People Have The Power.

 "The power to dream, to rule
To wrestle the earth from fools
But it's decreed the people rule
But it's decreed the people rule

Listen, I believe everythin' we dream
Can come to pass through our union
We can turn the world around
We can turn the earth's revolution

We have the power
People have the power
People have the power
People have the power."

From: People Have The Power by Patti Smith

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A Society Of Hypocritical Customs.

       There are those among us who will never yield to authority, not to its faintest  odour, nor to its harshest lash of the whip, they will never bend their knee to the subtle seduction, nor the merciless brutality of authority. To them, we weaker mortals must pay homage, and lend our solidarity when and where ever we can. They are the ones who forge that unknown arduous path to the world in our hearts, who lay the foundation stones of that better world. We owe them.

Greece: “From the land of the forgotten against oblivion…” by Olga Ekonomidou

     “I do not need, nor do I want your discipline. With regards to my experiences, I want to have them for myself. It is from them, and not from you, that I will draw my rules of conduct. I want to live my own life. Slaves and lackeys terrify me. I hate those who dominate, and those who let themselves be dominated sicken me. He who bends before the whip is worth no more than he who wields it. I love danger, and the unknown, the uncertain, seduces me. I’m filled with a desire for adventure, and I don’t give a damn for success. I hate your society of bureaucrats and administrators, millionaires and beggars. I don’t want to adapt to your hypocritical customs nor to your false courtesies. I want to live out my enthusiasms in the pure, fresh air of freedom. Your streets, drafted according to plan, torture my gaze, and your uniform buildings make the blood in my veins boil with impatience. And that’s enough for me. I’m going to follow my own path, according to my passions, changing myself ceaselessly, and I don’t want to be the same tomorrow as I am today. I stroll along and I don’t let my wings be clipped by the scissors of any one person. I share none of your moralism. I am going forth, eternally passionate and burning with the desire to give myself to the world, to the first real person that approaches me, to the ragged trousered traveler, but never to the grave and conceited wise-men who would regulate the length of my stride. Nor to the doctrinaire who would like to clutter my mind with formulas and rules. I am no intellectual; I am a human being — a woman who feels a great vibration within herself before the impulses of nature and amorous words. I hate every chain, every hindrance; I love to walk along, nude, letting my flesh be caressed by the rays of the voluptuous sun. And, oh, old man! I will care so very little when your society breaks into a thousand pieces and I can finally live my life.”

-“Who are you, little girl, fascinating like a mystery and savage like instinct?”

-“I am Anarchy.”

- Emile Armand, French individualist anarchist

Olga Ekonomidou

member of CCF-FAI

Women’s prison of Korydallos

 Read the full article HERE:

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In Thee We Trust!!!

       So you think voting for a new "leader" will solve the problem, a change in government will be the answer? How many new "leaders" have we seen voted in? How many governments have we changed? Are we any nearer solving our problems?

        Saw this video on arrezafe, pity about the ad for t-shirts at the end.

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Rank And File.

       “Our duty, which was the logical outcome of our ideas, the condition with which our conception of revolution and re-organisation of society imposes on us, namely, to live among the people and to win them over to our ideas by actively taking part in their struggles and sufferings” —Errico Malatesta

     An interesting article, "If it isn't rank and file, it isn't anarchism" from Anarchist Materialism:

     In order for the Anarchist movement to mature in this country, we must address a particularly troubling dilemma. Are we to continue our historical struggle within the working class or do we evolve into a professional class of labor organizers and bureaucrats?? Addressing this question isn’t only about disagreements in methods but in affirming an anarchist conception of organization from the base. Whether in garment factories and ports or in hotels and retail, our focus on the rank and file has always been obvious– without the revolutionary self organization of the workers, we will never overthrow this unjust system of economic and political domination.

Read the full article HERE:

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Everyone Is An Anarchist At Heart.

     To most anarchists it is so obvious that we expect others to see it the same way, but sadly it doesn't work like that. What can be more enriching and liberating than controlling your own live, in mutual co-operation with others, what can be more demeaning than having your life controlled by others, who don't even have your interests at heart? Why do we accept the later, when the former is there for us to take?

Download the PDF:

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Anarchism And Art.

 

       People's perceptions of anarchism will vary according to what section of that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, they seek their information. The establishment would have people believe that anarchism is something odd, indulged in by a small group of oddities. An activity where these oddities run around the streets waving black flags and throwing things.

       Of course to the informed, anarchism is an all encompassing way of life, a whole value structure that seeks freedom from coercion. and justice for all, a life of mutual aid, voluntary association and co-operation. Anarchism is the desire for all to reach their full potential in creativity for the benefit of all. This means that anarchism is always linked to "the arts", creativity, and self-expression. Though you may not have grasped it yet, anarchism is for you.

     The following is a short talk on anarchism and art, by A-Radio, Berlin.

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We Can.

      I love poetry, it can say in a couple of verses what prose says in ten chapters. Came across this one on A Scream of Consciousness:

We

 The fire has begun each one of us a spark

Occupy the  workplace and the Unis for a start

If we rise on mass we can touch the skies

Feet on the ground we’re immune to the lies

We’re in this together come hell or high leather

We’re the storm on the horizon the elites cannot weather

They say never, we say now, no longer kneel or bow

The hypocrisy of democracy an x in a box

Hear our feet on the street cos this beat rocks

A movement in motion that cannot be stopped

‘Til every corporate tyrant is toppled and dropped

We can see a better world , we can sense that it is coming

The spirit of people power, man that shit is just stunning

When millions move we can shake the very heavens

Can’t stop us now with their lies or their weapons

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One Of Our Anniversaries.

     May 30 1814 saw the birth of Michail Alexandrovich Bakunin, one of  anarchism's giant thinkers. Among his writings are such works as Stateless Socialism: Anarchism,  The Immorality of The State,  What is Authority? and many others. After meeting Marx he is quoted as saying: 

     "As far as learning was concerned, Marx was, and still is, incomparably more advanced than I. I knew nothing at that time of political economy, I had not yet rid myself of my metaphysical observations... He called me a sentimental idealist and he was right; I called him a vain man, perfidious and crafty, and I also was right"

Quote from Brian Morris's: Bakunin, The Philosophy of Freedom, 1993, p14.

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Waiting For The Barbarians.

      No it's not another poem-a-day month, it's just that I like poetry. I find this poem by Constantine Cavafy 1864-1933 fascinating, so relevant of today with the various states, "enemy without", its manufactured fear of the other, who are never as refined as us!! This translation is by Edmund Keeley.

Waiting For The Barbarians.

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

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WHAT IS ANARCHISM?

       Ask a hundred people what is anarchism, and you'll probably get a hundred different answers, probably negative. Then ask them if they have read any anarchist history, or any anarchist theory, or do they know any anarchists and they will probably say NO. It is probably the least understood and the most misrepresented system on the political spectrum. Why? Could it be that it is the one system of organisation that is a real threat to the present ruling army of parasites.

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State insanity.

    The British state moves with steady stealth at introducing compulsory ID cards to enable you to access practically all transactions, banking, social benefits, doctors, and all aspects of our National Health Service, not to mention libraries etc. inspite of widespread opposition from all sections of society, the knowledgable in these matter and the lay person. Apart from the problems that would be created if some of the information on you card was wrong and the fact that the information could be compromised as it shuttles between the various institutions, there is the problem of mass errors when cards are produced.

     A little glimpse of this is happening in Germany at this moment in time. On the 1st. January 2010 over 30 million holders of bank cards in Germany found that they could not withdraw cash from their accounts nor could they make any purchases with their cards. The problem is still there at the date of his post. The problem, a fault in the chip, the estimated cost of putting it right, approximately $432 million. Of course retailers are considering sueing for the lost business which will of course add to the cost. Perhaps the Germans are lucky, it was just cash and purchases that were involved. If however it had been the British "super" ID card, that could have been 30 million people locked out of medical treatment and health care, prescriptions, benefit cash, as well as their bank accounts.

     Only the paranoid, authoritarian, control crazy state apparatus would push such an insane scheme knowing the possible chaos and life threatening situations that could arise under such conditions.

     Let's not drop the drive for a mass anti-ID card movement. Don't believe any of the crap coming from the government on this matter, no matter what they say, they are intent on getting these life threatening cards into everybodies wallet.

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