Spain 15M: from angry to action crossing the Sun Door

(dailycensored.com) Something that looked impossible is happening.

A miracle. Could be. But there is no God acting, no holy character. Here there is only human will and the crowd´s wishes.

Thousands of people were there, in the same ideas, in the same objectives, in the same need of changes, in the same Puerta del Sol, but they didn´t know it.

The unknowed companions have meet together.

Have you ever taken a decision with thousands of people considering them all the same.

The square has become a school of democracy, pure, radical, real and effective democracy. (Democracia real ya, is the name of one of the groups that compounds the movement 15M). Every day while corporations try to captivate audiences with rubbish TV programs, you can find them there, listening each other sitting on the ground taking and sharing the floor. The sun assembly shines every nights in Puerta del Sol.

We build agreement where the politicians have ground competition.

We look for solutions where the politicians have ground oppression.

We don´t fight, we resist and protest creatively. Consent, participation, respect (to each other, to the animals, to the Earth…), dialogue… that is the methodology. We rise our hands and shout: Theese are our weapons.

And work hardly and patiently to reach agreement.

After thousands of years over the Earth, one system of production has appeared in the last period and managed to oppress more people and destroy more resources than ever It was perpetrated before over the world.

Beyond its plastic face, Capitalism has dragged ruin for the way of life of citizenry, and millions of persons not believed to regard citizenry, the immigrants, the subpersons who try to survey within the subdemocracy: no vote, no floor, no right, but slaves´ salaries for them and the large shame for all the rest of us with a piece of conscience.

Wellfare state is being mutilated and huge areas of the planet are condemned not to come to it, never ever.

Another system is possible, stop lying with your corporate media.

Spanish revolution is a revolution because people have changed. That is the first and the main step of a protest: the most important change that a revolution can make is the people transformation it sparks off.

We were angry at the beginning. Capitalism had been four centuries scattering reasons all over the paths we had to pass by and the walls we have to cross to get a job, to get a house, to get education, to get health care, to get political and social and cultural rights, effective rights, to get dignity.

Corruptions, privileges, policy makers being paid by enterprises to manage the economic rules, politicians acting as putty in corporations´ hands, TV entertainment instead of participation…Capitalism planted the reasons for the angry. But outrage is not the challenge. We are not working to remain angry.

The indignation we were feeling was identified long time ago. But who were “we”? Nobody knew. But we do now. We have revealed the “we” in Puerta del Sol May the 15^th, we have revealed our indignation is general, we are thousands and thousands, a booming process of collective conscience.

A new political subject has emerged. We are the first transformed. That is because this is a revolution.
We have rescued that word from the TV movies and the History and Art treatises. We are giving back that mean to the people, common people in our areas has taken the floor and expressed last Saturday (May the 28^th) what they want, what they feel, what they wish and they are about changing. Hundred of assemblies in Spain, women, men, mothers, grandfathers, students, faculties, workers, immigrants… real people living a real democracy beating in the core of their districts for the first time in their lives.

Indignation became illusion. And now, illusion is carrying us through organizing.

Angry plus illusion produce strengths. Strengths plus organization is fostering structural changes.

Yes, we camp. We have camped and we are carrying on.

Puerta del Sol camp is not going to fade away, is going to explote, setting up camping in the deep thinking of people. Nobody, no police, no govern could remove it from the brains of the new political subject that have burst onto the stage shouting Democracia real ya.

Remove the current electoral system, remove economic privileges the political class has allocated to itself, make the responsible companies of the crisis pay the crisis, stop the economic reforms dictated by international economic power and let our reason govern our world, not the capitalism´s ones. Claim, support and defend all this assemblyly, horizontaly, pacefully.

It is happening. And it is not a miracle. It is only that a lot of people have experienced his power.

We have had two general assemblies yesterday, May 29^th. The assembly of local assemblies in the morning and the common general one at night. More than five and four hours. The need and the plan and the dream of restructuring the Puerta del Sol camp. Restructuring the camp that is a front sight for so many people. We connected in live with companions in Athens, in Paris… We condemned and rejected the police acting against them.

Have you ever taken a decision with thousands of persons in a public square?  Have you ever lived the beating of that responsibility uphold collectively?

It is a hard work. To turn the angry into illusion, and the illusion into agreement for  action. A genuine and heavy hard work, but the only one that can give us back our dignity.

By Concha Mateos
PhD in Social Communication
Faculty at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid

Source: http://dailycensored.com/2011/05/30/spain-15m-from-angry-to-action-crossing-the-sun-door/

Egypt: Birth of the Libertarian Socialist Movement

(anarkismo.net) The Libertarian Socialist Movement was founded on 23 May 2011 in Cairo, at the heart of the Egyptian Revolution and in the midst of the revolutionary wave that is sweeping over the world today, from Tunisia through Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria and even reaching Spain, bringing back memories of the waves in 1848 and 1968. This revolutionary wave should also reach other countries.
The Movement has published a Manifesto and is currently preparing a more detailed statement of its basic principles. It aims to involve all those opponents of capitalism (private and State) and all opponents of bureaucracy and centralization, the suppression of individual liberties and those who are against the erosion of human rights, all supporters of self-management in the workplace and building cooperatives, all supporters of economic emancipation, administrative decentralization and direct democracy.

The Movement is organized into working groups whose members meet up and coordinate with the other groups, and is made up of elected delegates from these groups, who communicate through the use of modern means of communication in order to avoid the formation of organizational hierarchies.

As the Movement has no other source of financing for its activities other than the contributions of its members and the voluntary work they do, and as its activists are wage-slaves, none of whom are wealthy, and considering that they do not want their freedom limited by financial dependence, the Movement has decided to use internet as it is the cheapest way to communicate. It also intends to produce paper publications when possible. For the same reason, the movement is not in a position to buy premises and thus its activities are carried out within the various popular organizations such as trade unions, workplace and neighbourhood committees andcooperatives, and we ask our members who are present in all the popular protest movements to coordinate and communicate through internet.

We libertarian socialists struggle for a socialist society without classes, an anti-authoritarian society free of the repressive apparatus of the State and of Capital. We stand against the introduction of State capitalism, such as in the oppressive regimes that existed in “socialist” countries. We reject and oppose the capitalist system.

We believe that the working class is capable of leading a vast coalition arising from tenacious efforts to bring down the power of both capitalism and the repressive State.

Our immediate aims are:

1. Administrative decentralization without governors and mayors, managed by local neighbourhood and area councils, the right of popular control with elected, recallable delegates of local councils and citizens’ committees.

2. The conversion of all service companies and production plants into cooperatives self-managed by their members in a democratic, decentralized society with the aid of freedom and independence from the administrative State.

3. The cancellation of tax incentives given to investors and the application of progressive taxation in order to support the service cooperatives which will include sectors such as education, healthcare and so on.

4. Trade-union pluralism, freedom of association in factories and workplaces and the creation of unions for all State employees and military establishments in order to support the participation of all workers in the management of workplaces, self-management in the factories and companies that were privatized amid injustice and corruption during the Mubarak era.

5. The confiscation of all money of illicit origin and its distribution among the cooperatives.

6. A Constitution which guarantees all forms of human freedom, such as the freedom of religion, association and thought; the creation of a parliamentary republic, decentralized governance with permanent popular control by the local administrations and citizens’ committees who take the place of the Government and the Head of State; the right of delegates acting on popular mandates to propose laws and referendums.

7. The constitution of a socialist society, that does not depend on an act of liberal authority but rather on the will of the cooperatives without a central authority, so that a society without classes can be self-organized through popular committees and local committees, against the authority of a central, repressive State.

Libertarian Socialist Movement

E-mail: lsm.egypt at gmail at com

Source: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/19666

World’s carbon emissions hit record rise

Forecast: Spain’s protests to ‘go global’

(upi.com) KINGSTON, N.Y., May 27 (UPI) — Growing unrest in Spain will spread throughout Europe this summer and “go global” by winter, a U.S. trends forecaster said in an interview posted Friday.

“Young people have wised up. They know the score,” Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente told King World News. “Those are the people that are ahead of all of these revolutions.”

Inspired by the revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, tens of thousands of young Spaniards, expressing distress over 45 percent youth unemployment and severe government-imposed austerity measures, have taken over central squares in 60 cities — including Madrid’s busy Puerta del Sol — seeking to overhaul Spain’s socioeconomic and political systems, which they allege favor special interests, especially financial institutions.

Like the so-called Arab Spring, the growing Spanish movements are spread via social media networks and led in the streets by the young.

And “they’re not leaving the streets,” Celente told King World News, because “when you lose everything and have nothing left to lose, you lose it.”

“These revolutions are going to spread through the summer in Europe, and by the winter it’s going to go global,” he said.

A French youth-led group plans a large demonstration in Paris this weekend in solidarity with Spain’s protesters, known as “los indignados,” or “the outraged.” The French protest would follow Friday’s close of the Group of Eight summit of world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, in the French seaside resort town of Deauville.

Another Spanish-style uprising could emerge in neighboring Portugal next week, ahead of a June 5 snap election, The New York Times said.

Celente said Europe’s Internet-savvy youth are “getting everyone out to join them because they know now that if they don’t fight against the machine, the machine is going to grind them up.”

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/05/27/Forecast-Spains-protests-to-go-global/UPI-81871306528540/#ixzz1Nss656q6

100,000 ‘indignants’ march on Parliament in Athens

(roarmag.org)

While the international press looks the other way, unprecedented pro-democracy protests in Greece will be going into their 7th day tomorrow.

We keep repeating it, but it’s honestly unbelievable how little attention the international media are paying to something as huge as what’s happening in Spain and Greece right now.

Just yesterday, on the 5th day of a Spanish-style uprising, a record 100,000 Greeks marched on Parliament to protest against EU-IMF austerity measures and demand real democracy now.

The history of the last century is the history of oil…

(mit.edu/~thistle)  A People’s History of the United States – The history of the last century is the history of oil. Due in part to catastrophes like the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez on March 24th 1989 and the recent increase in reporting on Global Warming, by now most people are at least passively aware of the environmental dangers involved with the world’s dependency on oil. According to Project Underground, the California based industry watchdog, petroleum exploration currently threatens old growth frontier forests in 22 countries, coral reefs in 38 countries, and mangroves in 46 countries. Keep in mind that this is just what is being destroyed while these corporate giants look for future sites to exploit. Given the incredible danger this industry represents to humanity, one might ask what kind of people would continue to push the world into ever greater use of petroleum products while simultaneously thwarting efforts to develop alternatives such as renewable energy sources. Well would it be any surprise that they would be the same type of people that would actively collaborate with the Nazis and the Japanese fascists during the second world war, or the types of people who today would employ military death squads against peaceful protesters? This space is far to short to give even a superficial introduction to the history of back room deals with dictators, violence, murder, and genocide which is synonymous with the history of oil, but just to illustrate my point I will briefly discuss some of the lower points in the history of Standard Oil and its progeny.

The Standard Oil Trust was dissolved under court order in 1911 creating many smaller regional companies, including Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), Standard Oil of California (Chevron), Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio), Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco), Continental Oil (Conoco), and Atlantic Oil (ARCO). By 1941 Standard Oil of New Jersey was the largest oil company in the world, controlling 84 percent of the U.S. petroleum market. Its bank was Chase and its owners were the Rockefellers. J.D. Rockefeller had always argued that two things were essential to the oil industry’s survival: checking “ruinous competition” and “cooperation.” Given the success of his monopoly at making enormous profits for its investors while at the same time destroying any form of competition and keeping prices artificially high, it seems quite clear whose survival he was really talking about.

After the Rockefellers, the next largest stockholder in Standard Oil was I.G. Farben, the giant German chemical company. This investment was part of a pattern of reciprocal investments between the U.S. and Germany during the Nazi years. During the Great Depression, Germany was viewed as a hot area in which to invest.

A brief aside is required here to explain what type of company I.G. Farben actually was. At the time, it was the world’s largest chemical company and through the talents of its scientists and engineers, it secured the vital self-sufficiency that was to enable Germany to maneuver in the world of power politics. From its laboratories and factories flowed the strategic raw materials that Germany’s own territory could not supply, the synthetics of oil, gasoline, rubber, nitrates, and fibers. In addition, I.G. produced vaccines and drugs such as Salvarsan, aspirin, Atabrine, and Novocain, along with sulfa drugs, as well as poison gases and rocket fuels. The depth of I.G. Farben’s connection to Nazi policy was finally realized at Auschwitz, the extermination center where four million people were destroyed in accordance with Hitler’s “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. Drawn by the seemingly limitless supply of death camp labor, Farben built I.G. Auschwitz, a huge industrial complex designed to produce synthetic rubber and oil. This installation used as much electricity as the entire city of Berlin, and more than 25,000 camp inmates died during its construction. I.G. Farben eventually built its own concentration camp, known as Monowitz, which was closer to the site of the complex than Auschwitz was, in order to eliminate the need to march prisoners several miles to and from the plant every day.

This was the company enthusiastically embraced by Standard Oil as well as other major American corporations like Du Pont and General Motors. I do not, however, state that Standard Oil collaborated with the Nazis simply because I.G. Farben was its second largest shareholder. In fact, without the explicit help of Standard Oil, the Nazi air force would never have gotten off the ground in the first place. The planes that made up the Luftwaffe needed tetraethyl lead gasoline in order to fly. At the time, only Standard Oil, Du Pont, and General Motors had the ability to produce this vital substance. In 1938, Walter C. Teagle, then president of Standard Oil, helped Hermann Schmitz of I.G. Farben to acquire 500 tons of tetraethyl lead from Ethyl, a British Standard subsidiary. A year later, Schmitz returned to London and obtained an additional 15 million dollars worth of tetraethyl lead which was to be turned into aviation gasoline back in Germany.

After the war began in Europe, the English became angry about U.S. shipments of strategic materials to Nazi Germany. Standard Oil immediately changed the registration of their entire fleet to Panamanian to avoid British search or seizure. These ships continued to carry oil to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where they refueled and siphoned oil to German tankers for shipment to Hamburg.

Icelanders refuse to pay the bankers’ tab

(socialistworker.org) FOR THE second time in two years, the people of Iceland have voted in a referendum against the repayment of Icelandic banks’ supposed debt to Britain and the Netherlands.

In response, the British and Dutch governments are preparing to sue the Republic of Iceland for the sum of 4 billion euros in an effort to win back money lost by their own citizens in failed Icelandic banks during the financial crash of 2008. But having failed in the court of public opinion, Britain and the Netherlands now intend to move into a regular courtroom, where judgments and the will of the people share a less cozy relationship.

Iceland’s Social Democratic prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, has lamented the popular rejection of the government repayments, calling it the “worst option.” She predicts a stormy future for the nation’s economy.

Yet the debt itself is not rightly the people’s debt to repay. It’s the direct result of reckless practices by Icelandic banks, which offered tax breaks and other incentives to pull in huge investments from all over the world, but especially from Western Europe. But the Icelandic people know that all too well–which is why they’ve twice voted against covering the banks’ debts. Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2011/04/18/icelanders-refuse-to-pay

Anonymous: Operation Payback – Against Censorship and the PROTECT IP Bill

To fellow users of the Internet:

Greetings.

Anonymous has a grave announcement to make to all users of the World Wide Web.

The Internet you have come to take for granted has once again come under attack.

Several interest groups have been successfully lobbying to consolidate internet

censorship within the United States.  They are rallying for the right to remove any

websites they deem “inappropriate” and, ultimately, for the ability to remove any

content that disagrees with their profit margins, personal whims, or other agendas.

This new initiative is called the PROTECT IP Act:

http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-to-introduce-draconian-anti-piracy-censorship-bill-110511/

This bill would allow the US Government to force ISPs and search engines to

censor websites they do not like under the guise of “copyright protection”.

Instead of reducing piracy, this bill endangers the free flow of information.

Through domain seizures, ISP blockades, search engine censorship, and the

restriction of funding to websites accused of infringement, this bill promises to

take Internet censorship to the next level. Furthermore, it violates the citizens

‘ rights to due process, to free speech, to free expression and to legal

representation at their hearing.

The Internet is a place where anyone and everyone can come together freely

to share information and opinions. The freedom the Internet provides has

served as a global aid for tens of millions of people in places like Egypt, Tunisia

and Iran, to name a few. All of this has been accomplished largely without

interference from corporations, governments, or any other global institutions until now.

We must unite and stand up to those who wish to censor the Internet.

We must not allow them the freedom to moderate information and decide what we are

“permitted” to view.

We must protect what is rightfully ours.

We must protect the rights of the Internet.

You Are Anonymous

You are legion

You can not forgive this.

You can not forget this.

Expect eRevolution.

Read more: http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=983

Historic protest in Ras al-Amud, Jerusalem

For the first time in decades, Palestinians invite Jewish Israeli solidarity activists to Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood of Jerusalem referred to as “the daily intifadah”.

Rafah border opening brings hope to Gaza