Filler Distro || Pittsburgh Anarchist News, Analysis, DIY Publishing & Distribution

Submission from ABC Musical Solidarity – Музична Солідарність АЧХ received on 03.14.22

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Shortly after the first bombs started falling on Ukrainian cities in the invasion by Russian forces, anti-authoritarian musicians around the world began collaborating with members of Anarchist Black Cross collectives to respond. Now, two compilation albums have been released to raise money for anarchists fighting the invasion on the front lines in Ukraine, and behind the lines in Russia.

https://abcmusicalsolidarity.bandcamp.com/

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military requires Putin to direct violence on both sides of the battle lines. As his bombers and artillery shell Ukrainian cities, and his tanks roll over Ukrainian fields and wallow in the springtime mud, the Russian state maintains the discipline of war at home. The OMON and FSB target anti-war protestors. The media shut down under threat of prison for speaking the truth about the war. When conscripts refuse to participate in this imperialist war, they face threats and punishments from their officers.

In Kyiv and other cities, the Ukrainian anarchist movement- which includes many exiled Russian and Belarusian comrades- has taken up arms. They are fighting to defend their communities, their comrades, and a liberatory vision of the future of Ukraine, separate from the aspirations of the Right or of the state. Meanwhile, across Russia, our comrades take to the street whether by day in mass marches, or by night to spread the truth about the war through creative means, or to take more direct actions. One draft office has already been burned near Moscow. In the words of that heroic arsonist, “Let [the oligarchs] know that their own people hate them and we will extinguish them. Soon the earth will start to burn under their feet. Hell awaits at home”.

By supporting the fight against the invasion at both the front and behind the lines, we hope to nurture the seeds of the movement that can turn this war between nations into a revolution against the ruling class- a new spring of autonomy and solidarity sweeping across the steppe.

The first album, “The Deserter”, is fund-raising for the Anarchist Black Cross in Moscow. It will support the legal defense and general protection of those within the Russian Federation who are resisting the war and fighting back against the clampdown by the Russian state. Featuring a black poppy and the crossed-out “Z” of the anti-war movement on its cover, the album features songs about political prisoners, inflation, soldiers’ mothers, barricades, and of course, desertion.

The second album, “Mother Anarchy”, is raising money for the Anarchist Black Cross Dresden, to be directed towards their ongoing support work for the Committee of Resistance, an anarchist unit within the Territorial Defense forces, formed by anti-authoritarian activists in Ukraine. Beginning with the song “Mother Anarchy” written by Nestor Makhno, by album takes us on a journey through South African hip hop, lo-fi, German punk, ska, and Makhnovist rewrites of Cossack ballads.

The artist lineup includes such acts as Soundz of the South, Darryl Cherney, the Window Smashing Job Creators, Maske, Soho, and a folk collective formed for this project going by the pseudonym Tachanka.

The albums are being sold at the ABC Musical Solidarity Bandcamp for at least $8 each, with the option to pay more to support the cause.

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You can send your report-backs, zine submissions, critiques, graffiti/action photos, demo tapes, hate mail, & memes to…

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The Filler collective endorses this open letter of solidarity,
originally published by Kontra Media on 02.17.22

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As is well known, and the news is already in the mainstream media that combatant Jon Sondang Pakpahan was arrested by police in connection with the molotov throwing to Polantas Post in Kolong Tol Jatiwarna, Bekasi City on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 in the early hours of Wednesday, February 16, 2022.

The action is an effort of solidarity with the citizens of Wadas in Central Java who were affected by the Bener Dam project by the Government of Indonesia. The action was also a form of protest against the Indonesian state that committed violence against Wadas citizens through its police officers.

However, since we got the news of Jon’s arrest until now, we have difficulty getting access to advocacy, especially from the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI). That’s because Jon isn’t from any organization. Although Jon is currently accompanied by his own brother, YLBHI should not refuse to accompany Jon on the basis that he is not a member of any collective or organization considering it is his right as an individual to get legal assistance.

We need to understand together, what Jon did, by throwing molotov at the post that belongs to the state is not comparable to what the state has damaged the Wadas area and it also makes its citizens suffer. Whether collective solidarity or individual solidarity, both are equal in our eyes. What other imagery needs to be maintained in the Wadas area? Wadas is broken, and it is the state that is destroying it. Direct your anger to the country.

Therefore, we are in solidarity with Jon, from local to international, to urge YLBHI and its derivatives to accompany each collective or individual who has difficulty gaining access to the advocate. We urge YLBHI to assist Jon and similar cases that may occur in the future.

Collectives and individuals who are in solidarity with the combatant, Jon.

Internasional:
Filler PGH (AS)
Radical Graffiti (AS & Eropa)
Anarcho Nijntje (Belanda)
Brandalism_nl (Belanda)
Julian Langer (Britania Raya)
Anarchist Black Cross Copenhagen (Denmark)
Bandilang Itim (Filipina)
Magsalin (Filipina)
Maria (Filipina)
Mulungu Collective (Istanbul)
High from Glue (Jerman)
Anarchist Imagination (Nowhere)
Eugene Lazarenko (Rusia)
8bitpixeldomina (Spanyol)

Lokal:
Luzzel (Bandung)
M.A.F ISBI & Teater Akar Rumput (Bandung)
Masrumxx (Bandung)
OPS (Bandung)
BOKSI (Bogor Depok Bekasi)
Himapot (Ciamis)
Konga (Gorontalo)
LPM Merah Maron UNG (Gorontalo)
LPM Humanika IAIN Sultan Amai (Gorontalo)
Dengansegalaproblema (Lampung)
Diogenes (Nusantara)
Individu Merdeka (Nusantara)
Kontra-Media (Nusantara)
Okupasi Ruang (Nusantara)
Palang Hitam (Nusantara)
Ramu (Nusantara)
Suicide Circle (Nusantara)
Unknown People (Nusantara)
East Priangan Student Union (Priangan Timur)
Lepas Arah Zine (Tasikmalaya)
Afiflo (Yogyakarta)

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Surat Terbuka
Seperti yang telah diketahui bersama, dan pemberitaannya pun sudah ada dalam media mainstream bahwa kombatan Jon Sondang Pakpahan ditangkap polisi terkait aksi berupa pelemparan molotov ke Pos Polantas di Kolong Tol Jatiwarna, Kota Bekasi pada Rabu, 16 Februari 2022 dini hari.
Aksi tersebut adalah upaya solidaritas terhadap warga Wadas di Jawa Tengah yang terkena proyek Bendungan Bener oleh Pemerintah Indonesia. Aksi itu juga merupakan bentuk protes terhadap Negara Indonesia yang melakukan kekerasan terhadap warga Wadas melalui aparat kepolisiannya.
Namun, sejak kami mendapat kabar tertangkapnya Jon hingga saat ini, kami kesulitan mendapatkan akses advokasi terutama dari Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia (YLBHI). Hal itu dikatakan karena Jon bukan dari organisasi mana pun. Meski saat ini Jon sudah didampingi oleh kakaknya sendiri, tapi tak seharusnya YLBHI menolak mendampingi Jon atas dasar dia bukan anggota dari kolektif atau organisasi mana pun mengingat itu haknya sebagai individu untuk mendapat bantuan hukum.
Perlu untuk kita pahami bersama, apa yang dilakukan Jon, dengan melempar molotov ke pos polantas yang merupakan milik negara itu tak sebanding dengan apa yang sudah dirusak negara terhadap daerah Wadas dan hal itu pun membuat warganya menderita. Baik solidaritas kolektif atau solidaritas individu, keduanya sama saja di mata kami. Citra apa lagi yang perlu dijaga di daerah Wadas? Wadas sudah rusak, dan negara lah yang merusaknya. Arahkan amarah kalian kepada negara.
Sebab itu, kami bersolidaritas terhadap Jon, dari lokal hingga internasional, untuk mendesak YLBHI dan turunannya untuk mendampingi tiap kolektif atau individu yang sulit mendapatkan akses pengadvokasian. Kami mendesak YLBHI untuk mendampingi Jon dan kasus serupa yang mungkin terjadi ke depannya.
*
Kolektif dan individu yang bersolidaritas kepada kombatan Jon.

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You can send your report-backs, zine submissions, critiques, graffiti/action photos, demo tapes, hate mail, & memes to…

Filler_PGH@protonmail.com

We’ll try to get back to you in a reasonable amount of punk time.

Send reports in email form, as an attachment, or better yet, on an easy to use (and free) Riseup Pad or CryptPad.

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Some work needs very little introduction. Please enjoy this banger from Simoun Magsalin, whose writing on anarchy in the Philippines we’ve had the pleasure to publish previously.

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On the Erasure of Anarchists in the so-called “Third World” by the Western Left
Simoun Magsalin

Again and again, white and Western leftists have erased anarchists in Asia by saying anarchism in the so-called “Third World” does not exist. If they deign to acknowledge our existence, they deride us by saying we are small or marginal in the context of large hegemonic left blocs led by various communist parties. We anarchists in imperialized nations know we are a minority. We are not like Marxists who seek to proclaim gospels and anoint converts. We are not here to proclaim anarchism but anarchy, for people to freely act under their own power. Freedom is a constant struggle.

On and on, these white and Western leftists talk of the “correctness” of Marxist movements, implying marginalization denotes incorrectness. However, to argue that anarchists do not exist in imperialized countries because our milieus are small or marginal is to think that population size determines correctness. Comments spewed from frothing mouths suggest that, because the Communist Parties of China/Vietnam/N.Korea/Cuba boasts several millions of members combined, therefore they are doing something correct. This is obviously ludicrous; population size has never denoted correctness. If that was so, then capitalism is correct and so is liberal democracy, for the hegemonic forces of liberal democratic capitalism still indoctrinate its tenets to the proletarianized the world over.

Elsewhere, these white and Western leftists talk of correctness in the context of “successful” revolutions in Russia or China. But to argue Marxism is correct because of the USSR, PRC, etc. is to fallaciously appeal to past victories. Past victories do not determine the conditions of our struggle today. Nor do we wish to build states and cadre bureaucracies. We struggle for more than that.

Besides, to claim that Marxism is “correct” because of the 1917 Russian Revolution seems to suggest that an absence of “victories” implies incorrectness. If this is indeed so, then ironically Marxism was incorrect on the eve of the Russian Revolution, before which Marxism had only failed. That anarchism has not “succeeded” according to the criteria of authoritarians (whatever that is), therefore does not discount the possibility that anarchy can still win the day in the future.

We know our victories in the imperialized world are limited. We are anarchists not because of our victories, but because we know what currently exists does not have to exist in the way it does. If you “Marxists” want to be victorious, join the United States Military which dominates the entire world, for they are a victorious power. Anarchy is never easy.

In the context of the archipelago so-called as the Philippines, white and Western leftists would uphold the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and their armed wing the New Peoples Army (NPA) as righteous “proletarian” actors against the “petty-bourgeois” anarchists. White and western leftists would claim that the “liberated barrios” and extensive guerrilla infrastructure are ultimate proof of the validity of Marxism. So what if the CPP-NPA “works”? If you are a Marxist because Marxism “works,” you must interrogate what exactly constitutes as “working.” What works is not necessarily what is desirable. Imperialism works and reigns victorious over the world; shall you be an imperialist because it “works”? We anarchists already know the answer: yes, Marxists shall become imperialists because it works. This is proven by the social imperialist policies of the former Soviet Union and the current People’s Republic of China and endlessly defended by many Marxists today.

Yet so what if cadres “work” to build guerrilla fronts? We are not in the business of building guerrilla fronts; we are in no business at all! Party work disgusts us; I ain’t nobody’s political officer!

When we organize, we must ask whom we intend to empower and who is centered in the struggles. Are we empowering an army or workers? A cadre or the proletariat? A party or a people? These are not equivalent. Yet the devotees of Saint Marx such as those in the CPP-NPA see themselves as “proletarian” by virtue of having taken up arms against the bourgeois State, forgetting that to be proletarianized is a negative consequence of this capitalist world that marks us as proles, not a virtue that can be emulated, because it is not a virtue at all.

A social revolution is not determined by past victories nor by a “correct” line but by the generalization of an insurrectionary break with the world that proletarinizes, a break from which there can be no return to the status quo ante. Such a generalized insurrectionary break cannot be directed by any cadre or party, nor even by a party of anarchists. Such a break can only be self-directed by proletarians-in-abolition, those that strike at the world that marks them as proles. By directing militancy towards consolidating guerrilla fronts instead of striking at proletarianization, Marxists such as the CPP-NPA actually suppress revolutionary agency. Yet it is exactly the self-direction of proles striking at their proletarianization that keeps alive the prospects of anarchy in the imperialized world!

More than merely an anarchy, multiple anarchies sprout across the world like mushrooms after a rain. The spontaneity of mushrooms is not accidental but rather the product of large spanning mycelia with long interconnected threads which then sprout mushrooms when the opportunity arises. Just so are the prospects of sprouting anarchies the products of long and patient organizing, of interlinked sites of struggle. Thus the organization of the anarchists is not the party-form, but in our struggles interlinked.

So let us now retire the talk of anarchist erasures in the imperialized world. Let us retire this talk of “correct” lines and party curricula of “victories.” It matters not if we are a minority for anarchies everywhere are forming, and we shall be here when they sprout!

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You can send your report-backs, zine submissions, critiques, graffiti/action photos, demo tapes, hate mail, & memes to…

Filler_PGH@protonmail.com

We’ll try to get back to you in a reasonable amount of punk time.

Send reports in email form, as an attachment, or better yet, on an easy to use (and free) Riseup Pad or CryptPad.

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[This submission from Greek comrades was received on 01.12.22]

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Dear Comrades,

Revolutionary greetings from Greece. We are contacting you with two initiatives with which we are trying to start a dialogue with the wider subversive movement on an international level. We, an initiative of anarchists based in Athens, Greece, call upon international solidarity with imprisoned revolutionary anarchist Dimitris Chatzivasileiadis, who is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for his armed revolutionary struggle in Greece and his involvement in the urban guerilla organization, Revolutionary Self-Defense.

The organization of Revolutionary Self-Defense carried out 5 armed attacks against different international mechanisms of power in the years from 2014-2017 (Read more in the attached links).

Dimitris Hatzivasileiadis was captured in August 2020 after 18-months of clandestinity. He has taken the political responsibility for his involvement with the organization and it’s actions. The Court of Appeal is scheduled to start on the 9th of February 2022.

What is on trial is nothing less than the guerilla struggle itself – both its history and its future.

As such, we have launched two separate initiatives:

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International Campaign for Revolutionary Anarchism and Solidarity with Revolutionary Prisoners

With this international campaign we wish to spread the specific proposals for the future of the guerilla struggle which comrade Dimitris Hatzivasileiadis wrote during his 18 months of clandestinity. The idea is to organize discussions with the comrade from prison with comrades from abroad to develop international perspectives on the role of militancy and armed struggle in our common struggle for the liberation of our lives. Read more here: https://darknights.noblogs.org/post/2021/12/20/greece-international-campaign-for-revolutionary-anarchism-and-solidarity-with-revolutionary-prisoners/

Campaign for Financial Support: International Solidarity with Revolutionary Anarchist Prisoner Dimitris Hatzivasileiadis

The comrade is serving a 16-year prison sentence for his revolutionary struggle. As such, there is a continuous need for financial support for the comrade and the organization of solidarity on the ground. The financial support of incarcerated revolutionaries is not only an act of solidarity with the fighters who gave everything for our collective liberation and thus a part of our collective self-defense; it is also a crucial tool in the strengthening of the international revolutionary struggle towards the reconstruction of our world based on the principles of freedom: horizontalism, self-organization and equal solidarity. Link for the financial campaign: https://www.firefund.net/dimitris

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These are separate initiatives which of course can be combined in solidarity events. However, please note that financial support is not a prerequisite for participation in the political discussion proposed in the campaign for revolutionary anarchism.

In solidarity,
– some anarchists in greece

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You can send your report-backs, zine submissions, critiques, graffiti/action photos, demo tapes, hate mail, & memes to…

Filler_PGH@protonmail.com

We’ll try to get back to you in a reasonable amount of punk time.

Send reports in email form, as an attachment, or better yet, on an easy to use (and free) Riseup Pad or CryptPad.

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