God Save the Queen/Anarchy in the UK

 During the 25th  anniversary of the Queen the Sex Pistols rented a boat and went down the Thames full blast with No Future/God Save the Queen. The authorities, always in favour of free speech, had the cops attack the boat. Someone in the video shouts "They arrested Malcolm." Sure enough Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood were hauled away by the cops. Somehow the Pistols managed to escape.

It's hard to believe that ANARCHY IN THE UK  is 37 years old.  Still great to see and hear. This one song - in spite of its stereotypical view of anarchism - did more to open up anarchism to  the young than 50 years of pamphletting.

Red Lion Press, Anarchist Publisher

My publishing arm, RED LION PRESS now has a blog to keep people updated on publications as they appear. Go to http://redlionpress.wordpress.com/

Communal Councils in Venezuela

Now if the Kurds taking up  decentralized and direct democratic forms of governance, weren't good enough news, now the Venezuelans are moving in that direction after a number of years experimenting with neighborhood councils. See -

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57181

Murray Bookchin's Neo-anarchism and the Struggle of the Kurds

Something few of us knew about- the Kurdistan Workers Party – one of the major groups in Kurdish territory, dropped Marxist-Leninism and adopted the ideas of social ecology and confederalism. 

See http://roarmag.org/2014/08/pkk-kurdish-struggle-autonomy/

BRICS Bank and the US Corporate State

And you wondered why the US Corporate State and its European satraps are  attacking Russia?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/the-future-of-the-brics-development-bank/

Anarchism, Chile, Self-management, Argentina

 The following translations or summaries: 

Chile

Declaration of the Libertarian Left Before the Aug 21 Mobilization (*)

Chilean people are out in the street to push for real changes in education and for a new system of public education. The Libertarian Left supports the demands of the popular movements in the streets for free, public and quality education and for the social rights we struggle actively for.

The New Majority Government has lost its energy to realize the reforms that it promised during the presidential election. On the contrary it has given into the logic of the right-wing parties and is promoting merely cosmetic measures, not those that would transform the system of education. The New Majority is using its forces to coopt the student demands, subordinate the student movement and the social movements in order to create a "new accord" with the Right and the bosses...

This example (the struggle of students and workers for the reform. LG) demonstrates to us that the transforming reforms come solely from the organized student movement which has demonstrated a willingness to dialogue, to mobilize and as a consequence link with social demands...

We salute and greet the national mobilization of August 21 with the conviction that whatever reform will be institutionalized the main actor will be the social movement and it alone can respond against the interests of the elite.

For Liberty and Socialism,

Frente de Estudiantes Libertarios Chile

UMLEM

Oganizacion Communista Libertaria

Izquierda Libertaria

* Several hundred thousand students and workers demonstrated across Chile August 21 to push for genuine reform of the educational system, LG

http://fel-chile.org/

Anarchists in the Labour Movement

Sintec (Construction workers union with 8000 members) is led by Cristián Vivar, an anarchist, and is part of a general resurgence of anarchism within the Chilean trade union movement. They are also involved with the dockers, wood workers, retail and municipal workers as well as this year, the election of FEL member Melissa Sepulvada to the presidency of the Chilean Student Federation. The Asociación Chilena de Seguridad (ACHS) with 1200 members, presided over by another libertarian, Víctor Quijada who is also a director of the Unión Clasista de Trabajadores, a rival federation of the mainstream CUT.

According to Left Libertarian, Manu García, this development is not recent. "We worked quietly for some years. Not only the relation with FEL and the unions, but the presence of libertarian militants already in the unions."

http://www.lasegunda.com/Noticias/Nacional/
2014/08/955977/anarquistas-ganan-terreno
-en-sindicatos-e-incluso-asesoran-en-negociaciones 

Argentina

The Federation of Argentine Worker Cooperatives (Federación Argentina de Cooperativas de Trabajadores Autogestionados -FACTA- ) is formalizing its entry into the CTA. (Argentine Workers Confederation)

FACTA groups together 60 coops with about 2000 members. For the CTA this incorporation helps bolster class unity and adds a dimension distinct from that of the usual boss-worker relation. FACTA will be invitede to participate in the next Congress of CTA and will bring with it the demands specific to self-managed workers.

http://www.cta.org.ar/trabajadores-autogestionados-se.html 

Appeasement And All That

Every time the US Empire and its satraps decide to attack some country, they accuse the opponents of such aggression “appeasers.” That our corporate masters should have the gall to use this term is shocking. But this will take a little historical explanation. Had the French Army occupied the Rhine in 1934, Hitler would be a footnote in history. Contrary to the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazis sent troops into the region, but nothing was done. The French right-wing – at that time in power - appeased the Nazis. Much of the left remembering the union sacree of 1914 opposed any action. But Hitler was not Kaiser Bill. The pacifists were fighting against the last war. So 50,000,000 people ended up dying in the future war, a war that could have been stopped with few causalities in 1934, as the German Army was far weaker than the French at this time. After the Rhine occupation, Germany re-militarized – also in opposition to the Versailles Treaty. Then came their aggression in Spain, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the seizure of Austria. Again not a finger was lifted to stop the Nazi advance. Hitler became seen as “invincible” , not because of any genius for political machinations, but simply because he had this string of victories. And as we know, “nothing succeeds like success.” The reason for Hitler's victories lay in the fact that the European and American ruling classes wanted him to win. He was their golden boy to stop the spread of socialism. Even Churchill was a Johnny-come-lately anti-fascist and only opposed the Nazis when he realized that they might threaten the British Empire. Had Hitler's bluff been called early on, his “magic touch” would have vanished and the German ruling classes would have sought another political device. The defeat of Fascism in Spain would have been a big victory for the left, further radicalizing the populations of Britain and France, which is why the rulers were opposed. The French far-right and the Radical Socialists (Neither radical or socialist, but centre-right) supported the Falange and prevented French intervention in Spain. A stronger personality than President Leon Blum, might have supported the Spanish left anyway, but being the person he was, he did not, and a golden opportunity was missed. Most of the American rulers and political establishment of the 1930s – the same group pooping bricks over the New Deal – were soft on fascism. Many like Ford, Hurst, and the Duponts were out and out pro-Nazi. They were on the outs with the Roosevelt people and especially had to pull in their horns when the US got into WW2. The more radical New Dealers were forced out at the end of the war and the former Hitler-appeasers came swinging back in. The American ruling class – largely appeasers, remember, feared a post-war depression. Rather than opting for social democracy as in some European countries, they went for military Keynsianism – the permanent war economy. In order to do this they needed some booga-booga – a scary-puppet enemy to rationalize all this waste of tax payer money. Stalin was quickly substituted for their former pal Hitler and Communism replaced Nazism as the world-conquering totalitarian threat. As cruel as Stalin was, he was not Hitler Mark 2. Nor was Stalinist “communism” Nazism. Stalin was actually a very cautious and conservative dictator, far too intelligent and knowledgeable to have loony fantasies about conquering the world. All he wanted was to maintain his sphere of influence and to be surrounded by nations that were not hostile to the USSR. The last thing he wanted was revolutions or more wars. Successful revolutions in Western Europe would have threatened the Stalinist regime far more than neutral or even pro-US regimes. US wars of aggression in Korea and Vietnam as well as coups against democratic governments like Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954 were marketed like they were versions of D-Day. Those who appeased the Nazis – and every other type of fascism, before and after WW2, accused those who questioned the US war and subversion machine as “appeasers.” The liberals gobbled up this propaganda and became fanatical Cold Warriors. One more lost opportunity, after this string of lost opportunities; the Cold War might have been avoided, but thanks to the liberals it wasn't. Millions died as a result of their cowardice and trillions of dollars squandered on military expenditure. Enough wealth to end poverty world-wide. The liberals lack of clear thinking, their falling for cheap emotionalism (in spite of their endless bellowing about Reason) and their inability to distinguish between one historical situation and another was disgraceful. One expects as much from the pro-fascist appeaser wing of the ruling class, but not from those who fancy themselves as progressives. But they didn't want the old Nazi appeasers accusing them of appeasing “communism.” SORRY FOR LACK OF PARAGRAPHS BUT THIS FUNCTION IS NOW NOT WORKING, WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM PROGRAMS DESIGNED BY MORONS?