Renee Nicole Good’s State murder by US Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE), and its slanderous cover up, show what they would really like to do to if they could get away with it. In fact, what they would do in any case if push came to shove.
In Minneapolis, the city of the George Floyd’s police murder in 2020 during Trumps first presidency, in the resistance to the assault on migrant workers, push has again become shove.
According to the Guardian newspaper (04/01/26), ICE is responsible for 32 deaths in custody in the last year. Another dozen also estimated being killed since they were sent to occupy the heartlands of what Trump perceives his opposition.
These primarily being the liberal opposition centres of democrat held governorships and mayoralties such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and of course in Minneapolis.
ICE, uniformed, masked, without numbers or other ID resemble Putin’s ‘little green men’ from the occupation of Crimea. They silently occupy, block, snatch and bring fear.
This is their job, yet these goons of the state have the nerve to claim they were being ‘stalked’ by legal witness Renee Good whilst on intimidation duty.
She had just witnessed them repeatedly pulling to the ground and spraying pepper spray into the faces of a peaceful picket of residents and neighbours protesting the occupation.
4 armed masked men allege ‘fear for their lives’ as they surrounded Renee’s car stuck in the ice before shooting unarmed 37-year-old mother of 3 at point blank range.
Collapsing at the wheel, her car is seen sliding forward and crashing into another a few yards away as stunned onlookers try to intervene. Despite ICE agents dragging her out into the snow, their cars prevented access for ambulances for a further 15 minutes.
Renee Good is accused of ‘domestic terrorism’ ostensibly for blocking the road in her attempts to monitor ICE brutality, though in reality for inconveniently dying in plain sight.
Her murder coincides with the closure of a city school after ICE goons went in using force and chemical sprays to disperse high school students at the end of the school day according to local news outlet MPS News.
A school official is quoted as saying: “They don’t care. They’re just animals…I’ve never seen people behave like this.” The state has both motive and capacity to be violent anywhere, everywhere all at once.
This is less a sign of the times than the times themselves as capitalism unravels in a social decomposition as a result of austerity and its relentless drive to generalised war for profit.
Peace and War are increasingly indistinguishable as the latter offers annihilation, while the former is a bloody occupation driving us towards it.
Resistance to the occupation is growing at this time of writing. All resistance to the state and capitalism at war or peace is more urgent now than ever before.
While imperialisms circus distracts our attention with its smoke and mirrors towards a potential attack on Iran to take advantage of the mass protests and resistance against it’s regime, it initiates a new front in its global war against our class by launching strikes in Venezuela, South America.
The fate of the dictator Maduro is of little interest to us, though the slaughter of our class, conscripted again to defend one faction’s oil interests against anothers is a dramatic increase in the threat of our annihilation.
With Iran, and now quite possibly Cuba which is dependent on Venezuelan oil in the sights of the US, all of strategic interest to China, the fault lines of global capitalist rivalry are now aflame in South America as well as Africa, Europe,the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia.
Our role as revolutionary internationalists must be to denounce each side of serving its respective capitalist state or factional masters and call for an escalation of the Class War at home to hinder the warfare state. We support for all those resisting the drive to generalised war! Solidarity with resistors, deserters and those actively sabotaging the front lines.
No return to capitalist peace. just a repressive pause and austerity assault preparing for the next bloody conflict!
For resistance and escalation on all fronts. Class War against imperialist war! Working class resistance and solidarity against capitalist and state brutality!
The Network of Anarchist Internationalists, January 3th, 2026
A statement in support of Solidarity Collectives and ABC-Belarus has been published on the internet, signed by a number of groups and individuals. https://www.solidaritycollectives.org/en/on-silencingvoices-from-eastern-europe-at-anarchist-events-in-eu/ We are publishing our response, which is not, however, a dialogue with these open and covert supporters of militarism. We simply want to share our analysis publicly and strengthen the connection between people with an anti-militarist and revolutionary defeatist perspective.
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The statement to which we are responding was written by supporters of the war, who reproduce a binary narrative for this purpose: empathetic and supportive Eastern European anarchists versus arrogant and unsupportive anarchists from Western Europe. This narrative is false and manipulative. Those who share this narrative refuse to acknowledge that criticism of pro-war projects such as Solidarity Collectives and ABC (Belarus) also exists within the anarchist milieu in Eastern Europe. The signatories of the statement ignore this anti-militarist tendency in their narrative or lie when they claim that these are Putinists or pro-Russian propagandists. They repeatedly claim that the “Eastern European voice” is overlooked in Western Europe, while they themselves overlook anti-militarist and anti-war voices from Eastern European regions. It should be added that these overlooked voices also come from a relatively large number of people directly from the war zone. By this we mean not only anarchist collectives, but also other working-class people who refuse to support the war efforts of “their” and neighboring states. Let’s look at how many people have deserted from the Russian and Ukrainian armies and how many people in both countries are avoiding mobilization(1). Hundreds of thousands of people are ignored by this “radical left” that tells us it represents the voices of Eastern Europe and fights against the arrogance of the West. Their binary narrative is hypocritical. The contradiction is not between anarchists from the West and those from the East. There is only a contradiction between the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary tendencies, which exist in all regions.
We quote from their statement:“They are writing various kinds of “statements” condemning work in support of Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion.”
We respond: We do not condemn resistance to the Russian invasion. We are not even opposed to armed struggle, as long as it does not replicate militaristic logic and is directed against states and their armies. However, we reject the strategy of conventional warfare and militaristic forms of struggle. From an anarchist perspective, resistance to the aggressive policies of one state (e.g., Russia) should not be a practical service in the defense of another state (e.g., Ukraine). We support autonomous resistance against Putinism and Russian imperialism, but also against the Zelensky regime and EU/NATO imperialism. This is anarchist resistance against war.
We quote from their statement:“We believe in the need for dialogue on controversial issues.”
We respond: They have long presented themselves as “experts in monologue”, but suddenly they pretend to be interested in dialogue. This is not at all convincing. People who deliberately avoid face-to-face dialogue, slander anarchists(2), engage in dangerous doxxing(3), and are verbally and physically aggressive(4) are collaborating on these projects. Some signatories also pressure other groups to prevent anti-militarists from attending anarchist events(5) or directly participate in sabotaging anti-militarist activities(6). We believe that the call for dialogue is a manipulative political calculation in this context. They want to gain spaces in which they will receive money and resources for soldiers. We believe that they do not want to listen to criticism from their opponents and discuss controversial issues. Anarchists have repeatedly expressed critical analysis of their militaristic and pro-war tendencies in the past. There has been no self-reflection or acknowledgment of mistakes. So why insist on dialogue with them? It cannot be a constructive process.
We quote from their statement:“We do not consider the work of the “Solidarity Collectives” and “ABC-Belarus” to be in any way pro-war or supportive of state militarism.”
We respond: Both of these groups provide propaganda, financial, and material support to the soldiers of the Ukrainian army, which is at war with Russia. Why do the signatories of this statement refuse to acknowledge that the Ukrainian army and its soldiers are the embodiment of state militarism? There is no structure more militaristic than a state army. Why do these people refuse to acknowledge that they are defending a pro-war position when they support soldiers of the state army involved in the war? Is it insincerity, political manipulation, or do they fail to understand the basic context? They claim to be against militarism, but when soldiers desert the Ukrainian army or men in Ukraine are forcibly mobilized, they do not show practical solidarity with these people. They object to Russia’s militarism, but the militarism of Ukraine/NATO/EU is their main ally. We refuse to cooperate with them because they advocate cooperation with Western imperialism in its war against Russian imperialism. However, we also do not cooperate with those who cooperate with Russian imperialism, because this is not a constructive strategy that the working class could effectively use against American and European imperialism. We reject all one-sided anti-imperialism. We fight against all imperialist states and blocs.
The list of names and titles under the declaration is very long, but that does not mean it is significant. Socially revolutionary groups do not evaluate the quality of practice by quantitative measures. The number of signatures under a manipulative and deceitful statement does not make it a valuable document. Not even the biggest sum of socially reactionary and pro-war groups can never give rise to revolutionary anarchist practice.
The list of signatories to the aforementioned statement includes quite a few liars, manipulators, aggressors, collaborators with the far right(7), as well as dangerous doxxers and nationalists(8). Groups such as Solidarity Collectives and ABC – Belarus discredit themselves by publicly declaring that they maintain contact with these controversial individuals. If they express concern that anarchists do not want to cooperate with them, this is actually a positive sign. While left-wing supporters of militarism are losing support, the revolutionary anarchist tendency is gaining the necessary energy.
– Some anarchists from Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans
Nepal, Morocco, Madagascar, Indonesia, Peru… In recent months and weeks, massive demonstrations, riots, and even regime changes have taken place in various countries around the world, breathing new life into our most fervent hopes!
In Indonesia, growing outrage over the privileges enjoyed by the elite against a backdrop of austerity reached a tipping point when, on August 28, police killed a young man during a protest in Jakarta and then, on August 31, when videos showing parliamentarians dancing after receiving an indecent housing allowance were made public. In the weeks that followed, riots swept across the country, led by the slogan “Indonesia Gelap, Revolusi Dimulai” (“Indonesia is dark, we are starting the revolution”). Regional parliaments were set on fire and ministers’ residences were looted. The terrible repression, which mobilized the police and army, and led to dozens of deaths and disappearances, has achieved its goal of intimidation since… The movement was also unique in that its symbol was the flag of One Piece, a manga about pirates and their thirst for freedom, a symbol that was later taken up in Nepal, Madagascar, and Peru.
In Nepal, the movement, which initially denounced nepotism and the privileges of the ruling caste, was destructive. On September 9, after weeks of clashes in Kathmandu that left more than 70 people dead, protesters stormed the Parliament and the residences of several members of the government, including the Prime Minister’s one, and burned them to the ground! Because you never stop when you’re on a roll, the headquarters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist, the ruling party), the CPN (the Maoist opposition, which called on protesters to remain peaceful), and the Nepali Congress were vandalized by rioters, and the Kailali district prison was attacked and set on fire, allowing all prisoners to regain their freedom!
In Morocco, it was the death of eight women after giving birth by Caesarean section in Agadir due to the lack of resources in the Moroccan health sector that sparked the unrest. From the very first days of the protests, the authorities cracked down by arresting or beating up massively the protesters, but the rebels continued to pour into the streets.
Recently, the GenZ 212 collective, one of the movement’s faces, announced that the protests did not challenge the foundations of the royal authority, that they must remain peaceful, and that calls for action would be temporarily suspended following King Mohammed VI’s promises of reform (even though, at the same time, the justice system was handing down sentences of several years in prison to many protesters).
We won’t fall into that trap! The young Moroccans who took to the streets, set them ablaze, destroyed police stations, were shot while trying to storm police stations to seize weapons and ammunition, and injured more than 300 police officers were anything but peaceful and certainly did not have improving public services in mind!
In Madagascar, the demonstrations and calls for strikes began as a result of exasperation caused by water and electricity cuts imposed on the population and they spread to a widespread challenge to the ruling power, while the island is experiencing massive poverty. The authorities reacted as they know so well how to do: tear gas, beatings up, live ammunition… In the days that followed, despite the deaths and the curfew, the movement intensified and massive looting broke out: supermarkets, shops, banks, hotels… everything was targeted, despite calls for calm from democrats!
In Peru, it is also a widespread system of corruption among those in power and new pension reforms that are being denounced, mainly by students. In Lima, demonstrations punctuated by violent clashes with the police, Molotov cocktails, and attempts to storm the Congress have been repeated in recent weeks. On October 10, President Dina Boluarte was removed from office, which is “only one step” according to many of the rebels.
While the explicit demands of these movements refer to social justice, the fight against corruption, or against the mismanagement of public services, we can only see in all these protests a widespread challenging of the living conditions imposed on the exploited of this world. Everywhere, what is being attacked is the State and its bureaucracy, as well as the political class (even those who historically claim to be “revolutionary”, such as the Stalinist substitutes of the various Communist Parties, as in Nepal). What is being attacked is the bourgeoisie that is getting rich on the backs of the exploited. What is being attacked is the misery caused by pitiful wages or forced unemployment, the restrictions and lack of resources, the cops who protect the exploiters with batons and guns, the lack of future prospects in this shitty world.
We can also detect an anti-political force that partly underlies these demonstrations. In several of these movements, as in Nepal, it was the world of politicians in general, of all political persuasions, that was attacked for a time. It was the widespread enrichment of all the bourgeois and leaders that was called into question, as evidenced by the attacks on Parliament and the homes of parliamentarians. However, we can see that the siren calls of democracy and their endless promises of reform, appeasement, and judicial repression of former decision-makers are, unfortunately, still working just as well as ever. In Nepal, a new Prime Minister was chosen on Discord (which had been a decisive tool in the movement) after the fall of the government; in Morocco, the reforms promised by the king put the movement on hold; in Indonesia, the movement has ended while waiting for the promised changes; in Madagascar, a technocrat has been appointed Prime Minister; and in Peru, the opposition has taken advantage of the situation to remove the president from office, surely waiting to take her place and rule in turn…
Capitalism and the State, like snakes that shed their skin but never die, know how to constantly reinvent themselves in order to recuperate the most fervent hopes and integrate them. We must at all costs ask ourselves why and how democracy so easily co-opt revolts that are so offensive in material terms and can restore another authority that will change nothing.
Incidentally, it is surprising that in France, there is more interest in careerist deputies on show in the media than in people who attack their own deputies.
From Indonesia and Nepal to everywhere else, long live the revolt against the old world!
Although part of a long wave of mass urban mobilizations spanning years, the wild series of uprisings in Indonesia today began on the 25th of August, when students and workers led demonstrations against proposed additional housing allowances for parliament members, raising their salaries 10 times higher than the national minimum wage of the Indonesian working class. Parliamentary allowances are only the latest in Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s ferocious attacks on the working class, aided by creeping militarization and guided by the diktat of neoliberal austerity: cutting spending worth trillions of rupiah on education, welfare, and public health. Since Thursday of August 28th, with the murder of Affan Kurniawan, a 21-year-old rideshare motorbike driver—run over by an armored military vehicle commandeered by Jakarta police to crush the uprising—we have only seen the acceleration of spreading protests throughout the islands, and the escalation of violence and anger amid the protesters, with a number of politicians’ assets looted and burned to the ground—including, according to Perhimpunan Merdeka (Freedom Association), about half-a-dozen regional offices of the House of Representatives.
On the ground, several of the groups and individuals involved have been among the anarchists and communists, insurrectionaries notwithstanding, organized and otherwise. Demands have been made by various groups, featuring in particular two: Perhimpunan Merderka’s (PM; Freedom Association) demand to abolish the unitary government in favor of direct democracy through “People’s Councils”, and Perhimpunan Sosialis Revolusioner’s (PSR; Revolutionary Socialist Association) call for the workers to take the fight to the factories and workplaces to form and coordinate strike committees and worker’s councils.
In light of recent reports of discouragement, deescalation, and a generalizing urge to retreat, Marxist Forum calls on our anarchist and communist Indonesian comrades to push for a maximalist program within the assemblies and coordinating councils. This entails the organization of self-defense militias—for every worker, a rifle; rearrangement of production away from the capitalists and towards social appropriation, sustaining the rebellions and keeping the workers from going back to work; coordinating with workers of key industries to halt production and operations such as in ports and airfreight, shutting down the national economy; seizing the telecommunication and data centers to facilitate continuous in-flow of information within and with-out of the country, and;
Above all, to RESIST ANY AND ALL ATTEMPTS AT NEGOTIATION. Hijack the union leaderships, expel the middlemen and negotiators of labor, stand against the peace-makers who wish to restore the reproduction of the status quo, resist by any means necessary the cooptation of the rebellions for vested political interests by groups who wish to delimit the Indonesian proletariat’s class anger and make a turn towards liberal pacifism and passivity. The responsibility of the most conscious and organized elements of the rebellions, without taking ownership of the movement and fighting the tendency to lag behind the proletariat in rebellion, is to push the class to advance wherever it lags. The anarchists and communists should not be afraid to go past the proletariat, wherever it is reluctant to advance, and make the class conscious of where it is going and what needs to be done to get there!
The class, while still acting as a class, is now in the political arena. To generalize the rebellions into a full insurrection, it is ever-necessary to imbue the sites of struggle with a clear communising direction and go past the economic and political, to directly and immediately appropriate the social. Comrades, the Indonesian proletariat is on the brink of something potentially bigger than all of us. To take the next step, the class must be compelled to intervene into history directly and begin the conscious communisation of Indonesian society.
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY; THERE CAN BE NO COMPROMISE.
We are not criminals. We are people. Men and women who refused to become casualties of the war of two regimes. We refuse to be held hostage by political contracts and military plans. The Ukrainian government is currently preparing Law No. 13673, which criminalises everyone who has escaped the mobilisation. Anyone who refuses to return to the trenches faces a risk of imprisonment, deportation, and a forceful conscription into the army.
This law entails:
• mass criminalisation of deserters and conscientious objectors,
• automatic placement into registers,
• collaboration of secret services and courts,
• threat of extradition back to Ukraine.
• This is not a defence of freedom – it is its end.
Ukrainian deserters and conscientious objectors of military service need our solidarity. Their struggle is also our fight for:
• a right to live,
• a right to not be sent to a battlefront,
• a right to refuse the state and its war.
Therefore, we urge you:
📢 Let’s flood Ukrainian embassies and consulates with protest letters, petitions, emails, phone calls, and faxes. (See the sample of protest letter at the bottom of the article)
📢 Let’s organise public solidarity events in front of Ukrainian embassies and during the visits of Ukrainian politicians in your country.
📢 Download the posters and flyers and hand them out to your Ukrainian colleagues and neighbours – let them know that they should not return to Ukraine and that we approve of their decision not to fight. (The PDF poster is available to download at the bottom of the article, or you can get it by contacting us)
📢 Express your support to Ukrainian men and their families who have left their country so that they would avoid mobilisation and recruitment into war (In Czechia, the estimate is about 150 000 men, in Slovakia it is about 50 000. In the entire EU it concerns approximately 750-800 000 people!)
📢 Translate the appeal into other languages and organise a similar campaign in your country. Keep us informed!
📢 Let’s stand on the side of those who say NO to militarism and war.
Each day of silence is a step further to deserters being deprived of their future. But together we can be the voice that cannot be silenced.
Glory to the deserters! Glory to conscientious objectors!
Send a letter and/or email to Ukrainian embassies and consulates in your country. Use both options to increase the pressure.
Subject: A protest against criminalisation of Ukrainian conscientious objectors and deserters
Dear Ambassador,
We are addressing you on behalf of the citizens of [your country] who disapprove of the war and who stand on the side of human dignity. It is with great concern that we observe the Ukrainian government preparing and promoting repressive measures in the form of Law No. 13673, directed against those who refused to be drawn into war. The draft of such laws criminalising conscientious objectors of military service and deserters is an attack on basic human rights.
We reject the idea of sacrificing human lives in an endless war conflict. The people who decided to leave Ukraine in order not to kill or die are not criminals. They are the people who had the courage to say NO to the war.
We ask you to convey our concerns and dissent to the Government of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Parliament, with a demand for:
1. An immediate halt to the preparation of the laws that threaten conscientious objectors and deserters, specifically Law No. 13673.
2. Respecting the right to refuse military service as guaranteed by the International human rights treaties.
3. Ensuring the protection of those who refused the war – whether in Ukraine or abroad.
We perceive the solidarity with Ukraine as solidarity with its ordinary working people who want to live in peace – not as a support of militarism and repression.
Report from Newcastle upon Tyne and Hull, 27th Oct
A mass of flag waving was threatened to descend upon the people of Newcastle last Saturday, as thousands upon thousands were promised to be led / manipulated by xenophobic nativists.
This claim, through the convergence of UKIP, Advance UK and the so-called ‘Great British National Protest’, didn’t seem as quite as ridiculous as past such threats. For the far right has been buoyed up nationally by a number of recent governments, hell bent determined to be an enabling force at every turn. While the likes of the very wealthy, journalists and social media, endlessly platform their claimed grievances and “othering” of members of our class.
The recent result, a very large and concerning turnout in London, beamed into our homes for all to see and to be nauseatingly endured by that city’s residents.
Concurrently, there still is the flying of seemingly endless daft bits of material on a variety of streets up and down the country but mostly around roundabouts going nowhere. Then there’s the spraying of graffiti, mostly on bins for dog waste, if local experience is anything to go by. All this together provides a further intimidating feel for working class communities, both locally and wider afield. Dog shit politics, anyone?
However, in Newcastle, as midday arrived, rumours / excuses(?) spread of “coaches breaking down”, one wannabe leader living it up, lounging about on the continent – yet again, another failed one / “actor” turning up desperately trying to appear relevant, and a march planned ironically in the middle of a boat race; maybe all was not as could have been or as feared?
In the end, on the day, the far right mustered a paltry 300 in the Toon, compared to the counter demonstration’s number of around 12 to 15X that. Only stopped from being run out of the city by numerous lines of uniformed agents of the state, the far right was reduced to trying to claim “victory” by carrying out a mini march in undercover of near darkness as their main planned one was stopped, countered, re-routed and countered again, several times over.
Meanwhile, a number of those on the counter in Newcastle, shouted about the rightists, “Not being even able to stop a boat race!” This too embarrassed smiles and nervous laughter from some of the less hardcore, probably more confused younger ones with national flags? Whilst others on the counter demonstration asked the nationalists where they thought their flags were made and didn’t that show the whole thing to be at best, ridiculous?
Then, on the day, there were a handful of Kippers with religious crosses seemingly knocked off from some crap car boot sale around the MAGA movement in the US. More nationalists, with endless flags, engaged in strangely dull monotone speeches, lacking both wit and intonation, polluting the aural experience for those just out an about in town. One of these Tannoy based characters is known for being detained recently, for, “nutting their own side”. To top it all, spectators of the boat race had joined in the opposition, telling the wannabe marchers to “piss off”, for disrupting their viewing pleasure of the Tyne.
Much to the relief of many on Tyneside, the whole thing appeared at times to be pure farce!
Yet not only were several people arrested on the counter demonstration in Newcastle, some for apparently not telepathically understanding orders to disperse but the underlying pressures, locally and beyond, remain intensely difficult.
This is shown by those endless vitriolic attacks upon refugees by both government and national commentators throughout the country. It was also shown locally by the fact that those owning the venue that eventually hosted the Advance UK launch near the Quayside by the Tyne, also own the refugee hotel near the city centre that has been subject to demonstrations by the far right and naive, week after week after week. Where there’s muck and dirty dealings, there’s brass alright for those with capital, in this system.
Locally through to internationally, years of attacks upon our class, crises in capitalism, atomisation, quietism on the class struggle front, immiseration / flatlining or even falling living standards, have enabled a vacuum and space to appear for the hard and far right to exploit.
Having no scruples about empowering a divide and rule agenda to deflect from not offering an optimistic future, state and capital have opened up a chasm to be occupied by those who even appeared to want a 21st century style nation-wide pogrom against refugees last year, as decaying occupied hotels were set alight.
This all then further fuelled by social media, their billionaire owners and ever tweaked algorithms, so the forces of intense reaction have hit new heights – both electorally and also now as a (re)emerged street force, based on nativism, nationalism and bitter xenophobia. Throughout the UK, continental Europe and beyond, this appears the case. On the day however, the situation in Newcastle offered some very welcome optimism and the opportunity to catch up with and stand with comrades and our wider community. It provided at least, that collective sigh of relief.
This situation though will likely be only temporary. As comrades on the same day in Hull reported, the reality, countrywide, is variable at best.
For in Hull, the counter gathering was unfortunately outnumbered as a far-right rally hit the city. Around 100 far right gathered although accurate figures were difficult to assess, as the area also had a large number of the public around, wondering what all the fuss was about?
The static counter demo by Stand Up To Racism had around 30 people. Despite this, 6 comrades who refused to join the static counter demo stood firm whilst also mingling with the far right and public, chatting to some people nominally on “the other side”, to try to get them to peel away. This then, those who were on the edges of the right rally and who were perhaps still able to question what is happening and see through how they are being used and manipulated?! The far-right stewards (feeling important in the high-vis waistcoats) were not happy with this and kept rushing over to try and bully both our comrades and those they were talking too.
It is one thing to stand there with confidence as you vastly outnumber the opposition, it is quite another to try and positively confront the situation in your local area, when you are clearly outnumbered yourselves.
As both last weekend and recent events throughout the country and beyond have clearly shown, as a class we cannot rely on those in power, nor on our current socio-economic system, to offer us any solution. In fact, they and this current system fuel the attacks we face.
Let’s face it, the far right internationally are fake rebels and represent literally a defence mechanism for capital and state in times of crises. Fantasies about liberal democracy being any kind of answer to this, are clearly that, fantasies!
To effectively confront and resist, we must unify as a class, locally and internationally. We must stand with our communities, especially those on the sharp end of being attacked and “othered”. We need to meet, discuss and stand with comrades and potential comrades, and help enable where we can, others in our class to resist a disastrous agenda.
It is a massive task but still not an impossible one. Whilst we may appear small and relatively weak at the present time, the struggle can take twists and turns, and our class can still show impressive determination in the face of those who dream of further oppressing us.
Wherever we find ourselves, we must collectively turn the tables now by organising, discussing, meeting, and standing firm on a definite anti-capitalist, internationalist basis. It is only with the ending of capitalism and state internationally, that the threat of the far right will be ended and our prosperity and even existence ensured.
Locally, nationally and internationally, we must engage with offering a far more optimistic future, where we are able class wide, to challenge exploitation, resist manipulation and confidently stand together in solidarity; stand for a world of liberty and equality.
Hyperbole around the assassination of the right wing Christian fundamentalist agitator Charlie James Kirk has made the removal of a footnote to the current populist chaos seem bigger than the sum of its parts. Perhaps in an embryonic form, this demonstrates the endemic unease about the ripples across our current social fabric.
As if waiting for the brink of some fascist apocalypse, this has been widely described as a “Reichstag” moment – a reference to the murky ignition of the German parliament building in 1933 that acted as the pretext for the Nazis rolling out the seizure of power via democratic Parliamentary instruments.
The rest, as they say being history. In this case, there is no replay. This is now and the lessons are not the product of cosplay voyeurism but a pulsing Zeitgeist cautionary tale. Whatever the motivation turns out to be, it inevitably feeds into the right’s strategy of tension to divide and rule.
The myth about Kirk at the moment is that he was speaking his beliefs and martyred on the crucible of free speech for doing so. This fascist fantasy / liberal apologia is not the case, though it uncomfortably demonstrates the uneasy alliance between these two capitalist expressions.
He’s been speaking his beliefs for 13 years. A juvenile debating school tirade of misogyny, racism, xenophobia and toxic masculinity masquerading as speaking truth to power. His targets, as those of the ideological populist Right he represents, are the most marginalised, excluded and vulnerable in US society. The diasporas of an atomised working class.
His hate speech has moved beyond the expression of his belief. Recently he’s been articulating, validating and fuelling the policy of social violence against minorities currently being enacted in the United States.
This makes Kirk not a dystopian visionary to disagree with, but a fascist street fighter. Trump’s Horst Wessel, an extinguished nazi thug lionised to inspire others.
His death’s utility to the reactionary project has been used with immediate effect – despite the lack of clarity re. motivation. His image used as a central rallying theme to Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s “Unite the Kingdom” mobilisation of the right, the ignorant and the inarticulately frustrated on the streets of London.
Alarmingly attracting in excess of 100,000 people, most feeling understandably a great sense of disenfranchisement in the current era, they were addressed and incited by the world’s richest man, multi billionaire Elon Musk.
Channeling a chilling message through the convicted violent thug convening the rally, Musk said: “Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you…you either fight back or you die.” A warning perhaps to the meagre 5,000 to 10,000 counter demonstrators from ‘Stand Up to Racism’.
And where is the Labour government’s real anxiety about this demonstration? Where do they stand on the assault on minorities and the dispossessed? Why is it that they felt it necessary to deploy new dystopian facial recognition technology for the Notting Hill Carnival yet not for the largest far right demonstration in British history?
The liberals and their Trotskyoid-Leninite allies in Stand up to Racism want you to think this is a choice between totalitarianism and democracy. Your rights versus ‘their’ dictatorship. This is a lie. Liberal democracy took us to war and both want to crush us for power and profit. Two cheeks of the same arse!
Liberalism like Fascism wants and needs capitalism, having throughout history betrayed the working class if capitalism was under threat, (from Spain 1936 to the other 9/11 – the anniversary of Pinochet’s US sponsored militarised junta/fascist coup in Chile 1973, for example).
It is not the fascists (yet) locking us up for protesting genocide and their warfare state but a Labour government. This, the party of partition, strike breaking, numerous regressive immigration acts and the atom bomb. Our enemy and our focus is capital and state in all their forms and their relentless drive to war, be the general’s democrats or fascists.
The rise of the right at the moment measures the scale of the challenge to a weakened and as yet, fragmented working class. A weakness used for exploiting and manipulating fear and insecurity to preserve the agenda of the warfare state and its lust for profit.
Ultimately, only class unity through class struggle can put an end to the abuse of the far right and our inevitable annihilation at the hands of the warfare state – whatever its political hue.
While we may at times have nostalgia for the days gone by when generals, presidents, Kings and Parliaments would genuinely fear the retribution of ardent members of our class, the actions of one cannot replace the action of us all.
As revolutionists we know that demonstrative acts of propaganda by deed are no substitute for the mass action of a revolutionary working class. Changing the faces of the tyranny in power changes nothing and can easily reduce us to mere onlookers and passivity. Yet that does not mean that we hypocritically condemn.
We don’t slate our class; those exploited, repressed and now sometimes seriously living in fear of being targeted by violent nativist xenophobes, if they raise a smile when they see it as one of the bastards getting it. For whatever reason transpires.
‘Two-Tier Kier’ is no longer a smear following the compromise made with his back benchers to only do over one section of disabled people in the UK.
Like some inverse promo for loan deals or Internet packages, the government will lay off existing disability claims in exchange for duffing up people with the new ones. ‘Get it while it lasts – new customers only.’ *Although a relevant change of circumstances such as a change in your condition classes you as a “new claim” and therefore under the new rules.
Despite it being only five years since the worst global pandemic in a century affected half the UK population killing quarter of 1 million, the government proclaimed its surprise that the numbers of people with long-term health issues have increased at all since 2020. Another example of them paying zero attention to people they would rather clap than pay during the pandemic.
That fatigue, respiratory issues and depression are running riot apparently has no link to what an ill-prepared society and our class had to survive under their watch.
That the scale of benefits is so high, if nothing else, tells us what an unhealthy ‘shitpit’ surviving capitalism is. Ironically, maybe only a Labour government masquerading as the people’s friend could carry out such an assault on such vulnerable groups and hope to get away with it.
The financial reasoning of such decisions is of no interest to us as revolutionists. The well-being of our class versus the protection of the interests of the rich and their wars is always a political decision and, as such, we find no justification ever in the latter outcome. Democracy serves us no better than dictatorship on this.
It is however another irony that a decision driven by the desire to send us to war and increase the manufacture of disability is to be funded by the starving of the existing disabled communities.
We saw such a strategy fail already in the plan to cut winter fuel payments. While at first glance significantly different demographics, there are some striking similarities: Both ‘passive’ recipients of hard fought for state benefits – though now deemed less entitled; both largely seen as passive politically – physically limited and without economic muscle. Consequently, both are not just seen as vulnerable but beatable.
What the state failed to notice is that elder people and people with disabilities are not discreet entities like trans people, migrants, or asylum seekers, but diversely dispersed throughout every house and community in the country. Embedded enough for every sinew of our class to scream no!
That such opposition to injustice can be seen and shared on such a widespread level needs extension to those truly vulnerable communities made invisible by prejudice. The lesson of the response to disability and the elder community should be extended to every section of our class because we are all targets for elimination to facilitate and finance the coming war.
Division is diversion! Labour didn’t invent that. The state requires all its political representatives to divide our class in whatever way it can to divert us from seeing the importance of our unity in our struggle against it.
At times it tries to get us to participate in this by ‘othering’ the other dispossessed of our class, on race, gender, origin, sexuality etc. Each time we fall for this ruse we widen the opening of the avenue of attack back to the main targets of class and vulnerability in all its diverse forms again.
Racism breeds attack on disability, disability discrimination breeds attack on our class made workless by capitalism, et cetera. The cycle of division and defeat begins and ends with the ‘isms’ and the targeting of difference.
The partial defeat of Labour in power was led by activist mobilisation and opposition of our class. The scale was small but indicative of potential. To upscale we need to link struggles of one community with another and identify the ultimate challenges that confront us – growing austerity and impoverishment to meet the war aims of the state’s imperial ambition.
Hunger and austerity are about war and our opposition must oppose war with the energy it refuses division and poverty. Resistance, survival and victory are both the right and obligation of our class. It is our necessity not just to survive from day to day but to abolish an economic class system that offers us no better way of survival.
The class struggle is the peace movement, and victory on the Homefront is its defeat of their plans for war!
We, the anarchist front of Iran and Afghanistan, reaffirm our unshakable and principled position:
Every war – on every scale and on every excuse – initiated or sustained by states, must be unequivocally condemned.
Countries, regardless of their shape or appearance, use war as a tool for survival and control. And in this process, the lives, dignity and future of ordinary people are trampled under their feet.
At a time when the world is once again plagued by violence, bombs, death, displacement, and insecurity, we insist on this ongoing truth: the real victims of war are always the people—not the countries, not ideologies, not borders.
Our fight, as always, is not for the redistribution of power among the elites, but against the institution of the state itself and all forms of organized control.
We stand in solidarity – carefully and decisively – alongside the people of Iran, Afghanistan and the wider region.
What we are witnessing today is, on the one hand, the blatant crimes of the Israeli regime, targeting civilians in Gaza and elsewhere with wild cruelty. On the other hand, we see the Islamic Republic of Iran manipulating public fear, playing geopolitical games at the cost of the lives of Iranians, and imposing the burden of war on society.
We see the Islamic Republic not only as the outbreak of a regional war, but as part of a global chain of control and oppression – a regime that has for decades been attacking the Iranian people with censorship, poverty, imprisonment, torture and execution, and recklessly endangering millions through military provocations.
While we condemn the atrocities of the Zionist regime in the harshest terms, we also state that the struggle against the Islamic Republic is part of our broader struggle against all states and structures of control – a struggle that will continue.
We fight for a world without borders, without countries, without armies or authorities – a world in which humanity, life and freedom are at the center. Our main war has always been the war against political authority, totalitarianism and the state itself.
AnarCom Network 