"Gentrification And Ghettoisation"

       It is a world wide phenomena, changing cities. Cities used to be where ordinary people lived, worked and had their leisure activities, those days have gone. To day cities are being turned in to, "business centres" or "pleasuredromes" for the wealthy, centres for tourists to come and spend their wealth. Expensive luxury apartments, glossy, glitzy restaurants, expensive coffee bars and "high fashion shops. In some areas, the ordinary people of the district are being pushed out to make way for what can only be called university towns, one or more universities surrounded by student accommodation. All this is to make money for the chosen few, the small group of parasites that control our lives by duplicitous financial manipulation. We accept that we should be excluded form our cities and herded on the periphery, or we decide that the cities belong to the people and not the financial Mafia. If we believe we should live in our cities we will have to fight to take them back, they are not going to gifted to us by the invading corporate juggernaut.

     The following article is from Athens, but could be from any city in the developed world. The ordinary people are being herded out to the periphery to be housed in  cheap, shoddy schemes, lacking in amenities. A systematic policy of "gentrification and ghettoisation". Out of sight of the prancing privileged as they enjoy their existence in the consumer illusion of happiness made of bubble and fizz.

This translated version from 325: 
Original source: https://athens.indymedia.org/post/1597841/

         Tourism grows like flowers in the spring, security cameras appear like leaves to protect the peaceful citizens. Everything must be clear, beautiful and in developmental path. The appearance of the city should fit into the list of Aegean Airlines. Tourists do not need a lot, some chain stores and hipster coffeeshops, a good guide to explaining which places to avoid, and something that fits into the “authentic Greek experience”. We look forward to the next group of tourists who will take a selfie around the Acropolis.At the same time, our neighborhood degrades slowly. People who can not respond to the increase of rent price are either forced to find another home to stay or are forced to comply with the new rules. At the same time, investors are exacerbating the situation as they buy old houses, which are being demolished and, in their place, they are building luxurious housing estates. Apartments renovated for short-term rent (AIRBNB) as well as public spaces and parks are privatized reducing free and open spaces. The game is as old as the same city is listening to the name of private property . The rule is also simple: whoever does not own, will pay, whoever does not pay will be expelled. People who are not part of the capitalist machine, little illegal sellers and homeless people, illegal graffiti and political posters, life in general, and things that can not be sold will disappear. We know very well that nothing will be given to us because we do not belong to the owners’ side. We know that we do not even fit into this suffocating capitalist context, nor do we want to keep up with the logic of bosses and investors. That is why we are fighting against their expansionist and developmental plans.On Tuesday 9/04, we visited a boutique (as they call it) of luxury apartments, which is in its final stage of implementation, on Kolokotroni street between Koukaki and Petralona. Kolokotroni Street is a street with several old or abandoned houses, and it seems that the crows of the construction company from Glyfada have put it in the goal. During our visit, we put a banner that read: “RICH PEOPLE GET BACK TO YOUR SUBURBS, HOUSING IS NOR A LIFESTYLE NEITHER A PRODUCT, IT’S A NEED (A)”, we throw paint on the freshly painted walls and advertisements of the company, write slogans and open holes or even completely tear apart interior walls. Nevertheless, investors insist on forcing us to a second visit and today they have put cameras thinking that we will stop.

OUTSIDE THE INVESTORS FROM OUR NEIGHBORHOOD AGAINST AIRBNB AND LUXURY APARTMENTS NO ATTACK TOWARDS OUR LIFE WILL STAY WITHOUT ANSWER IF WE DON’T GET ORGANIZED IN ALL NEIGHBOURHOODS, OUR CITIES WILL BECOME MODERN PRISONS

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Radiobubble.

     Though the Greek fascist government works hard at shutting down Athens Indymedia and community radio, they fail miserably. The people's voice will be heard, the people will communicate, solidarity will live on in spite of the efforts of the Troika puppets in Athens. This From The Greek Streets:

Community

radiobubble: Independent media community in Athens Greece.

by radiobubble #rbnews hackademy

Athens, Greece

Monday, May 20, 2013

via radiobubble:

      Radiobubble is an open medium for communication and information, run by a community of volunteers. It is based in Athens, even though many of its volunteers live in other cities around the world. It operates on the basis of relationships of trust and mutual respect. It doesn’t follow the hierarchical structure of conventional, mainstream media.

     Currently a donation program is running in order to cover the operating costs of radiobubble and fund essential research, journalism and education projects.

    Your support will sustain and develop a powerful community of citizen journalists who inform the world about what is truly happening in Greece during the crisis.

      Support an independent media community in Greece; Empower Greek citizen journalism. (and feel free to share and promote our campaign).

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/radiobubble-independent-media-community-in-athens-greece?c=home

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No Human Being Is Illegal.

    Across the world people are on the move and most are not tourists. As country after country feels the pain of religious faction fighting, in most cases, fueled and instigated by Western military interference, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to mention a few, who can blame people for trying to find a better life for themselves and their families. Then there is the factor of the "developed" states, to aid and abet their corporate masters, waging brutal and devastating wars across the globe, for power, markets and resources. Let's not forget the fact that they also install and prop-up vicious regimes that will play ball with those corporate masters. 

     All this forces ordinary people to flee their own country for refuge elsewhere. People as a whole don't want to just uproot and move across the world, like you and I, where we live has all kinds of ties and associations, culturally and family. It is desperation that drives immigration, Though the corporate West is responsible for vast swathes of this suffering that drives the immigration, we don't treat those immigrants with any degree of care or compassion. As a rule, states mark out immigrants as scroungers, criminals and nerd-do-wells, then herd them into refugee camps and heap more misery on already miserable lives. Immigrants are human beings just like you and I, they care for their families, they fall in love, they grow old, they just want a decent life, but at this juncture in their lives, they desperately need help. No human being is illegal, this world belongs to the people.

This article from Indymedia:

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Hunger and thirst strikes in the Netherlands
 2013-05-10 01:15
CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH HUNGER AND THIRST STRIKERS IN DETENTION CENTERS IN
THE NETHERLANDS public indictment against the system of repression we call Fortress Europe.
     About 60 asylum seekers in detention center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, have been in hunger strike for four days now. 18 of them also stopped drinking since Wednesday 6th of May. They are protesting against the asylum policy that criminalizes refugees: they get thrown out on the streets without money or shelter and they get detained in prisons for up to 18 months. The refugees on hunger strike demand not to be treated as criminals anymore. They clearly stated they want freedom and protection. 

     Wave of hunger strike Wednesday May 1st, twenty refugees in detention center Schiphol went on hunger strike. While the guards brutally broke down the strike in Schiphol, by putting the hunger strikers in isolation cells, about 80 refugees in detention center Rotterdam started a hunger strike on Monday 6th of May. One day later, fifty women in detention center Brugge (Belgium) also went on hunger strike. A thirst strike is even more dangerous than a hunger strike: the latter can last for 40 days before people get in a critical situation, whereas a person who does not drink will be dead after one week. Government arrogance The Dutch government has shown an unbelievable arrogance in this matter. At first, they did not respond to the demands of the refugees at all. One parliament member of the ruling party People's Party of the Freedom and Democracy (VVD) even went as far as to say the refugees “were taking the government hostage” by going on hunger strike. 

     Then, as late as Thursday 9th May, they “provided” a worthless “offer”. In return for the end of the hunger strike, the government “offered” to shorten the usual 17 hours a day detainees are locked inside their cell with a few hours. The hunger and thirst strikers of course rejected this ridiculous proposal and they will continue with their protest. But things are getting very serious right now. As of Friday the third day without water begins for the refugees who have no other means of getting their voice out than to go on a hunger or thirst strike. Refugees searching for a better life get thrown into a Kafkaesk bureaucracy of having to provide proof that doesn't exist in order to get their permit to stay. Once rejected, undocumented refugees get thrown out on the streets and get denied basic human rights, such as food, shelter, work and health care. Racist police hunt them down and jail them. In detention, refugees are stripped from their dignity, their autonomy, their lives and their future. Once deported, no one ever hears from them again. Right now, refugees in detention center Rotterdam are directly and unmistakeably demanding their rights and their freedom. The government will have to respond very quickly and adequately, if they don't want to be held responsible for dozens of deaths.
      Call for solidarity We are strongly calling for solidarity from our friends throughout Europe. Solidarity with the hunger and thirst strikers in special; and with refugees in general. The state is aimed at excluding everyone who is not directly exploitable by capital. Make it known how this insane migration policy of repression destroys the lives of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Show your solidarity by spreading this message. Print this letter and glue it everywhere, preferably to walls that symbolize exclusion by Fortress Europe: parliament
buildings, embassies, deportation offices, immigration offices, etc. etc. Letter removed? Glue it again. Everywhere.
TOGETHER WE CAN FIGHT FORTRESS EUROPE!

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2013/05/509312.html

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Defending The Right To Freedom Of Speech.

      Most people know, or should know the poverty and deprivation that has been callously forced onto the ordinary families of Greece. Of course the people of Greece, like people anywhere else, when they are brutally assaulted, fight back. The state, of course, is aware of this and meets this fight back, with an array of methods. First and foremost is propaganda, mislead, confuse, and scapegoat sections of society, divide and rule. When this doesn't do the job then it is the bare-knuckle approach with violent repression, Greece is well down this path. Daily brutality against any organised protest, a free hand to right-wing fascist groups who are there to put fear on the streets. Also the state will deal harshly with any attempt by the people to communicate outside the state blessed institutions, the babbling brook of bullshit, the media is to be your only organ of information. Hence the Greek state has done its damnedest to close down Indymedia Athens and the people organised free radio broadcasts. The free flow of information by the people must be stifled, only the state message is to be heard.

       On April 25th. in Athens there was a massive demonstration against this attempted stifling of the voice of the people. Thousands took to the streets to defend Indymedia Athens and the voice of the people's radio.

     From Contra Info some of the slogans being chanted by the mass demonstration.

‘From Athens to Mexico, create thousands of indymedia sites so that repressors get wiser’

‘Indymedia is a voice from the streets; not one step back in the face of repression’

‘Pirate radios and self-organized spaces inside faculties; the academic asylum belongs to fighters’

‘This is how you do it right: take down the Greek flag and raise a protest banner’ (reference to the 24/4 action at Propylaea)

‘Cybersecurity is not feasible; proletarians/trolletarians have no IP’

‘10, 100, 1000 indymedia sites against a world filled with rotten media’

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Stifling The Voice Of The People.

      While the Greek state continues to carry out the dictate of the financial Mafia, it is also tasked with another, in their eyes, necessary duty, to stifle any resistance to this rape and plunder of the Greek people and their assets. The more the people struggle for alternative and more community based modes of existence, the harder the fist of state repression strikes. As well as longstanding squats across Greece being evicted, there is now another attempt to close down the people's voice of communication. One of the means by which the ordinary people of Greece communicate and co-ordinate their struggle against the policies of poverty and deprivation is through Indymedia Athens and the longstanding, Radio 98fm. Once again they are under attack. The state needs a monopoly of the means of communication, to pump out its propaganda and drown the voice of resistance. A people who can't communicate are a divide and fragmented people, much easier to subjugate and control. It is of the utmost importance that the ordinary people protect, maintain and  grow their own means of communication.

This from The Greek Streets:

Indymedia Athens and Radio 98fm under attack

Thursday, April 11, 2013

      On Thursday 11 April the Greek extreme right wing government shut down Athens Indymedia and radio station 98fm.

Solidarity to Athens Indymedia and 98 fm.

     Urgent call for a protest tomorrow, Friday 12th of April, 13:00, in the central square of Polytechnioupoli, Zografou.

Means of transport busses 608 & 242

Requesting to spread this call!!

For updates in Greek visit the temporary page http://indymedia.squat.gr/

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INDYMEDIA ON CIRCLED "A" RADIO.

      The collective behind London Indymedia (http://london.indymedia.org) are closing shop. In the past twelve years, the collective have racked up over 100 years of involvement in radical political organising and media production and have provided invaluable resources, contributing to the proliferation of information, communication, opinion and discussion within the UK radical political movements in which they are situated. They recently published their decision (https://london.indymedia.org/articles/13128) to archive the site and close down the project, stating a desire to move on to other political work. This show features a conversation with several former members of the London Indymedia collective on reasons for wrapping up and moving on, with much time spent reflecting on the current state of independent media production in an information age with a vast majority of internet track going towards a handful of corporately owned and controlled social networking tools and publishing platforms. (You can listen to the full version of the interview on Dissident Island episode 111  HERE:

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BIG BROTHER, HE'S STILL AT IT.

       As their crisis deepens and our resistance stiffens, Big Brother gets more desperate in its attempt to cut our lines of communication. The exchange of information is necessary for success in our struggle against this latest onslaught from the financial Mafia, hence their eagerness to stifle that exchange of ideas and information.

This from Contrainfo.

Piedmont’s site is now accessible at piemonte.puscii.nl. Replace ‘indymedia.org’ with ‘puscii.nl’ in all links of the address to access its entire contents. Piedmont and Tuscany Indymedia are under preventive seizure, as Telecom Italia has already begun censoring both sites. Note that toscana.indymedia.org has already been down for technical and internal reasons since months. Get the background of this story here.
more updates on italy indymedia / source

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ANONYMOUS.

This from, Anarchists news dot org

         In a likely retaliation for the Ministry of Justice taking down the Athens Indymedia website and a group of Greek hackers falling in the hands of the repressive Justice system, following last week's riots in Greece, Anonymous just launched "Operation Greece", hacked the Ministry of Justice's website, and sent a clear signal to you-know-who...

What appeared on the government's website, once hacked: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-3siJe-6b-UJ:www.mi... (use Tor!)

Communiqué:

The guys from GHS (Greek Hacking Scene) had nothing to do with this site. FREE THEM!

You did a big mistake, this was done by Anonymous and not by the guys of GHS.

Citizens of Greece, (CONTINUE READING)

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