Italy: popular trashing of the police station in Livorno

Class war's heat levels are rising in Europe these days quite frantically and this incident is just a symptom.

Hundreds of left-wing activists took over the police station of Livorno (Tuscany) yesterday night in reaction to police aggressions the day before against demonstrators.

The popular assault on this stronghold of the bourgeois armed power used a diverse array of tools: smokebombs, bengals, bottles, bricks and walls were all used to break into the headquarters.

Video 1 (demo, confrontation and beginning of the assault):

Video 2 (the assault continues, different angle):

And this is what triggered it all (low quality video):

... which, ironically, was a protest against police violence. It seems that police, the pseudo-left of the PD (ex-communists recycled into liberals) and their technocratic government of Mario Monti are crossing all red lines.

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es].

Nepal: Maoist grassroots hold torch marches against liquidation of the People's Army

The headquarters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) have decided to dissolve the People's Liberation Army, which was in cantonments since the peace agreements two years ago, that allowed the Maoists to run for elections and eventually take over the government in coalition (but not whole power, which is still largely in the Army, an essentially counter-revolutionary force).

This has led to protests as a ample sectors of the militancy oppose this liquidation, which they consider premature and suicidal for the revolutionary movement.

Video from Revolution in South Asia:

There's also an article by Peter Tobin discussing the matter.

External article: NYC General Assembly: 'Declaration of the Occupation of New York City'

This could well be the manifesto of the growing movement of plaza occupations through the USA, which, as we know, is not anything isolated or exceptional but rather a culmination of a very hot year, which in turn is a culmination of all what is behind... in Tunisia, in Egypt, in segregated Palestine, in Syria, in Greece, in Spain, in Chile, in Honduras and in many other places... and now also in the USA.

Even if, as with all external articles, the headline link leads you to the source (NYC General Assembly), because of its importance and exceptionally I will reproduce it here in full extension:

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Hundreds of unions and popular organizations join forces in Mexico

777 delegates from more than 200 worker unions, peasant and social organizations gathered this weekend in Mexico City and agreed to form a unified front of struggle in order to agglutinate the popular discontent that there is in the North American country against the illegitimate government and the economic model that so much trouble is causing.

Among the organizations presents there were the telephone operators' union, the UNAM (Mexico's public university) workers' union (STUNAM), the electricians' union (SME), several sections of the education workers' union (CNTE), the miners' union, the National Liberation Movement (MLN) and the National Movement for the Unity of the Left.

Some other 81 peasant and civilian organizations also signed the final declaration. Among them the movement against La Parrota dam, the National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations and the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca.

The leader of the Tram Workers' Alliance, Benito Bahena, declared that the popular organizations are not going to sit and wait if whoever comes in 2012 (date of the next presidential elections) has democratic intent or an alternative plan for the country but that they are going themselves to propose a national plan. Fighting against the oligarchy, change in the economic model and a sense of urgency (as pillars of the social state, such as public schooling, are being dismantled right now) are among the focuses that several leaders emphasized in their declarations.

They have agreed to build the Popular Power oriented towards a new Constituent Assembly, to get organized at state and federal district level, and to meet again in February 5.

I understand from the text that the new organization is named Social Congress (Congreso Social in Spanish).

And I understand from the level of the organizations involved and the kind of discourse that this is a very serious movement that is finally taking form in the country of Zapata and Villa, the country where Trotsky and so many exiles from fascism found refuge, the country from where Fidel and Che embarked to make the revolution in Cuba. 

As I have argued before, Mexico is in a pre-revolutionary situation, where the system is so deeply rotten, so extremely failed that the only alternative is to shake its foundations radically and to build anew. The people of Mexico for all I know really deserves much better than what they are getting.

I welcome the concept of building the revolutionary movement, not from above, from some intellectual bubble of self-proclaimed avant-guard, but from below, from the real organizations that are articulating Mexican society and giving battle to the oligarchies.

It looks like a movement that we will hear a lot from, a movement that can well change Mexico for the better and make an impact in American and even global politics.

Con esperanza, un saludo solidario desde este otro lado del charco, compañeros y compañeras. (With hope, a solidarious salute from this other side of the puddle, comrades).

Source: MLN, originally found at La Haine.

See also: category Mexico at my old blog Leherensuge.