May 1st in Rovereto

On May 1st, about twenty companions took to the streets for about an hour in the working-class district of Fucine with a series of amplified interventions at the Itea buildings (Istituto Trentino Edilizia Agevolata). Like what happened on April 25th at Brione, it was an opportunity to talk about both the structural causes of the epidemic – all linked to the capitalist way of plundering and exploiting nature – and how Confindustria and the government dealt with it, causing a massacre. During this initiative the inhabitants of Itea, who are in economic difficulties (the managers of the Provincial Authority announced a moratorium on rents for shopkeepers, but not for tenants), were invited to organize themselves in order not to pay the rent. It was stressed that the ban – which will continue after May 4 – on meeting more people in the open air is intended to keep us isolated and passive in the face of what they are preparing for us: the loans that the government is going to ask the European institutions and domestic creditors (banks, insurance companies, investment funds) will be repaid by increasing the exploitation of workers and the poorest sections of society, an aspect on which “pro-Europeans” and “sovereigns” all agree. To resist this – and the introduction of 5G – it is necessary to responsibly violate social containment measures. Some inhabitants – especially young people – have approached the initiative. Two police patrols, on the other hand, have kept their distance.

“If we can work, we can strike.”

Under this slogan blockades and strikes were organised in most logistics chains between April 30 and May 1. In Bologna, in Casoria, in the province of Naples, in Turin, in Campi Bisenzio, in Calenzano, in Modena (where the protests had already started at the beginning of the week). And then Genoa, Milan, Brescia, Bergamo, Piacenza, Florence, Rome, Caserta… Once again the carriers – mostly immigrants – confirmed themselves as the most combative sector of the wage class. The riders from Turin and the transport cleaners from Naples also went on strike and on April 30th they blocked the subway.

In the belly of the beast

While the Italian media only give space to the protests of Trump’s supporters, who want the resumption of economic activity without ifs and buts (the same position adopted by the League and ridden by the fascists, who try to disguise themselves behind the “tricolor masks”), on May 1st in the United States there were massive strikes against giants like Amazon, Whole Food, Walmart, Target. The demands are the closure of the sites where there have been contagions, no restrictions in testing for potentially infected workers, remuneration for dangerous work, interruption of the delivery of non-essential goods and the end of retaliation against workers who demand more safety at work. Nurses took to the streets in front of 130 hospitals in 13 states to recruit new staff, against the lack of protective equipment and attempts to silence the protestors. Common denominator of these and many other demonstrations, the opposition to spending and military intervention by the stars and stripes. Since March, at least 140 wild strikes have been documented throughout the United States. Meanwhile, in California, New York State, Missouri and several major cities, the rent strike is spreading.

“Joined”

Asking ourselves what practical purpose the rules imposed on us for more than a month have for containing the contagion has so far proved to be a fundamental exercise of critical spirit. From May 4, the date of the infamous “phase 2”, restrictions on our freedoms (especially those of association and demonstration) will not change, but it will be possible to visit… who? In the first version it was the relatives. Protests. You misunderstood, we meant stable relations. This ballet once again reveals that certain measures have very little to do with health. What practical use does it have compared to the containment of contagion to be able to meet only relatives? Do family ties protect us from being infected? Is there some kind of flock immunity linked to the surname? The answer seems obvious to us.

In the next few days many activities will re-start (leaving aside those, certainly not essential, that never closed , such as companies that produce arms); we will return to produce and consume almost at full capacity. We will not, however, return to our significant social ties, our friendships, our accomplices: those, on paper, are worth less than a certificate of kinship. Patience for those who do not have a family or who have broken off relations with it because they have found affection, understanding, reciprocity elsewhere.

Work, home, family: that’s the main thing!

But if we want to put an end to the social organisation that creates pandemics, we must also loudly claim the importance of all our ties, especially the most unselfish and authentic ones – which often have nothing to do with families.

Similarities

To capture all expressions of human life through Law is a totalitarian utopia. Totalitarian, because its realization would make human beings similar to machines; utopia, because the state can never control everything we do. However, it can approach, and quite a lot, taking advantage of the most propitious opportunities. What do the Decrees issued in the name of the Coronavirus emergency have in common with the countless liberticide laws that have studded the history of this country? Not only and not so much the mass extension of the restrictions, but the fact that – by overturning the foundations of liberal ideology – these Decrees define as allowed not what is not expressly forbidden, but what is expressly allowed. Well, where is only place where activities are divided between those expressly permitted and those expressly prohibited? Prison.

While not yet collecting the necessary consensus to introduce the “Immune” application for the digital tracking of social contacts, the state has started to require some semi-free prisoners to have a smartphone for geolocation. As a replacement for what? Electronic wristbands, the construction of which is entrusted to one of the cell phone companies (Fastweb).

The advance of digital technology allows what the totalitarian regimes of the past did not even dare to dream of.

https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/05/06/chronicles-from-the-state-of-emergency-no-7-wall-paper-from-trentino/#more-72416

Weeks after our initial incarceration we are finally being released, little by little. Released, we say, because very few stayed indoors of their own accord. Of course some did, but most had no choice. Media hysteria censured of any alternative, fines, police intimidation and beatings are enough to keep even the most rebellious souls locked up. The monster came out of the mist only to retreat again, no one knowing when it might return to rear its ugly head.

Yet, here in southern Europe, we were not abandoned during quarantine. Not forgotten like the dead. Carrefour kept its shelves stocked. If one persisted toilet paper could be found and hoarded. Amazon never let us down, but at $10,000 a second that’s hardly surprising. Orange supplied in times of need, but with society’s upsurge in demand on telecommunications an upgrade from this archaic 4G is essential. In a period of hibernation, as they have chosen to label it, big industry enjoyed a midnight feast while the others were forced to sleep. It would appear that Holzmann’s ‘creative destruction’ is exactly what we’re witnessing: a good old deep clean, forcing the clutter into the corners to make space for the elegant new furniture.

The scientific bombardment shows little sign of slowing up. The facts, figures, graphs, lofty titles and even heftier wallets continue to force upon us a story that must be accepted. Our ideas, experiences and lives are nothing but fake news in a New Normality where the only trustworthy sources are the party-pledges of our favorite periodicals. Everyone’s got an opinion yet to refuse the transcribed plot is to be in support of murder. Numbers skyrocketed, then relaxed, but death continues to rain down, yet all we see on the bleak walk to the shop and back are the faces we once smiled at, averting our gaze.

The life we are now living was drawn from a model that transitioned us from fascism, says the cop, gun pressed gently into the lower back. We’re lucky to have had this time together, says the husband, brushing his wife’s hair across the bruise beneath her eye. Many countries won’t have had the privileges granted to us, announces the director of an NGO, looking out of his window over the Madrid skyline.

When this ghost leaves Europe life will continue in its memory. The APPs downloaded to protect from contagion will continue to track; embedded ‘contact tracing’ becoming a pseudonym for socialising. Facial recognition software, perfected in its detection of those wearing masks, will become standard practice. Unsolicited gatherings of more than two are a threat to public health and the society of a metre’s distance just got bigger. By now, if there’s a scrap of truth in what they say, the virus will be ravaging Africa, but there are other ways to deal with that.

If we’re all in this together, whatever ‘this’ is, and it’s our duty to protect the vulnerable then now is not the time to take the blue pill, lie back and enjoy the Matrix. Generations are going to grow understanding this normality to be new in reference to a pandemic they don’t remember. Human contact is going to be a maneuver of biological terrorism and contesting science is to be regarded as lunacy. The activity timetables drawn up for us will clearly prescribe the boundaries of human exertion as dinner arrives in a paper bag on the doorstep of an Uber account, delivered by a neighbour you’ll never know from number 23. No need to meet. Just take a photo and leave it on the porch.

Contrary to what’s been said, capitalism is not the virus. Capitalism is a social relationship based upon an economic system that methodically exploits the excluded. The record isn’t fixed and it certainly hasn’t changed. The enemies are who they always have been: capital, being invested assets and resources; its lover of a lifetime, the state; their manipulators, advocates and beneficiaries, the rich and ruling class; and its defence, the police, military and affiliated security institutions. Even religion is losing its significance as this great leveling is firmly heralding science as God and non-compliance the Devil. What capitalism is doing, as the interplay of fluctuating relationships between these elements, is that which it always does: adapting to provide for its vested interests. The beauty of a flexible market economy is that it can bend and adjust itself according to supply and demand, but in bending demand supply can operate with greater efficiency. Just as capitalism requires the homogenisation of language to streamline its transactions, aiming minority tongues and dialects into irrelevance, the standardisation of consumer requirements and necessitisation of certain technologies pave a path to power less cluttered.

Much has been said about the assaults on the working class. Dismissals and contract suspensions are the talk of the town, and the black labour market the unheard scream, yet this has all been clear since time began. Capitalist power has been brutally exploiting since its inception, only now it is forcing desperation down choking throats. With a deliciously liquid property market as the lumps are whisked away, allowing more established capital to extend its reach by lapping up the lower labour costs, those that have been struggling for weeks – months – will take anything. The glorious flexibility of the ‘gig economy’ replaces any assumption that one needs a stable living wage as electronic interfaces improve an efficiency that humans held back. All the cultural pastimes that are so missed have been forced into irrelevance as capital’s grasp on ‘our neighbourhood’ is fully clenched. Every claim that “x is not for sale” has been fucked into the sidelines by the now evident reply that “yes, my dear, it is. You are.”

Let’s remember that the people imposing these measures are the same people that spill blood day in, day out, in global wars of political motive. The same people that rip the earth to pieces and poison it to the core, for the most important resources to extract are profit and power. Let’s not forget that those demanding our conformity are exactly those who, time and time again, force us down the path of crisis in an economy that we never even asked for anyway. The same intentions that raise rents and lower wages. The same hands that beat migrants without a glimmer of remorse. The same guns that killed Carlo Giuliani in Genoa in 2001, Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Athens in 2008 and Mark Duggan in London in 2011.

Whatever virus exists has not been defeated, controlled or sent packing. The ingredients have been balanced and the recipe perfected. While we’re waiting for the next course, slowly getting fat on the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table and remembering how easy it is to forget, the next great catastrophe is being rested before service. In the face of one of the greatest economic and social transformations of the current age, one must remember that those in whom many now look to for a solution, even supposed revolutionaries, are nothing but monsters: creators of a New Brutality that we are queuing up to endure.