Co-operation And Mutual Aid.

This from X-pressed:

       This is a collaborative ethnographic film about Skoros, an anti-consumerist collective in Exarcheia, Athens, that run a space where people could come and give, take, or give and take goods and services without any norms of reciprocity. Soon after came the Greek “Crisis”, a new kind of “here and now” focusing less on trying to do things differently and more on urgency, a need to provide solidarity to an increasing number of people that were nearing and falling below the poverty line.

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Self-Help In The Face Of State Repression.

       We all know that the "Greek experiment", as the financial Mafia call it, has caused the trashing of the living standards of the ordinary people of Greece, has resulted in the vaporisation of incomes, and the disappearance of social services. This has thrown the people of Greece to fall back on their own resolve and imagination, and to come up with new ways of surviving this brutal onslaught on the fabric of their society.

       They have not been idle on that front, co-operatives, self help, squats, and mutual aid schemes, have sprung up across the country, factories have been taken over by the workers, farmers have started dealing direct with the public, rather than the corporations. All this takes place in the face of state repression and police brutality, as the powers that be attempt to hold onto the old exploitative ways of organising society, the last thing they want is that people start to organise society in a way that is most beneficial to the people. Will the new ways sustain themselves, will they grow, will they set an example to the rest of Europe, or will they be viciously destroy by the heavy hand of the state and its masters the corporate world.

          Extract from an interview with Antonio Cuesta Marín, author of the book “Solidarity and Self Organisation in Greece” Taken From X-pressed:

4. To what extent are these initiatives sustainable? Especially those based on solidarity, such as pharmacies, clinics…
     With regards to economics, I think their viability depends on the skills of its members and their ability to work, along with the fact that their ethical principles create a closer proximity to local populations. The sustainability of solidarity projects has other conditional factors: the intervention on pressing problems for the neighbours is based on the collaboration and participation of many people. As far as I know, some initiatives have been modified to better suit real needs but have not disappeared. When one gets to know the level of involvement of many anonymous participants and the original proposals to provide funding to projects, then one can understand that, against all odds, they will go ahead.
5. Does the society know about them, in general? Has there been some sort of public debate on new ways of meeting these needs based on self-organisation? (I mean, by a wide audience, the average Greek).
       My sense is that there are two parallel worlds running, that of institutional politics reproduced by the mainstream media, and that of the reality experienced by the citizens, which is clearly present in any initiative or social group. Of course, the corporate media have not fostered a frank and open discussion on possible alternatives or on the demands of popular movements. They have occasionally mentioned some of the projects but from a humanitarian point of view rather than claim. It is normal; the rationale of these “opinion makers” is embedded into the neoliberal system and will not facilitate any debate contrary to their interests. However, I believe that at the grassroots level there have been channels of communication opened which have helped to transfer information and calls which have worked quite effectively.

Read the full interview HERE:

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The Addict As Scapegoat.

      As the Greek state continues to follow the dictate of the corporate/financial Mafia in its drive to create sweatshop Europe, the health of the people continues to spiral downwards. Addiction has mushroomed and the facilities to treat addiction have seen the budgets all but disappear. In the cities of Greece addicts are herded and exposed to humiliation, the addict is another scapegoat to be blamed for society's ills.

      This is an excerpt from an interesting article, in X-pressed, by Lena Theodoropoulou, on addiction in Greece:

      On the 6th and 7th of March 2013, the Greek police, in cooperation with the Centre of Control and Disease Prevention (ΚΕΕΛΠΝΟ), detained 132 drug addicts and forcibly transferred them from the centre of Athens to the Immigration detention centre of Amygdaleza. There, following the orders of the National Centre for Health Operations (ΕΚΕΠΥ), the doctors forced the addicts to undergo medical examination, in order to publish statistics on the spread of the HIV virus in these populations. According to the government, the drug addicts were taken care of and the doctors offered them sandwiches and juices (!) before letting them go. It still remains unknown how these people went from Amygdaleza back to the city centre, from where they had been violently removed. The operation was named “Thetis” and, according to the police statement, “these operations will continue in order to tackle the drug problem and improve the city centre”. Consequently, it looks like the police, besides its original oppressive role, have now assumed a new ‘sanitary’ task: the regulation of public health.
        The reaction of rehabilitation centres and other anti-drug organisations was immediate, denoting the obvious illegality of such an operation as the groundless arrest and mandatory registration of personal and medical data of addicts; an absolute violation of basic human rights, going against international agreements, the Constitution and the laws. While the state is working on statistics,

It is well worth reading the full article HERE:

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