tapes gone loose

Manolis Glezos Sent to the Hospital by the Greek Riot Squad

2010-03-05T19:50:00.008+01:00

That's absolutely right: Manolis Glezos was sprayed by a unit of the greek riot squad earlier today. 88-year old Manolis Glezos, one of the two people who removed the german Nazi flag from Acropolis on 31 May 1941, the person who declared last year that it is the traitors & not the freedom fighters who need full-face masks, was sprayed earlier today: with chemicals, full on the face, by a helmeted riot pig, during a workers' demo, & in front of the Monument of the Unknown Soldier. He was promptly removed from the area & carried to a hospital by his comrades, after he passed out. (If you feel like cringing at the ignominy of it all, here's a link with pictures.)

The symbolism of this did not escape those who paid a modicum of attention to the events that unfolded today. A commentator in good ole tvxs summed it up wonderfully as follows:

' The point is that Glezos fell wounded in front of [the Monument of] the Unknown Soldier, struck by a greek employee of the Greek State, at the same time that the Head of [that] State was begging in Germany - only to hear that Acropolis should be sold... Isn't history a bitch? '

Another commentator in the website of greek liberal paper Eleftherotypia wrote:

' People, this one cross-checked: Glezos attacks the riot squad cop after he has been sprayed, which [cop] retreats three steps like a chicken...

Manolis, the Tsoliades salute you. Were we there, we'd have climbed down to kick that riot squad cop. '

If this post is authentic - that is, if it indeed comes from a member of the Presidential Guard (known as Tsoliades, a.k.a. Evzonoi) - its symbolism & meaning cannot be brushed aside lightly...

I'll stop here for now & hopefully add more to the post tomorrow. Until then, let me close with my very own 'Isn't history a bitch?' anecdote: as I read today, Ministry of Interior employees took over the presses at the National Printing House of Greece. This activism aimed at disrupting the printing of the new issue of the Official Government Gazette, namely the one containing the law with the new economic measures. [A greek law is validated once it appears in the Gazette.] Tantalizingly, this brought in mind the following excerpt from L. Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution (excerpted from Max Eastman's 1932 translation, which can be found in its entirety here):

' At the same time General Khabalov issued an edict – prepared in secrecy from the government – declaring Petrograd, on His Majesty’s orders, under martial law. So here too was an attempt to mix hot with cold – hardly intentional, however, and anyway of no use. They did not even succeed in pasting up the declaration of martial law through the city: the burgomaster, Balka, could find neither paste nor brushes. Nothing would stick together for those functionaries any longer; they already belonged to the kingdom of shades. '

She is a bitch after all, isn't she?...

Greece & Immigration part I: Agios Panteleimonas

2009-10-03T00:43:00.000+02:00

I recently finished reading Yorgos Liolios's "Skies tis Polis (Shadows In The City)" (Eurasia, 2008), in which the author attempts to map out the chronicle of the decimation of Veroia's (a small town near Thessaloniki & Liolios's birthplace) jewish population during WWII. Liolios is a rare (non-jewish) greek voice when it comes to the greek jewish element & its near-extinction - yet, the voice I wish to borrow for the beginning of this post belongs not to him but, rather, to a survivor he interviewed. In the following excerpt, the reader gets to read about a specific incident in the life of a group of jews who fled the town before being rounded up & ended up spending the next couple of years hiding out in the nearby Vermio mountain. As usual, the translation is mine.

'[...] In that ambush in Sykia, on 3 March 1944 (according to [S.] Dordanas['s book 'Blood Of The Innocents'], on 2 March), for the discovery & punishment of locals collaborating with the guerilla groups & arming the village, a resident of the village betrays the illegal presence of the jews to the germans. With the betrayer leading them, the germans arrest the male jewish population that they discover hidden, along with their families, at the position Anilio (to this day, the area is called 'jewish well' by the locals) & they drive them to the church at the village center, where they subject them to violent humiliation. The only villager who had the courage to object was, once again, the priest Nestoras Karamitsos, who - witnessing the scene from his house's frontyard - raised his voice towards the germans & demanded that they stop the humiliation. The priest's strong opposition was countered by a sole greek collaborator of the germans who retorted "Stop it, father, for I will come over there & pluck out your beard hair by hair."

The results of the germans' ambush at the village were devastating for the local population. As retort for the cover the [villagers] offered the jewish families, the germans burned down, that same day, a total of eleven domiciles belonging to those who assisted the protection of the jews & the actions of the guerilla groups. Those houses belonged to Christos Vitos of Theodoros, Ilias Karamitsos of Nestoras, Christos Karamitsos of Dimitrios, Apostolos Kourtesis, Georgios Lanaras of Athanasios, Dimitrios Lanaras of Athanasios, Ioannis Damtsios, Christos Strympinos, Argyrios Tetos of Nestoras, Christos Meliopoulos &, naturally, father Nestoras's house. Additionally, the germans did not spare the village school & four mills at the position Krasopouli.'

Reading this, I could not help drawing the parallels to a much more recent event relating, this time around, not to greek jews but to non-greek muslims. A certain father Prokopios, of the church of Agios Panteleimonas (in the athenian neighborhood bearing the same name), came into media focus for a short while this past spring because of his offering food & clothing to families of homeless afghan immigrants who sought shelter on the church's front steps. He came into severe critique by locals (according to other accounts, locals mixed with neonazis - after all, what with the newly formed parliamentary leg of neonazi group Golden Dawn scoring 23,000 votes in the recent european elections, one certainly does not exclude the other). According to this interview of his here (in greek), the opposers feared that his assistance will prolong the immigrants' stay at the square. He finally stopped assisting the immigrants (the church still hands out meals to 'both greeks & immigrants') but not before a case of arson against the church basement on May 26; the immigrants were chased out by locals ('They were terrified. Terrible events unfolded here.'); & a rather massive anarchist/antifa protest march was organized for July 07 & ended up right into the neighborhood.

Indymedia reports (in english) on that particular march & what came to pass during it can be found here & here). In short, the cops were proven to offer explicit coverage to the neonazis (by far not for the first time); this hospitable, if not outright charitable, gesture extended to the point of letting them operate from among their ranks with (ta-dah!) molotov cocktails. One of these molotov cocktails managed to vindicate the agent provocateur/common idiot that hurled it: things got out of hand & the cops replied with the usual violence (teargas, chemicals, flashbang grenades, all shot directly at protesters). The protection offered the neonazis continued all the way to the end of the march; pictures of the molotov incident found their way into greek media & led parliament member (& living legend) Periklis Korovesis to ask the corresponding vice minister Ch. Markogiannakis what he intends to do about it, if anything at all. (That is, indeed, the same vice minister/common scum that unleashed the riot cops on cretan farmers in late January - here, from 2:50 & on. Or that met the "infuriated citizens" of Agios Panteleimonas, a gesture widely perceived as a validation ticket that was cashed in that same night, when a local squat was attacked in plain sight of cops.) I did not check back whether the vice minister replied or not - you'll have to excuse me there.

But much of the above lies way into the future. Let's rewind, instead, to the point where Agios Panteleimonas came into focus - much sharper focus than father Prokopios ever did, in fact - as the embodiment of the newly crafted greek face towards immigration. Media attention started when a cop tore an immigrant's qur'an apart - & then stomped on it - during a raid (May 21); the immigrants paraded on the streets, demanding that their religion be respected (as the greek constitution explicitly states - but these are mere details for a police force that operates side by side with neonazis). Apparently, the protesters got a qur'an & a bible from aforementioned father Prokopios to deliver symbolically to the local police station; (surprise-surprise) the protest was met with teargas. A repetition of the protest occurred the next day, albeit in the center of Athens; it ended up in flying stones forging paths through teargas. "Minor" altercations followed - an immigrant molotov'ed the local PD (May 22); unidentified persons molotov'ed a basement acting as mosque (May 23 - & again on August 28); writer (& albanian citizen) Gazmend Kapllani honored an invitation extended by residents to present his book in the neighborhood (also May 23) to end up hunted down (in front of stationary cops) amidst cries of 'we fucked you in the civil war, we'll fuck you again now,' 'communists = betrayers' & 'death to the immigrants' (ah... yes... interesting detail in a comment to this post: Mr. Kapllani testified about this incident to the city council, only to hear from the mayor's mouth that he had 'forgotten to mention that the City of Athens had sponsored the event' - surreal...). These "minor" altercations, though, shy away from the pogrom of May 27, at which date locals & neonazis bashed immigrants while others were excelling in racist sloganeering.

& yet, the region's notability could have come much earlier, as the neonazis had been operating in it for at least a year. In an ironic twist of fate, the emergent symbol of the ensuing fight was not the aforementioned regional church but, rather, a playground. Of the ones with slides & swings, yes: locals & neonazis have been literally keeping it under lock & key (& guarding it) since May 16, you see. If on a summer's night the proverbial traveller arrived at said playground, he would be exposed not only to the same arguments one hears from xenophobes the world over ("immigrants gather here" & "immigrants raise criminality" & maybe "our neighborhood's noble maids are being terrorized") but to more outspoken ones: "the handkerchief'ed come here with their kids - & they bring sickness"; "immigrant kids soil the playground" (father Prokopios again: 'I, personally, asked the municipality to install 4 chemical toilets to avoid problems with dirt. Some claim that the [immigrants'] little kids soil the playground. If they were greek kids & had no toilets, where [else] would they go? They promised me they'll bring them, but we've seen nothing yet...'). & another one: "if we keep the playground closed, the afghans might stay away from our neighborhood" (father Prokopios: '[The problems started] this past year, with the presence of the afghans. Immigrants lived here before that, but they had been integrated &, in fact, people were renting & selling them houses. If you rent & sell your house, you're the one bringing the immigrants to your region. How can you then complain that your region is full of immigrants?'). The net result of this improbable barricading has been, so far:

* Ch. Tassoulas, a local activist & parent, getting beaten up in said playground on June 09, after escorting his kid there: this occurred at a moment when the playground had been opened up by antiauthoritarians & was empty, apart from the cops who were stationed there. Soon, he says (in greek), a crowd of about 50 neonazis & their local supporters gathered there, swore disgustingly (the kid was present), demanded that he leaves the playground (the cops were also present), & beat him up (t-h-e c-o-p-s w-e-r-e a-l-s-o p-r-e-s-e-n-t). After the assaulters & the police chief failed to convince him to leave, the latter wheeled off the activist parent to the local PD leaving the assaulting group [i]behind[/i] (& thus also "indirectly" granting them their wish). Mr. Tassoulas was kept there until a lawyer arrived four hours later. To add insult to injury, a journalist of the slimiest countenance (that's my personal, subjective assessment of said journalist, yes) apparently stated, on TV, that the victim had 'rented the kid for twenty euro'. (No, really - I kid you not.)

* A 'group of lawyers for the rights of immigrants & refugees' issuing a statement (September 10) criticizing the local PD, after they got there to offer legal help to an afghan who had gotten stabbed on Attikis square. The afghan was not transferred to a hospital, the sole eyewitness was also arrested & kept at the PD, no statement was taken from the victim, & - here it comes - "infuriated citizens" not affiliated with the police in whichever official way kept roaming the PD at will, examining the official paperwork, & watching the lawyers' moves while at it. (No, really - I'm not making this up.) Earlier, on June 09, parents & citizens were transferred by the police from the playground (which they tried to use) to the PD, after they got swore at & roughed up. Certain say this was done to protect them from the neonazis (why the latter group was not the one to get transferred to the PD is anyone's call). They ended up remaining in that same PD for hours on end, since neonazis had meanwhile gathered outside & were trying to get their hands on anyone who was leaving the PD.

* A slew of neonazi calls to gather on the square & shout 'Immigrants Get Out! Greece Belongs To The Greeks!'. (As somebody cleverly remarked, neonazis are not against illegal immigration: they are against immigration/mobility, period, as evident from their slogans & - why hide it - history.) Hundreds of people responded to these, counting the bystanders (nevertheless, this particular estimate is a tough one to make for someone like me who has not been there). What is more interesting than the psychopaths carrying shields (no, really: s-h-i-e-l-d-s) with the white power symbol painted on them is that certain of the speakers in these gatherings are recent defectors from the Nea Dimokratia (ND) camp (ND's still on power, at least up to the imminent elections).

* Immigrants getting beaten up under indescribable circumstances. Adverbs won't do: brutally, indiscriminately, casually, repeatedly. Prepositions won't do: with bats or crowbars, by five or ten people at a time, amidst racist slogans from a bullhorn or Wagner from a speaker, on top of all their misery, despite the cloak of invisibility they're as good as wearing for that elusive beast known as average citizen. Nothing will do, except for this: immigrants face our newly crafted, war-painted, Medusa mask. Countless are hunted like animals, families are forcibly removed from squares (July 15; in front of five riot cop platoons), immigrant-operated stores are trashed, & finally an immigrant gets stabbed (August 29, once again in front of cops; here in more detail, albeit in greek).

(Have I already mentioned that the same people cordoning off the playground suggested, in late June, that it be demolished & replaced by a fountain? Less surrealism, gentlemen, please - I'm prone to start thinking you had Marcel Duchamp's fountain in mind.)

We all know that the human mind operates in synthetic terms & has a knack for abstraction: the notion of 'pattern' gets introduced to describe similar events; that of 'causality' to link successive events; the other one of '(physical) law' to enable prediction of future events. Politics & political thought are unimaginable without either of these abilities, & the emergent question is, accordingly: what is our proverbial traveller to make of this mess?

If he lifts himself slightly off the ground, he might note what activist residents of Agios Panteleimonas have been claiming time & time again: little by little, assault by assault, the neonazis of Golden Dawn are trying to establish the region as an immigrant-free zone. According to some, the neighborhood has a long history of accommodating immigrants; according to others, it has a lot of problems; in either case, it's been slated for transformation into an ethnically segregated zone by the shitheads. Obvious question: are the shitheads paying close attention to people's reaction to assess the success of this experiment? The answer to this is somewhat of a moot point, as far as I am concerned: without their being backed by cops & effectively absolved by greek TV (every time they are grouped together with locals under the moniker "infuriated citizens"/"concerned locals"), the shitheads are the same nothing they have always been in this country (they remain just as dangerous, mind you). Hence, I'm inclined to believe, they need not worry about the people: they need to worry about maintaining the umbrella others are holding over their heads. (Certainly, somebody in the higher echelons must be watching, but I leave this to smarter people to establish.)

The police force, meanwhile, does not merely stay out of it - we're not talking about 'unrest in the ghetto' here. The police force assists the shitheads - either by turning a blind eye when they stab people, or by assimilating them in their ranks, or by arresting residents that do not silently condone the newly imposed status quo. The obvious question here is who has OKayed this collaboration? &, abstractions aside, it's a tough one to answer: the police force is a state body, & one with a mission of maintaining the state itself, while at that. As such, it is unthinkable that any administration - even the current, improbably incompetent one - will ever relinquish control over the police force. But that's where things start to get fuzzy: when the administration controls the police, does the latter not exert a certain force on the former, too? Isn't the aforementioned vice minister a covert totalitarian who he started his DA career in '72, under the colonels' junta's aegis? & isn't it the case that he was called in to clean up (with an iron sweep) what was left of the events of December '08? &, if this is all true, isn't it then the case that Markoyannakis is much closer - & explicitly so - to the most conservative elements in the greek police force (substituting outright repression for negotiation two weeks into his vice-ministerial duties, in the case of the farmers)? Who controls who? Riot squads are merely state's padding, & no padding can eliminate the shock of an impact entirely. The vibrations are felt, the padding is infuriated for being allowed (or ordered) to "lose face", & Pavlopoulos is replaced by ultra-conservative favorite Markoyannakis. & in this way the police force exerts, indeed, a force onto the administration; go figure who OKays what & in what order. If we are to believe a certain somebody who remarked that, following the junta's demise, the state apparatus was too busy cleaning up the army from junta sympathizers to worry about the police; & if we are to believe that what was not cleaned up among the cops is what evolved into neonazi tendencies (rumored to be commonplace among greek cops); if we are to believe these things, we do not need to worry about who OKays what. We only need to worry about cleaning up what should have been cleaned up long ago.

Finally - anarchists & leftists, who excel at synthesis & abstraction, seem to be somewhat of at a loss. Not for words - these come aplenty, although it's a dismal omen that they are dressed the shroud of decades past (was it Étienne Balibar who argued that communism's downfall may have been its not understanding of nazism/fascism? Probably not - I forget). They're at a loss for actions - demo: check; playground liberation: check; & also for some - fight cops & helpers: check; anything else? Yes, there's something else: for example, the following letter which appeared in Avgi (the official newspaper of the radical parliamentary left) - how's that for the fans of synthetic & abstract thinking?

'I live in Fylis street, by the brothels, & I have never signed to have them removed, although the sight is revolting. The girls at the[se] "houses" do not annoy & the "clients" come & go. There has never been violence centered around the brothels. Nobody asks publicly, any more, to have them removed, although everyone would like to not have them in our neighborhood.

The war, though, between anarhists [armed] with planks & "Golden Dawnists" [armed] with crowbars, indeed with police coverage for the latter, conceals the real & serious problem of crimilnality in the region. It's indeed unsavory for the "playground" to be kept under lock & key, but the fact that the war between the[se] two mechanisms focused, in the end, on the "playground" evokes a too real semiology, don't you think?

The neighborhood attests to a war between mechanisms, it watches it mostly on TV, & it knows that all these [events] play themselves out in her absence. Does anyone think that the Agios Panteleimon square is what we call the neighborhood square? You're wrong. Some aged greeks are the only ones frequenting it for their cup of coffee.

Do you think that the far-right locals got organized to throw the immigrants out of the neighborhood's squares? You're wrong again. Why has Victorias square been established as the place where african & pakistani street merchants sell their goods? Did anyone ever throw them out? The only ones that did, to your surprise I expect, was about a hundred muslims, recently, after their first protest march in Omonoias [square] for the torn "Qur'an".

They're the only ones, then, that viciously drove away the people from the nearby coffeeshops & trampled underfoot the poor immigrant street merchants from Victorias square! I was there. This piece of information cannot be denied.

Did you ever hear a "far-right" resident of my neighborhood get annoyed by the 15 poor pakistanis living peacefully across me, in the small apartment on the first floor, which they maintain cleaner, more cheerful, & tidier even from my own one, even though they live one on top of each other in there? One on top of each other, but civilized, with dignity, & social.

Did you ever hear a "far-right" resident of my neighborhood have an issue with the 2 syrians who live next to me & [with whom] we exchange good morning's daily & with a sincere smile? Or maybe an issue with the pleasant polish, bulgarians, africans, russians, & albanians of my apartment building?

Any issue with the astonishingly beautiful polish woman - owner of the grocery store in my neighborhood? Did you ever hear anything about the multitask carpenter, my albanian neighbor, with his beautiful & full of dignity family? For the most kind & doll-like albanian baker, who has turned my bread-buying into one of my most pleasant daily activities?

I am thinking that, were I living in an apartment building next to which two immigrants have been murdered by other immigrants in the last ten years, I could possibly be feeling somewhat insecure at night. I summon the sight of vicious, & I mean vicious, fights between immigrants, which I have witnessed four (4) times from my balcony... They were not neighboring immigrants, they were "bar" goers, drunk...

The end of the fight found one immigrant lying unconscious on the street for more than 15 minutes, until the police came... I momentarily lost it. I thought he was dead. I summon the hailing gunshots which are heard periodically, once a month, maybe twice, at my neighborhood's horizon... I never learn what happened, probably for lack of dead.

I think about how everyone reacts when I tell them that I live in Agios Panteleimonas in Acharnes. Always the same reaction, the same discussion. There's no need to explain. You understand [me] perfectly well. But perform an experiment: suggest to your friend that you go out to the Agios Panteleimonas square for a Saturday afternoon coffee or a Saturday night drink. You're laughing, right?

I will dwell neither on a political nor on a social analysis. It makes no sense. What does make sense is that the rational ones among those interested realize that the tactic of mechanisms fighting each other, the planks, the flying fists, the characterization of neighborhood residents as far-right supporters, the irresponsibility of anarchists & of fellow travelers it the best recipe for war in Agios Panteleimonas in Acharnes.

The best recipe for war on the neighborhood's back, the best recipe for putting serious criminality under an umbrella, for the victimization of the entire body of the neighborhood's immigrants, for the "Golden Dawn" to establish itself firmly & with demands to be met in Agios Panteleimonas, for me to finally leave my neighborhood where I have been living since I've been 15 years old.

Do the armies of anarchists & "Golden Dawn" need to suffer seriously injured or even worse before those rational ones who have been engaged by inertia in the perilous fest of the playground take a step back from irrationality & violence? Does the social principle of self-fulfilled prophecy have to get into action, & the region's regular residents to be convinced that they are far-right supporters & that only the far right extends a sympathetic ear, whence they owe to vote for & support the far right?

& a super quiz

I will have you squeeze your brain & I'm certain that, even so, you won't find the answer! Nevertheless, this may urge you to think deeply. &, foremost, carefully. Who is the german politician who uttered, in a workers' public gathering: 'We will not let the men & women of this country lose their jobs to the badly payed foreign workers'?

It's Oscar Lafontaine's statement, during a speech of his in front of a working class-derived audience in the city of Chemnitz , East Germany, in 2005, who has been in charge of the new left wing party 'Die Linkspartei - PDS'. (Taken from Vasiliki Georgiadou's book 'The Far Right & the Consequences of Acquiescence', Kastaniotis 2008, p.41.)'

Let's leave our proverbial traveller with his feet dangling a few hundred feet off the ground & postpone taking a look at the 'broader picture' for the next post - sometime after Sunday's parliamentary elections. Let's close, instead, with the following excerpt from Yannis Makridakis's historical novel "Anamisis Ntenekes" (Estia, 2008) which fell serendipitously in my lap a few days after reading father Prokopios's interview - it makes for some excellent reading.

'[...] Every once in a while, until recently, a priest would enter the coffeeshop, only to regret his decision the very same moment he'd set foot in there. The good samaritans were calling to him to preach the word of merciful god to the sinners, they were yelling at him to put reason in them, to get them back on the righteous path, to tell them that the refugees [arriving in Chios from Turkey circa '14] are [also] people &, in fact, dispossessed people since they lost the[ir] country, the[ir] home, the[ir] belongings, the[ir] kin.

The rest were taking him up to the task for society's paralysis, they were telling him to begin with the blessings, the litanies, the summons to virgin Mary, to exorcize the bad, so that the village can regain its calmness.

The priest would [thus] get into an untenable position. What should he do? To preach christianity from scratch, to swim against the current once again, as Christ once did & got crucified [for], to risk losing half or more of his congregation to defend the refugees & to align himself with the voices of a few who could not secure his sustenance? Or should he align himself with the majority, to hand out aphorisms & preaching, to compromise himself in the eyes of the few, the educated, the rich captains who had refugees working for them & were always fast to tell of their kindness & nobility?

Using half-uttered words, he would try to keep a foot in each vessel; as a good christian & a good villager, until he could succeed, with effort, agony, & sweat to unhook himself from the coffeeshop & never set foot in it again.'

Greece: update #2

2009-02-14T23:23:00.012+01:00

A demo had been announced for Saturday, February 14 to express solidarity to those on trial for December's events (18 of which will be tried under the anti-terrorism law). It collected 1,000-1,500 people according to athens.indymedia, a somewhat-far cry from the demos one-two months ago. The cops made sure that nobody could get close to the parliament; no idea whether the demo intented to in the first place, of course... meanwhile, the following is a communique by people who suggested that as many people print it out & distribute it in Psyrri on Saturday night (Psyrri plays a central role in athenian entertainment; all the more show on valentine's day, I guess...).

Everything was in place

Everything was in place! The starving in Africa. The "specialists" on TV. The "bad ones" in prison. The "anarchists" in Exarchia square [according to a slew of greek governments, Exarchia square is the Greek Anarchist HQ; more importantly, essentially all anarchists are supposed to be contained in that region... see also the article 'Exarchia square is everywhere' here]. Those deciding in the parliament. Our money on loans. The police around the next corner. Our houses to the banks. Our enemies in Turkey & Macedonia. Our parking spots in the parks [a reference to the recent events in Kyprou square, where the municipality of athens cut down the trees in the neighborhood's last park so as to commence construction of an underground parking].

Our entertainment in the bars. Our kids at school. Our friends in Facebook, Art in museums & galleries. Our desires in advertisements. Our trees in Syntagma square in Christmas [a reference to the mayor of athens's decision to protect the city's Xmas tree at all costs, including by surrounding it with a riot squad - the surrealistic video can be found here]. Beauty at dieting institutes. Love on 14 February. We in between four walls.

The End Of Discipline. [The Beginning Of] Magical Life.

Those starved in the parliament, the specialists in Exarchia square, the bad ones in dieting institutes, the anarchists in museums & galleries, those deciding on 14 February, our money in Syntagma square on Xmas, the police in Africa, our houses in the parks our enemies in Facebook, our parking spots in the banks.

Our entertainment at school, our kids in the bars, out desires around the corner, our art on the loans (I'm not gonna pay, I'm not gonna pay),

Our trees on the streets
Beauty on the streets
Love on the streets

We?
In between four walls?

december's love children

Meanwhile, unemployment is raging - especially in the north, it seems. Recently, 200 workers descended from Naoussa to Athens & camped outside the ministry of economics for about 32 hours. They represented a total 1,200 of workers employed in the local spinning mills (run by the Lanaras family) who have not been fired but have nevertheless left unpaid for 6 months. (Unemployment in the region is skyrocketing, what with textile businesses moving out of the country & into neighboring balkanian countries.) They had been "assured" that the ministry will resolve the issue twice before; this time around, they got in print that they'll be paid for their labor (meaning they labor they have already put in, of course). Meanwhile, further increases in the prices of basic foodstuff seem to be coming; the ministry of development made public a list of a dozen or so companies that are profiteering - a boycotting movement followed suit, the scale of which I cannot assess. Amidts all these events, a group of people in Larissa (the city where people apprehended in December will face charges according to the anti-terrorism law) entered a super market, topped up a bunch of carts, exited the super market as it entered it (&, needless to say, without paying), & distributed the contents of the carts to people at the open air market nearby (information in greek here). Such actions have become more & more frequent in the last year or so; here also, as in many previous cases, the response of the people has been reported to have been positive. But, 4 people were apprehended; they will be reportedly charged with aggravated theft & are facing incarceration for up to 10 years... The following is the leaflet distributed at the open air market.

We want everything for everybody

"Find it impossible" to remain apathetic in front of inequality, injustice, the pain & poverty that the capitalistic system gives birth to, we assume action that defies it. Today, we decided to expropriate items pertaining to survival from the Galaxias super market & to distribute them in the nearby open air market. That is, to reclaim the goods from the bosses by returning them to the workers, the unemployed & the retired citizens.

The goods on the super market's shelves are products of the workers' labor & not of the bosses'. These products belong to those producing them. To those sentenced [to work] in the work dungeons where they are blackmailed, terrorized, labor & occasionally murdered for a piece of the bread that they themselves make in the whole & which is snatched away by the bosses.

Our action is symbolic, as three carts [filled with] pasta, rice, & oil solve no problem once & for all, but we urge the citizens to stop accepting everything, to stop being alone & to pass on to the attack through collective actions.

- Let's reclaim what belongs to us
- Let's turn all we dream about into action
- Life without bosses

Anarchists-Antiauthoritarians

On a related note, & in order for people outside the country to understand what the political crisis in greece entails, in terms of the prevailing corruption, here's a list of recent facts:

First, Panayotis Tzanikos, the former mayor of Amaroussion (Maroussi), got convicted recently by a final judgement to 12 months of incarceration for unlawful actions pertaining to the construction of The Mall. The name says it all - a mega-complex of shops which totalled about 12,000,000 visits in its first year, as detailed here - & which many Maroussi residents & some members of the municipal council opposed due to the environmental reasons from the very first moment. Those debating the complex's construction took their claims to the Council of State, which decided that the construction would be an uneven burden on the residential area; subsequently, the Hellenic Ministry for the Environment, Physical Planning & Public Works brought forward a specific law that legalized everything needed for the complex to be constructed. Residents debated the law & took the issue to the State of Council, which decided that the law is unconstitutional & has delegated reaching a final judgement for May of the current year. (Further reaing - in greek - may be found here; The Mall has been constructed meanwhile, see above - a demo in The Mall related to the December uprising took place in 29 December, the video's here). &, what do you know - it has been claimed, by people active in this, battle that the Tzanikos trial & decision went largely unreported by greek mainstream media...
The Thessaloniki Prefect, Panayotis Psomiadis, has just been convicted to a year of incarceration by the Three-Member Appeate Court (report in greek here) - apparently, the Prefect reduced a fine imposed on a gas station owner - issued by the former municipal administration for dilutting the gas in the station - from 89,000 euro to 5,000 euro. The question now is whether he'll step down & how, as greek law seems to be rather explicit on this point. (I vividly recall that, to collect my scholarship from the greek state while in university, I had to provide the department with a copy of my criminal record - which had to be blank. It'd seem rather strange to be able to head the Prefecture with anything but a blank criminal record, especially when you've been convicted for abusing your own authority as Prefect...) Psomiadis is clearly no Blagojevich, but still - so long & thanks for all the fish?
The third bullet point relates to the ongoing Konstantina Kouneva ordeal, & it will be covered in detail in the next update. To keep the bitter suspense of insanity going, I'll just mention that OIKOMET's owner (OIKOMET being Kouneva's employer) is Nikitas Oikonomakis, a member of PASOK, the country's very own socialist party...

That's it for now, more coming this weekend hopefully.

Greece: update

2009-02-07T13:23:00.014+01:00

Yes, back to popular demand & all that cheesy stuff. I'll keep doing this for as long as I can/find it meaningful. Also, in contrast to my previous attempts, I'll insert - possibly extensive - comments in between the translations to fill the gaps. So, here we go; my own comments will always appear in between square brackets ('[...like this...]') - if you repost anything anywhere, please mention this simple fact!

The biggest battle waged right now is that of the solidarity movement to Kostadinka Kouneva - if you're not familiar with the specifics of the story, read up here (there's more info elsewhere & in other languages - use a search engine or follow some links around). Kostadinka has been in the intensive care unit for a month & a half now; the following is an interview with the psychologist who's been in touch with her while Kostadinka is hospitalized. (The psychologist's name is Katerina Matsa; she's the scientific director of the program '18 Ano,' a rehabilitation program for drug & alcohol abusers, & apparently a respected figure in the greek left.)

Interview with Kostadinka Kouneva's Psychological Supporter

- This was a deadly attack. Not only did they throw acid on her [face], they also forced her - immobilized her & forced her - to drink it. & there are severe damages in [her] internal organs. The fact that she survived is linked to the force [of will] of this woman, of her decision to make it. As she herself said, the first victory is that she didn't die, as they would have wanted [her to]. The next step is that the truth surfaces - & to get to the bottom of this. & the third step, which she considers equally important, is that a mobilization of such [magnitude] occurs that no other people like[/in] her [position] exist, living in those conditions, being subject not just to exploitation but [in fact] to slave trading - & not to bow their heads [in submission]. That's what she wants, that no one bows their heads [in submission], that this horrible state of terror reigning in these professions does not call the shots any more.

As we're speaking, the situation has improved, the severe damages remain, [but] the implantations have started, they're being successful, but no one can say anything with absolute precision, although the prognosis seems to be positive.

There are permanent damages, but a fight will ensue to overcome all this. Because she herself wants it & because science had advanced. Once we've secured, as a movement, the material conditions for the best [possible] scientific treatment, I believe that this human being will be rehabilitated to a large extent. & she deserves it.

- Let us discuss further the psychological aspects. How did she react & is reacting to this whole situation?

- Admittedly wonderfully. That is, she's an immense force of will & [she] wages this battle with a lot of bravery, a lot of courage, a lot of heroism. She hasn't talked about fear, she mostly talks about her anger - why should this unfair attack, this barbaric attack, happen - & that inflates her decisiveness. She's very determined not to give up.

Yes, first off, she's being informed extensively & on her own initiative about what's happening, about the solidarity movement, for the large demonstrations but also the events organized in [various] regions. She's being informed about how many unions support her. Besides hers, the call for the large demo which took place in 22 January & brought together a crowd of 8,000-10,000, was extended by, how many, 60 unions. She herself knows this, she knows that there's an attempt in France also, [&] because [petition] signatures from well-known people - intellectuals, unionists - have started flowing in, she feels that finally the time has come for this slave trading to stop, for no more terrorized colleagues of hers, & for her to become a paradigm of someone who doesn't bow her head [in submission]. That was the first thing she told me: I want to be the paradigm of a human being that not terrorized.

- Does she realize that the has become, in a way, a symbol for this movement that has come into existence & how does she react to this?

- Yes, yes, yes, yes, she realizes it & we discuss this, & she herself considers this [turn of events], from a certain point of view, as a form of vindication of a struggle which didn't start now, which has had a large duration during which - before the attack - her life was being threatened & she wasn't stepping back. The threats, the anonymous phone calls were [along the lines of] 'if you stop bugging us, there'll be no consequences for you.' As the crisis[/credit crunch] is getting bigger, there will be plenty slave trading occurrences of this sort, & we have to resist this before it assumed terrifying dimensions. She also gives me courage for the daily battle, for the everyday struggle that needs to be waged by me & by everyone else. Thus, she's not a psychiatric patient in need ot psychiatric help, but this is [instead] a relation based on a common struggle for the same issue: the human being.

Those [cleaning] crews cannot do what they were doing in the past.

A demand of the solidarity movement for Kostadinka Kouneva is that the entire truth surfaces & the guilty party is identified & blame is distributed, no matter how high up [the social/hierarchy ladder] this blame goes.

The Opera House in Athens has been under occupation since the end of January [update: the occupation ended, read the final communique further down]. Their blog (in greek) has extensive info on what's going on; a communique in english can be found here.

Citizen Of The [Opera House] Occupation

(My own opinion is that we should estimate when this situation's limits are exhausted & leave (for the first time) without [bestowing the role of] fellow protagonist [to] the cops. We will be the ones who are the protagonists of this play. They don't interest us because... we have an aim & are focusing on it. Because they will delay us & disorient us, as always.)

I am optimistic.

I'm not afraid that, if we leave the Opera House, we''l "be lost." I've the feeling that we've changed since December... & we cannot turn back. I've that particular feeling saying that there's a heightened "physical" need for collectivism at all levels in people. Thus, irrespectively of whether we stay or leave the Opera House, we'll continue meeting, organizing discussions, reactions, actions, that is, we'll continue to EXIST.

Because, before December, we DID NOT EXIST.

& if we EXIST, we'll be led somewhere. At the first stage... success would be a daily life such as the one we've been living since December. An awakened daily life with interest towards public issues & [with] creativity. I am optimistic as [a result of] a rational process directed by feelings & not vice versa. & my simple rationale says that we have the basic elements to shape our bourgeois life, to make it better, & to [be the ones] defining it as much as we can. We have the need (or, in other words, faith), we have a large participation, we have momentum & we have endurance. But we need a space (house) to give shelter to our new self, who is still maturing, & to make our plans, to decide - without haste, democratically, in a focused manner, & successfully.

Anna

Citizen Of The World - Civil Servant Black Sheep - Citizen Of The Occupation

Next, a good piece of writing from the same occupation, posted here as a decent retrospective of certain things that have happened recently in Athens + for suggesting an ingenious way of communicating your message.

Alternative Information Action in a Free Press [Publication]

(The following document was inserted in at least 10,000 [copies of a] free press publication, naturally without requesting permission from its editors.)

Dear readers,

the publication you're holding in your hands is free of charge. This doesn't mean that it doesn't have a price. It seems, in fact, that the 'free-er' of charge something is, the larger the price. In this publication's pages, you ca find out which whiskey is the best, a new car, a good movie coming to a theater near you, the biggest super-spectacle that you must not miss, a restaurant, a popular theatrical play, a free of charge prognosis of your future, your financial situation, & your love life, & a lot of culture - & all of this, free of charge. [In it] you [can] find free of charge texts, free of charge opinions, free of charge ideas, free of charge nudity, free of charge fashion. Thus you can sit back on your couch, on the seat you found in the subway, or even better on your toilet bowl & "be informed" - free of charge. It's the easiest & cheapest way to find out what's going on in the city & to be[come] ready to consume the best whiskey, the new car, a good movie coming to a theater near you, the biggest super-spectacle that you must not miss, a restaurant, a popular theatrical play, & a lot of culture. But that's where the 'free of charge' ends. While you were being, free of charge & willingly, trained as a consumer, you thought you were just being informed.

The price you will pay is not only announced when you discard the publication & get out there, where consumption lives. The largest price derives form the illusion that you're now certain you know well what's going on in your city. But the things you'll find in this publication's pages is not everything happening in this city. There are some things happening in this [same] city which you'll never learn about from this publication.

In the weekend of 6 December, a 15-year old student, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, was killed in this city's center form a cop who simply aimed at his chest & got it. In the center & in the neighborhoods of this city, as well as of every city/town, nearby or far away, thousands of people took to the streets to express their outrage for a life unfairly lost but also for thousands of other [lives] which are being lost unfairly [&] daily in the neverending hours of work-related slavery, behind school desks, at war, on TV, in a prison, at the [national] borders. The publication you're holding in your hands devoted one of its issues to "informing" you. It showed you free of charge photos, free of charge opinions, free of charge prognosis of your future. Even if it didn't succeed in divining your future, it never told you that nothing has ended.

It didn't tell you that, since those days belonging to Alexis, at least 300 persons are being charged because they protested for their life which is in the process of being lost. That, among them, at least 63 are still in prison, in between them underage people & immigrants which will face terrorist charges because they removed a cell phone from a smashed storefront.

No one told you that, since 23 December, Kostadinka Kouneva is being hospitalized in the intensive care with grave injuries in her visual & respiratory system following an attack with sulphuric acid as she was getting back home form work. She was yet another easy target & a paradigmatic target [at that]: she was a woman in the patriarchical society, an immigrant & a unionist in the cleaners' field who was fighting for christmas bonuses, insurance & humanitarian working conditions for her & her colleagues. In the society of exploitation, some women must be wounded or killed for something to be cheap or free of charge.

& it won't tell you that none of the above is alone. That more than 600 people celebrated New Year's Eve outside the Korydallos Prison Complex, with fireworks & slogans for the immediate release of all prisoners. That, in 27 December, ISAP's [Athens Piraeus Electric Railways] HQ [-] where Kostadinka Kouneva was employed [-] were occupied & that, since then, we often take to the streets to express our solidarity to any woman among us that goes on fighting.

But even if you find such a news item in the publication you're holding, it'll simply be [there] to keep you "informed" & apathetic on your couch, on the bus seat you found, or even better on your toilet bowl. Because it won't tell you that there are also things happening in this city which are being done by us. Which simply won't happen if we don't do them.

& it won't tell you about the orgasmic feeling of doing the things which happen in this city. It won't tell you that we continue being on the streets, sometimes in occupied town halls, sometimes in occupied theaters. That, if you hear a woman speaking to you through the subway PA with a real voice, instead of the usual robotic one, it'll be one of us [-] because we have a lot to say, but we cannot say them through this publication's columns since these things are not free but attached to a very high price. It's about the dreams we have regarding our lives in this city. We have dreams because we're still alive. & we're still alive because we're not waiting for Thursday to come so that we can learn what's going on in the city through this publication's pages.

If, on the other hand, you feel a member of a community of readers which live in this city & share the same things, believe us, it'll be over as soon as you put the publication aside. Then, you'll be left alone on your couch once again, on the trolley seat you found, or even better on your toilet bowl, while some of us continue the attempt of being members of a real community which self-organizes its desires & its actions in a collective manner. It prints texts such as the one you're holding, posters & flyers which are offered to you not free of charge but without a price, because the ones paying the price are us. Through them, we extend calls to self-organized actions which promote another culture rather than the culture of consumption.

We went through the occupations of ASOEE [Athens University of Economic & Business - their blog's here] & of the Polytechnic School, then through the occupation of GSEE [General Confederation of Greek Workers - communique in english here], of ESIEA [Athens Daily Newspaper Journalists' Union or, if you preder, Union Of News Editors HQ - details in english here], & the Irida occupation [blog here], & we're temporarily located at the Opera House Occupation, but don't worry, we shan't perish.

Opera House Occupation

End of the Opera House Occupation

Today, Saturday 7 February, the Assembly of the Rebelling Opera House, decided to depart from the Opera House, having won 9 days & nights of autonomy, liberty, creation, & self-organization in practice.

1st Act
We liberated the Opera House as a response to the straggling of free expression, to the imposition of counterfeit[/fake] desires, to the cementbombing of public spaces & to oppression. When even elementary rights are being trambled underfoot with chemicals, bullets, & sulfuric acid, the time to assume a stance has arrived.

2nd act
We made ours a symbol of status-quo art, redefining the relations between creator & spectator, teacher & pupil. For 9 days, a human mosaic that met each other in December, took shape through direct-democracy procedures & united politics with art, inside & outside the Opera House. We are not divided in artists & non-artists, we are life's budding flower.

Whoever thinks that the end of the occupation means the end of dissent should check their glee. We do not surrender culture to Niarchos, Lamprakis, or any other "specialist" [-] it doesn't belong to them anyway. Our presence & actions in the Opera House shows that not only is the distinction between "high level" & "low level" culture nonexistent, but also that [this assumed distinction] is an expression of authority-related structures which divide us & fence us off. For us, art is a combat field.

3rd act
We continue getting self-organized, expressing ourselves & acting in public spaces, acting & creating in togetherness on the basis of autonomy & self-organization.

This occupation has come full circle once already, [a circle] which contained us all. We'll continue as centrifugal cells, diffusing our common experience & dynamics outwards in every neighborhood, park, or street.

Along the lines of our mobilization, the workers & artists of Buenos Aires's Teatro Colon Opera expressed their solidarity in our experiment during their mobilizations against 500 job cuts &, in essence, the dissolution of the Opera.

Messages of solidarity arrived also from the Universidad National de Rosario in Argentina, from the movement 'Rebellious Women Of Brazil,' from Venezuela, & from the Popular Artists' Union of Ecuador (UNAPE). We stand in solidarity towards all these [people], & we extend a call to every worker to redefine his role inside the dominant relations & structures.

The artists of life are not the jokers of authority, We do not want to become human flashbang grenades in the artillery of psychological repression, but [rather] fireworks of joy & deep feeling on the road towards societal liberation. We invite people to assume the initiative for analogous experiments, to meet & to shape together autonomous experiments.

Solidarity to Konstantina Kouneva & to everyone continuing the struggle. Support those injured during the uprising. Immediate release of those apprehended.

Reclaim the public spaces. [Say] no [to] cement-bombing.

We stand in solidarity to the Palestinian people.

The streets are our theater - the uprising is our art.
Coming up: 4th act.

The Flowers of Romance

2009-01-25T01:18:00.008+01:00

As announced last time already, the previous post was the last in the series of translations of material related to the greek uprising of December '08. Rest assured that there's a ton to be discussed: the attack against three patrolling cops which left one of them seriously injured (& which, some analysts say, might - might - have been staged by some state-run, counter-insurgency service instead of by leftist urban guerrillas/misguided idiots); the ultra-violent suppression of the teacher/student demo of 8 January; the polarization (& politicization) of a bunch of people in greece following the recent events; the hard-to-believe (even by greek standards) level of apathy exhibited by the government; & so on. But, neither these nor other issues will be discussed here - this blog goes back to being a music blog, once I've taken the time to thank everybody who has made this attempt worthwhile by reading even a tiny bit of the information included in the last 7 posts: thanks; for as Subcomandante Marcos says 'we acquired a consciousness of language not as a way of communicating with each other but as a way of building something.' (Which is naturally impossible for a me(dioc)re translator to claim, but certainly true of some of the trench poetry translated here.)

So, as much as I'm reminded of an old comic strip - middle-aged man reading newspaper expresses his depression regarding the world situation: war, famine, the works; young woman sitting nearby tells him he's reading the wrong paper: to elucidate, she takes out hers & starts reading how wonderful the upcoming spring fashion collection will be... -, I'd better leave politics out of this blog & get started with the musical matter at hand. The Tribe4mian blog "beat" me to it by uploading quite a few posts on The Flowers of Romance, already, including an interview which I had never read before & which I, therefore, greatly appreciate. For more info on the band - & I mean both more than presented here and more than I know myself anyhow - check it out; it has quickly evolved into one of the handful of music blogs I check regularly.

By means of a little history, I was introduced to F.O.R. in the spring of '93 by means of Radio Acropolis: at that time, a 2-day festival with The Last Drive, F.O.R., Deus Ex Machina, & Panx Romana was being held in Thessaloniki (21-22 May 1993 & in Θέατρο Κήπου, to be exact). I was studying day & night for my final exams so, regrettably, I didn't go; but I did get to hear (& also tape, little archivist that I already was proving to be) the festival ad on the aforementioned Radio Acropolis quite a few times, together with interview snippets from The Last Drive & F.O.R.. (A couple of years down the line, I'd find out that the background music in that ad came from F.O.R.'s cover of 'Paint It Black' in the 'Love Means Death' 12".) A very bitter & very pyrrhic victory, indeed... The spark caught on, at any rate, & I was lured into F.O.R.'s work (how could it be any different, after all, since I was finishing high school & the band's 'Autumn Kids' - played in the same radio at the same time - refers to 1936; as I for years mistakenly thought did The Last Drive's 'Killhead Therapy' - by the power of association, as the track was also played in the radio at the same time...).

In the late spring of 1994, I came across a copy of the band's second LP, "Pleasure & The Pain" - I doubt I even knew at the time they had a first LP (no internet, remember?). (That must have invariably happened in Rollin Under - Lazy Dog's HQ, if you prefer - & probably in their Socratous location, although it could have in principle happened in the old room in Exadaktylou they operated their mailorder from.) That & Ξύλινα Σπαθιά's first record sure made my spring - unfortunately, although I managed to see Ξύλινα Σπαθιά three times in the coming few months (the standout being the first time - June '94 in Μύλος - where they ran out of songs & asked people which one they wanted to hear again...), it took way more to get to see F.O.R.. Various images graze my memory right now: asking a friend to notify me if 'any worthwhile bands, & especially Flowers of Romance, play the city' as I was getting ready to leave Thessaloniki & head back to my hometown for the christmas break; writing 4 verses from 'Pleasure & The Pain' in an ancient public computer (in fontsize 72 or something), printing it out on the then-usual dotmatrix paper, turning the printout into a stencil & then using it to spraypaint my room's door in order to commemorate my first lost love (I slept for 4 fucking years in that room, waking up to those verses - argh!); what the tape on which I recorded 'Dorian Grey' & 'Pleasure & The Pain' looked like (very much like the tape I recorded Purple Overdose's self-titled LP on, in fact); finding the 'Love Means Death' 12" in a record store on Egnatia which had the weird habit of being open once or twice per year (I kid you not; too bad I forget the name); finding the self-titled - promo, as it later proved - 7" in Rollin Under for 900 drachmas; having thought of listening to 'The Last Summer Night (On Earth)' on 08/08/99; & eventually spotting a poster one morning - blue border, B&W pic of the band (the same one appearing as 'Noiz mag (#40, June '97)' in the band's myspace profile) - advertising F.O.R.'s appearance in Μύλος (in the club of course, not in the much larger concert hall).

Of which the documentation is right under, freshly ripped during the vacation as promised to panelo8riambos, together with a small file with what material I have taped regarding the aforementioned 2-day festival, the "Love Means Death" 12," the eponymous 7". The latter two recordings are presented here essentially for completeness: assuming you have all three - wonderful - albums, & seeing as you can probably still get a copy of the "Channel Z" cd-single somewhere on the web, you'd be missing "Love Means Death," the eponymous 7", the track "Island in the Moon" (contained in the 1994 Nyctalopia CD release of "Pleasure and the Pain"), & the track "Amaradina" contained in Wipe Out!'s "Double Shot" compilation (& also in the Nyctalopia cd as bonus) - the track "Autumn Kids" (their contribution to Wipe Out!'s legendary & much sought after compilation "Wipe Out Presents 12 Raw Greek Groups") is also contained in the "Love Means Death" 12". If I missed anything (apart from the early demo, which I've been dying to get my hands on for 15 years already...), please let me know. & if you do have the demo, do drop me a line, I'd be grateful.

How about the former ones, then? Well, regarding the interview snippets & the like, there's little to be said - they're included here for the benefit of that miniscule group of amateur historians of the greek scene. Regarding the bootleg, now, the sound quality is pretty bad plain & simple - in fact, I was a bit heartbroken when, last month, I dug the tape out for the first time in ten years & listened to it. But hey, there's nothing I can do at this stage; in fact, there was little I could do at any stage, seeing as the show was recorded using my roommate's cheap, journalist-type tape recorder - the same one I had somehow broken in '94 at a Honeydive show by jumping up & down way too hard (to be young again & so on, indeed...). What does not help at all is the knowledge that the show was, indeed, all I had expected it to be - & I had spent a year or so listening to the first two albums pretty much every day, so I had improbable expectations; just look at the setlist & you'll get my point. (In fact, the show was so good that it couldn't even get mired by a bunch of girls from my old high school who walked in, annoyed the hell out of me by making fun of the band & being loud, & left after ten minutes; I guess the music didn't agree with their ethnic - or whatever was in fashion that month - sensibilities...) Unfortunately, I didn't find the time to dig out the poster; & unbelievably, I can't find a single picture of my room back then any more (where the poster was hanging), so I've no idea when the show took place. I promise, though, to rectify this next time I wreak havoc on my belongings from that time... At any rate, it must have been sometime in the fall of '97, as I remember talking to vocalist Mike Pougounas after the show (in my scale, mustering up the courage to approach him was not just bold - it was heroic, hence the memory) & asking him about the new album; it should be out in a week or two, he said. I spent six months looking for it, until one day it dawned on me to look into Rollin Under's miniscule cd section - I freaked out to see there was no vinyl release & they had moved from Wipe Out! to FM (which created some bad blood between the label & the band, but that's a story I've no desire to tell). At least I could hear the album right away this way, instead of waiting until I visited my parents where my record player was...

Enjoy the material; it's been a long time coming, but I hope you'll find it plenty. Yours truly makes a cameo appearance when he yells for "Amaradina" - ha!...

P.S.: As you'll notice, the small file with the material pertaining to the 2-day festival includes a super short interview snippet with The Last Drive. I chose not to include the track following it in the tape, as it can be found - in exactly the same version - in the "Noisecide/Drive Live" bootleg tape (collecting hard-to-find The Last Drive material) - see here, for example. Speaking of the snippet, the Drive mention that this track was recorded in 'the second winter of their existence' - indeed, their bio states that this track has been recorded live in February 26, 1985 at Kyttaro Club (Athens) & included in one of Di-Di's compilation tapes. (Wow! When I first found this bootleg track in this old tape, I never dreamed I'll identify it someday...)

Tracklists

Live at Mylos, Thessaloniki, Fall 1997 (bootleg)

IA01. Kashmir

IA02. Love
IA03. Who's Playing Jesus
IA04. Dear Prudence (The Beatles cover)
IA05. Winter Waltz
IA06. Fetish
IB01. The Royal Hunt of the Sun
IB02. Reptile Dance
IB03. Winning (The Sound cover)
IB04. Carnival of Souls
IB05. Pleasure and the Pain
IB06. All I Can Remember
IIA01. For the Wolf Within
IIA02. Bitch (unreleased)
IIA03. The Ocean Floor
IIA04. Black Snow
IIA05. In Blood Eternal
IIA06. The Crying Puppet
IIB01. Love Commandos
IIB02. There's Nothing We Can't Solve Together
IIB03. 1,000 Dying Words

Two-Day Festival (1993)

Αναγγελία Συναυλίας (Radio Acropolis)
Διαφήμιση Συναυλίας (Rock Management)
Interview Snippet 01 (The Flowers Of Romance/Mike Pougounas)
Interview Snippet 02 (The Flowers Of Romance/Mike Pougounas)
Interview Snippet 01 (The Last Drive/Alex K.)
Interview Snippet 02 (The Last Drive/Alex K.)

Love Means Death (12") (1992)

A. Love Means Death
B01. Paint It Black (Rolling Stones cover)
B02. Autumn Kids (originally in the "Wipe Out Presents 12 Raw Greek Bands" comp.)

Pleasure And The Pain/Winter Waltz (7") (1993)

A. Pleasure And The Pain (version)
AA. Winter Waltz (version)

Live at Mylos: two miles from the cage (IA , IB , IIA , IIB)
Two-Day Festival: three miles from the cage
Love Means Death (12")
Pleasure And The Pain/Winter Waltz (7")

Riot Info #7

2008-12-23T12:09:00.005+01:00

This will be the last post of the series, it seems; any new info will be added here this coming week, while I've half a mind (but not becessarily the time) to rework the hasty translations below. We'll see. For the time being, I'm out - on a trip & not coming back before mid-January. So long & thanks for all the fish, see you in 2009 again.

I am proud of the banner in Acropoplis (M. Glezos, TVXS, Friday)

[M. Glezos has been one of the two people who removed the nazi flag of the german occupation army from Acropolis in '41, a feat for which he was eventually arrested, tortured, & detained; see more here.]

- For 13 days, and following the tragic occurrence of a kid being murdered, we've been in a wave [of events]; could it also be called a revolt of the school students?

- It is a revolt. & I've already said, a long time ago, that we'll find ourselves against a revolt of the young, not because of the fact [per se] that there's always a chasm between old & young, but concerning the current issue: there have been problems concerning the youth for so many years, [that] an explosion is bound to happen. & then the occasion was realized. The drop that spilled the glass came & the glass was spilled. The biggest problem of all is the commercialization of education - that's [what] the youth experiences. It's not permissible, under any circumstances, that education is free &, at the same time, that a family spends tons of money so that their children can study either foreign languages or with a private tutor. [This is a purely greek phenomenon & one that plays an important role in these precarious or near-precarious times: that a very large percentage of university graduates are self-employed solely in private tutoring, often in a black market manner: no health insurance or paid vacation, as well as no taxes paid to the state.] Education has been commercialized, & there's an [ongoing] attempt that it becomes [even] more commercialized through universities, through the privatization of universities. Youth sees no future - that is, it'll study & become what? That is, instead of technology contributing to the decrease of working hours, to the decrease of working days, & to the decrease of working years, we've reached the debasement - because [it's a] debasement... - to be cheering because the European Parliament voted for the 48-hour week [instead of the recently discussed 65-hour week]. That is, I never imagined [that we'll retreat] that far back. Instead of going forward. The youth sees these [things] & revolts. Next to these one finds the indifference that youth experiences - no one listens when the youth speaks - [& also] next to these, when it protests the answer [it receives] is violence - & a point is reached where, when[/although] obvious injustices are committed in plain view [& going all the way] up to young people being murdered, those committing these crimes or injustices are left unpunished. & the drop that spilled the glass was added now. We have a revolt - & the revolt will not die down. The revolt will not stop. & the revolt will be reaching new dimensions, as many as possible. & what saddens me is that certain people, instead of comprehending this phenomenon, are involved into this whole spectrum [of methods] that have been unravelled to twist the [meaning of] the school youth's revolt. & what I mean [is this]: when [one] starts [asking questions of the sort] "fine, but why should damages be incurred [on private/public property]?" But I'd like [to ask] all those shedding tears for the burned-down stores, how many tears have they shed when a bank - the banks - have confiscated houses & stores, & thousands of workers entered [the working force as an unemployed mass]. There, there's no[t a single] tear - tears [only] exist for the current situation.
(...)
[&] where I'm genuinely aggrieved - I'm being honest here - is when certain people try to... - us, the fighters, who have been striving for justice since the olden times up to now - try to tell us that we have to distance ourselves, they say, from the "hooded ones". But fighters have never been hooded! Those hooded were the snitches squealing on the fighters. & so, [can you imagine that I am] being called to pedantically state that I condemn the "hooded ones"? The "hooded ones" are known to everybody!

- Understood. The kids taking to the streets today are your grandchildern, maybe even grand-grandchildern, your [own] children are of a certain age.

- Grand-grandchildern.

- Grand-grandchildern already. What do you have to say, with such an age difference & with the experience you possess, to those kids who're in the streets today? What would you tell them if you were in a...

- But I tell them, I tell them, whenever I encounter the youth, I tell them clearly. You can doubt everything we're telling you - I offer no advice - doubt everything we're saying, but you have to pay attention to two things. First, you must try to refute that which is being said by us through arguments, & in the process of looking for arguments to refute us, the truth will come out. It's the only thing I tell them. & second, never become slaves of your [own] outrage & of your exasperation for what is [around you]. Be exasperated, be outraged, doubt everything, but don't become slaves of your [own] outrage & of your exasperation. & something else that must be discussed here, because there's an ongoing attempt -also sacrilegious: so, if the bullet was deflected, didn't Alexis Grigoropoulos's death find place? Wasn't a life snatched away?

- Are you a pessimist;

- I'm always an optimist, but I do consider that, at this moment, we find ourselves at a turning point, a decline, we're at what the poet described as "evil's ultimate step." That's where we are. But I believe we shall overcome. What has to happen, though, for [us] to overcome is that we cannot go on using the old methods. We've-we find ourselves in a new era. Which new era is that? That the era where others were deciding for us is gone. We're at an era where we'll be deciding our fates on our own & with each other. (...)

- How did you feel when you saw a banner with 'Resistance' all over it a couple of days ago in Acropolis. From young people, university students...

- I felt proud, because I saw that the young people are putting in good use a symbol which has resisted for a total of centuries - [&] it managed to resist because it is the expression of humanitarian values, it's not solely [because of] the beauty it gives off.
(...)
That era has put forth certain humanitarian values. These are symbolized by Acropolis, & [through] the fact that these humanitarian values resisted through time, Acropolis also becomes a symbol of resistance. Consequently, this resistance must have been-it has been put to good use by these young people, & I felt proud they did so.

- What do you have to say to the parents afraid of their kids being currently in the streets, of what's happening, of whether they're in danger & why?

- I know of no such thing, their parents being afraid.

- What would you say to a parent these days?

- But, up to this point, I've had no parent tell me "I'm afraid". I didn't, at least. I've had no [such] parent. I believe that the situation would be horrifying, if the parents did not want their kids to go [to protest demos etc.]. What I believe is that they let their kids go to achieve what all of us failed to do. What we didn't achieve to do. We achieved to liberate Greece [a reference to the german occupation during WWII], but we didn't achieve to make it independent [a reference to the degree to which greece has been dependent on the american hegemony], we didn't achieve to make it as democratic as needed, & we didn't reach a solution to its social problems. This is something we have to confess.

I buried my Michalis again (Stella Kemanetzi, Ethnos, Friday (December 12))

Her steps took her, on Tuesday [9 December] afternoon, to the graveyard of Paleo Faliro for Alexis[' funeral], while, every Saturday & for 23 years, she's been going to Zografou where she said the final goodbye to [her son] Michalis [Kaltezas] in November 1985. "I buried Michalis once again," Mrs. Zoi Kalteza tell us & her voice catches from emotion. On Sunday morning, turning on the TV, time rolled backwards. She had not watched the news on Saturday night & she thought that they were discussing her son without an apparent reason. Unfortunately, the next few minutes proved that this was not the case. History was repeating itself. Exactly in the same tragicomic sequence.

A 15-year-old in Exarchia square & a policeman that snatches life away from him without a reason. That was Michalis. That is Alexis. "I was speechless after this unjust murder. Not the same old again. As far as I'm concerned, I was being told [of the event] by a reporter who sought me out. He didn't tell me immediately that he was killed. There had been some unrest & I had to go to [the] Evaggelismos [hospital] where he lay wounded. There, in a room, the revealed [the truth] to me. I collapsed." Mrs. Kalteza speaks about the unjust loss of her son, about an apology that was never offered, about a justice that was never served, about the murder of Alexis, about his mother...

- Did you know that he'd be going to the protest march on the occasion of 17 November? [In 17 November 1973, & while the colonels' junta was still in power in greece, university students barricaded themselves inside the Athens Polytechnic protesting the junta, only to be mowed down by a tank who invaded the Polytechnic; protest marches on 17 November are organized ever since throughout greece.]

- No. They'd be going to Kefalari with his friend Nikos & others. In the end, they didn't manage to meet each other, & while his father & I had been waiting for him since 18:00 - he had left the house at 13:00 - until 23:00 & [even] 01:00, me pacing in & out of the balcony wrapped up in a blanket, a young gentleman came by taxi & I went to Evaggelismos. He had never been in a protest march before. He probably did do because he didn't manage to meet his friends. They said he threw something to the policemen. Was this excuse enough for them to kill him? The bullet entered [his skull] right under the right ear. The wound was blind. He had been so beautiful that morning. Maybe because he'd.. leave. He was a kid without malice.

- Was Michalis an anarchist?

- A few days after [the murder], his friend Nikos went [to meet the anarchists] & asked them whether they knew him, whether they had seen him before. They told him they were seeing him for the first time &, in fact, thought that he had been planted by the police. Anarchists attended his funeral & his 40-day memorial service, but they came as proper gentlemen & left as proper gentlemen. What we're witnessing these last few days did not happen [back then] notwithstanding the amount of people.

- What happened at court?

- The policeman who killed my son was found innocent. Two & a half years on parole & he stayed in jail for under a year. Is that what my son was worth? When the verdict was being announced in the second trial [where Athanassios Melistas, the murderer, was found innocent], I didn't go. To [do what?] listen to the policemen clapping [in approval]? It was already clear what would happen. [Alexandros] Lykourezos [currently one of greece's highest-profile lawyers] turned Melistas into an innocent person & what did he get out of it? To me, he didn't direct a single question [during the trial]...

- Did somebody ever apologize?

- No apology, no compensation - although I wouldn't accept it [eve if it were offered], what I needed & need is my son & not money, not even [the expenses of] his grave. We also paid for that. Only in the first trial, when they were bringing in Melistas, he looked at me & whispered "I'm sorry". But then he [went &] claimed that he shot form on top of the police truck. & how did the bullet follow an upward & not a downward trajectory as it should if he had shot from high up?

- Have you excused them?

- If I didn't have my daughter, I'd have become Papadosifos number two. [In 1988, Ioannis Papadosifos killed his son's murderer, Ioannis Venierakis, in the courthouse.] She's the one that kept me... I had to go on for her & for my husband. He, even to this day, doesn't want to talk [about the murder], it doesn't do him good. I've been, I'm strong by nature. nevertheless, when I was going to or coming back from workk, I was crying. How could I persevere having lost my son so unjustifiably & unexpectedly?

- Do you hate them?

- I feel no hate - only outrage.

- What made you go to Alexis' funeral?

- I didn't even think about it. I went spontaneously. As if I had to go. There was a lot of people & I walked into the graveyard. I'll go, though, another day, later on, to carry some flowers for the child & give Michalis greetings...

- Are there any words that you could tell to Alexis' mother?

- I wish there were. A nail in her life for a lifetime. Any strength [she can muster] will be found in her other child, but the empty spot cannot be filled... &, above all, to shut her ears towards anything that will be said about her kid. They has also said a ton about Michalis, even that he was lodging with his grandmother in Liosia [instead of with us], while none of his grandmothers was alive, & so many more... To justify an unjustifiable death!

- Would you like to meet her?

- Yes. But mush later on. She's now living through the world's greatest grief.

- What gives you strength today?

- The eyes of my 8-months-old granddaughter, which are identical to those of my Michalis...

Riot Info #6

2008-12-18T15:03:00.012+01:00

There have been at least 5 solidarity marches this Thursday, December 18: one in Oaxaca (the courage! read a short report here), one in Skopje (see a short video here), one in Berlin (update anyone?), one in Amsterdam (largely successful, it seems: about 200 people, wound through the city center, went through the Greek Tourist Office & the Police HQ (!)), & another one in Seoul.

Masked infiltrators arresting a demonstrator (TVXS team, TVXS, Thursday)
[click for the video; dedicated to those who are still debating whether masked infiltrators "actually exist" - you're soulless, spineless, & crawling on all fours in your own filth; plus you're doing the people of this country a disservice]

Solidarity from Northern Cyprus (sent via email)

Dear Alexis,
Dear Comrades of Synaspismos,
Dear friends,

On behalf of New Cyprus Party, we want to express our deep sadness for the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos...

For more than a week, the Greek Youth especially, but not only the youth, but also a huge number of Greeks are on the streets to demand to get their future back. As YKP, we would like to send our warm solidarity message to all of you who fight for the future, who fight for another Greece, another Europe with all the Cypriot languages, yaşasın dayanışma, ζήτω η αλληλεγγύη, long live solidarity.

We have received the SYN Youth message, which says that; “These neoliberal attacks do not occur only in Greece. Across Europe young people are attacked by them. The EU policies promote precarity in labour and living conditions, advance the model of “Fortress – Europe” against migrants, and back up war in the name of “anti-terrorist crusades”. Young people across Europe must fight together against the policies that terminate our rights. We must fight together to take back our lives!”, so, we put our words and our hearts next to yours; may be not physically but all our feelings and dreams are with you...

We would like to inform you that, our Youth organization, YKP Youth and other youth organizations will organize a common demonstration, which was inspired by you, to condemn the police state policy of Turkey in the northern part of Cyprus (because the army and the police are directly under the control of Turkey) and show our solidarity to the Greek demonstrators, on 20th December in front of the Turkish Embassy in the northern part of Nicosia...

Once more, we send our solidarity message to all SYN members but especially to the brave young fighters who fight for all of us, for another Europe, against neoliberal policy, for more democracy, we are with you...

Comradely regards,

Murat Kanatlı
General Secretary of the Committee of YKP
On behalf of YKP and YKP Youth member

17 December 2008, Nicosia

These days are also ours... (Albanian Immigrants Infoshop)
[find the translation here]

Letter from army camps refuting the army's repressive role (indy.gr, Wednesday)

Hundreds of soldiers from 42 army camps state: WE REFUSE TO BECOME A FORCE OF TERROR & REPRESSION AGAINST THE MOBILIZATIONS; WE SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE OF SCHOOL/UNIVERSITY STUDENTS & THE WORKERS.

We are soldiers from all over greece [it's necessary to not remark here that conscription is still active in greece & affects all males greeks; most or maybe even all of the people signing this are bound to be people who are serving their compulsory military service at the moment - not army recruits]. Soldiers who, in Hania, were ordered to stand against university students, workers & fighters of the antimilitary movement carrying our guns & a short while ago. [Soldiers] who are carrying the weight of reforms & of the "readiness" of the greek army. [Soldiers who] live every day through the ideological bullying of militarism, nationalism, unpaid exploitation & of submission to "[our] superiors".

In the army camps [we're serving at], we hear of another "isolated incident": the death, [caused] by a policeman's gun, of a 15-year-old called Alexis. We hear [of] it in slogans carrying over the camp's outer walls like a distant thunder. Weren't the deaths of three colleagues of ours in August also called isolated incidents? Wasn't the death of each one of the 42 soldiers who died in the last 3.5 years also called an isolated incident?

We hear that Athens, Thessaloniki & an ever-increasing number of cities in greece become fields of social unrest, fields where the outrage of thousands of youths, workers & unemployed is played out.

Dressed with army uniforms & "working attire", guarding the camp or running errands, [being] servants of the "superiors", we still find ourselves there [in those same fields]. We lived, as university students, workers & desperately unemployed, the[ir] "claypots", "accidental backfirings", "[bullet] deflections"; the desperation of precarity, of exploitation, of lay-offs & of prosecutions.

We hear whispers & insinuations from the army officials, we heard the government's threat, made public, about the imposition of an "alarm state." We know very well what this means. We live it through intensification [of work], increased [army] duties, extreme conditions with one finger on the trigger.

Yesterday we've been ordered to be careful & "keep our eyes open". We're asking: WHOM DID YOU ORDER US TO BE CAREFUL OF?

Today, we've been ordered to be ready & alert. We're asking? TOWARDS WHOM SHOULD WE BE ALERT?

You ordered us to be ready to impose a state of ALERT:

• Distribution of loaded guns in certain units in Attiki [where Athens is] even accompanied by the order to be used against civilians if they're threatened. (e.g. an army unit in Menidi, close to the attacks against the police station of Zephiri.)

• Distribution of bayonets to soldiers in Evros [along the turkish border]

• Instilling fear to protesters by moving platoon to peripheral army camps.

• Moving police vehicles to army camps in Nayplio-Tripoli-Korinthos for safekeeping.

• The "dopping" by the Major I. Konstantaros in the Thiva bootcamp concering the identification of soldiers with the storeowners whose property is being damaged.

• Distribution of plastic bullets in the Korinthos bootcamp & the order to shoot againts our fellow citizens if they move in "threateningly" (with respect to whom???)

• Positioning a special unit at the "Unknown Soldier" [statue] right across from the demonstrators on Saturday, December 13, as well as [positioning] the soldiers of the Nayplio bootcamp against the pan-workers demo.

• Threatening [the citizens] with Special Operations Units from Germany & Italy - in the role of an Occupation Army - thus revealing E.U.'s real, anti-workers/authoritarian face.

Police shoots targeting the present & future of social revolts. That's why they're preparing the army tot assume the duties of a police force & the society to accept the return to the army of the Reformers' Totalitarianism. They're preparing us to stand against our friends, out acquaintances & our brothers & sisters. They're preparing us to stand against our former & future colleagues at work & in school.

This sequence of measures shows that the leadership of the army-the police & the consent of Hinofotis (former member of the professional army, currently vice minster of the Interior, responsible for interior "unrest"), of the General HQ of the Army, of the entire government, of the E.U. directives, of the store-owners-as-infuriated-citizens & of the far-right-wing groups aim at utilizing the Armed Forces as an Occupation Army - aren't you calling us "peace corps" when you send us abroad to do the exact same things? - in the cities where we grew up, in the neighborhoods & the roads where we walked.

The political & military leadership forgets that we're part of that same youth. THhey forget that we're flesh from the flesh of a youth which is confronted with the desert of the real inside & outside army camps. Of a youth that's outraged, not subserviant; & most importantly, FEARLESS.

WE'RE UNIFORMED CIVILIANS.

We won't accept becoming complimentary tools of fear which some attempt to instill over society as a scarecrow.
We won't accept becoming a force of repression & terror.
We won't stand against people whom we share that same fears, needs & desires/[the same] common future, perils & hopes with.

WE REFUSE TO TAKE TO THE STREETS ON BEHALF OF ANY STATE OF ALERT AGAINST OUR BROTHERS & SISTERS.

As a youth in uniform, we express our solidarity with the people who're fighting & we scream that we won't become pawns of the police-state & of state repression. We'll never stand against our own people. We won't allow the imposition of a situation in the army corps that will be bringing to mind "days of 1967" [when the greek army had his last coup d'etat].

A letter to our kids (indy.gr, 'fathers & mothers who want to be 15 yers old again', Friday)

Together!!!!! For the present which burns & is being burned!!!

We owe this to you!!! We owe this to us!!

This letter could have been serious. Or sweet. Or patronizing... The truth is that this letter does not know what it wants to be. It's being written... It started in order to say "thank you."
A big THANK YOU to all of you. Who are keeping us alive. Who didn't let us, don't let us "forget" what we have been, what we want you to be. We grew up, it's true. & we got fatter. A bit,. OK, a lot... We started involuntarily forgetting. But we didn't die. We owe this to you. THANK YOU for this chasm that you forged into our present. It ties the past of our dreams with the future of your dreams.

We'd also like to say a lot. But, we realized this [by now], we must shut up & listen to you for once (this letter has the tendency to address you in first plural, it's probably dreaming)... We want to listen to you. We want to listen closely & to learn. To learn again [how] to dream. To make you proud of us for once. To build an army of dreamers together with you...

Look what you've done... you've made us talk incoherently... like 15-year-olds: To build together with you an army of dreamers which will be multiplying dreams. Because dreams multiply once you believe in them like you [did]. & they can kill a dreamer, but they can neither kill nor incarcerate a dream. Because the dream has already taken flight. & it's well-known to everyone that dreams don't roam the skies for nothing, no, the dreams have a very clear destination: to lodge in somebody's heart. & there have always existed, exist & will exist those who embrace them, make them their own & multiply them. You're the living proof of that. Thank you. For embracing Alexis's dreams. Your own dreams. You allowed us dreaming again. Dreaming that the dream of a better, different world has not been lost. We need you. We're afraid of saying it-the world will turn on its head... we're the ones who have to be strong. But we're not...-, but we need you. Not [as in 'I need] my own kid['] but WE [need] YOU-this letter is crazy, it insists on [using the] plural.

We've believed in that other world, that better world. We're still craving it. It remains that we invent it. Without you, we [just] can't. With you, on the streets, we've learned to win against our fear. Our silence. Out numb comfort. Help us...

P.S.1: We're not an all-encompassing generic subject [-] "parents". We're specific men & women who're being shaken to the core by your momentum.

P.S.2: Don't badmouth our bald spots & our fat. A line must be drawn: We'll get angry... Better badmouth our fear. & teach us how to win against it. By doing so, you'll also learn something. &, all together, we'l build a new world. WE BELIEVE YOU!!!!
P.S. 3: We nearly forgot the biggest THANK YOU: for the flames sparked by your outrage which light the city's streets up with forgotten words & dreams. You're presenting us with the gift of the brightest New Year's Eve. THANK YOU!!!

Riot Info #5

2008-12-15T13:22:00.015+01:00

A necessary remark before you get down to reading: this is not all that's happening in greece right now! (For example, I've not covered at all the many occupations of mass media which have been taking place the last few days.) I've work to do which cannot very well wait until "change has come," so I'm coping as best as I can with the continuous stream of information coming from whichever way. For more info, please visit some of the webpages linked below & ask people there to post translations of what they deem important - TVXS, athens.indymedia, & indy in particular is your best bet. & keep checking the UK indymedia central for english content.

& check out this (latest) summary report, too!

GSEE [General Confederation of Greek Workers] occupied by insurgent workers (athens.indymedia, Wednesday morning)
[the translation may be found here]

New Provo proofs of fascists and Police under cover pretending to be Rioters
[follow the link to the video; a similar version of the video has been uploaded here]

Witnesses tell of Greek police 'brutality'
[find it here & be outraged as well]

They broke up a [peaceful] demonstration in Syntagma square with excessive violence (indy.gr, Sunday in the small hours)
[there's a short yet evocative video here]

[This is] the end of what even they call democracy.

It's very hard to me to describe, much more digest, what happened in Syntagma square at midnight. That's where a bunch of people & school students were demonstrating. At some point, it seemed like they had even decided to camp out on the square, in front of the [statue dedicated to the] unknown soldier. They carried some tents to that spot & sat down quietly. Suddenly, platoons of blue[-clad] & [green-]clad [riot cops] started assuming battle positions. Some people who were there went to them to talk, to tell them to assume no ction, this this is a peaceful protest... The kids were doing absolutely nothing, this was one of the most peaceful actions of the last days. The blue[-clad cops] started spraying the kids simply sitting there with chemicals. An unbelievable scene. They pushed & cornered people at the opposite side, by the steps leading to their burned [Xmas] tree, & at some point the people started singing "Pote tha kanei xasteria" [a song with clear political liberatory connotations] & to yell "Junta." Till this point, 03:00, there are a lot of kids there & an unbelievable amount of platoons lined up throughout Syntagma square. To everyone in the region: be careful, they're arresting people.

(another account of the same events)

After the cops had surrounded the people (about 500 of them) from three sides, & when they saw that people were getting fewer & fewer, they started in a coordinated manner, provocatively, & unprovocated to march forwards [thus] forcing the kids to the stairs on the square. The Riot Squad occupied the entire street & they sealed off the people from the stairs &
on. All this was committed to tape by the zougla.gr camera (here).

Subsequently, people showed no intention of leaving. They sat down & were yelling slogans in front of the Riot Squad [human] chain. With pulse, at one moment "junta, junta," at another "democracy, democracy," yet another "burn this brothel of a Parliament," & sung "Pote tha kanei xasteria." There were about 300 people left.

Some isolated people were attempting to get back to the statue & the cops were pushing them off. Apparently, the cops wanted to go home, since their plan didn't wuite work out they way they wanted, since the kids are still there.

It's indeed typical of a junta mentality to force people sitting down, & in fact peacefully so, to leave a public spot. It's a gathering ban typical of a junta.

The kids [are] flowers, the Riot Squad [cops] are... claypots (Argyro K. Morou, Eleftherotypia, Tuesday)

"Go home you fucking kids before I fuck you up," said &, a few minutes later, he kept his promise. The helmeted Riot Squad needed only 5 minutes - that's the time it elapsed since they showed up - to destroy what, earlier that day, some colleagues of theirs from YMET [another police team aki to the Riot Squad]. To initiate a dialog with the school students & to listen to them.

They turned the situation upside-down in Alexandras avenue, in front of the General Police HQ of Attiki, they beat up violently kids 13, 14 & 15 years old & sprayed chemicals on them manically, revengefully, on their face, yelling: "& this one is from me."

& that's how the sit-in for the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos turned into a problematic demo of exasperation & outrage with slogans against the police & stone-hurling until Kifisias avenue, only to break up in the back alleys of Mihalakopoulou street.

Not only did they provoke unrest, they also arrested school students demonstrating peacefully

Because, when the kids saw once again plain violence & a colleague of theirs being mercilessly beaten up by the Riot Squad men who were dragging him around & beating him up despite the fact that he did not resist in the least, they forgot what some men from YMET had told them earlier, that "not all are alike", that "if they could, they'd throw their shields & join the other side" etc.. They tried to help their colleague, from the Metaxourgio school, & to remove him from the hands of the platoon who had snatched him from the crowd. In vain. The school student found himself on the asphalt... gripped by the Riot Squad man who had achieved a headlock around the student's neck. & as soon as those who tried to help him were pushed back with chemicals & shields,he got sprayed in the face once again,whereas a girl got wounded in the head, presumably by a stone.

This was one of the two arrests yesterday noon in Alexandras avenue. The second one occurred a few meters before the Thon estate, on the traffic stream towards Kifisias avenue, & once again from among the crowd. There, where the platoons were pushing the school students.

"Excuse us for demonstrating for what has happened & we're not sitting [on our asses] like you do," some school students were yelling. At the same time that colleagues of theirs were setting trashcans on fire & were responding with stones, fruit & water bottles [hurled] at the police force who was swearing, spraying [chemicals], threatening & upturned everything in a peaceful demonstration just 15 minutes... before it was [scheduled to be] over, before the school students withdrew to discuss with their coordination committees.

Earlier, school students distributed flowers & smiles to the policemen outside theGeneral Police HQ of Attiki

"Why are you provoking? WHy aren't you stepping back? The kids will leave momentarily," a teacher was explaining earlier to the Riot Squad platoons who appeared & cordoned off the demo. To receive an offensive reply in the singular & ending with "re [common greek swearword]" by a Riot Squad cop. "Sir, I use plural & you reply in the singular & use 're'," the teacher reply to receive a "It's [people like] you who've been fucking with their minds." "We educate them. We teach them to be democratic citizens. To demonstrate peacefully sir," he added. But it was as if he had never said a thing... "They've never learned to talk. They only know how to beat [people] up," a student said to himself. At the same time that another teacher was screaming at the top of his voice "Dialooooooooog!"

Because throwing flour & yoghurt on the platoons was the excuse the "immobile soldiers" [another golden page in the V. Polydoras book of slander] - with a huge mouth - were looking for to make their threats true & break up violently a peaceful sit-in. That of the hundreds of... Alexis's who distributed flowers & some smiles to those who had cordoned off the General Police HQ of Attiki building - with their bodies, but also with police trucks - as if they would have been attacked by hordes of barbarians.

PASOK & the tmebomb (Stelios Kouloglou, TVXS, Monday at dawn)

During the last few days, members of PASOK [the "center-left"/"socialist" party which is alternating with Nea Deimokratia (ND), the right wing party currently governing] have been overjoyed. The gallops had shown their party leading the race, even before...

... the revelation of the total inability of the government to manage the latest dramatic events. With ND on the verge of collapse, PASOK will win the popular vote in the next elections &, either in the first or the second round, will form a government.

Nevertheless, the current situation beras no relation to the "right-wing parenthetical remark" of the period '90-'93, when A. Papandreou's party [a.k.a., PASOK] got back on power following [then leader of ND] K. Mitsotakis' interlude. Not only because this is[, now,] a different country but because this time around the citizens will not vote for PASOK. They'll just vote against ND.

Today's tragic situation in which the country finds itself (her financial credibility is currently compared to that of african countries) has two sources. First, ND's management as a government; when the greeks realize how much harm was done in these last 4.5 years, they'll literally be flabbergasted. & it's not only because hospitals have no bandages & the therapists in psychiatric wings haven't ben paid in 6 months.

The tax-collecting mechanism has been fully disassembled: it could be that, in a few months, the state will have no money to pay the salaries of its civil servants. For example, the mass media have concealed or only minimally explained that last year's disastrous [forest] fires are neither due to the "general [as in the military rank] wind" nor to "disproportionate threat" [both of them are among then-minister V. Polydoras' most surrealistic moments; it could be funny, if it were not so criminally irresponsible as to deserve a good flogging], but to a paradigm-setting impotency which we saw in rerun during the last 10 days & in full swing.

The second source of the current crisis is, though, that most of the problems rotting right now were created or amplified during [the] PASOK [governments]. Starting from the occurrences of corruption (as far as the Siemens scandal [search for Siemens below] is concerned, [a PASOK] member shamelessly admitted that he was receiving money [from Siemens] on behalf of the party), passing to the miserable state of a paranoid, authoritarian, mock-for-free education (PASOK's [current] leader [G. Papanderous] is familiar with these, as he was minister of Education for a while), & ending with the anachronistic mess between the church & the greek state or [even] the health [system]: was not it Mr. Simitis himself [then PASOK leader & prime minister] that put the reforms in the public health system on hold which could offer citizens a decent hospitalization?

The deregulation of the social security system & the precarious working conditions, the crafting of the "700 Euro generation" all have their roots in the PASOK period. "In the events of the last few days, the range of the outrage & anger surprised us all," as G. Papandreou admitted in his yesterday talk. Normally speaking, he should have admitted that the outrage & anger were also directed against him & his party.

PASOK will receive a timebomb, which can only be inactivated through brave initiatives & radical break-ups with his own past. But, up to now, there has been no critical review of this past with all the positive & negative [elements] it contains. To the contrary, & independently of its leader's intentions, PASOK includes enough people which are dreaming about putting into effect the same old techniques qhich created the problems in the first place. This is the most certain way to hell.

Because, what with the the size of the[se] problems, the grace period of any government will last way too little: it will soon find face to face with a generation of young people which has only received serious education in a very specific direction: that of tear gas & stone hurling. & [also against] a society which neither wants nor can it be governed in the same way it was governed for 34 years [i.e., after democracy being reinstated in the country following the colonels' junta]. Are the people in PASOK justified, then, to be overjoyed? As much as somebody ready to receive a timebomb which may explode while in their hands is [justified to be overjoyed].

The international press on the events playing out in greece (TVXS team, TVXS, Monday afternoon)

The recent events & the continuing mobilization in greece continue to be covered by the international press. [A] common axis [of the international publications] is that the unrest will go on & that the reasons behind the current events lies in chronic problems & weaknesses of the greek society which the current government has not managed to address.

The spanish newspapers cover the greek events extensively.

El Pais hosts statements made by the Rector of the [National & Kapodistrian] University of Athens Christos Kittas, who underlines that the youth is absolutely right to be demonstrating since the political forces ignore them.

La Vanguardia hostes statements made by Stelios Kouloglou [of TVXS], who estimates that the youth will rise globally & that greece was [solely] the first country to experience this. [He cites as a] reason the neoliberal model which marginalizes the youth.

ABC is also attributing responsibility for the recent events, remarking that the government is paying the price for the absence of reforms in education, [the] health [system], justice & the civil servant sector which[, neverhteless,] the government had promised in 2004. Regarding the fact that the first week from the death of the 15-year-old [Alexis] Grigoropoulos has been completed, it emphasizes that the government could have regained control of the situation if it had communicated its devastation officially to the youngster's family & [it it] had asked the police to simply be present without getting involved in violent activities.

La Razon estimates that the crisis will endure & suggests, as a solution, the resignation of the Karamanlis government. It also treats the subject of the repercussions that this situation will gave on the country's economy &, in particular, on the touristic sector.

[Some] characteristic excerpts:

Observer: «In Athens, the demonstrators of the middle-class are buying stones [to hurl, presumably]. Chaos has not ended.»

The paper's observer in Athens, following a 22-year stay in our country, states that the outrage expressed through the violence present in the [events of the] last days has impressed her. Her youngsters are far away from the characterization "extreme elements" that the prime minister has attributed to them & they offer a first-rate example for the entire planet, as it's pointed out in her article. The middle class children, which fight against a corrupt system without prospects, form the lubricant of the [mobilization] machinery.

"Even fanatic ND [Nea Dimokratia - the governing right-wing party]," Helena Smith who is signing the article points out, "called me to tell me they're deserting the [sinking] ship." Nevertheless, what with a prime minister who's refusing to announce elections, the country is doomed to remain strapped to the chariot of a "lame" government.

BBC: "The young generation bares its teeth."

Greece could've been the most successful country in Europe, if the country's social structure did not prevent personal value from being shadowed by personal relations. The paper also discusses the financial situation, on which the article's editor comments "Greece is a country with european prices & african wages." Malcolm Brabant, the editor, cranks it up a notch by attributing responsibility to [K.] Karamanlis for lack of reforms. "The bullet that killed Alexis also touched Karamanlis," he writes in particular.

Sunday Telegraph: "Why did violence & outrage shake the birthplace of democracy?"

Nick Squires, the newspaper's editor, characterizes the prime minister as an attorney [ahem - with a 6-month experience, may I add] without prior ministerial experience & points out that the Nea Dimokratia government, what with the scandals & the wrong moves, has managed to turn the euphoric picture of its early time as government on its head.

The [same] article hosts statements made by [greek well-respected journalist] Alexis Papahelas, according to whom the country is "undergoing a nervous breakdown" & is being led to self-disaster.

The newspaper also hosts statements made by demonstrators but also by store owners who saw their stores being wrecked.

Reports also [appeared] in turkish newspapers:

Ηürriyet publishes an article in which it's reported that groups of young people continuing to occupy the Polytechnic school released a communique in which they used an excerpt from a poem by Nazum Hikmet. In particular, "If I don't burn, if you don't burn, if we don't burn, how will light erupt from darkness?".

According to the newspaper, the unrest in Athens will not prove easy to quell down.

The Sunday edition of Zaman, in an article titled "Being a teenager" reports the recent events in greece on account of the 15-year-old's death & writes that, although the turkish right wing is also happy for greece's problems, while the left wing is envious, turks in general & irrespectively of political beliefs, sympathize with the greek youth which dares to revolt.

An opinion that the greek phenomenon might prove to be the catalyst for a world-wide domino od mobilizations is expressed in another article titled "Deflection." It also connects the recent tension with the global financial crisis.

Thessaloniki plows on (TVXS team,TVXS, Monday evening)

The Committee for the Coordination of the Struggle of School Students in Thessaloniki decided, on December 14, to continue the mobilization this week. These include marches, occuptions, absence from schools, & the occupation of central avenues.

Tomorrow, on Tuesday, the school & university students will demonstrate at 12:00 noon starting from the [E.] Venizelos statue. The schedule for Wednesday includes the occupation of central avenues & a march of PAME [] at 18:30 from the same starting point & which will be joined by parents & workers. Each school will decide on the shape of its demonstration through assemblies of the committees responsible.

The schools of Thessaloniki assume the initiative on Thursday & are putting on a concert at 12:00 at the [E.] Venizelos statue.

The official opinion of the Committee, as it was communicated in a press conference, is that it's against both the violence and [subsequent] murder of the student [Alexis] & the terrorism imposed by the "hooded ones" & is distancing itself from the disastrous unrest.

Marios Athanasiadis, who's in charge [of the Committee], states that the school movement has nothing to do with this unrest, as the marches are always well-guarded, & that the unrest is used as a alibi for the reinforcement of the repression imposed by the state.

In the spirit of mobilization, Aristotle University & a certain school at the Technical University of Thessaloniki have been occupied.

Riot Info #4

2008-12-13T12:42:00.009+01:00

Today I'm doing some work to take my mind off things & rereading excerpts from Matthew Collin's "This Is Serbia Calling" - the similarities between Belgrade's Winter of Discontent ('96-'97) & the current situation in Athens are surprisingly striking - not because they go deep (they don't), but because they even exist. (No one can or should even try to forget the serbian tanks, the fact that S. Milošević was a dictator having stolen the public's vote repeatedly, the fact that the country was at civil war at the time, & a number of other things - no reason to be naive here.)

Everybody's body clock seems to be running on double time here, too; people get flamed up just by talking about how to raise awareness in the public - the public, not just those politically involved! - about what's happening in greece at the moment.

Some translations will follow in the course of the day.

They didn't [just] kill him... They murdered him in cold blood (Yanna Papadakou, Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia, Sunday in the small hours)

[A translation already appeared here - I just touched it up a little.]

The 15-year old Nikos R., Alexandros Grigoropoulos' friend that was with him [, Alexis, on the night of the murder] in Exarchia square, shoots down one-by-one the special guard's, Epameinondas Korkoneas, arguments to the effect that the tragic event was, presumably, an accident. "They didn't kill Alexandros. They murdered him in cold blood..." ha says at the end of his statement.

Nikos describes how they had gotten to Tzavella street & that they were not part of any other group, nor did they hurl the plastic bottle [to the patrol car/the special guards]. &, what's even more important, that the policemen aimed at the two kids using both hands which were having a bite in the pedestrian street. They were shot simply because they happened to be there.

The entire testimony of the 15-year-old, who miraculously survived, is the following:

I attend the first grade of high school at the Public High School of Psychiko. I knew Alexandros, or Gregory, as his nickname was, [deriving] from his last name, since the fourth grade of primary school. We used to attend the same school. We were not close friends until the first grade of junior high school. Since then, however, & until yesterday that they killed him, we were tight.

- Were you with Alexandros yesterday, on December 12, 2008 ?

Yesterday, at around 17:50, I went visited a friend [living] next to Larisis [train] station. Before going there, however, I had spoken to Alexandros. He had told me that he was going to attend a [water-]polo match... I told him to call me up when the game was over, so that we could meet at Mesologgiou street, in Exarcheia. He was going to attend the match with his friend Nikos F. and P. H. We used to meet there at regular intervals. We were intending to go to Faros Psychikou later on, to find our friends from our old schools, and entertain ourselves because as I was celebrating my name day yesterday.

- In the long run, Alexandros did call you when the game ended. Where was he going to go?

Yes, he called me and told me to get going and he'd set out as well from the athletic field [down to the city]... As far as I can see on my cell phone, the call from Alexandros came at 19:10.

- When did you meet Alexandros at Mesologgiou street in Exarcheia?

I can't exactly recall. About 45 minutes before the incident. I walked from my friend's house. I went up Ipeirou (if I am not mistaken), then took a right at the Museum, a left at Stournari until the square to the right, and Mesologgiou is 10 meters further down. I waited for him 3-4 minutes.

- What did you do when he came?

When he came, we went to a convenience store 10 meters further up and bought something to eat and two soft drinks... We went back to the sidewalk on Mesologgiou streeet to eat and discuss.

- Where exactly did you sit?

We sat there, by the entrance of an apartment building at the intersection of Mesologgiou street and Tzavella street, at the left side where one sees Zoodochou Pigis street. There exist, there, three railings on the walkway where you can sit. We sat there. (At this point, they show the witness a printed map of the area.) We ate what we had bought and suddenly, as we were talking, we heard a somewhat loud bang. Near enough to hear it, but far away enough to not understand what had happened. We didn't pay any attention...

- Did you see light accompany the bang that you're describing to me?

No, we didn't have eye contact with where the bang came from, as there was a wall in between... In order to see what happens on Navarinou Street, you have to get to the middle of the Tzavella Street's walkway.

After a minute and a half we heard, from 4 or 5 passers-by, that "the cops are coming, something happened...". So, out of curiosity, Alexandros and I went to the middle of Tzavella Street to see what had happened. A distance of 2-3 meters away... When we got to the middle of the walkway, we saw two police officers at a distance of 15-20 meters.

They were exactly at the intersection of Zoodochou Pigis and Tzavella street. One was taller than the other. Subsequently, they stopped at the intersection of the two streets... In front of us there was nobody else. Alexandros was in front of me and I was behind them and to the right. When the policemen stopped at Zoodochou Pigis and Tzavella street, they had their hands, left or right I don't remember, on their weapons which were in their holsters hanging from their belts. Someone from behind me tossed an empty plastic bottle which, naturally, did not reach the policemen. I forgot to tell you that, as soon as I saw the policemen, they started cursing at me and Alexandros, saying "We will f... your Virgin Mary [classic heavy-weight greek obscenity], come here and I'll show you who's tough around here" and things like that. The guys behind us were yelling "get back" and "go to hell..." at the policemen...

As soon as someone threw that plastic bottle, the policemen, both of them if I am not mistaken, removed their weapons from their holsters, aimed in front of them, that is towards where I, Alexandros, and the other person were, and three subsequent shots rung out. I forgot to tell you that I am sure that one of the two police officers was holding his weapon with both hands. I saw then - and I am absolutely certain - that the policemen were not shooting neither towards the sky nor towards the ground. They aimed at our side and fired!

Alexandros fell on the ground, if I am not mistaken following the first or the second shot, [&] at any rate certainly before the third one... Following that, I didn't quite know what was going on. People were yelling and some people lifted up Alexandros's t-shirt. I saw he had a hole in the middle of the chest and a little towards the heart. There was also blood running from the wound...

Let me also tell you that the policemen who fired, as soon as they saw Alexandros falling, took off. I don't remember towards which direction... Subsequently, EKAB [the ambulance] came and took Alexandros, dead. I say this because he had no pulse and there was blood coming out of his mouth...

- What where the light conditions at the place where the incident you described [occurred]?

Even though night had fallen, there was light from the street lamps on the poles which shed [light] and also from the shops... There was a single non-operational light bulb, to Alexandros' s left...

- Do you want to tell us something else among all that you know?

The only thing I want to tell you is that they didn't kill Alexandros. They murdered him in cold blood...

Liberated Town Hall of Agios Dimitrios (occupation committee, Saturday)

[Background: here]

From the very first day that the Town Hall passed to the hands of the citizens, members of the "Democratic" municipality board aligned themselves across the street for where the Town Hall is. They aligned - as always - as enemies of the local community, when that latter community is geared into action bypassing bureaucracy. The mayor, after having tried to end the occupation by force, suggested "assuming a respectful attitude towards democratic processes" that we stop by his office to explain to him what it is exactly that we request & that he, in the end, decides whether the occupation will go on or not. Since then, the mayor, board members, & various lackeys camped opposite to the occupied building transferring [the stage where] the valuable profession of sitting [on your ass is played out] in the cafe. Using either their big mouths or force & even ridiculous slanders regarding material damages that, supposedly, the building has suffered or will suffer, they're trying to provoke against the occupation. Meanwhile, the region is chokefull with secret agents on motorbikes which patrol the region or trying to mix themselves - unsuccessfully - with the crowd.

Obviously, they're not scaring us - we can only laugh at the way they drag their decomposition around.

As a reply to the cries about the fact that, unless various services function, the immigrants will be deported, those employed with a temporary contract will be left unpaid &, in general, that the universe will fall apart unless the occupation ends, we offer the following:

- Those employed on a temporary basis under "stage" clocked in as usually, during the first day, & even this didn't have to happen the next day since there's no employee of the Town Hall in it anymore.

- Inside the Town Hall, all the necessary bureaucracy so that those employed part-time get paid was taken care of.

The person "responsible" for the applications of the immigrants, after having accused that is those people will be deported because of us, & after having committed to showing up in order to do her job... never did.

Regarding the course of the children's theater group - the person employed by the municipality didn't even deign to inform the parents that she'll not show up - we suggested that a theater game takes place with the guidance of a theater education export who's participating in the occupation.

The members of the union of those employed by the municipality, which fully understand the reasons behind the occupation of the Town Hall, are the only ones which, through a sincere interest for our municipality, are here to facilitate & to guarantee any communication & understanding we can have with those "across," are being slandered at this moment through the municipal authority's unacceptable phrasing.

The reply to the culture of terror, which they have been trying to cultivate to the residents of the region for days on end, was the [amount of] popular participation in the open assemblies, as the Town Hall is open for the first time to all citizens. This is the first time that so many citizens participate in an essential & self-organized way through direct-democracy practices. Practices which are alive & such that, no matter how many little assemblies or pseudo-festivities they put together, they will not overcome the dynamic environment that developed in the last few days in out municipality.

& to finally put a full stop here: our target are not your storefronts but the storefront & the content of the system itself, of the repression, the exploitation, the subjugation & of fear.

Far-right shadows (Patranews, Wednesday evening)

Charged exchanges regarding whether Golden Dawn members participated in the Patra citizens' block during the unrest on Tuesday (night). Sharp missives from left forces.

Where there Golden Dawn members in Tuesday's demo or not? Plain citizens insist that they were not led to react by far-right elements, at the same time that everything points to that there has been a, minimal at least, push for a counter-attack, at a time where terror & outrage were alternating with a telltale frequency.

The mayor of Patras, Andreas Fouras, [& while] speaking yesterday in Radio Gamma stated that, when the citizens take the law in their hands, then society crumbles down, pointing out the following: "We, the community, should be turning the city into a warfield, when[/every time] the state cannot function in the appropriate way. It's obvious that Patras had problems in the last few days, & yet the police cannot solve them. If you look at the pictures of the moment at which citizens initiated their engagement against demonstrators, you'll realize that this concerns an organized core, & it's peculiar, to say the least, that it acted both in front of behind police forces. This does not classify the citizens & store owners of Patras into far-right legions, nevertheless, when any citizen takes law in their own hands, what follows is perilous developments. & this, given that history teaches us that, in similar occasions murders unfold ([Patranews] editor's note: Lamprakis, Temponeras). I ask you, though, what are we going t do tomorrow? Will citizens take law in their hands regarding the immigrant refugee camp or open air markets?" Additionally, Mr. Fouras underlined that the State owes to obtain a just state & a feeling of security which will be putting citizens' rights & quality of life on the frontline. "The message I'm trying to pass is that Democracy suffers when citizens put themselves up front (I do not mean the merchants who were defending their property), because then society crumbles down," Mr. Fouras said. In fact, yesterday morning, the existence of Golden Dawn flyers in the city center with anti-anarchist & anti-immigrant content fueled even further the flames. "The whole city was full of those flyers. The merchants defended their properties in a worthwhile manner, but I saw none of them hurling stones & such slogans as 'Anarchists, you sons of ...[whores].' That's what the organized ones did. Democracy & civilization can only support state authorities defending the citizens' security & property. In the history of this place, every time someone took law in their hands, there have been murders such as hose of Lamprakis & Temponeras," Mr. Fouras stated.

In hiw own statements, the head of the Achaia Prefecture underlined that "when the state, the government & the police are absent, what happened is inescapable. There has been an organized reaction by certain people who grabbed the opportunity, & these are none other than the 'Kalampokas's' & Golden Dan members. But they were not the only ones to react. They just took advantage the unrest to achieve their own goals."

TEDK's president [Regional Union of Municipalities & Communities] Grigoris Alexopoulos underlined the following: "Whoever saw the unrest, saw with their own eyes Golden Dawn members behind the Riot Squad &, subsequently, a large crowd of citizens who were mostly protecting their stores. God forbid someone stating that the citizens & the store owners went all the way to Agias Sofias & to KTEL [the bus station HQ] chasing the hooded ones. Those [who did] were Golden Dawn members." The head of the Prefecture was called up by the PASOK leader G. Papandreou, who asked for a debriefing over the situation in the city after the extensive unrest, underlining that he will inform the Prime Minister regarding the police force's stance.

SYRIZA's Achaia branch points out that "Patras was singled out for the employment of a specific [strategic] plan aiming at stigmatizing the youth movement & at stimulating conservative instincts which the government hopes for - in vain - in order to reverse the climate of total resistance which has come into play. In this attempt, the government cultivated, exploited & put into good use the justified agony of a sector of merchants & citizens, reviving the scarecrows of the anti-demonstrations & of the "infuriated citizens" & disregarding the many & various consequences & perils."

NAR [New Left Current] points out that "Since yesterday evening, the Kalampokas team, the infamous Centaur team that murdered Temponeras, made its appearance felt again with chains, knifes, & crowbars & they pretented to be protectors of the order & security! The serpent's egg is raising its head again!" while the Social Strugglers point out that: "Yesterday, lives were at stake for the coordinated action of the paramilitary, who didn't dare make their presence felt in Patras for years on end because they've painted their hands red with blood. That's why we had Golden Dawn members or other gangs in Patras. Throughout the night, a pogrom took place in the city. They kept ringing bells, sloganeering (communists, we'll turn you into soap etc.), hitting people & turning them into the police," while at the same time they atrobuted part of the blame to the mass media.

Demonstration in support of the " 600 [euro] generation" in front of the greek embassy (Le Monde, Saturday morning)

Approximately 300 persons have demonstrated on Friday, December 12, in the parisian night [&] close to the greek embassy in solidarity with the "600 euro generation" - a reference to the monthly salary of young greek employees. Responding to the call of organizations related to education & to the left (the students' union UNEF [National Union Of University Students of France - the call's here], school students' syndicates FIDL [Independent & Democratic Federation of High-Schools] & UNL [Natiional Union of High-Schools], MJS [Young Socialists' Movement], JCR [Revolutionary Marxists]...), they gathered in Auguste Vacquerie street (XVIe), a few hundred yards away from the Arc de Triomphe & close to the embassy, which security forces where barring them from accessing.

The demonstrators attempted to advance towards Place de l'Etoile, but they were repelled by the CRS [the french Riot Squad]. They sybsequently descended the Marceau avenue where they set up a barricade it was quickly dismantled by the police. From there, they ascaped to Champs-Elysées, which they blocked by means of construction site-type barricades & b forming a human chain. The traffic got completely back to normal around 19:30, the demonstrators dispersed, mostly getting into the metro.

According to the police, six were [apprehended &] detained, three [of them] for damages & [another] three for hurling items at the security forces. The spokesperson for the LCR [see JCR above], Olivier Besancenot, & the member of parliament Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder of the party Parti de Gauche (PG [Left Party]), participated in the gathering. "The confluence between youths but also workers which exists dow there [in greece], maybe that's what we're missing at this time of CPE [the infamous 'first-job contract' law in france], we're in need of a new May '68," Olivier Besancenot stated. "We need a social & european mobilization & that's what we're getting at", he added. The militants of NPA [New Anticapitalist Party] which will officially see the light of day in January, held a sign on which one could read: "Down with Greek State terrorism & long live the greek people & [their] fight."

Riot Info #3

2008-12-12T13:09:00.018+01:00

Some more translation & hopefully (?), in the course of a day, a summary of events.

Dear parents (Kalia, athens.indymedia, Saturday in the small hours)

I know that I owe you a lot. You gave birth to me, you gave me water, you fed me, you brought me up. You even loved me. That's what you say at least. Because things are slightly different.

You got me here, in a world where you were forced to abandon me every day & run to jobs. You got me here & then started looking for a place to park me in. You kept taking me to school &, because this was not enough, you kept sending me to a bunch of private tutors & lessons, plus you planted in me stress about my precarious future. Since my future was supposed to be so precarious, since you even made this planet dangerous, why did you get me here? What's my life? For those two hours of TV & video games every day?

I want to see the world, to spread my wings & fly & see everything in a single moment. I want to get out, to meet those others, to play, to entertain myself, to feel joy & not to care about the fact that tomorrow I'll be going to school without having studied. I want to dream a world where people won't be looking for a place to park me, where they won't be always having work to do, where it won't be dangerous to meet other people, where future won't be scaring me, where there'll be no masters & no slaves.

I watch your misery but I'm not used to it & I don't want to get used to it either. I won't bow my head just because you did. I don't want to become anyone's slave or master, I want to be left alone.

Those uniformed hound dogs don't scare me, I'm not afraid of them. You see in them a certain order & security. I'm the one to be taken for a ride, because I see perfectly well that this order is hypocrisy, & as for security, it's themselves that form the gravest danger.

They're the symbols of authority. Yours, that of the teachers, of the politicians, of the grown-ups that live this way. You learned how to live like this, I haven't. If they want to mess with me, so much the worse for them. They're hopeless & let this be imprinted in their minds. I'm outraged & dangerous. & there are many of us, girls & boys, we're everywhere, even within the murderers' homes. They cannot hide from us, no matter where they stand. In one way or another, we'll remain standing, they won't.

Don't be mad at me, I'm doing what you taught me to do. You told me that revolt is chaos & destruction. Now that I'm revolting, you'll receive chaos & destruction.

I love you. In my own way, but I do.

But I have to make my own world so that I live my own free life, & to do this I have to take down your own world. This is what's most important to me. To phrase it in your own language: this is my job.

Is the greek virus spreading in Europe? (Stelios Kouloglou, TVXS, Friday at dawn)

In the beginning, they thought I was taken for a ride: in the last few days, various journalistic I'm friends with started calling me up. They're asking about the course of events & the reasons behind the unrest. So far, so good, but the final question is always [of a] different [sort]: "do you estimate that we'll have similar events in france or portugal as well?"

I'm not the most appropriate person to answer [this question], but my colleagues started passing on to me various interesting facts. The french EFEE [National Student Union of Greece] ([which] is not a ghost like our own one is) expressed its "solidarity" to the greek youth & placed itself "against police repression."

In fact, Le Monde wrote that predisenf [Nicolas] Sarkozy keep "one eye on the unrest in greece... The head of state & the person in charge of the government are afraid - without confessing it in public - mimetic [reactions]." According to a parliament member of the leading party, in fact, which dined together N. Sarkozy recently, the frence president told him, referring to greece, "that caution is needed so that they don't reach france."

What's interesting is that the identification of the peril transgresses party boundaries. The socialist former prime minister Laurent Fabius stated in EUROPE1 radio: "With such a financial crisis going on, such a widespread popular despair, a spark is enough to bring everything down, especially when one has a government which does not exhibit [any] understanding of the youth." The title of the relevant article in the station's website is "The greek outrage starts taking over Europe."

The discussion reached Berlin, where the Professor of Social Pedagogy [Arbeitsbereich Sozialpädagogik] of the University of Berlin [Freie Universität Berlin] Richard Münchmeier said that there's indeed a spark which has been transmitted to the rest of Europe, nevertheless those demonstrating are not numerous at this moment. Mr. Münchmeier added that all youths in Europe today basically have the same problems, because the prospects for the young do not seem good.

At the other side of the Atlantic, a similar article appeared in the Wall Street Journal, with correspondent accounts from Athens, Paris, Berlin & Madrid. The conclusion is that the unrest which has shaken greece reflects the increasing discontent not only of the greek youth, but also of the youth of other european countries, regarding the antiquated educational systems, the unemployment, the impossibility of finding jobs with social security benefits &, in general, the pessimism for the future.

As if all this were not enough, on Wednesday evening solidarity actions to the greek youth took place in Madrid & Barcelona, which were accompanied by attacks to a police station & a bank.

Two things are underway. Either the greek anarchists of SYRIZA [Coalition of the Radical Left; in the wave of populism drowning greek politics for years on end, this particular party has been accused by certain political leaders of sheltering the "hooded ones"] have branched off to Spain. Or, something goes wrong with the social model that's being employed in Europe during the last years.

Terrorism law in action (TVXS team, TVXS, Friday noon)

The 11 underage arrestees of Larisa, all of which are between 14 & 16 ears old & were arrested in the wake of the unrest in the city center of Larisa on Monday evening, will be tried according to the terrorism law.

The arrestees were temporarily released under [the usual] provisions [they're probably not allowed to leave the country & are obliged to report to some PD or other every once in a while the article doesn't mention the provisions though], following a confluence of opinion between the district attorney & the magistrate, while they will be tried by the Three-Member Misdemeanors Court of Athens for Underage Persons, at a time that will be set in the following days.

Each one of them faces charges for recurrent revolt, for removing &/or destroying documents &/or other objects entrusted to the greek state, damaging, arson, objurgations [against the police, apparently], criminal gang, larceny & violating the law concerning weapons.

A solidarity committee for the underage arrestees, which was put together yesterday because of this exact event, commented that "such charges have not even been put together for November 17 [the terror cell]."

Getting even with the murderers (Antonia Xynou, Eleytherotypia, Friday)

This is the condition in which the youngster was taken to the magistrate. Claypot, claypot, we know!

The... robust proof used by a policeman, who arrested a youngster last Monday during unrest, were a "dark [motorbike] helmet" & a "jacket with a brown fur hood." The youngster's attorney denounces [such tactics] through [his statement] "using arrests of this sort, they are attempting to get even on the issue of the two special guards" - the youngster faces 3 crimes & 3 misdemeanors, while yesterday it was decided by the magistrate that he, together with another 4 arrestees, should be temporarily detained.

The policeman's affidavit speaks for itself - he mentions that, amidts "molotov bombs, stones, bottles, planks & various other objects being hurled," he managed to imprint that "in between those attacking were two persons, one of which was wearing a dark [motorbike] helmet & a jacket with a brown fur hood. The other one, short, dark skinned, had a goatee on the chin & was wearing a checkered light coat." In fact, as he stated, [&] two hours after the first visual contact, the platoon arrested at some other point "a group of about 30, among whom [were also] the two persons I described."

Yesterday, at any rate, the magistrate decided that all 5 arrestees be temporarily detained, whom have been charged for crimes relating to "explosion," "violation of the law concerning explosive devices" & "conscious attempt to inflict grievous bodily harm" & for the misdemeanors "disruption of public peace," "damaging foreign property" & "larceny."

One of the attoreys of the 6 youngsters, Fr. Ragousis, commented upon their detention: "We were hoping that Justice would not become the long-reaching claw of the forces of repression. There were police lineups without the procedural right." Similarly, the other attorney, G. Gountounas, reported that "Today, Justice essentially acted as a public relations officer of a government ready to collapse. The file put together includes no photographs, it's a void file, but still 20-year-old kids charged with protesting were detained. & this [happened], because it was [deemed] necessary to get even for the murderers."

4 more youngsters, arrested the day before yesterday close to the Polytechnic & charged with arson, were taken to the magistrate where they were given a deadline [to prepare their affidavits]. Among them, only one confessed that he was, indeed, hurling stones at the policemen, while the way that a youngster looked was indicative of the way in which arrestees are treated - the youngster appeared to had been beaten up mercilessly.

At any rate, the magistrates' offices were crowded yesterday, since - apart from those labeled as "rioters" & "hooded ones" - about 30 immigrants among those arrested during the unrest, most of them Iraqis, were in those offices for the crimes of "gang formation" & "larcenies."

Greece of greek policemen, rufians, murderers, & torturers (Red Anti-Reporters, athens.indymedia, Friday night)

Cops pigs murderers.

The heroic Riot Squad & OPKE [Groups of PRevention & Repression of Crimes] forces arrest & beat up 12- & 15-year-olds mercilessly during the attack they attempted in Korai street before the march had even started.

They attacked from all sides & arrested as many school students as they could plus anyone shouting "don't beat the kids up!"... 4 uniformed [pigs] captured a female school student, they put handcuffs on, & dragged her, kicked her, clubbed her, & hit her with their shields while tugging at her arms handcuffed behind her back.

They trambled another student underfoot. A Riot Squad [pig] was sitting on his back & a second one with his knee on his face... while a third one was sneaking punches in, as he was putting the handcuffs on.

They snatched a lady's daughter & were dragging her on the street, they were beating up anyone reacting, they attacked - as if plagued by rabies - journalists, photoreporters & cameramen, syndicalists of OLME [Greek Federation of State School Teachers of Secondary Education], university & school students but [also] mothers & fathers & other citizens that were wedging themselves in between the Riot Squad & the kids to protect the latter. They were threatening us that they'll kill us together with the 15-year-olds by shaping their hand as a handgun...

Photos & video from the brutality of the Riot Squad on the school students, from the ΕΚΑΜ [Special Repressive Antiterrorist Team] appearance in the Parliament, & from the clashes in the Law School of Athens follow [follow the link].

It goes on... day & night

A society in denial (personal rant)

To kick off with a necessary disclaimer, I haven't turned into a political analyst overnight. To the contrary, my knowledge of political theory is very limited & either too bookish or too cartoonish, plus I always seem to not comprehend &/or leave out some important details. If you choose to read what follows, then, do not take anything for granted - do your own research & form your own opinions, don't take it from me. (More importantly: instead of reading the entire ranting below, read the translations I point out in it, those articles are really insightful.)

Those in need of overviews & summary reports on what has been going down can find a couple here, here, here, & elsewhere (follow links around). Most of these are compiled by people not in greece at the moment, which means that they're not eyewitness accounts of events but rather compilations of such accounts, political analyses, & what have you. There are certain things that have become clear - & not to me only - in the last couple of days; in my view, they can be summarized along the lines of "a representative segment of the youth is revolting; the state & the mass media remain in denial."

For one thing, the state-sponsored myth that the unrest is due to the "usual familiar unknowns" & to the "special circumstances" prevailing in the Exarchia quarter has collapsed with a loud bang: K. Raptis did an outstanding job there, in an article penned in Sunday (!) already (seek a translation below; the original is here). (As an occasional reader of greek newspapers, I can certify that this level of clarity of thinking - & of honesty - is not a commonplace occurrence in greek journalistic circles.) The same is true of S. Kouloglou's analysis early Tuesday morning (seek a translation below; original here) - both correctly, I believe, identified this as the tip of an iceberg: concealed beneath the surface, real, very-very real anger was fueling the first reactions. Further, it was clear from the beginning that the revolt did not even only specifically concern anarchists or leftists or what you want to call them; this is another (also state- & mass media-sponsored) myth which simply holds no water. In fact, it did not even concern these groups to a larger extent than other groups of citizens, despite the sentimentally charged central place Exarchia assumed in the story: the police station attacks carried out exclusively by school students (particularly the Sunday attack in Thessaloniki), the 5,000 people demonstrating in Patra yesterday against the outrage of the local police working side by side with neonazis (neonazis! honestly, can you wrap your head around this?), the reports concerning elderly citizens hurling lemons at the Riot Squad or of an old man in crutches standing face to face with the Riot Squad or of somebody in suit-&-tie trying to reclaim a 15-year-old from the police force's grip, all these testify that the common people feel an ignominy at the way their own state treats them that has little to do with political affiliations (or the absence thereof). The fact that anarchists & leftists got involved into this may well be because these people understand solidarity (& often have a heart) as well as they understand police brutality & repression. Were even more members of PASOK (the center party in greece) not remorseless strategists or scared-shitless-middle-class-members (depending on their position in the party), they could have participated equally well in the demonstrations, as this murder affects them as much as anybody else.

The government, instead, has been trying - up to this very moment - to blame all of this on one or another conspiracy theory: from minister of the interior P. Pavlopoulos' statement "image is one thing & reality is another" (had he replaced 'reality' by 'content,' he could at least have applied for the Most Misguided Situationist Quotation Award) to K. Karamanlis' statements about (unnamed) political forces which stir up trouble (correct; such as his own party's murderers, members of the Kalampokas team - seek below for the background -, which were reportedly spotted in Patras back in action). & my personal favorite: P. Pavlopoulos claiming - on Monday evening! - that the government has made the city safe; a reporter asking, not bothering or not managing to hide the disdain in his voice, how is it possible that he claims such a thing at a moment when the President of the Republic has to spend the night in the presidential building because it's not safe for him to be transported back home; P. Pavlopoulos' answer: I claim that the city is safe because it is safe. This is not only about the obvious tautology; even his first sentence is flawed, as if the issue were the fucking government! The center is getting looted & this jerk can only think of his government! Bush Jr. got shit about the now infamous photo of him looking down on New Orleans from his jet plane in the wake of the Katrina disaster; can you imagine even him coming out & defending his government without a word about what that government has actually done or is going to do to relieve those affected?

What's basically so interesting about this whole situation, were you to sit back & think about it idly (& from a certain, comfortable in its shoes, middle-class perspective), is exactly the aforementioned ignominy: a 15-year-old gets shot, people take to the streets - immediate result: people get beaten up brutally. (Recall the SKAI radio correspondent who went berzerk on Sunday, as he watched multiple men of the Riot Squad beating up, instead of arresting, a 15-year-old in the center of Athens; recall his words: "They've learned nothing! Nothing!") People flood the streets again; not only do they get beaten up again, the police decides to collaborate with the shadow state (yes, the neonazis!) & the mass media decide to call the latter "infuriated citizens" - as if this were the '50s & the '60s all over! Additionally: cops take out their guns & point them at demonstrators, while yet other cops shoot in the air - one dead boy is clearly not enough (yes, they HAVE learned nothing!). The district attorney who, apparently, plans to absolve those responsible for the "claypot incident" (search for it below), suggests that the special guards be allowed to walk free. On Monday evening, the government sends a clear message to the looters that no crackdown is scheduled for before Tuesday noon - immediate result: that same evening, the city center is looted to an extent that makes people think of Los Angeles in '92. Also, there's a whole shitload of pictures out there of "hooded ones" embedded in the police force (yes, I do believe that these are the same hoods that smashed things up in the city center; do you have a better explanation? Does the police have a better explanation? If it is, what is it?) & still more mind-boggling stuff, such as: the minister of the interior is all smiles off camera (or at least when he thinks he's off camera). & even more: on the night of the murder, the minister of educational affairs S. Stylianidis (who, in my view, is perfectly unfit for any post related to educational affairs) enjoys an evening out (heavy duty, too: in a club with live music); the next day, he attends a football match.

& this still remains the tip of the iceberg. Recall that, in the last year & a half only, the people living in the country have gone through:

(a) forest fires, who left .... acres of charred forests & about 100 people dead;

(b) the revelation that minister of culture (ha!) G. Voulgarakis became a millionaire overnight (actually, in the last 4 years);

(c) the same minister's reply to a newscaster's question (loosely amounting to "granted that what you did was legal; was it also ethical?") that ethical is identical to legal; in a country where I don't recall any minister having even being charged by a court of law with corruption/profiteering, this amounts to ethical is identical to achievable: if you can pull it off, you're doing fine;

(d) an immense scandal involving officials (reportedly high in the hierarchy) handing over vast amounts of state property to the church (the same church that refuses to even sum up its possessions - much less reveal them - & is exempt from taxes, although the church functionaries are paid by the greek state);

(e) the Siemens scandal, where it was revealed that pretty much everybody with influence, in both ND & PASOK (the two major political parties in greece), was on the take; & as there's no free lunch, Siemens was getting a preferential treatment in state affairs - much like selling tax money short & pocketing the net amount.

Finally, as S. Kouloglou & K. Raptis among others pointed out (as even L. Fabius pointed out; see above), all of these affairs (which have monopolized the front pages for weeks on end & thus were highly visible) occurred in a country where people in their '20s are employed (if at all) at a starting salary of as low as 660 euro (Athens is far more expensive than Berlin, for example, & comparable to, maybe, Amsterdam - apart from housing at least). Without social benefits & maybe without vacation - certainly without prospects; often forced to meet their employer halfway & get part of his/her contributions for social security/retirement plan as cash instead. Immediate result? What else: people lodging with their parents until into their 30's; people scared shitless to graduate, as their prospects are nil; people who are dying to get into the civil servant sector, i.e., get on the government's tab (in a country where that particular sector is already overgrown); people who get on that sector as temporary employees & spend years (literally) waiting for their salaries.

How, then, could one be surprised that these people revolted? Every single response of the government to the events in the last few days has added insult to injury, much like the humiliation many greeks must feel reading their Sunday paper of choice or turning on their TV & reading/seeing the same people that condemn them to precarity amass immense fortunes by selling short the citizens they have been elected to represent. (I know that this is what made me add 'occasional' to my self-description 'reader of greek newspapers' - that feeling I get of some corrupt, remorseless, insatiable bastard pointing at me through the pages & laughing in my face every time I read about multimillion deals & compare it to emails I receive from friends living in greece.)

Meanwhile, leaders in the rest of Europe apparently turn their heads south to size up the situation. The prime minister K. Karamanlis, who's in Brussels today, has reportedly conferred with his equals regarding the possibility of the riots spreading to the rest of Europe. S. Kouloglou wrote, once again, an excellent article regarding this issue (seek a translation above). Those who gathered to protest in The Hague (&, as I learned yesterday, also in Paris & maybe even elsewhere) had time to observe the reaction of the mass media & decipher what they observed: at least one TV crew in The Hague, at least one interview with a journalist in Paris (regarding the fact that the ambassador did not even deign to meet with the protesters) - net result: zero television time in the first case (& only sporadic, dried-out mentions of the incident in the local newspapers attributing the march solely to greeks; we don't want to plant fancy ideas in the queen's subjects, do we?), no mention of the ambassador incident in the second one. Even worse, the dutch conservative newspaper NRC Handelsblad did publish some articles which were simply revolting - representative sample (last paragraph): " The hooligans [it's a time honored tradition of dutch newspapers to stripping everyone protesting of any ideology by calling them a hooligan] have caused, i the past few days, damages of approximately one billion euro. 3,000 people face losing their jobs, because the stores [where they work] must stop or move. Some fear losing a quarter of their turnover during this month of big celebrations. Meanwile, the same protesters scream about the economy shrinking." A very dutch logic, indeed: work, get paid, live happily, let those who know better take big decisions [the benelux governments bailed out Fortis recently, which cost 11 billion euro; hardly anybody bat an eye]. They left out the distressing fact that people in greece don't quite get paid enough to live happily - greece is not the netherlands: get a clue.

Thankfully, some foreign mass media start getting a clue. Previous attempts clearly didn't hit the spot: I'm still laughing with BBC's article; not that it's that bad, but did anyone really believe that the explanation "rebellion is deeply embedded in the Greek psyche" would settle the question once & for all? Sounds good, but fit for a novel, not for a political analysis. Others were performing even more sloppily, reproducing state propaganda (all dutch papers on Monday which made a mention to the riots, for example), focusing on the number of cops wounded (CNN), & of course absolutely everybody interprets absolutely everything in economical terms (this is the modern agenda, after all - economy provides the setting, period). Well, this latter tendency won't leave any reports any time soon, but at least journalists seem to be doing their homework a little bit better, focusing on what lies under the stone-hurling & the massive demos - even in NRC somebody got off their ass & decided to look into the G700 phenomenon (known to the rest of the world as precarity). At the same time, it could be that the mobilization assumes a more (?) strategically sound form, with an announcement from the Polytechnic putting forth political demands (seek a translation below) & TV & radio station occupations; it's hard to tell, & half of the the leftists seems to be rejoicing with the fact that the revolt has had no leaders, while the other half with the fact that a strategy develops (don't forget that the greek movement is rather fragmented).

That's it, let's get back to some translations...

P.S.: We've even reached the point where a picture such as this one, published in the NY Times, doesn't even raise an eyebrow - what's wrong with it? The cop holds his truncheon wrong side up, a fact that created a steer in the past (& is explicitly prohibited, of course, as the handle of the truncheon has absolutely no protective coating...)!

Riot Info #2

2008-12-11T13:54:00.018+01:00

There's no way I can keep up the pace from yesterday, but I'll do my best to provide some coverage on certain issues. This post will be updated as the day goes by & I make time to translate things.

Some background info (tribe4mian's blog, Wednesday morning)

[originally in english, this is simply copy-pasted]

If you are not Greek native, then you don’t get the clear picture of why the riots in Greece started. This is because you propably don’t know some details about the modern Greek history.

The whole thing started when the 37 years old police officer Epaminondas Korkoneas, shot and killed the 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the area of Exarchia, downtown Athens on Saturday, December 6 2008. Initialy it was stated that the police officer had 3 warning shots and that the kid was killed by accident. Witnesses stated that he aimed and fired.

This takes us back to the 17th of November of 1985 when an other 15 years old kid, Michalis Kaltezas was shot in the back of his head by the police officer Thanasis Melistas.
Melistas was sentenced for two and a half years and he got out in 8 1/2 months.
On the 16th of November 1980, the 20 years old Stamatina Kanelopoulou and the 26 years old Iakovos Koumis were beaten to death by police.
None was charged,the killers were never found.
During August 1985, 22 years old American citizen Kathrin John Bull was shot dead after her denial to the cops to search her car.
On March 1990 an other 15 years old student gets shot in the city of Preveza. He was killed cause he was trying to break in a video club.
On April 1993 police officer Elias Stamatopoulos shot dead the 25 years old Giannis Tzitzis in a bar.
The musician Theodor Giakas was shot dead on January 1994.
On January 1996 police killed an emigrant.
June 1996 police killed the 20 years old emigrant Fantil Nambuzi who tryied to steal two water mellons.
45 years old Tasos Mouratis was shot dead by a police officer in front of his kids during November 1996.
26 years old Elias Mexis didn’t stop for a police control on August 1998. He was shot dead.
Police killed the 17 years old Yugoslavian Marco Bulatovic in Thessaloniki on October 1998.
On March 2000, 18 years old Giorgos Atmatzidis didn’t stop for a police control, he was shot dead.
Police shot in the head the 21 years old Marinos Christopoulos.He didn’t stop for a control. It was October 2001.
22 years old Iraklis Maragakis didn’t stop for a police control on December 2003, he was shot in the head.
The cops beat up and injured the Cypriot student Augoustinos Dimitriou in Thessaloniki during the polytechnic demonstration in 2006.
During August 2007, Greek police have clashed with African immigrants protesting over the death of a Nigerian man in the city of Thessaloniki.

Now, what we have here is police brutality. The killers remain unpunished. Alexandros Grigoropoulos’s mother received a phone call by some unknown person that told her to go to the hospital because her son was hurt and she better take a friend with her. Police never contacted her nor did they go to her door to bring her to the hospital.

As young kids see their parents struggling to make ends meet and they see no justice administrated for criminal activity brought on by people who are comitted to “serving and protecting” the riots started. All these follows on the heels of ultimate corruption within the church and political inactivity in the massive destruction of fires in 2007.

In Greece money begets power. The average working citizen, regardless of outcries and demands for justice, reaches a boiling point with the ensuing result.

Today, December 10 2008, it is general strike in Greece.

Wednesday summary report (indybay, Wednesday)

[follow the link to the report]

Far-right supporter, holding a knife (Yorgos Karahalis, Reuters, Wednesday)

[follow the link to the photo - it speaks for itself]

What happened in Patras on Tuesday night (Parartima squat, Thursday evening)

2008.12.06: The 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos is murdered in cold blood by a cop in Exarchia square. Nearly immediately, wide clashes break out in mostly all greek cities which mostly target symbols of capital & of state authority. It is obvious that, with the murder acting as a spark, a generalized feeling of discontent & doubt [towards the system] finds its release.

In the cadre of this release, similar mobilizations take place in Patras as well. From the get-go, people flow into the Parartima [a squat in Patras, originally belonging to the local University & highly active in local antiauthoritarian affairs] &, a while later, the General Police Administration of Achaea in Ermou street is attacked. The next day, a demo takes place followed by further clashes with the police forces in Ermou street. 5 get arrested; they're released that same evening, an attempt of the state to detonate the [explosive] situation. An intervention in the court house takes place on Monday until the 50 year old comrade who had gotten arrested the night before is released. In the evening, a march [reportedly of about 1,000 people!] takes place; it stops at the [TV station] Super B, which is occupied for the next half hour. During the return to the Parartima, 3 banks, a WIND store, Olympic Airways & [the discount supermarket] Dia are attacked.

At the same day that Alexis was buried, a demo is announced; thousands of people take part in it; it [also] goes unnoticed by the mass media rufians. In the duration of the march, all banks that the march comes across are laid in tatters. The demo concludes at the Parartima, where barricades are put up in the streets surrounding it & hour-long clashes with the cops break out - the participation [in the clashes] is immense. The police chokes nearby streets with teargas & chemicals, & it also makes use of plastic bullets. A little while after, the scum of the shadow state [parakratikoi] enter the stage; tgether with the Riot Squad & plainclothes policemen, & in military formation under the leadership of the director [of the plainclothes policemen] Ntavlouros, they attack the demonstrators. The clashes with the parakratikoi go on for a long while, but they cannot be pushed back despite the efforts, as their best pals the cops make sure the clear the way for them by continuously hurling chemicals which force the people to gradually retreat back to the Parartima. The retreta finally at the Agia Sofias square, where the people flee to nearby houses. A pogrom led by the parakratikoi follows, during which they drag people out of nearby cafe's & narrow streets & beat them up. Despite this, people decide to actively crush terror by taking part by the thousand in Wednseday's strikes.

What the parakratikoi & the cops started could not but be completed by the journalists, a fact which - once again - drives home the message: Cops, Mass Media, Parakratikoi, All The Scum Work Side By Side. The journalists keep talking about smashed-up stores & about 2,000 (!) citizens which chased the demonstrators. Whoever wants to check whether there are any smashed-up [family-owned] stores, they are invited to take a walk in the center of the city. It has been our [conscious] decision that we only attacked [the] police [station], governmental buildings & banks. Anything else is either a lie or police provocation. Regarding the 2,000 citizens which took to the streets against demonstrators, they're nothing more than a bunch of plainclothes policemen & parakratikoi such as Spinos from the [Ioannis] Kalampokas team (those parakratikoi were identified by older comrades). [A bit of history: in '91, Nikos Temponeras was murdered by Ioannis Kalampokas with a crowbar - in Patras. In that case, the parakratikoi counter-occupied the already occupied schools throughout greece, after they had been incited to do so by then-minister of education Vassilis Kontogianopoulos. In one of those counter-occupations, Nikos Temponeras - a teacher - was killed with a crowbar by the leader of ONNED - the youth organization of Nea Dimokratia, the current ruling party - Ioannis Kalampokas.] It is also obvious that similar events unfolded in other cities as well, & that the state chooses, once again, to use the shadow state in order to repress the vibrant mass demonstrations of recent days.

The attacks of the state & of its shadow state do not intimidate us - they infuriate us!

Let's all take to the streets to crush terror
Our last word has not been said
These days belong to Alex

Demo: 18.00 at the Parartima

We extend a call to all people to take part in the squatting.

The people of Patras react! (athens.indymedia, Thursday evening)

Over 5,000 people demonstrated today in the city center of Patras, an unprecedented magnitude for this city.

The provocation of cops & neonazis worked as a boomerang against them, as the people realized the role played by... "infuriated [citizens; the name traditionally assigned to the puppets of the greek shadow state by mass media & the state itself]" & flooded the streets.

Let it be remarked that a municipality cop [one part "neighborhood cop," one part "traffic cop," & one part common snitch] was lynched today in the city center. [Indeed: this reports that the cop was beaten by peddlers who were trying to sell their produce in the market, apparently without a license.]

At this moment [21:00 local time], there's a large demonstration going on in Patras, despite the terror crusade unleashed by local [TV] channels. Riot Squad forces have sealed off all side streets. Concurrently, SYRIZA [Coalition of the Radical Left; been given about 15% by recent gallops on the citizens' voting intention] organizes a gathering in Georgiou square with [former party leader Alekos] Alavanos. In the morning, the commerce chamber denied that anything was damaged - in fact, the sole merchant that talked on TV said that his storefront was smashed up by cops during the stone exchange with the demonstrators.

Special guard: Tough & unrepentant (Despoina Mprousali, Vima, Wednesday evening)

Without a trace of repentance or guilt regarding the murder of the 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, the special guard Epameinondas Korkoneas testified yesterday to the 9th Magistrate Mr. F. Vlahos. As tough as a "pistolero" & unrepentant as if the student's death was not effectuated by his actions, the 37 year old defendant did not limit himself to rebuting the eyewitnesses[' accounts] which state that he aimed at the 15-year-old & fired with no other precedent than a verbal exchange. He went further by attempting to soil the memory of the person who fell dead from his firearm's shots. In particular, he presented the dead & his group of friends as offsprings of affluent families, for whom Exarchia square was the recreational area of choice & who caused unrest in [football] fields! & he concluded by attributing "deviant behavior" to him!

Epameinondas Korkoneas & his colleague Vasileios Saraliotis - who is a codefendant for abetting voluntary manslaughter [note that the term 'voluntary manslaughter' might not be misleadingly translated] - were both judged fit for detention following their testimonies & with both the Magistrate & the District Attorney agreeing on this point. During their transportation to the Evelpidon Court House, they were being protected by a significant police force which prevented the journalists from entering building 9 where the Magistrate's offices are located. Moreover, [&] as a response to the serial questions on the identity of the person who had ordered this [prevention of entry], the policemen pointed out the superior of the trimember administration [committee] of the Athens Court of First Instance Mr. Kranis who, in turn, pointed to the direction of the person in charge of the police force. The heavy security, though, did not prevent a group of youths hurling molotov bombs at the entrance to the court house, a fact which led to a TV van catching fire.

The attitude of the 11-page long affidavit which E. Korkoneas submitted to the Magistrate has already made its impact felt among law experts. In fact, the following two facts received the most attention from law experts:

- The fact that the special guard does not recall the number of bullets he fired. The defendant spoke of "two warning shots fired in the air" & commented that it's possible that he also fired a third one, since, as he claimed, "I hadn't realized [that], but my codefendant reminded me of it."

- All the insults he hurled at the dead, among which his claim that Alexandros had been expelled from the Moraitis School [a private school in Athens, mostly for the affluent]. Nevertheless, this point has also been negated by the Moraitis School itself which, in an announcement made public yesterday, reports that Alexandros "studied in the Moraitis School from the first grade of primary school until the third grade of secondary school. Following his subsequent graduation from junior high school, his mother - with which the school has always had the best of cooperations - decided, as it often happens, to enroll him in another high school without the [Moraitis] school exerting any influence on the events." Concluding, the Moraitis School remarks that, for the duration of his studies, "Alexandros had exceptional relations with his fellow male & female students, he was particularly loved by the staff, [&] his attitude was very good & reported [in his report card] as most proper (which it also was)."

The 37-year-old special guard claimed, through his affidavit, that he would not aim his gun at a person under any circumstances, "especially not at a teenager, because of the special sensitivity I possess for kids, as I am the father of three underage children." Continuing, he mentioned that, on the fateful day & in the crossroads of Harilaou Trikoupi street & Navarinou street, & while he was cruising in his police car together with his codefendant, "we were attacked from a group of approximately 30 people which kept screamng "cops, you bums, we'll burn you alive."" As explanation for [their choice of] returning on foot [to the point where he later fired], he offered a "group of anarchists" which they followed in order to inform further the Riot Squad in Harilaou Trikoupi street "which was a certain target for the anarchists." & he claimed that the group of youths assumed the offensive with "flares, molotov bombs, marble slates, metal ashtrays & other heavy objects."

University students announce occupations with political demands (TVXS team, TVXS, Friday; small hours...)

In today's meeting by a group of university students which took place in the Polytechnic, a sequence of actions & political demands was decided upon, starring among which the resignation of the Minister of Public Order. Mentioned among action points is the proposal for the creation of a radio station in the Polytechnic & the occupation of mass media.

The announcement concludes as follows:
We demand:
Down with the murderes' government-resignation for the Minister of Public Order & all those responsible.
The immediate & final conviction of the murderers-policemen & of their superiors.
Down with the anti-worker, anti-popular politics of this government as a whole.
Retreat of the Riot Squad from streets, demos, marches & from the Polytechnic area.
The disarmament of special forces.
The immediate release of those arrested during the demos.
Abolition of the immunity for members of the parliament which eradicates crimes.

We proceed to:
Pan-educational, pan-popular march on Friday, December 12 & sealing off of the Parliament at noon.
Pan-popular march on Friday at 18:00.
Long-term occupation of schools & university departments.
Protestation at the court hearings of those arrested.
Reaching out to schools-communication committee with the school students.
Daily coordination processes in the Polytechnic.
Turning the lower Polytechnic into a center of struggle.

We propose the following action points:
Creating a radio station-occupying mass media.
Installing a pharmacy in the Polytechnic.
Resistance to arrests & organized/coordinated popular anti-violence.

The misunderstanding (Stelios Kouloglou, TVXS, Thursday morning)

Mr. Kougias [who was appointed to represent the cop who shot the lethal bullets, following the resignation of his initial representative] had to come on stage in order to let the truth be heard: the country has been shaken up for 5 days due to a misunderstanding. The policeman did not want to murder Alexis Grigoropoulos, but [instead] to shoot in the air in order to scare the crowd that was about to attack him. It's just that the bullet misunderstood his intentions & got stuck in the 16-year-old student's heart. & it occurred to nobody to ask him how he walked away in his leisure from the infuriated crowd [that was about to attack him...] or why he didn't rush, as he owed to do, to help the kid which he supposedly wounded by mistake.

It was a misunderstanding that Alexis was a kid full of smiles, like all [the boys] of his age. In reality, he was a hooligan of the Northern Suburbs [the more affluent part of the city, in a city where class relations are definitely evident] - with an impeccable behavior [as the Moraitis School announcement clarifies]. The representative of the defendant, who obviously helped his client put together his affidavit, steered the public debate into a street that it should not have taken: you don't shoot a 16-year-old kid, even if he's the devil incarnate.

What's [genuinely] bad is that most mass media adopt the same theory of a misunderstanding . In most TV debates or reports, you see see nothing except for pictures of destruction & lame analyses regarding the "hooded ones." Apart from a minimum amount of exceptions, most do not understand that the school students which occupied the police station in Voula did not do it because the mistook its chief for their father & wanted to claim their revenge from him: they did it because they're outraged with their lives & with the society they're called to get integrated into.

There's no other country in the world with such a tough, uninteresting, stressful, soulless educational system as the greek one, the pinnacle of which are the introductory exams [which one has to take to enter tertiary education]. There's no other country that has, in a period of 30 years, altered a system which everybody considers as a failure. & there's no other country that rewards a super-effort spanning a decade with breadcrumbs amounting to 700 euros [the starting salary for most jobs in the 20's demographic is, reportedly, 66o euro]. Excluding countries at war, there's no other country that prohibits its teenagers from enjoying their [young] age. In the most enlightening picture of these [last few] days, at noon [&] in Syntagma square, the demonstrators stopped & played football [here]. That's what kids should mostly be doing, but they don't let them be.

In a parent meeting for kids in grade 1 of the secondary school that I attended, the school's principal suggested the following schedule: following the return to home at 16:00, lunch & rest until 17:00, studying from 17:00 to 20:00, & maybe an hour or so of TV! & when you turn on your TV at 20:00, you hear nothing other than [financial] scandals & priests [a reference to the recent Vatopedi scandals] or ministerial fiends that became millionaires in the last 4 years [a possible reference to minister Georgios Voulgarakis who did not limit himself to - allegedly - turning himself into a millionaire in the last 4 years but also felt necessary to be as provocative ασ as possible equating 'what is ethical' with what is 'what is legal' - in a country where I, for one, have trouble recalling the last time a minister was prosecuted for corruption]. There's no youth in the world that can live without hope. What can a young photographer hope in when he shoots the picture that all international news agencies would envy &, instead of receiving the Pulitzer prize, he gets fired? [A direct reference to Kostas Tsironis, the former Eleftheros Typos photographer, who got fired following his shooting the already legendary picture of a cop aiming his firearm at the demonstrators on the very next day after Alexis was murdered - see also the corresponding post below.] They revolted to recapture the lost hope.

This time around, they didn't manage to find [so] many reasons. Because the whole thing was overwhelmed by the damages & the lootings. Because no slogan or demand pointing to specific conquests, which would offer the joy of victory, was formulated. If, though, those responsible believe that what happened is due to a murder in cold blood or a misunderstanding, we should be expecting a lot more misunderstandings.

Reporter wounded (xanthi.press,Wednesday)

The ERA [Hellenic Radio, a.k.a. Greek National Radio] reporter Sami Karampouyoukoglou was beaten up today by Riot Squad forces during today's mobilization in Xanthi's city center.

Following the two-hour strike that the ESIEMTH [Journalists' Union of Macedonia and Thrace Daily Newspapers] had planed for today, Sami Karampouyoukoglou got to the area around the Prefecture of Xanthi to provide coverage on the mobilizations. That's where the marches of GSEE [General Confederation of Greek Workers ], ADEDY [Civil Servants' Union], of the students of the Xanthi Polytechnic & of the prefecture's school students had converged together with teachers who participated in the mobilization. When the university students attempted to occupy the building where the Prefecture is housed, they met resistance from the Riot Squad forces which had already assumed positions.

At that pojnt, the person in charge [of the Riot Squad] asked a second Riot Squad platoon to move in order to encircle the university students. When the latter realized [what was happening], they decided to leave. As soon as the university students turned on their heels to move out, & while [our] colleague was in between the police force & the university students, the Riot Squad started attacking. [Our colleague] was the first among them to be clubbed on the head, which resulted to him being taken to the General Hospital of Xanthi bleeding; there, he got stitched up & left an hour later. Following these events, everything calmed down &, a little while later, the demonstrators & the second Riot Squad platoon left the area.

It's remarkable that there's no question of the university students acting in a provocative or violent way, as they gathered [there] peacefully, while the identity of the journalist was already known [to the police forces] & it's impossible that someone mistook him for a university student. A similar tactic was followed yesterday by the Riot Squad, as they used teargas on the university students while the latter were [already] leaving, a fact that led to unrest. The university students haven't finalized their future mobilization plans. In any case, there's serious talk about the students of the Polytechnic moving to Komotini tomorrow to occupy the building where the Prefecture is housed in collaboration with all of the student associations of the Democritus University.

Flyer destributed in Kozani, Northern Greece

Saturday, 2008.12.06: 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos is executed in Exarchia by a special guard. A little while after, outraged people are gathering in many greek cities in order to demonstrate. In Kozani, at the same time, a banner is put up & the people march.

Sunday, 2008.12.07: 80 people march to the Police Administration of Western Macedonia, where the demonstrators have bypassed the fence & reached the outer periphery of the HQ sloganeering along the way against police terror & without unrest.

Monday, 2008.12.08: School students demonstrate with minor clashes occurring. In the evening, approximately 300 people - school & university students & citizens - gather, & the demo begins. As the demo concludes, the police station is attacked. The police forces use teargas & wounds 2 demonstrators, one of which was immediately hospitalized as he had serious face wounds. A police force got to the hospital immediately & arrested the 3 persons escorting the wounded [demonstrator]. 4 persons that got to the hospital at some later time were also arrested. Later on, clashes occur in the town square & another 6 people are arrested, dragged to the [police] station & beaten up. They did not even respect the 3 girls [arrested], which were humiliated & beaten up by men belonging to the Riot Squad & the police force. Further, inside the [police] station, they underwent psychological pressure & the customary blacklisting. The same charges were pressed on all arrested, irrespectively of whether they were in the hospital or in the demo.

Tueday, 2008.12.09: In the evening, a demo of 150 school students & youngsters takes place, a part of which attacks the police with stones & molotov bombs. 15 get arrested. Hours later, about 40 people who were simply walking around in the center are driven to the station by undercover cops.

The local mass media focus on the material damages, underplaying the fact that a kid lost his life because of a bullet fired by a tool of the state &, concurrently, hide the events which unraveled in the local community, aiming at terrorizing & dividing the public opinion. They do not try to understand the reasons behind the reaction of those kids that take to the streets but focus solely on the acts. These kids were born by the society itself, they're your kids, & society made them hate it. In the last few days, [our] town lives in a state where everything is run by the police, where tens of undercover policemen hang around achieving to instill fear in the citizens. Finally, we refuse to comment on the idiotic rumors about a "bus with anarchists" arriving from Thesaloniki.

Protesting in The Hague (verbal communication, Thursday)

So, yes, there had been a vague call on Monday (in amsterdam.indymedia, in fact) to get together & organize a demo or some sort of action. I don't necessarily go for that kind of thing... last time I participated in a demo, it was against the Iraq war. You know how it is, "what if" - I get arrested, beaten up, show up & know no one (I never know anyone anyhow), the works... But this time, just like that time with Iraq, I just couldn't believe it. That this happened, & that they're gonna get away with it, you know? Anyway, that's why I contacted the kids - greek students, of course; I even inquired after political affiliations & the like, to make sure I don't - well, there are no two ways about it, quite honestly... get in trouble. I wanted to scream & I wanted people to hear & I wanted it to have an efect, but I didn't want to spend the night in a cell - how middle-class & selfish is that, right?... So yeah, that's how I learned that we're meeting in The Hague the following evening, Tuesday.

I had a long train journey scheduled for Tuesday - work. Going towards Utrecht, past which lies The Hague, I kept thinking about getting off the train & going home... But then again I couldn't take this kid I know out of my head - he hadn't replied to my emails & calls, so I thought he might have even gone to greece to protest; how could I look him in the eye & tell him "yeah, in the end I didn't go, I mean, I figured what good could a bunch of greek kids do..."? I couldn't. So I went. I was an hour early, so I grabbed something to eat on the fly & went walking around the city - it's a rather beautiful, of way too posh, city. I was fighting with myself not to turn back & leave. I mean, what are we afraid of - I'm talking about the middle class - really? That they'll take our - WHAT? - away?... So, I decided that I'll get back to the station & check the crowd out - if I only saw hooded guys (I'm greek, right?), I'd split & get back home, no contact made. If I spotted some sensible people, I'd stick it out & see what comes down - I could always take a turn into some back alley after all, right? So, I get there & I can spot two people outside the station already - greek leftists=unshaved, haha! I walk past them & enter; & there, there's a crowd of half a dozen or so & two policemen checking IDs. Naturally - the announcement was posted in Indymedia after all... I walk past them & towards... nowhere, in fact, although that was also the general direction of the train back home; I need to think, you know? I turn, look at them once again, & feel myself propelling myself towards them - I'm not walking, I'm hovering over the ground, this is the impression I get. Right? & my heart pounds like crazy, because I know that I just made my choice. I approach them, ask them in greek if they're the group of people who'll protest & they tell me to wait outside otherwise they'll also check my ID. Naturally, as soon as I take a step, I'm told to stay where I am; we've started, I'm thinking - yeah, I know, this thought makes more sense in greek...

So, that's it, what more can I say? That we all got out &, instead of 8 people - I wasn't expecting any more - we were 30? That a dutch person of turkish descent was most helpful in dealing with the cops (we had to either get a permit to march or possibly face arrest, & there were few people speaking dutch as you can well imagine)? That I was still unsure as to whether we'll march to the embassy or to the police station, but somehow being among these people I had never met before & sharing the same fear with some of them (this was not trivial for every one of us...) gave me back a feeling I had forgotten about? That we got the permit &, instead of 10 or 30, we ended up being over 200? That we marched in between two details of policemen (single file - them, not us) to the cordoned off embassy which was guarded by the dutch Riot Squad (which exhibited a zero reaction to the "No Justice, No Peace, Fuck The Police" - sure, the usual fucking snitch was filming us as in every demo in this country, I hear; they're cops man, I didn't say they're angels...)? That the elderly policeman whom we mostly negotiated with said, in dutch, when we arrived at the embassy "Now let them hear your voice?" Yes man, I kid you not, that's what the guy said! A dutch punk I was in the train back with said "you know why? because the dutch cops also disapprove of the event" - I don't know whether they disapprove or not, but I know what we heard.

So, yeah, I could say all this & even more - about the Antifa people, for example: as soon as I saw them, I imagined trouble... All the way to the end, when I mistook the fucking plainclothes agents for neonazis (as I heard somebody saying on our way back: "taxi drivers, plainclothes cops, & kagoures - they're all cast in the same mould" - yeah, he was greek, what did you expect?). They turned out to be OK people, & they helped us out, you know? Just like the people chanting "elke strijd, onze strijd, internationale solidariteit" - which translates to "every struggle, our struggle, international solidarity" - who also helped us out. Anyhow, as I said, I rode the train halfway back home with a greek girl & a dutch punk; & they all looked like good people, you know? & this relief: that we did this, & hopefully someone heard us - not the ambassador, he was probably having fucking dinner in some fucking posh restaurant... - & we made it to the other end unscathed. & that I could look this young kid I know in the eye, man, I don't think you understand.

That's it then, you said you're gonna translate this & post this on the web? Ha, OK, good luck, gotta go!

Riot Info

2008-12-10T10:39:00.024+01:00

This blog never aspired to being anything more than a music blog with a very modest, albeit tight, focus. Given the absence of information in english on what's going on in greece at the moment, though, I decided to translate a few articles that I found useful in sizing up the situation & post them here. New content will be added throughout the day as I translate it. (If you want to make this count, repost the material here wherever you think appropriate.) A '[]' signifies an addition/parenthetical remark to the original text, the sole perpetrator of & responsible for which remains yours truly.

The spark that set the swamp on fire (Stelios Kouloglou, TVXS, Tuesday at dawn)

A state official who kept a close eye on the governmental incompetence during the [forest] fires which laid waste on the land in 2007 had told me: "they're so incompetent that they become very dangerous. & they're even more dangerous [than that]... because they want to stay on power. I pray to god that they leave calmly, without damaging the country much."

The damage has been done. It took a murder in Exarchia square on Saturday night, a consequence of the spirit of "anything goes" with which the police force was treated in the preceding years, for the [whole] country to be set on fire. The heap of mistakes that followed is so large that it should be taught in Universities, when these manage to function again. On Sunday morning, a [certain] theatrical "resignation" of [minister of the interior Prokopis] Paulopoulos - [his vice-minister Panayotis] Hinofotis was announced, [an antic which] fed the flames [rather than extinguished them]: on Sunday afternoon & evening, dozens of stoers, buildings, & cars got burned.

Afraid that one more protester-victim of an "isolated incident" caused by the special forces would throw them out of power, the government had ordered the police to kill citizens but following a 4-year period: through the tons of carcinogenic chemicals which fell in greek cities in such massive quantities. For the time being, [though, ]no more victims should be allowed.

On Monday morning, [the government] decided to use its big advantage. The prime minister itself addressed a call to the people of greece for the reinstitution of calmness & peace: it may be the case that there's no other example in world history of an appeal from the head of state that went as unnoticed as this one. In a little while, the news arrived: from Argostoli to Hania, the students were revolting. In Berlin, the greek consulate were occupied; in London, they were taking down the greek flag [from the consulate], even in Pafos, Cyprus they were protesting. Police stations were attacked throughout the country. There has even been a demo in Kastoria, presumably the first one following the end of the civil war [seeing as greece's border zone has been for the - often extreme - right wing, following a plan which gave the the status of "monitored zones", with all this status brings with it, in the late '40s/early '50s].

The governmental camp was paralyzed to such an extent that it couldn't even bring itself to order the aw-so-ever-accommodating-in-shelfing-accusations-of-scandals Justice: at the same time, the public prosecutor in the "claypot trial" suggested that the 2 cops accused of the crime be freed of all blame & those accused next to them treated likewise. [Regarding the claypot incident: watch this; then be informed that, according to the head of the police in Thessaloniki where this happened, the youth being severely beaten by plainclothes agents while not-so-plainclothes ones are watching passively was not, in fact, beaten but rather fell on a claypot & hurt himself accidentally; finally, keep in mind that the same prosecutor will, most probably publish nobody for this incident - 'most probably' because the actual decision was kept at bay as soon as the country went up in flames.] The stage was set for what followed in Athens, Thessaloniki or Larisa following the peaceful demos of the left parties & factions: buildings went up in flames one after the other. The government offered an - original indeed - response: it announced that the prime minister would meet the president of the republic - the following day - & would also meet the leaders of the opposition - by Tuesday noon.

That was the "go" for the generalized looting: the interested parties copied the message that, until Tuesday noon at least, police would not interfere. Organized gangs which bore no relation either to the hooded ones or to the protests destroyed every store they happened to chance upon, stealing anything - from TV's down to refreshments. Some suggested that it was a planned drawn by the government so as to steer the public opinion back along the lines of law & order, but this is untrue: they would have liked to have drawn this [plan], but they're not that competent.

Any doubts on this were dispersed by the surrealist statements made by the minister of the interior following the end of the meeting that the government peacefully ensconced itself into until midnight. While full-blown anarchy prevailed in the capital [of the state], Pavlopoulos made it clear that "the government cannot tolerate what is [already] happening" (!) without even hinting at counter-measures! In a new version of the "disproportionate threat" of the forest fires in the summer of 2007 [see also below], he asked the journalists to locate whose interests are served by the unrest & the looting. &, in a climax of detachment from reality, he underlined that "image is one thing & reality is another", meaning that the damages are not as big as the TV [channels] present them to be.

The people who will lay eyes today on the bombed-out city will form a different opinion. No conspiracy theory can stand against the shock caused by the images of destruction. It is self-evident that the government has failed in the elementary duty shared by every government in every country, namely the protection of the property of its citizens. It is the government itself that constitutes a "disproportionate threat" [to use the term coined by former minister Vyron Polydoras to describe what, in his "mind", was a plot organized by anarchists & fuck-knowns-who-else to burn down the country by means of forest fires].

It seemed that, in order to release the pressure,there was no other way than the government's resignation & the announcement of new elections. That's what [head of the socialist party PASOK] Giorgos Papandreou, as well as [head of the Coalition of The Radical Left/SYRIZA] Alexis Tsipras. Even if the govenrment leaves, though, either today or following the protests & the unrest of the coming days, as oppowed to it staying glued on the chair [of power], the crisis will continue to exist. The opposing parties are also part of a system which has reached its outer limits, & they will need to overcome therselves if they don't want to end share the fate of the current government.

Because, regardless of the hooded ones & the looting, this youngsters' & students' uprising in all cities of greece shows that Alexis' murder was merely the spark that set an entire swamp on fire.

Exarchia square is everywhere (Kostas Raptis, Skai, Sunday)

There are those who speak & those who remain silent. Remain silent, although their role is to transmit information & speech. Their silence is deafening &, obviously, guilty.

Who could predict that the greek TV of consecutive this-just-in news bulletins, of the live correspondents for minor things, even of the concealed cameras, would - nearly in its entirety - voluntarily shed its most important weapon, of the image & of the on-the-spot/at-this-moment directness, judging a news item (murder in cold blood of a teenager by a cop and, following this, extensive unrest) which travelled around the world as only worth of degraded/partial coverage more or less during the entire first 24 hours?

Who could imagine that the [TV] channels which were transmitting live even the greek military navy leaving for Imia [a practice that freaked everybody out, as it made public strategic information at a time that the country was getting ready even for war] would adopt, on behalf of the "social peace", a vain - as we can deduce from its outcome - tactic of self-censorship?

Or could it be that the delayed & selective information flow just happened, as another Co-op between the Public & the Private Sector, in anticipation of the (unattainable) "gluing together" of the [state-sanctified] official version, of the smoothening out of the contradictions, of the classification of the mind-blowing incident as some easily digestible, recognizable scenario?

But, of course, better that our media honchos remain silent, since youtube, blogs, & the traditional "from mouth to mouth" left them hopelessly behind.

Better that they remain silent, since anyhow they don't know what it is they're talking about.

Because it would take more sincerity and complexity of thought, than the one we're accustomed to when it comes to televised speech, in order for them to explain to us who takes their outrage to the streets & why.

To explain to us why the "singularity" of Exarchia square was transmitted to Patras, Agrion, Ioannina, Mitilini, Komotini, Volos, & Larisa. To explain to us how the "young antiauthoritarians" were, this time around, not only young & not only antiauthoritarians, but they were certainly resolved not to desert the streets, despite the largest chemical attack this city has ever seen. To explain to us why, as Sky Radio broadcasted, the residents of the destroyed Alexandras Avenue were throwing curses & lemons from their balconies & onto the cops.

It would take a lesser amnesia for the media to put up front, amidst their surprise, words as "Koumis-Kanellopoulou," "Kaltezas," "Temponeras," "green all-stars," "Pakistanis get abducted [in absolute secrecy & denial, by the greek police, & for interrogation related to "terrorism"]," "praetores urbani [another piece of infuriating propaganda by former minster Vyron Polydoras, may the soil lining his grave be light]," "flying claypot [see above]" or to offer a retrospective of the (rich in sin & fiasco) history of especially the Special Task Force.

It would take a clarity larger than the one their Antoinettian autism secures in order to realize that the relation between stimulus & response can sometimes obey Chaos Theory, especially when the appropriate explosive substratum has been accumulated.

Since what else is the substratum of a society which, were we to believe the statistics, the feeling of absence of [viable] perspectives has nothing to be jealous of from a parisian suburb? Where the continuous deterioration of living standards is ornamented, day & night, by all sorts of humiliations by minor & major representatives of the state? Where political, economical, & syndicalist leaderships conspire in plain daylight against the first generation in the postwar era which is guaranteed to have a worse fate than that of its parents? Where the "state heavyweights" wear anomie & untouchability as medals, taking pride in their disgraces, related to the Vatopedi deals or any other deals?

Naturally, instead of [focusing on] these [disgraces], we can focus on the cinders that suddelny filled the capital's streets: but the cinders are not in a state to tell us anything &, when they appear, it's already too late.

So let's push away the troubling questions. Let the tape, [already] aired a thousand times over [in the past], play on: "a few traitors," "responsibility will be assigned to its fullest extent," "we condemn violence no matter where it originates," "the resignations were not accepted," "who's the puppet master of the hooded ones."

Maybe, even, it'll become necessary for the prime minister to hurry to the [greek] Pentagon, dressed in a bomber jacket, as the case was during last year's [forest] fires. In this case, at least, his attire will not be out of season...

Agent provocateurs [embedded] in the police? (TVXS team, TVXS, Tuesday evening)

The photo was shot yesterday night outside the police station on Kallidromiou street [a 5 minute walk from Exarchia square]; it shows three individuals in civilian attire, one of which wears a motorbike helmet & holds a crowbar, resting among the cops. The eyewitness who shot the photo commented to tvxs that they held that position for about half an hour.

Other witnesses that went through the same neighborhood today at noon reported that certain individuals with full-face masks & crowbars were parading without a care in the world among the cops standing guard outside the police station.

The photo & the reports are added to other info insisting that, in the last few days, agent provocateurs are active in damaging [property] aiming at reversing the public outrage at the murder. It is certain, for example, that certain of the hooded demonstrators who caused damages or threw molotov cocktails come from Exarchia square or are students. Nevertheless, anarchist groeps from the region of Exarchia square claim that they were not involved in the damaging of stores [which took place] on Saturday night in the region around Ermou street, moments after the murder.

[Here's another photo published as a follow-up

at both TVXS and athens.indymedia.org.]

The photographer who shot the best picture of recent days gets fired (TVXS team, TVXS, Wednesday evening)

The Eleftheros Typos photographer Kostas Tsironis, who shot the pictures showing cops aiming at demonstrators was fired by the newspaper. [TVXS's Mr. Kouloglou was similarly fired by st]

TVXS contacted Mr. Kotrotsos & he stated that he couldn't publish them before The photos were shot on Sunday afternoon in Alexandras Avenue. Mr. Tsironis handed them over to the newspaper director Serafeim Kotrotso a little while later. According to what Mr. Kotrotsos said to TVXS, Mr. Kotrotsos stated in the beginning that this is a big journalistic triumph. Continuing, though, he told him that this really concerned a firearm & not a pistol meant to shoot a flare. The photographer assured him that this is a 9mm Glock, one of those without safety. To certify this, he showed him another picture where the muzzle is visible. TVXS contacted him & Mr. Kotrotsos stated that eh couldn't publish the photos before consulting specialists, as this concerns an explosive political issue.

On Monday, the consultation with specialists took place; they confirmed that this is a firearm. In the afternoon of the same day, Mr. Tsironis was informed by the graphics people putting the newspaper together that the photos had been withdrawn from the cover page they were preparing for Tuesday. He complained to his superior in the photoreporters' department, who told him that the "maybe the pictures will be published in some inner page." The conversation occurred in the presence of many journalists who confirmed this sequence of events to TVXS. During the same conversation, the photographer said that the news about the existence of these photos had already leaked out & that, unless they were published in the front page, the journal would miss [the opportunity for] a great journalistic success.

The photos finally found their way into the inner pages of the paper, while they had already leaked out to international news agencies & were available on the internet. The photographer was informed not to cover the funeral of [Saturday's victim] Alexis Grigoropoulos, & a little while later he was informed that he's fired. S. Kotrotsos stated to TVXS that he had the intention of publishing the photos & that the photoreporter was fired on account of violating his exclusive contract with Eleftheros Typos by leaking out the photos. The photographer, though, claims that this is an attempt at political censorship. He says that he's not responsible for the photos leaking out, as many people working in the journal had access to them after they had been handed in. He also adds that, if they hadn't leaked out, "they would have never been published."

Following the publication of the pictures, the police announced that there's an internal investigation regarding the incident. Nobody has contacted the photographer.

Flyer distributed outside a central subway station (Initiative of anarchists/antiauthoritarians from the southern suburbs, athens.indymedia, Tuesday)

On Saturday night, December 6 2008, a murderer took out his gun & executed in cold blood a citizen, Alexandros. What is even more tragic in this murder is that the murderer, a policeman by profession, killed a 16 years old kid.

The incident happened in Exarchia square, at the intersection of Tzavella & Messologiou streets. A location where any one of us could be at. A location which could part of any neighborhood. The eyewitnesses of the incident report that the murder was predated by a plain word exchange. But the Proud Greek Murderer could not swallow the insult & he took out his gun. & he executed. In cold blood.

This murder is not a random incident. Neither is it isolated. It is yet another link in the endless series of murderous attacks carried out by the various police stations/departments. Let us not forget the murder of the pakistani immigrant in Petrou Ralli street, while he was waiting in the queue to aply for asylum (in a queue where the state itself had directed him to stand). Let us not forget that a woman was murdered recently in Leukimmi, as a result of the Riot Squad's actions, during a march against the installation of a dumpster in their neighborhood. Unfortunately, the list has no end. Let us not forget the tortures perpetrated by policemen in police stations & prisons. Let us not forget the intentionally murderous attitude of the law enforcers, with countless chemicals, fire bombs, shots, beatings, in every instance where people take to the streets, during strikes, student [demonstrations], local issues (it's not long ago that the police choked the entire region around the High Voltage Station in Argyroupoli using teargas & beat up our neighbors). This is their role. Let us not have any illusions: to beat up & to murder so as to transmit the message "we & our bosses are the law, every one resisting will be beaten up mercilessly & there's still more."

& who are their bosses? Could they be the owners of bank branches? Could they be the owners of chain stores? Could it be the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce & Industry? Could they be all those pressing for more work from our side with less money & inferior security? Could they be all those getting rich through the the interest rates, while thousands of people deteriorate to despair? Could they be all those using profiteering, both against us & against the producers, through the prices they impose on supermarkets for bare necessities? Could they be the ones who reap super profits in good times while, in bad times, resort to layoffs & paycuts? Then, yes, it only makes sense that the public outrage is also directed towards them. It makes sense & it is appropriate that police stations, banks, & chain stores are being attacked. They talk about material damages while a new death has been added [to the list]. If personal property is the only thing of interest to them, then the revolters are justified. We have to understand that, when horror does not awaken consciousness, the smell of burning is necessary.

Is it possible that we take no stance amidst all these incidents & the uprising in progress? Can we ever be with the ones who always request "order & calmness?" Who always, even during the [german] occupation [in WW2] or the military regime [1967-1974], they only wanted to "mind their own business & live their own inconsequential life?" Who see "provocation" & "familiar strangers" perpetually & omnipresently? Who always interpret society with a terminology of conspiracy, used to leadership playacting in their inapproachable offices? Let us not be swayed that the incidents concern, each & every time, "those on strike," the "university students," the "youngsters." It's the people who's on the streets these [last few] days, without "central management," "instructors" & "the enlightened avant-guard." The media to be used are deciced freely by every revolter. They concern us, as they [also] concern the residents of Exarchia square who took a stance in what was presented as "hide-&-seek vendetta between policemen & anarchists." During the weekend, they were throwing claypots from their balconies & were demanding that the Riot Squad teams are removed & that chemical spraying stops. They took a stance, they didn't pretend to be Pontius Pilate. They took a stance against state repression. Hence, all of us also need to take a stance.We have to put forth, up, & against our resistance to the imposition of a state of fear & "in cast" [unforgettable statement of the prime conspirator of the aforementioned greek junta, in which he informed greek citizens that he intents to "put greece in the cast"], of a police state.

No State Murder Unanswered

Freedom To All Those Arrested

Silence Is Complicity

The shadow state lives... (indy.gr, Tuesday dawn)

To start with, I'd like to inform you that I'm a university student in Patras & what I report below is an eyewitness account of incidents I experienced & not somebody else's
narration/hearsay...

Unfortunately, Patras saw the resurrection of the "ghost" of '91, when Nikos Temponeras was murdered. In that case, the parakratikoi [the other-other hand of the greek state: the activist leg of the greek extreme right wing helping the greek state out in a time honored tradition going at least as far back as the '50s] counter-occupied [the already occupied schools] throughout greece after they had been incited to do exactly that by then-minister of education Vassilis Kontogianopoulos. In one of those [counter-occupations], Nikos Temponeras - a teacher - was killed [with a crowbar...] by the leader of ONNED [the youth organization of Nea Dimokratia - which party is ruling the country today, by the way] Ioannis Kalampokas.

Today, December 9, saw 2 demos in Patras. One of them at 11 in the morning with zero unrest. The other one at 3 in the afternoon. During this latter demo, extensive unrest was notable. I'd like to remark that no vandalism against small, privately-owned businesses took place. The targets were the Germanos [electronics chain store] & WIND [mobile telephony] stores. Nobody's property was damaged.

At some point, certain members of the well-known fascist organization Hrisi Avgi (Golden Dawn), together with plainclothes agents - & not infuriated citizens, as the mass media insist [on calling them] - started throwing rocks & chasing remonstrators with their clubs. For this reason, rudimentary barricades were put together in the streets around the University of Patras department [located there]. These barricades, though, were violated relatively soon with the help of the Riot Squad which kept throwing teargas at large.

When the barricades were torn apart, the people started retreating little by little. In the front, street fights between antiauthoritarians & neonazis-ONNED members. Behind them, members of student collectives formed an outer shell [typically called a "chain" & made up by people holding on to each other & to banners, with the rest inside it; much like a fence] in order to protect themselves. The neonazis were running with clubs & knives towards the demonstrators, while at the same time they were hurling rocks [at them].

When, eventually, the neonazis together with the ONNED members got way too close to the people, those people started running panic-stricken. The "infuriated citizens" were yelling slogans against immigrants, anarchists, & leftists. Slogans such as "Anarchists, sons of whores" etc., together with the fact that, later, they took to the direction of the immigrant shanty town & took out knives (a well-documented way of attack, as far as Golden Dawn members go) made it clear once & for all who these "infuriated citizens," as they are called by mass media, are.

There are even photos in indymedia patras proving that those damaging stores are the same with those chasing after the demonstrators. Here, I'd like to emphasize that those committing arson & causing damages have no relation whatsoever with either the antiauthoritarian circles or any left wing factions. They are mpahaloi [a specific subclass of people subscribing to some vague nihilist ideology - if they subscribe to any ideology at all - & in it for the excitement of wreaking havoc], agents provocateurs, & hooligans...

According to certain information (I haven't crosschecked it), a demonstrator was stabbed & carried to the hospital. As I'm writing this (3 in the morning), the center of Patras is chokefull of armed neonazis & plainclothes agents. Personally, I'm not sleeping at home tonight, because I can't get there...

For one more time, the shadow state acts with the police's blessings. Naturally, it's the government who's behind all this & who's the sole one responsible for this parade of shadow state antics & violence.

The only way to crush terrorism is mas demos... The government's aim is plain to see: to keep the people away from demonstrating by using violence & terrorism. If they wanted to catch the "hooded ones" they'd done it! The mass media play the role of the sycophant repeating inaccuracies...

To the streets, then, to crush terror...

Attack at the Petroupoli police station ("Nikos Vaggalis" [see Soti Triantafyllou's 'The Pencil Factory'], athens.indymedia, Wednesday evening)

The youngsters of Petroupoli taught cops & parents a good lesson.

Wednesday, December 10 2008. About 100 youngsters stand in a narrow street across the Petroupoli PD. The cops are hiding behind a vehicle 30 meters to the left of the PD. The outrage is accumulating & some stones are hurled. The mayor - a PASOK [greek socialist party, in essence what this country can call a center party] - the vice-mayor etc. are trying to talk sense into them. Alongside one finds the usual KKE [greek communist party, widely perceived as a stalinist party] youth members are talking against SYRIZA [left progressive coalition attracting a lot of attention - & venom - recently] [members of] which demonstrated earlier today. At some point, the sparkle is there. Youngsters grab trashcans & seal the avenue off. They start a fire & the traffic is interrupted. They attack & stones fall like hail. Smiling faces, groups of passionate kids stone the PD. The cops are hiding inside, while a humongous mercedes (who owns it, in fact?) attracts [a hail of] stones. People are gathering in nearby minor streets, while slogans add to the moment. Two cops try to run into the PD. They shield themselves while stones land on them, they run like rabbits. Youths come from the nearby minor streets & unite with the rest. The kids break claypots while the PD receives a hail of stones. They push forward, throw the trashcans in front of the PD, & they approach even more - the guard's cabinet receives the first stones. The initial hesitation & fear is transformed into nerve & decisiveness. A cop gets up on the 3rd floor & throws a flare into the crowd. The kids disperse into the narrow street, they're all kids - 15, 16, 17 years old - but the return. HAVOC, they push forward & don't give a damn. An elderly person incites them to attack the cops & not the stores. Big deal - the kids themselves had been repeating this, NO STORES, JUST COPS! & then, a Riot Squad shows up at the lower part of Petroupoleos Avenue. The kids receive a sequence of teargas canisters. A youngster tries to jerk a trashcan away from the place in front of the KKE building to seal off the street & an old-timer KKE member goes into amok & jumps him - poor guy's setting for a heart attack - red in the face (wearing the party's war paint, it seems!). Similarly, KNE [KKE's youth league] members harass them verbally, while the Riot Squad go on chasing after them (well done KNE, great solidarity to a bunch of kids chased by the Riot Squad). Luckily, an elderly but equally young [at heart] person stood for the kids, telling the KNE members that this is the real youth & you'll ever have them. The KNE members shut their trap &, immediately, the kids went on running the avenue uphill while the Riot Squad was attacking (there was this fat guy among them that was totally not up to it; where are you sending this guy, no comradely solidarity among those cops). At that point, a youngster offers by way of slogan BANKS! The stones from the kids-without-hoods bring down bank windowshops & they they keep going towards the square. & thus were the first banks in Petroupoli attacked. GOOD START!!! (& don't tell me that Millenium & ASPIS [both of them banks with nation-wide networks] are little business...)

That's what I managed to see, the rest can add more info.

Well done kids, you're the best, you are the ones having dignity & no one else, leave the rest behind in the cafe's guarding their parties' trash. In every neighborhood, in every suburb, riots will keep breaking out, get a clue, there's a spantaneous revolt going on & no one's leading it!

Stay well kids.

Hand-written letter distributed in Alexis' funeral

We want a better world!
Help us

We are no terrorists, "hooded individuals", "familiar strangers"
We are your kids!
These, the familiar strangers....
We have dreams - don't kill our dreams!
We have momentum - don't put a stop to our momentum.
Recall!
You have also been young.
Now you run after money, care only for the "packaging", got fatter, went bald, you forgot!
We were expecting you to support us
We were expecting you to care,
you to make us proud if only for once.
In vain!
You live fake lives, have bowed your head, dropped your pants and wait the day you'll die.
You don't imagine, you don't fall in love, you don't create!
You just buy & sell.
Matter everywhere
Love, nowhere – truth, nowhere
Where are the parents; Where are the artists;
Why don't the step out to protect us;
They are killing us!
Help us

The Kids

P.S.: Use no more teargas on us - we're crying on our own accord.

Inside the Athens Polytechnic, which has been transformed into a fort, young greeks talk about the "civil war." (Elise Vincent, Le Monde, Tuesday)

Their citadel has no observatory, but classes meant for teaching. That's where they put together their wall of protection. This is the Athens Polytechnic, which normally counts 13,000 students. Three days after the death of a young, 15 years old boy, killed by a policeman on December 6 a few meters away [from here], the Polytechnic became the principal fort of of that which many among them call "civl war."

"They" are students, they are active youths, boys, girls. The hoods & the scarfs keep them protected from teargas & also hide their beards & their earrings.

An entire generation, in fact: they're between 15 & 35 years old. An entire society, also: those payed a minimum-wage, young workers, militants of the far left, & others unattached. It's their rioting gear - dark clothing, Converse shoes - that blurs the lines. Their leitmotif is the hate against "Cops, Pigs, Murderers," equivalent to [the french variant] "CRS, SS." At the foot of the graffiti-covered brown walls of the University, behind which they regroup in between street clashes, they speak nothing but this language. The institute, which serves them as a camp for regrouping, has galvanized them: it's there that, in 1974, the student revolt which precipitated the fall of the colonels' regime - a military dictatorship which governed greece from 1967 to 1974 - started. Today, the law prohibits law enforcers from breaking in.

This, the night of December 8, is the third continuous white night[/allnighter] for certain people in this advantageous point. They daydream about their turn to overthrow a government, that of center-right Kostas Karamanlis which is actually in power right now.

They hold this government responsible for corruption & for [promoting] social inequality. Responsible also for their starting salaries of 650 euro per month, for their necessity to live together, for many of them, with ther parents until they're 30 years old. "We have no job, no money, a state which falters because of the crisis, & all they offer as an answer is arming the policemen," recaps one of them. "Well, maybe what we do is not right, but at least we're doing something." The burning planks, which keep them warm at each one of the three entrances of the Polytechnic, light up the dark circles underneath their eyes more than their barricades. Because, [this day also] as the days before & apart from fighting, they have also demonstrated within the day on the streets of the capital.

This Monday, the demo started from Omonoia square at the end of the afternoon. But the events have degenerated very quickly, just like yesterday & the day before it. Some assumed a pacifist method. But among them, the "hooded ones" wanted more. This is the most violent night since December 6.

The center of Athens is ravaged in their wake. Inside a perimeter of many square kilometers, which have been cordoned off for the occasion, there are hardly 50 meters which have escaped their destruction. Here, a cinema entirely burned; there, dozens of burning stores. The phone booths are attacked systematically, just like bus stops. The fractured windowshops are innumerable. The christmas tree which was decorating the big central Syntagma square quickly ended up as charcoal. A demonstrator yells through a megaphone "Calm down, guys, calm down!" In vain.

At around 10pm, the demo is dispersing & many return to the HQ. There, in the Polytechnic, where, after many hours of playing the cat & the mouse with the Riot Squad, they cough, they spit, their throat feeling abrassive from the teargas which cover the entire city center. There where there's cries, explosions, screams amidst fire vehicles' sirens which are as numerous as the policemen. But also there where, eventually, in the repossessed cafeteria, one can hope for some lukewarm coffee.

"Maybe you had to depart so that we wake up"

Inside the school's yard, the "civil war" is being organized methodically. In a corner, sheltered from stray looks, a group makes Molotov cocktails. In another one, scooter & motorbike owners do the rounds in the nearby regions. Finally, in yet another corner, one finds the quarter of the "hooded ones," all of them in their black uniform & a bit incisive.

In the seventh & highest floor of one of the buildings deep in the yard, the administration itself is there, reclusive. They're about a dozen, keeping guard in turns. "In the beginning, we were more numerous, but yes, people begin to grow tired," offers by way of explanation the University's vice-president, Gerasimos Spathis. He observes with benevolence, & even with enthusiasm, what happens in his zone.

Mostly because the professorial corps, as well as the University's administrative body, have been profoundly opposed to the government, & in particular to its "department privatization" policy, since times immemorial. Hence, with a view of the "hooded ones" who rip slates off the terraces to throw them, Mr. Spathis encourages from the seventh floor where he found a refuge: "This is a lesser evil," he estimates; "if it weren't this way, there'd be deaths." Amidst apartment buildings, at a crossroads of four narrow, dirty streets, flowers & candles have been arranged at the spot where Andreas Grigoropoulos died, on December 6, following a shot fired by a policeman. A notepad with blank pages has also been left there, together with a roll of Scotch tape & four pens.

Dozens of words written & hung on a piece of wall over the candles. A posthumous message: "Have a good trip Andrea. Maybe you had to depart so that we wake up. You'll always be in our hearts, the last innocent blood." On Tuesday, a [secondary school] student demo & another one of teachers have been scheduled in Athens & other large cities, as well as Andreas Grigoropoulos' funeral. On Wednesday, a 24-hour general strike has been announced against government reforms.

Cop Killer

2008-12-08T15:58:00.008+01:00

It makes little sense to try & recap what happened on Saturday in Athens - a 15 year old fell dead from a bullet fired by a cop (see here, for example...); the same cop supported (yes, indirectly, thank you - classify under 'reciting lame facts'...) by every one of us paying taxes, every one of us pretending not to notice whenever throngs of armed cops abuse people on the street, every one of us reciting lame facts to suppress the fear that greece is already experiencing a new type of junta, & every one of us who will let this pass & classify it under 'time heals everything.' Time does not heal death, it does not heal the family of the departed, it does not heal the wounds & scars of those who took to the streets to protest & were taken captive by the pigs, & it does not sentence the killer to the maximum sentence allowed by law in one of the greek prisons that his clan guards.

The minister of the interior was reportedly not allowed by the PM to resign. If he is not allowed to step down, maybe the whole fucking government should step down.

I intended to embed the video of Body Count's "Cop Killer" here (whoo! radical!...), but I won't. Instead, I'll quote Italo Calvino from his short story "Beheading The Heads" (translated by Tim Parks) which you can get online in pdf format. & I'll keep reminding myself Douglas Rushkoff's words 'All I see is people who'd like to do something and don't understand why their keyboards can't help them' (written at the time & on the subject of NATO bombing Serbia).

- (...)'So you're happy? Did you hate them? Were they bad leaders?'

- 'No, what gave you that idea?' they exchanged looks of surprise. 'They were good. Or rather, no better and no worse than anyone else. Well, you know what they're like: heads of state, leaders, commanders... to get one of those jobs... '

- 'Still,' one of them said, 'I liked this lot.'

- 'Me too. And me,' others agreed. 'I never had anything against them.'

- 'So aren't you sad they're killing them?' I said.

- 'What can you do? If someone agrees to be a leader he knows how he'll end up. He could hardly expect to die in his bed!'

The others laughed. 'That'd be a fine thing! Someone rules, commands, then, as if nothing had happened, stops and goes back home.' (...)

3 Split LP's

2008-12-02T17:58:00.002+01:00

It's been quite sometime since the last post, during which all of the content added to this blog has been graciously contributed by those reading it. (& what a surprise it was to find out that some people actually read part of it - no, really.) I haven't gotten any closer to ripping the Radio Utopia tapes, as I have been swamped with work & personal stuff (friends visting us/us visiting friends) - a tape takes about ten hours to rip, divide into tracks, compress, listen to in order to tag, tag, & catalog, & there's been no time at all to do any of that recently. I've ripped about 1/3 of my tapes by now, & I hope that I'll do more during vacation time, but don't expect much any time too soon. Spring looks more like it.

To ease the pain, meanwhile, I'll proceed with uploading three freshly & lovingly ripped split records featuring one greek band each: the Mushroom Attack/Forgotten Prophecy LP (1991), the WWK/Πανικός LP (1996), & the Knallkopf/Stateless In The Universe LP (2001 or shortly after - if you know the release date of this one, please post a comment!). The B-side tracks of all three records have been available in the internet for 7-8 years, ripped (mostly in low bitrates) by the first generation of techno-savvy greek punks (to which I, among others, remain deeply & irrevocably grateful). Apparently, in an attempt to catalog the recordings of the greek scene, those people made the - in my opinion misguided - choice to not include Side-A tracks. A somewhat ironic state of affairs, given punk's self-proclaimed internationalist character, although this particular choice was most probably due to lack of means/time/critical thinking (or otherwise is a sign of poor judgment &/or sheer laziness). I am significantly less understanding, though, when it comes to contemporary greek mp3 blogs (re)posting these mp3's, occasionally with historical notes & words of wisdom but often without bothering to comment on the fact that the foreign bands' tracks are not included. (Not that mp3 blogging is, in my opinion & for some bloggers, much more than a perfection of the art of reposting what's already available.)

Anyhow - unless I'm very much mistaken, the first two of these three records have previously appeared in full (in other rips) while the third one hasn't: the Mushroom Attack/Forgotten Prophecy LP was kindly ripped by & posted in Malisha Old 666's blog (Malisha is Croatian), while the WWK/Πανικός one in Foris's blog. Seeing as the Stateless In The Universe tracks have also appeared in punk.gr's music database, the sole direct benefit of this post is that the Knallkopf tunes & the record's booklet appear in a blog for the very first time (completists of the world unite).

At any rate, & as per usual, you can skip down to the download links - what follows is the usual mix of 90% reminiscence (or self-indulgence, if you must) & 10% historical fact (often inaccurate) for which I expect to be put up against the wall when the revolution comes.

Regarding Mushroom Attack (or virtually any other dutch band, especially those coming from Groningen), see bacteria's page here - suffice it to say that Mushroom Attack are, essentially, pre-Fleas & Lice (I would even dare say that they are more refreshing & original than Fleas & Lice, if somewhat sloppier). I only discovered them through this record, so I've nothing to add to what can already be found in the web - good, refreshingly imaginative kraakpunk with a nerve & audacity somewhat characteristic of dutch bands. (Note, for example, how they raise the issue of political asylum a full decade before exclusion became a european priority, & then link it to the fact that the country has traditionally been receiving a large number of asylum seekers.) As for Ξεχασμένη Προφητεία (Xehasmeni Profiteia/Forgotten Prophecy), look at Malisha's post (linked above) &, most notably, at Billy's comment on it ('Ntinos,' that Billy refers to, is Ntinos Zoumperis). Αλέκος (Alex, for those abroad) has been around for over two decades now with some of the most influential athenian crust bands; my earliest memory of his is the back cover of the Χαοτικό Τέλος (Haotiko Telos/Chaotic End) "Μπροστά Στην Παράνοια (Mprosta Stin Paranoia/In Front Of Paranoia)" LP, circa 1993, with the band posing on top of a big rock (here). I never liked that record (modulo the burgundy vinyl...), until I got hold of a copy of their "Πόλεμος Του Μίσους (Polemos Tou Misous/War Of Hate)" demo less than a decade ago (thanks to Agathocles' Jan AG, who still has it in his distro along with the Ναυτία demos!) - that one hit the spot for sure! Of course, by that time Hibernation were also in the process of releasing their first 7", & the rest is history... Αλέκος & Γιάννα are definitely two of the people I look up to in terms of commitment/continuity & of defying the punk stereotype in more than one ways. (Note for the aforementioned completists: the sample concluding "Never Ending Road" comes from Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK," while that concluding the "Tale Or Reality" comes from Κοινωνικά Απόβλητα;'s (Koinonika Apovlita?/Social Outcasts?) "Folklore.") So what do we have here? Well, the birth of the athenian crust legacy of course! Heavy, lengthy crust masterpieces from a time when crust was not stale (amazingly enough, one can still hear traces of this sound in Hibernation's work). Equally importantly, the lyrical content is genuinely reflective, avoiding 'war=bad' pitfalls (&, unbelievably enough, one can also see certain themes resurfacing in Hibernation's work more than a decade later!). Altogether a great listen.

WWK are a german band of which I know very little, apart from the fact that they have been around for ages (since 1986, reportedly) & that they released a new LP in 2004 which had something funny going on with the cover (but I'm not sure what, as I never got hold of it). Not my cup of tea at all: those into '90s german punk & HC will not be disappointed, whereas the rest might find them somewhat derivative or outright too chaotic. Πανικός (Panikos/Panic) , on the other hand, are a crust band from Thessaloniki which has recently reformed - for more information on & recordings from them, check out Foris's blog linked above. I came across the name through a very close (& very old) friend, who once said something along the lines of 'My schoolmates who play in Πανικός, at least, realized their lifelong dream: to play with Doom' (I still have the poster from that show, I think...) - despite that, I somehow failed to catch them live in their heyday. Or, maybe, precisely because of that, as I subconsciously (subconsciously?) classified them as generic just because some of them happened to attend school with somebody I knew (instead of crawling out of a gutter, I guess - what an idiot...). When punk.gr released their discography "The Burning Of The Brain" in retrospect (a cd-r release), it blew my mind. The tracks in this record, especially, stand out like sore thumbs - brilliant, heavy greek crust at its best!

It is Knallkopf that I know absolutely nothing about! I tried to connect them to the few other austrian bands I know - E.M.S., Plague Mass - but I failed. If you have some info on this band, please leave a comment behind... Their material here is rather interesting, if not outstanding, although I'll have to say that the one track that really, really gave me that familiar feeling of butterflies in the stomach turned out to be a Petrograd cover (no wonder - I adore Petrograd). Αθίγγανοι Του Σύμπαντος (Athigganoi Tou Sympantos/Stateless In The Universe), now, also hail from Thessaloniki & go back to the mighty Ναυτία (Naytia/Νausea), what with Sonia having been a member of both. Lyrically speaking, they're the most interesting band among all six featured here. Leaving behind Ναυτία's brutality, they settle for a more elliptic style with fewer catchwords which, surprisingly, becomes all the more emotive - & also more serious, seeing as each track is accompanied by lengthy supplementary material (see booklet). What particularly appeals to me is the treatment of homosexuality (in "Ερωτικό") & of gender roles (in "Γυναίκα"), as these are issues that I tend to think a lot about (& reportedly so did Sonia); & also because what they wrote remains painfully resonant (especially in the greek scene) today: '(...) to overcome egocenrrism and the kind of (petit) bourgeois conditioning we have undergone in order to perpetuate the reproduction of the monstrosity: of a society which exclusively consists of the heterosexual couple, of the nuclear family neat households. This transgression is perhaps the most crucial point for all those who consider themselves being members of a subversive social scene and (or) a corresponding subculture.' Now take this & compare it to what happened to Kill The Cat's female members when the band played in Biologica a year ago... Incidentally, the band wins a lot of extra points for coining the term 'turbo folk' as a translation for 'σκυλάδικα' - not that it's so hard to connect the two; but because the greek scene has also been traditionally distanced from its balkanian counterparts for one reason or another (exceptions do exist & are vastly important, of course), & this shows that these people did not share this such isolationist views. (Keep in mind also that Dead Ideas did play Villa Varvara in Thessaloniki, which shows that someone(s) did care about forming ties with the scenes in neighboring countries.) Naturally, my biggest grievance relates once again to my own idiocy: having missed Ναυτία in September '93 (terrifying first week in college; absolutely dying to take the bus & get back to the pa-/maternal residence on Friday already; sacrificing Ναυτία playing FLS the same night...), I also managed to miss Αθίγγανοι Του Σύμπαντος 4-5 years after: in fact, I did catch them for about 5min playing in front of Biologica, thought ill of their name (I told you, idiocy always prevails), disliked the PA, & left. Oh well, at least these are grievances against my own self... If you like what you hear & read, go get their demo from Billy's second blog.

Happy downloading.

P.S.: Does anyone know the No Sin (Thessaloniki, currently active) discography & where to find it? I came across them looking for information on Moot Point (Thessaloniki, late '80s-early '90s), as I believe Moot Point's Lia was playing with them, & now I see they also featured Πανικός & Stateless In The Universe members!

Tracklists

A01. Revolt (Mushroom Attack)
A02. We Are Happy With Our Rats (Mushroom Attack)
Α03. Consuming (Mushroom Attack)
Α04. Mohawk Struggle (Mushroom Attack)
Α05. Kill The Pigs (Mushroom Attack)
Α06. Political Asylum (Mushroom Attack)
Α07. Campaign For Non Violent Silly Dancing (Mushroom Attack)
Α08. Violence (Mushroom Attack)
Α09. The Fight Goes On (Mushroom Attack)
B01. Never Ending Road (Forgotten Prophecy)
B02. Tale Or Reality (Forgotten Prophecy)
B03. The Big House (Forgotten Prophecy)
B04. Anathema (Forgotten Prophecy)
B05. The Winter Song (Forgotten Prophecy)

A01. Vollalarm (WWK)
A02. Blind (WWK)
A03. Nicht Mit Uns (WWK)
A04. Amen (WWK)
A05. Endlösung Der 90'er (WWK)
A06. I A Gemüse (WWK)
A07. Tausend Gründe, Tausend Köpfe (WWK)
B01. Θάνατος Είναι Η Άγνοια (Thanatos Einai I Agnoia/Death Is Ignorance) (Πανικός)
B02/03. Where Is The Freedom/Φόβος (Fovos/Fear) (Πανικός)
B04. Πληγές (Pliges/Wounds) (Πανικός)

A01. Alice im Wunderland (Alice In Wonderland) (Knallkopf)
A02. El Duderino (Knallkopf)
A03. Umbertln (Knallkopf)
A04. Einer muss gehen (Someone Has To Leave) (Knallkopf)
A05. J.R. Ewing (Knallkopf)
A06. Winnie Puh (Knallkopf)
A07. Manchmal, aber ... (Sometimes, but ...) (Knallkopf)
B01. Ανάθεμα (Anathema/Curse) (Stateless In The Universe)
B02. Ερωτικό (Erotiko/Love Song) (Stateless In The Universe)
B03. Γυναίκα (Gynaika/Woman) (Stateless In The Universe)
B04. Σημαδεύουν Πάντα Στο Μυαλό (Simadevoun Panta Sto Myalo/They Always Aim At The Brain) (Stateless In The Universe)

Mushroom Attack/Forgotten Prophecy
WWK/Πανικός
Knallkopf/Stateless In The Universe

Horis Kanona #1

2008-11-07T11:09:00.009+01:00

And now for something completely different - the first issue of the fanzine Χωρίς Κανόνα (Horis Kanona/Without A Rule - or, as its editors christened it, 'No Rule'). Χωρίς Κανόνα was a fanzine put out by a bunch of kids from Thessaloniki in the mid-'90s - fully in greek, let me add, so that you don't end up wasting bandwidth if you don't speak the laguage. Its editors existential fear expressly presented in this issue's editorial ('An issue to which we don't know whether a successor will ever be added') was allayed in subsequent years, as another three issues were added to this one making a total of four. (Allayed but not superficial: it took a year & a half for the second issue to appear...) The three subsequent issues will be posted here in the coming months, too, but not any time (too) soon as I want to present them with rips of the vinyl that accompanied them - which (vinyl) I neglected to carry with me, as I left my parents' place once again this July, & therefore I cannot rip before I'm back again. Hath patience.

So, this is the first issue of Χωρίς Κανόνα, put out by a bunch of music lovers from Thessaloniki. In recent years, the fanzine seems to have acquired something of a cult status among greek 'zine lovers, something that I neither knew nor had foreseen when I laid down my 200drc to get this copy from Rollin' Under (where else, really?). Somewhat uncharacteristically, I vividly recall turning the fanzine around & seeings a pic of The Sound adorning the back cover - that (& the price, which was lower than that of even a 7") must have been the deciding factors in me getting it: you see, I had been The Sound-brainwashed for a couple of my teenage years in my small, rural, & backwards native place, as the only bar we would visit at the time was playing the same DJ mix every single weekend (I still can't figure out why they hadn't paid the DJ a lump sum to make a tape of his mix & clear off). The mix would invariably include The Sound's 'I Can't Escape Myself,' among 'Stairway To Heaven' &, for a few precious months, Make Believe's 'Leave Me Alone' - all these would be presented in a manner as linear as the series of kamikaze's my friends & I were using to experiment with alcohol, to be replaced by failed attempts to play Motörhead on the jukebox of another cafe where we would crawl to deliver the final kick (our group selects the numbers to be played; drinks are ordered; Motörhead come on for a few seconds, only to be replaced by the next track; person from our group with an alcohol-generated bravado speaks to the owner; the owner ends up returning 100drc instead of yielding to Motörhead; mixed feelings of triumph & of a need to leave this place once & for all). I never liked 'I Can't Escape Myself' all that much, but my pedantry led me to buy 'Jeopardy' (from Kaleidoscope - anyone remembers that record store? Yes, the one with a xerox copy of The Last Drive's 'Midnite Hop' on the wall, & I don't mean the Blind Bastard reissue). & was I surprised - the angst in that record!... Anyhow, I'm rambling on, I know. So, yes, I bought the fanzine with the The Sound xeroxed picture on the back & read it cover-to-cover. It's hardly worth the trouble relating to anyone what it meant to be able to read somewhere about what had happened in Liverpool in 1979 or, finally, about what the Mods were - hardly worth the trouble today, that is, where internet in general & Wikipedia in particular can satisfy anyone's curiosity in seconds. But it did mean a hell of a lot to me back then, namely that here was finally something on print, instead of wild (& wildly inaccurate) stories from self-professed know-it-alls.

I've nothing more to add; more anecdotes - of marginal or no interest at all, surely - will be added in subsequent Χωρίς Κανόνα posts, when I finally get around to writing them. For the time being, enjoy this - I certainly did, since, for a bunch of furious years, I thought I had lost all four issues. (I only found them this summer, under my childhood's bed, among piles of compositions from the first grade - 'Χθες ήταν κυριακή. Πήγαμε στο χωριό και παίξαμε με τα ξαδέρφια μας. Γυρίσαμε κουρασμένοι αλλά και ευχαριστημένοι.' Which is why aimof's post hit me all the harder...) I also plan to send the link to the awesome Punks Is Hippies blog, which features a variety of zines &, incidentally, some of my favorite people in the blog-world. This post goes out, with a vibrant shout & a loud cry. to Yorgos of Σκύλα 'zine (who hooked me up with some great contemporary 'zines & rare vinyl & back into the art of paper correspondence) & to Slobo, Billy, & His Holliness The Pope Himself from Punks Is Hippies.

Issue #1

Within Range - 2 LP's

2008-10-03T15:19:00.006+02:00

I believe that, in my very first post, I promised that I'll upload some of my own LP rips. This is the first batch, & I chose Within Range so as to exacerbate a couple of things.

For those not in the know, Within Range hailed from Norway & were active between 1988 & 1992. In that time period, they managed to record two albums - a self-titled debut (1989, X-Port Plater) & "Take Care" (1990, Knall Syndikatet). Their association with the legendary X-Port Plater is no accident, either, seeing as their drummer Stian was a member of Kafka Prosess. (Now, I honestly don't intend to put any punk-rocker down for not having kept track of all the great bands that came out of Norway, as the type of self-loathing such petty attitudes induce are best handled by oberelitists instead of by yours truly; nevertheless, do consider doing yourselves a favor by getting a copy of Kafka Prosess' discography available from Skuld.) Both records were recorded in Amsterdam, in April '89 & April '90, respectively, at a place called ADM's Koeienverhuurbedrijf (which translates into 'Adam's Cow Renting Co.' - ha... grapje...). I don't know what's so particular about Amsterdam in April (I'd have to say not much - it rains less than during the summer, it's less cold than in the winter, & that's about it); unfortunately, I never came across ADM's studio either, which is particularly unlucky as I need more info on this band (most norwegian sources online credit them as 'the norwegian Motörhead,' which is not all that enlightening). On the other hand, I did come across the Endart gallery/studio recently & did nothing (question for anyone from Berlin: do they even have opening hours?), so that's a pretty poor excuse for anything.

Well: I first came across them through Σιχ's show (see previous posts, if you have to) sometime in '93-'94, but at that time I couldn't tell apart day from night, as far as music (& most all other things, too) goes, so it stayed at that. I rediscovered them half a decade ago or so, when I exhumed the bunch of Radio Utopia tapes I described in my first post; Σιχ - or rather a guest of that particular show called Στελλάκης - played 'When Peace Is War' from their then-new album, & what a track that was! (Still my favorite Within Range track, in fact - well done, Στελλάκη.) I looked for their records left & right, but to no avail; unixpunx's ftp server had no Within Range material either. Eventually, I tracked down mp3's of "Take Care" through soulseek (they later proved to be only part of the record); & a few years later, I came across a dirt-cheap copy of their first record in Skuld's distro, which I proceeded to get immediately together with other consumer goods of the same type. (Remember Skuld? Yes, it's that label which has been putting out great music for decades & which every shithead - occasionally even those owning a Tragedy T-shirt - had an opinion on when they stopped being able to pay their bills a few years ago. Which goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished, as far as Kleister & Oliver are concerned, plus another few disgusting things, as far as the punk-rock crowd is concerned.) At any rate, I was a bit taken aback (even disappointed) that this was not the same record with 'When Peace Is War' in it; I didn't even know they had put out multiple records, after all. A year & a half ago, I finally tracked down "Take Care," together with some other great records (including Gulag's "Στην Αυλή Των Θεαμάτων") in Utrecht, again for a great price - which goes to show that, if you absolutely have to be scum of the earth in the form of a record collector, at least do it right: buy records outside their country of origin; they're cheaper, as there's no hype surrounding them, so that you can respect the band's wish (often explicitly expressed in the back cover) to not turn them into collector's items.

That's it. I won't finish with admonitions concerning the norwegian scene - info on bands of that particular scene is acceptably abundant in the world-wide web (nowdays even for people who don't speak norwegian), plus nobody reads lengthy tirades (much less follows advice) so what's the point? I trust that all 10 people who have been looking for this will enjoy it, while the rest will either pass, compulsively download, or simply steal (not from me - from the artist) the beautiful front cover art to adorn some deep thoughts they felt obliged to post on their blog accompanied by a picture they didn't draw themselves (to boot!). Needless to say, my sympathies lie with the 10 people (including irishdave); after all, had I wished to be smothered by virtual kisses, I'd simply had uploaded some obscure Napalm Death 7", as a good friend pointed out recently.

P.S.: Greek visitors, especially, will notice Naytia in the first record's thank list (Naytia played in Oslo in 1988, after all, as their live demo tape "Sex, Drugs And Greek Salad... "documents); what are the chances that Στελλάκης was ~~Naytia~~Stateless In The Universe's Στέλλιος?

Tracklist (S/T)

A01. You Think You're Tough
A02. Falseness
A03. Livin' In A Microwave
A04. What A Man!
A05. Pumpin' Iron
A06. Rock 'N Roll Inq.
A07. Fuckin Scout
B01. Don't Forget
B02. Warning
B03. Not Just A Dream
B04. National Feelings
B05. When
B06. Ty Musiš Rozumět!
B07. Get Out!

Tracklist ("Take Care")

A01. Take Care
A02. Tied Up
A03. Television
A04. Like A Clown
A05. Zombies
A06. When Peace Is War
A07. The Crutch
B01. N.W.C.
B02. This Time
B03. Ain't My Funeral
B04. Unchained
B05. Statens Menn
B06. You've Got The Right
B07. Testtube

(S/T)
"Take Care"

Ohra Speirohaiti - early demos

2008-09-21T16:32:00.006+02:00

I've been sitting on a couple of Ωχρά Σπειροχαίτη demos for over a decade now. Seeing as they (apparently) haven't been digitized yet - or, if they did, failed to reach a safe haven open to the public - I thought I'll do it myself. Truth is, this particular issue also cropped up recently in the band's blog; it seems that they have lost track of their early (pre-1994) recordings acetates & were left with barely listenable, worn-out tapes - one more reason to rip them myself. Not to mention, also, that not only I but also these tapes are not getting any younger; or that I strongly wish that everyone listened to this material; or numerous other things - I don't know why I feel the urge to justify myself for ripping these tapes & I am not interested in psychoanalysis of the online-variety either, so I'll just stop excusing myself here & proceed with the details.

As usual, people who have heard of Ωχρά Σπειροχαίτη (greek for Treponema Pallidum - the spirochaete bacterium associated with syphilis) already know everything I know, & people who haven't have a slew of other bands to check out, so this is a loose-loose situation pure & simple. & yet, uninterested as I am in baring my soul (argh!) in front of an invisible (maybe even nonexistent) public, I remain very much interested in telling stories that I like to tell & so I'll go on & tell this particular little story too. You can scroll down to the download links for all I care, I doubt you'll learn anything useful by reading on. Meanwhile, I'll just say that one of the most spectacular things regarding this band is their ability to also grasp people who don't speak the language: I've traded cd-r copies of their first cd twice - once with a serbian friend & once with Jeremy Toomey (omnipresent in world punk circles), & they both singled it out among several other recordings & contacted the band. (Jeremy even wanted to feature one of their tracks in a compilation he was preparing at the time; I'm not sure what came out of this, but I believe that nothing happened in the end.)

I'm not sure when I heard of them for the first time, but I remember very clearly how I got to sit on these tapes. Sometime in the mid-'90s (no later than 1997; not earlier than 1995), I was in my room with my (now ex-)girlfriend listening to - what else? - Radio Utopia. A track came on, my girlfriend saw the light, & suddenly I had to call the radio station to find out who the band was. The person on the other end of the line proceeded to mention the name Ωχρά Σπειροχαίτη, to which I must have produced a null reaction; somehow he offered to dub a couple of tapes he had in his disposal & then drop them off at Villa Varvara (the pride of the local squat scene at the time), where I was supposed to subsequently pick them up. The week after the phone call I stopped, indeed, by the little library at the squat, spoke my name, & was handed a couple of Maxell UR60's chokefull of Ωχρά Σπειροχαίτη material. The ownership of the tapes must have switched immediately to my girlfriend, as I was unimpressed by the song on the radio (& remained unimpressed as she played these tapes in my room); I only saw them again when we broke up, at which point she returned to me certain items of mine still in her possession. These two tapes were among these possessions (my choice of the word 'possessions' is not accidental), although I had even forgotten their very existence by that point. We also managed to catch them live once - in Villa Varvara - in a beautiful show, probably in '97, in the little room to the left with the bee-like light fixture. (My girlfriend managed to catch them live once again, in one of Radio Utopia's 3-day festivals; I've no idea why I wasn't there, apart from the fact that I often tend to be despairingly stupid.) I don't recall the setlist, apart from a song whose lyrics they attributed to a poet known to be christian; & I recall that, because they made a neat job of explaining their decision to set these verses into music (these verses being, with near-absolute certainty, T.S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men;' the song found its way in their second cd in a most dazzling performance). Varvara itself was evicted in the following months; the bee-like light fixture moved to the Biologica squat; & I still hadn't fell for the band.

When I moved out of Salonica a year after, the tapes crossed the atlantic with me - I don't know why. Finally, near the end of 2001, I got hit (& got hit hard): while studying with one of my roommates, we played a little game where one would pick a number & the other would find the tape corresponding to it counting from the top; then, we'd listen to that tape. Thus I ended up listening to these tapes again, after I don't know how many years, & this time I did fall for them. I contacted the band immediately, asking whether there was other material; they replied 13 months later (meanwhile I had copied their first cd from a friend - 'half-roommate,' as the inner joke goes - back in Salonica, which was passed to him by his ex-girlfriend) asking for an address to which they could mail their new cd, assuming I was still interested. (The band distributes their material free of charge; in fact, they hold very specific views on commercial & monetary relations in general - visit their blog to find out more.) I was (still interested), which is how I got to listen to the best recording of that year & one of the most spectacular records that have graced my ears to this day.

This is, then, the little, innocuous, irrelevant, & incoherent story of these tapes. Be sure that all the demons on this earth conspired so that these tapes become unlistenable as well: apart from having been dubbed by who-knows-what-generation tapes themselves, flying back & forth quite a few times, & being generally mistreated in a way that only tapes can & do handle, they have also been played extensively by both me & the aforementioned ex-girlfriend. & still, they're very much listenable... Seize the opportunity & enjoy.

P.S.: Some technical notes: the artifact (slight discontinuity) in track IA08 at around 3:13 is due to the fact that the track is the result of stapling together two tracks: Side A of the tape run out (remember tapes?) & the dubbing continued in Side B... Tracks IB07 & IIA08 are also butchered: the second halves of these tracks are missing for the same reason (luckily, you can find both tracks in the band's first cd). The artifact in the beginning of track IIB01, on the other hand, should be recognizable to anyone who grew up with tapes. Note that I also decided not to split track IIB06 into two tracks, as I should, since there's no clear cut - 'Αλίκη' merges into 'Ραμποειδές.' & finally, most of the tracks contained here may be found (in reworked versions) in the band's first cd - the ones that are not are IA04, IA05, IA06, IA07, IA08, IB04, IB05, IIA05, IIA07, & IIB06.

Tracklist

(tape I)
IA01. Δερβίσης (1991)
IA02. Απελπίζομαι Καθολικά (1987)
IA03. Μπαλάντα Για Μια Λυπημένη Χώρα (1987)
IA04. Ρεκβιέμ Για Μια Αυτοκτονία Στο Στρατό (1988)
IA05. Μια Εισαγωγή (1991)
IA06. Ένα Μονόπρακτο Για Να Μην Πεις (1989)
IA07. Της Σαπφούς
IA08. (άτιτλο)
IB01. Διάβασε Με Απ'την Αρχή
IB02. Εθνικά Ιδεώδη (1993)
IB03. Μπροστά Στη Πύλη (1993)
IB04. Δημοσθένους Λέξις
IB05. Θρακιώτικο (1993)
IB06. Οι Στίχοι (1993)
IB07. Στο Χωριό Πριν Το Γλέντι (1992)
(tape II)
IIA01. Περιθώριο (1994)
IIA02. Αθήνα (1994)
IIA03. Για Το Νίκο (1994)
IIA04. Ορέστης (1991)
IIA05. Με Το Πανί Μου Πάντα Ανοικτό (1994)
IIA06. Δειλινό Νοτισμένο (1994)
IIA07. Η Μπαλάντα Της Έγκρισης (1994)
IIA08. Βαρκαρόλα (1994)
IIB01. Αλβανικό (1995)
IIB02. Θα Φύγω Μια Μέρα (1995)
IIB03. Καπετάν Σαφάκας (1995)
IIB04. Κιθάρες (1995)
IIB05. Ίων (1995)
IIB06. Αλίκη/Ραμποειδές

tape I
tape II

V/A, "Made In Yugoslavia"

2008-08-30T00:12:00.006+02:00

Up next: a tape compilation of yugoslavian "wave" bands (note the quotes) released in 1992 by the greek fanzine Βρωμιά (Vromia/Dirt) & compiled by someone called Humpty Dumpty ('in dolby,' as the tape boasts - or warns...). I've never been into fanzines all that much myself, apart from very few notable exceptions (Χωρίς Κανόνα, 1000+1 TiLT, Σκύλα more recently, maybe a few more that I forget), so I know nothing about Βρωμιά; Παρακμή the infamous claims that it was one of the most well-known fanzines at the time, though. This tape probably did not accompany one of the 'zine's issues; instead, it must have been released independently of the fanzine - do correct me if I'm wrong.

The bands in here are an interesting, if somewhat incongruous, mix. For one thing, the recordings span the entire decade 1981-1990 - a rather wide range which also reflects on the styles included. Another interesting issue (which I find affectionately cute for my own selfish reasons) is the inclusion of bands both instananeously recognizable & bufflingly obscure: Belgrade's Sarlo Akrobata & Električni Orgazam definitely belong to the former category, having participated in the scene-defining compilation "Paket Aranžman"; the same goes for Disciplina Kičme - one of the two Sarlo Akrobata offshoots - & of Slobodan Tišma's Luna from Novi Sad. I would also include in this list the croatians Let 3 & the slovenians Strelnikoff, both of which are, first, excellent bands &, second, infamous for certain provoking incidents each. The rest of the bands, on the other hand, are either noticeably pretty obscure (Roderick, Abbildungen Variete), or prolific but still somewhat marginal (Sexa), or simply not wave at all (Miladojka Youneed). Or it could be that I'm prejudiced, since I didn't know the more obscure bands (with the sole exception of Sexa) anyhow...

That said, the compilation is pretty effective in presenting an interesting slice of the wave scene in Yugoslavia in the '80s. The first side is faster & more adventurous, combining the jazz rock of Miladojka Youneed & the proto-wave of Sarlo Akrobata with the demented industrial onslaught of Strelnikoff ('demented industrial onslaught' - pfff!... that's what blogging will do to you, apparently...) & the recognizably-yugo post-punk of GRČ. (Don't expect any punk here: there are no bands whose name starts with a 'P,' after all...) I am certain that there is a well-defined label for the more homegeneous second side, but I don't think I'm aware of it; dark wave is the only thing that comes to mind, as a generic substitute for music that is just plain weird at times. It definitely had an effect on me, since it led me to the macedonians Mizar whom I was unaware of - what a great, great track they contribute here... (Meager comparisons to compatriots Anastasia could be drawn, but only in that evocative religious feeling suffusing their sound; I, at least, hear nothing akin to tradition here.) (Oops - what do you know, Anastasia were 2/3 Mizar after all!)

That's it. The rest of this post is irrelevant musings from my side which you can (& invariably will, if not should) skip by scrolling down to the donwload link; let me only thank Στέφανος of Πλήγμα 'zine who passed me the tape.

Now that we're alone: a further issue of interest (to me) relates to posting this tape here: is there really any point in posting something like this (I'll assume an a priori optimistic view: that nobody's posting random stuff just for the hell of it)? After all, one can do a blog search & download a bunch of recordings by most (if not all) of the bands in this tape - so why the tape? Well, it looks to me as if one should start from the other end of the temporal line: why this tape in the first place? This particular answer, though, is easy: who even knew of yugoslavian wave (in 1992; in Greece)? A handful of people at most - like this Humpty Dumpty person who compiled it. & since one can only look for something one suspects the existence of, this tape must have been intended as a sampler of the insanely cool outpourings (can you tell I'm a fan?) of the neighboring country & as a gentle shove towards its music. I think that, plainly, efforts of this sort have become obsolete in the western world; or, if not obsolete, then a certain reversal of polarity happened: whereas tapes like this one were putting music forward through the darkness (how could the average joe hunt down such records in the pre-ebay/gemm era?), today's compilations hope (at most) to put music forward through the maddening lightshow of chaotic over-abundance (ranging from your grandma's high school band to the brand new releases of a million bands out there). So, the original intention is irrevocably lost; check your favorite yugo-blog & download what you will (or even become an expert in a month - cross-checking is far easier than to used to be, after all: 'just google it'). This manifests itself in the "naïvité" (read: lack of uniformity) with which this tape was compiled, after all. What does remain is this: that I still won't download & listen to 100⁺ albums of yugo-music (what with fads changing about every 5sec, as expected in this overabundance), but I will listen to a tape someone gave me. & in it, I'll discover Mizar whom I didn't know, just like I discovered Anastasia through the radio or La Strada through an mp3 cd-r I was sent by a friend.

Another touching particular of the tape is its cover, which - according to the tape itself - was B-92's symbol. (In short: B-92 was Belgrade's independent radio station at the time of Milošević's regime; apart from broadcasting great music, it opposed the regime on multiple occasions. Not in short: read Matthew Collin's "This Is Serbia Calling.") It's a wild guess, but I think that I did chance upon B-92 in one occasion, way before I knew the name: my girlfriend & I were travelling from Salonica to Prague by bus (1996), so we went through Serbia at night. Browsing through radio stations on my walkman, I finally got one playing some great (& dark) music - I don't speak the language, so naturally I cannot prove it was actually B-92... What's even funnier is that I mentioned this to an older fellow traveller the next day, to which she claimed zero surprise: according to her, a lot of great music was coming from yugoslavia 'back in the day.' Maybe she was Humpty Dumpty...

Tracklist

α01. (excerpt from LP 'ghastly beyond belief!') (Miladojka Youneed)
α02. Ne trebam te (Let 3)
α03. Svidja mi se da... (Disciplina Kičme)
α04. Čovek (Sarlo Akrobata)
α05. Brain (Sexa)
α06. Noćas se beograd pali! (GRČ)
α07. Gimme a gun (Strelnikoff)
α08. Parole dostojanstveno bedu prate (Napred U Prošlost)
α09. Afrika (Električni Orgazam)
β01. Stoji (Mizar)
β02. Ogledalo lune (Luna)
β03. Letzte dance (Roderick)
β04. Ishodisce subjecta (Abbildungen Variete)
β05. His Secret Sin (Autopsia)

Πράξη Πρώτη

Pissa & Poupoula b/w Phenomenon

2008-08-20T13:00:00.008+02:00

Alright, so here's the first post with a nontrivial musical content.

Side A of this tape contains an interview of Πίσσα & Πούπουλα (Pissa & Poupoula/Tar & Feathers) conducted by Σιχ (the name is an abbreviation of Σιχαμερός, which translates into 'disgusting'); in fact, an excerpt of this interview appeared in the sixth compilation tape released by Radio Utopia, namely, the part where the band explains the idea behind their tune "Α Γαμήσου Ρε Μπάμπη (Βάλτε Φωτιά Στα Σκυλάδικα)." What you get here is a larger part of the band's interview together with an untitled live track of theirs, an instrumental live track of Αρνητική Στάση (Arnitiki Stasi/Negative Stance) called "Λόγια Σοφίας" which hasn't appeared in their record releases, & an instrumental live track of Make Believe which must have been recorded in the period before guitarist Diamantis Kazouris joined them (this last piece of information is due to the unmatchable singer of the band Flora Ioannidou). Also certain tracks played from records which you can hear elsewhere in much better quality but which I chose to include for completeness. The live tracks have been recorded at Φ.Λ.Σ. - i.e., the squat at the Philosophy Dept. of the U. of Salonica (if I'm not mistaken, the space was squatted in 1989 & lasted until 1993 or so, with people from Ναυτία, Πανικός, & Ήταν Είναι Και Θα Είναι being part of it - please, DO correct me if I'm wrong here); probably at some show organized by the team "Άνοιξη Στο Σκουπιδότοπο (Anoixi Sto Skoupidotopo/Spring In The Refuse Dump)" which was active at the time. (Φ.Λ.Σ. was really a household name for pretty much all salonicans with an interest in the alternative scene; people elsewhere probably know the name from the tape compilation "Νύχτες Στο Στέκι Φιλοσοφικής" (released in 1993 & still available in mp3 format here).) According to the recent booklet "Η Ιστορία Των Punk, Hard Core Και Άλλων Σχημάτων Από Το 1990 Έως Το 2000 Στον Ελλαδικό Χώρο" (Αναρχική Αρχειοθήκη), Πίσσα & Πούπουλα recorded a live tape at Φ.Λ.Σ. which they distributed; if there is any connection with the recordings here, then that would mean that the recordings here are from that 1992 session.

The aforementioned Σιχ was the person behind the radio show "Τα Κουρέλια Τραγουδάν Ακόμα (Ta Kourelia Tragoudan Akoma/The Wretches Are Still Singing)," the long-term (1989-1998) punk/HC show at Radio Utopia whose name derives from the N. Nikolaidis movie. I will stick to facts & postpone commenting on the effect that the show has had on me for another post, as I'm getting a bit emotional here. I've never met Σιχ in person & probably also never talked to him on the phone, but I remember listening to his show on Wednesday evenings, him hardly ever missing a show even when it was raining cats & dogs outside (you know how that city gets at times). The onslaught of bands that paraded from the radio station's decks during those shows (as evidenced from what few shows of his I taped) is hard to stomach: So Much Hate, Exploding White Mice, Nomeansno, Amebix, Life... But How To Live It?, Extreme Noise Terror, & a host of others - people reading this probably know it, so excuse me for repeating, but I'm talking about the pre-internet era, where the best you could wish for was getting a couple of mail-order catalogues into the mail & friends going abroad bringing back some records... & then of course all the local bands that paraded from the studio either in person or through some demo of theirs being played by Σιχ - I have three of them being interviewed on tape & there must surely be tons of others... Σιχ is still active, by the way, & puts out a magazine called "Τα Κουρέλια" which "μοιράζεται χέρι με χέρι με καμία απολύτος οικονομική συνδιαλαγή και ουδεμία σχέση με μαγαζιά" to use his own words (my eternal gratitude to Billy for providing me with an issue). He also went through some rough shit having to do with the usual shaved shitheads, which goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished (eventually, that particular bad deed also didn't go unpunished...).

The end of the tape's B side is probably the precursor to the beginning of side A (...this sentence makes sense, believe me) & contains standard studio material. The rest of side A, though, belongs to a local band called Phenomenon (it could be that the name should be spelled with greek characters, seeings also as their lyrics are in greek, but it's spelled with english characters on the tape cover) which I had totally forgotten about until I found this tape again. Honestly, I don't know for sure how I came across these recordings; I think I remember, though, that they were passed on to me by a friend I was sitting with in high school (& probably around 1992-1993, then). The story, the way I remember it, is that this kid had a cousin living in Salonica, working in a garage, & apparently playing in Phenomenon; they must have recorded this demo, & I came across it through him. This could be complete fiction - even if it isn't, though, it hardly says anything about the origins of the band. What is for certain is that I don't recall seeing this recordings anyplace else in any format or hearing of the band in any other context; for all I know, this demo could have never been publicly available (or was pressed in a few copies, or... - the list goes on). That's about all; if you have any other info, I would greatly appreciate it if you could take the time to post a comment, as I absolutely love this demo (it may be fair to say that it betrays some Εκτός Ελέγχου influences & in a really charming way).

Note that the tape, & especially the Phenomenon side, has been played multiple times. Nevertheless, the sound quality is pretty good (for my ears, at least). Some more info on Radio Utopia may be found at Radio 98's forum - check this topic, in particular, & then the downloads section for the great Άνθη Του Κακού retrospective. The date of either recording is unknown. If my recollections are about right, the Phenomenon demo must have been recorded in 1992-1993. As for the interview, it certainly happened before '96 - as part of it appeared in Radio Utopia's sixth tape compilation in '96 - & no earlier than '93 - as the band's record is mentioned. Seeing as I also recorded a Λώλαμα track from their 7" in the same tape, it must have also been before I bought their 7" & thus before '95; that's about as close as I can get to pinpointing it.

This first post it dedicated to Σιχ - I hope he won't be pissed when he finds out I put this material out - & to Flora - whom I promised the live track to a full decade ago; here it is, finally... - THANKS.

Tracklist

A01. Αναγγελία A02/Prologue To A02 (vox) (Σιχ & Πίσσα & Πούπουλα)
A02. (untitled) (live) (Πίσσα & Πούπουλα/Tar & Feathers)
Α03. Περάσαμε όμορφα... πάμε παρακάτω (vox) (Σιχ)
Α04. Ο Παραμυθούλης (LP) (Πίσσα & Πούπουλα/Tar & Feathers)
Α05. Όχι άλλος Μπάμπης (vox) (Σιχ)
Α06. Δύσκολη Φάση/Tough Situation (LP) (Πίσσα & Πούπουλα/Tar & Feathers)
Α07. Η ιστορία του Μπάμπη & Το 'Επίλογος' δεν είναι καψουροτράγουδο (vox) (Σιχ & Πίσσα & Πούπουλα/Tar & Feathers)
Α08. Αναγγελία Α09/Prologue To A09 (vox) (Σιχ)
Α09. Λόγια Σοφίας/Words Of Wisdom (live) (Αρνητική Στάση/Negative Stance)
Α10. "Αναγγελία Α11" (vox) (Σιχ)
A11. (untitled) (live) (Make Believe)
Α12. Δύο Δευτερόλεπτα/Two Seconds (LP) (Πίσσα & Πούπουλα/Tar & Feathers)
Α13. Ευχαριστίες/Thank-you's (vox) (Σιχ)
Α14. Η Εκτέλεση/The Execution (LP) (Λώλαμα/Craziness)
Α15. Είναι το Ράδιο Ουτοπία/This Is Radio Utopia (vox) (άγνωστος/unknown)
B01. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B01. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B02. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B03. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B04. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B05. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B06. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B07. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B08. (unknown) (Phenomenon)
B09. Η Δικιά Τους Αρετή/Their Kind Of Virtue (LP) (Εκτός Ελέγχου/Out Of Control)
B10. Αναγγελία B11/Prologue To B11 (vox) (Σιχ)
B11. Το Κουτί Της Πανδώρας/Pandora's Box (LP) (Αρνητική Στάση/Negative Stance)

one mile from the cage

Ground Rules

2008-08-17T20:36:00.007+02:00

What is it with music & online distribution? Why not books? I don't know; I know that this is yet another mp3 blog & that I need to get some things straight from the start to avoid misunderstandings.

Scope. First, a little story. About a decade ago, I packed my humble belongings in big crates & boxes, stored them away, & promptly moved out of Greece never to return for more than a month or so. Halfway between now & then, I was reminded of, looked for, found, & unearthed a bunch of tapes hanging in suspension inside their own time bubble next to posters for political demos & hand-scrawled messages from friends & lovers. Finally, a few days ago (& seeing as I made the switch from 'vehemently protective' to 'decidedly sharing' way back when), I decided to start ripping them & eventually post them online for all the other freaks to cherish. Blame tape recorder (& in particular his post about the Radio Utopia tapes), if you need to blame anyone at all.

Content. The tapes in question are demos I traded/bought/came across, live bootlegs I recorded, & a few dozen tapes I dubbed from Radio Utopia (one of the two autonomous radio stations in Salonica which shaped up an entire generation of young people). To the best of my knowledge, none of this material is currently in circulation on the web. I will add vinyl rips & other stuff as I see fit, too; some of my rips will be forwarded to more focused & high-profile blogs, though, instead of appearing here.

Feedback. You are very welcome to provide more information on anything I post - I will even translate it to english & incorporate it into the post if need arises! I have always been a lightweight in any scene I cared for - my contacts with people at the active end have been scarce &, to put it plainly, I'm all around ignorant on many things I'll need to address in this blog. You're also welcome to leave a kind word behind. Apart from that, I don't intend to either network through this blog or explain why this is so. In the resounding words of one of my favorite labels, Heart First Records, at their myspace page: ''People, I will deny your friend request if I do not know you. If you happen to be my friend and you send me generic messages like "thanks for the add" or "your label rocks" I will delete this message and also remove you from my friends. Tough shit.'' You're welcome to leave a link to your blog, if it is relevant to what I do, but do not expect me to update my list of links accordingly - I won't switch links or anything of the sort; we have Totally Fuzzy for those things, if you recall.

Language. I'll be posting in english &, if you have extra info to add to one of my posts, I hope you will do too. If you feel like using another language, keep in mind that I only have a working knowledge of greek, french, & dutch (& babelfish also helps a lot). In the end, though, extra info in any language is way better than no extra info at all, so feel free to disregard the above & use your language of preference.

Trivia. (i) Requests are OK, but useless. I will post what I deem worthy of posting, & that's about it. (ii) There's no way I'll ever rip anything that is still in wide circulation. You are entitled to your opinion (which you are not necessarily invited to post here - this is no forum spearheading direct democracy or anything of the sort); I am also entitled to mine, & this is that underground records (sic) were put out by people who took the time, put in the effort, & shouldered the financial burden of putting them out. I buy them to support the labels & the people involved, & I find solace in the thought that people disagreeing with me will sooner or later cater to your egotistical need of unlimited music for zero cost. (iii) The sites I link are done by people I respect (for my very own reasons) & (notice the conjunction) they happened to come into my radar. The latter fact is nontrivial, since I (occasionally) visit a total of a dozen blogs - & I would like to keep it that way. If I missed your blog, I am sorry, but. (iv) The blog will go on for a finite amount of time - a year or two I expect. Once the blog is gone, there will be no reuploading broken links; I hope that the material posted here will do the rounds via other people, then. (v) All tapes are ripped through the line-in jack on my Mac using Audacity & a cheap walkman bought for 4€ during a clearance sale at my local home electronics store. The recordings are mono & compressed at 320kbps (so as to retain the hiss &/or radio noise in them...) using Max. The radio tapes I mentioned have been originally recorded on standard issue (& some times outright crappy) tapes using a standard issue mini-stereo system; some of the oldest ones have been recorded using a tape recorder & a tuner of good quality , but then again on my parents' old laiká tapes which had been left in the car to melt for summers on end - these are unlistenable (& the entire world is still mourning the loss...). I follow the same procedure for vinyl rips, only the turntable, stylus, preamp, & amp I use cost a good deal more than 4€. (vi) Finally, there is no set post frequency; expect a post once every two months or so, as it takes a long time to get one ready.

Enjoy & thanks for reading.