Ivory Coast prison protest ends

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

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

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

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

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

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”

…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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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