User: Commienst

Re:NASA is this interesting

On: Hack in Space

I see, I am not the only one into the copy and paste around here.

Syndicalism and Anarchism

On: Hack in Space

Syndicalism and Anarchism

The relationship between the labour movement and the progressive parties is an old and worn theme. But it is an ever topical one, and so it will remain while there are, on one hand, a mass of people plagued by urgent needs and driven by aspirations - at times passionate but always vague and indeterminate - to a better life, and on the other individuals and parties who have a specific view of the future and of the means to attain it, but whose plans and hopes are doomed to remain utopias ever out of reach unless they can win over the masses. And the subject is all the more important now that, after the catastrophes of war and of the post-war period, all are preparing, if only mentally, for a resumption of the activity which must follow upon the fall of the tyrannies that still rant and rage [across Europe] but are beginning to tremble. For this reason I shall try to clarify what, in my view, should be the anarchists' attitude to labour organisations.

Today, I believe, there is no-one, or almost no-one amongst us who would deny the usefulness of and the need for the labour movement as a mass means of material and moral advancement, as a fertile ground for propaganda and as an indispensable force for the social transformation that is our goal. There is no longer anyone who does not understand what the workers' organisation means, to us anarchists more than to anyone, believing as we do that the new social organisation must not and cannot be imposed by a new government by force but must result from the free cooperation of all. Moreover, the labour movement is now an important and universal institution. To oppose it would be to become the oppressors' accomplices; to ignore it would be to put us out of reach of people's everyday lives and condemn us to perpetual powerlessness. Yet, while everyone, or almost everyone, is in agreement on the usefulness and the need for the anarchists to take an active part in the labour movement and to be its supporters and promoters, we often disagree among ourselves on the methods, conditions and limitations of such involvement .

Many comrades would like the labour movement and anarchist movement to be one and the same thing and, where they are able for instance, in Spain and Argentina, and even to a certain extent in Italy, France, Germany, etc. - try to confer on the workers' organisations a clearly anarchist programme. These comrades are known as 'anarcho-syndicalists', or, if they get mixed up with others who really are not anarchists, call themselves 'revolutionary syndicalists'. There needs to be some explanation of the meaning of 'syndicalism' If it is a question of what one wants from the future, if, that is, by syndicalism is meant the form of social organisation that should replace capitalism and state organisation, then either it is the same thing as anarchy and is therefore a word that serves only to confuse or it is something different from anarchy and cannot therefore be accepted by anarchists. In fact, among the ideas and the proposals on the future which some syndicalists have put forward, there are some that are genuinely anarchist. But there are others which, under other names and other forms, reproduce the authoritarian structure which underlies the cause of the ills about which we are now protesting, and which, therefore, have nothing to do with anarchy But it is not syndicalism as a social system which I mean to deal with, because it is not this which can determine the current actions of the anarchists with regard to the labour movement.

I am dealing here with the labour movement under a capitalist and state regime and the name syndicalism includes all the workers' organisations, all the various unions set up to resist the oppression of the bosses and to lessen or altogether wipe out the exploitation of human labour by the owners of the raw materials and means of production. Now I say that these organisations cannot be anarchist and that it does no good to claim that they are, because if they were they would be failing in their purpose and would not serve the ends that those anarchists who are involved in them propose. A Union is set up to defend the day to day interests of the workers and to improve their conditions as much as possible before they can be in any position to make the revolution and by it change today's wage-earners into free workers, freely associating for the benefit of all

For a union to serve its own ends and at the same time act as a means of education and ground for propaganda aimed at radical social change, it needs to gather together all workers - or at least those workers who look to an improvement of their conditions - and to be able to put up some resistance to the bosses. Can it possibly wait for all the workers to become anarchists before inviting them to organise themselves and before admitting them into the organisation, thereby reversing the natural order of propaganda and psychological development and forming the resistance organisation when there is no longer any need, since the masses would already be capable of making the revolution? In such a case the union would be a duplicate of the anarchist grouping and would be powerless either to obtain improvements or to make revolution. Or would it content itself with committing the anarchist programme to paper and with formal, unthought-out support, and bringing together people who, sheeplike, follow the organisers, only then to scatter and pass over to the enemy on the first occasion they are called upon to show themselves to be serious anarchists?

Syndicalism (by which I mean the practical variety and not the theoretical sort, which everyone tailors to their own shape) is by nature reformist. All that can be expected of it is that the reforms it fights for and achieves are of a kind and obtained in such a way that they serve revolutionary education and propaganda and leave the way open for the making of ever greater demands. Any fusion or confusion between the anarchist and revolutionary movement and the syndicalist movement ends either by rendering the union helpless as regards its specific aims or with toning down, falsifying and extinguishing the anarchist spirit. A union can spring up with a socialist, revolutionary or anarchist programme and it is, indeed, with programmes of this sort that the various workers' programmes originate. But it is while they are weak and impotent that they are faithful to the programme - while, that is, they remain propaganda groups set up and run by a few zealous and committed men, rather than organisations ready for effective action. Later, as they manage to attract the masses and acquire the strength to claim and impose improvements, the original programme becomes an empty formula, to which no-one pays any more attention. Tactics adapt to the needs of the moment and the enthusiasts of the early days either themselves adapt or cede their place to 'practical' men concerned with today, and with no thought for tomorrow.

There are, of course, comrades who, though in the first ranks of the union movement, remain sincerely and enthusiastically anarchist, as there are workers' groupings inspired by anarchist ideas. But it would be too easy a work of criticism to seek out the thousands of cases in which, in everyday practice, these men and these groupings contradict anarchist ideas. Hard necessity? I agree. Pure anarchism cannot be a practical solution while people are forced to deal with bosses and with authority. The mass of the people cannot be left to their own devices when they refuse to do so and ask for, demand, leaders. But why confuse anarchism with what anarchism is not and take upon ourselves, as anarchists, responsibility for the various transactions and agreements that need to be made on the very grounds that the masses are not anarchist, even where they belong to an organisation that has written an anarchist programme into its constitution? In my opinion the anarchists should not want the unions to be anarchist. The anarchists must work among themselves for anarchist ends, as individuals, groups and federations of groups. In the same way as there are, or should be, study and discussion groups, groups for written or spoken propaganda in public, cooperative groups, groups working within factories and workshops, fields, barracks, schools, etc., so they should form groups within the various organisations that wage class war. Naturally the ideal would be for everyone to be anarchist and for all organisations to work anarchically. But it is clear that if that were the case, there would be no need to organise for the struggle against the bosses, because the bosses would no longer exist.

In present circumstances, given the degree of development of the mass of the people amongst which they work, the anarchist groups should not demand that these organisations be anarchist, but try to draw them as close as possible to anarchist tactics. If the survival of the organisation and the needs and wishes of the organised make it really necessary to compromise and enter into muddied negotiations with authority and the employers, so be it. But let it be the responsibility of others, not the anarchists, whose mission is to point to the inadequacy and fragility of all improvements that are made within a capitalist society and to drive the struggle on toward ever more radical solutions. The anarchists within the unions should strive to ensure that they remain open to all workers of whatever opinion or party on the sole condition that there is solidarity in the struggle against the bosses. They should oppose the corporatist spirit and any attempt to monopolise labour or organisation. They should prevent the Unions from becoming the tools of the politicians for electoral or other authoritarian ends; they should preach and practice direct action, decentralisation, autonomy and free initiative. They should strive to help members learn how to participate directly in the life of the organisation and to do without leaders and permanent officials. They must, in short, remain anarchists, remain always in close touch with anarchists and remember that the workers' organisation is not the end but just one of the means, however important, of preparing the way for the achievement of anarchism.

April-May 1925

Re:NASA these days

On: Hack in Space

I think an astronaut should die. It has been a while since they had a fatal accident. The only way NASA is interesting is when they fuck shit up, like Challenger.

Transformers the Movie (Script)

On: Hack in Space

This movie fucking rocked.

-----{Scene 1}
[Unicron's theme]
(A binary red/blue giant system.
Something sails past--something huge, and spherical, with a spindly ring around it. UNICRON. Flies past. We see, through his mouth, a small planet which he is approaching.)

(On the planet: the robotic inhabitants go about their daily business, unaware of the fate about to befall them...two of them, KRANIX and ARBLUS, walk down a corridor, carrying a tray of chemicals to a scientist. The table shakes; the tray crashes off. They look out a
window.)

KRANIX: Arblus, look! It's Unicron!

(Unicron activates his tractor beam and starts tearing up the planet. Rock, people, whole buildings are torn up. A pair of huge pincers
tear into the surface.)

KRANIX: The ships, get to the ships! It's our only chance--

(One ship escapes; another is caught and sucked in. We tour Unicron's digestive tract. His ring lights up with energy. He sails off.)

[The Transformers theme]
{Opening credits}

-----{Scene 2}
(Cybertron and its moons)

NARRATOR: It is the year 2005. The treacherous Decepticons have conquered the Autobots' home planet of Cybertron.

(LASERBEAK flies past)

NARRATOR: But from secret staging grounds on two of Cybertron's moons, the valiant Autobots prepare to retake their homeland.

(Laserbeak finds command station on Moon 1. Both OPTIMUS PRIME and IRONHIDE are in the same huge monitor-filled room)

OPTIMUS PRIME: Ironhide, report to me at once!

IRONHIDE: (Looking into a screen which shows images of Decepticons on Cybertron) Every time I look into a monitor, Prime, my circuits sizzle. When are we gonna start bustin'
Deceptichops?

OPTIMUS PRIME: I want you to make a special run to Autobot City on Earth--

IRONHIDE: But Prime--

OPTIMUS PRIME: Listen, Ironhide, we don't have enough energon cubes to power a full-scale assault. Ready the shuttle for launch.

IRONHIDE: Your days are numbered now, Decepticreeps!
(Runs out of room, transforms, drives down ramp)

OPTIMUS PRIME: Jazz, report security status.

JAZZ: (Onscreen, elsewhere in base)
No sign of Decepticons here, Prime.

OPTIMUS PRIME: What about Moonbase 2?

JAZZ: Jazz to Moonbase 2. Jazz to Moonbase 2.

BUMBLEBEE: (Onscreen) Bumblebee and Spike here.

JAZZ: We're about to send up a shuttle. Any Decepticon shenanigans in your area?

BUMBLEBEE: All clear, Jazz.

SPIKE: (Wearing an EXOSUIT)
Hey, Ironhide, tell my son Daniel that I miss him, and tell him not to worry: I'll be coming home just as soon as we kick Megatron's tail across the galaxy!

IRONHIDE: Will do, Spike.

OPTIMUS PRIME: Cliffjumper, commence countdown.

CLIFFJUMPER: Five-four-three-two-one-BLASTOFF!

(Shuttle engines ignite, and it roars off the surface)

OPTIMUS PRIME: Now all we need is a little energon, and a lot of luck.

(Laserbeak flies back to Cybertron)

Re:NASA these days

On: Hack in Space

Informative my fucking ass. For all the fucking money that is pissed into NASA, they could do a lot more. NASA is dying, face it.

Read this for the real reason why NASA is so important in the eyes of the government.

Re:The Real Deal

On: Hack in Space

Well if it is a server, I they should do whatever is fastest. If it faster to reboot, just fucking reboot. Uptime matters.

Re:Wow

On: Hack in Space

No. Jews and niggers are the causes of all lifes problems--and their solution. 'Cept you have to kill'em for the solution!

Shucks. Bessy get my best rope, I'm'a gettin' a nigger.

Re:It was fun having karma

On: Hack in Space

There are more trolls responding to this story than regular loosers. Ergo, slashdot is dying!

The Great Errico Malatesta

On: Hack in Space

Class struggle or Class hatred?
About my trial published in
(Umanità Nova, n. 137, September 20, 1921)

I expressed to the jury in Milan some ideas about class struggle and proletariat that raised criticism and amazement. I better come back to those ideas.

I protested indignantly against the accusation of inciting to hatred; I explained that in my propaganda I had always sought to demonstrate that the social wrongs do not depend on the wickedness of one master or the other, one governer or the other, but rather on masters and governments as institutions; therefore, the remedy does not lie in changing the individual rulers, instead it is necessary to demolish the principle itself by which men dominate over men; I also explained that I had always stressed that proletarians are not individually better than bourgeois, as shown by the fact that a worker behaves like an ordinary bourgeois, and even worse, when he gets by some accident to a position of wealth and command.

Such statements were distorted, counterfeited, put in a bad light by the bourgeois press, and the reason is clear. The duty of the press paid to defend the interests of police and sharks, is to hide the real nature of anarchism from the public, and seek to accredit the tale about anarchists being full of hatred and destroyers; the press does that by duty, but we have to acknowledge that they often do it in good faith, out of pure and simple ignorance. Since journalism, which once was a calling, decayed into mere job and business, journalists have lost not only their ethical sense, but also the intellectual honesty of refraining from talking about what they do not know.

Let us forget about hack writers, then, and let us talk about those who differ from us in their ideas, and often only in their way of expressing ideas, but still remain our friends, because they sincerely aim at the same goal we aim at.

Amazement is completely unmotivated in these people, so much so that I would tend to think it is affected. They cannot ignore that I have been saying and writing those things for fifty years, and that the same things have been said by hundreds and thousands of anarchists, at my same time and before me.

Let us rather talk about the dissent.

There are the "worker-minded" people, who consider having callous hands as being divinely imbued with all merits and all virtues; they protest if you dare talking about people and mankind, failing to swear on the sacred name of proletariat.

Now, it is a truth that history has made the proletariat the main instrument of the next social change, and that those fighting for the establishment of a society where all human beings are free and endowed with all the means to exercise their freedom, must rely mainly on the proletariat.

As today the hoarding of natural resources and capital created by the work of past and present generations is the main cause of the subjection of the masses and of all social wrongs, it is natural for those who have nothing, and therefore are more directly and clearly interested in sharing the means of production, to be the main agents of the necessary expropriation. This is why we address our propaganda more particularly to the proletarians, whose conditions of life, on the other hand, make it often impossible for them to rise and conceive a superior ideal. However, this is no reason for turning the poor into a fetish just because he is poor; neither it is a reason for encouraging him to believe that he is intrinsically superior, and that a condition surely not coming from his merit or his will gives him the right to do wrong to the others as the others did wrong to him. The tyranny of callous hands (which in practice is still the tyranny of few who no longer have callous hands, even if they had once), would not be less tough and wicked, and would not bear less lasting evils than the tyranny of gloved hands. Perhaps it would be less enlightened and more brutal: that is all.

Poverty would not be the horrible thing it is, if it did not produce moral brutishness as well as material harm and physical degradation, when prolonged from generation to generation. The poor have different faults than those produced in the privileged classes by wealth and power, but not better ones.

If the bourgeoisie produces the likes of Giolitti and Graziani and all the long succession of mankind's torturers, from the great conquerors to the avid and bloodsucking petty bosses, it also produces the likes of Cafiero, Reclus and Kropotkine, and the many people that in any epoch sacrificed their class privileges to an ideal. If the proletariat gave and gives so many heroes and martyrs of the cause of human redemption, it also gives off the white guards, the slaughterers, the traitors of their own brothers, without which the bourgeois tyranny could not last a single day.

How can hatred be raised to a principle of justice, to an enlightened spirit of demand, when it is clear that evil is everywhere, and it depends upon causes that go beyond individual will and responsibility?

Let there be as much class struggle as one wishes, if by class struggle one means the struggle of the exploited against the exploiters for the abolition of exploitation. That struggle is a way of moral and material elevation, and it is the main revolutionary force that can be relied on.

Let there be no hatred, though, because love and justice cannot arise from hatred. Hatred brings about revenge, desire to be over the enemy, need to consolidate one's superiority. Hatred can only be the foundation of new governments, if one wins, but it cannot be the foundation of anarchy.

Unfortunately, it is easy to understand the hatred of so many wretches whose bodies and sentiments are tormented and rent by society: however, as soon as the hell in which they live is lit up by an ideal, hatred disappears and a burning desire of fighting for the good of all takes over.

For this reason true haters cannot be found among our comrades, although there are many rhetoricians of hatred. They are like the poet, who is a good and peaceful father, but he sings of hatred, because this gives him the opportunity of composing good verses... or perhaps bad ones. They talk about hatred, but their hatred is made of love.

For this reason I love them, even if they call me names.

Politically Correct Language as a means of control

On: Hack in Space

AUTHOR: Solidarity Federation (Britain)

NOTE: This article is about how the upper class uses the laws of 'correct'
language to make lives hard for the working class. While this happens
everywhere, it's done from a British perspective. People in New Zealand and
Australia probably won't need to make many changes - people in the US and
non-English speaking countries will.

Also, it has a reference to collecting 200 pounds, which people outside Britain
will need to change to local currency.

'Breaking the laws of language'
Why will most people never be 'suitable' for reading the news? A guide to the
workings of the grammar police.

Careful what you say, the language police are just around the corner. Don't
let them catch you saying that. You'll be in trouble, that's not proper English.

OK, you won't get a fine or sent to jail, but they'll try to stop you passing GO
and collecting your 200 pounds. It's done very subtly, by making people feel
self-conscious and inadequate about their language. And then they start to
mumble, and are seen but not heard.

games grammar police play

Can I have another biscuit? You've got hands, so it's physically possible. Uh?
I didn't do nothing. Ah, so you mean you did do something? No!

What's odd about these cases is not the language of the first speaker, but the
reaction of the second. The message was understood perfectly well. What
sort of language user is deliberately awkward, slows down the whole
business, and makes the other person feel uneasy or embarrassed? Someone
who hasn't grasped what language is for. Not a linguist, certainly, but a
pedantic parent or columnist for The Mail, or someone aspiring to these
groups.

If we wanted to be pedantic (and it's a good laugh to take them on at their
own game) we could direct them to the philosopher of language, JL. Austin
and his Speech Act Theory. Like all the best theories, it was a brilliant flash of
common sense. Although we can often work out the sense of words in
isolation; as a social act, language can often have a different force once it's
used in context. 'That's right, just dump your dirty clothes all over the floor.'
On the surface, this looks like a congratulation plus a command. But even a
child can work out what the speaker actually means.

So why does this co-operative principle break down, once a child is speaking
to an adult? Power and status. It's a bit like turning clothing from a practical
and personal issue into a power game, dictating who must wear a tie round
their neck, where and when.(Only men, with suits, but not in bed as a sexual
aid, that's the advice.)

the nonsense of language laws

'You can't begin a sentence with 'but''. But, I just have! There's a bit of
nonsense for you, saying 'You can't' when you clearly can. Challenge the
language pedants, and they rely on two authorities: Latin and Maths. 'To
boldly go where no man has been before.' Don't split an infinitive. You
couldn't in Latin, because it was a single word with an ending. But in English
it's two words 'to go', so there is clearly an option of putting another word in
the middle. (There was a more pressing complaint about the Star Trek slogan
- Women went there too).

Two negatives make a positive. That's how it works in Maths. So, all
languages work in exactly the same way and they work like Maths? Plenty of
languages use double negatives: 'No hace? nada'- I didn't do nothing. We all
know that repetition is a way of emphasising a point.

who gets picked up on suspicion?

Repetition is a no no- when it suits them. 'I can't stand it, me.' is ignorant
repetition; 'I, myself, think...' is right posh. 'More nicer' and 'most biggest' are
wrong, but Shakespeare was the greatest English writer, so inventive and
expressive in quoted lines like 'More nearer' (Hamlet) 'This was the most
unkindest cut of all' (Julius Caesar). Whether something is right or wrong
depends on the status of the person, and it helps if they've been dead for
sometime.

top-down or bottom-up?

The fallacy is to have a 'top-down' view of language. Language was not
devised by one person, like a game, and it doesn't have rules like a game. The
inventor of Snakes and Ladders thought it up and dictates the rules- it only
works if everyone accepts that you go up ladders and down snakes. There
isn't even an elected governing body for language, like FIFA for football.
Language is NOT A GAME, with a Great Inventor in the Sky.

Try a 'bottom-up' view instead. Languages evolve gradually through contact
between groups of people, who need to find a way of communicating. There
can only be communication if people share agreed ways of expressing
meaning. The notion of a private language is so odd-if a person has their own
unique expression that no-one else recognises, it can't be a 'language'.

Children have no status. When they say 'Don't giggle me.' it's a mistake- you
can't use a noun as a verb. Oh, unless you're a businessman and want to
'table a motion' or 'chair a meeting'.

Advertising copywriters are a bit naughty about the rules of language too:
'You've been Tangoed' but, well, they're making loads of money, so we'll put
up with their funny ways. And it might be useful to have a few of their
catchy political slogans.

Poets? 'a grief ago'. A bit mad, some of them on drugs, but we'll make an

exception for culture. And we could turn it into exam fodder.

Humour? Again, it's probably best to stick with the death test. 'Fox hunting is
the pursuit of the inedible by the unspeakable.' Oscar Wilde has been dead so
long now, we can even overlook his sexual preferences.

Foreign speakers saying things like 'I burst myself into tears'? Come on, it's
not their language! The cliche is 'burst into tears'. Interesting, though, how the
new phrasing adds power to the image.

pushing together or pulling apart?

The way that languages develop is a delicate balance between two powerful
tendencies. Pushing in one direction is the need to conform with existing
conventions. The most obvious is the way infants absorb the language they
hear and experiment with those sounds to find ways to communicate.
Anyone plunged into another language environment has to try to pick up a
different set of ways to express themselves. (Up to now, we have demanded
that other peoples pick up our English language- a sort of invasion and
colonisation by language.) But this need to adapt happens for adult speakers
in our home environment- apart from all the different languages spoken in
England, there are so many varieties of English. Yes, they are referred to, in a
derogatory way, as dialects- the dialects of different regions and classes and
ages- but they survive because they work. The fact that they have little status

needs to be challenged. 'A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.' All
languages adapt and change because of contact between people. The more
contact, the more pressure to change.

That doesn't mean that we immediately take on every style of language we
come across. Language is a badge of identity. Some people want to maintain
an identity that is distinct and make very little shift in their style of speech;
others want to be taken as part of that group. We balance a need to fit in,
with a need to remain individual. Every person's language is as unique as
their fingerprints. You cannot pin a language down in a dictionary or
grammar book and say 'That IS THE English language.' Such books are a
snapshot of the language, out of date from the moment they are written.

Pulling in the other direction is the need to stretch the language, so that new
things can be expressed in different ways. Each new generation learns the
habits of the old and moves on. Nothing stays exactly the same and it's the
emerging generation that makes the changes: hairstyles, architecture, music.
And of course some people tut- is it nostalgia, need for stability, weariness?
Whatever, it's the conservatism of age. Pre-fabricated chunks of language,
cliches- we need them for practical reasons, like lack of time; we can't re-
invent the wheel every time we open our mouths. But someone has got to
start adapting the wheel or inventing new ways of travel.

Those who resist changes in a living language should have better reasons
than: 'That's not the way I was taught when I was a child.' What about good
reasons like: 'It's dishonest to use euphemisms to mask the realities of
warfare.' 'That's so longwinded and pompous, you're not getting your point
across.' If there IS a law of language, it is that it should be used as a skilful
tool for communication. Only complain if it doesn't work. People who
invent other laws are using language as a loaded weapon and they are
pointing it at people who have already had their voices stifled.

This statement by Maziotis is a good introduction

On: To The Pain

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:NASA these days

On: Hack in Space

I would like to continue the proud Slashdot tradition of grammar fascism by pointing out, it should he 'days' and not 'day's'.

Re:The easiest way to join is to,

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

European Annual Report

The European Union's drug agency, the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, released its annual overview of continental drug use trends and issues last week. While the report offered no stop-the-presses findings, it does provide an overview of drug use patterns and responses across the European Union. It is perhaps most notable for its recognition of
"socially integrated drug users," a concept alien to US drug warriors, and for its calm and thoughtful tone, a marked contrast with the hysterical edge that too often seeps into official US
drug policy pronouncements.

Among the review's findings:

* Cannabis remains the most widely used drug in Europe. Lifetime use ranged from a low of 10% in Finland to a high of 20-25% in Denmark, Spain, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Great
Britain. Interestingly, the study notes that in Greece and Sweden, two of Europe's most prohibitionist countries, lifetime use of inhalants is equal to or greater than that for cannabis.

* Cocaine smoking goes upscale. The report noted with some concern the emergence of cocaine smoking among youthful club goers. Citing "a new upmarket trend in cocaine smoking in
recreational nightlife," the report named Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain as countries where the phenomenon has been identified. Eschewing panicky moralism, the EMCDDA
calmly noted that "such nuances need to be fully understood for effective policy-making."

* Up to 4% of Europeans have tried ecstasy or amphetamines. The EMCDDA noted with concern increasing evidence of possible harmful effects to chronic or binge users. The use of ecstasy and other synthetic drugs appears to have stabilized, the report said, except in "some regions where cities or holiday resorts are more likely to attract young European tourists" and "urban areas where youth cultures are established." Ecstasy has spread beyond the rave scene, to bars, clubs and private settings, the report noted.

* HIV/AIDS remains an intractable problem and could be on the rise among drug-using populations in six countries, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland. Across Europe, female injection drug users report higher rates of infection than male users. "This may be due to their higher levels or different ways of needle sharing and/or higher sexual risk," the report noted.

The report, along with press releases and associated materials, is available in 12 languages at http://annualreport.emcdda.org online.

Higher Education Act Reform Campaign Gains New Endorsements

The campaign to repeal the Higher Education Act drug provision scored two more student government endorsements this week - Loyola University in Chicago and De Anza College in California's
Silicon Valley -- bringing the number of new student government endorsements this semester to nine and the total number to 81.

Please visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com to write to Congress and find out how to get involved with the campaign. Congress needs to hear from you so they know that people care about this issue; that is what will keep supportive members focused on keeping it on the Congressional agenda.

Please also call your US Representative to speak your mind with even greater impact. You can use the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or visit http://www.house.gov to look up their contact info yourself.

After Raiding CA Medical Marijuana Clubs, DEA Approves Marijuana Study

In the wake of controversial California medical marijuana raids that led to numerous pundits
questioning the priorities of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA recently
approved a University of California at San Diego Medical Center study. The DEA-approved research will examine the effects of marijuana on patients with multiple sclerosis and nerve pain associated with AIDS. Critics of the DEA's policy on medical marijuana contend that federal narcotics agents, unlike their counterparts overseas, are incapable of differentiating between tall industrial hemp stalks and short marijuana bushes. The few patients who currently receive federal marijuana grown in Mississippi complain that the government grown marijuana is of extremely low quality. This may affect the outcome of federally authorized medical marijuana research. In order to achieve the desired effect, U.S. government marijuana requires significantly more smoke inhalation than the high potency marijuana sold on the illicit market. Medical marijuana proponents contend that a minimal one or two puffs of potent marijuana is preferable to the repeat smoke inhalation that government marijuana requires.

John Zerzan

On: To The Pain

What is Anarchism?

John Zerzan

For decades an unwritten but universally-observed rule required that media avoid using the terms anarchism or anarchist. Such reference would tend to give legitimacy to a doctrine that was anathema to the powers that be. Under this ban only very odious references to these terms could be made. Namely, any breakdown of authority had to be portrayed as resulting in a completely awful situation; for example, the "anarchy" that allegedly reigns, from time to time, in places like Bosnia, Somalia, Beirut, etc.

But lately this has changed somewhat, at least in Eugene. The dreaded A-word has been used several times in the past couple of years and, even though generally applied in a pejorative sense, its political meaning is at least somewhat acknowledged. This usage has mainly occurred by reference to the late great lckv's Tea House in the Whiteaker district, and its coterie of anarchists. It was these anarchists who established a sort of haven for some of society's undesired, who held a benefit for Ted Kaczynski in May '96, who were harassed by police for their activist ways, etc.

For many an unanswered question remains: just what is anarchism?

Most simply, anarchy means "without rule." This implies not only a rejection of government but of all other forms of domination and power as well. This antiauthoritarian principle is generally thought to be grounded in autonomy for the individual. But how is such an outlook fleshed out? Disagreement begins here among anarchists.

Some eschew virtually all organization, as invariably tending toward bureaucracy and manipulation. This tendency emphasizes critique and/or direct action over organization; and it sometimes includes a rejection of the increasingly massified industrial society we find ourselves in.

Others see in mass organization the only realistic hope to achieve a potent anarchist presence. This tendency generally has no basic dispute with modern technological society, and confines its opposition to the strictly capitalistic aspects of society. The most well-known anarchists, Noam Chomsky and Murray Bookchin, fall into this category.

Both points of view, I think, recognize the huge social fact of class division. But as a marxist- dominated leftism has been declining in the world, so has its influence within the growing anti- authoritarian milieu. Two developments have become rather clear over the past ten years or so: (1) opposition to the status quo has become increasingly "anarchist," and (2) anarchists are becoming increasingly critical of technological civilization itself and its hollow refrain of Progress.

It is unsurprising, given its fundamental orientation, that a philosophy of anarchy would find the current, approved political spectrum unattractive. Conservatives call for removing restraints on a system or social machine that is producing more social and environmental disasters every day. Liberals equal this masochism by tinkering slightly with that system, thereby attempting to re- form and legitimize it. More and more people are losing faith in a business-as-usual, paycheck and price-tag arrangement of life that amounts to a gathering assault on humanness and the destruction of nature.

Until very recently it was completely denied that there is a war going on, with the very survival of the individual and the natural world at stake. The blackout on this fact seems to be lifting a bit; public use of the word "anarchist" is a start, a small recognition of what can hardly be covered up any longer.

For myself and, I think, manv other anti-authoritarians, a new message, a new paradigm is overdue. There is more to be challenged than we once thought. The roots of the current crisis go very deep. This season's disaster in Southeast Asia, where the flames of domestication join the poisons of industrialism, is an all-too-vivid case in point. The planet is fast becoming a place of horrors, on the personal, Prozac-for-everyone level as on the ecological plane.

Nearness is being lost, and is a very big part of the solution: nearness to each other, nearness to nature. It may be that our only real hope is the recovery of a face-to-face social existence, a radical decentralization, a dismantling of the devouring, estranging productionist, high-tech trajectory that is so impoverishing.

This has been a thumbnail version of the anarchist challenge as I see it. Thanks for listening.

Nigger music Aaaaiiiggghttttttt!

On: To The Pain

Chorus

Yeah we here now
Don't get scared now
Ja Rule nigga about to tear shit down
What ya'll thought ya'll was going eat forever
and my dog wouldn't blaze heat for cheddar
We better eat together or meet at the cross road
'Cause the Lord knows it's murder hold those
When your casket close and your should rise high
Remember the dead don't die unless they fuck wit' I

Verse 1

Niggas know who don't you shit
The flow is retched and my gee too futuristic for you hoe's to catch it
I'm a god send the falling angel and I do sin
Far from perfection but still considered a gem
Thank you Lord for given me the wind beneath my wings
When the miracle spittin there shall be no witnesses
To the pain and my ignorance, I charge to the game
So many love and slain by bullets wit dead aim
I weathered the change
Stormed through the streets in the range, can't complain
A nigga live to die in the flames
Casue i torture J to A the Rule
Niggas can't be seriously fucking wit me
What you holla R-U-L-E 'bout, we can hit up an alley and air out
Bullets exit the barrel, holla enter your month
That's how i'm built
Under the floss there nothing but filth
Don't let it fool you
I still let these slugs heat up and cool you off forever more
So help me Lord
Gonna find a way to my grave just because i'm Mur-der-er, whole not part
Cut me open, i bleed for the INC from the heart
When i start it's usually endless
Pop one with gloves on, make u check with forensic, son
In your appendix, son, you got hit up, huh, fucking wit Ja you know it's
murder

Chorus

Verse 2

R-U-L-E spits monotonous
Hot as apocalypse, now you eying this ferocious mic supremacist
Whose limit is endless
This nigga don't risen murderous flows killed suspicion
Niggas is too light in the ass to be shitting
Hollis ave, historical nigga respect tradition
Cause all i see is blooshed and niggas gunning em' down, and you confess
that i'm so who's touching me now
Shipped three hundred with a freestyle fucking you up
And got them hoes in the back rows tossing it up
i got the touch cause' my flow is bananas, bitches can't stand us
We ghetto fabulous, aim when i bust and blast on surprise
If ya'll nigga don't know you need to see me live
I'm like two 45's spitting in every direction
ya'll niggas is hoe's in stelleto and thongs, it's a break of a new day
Maybe you'll get to see vilntly what drives me
Take em' back to the gutter, smother the world in filth
rule's the name and now you're going to see how i'm built, nigga.

Chorus

Slobodan Milosevic's notorious Kosovo field speech

On: To The Pain

[Speech by Slobodan Milosevich, delivered to an estimated 1 million people at the central celebration marking the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, held at Gazimestan on 28 June, 1989. Compiled by the National Technical Information Service of the US Department of Commerce.]

By the force of social circumstances this great 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo is taking place in a year in which Serbia, after many years, after many decades, has regained its state, national, and spiritual integrity. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to answer today the old question: how are we going to face Milos [Milos Obilic, legendary hero of the Battle of Kosovo]. Through the play of history and life, it seems as if Serbia has, precisely in this year, in 1989, regained its state and its dignity and thus has celebrated an event of the distant past which has a great historical and symbolic significance for its future.

Serbian Character -- Liberational

Today, it is difficult to say what is the historical truth about the Battle of Kosovo and what is legend. Today this is no longer important. Oppressed by pain and filled with hope, the people used to remember and to forget, as, after all, all people in the world do, and it was ashamed of treachery and glorified heroism. Therefore it is difficult to say today whether the Battle of Kosovo was a defeat or a victory for the Serbian people, whether thanks to it we fell into slavery or we survived in this slavery. The answers to those questions will be constantly sought by science and the people. What has been certain through all the centuries until our time today is that disharmony struck Kosovo 600 years ago. If we lost the battle, then this was not only the result of social superiority and the armed advantage of the Ottoman Empire but also of the tragic disunity in the leadership of the Serbian state at that time. In that distant 1389, the Ottoman Empire was not only stronger than that of the Serbs but it was also more fortunate than the Serbian kingdom.

The lack of unity and betrayal in Kosovo will continue to follow the Serbian people like an evil fate through the whole of its history. Even in the last war, this lack of unity and betrayal led the Serbian people and Serbia into agony, the consequences of which in the historical and moral sense exceeded fascist aggression.

Even later, when a socialist Yugoslavia was set up, in this new state the Serbian leadership remained divided, prone to compromise to the detriment of its own people. The concessions that many Serbian leaders made at the expense of their people could not be accepted historically and ethically by any nation in the world, especially because the Serbs have never in the whole of their history conquered and exploited others. Their national and historical being has been liberational throughout the whole of history and through two world wars, as it is today. They liberated themselves and when they could they also helped others to liberate themselves. The fact that in this region they are a major nation is not a Serbian sin or shame; this is an advantage which they have not used against others, but I must say that here, in this big, legendary field of Kosovo, the Serbs have not used the advantage of being great for their own benefit either.

Thanks to their leaders and politicians and their vassal mentality they felt guilty before themselves and others. This situation lasted for decades, it lasted for years and here we are now at the field of Kosovo to say that this is no longer the case.

Unity Will Make Prosperity Possible

Disunity among Serb officials made Serbia lag behind and their inferiority humiliated Serbia. Therefore, no place in Serbia is better suited for saying this than the field of Kosovo and no place in Serbia is better suited than the field of Kosovo for saying that unity in Serbia will bring prosperity to the Serbian people in Serbia and each one of its citizens, irrespective of his national or religious affiliation.

Serbia of today is united and equal to other republics and prepared to do everything to improve its financial and social position and that of all its citizens. If there is unity, cooperation, and seriousness, it will succeed in doing so. This is why the optimism that is now present in Serbia to a considerable extent regarding the future days is realistic, also because it is based on freedom, which makes it possible for all people to express their positive, creative and humane abilities aimed at furthering social and personal life.

Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage. National composition of almost all countries in the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in this direction. Citizens of different nationalities, religions, and races have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully.

Socialism in particular, being a progressive and just democratic society, should not allow people to be divided in the national and religious respect. The only differences one can and should allow in socialism are between hard working people and idlers and between honest people and dishonest people. Therefore, all people in Serbia who live from their own work, honestly, respecting other people and other nations, are in their own republic.

Dramatic National Divisions

After all, our entire country should be set up on the basis of such principles. Yugoslavia is a multinational community and it can survive only under the conditions of full equality for all nations that live in it.

The crisis that hit Yugoslavia has brought about national divisions, but also social, cultural, religious and many other less important ones. Among all these divisions, nationalist ones have shown themselves to be the most dramatic. Resolving them will make it easier to remove other divisions and mitigate the consequences they have created.

For as long as multinational communities have existed, their weak point has always been the relations between different nations. The threat is that the question of one nation being endangered by the others can be posed one day -- and this can then start a wave of suspicions, accusations, and intolerance, a wave that invariably grows and is difficult to stop. This threat has been hanging like a sword over our heads all the time. Internal and external enemies of multi-national communities are aware of this and therefore they organize their activity against multinational societies mostly by fomenting national conflicts. At this moment, we in Yugoslavia are behaving as if we have never had such an experience and as if in our recent and distant past we have never experienced the worst tragedy of national conflicts that a society can experience and still survive.

Equal and harmonious relations among Yugoslav peoples are a necessary condition for the existence of Yugoslavia and for it to find its way out of the crisis and, in particular, they are a necessary condition for its economic and social prosperity. In this respect Yugoslavia does not stand out from the social milieu of the contemporary, particularly the developed, world. This world is more and more marked by national tolerance, national cooperation, and even national equality. The modern economic and technological, as well as political and cultural development, has guided various peoples toward each other, has made them interdependent and increasingly has made them equal as well [medjusobno ravnopravni]. Equal and united
people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail.

At the time when this famous historical battle was fought in Kosovo, the people were looking at the stars, expecting aid from them. Now, 6 centuries later, they are looking at the stars again, waiting to conquer them. On the first occasion, they could allow themselves to be disunited and to have hatred and treason because they lived in smaller, weakly interlinked worlds. Now, as people on this planet, they cannot conquer even their own planet if they are not united, let alone other planets, unless they live in mutual harmony and solidarity.

Therefore, words devoted to unity, solidarity, and cooperation among people have no greater significance anywhere on the soil of our motherland than they have here in the field of Kosovo, which is a symbol of disunity and treason.

In the memory of the Serbian people, this disunity was decisive in causing the loss of the battle and in bringing about the fate which Serbia suffered for a full 6 centuries.

Even if it were not so, from a historical point of view, it remains certain that the people regarded disunity as its greatest disaster. Therefore it is the obligation of the people to remove disunity, so that they may protect themselves from defeats, failures, and stagnation in the future.

Unity brings Back Dignity

This year, the Serbian people became aware of the necessity of their mutual harmony as the indispensable condition for their present life and further development.

I am convinced that this awareness of harmony and unity will make it possible for Serbia not only to function as a state but to function as a successful state. Therefore I think that it makes sense to say this here in Kosovo, where that disunity once upon a time tragically pushed back Serbia for centuries and endangered it, and where renewed unity may advance it and may return dignity to it. Such an awareness about mutual relations constitutes an elementary necessity for Yugoslavia, too, for its fate is in the joined hands of all its peoples. The Kosovo heroism has been inspiring our creativity for 6 centuries, and has been feeding our pride and does not allow us to forget that at one time we were an army great, brave, and proud, one of the few that remained undefeated when losing.

Six centuries later, now, we are being again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet. However, regardless of what kind of battles they are, they cannot be won without resolve, bravery, and sacrifice, without the noble qualities that were present here in the field of Kosovo in the days past. Our chief battle now concerns implementing the economic, political, cultural, and general social prosperity, finding a quicker and more successful approach to a civilization in which people will live in the 21st century. For this battle, we certainly need heroism, of course of a somewhat different kind, but that courage without which nothing serious and great can be achieved remains unchanged and remains urgently necessary.

Six centuries ago, Serbia heroically defended itself in the field of Kosovo, but it also defended Europe. Serbia was at that time the bastion that defended the European culture, religion, and European society in general. Therefore today it appears not only unjust but even unhistorical and completely absurd to talk about Serbia's belonging to Europe. Serbia has been a part of Europe incessantly, now just as much as it was in the past, of course, in its own way, but in a way that in the historical sense never deprived it of dignity. In this spirit we now endeavor to build a society, rich and democratic, and thus to contribute to the prosperity of this beautiful country, this unjustly suffering country, but also to contribute to the efforts of all the progressive people of our age that they make for a better and happier world.

Let the memory of Kosovo heroism live forever!

Long live Serbia!

Long live Yugoslavia!

Long live peace and brotherhood among peoples!

The easiest way to join is to,

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

The easiest way is just to drop trou in the men's room and press your hiney up against the urinal and let go. However, I can think of a few reasons you might not want to take this approach. For instance, there's the whole "getting caught" ordeal, or having a colon prone to stage fright. Not to mention putting your ass into close proximity with thousands of generations of urine.

With that in mind, I have devised the following not-so-clever and oh-so-easy plan: In the comfort of your own home, when you feel the urge, crap into a plastic bag. Ziploc would be a good idea. When the opportunity presents itself, carefully deposit your offering into the Porcelain Alter of Liquid Excrement. Congratulations, you now have poop in a urinal. Take a picture and send it here.

Re:http://www.geocities.com/spiralxuk/howto.html

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

Personally I am into the whole copy and paste thing, like my sig says. I will crapflood slashdot into submission!

Re:Robotroll, troll, dead at 54

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

I do not see a reason barring you from joining. Kill yourself and then reply to this thread. That is all is the only prerequisite.

Dear troll,

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

Dear Troll,

We are sad to inform you that, after careful consideration , we have rejected your troll submission from 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.

http://www.geocities.com/spiralxuk/howto.html

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

The /. troll HOWTO

This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated :)

Section 1 - Trolling techniques

There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking /.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...

Timing

Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since /. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.

Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway :)

Exposure

Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies - /.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.

Accounts

An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though :)

The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on /. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.

Layout

To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.

Size

Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no- one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.

Spelling

Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated /. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.

Subject

The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.

Style

Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the /. sense rather than the real-world sense). Start off fairly reasonable, making statements that are /. friendly and not being too controversial. As the troll goes on, make it more and more controversial, building it up for the coup de grace in the final paragraph.

Linking

As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the /. crowd. Moderators love it, and they rarely check the links, so be sure to include as many as possible. And make them wrong - a link to the Perl website should instead point to the Python website instead, and vice versa. The other alternative to incorrect links is "useful" links to places like www.linux.org and www.microsoft.com i.e. places /.ers could never have found on their own :)

Feeding

The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless /.ers for your amusement. But often a troll requires some help and so you should consider feeding it. Feeding is best reserved for people making either completely clueless responses, people making responses with holes in, or those wonderful people who write a 2000-word point-by-point rebuttal of your troll.

Know your audience

Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on /. so that you can play on and against them. This is why anti-Linux, creationist, gun-loving, pro-corporation trolls work well - the vast majority of /.ers hold the opposite viewpoints. And if a few people agree with you, so much the better - it merely validates your viewpoint in the eyes of readers.

Arrogance

Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.

Offensiveness

Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling /.ers all kinds of things. Make broad generalisations about /. readers - call them "long-haired Linux zealots", "socialist open-source bigots" or whatever. Stereotyping is encouraged - people always want to think that they're an individual, and will point this out to you given half a chance.

Indifference

Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.

Sympathy

Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.

The common touch

Always accuse /.ers of being elitist. This is an easy thing to do seeing as a lot of them are. Claim that is their grandmother couldn't use it, then they are just into it to feel better than Joe Sixpack rather than "doing it for the average user". This is always great for working into anti-Linux trolls - attack command-line tools and poorly designed desktops.

The 31337 touch

The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.

Contradiction

Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse /.ers who will then make even more stupid replies, leaving them even more wide open for response.

Clues

If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk /. responses.

Denial

If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."

Claiming credit

Given that /. has its community of regular trolls (hi guys!), it's only polite to publish your troll on one of the so-called "hidden" forums for all to see and admire. This way, you get to bask in the praise of other trolls, they get to contribute to your's if they want to, and you get an easy way to find the troll later on when you want to check on its progress :)

As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember, /.ers always post before thinking, and often it doesn't matter at all.

There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.

Ending the troll

Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll :)

The cheap $3 crack

Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up :(

Section 2 - Types of troll

The Maniac

Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent /. beliefs, but a similar effect can be achieved by taking a typical /. viewpoint and pushing it to ridiculous extremes.

Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article /. posts, although some are more obvious targets than others. Civil liberty articles, especially on things like censorship, DMCA, UCITA that really get /.ers riled up, are usually extremely fruitful grounds for a well-crafted maniac. The other obvious type of article is anything which could possibly involve religion, especially evolution :)

Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:

The Right-Wing Maniac

Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag- waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.

Religion

There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst /. posters and you would have to be very offensive to get this to work. Of course with religion trolls, the argument can go on for ever once it's started... The more common approach is the Christian fundamentalist. They are ignorant, intolerant and bigoted in the extreme. For them the Bible is the inerrant word of God revealed to man - it contains no flaws and no contradictions. Thus they are strict Creationists - mentions of evolution or cosmology will set them off on vitriolic rants. Flaming denunciations of anyone daring to contradict the "Word of God" are the way to go, and any kind of proof can always be ignored by appealing to "secular humanist brainwashing". And let's not forget, the USA is the greatest nation on Earth because it has the righteous power of Jesus Christ behind it.

Ideology

Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.

Software

This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.

Guns

Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll :)

The Expert

The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which /.ers as a rule despise - the classic example is dumb marketing guy, but try consultants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, executives, journalists (just think Jon Katz). With this kind of troll sweeping statements with little content are the norm, along wire dire portents of future catastrophe and dark hints of "insider knowledge".

Some possible angles to exploit:

Industry knowledge

The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that /.ers would like it - saying "Linux requires the rock-solid guarantee of a trusted company like Microsoft" or "Apache cannot be trusted for mission-critical enterprise platforms" is guaranteed to get you denials explaining exactly why you're wrong, in excruciating detail.

Helpful hints

With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that /.ers protest "IANAL", they certainly seem to think they could be, and any mistakes you make will send them rushing to prove themselves by correcting you.

Offtopic Trolls

Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here :) This category includes parodies, offtopic weirdness any all kinds of amusing stuff. Not really my area of expertise, this stuff is mainly done by gnarphlager and opensourceman. Thanks to gnarphlager for this section.

Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:

The serial troll

Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.

The random troll

This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.

The vaguely related troll

Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that ;-)

General tips:

If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on /. So feel free/ obligated to litter your offtopic and random bits with puns. Hurt the bastards. And if they're sick enough to laugh at them, then they'll eventually end up here ;-)
Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)

Section 3 - Useful trolling links

The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.

General purpose links

ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn
your enemy :)
www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments. html - A List Of Fallacious Arguments - Learn them and use them liberally
www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq .html - USENET troll HOWTO
www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous

Religious links

www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/ri ggins/thi ngs.htm - Things Creationists

hate
www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequote s.html - Bible quotes by category

Political/economy links

www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
www.reason.com - Libertarian site
www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator

Crackpot science links

www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal of Irreproducible Results

You forgot

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

Yu Suzuki, the master.

Re:Robotroll, troll, dead at 54

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

Ok.

You will be missed.

And stop fucking posting. You are supposed to be joining the choir invisible!

Speaking of El Paso; great recipe:

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

Mexican Party Wings

Ingredients:

1 cup purchased ranch salad dressing

1 (4.5-oz.) can Old El Paso® Chopped Green Chiles

1/2 cup Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose or Unbleached Flour

1 (1.25-oz.) pkg. Old El Paso® Taco Seasoning Mix

2 teaspoons oil

24 chicken drummettes (about 2 lb.)

Dried parsley flakes

Prep Time: 20 Minutes (Ready in 55 Minutes)

Preparation Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350F. Spray large cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray. In blender container, combine salad dressing and chiles; blend until smooth. Spoon into small serving bowl. Refrigerate while preparing drummettes.

2. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. In shallow dish, combine flour and taco seasoning mix; mix well. Add oil; stir with fork until well combined. Coat drummettes with flour mixture. Coat drummettes again to use all flour mixture. Place on sprayed cookie sheet.

3. Bake at 350F. for 15 minutes. Turn drummettes; bake an additional 14 to 17 minutes or until chicken is fork- tender and juices run clear. Sprinkle parsley on salad dressing mixture. Serve with warm drummettes.

Recipe makes 24 servings

Robotroll, troll, dead at 54

On: Linuxcare Founders Go Wireless

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - troll writer Robotroll was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.