Against the pandemic and the ongoing state and capitalist crime, society will win

Article by Anarchist Political Organisation (APO) Greece. Original in Greek 28 March 2020: Απέναντι στην πανδημία και το συνεχιζόμενο κρατικό-καπιταλιστικό έγκλημα… Η κοινωνία θα νικήσει! English translation 3 April 2020: http://apo.squathost.com/against-the-pandemic-and-the-ongoing-state-capitalist-crime-society-will-win/

For some weeks now, we have been facing the whole spectrum of the deadly pandemic of the virus COVID-19. A virus that mostly endangers vulnerable groups of the population. The social and class majority faces disease and hundreds of thousands of people from our class are dying all over the world, deprived of the necessary means for their protection.

Today, it is revealed in the most tragic way the anti-social and murderous nature of the state and capitalist system that is not oriented towards satisfying the needs of the social majority, but, especially in time of crisis, towards limiting and depriving all necessary resources from the social and class base, expanding its parasitical existence upon it, committing another crime against it.

The appropriation by the economic and political elites of the socially produced wealth and the available resources, the over-concentration of population in large cities, in modern working “galleys”, prisons and migrant and refugees concentration camps, the continuous degradation of the medical system, while the economic and political elites still have the ability to receive the best healthcare possible, reveal that: The state and capitalist system, which already sentences millions of people to death from hunger, disease and war, is not giving a battle against the evolving pandemic, but for the preservation of the privileges and positions of power of the political and economic bosses.

This is confirmed by the daily war announcements of the government that aim to remind us of the huge damage the whole crisis will cause to the economy and to ensure consensus on the social restructuring they are preparing to impose the next period of time, in order to support the capitalists due to the drop in their profitability. On the occasion of the evolving pandemic, a new attack against the workers and society is being prepared. We will be called to pay what is presented today as “solidarity benefits” to the social base, with a huge cost to the lives of millions of people, who will emerge already wounded from the unequal battle.

Because in reality the battle against the evolving pandemic is given by the social and class base, despite the adverse conditions our oppressors have imposed on us. The battle against the pandemic is given by all those that take all the necessary measures of personal and collective protection because they understand the risk for our fellow-human beings, paying them from their own pockets while they should be available to the whole population. It is given by the doctors and medical staff, who with self-sacrifice and huge personal exhaustion, falling ill, put all their energies to save lives. It is given by all those who are forced to go to work every day, in courier services, in take-away shops, in public transport, in super-markets providing society with the necessary foodstuff, risking their own health, the farmers and the sanitation workers.

It is the social and class base that, within difficult conditions, is showing its huge potential, fighting to withstand the pandemic, in a context of generalized poverty and misery. And it is the state and the capital, who continue to reproduce themselves, that are the obstacle in facing the pandemic, not the solution. Depriving food and medical material, all the existing resources for this battle, pricing human lives and speculating on death. It is them who have nothing else to “promise” than the total militarization of society, the repression of those who survive. It is them who are already preparing the next slaughters, the imposition of a dystopia, by funding armies instead of hospitals, policemen instead of doctors. It is them who are promoting the interests of the companies and the bosses, while at the same time, they are plundering the workers’ rights, with bosses’ abuse and unaccountability increasing during the pandemic, through lay-offs, undeclared work, intensified exploitation. It is them who even now continue the repressive attacks against the people of the struggle, throwing immigrants out of their houses, beating and severely injuring antifascists, as happened recently in Rethymno.

They are the same who have been trying for years to dissolve the public health structures by cutting off their budgets, by lay-offs, by shutting down hospitals, resulting in less available units of intensive care than those really needed. The doctors and nurses are giving a huge struggle and we stand in solidarity with them, supporting all their demands. We demand the immediate and unconditional mass recruitment (instead of the mockery of short-term contracts and voluntary work) of doctors and nurses and the provision of all necessary resources and means, in order to cover the healthcare needs of the population, additional insurance coverage and care for all those working in the health sector, in order to avoid exhaustion and serious danger to their own health.

They are the same who have trapped tens of thousands of people in extremely dangerous conditions. Their health is in an even greater risk due to their confinement in horrible conditions and we will not tolerate of them being treated as expendable population. We demand immediate support to all those who are imprisoned and the decongestion of prisons. We demand the release of the refugees and immigrants from the concentration camps and the requisitions of the empty hotels for their protection from the pandemic, as well as the creation of special health structures for all.

They are the same who have impoverished the workers and the unemployed that are now facing the danger of hunger. We demand the immediate payment of all people, despite the status of their employers, and the special support for the poor and homeless. The requisition of every available resource of the stolen social wealth, accumulated by the political and economic elites, for the needs of society is imperative.

Any attempt of the state to continue its repressive campaign against the people and the structures of the struggle, within this context, will be a war crime and will be dealt as such. Any arrests in the context of “business as usual” from the scums of the Ministry of Civil Protection mean that they do not hesitate to endanger the lives and health of the people of the struggle and of society in general, in order to achieve their goals.

During this unprecedented condition that endangers the lives of many people, collective and personal protection do not mean by any chance a surrender to the desires of the state and capitalist dictatorship, who are planning to impose even harder living conditions to the social majority. We are staying at home due to reasons of social conscience, which are honest, in contrast to the hypocritical interest of the state and the bosses, who are forcing the social and class base to go to work, even if their working sector is not connected to the demanding needs of society, putting their lives in danger. They are the same who quarantine the population, while they are making no effort to improve the health system, either by hiring new staff, or by opening new rooms of intensive care and providing medical equipment. The guardian of social conscience and solidarity is not and will never be the state and the police.

We are promoting the organization of special solidarity groups that will take all the necessary means of protection in order to support those who are extremely vulnerable.

The resources for the protection of society exist, we, the workers, have produced them, however they are in the hands of a small minority who have proved several times that they disregard human lives, for the sake of their authority and wealth. Since we know that the state and the bosses are forced to provide the basics only under social pressure, as they prefer to preserve the power and wealth of the elite instead of the health and lives of many thousands of people, whenever and wherever our conscience demands it we will be on the streets to fight for life against death, taking all the necessary precautions for our personal and collective protection against the pandemic.

The battle of the social and class base against the pandemic is the first and necessary step to preserve life. It is will be imperative to give another battle against the state and capitalist system, which imposed those conditions that made the spread of the virus deadlier, more massive, that now is imposing total control over us.

Solidarity, mutual aid and the struggle cannot be prohibited or quarantined. The class war, especially from the bosses’ side, has not been quarantined and must not cease from our side.

We will go on, as humans and not as self-seeking “cannibals”, as people of the struggle and not as terrorized and defeated, as anarchists, fighting for a society of free and equals, a society that will give priority to the protection of the most vulnerable, that its main and prime interest will be the social needs and a society, whose main concern will be the well-being and support of the people and not of a powerful caste that leads humanity to the dystopia of death, impoverishment and control.

No one fired, no one homeless, no one hungry,

no one helpless and abandoned in the pandemic

NOT A STEP BACK TO OUR NEEDS

EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE FOOD, HEATH, HOUSING

AGAINST THE DYSTOPIA OF MODERN TOTALITARIANISM, STATE AND CAPITALIST BRUTALITY THAT BRINGS DEATH…

SOCIAL SOLIDARITY AND CLASS SELF-ORGANIZATION

Anarchist Political Organization-Federation of Collectives

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