We do not enlist

from Inferno Urbano

The war has finally arrived. After two years of preparation for war, of chants, flags and discipline, the "we are at war" announced for spring 2020 has finally become reality. The tragic news from Ukraine is the fuse that was sought for the definitive militarisation of our society.

Wars are always a bloodbath for the exploited and a rich business for the bosses. We are not interested in the opposing propaganda reasons of the belligerents. The exploited in Russia as in the Ukraine, in Italy as in the USA are our brothers & sisters, their blood is our blood. The governments, the generals, the industrialists, the financiers are our enemies, our executioners, our starvers.

NATO's arrogant and insatiable 30-year expansion and Russia's internal crisis have been the mixture for the explosive situation in which we find ourselves thrown. On the one hand, a long series of imperialist precedents such as the bombing of Serbia, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, support for criminal gangs such as those ruling Ukraine, where trade unionists are burnt alive; on the other, regimes such as those of Putin and Lukashenko, which hold on with the glue of encirclement paranoia and imperial nostalgia, where anarchists and opponents are arrested and tortured. In the face of all this filth, no front is ours. Our enemies are not the exploited on the other side of the front, but all the rulers, starting with those at home.

From this point of view, Italian politics is showing its true face and seems to have thrown off the comedy mask with which the political forces play out their dialectic. Thus we see a shameless alignment with militaristic rhetoric: from the Partito Democratico, which by now embodies the greatest systemic force in our society, and which does not renounce at every opportunity to emphasize its Atlanticism and Europeanism, to the fictitious opposition of Fratelli d'Italia, which - as the world's ugliest anthem recites - when "Italy called" did not wait a minute to put the NATO helmet on its head.

In reaffirming our internationalism and our refusal to participate in this tragic farce, it is worth remembering that, if there is a "Russian party" in Italy today, it is certainly not embodied by some old iron of Stalinism, but rather by the shady business of Intesa Sanpaolo or the Italian energy multinationals.

So we have no confidence in those who have dragged us into this situation. The war can only be stopped by the direct action of the proletariat, by their insubordination: at work as at the front, we disobey our superiors, we disarm them, we block production, we stop the mobilisation of the war. It is we who pay the highest price for the power games of the states. It is a price that is being paid by those under the bombs and that we are paying too, with the increase in energy and fuel, and consequently in all consumer goods.

We welcome the demonstrations taking place in St. Petersburg and Moscow at the moment, just as we welcome the protests of lorry drivers in Italy against the increase in fuel prices: even if they are not aware of it, those who are stopping the country today against the high cost of living are the greatest enemies of war, because they are already making politics and the economy pay the price for its consequences.

However, so that these are not sporadic movements, episodic and extemporary reactions, it is necessary that the exploited of each country can dialogue with each other: the international is the concrete form of organisation with which, in the struggle, the exploited can coordinate and dialogue, thus forcing the States to stop their machine of death.

Anarchists in Spoleto
February 25, 2022

original here: https://infernourbano.noblogs.org/post/2022/02/26/noi-non-ci-arruoliamo/
translation here: https://raddle.me/f/Anarchism/140967/italy-we-do-not-enlist-english-lang...

There are 11 Comments

If war ever extends to "comfy & safe" West Europe, most of the exploited are fucked.

Too many divisions and competitive morals, supported for years by gentrification and its related cod-blooded hipster carelessness...E Even the squat milieus in some major cities are dominated by private gang politics that leads so little space for discussion and last-minute coordination. Lotsa people with their heads stuck up their asses, no empathy... not much left of that spirit of openness, DIY and free-sharing from 20 years back...

So perhaps this ain't the case of every area/city, but I just hope shit won't hit the fan on a global enough scale to come to your place.

Trump is still in play on Turtle Island, has endorsed Putin, and is suspected to be the most likely "winner" of the 2024 election due to Putin-style (and Putin supported) cheating.

If that happens we face the danger of an ugly, Syria-style multipolar civil war on my continent. All those comfy luxury SUV driving suburban pencil pushers will be royally fucked as fighters with guns take over. One bright spot here though is that artillery may be largely limited to the usual IED's, with tube artillery, missiles, and air strikes being rare unless the US military splits or binds itself fully to one side.

It was predicted in Europe and is still being predicted here. Get ready...

Umm Luke, its the 21st Century dude, global warfare is impossible in a corporate dominated world. Instead, there will be multiple proxy wars which preserve infrastructure and the workforce. Gotta keep production going and the profit margin increasing at whatever cost.

What about a fascist grand merger of corporations with NATO states, and the massive mobilization of the workforce into a new war industry?

This kinda worked well for the massive, global enforcement of Covid measures. So this would only be a "next level" of restructing and mobilizing. This is the war that Situationists predicted a long while back.. A war that is fought everywhere and by everyone, in a way; where the entire digital world already is becoming a central aspect of the war industry. The war effort therefore becomes a political totality, whereas everything also insidiously becomes political.

In almost any place you might live, some government of the day is either enforcing the dominatiom of the local rich or invading to enforce domination by THEIR wealthy class. In either case you have to fight, focussing first on the most dangerous enemy in YOUR neighborhood.

If you live in Ukraine, that's probably Russian troops. If you live in Russia that will be Russian cops. If you live in NYC it will be the NYPD. Many times police have been spoken of as occupying powers.

If you doubt that, consider what would have happened in 2020 if during the Uprising we had managed to hold the Black House Autonomous Zone near the White House indefinately. Police would have launched bigger and bigger attacks.and would have used light armored vehicles as rhey did.against Occupy DC during the Dec 2011 "Battle of the Barn."

If all police attacks were defeated we woule have had to figjt the National Guard, which had already been deployed once, at the start of the uprising after a few fires.If their infantry could not defeat us they would bring tanks. Long before rhat would have been hordes of pro-Trump MAGA'ts shooting at us, us.shooting back, and thus likely massive horizontal escalation.

Dude, Trump and Putin are not friends or friendly. During Trump's entire presidency, he was antagonizing Russia with sanctions galore, just like every other US president in the past 30 years. There's no reason Putin would support Trump. Putin and Russia don't have the means to have much of an effect on US elections outcomes, anyways. I don't understand how you arrived at your theory that if Trump is elected, then a civil war will break out on your continent between a variety of factions, and the people with IEDs and guns will take over.

During the runup to first the 2020 election and then J6, even the Washington Post wrote about the danger of civil war here. After J6 some thought it was over, but others fear it is most certainly not. Just a few months ago came that warning from a bunch of retired generals about how it could still kick off after the 2024 election, w Trump learning dangerous lessons from last time. All those GOP voter suppression laws have a purpose, and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s Democracy Index demoted the United States from "full democracy" to "flawed democracy" or "backsliding democracy." Pure party-line votes w the Senate's 60 vote rule have ensured that not a single piece of Trump's state-level strategy for a comeback have been stopped by the Federal government. Trump is nowhere near gone, unless his statements about Putin change things and drive off his GOP support.

The scenarios for civil war do not involve a clean election of any candidate for office, rather they involved a disputed election with the loser challenging the results in the streets like what happened last time. We got seriously lucky when so much of the far right chumped out after J6. They only lost that one because they didn't plan PAST the broken windows and opened doors they entered the Capitol through.

Suppose the J6 fash after they stormed the Capitol had rounded up all the GOP Congresscritters, drove off the Dems, seated the GOP in the Rotunda and held a quick one-party vote to "confirm" Trump as the winner? No matter what happened after that, some whole states would have accepted and some rejected the outcome. No way all 50 states accept that, and no way all of the GOP states accept that it is invalid. From there things go NUTS.

As for Putin, at a 2018 Helsinki summit Trump and Putin stood side by side to claim falsely that Putin did not meddle in the 2016 US election. Trump get impeached his first time for a failed attempt to force Ukraine's president Zelinsky to intervene against Hunter Biden. After that Helsinki summit, some of the Democrats protested every night until covid started outside the White House, going so far as to call it the "Kremlin Annex." Some of these were tiny but a few drew hundreds of people plus counterprotesters

"Putin and Russia don't have the means to have much of an effect on US elections outcomes, anyways. "

are you just a troll, or completely ignorant? i doubt any critical thinker would deny that russia had a very definite impact on the 2016 election. (just because some ptbs acknowledge that, doesn't make it untrue). i suspect the reason trump and his cult are so adamant about 2020 election being stolen is because they expected a similar effect of russian interference, but the opposing side learned some lessons in time to limit the impact.

Unless you want to consider not only Trump but all the magats behind him too as Putin's stooges, war here will be no proxy war.Instead any war here will likely be deemed by historians a re-ignition of the unfinished firsr civil war.

In Ukraine the only proxy on Putin's side is Belarus and they are a minor player. Russia os doing its own fighting though Putin of course is not vulnerable to conscription. Russian anarchists etc may carry the war to the Kremlin but if they do its for their own reasons and not under Ukranian control. The reason NATO does not directly join in (they may be next if Ukraine is defeated) is Putin's nuclear threats.

The Ukraine Russian conflict is a rich white man's war for the Western audience, the wars in Yemen, Ethiopia, and remote regions usually inhabited by non-whites get very little coverage or aid, yet the casualities of thousands of innocent people are never revealed.
There is propaganda that Ukrainian civilians are being killed, but no mention is made that they were armed, and already the predictably sexist tool of photogenic Ukrainian college girls holding AK47s have begun to appear on the media.
The proxy wars by capitalists exist now, the weapon is international banking pillaging poor nations of their wealth and causing the death by starvation and disease of thousands of children.
You can be part of this spectacle if you want and get sucked into the nationalist tribal hatred that whines its way pitifully into the hearts of all slaves to the state.

The freedom convoy conflict is a rich white man's war for the Western audience, the wars in Yemen, Ethiopia, and remote regions usually inhabited by non-whites get very little coverage or aid, yet the casualities of thousands of innocent people are never revealed.
There is propaganda that freedom truckers are being trampled by police horses, but no mention is made that they were breaking the law, and already the predictably sexist tool of photogenic truckers holding maga hats have begun to appear on the media.
The proxy wars by freedom truckers exists now, the weapon is spamming anarchist discussions and causing the mild annoyance and amusement to of dozens of readers.
You can be part of this spectacle if you want and get sucked into the nationalist spam that whines its way pitifully into the hearts of all readers of this site.

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