Comrades, The next time the coalition SYRIZA-ANEL will submit to the vote in the House the
second package of unpopular measures after September elections, in order to disburse the
first 2bn for the start of the recapitalization of banks. - Measures onerous that include
reducing pensions, increasing the retirement age, abolishing the EKAS, consolidation of
pension funds with a view to a single national pension, removal of the auxiliary fund with
a zero deficit clause legalizing the seizure of primary residence etc. ---- The GSEE has
declared a 24-hour general strike - the most likely date of November 12 - while calls to
rally the day on which the prerequisites in parliament. Despite the treacherous role of
GSEE (the most recent example supporting the proposal Juncker referendum on July 5) and
declaring a strike without perspective scaling judge this pivotal date being the first
general strike after the passage of the third memorandum. A date should be a point
epanasyspeirosis and dynamic presence on the road so the world of struggle and proletarian
wider tracks.
Recognizing that while the crisis deepens, the urban block not as a united and unified as
it seems at first glance. Inside dominate exacerbated all the contradictions of
capitalism. In order to survive and become stronger it is getting harder and unpopular
measures, especially as they did not meet resistance. For this reason we must transform
every demonstration, every strike, a weapon in the class and proletarian counterattack.
Because today more than ever, we must refute massive and dynamic new understandings, the
growing social plunder and impoverishment of our lives. Today we need to create that
revolutionary popular movement, which will be capable of meeting the needs of our times. A
movement capable of creating the conditions for the overthrow.
We consider that as a revolutionary movement should have coherent and massive blocks in
these demonstrations. A block with anti-memorandum / anti-government / antiEE character,
ie those peaks and targets compacts, update and edafikopoioun conflict with capital and
the state.
No room for postponements and truce. The war rages. And raging wilder than ever. All the
streets!
Open Meeting Thursday, October 29 at 20:00 at the Polytechnic
Anarchist-communists in the class counter-offensive against the EU Assembly
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donderdag 29 oktober 2015
(en) Greece, Anarchist-communists Call to open assembly in view of the general strike of November 12
dinsdag 30 juni 2015
Greece, "Black & Red" communication on the situation, the referendum and the demonstration of June 30 (gr)
(en) Greece, "Black & Red" communication on the situation,
the referendum and the demonstration of June 30 (gr) [machine
translation]
After five months left management of power we can draw some conclusions in view of the
referendum on July 5. --- These conclusions do not arise as products of ideological
imperatives and mental exercises, but as observations inspired by the same social
struggles, the real needs of the oppressed. --- The struggles that continue from the
previous period, things are worse since, with key driver the judiciary, the most radical
struggles fall on the wall of bourgeois legality (see. Indust.) And in cases where
employees have arrived by their own means farther from any government (see. ERT), then the
one in front of the judiciary indicates a clear -and enochi- 'neutrality' vote bills
restore state guardianship against the public and social nature of self-managed structures.
Halkidiki projects continuing normally and the "ultra-left" Lafazanis preparing new
pipelines with the Russians, while the ecologist Deputy whistles indifferently. The vision
of national development, which has already cost four dead in HEP, coordinates the cabinet
with the Latsis, just as in the management of this company.
All this and various others such as the invasion of university asylum buried beneath the
prioritization of the negotiations, as they determine the economic issue as the top social
issue. Let's see what happened in the so-called economic levels: collective agreements
simply plummet without valid anywhere in fact, the minimum wage even ignored, just as any
income ignores the mass of millions unemployed. The promises of debt cancellation and
other such supposedly radically abandoned by the February 20. Instead we saw a round of
negotiations with international capital and their individual political institutions, with
the aim to conclude a new loan contract through a "fair compromise." We note, however,
that the strategy of SYRIZA to find "beneficial agreement" within the EU -as perimename-
reached an impasse, as the local and international capital alliance unsurprisingly
continues to orbit further impoverishment of the working class of all the oppressed.
Because of the deadlock Tsipras government declares referendum. It has caught up but
before it to present a new proposal for a new Greek loan agreement for a new memorandum.
Apart therefore from the individual terms of a new agreement underlines the continuity of
the vicious circle from which violently thrown off the exploited of the subordinate
layers, as a new loan agreement continues to deliver the wealth to international
capitalist organizations and the daily routine for exploited continuously deteriorating
since indirectly asked to pay new taxes and no social democratic type even redistribution
of wealth in favor of the lower layers is not provided anywhere, since of course can not
be predicted as the dominant capitalist power relations remain intact.
The referendum therefore gives a little bit opinion to the people within the framework and
the questions posed but the power while hiding a serious pitfall has to do with the
administration of the outcome of the government. A no-vote would probably just used as
another paper on the table, which will once again call upon the government SYRIZA
immediately after carrying out the order to finally ensure "honest compromise", the "small
Memorandum" of 8 billion . On the other hand a YES will lead to a caretaker government and
new elections likely that SYRIZA to beat the political noose from his neck with a sense of
pride party that it finally signed a memorandum even if offered one!
We should not have any confidence in the political system and attempts to renew the social
legitimacy of the institutions, whether political parties, or committees of the House, or,
of course, for the government formation, which legitimizes same time and the opposition
(the Adonis strolled in the Constitution), until the Nazi presence in the parliamentary
stall, but also outside it. The polls in no way can give the solutions that promise
partisan formations, as it was recently once again. We know very well that the only real
solution is gestated in the self-organization and self-activity, the class and social
struggles of the people, over and against the nationalist esmo finding makeshift hearth in
the left patriotism. Although we take for granted all the above, as a militant social
subjects can not under any circumstances tolerate the affirmation ethelodoulia, fear and
submission. That is why we insist on total denial that can open passages, a denial that is
born in the streets of resistance to social subversion and counter to the further
degradation of life from anyone. For us NOT to be directed against all of the above,
against old and new understandings, against the bosses EU and the local bosses, against
the state and capitalism. The referendum can not at this juncture it appears as a
prerequisite opposition to a confident anthroposfagi (that resulting from the "yes"), but
in any case not able alone to solve. From now organize social mobilization to overthrow
all authoritarian formations for the consolidation of a mass revolutionary movement base.
This is the only way to prevent government management will try to put on the table with
the troika the people and the revolutionary movement. Disable the popular mobilization
through the solution of a "small Memorandum".
The demonstration of 30 June comes following the mobilizations all paramount issues in
Europe turned against the bosses, against new understandings, against the degradation of
life, denotes that capitalism is not overthrown but humanized grasping the thread of
demonstrations of June 4 in Thessaloniki in June 18 in Athens and Patras, of June 25 in
Volos as well as interventions in Syntagma square against the constitution in terms of
squares of traditional urban blocks with mainstream New Democracy.
As far as these fans ethelodoulias, ie those who enlisted in the interests of their bosses
should be very careful, because in this fluid condition is given opportunity to the
traditional urban block attempted to reconstitute. Being temporarily disadvantaged in the
political spotlight, this part of the bourgeois forces essentially plagiarized the social
functions SYRIZA brought to power by changing the dilemma "Memorandum-antimnimonio" with
the most convenient for themselves "european-antiefropi". Understanding the
dipole-antimnimonio without involving the mid-anticapitalism capitalism, ie the mode of
production but also the question of ownership will be a shell without substance, since as
easily proved, the former "anti-memorandum" forces that have no plan overthrow the
substance of social relations soon will just squeezed the extended mnimoniako block either
euro or the drachma. The same goes for the dipole "european-antiefropi".
The alternative to the capitalist European integration can not be the national development
type ANEL-Lafazani, accumulation of national capital to Greek plutocrats, rearrangement of
relations with Russia and regional powers, while the interior will not change anything for
the oppressed: The laborers will continue to be killed in HEP, the Bobolas will make Greek
Stream with the blessing of ministers and national pride soared amid national unity. In
other words either penny or euro must overthrow capitalism. This does not at all mean that
you sit down to watch developments amid a convenient "neutrality." Instead, we are fully
prepared to smash the bourgeois esmo who poured out the squares. Within these squares
supposedly Europhiles fed, the minds of neo-Nazis. The existence of this government
SYRIZA-ANEL no way absolve us from our duties to crush fascism in all its versions or as
neo-Nazi battalion assault either as a liberal enforcement of social Darwinism. Liberal
lackeys must be scanned from antisygkentroseis not because we are interested in the
contrast of cosmopolitan nationalism like "anikomen in the west", promoted by
ethelodoulous cretins in relation to the left-patriotic cesspool that is centered on the
petty-bourgeois narrative of antigermanismou. Anything national must be scanned because
today's "leftists Peronist" tomorrow will thicken the lines of fascism and order and
security. On the other hand, we should not lose sight of the essence. In practice the
concentration of 'Europhiles share the common ground of residence in the EU with the
government, which does not exclude a whole new sacrifices of the people to achieve the
goal of stay.
The meaning of all this but for us ultimately limited to the refusal of the deterioration
of life of the oppressed and such a goal can only be realized through denial of
ethelodoulias combined with the constant struggle against the state and capital, against
local and international oppressors and their political institutions, against all urban
clusters in spite of the government and all authority mechanism.
The anarchist movement through the organized political forces should pull ahead, be
present, entering the center of the conflict, defending its own proposal for social
subversion. We can not lose a minute in oscillations leading to the demobilization, the
most critical points of the struggle. The minority hitherto character of the
demonstrations mentioned above in no way makes them wrong. On the contrary, preserving a
libertarian optic will bear fruit the next time, when even after the referendum, the left
management will find the limit, just as he met in the first instance to try to achieve a
supposedly beneficial solution for the people, synagelazomeni the bellwether of
international capital. When finally, new measures and new conditions will fall on the
table, the movement should take advantage of the reservoir of the refusal to create
conditions for a revolutionary affirmation switch.
The only way to emerge victorious from the bottom is the development of common ties of
race the excluded and their concurrence in a common direction, as they take matters into
their own hands. The road will open walking. The way that is the solution. The social
mobilization, a revolt aimed at denial of subordination and creating a new social treaty
will not negotiate any extension, no "honorable compromise", let alone "partial remission"
or whatever is possible proposal of a government that mediates folk need with
chartogiakades international capital- as tens pages of "Greek proposal" which is
essentially a new memorandum because, regardless of the conditions imposed, continues
normally repay the installments on international institutions, while continuing a policy
that has nothing positive to give the oppressed.
The resistance of the organized struggle against everything that degrades the life,
against nationalism, fascism left patriotism, but also ethelodoulia. Outside and against
partisan mechanisms, the self-instituting through the creation of new social structures
and communities of resistance and solidarity among the oppressed, the constant
mobilization on a collision course with the state and capital, exceeding the individual,
the synolikopoioun to prepare social uprising , social revolution to anarchy and communism.
ALL IN THE STREETS: Anarchists demonstrations TUESDAY JUNE 30 19.00 CHAMBER,
Against the degradation of our lives, in obedience and ethelodoulia, against new and old
understandings,
against EU bosses, both the local and international capital, at war with fascism and
nationalism
With class and social struggles to create communities struggle and solidarity, to conflict
with the overall grid of power institutions, the state and capitalism,
despite all the government any authority.
"Black & Red"
Collegiality on Social Anarchism
https://maurokokkino1936.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE-%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%AF%CE%BD%CF%89%CF%83%CE%B7-%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%B1-%CF%84%CE%B7-%CF%83%CF%85%CE%B3%CE%BA%CF%85%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1-%CF%84/
zondag 26 april 2015
(en) Greece, Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative - Notice of participation in the anarchist campaign internationalist solidarity THREE BRIDGES -
The capitalist crisis has intensified exploitation and oppression of subordinate classes.
The increasing gap between the European north and south within the EU has led to
impoverishment chunks of from-the-bottom. In the Balkans we observe an increase of
nationalisms that both peoples have cost the previous two decades. In the eastern
Mediterranean the interventionism of the powerful of globalized capitalism and its local
allies has resulted in an indescribable anthroposfagi and the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism. ---- However a red resistance line, movements and revolts against the
modern totalitarianism unites people. The struggles against capitalist restructuring and
local struggles against the plunder of nature in southern Europe. The antinationalism and
internationalist movements and the student and workers' struggles in the Balkan countries.
The new libertarian movements in Arab countries, the uprisings in Turkey and the
revolution Rojava.
We struggle for social revolution. We know very well that in order to do well to succeed
should have a profound internationalist character. We therefore absolutely
internationalist duty to try to link all these races in the direction of the social
revolution and of libertarian communism. For this reason we support and participate in
anarchist campaign internationalist solidarity "Three Bridges". Being even a collectivity
acting in Thessaloniki, which was once a multinational but also place great struggles and
rebellions, with this contribution we believe that we honor the most appropriate way to
multinational and racing history of our city.
Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative www.libertasalonica.wordpress.com lib_thess@hotmail.com
http://3gefires.org/el/content/anakoinosi-symmetohis-stin-anarhiki-kampania-diethnistikis-allileggyis-treis-gefyres
(en) Greece, Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - Anarchist Group Pyranthos - Notice of participation in the anarchist campaign internationalist solidarity three bridges
We are living and fighting in the city of Thessaloniki. A city in the thousand years of its history has been a meeting point of cultures and people of different nationalities from all over the Mediterranean. A city by the zealots the movement in 1342 as in May '36 has written its history with struggles of the oppressed against the power. ---- We are living and fighting in southern Europe. An area in recent years under the pretext of the crisis of capitalism is scope violent ftochopoiisis major social policies tracks, intensification of exploitation of people and nature and wild repression of resistance. But one area that produces new movements such as squares, the slag and the NO TAV, class resistance and grassroots structures. We are living and fighting in the Balkans. A peninsula that has been field strife, nationalism and irredentism, that rivers of blood drenched memories of impoverished and poisoned by hatred for the next instead of the top. But a peninsula that antinationalism movements keep alive the memories of people who lived, created and resisted oppression for centuries, making this corner of the world a laboratory of respect, solidarity and mixing cultures. We are living and fighting in the eastern Mediterranean. An area that military interventions for geopolitical aspirations and looting of natural resources by the rulers have impoverished people, destabilize the region and unbalance societies, has brought Islamic fundamentalism as a resistance against the western occupiers bringing to light conflicts of cultures darkest periods of human history. An area but that by December 2008 as the Arab Spring uprisings produces culminating revolutionized Rojava resisting between Islamists, dictatorships and Western geostrategic goals. We live and fight for social revolution and liberation. For large raid to have once hoped to come should be able to see the big picture. Image strategies and choices of sovereignty as if in conflict at the end attached to pursuing enforcement. And the picture of the bottom that must stop in conflict for the interests of the dominant and link to their struggles for liberation. As part of this struggle we see the anarchist campaign internationalist solidarity three bridges and why we support and participate in it. Anarchist Group Pyranthos [ Link ] pyranthos_kampania.pdf /el/content/anakoinosi-symmetohis-stin-anarhiki-kampania-diethnistikis-allileggyis-treis-gefyres-0
zaterdag 25 april 2015
(en) Greece, Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - Greece - Turkey. The two sides of the same coin - Group Libertarian Communists (Athens)
The decision of the Republic of Cyprus to proceed to exploit the EEZ caused the resurgence
of the given conflict between the Greek and the Turkish state. Frigates, submarines,
consortium, rigs, underwater research, partnerships create a tension setting with its
details and undeclared intentions of those who promote it are subject to interpretations,
assumptions or conspiracies. It is futile to look for someone who is right and who is
wrong in a transnational dispute. This is because it will never in our own right or wrong,
especially now that the nationalist fire lit in a period of great sharpening of social
contradictions in both countries. While plebeians on both sides of the Aegean are faced
not only attack the material substance of their existence but also the cultural and
ideological authoritarianism barbaric powers, a revival of the eternal enemy could only
operate inhibitory any attempt social and class struggle. Instead of the ruled to seek
ways to escape from their sovereignty, will be invited to join with them to defend some
national supposedly righteous.
But it would be terribly wrong to let the conflicts of states and governments to cover up
the real problems of the peoples of our region. Anyway, it is completely foolish to
believe that any profits from the exploitation of EEZ will do anything other than to serve
the designs of these governments and economic elites who support them. Not to mention the
huge risk of pollution of the Mediterranean waters, which in other times would mobilize
world Kosmaki. They own their differences therefore can not be our concern. But they are
the ground on which can build a new "national" consensus, which willingly hastened to join
the anti-memorandum and left in an attempt to highlight the patriotic character that will
bring it even closer to the coveted power. Let us not forget that the invocation of
national emergency and national risk always is a trump card in the hands of authoritarian
mechanisms when it comes to justify the sacrifices will once more sought by the plebeians.
We saw it happen in the economic field with the mnimoniako of emergency status. It may
well be repeated on the occasion of the "national" security, especially in our country,
where the social upheavals of recent years and is largely based on a sense of national
humiliation -not always anypostatis- towards the "hard" Europeans, which removed the
public dialogue by discussing pure class options of local elites. So if in this picture
add the "long-standing enemy" of the nation, Turkey, then consider social legitimization
of class struggles -which are already well what can xekinisoun- seems very visible. And
the only winner will be the capital will have reached the absolute labor peace and -dexies
and aristeres- governments will undertake to manage social tensions.
Our consensus but -to really work to their advantage us- will apply to States, their
mechanisms and capital. Our consent will seek allies to our likes the other side of the
Aegean. In recent years, both Greece and Turkey was shocked by unprecedented social
explosions opened cracks in the system walls, but mainly in the minds of people. Through
their diversity, the contradictions and their ambiguity, emerged or strengthened forces
that refuse to submit to the nationalist brutality that so often has makelepsei our
neighborhood. Forces fighting for freedom and self-determination. Forces recognize the
enemy not the foreigner or heterodox but those who sink in their physical and emotional
depression and fanaticism. And in our hands to build bridges that will allow those very
forces to meet and march along the road of freedom and emancipation.
http://libcommu.com/
group@libcommu.com
aoz.pdf
http://3gefires.org/el/content/ellada-toyrkia-oi-dyo-opseis-toy-idioy-nomismatos
dinsdag 21 april 2015
Greece Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - In Southern Europe break down walls and build bridges
In southern European countries, as in the rest of Europe, what we call society, contrary
to the dominant propaganda promotes, not a single recommendation, nor uniform or common
interests, or characterized by horizontal relationships. The society is divided into
classes, which are characterized by relations of exploitation, with different and
conflicting interests, each of which competes with the others. In the lower layers are
those (the most advantage of all) that their work provide everything necessary to roll
smoothly life the rest of society, those from which the trouble earning bosses. Within
this world, there are more understated pieces, the precarious workers, the unemployed, the
homeless, those who because of their class position devoid of options and are forced to
live in poverty, and those and those designated by the Member as "clandestine" and de
facto inferior because they were born on the "other" side of the border. The State
management towards these pieces are common: repression, persecution, pogroms, inclusions;
these practices are tools to maximize the pressure experienced by these groups undervalued
and reduce the chances of them to rebel or to punish any moves from below,
paradeigmatizontas and others.
So there is here a common enemy, the state and capital, and the common feature that all
these people are almost invisible to the rest of the population, while the injustices that
exist entirely justified the sovereignty and considered to be the natural order of things.
Thieves seems natural to serving sentences in prisons, whether they had another way to
survive beyond the theft, they and those rebelling against authority and exploitation
also, while the men and women who lack the magic "legalization" cards are "normal
"enclosed in detention centers, without having committed anything.
Most member states of the EU, in order to satisfy the interests of transnational capital,
engage in imperialist wars and military operations, thereby creating thousands of
refugees. Member, signing treaties and agreements such as Schengen and Dublin I, II and
III, regulate who can live, work and move freely in their territories and which are not.
So ensure that more workers from outside the EU will be living and working in regime
(semi) illegality and will therefore constitute a cheap labor force to exploit, in any
case, for as long as needed.
Artificial paranomopoiisi immigrants and refugees makes this population the most
underrated part of the working class and for this reason its exploitation is particularly
profitable for the big and small bosses each country. To ensure that this profit will
remain inexhaustible source and manageable by state and bosses recruited and adopted a
number of tools, such as special legislation, especially security forces (FRONTEX),
detention centers, enterprises "cleaner" and other media repression and control. The EU
builds its borders in the south hanging around with the bodies of refugees and immigrants
in the Aegean, Ionian and Adriatic, raising fences with mines in Evros and Melilla, Spain,
establishing modern concentration camps in Greece and Italy, feeding racism with
Islamophobia in France as herein.
The global economic crisis and restructuring of the capitalist system causes sharpening of
class contradictions, as transnational and local elites each state seized the opportunity
to maximize their profits. This intense experience in recent years here and in the rest of
southern Europe, where attempts to implement a tougher model of liberalism, in the form of
the respective "new measures", memoranda, etc. So as aggravated exploitation, application
of this model requires less "carrot" and more whip for the exploited, which still implies
more relentless attitude of the state towards all those who resist and fight against the
same chapter. Member, European and local level, organized and equipped institutional,
legal and material to meet the demands of the times and be able to deal appropriately with
those who confront their interests.
The law of the European Parliament introduced in 2010 by Spanish MP Pedro Agkramout which
curtails freedom of expression and assembly, whenever there is some "pressing social need"
is one such example, as the European Gendarmerie Eurogendfor power. Corresponding examples
are the "ours" terror law, the "gag law" of Spain, the "business Pandora" there, such as
intrusions into the homes of anarchists and persecution staged categories here. In order
to fulfill the righteousness of vengeful and punitive role for the outcasts of every
society and the enemies of the state, bourgeois democracy is armed with high-security
prisons, which essentially seeks to eliminate and exterminate them, status FIES (Archive
Prisoners in Special Monitoring) in Spain, isolation wards in France and C-type prisons here.
However, the world of exploitation and oppression not epelafnei unhindered opposite that
is the world of struggle and hope. People like him who resists and fights in and out of
prisons and detention centers, claiming breaths of freedom, removal of the new booking
conditions, better living conditions, papers, political and labor rights, fighting against
any form of confinement.
Games that teach dignity and determination, like him now give 2/3 of political prisoners
on hunger strike through the Greek prisons and as his struggle anarchist José Antunez
Becerra, who is already serving a sentence of more than 40 years, hunger strike from 23 /
1, through the Spanish high-security prisons.
In Southern Europe only struggles and movements from below can tear down the walls every
prison and build bridges internationalist solidarity among the oppressed.
Rethymno, 03/28/2015
Anarchist Solidarity Campaign Internationalist "Three Bridges"
Rethymnon Initiative
rethymno.pdfhttp://3gefires.org/sites/3gefires.org/files/pdf/rethymno.pdf
http://3gefires.org/el/content/ston-eyropaiko-noto-gkremizoyme-toihoys-kai-htizoyme-gefyres
maandag 20 april 2015
(en) Greece, Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - For a bridge internationalist solidarity in Southern Europe - Group Libertarian Communists (Athens)
The situation in Southern Europe is becoming increasingly stifling. Everywhere austerity,
wage cuts, dismantling labor relations, unemployment, dramatic reduction of social
benefits that increase the cost of survival of the popular masses and the middle class,
wild direct and indirect taxation. It is obvious that capital, as usual, trying to pass on
the cost of the crisis on underneath. Therefore, the famous European integration through
economic and social convergence has gone walk. Conversely, a twofold division permeates
throughout Europe. Within the countries, old and new oligarchies of wealth and power
together with all sorts of hangers them ask their people more and more sacrifices to
"overcome the crisis", while those continuing to accumulate profits and power. At
transnational level, Europe has now turned into an indirect empire with a strong financial
center (north) and a region of the south absolutely dependent and weak self-financing,
have to give up all their "competitive" advantage (banking sector in Cyprus) or to abandon
its own consumption model (Greece) and to comply with the austerity. Moreover, the
emergence of new giant markets in the East (China, India) makes less and less useful to
the globalized capital, the purchasing power of the peoples of southern Europe, which of
course far funded markets of the north.
Little importance that this new empire is product Politics and decisions (as the systemic
left) or deterministic evolution of the way in which the European Union is founded (EU)
and the euro (as does the extra-parliamentary left or KKE). First, these correlations seem
ingrained, let alone relying on rhetoric about national characteristics, restoring another
form of nationalism of the past. A policy change alone does not say a lot of things, if
markets remain above the. Does anyone that in the era of unrestricted capital mobility
will remain no business in countries where their taxation would increase? On the other
hand, a possible exit from the euro or the EU anything does not guarantee improved
economic status of modern plebeians. But it is an alternative weapon in the arsenal of
domestic elites and civilian personnel in case they consider them better serve their
interests and can reproduce their power. And then we will see unfold poverty management
policies where the market economy and the "competitiveness" would sprinkled from
rhetorical patriotism and national dignity.
What is vindicated anarchist position that capital and the market economy fail to unite
people around something meaningful, unable to balancing work and ensure the well-being of
societies. Something that motivates, consciously or unconsciously, the world, around the
southern Europe decides to resist the capitalist steamroller. Bridges will join this world
of struggle is the essential perspective that opens before us. The concert but in Southern
Europe may not be top case and no alternative route of capital. The agreement will make
sense when done racing meeting point, resistors, compensation. Anyway, the denominator is
common in France, Spain, Italy, Greece. It consists in the mobilizations to save the
environment and natural resources from the voracious capital. Mobilizations against
Pharaonic projects and investments that destroy ecosystems and communities.
The struggle for the defense of the roof from banks and tax offices. The struggles against
layoffs and wonky hours. The proliferation of collaborative and self-managed endeavors to
grope an alternative to capitalism possibility of setting up of the economy. But mostly
evident in the way people organize themselves without party mediations, horizontally and
democratically, Match communities. Platforms, collectives, neighborhood assemblies,
solidarity networks are pieces of a mosaic of true hope. And all these regenerating again
a new social vision that takes elements from ancient sympoliteiaka Commonly, the direct
democracy of the Ecclesia, community land management, the many revolts and revolutions
made for freedom and equality of peoples and human, social experimentation of the Spanish
revolution, modern autonomous Zapatista municipalities or experiment democratic
confederalism in Kurdish areas.
What is needed is a Mediterranean spring of peoples that will scan the existing
structures. Not to oppose a "progressive" in the south "neoliberal" north, but to build
the libertarian answer to the barbarism of capitalism.
Group Libertarian Communists | http://libcommu.com | group@libcommu.com
http://3gefires.org/sites/3gefires.org/files/pdf/ekei_ston_noto.pdf
http://3gefires.org/el/content/gia-mia-gefyra-diethnistikis-allileggyis-ston-eyropaiko-noto
donderdag 16 april 2015
Greece, Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - Solidarity gun peoples ...
In recent years the bottom experiencing the effects of reproduction crisis of the capitalist system. At the same time conducted a endokapitalistiki conflict to redefine the geostrategic relationships to concentration of more and more areas of influence in the hands of more powerful states and economic elites they serve. In the era of globalization of capitalism and the consolidation of domination through international organizations such as the EU is clearer than ever that the key distinction that characterizes the capitalist world is not (only) is among the leading nations and the countries of southern Europe, are not among the Western European and destitute coming from the east, it is among men with different ethnicity, gender or religion. The main difference is between where land exploiters and exploited, between the oppressors and the oppressed. These are two irreconcilable worlds, two worlds in conflict. One, is that the capital of the state and of power; it is the world of exploitation, competition, oppression, and repression. The other is ours, is the world of bottom, is the world of solidarity, collectivity and resistance, the world's fight. And in southern Europe the world of capital and states, imposes poverty, restrict rights and freedoms, pollute the environment, build concentration camps and murdered immigrants, while those who resist to all this holds the brutal repression, establishing anti-terrorism laws, and creating white cells. The passing of the "gag law" and the anti-anarchist business "Pandora" in Spain, the murder of protester Remi Fraisse by cops during driving against dam construction in France, prosecutions against anarchists and other activists who oppose the plundering of nature in Italy and the establishment of a maximum security prison in Greece are examples of the increased role of state repression for unrestricted application of the requirements of capitalism. At the same time, however, the struggle of the world continues to resist the plans of domestic and transnational bosses and dystopian future who want to impose. >From the numerous demonstrations in Spain against the "gag law" and the repressive operations against anarchists by competitors residents Skouries, Halkidiki, the NO TAV movement against the construction of ultra in northern Italy until hunger strikers political prisoners in Greece and by several months ZAD struggle in France against the airport construction, competitors peoples of the Mediterranean basin erect barricades against the onslaught of modern totalitarianism. Now more than ever it is imperative to link the individual races that give the oppressed country, to stand class unity from below surpassing the artificial divisions imposed by the power to set up international solidarity bridges as a must if we want to prevent social genocide imposed internationally peoples states and capital; if we want to open paths to the classless society. ... War war bosses THESSALONIKI MARCH 2015 mail: anwthrwskw@espiv.net blog: http://anwthrwskw.espivblogs.net http://3gefires.org/sites/3gefires.org/files/pdf/ano_throsko_allilegii.pdf http://3gefires.org/el/content/i-allileggyi-oplo-ton-laon
woensdag 15 april 2015
Greece, Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - In southern Europe, to break the terror
2008 is the starting year of the global financial crisis and the restructuring of capital.
For Europe, the countries of the region, namely the European South, the ideal field for
the application of a more extreme liberal governance model. The high degree of corruption
in the political system of these countries and their retarded economic development are
fertile ground for the spread of international capital, without resistance from local
elites. ---- As for the resistance of residents and local movements, the recipe is simple:
repression, imprisonment and terrorism. The attitude of the chapter is clear against those
who fight against the degradation of their lives.
Within Cities
Over the last five years, free social spaces, places, occupations within the
cities are increasingly often violent repression of the state. All sorts fight outbreaks,
raw occupations (both political and housing) accept more systematically invaded, with the
aim of closing them by the forces of repression. In a Europe that mass unemployment
-aporroia of capitalist accumulation and anadiarthrosis- leads increasingly ftochopoiisi
and social impoverishment, social sites that try to address the problems of living are not
only ideological enemies [the capital], but an obstacle its economic expansion. Thousands
of buildings remain empty while the urban sidewalks are filled with more and more
homeless. When social relations mediated by profit, the masks of charity fall. Housing and
feeding can not be free and never to anyone.
Natural areas
From the mines in Slag Chalkidiki until resisting zones (ZAD) of Italy and southern
France, movements against the destruction of the environment receiving the most violent
and vindictive treatment, as there the profitability of capital is greater. Local people,
including children, are classified as terrorists / troublemakers or as members of an
imaginary "terrorist organization" only aim vandalism worksites. More features are
examples of rust, where an entire village is accused of involvement in a terrorist
organization, and the NO TAV movement in Italy and southern France, where recently 48
protesters were sentenced to more than 140 years in prison for participating in
demonstrations against the construction railroad. The remainder of this violence cycle
complements the murder of Remi Fraisse, an environmental activist from stun grenades at a
demonstration against the dam Shiwen.
The enemy within
Of course, the legitimacy of all this violence (even the development of an
internal army) was under the guise of national security and protection from terrorists /
anarchists.
The crown jewel of bourgeois democracy in Southern Europe is probably the "gag law" of
Spain, comprising penalties up to carry out assemblies or meetings in public spaces or
"peaceful disobedience to power." In Greece, Koukoulonomos type prisons III, raids on
homes (after undercover phone calls), taking DNA, detentions and arrests of political
opinion or mere participation in a demonstration.
The new management framework is clear: simultaneous suppression of the struggling segments
of society and, in parallel, intimidation and terror for everyone. H upgrading of state
repression and the disruption of social cohesion through fear is necessary for the
preservation of sovereignty.
To reclaim space
The line joining the movements in Spain, Greece and Italy are common. It is the
struggle for self-management of social and natural environments against the rapture of the
companies and their political mouthpieces of capital, enriching themselves by clicking on
the exploitation of the working class. It is the common struggle against repression and
intimidation, the struggle for freedom against the capital gain.
We will not tolerate terrorism of the state and its policies gangs, especially at
a time when the neoliberal crisis management model Unleashes tougher attack to pieces of
the working class who resist. We stand in solidarity with the comrades who are fighting to
overthrow the system through the
social self-organization, re-appropriation of natural and public spaces, the defense of
the environment, in Greece, in the south of Europe, everywhere.
Libertarian Thessaloniki Initiative
1st Bridge: Flevaris- March 2015. European South
lib_thess@hotmail.com
http://www.libertasalonica.wordpress.com
Thessalonica http://3gefires.org/el/poli/thessaloniki
http://3gefires.org/sites/3gefires.org/files/pdf/eleuth_protov_europaikos_notos.pdf
http://3gefires.org/el/content/ston-eyropaiko-noto-na-spasoyme-ton-tromo /
dinsdag 14 april 2015
Greece, Anarchist campaign of internationalist solidarity - Three Bridges
There is the dominion of the powerful states, supranational formations and local
governors. There are the inner-sovereign conflicts that feed geopolitical tension games
in the area of the Mediterranean. There are nationalisms that divide the repressed and
lead them to killing one another. Local societies are deregulating through polemic
interference. In addition there's the barbarity of the religious fundamentalist
obscurantism. There is the nexus of suppression which is weaved by<<terror laws>>,police
oppression on the streets , prisons, special conditions of detention, concentration camps
for the immigrants. There is the fear of losing your job along with the devaluation of
labour that empowers the masters.
However there exists another parallel world. It is the world of revolt.It is the world of
resisting people on the streets of the European south. It is the world the NO TAV
movement at the north of Italy and the Halkidiki movement at the greek north, there are
the radical outbursts of revolt in Turkey, it is the realization of the democratic
autonomy and resistance at the Kurdish areas of northern Syria. They are the autonomous
fights of the workers struggles. They are the political prisoners and the persecuted
social revolutionists. They are the insurgent prisoners and people held captive in
concentration camps.It is every person and collective movement that resists and tries to
realize a different life on the streets, neighborhoods, work places, schools, universities
and agriculture land.
This parallel world can prevent capitalistic barbarity enforcement and religious and
nationalistic obscurantism at this crossroad that is called Mediterranean.This parallel
world has to, here and now, build bridges of communications, cooperation ,resistance and
solidarity.
Demanding all the above, social collectives along with political initiatives start an
anarchist campaign of internationalist solidarity naming it THREE BRIDGES:
bridge of solidarity at the European south
bridge of solidarity at the east Mediterranean arc
bridge of solidarity at the Balkan area.
The campaign will unfold through coordinated, common or autonomous actions of the
collectives and initiatives that are part of the campaign all through February until
October 2015.
Ελληνικά Français Türkçe Italiano
English Français Türkçe Italiano
prok01_color.pdfhttp://3gefires.org/sites/3gefires.org/files/pdf/prok01_color.pdf
http://3gefires.org/en/anarchist-campaign-internationalist-solidarity-three-bridges
http://3gefires.org/el/anarhiki-kampania-diethnistikis-allileggyis-treis-gefyres
Greece, Three Bridges - Anarchist campaign - For Anarchist Solidarity Campaign Internationalist - Group Libertarian Communists (Athens)
Today the region of South Europe and the Mediterranean is the place par excellence
condense the contradictions and tensions of modern dystopia. The economic crisis of
capitalism leads to a dramatic shrinking middle class and instead supported the richest
part of the population. The work is discredited, unemployment rises dramatically as a
result more and larger sections of the people to fall into poverty and despair. The system
seems to move without any control from below, defines the same rigorous rules to which
those who do not obey simply disappear. The natural environment is constantly
underestimated in order to create friendly framework for "investment" and "development".
Only this "development" means working conditions sweatshops and cancer for those who work
for it.
The physical misery accompanied by regression to autocratic forms of government and the
emergence of a new obscurantism. Those who react faced with harsh government repression
and fascism and neo-Nazism poison again the souls and minds of people asking to roll
blood. The wars torn countries the Middle East create constantly refugees from Europe
faces with fences and concentration camps and finally fundamentalisms of all kinds cause
conditions revival of religious wars and cultural conflicts, which would negate any
attempt for social emancipation.
But this is not a natural disaster, not a tsunami that or drown or be saved by putting the
legs. It is a harsh reality which is responsible: The states and their governments,
companies, the clergy. It is the face of a relentless authoritarian grid, which will do
everything in order to overcome the crisis.
And how do we stand in all this? Will sink in material and spiritual misery hoping to new
messiahs or lift the head asking support each other and looking fellow in those with whom
we share the same destiny and the same vision?
And such allies are! Are people who swarmed the squares of South Europe a few years ago,
are those who created the Arab spring, the Turks are the Taksim square, are the Kurds
fighting against the barbarism of the Islamic State. It is those who are fighting against
the Pharaonic projects in France, Italy, and Greece, are refusing Balkan nationalism has
massacre their countries and make clear coexistence. As we consider legitimate to ask the
solidarity of the peoples of Europe to not sink even further in misery, is equally
obligated to offer our own solidarity to those looking for the same thing. The
entrenchment in any kind of borders simply do not suit us. Serves only those forces invent
enemies to foreign and heterodox in order to consolidate their power over the people and
seek their sacrifices for their own profit.
So, we are not seeking bridges between programs, but between peoples in southern Europe,
the Balkans, the Mediterranean.
http://libcommu.com
group@libcommu.com
1o.pdf
http://3gefires.org/el/content/gia-tin-anarhiki-kampania-diethnistikis-allileggyis
maandag 23 maart 2015
(en) Greece, Rosinante, Goodbye Stavros ...
The anarcho-syndicalist Initiative Rocinante mourns the loss of a partner Stavros
Chatzistavrou who passed suddenly from us at dawn Tuesday, aged just 53 years. ----
Stavros was not for us only a worthy companion and fellow traveler. There was also a very
sweet man, a friend in solidarity, a moral model and vitality, a living example of
libertarian existence, with all the excitement, anxieties, desires and contradictions it
contains. ---- We will never forget the passion with which always spoke for tobacco
workers colleagues, India, Vietnam, Lebanon, China, Albania and where he worked as an
agronomist tobacco, anger about the conditions under which they worked and
over-exploitation by multinational tobacco. We will not forget that it was these work
conditions which caused breathing problems and eventually led to the premature and
untimely death.
We will say goodbye to our partner, our cross him, the Thursday 12 March at 3pm in New
Smyrna Cemetery , where will be the political burial.
Marina and Rebekah, his two daughters, his partner, his mother and any person concerned
expresses its full solidarity and the wish that tenderness remain Guide for an inclusive
and dignified life.
The anarcho-syndicalist Initiative Rocinante committed to the publication of his book "
Honor thy bread ", which together are designed, and describing operating conditions of
tobacco workers across the world through his personal experiences.
Our Farewell Comrades, until communism and freedom.
Anarchosyndikalistiki Rocinante Initiative
http://rocinante.gr/index.php/antio-stavro/
The anarcho-syndicalist newspaper Rocinante run by the editorial team of
Anarchosyndicalist Initiative - Rocinante . Its purpose is to promote anarcho-syndicalism
and revolutionary syndicalism means clubs and workplaces, as well as information on labor
issues. The view of the AP Rocinante expressed in editorial form. Only signed express the
view of the author, but have the general approval of the editorial team, unless otherwise
stated. Reproduction of text is free, with earnest request to state the source.
maandag 2 februari 2015
(en) Greece, Athens,On Syriza and its victory in the election - by the TPTG (an anti-authoritarian communist group)
On the 25th of January of 2015, for the first time in Greek history, a left-wing party,
SYRIZA, won the general election with a majority of 36.34%, 8.5 percentage points above
Nea Dimokratia (?New Democracy?), the traditional right-wing party and the main force of
the departing government coalition. However, SYRIZA didn?t win an absolute majority since
it gained 149 seats in parliament (a minimum of 151 seats is needed to win a vote of
confidence). In consequence, they formed a coalition with ?Anexartitoi Ellines?
(?Independent Greeks?), a right-wing nationalist populist party which gained 4.75% of the
votes and 13 seats in parliament. Such a collaboration became possible due to the firm
opposition of ?Anexartitoi Ellines? to the memoranda austerity programs in the previous
years despite the great differences in issues like immigration and foreign policy between
the two parties.
The working class and the petty bourgeoisie vote for SYRIZA was a revenge vote against a
right-wing government whose harsh austerity programs had disastrous effects on their lives
and had pushed them to depression and suicidal tendencies. It was a vote against the
politics of fear that had promoted not only police repression of struggles but also
numerous daily, small and depressing ?civil wars? among the workers. It was a vote against
the constant and monotonous propaganda of ?there-is-no-alternative? dogmas. Nothing
illustrates the popularity of SYRIZA?s alternative political program better than this
example: inside the Amygdaleza concentration camp, the ?illegal? immigrants who had
revolted against their incarceration in the summer of 2013 and who are not eligible to
vote were rhythmically chanting ?Tsipras-Tsipras? in the face of their wardens on the
night of January 25.
As we will show in greater detail in the remainder of this text, SYRIZA?s main positions
are a) the write-off of the biggest part of the Greek government debt as well as other
debt relief measures and b) the abolition of the memoranda austerity (i.e. capital
devaluation) programs. It is interesting to note that only recently SYRIZA cadres have
expressed optimistic views concerning the acceptance of their positions and proposals by
the creditors, i.e. the rest of the EU member-states, the European Central Bank (ECB) and
the IMF. It is possible that this optimism is connected with the fact that the ongoing
deflation and stagnation within the European Union, in connection with the recent oil
price slash, has led to the launching of a very large ?quantitative easing? (QE)
bond-buying program by the ECB, amounting to 1 trillion euros, to provide demand stimulus
to the European economies. This recently announced QE strategy signals a policy of
inflationary devaluation of money capital within EU as a whole, by means of the
euro-currency depreciation that might prevent the imposition of new harsh austerity
measures to specific EU-member countries or the tightening up of budget deficits, even
though this shift does not mean that good ol? fiscal terrorism will be abandoned as a tool
to attack proletarians in EU.
Furthermore, a few European government officials have expressed support for or sympathy
with the positions of SYRIZA, such as the finance minister of Ireland who, two weeks
before the Greek general elections, backed the idea for a European debt conference or the
chancellor of Austria who criticized the austerity programs and expressed the will to
discuss specific debt relief measures. It seems that, because of the lingering economic
stagnation, a small but growing fraction of the European capital is pushing for the
abandonment of the hard austerity policy promoted by Germany. Recently, several prominent
economists and financial columnists have not only acknowledged that debt relief is
necessary but have actually endorsed SYRIZA?s program for the replacement of expenditure
cuts by demand stimulus spending.[1] Even if Martin Schulz, the German social-democrat
president of the European Parliament, expressed the conviction that SYRIZA will not
achieve a haircut on the Greek debt, he nevertheless spoke about proceeding to a ?compromise?.
At the same time it seems possible that SYRIZA will use other instruments of foreign
policy such as the ability to veto decisions in order to press for concessions from the
European Union.
?ow SYRIZA came to be the majority party in Greece
SYRIZA is the acronym for ?Synaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras? which is translated into
English as ?Coalition of the Radical Left?. SYRIZA was created in January 2004 as a
coalition of several leftist political parties and groups with the most important ones
being Synaspismos (Coalition of Left, of Movements and Ecology), AKOA (Renewing Communist
Ecological Left), KEDA (Movement for the United in Action Left), DEA (Internationalist
Workers Left) and KOE (Communist Organization of Greece). SYRIZA was transformed into a
single-party before the general elections of June 2012 when it seemed possible to win the
elections in order to be eligible to receive the bonus parliamentary seats given to the
majority party under the current Greek electoral system. Synaspismos was by far the
strongest and biggest constituent of SYRIZA and was initially formed in 1989 as a
coalition between KKE (the pro-soviet Communist Party) and Greek Left, the successor of
KKE Interior (a euro-communist party which split from KKE in 1968). KKE left Synaspismos
in 1991 when the hard-liner Stalinist faction purged all the more social-democratic
oriented members, including the General Secretary of the party, who resigned and remained
in Synaspismos. AKOA split from KKE Interior at the end of the ?80s whereas KEDA split
from KKE at the beginning of the ?90s. DEA was a split from the Trotskyite Socialist
Workers? Party (associated with the International Socialist Tendency) and KOE the
successor of a splinter group from the maoist party KKE-Marxists/Leninists.
The creation of SYRIZA is directly connected with the political ferments and developments
which took place during the period of the ?anti-globalization? movement and the prevalence
of the so-called anti-neoliberal discourse within the ranks of the movement. Specifically,
all these seemingly heterogeneous political groups united around the opposition to the
neoliberal restructuring of the capitalist welfare state and opted for a return to a more
social-democratic management of capitalist social relations. The organizational vehicle
for this unification was the ?Space for Dialogue for the Unity and Common Action of the
Left? formation which prepared the Greek leftist participation at the 2001 Genoa
?anti-global? demonstration. Without a doubt, there are still different positions within
SYRIZA with regard to a series of issues such as the nationalization of banks or the
participation in the Eurozone but at this point the more ?radical? social democrats, who
support the nationalization of banks as well as the so-called Euro-sceptics, who are for
the exit from the Eurozone are at the losing side within the party.
***
Before the outbreak of the ?debt crisis? in 2010 ?which was a manifestation and
aggravation of the protracted capitalist reproduction crisis in Greece? and the imposition
of the shock policy of constant and variable capital devaluation through the mechanism of
the infamous ?memoranda? ?i.e. the austerity programs connected with the loans given by
the Troika (IMF, ECB, European Union)[2]? in the years that followed, SYRIZA had never won
more than 5% of the vote in both the European and the national elections. SYRIZA emerged
as the main opposition party in the repeated general elections of 2012 only after the
retreat, recuperation or defeat of the struggles against the imposition of the policy of
capital devaluation (16.78% of the vote in May and 26.9% in June 2012).
This development is greatly related to the central role played by SYRIZA within the
?movement of the squares? which erupted at the end of May 2011 and lasted in a vigorous
manner for more than one year. The main manifestation of the ?movement of the squares? in
Greece was the occupation of Syntagma square (the central square of Athens opposite
Parliament), which lasted for two months in the summer of 2011. This movement seemed to
give a perspective of overcoming the sectional logic of the trade unions and a perspective
of questioning the political parties of the left as alienating forms of representation of
working class practices as well as the political system as a whole. However, it remained
at the level of political protest and the demand for ?real / direct democracy?, although
its role in calling strikes against the medium-term agreement and in the organization of
the battles against the police forces of capitalist rule in June 2011 was crucial. The
party mechanism of SYRIZA and other organizations of the left took part incognito in key
organizational groups in the square and thereby succeeded largely in dominating the
content and the forms of struggle by promoting a nationalist leftist ideology of ?national
independence?, ?productive reconstruction of the Greek economy?, ?cancellation of the
odious part of the debt?, etc. Furthermore, this mechanism did its best to limit the
struggle to a purely symbolic level, undermining any practical suggestions that were made
for the expansion of the struggle to the workplaces and the unemployment offices, while it
promoted provocateurology against those that clashed with the forces of order in mass
demonstrations at that time.
The ?movement of the squares? was based either on the creation of new ?popular assemblies?
in the neighbourhoods of Athens and in provincial towns or the temporary reinvigoration of
already existing ones (with their genealogy going back to the December 2008 revolt). In
the period following the movement of Syntagma square there was a current of mobilizations
promoting ?refusal of payments from below? organized mainly by the assemblies. The
mobilizations mainly focused on the refusal of payment of: a) electricity bills, which at
this point and for the next 3 years included a surcharge for a new property tax, b)
transport tickets, the price of which had been increased, and c) highway tolls, which
have been multiplied and at the same time their fare has been increased. The members of
SYRIZA and other leftists, who participated in the ?popular assemblies? promoted a shift
of the focus of the mobilizations from proletarian antagonistic activities ?e.g. the
reconnection of electricity in working class houses or the blockade / sabotage of ticket
cancelling machines in the metro stations ? to legal actions which often involved the
apparatuses of the municipalities administered by left/social democrat mayors.
SYRIZA?s attempts to recuperate the mobilizations were widely successful and a rather easy
task due to the latter?s interclass composition and political content: the assemblies,
even when they were predominantly composed of proletarians of all sorts, never defined
themselves as working class collectivities; they were rather perceived by the majority of
their members as assemblies of local citizens/private individuals/private property owners.
From there it was a short step to be subsumed into the social-democratic discourse of
?citizens? social rights?, ?common goods rights?, etc. which has been promoted by SYRIZA.
For example, the neighbourhood assemblies have organized a series of so-called solidarity
activities, such as soup kitchens, self-organized health centers, co-operative (simple)
commodity exchanges, service exchanges (e.g. foreign language classes) within an
interclass anti-government framework. This self-managed austerity strategy was widely
adopted by SYRIZA, which, as will be shown below, has included a ?social? or ?solidarity?
economy as one of the ?pillars? of its program for the ?productive reconstruction of the
Greek economy?. Today, SYRIZA controls a plethora of such rank and file ?solidarity?
organizations including self-organized health centers and pharmacies, commodity exchanges,
poverty relief groceries, etc. Our position that the boundaries between such projects and
charities led by the Church and NGOs are blurred has been confirmed by the recent
declarations of support for the philanthropical mission of the Church, which were
expressed by the president of SYRIZA at a meeting with the Archbishop in a church charity
institution. Furthermore, SYRIZA utilized the neighbourhood assemblies in order to
strengthen its local branches, which often copied the assembly form and recruited members
from the neighbourhood assemblies.
The ability of SYRIZA to substitute (to a limited, yet substantial, extent) the functions
of the disintegrating welfare state in Greece has been augmented by its recent gains in
the local elections. For example, SYRIZA administers the Regional Administration of Attiki
(the most-populated Greek region where the city of Athens is situated) since September
2014 and has implemented the reconnection of electricity to a significant number of poor
households providing 360 euros per year to each household where electricity has been cut off.
Moreover, after the defeat of the struggles in the public sector (with the exception of
the struggle against the new employee and workplace unit evaluation system, which is still
pending), a defeat which occurred due to a number of reasons, some of which have been
presented in our above-mentioned texts, SYRIZA emerged as the political party which would
restore the status quo ante by cancelling the redundancies and the lay-offs at the
universities and, more broadly, in the public services and re-opening ERT (the national
radio and television broadcasting network which was closed down by the previous
government, dismissing about 3000 employees). In the case of struggles against factory
closures, SYRIZA has actively promoted the self-management of factories by their former
employees based on the example of VIOME[3] as well as the organization of the distribution
of their output through self-organized commodity exchanges without intermediaries. The
self-management of bankrupt enterprises and the creation of new cooperative enterprises,
the self-organization of the output distribution/consumption networks and the creation of
associations of self-managed enterprises that will provide supporting functions such as
legal, consulting and accounting services ?in order to create economies of scale? or even
the creation of cooperative credit institutions constitute the program of SYRIZA for the
?social economy? pillar of their ?productive reconstruction? plan.
On the same terrain of political representation, SYRIZA?s power was augmented by its
resolute opposition to the extreme right-wing Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn?s impact on the
national constituency was highly reinforced after the recession of the ?movement of the
squares?. This movement had combined a grassroots ?revolt from the left? with a ?revolt
from the right?. After its retreat, the most passive and racist part of the grassroots
?revolt from the right? against austerity measures found a political representative in
this political party. This representation was encouraged by the governing right-wing party
and the mechanisms of the ?deep state?. When its members? physical violence against
immigrants and leftists ran amok in September 2013 and its autonomisation from the state
became obvious, their right-wing brothers in government were obliged to put its leadership
in jail. However, the real winner of this state anti-fascist campaign was SYRIZA, which
had supported all the anti-fascist activities of the previous years inside and outside
?popular assemblies?.[4]
The dominance within the anti-austerity movement of the nationalist discourse concerning
the renegotiation/reduction of government debt ? a statist reduction of payments from
above (a concern shared also by Golden Dawn) as opposed to the proletarian refusal of
payments from below ? and the ?productive reconstruction of the Greek economy? combined
with the dominance of the social-democratic discourse about ?citizens? social rights?,
?common goods rights?, ?self-management? and the ?social-economy? to pave the way for the
emergence of SYRIZA as the next ruling party. After actively undermining the potential
development of the struggles in the workplaces, the squares and the streets into a
proletarian movement that could threaten the rule of capital and its state, SYRIZA managed
to transform their defeat into its electoral power. A large section of the working class
and the petty bourgeoisie rested their hopes for the reversal of the politics of capital
devaluation on the polling success of SYRIZA. The new government coalition is the
reconnection of the grassroots ?revolt from the left? with the more active and non-fascist
?revolt from the right? on the capitalist state level. Normally, this will open up a new
round of revendicative struggles of the working class and the petty bourgeoisie.
What happens to left political programs when social movements retreat?
It is interesting to draw up a list of the changes of SYRIZA?s political program from 2010
till today. In order to illustrate the changes more clearly we have divided them into the
following categories.
Government debt management: the main position of SYRIZA?s program concerning the
restructuring of government debt has remained the same since 2010, i.e. to renegotiate the
government debt with the aim of writing-off its biggest part. Recently, they have invoked
the historical precedent of the 1953 debt relief treaty between the Federal Republic of
Germany and creditor nations after the London Debt Conference. On the other hand, the main
changes can be summarized as follows: a) in 2010 and 2011 SYRIZA argued for direct
borrowing from the European Central Bank (ECB) at very low interest rates, similar to the
ones offered to private banks, whereas in their most recent program they argue for
?quantitative easing? policies through the purchase of government bonds by the ECB; b)
since 2012 SYRIZA has proposed a deferred payment of interest until the Greek economy
recovers as well as the establishment of an ?economic growth clause? regulating its
repayment; and c) in 2011 SYRIZA argued for an extensive audit of the government debt in
order to cancel its odious part, a position which has since been removed from the program.
It is also telling that in 2010 and 2011 SYRIZA asserted the abolition of the European
stability pacts whereas in 2015 they just ask for the exclusion of public investment
programs from the restrictions of the Stability and Growth Pact. Furthermore, in 2010
SYRIZA advocated the restriction of the free movement of capital e.g. through the
imposition of the Tobin tax, a position which has since been purged from the program. Last
but not least, in the program of 2015, SYRIZA calls for the establishment of a substantial
grace period so that the Greek state will not have to service any debt for a number of
years in order to immediately channel funds into investment spending as a lever to
?restart the economy?.
Banking system and private debt: there has been a fundamental change of the program of
SYRIZA with regard to the banking system. In particular, in 2010 and 2011 SYRIZA advocated
the nationalization of the banks whereas in 2015 they are only speaking about the
establishment of a public investment bank and a number of specialized public credit
institutions for small enterprises, self-managed enterprises and farmers. Every reference
to the nationalization of banks has been erased. Since 2011 SYRIZA has included in its
program a provision for the settlement of non-performing loans of households and
enterprises while the 2015 program promises that the auctioning of primary residences will
be forbidden. Moreover, the 2015 program advocates the settlement of private debts to the
state due to taxation or due to outstanding contributions to the social security funds by
setting upper limits to debt installments, which will be connected to household income. At
the same time, they promise to stop property foreclosures and criminal prosecutions of
individuals, who will voluntarily settle their debts to the state.
Privatizations / nationalizations: SYRIZA has not changed its position about stopping the
privatization of public utilities, public enterprises and infrastructure. However, its
initial position in 2010 to ?gradually? re-nationalize ?strategic enterprises? such as
telecommunications, electricity and infrastructure such as ports, airports and roads has
gradually been abandoned. Since 2012, SYRIZA has connected the re-nationalization of
?strategic enterprises and infrastructure? with the availability of funds in order to buy
out stocks and property rights, a condition which practically means that
re-nationalization will not take place. Also, since 2012 SYRIZA has advocated the transfer
of the ownership of natural and mineral resources to a public treasury in order to use
them as collateral for the issuance of government bonds. Their position in 2010 for the
re-regulation of the market (utilities, etc.) has been abandoned.
Public investment: SYRIZA programs have not changed since 2010 with regard to their
intention to increase public investment as a lever both for growth and for the so-called
productive reconstruction of the economy. In this context, they promise to raise the
expenditure on scientific research, mainly conducted in the Greek universities, and
facilitate certain industries (e.g. medicine production). In 2015, SYRIZA is calling for a
European ?new deal? that will reverse deflation and fuel growth in Europe through an
EU-backed public investment program.
Taxation / expenditures: the position of SYRIZA in 2010 and 2011 of imposing a tax of 45%
on the undistributed profits of big capitalist enterprises has been erased from its
program since 2012. Also, their promise of abolishing tax exemptions for shipping capital
in 2010 and 2012 has been watered down since in their most recent program they only talk
about reviewing all exemptions and the abolition of only those, which are ?not related to
shipping activity per se?. As far as the taxation of ?natural persons? is concerned, the
2010-11 position of increasing direct taxation of the richer strata has disappeared,
whereas in the program of 2015 they are only speaking about the gradual reduction of
indirect taxation ?after deliberation?, contrary to their position in 2010 for an
immediate reduction of indirect taxes and their position in 2012 for the reduction of
value added tax in tourism and dining. However, in the 2015 program SYRIZA promises to
increase tax-free income for all natural persons to 12.000 euros, to abolish the new
property tax, the heating oil tax and the poll tax imposed on self-employed workers.
Furthermore, they promise to reduce the tax burden of small enterprises. As far as state
expenditures are concerned, during 2010 and 2011 SYRIZA advocated increasing social
expenditure and the reduction of defense expenditure whereas after 2012 SYRIZA has only
talked about freezing the reduction in social expenditure. After 2014 their position is
that they will maintain a balanced government budget, a position which is usually
equivalent to the continuation of austerity despite and in contradiction with their promises.
Wages / labour relations: the program of SYRIZA in 2010 promised an increase in wages,
pensions and unemployment benefits. In 2011 their position had changed to the immediate
restoration of wages and pensions to the levels of 2009, before the imposition of the
memoranda programs. In 2012 they only advocated freezing wage and pension reductions and
the gradual restoration of wages to the levels of 2009, whatever is meant by that, and
only promised the immediate restoration of the minimum wage. In 2015 they are just
promising the immediate restoration of the minimum wage to the levels of 2009. As far as
labour (i.e. exploitation) relations are concerned, in 2010 they advocated the imposition
of new restrictions on lay-offs whereas after 2012 they have only promised to abolish the
2010 legislation, which provides for the ?liberalization? of the labour market by making
lay-offs easier, reducing severance pay and limiting the application of collective
agreements. SYRIZA still advocates the reduction of precarious labour through the
abolition of indirect employment and the curbing of outsourcing in the public sector.
However, they contradictorily admit that they will use subsidized programs of temporary
labour in municipalities as well as ?training programs? in order to reduce unemployment.
Also in the programs of 2012 and 2015 SYRIZA promises the criminalization of employing
undeclared (?black?) labour and the reinforcement of the state agency which observes
labour legislation. Last, in their most recent program they promise to fully restore
Sunday holidays for retail shops.
Benefits: SYRIZA promised in 2010 to increase unemployment benefits. In their most recent
program their position is just to restore unemployment benefits to 2009 levels (461 euros
for 12 months). In 2012 they promised to extend unemployment benefits to the self-employed
while in the 2015 program they are talking about the redesign of unemployment benefits in
order to cover part of those self-employed workers without income. While they advocated
the extension of the duration of unemployment benefits to 2 years in 2012, in their most
recent program they promise such an extension only for long-term unemployed workers.
However, they promise to abolish the imposed restriction on the total length of benefits
(400 total subsidized day benefits per 4 year period). Also, they have included in their
recent program a number of benefits for the alleviation of extreme poverty, i.e. free
electricity and food tickets for 300.000 households, free housing for homeless people
through the utilization of empty municipal buildings and empty hotels which will be
subsidized, free medical care for the unemployed and people with no social security, free
transport for the unemployed and workers with a very low-income. SYRIZA had understood
that it could gain many votes by promising to provide a pittance to the significant group
of pauperized households.
Pensions: back in 2010 SYRIZA promised to abolish all the laws that had attacked social
security rights and pensions since 1990 and recognize the debts of the state to the social
security funds. In the 2012 program this position had been erased and they only promised
to restore employer contributions to their previous higher levels, fight contribution
evasion by employers, freeze pension reductions, ?gradually restore pensions? to their
previous levels and abolish the 2011 exemption of many jobs from the ?hazardous
occupation? category which is favorable to workers. As was mentioned above, the promise of
2010-11 to restore pensions to 2009 levels has been replaced both in the 2012 and the 2015
programs by a promise to freeze pension reductions. Furthermore, in the 2015 program they
claim that they will review the exemption of jobs from the ?hazardous occupation?
category, contrary to their 2012 promise to immediately abolish this exemption. They also
claim that they will reduce retirement ages by 2 years, i.e. restore retirement age to 65
years for full pensions and to 60 years for reduced pensions. Moreover, they promise to
abolish the new method for calculating pensions after 1/1/2015, as well as the
restrictions for the award of a reduced pension which exclude many workers from the right
to a pension (i.e. according to these restrictions, a worker should have made
contributions for 100 workdays per year within the last 5 years).
?Social economy? (self-managed sector): in 2010 the program of SYRIZA did not give much
emphasis to the ?social economy? apart from a reference to supporting farmer associations.
This started to change in 2012 when the program promised to provide incentives and
accommodations for the development of the ?social economy?. This has completely changed in
the 2015 program, where it becomes evident that SYRIZA gives much weight to this sector
both for the reduction of unemployment and for the ?productive reconstruction of the
economy?. This change reflects the growth of the ?social economy? sector, as more and more
proletarians partially cover their needs or even make both ends meet by engaging either in
such projects or in low cost businesses. Specifically, they promise to help the takeover
and self-management of bankrupt enterprises by changing the bankruptcy law. Also they
promise to support cooperative enterprises and associations through tax exemptions,
European subsidies, funding by specialized public credit institutions as well as through
the creation of supporting facilities providing consulting, accounting and legal services.
Public sector jobs: The 2012 program promised the abolition of the law for redundancies
and lay-offs in the public sector. In the program of 2015, SYRIZA promises that public
sector workers, who have been laid off or made redundant, will return to their previous
positions. They also promise to abolish the new employee and unit evaluation system and
replace it with an evaluation system that will be based on ?objective factors and
indicators?, whatever is meant by that. Furthermore, they intend to aboolsh the new strict
disciplinary law for public sector workers which was imposed in the context of the
memoranda legislation. Last but not least, they promise the creation of thousands of
permanent stable public sector jobs in education, health care and social protection as a
part of their commitment to create 300.000 jobs in total in the public, the private and
the self-managed sectors.
***
The previously presented and rather long-drawn out catalogue of the changes in the program
of SYRIZA illustrates convincingly the gradual watering down of its positions towards a
more timid social democratic direction, as well as their contradictions. The gradual
adjustment of SYRIZA to realpolitik shows that, after pruning out most of the positions,
which are considered to be unacceptable from the standpoint of the dominant neoliberal
capitalist strategy in the Eurozone, and by keeping and maybe enriching the most harmless
ones such as those concerning the so-called social economy, it can transform itself into a
?fresh? and rather competent manager of the capitalist state.
TPTG, January 2015
Appendix: On some theoretical debates inside SYRIZA that were quickly put aside
The anti-state communist minority in Europe and elsewhere, who still concern themselves
with issues of communization, the capitalist state and value theory might be interested to
know that one of the main architects of SYRIZA?s program ? and a member of the negotiating
team of the new government with the rest of the EU member-states ? was, until some years
ago, the main theoretician of the Althusserian faction of SYRIZA and a leading critic of
the neo-gramscian state theory and the left ricardian labour theory of value!
Here are some interesting quotes from his texts:
It?s the parliamentary ?filtering? of different class practices (the practices not only of
the bourgeoisie and its allies but also of the working class and its allies) that makes
their ?representation? inside the state feasible; that makes their subsumption to the
general capitalist interest practicable? It?s not a particular party but the whole
parliamentary system that ties the lower classes to the ?political class? of capitalist
rule. It?s not a particular party but the capitalist state as a whole that constitutes the
real ?party?, the real ?representative? of capital, the political condensation of
capitalist rule. That?s why, since the era of Marx, all the ?visions? and the attempts of
the reformist political vehicles to ?conquer? and socialize the state have ended to the
nationalization of the visionaries and a rude awakening.[5]
Classical political economy was an embodied labour theory of value and a theory of the
exploitation of wage labourers by propertied classes. The main currents of Marxism adopted
this classical theory of value and exploitation by removing Marx?s critique of it. This
theoretical mutation is closely connected to the ideological and political mutation of the
Left from a movement of radical contestation to a power of management and reform of the
capitalist system? In its ?conservative? version this problematic raises the issues of the
?fair? pay of the worker, her ?dignified living conditions?, pay rises in accordance to
productivity of labour etc. In other words, the immediate demands of the workers in their
conflict with capital are raised to the status of a ?social ideal?, since the forms of
capitalist relations of power are taken as a ?necessary fact?. In its ?radical? version
this classical theory of value and exploitation envisages a ?capitalism without private
capitalists?: ?socialization?, i.e. public property of the means of production goes hand
in hand with the maintenance of all forms of the capitalist economy and the capitalist
state? The transition from capitalism to communism is necessarily related to the abolition
of value form, i.e. money and the commodity, and the form of enterprise.[6]
Fair enough, Dr. Milios! Thanks for this excellent critique of reformist politics! But
what has this self-understanding got to do with SYRIZA?s program? Absolutely nothing! The
problem of the disconnection of theory and practice is well known in the revolutionary
movement ever since the era of German social democracy. Many decades ago, Paul Mattick had
criticized Kautsky for his inability to imagine that a Marxist theory should be
supplemented by an adequate Marxist practice. So, his understanding ?that for Marx, value
is a strictly historical category; that neither before nor after capitalism did there
exist or could there exist a value production which differed only in form from that of
capitalism? was totally useless.[7]
With the academicization and professionalization of Marxist theory in the last decades
things have become even worse. In public political meetings, conferences, reading groups,
summercamps, demos etc. one constantly comes upon hundreds of leftist PhD students,
researchers, journalists etc. Most of the times one finds oneself wondering whether it is
a genuine interest in anti-capitalist politics that brought them there or if this
involvement is just a necessary step towards a profession guaranteed by the capitalist
state, a capitalist enterprise or a reformist party.
Footnotes
[1] In a letter sent to Financial Times on 22/1/2015 entitled ?Europe will benefit from
Greece being given a fresh start?, Stiglitz, Pissarides and other ?top? bourgeois
economists supported a) the replacement of public expenditure cuts with public investment
programs that will increase demand and stimulate growth as well as with ?more efficient
tax collection?; b) a ?further conditional increase in the grace period, so that Greece
does not have to service any debt, for example for the next five years and then only if
Greece is growing at 3% or more?; c) ?debt reduction, especially of bilateral official
debt to further increase the fiscal space available? and d) ?significant money for
efficient investment projects, especially for exports?. The same letter recalled the
substantial debt relief of the German debt in the 1950s and essentially replicated many
proposals originally put forward by SYRIZA.
[2] For an extensive analysis of the capitalist crisis, its management by the Greek state
and the Capitalist International (IMF, EU, ECB, etc.) and the class struggles that took
place in Greece after 2010, see our texts: ?Burdened with debt?, ?Preliminary notes
towards an account of the ?movement of popular assemblies??, ?Down with the Stalinists!
Down with the Bureaucrats?, ?Burdened with debt reloaded?, ?Counting Defeats: Internal
devaluation, the failure of working class struggles in Greece & the Sino-Greek ?success
story?? and the interview of our group by Juraj Katalenac ?An Interview? which are
available at: http://www.tptg.gr/?page_id=105.
[3] VIOME is a building material factory, a subsidiary of Filkeram & Johnson, which has
been taken over by its workers after its bankruptcy and abandonment by its owners. For
more information cf. http://www.viome.org/.
[4] For more about the issue of fascism/antifascism in Greece, see our forthcoming text
?Antifascism vs fascism: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce?.
[5] John Milios, Marxism as conflict of currents, Athens, 1996.
[6] John Milios, The critique of political economy as a critique of the Left, Theseis
#101, 2007. This interpretation of Marx?s theory is based on Michael Heinrich?s work and
the Neue Marx-Lekt?re school of thought but we can?t go into details here.
[7] The quote is from Paul Mattick, Karl Kautsky: From Marx to Hitler, Living Marxism,
vol.4, #7, 1939.
woensdag 28 januari 2015
(en) Greece, Thessaloniki: Baris Bal has been released !
Today (January 27, 2015) early in the morning, 37-year-old political refugee Baris Bal has
been released by Thessaloniki prosecutor Nikos Kallidis under the conditions of a
prohibition of leaving the country and reporting himself to the police station once a
month. ---- Bal living in Greece for about 22 years, was taken into custody according to a
warrant issued by Turkey via Interpol (related to the conviction of membership to an
illegal organization- when he was 14-years-old) last Friday (23.01.2015). This morning at
9 am, dozens of people gathered in front of Thessaloniki Courthouse for solidarity with
Baris Bal who is a renowned musician.
See Also http://ainfos.ca/15/jan/ainfos00517.html
http://istanbul.indymedia.org/en/news/greece-thessaloniki-baris-bal-has-been-released
zondag 11 januari 2015
(en) Greece, Group of libertarian communists - Alexis Tsipras and the Gods of Olympus (gr, it)
(en) Greece, Group of libertarian communists - Alexis Tsipras
and the Gods of Olympus (gr, it) [machine translation]
The text below is reproduced the text "Alexis Tsipras e gli dei dell'Olimpo", which was
published in Umanit? Nova, on 30/12/2014. The original text (in Italian) can be viewed
here: http://www.umanitanova.org/2014/12/30/alexis-tsipras-e-gli-dei-dellolimpo/. The
translation is ours. ---- Over the past decades has gained body, physically, essence, a
place that had numbers in big business: the stock market. Anthropomorfopoiithike: run,
promoted, fall, fall, again rises, collapses. And like any good human being afraid, but
above all, scares: reacts not only with each attack, but in any alleged attack. Prevents
and guessing what will happen and, therefore, warn, admonish, calls, whistles, orders
to... And like any blackmailer and ekviastria respecting him / herself, when not getting
what he wants, crashes, inexorably, bringing with death and destruction, but only to those
who are low. And as lower are both more pulls them inexorably towards the abyss. The stock
market is the new Hermes, the herald and messenger of the gods of Capitalism, which seeks,
through "tricks " of, rehabilitation, between humans and gods, the contact that has been
lost. The Plato puts Socrates argues that: "The Mercury is in trade, as experienced in the
use of speech; his son is the Word. "
The stock market is, therefore, the new goddess of eloquence:. smart, subtle,
persuasive. The other day I spoke again: "minus 12 % " - he said - "I hit: I fell and
gremistika, again ! ". He spoke for to Greece, the cave in the bowels of Kyllini, the
highest peak in the Peloponnese, on the border between Arcadia and Achaia, where Mercury
was born. The stock market had heard from a herald of the gods, that " if there were early
elections and if they were to win a demigod called Tsipras, son of many fathers and
mothers, COALITION, AKOA, CMP, SHK, Active Citizens, gathered today in the goddess SYRIZA,
then it would destroy not only across the mother Greece, but for every inhabited place
until the Pillars of Hercules. " This sad prophecy quickly spread from the messengers of
the Fund, which, once again, warned, reprimanded, stealthily telesigrafisan. The Tsipras,
for those who know him, he has no intention to undermine Jupiter: no ambition to take his
place, to the democratization plethora of gods and redistribute the loot. Old plan passed
now in the attic. Many messengers of god Capital know that the Tsipras does not want to
scare the stock market, but rather trying to bypass it and akoktisei favor: "We should not
be afraid of us " - the thunder Tsipras - " SYRIZA not will be the end of the euro. It is
rather the salvation of: if you win the Greek elections, will make it really takes off the
plan of fiscal consolidation in Europe. " A discount, just wants a discount, a sign even
minimum: a little breath of life, such as after a devastating war. An act of mercy of the
victor.
" Not true, " - answered Antonis Samaras, the son of the goddess Political Spring and
prot?g? of god PASOK: " The SYRIZA terrorizes the Rates !" Never a phrase there was more
ominous: to hit the mother, the stock market, is already a serious thing. But being
punished Prices, the noble children of, unheard ! Father Chapter will never allow such a
thing. Already was magnanimous: gave money in large quantities. They brought the IMF. But
on one condition: cut, cut, crush!
Meanwhile, the house burned. C. rigora.
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