Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Two million public workers strike in Britain

Maybe just a symbolic one-day strike but also a clear indication of contained power: of a country that could be stopped overnight if these public workers could carry on their action till the government submits and concedes.

Not today anyhow, the unions have not planned to go so far: it is just to vent of workers' anger... but what if the anger has not been vented enough and is still building up?

More info at:





And the mainstream British media like the BBC and such? Sorry but I don't have a microscope to find where they hid this major news item: they are too worried about important stuff like the Iranian embassy crisis, the US Republican primaries or... yeah, this is what interests them the most: more London police to be qualified to fire rubber bullets at your face.


Update (Dec 1): several videos have been posted at Protestation.org:

Coordinated police evictions of 'Occupy' camps at Los Angeles and Philadelphia

Police raided the camps at Philadelphia and Los Angeles (USA). Strong police presence was reported in LA, I could not find info on Philadelphia.

Image galleries at Occupy LA: siege, eviction I, eviction 2.



I have no reports of police violence or arrests at the moment but there was at least peaceful resistance in LA.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Will fascist terrorist Breivik get away with the pretext of 'insanity'?

He does not hear voices, he can discern reality well enough to plant a bomb in the center of Oslo without being detected and to murder scores of defenseless Norwegian teenagers... but he is 'delusional' (i.e. he has the kind of pitiful megalomaniac thoughts that are shared by all fascists). 

According to BBC:

The two psychiatrists, in their report, concluded that he lived in his "own delusional universe where all his thoughts and acts are guided by his delusions".

So? Hitler also lived in his own delusional universe and was guided by his delusions of a superior race and what not? He would not have been spared the execution platoon if caught alive. 

What is truly delusional is to think that just because the guy is a fascist who lives in a fictitious universe of megalomaniac ethnocentric ideals, he is insane and can get away with mass murder. 

He obviously has way too many accomplices within the system. But meh, I guess I am also delusional for claiming that - do you think I'd get away with mass murder if I went on rampage at the stock market or even at a fascist convention? I don't think so.

I understand that the main reason why they want us to believe that he is insane is to hide the actual fascist network, intimately related with NATO's Gladio secret police network and the Zionist International, and to some extent distinct from classical Nazi networks. Let us recall that one of the main points of Breivik's manifesto is his "crusader" sympathy for Zionism and his focus on Islamophobia, a quite tolerated form of xenophobia, and hatred of what he calls cultural Marxism (i.e. all kind of secularism and liberal post-Christian ideas, never mind socialist ones), to what he opposes cultural conservatism (i.e. Judeo-Christian fundamentalism).

Police kills Chernobyl hero in social protest in Ukraine

Oddly enough this is not news for almost any mainstream media. You can't find it in BBC nor Al Jazeera and only public channel Euronews reports it (but no first page either).

Gennady Konoplyov, one of many former liquidators who had set a camp in Chernobyl city to protest against the suppression of their pensions imposed by the autocratic government of Viktor Yanukovich (back in place after the short lived 'orange revolution' liberal parenthesis), died in the way to hospital after police stormed the camp overnight.


The institutional murder has caused an escalation in the social protests that are also shattering the Eastern European country:

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Today, November 29th, is the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The Never Before Campaign is spreading this video for this occasion:


Window into Palestine clarified upon its beginnings that the Never Before Campaign has the following main points:
  • Never before has the an injustice been done to a people to this extent for this long, and the Palestinian people's and resistant and resilient like never before
  • No more apologetic attitude in the name of garnering sympathy - it is the world who has to apologize to the Palestinian people
  • Supporting the resistance, violent or not (regardless which faction), is an integral part of the campaign
  • The Palestinian cause is not a humanitarian issue, it about justice and rights
Free Palestine! End Apartheid Now!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Echoes from the Class War (Nov 27)

Haven't posted in days, not because nothing is happening of course but because I have little to say other than "go, Revolution, go!"

But this is what I have been reading and watching and more or less what is going on (but in many cases the media will not tell you):


Basque Country



The fascist opportunist intruders leave the Town Hall under huge police protection



For some dignified social services. No more cuts!!!






Sare Antifaxista: Fascist 'uncontrolled gang' attacks again the see of Etxerat in Vitoria-Gasteiz[es]. Etxerat is an association of relatives of prisoners working for their return to the Basque Country.




NDA - Court orders a second technical report to Basque Autonomous Police in the Iruña-Veleia affair upon request of the accusation in the trial for alleged falsification against archaeologist Eliseo-Gil and associates[es]. It seems to me that the first report confirmed the authenticity of the controversial findings but that the academic powers conspiring against the truth are so big that the judge is bowing to their demands of further tests.

Iberian script on one of the Veleia findings

Europe

Last nuclear train to Görleben:

(as Germany has decided to close all nuclear power plants)


Yeah, watch how the French gendarmes attack with extreme violence, so long for democracy, freedom and all that:






Other Germany:





Greece:




Iberia:




Italy:




Central-East Europe:






North Africa and West Asia

Egypt:











Morocco:



Tunisia:




Palestine:









Syria:




Arabia:




Turkey:


Iraq:




Afghanistan:

 

America

USA:





Occupy movement (USA):



(source: We Speak for Earth)


More versions at Jews sans frontieres








 
(source: ALAS!)
Occupy Oakland Calls for TOTAL WEST COAST PORT SHUTDOWN ON 12/12 | OccupyWallSt.org








Mexico:


Haiti:

BBC News - Haiti's president launches plans to restore army [the country had no army since last Baby Doc was ousted and has no external military threat other than the USA-France imperialist coalition].

Honduras:

LINYM: Human rights in Honduras: Operation Castaway in Banana Coast[es] [or how the USA sold weapons to mafias to disintegrate Honduran society]


Brazil:


Peru:


Chile:




Pan-American events:




South Asia

Pakistan:





India:






East Asia


Cambodia:


Japan nuclear catastrophe:




















Oceania 

Australia:


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The geography of indepentism vs. unionism in the Southern Basque country

This is a very simple approximation exercise to the geography of independentism vs. unionism in the Southern Basque Country:



Basque-secessionist camp: Amaiur, EAJ-PNV, Geroa Bai!
Spanish-unionist camp: PP, PSOE, UPN-PP.
All other options (mostly amounting to very little) were ignored.
Light grey are unincorporated communal lands.
Castilian enclaves that have repeatedly shown their wish to join the Basque Country are in dark green (they could not vote to Basque Nationalist options in this election). 

Notice please that the scope of the election clearly favors the Spanish-unionist camp, which is therefore shown at its maximum possible influence. 

As I was drawing the map I came to repent to have chosen a too simple almost binary representation. Because what in some cases is almost 100% adherence to one camp, in others is barely above 50% of the vote and knowing this is also of interest. Still the B&W map allows for a very simplified peek to this Basque identitarian and political dualism - always under circumstances (all-Spain general election) that clearly favor the unionist camp.

Egypt: government (but not military junta) resigns after scores killed by their repression

The Egyptian interim government has resigned after at least 33 people were killed by the police repression. The military junta that acts as interim President however, and the main target of the protesters' anger and mistrust remains in place.

The elections, planned for Monday 28th are in jeopardy. But could elections that almost everyone suspected as being rigged in advance (what was common under Mubarak) take place anyhow?

Videos:

What appears to be a police shooter hiding behind his colleagues after maybe killing people in the protesting crowd:



In the few seconds of this video, in the midst of police beatings, one person falls dead (he won't move again, police attempt to beat him but realize he's dead):



While BBC only mentions 20 mortal victims, better informed Uruknet and Al Jazeera claim 33 in their latest reviews.

The key issues in this confrontation are the democratic quality of the upcoming elections (much in doubt) and the role of the military in the largest Arab state, strategic gateway between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean and key support of Zionist Apartheid in neighboring Palestine till date.

Johannes Stern at WSWS wrote yesterday:

The junta is preparing massive violence to drown the Egyptian revolution in blood. In doing so, it has the full backing of Washington, the main sponsor of the Egyptian military. On November 15, the head of the US Central Command, Gen. James N. Mattis, was in Cairo for talks with Tantawi and Sami Anan, the chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Mattis reportedly praised SCAF and discussed ways to bolster US-Egyptian military ties.

The US views the military as the backbone of the Egyptian bourgeois state, defending capitalist rule and the interests of Western imperialism in the Middle East. Ever since the mass uprising that led to the ouster of Mubarak on February 11, the Obama administration has worked closely with SCAF to try to end strikes and protests by Egyptian workers demanding social equality and democratic rights. It has sought at all costs to prevent a second revolution.

This fear of an independent movement of the Egyptian working class is shared by the entire Egyptian ruling elite. After the fall of Mubarak, all official and semi-official political forces—be they Islamist, liberal or petty-bourgeois “left”—lent support to the military junta and claimed that Mubarak’s generals would organize a “democratic transition.”

It is notable that both the petty-bourgeois and the Islamists (fascist) forces are collaborating with the regime in the repression and internal suppression of Working Class struggles. But the Egyptian People seem to eventually be smarter than these manipulators.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Election review for the Southern Basque Country and Spain

Yesterday there were general elections in the artificial and rather stinky Kingdom of Spain and, as you may already know, the right wing People's Party (PP) won by landslide. What you may not know is that it only got a handful of votes more than they had in last elections, when they lost. It has been in fact the massive runaway of votes from the ruling Socialist Worker Spanish Party (PSOE) which allowed the victory of right.

Elections or not, what mattered in Tolosa were their top quality alubs
In the Southern Basque Country, unlike in Spain proper, no big surprises in relation to the last elections, just a bit more of "Spanish flavor", probably because of the scope of the polls (which motivates more the unionist camp than the independentist one).



Basque electoral results

In the Southern Basque Country the vote was quite divided among the four larger political blocs, each obtaining above 320,000 but under 340,000 votes (21-23% of issued votes). Still the separatist forces lead the count overall, even if less strongly than in the previous provincial elections, getting also more seats in the Spanish Parliament.

Amaiur celebrated an expected good result
While the votes gathered by the Basque nationalists have been similar as in the elections of May, the Spanish nationalist parties have been able to attract a number of otherwise idle voters, that in the local and provincial elections remained at home.

The overall distribution of the vote in the Southern Basque Country is as follows [in square brackets and green color: May 2011 results, provided for comparison]:
  • People's Party-Union of the Navarrese People* (PP-UPN): 336,455 (22.27%) [253,920]
  • Amaiur: 333,628 (22.08%) [345,264 <<Bildu+Aralar]
  • Socialist Worker Spanish Party (PSOE): 326,999 (21.65%) [227,739]
  • Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV): 323,517 (21.42%)  [327,011]
  • United Left (IU): 61,852 (4.10%) [49,608]
  • Yes to the Future! (Geroa Bai!)**: 42,411(2.81%) [36,262 <<NaBai]
  • Other and blank votes: 85,800 (5.8%)
*PP and UPN run separately in the provincial and municipal elections of May but signed an electoral pact again for the state elections, overall they represent the same Spanish nationalist right-wing neo-Carlist option, just that UPN sells it as "Navarrese regionalism" (a strange anti-Basque kind of "regionalism"). Here they are counted as a single electoral option, same for other even more trivial organizational differences between Western Basque Country and Navarre (PSOE, IU).

**Geroa Bai! , of exclusively Navarrese scope, is the heir of Nafarroa Bai! (Yes to Navarre!, NaBai). This one was initially formed (while the main bloc of the Basque Nationalist Left was proclaimed illegal by the Spanish tribunals) as a coalition of all Basque Nationalist forces: Aralar (the largest), Eusko Alkartasuna (2nd largest), independents and EAJ-PNV (residual then in Navarre).

It was generally expected that the votes of NaBai would go mostly to Amaiur, as Aralar joined the joint left-wing project, but it has not been that way at all. In fact GeBai was the big surprise of yesterday's election in what affects Basques by taking the fifth seat of Navarre, which I had already mentioned that would be disputed by Amaiur and PP-UPN. Well, that was counting with the votes of NaBai going to Amaiur at least in part and that was the big surprise yesterday. Eventually, at the very last of the count, it became known that it was Geroa Bai! and not UPN-PP which took that disputed seat by a narrow margin of some 200 votes.

It has been claimed that this success of GeBai is largely product of the charisma of list head, Uxue Barkos (pictured), former TV news anchor made a unifying icon of the Basque Nationalists in Navarre and then almost a martyr because of her struggle with cancer. She was the independent (and independentist) voice of Navarre in Madrid for the last many years and it is likely that Navarrese voters have taken that into account.

However from the bigger picture a question remains. This coalition victory in Navarre was actually the only thing that EAJ-PNV leader Xabier Urkullu had to celebrate yesterday night. Being the only organized party that remains member of the Navarrese coalition, I and many others wonder if and how much GeBai! will serve as grapple for the Aranist party to return to Navarre, region that they forfeited in the 1980s for the proverbial lentil soup (the position of Mayor of Bilbao), causing a major breakup that formed the more left-leaning and more strongly independentist Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque Solidarity), now integrated in Amaiur.

Certainly that's what Urkullu probably hopes.


Basque seats in the Spanish Congress (lower house)

Main data source: Gara.




Spain: PSOE lost 4.3 million votes, PP gained 500 thousand

Yes, these are the strange figures that you won't probably find in most media, focused on supporting the ailing single-twin-party system. In detail at the level of all the strange Kingdom of Spain (based on RTVE) [in red and square brackets results from 2008]:
  • People's Party (PP, right) - 10,799,034 [10,278,010]
  • Socialist Worker Spanish Party (PSOE, center-left?) - 6,955,423 [11,289,335]
  • United Left-The Greens (IU-LV, left)  - 1,676,857 [969,946]
  • Union for Progress and Democracy (UPD, populist maverick) - 1,137,397 [306,079]
  • Convergence and Union (CiU, Catalan nationalist, right) - 1,011,505 [779,425]
  • Amaiur (Basque Nationalist, left) - 333,628 [not comparable because of political persecution]
  • EAJ-PNV (Basque Nationalist, right) - 323,517 [306,128]
  • Esquerra (Catalan Nationalist, left) - 256,393 [298,139]
  • EQUO (Green left) - 215,776 [did not exist]
  • Galician Nationalist Bloc (Galician Nationalist, left) - 183,279 [212.543]
  • Canarian Coalition (Canarian regionalist, right) - 143.550 [174.629]
  • Compromise Coalition (Compromís, Valencian ample spectrum left, incl. greens and nationalists) - 125,150 [did not exist as such coalition]
  • Anti-Bullfighting Party Against Animal Abuse (PACMA, animal liberation) - 101,000
  • Asturias Citizen Forum (right, individual maverick) - 99,173
  • Blank Seats (would not have occupied their seats) - 97.706
IU grows but could have done much better
There are many more lesser lists but among them only one got a seat, Geroa Bai! in Navarre (see above). Of the above all but EQUO, PACMA and Blank Seats got at least one seat. 

Abstention (28.31%) was two points higher than in 2008 and null votes doubled (1.29%).

It must be noted that the Spanish electoral system is markedly designed to favor the parties that are most important in rural ill-populated provinces. It is a quasi-feudal electoral system in fact. Each province (no matter it has zero personality as is often the case) gets two seats just because (making 100 out of 350, not counting African enclaves Ceuta and Melilla) and the remaining is apportioned also among provinces. So most such provinces have 3-5 seats, which are invariably split between the two largest parties, thanks to the D'Hont system. Only a few urban provinces break this rule but they are not enough to change things, typically, the near-empty provinces of Castile and Aragon have the greatest importance on who wins general elections, at least if they have some support in some more populated areas like Madrid or Andalusia. 

Tercera Información offers an spreadsheet with the hypothetical "fair" results if the elections would have been held in a single all-Spain circumscription with proportional system. If so the PP would be short of an absolute majority by some 18 seats, having obtained only 158 deputies, the PSOE would be even worse than it is already with just 102 seats, while all-Spain alternative options like United Left or UPyD would be much better (25 and 17 seats respectively) and many small options that have been left out (notably Equo and their Valencian allies of Compromís) would have got representation. 

However such a single circumscription system would be even more unfair for the oppressed nationalities such as Basques and Catalans, which would lose some representation that way. In any case it is a useful comparison.

In any case there is one phenomenon happening here: the PP almost did not get any extra votes (so it is a Pyrrhic victory), while the PSOE lost 4.3 million supports, one third of all 2008 voters. Why? Quite obviously because they were applying IMF+EU policies and bailing out the banks while cutting social services, allowing debt slavery and doing absolutely nothing to solve an extremely severe unemployment problem. This is exactly what the new conservative government will do with even more determination (they had no program but it's obvious). 

Where did those four million plus votes go to? An array of left-wing parties split much of it. United Left (the natural option) took some but not so many (700,000). Equo, led by  former Greenpeace activist Juantxo López de Uralde (pictured), undoubtedly got another small share (300,000 possibly, counting Compromís) and some 600,000 went to abstention maybe.

But a worrisome 800,000 such votes seem to have gone to the party of the infamous populist maverick Rosa Díez, UPyD, which has the support of some far right parties. Rosa Díez is a former Basque PSOE militant, who became regional councilor under a coalition government and who later left the PSOE to form her own viscerally anti-Basque populist platform. The party is firmly under the grip of Díez (what caused many to exit it) and counts with the support of infamous cross-dressing right-wing pseudo-intellectuals such as Mario Vargas Llosa and Fernando Savater. It got 5 seats, 4 in Madrid and 1 in Valencia.

In any case this election, rather than a right wing victory, has been a total defeat of the violin rule of the quite pathetic PSOE, supported by the ballots of the sociological left but clearly under control of the bourgeois globalist right.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Nov 20: remembering the fallen revolutionaries

November 20 seems a wicked day at least in the context of the Iberian peninsula. For the fascists is the day when their leaders died but the antifascists have lost even more people in such a dark day.

One of those antifascist heroes fallen in Nov. 20 was Buenaventura Durruti, the militant anarchist leader who organized the column that attempted to liberate Zaragoza and that way save the Basque Country and his own homeland of Asturias from falling to the fascists. As they marched all was collectivized and grassroots democratic institutions were implemented in every village.

Narration less video-homage to Durruti:


On that same day but in 1984, physician Santiago Brouard, neighbor of my grandparents (both branches), was murdered at his office, which was part of his home, by state terrorists who pretended to be patients. 

Five years later on that same day, elect Basque deputy Josu Muguruza was murdered in Madrid by a fascist aggressor who effectively blocked their attempt to take part in the Spanish Parliament (until now if everything goes alright). 

Brouard (L) and Muguruza (R)
A homage was held today for both in Deustu cemetery[eu].

Other antifascists fallen in this day were, as I recalled last year, Spaniards Julián Acero and Aureliano Hernández, as well as Basques Ramón Andueza and Rufino González Barrigón.

Hopefully their fight was worth something. For what they were we are, for what we are they will be

Brutal police repression in Egypt and California

One Two killed and hundreds injured in worst violence in Egypt since Mubarak ousting

At least one citizen was killed and some 700 others injured in Egypt as police attacked the demonstrators, who demand an end to the military junta, whom they do not trust at all about upcoming elections or human and civil rights, being just some sort of "Mubarak regime light".

The police murder took place in Alexandria, where protests had coalesced around the police headquarters.


Other clashes took place in Cairo after police violently attacked a small peace camp in Tahrir square. Witnesses declared that "Police are telling us they are carrying out orders to beat us until we leave".

The police attack triggered an immediate response by the citizenry,  resulting in lengthy clashes. Police eventually managed to take Tahrir Square itself, six hours later, but the clashes had already spread to all the city and other parts of the country.

Source: Al Jazeera.

Update on Egypt (Nov 20 morning): The number of deaths has risen to two and many people have been shot rubber bullets to the eyes (so they can lose an eye very easily).  More info at Al Jazeera, BBC (photo gallery).

Another video of Tahrir clashes at PO.

Update on Egypt (Nov 20 evening): Clashes continue, with impressive intensity. The People and the uniformed minions of the Junta have gained and lost several times each control of the emblematic plaza. The stand of the Junta is one of extreme intransigence, it's like the last days of Mubarak would be reenacted... but for real. See Al Jazeera and their live blog.

The electoral coalition The Revolution Continues (which gathers the Social Democratic Party, Free Egypt and Revolution Youths) has suspended the electoral campaign and called to go to Tahrir instead (Gara[es]).



Police pepper-spray nonviolent students in California so brutally that many are seriously injured

Pepper sprays may be a less lethal weapon but they can kill as well. And certainly they can cause severe injuries. Many of these UC Davis students were hospitalized. One was coughing blood hours after being sprayed by ruthless and mindless police thugs at a nonviolent protest. 

Moment of the police aggression (browse online for longer videos that show more context):



A detailed account can be found in this open letter by staff demanding the resignation of the campus' chancellor Linda Katehi, who called the police and initially backed their violence unconditionally.

Update on UC Davis (Nov 20 morning): Katehi refuses to resign and is trying to dodge her responsibility by means of an "investigation". There's nothing to investigate: the videos are there for all to see.

More videos of the attack at PO and NC (with discussion).

Update on UC Davis (Nov 20 afternoon):  A huge student protest shamed chancellor Katehi. The demo was apparently spontaneous as it was known that she was holding a press conference. For two hours she hid from view, then she walked out in the middle of a deafening silence. From American Leftist:


More or less everybody expects her to resign at any moment after that.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Anniversary of the beginnings of Spanish-Socialist anti-Basque terror in 1933

It would eventually continue with the GAL but it really began as early as 1933, just after the Second Spanish Republic was born. The self-proclaimed socialist and worker but also (and mainly) Spanish party sent armed thugs to kill Hermenegildo Alvariño in Barakaldo a day like today, November 19th, some 78 years ago. 

His crime? To be a Basque Socialist instead of a Spanish whatever (no matter that his roots were in Galicia), to be a member of Basque Nationalist Action (EAE-ANV), the precursor of the modern Basque Nationalist Left.

Like tomorrow, there were elections to the Spanish Parliament that very day. 


Source: Sare Antifaxsita[es].

Friday, November 18, 2011

Goldman Sachs taking over Europe

That is something that I have been chewing on since I wrote this entry two days ago. Now such an unexpected help as a columnist of The Independent, S. Foley, cries the same truth with even more data: Goldman is not just taking over Italy, Greece and the BCE but nearly all EU states.


Technocrats my ass! They all belong to a tiny political clique of right-wing powermongers, no wonder that they appointed a Nazi as minister in Greece: for them all is the same unless they are true socialists, communists or anarchists, challenging their sense of entitlement over the World and our lives. 

Even before the upheaval in Italy, there was no sign of Goldman Sachs living down its nickname as "the Vampire Squid", and now that its tentacles reach to the top of the eurozone, sceptical voices are raising questions over its influence.

 It may be too late.

Simon Johnson, the former International Monetary Fund economist, in his book 13 Bankers, argued that Goldman Sachs and the other large banks had become so close to government in the run-up to the financial crisis that the US was effectively an oligarchy.

But Europe is not too different. We just have been blind until recently, hoping that somehow the evilness of the various oligarchs canceled each other. Maybe but now they all serve the same dark master: Goldman Sachs. No competition anymore, no markets anymore but in name, just concentrated property in a single vortex of boundless greed and megalomania.

But who owns Goldman Sachs? Because behind such a corporate facade there's always one or a handful of key people who own the key votes and key councilor seats and who ultimately appoint the executive decision makers. 

Incidentally a shallow answer can be found with relative ease: the main stockholder is FMR (Fidelity Investments), owning slightly more than 7 million shares. 

Fidelity and other four finance corporations own really all what matters in North America, Europe, Japan and probably most of the rest of the planet. But as far as I know they are middle-men, hiding the tracks of the investors they serve to. 

Who are they? Or who is he/her? Maybe there's a single masterful monopoly player who has managed to accumulate all the key stock in his/her hands but we all are oblivious to his/her identity. This is the answer I (and you) want to know? Where is Anonymous and Wikileaks when you really need them?

In the meantime I blame personally Edward Johnson III for all what happens in Europe.  This is him, don't let his smile deceive you: