Here is the translation of a leaflet distributed by comrades in the city of Quito, Ecuador at a demonstration yesterday, June 8th, against the economic and repressive measures undertaken by the government of Lenin Moreno and company in light of the “Coronavirus Crisis” there.
Here is the PDF for screen-reading and double-sided printing, and the plaintext version follows:
OUR LIVES BEFORE THEIR PROFITS!
DOWN WITH THE PAQUETAZO,
THE GOVERNMENT, CAPITAL AND THE STATE!
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The new “paquetazo” from the government of Moreno- Roldán-Martínez-Romo-Jarrín only enriches the businessmen and their politicians even more, while it impoverishes the working class (which includes the informal workers and the unemployed) further still. That’s to say, it increases our exploitation and our misery. That’s why we‘re taking to the streets in protest.
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If people become sick and die, it’s not the fault of the people but of this government and of the Chambers of Commerce that, with their measures to protect their profits, oblige us to go out to the streets to work and to protest, so risking our lives. They are taking everything away from us: work, health, housing, education, etc. They are also taking away our fear, until it switches over to to the other social side.
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This is not the “coronavirus crisis”. It’s the crisis of capitalism. The current economic and sanitary crisis has done no more than to lay bear this old and raw truth: capitalism kills the exploited and oppressed, the proletarians, but saves the rich and powerful, the bourgeois. The social classes exist. The class struggle also does, and in fact it’s what moves history and moves this society.
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Not contented with their “law of humanitarian aid” for them and newfound slavery for us, this government recently approved another law that allows the Armed Forces and the Police to use lethal weapons to repress social protest, which they call “progressive use of force”. That’s to say, not contented with killing us with coronavirus, hunger and isolation, now they also want to kill us with bullets in the case that we protest. This is not “fascism” and nor is it “fake democracy”. This is democracy, without quotation marks: indeed, because in reality democracy is the dictatorship of the rich over the poor, of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. The single greatest terrorist is the State.
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Although the recent public corruption scandals (about overpricing) on part of the high functionaries of this government are indignant and repugnant, the problem is not corruption. The problem is capitalism, a system that is based on the dispossession of the material means of living from the great majority of the population so that a minority of proprietors and businessmen may exploit their labor power and accumulate capital through the production and the sale of commodities. The corruption is only a secondary mechanism of the accumulation of capital. “Licit” or “illicit”, the enrichment is based upon exploitation.
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The institutions, the laws and the elections are inventions and arms of the rich and powerful to maintain and legitimize their power over us, the exploited and oppressed. Therefore, it’s not a matter of fighting for the “unconstitutionality” of this or that law to be recognized, nor for a “government of the people”, because that is just playing their game on their turf and giving them more power. Therefore, let’s stop fighting for those crumbs of the capitalist State that are called “democratic rights”. Let’s fight to reappropriate ourselves and place everything that exists into the commons, because we the workers have produced everything, and therefore everything should be ours, for everyone, without the need of bosses, representatives or party or union intermediaries. The emancipation of the workers will be the task of the workers themselves. With self-organization, mutual aid and direct action.
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Minneapolis and the whole USA burn in flames. The proletarian revolt explodes in the entrails of the great beast of the world. Its detonators are police violence and racism. But its causes are capitalism and the class society. Therefore, to abolish racism and police violence, it’s necessary to abolish capitalism and class society, there and around the world. The USA is not the only country in which the proletariat of all “races”, nationalities, sexes, and ages have returned to rebel in the streets: there are also strong protests in England, Germany, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Chile… because we proletarians have no country, and just as the pandemic of Capital is transmitted, so the social revolt is transmitted. Even so, this is necessary but it’s not sufficient: to put an end to all the evils that afflict humanity and the natural world today, the revolt must criticize and overcome itself in order to transform into a worldwide social revolution. Because only this can put a stop to the current capitalist catastrophe that is killing us, and regenerate Life upon new foundations.
CAPITALISM KILLS: LET’S KILL CAPITALISM!
SELF-ORGANIZATION, MUTUAL AID AND DIRECT ACTION!
REVOLT AND REVOLUTION!
COMMUNISM OR EXTINCTION!
Some angry proletarians from the ecuadorian region
for the worldwide communist and anarchic revolution | proletarioscabreados@riseup.net
Quito, June 8th, 2020