential lanes. This has allowed them to hide in the apartments of supportive residents during crackdowns, but it’s also put those residents and their homes in danger. On March 10, police in Sanchaung began raiding the apartments of people suspected of sheltering protesters.

Thu Thu said this risk to ordinary city residents made it more important for protesters to reoccupy the major roads.

“On March 1 and 2, we can say that we won; the protesters owned Insein Road,” she said, referring to the major thoroughfare. “But then police fired tear gas and bullets and destroyed our barricades, so people became too afraid to protest on the main roads.”

Some want to protest from what they think is the relative safety of their living rooms, Thu Thu said, but if they do that, “police will shoot into their homes”. That’s one reason she said she wants to see more people out on the streets.

“I believe that a revolution is not won without bloodshed, but as long as the protesters are on the streets, we will help to defend them,” she said, adding that frontliners are thinking hard about ways to offer more protection so that “the people have the courage to go back out”.

“If we do not get back on the main roads, we will lose,” she said. “There are about seven million people in Yangon; if they all take to the streets it will not be easy for the police to crack down on them.”

The frontliners know they are risking arrest, and even death. Thu Thu said she had told her friends, “If I die, please give everything I have to my parents.”

‘We know we are risking our lives’

Hlaing resident Ko Thiha, 22, is a frontliner active in his township. He wears a red flannel shirt and carries a steel shield that he hits with a short length of plastic pipe as he and other frontliners chant, “The revolution must win!”

He said the first time he served as a frontliner at the junctions of Baho and Hlaing River roads on March 2, he was both excited and scared. “Now, I am more confident,” he told Frontier three days later.“We ask the protesters to stay behind us and not be afraid because we will protect them from the riot police.”

When army units advance, he said, the instructions are different: “run”.

Thiha and his friends learned their tactics, including the use of metal shields, from watching other protest groups in Yangon. They’ve also drawn inspiration from the Hong Kong uprising, where protesters erected barricades, used homemade shields, wore hard hats and found inventive ways to neutralise tear gas cannisters.

But Thiha’s group has also claimed their own innovations. “We make the shields ourselves using polished steel, meaning we can also use them to reflect sunlight onto the eyes of police when they are advancing towards us,” he said proudly. “This was our idea.”

Thiha, who said he had also watched a documentary about the so-called Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine that began in November 2013 and took 91 days to overthrow an oppressive regime, said the steel shields only protected against rubber bullets that police use. “If soldiers are involved, we must run ­– they use live rounds,” he said.

He also acknowledged that his hard hat and cheap gas mask offer little protection against rubber bullets or tear gas at close range, but are still better than nothing.

“We know we’re risking our lives, but we must protect peaceful protesters. That’s why I decided to join the front line,” he said.

“They can arrest, injure or kill us, but if we get democracy, it all will have been worth it.”

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source+ more info: FRONTIER / Myanmar- Independent Journalism

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