Love music? Heading to Greece this month? Well you should give the the village of Vergina, near Veria, in the north of Greece a visit.
The biggest DIY Festival in Greece is coming back for the 6th
consecutive year with a great variety of bands from the UNDERGROUND
music scene.
A 3 days DIY festival which helps us organize our
needs and promote our culture through music and other activities. OUR culture which speaks about freedom, solidarity and the
struggle against our oppressors and the society of obedience!! We
stand opposite and hostile in the commercialization of our lives.
The
fest aims to raise money for…
-The solidarity fund for
imprisoned and persecuted fighters -The judicial costs of persecuted fighters in Veria
-The
self-managed studio »GIAFKA» records
-The creation of a
self-managed photocopy in Veria
-The typographic collective
»DRUCK» in Thessaloniki The fest takes place in Platanakia, an open area outside Vergina,
a village close to Veria (North Greece), a wooded location with a
small river that gives opportunities to relax and enjoy the
nature.
There will also be free campsite and lunch for everyone.
«Campers should take note that it is quite cold at night..»
War is state terrorism inflicted on people in another country, war is the expansion of imperialism, and the defence of the power of the imperialists. In this insane capitalist system, war is also a massive creator of profit for a conglomeration of corporate interests. War is never in the interests of the ordinary people.
"A Bundle of Bloody Rags"
But twenty summer suns had past since his first breath
was drawn,
An upright, clean, and manly boy, with hope and vigour
born
Afresh each day, and in whose eyes the light of
knowledge shone---
But now a torn and bleeding thing it was I looked
upon
As he in fearful torment lay beneath a ruined bridge,,
Where he had crawled on palsied knees that morn at
Vimy Ridge.
I saw him clutch the air and fall, I heard his awful shout,
A jagged piece of riven shell had torn his entrails out;
I knelt and whispered in his ear at that accursed place,
And painfully he turned his head and stared into my face;
His eyes were eyes of hunted brutes, his mouth had
gnawed the sand,
And at his ghastly wound in pain he clawed with frenzied
hand.
Although I knew his day of hope had changed to hopeless
night,
I said, "Cheer up, old comrade, we will patch you up
all-right.
Come, let me get you out of this"--He looked with
frightened eye,
And murmered, "Jim, don't touch me. Christ! O,
Christ, why don't i die?
Jim, Jim---you've got a bayonet there----if you have pity
too,
Then send me west, old Jimmy, pal-----for God's sake,
Jimmy do"
Then a madness came upon him----it was madness that I
knew----
For he cursed the one he loved the most, as madmen
always do,
I listened, for I loved him, though my body burned with
shame,
When he with one despairing shriek pronounced his
mother's name;
I say with shame I listened, for I knew the boy of old,
And the love of kin was graven deep upon his heart of gold,
But now with hatred in his voice he screamed, "No dying
kiss
for you, you fiend in human form who shaped my soul
for this;
Who fed my growing body in your lust-empoisoned
womb,
And wove my mind with crooked lies upon a twisted
loom;
Who sent me here with honeyed words to slaughter or to
maim,
That you in empty pride might boast one hero in the
game,
"Heroes! God! more like are we the spawn of hellish
hags,
"Heroes! Piles of broken bones and heaps of bloody
rags.
Your handiwork, your devil's deed, for this you gave me
birth,
Your contributio to the flames of this foul hell called
Another lovely ride round the Campsie area, unfortunately got my first puncture in three years. A sharp tiny granite chip embedded itself in my tyre. Still a great day.
Saw this image on arrezafe when reading his article on the new headquarters of the European Central Bank, and thought it was an extremely powerful symbol of capitalism in the developed world. A world where the poor are hidden away, while business continues to function as if everything is fine. Brush that which might shatter the illusion of "everything is fine", under the carpet.
Palatial air conditioned shopping malls, city centre gentrification, grand spectacles to woe the tourists, shop windows a blaze with designer labels. Then side streets with people sleeping rough, dark doorways that are home to damaged human beings, crush by a pitiless system. Housing schemes where the vicious teeth of poverty bites at the lives of the many. Capitalism, a compassionless system of contrasts, inequality and injustice. Why do we tolerate this brutality heaped on our own people?
A monumental feat of engineering, on the banks of the River Main, the seat of the European Central Bank. Spectacular, cold, imposing. 185 meters high, 45 floors. 110,000 square meters. More than 4,000 tons of steel.
"The symbol of the best that a united Europe can achieve," said ECB President at his inauguration. "A great new home for the ECB to fulfill its mandate" , according to Draghi.
The world of capitalism and debt is a very strange world. Debt as a percentage of your GDP seems to be taken as a bench mark of a country's viability. Hence Greece gets clobbered, plundered and its people driven into deprivation as its debt, 2013, sits at 177% of GDP. Others are not that far behind, Italy is sitting at 132% of GDP with the USA at 105%. The UK, though low as a percentage of GDP is seeing that percentage rise considerably. When the "crisis" hit in 2008, UK debt was 51.9% of GDP, but has now, 2013, shot up to 90.6%, are we heading towards a Greek situation? Another fact we should remember, after the WWII, the UK was bankrupt, but managed to create the National Health service!! We don't hear a lot about Japan but it seems to survive with a staggering debt of 256% of GDP, why? To whom do all these countries owe that debt? If the Greek economy was devastated and plundered with debt of a mere 177% of GDP, does this mean that the world is heading for a "Greek crisis", as the world debt, 2014, was sitting at an eye-watering 286% of the world's GDP. So in this insane capitalist asylum, the world's debt outstrips all its wealth, who are the banksters and financial Mafia that will call this debt in, and turn the world into another present day Greece?
All these crazy figures prove, is that the whole system of capitalism is built on an illusion, a world of shuffling figures, a world where a bunch of people tell us that the world owes more than it is worth, where that bunch of people have the power to destroy an entire country and its people, because we are lead to believe that the illusion is a reality.
The world belongs to us, the people who live on it, there is nobody above us to whom we owe anything. The debt is an illusion by those who produce nothing, in an attempt to enslave those who produce all the wealth on the planet. Let's stop talking economics, and start talking people's needs, let's stop looking at balance sheets, and see to those needs. Let's shatter the illusion of perpetual growth and create sustainability and mutual aid. It is our only hope of fairness and justice for all our people, it is the only hope of saving our home, the planet.
I begged no tyrant for my life, though sweet it was;
Though chained, I go unconquered to my grave,
Dying for my own birth-right-----and the world's.
Ricardo Flores Magon.
* Written just before his death, (1923) while incarcerated in the federal prison, Leavenworth, Kansas. Magon was an active Mexican rebel, and at the behest of the Mexican government, the US government seized him, its agents beat him up fiercely, and afterwards held him for years until his death.
Even the vapourish illusion of democracy has long since disappeared in Greece. The people of that country are forced to live their lives at the vagaries of greedy corporatism and brutal authoritarianism As the living standard of the people is plunder beyond anything seen in Europe since the end of the second world war, the powers that be, in an attempt to keep control of this situation, have only one tool, savage repression. I'm sure in time, that tool will fail, and the people of Greece will win through to take control of their own lives.
The story of Evi Statiri is just one of countless victims of that savage repression.
Greece: Evi Statiri still in prison for being the life companion
of a captive anarchist urban guerrilla
On
July 14th 2015, it became known that the latest motion for
release filed by Evi
Statiri (the life partner of CCF imprisoned member Gerasimos
Tsakalos) was rejected by the competent judicial council.
Despite the fact that Evi has never been a member of the
Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, nor had she any involvement whatsoever
in the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire escape plan, which was uncovered
in January 2015, she is nevertheless being held in pretrial detention
in Koridallos prison since March 2nd.
A recent study based on the UK government's own figures found that approximately two-thirds of children living in poverty were in households where at least one parent was working. The study also found that that there was an increase in the number of children living in working families who were faced with absolute poverty as opposed to relative poverty.
The acceptable face of economic growth capitalist style. We produce an abundance of wealth, and more working families sink deeper into the mire of poverty. This is the reward the system hands you if you are one of Cameron's “hard working families”. All of this is no accident, it is the expected result of policies based on ideology that glorifies the greed of the corporate world, at the expense of the people who create all that wealth.
Poverty, especially child poverty, has a devastating effect on the health and development of the individual. It brutally destroys the potential of every individual that it touches. We also know that in this system there are a considerable number of people who have died as a result of benefit cuts. People proclaimed to be fit for work by a bunch of bureaucrats, had their benefits cut, and died shortly afterwards. Others have committed suicide after such callous inhumane treatment.
All of this is the result of deliberate policies thought up and implemented by people with names and addresses. They must be held to account, the evidence is there, they are responsible for what is nothing less than murder.
Despite almost a quarter of a million people signing a petition demanding that the government release the figures showing the number of people who have died after being stated to be fit for work, and had their benefit cut, this bunch of Bullingdon boys refuse to do so. Despite the judicial system of the land stating these figures showed be released, they still refuse, stating that they will appeal the decision. Their excuse is that those demanding the release of the figures are scaremongering. The answer is simple, release the figures and prove your point.
How much longer will we accept the cull of our poorest and most vulnerable? How much longer will we accept our people being sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed? How much longer will we allow ourselves to be duped by a bunch of millionaire parasites who are working hard for the benefit of their rich cronies in the corporate world? Are we waiting for the rich and powerful to become more compassionate, waiting for them to look at our plight and say, “Oh dear, we must do more for those poor people”? You'll have a helluva wait.
We should not underestimate what has happened in Greece, it is crystal clear proof that national governments have no say in how their country is run. Democracy in capitalism, is, as anarchists have been saying for centuries, an illusion, those with the greatest wealth have the greatest power, and they will use that to defend and further their position of wealth and power.
The people of Greece are suffering the worst poverty seen in Europe since the end of the second world war. Did that brotherhood of nations, the EU rush forward to help the suffering people? A resounding NO, the rushed forward to try to save their debt ridden banks. As far as the plutocrats that control Europe are concerned, the people of Greece can go to hell in a handcart. This is capitalism functioning as intended, brutal, ruthless and exploitative, a system without compassion.
To imagine that there is a milder, more people friendly and compassionate capitalism, is naivety in the extreme. If we the people want justice and fairness for all our people, then we have to start in earnest, to demolish this blot on the face of humanity. We have to relegate capitalism to the bin of distant history, to the fog of the past, and start, in the here and now, to create that better society. To organise in our communities and workplaces, to take control, to shape things the way we want them to be.
Take Greece as your last warning, it is writ large who controls your life, who controls the direction you will be driven. As a people we can be the slaves of the financial Mafia, or the masters of our own destiny.
The eurozone, along with the rest of the capitalist world, is
weighed down by debt and economic growth rates have failed to return
to their pre-crash levels by some margin. Germany, France and the
others are not interested in democracy and not open to pressure or
protest, as Syriza have found out. Merkel and co are themselves
locked into overriding economic and financial forces. Appeals by Tsipras and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to
European solidarity and democracy were therefore bound to fall on
stony ground. Their failure to attack capitalism as a system was
noticeable and was a weakness. Yet there can’t be a regulated,
“softer” form of capitalism, where some countries do austerity
and others don’t as a matter of choice, especially within the
eurozone where the ECB controls every country’s banks.
The
eurozone, along with the rest of the capitalist world, is weighed down
by debt and economic growth rates have failed to return to their
pre-crash levels by some margin. Germany, France and the others are not
interested in democracy and not open to pressure or protest, as Syriza
have found out. Merkel and co are themselves locked into overriding
economic and financial forces.
Appeals by Tsipras and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to
European solidarity and democracy were therefore bound to fall on stony
ground. Their failure to attack capitalism as a system was noticeable
and was a weakness. Yet there can’t be a regulated, “softer” form of
capitalism, where some countries do austerity and others don’t as a
matter of choice, especially within the eurozone where the ECB controls
every country’s banks.
- See more at: http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/a-very-capitalist-coup.html#sthash.1RcuvMjj.dpuf
For some time now the Troika, (ECB, European Central Bank, IMF, International Mankind Fuckers, EC, European Commission) have been holding a gun to the head of the people of Greece, now they pull the trigger. Syriza has accepted a deal worse than the one that 62% of the people of Greece had just recently rejected, so much for European democracy. Syriza, like all political parties, when push comes to shove, they play by the rules of the Financial Mafia.
The God-fathers of the financial Mafia have taken a "left leaning" government and rubbed their noses in the shit, and it is the people of Greece that will feel the pain. After more than five years of collapsing living conditions, five years of failing health service, five years of disintegrating education system, they are now being forced to endure higher taxes, lower pensions and higher unemployment for the foreseeable future, and their national assets sold off to fund the European banksters. Will the Syriza group be able to get the coup accepted by the Greek parliament? My opinion is they will, but will the people of Greece accept that ruling from the puppets in the Greek parliament, I hope not.
Syriza has shown their hand- as if anyone needed confirmation. At
The Barbarian Review we have taken a consistent line fully against
Syriza, in contrast to many of the unsupportable illusions that have
been promoted in certain radical sectors, and the proof of this can
be read by anyone. Well before there was Syriza, there were any
number of past Marxist dictatorial and social-democratic failures.
History clearly showed what was going to take place. Now Syriza is
just another austerity government but with more ridiculous rhetoric,
and more generous helpings of incompetence. The shuttered stores,
abrupt policy changes, populist-nationalist rhetoric, and official
lies surely recall to mind life in the East Bloc. The only thing
missing is more serious repression, which presumably is not far off.
