Mar 202014
Oct 292013
***Neighborhood contingents***
East: Préfontaine metro, 2:00pm
Southwest: Parc George-Étienne-Cartier, 2:00pm
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE HEARINGS OF THE NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD
at the Palais des congrès de Montréal
gathering at SQUARE VICTORIA, corner of Saint-Jacques and McGill
Thursday, OCTOBER 10, starting at 3:30pm
ANTI-COLONIAL – ANTI-CAPITALIST – FOR DEFENDING THE EARTH
From October 8 to 11, the National Energy Board will be holding hearings at the Palais des congrès in downtown Montréal so that it can “listen” to the concerns of the public about the reversal Line 9, a 38-year-old pipeline that Enbridge, a major pipeline transport company based out of Calgary, wants to use to pump oil from the Athabasca tar sands to the refineries in Montréal-Est.
From Sarnia, Ontario, to its eastern terminus on the Island, Line 9 passes within 50 km of an estimated 9.1 million people. The aging pipeline currently pumps oil from other continents inland, but Enbridge plans to move oil in the opposite direction, transporting Athabasca heavy crude eastward to New England and markets overseas. The total volume of oil moved through the pipeline each day will increase, too. Line 9 wasn’t built to handle such a quantity of heavy crude. It’s not a matter of if it will rupture, but when. We intend to fight the reversal of Line 9, to protect the land we live on and the water we drink.
In the context of Canada’s ongoing genocide of indigenous people in Alberta, as well as catastrophic climate change that will see millions of people starve, settler Québécois need to go further than narrow self-interest and proactively contribute to the struggle to shut down the Athabasca tar sands megaproject.
The National Energy Board hearings at the Palais des congrès will serve to legitimate the decision that political elites have, in fact, already made. These hearings should be confronted and disrupted!
Sep 252013
In memory of Pavlos Fyssas, a 34 year old anti-fascist rapper who was murdered by a Golden Dawn member in Greece, we spent an evening postering hundreds of anti-fascist posters against Golden Dawn, whose members have opened a chapter in Montreal.
Alerta! Alerta! Anti-Fascista!
Golden Dawn, a far-right Greek political party with open fascist/neo-nazi tendencies has opened a local chapter in Montreal. The first public initiative of this group was to organize a food, clothing, and medicine drive to be distributed to so-called “pure Greeks’’ in need due to the economic hardship across Greece.
Who is Golden Dawn?
In the 2012 Greek national elections, Golden Dawn, which had never previously been elected, secured 18 seats in the Greek parliament. They ran on a platform of fighting the rising austerity measures and combatting the influx of immigration which they blame for much of Greece’s economic problems and high levels of crime. Despite many claims that Golden Dawn has no ties to the neo-nazi movement, the party’s newspaper of the same name clearly demonstates their neo-nazi ideology: Ilias Kasidiaris, a former spokesman for Golden Dawn, wrote an article in their newspaper on the occasion of the anniversary of Adolph Hitler’s birthday, stating that Hitler was “a great social reformer and an organizer of a model State”.
The “nationalist’’ tendencies of Golden Dawn have also been made clear on the ground in Greece. Among other notable initiatives, Golden Dawn has:
• Set up of Greek-only food banks and blood banks for “pure” Greeks.
• Attacked an Athens theatre performing “Corpus Cristi’’, a play exploring themes of gay sexuality in christianity.
• Organized almost-daily daytime attacks on migrants that have left many hospitalized.
• Attacked migrant-run businesses, community centres, and markets, especially those that are operating without proper documentation.
• Proposed reinstalling anti-personnel landmine fields on the Greek borders to curb illegal immigration.
• Proposed banning of Gay Pride parades “for a thousand years’’.
It is also telling that over 50% of Greece’s national police force voted for Golden Dawn in the last election, representing approximately 7% of Golden Dawn’s supporters.
The appearance of a group such as Golden Dawn is nothing new or exceptional. In times of economic uncertainty, the far-right always capitalizes on widespread fear and insecurity to bolster its political platform of national, cultural, and ethnic purity; leading attacks on those they deem undesirable (migrants, queers, leftists, anarchists), while encouraging the strengthening of a strong State with an efficient repressive apparatus.
Golden Dawn is scapegoating immigration particularly as the cause of economic instability facing Greece and much of the “developed’’ world during these times of austerity. This scapegoating distracts from the real causes of the poverty and degradation; the causes which stem from a global capitalist system that would prefer to put a country in a situation of unprecedented unemployment than lose a cent of profit in global markets; a system that prioritizes strengthening its police forces and bailing out its banks at the cost of cutting social spending, rather than maintaining a quality of life for its people.
The best defense against these global markets and the fascists who prop them up is solidarity and self-organization among the excluded, those who don’t benefit from a jump in the stock markets or the next war for resources.
Fight Fascism! Fight Capitalism!
fachowatch.com – occupiedlondon.org/blog – athens.indymedia.org
Apr 272013
Apr 272013
Feb 202013
Jan 302013
Jan 162013
When: December 31, 2012 at 2pm
Where: Metro Henri-Bourassa, corner of Lajeunesse and Henri-Bourassa
On December 31, 2012, New Year’s Eve, there will be a demonstration heading to the prisons, Tanguay and Bordeaux, in the north part of the island of Montreal, near metro Henri-Bourassa. Carrying on a tradition from around the world, we will go wish a happy new year to those who are being held behind bars.
Prisons were created to isolate people from their communities. Noise demonstrations at prisons are a material way to fight against repression and isolation. Noise demos permit the creation of links between prisoners and people on the outside, who can together share their opposition to the bars, the guards and the world that needs them.
In the last few years, the student strike and the G20 brought some of us a bit closer to this reality. During the strike, some of our friends spent time behind the walls of the Tanguay Prison for Women and the Riviere-des-Praries Prison for Men before being released with extreme conditions including curfews, non-association and exile to wait for their trial. In the wake of the G20, friends who were charged with conspiracy, mischief, etc, also spent many months in prison. We know there are more trials coming.
In the last few years, the government has been busy expanding the prison system. They are currently spending an estimated $4 million dollars constructing 22 new prisons and expanding many existing prisons across the country. The project adds up to about 9,500 new beds for prisoners. In the same vein, new laws are being passed, like C-10 and C-38. Bill C-10′s overall goal is to to put more people in prison for longer and Bill C-31 ensures mandatory detention, loss of the right to apply for permanent residency for at least 5 years and loss of the right to sponsor one’s family for refugees who are charged with “crossing the border irregularly”. It’s never been a better time to go yell at the walls of a prison.
So come join us on December 31, 2012 at 2pm at Metro Henri-Bourassa on the corner of Lajeunesse and boulevard Henri-Bourassa. Dress warm; bring something to make some noise, whistles, pots and pans, banners, fireworks. We are going by foot to the provincial prison for women, Tanguay and the provincial prison for men, Bordeaux.
Because no one is free until we are all free. Inside as well as out, let’s revolt!
Aug 152012
SOLIDARITY WITH THOSE FACING REPRESSION FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE STRUGGLE!
Since the strike began, the state has tried through its courts and the clubs of its cops to stifle the wave of revolt that has swept across Québec and found solidarity internationally. What started as a student strike has transformed into a massive social movement that the state is trying to crush with its “special law”. This law reveals the true nature of Democracy in a time of crisis where we have effectively confronted the state in a struggle to better our lives in conflict with the interests of capital.
Throughout this struggle, many comrades have faced the repression of the state through mass detentions now numbering in the thousands, preventative detentions, house raids, and severe conditions (ranging from non-association to exile from the island of Montréal).
Comrades are also being prosecuted under post-9/11 terrorism charges for minor acts of sabotage in the metro system. There are also all those who, in the course of resisting in the streets, the police have sent to the hospital with broken arms, lost eyes, or in comas. In this society, the position of the cops is clear: they are the guard dogs of the rich, the ones who protect their property and who enforce the social peace which allows the inequalities of society to continue.
We must hold our heads high and never back down in the face of this repression. Strength to those who continue the struggle in the streets through active resistance and self-defense against the cops! We express solidarity to all those beaten, jailed, and repressed through the courts. Nothing is forgiven. Nothing is forgotten.
NO TO THE PROSECUTIONS!
NO JUSTICE IN THE COURTS OF THE RICH!
Copies in print available at La Belle Epoque and L’insoumise
Jun 232012
