The Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC) denounces the violent repression of its demonstration again this year. Indeed, the SPVM proceeded, as usual, to unjustified and brutal arrests. The police used truncheons and tear gas to silence the people who are tired of being exploited every day to enrich the nauseating bourgeoisie and their companies that profit from COVID-19. Several people were injured and the police even destroyed the cell phone of one participant.
More than 750 people gathered to denounce the exacerbation of social injustice and precariousness during the current pandemic. Capitalism and neo-liberalism have laid the foundations for this disaster and it is certainly not through this economic system that we will get out of the crisis. The organizers would like to thank the participants of the demonstration who took to the streets this year, despite the health crisis, with masks and distancing measures.
As part of the International Workers’ Day, CLAC organized today the annual May Day anti-capitalist demonstration, which started at 4PM in Jarry Park. Last year, due to the health situation, there was no rally, but we did call for a day of visibility actions, which was a great success.
This year, we went to protest in the Mile-Ex to denounce the artificial intelligence companies that are shamelessly taking advantage of the crisis, converting public subsidies into tools for the private sector. The companies located there are a major force in the gentrification and displacement of the residents of Parc-Extension in addition of participating in the technological surveillance proliferation.
Stacy Langlois, a protester, said: “As always, it is the workers, the poor, the migrants, the people in predominantly female jobs, who are killing themselves – literally – to support the rich. We’re the ones who cook and deliver their food so they don’t have to go line up at the grocery store like the rest of us.” She continues: “Their recovery plan is to keep us in misery.”
In addition, the tightening of borders and the abuse of immigration authorities are on a mission to preserve these inequalities. Migrants who were “lucky” enough to come here are dying in our hospitals and warehouses. The streets of the poorest neighborhoods are empty, as the police are always looking for their next victims. The First Peoples are being humiliated, assaulted and killed by the governmental bodies driven by the extractivist companies. And in all this chaos, we are forced to obey, to remain silent, to be blind to everything that is happening around us. It is absurd and revolting!
In a fiery opening speech, Steven Lafortune-Sansregret cried out: “What we must revive is not the economy, but the struggles for the end of capitalist exploitation! “Together, ready to fight, we are much stronger and much more numerous than those who oppress us with impunity. Let’s refuse this “uberized” future and build a world of mutual aid and equity. To achieve this, we will use all necessary means.
We don’t want the world they are trying to sell us! No old normal, no new normal ! Let’s abolish capitalism!
that, today, as has always been the case, May 1 is an opportunity for the workers of all nations to celebrate their historic victories and to put forth demands for further improvements to their working conditions and their health and safety conditions in general;
given
that protecting the health and safety of health care workers is of primordial importance;
and given
that the health care system and all of its workers, nurses, doctors, councillors, managers, office workers, and support staff are currently under enormous pressure and deserve our unconditional support;
We, the popular groups, unions, and community groups that organize and participate in the May 1 public events, call on those who will be joining our events:
to express their solidarity with health care workers, as well as with all “essential” workers, regardless of their citizenship status;
to wear a mask at all of our events;
to respect, insofar as possible, a safe two-meter distance from others at all of our events;
to avoid all unnecessary contact during our events.
We call on all groups and organizations that are planning events for May 1, 2021, to adhere to and respect this pact. Otherwise, we demand that they not hold an event on that day and, instead, stay home and not pose an additional threat to heath care workers and our health care system.
–> Si votre groupe ou votre organisation endosse ce PACTE pour un 1er mai solidaire, veuillez écrire à alerta-mtl@riseup.net pour être ajouté à la liste des signataires/participants.
–> Si vous adhérez à l’esprit de ce pacte en tant qu’individu, nous vous invitons à “participer” à l’événement Facebook qui se trouve à cette adresse, et à le relayer dans vos réseaux.
BACKGROUND
Across the world, May 1 is known as International Workers’ Day.
For 135 years, the working class has taken to the streets, organized, and demonstrated on this day, in a show of force to assert its interests and its opposition to the capitalist class and the politicians who play its games. The May 1 tradition was born in the blood of revolutionary trade unionists in the US, in 1886, thereafter spreading through the Americas and from there to Europe and the rest of the world, carried forward by the trade union movement, revolutionaries, anti-capitalists, and internationalists. Historic compromises have since led to its institutionalization in a number of countries, but anti-capitalist movements and milieus have, nonetheless, preserved its revolutionary expression in numerous initiatives in diverse contexts
This tradition is very much alive in Montréal and throughout Québec, where numerous events mark May 1 every year, including union rallies, an anti-capitalist demonstration, and a variety of community gatherings and social events meant to advance a range of demands and to, in different ways, mount a visible opposition to the privileged classes.
There are a number of events taking place in Montréal this year:
It seems that some of the leaders of the “conspiracy theory” anti-masking, anti-distancing, and anti-vaccination movement are behind a march organized for May 1 to “manifester [leur] désaccord face aux mesures sanitaires au Québec” [express (their) discontent with the public health measures in Québec]. (A number of citizens’ intiatives, including Montréal Antifasciste and Xavier Camus, have documented the influential roles of a number of individuals with ties to the far-right in the movement against Québec’s public health measures.)
This particular action in opposition to these measures will be held outside of the main vaccination center in Montréal, the Olympic Stadium, clearly without masks and with no intention to practice safe distancing.
At a point when the third wave is beginning to peek throughout Québec, when the health system
risks being overwhelmed by the COVID-19 variants, with the vaccination campaign not unfolding as quickly as would be optimal to offset these variants, and at a point when heath care and social service workers are at the end of their rope after thirteen months of intense efforts to counter the pandemic, we find it breathtakingly unacceptable that the conspiracy theory movement and the COVID deniers will take to the street on May 1 and put those workers’ lives, as well as the lives of all other workers deemed essential, at risk with their irresponsible behaviour.
The health and safety of workers have always been a key preoccupation of the movements advancing the interests and demands of the working class and the organizers mobilizing for May 1.
It’s about time the majority of workers make perfectly clear their growing fatigue with the recklessness of the conspiracy theorists behind the movement against the public health measures, who, it must be stressed, have submerged themselves in the far right’s pseudo-ideology.
Comments Off on R.I.P. Matt Cicero: Anarchist Militant, Journalist, Community Organizer
Apr222021
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
On March 16, 2020, our comrade Matt departed for the spirit world. We have lost one of the most committed anarchists in our part of the world, and the loss is felt intensely due to the tragic circumstances of his death.
Many people who did not know Matt well will probably remember him as the guy that bombed the bank back in 2010. At this time, there was a major mobilization of anarchists preparing for the G20 summit in Toronto. Several months prior to the summit, a group calling itself FFF (Fighting For Freedom) released footage of the firebombing of an RBC branch in Ottawa. The footage was dramatic – a black-clad figure runs out of the bank minutes before it explodes in flame.
Although he never confessed to the action, I think that Matt would have wanted to be remembered for this action. He was arrested for it, jailed, and put on trial, but charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence. Six years after the bombing, he posted an article entitled “6 reasons I support arson (as a tool of social change)” on his blog. “I think it’s an example… of direct action, and I think that social movements in Canada are far too pacified, they are way too comfortable with the ideology, with non-violence as an ideology, not as a tactic, but as the only possible way forward,” he said. “I think social movements need to become more militant and I wanted to highlight that, which I think the action does.”
The communique released by FFF explained the reasons why RBC had been targeted. They had been a major sponsor of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, which had involved a massive crack-down on the street population of that city, and RBC was also a major financier of the Alberta Tar Sands.
It’s important to note here that Matt was one of the anarchists who was at the forefront of indigenous solidarity organizing. 2010 really was the year that anti-colonial politics came to the forefront of anarchist analysis in so-called Canada. It was through the relationships that anarchists formed with indigenous people around that time that began to significantly shift anarchist discourse. Matt was one of the pioneers of this, and he remained active with IPSMO (the Indigenous People’s Solidarity Movement – Ottawa) for the better part of a decade.
Matt was a committed activist. Serious, principled, and intense, he knew what he believed and had the courage of his convictions. His stubbornness often led to him butting heads with other activists, as for myself, I usually found myself agreeing with him and supporting his stance. He thought that radical politics should be about action. When it was time to throw down, you knew Matt was game.
It is difficult to grieve Matt, partly due to the tragic conditions of his death. I have not spoken to anyone who had really spoken to him in the past two years. Not only was he estranged from his family, it seems that he was also estranged from his friends. It would seem that his mental health deteriorated, and he was living in a tent by the Ottawa river, close to the War Museum, and not far from Asinabka, the Algonquin sacred site currently be desecrated by a huge condo development.
The circumstances of his death were mysterious. Apparently, the police told his mother that he had fallen out of a tree. I was a part of a group that visited the tree, and we all agreed that it just wasn’t possible that that had happened. Not only was the tree not very tall, it was a spruce tree, and it would have been impossible to climb without breaking branches, and no branches were broken. What is known is that he died of blunt force trauma and the police didn’t rule it a suicide.
We are still trying to put the pieces together, so if you do have information that would help us understand what happened in the last two years of his life, we would encourage you to write us. Even though we can’t change what happened, understanding what happened can be an important part of the grieving process.
We also have some soul-searching as a movement to do. There have been a significant numbers of deaths of despair amongst activist men in the past few years. To name a few: Derek, Dave, Hugo, Jean, and Charles. What is leading our comrades to such depths of emotional pain? Is it the state of the world, or it is something about the way that activists treat each other?
The reality is that, despite our best efforts to change the world for the world, things are not improving on planet Earth, and in fact, many of the gains made by previous generations of activists are now being undone. This can be deeply disheartening, especially for people who have based their whole lives around struggling to make the world a better place.
There is another question that is more disturbing, and that is whether it is something in the activist scene is killing us. Has the anarchist culture become deeply toxic? Both Dave and Matt were being excluded by their respective activist communities at the times of their deaths. In both cases, it seems likely that this was a factor in the deterioration of their mental health. Is a toxic activist culture partly to blame?
In any case, Matt’s body is gone, but his spirit has moved on. Perhaps the freedom that he desired so passionately was not possible in this world, but I hope that where he is now, his spirit will know true freedom.
Rest in peace, Matt, you were a good anarchist, and I will honour your memory. More importantly, I will honour your spirit by continuing the fight that you dedicated your life to – the fight for freedom, for autonomy, for Mother Earth, and in solidarity with the oppressed against the state.
It seems right to end by quoting the FFFC communique released after the bank bombing:
We pass the torch to all those who would resist the trampling of native rights, of the rights of us all, and resist the ongoing destruction of our planet.
A memorial is being organized by Matt’s friend Albert Dumont, an Algonquin spiritual leader. It will be held on May 16. By pure coincidence, a massive global day of action happens to be planned for that exact day. So, wherever you are, if you do want to honour Matt’s memory, consider torching or smashing something in his honour, or at least lighting off some fireworks.
For details regarding the memorial service, please write vertetnoire@riseup.net. If you have photos or videos of Matt, please share them with us. We would also encourage people to reach out to share their memories of Matt, which could be shared at his memorial.
A song-in-progress is being written by Matt’s friend. If you have memories of actions that Matt participated in, and want them to be part of a song that will be sung at his memorial, please check out this video: https://youtu.be/-BjzjBghTf8 and get in touch.
PDF of posters. Like millions of other people in Ontario, I woke up this morning in a world where the police had been given the authority to stop you at any time, question you, demand information without any reason, and make orders which have to be followed. In practice, a lot of this stuff already happens, but formalizing what is usually an abuse of power is a huge blow.
The government claims this is to try to stop the spread of covid. They are banning us all from sitting outside in the park with friends at a distance while factories and prisons are still operating full steam, prioritizing profits over relationships. Giving the police enhanced power to enforce these kinds of rules is just unbelievably fucked.
I was pretty upset so I made a bunch of posters and put them up around my neighbourhood in East Hamilton. Would they have been better if I’d taken more time? For sure. Should I have put “Covid is real” or something on them so it’s more clear I’m not an anti-masker or denialist? Probably. But I would say it’s more important to act, to make visible some opposition to these authoritarian measures, so that we don’t all feel scared and alone.
As an anarchist, I believe in informing myself, discussing with people close to me, and coming up with our own set of practices for dealing with covid that reflect our own values and priorities. Just like with any other law, even when the things we decide are appropriate are illegal, it just means we have to put a bit more effort into finding the means to do them. I oppose the ability of the state to dictate practices and priorities onto us, and especially their ability to enforce them with repression, even if I might choose to adopt practices that a similar to the ones they suggest.
Some anarchists have been circulating texts that mimic the discourse of the far-right, worrying about the free speech of dissident conservative politicians, or about the right of religious reactionaries to gather, or minimizing covid. Others have become indistinguishable from liberals and try to shut down criticism from their comrades by claiming we are trying to kill their grandparents or something. We can do better.
Things are scary right now, it’s true. The social pressure to just go along with whatever authoritarian crap is super heavy, but putting these posters up alone in the middle of the day on the weekend was a good experiment in talking with my neighbours about it. We are never as alone as we think we are.
(I’m including a pdf of my posters in case you suck at graphic design more than I do. But it’s easy to make your own with free software like Gimp and LibreOffice Draw. Wheat paste is three or four parts warm water to one part flour; add the water to the flour slowly, stirring lots, then dump in a whole bunch of sugar.)
Solidarity to the people in Montreal who have been fighting against the curfew there!
Keep your collectives and affinity groups tight, and always maintain a good social distance from the state!
Thank you all for attending last night’s protest! Many hundreds of us took to the streets to denounce the imposition of a curfew, a measure that is an attack on our freedom and on our relations and aspirations of solidarity.
Together, we were able to put forward a clear message that rejects the false solutions of Legault’s government and the City of Montreal. We denounced the curfew and any use of police to deal with the health crisis, highlighting its cruel impacts on homeless people, sex workers, drug users, undocumented workers and so many others.
The struggle against the curfew and false, authoritarian solutions to the pandemic continues and is gaining steam. We stand firm in the will to refuse the dichotomy between blind obedience to the government and the silly manipulations of conspiracy theorists, which are exploited by the far right.
Just as we marched against the police state, the SPVM devoted themselves to providing a clear demonstration of it. Despite the deployment of hundreds of cops, we took the streets, chanting and shooting fireworks, for more than an hour! Things heated up when riot police forced their way into the crowd to grab a comrade. Despite the crowd’s efforts to help the comrades targeted by the police, we didn’t succeed in freeing them. It is the responsibility of all of us to develop practices so that such situations cannot happen again.
Many of you have expressed your willingness to continue the struggle. Please know that we do not intend to give up. Our main goal is to help mobilize. Feel free to self-organize, plan actions; we will not hesitate to use our platform to support you to the best of our abilities. In particular, we encourage our comrades to join the more spontaneous gatherings organized by the young Montrealers who have been acting on their legitimate anger over recent days; we will circulate relevant calls on our platforms. Stay tuned!
A special thanks to the AQPSUD with whom we have been fortunate to struggle since the very beginning of mobilizations against the curfew. Thank you for your presence and for all the work you do on a daily basis.
If you have received a ticket for breaking curfew, write to wewontpay@riseup.net to participate in a mutual aid effort for contesting the fine.
Let’s stand together in the face of police repression, let’s learn to leave no one behind.
We are a group of people who, back in february 2020, held an all-day railroad blockade in so-called Lennoxville, Quebec, on stolen Abenaki land, in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en land defenders and against the ongoing violence of colonialism. We have recently learned that the criminal accusations that had been laid against us have finally been withdrawn and that our case has been closed.
On the one hand, it brings us joy to avoid the stress and hassle of a criminal trial, and even moreso considering how the Sherbrooke police shamelessly lied to us and broke their own protocols in order to arrest us on that sunny winter day.
On the other hand, however, we find it important to remember and acknowledge that the criminal charges we were facing come from a State (and its whole legal system) that sees nothing wrong with colonial genocide, with murdering and dispossessing indigenous folks, and with destroying life in the name of profit. So-called Canada and so-called Quebec are on stolen native land, and no amount of laws or repression will ever make us see this as fair or acceptable. Our action was one of many others in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en people who have been continuously threatened and harassed by the RCMP and pipeline industry goons.
The funds we had raised for our legal battle will be split evenly between the lawyers who supported us, the Tyendinaga and Hamilton friends who are facing trial for their own solidarity blockades, as well as the Unist’ot’en Camp Legal Fund.
The pandemic we are mired in precarize everyone and highlights serious injustices. The stimulus wished by the leaders is an economic stimulus which is not addressed to us. It is not addressed to the artists and other people who don’t make enough profit to merit the right to exist. It does not concern sex workers, whose existence itself is still criminalized. This stimulus ignores handicapped people, the marginalized, those with mental health issues. The stimulus they talk about, it is for the oil companies, the Bombardier corporations, the party friends like Guzzo, but it is not for us. To let the governments save us from the crisis they created themselves through the constant cuts to healthcare and through their “snowbird” lives, would be to accept death. What we need to stimulate is not the economy, but the struggles for our rights and the end of capitalist exploitation.
The economic rebuilding project bets on a technological world stained with inequalities and based on dirty capitalist exploitation. The strenghtening of national borders and the abuses of immigration instances, which are illegitimate in this so-called Canada, aim to preserve these inequalities. And while in the North we vaccinate, we forget those who clothes us in the Gildan factories of Haïti. We forget that each zoom conference depends on the work in African and South American mines. Those same countries who might not see the vaccine before the next pandemic. Words of thanks and empty promises won’t bring back to life the Haitian “petrochallengers” killed by police forces trained by Canada, nor give back the eyes lost by Chilean protesters blinded by Canadian weapons. It will take much more to give back life to Raphaël « Napa » André, to Joyce Echaquan, and to all the native people killed here and elsewhere.
We saw worldwide injustices explodes in this last dreadful year. Migrants people who had the “chance” to come here now die in our hospitals and our warehouses. The streets of our poorest neighborhood are empty, the police being constantly on the hunt for their next prey. The First Nations are humiliated, attacked and killed by government instances, guided by extractivist companies. And in all this chaos we are imposed obedience, silence and self-deception in front of all that goes on around us.
We cannot let this be! Let’s refuse to police ourselves and our actions, because we recognize that to live in a world constrained by racist, colonialist and LGBTQIA2S+phobic laws is a challenge in itself. It is those same laws which feed genre inequalities which gives more reason to the most fortunate and to the rich heir·esse·s: do not legitimate them by accepting those laws for ourselves! We are angry when we see the disappearance of monetary assistance, of our jobs, and the precarization of those left, or from the imposition of a curfew with no scientific basis. We see it only as an excuse to legitimate State repression. The sanitary discourse makes no sense when we see that it is not applied equitably. The Legault government again shows its true face when it tries to safeguard the economy while throwing our lives away. We refuse this future dreamed of by billionaires, which drags our attention away through fear while they profit from the exploitation of the most vulnerable.
These billionaires, it is them who are the first polluters but the last to feel its consequences. It is those largest corporations who continue to exploit the work of migrant workers and to practice extractivism in First Nations’ territories, under the guise of economic growth and of the hypocrisy of the “green” or “sustainable” economy. While the whole world knows that the climate crisis is a major issue and will affect first marginalized people. For them, it’s business as usual as long as possible, until death do us part.
To make matters worse, the waiting lists in healthcare are even worse than what they were before the pandemic. Media took the opportunity to sell more anxiety-inducing news about the virus, casting a shadow on current struggles, especially those for the defense of the land. These struggles are alive, and we will remind them of that fact.
We are perceived as nothing but a mass of workers, empty and replaceable, but not is all lost. Together, we are ready to fight, and we are much stronger and numerous. Let’s refuse this “uberized” future and oppose to it a world of sharing and equality. And to get there, we will fight through all our might, which will take place by taking back the streets.
We will see you this May 1st, at 4PM, at Jarry park (corner of Gary-Carter and St-Laurent)!
Comments Off on You Can’t be Anti-State & Pro-Lock-down – A response to “Anarchy, Lock-downs, and Crypto-Eugenics”
Mar212021
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
It has now been more than one year since the world that we have known all of our lives came screeching to a halt. And what a year’s it’s been. The collective unconscious roils in the throes of a bad acid trip, the realization seeps slow in the mind that the crisis is here to stay, and we are all along for the ride, tossed about by uncontrollable forces like a ship in a storm, trying to maintain some grace amidst all the fear and the confusion and the doubt.
Amidst it all, we have struggled to find solid ground. How are we to organize in the midst of a global pandemic? What is even going on? What threats should we be preparing for? How can we make sure that our loved ones are safe? What do other people think is going on?
This piece is a response to a critique entitled “Anarchy, Lock-down, and Crypto-Eugenics”, which is a critique of “On the Anarchist Response to the Global Pandemic”, published on Montreal Counter-Info, as well as It’s Going Down, North Shore Counter-Info, and quite a few other anarchist websites. I am not the author of that piece, however the author is a comrade with whom I have been working closely, and they encouraged me to respond, as they are currently too busy.
“On the Anarchist Response to the Global Pandemic was certainly not the first anarchist critique of lock-downs, or to suggest that the ruling class is manipulating the public for its own gain under the guise of Public Health. In fact, there are numerous anarchist voices coming out of the U.K. that have informed our critique. Some of the most notable would include Architects for Social Housing, the South Essex Heckler, Estuary Stirrings, Winter Oak, and the Acorn. We would encourage people to check out these websites if they are interested in developing their analysis in regards to the current crisis.
In any case, we are flattered that our piece is attracting international attention! Not only has it been translated into French, it has also been re-posted on anarchist websites from around the world, including Germany and the U.K., and it has a generated quite a bit of positive feedback.
It was our intention to kickstart discussion and debate around the subject of COVID-19, lock-downs, and related subjects, so we welcome the criticism of the British writer, though in all honesty we question whether it is made in good faith.
It has gotten increasingly difficult to have respectful debate these days, a phenomenon for which social media echo chambers are partly to blame, as well as the general deterioration of political discourse across the political spectrum. Often, debates about controversial subjects devolve into name-calling, guilt by association and whataboutism.
Whataboutism, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. This tactic, which was common in Soviet propaganda, was popularized by Donald Trump, and it is unfortunate to see it rear its ugly head in anarchist discourse.
The critic attempts to portray our piece as an example of “crypto-eugenics”. This is frankly absurd. Eugenics is an ideology which promotes coercive intervention in human reproduction, and nothing that we say in the piece has anything to do with reproduction whatsoever. If the response to a critique is to accuse the critic of secretly harbouring heretical views, we are in a time period analogous to the Inquisition. Furthermore, eugenics is an ideology promoting coercive intervention in natural human behaviour. We are advocating for the exact opposite.
Nevertheless, we will address some of the issues raised. In all honesty, the criticisms of the piece are mostly addressed within the original piece, and so we encourage folks to read (or re-read it), because it is fairly self-evident that the British critic misconstrues the arguments contained therein.
Firstly, the piece is primarily an appeal to anarchist values. It is clearly illogical to desire the abolition of the state and also uncritically support the expansion of state powers. The critic does not really address the question of values, and it is unclear which anarchist tendency they represent. In fact, when the critic says “As anarchists we affirm the violence of liberation” one is reminded more of Italian futurism (a proto-fascist ideology that flirted with anarchism) than contemporary anarchist discourse. But perhaps this is due to regional differences as to which theories are fashionable. All this to say: I can’t really identify any genuine anarchist sentiment in the critique.
Secondly, on the question of lock-downs: we maintain that it is an untenable position for an anarchist to support either lock-downs or curfews. Both of these interventions require the use of coercive force; that is to say, policing. We are not at all opposed to any public health recommendations, so long as they are voluntary.
We would do well to remember that the term lock-down comes from the prison system, and lock-downs are usually put into place in that context when authorities perceive there to be an increased risk of revolt.
All this to say that we believe that anarchism and any ideology promoting the implementation of draconian measures such as lock-downs and curfews are mutually exclusive, and that this should be self-evident. How can one both be against the state and in favour of state control? Ideology aside, studies have shown that lock-downs are not effective in reducing mortality. According to a recently published study in the journal Nature, “using this methodology and current data, in ~ 98% of the comparisons using 87 different regions of the world we found no evidence that the number of deaths/million is reduced by staying at home”.[1]
Third, there is the very important question of the lethality of COVID-19. The critic clearly takes issue with us for “minimizing” the severity of the pandemic, but they do not refute a central claim, which is that COVID-19 has proven to be far less deadly than was originally believed. On this, the scientific consensus is overwhelming. The disease was originally believed to have a fatality rate of 1% or more. A year later, we know that this is not even close to being true. There are many studies done on this subject, and we encourage people to do their own research, but we will quote one study authored by Stanford’s John P. Ioannidis.[2]
“Infection fatality rate in different locations can be inferred from seroprevalence studies. While these studies have caveats, they show IFR ranging from 0.00% to 1.54% across 82 study estimates. Median IFR across 51 locations is 0.23% for the overall population and 0.05% for people <70 years old. IFR is larger in locations with higher overall fatalities. Given that these 82 studies are predominantly from hard‐hit epicenters, IFR on a global level may be modestly lower. Average values of 0.15%‐0.20% for the whole global population and 0.03%‐0.04% for people <70 years old as of October 2020 are plausible. These values agree also with the WHO estimate of 10% global infection rate (hence, IFR ~ 0.15%) as of early October 2020.”
Some of the confusion regarding the lethality of COVID-19 results from people confusing IFR with CFR (Case Fatality Rate). Dr Richard Schabas, Ontario’s former Chief Medical Officer, has critiqued the Ontario government’s emphasis on using the CFR statistic, saying “Every knowledgeable observer of COVID understands that CFR is in itself an irrelevant number… CFR’s only ‘virtue’ is its ability to frighten by overstating the real risk of dying from a COVID infection.”[3]
Despite this, many people are under the impression that COVID-19 is much more lethal than it really is. This is clearly because of media fear-mongering, and yes, there are clearly financial interests at play, not those of Big Pharma, but also companies such as Amazon, Walmart, and many others who benefited from rampant stimulus spending. For some reason, Leftists have been shy to criticize the blatant greed of major corporations who are making a killing in the context of the current crisis. The Left readily decries the profiteering of both the military-industrial complex and the prison-industrial complex, however, criticism of the medical-industrial complex has become increasingly rare in anti-capitalist circles. Because trusting that pharmaceutical companies have the best interests of the public at heart, one would do well to remember the particularly blatant example of how drug manufacturers fuelled the opiate crisis by heavily promoting drugs such as OxyContin. In developing our analysis of the current moment, it behooves us to take matters into consideration such as whether or not given politicians and other public officials have conflicts of interests. Until recently, this would not have been an even remotely controversial statement. It is a sad state of affairs when supposed anti-capitalists rush to the defence of Big Pharma!
So, thank you to British critic for giving us the opportunity to clarify our position. Again, our intention was to kickstart discussion and debate about how to organize in the current political climate, and so we welcome the criticism and encourage others to join the conversation. We would simply make two requests, in the spirit of having the most constructive debate possible. First, we would ask that critics engage with the actual content of what we have said, rather that resorting to whataboutism, and secondly, that if refuting any of our claims, reference is made to the best available data, that is, peer-reviewed studies from respected medical or scientific journals.
We can be reached at vertetnoire@riseup.net. We encourage people to reach out for any reason, either to send us supportive messages or to accuse us of blasphemy, conspiring with the Devil, and/or crypto-eugenics.
Comments Off on Fear and Loathing in the Age of COVID
Mar212021
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
There’s a lot of weird and crazy things in the media these days, but one of the weirder and crazier things that I’ve seen lately appeared in the Ottawa Citizen back in October. The headline was “Forged letter warning about wolves on the loose part of Canadian Forces propaganda campaign that went awry”. Apparently, “a letter from the Nova Scotia government sent out to residents to warn about a pack of wolves on the loose in the province was forged by Canadian military personnel as part of a propaganda training mission”.
That training mission also apparently involved using a loudspeaker to generate wolf sounds. I don’t know what’s weirder, that the Canadian Forces would do such a thing, or that they’d get caught. Are the Trailer Park Boys now running psy ops? (Sunnyvale is in Nova Scotia. Just saying).
Thea article quotes a U.S. professor who calls this a major violation of ethics. “This is way over the top,” Briant said. “It’s a very dangerous path when you start targeting your own public with false information and trying to manipulate them.”
“Briant said the deception has nothing to do with wolves; it was likely an exercise in the testing the military’s skills in trying to manipulate the population with false information…”
This is where it gets really interesting, though:
“The Nova Scotia propaganda training comes as the Canadian Forces spools up its capabilities to conduct information warfare, influence operations and other deception missions aimed at populations overseas and, if necessary, the Canadian public.
Briant revealed on Monday the Canadian Forces spent more than $1 million in training its public affairs officers in skills to influence targeted populations.
In July, this newspaper reported a team assigned to a Canadian military intelligence unit monitored and collected information from people’s social media accounts in Ontario, claiming such data-mining was needed to help troops working in long-term care homes during the coronavirus pandemic. The collection involved comments made by the public about the provincial government’s failure in taking care of the elderly in the province. That data was turned over to the Ontario government, with a warning from the team it represented a “negative” reaction from the public.
This newspaper reported at the same time that the Canadian Forces planned a propaganda campaign aimed at heading off civil disobedience by Canadians during the coronavirus pandemic. The plan used similar propaganda tactics to those employed against the Afghan population during the war in Afghanistan, including loudspeaker trucks to transmit government messages. The propaganda operation was never put into action.
In addition, some Canadian military officers have suggested creating fake Facebook and other social media accounts for carrying out deception operations as well as harnessing social media accounts of Canadian Forces members, military-friendly academics and retired senior military staff to challenge opposition politicians and journalists who raise controversial issues regarding the Canadian Forces.”
So, I suppose we can at least be secure in the knowledge that the Canadian Forces seems pretty inept when it comes to “information warfare”. It took a “military intelligence unit” to figure out that the public had a “negative” reaction to old people dying of COVID? And their plan was to cruise around in trucks blasting propaganda from loudspeakers? What the fuck? Damn, I guess “military intelligence” really is an oxymoron.
However, there’s good reason to be concerned as well. For one thing, isn’t it unsettling that the Canadian Forces are gearing up for “information warfare”? Who exactly are they going to war with? If the army is preparing for “influence operations and other deception missions”, for what ends are people to be influenced and deceived?
We can make guesses. On February 15th of this year, the Globe and Mail published a piece by Lisa Kramer, which advocated for using an “evidence-based approach” to COVID propaganda. Of course, she didn’t call it propaganda. She called it: “messaging urging Canadians to abide by COVID-19 lockdown measures”.
Kramer writes: “Evidence suggests people will be more likely to follow the rules when information is framed both to make it easy to grasp and to emphasize that the majority of others are behaving themselves, too… “[b]ecause lockdowns go against humans’ innate social nature, it can… be helpful to use psychology-based methods to help promote lockdown-abiding behaviour. One such approach is to curate the way we present information, building on extensive evidence that people care what others think and engage in activities that others deem socially acceptable.”
What she is referring to is the concept of social proof, popularized by behavioural scientist Robert Cialdini in his classic work “Influence”. In this book, which I would highly recommend to anyone wishing to understand political persuasion, social proof is identified as one of six “weapons of influence”. The idea, put simply, is: “monkey see, monkey do”. A person who isn’t sure what constitutes appropriate action in a given situation will look to other people and imitate their behaviour. We all know this intuitively; as we all discern what is correct through reference to what other people think is correct. This becomes all the more true in unfamiliar situations, such as during times of crisis.
Back in March 2020, a group of behavioural scientists penned an open letter urging the U.K. government to use evidence-based techniques to influence the public with comply with its commands. Their letter states: “those essential behaviour changes that are presently required… will receive far greater uptake the more urgent the situation is perceived to be.”
It seems so benign when they put it that way, but it would seem to me that what is being proposed is the state uses psychological manipulation to frighten the populace so that they are more compliant.
Other examples make a pattern clear. According to an article in Die Welt, headlined “The German Government Ordered Scientists to Produce Data to Scare Citizenry”: “a group of German lawyers has been pushing for the Koch Institute to disclose correspondence with the German Home Office in which the latter demanded that “scientists” create “scientific” documentation to scare the populace… The document, published just weeks later, finally identified a worst-case scenario in which more than a million people could die from the coronavirus.”
The same article goes on to not that fear-conditioning seems to be widely accepted. It notes that “on the website of one of the largest and best known institutions of higher learning in the US, Cornell University, the following study was found: “Modelling the role of media induced fear conditioning in mitigating post-lockdown COVID-19 pandemic: perspectives on India”.
This study (which has not been peer-reviewed) finds that “fear conditioning via mass media (like television, community radio, internet and print media),” along with positive reinforcement, resulted in “significant decrease in the growth of infected population.”
Basically, this study advocates for the use of fear-mongering propaganda in the name of Public Health, specifically through the formation of conditioned reflexes. Remember Pavlov’s dogs? They were conditioned to drool when a bell was rung. Are we being conditioned to have automatic, unconscious reactions to certain stimuli as part of a propaganda campaign?
According to the study, the answer to this question is yes. It states: “Modelling studies have shown that fear has a major influence in reducing the impact of a pandemic. Fear was shown to be directly associated with increased social distancing, as well as increased security measures… Thus, reflex fear production through incoming information, combined with other techniques, can increase social distancing and cautious behaviour. Fear conditioned reflex production, a subspecies of classical conditioned reflex production, is the making of a connection between unpleasant events and a stimulus from the environment.”
The question then arises: If we are conditioned through fear, which stimuli are triggering which responses?
The study provides one example: “in the case of COVID-19, a person can be considered to have an attached reflex if he forms a connection between being uncomfortable and touching surfaces. In this way, he begins to perceive touching surfaces as touching the virus itself.”
This is deeply troubling. People are being conditioned to be afraid of touching surfaces. How insane is that? Are we really to believe that this in the name of the greater good? What about the psychological suffering of individuals who are highly susceptible to fear-conditioning? How many children will become life-long germophobes as a result of the current obsession with viruses? How many people will develop serious phobias and mental disorders as a result of this? What will the effects on society be if there is a class of people who are afraid of everything? Will a certain percentage of people become psychological casualties of this era?
As someone with a boundless curiosity regarding the human mind, it saddens me that psychology is not being used not to uplift and inspire people, but to keep them down. I personally feel that if the goal really was to save lives, that it wouldn’t be necessary to use fear to gain compliance. It would be possible to appeal to people’s better instincts, towards caring and conscientiousness. I believe that a positive message could have been equally (or more) effective, if the goal really was to protect the vulnerable from real and imminent danger.
One should remember that propaganda is morally neutral. Anti-smoking campaigns are a form of propaganda which, if you think being addicted a carcinogenic drug is bad, you might be inclined to think was beneficial for society. Nor is reference to the principle of social proof either good or bad. However, I don’t think that the motivation of any of this fear-conditioning is to “save lives” or protect the vulnerable. I believe it is to condition the population to be compliant, so that they won’t put up too much of a fuss during a time in which society is being radically transformed into a form that none of us would have chosen.
The good news is that social movements also have the ability to employ weapons of influence. Courage is as contagious as fear, and people will, once a certain threshold is crossed, emulate acts of defiance as well as acts of conformity. That means that social proof is a principle which can we as a movement can make use of as well. By everyday acts of disobedience, we can normalize resistance. Right now, the expectation is that people will comply with any rule, no matter how absurd. We must break the spell. And how do we do that?
It will acquire just enough resistance to reach a critical mass at which the illusion cracks and defiance becomes generalized. Remember, people look to others for cues from others as to how to behave. If breaking the rules becomes more common, following suit will be perceived as less risky by others. Through small, incremental actions, disobedience becomes more possible within the popular imagination. People then will be more willing to experiment with what they can get away with, and their examples make rupture with groupthink easier for people whose personalities are on the more conformist side of the spectrum.
The point isn’t to stubbornly insist upon an alternate interpretation of reality. The point is to show that alternatives exist, and that it is possible to create them, and that in order to be free in an unfree world one must both break the rules and get away with it.
Beautification of the city under cover of night is one way to take arms against the sea of lies that is drowning the world. Make no mistake: the souls of the pacified masses cry out in despair, desperately desiring that which gives life meaning, purpose and direction. If you can express what you are feeling through any form of self-expression, you are making it easier for others to find their voices. Political graffiti and wheat pasting provocative art sends a message to those who desire to remember themselves, whispering to their truant hearts: “there are others who are like you”. A spontaneous dance party in the streets sends a message to the city: “Dance before the day is lost!”
The task right now is to remind people of what there is to live for, to call people’s spirits back into their bodies, to energize their spirits with the desire to live and to fulfil the purpose of their existence on Earth. And how can one accomplish that?
By doing it yourself. By having fun. By laughing, dancing, playing, singing, gathering together. By having a good time. By refusing to take life so seriously. By affirming the bonds of friendship and community that bring true collectivity, that which emerges through love and organic social organization, and never from the false collectivity imposed by the state.
For A Joyous Rupture with the Reality of the Fear-crazed, for the Contagion of Revolt!
There are currently at least sixty people still facing serious criminal charges from the 2019 and 2020 raids on Wet’suwet’en territory and the solidarity movement known as Shut Down Canada. Dealing with criminal charges is often an isolating and scary experience, especially when the legal system intentionally tries to make people feel alone and powerless. We think a support campaign is the best way we can fight back against these forces and show the state that we will not allow our friends and comrades to be criminalized. If we can support one another now, then we can support one another in all the struggles to come.
More than avoiding repression, what matters is how we deal with it. We need to always be finding ways to show those targeted they are not alone — this makes it easier for them to get through it with strength and integrity. As people move through the justice system, displays of solidarity and practical support make a real difference in the outcome. We need to show that those who are brave and take risks will be supported if we want to be brave together again in the future and see our movements grow.
We want to provide a space where defendants can write about their experiences with repression and criminalization, statements of solidarity, and updates about the charges, which will be posted on our Updates section.
We want to help defendants to fund raise for their legal battles, where we provide links to different defendants and communities’ GoFundMe pages.
We want to help defendants feel more supported in the incredibly isolating process of state criminalization, and are offering a PO box where letters of support, postcards, and zines can be sent, which we we then forward to defendants.
And, finally, we want to create an email campaign to pressure for charges to be dropped or for prominent figures to publicly support charges being dropped. We have created a basic sample template for a (polite) email, and a list of talking points that defendants have given us, and compiled a list of emails for it to be sent to.
Please share this campaign on your various data-mining surveilance platforms and use the hashtag #BlockadeDefense
