Block Everything!

This week we catch up on the multi-layered insurrection taking place in France, where the state is struggling to get a handle on things, amidst regular protests, strikes, fuel shortages, and the general drunken chaos of soccer hooliganism.
Next up, check back in on the fearless militants of the CNTE, who have gone on strike in Mexico, and check out the Paro Nacional that has brought Colombia to a standstill. Finally we wrap things up with an interview with Marcela, of las Organizaciones Sociales de Arauca.

This episode of It's the End of the World

As We Know it and I feel Fine

was made possible by contributions

from slaves like you.

Spank you very much!

This amateur footage

captured the violence of an attack

on two police officers on Wednesday.

After kicking in the police car's windows,

a protestor threw an explosive

into the vehicle...

setting it alight.

The attack occurred while a protest

was being held BY the police

not far away at Paris'

Place de la Republique.

This spring over 350 of them

have been injured by protestors

during the Up All Night movement

and anti-Labour Law rallies.

A few hundred people

defied a state order

and gathered at the same time

to march against police brutality,

chanting Everyone Hates the Police!

Goooooooooood morning slaves

and welcome to another sedition of

It's the End of the World as we Know it

and I Feel Fine...

the show where pigs

get reality checks cashed…

free of charge.

It really poses the question -

what do you want to do?

Do you want to take a chance

and risk getting KNOCKED OUT?

Oh my god!

Oh......wow!

What an idiot!

What a loser!

Good!

I am your host the Stimulator

and though you wouldn't know it from

watching the corporate fucking media...

The candidates took to Twitter!

My word!

Indeed there was a lot to discuss.

for months now, peeps in France

have been teaching the world

a valuable lesson on how to wage

a popular mothafuckin insurrection.

While a fair amount of attention

has been devoted to Nuit Debout

- the vibrant movement

of participatory democracy

whose participants continue to hold

nightly assemblies in cities

across the country,

outside of these occupations,

a broader decentralized movement

has been steadily expanding

in a nationwide showcase

of tactical innovation

and militant fucking resistance.

In just one example,

on mothafuckin May Day

militants in the northern city of Rennes

stormed and occupied La Maison du Peuple

- or House of the People - transforming it

into a public gathering space

and logistical hub complete with

its very own guerrilla radio station.

These badass squatters held down

the occupation for nearly two weeks,

before a heavily militarized

tactical squad managed to take back

the building on May 13th.

Buuuuuuuuut rather than accepting defeat,

peeps just said fuck it!

And went ahead and re-occupied

the building on May 27th,

forcing the cops to come back

and clear it out again two days later.

Yup… France has become

a veritable mosaic of revolt,

a tapestry of combative street demos,

occupations, direct actions,

and nationwide one-day general strikes.

The latest of these was on May 26th, when

over 150,000 people took to the streets

in cities across the country,

with riots and clashes with police

breaking out in Toulouse, Nantes,

Lyon, and Bordeaux.

In Paris over 20,000 peeps

took to the streets for a

particularly rowdy demo.

During the fracas

a 28 year old photographer, Romain D,

was critically injured

by a police flashbang grenade

and ended up spending

eight days in a coma.

On June 4th a large contingent of antifa

hit the streets of Paris

to commemorate the third anniversary

of the murder of 18 year old anti-fascist

Clément Méric,

who was killed by neo-nazi shitbuckets

back in 2013.

After a few luxury shops

and a real estate agency

were smashed the fuck up,

the march quickly descended into

a pitched street battle,

with the pigs attacking the demo

with tear gas, flashbang grenades

and rubber bullets

- and militants responding in turn, with

bottles, bricks and other projectiles

French workers have also thrown down

in a serious fucking way,

paralyzing the country with

a series of coordinated strikes

and blockades aimed at

forcing the government to back down

on its package of proposed labour reforms

- the so-called Loi de Travail.

Given French workers' proud history

of militant wildcat actions,

bossnappings

and industrial fucking sabotage,

the country's tepid union leadership

has been forced to go along

with these strikes,

in a desperate effort to maintain

their position as

the legitimate negotiating partners

of the French State.

This wave of labour unrest

has hit the energy and

transportation sectors particularly hard,

with workers blockading oil refineries

and fuel depots,

and shutting down nuclear power stations

causing long line-ups at gas stations

and forcing the government to dip into

its strategic fuel reserves.

These workers have been joined by

striking train operators,

dock workers, truck drivers,

air traffic controllers,

and thousands of striking students.

Pilots with the national airline,

Air France, have also joined the fray,

announcing plans for a three-day strike.

This ongoing unrest

comes at a particularly bad time for

France’s shit-sipping socialist president,

Francois Hollande.

At the time of writing, the country

is bracing itself to play host

to Euro 2016

- a month-long football extravaganza

that will inundate the country

with tourists,

and put it firmly under

the international spotlight.

With the ruling Parti Socialiste

stubbornly refusing to back down,

the national trade unions calling for

another general strike on June 14th,

and intransigent French youth

giving no sign that they're gonna stop

lobbing rocks and bottles at pigs,

and setting shit on fire anytime soon,

the coming days and weeks should make

for quite the fucking show.

In my last sedition,

me and my subMedia slaves

took a fond look back at

the mothafuckin Oaxaca Commune,

an epic six-month long uprising

that turns ten years old on June 14th.

In my report, I pointed out that

the teachers of Section 22

of the Coordinadora Nacional

de Trabajadores de la Educación,

or CNTE,

who kicked things off back in '06,

are still holding shit down to this day.

For three years now,

they've spearheaded resistance to

neoliberal education reforms that

Mexico's taco-smuggling president,

Enrique Peña Nieto, has been trying to

impose on the whole fucking country.

Well... this work paid off.

And on May 15th - or Mexico’s

national day of the teacher,

members of the CNTE launched

an indefinite mothafuckin strike,

and peeps around the country took part

in a day of action that saw marches,

rallies and plaza occupations,

or plantóns,

break out in 23 of Mexico’s 31 states.

Since then, this strike has

totally fucking paralyzed Mexico's

education system,

with thousands of schools shut down

in the southern states of Oaxaca,

Chiapas, Guerrero, Veracruz and Michoacan

and support going strong in Mexico's

Federal District - where one in five

Mexicans live.

In Chiapas on May 27th,

thousands of teachers temporarily

took over a number of private radio

and television stations

to call bullshit on the corporate media’s

framing of the strike,

and to get their own message out.

That same day, teachers in Oaxaca,

in a truly impressive tactical manuever,

managed to surround a contingent

of hundreds of federal police,

forcing the pigs into

the awkward situation of having to

negotiate their own withdrawal.

In the areas most heavily impacted

by the strikes,

the teachers enjoy widespread

public support.

Not only are they demanding that

the government scrap their proposed

education reforms, but they're

also calling for increased funding

for education more generally,

freedom for all political prisoners

and prisoners of conscience,

and justice for the 43 missing

Normalista students from Ayotzinapa.

And that's why we're marching together...

for our teachers... for our children...

and for the generations still to come.

And a bit further south,

Colombia has also been

brought to a standstill,

in this case by a Paro Nacional,

or national strike,

initiated on May 30th by a broad-based

coalition of Indigenous groups,

Afro-Colombians, farmers, truck drivers,

teachers, students and precarious workers.

As part of the Paro,

an estimated 100,000 people

have taken part

in over 100 blockades, occupations

and so-called points of concentration

across the country.

This is the third Paro this year,

and each time they've gotten

more fucking intense.

A defining tactical feature

of these strikes has been

the coordination of mass highway blockades

by rural peasants, aimed at paralyzing

the national transportation networks

in order to force government concessions.

During the current Paro, participants

have raised a number of demands,

many of which focus on the ongoing

privatization of state assets

and national resources,

the failure of Colombia’s

lizard-faced fuck of a president,

Juan Manuel Santos,

to live up to previous agreements

with social movements,

and the horrific fucking state

of human rights in the country

– where disappearances and assassinations

of organizers and land defenders

are still common practice.

So.... to learn more about just

what the fuck's going down in Colombia,

I recently caught up with Marcela

of las Organizaciones Sociales de Arauca

- or the Social Organizations of Arauca.

Hey Marcela... how the fuck are you?

There is a lot of violence

against the people.

So, we are not doing well.

On May 30th, peeps in Colombia

staged a Paro National,

or a nationwide blockage,

somewhat akin to a general strike.

What led people to take this action?

Well, principally it's the economic model.

The people are tired of the same

economic policies that the government

has been implementing for decades.

These are the same policies that generated

the armed conflict in the country,

but they have also has generated

social issues that the people can

no longer continue to tolerate.

So this is what has provoked this

national agrarian, peasant, ethnic

and popular strike.

How was this Paro organized?

And what has the state's response been?

Well, the social movements are

connected to a platform called

the Agrarian Summit,

which includes participation from

peasant, indigenous and afro-descendent

organizations.

And there has also been dialogue with

other members of social sectors,

such as the truck drivers,

transporters, labor unions,

and other trade unions.

The people have been protesting for

a few years now and the government has

made promises that it has not fulfilled.

This new strike is demanding

the fulfilment of these prior agreements.

And the response from the government is

on one hand, to try and draw out

this dialogue, prolong these negotiations,

and on the other to repress.

To repress the people who are

mobilizing on the highways

and in the lands of Colombia.

One of the issues that organizers

of the Paro Nacional have raised

is the National Development Plan

being proposed by Colombia's president

Juan Manuel Santos.

What does this plan entail?

And why are people so opposed to it?

The National Development Plan is

a deepening of the economic policies

of the government.

Among other things, it allows

the land to be concentrated,

more than it already is,

into the property of businessmen,

cattle breeders,

and owners of agro-business.

It privileges mining, mineral extraction

and hydro-carbon extraction

above protecting the environment...

above maintaining

environmental equilibrium.

So basically it prioritizes extraction

at the cost of the resources and wealth

that the Colombian people produce,

and which exist in Colombian territory.

And this obviously negatively affects

the quality of life of the population.

So this is why the people are against

the National Development Plan.

Back in 1998, Billy Clint launched

Plan Colombia -a bilateral agreement

framed as an effort to help Colombia

fight a so-called War on Drugs.

This arrangement has continued under

both the Bush and Obama administrations

and has since served as a model

for the current war on drugs in Mexico.

What material effects has Plan Colombia

had on social movements in your country?

The consequences have been more poverty

and more militarization.

Really, drugs were just an excuse,

because here the drug problem

has not been resolved.

What was gained through Plan Colombia

was a massive increase to the budget

and resources required to finance the war,

to finance the state security forces,

to militarize the territories, the cities,

the countryside...

and so a consequence is that today

peoples lives are more heavily controlled.

Now the private sphere

has been militarized,

the schools have been militarized,

civil life in general

has been militarized.

That is the consequence of Plan Colombia.

And the phenomenon of narco trafficking

and the production of crops

with illegal uses,

continues basically the same.

How have the recent peace negotiations

between the government

and guerrilla groups like the FARC

and ELN affected the overall

political atmosphere in Colombia?

Well, the impact has been pretty negative

because on one hand,

the talks are not focused on resolving

the grave social issues that exist

here in Colombia.

What it has generated, on the other hand,

is polarization between

different sectors of the right-wing.

The neoliberal right-wing

of the industrial bourgeoisie, which is

connected to transnational corporations

has been supporting the peace process,

because it's a convenient solution

for them to pacify the territories,

in order to guarantee

the extraction of natural resources.

And the ultra right-wing, that is

closer to the cattle-breeding sector,

the oligarchy that is more closely aligned

with the land and landowners...

has not supported this process,

because they still believe that the state

has the military and economic capacity

to terminate and eliminate the guerrillas.

So this has been a small difference

in terms of the specific methods that

the right-wing and the oligarchy advocate

for ending the country's insurgency.

And so what the peace talks have done

is to polarize public opinion

between the two right-wing positions.

And as for the position of resolving,

in a structural way,

the problems facing the people

living in bad conditions...

this position is isolated,

neutralized and invisibilized.

As a precursor to

the current peace process,

in 2003 the government of Álvaro Uribe

began negotiations aimed at

demobilizing right-wing paramilitary

death squads, such as

the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia,

or AUC.

This process was supposed to have

finished in 2006.

Did these groups actually demobilize?

And what happened to

the members of these groups?

Well, really it is not them...

paramilitarism is not a group of people.

Paramilitarism is a strategy,

or mechanism of extrajudicial violence.

Of dirty war.

Paramilitarism was implemented

by the Colombian government,

by private armed groups,

but also by members of

the state security forces - the police,

army, security organisms, DAS -

to be able to carry out

undercover operations.

That is what paramilitarism is...

it's a mechanism that claims to be

a third actor, external to the government,

that carries out grave crimes

such as tortures,

disappearances, massacres etc.

It is logical that if there are

private individuals who participated

in these structures, they could have

been demobilized in a dialogue

with President Uribe.

Some of these people were.

But others continue carrying out this role

- so knowing that, what had to be

eliminated was not

the individuals involved, but precisely

the mechanism of illegal violence

that has been implemented by

the Colombian state since the 70s,

when paramilitarism began.

And this has not been resolved.

Paramilitarism continues to exist

and those in power continue to use it.

There is the clear case of the

disappearances of activists demanding

Land Restitution for displaced people.

Despite the fact that

these paramilitary groups no longer

officially exist, these people

continue to be assassinated.

And they continue to be assassinated

for the same reasons.

For decades Colombia has been known

as one of the most dangerous countries

in the world for trade unionists.

What is the current situation

facing workers in Colombia?

The situation is grave.

You no longer hear statistics

of hundreds of dead labour unionists...

because they have already been killed.

So... with this violent aggression

against the labour union sector,

the unions have become divided

and the people have been dissuaded

from joining these labour unions.

And the few that still exist

are always threatened.

They live controlled by the state,

and repressed by their bosses

- like the cases of Coca Cola, Nestle,

and Drummond - where it was proved

that these companies used

paramilitarism to control and eliminate

labour leaders.

The result is that we don't even have

10% of the unionized workers

that we had 20 years ago.

Anything else you wanna add?

Well, what the peasants are demanding

- the peasants, indigenous people,

afro-descendant people, and the other

sectors that have joined this strike -

is the minimum that any inhabitant

of this country could demand...

to live in dignified conditions.

They are not asking for the government

to fulfil the impossible.

But the economic sectors that obviously

hold the political power in Colombia

do not want to cede absolutely anything.

They want to continue accumulating all of

the wealth that the country produces.

The wealth of the natural resources,

but also the wealth that is produced

by the workers.

And because of this, they won't even

allow for a decrease in the price of fuel,

or a lowering in the price of

agricultural supplies.

They won't even invest

a couple million pesos to fix the roads,

the ones used by the peasants to bring

their products to the principle cities.

They won't do it and we don't know

how long the people will have to protest

to force the government

to come to the table.

Thanks Marcela.

And that about does it for this sedition

of it’s the end of the world

as we know it and I feel fine.

We’d like to give a huge mothafuckin

welcome to the newest member of

the subMedia.tv family.

Weighing a whooping 10 pounds,

the person known as Agent Charlie

will be producing a mustard-like

substance, and keep us awake at night

for the next few months.

To the elites of the world,

we’d like to say - watch the fuck out!

Because Agent Charlie is already training

to be a lean mean fascist-killing machine.

Bienvenido al mundo mi hijo!

Don’t forget that if you would like

to know the names of the songs we played,

the samples we used,

to subscribe to our podcast,

sign up to our email list

or to send me diaper changing techniques

just visit my fuckin website:

that said, this recital of

reactionary rethoric is made possible

because slaves like you kick down

a few bucks to help us keep the lights on.

So many muthafuckin thanks to Mathew,

Jennifer, Banjamin, John, Francois,

Dylan, Kyle, Steven, Jonathan, Shannon,

Margaret, Derrick, Marten, Meghsha, Max,

Gregory, Breton, David, Maciej, Ricky,

Andrew, Alexanda, Roma, Sebastian, Yifan,

Mason, Christopher, Reto, Jeremy, Gavin,

Willie, Justyna, Kirk, Michael , Marisol,

Joseph, Sawyer, Raul, Sky, Andrew, Lauren,

Sebastien, Coby, Juliano, Stephen, Bruno,

Gabriel and William.

Tortas!

I also would like to welcome

the newest members of the taconspiracy:

Raul, Sawyer, Marten and Crystel.

Janitzio!

Finally I’d like to send a shout out

to Blandine and Milene for facilitating

our coverage in Mexico and Colombia,

and to our incredible translation team

for taking the time to interpret the word

fuck in many muthafuckin languages.

Domo Arigato!

Stay tuned next time for more news

from the global muthafuckin resistance.

Hasta la pasta compañeros!