A-Infos (en) Russia, Avtonom: Against fascism in the trenches and behind the monitor: "Trends of order and chaos", episode 165 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Apple removes VPN ---- Let's start with technologies: open and closed. 
On July 3-4, the well-known Apple company removed several VPN 
applications from its AppStore. And not for all users, but only for 
those who are in Russia. Why? Because the well-known Roskomnadzor also 
demanded this from Apple - of course, because Russians use VPN to bypass 
the blocking of this very Roskomnadzor in order to access prohibited 
sites. Well, Apple, without blinking an eye, sent a notification to the 
authors of the applications that, they say, you must comply with the 
laws of the countries where your application operates, so we blocked it 
in Russia. I wonder, of course, whether Apple will now delete all 
applications where the war in Ukraine is called "war" and not "SVO": 
this is also absolutely illegal in Russia.

It's not that we expected anything different from Apple (in fact, 
they've already done this in China before), but it's still a strong and 
unpleasant blow for iPhone owners. There are two points to think about:

Here the difference between big business and non-profit initiatives is 
clearly visible. There is a non-profit Mozilla Foundation, which makes 
the famous Firefox browser open source. Last week, Roskomnadzor knocked 
on their doors. And Mozilla also first removed VPN plugins from Firefox, 
but a scandal broke out, and literally a day later everything was 
returned, despite the laws. Apple will not do this, because profit is 
more important to them, and it will not risk the sales of iPhones in 
Russia. And for those of our listeners who use Apple products, think 
about whether it's worth it. Moreover, if your beliefs are close to 
anarchist, then it is better to choose more open alternatives that are 
at least partially controlled by the community, rather than big guys 
with wads of dollars.

 Roskomnadzor can only try to block large centralized VPN services, 
most often commercial ones. It is much easier for him to put pressure on 
big companies and destroy a dozen large VPN providers than to fight tens 
of thousands of small VPNs that people themselves create for their 
friends and comrades. There are many different projects for this type of 
VPN Generator, but in fact, even no projects are particularly needed 
here. Surely you have technically literate friends, preferably abroad. 
Ask them to buy a virtual server somewhere in Thailand for pennies and 
install any VPN on it (we recommend Outline). There is no need to 
advertise it anywhere, let 10-15 friends use it. And let there be 
thousands of such servers. This is decentralized resistance to 
censorship. Become a part of it.

Drone war and human voices
The darkness and horror of the war in Ukraine continues. Yes, it is 
primarily darkness and horror. For military analysts, of course, this is 
an invaluable source of information about modern warfare: for example, 
we regularly hear that drones are increasingly fighting against other 
drones, without human participation. Apparently, this will happen more 
and more.

But the darkness and horror is because the improvement of drones does 
not lead to a reduction in human deaths. For the sake of the ambitions 
of the Russian dictator and his entourage, according to MediaZone 
estimates, 120 thousand Russians have already died, and another 200 
people die every day. On the Ukrainian side, the losses are unlikely to 
be significantly less.

This is a huge number of active and relatively young people who, instead 
of mutual extermination, could engage in interesting work and move both 
Russian and Ukrainian society towards greater freedom and progress.

Anarchists are also dying in this war. Almost all anarchists from the 
post-Soviet space (who are fighting) are fighting on the side of Ukraine 
(at least, we do not know about ideological anarchists in the Russian 
troops). We have already mentioned many times our comrade Dima Petrov, 
nicknamed "Ecologist," who died in April 2023 near Bakhmut. Recently, an 
interesting graphic novel was published (it's hard to call it a "comic 
book"): in fact, it's an interview with an Ecologist entitled "This 
conversation about Ukraine...".

This "interview" was not conducted in person - it took place as an 
exchange of messages in instant messengers between the Danish artist 
Mikkel Soze and Dima himself from February to April 2023. Dima was in 
Ukraine, either in the trenches on the front line, or on vacation in the 
rear. Mikkel was in Denmark all this time. So this is also an 
interesting reflection of the communication between an external observer 
and a direct participant in the war. I think it will resonate with many 
who follow the war only via the Internet. And, probably, from the 
relatives of those who are fighting.

Either way, I highly recommend reading this graphic novel. Among other 
things, in it the Ecologist explains why he took up arms to fight 
against the Kremlin's aggression. Mikkel asks him "If there can be any 
benefit from this war, what is it?" And Dima answers: "The best outcome 
of this war is a military defeat of Russia, which could lead to the 
collapse of the regime of Putin and Lukashenko in Belarus, since they 
are closely related." I completely agree with what Dima says, I think 
this is a very correct explanation. Defeat in the war is one of the few 
more or less realistic scenarios for serious destabilization of the 
Putin regime. Victory in this war will lead to its even greater 
consolidation.

Including because to whom it is war, and to whom the mother is dear. Big 
wars feed the military-industrial complex around the world. Italy is 
purchasing tanks and infantry fighting vehicles worth 20 billion euros 
from the German company Rheinmetall, but Chinese factories are starting 
to produce Shahed-type drones and sell them to Russia. But, of course, 
it is the Russian monopolistic concerns like Rostec that are making the 
most money: they now have orders for many years to come, and at the best 
prices.

At the beginning I said that people are dying for the sake of Putin's 
ambitions. This is, of course, not the whole picture. The war started 
not only because Putin went crazy, but also because it is really 
beneficial for the beneficiaries of the Putin regime: the owners of all 
these factories that churn out shells and tanks, and the owners of all 
this oil refining infrastructure that supplies gasoline to the warring 
forces. army, and the bank owners who finance this whole machine. As the 
old Marxist definition puts it, "fascism is the open terrorist 
dictatorship of the most reactionary and imperialist groups of finance 
capital." This is what is happening in Russia now. Only Putin is now the 
face of financial capital.

Coming fascism
By the way, about fascism. Dima Petrov asserted in a conversation with 
Mikkel that "Putin is now one of the most dangerous and bloodthirsty 
dictators in the world," and this is probably true. But a turn to the 
right is now being observed, unfortunately, all over the world. In the 
first round of parliamentary elections in France on June 30, the 
National Rally, the right-wing conservative party of Marine Le Pen, won. 
She received more than 30% of the votes. The same thing is happening in 
the United States, where the return of Donald Trump to the presidency is 
becoming more and more realistic - moreover, the Supreme Court there is 
already making decisions in the spirit of "the president has immunity 
from any criminal prosecution." All this seems to be links in one chain. 
It's a little better in the UK, where the relatively left-wing Labor 
Party just won the elections.

But one should not delude oneself: it is doubtful that a simple visit to 
polling stations will help against the encroaching darkness. As our 
American comrades from the CrimethInc project correctly write, "all over 
the world we need to organize and defend ourselves against fascism all 
together." Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this defense will be 
reduced to throwing ballots into ballot boxes. Ukrainians were among the 
first to feel this onset of fascism: it came to them with missiles, 
bombs and tanks with the letter Z on the sides. In other countries, 
fascism may come in the form of repressive laws and strengthening the 
power of that very top financial capital. At first. But then there will 
inevitably be missiles and tanks with all sorts of fancy letters on the 
sides.

Unless we all together turn the tide of events and stop this right-wing 
conservative imperialist wave. Since fascism manifests itself in 
different forms in different places and at different times, resistance 
to it can also be very different. Sometimes it happens in the trenches 
with a grenade launcher, sometimes in a home chair with a keyboard and 
free software code, sometimes in the forest with a hammer in front of 
construction bulldozers, and sometimes in a courtroom with a thick stack 
of documents. But in order to fight together against what we don't like, 
we must have our common project for the future. What is he like?

Libertarian alternatives
Unfortunately, it is often much more difficult to formulate an 
alternative to the existing order of things than to list the 
shortcomings of this very existing order. The world is changing rapidly, 
and the pictures of the future outlined by the anarchists of the past 
are no longer so easy to apply to the 21st century. Fundamental works 
such as Kropotkin's "Bread and Freedom" or "Fields, Factories and 
Workshops" are still relevant, but the very range of problems facing 
humanity has expanded significantly, so that a new libertarian theory 
and practice awaits new Kropotkins and Bakunins. I am glad that the 
process is in principle underway - for example, read on our website a 
new text from Irkutsk comrades "Stop using hierarchy and start living."

However, we don't have to wait for the next Kropotkin or Emma Goldman to 
write a new thick book. The general basis of "our" values is clear: they 
are joint decision-making, equality, horizontal self-organization and 
freedom, both individual and collective. Using this common foundation of 
values, each local community can develop its own forms of resistance to 
fascism, suitable for the surrounding context. In general, "think 
globally, act locally" - this slogan of environmental activists of the 
seventies has not lost any significance, although all sorts of sales 
managers are trying to appropriate it. Let's make decisions at the 
grassroots level, but also think about the whole planet. This is the 
libertarian alternative.

Well that's all for today! We remind you that in Trends in Order and 
Chaos, members of Autonomous Action and other authors give anarchist 
assessments of current events. Listen to us on YouTube, SoundCloud and 
other platforms, visit our website avtonom.org, subscribe to our social 
networks and e-mail newsletter.

Issue prepared by Mani

https://avtonom.org/news/protiv-fashizma-v-okopah-i-za-monitorom-trendy-poryadka-i-haosa-epizod-165protiv-fashizma-v
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