"Towards Anarchism" by Errico Malatesta (1853-1932)
"Towards Anarchism" first appeared in English in the Depression era periodical MAN! This little essay was highly regarded by the revolutionary anarchist prisoner Carl Harp (1949-1981) who suggested reprinting it in this form. First printing, 1982 by Black Cat Press, Canada.
It is a general opinion that we, because we call ourselves revolutionists, expect Anarchism to come with one stroke - as the immediate result of an insurrection which violently attacks all that which exists and which replaces all with institutions that are really new. And to tell the truth this idea is not lacking among some comrades who also conceive the revolution in such a manner.
This prejudice explains why so many honest opponents believe Anarchism a thing impossible; and it also explains why some comrades, disgusted with the present moral condition of the people and seeing that Anarchism cannot come about soon, waver between an extreme dogmatism which blinds them to the realities of life and an opportunism which practically makes them forget that they are Anarchists and that for Anarchism they should struggle.
This prejudice explains why so many honest opponents believe Anarchism a thing impossible; and it also explains why some comrades, disgusted with the present moral condition of the people and seeing that Anarchism cannot come about soon, waver between an extreme dogmatism which blinds them to the realities of life and an opportunism which practically makes them forget that they are Anarchists and that for Anarchism they should struggle.
If we should want to substitute one government for another, that is, impose our desires upon others, it would only be necessary to combine the material forces needed to resist the actual oppressors and put ourselves in their place.
But we do not want this; we want Anarchism which is a society based on free and voluntary accord - a society in which no one can force his wishes on another and in which everyone can do as he pleases and together all will voluntarily contribute to the well-being of the community. But because of this Anarchism will not have definitively and universally triumphed until all men will not only not want to be commanded but will not want to command; nor will Anarchism have succeeded unless they will have understood the advantage of solidarity and know how to organise a plan of social life wherein there will no longer be traces of violence and imposition.
And as the conscience, determination, and capacity of men continuously develop and find means of expression in the gradual modification of the new environment and in the realisation of the desires in proportion to their being formed and becoming imperious, so it is with Anarchism; Anarchism cannot come but little by little - slowly, but surely, growing in intensity and extension.
Therefore, the subject is not whether we accomplish Anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards Anarchism today, tomorrow, and always.
Anarchism is the abolition of exploitation and oppression of man by man, that is, the abolition of private property and government; Anarchism is the destruction of misery, of superstitions, of hatred. Therefore, every blow given to the institutions of private property and to the government, every exaltation of the conscience of man, every disruption of the present conditions, every lie unmasked, every part of human activity taken away from the control of the authorities, every augmentation of the spirit of solidarity and initiative, is a step towards Anarchism.
The problem lies in knowing how to choose the road that really approaches the realisation of the ideal and in not confusing the real progress with hypocritical reforms. For with the pretext of obtaining immediate ameliorations these false reforms tend to distract the masses from the struggle against authority and capitalism; they serve to paralyse their actions and make them hope that something can be attained through the kindness of the exploiters and governments. The problem lies in knowing how to use the little power we have - that we go on achieving, in the most economical way, more prestige for our goal.
There is in every country a government which, with brutal force, imposes its laws on all; it compels all to be subjected to exploitation and to maintain, whether they like it or not, the existing institutions. It forbids the minority groups to actuate their ideas, and prevents the social organisations in general from modifying themselves according to, and with, the modifications of public opinion. The normal peaceful course of evolution is arrested by violence, and thus with violence it is necessary to reopen that course. It is for this reason that we want a violent revolution today; and we shall want it always - so long as man is subject to the imposition of things contrary to his natural desires. Take away the governmental violence and ours would have no reason to exist.
We cannot as yet overthrow the prevailing government; perhaps tomorrow from the ruins of the present government we cannot prevent the arising of another similar one. But this does not hinder us, nor will it tomorrow, from resisting whatever form of authority - refusing always to submit to its laws whenever possible, and constantly using force to oppose force.
Every weakening of whatever kind of authority, each accession of liberty will be a progress towards Anarchism; always it should be conquered - never asked for; always it should serve to give us greater strength in the struggle; always it should make us consider the state as an enemy with whom we should never make peace; always it should make us remember well that the decrease of the ills produced by the government consists in the decrease of its attributions and powers, and the resulting terms should be determined not by those who governed but by those were governed. By government we mean any person or group of persons in the state, country, community, or association who has the right to make laws and inflict them upon those who do not want them.
We cannot as yet abolish private property; we cannot regulate the means of production which is necessary to work freely; perhaps we shall not be able to do so in the next insurrectional movement. But this does not prevent us now, or will it in the future, from continually opposing capitalism or any other form of despotism. And each victory, however small, gained by the workers against their exploiters, each decrease of profit, every bit of wealth taken from the individual owners and put at the disposal of all, shall be a progress - a forward step towards Anarchism. Always it should serve to enlarge the claims of the workers and to intensify the struggle; always it should be accepted as a victory over an enemy and not as a concession for which we should be thankful; always we should remain firm in our resolution to take with force, as soon as it will be possible, those means which the private owners, protected by the government, have stolen from the workers.
The right of force having disappeared, the means of production being placed under the management of whoever wants to produce, the result must be the fruit of a peaceful evolution.
Anarchism could not be, nor would it ever be if not for these few who want it and want it only in those things they can accomplish without the co-operation of the non-anarchists. This does not necessarily mean that the ideal of Anarchism will make little or no progress, for little by little its ideas will extend to more men and more things until it will have embraced all mankind and all life's manifestations.
Having overthrown the government and all the existing dangerous institutions which with force it defends, having conquered complete freedom for all and with it the means of regulating labour without which liberty would be a lie, and while we are struggling to arrive at this point, we do not intend to destroy those things which we little by little will reconstruct.
For example, there functions in the present society the service of supplying food. This is being done badly, chaotically, with great waste of energy and material and with capitalist interests in view; but after all, one way or another we must eat. It would be absurd to want to disorganise the system of producing and distributing food unless we could substitute for it something better and more just.
There exists a postal service. We have thousands of criticisms to make, but in the meantime we use it to send our letters, and shall continue to use it, suffering all its faults, until we shall be able to correct or replace it.
There are schools, but how badly they function. But because of this we do not allow our children to remain in ignorance - refusing their learning to read and write.
Meanwhile we wait and struggle for a time when we shall be able to organise a system of model schools to accommodate all.
From this we can see that, to arrive at Anarchism, material force is not the only thing to make a revolution; it is essential that the workers, grouped according to the various branches of production, place themselves in a position that will insure the proper functioning of their social life - without the aid or need of capitalists or governments.
And we see also that the Anarchist ideals are far from being in contradiction, as the "scientific socialists" claim, to the laws of evolution as proved by science; they are a conception which fits these laws perfectly; they are the experimental system brought from the field of research to that of social realisation.
We don't need no stinking mind control. Let us send foreigners to American public school. Our school system can make better zombies than any fancy, new age mind control!
"Not whether we accomplish anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards anarchism today, tomorrow, and always."
"Lenin is dead. We can feel for him that kind of enforced admiration which strong men, even when deluded, even when wicked, can extract from the crowd, men who suceed in leaving as they pass a deep mark on history: Alexander, Julius Caesar, Loyola, Cromwell, Robespierre, Napoleon. But, even with the best intentions, he was a tyrant who strangled the Russian revolution - and we who cannot admire him while alive, cannot mourn him now he is dead. Lenin is dead. Long live Liberty!"
"When a community has needs and its members do not know how to organise spontaneously to provide them, someone comes forward, an authority who satisfies those needs by utilizing the services of all and directing them to his liking. If the roads are unsafe and the people do not know what measures to take, a police force emerges... This is what has happened in out midst; the less organised we have been the more prone are we to be imposed on by a few individuals. And this is understandable... So much so that organisation, far from creating authority, is the only cure for it..."
"If you reason instead of repeating what is taught you; if you analyze the law and strip off those cloudy fictions with which it has been draped in order to conceal its real origin, which is the right of the stronger, and its substance, which has ever been the consecration of all the tyrannies handed down to mankind through its long and bloody history; when you have comprehended this, your contempt for the law will be profound indeed."
"Darwin pointed out how, in numberless animal societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by co-operation, and how that substitution results in the developement of intellectual and moral faculties which secure to the species the best conditions for survival. He intimated that in such cases the fittest are not the physically strongest, nor the cunningest, but those who learn to combine so as mutually to support each other, strong and weak alike, for the welfare of the community."
"When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will Justice be done: that very instant the tyrants of the Earth shall bite the dust."
"But owing to our wage system, this increase of wealth -- due to the combined efforts of men of science, of managers, and workmen as well -- has resulted only in an unprecedented accumulation of wealth in the hands of the owners of capital; while an increase of misery for the great numbers, and an insecurity of life for all, have been the lot of the workmen; the unskilled labourers, in continuous search for labour, are falling into an unheard-of destitution. And even the best paid artisans and skilled workmen labour under the permanent menace of being thrown, in their turn, into the same conditions as the unskilled paupers, in consequence of some of the continuous and unavoidable fluctuations of industry and caprices of capital."
A talk by Alan MacSimoin to the WSM Dublin branch in September 1991
The Korean anarchist Movement
In the 2,000 years of Korean history there arose movements fighting for peasants rights and for national independence. Within these movements there were tendencies that may be seen as forerunners of modern anarchism, in the same way as we might view the Diggers in the English revolution. In 1894 Japan invaded, under the pretext of protecting Korea from China. The struggle for national independance became central to all radical political activity. The modern anarchist movement in Korea began to take form among the exiles who fled to China after the 1919 independence struggle, and students & workers who went to Japan. This struggle, the 3.1 Movement within which anarchists were prominent, involved 2 million people; 1,500 demonstrations were held; 7,500 were killed; 16,000 wounded and more than 700 homes and 47 churches destroyed.
In the period up to the close of World War II the Korean Anarchist Federation has identified three stages.
The first stage covered the first half of the 1920s and is described by the KAF as the gestation period.
In the early years of this century as the Japanese ruling class started their imperialist drive into other Asian countries they also ruthlessly cracked down on any opposition at home. Japanese anarchists were to the forefront in anti-imperialist agitation. In 1910 Kotoku Shusui, a leading Japanese anarchist, was executed for treason. The Commoners Newspaper was rallying opposition to the Russia-Japan war and to the occupation of Korea. With the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the rice riot of 1918 and the mass uprising in Korea in 1919, the Japanese ruling class was worried.
Following the bloody suppression of the 3.1 Movement and the rise in the level of class struggle in Japan itself, the Japanese bosses blamed anarchists and Koreans for the Tokyo earthquake of 1923. More than 6,000 Korean workers in Japan were hunted down with clubs and bamboo spears. All known Japanese and Korean anarchists were arrested. Park Yeol and his wife Kaneko Fumiko, Korean anarchists, veterans of the independence struggle and organisers of the Tokyo "Black Workers Society", were sentenced to death. Many others were jailed. The charge of causing an earthquake may have been a bit embarrassing to sections of the ruling class so the sentences were commuted to life in prison. Kaneko died in jail and Park was not released until the end of WWll. Many of the Koreans jailed in what became known as "the High Treason case" went on to become leading activists in the anarchist movement in their own country.
The Korean Anarchist Federation in China was formed in April 1924. and published the "Korean Revolution Manifesto". It was militantly anti-imperialist "we declare that the burglar politics of Japan is the enemy for our nation's existence and that it is our proper right to overthrow the imperialist Japan by a revolutionary means". It went on to stress the to do more than merely exchange rulers, pointing out the difference between a political revolution and a social revolution. It had no doubts about the role of anarchists, it laid emphasis on the leading role of the anarchists in a revolutionary situation. The Federation began to produce papers like Recapture and Justice Bulletin.
By 1928 the spread of libertarian politics allowed the Korean Anarchists to organise the Eastern Anarchist Federation with comrades from China, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan - which published a bulletin, Dong- Bang (The East). The "Manifesto" was adopted by the Eastern Federation as its formal programme.
The second stage which covered the years 1925-30 was dominated by the organisation of the movement. Armed with the theory of anarchist revolution set out in the "Manifesto" and practical experiences drawn from the 3.1 movement, the workers organisations in Japan and "the High Treason case" groups were organised in Seoul, Taegu, Pyongyang and other areas. By November 1929 there had been a huge growth and the Korean Anarchist Communist Federation was formed as a national organisation. As part of the anti Japanese resistance it was a totally underground body. This should not lead anyone into thinking that it was small or lacking in widespread support.
To give some idea of how the movement had grown I want to look at how things had progressed since the early 1920s. In Kiho province the daily newspaper Dong-a Ilbo reported in October 1925 that ten members of the League of Black Flag had been jailed for one year each. The following year the same paper reported that five young workers were jailed for putting out a manifesto very similar in style and content to the "Korean Revolution Manifesto". In 1929 Dong -a Ilbo tells of a secret society of anarchists organised by Lee Eun-Song which had one hundred members in the town of Icheon in Kwangwon province. In that year it transpired that the entire membership of the Chunju Artists Movement Society were all anarchists, such were the names and fronts used to throw the Japanese police off the scent. In response to this the death penalty was brought in for organising societies with the aom of "changing the national structure".
In Taegu a League of Truth and Fraternity was set up in 1925 by exiles who returned from Japan. The Revolutionists League also came into being and both were in regular contact with the Tokyo Black Youth Society. I have also come across anarchist grou s in Anui, Mesan, the Changwon Black Friend League, the Jeju Island Mutual Aid group. The last mentioned used their remoteness from central government to organise co-ops of farmers and artisans, even a peasants' band. Needless to say the organisers quickly found they were not that remote and saw the inside of a prison cell.
In Kwanseo and Kwanbul province I have found mention of at least eight more groups. Almost all the groups around the country were involved in a mixture of producing leaflets & papers, oranising trade unions and engaging in resistance to the occupation.
By this time we know that most areas could boast of an active group. There were also organisations in Manchuria and amongst exiles in China and Japan.
The next stage was the fighting period which ran up to 1945.
Among the two million Koreans in Manchuria the KAF in Manchuria was able to sink deep roots immediately after its formation in 1929. The Federation's main organiser, Kim Jong-Jin, drew up a plan which he put to the anti-Japanese guerillas. It covered voluntary collectives for farmers, free education up to age 18 with adult education for those older and arms training for all responsible adults. Discussions followed and eventually an anarchist plan was agree which was described as being "according to the free federation principle based upon the spontaneous free will of man".
The difficulty that was not really addressed was how to deal with the Stalinists who were also organising in this region and were slandering the anarchists and others as "tyrants". The young anarchists around Yu- Rim wanted to fight ideology with ideology and demonstrate the superiority of their ideas. The older anti-Japanese guerillas around Kim Jwa-Jin (sometimes called the Korean Makhno) thought it was enough to state their support for anarchism but that they could ignore the Stalinists until national independence was won because only then would real politics come to the forefront. Not a lot different from the stages theory put forward by elements in Sinn Fein!
By August 1929 the anarchists had formed an administration in Shinmin (one of the three Manchurian provinces). Whether this was a government is still a point of contention among anarchists. Organised as the Korean People's Association in Manchuria it declared its aim as "an independent self- governing cooperative system of the Korean people who assembled their full power to save our nation by struggling against Japan". The structure was federal going from village meetings to district and area conferences. The general association was composed of delegates from the districts and areas.
The general association set up executive departments to deal with agriculture, education, propaganda, finance, military affairs, social health, youth and general affairs. The staff of the departments received no more than the average wage.
We would expect that the organisation would start at village level and then federate upwards. However the EAPM believed that the war situation made this impossible to apply the principle immediately. In the interim they appointed the staffs and appointed them from the top down. Organisation and propaganda teams were then sent out to agitate for support and for the creation of village assemblies and committees. In one village a rice mill capable of milling over 1 million bushels was built to allow the local co-op to break from reliance on merchants. Seemingly all these teams reported a good response and were made welcome wherever they went.
The local administration of the anti- Japanese fighters in Shimin voluntarily dissolved itself and lent its support to KAPM. As the anarchists grew in numbers and support the Stalinists and the pro-Japanese elements in manchuria felt their own power bases threatened.
On January 20th the anarchist general Kim Jwa-Jin was assassinated while doing repair work on the rice mill I just mentioned. The killer escaped but his handler was caught and executed.
At a meeting in June in Peking of the KAFC it was decided to divert all resources outside Korea itself to Manchuria and most KAFC members moved to the anarchist zone in northern Manchuria. It should be noted that women comrades were active as agitators and arms smugglers.
>From late 1930 onwards the Japanese were attacking in waves from the South and the stalinists, supported by the USSR, from the North. In early 1931 the stalinists sent assassination and kidnapping teams into the anarchist zone to murder leading activists. They believed that if they wiped out the KAFM the KAPM would wither and die. By the summer of 1991 many leading anarchists were dead and the war on two fronts was devastating the region. It was decided to go underground. Anarchist Shimin was no more.
There is much more to be said about activity in China and Japan as well as in Korea both in the years up to the close of the second world war, about their attitude towards the partition of their country, and about their position today. It would take too much time to deal with it all. What should be very clear is that anarchism in Asia has a very real history. We need more information to properly assess its political development, achievements and failings. In the meantime we can draw strength from the knowledge that anarchism was, and can be again, a major force in the region.
The main source I have used in Ha Ki-Rak's A History of the Korean Anarchist Movement which was published in 1986 by the Korean Anarchist Federation. Apart from being poorly translated and chronologically confusing, it is written from the perspective of the more nationalist and reformist tendency in the Korean movement.
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"Even if god really did exist, it would be necessary to abolish him"
"Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power."
"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called `the People's Stick'."
"If you pull a sapling out of the ground, cut off all the leaves, and branches and make it into a club, you cannot expect to plant it back in the ground and have it grow into a beautifull tree..." -Bakunin to Marx
Q: You were once certain that vaccines were the hallmark of good medicine. A: Yes I was. I helped develop a few vaccines. I won't say which ones. Q: Why not? A: I want to preserve my privacy. Q: So you think you could have problems if you came out into the open? A: I believe I could lose my pension. Q: On what grounds? A: The grounds don't matter. These people have ways of causing you problems, when you were once part of the Club. I know one or two people who were put under surveillance, who were harassed. Q: Harassed by whom? A: The FBI. Q: Really? A: Sure. The FBI used other pretexts. And the IRS can come calling too. Q: So much for free speech. A: I was "part of the inner circle." If now I began to name names and make specific accusations against researchers, I could be in a world of trouble. Q: What is at the bottom of these efforts at harassment? A: Vaccines are the last defense of modern medicine. Vaccines are the ultimate justification for the overall "brilliance" of modern medicine. Q: Do you believe that people should be allowed to choose whether they should get vaccines? A: On a political level, yes. On a scientific level, people need information, so that they can choose well. It's one thing to say choice is good. But if the atmosphere is full of lies, how can you choose? Also, if the FDA were run by honorable people, these vaccines would not be granted licenses. They would be investigated to within an inch of their lives. Q: There are medical historians who state that the overall decline of illnesses was not due to vaccines. A: I know. For a long time, I ignored their work. Q: Why? A: Because I was afraid of what I would find out. I was in the business of developing vaccines. My livelihood depended on continuing that work. Q: And then? A: I did my own investigation. Q: What conclusions did you come to? A: The decline of disease is due to improved living conditions. Q: What conditions? A: Cleaner water. Advanced sewage systems. Nutrition. Fresher food. A decrease in poverty. Germs may be everywhere, but when you are healthy, you don't contract the diseases as easily. Q: What did you feel when you completed your own investigation? A: Despair. I realized I was working a sector based on a collection of lies. Q: Are some vaccines more dangerous than others? A: Yes. The DPT shot, for example. The MMR. But some lots of a vaccine are more dangerous than other lots of the same vaccine. As far as I'm concerned, all vaccines are dangerous. Q: Why? A: Several reasons. They involve the human immune system in a process that tends to compromise immunity. They can actually cause the disease they are supposed to prevent. They can cause other diseases than the ones they are supposed to prevent. Q: Why are we quoted statistics which seem to prove that vaccines have been tremendously successful at wiping out diseases? A: Why? To give the illusion that these vaccines are useful. If a vaccine suppresses visible symptoms of a disease like measles, everyone assumes that the vaccine is a success. But, under the surface, the vaccine can harm the immune system itself. And if it causes other diseases -- say, meningitis -- that fact is masked, because no one believes that the vaccine can do that. The connection is overlooked. Q: It is said that the smallpox vaccine wiped out smallpox in England. A: Yes. But when you study the available statistics, you get another picture. Q: Which is? A: There were cities in England where people who were not vaccinated did not get smallpox. There were places where people who were vaccinated experienced smallpox epidemics. And smallpox was already on the decline before the vaccine was introduced. Q: So you're saying that we have been treated to a false history. A: Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. This is a history that has been cooked up to convince people that vaccines are invariably safe and effective. Q: Now, you worked in labs. Where purity was an issue. A: The public believes that these labs, these manufacturing facilities are the cleanest places in the world. That is not true. Contamination occurs all the time. You get all sorts of debris introduced into vaccines. Q: For example, the SV40 monkey virus slips into the polio vaccine. A: Well yes, that happened. But that's not what I mean. The SV40 got into the polio vaccine because the vaccine was made by using monkey kidneys. But I'm talking about something else. The actual lab conditions. The mistakes. The careless errors. SV40, which was later found in cancer tumors -- that was what I would call a structural problem. It was an accepted part of the manufacturing process. If you use monkey kidneys, you open the door to germs which you don't know are in those kidneys. Q: Okay, but let's ignore that distinction between different types of contaminants for a moment. What contaminants did you find in your many years of work with vaccines? A: All right. I'll give you some of what I came across, and I'll also give you what colleagues of mine found. Here's a partial list. In the Rimavex measles vaccine, we found various chicken viruses. In polio vaccine, we found acanthamoeba, which is a so-called "brain-eating" amoeba. Simian cytomegalovirus in polio vaccine. Simian foamy virus in the rotavirus vaccine. Bird-cancer viruses in the MMR vaccine. Various micro-organisms in the anthrax vaccine. I've found potentially dangerous enzyme inhibitors in several vaccines. Duck, dog, and rabbit viruses in the rubella vaccine. Avian leucosis virus in the flu vaccine. Pestivirus in the MMR vaccine. Q: Let me get this straight. These are all contaminants which don't belong in the vaccines. A: That's right. And if you try to calculate what damage these contaminants can cause, well, we don't really know, because no testing has been done, or very little testing. It's a game of roulette. You take your chances. Also, most people don't know that some polio vaccines, adenovirus vaccines, rubella and hep A and measles vaccines have been made with aborted human fetal tissue. I have found what I believed were bacterial fragments and poliovirus in these vaccines from time to time -- which may have come from that fetal tissue. When you look for contaminants in vaccines, you can come up with material that IS puzzling. You know it shouldn't be there, but you don't know exactly what you've got. I have found what I believed was a very small "fragment" of human hair and also human mucus. I have found what can only be called "foreign protein," which could mean almost anything. It could mean protein from viruses. Q: Alarm bells are ringing all over the place. A: How do you think I felt? Remember, this material is going into the bloodstream without passing through some of the ordinary immune defenses. Q: How were your findings received? A: Basically, it was, don't worry, this can't be helped. In making vaccines, you use various animals' tissue, and that's where this kind of contamination enters in. Of course, I'm not even mentioning the standard chemicals like formaldehyde, mercury, and aluminum which are purposely put into vaccines. Q: This information is pretty staggering. A: Yes. And I'm just mentioning some of the biological contaminants. Who knows how many others there are? Others we don't find because we don't think to look for them. If tissue from, say, a bird is used to make a vaccine, how many possible germs can be in that tissue? We have no idea. We have no idea what they might be, or what effects they could have on humans. Q: And beyond the purity issue? A: You are dealing with the basic faulty premise about vaccines. That they intricately stimulate the immune system to create the conditions for immunity from disease. That is the bad premise. It doesn't work that way. A vaccine is supposed to "create" antibodies which, indirectly, offer protection against disease. However, the immune system is much larger and more involved than antibodies and their related "killer cells." Q: The immune system is? A: The entire body, really. Plus the mind. It's all immune system, you might say. That is why you can have, in the middle of an epidemic, those individuals who remain healthy. Q: So the level of general health is important. A: More than important. Vital. Q: How are vaccine statistics falsely presented? A: There are many ways. For example, suppose that 25 people who have received the hepatitis B vaccine come down with hepatitis. Well, hep B is a liver disease. But you can call liver disease many things. You can change the diagnosis. Then, you've concealed the root cause of the problem. Q: And that happens? A: All the time. It HAS to happen, if the doctors automatically assume that people who get vaccines DO NOT come down with the diseases they are now supposed to be protected from. And that is exactly what doctors assume. You see, it's circular reasoning. It's a closed system. It admits no fault. No possible fault. If a person who gets a vaccine against hepatitis gets hepatitis, or gets some other disease, the automatic assumption is, this had nothing to do with the disease. Q: In your years working in the vaccine establishment, how many doctors did you encounter who admitted that vaccines were a problem? A: None. There were a few who privately questioned what they were doing. But they would never go public, even within their companies. Q: What was the turning point for you? A: I had a friend whose baby died after a DPT shot. Q: Did you investigate? A: Yes, informally. I found that this baby was completely healthy before the vaccination. There was no reason for his death, except the vaccine. That started my doubts. Of course, I wanted to believe that the baby had gotten a bad shot from a bad lot. But as I looked into this further, I found that was not the case in this instance. I was being drawn into a spiral of doubt that increased over time. I continued to investigate. I found that, contrary to what I thought, vaccines are not tested in a scientific way. Q: What do you mean? A: For example, no long-term studies are done on any vaccines. Long-term follow-up is not done in any careful way. Why? Because, again, the assumption is made that vaccines do not cause problems. So why should anyone check? On top of that, a vaccine reaction is defined so that all bad reactions are said to occur very soon after the shot is given. But that does not make sense. Q: Why doesn't it make sense? A: Because the vaccine obviously acts in the body for a long period of time after it is given. A reaction can be gradual. Deterioration can be gradual. Neurological problems can develop over time. They do in various conditions, even according to a conventional analysis. So why couldn't that be the case with vaccines? If chemical poisoning can occur gradually, why couldn't that be the case with a vaccine which contains mercury? Q: And that is what you found? A: Yes. You are dealing with correlations, most of the time. Correlations are not perfect. But if you get 500 parents whose children have suffered neurological damage during a one-year period after having a vaccine, this should be sufficient to spark off an intense investigation. Q: Has it been enough? A: No. Never. This tells you something right away. Q: Which is? A: The people doing the investigation are not really interested in looking at the facts. They assume that the vaccines are safe. So, when they do investigate, they invariably come up with exonerations of the vaccines. They say, "This vaccine is safe." But what do they base those judgments on? They base them on definitions and ideas which automatically rule out a condemnation of the vaccine. Q: There are numerous cases where a vaccine campaign has failed. Where people have come down with the disease against which they were vaccinated. A: Yes, there are many such instances. And there the evidence is simply ignored. It's discounted. The experts say, if they say anything at all, that this is just an isolated situation, but overall the vaccine has been shown to be safe. But if you add up all the vaccine campaigns where damage and disease have occurred, you realize that these are NOT isolated situations. Q: Did you ever discuss what we are talking about here with colleagues, when you were still working in the vaccine establishment? A: Yes I did. Q: What happened? A: Several times I was told to keep quiet. It was made clear that I should go back to work and forget my misgivings. On a few occasions, I encountered fear. Colleagues tried to avoid me. They felt they could be labeled with "guilt by association." All in all, though, I behaved myself. I made sure I didn't create problems for myself. Q: If vaccines actually do harm, why are they given? A: First of all, there is no "if." They do harm. It becomes a more difficult question to decide whether they do harm in those people who seem to show no harm. Then you are dealing with the kind of research which should be done, but isn't. Researchers should be probing to discover a kind of map, or flow chart, which shows exactly what vaccines do in the body from the moment they enter. This research has not been done. As to why they are given, we could sit here for two days and discuss all the reasons. As you've said many times, at different layers of the system people have their motives. Money, fear of losing a job, the desire to win brownie points, prestige, awards, promotion, misguided idealism, unthinking habit, and so on. But, at the highest levels of the medical cartel, vaccines are a top priority because they cause a weakening of the immune system. I know that may be hard to accept, but it's true. The medical cartel, at the highest level, is not out to help people, it is out to harm them, to weaken them. To kill them. At one point in my career, I had a long conversation with a man who occupied a high government position in an African nation. He told me that he was well aware of this. He told me that WHO is a front for these depopulation interests. There is an underground, shall we say, in Africa, made up of various officials who are earnestly trying to change the lot of the poor. This network of people knows what is going on. They know that vaccines have been used, and are being used, to destroy their countries, to make them ripe for takeover by globalist powers. I have had the opportunity to speak with several of these people from this network. Q: Is Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa, aware of the situation? A: I would say he is partially aware. Perhaps he is not utterly convinced, but he is on the way to realizing the whole truth. He already knows that HIV is a hoax. He knows that the AIDS drugs are poisons which destroy the immune system. He also knows that if he speaks out, in any way, about the vaccine issue, he will be branded a lunatic. He has enough trouble after his stand on the AIDS issue. Q: This network you speak of. A: It has accumulated a huge amount of information about vaccines. The question is, how is a successful strategy going to be mounted? For these people, that is a difficult issue. Q: And in the industrialized nations? A: The medical cartel has a stranglehold, but it is diminishing. Mainly because people have the freedom to question medicines. However, if the choice issue [the right to take or reject any medicine] does not gather steam, these coming mandates about vaccines against biowarefare germs are going to win out. This is an important time. Q: The furor over the hepatits B vaccine seems one good avenue. A: I think so, yes. To say that babies must have the vaccine-and then in the next breath, admitting that a person gets hep B from sexual contacts and shared needles -- is a ridiculous juxtaposition. Medical authorities try to cover themselves by saying that 20,000 or so children in the US get hep B every year from "unknown causes," and that's why every baby must have the vaccine. I dispute that 20,00 figure and the so-called studies that back it up. Q: Andrew Wakefield, the British MD who uncovered the link between the MMR vaccine and autism, has just been fired from his job in a London hospital. A: Yes. Wakefield performed a great service. His correlations between the vaccine and autism are stunning. Perhaps you know that Tony Blair's wife is involved with alternative health. There is the possibility that their child has not been given the MMR. Blair recently side-stepped the question in press interviews, and made it seem that he was simply objecting to invasive questioning of his "personal and family life." In any event, I believe his wife has been muzzled. I think, if given the chance, she would at least say she is sympathetic to all the families who have come forward and stated that their children were severely damaged by the MMR. Q: British reporters should try to get through to her. A: They have been trying. But I think she has made a deal with her husband to keep quiet, no matter what. She could do a great deal of good if she breaks her promise. I have been told she is under pressure, and not just from her husband. At the level she occupies, MI6 and British health authorities get into the act. It is thought of as a matter of national security. Q: Well, it is national security, once you understand the medical cartel. A: It is global security. The cartel operates in every nation. It zealously guards the sanctity of vaccines. Questioning these vaccines is on the same level as a Vatican bishop questioning the sanctity of the sacrament of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. Q: I know that a Hollywood celebrity stating publicly that he will not take a vaccine is committing career suicide. A: Hollywood is linked very powerfully to the medical cartel. There are several reasons, but one of them is simply that an actor who is famous can draw a huge amount of publicity if he says ANYTHING. In 1992, I was present at your demonstration against the FDA in downtown Los Angeles. One or two actors spoke against the FDA. Since that time, you would be hard pressed to find an actor who has spoken out in any way against the medical cartel. Q: Within the National Institutes of Health, what is the mood, what is the basic frame of mind? A: People are competing for research monies. The last thing they think about is challenging the status quo. They are already in an intramural war for that money. They don't need more trouble. This is a very insulated system. It depends on the idea that, by and large, modern medicine is very successful on every frontier. To admit systemic problems in any area is to cast doubt on the whole enterprise. You might therefore think that NIH is the last place one should think about holding demonstrations. But just the reverse is true. If five thousand people showed up there demanding an accounting of the actual benefits of that research system, demanding to know what real health benefits have been conferred on the public from the billions of wasted dollars funneled to that facility, something might start. A spark might go off. You might get, with further demonstrations, all sorts of fall-out. Researchers -- a few -- might start leaking information. Q: A good idea. A: People in suits standing as close to the buildings as the police will allow. People in business suits, in jogging suits, mothers and babies. Well-off people. Poor people. All sorts of people. Q: What about the combined destructive power of a number of vaccines given to babies these days? A: It is a travesty and a crime. There are no real studies of any depth which have been done on that. Again, the assumption is made that vaccines are safe, and therefore any number of vaccines given together are safe as well. But the truth is, vaccines are not safe. Therefore the potential damage increases when you give many of them in a short time period. Q: Then we have the fall flu season. A: Yes. As if only in the autumn do these germs float in to the US from Asia. The public swallows that premise. If it happens in April, it is a bad cold. If it happens in October, it is the flu. Q: Do you regret having worked all those years in the vaccine field? A: Yes. But after this interview, I'll regret it a little less. And I work in other ways. I give out information to certain people, when I think they will use it well. Q: What is one thing you want the public to understand? A: That the burden of proof in establishing the safety and efficacy of vaccines is on the people who manufacture and license them for public use. Just that. The burden of proof is not on you or me. And for proof you need well-designed long-term studies. You need extensive follow-up. You need to interview mothers and pay attention to what mothers say about their babies and what happens to them after vaccination. You need all these things. The things that are not there. Q: The things that are not there. A: Yes. Q: To avoid any confusion, I'd like you to review, once more, the disease problems that vaccines can cause. Which diseases, how that happens. A: We are basically talking about two potential harmful outcomes. One, the person gets the disease from the vaccine. He gets the disease which the vaccine is supposed to protect him from. Because, some version of the disease is in the vaccine to begin with. Or two, he doesn't get THAT disease, but at some later time, maybe right away, maybe not, he develops another condition which is caused by the vaccine. That condition could be autism, what's called autism, or it could be some other disease like meningitis. He could become mentally disabled. Q: Is there any way to compare the relative frequency of these different outcomes? A: No. Because the follow-up is poor. We can only guess. If you ask, out of a population of a hundred thousand children who get a measles vaccine, how many get the measles, and how many develop other problems from the vaccine, there is a no reliable answer. That is what I'm saying. Vaccines are superstitions. And with superstitions, you don't get facts you can use. You only get stories, most of which are designed to enforce the superstition. But, from many vaccine campaigns, we can piece together a narrative that does reveal some very disturbing things. People have been harmed. The harm is real, and it can be deep and it can mean death. The harm is NOT limited to a few cases, as we have been led to believe. In the US, there are groups of mothers who are testifying about autism and childhood vaccines. They are coming forward and standing up at meetings. They are essentially trying to fill in the gap that has been created by the researchers and doctors who turn their backs on the whole thing. Q: Let me ask you this. If you took a child in, say, Boston and you raised that child with good nutritious food and he exercised every day and he was loved by his parents, and he didn't get the measles vaccine, what would be his health status compared with the average child in Boston who eats poorly and watches five hours of TV a day and gets the measles vaccine? A: Of course there are many factors involved, but I would bet on the better health status for the first child. If he gets measles, if he gets it when he is nine, the chances are it will be much lighter than the measles the second child might get. I would bet on the first child every time. Q: How long did you work with vaccines? A: A long time. Longer than ten years. Q: Looking back now, can you recall any good reason to say that vaccines are successful? A: No, I can't. If I had a child now, the last thing I would allow is vaccination. I would move out of the state if I had to. I would change the family name. I would disappear. With my family. I'm not saying it would come to that. There are ways to sidestep the system with grace, if you know how to act. There are exemptions you can declare, in every state, based on religious and/or philosophic views. But if push came to shove, I would go on the move. Q: And yet there are children everywhere who do get vaccines and appear to be healthy. A: The operative word is "appear." What about all the children who can't focus on their studies? What about the children who have tantrums from time to time? What about the children who are not quite in possession of all their mental faculties? I know there are many causes for these things, but vaccines are one cause. I would not take the chance. I see no reason to take the chance. And frankly, I see no reason to allow the government to have the last word. Government medicine is, from my experience, often a contradiction in terms. You get one or the other, but not both. Q: So we come to the level playing field. A: Yes. Allow those who want the vaccines to take them. Allow the dissidents to decline to take them. But, as I said earlier, there is no level playing field if the field is strewn with lies. And when babies are involved, you have parents making all the decisions. Those parents need a heavy dose of truth. What about the child I spoke of who died from the DPT shot? What information did his parents act on? I can tell you it was heavily weighted. It was not real information. Q: Medical PR people, in concert with the press, scare the hell out of parents with dire scenarios about what will happen if their kids don't get shots. A: They make it seem a crime to refuse the vaccine. They equate it with bad parenting. You fight that with better information. It is always a challenge to buck the authorities. And only you can decide whether to do it. It is every person's responsibility to make up his mind. The medical cartel likes that bet. It is betting that the fear will win. ____________________________________________ ______ _______________
Dr. Mark Randall is the pseudonym of a vaccine researcher who worked for many years in the labs of major pharmaceutical houses and the US government's National Institutes of Health.
Mark retired during the last decade. He says he was "disgusted with what he discovered about vaccines."
As you know, since the beginning of nomorefakenews, I have been launching an attack against non-scientific and dangerous assertions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
Mark has been one of my sources.
He is a little reluctant to speak out, even under the cover of anonymity, but with the current push to make vaccines mandatory -- with penalties like quarantine lurking in the wings -- he has decided to break his silence.
He lives comfortably in retirement, but like many of my long-time sources, he has developed a conscience about his former work. Mark is well aware of the scope of the medical cartel and its goals of depopulation, mind control, and general debilitation of populations.
Heres one that is interesting(this I actually read
on
How to Save PGP
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The Plea of Nikos Maziotis to the Athens Criminal Court
First, I do not intend to pretend to be the "good guy" here where I was forced to come. I will not plead for anything, because I do not consider myself a criminal. I am a revolutionary. I have nothing to repent. I am proud of what I have done. The only thing I regret is the technical error that was made so that the bomb didn't explode such that my fingerprint was found on it afterward and I ended up here. This is the only thing I repent. And something else also. All that stuff shouldn't have been at my house. It should have been kept somewhere else.
You must have in mind that although you are judges and sitting higher than me, many times revolutionaries, and myself specifically, have judged you long before you judge me. We are in opposite camps, hostile camps. The revolutionaries and revolutionary justice (because I don't believe that this court is justice, it's the word justice in quotation marks) many times judge their enemies more mercilessly, when they get the chance to impose justice.
I will begin many years ago. We don't have any crime of mine to judge here. On the contrary, we will talk about crimes, but not mine. We will talk about the crimes of the state, of its mechanisms, of justice and police crimes....
The first time I can say I was politicized is when I took part in a demonstration in 1985. It was the 17th of November. I was fourteen then, and one policeman, Melistas, shot and killed a fifteen year-old, Kaltezas. I had not participated in the riots of that night. The same evening after the murder the Chemistry School was occupied and in the morning special forces carried out a police raid on the building to evacuate it and they arrested the anarchists and youths who were inside. The next day five thousand people occupied the Polytechnic School--if I remember correctly because I was young then and didn't have much information. These occupations were precisely a reaction to the murder of Kaltezas by policeman Melistas. "Justice," five years later, in January of 1990, found Melistas innocent.
What I mean by saying this is that in reality you are abettors of crimes, at least according to me. Then, in January and February of '90 I took part in the occupation of the Polytechnic, which occurred as a reaction to the court-decision which found Melistas not guilty for the murder of Kaltezas. There were riots and damages, store windows were broken, stones and molotov cocktails thrown.... I participated in these events. From then on I could consciously say I was an anarchist.
And when I say anarchist, I mean that I am against the state and capital. That our purpose is to subvert the state and the capitalist regime. We want a society without classes, without hierarchy and without domination. The biggest lie of all times is that the state is society. I think Nietzsche has also said this--that the state lies.
We are opposed to the division of society into classes, we are against a separation between those who give orders and others who obey orders. This authoritarian structure penetrates the whole of society and it is this structure that we want to destroy. Either with peaceful or with violent means--even with guns. I have no problem with that.
I will contradict my brother who said before that he didn't want the guns in order to make war. They were for war. Maybe they were just kept there, but the guns are for war. You don't just have them to keep them at home. I might have kept them as they were, but they are to make war and I make war.... The bomb in the ministry was an act of war.
Since 1990 I have been convicted many times for my actions, for multiform actions.
I was convicted because I refused to serve the army. Not because I have any problem with weapons or with violence, I repeated that in the military court. The fact that this time I was arrested in possession of guns means that I have no problem with weapons or with violence. I am not at all a pacifist. Because neither society nor the state are peaceful. As long as I receive violence I will respond with violence.
I spent seven months in a military prison. I have been convicted for deserting the army and for evasion of military services. The second time I was released after 51 days of a hunger strike.
I have been arrested in '94 in the occupation of the Economic university along with 51 comrades of mine, when Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris were on hunger strike. This occupation of the Economic School was also an action of solidarity. In conditions where we couldn't gather anywhere, nor demonstrate, we had decided to squat a university and use it as a center of counter-information about the cases of Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris, who were then imprisoned.
In '95 I was arrested with 500 other people in the revolt of the Polytechnic in November. That occupation happened because there were many different political prisoners in jail--Kostas Kalaremas, Odysseas Kampouris, Giorgos Balafas who was arrested again in the meantime, Spyros Dapergolas, Christoforos Marinos and four persons from Thessaloniki who were arrested when the demonstration in which they were participating was attacked by the police on the 14th of November--and because there was a prisoners' revolt going on in Koridallos jail. For this occupation I was at last sentenced to one year imprisonment along with many others of my comrades. In all these actions my comrades and myself have taken complete responsibility.
So, during this decade since I can call myself an anarchist, I have used many forms of action. I have written and distributed leaflets. I took part in postering. I participated in occupations, violent or peaceful. For example, the occupation of the Economic School didn't have any violent character but the Special Police Units and the Riot Police invaded and arrested us. There were even policemen of the Special Units wearing ski-masks who entered in order to break the chains on the gate.
In the case of the Polytechnic we didn't pretend to be innocent, still without accepting the specific charges we were accused of. We explained why we went in the Polytechnic. Some time after, when I was court-martialed in February of '98, I personally took responsibility for burning a Greek flag. I said that I burnt it. I consider it to be a symbol of a hostile force. With anyone having the Greek flag I see my enemy, because the policemen have it on their uniforms, and the marshals.... It is the symbol of the enemy.
Our purpose, within the anti-state and anticapitalist struggle, is to connect ourselves with the different social struggles. Our purpose also when interfering in these struggles is to attempt to take things to the edge, which means to culminate the conflict of these social parts with the state and the police. To urge the people fighting to transcend institutional frameworks--the trade- unions, the local administrations and all those manipulators who are enemies of human freedom. Many comrades of mine, with their small forces, were engaged in such struggles. I will tell you about them more specifically.
In 1989, in a struggle of environmental interest in the village of Aravissos, the resi
dents of the area didn't want their water sources to be exploited by the Water Company of Thessaloniki. They clashed with the police and the riot police, the burnt water pumps, set fires and built barricades.... And some of our comrades from Thessaloniki took part in this struggle and were even arrested.
In 1990 the aggression of neo-liberalism began in Greece (an aggression that internationally had begun in the '80s with the Reagan and Thatcher governments), including de-industrialization, workers' dismissals, privatization, restriction of the welfare state, reductions in salaries, pensions and medical treatment.... This attack that started in Europe and North America in the beginning of the '80s only started in 1990 in Greece.
The first project was the "problematic" companies. In that section also, during the period of 1990-91, there were occupations in many factories of the country--in Mantoudi, Lavrio, Patras. Again, some comrades of ours, with their small powers, were there. More specifically in Mantoudi and in the Piraiki-Patraiki factory which is located in Patras.
After that we have the pupils' movement of "90-91 which was a grand one in to my opinion. It managed to subvert the law of the Minister of Education Kontogiannopoulos, who finally resigned. The right-wing government, in its effort to repress the movement, had mobilized its thugs in order to smash the school occupations, resulting in the murder of a teacher, Nikos Temponeras, inside an occupied school in Patras. It was one more crime of the state. Here we will count the crimes of the state, no crime of mine.
Responding to the murder of Temponeras there was a demonstration of thousands of people. We participated too, to sharpen the situation. There were conflicts with the police, the Polytechnic was occupied once again for two days. Flames, barricades, damage.... There was also another crime those days, in the 10th of January "91. During the riots, tear-gas bombs thrown by the police caused a fire in the building of K. Marousi, a shopping-center in Panepistimiou street. Four people died there due to this fire. For this crime nobody has yet paid, nor did "justice" say anything. It was covered up.
One year after, in the summer of 1992, my comrades--not me personally but this doesn't matter--participated in the clashes around Votanikos central bus-station, when the government attempted to privatize Public Transports. There were conflicts between the workers and the police. Then, some workers in the Public Transports went to prison accused of sabotage. They were smashing private buses belonging to the ruffian owners who had bought them. There also, anarchists were present.
Before referring to the struggle in Strymonikos, I want to mention the most recent examples: the jobless teachers the previous year and the pupils' movement in the winter
of '98-'99. We were present there as well. A comrade who testified yesterday, Vasilis Evagelidis, tried to talk about it. He was arrested in the clashes that took place in January of '99 in a pupils' demonstration.
Generally, wherever there are disturbances, wherever there are conflicts we want to be involved--to subvert things. For us, this is not a crime. In a real sense, these disturbances are the "popular sovereignty" that professional politicians keep talking about. That's where freedom is expressed....
Now let's talk about the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. Long before I placed the bomb, other comrades had been in the villages. They had been talking with the people there. They had published a brochure about this revolt, about the clashes in October of 1996. But I will talk more specifically about the struggle in Strymonikos in a little while. First, I want to talk exclusively about the action.
To tell the truth, I was inspired to put this bomb for a specific reason: The people of the villages broke the usual limits by themselves. If it had been a struggle inside institutional frameworks--in the way that trade unions and local administrations try to keep these struggles restricted, if it was confined in a mild, harmless and nondangerous protest, maybe I wouldn't have done anything.
But the comrades up there in the villages--who are not anarchists, of course, but I don't care about that, they are citizens who also want their freedom--had exceeded every limit. They had conflicts with the police three times--on the 17th of October 1996, on the 25th of July '97 and on November 9 '98. They had set fire to police cars and vans of the riot police. They had burnt machinery belonging to TVX, they had invaded the mines of Olympiada and destroyed part of the installations. Some of them also made a kind of guerrilla war. In the nights, they were going out with guns, shooting in the air to frighten the policemen. And I thought, these people are cool. They've gone even further than us.
And then repression followed, especially in '97 when there was marshal law imposed in the area. The Chief of Police in Halkidiki gave an order according to which all gatherings and demonstrations were forbidden. They also sent special police units and police tanks, which came onto the streets for the first time since 1980. Now they were sending them out again in the villages of Halkidiki. So, I thought, we must do something here, in Athens. It is not possible that the others are under repression and we are here staying passive.
The ministry of Industry and Development, in Papadiamadopoulou and Michalakopoulou streets, was one of the centers of this case. The struggle in Strymonikos was a struggle against "development," against "modernization" and all this crap they keep proclaiming. What is hidden behind all these expressions is the profits of
multinationals, the profits of "our own" capitalists, Greek capitalists, the profits of states officials, of the Greek state, of the bureaucrats, of all those who take the money, of technical companies.... There is no relevance between this "development" and "modernization" they are talking about and the satisfaction of popular needs. No relevance at all.
So, I placed a bomb. The purpose was as I said in the letter with which I took responsibility for the action. In the passage of February '98 I said that in placing the explosive device my purpose was to send a double political message. Everything is political. Even if you use such means, the messages are political. War itself is a means of political pressure. In this case, this was also a political means, a political practice. First of all, a message to the people of Strymonikos that "you are not alone, there are also others who may live 600 km away from you but care." Not for personal reasons...I don't know anyone from there personally. Other comrades know people there. I haven't even been there. It was not my house that was threatened, but this is not the point.
Simply, my principle--and generally the principle of anarchists and of other non-anarchist revolutionaries--is that social freedom is one and inseparable. So, if freedom is partially offended, in essence it is offended as a whole. If their freedom is offended, mine is offended too. Their war will be my war, especially in an area where the "sovereign people"--again an expression used by professional politicians--does not want what the state and the capital want: the gold metallurgy of TVX.
On the other hand, I have said that, OK, there would be some damage--I knew that. Yes, I had the intention to cause material damages. So, what damage would that be? On the windows, on that certain place, what kind of damage? Or outside the storehouse where I placed the bomb? In my opinion the damages would be minimal. But even if they were more than minimal, for me it is not important at all. Because freedom can't be compared with the material damage of some windows, on a state car or state property. For me, the ministry is not an institution of common benefit as the charges say. Of state benefit yes, but of social benefit no.
However, even if the device did not explode, I sent my message. I was caught because I made that technical error and I left a fingerprint, but even if there was no material damage at all the message was sent. And you received it, the state received it, but also the people of Strymonikos received it. I know that they are saying I am one of them, even if they have never met me. There is nothing better than that. And of course, I repeat that I don't regret it at all.
I am a social revolutionary, and when you say that it is like talking for the benefit of society. Not like--it is for the social benefit. As I have this principle I couldn't harm any citizen. I could harm a policeman. I consider them my enemies. And you are my enemies too. I separate you. I make a clear class separation. On one hand we have those, on the other hand, we have the others. In this occasion though I intended to harm neither the policeman who guarded the ministry nor anybody else--and of course not a citizen.
The procedure that is used by groups or individuals in general is exactly this: you first place the bomb in your target and then you call to a newspaper. In this case, I called to Eleftherotypia and said: In half an hour a bomb will explode there. Exactly what is written in the evidence: "In 30 minutes there will be an explosion in the Ministry of Industry and Development, for the case of TVX in Strymonikos." By this sense, as it was proven practically and not hypothetically, the police arrived at the place in time. The first of them who went there surrounded and evacuated the area for 200 meters around the building, as the police specialists themselves admitted, so that there wouldn't be any car or person accidentally passing by. And then they waited for the bomb to explode. As they have already said, they were waiting for the safety time to expire, which is the 30 minutes that I had given! Whether the bomb would or wouldn't explode there was absolutely no danger for humans lives. In case that it exploded, there would be only material damages. So, it would happen exactly as was intended to happen. Objectively, if the device had exploded there was no chance of an accident, like exploding before or after the time given.
And exactly because of the message being political and symbolic, it was not in my purpose to cause extensive material damages; that's why I used a small quantity of dynamite. And I had the possibility to put five or seven or ten kilos if I had wanted to.... But I didn't. Since there were such things found in my house, I could have caused great damage, always talking about material damages! But I didn't. If I could have demolished the whole building of the ministry without having killed anyone, I wouldn't have any objection. It is another useless building for the people and for society. As I said before, the only thing I regret is the technical error on the device.
Now, I want to say something in advance. This action was performed only by me, I did it alone, there was nobody else. The message of course said "Anarchist Urban Guerrillas." This doesn't mean that there were other persons aside from me.... It was just an expression to imply which milieu I come from. Of course, I wouldn't use my name "Nikos Maziotis" to tell the newspaper where I placed the bomb. I'd say "Anarchists." That's all. I want to make it clear, finally, that the initiative for this action was mine only, there was neither a group nor an organization nor anything. And also, It doesn't appear even from the evidence that there was a group or an organization, that I would supply any group or organization. I was alone and the things found were only mine.
I want to refer more to what I call solidarity, to the motives that I had. What is this solidarity. I believe that people socialized-- that human society was created--based on three components: solidarity, mutuality and helping each other. That's what human freedom is based on. Any social group in struggle, in different space and time--whether they are pupils or farmers or citizens of local societies, for me and for anarchists is very important. It doesn't have to do with whether I am a worker and identifying my interests with the interests of that class. If someone asks for a higher salary or has a trade-unionist demand for me that is not important. For me, solidarity means the unreserved acceptance and support with every means of the right that the people must have to determine their lives as they wish, and not letting others to decide in default of them, like the state and the capital do.
That means that in this specific case, in the struggle of Strymonikos but also in every social struggle, for me what counts mostly is that they are struggles through which the people want to determine their fates alone. And not having any police chief or any state official or capitalist deciding what they should do. It is of secondary importance if they want or don't want the factory, if the focal point of the struggle is environmental. The important thing is that they don't want the factory because they don't like something imposed on them with violence.
Concerning the matter of political violence now, from the very beginning they tried to present a case of "repulsive criminals" and "terrorists" who "'blindly' placed bombs." Something that doesn't exist.
If theoretically terrorism is exercising violence against citizens and unarmed population, that goes exclusively for the state. Only the state attacks civilians. That's what the repression mechanisms are for: the riot police, special police units, the army, special forces...mechanisms that also rob the people. They finance armed professionals, policemen. Aren't they trained to shoot real targets? Aren't the riot police armed with chemical gas? To use them where? On citizens, in demonstrations and in manifestations. So, only the state exercises violence against citizens. I didn't use any violence against any citizen.
I will say exactly what terrorism is.
Terrorism is when occupations, demonstrations and strikes are being attacked. When the riot police attacked the pensioners who demonstrated outside Maximou four years ago. When Melistas killed Kaltezas. When Koumis and Kanelopoulou were murdered by the riot police in 16th of November 1980. And if I remember well, they were not shot, they were beaten to death. Terrorism is when Christos Kassimis was murdered. But I will refer more specifically to this case.
A group of revolutionaries had then tried to set fire to the German factory of AEG, in Redis. This was also an action of solidarity. I don't know if you are aware of that, but I will tell you about it. Then, in '77, some guerrillas of the RAF had died inside the white cells of Stammheim, in Stuttgart, West Germany. The white cells alone are terrorism. Prison is terrorism. So, then, some Greek revolutionaries went to burn the factory of AEG, as an action of solidarity with the RAF and also as a reaction to the murder of RAF militants in the prisons of Stuttgart. During this attempt, which was unsuccessful, somebody was killed. He was Christos Kassimis, shot by the two policemen, Plessas and Stergiou, who were guarding the factory. And according to what I have read, they didn't kill him because their lives where threatened, they shot him in the back. He died with a bullet in his back.
Terrorism is when special police forces invade the Chemistry School and beat up anarchists and youth. Terrorism is when Temponeras is murdered in Patras. Terrorism is when Christos Tsoutsouvis was murdered in '85. But this case also has something special and I want to point it out. To Christos Tsoutsouvis fits an expression of Thucydides-if you know about him, he is the ancient historian who wrote down the story of the Peloponnesian War--that "dying in the battle is an honor, followed by the acclaim of the citizenry." He may have been killed, but he also took three of them with him. For me, he was a warrior, a militant. I believe that society needs more persons like him.
Terrorism is when citizens are murdered by the police in simple "identification controls." I will mention some examples. I will tell about Christos Mouratis, a Rom in the city of Livadia, who was shot in a police blockade in October of 1996. He was an unarmed citizen. This is a crime. But "justice" did nothing about it, what would it do? It just rewarded the crime.
In 1997, Helias Mexis was passing by the street in front of the Transport Detention Center (for prisoners) and he was shot by the police guard Tsagrakos.
Theodoros Giakas was killed on January 10th 1994 by police officer Lagogiannis of the Moschato police station. This case is also quite peculiar. He was an unarmed citizen. He was stopped in the street for identity control. He ran away and the police shot him. Afterwards they said they found a knife in his possession and other crap. As far as I know, in the beginning he was shot three times. Probably all three shots were fatal. As Giakas was lying on the ground, Lagogiannis shot him another two times and even after that he handcuffed him! Are you aware of what "justice" did about it? Sentenced him to 12 years on probation. That's why I'm saying that your "justice" must be put in quotation marks.
Terrorism is when Ali Yumfraz, a Pomak from Vrilisia suburb of Athens, was arrested for being drunk and afterwards he was found dead in his cell in the police station. The police said he suffered a heart-attack and that this was the reason for his death. I can recall another incident, in January of '91, when a Turkish political refugee, Souleiman Akiar, was beaten to death by policemen. The Minister of Public Order had then said that the man had heart problems. But the medical examination found that there were bruises all over his body.
Terrorism is this court, here. Every trial of a militant, every trial of a revolutionary is terrorism, a message of intimidation for society. I said it before in my statement yesterday, when you called me to ask if I accept the charges, and I will repeat it. Because my persecution is political, the message is clear: whoever fights against the state and capital will be penalized, criminalized and characterized as a terrorist. The same for any solidarity with any social struggle: it will be penalized and crushed. This is the message of this trial and by this sense it is terrorism. Terrorism against me, terrorism against the anarchists, terrorism against the people of Strymonikos, who are also receiving similar messages during this period, as they have similar trials for their mobilizations. This is terrorism.
The fact that I put a bomb as an action of solidarity is not terrorism. Because no citizen was harmed by this action.
Many times, the media--sometimes even more than the police--promote a view of every action taking place (for example in molotov attacks) that "we almost had victims, almost, almost, almost...." But such a thing has never really happened. This is done to create impressions and these things are said so that there will be social consent for repression. So that I, for example, will be convicted with a long-term prison sentence. "We found someone who made the mistake of leaving his fingerprint. We caught him. And he says that he did it? Let's fuck him!" My language is a little vulgar.
I want to refer to the struggle in Strymonikos. Even if I have never been there I will give you some historical rudiments. The mines which have now been bought by the multinational company TVX Gold have existed since 1927. They used to belong to Bodosakis. In these mines, where numerous work accidents have taken place and many miners suffered pneumonokoniosis, there was a big bloody strike back in 1977. The strike had demands such as increases in wages, medical treatment, and security measures in the mines. At that time police tanks sent also sent into the area. There were arrests and convictions, with terrorism imposed in the villages.
In the late '80s the company was characterized as "problematic," like many others. The state, through METVA, planned the installation of gold metallurgy. In '92 the company, as "problematic," passed into the hands of the state and in December of '95 the latter sold the mines to TVX. But the residents of Strymonikos didn't want the construction of a gold metallurgy plant. More than seventy years of mining activity had already caused serious environmental problems.
This struggle has great importance, and that has been proven, for international reasons. The mobilizations started in the beginning of '96. The residents blockaded the national Thessaloniki-Kavala highway, they made guardhouses from which they supervised the mines and stopped any company truck that might try to pass or any machinery that would begin drilling activities. With these activities, the street blockade and the guardhouses, the people demonstrated: "We are here. You are not going to pass."
This way they forced the company to temporarily suspend its activities. On the 26th of October '96, TVX sent an ultimatum to the greek state and to the Ministry of Development, saying that "Unless the works start right now, we are going to leave." Their investment, which is the biggest private one ever made in the country, an investment of 65 billion drachmas, would leave Greece.
When the first clashes took place, on the 17th of October, and the residents managed to violently repel the police forces from the area, Jason Stratos, the president of SEV, stated that "these disturbances damage the integrity of the country abroad." And he was right, because "It's impossible that two thousand provincials (I don't mean this characterization in a bad way, but that's how the minister or the president of SEV mean it; that's how professional politicians and the political parties talk about simple people) will destroy our investments, not letting a Canadian company or any other foreign company come here and make investments. This reaction must end".
So, you can understand that this struggle had no restricted local character. It had international implications, because it created a precedent: "If we can't have an investment in Halkidiki, wherever a foreign investor may go it will not be able to proceed with the investment. If the people revolt and don't want what the state wants, the economy is through."
One year later, there was another attempt to start work for the installation of the gold metallurgy plant. In July of '97 the residents destroyed a drill belonging to IGME and clashed with the police. In November, they gathered and demonstrated at the mines. But some months before--in September, if I remember well--the state had predicted that the people's reactions would culminate and had sent hundreds of policemen from Thessaloniki. They had also sent riot police from Athens, special repression police units and police tanks, which as I said before appeared in the streets for the first time after 1980 when they were used to suppress demonstrations. There was a whole army of occupation installed there permanently. The police knew that there would be riots again so they had prepared a military force to repress the residents. As it happened, of course, it wasn't completely successful because the police were defeated in clashes that took place on the 9th of November. And as I have said before police cars and riot police vans were destroyed, the drill of the company was set on fire and finally guerrilla activities took place, in which shots were fired to frighten the police.
As I have already said, I was very much inspired by these events to put the bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development. On this base I want to repeat that this struggle had no simple local character. It had transcended that.
For us, for the anarchists, social struggles and solidarity are beyond national limits. For me and for my comrades, struggles that take place outside the borders of the Greek state have a great importance.
There is huge importance for me in the Zapatista guerrilla that has burst out in Chiapas in 1994. It is one more struggle against neoliberalism, a struggle that is carried out with guns, with masks, a real war. It involves political violence and I am not against that. I have never made any statement against it and I do not want to pretend to be innocent.
Of great importance for me is also the movement of Brazilian farmers without land (the MST) who occupy the land of the estates in order to cultivate it collectively.
There is also great significance in the movement of the jobless people in France, who made occupations in working offices and clashed with the police during the winter of '97-'98.
Also important is something that took place in Turkey and that is similar with what happened in Strymonikos with TVX. Another multinational company, EUROGOLD, tried to make a comparable investment in Pergamos. And it is very important what I am going to say now. It was in the village Ovancik of Pergamos, if I remember correctly. The residents of that area, Turkish farmers, successfully frustrated the EUROGOLD investment, in the same ways that the people of Strymonikos have used to so far prevent the installation of gold metallurgy. The people of Pergamos made blockades in the Ismir-Istanbul highway. They clashed with military police forces. And, coincidentally, there was again someone who placed a bomb in the offices of the investing company, in Ismir. Like I did here.
So, as you understand, all these practices are part of social struggles, they happen everywhere. And for us, not only are they not crimes, but they are an honor. We are proud of these practices.
Concerning this factory in Pergamos, the Greek media, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Aegean had been hypocritically saying that if it was constructed it would pollute the Aegean sea. But they are not saying the same for Strymonikos Bay. So the factory in Turkey must not be constructed, but in Greece it is all right. Here the hypocrisy of the Greek state, of the media and of the politicians is obvious.
I don't believe that you really judge me as a "terrorist." I don't believe that you judge me for "having the purpose to cause danger to human lives." This is just a pretext. In fact, you are judging me for what I've said until now. For who I am. For being an anarchist, for believing what I believe, even for my past. Because all of these are aggravating elements: "So, you were in the Polytechnic occupation, you were in the Economic School occupation, you are an objector to military service, you were here and there...." I don't have a "previous decent life," according to you, of course, because according to me I am a very decent person. In reality, you don't judge me for supposedly having the purpose of harming people.
In fact, the state has proven that it does not care for the citizens. On the contrary, when its domination must be consolidated, the state takes away human lives, as I have said in the examples I gave before. The only thing the state wants is to conserve a monopoly, the monopoly that "Only I, the state, can take away human lives."
Only the uniformed police, the secret police, the riot police or the special police can take away human lives. Everyone else who does it is a criminal. But when the state does it, it proves to be unassailable.
Whenever citizens were killed, "justice" has accepted the police allegations. Not because it believed them but for reasons of interest. It always accepts the allegation that "the bullet lost its way," that supposedly "the policeman's gun had accidentally fired," or that he was supposed to be "in legal defense." In reality though, all these examples that I mentioned before, and I have more to mention, are cold-blooded murders. Very few policemen were ever accused and all of them are out of prison and proud of what they have done. Proud!
A witness for my defense said something before about the case of Alekos Panagoulis. And it is true that the attempt of Panagoulis to murder the dictator Papadopoulos was an action applauded by the Greek people. It was an attempt to kill. And so what? Who did he try to kill? A dictator!
Rationally one can oppose the argument that back then there was a status of military junta and that the means of political violence were justified to be used as a means of political pressure in the time of dictatorship, but now we have a "parliamentary democracy." Now we have "freedom" and we have "rights." Well, I don't think it is exactly like that. With all I've said I don't believe there are rights. They may exist on paper, but in reality there is nothing.
I will mention certain occasions of the political reform period, the time of the presumed democracy, where people have been killed within social struggles. It was once again proven that the people still don't define their fate just because the constitution of the state changed in 1974. Specific examples: The first disturbances took place, as far as I remember, in July of 1975. Also in May of 1976 for one more time the police tanks appeared in the streets of Athens. Laskaris, the minister of Employment of Karamanlis' government had then made a new law, Act 330, an anti-worker and anti-strike act. On the 25th of May '76 there was an all- workers' demonstration.
There were clashes with the police, an assault at the offices of "Bradini" newspaper..., molotov cocktails and fire... Then, a police tank which was chasing after demonstrators killed Anastasia Tsivika, a 67 year old saleswoman. Nobody was ever accused of this murder.
In other cases, there were new drafts of laws voted in the parliament without asking anybody's opinion. For example in 1990 there was a revision of the agreement considering the continuation of the American military base operations in Greece. The people of Chania did not accept that... In June of 1990 they had a demonstration which was attacked by the riot police. As a reaction, the people clashed with the police and burnt down the Prefecture of Chania.
In 1991 the farmers of Heraklion province set fire to the building of the Heraklion Prefecture. As you can see, political violence is exercised by everyone. By all of society and by every social segment or class that is threatened.
What the state wants is to deal with everyone alone. You must have heard an expression that Prime Minister Simitis is using a lot, speaking of "social automatism" whenever social reactions burst out. He uses this expression in order to present these social reactions--the blockades in the streets, the squatting in public buildings and all the actions of this kind--as being in contrast with the interests of the rest of society. Something that is a total lie. It is just the tactics of "divide and rule," which means "Spread discord to break solidarity." Because solidarity is very important as anyone who is alone becomes an easy target.
When a workers' strike takes place and there is no solidarity it is easier to attack. They talk about a "minority." This is the argument of the state, that it is "a union minority having retrogressive interests which turn against modernization, against development, against all reforms," and all that nonsense. Well, there hasn't been one social segment or social group that hasn't come in conflict with the state--especially during the '90s, and that hasn't been faced with the argument that "You are just a minority," that "Your struggle is in contrast with the rest of society's interests."
That is exactly what happened in all cases. It happened with the workers in the "problematic" companies who were squatting their factories in '90-'91, with the pupils who occupied their schools in '90-'91 and recently in '98-'99. The same thing happened with the workers in Public Transport in '92, with the farmers who blockaded the national highways in '95 and in '96, with the teachers' mobilizations against the repeal of the calendar and the new exam. The same thing happened of course with the people of Strymonikos.
What is really being attacked is solidarity. And that's what is also attacked--without any disguise--through my trial. The state wants to attack everyone alone. Because when it finds them together things are much more difficult.
Police brutality is, of course, not sufficient for repression. Coming back to what I was saying before, I have concluded with the fact that the difference between dictatorship and parliamentary democracy--or should I better say capitalistic oligarchy--is that the first one is mainly imposed by raw violence and the latter, the presumed democracy, is mostly imposed by the intellectual control of the citizens, through the weapon of the mass media, through deception. Because I don't believe that people voting for their bosses every four years means they have their freedom. They vote for them but when they're not doing what they were elected to do, people can't get rid of them.
In ancient Athens this didn't happen. In ancient Athens everyone could speak in the public assembly. Anyone could express an opinion, no matter how modest his position was. And those having a public position could be removed by the people at any time.
But democracy has also proven that when deception and intellectual control of the citizens are not enough, it has no problem resorting to police violence, killing, torture and terror.
Finally, I am not on trial because I placed a bomb, nor because I possessed three guns and ten kilograms of dynamite. After all, the army and the police have a lot more guns than me and they use them. The one can't be compared with the other.
I have nothing else to say. The only thing I'll say more is that no matter what the penalty to which I will be sentenced--because it is certain that I will be convicted--I am not going to repent anything. I will remain who I am. I can also say that prison is always a school for a revolutionaries. His ideas and the endurance of his soul are experienced. And if he passes this test he becomes stronger and believes more in the things for which he was put in prison. I have nothing more to say.
The judge: Don't turn the cameras to the bench!
Public prosecutor: In the beginning of your plea you said that you had the guns for war. Don't you see a contradiction when you say that there was no danger for human lives?
I made clear that none of my activities is turned against citizens. I already made that clear. Where is the contradiction?
Public Prosecutor: You said the guns are for war.
Yes but not for the people. For my class enemies. Look, I never said that I am a humanist generally. Nor a philanthropist, because the meanings of these words are degraded. In everything that I've written--if you have read--and in everything that I've said I made clear who are my friends and who are my enemies. Not on a personal but on a social level. Who are my social and class friends and who are my social and class enemies. In the letter with which I took responsibility for the action as well as in my defense I said that society is another thing from the state.
I will go on to be more specific for the jury. On the one hand I place the state, state officials, the police, the army, the security forces, capitalists, and on the other hand I place the rest of the people: workers, farmers, pupils, the whole of society, the majority of the people, the oppressed people.
Public prosecutor: You talked about "justice" putting the word in quotation marks. What ground for complaint do you have against justice?
I have been in prison for the last 18 months. I have personally stayed in prison for 18 months and another 7 months in military prison. Simple and close examples. You are speaking of me, personally, are't you?
These laws are made in order to suit your interests. From these laws you are earning your bread. Your job is to send citizens to prison and to oppose the argument that policemen have committed murders but don't go to prison for it. I have already criticized the job of this "justice" you are talking about. That finally there are two weights and two measures. The matter is not what the law says or what the penal code says, but what really happens. Just like in the case of terrorism.
For example, the US consider PKK to be a terrorist organization, but not UCK. In the beginning UCK was considered, by the US, a terrorist organization but afterwards it wasn't because its existence was convenient for their plans. Isn't that right? The US did not consider Contras to be terrorists, when they were going to invade Nicaragua, but they considered all the left revolutionary movements and guerrillas terrorists.
Public prosecutor: I will refer to the danger you said something about. Didn't you know that the bomb could cause danger?
If I knew? I knew that it would not cause any danger. The procedure is stereotyped and it goes exactly like that: you make a telephone call to a newspaper for warning, then somebody from the newspaper informs the police, the police arrive at the place and blockade the area surrounding the target. In my case, they did blockade the area and the police specialists in neutralizing explosive devices who were then present have already testified that the blockade was safe for a range of 200 meters. So there was no danger for human lives. For material damages now, I told you my opinion about them....
I want to complete what I was saying before to the public prosecutor, about terrorism on an international level. In reality, for this moment, the US are the global gendarmery and terrorists, as the only great world power left. Which means it is the worst thing on earth. And according to our perception--as anarchists--the state, all the states and all the governments are antisocial, terrorist mechanisms, since they have organized armies, police, and hired torturers.
I also want to complete what I was saying about having two weights and two measures. For example, the US provides weapons, financing and instigating every dictatorial regime all over the world. And in Greece as well. In Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru.... This is terrorism. Terrorism is to arm dictators, to arm death squads in Argentina or in Bolivia in order to kill people of the left, citizens, revolutionaries. Those who equip the death squads to torture, those are the terrorists.
Terrorism is when they bombard Yugoslavia for ten days, killing civilians....
Excuse me, Mr. prosecutor, but the US is the one which pronounces who is terrorist and who isn't. Its State Department issues official directions, advising Greece about who is a terrorist. In this period of time, it places pressure on the Greek state to make an anti-terrorist law, a model of law which will criminalize those who fight, making laws more draconian than those already existing. This is terrorism.
The revolutionaries and militants are not terrorists. The terrorists are the states themselves. But with this accusation, with this stigmatizing (as terrorism) all the states and governments try to criminalize the social revolutionaries and militants inside their countries--the internal social enemy. In fact, the state, "justice" and the police face me also as this kind of enemy. As an internal social enemy. On the basis of the division I described before. That's the way the state sees it. This is what is ventured in this trial.
Public prosecutor: What do you have to oppose to what exists?
Social revolution. By any means necessary.
It is generally proven, because I am well versed in Greek as well as in international social and political history, that never did any changes happen, never did humanity meet any progress--progress as I conceive it--through begging, praying or with mere words.
In the text I sent to take responsibility for the action in which I said that I placed the bomb and which was published in Eleftherotypia newspaper, I said that the social elite, the mandarins of capital, the bureaucrats, all these useless and parasitic people--who should disappear from the proscenium of history--will never quit their privileges through a civilized discussion, through persuasion. I don't want to have a discussion because you can't have a discussion with this kind of people...
I would like to add something. Precisely because I have studied a lot, (I know that) during the events of July of '65, a conservative congressman of the National Radical Union came out and said about those who went into the streets and caused disturbances when Petroulas was killed, that "Democracy is not the red tramps but we, the participants in parliament," which means the congressmen who are well paid.
I will reverse that. Popular sovereignty, sir judges, is when molotovs and stones are thrown at the police, when state cars, banks, shopping centers and luxury stores are burnt down. This is how the people react. History itself has proven that this is the way people react.
This is popular sovereignty. When Maziotis goes and places a bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development in solidarity with the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. This is the real popular sovereignty and not what the Constitution says.
I forgot to commemorate militants who have been murdered. Christoforos Marinos was murdered in the port of Piraeus, inside the ship "Pegasus" in July of '96. Michalis Prekas was murdered by the Special Police Units in October of 1987 in Kalogreza. Tsironis was murdered in Nea Smyrni in 1978.
I also want to add something concerning to what Mr. Prosecutor said yesterday, during his speech, on the matter of humanism.
I will mention an event that happened abroad, to prove who are humanists and who aren't after all, who are the real criminals.
The Tupac Amaru guerrillas occupied the Japanese embassy of Peru in December of 1996. They took more than a hundred hostages and these hostages were not just citizens. There were ambassadors, diplomats from many states, Japanese businessmen and officials of the Peruvian regime--which is quite far from being democratic. They were demanding the freedom of their militants, the release of their organization's leader and of other comrades of theirs who were imprisoned in dungeons.
Not only didn't they hurt any one of the hostages but they even released almost all of them--that is to say who are really the humanists. On the contrary, after endless and exhausting negotiations, the Peruvian special forces invaded the embassy and executed every one of them in cold blood. I tell all that in order that we know who are the criminals and who are the "humanists"--in quotation marks, because I don't like this term and that's why I don't use it a lot.
I want also to mention some things that happened here in Greece. I want to speak for Charis Temperekidis, who may not have been a political militant, but for me he was a rebelling penal prisoner. He had been kept in prison for years. He also died with his gun in hand during a chase after the robbery of the Agricultural Bank in Klitoria, Achaia. Despite the fact that he was still alive when caught by the police, he didn't inform against his accomplices. In the past he had taken part in prisoners' revolts, like the one of 1987 in Kerkyra in order to close this place of punishment.
And there is one more case--if we want to discuss crimes once more, the case of Sorin Matei. When Matei kept a policeman as hostage, the police didn't make any move to arrest him. When Matei took civilians as hostages, the police couldn't care less about their lives. In order to strengthen their prestige the police invaded the apartment where Matei had taken shelter, resulting in the death of a young woman. The criminals were more the policemen of the special units than Sorin Matei. As criminal as the manager of Nikaia general hospital, Alexiou, who ordered the transportation of Matei to the prison hospital Agios Pavlos, where he died either from the beating he suffered by policemen or by the drugs they were given to him. That explains who is criminal.
Re:MK-Ultra experiments on children
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Hey I just copy and paste them. I do not even read half the shit I paste in.
Re:MK-Ultra experiments on children
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Alot of CIA files were released on the financial records of the MK-Ultra program, but I cannot find them online. Alot of knowledge about that program came from therapists and psychatrists, whose patients were part of the program.
You should read up on Operation Northwood. (The Document is a pdf.) It is an interesting read about how the government was brainstorming on creating an incident where they could make a positive military intervention in Cuba. They were brainstorming faking incidents were "Cuba" shot down a F16 and a passenger plane, to give them an excuse to invade.
Re:MK-Ultra experiments on children
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There are pdfs at the national archive online about this program released under the freedom of information act. I will dig a up a link later.
Chomsky's Statism: An anarchism for the next 1000
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"Noam Chomsky is seen by many as one of the more prominent anarchists in the united states. But, many times in the last several years he has come out publicly in favor of strengthening the federal government. Moreover, he argues that there is no contradiction between this stance and his advocacy of a stateless future. Such a position is in direct conflict with the traditional anarchist insight that means inevitably influence (and frequently corrupt or totally derail) intended ends, and deserves examination and rebuttal.
Chomsky bases his support for the federal government on his contention that private power wielded by corporations is much more dangerous to people than state action, and that government can, and should, protect its defenseless citizens against the depredations of the capitalists. While the power of private corporations in the united states is truly awesome and oppressive, this power exists because these businesses are supported by the state, a point that Chomsky concedes. Anarchists have generally opposed the state for precisely this reason: that it protects the interests of some, primarily the wealthy exploiters, while preventing others, especially working people, from challenging this power on their own. But, because of poor and working people's movements, the state has instituted some social welfare programs and instituted some regulation of private business to ameliorate the conditions of those most harmed by state-supported capitalism. These and other alleged public services are the aspects of government power that Chomsky supports and would see expanded.
Chomsky further argues that the state is the only form of illegitimate power in which people have a real chance to participate. Besides the question of whether it is moral for people to participate in the exercise of this illegitimate power, he doesn't make a very convincing argument for his contention. In one interview he states that the pentagon budget is going up, while the population oppose this by a 6 to 1 ratio. In another article he says that government regulatory mechanisms are very weak, and mostly controlled by the corporations anyway. He even quotes a poll in one of his interviews to the effect that 82% of americans feel the state is not run in the interests of the people. Nowhere does he back up his claim that government is or has been open to popular participation in any meaningful sense.
Governments have been influenced by popular pressure, however. The anti-war movement made it impossible for the military to use nuclear weapons in southeast asia, thereby preventing a united states conquest of vietnam. Anti-racist activists in the sixties and seventies pressured governments at all levels to eradicate racist laws and practices and brought about the end of most legal segregation. But these are not examples of people participating in government. Instead these are instances of outsiders (which regular people will always be vis-a-vis the state) bringing pressure on an evil institution to change its ways.
Such measures can also bring about change in private institutions as well. The labor movement brought about changes using pressure tactics such as strikes and sabotage against private businesses, and activists have assisted workers with boycotts and public actions directed at corporations as well. While it may be easier in some settings to win concessions from government because individual politicians wish to be elected in the sham of elections, people acting for themselves can often accomplish great things on their own in both the public and private arenas.
Government is a package. The welfare state is also the warfare state, and, while Chomsky criticizes the federal government's support of prisons and corporations, he thinks government can protect people from prisons and corporations. He says that people can participate in government, but complains that it is not under popular influence. Government is force and should be done away with. People can act for themselves and take care of themselves. That is the anarchist attitude to the state, and Chomsky rejects it.
In fact, he is troubled that people might hate or fear the government. He admits that the state steals from poor people to subsidize wealthy people, but he thinks discussions about whether the government can be trusted to care for poor people are irrelevant. He dismisses as far-right the rejection of public schools. He feels that when people feel disillusioned about power, they turn to "irrational" alternatives. He arrogantly states that those who think there is a contradiction in supporting centralized state power even though one opposes it "just aren't thinking very clearly."
Chomsky seems not to be able to envision any means of offsetting the power of private tyrannies other than increasing the power of public tyrannies. Chomsky speaks glowingly of the efforts of poor people in places such as Haiti. "Poor people, people in the slums, peasants in the hills, managed to create out of their own activity a very lively, vibrant civil society with grass-roots movements and associations and unions and ideals and commitments and hopes and enthusiasm and so on which was astonishing in scale, so much so that without any resources they were able to take over the political system," He seems to see their assumption of state power as a victory, unable to envision that people this resourceful could continue to function quite nicely without a government. And people are this resourceful, both in haiti and the united states, and this is where anarchists get their inspiration.
Even Barbara Ehrenreich, a social democrat, and, with Chomsky, a member of the New Party, can countenance non-statist solutions to working and poor people's problems. As she says, "[W]e can no longer allow ourselves to be seen as cheerleaders fro government activism.We need to emphasize strategies and approaches that do not depend on the existing government, that in fact bypass it as irrelevant or downright obstructionist." She then goes on to mention organizing the unorganized, citizen initiatives against corporate abuses, and non-governmental self-help projects in the tradition of the feminist health centers of the 70s. In addition, she sees the state as a clear enemy in its erosion of civil liberties and the growth of the punishment industry. She calls her approach "progressive libertarianism." Such an outlook is closer to an anarchist one than is Chomsky's.
Unlike Chomsky, many rightly see that government schools educate badly, government welfare does not serve poor people well, and government action is largely against the interests of regular people. He is right that private corporations are not in the business of being humanitarian, but neither is the state. Instead of criticizing and fearing this anti-government feeling, we should encourage it and seek to extend it to all areas of government, including the military, police, and taxes.
Private corporate power exists only because it is protected by the state. Government reduces competition and limits entry into the market place with various licensing and regulatory schemes, and grants monopolies and subsidies to favored businesses. Chomsky himself concedes that corporations would not be successful if forced to submit to market discipline, and that markets are under attack. But in addition to actively promoting concentration of private corporate power, the government prevents people from defending their own interests in disputes with corporations with its police powers and laws that disarm working people. Such disempowerment of people makes them unable to resist the power of public institutions as well, allowing the state to tax, regulate, and imprison people at its whim. Abolishing state power is a more effective and libertarian method of limiting private and public tyranny than is increasing the scope of the federal government. Only anarchist means have any hope of producing anarchist ends."
MK-Ultra experiments on children
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CIA Experiments with Mind Control on Children
by Jon Rappoport
The CIA mind-control apparatus has been well known since 1975, when 10 large boxes of documents were released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Several good books were then written on the subject of the CIA program known as MK-ULTRA. Officially spanning ten years from 19 52-62, MK-ULTRA involved the use of LSD on unwitting military and civilian subjects in the United States. LSD and more powerful compounds were given under duress as brainwashing and truth serum drugs. The program's aim was to find drugs which would irresistibly bring out deep confessions or wipe a subject' s mind clean and program him or her as "a robot agent."
In experimental test situations, people were given acid without their knowledge, then interrogated under bright lights with doctors sitting in the background taking notes. Threats would be made. The test subjects were told that their LSD "downer trips" would be extended indefinitely if they refused to reveal their closely-guarded military secrets. The people being interrogated in this way were CIA employees, U.S. military personnel and, abroad, agents suspected of working for the other side in the Cold War. Long-term severe debilitation and several documented deaths resulted. Much, much more could be said about MK-ULTRA.
None of this prepared people for the explosive testimony made on March 15, 1995, in Washington, D.C., before the President's Committee on Radiation, however. In unpublicized sessions, New Orleans therapist Valerie Wolf introduced two of her patients who had uncovered memories of being part of extensive CIA brainwashing programs as young children (in one case, starting at age seven). Their brainwashing included torture, rape, electroshock, powerful drugs, hypnosis and death threats. According to their testimony, the CIA then induced amnesia to prevent their recalling these terrifying sessions.
Both Wolf and her patients stated that they recovered the memories of this CIA program without regression or hypnosis techniques. In other words, these patients spontaneously discovered this information about themselves and their pasts.
Although the committee was mainly concerned with radiation, they permitted Valerie and her patients to testify because, astonishingly, several doctors who had administered the mind- control experiments had also been identified by other Americans secretly exposed to radiation. Apparently there was a crossover.
Prominent names surfaced in the March 15 testimony: Richard Helms, former head of the CIA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who ran MK- ULTRA and Dr. John Gittinger, Gottlieb's protege. These men and others were directly accused of participating in grisly mind- control efforts on children.
Predictably, this testimony received no media attention.
I now have it all, including many pages submitted to the committee that will likely never be released as part of their final report. Only a small percentage of the pages were read aloud at the hearing. Included are corroborating statements from other therapists around the country and several of their patients. I have now released all of this testimony as a book, U.S. Government Mind-Control Experiments On Children.
When the sickening shock starts to wear off, deeply disturbing questions flood one's mind: just what was this CIA program? How extensive was it? What was its purpose?
From what I have been able to discover so far, many American children, as well as children from Mexico and South America, were used over a period of about 40 years, starting around 1948. In fact, the program may still be going on. Doctors and agents who administered it wanted to obtain control over the minds of these children, ostensibly to create superagents who wouldn't remember even what missions they carried out, because of hypnotically induced amnesia (which could be removed by their controllers and reinstalled at will). (1)
Children were trained as sex agents, for example, with the job of blackmailing prominent Americans -- primarily politicians, businessmen and educators. A great deal of filming was done for this purpose. Eventually, people from the inner core of the CIA program filmed each other, and some of the centers where children were used as sex agents got out of control and turned into CIA-operated sex rings.
Some children were considered expendable and simply murdered.
One person who states that he was in this program as a child said, off the record:
"They tried out their brainwashing techniques on the kids from Mexico and South America. They were considered expendable. But on another echelon of the program, they went after the best and the brightest American kids. Making perfect agents to combat the Soviets wasn't, I don't think, their ultimate objective. I can't remember what that was."
At this point, I made a suggestion:
"Well, if they were choosing the best and brightest, maybe they figured these kids would one day rise to important positions in the society, and they wanted to gain long-term control over them, so they would be under their thumb, so they could tap them at will -- a way of controlling the future society."
"Maybe," he said. "The Nazis gained control over the intelligentsia in Germany. That was a very key step in their dominance. That was the first thing they did".
"This smells very much like a Nazi program in the U.S.," I said. "I don't mean all the controllers were German, but the style of it, the insanity."
He said, "They brought over a lot of Nazi doctors after the war and not just to build rockets -- for a lot of projects."
Other people who said that they had been used as children in the program remember that doctors with German accents were definitely present at the sessions. One therapist, who shared this information informally with colleagues around the country, states that, so far, the oldest person she has heard of who was in the program is now 52; the youngest is now nine.
Since a number of people who were brainwashed, tortured and drugged in these experiments try to resolve their experiences in therapy, psychiatrists and other professional therapists are hearing these stories. They are told, for example, that CIA controllers sometimes dressed up in Satanic costumes to further traumatize the children, also providing a cover that wouldn't be believed if the children ever talked.
It is worth noting that there is a movement to discredit these " recovered" memories, and the most prominent group, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), has several board members with CIA or military-intelligence connections -- including the notorious Dr. Louis "Jolly" West of UCLA, who tried to establish a center for "the study of violence" at the university in the 1970s. This center's specialty would have been psychosurgery, a horrendous melting of brain connections, supposedly to curb people's "violent tendencies."
FMSF maintains that a person always remembers abuse done to him or her, and therefore any new recovery of it in therapy is false and must have been fabricated through misleading suggestions by the therapist. While it is certainly true that such inducement happens in therapy, the blanket statement that all recovered memory is invented is unsubstantiated.
In a written statement to Dr. Wolf that was included in her testimony to the president's committee, well-known researcher and psychiatrist, Colin Ross said,
"Published articles in my files include descriptions of administration of 150 mcg of LSD to children age 5-10 years on a daily basis for days, weeks, months, and in a few cases even years. Neurosurgeons at Tulane, Yale, and Harvard did extensive research on brain electrode implants with intelligence funding, and combined brain implants with Large numbers of drugs including hallucinogens."
Ross based his report on his more than 20 years of investigating CIA mind control.
Chris De Nicola, one of Dr. Wolf's patients who testified before the president's committee, named her controller as a Dr. Greene, a name reported by several other mind-control subjects. It may well be that this name was a cover used by various CIA and military-contracted experimenter-torturers. Here is a quote from her testimony:
"[Dr. Greene] used me in radiation experiments both for the purpose of determining the effects of radiation on various parts of my body and to terrorize me as an additional trauma in the mind-control experiments. [She was eight years old.]
"The rest of the experiments took place in Tucson, Arizona, out in the desert. I was taught how to pick locks, be secretive, use my photographic memory to remember things and a technique to withhold information by repeating numbers to myself. [She is obviously talking about being trained as an agent.]
"Dr. Greene moved on to wanting me to kill dolls that looked like real children. I stabbed a doll with a spear once after being severely tortured, but the next time I refused. He used many techniques but as I got older I resisted more and more.
He often tied me down in a cage, which was near his office. Between 1972 and 1976 he and his assistants were sometimes careless and left the cage unlocked. Whenever physically possible, I snuck -into his office and found files with reports and memos addressed to CIA and military personnel. Included in these files were project, subproject, subject and experiment names with some code numbers for radiation mind- control experiments which I have submitted in my written documentation. I was caught twice and Dr. Greene tortured me ruthlessly with electric shock, drugs, spinning on a table, putting shots in my stomach, in my back, dislocating my joints and hypnotic techniques to make me feel crazy and suicidal..."
Is there a precedent for this kind of sadistic treatment by CIA and military personnel? Indeed there is. Here is a quote from the introduction to my book, U.S. Government Mind-Control Experiments On Children. It contains information from reliable published sources; such as The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, by John Marks (2), Acid Dreams, by Martin Lee (3) and The Mind Manipulators, by Alan Scheflin (4). In part, these authors derived their information on the CIA and MK-ULTRA from the ten boxes of information released suddenly in 1975 by the agency in response to Freedom of Information Act requests:
"Dr. Robert Heath of Tulane University, as early as 1955, working for the Army, gave patients-LSD while he had electrodes implanted deep inside their brains.
"Canadian researcher, Dr. Ewan Cameron, under long-term CIA contract, attempted to depattern, and reprogram his psychiatric patients' personalities wholesale. He started with 15 to 65 days of 'sleep therapy,' during which a patient was kept under nearly 24 hours a day, through the administration of cocktails of Thorazine, Nembutal, Seconal, Veronal, and Phenergam. Throughout this sleep period, the patient would be awakened two or three times a day for electroshock treatments, given at an intensity 20-40 times the 'normal' convulsion-producing strength.
"In the mid-1950's, Paul Hoch, M.D., a man who would become Commissioner of Mental Hygiene for the State of New York, then a laborer in the field for the CIA, gave a 'pseudoneurotic schizophrenic' patient mescaline. The patient had a not- unfamiliar heaven-and-hell journey on the compound. But Hoch followed this up with a transorbital leucotomy...Hoch also gave a patient LSD, and a local anesthetic, and then proceeded to remove pieces of cerebral cortex, asking at various moments whether the patient's perceptions were changing."
Claudia Mullin, the other of Dr. Wolf's patients who testified before the President's Committee on Radiation, said her experiences with CIA mind-control experiences began when she was seven years old:
"In 1958, 1 was to be tested, they told me, by some important doctors coming from a place called the 'Society' [the Human Ecology Society, a CIA front]. I was told to cooperate; answer any of their questions. Then, since the test 'might hurt,' I would be given 'shots, x-rays, and a few jolts of electricity.' I was instructed not to look at anyone's face too hard and to ignore names,' as this was 'a very secret project' but to be brave an all those things would help me forget...
"A Dr. John Gittinger tested me and Dr. Cameron gave me the shocks and Dr. Greene the x-rays...By the time I left to go home, just like every time from then on, I would recall nothing of my tests or the different doctors. I would only remember whatever explanations Dr. Robert G. Heath [of Tulane Medical School] gave me for the odd bruises, needle marks, burns on my head and fingers and even the genital soreness. I had no reason to believe otherwise. Already, they had begun to control my mind!
"The next year, I was sent to a place in Maryland called Deep Creek Cabins to learn how to 'sexually please men.' Also, I was taught how to coerce them into talking about themselves. It was Richard Helms (Deputy Director of the CIA), Dr. Gottlieb, Captain George White and Morse Allen, who all planned on filming as many high government and agency officials and heads of academic institutions and foundations as possible...I was to become a regular little 'spy' for them, after that summer, eventually entrapping many unwitting men, including themselves, all with the use of a hidden camera. I was only nine when this kind of sexual humiliation began."
Captain George White was a notorious agent for the CIA. He set up a brothel in San Francisco in the 1960s and, using hidden cameras, filmed men having sex with prostitutes. The men's drinks were "spiked" with LSD. In 1950, Morse Allen, another important CIA, man, was appointed head of Project BLUEBIRD, another CIA mind- control program.
Ms. Mullin states that she was adopted when she was two years old. By the time she reached seven she had already been abused extensively by her mother. Her mother apparently turned her over for "testing" to CIA-connected people and Claudia then entered a 27-year period of what can only be called enslavement. Claudia states that she has been monitored, that she is still monitored and watched by agency related people, including a medical doctor. Now living in New Orleans, she has given information to local police authorities about her situation. In her testimony to the president's committee, Claudia remarked,
"Although the process of recalling these atrocities is certainly not an easy task, nor is it without some danger to myself and my family...I feel the risk is worth taking."
Claudia's therapist, Dr. Wolf, has written to the president's committee,
"To the best of my knowledge, [Claudia] has read nothing about mind-control or CIA covert operations. Since she decided to listen carefully and remember as much as she could about conversations among the researchers, her memories are extraordinarily complete. I have sent written copies of memories to Dr. Alan Scheflin [author of The Mind Manipulators] for validation and he has confirmed that she has knowledge of events and people that are not published anywhere, that some of her memories contain new information and that some are already known and published. Some of her memories have been confirmed by family members. She has also shown me old scrapbooks where she wrote notes to remember what was happening to her and hid the notes under pictures in the scrapbook."
I spoke with Alan Scheflin in May of this year. He said he had found one piece of information Claudia had mentioned in her recollections that had no precedent in published material. It involved a connection between two government researchers.
This is just the tip of the iceberg on the 130 pages of testimony given before the President's Committee on Radiation, and it is also just the beginning of a history that will undoubtedly widen in the coming months and years. Dr. Wolf told me that when word got around she was going to testify before the president's committee, she was contacted by about 40 therapists "in just the 10 days leading up to my trip to Washington." The therapists had heard similar CIA mind-control stories from their own patients. Many of these professionals are afraid to go on the record about their patients' stories, as censure from their professional societies is a reality. The political mood these days is not conducive to granting an aura of credibility to revelations of CIA brainwashing.
So what else is new?
[Jon Rappoport is a distinguished investigative reporter and the author of AIDS, INC. He can be found inhabiting the late night airwaves of KPFK radio in Los Angeles and lecturing at the Hardware Humanitarian House in Santa Monica, California.]
Notes:
1) See "From the Inside Out," Perceptions, March/April 1995, p.58 2) Paddington Press, New York, 1978 3) W.W. Norton, New York, 1979 4) Grove Press, New York, 1985
Leyla Umar is a very well known Turkish journalist with international acclaim and a very good of mine - a childhood. Leyla, of whom I can assure you is a real friend of Greeks and a visionary of Greek-Turkish friendship, on many occasions expresses, perhaps against herself - because of her close bonds on a social relations level - the poin1ts of view that are dominant in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and among the entrepreneurial circles of her country. Points of view that advocate a Greek-Turkish rapprochement. Thus, the argument highlighted by Leyla is expressed with a question: How can it be that Pakistan and India that have both been under the rule of Great Britain are today in friendly terms with Britain, and Greece is not friendly towards Turkey. The argument may look "reasonable" in first appearance, but it decodes by itself the kind of social representations that the Turks have of the Greeks. This discovery follows the mechanistic dealing with the problems that compose the Greek-Turkish rupture. Because, of course, it is neither the case that Greeks are Pakistanis and Indians, nor is it the case that the Turkish are English, as they themselves think. This is why, quite politely, I restricted myself to answering to Leyla that if we transposed the problems to the Pacific Ocean, certainly the problems between the two countries would vanish into thin air.
A similar argument that is being advanced, only a more elegant one, is the one that expresses the question on how France and Germany managed to set aside age- long competitiveness and to reconcile. I do not know to what extent this is true and responds to collective representations of French and German people - this is something I wish to be happening anyway. But what undoubtedly happens is that neither of the two countries, neither France nor Germany nurtures any expansionist aspirations against the other, and even if this is not the case, neither of them threatens or intimidates the other. Here, too, you see, there exists a mechanistic confrontation of the issue, overlooking, as it does, the social and historical content of these two countries' relations. The German-French relations within the whole of their historical trajectory can not represent the prototype on the basis of which the Greek-Turkish relations can be dealt with, the latter being relations of a structure of their own.
A third argument repeated unduly by the Turkish side is that the Greek and the Turkish people love each other and that for all problems the political heads of the two countries are to blame (the "politicians" of the two countries and mainly of Greece), who, for reasons of internal politics. That is of vote hunting, "fabricate" the tension between the two countries. A claim that on the one hand is self-contradicted and on the other reveals something more essential that is not suspected even by the propounders of this claim. Because, since the two people love each other one would expect from the politicians that are keen to be re-elected to sustain their politics on this friendship, therefore the aphorism of the existence of superlative "love" is foolhardly. This is why dear departed Andreas Papandreou who, in the end of the day did not say anything more than "we neither yield anything to Turkey, nor do we claim anything from her" was considered by the public opinion-makers in Turkey as a demagogue who torpedoed the solution of the differences between the two countries. And this, because, if one follows the same train of thought, the solution would mean "concessions" of Greece to the profit of Turkey. What these concessions refer to will be discussed below.
On the other hand, the argument according to which the politicians are "to blame" reveals a different reality. And this concerns the particular structure that characterises the Ottoman reality - in the sense of an idiosyncratic social-political pattern, a structure inherited by Turkey. Even our first-years students know that the civil society within a state precedes and that the state is but a secondary institution that originates from a society or that a society - and more correctly the powers within it - produce a state. But, in the Ottoman pattern, state and society are different entities. The society exists by itself and the state is "introduced" into it and survives on society's surplus product. It is about the phenomenon of military-bureaucratic class - which, in the flow of history, co-operates with certain social strata or classes or merely social powers - that rests on the society. I would like to stress at this point that this theorem is not mine, neither do I claim its paternity, but I have borrowed it from my wise Professor Niyazi Berkes, an exceptional scholar originating from Cyprus and a progressive Turkish nationalist.
Starting off from this discovery, then, we will leave aside the mechanistic analyses taking the risk of displeasing the colleagues that teach - and are taught - international relations, since a very large part of the theory of this discipline is characterised by the mechanistic understanding of its thematology. I will try to disassociate Greek-Turkish relations from "Greek-Turkish differences" because I believe that these are, to a very large extent, an epiphenomenon of a different, substantial problem. And, to avoid keeping you in suspense, I will announce it now: it regards the problem of essential (take notice of this, I say essential and not nominal, schematic) modernisation and democratisation of Turkey. Therefore, I will ask you, if you please, to follow me along the recording within ten propositions of some self-evident, in my opinion, suggestions but also working hypotheses through which on the one hand this one my conclusion is verified and on the other the speculation around the Greek-Turkish relations is recorder/rendered meaning.
First:The Greek-Turkish relations remain incomprehensible if and since the Ottoman reality is ignored. I want to stress the particular structure that characterises this social-political type, which does not resemble other forms, even those from which it had inherited various elements, but has incorporated them into its own logic. Two distinctions are prevalent in this structure. The first distinction has already been mentioned. It is the tight separation between society and state, a state that remains a foreign body vis-?-vis the society. The second distinction concerns Muslims and non-Muslims. Officially, the Ottoman state is Muslim. In reality two are the political powers on which the state balances, powers distinguished on the basis of the criterion of the sacred and the secular. On the basis of the criterion of the sacred (Seri) the ulema are the basic political power, that is theologians who are simultaneously conversant with the law of Islam. These people constitute the ideological mechanisms of the state: they are opinion makers, opinion formers. On the basis of the criterion of the secular (urfi) the basic political power are the military, the seyfiye, which form the repression mechanisms of the state. When these two powers co-operate what happens is that, as the late, unforgettable Professor Taris Zafer Tunaya commented, there follows a military coup that overturns the government. Who precede in the hierarchy? Which power foreruns among these two? Although the military have the power, the jurists are considered stronger (and this happens today too, among western societies where the controllers of ideological mechanisms are stronger than the controllers of the armed forces). As regards the origin of the two aforementioned powers, we observe that the people versed in law come from basically Turkish families, while the military and particularly the jannisaries come from islamised Christians, that is from other ethnicities.
In practice the problem is a little more complicated, because for example the church, although a sacred element, is considered urfi, that is a non-Islamic element, and its rules, to the extent that they match the Islamic law are perceived as customary (adet), something that teaches us that secularity is not perceived as in the West (and this is an outcome of the Islam itself) but as customariness. The same goes with regard to the concept of nation. There is the word millet, which means "nation" in Turkish. But the nation of this category differs a lot from the real sense of responding words of European languages. And we must pay attention to this point given that this specific distinction has profoundly affected the nature and the essence of the ethnogenesis of the states/nations that were constituted from the dissolution of the Ottoman state. Let us capitulate. Thus, as nation is perceived the religious community, and all the more so in the sense of belief and not of religion. Through the expression rum milleti, more particularly, not only Greeks are implied but the whole of the Orthodox Christians are considered, among whom belong Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians and Arab Orthodox Christians. Conversely, Armenians, that normally form one nations, were considered as two initially, the Gregorian Armenians and the Catholic Armenians, while from the middle of the nineteenth century they were considered as three, because the Protestant Armenians were added to the above.
In the Ottoman political system the Islam has been used as a vehicle for the accomplishment of its functional aspirations. Thus, on the basis of the principles of the Islam the Muslims maintain the political authority and the non-Muslims, to the extent that they acknowledge the authority of the Muslims can, by paying excessive taxes - in comparison with those paid by Muslims - maintain their faith and act according to what this faith enjoins under the condition that they will not provoke the Muslims and that they will generally consent to being placed under the protection of the Islamic state. In practice the objective was to ensure the funding through the Christians of continuous expansionary wars. Because it should be noted that the whole of the Ottoman state - as a pleiad of Turkish scholars observe, like for example Professor Kucukomer or Berkes to whom I already referred to - pursues its expansion by means of profitable wars. When the wars are not profitable - as is in the case from the seventeenth century - and they last many years and no new conquers are realised, there emerges an intense fiscal problem, that is the need appears for more and more money for war purposes. This is translated into new tax burdens that, to their largest extent, are transposed to non-Muslims. Hans Werner has already calculated that in the fifteenth century between two farmers of equal tax-paying capacity the one of whom was Christian and the other Muslim, the former defrayed up to the seventy percent (70%) of his produce as tax and was left with the thirty percent (30%), while the latter defrayed the thirty percent (30%) and was left with the seventy percent (70%). It may appear as an extreme case, but all calculations that have taken place until today do not take into consideration additional burdens that the Christians (non-Muslims generally) had to carry for the maintenance of their religious foundations. Just think that there was a special accounts' office of the state, the "piskopos mukataasi" to which special taxes were defrayed by Patriarchs and Bishops for their election (usually the candidate they recovered them through trading concession posts of priests, that is subordinates who, in their turn, recovered money from the believers). Thus, there was a legal and an illegal cash flow from the non-Muslim to the ruling Ottomans. This means that the legendary religious tolerance was purchasable, bought. Even for the determination of the yearly date of Easter a series of officials, the first among whom was the Sultan himself, had to be bribed. Apart from this let us stress the houses for worship of the non-Muslims had to be very humble and miserable buildings under the threat of being converted into shrines, that the Christians had to live in their ghettos and in low, colour they might choose, nor good-quality clothes, but that even their when a Christian met a Muslim in the road he had to kneel and bow to him.
But the distinction between Muslims/Non-Muslims and of the non-Muslims into the communities according to their religion had a further usefulness: it averted the union of the subjects for an eventual overturn of the despotic regime. Because the regime never hesitated - on the basis of the principle "divide and rule" - to turn one ethnicity against another, in order to impose "order" subsequently.
The system to which I refer is despotic according to the term established by Perry Anderson, meaning excessively authoritarian. And the question remains how it could be imposed for a long time. There are, in my opinion, two reasons, one internal and the other external. The first is, as Professor Taner Timour remarks, the fear that the state caused among its subjects. The second is that which constitutes the so-called "Eastern Issue", according to which the European powers that disagree on how to distribute between themselves the Ottoman state, do agree that it should be preserved (this is the dogma of integrity of the Ottoman Empire), and that one or more of them try to be used as buffer state(s) at that. Namely, as an intermediate state/states for supporting their economic and political interests in the area.
But I will return momentarily to the question of fear. If we want to predict the structure of the Ottoman pattern we see that it is made of pairs of relations arranged vertically and not horizontally. The upper part of the pair loves the lower part and the lower part fears the upper part. Both parts have accepted this as their position, it is something natural, non-arguable. Arguing this relation is impertinence, hubris and revolt, rebellion, mutiny. This structure runs throughout all the line of the society, which in itself is established hierarchically and pyramid-like. This duet is observed in the relations between husband and wife on a micro-social level. Husband loves wife, wife fears husband, brother loves sister, sister fears brother. And today, as we will see, the same structure us pursued for a "Greek-Turkish approach". But all this in a moment.
Second: In the Ottoman pattern that we outlined, various ethnicities or religions coexist together but also separately. Together because they live in the same space, separately because there is no real contact at all -each community lives in its own district, and even in the villages with mixed population except for the accidental transactions in the common locus of encounter, the market, the bezesten, the bazaar. And I am stressing this because it is usually said that for centuries Greeks and Turks (but other ethnicities, too) lived affectionately together and that foreigners set them apart. Of course they lived together, but the question is under what conditions? A few days ago I was in Tunis on a conference and a Turkish friend colleague, Professor at the University of Istanbul told that a friend of his, Greek from Constantinople -like myself- who left his place of birth and was established in Greece and that in Turkey it was better... I do not question the truthfulness of what my Turkish colleague said. I believe that this is what my Greek fellow-citizen told him. First of all I know that he said these things because he is still scared and he wants to propitiate those who chased him away from his native land. But, apart from that, this story looks like the case of the widow that was beaten up by her husband, tortured by him, and when he died she was crying behind his coffin saying "didn't we have a good life together my hubby".
But to capitulate the way, in which Muslims/Turks and non-Muslims/Greeks lived together, I will mention a Greek adage saying, "Have you seen a Turk? He wants aktse-money, have seen another one? He wants more money". And a Turkish adage saying "An Ottoman -meaning by this the official Muslim, the statesman- neither seeds nor reaps; instead, he is a partner in your meal".
I now return to the fact that the ethnicities lived together and apart. This "apart" has another dimension that is an interesting particularity of the system. An intense differentiation is observed in the chapter of the ethnicities' social modernisation. For various reasons the discussion of which is beyond this occasion, the Greeks were the first to modernise, the Armenians followed with some delay, the Jews joined them very belatedly and the Turks and Arabs followed on. The last ones to be modernised were the Kurds. Modernisation in the Ottoman multi-national society means westernisation. This process starts off from the economy. It is amazing, but absolutely true. The misfuncions of the Ottoman system, in parallel with the intensifying oppression, had a positive outcome, too. They contributed in making the Greeks the first to find within the system ways of dissolving the feudal relations surrounding them and to enter capitalism, and, in one word, to pass gradually from the traditional pattern of the society to forms of a developed non-traditional society. I could go on and on providing you with statistic data for two areas, economy and education. For example, in the start of the twentieth century, although the Greeks were the twenty percent (20%) of the whole population and the Muslim the sixty- five percent (65%) thereof, the Greeks possessed fifty percent (50%) of the total capital and sixty percent (60%) of the total labour, and the Muslim just fifteen percent (15%) (and this in state enterprises). The commerce, and generally the tertiary sector of the economy, had literally passed in the hand of the non-Muslim, mainly Greeks Armenians, not Jews. The same can be seen in the sector of education where the proportion between Christian and Muslim students is four to one. And we know that the development of the education follows the development of the economy and mainly the boom of the tertiary sector...
One more pertinent point is that the Greeks realised their social modernisation having as reference group the western nations. The Turks took as example the Greeks that had as reference group the western nations. One small example here cannot harm. The first western-type novel to be translated into Greek was Fenelon's "Telemaque" in 1738. The first novel to be translated into Turkish was the same, only 125 years later.
In other words the emergent new powers within the Ottoman society were the non-Muslim. And this exactly is the point of departure of the problem that we are experiencing today and that will seemingly go on unresolved for much further. The problem is simple in its conception but for a long time no one had noticed it or rather had pronounced it in a scholarly manner. The first to locate it was a very significant Turkish writer, Taner Akcam in a work the first and extended form of which is written in German and has been translated and appeared in Turkish, too. The title of the work is "Torture and Tyranny in Our Political Culture", meaning the Turkish one. Now then, the Turkish scholar says the following: "The social modernisation in all western countries has been accomplished through the assumption of the political authority by the emerging new social powers or by their coalition with the old ones. Conversely, in the Ottoman/Turkish state the new powers that were the Christians not only did not become partners, but they were eliminated, that is they underwent ethnic cleansing". The above is said by a Turkish writer.
Third:The Greek state, established in 1829, following the Greek Revolution of 1821, obviously did not include all Greeks of the Ottoman Empire. It was created in a small region of the state and it included close to the one sixth (1/6) of the then total Greek population. At this point I would like to give a couple of clarifications. The first relates to the revolution itself. The Turkish writers that follow the official historiographic line claim that the revolution was kindled by the European powers and the Russians. This is an utter mistake. Because the revolution happened in spite of the then European powers that coalesced in the Holy Alliance, the policy of which was to preserve and not to dissolve the Ottoman Empire. But what happened is well known. The intellectuals of the time in European countries sighing under the authoritarian regimes of the Holy Alliance, being themselves nurtured by, and conversant in classical Greek paideia (letters), saw in the face of the revolted the offspring of glorious ancestors, a struggle between freedom and tyranny, Christianity and Islam, culture and barbarity. More importantly, however, they wanted to express their opposition to their own regimes and they motivated, opinion leaders as they were, the public opinion of their countries in favour of the revolted. For the first time in the history of humanity the public opinion played a role in the adoption, eventually, on the part of the European governments of a plan for the establishment of a state formally independent. This state would be on the one hand a sort of protectorate of the Great Powers (the protecting or befriending powers as they are called in Greek historiography) and on the other would allow the blackmailing of he Ottoman government so as to acquiesce to the demands of the European countries.
The second point I want to clarify concerns the departure of the Muslim inhabitants after the establishment of the Greek state. This is something that Turkish writers in our days present as for example Toktomis Ates as the reason for the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Turkish state. The percentage of the aforementioned Muslims in Peloponnese was 18% of the whole population and in its overwhelming majority it was occupation troops, administration employees and big landowners. Besides, that population had been established after 1718, when Peloponnese was seized anew by the Ottoman army. Because the Venetians that occupied it earlier had chased out all its Muslim population. Thus, the Muslims forced to depart were on century-long settlers. Similar was the case with English or French colonies in many places of the globe. Or is the demand for departure of the settlers in North Cyprus, settlers who established themselves in the lands seized violently by Turkey in 1974 (ethnic cleansing)?
The Greek Revolution had, thus, two direct outcomes. The one is that part of Greeks acquired its supposed political independence, while the bigger part did not get it. Consequently, the struggle for integration, or the dear departed Dakin said, of unification of Greece started. Things are not as the Turkish authors who follow the official historical outlook cunningly say, namely that an expansionist state against Turkey was established. Because they want to identify unacceptably the Ottoman Empire with the present-day Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was a multi-national state and Greece (and Greeks) has as many rights over it as Turkey (that is, the Turks). The Turks were also, as were the Greeks, one of the ethnicities that formed its population. And, if you like, as Turkish authors admit, the Turks were also a (minority), just like the Greeks.
The founding of Greece had as a consequence the corresponding creation of ideological mechanisms. I would like, leaving for a future time an extending treatment of this subject, to stress that Greece, because it was established in a periphery of the Empire, maintained an egotistic localism full of misery and wretchedness. We observe this on two levels, different and antithetic among themselves, so much in the management of the ideology of the Great Idea (that is, the liberation of the subordinates) that functioned as sublimation of weakness, as much in the internal politics following 1923 until today, where, essentially, the one third (1/3) of the population - if not more, remained and remains, in the margin of the political life, its rearmost parameter. I am talking about the refugees who took to Greece following ethnic cleansing of the areas by Turkey. The interesting thing with regard to this is that these Greeks in their places of origin were deprived of independent political authorities to the end, being prey so much of the Greek governments that guided their fortunes on their account, as much as of the Constantinople Patriarchate that according to the Ottoman system had shouldered their presentation (as their religious community that its was). It will sound strange to many, but eventually the official Greek state and church did not accomplish what was expected of them on the part of the non-represented by political authorities Greek populations. But this is another story, not in the least simple, in which are involved politics of foreign countries, too.
The second outcome of the establishment of the Greek State is that it precipitated the efforts as westernization and in general at modernization of the Ottoman State. We must stress that these efforts start basically from the military sector. Because the Ottomans, who previously underestimated the Europeans as Christians found out that the latter became stronger by the day in the military field and could no more be won as easily as previously. So the thought to adopt new methods related to the martial arts. And until now the modernization of Turkey starts basically from the modernization of its armed forces. But the Greek Revolution and the creation of the Greek State made the Sultan (Mahmud the Second) and his environment think the following:
The Greeks succeeded because they showed that they were Europeans, but also that they were overly dominated by a system of ethnic and religious discriminations against them. We will show, too, that we are Europeans. The "how" is simple. First of all they were to change their formal dress. Thus, it was decided that the sarik, the potur and the nimten were to be abolished form the clothing of the military and civil servants, namely elements of the eastern way of dressing, and they were to be replaced by jacket and trousers. Only instead of hut or kepi the fez was introduced from Morocco. When in 1912 the New Turks (Jeunes Turks) wanted to make a step forward, them too, Enver Pasha established (enveriye), a cross between hut and fez. And few years later Ataturk imposed obligatory that all wear hut. But the head, the thought that is, or more correctly its structure, remained the same. It is about the difference between seeming and being, form and essence.
After that an official assurance was given by the Sultan to the foreign ambassadors that from then on equality before the law, and lawfulness would apply between Christians and Muslims. It is about the well-known Tanzimat 1838 declaration. How exactly this decision was applied is recounted by my Professor Resat Kaynar, blessed his memory: A European in Galata, Constantinople, pressed charges against a Muslim who had insulted him calling him giaur-infidel in a police department. The head of the department called the tresspasser and reprimanded him. (Don't you know(, said he, that Tanzimat applies and you should not call a giaur one?
Modernization meant also adoption of institutions from the West, that was added to traditional ones. Next to traditional Islamic education European-type schools were added, next to traditional Islamic courts of justice commercial tribunals were added, too, mainly for foreigners. Because these assurances concerning equality were offered, because all these positive steps were taken. An important parameter was the need of economic support and of inflow if European capital into the country. If one pays attention, the declarations are accompanied by economic claims.
The effect of the Greek Revolution of 1821 in the precipitation and acceleration of the efforts at modernization of the Ottoman state has been located at first by Professor Yalcin Kucuk, an enlightened and progressive Turkish intellectual. Nonetheless, the same process has been followed ever since until today. Because declarations remained declarations and the real situation was anything but pleasant, during critical periods the same or renewed promises were made. In 1856, for example, Turkey, in order to participate in the European conference of that year, provided a new official assurance, the so-called "islahat fermani", that is a Sultan's declaration for a generalized improvement. But not everything was improved. In 1876 Turkey in order to be able to participate in the conference of European countries declared the adoption of a constitution - which., although it was authoritarian and anything but responded to the Zeitgeist, it applied for four months, following which the Sultan had both the Parliament abolished and the author of the constitution himself arrested and murdered. This happened because the Sultan had pursued with the "introduction" of a Constitution, he had already accomplished. But the same happened during the political changeover of 1908, when the officers of middle rank that served in the European part of the Empire, and especially in Macedonia, pressed the Sultan to bring to effect the Constitution that he had suspended for thirty two (32) years. As Professor Sina Aksin very correctly remarks, these officers had been annoyed by the fact that the Sultan followed a Germanophile policy and they missed the glorious days of the British-French -Turkish alliance that had rejoiced in the War of Crimea. But the Sultan had not made his choice spontaneously, he was forced to it - besides was not he himself that had granted Cyprus to Britain? Because meanwhile the relations between Great Britain, Russia and France had been restored. Besides, the same dilemma was met by the officers themselves and more generally the movement of the Jeunes Turcs in the form of its committee and its political party "Union and Progress", when it acceded to the authority. It pursued an alliance with England and France, but, because Russia participated in this alliance, it was forced to go over to the opposite camp with Germany. But let us come to the point at issue: the officers of middle and lower rank precipitated their movement for return of the Constitution when they were informed that a decision of the allies - of Great Britain and France - regarding autonomy of Macedonia (as a geographical and multi-national area) was pending, and it was rumoured that, on top of that, a Greek would be appointed as governor.
These middle-rank officers and the "Union and Progress" party more generally were not bourgeois themselves; they did not form the middle class of the country, that is. From what I have said so far it can be deduced that at the time the middle class, meaning the new forces emerging in society, were constituted by Christian ethnicities. But the "Union and Progress" and these officers may not have been middle class themselves, but, as Turkish writers argue, they were activated by the desire to become middle class (burjuva ?zentisi). Thus, placing aside their declarations for equality before the law and the society between Christians and Muslims just three months after the festivities for the reinstatement of democratic institutions they mounted persecutions against the Christian populations, i.e. the Greeks and the Armenians. These persecutions had initially the character of economic exclusion (boycotage) and also of other fiscal measures, too, against Christian populations, and they went on with expulsions, forced deportations and persecutions against these populations until the well-known brutalities that assumed the form of natural extinction. They planned to supplant Muslim private individuals in the place of Christians in the economy by means of the hand of the state and violence. Meaning, simpler said, that they removed predatorily the means of production from the Christians and they allocated them to Muslim notables of Asia Minor or to members and friends of the "Union and Progress". And because Greeks and Armenians mainly represented on a mercantile level the English and French capital, - especially after 1914 - , the neophytes (the newly established) Muslim middle class undertook to act as agents of the - opposing to these interests - German capital. In this way the alliance with Germany during World War I knew a pragmatic importance, too.
Nevertheless the Ottoman Empire enters the World War I in 1914. Until the last moment the leaders of "Union and Progress" hoped for a cooperation with the allies. Meanwhile the Balkan war of 1912 takes place. The pretext in the alliance of the Balkan countries (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro) was that the democratization proclaimed by the political changeover of 1908 not only had not materialised but that the situation of Christian populations was getting worse. The catchword, therefore, was the freeing of populations from Ottoman despotism. In the context of this war Greece acquired a great part of Macedonia and, of course, the islands of the Eastern Aegean. It must be noted as emphatically as possible that the islands of the Eastern Aegean had an almost unalloyed Greek population - it is debatable if, on the larger of these, there was a five percent (5%) proportion of Muslims that were military and civil state servants.
From October 1912 until 1914 that the Ottoman Empire emerges on the side of Germany and the powers of Communication, there intervene two years approximately, during which the governments of "Union and Progress" were flirting with the allies, Great Britain, France and Russia. Usually, this is forgotten. Thus, the allies forced the Greek government to start negotiations with the Ottoman government for the determination of a regime of some sort of condominium, a co- sovereignty in the Eastern Aegean - negotiations interrupted when, in 1914, the war was declared and Turkey went over to the powers of Communication. Moreover, let me add that at the time Britain and France asked Greece to return the islands Imvros and Tenedos to Turkey because of their neighboring the Dardanellia Straits. And Russia, exceeding herself, asked for the islands of Lemnos and Thasos to be returned back for the same reason.
But when we say "co-sovereignty" in the Aegean we tend to forget the most essential. At the time the population of the islands of the Eastern Aegean was of equal composition in ethnological terms with that of the shores - please my attention, I am saying the shores, that is the strip of land opposite the islands. This means that the shores across the islands had in their majority Greek population. It is to be anticipated, therefore, that something of that sort would be discussed, since these islands and the opposite shores shared a cultural, political and economic union for thousands of years. Namely, islands and shores in the same way that they formed a uniform geo-physical whole they also formed a uniform geo-political, geo-cultural, geo-strategic and geo-financial unity. The ethnic cleansing that took place in 1922 abolished the age-long unity.
Fourth:But how did we go to 1922 when, supposedly, the differences between Greeks and Turks were sorted out, and, through the Peace Treaty signed next year in Lausanne, also supposedly, the foundations for a permanent peace and co-operation between the two countries, Greece and Turkey were laid?
The Ottoman Empire is transformed to the Turkish State, both actually and formally, from the declaration of World War I onwards. This phrase may sound absurd but it unfortunately contains a tragedy. It is about what I mentioned a while ago. From a multi-national state it is turned to a national one, and not only the right participation in political authority is not acknowledged to other ethnicities, but their physical extinction itself is systematised. Answerable for this was the government of "Union and Progress", through the para-state criminals' organisations that it had mobilised. One of those was (Teskilati Mahousasa(, too, that had as objective, among others, the mobilization of the Muslims of Central Asia so that they rise against Russia. This hoped-for rise is what is more simply called (Panturanism). Generally, the (Union of Progress) behaved towards the Christian ethnicities in particular, more or less similarly to the way the Nazis behaved during World War II. After the end of the 1922 war, the allies did what would systematically do after the end of World War II: they asked that the culpables were arrested and taken to prisons waiting to be judged, or escaped arrest. Nonetheless, the murderous gangs went on with their undertaking, mainly in the countryside. Thus, two things were decided on the part of the allies: on the one hand that the Greek army be expedited to Smyrna to protect the Greeks that were numerous in the area, and on the other for Mustafa Kemal to go to the area of the Black sea, following the Sultan's intervention which was approved by the English. Kemal was a successful general who had contested the leadership of (Union and Progress). At this point I would like to stress that the Kemalist movement is a sectarian movement of Union and Progress, it is really an antagonism of fractions. Besides, many Turkish writers acknowledge this. We could very generally argue that while the leadership of Union and Progress was Germanophile, Mustafa Kemal was Anglophile - his subsequent trajectory ascertains this claim. It is strange, but the basic rationale of sending off both Greek troops and Kemal - this happened with a week's distance in May 1919 - was exactly the same. Mustafa Kemal, however, organised his movement from among people pursued for war crimes. Kurdish tribal chiefs who supported him were in danger too, because they became, on many occasions, execution instruments for the massive massacre of the Armenian neighbours. And it was not just that: there was also the immediate danger for the stolen goods, mainly real estates of the persecuted, to have to be returned. The persecutions did not happen so much for the natural extinction of the persecuted, as for the appropriation of the riches. A proof of what I am saying is that when Mustafa Kemal arrived to Samsun in the area of the Black Sea, the first person that he met was Topal Osman, a literal butcher who started his career in Macedonia, continued it by slaughtering the Armenians and the Greeks of Pontus and finally the Kurds. Topal Osman went under the command of Kemal and intensified his activity.
Finally, a remark relating to Greece. What were the Greek troops looking for in trying to forward towards Ankara, that is in the depths of Asia Minor? The question is naive. Undoubtedly, they did not try to conquer the whole of Asia Minor, but, according to the proposition of Lloyd George, who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, they tried to bend the armed resistance of the Ankara nationalists. The latter had come to rift with the Sultan's government that was based in Istanbul - on the issue of the application of the provisions of the Sevres Treaty. We must definitely sort out certain misunderstandings. With this Treaty, which is equivalent to that of Versailles, which namely, seal the end of World War I, six per cent (6%) of the total territories of today's Turkey came to Greece (the area of Eastern Thrace and a part of the area of Smyrna). This proportion corresponds to a Greek population living there that was almost 18% of the whole Turkish population, meaning that 18% if the population took 6% of the territory. Compare this with the situation in Cyprus: Today in Cyprus 18% of the population, namely the Turkish-Cypriots, have 40% of the territory, and both the international community and the Greek side implores them for a two-zone federation to no avail. From a territorial point of view the Sevres Treaty in its larger part referred to the independent state of Kourdistan and Armenia...This is often forgotten.
The defeat of the Greek troops in Asia Minor has been the outcome of a series of mistakes and misfortunes. A first reason has been the self-disintegration of the army due to political clashes in Greece. Next, there has been the unbounded mine of economic help and of weapons that came from the Bolshevik regime (just think that the whole budget of the Kemalist state in the critical years 1921-22 was provided by the Soviet). Why exactly this was done by the then Soviet leadership has certain tangible consequences for capturing the present situation: after the October Revolution the allies, mainly Britain, wanted to forestall the descent of the red army in Caucasus. Initially, the trans-Caucasian federation was founded - Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, to be later dissolved, and the three independent states could not resist the Bolshevik storm. The dream of a Great Armenian State (including the Greeks of the Pontus) that was about to be created in Eastern Asia Minor looked something non-realistic, or difficult to be established. This is why not only the Soviets supported Kemal by the allies, too. Both sides anticipated for Turkey a role of buffer state, meaning an intermediate state. This, surely, had as consequence the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of civilians from their ancestors' hearths. But this goes over the head of international politics, or has only a limited importance.
That the Turkish military victory against the Greek forces was not an easy thing can be seen in one detail. As the wise Turkish Professor Bilge Umar describes, even to the last moment, when Smyrna was on fire and the Turkish leadership had moved its headquarters into the city, its was still possible for the result to be overruled within few hours.
One more point, following which we arrive in our days. It is sometimes said that both sides committed atrocities in the end of the day. George Horton, this selfless American diplomat, has highlighted how devious such a claim is. Because the magnitudes are utterly unequal... Nonetheless, let me stress here that it is definitely not suitable to occupy oneself with a logistic enumeration of macabre incidents. But the act must be condemned and the ideology that created and creates atrocities should stop being reproduced.
The defeat of the Greek troops had a shocking consequence. The completion of ethnic cleansing of Christian populations. This is usually more elegantly but deceitfully called (exchange of populations). For one, first were the Christian populations or their largest part chased, and then the exchange was determined. With this exchange, around four hundred thousand (400.000) Muslims from Greece were exchanged for million and a half (1.500.000) Orthodox Christians from Turkey. A remark: there were around two million four hundred thousand (2.400.000) Greeks - the rest obviously could not make it to the exchange, they were forestalled by death. And even if there are objections as for the number of Greeks, whether they were less, etc., I hasten to inform that in the proceedings of a mixed international committee that was signed by Turkey, too in 1950 the ignored were six hundred thousand (600.000)... And something more: it seems that Venizelos on the Greek part, too, hten the beginning wanted eventually an exchange, but on a one-to-one basis, in which case we would have arrived at the frontiers provided for by the Treaty of Sevres.
Fifth: The Treaty of Lausanne, in which this alleged exchange of populations was decided, laid the foundations for a Greek-Turkish peaceful coexistence. I must be underlined that this Treaty is the first revisionist treaty after World War I. Revisionism is the politics followed by some countries after World War I, countries that were either defeated, and were imposed very cumbersome terms by the victors, or they did not obtain that they wanted, and desired to revise the terms that put an end to World War I. Example number one: Germany. Example number two: Italy. What Germany did not accomplish with World War II, namely to revise the Treaty of Versailles, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk did accomplish in revising the Sevres Treaty.
The Treaty of Lausanne, however, appears not to be statically but dynamically revisionist. It has the characteristic of being continuously revised in favour of Turkey. Right after the signing of the Treaty few knew that in Turkey there started to be talk of the islands of the Aegean, and the country started being armed straightaway, with particular emphasis on her naval force. Because it should be stressed that during the war of 1920-22 the Turkish Navy was completely non-existent and did not participate. The Greeks' domination of the sea was absolute.
In 1930 - seven years after the Lausanne Treaty - we have the historical rapprochement of the two peoples, what is usually called the Greek-Turkish friendship, of the utmost work of two utmost political men, Ataturk and Venizelos. If one bypasses the contribution of foreign powers in this historical rapprochement, of Great Britain and of the fascist Italy, which at the time sided with Great Britain the essence of the rapprochement is as follows:
1930 comes after 1929. And 1929 was the year of international economic crash that had impacts on Greece and Turkey. Greece, a poor country at the time, had, apart from all the rest, to shelter and rehabilitates 1.500.000 refugees. On the other hand she was obliged to go in for a frenetic armament race in the navy - the air forces were not developed at the time - to confront Turkey. On the opposite shores, in Turkey, the situation was even worse. Because in this year the revolt of Kurds culminates and its violent stifling is pursued, while the opposition against Ataturk also reaches a peak. Ataturk has established his individual regime. Reactions against cultural transformations that he dares also culminate, and he is forced to intensify the oppressive measures. In order to defuse the climate he has his sister and his most faithful friend, Fethi Okyar, establish an opposition party - the regime is one-party. Okyar goes to Smyrna and the people fall in her feet saying (rescue us from him). On this, Ataturk's biographer Sefket Suurreya Ajdemir observes "rescue them from whom, from the man who rescued them from Greeks just seven years ago".
On the basis of the Treaty of Lausanne, both countries had the obligation to compensate the refugees for the fortunes that they left in their native lands. And it is obvious that the fortunes of 1.500.000 people, indeed affluent people, were larger than those of 400.000. But Turkey did not compensate, it asked for the international arbitration that was anticipated to be bypassed. Meanwhile, bilateral negotiations started that went on and on. Venizelos, who finally saw that he would not recover anything, suggested for the debt to be written off and for a treaty to be signed, on the basis of which the two parts would take the responsibility not to proceed in the purchase of military materials without mutual agreement. This practically meant that Greece, that had great supremacy in the navy, would maintain its sea power, particularly over the Aegean. Besides, this is confirmed by two facts. The first relates to the increase by Greece of her air space to 10 miles in 1930 with Turkey's consent and to the simultaneous approval by Greece in 1936 of the alteration of the convention of Lausanne relating to Straits which demilitarized the Straits of Bosphorous and Dardanellia. This practically means that Turkey acquired full control of the latter with the consent of Greece and that Greece acquired the control of the Aegean. This is the Greek-Turkish friendship between Venizelos and Ataturk, the price for which was paid by the refugees.
Meanwhile, if one looks carefully at the events that ensued he/she will realise that even on the eve of World War II, but also during this War, Turkey came back to the issue of the islands. As it is known, Turkey did not participate in this War like Greece did. Nonetheless, during negotiations relating to her descent to the War, now with the Axis powers, she was asking for the islands of the Eastern Aegean in advance. The archival materials on this issue are impressive. But to avoid dragging on, I will return to the beginning of the 1950s, when the two countries were wallowing in seas of bliss due to the "common threat from the North".
Mehmet Saka, a Turkish scholar of international relations claims in his 1952 dissertation supported in the Law School of the University of Paris that because of the "threat from the North", Greece should hire out for ninety years all the islands of the Eastern Aegean to Turkey, to prove first, the sincerity of her friendship and second, to acquire Turkey's protection. In the summer of 1954, even before the Cyprus issue was brought up, namely the demand of the Cypriots for self- determination, Professor Nihat Erim, an eminent member of the opposition, and a subsequent adviser of all Turkish governments on the Greek-Turkish relations, suggested that Cyprus become a condominium, which condominium spread in those islands of the Eastern Aegean which are at a distance of 50 miles from the shores of Asia Minor. It is amazing, but this means, translated on a map, all the area from the 25o Meridian - which, if extrapolated, passes from the borders of the Greek Thrace. It is the same space for which the well-known negotiations for a condominium regime took place and were interrupted in 1914. But then, as we said, the population on the islands and in the shores across the sea was of common origins. It is obvious that Turkey, after having carried out ethnic cleansing in Asia Minor, now goes a step ahead and asks for co-sovereignty in the islands, too. Especially if one judges from the case of Imvros and Tenedos, two islands of unmixed Greek population, particularly Imvros, that devoted to Turkey with the Treaty of Lausanne on the condition of a self-government that was never applied, and the population of which became fully Turkish within twenty years as a result of the oppressive measures taken, one can realise what would have happened in the case of co-sovereignty or of hiring out to Turkey of the rest of the islands, too...
The most important is that the 25o Meridian in Thrace coincides with the area where in 1913 - the same area always - the "Teksilati Mahsusa", that is the para-states of the "Union and Progress" tried to establish an alleged State of Thrace. This is and experiment that the same powers tried to repeat in 1919 in Kars of Asia Minor, and which, according to Professor Yalcin Kiucuk, was the pattern of organization of the contemporary Turkish state. Exactly the same pattern was adopted in the case of the alleged Turko-Cypriot state of Northern Cyprus. According to this model, the co-operating powers are he secret services, the Mafia underworld, and the army. The above, according to Yaltcin Kucuk. And if two years ago an accidental event did not take place in Turkey, we would not have realised that the same situation appears to go on today. In the traffic accident at Susurluk it was revealed that the political leadership, the army and the secret services collaborate with the Mafia. Dead out of the car wreckage were pulled a minister, a Mafia murderer, supposedly wanted by the police, and a representative of the alleged security authorities - the Mafia man had boasted in the past that he had set on fire forests on the Greek islands. This event left all thinking Turkish people speechless and made them speculate...
And in coming back to the 25o Meridian, I am stressing that this is the limit of the Turkish claims under the pretext of the continental shelf, or any other argument put forward. The claims remain unaltered since 1913.
But let us come to the present day in order to close this condensed overview of the Greek-Turkish problems. In 1978 appears the first volume of a pre-eminent work - it is the collection of diplomatic documents - edited by Bilal Simsir, a professor and the Director of Planning of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The subject of the book was "The Aegean Question". This is an official publication. In the preface of the book, Simsir writes the following verbatim: "Greece was created by the sea. In 1821 the rebels turned against the Turkish flotilla with their own flotilla, and when the Turkish flotilla was destroyed, Greece was created" (the Ottoman flotilla was destroyed by the admirals of the Allies, as is well known). Until 1912, goes on Simsir, there was a balance in the Aegean, the islands of the Western Aegean were Greek, Crete was a independent, Cyprus was British, and the islands of the Eastern Aegean were Turkish. This balance was overturned by Admiral Kountouriotis, when, in October 1912, he destroyed the Turkish flotilla outside the promontory Elli in the Dardanelles... Ever since the sea power in the Aegean passed in the hands of the Greeks, until the 29th of May of 1974, when, during a special ceremony in which state officials were present, the surveying war ship of the Cantarli Surveying Service set sail from Instabul for the Aegean, in order not, of course, to realise surveys, but to question the sea power of the Greeks. This is the starting point of the second round..." Remark: the 29th of May is the anniversary if the Fall of the Constantinople-Instabul by the Turks. The choice of this day is indicative of the weight of this act. Second, every spring in the time of the Sultans, following a similar ceremony, the flotilla sailed off for the Aegean and the Mediterranean, and it returned back in the autumn with pillages...
Two years ago, in a series of articles in the newspaper Czumhuriyet - a very progressive and radical newspaper of the moderate left, the Admiral tansu Erdem said the following, that made it into the cover title, verbatim: "the problems of Turkey with the Aegean spring from the injustice suffered by Turkey as a result of the Balkan War, the First and the Second World War, and they must be amended". Thus, Turkey's revisionism pursues restoration of the situation before the Balkan wars...in 1912. I do not think that I need to add anything further at this point...What the Turkish side does not want to understand is that the Empire did not belong to Turks alone, and that it was constituted, fairly or unfairly, it does not matter at this moment, with the contribution of several ethnicities. It was not the exclusive property of the nation alone...
Recently, the FBI has become embroiled into the controversy surrounding its latest attempt to bring law enforcement into the Information Age. The "Carnivore'" project is the Bureau's attempt to collect information on electronic suspects and computer criminals in the dark reaches of cyberspace.....their version of a combination TRAP AND TRACE and PEN REGISTER carried over from the 'old fashion' days of POTS, or Plain Old Telephone Service. The ACLU, EFF, EPIC, Congressional committees, and even segments of the American technocracy are up-at-arms over this questionable law enforcement device, and even more dubious of the goofy explanations provided by FBI front-men as to how it is employed. From where I sit, it looks like the FBI wants to get into the "Enemy of the State" spook-tech game like everyone thinks NSA participates in.
This article will discuss some differences between Carnivore's access to electronic information and the methods (and limitations) of traditional law enforcement access to "old school" communications systems. Then, we're going to discuss how easy it is to circumvent the Carnivore system and still keep our communications secret from all prying eyes....no matter how sophisticated the FBI thinks Carnivore is.
CARNIVORE
The FBI's website (http://www.fbi.gov/programs/carnivore/carnivore.h tm) calls Carnivore a "diagnostic tool" versus an electronic eavesdropping device. In reality, Carnivore is indeed a network diagnostic tool (a network analyzer or "sniffer''), but to imply that Carnivore's primary use is as a "diagnostic tool" is stretching the Bureau's already-thin credibility a bit too far. That's like a criminal claiming that the gun he shot someone with was not a gun but a "tool" to eject hot lead into a wall. The goal of Carnivore is to allow the FBI to quickly gather information from an ISP without having to go through that ISP's management each time to obtain it, as is commonly done via subpoena.
Donald Kerr, Assistant Director at the FBI, told a Congressional panel recently that
"the Carnivore device works much like commercial "sniffers" and other network diagnostic tools used by ISPs every day, except that it provides the FBI with a unique ability to distinguish between communications which may be lawfully intercepted and those which may not. For example, if a court order provides for the lawful interception of one type of communication (e.g., e-mail), but excludes all other communications (e.g., online shopping) the Carnivore tool can be configured to intercept only those e-mails being transmitted either to or from the named subject."
His statement also mentions that Carnivore: "is a very specialized network analyzer or "sniffer" which runs as an application program on a normal personal computer under the Microsoft Windows operating system. It works by "sniffing" the proper portions of network packets and copying and storing only those packets which match a finely defined filter set programmed in conformity with the court order. This filter set can be extremely complex, and this provides the FBI with an ability to collect transmissions which comply with pen register court orders, trap & trace court orders, Title III interception orders, etc."
Let's stop and analyze this claim. The FBI has a Windows-based tool that can be configured to differentiate between "legitimate" and "extraneous" traffic that it intercepts at a given ISP. This will -- according to the FBI testimony -- provide federal law enforcement folks the same ability to intercept electronic communications (e-mail, web surfing, instant messages, etc.) than they currently have in the world of the POTS telephone systems. Right. And my Aunt Sally is a world- class hacker master. Let's see why.
The Carnivore system is allegedly a single "item" or black-box "device" placed at each ISP to monitor communications as authorized by court order. Where is this box placed at the ISP? Hanging it off the gateway router or bastion network means that this poor Windows box will have to intercept GIGABYTES of raw data in real-time unless it is pre-configured to only monitor certain ports such as SMTP, POP, or IRC. However, Carnivore -- like all sniffers -- still collects "everything" associated with those protocols -- however, as was testified to by senior FBI agents, only reveals (under court order) the "header information" of a suspects to the FBI. So while, they are only using "header" information that was collected (as shown below) under an authorized investigation, what is done with the rest of the information (such as the content or e- mail attachments) collected alongside the headers?
Is Carnivore unique? Does it take rocket science to create a Carnivore-type system? Hardly. Many companies use sniffers to enforce acceptable use policies or for routine internal administrative matters and do not as a matter of course look at content, only source, destination, and protocol of the packets being monitored. There are tons of freeware, shareware, and commercial network sniffers available on the market. In fact, it's already reported that EtherPeek is the FBI's tool driving Carnivore.
Kerr's Congressional testimony continues...
It is important to distinguish now what is meant by "sniffing." The problem of discriminating between users' messages on the Internet is a complex one. However, this is exactly what Carnivore does. It does NOT search through the contents of every message and collect those that contain certain key words like "bomb" or "drugs." It selects messages based on criteria expressly set out in the court order, for example, messages transmitted to or from a particular account or to or from a particular user.
Either the FBI is kidding themselves, or they are trying to pull a fast one here. Let's look at how EtherPeek (or any network sniffer, for that matter) works. What follows below are two captured packets from my EtherPeek analyzer of an e-mail message I sent to myself. Note that the sniffer was configured to only sniff e-mail information via SMTP protocols. Let's take a look:
From this next packet, the program has pulled down the complete e-mail header and also the content of the message ("Secret Secret!!'') in both ASCII text and hex. If you use the Snooptrace feature of EtherPeek, you can assemble these two items into:
Received: from stmpy-2.cais.net ([205.252.14.72]) by prserv.net (in4) with ESMTP id ; Sun, 30 Jul 2000 15:39:31 +0000 Received: from [10.215.0.21] (x2-amailer.org [201.8.231.35] (may be forged)) by stmpy-2.cais.net (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e6UFddQ34343 for ; Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:39:39 -0400 (EDT)(envelope-from rforno@YYY.net) Message-Id: X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express WindowsEdition (0410) Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:41:47 -0400 Subject: This is another secret message From: "Richard Forno" To: rforno@YYY.net Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Secret Secret!!
The FBI claims they will only use Carnivore's scanning for court-ordered intercepts of ISP traffic. Based on what we just saw, it is clear that Carnivore provides a wealth of information BEYOND just the "header" information, and that Carnivore-type tools can indeed perform keyword searches of its captured information! As shown above, common, off-the-shelf (COTS) programs such as EtherPeek can only filter traffic so far. To find the e-mail addresses of their suspects, they would have to run a "search" function to sift through the volumes of data to locate the many instances of that particular e-mail address in the archive of packets intercepted.
If the FBI -- using Carnivore in a hypothetical case-- is looking to obtain ONLY the e-mail addresses sent to and from an ISP account (as shown above) and not the content of such messages, they will still see what is shown above, however, they must discard whatever else is captured beyond the e-mail addresses in question. But do they? Or, will they?
This is where Carnivore differs from traditional wiretaps and pen traces. In the "old days" of telco intercepts, a TRAP AND TRACE and PEN REGISTER request enabled law enforcement to see what numbers were dialed to and from a given number. Let's call these "REFERENCE POINTS." These were approved by either by a US Attorney or a federal judge. A separate approval (or court order) was required to conduct a WIRETAP to actually intercept and monitor the communications between the two parties identified in the TRAP AND TRACE. Let's refer to the WIRETAP as "INTERCEPTED CONTENT."
It should be understood that the standards of proof to conduct these two distinct actions (REFERENCE POINTS v. INTERCEPTED CONTENT) are vastly different from each other. In particular, the ability to conduct a WIRETAP requires a much higher standard of proof that such illegal activity is being conducted over the phone, while a TRAP AND TRACE or PEN REGISTER have less stringent approval requirements since these latter two techniques do NOT provide intercepted content, only reference points to the communications themselves. Therefore, individuals' privacy is not (in theory) easily subject to violations by illegal wiretaps and content monitoring.
Traditionally, WIRETAPS have been required to be conducted and physically- monitored by a person (agent) to insure that only the conversations of the person(s) covered by the court order could be recorded. On the other hand, Carnivore, like its name, takes in everything it sees and doesn't require human intervention. Here's an example of a potential problem with Carnivore to support this argument:
A court order has been issued to intercept the telephone conversations of Suspect X. One of Suspect X's children makes a phone call from the line being monitored. Under the current rules, the agent running the WIRETAP must discontinue the recording and monitoring of the (in this case) child's phone call.
Under Carnivore, a court order is issued to intercept the header information of Suspect X's e-mail (as testified to recently on the Hill.) One of Suspect X's children uses his computer, and possibly his e-mail identity (perhaps a shared family e-mail address), to send a message to a school friend. With Carnivore's capabilities, the FBI now has the complete text of all messages (see above) sent to/from that account regardless of who sent them. And, with Carnivore, there is no direct human (agent) monitoring the flow of intercepted communications to insure that only the suspect's communications are being stored and not someone else's.
The fact that the FBI claims to only take the headers begs the question, "what happens to the rest of the data Carnivore collects?" Carnivore thus encompasses the three areas of traditional intercepts, TRAP AND TRACE, PEN REGISTER, and CONTENT WIRETAP in one package that could easily be abused or used in a manner inconsistent with the spirit of the laws making such abuses difficult and illegal.
Enter Carnivore. This is a combination of a TRAP AND TRACE and WIRETAP in either real-time or near-real time. The use of one technology (in this case, our network sniffer, EtherPeek) provides both the TRAP AND TRACE function and WIRETAP functions! Granted, the FBI still claims it will not exceed its authority in using Carnivore's sniffing capabilities, but let's examine another all-too- possible scenario where Carnivore may be abused:
Suspect X uses e-mail to contact Suspect Y. The FBI receives a court order to use Carnivore to "only" obtain the various e-mail addresses used by both X and Y during the past month to communicate information about their illegal activities in trafficking pirated software. As shown above, Carnivore also intercepts the content of all messages exchanged between X and Y. The FBI testified on the Hill that they will use Carnivore only for "header information" or as authorized, however, the Carnviore archive contains all the information intercepted. For purposes of this scenario, let us assume that some of the messages exchanged talk about how one of the suspects is engaged in the distribution of stolen credit card numbers
Using the content of these messages would be beyond the scope of the original court order authorizing the interception of the e-mail addresses of the suspects. Two chances for abuse present themselves at this time. First, the FBI could have drafted a fairly-general justification for a Carnivore intercept that could allow them to use the contents of the intercepted messages.
Secondly, while the FBI might not "use" the information archived, that information could quite possibly be used for "theoretical" or deep- background material to develop additional leads or charges against the suspect or develop another avenue to target the suspect or his alleged accomplices without proper investigation. This reminds me of how notorious mobster Al Capone was arrested -- not for being a mobster, but on charges of federal income tax evasion.
Indeed, Carnivore provides a wealth of information to the FBI that gives them considerable surveillance powers in the digital age, but opens up the very real possibilities that such powers may be abused by case agents. Should it ever be proven that Carnivore was abused in such a fashion, the FBI will be in a very difficult position to defend their actions in this area. The fact that the FBI is reluctant to allow public and/or peer review of its Carnivore technology only further implies that it is not the appropriate solution the FBI claims it is.
Traditionally, REFERENCE POINTS (TRAP AND TRACE or PEN REGISTERS) and INTERCEPTED CONTENT (WIRETAPS) required different and specific procedures and approvals before use. The goal was to implement a "two-key solution" to get complete intercept information on a suspect, and reduce the chances of abusing the WIRETAP ability of law enforcement via a "single source" solution for intercepts. However, Carnivore is indeed a single-source method for the FBI to obtain complete information on a suspect's Internet communications. Carnivore is a point-and-click system and thus probably very easy to use and re- configure. Considerable oversight and objective examination must be given the uses and limitations of this "total snooping solution" device being pitched by the FBI.
COUNTER-CARNIVORE
As I hinted at earlier, Carnivore is a joke to anyone who deems themselves a hacker, cracker, computer-criminal, or power user. As such, I don't consider Carnivore much of a threat to me personally, but I do fear for how easy it is to abuse of the Carnivore system and infringe on personal liberties.
First, everyone should know that e-mail is inherently insecure and ripe for eavesdropping. Thus, one should never send sensitive material via e-mail if they want to insure such material stays secret. As such, countering Carnivore is simple, and only the foolish criminal would be caught by Carnivore.
Following are some common-sense ways to beat Carnivore-type systems. In fact, these are some helpful hints for anyone who wants to help guard their electronic privacy in today's digital world:
Set up a VPN. Use an encrypted point-to-point tunnel, SSH, or SSL to encrypt your link to your mailserver. For example, Hotmail supports SSL-based secured Web sessions. A sniffer looking at the traffic to your computer will only see SSL gibberish as it is collected.
Do A Systems Audit. Vigilant system administrators run routine network scans on their networks for administrative and security purposes. Any good system administrator -- particularly a security-minded one - would consider the discovery of a new undocumented system on his network a security violation and proceed to investigate it. Heck, I'd even take it offline. If it's a Carnivore box, what happens then? Whose investigation did I just mess up in the name of good systems security practices?
Use out-of-band communications. The best way to hide information is in plain sight. Don't use common ports for mail servers or chat sessions, but map them to more common traffic. Just as the Russian hackers used port 80 (http) to move sensitive material out of DoD networks last year right under the noses of the firewalls, figure out a way to use a covert channel inside a well-used port. The bad guys will be hard-pressed to intercept and parse (in real-time at least) the one or two e-mail notes sent along the gigabytes of Web traffic flowing into your company via port 80.
Frequency Hop. Don't just use e-mail. Have multiple e-mail accounts from multiple sources (POP3, IMAP, APOP, Web-based). Get multiple dial-up accounts and personae. Use IRC, Instant Messaging, *Nix console chats, one- time accounts, and combinations of these forms of communication. Set a defined schedule for what medium and for how long you will use that medium for, and see how long it takes for Carnivore to catch up with you. Or, use text editors to exchange messages, and FTP them to various sites. Then switch to AIM. Then e-mail. Then IRC on a particular channel. The possibilities are endless!
My Favorite. When all else fails, stick with e-mail and encrypt it. But, based on what I've heard from folks involved in computer crimes, the worst thing an investigator can see when using a sniffer or reading intercepted electronic communication is the following: "--- BEGIN PGP MESSAGE ---". Use PGP to send self-extracting files to your associates, encrypt files and exchange them via FTP, and so forth.
It's unlikely that Big Internet Business will continue to develop network infrastructure components that don't have "hooks" for law enforcement use in the future, just as how phone switches today have the ability for law enforcement to "plug in" as necessary under court order. Therefore, it's up to the individual to find ways to insure their communications are secure and free from prying eyes using such tools and techniques as mentioned above, PGP, Zero Knowledge, and other tools yet-to-be-developed.
The best solution is to make sure that whatever you deem as sensitive information is encrypted BEFORE IT LEAVES your desktop computer and the area where YOU CONTROL IT. Waiting for a server to encrypt something places you at risk. Point-to-point encryption of communication channels like VPNs or e-mail are your best bets to insure secure modes of communication.
All Carnivore will do is keep honest folks honest. Power users who value their online privacy and cyber-criminals with half a clue already know how to get around it.
This is important information for anyone who does not want authoritarian state thugs scanning their computer for information.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul" To: Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 1:37 PM Subject: How NSA access was built into Windows
How NSA access was built into Windows
Duncan Campbell 04.09.1999
>
Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA.
>
A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that
special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency
have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is
built into every version of the Windows operating system now in
use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors).
The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations
earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had
built an NSA "help information" trapdoor into its Notes system,
and that security functions on other software systems had been
deliberately crippled.
>
The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two
years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was
only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the
access system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.
>
Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that
unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows
software "driver" used for security and encryption functions.
The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of
security functions. If you use Windows, you will find it in the
C:\Windows\system directory of your computer.
>
ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but
will only run crypographic functions that the US governments
allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news,
from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI
will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As
yet, no one knows what these programmes are, or what they do.
Dr Nicko van Someren reported at last year's Crypto 98
conference that he had disassembled the ADVADPI driver. He found
it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to
control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in
compliance with US export regulations. But the reason for
building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
>
A second key
>
Two weeks ago, a US security company came up with conclusive
evidence that the second key belongs to NSA. Like Dr van
Someren, Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of
Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and
significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service
Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5. He found that
Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the
debugging symbols used to test this software before they
released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys.
One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY".
>
Fernandes reported his re-discovery of the two CAPI keys, and
theirsecret meaning, to "Advances in Cryptology, Crypto'99"
conference held in Santa Barbara. According to those present at
the conference, Windows developers attending the conference did
not deny that the "NSA" key was built into their software. But
they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been
put there without users' knowledge.
>
A third key?!
>
But according to two witnesses attending the conference, even
Microsoft's top crypto programmers were astonished to learn that
the version of ADVAPI.DLL shipping with Windows 2000 contains
not two, but three keys. Brian LaMachia, head of CAPI
development at Microsoft was "stunned" to learn of these
discoveries, by outsiders. The latest discovery by Dr van
Someren is based on advanced search methods which test and > report on the "entropy" of programming code. > >
Within the Microsoft organisation, access to Windows source code
is said to be highly compartmentalized, making it easy for
modifications to be inserted without the knowledge of even the
respective product managers.
>
Researchers are divided about whether the NSA key could be
intended to let US government users of Windows run classified
crypto systems on their machines or whether it is intended to
open up anyone's and everyone's Windows computer to intelligence
gathering techniques deployed by NSA's burgeoning corps of
"information warriors".
>
According to Fernandez of Cryptonym, the result of having the
secret key inside your Windows operating system "is that it is
tremendously easier for the NSA to load unauthorized security
services on all copies of Microsoft Windows, and once these
security services are loaded, they can effectively compromise
your entire operating system". The NSA key is contained inside
all versions of Windows from Windows 95 OSR2 onwards.
>
"For non American IT managers relying on Windows NT to operate
highly secure data centres, this find is worrying", he added.
"The US government is currently making it as difficult as
possible for "strong" crypto to be used outside of the US. That
they have also installed a cryptographic back door in the
world's most abundant operating system should send a strong
message to foreign IT managers".
>
"How is an IT manager to feel when they learn that in every copy
of Windows sold, Microsoft has a 'back door' for NSA - making it
orders of magnitude easier for the US government to access your
computer?" he asked.
>
Can the loophole be turned round against the snoopers?
>
Dr van Someren feels that the primary purpose of the NSA key
inside Windows may be for legitimate US government use. But he
says that there cannot be a legitimate explanation for the third
key in Windows 2000 CAPI. "It looks more fishy", he said.
Fernandez believes that NSA's built in loophole can be turned
round against the snoopers. The NSA key inside CAPI can be
replaced by your own key, and used to sign cryptographic
security modules from overseas or unauthorised third parties,
unapproved by Microsoft or the NSA. This is exactly what the US
government has been trying to prevent. A demonstration "how to
do it" program that replaces the NSA key can be found on
Cryptonym's website.
>
According to one leading US cryptographer, the IT world should
be thankful that the subversion of Windows by NSA has come to
light before the arrival of CPUs that handles encrypted
instruction sets. These would make the type of discoveries made
this month impossible. "Had the next generation CPU's with
encrypted instruction sets already been deployed,we would have
never found out about NSAKEY."
you are just about the ripe age to be drafted. does that bother you? do you even think about that? there was a sign at jonestown behind jim jones' dead body and it said "those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." which would you rather sacrifice your hot car or your life?
die for oil, sucker.
born on the firecracker fourth of july raised on football and mtv, never felt what its like to have to fight to stay free. Vietnam just a time life book memory. the mask is off again this time nobody cares but you can't keep dancing if your legs are blown away.
die for oil, sucker.
you too can get you face shot off so arms race tycoons won't have to get a real job. the cold war is over, it was all a mirage. we could use that money we got problems to solve, but were not allowed at the peace dividend because our psycho president has got his head in the sand. saddam hussain so egocentric, he even replaced Mickey mouse on watches with his own face. last spring he was our tyrant we thought we could use. we supplied him with all his guns and his nerve gas too. right now its the world's first tabloid war. there they are on cnn, flinging mud back and forth. if all wars were treated like game shows, great! the world would be a much happier place. but it won't last long with these egos involved. one shot at saddam he's going bomb Israel. after that hiroshima will look like a picnic and we'll all die for oil, sucker.
you too can get your spinal cord snapped to save greedy kings from the greed of iraq. give your life for a country where women can't vote and people still get their hands and heads chopped off. in saudi arabia they stone you to death for sleeping with another person's husband or wife. women can't go out alone, or show their face or even drive. and there's never elections, you can't even ask why. but they finally did outlaw slavery in 1962, so progress is being made. and they're sitting on something we can learn to live without but certain fat cat's bank accounts cannot, oil.
for this you get to be all you can be, a dead army, navy, air force, marine. come home one of those deranged unemployed vets, the kind they love to make tv cop shows about. just like tom cruise in a wheelchair. no film royalties cause nobody cares about you once you've been used to die for oil, sucker.
kill, kill, kill the poor even faster that crack, send them off to war make sure they don't come back. give them tanks that fall apart and helicopters that crash. 2000 died in panama cause the stealth can't shoot straight. 800 million dollar batman plane and it doesn't even work. no surprise when their idea of national security is screwdrivers costing 1800 bucks. a little sand in the engine can stop a naval destroyer. saddam hussain knows this but our networks don't report it as we die for oil, sucker.
and is it really worth it in this day and age to come out the winners of world war 3? think about it. once we take over that place well never ever beable to leave. bush talks about bombing a path to Baghdad 75 miles wide. and if the big bad wolf still won't give up we're going to drop the nuclear bomb and after that we'll just waltz right in to colonize their hearts and minds. but the arab people will be so damn mad we'll be lucky to get out of there alive. after that do you think any arab country will sell us oil?
think of the cost to keep our army there when the only way left to force oil out of the ground is soldiers guns treating arabs like slaves or was that all part of the plan. how long do you think that could possibly last?
they found a scam to replace the cold war it's called die for oil, sucker.
what's so sick about this is that theres is a better way. stop selling guns to arabs and to Israel. don't need to keep ourselves hostage to oil, use our star wars know how to build solar powered cars. one clerk in the patent office might be all it would take to find blueprints for a solar car general motors shelved away. but no thats to easy and theres money to be made, especially if you already have more than you'll ever need. for those of us who can't buy our way out like rich folks like dan quale do its burn you draft card, burn the flag, and burn the pentagon too.
so be all you can be and say no the air force, army, marines. get off your butt before your butt's blown off. don't die for oil, don't be a sucker.
Troops is Saudi Arabia deserve beer!
on
Hack in Space
·
· Score: -1
It must be getting thirsty in Saudi Arabia by now. We've got all those American fighting troops over there and they're not allowed to have any beer.
The Saudis don't believe in beer. I'm not certain such a country is worth defending, even against Saddam Hussein. How can you stick all those soldiers out in the middle of the desert and not provide them a little beer occasionally?
The Saudis also will not allow anybody to send any nude photos to our kids. They probably can live with that. You can go without nude photos a lot longer than you can go without beer. You may not realize this but beer has played a big part in the military history of this country.
When Washington crossed the Delaware, he took a six-pack, which he drank along the way. That's how he drummed up the courage to stand up there in front of the boat.
When aides complained to President Lincoln that U.S. Grant was drinking too much during the Civil War, Lincoln asked, "What does he drink?"
The aides answered, "Miller Lite."
"Because it's less filling or has more taste?" asked Lincoln.
"He likes the can," they answered.
"Doesn't matter," said Lincoln. "Order each of my generals a case. Maybe they'll learn to fight like Grant."
The real reason Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill was because somebody told them there was an iced-down keg of beer at the top.
I'm not certain how much our brave fighting women in Saudi Arabia miss beer, but you get a couple of hundred thousand guys together, for whatever reason, and they're going to want a few cold ones.
The lack of beer has got to be hurting morale. If I were George Bush I'd level with the Saudis.
I'd tell them, "Read my lips. My boys have got to have some beer."
Can you imagine being 22 years old, being sent to a glorified sand box and not knowing when you'll get home or even IF you'll get home, and some guy dressed in something that looks like he stole off a bed in a Holiday Inn telling you you can't have a lousy beer after you get off duty?
This is ridiculous. This is unfair. This is an issue that should have come up before and the president should deal with now.
I'm serious. Tell the Saudis to stick it.
If the government won't pick up the tab, I'm certain the American people will be willing to foot the bill for a beer lift to Saudi Arabia.
What are the Saudis going to do if we ignore their no-beer rule? Ask us to leave and have to depend on shaky allies to defend them against Saddam Hussein?
Of course not.
Tell 'em to kiss our Buds and go drink their oil.
Re:Where to put angular momentum
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Where to put angular momentum?
This is a tough one. Up your ass! Woot!
Anarchism Encyclopaedia Britannica
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"Anarchism", from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910.
ANARCHISM (from the Gr. an and archos, contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and international temporary or more or less permanent - for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual protection, defence of the territory, and so on; and, on the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing number of scientific, artistic, literary and sociable needs. Moreover, such a society would represent nothing immutable. On the contrary - as is seen in organic life at large - harmony would (it is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the state.
If, it is contended, society were organized on these principles, man would not be limited in the free exercise of his powers in productive work by a capitalist monopoly, maintained by the state; nor would he be limited in the exercise of his will by a fear of punishment, or by obedience towards individuals or metaphysical entities, which both lead to depression of initiative and servility of mind. He would be guided in his actions by his own understanding, which necessarily would bear the impression of a free action and reaction between his own self and the ethical conceptions of his surroundings. Man would thus be enabled to obtain the full development of all his faculties, intellectual, artistic and moral, without being hampered by overwork for the monopolists, or by the servility and inertia of mind of the great number. He would thus be able to reach full individualization, which is not possible either under the present system of individualism, or under any system of state socialism in the so-called Volkstaat (popular state).
The anarchist writers consider, moreover, that their conception is not a utopia, constructed on the a priori method, after a few desiderata have been taken as postulates. It is derived, they maintain, from an analysis of tendencies that are at work already, even though state socialism may find a temporary favour with the reformers. The progress of modern technics, which wonderfully simplifies the production of all the necessaries of life; the growing spirit of independence, and the rapid spread of free initiative and free understanding in all branches of activity - including those which formerly were considered as the proper attribution of church and state - are steadily reinforcing the no-government tendency.
As to their economical conceptions, the anarchists, in common with all socialists, of whom they constitute the left wing, maintain that the now prevailing system of private ownership in land, and our capitalist production for the sake of profits, represent a monopoly which runs against both the principles of justice and the dictates of utility. They are the main obstacle which prevents the successes of modern technics from being brought into the service of all, so as to produce general well-being. The anarchists consider the wage-system and capitalist production altogether as an obstacle to progress. But they point out also that the state was, and continues to be, the chief instrument for permitting the few to monopolize the land, and the capitalists to appropriate for themselves a quite disproportionate share of the yearly accumulated surplus of production. Consequently, while combating the present monopolization of land, and capitalism altogether, the anarchists combat with the same energy the state, as the main support of that system. Not this or that special form, but the state altogether, whether it be a monarchy or even a republic governed by means of the referendum.
The state organization, having always been, both in ancient and modern history (Macedonian Empire, Roman Empire, modern European states grown up on the ruins of the autonomous cities), the instrument for establishing monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities, cannot be made to work for the destruction of these monopolies. The anarchists consider, therefore, that to hand over to the state all the main sources of economical life - the land, the mines, the railways, banking, insurance, and so on - as also the management of all the main branches of industry, in addition to all the functions already accumulated in its hands (education, state- supported religions, defence of the territory, etc.), would mean to create a new instrument of tyranny. State capitalism would only increase the powers of bureaucracy and capitalism. True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound, in lieu of the present hierarchy from the centre to the periphery.
In common with most socialists, the anarchists recognize that, like all evolution in nature, the slow evolution of society is followed from time to time by periods of accelerated evolution which are called revolutions; and they think that the era of revolutions is not yet closed. Periods of rapid changes will follow the periods of slow evolution, and these periods must be taken advantage of - not for increasing and widening the powers of the state, but for reducing them, through the organization in every township or commune of the local groups of producers and consumers, as also the regional, and eventually the international, federations of these groups.
In virtue of the above principles the anarchists refuse to be party to the present state organization and to support it by infusing fresh blood into it. They do not seek to constitute, and invite the working men not to constitute, political parties in the parliaments. Accordingly, since the foundation of the International Working Men's Association in 1864-1866, they have endeavoured to promote their ideas directly amongst the labour organizations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle against capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation.
The historical development of anarchism
The conception of society just sketched, and the tendency which is its dynamic expression, have always existed in mankind, in opposition to the governing hierarchic conception and tendency - now the one and now the other taking the upper hand at different periods of history. To the former tendency we owe the evolution, by the masses themselves, of those institutions - the clan, the village community, the guild, the free medieval city - by means of which the masses resisted the encroachments of the conquerors and the power-seeking minorities. The same tendency asserted itself with great energy in the great religious movements of medieval times, especially in the early movements of the reform and its forerunners. At the same time it evidently found its expression in the writings of some thinkers, since the times of Lao-tsze, although, owing to its non-scholastic and popular origin, it obviously found less sympathy among the scholars than the opposed tendency.
As has been pointed out by Prof. Adler in his Geschichte des Sozialismus und Kommunismus, Aristippus (b. c. 430 BC), one of the founders of the Cyrenaic school, already taught that the wise must not give up their liberty to the state, and in reply to a question by Socrates he said that he did not desire to belong either to the governing or the governed class. Such an attitude, however, seems to have been dictated merely by an Epicurean attitude towards the life of the masses.
The best exponent of anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece was Zeno (342-267 or 270 BC), from Crete, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, who distinctly opposed his conception of a free community without government to the state-utopia of Plato. He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual - remarking already that, while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct - that of sociability. When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the cosmos. They will have no need of law-courts or police, will have no temples and no public worship, and use no money - free gifts taking the place of the exchanges. Unfortunately, the writings of Zeno have not reached us and are only known through fragmentary quotations. However, the fact that his very wording is similar to the wording now in use, shows how deeply is laid the tendency of human nature of which he was the mouthpiece.
In medieval times we find the same views on the state expressed by the illustrious bishop of Alba, Marco Girolamo Vida, in his first dialogue De dignitate reipublicae (Ferd. Cavalli, in Mem. dell'Istituto Veneto, xiii.; Dr E. Nys, Researches in the History of Economics). But it is especially in several early Christian movements, beginning with the ninth century in Armenia, and in the preachings of the early Hussites, particularly Chojecki, and the early Anabaptists, especially Hans Denk (cf. Keller, Ein Apostel der Wiedertaufer), that one finds the same ideas forcibly expressed - special stress being laid of course on their moral aspects.
Rabelais and Fenelon, in their utopias, have also expressed similar ideas, and they were also current in the eighteenth century amongst the French Encyclopaedists, as may be concluded from separate expressions occasionally met with in the writings of Rousseau, from Diderot's Preface to the Voyage of Bougainville, and so on. However, in all probability such ideas could not be developed then, owing to the rigorous censorship of the Roman Catholic Church.
These ideas found their expression later during the great French Revolution. While the Jacobins did all in their power to centralize everything in the hands of the government, it appears now, from recently published documents, that the masses of the people, in their municipalities and 'sections', accomplished a considerable constructive work. They appropriated for themselves the election of the judges, the organization of supplies and equipment for the army, as also for the large cities, work for the unemployed, the management of charities, and so on. They even tried to establish a direct correspondence between the 36,000 communes of France through the intermediary of a special board, outside the National Assembly (cf. Sigismund Lacroix, Actes de la commune de Paris).
It was Godwin, in his Enquiry concerning Political Justice (2 vols., 1793), who was the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his remarkable work. Laws, he wrote, are not a product of the wisdom of our ancestors: they are the product of their passions, their timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. The remedy they offer is worse than the evils they pretend to cure. If and only if all laws and courts were abolished, and the decisions in the arising contests were left to reasonable men chosen for that purpose, real justice would gradually be evolved. As to the state, Godwin frankly claimed its abolition. A society, he wrote, can perfectly well exist without any government: only the communities should be small and perfectly autonomous. Speaking of property, he stated that the rights of every one 'to every substance capable of contributing to the benefit of a human being' must be regulated by justice alone: the substance must go 'to him who most wants it'. His conclusion was communism. Godwin, however, had not the courage to maintain his opinions. He entirely rewrote later on his chapter on property and mitigated his communist views in the second edition of Political Justice (8vo, 1796).
Proudhon was the first to use, in 1840 (Qu'est-ce que la propriete? first memoir), the name of anarchy with application to the no government state of society. The name of 'anarchists' had been freely applied during the French Revolution by the Girondists to those revolutionaries who did not consider that the task of the Revolution was accomplished with the overthrow of Louis XVI, and insisted upon a series of economical measures being taken (the abolition of feudal rights without redemption, the return to the village communities of the communal lands enclosed since 1669, the limitation of landed property to 120 acres, progressive income-tax, the national organization of exchanges on a just value basis, which already received a beginning of practical realization, and so on).
Now Proudhon advocated a society without government, and used the word anarchy to describe it. Proudhon repudiated, as is known, all schemes of communism, according to which mankind would be driven into communistic monasteries or barracks, as also all the schemes of state or state-aided socialism which were advocated by Louis Blanc and the collectivists. When he proclaimed in his first memoir on property that 'Property is theft', he meant only property in its present, Roman-law, sense of 'right of use and abuse'; in property-rights, on the other hand, understood in the limited sense of possession, he saw the best protection against the encroachments of the state. At the same time he did not want violently to dispossess the present owners of land, dwelling-houses, mines, factories and so on. He preferred to attain the same end by rendering capital incapable of earning interest; and this he proposed to obtain by means of a national bank, based on the mutual confidence of all those who are engaged in production, who would agree to exchange among themselves their produces at cost-value, by means of labour cheques representing the hours of labour required to produce every given commodity. Under such a system, which Proudhon described as 'Mutuellisme', all the exchanges of services would be strictly equivalent. Besides, such a bank would be enabled to lend money without interest, levying only something like I per cent, or even less, for covering the cost of administration. Everyone being thus enabled to borrow the money that would be required to buy a house, nobody would agree to pay any more a yearly rent for the use of it. A general 'social liquidation' would thus be rendered easy, without violent expropriation. The same applied to mines, railways, factories and so on.
In a society of this type the state would be useless. The chief relations between citizens would be based on free agreement and regulated by mere account keeping. The contests might be settled by arbitration. A penetrating criticism of the state and all possible forms of government, and a deep insight into all economic problems, were well-known characteristics of Proudhon's work.
It is worth noticing that French mutualism had its precursor in England, in William Thompson, who began by mutualism before he became a communist, and in his followers John Gray (A Lecture on Human Happiness, 1825; The Social System, 1831) and J. F. Bray (Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy, 1839). It had also its precursor in America. Josiah Warren, who was born in 1798 (cf. W. Bailie, Josiah Warren, the First American Anarchist, Boston, 1900), and belonged to Owen's 'New Harmony', considered that the failure of this enterprise was chiefly due to the suppression of individuality and the lack of initiative and responsibility. These defects, he taught, were inherent to every scheme based upon authority and the community of goods. He advocated, therefore, complete individual liberty. In 1827 he opened in Cincinnati a little country store which was the first 'equity store', and which the people called 'time store', because it was based on labour being exchanged hour for hour in all sorts of produce. 'Cost - the limit of price', and consequently 'no interest', was the motto of his store, and later on of his 'equity village', near New York, which was still in existence in 1865. Mr Keith's 'House of Equity' at Boston, founded in 1855, is also worthy of notice.
While the economical, and especially the mutual-banking, ideas of Proudhon found supporters and even a practical application in the United States, his political conception of anarchy found but little echo in France, where the Christian socialism of Lamennais and the Fourierists, and the state socialism of Louis Blanc and the followers of Saint-Simon, were dominating. These ideas found, however, some temporary support among the left-wing Hegelians in Germany, Moses Hess in 1843, and Karl Grün in 1845, who advocated anarchism. Besides, the authoritarian communism of Wilhelm Weitling having given origin to opposition amongst the Swiss working men, Wilhelm Marr gave expression to it in the forties.
On the other side, individualist anarchism found, also in Germany, its fullest expression in Max Stirner (Kaspar Schmidt), whose remarkable works (Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum and articles contributed to the Rheinische Zeitung) remained quite overlooked until they were brought into prominence by John Henry Mackay.
Prof. V. Basch, in a very able introduction to his interesting book, L'lndividualisme anarchiste: Max Stirner (1904), has shown how the development of the German philosophy from Kant to Hegel, and 'the absolute' of Schelling and the Geist of Hegel, necessarily provoked, when the anti-Hegelian revolt began, the preaching of the same 'absolute' in the camp of the rebels. This was done by Stirner, who advocated, not only a complete revolt against the state and against the servitude which authoritarian communism would impose upon men, but also the full liberation of the individual from all social and moral bonds - the rehabilitation of the 'I', the supremacy of the individual, complete 'amoralism', and the 'association of the egotists'. The final conclusion of that sort of individual anarchism has been indicated by Prof. Basch. It maintains that the aim of all superior civilization is, not to permit all members of the community to develop in a normal way, but to permit certain better endowed individuals 'fully to develop', even at the cost of the happiness and the very existence of the mass of mankind. It is thus a return towards the most common individual ism, advocated by all the would-be superior minorities, to which indeed man owes in his history precisely the state and the rest, which these individualists combat. Their individualism goes so far as to end in a negation of their own starting-point - to say nothing of the impossibility for the individual to attain a really full development in the conditions of oppression of the masses by the 'beautiful aristocracies'. His development would remain unilateral. This is why this direction of thought, notwithstanding its undoubtedly correct and useful advocacy of the full development of each individuality, finds a hearing only in limited artistic and literary circles.
Anarchism in the International Working Men's Association
A general depression in the propaganda of all fractions of socialism followed, as is known, after the defeat of the uprising of the Paris working men in June 1848 and the fall of the Republic. All the socialist press was gagged during the reaction period, which lasted fully twenty years. Nevertheless, even anarchist thought began to make some progress, namely in the writings of Bellegarrique (Caeurderoy), and especially Joseph Déjacque (Les Lazareacute'ennes, L 'Humanisphère, an anarchist-communist utopia, lately discovered and reprinted). The socialist movement revived only after 1864, when some French working men, all 'mutualists', meeting in London during the Universal Exhibition with English followers of Robert Owen, founded the International Working Men's Association. This association developed very rapidly and adopted a policy of direct economical struggle against capitalism, without interfering in the political parliamentary agitation, and this policy was followed until 1871. However, after the Franco-German War, when the International Association was prohibited in France after the uprising of the Commune, the German working men, who had received manhood suffrage for elections to the newly constituted imperial parliament, insisted upon modifying the tactics of the International, and began to build up a Social Democratic political party. This soon led to a division in the Working Men's Association, and the Latin federations, Spanish, Italian, Belgian and Jurassic (France could not be represented), constituted among themselves a Federal union which broke entirely with the Marxist general council of the International. Within these federations developed now what may be described as modern anarchism. After the names of 'Federalists' and 'Anti- authoritarians' had been used for some time by these federations the name of 'anarchists', which their adversaries insisted upon applying to them, prevailed, and finally it was revindicated.
Bakunin (q.v.) soon became the leading spirit among these Latin federations for the development of the principles of anarchism, which he did in a number of writings, pamphlets and letters. He demanded the complete abolition of the state, which -- he wrote -- is a product of religion, belongs to a lower state of civilization, represents the negation of liberty, and spoils even that which it undertakes to do for the sake of general well-being. The state was an historically necessary evil, but its complete extinction will be, sooner or later, equally necessary. Repudiating all legislation, even when issuing from universal suffrage, Bakunin claimed for each nation, each region and each commune, full autonomy, so long as it is not a menace to its neighbours, and full independence for the individual, adding that one becomes really free only when, and in proportion as, all others are free. Free federations of the communes would constitute free nations.
As to his economical conceptions, Bakunin described himself, in common with his Federalist comrades of the International (César De Paepe, James Guillaume, Schwitzguébel), a 'collectivist anarchist' - not in the sense of Vidal and Pecqueur in the 1840s, or of their modern Social Democratic followers, but to express a state of things in which all necessaries for production are owned in common by the labour groups and the free communes, while the ways of retribution of labour, communist or otherwise, would be settled by each group for itself. Social revolution, the near approach of which was foretold at that time by all socialists, would be the means of bringing into life the new conditions.
The Jurassic, the Spanish and the Italian federations and sections of the International Working Men's Association, as also the French, the German and the American anarchist groups, were for the next years the chief centres of anarchist thought and propaganda. They refrained from any participation in parliamentary politics, and always kept in close contact with the labour organizations. However, in the second half of the 'eighties and the early 'nineties of the nineteenth century, when the influence of the anarchists began to be felt in strikes, in the 1st of May demonstrations, where they promoted the idea of a general strike for an eight hours' day, and in the anti-militarist propaganda in the army, violent prosecutions were directed against them, especially in the Latin countries (including physical torture in the Barcelona Castle) and the United States (the execution of five Chicago anarchists in 1887). Against these prosecutions the anarchists retaliated by acts of violence which in their turn were followed by more executions from above, and new acts of revenge from below. This created in the general public the impression that violence is the substance of anarchism, a view repudiated by its supporters, who hold that in reality violence is resorted to by all parties in proportion as their open action is obstructed by repression, and exceptional laws render them outlaws. (Cf. Anarchism and Outrage, by C. M. Wilson, and Report of the Spanish Atrocities Committee, in 'Freedom Pamphlets'; A Concise History of the Great Trial of the Chicago Anarchists, by Dyer Lum (New York, 1886); The Chicago Martyrs: Speeches, etc.).
Anarchism continued to develop, partly in the direction of Proudhonian 'mutuellisme', but chiefly as communist-anarchism, to which a third direction, Christian- anarchism, was added by Leo Tolstoy, and a fourth, which might be ascribed as literary-anarchism, began amongst some prominent modern writers.
The ideas of Proudhon, especially as regards mutual banking, corresponding with those of Josiah Warren, found a considerable following in the United States, creating quite a school, of which the main writers are Stephen Pearl Andrews, William Grene, Lysander Spooner (who began to write in 1850, and whose unfinished work, Natural Law, was full of promise), and several others, whose names will be found in Dr Nettlau's Bibliographie de l'anarchie.
A prominent position among the individualist anarchists in America has been occupied by Benjamin R. Tucker, whose journal Liberty was started in 1881 and whose conceptions are a combination of those of Proudhon with those of Herbert Spencer. Starting from the statement that anarchists are egotists, strictly speaking, and that every group of individuals, be it a secret league of a few persons, or the Congress of the United States, has the right to oppress all mankind, provided it has the power to do so, that equal liberty for all and absolute equality ought to be the law, and 'mind every one your own business' is the unique moral law of anarchism, Tucker goes on to prove that a general and thorough application of these principles would be beneficial and would offer no danger, because the powers of every individual would be limited by the exercise of the equal rights of all others. He further indicated (following H. Spencer) the difference which exists between the encroachment on somebody's rights and resistance to such an encroachment; between domination and defence: the former being equally condemnable, whether it be encroachment of a criminal upon an individual, or the encroachment of one upon all others, or of all others upon one; while resistance to encroachment is defensible and necessary. For their self-defence, both the citizen and the group have the right to any violence, including capital punishment. Violence is also justified for enforcing the duty of keeping an agreement. Tucker thus follows Spencer, and, like him, opens (in the present writer's opinion) the way for reconstituting under the heading of 'defence' all the functions of the state. His criticism of the present state is very searching, and his defence of the rights of the individual very powerful. As regards his economical views B. R. Tucker follows Proudhon.
The individualist anarchism of the American Proudhonians finds, however, but little sympathy amongst the working masses. Those who profess it - they are chiefly 'intellectuals' - soon realize that the individualization they so highly praise is not attainable by individual efforts, and either abandon the ranks of the anarchists, and are driven into the liberal individualism of the classical economist or they retire into a sort of Epicurean amoralism, or superman theory, similar to that of Stirner and Nietzsche. The great bulk of the anarchist working men prefer the anarchist-communist ideas which have gradually evolved out of the anarchist collectivism of the International Working Men's Association. To this direction belong - to name only the better known exponents of anarchism Elisée Reclus, Jean Grave, Sebastien Faure, Emile Pouget in France; Errico Malatesta and Covelli in Italy; R. Mella, A. Lorenzo, and the mostly unknown authors of many excellent manifestos in Spain; John Most amongst the Germans; Spies, Parsons and their followers in the United States, and so on; while Domela Nieuwenhuis occupies an intermediate position in Holland. The chief anarchist papers which have been published since 1880 also belong to that direction; while a number of anarchists of this direction have joined the so-called syndicalist movement- the French name for the non-political labour movement, devoted to direct struggle with capitalism, which has lately become so prominent in Europe.
As one of the anarchist-communist direction, the present writer for many years endeavoured to develop the following ideas: to show the intimate, logical connection which exists between the modern philosophy of natural sciences and anarchism; to put anarchism on a scientific basis by the study of the tendencies that are apparent now in society and may indicate its further evolution; and to work out the basis of anarchist ethics. As regards the substance of anarchism itself, it was Kropotkin's aim to prove that communism at least partial - has more chances of being established than collectivism, especially in communes taking the lead, and that free, or anarchist-communism is the only form of communism that has any chance of being accepted in civilized societies; communism and anarchy are therefore two terms of evolution which complete each other, the one rendering the other possible and acceptable. He has tried, moreover, to indicate how, during a revolutionary period, a large city - if its inhabitants have accepted the idea could organize itself on the lines of free communism; the city guaranteeing to every inhabitant dwelling, food and clothing to an extent corresponding to the comfort now available to the middle classes only, in exchange for a half-day's, or five-hours' work; and how all those things which would be considered as luxuries might be obtained by everyone if he joins for the other half of the day all sorts of free associations pursuing all possible aims - educational, literary, scientific, artistic, sports and so on. In order to prove the first of these assertions he has analysed the possibilities of agriculture and industrial work, both being combined with brain work. And in order to elucidate the main factors of human evolution, he has analysed the part played in history by the popular constructive agencies of mutual aid and the historical role of the state.
Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of the Christ and from the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent he made (especially in The Kingdom of God in Yourselves) a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state and the existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of the Christ he deduces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike.
It would be impossible to represent here, in a short sketch, the penetration, on the one hand, of anarchist ideas into modern literature, and the influence, on the other hand, which the libertarian ideas of the best contemporary writers have exercised upon the development of anarchism. One ought to consult the ten big volumes of the Supplément Littéraire to the paper La Révolte and later the Temps Nouveaux, which contain reproductions from the works of hundreds of modern authors expressing anarchist ideas, in order to realize how closely anarchism is connected with all the intellectual movement of our own times. J. S. Mill's Liberty, Spencer's Individual versus the State, Marc Guyau's Morality without Obligation or Sanction, and Fouillée's La Morale, I'art et la religion, the works of Multatuli (E. Douwes Dekker), Richard Wagner's Art and Revolution, the works of Nietzsche, Emerson, W. Lloyd Garrison, Thoreau, Alexander Herzen, Edward Carpenter and so on; and in the domain of fiction, the dramas of Ibsen, the poetry of Walt Whitman, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Zola's Paris and Le Travail, the latest works of Merezhkovsky, and an infinity of works of less known authors, are full of ideas which show how closely anarchism is interwoven with the work that is going on in modern thought in the same direction of enfranchisement of man from the bonds of the state as well as from those of capitalism.
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"Towards Anarchism" by Errico Malatesta (1853-1932)
"Towards Anarchism" first appeared in English in the Depression era periodical MAN! This little essay was highly regarded by the revolutionary anarchist prisoner Carl Harp (1949-1981) who suggested reprinting it in this form. First printing, 1982 by Black Cat Press, Canada.
It is a general opinion that we, because we call ourselves revolutionists, expect Anarchism to come with one stroke - as the immediate result of an insurrection which violently attacks all that which exists and which replaces all with institutions that are really new. And to tell the truth this idea is not lacking among some comrades who also conceive the revolution in such a manner.
This prejudice explains why so many honest opponents believe Anarchism a thing impossible; and it also explains why some comrades, disgusted with the present moral condition of the people and seeing that Anarchism cannot come about soon, waver between an extreme dogmatism which blinds them to the realities of life and an opportunism which practically makes them forget that they are Anarchists and that for Anarchism they should struggle.
This prejudice explains why so many honest opponents believe Anarchism a thing impossible; and it also explains why some comrades, disgusted with the present moral condition of the people and seeing that Anarchism cannot come about soon, waver between an extreme dogmatism which blinds them to the realities of life and an opportunism which practically makes them forget that they are Anarchists and that for Anarchism they should struggle.
If we should want to substitute one government for another, that is, impose our desires upon others, it would only be necessary to combine the material forces needed to resist the actual oppressors and put ourselves in their place.
But we do not want this; we want Anarchism which is a society based on free and voluntary accord - a society in which no one can force his wishes on another and in which everyone can do as he pleases and together all will voluntarily contribute to the well-being of the community. But because of this Anarchism will not have definitively and universally triumphed until all men will not only not want to be commanded but will not want to command; nor will Anarchism have succeeded unless they will have understood the advantage of solidarity and know how to organise a plan of social life wherein there will no longer be traces of violence and imposition.
And as the conscience, determination, and capacity of men continuously develop and find means of expression in the gradual modification of the new environment and in the realisation of the desires in proportion to their being formed and becoming imperious, so it is with Anarchism; Anarchism cannot come but little by little - slowly, but surely, growing in intensity and extension.
Therefore, the subject is not whether we accomplish Anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards Anarchism today, tomorrow, and always.
Anarchism is the abolition of exploitation and oppression of man by man, that is, the abolition of private property and government; Anarchism is the destruction of misery, of superstitions, of hatred. Therefore, every blow given to the institutions of private property and to the government, every exaltation of the conscience of man, every disruption of the present conditions, every lie unmasked, every part of human activity taken away from the control of the authorities, every augmentation of the spirit of solidarity and initiative, is a step towards Anarchism.
The problem lies in knowing how to choose the road that really approaches the realisation of the ideal and in not confusing the real progress with hypocritical reforms. For with the pretext of obtaining immediate ameliorations these false reforms tend to distract the masses from the struggle against authority and capitalism; they serve to paralyse their actions and make them hope that something can be attained through the kindness of the exploiters and governments. The problem lies in knowing how to use the little power we have - that we go on achieving, in the most economical way, more prestige for our goal.
There is in every country a government which, with brutal force, imposes its laws on all; it compels all to be subjected to exploitation and to maintain, whether they like it or not, the existing institutions. It forbids the minority groups to actuate their ideas, and prevents the social organisations in general from modifying themselves according to, and with, the modifications of public opinion. The normal peaceful course of evolution is arrested by violence, and thus with violence it is necessary to reopen that course. It is for this reason that we want a violent revolution today; and we shall want it always - so long as man is subject to the imposition of things contrary to his natural desires. Take away the governmental violence and ours would have no reason to exist.
We cannot as yet overthrow the prevailing government; perhaps tomorrow from the ruins of the present government we cannot prevent the arising of another similar one. But this does not hinder us, nor will it tomorrow, from resisting whatever form of authority - refusing always to submit to its laws whenever possible, and constantly using force to oppose force.
Every weakening of whatever kind of authority, each accession of liberty will be a progress towards Anarchism; always it should be conquered - never asked for; always it should serve to give us greater strength in the struggle; always it should make us consider the state as an enemy with whom we should never make peace; always it should make us remember well that the decrease of the ills produced by the government consists in the decrease of its attributions and powers, and the resulting terms should be determined not by those who governed but by those were governed. By government we mean any person or group of persons in the state, country, community, or association who has the right to make laws and inflict them upon those who do not want them.
We cannot as yet abolish private property; we cannot regulate the means of production which is necessary to work freely; perhaps we shall not be able to do so in the next insurrectional movement. But this does not prevent us now, or will it in the future, from continually opposing capitalism or any other form of despotism. And each victory, however small, gained by the workers against their exploiters, each decrease of profit, every bit of wealth taken from the individual owners and put at the disposal of all, shall be a progress - a forward step towards Anarchism. Always it should serve to enlarge the claims of the workers and to intensify the struggle; always it should be accepted as a victory over an enemy and not as a concession for which we should be thankful; always we should remain firm in our resolution to take with force, as soon as it will be possible, those means which the private owners, protected by the government, have stolen from the workers.
The right of force having disappeared, the means of production being placed under the management of whoever wants to produce, the result must be the fruit of a peaceful evolution.
Anarchism could not be, nor would it ever be if not for these few who want it and want it only in those things they can accomplish without the co-operation of the non-anarchists. This does not necessarily mean that the ideal of Anarchism will make little or no progress, for little by little its ideas will extend to more men and more things until it will have embraced all mankind and all life's manifestations.
Having overthrown the government and all the existing dangerous institutions which with force it defends, having conquered complete freedom for all and with it the means of regulating labour without which liberty would be a lie, and while we are struggling to arrive at this point, we do not intend to destroy those things which we little by little will reconstruct.
For example, there functions in the present society the service of supplying food. This is being done badly, chaotically, with great waste of energy and material and with capitalist interests in view; but after all, one way or another we must eat. It would be absurd to want to disorganise the system of producing and distributing food unless we could substitute for it something better and more just.
There exists a postal service. We have thousands of criticisms to make, but in the meantime we use it to send our letters, and shall continue to use it, suffering all its faults, until we shall be able to correct or replace it.
There are schools, but how badly they function. But because of this we do not allow our children to remain in ignorance - refusing their learning to read and write.
Meanwhile we wait and struggle for a time when we shall be able to organise a system of model schools to accommodate all.
From this we can see that, to arrive at Anarchism, material force is not the only thing to make a revolution; it is essential that the workers, grouped according to the various branches of production, place themselves in a position that will insure the proper functioning of their social life - without the aid or need of capitalists or governments.
And we see also that the Anarchist ideals are far from being in contradiction, as the "scientific socialists" claim, to the laws of evolution as proved by science; they are a conception which fits these laws perfectly; they are the experimental system brought from the field of research to that of social realisation.
Who keeps modding my posts up? I will get banned when they start killing my karma, by modding me back down to hell!
Mind control?
We don't need no stinking mind control. Let us send foreigners to American public school. Our school system can make better zombies than any fancy, new age mind control!
Dear Troll,
We are sad to inform you that, after careful consideration , we have rejected your troll submission to the Troll Library.
You show a a poor skill at trolling. Please go read Troll Howto, and try again. Either that, or stick to adequacy.
"Not whether we accomplish anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards anarchism today, tomorrow, and always."
"Lenin is dead. We can feel for him that kind of enforced admiration which strong men, even when deluded, even when wicked, can extract from the crowd, men who suceed in leaving as they pass a deep mark on history: Alexander, Julius Caesar, Loyola, Cromwell, Robespierre, Napoleon. But, even with the best intentions, he was a tyrant who strangled the Russian revolution - and we who cannot admire him while alive, cannot mourn him now he is dead. Lenin is dead. Long live Liberty!"
"When a community has needs and its members do not know how to organise spontaneously to provide them, someone comes forward, an authority who satisfies those needs by utilizing the services of all and directing them to his liking. If the roads are unsafe and the people do not know what measures to take, a police force emerges... This is what has happened in out midst; the less organised we have been the more prone are we to be imposed on by a few individuals. And this is understandable... So much so that organisation, far from creating authority, is the only cure for it..."
"If you reason instead of repeating what is taught you; if you analyze the law and strip off those cloudy fictions with which it has been draped in order to conceal its real origin, which is the right of the stronger, and its substance, which has ever been the consecration of all the tyrannies handed down to mankind through its long and bloody history; when you have comprehended this, your contempt for the law will be profound indeed."
"Darwin pointed out how, in numberless animal societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by co-operation, and how that substitution results in the developement of intellectual and moral faculties which secure to the species the best conditions for survival. He intimated that in such cases the fittest are not the physically strongest, nor the cunningest, but those who learn to combine so as mutually to support each other, strong and weak alike, for the welfare of the community."
"When we have but the will to do it, that very moment will Justice be done: that very instant the tyrants of the Earth shall bite the dust."
"But owing to our wage system, this increase of wealth -- due to the combined efforts of men of science, of managers, and workmen as well -- has resulted only in an unprecedented accumulation of
wealth in the hands of the owners of capital; while an increase of misery for the great numbers, and an insecurity of life for all, have been the lot of the workmen; the unskilled labourers, in continuous search for labour, are falling into an unheard-of destitution. And even the best paid artisans and skilled workmen labour under the permanent menace of being thrown, in their turn, into the same conditions as the unskilled paupers, in consequence of some of the continuous and unavoidable fluctuations of industry and caprices of capital."
2000-06-28 03:09:37 Hemos and Signal 11 Are Fags! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-28 16:44:32 Rob Malda is Gay! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-28 16:59:11 Emmett Chokes on JonKatz's Dick! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-28 17:08:38 Slashdot Officially "Sucks" (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-28 17:44:39 Roblimo Went Down on RMS for $5!!! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-29 03:10:29 Rob Malda Caught Sucking Off Bruce Perens (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-29 05:48:15 Vladinator Shits in Rob Malda's Mouth; Rob Eats It (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-29 05:22:24 Slashdot Is a Pile of Shit (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-06-29 05:27:59 RMS and ESR Gangbang Hemos and CmdrTaco! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-07-17 10:19:41 You are Gay (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-07-27 22:02:53 Hemos Blows Out Rob's Ass (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-01 10:15:50 Slashdot Renamed "Band of Faggots," Malda Fucks ow (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-02 09:27:53 Malda and Hemos Involved in Major Gangbang (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 11:16:53 Rob Malda & RMS: First Gay-Geek Marriage? (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 11:23:27 Katz Drinks 1 Gallon of Semen a Day (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 11:28:45 Emmett Gives Rimjobs to the Entire FSF! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 11:37:51 Anal Warts Have Slashdot Staff in Health Worry... (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 11:48:53 Canker Sore Halts Rob's Cocksucking Habits... (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 12:02:58 Fractured Penis Ends RMS's Reaming of ESR! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 12:07:59 Gay Games 2000 to Be Sponsored by Slashdot... (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 12:13:41 ESR Seduces Emmett; Malda and Hemos Jealous (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 13:02:23 Slashdot to Sell Jelly Dildos for Gay Geeks? (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-04 13:08:15 ESR "Backwards Engineers" Malda's Rectum (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-10 20:28:04 Malda's Rectum? Nearly Killed'im! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-10 20:33:09 Emmett "Opens the Source" to Timothy's Colon (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-10 20:39:29 Roblimo Glunks All Over Taco's Face; Taco Smiles (articles,news)
2000-08-10 23:49:35 Malda Shaves Bruce Perens's Cock & Balls for Charity (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-15 14:42:54 RMS Renames FSF to "Free Sex Foundation" (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-15 15:01:47 Rob's Balls Smell Like Ass After He Fucks Hemos! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-15 16:06:40 ESR Gives Herpes to RMS; FSF Declares War on Open Source (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-16 08:42:26 Hemos Places Emmett's Ass-Virginity Under GPL! (articles,news) (rejected)
2000-08-16 08:49:12 Hemos Places Own Dick Under the LGPL; RMS Approves... (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-01-04 21:32:43 Malda Rapes Hemos; No Reports Filed (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-01-04 21:56:20 Hemos Changes Name to Homos, Blows RMS (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-01-13 20:49:08 Your Cunt (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-04-23 04:29:46 A Nugget for You! (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-04-23 04:35:17 Taco Wraps Hemo's Burrito... in Ass Cheeks! (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-05-10 14:32:16 Michael is a Fucking Asshole! (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-05-17 18:37:41 CmdrTaco's Breath Smells of Feces (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-06-07 07:29:21 Problems at Home? (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-06-07 14:08:05 Michael Sims: Censoring to Hide his Faggotry (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-06-07 16:11:54 Nazi Michael Busts a Nut, Faggot Malda Swallows (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-06-19 20:26:14 Michael and Timmah Censor Each Other's Cocks (articles,news) (rejected)
2001-06-19 20:32:01 Roblimo's Beard Encrusted with Slashot Staff's Cum, Orgy Suspected (bsd,bsd) (rejected)
2001-06-19 21:00:43 Michael Shaves Pubic Hair; RMS Looks On Eagerly (yro,gnustep) (rejected)
2001-06-20 19:07:51 Rob Malda Sucks Cock for Chiclets (articles,news)
2001-06-20 19:16:37 ESR Injects Malda's Semen into Veins Twice Daily (features,pilot)
2001-06-20 19:21:57 JonKatz Accidental Dildo Suicide: "Tragic," Malda Smiles (articles,news)
2001-06-20 19:27:25 Emmet's Asshole "a Messy Wreck," No Asspounding for a Week! (apache,xmas)
2001-06-20 19:33:38 Rob Malda Chugs ESR's Chilled Semen: "Ahhhhh" (articles,be)
Nope. Can you smell what the Bak be cookin'?
A talk by Alan MacSimoin to the WSM Dublin
u nk_Home.html
/pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM
branch in September 1991
The Korean anarchist Movement
In the 2,000 years of Korean history there arose movements fighting for peasants rights and for national independence. Within these movements there were tendencies that may be seen as forerunners of modern anarchism, in the same way as we might view the Diggers in the English revolution.
In 1894 Japan invaded, under the pretext of protecting Korea from China. The struggle for national independance became central to all radical political activity.
The modern anarchist movement in Korea began
to take form among the exiles who fled to China after the 1919 independence struggle, and students & workers who went to Japan. This struggle, the 3.1 Movement within which anarchists were prominent, involved 2 million people; 1,500 demonstrations were held; 7,500 were killed; 16,000 wounded and more than 700 homes and 47 churches destroyed.
In the period up to the close of World War II the Korean Anarchist Federation has identified three stages.
The first stage covered the first half of the 1920s and is described by the KAF as the gestation period.
In the early years of this century as the Japanese ruling class started their imperialist drive into other Asian countries they also ruthlessly cracked down on any opposition at home. Japanese anarchists were to the forefront in anti-imperialist agitation. In 1910 Kotoku Shusui, a leading Japanese anarchist, was executed for treason. The Commoners Newspaper was
rallying opposition to the Russia-Japan war and to the occupation of Korea. With the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the rice riot of 1918 and the mass uprising in Korea in 1919, the Japanese ruling class was worried.
Following the bloody suppression of the 3.1
Movement and the rise in the level of class
struggle in Japan itself, the Japanese
bosses blamed anarchists and Koreans for the
Tokyo earthquake of 1923. More than 6,000
Korean workers in Japan were hunted down
with clubs and bamboo spears. All known
Japanese and Korean anarchists were
arrested. Park Yeol and his wife Kaneko
Fumiko, Korean anarchists, veterans of the
independence struggle and organisers of the
Tokyo "Black Workers Society", were
sentenced to death. Many others were jailed.
The charge of causing an earthquake may have
been a bit embarrassing to sections of the
ruling class so the sentences were commuted
to life in prison. Kaneko died in jail and
Park was not released until the end of WWll.
Many of the Koreans jailed in what became
known as "the High Treason case" went on to
become leading activists in the anarchist
movement in their own country.
The Korean Anarchist Federation in China was
formed in April 1924. and published the
"Korean Revolution Manifesto". It was
militantly anti-imperialist "we declare that
the burglar politics of Japan is the enemy
for our nation's existence and that it is
our proper right to overthrow the
imperialist Japan by a revolutionary means".
It went on to stress the to do more than
merely exchange rulers, pointing out the
difference between a political revolution
and a social revolution. It had no doubts
about the role of anarchists, it laid
emphasis on the leading role of the
anarchists in a revolutionary situation. The
Federation began to produce papers like
Recapture and Justice Bulletin.
By 1928 the spread of libertarian politics
allowed the Korean Anarchists to organise
the Eastern Anarchist Federation with
comrades from China, Vietnam, Taiwan and
Japan - which published a bulletin, Dong-
Bang (The East). The "Manifesto" was adopted
by the Eastern Federation as its formal
programme.
The second stage which covered the years
1925-30 was dominated by the organisation of
the movement. Armed with the theory of
anarchist revolution set out in the
"Manifesto" and practical experiences drawn
from the 3.1 movement, the workers
organisations in Japan and "the High Treason
case" groups were organised in Seoul, Taegu,
Pyongyang and other areas. By November 1929
there had been a huge growth and the Korean
Anarchist Communist Federation was formed as
a national organisation. As part of the anti
Japanese resistance it was a totally
underground body. This should not lead
anyone into thinking that it was small or
lacking in widespread support.
To give some idea of how the movement had
grown I want to look at how things had
progressed since the early 1920s. In Kiho
province the daily newspaper Dong-a Ilbo
reported in October 1925 that ten members of
the League of Black Flag had been jailed for
one year each. The following year the same
paper reported that five young workers were
jailed for putting out a manifesto very
similar in style and content to the "Korean
Revolution Manifesto". In 1929 Dong -a Ilbo
tells of a secret society of anarchists
organised by Lee Eun-Song which had one
hundred members in the town of Icheon in
Kwangwon province. In that year it
transpired that the entire membership of the
Chunju Artists Movement Society were all
anarchists, such were the names and fronts
used to throw the Japanese police off the
scent. In response to this the death
penalty was brought in for organising
societies with the aom of "changing the
national structure".
In Taegu a League of Truth and Fraternity
was set up in 1925 by exiles who returned
from Japan. The Revolutionists League also
came into being and both were in regular
contact with the Tokyo Black Youth Society.
I have also come across anarchist grou s in
Anui, Mesan, the Changwon Black Friend
League, the Jeju Island Mutual Aid group.
The last mentioned used their remoteness
from central government to organise co-ops
of farmers and artisans, even a peasants'
band. Needless to say the organisers quickly
found they were not that remote and saw the
inside of a prison cell.
In Kwanseo and Kwanbul province I have found
mention of at least eight more groups.
Almost all the groups around the country
were involved in a mixture of producing
leaflets & papers, oranising trade unions
and engaging in resistance to the
occupation.
By this time we know that most areas could
boast of an active group. There were also
organisations in Manchuria and amongst
exiles in China and Japan.
The next stage was the fighting period
which ran up to 1945.
Among the two million Koreans in Manchuria
the KAF in Manchuria was able to sink deep
roots immediately after its formation in
1929. The Federation's main organiser, Kim
Jong-Jin, drew up a plan which he put to the
anti-Japanese guerillas. It covered
voluntary collectives for farmers, free
education up to age 18 with adult education
for those older and arms training for all
responsible adults. Discussions followed and
eventually an anarchist plan was agree which
was described as being "according to the
free federation principle based upon the
spontaneous free will of man".
The difficulty that was not really addressed
was how to deal with the Stalinists who were
also organising in this region and were
slandering the anarchists and others as
"tyrants". The young anarchists around Yu-
Rim wanted to fight ideology with ideology
and demonstrate the superiority of their
ideas. The older anti-Japanese guerillas
around Kim Jwa-Jin (sometimes called the
Korean Makhno) thought it was enough to
state their support for anarchism but that
they could ignore the Stalinists until
national independence was won because only
then would real politics come to the
forefront. Not a lot different from the
stages theory put forward by elements in
Sinn Fein!
By August 1929 the anarchists had formed an
administration in Shinmin (one of the three
Manchurian provinces). Whether this was a
government is still a point of contention
among anarchists. Organised as the Korean
People's Association in Manchuria it
declared its aim as "an independent self-
governing cooperative system of the Korean
people who assembled their full power to
save our nation by struggling against
Japan". The structure was federal going
from village meetings to district and area
conferences. The general association was
composed of delegates from the districts and
areas.
The general association set up executive
departments to deal with agriculture,
education, propaganda, finance, military
affairs, social health, youth and general
affairs. The staff of the departments
received no more than the average wage.
We would expect that the organisation would
start at village level and then federate
upwards. However the EAPM believed that the
war situation made this impossible to apply
the principle immediately. In the interim
they appointed the staffs and appointed them
from the top down. Organisation and
propaganda teams were then sent out to
agitate for support and for the creation of
village assemblies and committees. In one
village a rice mill capable of milling over
1 million bushels was built to allow the
local co-op to break from reliance on
merchants. Seemingly all these teams
reported a good response and were made
welcome wherever they went.
The local administration of the anti-
Japanese fighters in Shimin voluntarily
dissolved itself and lent its support to
KAPM. As the anarchists grew in numbers and
support the Stalinists and the pro-Japanese
elements in manchuria felt their own power
bases threatened.
On January 20th the anarchist general Kim
Jwa-Jin was assassinated while doing repair
work on the rice mill I just mentioned. The
killer escaped but his handler was caught
and executed.
At a meeting in June in Peking of the KAFC
it was decided to divert all resources
outside Korea itself to Manchuria and most
KAFC members moved to the anarchist zone in
northern Manchuria. It should be noted that
women comrades were active as agitators and
arms smugglers.
>From late 1930 onwards the Japanese were
attacking in waves from the South and the
stalinists, supported by the USSR, from the
North. In early 1931 the stalinists sent
assassination and kidnapping teams into the
anarchist zone to murder leading activists.
They believed that if they wiped out the
KAFM the KAPM would wither and die. By the
summer of
1991 many leading anarchists were dead and
the war on two fronts was devastating the
region. It was decided to go underground.
Anarchist Shimin was no more.
There is much more to be said about activity
in China and Japan as well as in Korea both
in the years up to the close of the second
world war, about their attitude towards the
partition of their country, and about their
position today. It would take too much time
to deal with it all. What should be very
clear is that anarchism in Asia has a very
real history. We need more information to
properly assess its political development,
achievements and failings. In the meantime
we can draw strength from the knowledge
that anarchism was, and can be again, a
major force in the region.
The main source I have used in Ha Ki-Rak's A
History of the Korean Anarchist Movement
which was published in 1986 by the Korean
Anarchist Federation. Apart from being
poorly translated and chronologically
confusing, it is written from the
perspective of the more nationalist and
reformist tendency in the Korean movement.
The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at
PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland
or by anonymous e-mail to an64739@anon.penet.fi
Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive
by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")
or WWW at http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/spunk/Sp
in the directory
for an anarchist mailing list send the message
subscribe firstname secondname to anarchy-list-request@cwi.nl
"Even if god really did exist, it would be necessary to abolish him"
"Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess power."
"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called `the People's Stick'."
"If you pull a sapling out of the ground, cut off all the leaves, and branches and make it into a club, you cannot expect to plant it back in the ground and have it grow into a beautifull tree..." -Bakunin to Marx
Q: You were once certain that vaccines were the hallmark of good medicine._ ______ _______________
A: Yes I was. I helped develop a few vaccines. I won't say which ones.
Q: Why not?
A: I want to preserve my privacy.
Q: So you think you could have problems if you came out into the open?
A: I believe I could lose my pension.
Q: On what grounds?
A: The grounds don't matter. These people have ways of causing you
problems, when you were once part of the Club. I know one or two people
who were put under surveillance, who were harassed.
Q: Harassed by whom?
A: The FBI.
Q: Really?
A: Sure. The FBI used other pretexts. And the IRS can come calling too.
Q: So much for free speech.
A: I was "part of the inner circle." If now I began to name names and
make specific accusations against researchers, I could be in a world of
trouble.
Q: What is at the bottom of these efforts at harassment?
A: Vaccines are the last defense of modern medicine. Vaccines are the
ultimate justification for the overall "brilliance" of modern medicine.
Q: Do you believe that people should be allowed to choose whether they
should get vaccines?
A: On a political level, yes. On a scientific level, people need
information, so that they can choose well. It's one thing to say choice is
good. But if the atmosphere is full of lies, how can you choose?
Also, if the FDA were run by honorable people, these vaccines would not be
granted licenses. They would be investigated to within an inch of their
lives.
Q: There are medical historians who state that the overall decline of
illnesses was not due to vaccines.
A: I know. For a long time, I ignored their work.
Q: Why?
A: Because I was afraid of what I would find out. I was in the business
of developing vaccines. My livelihood depended on continuing that work.
Q: And then?
A: I did my own investigation.
Q: What conclusions did you come to?
A: The decline of disease is due to improved living conditions.
Q: What conditions?
A: Cleaner water. Advanced sewage systems. Nutrition. Fresher food.
A decrease in poverty. Germs may be everywhere, but when you are healthy,
you don't contract the diseases as easily.
Q: What did you feel when you completed your own investigation?
A: Despair. I realized I was working a sector based on a collection of lies.
Q: Are some vaccines more dangerous than others?
A: Yes. The DPT shot, for example. The MMR. But some lots of a vaccine
are more dangerous than other lots of the same vaccine. As far as I'm
concerned, all vaccines are dangerous.
Q: Why?
A: Several reasons. They involve the human immune system in a process
that tends to compromise immunity. They can actually cause the disease
they are supposed to prevent. They can cause other diseases than the ones
they are supposed to prevent.
Q: Why are we quoted statistics which seem to prove that vaccines have
been tremendously successful at wiping out diseases?
A: Why? To give the illusion that these vaccines are useful. If a
vaccine suppresses visible symptoms of a disease like measles, everyone
assumes that the vaccine is a success. But, under the surface, the vaccine
can harm the immune system itself. And if it causes other diseases -- say,
meningitis -- that fact is masked, because no one believes that the vaccine
can do that. The connection is overlooked.
Q: It is said that the smallpox vaccine wiped out smallpox in England.
A: Yes. But when you study the available statistics, you get another
picture.
Q: Which is?
A: There were cities in England where people who were not vaccinated did
not get smallpox. There were places where people who were vaccinated
experienced smallpox epidemics. And smallpox was already on the decline
before the vaccine was introduced.
Q: So you're saying that we have been treated to a false history.
A: Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. This is a history that has been
cooked up to convince people that vaccines are invariably safe and effective.
Q: Now, you worked in labs. Where purity was an issue.
A: The public believes that these labs, these manufacturing facilities are
the cleanest places in the world. That is not true. Contamination occurs
all the time. You get all sorts of debris introduced into vaccines.
Q: For example, the SV40 monkey virus slips into the polio vaccine.
A: Well yes, that happened. But that's not what I mean. The SV40 got
into the polio vaccine because the vaccine was made by using monkey kidneys.
But I'm talking about something else. The actual lab conditions. The
mistakes. The careless errors. SV40, which was later found in cancer
tumors -- that was what I would call a structural problem. It was an
accepted part of the manufacturing process. If you use monkey kidneys, you
open the door to germs which you don't know are in those kidneys.
Q: Okay, but let's ignore that distinction between different types of
contaminants for a moment. What contaminants did you find in your many
years of work with vaccines?
A: All right. I'll give you some of what I came across, and I'll also
give you what colleagues of mine found. Here's a partial list. In the
Rimavex measles vaccine, we found various chicken viruses. In polio
vaccine, we found acanthamoeba, which is a so-called "brain-eating"
amoeba.
Simian cytomegalovirus in polio vaccine. Simian foamy virus in the
rotavirus vaccine. Bird-cancer viruses in the MMR vaccine. Various
micro-organisms in the anthrax vaccine. I've found potentially dangerous
enzyme inhibitors in several vaccines. Duck, dog, and rabbit viruses in
the rubella vaccine. Avian leucosis virus in the flu vaccine. Pestivirus
in the MMR vaccine.
Q: Let me get this straight. These are all contaminants which don't
belong in the vaccines.
A: That's right. And if you try to calculate what damage these
contaminants can cause, well, we don't really know, because no testing has
been done, or very little testing. It's a game of roulette. You take your
chances. Also, most people don't know that some polio vaccines, adenovirus
vaccines, rubella and hep A and measles vaccines have been made with
aborted human fetal tissue. I have found what I believed were bacterial
fragments and poliovirus in these vaccines from time to time -- which may
have come from that fetal tissue. When you look for contaminants in
vaccines, you can come up with material that IS puzzling. You know it
shouldn't be there, but you don't know exactly what you've got. I have
found what I believed was a very small "fragment" of human hair and also
human mucus. I have found what can only be called "foreign protein," which
could mean almost anything.
It could mean protein from viruses.
Q: Alarm bells are ringing all over the place.
A: How do you think I felt? Remember, this material is going into the
bloodstream without passing through some of the ordinary immune defenses.
Q: How were your findings received?
A: Basically, it was, don't worry, this can't be helped. In making
vaccines, you use various animals' tissue, and that's where this kind of
contamination enters in. Of course, I'm not even mentioning the standard
chemicals like formaldehyde, mercury, and aluminum which are purposely put
into vaccines.
Q: This information is pretty staggering.
A: Yes. And I'm just mentioning some of the biological contaminants.
Who knows how many others there are? Others we don't find because we don't
think to look for them. If tissue from, say, a bird is used to make a
vaccine, how many possible germs can be in that tissue? We have no idea.
We have no idea what they might be, or what effects they could have on humans.
Q: And beyond the purity issue?
A: You are dealing with the basic faulty premise about vaccines.
That they intricately stimulate the immune system to create the conditions
for immunity from disease. That is the bad premise. It doesn't work that
way.
A vaccine is supposed to "create" antibodies which, indirectly, offer
protection against disease. However, the immune system is much larger and
more involved than antibodies and their related "killer cells."
Q: The immune system is?
A: The entire body, really. Plus the mind. It's all immune system, you
might say. That is why you can have, in the middle of an epidemic, those
individuals who remain healthy.
Q: So the level of general health is important.
A: More than important. Vital.
Q: How are vaccine statistics falsely presented?
A: There are many ways. For example, suppose that 25 people who have
received the hepatitis B vaccine come down with hepatitis. Well, hep B is
a liver disease. But you can call liver disease many things. You can
change the diagnosis. Then, you've concealed the root cause of the problem.
Q: And that happens?
A: All the time. It HAS to happen, if the doctors automatically assume
that people who get vaccines DO NOT come down with the diseases they are
now supposed to be protected from. And that is exactly what doctors assume.
You see, it's circular reasoning. It's a closed system. It admits no
fault. No possible fault. If a person who gets a vaccine against
hepatitis gets hepatitis, or gets some other disease, the automatic
assumption is, this had nothing to do with the disease.
Q: In your years working in the vaccine establishment, how many doctors
did you encounter who admitted that vaccines were a problem?
A: None. There were a few who privately questioned what they were doing.
But they would never go public, even within their companies.
Q: What was the turning point for you?
A: I had a friend whose baby died after a DPT shot.
Q: Did you investigate?
A: Yes, informally. I found that this baby was completely healthy before
the vaccination. There was no reason for his death, except the vaccine.
That started my doubts. Of course, I wanted to believe that the baby had
gotten a bad shot from a bad lot. But as I looked into this further, I
found that was not the case in this instance. I was being drawn into a
spiral of doubt that increased over time. I continued to investigate.
I found that, contrary to what I thought, vaccines are not tested in a
scientific way.
Q: What do you mean?
A: For example, no long-term studies are done on any vaccines.
Long-term follow-up is not done in any careful way. Why? Because, again,
the assumption is made that vaccines do not cause problems. So why should
anyone check? On top of that, a vaccine reaction is defined so that all
bad reactions are said to occur very soon after the shot is given. But
that does not make sense.
Q: Why doesn't it make sense?
A: Because the vaccine obviously acts in the body for a long period of
time after it is given. A reaction can be gradual. Deterioration can be
gradual. Neurological problems can develop over time. They do in various
conditions, even according to a conventional analysis. So why couldn't
that be the case with vaccines? If chemical poisoning can occur gradually,
why couldn't that be the case with a vaccine which contains mercury?
Q: And that is what you found?
A: Yes. You are dealing with correlations, most of the time.
Correlations are not perfect. But if you get 500 parents whose children
have suffered neurological damage during a one-year period after having a
vaccine, this should be sufficient to spark off an intense investigation.
Q: Has it been enough?
A: No. Never. This tells you something right away.
Q: Which is?
A: The people doing the investigation are not really interested in looking
at the facts. They assume that the vaccines are safe. So, when they do
investigate, they invariably come up with exonerations of the vaccines.
They say, "This vaccine is safe." But what do they base those judgments
on? They base them on definitions and ideas which automatically rule out a
condemnation of the vaccine.
Q: There are numerous cases where a vaccine campaign has failed.
Where people have come down with the disease against which they were
vaccinated.
A: Yes, there are many such instances. And there the evidence is simply
ignored. It's discounted. The experts say, if they say anything at all,
that this is just an isolated situation, but overall the vaccine has been
shown to be safe. But if you add up all the vaccine campaigns where damage
and disease have occurred, you realize that these are NOT isolated situations.
Q: Did you ever discuss what we are talking about here with colleagues,
when you were still working in the vaccine establishment?
A: Yes I did.
Q: What happened?
A: Several times I was told to keep quiet. It was made clear that I
should go back to work and forget my misgivings. On a few occasions, I
encountered fear. Colleagues tried to avoid me. They felt they could be
labeled with "guilt by association." All in all, though, I behaved myself.
I made sure I didn't create problems for myself.
Q: If vaccines actually do harm, why are they given?
A: First of all, there is no "if." They do harm. It becomes a more
difficult question to decide whether they do harm in those people who seem
to show no harm. Then you are dealing with the kind of research which
should be done, but isn't. Researchers should be probing to discover a
kind of map, or flow chart, which shows exactly what vaccines do in the
body from the moment they enter. This research has not been done. As to
why they are given, we could sit here for two days and discuss all the
reasons. As you've said many times, at different layers of the system
people have their motives. Money, fear of losing a job, the desire to win
brownie points, prestige, awards, promotion, misguided idealism, unthinking
habit, and so on. But, at the highest levels of the medical cartel,
vaccines are a top priority because they cause a weakening of the immune
system. I know that may be hard to accept, but it's true. The medical
cartel, at the highest level, is not out to help people, it is out to harm
them, to weaken them.
To kill them. At one point in my career, I had a long conversation with a
man who occupied a high government position in an African nation. He told
me that he was well aware of this. He told me that WHO is a front for
these depopulation interests. There is an underground, shall we say, in
Africa, made up of various officials who are earnestly trying to change the
lot of the poor. This network of people knows what is going on. They know
that vaccines have been used, and are being used, to destroy their
countries, to make them ripe for takeover by globalist powers. I have had
the opportunity to speak with several of these people from this network.
Q: Is Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa, aware of the situation?
A: I would say he is partially aware. Perhaps he is not utterly
convinced, but he is on the way to realizing the whole truth. He already
knows that HIV is a hoax. He knows that the AIDS drugs are poisons which
destroy the immune system. He also knows that if he speaks out, in any
way, about the vaccine issue, he will be branded a lunatic. He has enough
trouble after his stand on the AIDS issue.
Q: This network you speak of.
A: It has accumulated a huge amount of information about vaccines.
The question is, how is a successful strategy going to be mounted? For
these people, that is a difficult issue.
Q: And in the industrialized nations?
A: The medical cartel has a stranglehold, but it is diminishing.
Mainly because people have the freedom to question medicines. However, if
the choice issue [the right to take or reject any medicine] does not gather
steam, these coming mandates about vaccines against biowarefare germs are
going to win out. This is an important time.
Q: The furor over the hepatits B vaccine seems one good avenue.
A: I think so, yes. To say that babies must have the vaccine-and then in
the next breath, admitting that a person gets hep B from sexual contacts
and shared needles -- is a ridiculous juxtaposition. Medical authorities
try to cover themselves by saying that 20,000 or so children in the US get
hep B every year from "unknown causes," and that's why every baby must have
the vaccine. I dispute that 20,00 figure and the so-called studies that
back it up.
Q: Andrew Wakefield, the British MD who uncovered the link between the MMR
vaccine and autism, has just been fired from his job in a London hospital.
A: Yes. Wakefield performed a great service. His correlations between
the vaccine and autism are stunning. Perhaps you know that Tony Blair's
wife is involved with alternative health. There is the possibility that
their child has not been given the MMR. Blair recently side-stepped the
question in press interviews, and made it seem that he was simply objecting
to invasive questioning of his "personal and family life." In any event, I
believe his wife has been muzzled. I think, if given the chance, she would
at least say she is sympathetic to all the families who have come forward
and stated that their children were severely damaged by the MMR.
Q: British reporters should try to get through to her.
A: They have been trying. But I think she has made a deal with her
husband to keep quiet, no matter what. She could do a great deal of good
if she breaks her promise. I have been told she is under pressure, and not
just from her husband. At the level she occupies, MI6 and British health
authorities get into the act. It is thought of as a matter of national
security.
Q: Well, it is national security, once you understand the medical cartel.
A: It is global security. The cartel operates in every nation. It
zealously guards the sanctity of vaccines. Questioning these vaccines is
on the same level as a Vatican bishop questioning the sanctity of the
sacrament of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church.
Q: I know that a Hollywood celebrity stating publicly that he will not
take a vaccine is committing career suicide.
A: Hollywood is linked very powerfully to the medical cartel. There are
several reasons, but one of them is simply that an actor who is famous can
draw a huge amount of publicity if he says ANYTHING. In 1992, I was
present at your demonstration against the FDA in downtown Los Angeles. One
or two actors spoke against the FDA. Since that time, you would be hard
pressed to find an actor who has spoken out in any way against the medical
cartel.
Q: Within the National Institutes of Health, what is the mood, what is the
basic frame of mind?
A: People are competing for research monies. The last thing they think
about is challenging the status quo. They are already in an intramural war
for that money. They don't need more trouble. This is a very insulated
system. It depends on the idea that, by and large, modern medicine is very
successful on every frontier. To admit systemic problems in any area is to
cast doubt on the whole enterprise. You might therefore think that NIH is
the last place one should think about holding demonstrations. But just the
reverse is true. If five thousand people showed up there demanding an
accounting of the actual benefits of that research system, demanding to
know what real health benefits have been conferred on the public from the
billions of wasted dollars funneled to that facility, something might start.
A spark might go off. You might get, with further demonstrations, all
sorts of fall-out. Researchers -- a few -- might start leaking information.
Q: A good idea.
A: People in suits standing as close to the buildings as the police will
allow. People in business suits, in jogging suits, mothers and babies.
Well-off people. Poor people. All sorts of people.
Q: What about the combined destructive power of a number of vaccines given
to babies these days?
A: It is a travesty and a crime. There are no real studies of any depth
which have been done on that. Again, the assumption is made that vaccines
are safe, and therefore any number of vaccines given together are safe as
well. But the truth is, vaccines are not safe. Therefore the potential
damage increases when you give many of them in a short time period.
Q: Then we have the fall flu season.
A: Yes. As if only in the autumn do these germs float in to the US from
Asia. The public swallows that premise. If it happens in April, it is a
bad cold. If it happens in October, it is the flu.
Q: Do you regret having worked all those years in the vaccine field?
A: Yes. But after this interview, I'll regret it a little less.
And I work in other ways. I give out information to certain people, when I
think they will use it well.
Q: What is one thing you want the public to understand?
A: That the burden of proof in establishing the safety and efficacy of
vaccines is on the people who manufacture and license them for public use.
Just that. The burden of proof is not on you or me. And for proof you
need well-designed long-term studies. You need extensive follow-up. You
need to interview mothers and pay attention to what mothers say about their
babies and what happens to them after vaccination. You need all these things.
The things that are not there.
Q: The things that are not there.
A: Yes.
Q: To avoid any confusion, I'd like you to review, once more, the disease
problems that vaccines can cause. Which diseases, how that happens.
A: We are basically talking about two potential harmful outcomes.
One, the person gets the disease from the vaccine. He gets the disease
which the vaccine is supposed to protect him from. Because, some version
of the disease is in the vaccine to begin with. Or two, he doesn't get
THAT disease, but at some later time, maybe right away, maybe not, he
develops another condition which is caused by the vaccine. That condition
could be autism, what's called autism, or it could be some other disease
like meningitis. He could become mentally disabled.
Q: Is there any way to compare the relative frequency of these different
outcomes?
A: No. Because the follow-up is poor. We can only guess. If you ask,
out of a population of a hundred thousand children who get a measles
vaccine, how many get the measles, and how many develop other problems from
the vaccine, there is a no reliable answer. That is what I'm saying.
Vaccines are superstitions. And with superstitions, you don't get facts
you can use. You only get stories, most of which are designed to enforce
the superstition. But, from many vaccine campaigns, we can piece together
a narrative that does reveal some very disturbing things. People have been
harmed. The harm is real, and it can be deep and it can mean death.
The harm is NOT limited to a few cases, as we have been led to believe.
In the US, there are groups of mothers who are testifying about autism and
childhood vaccines. They are coming forward and standing up at meetings.
They are essentially trying to fill in the gap that has been created by the
researchers and doctors who turn their backs on the whole thing.
Q: Let me ask you this. If you took a child in, say, Boston and you
raised that child with good nutritious food and he exercised every day and
he was loved by his parents, and he didn't get the measles vaccine, what
would be his health status compared with the average child in Boston who
eats poorly and watches five hours of TV a day and gets the measles vaccine?
A: Of course there are many factors involved, but I would bet on the
better health status for the first child. If he gets measles, if he gets
it when he is nine, the chances are it will be much lighter than the
measles the second child might get. I would bet on the first child every
time.
Q: How long did you work with vaccines?
A: A long time. Longer than ten years.
Q: Looking back now, can you recall any good reason to say that vaccines
are successful?
A: No, I can't. If I had a child now, the last thing I would allow is
vaccination. I would move out of the state if I had to. I would change
the family name. I would disappear. With my family. I'm not saying it
would come to that. There are ways to sidestep the system with grace, if
you know how to act. There are exemptions you can declare, in every state,
based on religious and/or philosophic views. But if push came to shove, I
would go on the move.
Q: And yet there are children everywhere who do get vaccines and appear to
be healthy.
A: The operative word is "appear." What about all the children who can't
focus on their studies? What about the children who have tantrums from
time to time? What about the children who are not quite in possession of
all their mental faculties? I know there are many causes for these things,
but vaccines are one cause. I would not take the chance. I see no reason
to take the chance. And frankly, I see no reason to allow the government
to have the last word. Government medicine is, from my experience, often a
contradiction in terms. You get one or the other, but not both.
Q: So we come to the level playing field.
A: Yes. Allow those who want the vaccines to take them. Allow the
dissidents to decline to take them. But, as I said earlier, there is no
level playing field if the field is strewn with lies. And when babies are
involved, you have parents making all the decisions. Those parents need a
heavy dose of truth. What about the child I spoke of who died from the DPT
shot? What information did his parents act on? I can tell you it was
heavily weighted. It was not real information.
Q: Medical PR people, in concert with the press, scare the hell out of
parents with dire scenarios about what will happen if their kids don't get
shots.
A: They make it seem a crime to refuse the vaccine. They equate it with
bad parenting. You fight that with better information. It is always a
challenge to buck the authorities. And only you can decide whether to do
it. It is every person's responsibility to make up his mind. The medical
cartel likes that bet. It is betting that the fear will win.
___________________________________________
Dr. Mark Randall is the pseudonym of a vaccine researcher who worked for
many years in the labs of major pharmaceutical houses and the US
government's National Institutes of Health.
Mark retired during the last decade. He says he was "disgusted with what
he discovered about vaccines."
As you know, since the beginning of nomorefakenews, I have been launching
an attack against non-scientific and dangerous assertions about the safety
and efficacy of vaccines.
Mark has been one of my sources.
He is a little reluctant to speak out, even under the cover of anonymity,
but with the current push to make vaccines mandatory -- with penalties like
quarantine lurking in the wings -- he has decided to break his silence.
He lives comfortably in retirement, but like many of my long-time sources,
he has developed a conscience about his former work. Mark is well aware of
the scope of the medical cartel and its goals of depopulation, mind
control, and general debilitation of populations.
The Plea of Nikos Maziotis
to the Athens Criminal Court
First, I do not intend to pretend to be the "good guy" here where I was forced to come. I will not plead for anything, because I do not consider myself a criminal. I am a revolutionary. I have nothing to repent. I am proud of what I have done. The only thing I regret is the technical error that was made so that the bomb didn't explode such that my fingerprint was found on it afterward and I ended up here. This is the only thing I repent. And something else also. All that stuff shouldn't have been at my house. It should have been kept somewhere else.
You must have in mind that although you are judges and sitting higher than me, many times revolutionaries, and myself specifically, have judged you long before you judge me. We are in opposite camps, hostile camps. The revolutionaries and revolutionary justice (because I don't believe that this court is justice, it's the word justice in quotation marks) many times judge their enemies more mercilessly, when they get the chance to impose justice.
I will begin many years ago. We don't have any crime of mine to judge here. On the contrary, we will talk about crimes, but not mine. We will talk about the crimes of the state, of its mechanisms, of justice and police crimes....
The first time I can say I was politicized is when I took part in a demonstration in 1985. It was the 17th of November. I was fourteen then, and one policeman, Melistas, shot and killed a fifteen year-old, Kaltezas. I had not participated in the riots of that night. The same evening after the murder the Chemistry School was occupied and in the morning special forces carried out a police raid on the building to evacuate it and they arrested the anarchists and youths who were inside. The next day five thousand people occupied the Polytechnic School--if I remember correctly because I was young then and didn't have much information. These occupations were precisely a reaction to the murder of Kaltezas by policeman Melistas. "Justice," five years later, in January of 1990, found Melistas innocent.
What I mean by saying this is that in reality you are abettors of crimes, at least according to me. Then, in January and February of '90 I took part in the occupation of the Polytechnic, which occurred as a reaction to the court-decision which found Melistas not guilty for the murder of Kaltezas. There were riots and damages, store windows were broken, stones and molotov cocktails thrown.... I participated in these events. From then on I could consciously say I was an anarchist.
And when I say anarchist, I mean that I am against the state and capital. That our purpose is to subvert the state and the capitalist regime. We want a society without classes, without hierarchy and without domination. The biggest lie of all times is that the state is society. I think Nietzsche has also said this--that the state lies.
We are opposed to the division of society into classes, we are against a separation between those who give orders and others who obey orders. This authoritarian structure penetrates the whole of society and it is this structure that we want to destroy. Either with peaceful or with violent means--even with guns. I have no problem with that.
I will contradict my brother who said before that he didn't want the guns in order to make war. They were for war. Maybe they were just kept there, but the guns are for war. You don't just have them to keep them at home. I might have kept them as they were, but they are to make war and I make war.... The bomb in the ministry was an act of war.
Since 1990 I have been convicted many times for my actions, for multiform actions.
I was convicted because I refused to serve the army. Not because I have any problem with weapons or with violence, I repeated that in the military court. The fact that this time I was arrested in possession of guns means that I have no problem with weapons or with violence. I am not at all a pacifist. Because neither society nor the state are peaceful. As long as I receive violence I will respond with violence.
I spent seven months in a military prison. I have been convicted for deserting the army and for evasion of military services. The second time I was released after 51 days of a hunger strike.
I have been arrested in '94 in the occupation of the Economic university along with 51 comrades of mine, when Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris were on hunger strike. This occupation of the Economic School was also an action of solidarity. In conditions where we couldn't gather anywhere, nor demonstrate, we had decided to squat a university and use it as a center of counter-information about the cases of Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris, who were then imprisoned.
In '95 I was arrested with 500 other people in the revolt of the Polytechnic in November. That occupation happened because there were many different political prisoners in jail--Kostas Kalaremas, Odysseas Kampouris, Giorgos Balafas who was arrested again in the meantime, Spyros Dapergolas, Christoforos Marinos and four persons from Thessaloniki who were arrested when the demonstration in which they were participating was attacked by the police on the 14th of November--and because there was a prisoners' revolt going on in Koridallos jail. For this occupation I was at last sentenced to one year imprisonment along with many others of my comrades. In all these actions my comrades and myself have taken complete responsibility.
So, during this decade since I can call myself an anarchist, I have used many forms of action. I have written and distributed leaflets. I took part in postering. I participated in occupations, violent or peaceful. For example, the occupation of the Economic School didn't have any violent character but the Special Police Units and the Riot Police invaded and arrested us. There were even policemen of the Special Units wearing ski-masks who entered in order to break the chains on the gate.
In the case of the Polytechnic we didn't pretend to be innocent, still without accepting the specific charges we were accused of. We explained why we went in the Polytechnic. Some time after, when I was court-martialed in February of '98, I personally took responsibility for burning a Greek flag. I said that I burnt it. I consider it to be a symbol of a hostile force. With anyone having the Greek flag I see my enemy, because the policemen have it on their uniforms, and the marshals.... It is the symbol of the enemy.
Our purpose, within the anti-state and anticapitalist struggle, is to connect ourselves with the different social struggles. Our purpose also when interfering in these struggles is to attempt to take things to the edge, which means to culminate the conflict of these social parts with the state and the police. To urge the people fighting to transcend institutional frameworks--the trade- unions, the local administrations and all those manipulators who are enemies of human freedom. Many comrades of mine, with their small forces, were engaged in such struggles. I will tell you about them more specifically.
In 1989, in a struggle of environmental interest in the village of Aravissos, the resi
dents of the area didn't want their water sources to be exploited by the Water Company of Thessaloniki. They clashed with the police and the riot police, the burnt water pumps, set fires and built barricades.... And some of our comrades from Thessaloniki took part in this struggle and were even arrested.
In 1990 the aggression of neo-liberalism began in Greece (an aggression that internationally had begun in the '80s with the Reagan and Thatcher governments), including de-industrialization, workers' dismissals, privatization, restriction of the welfare state, reductions in salaries, pensions and medical treatment.... This attack that started in Europe and North America in the beginning of the '80s only started in 1990 in Greece.
The first project was the "problematic" companies. In that section also, during the period of 1990-91, there were occupations in many factories of the country--in Mantoudi, Lavrio, Patras. Again, some comrades of ours, with their small powers, were there. More specifically in Mantoudi and in the Piraiki-Patraiki factory which is located in Patras.
After that we have the pupils' movement of "90-91 which was a grand one in to my opinion. It managed to subvert the law of the Minister of Education Kontogiannopoulos, who finally resigned. The right-wing government, in its effort to repress the movement, had mobilized its thugs in order to smash the school occupations, resulting in the murder of a teacher, Nikos Temponeras, inside an occupied school in Patras. It was one more crime of the state. Here we will count the crimes of the state, no crime of mine.
Responding to the murder of Temponeras there was a demonstration of thousands of people. We participated too, to sharpen the situation. There were conflicts with the police, the Polytechnic was occupied once again for two days. Flames, barricades, damage.... There was also another crime those days, in the 10th of January "91. During the riots, tear-gas bombs thrown by the police caused a fire in the building of K. Marousi, a shopping-center in Panepistimiou street. Four people died there due to this fire. For this crime nobody has yet paid, nor did "justice" say anything. It was covered up.
One year after, in the summer of 1992, my comrades--not me personally but this doesn't matter--participated in the clashes around Votanikos central bus-station, when the government attempted to privatize Public Transports. There were conflicts between the workers and the police. Then, some workers in the Public Transports went to prison accused of sabotage. They were smashing private buses belonging to the ruffian owners who had bought them. There also, anarchists were present.
Before referring to the struggle in Strymonikos, I want to mention the most recent examples: the jobless teachers the previous year and the pupils' movement in the winter
of '98-'99. We were present there as well. A comrade who testified yesterday, Vasilis Evagelidis, tried to talk about it. He was arrested in the clashes that took place in January of '99 in a pupils' demonstration.
Generally, wherever there are disturbances, wherever there are conflicts we want to be involved--to subvert things. For us, this is not a crime. In a real sense, these disturbances are the "popular sovereignty" that professional politicians keep talking about. That's where freedom is expressed....
Now let's talk about the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. Long before I placed the bomb, other comrades had been in the villages. They had been talking with the people there. They had published a brochure about this revolt, about the clashes in October of 1996. But I will talk more specifically about the struggle in Strymonikos in a little while. First, I want to talk exclusively about the action.
To tell the truth, I was inspired to put this bomb for a specific reason: The people of the villages broke the usual limits by themselves. If it had been a struggle inside institutional frameworks--in the way that trade unions and local administrations try to keep these struggles restricted, if it was confined in a mild, harmless and nondangerous protest, maybe I wouldn't have done anything.
But the comrades up there in the villages--who are not anarchists, of course, but I don't care about that, they are citizens who also want their freedom--had exceeded every limit. They had conflicts with the police three times--on the 17th of October 1996, on the 25th of July '97 and on November 9 '98. They had set fire to police cars and vans of the riot police. They had burnt machinery belonging to TVX, they had invaded the mines of Olympiada and destroyed part of the installations. Some of them also made a kind of guerrilla war. In the nights, they were going out with guns, shooting in the air to frighten the policemen. And I thought, these people are cool. They've gone even further than us.
And then repression followed, especially in '97 when there was marshal law imposed in the area. The Chief of Police in Halkidiki gave an order according to which all gatherings and demonstrations were forbidden. They also sent special police units and police tanks, which came onto the streets for the first time since 1980. Now they were sending them out again in the villages of Halkidiki. So, I thought, we must do something here, in Athens. It is not possible that the others are under repression and we are here staying passive.
The ministry of Industry and Development, in Papadiamadopoulou and Michalakopoulou streets, was one of the centers of this case. The struggle in Strymonikos was a struggle against "development," against "modernization" and all this crap they keep proclaiming. What is hidden behind all these expressions is the profits of
multinationals, the profits of "our own" capitalists, Greek capitalists, the profits of states officials, of the Greek state, of the bureaucrats, of all those who take the money, of technical companies.... There is no relevance between this "development" and "modernization" they are talking about and the satisfaction of popular needs. No relevance at all.
So, I placed a bomb. The purpose was as I said in the letter with which I took responsibility for the action. In the passage of February '98 I said that in placing the explosive device my purpose was to send a double political message. Everything is political. Even if you use such means, the messages are political. War itself is a means of political pressure. In this case, this was also a political means, a political practice. First of all, a message to the people of Strymonikos that "you are not alone, there are also others who may live 600 km away from you but care." Not for personal reasons...I don't know anyone from there personally. Other comrades know people there. I haven't even been there. It was not my house that was threatened, but this is not the point.
Simply, my principle--and generally the principle of anarchists and of other non-anarchist revolutionaries--is that social freedom is one and inseparable. So, if freedom is partially offended, in essence it is offended as a whole. If their freedom is offended, mine is offended too. Their war will be my war, especially in an area where the "sovereign people"--again an expression used by professional politicians--does not want what the state and the capital want: the gold metallurgy of TVX.
On the other hand, I have said that, OK, there would be some damage--I knew that. Yes, I had the intention to cause material damages. So, what damage would that be? On the windows, on that certain place, what kind of damage? Or outside the storehouse where I placed the bomb? In my opinion the damages would be minimal. But even if they were more than minimal, for me it is not important at all. Because freedom can't be compared with the material damage of some windows, on a state car or state property. For me, the ministry is not an institution of common benefit as the charges say. Of state benefit yes, but of social benefit no.
However, even if the device did not explode, I sent my message. I was caught because I made that technical error and I left a fingerprint, but even if there was no material damage at all the message was sent. And you received it, the state received it, but also the people of Strymonikos received it. I know that they are saying I am one of them, even if they have never met me. There is nothing better than that. And of course, I repeat that I don't regret it at all.
I am a social revolutionary, and when you say that it is like talking for the benefit of society. Not like--it is for the social benefit. As I have this principle I couldn't harm any citizen. I could harm a policeman. I consider them my enemies. And you are my enemies too. I separate you. I make a clear class separation. On one hand we have those, on the other hand, we have the others. In this occasion though I intended to harm neither the policeman who guarded the ministry nor anybody else--and of course not a citizen.
The procedure that is used by groups or individuals in general is exactly this: you first place the bomb in your target and then you call to a newspaper. In this case, I called to Eleftherotypia and said: In half an hour a bomb will explode there. Exactly what is written in the evidence: "In 30 minutes there will be an explosion in the Ministry of Industry and Development, for the case of TVX in Strymonikos." By this sense, as it was proven practically and not hypothetically, the police arrived at the place in time. The first of them who went there surrounded and evacuated the area for 200 meters around the building, as the police specialists themselves admitted, so that there wouldn't be any car or person accidentally passing by. And then they waited for the bomb to explode. As they have already said, they were waiting for the safety time to expire, which is the 30 minutes that I had given! Whether the bomb would or wouldn't explode there was absolutely no danger for humans lives. In case that it exploded, there would be only material damages. So, it would happen exactly as was intended to happen. Objectively, if the device had exploded there was no chance of an accident, like exploding before or after the time given.
And exactly because of the message being political and symbolic, it was not in my purpose to cause extensive material damages; that's why I used a small quantity of dynamite. And I had the possibility to put five or seven or ten kilos if I had wanted to.... But I didn't. Since there were such things found in my house, I could have caused great damage, always talking about material damages! But I didn't. If I could have demolished the whole building of the ministry without having killed anyone, I wouldn't have any objection. It is another useless building for the people and for society. As I said before, the only thing I regret is the technical error on the device.
Now, I want to say something in advance. This action was performed only by me, I did it alone, there was nobody else. The message of course said "Anarchist Urban Guerrillas." This doesn't mean that there were other persons aside from me.... It was just an expression to imply which milieu I come from. Of course, I wouldn't use my name "Nikos Maziotis" to tell the newspaper where I placed the bomb. I'd say "Anarchists." That's all. I want to make it clear, finally, that the initiative for this action was mine only, there was neither a group nor an organization nor anything. And also, It doesn't appear even from the evidence that there was a group or an organization, that I would supply any group or organization. I was alone and the things found were only mine.
I want to refer more to what I call solidarity, to the motives that I had. What is this solidarity. I believe that people socialized-- that human society was created--based on three components: solidarity, mutuality and helping each other. That's what human freedom is based on. Any social group in struggle, in different space and time--whether they are pupils or farmers or citizens of local societies, for me and for anarchists is very important. It doesn't have to do with whether I am a worker and identifying my interests with the interests of that class. If someone asks for a higher salary or has a trade-unionist demand for me that is not important. For me, solidarity means the unreserved acceptance and support with every means of the right that the people must have to determine their lives as they wish, and not letting others to decide in default of them, like the state and the capital do.
That means that in this specific case, in the struggle of Strymonikos but also in every social struggle, for me what counts mostly is that they are struggles through which the people want to determine their fates alone. And not having any police chief or any state official or capitalist deciding what they should do. It is of secondary importance if they want or don't want the factory, if the focal point of the struggle is environmental. The important thing is that they don't want the factory because they don't like something imposed on them with violence.
Concerning the matter of political violence now, from the very beginning they tried to present a case of "repulsive criminals" and "terrorists" who "'blindly' placed bombs." Something that doesn't exist.
If theoretically terrorism is exercising violence against citizens and unarmed population, that goes exclusively for the state. Only the state attacks civilians. That's what the repression mechanisms are for: the riot police, special police units, the army, special forces...mechanisms that also rob the people. They finance armed professionals, policemen. Aren't they trained to shoot real targets? Aren't the riot police armed with chemical gas? To use them where? On citizens, in demonstrations and in manifestations. So, only the state exercises violence against citizens. I didn't use any violence against any citizen.
I will say exactly what terrorism is.
Terrorism is when occupations, demonstrations and strikes are being attacked. When the riot police attacked the pensioners who demonstrated outside Maximou four years ago. When Melistas killed Kaltezas. When Koumis and Kanelopoulou were murdered by the riot police in 16th of November 1980. And if I remember well, they were not shot, they were beaten to death. Terrorism is when Christos Kassimis was murdered. But I will refer more specifically to this case.
A group of revolutionaries had then tried to set fire to the German factory of AEG, in Redis. This was also an action of solidarity. I don't know if you are aware of that, but I will tell you about it. Then, in '77, some guerrillas of the RAF had died inside the white cells of Stammheim, in Stuttgart, West Germany. The white cells alone are terrorism. Prison is terrorism. So, then, some Greek revolutionaries went to burn the factory of AEG, as an action of solidarity with the RAF and also as a reaction to the murder of RAF militants in the prisons of Stuttgart. During this attempt, which was unsuccessful, somebody was killed. He was Christos Kassimis, shot by the two policemen, Plessas and Stergiou, who were guarding the factory. And according to what I have read, they didn't kill him because their lives where threatened, they shot him in the back. He died with a bullet in his back.
Terrorism is when special police forces invade the Chemistry School and beat up anarchists and youth. Terrorism is when Temponeras is murdered in Patras. Terrorism is when Christos Tsoutsouvis was murdered in '85. But this case also has something special and I want to point it out. To Christos Tsoutsouvis fits an expression of Thucydides-if you know about him, he is the ancient historian who wrote down the story of the Peloponnesian War--that "dying in the battle is an honor, followed by the acclaim of the citizenry." He may have been killed, but he also took three of them with him. For me, he was a warrior, a militant. I believe that society needs more persons like him.
Terrorism is when citizens are murdered by the police in simple "identification controls." I will mention some examples. I will tell about Christos Mouratis, a Rom in the city of Livadia, who was shot in a police blockade in October of 1996. He was an unarmed citizen. This is a crime. But "justice" did nothing about it, what would it do? It just rewarded the crime.
In 1997, Helias Mexis was passing by the street in front of the Transport Detention Center (for prisoners) and he was shot by the police guard Tsagrakos.
Theodoros Giakas was killed on January 10th 1994 by police officer Lagogiannis of the Moschato police station. This case is also quite peculiar. He was an unarmed citizen. He was stopped in the street for identity control. He ran away and the police shot him. Afterwards they said they found a knife in his possession and other crap. As far as I know, in the beginning he was shot three times. Probably all three shots were fatal. As Giakas was lying on the ground, Lagogiannis shot him another two times and even after that he handcuffed him! Are you aware of what "justice" did about it? Sentenced him to 12 years on probation. That's why I'm saying that your "justice" must be put in quotation marks.
Terrorism is when Ali Yumfraz, a Pomak from Vrilisia suburb of Athens, was arrested for being drunk and afterwards he was found dead in his cell in the police station. The police said he suffered a heart-attack and that this was the reason for his death. I can recall another incident, in January of '91, when a Turkish political refugee, Souleiman Akiar, was beaten to death by policemen. The Minister of Public Order had then said that the man had heart problems. But the medical examination found that there were bruises all over his body.
Terrorism is this court, here. Every trial of a militant, every trial of a revolutionary is terrorism, a message of intimidation for society. I said it before in my statement yesterday, when you called me to ask if I accept the charges, and I will repeat it. Because my persecution is political, the message is clear: whoever fights against the state and capital will be penalized, criminalized and characterized as a terrorist. The same for any solidarity with any social struggle: it will be penalized and crushed. This is the message of this trial and by this sense it is terrorism. Terrorism against me, terrorism against the anarchists, terrorism against the people of Strymonikos, who are also receiving similar messages during this period, as they have similar trials for their mobilizations. This is terrorism.
The fact that I put a bomb as an action of solidarity is not terrorism. Because no citizen was harmed by this action.
Many times, the media--sometimes even more than the police--promote a view of every action taking place (for example in molotov attacks) that "we almost had victims, almost, almost, almost...." But such a thing has never really happened. This is done to create impressions and these things are said so that there will be social consent for repression. So that I, for example, will be convicted with a long-term prison sentence. "We found someone who made the mistake of leaving his fingerprint. We caught him. And he says that he did it? Let's fuck him!" My language is a little vulgar.
I want to refer to the struggle in Strymonikos. Even if I have never been there I will give you some historical rudiments. The mines which have now been bought by the multinational company TVX Gold have existed since 1927. They used to belong to Bodosakis. In these mines, where numerous work accidents have taken place and many miners suffered pneumonokoniosis, there was a big bloody strike back in 1977. The strike had demands such as increases in wages, medical treatment, and security measures in the mines. At that time police tanks sent also sent into the area. There were arrests and convictions, with terrorism imposed in the villages.
In the late '80s the company was characterized as "problematic," like many others. The state, through METVA, planned the installation of gold metallurgy. In '92 the company, as "problematic," passed into the hands of the state and in December of '95 the latter sold the mines to TVX. But the residents of Strymonikos didn't want the construction of a gold metallurgy plant. More than seventy years of mining activity had already caused serious environmental problems.
This struggle has great importance, and that has been proven, for international reasons. The mobilizations started in the beginning of '96. The residents blockaded the national Thessaloniki-Kavala highway, they made guardhouses from which they supervised the mines and stopped any company truck that might try to pass or any machinery that would begin drilling activities. With these activities, the street blockade and the guardhouses, the people demonstrated: "We are here. You are not going to pass."
This way they forced the company to temporarily suspend its activities. On the 26th of October '96, TVX sent an ultimatum to the greek state and to the Ministry of Development, saying that "Unless the works start right now, we are going to leave." Their investment, which is the biggest private one ever made in the country, an investment of 65 billion drachmas, would leave Greece.
When the first clashes took place, on the 17th of October, and the residents managed to violently repel the police forces from the area, Jason Stratos, the president of SEV, stated that "these disturbances damage the integrity of the country abroad." And he was right, because "It's impossible that two thousand provincials (I don't mean this characterization in a bad way, but that's how the minister or the president of SEV mean it; that's how professional politicians and the political parties talk about simple people) will destroy our investments, not letting a Canadian company or any other foreign company come here and make investments. This reaction must end".
So, you can understand that this struggle had no restricted local character. It had international implications, because it created a precedent: "If we can't have an investment in Halkidiki, wherever a foreign investor may go it will not be able to proceed with the investment. If the people revolt and don't want what the state wants, the economy is through."
One year later, there was another attempt to start work for the installation of the gold metallurgy plant. In July of '97 the residents destroyed a drill belonging to IGME and clashed with the police. In November, they gathered and demonstrated at the mines. But some months before--in September, if I remember well--the state had predicted that the people's reactions would culminate and had sent hundreds of policemen from Thessaloniki. They had also sent riot police from Athens, special repression police units and police tanks, which as I said before appeared in the streets for the first time after 1980 when they were used to suppress demonstrations. There was a whole army of occupation installed there permanently. The police knew that there would be riots again so they had prepared a military force to repress the residents. As it happened, of course, it wasn't completely successful because the police were defeated in clashes that took place on the 9th of November. And as I have said before police cars and riot police vans were destroyed, the drill of the company was set on fire and finally guerrilla activities took place, in which shots were fired to frighten the police.
As I have already said, I was very much inspired by these events to put the bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development. On this base I want to repeat that this struggle had no simple local character. It had transcended that.
For us, for the anarchists, social struggles and solidarity are beyond national limits. For me and for my comrades, struggles that take place outside the borders of the Greek state have a great importance.
There is huge importance for me in the Zapatista guerrilla that has burst out in Chiapas in 1994. It is one more struggle against neoliberalism, a struggle that is carried out with guns, with masks, a real war. It involves political violence and I am not against that. I have never made any statement against it and I do not want to pretend to be innocent.
Of great importance for me is also the movement of Brazilian farmers without land (the MST) who occupy the land of the estates in order to cultivate it collectively.
There is also great significance in the movement of the jobless people in France, who made occupations in working offices and clashed with the police during the winter of '97-'98.
Also important is something that took place in Turkey and that is similar with what happened in Strymonikos with TVX. Another multinational company, EUROGOLD, tried to make a comparable investment in Pergamos. And it is very important what I am going to say now. It was in the village Ovancik of Pergamos, if I remember correctly. The residents of that area, Turkish farmers, successfully frustrated the EUROGOLD investment, in the same ways that the people of Strymonikos have used to so far prevent the installation of gold metallurgy. The people of Pergamos made blockades in the Ismir-Istanbul highway. They clashed with military police forces. And, coincidentally, there was again someone who placed a bomb in the offices of the investing company, in Ismir. Like I did here.
So, as you understand, all these practices are part of social struggles, they happen everywhere. And for us, not only are they not crimes, but they are an honor. We are proud of these practices.
Concerning this factory in Pergamos, the Greek media, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Aegean had been hypocritically saying that if it was constructed it would pollute the Aegean sea. But they are not saying the same for Strymonikos Bay. So the factory in Turkey must not be constructed, but in Greece it is all right. Here the hypocrisy of the Greek state, of the media and of the politicians is obvious.
I don't believe that you really judge me as a "terrorist." I don't believe that you judge me for "having the purpose to cause danger to human lives." This is just a pretext. In fact, you are judging me for what I've said until now. For who I am. For being an anarchist, for believing what I believe, even for my past. Because all of these are aggravating elements: "So, you were in the Polytechnic occupation, you were in the Economic School occupation, you are an objector to military service, you were here and there...." I don't have a "previous decent life," according to you, of course, because according to me I am a very decent person. In reality, you don't judge me for supposedly having the purpose of harming people.
In fact, the state has proven that it does not care for the citizens. On the contrary, when its domination must be consolidated, the state takes away human lives, as I have said in the examples I gave before. The only thing the state wants is to conserve a monopoly, the monopoly that "Only I, the state, can take away human lives."
Only the uniformed police, the secret police, the riot police or the special police can take away human lives. Everyone else who does it is a criminal. But when the state does it, it proves to be unassailable.
Whenever citizens were killed, "justice" has accepted the police allegations. Not because it believed them but for reasons of interest. It always accepts the allegation that "the bullet lost its way," that supposedly "the policeman's gun had accidentally fired," or that he was supposed to be "in legal defense." In reality though, all these examples that I mentioned before, and I have more to mention, are cold-blooded murders. Very few policemen were ever accused and all of them are out of prison and proud of what they have done. Proud!
A witness for my defense said something before about the case of Alekos Panagoulis. And it is true that the attempt of Panagoulis to murder the dictator Papadopoulos was an action applauded by the Greek people. It was an attempt to kill. And so what? Who did he try to kill? A dictator!
Rationally one can oppose the argument that back then there was a status of military junta and that the means of political violence were justified to be used as a means of political pressure in the time of dictatorship, but now we have a "parliamentary democracy." Now we have "freedom" and we have "rights." Well, I don't think it is exactly like that. With all I've said I don't believe there are rights. They may exist on paper, but in reality there is nothing.
I will mention certain occasions of the political reform period, the time of the presumed democracy, where people have been killed within social struggles. It was once again proven that the people still don't define their fate just because the constitution of the state changed in 1974. Specific examples: The first disturbances took place, as far as I remember, in July of 1975. Also in May of 1976 for one more time the police tanks appeared in the streets of Athens. Laskaris, the minister of Employment of Karamanlis' government had then made a new law, Act 330, an anti-worker and anti-strike act. On the 25th of May '76 there was an all- workers' demonstration.
There were clashes with the police, an assault at the offices of "Bradini" newspaper..., molotov cocktails and fire... Then, a police tank which was chasing after demonstrators killed Anastasia Tsivika, a 67 year old saleswoman. Nobody was ever accused of this murder.
In other cases, there were new drafts of laws voted in the parliament without asking anybody's opinion. For example in 1990 there was a revision of the agreement considering the continuation of the American military base operations in Greece. The people of Chania did not accept that... In June of 1990 they had a demonstration which was attacked by the riot police. As a reaction, the people clashed with the police and burnt down the Prefecture of Chania.
In 1991 the farmers of Heraklion province set fire to the building of the Heraklion Prefecture. As you can see, political violence is exercised by everyone. By all of society and by every social segment or class that is threatened.
What the state wants is to deal with everyone alone. You must have heard an expression that Prime Minister Simitis is using a lot, speaking of "social automatism" whenever social reactions burst out. He uses this expression in order to present these social reactions--the blockades in the streets, the squatting in public buildings and all the actions of this kind--as being in contrast with the interests of the rest of society. Something that is a total lie. It is just the tactics of "divide and rule," which means "Spread discord to break solidarity." Because solidarity is very important as anyone who is alone becomes an easy target.
When a workers' strike takes place and there is no solidarity it is easier to attack. They talk about a "minority." This is the argument of the state, that it is "a union minority having retrogressive interests which turn against modernization, against development, against all reforms," and all that nonsense. Well, there hasn't been one social segment or social group that hasn't come in conflict with the state--especially during the '90s, and that hasn't been faced with the argument that "You are just a minority," that "Your struggle is in contrast with the rest of society's interests."
That is exactly what happened in all cases. It happened with the workers in the "problematic" companies who were squatting their factories in '90-'91, with the pupils who occupied their schools in '90-'91 and recently in '98-'99. The same thing happened with the workers in Public Transport in '92, with the farmers who blockaded the national highways in '95 and in '96, with the teachers' mobilizations against the repeal of the calendar and the new exam. The same thing happened of course with the people of Strymonikos.
What is really being attacked is solidarity. And that's what is also attacked--without any disguise--through my trial. The state wants to attack everyone alone. Because when it finds them together things are much more difficult.
Police brutality is, of course, not sufficient for repression. Coming back to what I was saying before, I have concluded with the fact that the difference between dictatorship and parliamentary democracy--or should I better say capitalistic oligarchy--is that the first one is mainly imposed by raw violence and the latter, the presumed democracy, is mostly imposed by the intellectual control of the citizens, through the weapon of the mass media, through deception. Because I don't believe that people voting for their bosses every four years means they have their freedom. They vote for them but when they're not doing what they were elected to do, people can't get rid of them.
In ancient Athens this didn't happen. In ancient Athens everyone could speak in the public assembly. Anyone could express an opinion, no matter how modest his position was. And those having a public position could be removed by the people at any time.
But democracy has also proven that when deception and intellectual control of the citizens are not enough, it has no problem resorting to police violence, killing, torture and terror.
Finally, I am not on trial because I placed a bomb, nor because I possessed three guns and ten kilograms of dynamite. After all, the army and the police have a lot more guns than me and they use them. The one can't be compared with the other.
I have nothing else to say. The only thing I'll say more is that no matter what the penalty to which I will be sentenced--because it is certain that I will be convicted--I am not going to repent anything. I will remain who I am. I can also say that prison is always a school for a revolutionaries. His ideas and the endurance of his soul are experienced. And if he passes this test he becomes stronger and believes more in the things for which he was put in prison. I have nothing more to say.
The judge: Don't turn the cameras to the bench!
Public prosecutor: In the beginning of your plea you said that you had the guns for war. Don't you see a contradiction when you say that there was no danger for human lives?
I made clear that none of my activities is turned against citizens. I already made that clear. Where is the contradiction?
Public Prosecutor: You said the guns are for war.
Yes but not for the people. For my class enemies. Look, I never said that I am a humanist generally. Nor a philanthropist, because the meanings of these words are degraded. In everything that I've written--if you have read--and in everything that I've said I made clear who are my friends and who are my enemies. Not on a personal but on a social level. Who are my social and class friends and who are my social and class enemies. In the letter with which I took responsibility for the action as well as in my defense I said that society is another thing from the state.
I will go on to be more specific for the jury. On the one hand I place the state, state officials, the police, the army, the security forces, capitalists, and on the other hand I place the rest of the people: workers, farmers, pupils, the whole of society, the majority of the people, the oppressed people.
Public prosecutor: You talked about "justice" putting the word in quotation marks. What ground for complaint do you have against justice?
I have been in prison for the last 18 months. I have personally stayed in prison for 18 months and another 7 months in military prison. Simple and close examples. You are speaking of me, personally, are't you?
These laws are made in order to suit your interests. From these laws you are earning your bread. Your job is to send citizens to prison and to oppose the argument that policemen have committed murders but don't go to prison for it. I have already criticized the job of this "justice" you are talking about. That finally there are two weights and two measures. The matter is not what the law says or what the penal code says, but what really happens. Just like in the case of terrorism.
For example, the US consider PKK to be a terrorist organization, but not UCK. In the beginning UCK was considered, by the US, a terrorist organization but afterwards it wasn't because its existence was convenient for their plans. Isn't that right? The US did not consider Contras to be terrorists, when they were going to invade Nicaragua, but they considered all the left revolutionary movements and guerrillas terrorists.
Public prosecutor: I will refer to the danger you said something about. Didn't you know that the bomb could cause danger?
If I knew? I knew that it would not cause any danger. The procedure is stereotyped and it goes exactly like that: you make a telephone call to a newspaper for warning, then somebody from the newspaper informs the police, the police arrive at the place and blockade the area surrounding the target. In my case, they did blockade the area and the police specialists in neutralizing explosive devices who were then present have already testified that the blockade was safe for a range of 200 meters. So there was no danger for human lives. For material damages now, I told you my opinion about them....
I want to complete what I was saying before to the public prosecutor, about terrorism on an international level. In reality, for this moment, the US are the global gendarmery and terrorists, as the only great world power left. Which means it is the worst thing on earth. And according to our perception--as anarchists--the state, all the states and all the governments are antisocial, terrorist mechanisms, since they have organized armies, police, and hired torturers.
I also want to complete what I was saying about having two weights and two measures. For example, the US provides weapons, financing and instigating every dictatorial regime all over the world. And in Greece as well. In Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru.... This is terrorism. Terrorism is to arm dictators, to arm death squads in Argentina or in Bolivia in order to kill people of the left, citizens, revolutionaries. Those who equip the death squads to torture, those are the terrorists.
Terrorism is when they bombard Yugoslavia for ten days, killing civilians....
Excuse me, Mr. prosecutor, but the US is the one which pronounces who is terrorist and who isn't. Its State Department issues official directions, advising Greece about who is a terrorist. In this period of time, it places pressure on the Greek state to make an anti-terrorist law, a model of law which will criminalize those who fight, making laws more draconian than those already existing. This is terrorism.
The revolutionaries and militants are not terrorists. The terrorists are the states themselves. But with this accusation, with this stigmatizing (as terrorism) all the states and governments try to criminalize the social revolutionaries and militants inside their countries--the internal social enemy. In fact, the state, "justice" and the police face me also as this kind of enemy. As an internal social enemy. On the basis of the division I described before. That's the way the state sees it. This is what is ventured in this trial.
Public prosecutor: What do you have to oppose to what exists?
Social revolution. By any means necessary.
It is generally proven, because I am well versed in Greek as well as in international social and political history, that never did any changes happen, never did humanity meet any progress--progress as I conceive it--through begging, praying or with mere words.
In the text I sent to take responsibility for the action in which I said that I placed the bomb and which was published in Eleftherotypia newspaper, I said that the social elite, the mandarins of capital, the bureaucrats, all these useless and parasitic people--who should disappear from the proscenium of history--will never quit their privileges through a civilized discussion, through persuasion. I don't want to have a discussion because you can't have a discussion with this kind of people...
I would like to add something. Precisely because I have studied a lot, (I know that) during the events of July of '65, a conservative congressman of the National Radical Union came out and said about those who went into the streets and caused disturbances when Petroulas was killed, that "Democracy is not the red tramps but we, the participants in parliament," which means the congressmen who are well paid.
I will reverse that. Popular sovereignty, sir judges, is when molotovs and stones are thrown at the police, when state cars, banks, shopping centers and luxury stores are burnt down. This is how the people react. History itself has proven that this is the way people react.
This is popular sovereignty. When Maziotis goes and places a bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development in solidarity with the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. This is the real popular sovereignty and not what the Constitution says.
I forgot to commemorate militants who have been murdered. Christoforos Marinos was murdered in the port of Piraeus, inside the ship "Pegasus" in July of '96. Michalis Prekas was murdered by the Special Police Units in October of 1987 in Kalogreza. Tsironis was murdered in Nea Smyrni in 1978.
I also want to add something concerning to what Mr. Prosecutor said yesterday, during his speech, on the matter of humanism.
I will mention an event that happened abroad, to prove who are humanists and who aren't after all, who are the real criminals.
The Tupac Amaru guerrillas occupied the Japanese embassy of Peru in December of 1996. They took more than a hundred hostages and these hostages were not just citizens. There were ambassadors, diplomats from many states, Japanese businessmen and officials of the Peruvian regime--which is quite far from being democratic. They were demanding the freedom of their militants, the release of their organization's leader and of other comrades of theirs who were imprisoned in dungeons.
Not only didn't they hurt any one of the hostages but they even released almost all of them--that is to say who are really the humanists. On the contrary, after endless and exhausting negotiations, the Peruvian special forces invaded the embassy and executed every one of them in cold blood. I tell all that in order that we know who are the criminals and who are the "humanists"--in quotation marks, because I don't like this term and that's why I don't use it a lot.
I want also to mention some things that happened here in Greece. I want to speak for Charis Temperekidis, who may not have been a political militant, but for me he was a rebelling penal prisoner. He had been kept in prison for years. He also died with his gun in hand during a chase after the robbery of the Agricultural Bank in Klitoria, Achaia. Despite the fact that he was still alive when caught by the police, he didn't inform against his accomplices. In the past he had taken part in prisoners' revolts, like the one of 1987 in Kerkyra in order to close this place of punishment.
And there is one more case--if we want to discuss crimes once more, the case of Sorin Matei. When Matei kept a policeman as hostage, the police didn't make any move to arrest him. When Matei took civilians as hostages, the police couldn't care less about their lives. In order to strengthen their prestige the police invaded the apartment where Matei had taken shelter, resulting in the death of a young woman. The criminals were more the policemen of the special units than Sorin Matei. As criminal as the manager of Nikaia general hospital, Alexiou, who ordered the transportation of Matei to the prison hospital Agios Pavlos, where he died either from the beating he suffered by policemen or by the drugs they were given to him. That explains who is criminal.
Hey I just copy and paste them. I do not even read half the shit I paste in.
Alot of CIA files were released on the financial records of the MK-Ultra program, but I cannot find them online. Alot of knowledge about that program came from therapists and psychatrists, whose patients were part of the program.
You should read up on Operation Northwood. (The Document is a pdf.) It is an interesting read about how the government was brainstorming on creating an incident where they could make a positive military intervention in Cuba. They were brainstorming faking incidents were "Cuba" shot down a F16 and a passenger plane, to give them an excuse to invade.
There are pdfs at the national archive online about this program released under the freedom of information act. I will dig a up a link later.
"Noam Chomsky is seen by many as one of the more prominent anarchists in the united states. But, many times in the last several years he has come out publicly in favor of strengthening the federal government. Moreover, he argues that there is no contradiction between this stance and his advocacy of a stateless future. Such a position is in direct conflict with the traditional anarchist insight that means inevitably influence (and frequently corrupt or totally derail) intended ends, and deserves examination and rebuttal.
Chomsky bases his support for the federal government on his contention that private power wielded by corporations is much more dangerous to people than state action, and that government can, and should, protect its defenseless citizens against the depredations of the capitalists. While the power of private corporations in the united states is truly awesome and oppressive, this power exists because these businesses are supported by the state, a point that Chomsky concedes. Anarchists have generally opposed the state for precisely this reason: that it protects the interests of some, primarily the wealthy exploiters, while preventing others, especially working people, from challenging this power on their own. But, because of poor and working people's movements, the state has instituted some social welfare programs and instituted some regulation of private business to ameliorate the conditions of those most harmed by state-supported capitalism. These and other alleged public services are the aspects of government power that Chomsky supports and would see expanded.
Chomsky further argues that the state is the only form of illegitimate power in which people have a real chance to participate. Besides the question of whether it is moral for people to participate in the exercise of this illegitimate power, he doesn't make a very convincing argument for his contention. In one interview he states that the pentagon budget is going up, while the population oppose this by a 6 to 1 ratio. In another article he says that government regulatory mechanisms are very weak, and mostly controlled by the corporations anyway. He even quotes a poll in one of his interviews to the effect that 82% of americans feel the state is not run in the interests of the people. Nowhere does he back up his claim that government is or has been open to popular participation in any meaningful sense.
Governments have been influenced by popular pressure, however. The anti-war movement made it impossible for the military to use nuclear weapons in southeast asia, thereby preventing a united states conquest of vietnam. Anti-racist activists in the sixties and seventies pressured governments at all levels to eradicate racist laws and practices and brought about the end of most legal segregation. But these are not examples of people participating in government. Instead these are instances of outsiders (which regular people will always be vis-a-vis the state) bringing pressure on an evil institution to change its ways.
Such measures can also bring about change in private institutions as well. The labor movement brought about changes using pressure tactics such as strikes and sabotage against private businesses, and activists have assisted workers with boycotts and public actions directed at corporations as well. While it may be easier in some settings to win concessions from government because individual politicians wish to be elected in the sham of elections, people acting for themselves can often accomplish great things on their own in both the public and private arenas.
Government is a package. The welfare state is also the warfare state, and, while Chomsky criticizes the federal government's support of prisons and corporations, he thinks government can protect people from prisons and corporations. He says that people can participate in government, but complains that it is not under popular influence. Government is force and should be done away with. People can act for themselves and take care of themselves. That is the anarchist attitude to the state, and Chomsky rejects it.
In fact, he is troubled that people might hate or fear the government. He admits that the state steals from poor people to subsidize wealthy people, but he thinks discussions about whether the government can be trusted to care for poor people are irrelevant. He dismisses as far-right the rejection of public schools. He feels that when people feel disillusioned about power, they turn to "irrational" alternatives. He arrogantly states that those who think there is a contradiction in supporting centralized state power even though one opposes it "just aren't thinking very clearly."
Chomsky seems not to be able to envision any means of offsetting the power of private tyrannies other than increasing the power of public tyrannies. Chomsky speaks glowingly of the efforts of poor people in places such as Haiti. "Poor people, people in the slums, peasants in the hills, managed to create out of their own activity a very lively, vibrant civil society with grass-roots movements and associations and unions and ideals and commitments and hopes and enthusiasm and so on which was astonishing in scale, so much so that without any resources they were able to take over the political system," He seems to see their assumption of state power as a victory, unable to envision that people this resourceful could continue to function quite nicely without a government. And people are this resourceful, both in haiti and the united states, and this is where anarchists get their inspiration.
Even Barbara Ehrenreich, a social democrat, and, with Chomsky, a member of the New Party, can countenance non-statist solutions to working and poor people's problems. As she says, "[W]e can no longer allow ourselves to be seen as cheerleaders fro government activism.We need to emphasize strategies and approaches that do not depend on the existing government, that in fact bypass it as irrelevant or downright obstructionist." She then goes on to mention organizing the unorganized, citizen initiatives against corporate abuses, and non-governmental self-help projects in the tradition of the feminist health centers of the 70s. In addition, she sees the state as a clear enemy in its erosion of civil liberties and the growth of the punishment industry. She calls her approach "progressive libertarianism." Such an outlook is closer to an anarchist one than is Chomsky's.
Unlike Chomsky, many rightly see that government schools educate badly, government welfare does not serve poor people well, and government action is largely against the interests of regular people. He is right that private corporations are not in the business of being humanitarian, but neither is the state. Instead of criticizing and fearing this anti-government feeling, we should encourage it and seek to extend it to all areas of government, including the military, police, and taxes.
Private corporate power exists only because it is protected by the state. Government reduces competition and limits entry into the market place with various licensing and regulatory schemes, and grants monopolies and subsidies to favored businesses. Chomsky himself concedes that corporations would not be successful if forced to submit to market discipline, and that markets are under attack. But in addition to actively promoting concentration of private corporate power, the government prevents people from defending their own interests in disputes with corporations with its police powers and laws that disarm working people. Such disempowerment of people makes them unable to resist the power of public institutions as well, allowing the state to tax, regulate, and imprison people at its whim. Abolishing state power is a more effective and libertarian method of limiting private and public tyranny than is increasing the scope of the federal government. Only anarchist means have any hope of producing anarchist ends."
The government has PGP backdoored anyway.
CIA Experiments with Mind Control on Children
by Jon Rappoport
The CIA mind-control apparatus has been well known since 1975, when 10 large boxes of documents were released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Several good books were then written on the subject of the CIA program known as MK-ULTRA. Officially spanning ten years from 19 52-62, MK-ULTRA involved the use of LSD on unwitting military and civilian subjects in the United States. LSD and more powerful compounds were given under duress as brainwashing and truth serum drugs. The program's aim was to find drugs which would irresistibly bring out deep confessions or wipe a subject' s mind clean and program him or her as "a robot agent."
In experimental test situations, people were given acid without their knowledge, then interrogated under bright lights with doctors sitting in the background taking notes. Threats would be made. The test subjects were told that their LSD "downer trips" would be extended indefinitely if they refused to reveal their closely-guarded military secrets. The people being interrogated in this way were CIA employees, U.S. military personnel and, abroad, agents suspected of working for the other side in the Cold War. Long-term severe debilitation and several documented deaths resulted. Much, much more could be said about MK-ULTRA.
None of this prepared people for the explosive testimony made on March 15, 1995, in Washington, D.C., before the President's Committee on Radiation, however. In unpublicized sessions, New Orleans therapist Valerie Wolf introduced two of her patients who had uncovered memories of being part of extensive CIA brainwashing programs as young children (in one case, starting at age seven). Their brainwashing included torture, rape, electroshock, powerful drugs, hypnosis and death threats. According to their testimony, the CIA then induced amnesia to prevent their recalling these terrifying sessions.
Both Wolf and her patients stated that they recovered the memories of this CIA program without regression or hypnosis techniques. In other words, these patients spontaneously discovered this information about themselves and their pasts.
Although the committee was mainly concerned with radiation, they permitted Valerie and her patients to testify because, astonishingly, several doctors who had administered the mind- control experiments had also been identified by other Americans secretly exposed to radiation. Apparently there was a crossover.
Prominent names surfaced in the March 15 testimony: Richard Helms, former head of the CIA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who ran MK- ULTRA and Dr. John Gittinger, Gottlieb's protege. These men and others were directly accused of participating in grisly mind- control efforts on children.
Predictably, this testimony received no media attention.
I now have it all, including many pages submitted to the committee that will likely never be released as part of their final report. Only a small percentage of the pages were read aloud at the hearing. Included are corroborating statements from other therapists around the country and several of their patients. I have now released all of this testimony as a book, U.S. Government Mind-Control Experiments On Children.
When the sickening shock starts to wear off, deeply disturbing questions flood one's mind: just what was this CIA program? How extensive was it? What was its purpose?
From what I have been able to discover so far, many American children, as well as children from Mexico and South America, were used over a period of about 40 years, starting around 1948. In fact, the program may still be going on. Doctors and agents who administered it wanted to obtain control over the minds of these children, ostensibly to create superagents who wouldn't remember even what missions they carried out, because of hypnotically induced amnesia (which could be removed by their controllers and reinstalled at will). (1)
Children were trained as sex agents, for example, with the job of blackmailing prominent Americans -- primarily politicians, businessmen and educators. A great deal of filming was done for this purpose. Eventually, people from the inner core of the CIA program filmed each other, and some of the centers where children were used as sex agents got out of control and turned into CIA-operated sex rings.
Some children were considered expendable and simply murdered.
One person who states that he was in this program as a child said, off the record:
"They tried out their brainwashing techniques on the kids from Mexico and South America. They were considered expendable. But on another echelon of the program, they went after the best and the brightest American kids. Making perfect agents to combat the Soviets wasn't, I don't think, their ultimate objective. I can't remember what that was."
At this point, I made a suggestion:
"Well, if they were choosing the best and brightest, maybe they figured these kids would one day rise to important positions in the society, and they wanted to gain long-term control over them, so they would be under their thumb, so they could tap them at will -- a way of controlling the future society."
"Maybe," he said. "The Nazis gained control over the intelligentsia in Germany. That was a very key step in their dominance. That was the first thing they did".
"This smells very much like a Nazi program in the U.S.," I said. "I don't mean all the controllers were German, but the style of it, the insanity."
He said, "They brought over a lot of Nazi doctors after the war and not just to build rockets -- for a lot of projects."
Other people who said that they had been used as children in the program remember that doctors with German accents were definitely present at the sessions. One therapist, who shared this information informally with colleagues around the country, states that, so far, the oldest person she has heard of who was in the program is now 52; the youngest is now nine.
Since a number of people who were brainwashed, tortured and drugged in these experiments try to resolve their experiences in therapy, psychiatrists and other professional therapists are hearing these stories. They are told, for example, that CIA controllers sometimes dressed up in Satanic costumes to further traumatize the children, also providing a cover that wouldn't be believed if the children ever talked.
It is worth noting that there is a movement to discredit these " recovered" memories, and the most prominent group, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF), has several board members with CIA or military-intelligence connections -- including the notorious Dr. Louis "Jolly" West of UCLA, who tried to establish a center for "the study of violence" at the university in the 1970s. This center's specialty would have been psychosurgery, a horrendous melting of brain connections, supposedly to curb people's "violent tendencies."
FMSF maintains that a person always remembers abuse done to him or her, and therefore any new recovery of it in therapy is false and must have been fabricated through misleading suggestions by the therapist. While it is certainly true that such inducement happens in therapy, the blanket statement that all recovered memory is invented is unsubstantiated.
In a written statement to Dr. Wolf that was included in her testimony to the president's committee, well-known researcher and psychiatrist, Colin Ross said,
"Published articles in my files include descriptions of administration of 150 mcg of LSD to children age 5-10 years on a daily basis for days, weeks, months, and in a few cases even years. Neurosurgeons at Tulane, Yale, and Harvard did extensive research on brain electrode implants with intelligence funding, and combined brain implants with Large numbers of drugs including hallucinogens."
Ross based his report on his more than 20 years of investigating CIA mind control.
Chris De Nicola, one of Dr. Wolf's patients who testified before the president's committee, named her controller as a Dr. Greene, a name reported by several other mind-control subjects. It may well be that this name was a cover used by various CIA and military-contracted experimenter-torturers. Here is a quote from her testimony:
"[Dr. Greene] used me in radiation experiments both for the purpose of determining the effects of radiation on various parts of my body and to terrorize me as an additional trauma in the mind-control experiments. [She was eight years old.]
"The rest of the experiments took place in Tucson, Arizona, out in the desert. I was taught how to pick locks, be secretive, use my photographic memory to remember things and a technique to withhold information by repeating numbers to myself. [She is obviously talking about being trained as an agent.]
"Dr. Greene moved on to wanting me to kill dolls that looked like real children. I stabbed a doll with a spear once after being severely tortured, but the next time I refused. He used many techniques but as I got older I resisted more and more.
He often tied me down in a cage, which was near his office. Between 1972 and 1976 he and his assistants were sometimes careless and left the cage unlocked. Whenever physically possible, I snuck -into his office and found files with reports and memos addressed to CIA and military personnel. Included in these files were project, subproject, subject and experiment names with some code numbers for radiation mind- control experiments which I have submitted in my written documentation. I was caught twice and Dr. Greene tortured me ruthlessly with electric shock, drugs, spinning on a table, putting shots in my stomach, in my back, dislocating my joints and hypnotic techniques to make me feel crazy and suicidal..."
Is there a precedent for this kind of sadistic treatment by CIA and military personnel? Indeed there is. Here is a quote from the introduction to my book, U.S. Government Mind-Control Experiments On Children. It contains information from reliable published sources; such as The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, by John Marks (2), Acid Dreams, by Martin Lee (3) and The Mind Manipulators, by Alan Scheflin (4). In part, these authors derived their information on the CIA and MK-ULTRA from the ten boxes of information released suddenly in 1975 by the agency in response to Freedom of Information Act requests:
"Dr. Robert Heath of Tulane University, as early as 1955, working for the Army, gave patients-LSD while he had electrodes implanted deep inside their brains.
"Canadian researcher, Dr. Ewan Cameron, under long-term CIA contract, attempted to depattern, and reprogram his psychiatric patients' personalities wholesale. He started with 15 to 65 days of 'sleep therapy,' during which a patient was kept under nearly 24 hours a day, through the administration of cocktails of Thorazine, Nembutal, Seconal, Veronal, and Phenergam. Throughout this sleep period, the patient would be awakened two or three times a day for electroshock treatments, given at an intensity 20-40 times the 'normal' convulsion-producing strength.
"In the mid-1950's, Paul Hoch, M.D., a man who would become Commissioner of Mental Hygiene for the State of New York, then a laborer in the field for the CIA, gave a 'pseudoneurotic schizophrenic' patient mescaline. The patient had a not- unfamiliar heaven-and-hell journey on the compound. But Hoch followed this up with a transorbital leucotomy...Hoch also gave a patient LSD, and a local anesthetic, and then proceeded to remove pieces of cerebral cortex, asking at various moments whether the patient's perceptions were changing."
Claudia Mullin, the other of Dr. Wolf's patients who testified before the President's Committee on Radiation, said her experiences with CIA mind-control experiences began when she was seven years old:
"In 1958, 1 was to be tested, they told me, by some important doctors coming from a place called the 'Society' [the Human Ecology Society, a CIA front]. I was told to cooperate; answer any of their questions. Then, since the test 'might hurt,' I would be given 'shots, x-rays, and a few jolts of electricity.' I was instructed not to look at anyone's face too hard and to ignore names,' as this was 'a very secret project' but to be brave an all those things would help me forget...
"A Dr. John Gittinger tested me and Dr. Cameron gave me the shocks and Dr. Greene the x-rays...By the time I left to go home, just like every time from then on, I would recall nothing of my tests or the different doctors. I would only remember whatever explanations Dr. Robert G. Heath [of Tulane Medical School] gave me for the odd bruises, needle marks, burns on my head and fingers and even the genital soreness. I had no reason to believe otherwise. Already, they had begun to control my mind!
"The next year, I was sent to a place in Maryland called Deep Creek Cabins to learn how to 'sexually please men.' Also, I was taught how to coerce them into talking about themselves. It was Richard Helms (Deputy Director of the CIA), Dr. Gottlieb, Captain George White and Morse Allen, who all planned on filming as many high government and agency officials and heads of academic institutions and foundations as possible...I was to become a regular little 'spy' for them, after that summer, eventually entrapping many unwitting men, including themselves, all with the use of a hidden camera. I was only nine when this kind of sexual humiliation began."
Captain George White was a notorious agent for the CIA. He set up a brothel in San Francisco in the 1960s and, using hidden cameras, filmed men having sex with prostitutes. The men's drinks were "spiked" with LSD. In 1950, Morse Allen, another important CIA, man, was appointed head of Project BLUEBIRD, another CIA mind- control program.
Ms. Mullin states that she was adopted when she was two years old. By the time she reached seven she had already been abused extensively by her mother. Her mother apparently turned her over for "testing" to CIA-connected people and Claudia then entered a 27-year period of what can only be called enslavement. Claudia states that she has been monitored, that she is still monitored and watched by agency related people, including a medical doctor. Now living in New Orleans, she has given information to local police authorities about her situation. In her testimony to the president's committee, Claudia remarked,
"Although the process of recalling these atrocities is certainly not an easy task, nor is it without some danger to myself and my family...I feel the risk is worth taking."
Claudia's therapist, Dr. Wolf, has written to the president's committee,
"To the best of my knowledge, [Claudia] has read nothing about mind-control or CIA covert operations. Since she decided to listen carefully and remember as much as she could about conversations among the researchers, her memories are extraordinarily complete. I have sent written copies of memories to Dr. Alan Scheflin [author of The Mind Manipulators] for validation and he has confirmed that she has knowledge of events and people that are not published anywhere, that some of her memories contain new information and that some are already known and published. Some of her memories have been confirmed by family members. She has also shown me old scrapbooks where she wrote notes to remember what was happening to her and hid the notes under pictures in the scrapbook."
I spoke with Alan Scheflin in May of this year. He said he had found one piece of information Claudia had mentioned in her recollections that had no precedent in published material. It involved a connection between two government researchers.
This is just the tip of the iceberg on the 130 pages of testimony given before the President's Committee on Radiation, and it is also just the beginning of a history that will undoubtedly widen in the coming months and years. Dr. Wolf told me that when word got around she was going to testify before the president's committee, she was contacted by about 40 therapists "in just the 10 days leading up to my trip to Washington." The therapists had heard similar CIA mind-control stories from their own patients. Many of these professionals are afraid to go on the record about their patients' stories, as censure from their professional societies is a reality. The political mood these days is not conducive to granting an aura of credibility to revelations of CIA brainwashing.
So what else is new?
[Jon Rappoport is a distinguished investigative reporter and the author of AIDS, INC. He can be found inhabiting the late night airwaves of KPFK radio in Los Angeles and lecturing at the Hardware Humanitarian House in Santa Monica, California.]
Notes:
1) See "From the Inside Out," Perceptions, March/April 1995, p.58
2) Paddington Press, New York, 1978
3) W.W. Norton, New York, 1979
4) Grove Press, New York, 1985
Leyla Umar is a very well known Turkish journalist with international acclaim and a very good of mine - a childhood. Leyla, of whom I can assure you is a real friend of Greeks and a visionary of Greek-Turkish friendship, on many occasions expresses, perhaps against herself - because of her close bonds on a social relations level - the poin1ts of view that are dominant in the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and among the entrepreneurial circles of her country. Points of view that advocate a Greek-Turkish rapprochement. Thus, the argument highlighted by Leyla is expressed with a question: How can it be that Pakistan and India that have both been under the rule of Great Britain are today in friendly terms with Britain, and Greece is not friendly towards Turkey. The argument may look "reasonable" in first appearance, but it decodes by itself the kind of social representations that the Turks have of the Greeks. This discovery follows the mechanistic dealing with the problems that compose the Greek-Turkish rupture. Because, of course, it is neither the case that Greeks are Pakistanis and Indians, nor is it the case that the Turkish are English, as they themselves think. This is why, quite politely, I restricted myself to answering to Leyla that if we transposed the problems to the Pacific Ocean, certainly the problems between the two countries would vanish into thin air.
A similar argument that is being advanced, only a more elegant one, is the one that expresses the question on how France and Germany managed to set aside age- long competitiveness and to reconcile. I do not know to what extent this is true and responds to collective representations of French and German people - this is something I wish to be happening anyway. But what undoubtedly happens is that neither of the two countries, neither France nor Germany nurtures any expansionist aspirations against the other, and even if this is not the case, neither of them threatens or intimidates the other. Here, too, you see, there exists a mechanistic confrontation of the issue, overlooking, as it does, the social and historical content of these two countries' relations. The German-French relations within the whole of their historical trajectory can not represent the prototype on the basis of which the Greek-Turkish relations can be dealt with, the latter being relations of a structure of their own.
A third argument repeated unduly by the Turkish side is that the Greek and the Turkish people love each other and that for all problems the political heads of the two countries are to blame (the "politicians" of the two countries and mainly of Greece), who, for reasons of internal politics. That is of vote hunting, "fabricate" the tension between the two countries. A claim that on the one hand is self-contradicted and on the other reveals something more essential that is not suspected even by the propounders of this claim. Because, since the two people love each other one would expect from the politicians that are keen to be re-elected to sustain their politics on this friendship, therefore the aphorism of the existence of superlative "love" is foolhardly. This is why dear departed Andreas Papandreou who, in the end of the day did not say anything more than "we neither yield anything to Turkey, nor do we claim anything from her" was considered by the public opinion-makers in Turkey as a demagogue who torpedoed the solution of the differences between the two countries. And this, because, if one follows the same train of thought, the solution would mean "concessions" of Greece to the profit of Turkey. What these concessions refer to will be discussed below.
On the other hand, the argument according to which the politicians are "to blame" reveals a different reality. And this concerns the particular structure that characterises the Ottoman reality - in the sense of an idiosyncratic social-political pattern, a structure inherited by Turkey. Even our first-years students know that the civil society within a state precedes and that the state is but a secondary institution that originates from a society or that a society - and more correctly the powers within it - produce a state. But, in the Ottoman pattern, state and society are different entities. The society exists by itself and the state is "introduced" into it and survives on society's surplus product. It is about the phenomenon of military-bureaucratic class - which, in the flow of history, co-operates with certain social strata or classes or merely social powers - that rests on the society. I would like to stress at this point that this theorem is not mine, neither do I claim its paternity, but I have borrowed it from my wise Professor Niyazi Berkes, an exceptional scholar originating from Cyprus and a progressive Turkish nationalist.
Starting off from this discovery, then, we will leave aside the mechanistic analyses taking the risk of displeasing the colleagues that teach - and are taught - international relations, since a very large part of the theory of this discipline is characterised by the mechanistic understanding of its thematology. I will try to disassociate Greek-Turkish relations from "Greek-Turkish differences" because I believe that these are, to a very large extent, an epiphenomenon of a different, substantial problem. And, to avoid keeping you in suspense, I will announce it now: it regards the problem of essential (take notice of this, I say essential and not nominal, schematic) modernisation and democratisation of Turkey. Therefore, I will ask you, if you please, to follow me along the recording within ten propositions of some self-evident, in my opinion, suggestions but also working hypotheses through which on the one hand this one my conclusion is verified and on the other the speculation around the Greek-Turkish relations is recorder/rendered meaning.
First:The Greek-Turkish relations remain incomprehensible if and since the Ottoman reality is ignored. I want to stress the particular structure that characterises this social-political type, which does not resemble other forms, even those from which it had inherited various elements, but has incorporated them into its own logic. Two distinctions are prevalent in this structure. The first distinction has already been mentioned. It is the tight separation between society and state, a state that remains a foreign body vis-?-vis the society. The second distinction concerns Muslims and non-Muslims. Officially, the Ottoman state is Muslim. In reality two are the political powers on which the state balances, powers distinguished on the basis of the criterion of the sacred and the secular. On the basis of the criterion of the sacred (Seri) the ulema are the basic political power, that is theologians who are simultaneously conversant with the law of Islam. These people constitute the ideological mechanisms of the state: they are opinion makers, opinion formers. On the basis of the criterion of the secular (urfi) the basic political power are the military, the seyfiye, which form the repression mechanisms of the state. When these two powers co-operate what happens is that, as the late, unforgettable Professor Taris Zafer Tunaya commented, there follows a military coup that overturns the government. Who precede in the hierarchy? Which power foreruns among these two? Although the military have the power, the jurists are considered stronger (and this happens today too, among western societies where the controllers of ideological mechanisms are stronger than the controllers of the armed forces). As regards the origin of the two aforementioned powers, we observe that the people versed in law come from basically Turkish families, while the military and particularly the jannisaries come from islamised Christians, that is from other ethnicities.
In practice the problem is a little more complicated, because for example the church, although a sacred element, is considered urfi, that is a non-Islamic element, and its rules, to the extent that they match the Islamic law are perceived as customary (adet), something that teaches us that secularity is not perceived as in the West (and this is an outcome of the Islam itself) but as customariness. The same goes with regard to the concept of nation. There is the word millet, which means "nation" in Turkish. But the nation of this category differs a lot from the real sense of responding words of European languages. And we must pay attention to this point given that this specific distinction has profoundly affected the nature and the essence of the ethnogenesis of the states/nations that were constituted from the dissolution of the Ottoman state. Let us capitulate. Thus, as nation is perceived the religious community, and all the more so in the sense of belief and not of religion. Through the expression rum milleti, more particularly, not only Greeks are implied but the whole of the Orthodox Christians are considered, among whom belong Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians and Arab Orthodox Christians. Conversely, Armenians, that normally form one nations, were considered as two initially, the Gregorian Armenians and the Catholic Armenians, while from the middle of the nineteenth century they were considered as three, because the Protestant Armenians were added to the above.
In the Ottoman political system the Islam has been used as a vehicle for the accomplishment of its functional aspirations. Thus, on the basis of the principles of the Islam the Muslims maintain the political authority and the non-Muslims, to the extent that they acknowledge the authority of the Muslims can, by paying excessive taxes - in comparison with those paid by Muslims - maintain their faith and act according to what this faith enjoins under the condition that they will not provoke the Muslims and that they will generally consent to being placed under the protection of the Islamic state. In practice the objective was to ensure the funding through the Christians of continuous expansionary wars. Because it should be noted that the whole of the Ottoman state - as a pleiad of Turkish scholars observe, like for example Professor Kucukomer or Berkes to whom I already referred to - pursues its expansion by means of profitable wars. When the wars are not profitable - as is in the case from the seventeenth century - and they last many years and no new conquers are realised, there emerges an intense fiscal problem, that is the need appears for more and more money for war purposes. This is translated into new tax burdens that, to their largest extent, are transposed to non-Muslims. Hans Werner has already calculated that in the fifteenth century between two farmers of equal tax-paying capacity the one of whom was Christian and the other Muslim, the former defrayed up to the seventy percent (70%) of his produce as tax and was left with the thirty percent (30%), while the latter defrayed the thirty percent (30%) and was left with the seventy percent (70%). It may appear as an extreme case, but all calculations that have taken place until today do not take into consideration additional burdens that the Christians (non-Muslims generally) had to carry for the maintenance of their religious foundations. Just think that there was a special accounts' office of the state, the "piskopos mukataasi" to which special taxes were defrayed by Patriarchs and Bishops for their election (usually the candidate they recovered them through trading concession posts of priests, that is subordinates who, in their turn, recovered money from the believers). Thus, there was a legal and an illegal cash flow from the non-Muslim to the ruling Ottomans. This means that the legendary religious tolerance was purchasable, bought. Even for the determination of the yearly date of Easter a series of officials, the first among whom was the Sultan himself, had to be bribed. Apart from this let us stress the houses for worship of the non-Muslims had to be very humble and miserable buildings under the threat of being converted into shrines, that the Christians had to live in their ghettos and in low, colour they might choose, nor good-quality clothes, but that even their when a Christian met a Muslim in the road he had to kneel and bow to him.
But the distinction between Muslims/Non-Muslims and of the non-Muslims into the communities according to their religion had a further usefulness: it averted the union of the subjects for an eventual overturn of the despotic regime. Because the regime never hesitated - on the basis of the principle "divide and rule" - to turn one ethnicity against another, in order to impose "order" subsequently.
The system to which I refer is despotic according to the term established by Perry Anderson, meaning excessively authoritarian. And the question remains how it could be imposed for a long time. There are, in my opinion, two reasons, one internal and the other external. The first is, as Professor Taner Timour remarks, the fear that the state caused among its subjects. The second is that which constitutes the so-called "Eastern Issue", according to which the European powers that disagree on how to distribute between themselves the Ottoman state, do agree that it should be preserved (this is the dogma of integrity of the Ottoman Empire), and that one or more of them try to be used as buffer state(s) at that. Namely, as an intermediate state/states for supporting their economic and political interests in the area.
But I will return momentarily to the question of fear. If we want to predict the structure of the Ottoman pattern we see that it is made of pairs of relations arranged vertically and not horizontally. The upper part of the pair loves the lower part and the lower part fears the upper part. Both parts have accepted this as their position, it is something natural, non-arguable. Arguing this relation is impertinence, hubris and revolt, rebellion, mutiny. This structure runs throughout all the line of the society, which in itself is established hierarchically and pyramid-like. This duet is observed in the relations between husband and wife on a micro-social level. Husband loves wife, wife fears husband, brother loves sister, sister fears brother. And today, as we will see, the same structure us pursued for a "Greek-Turkish approach". But all this in a moment.
Second: In the Ottoman pattern that we outlined, various ethnicities or religions coexist together but also separately. Together because they live in the same space, separately because there is no real contact at all -each community lives in its own district, and even in the villages with mixed population except for the accidental transactions in the common locus of encounter, the market, the bezesten, the bazaar. And I am stressing this because it is usually said that for centuries Greeks and Turks (but other ethnicities, too) lived affectionately together and that foreigners set them apart. Of course they lived together, but the question is under what conditions? A few days ago I was in Tunis on a conference and a Turkish friend colleague, Professor at the University of Istanbul told that a friend of his, Greek from Constantinople -like myself- who left his place of birth and was established in Greece and that in Turkey it was better... I do not question the truthfulness of what my Turkish colleague said. I believe that this is what my Greek fellow-citizen told him. First of all I know that he said these things because he is still scared and he wants to propitiate those who chased him away from his native land. But, apart from that, this story looks like the case of the widow that was beaten up by her husband, tortured by him, and when he died she was crying behind his coffin saying "didn't we have a good life together my hubby".
But to capitulate the way, in which Muslims/Turks and non-Muslims/Greeks lived together, I will mention a Greek adage saying, "Have you seen a Turk? He wants aktse-money, have seen another one? He wants more money". And a Turkish adage saying "An Ottoman -meaning by this the official Muslim, the statesman- neither seeds nor reaps; instead, he is a partner in your meal".
I now return to the fact that the ethnicities lived together and apart. This "apart" has another dimension that is an interesting particularity of the system. An intense differentiation is observed in the chapter of the ethnicities' social modernisation. For various reasons the discussion of which is beyond this occasion, the Greeks were the first to modernise, the Armenians followed with some delay, the Jews joined them very belatedly and the Turks and Arabs followed on. The last ones to be modernised were the Kurds. Modernisation in the Ottoman multi-national society means westernisation. This process starts off from the economy. It is amazing, but absolutely true. The misfuncions of the Ottoman system, in parallel with the intensifying oppression, had a positive outcome, too. They contributed in making the Greeks the first to find within the system ways of dissolving the feudal relations surrounding them and to enter capitalism, and, in one word, to pass gradually from the traditional pattern of the society to forms of a developed non-traditional society. I could go on and on providing you with statistic data for two areas, economy and education. For example, in the start of the twentieth century, although the Greeks were the twenty percent (20%) of the whole population and the Muslim the sixty- five percent (65%) thereof, the Greeks possessed fifty percent (50%) of the total capital and sixty percent (60%) of the total labour, and the Muslim just fifteen percent (15%) (and this in state enterprises). The commerce, and generally the tertiary sector of the economy, had literally passed in the hand of the non-Muslim, mainly Greeks Armenians, not Jews. The same can be seen in the sector of education where the proportion between Christian and Muslim students is four to one. And we know that the development of the education follows the development of the economy and mainly the boom of the tertiary sector...
One more pertinent point is that the Greeks realised their social modernisation having as reference group the western nations. The Turks took as example the Greeks that had as reference group the western nations. One small example here cannot harm. The first western-type novel to be translated into Greek was Fenelon's "Telemaque" in 1738. The first novel to be translated into Turkish was the same, only 125 years later.
In other words the emergent new powers within the Ottoman society were the non-Muslim. And this exactly is the point of departure of the problem that we are experiencing today and that will seemingly go on unresolved for much further. The problem is simple in its conception but for a long time no one had noticed it or rather had pronounced it in a scholarly manner. The first to locate it was a very significant Turkish writer, Taner Akcam in a work the first and extended form of which is written in German and has been translated and appeared in Turkish, too. The title of the work is "Torture and Tyranny in Our Political Culture", meaning the Turkish one. Now then, the Turkish scholar says the following: "The social modernisation in all western countries has been accomplished through the assumption of the political authority by the emerging new social powers or by their coalition with the old ones. Conversely, in the Ottoman/Turkish state the new powers that were the Christians not only did not become partners, but they were eliminated, that is they underwent ethnic cleansing". The above is said by a Turkish writer.
Third:The Greek state, established in 1829, following the Greek Revolution of 1821, obviously did not include all Greeks of the Ottoman Empire. It was created in a small region of the state and it included close to the one sixth (1/6) of the then total Greek population. At this point I would like to give a couple of clarifications. The first relates to the revolution itself. The Turkish writers that follow the official historiographic line claim that the revolution was kindled by the European powers and the Russians. This is an utter mistake. Because the revolution happened in spite of the then European powers that coalesced in the Holy Alliance, the policy of which was to preserve and not to dissolve the Ottoman Empire. But what happened is well known. The intellectuals of the time in European countries sighing under the authoritarian regimes of the Holy Alliance, being themselves nurtured by, and conversant in classical Greek paideia (letters), saw in the face of the revolted the offspring of glorious ancestors, a struggle between freedom and tyranny, Christianity and Islam, culture and barbarity. More importantly, however, they wanted to express their opposition to their own regimes and they motivated, opinion leaders as they were, the public opinion of their countries in favour of the revolted. For the first time in the history of humanity the public opinion played a role in the adoption, eventually, on the part of the European governments of a plan for the establishment of a state formally independent. This state would be on the one hand a sort of protectorate of the Great Powers (the protecting or befriending powers as they are called in Greek historiography) and on the other would allow the blackmailing of he Ottoman government so as to acquiesce to the demands of the European countries.
The second point I want to clarify concerns the departure of the Muslim inhabitants after the establishment of the Greek state. This is something that Turkish writers in our days present as for example Toktomis Ates as the reason for the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Turkish state. The percentage of the aforementioned Muslims in Peloponnese was 18% of the whole population and in its overwhelming majority it was occupation troops, administration employees and big landowners. Besides, that population had been established after 1718, when Peloponnese was seized anew by the Ottoman army. Because the Venetians that occupied it earlier had chased out all its Muslim population. Thus, the Muslims forced to depart were on century-long settlers. Similar was the case with English or French colonies in many places of the globe. Or is the demand for departure of the settlers in North Cyprus, settlers who established themselves in the lands seized violently by Turkey in 1974 (ethnic cleansing)?
The Greek Revolution had, thus, two direct outcomes. The one is that part of Greeks acquired its supposed political independence, while the bigger part did not get it. Consequently, the struggle for integration, or the dear departed Dakin said, of unification of Greece started. Things are not as the Turkish authors who follow the official historical outlook cunningly say, namely that an expansionist state against Turkey was established. Because they want to identify unacceptably the Ottoman Empire with the present-day Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was a multi-national state and Greece (and Greeks) has as many rights over it as Turkey (that is, the Turks). The Turks were also, as were the Greeks, one of the ethnicities that formed its population. And, if you like, as Turkish authors admit, the Turks were also a (minority), just like the Greeks.
The founding of Greece had as a consequence the corresponding creation of ideological mechanisms. I would like, leaving for a future time an extending treatment of this subject, to stress that Greece, because it was established in a periphery of the Empire, maintained an egotistic localism full of misery and wretchedness. We observe this on two levels, different and antithetic among themselves, so much in the management of the ideology of the Great Idea (that is, the liberation of the subordinates) that functioned as sublimation of weakness, as much in the internal politics following 1923 until today, where, essentially, the one third (1/3) of the population - if not more, remained and remains, in the margin of the political life, its rearmost parameter. I am talking about the refugees who took to Greece following ethnic cleansing of the areas by Turkey. The interesting thing with regard to this is that these Greeks in their places of origin were deprived of independent political authorities to the end, being prey so much of the Greek governments that guided their fortunes on their account, as much as of the Constantinople Patriarchate that according to the Ottoman system had shouldered their presentation (as their religious community that its was). It will sound strange to many, but eventually the official Greek state and church did not accomplish what was expected of them on the part of the non-represented by political authorities Greek populations. But this is another story, not in the least simple, in which are involved politics of foreign countries, too.
The second outcome of the establishment of the Greek State is that it precipitated the efforts as westernization and in general at modernization of the Ottoman State. We must stress that these efforts start basically from the military sector. Because the Ottomans, who previously underestimated the Europeans as Christians found out that the latter became stronger by the day in the military field and could no more be won as easily as previously. So the thought to adopt new methods related to the martial arts. And until now the modernization of Turkey starts basically from the modernization of its armed forces. But the Greek Revolution and the creation of the Greek State made the Sultan (Mahmud the Second) and his environment think the following:
The Greeks succeeded because they showed that they were Europeans, but also that they were overly dominated by a system of ethnic and religious discriminations against them. We will show, too, that we are Europeans. The "how" is simple. First of all they were to change their formal dress. Thus, it was decided that the sarik, the potur and the nimten were to be abolished form the clothing of the military and civil servants, namely elements of the eastern way of dressing, and they were to be replaced by jacket and trousers. Only instead of hut or kepi the fez was introduced from Morocco. When in 1912 the New Turks (Jeunes Turks) wanted to make a step forward, them too, Enver Pasha established (enveriye), a cross between hut and fez. And few years later Ataturk imposed obligatory that all wear hut. But the head, the thought that is, or more correctly its structure, remained the same. It is about the difference between seeming and being, form and essence.
After that an official assurance was given by the Sultan to the foreign ambassadors that from then on equality before the law, and lawfulness would apply between Christians and Muslims. It is about the well-known Tanzimat 1838 declaration. How exactly this decision was applied is recounted by my Professor Resat Kaynar, blessed his memory: A European in Galata, Constantinople, pressed charges against a Muslim who had insulted him calling him giaur-infidel in a police department. The head of the department called the tresspasser and reprimanded him. (Don't you know(, said he, that Tanzimat applies and you should not call a giaur one?
Modernization meant also adoption of institutions from the West, that was added to traditional ones. Next to traditional Islamic education European-type schools were added, next to traditional Islamic courts of justice commercial tribunals were added, too, mainly for foreigners. Because these assurances concerning equality were offered, because all these positive steps were taken. An important parameter was the need of economic support and of inflow if European capital into the country. If one pays attention, the declarations are accompanied by economic claims.
The effect of the Greek Revolution of 1821 in the precipitation and acceleration of the efforts at modernization of the Ottoman state has been located at first by Professor Yalcin Kucuk, an enlightened and progressive Turkish intellectual. Nonetheless, the same process has been followed ever since until today. Because declarations remained declarations and the real situation was anything but pleasant, during critical periods the same or renewed promises were made. In 1856, for example, Turkey, in order to participate in the European conference of that year, provided a new official assurance, the so-called "islahat fermani", that is a Sultan's declaration for a generalized improvement. But not everything was improved. In 1876 Turkey in order to be able to participate in the conference of European countries declared the adoption of a constitution - which., although it was authoritarian and anything but responded to the Zeitgeist, it applied for four months, following which the Sultan had both the Parliament abolished and the author of the constitution himself arrested and murdered. This happened because the Sultan had pursued with the "introduction" of a Constitution, he had already accomplished. But the same happened during the political changeover of 1908, when the officers of middle rank that served in the European part of the Empire, and especially in Macedonia, pressed the Sultan to bring to effect the Constitution that he had suspended for thirty two (32) years. As Professor Sina Aksin very correctly remarks, these officers had been annoyed by the fact that the Sultan followed a Germanophile policy and they missed the glorious days of the British-French -Turkish alliance that had rejoiced in the War of Crimea. But the Sultan had not made his choice spontaneously, he was forced to it - besides was not he himself that had granted Cyprus to Britain? Because meanwhile the relations between Great Britain, Russia and France had been restored. Besides, the same dilemma was met by the officers themselves and more generally the movement of the Jeunes Turcs in the form of its committee and its political party "Union and Progress", when it acceded to the authority. It pursued an alliance with England and France, but, because Russia participated in this alliance, it was forced to go over to the opposite camp with Germany. But let us come to the point at issue: the officers of middle and lower rank precipitated their movement for return of the Constitution when they were informed that a decision of the allies - of Great Britain and France - regarding autonomy of Macedonia (as a geographical and multi-national area) was pending, and it was rumoured that, on top of that, a Greek would be appointed as governor.
These middle-rank officers and the "Union and Progress" party more generally were not bourgeois themselves; they did not form the middle class of the country, that is. From what I have said so far it can be deduced that at the time the middle class, meaning the new forces emerging in society, were constituted by Christian ethnicities. But the "Union and Progress" and these officers may not have been middle class themselves, but, as Turkish writers argue, they were activated by the desire to become middle class (burjuva ?zentisi). Thus, placing aside their declarations for equality before the law and the society between Christians and Muslims just three months after the festivities for the reinstatement of democratic institutions they mounted persecutions against the Christian populations, i.e. the Greeks and the Armenians. These persecutions had initially the character of economic exclusion (boycotage) and also of other fiscal measures, too, against Christian populations, and they went on with expulsions, forced deportations and persecutions against these populations until the well-known brutalities that assumed the form of natural extinction. They planned to supplant Muslim private individuals in the place of Christians in the economy by means of the hand of the state and violence. Meaning, simpler said, that they removed predatorily the means of production from the Christians and they allocated them to Muslim notables of Asia Minor or to members and friends of the "Union and Progress". And because Greeks and Armenians mainly represented on a mercantile level the English and French capital, - especially after 1914 - , the neophytes (the newly established) Muslim middle class undertook to act as agents of the - opposing to these interests - German capital. In this way the alliance with Germany during World War I knew a pragmatic importance, too.
Nevertheless the Ottoman Empire enters the World War I in 1914. Until the last moment the leaders of "Union and Progress" hoped for a cooperation with the allies. Meanwhile the Balkan war of 1912 takes place. The pretext in the alliance of the Balkan countries (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro) was that the democratization proclaimed by the political changeover of 1908 not only had not materialised but that the situation of Christian populations was getting worse. The catchword, therefore, was the freeing of populations from Ottoman despotism. In the context of this war Greece acquired a great part of Macedonia and, of course, the islands of the Eastern Aegean. It must be noted as emphatically as possible that the islands of the Eastern Aegean had an almost unalloyed Greek population - it is debatable if, on the larger of these, there was a five percent (5%) proportion of Muslims that were military and civil state servants.
From October 1912 until 1914 that the Ottoman Empire emerges on the side of Germany and the powers of Communication, there intervene two years approximately, during which the governments of "Union and Progress" were flirting with the allies, Great Britain, France and Russia. Usually, this is forgotten. Thus, the allies forced the Greek government to start negotiations with the Ottoman government for the determination of a regime of some sort of condominium, a co- sovereignty in the Eastern Aegean - negotiations interrupted when, in 1914, the war was declared and Turkey went over to the powers of Communication. Moreover, let me add that at the time Britain and France asked Greece to return the islands Imvros and Tenedos to Turkey because of their neighboring the Dardanellia Straits. And Russia, exceeding herself, asked for the islands of Lemnos and Thasos to be returned back for the same reason.
But when we say "co-sovereignty" in the Aegean we tend to forget the most essential. At the time the population of the islands of the Eastern Aegean was of equal composition in ethnological terms with that of the shores - please my attention, I am saying the shores, that is the strip of land opposite the islands. This means that the shores across the islands had in their majority Greek population. It is to be anticipated, therefore, that something of that sort would be discussed, since these islands and the opposite shores shared a cultural, political and economic union for thousands of years. Namely, islands and shores in the same way that they formed a uniform geo-physical whole they also formed a uniform geo-political, geo-cultural, geo-strategic and geo-financial unity. The ethnic cleansing that took place in 1922 abolished the age-long unity.
Fourth:But how did we go to 1922 when, supposedly, the differences between Greeks and Turks were sorted out, and, through the Peace Treaty signed next year in Lausanne, also supposedly, the foundations for a permanent peace and co-operation between the two countries, Greece and Turkey were laid?
The Ottoman Empire is transformed to the Turkish State, both actually and formally, from the declaration of World War I onwards. This phrase may sound absurd but it unfortunately contains a tragedy. It is about what I mentioned a while ago. From a multi-national state it is turned to a national one, and not only the right participation in political authority is not acknowledged to other ethnicities, but their physical extinction itself is systematised. Answerable for this was the government of "Union and Progress", through the para-state criminals' organisations that it had mobilised. One of those was (Teskilati Mahousasa(, too, that had as objective, among others, the mobilization of the Muslims of Central Asia so that they rise against Russia. This hoped-for rise is what is more simply called (Panturanism). Generally, the (Union of Progress) behaved towards the Christian ethnicities in particular, more or less similarly to the way the Nazis behaved during World War II. After the end of the 1922 war, the allies did what would systematically do after the end of World War II: they asked that the culpables were arrested and taken to prisons waiting to be judged, or escaped arrest. Nonetheless, the murderous gangs went on with their undertaking, mainly in the countryside. Thus, two things were decided on the part of the allies: on the one hand that the Greek army be expedited to Smyrna to protect the Greeks that were numerous in the area, and on the other for Mustafa Kemal to go to the area of the Black sea, following the Sultan's intervention which was approved by the English. Kemal was a successful general who had contested the leadership of (Union and Progress). At this point I would like to stress that the Kemalist movement is a sectarian movement of Union and Progress, it is really an antagonism of fractions. Besides, many Turkish writers acknowledge this. We could very generally argue that while the leadership of Union and Progress was Germanophile, Mustafa Kemal was Anglophile - his subsequent trajectory ascertains this claim. It is strange, but the basic rationale of sending off both Greek troops and Kemal - this happened with a week's distance in May 1919 - was exactly the same. Mustafa Kemal, however, organised his movement from among people pursued for war crimes. Kurdish tribal chiefs who supported him were in danger too, because they became, on many occasions, execution instruments for the massive massacre of the Armenian neighbours. And it was not just that: there was also the immediate danger for the stolen goods, mainly real estates of the persecuted, to have to be returned. The persecutions did not happen so much for the natural extinction of the persecuted, as for the appropriation of the riches. A proof of what I am saying is that when Mustafa Kemal arrived to Samsun in the area of the Black Sea, the first person that he met was Topal Osman, a literal butcher who started his career in Macedonia, continued it by slaughtering the Armenians and the Greeks of Pontus and finally the Kurds. Topal Osman went under the command of Kemal and intensified his activity.
Finally, a remark relating to Greece. What were the Greek troops looking for in trying to forward towards Ankara, that is in the depths of Asia Minor? The question is naive. Undoubtedly, they did not try to conquer the whole of Asia Minor, but, according to the proposition of Lloyd George, who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, they tried to bend the armed resistance of the Ankara nationalists. The latter had come to rift with the Sultan's government that was based in Istanbul - on the issue of the application of the provisions of the Sevres Treaty. We must definitely sort out certain misunderstandings. With this Treaty, which is equivalent to that of Versailles, which namely, seal the end of World War I, six per cent (6%) of the total territories of today's Turkey came to Greece (the area of Eastern Thrace and a part of the area of Smyrna). This proportion corresponds to a Greek population living there that was almost 18% of the whole Turkish population, meaning that 18% if the population took 6% of the territory. Compare this with the situation in Cyprus: Today in Cyprus 18% of the population, namely the Turkish-Cypriots, have 40% of the territory, and both the international community and the Greek side implores them for a two-zone federation to no avail. From a territorial point of view the Sevres Treaty in its larger part referred to the independent state of Kourdistan and Armenia...This is often forgotten.
The defeat of the Greek troops in Asia Minor has been the outcome of a series of mistakes and misfortunes. A first reason has been the self-disintegration of the army due to political clashes in Greece. Next, there has been the unbounded mine of economic help and of weapons that came from the Bolshevik regime (just think that the whole budget of the Kemalist state in the critical years 1921-22 was provided by the Soviet). Why exactly this was done by the then Soviet leadership has certain tangible consequences for capturing the present situation: after the October Revolution the allies, mainly Britain, wanted to forestall the descent of the red army in Caucasus. Initially, the trans-Caucasian federation was founded - Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, to be later dissolved, and the three independent states could not resist the Bolshevik storm. The dream of a Great Armenian State (including the Greeks of the Pontus) that was about to be created in Eastern Asia Minor looked something non-realistic, or difficult to be established. This is why not only the Soviets supported Kemal by the allies, too. Both sides anticipated for Turkey a role of buffer state, meaning an intermediate state. This, surely, had as consequence the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of civilians from their ancestors' hearths. But this goes over the head of international politics, or has only a limited importance.
That the Turkish military victory against the Greek forces was not an easy thing can be seen in one detail. As the wise Turkish Professor Bilge Umar describes, even to the last moment, when Smyrna was on fire and the Turkish leadership had moved its headquarters into the city, its was still possible for the result to be overruled within few hours.
One more point, following which we arrive in our days. It is sometimes said that both sides committed atrocities in the end of the day. George Horton, this selfless American diplomat, has highlighted how devious such a claim is. Because the magnitudes are utterly unequal... Nonetheless, let me stress here that it is definitely not suitable to occupy oneself with a logistic enumeration of macabre incidents. But the act must be condemned and the ideology that created and creates atrocities should stop being reproduced.
The defeat of the Greek troops had a shocking consequence. The completion of ethnic cleansing of Christian populations. This is usually more elegantly but deceitfully called (exchange of populations). For one, first were the Christian populations or their largest part chased, and then the exchange was determined. With this exchange, around four hundred thousand (400.000) Muslims from Greece were exchanged for million and a half (1.500.000) Orthodox Christians from Turkey. A remark: there were around two million four hundred thousand (2.400.000) Greeks - the rest obviously could not make it to the exchange, they were forestalled by death. And even if there are objections as for the number of Greeks, whether they were less, etc., I hasten to inform that in the proceedings of a mixed international committee that was signed by Turkey, too in 1950 the ignored were six hundred thousand (600.000)... And something more: it seems that Venizelos on the Greek part, too, hten the beginning wanted eventually an exchange, but on a one-to-one basis, in which case we would have arrived at the frontiers provided for by the Treaty of Sevres.
Fifth: The Treaty of Lausanne, in which this alleged exchange of populations was decided, laid the foundations for a Greek-Turkish peaceful coexistence. I must be underlined that this Treaty is the first revisionist treaty after World War I. Revisionism is the politics followed by some countries after World War I, countries that were either defeated, and were imposed very cumbersome terms by the victors, or they did not obtain that they wanted, and desired to revise the terms that put an end to World War I. Example number one: Germany. Example number two: Italy. What Germany did not accomplish with World War II, namely to revise the Treaty of Versailles, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk did accomplish in revising the Sevres Treaty.
The Treaty of Lausanne, however, appears not to be statically but dynamically revisionist. It has the characteristic of being continuously revised in favour of Turkey. Right after the signing of the Treaty few knew that in Turkey there started to be talk of the islands of the Aegean, and the country started being armed straightaway, with particular emphasis on her naval force. Because it should be stressed that during the war of 1920-22 the Turkish Navy was completely non-existent and did not participate. The Greeks' domination of the sea was absolute.
In 1930 - seven years after the Lausanne Treaty - we have the historical rapprochement of the two peoples, what is usually called the Greek-Turkish friendship, of the utmost work of two utmost political men, Ataturk and Venizelos. If one bypasses the contribution of foreign powers in this historical rapprochement, of Great Britain and of the fascist Italy, which at the time sided with Great Britain the essence of the rapprochement is as follows:
1930 comes after 1929. And 1929 was the year of international economic crash that had impacts on Greece and Turkey. Greece, a poor country at the time, had, apart from all the rest, to shelter and rehabilitates 1.500.000 refugees. On the other hand she was obliged to go in for a frenetic armament race in the navy - the air forces were not developed at the time - to confront Turkey. On the opposite shores, in Turkey, the situation was even worse. Because in this year the revolt of Kurds culminates and its violent stifling is pursued, while the opposition against Ataturk also reaches a peak. Ataturk has established his individual regime. Reactions against cultural transformations that he dares also culminate, and he is forced to intensify the oppressive measures. In order to defuse the climate he has his sister and his most faithful friend, Fethi Okyar, establish an opposition party - the regime is one-party. Okyar goes to Smyrna and the people fall in her feet saying (rescue us from him). On this, Ataturk's biographer Sefket Suurreya Ajdemir observes "rescue them from whom, from the man who rescued them from Greeks just seven years ago".
On the basis of the Treaty of Lausanne, both countries had the obligation to compensate the refugees for the fortunes that they left in their native lands. And it is obvious that the fortunes of 1.500.000 people, indeed affluent people, were larger than those of 400.000. But Turkey did not compensate, it asked for the international arbitration that was anticipated to be bypassed. Meanwhile, bilateral negotiations started that went on and on. Venizelos, who finally saw that he would not recover anything, suggested for the debt to be written off and for a treaty to be signed, on the basis of which the two parts would take the responsibility not to proceed in the purchase of military materials without mutual agreement. This practically meant that Greece, that had great supremacy in the navy, would maintain its sea power, particularly over the Aegean. Besides, this is confirmed by two facts. The first relates to the increase by Greece of her air space to 10 miles in 1930 with Turkey's consent and to the simultaneous approval by Greece in 1936 of the alteration of the convention of Lausanne relating to Straits which demilitarized the Straits of Bosphorous and Dardanellia. This practically means that Turkey acquired full control of the latter with the consent of Greece and that Greece acquired the control of the Aegean. This is the Greek-Turkish friendship between Venizelos and Ataturk, the price for which was paid by the refugees.
Meanwhile, if one looks carefully at the events that ensued he/she will realise that even on the eve of World War II, but also during this War, Turkey came back to the issue of the islands. As it is known, Turkey did not participate in this War like Greece did. Nonetheless, during negotiations relating to her descent to the War, now with the Axis powers, she was asking for the islands of the Eastern Aegean in advance. The archival materials on this issue are impressive. But to avoid dragging on, I will return to the beginning of the 1950s, when the two countries were wallowing in seas of bliss due to the "common threat from the North".
Mehmet Saka, a Turkish scholar of international relations claims in his 1952 dissertation supported in the Law School of the University of Paris that because of the "threat from the North", Greece should hire out for ninety years all the islands of the Eastern Aegean to Turkey, to prove first, the sincerity of her friendship and second, to acquire Turkey's protection. In the summer of 1954, even before the Cyprus issue was brought up, namely the demand of the Cypriots for self- determination, Professor Nihat Erim, an eminent member of the opposition, and a subsequent adviser of all Turkish governments on the Greek-Turkish relations, suggested that Cyprus become a condominium, which condominium spread in those islands of the Eastern Aegean which are at a distance of 50 miles from the shores of Asia Minor. It is amazing, but this means, translated on a map, all the area from the 25o Meridian - which, if extrapolated, passes from the borders of the Greek Thrace. It is the same space for which the well-known negotiations for a condominium regime took place and were interrupted in 1914. But then, as we said, the population on the islands and in the shores across the sea was of common origins. It is obvious that Turkey, after having carried out ethnic cleansing in Asia Minor, now goes a step ahead and asks for co-sovereignty in the islands, too. Especially if one judges from the case of Imvros and Tenedos, two islands of unmixed Greek population, particularly Imvros, that devoted to Turkey with the Treaty of Lausanne on the condition of a self-government that was never applied, and the population of which became fully Turkish within twenty years as a result of the oppressive measures taken, one can realise what would have happened in the case of co-sovereignty or of hiring out to Turkey of the rest of the islands, too...
The most important is that the 25o Meridian in Thrace coincides with the area where in 1913 - the same area always - the "Teksilati Mahsusa", that is the para-states of the "Union and Progress" tried to establish an alleged State of Thrace. This is and experiment that the same powers tried to repeat in 1919 in Kars of Asia Minor, and which, according to Professor Yalcin Kiucuk, was the pattern of organization of the contemporary Turkish state. Exactly the same pattern was adopted in the case of the alleged Turko-Cypriot state of Northern Cyprus. According to this model, the co-operating powers are he secret services, the Mafia underworld, and the army. The above, according to Yaltcin Kucuk. And if two years ago an accidental event did not take place in Turkey, we would not have realised that the same situation appears to go on today. In the traffic accident at Susurluk it was revealed that the political leadership, the army and the secret services collaborate with the Mafia. Dead out of the car wreckage were pulled a minister, a Mafia murderer, supposedly wanted by the police, and a representative of the alleged security authorities - the Mafia man had boasted in the past that he had set on fire forests on the Greek islands. This event left all thinking Turkish people speechless and made them speculate...
And in coming back to the 25o Meridian, I am stressing that this is the limit of the Turkish claims under the pretext of the continental shelf, or any other argument put forward. The claims remain unaltered since 1913.
But let us come to the present day in order to close this condensed overview of the Greek-Turkish problems. In 1978 appears the first volume of a pre-eminent work - it is the collection of diplomatic documents - edited by Bilal Simsir, a professor and the Director of Planning of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The subject of the book was "The Aegean Question". This is an official publication. In the preface of the book, Simsir writes the following verbatim: "Greece was created by the sea. In 1821 the rebels turned against the Turkish flotilla with their own flotilla, and when the Turkish flotilla was destroyed, Greece was created" (the Ottoman flotilla was destroyed by the admirals of the Allies, as is well known). Until 1912, goes on Simsir, there was a balance in the Aegean, the islands of the Western Aegean were Greek, Crete was a independent, Cyprus was British, and the islands of the Eastern Aegean were Turkish. This balance was overturned by Admiral Kountouriotis, when, in October 1912, he destroyed the Turkish flotilla outside the promontory Elli in the Dardanelles... Ever since the sea power in the Aegean passed in the hands of the Greeks, until the 29th of May of 1974, when, during a special ceremony in which state officials were present, the surveying war ship of the Cantarli Surveying Service set sail from Instabul for the Aegean, in order not, of course, to realise surveys, but to question the sea power of the Greeks. This is the starting point of the second round..." Remark: the 29th of May is the anniversary if the Fall of the Constantinople-Instabul by the Turks. The choice of this day is indicative of the weight of this act. Second, every spring in the time of the Sultans, following a similar ceremony, the flotilla sailed off for the Aegean and the Mediterranean, and it returned back in the autumn with pillages...
Two years ago, in a series of articles in the newspaper Czumhuriyet - a very progressive and radical newspaper of the moderate left, the Admiral tansu Erdem said the following, that made it into the cover title, verbatim: "the problems of Turkey with the Aegean spring from the injustice suffered by Turkey as a result of the Balkan War, the First and the Second World War, and they must be amended". Thus, Turkey's revisionism pursues restoration of the situation before the Balkan wars...in 1912. I do not think that I need to add anything further at this point...What the Turkish side does not want to understand is that the Empire did not belong to Turks alone, and that it was constituted, fairly or unfairly, it does not matter at this moment, with the contribution of several ethnicities. It was not the exclusive property of the nation alone...
Who's Afraid of Carnivore? Not Me!
h tm) calls Carnivore a "diagnostic tool" versus an electronic eavesdropping device. In reality, Carnivore is indeed a network diagnostic tool (a network analyzer or "sniffer''), but to imply that Carnivore's primary use is as a "diagnostic tool" is stretching the Bureau's already-thin credibility a bit too far. That's like a criminal claiming that the gun he shot someone with was not a gun but a "tool" to eject hot lead into a wall. The goal of Carnivore is to allow the FBI to quickly gather information from an ISP without having to go through that ISP's management each time to obtain it, as is commonly done via subpoena.
Richard F. Forno
Essay 2000-05 2 August 2000
Recently, the FBI has become embroiled into the controversy surrounding its latest attempt to bring law enforcement into the Information Age. The "Carnivore'" project is the Bureau's attempt to collect information on electronic suspects and computer criminals in the dark reaches of cyberspace.....their version of a combination TRAP AND TRACE and PEN REGISTER carried over from the 'old fashion' days of POTS, or Plain Old Telephone Service. The ACLU, EFF, EPIC, Congressional committees, and even segments of the American technocracy are up-at-arms over this questionable law enforcement device, and even more dubious of the goofy explanations provided by FBI front-men as to how it is employed. From where I sit, it looks like the FBI wants to get into the "Enemy of the State" spook-tech game like everyone thinks NSA participates in.
This article will discuss some differences between Carnivore's access to electronic information and the methods (and limitations) of traditional law enforcement access to "old school" communications systems. Then, we're going to discuss how easy it is to circumvent the Carnivore system and still keep our communications secret from all prying eyes....no matter how sophisticated the FBI thinks Carnivore is.
CARNIVORE
The FBI's website (http://www.fbi.gov/programs/carnivore/carnivore.
Donald Kerr, Assistant Director at the FBI, told a Congressional panel recently that
"the Carnivore device works much like commercial "sniffers" and other network diagnostic tools used by ISPs every day, except that it provides the FBI with a unique ability to distinguish between communications which may be lawfully intercepted and those which may not. For example, if a court order provides for the lawful interception of one type of communication (e.g., e-mail), but excludes all other communications (e.g., online shopping) the Carnivore tool can be configured to intercept only those e-mails being transmitted either to or from the named subject."
His statement also mentions that Carnivore: "is a very specialized network analyzer or "sniffer" which runs as an application program on a normal personal computer under the Microsoft Windows operating system. It works by "sniffing" the proper portions of network packets and copying and storing only those packets which match a finely defined filter set programmed in conformity with the court order. This filter set can be extremely complex, and this provides the FBI with an ability to collect transmissions which comply with pen register court orders, trap & trace court orders, Title III interception orders, etc."
Let's stop and analyze this claim. The FBI has a Windows-based tool that can be configured to differentiate between "legitimate" and "extraneous" traffic that it intercepts at a given ISP. This will -- according to the FBI testimony -- provide federal law enforcement folks the same ability to intercept electronic communications (e-mail, web surfing, instant messages, etc.) than they currently have in the world of the POTS telephone systems. Right. And my Aunt Sally is a world- class hacker master. Let's see why.
The Carnivore system is allegedly a single "item" or black-box "device" placed at each ISP to monitor communications as authorized by court order. Where is this box placed at the ISP? Hanging it off the gateway router or bastion network means that this poor Windows box will have to intercept GIGABYTES of raw data in real-time unless it is pre-configured to only monitor certain ports such as SMTP, POP, or IRC. However, Carnivore -- like all sniffers -- still collects "everything" associated with those protocols -- however, as was testified to by senior FBI agents, only reveals (under court order) the "header information" of a suspects to the FBI. So while, they are only using "header" information that was collected (as shown below) under an authorized investigation, what is done with the rest of the information (such as the content or e- mail attachments) collected alongside the headers?
Is Carnivore unique? Does it take rocket science to create a Carnivore-type system? Hardly. Many companies use sniffers to enforce acceptable use policies or for routine internal administrative matters and do not as a matter of course look at content, only source, destination, and protocol of the packets being monitored. There are tons of freeware, shareware, and commercial network sniffers available on the market. In fact, it's already reported that EtherPeek is the FBI's tool driving Carnivore.
Kerr's Congressional testimony continues...
It is important to distinguish now what is meant by "sniffing." The problem of discriminating between users' messages on the Internet is a complex one. However, this is exactly what Carnivore does. It does NOT search through the contents of every message and collect those that contain certain key words like "bomb" or "drugs." It selects messages based on criteria expressly set out in the court order, for example, messages transmitted to or from a particular account or to or from a particular user.
Either the FBI is kidding themselves, or they are trying to pull a fast one here. Let's look at how EtherPeek (or any network sniffer, for that matter) works. What follows below are two captured packets from my EtherPeek analyzer of an e-mail message I sent to myself. Note that the sniffer was configured to only sniff e-mail information via SMTP protocols. Let's take a look:
From this next packet, the program has pulled down the complete e-mail header and also the content of the message ("Secret Secret!!'') in both ASCII text and hex. If you use the Snooptrace feature of EtherPeek, you can assemble these two items into:
Received: from stmpy-2.cais.net ([205.252.14.72]) by prserv.net (in4) with ESMTP id
; Sun, 30 Jul 2000 15:39:31 +0000
Received: from [10.215.0.21] (x2-amailer.org [201.8.231.35] (may be forged))
by stmpy-2.cais.net (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e6UFddQ34343
for ; Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:39:39 -0400 (EDT)(envelope-from rforno@YYY.net)
Message-Id:
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express WindowsEdition (0410)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 11:41:47 -0400
Subject: This is another secret message
From: "Richard Forno"
To: rforno@YYY.net
Mime-version: 1.0
X-Priority: 3
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
Secret Secret!!
The FBI claims they will only use Carnivore's scanning for court-ordered intercepts of ISP traffic. Based on what we just saw, it is clear that Carnivore provides a wealth of information BEYOND just the "header" information, and that Carnivore-type tools can indeed perform keyword searches of its captured information! As shown above, common, off-the-shelf (COTS) programs such as EtherPeek can only filter traffic so far. To find the e-mail addresses of their suspects, they would have to run a "search" function to sift through the volumes of data to locate the many instances of that particular e-mail address in the archive of packets intercepted.
If the FBI -- using Carnivore in a hypothetical case-- is looking to obtain ONLY the e-mail addresses sent to and from an ISP account (as shown above) and not the content of such messages, they will still see what is shown above, however, they must discard whatever else is captured beyond the e-mail addresses in question. But do they? Or, will they?
This is where Carnivore differs from traditional wiretaps and pen traces. In the "old days" of telco intercepts, a TRAP AND TRACE and PEN REGISTER request enabled law enforcement to see what numbers were dialed to and from a given number. Let's call these "REFERENCE POINTS." These were approved by either by a US Attorney or a federal judge. A separate approval (or court order) was required to conduct a WIRETAP to actually intercept and monitor the communications between the two parties identified in the TRAP AND TRACE. Let's refer to the WIRETAP as "INTERCEPTED CONTENT."
It should be understood that the standards of proof to conduct these two distinct actions (REFERENCE POINTS v. INTERCEPTED CONTENT) are vastly different from each other. In particular, the ability to conduct a WIRETAP requires a much higher standard of proof that such illegal activity is being conducted over the phone, while a TRAP AND TRACE or PEN REGISTER have less stringent approval requirements since these latter two techniques do NOT provide intercepted content, only reference points to the communications themselves. Therefore, individuals' privacy is not (in theory) easily subject to violations by illegal wiretaps and content monitoring.
Traditionally, WIRETAPS have been required to be conducted and physically- monitored by a person (agent) to insure that only the conversations of the person(s) covered by the court order could be recorded. On the other hand, Carnivore, like its name, takes in everything it sees and doesn't require human intervention. Here's an example of a potential problem with Carnivore to support this argument:
A court order has been issued to intercept the telephone conversations of Suspect X. One of Suspect X's children makes a phone call from the line being monitored. Under the current rules, the agent running the WIRETAP must discontinue the recording and monitoring of the (in this case) child's phone call.
Under Carnivore, a court order is issued to intercept the header information of Suspect X's e-mail (as testified to recently on the Hill.) One of Suspect X's children uses his computer, and possibly his e-mail identity (perhaps a shared family e-mail address), to send a message to a school friend. With Carnivore's capabilities, the FBI now has the complete text of all messages (see above) sent to/from that account regardless of who sent them. And, with Carnivore, there is no direct human (agent) monitoring the flow of intercepted communications to insure that only the suspect's communications are being stored and not someone else's.
The fact that the FBI claims to only take the headers begs the question, "what happens to the rest of the data Carnivore collects?" Carnivore thus encompasses the three areas of traditional intercepts, TRAP AND TRACE, PEN REGISTER, and CONTENT WIRETAP in one package that could easily be abused or used in a manner inconsistent with the spirit of the laws making such abuses difficult and illegal.
Enter Carnivore. This is a combination of a TRAP AND TRACE and WIRETAP in either real-time or near-real time. The use of one technology (in this case, our network sniffer, EtherPeek) provides both the TRAP AND TRACE function and WIRETAP functions! Granted, the FBI still claims it will not exceed its authority in using Carnivore's sniffing capabilities, but let's examine another all-too- possible scenario where Carnivore may be abused:
Suspect X uses e-mail to contact Suspect Y. The FBI receives a court order to use Carnivore to "only" obtain the various e-mail addresses used by both X and Y during the past month to communicate information about their illegal activities in trafficking pirated software. As shown above, Carnivore also intercepts the content of all messages exchanged between X and Y. The FBI testified on the Hill that they will use Carnivore only for "header information" or as authorized, however, the Carnviore archive contains all the information intercepted. For purposes of this scenario, let us assume that some of the messages exchanged talk about how one of the suspects is engaged in the distribution of stolen credit card numbers
Using the content of these messages would be beyond the scope of the original court order authorizing the interception of the e-mail addresses of the suspects. Two chances for abuse present themselves at this time. First, the FBI could have drafted a fairly-general justification for a Carnivore intercept that could allow them to use the contents of the intercepted messages.
Secondly, while the FBI might not "use" the information archived, that information could quite possibly be used for "theoretical" or deep- background material to develop additional leads or charges against the suspect or develop another avenue to target the suspect or his alleged accomplices without proper investigation. This reminds me of how notorious mobster Al Capone was arrested -- not for being a mobster, but on charges of federal income tax evasion.
Indeed, Carnivore provides a wealth of information to the FBI that gives them considerable surveillance powers in the digital age, but opens up the very real possibilities that such powers may be abused by case agents. Should it ever be proven that Carnivore was abused in such a fashion, the FBI will be in a very difficult position to defend their actions in this area. The fact that the FBI is reluctant to allow public and/or peer review of its Carnivore technology only further implies that it is not the appropriate solution the FBI claims it is.
Traditionally, REFERENCE POINTS (TRAP AND TRACE or PEN REGISTERS) and INTERCEPTED CONTENT (WIRETAPS) required different and specific procedures and approvals before use. The goal was to implement a "two-key solution" to get complete intercept information on a suspect, and reduce the chances of abusing the WIRETAP ability of law enforcement via a "single source" solution for intercepts. However, Carnivore is indeed a single-source method for the FBI to obtain complete information on a suspect's Internet communications. Carnivore is a point-and-click system and thus probably very easy to use and re- configure. Considerable oversight and objective examination must be given the uses and limitations of this "total snooping solution" device being pitched by the FBI.
COUNTER-CARNIVORE
As I hinted at earlier, Carnivore is a joke to anyone who deems themselves a hacker, cracker, computer-criminal, or power user. As such, I don't consider Carnivore much of a threat to me personally, but I do fear for how easy it is to abuse of the Carnivore system and infringe on personal liberties.
First, everyone should know that e-mail is inherently insecure and ripe for eavesdropping. Thus, one should never send sensitive material via e-mail if they want to insure such material stays secret. As such, countering Carnivore is simple, and only the foolish criminal would be caught by Carnivore.
Following are some common-sense ways to beat Carnivore-type systems. In fact, these are some helpful hints for anyone who wants to help guard their electronic privacy in today's digital world:
Set up a VPN. Use an encrypted point-to-point tunnel, SSH, or SSL to encrypt your link to your mailserver. For example, Hotmail supports SSL-based secured Web sessions. A sniffer looking at the traffic to your computer will only see SSL gibberish as it is collected.
Do A Systems Audit. Vigilant system administrators run routine network scans on their networks for administrative and security purposes. Any good system administrator -- particularly a security-minded one - would consider the discovery of a new undocumented system on his network a security violation and proceed to investigate it. Heck, I'd even take it offline. If it's a Carnivore box, what happens then? Whose investigation did I just mess up in the name of good systems security practices?
Use out-of-band communications. The best way to hide information is in plain sight. Don't use common ports for mail servers or chat sessions, but map them to more common traffic. Just as the Russian hackers used port 80 (http) to move sensitive material out of DoD networks last year right under the noses of the firewalls, figure out a way to use a covert channel inside a well-used port. The bad guys will be hard-pressed to intercept and parse (in real-time at least) the one or two e-mail notes sent along the gigabytes of Web traffic flowing into your company via port 80.
Frequency Hop. Don't just use e-mail. Have multiple e-mail accounts from multiple sources (POP3, IMAP, APOP, Web-based). Get multiple dial-up accounts and personae. Use IRC, Instant Messaging, *Nix console chats, one- time accounts, and combinations of these forms of communication. Set a defined schedule for what medium and for how long you will use that medium for, and see how long it takes for Carnivore to catch up with you. Or, use text editors to exchange messages, and FTP them to various sites. Then switch to AIM. Then e-mail. Then IRC on a particular channel. The possibilities are endless!
My Favorite. When all else fails, stick with e-mail and encrypt it. But, based on what I've heard from folks involved in computer crimes, the worst thing an investigator can see when using a sniffer or reading intercepted electronic communication is the following: "--- BEGIN PGP MESSAGE ---". Use PGP to send self-extracting files to your associates, encrypt files and exchange them via FTP, and so forth.
It's unlikely that Big Internet Business will continue to develop network infrastructure components that don't have "hooks" for law enforcement use in the future, just as how phone switches today have the ability for law enforcement to "plug in" as necessary under court order. Therefore, it's up to the individual to find ways to insure their communications are secure and free from prying eyes using such tools and techniques as mentioned above, PGP, Zero Knowledge, and other tools yet-to-be-developed.
The best solution is to make sure that whatever you deem as sensitive information is encrypted BEFORE IT LEAVES your desktop computer and the area where YOU CONTROL IT. Waiting for a server to encrypt something places you at risk. Point-to-point encryption of communication channels like VPNs or e-mail are your best bets to insure secure modes of communication.
All Carnivore will do is keep honest folks honest. Power users who value their online privacy and cyber-criminals with half a clue already know how to get around it.
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
This is important information for anyone who does not want authoritarian
state thugs scanning their computer for information.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 1:37 PM
Subject: How NSA access was built into Windows
How NSA access was built into Windows
Duncan Campbell 04.09.1999
>
Careless mistake reveals subversion of Windows by NSA.
>
A CARELESS mistake by Microsoft programmers has revealed that
special access codes prepared by the US National Security Agency
have been secretly built into Windows. The NSA access system is
built into every version of the Windows operating system now in
use, except early releases of Windows 95 (and its predecessors).
The discovery comes close on the heels of the revelations
earlier this year that another US software giant, Lotus, had
built an NSA "help information" trapdoor into its Notes system,
and that security functions on other software systems had been
deliberately crippled.
>
The first discovery of the new NSA access system was made two
years ago by British researcher Dr Nicko van Someren. But it was
only a few weeks ago when a second researcher rediscovered the
access system. With it, he found the evidence linking it to NSA.
>
Computer security specialists have been aware for two years that
unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows
software "driver" used for security and encryption functions.
The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of
security functions. If you use Windows, you will find it in the
C:\Windows\system directory of your computer.
>
ADVAPI.DLL works closely with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but
will only run crypographic functions that the US governments
allows Microsoft to export. That information is bad enough news,
from a European point of view. Now, it turns out that ADVAPI
will run special programmes inserted and controlled by NSA. As
yet, no one knows what these programmes are, or what they do.
Dr Nicko van Someren reported at last year's Crypto 98
conference that he had disassembled the ADVADPI driver. He found
it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to
control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in
compliance with US export regulations. But the reason for
building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
>
A second key
>
Two weeks ago, a US security company came up with conclusive
evidence that the second key belongs to NSA. Like Dr van
Someren, Andrew Fernandez, chief scientist with Cryptonym of
Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and
significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service
Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5. He found that
Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the
debugging symbols used to test this software before they
released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys.
One was called "KEY". The other was called "NSAKEY".
>
Fernandes reported his re-discovery of the two CAPI keys, and
theirsecret meaning, to "Advances in Cryptology, Crypto'99"
conference held in Santa Barbara. According to those present at
the conference, Windows developers attending the conference did
not deny that the "NSA" key was built into their software. But
they refused to talk about what the key did, or why it had been
put there without users' knowledge.
>
A third key?!
>
But according to two witnesses attending the conference, even
Microsoft's top crypto programmers were astonished to learn that
the version of ADVAPI.DLL shipping with Windows 2000 contains
not two, but three keys. Brian LaMachia, head of CAPI
development at Microsoft was "stunned" to learn of these
discoveries, by outsiders. The latest discovery by Dr van
Someren is based on advanced search methods which test and
> report on the "entropy" of programming code.
> >
Within the Microsoft organisation, access to Windows source code
is said to be highly compartmentalized, making it easy for
modifications to be inserted without the knowledge of even the
respective product managers.
>
Researchers are divided about whether the NSA key could be
intended to let US government users of Windows run classified
crypto systems on their machines or whether it is intended to
open up anyone's and everyone's Windows computer to intelligence
gathering techniques deployed by NSA's burgeoning corps of
"information warriors".
>
According to Fernandez of Cryptonym, the result of having the
secret key inside your Windows operating system "is that it is
tremendously easier for the NSA to load unauthorized security
services on all copies of Microsoft Windows, and once these
security services are loaded, they can effectively compromise
your entire operating system". The NSA key is contained inside
all versions of Windows from Windows 95 OSR2 onwards.
>
"For non American IT managers relying on Windows NT to operate
highly secure data centres, this find is worrying", he added.
"The US government is currently making it as difficult as
possible for "strong" crypto to be used outside of the US. That
they have also installed a cryptographic back door in the
world's most abundant operating system should send a strong
message to foreign IT managers".
>
"How is an IT manager to feel when they learn that in every copy
of Windows sold, Microsoft has a 'back door' for NSA - making it
orders of magnitude easier for the US government to access your
computer?" he asked.
>
Can the loophole be turned round against the snoopers?
>
Dr van Someren feels that the primary purpose of the NSA key
inside Windows may be for legitimate US government use. But he
says that there cannot be a legitimate explanation for the third
key in Windows 2000 CAPI. "It looks more fishy", he said.
Fernandez believes that NSA's built in loophole can be turned
round against the snoopers. The NSA key inside CAPI can be
replaced by your own key, and used to sign cryptographic
security modules from overseas or unauthorised third parties,
unapproved by Microsoft or the NSA. This is exactly what the US
government has been trying to prevent. A demonstration "how to
do it" program that replaces the NSA key can be found on
Cryptonym's website.
>
According to one leading US cryptographer, the IT world should
be thankful that the subversion of Windows by NSA has come to
light before the arrival of CPUs that handles encrypted
instruction sets. These would make the type of discoveries made
this month impossible. "Had the next generation CPU's with
encrypted instruction sets already been deployed,we would have
never found out about NSAKEY."
Die for Oil, Sucker
by Jello Biafra
you are just about the ripe age to be drafted. does that bother you? do you even think about that? there was a sign at jonestown behind jim jones' dead body and it said "those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." which would you rather sacrifice your hot car or your life?
die for oil, sucker.
born on the firecracker fourth of july raised on football and mtv, never felt what its like to have to fight to stay free. Vietnam just a time life book memory. the mask is off again this time nobody cares but you can't keep dancing if your legs are blown away.
die for oil, sucker.
you too can get you face shot off so arms race tycoons won't have to get a real job. the cold war is over, it was all a mirage. we could use that money we got problems to solve, but were not allowed at the peace dividend because our psycho president has got his head in the sand. saddam hussain so egocentric, he even replaced Mickey mouse on watches with his own face. last spring he was our tyrant we thought we could use. we supplied him with all his guns and his nerve gas too. right now its the world's first tabloid war. there they are on cnn, flinging mud back and forth. if all wars were treated like game shows, great! the world would be a much happier place. but it won't last long with these egos involved. one shot at saddam he's going bomb Israel. after that hiroshima will look like a picnic and we'll all die for oil, sucker.
you too can get your spinal cord snapped to save greedy kings from the greed of iraq. give your life for a country where women can't vote and people still get their hands and heads chopped off. in saudi arabia they stone you to death for sleeping with another person's husband or wife. women can't go out alone, or show their face or even drive. and there's never elections, you can't even ask why. but they finally did outlaw slavery in 1962, so progress is being made. and they're sitting on something we can learn to live without but certain fat cat's bank accounts cannot, oil.
for this you get to be all you can be, a dead army, navy, air force, marine. come home one of those deranged unemployed vets, the kind they love to make tv cop shows about. just like tom cruise in a wheelchair. no film royalties cause nobody cares about you once you've been used to die for oil, sucker.
kill, kill, kill the poor even faster that crack, send them off to war make sure they don't come back. give them tanks that fall apart and helicopters that crash. 2000 died in panama cause the stealth can't shoot straight. 800 million dollar batman plane and it doesn't even work. no surprise when their idea of national security is screwdrivers costing 1800 bucks. a little sand in the engine can stop a naval destroyer. saddam hussain knows this but our networks don't report it as we die for oil, sucker.
and is it really worth it in this day and age to come out the winners of world war 3? think about it. once we take over that place well never ever beable to leave. bush talks about bombing a path to Baghdad 75 miles wide. and if the big bad wolf still won't give up we're going to drop the nuclear bomb and after that we'll just waltz right in to colonize their hearts and minds. but the arab people will be so damn mad we'll be lucky to get out of there alive. after that do you think any arab country will sell us oil?
think of the cost to keep our army there when the only way left to force oil out of the ground is soldiers guns treating arabs like slaves or was that all part of the plan. how long do you think that could possibly last?
they found a scam to replace the cold war it's called die for oil, sucker.
what's so sick about this is that theres is a better way. stop selling guns to arabs and to Israel. don't need to keep ourselves hostage to oil, use our star wars know how to build solar powered cars. one clerk in the patent office might be all it would take to find blueprints for a solar car general motors shelved away. but no thats to easy and theres money to be made, especially if you already have more than you'll ever need. for those of us who can't buy our way out like rich folks like dan quale do its burn you draft card, burn the flag, and burn the pentagon too.
so be all you can be and say no the air force, army, marines. get off your butt before your butt's blown off. don't die for oil, don't be a sucker.
It must be getting thirsty in Saudi Arabia by now. We've got all those American fighting troops over there and they're not allowed to have any beer.
The Saudis don't believe in beer. I'm not certain such a country is worth defending, even against Saddam Hussein. How can you stick all those soldiers out in the middle of the desert and not provide them a little beer occasionally?
The Saudis also will not allow anybody to send any nude photos to our kids. They probably can live with that. You can go without nude photos a lot longer than you can go without beer. You may not realize this but beer has played a big part in the military history of this country.
When Washington crossed the Delaware, he took a six-pack, which he drank along the way. That's how he drummed up the courage to stand up there in front of the boat.
When aides complained to President Lincoln that U.S. Grant was drinking too much during the Civil War, Lincoln asked, "What does he drink?"
The aides answered, "Miller Lite."
"Because it's less filling or has more taste?" asked Lincoln.
"He likes the can," they answered.
"Doesn't matter," said Lincoln. "Order each of my generals a case. Maybe they'll learn to fight like Grant."
The real reason Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill was because somebody told them there was an iced-down keg of beer at the top.
I'm not certain how much our brave fighting women in Saudi Arabia miss beer, but you get a couple of hundred thousand guys together, for whatever reason, and they're going to want a few cold ones.
The lack of beer has got to be hurting morale. If I were George Bush I'd level with the Saudis.
I'd tell them, "Read my lips. My boys have got to have some beer."
Can you imagine being 22 years old, being sent to a glorified sand box and not knowing when you'll get home or even IF you'll get home, and some guy dressed in something that looks like he stole off a bed in a Holiday Inn telling you you can't have a lousy beer after you get off duty?
This is ridiculous. This is unfair. This is an issue that should have come up before and the president should deal with now.
I'm serious. Tell the Saudis to stick it.
If the government won't pick up the tab, I'm certain the American people will be willing to foot the bill for a beer lift to Saudi Arabia.
What are the Saudis going to do if we ignore their no-beer rule? Ask us to leave and have to depend on shaky allies to defend them against Saddam Hussein?
Of course not.
Tell 'em to kiss our Buds and go drink their oil.
Where to put angular momentum?
This is a tough one. Up your ass! Woot!
"Anarchism",
from The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910.
ANARCHISM (from the Gr. an and archos, contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national and international temporary or more or less permanent - for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual protection, defence of the territory, and so on; and, on the other side, for the satisfaction of an ever-increasing number of scientific, artistic, literary and sociable needs. Moreover, such a society would represent nothing immutable. On the contrary - as is seen in organic life at large - harmony would (it is contended) result from an ever-changing adjustment and readjustment of equilibrium between the multitudes of forces and influences, and this adjustment would be the easier to obtain as none of the forces would enjoy a special protection from the state.
If, it is contended, society were organized on these principles, man would not be limited in the free exercise of his powers in productive work by a capitalist monopoly, maintained by the state; nor would he be limited in the exercise of his will by a fear of punishment, or by obedience towards individuals or metaphysical entities, which both lead to depression of initiative and servility of mind. He would be guided in his actions by his own understanding, which necessarily would bear the impression of a free action and reaction between his own self and the ethical conceptions of his surroundings. Man would thus be enabled to obtain the full development of all his faculties, intellectual, artistic and moral, without being hampered by overwork for the monopolists, or by the servility and inertia of mind of the great number. He would thus be able to reach full individualization, which is not possible either under the present system of individualism, or under any system of state socialism in the so-called Volkstaat (popular state).
The anarchist writers consider, moreover, that their conception is not a utopia, constructed on the a priori method, after a few desiderata have been taken as postulates. It is derived, they maintain, from an analysis of tendencies that are at work already, even though state socialism may find a temporary favour with the reformers. The progress of modern technics, which wonderfully simplifies the production of all the necessaries of life; the growing spirit of independence, and the rapid spread of free initiative and free understanding in all branches of activity - including those which formerly were considered as the proper attribution of church and state - are steadily reinforcing the no-government tendency.
As to their economical conceptions, the anarchists, in common with all socialists, of whom they constitute the left wing, maintain that the now prevailing system of private ownership in land, and our capitalist production for the sake of profits, represent a monopoly which runs against both the principles of justice and the dictates of utility. They are the main obstacle which prevents the successes of modern technics from being brought into the service of all, so as to produce general well-being. The anarchists consider the wage-system and capitalist production altogether as an obstacle to progress. But they point out also that the state was, and continues to be, the chief instrument for permitting the few to monopolize the land, and the capitalists to appropriate for themselves a quite disproportionate share of the yearly accumulated surplus of production. Consequently, while combating the present monopolization of land, and capitalism altogether, the anarchists combat with the same energy the state, as the main support of that system. Not this or that special form, but the state altogether, whether it be a monarchy or even a republic governed by means of the referendum.
The state organization, having always been, both in ancient and modern history (Macedonian Empire, Roman Empire, modern European states grown up on the ruins of the autonomous cities), the instrument for establishing monopolies in favour of the ruling minorities, cannot be made to work for the destruction of these monopolies. The anarchists consider, therefore, that to hand over to the state all the main sources of economical life - the land, the mines, the railways, banking, insurance, and so on - as also the management of all the main branches of industry, in addition to all the functions already accumulated in its hands (education, state- supported religions, defence of the territory, etc.), would mean to create a new instrument of tyranny. State capitalism would only increase the powers of bureaucracy and capitalism. True progress lies in the direction of decentralization, both territorial and functional, in the development of the spirit of local and personal initiative, and of free federation from the simple to the compound, in lieu of the present hierarchy from the centre to the periphery.
In common with most socialists, the anarchists recognize that, like all evolution in nature, the slow evolution of society is followed from time to time by periods of accelerated evolution which are called revolutions; and they think that the era of revolutions is not yet closed. Periods of rapid changes will follow the periods of slow evolution, and these periods must be taken advantage of - not for increasing and widening the powers of the state, but for reducing them, through the organization in every township or commune of the local groups of producers and consumers, as also the regional, and eventually the international, federations of these groups.
In virtue of the above principles the anarchists refuse to be party to the present state organization and to support it by infusing fresh blood into it. They do not seek to constitute, and invite the working men not to constitute, political parties in the parliaments. Accordingly, since the foundation of the International Working Men's Association in 1864-1866, they have endeavoured to promote their ideas directly amongst the labour organizations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle against capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary legislation.
The historical development of anarchism
The conception of society just sketched, and the tendency which is its dynamic expression, have always existed in mankind, in opposition to the governing hierarchic conception and tendency - now the one and now the other taking the upper hand at different periods of history. To the former tendency we owe the evolution, by the masses themselves, of those institutions - the clan, the village community, the guild, the free medieval city - by means of which the masses resisted the encroachments of the conquerors and the power-seeking minorities. The same tendency asserted itself with great energy in the great religious movements of medieval times, especially in the early movements of the reform and its forerunners. At the same time it evidently found its expression in the writings of some thinkers, since the times of Lao-tsze, although, owing to its non-scholastic and popular origin, it obviously found less sympathy among the scholars than the opposed tendency.
As has been pointed out by Prof. Adler in his Geschichte des Sozialismus und Kommunismus, Aristippus (b. c. 430 BC), one of the founders of the Cyrenaic school, already taught that the wise must not give up their liberty to the state, and in reply to a question by Socrates he said that he did not desire to belong either to the governing or the governed class. Such an attitude, however, seems to have been dictated merely by an Epicurean attitude towards the life of the masses.
The best exponent of anarchist philosophy in ancient Greece was Zeno (342-267 or 270 BC), from Crete, the founder of the Stoic philosophy, who distinctly opposed his conception of a free community without government to the state-utopia of Plato. He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual - remarking already that, while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct - that of sociability. When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the cosmos. They will have no need of law-courts or police, will have no temples and no public worship, and use no money - free gifts taking the place of the exchanges. Unfortunately, the writings of Zeno have not reached us and are only known through fragmentary quotations. However, the fact that his very wording is similar to the wording now in use, shows how deeply is laid the tendency of human nature of which he was the mouthpiece.
In medieval times we find the same views on the state expressed by the illustrious bishop of Alba, Marco Girolamo Vida, in his first dialogue De dignitate reipublicae (Ferd. Cavalli, in Mem. dell'Istituto Veneto, xiii.; Dr E. Nys, Researches in the History of Economics). But it is especially in several early Christian movements, beginning with the ninth century in Armenia, and in the preachings of the early Hussites, particularly Chojecki, and the early Anabaptists, especially Hans Denk (cf. Keller, Ein Apostel der Wiedertaufer), that one finds the same ideas forcibly expressed - special stress being laid of course on their moral aspects.
Rabelais and Fenelon, in their utopias, have also expressed similar ideas, and they were also current in the eighteenth century amongst the French Encyclopaedists, as may be concluded from separate expressions occasionally met with in the writings of Rousseau, from Diderot's Preface to the Voyage of Bougainville, and so on. However, in all probability such ideas could not be developed then, owing to the rigorous censorship of the Roman Catholic Church.
These ideas found their expression later during the great French Revolution. While the Jacobins did all in their power to centralize everything in the hands of the government, it appears now, from recently published documents, that the masses of the people, in their municipalities and 'sections', accomplished a considerable constructive work. They appropriated for themselves the election of the judges, the organization of supplies and equipment for the army, as also for the large cities, work for the unemployed, the management of charities, and so on. They even tried to establish a direct correspondence between the 36,000 communes of France through the intermediary of a special board, outside the National Assembly (cf. Sigismund Lacroix, Actes de la commune de Paris).
It was Godwin, in his Enquiry concerning Political Justice (2 vols., 1793), who was the first to formulate the political and economical conceptions of anarchism, even though he did not give that name to the ideas developed in his remarkable work. Laws, he wrote, are not a product of the wisdom of our ancestors: they are the product of their passions, their timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. The remedy they offer is worse than the evils they pretend to cure. If and only if all laws and courts were abolished, and the decisions in the arising contests were left to reasonable men chosen for that purpose, real justice would gradually be evolved. As to the state, Godwin frankly claimed its abolition. A society, he wrote, can perfectly well exist without any government: only the communities should be small and perfectly autonomous. Speaking of property, he stated that the rights of every one 'to every substance capable of contributing to the benefit of a human being' must be regulated by justice alone: the substance must go 'to him who most wants it'. His conclusion was communism. Godwin, however, had not the courage to maintain his opinions. He entirely rewrote later on his chapter on property and mitigated his communist views in the second edition of Political Justice (8vo, 1796).
Proudhon was the first to use, in 1840 (Qu'est-ce que la propriete? first memoir), the name of anarchy with application to the no government state of society. The name of 'anarchists' had been freely applied during the French Revolution by the Girondists to those revolutionaries who did not consider that the task of the Revolution was accomplished with the overthrow of Louis XVI, and insisted upon a series of economical measures being taken (the abolition of feudal rights without redemption, the return to the village communities of the communal lands enclosed since 1669, the limitation of landed property to 120 acres, progressive income-tax, the national organization of exchanges on a just value basis, which already received a beginning of practical realization, and so on).
Now Proudhon advocated a society without government, and used the word anarchy to describe it. Proudhon repudiated, as is known, all schemes of communism, according to which mankind would be driven into communistic monasteries or barracks, as also all the schemes of state or state-aided socialism which were advocated by Louis Blanc and the collectivists. When he proclaimed in his first memoir on property that 'Property is theft', he meant only property in its present, Roman-law, sense of 'right of use and abuse'; in property-rights, on the other hand, understood in the limited sense of possession, he saw the best protection against the encroachments of the state. At the same time he did not want violently to dispossess the present owners of land, dwelling-houses, mines, factories and so on. He preferred to attain the same end by rendering capital incapable of earning interest; and this he proposed to obtain by means of a national bank, based on the mutual confidence of all those who are engaged in production, who would agree to exchange among themselves their produces at cost-value, by means of labour cheques representing the hours of labour required to produce every given commodity. Under such a system, which Proudhon described as 'Mutuellisme', all the exchanges of services would be strictly equivalent. Besides, such a bank would be enabled to lend money without interest, levying only something like I per cent, or even less, for covering the cost of administration. Everyone being thus enabled to borrow the money that would be required to buy a house, nobody would agree to pay any more a yearly rent for the use of it. A general 'social liquidation' would thus be rendered easy, without violent expropriation. The same applied to mines, railways, factories and so on.
In a society of this type the state would be useless. The chief relations between citizens would be based on free agreement and regulated by mere account keeping. The contests might be settled by arbitration. A penetrating criticism of the state and all possible forms of government, and a deep insight into all economic problems, were well-known characteristics of Proudhon's work.
It is worth noticing that French mutualism had its precursor in England, in William Thompson, who began by mutualism before he became a communist, and in his followers John Gray (A Lecture on Human Happiness, 1825; The Social System, 1831) and J. F. Bray (Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy, 1839). It had also its precursor in America. Josiah Warren, who was born in 1798 (cf. W. Bailie, Josiah Warren, the First American Anarchist, Boston, 1900), and belonged to Owen's 'New Harmony', considered that the failure of this enterprise was chiefly due to the suppression of individuality and the lack of initiative and responsibility. These defects, he taught, were inherent to every scheme based upon authority and the community of goods. He advocated, therefore, complete individual liberty. In 1827 he opened in Cincinnati a little country store which was the first 'equity store', and which the people called 'time store', because it was based on labour being exchanged hour for hour in all sorts of produce. 'Cost - the limit of price', and consequently 'no interest', was the motto of his store, and later on of his 'equity village', near New York, which was still in existence in 1865. Mr Keith's 'House of Equity' at Boston, founded in 1855, is also worthy of notice.
While the economical, and especially the mutual-banking, ideas of Proudhon found supporters and even a practical application in the United States, his political conception of anarchy found but little echo in France, where the Christian socialism of Lamennais and the Fourierists, and the state socialism of Louis Blanc and the followers of Saint-Simon, were dominating. These ideas found, however, some temporary support among the left-wing Hegelians in Germany, Moses Hess in 1843, and Karl Grün in 1845, who advocated anarchism. Besides, the authoritarian communism of Wilhelm Weitling having given origin to opposition amongst the Swiss working men, Wilhelm Marr gave expression to it in the forties.
On the other side, individualist anarchism found, also in Germany, its fullest expression in Max Stirner (Kaspar Schmidt), whose remarkable works (Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum and articles contributed to the Rheinische Zeitung) remained quite overlooked until they were brought into prominence by John Henry Mackay.
Prof. V. Basch, in a very able introduction to his interesting book, L'lndividualisme anarchiste: Max Stirner (1904), has shown how the development of the German philosophy from Kant to Hegel, and 'the absolute' of Schelling and the Geist of Hegel, necessarily provoked, when the anti-Hegelian revolt began, the preaching of the same 'absolute' in the camp of the rebels. This was done by Stirner, who advocated, not only a complete revolt against the state and against the servitude which authoritarian communism would impose upon men, but also the full liberation of the individual from all social and moral bonds - the rehabilitation of the 'I', the supremacy of the individual, complete 'amoralism', and the 'association of the egotists'. The final conclusion of that sort of individual anarchism has been indicated by Prof. Basch. It maintains that the aim of all superior civilization is, not to permit all members of the community to develop in a normal way, but to permit certain better endowed individuals 'fully to develop', even at the cost of the happiness and the very existence of the mass of mankind. It is thus a return towards the most common individual ism, advocated by all the would-be superior minorities, to which indeed man owes in his history precisely the state and the rest, which these individualists combat. Their individualism goes so far as to end in a negation of their own starting-point - to say nothing of the impossibility for the individual to attain a really full development in the conditions of oppression of the masses by the 'beautiful aristocracies'. His development would remain unilateral. This is why this direction of thought, notwithstanding its undoubtedly correct and useful advocacy of the full development of each individuality, finds a hearing only in limited artistic and literary circles.
Anarchism in the International Working Men's Association
A general depression in the propaganda of all fractions of socialism followed, as is known, after the defeat of the uprising of the Paris working men in June 1848 and the fall of the Republic. All the socialist press was gagged during the reaction period, which lasted fully twenty years. Nevertheless, even anarchist thought began to make some progress, namely in the writings of Bellegarrique (Caeurderoy), and especially Joseph Déjacque (Les Lazareacute'ennes, L 'Humanisphère, an anarchist-communist utopia, lately discovered and reprinted). The socialist movement revived only after 1864, when some French working men, all 'mutualists', meeting in London during the Universal Exhibition with English followers of Robert Owen, founded the International Working Men's Association. This association developed very rapidly and adopted a policy of direct economical struggle against capitalism, without interfering in the political parliamentary agitation, and this policy was followed until 1871. However, after the Franco-German War, when the International Association was prohibited in France after the uprising of the Commune, the German working men, who had received manhood suffrage for elections to the newly constituted imperial parliament, insisted upon modifying the tactics of the International, and began to build up a Social Democratic political party. This soon led to a division in the Working Men's Association, and the Latin federations, Spanish, Italian, Belgian and Jurassic (France could not be represented), constituted among themselves a Federal union which broke entirely with the Marxist general council of the International. Within these federations developed now what may be described as modern anarchism. After the names of 'Federalists' and 'Anti- authoritarians' had been used for some time by these federations the name of 'anarchists', which their adversaries insisted upon applying to them, prevailed, and finally it was revindicated.
Bakunin (q.v.) soon became the leading spirit among these Latin federations for the development of the principles of anarchism, which he did in a number of writings, pamphlets and letters. He demanded the complete abolition of the state, which -- he wrote -- is a product of religion, belongs to a lower state of civilization, represents the negation of liberty, and spoils even that which it undertakes to do for the sake of general well-being. The state was an historically necessary evil, but its complete extinction will be, sooner or later, equally necessary. Repudiating all legislation, even when issuing from universal suffrage, Bakunin claimed for each nation, each region and each commune, full autonomy, so long as it is not a menace to its neighbours, and full independence for the individual, adding that one becomes really free only when, and in proportion as, all others are free. Free federations of the communes would constitute free nations.
As to his economical conceptions, Bakunin described himself, in common with his Federalist comrades of the International (César De Paepe, James Guillaume, Schwitzguébel), a 'collectivist anarchist' - not in the sense of Vidal and Pecqueur in the 1840s, or of their modern Social Democratic followers, but to express a state of things in which all necessaries for production are owned in common by the labour groups and the free communes, while the ways of retribution of labour, communist or otherwise, would be settled by each group for itself. Social revolution, the near approach of which was foretold at that time by all socialists, would be the means of bringing into life the new conditions.
The Jurassic, the Spanish and the Italian federations and sections of the International Working Men's Association, as also the French, the German and the American anarchist groups, were for the next years the chief centres of anarchist thought and propaganda. They refrained from any participation in parliamentary politics, and always kept in close contact with the labour organizations. However, in the second half of the 'eighties and the early 'nineties of the nineteenth century, when the influence of the anarchists began to be felt in strikes, in the 1st of May demonstrations, where they promoted the idea of a general strike for an eight hours' day, and in the anti-militarist propaganda in the army, violent prosecutions were directed against them, especially in the Latin countries (including physical torture in the Barcelona Castle) and the United States (the execution of five Chicago anarchists in 1887). Against these prosecutions the anarchists retaliated by acts of violence which in their turn were followed by more executions from above, and new acts of revenge from below. This created in the general public the impression that violence is the substance of anarchism, a view repudiated by its supporters, who hold that in reality violence is resorted to by all parties in proportion as their open action is obstructed by repression, and exceptional laws render them outlaws. (Cf. Anarchism and Outrage, by C. M. Wilson, and Report of the Spanish Atrocities Committee, in 'Freedom Pamphlets'; A Concise History of the Great Trial of the Chicago Anarchists, by Dyer Lum (New York, 1886); The Chicago Martyrs: Speeches, etc.).
Anarchism continued to develop, partly in the direction of Proudhonian 'mutuellisme', but chiefly as communist-anarchism, to which a third direction, Christian- anarchism, was added by Leo Tolstoy, and a fourth, which might be ascribed as literary-anarchism, began amongst some prominent modern writers.
The ideas of Proudhon, especially as regards mutual banking, corresponding with those of Josiah Warren, found a considerable following in the United States, creating quite a school, of which the main writers are Stephen Pearl Andrews, William Grene, Lysander Spooner (who began to write in 1850, and whose unfinished work, Natural Law, was full of promise), and several others, whose names will be found in Dr Nettlau's Bibliographie de l'anarchie.
A prominent position among the individualist anarchists in America has been occupied by Benjamin R. Tucker, whose journal Liberty was started in 1881 and whose conceptions are a combination of those of Proudhon with those of Herbert Spencer. Starting from the statement that anarchists are egotists, strictly speaking, and that every group of individuals, be it a secret league of a few persons, or the Congress of the United States, has the right to oppress all mankind, provided it has the power to do so, that equal liberty for all and absolute equality ought to be the law, and 'mind every one your own business' is the unique moral law of anarchism, Tucker goes on to prove that a general and thorough application of these principles would be beneficial and would offer no danger, because the powers of every individual would be limited by the exercise of the equal rights of all others. He further indicated (following H. Spencer) the difference which exists between the encroachment on somebody's rights and resistance to such an encroachment; between domination and defence: the former being equally condemnable, whether it be encroachment of a criminal upon an individual, or the encroachment of one upon all others, or of all others upon one; while resistance to encroachment is defensible and necessary. For their self-defence, both the citizen and the group have the right to any violence, including capital punishment. Violence is also justified for enforcing the duty of keeping an agreement. Tucker thus follows Spencer, and, like him, opens (in the present writer's opinion) the way for reconstituting under the heading of 'defence' all the functions of the state. His criticism of the present state is very searching, and his defence of the rights of the individual very powerful. As regards his economical views B. R. Tucker follows Proudhon.
The individualist anarchism of the American Proudhonians finds, however, but little sympathy amongst the working masses. Those who profess it - they are chiefly 'intellectuals' - soon realize that the individualization they so highly praise is not attainable by individual efforts, and either abandon the ranks of the anarchists, and are driven into the liberal individualism of the classical economist or they retire into a sort of Epicurean amoralism, or superman theory, similar to that of Stirner and Nietzsche. The great bulk of the anarchist working men prefer the anarchist-communist ideas which have gradually evolved out of the anarchist collectivism of the International Working Men's Association. To this direction belong - to name only the better known exponents of anarchism Elisée Reclus, Jean Grave, Sebastien Faure, Emile Pouget in France; Errico Malatesta and Covelli in Italy; R. Mella, A. Lorenzo, and the mostly unknown authors of many excellent manifestos in Spain; John Most amongst the Germans; Spies, Parsons and their followers in the United States, and so on; while Domela Nieuwenhuis occupies an intermediate position in Holland. The chief anarchist papers which have been published since 1880 also belong to that direction; while a number of anarchists of this direction have joined the so-called syndicalist movement- the French name for the non-political labour movement, devoted to direct struggle with capitalism, which has lately become so prominent in Europe.
As one of the anarchist-communist direction, the present writer for many years endeavoured to develop the following ideas: to show the intimate, logical connection which exists between the modern philosophy of natural sciences and anarchism; to put anarchism on a scientific basis by the study of the tendencies that are apparent now in society and may indicate its further evolution; and to work out the basis of anarchist ethics. As regards the substance of anarchism itself, it was Kropotkin's aim to prove that communism at least partial - has more chances of being established than collectivism, especially in communes taking the lead, and that free, or anarchist-communism is the only form of communism that has any chance of being accepted in civilized societies; communism and anarchy are therefore two terms of evolution which complete each other, the one rendering the other possible and acceptable. He has tried, moreover, to indicate how, during a revolutionary period, a large city - if its inhabitants have accepted the idea could organize itself on the lines of free communism; the city guaranteeing to every inhabitant dwelling, food and clothing to an extent corresponding to the comfort now available to the middle classes only, in exchange for a half-day's, or five-hours' work; and how all those things which would be considered as luxuries might be obtained by everyone if he joins for the other half of the day all sorts of free associations pursuing all possible aims - educational, literary, scientific, artistic, sports and so on. In order to prove the first of these assertions he has analysed the possibilities of agriculture and industrial work, both being combined with brain work. And in order to elucidate the main factors of human evolution, he has analysed the part played in history by the popular constructive agencies of mutual aid and the historical role of the state.
Without naming himself an anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, like his predecessors in the popular religious movements of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Chojecki, Denk and many others, took the anarchist position as regards the state and property rights, deducing his conclusions from the general spirit of the teachings of the Christ and from the necessary dictates of reason. With all the might of his talent he made (especially in The Kingdom of God in Yourselves) a powerful criticism of the church, the state and law altogether, and especially of the present property laws. He describes the state as the domination of the wicked ones, supported by brutal force. Robbers, he says, are far less dangerous than a well-organized government. He makes a searching criticism of the prejudices which are current now concerning the benefits conferred upon men by the church, the state and the existing distribution of property, and from the teachings of the Christ he deduces the rule of non-resistance and the absolute condemnation of all wars. His religious arguments are, however, so well combined with arguments borrowed from a dispassionate observation of the present evils, that the anarchist portions of his works appeal to the religious and the non-religious reader alike.
It would be impossible to represent here, in a short sketch, the penetration, on the one hand, of anarchist ideas into modern literature, and the influence, on the other hand, which the libertarian ideas of the best contemporary writers have exercised upon the development of anarchism. One ought to consult the ten big volumes of the Supplément Littéraire to the paper La Révolte and later the Temps Nouveaux, which contain reproductions from the works of hundreds of modern authors expressing anarchist ideas, in order to realize how closely anarchism is connected with all the intellectual movement of our own times. J. S. Mill's Liberty, Spencer's Individual versus the State, Marc Guyau's Morality without Obligation or Sanction, and Fouillée's La Morale, I'art et la religion, the works of Multatuli (E. Douwes Dekker), Richard Wagner's Art and Revolution, the works of Nietzsche, Emerson, W. Lloyd Garrison, Thoreau, Alexander Herzen, Edward Carpenter and so on; and in the domain of fiction, the dramas of Ibsen, the poetry of Walt Whitman, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Zola's Paris and Le Travail, the latest works of Merezhkovsky, and an infinity of works of less known authors, are full of ideas which show how closely anarchism is interwoven with the work that is going on in modern thought in the same direction of enfranchisement of man from the bonds of the state as well as from those of capitalism.