G8 protests in Germany heating up

Yesterday on the 2nd of June the first major G8 2007 clashes occurred in Restock, Germany. As usual the clashes were perpetrated by the fascist police units who attacked the protestors indiscriminately and brutally. As the protestors are branded as ‘terrorists’ I guess there is a new State policy of ‘shoot anything that moves’. The same thing is in practice in Iraq.
Now the question is: be beaten and arrested or protect yourself and others. I go with the second option where as a united group you can resist the beating and arrests. That’s the core of the Black blocs re-introduced in Seattle.
 
Black Bloc.                                        I also like the clown tactics.

 read more at http://de.indymedia.org/2007/06/180311.shtml

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Happy MayDay, comrades! No Pasaran!

Workers’ rights, peoples’ liberties and fair distribution of economic wealth doesn’t grow on trees.  Neither it is achieved by begging.  It takes struggle!  Long and persistent struggle.  Struggle that aims to take both Production and Distribution back into the hands of the producer.  In other words, the west enjoys relatively higher degree of human rights (compared to Armenia and Caucasus) and civil liberties not because they are “Europeans” or “born civilized”, but because there is a long history of workers’ strugles and worker organization into significantly influential unions.  And that is where the true strength is. 

So what’s the history of the MayDay?  It starts with anarchists of Chicago.  In 1887 four Chicago anarchists were executed. 

what have we been up to?

some of our regular readers have been wondering where we’ve disappeared, since for the recent weeks there haven’t been many new posts.  Well, I should say that we’re busy with a very important project.  When we first got hold of it, we threw ourselves into it and kept is secret so as not to spoil the surprise.  But now it’s taking a little longer then what we estimated.  But let me tell you, It’s BIG and so is it’s potential impact; and when it’s complete and when it’s out in the open, it could change the history of Armenian social science and political philosophy as we know it.  So watch this space.

If you would like to be a part of this project and contribute, and if you have the necessary skills and motivation to translate texts from pre-revolutionary Russian into English, then please contact us by e-mail.
 

8th of March

8th of March – International Women’s Day. It is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women. Started as a political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries of former Soviet union like Armenia. In contemporary Armenia, the day lost its political flavor, and became simply an occasion for men to express their sympathy and love to the women around them – somewhat similar to Western Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day mixed together.  Men give flowers and re-affirm the patriarchically created identities of what women are and supposed to be in the social and political scheme of things: a good birth-giver, a good Mother, a good cook, a good wife, a good cleaner, an asexual Victorian beautiful object of adoration and preferably a silent one.  hmmm… but do we remember what 8th of March is all about?On 8 March 1857 in New York City

2 glimpses from French history

To be quite frank, I don’t like the above video that much.  It ends up celebrating May 1968, while I see it as a failure.  The ultimate goals of the revolution were not met.  After the negotiations with De Gaulle the Communist Party told the workers to go back to their factories – and so they did.  One government was replaced by another,

anarchist history in 1 minute

forget the Communist propaganda about anarchism… 

Situationism, etcetera…

I’ve had a comment from Artashes with regards to responsibility of putting up the video below.  Whatever I do, please believe me, I do with responsibility, integrity and a thought.  My response grew large enough to make an interesting article. So here it is:
Dear Artashes, asking me what’s the point of posting this video (see below) is like asking David Lynch about the meaning of his films.  Maybe, its for me to do and for others to think.  But some encouragement may also be needed…

I mean… on which level do you want it? 
It already appear that you are a rationalist moralist (like Chomsky, for instance, is a Cartesian rationalist), which is a good philosophical position to see and analyze most of the problems at hand…. but only upto a certain point.  That point being the realization that rationalism and morality, though originally with noble intentions, are themselves involved in the originary encoding of the status quo.  Don’t forget that ultimately it was the height of Rationalism and populist conscientiousness that led to Holocaust, Stalin’s repressions, Mao’s

People are on the edge…

 Sometimes silence is so loud that it overpowers the most powerful loudspeakers.  Sometimes the discourse of the protest put to action is so astonishingly shocking, that it accepts no criticism.  It’s stark uncompromising presence speaks volumes so loud and clear that it is beyond logic… beyond… that it is beyond words, beyond language, beyond grammar… beyond civilization.  An absolute expression creating a condition of impossibilities.  Any comment is disarmed.  Any comment becomes an impossibility.  It’s Real.  

Save Melkonian PETITION

Please go to www.SaveMelkonian.org and sign the PETITION to be sent to the President of Cyprus and other high-ranking officials.  Please choose “Friend of Cyprus” option if you are not a citizen of Cyprus. 

The story in brief: After 3 and a half years of campaigning by www.SaveMelkonian.org and www.MelkonianForever.org and after many successes (like passing 2 favourable resolutions in Cypriot parliament and having the courts forbid the sale) the Cypriot court has removed the previous injuction to stop AGBU from selling the school  (background info: in 1925 Melkonian Brothers entrusted AGBU to run and maintain the school, but not to sell it).   The AGBU has been claiming that the school costs too much and that it is no longer needed at its present location because the region, unlike in the times of the Lebanese civil war, is finially “peaceful” (hmm, the Iraq war???, the recent invasion of Lebabon???).  What they’re not telling you is that ENRON‘s bankruptcy has affected “Loise Simone & Co” (the AGBU) — they need big money to cover. (I’m sure all of you have heard just how corrupt AGBU really is (as well as its partners like RA government))    At the same time,  Melkonian Campus in Cyprus is a giant land mass located in the middle of a rapidly growing Financial region of Nicosia with property prices rising and rising and rising.  In 2003 the land alone has been estimated at US$80mln-200mln (that’s before the invasion of Iraq and before the dollar plumeted). 

What they’re also not telling you is that Melkonian School has its own resources and investments and a very committed Alumni, which are sufficient to run the school independently and self-sufficiently.

Over the last 80 years the Melkonian has been a boarding school with Armenian teenagers from over 40 countries – it represented the microcosm of Armenian diaspora.  It has been the only Armenian boarding school left in the world.  It was not just a school, but also a living breathing community with very strong, vibrant and political student-culture.  Many prominent Armenian writers, poets, thinkers, academics, doctors, lawers, businessmen and highly specialised professionals and politically and internationally significal individuals came out of that school.  Succinctly put, it has been the intellectual hatchery and the cultural power-base of the Diaspora.  In addition, that was the place were Diasporan branch of Armenian language and literature was in a proper systemised teaching styles.

One month ago the court has removed the injuction.  And now the AGBU is free to go ahead and permanently sell the school.  But Melkonian is one of those places that Armenian People cannot afford to loose… too much is at stake, while we are being betrayed by the leaders we did not choose.

Please go to www.SaveMelkonian.org and sign the petition.  Please also spread the word: urge as many people as possible to go there and sign the petition; also put SaveMelkonian’s black-eagle avatar on your blog – spread the word to as many corners as possible.   Let us show the People-Power.

You can also read the Press Release here.            

Noam Chomsky on human destiny

Chomsky speaks about human destiny – (2 minutes)

“In this possibly terminal phase of human existence democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured.  They may well be essential to survival.”

Noam Chomsky is officially the most quoted intellectual alive.  Some regard him as the greatest philosopher remaining.  …oh, and he is also an anarchist, or as he sometimes refers to himself, a “Libertarian-Socialist”.

I’m deeply disappointed by the level at which the contemporary debates and thinking about Armenian politics is taking place (especially within

What is POLITY ???

For the purpose of classifying different forms of constitutions and forms of governance, Aristotle (in Politics, Book III,7) noted that 2 questions must always be asked:

1. Who is the rube by ? ,  and,
2. Whose interest that rule serves?

He came up with 3 categories: One, Few, Many (One, Elite, People).

The above is what Aristotle’s classification of political systems looked like.

“America: From Freedom to Fascism” and the question of Banking in Armenia

(you can watch a larger screen version on http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198 ) 

  

I stumbled across this documentary during one of my regular visits to “Martuni or Bust!” blog.  This documentary by award winning director/producer Aaron Russo (who nearly won Libertarian Party‘s presidential candidacy in 2004) titled “America: Freedom to Fascism” is 1h49min long, but well worth the watch.  It’s a wake up call not only to Americans but also to everyone around the world.  It talks about the many plans which in effect will result in further and total enslavement of the people and the rise of the Total State.  Consider some of these: 

• By May of 2008 the law will require you to carry a bio-metric national identification card, which will contain the info about your DNA, Retina scan, finger-prints and other info and the card will be connected to a governement database !
• There are plans being developed to have

Armenian History in Anarchist Perspective

The History of Armenian People and Their Struggle for Social Justice (fragments of history)

“Who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past“. — George Orwell

Abstract:  This article reviews Armenian history, struggles, ancient political movements and peasant rebellions since antiquity and puts it in a framework of the Anarchist theory.  As is the case with any state-controlled historical narrativizations, the history is often de-contextualised and re-contextualised, de-coded and re-coded so as to serve the interests of a particular class.  What I have tried to do in this article is to subvert that process and, in effect, to deconstruct that which has been constructed as “Armenian History”.  This article works its way from ancient movements such as Pavlikians, Tondrakiyts, Messalians and Borborits, on to more recent anarchist fradments of Armenian history such as Shaamirian, Nalbandian, Jheon, Atabekian and especially the Anarchist origins of early Dashnaks (ARF).  [This article could be of particular interest to anyone interested in Armenian history as well as to academics researching on Anarchist history in the region of Caucasus] 

The 1st entry – what is this blog going to be?

Greeting Comrades,

Over the years we have met many Armenian anarchists and like-minded intellectuals. It was also exciting to find out that there is an organized “Autonom” movement in Yerevan (Proryv – “Breakthrough”), though their website has been discontinued. And we have recently found out that the group has been violently crushed in our beloved “Democratic” Republic.  We have also met many socialists and communists, who adopt a critical view of dictatorial communism; we have met many like-minded intellectuals… many Greens, many feminists, many left-wing activists, many avant-garde artists and intellectuals… The only thing is that they are not only in
Armenia, but also spread across the globe – “the Greater Armenia”.

In short, we are starting this website with knowledge that there are many people out there sympathetic to our ideas.  We want to create this website as a sort of convergence point –  a Cyber-HQ and as a focal point to help us come together, discuss and develop our politics… first as a cyber-commune and then, hopefully, gradually grow into a political force.

For now, we are just testing the ground. So if you are an anarchist, a libertarian socialist, an anti-Fascist, a supporter of Direct Democracy, a  democratic-communist who believes that communism doesn’t have to be a Stalinist dictatorship and can be democratic; if you’re a feminist, Green or an intellectual, or just a left-bank individual who is simply interested and who believes that the existing political parties both in Diaspora and the Republic, are a thing of the past, — then contact us (or just post a comment). Tell us about your views and concerns in Armenian politics (both Diasporan and Republican).

We would want to say from the outset that we are not interested to hear from fascists, racists, nationalist socialists, blood-worshipers, “tseghakron” race-worshipers or other intellectually impoverished persons.

About this blog:  In this blog we will present the Anarchist and Libertarian-Socialist review and analysis of political developments that take place in Armenia,
Caucasus and around the world.

Who are we:  We are a network of activists and intellectuals (socialist, anarchist, democratic-socialist, libertarian; patriotic, but not nationalist) who have met in random locations of the globe and agreed that a serious “3rd Way” radical movement is needed in Armenian politics.  We believe that neither the Liberal Capitalism nor a Bolshevik-style Dicratorial Communism, nor the pretentious Social Democracy, provide any plausible answers to Armenia’s requirements,  The 3^rd republic has failed. The problem is the structure encoded in the Republican constitution!  We propose to move in the direction of the Swiss model of Federalism and Co-operative Communally controlled mode of production, whereby the power of decision making is with the people in their communes (Hamainq).  We say: Power to the People – power to the Hamainqs!