THE COLLAPSE OF PARTY POLITICS.

      Spain has the highest rate of unemployment in the EU, at present it stands at above 25% and rising, its economy is shrinking rapidly, and still the financial Mafia want more "austerity" heaped on the people. When is enough, enough?
This from International Journal of Socialist Renewal:

By Dick Nichols, Barcelona

       October 28, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The economic, social and territorial crisis in the Spanish state is morphing into a crisis of the two-party system that has provided Popular Party (PP) or Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) administrations for the last 30 years. Basque, Catalan and Galician nationalist forces (left and right), and the United Left (IU) and Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD) parties are gaining support. However, only a brave gambler would put serious money on the future evolution of this crisis. While the two-party set-up has been severely weakened, a replacement party with enough popular support to impose a different solution has yet to emerge.

       Some contrasting numbers from the latest Metroscopia polls point to some contradictions in popular attitudes that help understand why.

        First, the actions and leaderships of the PP and PSOE have hit levels of disapproval never seen before. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy inspires little or no confidence in 84%, including in 64% of PP voters. PSOE opposition leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba inspires little or no confidence in 90%, including in 77% of PSOE voters.

The demands of the September 25-29, 2012, “Seize the parliament” protest got 71% support.
Read the full article HERE:

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OUR WEAPON - GLOBAL SOLIDARITY.

      Across the globe state's do their damnedest to repress any attempt by the people to organise to protect themselves against the onslaught of corporate greed. The state's function is to act as population controller to allow the corporate greed machine to plunder and pillage the earth in the name of profit. Corporatism is global, we need our solidarity to be global.

This from Labourstart:

Last week, a court in Bahrain upheld the convictions of trade union leaders, sentencing Mahdi Abu Dheeb and Jalila al-Salman to five years and six months respectively.

 

Mahdi and Jalila, president and vice president of the Bahraini Teachers’ Association were arrested in 2011 after supporting calls for reform in Bahrain. Whilst in detention they were subjected to torture and forced to sign “confessions”.

 

In September 2011, a military court convicted them of attempting to overthrow the ruling system by force and inciting hatred of the regime. The report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry last year found that the authorities had grossly exaggerated, if not manufactured, many claims brought against thousands of ordinary people who had been caught up in the February 2011 protests. Mahdi and Jalila’s only “crime” was to have the temerity to promote respect for the values of solidarity, equality and democracy.

 

The Education International has issued a call for a large online campaign demanding the release of both Mahdi and Jalila.

Please take a moment to send off your message here.

 

And then please spread the word to your fellow trade union members.

 

In additon, please take a moment to learn more about the case of Kenyan trade union leader Francis Atwoli who was recently fined about £3,000 because he refused to call off a strike (two years earlier!) defending jobs in the Kenyan tea industry from mechanisation. Trade unions outside Kenya are trying to help raise the money to cover this fine and his legal costs.  Learn more here.

 

Thanks -- and please forward on this email!

 

Eric Lee

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CORPORATE FASCISM.

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

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BRUTAL ASSAULT SHOULD MEET BRUTAL RESPONSE.

       The financial Mafia under the mob name of "the Troika" are putting the boot into the Greek people with the latest "Memorandum of understanding" between the troika and the Greek government. What this "agreement" does is remove the Greek government from governing Greece and authorises them as managers for the troika, and lays down a series of conditions that it must perform or they will push the country to bankruptcy allowing the entire Greek country to be plundered and pillaged by the said financial Mafia and their corporate fascist friends. A people are being sacrificed on the altar of corporate financial greed. What is more, is that what they are doing to the Greek people is on the agenda for other countries in Europe. Spain is tottering on the brink, Italy is slipping over the edge, Portugal is losing its foothold, others are not far behind, and the abyss is waiting. All this misery and deprivation for the welfare and well being of the banks and bond markets. To the financial mafia their money cow must be saved, at any price. Under these brutal circumstances the people have the right to self-defense, the more brutal the assault, the more brutal the response needs to be, it is their lives and the future of their kids lives that are at stake. 

This from The Greek Streets:

Full text of the third “memorandum of understanding” between the troika and the greek government

Monday, October 29, 2012

     As the rumours regarding the voting in of the new memorandum in the present week intensify, the agreement’s full text has now become available online. The greek text is here.
     Key points include (list to be updated!)
    - Should the targets in the health sector not be met in the first two months, it is possible for cost participation waiving to be cancelled out for everyone, including cancer patients.
    - From mid-2013 on, the Public Power Corporation (DEI) will rapidly increase its charges, while all special rates for the most sensitive parts of the population will cease to exist. As of June 2013, the PPC will be unable to offer any kind of settlement to its clients regarding their bills – something that any private corporation is permitted to do.

Open publication - Free publishing

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NOT A LIVING WAGE IN SIGHT.

     Here we are in the UK, one of the richest countries in the world, with our lords and masters spouting how we are not like Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. We are told that we are managing our affairs much better than those so called "PIIGS". However, in spite of our "good management" recent figures from KPMG tell us that 1 in 5 people in work in the UK don't receive a living wage, that equates to 4.82 million working people not getting enough to meet a decent standard of living.

     It varies from occupation to occupation, with bar staff having a staggering 90% not receiving a living wage and waitresses and waiters not far behind with 4 out 5 trying to get by, receiving less than the living wage. Outside London the living wage is set at £7:20 an hour and our parasitical employers can't even match that. The KPMG survey also found that 4 out 10 surveyed, stated that they were financially worse off than a month ago. The union Unite research shows that on average, people are being force to borrow £325 a month to pay for essentials such as food and housing.

     That is the state of affairs at the moment and there are more "austerity" measures coming down the line to hit the poorest and most vulnerable. We are not a poor country, we can afford to fight 11 year wars costing billions of pounds, support and upgrade a nuclear fleet costing more billions of pounds. Our parasitical "chiefs" of industry can afford to pay themselves millions in bonuses and pensions, we can afford to throw billions of pounds at the corrupt banking system, whose bosses continue to pay themselves millions in bonuses, salaries and pensions. 

    We can afford a decent life for everybody in this country, it is just that system is set up to siphon the wealth up to that small army of leeches that sit with their sweaty little hands on the control levers. Until we sort that out we will continue to be screwed, we will continue to see ever increasing numbers of ordinary people slip into ever increasing deprivation. It is not the lack of wealth and resources that is the problem, it is the stinking exploitive unjust greed driven system that is the problem.

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THE BOTTLED WASP.

       Under the economic system that we at present just about survive in, there are an unlimited number of causes that we feel we should support, some physically and some financially. Sadly we can't support them all, so making choices is something we have to do. Due to the ever increasing number of people that the state locks up, in an ever increasing privatised prison system, prisoner support is one field that can always do with greater support and solidarity. 

      Anarchist Black cross (ABC) works constantly and tirelessly to support those who find themselves caged by the state. There are numerous local ABC groups where you can get involved in simple and not too time consuming means of offering a window to the outside world to those isolated from that world. Letter/card writing, prison visits, small gifts, financial, publicity for certain cases, etc. Without getting too involved and something that will only take a few minutes and a fiver, you could order the new ABC prisoner support 2013 pocket diary, The Bottled Wasp.

    It will be available from November cost £5 and will only take minutes of your time to obtain, but the money will go a long way in bring support to those individuals caught up in the state's maze of a penal system.

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UP-THE-ANTI.

     A date for December, it could be a talking shop, but in reality it will be what you make it, and what you take away from the event.

From Up-the-Anti:

Since the financial crisis broke we have seen a rising tide of protest, revolutions and resistance. One of the driving forces of these movements has been a desire to change the future: to reject the idea that we have no future outside of the logic of never ending austerity, declining living standards and the loss of public services to private profiteers.

     Up the Anti is a one day conference to think about and discuss  how we lay claim to the future that we want and deserve. It will host an eclectic mix of sessions, ranging from in-depth seminars and debates to participatory, facilitated discussions and workshops. There are many questions we need to ask, including:

• Is there an alternative to capitalism? What might it look like?
• How do we win popular support for new radical projects?
• What can we learn from the social struggles and new movements in Europe?
• And how do we overcome divisions within left and radical movements?

What next after the Occupy protests?

       We called the event ‘Up the Anti’ because we all agree that we need to build a bigger movement against social oppression and capitalism.  But we are not just against things, we also want to reclaim the future from those in power who seem intent on dragging us towards austerity, growing social inequality and environmental destruction.

      The conference will be held in London at Queen Mary university, not far from Mile End and Stepney Green underground stations.

But the day is not just all workshops and seminars, we also have time for a gig at Queen Mary Student Union with comedy, music and DJs. Highlights include the up and coming radical comedian Chris Coltrane and the critically acclaimed blues guitarist Sean Taylor.

      UP THE ANTI is a genuine movement event put on by a plurality of groups, websites, publishing houses, and networks. It is sponsored by New Left Project, Ceasefire, Occupied Times, Anticapitalist Initiative, Platypus and Globalise Resistance.

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WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - LOVE OR NOTHING.

    I know that I bore the shit out of you by going on about Greece, I can hear you say, "Not Greece again". But as far as I'm concerned, if you want to fly a kite, you have to know which way the wind is blowing, and Greece is telling us that.

    The following extract is from an article by Paul Mason, the full article is well worth a read. History can tell us so much and allow us to be ready and get organised to take control of events, rather than let others and/or the events take control of us.

      Of all the operas written during Germany's Weimar Republic (1919-33), probably the most haunting is the last. Kurt Weill's The Silver Lake, written with playwright Georg Kaiser, tells the story of two losers - a good-hearted provincial cop and the thief he has shot and wounded - as they make their way through a society ruined by unemployment, corruption and vice.
      After spending a week again in Greece - amid riots, hunger and far right violence - I finally understood it.
     The opera was meant to be Weill's path back into the mainstream. It was his first break from collaborating with Bertolt Brecht, and was scheduled to open simultaneously in three German cities on 18 February 1933. But on 30 January Adolf Hitler was appointed Germany's chancellor. The first performances of The Silver Lake were disrupted by Nazi activists in the audience and on 4 March 1933 it was banned. The score was torched, together with its set designs, in the infamous book-burning ceremony outside the opera house in Berlin.

The full article is well worth the read HERE:

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ROTTEN AT THE HEART.

      There is something rotten at the heart of the state. It is a system of repression, corruption, hypocrisy, greed, and stinks the air we breathe.
This from The Greek Streets:

Journalist Vaxevanis was just arrested after publicizing the list of Greek taxdodgers

Sunday, October 28, 2012

       Today is national day in Greece, forces of police and military police are guarding the army parades and the governmental politicians who will are watching them. At the same time, police one hour ago raided the house of a journalist who published a list with Greek tax-dodgers two days ago. The list that the  journalist Costas Vaxevanis published was available to the Minister of Economics for a couple of years now, who had decided to keep it secret and take no more actions.

       Greece, but it could be any where in the Western world, like I said, there is something rotten at the heart of the state.

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STRONGER TOGETHER.

     We all know that winter in Scotland means choices, choices between eating or heating. Winter in this country, because of the climate and "fuel poverty" brings with it misery and death, while the energy companies fatten their shareholders with bigger profits. There are ways and means of fighting the leeches that own the energy companies.

This from SNIFFER:

"Jam the gas meters or Stronger Together?

    Direct action on fuel poverty in Europe campaign ‘Samen Sterker’ or "Stronger Together" reports that thousands of people in Belgium and Netherlands have organised collectively against the power companies and won great deals.

   But here in the UK EDF Fuel prices for residential customers are to hike up by 10.8% from December 7, 2012 sending the average dual fuel bill to £1,251. Scottish Gas and Scottish Power will be more than this by up to £23. And we already know that means misery and death.

   Excess winter mortality statistics from the UK Office for National Statistics estimated there were 25,700 Excess Winter Deaths (WHO) in England and Wales in 2011, 3.4% higher in the North East. Scotland’s winter statistics at 2,450 are like the UK’s low temperature related deaths, not exclusively hypothermia but cerebrovascular disease and heart disease, pneumonia, stroke and respiratory diseases.

    Belgium and Netherlands have taken direct action on fuel bills by collective switching. Their groups of 10,000 people prepared to switch en-mass to a new supplier this means that these suppliers offer a decent price in order to get them as new clients. They have a trusted third party who's actually doing all the leg work, setting up the switch system so that it is minimal effort for us. Hundreds of thousands of consumers have benefited and on average saved some 200-250 euros a year.

   Earlier this year the UK consumer organisation Which? organised the firstcollective switch in the UK. Almost 40,000 people took part, with average savings of £223 a year.

     A pilot scheme is running in Cornwall, and South Lakeland District Council in Cumbria is finalising the first local authority project in the UK. Other local councils may follow suit soon.

Let’s do it in Scotland."

      Start to organise your own "energy switch" group in your own area, join the group nearest you and hit the energy companies with a mass switch deal and get the best price. Start today before the Scottish weather really bites.

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WILL IT BE A DIFFERENT XMAS THIS YEAR?

One person's opinion from Anarchist News:

       Many years ago the Mayans invented an ingenious time/calender system. This master calender had many precisely accurate cycles and one master cycle. The master cycle ends when all cycles end, to begin again. The end of the master cycle is enormously rare. We live in amazing, historical time not just for humans, but for the entire earth, solar system and universe. The end of this master cycle is on December 21, 2012... Which is in less the two months... The Mayans did not believe the world would end in 2012, they believed in the emergence of a different type of civilization on earth. I believe this new society will be one of harmony and Anarchy!
HOW WILL THIS COME ABOUT?

And I wouldn't get too excited about the rest of the article HERE:

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BREAKING THE SILENCE.

Israeli Soldiers Breaking The Silence 

on the Occupation of Palestine

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FROM THE EDGE OF BORDERLINE DEMOCRACY.

      This is an email I received recently and think it is worth posting to give it as much publicity as possible. I hope you all do likewise.

Greetings, I would like to bring a new project to your attention. We are journalists based in Greece, and we have created a new blog, "Reports from the Edge of Borderline Democracy". We will be posting some shorter texts, opinion pieces etc, but the main effort is to publish extensive reports, in English, on issues affecting politics and society in Greece, so they are as accessible as possible around the world. You can see our first report on the rise of Golden Dawn, Greece's neonazi party that is rapidly rising, here: http://borderlinereports.net/2012/10/25/report-golden-dawn-1980-2012-the-neonazis-road-to-parliament/ If you like the idea, we would like to ask you to spread the word as much as possible, particularly to non-Greek speakers in other countries. Best regards, Augustine *Augustine Zenakos* *Reports from the Edge of Borderline Democracy<http://borderlinereports.net/>

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WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?

      The "Arab Spring" so hailed by the West, certainly hasn't brought about a bed of flowers for the people of those countries involved. The state still rules with an iron fist or it has descended into religious/tribal factions each vying brutally for power. Somewhere in this mess people are still struggling for justice and freedom.

This from Amnesty International:

Egypt: Troops and Police acting above the law

In December 2011 49-year-old Azza Suleiman (pictured) attended a large protest near Tahrir Square. As she started to leave, she saw a group of soldiers violently beat and strip another female protestor. Act now to end the abuse

Concerned, Azza and some others tried to help carry the woman away. But the soldiers reacted violently: they beat Azza so severely that she lost consciousness. Even then they did not stop. Their attack was so vicious it left Azza with a fractured skull and impaired memory. To date, no one has been held accountable for this violence.

Azza’s treatment at the hands of the authorities is horrific but her story is not unique. Over 100 peaceful protestors have been killed by troops and police forces since early 2011 when Egyptians bravely took to the streets to demand political reform.

Despite President Morsi making some positive changes since taking power, troops and police remain above the law. Find out more

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MASTER OF ALL WE SURVEY???

        This sort of puts our squabbles in perspective and makes those god people's ideas of us as something special look very childish and rather stupid.

PINNACLE OF EVOLUTION.

There’s a crazy ape, who

by means of incredible intransigence

has mastered the art of carnage;

through dogged determination

in a ruthless rampage

raised the body-count beyond belief.

This crazy ape

creates the human chronicles

as a cruel callous calendar,

transforms our indulgent earth

into a primitive barbaric abattoir.

He struts across the land

with bumptious pride;

he’s destructive, he’s devious,

demands dominion

planet wide.

His claim to fame,

history immortalised in rivers of blood.

Even so,

this crazy ape called man, believes

he’s the GODS’ sublime solution,

progress’s perfection,

the pinnacle of evolution.

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AUSTERITY - NO PAY FOR THREE MONTHS!!!

    Not been paid for three months and then being put on part-time 20 hours a week at €200 a month, that's capitalism IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) style for you.

This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ:

Unpaid for three months - 

shop assistants in Fokas department store protest

 

       Employees at the Fokas department stores, one of the most well-known retail outlets in Greece taking part in a 24 hour strike over unpaid wages dating back to June. In addition according to Union of Shop Workers, the company is in the process of replacing full time positions with part time ones paying just 200 Euros a month for a 20 hour week.
       (200 euros a month is just enough to cover rent on a modest one room apartment in the poorest parts of Thessaloniki.)

enosiemporiothess@gmail.com

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COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU!!

       It could be Germany in the mid-1930's, but no, this is Greece 2012. Rampant neo-nazis backed up by the police beating up immigrants and all opposition to the state. Street violence is the last resort of any repressive regime in an attempt to break any opposition, organisation and resistance to the powers that be. It is not confined to Greece, all states have used violence to break the public's resistance and they will all use it again if and when they feel the need. So let's not be complacent and think that it can only happen over there somewhere. Read your history and look at the present, it is coming to a city near you.

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A NEW EUROPE.

From Red Pepper:

Joining forces for another Europe

      In November, European social movements will meet in Florence to plan continent-wide responses to austerity and the European crisis of democracy. Tommaso Fattori calls for us to make ‘Firenze 10+10’ a priority

      In Europe we are living in particularly dramatic times. Democracy is in death-agony and we are witnessing post-democratic processes taking over at the national and supranational level. EU leaders have further concentrated decision-making power on public and fiscal policies in the hands of an oligarchy of governments, technocrats and the European Central Bank (ECB), which are subject to the dictates of the financial markets. Neoliberalism, the real cause of the crisis, not only is not dead, but it appears to be in perfect health: it uses the crisis to destroy social rights and workers’ rights and to privatise commons, public goods and public services.
      Finally, the most incredible propaganda operation of our times is in full swing, in which states and ‘markets’ try to make people believe that public debt was caused by excessive social spending and high salaries. In fact the financial sector caused the crisis and the fiscal deficit in the EU is the result of the crisis, not its cause.
      A moment like this needs a strong social answer: it is urgent to act now, uniting our forces, creating the conditions for a common social response, for a pan-European mobilisation. There is an objective need to build a European space of ‘strategic alliances’: in order to elaborate common strategies and initiatives and to rebuild solidarity. When the attack on Greece by the great  economic powers and the ‘troika’ [the International Monetary Fund, the European commission and the ECB]  began, we, in Europe, were unable to organise a social response. Rather, each stayed wrapped up in their own crisis and their own national dimension, leaving the Greeks alone. It must never happen again. 

Continue reading HERE:

 

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