Gaunt figures wander like the dead through streets and alleyways, worn clothing hanging from emaciated bodies, their rough faces frozen in an image of utter desolation. Foodstuffs are sold at exorbitantly high rates by monopoly agro-business; those who can’t afford to buy food starve almost immediately, while those who can scrape together the funds succumb to slow death from the poisons within. Old folks, little children, widows, and former national heroes—all these are thrown from their homes while those houses are left to rot, shiny new locks gleaming on the door. The entire time, plutocrats sleep in virtual fortresses, hidden in gated communities while people starve in the streets.

To move ahead and build international solidarity, all the movements must come together on a European scale. The capitalists know how to organise on that level and how to adopt the treaties they expect to seal peoples’ fates with. We, the working men and women of Europe, have not yet achieved this level of organisation, even though alternative forms of trade union organistion have found ways to converge. This effort must be pursued, and a response organised on an international level. The end of 2011 has seen an ever-stronger offensive against the working classes by capitalists and their allies - the governments.

It was thirty years ago, in the city of Hama in Syria… On February 2nd, 1982, the population responded to calls for insurrection against the government, against misery and repression. The insurgents were joined by 150 officers of the army and seized control of the city; they destroyed centres of repression, they executed more than 300 mercenaries of the regime, as well as a first unit of paratroops sent to subdue the revolt. The state retaliated while besieging the city and bombing it with heavy artillery during 27 days; even cyanide gas was used. The final assault reminds us of the “bloody week” during the Commune of Paris when the last bursts of proletarian resistance were equal to the state terror: young “kamikaze” women exploded their bombs amidst tanks and soldiers sweeping district, house by house. The repression was terrible, a sheer bloodbath: between 25,000 and 50,000 are estimated to have died.

In the midst of Yet Another Tactical Debrief, this time on the recent Move-In-Day–turned—street-semibattle—then—mass-arrest at Occupy Oakland, I ended up tossing out on Twitter a cluster of successful movement moments, some of which involved fighting back against cops—Stonewall, Cochabamba Water War, anti-apartheid defiance campaign, Tahrir Square 2011—and others of which involved a calculated refusal to fight back, even to the point of enduring direct state violence: anti-nuclear demos, the 1980s Central America solidarity movement, Gandhian salt march. In my estimation, every single one of these was successful, which raises the question of what they had in common.

Workers at a Greek hospital have taken over their hospital and our running things with direct democracy of workers.  However, they are not stopping there.  Realizing that the class struggle is no longer confined to the workplace, be it a hospital or a factory, the workers the General Hospital of Kilkis, Greece are turning to and asking for solidarity from the wider community not just to save their hospital but to defend free public healthcare and to overthrow the neo liberal policies of the Greek Province of the Empire.

We're writing you from Blair, West Virginia, in the heart of the coalfields. We are in Logan County, which is the belly of the beast for the coal industry. We fight directly in the trenches against the corporate fascists who have ruled central Appalachia for 120 years. Our heritage draws on the Battle of Blair Mountain, where in 1921 ten-thousand miners fought a coal-operator backed army. They fought for five days, and were breaking through the defensive lines when federal troops were called in to stop the war.

Like so many Web sites, we participated in Wednesday's strike to protest Stop Online Piracy Act, proposed anti-piracy legislation that would dramatically restrict the free flow of information online. Big-name participants in the strike included Wikipedia, Craigslist and Reddit. A sponsor said the bill would be redrafted because of the protests. 

Other Rebels want to shut down San Francisco's financial district on January 20th. Count us in! A ferocious, mobile, well-prepared, fearless and autonomous bloc within the J20 City Shutdown of San Francisco.

For 43 consecutive Sundays, marchers in Ballyhea, Ireland have taken to the streets rejecting government austerity measures. Inspired by the Arab Spring, the group of demonstrators has brought together a politically diverse coalition of protestors to fight for social services..

Fragments from the streets is a weekly round-up of resistance against predatory systems under-reported stories around the world brought to you by the radical magazine The Precarious. The year is winding down, but people fighting oppression crammed a lot of action into this final week of 2011. From striking workers to breastfeeding moms, here's a round-up of the week's actions.