Who Calls The Shots?

     Who calls the shots, who pulls the strings, who does the deadly deeds, who takes the prize?

HIDDEN POWERS.

Today, lives are shaped by powers we fail to see,

stealthily fashioning our fears, forming our hates,

binding us to a life on bended knee.

Invoking demons on a distant shore

insidiously fanning the flames of fear

'till hate becomes a roar. Then

ours the hand that holds the gun

theirs the finger that points

their's the prize when the deed is done;

ours to lose our loves to the lonely grave

drowning our hearts in a sea of tears,

draining the world of the young and the brave

who, believing they answer a country's call

desert lovers' arms for death's embrace

victims of another cambist brawl.

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Beyond Capitalism.

 This from A World To Win:

      This People’s Inquiry offers a chance to share ideas and information about the related crises facing humanity. It is open to individuals, campaign groups, trade unions, academics and students. Working together, we can deepen our knowledge and work on solutions.

       Climate change has passed a tipping point and extreme weather is just one of the results. The global economic and financial system has entered a renewed, deeper crisis. Anger at the way political systems are corrupted by corporations and lobbyists is at boiling point.

      There is worldwide opposition and resistance, but as yet no shared strategy for getting beyond capitalism. Reaching the point where we achieve such a strategy is the main purpose of the inquiry.

We have suggested six areas for the inquiry together with some questions that will help focus our work:

• The ecosystem, including climate change and species loss
• Global economy and finance, where the 1% rule over the 99%
• The state, democracy and social rights (like health and housing)
• Ideology and philosophy – dialectics of liberation   
• Culture, education and sport – how they can help set us free
• Networks/organisations/strategies for revolutionary change

A World to Win is proposing a three-stage process:

1. Gathering evidence through papers, web references and contributions from individuals and groups. People can bear witness about their own situation or campaign, through text or by sending video or audio files.
2. Face-to-face meetings in different locations, and on-line meetings, to assess and discuss the evidence, draw conclusions and make proposals.
3. A working group, which contributors will be invited to join, will discuss the results and collaborate on the contents of a draft final report that maps out a way forward.

The inquiry is hosted on A World to Win’s network platform. Please register to post material,  make comments and get the inquiry under way!

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

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Big Brother Ain't Leaving Of His Own Accord.

        Some interesting facts about our modern day “democracy”. No matter what you do, e-mail, phone, chat on social media, walk down your main street, stand at a bus stop, walk into a bar, shop at the local supermarket, draw cash from a cash machine, you are being watched and listened to, you are being profiled. Big Brother wants to know what you are up to, who you communicate with, who you meet and where. 

        This is the extent of your freedom, this is the shape of your “democracy”. Do you believe that they are doing this for your benefit? There was the day when you could expect the “bad guys” to be followed and spied on, but in today's “democracy”, everybody is treated like the “bad guys”. Today the state sees no reason why it shouldn't poke its nose into every aspect of everybody's life, to them, everybody is a possible “bad guy” and has to be watched constantly.

       This mass surveillance, this over all scrutiny of our every action, is not going to go away anytime soon. It will only get more intrusive as technology is driven by the paranoid state, which wants total control over its citizens. The state has a constant fear that people will always strive to control their own lives and this would negate the state's existence, obviously it can't let this happen.

     If you want a free democratic society, free from constant intrusive surveillance, then it has to be a society without the state, a community based society organised from the bottom up. The only answer is a society based on co-operation, mutual aid and mutual respect, not one of power and authority.

• The NSA "has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world." — The New York Times
• The NSA "is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world." — Washington Post
• The NSA "is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world." — Washington Post
• The NSA collects the content and metadata of emails, web activity, chats, social networks, and everything else from fiber-optic cables "that carry much of the world's Internet and phone data." — Washington Post
• NSA "officers on several occasions have channeled their agency's enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests." — The New York Times
• NSA "is secretly piggybacking” on Internet advertisers' "cookies" and location data “to pinpoint targets for government hacking and to bolster surveillance." — Washington Post
  
  
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The Non-Political Party System.

         Since the formation of the European Union, the possibility of democracy through the party political system is now even more remote than ever. The EU functions at a level beyond the legitimacy of the local party system, and imposes legislation on the national governments, creating a power more remote and disconnected from the people than ever before. National governments are now simply bureaucratic organisations that implement policies of that greater bureaucratic institution, the EU. This in turn creates an even greater disconnect between the political class and the people. 

 

     The various parties have lost any real difference, they are merely bureaucratic bodies vying with each for the power to manage the national bureaucratic institution, within the terms laid down by the EU. Our so called democracy. based on the party political system, is not about the party asking the people what they want, but more a matter of telling the people what they will get. Hardly democracy. The party political system is depoliticised at the national level, we might be able to protest against, and influence, the building of a motorway going through a public park, but the fundamental shape of our society is governed by that higher bureaucratic institution, the EU. Which in turn moves in the direction dictated by the “economy” and the needs of the transnational corporations. This disconnect between the people and the political parties creates ever more disillusionment and scepticism among the ordinary people.

          Hopefully this will be fertile ground for the desire to control our own lives and to determine the shape of our society. Perhaps our anger, disenchantment, scepticism, disillusionment and frustration at a system that doesn't engage with us, yet controls our lives to our detriment, will engender the birth of true democracy. Whatever, it will have to be outside the present system of political parties and freed from the strangle hold of the “economy” and its beneficiaries and drivers, the transnational corporations.

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We Are Further On Than You Think.

     How much more will it take?

Re-posted from arrezafe

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The Wrong Type Of Shutdown!!

     In our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, there is a lot of talk about the American government "shut-down", of course not much on an anarchist take on that particular situation. The following extract is from an interesting article in WagingNonViolence:

 

       Many may be surprised, for example, that actual anarchists aren’t necessarily rejoicing over the U.S. government’s latest form of self-annihilation. What they see taking place is a transfer of power from one kind of oppression, by a government that at least pretends to be democratic, to another that has no such pretensions. They point out that the shutdown won’t stop the NSA from spying on us, or police from enforcing laws in discriminatory ways, or migrant workers and nonviolent drug users from being imprisoned at staggering rates. The parts of government that the shutdown strips away are among those that bring us closer to being a truly free, egalitarian society: food assistance to ensure that everyone can eat, health care that more people can afford, and even public parks, where some of our greatest natural treasures are held in common. Meanwhile, ever more power is being handed over to corporations that are responsible only to their wealthiest shareholders.

Read the full article HERE:

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We Are Further Down The Road Than You Think.

      Though poverty and deprivation have always been with us under capitalism, just a few years ago lots of people lived in the illusion of democracy, they considered that they were doing not too badly. Now the illusion has been shattered and the true vision of capitalism is hitting them between the eyes. In country after country, people are showing their anger and disgust as capitalism rips their lives apart. Not only is capitalism in its bare-knuckle stage, shredding the living standards of the people, but it is shifting the so called "representative democracies" towards fascist regimes, as it forces its ideology universally. In Europe, the Greek state is probably furthest down the line in that change, but all the others are moving in the same direction, it is all a matter of pace.

      The latest from Hungary paints a similar depressing picture, this appeal is from a watchdog.net campaign:

       Don't Let Hungary Go The Way Of Nazi Germany: Demand EU Action Today!  Blink and you've missed it: Hungary is no longer a democracy.

President János Áder has just signed away the rights of all that was left of Hungary's opposition parties after years of gutting legislative powers, crippling the free press, and eliminating all mention of a "republic" in the country's constitution.

      If this trend doesn't sound familiar, here's something to jog your memory: along with criminalization of the homeless and attacks on women and the LGBT community, Hungary's seen a horrific spike in state-sanctioned antisemitism and racism, including the decoration of three men known for their connection to the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party.

      We've seen the steps Áder's taken before. We know these signs. And while the European Union continues to stay silent, the situation for women, ethnic minorities and religious groups in Hungary becomes deadlier by the second.

      Please, join us in calling on the member states to act on Article VII of the EU Treaty, which demands they intervene to prevent any state from being robbed of its democratic freedoms. We still have time to stop Áder's men from stripping Hungary's people of more rights and protections -- but we cannot afford to stay silent for long!

     PETITION TO EU MEMBER STATES: We cannot afford to sit by while another European country represses state protections, targets minorities, and spreads antisemitism while eliminating free speech. Don't let Hungary go the way of Nazi Germany -- act on Article VII to ensure Hungarians' rights and freedoms!

Please, click here to sign now!

     We are being frog-marched rapidly into a world of corporatism, Mussolini's name for fascism, the further along the road we go the harder it will be to turn back. There is no middle road, capitalism can't be made into some sort of system that delivers fairness and justice. You either accept it, and abandon any hope of a society based on the needs of the people, or you destroy it, and start to build that better world based on those needs of all our people, mutual aid and co-operation, built on a foundation of sustainability.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Military Democracy.

       Some scenes of how the military bring democracy to a country. Anybody that believes democracy can come from a military coup is naive in the extreme. A military coup is a military coup, is a military dictatorship. If there was a hint of democracy developing in Egypt, the West would have to invade to "protect" the people. However if they are setting up a dictatorship, the West will send them aid. As the military dictatorship struggles to assert itself, the West may take steps to "stabilise" the situation.
      In this bloody clash the numbers killed vary from 100+ to 1,000+ depending on who reports the figures, but what is not in dispute is that the military is killing people, in large numbers, on the streets of Egypt. As usual, the state's violence outstrips that of any terrorist organisation, simply because the state is the world's biggest terrorist organisation.

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Greece, Breathtaking Deprivation.

      Greece, a land of contrast, stunning scenery, abject deprivation, unbelievable sunsets, 62% unemployment among the young, beautiful beaches, an angry population.

       Greece has become a symbol of the western world’s retrocession on all levels during the last few years. Inspired by the campaign “Promote Greece” that aims to show Greece’s nice face to the world, we aim to go a step further: to stop camouflaging the misery of Greek society with beautiful beaches and breathtaking sunsets. To stop lying about Greek hospitality. To disconnect modern Greek democracy from its ancient roots.

      Economy is not the main problem; democracy is! 

The real problem is about:

- how political elites have taken unpopular and undemocratic measures.

- the thousands of lay-offs of public servants, in order to meet Troika’s instructions and get the next loan, sorry “rescue package”.

- how the rulers pass new law amendments that will bring more misery in society, with compendious processes without even discussing them in the Parliament.

Read the full article HERE:

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A World In Protest.

      Where are all those capitalist democracies? Across the world country after country is making it clear that the present political system, is no longer acceptable. More than a month of street protests in Turkey, the same in Brazil, daily protests in Greece, mass protests in Italy, Portugal, Spain and more than a year of on going protests in Egypt. We could go on and on across the globe, but staying in Europe, among other countries, we have seen massive protest in Bulgaria, where the people now realise that they are being ripped up, and sold off to the corporate world.

        The Bulgarian people are pissed off at their countries assets being sold to the corporate world. As well as mass protest calling for the power companies to be nationalised, due to stratospheric price increases. There is also a demand to nationalise a recent discovered gold mine, where there are said to be 18,000 tonnes of gold ore, with an estimated value of $793 billion (US). At the moment the gold mine is owned by a Canadian company Dundee Precious Metals, and it is stated that from the value of all the gold mined there, less than 1% will remain in Bulgaria. Bulgaria, a poor country with $793 billions worth of gold in the kitty??? This is corporate asset stripping on a large scale.

       Asking our corporate master's puppets, your national government, to please give us a little more of what is ours in the first place, is guaranteed to produce more of the same, austerity, perhaps administered with a different smile. The state and the corporate world are one in the same thing, and you and I are not in their club. We are at best paid pawns, at worst, worthless dispensable entities. If you want that to change, then it is the system that has to change, not the smiling face at the podium. 

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From Little Acorns, Great Oak Trees Grow.

     From rolling anger to joined-up protests across Europe. Stockholm, Berne, Istanbul, Frankfurt, while all that was going on there were demonstrations in Athens, Madrid and Lisbon. That number of angry people prepare to take to the streets tells you the system is rotten.

Thousands blockade European Central Bank in Frankfurt

  The Daily Sheeple

    Anti-capitalist protestors have taken to the streets the financial heart of Frankfurt a day ahead of Europe-wide gatherings planned for June 1 to protest leaders handling of the three-year euro debt crisis.

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Capitalism V Democracy.

       The extent to to which capitalism has distorted the distribution of the earth's resources is difficult to grasp, it has placed so much in the hands of so few. When we talk of economies and we tend to think of nation states, but the facts on the ground are different. Of the top 100 economies on the planet, 40 are corporations, the wealth of certain corporations dwarf the economies of some nations. Another little known fact is that less than 1% of corporations, mainly banks, control the shares of more than 40% of all global businesses. When it comes to who is big in this corporate world it is oil and gas, 7 out of the top 10 companies in the world are oil and gas. This distortion of wealth also distorts the direction of technology and development, the big money will control where that development will go, they will drive it to increase and consolidate their wealth and position of power. They will shape our world to their own advantage.

     So that brings us to the statement made by a certain Louis D. Brandeis, a member of US Supreme Court, 1916 – 1934, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”  

     It is long past the time to wake up to that realisation, any talk of democracy while continuing with the present system of capitalism is empty rhetoric, thoughts of fancy, or at worst, just plain manipulation, hypocrisy and duplicity. The question of how do we get more democracy, is the same question as how do we get rid of capitalism. Any dancing round the edges about improving democracy within capitalism is fantasising, it is impossible, there is no room in capitalism for democracy, one is the antithesis of the other.

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CLASS WAR.

      Class war is something that is usually associated with politically active ordinary people and dismissed as unnecessary by the rich parasite class, who preach, it is a democracy and we are all in it together. However their can be exceptions, the statement, "There has been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class won." was made by Warren Buffett, a man with an estimated personal fortune of $47 billion, and chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.   

      To amass a fortune of that magnitude he must have been involved in some real brutal class war enterprises. You don't make that kind of money by your own efforts and the sweat off your brow. You have to be nicking the produce of somebody else's efforts and sweat off their brow. How many hours a week and at what hourly rate would you have to perform to end up with  $47 billion during your working life? How many jobs can you do in a working week? As chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Mr Buffett has his plate full. This is a conglomerate that owns a long list of companies in a wide variety of fields including, confectionery, retail, rail-road, home furnishings, encyclopedias, manufacturers of vacuum cleaners, jewellery sales; newspaper publishing; manufacture and distribution of uniforms; as well as several regional electric and gas utilities. 

     Think of all those people beavering away and taking home a wage that can just about keep their head above water, with perhaps a wee nest egg for your pension, if they are lucky, while their boss, who may or may not do as many hours as them, sorts his pension out to the tune of $47 billion.

      So it is obvious that class warfare has been going on, though Mr Buffett is wrong on two counts. One, it has been going on for more than 20 years, and two, his class hasn't won. It may have been winning, but the war is far from over and the tide is turning. More and more people are beginning to accept that it is a class war, and they know which side they are on by the conditions of their lives. 

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HELP THE DISILLUSIONED SWP TO FIND DEMOCRACY.

       So the SWP is crumbling, the reason being the usual political party problems, manipulation, deception, sex, and corruption, nothing new there then. Perhaps we could tell those who are leaving in disgust and disillusionment, where real democracy lies, here among the anarchist groups,

This from the Commune:

21 01 2013

      Members of Britain’s Socialist Workers Party are resigning from the party in droves, says duvinrouge. The impetus comes from a sexual assault allegation against a senior member of the party, & allegations that it wasn’t investigated properly. But unpinning this is the discontent due to the lack of party democracy.

       The SWP is a Leninist party & therefore internally organises in a way that is termed democratic-centralism. The basic idea being that the majority decision is decided upon & then there is unity of action led by a central committee. It actual fact it’s a fig-leaf ideology to allow a few to justify their life as professional revolutionaries, dreaming of their place in history, whilst the rank & file members sell the paper to fund this lifestyle. It’s much like parliamentary democracy’s claim to represent the wishes of the people & gives us the illusion of having a say.

Read the full article HERE:    disillusioned

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BOMBING THEM IN TO DEMOCRACY.

      One feature of Western foreign policy is that other countries can't create democracy without the might of the Western military and Western government intervention. The powers that be preach this idiotic message that for democracy to spread anywhere in the world, it needs the fire power of the West, of course ignoring the fact that we don't have democracy here. People across the world can't do that for themselves, the ordinary people of Pakistan and Yemen can't have democracy unless we go in with our drones and special forces. The West's big lie is that by its war on terror, it is spreading democracy, when in fact they are creating chaos in an attempt at permanent domination.

This from Freedom Socialist Party (US):

      Who knows how many die from these attacks, since they are carried out secretly by the CIA. And civilian casualties are falsely minimized by counting every male of military age an enemy combatant. I guess “Kill-them-all” is the policy at hand. Hundreds of non-combatants have died, including a good many little girls and boys.
Obviously, this didn’t just start with Obama. Pakistan, the sixth most populous country in the world and territorially home to several ancient cultures, was artificially created in 1947 by the British Empire. From the beginning, the country has been dominated by a right-wing military, backed first by Great Britain and then the United States.
Since the 1980s war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, Pakistan’s state apparatus has been mixed up with the Islamic fundamentalists in both countries. In fact, the Taliban was nurtured and funded by the United States in Afghanistan. So much for the myth that the U.S. brings secular democracy and women’s equality to the Middle East.
      Only the people themselves can do that, and they are trying desperately. Before she was attacked, Malala said, “If the new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by the terrorists. We must raise our voice.”
      Forty-four years ago (1968) Pakistanis, with women in the forefront, launched a stunning revolution. They forced a dictator to abdicate and ran society for 139 days. Workers occupied factories, peasants seized land, and students took over the schools and colleges. This can happen again and I have no doubt that Malala Yousafzai, and other determined young women and men like her, will be a part of that struggle.

Read the full article HERE:

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DISSENTING VOICES WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.

        Now as the financial Mafia put the boot in to the Greek people, it is impossible to even attempt to hold onto the thinest veneer of the illusion of democracy. Day by day the state comes down harder and harder on any form of dissent, more and more the gap between the people and "their" government grows ever wider. The powers that be don't even like to be seen in public, it only generates bad publicity for them. The so called elected representatives of the people don't want to have anything to do with the people, it is all corporate finance that matters.

            We should never lose sight of the fact that how the state acts in Greece is not unique to Greece. As austerity bites here and in other countries across Europe, each state will take the necessary action to force through the dictates of the Troika, that collection of vultures, leeches and parasites in the form of the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) ECB (European Corrupt Banksters) and the EC (Endemic Corruption). Make no mistake, they are the rulers of Europe, the elected governments are there to manage the Troika's plans for the creation of a European sweatshop economy to compete with their Eastern rivals. 

This from the Greek Streets:

Monday, October 29, 2012

    Today the text of the 3rd memorandum of agreement eliminating public provisions was released. Simultaneously today, one day after the arrest of a journalist for releasing a list of tax-dodgers,  a young man was arrested in Corfu island because he published in his web-blog  photos of police officers having very friendly encounters with neo-Nazis. Earlier in the morning the management of the state TV channel (ERT) announced that from tomorrow the presenters of its morning news show are going to be replaced. The reason is that the two journalists commented on the attitude of the Minister of  Citizen Protection (police) who was threatening that will sue foreign newspapers  for writing that the anti-Nazi activists were tortured in the Police HQ. The two journalists were discussing about the coroner’s diagnosis which was released confirming that proper torturing of the 15 anti-Nazi activists did occur in the police HQ.

More from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ:

    Perhaps it is appropriate that Thessaloniki, which this weekend celebrated the 100th anniversary of its liberation from the Ottoman Empire looked like a city under siege. For three days the centre of Greece's second largest city was the objects of draconian security measures designed to avoid a repetition of last year's peaceful protests which closed down the annual military parade and forced the president of the republic to flee.
      Mindful of the fact that the event lead to the resignation of the then prime minister, Giorgos Papandreou just weeks later the current political leadership decided to make sure last year's events were not repeated.
    As a result 2,000 extra police were drafted to protect prime minister Antonis Samaras and president Karolos Papoulias as they visited Thessaloniki over the weekend. The security measures for the Oxi Day parade were so tight that no even the parents of high school pupils taking part were allowed within the 1 km “dead zone” that surrounded the VIP stand and effectively isolated the parade from the vast majority of citizens who'd turned out to follow it.

Read the full article HERE:

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CORPORATE FASCISM.

All we want is true democracy! What can I say?

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DEMOCRACY'S BANKRUPT.

       Yea, it seems a good idea, just test their logic. I have no doubt that you will find it wanting. We vote for a system of crooks and liars, hypocrites and millionaires and pampered parasites, WHY?

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ZIONIST DEMOCRACY!!!

      Israel always touts itself as the only democracy in the Middle East in spite of what others inside and outside the area may think. However, though this is the message from the Zionist state of Israel, it seems to differ from the view held by those ordinary Jewish citizens of that state.

     In a recent poll held in Israel the findings point to anything but democratic aims of a society. The poll results found that the majority of Israeli Jews believe that the state practises apartheid. Also revealed in the findings of the poll was the fact that this was not against the wishes of the Jewish citizens. A third of those who took part in the poll believed that Israeli Arabs should be denied the vote, with 47% wanting the Israeli Arabs to be stripped of their citizenship rights. Another disturbing finding from the poll is that 59% of those polled believed that Jews should be given preference to public sector jobs over Israeli Arabs, with 50% stating that Jews should be better treated than Israeli Arabs. Even more disturbing is that 40% polled, believed that there should be separate housing and classrooms for Jews and Israeli Arabs. It should be noted that Israeli Arabs make up about 20% of the population of the Israeli state.

       So much for the only democratic state in the Middle East.

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AND THEY EXPECT YOU TO VOTE FOR IT.

     They call it democracy, they expect you to run out and vote for the people responsible for this system, and sadly so many still do. 

A letter from Domokos Prison Greece, posted on Act For Freedom Now:

Diary of operation “Angela Davis” 18/8/2012

I come out of Keramikos station (athens). I look for an internet café, which is find closed. My detox from my avatar will last just a little longer. I make my way towards Thissio.

Two motorbikes stop in front of me. A herd of people fall on me and immobilize me. I don’t know what is going on. I scream. They cuff me and put a black hood over my head. They do not identify themselves to me. they put me in a car, a Toyota yaris or something.

It does not matter. They tell me “You messed up our summer you wanker! We have to deal with you now?”. So, I think. This is the punch line of the antiterrorist force. “Hey, we got him” notifies the driver on his mobile. “You sure its him?” wonders the one who is holding me in the back.

“What is your name?” they ask me. I tell them, they are relieved. I have heard stories with a beginning like this about a dozen times. I couldn’t imagine such a continue. Not even in my narrations. I am in an underground garage. At the entrance.

Read the full letter HERE:

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