To contribute translations, editing-corrections and/or original material for publication, such as updates from the streets, reportbacks from actions, responsibility claims, texts of imprisoned or persecuted comrades, calls, brochures, opinion articles, etc.: contrainfo(at)espiv.net
Contra Info is an international multi-language counter-information and translation node, an infrastructure maintained by anarchists, anti-authoritarians and libertarians who are active in different parts of the globe. More »
Arriving early in the morning, the cops were met with activists occupying blockading-infrastructure, including 2 tripods, 3 monopods, a skypod, and a 3 meter deep tunnel.
The cutting of the Hambacher Forest was officially stopped early this season, on a court-decision, postponing cutting until October 1st 2018, however the risk of eviction of the occupation is as great as ever.
The ‘Hambi 9’ would love to get mail! Exact information, including adresses and languages, can be found on the blog of ABC Rhineland.
The fourteenth Zagreb Anarchist Bookfair will take place in Zagreb from April 6th to April 8th, 2018. The bookfair will take place in AKC Medika, Pierottijeva 11.
Anarchist Bookfair in Zagreb (ASK – Anarhisticki sajam knjiga) is annual anarchist event and first eleven bookfairs went well, and we hope to bring in more and more people every year as participants, publishers, groups, projects – whoever is interested in what the bookfair has to offer.
For discussion part everything is open, as every year, so all suggestions, ideas, etc are welcome, as well as texts that you find interesting for further debate.
ASK takes place in Zagreb every spring, as a local resource for anarchist and libertarian books and other publications. We also aim to open discussion on subjects that are important for the anarchist movement, or for our local community.
The idea for such a bookfair is not new, but is based on the positive experience of other Anarchist Bookfairs. In many different situations, these bookfairs have proven to be important events and meeting places on both local and international levels.
This is why we need your help – come and support this event with solidarity and participation!
If you can’t come to our bookfair, you can consider sending some free publications, posters and other material. Also, you can consider sending books and other publications for sale, we will organise stall for all of you that can’t come, but would like to present your work at the bookfair. Contact us at anarhisticki.sajam.knjiga@gmail.com about details, address to send stuff to, etc.
Participation
To help us organize the Bookfair and finish the program on time, we need you to confirm your participation soon as possible. Our e-mail address is: anarhisticki.sajam.knjiga@gmail.com
Get in touch and let us know in which way you would like to participate. Here are a few questions, and we welcome any additional information.
Also, let us know if you need accommodation. There are a few alternatives, but we need all the details soon as possible.
Some of the details that we need from you:
1. Questions for all guests coming from outside Zagreb:
– how you want to participate?
– would you like to do presentation, workshop or discussion at bookfair?
– do you need help with accommodation (Free sleeping places are limited)
2. If you would like a stall:
– how big of a stall do you need?
– do you need help at your stall?
– can you help with the costs of the Bookfair? (This is not a condition to have a stall, stalls are free.)
– we need some basic information about you (contact, what books/publishers you distribute [not list, just short info]…)
See program of the bookfair (coming soon!)
For more information:
web: www.ask-zagreb.org
e-mail: anarhisticki.sajam.knjiga@gmail.com
Over the years, June 11th Day Of Solidarity with Marius Mason and All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners has supported and highlighted dozens of prisoners. More recently we have been trying to include more prisoners from outside the U.S. to avoid falling into the easy path of U.S-centrism and to more faithfully represent the rich, expansive anarchist and anti-authoritarian struggles across the globe. (You can find out more at june11.org).
It is with this in mind that we are asking for your help to translate and spread this short message.
We know there are many prisoners whose stories have not made it to us, or with whom it has been difficult to establish contact. While June 11th focuses on anarchist and long-term prisoners, these are not strict qualities. We are eager to support anti-authoritarian prisoners of many stripes and from many struggles. June 11th aims to keep on our lips the names of comrades who are locked away from many years, long after many have otherwise drifted into the background as there are always new struggles, new emergencies, and more friends being targeted by the state. We generally use about a ten year sentence as a bench mark, but are currently supporting some prisoners who are serving 6 or 7. We don’t make this distinction to diminish the experience of comrades being removed from their communities and tortured for fewer years, but as an acknowledgement that more has to be done to sustain support and solidarity for those who will be locked up through many cycles of struggle.
We are asking you to get in touch with us if you know prisoners who would be a good fit and would like to be included with June 11th. When possible, we desire a dialogue with supporters so we can more deeply explore how we can support them and keep their voices in our activities.
Please help us to translate and disseminate this message as far as possible. We want to hear from you: june11th@riseup.net
In December the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has rejected the review of the sentence of our imprisoned comrade in Cologne. That is why the sentence of 7 and a half years of prison became final. The decision of our comrade is to be extradited to Spain, as soon as possible, to be close to her environment. At this moment she is still imprisoned in the same prison in Cologne and can received letters.
On the other hand, in the same month, the Aachen prosecutor’s office has withdrawn the appeal against the acquittal of our comrade in Holland, after almost a year. We are very happy for her! (more information at solidariteit.noblogs.org
On new year’s eve around 20 people held a solidarity action at the Rotterdam/The Hague airport deportation centre.
While almost the entire country was celebrating the new year, hundreds of people are awaiting deportation just because they don’t have the correct piece of paper. The prison next to the runway of Rotterdam/The Hague airport is one of the places where migrants await their expulsion.
As a small gesture of support for the people on the inside and disgust for prisons and the world that needs them we held a solidarity action at 00:00 with fireworks, noise, slogans and banners.
Against a world of borders, prisons and authority. For freedom. For anarchy!
Call for an International Day of Solidarity with Inauguration Day Defendants on January 20, 2018
On January 20, 2017, tens of thousands of people greeted President Donald Trump’s inauguration with large protests ranging from creative blockades to militant street actions. Among the demonstrations that day was an “anti-capitalist and anti-fascist bloc” led with banners reading “No Peaceful Transition” and “Make Racists Afraid Again”. In response to the protest, police violently attacked and encircled nearly ~230 people, arresting them for allegedly committing or being in the proximity of property damage.
After a series of indictments and legal maneuvering, around 200 people were ultimately charged with six felonies (5 counts of property destruction and inciting a riot) and two misdemeanors (engaging in a riot and conspiracy to riot) each. This means that each of these people are facing 61 years in prison.
This unprecedented case is important because it is an attempt by the United States government to clamp down on the disruptive protests that spontaneously occurred in response to Trump’s election. The charges are intended to stifle active resistance and to send the message that resistance will not be tolerated at a time when it is needed more than ever. In many ways, the case is an experiment in expanding the repressive powers of the state, with prosecutors seeking to charge everyone as a group for the same handful of broken windows based merely on presence. Moreover, the police and other state actors are trying to redefine basic political organizing — holding meetings, planning protests, and marching as a group — as an act of conspiracy. This is part of an ongoing trend on both the national and international level of escalating repression directed at social movements in so-called “democratic” states. If the United States is successful in prosecuting social movements in this way, it will likely encourage other governments
to do the same.
As the Trump administration brings the world to the brink of disaster on an almost daily basis, it is important to stand with those in the United States who risked their freedom to oppose him from his first day in office. The Inauguration Day protests set the tone for much of resistance that would come and affirmed that the Trump administration and its far right allies would not be unopposed. Subsequently, people around the country used direct action to shut down nearly every international airport in the country in a historic protest that temporarily halted the new government’s anti-immigrant and islamophobic policies. Continuing this struggle into the courtroom, the majority of the defendants are working together to respond politically to these charges and are using this case as a way to build connections between different places and different struggles.
In response, this is a call for an international day of solidarity on January 20, 2018. Solidarity actions from around the world have warmed the hearts of defendants at a time when they are facing intense repression. Moreover, they are part of a political praxis that recognizes we are engaged in a shared struggle that transcends borders.
We ask for solidarity not as an act of charity, but as a gesture towards shared complicity in the effort to resist the Trump administration and the future it seeks to impose.
The police state unleashes its full range of possibilities: early this Monday, presumably 100 faces of people, who took part in the events of Hamburg, got published. The state campaign yielded completely its disguise of prosecution and started a smear, that should break any kind of resistance. Let’s not be silent towards these incidents, this general attack on the last social and resistant elements remaining. To burn this society of snitches and murderers and fascism at the stake is a still unaccomplished duty.
It is clear to every reasonable human being, that the episode of Hamburg was absolutely necessary. The lies and fake debates of the repression authorities and the system conformant and right wing media did not achieve to rewrite the successful resistance against the G20. In one of the most self-confident democratic regimes of the whole world with a differentiated apparatus of power and the image of invincibility, ten thousands of people dared to upraise, taking great risks and partly serious consequences for their own lives. A composition of protests, resistant and offensive actions transformed the summit of the ruling powers into a disaster. A disaster for the brand of Hamburg, Germany and the most powerful themselves, whose most important meeting now has an unpredictable future.
A disaster is what the summit was also for the police. This institution that has, in the German empire as in fascist Germany and that of democracy never just been the executive but first and foremost the legitimating power of this nation of murderers and losers. We all know how deeply ingrained the ideology of the police-state is in our society.
A society that threw a dead Rosa Luxemburg into the Landwehrkanal, even behind a bookshelf chased Anne Frank and sent her, with millions of other “subhumans” to Death-camps; this society which in the end declares a German-national military(1) as the “resistance”, is fascist. The security-apparatus of the BRD, formed by the same butchers that hunted partisans and antifascists for the german nation all over europe without mercy , is fascist. The wider society and the executive powers reunited in the hunt on communists and brought the machinery against the guerilla groups that fortunately shot the bullet at the german embodied fascist Hans-Martin Schleyer to a till then never seen perfection, just a few years after the “liberation”.
The faces of the resistance were pasted up on wanted-posters on every corner, on every intersection one had to expect to be controlled by heavily armed police, the reintroduction of death-sentence was taken into consideration and put into practice through police work. The discourse in society, directed by the staff of media, politics and police set the course for countless fatal shootings , white torture and special laws against large parts of society. The police state, still in its infancy at the time of the murder of Benno Ohnesorg and under permanent threat of an uprising, has throughout the years developed into a state within the state. With the end of the urban guerilla and the new social movements we are faced with a society unable to bring forth a relevant opposition against this system. Not even when people are cruelly tortured and murdered in the bunkers of police stations like Oury Jalloh from Dessau, who was burnt alive by a fascist pig.
The only retarding factor in the perfection of the totalitarian police state seems to be the careful proceeding of the head-strategists, as to not raise too much concerns with conservative civil rights activists. Like us, they have less and less means and backing in a civil society that has decided, what the state does can not be wrong; what the press says is right, resistance is senseless.
The times of comfort zone protests have definitely passed. To this regard the German society got to the point again, where it has not been since 80 years. These are the key innovations and challenges for the resistance:
The mere participation on a demonstration can mean longtime prison.
The police can define areas, where their own law are in force.
The police can classify anyone as potential offender (“Gefährder”)(2), to be able to imprison people without a court decision and watch over them completely.
Already before the G20 summit, measures against the people of the resistance have been taken. Persons, who are classified by the police as potential offenders, received bans to not come to Hamburg. Obligations to register with the police have been issued and enforced under threat to be punished by a fine and imprisonment. Furthermore visible observations with the purpose of intimidation and for sure area-wide undercover surveillance have been made.
There is no need for further explanation that during the summit the complete city of Hamburg has been under control by the police, which lead to “adaptation” of civil rights and massive violence by the heavily-armed police troops.
The police activities before and during the summit did not show a new quality. Every major event of the past was accompanied by attacks by the security apparatus on societal conventions. But the mass of attacks and their implicitness with which they were exercised against formerly self-evident forms of protests in Hamburg were remarkable.
What’s been started after the summit is a qualitative leap. There are those claiming the riots were started by the state to smash resistance structures in a final campaign. This line of thought is bullshit as we know we all politically wanted the state disaster in Hamburg. To put an end to these conspiracy theories once and for all we take the political responsibility for everything that happened in Hamburg: from civil protests to the last stone that was thrown at cops. As a part of the rebellious structures we called for a demonstration in solidarity with all those facing repression shortly after the summit, in the future we will also not hide from the responsibility to further the revolt. Those that only see a state conspiracy behind everything are incapacitating the resistance in all its properties and have no legitimization to speak in its name.
It’s clear now, that the state is fighting for its power of definition concerning this event in the same way as it seeks to rule over everything. Over our lives and social structures, the nature and the techniques. In this battle for the capitalist and national idea the state will always use the means of fascism. It’s always the same methods being used again and again to denounce the resistance as criminal, non-political and unsocial(3). Doing so, the German state can rely on its police, its media and its people with their representatives. It’s hard to say, who is the most disgusting one of these creatures. Is it the chief of the special investigation group “Black Block”, who would hunt down anyone and everyone held in front of his fangs? Or is it Brechmittel-Scholz(4), who’s representing the dirty Bourgeoisie of Hamburg with their luxury limousines? Or the newspapermen being the executive
power of the police’s propaganda. Or the collaborators with their smartphone footage handing over thousands of people to the hands of repression because they are cowards that fear to take control over their own lives and would love to march behind every Hitler.
Some of us were laughing about the last wave of raids, which was leaked before. Or about the fact that Fabio, the sympathetic boy, is becoming a problem for the strategy of repression. Nevertheless the police strategy should not be underestimated. An important part of the strategy involves a long term propaganda to gain back the power of definition about the events of Hamburg. Who could believe that several months later, the G20 would still be on the daily agenda thanks to frequent press conferences organized by the police? And who could believe that the professional propaganda with almost endless resources would fail without our contribution?
That’s why we – at this point of extensive manhunt – renew our confession to the struggle against the state, the fascist organizations like the police, the secret services and right-wing structures as well as collaborators and snitches within the population and the press. Fabio and all those, who even in court keep their straight stance, are our role-models to defy fear and send greetings of freedom and solidarity to all those who face the repression, and the world of the G20.
On the occasion of the manhunt and because of the calls for denunciation of 100 people we decided to publish pictures of 54 police officers, who were part of last years eviction of Rigaer94. We would be happy to receive hints of their private addresses. They can be held responsible for the eviction as well as for the violence of the three weeks of occupation.
It’s important now, to put an end to our waiting attitude and empower the mobilization and solidarity of active structures. The demonstration after the wave of raids was a starting point(5). But with the next raids we have to grow in numbers. If we don’t have any other means, we at least have to take to the streets to take responsibility for our friends who are hunted by the state.
Everyone to the streets! Resolute and angry we fight the ruling order and stay strong in the face of repression!
(1) Stauffenberg was a high ranking general who tried to kill Hitler. He was member of the aristocracy, who basically criticized Hitler for a bad strategy (2) “Gefährder” is a term created by the german police and widely used in public debate to stigmatize and criminalize muslim people. The use against leftists and anarchists is quite likely to be more widely adopted. (3) originally “asozial”, something between antisocial and unsocial (4) Brechmittel-Scholz: Major of Hamburg, who is renowned for ordering the use of poison (Brechmittel) by the police that would make people vomit in order to find out if they swallowed drugs (5) On December 5th police cracked down on several homes of people that were identified as participants of a block that was attacked by the police in the Rondenbarg street during the attempt to block the summit. As a reaction there were demonstrations in major cities all over germany.
Banner dropped in Polytechnic University in solidarity with Lisa, accused of bank robbery in Germany.
Today, 21st of December, taking part on the International call for solidarity with the comrade Lisa accused of bank robbery in Aachen, Germany, we decided to hang a banner in the Polytechnic University, in Exarcheia, Athens.
The last 7th of June, she was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in prison by the judge and the prosecutor of Aachen. Now she’s waiting for the appeal maid by her lawyers. If the court accept it, it means that she would eventually have a second trial.
The fact that our comrade is in prison makes us even more angry, but we know that all this revenge by the state is making us stronger everyday reaffirming our ideas.
We will keep on fighting, to remember all our comrades in prison. We have clear in mind who are our enemies. This is our decision, to fight against the states, police, judges, prosecutors and all those who are part of the system that is making people life miserable. We won’t stop, this is about our life, this is about our struggle!
Here is a small sign of solidarity with the comrade, but it’s also a claim to keep going with the struggle inside prison as in the streets. We’ll never let any comrade alone in the hands of the state.
Until all are free, strength, fire, love and fight!
We want her free, we want her in the streets!
For anarchy!
To write to Lisa:
Lisa, nº 2893/16/7
Justizvollzuganstanlt (JVA) Köln
Rochusstrasse 350
50827 Köln (Germany)
On the 6th of December 2017, to celebrate the 100th birthday of the Finnish state, we made a bonfire out of stolen flags. We thought that they were more useful on fire than on the streets, encouraging a sense of patriotism.
Let us not allow the machinery of borders and repression to distract us from recognising our real enemies.
DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH IMPRISONED COMRADE IN COLOGNE
21st of December we call to let the imagination flow and to express solidarity in its multiple forms. Once again we will show that our imprisoned comrades are not alone but present and on the streets with us.
They want to raise even higher walls, not only of concrete and iron, but also of loneliness and isolation. And these walls we want to break down, with love, affection, rage and solidarity for our comrade Lisa.
You can sand pictures and audivisuals tosolidaritatrebel@riseup.net
Having received a sentence does not imply that the imprisoned person is “only” at the mercy of the prison system. The policial and judicial machine of the State continues to investigate, observe, analyse, and decide over the fate of the imprisoned. Especially when the prisoner has not fallen to her knees asking for mercy in front of the court, has not humiliated herself by some kind of gesture seen by the enemy as “reconciliation”, the ways in which the justice system can demonstrate that they are not through with her yet are numerous. The refusal to cooperate with the police is considered proof of guilt and can be used to maintain the investigation open for an indefinite period of time. The silence and dignity in the face of the executioners and their accusations is considered concealment of the crime, and can generate new investigations.
Furthermore, being socialised as a woman and not reproducing the assigned roles, in this case for example having a rebellious attitude or a non-submissive position towards the institution, generates multiple sentences which go beyond a conviction at a juridical level, since there is also the intervention of moral and social condemnations, inherent to the patriarchal framework, which ist framing prisoner to the circumstances of the imprisonment.
To continue expressing your political convictions and ideas from within the walls and not denying who you are is considered a lack of repentance and an argument for why a prison sentence does not suffice.
And when the legal arsenal is exhausted in a “reasonable” sentence, that is, sufficiently heavy to accommodate the accusation, but the ethic of the imprisoned person stays intact, the justice system does not hesitate to attack the relations with the outside world, the family ties, sentimental bonds and friendships. Besides the concrete, the iron bars, the artificial lights and security cameras which not only cut off life but also suffocate it, they add mountains of paper which need to be traversed in order to obtain simple human contact with the people close to you. Requests, permissions, authorisations, postponements, which put
the will to not feel defeated to the test.
On the 7th of June Lisa, our anarchist comrade, was sentenced by the court of Aachen (Germany) to seven and a half years in prison for robbing a bank. At this moment we are awaiting the outcome of an appeal written by the lawyers which, if accepted, will involve a revision of the sentence and imply that the case will be brought to court again.
Therefore our comrade is still held in preventive arrest in the prison of Cologne. Due to an illness which lasted various months, her mother died in the beginning of November. During this time, the prosecutor as well as the judge, alleging “flight risk”, have denied her the possibility to visit her mother in hospital and also the permission to be present at her funeral.
The enemy does not only use juridical argumentation, but employs many more insidious mechanisms. Like in so many other cases, when the thirst for revenge of the justice system is not satisfied with a simple – however large it may be – prison sentence, the enemy continues to be hawk-eyed, searching for every supposed weakness of the prisoner in order to submit her. It is clear that this is a purely vengeful means, an answer to the comrade’s firm and non-collaborationist attitude. An additional punishment, invented to aggravate the already tough sentence of confinement; yet another attempt to make her bow down, this time aiming at her private life and personal circumstances. A logic, nothing new, of judicial blackmail with the aim of undermining her coherence and political convictions.
With hate for the enemy. We do not forget. We do not forgive.
On December 5th 2017, Revolutionary Struggle members Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis were forcibly removed from Koridallos prisons (both were subjected to headlocks, holds, etc.) and were involuntarily admitted to the General State Hospital of Nikaia. The prison prosecutor pressed physicians to force-feed the two hunger strikers. The hospital doctors refused to treat the prisoners against their will, and solely reported that Nikos Maziotis has lost 14.6% of his initial body weight, while Pola Roupa has lost 12.8% of her initial body weight.
On December 6th (on the 26th day of their hunger strike), Roupa and Maziotis were finally discharged from the hospital and returned to Koridallos prisons, determined to continue their hunger strike until their demands are met (among other things, they request extended visits with their six-year-old child).
Maziotis was informed that he would be placed in a disciplinary segregation unit, until damages at B isolation section in the basement of Koridallos women’s prison are repaired. This means that the comrade is being punished for having completely destroyed the solitary confinement wing where he has been held for over 5 months, and is now facing appalling conditions, even worse than the previous ones.
The two imprisoned comrades are fighting against isolation measures; against specific provisions of the new correctional code aimed at repressing them as high-security prisoners; against the proposed detention of high-security prisoners in police stations; against the intended reinstatement of the type C prison regime. They also demand an immediate end of the solitary confinement imposed on Nikos Maziotis (since July, the comrade is kept isolated from other prisoners by a decision of the justice ministry); an extension of visiting hours based on the frequency of visits a prisoner has; appropriate visitation rooms for incarcerated parents to meet with their children.
They made it clear from the outset that they only receive water. They have repeatedly asked to be granted unhindered phone communication with their six-year-old son before being transferred from Koridallos prisons to any hospital.
On December 2nd, Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa were transferred to a hospital outside the prisons due to the deterioration of their health condition. However, the next day both comrades asked to be sent back to the prisons because eventually they were not permitted unhindered phone communication with their child.
On December 4th, Nikos Maziotis burned and destroyed the B isolation section in the basement of Koridallos women’s prison, where he has been held in solitary confinement for 5 months. He was then moved to the prison infirmary because of the fumes, and was threatened with further isolation – this time in a disciplinary unit of Koridallos prisons.
In the early hours of December 5th, hunger strikers Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa were forcibly transferred outside Koridallos prisons. The prison prosecutor ordered their involuntary hospitalization. They are currently being kept at the General State Hospital of Nikaia, both threatened with force-feeding. As of yet, the hospital doctors have not succumbed to the prosecutor’s order.
Nikos Maziotis and Pola Roupa continue their hunger strike. They have stated they will not accept serum, and will act against involuntary treatment and force-feeding (torture) in every possible way.
Four months after the disappearance of our anarchist comrade Santiago Maldonado, and his murder at the hands of the Argentinean State, we extend a greeting to our comrades in South America and make a call to keep alive the flame of the revolt on this Black December.
From Exarchia to South America, the anarchist solidarity is stronger than any border.
– Last news: Deforesting work in Hambach Forest temporarily stopped!-
The courtcase which gave the Forest of Hambach a little more time to prepeare for cutting season is lost. RWE started today with clearing bushes to prepear for total cutting. The preparations for an massiv police action are obviously. They announced that they want to evict the whole occupation. We expect them latest on Monday for evictions. They are already in the forest protecting machinery.
But to make it possible that Hambach Forest stays we need you and your friends/comr@des!
At best come around.
At best bring with you:
sleepingbad, matress
your friends
an idea of what you wanna do (the Infrastructre of RWE is too huge as
they could protect all)
waterproof boots, camouflage-cloths
camera (for recording police violence)
working gloves
toothbrush
1st aid stuff
rainstuff
a small tent (not necassary but if you have)
no drugs
no passport (if you need it for travelling, bury it somewhere in the
woods)
What you can do from outside:
spread the news
do what ever you like to show solidarity
distract police forces (they will need cops from all germany to evict us)
attack the veins of capitalism & its fossil fuel industry
THE ROTTEN SYSTEM AND THE ABSENCE OF RESISTANCE ARE THE REASONS FOR THE ROTTING OF SOCIETY
Almost 10 years after the outbreak of the crisis with the collapse of the financial system, bank bankruptcy, and seven years after the commencement of the era of the memorandum and the monitoring of the country by the troika (IMF, EC, ECB), the social base in this country has suffered the strongest blow since the Second World War.
Greek puppet governments have definitively delegated substantial economic and political governance to EU supranational organizations and indirectly to the capital markets and are imposing new measures of social euthanasia for large sections of the population in this country, they are now insignificant for their added value to capitalist wealth. That’s why it does not matter if they disappear. This condition of condemnation is also a prerequisite for the survival of the system itself, for the preservation of the political regime, for the perpetuation of capitalism.
The government’s propaganda to overcome the crisis and return the Greek economy to a recovery path is a common European lie to showcase the supposed success of the programs and memoranda, to allow the EU to be removed from the obligation to continue to financially support the Greek regime and to let the capital markets take the lead from the EU in the recycling of Greek debt and speculation through it. A debt that regime agents already admit that if not drastically reduced in the immediate future will force the Greek state to declare bankruptcy. Not least that the exit to the markets of the Greek state will further exacerbate the already exaggerated Greek debt, which now exceeds 180% of GDP.
The message, however, that the world’s powerful have taken from these years with the rescue policies of the system by the central banks and governments that have put the whole weight of the crisis that the rich created on the backs of the peoples: whatever they do they have their pack animals, the social base, to bear the crisis and produce profits. And the usual practice of enrichment through the swelling of global debt and its financialization continues until the next collapse. But the people have already suffered a huge blow. The social base in the country counts millions of poor, marginalized and desperate. It counts thousands of deaths from hunger, illness and suicide.
The SYRIZA-ANEL government’s minister [of Tourism] Kountoura argued that it is a government success that people do not eat from the rubbish. People still do eat from the trash, but they no longer show them on television. This is why it is a universal political priority to support the “success story” of the memorandum by all parties and the media.
The theft of any surplus wealth left to the social base continues with unabated tension by the government with wage and pensions cuts, the abolition of public insurance, the taxation of the most economically weak, all while poverty is rising, on the orders of the EU the banks will throw thousands of borrowers onto the streets, and there is no chance to persuade the government to get out of the crisis.
The only success of the government is social passivity and the defeat of struggles. Because the basic precondition for imposing these criminal policies in the country that threw thousands of people to the margins, which killed thousands, was and is political normality and the absence of a strong social reaction. Because the smaller the resistance of society, the more ruthless the system becomes.
The social reactions to the memorandums somehow came to a standstill as the regime was determined to impose the memorandums at all political expense. But the reason these memoranda were imposed was the absence of an expanded and powerful revolutionary movement that could be an obstacle to the social euthanasia policies. Upon the defeat of the resistance SYRIZA stepped in to climb to power. The SYRIZA-ANEL government has also been the last sparks of reaction to the system and policies to overcome the crisis.
Today, the social base is rotten, while the economic and political lords of the country have secured their wealth in tax havens and in foreign banks. The Paradise Papers come to recall what everyone knows: That the economically powerful and their political aides are not touched by any crisis and it does not concern them that any measures are imposed. In a “legal and moral” (sic) way they will continue to enrich themselves while millions of people die of hunger and poverty.
Nowadays, the social base is rotten because this rotten system is killing to survive, because it kills social solidarity and cohesion and pushes it into crime. The war of all against all is the beginning of capitalism and the economic freedom of the rich to do whatever they want with the support of governments. It is the beginning of the absolute competition that has dominated the planet.
Their own creations – the crimes among the social bases – are nowadays the politicians’ number one issue. “Order and security” is the common slogan of the political elites to deal drastically with these phenomena which the regime itself gave birth to. One of the most popular aspects of propaganda is crime among the social bases today. It is the phenomenon that the regime itself generates and nourishes.
And, on the other hand, the great criminals, the real terrorists and the bandits that make up the economic and political power, remain immune. More »
Walter Bond – the Animal Liberation Front political prisoner – has started a hunger strike to protest mistreatment in prison
The comrade is in the SHU (solitary confinement) and is only permitted use the phone for 15 minutes per month. Walter has been on hunger strike for 6 days in prison.
Statement from Walter Bond recorded by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office on 11/15/17 : soundcloud.com/rufrebelradio/urgent-message-special-announcement-from-walter-bond-the-alf-lone-wolf
“Since my arrival in Greenville two-and-a-half years ago, my communications with the world have been made incredibly difficult and at times impossible. I have been repeatedly denied books, magazines, letters and pictures. It’s standard operating procedure that my mail – be it my email or snail mail — is habitually days, weeks and even months late. It is not at all uncommon for my mail, both incoming and outgoing, to simply never arrive.“
“I’ve been…I’ve even been denied copies of my own book, “Always Looking Forward,” which I wrote in prison and is approved for me to have.”
“It has also become impossible for me to adhere to my Vegan diet, because none of the so-called “meat options” offered at Greenville, Illinois are even close to Vegan. Because of this, I have been forced at great cost to my friends, family and supporters to pay outrageously for foods from the commissary that continue to be an inadequate version….”
“I have tried now for over a year to obtain a transfer from FCI Greenville, Illinois closer to New York City where I intend to live upon my release, but I have been denied this as well through petty and irrelevant disciplinary reports.”
“Despite all of this, I have maintained years of patience, quietly awaiting my freedom. But, my cooperation has got me nothing.”
“So in the tradition of A.L.F. activists before me, such as Barry Horne, I am going on hunger strike. I will not eat anything and will starve until these issues are remedied.”
“I’m asking everybody in the Animal Rights and Anarchist communities to stand with me with your protests and actions of solidarity.”
“You can reach the institution concerning my health and well-being at (618) 664-6200.”
Tuesday, October 31, our comrade Paolo has been arrested along with two partners, immediately after the post office robbery in a suburb of Cagliari (Sardinia). Once they left the post office, they tried to get away, but the infamy of a bystander has provided very precise information to cops, who therefore were able to organize an encirclement and to intercept them as they were driving away.
They have offered no resistance. Clothes and weapons used in the robbery have been found in the car.
All our closeness and solidarity to them. We do not know why they have made this choice, e we do not care about. We know whoever organize to deprive State and bosses of what they need, do the right thing, always.
But, we are disgusted by those people who for a “sense of civic duty” (expression used by the chief police of Cagliari) snitch on those who organize and act to have what they need, taking from what by nature is the worst exploiter in the world, the State.
On the side of those who do not bow their heads.
Update: Paolo is at Uta, he is fine [in the cell with one of the two accomplices with whom he was arrested]. He asks for stamps to be sent. There is nothing about hearing dates or anything else, does not seem to have problems getting the correspondence.
To write:
Casa circondariale Ettore Scalas,
2° strada ovest Z.I. Macchiareddu, 09010 Uta – Italia
Cops, judges, prosecutors, mass-media. They are haunted, imprisoned, robbed, manipulated. This is a challenge to all Revolutionary cells and other groups and individuals. Sabotage the activities of those bastards. Turn them into terrain, technology and structures. Organize resistance. Support the fugitives and their loved ones.