Common Cause Anarchist Group Formed in Ontario

On September 29th in Toronto a new Ontario anarchist-communist organization, Common Cause, held our founding conference. Preparation for this founding conference had taken place over several months culminating in a speaking tour of six Ontario cities under the title 'Building a Popular Anarchism'. --- The conference agreed a basic policy document (below), a constitution, a structure for the specific conditions of Northern Ontario, affiliation with Anarkismo.net and a basic publication plan both online in terms of a website and a free printed newspaper which will be distributed in large numbers. The name 'Common Cause' was selected for the new organization and individual officers were elected to fill various administrative tasks.

In advance of the founding conference a statement of intent had been circulated which included "Our intention is not to build yet another small group of a dozen or so people but to begin the process of building an organization of thousands that will have a presence in every town, workplace and neighborhood across the province."

By the time of the founding conference we were still a long way from this eventual goal but dozens of people in ten Ontario cities have become involved with developing Locals in Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Sudbury, Windsor and Kitchener-Waterloo as well as other members around Ontario. It is our hope this will greatly expand in the days, months and years to come. We hope you will unite and struggle with us to build a world free from exploitation, oppression, ignorance and war.

To continue story go to http://www.ainfos.ca/en/ainfos19943.html

INDIGENOUS ANARCHISM IN BOLIVIA

An Interview with Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui by Andalusia Knoll:

AK. Could you talk about some of the things that you have uncovered in your research about anarchism in Bolivia as related to the struggles of the Aymara and Quecha people?

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: We started as an Aymara collective that basically wanted to uncover the Aymara and Quechua struggles and we discovered that there were many links with urban Aymara communities that had organizations linked both to the indigenous communities and to the union movement, which in the 20’s was basically anarchist. What happened in Bolivia is that there have been two official histories: the official history written by the [Revolutionary] Nationalist Party—MNR—that basically denies all the agency of both workers and peasants and indigenous peoples; and the official history of the left that forgets about anything that was not Marxist, thus eclipsing or distorting the autonomous history of anarchist unions,

It's the links between the anarchists and the indigenous people that gave them another nuance, because their communities are self-sustained entities and they basically are places where anti-authoritarian type of organization can take roots. They don’t need this leadership that is like permanent leadership. The communities have leaders, but as a rotational thing that is a service to the community. It’s kind of a burden to be a leader for a community, you know? It’s something you do once in a lifetime and you do because you ought to do, and that the community says its your turn or the turn of your family. So, that creates a totally different relationship with power structures and, in a way, it decolonizes power and to a certain extent gives it back to the people.

That is what fascinated us most about the communities and, on the other hand, it led us to discover that communities were not only rural but also urban and worked with [1920s anarchist] Luis Cusicanqui and other anarchist leaders because they had such an affinity between the way they saw struggle, autonomy, domination, and oppression.

Continued at http://www.ainfos.ca/en/ainfos19906.html

I AM NOT A CROOK!

Álvaro Uribe , President of Colombia seems to be trying to emulate Tricky Dick at the time of Watergate. It has long been known that the Colombian right-wing is composed of death squad-organizing narcotrafficantes and the progressive movements believe that Uribe is one of them. Nor is this limited to “the left”, for the Defense Intelligence Agency, also feels the same way. To make things worse, Pablo Escobar's mistress has come out with a book detailing Uribe (and Uribe's father's) deep involvement in the “illegal” drug trade. The Prez denies all vociferously and talks of lawsuits. The New York Times has an article on this

See here.

For background information on the paramilitary-narcotrafficante right-wing see

http://www.narconews.com/Issue47/article2807.html

We should not be surprised in the least if Uribe is involved, for the War on Drugs is a scam. The people who benefit most from the drug trade are not the gangsters but the people at the top; the politicians and financial interests.

See this blog, July 19, 2005 THE SYSTEM IS A SCAM PART 1, The Illegal Drugs Fraud http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_archive.html