To share, an article by María Galindo reflecting on the coronavirus pandemic from the “Ass of the World”. (lavaca.org 23/06/2020)
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Further news and reflection on mutual aid, from the CrimethInc. Collective (26/06/2020), the first in a promised series covering mutual aid initiatives across the globe …
Finding the Thread that Binds Us: Three Mutual Aid Networks in New York City
Fundamental social change involves two intertwined processes. On the one hand, it means shutting down the mechanisms that impose disparities in power and access to resources; on the other hand, it involves creating infrastructures that distribute resources and power according to a different logic, weaving a new social fabric. While the movement for police abolition that burst into the public consciousness a month ago in Minneapolis has set new precedents for resistance, the mutual aid networks that have expanded around the world since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic point the way to a new model for social relations. The following report profiles three groups that coordinate mutual aid efforts in New York City—Woodbine, Take Back the Bronx, and Milk Crate Gardens—exploring their motivations and aspirations as well as the resources and forms of care they circulate.
This is the first installment in a series exploring mutual aid projects across the globe.
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From the Correspondent, an article by Zoe Smith comparing mutual aid initiatives in Argentina and the experience in the United States. A further contribution to thinking through mutual aid and anarchist politics …
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Every time a neighbor delivers loaves of homemade bread to each house in their block, each time someone provides a ride to a medical appointment, a toy to a child, or a grocery run, we learn who we can count on and why. Each time we get together and build a food distro, a community porch singalong, or an online gaming night, we learn both that we can organize ourselves non-hierarchically and that we care enough to do so. These actions teach us new ways of being—ways that capitalism and a capitalist health system systematically hide. In the immortal words of the Industrial Workers of the World, it is building a new world in the shell of the old.
Nathan Jun and Mark Lance
While the politics of States before the COVID-19 pandemic varies between surveillance and confinement, isolation and marginalisation, rationed medical attention and letting die, in the gaps and cracks of State-centred control, mutual aid initiatives and groups continue to play an essential role in seeing people and communities through the crises.
It is our conviction that evaluations and criticisms of the politics of mutual aid activity must remain close to the ground and avoid facile ideological dismissals or justifications. And it is also our contention that it is through such activity, among others, that anarchism becomes more than an idea, that it becomes something lived.
We share below an essay by Nathan Jun and Mark Lance that takes up this issue directly (and published with the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal – 17/06/2020).
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An interview with Franco “Bifo” Berardi, published in el Periódico (21/06/2020)…
One of the more well known philosophers of our day has not asked for additional time to reflect on the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic – he has signed articles and given ‘streamed’ talks, like the one organized by the Palau Macaya of the Fundació La Caixa – is the Franco “Bifo” Berardi (Bologna, 1949), a rebel formed in the events of May ’68 and who has long warned that we live inside the “corpse of capitalism” and do not realise it. (Lobosuelto! 22/06/2020)
Was this the way out of the “corpse”? A pandemic?
Yes. It has come from a biological dimension, has circulated through the media orbit and has inserted itself into the psychic sphere, changing the perspective. But getting outside of the ‘corpse’ is not enough.
Is there cleaning to do?
It is time to invent ways of surviving that privilege the useful over the accumulation of (abstract) monetary value. I think that we are leaving the time when expansion was possible and desirable for a part of society, and we are entering the age of extinction.
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From the CrimethInc. Collective (22/06/2020)…
Police and COVID-19: Two of a Kind: Why One Nurse Risked Her Life to Fight the Virus and the Police
We stand in solidarity with Farida C., a 50-year-old nurse at the hospital Paul-Brousse de Villejuif, who contracted COVID-19 in the course of her efforts to treat patients during the pandemic and now faces charges as a consequence of using projectiles to defend demonstrators from police attacks in Paris last week. Both of these activities demonstrate tremendous courage and self-sacrifice. Fighting the COVID-19 virus and fighting police violence are two aspects of the same program.
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Ongoing reflections on the anti-racist and anti-capitalist rebellion in the united states, by Peter Gelderloos (It’s going down 18/06/2020) …
As the rebellion that has rocked the US and spread internationally approaches a full month, the counterinsurgency strategy being used to pacify it has become well defined. Police repression and vigilante violence from the outside, and rumors of agent provocateurs to divide the movement from the inside. But another method of internalized, soft counterinsurgency has also been omnipresent: the use of liberal identity politics to spread the idea that fighting back against a racist society is in itself racist. This practice was already well developed by the time of the Michael Brown rebellions in 2014, making use of white allies to put all their power and privilege behind the ostensible leaders of oppressed communities. Though leadership in any community, and for any larger group, tends to be a complicated question, self-identified allies tend to support the leaders appointed and legitimized by the media, leaders who hold positions of power within some of the institutions that help make up this white supremacist society.
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From It’s going down (18/06/2020) …
While the recent rebellion against the police and white supremacy has been historical, it has also been coupled by an attempt by the State to drown the uprising in a sea of tear-gas and rubber bullets. While demonstrations and actions continue, the State is now gearing up for a more long-term strategy of repression, as a vast network of FBI agents, attorneys, and local police comb through hours of footage and social media, looking for targets.
Already, over 10,000 people have been arrested across the so-called US and around 75 currently have federal charges; many of which carry extensive prison sentences. Moreover, there are reports of FBI door-knocks and visits to those that have recently been arrested. Often times people are being asked if they are involved in “antifa” while some are even propositioned with becoming informants.
As the Pentagon readies for the rebellions to come, its important for us to begin to map out and prepare a strategy of long-term movement defense of all rebels swept up during the uprising. Reaching out to our legal correspondent, we sat down to discuss just what is happening and what we can expect.
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From the CrimethInc. Collective (17/06/2020) …
Snapshots from the Uprising: Accounts from Three Weeks of Countrywide Revolt
In the following analysis, we review the series of movements that led to the uprising in response to the murder of George Floyd, explore the factors that made the uprising so powerful, discuss the threats facing it, and conclude with a series of accounts from participants in Minneapolis, New York City, Richmond, Grand Rapids, Austin, Seattle, and elsewhere around the country.
Throughout this article, we have only used photographs that are already widely available online, in order to avoid inadvertently providing sensitive information to the police.
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John Holloway: Cascade of angers; a post-pandemic fantasy
From Roarmag (27/06/2020), an essay by John Holloway …
We do not have the knee of a murderous policeman on our neck, but we, too, cannot breathe. We cannot breathe because capitalism is killing us.
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