National & International News

European meetings ecosocialism held in late January in Geneva, involving tens of European organizations and South America. Libertarian alternative was invited there with other carriers anticapitalist movements and ecological alternative. ---- The Swiss group Ecosocialist party SolidaritéS was initiated meetings that took place from January 24 to 26 in Geneva, in line with its eco-socialist program [ 1 ], ie a revolution in the system of production, consumption, transport, and a cultural revolution of the biosphere. ---- In the image of this group, the core participants and participants consisted of anti-capitalist parties and environmentalists around the Fourth International, and are in a process of synthesis between Marxist thought and current ecology "social" Izquierda Anticapitalista, NPA, etc. anticapitalist Left. They invited movements, unions and ...

Angel Bosqued is the Secretary for International Relations of the Central Iberian anarcho-syndicalist, the ConfederaciÃn General del Trabajo (CGT [ 2 ]). Holding her Confederal Congress in October 2013 was an opportunity to take stock of what is, by far, the organization claiming the most significant international libertarian ideals. ---- Libertarian Alternative: What is the development of the CGT? ---- Angel Bosqued: Since 1989, the CGT is progressing slowly but steadily, not only in membership but also territorial and sectoral offices. We have over 60,000 affiliated es stable and flying about 10,000 who contribute very unevenly due to the economic context. Metallurgy and transport is the backbone of the CGT, but we know a clear development in the areas of public administration and health and maintain our presence in the banking sector. In ...

#19: Anarchists In Revolt, From Bosnia to Peru – Our discussion of communism will have to wait… because post-socialist Bosnia is erupting in rebellion! In this episode, we share two interviews with anarchists from the Balkans reflecting on the current uprisings, along with recent updates and a Bosnian hip hop artist’s protest anthem. An Ex-Worker travels to Lima, Peru and sends back a report on a recent anarchist book and propaganda fair, including a group shout-out from a workshop about the podcast, live interviews and musical recordings. Listeners critique our treatment of market anarchism, an eco-defense prisoner explains police tactics, and news on state repression, prisoner strikes, and anti-extraction struggles round out our exploration of resistance to authority around the globe.

We’ll be back in two weeks with the episode we promised on what communists and socialists do (or don’t) have in common with anarchists. Until then, you can download this and all of our previous episodes online. You can also subscribe in iTunes here or just add the feed URL to your podcast player of choice. Rate us on iTunes and let us know what you think, or send us an email to podcast@crimethinc.com. You can also call us 24 hours a day at 202–59-NOWRK, that is, 202–596–6975.

We are elated to announce that in just a couple short weeks we’ll be shipping out Rolling Thunder #11 to subscribers—we received the unbound, printed samples last week (pictured above) and they were absolutely perfect. Issue #11 begins what we consider to be the second series of Rolling Thunder and we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the small improvements we’ve made.

Rolling Thunder subscribers: If you have moved, now is the time to send us your new address, if you haven’t already; shoot an email to rtsubs@crimethinc.com with your new address and we’ll take care of it. Also, if you are a subscriber and didn’t get our new issue notification email two weeks ago, it means either your email service marked it as spam, or the email address we have on record for you is no longer valid—if the later is the case, drop us a line and lets us know your preferred contact email. Our most sincere thanks for subscribing, it’s what makes Rolling Thunder possible.

If you are NOT a Rolling Thunder subscriber: Now is a great time to subscribe—you’ll be sent the new issue the second it’s available (and weeks before it’s available to non-subscribers), and it’ll save you a ton of money (see below) compared to buying the issues one at a time. Subscriptions are essential to Rolling Thunder’s continued survival; if you believe Rolling Thunder to be a project worth supporting, please subscribe.

Subscription Cost Per Issue vs. Single Issue Cost:

• In the US, to order a single issue costs $11.37 ($8 + $3.37 Media Mail Shipping), versus subscribing which costs just $25 total for four issues ($6.25 per issue).
• Outside the US, to order a single issue costs $32 ($8 + $24 Global Priority Mail), versus subscribing which costs just $35 total for four issues ($8.75 per issue).

The February 21th, we wrote a summary of events for those who are on the outside, oversaturated with information about Venezuela, we needed a chronology of events. It has just 4 days of this story, but there are many new elements that an update is necessary to suggest, that any picture of the Venezuelan reality will change in the next few hours. ---- The first element that stands out is that the manifestations of government critics have continued to the time of this writing, and doesn't seems to stop in the coming days. Venezuelan culture was characterized by the effort to promote short-term results, no permanence in time, so that the sum of each new day of protest politics, contradict itself this immediacy of "doing" in the country. That is why President Maduro uses as one of its strategies encourage its rapid wear, increasing two more days to holiday carnival that ...

Chronicles of alienated labor by Aline Torterat, Occupational physician Damien, foreman construction[1] ---- I started working very young in public works. The action, the outdoors, a certain autonomy. I liked and I still love it. Then, by chance, I found myself specialize in the field of sealing. Quality is the main and it requires a good professional control issue. In addition, the sites do not abound, therefore no risk of unemployment. I spent over 15 years in the same company. This is where I learned everything. I was appreciated for my skills and my strength. It's true, I can say that I have never been sick. I am a great athlete. I am strong for my 40 years. ---- Then one of my best colleagues embarked putting himself on his own. Starting his business well, he took me with him. Normal, we were friends, and we knew we had common values. ...

Abuse, neglect, people over 90 years' trademarks emergency "for non-payment by the family. That daily in Establishments for hosting frail elderly (nursing homes), modern name of nursing homes or homes for the aged. ---- Nursing homes are largely properties of the private sector itself in the hands of often very large groups (DomusVi, Dolca / Vendome Orpea Korian, Emera ...) and sometimes very wealthy CEO. Is that old, it can pay big dividends: the "white gold". ---- When we get information for a home there is no shortage of luxury brochures touting the quality of reception. But quality comes at a price: on average from 2 500 to 3 000 euros per month. Some institutions may reach 5,000 euros or more. Obviously these are not all retirees are who can afford it! And conditions of support (people often dependent) are not always up .... ...

Two weeks ago, Nosotros los Pobres had the good fortune to host a presentation by two members of the Federacion de Estudiantes Libertarias of Chile, with whom we had a very productive exchange of ideas. Soon after that, I saw a statement published by the FEL, commenting on the situation in Venezuela, in which they expressed sympathy for the “Venezuelan people” in their resistance against a coup d’etat. As a member of Nosotros los Pobres, I wanted to share some thoughts about Venezuela and what’s going on there, both now and for the last 15 years, and I hope they will be useful for especifista comrades as well as for concerned and informed people generally. ---- The first observation, in response to the assertions of my Chilean comrades, is that there isn’t going to be a coup de etat en Venezuela. ...

1) Are the protests in Venezuela led by opposition parties on the right? ---- No. The current wave of protests began in the city of San CristÃbal (Tachira) on Feb. 4 when students denouncing security issues on the university campus were met with repression and several were jailed. The consequent protests focused on liberating the detained students, spread to other cities and were also met with repression, intensifying student unrest. It was in this context that a faction of the opposition launched a proposal for street demonstrations dubbed ÂLa Salida to demand President MaduroÂs resignation, while another faction opposed the idea of street demonstrations focused on this larger, single demand. Despite the arrest of the conservative politician Leopoldo LÃpez, the widespread protests all over the country have overwhelmed and Âsurpassed on the left the opposition political ...

Among the promises of Holland, one of which was to set up a receipt for identity check. But like other, since it has been stored. A group mobilizes to stop the unfair practices of the state. ---- With the promise of the receipt of identity checks, the idea was that the police officer that controls a person to produce an official document indicating the date, time and reason for the check, the name of the officer and ethnicity and / or nationality of the person being checked. A few weeks after the presidential election, Ayrault announced the imminent introduction of the famous receipt. ---- Unfulfilled promise ---- But in September of the same year Valls bury the proposal, claiming placement too complicated, cumbersome administrative procedures and the risk of seeing fake receipts. Sure, from this perspective, the project appears to be impossible to implement. ...

The Israeli media is nearly obsessed with the escalation of the B.D.S. as if they know things they do not disclose. Both supporters and rejectors of the end of the occupation start to regard it as immanent and not in the far future. A section of the Israeli capitalist elite which is suffering from the boycott and fear its escalation start to organize to accelerate the end of occupation. 100 of them traveled for the Dabus conference and official organization was established. On the ground, it seems that the efforts of the Israeli state forces escalate their repression of on going struggles and make more efforts to transfer villagers from strategic locations. Bil'in will celebrate the ninth anniversary of the ongoing struggle on the 28th of February. ...

Horizontalism is an emerging term used to describe the key common characteristics of the waves of rebellion of the last decade. Occupy in 2011 was the peak to date but the term Horizontalism itself appears to originate the rebellion in Argentina after the 2001 banking crisis there. Marina Sitrin in her book on that rebellion says the term (in Spanish obviously) was used to describe the neighborhood, workplace & unemployed assemblies that emerged to form "social movements seeking self-management, autonomy and direct democracy." ---- Horizontalism is a practice rather than a theory, which is to say in the various writings that use the term it has been described in practice rather than theorised as an ideal. It's easiest to see the practice in the context of the assembly-based movements that have come and gone since the rebellion in Argentina. ...

Mobilization against the airport project is now entering a new phase. ---- On the ground, with the active occupation of the ZAD and cultivation of land seized, with 200 local committees throughout the hexagon, it has never been as strong and organized. however we will not cut the showdown, even if it is difficult to predict when, where and how ... ---- After the failures of social struggles in recent years, block this airport and win this battle forty years (and we will win!) project would help turn the tide, to restore confidence in collective action to unlock a whole situation, opening up opportunities to rebuild balance of power against capitalism, austerity and the euro-employment blackmail, to promote other social and territorial struggles and prevent criminalization ... ...

Jean-Marc Ayrault announced in November a tax revolution. Already promised by candidate Hollande, the reform is bound to be emptied of all content to please the powerful. ---- In an interview with newspaper Les Echos , November 18, Jean-Marc Ayrault said: "The time is ripe for an overhaul, seamlessly, our tax system." This announcement, however, risk of spritz. As Le Parisien wrote on 13 December, "Jean-Marc Ayrault (...) saw his big bang tax reduced to a trickle by the Head of State." What remains to the agenda? "Side households Elysee evokes tax loopholes and a possible broadening of the base of the CSG (general social contribution) based on income. And business side, a possible overhaul of the corporate tax, a cleaning scrub 150 levies on businesses, or the headache of financing reform Medicare." ...

Friday, February 14, two young children were stabbed in the Saint-Jean district of Lyon by right-wing activists, requiring hospitalization and surgery. A neighborhood that want to take over the fascists and location including local "Traboule the" identity. ---- For several years, due to the extreme right physical attacks continue to grow throughout the country: Killing Clement Meric last June in Paris, attack gun in Clermont- Ferrand January 17, attacks bars and associative areas, attacks Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic . ---- Everything seems allowed the extreme right. We are entering a phase of struggle against the revival of racist, reactionary and fascist. Complacency of the political and judicial caste is lamentable. ...

Prosecution against the four Parisian antifascists who appeared correctional February 3 have all been abandoned. ---- On 13 and 14 September 2013 was on a weekend mobilization Paris (evening Support Action-fascist Paris Suburbs (Afa), defending abortion at Tenon Hospital, vigilance against a possible mobilization of the extreme right support Esteban Morillo, alleged murderer of Clement Meric ...). ---- In the late afternoon on Saturday, 14, 8 have been arrested comrades (including members of the Afa, AL, CNT Toulouse, antifa of the stadium). ---- Four of them were released after 48 hours in custody. The other four had their prolonged detention. They were held over 20 hours of the filing of the courthouse of the Ile de la Cité. These are called to appear before the Criminal Court of Paris. They are accused of degradation and violence committed in meeting without disabilities. ...

As the relatives of those murdered and injured on Bloody Sunday gathered this week to launch this year's commemorative events, anarchists in the city echoed their call by encouraging everyone interested in standing up for human rights and social justice to support the annual 'march for justice' which will take place on Sunday 2nd February. ---- This year marks the 42nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday which unfolded on the streets of Derry back in January 30th 1972. In order to teach an unruly population a lesson in power and control, the State ordered an elite commando unit of the Parachute Regiment into Derry's Bogside, fresh from a similar venture on the streets of West Belfast's Ballymurphy, in an attempt to prevent a peaceful anti-internment march from reaching the city centre. ...

1939, fifteen years before the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, the Ku Klux Klan was at its peak in the southern United States. Lynchings, suffered by the Afro-American community, are commonplace since the principle of segregation "separate but equal". It is in this context that Billie Holiday sang for the first time in New York Strange Fruit. This strange fruit evokes the body of a Black who was hanged from a tree, South swaying in the wind, the twisted mouth, feeding the crows. This song is written and composed by Abel Meeropol, a schoolteacher from the Bronx, a member of the CPUSA (Communist Party of the United States of America). The latter remained horrified by seeing the photo of two men lynched and wrote Strange Fruit drawing poems The Ballad of the Hanged Villon and Le Verger King Louis Théodore de Banville, later set to music by Brassens. ...

Civil war began in Ukraine yesterday. A less than peaceful demonstration clashed with state defense forces and divisions formed by the adherents of the current government near the Vekhovna Rada (Parliament). On February 18, police, together with the paramilitaries, arranged a bloodbath in the governmental quarters during which numerous demonstrators were killed. Butchers from the special divisions finished off arrestees. Deputies of the ruling Party of Regions and their bourgeois lackeys from the “Communist” Party of Ukraine fled from the Parliament through an underground tunnel. The vote for constitutional amendments, intended to limit presidential power, did not take place after all. After their defeat in the governmental quarters, demonstrators retreated to the Maidan. At 6 P.M., the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Internal Security Bureau (SBU) declared an ultimatum to the ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina Teach EU a Lesson in Democracy: âPeople know what they want!â ---- Pictures and links to video at: http://revolution-news.com/bosnia-and-herzegovina-teach-eu-a-lesson-in-democracy-people-know-what-they-want/ ---- People in Sarajevo, BiH, wait in rain for hours to be able to have their voices heard at the plenum, which asked for the cantonal government of Sarajevo to step down. ---- Amid calm euphoria, increased state repression, and mass-media lies, people in Bosnia and Herzegovina move from street protests to plenums, or public assemblies. Plenums are about taking back the power: political parties are banned from participating. ---- Meanwhile, the state of BiH has bought 10,000 rubber bullets to use against the next uprising (one in 90 shot by rubber bullets is killed and 17 are mutilated). ...