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August 14th, 2012
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#601 |
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Administrator
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[israeli media treatment of attack]
Arson Attack Damages Offices of Greece's Neo-Nazi Party Arsonists set fire to an office of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn in central Athens on Monday, causing extensive damages. By Rachel Hirshfeld 8/14/2012 Arsonists set fire to an office of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn in central Athens on Monday, causing extensive damages. The incident comes the day after a 19-year old Iraqi was knifed to death by five men, presumed to be associated with the far-right political party. Golden Dawn first gained notoriety in 1991 for attacking Albanian immigrants and participating in the massacre of Muslims in Bosnia, The International Business Times reported. Recently, however, the party has seen a steady rise in support due to the economic crisis plaguing the country, receiving 7 percent of the vote in the country’s national elections, a significant increase from the 0.46 it received just three years prior. The party’s offices, located on the fourth floor of the building, were empty at the time of the attack and no casualties were reported. The fire was caused by flammable liquid, which the unknown perpetrators lit outside the front door of the offices after entering the building, according to The Globe and Mail. Golden Dawn issued a statement saying, “It is yet another terrorist attack. The national struggle will continue just as powerfully until Greece belongs once more to the Greeks.” The party is known for its extreme racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic platforms and has campaigned heavily under the slogan “so we can rid this land of filth.” Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, has called on Greece to initiate a probe the legality of the party, calling it the “most overtly extremist and Nazi party in Europe.” http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Ne...7#.UCpeueytyDs You would think there would be some security video, if the party is in the middle of a building. |
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August 14th, 2012
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#602 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,130
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Pakis Killing Each Other
This is a machine translation from the Party website. As best as I can tell, the Pakis are killing each other and the Judenpresse is trying to blame it on Golden Dawn. The location of the photo of the Towelheads is not clear but it looks like the train is terrible overloaded.
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. There tsakothikan and 25 year old received a mortal blow with a knife in the left cervical region. I went to the perpetrators and the victim managed to descend to the entrance of the building to be found in pool of blood from passing. "anti-racists" passing you!|
August 14th, 2012
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#603 |
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Junior Member
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: The South
Posts: 187
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^^ what! Is that a picture of all the shitskins leaving greece?
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August 14th, 2012
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#604 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,130
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Still Shot
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August 14th, 2012
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#605 |
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Administrator
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Greece's government of cuts rounds up 8,000 migrants
The Greek government is cracking down on migrants as the economy tanks. Greece’s economy shrank by 6.2 percent in the last quarter, it was announced—even more than expected by the European Commission. Plans were based on a better forecast. Finance minister Yiannis Stournaras, admitted the “numbers don’t add up”. And the government is now attempting to force through more austerity—a further £9 million of cuts. But it seems they have plenty of money for some things. Police have almost emptied some migrant areas, rounding up an estimated 8,000 people. The authorities are now discussing plans to build eight detention centres across Athens. This scapegoating has fuelled the Nazi party Golden Dawn’s attempts to whip up racist violence. On Sunday a 19 year old Iraqi was murdered in Athens in what is believed to be a racist attack. Workers are continuing to strike back and resist austerity. Workers at the Agricultural Bank are continuing an indefinite strike since 30 July. Teachers are set to strike on the second day of the new school year next month. And there are plans for mass demonstrations in the autumn. http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=29334 |
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August 15th, 2012
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#607 |
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Administrator
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Racist attacks on the rise in Greece-migrants group
August 14, 2012|Reuters ATHENS (Reuters) - Racist attacks against immigrants are on the rise in Greece, leaving hundreds of victims injured and at least one dead, the head of an organization representing Pakistanis in Greece said on Tuesday, urging authorities to stop ignoring the phenomenon. Greece is a major gateway for mostly Asian and African migrants trying to enter the European Union. But they face increased hostility as the country goes through its deepest postwar recession and record unemployment. "It started with verbal attacks, then came rods and brass-knuckles and now the knives are coming out," Javied Aslam, head of the Pakistani Community organization and the president of the migrant workers' association, told Reuters. His remarks follow the brutal killing of a young Iraqi, who was stabbed to death in Athens on Sunday. Police suspect a racist attack but nobody has been arrested or charged. Political parties and major newspapers expressed outrage at the attack, which is just the latest in a string of violent incidents against immigrants. At least 500 migrants have been attacked in the last six months, said Aslam who works as an interpreter at hospitals. More than 20 were stabbed and hospitalized in the last three weeks alone. What are the numbers for attacks by the million+ illegal invaders on native Greeks? In June, four Egyptians were beaten up by a gang. A month earlier Greek media reported that an Albanian standing on the street was stabbed with a sword by a masked motorcycle rider. Human rights' groups have said that there was evidence that perpetrators are associated with local vigilante groups and Golden Dawn, an extreme-right party elected to parliament this year - the first time a far-right party has been represented in the assembly since the fall of a military junta in 1974. A day after the killing of the Iraqi, arsonists firebombed an office of Golden Dawn causing minor damage. Reacting to Golden Dawn's rise, Greece's conservative-led coalition has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras struggles to maintain social peace amid growing public frustration with painful austerity measures he needs to take in return for bailout money from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Greek police have arrested over 1,650 paperless migrants in a sweep operation this month code-named "Xenios Zeus", the ancient Greek God for guests and foreigners. But Aslam said the operation has just fuelled anti-immigrant feeling and encouraged vigilantes. "It is clearly the government's responsibility," he said. (Reporting by Phoebe Fronista and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Jon Hemming) http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...racist-attacks |
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August 15th, 2012
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#608 |
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[Huffington Post comments...most are leftist, anti-Greek, pro-invader; some are not]
HUFFPOST SUPER USER depaul878 128 Fans Become a fan 11:42 PM on 08/13/2012 Coming to a city in the good old USA very soon. We have already lost some of our once beautiful cities, and we will never get them back. First we lose our cities, then we lose some states, and a civil war will soon follow. This is not far fetched Americans, this is in our future. To deny this is to deny reality. Why did this happen? Several reasons: Being political correct, is the biggest reason, and politicians looking for votes is another reason. "Give us your tired, your poor", well all I can say is we American are very tired and very poor. Our system of government needs to change. HUFFPOST SUPER USER Dan Crabtree 581 Fans Become a fan 10:29 PM on 08/13/2012 liberals of course are to blame as this is a liberal cause..just look at america as some ten million plus added in four years .and there still coming with obama closing five checkpoints that now remain wide open..no ice agents for miles....and still they come... HUFFPOST SUPER USER NHGUY2 49 Fans Become a fan 10:59 PM on 08/13/2012 We need mandatory E-Verify. We also need high fines and jail time on a per day/per illegal for the corrupt businesses that hire these people. The unions need to get their heads out of the dirt and realize that these workers are keeping most wages in the US down. The dems should be screaming about all the new mouths to feed, clothe, school, and provide medical care for. Every dollar spent on a immigrant is one less dollar to spend on a legal citizen. HUFFPOST SUPER USER NHGUY2 49 Fans Become a fan 08:30 PM on 08/13/2012 Did they kill the Iraqi simply because his skin was darker? Or, could they possibly have killed him because they resent losing jobs, welfare monies, housing opportunities, and the additional crime the poor immigrants bring with them? If so, were they racist or culturalist in their anger? Perhaps they were simply exercising a societal self-defense response. If a government will not protect its people from invaders, its people will protect themselves from economic theft, cultural dilution, and the like. HUFFPOST SUPER USER NHGUY2 49 Fans Become a fan 08:16 PM on 08/13/2012 I guess the foreignors believe they have a right to invade the country of others. The intelligent Greeks have decided otherwise. wavesofgreen 329 Fans Become a fan 07:39 PM on 08/13/2012 The Golden Dawn is not just an a political party that disfavors immigration. It makes them sound like they are conservative Republicans who want a guest worker program and better border control. The Golden Dawn is a neo fascist party who took a traditional greek symbol and twisted it into a swastika like nightmare as their emblem. Conservative and moderate Greeks alike are horrified that this party obtained nearly 7% of the vote. |
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August 15th, 2012
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#609 |
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Administrator
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[from World Socialist Web Site - real communists, a good source of extreme-left analysis, always mostly wrong, but always instructive]
Racist murder in Greece reflects rising neo-Nazi influence By Christoph Dreier 15 August 2012 Early on Sunday morning, five dark-clad figures mounted on four motorcycles rode through the neighborhood of Omonia Square in central Athens, hunting down immigrants. Upon encountering a 19-year-old Iraqi, they beat him with their fists and stones and stabbed him several times with a knife. The young man died the same day in a hospital. This racially motivated murder is the brutal culmination of a systematic manhunt of immigrants organized by the state Good example of communist lying. in recent weeks. The motorcycle gang had already attacked a Romanian and a Moroccan in the same district, unmolested by the police. The first two victims were able to get to safety in time, however. All the government has done is round up 8,000 of over 1,000,000 illegal invaders - and let 75% of those go, deporting maybe 1600. The murder in Athens is part of a wave of racist violence in Greece. On Saturday a violent attack was launched against a group of Pakistanis in Heraklion, Crete. Shops owned by migrants in the port city of Piraeus have been repeatedly attacked. Smoke bombs were hurled into one shop that that also serves as a mosque. Five hundred immigrants have been admitted to hospital due to racist attacks in the first half of 2012. According to reports in the newspaper Ta Nea, based on various non-governmental organizations, this is nearly double the total of victims of similar attacks over the same period last year. These attacks are the direct result of a government policy supported by the EU. Just a week before the murder, 4,500 policemen were involved in a major operation to hunt down migrants. They took 6,700 foreign-looking people into custody and interned 1,555 in special camps where they are now awaiting deportation. Hundreds have already been deported. The minister responsible for civil protection, Nikos Dendias of the conservative New Democracy party, justified the manhunt by comparing immigrants to “occupiers” in “the biggest invasion that Greece has ever experienced.” With such repulsive comments, the minister encouraged attacks on migrants and put the perpetrators of fascist attacks on immigrants on a par with resistance fighters during Nazi occupation in World War II. Why are communists "repulsed" by a nation protecting itself against illegal invaders? Because communists are internationalists who see classes, not nations, per their warped ideology. Thus, communists always take the side of those invading a country and never the side of the natives. Then they go on to call for the working class and the invaders to stand arm in arm in solidarity, as though they have common interests. The one bet you will never lose: the working class dosen't see things the way the communists do, as they are the ones who have to suffer the lost jobs and physical assaults the invaders always bring. In recent years the fascist party Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn), which plays a leading role in the attacks on immigrants, has been systematically built up by various Greek governments. In 2004, Ta Nea had already reported on close ties between the fascists and the state apparatus. The fascist party works closely with the police. In demonstrations by leftist or anarchist groups, police officials handed batons and radios to the fascists so they could provoke violence. In addition, police have allowed members of Golden Dawn to carry various weapons. Interesting - this is the value of the communist press - it makes specific assertions you don't see in the more mainstream media. Of course, you'll notice that the communist provides no evidence his claims are true, he merely asserts them. Golden Dawn member Antonios Androutsopoulos—who murdered a leftist student activist in 1998—was able to avoid capture for seven years, very probably with the assistance of the police. He was eventually apprehended in 2005. Although more people were involved in the murder, only Androutsopoulos was prosecuted. Also in 1998, the Eleftherotypia newspaper reported that race riots in Thessaloniki had been organized by “racist forces within the police.” No one was arrested after the riots. This list of collaboration by the police with the fascists could be extended up to the present. In the last elections, the daily To Vima reported that 50 percent of police officers voted for Golden Dawn. Greece’s migrant rights’ organization Expel Racism has reported hundreds of cases where police officers watched by idly during attacks on migrants. There have also been reports of foreigners being beaten in police stations, and police officers giving residents the telephone number of Golden Dawn when they complained about immigrants. “We are scared to go on the streets,” one migrant told the daily newspaper Kathimerini. “It’s Ramadan, we were invited to dinner, but we will not go. If we go out we will be intercepted either by the police or Golden Dawn.” The German newspaper Die Welt reported on a woman from Georgia who was sexually threatened in Athens by a member of Golden Dawn. After they went to the police, the man returned in the evening accompanied by officers from the local station and boasted: “Do you see now who my friends are?” The Greek government—New Democracy (ND), together with the social-democratic PASOK and Democratic Left (DIMAR) parties—supports the fascist forces in order to create a political atmosphere in which any popular opposition can be violently attacked. Their foremost goal is to prepare the brutal suppression of any movement in the working class against the unpopular austerity measures demanded by the EU, which have wrecked the Greek economy. You'll notice that, in seeming paradox, the communist press is always on the side of the greedy, incompetent government and the swindling jewish bankers running the system, even as it pretends to speak in the name of the working class the thieves are stealing from through inflation, taxes and banker bailouts. The social attacks undertaken by the government, which have already led to widespread misery and poverty and are to be intensified, are increasingly incompatible with even the forms of democratic rule. Under conditions where bourgeois “left” parties such as SYRIZA have blocked the emergence of mass working class struggles against the EU and the policies of the Greek bourgeoisie, fascistic forces can pose as the only alternative to the existing political set-up. As social tensions grow, the ruling elite promotes ever more right-wing forces, and bourgeois rule assumes an ever more dictatorial character. The leftist coalition SYRIZA includes many communists, but the formal commie parties and foreign analysts will apparently not work with SYRIZA as it is not radical enough. In this context there have been demands raised for a ban of Golden Dawn, notably by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks. Noting that Golden Dawn is among the “most overtly extremist and Nazi party in Europe,” he has asked the Greek government to “probe the legality of the party,” according to Kathimerini. EU is horrified by the idea of white natives defending themselves. It is hate and extremism to try to protect yourself from predators. Such a ban, however, would not afford any protection for migrants or put an end to the influence of far-right forces. Indeed, they are tied to and protected by the very security forces of the Greek bourgeois state that such a ban would task with repressing Golden Dawn. Who says there's no good news? Instead it would strengthen the state apparatus and provide an excuse to criminalize political opponents and disband oppositional and leftist political organizations. This would strengthen the apparatus of repression and lead rapidly in the direction of authoritarianism. The defense of immigrants’ rights requires the mobilization of the working class to fight the austerity policies of the EU and the rising influence of fascist forces. This struggle can only be successful when it is based on a socialist struggle against capitalism, which is increasingly turning towards the most right-wing elements. Yeah. Problem is, the working class isn't buying what you're selling. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/au...gree-a15.shtml |
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August 15th, 2012
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#610 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,130
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Golden Dawn Condemns Userers
None of the ruling parties dare say a word about usury. This is a machine translation of the Party press release.
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Last edited by Donald E. Pauly; August 15th, 2012 at 12:11 PM. Reason: typo |
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August 15th, 2012
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#611 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,130
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Golden Dawn Watermelon Harvest
The Party is harvesting their own watermelons and onions for their latest food giveaway in partnership with some Greek farmers. This is great propaganda.
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Last edited by Donald E. Pauly; August 15th, 2012 at 02:46 PM. Reason: typo |
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August 15th, 2012
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#612 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,130
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Latest Food Giveaway
Here is a machine translation from the Party website on their latest food giveaway. Much of this food was harvested by Party members with the cooperation of farmers.
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Last edited by Donald E. Pauly; August 15th, 2012 at 02:36 PM. Reason: typo |
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August 16th, 2012
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#614 |
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Administrator
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[Long article from "Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal." Big section on Golden Dawn, which i've bolded, about 3/4 down]
Eyewitness account: SYRIZA and the Greek grassroots challenge to the politics of austerity  SYRIZA leader Alex Tsipras before speaking at a large assembly in the working-class suburb of Peristeri. Photo by Joanne Landy. For more discussion and analysis on the political crisis in Greece, click HERE. By Thomas Harrison and Joanne Landy, co-directors of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy (New York) Thomas Harrison and Joanne Landy recently returned from a trip to Greece, where they met with activists and others to gain a better understanding of the popular upsurge against the Greek government's austerity program. August 13, 2012 -- Campaign for Peace and Democracy, submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the authors -- The crisis in Greece began with the discovery that the Greek government had been concealing the size of its debt in order to stay within the monetary union guidelines: it was revealed to be 120 per cent of GDP, one of the highest percentages in the world. This massive debt was the result of several factors: reckless borrowing, for example to finance the Olympics and to buy weaponry from Germany and the US (Greece spends more on defence as a proportion of GDP than any other EU member) and flagrant tax evasion by the rich -- but also the structure of the Eurozone itself, which was designed to create a market for German exports in Greece and the other weaker European economies by replacing weak local currencies with the euro. This encouraged excessive borrowing. The "Troika" of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund agreed to a "rescue package" -- three big chunks of bailout money -- in return for Greece signing a "memorandum" promising massive privatisation of public assets and harsh austerity measures -- cutting government spending on wages, pensions, social welfare -- to free up money for paying down the debt. In part because of the worldwide recession, government revenues fell despite the spending cuts, and the debt continued to grow. Meanwhile, the austerity program provoked massive resistance from the Greek people. Huge protest marches on May Day 2010 were attacked by the riot police and followed by a general strike -- the first of 16 since that date. Over the next two years, hundreds of thousands demonstrated repeatedly in the streets of Athens and other cities, parliament was stormed several times, clashes with the riot police were a regular occurrence, and public squares across the country, including Syntagma Square in Athens, were occupied. As parliament continued to do the Troika's bidding, passing one savage austerity package after another, popular support for the two political parties that have dominated Greek politics since the 1970s -- the conservative New Democracy and the nominally socialist PASOK [Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement] -- collapsed. Elections in the spring of 2012 constituted a political earthquake. In the first round of voting in May, the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, hitherto one of the country's several minor parties, came in second, with nearly 17 per cent of the vote, just behind New Democracy. PASOK saw its share of the vote plummet from 44 per cent in the last election in 2009 to 13 per cent. At the same time, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn gained parliamentary seats (18) for the first time as a result of winning more than 425,000 votes, close to 7 per cent of the total. This is in comparison to three years before, when Golden Dawn had a tiny 0.46 per cent of the vote. After attempts to form a new government failed, another election was scheduled for June 17, 2012. With opinion polls showing that SYRIZA might come in first, the Greek corporate media and European, especially German, officials went into high gear, warning the Greek people that a victory by SYRIZA would bring internal anarchy and result in Greece's expulsion from the eurozone. To a certain extent this terror campaign worked. Despite the growing popularity of SYRIZA and its leader Alexis Tsipras, many voters apparently took fright and either abstained or voted for the parties of the memorandum. By the same token, however, many other voters rallied to SYRIZA for refusing to back down on its opposition to the memorandum. As a result, while SYRIZA again came in second, this time it won an astounding 27 per cent of the vote. Everyone seems to expect that the current coalition government of New Democracy, PASOK and Democratic Left -- a more conservative social-democratic split-off from SYRIZA -- will be short-lived and that new elections might very well bring SYRIZA to power. The Troika has so far appeared determined to make an example of Greece by not allowing any renegotiation of the memorandum. Meanwhile, the country is enduring depression-like conditions, with official unemployment now at 23 per cent but probably closer to 30 per cent in reality, and youth unemployment exceeding 50 per cent. Visit to Athens This was the background to our visit to Athens, July 5-12, 2012. We met with a number of SYRIZA activists, including party leaders, a woman involved in immigrant rights and two young men from the Front of the Greek Anti-Capitalist Left, ANTARSYA. We also spoke to several people who were not political activists. Athens certainly does not look like a city in the midst of great upheaval, let alone on the verge of revolution. We were in a working-class district at one point and in another residential area that seemed pretty modest, as well as in the centre. Especially for foreign visitors, signs of economic distress were hard to detect, although we were told that there is great suffering "behind closed doors". We can't recall seeing any begging. Wherever we were, we scarcely ever noticed political signs or posters or people leafleting. Of course, it was summertime, when things simmer down for a while. Perhaps too we were seeing signs of fatigue after two and a half years of militant protest. On the other hand, steel workers were on strike in an Athens suburb, and there were environmentalist protests against gold mining in Chalkidiki. And we heard and read about almost daily attacks on immigrants by members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, Chrysi Avgi (more about which below.) SYRIZA Michalis Spourdalakis, a professor at the University of Athens, told us some of the history of SYRIZA. Until now, it has been a coalition of several parties rather than a single organisation. The largest by far is Synaspismόs, whose older leaders come out of the Eurocommunist current that split with the Communist Party, the KKE, in the 1980s. SYRIZA itself emerged from the Greek wing of the anti-globalisation movement about 11 years ago. But it was the great popular upsurge against austerity that turned SYRIZA into a major force. Since the crisis began, the organisation has been joined by some of the more left-wing members of PASOK, including a few members of parliament. Its mass support, however, is recent and comes from the streets. Time and again we heard that SYRIZA had earned the respect and loyalty of activists, especially of young people, by its intense involvement in and its "non-hegemonic" approach to the strikes, demonstrations and occupations. SYRIZA, we were told, showed its commitment to listening to and building the movement -- rather than simply recruiting members, building their own organisation and heavy-handedly insisting on acceptance of SYRIZA's agenda. Spourdalakis stressed, as did most of the Greeks we spoke to, that SYRIZA is not a typical electoral machine but is instead rooted quite deliberately in mass actions -- strikes, demonstrations, occupations -- in the midst of which its MPs and officials can be found along with rank and filers. SYRIZA people we spoke to seemed acutely aware of the danger of substitutionism, that is, substituting the party for social movements. At the same time, Spourdalakis insisted, having a presence in parliament is essential because that is where so much media attention is focused and where, of course, major decisions are made. Unified organisation Now that it has achieved a position of great trust and potential responsibility, SYRIZA has decided to transform itself into a unified organisation, rather than a coalition of different organisations, and to recruit aggressively. While we were in Athens, SYRIZA announced that it was launching a big membership drive with the goal of growing from the current 15,000 to a party with many times that number of members. The separate components of the SYRIZA coalition will be able to become tendencies within the party. Recruitment will take place at worksites, on campuses, in the streets and at the local assemblies that SYRIZA has been holding since before the elections. We attended one of these assemblies in an open area in the working-class suburb of Peristeri, attended by around 600 people, according to our estimate. Tsipras gave a rousing speech, and we were told there would have been a discussion period following the talk had it not been so hot outside. Spourdalakis was cautiously optimistic about SYRIZA's future and said the party's ability to grow depended very much on staying deeply connected to extra-parliamentary struggles. For one thing, SYRIZA is now engaged in organising unorganised workers -- for example, bookstore employees, couriers, tutors and other urban service workers -- into new unions. Greece has two main trade union federations, one for public employees and the other for private, both of them controlled by PASOK, and a third, smaller but still sizeable federation run by the KKE. Most Greek unions contain caucuses that are linked to SYRIZA and ANTARSYA. We were told by ANTARSYA that its group is especially significant in the teachers' union, as is SYRIZA. SYRIZA declares that its first act, on winning power, will be to repudiate the memorandum. It will then demand re-negotiation of the debt to write off a major part of it. If that demand is rejected, a SYRIZA-led government will stop debt repayments. The party promises to impose heavy taxation on corporations and the wealthy, to nationalise the banks and re-nationalise those public services that have been privatised, to restore the minimum wage and labour contracts that have been undermined during the crisis, to drastically cut military spending, to emphasise renewable sources of energy and to construct a strong social welfare state. In other words, SYRIZA promises to do what got the country in trouble in the first place. Panos Trigazis, head of Synaspismόs' foreign policy section, was our genial host in Athens, introducing us to SYRIZA leaders and intellectuals and bringing us to a press conference, where we met Alexis Tsipras. Panos explained a great deal, including the meaning of SYRIZA's emblem: three superimposed banners, red for socialism, green for environmentalism and purple for feminism and other social movements. As far we could see, the party's foreign policy is not too well defined at this point. Its printed statements in English are pretty much limited to relations with the EU and to regional disputes. SYRIZA takes the position that Cyprus should be re-united as bicommunal, bizonal federation without foreign armies and foreign bases. It wants better relations with Turkey and a mutual reduction in armaments, and it calls for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. SYRIZA's platform advocates the withdrawal of Greek troops from Afghanistan and the Balkans, and declares: "No Greek soldiers beyond our own borders." It calls for the abolition of military cooperation with Israel, and support for the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. The platform does call for Greek withdrawal from NATO, but a few people told us that this meant severing the military connection only. In any case, the platform also calls for closing down the US base in Greece. KKE, KOE and ANTARSYA As for the KKE, virtually every leftist we spoke to expressed disgust for its grotesque Stalinism (this is not just an epithet; the party actually glorifies Stalin) and fanatical sectarianism, which has seriously undermined the anti-austerity movement. The KKE has refused to join any kind of united front, and apparently its chief slogan during the elections was "Do not trust SYRIZA". In general, the KKE will not participate in any action it does not control -- for example the huge annual Anti-Racism Festival, which we were lucky enough to attend. This three-day festival has been held in a park on the outskirts of Athens every summer for 16 years and is a moving expression of solidarity with the country's beleaguered immigrant communities. This July organisers estimated that more than 22,000 people, immigrants and non-immigrants, had attended. The KKE is anti-EU, but so are other elements on the left, including a group within SYRIZA, the Communist Organization of Greece, the KOE, which has Maoist roots. Also in favour of an immediate "Grexit" from the EU is ANTARSYA. One afternoon at a café near Syntagma Square, we talked with two of its young members. They were worried about popular demobilisation now that the elections were over and were sceptical of SYRIZA's ability or willingness to spearhead struggles against the new government's plans to privatice much of Greece's state assets. They warned that SYRIZA was not preparing people for a showdown with the Troika and the EU. ANTARSYA calls for unilateral cancellation of the Greek debt, except for money owed to pension funds; this in contrast to SYRIZA's position of repudiating some of the debt but negotiating the rest. And it advocates immediate withdrawal from the EU rather than attempting to transform and democratise it, which is the stand taken by SYRIZA's leading elements.  Joanne Landy and Panos Trigazis. Photo by Thomas Harrison. The ANTARSYA members said that SYRIZA is run by a small group around Tsipras, which is fairly autonomous, even in relation to Synaspismόs members, and that a strong presence among SYRIZA's leadership is also occupied by former PASOK MPs. The revolutionary groups within SYRIZA have almost no public profile, they said, and instead of pushing the party further to the left have restrained themselves in response to pressure from what they describe as the dominant social-democratic elements and a perceived need for unity. They claimed that after the June election, Tsipras had said that SYRIZA would not put people in the streets but would act as a responsible opposition. It was difficult for us to assess the validity of ANTARSYA's various critiques of SYRIZA and its strategy of immediate exit from the euro, but in any event we asked the young ANTARSYA members if the group might not be more effective as a left wing within SYRIZA, rather than outside it. They said no, it was necessary to maintain their organisational independence to avoid cooptation, which they charged was or would be the inevitable fate of internal critics. We questioned this conclusion. It seemed to us that SYRIZA was a party in motion, attracting mass support and membership, and with, yes, the possibility of capitulating to the Greek and pan-European elites, but also with the potential of sparking a powerful chain of resistance to those elites. It should be noted that many ANTARSYA members voted for SYRIZA instead of the party's own candidates in June, and that some of ANTARSYA's leaders have gone over to SYRIZA. In fact we were struck by the contrast between SYRIZA, with its base in popular movements and its radical possibilities, and the Democratic Party in the US, which year after year corrals progressive movements into a party dominated by corporate interests incapable of fighting for progressive goals. In our country there has been plenty of direct action in the streets, in the public squares, on campuses, in workplaces. But unlike Greece, this has not been accompanied by direct action at the ballot box through a political party that is not beholden to big business and is clearly a party of the left. We think that the millions of Americans who are outraged by the ruthless pillaging of their society by arrogant elites desperately need an electoral movement like SYRIZA that is rooted in popular struggles and committed to winning and using political power to achieve progressive change. Golden Dawn While we were inspired, even exhilarated, by the strength of SYRIZA and its meteoric growth in influence and potential power, at the same time, we became increasingly aware of the ominous threat posed by the rise of Golden Dawn. Although it denies any association with neo-Nazism, Golden Dawn has adopted Third Reich paraphernalia and uses a symbol closely resembling the swastika. Its leaders have written and spoken of their admiration for Hitler and the Nazis. It is mobilising anti-immigrant sentiment among many Greeks who blame immigrants for the economic crisis. Currently, SYRIZA has 71 MPs, compared with Golden Dawn's 18, which reflects the fact that so far it has been more successful than the right wing in gathering support from people enraged by the country's economic horrors. But there is no guarantee that this relative success will last. Golden Dawn regularly terrorises immigrants, particularly those from Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the streets, in the public squares, on the metro and in immigrant neighbourhoods. It recruits bodybuilders from the gyms, who, clothed in black, run through the streets in groups of 30 or 40, shouting anti-immigrant slogans, threatening and beating people with darker skins. Many of its members are criminals convicted of contract killings, trafficking, assaults, rapes and armed robberies. At the same time, they position themselves as the defenders of public order, for example, offering to accompany older people to ATM machines to protect them from robbers. Golden Dawn has an alarming degree of support from the police, especially the riot police. It has been reported that as many as 50 per cent of the police voted for its candidates in the June elections. Rather than protecting immigrants, the police regularly turn a blind eye to Golden Dawn's assaults. They often tell immigrants who complain of being attacked that they will have to defend themselves, or that they will have to pay a fee in order to file a formal complaint. In fact there are no such fees. [For a fuller account, see the Human Rights Watch report Hate on the Streets: Xenophobic Violence in Greece, July 10, 2012.] Golden Dawn's vicious xenophobia is accompanied by a crude male chauvinism that is shocking to see in the 21st century. We were told that the party believes that woman's place is in the home not in public positions of power. This was acted out on a television talk show 10 days before the June elections, when Golden Dawn spokesperson Ilias Kasidiaris threw water in the face of one female SYRIZA MP, Rena Dourou, and then hit another woman, Liana Kanelli, a KKE MP, three times in the face. Kasidiaris was elected to his seat in parliament in the elections that followed soon after this grotesque incident. The British Guardian reported, "Several hours after the incident, with the group still resolutely refusing to apologise, two MPs with the socialist Pasok party were attacked by Golden Dawn supporters as they campaigned in northern Greece... In recent months, and especially in the weeks that have elapsed between Greece's two [May and June 2012] ballots, the party has been linked to a number of attacks on migrants, liberals, human rights activists and journalists, particularly women ("Golden Dawn MP's live TV assault shocks Greece" by Helena Smith, June 7, 2012.) Hilary Wainwright, founding editor of the lively left-wing British magazine Red Pepper, was in Greece at the same time we were. She has written an account of her trip in the current issue entitled "Greece: Syriza shines a light" [also at http://links.org.au/node/2963]. Wainwright gives the following account of SYRIZA's response to Golden Dawn's virulent racist behaviour: On 23 June, for example, a gang of Golden Dawn thugs raided Pakistani grocers' shops in the working class suburb of Nikea, near the port of Piraeus, telling them they had one week to get ready and go, Äor else'. Syriza had won 38 per cent of the vote in Nikea … and after the attack the party helped to organise a rally and march of 3,000 in support of the shopkeepers … SYRIZA has long opposed racism in Greece. It has for many years participated in the Anti-Racism Festivals. Meanwhile, however, the brutal attacks on immigrants continue, and we asked people in SYRIZA how the party was responding to these assaults on a day-to-day basis. Specifically, we asked if, in light of the failure of the police to defend the immigrants, was SYRIZA organising any kind of physical response to the Golden Dawn attacks.  Hara Kouki, who brought us to the Anti-Racism Festival and introduced us to many activists. Photo by Joanne Landy. Leaders of SYRIZA told us that they believed that the effective response to Golden Dawn was political, to put forward a radical democratic agenda that could address the economic crisis in a progressive way rather than scapegoating immigrants. They also advocate human rights training for police and call on the police to do their job and protect victims of racist assault. They said that in their opinion to resist Golden Dawn physically would simply lead to disastrous fighting in the streets. SYRIZA wants to prevent the media from portraying a confrontation with Golden Dawn as a "clash of two extremes". In other words, SYRIZA backs down from fight. Golden Dawn controls the streets. We were concerned that the SYRIZA response, while good in many respects, is not adequate, and we found that several young SYRIZA members and supporters we spoke with also thought that more was needed. One young woman, for example, told us that when she had seen a Golden Dawn thug menacing an immigrant on the metro, she walked over and confronted him, demanding that he stop. Which he did. But, she said, if there had been five Golden Dawn thugs instead of just one, she doesn't think she would have been able to intervene in the same way. SYRIZA has to mount some kind of organised physical defence for the beleaguered immigrants, she thought. Another young SYRIZA member told us that recently, in response to the repeated physical assaults on immigrants, a group of young anarchists had beaten up a number of Golden Dawn members. If so, not reported anywhere. He said that while SYRIZA wasn't able to confront the Golden Dawn this way, he was very glad that this had happened. It was a blow against impunity. When we asked SYRIZA leaders whether Golden Dawn could attack SYRIZA, they replied that Golden Dawn "wouldn't dare", suggesting that SYRIZA was so much stronger and more numerous that such an attack would be foolhardy. But we were concerned that, in addition to the moral imperative to defend immigrant victims, a failure to respond to Golden Dawn more forcefully now could embolden its thugs for broader aggression against the left down the road. Even now, as we noted above, women, journalists, human rights activists and leftists have been targeted on occasion. There is a battle between the left and Golden Dawn as to who will be able to tap into and organise the rage of Greeks responding to their desperate conditions. We were told by a young SYRIZA member how this struggle emerged as early as the 2010 occupation of Syntagma Square. As we knew, the lower part of the square was occupied by SYRIZA supporters and other leftists, but we learned that the upper square was occupied by non-political people and right wingers who were waving huge Greek flags and saying that all politicians, including leftists, are corrupt and hopeless sell-outs. Large sections of the Greek population are cynical about all politicians, and this cynicism is justified by the record not only of avowedly conservative and centrist parties but also purportedly left parties like PASOK and Democratic Left, which have shown themselves unwilling to challenge the Troika's austerity prescriptions. The June elections of 2012 were marked by a historically low participation rate, which reflected this popular distrust of all political parties. Challenge ahead This is the challenge now facing SYRIZA: can it sustain resistance to the Troika and crucially, if elected, can it carry out a radical program that addresses the needs of the Greek people? Admittedly, this wont be easy. There is a good chance that Greece will be forced out of the eurozone if there is a SYRIZA government, though it seems that the country may be ejected even before that. Greece today revives many of the old questions about whether one can build socialism in one country, and we saw the disastrous consequences of the attempt to pursue that path in the Soviet Union. SYRIZA will need to implement the maximum possible anti-capitalist program at home, while at the same time engaging in the critical task of winning support for a radical, democratic socialist alternative from the rest of Europe -- from other countries with weak economies like Spain and Italy, to the countries of northern Europe which, while more prosperous, also suffer from inequality, insecurity and, down the line, instability. Solidarity Dimitris Vitsas, secretary of Synaspismόs, discussed with us the need to build international solidarity, not just with SYRIZA but with the Greek resistance as a whole. He suggested strengthening an international campaign that has already started around the slogan, "We are all Greeks". Vitsas said that Greeks refuse to be the guinea pigs for extreme neoliberalism. Greece has been the weak link in the chain of austerity, but now SYRIZA's success offers the possibility that Greeks can show the way to fight back. We at the Campaign for Peace and Democracy plan to organise a campaign along these lines in the US, building on the Occupy Wall Street solidarity initiative several months ago. Stay tuned for future developments at http://www.cpdweb.org. http://links.org.au/node/2985 Last edited by Alex Linder; August 16th, 2012 at 08:53 AM. |
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August 16th, 2012
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#615 |
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Administrator
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August 16th, 2012
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#616 |
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Administrator
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The Real Golden Dawn (english subs) "we are coming" Michaloliakos, the leader, says: "Only by an organized, methodical, systematic and well planned out way, we will be able to defeat them." Notice that anyone like me who advises consistency and principledness in American White Nationalism is immediately attacked as a purist by those who advise working with jews and jew-lovers. What does the leader of Golden Dawn, Mr. Michaloliakos, have to say on the subject? "Leaving the local yellow press aside, just take a look on the Internet. Those of you who use it, and I hope you are many, see what's in the Guardian, the Economist, the German press, the Associated Press. Everywhere they are talking about Golden Dawn, saying: "Oh! This is not an ordinary far right party -- one that compromises and makes some retreats." Right, we are not like them, we are a pure nationalist movement, irreconcilable, unbowed, unyielding!" Remember what Buchanan said in his Chik-Fil-A column: movements that are rising and succeed (like organized faggotry) are INTOLERANT. movements that are declining or moribund are TOLERANT. Those in WN who advise tolerating those who are or tolerate jews are democratic losers who should not be listened to. Last edited by Alex Linder; August 16th, 2012 at 01:00 PM. |
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August 16th, 2012
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#617 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Las Vegas
Posts: 4,130
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Golden Dawn Youth Program
This machine translation from the Youth section of the Party website has some interesting insight into their similarity to National Socialism.
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August 16th, 2012
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#618 |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 4,006
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Who controls information in Greece?
Do typical Greeks view themselves as being subject to thought control? |
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August 16th, 2012
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#619 |
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Administrator
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We here at VNN are the only ones who have advocated the path that Golden Dawn is taking.
Kevin MacDonald advises the precise opposite of what Golden Dawn has done. Greg "Brown" Johnson advises the precise opposite of what Golden Dawn has done. "Sugar" Don Black advises the precise opposite of what Golden Dawn has done. James "Trimmer" Edwards advises the precise opposite of what Golden Dawn has done. All these men and the organization and websites they run advocate exactly the opposite of what Golden Dawn has done, which is to say, they advocate the exact opposite of what works: - groveling before women - appealing to people rather than being appealing - appealing to upper middle class rather than the lower classes - fetishizing law and order - blaming the white race rather than those attacking it - avoiding Nazi-similar gestures and symbols and dress - speaking in moderate tones making reasoned arguments rather than emotional appeals Why are all these intelligent men wrong? Because they are bourgeois conservative who think, quite wrongly, that they 1) understand politics, 2) are radicals. They do not understand politics, and they are conservatives, which is to say fundraisers, not radicals. VNN alone understands what Golden Dawn is doing, and has advocated the way that can work, the only way, from day one. Last edited by Alex Linder; August 16th, 2012 at 11:30 AM. |
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August 16th, 2012
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#620 | |
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Administrator
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Golden Dawn makes clear it is with the people in the streets. But it waits for the people to ASK for its help, with food and protection and such, so it cannot be accused of "exploitation." Which of course it is anyway. Only the Jared Taylors of the world, which is to say the jew-loving, jew-protecting big liars, pretend that marginal countries have some kind of native-owned press that isn't jewed. Not so, either in Norway or in Greece. |
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