Peace process surges further ahead

Posted on January 3, 2009 by @ndy

There is “great rejoicing at the nation’s capital”. So says the morning’s paper.

The enemy’s fleet has been annihilated.

Mothers are delighted because other mothers have lost sons just like their own;

Wives and daughters smile at the thought of new-made widows and orphans;

Strong men are full of glee because other strong men are either slain or doomed to rot alive in torments;

Small boys are delirious with pride and joy as they fancy themselves thrusting swords into soft flesh, and burning and laying waste such homes as they themselves inhabit;

Another capital is cast down with mourning and humiliation just in proportion as ours is raised up, and that is the very spice of our triumph…

This is life–this is patriotism–this is rapture!

But we–what are we, men or devils? and our Christian capital–what is it but an outpost of Hell?

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Gaza leader’s death a coup for Israel
Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
The Sydney Morning Herald
(Telegraph, London; Guardian News & Media; Los Angeles Times)
January 3, 2009

“ISRAEL killed a senior Hamas commander, Nizar Rayan, with two laser-guided bombs that destroyed his home. Witnesses described Mr Rayan’s body being thrown out of the house in Jabaliya by the force of the explosions. Other family members also died in the blast, but there were conflicting accounts, with one saying that he was killed with four wives and two daughters, while another said he died with two wives and seven children. Mr Rayan’s death represents a coup in the eyes of Israel as he was one of their most hardline opponents and had called for suicide bomb attacks to restart…”

Oddly, “Officials warned Hamas had acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles, raising fears the nuclear warheads at Dimona, 30km east of Beersheba, had fallen within the Islamic militants’ sights” (Nuclear fear drives Israel’s hard line, Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem, The Australian, January 3, 2009); odd, because the Israeli state maintains the fiction that it may not have such weapons; further, Israel refuses Dimona be inspected by the IAEA. Nor is the Israeli state a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention, or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Weapons of Mass Destruction? What Weapons of Mass Destruction?

In the meantime, as Silverchair once sang, There’s people crying / There’s people dying / But someone’s taken it all, yeah.

Civilians suffer in densely populated Gaza, Taghreed El-Khodary, International Herald Tribune, January 1, 2009 | Harm to civilians during the fighting in Gaza and Southern Israel : Reports from Israeli human rights groups

Siege of Gaza
Cameron Stewart, Associate editor
The Australian
January 3, 2009

“THE magnitude of the gamble by Israel in launching a bloody military assault against the Gaza Strip and its trapped Palestinians is becoming more obvious by the day, although the conflict began well for Israel, militarily and politically. The cabinet, led by caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and the Israeli Defence Force succeeded in taking the militant Hamas party by surprise. The IDF pulverised Hamas targets in more than 500 aerial bombing raids in the six days since hostilities began. On Thursday, Israeli bombs killed a top Hamas leader, Nizar Rayyan, whose extremism was such that he allowed his son to become a suicide bomber…”

The real goal of the slaughter in Gaza
Jonathan Cook
The Electronic Intifada
January 1, 2009
Official Apathy: The Gaza Ghetto and Western Cant
Tariq Ali
Counterpunch
December 30, 2008
Barack Obama on Siege, Killings in Gaza
Joshua Frank
The Palestine Chronicle
December 28, 2008

See also : The Guardian on Israel and the Palestinian territories

‘Anarchists’ block entrance to IAF base in protest of Gaza strikes
Ofri Ilani
Haaretz
January 2, 2009

Twenty-one members of the “Anarchists Against the Wall” group were arrested Friday morning after they blocked the entrance to the Sde Dov Israel Air Force base in North Tel Aviv.

The protestors, wearing white masks and covered in fake blood, laid on the street and played dead.

They said they were arrested after they left the road and were on the sidewalk.

Ayala, one of the protestors, said that the protest was meant to “show IAF pilots the results of their actions in Gaza. From thousands of feet in the air, a pilot who aims and presses a button can ignore, forget, or be unable to fathom that at that moment he killed innocent people. We came here to remind them of this.”

Also on Friday, clashes broke out between police and Israeli Arabs rock-throwers protesting the IAF raids in Gaza. In Tiberias on Thursday, some 15 youths burned tires and a Palestinian flag, in support of the operation in Gaza.

Kill for peace : “Operation Cast Lead”, December 28, 2008 | For Reasons of (Israeli) State (Policy), July 25, 2008 | Israel, Jews, the state, anarchism…, May 22, 2008 | For reasons of state #6,322, March 7, 2008…

Posted in State / Politics, War on Terror | 16 Comments

Makhno’s back… and he wants yr gas!

Posted on January 2, 2009 by @ndy

Kiev warning on confiscation of Russia gas irresponsible
ITAR-TASS
December 31, 2008

MOSCOW, December 31 (Itar-Tass) – Irresponsible statements of the Ukrainian authorities about the possibility of confiscation of Russian export gas bring to mind and probably have been suggested by films about Makhno anarchists, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom Alexander Medvedev said at a press conference on Wednesday drawing such a historical parallel. (Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, October 26, 1888–July 6, 1934, was an anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War.)

“The conduct of Kiev in this dramatic situation “is absolutely irresponsible and has no precedents on the gas market,” he added.

He described the development of the situation as “crude violation of an effective agreement on the transit of Russian gas to Western Europe, plainly speaking, as an act of blackmail by Ukraine not only against Russia, but also against Western Europe.”

The Military Writings of Leon Trotsky, Volume 2: 1919 – How The Revolution Armed – The Southern Front: Denikin’s Offensive
ORDER No.112
By the Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic and People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs
June 18, 1919, Kharkov

Severe punishment for all deserters, Makhnovites, disorganisers and traitors to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army.

Denikin’s landlord-bourgeois bands are now threatening the workers and peasants of Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Poltava, Kursk and Voronezh. Our Southern front has been shaken. Who is responsible? Who was it that opened the gates to the counter-revolutionary bands whose aim is to take the land from the peasants and put a yoke on the workers? The gates were opened by traitors, deserters, Grigoriyevites, Anarchist bandits, Makhnovites, who did not want to recognise any sort of order or discipline in the ranks of the army.

The Extraordinary Military Revolutionary Tribunal presided over by the Ukrainian People’s Commissar Comrade Pyatakov, has examined the case of the Makhnovite traitors who first tried to undermine the workers’ and peasants’ power in the Ukraine and then opened the gates to the sworn enemies of the working people.

The Tribunal has severely punished the traitors. The same punishment awaits all who undermine the solidarity, discipline and fighting capacity of the army. Makhno’s headquarters has been destroyed, but the poison of Makhnovism has not yet been eliminated. Individual agents of treason are still inciting Red Army men to unjustified retreats. Here and there on the Southern Front, whole regiments are still abandoning their positions without authority and committing excesses as they go.

The Extraordinary Military Revolutionary Tribunal testifies, by its sentence, that the Soviet power is coping with disintegration and corruption and will wipe the guilty from the face of the earth.

In announcing the sentence* in the case of the Makhnovite traitors, I order that it be made known and explained in all companies, squadrons, batteries and task-forces of the armies operating on the Donets front.

[*Sentence dated June 17, 1919, in the case of Mikhalevo-Pavlenko, Burbyga, Oteynik, Korobko, Kostin, Polunin and Dobrolyubov. – L. T.]

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, History | 3 Comments

Refuse Resist Regroup!

Posted on January 2, 2009 by @ndy

Damn! It never rains, it pours. I only just remembered to blog about Trotskyist Platform (a split from the Sparts / International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)) in Australia when — Happy New Year! — a new split emerges in the too-tight pants belonging to the International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) (itself a split from the Sparts). ‘Revolutionary Regroupment’, aka ‘Samuel’, broke with the IBT on September 25, 2008, after receiving some nasty emails and phone calls. His resignation letter, published on his site, reads as you might expect it would. Apparently, the IBT is authoritarian, has a ruling troika, “the New Zealand section has dwindled to 4 semi-active geriatrics”, and the IBT is “a purely literary group with under 40 people worldwide” (most of whom are presumably over-40).

Kinda sad really.

“Because within groups like the International Socialists, within groups like the Communist Party of Canada, even within groups like the Trotskyist League, even there, you will find people, comrades, who are subjectively revolutionary—who really are interested in a revolution—but are stuck in a bad organization with bad politics and bad program.” ~ IBT Exchange With ICL: On ‘Revolutionary Regroupment’, 1917, No.30, April 2008.

See also :

International Committee of the Fourth International (Socialist Equality Party)
Internationalist Group / League for the Fourth International
United Secretariat of the Fourth International
League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) / Communist Organization for the Fourth International (COFI)

    COFI-Australia
    League Press
    P.O. Box 539
    N. Melbourne 3051, Victoria
    Australia

League for the Fifth International

Posted in Trot Guide | 6 Comments

Filthkick (Legless) : ‘Naive’ / ‘Sonic Reducer’

Posted on January 2, 2009 by @ndy

Filthkick. The title of an EP by Poison Idea (Shitfool, 1988)… Also the name of a UK punk band… Also known as Legless. ‘Naive’ was originally recorded by UK band the Killjoys in 1978; it featured a bloke called Kevin Rowland on vocals. His unusual pop career is dissected by Matt Yalson on Fucking in the street. (‘Johnny Won’t Get To Heaven’, also by the Killjoys, is covered by Extreme Noise Terror.) ‘Sonic Reducer’ is a song by the Dead Boys.

See also:

The Killjoys: Live and interview (1977):

Posted in Music | 1 Comment

Happy New Fear

Posted on December 31, 2008 by @ndy

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping poverty: that, one magical day, good luck will suddenly rain down on them – will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down, yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day on their right foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms. The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the no-ones, the nobodies, running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way. Who are not, but could be. Who don’t speak languages, but dialects. Who don’t have religions, but superstitions. Who don’t create art, but handicrafts. Who don’t have culture, but folklore. Who are not human beings, but human resources. Who do not have faces, but arms. Who do not have names, but numbers. Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the crime reports of the local paper. The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them. ~ Stolen from Eduardo Galeano c/o Mickey Z

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

“All Aboard! Bolshevik Revolution leaving Trotskyist Platform at 19:17!” Toot toot!

Posted on December 30, 2008 by @ndy

Awesome.

It’s been six months since I updated the Trot Guide, and six months is a long time in Trotskyist politics.

Well… kinda.

Anyway, point is, in May I wrote:

29 1/2) Trotskyist Platform (TP). Status : TP formed in 2006 when no less a person than the editor of the Australasian Spartacist made like a banana… and split. May 2008: He must be hunting wabbits, as he is keeping vewy vewy quiet.

No longer!
Trotskyist Platform has a website!
And a publication!
Two issues of which are available online!
Issue 9 (Feb-May 2008) and Issue 10 (Sep-Oct 2008)!
My favourite article is ‘An Eyewitness Account from The Canberra April 24 Pro-Peoples Republic of China Rally: From The Bright Depths of The Sea of Red’: “There has not been such a huge show of support for a pro-communist flag in this country in at least the last 30 years, perhaps ever.”

How excitement!

TP stands in the tradition of the early years of the Communist International (CI) that was formed in the wake of the October 1917 socialist revolution in Russia. The CI would soon unite together revolutionaries from China to Russia, from France to the U.S. We look forward to the future regrouping of sincere worker militants and leftist youth into a party based on the principles that the Communist International was founded on. We look forward to a future world where there will not only be no subjugation but where every person will be able to, depending on their own interests, reach their full creative, cultural, scientific and artistic potential.

Trotskyist Platform: PO Box 1101, Fairfield, NSW, 1860, Australia
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone (Australia): 0417 204 611
Phone (International): 0061 417 204 611

In other news…

http://www.labortribune.net/ is “Under [Re-]Construction”.

The Communist Party of Australia has had to bid farewell to its General Secretary (1972–2008), Peter Symon, following his death on December 18, 2008. “Peter’s contribution to the Australian and International communist movement was considerable. He ranks with other great Australian Communists such as JB Miles, Dick Dixon and Lance Sharkey.” Lance Sharkey, ‘Stalin — The Lenin of To-day’, Foreword to Foundations of Leninism (1945) by ‘Uncle’ Joseph Stalin:

The trotskyite fascist agents tried to deny Stalin’s theoretical ability. They claimed that their defeat was brought about by organisational measures directed against them. But the struggle against the traitorous trotskyites was, in the first place, a theoretical and political struggle of decisive importance. The question involved was one of life or death, the continued existence of the Soviet Republic, the problem of whether Socialism could be built in one country.

Stalin brilliantly defended and elaborated Lenin’s teaching on the possibility of building Socialism in one country and, with a profound grip of Marxism-Leninism, refuted the “theoretical” arguments of his opponents, who, defeated, later sold themselves as Quislings to the Nazi and Japanese espionage services.

Worryingly, Vanguard, the publication of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), does not appear to have been published for some twelve months — or at least, not online. Vanguard Online in 2008! “In its political work, the Party takes into account the hostile position of the pro-imperialist state power and the activities of its repressive agencies. Except for a few leading figures and spokespersons, the majority of Party members do not reveal their association. The current Chairperson is Bruce Cornwall.”

The Democratic Socialist Perspective Socialist Alliance held its Sixth National Conference in Geelong over the weekend of December 6-7, 2008. Without having read any accounts, I can assure readers that it was A Great Success, A Big Step Forward, and that, while The Struggle Ahead is Long and Difficult, The Future for SA is Very Promising.

http://www.fightback.org.au/ is a website which is The Marxist Voice of Labour and Youth. In plain English, that means that one of the Trotskyist Internationals — in this case the International Marxist Tendency (IMT: formerly the Committee for a Marxist International or CMI) has a handful of followers Down Under.

In Australia, Revo appears to have disappeared… but may just be unwell. The Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), on the other hand, is still kicking seven months after its birth. And while the DSP may lay claim to Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP), the RSP has its own Asia Pacific Solidarity Network (APSN). Members of the two parties happily work together in the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network, however.

Finally, revolutionaries face a tough choice come Easter, 2009. On the one hand, in Melbourne, Socialist Alternative is hosting ‘Marxism 2009’ (April 9–12); on the other, the DSP/Resistance will be critically examining a ‘World at a Crossroads’ (April 10–13) in Sydney. John Pilger will be a special guest at Marxism 2009 and based on his performance at the 2008 London Anarchist Bookfair, at which he reportedly declared himself an ‘anarchist’, chances are he’ll declare himself a ‘Trotskyist’ in Melbourne…

wsws.org awesomeness: Australia: The DSP split and Socialist Alliance—another opportunist debacle, Laura Tiernan, December 6, 2008.

Posted in Trot Guide | 55 Comments

Kill for peace : “Operation Cast Lead”

Posted on December 28, 2008 by @ndy

    Emergency rally for Gaza : Stop the Massacre! End the Siege Now!

    2pm, Sunday, 4th January
    Victorian State Library
    Cnr La Trobe and Swanston St
    Melbourne

    …previously…

    5pm, Tuesday, 30th December
    Victorian State Library
    Cnr La Trobe and Swanston St
    Melbourne

Hmmm. Looks like the Israeli authorities are taking the opportunity presented by George II’s last few weeks in office to conduct “Operation Cast Lead”, aka “Operation Commit Another War Crime By Damaging Hamas Infrastructure & Murdering Several Hundred People in Gaza Ahead of An Israeli General Election”. Naturally, George II has responded with a nod and a wink, and Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard of the Australian Working Families Party Government has tactfully stated that Hamas had engaged in “an act of aggression against Israel”. “They (Hamas) should cease any further action. We are saying to the Israelis that all care should be taken to avoid injuring civilians,” she said.

As for US President-elect Obama…

Robert Fisk’s World: How can anyone believe there is ‘progress’ in the Middle East?
The Independent
December 27, 2008

A test of Obama’s gumption will come scarcely three months after his inauguration

If reporting is, as I suspect, a record of mankind’s folly, then the end of 2008 is proving my point.

Let’s kick off with the man who is not going to change the Middle East, Barack Obama, who last week, with infinite predictability, became Time‘s “person of the year”. But buried in a long and immensely tedious interview inside the magazine, Obama devotes just one sentence to the Arab-Israeli conflict: “And seeing if we can build on some of the progress, at least in conversation, that’s been made around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a priority.”

What is this man talking about? “Building on progress?” What progress? On the verge of another civil war between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, with Benjamin Netanyahu a contender for Israeli prime minister, with Israel’s monstrous wall and its Jewish colonies still taking more Arab land, and Palestinians still firing rockets at Sderot, and Obama thinks there’s “progress” to build on?

I suspect this nonsensical language comes from the mental mists of his future Secretary of State…

I was amazed to learn of the training system adopted by the Met lads who put Jean Charles de Menezes to death on the Tube. According to former police commander Brian Paddick, the Met’s secret rules for “dealing” with suicide bombers were drawn up “with the help of Israeli experts”. What? Who were these so-called “experts” advising British policemen how to shoot civilians on the streets of London? The same men who assassinate wanted Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and brazenly kill Palestinian civilians at the same time? The same people who outrageously talk about “targeted killings” when they murder their opponents? Were these the thugs who were advising Lady Cressida Dick and her boys?

Funnily enough, Lord Blair cancelled a recent (December 2008) trip to Gaza following advice from Israeli authorities that his life might be in danger. Fisk:

Not that our brave peace envoy, Lord Blair, would have much to say about it. He’s the man, remember, whose only proposed trip to Gaza was called off when yet more “Israeli experts” advised him that his life might be in danger. Anyway, he’d still rather be president of Europe, something Sarko wants to award him. That, I suppose, is why Blair wrote such a fawning article in the same issue of Time which made Obama “person” of the year. “There are times when Nicolas Sarkozy resembles a force of nature,” Blair grovels. It’s all first names, of course. “Nicolas has the hallmark of any true leader”; “Nicolas has adopted…”; “Nicolas recognises”; “Nicolas reaching out…”. In all, 15 “Nicolases”. Is that the price of the Euro presidency? Or will Blair now tell us he’s going to be involved in those “conversations” with Obama to “build on some of the progress” in the Middle East?

Antony Loewenstein has news — There are real people under Israeli bombs — some analysis, and a huge number of useful links on his blog. Ellen Cantarow’s essay on ‘Gaza Is Buckling: Richard Falk, Israel and the New York Times’ (Counterpunch, December 26-28, 2008) is also worth reading (Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, was recently denied entry to Israel; in 2007, Falk wrote ‘Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust’), as is ‘If Gaza falls . . .’ by Sara Roy (London Review of Books, January 1, 2009).

See also:

The Electronic Intifada (EI), found at electronicIntifada.net, publishes news, commentary, analysis, and reference materials about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a Palestinian perspective. EI is the leading Palestinian portal for information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its depiction in the media…

International Solidarity Movement : a Palestinian-led movement committed to resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles.

The Refuser Solidarity Network (RSN) was formed in April of 2002 to provide support for the growing Refuser Movement in Israel. The initial impetus for the establishment of the RSN was the publication in January 2002 of the Combatants Letter by a group of 52 reserve officers, which later became Ometz Le’sarev or Courage to Refuse…

Yesh Gvul (“There is a limit!”) is an Israeli peace group campaigning against the occupation by backing soldiers who refuse duties of a repressive or aggressive nature. The brutal role of the Israeli army in subjugating the Palestinian population places numerous servicemen in a grave moral and political dilemma, as they are required to enforce policies they deem illegal, immoral and ultimately harmful to Israeli interests. The army hierarchy demands compliance, but many soldiers, whether conscripts or reservists, find that they cannot in good conscience obey the orders of their superiors…

Posted in State / Politics, War on Terror | 22 Comments

Thank You Satan! (Léo Ferré)

Posted on December 28, 2008 by @ndy

Léo Ferré : August 24, 1916 – July 14, 1993.

Thank You Satan

Pour la flamme que tu allumes
Au creux d’un lit pauvre ou rupin
Pour le plaisir qui s’y consume
Dans la toile ou dans le satin
Pour les enfants que tu ranimes
Au fond des dortoirs chérubins
Pour leurs pétales anonymes
Comme la rose du matin

Thank you Satan

Pour le voleur que tu recouvres
De ton chandail tendre et rouquin
Pour les portes que tu lui ouvres
Sur la tanière des rupins
Pour le condamné que tu veilles
A l’Abbaye du monte en l’air
Pour le rhum que tu lui conseilles
Et le mégot que tu lui sers

Thank you Satan

Pour les étoiles que tu sèmes
Dans le remords des assassins
Et pour ce c?ur qui bat quand même
Dans la poitrine des putains
Pour les idées que tu maquilles
Dans la tête des citoyens
Pour la prise de la Bastille
Même si ça ne sert à rien

Thank you Satan

Pour le prêtre qui s’exaspère
A retrouver le doux agneau
Pour le pinard élémentaire
Qu’il prend pour du Château Margaux
Pour l’anarchiste à qui tu donnes
Les deux couleurs de ton pays
Le rouge pour naître à Barcelone
Le noir pour mourir à Paris

Thank you Satan

Pour la sépulture anonyme
Que tu fis à Monsieur Mozart
Sans croix ni rien sauf pour la frime
Un chien, croque-mort du hasard
Pour les poètes que tu glisses
Au chevet des adolescents
Quand poussent dans l’ombre complice
Des fleurs du mal de dix-sept ans

Thank you Satan

Pour le péché que tu fais naître
Au sein des plus raides vertus
Et pour l’ennui qui va paraître
Au coin des lits où tu n’es plus
Pour les ballots que tu fais paître
Dans le pré comme des moutons
Pour ton honneur à ne paraître
Jamais à la télévision

Thank you Satan

Pour tout cela et plus encor
Pour la solitude des rois
Le rire des têtes de morts
Le moyen de tourner la loi
Et qu’on ne me fasse point taire
Et que je chante pour ton bien
Dans ce monde où les muselières
Ne sont plus faites pour les chiens…

Thank you Satan!

for the flame that you light
in the small of a poor or swanky bed
for the pleasure that there consumes
in cloth or in satin
for the children that you revive
in the depths of the cherub’s dorms
for their anonymous petals
like the morning rose

thank you satan

for the thief that you cover
with your soft ginger pullover
for the door that you open for him
on the riches’ den
for the convicted over whom you watch
at the abbey of the ascent
for the rum that you recommend
and the butt that you serve him

thank you satan

for the stars that you sow
in the remorse of the assassins
and for the heart that’s still beating
in the whores’ chest
for the ideas that you
disguise in the citizens’ head
for the storming of the Bastille
even if it is useless

thank you satan

for the priest who is exasperated
to find again the gentle lamb
for the elementary booze
he takes for some ‘Château Margaux’
for the anarchist to whom you give
the two colours of his country
the red for being born in Barcelona
the black for dying in Paris

thank you satan

for the anonymous sepulchre
that you made for Monsieur Mozart
no cross nothing except for show
a dog, undertaker of the chance
for the poets that you slip
on the teenagers’ bedhead
when in the conniving shadow
17 year-old fleurs du mal grow

thank you satan

for the sin that you bring
within the stiffest virtues
and for the boredom that will appear
at the corner of the beds where you no longer are
for the fools that you make graze
just like the sheep in the meadow
for your honour in appearing
never on the television

thank you satan

for all that and even more
for the solitude of the kings
the laugh of the death’s heads
the means to divert the law
and nobody dare try to keep me silent
I sing for your own good
in this world where muzzles
are no longer made for dogs…

thank you satan

Emergency rally for Gaza : Stop the Massacre! End the Siege Now!

5pm, Tuesday, 30th December
Victorian State Library
Cnr La Trobe and Swanston St
Melbourne

Over 230 people have been killed and more than 700 wounded (half of them critically) on Saturday, December 27, when the Israeli government launched a series of violent air strikes against the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli airstrikes, which saw 100 tonnes of bombs dropped across the region, took place at 11.30 am (Palestinian time) just as thousands of Palestinian school children were breaking from school to go home, resulting in many of them being killed or seriously injured.

Journalists and human rights activists on the scene at Gaza Hospital are reporting gruesome scenes; shocked families pick through body parts to identify loved ones — amputated bodies are strewn throughout hallways because morgues in the city can no longer accommodate the dead.

The Israeli air strikes against Gaza’s 1.5 million civilian population comes on top of the Israeli imposed siege designed to strangle the life of the Palestinians living there, by denying them adequate fuel, food, medical supplies and power.

The people of Gaza are standing steadfast in the face of these atrocities but we in the international community also need to raise our voices and be heard to demand an immediate end to Israel’s massacre of hundreds of innocent people and for an end to the illegal siege and collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

Join us and others around the world and raise your voices in opposition to Israel’s war crimes and illegal collective punishment of the people of Gaza: Stop the Massacre! End the Siege Now!

Please bring placards and banners…
Organised by Justice for Palestine and Palestinian Community Association…
For more information: 0439 454 375
www.justiceforpalestine.org
email: [email protected]

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Music | 2 Comments

Valkyries & Pirates: Resistance to Nazism

Posted on December 27, 2008 by @ndy
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    Identification picture of Erich Muehsam taken in the Oranienburg concentration camp. Muehsam, an anarchist and a pacifist, worked as an editor and writer; he was imprisoned during World War I for opposing the war. Arrested during the massive roundup of Nazi political opponents following the Reichstag fire (February 27, 1933), Muehsam was tortured to death in Oranienburg on July 11, 1934. Oranienburg, Germany, February 3, 1934.

    [“After breaking his teeth with musket blows; stamping a swastika on his scalp with a red-hot brand; subjecting him to tortures which caused him to be taken into a hospital, even now the fascist hyenas of the Sonn[e]nburg concentration camp continue their beastly attacks upon this defenseless man. The last news are really atrocious: the Nazi forced our comrade to dig his own grave and then with a simulated execution made him go through the agony of a doomed man. Although his body has been reduced to a mass of bleeding and tumefied flesh, his spirit is still very high: when his traducers tried to force him to sing the Horst-Wessel-Lied (the Nazi’s anthem) he defied their anger by singing The International.” ~ The C. Pisacane Group of Paris, “The Nazi Regime at Work: Erich Muhsam”, MAN! A Journal of the Anarchist Ideal and Movement, March 1934, Vol.2, No.3, p.99.]

    minus one

    www1.yadvashem.org.il : 133 Jacob Toury, “The Chain of Command in an Anarchist-Totalitarian Regime,” Yalkut Moreshet (Hebrew), 40 (Dec. 1985), p. 45. See also Yehoyakim Cochavi, “The Final Stage in the History of German Jewry” (Hebrew), in Abraham Margaliot and Yehoyakim Cochavi, eds., The History of the Holocaust—Germany (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998), p. 331.

There’s a film scheduled for release soon called The Reader, based on the novel of the same name (Der Vorleser) by German author Bernhard Schlink. It’s apparently one of several recently or soon-to-be released films on Nazi Germany. Another, Valkyrie, *s Top Gun Tom Cruise as Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, one of the Nazi Generals who attempted to assassinate Mister Hitler in July, 1944. For his troubles, von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators were tortured and executed. Mister Hitler, genocidal dictator (and failed artiste), blew his own brains out nine months later — setting a terrific precedent for all future generations of neo-Nazis.

von Stauffenberg & Co.’s attempts to blow Mister Hitler to smithereens is easily the most famous plot to murder the Austrian painter, but not the only. In terms of resistance to the regime, the equally famous Sophie Scholl and the White Rose has also been the subject of a Major Motion Picture (Sophie Scholl — Die letzten Tage / Sophie Scholl — The Final Days).

Resistance also came from other quarters: Henry Maitles reviews some of the Communist and socialist resistance, as well as that arising out of otherwise ‘ordinary’ Germans, in ‘NEVER AGAIN! (A review of David Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust)’, International Socialism (quarterly journal of the Socialist Workers Party (Britain)), No.77, December 1997. On the other hand:

The history of the anarchist resistance to fascism is something we are never told about in mainstream or even left histories. The victors over fascism wrote the ‘history’ of anti-fascism after WWII. They gave prominent place to the aristocratic German officers who failed to kill Hitler late in the war but ignored the ordinary workers who struggled in the 1920’s and 1930’s when the western governments saw Hitler as an ally. The account here is but a snippet, based on the valuable work done by the ‘Kate Sharpley Library’ in recovering, translating and publishing this history.

After the war in August 1946, Ernst Binder wrote:

“Since mass resistance was not feasible in 1933, the finest members of the movement had to squander their energy in a hopeless guerrilla campaign. But if workers will draw from that painful experiment the lesson that only a united defence at the proper time is effective in the struggle against fascism, their sacrifices will not have been in vain.”

Among those many anarchists murdered by the Nazi regime for their acts of resistance are Franz Bunget, Julius Nolden, Emil Mahnert, Wilhelm Schmitz, Ernst Holtznagel, Michael Delissen and Anton Rosinke. Outside of contemporary anarchist circles, their names and deeds are largely forgotten.

Appendix

one

Some time after [Francesco Giuseppe] Carmagnola’s arrival in Ingham, a serious incident occurred when, on 26 December 1931, he and two other anti-Fascists assaulted the Italian Vice-Consul of Townsville, Mario Melano, beat him and ripped from his coat his Fascist Party badge. The trial of Carmagnola and of one of the two offenders, M. Tardiani, took place in the presence of a large crowd of Italians at the Supreme Court of Townsviile on 11 and 12 February 1932…

    Mr Quinn: Why is it then that you are interested in Italian affairs?
    Witness: I will fight with any race so long as they fight for liberty. In Italy today the people [are] under a tyranny. The Italian people [are] starving and [are] under a band of murderers. Australians should fight for the Italians’ liberty.
    Mr Quinn: Do you believe in assaulting people?
    Witness: No, I believe in freedom and justice for everyone, not like the Fascists who create tyranny.
    Mr Quinn: You say and apparently believe that Fascists should be assaulted, and be spat upon.
    Witness: If you knew what the Fascist Party do, you would agree with me.
    Mr Quinn: Boscone was charged with saying ‘to hell with the King’.
    Witness: Yes.
    Mr Quinn: Do you agree with him?
    Witness: Yes.
    Mr Quinn: Then if you took such a big interest in the welfare of your country and your people, why did you come to Australia, and why don’t you go back?
    Witness: Because I am ashamed to call myself an Italian under the present Regime.
    Mr Quinn: Do you think any decent Australian is proud of you?
    Witness: Yes, they should be, because I stand for the freedom and justice of the Italian people, and also for the Australian people. I would be prepared to fight for Australia if her people were under a tyrant.
    Mr Quinn: We don’t want you.

…To his great surprise, Carmagnola and Tardiani were found not guilty by the Jury composed mainly of sympathetic waterside workers. After their release, they were heartily congratulated by the crowd of excited Italians outside the Court.

two

Neo-Nazi march sputters amid Czech resistance
Diana Spritzer
jta
November 15, 2007

…The Young National Democrats — a group anti-racism advocates say is a front for the National Resistance, a well-known international neo-Nazi organization[?] — scheduled the original march. Experts estimate that there are less than 1,000 active neo-Nazis today in the Czech Republic. However, as is the case across Europe, neo-Nazis increasingly are using the Internet to network and create more international gatherings. About 600 neo-Nazis from Germany, Slovakia and Poland were expected to march in Prague on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when the Nazis led brutal attacks on Jews and Jewish property in Germany and Austria. Their march never materialized, however, as police blocked the neo-Nazis at metro stops and sealed off the Jewish quarter. The few dozen neo-Nazis who managed to make it to the perimeter of the Jewish quarter were attacked by anarchists and anti-fascists. One Czech Jew who survived a Nazi concentration camp said she was buoyed by the sight of her fellow citizens standing up for her. “Two weeks before this day I couldn’t sleep and had terrible dreams,” said Zuzana Ruzickova, who survived Terezin. “It’s something extraordinary to see so many people come and support the Jewish community.” A young Israeli watching the spectacle Saturday of black-masked anti-fascist protesters taking over glitzy Pariszka Street shouted, “Jews 1, Nazis 0.”

three

Des Hitlers Zwang, der macht uns klein
noch liegen wir in Ketten
Doch einmal werden wir wieder frei
wir werden die Ketten schon brechen
Denn unsere Fäuste, die sind hart
ja–und die Messer sitzen los
für die Freiheit der Jugend
kämpfen Navajos

Hitler’s compulsion, it makes us small
still, we’re bound in chains
But one day we’ll be free again
we’ll smash through the chains
For our fists, they are hard
Yes, and the knives are attached loosely
for the freedom of youth
Navajos are struggling

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, History | 2 Comments

Merry Crassmas and a Happy New Fear // “You leftist pig cop!”

Posted on December 27, 2008 by @ndy

From The Department of “If Greeks or Germans Are So Interesting to You, Move to Greece or Germany”:

Three weeks after the murder of Alexandros / Andreas / Alexis Grigoropoulos (December 6) in Athens by Epaminondas Korkoneas, the riots which followed are estimated to have cost businesses in the capital more than $1bn. There have been rallies and protests throughout Greece, and solidarity actions across Europe and elsewhere, including a number of occupations of Greek embassies and consulates. Hundreds of schools and many University campuses and the main offices of the General Confederation of Labour (GSEE) have been occupied (although this occupation, like that of the Polytechnic, has since ended). So too, a number of newspaper, radio and television outlets have been occupied (albeit temporarily), and the flow of bourgeois society interrupted on the airwaves as well as the streets. This has extended to mass transportation, with small groups of anarchists sabotaging ticketing machines and distributing tracts calling for the self-management of mass transit.

Naturally, all this monkey business has created a good deal of attention.

Malcolm Brabant interviews a Trotskyist (a member of the Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma or SEK, a member of the Cliffite International Socialist Tendency), notes the role of the Greek Communist Party (“The communists have been among the more responsible politicians over the past fortnight, condemning the violence and exerting tight discipline over their protest rallies. Intelligently, they are doing their utmost not to alienate the masses, whereas Syriza, the coalition of the left, supported by younger voters in the last general election, has been accused of stoking the flames”), and argues that Europeans can help “stop Greece’s social uprising escalating… by taking a holiday in Greece” (Riots push Greece to the edge, Malcolm Brabant, BBC, December 25, 2008).

NB. Georges Prevelakis, a Greek-born professor of Geopolitics at the Sorbonne University in Paris, claims to have received confirmation that the killing of Alexandros was an accident: that is, he was killed by a bullet ricochet (as opposed to a direct shot).

Uri Gordon asks whether Greece provides A road to revolution? (Haaretz, December 26, 2008 (Kislev 29, 5769)).

Finally, some neat-o notes on How to Organize an Insurrection by CrimethInc Ex-Workers Collective : “We humbly present one of the first inside reports from participants in the upheavals that shook Greece after the police murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia on December 6. This is only the first set of answers to come in from our Greek comrades. We hope shortly to receive further perspectives from other elements of the Greek uprising, so we can provide a comprehensive background on the context and dynamics of the revolt. If you or someone you know is situated to give your own answers to these questions, please email them to us at [email protected].” Questions answered by Void Network (Theory, Utopia, Empathy, Ephemeral Arts); posed by agents of the CrimethInc. ex-Workers’ Collective.

Bonus!

Announcement by the Polytechnic Occupation 12/24/08
infoshop.org
Contributed by: Anonymous
December 25 2008

Immediately after the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by the special police guard Ep. Korkoneas and the first clashes in the streets of Exarchia, the Polytechnic university gets occupied and is turned into a focus for the expression of social rage. Being a space historically and symbolically connected in the living memory of the rebels and of a big part of society with the struggle against Authority -from the period of dictatorship until today’s modern totalitarian democracy-, the Polytechnic becomes the place where hundreds of people gather spontaneously: comrades, youth and workers, jobless, pupils, immigrants, students…

The Occupation of the Polytechnic ended at midnight of the 24th of December – The struggle continues…

The two guys wearing masks are ready to charge the bank, all set on smashing the security camera and disabling the ATM. However, there is a young woman there, oblivious to the mayhem around here who is taking out her money. The masked men wait, politely ask her if she has finished, then set about the cash machine with hammers.

A march goes past a van, inside two tiny Shetland ponies stuck in a space not much bigger than they are. The protesters, enraged by this, discuss what to do. In the end they take down the number plates as to… report the owners to the authorities. Just a few metres behind them riot police approach menacingly.

50 kids, one no more than 10 years old, pelting the central police station with rocks, as bewildered shoppers seemingly unable to grasp what is happening gawp while pieces of paving stone clatter around them. The quasi-military riot police up against tweenies.

Walking along Egnatia Boulevard lit up by at least a dozen fires, acrid smell of tear gas and burning plastic everywhere. Two middle aged bystanders argue over whether the anarchists about to firebomb a bank are doing the right thing. The older, white haired guy, says: “What do you care? It’s not your money”.

An old woman buttonholing a passing masked teen, scolding him about what has been happening. Others join in a passionate debate what has been happening over the last few days.

A smartly dressed woman, shopping bags around her waiting at the bus stop, claps and cheers masked protesters marching by. The man next to her shouts out “Shame, shame on you”.

Meanwhile, in Germany, a Columbus-like discovery as:

Neo-Nazis take their struggle to the streets
David Wroe
The Sydney Morning Herald
December 26, 2008

As the recession bites, dangerous right-wing splinter groups are embarking on a new strategy, writes David Wroe in Berlin.

Alois Mannichl’s attacker confronted him on his doorstep.

“Greetings from the national resistance,” the man, described as a tall bonehead, reportedly told the police chief when he answered a knock at the door.

“You leftist pig cop, you won’t trample on the graves of our comrades any more.”

He then plunged a 12 centimetre knife into Mr Mannichl’s chest, narrowly missing his heart and leaving him seriously injured.

Mr Mannichl, the police chief in the southern German city of Passau, is known for being tough on extremists. In July he ordered that the grave of a revered neo-Nazi be opened and an illegal swastika removed from the coffin.

The brazen stabbing a fortnight ago has shocked Germany and sparked calls for the NPD – the National Democratic Party and the backbone of the far right – to be banned. At the same time, experts warn the attack presages a new phase of violence as stable, relatively disciplined alliances among neo-Nazis collapse, leaving dangerous splinter groups.

“I’ve had a feeling for about the last half a year that they were getting more aggressive,” said Matthias Adrian, a former bonehead who now helps neo-Nazis quit the movement.

“There’s a part of the right-wing extremist scene that’s had one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, and now they think it’s time to lose the brake,” Mr Adrian said…

In Australia, this may help to explain why Welf Herfurth (former NPD member and leader of the New Right and the ‘national anarchists’) has thrown in his lot with the handful of boneheads belonging to Volksfront Australia.

Posted in Anarchism, Anti-fascism, Media, State / Politics, Student movement, War on Terror | Leave a comment