Bulletin N° 380

Subject: ON "DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM" AS AN ONTOLOGICAL ERROR AND A MECHANISM FOR GANG RAPE.

      

26 December 2008
Grenoble, France

Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
'tis the season to be jolly, and my local Christmas tree merchant after checking us out in the dark, discretely warned me and my wife of his father's insight some 50 years earlier, when he had warned his son against . . . "THE YELLOW PERIL !" Common sense prevails again in Christmas Season 2008, and warnings dating back to the time of Dien Bien Phu surface again today as ordinary observations : the Asians are taking over !

Europe is in the process of nano-mobilizing for war! The first stage of this algorithm is to reduce the options for her future casualties by creating "a surplus population," both at home and abroad ; then international capital will do the rest !

War, as always, is big business ; and militarism, with all its ugly trappings, is already upon us, its future casualties. . . .


Occam's razor, that notorious instrument of western science, is our legacy inherited from centuries of Christian Scholasticism and it continues to operate ruthlessly --but always in good faith, of course-- by abolishing the irrelevant, the undesirable, the superfluous and redudant aspects of human thought in order to assure for us the best of all possible worlds. One example of this operation is the fashionable use of the term "surplus population" in reference to the masses of unemployed, homeless and hungry people in the world. By derealizing the human qualities of the people in this category, we can no longer apprehend a material problem which must be solved. The success of this opperation of logical simplification determins questions of life and death. . . . 

Analyzing Western man's will to knowledge and truth (which is seen ultimately as his will to power over the bodies and minds of others), Michel Foucault bring to light the mechanical workings of alliances, and micro-power arrangements which are imbued with knowledge and sexuality. Speaking of Foucault's early writings, the British translator and author, Alan Sheridan observes that "Knowledge is not so much true or false as legitimate or illegitimate for a particular set of power relations."

Knowledge derives not from some subject of knowledge, but from the power relations that
invest it. Knowledge does not "reflect" power relations; it is not a distorted expression of them;
it is immanent in them. [Citing Foucault, the author continues:] "Power produces knowledge. . . .
Power and knowledge directly imply one another . . .  There is no power relation without the
correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose
and constitute at the same time power relations."  . . .  Power and knowledge are two sides of
the same process. Knowledge cannot be neutral, pure. All knowledge is political not because
it may have political consequences or be politically useful, but because knowledge has its conditions
of possibility in power relations. [Political anatomy] shows that the techniques of power production,
and knowledge have a common matrix.  . . .  [I]t deprives knowledge of its apparent objectivity. It
denounces the illusion of truth. Knowledge is not so much true or false as legitimate or illegitimate
for a particular set of power relationships.
   Foucault frees us from the crushing power of a certain regime of truth. Against great truths, great
syntheses, great systems, he practices a detailed analysis of the multiple mechanisms of power-
knowledge.  . . .
   [T]he interests of the oppressed are best expressed in their own words and these, too, are to be
found in a submerged, invalidated mass of "documents".(Sheridan,Foucault : The Will To Truth, 1980, pp. 220-221)

Gilles Deleuze also elaborates on the genealogy of this western pathology, which generates paranoid totalizations that support illegitimate power hierarchies by systematically ignoring the rich diversities which thrive in material reality, in order to favor superficial fantasies maintained by gatekeepers situated on well-appointed thresholds :

[Historical formations] escape from both the reign of the subject and the empire of structure. Structure is propositional, has an axiomatic nature that can be tied to a specific level and forms a homogeneous system, while the statement is a multiplicity that passes through all levels and cuts across a domain of structures and possible unities, and which reveals them, with concrete contents, in time and space.(Deleuze,Foucault, 1988, p.14-15)

Foucault, in his own "political anatomy," lays bare the links between knowledge, power and sexuality:

We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it "excludes", it "represses", it "censors", it "abstracts", it "masks", it "conceals". In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production.(Discipline and Punishment, 1979, p.194)


And cutting closer to the bone, he observes:

We must not place sex on the side of reality and sexuality on the side of confused ideas and illusions. Sexuality is a very real historical figure; it is what gave rise to the notion of sex, as a speculative element necessary to its own functioning. We must not think that by saying yes to sex, we are saying no to power; on the contrary, we are following a course laid down by the general machinery of sexuality. It is from the notion of sex that we must free ourselves if, by a tactical reversal of the various mechanisms of sexuality, we wish to counter the grip of power with bodies, pleasures, skills, in their multiplicity and capacity for resistance. Against the machinery of sexuality the strong point of the counter-attack should not be sex-desire, but the body and its pleasures.(The History of Sexuality, Vol. I : An Introduction, 1980, p.157 emphasis added)

The 7 items below serve to illustrate the debacle of centralized corporate power in the world today and bare witness to the birth pangs of a genre of democracy which is located at a deeper level in the production process of pleasures, the only legitimate aim of any post-capitalist society.

Item A. is an article from Agence France-Press on "The Coming Great Depression."

Item B. is an article sent to us by Jean Mister on the legacy of the Spanish Civil War, written by Vincente Navarro.

Item C. is a ZNet interview with Nikos Raptis discussing the Greek Uprising, which is now in its 4th week.

Item D. is an Internet link sent to us by University of Paris at Nanterre graduate student, Grace Kpohazounde, exposing global strategies in the politics of food for the future.

Item E. is an exposé on ecocide on the Tennessee River, first sent to us by Michael Parenti.

Item F. is a description of the politics of rape in time of war, written by Ann Jones and first published in The National Law Journal, covering "the crime against society in the Congo" today.

Item G. is a message from San Diego Border Artist Professor Fred Lonidier, announcing his up-coming exhibit in Chicago.


And finally, we invite CEIMSA supporters to check out the three books produced by CEIMSA-IN-EXILE since the removal of our research center web site from the University of Grenoble server in 2004 :

 

Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies
Director of Research
Université Stendhal Grenoble 3
http://www.ceimsa.org/


_________
A.
from Truthout :
Date: 23 December 2008
Subject: A New Great Depression on the Horizon ?
Agence France- Press

The US economy shrank in the third quarter, official data confirmed Tuesday, as the IMF's top economist warned of a second Great Depression offering no respite from relentless gloom ahead of Christmas. The abrupt 0.5 percent contraction of gross domestic product (GDP) in the world's largest economy was seen as marking the start of a steep downturn for the United States after GDP growth of 2.8 percent in the second quarter.



_____________
B.
from Jean Mister :
Date: 16 December 2008
Subject: Spain: A forgotten genocide



The Case of Spain
A Forgotten Genocide

by Vicente Navarro

A social movement has been growing in Spain, breaking the 30-year pact of silence on the enormous atrocities and genocide carried out during and after the fascist coup led by General Franco. The coup took place in 1936 with the active support of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Army, and made possible by the assistance of Hitler and Mussolini and the cowardice of the western democracies, including the U.S., which at that time did not dare to offend Hitler and Mussolini by sending arms to the democratically elected Spanish government. The coup was resisted, however, by the majority of Spain’s population, which is why it took three years for the fascists to succeed. They won by imposing extremely repressive measures on the population. Terror became an explicit policy of the new regime. General Franco and other generals spoke frequently of the need to kill everyone who had supported the Popular Front, the alliance of left-wing and center parties that had won by large majorities in the last elections in Spain. As part of that repression, more than 200,000 men and women were executed by the fascist regime, and another 200,000 died in the Army's concentration camps and in the villages, subjected to hunger, disease, and other circumstances. And 114,266 people simply disappeared. They were killed by the Army and the fascist party, la Falange, and their bodies were abandoned or buried without being identified. These bodies were never found.

When democracy returned in 1978, an informal pact of silence was made – an agreement to cover over the enormous rrepression that had existed under the fascist dictator. The democratic transition took place under conditions that were highly favorable to the conservative forces that had controlled Francoist Spain. It became obvious to the leadership of the former fascist state, led by King Juan Carlos (appointed by General Franco), and Suarez, the head of the fascist movement (Movimiento Nacional), that the fascist regime could not continue as a dictatorship. It was a corrupt and highly unpopular apparatus, facing the largest labor agitation in Europe. In 1976, a critical year after the death of the dictator (the day he died, the country ran out of champagne), 2,085 workdays per 1,000 workers were lost to strikes (the average in Europe was 595 days). The dictator died in his bed, but the dictatorship died in the streets. The level of social agitation reached such a point that Franco’s appointed monarchy was in trouble, and the state leadership was forced to open itself up and establish a limited democracy, under the watchful eye of the Army (and the Church). The left was strong enough to force that opening, but it was not strong enough to break with the old state. The Amnesty Law was passed in 1977, which protected those who had committed politically motivated crimes (a law that was of much greater benefit to the right-wing than to the left-wing forces). The repression during the Franco years was enormous. Even in his bed just before he died (1975), Franco was signing death warrants for political prisoners.

This pact of silence continued until recently, when the grandchildren of those who had disappeared wanted to find out where they were buried. The young started asking questions. The right wing did not want people to ask questions. The Church, the Army, the Royal House, the conservative media (i.e., the majority of the media) said it was better for the country to forget the past. To look at the past, they said, would simply open old wounds – assuming, wronglly, that these wounds had ever closed. The leadership of the left-wing parties – the socialist and communists – had remained silentent for all those years out of fear. They were afraid of antagonizing powerful forces, including the King. The Queen had actually defended Franco in a recent interview, denying that he was a bloody dictator. He was, she said, a soft, authoritarian figure, like a father to her husband, the King. And the King has repeatedly said that he would not allow any criticism of General Franco among his entourage.

The grandchildren of the disappeared, however, did not feel any commitment to this rule of silence. They started moving along the roadsides and valleys looking for the bodies of their disappeared love ones. More and more people joined them. And it soon became clear that there was an enormous popular sympathy for them. People helped them find the disappeared ones. Village by village, people began to speak about what they had never dared say: where the disappeared had been buried and abandoned. They even started identifying those who had done the killing. It soon became a popular movement, known as the "families and the friends of the disappeared ones," forcing the socialist government to pass the Historical Memory Law. For the first time – 30 years after ddemocracy was reestablished in Spain – the silence was broken. The llaw offered assistance to groups looking for the bodies of those who had disappeared. But, it did not make the state responsible for finding and burying them, as the U.N. Human Rights Commission repeatedly requested; the socialist governments ignored these requests. Eventually, the case of the "Spanish disappeared" gained international attention when several newspapers, including the Guardian in the U.K. and the New York Times in the U.S., wrote articles about it.

Many international and Spanish commentators also criticized several judges, including Judge Garzon, for trying to take the Argentinean and Chilean dictators to court over the disappeared in those countries while not doing anything about the disappeared at home, in Spain (where the numbers and the cruelty were even greater). Judge Garzon was asked repeatedly, why don't you judge the violations of human rights that took place in your own country rather than in Argentina and Chile? The answer he and others gave was that the Amnesty Law of 1977 had closed that opportunity. But, the Spanish government has signed on to an international law that makes crimes against humanity a type of violation for which the opportunity for judgment in court cannot be closed. And the case of the disappeared was clearly a crime against humanity, as the U.N. Human Rights Commission had declared. The Amnesty Law was a poor excuse not to do anything. Finally, Judge Garzon found enough courage to call for a trial of the fascist leadership, instructing all the authorities to collaborate in finding the disappeared ones.

It was a bombshell! Within a few weeks, an enormous opposition had mobilized against him and against the case. This mobilization was led by Attorney General Zaragoza, appointed by the socialist government, who wanted to stop Garzon on the spot. The Amnesty Law had to be respected, he said, because it was the basis of “national reconciliation” between the winners and losers in the civil war. "Reconciliation" was a farce, however. It was not reconciliation but a forced acceptance by the losers of the power held by the winners of the Spanish Civil War. And the socialist government was still afraid to confront the Army and the Church (among other powerful groups), which had played a key role in repressing the democratic forces. The Church, for example, was responsible for taking babies and children away from mothers (“red mothers,” as they were called by the fascist forces, including the religious orders) who were jailed, exiled, or assassinated, and giving the children (without parents' or families' permission) to families close to the fascist regime who wanted children or to religious institutions as recruits for their orders. All of these children were given new names and did not know their true ancestry. As Dr. Vallejo Najera, the ideologue of the Spanish Army, indicated, this state policy was "necessary to purify the Spanish race," stopping the contamination of children with the pathological values of their red parents. Many of these parents were in the Army's concentration camps, where prisoners were the subjects of biological and psychological experiments. These camps were supervised by the German Gestapo, which later developed and expanded such studies in the Nazi concentration camps.

Two years ago, a Catalan public television channel produced a documentary on children who had been stolen from their mothers. It received a number of international awards. In Spain, it has been shown only in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Andalusia (at 1 a.m. in the morning). Aznar (Bush's friend) forbade its airing on Spanish television, and under the Zapatero government, it has been shown only once (in a brief, shortened version) on public television.

Fear continues to exist in Spain. And this fear explains why, two weeks ago, Garzon, under enormous pressure, withdrew the case.  So, Spain remains the only country where genocide and crimes against humanity remain without sanction. The pact of silence continues. But for how long? At this very moment, there are young people still trying to find their grandparents and working to mobilize people. We will see who will win in the movement to recover the bodies of the disappeared and the history of Spain.

The Spanish establishment, including Zapatero's government, does not want this public trial of General Franco and his comrades-in-arms in the genocide. The trial would have had an enormous impact, threatening the basis underlying the Monarchy and the way the transition from dictatorship to democracy has taken place. This explains the huge mobilization to stop any such trials. But the grandchildren of the disappeared have enormous popular sympathy. Finally, people are losing their fear and are uncovering and discovering the bodies of the disappeared ones, and in so doing they are rediscovering their own history – buried, too, for so many yeaars. We will see what happens. The story has not ended yet.

________________
Vicente Navarro is Professor of Policy Studies and Public Policy, The Johns Hopkins University, USA and  Professor of Political Science, the Pompeu Fabra University, Spain. He can be reached at vnavarro@jhsph.edu



______________
C.
from ZNet :
Date: 24 December 2008
Subject: The Greek Uprising.
http://www.zmag.org/zspace/nikosraptis

Update on the Greek Uprising
Nikos Raptis interviewed by Chris Spannos

S immering social and material tensions in Greece were detonated by the police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos earlier this month on December 6th. The past three weeks have seen daily and nightly tumultuous clashes between those rising up and the Greek state. Demonstrations, protests, barricades, and riots have rocked the streets. TV stations, universities, high schools, workplaces, and city halls have been occupied.
Last Saturday was an international day of solidarity with the Greek uprising. Labor and student demonstrations are scheduled to continue early in the new-year.

Nikos Raptis is a resident of Athens and also a long-time contributor to Z, which happens to be named for the Costa-Gavras film, also titled Z, that is about resistance and repression in post-war Greece. Raptis's article, sent in the previous mail-out, "Greek Teenagers," provides background to the uprising. Z collective member Chris Spannos interviewed Nikos for an update on the current status of the revolt. The interview took place between December 17-23.
 
 
The Greek Populace
 
Chris: First, moving into the third week of rebellion, can you give an overview of events this week and into the foreseeable future? What is the mood of those protesting and of broader society more generally?
 
Nikos: Chris, allow me, before we go ahead with the interview, to make a few comments on the mood that I [or any other person] find myself in these days. For example, in the morning of December 18 I read in the news:
 
First: In the New York Times of December 17 we read: "Jose and his brother Romel [two Ecuadorian immigrants] appear to have been misidentified as gay as they walked home, arms around each other, on a predawn morning in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Romel managed to escape the three men who emerged from a passing car wielding a baseball bat and shouting anti-gay and anti-Latino epithets.
 
Jose was struck on the head with a bottle, then kicked and beaten into unconsciousness... and expired last Friday night, one day before his mother, who was traveling from Ecuador, could reach him".
                                                                             
Second: In today's Greek press we read: Alexis Gregoropoulos, the 15-year-old Greek, was murdered by a Greek policeman on December 6. Yesterday, 12 days after the murder of Alexis, around 11 am, a group of about 10 high school kids, members of the Coordinating Committee of their school, were assembled at an open public space at Peristeri [a rather downgraded part of Athens] discussing the program for the demonstrations of the next day. A shot was fired from some distance and a 17-year-old kid was hit on the palm of his right hand. The kid was operated upon this morning and a 38-caliber revolver bullet was extracted. According to the other kids a second shot was fired 10 minutes later from a closer distance.
 
The government covered up the incident for 14 hours. Whoever did it, he scared the lights out of the parents of the uprisen Greek teenagers. The police have already leaked the "information" that it was a "crazy" [neighbor] that did it. My estimate is that it was done by one of the neo-Nazis that the government uses to do its dirty work. Again, this is my guess.
 
Third: Again from the Greek press: The policeman that murdered the 15-year-old Alexis and the policeman with him during the act, were not jailed in the main Athens prison, as there was fear that the other prisoners might harm them. So, they were imprisoned in a small prison away from Athens. They were put in the same cell. Yesterday, after midnight, the murderer cop attacked his partner-cop in the cell, shouting that he [the partner] was a "demon" and that he [the murderer] wished to have a religious "confession" [to a priest]. The general feeling is that this is "theater" aiming to plead insanity for the pig. Also, as expected, it might be that the cop who did not use his gun is about to start "singing" and therefore the attack was in earnest.
 
One can claim that the reference to the existence of murderous assholes in any society is a truism. That is correct. However, what needs to be answered is: why these murderous assholes feel that in our "order-and-security" societies they will [tacitly] have the protection of the police and of the [by definition conservative] judiciary? This is not an exaggeration! Any honest observer of what is going on in our societies will come to this conclusion.
 
Now to answer your question:
 
The Events
 
The above items concerning Greece give you the answer for the most important events up to Wednesday, December 17. The wounding of the high school kid, in Peristeri, is taken very seriously by the ordinary Greeks. They are almost certain that whoever shot at the kid was shooting to kill. There is one eyewitness, who has not testified officially, yet. He attests that the shooting came from people dressed in civilian cloths in a car [a white "Citroen"] with a big radio antenna that sped away in a flash after the shooting. The police used to have this kind of car and antenna. This event, naturally, has increased the anger in the populace, especially of the revolted teenagers. On the other hand, after the shooting the parents will try to keep the kids out of the streets. Yet, the name of Peristeri, the site of shooting, is becoming an important word of the uprising. Already there has been a peaceful but massive demonstration at Peristeri to protest the shooting.
 
From December 17 to this day [Dec. 22] there were demonstrations but there were no burnings and damage of banks, shops, etc in the downtown Athens area or other cities, as in the first days of the uprising. All these days since about December 17 the action has been precisely targeted and, in general, away from the center.
 
 
Chris: What were the targets and how significant were they?
 
Nikos: The choice of targets is very revealing and of great sociopolitical significance.
 
The targets were:
 
The headquarters of the riot Police.
 
The Police Academy, in New Philadelphia, in Northern Athens.
 
The French Institute, where the Greek youth acquires French as a second or third language. My estimate is that it was targeted because of the Sarkozy "phenomenon".
 
A government building where the data for people that have trouble paying, taxes, loans, etc. are stored.
 
Sit-in by laborers at the General Federation of Workers of Greece. A US "constructed" labor syndicate, since 1947.
 
Occupation of the law offices of Kougias, the "famous" lawyer who defends the policeman that murdered the young Alexis, and "tidying-up" of the establishment. Also, two attacks against Kougias at the city of Patras, this time the "illustrious" barrister was defended and saved by the police from possible severe "disciplining" by very angry youngsters.
 
Attack against the police unit that guards the central complex of court buildings in Athens.
 
Invasion of the National Theater and stopping of the show.
 
Pelting of the [perennial] rightist Mayor of Salonica, a former M.D. and a track and field athlete, with candy, bon bons and castor sugar. The verbal reaction of the "cultured" mayor towards the young people that "offered" him the sweets: "You social outcasts!" The bystanders approved of the act of the...young people.
 
One of the most important acts of the youths of Greece these last few days is the "creation" of the saga of the Christmas Tree at the very center of Athens, the Constitution Square. By the way, the Preamble of the US Constitution starts with the words "We the People". Article Three of the Greek Constitution dictates: "The established (used to be the "official") religion in Greece is the religion of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ. The Orthodox Church of Greece, that recognizes as its head our Lord Jesus Christ...", and so on. No wonder that the mayors of Athens, "socialists" or rightists, always strived to erect the most glorious plastic Christmas Tree in Europe. As most of the people in the world have seen on their TV screens the huge Grecian Orthodox Christmas Tree [a.k.a. Tannenbaum] was burned by the Greek teenagers et al, in the first face of the uprising. The rightist mayor of Athens, a certain Nikitas Kaklamanis [also an M.D.], with zingy energy managed to erect a new glorious plastic Orthodox Christmas Tree, in record time. A few days before that, the personnel [doctors, nurses, etc.] of one of the most important hospitals in Athens stepped out of the hospital on the street and started cleaning the windshields of the passing cars [symbolically] asking for money to buy gauze for the operation rooms of the hospital as there were none in the hospital because of lack of money. In the previous rightist government Kaklamanis was Minister of...Health.
 
On Saturday, Dec. 20, a group of boys and girls, of the Superior School of Fine Arts [of University level] went to the central meat market in downtown Athens and asked the shopkeepers to "donate" to them all the spoiled meat available. The shopkeepers were more than enthusiastic and they added a half-boiled pig head to the donation. Then, securing and a sufficient number of plastic bags full of garbage, they proceeded to the Constitution Square and the Christmas tree. Where they started improving the decoration of the tree. The ordinary citizens present at the time encouraged the students. Finally, the riot police, and the firefighting trucks arrived, beat the hell out of the students and from then on the heroic policemen stand guard in full combat-gear all around the Orthodox Christmas Tree.
 
The "joyful" saga of the Christmas Tree was accompanied by a characteristic act of police brutality a few blocks from the Christmas Tree. A young soldier in mufti walked down a main Athens street with his girl friend. For no reason at all a group of policemen on the sidewalk attack them and beat the young man hurting one of his eyes. An eye-witness, a lawyer, intervenes. He gets rough treatment by the police. The young man is arrested and he is now accused with very serious crimes. The "soldier-case" has become a very serious case of police brutality for the Greeks.
 
About the foreseeable future. It seems that the present "intifada" of the Greek teenagers will not end as the youth uprisings of recent history [May '68, etc]. One new development that corroborates this view has been the spread of support for the Greek youth all over the world. My estimate is that the kids are very serious in the pursuit of their aims. Yet, no one can be certain. The most important future event is the nation-wide demonstration, on January 9, in memory of the murder of Nikos Temponeras, the young high school teacher of mathematics in the city of Patras years ago [in 1991], by the leader of the [rightist] Youth of New Democracy, the party of the present Greek government, who crushed the skull of the young teacher. This rather forgotten murder came back in the forefront because of the murder now of Alexis. My sense that is that the name of Temponeras, the martyr of Patras, will play a significant role with the teenagers as things develop. The 9th of January 2009 is a date to be studied with interest.
 
As to the mood of those protesting and the broader society, Chris allow me to dwell a bit on this subject.
 
As I have written in my previous ZNet Commentaries I think that in any given population, 1/3 of it, for a "strange" reason are people who consider themselves "conservative", that is "cryptofascist". Whether these people [mentioned as the "1/3" from now on] are born or "made" this way is irrelevant. This, naturally, holds also for the Greek population. These "conservative" Greeks think that the murderous armed policeman that killed Alexis, was defending himself, in the presence of half a dozen teenagers, and that he was right in killing the kid, whom they consider to be a bum. Also, they think that Kougias the "famous" lawyer is defending the policeman effectively, by claiming that the death of the kid was the "will of God" and that the "courts should decide if the death was necessary". If I may add a remark here Chris, this "1/3" of reactionary individuals might be the root of all evil in he world.
 
The Minister of Justice, one person named Chatzigakis, or something, in the Greek Parliament stated that the British Government not only forgave the policeman who killed the Brazilian youth during the attack against the London subway a few years ago, "but reinstated him to active service". Therefore the Greek government should, etc.
 
In the notoriously extreme rightist Sparta area, in Peloponnesus, there is a movement to raise money for the family of the murderous policeman!
 
A group of "intellectuals" signed a declaration that confirms Noam Chomsky's opinion about them. The tenor of their text was that the kids were not doing the right thing.
 
The worst reaction about the uprising of the teenagers was that of the Secretary of the central Committee of KKE [the Communist Party of Greece], Aleka Papariga. She insisted that this was not an "uprising", no matter how many the demonstrating youths. She claimed that revolutions happen only when the workers revolt under the guidance of the communist leadership. Also, she insinuated that the "Coalition of the Radical Left" [a formerly eurocommunist split from KKE] was condoning the burning, etc. An accusation that is not only incorrect but dishonest.
 
The most dangerous group in the events of these past weeks was that of the neo-Nazis. The demonstrations, the burnings, the lootings, etc. gave them a golden chance to mix with the demonstrators and carry out their horrid work. [By the way, they call their Nazi organization the "Golden Dawn"!]. During the first days of the uprising they found the opportunity to mix with some shopkeeper that tried to protect their shops at Patras and did what some people called a "Kristallnacht" chasing people and breaking even into their houses. Similar acts by neo-Nazis were performed in the northern Greek city of Komotini.
 
This behavior thrives through the protection of the neo-Nazis by the police. It seems that in the police corps there is a significant number of neo-Nazis of the "Golden Dawn". One of the most significant events during these days has been a video showing neo-Nazis [or policemen dressed as demonstrators] wielding crowbars, etc., walking out of a group of regular policemen and starting to break glass windows of shops. One of them using a regular...sledgehammer.
 
However, what is of greater importance is the fact that the neo-Nazis, who operate in the fringes of the above 1/3, have managed to enter in the Greek parliament as an acceptable political party with a percentage of 3 to 4 % of the votes in the parliamentary elections. Most of the time in the parliament they try to present a "populist" image using the language and the arguments of the...communist party! However, yesterday their leader, bearing the Turkish [!] name Karatzaferis, a former journalist [and amateur boxer], asked the Parliament to vote for a new "special act". The history of the "special act" ["idionymo", in Greek] is one of the most sinister pages of the political life of Greece. This was a law "constructed", in 1929, by the famous "father" of the Greek nation, the "great democrat" Eleftherios Venizelos", whose innumerable marble or bronze statues are dispersed all over Greece. The "special act" was designed to start a brutal persecution of the Greek communists and anarchists, who "intended to overturn the established order". This was the beginning of a pogrom especially against the Greek communists that included, imprisonment, torture and later, after Venizelos, executions in the thousands, that lasted up to 1974. When Venizelos was told that the Greek fascists of that era were intent in overturning the established order, he declined to include the fascists in the "special Act"!
 
Of course, all this shouting by Karatzaferis, the "representative" of the neo-Nazis in the Parliament, is simply posturing, because more than anyone else he knows that if the hoods are removed many of the faces under them will belong to "Golden Dawn" thugs or policemen.
 
Chris, here at this point, I have to describe a situation that is of great importance in the political life in Greece. There are a few persons that dominate the news in the Greek society almost on a daily basis. These are the following:
 
There is an upper level Orthodox Christian priest in Salonica [I don't know his rank but in his rank they call them "Saint"!] that goes by the name of Anthimos. For years now he delivers from the pulpit an incredibly extreme right wing and warlike political preaching that is very dangerous. For example, he threatens the Macedonians [the name, etc.] with invasion by the Greek army, or dares them a la W. Bush "let them (the Macedonians) come!" Who supports him in this kind of behavior?
 
Again in Salonica, there is a guy by the name of Psomiadis, a rabid rightist, who plays the role of the prefect, who is the non-cassocked twin of Anthimos the priest. Although, once he came close to the black-cassocked priest when he donned a black "Zorro" costume and rode a horse. For years and years he appears on the TV screens from early in the morning. What might be his role?
 
Then, there is Theodore Pangalos, a 70-year-old heavily overweight man, who is proud of his weight as is attested by the story that once with the microphones in the European Union[?] forgotten in active state he attacked Angela Merkel verbally by saying: "Has she ever been fucked by a fat man?", intending thus to show his prowess as a fat man. Pangalos is the grandchild of a military general with the same Christian name, who was a dictator [!] of Greece in 1925. As happens in some cases with the progeny of dictators Pangalos, the grandchild named himself a leftist and enter politics. Actually in the 60s he managed to be close to Mikis Theodorakis, the great composer and heroic figure of the Greek left. When the "socialists" won the elections in 1981 Pangalos joined them and for almost two decades he held ministerial positions in the "socialist" governments, mostly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The "peak" of his career came when in 1999, as a "socialist" Minister of Foreign Affairs, he delivered Ocalan, the leader of the Kurds, to the Turks who is rotting in the Turkish prisons since then. A couple of days ago Pangalos attacked the "Coalition of Radical Left" as "political bums" who supported the hooded rioters that burned, etc. The accusation is so blatantly false that one should ask himself where is Pangalos aiming, why, and who is supporting him in this provocative behavior for almost a half of a century? The fact is that for the last 48 hours all are talking about the word "bums" that Pangalos spat out of his mouth.
 
The two other persons in the above category of "what-is-their-role" in the Greek society, are Kougias the lawyer and Karatzaferis the Leader of the extreme rightists in the Greek Parliament. 
 
There is one more new factor in this uprising in Greece; the immigrants. At first they did not participate in the riots. They only did most of the looting. However, in some cases they participated in the riots. This was a natural and expected thing to do. Most immigrants that were lucky enough to be dragged to a Greek police station, leave it as rabid haters of everything Greek. Sodomizing with broomsticks or clubs is the "mundane" procedure by the brave Greek policemen. The most tragic "description" of the procedure was offered by a young Albanian man, who, years ago, after declining to answer to the insistent questioning by Greek journalists he said that the Greek policemen did to him "what is done to women". The young Albanian was murdered in Albania, by the Albanian police, after having commandeered a Greek Bus. The most recent procedure by the Greek police, captured also on video, was to have an Albanian immigrant torture another Albanian for the enjoyment of the Greek policemen, members of a superior race.
 
 
Chris: So what about the remaining 2/3 of the population?
 
Nikos: For the first time ordinary Greeks started throwing flower-pots against the police from their upper-floor apartment balconies. For the first time the ordinary Greeks took videos of the actions of the police from these balconies and distributed them to the media making public the brutality of the pigs. Actually the video with the sledgehammer is in black and white, which might mean that the camera was of an older era. Also, a young woman captured with her camera the scene of the departure of the two murderous policemen walking away from the murder scene of Alexis. A bit of information that is going to be used in court.
 
The most proper word to describe the mood of the 2/3 populace is: "participatory". As for the teenagers and the students it is heartening to listen to them stating that they fight for "dignity", that they do not approve of barbaric "competition" in society, that they want real education and not cramming of their minds simply with "information". Also, it is heartening to see students and teenagers trying to extinguish fires or prevent destruction of small shops, while the "disciplined" demonstrators of the KKE were passing by in indifference. It seems that this time in their struggle is very serious.
 
 
Chris: Is there anything particular about Greek society, history, or relations across generations that may help explain the revolt?
 
Nikos: There is a Greek "particularity" that might help in this struggle. The Greek family is still a very close-knit entity. The present teenagers are two generations away from the generation that experienced the Nazi occupation of 1941-1944 and the bloody revolt of the Left against the British and the US up to 1949. Yet in most Greek families there is a "residue" of that experience which, given the strong bonds in the family, enables the Greek teenagers to understand quite accurately how the world runs. This was corroborated, now, by the maturity of their views, as articulated during the last days.
 
 
Chris: Could you outline some of the material conditions please, the ones affecting those rising up and calling for rebellion, for the youth, students, workers, migrants, etc.?
 
Nikos: The most important aspects of the material conditions are the joblessness, the salaries of what by now is called the "generation of the 700 Euros" [about US $ 970 per month], the University degrees that are almost useless, the flight of Greek companies to neighboring countries in search of cheap labor, the "flexible"  treatment of hiring and firing, the unbelievably high prices in the Greek supermarkets much above the ones in the rest of the European Union, the scandalous treatment of the money of the taxpayers by the Government, the unbelievably bad condition of the National Health System, the exorbitant profits of the Greek banks, and finally the "strange" insistence of the Greek governing elite to follow the "neo-liberal" economic model after what has happened worldwide. 
 
 
The State and Legal Situation
 
Chris: Tuesday (Dec. 16) Prime Minister Karamanlis said he accepted "a share of the blame" in the scandal involving a monastery which exchanged tracts of farmland in northern Greece for state-owned property in Athens. How has this affected the credibility of Karamanlis and his New Democracy party? Is this crisis of credibility extending beyond the politicians and parties who hold positions in the ruling apparatus, to a critique of the political apparatus itself?
 
Nikos: Karamanlis has received a savage ridicule from all quarters, except the "strange 1/3", who have invested in him a lot [material and immaterial]. However, even his people consider him as a not very capable "manager", that is they consider him as incompetent. That has been discussed confidentially even among his ministers.
 
Almost all scandals in Greece are swept under the carpet. The principal factor in this rampant dishonesty, beside the politicians, is the extremely corrupt and reactionary judiciary, originally "constructed" by the CIA since 1947 [as most institutions in Greece] and undergoing the necessary "maintenance", ever since. The fact that the judges "used" by the dictators are still powerful in the judiciary is indicative of the truth of this.
 
The "2/3" of the Greeks, as above described, know what is going on, but a part of them is trapped by the "socialists" in a client-relationship as voters, for economic reasons and the rest that are on the "real" left have an animus that has its roots in historical reasons. One way out of this impasse is for the leadership of the KKE [the "traditional" communists] to depart and the base of KKE, the ordinary members, to have the honesty to recognize past faults and join forces with the rest of the Left. The same holds also for the base of the "socialists".
 
Personally I think that the teenager "intifada" will play a role, as the kids have gained a right to a dialogue with the adults in their families and society in general.
 
The legal situation has reached the following point: The bullet that killed Alexis was examined in "Demokritos", the most important research center in Greece, and the findings show that there were traces of "silicon dioxide", which might mean the bullet hit some construction material before entering the body of Alexis. However, all eyewitnesses insist that the shots were horizontal, not in the air. That the fatal shot was horizontal has been confirmed by the in situ investigation by technical experts. The general consensus is that even if the bullet ricocheted, the use of a gun was criminal.
 
Kougias, the defense lawyer, continues to provoke the entire Greek population in a queer way. Many people are really angry against him. It seems that his bravado is based not on courage but on some unfathomable motives.
 
As for the policemen in prison, after the violent "theater" or real attack, there is nothing of importance about them.
 
 
Chris: The police officer who shot dead Grigoropoulos has been charged with murder. How has this affected popular disaffection with the police? How has it affected the broader concern with worsening social and material conditions, and the need to change society?
 
Nikos: The public disaffection of the majority of the Greeks with the police has been a given for almost half a century. What is new is the reaction of the teenagers.
 
The concern about the police during this period is minimal, in contrast to previous decades when the police could effect the ruining of lives or could bring about everyday misery for a part of the population.
 
 
Chris: The Greek police, as police everywhere, have a history of violence and brutality. Do you think the Greek state is holding back repression of the uprising for fear of instigating even more militancy and revolt, or example, imagine the consequences if there was a police raid of the Athens Polytechnic University?
 
Nikos: The state is not holding back repression. The impression of the first couple of days, that the police acted "defensively", is inaccurate.
 
 
Chris: How far can the uprising go? How is the Greek ruling apparatus responding? Do you think there is reason for them to be concerned about losing control? Do elites share a common strategy for how to deal with the uprising or is there differing opinions and fragmenting within their ranks?
 
Nikos: The uprising can go a long way. The crucial factors are the base of the KKE and the base of the "socialists" [PASOK]. There is no reason to be concerned about losing control. The Greek elites have always been dependent on the favor of the White House. The ones that have reason to be concerned are the people of the CIA station in the US Embassy in Athens. A strong, united Greek Left has historically been a nightmare for the US.
 
Chris: Thank you Nikos.
 
Nikos: Thank you.

____________________
This interview is available online, where sustainers can also comment, here: http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20039


____________
D.
from Grace Kpohazounde :
Date: 19 December 2008
Subject: The Politics of Food and Foreign Relations.

Professor Feeley,
Happy Holidays to you !

Cordially,
Grâce


_______________
E.
from Michael Parenti :
Date: 23 December 2008
Subject: Huge environmental disaster in Tennessee - Coal Ash spill.

Friends,
There was a huge and terrible environmental disaster in Tennessee yesterday.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, better known as TVA, has a coal-burning power plant located near Harriman, Tennessee, along Interstate 40 between Knoxville and Nashville. The stuff that is left over after TVA burns their coal is called coal ash.
 
Coal ash contains mercury and dangerous heavy metals like lead and arsenic - materials found naturally in coal are concentrated in the ash.

TVA has a huge mountain of this coal waste material stored in a gigantic pile next to their Harriman (Kingston) power plant, alongside a tributary of the Tennessee River.

On Monday morning Dec. 22 around 1:00 am, the earthen retaining wall around this mountain of coal ash failed and approximately 500 million gallons of nasty black coal ash flowed into tributaries of the Tennessee River - the water supply for Chattanooga TN and millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. 
 
This Tennessee TVA spill is over 40 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, if local news accounts are correct.
 
*** This is a huge environmental disaster of epic proportions.
 
To see an amazing aerial video of the spill - the big hunks and chunks in the river are mounds of coal ash:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGmVCABMRRQ 
There is better aerial footage but you have to watch an Applebees commercial first - go to the link below, then scroll down to the "Most Popular" section and find the button that says "aerial footage"
 
http://www.wbir.com/video/default.aspx?aid=74330

The local media are downplaying the spill, but the Nashville newspaper (The Tennessean) has a decent article, posted below.
 
When I first saw the 300 million gallon Martin County coal sludge spill in Kentucky in October 2000 I was outraged.  I was sure that it would be a national news story, but it never was, because the coal companies and local law enforcement blocked the road leading to the spill and kept the media out.  The national media was confused because they didn't know what "coal sludge" was.  And ....the big national environmental groups didn't do enough to bring media attention to the Martin County disaster.
 
Thats not going to happen this time, because we have
 
1. You Tube
2. Bloggers
3. Digital cameras
4. You!
 
Please help - we need volunteers to take pictures and video of the spill and post them on the web.  We need first hand accounts and documentation of the spill.  We need letters to the editor.  We need calls and emails to our leaders in Washington and Nashville and Frankfort and to President-Elect Obama.
 
Please fwd this email to other concerned people and the news media. 
 
*** There is no such thing as clean coal!  Look at the video of this spill. 
 
"Clean Coal" is The Big Corporate Lie.
 
This horrific disaster in Tennessee can be the turning point in our nation's struggle to build a new network of clean modern renewable sources of energy, like wind and solar power - but we have to raise awareness of this disaster immediately.  Thanks for reading.
 
Here is the Tennessean's coverage:

 
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081223/GREEN02/812230370/1001/RSS6001
___________________
Contact Anne Paine at 615-259-8071 or apaine@tennessean.com.




Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike
Collapse poses risk of toxic ash

by Anne Paine and Colby Sledge
 


H ARRIMAN, Tenn. ­ Millions of cubic yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.
 
One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond's mini-blowouts off and on for years.
[]
 
About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry ­ enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools ­ rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
 
[There are 200 gallons per cubic yard so this is about 500 million gallon - Dave]
 
Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years.
 
The ash slide, which began just before 1 a.m., covered as many as 400 acres as deep as 6 feet. The wave of ash and mud toppled power lines, covered Swan Pond Road and ruptured a gas line. It damaged 12 homes, and one person had to be rescued, though no one was seriously hurt.
 
Much remains to be determined, including why this happened, said Tom Kilgore, president and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority.
 
"I fully suspect that the amount of rain we've had in the last eight to 10 days, plus the freezing weather … might have had something to do with this," he said in a news conference Monday on the site.
 
The area received almost 5 inches of rain this month, compared with the usual 2.8 inches. Freeze and thaw cycles may have undermined the sides of the pond. The last formal report on the condition of the 40-acre pond ­ an unlined, earthen structure ­ was issued in January and was unavailable Monday, officials said.
 
Neighbors Don and Jil Smith, who have lived near the pond for eight years, said that nearly every year TVA has cleaned up what they termed "baby blowouts."
Ashen liquid similar to that seen on a much larger scale in Monday's disaster came from the dike, they said.
 
"It would start gushing this gray ooze," said Don Smith, whose home escaped harm. "They'd work on it for weeks and weeks.
 
"They can say this is a one-time thing, but I don't think people are going to believe them."
The U.S. Coast Guard, EPA, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation were among agencies that responded to the emergency.

Toxic irritants possible

Coal is burned to produce electricity at the Kingston Fossil Plant, notable for its tall towers seen along Interstate 40 near the Harriman exit in Roane County.
 
Water is added to the ash, which is the consistency of face powder, for pumping it to the pond. The ash is settled out in that pond before the sludge is moved to other, drier ponds, Kilgore said.
 
Coal ash can carry toxic substances that include mercury, arsenic and lead, according to a federal study. The amount of poisons in TVA's ashy wastes that could irritate skin, trigger allergies and even cause cancer or neurological problems could not be determined Monday, officials said.
 
Viewed from above, the scene looked like the aftermath of a tsunami, with swirls of dirtied water stretching for hundreds of acres on the land, and muddied water in the Emory River.
 
The Emory leads to the Clinch, which flows into the Tennessee.
Workers sampled river water Monday, with results expected back today, but didn't sample the dunelike drifts of muddy ash.
 
That could begin today, officials said, and the potential magnitude of the problem could make this a federally declared Superfund site. That would mean close monitoring and a deep, costly cleanup requiring years of work.
 
"We'll be sampling for metals in the ground to see what kind of impact that had," said Laura Niles, a spokeswoman for the EPA in Atlanta.
 
"Hopefully, it won't be as bad as creating a Superfund site, but it depends on what is found."
 
Stephen Smith, with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville, said those concerned about water and air quality have tried for years to press for tighter regulation of the ash.
 
The heavy metals in coal ­ including mercury and other toxic substances ­ concentrate in the ash when burned, he said.
 
"You know where that is now," he said. "It's in that stuff that's all over those people's houses now."
 
Chemicals and metals from coal ash have contaminated drinking water in several states, made people and animals sick in New Mexico, and tainted fish in Texas and elsewhere, according to Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit national environmental law firm that follows the issue.
 
"It's discouraging because this is an easy problem to fix," she said.
Ash could be recycled by using it to make concrete and at the very least should be placed in lined, state-of-the-art landfills, she said.

Plant is still operating

TVA's Kilgore said that chemicals in the ash are of concern, but that the situation is probably safe. The power plant is still operating, sending the ash to a larger pond on the site.
 
"There are levels of chemicals in there that we are concerned about," Kilgore said. "We don't think there's anything immediate of danger because most of that's contained, but that's why we have sampling folks out."
 
Officials were monitoring a water intake that serves Kingston City and is only a few miles downstream from the Kingston plant, but said no problem had been noted there as of Monday afternoon.
 
The power producer, which oversees the Tennessee River system, had slowed river flow in the area, releasing less water from key dams, so the pollution might be better contained for possible cleanup.
 
TVA has insurance for an event like this, spokeswoman Barbara Martucci said, but what the cleanup cost is and how much insurance will pay remains to be determined.
 
Otherwise, ratepayers in Tennessee could bear much of the costs. TVA provides virtually all the electricity in the state, along with parts of six others.
 
___________________
Contact Anne Paine at 615-259-8071 or apaine@tennessean.com.
 

_____________
F.
from Truthout :
Date: 23 December 2008
Subject: Rape, A Crime Against Society.

Ann Jones explores the ongoing tragedy occurring in the Congo.  Hundreds of thousands of women are raped and mutilated, leaving behind psychological trauma and the scars of a society ravaged by horrific violence.  

 
Mass Rape in the Congo: A Crime Against Society
by Ann Jones (The National Law Journal)


_____________
G.
from Fred Lonidier
Date: 18 December 2008
Subject: Exhibition of my artwork in Chicago.


Union Sisters, Brothers & Comrades,

This is a request for you to pass this message on to unions, members and friends in the Chicago area.

I have an exhibition of my work, "Rio Tijuana Bridge: A Tale of Two Globes or Two Tales of a Globe/Puente del Rio Tijuana: Un Cuento de Dos Mundos o Cuentos de Un Mundo," which is a part of a large (and growing) documentary photo/text installation artwork, "N.A.F.T.A (Not A Fair Trade for All), Getting The Correct Picture: A monolingual, trade union descendent of Swedish immigrants and Cajuns goes across the border of the United States of America and the United States of Mexico."

It is opening in January at the ARC Gallery along with another very interesting Juried Exhibition, "Money, Money, Money"

Details are available at the Internet link: http://www.arcgallery.org/
Tel: (312) 733-2787    
Email: info@arcgallery.org


Solidarity,
Fred Lonidier
UC/AFT Local 2034