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by malcontent

Against the Holy Family of capital, we defend our lives by means of social antagonism [Grupo Barbaria]

In this article we intend to tackle the questions that are unpinned by the current state of emergency that was decreed by the Pedro Sánchez administration in Spain, along with the measures that were announced on Tuesday, March 17th. We are living in times of profound social crisis, a health crisis that, at the same, is combined with an economic crisis, of change in the climate, psychology, politics, etc. In reality we’re facing the crisis of a world that’s beginning to collapse, that’s exhausting its historical time: it’s the world of capital. It’s the crisis of capital. Continue reading →

by malcontent

The Pandemics of Capital (Grupo Barbaria)

Here’s a translation of an article published last week by Grupo Barbaria about the coronavirus and the crisis it has provoked: the causes, the social context and the prospects ahead.

It’s difficult to write a text like this one right now. In the current context, in which coronavirus has busted – or soon threatens to – the living conditions of many of us, the only thing you want to do is go out to the street and set everything ablaze, with a mask on if needed. That’s what it deserves. If the economy is worth more than our lives, it makes sense to delay the containment of the virus until the last moment, until the pandemic is already inevitable. It also makes sense that when it’s no longer possible to halt the contagion and it’s needed to disturb – to the bare minimum – the production and distribution of commodities, it be us who are fired, who are forced to work, who remain confined in the jails and the Foreigner Internment Centers, who are obliged to choose between the sickness and the contagion of loved ones or dying of hunger in quarantine. All of this with patriotic cheers and the call for national unity, with social discipline as the executioner’s mantra, with the elegies to the good citizen who bows the head and keeps quiet.

The Only thing that you want to do in moments like this is to smash everything. Continue reading →

by malcontent

The power of the swamp: Against all nationalism [Barbaria]

What’s most prominent about the situation in Catalonia during the past few years has not been the permanent mobilization, the number of people that have participated in it, or the content of the reclamations. What calls the attention most is the absence of an unmistaken contestation of the Procés which doesn’t come from spanish nationalist positions, in a game of mirrors between reactionary images. The firm oppositions to the catalan nationalist movement, coming from socially critical and revolutionary positions, could be counted on the fingers of a hand, always limited to the taking of positions by isolated comrades.

We could very well say that the Tsunami has affected above all the ranks of those who should have opposed it unmistakably. What remains from all of this is a desolating panorama and one more demonstration of the insubstantial and empty character of social critique today. Continue reading →

by malcontent

Postmodernity or the imposture of a false radicality [Grupo Barbaria]

Here is an english translation of a text by Grupo Barbaria which, coming from an uncompromisingly revolutionary perspective, makes a short but powerful critique of the platitudes of the various ideologies that loosely fall under the category of ‘postmodernist”. Ideologies which have notably achieved a wide and poisonous influence over radical movements across the world, effectively reducing class to “one more form of oppression” in the minds of numerous would-be revolutionaries, and thus negating the historical struggle of the proletariat and its centrality in the creation of a worldwide human community free from all forms of oppression and exploitation.

This timely text is an important reminder that the revolution for anarchy and communism is not the struggle for fair treatment, representation and recognition for “oppressed identities” on the part of Capital and the State, but their concrete negation and the total and absolute destruction of the class and mercantile society on a global scale.

pdfs: Screen Reading – Print Formatted

The plaintext version follows: Continue reading →

by malcontent

Neither rojigualdas nor esteladas. For class independence against every nation! [Grupo Barbaria]

Translated from the article by Barbaria:

Ni rojigualdas ni esteladas. ¡Por la independencia de clase contra toda nación!

For explaining the nature of the so-called catalan independentist process there’s no better image than the election of Quim Torra as president of the Generalitat. Self-determination and the freedom to vote has ended up putting an all-out admirer of Miquel Badia, one of the worst torturers and killers of the proletariat in the revolutionary Catalonia of the 30’s, at its helm. (The homage made to the Badia brothers on the part of Junqueras and Torra serves as testimony).

Quim Torra (right), current president of the Catalan Parlament at an act of homage to the proto-fascist Badia brothers

Quim Torra (right), current president of the Catalan Parlament at an act of homage to the proto-fascist Badia brothers

There’s no contradiction in all of this. In the end of the story, the freedom to vote has always meant the freedom to become massacred by our own bourgeoisie. Continue reading →