The Iron Heel - Jack London - For Realists against War and Corps

by more going on like this . . . Sun Dec 01, 2002 19:13

Complete text of the Joint Document of the Organizations that Called the
November 26th March, read in the Plaza de Mayo at the end of the victorious
mobilization:

"Winds of change are blowing all over the world. The oppressed peoples in
different places of the world fight, in harmony with our people, to overcome
the inequality and the exploitation that have intensified over the last
twenty years. In Latin America there are more than enough samples of this
search for new horizons.

The rejuvenated North American militarism -pointing at Iraq but also at
Colombia- is an expression of the crisis of the imperialistic projects of
the governments that are servile to the IMF and embodied by Thatcher and
Reagan, Menem and Fujimori, Bush and Blair, De la Rua and Duhalde.

As the people desire greater changes, it is logical that a restructuring
takes place in both imperialistic militarism as well as in the menial
repressive forces that shoot their bullets against the people who uprise.

In Argentina we experience the increase of repression in different ways.
Hidden under the mantle of the 'fight against crime,' we have seen the penal
system enlarged and hardened, making use of legal and illegal mechanisms to
preventively frighten the humblest and most excluded. Trigger-happy cops,
overcrowded jails, torture in police stations, longer prison sentences: the
reflection of a 'hard hand against crime.'

The continual repression suffered day after day by the youth and the poor at
the hands of the security forces and especially of the police, has murdered
179 people between 1st December 2001 and 22nd November 2002. The total
number of deaths caused by state security agencies from December 2001 to
November 2002 represents fourteen per-cent of the total number of cases
since 1983.

Without an end in sight, under the pretext of crimes against property and
the prattle about 'insecurity,' they seek to obtain and to enlarge the
consent to facilitate social control and the repression.

When assimilating the security of a population exclusively with the problem
of 'crime' a double political-ideological fraud is perpetrated. On one hand,
they try to trivialise all popular demands (employment, housing, health,
education) that the current guiding principles of the regime deny. At the
same time, they try to manipulate public opinion in favour of issues that
the government and capital are experts at 'solving': more jails, fewer human
rights, more death penalties, fewer constitutional guarantees, millions of
poor people under suspicion.

But the war against crime was not alone: as popular resistance grows against
the strategy of hunger and submission, the system needs to increase the
application of discipline through new repressive forms that are released
against those who fight, against those who confront this system of hunger.

In recent times, what we call the 'judicialisation of the protest' has
become generalised as more and more militants of community groups,
unemployed workers and student groups as well as workers' leaders are
arrested and tried for actions directly linked to the social conflict, for
demanding their rights, or during demonstrations, marches or mobilizations.

Direct repression is also advancing against militants and organizations.
There have been more than fifty murdered in mobilizations since 1995: Victor
Collides, Teresa Rodriguez, Mauro Ojeda, Francisco Escobar, Anibal Veron,
Carlos Santillan, Jose Barrios, Petete Almiron, Pocho Lepratti, Graciela
Acosta and thirty-four more deaths plus those of 19th and 20th December, as
well as Dario Santillan and Maximiliano Kosteki on 26th June. Hundreds of us
have been wounded during this time, and we suffer constant campaigns of
threats, intimidations and other forms of harassment, as we have
systematically denounced the persecution of militants and participants in
assemblies, particularly in districts such as Merlo, Matanza, San Isidro,
Temperley and Lanus, even with the participation of outstanding members of
the PJ Party; the policy of evictions in the city of Buenos Aires, the
recent repressions in Jujuy, Mendoza and Tucuman or the intent of imposing a
law allowing body searches in Chaco province.

Meanwhile, the armed forces have begun to abandon their passivity of the
last few decades, and they are also advancing in the search for a consent
corrupted with proposals such as popular soup-kitchens in Campo de Mayo, the
restoration of the draft disguised as educational or social fictions, while
they have declared themselves to be at the government's disposal to
intervene in internal repression. The repression that we suffer today is
linked to the impunity of yesterday's genocides, and it is for that reason
that we continue demanding the nullity of the reprieve and the "final point"
and due obedience laws. Jail for all the genocides!

In the Argentina of 2002, the only thing that grows is the budget to
repress. While there are no resources for education and healthcare, while
social plans are dropped and undernourished kids who weigh a third of the
minimum weight for their age die, the gendarmerie and the federal police
receive yearly sixteen million pesos for the business of railway station
security, and the budget of Buenos Aires police force is increased by
fifteen per-cent

The politicians of the system are perpetrating a real social genocide,
defending the privileges of the winners of the system, increasing the budget
for repression. Those who survive the planned murder by hunger, will be
murdered by police bullets.

But we are also protagonists and witnesses of a popular wisdom that is
confronting the intent of the system to advance toward forms of state
terrorism. The enormous mobilization of June 27th, followed by the no less
massive ones of 3rd and 9th July, have undermined the judicial and mass
media repressive measures that were prepared to destroy the most combative
popular sectors.

For that reason the common goal of the grassroots organizations that have
convoked this mobilization today is to confront the repressive politicians o
f the state, no matter what form they take, through organization and
struggle.

Because only organized people, on foot and in the street can brake the
repressive apparatus of the state and to dismantle it once and forever. For
that reason we summon today with the slogans: 'Organisation and Struggle
against Repression,' 'Go Away All of Them [Politicians]' and 'Down with the
Murderous Duhalde Government.' Let us push history towards the government of
the workers and the people."

by pat c Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:10

jack london himself, was an adventurer, a journalist, a novelist, an agitator, most of all a committed socialist. he did have a few faults, most of which could be put down to his love of Nietzsche (well, over-love).

the best, warts & all bio remains (imho) "sailor on horseback" by irving stone.

by Nietzsche Mon Dec 02, 2002 17:54

It could be much worse, he could have been influenced Trotsky rather than Nietzsche.

by pat c Tue Dec 03, 2002 11:57

"Live dangerously; build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!"

Nietzsche