At Home He's A Turista

FBI Informant Outed In Iowa

2008-12-17T03:31:00.000-08:00

It has come to our attention through information that we've recieved that there was a person informing to the FBI about numerous individuals involved in the Wild Rose Rebellion group and University Of Iowa Anti-War Committee. He has since been outed, confronted and ousted from our community. The purpose of this statement is to warn all radical organizations and people, that we don't have personal ties with, across the country about the following person. Anything identifying or useful pertaining to him we have attempted to include.

Name: Jason Munford, also later went by Valvilis Cormaeril

Age: Late Twenties

From: Mighigan, Iowa City

Background: Claimed he served in the Air Force as a MP stationed in Japan, then became a Conscientious Objector.

Interests: Considers self a Platonist, sword fighting, philisophy, informing for FBI

Charecteristics: clean cut, dry sense of humor, known to be problematic (overly flirty and pushy) when it comes to female bodied people.

Photos
@ Twin Cities Indymedia
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2008/dec/fbi-informant-outed-iowa

Video At Rally He Spoke At
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNqXAMY5OUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNqXAMY5OU

Signed,
WRR

P.S.-Don't Get Scared, Get Inspired!

This Blog Is Fucking Dead

2008-12-16T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have jumped ship.
http://athomehesaturista.wordpress.com/

Witnesses tell of Greek police 'brutality'

2008-12-15T20:42:00.000-08:00

A British expatriate businessman living in Athens has told how a pre-bedtime stroll with his dog led to an introduction to Greek police violence.

The man, who is in his 30s, and has asked not to be identified, contacted the BBC after witnessing what he says was unjustified brutality and aggression in the popular bar district of Gazi in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The alleged clash happened not long after scores of masked youths attacked a police station in the nearby district of Exarchia, where 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was shot dead a week ago by police.

The businessman said that while he was walking his dog and came across a "largely peaceful" demonstration passing the bars and coffee shops about 3km (two miles) from the Acropolis. He decided to tag along.

'Strip-search'

There was a "carnival atmosphere", he said, as the demonstrators chanted slogans and invited young Greeks to put down their drinks and join the group.

"As the group, numbering about 600, walked up Pireos Street, several bus loads of riot police arrived and began to deploy at the front and back of the demonstration and on side streets," he said.

"After the majority of the protesters had passed one of these side streets, a group of riot police charged and forced about 15 young men and women into a dark shop front on the corner of the street.

"As the protesters put their hands on their heads to signify that they were not intending to fight, the police began beating individuals with their batons, issuing threats of extreme violence. The women were handcuffed together and the men strip-searched.

"Additional police joined the group to stop passers-by witnessing what was going on. Four young men aged about 20 and clearly not connected to the demonstration walked past. They were ushered on.

"As they were walking away, a riot policeman ran up behind one of the men kicking him in the back making obscene comments about his size. As the man turned, the policeman began beating the young man with his baton, striking him on the head and the side of his face."

Police denial

The BBC asked Greece's police headquarters to comment on the allegations, and after initially denying knowledge of the case, returned our call within 10 minutes with a statement vigorously denying the use of force.

A spokesman said: "The incident happened late last night. A group of people were moving in Pireos Street. They started causing a disturbance and trashing things close to the Ministry of Employment."

"Three teams of police, comprising 60 officers were deployed and made 51 arrests in the presence of television cameramen," he added.

The police spokesman insisted this version of events was correct.

"If anything like the events described by your witness had taken place, the media would not have missed the opportunity to film it, as this is exactly the sort of thing they are looking for. It would have been extremely difficult to have missed such an incident at that particular location," the spokesman added.

'We are going to kill you'

Following the police statement, the BBC interviewed the British businessman again.

"I did not see a camera person there. I cannot believe they arrested 50 people. The impression I had was that there was no major trouble until the police arrived. I saw them smash a couple of cash machines and closed circuit television cameras on the street and there was some stone throwing," he said.

"There were elements who wanted to cause trouble," he acknowledged. "But others on the demo were trying to stop it. And it was the peaceful ones who ended up being beaten."

The witness, who speaks Greek, said he overheard the police saying to their detainees: "We have you now. You are out of your universities now We are going to kill you."

One of the demonstrators told the BBC the same story almost word for word.

"The person in front of me was hit with a baton, as was the person behind. I fainted and they didn't get me. I was in a total panic. Anyone who moved got hit. Anyone who talked got hit," she said.

"A policeman kept on marching in front of us and screaming verbal abuse. He was saying we are going to kill you. It was very scary," she added.

'Enemies of democracy'

Since the death of Alexis, about 400 people have been arrested and 70 people injured.

The government has instructed the police to take a defensive stance to ensure that there is no more bloodshed.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis told President Karolas Papoulias that the "enemies of democracy" could not expect any leniency.

About 12 hours before Alexandros Grigoropoulos was killed, riot police are alleged to have baton charged several thousand economic migrants and would be refugees who were trying to obtain the necessary papers to claim political asylum.

During the panic, one young South Asian man plunged head first into a concrete lined canal and was critically injured.

He has been on a life support in intensive care for more than a week. On Monday, doctors are due to turn off the machine to see whether he can survive unaided.

Amnesty International has criticised the riot police for using excessive force during the course of the past week.

The police claim that they are amongst Greece's most poorly paid public servants and are often forced to take second jobs to make ends meet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7782907.stm

In Athens, the university of anarchy

2008-12-15T20:41:00.000-08:00

ATHENS: Early Saturday morning inside the gates of Athens Polytechnic University, a dozen groggy young people in hooded sweatshirts slumped on folding chairs around a smoky fire. Others trickled in, holding cups of coffee. Small gypsy children scampered around with wheelbarrows, collecting empty beer bottles. One lit a cigarette.

But the young people and their friends were not simply recovering from a long night of drinking or studying. They were regrouping for revolution.

Many of the violent protests that have rocked Athens in recent days, after the police shot and killed a 15-year-old boy on Dec. 6, have taken place in and around the university, driven by a group of anarchists that has long occupied the buildings here. Garbage fires burn in its courtyard. On the streets outside, youths throwing gasoline bombs and rocks have clashed with riot police officers armed with tear gas.

The National Technical University of Athens, as it is officially called, is one of Greece's leading schools, training engineers, architects and scientists since 1836. It moved its main campus outside the city center in the 1980s, leaving its neoclassical downtown buildings largely to the whims of protest groups.

The university administration seems to view the squatters as uninvited house guests who overstayed their welcome so long ago that they have become fixtures. They hold regular demonstrations and often destroy university property.

But these protests have been different.

"In former times, a couple of years ago, there were only students protesting," said Constantinos Moutzouris, the university's rector. "This time there are all kinds of groups. This is difficult to control."

Conversations with those inside the university revealed a mix of students, older anarchists and immigrants protesting everything from police brutality to globalization to American imperialism.

Some are simply thrillseekers along for the ride.

Administrators say that evicting the anarchists now, especially after the protests of the past week, would entail a police operation they are unwilling to undertake for fear of instigating further violence or destruction.

Under an asylum law instituted after the police crushed a student rebellion at the polytechnic university against the military junta in 1973, the Greek police are not allowed on university property unless invited by administrators.

Yet unlike when the police killed protesters at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970, a tragic episode in a dramatic time, emotion over the Athens shooting has intensified, not faded, over time.

In Greece, the police are seen as both overly aggressive and disconcertingly passive. Although a police bullet killed the teenager, sparking the latest violence, the government then told the police not to use force to tamp down the protests, to avoid further mayhem. The cost of the ensuing riots, in which businesses and cars were torched, is estimated at $1.3 billion nationwide.

Outside the university gates Saturday morning, merchants were sweeping up the broken glass from their vandalized shops. The hulks of burned-out cars sat like carcasses in the streets.

Asked what the shops had to do with the death of the student, one black-clad young woman said, in perfect American English, that they represented "the corporate machine." The protesters do not have a traditional hierarchy, she said, but held "collective meetings" in the university auditorium.

Like rave parties, the protests are called through text-message chains or on Web sites like indymedia.org.

Protesters have said they will continue to demonstrate until the police charged with killing the teenager, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, are tried and jailed.

In an inner courtyard, someone has spray-painted "Don't Blame Us, The Rocks Ricocheted." A lawyer for the policeman who killed the teenager has said that the bullet was deformed, so that it was probably not a direct hit.

The Greek authorities have insisted that the violence has been driven by a radical handful, whom they refer to as "the known unknown."

That term is "nonsense," said Dimitris Liberopoulous, 44, a freelance book editor and anarchist sympathizer who discussed the protest movement over coffee in Exarchia, the neighborhood surrounding the university. "It's a game of semiotics," he said.

He said the authorities did not know who the protesters were, nor understand their frustration at class division, the poor economy, a broken education system and a corrupt government.

"We are thousands of people," Liberopoulous said. "We live in a parallel society with parallel values and parallel ideas."

That the authorities have not identified and arrested the ringleaders seems more a question of political will.

Greece has witnessed low-level political violence for decades. Starting in the mid-'70s, the terrorist group November 17 killed at least 23 people until the Greek authorities largely dismantled it before the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Last year, another group fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy here, causing damage but no injuries.

It is unclear whether the self-styled anarchists have ties with terrorist groups. But security experts fear that terrorist groups might see the new unrest as fertile ground for attacks.

They also worry that the anarchists themselves might up the ante.

More protests are expected this week, though Athens was largely calm Sunday.

"There's a proverb," Liberopoulous said. "That a civil war never ends."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/14/europe/journal.php

Athens hit by new protest rallies

2008-12-15T20:40:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of people are staging fresh protest rallies in Athens, after days of rioting sparked by the killing of a teenager by police in Greece.

They gathered near the capital's police headquarters and the main court, where some of the protesters arrested last week were to appear before magistrates.

The policeman accused of shooting Alexandros Grigoropoulos, aged 15, has been charged with murder.

The shooting has also generated widespread anti-government sentiment,

Sixty per cent of those questioned by Greece's Kathimerini newspaper rejected the assertion that the disturbances have been merely a series of co-ordinated attacks by a small hard core of anarchists.

Another poll, in the Ethnos newspaper, suggested that 83% of Greeks were unhappy with the government's response to the violence. Kathimerini put the disapproval rating at 68%.

The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens says the results appear to confirm what many commentators have been saying - that conservative Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis has pulled off the unique feat of alienating all sections of Greek society.

Mr Karamanlis - who is on Monday attending the funeral of former Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos - has rejected calls to step down.

He said the country needed a "steady hand" to deal with the economic downturn, "not scenarios about elections and successions".

Economy fears

The new street protests are being held amid a heavy police presence.

Demonstrators are chanting anti-government slogans, but no major incidents have been reported so far.

Further protests are planned later on Monday outside parliament.

They come after calm was briefly restored in the capital on Sunday.

In all, some 70 people are said to have been injured in violent protests across Greece during the unrest sparked by the shooting on 6 December.

On Sunday, the leader of the opposition Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok) demanded elections and said the government "ignores the calls of society, is incapable of steadily driving the country towards change, and is afraid of the people."

"It is wasting away, collapsing and dissolving into a dead-end... Its political time is finished," George Papandreou told a party meeting.

A top union official meanwhile warned that with around a quarter of the young age group involved in the disturbances being unemployed, the unrest could grow in the coming months as more people lose their jobs.

"A massive wave of redundancies will kick in come the New Year when, according to our estimates, 100,000 jobs will be lost, which represents an additional 5% on the unemployment rate," said Stathis Anestis of the General Confederation of Greek Workers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7783375.stm

Fears of unrest spreading across Europe

2008-12-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

THE unrest that has gripped Greece this week is spilling into the rest of Europe, raising concerns that it could be a trigger for opponents of globalisation, disaffected youth and others outraged by economic turmoil.
Protesters in Spain, Denmark and Italy smashed shop windows, pelted police with bottles and attacked banks this week, while in France cars were set ablaze on Thursday outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux, where protesters warned about a looming "insurrection".

At least some of the protests were organised over the internet. One website Greek protesters use to update each other on the locations of clashes asserted there have been sympathy protests in nearly 20 countries.

But the clashes have been nothing like the scope of the chaos in Greece, which was triggered by the police killing of a teenager last Saturday and has ballooned into nightly scenes of burning street barricades, looted stores and overturned cars. Nevertheless, authorities in Europe worry conditions are ripe for the contagion to spread.

As Europe plunges into recession, unemployment is rising, particularly among the young. Even before the crisis, European youths complained about difficulty finding well-paid jobs – even with a university degree.

"Look what is going on in Greece," Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, told members of his UMP party this week, rejecting budget proposals that would have cushioned the wealthy from losses.

With memories fresh of weeks of rioting in 2005, Mr Sarkozy expressed concern that the anti-government backlash could spread to France: "The French love it when I'm in a carriage with Carla, but at the same time they've guillotined a king."

At the Athens Polytechnic, where many of the protesters are based, Konstantinos Sakkas, 23, said: "We're encouraging non- violent action. What these are abroad are spontaneous expressions of solidarity."

Internet sites and blogs have popped up to spread the call to protest. In Spain, Nodo50.org, an anti-globalisation website, greeted visitors with the headline "State Assassin, Police Executioners" and told them of rallies in Barcelona and Madrid.

At the Independent Media Centre, photos and video of the Greek demonstrations were uploaded and plans were listed for "upcoming solidarity actions" in London, Edinburgh and Berlin.

"What's happening in Greece tends to prove that the extreme left exists, contrary to doubts of some," said a French interior ministry spokesman. But, he added, the coming weeks would determine whether "there's a danger of contagion of the Greek situation into France".

One rally outside the Greek embassy in Rome turned violent on Wednesday, while in Copenhagen, protesters pelted riot police with bottles and paint.

In Spain, youths in Madrid and Barcelona attacked banks, shops and a police station. Eleven people were arrested at the two rallies, which drew about 200 protesters.

Daniel Lostao, president of the Youth Council, an umbrella organisation, said young people in Spain faced daunting challenges – soaring unemployment, low salaries and difficulty in leaving the family nest because of expensive housing. But he doubted the protests in Spain would grow. "We do not have the feeling that this is going to spread."

BACKGROUND

GREECE'S headline rate of unemployment – 7.4 per cent in September – is just below the eurozone average.

The key factor, however, is unemployment among those aged 15 to 24, which is 22 per cent.

"Young Greeks up to the age of 35, make up a silent majority of overworked, underpaid, debt-ridden and insecure citizens," said Generation 700 Euros, a group defending the 56 per cent of Greeks under 30 earning that amount a month.

http://news.scotsman.com/world/Fears-of-unrest-spreading-across.4790369.jp

Greek protesters rally outside police headquarters

2008-12-15T20:35:00.000-08:00

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Youths protested outside of Athens' main police headquarters on Monday, in the second week of violent protests over the shooting death of a teenager.

The young protesters pelted riot police with flour and other objects, while police responded with tear gas.

Some 2,000 youths at the rally blocked one of the capital's main avenues, chanted slogans and set fire to trash bins before dispersing. Two demonstrators were arrested, police said.

Greece has seen its worst riots in decades after 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos died Dec. 6 in a police shooting.

The riots quickly spread from Athens to more than a dozen cities. For a week, youths smashed and burned stores and cars, and hurled petrol bombs and rocks at riot police, who responded with stun grenades and large amounts of tear gas.

On Friday, the head of Greece's Retailers Association said riots in Greek cities had caused an estimated 100 million euros ($135 million) in damage to stores, and was likely to cost businesses 1.5 billion euros ($2 billion) in lost revenue.

Dozens of people were injured in the rioting, while hundreds of stores were damaged or looted and more than 200 people were arrested. The policeman accused of killing the teenager has been charged with murder and is being held pending trial.

On Monday, students also staged peaceful blockades of several busy roads in the capital, marched through the city center, and protested outside Athens' main court complex, where four people arrested during last week's riots were ordered to remain in custody.

The protests are shifting from expressing anger at police to showing general anger at the country's increasingly unpopular conservative government and the economic hardships faced by many Greeks.

Socialist opposition leader George Papandreou renewed calls Monday for early elections.

"The government cannot deal with this crisis," he said. "It cannot protect people — their rights or property — and it cannot identify with the anxiety felt by the younger generation."

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose party has only a single seat majority in parliament, has repeatedly rejected calls to resign and call early elections, saying the country needed a steady hand in times of crisis.

Sunday was the first trouble-free day since Grigoropoulos' killing, but some groups, mostly left-wing students, have vowed to keep up the protests until the government addresses their concerns.

Protesters have called for riot police to be pulled off the streets, for police to be disarmed and for growing social inequality to be resolved.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jIVDJEwIjDFDxGPN5HDQqTzoSVNgD953AA800

Iraq rally for Bush shoe attacker

2008-12-15T18:02:00.000-08:00

Thousands of Iraqis have demanded the release of a local TV reporter who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush at a Baghdad news conference.

Crowds gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City district, calling for "hero" Muntadar al-Zaidi to be freed from custody.

Officials at the Iraqi-owned TV station, al-Baghdadiya, called for the release of their journalist, saying he was exercising freedom of expression.

Iraqi officials have described the incident as shameful.

A statement released by the government said Mr Zaidi's actions, which also included him shouting insults at President Bush, "harmed the reputation of Iraqi journalists and Iraqi journalism in general".

Correspondents say the protesters are supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr - a leading critic of the US presence in Iraq. Smaller protests were reported in Basra and Najaf.

The Iraqi government has demanded an on-air apology from his employer.

An Iraqi official was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the journalist was being interrogated to determine whether anybody paid him to throw his shoes at President Bush.

He was also being tested for alcohol and drugs, and his shoes were being held as evidence, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Cairo-based al-Baghdadiya TV channel said Mr Zaidi should be freed because he had been exercising freedom of expression - something which the Americans had promised to Iraqis on the ousting of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

"Any measures against Muntadar will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime," the firm said in a statement.

The programming director for al-Baghdadiya, Muzhir al-Khafaji, described the journalist as a "proud Arab and an open-minded man".

He said he was afraid for Mr Zaidi's safety, adding that the reporter had been arrested by US officials twice before.

"We fear that our correspondents in Iraq will be arrested. We have 200 correspondents there," he added.

'Proud Arab'

Mr Zaidi leapt from his chair at Sunday's news conference and hurled first one shoe and then the other at Mr Bush, who was joined at the podium by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

The shoes missed as Mr Bush ducked, and Mr Zaidi was immediately wrestled to the ground by security guards and frogmarched from the room.

"This is a farewell kiss, you dog," he yelled in Arabic as he threw his shoes. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

Arabic TV stations have been repeatedly showing footage of the incident, which was also front-page news in many papers.

Correspondents say the journalist's tirade was echoed by Arabs across the Middle East who are fed up with US policy in the region.

"He [George Bush] deserves to be hit with 100, not just one or two shoes. Who wants him to come here?" said a man in Baghdad.

But his view was not expressed by everyone.

"I think this incident is unnecessary, to be honest. That was a press conference, not a war. If someone wants to express his opinion he should do so in the proper manner, not this way," said another Baghdad resident.

Courts criticised

Also on Monday, Human Rights Watch accused Iraq's main criminal court of failing to meet basic international standards of justice.

The New York-based group said torture and abuse of prisoners before trial appeared common, and legal representation was often ineffectual.

Human Rights Watch said some of the court's failings showed disturbing similarities to those that existed during the Saddam Hussein era.

The group called on Iraq to take immediate steps to protect detainees from torture, and ensure they had access to proper defence and received a prompt hearing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7783608.stm

Updates from the Greek Insurrection: Occupation of the city hall of Sykies, Thessaloniki

2008-12-15T18:01:00.000-08:00

There is a pandemic of occupations of city halls, following the occupation of the city hall at Ag. Dimitrios. Saturday the old city hall of Halandri was occupied and today the city hall of Sykies, a suburb of Thessaloniki. Three people arrested and then released during this occupation. I will provide more news and translated statements as they become available.

There have also been several takeovers of radio stations and other facilities. I am compiling a list.

One worrisome aspect from the US and European anarchist and left comrades. There is continuous reference to the greek "riots" (a term NEVER used by my greek comrades to refer to their actions or the situation, who call it explicitly a popular insurrection, but a term used all the time by the police and the mass media) and on the most spectacular attacks and property destruction, while virtually ignoring the insurrection and the grassroots organizing that is going on, such as the occupations of the public buildings, which are more popular in their compositions vs. the occupations of the universities which are student focused (and are protected by university asylum laws).

There is no split between those who are in the streets, those who occupy the universities and those who are taking over public buildings like the city halls. But to continue to refer to the "riots" is to completely, in my opinion, demean and ignore the true popular nature of the insurrection and to buy into the message of the spectacle that the state and the mass media are selling us. I beseech you to stop referring to the insurrection as riots and to help shift the rhetoric. Let us honor the nature of the insurrection by calling it what it is and by striving to understand its complexities and its intricacies, and not focus only on its more spectacular moments.

Words have meaning, and words like "known unknowns" "hooded ones" "self-styled anarchists" "looters" and "riots" are designed to disinform and disorient. Let us not become a party to that.

FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool

2008-12-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

"If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

FBI's physical bugs discovered
The FBI's Joint Organized Crime Task Force, which includes members of the New York police department, had little luck with conventional surveillance of the Genovese family. They did have a confidential source who reported the suspects met at restaurants including Brunello Trattoria in New Rochelle, N.Y., which the FBI then bugged.

But in July 2003, Ardito and his crew discovered bugs in three restaurants, and the FBI quietly removed the rest. Conversations recounted in FBI affidavits show the men were also highly suspicious of being tailed by police and avoided conversations on cell phones whenever possible.

That led the FBI to resort to "roving bugs," first of Ardito's Nextel handset and then of Peluso's. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones approved them in a series of orders in 2003 and 2004, and said she expected to "be advised of the locations" of the suspects when their conversations were recorded.

Details of how the Nextel bugs worked are sketchy. Court documents, including an affidavit (p1) and (p2) prepared by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kolodner in September 2003, refer to them as a "listening device placed in the cellular telephone." That phrase could refer to software or hardware.

One private investigator interviewed by CNET News.com, Skipp Porteous of Sherlock Investigations in New York, said he believed the FBI planted a physical bug somewhere in the Nextel handset and did not remotely activate the microphone.

"They had to have physical possession of the phone to do it," Porteous said. "There are several ways that they could have gotten physical possession. Then they monitored the bug from fairly near by."

But other experts thought microphone activation is the more likely scenario, mostly because the battery in a tiny bug would not have lasted a year and because court documents say the bug works anywhere "within the United States"--in other words, outside the range of a nearby FBI agent armed with a radio receiver.

In addition, a paranoid Mafioso likely would be suspicious of any ploy to get him to hand over a cell phone so a bug could be planted. And Kolodner's affidavit seeking a court order lists Ardito's phone number, his 15-digit International Mobile Subscriber Identifier, and lists Nextel Communications as the service provider, all of which would be unnecessary if a physical bug were being planted.

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug," the article said, "enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down."

For its part, Nextel said through spokesman Travis Sowders: "We're not aware of this investigation, and we weren't asked to participate."

Other mobile providers were reluctant to talk about this kind of surveillance. Verizon Wireless said only that it "works closely with law enforcement and public safety officials. When presented with legally authorized orders, we assist law enforcement in every way possible."

A Motorola representative said that "your best source in this case would be the FBI itself." Cingular, T-Mobile, and the CTIA trade association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mobsters: The surveillance vanguard
This isn't the first time the federal government has pushed at the limits of electronic surveillance when investigating reputed mobsters.

In one case involving Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey, the FBI found itself thwarted when Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode confidential business data.

So with a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke logger and monitor its output.

Like Ardito's lawyers, Scarfo's defense attorneys argued that the then-novel technique was not legal and that the information gleaned through it could not be used. Also like Ardito, Scarfo's lawyers lost when a judge ruled in January 2002 that the evidence was admissible.

This week, Judge Kaplan in the southern district of New York concluded that the "roving bugs" were legally permitted to capture hundreds of hours of conversations because the FBI had obtained a court order and alternatives probably wouldn't work.

The FBI's "applications made a sufficient case for electronic surveillance," Kaplan wrote. "They indicated that alternative methods of investigation either had failed or were unlikely to produce results, in part because the subjects deliberately avoided government surveillance."

Bill Stollhans, president of the Private Investigators Association of Virginia, said such a technique would be legally reserved for police armed with court orders, not private investigators.

There is "no law that would allow me as a private investigator to use that type of technique," he said. "That is exclusively for law enforcement. It is not allowable or not legal in the private sector. No client of mine can ask me to overhear telephone or strictly oral conversations."

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer's video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html

Greece: Students Remain on the Streets to Protest the Murder of Alexi

2008-12-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

The protest movement against the murder of sixteen year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos shall continue, the students have decided.

Students will conduct protests outside the General Police Directorate of Attica (G.A.D.A.) and outside police stations in the rest of the country.

At this hour, students have blocked roads on Gregoriou Lambraki St. in Korydallos. In addition, students plan to shut-down the streets near the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Defense, the Square of Kalogiron, and a number of other streets.

The spiritual center and public radio station of the municipality of Ioannina, the old City Hall of Halandri, and the City Hall of Aghios Dimitrios remain under the occupation of anti-authoritarians, with the goal of felicitating grassroot meetings.

The Ministry of Education claims that 100 schools are under the occupation of the students, but information from the students suggests between 400 to 600, and about 100 universities are under student occupation.

The students plan to remain on the streets all week and continue their protests.

SOURCE:
"TO VEMA" (15 December 2008, 12:11 p.m.)
http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&ct=1&artId=246746

Translator's note:
"To Vema" is one of the major dailies in Greece and typically has a centrist politics. The article was edited for brevity.

Shoe attack mars Bush's Iraq visit

2008-12-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

George Bush, the US president, has had a pair of shoes hurled at him at a press conference during his last surprise visit to Iraq before leaving office in January.

An Iraqi reporter called Bush "a dog" and shouted out "this is the end" at Sunday's news conference in Baghdad, before throwing his shoes at the US leader.

Bush, who had been giving a joint press statement with Nuri Al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, ducked behind a podium as the shoes narrowly missed his head.

He was reported to be unhurt after the attack by Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadiya television, the Associated Press news agency reported.

The outgoing US leader had just told reporters that while the war in Iraq was not over "it is decisively on its way to being won," when al-Zeidi got to his feet and hurled abuse - and his footwear - at the US president.

Sign of contempt

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt.

The incident will serve as a vivid reminder of the widespread opposition to the US-led invasion of, and subsequent war in, Iraq - the conflict which has come to define Bush's presidency.

Bush shrugged off the incident and quipped: "All I can report is that it's a size 10."

Adil Shamoo, an Iraqi analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, told Al Jazeera: "I think we should go beyond the shoe and think about the fact that the US should respect Iraq's sovereignty in order to regain respect of the Iraqi people and the Arab world.

"I think Bush has increased terrorism against the United States and instablity in the Middle East because of his policies."

The US president was in Baghad for unannounced talks on the pact between Iraq and Washington that will see American troops leave Iraq by 2011.

Al-Maliki applauded security gains in Iraq and said that two years ago "such an agreement seemed impossible".

Bush's visit to the Iraqi capital came just 37 days before he hands the presidency over to Barak Obama, who has vowed to withdraw troops from Iraq.

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2008/12/2008121419453773379.html

General strike in Italy against government handling of the crisis

2008-12-13T20:10:00.001-08:00

Hundreds of thousands of workers downed tools and took to the streets in a four hour stoppage stating "we won't pay for the crisis".

The strike by the General Confederation of Italian workers (CGIL) shut down postal services nationwide, transport services and airports in several cities and many automobile manufacturers, in some of which strikers were joined by members of other unions.

Despite the rain, tens of thousands marched in Rome, 200,000 workers rallied in Bologna, 30,000 in Turin, 50,000 in Milan, 40,000 in Naples, 10,000 in Genoa and many more gathered elsewhere.

In the face of the crisis, with Italy now officially in recession, workers are demanding higher wages, better pensions, more labour rights and lower unemployment.

The union called off stoppages were transport workers in flood-hit Rome and Venice.

http://libcom.org/news/general-strike-italy-against-government-handling-crisis-13122008

Greek riots eyewitness reports - 12 December 2008

2008-12-13T20:08:00.001-08:00

Rundown of the days events of the sixth full day of rioting in Greece, including statements from workers and students in Athens.

Better than guerrilla radio
Anarchists take over the tv station Super B in Patra. They went live at 21.37pm

Part of the broadcast is viewable on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-a1jCD9sk0

#18, 18:40: 13-year old girl brutally arrested; murderer’s lawyer’s office attacked; high school students keep up the struggle and get targeted

Just about when the demonstration today was reaching its end, riot cops attacked at Korai Str in Athens, arresting at least four students. One of the arrestees was a 13 year old girl; nearby journalists who reacted to her brutal arrest were also beaten up heavily. Earlier, the office of Alexis Kougias (the murderer’s lawyer) were trashed.

High school students also held fresh demos across the country and neighbourhoods in Athens. The attack of the state’s mechanism on them is in full swing: Earlier today, a car with unregistered license plates (i.e. belonging to the undercover police) drove into two students outside a high school in Ilioupolis, Athens, leaving them both injured.

A more detailed summary of today’s events, hopefully with some thoughts on where things can go from here, will follow once we’ve had some rest!

#17 15.34 ATHENS: Parliament demo ends, retreats to occupied universities

15.34 The demo has ended and we have retreated in the three occupied universities, waiting for the pigs. Outside the law school a jeep is burning. They should be here soon.

15.46 The riot cops approach the law school. They are pelted with stones and molotovs, and retreat. One jeep and one riot cop on fire.

18.01: Let me update you about today's demo in Athens.

A pupil and student demo was organized for 12 o clock today, starting from Propylaia as usual. More than 10000 attended, the vast majority of them school kids and teenagers. It was again an angry demo, the school kids have been proven to be the BEST demonstrators during these days, focused and determined, they really seem that they are on the streets FOR A REASON. During the last 2 days, 25 police departments have been attacked all by school kids and teenagers. This is the best answer to the system and the media, who only talk about "vandals with covered faces" ... Well NO pupil had a covered face at all the demos.

The police was provocative from the very beggining of the demo. Chemicals were continiously thrown during the whole demo, as well as a lot of clashes with the police. They were hitting visiously and throwing chemicals, although we are talking about young school kids....

In Korai str they arrested and visiously hit a 13 years old girl.. A lot of journalists and reporters that were there they were filming them and shouting at them to stop hitting the girl.. The result was chemicals against the reporters and they started beating them... One journalist got badly hit. At a small alley near Panepistimiou str the RIOT police went in, in order to wait for the demo and hit it from the side. The people who were on that alley (the alley is full of cafes) starting shouting at the police to get out of there and a lot starting throwing at them glasses, chairs and stones. They threw chemicals against them but they had to run out of there as they were being attacked a lot. They turned to Panepistimiou str again where people of the public (even random pedestrians) were shouting at them and throwing them stones. Some of them tried to arrest a boy (about 15 years old) who was on the demo (not throwing stones) because he had his head covered (not face just head)..... The public managed to rescue the boy as they pulled him from them. Four pupils were arrested.

A lot of tension started also at Syntagma square, where a lot of chemicals were also thrown as well as stunt grenades. These grenades have been used a lot throughout the week.

Some comrades broke in the office of Mr Kougias, the lawyer of the cop, and trashed it completely. Kougias told the press that these actions are not going to hold him back from defending the cop....

A petrol bomb was thrown against this cop outside the Law Department of the University of Athens as an answer to the "fuck you" gesture that he did a few seconds before, to the comrades that have taken over that building. The other cops around quickly put out the fire and the cop was not injured. This triggered violence around the area of the Law Department for quite enough time.

The demo finished when heavy rainfall started.

A "sit down" demonstration (if I am using this term correctly) was also taking place at Syntagma square. At the beggining the MAT (RIOT police) was there and were trying to create trouble with the demonstrators but it was a peacefull demo so they left. Normal police went to replace them, they stayed at that point for some time and when they realised that the guys were not "terrorists" they left. An another sit down demo has been organized for 10 o clock tonight but I dont know if it will happen because of the rain.

Also a bicycle demo is about to take place today, normally bicycle demos have a lot of crowd but today because of the rain I am not sure how many will be there.

NOTHING IS OVER YET.. WE ARE ONLY IN THE BEGINNING.

NO PEACE NO JUSTICE

#16, 14.13 Student Demonstration at Parliament

14.13 the student demonstration in Athens is large, at least 5-6,000. The high school kids block is an amazing spectacle to watch. They chant “shoot us too!”. We are approaching the parliament now.

14.30 we charge at the cops. They respond with a fuckload of tear gas. People hold. “MURDERERS!” More and more people arrive. There must be at least 10,000 of us.

#15, 12:17 Athens: Business unusual

The ballistic examination report is expected today. “Leaks” in the media the previous days have been suggesting that the report will claim Alexandros was killed by a ricochet and not a direct shot (which is against what every single eye witness says). They have already reached their verdict - but so have we: At the occupied Athens School of Economics and Business, an enormous banner is about to be hanged reading “Cougias” (the lawyer of the murderer), “go ricochet yourself”.

The student demonstration is starting now at Propylea. I’m heading there and will report from the street.

#14, 11:57: Video from Patras, report from besieged Athens police stations

Video from the demonstration in Patras. Just to put this into perspective: The demonstration was called by the (anarchist &leftist) occupation of the “parartima” (branch of the university in the city centre). This was their callout. Under “normal” circumstances, around 100-200 people would respond. These are not normal days we are living, though: 5-6,000 people took the streets in Patras yesterday…

In Athens, as reported yesterday, at least 25 police stations were under siege by school students. The police station of Petroupoli was besieged for more than seven hours and its facade was entirely burnt by molotov cocktails. 3 students were arrested but the crowd succeeded in demanding their release, as happened a bit later when another two students were arrested only to be released again, under the pressure of the people in solidarity outside (these are all according to indymedia reports).

In the early hours, anarchists occupied the mainstream radio station Flash FM, broadcasting their messages for more than half an hour.

“We are in Civil War: With the fascists, the bankers, the state, the media wishing to see an obedient society”

…you would be excused to think that the above extract comes from an anarchist statement; alas, no - it is from the statement issued by the association of employees of the suburb of Agios Dimitrios in Athens. Here’s a rough translation of the statement, as promised. Keep in mind that, as members of the association told some comrades, they tried to keep the style of the text as sober as possible, to ensure the maximum number of people take the streets with them.

STATEMENT

On Saturday night, the Greek police assassinated a 15 year old student.

His assassination was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

It was the continuation of a coordinated action, by state terrorism and the Golden Dawn, which aimed at university and high school students (with the private universities first), at migrants that continue to be persecuted for being born with the wrong colour, at the employees that must work to death without compensation.

The government of cover-ups with its praetors, having burnt the forests last summer, is responsible for all major cities burning now, too. It protected financial criminals, all those involved in the mobile phone interceptions scandal, those looting the employees’ insurance funds, those kidnapping migrants, those who protected the banks and the monasteries that steal from the ordinary people.

We are in Civil War: With the fascists, the bankers, the state, the media wishing to see an obedient society.

There are no excuses, yet they once again try to use conspiracy theories to calm spirits down.

The rage that had accumulated had to be expressed and should not, by any means, end.

Throughout the world we are making headlines, it was about time that people uprise everywhere.

The generation of the poor, the unemployed, the partially employed, the homeless, the migrants, the youth, is the generation that will smash every display window and will wake up the obedient citizens from their sleep of the ephemeral American dream.

Don’t watch the news, consciousness is born in the streets

When the youth is murdered, the old people should not sleep

Goodbye Alexandros, may your blood be the last of an innocent to run

We are here/ we are everywhere/ we are an image from the future

If I do not burn

If you do not burn

If we do not burn

How will darkness come to light?

(Nazim Hikmet, “Like Kerem”)

Clenching fear in their teeth the dogs howl: Return to normality – the fools’ feast is over. The philologists of assimilation have already started digging up their cut-sharp caresses: “We are ready to forget, to understand, to exchange the promiscuity of these few days, but now behave or we shall bring over our sociologists, our anthropologists, our psychiatrists! Like good fathers we have tolerated with restraint your emotional eruption – now look at how desks, offices and shop windows gape empty! The time has come for a return, and whoever refuses this holy duty shall be hit hard, shall be sociologised, shall be psychiatrised. An injunction hovers over the city: “Are you at your post?” Democracy, social harmony, national unity and all the other big hearths stinking of death have already stretched out their morbid arms.

Power (from the government to the family) aims not simply to repress the insurrection and its generalisation, but to produce a relation of subjectivation. A relation that defines bios, that is political life, as a sphere of cooperation, compromise and consensus. “Politics is the politics of consensus; the rest is gang-war, riots, chaos”. This is a true translation of what they are telling us, of their effort to deny the living core of every action, and to separate and isolate us from what we can do: not to unite the two into one, but to rupture again and again the one into two. The mandarins of harmony, the barons of peace and quiet, law and order, call on us to become dialectic. But those tricks are desperately old, and their misery is transparent in the fat bellies of the trade-union bosses, in the washed-out eyes of the intermediaries, who like vultures perch over every negation, over every passion for the real. We have seen them in May, we have seen them in LA and Brixton, and we have been watching them over decades licking the long now white bones of the 1973 Polytechnic. We saw them again yesterday when instead of calling for a permanent general strike, they bowed to legality and called off the strike protest march. Because they know all too well that the road to the generalisation of the insurrection is through the field of production – through the occupation of the means of production of this world that crushes us.

Tomorrow dawns a day when nothing is certain. And what could be more liberating than this after so many long years of certainty? A bullet was able to interrupt the brutal sequence all those identical days. The assassination of a 15 year old boy was the moment when a displacement took place strong enough to bring the world upside down. A displacement from the seeing through of yet another day, to the point that so many think simultaneously: “That was it, not one step further, all must change and we will change it”. The revenge for the death of Alex, has become the revenge for every day that we are forced to wake up in this world. And what seemed so hard proved to be so simple.

This is what has happened, what we have. If something scares us is the return to normality. For in the destroyed and pillaged streets of our cities of light we see not only the obvious results of our rage, but the possibility of starting to live. We have no longer anything to do than to install ourselves in this possibility transforming it into a living experience: by grounding on the field of everyday life, our creativity, our power to materialise our desires, our power not to contemplate but to construct the real. This is our vital space. All the rest is death.

Those who want to understand will understand. Now is the time to break the invisible cells that chain each and everyone to his or her pathetic little life. And this does not require solely or necessarily one to attack police stations and torch malls and banks. The time that one deserts his or her couch and the passive contemplation of his or her own life and takes to the streets to talk and to listen, leaving behind anything private, involves in the field of social relations the destabilising force of a nuclear bomb. And this is precisely because the (till now) fixation of everyone on his or her microcosm is tied to the traction forces of the atom. Those forces that make the (capitalist) world turn. This is the dilemma: with the insurgents or alone. And this is one of the really few times that a dilemma can be at the same time so absolute and real.

11/12/2008 Initiative from the occupation of the Athens School of Economics and Business

#13 What to expect tomorrow (12.12.2008)

Friends call from abroad. “Is it over?” we can only laugh at that idea - What do you mean, is it over? It’s just about to start. Some comrades come back to the Athens School of Economics (our base), carrying incredible stories from the occupation of the town hall of the suburb of Agios Dimitrios in Athens. In a previous post we reported that the town hall was occupied by anarchists. Wrong: The town hall was occupied by the locals, whose statements so far easily overcome the “toughest” of anarchist speech. “This is civil war”, they write. “Alexis, we hope that your blood is the last of an innocent to run”. We’ve got a copy of the entire statement published by the area’s employees committee, and will be translating it tomorrow. It is, quite simply, a historical document.

As for what to expect tomorrow (12.12). There is a callout for yet another mass demonstration in Athens, at noon. A “revolutionary alleycat race” is called for 21:30. Its tag: “Come contribute to the chaos!”. Most university students will be holding department assemblies to decide whether they will proceed with occupations (surely enough, most of them will do so); we expect high school students to keep rocking, as they have all these days (and if information received so far is confirmed, regarding their plans, they might have some awesome surprises for us tomorrow).

“Is this over?” How, exactly, could it be? The murderer if Alexandros shows no remorse and is about to get away with it. The pigs keep provoking. Their political leaders remain unpunished. What single argument, what single reason is there for us to return to normalcy, to forget, to retreat from the streets? None. There is no way back now.

compiled from the posts of Dimitris on urban 75 and from www.occupiedlondon.org/blog

http://libcom.org/library/greek-riots-eyewitness-reports-12-december-2008

Chicago Sitdown Strike Produces Win for Workers, Anger against Banks

2008-12-13T20:06:00.001-08:00

When managers informed the workers at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago that the plant would close in three days’ time, the announcement was no surprise.

Suspicion that something was wrong had been floating around the workplace for weeks before the December 2 announcement. “We’ve had a lot of our machines taken out of the plant at night,” said Melvin Maclin, vice president of United Electrical Workers (UE) Local 1110 and a seven-year employee. “And along with the machines go people’s jobs.”

Concerned that Republic’s owners would remove or sell off the remaining machinery before they handed over pay for severance and vacation time already accrued, the workers brought in a local congressman, Representative Luis Gutierrez.

But management failed to show at a meeting with Gutierrez, leading workers to take a dramatic stand that confounded expectations about the U.S. labor movement, long in retreat.

They refused to leave the plant at closing time December 5, voting unanimously to occupy their factory, the first such action in the United States in years.

Lalo Munoz, an employee of Republic for 34 years, said workers were determined to fight. “They decided just to kick (us) into the streets, with no benefits or nothing, not even what we have already earned,” he said.

The occupation lasted six days, until a unanimous December 10 vote among the 240 workers accepted a severance package worth about $7,000 per worker. The deal also includes two months of health care, a crucial gain for workers who discovered that their coverage had been unilaterally yanked.
WHO GETS BAILED OUT?

Republic management laid the blame on its primary financier, Bank of America, claiming the bank’s refusal to extend further credit to the company caused the shutdown.

Company representatives insisted that without further credit they could not pay workers the severance they were owed—although information surfaced days into the occupation that owners had found enough cash recently to purchase a non-union window factory in Iowa.

A Chicago councilman who had seen company documents said workers in Iowa would be paid one-third of what Republic workers earned. In 1996, the company received a $9.6 million subsidy from Chicago to place the factory in the city.

The Republic workers turned their attention to Bank of America. Jobs with Justice helped the union organize a press conference outside the bank’s Chicago headquarters, where speakers hammered the bank for refusing to release to Republic a tiny fraction of the $25 billion it was granted in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

The plant occupation tapped into simmering discontent nationwide about banks’ refusal to open credit lines that could help struggling firms survive . Dozens of protests sprouted across the country in front of Bank of America branches.

As harsh as Republic’s stance seemed, Chicago organizers emphasized that the company’s refusal to give the legally required 60 days’ notice of a plant closing and to pay severance was by no means unique.

A bakery and a potato chip plant, both large and unionized factories, are just two that have shuttered in Chicago in recent years without following the plant-closing law.

“This is not an exceptional practice,” said Adam Kader, director of Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues (CICWI), a worker center involved in campaigns to recover severance pay. “This is standard practice.”

Workers at Republic, however, were uniquely prepared to fight their plant closing. Before the occupation, they were already well-known in Chicago labor circles. A mostly African-American and immigrant Latino workforce, they organized into UE Local 1110 four years ago after dumping a company union that had agreed to a wage freeze and had allowed dozens of workers to be fired with no protest.

“There is a political tradition that the UE has nurtured, and when the time was right, it presented itself and they could seize the moment. The organizers were quick on the uptake to understand the issue at hand and fit it into the global context. They did it brilliantly,” says Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
SPARKING THE FIRE

Word of the workers’ decision spread rapidly among Chicago labor and social justice activists. Within hours a prayer vigil, organized by CICWI, had been planned. Supporters appeared at the factory’s entrance bearing gifts of food, coffee, blankets, and sleeping bags. They signed posters that workers taped to the factory walls, with messages like “Thanks for showing us all how to fight back” and “You are an inspiration to us all.”

Hundreds of supporters showed up to the prayer vigil, and workers received statements of solidarity from as far away as France and Argentina, where factory occupations are a more familiar form of protest.

The occupation entered the national stage in full force after President-elect Obama voiced his support. The Republic workers make energy-efficient doors and windows, products at the core of Obama’s call for a new, more environmentally sustainable economy.

Local politicians threatened to pull city and state business with the Bank of America, and apparently offered other promises of assistance to the workers, too. UE Western Region President Carl Rosen announced he was working with state agencies to find financing to re-open Republic under new management, and UE announced the creation of a fund to restart the plant.

Given the scale of public and political support, it was only a matter of time before the workers won their demand for the severance legally mandated under plant-closing laws.

Some pumped-up supporters are wondering whether the Republic victory will be a spark that re-ignites the labor movement.

“We really feel like we had an obligation to working class people to win this fight,” said UE international representative Mark Meinster, “because of what it could mean for workers in this country.”

http://labornotes.org/node/1994

San Francisco activists demonstrate in solidarity with Republic Windows & Doors workers

2008-12-13T20:04:00.000-08:00

By Richard Becker - Tuesday, December 9, 2008, Originally posted at Party for Liberation and Socialism.

A sit-in and protest was held in San Francisco on Dec. 9 as an act of solidarity with workers who have been sitting-in since Dec. 5 at the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago . Four people were arrested after sitting in at a downtown office of the Bank of America during the protest in San Francisco.

Bank of America, which has received tens of billions in taxpayers money from the bank bailout, triggered the plant closing by cutting off credit to the company to pay workers their wages and ongoing expenses. The shutdown of the plant without notice is a violation of federal law.

The workers, members of the United Electrical Workers union, have refused to leave the factory until they are paid in full for wages, unused vacation time and other compensation due to them. They are also demanding that Bank of America extend credit so that the plant can remain open and they can keep their jobs.

The solidarity demonstration in San Francisco was organized on less than 24 hours notice. It was initiated by the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and endorsed by the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Justice First, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO), among others. A meeting of 70 delegates of the S.F. Labor council enthusiastically and unanimously voted to endorse the protest at their bi-weekly meeting held the night before.

As trade unionists, other workers and progressive activists picketed outside chanting "Bailout the Workers, Not the Banks," four activists entered the Powell & Market branch of the bank, declaring that they would not leave until there was justice for the Chicago workers. After a short standoff, the four were arrested for trespassing. They are: Jon Britton and Chris Banks of the ANSWER Coalition; John Reiman of the IWW; and Gloria La Riva, President of the Typographical Sector of the Northern California Media Workers Union and the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s 2008 presidential candidate.

As those who had been arrested were brought out of the bank, they and the San Francisco police who arrested them were surrounded by spirited picketers, chanting "Let Them Go!"

The protest drew the attention of hundreds of people in the downtown area, some of which joined the picket line. Among the speakers at the event were: Clarence Thomas, Executive Board member, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10; Frank Martin del Campo, member of the Executive Committee of the S.F. Labor Council; Richard Becker, ANSWER Coalition; and Gloria La Riva.

The arrested activists were cited and released later in the evening.

For more information on the Chicago plant sit-in, visit http://www.ueunion.org/ue_republic.html.

http://www.iww.org/en/node/4497

Pentagon May Have Mixed Propaganda With PR

2008-12-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 12, 2008; A02

The Pentagon's inspector general said yesterday that the Defense Department's public affairs office may have "inappropriately" merged public affairs and propaganda operations in 2007 and 2008 when it contracted out $1 million in work for a strategic communications plan for use by the military in collaboration with the State Department.

"Without clearly defined strategic communications responsibilities, DoD may appear to merge inappropriately the public affairs and information operations functions," the inspector general said in a report released yesterday. Strategic communications programs, which have become a major part of the Pentagon's information operations carried out in the "war of ideas" in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, should be under the oversight of the undersecretary of defense for policy, the report added.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs "should only perform strategic communications responsibilities related to its public affairs mission," the report said. It called attention to a May 2005 Defense Department publication titled "Public Affairs," which stated that public affairs and information operations "differ with respect to the audience, scope and intent and must remain separate."

Robert T. Hastings, the acting assistant secretary for public affairs, has responded to the report by saying he agrees there should be an evaluation of the functions of the office with a new definition of its missions.

Last year the Senate Armed Services Committee eliminated $3 million requested for a Defense Department strategic communication program. The committee wrote that responsibility for "public diplomacy rests with the president and Secretary of State and any DoD efforts to formulate a message should be framed and informed by those efforts."

The inspector general also raised questions about the Office of Public Affairs' use of funds and personnel from the Armed Forces Information Service to carry out its functions without specific authority. AFIS, which was recently renamed Defense Media Activity, runs Pentagon internal communications including Stars and Stripes as well as the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. With a budget of more than $160 million and about 1,200 staff members, it nonetheless comes under the authority, direction and control of the assistant secretary for public affairs, whose authorized staff is only 89, according to the report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121103319_pf.html

Change we need: An Anarchist Perspective on the 2008 Election

2008-12-13T20:01:00.001-08:00

The election is over. Barack Obama will become the next president of The United States. The news of Obama's victory resulted in spontaneous celebrations across the country. The energy was infectious and everywhere conversations seemed to contain a positive outlook that people in the U.S. have not known for many long years. Words like change and hope are being used, and it seems widely assumed that the election of Obama will herald a new age of social justice, an end to the wars, and significant reduction in the racism the plagues U.S. society. But as the energy and media spectacle dies down, we would like for you to consider the election from a different perspective. It is our belief as Class Struggle Anarchists that elections in a capitalist society in fact can never bring true justice and security to the average working person. We do not believe that such elections can with any degree of permanence prevent wars, or deal effectively with racism, sexism or environmental degradation.

We stand in solidarity with the hopes for profound change of the millions of people who voted for Obama. However, we also recognize that the capitalist system is in a serious crisis which is dragging down all working class and oppressed people and which even the best-intentioned high office-holder is incapable of solving. The aim of this piece is to provide a perspective on the crisis and an outline for solutions.

The presidency of George W. Bush has been by almost any reasonable standard a complete disaster. Lies, wars, a financial crisis and deep recession, and the building up of a police state are just a few of Bush's dubious legacies. Some of these were already obvious two years ago as the electoral season opened and the liberals and reformists began their campaign against these issues. However, glaringly missing from their attacks was why these problems existed in the first place.

It is our belief that economic inequality, war, racism, sexism and environmental destruction are inherent in any capitalist society. Consider for a moment the vast wealth that our society creates,everything from crops to advanced medicines. However, the access to this wealth is unequally divided, determined by supposedly free markets. It is assumed by the politicians and corporate media that these supposedly free markets are a natural part of life. Markets, however, are set up by people; they can also be modified or undone by people. As anarchists, we believe that the production and distribution of society's wealth should be decided democratically, by people, and not by a market mechanism which in fact is controlled by a few.
Democracy:
Anarchists are absolutely for democracy. The concept that people should come together and make decisions is the backbone of our ideology. However, we do not view the U.S. system of democracy as being representative of those ideals. The Republicans and Democrats exist as two rival factions battling over our consent to be ruled. Both promote rhetoric of common interest with ordinary people, but we feel this is an illusion. The politicians in this nation exist to provide a stable platform for the rule and exploitation of the majority of working people in America by the minority of capitalists; that is, the owners of the property on which we produce the wealth. We build, guard,clean and work in the offices and plants , we transport the goods, and we sell them, but the capitalists own them them and pocket the profits. The interests of these two groups are not the same. The boss class wants to get as much from the workers as it can. They want to pay us as little as possible and sell us everything they own as dearly as they can. Unchecked these conditions have led to uprisings. Don't believe it? Look at our own history! The abolition of slavery, 8-hour day, the right to form unions, overtime pay, child labor laws, the end to legal segregation, the right of women to vote and to choose, and the right of gay and transgender people to be themselves was won not at the ballot box, but by people organizing, striking, boycotting and taking to the streets. The liberals in elective office passed the laws in response to the movements and to head off what could become a revolutionary upsurge.
Implications of the Election
Without a doubt this election has been historic. We see two reasons. A Black man has been elected to the highest office in the U.S., a country founded on the mass kidnapping of Africans and the theft of land from the Indigenous people who already lived here. Second, Obama's campaign was marked by some of the most widespread mass organizing in years.

The US is a nation deeply scarred by racism, and despite what some pundits might believe, it is clear to any working person that racism is nowhere near dead. Racial oppression is a complicated issue, and we do not mean to simplify it. However, a discussion of why racism and white supremacy have been so intractable in US society would have to consider how race has consistently been used as a wedge by the ruling class in its rhetoric and its policy decisions to keep the working class divided along racial lines, and so prevent the class from realizing its full potential as a force capable of self-organizing and overcoming its oppression. The election of a Black man to the presidency of the US represents a real shift in the attitudes of Americans, and we applaud this. However, racism is not just about attitudes. It is integral to the system of exploitation of working people. This systemic racism is what leverages the advantage of the ruling class, and with the increasingly evident magnitude of the economic collapse we are heading into, the ruling class will be aggressively seeking opportunities to defend its advantages. The way forward is for working-class people to organize in their own interests and to champion the aspirations of those who are oppressed by racism. We see social justice movements, neighborhood associations and cop-watch as examples. These sorts of bottom-up movements stand in complete contrast to what will be the top-down efforts of even an Obama administration to address social problems. Such efforts may alleviate some of the symptoms but they will leave the root causes of the problems untouched.

The other significant element of the election was the unprecedented grassroots mobilization that supported Obama's campaign. Under a banner of change and social justice many thousands of people volunteered,donated money, and did the labor of making the campaign run. We view this trend with great excitement. Imagine what could be gained if that focus on grassroots organizing was taken into the communities we lived in, into direct action on our on behalf instead of appeals to power.

We urge for this energy and creativity to go into movements independent of politicians. We encourage the support of unions, neighborhood democracy, resistance to police brutality, support for political prisoners, models for mass education, and also a movement with teeth. Above all, we must struggle for what we need, not what the system is willing to give us.

In addition, we must all be on the watch for expressions of racist hatred and organized fascist movements in the months and years following the election. The truth is that many white Americans are still openly racist, and there are groups that will exploit this, and real anger of social issues, to create violent movements. The news of a Black church burned in Springfield, MA just hours after the election was not surprising, and we must use all means necessary to stop such movements.

US NEFAC
November 2008
Related Link: http://www.nefac.net

Chiapas: Zapatistas to host "Festival of Dignified Rage"

2008-12-13T19:58:00.000-08:00

The Sixth Intergalactic Commission of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) has announced a "First World Festival of Dignified Rage" (Festival Digna Rabia), to be held in January at San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. Participants have been confirmed from some 20 countries around the world. Among the Mexican participants are the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), representatives from maquiladora workers in Baja California and Tamaulipas, and from the Lomas de Poleo land struggle at Ciudad Juárez. International participants include a delegation from the ACIN indigenous alliance in Cauca, Colombia; Spain's anarcho-syndicalist General Workers Confederation (CGT); and representatives from the labor struggle in Iran. Invited writers include Mexico's Adolfo Gilly, Ireland's John Halloway, the USA's Michael Hardt, and India's Arundhati Roy. (La Jornada, Nov. 29)

http://ww4report.com/node/6454

Ivory Coast prison protest ends

2008-12-13T19:52:00.000-08:00

Calm has returned to the main prison in Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan, after police put down a mass protest, prison authorities have said.

Six prisoners were injured when about 100 police and gendarmes fired machine guns in the air to disperse the crowd.

Others in riot gear worked to gain control of the main prison blocks.

Officials said the protest came after a change in visiting hours, but human rights groups said inmates were upset by overcrowding and poor conditions.

This prison mutiny follows a similar break-out on Friday from a jail in the country's second city, Bouake, during which more than 20 prisoners managed to escape.

Officials denied there was any link between the two disturbances.

'Overpopulated'

The BBC's John James, who was outside the Abidjan Detention and Correction Centre (Maca) on Saturday, says calm has now returned, but for most of the day the sound of machine guns and tear gas grenades could be heard.

After inmates in two blocks revolted, police and gendarmes were sent to the prison to support warders.

A tense stand-off soon developed, with angry prisoners on the roofs hurling stones at the security personnel, who responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Real bullets were also fired into the air above the inmates' heads in a bid to disperse them.

The director of the prison, Patrice Yao, said those responsible for the protest were some of the facility's most dangerous inmates.

After several hours, police managed to secure the area around the prison, while others in riot gear carrying guns and shields regained control of the main prison blocks.

According to the prison authorities, the protest was sparked by a change to visiting hours in order to avoid escapes.

But Drissa Traore, the head of the Ivorian Movement for Human Rights, said the prisoners were also angered by their living conditions.

"You know that this place is overpopulated. The prison is around three or four times the maximum capacity, so the conditions for the prison guards and the prisoners themselves are quite difficult," he told the BBC.

In addition, of the 5,200 people currently detained at the prison, nearly 2,000 are yet to be tried - for some the wait has lasted more than 10 years, our correspondent says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7782111.stm

Violent protests resume in Greece

2008-12-13T19:19:00.000-08:00

There have been further riots in Greece in protest at the killing by police of a 15-year-old boy eight days ago.

Violent clashes broke out in the capital, Athens, on Saturday evening following a day of largely peaceful vigils for Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

Youths threw petrol bombs at banks and the police station where the officer charged with the teenager's killing was based. Police responded with tear gas.

At least 70 people have been injured in the protests sparked by the shooting.

The unrest has spread throughout the country, and has prompted calls for Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his government to stand down.

Mr Karamanlis has vowed not to be swayed by protests, insisting Greece needs experienced leadership at a time of economic crisis.

'Murderers out'

The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens says the clashes on Saturday evening have been the most serious disturbances for several days.

Exactly a week after Alexandros Grigoropoulos was shot dead, youths on motorbikes and others on foot threw petrol bombs and rocks at a police station in the Exarchia district, where the officer, who shot him and has now been charged with murder, was based. The protesters chanted "murderers out".

The trouble soon spread and rioters began setting up barricades in the area, and attacking banks, shops and an office of the environment ministry. Riot police positioned at street corners responded by firing tear gas at the protesters.

Several restaurants in Exarchia had already closed early in anticipation of the violence. Many shop owners meanwhile boarded up their windows as night fell.

Later, police charged a peaceful vigil in nearby Syntagma Square, when those taking part refused to move further away from the parliament building.

Meanwhile in Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, dozens of youths vandalised a gymnasium during a demonstration, according to the AFP news agency.

Silent protest

The protests in memory of Alexandros Grigoropoulos's death last Saturday in Exarchia had begun peacefully.

Students of the school the teenager had attended held a silent vigil during the day in Syntagma Square. Hours later, hundreds of others brought candles to the site, while others gathered at the site of the shooting.

In Thessaloniki, 300 youths gathered by the White Tower, a key monument.

Our correspondent says anger at the killing of the teenager has developed into a widespread sense of anger at Greece's government over the past week.

Thousands of Greeks have taken to the streets across the country, repeatedly clashing with police and vowing to overthrow the government.

Many have identified themselves as anarchists happy to use violence in what they say are legitimate protests against the government.

Some, though, have welcomed the return of a semblance of calm prior to the violence on Saturday evening. In Athens, Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis greeted Christmas shoppers with the city's brass band.

"People came up to me and were telling me that it was the first time they had smiled in days," the mayor told the Associated Press.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7782039.stm

Milwaukee: Two Banner Drops in Solidarity with RNC Arrestees and Greek Rioters

2008-12-13T19:16:00.000-08:00

Two banners were dropped today in Milwaukee on Saturday December 13th. They read "SOLIDARITY MEANS ATTACK: this is global social war" and "BURN GREECE BURN: Alex was here."

This action happens on a declared day of solidarity with those who were arrested at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, as well as marking the 8th day of an ongoing historic uprising spreading throughout Greece, opening up our futures with their tangible present. Last week Greek police murdered 15 year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos whose death symbolized both the entire repressive apparatus of the state and also the courage of those who find themselves in conflict with it willfully. The situation forced upon the hundreds of RNC arrestees, who find themselves at the merciless whim of the state can be viewed similarly. Thusly the conditions responsible for forcing it upon them should be dealt no less mercy.

If we are to view solidarity as a direct and continuous conflict with the walls and prison guards that enforce the prison of our conditions, then the developing situation in Greece and the current generalization of their social struggle provide us with invaluable lessons. Their lesson plan has been taught with burning cities, not as a means of securing demands or reacting to certain systematic injustices, but as a realization that the only way to ensure that not another 15 year old boy will be shot dead by police is through the elimination of their means to do so.

Our incendiary device is the generalization of our struggles, it is to connect out of our collective isolation as an ungovernable multiplicity ensuring with our own weathered hands that one day our friends, some now facing potential prison time for their alleged actions during the RNC, will never again go to prison, because there will be no more prisons.

Our friendship is a weapon.

SOLIDARITY WITH RNC ARRESTEES
SOLIDARITY WITH THE CIVIL WAR IN GREECE

June 2009: A call to action for a new anti-war strategy

2008-12-13T12:51:00.001-08:00

The US led war in Iraq has been raging for nearly six years, with wars of occupation proceeding for centuries before that. The current US anti-war movement has ground to a near halt due to sectarianism, ineffective vigils and “speak truth to power” campaigns. The one thing that is clear to the rest of us is that those in power have a concrete understanding of their influential roles in the global military industrial complex.

As people opposed to war, occupation, and state sponsored terrorism, we understand the role that logistical support operations play in perpetuating the US war effort - at home and abroad. Soldiers, supplies, transportation, communication, weaponry and ammunition are some of the components needed to maintain wars and occupation. While counter-recruitment campaigns, port resistance actions, and physical attacks on military infrastructure have all targeted some of these logistical frameworks, the ammunition supply line has been fairly ignored.

Far from the coasts, and the mass movements that encompass them, the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant produces nearly 98% of the small arms ammunition utilized by the US Military.

The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant (LCAAP) is capable of producing 4 million rounds of ammunition daily. This makes Lake City the largest small arms manufacturing plant in the world.

Located in Independence, Missouri, about 1 hour from Lawrence, Kansas, and about 25 minutes from Kansas City, the Lake City Plant sits on 3,935 acres and encompasses 458 buildings. The facility has been in operation since 1941, making it one of the last World War II era ammunition plants still in operation.

Lake City is owned by the federal government, but operated by the leading provider of advanced weapon and space systems to the US Department of Defense - Alliant Techsystems (ATK), Inc. ATK employs nearly 16,500 people and operates in 21 states within the US. ATK weapons plants, offices and testing facilities are housed across the nation. ATK’s corporate headquarters are located in Edina, Minnesota about 20 minutes from Minneapolis.

As the largest supplier of ammunition to the US military, and with representatives in over 50 countries, ATK is responsible for the continued violence against the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti, Colombia, the United States and many other countries with a US military presence.

Who are we…

Disrupt Lake City is made up of Midwestern anarchists and anti-authoritarians enraged not only by the current wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, and "Terror," but more deeply by the pathological militarism of nation-states and the occupations they wage - both within their borders and beyond.

To clarify exactly where we’re coming from, we ask all participants to affirm the following points of unity:
Clear opposition to militarism and occupation. Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only wars the US wages. Globally and locally, the American empire is a habitual warmonger and occupier. On the domestic front, the cops and courts occupy all of our blocks - especially targeting people of color and poor folks. On the global front, the US military officially maintains over 700 bases in roughly 130 countries—not to mention all those they don’t tell us about. Furthermore, we are against all states and empires.
Respect for a diversity of tactics. As anti-authoritarians, we will not allow the authorities to define the appropriate methods for responding to their domination. We will stand in solidarity with each other while cooperating to disrupt their ammunition shipments.
No condemnation of fellow participants in media outlets or public forums. We’re not getting together to air dirty laundry or to ignite any conflicts and turn them into soap operas. All our critiques of one another should remain internal to promote cohesive and decisive action.
Non-hierarchical organizing. Actions should be organized autonomously through collective participation. Obviously that can take a variety of forms, but the consent of actual participants is the common thread tying all our efforts together. No authoritarianism or coercion tolerated.
No collaboration with the state or its agents. Organize intelligently, make your plans securely, and don’t ever sell out comrades!

Strategy or what we gonna do bout it…

The campaign itself designed to create multiple disruptions of ammunition shipments from Lake City. No one should have delusions of grandeur or the intention to “shut it down”. However, if enough pressure is applied, and shipments are disrupted over a long enough period of time—there may be success in permanently stopping production.

Call to action!
June 4-8, 2009!…
As the war rages into a 7th year, we will descend on Lake City, as a part of a new movement - the new incarnation of the anti-war movement. From all over the Midwest and beyond, anarchists and anti-authoritarians will gather to take a physical stand against the supply line dominating their lives and the lives of those across the globe. And, you can join them.

If you are interested in being a part of this action and need information to form an affinity group with the intention of tackling a certain sector, contact Disrupt Lake City and we will get you all the info you need. The disruption crew will be coordinating all committed groups and providing them with support on the ground.

ATK Website www.atk.com

DISRUPT LAKE CITY CONTACTS
Email-Unconventionalks@gmail.com
Address-P.O. Box 277, Lawrence, KS 66044
Website-www.stoplakecity.org

Helsinki: Solidarity to Greece

2008-12-13T12:42:00.000-08:00

Around fifty people gathered to the Greek embassy on Friday to express their support for the rebellion in Greece. There was also a demonstration in the city of Turku.

In Helsinki the protesters blocked the road in front of the embassy for almost an hour and then took to the surrounding streets and made their way towards the university of Helsinki and the central railway station. A greek comrade was teaching people their most popular chants like: Cops, Pigs, Murderers! The cops kept their distance and the demo was completed without any trouble.
More protests are planned in Helsinki.

Workers occupy auto parts plant in northern Germany

2008-12-12T14:17:00.001-08:00

On December 5, about 100 employees of the bankrupt auto parts supplier HWU occupied their factory in the small town of Hohenlockstedt, north of Hamburg. The workers are determined to defend their jobs and prevent the planned closure of the plant at the end of the year.

Occupied factory

The workers’ union, IG Metall, is attempting to end the factory occupation following complaints from union bureaucrats at a major auto manufacturer that the action was threatening to disrupt production at that other firm.

HWU produces parts for catalytic converters, steering wheels and door locks. In June 2008, HWU was sold by its parent company, the Vollmann Group, to Horst Strodtkötter, a former employee at the factory. The workforce only learned of their new owner June 30, at a factory meeting that the new managing director did not attend.

Then six weeks ago, on October 29, Strodtkötter informed the workforce that HWU was bankrupt and unable to pay their wages in October. Strodtkötter declared that a 30 percent drop in orders resulting from the current crisis in the automotive industry had driven the company into bankruptcy.

The workers reacted at that time with a spontaneous 24-hour occupation of the premises. Their main concern was to prevent the removal of any parts or machinery that would make further production at the factory impossible. Following the declaration of a bankruptcy administrator that the company had sufficient orders, and that the outstanding wages could be paid out of insolvency funds (Insolvenzgeld--money paid by the government to workers at bankrupt firms, out of a levy on the owners), the employees returned to work.

Since then the workforce has been kept completely in the dark about any further developments. There was no further information on the future of the factory from either the managing director or the bankruptcy trustee. When it was announced last week that at the end of the year the insolvency funds would be exhausted, workers reoccupied the plant on Friday.

On Tuesday morning the factory council finally informed the workforce about the plan to close the plant. The majority of workers are to be made redundant by December 31. A skeleton staff of between 25 to 30 workers will be retained until the end of March to wind down the factory. The only hope for any retention of jobs, according to IG Metall, was via the creation of some sort of transfer company (a firm specializing in matching laid-off workers with new jobs).

The workers at the factory, however, place absolutely no confidence in such a transfer company. They are all convinced that the chances of finding alternative work in the present economic climate are almost zero. Many workers have been employed at the factory for over two decades and are ill-equipped to find new jobs at this stage of their lives and careers.

Hohenlockstedt is a small town of approximately 6,200 inhabitants in rural Schleswig-Holstein. At its peak, the factory was a thriving enterprise with up to 700 employees. Older inhabitants of the town recall when the factory operated three-shifts some 50 years ago. But such times are long past.

One worker with 37 years in the plant told a WSWS reporter how he had begun his apprenticeship there as a toolmaker and in recent years had worked predominantly in the production of spare parts. The situation for many workers is very bitter, he explained:

“Entire lives are at stake. There are many workers who began their working lives here, built a house and have small children. And then suddenly one day we were informed that everything is gone. After working here for over 35 years, I’m told that as of January 1, I can only inspect my workplace from the other side of the factory gate.”

An HWU employee who has worked as a toolmaker at the factory for 20 years stressed that the jobs situation in the region was very bad: “In the extreme case, you would have to move away from here to find new work. But under conditions where everybody has the same idea it will be difficult to find work.”

A somewhat younger worker, who started at the factory as an apprentice in 1988, pointed to the anger of the HWU employees—in particular because they had been informed about the factory’s plight at such a late stage. Workers are angry that all the skills and knowledge built up over decades of employment are now considered worthless and summarily being dismissed.

SteffenAlfred

The WSWS also spoke with the chairman of the works council, Steffen Schmidt, and his deputy, Alfred Butt. When asked why IG Metall had done nothing to organise a more extensive campaign to defend the workers’ jobs, they responded by referring to disputes between the “works council princes” (union officials) active in the big car plants, who are intent on defending their own factories at the expense of all others and therefore make impossible any sort of broader solidarity between different plants and their workforces.

The perspective of IG Metall

The announcement of the closure of the facility was preceded by a series of measures aimed at reorganising the factory and which involved considerable sacrifices on the part of the workforce. The union enforced these measures by arguing that they were the only alternative to job cuts and HWU’s closing down. The result now is the complete closure of the plant. The perspective of ‘saving jobs’ by accepting wage cuts and other concessions failed catastrophically.

In 2002, IG Metall signed a contract with HWU involving a year-long reduction of the working week from 35 to 30 hours for its 225 employees with a 14 percent cut in wages. Just two years after the expiry of this contract, management announced the first bankruptcy of the factory in October 2005. The bankruptcy procedure at that time called for the shedding of 80 jobs.

IG Metall officials reacted by reaching a new contract, which abolished existing Christmas benefits and accepted other concessions. This contract ran until September 2007, when it was replaced by another involving further attacks on wages and working conditions, including the abolition of holiday pay. In return, workers were given a guarantee that their jobs would be safe until the end of 2009. This assurance has now been consigned to the waste bin following the latest declaration of bankruptcy.

The various concessions made by the trade union were incapable of saving a single job. Instead the workers were left unprepared for the planned closure of the factory. The union and the works council now regard the closure of the factory as inevitable. Their only concern is how best to negotiate the option of a possible transfer company.

IG Metall is trying to call off the occupation to ensure that the auto companies supplied by HWU receive the needed parts. The bureaucracy’s main concern is the smooth working of the German auto industry, not the fate of the HWU or any other workers.

HWU workers should establish contact with workers at these companies, independently of IG Metall, and organise a common struggle to defend jobs and production. The only future for auto workers lies in a fight for socialist policies and the nationalization of the industry under workers’ control.

In order to step up pressure on workers to return to work, managing director Strodtkötter posted a letter on the company bulletin board Tuesday afternoon threatening the immediate sacking of workers who refused to return to work. He also announced that striking workers would be forced to pay large sums to compensate for lost production.

The occupation of the HWU factory should be supported by all workers. It raises important political questions, which are relevant for workers at other companies. The most important of these questions is: who controls the productive forces and in whose interest should they be organised?

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/occu-d12.shtml

“We are in Civil War: With the fascists, the bankers, the state, the media wishing to see an obedient society”

2008-12-12T14:06:00.001-08:00

…you would be excused to think that the above extract comes from an anarchist statement; alas, no - it is from the statement issued by the association of employees of the suburb of Agios Dimitrios in Athens. Here’s a rough translation of the statement, as promised. Keep in mind that, as members of the association told some comrades, they tried to keep the style of the text as sober as possible, to ensure the maximum number of people take the streets with them.

STATEMENT

On Saturday night, the Greek police assassinated a 15 year old student.

His assassination was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

It was the continuation of a coordinated action, by state terrorism and the Golden Dawn, which aimed at university and high school students (with the private universities first), at migrants that continue to be persecuted for being born with the wrong colour, at the employees that must work to death without compensation.

The government of cover-ups with its praetors, having burnt the forests last summer, is responsible for all major cities burning now, too. It protected financial criminals, all those involved in the mobile phone interceptions scandal, those looting the employees’ insurance funds, those kidnapping migrants, those who protected the banks and the monasteries that steal from the ordinary people.

We are in Civil War: With the fascists, the bankers, the state, the media wishing to see an obedient society.

There are no excuses, yet they once again try to use conspiracy theories to calm spirits down.

The rage that had accumulated had to be expressed and should not, by any means, end.

Throughout the world we are making headlines, it was about time that people uprise everywhere.

The generation of the poor, the unemployed, the partially employed, the homeless, the migrants, the youth, is the generation that will smash every display window and will wake up the obedient citizens from their sleep of the ephemeral American dream.

Don’t watch the news, consciousness is born in the streets

When the youth is murdered, the old people should not sleep

Goodbye Alexandros, may your blood be the last of an innocent to run

http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/2008/12/12/we-are-in-civil-war-with-the-fascists-the-bankers-the-state-the-media-wishing-to-see-an-obedient-society/

Greek police fire tear gas on students, teachers

2008-12-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

Athens - Greek riot police fired tear gas into crowds of protesting students and teachers, who pelted them with rocks and chunks of marble in front of parliament in the seventh day of civil unrest Friday.

Waving black and red anarchist flags, hundreds of students, made their way up the steps to parliament to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier before riot police pushed them back.

Protestors also reportedly entered the main branch of the National Bank of Greece in the capital sending employees running in panic.

More school students were expected to mobilize in central Athens on Friday for further rallies and on Monday. Students occupied more than 400 school buildings across the country in protest.

The riots, which have spread to all corners of the country, are the worst in decades, destroying hundreds of shops, banks, buildings and cars in more than eight cities across Greece, including Athens and the port cities of Thessaloniki and Patras.

Gangs of hooded youths and self-styled anarchists have been smashing windows, looting shops and set up flaming barricades in streets across the country.

The violence was triggered by the police shooting of a 15-year-old boy last weekend but students have also been protesting growing corruption and economic and education reforms.

On Friday, dozens of students occupied the airwaves of radio station Flash for more than an hour, cutting programming to state their grievances against lying politicians, multinationals and journalists.

'We are against the government and the growing power by the police who believe that they can shoot whenever and whomever they want,' said Mario Bakiari, the president of the student body of the Athens district of Peristeri.

'There is no way that the government can justify banks a 28- million-euro bail-out plan yet no money towards the educational system. Classes are without heating and many times are held in portables.'

The riots have spread beyond Greece's border, hitting other European countries. Angry youths have reportedly also smashed shops, attacked banks and damaged police vehicles in Spain, France and Denmark.

Despite the intensity of the protests which have rocked the country for six consecutive days, public criticism over Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his ruling conservative government's aloofness to the civil unrest increased.

The prime minister once again ruled out early elections during a press conference on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on the economy on Friday.

'The Bell Tolls for Karamanlis,' the headline of the top-selling daily Ta Nea newspaper read.

The government, which has seen its popularity ratings fall sharply behind the opposition Socialists in recent months, promised once again to compensate businesses for the millions of euros of damage suffered - announcing loans, emergency subsidies and tax relief measures.

Store owners, which have suffered millions in damage, accused authorities of leaving their businesses unprotected as rioters smashed and burned their way through popular shopping districts. Although police have responded when attacked by firebombs, they held back when youths turned their rage against buildings and cars.

Many countries have issued travel warnings not to travel to Greece while the popular sites of Plaka and Monastiraki, located in the shadows of the Acropolis, were eerily empty of tourists. Even the Acropolis remained closed due to striking workers.

'During one of the riots dozens of workers were trapped inside as hooded youths started to smash the windows,' said Dimitra Anastasiadou of Zorpis Travel, which is located across the road from Athens University.

'We called police for help but they told us there was nothing that they could do and told us to protect ourselves.'

The shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police on Saturday sparked days of rioting across the country.

A ballistics report into the shooting was due to be made public later Friday.

The State Secretary for Police, Panayiotis Hinofotis announced possible new measures for the Greek police force on Friday, which include determining which officers should be entitled to carry weapons and annual psychological tests.

All police in the Greek force have the right to carry loaded guns.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1448072.php/Greek_police_fire_tear_gas_on_students_teachers

Greece 'runs out of tear gas' during violent protests

2008-12-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

Officers released 4,600 capsules of tear gas during confrontations in Athens and nearly a dozen other cities since riots erupted over the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old schoolboy by a policeman last Saturday.

The greek government is urgently seeking fresh supplies of tear gas from Israel and Germany, the police said.

Yesterday, a report disputed claims by lawyers for the policeman accused of killing Alexandros Grigoropoulos that the bullet hit the boy after ricocheting.

The Kathimerini newspaper said that the results of forensic tests on the bullet indicated that it had been fired directly at the teenager.

Athens Bar Association condemned the policeman's lawyer, Alexis Kougias, for "desecrating the dead" by claiming that the 15-year-old had been a troublemaker.

The claims "constitute a moral murder which fuel tensions", the association said.

Yesterday, heavy rain helped to curtail demonstrations compared to the intensity of recent days but still students and Left-wing activists again hurled petrol bombs and stones at police outside Greece's national parliament building in the seventh consecutive day of violence.

A group of around 80 students peacefully occupied a radio station in Athens, reading a statement over the air and playing music, as many Greeks expressed their frustration with the dire political and economic situation.

"It was one of the most intense protests we've had in Greece, but today it could be the last day. I'm afraid it will be forgotten, like everything has been in the past," said Fani Stathoulopoulou, 25. "Politicians didn't react as they should."

Greece's socialist opposition has stepped up calls for the prime minister to call new elections, amid the worst unrest Greece has seen since a military dictatorship ended in 1974.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose conservative New Democracy party has a parliamentary majority of just one seat, said he had no intention of quitting.

"It's evident that we are undergoing a very serious financial crisis as well as a crisis in terms of what has been happening in the last few days and we therefore need a consistent, responsible government and a firm hand to guide the country," he said at an EU summit in Brussels.

"This is for me the priority and not any scenarios about early elections or a change in leadership."

As Mr Karamanlis spoke, about 5,000 protesters marched through Athens carrying banners saying: "The state kills" and "The government is guilty of murder".

Several schools and universities remained occupied by students and professors on one campus formed a human chain around the main university building to protect it from further damage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/3725047/Greece-runs-out-of-tear-gas-during-violent-protests.html

Olympia: Solidarity March Gets Rowdy

2008-12-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

50 people gathered in Slyvester Park in downtown Olympia. From there a march started which snaked throughout the city, with hundreds of pamphlets about what is happening in Greece being distributed to an increasingly sympathetic community. At the head of the march was a banner which read: SOLIDARITY WITH GREEK UNREST-RESISTANCE IS GLOBAL, flanked by drawings of two molotov cocktails. In the rear of the march was a sound system blasting electronic music.

Upwards of fifty people were there, dressed in black and holding black flags. Two bike cops ineptly followed the march, as did several cruisers from the overtaxed and despised Olympia Police Department.

While the march was moving, people informed passersby about the murder of Alex in Athens and the murder of Jose Ramirez-Jimenez by the Olympia Police Department.

After making several loops of the downtown area, the march suddenly ran backwards, overrunning the bike cops and cruisers and sprinting joyously down 4th Avenue. Someone threw a rock at the US Bank window but it did not hit the glass. A Bank of America had its windows smashed out during the sprinting after a bag of rocks appeared from nowhere. Afterward, people informed the spectators that this was done in solidarity with the Chicago factory occupation because of the banks involvement in closing the factory.

One person was arrested in a parking lot for "not sitting down fast enough." This person did not do anything and will more than likely be released tonight and later have their charges dropped. There are currently people at the jail waiting for him to be released.

Revolt is everywhere. Solidarity is not an abstract idea nor is it something easy. Solidarity means attack; constant, unrelenting attack. We must be brave and take risks. That is the only way anything will materialize. From Athens to Olympia, we are all fighting the same fight. Keep it up, those of you who are fighting.

Athens burns...and with it...so do our hearts.

Love forever

Don't stop.

France: demonstrations by school students continue to grow

2008-12-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

Demonstrations against the Darcos reforms of the education system are intensifying with more students joining protests and taking more direct action.

Students are angry about reforms to the French secondary examination course, the baccalaureate and also about the planned loss of 25000 teaching posts over the next two years. Today's demonstration (11th Dec.) was called by the school students' union (UNL), the union has called for another day of action next Thursday although it looks as if many students will continue action tomorrow.

In most cases students, although some may have connections to political organisation have organised assemblies themselves and voted on the action they will take. In Lyon, for example, there has been a steady stready of wildcat demos and blockades over the last few weeks, with at least four occupations attempted on Tuesday alone. In Ambérieu (Bugey) students and teachers have voted for strike action and occupied the building, during the anti-CPE struggle students from this town were extremely resourceful and mobile, going as far as to blockade the local airport. Last Friday students left the school en masse and went to other local schools to call out the students there, eventually forming a demonstration of up to 200 people.

Country-wide police are reporting that 15000 took to the streets today and that a total of roughly 30 schools have been blockaded. Outside of the west of France there have been blockades in Marseille and Lille and a headteacher is pressing charges in Nimes after getting bruised while trying to stop students forming a blockade.

The demonstrations are strongest in the west of the country, in Rennes 3500 students took to the streets today while in Brest students fought with police for the fourth day running. Gendarmes fired tear gas at a group of 150-200 who were attempting to blockade a bridge, they responded by throwing stones. Yesterday there were demonstration in: Bordeaux, 2.000; Brest, 200 to 300 students clashed with police; Rennes, 2.000; Orléans, 250; Montpellier, between1.700 et 3.000; Toulouse, 1.000-1.500; Marseille, 1.500; Paris, several hundred; Besançon, 1.000 personnes; Tours, 800; Nancy, 500 and 500 in Strasbourg. In Pau where university students voted for a strike and blockade last week 900 school students took to the streets.

Hundreds of students demonstrated in the following cities and towns: Lyon, Landerneau, Saint-Nazaire, Vannes, La Roche-sur-Yon et Les Sables d'Olonne, Quimper and Nantes where at least 15 schools have been blockaded by pupils.

In related news Bruno Julliard, the head of the French student union (Unef), has reported that President Sarkozy, then interior minister, told him to "keep it up" and "no give in" during the anti-CPE struggle. The defeat of the CPE caused massive damage to Sarkozy's political rivals, he was one of the few top-level politicians to emerge relatively unscathed from the anti-CPE protests.

http://libcom.org/news/france-demonstrations-school-students-continue-grow-11122008

Violence returns to Athens' streets

2008-12-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

More clashes have broken out in Athens between Greek youths and police outside the country's parliament in Syntagma Square.

Groups of students threw firebombs and rocks, while police fired back tear gas during an anti-government demonstration on Friday.

Several thousand people marched towards parliament chanting "blood demands vengeance" and "one underground, a thousand in the street".

Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Athens, said that police had pushed the protesters from Syntagma Square to the nearby Ammonia Square and that the situation appeared "to have calmed down".

'Vengeance'

Phillips said: "They [the protesters in Syntagma Square] were pursued by riot police who were firing volley after volley of tear gas. The crowd were lobbing rocks and bricks and Molotov cocktails and trying to break their way into shop fronts.

"The police cleared them to the immediate vicinity of the square."

Phillips said many shopkeepers and businesses had begun criticising the government of its handling of the demonstrations.

He said: "The police are in a difficult situation. Ever since Grigoropoulos was shot... the last thing the police could risk was bloodshed or serious injuries among the protesters.

"So they seem to have more or less decided to let the protesters' fire burn out if you like."

The violence has shaken the weak conservative government of Costas Karamanlis, the prime minister, which was already under pressure over corruption scandals and unpopular reforms.

Greece's opposition has called for the government to resign.

High unemployment

Two more demonstrations were scheduled later on in the day in Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city.

Hundreds of cars, banks and businesses have been wrecked by rioting over the last week as young Greeks voiced their anger at high unemployment and low wages.

Criticising the government's slow response to the crisis, the Ta Nea newspaper ran the headline "The Bell Tolls For Karamanlis" across its front page on Friday.

The Ethnos newspaper ran the headline "Government Under Siege; Education Protests Escalate".

Many Greeks voiced anger that Epaminondas Korkoneas, the policeman charged with premeditated manslaughter, did not express remorse to investigators.

He said he had fired warning shots at Grigoropoulos and others in self-defence, with a ricocheted bullet ultimately killing the 15-year-old.

Korkoneas and another officer are being held in jail pending trial by a prosecutor.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/12/200812121156115481.html

What recession means for us

2008-12-11T22:14:00.001-08:00

An analysis of the likely impact of the coming recession on workers' lives and a rallying call for collective action to mitigate that impact.

The recession is here. We're told to tighten our belts and brace ourselves for redundancies, wage and service cuts. Politicians and business leaders are united in saying we should pay for a crisis not of our making [see box for a brief history of the crisis]. A recession is simply when the economy shrinks for 6 months in a row. What this means for individual firms is a squeeze on profits, and we can be certain that unless we do anything about it, that’s going to mean a squeeze on us, as our employers try to protect those profits.

Even public sector workers will feel the squeeze as the government tries to recover the billions already spent on bailing out the banking system, and to make ‘efficiency savings’ in the face of falling tax revenues. But wait, isn’t Gordon Brown going to make the rich pay with higher taxes? You’d certainly think so from the press. The Times, on its front page no less, even pictured Brown waving the red flag of communism. Alas, reality is rather different.

The Financial Times reassured its affluent readership with a more honest take on matters. Of £104bn worth of clawbacks the government is expected to make, just £2bn is expected to come from taxing the rich. That’s less than 2 percent of the total, and even that doesn’t take into account that the rich will try and pass on their burden by increasing their incomes at the expense of our wages. It’s also quietly forgotten that the top rate of income tax is still nearly 20 percent lower than under Margaret Thatcher’s pro-rich government.

A further £18bn is planned to come from regressive taxes. These are taxes that affect you more the less you earn. No trouble for the rich here. The rest is scheduled to come from public service cuts and wildly optimistic forecasts for a rapid economic recovery – when the recession has only just officially started! [Jan 09] So behind the headlines the plan is clear; they want to make us pay for their crisis. So how is the recession going to affect us?

Redundancies
One way in which the cost of the crisis is passed onto us is through redundancies. Unemployment is predicted to increase to as much as 3m in the next couple of years. This means over a million people will lose their jobs. Already the news is full of layoffs, and it’s set to get worse. Obviously redundancy hits those laid off in the pocket. This is especially the case if they’re agency staff or haven’t been in the job long, which means they don’t get much, if any, redundancy pay. But redundancies also hit those ‘lucky’ enough to keep their jobs as they have to work harder to make up.

Unemployment
Not content with mass layoffs, just when the economy is proving incapable of keeping people in work, the government is planning to cut benefits bills by punishing unemployed people for not finding jobs! A recent report recommended that unemployed workers should be made to either look for work or do community service “from 9 to 5” in order to earn their £60 dole money. That works out at £1.50 an hour! A whole host of other attacks are planned, such as forcing single parents with children over the age of one and many people currently signed off sick to look for work or have their benefits stopped. Of course, the whole point of a recession is there’s not many jobs to look for.

Wage cuts
Those of us who keep our jobs can’t expect to escape the punishment. Wages will be attacked directly; workers at JCB factories recently voted to take a £50 a week pay cut to avoid redundancies. This kind of ‘between rock and a hard place’ offer is likely to become more common with workers nervous about losing their jobs. But wages can be cut in less visible ways too. If workers can be made to work harder and faster, or longer days or through their breaks, we end up doing more work for the same pay. This will often be making up for the work of colleagues made redundant, saving the boss cash. Whenever your boss asks you to “give 110 percent for the team,” this is what they have in mind. Of course we pay the price in stress and burnout, but at least we’ve got a job, right?

Public service cuts
A further £35bn of the government clawbacks are scheduled to come from public sector spending cuts. This will mean cuts to public services and further attacks on public sector workers pay and conditions. Front-line services are expected to be hit, so alongside the attacks on unemployment benefit, the health service is expected to be hit particularly hard alongside cutbacks to schools, social housing, energy efficiency programmes, GP surgeries and flood defences. Of course if you can afford private healthcare and to move out of flood-risk areas, this probably won’t bother you. For the rest of us it’s bad news.

Repossessions and evictions
Another way the recession will hit us is through a rise in home repossessions and evictions as people fall behind on mortgage repayments and rent. Repossessions are already at record levels, and set to rise further. The government is encouraging banks, including those it now owns, to go easy on repossessions, effectively tolerating squatting. No doubt they’re conscious that chucking families out on the street is not likely to be popular. But they’re in a bind. If they don’t repossess people, why should anyone pay their mortgages at all? If the government steps in to nationalise the homes of mortgage defaulters as has been suggested, this just raises the amount they have to claw back through the other means discussed above. The absurdity is we could see people being chucked out on the street while houses stand empty and can’t be sold.

So is it all doom and gloom?
It doesn’t have to be! If we’re honest, we’re not in a very strong position and we’re likely to take the brunt of this crisis unless we set about changing that. There are various things we can do, ranging from simple things you’re probably doing already to daring acts of collective action to win the things we need. So…

Talk to your workmates - on your breaks or in the pub after work. We’re all in the same boat, just realising this is a step towards doing something about it. When you realise your problems aren’t personal but social, all sorts of possibilities for mutual aid open up. Beware bosses claiming they’re in the same boat too; who do you think they’d throw overboard first?

Network with other workers - in your area or sector. Do you have friends or friends-of-friends working locally in the same sector as you? Consider going for a coffee or a pint to swap experiences and find out if there’s anything you can learn from each other, or ways to help each other out (like handing out leaflets at each others workplaces so the boss can’t victimise you).

Consider collective action. Collective action covers a whole range of things, but the principle is that while on our own we are weak, when we act together we can achieve more than the sum of our parts. Examples include going in a group to the manager's office to support colleagues being made redundant or pressured into working longer or harder. There’s safety in numbers. Or deciding with your workmates to ‘work-to-contract’ - taking your breaks and leaving on time in response to pressure to do more work. It’s easier to say no to the boss when you know your workmates are doing the same.

More dramatically, things like occupations can win major concessions. When workers were laid off at a factory in Northern Ireland recently they occupied the plant for 48 hours demanding improved redundancy terms. They won. By acting together they turned the tables on the bosses, who expected them to go home alone and ‘think things over.’ Instead they showed the inevitable wasn’t so inevitable. It isn’t always easy to take collective action, but it starts from realising what we have in common with other workers, and what we don’t have in common with the politicians and bosses trying to shift the costs of the crisis onto us. We can’t fight back on our own, but together we have a chance.

http://libcom.org/library/what-recession-means-us

Greek riots eyewitness reports - 11 December 2008

2008-12-11T22:11:00.000-08:00

More eyewitness accounts of the riots in Greece, and testimony about the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police.

#12, 21:41 ATHENS, PATRAS, THESSALONIKI, KOMOTINI: Fascists and cops get the response they deserve

Athens 2-3,000 took the streets responding to the callout of the Law school occupation for a demonstration. The cops seemed very passive, for once. There are rumours that they are running out of tear gas, which is why they had to play passive today. A large part of the demonstrators passing in front of the police lines spat at them, throwing them stones, paint.

Patras at least 5-6,000 people took the streets for the demonstration called by the university occupation and in response to the recent coordinated police &fascist attacks. Eyewitness says: “one of the most beautiful demonstrations I’ve ever been to. The atmosphere was simply amazing, an unprecedented amount of people on the streets… The riot police are still on the street, together with the hordes of their undercovers, but the demonstrators made them look so much weaker today”.

Thessaloniki Eyewitness account: “The demonstration, called by the occupation of the Theatre School of Thessaloniki, started off with around 500 people. High school students kept joining in though, so we ended up with 1,500-2,000 people marching through the working class suburbs of the city. The cops tried to provoke us but it was impossible. The most amazing thing about today’s demo was that the meet-up between the anarchists and the high school students that we were all hoping for, did happen”.

Komotini Reports are coming in on Athens IMC that the besieged students in the town’s campus have managed to leave. The students who were from the neighbouring city of Xanthi are on the way back; local students left the campus also. The fascists, undercovers etc who were following the demonstration with crowbards and knives, attacked and besieged the students with no excuse and no provocation from their side whatsoever. No passaran…

#11, 18:52, THESSALONIKI: Cops provoke 2,000-strong demo; students besieged in the Northern town of Komotini

Eyewitness in Thessaloniki: 2,000-strong demonstration in Thessaloniki is constantly being provoked by the police. In the Northern town of Komotini, in Thrace, 300 local students and students from the adjacent city of Xanthi are besieged in the university - around the university grounds, 200 riot cops, undercovers and Golden Dawn fascists are threatening to enter.

More updates will follow.

#10, 14:18: 25 police stations besieged by students. The murderer cop was member of a nazi group (?)

Mainstream media report that 25 police stations are besieged across Athens, with heavy clashes at some. They also report that more than 4500 tear gas cannisters have been thrown by the police these days; their supplies are running out (!) and more are being ordered from abroad.

Fresh demonstrations have been called for Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras and many more cities this evening. Reports on indymedia this morning claim that Alexandros’ murderer was a member of the nazi group “Golden Dawn” in the late eighties/ early nineties (without cutting his ties since) and that his family was active in the nazi collaborationist forces.

This is the global civil war: It is their world…

Homo Sacer Quartet

(an article written by our comrades at flesh machine)

A boy resides out-of-place. Two pigs charge into the out-of-place. In the conjuncture of these two trajectories, an event is born. The boy challenges the violation of the borders of his out-of-place by the pigs. The pigs park in-place and cross once again the limits of the heterotopia, on foot. The pigs injunct the boy. The boy responds to the injunction. The pigs shoot and destroy the life that “is not worth being lived”. The pigs return in-place. The borders of the out-of-place are ruptured and urban space, from end to end, is recomposed into a thick burning network of heterotopia: the city is on fire.

For sovereignty, every life out-of-place is a life that is not worth being lived. The state of exception is imposed, even by suspension, on every life out-of-place, on every life that is acted not as a contemplation of privacy and its commodity-panoply, but as a social relation, as a self-constituted construction of the space and time of conviviality. The sovereign exception is not so much about the control or the destruction of a excess in itself, but about the creation or the definition of a space where juridico-political order can be perpetually validated. The state of exception classifies space and the bodies within it. It puts them in order. It imposes order upon them. With assimilation, commodification, surveillance and discipline. Executing the delinquent with prisons, psychiatric units, marginalisation. And wherever, whenever might be necessary: with bullets, with bullets, with bullets.

In a society dedicated to the production of privacies, the murder of a boy can only be conceptualised in the terms of the value of his privacy, the ontological base of property: the sacred right to one’s own life. This is the only way in which death can be political: as a destruction of the source of property. The destruction of property, let alone its source, is a dreadful crime in the bourgeois world. Even, or especially when it is committed by the apparatus charged with its protection. But to destroy properties in order to take revenge for the destruction of property, that is a doubly nefarious crime: Have you not understood a thing? All those tears, all the dirge, the requiems are not for a boy that attacked the power-that-safeguards-property, they are for the power that failed in its duty: the duty to defend life as the ultimate property, as privacy.

The body of an enemy now deceased can be sanitized, pillaged, transformed into a symbolic capital for the reproduction of sovereignty and finally, in the announcement or reminder of the capacity for the imposition of a generalised state of exception. An emergency confirming the sovereign monopoly on the definition of the real through the abolition of its symbolic legitimisation. The sovereignty, in tears, shouts: you are all private individuals, else you are all potential corpses. And society falls on its knees in awe of its idol and shows remorse: mea culpa; from now on, I will take care of myself only, as long as you safeguard its reproduction. The return to the normalcy of the private is paved with the spectacle of generalised exception.

10-12-2008 fleshmachine from the squatted Athens School of Economics

Flesh Machine is an anarchist magazine “on the body and its desiring machines” published in Athens. It focuses on original publications and translations of articles and interviews on biopolitics, schizoanalysis, feminism, queer politics and the other wet aspects of capitalism and the revolution.

#9, 7.58: It is all up to the school students now

Undercover police arrest student demonstrator; Athens, 9.12

UPDATE, 13:22 The police station of Korydallos in Athens was attacked with molotov cocktails and stones. 700 students remain near a road leading to the local prison; there were clashes outside at least another six police stations in the capital.

Mainstream media report that at this point 10 major roads in Athens are blocked off by high school students. Reports come in, one after the other, of university departments being occupied by their students.

UPDATE, 8:08 The town hall of the suburb of Agios Dimitrios in Athens is now occupied by anarchists. Heavy clashes between police and anarchists at the Polytechnic during the night; one comrade injured. The occupation remains.

A kid of their age was assassinated. They took the streets to protest only to have tear gas thrown at them, to be violently arrested, to be shot at. Yet hour by hour, day by day, the school students on the streets become more militant and determined. So far they have attacked more than six police stations across Athens. Yesterday in the suburb of Petroupoli, around 100 of them attacked the local police station, smashing it up with sticks and stones. A few banks down the same road were also attacked. Until yesterday night at least 100 schools in the country were occupied by their students. This number is expected to jump up today, when most students are supposed to return to their schools for the first time after Alexandros’ death. Whether they chose to do so or not could largely determine the future of the revolt. Luckily, they seem to have no intention to return to normalcy: For today, 11.12, the students are planning decentralised road blockades across Athens. For tomorrow, Friday, demonstrations are called by university students in Athens and Thessaloniki - universities are also expected to be occupied in large numbers today and tomorrow. The Economics University anarchist occupation has decided to reach out to the students; newspapers, posters and leaflets are being printed right now, to be distributed to schools across the city asap. The future of our struggle seems to be dependent on them and I am confident we are in good hands.

Murderer on Alexandros: “He had exhibited deviant behaviour”

Short abstracts from the testimony of Epaminondas Korkoneas, the murderer of Alexandros, which was released today. I cannot make a single comment on this piece of filth. All I can say is Alexandros, RIP: None of us have any intention of retreating from the streets before some sort of revenge, before some sort of justice is paid for your murder.

Parts of the 11-page long testimony of the murderer:

“The deceased and his gang attended the swimming pool of Chalandri in Athens and participated in the violent events that occurred there, injuring citizens and the coach of Olympiakos Club by using various objects, including a crowbar. Following this they joined in with the commonly-seen hordes that gather to attack the offices of the Socialist Party, a customary occurrence in Athens on a Saturday night”.

“As a matter of fact, I have been informed that these youths, while residing in the affluent suburb of Palaio Psychiko, tend to hang out in the area of Eksarhia which they chose as their recreational area together with various sports grounds where they cause trouble, not showing the attitude and personality expected to be seen in a 15-year old teenager”.

“The deceased had been expelled by the Moraitis private school in Athens and changed schools often, a fact proving his deviant behaviour”.

In regard to the act of murder, he said:

“As for the events of Saturday: Seeing a group of around 30 youths at a distance of 10-15 meters from me, not being able to intercept their aggressive move toward us and being in a state of fear for our own lives, we moved, turning our backs against them. At the same time, in order to secure our exit, being shocked and in fear and since the crowd did not stop moving toward us despite my colleague throwing them a “sound” grenade, I pulled out my gun and guided by the instinct of survival I shot two warning shots in the air, maybe a third one that I hadn’t noticed but my colleague reminded me of later”.

His lawyer, Alexis Kougias (remember this name) stated: “It is now only up to the Greek justice to decide whether the youth was justly killed, or not”.

http://libcom.org/library/greek-riots-eyewitness-reports-11-december-2008

Rumsfeld Responsible for Torture, Report Says

2008-12-11T22:05:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan Senate report released today says that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials are directly responsible for abuses of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and charges that decisions by those officials led to serious offenses against prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere.

The Senate Armed Services Committee report accuses Rumsfeld and his deputies of being the principal architects of the plan to use harsh interrogation techniques on captured fighters and terrorism suspects, rejecting the Bush administration's contention that the policies originated lower down the command chain.

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," the panel concludes. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."

The report, released by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., and based on a nearly two-year investigation, said that both the policies and resulting controversies tarnished the reputation of the United States and undermined national security. "Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority," it said.

The panel's investigation focused on the Defense Department's use of controversial interrogation practices, including forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures and use of dogs. The practices, some of which had already been adopted by the CIA at its secret prisons, were adapted for interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and later migrated to U.S. detention camps in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

"The Committee's report details the inexcusable link between abusive interrogation techniques used by our enemies who ignored the Geneva Conventions and interrogation policy for detainees in U.S. custody," McCain, himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, said in a statement. "These policies are wrong and must never be repeated."

White House officials have maintained the measures were approved in response to demands from field officers who complained that traditional interrogation methods weren't working on some of the more hardened captives. But Senate investigators, relying on documents and hours of hearing testimony, arrived at a different conclusion.

The true genesis of the decision to use coercive techniques, the report said, was a memo signed by President Bush on Feb. 7, 2002, declaring that the Geneva Convention's standards for humane treatment did not apply to captured al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. As early as that spring, the panel said, top administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, participated in meetings in which the use of coercive measures was discussed. The panel drew on a written statement by Rice, released earlier this year, to support that conclusion.

In July 2002, Rumseld's senior staff began compiling information about techniques used in military survival schools to simulate conditions that U.S. airmen might face if captured by an enemy that did not follow the Geneva conditions. Those techniques - borrowed from a training program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE - included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and were loosely based on methods adopted by Chinese communists to coerce propaganda confessions from captured U.S. soldiers during the Korean war.

The SERE program became the template for interrogation methods that were ultimately approved by Rumsfeld himself, the report says. In the field, U.S. military interrogators used the techniques with little oversight and frequently abusive results, the panel found.

"It is particularly troubling that senior officials approved the use of interrogation techniques that were originally designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies against our own soldiersand that were modeled, in part, on tactics used by the Communist Chinese to elicit false confessions from U.S. military personnel," the report said.

Defenders of the techniques have argued that such measures were justified because of al-Qaida's demonstrated disregard for human life. But the panel members cited the views of Gen. David Petraeus, now the head of U.S. Central Command, who in a May, 2007 letter to his troops said humane treatment of prisoners allows Americans to occupy the moral high ground.

"Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right," wrote Petraeus, who at the time was the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy."

The Ten Point Plan

2008-12-11T22:01:00.000-08:00

1. WE WANT FREEDOM. WE WANT POWER TO DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.
We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities.

2. WE WANT FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR OUR PEOPLE.
We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the American businessmen will not give full employment, then the technology and means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. WE WANT AN END TO THE ROBBERY BY THE CAPITALISTS OF OUR BLACK AND OPPRESSED COMMUNITIES.
We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of our fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.

4. WE WANT DECENT HOUSING, FIT FOR THE SHELTER OF HUMAN BEINGS.
We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed communities, then housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people.

5. WE WANT DECENT EDUCATION FOR OUR PEOPLE THAT EXPOSES THE TRUE NATURE OF THIS DECADENT AMERICAN SOCIETY. WE WANT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US OUR TRUE HISTORY AND OUR ROLE IN THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIETY.
We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of the self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and in the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else.

6. WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTH CARE FOR All BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE.
We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventive medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide our selves with proper medical attention and care.

7. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER OF BLACK PEOPLE, OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR, All OPPRESSED PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNITED STATES.
We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against black people, other people of color and poor people inside the united States. We believe it is our right, therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces and that all Black and oppressed people should be armed for self defense of our homes and communities against these fascist police forces.

8. WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO ALL WARS OF AGGRESSION.
We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the aggressive desire of the United States ruling circle and government to force its domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the United States government or its lackeys do not cease these aggressive wars it is the right of the people to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors.

9. WE WANT FREEDOM FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE NOW HELD IN U. S. FEDERAL, STATE, COUNTY, CITY AND MILITARY PRISONS AND JAILS. WE WANT TRIALS BY A JURY OF PEERS FOR All PERSONS CHARGED WITH SO-CALLED CRIMES UNDER THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY.
We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in United States prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and fascist judicial system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate elimination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions, because the masses of men and women imprisoned inside the United States or by the United States military are the victims of oppressive conditions which are the real cause of their imprisonment. We believe that when persons are brought to trial they must be guaranteed, by the United States, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice and freedom from imprisonment while awaiting trial.

10. WE WANT LAND, BREAD, HOUSING, EDUCATION, CLOTHING, JUSTICE, PEACE AND PEOPLE'S COMMUNITY CONTROL OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are most disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

http://www.blackpanther.org/TenPoint.htm

Freedom Rider: Obama is Not King

2008-12-11T21:59:00.000-08:00

It is the height of historical distortion to compare President-Elect Barack Obama in any way, shape or form to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King "is probably the only person in American history who gave up a close relationship with a president," Lyndon Johnson, "because his convictions demanded it." Those convictions were anchored in King's opposition to "racism, materialism and militarism." Obama, conversely, makes common cause with financial speculators and militarists. Under the current system, "It is simply impossible to be both a fighter for justice and president of the United States."
Freedom Rider: Obama is Not King

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

"The cheap artwork and mindless sentimentality that seeks to elevate Obama to the level of King and Malcolm X is an affront to the memory of those men."

In 2009, the official celebration of Martin Luther King's birthday will take place on January 19th. Barack Obama will be inaugurated president of the United States on the following day. Obama's election is seen by many as the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream of a just society providing equal rights to all of its citizens. Despite the frenzied and dishonest efforts to link the two men, it is clear that Obama's elevation to power symbolizes not that King's hopes have been realized, but that they have been dashed.

It is right that King's birth should be celebrated as a national holiday. Unfortunately the nature of that celebration does little to tell us what King's actual achievements were or how they should be remembered. The man who is continually painted as a mere starry eyed dreamer was anything but. He did not want to end segregation solely for the purpose of elevating black people into high positions, as the Obama worshippers would have us believe. King never strayed from his goal of giving every American full citizenship rights, ending grinding poverty, and making the United States act as a force for justice in the world.

Despite the enormous odds against him, King succeeded in unleashing the pent up anger and righteous demands of millions of oppressed people. Because of those demands, President Lyndon Johnson and other politicians were forced to reckon with that movement and with King himself. Not only were the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act enacted because of popular pressure, but the very nature of American political life and society changed in ways that are still being felt.

"King never strayed from his goal of giving every American full citizenship rights, ending grinding poverty, and making the United States act as a force for justice in the world."

The power unleashed by the demands of millions of people gave King access to the highest office in the land. He was regularly consulted by the president and members of his cabinet when federal policy decisions were being made. King was in an unenviable position, which he used in the interests of the people who had put their trust in him. He is probably the only person in American history who gave up a close relationship with a president because his convictions demanded it.

King's opposition to the war had been growing and on April 4, 1967, a year to the date before his assassination, he made his strongest comments in a speech at Riverside Church. He denounced the war in Vietnam, and the country's reliance on "racism, materialism and militarism." King's decision to speak out on Vietnam effectively severed his ties with the most powerful politician on earth. In comparison, Barack Obama fought tooth and nail to become the president, the person who righteous people end up fighting against.

Not only did King make the hard choice to discard his partnership with Johnson, but in so doing he brought down the wrath of previously supportive politicians, and of some of his closest confidantes. The NAACP denounced King and disassociated themselves from his statement. Other SCLC leaders were angry that he chose to end his silence instead of compromising with the powerful.

"King is probably the only person in American history who gave up a close relationship with a president because his convictions demanded it."

Anyone who wins a presidential election does much more than compromise. The recent disclosure that the Obama campaign raised $750 million is proof. A would be president must spend years currying favor with wealthy, powerful people and promise them that the items on their agenda will always be front and center when policy decisions are made.

It is simply impossible to be both a fighter for justice and president of the United States. The two roles are diametrically opposed and inherently incompatible. The cheap artwork and mindless sentimentality that seeks to elevate Obama to the level of King and Malcolm X is an affront to the memory of those men who relentlessly fought powerful interests and paid with their lives in the process.

The proximity of the King Day celebration and the inauguration is a sadly ironic twist of fate. While Martin Luther King demanded that America behave as a civilized nation, Barack Obama is committed to preserving its corruption. The man who denounced war should not be seen in the same light as the man who vows to maintain "the strongest military on the planet."

The ignorance of history that elevates the corrupt with the incorruptible is terribly dangerous. The King day celebration was getting worse every year, and in 2009 it will symbolize the political nadir of black Americans. After giving all their votes to a man who offered them nothing, they now discard the memory of a man who ceaselessly fought for them. January 19th and 20th should not be celebrated. They should be days of mourning.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=920&Itemid=1

150 years of Libertarian

2008-12-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

This year, 2008, marks the 150th anniversary of the use of the word “libertarian” by anarchists.

As is well known, anarchists use the terms “libertarian”, “libertarian socialist” and “libertarian communist” as equivalent to “anarchist” and, similarly, “libertarian socialism” or “libertarian communism” as an alternative for “anarchism.” This is perfectly understandable, as the anarchist goal is freedom, liberty, and the ending of all hierarchical and authoritarian institutions and social relations.

Unfortunately, in the United States the term “libertarian” has become, since the 1970s, associated with the right-wing, i.e., supporters of “free-market” capitalism. That defenders of the hierarchy associated with private property seek to associate the term “libertarian” for their authoritarian system is both unfortunate and somewhat unbelievable to any genuine libertarian. Equally unfortunately, thanks to the power of money and the relative small size of the anarchist movement in America, this appropriation of the term has become, to a large extent, the default meaning there. Somewhat ironically, this results in some right-wing “libertarians” complaining that we genuine libertarians have “stolen” their name in order to associate our socialist ideas with it!

The facts are somewhat different. As Murray Bookchin noted, “libertarian” was “a term created by nineteenth-century European anarchists, not by contemporary American right-wing proprietarians.” [The Ecology of Freedom, p. 57] While we discuss this issue in An Anarchist FAQ in a few places (most obviously, section A.1.3) it is useful on the 150th anniversary to discuss the history of anarchist use of the word “libertarian” to describe our ideas.

The first anarchist journal to use the term “libertarian” was La Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social. Somewhat ironically, given recent developments in America, it was published in New York between 1858 and 1861 by French communist-anarchist Joseph Déjacque. The next recorded use of the term was in Europe, when “libertarian communism” was used at a French regional anarchist Congress at Le Havre (16-22 November, 1880). January the following year saw a French manifesto issued on “Libertarian or Anarchist Communism.” Finally, 1895 saw leading anarchists Sébastien Faure and Louise Michel publish La Libertaire in France. [Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, pp. 75-6, p. 145 and p. 162]

It should be noted that Nettlau’s history was first written in 1932 and revised in 1934. George Woodcock, in his history of anarchism, reported the same facts as regards Déjacque and Faure [Anarchism: A History of libertarian ideas and movements, p. 233] Significantly, Woodcock’s account was written in 1962 and makes no mention of right-wing use of the term “libertarian.” More recently, Robert Graham states that Déjacque’s act made “him the first person to use the word ‘libertarian’ as synonymous with ‘anarchist’” while Faure and Michel were “popularising the use of the word ‘libertarian’ as a synonym for ‘anarchist.’” [Robert Graham (Ed.), Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, p. 60 and p. 231]

Which means, incidentally, that Louise Michel is linked with anarchists both using the term “libertarian” to describe our ideas and with the black flag becoming our symbol. Faure subsequently wrote an article entitled “Libertarian Communism” in 1903.

In terms of America, we find Benjamin Tucker (a leading individualist anarchist) discussing “libertarian solutions” to land use in February, 1897. As we discuss in section G.3, the Individualist Anarchists attacked capitalist (i.e., right-“libertarian”) property rights in land as the “land monopoly” and looked forward to a time when “the libertarian principle to the tenure of land” was actually applied. [Liberty, no. 350, p. 5] The 1920s saw communist-anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti argue that:

"After all we are socialists as the social-democrats, the socialists, the communists, and the I.W.W. are all Socialists. The difference - the fundamental one - between us and all the other is that they are authoritarian while we are libertarian; they believe in a State or Government of their own; we believe in no State or Government." [Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, The Letters of Sacco and Vanzetti, p. 274]

Interestingly, Rudolf Rocker’s 1949 book, published in Los Angeles, states that individualist anarchist Stephan P. Andrews was “one of the most versatile and significant exponents of libertarian socialism.” [Pioneers of American Freedom, p. 85] It should also be noted that 1909 saw the translation into English of Kropotkin’s history of the French Revolution in which he argued that “the principles of anarchism . . . had their origin . . . in the deeds of the Great French Revolution” and “the libertarians would no doubt so the same today.” [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 204 and p. 206]

The most famous use of “libertarian communism” must be by the world’s largest anarchist movement, the anarcho-syndicalist CNT in Spain. After proclaiming its aim to be “libertarian communism” in 1919, the CNT held its national congress of May 1936 in Zaragoza, with 649 delegates representing 982 unions with a membership of over 550,000. One of the resolutions passed was “The Confederal Conception of Libertarian Communism” [Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 103-10] This was resolution on libertarian communism was largely the work of Isaac Puente, author of the widely reprinted and translated pamphlet of the same name published four years previously. That year, 1932, also saw the founding of the Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias (Iberian Federation of Anarchist Youth) in Madrid by anarchists.

The term “libertarian” has been used by more people than just anarchists, but always to describe socialist ideas close to anarchism. For example, in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s Maurice Brinton and the group he was a member of (Solidarity) described their politics as “libertarian” and their decentralised, self-managed form of socialism is hard to distinguish from anarchism. So while “libertarian” did become broader than anarchism, it was still used by people on the left who aimed for socialism.

Unsurprisingly, given this well known and well documented use of the word “libertarian” by anarchists (and those close to them on the left) to describe their ideas, the use of the term by supporters of capitalism is deplorable. And it should be resisted. Writing in the 1980s, Murray Bookchin noted that in the United States the “term ‘libertarian’ itself, to be sure, raises a problem, notably, the specious identification of an anti-authoritarian ideology with a straggling movement for ‘pure capitalism’ and ‘free trade.’ This movement never created the word: it appropriated it from the anarchist movement of the [nineteenth] century. And it should be recovered by those anti-authoritarians . . . who try to speak for dominated people as a whole, not for personal egotists who identify freedom with entrepreneurship and profit." Thus anarchists in America should “restore in practice a tradition that has been denatured by” the free-market right. [The Modern Crisis, pp. 154-5]

As we note in section F.2, anarchists tend to use an alternative name for the right-wing “libertarian”, namely “Propertarian.” Interestingly, Ursula Le Guin used the term in her 1974 classic of anarchist Science-Fiction, The Dispossessed. One of the anarchist characters notes that inhabitants of Anarres (the communist-anarchist moon) “want nothing to do with the propertarians” of Urras. Urras is, however, a standard capitalist world (with A-Io representing the United States and Thu representing the Soviet Union) and not explicitly right-“libertarian” in nature. The anarchist protagonist, Shevek, does discover some people who describe themselves as “libertarian” but these declare themselves close to communist-anarchism (asked whether they are anarchists they reply: “Partly. Syndicalists, libertarians . . . anti-centralists”). Shevek, needless to say, is unimpressed with claims he should visit Thu to see “socialism”, replying that he was well aware how “real socialism functions.” [The Dispossessed, p. 70, p. 245 and p. 118]

It should be noted that “archist” and “propertarian” is used pretty much interchangeably in The Dispossessed to describe Urras, showing clear understand of, and links to, Proudhon’s argument in the first self-labelled anarchist book that property was both “theft” and “despotism.” As we noted in section F.1, Proudhon argued that “violates equality by the rights of exclusion and increase, and freedom by despotism” and has “perfect identity with robbery.” [What is Property, p. 251] Little wonder French syndicalist Emile Pouget, echoing Proudhon, argued that:

"Property and authority are merely differing manifestations and expressions of one and the same 'principle' which boils down to the enforcement and enshrinement of the servitude of man. Consequently, the only difference between them is one of vantage point: viewed from one angle, slavery appears as a property crime, whereas, viewed from a different angle, it constitutes an authority crime." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p. 66]

So, in summary, considered in terms of our political, social and economics ideas it is unsurprising that anarchists have been using the term “libertarian” for 150 years. Regardless of the attempts by others ignorant of both the history of that term and the reality of capitalism to appropriate it for their hierarchical and authoritarian ideology, we will continue to do so.

http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/150-years-of-libertarian

Unrest in Greece: A Declaration from the Athens Surrealist Group

2008-12-11T15:50:00.000-08:00

THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY ALWAYS COMES WITH A KNIFE BETWEEN THE TEETH

The ne plus ultra of social oppression is being shot at in cold blood.

All the stones, torn from the pavement and thrown at the shields of cops or at the façades of commercial temples, all the flaming bottles that traced their orbits in the night sky, all the barricades erected on city streets, dividing our areas from theirs, all the bins of consumer trash which, thanks to the fire of revolt, came to be Something out of Nothing, all the fists raised under the moon, are the arms giving flesh, as well as true power, not only to resistance but also to freedom.

And it is precisely the feeling of freedom that, in those moments, remains the sole thing worth betting on: that feeling of forgotten childhood mornings, when everything may happen, for it is ourselves, as creative humans, who have awoken-- not those future productive human machines known as "obedient subject," "student," "alienated worker," "owner," "family wo/man." The feeling of facing the enemies of freedom-- of no longer fearing them.

It is thus for good reason that those who wish to get on with their business as if nothing happens, as if nothing has ever happened, are worried. The phantom of liberty always comes with the knife between the teeth, with the violent will to break the chains, all those chains that turn life into a miserable repetition, serving to reproduce the dominant social relations. Yet from Saturday, December 6, the cities of this country are not functioning properly: no shopping therapy, no open roads leading us to work, no news on the government's forthcoming recovery initiatives, no carefree switching from one lifestyle TV show to another, no evening drives around Syntagma Square, etc., etc., etc.

These days and nights do not belong to merchants, TV commentators, ministers and cops: These days and nights belong to Alexis!

As surrealists we were on the streets from the start, along with thousands of others, in revolt and solidarity; for surrealism was born with the breath of the street, and does not intend to ever abandon it.

After the mass resistance before the State murderers, the breath of the street has become even warmer, even more hospitable and creative than before. It is not in our competence to propose a general line to this movement. Yet we do assume our responsibility in the common struggle, as it is a struggle for freedom. Without having to agree with all aspects of such a mass phenomenon, without being partisans of blind hatred and of violence for its own sake, we accept that this phenomenon exists for a reason.

Let's not allow this flaming breath of poetry to loosen or die out.

Let's turn it into a concrete utopia: to transform the world and to transform life!

No peace with cops and their masters!

All in the streets!

Those who cannot feel the rage may as well shut their traps!

Athens Surrealist Group
December 2008

Greek protests spread with arrests across Europe

2008-12-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

Demonstrations against the killing were seen in cities across the continent with left-wing radicals and other sympathisers taking to the streets.

In Spain, 11 protesters were arrested and several police officers injured when clashes took place in Madrid and Barcelona.

In Copenhagen, 32 people were arrested when their protest in support of the Greek protests turned violent.

In neighbouring Turkey, about a dozen left-wing protesters daubed red paint over the front of the Greek consulate in Istanbul.

Around 150 people belonging to a Danish underground movement took to the streets, throwing bottles and paint bombs at buildings, police cars and officers. In Moscow and Rome, protesters threw petrol bombs at Greece's embassies.

Journalists came under attack for the first time in the riots, with a Russian news crew assaulted by a mob of about 50 youths, some of them reportedly drunk.

A correspondent and a cameraman for Russian television channel NTV were injured in the confrontation, which happened while they filmed clashes in Exarchia, a crucible of student radicalism.

In Athens, around 40 youths threw stones at riot police near university buildings in the volatile Exarchia district where 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos was shot dead on Saturday.

They were met with volleys of tear gas and three arrests were made, police said. Overnight, students hurling petrol bombs and stones again battled riot police in Athens, in a continuation of the worst riots to have hit Greece in more than 30 years.

There were similar clashes in the northern city of Thessaloniki, where more than 80 shops and 14 banks were damaged, with students continuing to occupy university campuses.

Despite the turmoil that has rocked Greece since Grigoropoulos was killed, embattled Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said he would fly to Brussels to attend a European Union summit. His conservative government has a parliamentary majority of just one seat.

Corruption scandals and attempts at economic reform have made Mr Karamanlis' administration deeply unpopular, but he has so far resisted calls to resign and call early elections.

Epaminondas Korkoneas, 37, the police officer accused of shooting the teenager, has been charged with voluntary homicide and "illegal use" of his service weapon. He was ordered to remain in custody by an Athens magistrate.

His partner, Vassilios Saraliotis, 31, was charged with being an accomplice and will also remain in custody. The pair have been held since Sunday.

Under questioning by a magistrate, Mr Korkoneas said he had acted out of self defence when a group of youths began throwing firebombs and other objects while threatening to kill him and his partner.

His lawyer said the bullet which killed Grigoropoulos showed signs of having bounced off a hard surface, indicating that the boy was killed as a result of an accidental ricochet.

Greece has a history of clashes between the police and left-wing, anarchist groups.

A student uprising in 1973 helped bring an end to the country's military dictatorship a year later.

But the scale of this week's violence has left the country in deep shock as Greeks count the cost of the destruction.

The Athens Chamber of Commerce said 435 businesses had been hit during the violence, with 37 completely gutted, estimating the damage at GBP 44 million (50 million euros).

Under the headline "Greece in self-destruct mode" the conservative daily newspaper Kathimerini said in an editorial: "This is a country with a state that is in a shambles, a police force in disarray, mediocre universities that serve as hotbeds of rage instead of knowledge and a shattered health care system. It is also on the brink of financial ruin."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/greece/3706849/Greek-protest-spread-with-arrests-across-Europe.html

"Alex was here" - windows smashed at Greek consulate in NYC

2008-12-11T15:39:00.000-08:00

Several windows were smashed at the Greek consulate in NYC last night, along with graffiti reading "Alex was here," "Murderer" and a circle A. This action took place the night before a scheduled solidarity demonstration at the same location.

Nothing is missing, everything is here: once again, everyone, adventurism gets the goods.

Athens on fire-so are our hearts!
This is global social war!

Chicago workers end window plant sit-in

2008-12-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Laid-off workers at a Chicago window factory ended a five-day sit-in after banks agreed to lend the failed company $1.75 million for outstanding wages and benefits, union officials said Wednesday.

"The occupation is over," said Armando Robles, president of the United Electrical Workers local 1110, which led the sit-in.

About 200 workers launched what they called a "peaceful occupation" of the Republic Windows and Doors factory Friday after Republic gave its employees three days notice of the layoffs. According to the workers, Republic told them that Bank of America had cut off credit to the company.

Federal law requires 60 days notice or 60 days paid compensation for workers when they close plants.

Bank of America agreed Wednesday to approve $1.35 million in loans to pay those obligations. Another $400,000 came from J.P. Morgan Chase, union officials said.

Workers approved the deal at a meeting Wednesday night. Union official Carl Rosen said the average worker will receive about $6,000 under the package.

But he added: "This is about more than just money. It's about what can be achieved when workers organize and stand up for justice."

Union representative Leah Fried said this week that Republic had put the blame squarely on the bank for the layoffs.

"The company told us very clearly they are shutting down, shutting their doors because Bank of America refused to continue their credit and their financing," she said.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ordered the state government to suspend doing business with Bank of America on Monday as the weekend protest spilled into the workweek.

After meeting with the workers on Monday, Blagojevich told reporters that "we are going to do everything possible here in Illinois to side with these workers."

His meeting with the workers came a day before he was arrested on federal corruption charges related in part to the selection of a successor to President-elect Barack Obama's former Senate seat.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/10/illinois.labor.protest/index.html

Brazilian Indians 'win land case'

2008-12-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

Indigenous leaders in Brazil say they have won an important victory for the rights of their community, at a key hearing of the Supreme Court.

Eight of the court's 11 judges voted to keep a reservation in the Amazonian state of Roraima as a single territory.

However the case is not expected to be formally concluded until next year as one judge asked for more time to consider his ruling.

The judgement will lead to the eviction of non-indigenous farmers.

There are more than 100 similar cases before the Supreme Court but it is thought this ruling will establish an important legal precedent, which touches on a number of sensitive issues.

'Half a celebration'

Outside the court, indigenous lawyer Joenia Battista de Carvalho said she was satisfied with the votes so far, but she was disappointed the formal outcome would be delayed.

"I was expecting the case to be concluded today - unfortunately our feeling is one of half a celebration, because what we wanted to see was the practical result of this - to see our land free of any invaders," she said.

But local Mayor Paulo Cesar Quartieiro said the government was using it support for indigenous rights to hand over control of parts of Brazil to foreign groups.

Unbroken territory

At the centre of this case is a large area of land in the far north of Brazil, known as Raposa Serra do Sol, which is home to 19,000 Amazonian Indians and which was approved as an official reservation in 2005.

Indian leaders said that if the court ruled against them it would send a signal to land grabbers, prospectors and loggers that it would be acceptable to invade indigenous territory.

However, around 200 rice producers who also live and work in the area said that would force them to leave and would undermine economic development in the state of Roraima.

To add to a complicated dispute, one indigenous group in the reservation supports the farmers, and the issue has been the subject of growing tension and conflict.

Some military leaders say they fear a large, almost autonomous Indian reservation running along a lengthy section of Brazil's frontier would have implications for national security - a claim strongly contested by indigenous communities who say it would remain Brazilian territory.

To ally this fear some of the judges made clear in their rulings that the army and police should have full access to the region without having to consult indigenous leaders.

But the BBC's Gary Duffy in Brasilia says it will only be clear in the months ahead if the court has done enough to ease the still simmering tensions surrounding this debate.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7774895.stm

IVAW member and war resister applies for asylum in Germany

2008-12-10T16:05:00.001-08:00

IVAW member André Shepherd has applied for political asylum in Germany. Shepherd, a 31-year-old Army helicopter mechanic from Ohio, served for six months in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. While serving in Germany in the spring of 2007, Shepherd received orders to redeploy to Iraq. Instead, he chose to go into hiding.

Shepherd submitted his petition for asylum based on Germany's opposition to the illegal war in Iraq. "If I carried out my orders, it would make me a criminal. But I swore my oath on the American Constitution, which prohibits wars of aggression of any nature, such as the one in Iraq,"

After 19 months living with friends and supporters, Shepherd is now staying at an asylum facility in Karlsruhe, Germany while he waits for a decision on his asylum application.

Take Action in Solidarity with the Chicago Workers of Republic Windows and Doors

2008-12-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

As students and youth, we stand in solidarity with the Chicago workers at the Republic of Windows and Doors factory in their just struggle against closure, and for the right to their jobs and health care. The wealthy bankers at Bank of America got $25 billion in the bailout, but are refusing loans to the company. The management owes over 1 million dollars in severance and vacation pay. We know it is the big bankers and bosses who have laid off, cut benefits, and sold out the worker. Everyone should support the workers’ occupation of the factory to demand workers’ rights and justice.

We join in the chant with them:

Bank of America got Bailed Out! We got Sold Out!

Students for a Democratic Society
December 7, 2008

Take Action!

1. Sign the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/solidfac/petition.html
2. Organize a protest outside your local Bank of America this week in solidarity: http://www.jwj.org/bailout/12-08actions.html

Actions SDSers are already planning/plugging into:

�NYC: Wednesday, December 10, 2008, 5:30pm - 7:30pm, Bank of America/SW Corner of Union Square, University Place/South of 14th Street, New York, NY

�Washington DC: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 4:00pm - 5:00pm, Bank of America closest to the Treasury Department Street: Pennsylvania Ave and 15th st NW, Washington, DC

http://studentsforademocraticsociety.org/home/

Vietnam vet with PTSD goes to Iraq: 'It made me worse'

2008-12-10T15:43:00.000-08:00

DAVENPORT, Iowa (CNN) -- Bob Konrardy carried the guilt with him for more than 40 years. A platoon commander in Vietnam, Konrardy was wounded when shrapnel tore through his body. Four comrades carried him to safety in a poncho for more than an hour while the firefight raged.

"These four guys went back to help the platoon because they were still fighting, and all four of those guys got killed," Konrardy says. "I felt guilty for 40-something years."

Two years ago, Konrardy got to thinking: He'd be a Santa of sorts for soldiers in Iraq as a way to help him deal with his conscience.

He would collect autographed college and pro footballs, letters from local kids and other mementoes from home to help inspire the troops in Iraq. Then, he would have the goods delivered to his old platoon serving in Iraq, the First Cavalry Division.

He initially thought he'd have the material shipped. But his plan changed when the military signed off for Konrardy to deliver the goods in person and work as an embedded journalist for a local paper.

The 65-year-old grandpa was about to head to one of the world's most dangerous places. VideoWatch "I could have been killed" »

"I wanted to maybe bury some Vietnam demons and just make a difference with this platoon and maybe make up for what I didn't do with my old platoon," he says. "I thought it was going to go one way. It went the other. It made me worse."

He adds, "I couldn't sleep before, but now it's worse. I hate to see it get dark. I get extremely nervous. I get uptight. I just don't like to see it get dark. And once it is dark, I'm on edge until it gets dawn."

Konrardy's story is one of patriotism, heroism and torment -- a war veteran unable to escape what happened in 1965, when he was just 23.

"Here's a guy who is a true American hero in his own right. He was wounded in action in the Iadrang Valley, and he comes into a combat zone 40 years later," says Maj. Chris Rogers, the operations officer of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, when Konrardy embedded with them.

"In my opinion, he's a guy who has done it all -- bled for his own country -- and he's more interested in telling the story of today's generation of young heroes than trumpeting his own horn."

Konrardy was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder shortly after he retired from John Deere in 2002, when he says his disorder really kicked in. He once sleep-drove to a Wal-Mart about 20 minutes from his home at 3 a.m. He doesn't recall how he got there or how he got home. He only remembers a guy mopping the floor asking if he could be helped.

Other times, he'd patrol the neighborhood in the wee hours of the night with his loaded 9-mm pistol on his hip. His counselor with the Department of Veterans Affairs once asked what he would do if the police ever stopped him.

"I said, 'I'll just shoot out his windows and escape and evade back to the house. I think it'd be fun.' She didn't like that answer," he says with a laugh. "So I'm lucky because that's probably what I would've tried to do."

Konrardy checked himself into a VA facility in Des Moines, Iowa, to get help for his PTSD. He chuckles more when he recounts trying to escape from the place and police approached him. "I rolled down a hill and started running so they couldn't catch me. They said that was the wrong thing to do." Learn about PTSD and how to get help »

He says he was then put in an isolation ward for 11 days and nights, and eventually released. It was August 2005.

Fast forward to the fall of 2006. That's when Konrardy spoke to his grandson's eighth-grade class about his war experience. They thanked him for serving his country. "Nobody had ever done that before, for serving in Vietnam," he says.

He started e-mailing members of the Army's First Cavalry Division as part of his grandson's "adopt a platoon" project. He got autographed footballs from the Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts, as well as from the University of Tennessee and University of Georgia.

Even the players at local St. Ambrose University chipped in with a football of their own: the game ball from their championship game. "I just wanted to do something and make up for what I didn't do for my guys," Konrardy says.

His family gathered for Christmas that year and he told of his plans to travel to Iraq. "Everybody cried," he says. "I said, 'Hey, this is a chance of a lifetime. I have to go.' "

Quizzed about why a man who was held in a VA facility a couple years earlier was cleared to travel to Iraq, Konrardy laughs. He says CNN is the first to ask that question.

But he adds the original plan was for him to not go into combat. "On the way over, I didn't think I'd be going out."

By March 2007, the old warrior's boots were on the ground in Baghdad. His plan was to hand out the 95 pounds of goods and kick back with the soldiers at base camp, collecting their stories and gathering video to give to their families back home. Konrardy handed the St. Ambrose football to a soldier named David W. Behrle, a 20-year-old from Tipton, Iowa. He scooped it up and cherished it.

Konrardy was officially in Iraq as an embedded journalist to file blog posts for "The Quad-City Times." He had not intended to go into combat, but that quickly changed. He says the commander said if he wanted to get to know the troops "you've gotta be proactive."

Konrardy says he hopped into a Humvee and began patrolling the tight streets of Baghdad with the unit. He was assigned the back right seat for four days.

His Humvee once struck a dud of a roadside bomb that blew the tire out underneath where he was sitting. Gunfire erupted. "Looking back, I'm thinking, 'Wow, I could have been killed,' " he says.

He's still haunted by another time in Iraq -- not because of what happened, but because of what he didn't do.

"I'm going to the bathroom and I hear somebody crying. My first instinct was to be a grandpa: I'm going to go in and I'm going to hold this young kid whoever it is and just say, 'I know where you're coming from. I've been there. Let's just talk.' "

He adds, "But I chickened out. I didn't do that. Now, I wish I would have."

A few weeks after he left Iraq, soldiers he befriended were riding in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle on patrol around Baghdad. He says the soldiers had recently saved a young Iraqi girl who had been shot in the head from insurgent crossfire. But on this day, May 19, 2007, a roadside bomb went off, killing all six soldiers inside.

One of those killed was Spc. David Behrle, the soldier who loved the football hand-delivered by Konrardy.

"I took that hard. It still bothers me," Konrardy says.

Outside his Iowa home, a flagpole stands on Konrardy's lawn. A fallen soldier monument sits at its base with a pair of boots, rifle facing down and helmet with the name "Behrle" on it.

Behrle's family was so moved by Konrardy they had it built for him. Kneeling next to the monument, Konrardy says, "It reminds me of Dave. But it also reminds me of the Behrle family and how close we've gotten with them and how great they've been in my grieving for Dave and helping me ... try to readjust to the things I went through in Iraq."

"They say I helped them; I say they helped me."

The lifelong Republican recently did something he thought he'd never do: He says he voted for a Democrat for the president of the United States. Thousands of American troops will soon be returning home in need of help just like him.

Konrardy, who is still getting PTSD treatment, wishes the rest of the nation could better understand what that's like.

"I just want them to realize the life of a soldier is not what you think," he says. "It changes you for the rest of your life."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/12/10/ptsd.vietnam.vet/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Workers occupy Chicago factory for fifth day

2008-12-10T15:39:00.000-08:00

The occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago by some 250 workers entered its fifth day on Monday. On December 2, workers were informed the plant would permanently close in three days and that they would be laid off. Workers are demanding severance and vacation pay as restitution for Republic’s violation of federal law, which stipulates that workers must be given 60 days notice prior to layoffs arising from plant closures. Republic claims that it cannot pay workers because Bank of America, one of its major lenders, had cut off its line of credit.

The struggle of the Republic workers has attracted widespread support. In the days since the occupation began, workers and students from Chicago and beyond have visited the plant, expressing their solidarity with messages of support and with donations.

As yet, no resolution has been reached. However, Bank of America (BOA) issued a statement on Monday, as negotiations continued, indicating that it was willing to make a loan of an unspecified size so that Republic could meet payroll. BOA said that it is “prepared to provide a limited amount of additional” loans and regretted “Republic’s failure to pay their employees the employee Claims to which they are legally entitled.”

However, the workers’ union, the United Electrical Workers (UE), issued a statement on its web site Tuesday reporting, “Bank of America informed us their statement from yesterday was released in error.”

Bank of America has been awarded a $25 billion taxpayer-funded bailout from the US government through TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), in addition to an undisclosed share of the some $4 trillion the Federal Reserve Board has handed out directly to major financial concerns.

Republic management had intended to close the plant since at least October. It had evidently begun to shift equipment and material to a non-union factory in Iowa, which borders Illinois to the West. Workers noticed that inventory items were not to be found in the plant, and they say that equipment was being hustled out in the dark of night. Republic says that its orders had fallen sharply in the past month. However, workers have expressed skepticism that the company was bankrupt. If it can demonstrate that its line of credit was suddenly cut off, Republic may not be technically liable for severance pay.

Republic is owned by Richard Gillman. Previously an investor in the company, Gillman bought Republic outright in 2006. Gillman has boasted that under his leadership Republic reduced its expenses by 47 percent and increased productivity by 30 percent, but claimed that the company has been punished by the collapse in the housing market.

A team of World Socialist Web Site reporters visited the occupied factory to speak with workers and those there to lend support. The factory is in an industrial zone on the northwest edge of Chicago’s downtown, a stone’s throw from the famous Cabrini-Green housing projects and the distribution center of the Chicago Tribune, which just announced that it will file for bankruptcy protection.

At the factory’s entrance were several dozen workers, a giant inflatable rat—meant to symbolize Republic’s owners—as well as several vans belonging to news organizations.

Several workers told the WSWS that they were not allowed to talk to the media. Their union, the United Electrical Workers (UE), has limited media contact by selecting a handful of designated workers as spokesmen, and by allowing media access for only limited periods. Leah Fried, a full-time UE organizer, has positioned herself to handle most media questions, especially those from the national news media. In the late afternoon on Monday, workers were brought in from the occupation to stand behind Fried as she spoke to CNN.

Reporters were also not allowed to enter beyond an internal entryway to the production area itself, where some 30 workers sat in a semi-circle. This, reporters were told, was part of an arrangement worked out with Republic’s owners so that the occupation could continue.

Shifts of occupiers passed in and out through the foyer. The workforce is largely Hispanic, but there are also a significant number of African-American workers employed at the factory. WSWS reporters were able to speak to several Republic workers, representatives of the UE, and supporters of the occupation from Chicago. (See: "Republic Windows and Doors workers speak on their struggle").

Workers expressed anger toward both Republic and Bank of America. They are acutely aware of and angry over the stark contradiction between the bailout of Wall Street and the mounting layoffs and deepening impoverishment facing workers. The Republic workers see their struggle as historic, and they sense that they are fighting for workers far beyond their factory’s walls.

The occupation at the Republic factory represents the first independent response of the American working class to the deepening economic crisis. By occupying the Republic factory, workers have struck at the holiest of holies of official US political life—the sanctity of private property and the capitalists’ dictatorship over production.

The example of Republic stands in sharp contrast to the response of the United Auto Workers bureaucracy to the threatened bankruptcy of the Big Three auto companies. The UAW has already indicated that “everything is on the table” in its bid to help resuscitate the profit margins of the major carmakers. This will include plant closures, mass layoffs, and savage wage and benefit cuts. All this the UAW has offered prior to negotiations and without so much as hinting at a struggle on behalf of the workers it nominally represents.

With the occupation unfolding in Chicago, autoworkers and other sections of the workforce now have a different example of struggle, one that recalls the sitdown strikes that brought about the unionization of the auto industry in 1937.

As for the perspective of their union leadership at Republic, it is limited to winning severance pay and does not extend to restoring the jobs of the workers being laid off. This limitation arises not from the workers’ struggle itself—which is courageous and unprecedented in recent US history—but from the trade union approach of the UE, which is demanding only that workers receive a “fair” dismissal and which is cooperating with the Democratic Party in an attempt to prevent broader political conclusions from being drawn.

To fight the destruction of jobs and plant closures, workers must arm themselves with a new political perspective independent of the two major political parties and the trade union bureaucracy, which together defend the profit system that has produced the current economic crisis.

Implicitly, the occupation of the Republic Window and Door factory poses the struggle for socialism. Industry and finance must be taken out of the hands of the capitalists and reorganized, the world over, in order to defend jobs and living standards and meet essential social needs.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/chic-d10.shtml

Greek police charged with murder

2008-12-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

A Greek police officer has been charged with murder for allegedly shooting dead a teenager.

Police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas was charged with murder and police officer Vassilios Saraliotis was charged as an accomplice to murder.

On Wednesday, the Athens court ordered both men to be held in jail pending their trial. No date for the trial was set.

But lawyers defending the officer who fired the shot say the bullet ricocheted and accidentally killed the teenage boy.

Violence has erupted in Athens, the Greek capital, as people across the country took part in a general strike against the government's economic policies.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/12/20081210203626128216.html

Agriprocessors could face extinction

2008-12-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

Agriprocessors, the failing giant of the kosher food industry, is beginning to disintegrate.

Joseph Sarachek, a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee currently in charge of the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, is seeking to make the company more attractive to potential buyers. Sarachek told residents there that he plans to reopen the facility’s poultry production lines as early as next week. Other kosher food producers are strategically positioning themselves to buy the company’s operations.

The Postville plant, which has not been at full operation since a May 12 immigration raid, was once the nation’s largest supplier of kosher meat products. Placing the plant back in production is important to those who have an interest in selling the operation. Obviously, a plant that is up and running with a trained and loyal work force is more appealing than one that is defunct.

Sarachek outlined his plans with civic and community leaders prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. He said he would begin by opening only the poultry production line, but beef production could also be in the plant’s future. Sarachek was hopeful that the bankruptcy judge will approve the move. He indicated that First Bank, a creditor owed $35 million by Agriprocessors, was in favor of the move.

Bernard Feldman, a New York attorney who was named this September as the company’s chief executive, told the New York court hearing the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case that discussions with possible buyers are under way. Feldman said he hopes the plant will have new ownership in the near future.

Sarachek told The Des Moines Register that Agriprocessors owes more than $500,000 in back pay to workers, and that he plans to begin repaying those debts to the 170 workers he will re-hire to work at the plant next week.

Former chief executive Sholom M. Rubashkin remains behind bars, awaiting trial on a litany of charges that include multimillion-dollar bank fraud, document falsification and immigration-related charges. At least seven other members of plant management, as well as the corporate entity itself, are also either facing charges or have pleaded guity to charges.

The bankruptcy filed by Agriprocessors owner Abraham Aaron Rubashkin on Nov. 4 continues to work its way through the court in New York. Several creditors, including the Iowa labor commissioner, have requested the case be moved to Iowa. A judge is expected to rule on the change of venue within the next two weeks.

Competitors have already positioned themselves into the void created during Agriprocessors’ legal woes.

Empire Kosher Poultry announced that it would “significantly expand production” of kosher chicken on Nov. 24, increasing its output by 50 percent. The company, while obviously hoping to grab the market share vacated by Agriprocessors, said in a press release that it hoped the increase would “allay any fear of a widespread kosher poultry shortage.” It was the second increase in production for Empire during 2008.

Greg Rosenbaum, chairman and chief executive of Empire, made note not only of the cooperation of kosher certifying agencies in announcing the production increase, but made a special point of praising the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The praise came on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court denial to hear a 2005 case involving Agriprocessors’ refusal to bargain with workers at its Brooklyn distribution facility who voted to join UFCW. Agriprocessors had unsuccessfully argued to the National Labor Relations Board and a U.S. Court of Appeals that since many of those who voted to unionize were undocumented workers, it didn’t have to honor the decision.

http://iowaindependent.com/9069/agriprocessors-could-face-extinction

Industrial slowdown yields cutbacks, layoffs

2008-12-10T13:31:00.000-08:00

As the contraction in capitalist industrial production continues to increase, federal and local governments are planning cutbacks in vital social services. Local governments and bosses are already eliminating jobs while Washington is printing billions of dollars in an attempt to thaw the credit freeze.

The U.S. economy has been in recession since December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research—longer than the average length for recessions since World War II.

The U.S. government announced a new $800 billion bailout program November 25 in hopes of pumping up the country’s faltering financial system. This move, one of a number of financial outlays by Washington over the past several months that total trillions of dollars, is the U.S. rulers’ response to the deepest worldwide capitalist economic crisis seen since the 1930s—with its unfolding social catastrophe for working people.

As the auto barons headed back to Washington December 2 pleading for a $34 billion bailout for General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford, United Auto Workers (UAW) president Ronald Gettelfinger signaled the union officialdom’s willingness to reopen contracts. He said the union would consider delaying payments to a new retiree health-care fund and suspending its jobs bank, which requires the companies to pay wages to laid-off workers, reported the New York Times

With 1.2 million jobs already slashed by the bosses so far this year, November is expected to show a decline of another 350,000 jobs, reports MarketWatch. The credit crunch has led to declining sales of municipal bonds—down 9.1 percent this year—which cities and states depend upon to finance their operations. As a result new taxes and deep cuts in social services are being prepared in many cities aimed at qualitatively driving down workers’ standard of living.

At the end of November New York governor David Paterson told school board presidents that deep cuts in funds for education must be implemented to make up for the state’s budget deficit of $1.5 billion this year and $12.5 billion next year.

A new federal rule announced at the end of November boosts payments that working people on Medicaid will have to pay for visits to doctors, hospital care, and prescription drugs. “Medicaid recipients will pay more than $1.3 billion in co-payments over five years and the federal government will save $1.4 billion, while states will save $1.1 billion,” said a November 27 New York Times article. “The savings would result not only from the collection of co-payments, but also from reduced use of services.”

The number of workers on food stamps is about to exceed 30 million, an all-time high. Official government statistics say that 11.9 million people went hungry in the United States for some part of last year. This included nearly 700,000 children.

According to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the deepening recession could push another 10 million people below the federal government’s official poverty level. In 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 37.3 million people, or 12.5 percent of the population, were already living in poverty.

$800 billion bailout package
The government’s $800 billion bailout package includes $200 billion to buy up repackaged securities backed by auto loans, student loans, credit card lending, and small-business loans. Officials hope to make credit more available to working people, those operating small businesses, and others.

The market for lending funds for these securities “essentially came to a halt in October,” stated U.S. treasury secretary Henry Paulson, after generating $240 billion in 2007.

The new pump-priming fund “underscored the severity of the credit crisis and raised concerns among some analysts that the Fed might be taking too much risk—and printing too much money—in response,” stated the November 26 Financial Times.

“Recent events showcase policymakers as bumblers or quick-footed financial firefighters,” commented Investor’s Business Daily, expressing unease that massive federal outlays are failing to staunch the economic crisis.

Over the past year, the U.S. government has taken on about $7.8 trillion in direct and indirect financial obligations. This is equal to about half the size of the nation’s entire economy and way above the $700 billion bank bailout plan Congress authorized in October. About $1.4 trillion has already been spent in loans, infusions to banks, and bailing out companies like American International Group. Additional trillions are for government guarantees on mortgages, bank deposits, commercial loans, and money market funds.

Meanwhile, the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the third-quarter. Projections are for a much steeper drop in this year’s last quarter, with Business Week estimating a 4 percent decline.

http://www.themilitant.com/index.shtml

Greece strike hit by violence

2008-12-10T13:21:00.000-08:00

Violence has erupted in Athens, the Greek capital, as people across the country took part in a general strike against the government's economic policies.

Groups of youths threw petrol bombs near the country's parliament on Wednesday and riot police fired tear gas to disperse the cowds as more than 10,000 people marched through the city's centre.

The march and strike follow five days of rioting in Greece after a 15-year-old boy was shot dead by police.

The strike has paralyzed much of the country's infrastructure, closing down schools, public services and hospitals and grounding flights.

Other major demonstrations took place in the northern cities of Thessaloniki and Kavala.

Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Athens, said: "The trade unions here are saying that they succeeded in paralyzing Greece today. Certainly the airports were closed, large parts of public transport were closed and civil servants did not go to work".

Police had deployed more than 15,000 officers in the capital and arrested scores of people ahead of the rally, Panayiotis Stathis, a police spokesman, said.

An appeal by the government to put off the strike, which had been planned weeks in advance of the shooting, was earlier rejected by union leaders.

Political scandals

The killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police on Saturday has touched a raw nerve among young Greeks, angry at years of political scandals and rising levels of poverty and unemployment, worsened by the global economic downturn.

A lawyer for the two officers accused of the killing has said that ballistics show that he was killed by a ricochet and not a direct shot.

Phillips said: "This is potentially good news for the Greek police, but it is coming from the police defence lawyer.

"We haven't heard from the ballistic experts themselves and I think it is going to be very difficult to convince the people on the streets that Alexandros was not deliberately murdered".

One of the officers has been charged with premeditated manslaughter and the illegal use of a weapon and the other as an accomplice. Both have been suspended from duty.

The guard house at the entrance to the courthouse where the two officer were testifying on Wednesday was fire bombed by protesters.

Financial cost

Costas Karamanlis, Greece's prime minister, has vowed to end the country's worst unrest in decades.

He pledged aid packages of $12,000 to stricken businesses, a tax freeze and government-guaranteed loans to restore buildings and property burnt or stolen by looters.

"The government is determined to consolidate the feeling of public safety and to help businesses get back on their feet," he said in a televised national address.

Some newspapers in Greece have put the damage that has taken place across the country at $1.3bn.

Vassilis Krokidis, vice president of the Greek commerce confederation, said: "In Athens, we had 565 shops suffering serious damage or being completely destroyed."

Phillips said: "The prime minister is trying to regain the political initiative but his political opponents are circling, calling for early elections.

"I think the government must be hoping that once today's general strike is over, and if tonight can pass off peacefully, and that's a big if, then maybe the momentum may start to go back in the government's favour but it's early to speculate like that".

A spokesman has denied reports that the government plans to declare martial law.

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/europe/2008/12/2008121013235469504.html

No final agreement reached in Republic negotiations...

2008-12-10T13:20:00.000-08:00

Negotiations will resume tomorrow as the parties continue to work towards an agreement. Progress was made, and the bank and the Union are bargaining in good faith. The parties will reconvene tomorrow at 1pm.

There are still important details to be worked out before the parties can reach an agreement. Workers will then vote on the tentative agreement.

http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-final-agreement-reached-in-republic.html

Status of negotiations between UE and Bank of America...

2008-12-10T13:15:00.000-08:00

Here is the official word from Leah Fried at UE (I guess the Trib jumped the gun)...

Status of negotiations between UE and Bank of America:

Negotiations between Bank of America, the UE Committee and the company are still in progress. No settlement has been reached. Bank of America informed us they had sent out a statement accidentally. Any statement regarding the result of negotiations at this time is premature. When the meeting concludes, the UE committee will return to the factory and report on any progress. Because UE is a democratic organization, only the 200 plus workers currently occupying Republic Windows and Doors will decide if a settlement is acceptable by a democratic vote. We will inform you of any changes.

http://pilsenprole.blogspot.com/2008/12/status-of-negotiations-between-ue-and.html

BREAKING IWW NEWS - Gainesville IWW members file for Union Recognition at Ward's Supermarket

2008-12-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

As of 8am Tuesday morning, workers in the Natural Foods Dept. at Ward's Supermarket (located in Gainesville, FL) have filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board. This petition is a step forward in a months-long campaign of the Gainesville IWW. The coming days will be challenging and we are counting on the full support of the community to win. We will provide updates re: the campaign as they develop.

If you have any questions about the campaign, feel free to call us at 352-246-2240 or email gainesvilleiww [at] riseup.net.

http://www.iww.org/en/node/4493

Protesters enter Greek consulate in Paris

2008-12-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

Paris - Protesters entered part of the Greek consulate in Paris on Tuesday after three days of rioting in Greece triggered by the shooting of a teenager by police, an embassy spokesperson said on Tuesday.

"They have entered the building but not the consulate offices on the first floor," Alexandre Bouzis, the Greek embassy press attache said.

The action came a day after demonstrators staged a similar protest at the Greek consulate in Berlin.

"This is a symbolic occupation. There are about 20 students outside and 60 inside," a spokesperson for the protesters said.

Bouzis said police were at the scene but the situation appeared to be under control.

"They are there, they are demonstrating, the situation is quite calm, they are quite calm. French police are there," he said.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=nw20081209142629303C599561

http://www.besternews.com/article/Bester+News+-+World+News/Students+hold+protest+at+Greek+consulate+in+Paris/

Strike adds to unrest in Greece

2008-12-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Several thousand people have marched through the Greek capital Athens to protest at the government's economic policies, as part of a general strike.

While turnout appeared lower than expected, the strike hit transport and the public sector and the city saw new unrest over the shooting of a teenager.

Rioters hurled petrol bombs at police outside a court where two policemen were remanded in custody for his death.

A defence lawyer says the youth was killed by a ricochet.

Greece's conservative prime minister has vowed to restore order and compensate businesses affected by the riots, which spread from Athens across Greek cities after the shooting on Saturday.

The leader of the socialist opposition, George Papandreou, made a call for public calm.

A lawyer for the officer who fired the shot which killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, who was buried on Tuesday, said ballistics tests on the fatal bullet had shown the death was an accident.

One police officer was charged with murder and a second was charged as an accomplice to murder. The Athens court ordered both men to be held in jail pending their trial. No date for the trial was set.

The ballistics tests have not yet been published and the Grigoropoulos family has hired an independent pathologist to study the case to ensure there is no cover-up.

Union demands

The two main umbrella unions - the Greek General Confederation of Workers (GSEE) and the Civil Servants Supreme Administrative Council (ADEDY) - are demanding increased social spending in light of the global financial crisis, as well as higher wages and pensions.

They represent about 2.5 million workers - roughly half of the total Greek workforce.

For union leaders, though, the number of people who took part in the demonstration in Constitution Square was almost embarrassingly small, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in the capital.

While flights in and out of Athens airport were cancelled, and some banks and businesses were closed, most private sector workers found ways to reach their work-places.

The Athens Traders Association estimates the rioting over the police shooting caused 1bn euros ($1.3bn, £874m) worth of damage.

Responding to the unrest, Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis promised on Wednesday to restore order and announced measures to compensate businesses that have suffered.

In a televised address, he pledged immediate aid packages, including cash payments and tax freezes, for businesses whose buildings had been torched or property looted.

"The government is determined to consolidate the feeling of public safety and to help businesses get back on their feet," said Mr Karamanlis.

Mr Papandreou, who has called for early elections on the grounds that public confidence in the government has been shaken, urged calm on Wednesday.

"I appeal to all to show responsibility, restraint and to end the violence that our country is experiencing these days," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Our correspondent says that the government has been badly wounded but will survive, as long as the prime minister can maintain party discipline.

New violence

Rioters hurled several petrol bombs near the courthouse where the two policemen were appearing before a magistrate for questioning.

HAVE YOUR SAY Cronyism and corruption need to stop for Greece to become a truly democratic society. Victor, Athens, Greece

The bombs were reportedly thrown as a defence lawyer was preparing to talk to reporters outside the building.

An Associated Press reporter witnessed running battles in the city centre as masked youths pelted police with rocks, bottles and blocks of marble smashed from a metro station entrance.

Windows newly replaced after four nights of rioting were smashed again.

"The government wanted us to postpone this protest, but they are the ones who have to do something to stop this violence and to improve the quality of our lives," said one demonstrator, drama student Kalypso Synenoglou.

High-school students chanting "Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" clapped and cheered each time a riot policeman was hit by a stone, AP adds.

Also on Wednesday, a group of about 100 Roma attacked a police station in the impoverished Athens suburb of Zefyri, where they attempted unsuccessfully to push a burning lorry into the station, Greek TV reports.

And in the port city of Patras, 215km (134 miles) west of Athens, a crowd of shop-owners is said to have turned on rioters and forced them to stop a wave of destruction, our correspondent says.

Entrepreneurs have been sleeping in their shops to defend them against rioters and looters.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7774634.stm

SDS Milwaukee Shows Support for Working Class Heroes

2008-12-09T21:29:00.000-08:00

MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) demonstrated outside a Bank of America office in downtown Milwaukee on Dec. 9 in an afternoon show of support for the United Electrical Local 1110 Chicago workers.

The Chicago workers, largely Latino, were illegally laid off four days ago by their company Republic Window and Door after Bank of America refused to continue credit to the company, despite having just received a $25 billion taxpayer bailout. The workers have since occupied their work site, earned international attention, and called for a national week of action.

Armando Robles, President of UE Local 1110, spoke in front of the Fight Back! annual fundraising People's Thanksgiving on Saturday night, and stated, "We're not going to leave [Republic Window and Door] until we get every penny we deserve."

SDS members who attended the event visited the occupying workers at the company later that night. A 20-year company employee stated the place was his "home away from home" and that the fellow workers were "his family." Family members also accompanied the occupying workers. The occupying workers, arriving in 30-person shifts, seemed very pleased and encouraged by the local and national support of their occupation.

The National Working Committee of SDS has endorsed the worker's bold and militant occupation. Numerous student protests have since taken place all over the country to support these working class heroes.

Despite the blizzard, about 20 people attended the Milwaukee rally. SDS students who just got back from an over-night visit to the occupying workers spoke over a loud speaker. The crowd also chanted "Bank of America: you got bailed out, we got sold out!"

Natasha Morgan, an SDS organizer who visited the occupying workers and attended the rally, said, "This is the end of the Bush era!"

Learn how you can directly help the workers by donating and signing their petition here: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica

Athens 'calm' as violence abates

2008-12-09T20:03:00.001-08:00

Calm has begun returning to Athens after four days of rioting, Greek police say.

The situation in the capital was mostly quiet, Panayiotis Stathis, a police spokesman, said on Tuesday, as police deployed more than 15,000 officers and arrested scores of people.

But police are bracing themselves for new disturbances on Wednesday, when labour unions are planning rallies during a nationwide general strike against government economic policies.

Groups of youths continued to be holed up in a university building where officers have no access due to a tradition of university asylum.

Protesters clashed with police guarding the Greek parliament on Tuesday as thousands attended the funeral of Alexandros Grigoropoulos elsewhere in the capital.

The 15-year-old boy's shooting death on Saturday triggered the most violent riots in the country in a quarter century which have dealt a major blow to the country's increasingly unpopular conservative government.

Raw nerve

Hundreds of demonstrators threw petrol bombs and other projectiles at the police on Tuesday, before riot police charged to push them back towards Syntagma square in Athens.

The central square had been the scene of violence on Monday night when rioters torched shops, government ministries and banks.

The killing of Grigoropoulos has touched a raw nerve among young Greeks, angry at years of political scandals and rising levels of poverty and unemployment, worsened by the global economic downturn.

Stathis, the police spokesman, said 89 people had been arrested for attacks on police, vandalism and looting since the violence began.

Another 79 people had been detained for questioning over the riots in which dozens of police officers have been injured.

Funeral calm

At Grigoropoulos's funeral at the municipal cemetery of Palio Faliro, a residential suburb in southern Athens, some groups shouted anti-police slogans but it was mainly calm after a request from the family that respect be shown for the dead teenager.

Earlier, Karolos Papoulias, Greece's president, had appealed for calm, calling on Greeks to "honour Alexis' memory peacefully".

"This is a day of mourning for us all... but there must be respect for institutions and laws," Papoulias said in a statement.

Two officers have been charged over the shooting - one with premeditated manslaughter and the illegal use of a weapon and the other as an accomplice.

They are due to appear before a court on Wednesday and both have been suspended - along with the Exarchia precinct police chief.

Government under pressure

Demonstrations and violence played out in similar ways in other cities across the country as George Papandreou, the Socialist opposition leader, demanded that the conservative government step down and call elections to help end the violence.

Addressing his parliamentary group on Tuesday, Papandreou said: "We claim power. The only thing this government can offer is to resign and turn to the people for its verdict."

Costas Karamanlis, Greece's prime minister, has vowed to end the country's worst unrest in decades, but a government spokesman denied reports that the government planned to declare martial law.

Greek labour unions rejected an appeal by Karamanlis on Tuesday to cancel a mass protest planned for Wednesday to avoid further violence.

"Our answer is that the strike and the rally will take place as planned," said Stathis Anestis, spokesman for GSEE, Greece's largest labour confederation.

The 24-hour nationwide strike and rally, which was arranged before the shooting took place, is taking place to protest against the government's economic policies and reforms.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/12/200812102757579965.html

Greece braces for general strike

2008-12-09T19:59:00.001-08:00

Greece is braced for further turmoil after days of violence as unions stage a general strike in protest against the government's economic policies.

The strike is expected to shut down banks and offices and severely disrupt public transport across the country.

The industrial action was planned weeks ago but follows days of riots sparked by the police shooting of a teenager.

Unions have defied an appeal from PM Costas Karamanlis to cancel a rally planned for central Athens.

Unions called off a major demonstration in Athens but will instead hold a rally outside the Greek parliament at 1100 (0900 GMT).

Workers from the two main umbrella unions - the Greek General Confederation of Workers (GSEE) and the Civil Servants Supreme Administrative Council (ADEDY) are demanding increased social spending in light of the global financial crisis, as well as higher wages and pensions.

They represent about 2.5 million workers - roughly half of the total Greek work force, according to Associated Press news agency.

Greek airlines Olympic and Aegean said they have cancelled a number of flights, ferry links are expected to be cut and train services severely disrupted.

Public transport in a number of cities, including Athens, is expected to be hard hit by the strike.

Teachers, journalists, bank clerks and public sector workers are also due to join the action.

Several 24-hour strikes against the government's economic reform policies have brought the country to a standstill this year.

Shops torched

Prime Minister Karamanlis tried to convince the unions to call off the rally they planned to hold in central Athens.

"We must all have a united stand against illegal actions, to clearly condemn violence, looting and vandalism," he said.

The streets of Athens were calmer on Tuesday night after three consecutive days and nights of riots in which shops and offices were set alight and riot police battled groups of stone- and bottle-throwing youths.

The riots were triggered by the death of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, shot by police in Athens on Saturday, and spread to a number of towns and cities across Greece.

Clashes erupted near the suburban Athens cemetery where his funeral was held on Tuesday.

Two police officers have been charged in connection with the teenager's death, but results of a post-mortem to determine the trajectory of the bullet that killed him are not yet known.

The officer who fired says it was a ricochet from a warning shot but witnesses told Greek TV he fired directly at the teenager.

The protesters' frustration has been fuelled by corruption scandals and poor economic prospects for many, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens.

The opposition Socialist party leader George Papandreou has called on Mr Karamanlis to resign and call elections.

Mr Karamanlis, whose conservative party has a parliamentary majority of just one seat, has called for unity and said rioters would not be shown any leniency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7774634.stm

Greek general strike to go ahead

2008-12-09T19:56:00.000-08:00

Despite pleas from the Prime Minister amidst the worst rioting in decades a massive general strike is set to take place later today, 10 December.

2.5 million workers in the GSEE and ADEDY general unions, comprising around half of Greece's total workforce are to strike today.

They are demanding an end to cuts in public spending and attacks on pay and pensions.

Greece's transport network in particular is set to grind to a halt, as many airlines have already cancelled all flights in and out of the country.

Tens of thousands of workers are expected to pour into the streets, already ravaged by days of clashes over the murder of a teenage boy by police.

http://libcom.org/news/greek-general-strike-go-ahead-10122008

Youths Occupy Greek Consulate In Berlin Over Boy's Death

2008-12-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

(AFP)--About 15 young demonstrators occupied the Greek consulate in berlin Monday to protest against the police killing of a 15-year-old boy in Athens which sparked riots across Greece.

"Around 15 young people - Greeks living in Germany, possibly students - invaded the premises this morning," said Pantelis Pantelouris, a spokesman for the Greek embassy, which is in a separate building in the German capital.

"They left a letter to be sent to Athens in which they expressed their outrage over the death of the adolescent," he told AFP.
The protesters also unfurled a banner out a window reading "State Murderers" in German and Greek.

Pantelouris said the demonstrators were still in the consulate, in the western Schoeneberg district, but had not used violence or vandalized the building.

A police spokesman said the authorities would not remove the demonstrators by force but would "tolerate" them if the protest did not escalate.
Greek youths mounted a third day of street battles Monday in cities across the country as anger mounted over the police killing of the boy.
Police have arrested two officers involved in the shooting of the teenager in the tense Athens district of Exarchia during clashes between authorities and youths Saturday. The district's police chief has also been suspended.

http://www.easybourse.com/bourse-actualite/marches/youths-occupy-greek-consulate-in-berlin-over-boy-s-death-575227

Stand-off at Greek Embassy

2008-12-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

Up to 40 masked protesters attempted to storm the Greek Embassy in Holland Park this morning, clashing with police, setting alight the national flag and demanding an audience with the ambassador.

Police contained the demonstration outside number 1 Holland Park by the afternoon, while negotiators from the Embassy made an offer to allow a handful of protesters into the building for talks with the Greek officials.

The protesters are believed to be Greek students acting in support of rioters in their homeland who took to the streets, hurling stones and petrol bombs over the weekend after a 15-year-old boy was shot dead by police in Athens.

An embassy spokeswoman said: "They have been very aggressive and attempted to storm the building this morning. They brought the flag down and burnt it... for now they seem a little quiet, but we don't know what will happen next."

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed the incident was taking place. "We have an appropriate response in place", he added.

http://www.londoninformer.co.uk/london-news/london-local-news/2008/12/08/stand-off-at-greek-embassy-113489-22429546/

Chicago workers win: Bank of America to extend credit to plant that suddenly closed

2008-12-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

CHICAGO (AP) — Bank of America says it will extend credit to a Chicago window and door maker whose workers have occupied the factory for five days.

The bank said Tuesday that it's willing to give the Republic Windows and Doors factory "a limited amount of additional loans." That's so it can resolve claims of employees who have staged a sit-in since Friday.

The factory closed Friday after Bank of America canceled its financing.

Workers were given three days' notice. But they refused to leave and vowed to stay there until receiving assurances they would receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

The bank has been criticized for cutting off the plant's credit after taking federal bailout money.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-workers-takeover,0,2473688.story

Chicago factory occupied

2008-12-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

WORKERS OCCUPYING the Republic Windows & Doors factory slated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management.

In a tactic rarely used in the U.S. since the labor struggles of the 1930s, the workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, refused to leave the plant on December 5, its last scheduled day of operation.

"We decided to do it because this is money that belongs to us," said Maria Roman, who's worked at the plant for eight years. "These are our rights."

Word of the occupation spread quickly both among labor and immigrant rights activists--the overwhelming majority of the workers are Latinos. Seven local TV news stations showed up to do interviews and live reports, and a steady stream of activists arrived to bring donations of food and money and to plan solidarity actions.

Management claims that it can't continue operations because its main creditor, Bank of America (BoA), refuses to make any more loans to the company. After workers picketed BoA headquarters December 3, bank officials agreed to sit down with Republic management and UE to discuss the matter at a December 5 meeting arranged by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill), said UE organizer Leah Fried.

BoA had said that it couldn't discuss the matter with the union directly without written approval from Republic's management. But Republic representatives failed to show up at the meeting, and plant managers prepared to close the doors for good--violating the federal WARN Act that requires 60 days notice of a plant closure.

The workers decided this couldn't go unchallenged. "The company and Bank of America are throwing the ball to one another, and we're in the middle," said Vicente Rangel, a shop steward and former vice president of Local 1110.

Many workers had suspected the company was planning to go out of business--and perhaps restart operations elsewhere. Several said managers had removed both production and office equipment in recent days.

Furthermore, while inventory records indicated there were plenty of parts in the plant, workers on the production line found shortages. And the order books, while certainly down from the peak years of the housing boom, didn't square with management's claims of a total collapse. "Where did all those windows go?" one worker asked.

Workers were especially outraged that Bank of America, which recently received a bailout in taxpayer money, won't provide credit to Republic. "They get $25 billion from the government, and won't loan a few million to this company so workers can keep their jobs?" said Ricardo Caceres, who has worked at the plant for six years.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE MEMBERS of Local 1110 have a history of struggle. In 2004, they decertified the Central States Joint Board--a union notorious for corruption and sweetheart contracts with management--and brought in UE, a far more democratic organization.

In May of this year, Local 1110 mobilized for a contract by organizing a "practice" picket, and 70 workers used their lunch break to confront the boss with a petition listing their demands. The workers were able to turn back company's effort to win major concessions and won solid pay increases.Now, management is trying to get revenge by pocketing money that belongs to the workers.

UE officials and workers acknowledge that it will be difficult to stop the plant from closing. But they're determined to get the money owed to them--and they believe that by fighting, they can set an example for other workers facing layoffs and plant closures as the recession deepens.

Negotiations are set for Monday, December 8. Whatever happens, however, the workers have already sent a message to employers that if they violate workers rights and the law, they can expect a fight.

"This is a message to the workers of America," said Vicente Rangel, the shop steward. "If we stand together, we will prevail until justice is done, and we get what we're due."

http://socialistworker.org/print/2008/12/06/republic-window-occupation

Greece: We didn't need another martyr

2008-12-09T13:51:00.001-08:00

While Greece was preparing for its general strike on Thursday 10 December against the Karamanlis government and against the economic crisis, and with the grassroots mobilisation in schools and universities growing for some time against proposed reforms, Alexandros Grigoropolous, only 16 years old, was the unlucky choice to become victim and scapegoat of the police apparatus and was killed in cold blood by the State's forces of repression.

The economic crisis sparked off by international capitalism against the exploited of the whole world, which is being managed with measures imposing general impoverishment by the States, is damaging the fragile equilibriums and the precarious alliances of power between groups of power and both right-wing and centre-left parties, enabling us to see the true anti-democratic, subversive vocation of the State and its apparatus of (in)security): alienation, criminalisation and the elimination of social opposition.

It happened with Carlo Giuliani in Genoa in 2001, it has happened many times in recent years in place like Palestine and Oaxaca in Mexico. Last Saturday it happened in Greece.

At the moment thousands of school students are demonstrating outside police headquarters in Athens, but also in a great many cities and towns all over Greece.

Spontaneous demonstrations throughout the country are the result of political, popular anger with the Karamanlis government and the criminal actions of the police. The Greek government first armed and unleashed the killer cops, then set up a pathetic ballet of excuses and resignations, but is not punishing anyone. In fact it is trying to shift attention onto the destruction of public and privateproperty, while attempting to repress the demonstrators, attacking people with chemical weapons and torturing arrested demonstrators.

The revolt is only beginning. And the general strike, a union and social, political and class-struggle general strike, can transform the people's rage into organised, grassroots building of the libertarian alternative.

In every country, capitalism's growing crisis is presenting the bill to the working classes and the exploited of society.

We must respond, in every country, by building together the social opposition that is needed to defend ourselves from annihilation in the name of Profit.

Solidarity with the Greek anarchist movement and with the victims of repression, international solidarity with all social struggles, in Greece and in the rest of Europe!
Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
8 December 2008

http://www.anarkismo.net/article/10888

Clashes outside Greek parliament

2008-12-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

Protesters have clashed with police guarding the Greek parliament in Athens, as elsewhere in the capital the funeral of Alexandros Grigoriadis, who was shot dead by police on Saturday, took place.

The 15-year-old boy's death sparked protests over the weekend which have now spilled over into four days of rioting across the country.

Hundreds of demonstrators threw petrol bombs and other projectiles at the police on Tuesday, before riot police charged to push them back towards Syntagma square.

The central square had been the scene of violence on Monday night when rioters torched shops, government ministries and banks.

The killing has touched a raw nerve among young Greeks, angry at years of political scandals and rising levels of poverty and unemployment, worsened by the global economic downturn.

Panayiotis Stathis, a police spokesman, said 89 people had been arrested for attacks on police, vandalism and looting since the violence began.

Another 79 people had been detained for questioning over the riots in which dozens of police officers have been injured.

Funeral held

Thousands of people dressed in black attended Grigoropoulos' funeral at the municipal cemetery of Palio Faliro, a residential southern Athens suburb.

Some groups shouted anti-police slogans at the cemetery but the funeral was mainly calm after a request from the family that respect be shown for Grigoropoulos.

Nicole Itano, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Athens, said: "The family had asked for the funeral to be low key and private."

Earlier, Karolos Papoulias, Greece's president had appealed for calm, calling on Greeks to "honour Alexis' memory peacefully".

"This is a day of mourning for us all... but there must be respect for institutions and laws," Papoulias said in a statement.

"As the member of a generation that lived heavy years in our nation's history, I call for a peaceful honouring of Alexis' memory."

Two officers have been charged over the shooting - one with premeditated manslaughter and the illegal use of a weapon and the other as an accomplice.

They are due to appear before a court on Wednesday and both have been suspended - along with the Exarchia precinct police chief.

Opposition call

A demonstration by thousands of students and teachers was organised by the OLME teachers union in Athens on Tuesday.

A large banner reading "Assassins, the government is the culprit" led the parade.

A similar demonstration was held in the northern city of Thessalonika.

In the port of Patras, the police headquarters was under siege by demonstrators, local authorities said.

Around 500 protesters were attacking with stones and Molotov cocktails with riot police firing tear gas and trying to hold them back, police said.

Three separate demonstrations by youths and students had been held in Patras ahead of the attack on the building.

Meanwhile, George Papandreou, Greece's Socialist opposition leader, has demanded that the conservative government step down and call elections to help end the violence.

Addressing his parliamentary group on Tuesday, Papandreou said: "We claim power. The only thing this government can offer is to resign and turn to the people for its verdict."

Itano said: "The government is fighting a battle on two fronts, not only on the streets but for its own political survival."

Costas Karamanlis, Greece's prime minister, has vowed to end the country's worst unrest in decades, but a government spokesman denied reports that the government planned to declare martial law.

Greek labour unions rejected an appeal by Karamanlis on Tuesday to cancel a mass protest planned for Wednesday to avoid further violence.

"Our answer is that the strike and the rally will take place as planned," said Stathis Anestis, spokesman for GSEE, Greece's largest labour confederation.

The 24-hour nationwide strike and rally, which was arranged before the shooting took place, is taking place to protest against the government's economic policies and reforms.

Greek reaction

Residents of Athens have been debating whether the mayhem and rioting that has shaken the country was justified.

Zahos Varfis, a 30-year-old architect, said: "All this violence is inexcusable. It's a pretext for certain people whose daily lives are very difficult to express a general feeling of unhappiness, of poverty and pressure."

Anastassia Kotzamani, a sociologist, said the destruction was a justified display of fury and exasperation on the part of Greek youth.

"When you're 25, you've finished your studies and you cannot find work, your only solution is to go abroad," she said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Yannis Maistros, from the Hellenic Federation of University Teachers, said: "This action comes after a series of police brutality over the last three years, and this was the last drop to fill the water glass.

"We, pupils and teachers, are demonstrating because we want to express our anger for the cold blooded killing.

"Ordinary people are taking part in demonstrations in cities all over Greece, they are asking for some resignations because somebody, some politician is responsible for this killing.

"The protesters want to change this policy that allows all this brutality to go without any punishment, there needs to be a change of policy," he said.

http://english.aljazeera.net//news/europe/2008/12/2008129121636926497.html

Shots ring out as Athens riots continue

2008-12-09T13:42:00.000-08:00

It's been confirmed than police have been shooting at students in Palaio Faliro, a southern suburb of Athens, a writer in the city reports, amid claims that both police and right-wing groups have been on the attack.

As rioting continues in the streets,with hundreds of people clashing with police outside the Greek parliament and more being held off while they try to surge in from outside the area, an on-the-ground writer gives his impressions of the evening:

"Daytime in Athens was relatively calm. High school students attacked, once again, the riot police units outside the parliament on Syntagma Square. Eksarhia, through which we walked during the day, resembled a battlefield in limbo: burnt cars blocking off its main streets; Stournari Ave(running alongside university grounds) is completely smashed up, barricades constantly burning across it.

"Most groups have retreated in the universities (NTUA and the University of Economics). Assemblies were held there during the day, to plan out the next few days. However – a group of up to 400 people is still in the southern suburb of Palaio Faliro, where Alexis’ funeral* was held this morning. They are quite literally rioting their way into the city centre. There, it is assumed that they will try to join either the occupations of the NTUA or the University of Economics.

"The breaking news is that the police have shot at least ten times at demonstrators in Palaio Faliro. Meanwhile, at the University of Economics, while at least four units of the riot police are encircling the campus and trying to push the demonstrators inside.

"A beautiful slogan is echoing across the city: “ο λαός θα πεί την τελευταία λέξη/ αυτές οι νύχτες είναι του αλέξη” - “the people will have the last word/ these are Alexis’ nights”."

Another commentator on the libcom forums meanwhile suggests that rioting which happened near the funeral procession may have been provoked by police. He said: "Today the state decided to forcibly start repressing the mobilisations, violent or not. They crashed the peaceful demos of the students in Athens. They threw tear gas into the graveyard during the funeral process -- a riot started immediately, with all sorts of people joining in.

"Whole blocks remain without public lights (scary!) so that the police can act freely, undercover cops in swarms, 'bait' operations etc. More policemen faced with rioters have responded by firing (real firearms, not plastic bullets) into the air for intimidation.

"The police are attacking everywhere. In the city of Patras they were joined by right wing people - not only neo-nazis but 'normal' right wing people, acting in gangs using stones and sticks. All the university occupations are holding.

"The prime minister has declared that: "In these critical times, there's a clear challenge: we have to shield the democracy against the extremist groups' violence. Right now, national unity is our common duty... All those who engage in violent acts and vandalism are enemies of democracy."

"Tonight there have been riots in various areas of Athens and other cities. In Athens anarchists, students and many immigrants from africa, the middle east and the balkans have been fighting together. Perhaps fewer are involved than yesterday, but they are more determined. The immigrants in particular fight fiercely. Looting is very widespread and some 50 immigrants have been snatched by the police. As expected, all sorts of semi-illegal activities have broken out in the 'anomy' zones, like in the history books."

The government has vowed to crack down on the rioters. But with the general strike tomorrow against government austerity programmes and attacks on pensions and tens of thousands of angry workers on the streets aggressive police action could lead to serious repercussions for the state.

http://libcom.org/news/shots-ring-out-athens-riots-continue-09122008

Protests as Athens funeral held

2008-12-09T13:39:00.000-08:00

Fresh clashes have erupted in Athens after the funeral of a teenager whose death has sparked four days of rioting across Greece.

Protesters battled police after the ceremony for Alexandros Grigoropoulos, 15, who was shot on Saturday by police.

Earlier, youths confronted police outside parliament, as violence that has seen buildings torched and dozens injured showed no signs of abating.

Meanwhile, the opposition has called for the government to step down.

Tuesday's protests began early in the day. Schools were shut as thousands of teachers, schoolchildren and parents held a peaceful demonstration to protest against the killing.

They marched towards parliament behind a large banner declaring: "Assassins, the government is the culprit."

The situation escalated as hundreds of young people joined the protest, throwing stones and bottles at lines of riot police, who responded with tear gas.

In the afternoon thousands of mourners gathered for the teenager's funeral in a coastal suburb further south.

The ceremony was calm, but clashes were later reported outside the cemetery.

Police were using tear gas against dozens of youths who were throwing stones and setting fire to rubbish bins, reports said.

Violence was reported elsewhere in the country. In Thessaloniki, police were clashing with groups of young people following a protest march earlier in the day.

Two police officers have been charged in connection with Alexandros Grigoropoulos's death on Saturday, but results of a post-mortem to determine the trajectory of the bullet that killed him are not yet known.

The officer who fired says it was a ricochet from a warning shot but witnesses told Greek TV he fired directly at the teenager.

Lost confidence

Earlier, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis held talks with President Karolos Papoulias and opposition leaders in an attempt to reach a consensus on what action to take.

Mr Karamanlis, whose conservative party has a parliamentary majority of just one seat, has called for unity and vowed there will be no leniency in dealing with the rioters.

"No one has the right to use this tragic incident as an excuse for acts of violence," he said.

But after meeting Mr Karamanlis, socialist leader George Papandreou said Greeks had lost confidence in the conservative government.

"The only thing this government can offer is to resign and turn to the people for its verdict," said Mr

'Rage'

Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos said the government would not put up with the violence, and scores of arrests have been made. HAVE YOUR SAY The army must take over now to stop these riots Koufos, Thessaloniki, Greece

But appeals for calm have so far been largely ignored by the mostly young protesters, and plans as to how the violence should be contained remain unclear.

Police appear to be powerless to prevent rioters from attacking symbols of wealth and prestige in Athens, the BBC's Malcolm Brabant reports.

Protesters wielding petrol bombs set fire to banks, shops, hotels, vehicles, rubbish bins and even the city's giant Christmas tree in central Syntagma Square.

"Rage is what I feel for what has happened, rage," said a student taking part in the protests. "This cop who did it must see what it is to kill a kid and to destroy a life."

Violent clashes have been reported in towns and cities across the country, spreading to Rhodes and Crete on Monday. Police stations were attacked in Piraeus and Corfu.

No troops

Mr Karamanlis has blamed "extreme elements" for taking advantage of the situation to engage in vandalism and pledged to compensate damaged businesses.

Observers say a state of emergency may be imposed, giving the authorities special powers to clear the streets.

But there is no question of calling in troops, our correspondent says: Greece has bitter memories of military rule so seeing troops on streets would be beyond the pale.

Greece's ongoing violence has exacerbated public discontent at the country's stunted economic growth and high unemployment levels.

It comes ahead of a general strike planned for Wednesday over welfare reforms and economic policy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7772645.stm#map

Greek MPs consider riot response

2008-12-09T13:38:00.000-08:00

The Greek government has held an emergency meeting to consider its response to continued violent rioting across the country.

Rioters clashed with police for a third day on Monday, in protests which erupted after a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed by police on Saturday.

Alexandros Grigoropoulos's funeral is being held on Tuesday.

Appeals for calm have so far been largely ignored by the mostly young protesters in Greek towns and cities.

Dozens of people have been injured throughout the country and there are reports of looting in some areas.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has appealed for calm, saying the government was obliged to protect the community.

"The unacceptable and dangerous events that have gone on under the most extreme of emotions cannot and most not be tolerated," he said, and called for a sense of solidarity with the dead boy's family.

Mr Karamanlis is due to meet President Karolos Papoulias on Tuesday morning and will also consult the leader of every opposition party in an attempt to reach a consensus on what action to take.

Police powerless

But the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in the capital Athens said police appeared to be powerless to prevent rioters from attacking symbols of wealth and prestige.

The city's giant Christmas tree in central Syntagma Square was set on fire and windows were smashed on hotels, banks, government buildings and departments stores.

Police used teargas against protesters throwing petrol bombs and setting fire to buildings, vehicles and rubbish bins.

"Rage is what I feel for what has happened, rage," said a student taking part in the protests.

"This cop who did it must see what is to kill a kid and to destroy a life."

Siran Zebaharian, whose shop was damaged, said police arrived too late to protect her business from rioters.

"They were battering the windows with terrible force, attacking passing cars, throwing petrol bombs at parked jeeps," she said.

Violent clashes were also seen across the country, with rioting reported in the central city of Trikala and police stations attacked in Piraeus and Corfu.

Hundreds of students clashed with riot police in Thessaloniki, Greece's second biggest city, where students used university buildings to stockpile petrol bombs.

Photo journalist Vassiliki Polychronopoulou told the BBC that the teenager's death had acted as a spark for protests over a range of frustrations.

"The government they don't seem to be able to control anything at all in terms of economics, in terms of social changes," she said.

"People have lost their faith in everything."

No military

Mr Karamanlis has blamed "extreme elements" for taking advantage of the situation to engage in vandalism.

He has pledged to compensate businesses damaged.

As he left the emergency cabinet meeting, Greece's Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos said the unrest was "unacceptable" and would not be tolerated, but did not say what the government's plans were to handle the crisis.

Mr Pavlopoulos said police were handling the violence well. he said "not a single life" was in danger and that protecting life was more important than protecting property.

Observers say a state of emergency may be imposed, giving the authorities special powers to clear the streets.

But there is no question of calling in troops. Greece has bitter memories of military rule so seeing troops on streets would be beyond the pale, says our correspondent.

Anger

The authorities fear there could be further unrest when Alexandros Grigoropoulos, the boy whose death initiated the protests, is buried on Tuesday.

A post-mortem has been carried out on his body to determine the trajectory of the bullet that killed him. The results are not yet known.

Two police officers have been arrested in connection with the incident.

The officer who fired contends it was a ricochet from a warning shot, but witnesses told Greek TV it was a direct hit.

The boy's family has hired an independent pathologist to ensure there is no cover-up.

On Sunday, the prime minister wrote to the boy's parents: "In these difficult moments please accept my condolences for the unfair loss of your son. Like all Greeks I am deeply saddened."

However, analysts say nothing the politicians or authorities can say or do is likely to reduce the anger that is building.

A similar shooting incident in 1985 led to a lengthy vendetta between the youths and police, with violence continuing for years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7772456.stm

Fresh riots erupt in Greek cities

2008-12-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

Thousands of protesters have attacked banks and shops in Athens and Greece's northern city of Thessaloniki, angered by the police's killing of a teenager.

Demonstrators threw petrol bombs, rocks and other objects at the buildings and at police, who responded with tear gas.

In Athens, many protesters have taken refuge in the Polytechnic university, protected by law from police intrusion.

The city centre is still strewn with glass after riots overnight triggered by the shooting in the Exarchia area.

Police said the first day of riots had left 24 police officers injured, one seriously, and 31 shops, nine banks and 25 cars damaged or burned.

Six people were arrested, one of them for carrying a weapon.

Alex Hadjisavvas, the owner of a shop on Patission Avenue in central Athens, told the BBC businesses had been looted and the street resembled a "warzone".

"The window was smashed, the shop front damaged and a large quantity of stock taken from inside has been used by the rioters as material to start street fires," he said.

The unrest, the worst in the country in several years, later spread to Thessaloniki, Patras, and the islands of Crete and Corfu.

Police 'powerless'

After a lull in the fighting on Sunday morning, youths left the National Technical University of Athens, known as the Polytechnic, and joined thousands of leftist demonstrators and anarchists on a march towards the police headquarters on Alexandras Avenue.

They passed close to where 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was shot dead on Saturday. One banner called the police "murderers".

One protester told the BBC he had been greatly angered by the actions of the police.

"It's not the first time. They always kill people - immigrants, innocent people - and without any excuse," he said. "They murdered him in cold blood."

"I think [the violence] is justified. Peaceful demonstrations cannot get a solution to the problem."

The march soon turned violent, with protesters chanting "killers in uniform" and throwing petrol bombs at riot police, who fired back tear gas.

Several banks and shops were attacked, while a car showroom was set alight, trapping people living in the floors above. Clashes also broke out near the parliament.

At least 34 people were injured as a result of the violence on Sunday, officials told the Reuters news agency. At least 10 demonstrators were detained.

As night fell, groups of protesters used rubbish bins and overturned cars to erect burning barricades in the streets around the Polytechnic, inside whose campus many have taken refuge in the knowledge that police are prohibited from entering.

The police said they planned to pull out of the area overnight in order to defuse tensions, although many officers were still deployed around the university late on Sunday.

Earlier, a march by more than 1,000 people on two police stations in Thessaloniki descended into violence when protesters attacked police and shops with firebombs and rocks.

There were unconfirmed reports that a policeman was injured and banks and cars set on fire during protests in the western port of Patras. Clashes were also reported on the islands of Crete and Corfu.

The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens says Greece's conservative government, which is currently reeling from a series of scandals and economic troubles, is desperately trying to calm the situation.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has written to Andreas Grigoropoulos's parents expressing his profound sorrow.

Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos, whose offer to resign was refused by the prime minister, has urged both protesters and police to act with restraint.

The two police officers involved in the shooting of the teenager have been arrested, and an inquiry is under way.

In a statement, the police said their patrol car had been attacked by about 30 youths and responded, with one officer firing a stun grenade and another shooting and fatally wounding the boy.

However, our correspondent says that nothing the politicians or authorities can say or do is likely to reduce the anger that is building.

A similar shooting incident in 1985 led to a lengthy vendetta between the youths and police, with violence continuing for years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7770086.stm

Rioting explodes across Greece

2008-12-09T13:33:00.000-08:00

A powder keg of public anger over government economic policy has been ignited by a spark of outrage over the killing of a 15-year-old boy by police in Athens.

For updates and background, see our Greece unrest archive: http://libcom.org/tags/greece-unrest

Alexandros Grigoropoulos was shot dead by police in the Exarchia area, an anarchist stronghold of Greece's capital city on Saturday 6 December.

Police claimed that they fired in the air when their police vehicle came under attack by a group of youths, but eyewitnesses told Greek television that they fired directly at the boy's chest, and that they were not under attack.

Thousands poured into the streets in the surrounding area and several other cities around the country.

Police officers and buildings came under attack by crowds wielding rocks, metal bars and petrol bombs, and dozens of businesses were burned-out.

The rioting has since spread, including to the holiday islands of Corfu and Crete, and continued daily.

High school and university occupations are now widespread, and university professors have now gone on strike. Elsewhere, many high school students have boycotted classes.

The killing comes against a background of a 48 hour strike of nurses, and on the eve of a general strike this Wednesday 10 December against the government's economic reforms.

The events constitute what is now one of the biggest public outbreaks of disorder in decades.

The rioters
Much of the press has blamed the rioting on anarchists, who constitute a significant political force in Greece, especially amongst young people and students.

However, while it is true that anarchists instigated some of the fighting they have been joined by large swathes of workers and young people in particular. Other groups, such as football fans have also participated in the clashes.

Public anger at the slaying - only the most recent incident of what is habitual police brutality - has intersected with widespread discontent at neoliberal reforms and the widening gap between rich and poor, being exacerbated by government policy.

One participant, Sotev, commented on our forums:
"Let me comment that these are not - and could not be, given the magnitude of the 'misdeeds' - the acts of the 'anarchists' doing their thing. Of course anarchists... are on the front lines everywhere, but these acts are social. It's not just about the murder or the state repression: there's a growing feeling of revolt, against the ecomony, against the poverty, against the lost jobs etc. that had to break out somehow."*

Greece-based blogger "Teacher Dude" stated:
"Although violent scenes are not uncommon in Greece the extent, duration and intensity of the riots seems to have taken the authorities by surprise. In addition the fact that many of those who took in protest marches were neither young nor students is indicative of the fact that the death of the teenager has angered many Greeks. Case in point was the pensioner, who stood in front of a phalanx of riot police, apoplectic with rage shouting, "cops, killer, pigs" during the march in Thessaloniki."

The working class
Working people and their families bear the brunt of the everyday violence of Greek police.

In recent weeks, a police HQ in Volos was attacked in response to a police violence, and barricades were erected after police attacked immigrants. This itself came only days after they killed a Pakistani asylum seeker and fought with textile workers who hadn't been paid .

On top of that, Greek workers have been escalating resistance to attacks on pensions, labour rights and education.

Wednesday's general strike follows a previous national stoppage in October , and two earlier general strikes .

Walkouts by bank workers and the recent strikes of students and nurses, which have involved occupations and the holding hostage of government ministers are have also rocked the government, already in a precarious position by having a majority of just one.

More information
Discussion on the events in our forums:
http://libcom.org/forums/news/police-shoot-dead-16-year-old-demonstrator-athens-06122008

Teacher Dude blog:
http://teacherdudebbq.blogspot.com/

http://libcom.org/news/rioting-explodes-across-greece-08122008

Jay Electronica

2008-12-03T20:10:00.000-08:00

I know I said I wouldn't upload music on here anymore, but I changed my mind. Here's a couple new tracks from Jay Electronica, who might be my favorite MC right now. He's from New Orleans, and dude should be next, ya dig?

Annakin Prayer
http://www.zshare.net/audio/52097805f120abea/

Hagler (demo)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/52097806f2631aa5/

Not Too Far From Nothing
http://www.zshare.net/audio/52097828dbce9a3d/

The Ideology of No Ideology

2008-12-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

Behind Obama's new "pragmatism"

On Friday, columnist David Brooks informed readers that Barack Obama’s picks “are not ideological.” The incoming president’s key economic advisers “are moderate and thoughtful Democrats,” while Hillary Clinton’s foreign-policy views “are hardheaded and pragmatic.”

Last Saturday, The New York Times front page reported that the president-elect’s choices for secretaries of State and Treasury “suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.”

On Monday, hours before Obama’s formal announcement of his economic team, USA Today explained that he is forming a Cabinet with “records that display more pragmatism than ideology.”

The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism — virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.

Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as imminent as the end of history.

But — in sync with the ideology of no ideology — deference to corporate power isn’t ideological. And belief in the U.S. government’s prerogative to use military force anywhere in the world is a matter of credibility, not ideology.

Ideological assumptions gain power as they seem to disappear into the prevailing political scenery. So, for instance, reliably non-ideological ideological journalists sit at the studio table every Friday night on the PBS “Washington Week” program, which is currently funded by similarly non-ideological outfits including Boeing, the National Mining Association and Constellation Energy (“the nation’s largest supplier of competitive electricity to large commercial and industrial customers,” with revenues of $21 billion last year).

Along the way, the ideology of no ideology can corral even normally incisive commentators. So, over the weekend, as news broke about the nominations of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers to top economic posts, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote an article praising “the members of Obama’s new economic team.” Reich declared: “All are pragmatists. Some media have dubbed them ‘centrists’ or ‘center-right,’ but in truth they’re remarkably free of ideological preconception. ... They are not visionaries but we don’t need visionaries when the economic perils are clear and immediate. We need competence. Obama could not appoint a more competent group.”

Competence can be very good. But “free of ideological preconception”? I want to meet these guys. If they really don’t have any ideological preconceptions, they belong in the book of Guinness World Records.

As for competence, it seems that claims of non-ideology often go hand-in-hand with overblown claims of economic mastery. “Geithner and Summers are credited with expertise in crisis management,” economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out on Monday, “but we better hope they don’t manage the current crisis like they did in East Asia, Russia, Argentina or any of the other countries that Treasury was involved in during the 1990s with their help. They helped bring on the East Asian crisis in 1997 by pressuring the governments in the region to de-regulate international financial flows, which was the main cause of the crisis. Then they insisted that all bailout money go through the IMF, and delayed aid until most of the damage was done. Then they attached damaging conditions” to the aid.

After all is said and done, the ideology of no ideology is just like any other ideology that’s apt to be much better at promoting itself than living up to its pretenses. No amount of flowery rhetoric or claims of transcendent non-ideology should deter tough scrutiny. And Judge Judy’s injunction should apply to the ideology of no ideology as much as to any ideology that owns up to being one: “Don’t pee on me and tell me it’s raining.”

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/3895/The_Ideology_of_No_Ideology