polish fascists flee from pensioners

Proving again that they do things different in other lands, ANTIFA have this video showing how Social democrats in Poland deal with fascists. The old age pensioners send the Fash scum running and the poor dear ubermensch are forced to use pepper spray to save themselves from the justified anger of the Sanatogen antifa- Pure Class!

It's time to taste what you most fear

Standards are slipping all over and it really isn't good enough!
the Sun reports today that the latest great sponger to be expelled from the loins of the Windsor Cabal has been mugged whilst on her 'Gap Year' tour of Cambodia ( a gap from what? doing fuck all for the rest of her life?). The sun further reports that she was saved from having her bag snatched by the two armed police guards that have accompanied her throughout her back packing holiday around the world, at a cost to the rest of us of over £100,000.
What a sad state Cambodian bandits have fallen into- once the paunchy princess would have found herself working hard in a paddy field for a bowl of rice a day- although whether she ended up with her head on a stake would depend how low The khmer Rouge would drop the bar to count her as an intellectual!

So you been to school
For a year or two
And you know you've seen it all
In daddy's car
Thinkin' you'll go far
Back east your type don't crawl

Play ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin' that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul

It's time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear:

It's a holiday in Cambodia
It's tough, kid, but it's life
It's a holiday in Cambodia
Don't forget to pack a wife

You're a star-belly sneech
You suck like a leach
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you

Well you'll work harder
With a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake

Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son:.

Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people dress in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll kiss ass or crack

Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, [etc]

And it's a holiday in Cambodia
Where you'll do what you're told
A holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul

stamp out crime- target the real criminals

After the publishing online of the video footage which proved what a bunch of lying, brutal pigs the Met are there have been a string of stories in the news over past weeks which show that far from being some sort of protection for society as the filth like to claim; it is society that needs protection from the Police:
murderer
thieves
gun runners
fraudsters
and perverts

Seeing as they are also incompetent when actually doing the job that they are supposed to do isn't it about time to remove this threat at the heart of our society and dump the Bill?

death at G20- witness statement

Various participants in the City of London demonstrations on April 1st have come forward as witnesses to the collapse of a man later identified by authorities as Ian Tomlinson.
Four different university students witnessed the collapse of Mr. Tomlinson. "He stumbled towards us from the direction of police and protestors and collapsed," said Peter Apps. "I saw a demonstrator who was a first aider attend to the person who had collapsed. The man was late 40s, had tattoos on his hands, and was wearing a Millwall shirt."
While the first aider was helping the man, another demonstrator with a megaphone was calling the police over so that they could help. Natalie Langford, a student at Queen Mary, said "there was a police charge. A lot of people ran in our direction. The woman giving first aid stood in the path of the crowd." The running people, seeing a guy on the ground, went around them.
Another demonstrator had already called 999 and was getting medical advice from the ambulance dispatcher. "Four police with two police medics came. They told her [the first aider] to 'move along'.", said Peter Apps. "Then they pushed her forcibly away from him. They refused to listen to her [the first aider] when she tried to explain his condition."The first aider, who did not wish to be named, said "The police surrounded the collapsed man. I was standing with the person who'd called 999. The ambulance dispatcher wanted to talk to the police, the phone was being held out to them, but the police refused."
Another witness, Elias Stoakes, added "we didn't see them [the police] perform CPR."Other people who had tried to stay with the collapsed man were also pushed away. All of the witnesses deny the allegation that many missiles were thrown. According to Peter Apps, "one bottle was thrown, but it didn't come close to the police. Nothing was thrown afterwards as other demonstrators told the person to stop. The person who threw the bottle probably didn't realize that someone was behind the ring of police."
All the witnesses said that the demonstrators were concerned for the well-being of the collapsed man once they realized that there was an injured person.Natalie Langford said "when the ambulance arrived the protestors got straight out of the way."

the numbers game

The SWP have become notorious for their habit, ever since the huge anti war demo of 2003, of seeing the validity and success of anything by how many people turn out. This has led to the repeated declaration of "this is the largest demonstration ever!" from podiums in front of rapidly and visibly diminishing crowds.
The SWP meanwhile have managed to alienate a large element of their previous audience; first through their vain pursuit of an electoral breakthrough and their courting of Muslems as a new oppressed who could be dragooned to provide a voting block. Then by rowwing with their new saviour the stalinist thug and all round lover of dictators, George Galloway they managed to alienate those (very few) who had been attracted by RESPECT.
I suppose that I am the only person in the world who still bothers to look at the SWP's rump respect website, renamed repeatedly but currently called "The Left Alternative". I was very interested to read about something that the rest of us had managed to miss:

Thousands join Unite Against Fascism demo
23/06/2008
Up to 10,000,000 anti-fascist protestors took to the streets on Saturday as part of a demonstration, organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR), against the British National Party. The demo was organised in protest against the BNP presence on the London Assembly and their electoral gains in the May elections this year.

Thats right, 10 million marched through London!
Fucking fantasists!


now you might say that anyone might make a typo, but to have one of that size on the front page of your site for nearly a year without anyone noticing, or caring.

your days of plenty are at an end

Much pompous bullshit is being written about the attack upon Goodwin's house, apparently, a broken window and a dented beemer is only on step away from full on terrorist war. these are a couple of comments that I wrote elsewhere:
If bankers like goodwin aren’t responsible then who is? These bastards are living the good life whilst the decisions they take destroy the lives of millions- a little payback that punctures their secure comfortable lives is to be welcomed.It is a long way away from carrying out executions of the bourgeoisie.
However there is a valid argument that they should pay for the lives that they destroy. That the blood that is shed by the sterile sweep of a pen should be repaid in kind.that the balance sheet adjustment that sweeps away industries and condemns communities to slow death should be answered with rage. that the "regrettable but necessary economies" that closes hospitals and results in unnecessary and pain filled suffering and early deaths does deserve retribution. If those who did these things were afraid that their crimes would be avenged, they might pause and think again.

They make their decisions safe in the knowledge that the effects would never touch them. Not because they intended to destroy lives or gain pleasure through others pain, but because they couldn’t give a shit for the effects it would have. Profit has been their god, and even as that god fails they walk away scot free learning nothing and caring less.

Make them fear.

"Just the Beginning"

From BBC news

The Edinburgh home of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin has been attacked by vandals overnight.
Windows were smashed and a Mercedes S600 car parked in the driveway was vandalised.
A group complaining about bank executives has contacted a newspaper claiming to be behind the attack.
There has been widespread public and political anger over a pension payout worth about £700,000 a year to the 50-year-old former chief executive.
Sir Fred took early retirement from RBS last year after the bank needed a £20bn bailout from the government.
Last month, RBS reported that it made a loss of £24.1bn in 2008 - the largest annual loss in UK corporate history.
When Sir Fred stepped down from the post in October, he rejected Government pressure to accept a reduction in his package, insisting that changes to the early retirement deal he had negotiated were "not warranted".
The payout was described as "obscene" and "grotesque" by MPs and "unjustifiable and unacceptable" by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
It is not known if anyone was in the house at the time of the attack or who reported the vandalism.
A spokesman for the Royal Bank of Scotland said short term security arrangements had been put in place at Sir Fred's Edinburgh home, and that these were still operational during the time of the attack.
The bank would not confirm what these security measures entailed.
However, earlier this month it emerged that the bank was paying about £290 per month for security, which included CCTV monitoring of the house and security staff for Sir Fred.
A police car is now guarding the entrance to Sir Fred's home, in the Grange area of the city.
Three smashed ground-floor windows of the stone villa were clearly visible.

A Mercedes S600 car parked in the driveway was damaged
In the driveway, the rear window of a dark-coloured Mercedes saloon was smashed, as well as the nearside rear passenger window.
There were no obvious signs of activity inside the house.
A Lothian and Borders Police spokeswoman said they were called out at 0435 GMT.
She said: "Inquiries in relation to the incident are ongoing. We are appealing for witnesses."
A statement was issued to Edinburgh's Evening News on Wednesday morning by a group which claimed it was behind the attack.
It said: "We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless.
"This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning."

good arguments for shooting former nazis #1

Honestly, why has nobody put a bullet in this misogynistal scumbags skull?

a starter for ten

Something fishy is going on at University Challenge. After a deluge of press attention over the sight of an intelligent woman!!! being cleverer than the male contestants. the BBC have now disqualified the winning team after it was found that one of its members had left university and found a job in the time between the first two rounds and the final.

what is odd is that the BBC seem to not noticed that the university year ends in May and therfore if you record the rounds before May and the final in the autumn, then at least a third of possible students will have left and found employment elsewhere.

does that mean that third year students are now disqualified from taking part in University challenge? in case they do not go into post graduate education but instead return to the real world.

Fucking Bastard Bankers!

while thousands are losing their jobs, thousands more are threatened with losing their homes, Popeye Brown pours billions into the pockets of the banker bastards who caused the fucking mess in the first place. The bankers themselves are happily pissing all over the rest of us!
fro the evening standard:

"A city banker stunned staff at a Soho club by running up a bar bill of more
than £40,000 in a single night.
The wealthy financier defied the credit
crunch by ordering the mammoth amount of drinks at a post-Brits party at Maya in
Dean Street.
The banker, who did not wish to be named, shared the drinks with
four friends and other partygoers in the club's VIP area on Wednesday
night.
After spending more than £37,000 on champagne and vodka, the man left
a £5,000 tip for the waitress.
In less than three hours the group got through
two methuselahs of Dom Perignon, which each hold the equivalent of eight
bottles, at a cost of £9,000 each.
They also drank two jeroboams - the
equivalent of four bottles each - of Cristal and three magnums, equivalent to
two bottles, of Cristal Rosé. The bar bill also included five regular bottles of
champagne at £350 each and £3,000 worth of Belvedere vodka. A spokesman for Maya
said: "Maya gets a lot of big spenders, but this is a biggie.
"The recession
is hitting people hard, but it didn't seem to bother this man.
"He is a
regular in Maya and is a member, and he brought along four friends.
"But he
ended up sharing all the drinks with a lot of other people in the VIP area.
"The champagne bottles were coming out with sparklers in them and lots of
people approached them to see what was going on and were offered a
glass.
"They racked up the bill in about two and a half hours."
Maya
opened in September 2007.
Lady Gaga, Sienna
Miller and actor Rhys Ifans have all partied at the club, whose DJs
specialise in funky house and electro music.
Henry Conway, the socialite son
of MP Derek Conway, runs parties and organises the guest list on Fridays."

Fucking bastard bastard banker bastards. make them pay in blood!

moonbat plays Nazi

Bravo to German ANTIFA for this fabulous demolition of Tom Cruise's
whitewashing of the Stauffenburg plot.



the best summation of the Staffenburg plot I have read recently was from Ella commenting on Paul Stott' s Blog. Her History teacher said that;
'The attempted assassination of Hitler was because he was losing the war and wasn't Nazi enough for the plotters "

Capitalism is no conspiracy and Hamas is not the Rebel Alliance

Edit:
Following on fromDave's comments a few notes on the following post;
the leaflet I have reproduced here is one of the few examples in English of the ideas of the 'anti-deutche' antifa, a wing of the German autonomist/anarchist left. I do not agree with some of the points it makes, especially its statist assumption that only an Israeli state can provide defence for the Jewish people. I remain convinced that there is no state solution to the mess in the middle east, that redrawing lines on maps will create more victims, more bloodshed and new hatreds.
However I am also sure that Anti Zionism is a pernicious and corrosive ideology, which combines all the absurdities of anti imperialism, which attempts to tie the working class to the interests of the ruling classes and the would be ruling classes of so called oppressed nations, with an exceptionalist approach toward Israel which easily accomodates anti semites and anti semitism.
The current assault on the Gaza is dressed up by the Israeli Goverment as essential to defend Israeli civilians against the indiscriminate rocket attacks of Hamas, the fact is that the Israeli goverment is facing elections and desperately wants to prove its credentials to save a few votes.
The assault on Gaza has little therefore to with defending Israeli citizens, but neither are the rocket attacks really anything to do with defending the Palestinians of Gaza; the clerical fascists of Hamas could not, and indeed have had no intention of, defending ordinary Palestinians from Israel's army.
I reject both the death seeking fanaticism of Hamas and the cynical vote chasing of the Israeli goverment.

"All the arguments of the left revolve around one state/two state. All happily accept the artificial divisions created in the twentieth century by the very imperialists that they claim to oppose, and all ignore the actual people - Palestinian, Israeli, Lebanese, Druse, Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Bedouin - who live there. Re-jigging the lines on a map will create new oppressions, new grievances and new horrors, and we as revolutionaries should have no part in assisting that.

We should stand shoulder to shoulder with those struggling against the oppressors of the Israeli state and the Palestinian bantustan. We fight against our 'own' rulers who attempt to use this slaughter to their own ends and use measly words 'condemning the violence' whilst writing out the receipts for the latest arms contract.Any state solution is a continuation of the same bullshit.
No Borders No States No Gods No War but the Class War"


from a leaflet distributed by the german group theorie organisation praxis (TOP)
Against Antisemitism within the activist scene
You consider yourself an activist, a radical, maybe an anarchist. In any case you are someone who is an outspoken critic of capitalism and who wants to end oppression and injustice as the left all over the world wants to.
At the same time, all over the world, Antisemitism is on the rise again. It takes many forms, some of which are violent such as verbal and physical attacks, while others are more subtle. Antisemitism has a long and gruesome history: Since the middle ages, Christianity supported pogroms against Jews. Later, the natural sciences came up with the idea of an inferior Jewish „race“, and generally speaking Jews often got blamed for all evil in the world. The climax were the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other concentration camps where six million Jews were murdered.
The activist movement, however, seems to ignore this history and the fact that Jews still are not secure. Rather than acknowledging Antisemitism as another means of oppression that needs to be fought – such as racism or sexism – quite a few of its members actively take part in pushing antisemitic attitudes.
For the most part, these become visible in the form of hatred towards Israel even if of course not every critique of Israel equals Antisemitism. The creation of the State of Israel was a direct outcome of the Holocaust. It is a much-needed refuge for Jewish people to defend themselves effectively against antisemitic attacks. While it should still be on top of the agenda to criticize nation states, calling for Israel´s destruction through claims like “Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea” means calling for the potential death of its five million Jewish inhabitants.
Ever noticed how Israel is constantly on the agenda while hardly anyone comments on the things going on in areas such as Darfur, Iran, Kashmir, Burma or the Western Sahara? Singling out and demonising Israel while ignoring far worse actions by other countries is what we would call antisemitic.
Likening Israel to Nazi Germany (such as displaying placards with the Star of David twisted into Nazi swastikas), or to traditional anti-Jewish stereotypical behaviour (Israel as a “bloodthirsty and power-hungry” state) is another sign of Antisemitism, as it turns the victims of the Holocaust into alleged persecutors.
Whenever people fight for emancipation, we need to look whom we show our solidarity with: The Hamas, for example, clearly states the wish to destroy the state of the Holocaust survivors. In their charta “the Jews” are blamed for almost everything: “They stood behind World War I…, they also stood behind World War II…, they inspired the United Nations and the Security Council … in order to rule the world. … There was no war that broke out anywhere without their fingerprints on it.”
A blind solidarity with the Palestinian struggle tends to ignore these and other reactionary elements in Palestinian society. Blowing up people by strapping dynamite around your waist is not a revolutionary act of liberation. To explain it with the Israeli occupation ignores ideological elements such as the widespread Antisemitism in Palestinian society: After all, hardly anywhere else oppressed people blow up innocent humans on the basis of their “ethnicity”. Of course, the suffering of people living in Palestine needs to be acknowledged and solutions for the conflict need to be found; but we need to carefully choose who we work with.
Antisemitism, however, is not simply about hating Jews and denying them the right to a secure State. Antisemitic ideology works more subtly: It is usually embedded in a particular world view that “explains” the evils of modern capitalist society. It emerged throughout Europe in the course of the 19th century as a reaction to the rapid spread of capitalist society and the social upheavals this triggered. Capitalism in the antisemitic world view is not seen as a process which unfolds of its own accord in the absence of a particular subject, but rather as an exploitative project consciously put into effect by evil people, like “the ruling class”. The antisemitic world view thus consists of personification and draws upon the picture of the “Jewish capitalist” that is deeply embedded in Western culture, which for centuries associated Jews with money. It can be displayed in talk of “the rulers” or “the capitalists” who “pull the strings”, “dominate the world” and just can’t get enough with their “greed”.
Consequent Anticapitalism might also prevent antisemitic resentments: Capitalism is not a conspiracy of a few – neither Jews, nor the G8 or other “leaders”. It has not become as horrible as it is because of a few capitalists’ intentional plans or because of the interest rates and flow of finance capital. The inherent logic that makes Capitalism work is that of a system that is not oriented towards people’s needs, but towards the realization of capital – it is a game that even capitalists have to play. If we really want to attack the roots of capitalist society we need to understand this mode of production that commodifies every aspect of our lives under the merciless rule of value.
If the activist scene starts to question a black-and-white world view that contrasts good “people” with evil finance “capital” it may come to realize that – as is the case with the Middle East conflict – there is no simple dichotomy of oppressor vs. the oppressed in the struggle for liberation and emancipation. We need to come up with new ways and not fight the players but the whole fucking game.

"Anti Zionism is not Anti Semitism?"

the opponents of the right of Israel to exist often reply to accusations that they are reviving old anti semitic prejudices by replying that anti zionism is not Anti semitic.

take a look at this picture-

the brave anti imperialist warrior with the dreads has the following on his Palestinian flag;

"In my country there is problem"

Where does that come from?

Oh yes, here.

Gotcha!!

Merry Christmas!

As a special treat here is an article from the Economist, in terror that the inspiration of the Greek Insurrection will spread across the World:

EVERY scholar of 20th-century history can tell you about the Communist International—usually called Comintern, and strictly speaking the third in a series of four global fraternities whose aim was to pursue the class struggle all over the world.
Is it possible to imagine an Anarchist International, a trans-national version of the inchoate but impassioned demonstrations that have ravaged Greece this month? (Perhaps because it is easier to say what Greece’s malcontents are against than what they are for, the word “anarchist” is an accepted catch-all term for the anti-establishment rebels who form the hard core of the Athenian protesters.)
By definition, anarchy is harder to propagate than rigid Leninism. Whatever is spreading from Athens, it is not a clear programme for a better world. The malcontents of Greece include ideological class warriors, nostalgists for the protests against the junta of 1967-74 and people (including drug dealers and bank robbers) with a grudge against the police. Relations between police and the counter-culture have worsened recently; the police are accused (rightly) of bullying migrants, the bohemians of dallying with terrorism. A messy scene, with no obvious message.
But the psychological impulse behind the Greek protests—a sense of rage against all authority, which came to a head after a 15-year-old boy was killed by a police bullet—can now be transmitted almost instantaneously, in ways that would make the Bolsheviks very jealous. These days, images (moving as well as still) spread faster than words; and images, of course, transcend language barriers.
E-communications are now a familiar feature in pro-democracy protests against dictators. Equally fast-moving, say specialists, is the role of technology in what might be called “undemocratic protests”: violent acts in prosperous, networked societies.
This became obvious during the French riots of 2005, when teenagers posted blogs that urged people to “burn the cops”—and made massive use of text messages to co-ordinate the protests. The youths that trashed Budapest in 2006 relied on blogs to enlist supporters, and distribute an audio recording of the prime minister admitting government corruption.
Hungarian blogs were also used to aggregate visual evidence of police brutality. There were novel online projects such as an “Interactive Riot Walkthrough”, which superimposed photos of the latest events on a map of Budapest, offering “virtual tours” of the city as it burned.
Already, the Greek riots are prompting talk of a new era of networked protest. The volume of online content they have inspired is remarkable. Photos and videos of the chaos, often shot with cellphones, were posted online almost in real time. Twitter, a service for exchanging short messages, has brimmed with live reports from the streets of Athens, most of them in Greek but a few in English.
A tribute to the slain teenager—a clip of photos with music from a popular rock band—appeared on YouTube, the video-sharing site, shortly after his death; more than 160,000 people have seen it. A similar tribute group on Facebook has attracted more than 130,000 members, generating thousands of messages and offering links to more than 1,900 related items: images of the protests, cartoons and leaflets.
A memorial was erected in Second Life, a popular virtual environment, giving its users a glimpse of real-life material from the riots. Many other online techniques—such as maps detailing police deployments and routes of the demonstrations—came of age in Athens. And as thousands of photos and videos hit non-Greek blogs and forums, small protests were triggered in many European cities, including Istanbul and Madrid. Some 32 people were arrested in Copenhagen.
The spread of sympathy protests over what began as a local Greek issue has big implications for the more formal anti-globalisation movement. That movement has ignored the idea of spontaneous but networked protest, and instead focused on taking large crowds to set-piece events like summits. Such methods look outdated now. Governments are not the only things that networked “anarchy” threatens.

Lets make it happen!

Happy New Year, and Burn It Down!

More tales from two cities

the family of Jean Charles De Menzies have, in the 3 years since his murder by the Police in Stockwell tube station, acted with dignity and quiet determination to gain an element of Justice and a true account of their son's death.

In return the British state and it's apologists have spat on them and their son's memory.

the best that they have been able to achieve has been an open verdict at the inquest (and only then due to the bravery of the jury in rejecting the pressure from the police and the coroner) and not a single policeman or woman having to face responsibility for Jean Charles' murder.

After the murder of Alexandros Grigoropolous the streets of every city and large town in Greece have been ablaze with the righteous anger (and petrol bombs) of a youth enraged with the desire to gain justice for Alexi!

One week after Alexi's murder the pigs who killed him are facing charges of murder!

I hold the de Menzies in the greatest respect and hope with all my heart that they gain justice.

but the next time anyone loftily opines that "Violence never achieves anything," or how non violent protest is the only, or the best way, of winning anything; ask them about Alexi and Jean Charles.

Why Capitalism will not Collapse (1932)

This pamphlet was written by members of the SPGB in 1932, in reply to those who argued that the Wall Street crash was the final crisis of capitalism; instead they insisted that Crisis was a essential feature of capitalism and that the system will not collapse without the active revolutionary action of the working class. I disagree with the SPGB about what constitutes revolutionary action, but the essentials of this pamphlet are still relevant especially in reply to the opportunism of today's state lefties and Trotskyists in response to the latest 'credit crunch' crisis.

 

 

Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse

Our view of the crisis [1932]

FOREWORD

We are in the midst of a crisis that is world-wide. Every country feels its ravages. Millions and millions of workers are unemployed and in acute poverty. Everywhere there is discontent and a feeling of insecurity, and the prestige of even the strongest of governments has been shaken. All sorts of emergency measures have been hastily adopted, but the depression still continues. Working men and women who normally ignore such questions, are now asking why the crisis has occurred, what will be its outcome, and whether it could have been avoided. In some minds there is a fear, and in others a hope, that the industrial crisis may bring the present system of society down in ruins, and make way for another.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain answers those questions in this small pamphlet. The answer is worth the consideration of every working man or woman, as it concerns the great social problem—the problem of poverty. Our views on the crisis are set out here with the hope that workers who read them may be led on to study more seriously the principles of Socialism. One great obstacle has first to be overcome. The worker, seeing the inability of the experts to agree among themselves, may doubt his own capacity to understand the problem that other and seemingly wiser heads have found so baffling. Do not be put off by that idea. Working men and women, who make and tend the wonderful machinery of modern industry, and who carry out the intricate operations of trade and finance, have powers of thought that are well able to grasp the basic problems of politics and economics. We who address you are also workers, and we know that only the lack of desire and of confidence has hitherto prevented the mass of the workers from thinking these things out for themselves.

The reader is asked to remember that this pamphlet is not merely the opinion of an individual—it is the view of the Socialist Party. Moreover, it is not the product simply of the present trade depression. It is based upon the writings of many who have given special study to past crises and to the workings of the social system in which these crises have taken place. We are especially indebted to the fruitful and painstaking work of Marx. The S. P. G. B. has held the views set down here, not for a short while only, but ever since its members took up the problem at the formation of the Party over 27 years ago. All that has happened since has confirmed our view of crises. It has also deepened our conviction that in the theory of Marx the wage-earners will fund valuable instruments with which to work for their emancipation.

I. FEARS THAT CAPITALISM WILL COLLAPSE.

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to show the working class the need for a complete alteration in the organisation of society. The basis of Capitalism is the private ownership of the land, the factories, the railways and the rest of the means of life. This is the root cause of poverty, insecurity and wars, and of a whole host of other evils. The remedy lies in making the means of production the common property of society. In other words, the working class must replace the existing social system, known as Capitalism, by a system of common ownership and democratic control, known as Socialism. But our work has been made more difficult by the idea that Capitalism may collapse of its own accord. It is clear that if Capitalism were going to collapse under the weight of its own problems then it would be a waste of time and energy to carry on socialist propaganda and to build up a real socialist party aiming at political power. If it were true, as is claimed, that Capitalism will have broken down long before it will be possible for us to win over a majority for the capture of political power, then, indeed, it would be necessary to seek Socialism by some other means. Workers who have accepted this wrong and lazy idea of collapse have neglected many activities that are absolutely essential. They have taken up the fatalistic attitude of waiting for the system to end itself. But the system is not so obliging!

At first sight there seems to be a ground for this idea. Capitalism from time to time develops acute industrial and financial crises; and at the depth of these it does appear to many observers that there is no way out, and that society cannot continue at all unless some way out is found. Men of very different social position and political convictions have been driven to this conclusion—reactionaries and revolutionaries, bankers and merchants, employers and wage-earners.

Let us go over some of the statements made by those who have foretold collapse, and notice how much alike they are. Notice, too, how each one falsifies the preceding ones. The fact of another crisis taking place is proof enough that the earlier crises did not turn out to be insoluble—the patient cannot have more than one fatal attack.

During the 19th century there were about ten well-marked crises. One commenced in England in 1825. William Huskisson, a former President of the Board of Trade, wrote about it in a letter dated 30th December, 1829:

"I consider the country to be in a most unsatisfactory state, that some great convulsion must soon take place . . . I hear of the distress of the agricultural, the manufactural, the commercial, the West Indian, and all trading interests. . . I am told land can neither pay rent nor taxes nor rates, that no merchant has any legitimate business . . . I am also told that the whole race of London shopkeepers are nearly ruined" (Huskisson Papers, pub. Constable, 1931, page 310).

Another crisis occurred in the eighteen-eighties, and was dealt with by Lord Randolph Churchill in a speech at Blackpool, in 1884:

"We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful either among our capitalists or our artisans can discover no signs of a revival. Your iron industry is dead, dead as mutton; your coal industries, which depend greatly on the iron industries, are languishing. Your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner. Your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, grasping, struggling. Your cotton industry is seriously sick. The ship-building industry, which held out longest of all, is come to a standstill. Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease" (Lord Randolph Churchill by Winston Churchill, M. P., pub. Macmillan & Co Ltd, London, 1906, Vol 1, page 291).

There is one important thing to notice about the two statements above. Huskisson wrote at a time when England was a protectionist country. He was an advocate of free-trade. Lord Randolph Churchill spoke at a time when England had long been a free-trade country. He was an advocate of protection. It is clear that neither free-trade nor protection offers a solution for trade depressions, and that the return to protection in March, 1932, will not prevent further crises.

Of late we have been asked to take a very serious view of the alleged "adverse balance of trade", by which is meant that this country has had more imports than exports, with the consequence that debts have been incurred abroad to the extent of the excess imports. The facts are still the subject of argument, but it is not necessary to go into that question. All that we need to remember is that the fears about the "adverse balance of trade" are not new.

In a paper read to the Royal Statistical Society on December 19th, 1876 (see Trade, Population and Food, by S. Bourne, pub G.Bell and Sons), Mr. Sidney Bourne who for many years was in the Government Service, engaged in the compilation of trade statistics, painted an alarming picture of Great Britain's trade. He argued that serious consequences would follow if the adverse balance (which he pointed out was then in evidence) was allowed to continue. He mentioned, too, the considerable and influential body of political and public men who shared his views.

After making the adjustments he considered necessary on account of income from investments owned abroad by British subjects, and the so-called "invisible exports" (i.e. the services, such as shipping and financial services, that are paid for by foreigners, but which do not take the form of actual articles passing through British ports), he declared that there was an "adverse balance" in the years after 1872.

He said:

"In 1872 the true excess would seem to have been on the side of exports rather than imports, to the extent of nearly £4,000,000; but in the following year the imports again predominated, and have continued to do so with increasing weight up to the present moment" (page 69).

Mr. Bourne, like many modern observers of the course of trade, was apprehensive about the future:

"I firmly believe that Britain now stands tottering on the eminence to which she has attained, and.

In passing, we may notice that one of Mr Bourne's suggested remedies for avoiding the threatened doom of Great Britain has a familiar ring today. It was that the "lower classes" should drink a much smaller quantity of intoxicants. Another was that the rich should "restrain the heavy expenditure accompanying cravings of ambition, the undue pursuit of pleasure and frivolous idleness" (page 74).

It is not necessary to deal with the pessimistic utterances of public men at every crisis; it is sufficient to say that each period of trade depression produces its prophets of catastrophe. We may add, however, that those politicians and business men who foretell collapse now are no more to be relied upon than the others who foretold collapse in past crises. They do not understand the workings of the system that they defend. As recently as 1931 we saw this strikingly illustrated in the abandonment of the gold standard by Great Britain. During August and September we were told that chaos would ensue if that abandonment took place. When it happened everything went on much as before, to the astonishment of the economic "experts" who are supposed to understand these things.

We can leave them and concern ourselves rather with the acceptance of the idea of collapse by those claiming to be socialists. The policies and actions of the workers have been, and will continue to be, powerfully influenced by their theories about the way in which Capitalism works and about its future developments. Wrong theories lead to wrong and dangerous actions.

II. THE IDEA OF A BLIND REVOLT OF THE WORKERS

The defenders of Capitalism who have been panic-stricken in times of crisis, have sought for ways to save the social system, which they believed to be in danger. On the other hand, many who desired Socialism have looked at industrial crises not with fear but with hope. They have thought that in a time of great unemployment and distress the majority of workers, although not socialists, would be forced by their sufferings to revolt against the capitalists and their government, and that they would place in power a government which would try to remould society on a socialist basis.

One of the organisations to hold this view was the Social Democratic Federation. The late H. M. Hyndman, who was prominently associated with the S. D. F., thought that Socialism might be expected as the result of almost every one of the crises that occurred in the period from 1881 onwards. Thus, in 1884, in the paper Justice (January, 1884), he made the following declaration:

"It is quite possible that during this very crisis, which promises to be long and serious, an attempt will be made to substitute collective for capitalist control. Ideas move fast; the workers are coming together".

Later on he suggested 1889 as the probable date for the revolution (see Rise and Decline of Socialism by Joseph Clayton, pub 1926 by Faber & Gwyer, p.14). Edward Carpenter in My Days and Dreams, says:

"It was no wonder that Hyndman . . . becoming conscious as early as 1881 of the new forces all around in the social world, was filled with a kind of fervour of revolutionary anticipation. We used to chaff him because at every crisis in the industrial situation he was confident that the Millennium was at hand" (pub, Allen Unwin Ltd, 1916, page 246).

Hyndman continued to see the revolution "round every corner", until the date of his death, in 1921.

Similar ideas are held by members of the Labour Party and Independent Labour Party, and they were handed down from the Social Democratic Federation to the parties that in 1920 became the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is indeed probable that the Russian Bolshevist leaders, many of whom hold these views, learned them during their exile in England round about the beginning of the century.

The communists provide the clearest example of a party holding this theory and trying to act upon it. In The Communist (22nd October, 1921) it was frankly stated that those who founded the Communist Party of Great Britain were "impelled by the conviction that the capitalist economic system had broken down", while Mr W. Paul, a prominent communist wrote in the communist journal, The Labour Monthly (15th February, 1922):

"The most important fact in modern history is the breakdown of capitalism . . . there is the greatest possibility that the social revolution may take place in the immediate future".

In July, 1926, The Labour Monthly stated that:

"The decline of capitalism in Britain, whether measured in the figures of trade or of production, has developed at a startling and accelerated pace between 1921 and 1926".

In 1928, in a Communist Party book, The Decline of Capitalism, the author, E. Varga, declared (p. 7):

"It is no longer a 'dying' capitalism, but one already in the process of mortification . . ."

In the October, 1931 Labour Monthly (just before the General Election), Mr. Dutt, the editor, wrote in a manner indicating the utmost excitement at the likelihood of a decisive crash: "The fight is here", "the crisis marches on relentlessly", "it is the whole basis of British Imperialism that is now beginning to crack", "the whole system is faced with collapse", "the hour of desperate crisis begins"; and much more to the same effect.

Mr. James Maxton, M. P., putting the I. L. P. point of view, has been as confident as the communists. He made a speech at Cowcaddens on 21st August, 1931, reported as follows in the columns of the Daily Record, 22nd August, 1931 (Reprinted in Forward, 12th September):

"I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three-party conferences, not all the collaboration between leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash".

The Daily Record report goes on to describe Mr. Maxton's speech:

"'They may postpone the collapse for a month, two months, three months, six months', he cried, forefinger pointing at his audience, and body crouched, 'but collapse is sure and certain'".

In contradiction to those who hold this theory of an automatic collapse of Capitalism, the Socialist Party of Great Britain has never deviated from opposition to that view. Our knowledge of past history and of the way in which the social system develops, convinces us that no crisis of Capitalism, however desperate it may be, can ever by itself give us Socialism. Socialism cannot come by stealth. It can only come by the deliberate act of workers who understand Socialism, and are organised politically to obtain it through control of the machinery of government. The blind revolt of desperate workers would cause great distress and destruction. It might prove troublesome to the capitalist authorities, who would have to exert themselves to suppress it, but the outcome would not be Socialism.

Why are we so confident of this? In the next section our confidence is explained.

III. THE CAUSE OF CRISES

The cause of trade depression is really a simple one to understand. Highly developed Capitalism, while condemning the vast number of workers to a meagre standard of living, causes extraordinarily large incomes to flow into the pockets of a small section of the population (i. e., those who own the factories, the land, the railways, etc.). Most wealthy people have incomes so large that they do not spend anything like the whole amount. After having purchased all they need, often including luxuries of the most extravagant kind, they still have a large surplus that they seek to invest in profitable concerns. But these concerns are in competition, each trying to sell goods more cheaply than the other. In order to maintain and, if possible, increase his profits, each employer tries to get from his workers a larger output at a smaller cost. By means of labour-saving machinery and methods the same quantity of goods is produced by fewer and fewer workers, and displaced workers are constantly added to the army of unemployed. The unemployed man or woman, having only unemployment pay to spend, cannot buy as much as formerly. Thus buying is curtailed while all the time efforts are being made to increase production—a contradiction that is bound to result in over-stocked markets and trade depression. During a depression, this situation is worsened by wage reductions.

The depression shows itself, every few years, in the accumulation of stocks of goods in the hands of retail stores, wholesalers and manufacturers, farmers and others. While trade is relatively good each concern tries to produce as much as possible in order to make a large profit. It is nobody's business under Capitalism to find out how much of each article is required, so that industries quickly expand to the point at which their total output is far larger than can be sold at a profit. Quite young industries like artificial silk, soon reach the degree of over-development shown by the older industries. Goods such as farm crops, that are ordinarily not produced to order, but with the expectation of finding a buyer eventually, naturally tend to accumulate to a greater extent than those produced only to order—such as railway engines.

As traders find it more difficult to sell, they reduce their orders to the wholesalers, who in turn stop buying from the manufacturers. Plans for extending production by constructing new buildings, plant, ships, etc., are cancelled and the workers are laid off.

The reduced income of the workers and of the unemployed reduces still further the demand for goods. In desperate need of ready money to pay their bills, retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers are driven to sell their stocks at lower and lower prices—often at a price less than the original cost price. Workers, for the same reason, are forced to offer to work for lower wages. It is not that there is any lack of money, but that the rich who have it can find no profitable field for investment. The economies that are made in a time of depression—whether voluntary ones, or economies enforced on the workers by wage reductions, actually aggravate the crisis instead of relieving it. Yet "economise" is the advice given by public men now, as it was by Mr. Bourne in 1876, referred to earlier in this pamphlet.

Here is a situation that always causes grave discontent. It is from this discontent that the believers in the theory of the collapse of Capitalism think that they can draw the force which will overthrow the capitalist system. But it does not work out like that. In spite of riots and agitations, Capitalism still continues. The actual events show us why this is and why it must be so.

IV. WHAT HAPPENS IN PRACTICE

Since the War, to go back no further, the situation has been tested many times and in many places. The result has always been the same—suffering for the workers without compensating gain.

In Great Britain two outstanding events may be considered. First, there was the great depression of 1921 and 1922, when, as now, unemployment was between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000. Then, in 1926, there was the spontaneous demonstration of sympathy with the miners in their resistance to wage reductions, that resulted in what is known as the "General Strike". Since the communists have been the most persistent advocates of the doctrine we are attacking, let us see what came of their efforts to take advantage of these two crises.

Round about 1921 and 1922 the communists claimed that they had the leadership of the hundreds of thousands of members of the unemployed organisations. They organised marches and demonstrations, deputations to Cabinet Ministers and local authorities, and attempted to seize public buildings. They did everything they could to force the authorities to grant their demands for better treatment. By winning the confidence of the workers in this way the communists then hoped to be able to lead them on to an attack on Capitalism.

What was the result? A writer in their official organ tells us:

"The unemployed have done all they can and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians. They have attended innumerable meetings and have been told to be 'solid'. They have marched to London enduring terrible hardships . . . All this has led nowhere. None of the marchers believe that seeing Bonar Law in the flesh will make any difference. Willing for any sacrifice, there seems no outlet, no next step. In weariness and bitter disillusionment the unemployed movement is turning in upon itself. There is sporadic action, local rioting, but not central direction. The Government has signified its exact appreciation of the confusion by arresting Hannington.

The plain truth is that the unemployed can only be organised for agitation, not for action. Effective action is the job of the working class as a whole. The Government is not afraid of starving men so long as the mass of workers look on and keep the ring" (Workers' Weekly, 10th February, 1923).

Another communist described the way in which discontent will drive men and women into joining associations that promise them immediate benefit, but how easily the membership thus recruited fades away when capitalists give slight concessions. The references are to an unemployed organisation in Liverpool, but are typical of what happened all over the country. The article was published in January, 1923, in The Worker (20th January 1923).

First, the writer tells us that the organisation began in 1921, with a gathering 20,000 strong and a committee "comprised for the most part of Communists". There was a baton charge by the police in September and most of the committee were arrested. The unemployed then attacked a picture gallery and turned it "into a shambles".

"From then onwards the number declined, due to the fact that a scale of relief had been granted, and that the spineless ones had got the wind up and left. We managed to keep a crowd of 10,000".

The article then describes how the unemployed again came into conflict with the police:

"This gave us another setback in point of numbers, and the people left began to show signs of class consciousness . . . They began to flock to the Communist Party. Very few stayed in, but those who left were inoculated with germs of the class struggle. Due to another agitation we were granted the use of another hall. Again, after another couple of months, we got notice to quit. From then onwards until about April or May 1922 the apathy became terrible.

'The Guardians of the rich', seeing this, began to get brave by daring to cut the relief down. A few hundred returned and wanted to know what we were going to do . . . try as we would we could not get them to kick . . . In September (1922) they returned again. The Guardians had brought in a system of test work . . . the agitation became strong . . . the test work suddenly stopped, so did the demonstrations of our organisation."

This communist writer's last words sum up the whole situation. Writing of the typical unemployed worker, he says:

"The immediate wrongs . . .being satisfied . . . he drifted away again. Thus the movement has declined, and hardly exists to-day outside of a small committee".

The years 1931 and 1932 have seen the communists—blind to their own experiences—acting this tragic farce over again.

It must be obvious that unstable organisations of this kind, composed of non-socialists, and recruited merely on some minor question of the day, cannot be of use in the striving for Socialism.

In 1926 the communists had an excellent opportunity to try out their theory on the millions of workers who were involved in the strike or were sympathetic towards it. The result was just what we have said it must be. Strikes can serve a useful purpose in resisting wage reductions or securing increases, but they cannot overthrow Capitalism. To begin with, the workers themselves have not that purpose

in mind, and even when they become socialists they will still need political organisation in order to capture the real centre of power—the machinery of government and the armed forces controlled by it. This no strike can do.

The strikers wished simply to help the miners. In the main, neither they nor the miners had any wish to overthrow the government or to introduce Socialism. To the extent, therefore, that the communists were able to make known their intention of using the strike to overthrow the State, they were not attracting but repelling the workers. As the communists confessed, the "strikers had no horizon beyond bringing aid to the miners, and thereby resisting the employers' offensive against themselves" (The Labour Monthly, June 1926, p. 347). The workers had no desire to use the strike for revolutionary ends, and as the outcome showed, the State, with its financial resources, its armed forces, its support in the press, and its prestige with the mass of the population, has nothing to fear from striking workers even when they number two or three millions.

In a large strike, as in a small one, starvation fights on the side of the propertied class against the wage earners. We know from the General Strike, and from revolts of workers attempted in many countries at different times, that desperate men and women will take desperate action when goaded to it by the hardships of their life under Capitalism. But we have seen in the General Strike of 1926 how such spontaneous outbursts are always crushed by the forces at the disposal of the ruling class through their control of the machinery of Government. How much easier it is, and how much less costly in human suffering, to convert a majority to Socialism than to engage in these blind revolts!

There is, too, another factor of great importance. The ruling class usually and in the long run are not blind to their own interests, and do not drive the working class as a whole into revolt. They are not so foolish as to leave only that alternative. By means of charity, doles, and unemployment insurance, and, if need be, the grant of higher wages and other concessions, the capitalists can always take the edge off periods of the more acute industrial depressions.

The problem of "over-production" that is behind every crisis is always relieved in due course for a time. Employers close down production and thus stop the stocks from being added to. Governments tax the employers and with the money so obtained enable the unemployed to buy a certain amount of the accumulation of articles. Capitalists combine, with or without the assistance of Governments, to destroy stocks. At the beginning of 1932, Brazilian coffee was being burned, thrown into the sea, and used for fuel. Wheat was being burned in Canada and U. S. A., and a resolution was passed by the United States Senate recommending that the U. S. A. Government hand over to the unemployed the 40,000,000 bushels of wheat held by the Farm Board. In addition, in site of every care, great stocks of raw materials deteriorate and spoil. As a last resort there is the colossal destruction of wars to relieve pressure. Sooner or later, these crises of over-production have always given place to a resumption of fairly brisk trade and employment, without, of course, abolishing unemployment. Capitalism cannot do that.

Some of the communists have indeed just begun to recognise the unsoundness of their theory. In The Labour Monthly (January 1932), Mr. Dutt quotes with approval a statement of Lenin's—that no situation for Capitalism is "without a way out", and says:

"We know that the overthrow of capitalism . . . requires the most titanic and long-drawn struggle, action, organisation, and victory of the working class; and that until this is attained, capitalism will still drag on from crisis to crisis, from hell to greater hell".

To this we would add that the workers will never be able to take sound action until they possess the knowledge of Socialism that it is our aim to provide. So long as the workers lack a knowledge of socialist principles, and a determination to bring Socialism about, each crisis will pass off in this fashion. As a matter of fact, it is not always true that the additional hardship makes the workers kick, even blindly, against Capitalism. The capitalists are so well able to excite the workers' fears, because of a lack of socialist knowledge, that we often see the workers in times of crisis rallying round the most openly capitalist and reactionary parties. We saw this in the 1931 crisis, when an overwhelming majority of workers in Great Britain and in Australia voted into power reactionary "Nationalist" parties, in spite of the plans of these parties to reduce unemployment pay and the pay of Government employees, and to impose other economies.

V. THE ONLY ROAD TO SOCIALISM

The lesson to be learned is that there is no simple way out of Capitalism by leaving the system to collapse of its own accord. Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending Capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely

Throughout the 19th century, and up to the present time, many attempts have been made to build up working class organisations on the basis of demanding concessions from the capitalists to meet the evil effects of the capitalist system. There have been numbers of unemployed organisations asking for "work or maintenance" and political parties, such as the Labour Party, the I. L .P., and the Communist Party, seeking support on programmes of reforms. Some of these bodies have obtained a large membership and have appeared to gain small concessions. Some have even taken over the Government and tried to apply their reform programmes. But such organisations do not, and cannot, bring Socialism. Their members are attracted by the promises of immediate results. They are not

willing to work for the abolition of Capitalism because they have not learned that it is Capitalism which causes the evils they are seeking to remove. These organisations cannot get beyond the limited aims and understanding of their members. They are built up on a wrong foundation. They are not deserving of working class support. They may reform Capitalism, but they cannot abolish it.

So long as the workers are prepared to resign themselves to the evils of Capitalism, and so long as they are prepared to place in control of Parliament parties that will use their power for the purpose of maintaining Capitalism, there is no escape from the effects of Capitalism. The workers will continue to suffer from the normal hardships of the capitalist system when trade is relatively good, and from the aggravated hardships which are the workers' lot during trade depressions.

That is the prospect before the workers of all the world unless they actively interest themselves in understanding socialist principles and assisting in socialist organisation.

A PERSONAL APPEAL

We have now stated our case and we hope that you have given it the consideration it deserves. The question is, what are you going to do? Are you going to put it aside and carry on as of yore, or are you going to arm yourselves with socialist knowledge? One way lies poverty, misery and bondage; the other way lies the road to emancipation and, at its end, all the happiness and fullness of life that the gigantic and fruitful machinery of modern industry offers to a world of free and equal men and women. The choice is before you; only knowledge, desire and self-confidence are needed to realise the free society of the future. Place not your trust in others, but be assured that the work there is to do must be done by yourselves.

Greece: A statement of moderation

statement issued by the association of employees of the suburb of Agios Dimitrios in Athens. Here’s a rough translation of the statement, as promised. Keep in mind that, as members of the association told some comrades, they tried to keep the style of the text as sober as possible, to ensure the maximum number of people take the streets with them.
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/
STATEMENT
On Saturday night, the Greek police assassinated a 15 year old student.
His assassination was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
It was the continuation of a coordinated action, by state terrorism and the Golden Dawn, which aimed at university and high school students (with the private universities first), at migrants that continue to be persecuted for being born with the wrong colour, at the employees that must work to death without compensation.
The government of cover-ups with its praetors, having burnt the forests last summer, is responsible for all major cities burning now, too. It protected financial criminals, all those involved in the mobile phone interceptions scandal, those looting the employees’ insurance funds, those kidnapping migrants, those who protected the banks and the monasteries that steal from the ordinary people.
We are in Civil War: With the fascists, the bankers, the state, the media wishing to see an obedient society.
There are no excuses, yet they once again try to use conspiracy theories to calm spirits down.
The rage that had accumulated had to be expressed and should not, by any means, end.
Throughout the world we are making headlines, it was about time that people uprise everywhere.
The generation of the poor, the unemployed, the partially employed, the homeless, the migrants, the youth, is the generation that will smash every display window and will wake up the obedient citizens from their sleep of the ephemeral American dream.
Don’t watch the news, consciousness is born in the streets
When the youth is murdered, the old people should not sleep
Goodbye Alexandros, may your blood be the last of an innocent to run

All power to the school kids!

A kid of their age was assassinated. They took the streets to protest only to have tear gas thrown at them, to be violently arrested, to be shot at. Yet hour by hour, day by day, the school students on the streets become more militant and determined. So far they have attacked more than six police stations across Athens. Yesterday in the suburb of Petroupoli, around 100 of them attacked the local police station, smashing it up with sticks and stones. A few banks down the same road were also attacked. Until yesterday night at least 100 schools in the country were occupied by their students. This number is expected to jump up today, when most students are supposed to return to their schools for the first time after Alexandros’ death. Whether they chose to do so or not could largely determine the future of the revolt. Luckily, they seem to have no intention to return to normalcy: For today, 11.12, the students are planning decentralised road blockades across Athens. For tomorrow, Friday, demonstrations are called by university students in Athens and Thessaloniki - universities are also expected to be occupied in large numbers today and tomorrow. The Economics University anarchist occupation has decided to reach out to the students; newspapers, posters and leaflets are being printed right now, to be distributed to schools across the city asap. The future of our struggle seems to be dependent on them and I am confident we are in good hands.
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/

OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work,
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,
And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,--the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!
Wordsworth.

Greek Police employ the UFO defence.

From the defence statement of one of the child killers who took Alexandros Grigoropolous's life:

This tragedy is the result… of an act by the policeman to fire into the air. The bullet ricocheted, we have an entry wound from above. It proves irrefutably that it was a ricochet.

Lying, filthy, murdering bastards.


thanks to bristlekrs for this.