venerdì 28 ottobre 2011

COMMUNIQUE CLAIMING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE BOMBING OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE IN ATHENS ON 2/9/2009 From the Revolutionary Organisation – Revolutionary Str


A view of the Athens stock exchange with shattered windows following an explosion.

COMMUNIQUE CLAIMING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE BOMBING OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE IN ATHENS ON 2/9/2009

rom the Revolutionary Organisation – Revolutionary Struggle

On the 2nd of September in the early morning we attacked the temple of money, the stock exchange of Athens, by placing an expropriated van with 150 kilos of ammonium nitrate (AN/FO). This action is the continuation of a strategy of attacks with large quantities of explosives in order to hurt the infrastructure of multinational and local capital, a strategy initiated the 18th of February last year with the attempt on the central offices of Citibank on Nea Kifissia and continued with the bomb attack on the Eurobank branch on Vouliagmenis avenue, Argiroupoli on May 12th last year.

Maybe the explosion, despite the enormous amount of damage it caused to the building, did not stop the operation of the stock market since it did not destroy the central software system, but we believe that it worked, and it will continue to work negatively on the market and on the psychology of all kinds of opportunists, since the message was clear and was received by economic power as a whole: those responsible for the current crisis, the major shareholders, the golden boys, the capitalists, will pay for their criminal activity, and no State mechanism can protect them.

This action comes at a time when the economic crisis is moving towards its peak – despite statements to the contrary – the Greek economy is collapsing, the country has officially entered the recession and Karamanlis [Prime Minister from '04 to '09, leader of Nea Dimokratia (N.D),political party of the centre-right,], on the day of the attack exactly two years after the previous elections, declares new elections because of the collapse of the national economy and once again asks for the tolerance of Greek society in order to intensify the robbing, oppressive and exploitative policies of his government.

We urge the people to turn their backs on the political system and to abstain from the elections on October 4th [2009]. No government, whichever party or coalition of parties comes to power, can get the country out of the economic crisis, which is the deepest and will be the longest lasting crisis in the history of the capitalist system. And if some parts of Greek society, forgetting the “modernized” government of PASOK [Socialist party], the neo-liberal economic and social adjustment it imposed and the anti-social policies it applied from 1996 to 2004, believe that today this party will implement populist politics and vote for them, the contradiction will emerge from the first months of the new government. It will show that Papandreou [leader of PASOK] and Karamanlis have the same strategy for the crisis, which is the protection of profits and capital while the theiving raid and neo-liberal attack on the most vulnerable parts of society will not only continue but will intensify, in the name of “rescuing the Greek economy”.

No regime party, from the far right to the left, is in a position to put an end to the crisis and ensure a decent life for all, since that implies a rupture with the system and its institutions. To live without crises means that we live without capitalism, free market economy, without government and organized authority. This is the reason why the dilemma is not Nea Dimokratia or PASOK or the left. The real dilemma is CAPITALISM OR REVOLUTION.

States support the criminals of plutocracy

If there is one institution the operation of which alone is a provocation for the vast majority of society, not just amidst the economic crisis but in every era, if there is one institution that embodies most faithfully the basic operations characteristic of capitalism and market economy, greed for profit and power, it is the stock market.

Intimately connected with the history of the existing economic system, it is one of the strongest and most effective levers for pumping social wealth from the bottom of society and channelling it always toward a minority, the economic elite. A mechanism that loots and squeezes everything out of all societies, robs the produced social product, without producing or offering absolutely anything.

As stock markets play a key role in the redistribution of income from the social base towards the top, the centralization of economic power and the increase of inequality, they are among the main protagonists of the crises throughout the history of the market economy system and capitalism. It is where mostly, the leveraged (borrowed) liquidity which is “gambled” to acquire profit ends up, and where global wealth is distributed, changing hands between the plutocrats.

It is there that the strongest of the international economy are teaming up to devour the less powerful, since what takes place in stock markets is that the most powerful coalitions of capital are fighting against the less powerful coalitions in a war where the outcome is already predetermined. This is why stock exchanges are the temples of “social Darwinism” where “the social and economically powerful always prevail over the weak.”

It’s where ‘bubbles’ are created which generate profit for the few as they get bigger and for even fewer when they burst. It’s where all the phases of high and low economic processes take place, with the permanent losers outside the walls of the stock exchange, the “common people”, watching unable to intervene, the legal procedures of theft of the wealth produced by labour and how this labour “vanishes” into the pockets of the capitalists.

Stock exchanges, the great fortresses of speculation and greed are also at the cutting edge of the creation of this crisis. And their criminal operation is so blunt that they are continuing the looting of society in a particularly difficult period for the disadvantaged such as the one that we are experiencing now.

So, while more and more people worldwide go into poverty, while millions around the world are starving, while jobs are lost, businesses are closing and unemployment rages, stock markets around the world – including the Greek one, are carrying out an even more provocative “race” to the top.

It is a scandal of global proportions that companies are carrying out lay-offs or are closing ‘unprofitable’ areas, reducing workers’ wages, blackmailing them with the dilemma ‘unemployment or self-employment and a wage cut’, and at the same time shares and stocks rise, are yielding profits for shareholders and managers. While the funds of the large multinationals and financial giants like the American Citibank and bank of America, or the European UBS [Swiss global financial services company] are incalculably damaged and are on the verge of collapse one moment, yet the next (and after being given new economic stimulus packages from governments to “relieve the economy” as they say), their stock prices double, while the management and shareholders share the profits from the new stock market ‘bubble’ with public money.

The total “aid package” which is expected to be needed by the system internationally to avoid collapse is so far $5 trillion. The sharks of the international investment portfolios do not hesitate risking the free money from government grants, to form a virtual reality exit from the crisis, raising the points in the stock markets and creating new ‘bubbles’ of imaginary recovery in order to reap as much possible profit amidst an increasingly worsening crisis. In all stock markets including the Greek one, the State funds fueled another ‘bubble’, with the protagonists the banks, from which the capitalists cover their profits they lost from the crisis. In Greece, as wider and wider areas of the population sink into poverty, large corporations and mainly large banking conglomerates are constantly drawing profits.

The rise in the prices of raw materials, petrol and basic food products which, against the reduced demand, we will see rising more and more in the immediate future, is also a result of the ‘bubble’ created by the international elite. This cast of criminals using the investment portfolios as weapons bet the cash from the State funds from the rise in prices of products and food. They are vicious murderers because once more they are profiting from the food prices, they raise the prices and indexes in the stock market and reap billions, causing mass murder of millions of people from hunger and illness yet again.
There is nothing strange that none of the crooked mainstream politicians or economic analysts do not even have the decency to admit that the latest stock market “races” which are rising are nothing more than another ‘bubble’ fed with public money.

Not only have governments around the world – led by the U.S. minister of finance – done nothing to avoid the channeling of public money into stock market speculation, they have also played the role of “tout” for stock markets by “propagating” that the markets, through the latest stock market rise, anticipate the end of the crisis and economic recovery for the rich families of the planet.

This “assessment” is confirmed by all kinds of mainstream economic analysts.

Worldwide production is in decline, job losses are in millions, many countries are now officially in recession, many are in immediate danger of bankruptcy and economic collapse while others have already collapsed, at the same time shares are “soaring” with a leading presence of the banks.

The Greek stock market index has doubled in less than two months, something that didn’t happen even in 1999 and its steady rising course continued all these months. Many shares went up 100%, doubling the stock value of businesses which at the same time shrink their operations and fire employees. Profits from the stock market ‘bubble’ fill the pockets of Greek capitalists and their foreign team-mates, while the majority of the Greek society drowns in the storm of the economic crisis. The measures of “exiting” the crisis never were and never will be anything more than measures to support capital.

The moment the government of Nea Dimokratia put through the packages of bloodsucking one after another in a vicious and futile cycle of attempts to avoid State bankruptcy, banks are doing just what banks do internationally, they exploit the €28 billion offered by the State to raise the prices of stocks and shares of their large shareholders.

Once more the Greek stock exchange has become a paradise of speculation for the international capital from which this period it draws large profits from its participation in the Greek businesses.

We do not believe that no one understands this. Why though does everyone keep quiet? Obviously criticism on the market and its functions is restricted for all parties, including the left. Either way, the answer is known: it’s just how the systems works.

Since all mainstream politicians are more or less involved in some investment activity, since the entire political system as its known relies its existence on the “sponsorships” of Greek and foreign capitalists (all parties have been bribed by Siemens [German engineering conglomerate], including the two parties of the left as their members have more or less admitted), despite any “dysfunctions” and “dis-figurations”, the system of market economy and capitalism are a commonly accepted denominator for all the professionals of politics – from the neo-liberals of the right and populist far-right who support the neo-liberal capitalist version, to the leftists who defend State-controlled capitalist operation. As a result of this consensus, the pillage via the stock markets remains untouched by this one more time.

What all political and economic authorities pursue in the end, is not to find ways out of the crisis – anyway all of their policies so far are making the situation worse not better – but to contribute so that Capital, wounded by the crisis, has the least possible losses, knowing that this will happen at the expense of the socially weaker layers. Their aim is not the relief of societies but the relief of the economically powerful who see their profits going down.

The same moment that politicians and mainstream analysts have the audacity to criticize large parts of the population because “they borrowed more than they could pay back, so they have a responsibility for today’s crisis”, Greek banks borrow, almost for free, public money from the ECB [European Central Bank] at a rate of 1% and they invest it in the stock markets with the Greek State as a guarantor.

The announcements about morality and temperance by State officials and bankers are completely outrageous, especially the moment the thieving banks borrow to people at a rate of 17%, giving an interest rate of much less than 1% and show no mercy when they confiscate property even for a few hundred euros. They are outrageous because the State shows no moderation when they give money to the banks, and borrows from them at very high rates. And if in the end the banks cannot pay-off the ECB, the Greek State guarantees to pay the bill. All this because “the economic system is in crisis” which means that the profits of the Greek banks are reduced in the first half of 2009 and are limited to a modest sum of €1.5 billion.

While the Greek government attacks with all means to take away the last euro from the pockets of mainly the lower social layers and pay-off the vultures of the international economic system, while it demands social consensus in order to impose new harsher tax collection measures, in the stock exchange they party with the €28 billion the suckers gave – i.e. all those who have nothing- to the banks.

The moment the cuts on wages, pensions and benefits become a whirlwind for the lower social layers, the moment poverty in Greece is about to go over 25% amidst the crisis and real time unemployment takes its greatest postwar dimensions, the moment the government sends the message “time for everyone to take their responsibility”, excluding the economic and political authority, as well as the privileged social layers, at the same moment tax evasions on high incomes come and go, – tax evasion for them is an informal law-, and shipping owners by law can enjoy the exemption from any sort of taxes.

While the government slashes the spending on public health, driving the public health system to death, it pumps millions from the public funds to “enhance businessmen” (most recent example the millions spent on air conditioners supporting the multinationals of this sector and the “help” it provided for the purchase of new cars supporting the multinational car factories). It gives away mythical sums to construction companies through the cooperation of private and public sector and the endless road construction which has destroyed Greece all over. And mainly, it constantly reduces the factors of taxing businesses, rich people and their profits when at the same time it squeezes the lower social classes to fill the public funds.

This policy will be continued by PASOK since for this party as well, competitiveness of economy is strongly linked to businesses profits. Therefore the purpose of every regime party is the strengthening of businesses, strengthening the plutocrats and capital in order to improve the economy.
Every political decision taken is a result of a planning that concerns the position of Greece in the international economic system and not a move of managing a single topic. As well that this planning does not only concern N.D. but also PASOK or any other government in power.

It is a political decision of the Greek governments to let the welfare and public health system decompose while they give money to the businesses. It is a result of their political position to destroy public education and promote, with laws, private education institutes.

It is a result of policy that the leaders sell out public property to the capitalists and then impose the commercialization of every social and economic function by fire and sword.

It is a result of policy that the State, whether its N.D. or PASOK, always supports and protects those who are on the top of the economic and social hierarchy with whom together they commit crimes against the societies by robbing them, and against the environment which they destroy legally in the name of development.

And if Attiki [region of Greece] burnt completely in the last fires, it was not a result of negligence and bad handling. The fact that every year Greece burns, the fact that there are few unburnt forests, the fact that forest arson is multiplying is not a result of negligence, it is as well, a result of politics.

Because it’s politics to not hire firemen for the forest fires and constantly hire cops, give away millions to hire “personal security” which have filled every corner of Athens. It is politics to not spend anything on forest protection, not buy any air-born fire vehicles, and spend billions on equipment, army helicopters and new modern security systems to protect the regime.

The recent fires that burnt whatever green was left in Attiki is known – even if its kept silent by the parties and media – to only serve the interests of the building companies that want to make a rubbish dump in the Grammatikos area. Just as the fires in Ilia in 2007 served the interests of the companies who benefited from the creation of the Ionian highway [Greek law reserves that burnt forest land can be speculated and sold].

Greece burns every year for the interests of the construction companies and the State assists in this destruction by passing legislations and laws that lead to the commericalization of the land and forests and legalize the destruction of the environment. Maybe all of Attiki was burning on Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd of August, but on Monday the stock exchange indices went up again featuring, besides the banks, construction companies, the insurance companies whose stocks went sky high since they await new crazy profits from the home insurances that will come.

On top of the ashes of Attiki and the rest of Greece, on the destruction of nature, on the misery and slow death of all of us, for one more time capital sets up a festival of profit.

The moment the government intensifies the tax collection to fill the empty State funds, the known special accounts all ministries have are full of millions of euros of which nobody except the “appropriate ministers” know where this money is spent which is taken from the taxpayers.

While the holes of the public deficit are shown as the largest national threat, the government spends €3.6 billion on the European elections in one month alone, sending the deficit to even higher levels and then runs to Brussels and promises it will raise money violently from the people.

The moment the politicians and rich people with audacity recommend moderation in the lower classes plummet, the same moment the astronomical wages of the MPs and European MPs are alone a scandal of great proportions. equally scandalous and provocative is the doubling of the judges wages.

When most people in this country have to cut down on products of basic essentials and food, at the same moment political authorities with money stolen from the public funds enjoy trips, events, parties and “conferences” worth several million. When house evictions increase everyday, political leaders live in mansions built with public money.

And within all these “scandals” which are born from the advanced merger of political and economic authority, with the millions that change hands through economic and political factors, with the exchange and buying-selling of public health, with the bribes, the “gifts” and “favors” with profit in mind, show that it’s a joke for someone to expect from a political system that is naturally corrupt, rotten and greedy for money and power, that exists to perpetuate inequality and poverty, which, when it mentions common interest, it only means the interest of the rich which it serves, to follow policies that will relieve the economically weak.

It is expected that no matter which government comes out from the elections it will not easily manage to hold the social peace and that there will be new social relations to the policies that aim at sacrificing the lower social layers in order to save plutocracy and its profits.

The future revolts for bread and basic foods are expected with mathematical precision in the countries of the capitalist periphery, since the rise of prices caused by the stock market may even surpass the prices of 2008 and will bring a new large explosion of hunger and poverty of the already poor, the outcasts of capitalist development. Also expected are the social explosions and clashes in the developed world, mainly in the countries of the semi-periphery such as the Eastern European countries who are already under the sword of the IMF [International Monetary Fund].

The next explosions are expected in Greece as well since the next government of PASOK will intensify its attacks against society to impose the orders of the financial adjustment which are dictated by the officials of the international elite (Brussels, IMF) and impose the neo-liberal reforms. It is expected that the States and the economic elite pull more and more on the rope of exploitation of society and are at the verge of rupture with large parts of the worldwide population.

It is a fact now that it is becoming harder and harder for the rich and poor to co-exist, since it is revealed clearly now that the worldwide plutocracy is a parasitic organ that lives on at the expense of the societies themselves. It steals the produced wealth without producing anything and whose existence alone is a crime against humanity. These criminals who murder millions of people with the stock market ‘bubbles’ they create, will never be punished by any regime party and they are not the ones that will pay for the crisis.

Even if some of the governments tear their garments in public, promising to put an end to the greed of specific economic factors – meaning a section of the over-paid executive managers – their job was, is, and will be, to help the economically upper class in the greedy hunt of profit and support it with public money when “business is bad”.

The punishment of all these vultures who appropriate social wealth for themselves, who live spending millions, who live as parasites on the expense of billions of people on the planet who do not have the basics for their survival, the punishment for the greedy capitalists will not be impose by any State or government. Their punishment can only be imposed by societies in revolt, which will take away from them every economic and social privilege, which will take away the wealth which was stolen from them, in order to socialize it, putting it at the service of the social revolution.

The economic system directs the worldwide economic terrorism

Well before today’s economic crisis broke out in the system, many tremors preceded from the numerous social crises all over the planet. These crises which were the result of the violent international spreading of capital’s dominance, increased the gap between rich and poor, bringing the gap to never before seen historical levels.

The crisis of the debt of third world countries and the bankruptcy of many countries during the ’80s and ’90s, the explosion of inequality and hunger that reached its peak in the period of neo-liberal globalization, the supplying crisis that has hit many countries for decades now and which is constantly getting worse, the formation of a new “third world” through the advanced capitalist countries, are stages of worldwide social crisis which has been cultivated by the market economy and capitalism for many years now. Even before the crisis broke out, 25,000 people a day – more than 8.7 million a year – lost their lives from malnutrition. But these deaths were not a crisis for the economical and political authorities. They were an unavoidable and unimportant to them fact.

The system, before coming to this dead end, had “successfully overcome” a series of previous crises with the valuable interventions of the State mechanisms, central banks and economic organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank, who supported it whenever it was shaken (credit crunch crisis in ’80, collapsing of insurance companies at the end of the same decade and stock market crisis of ’80, credit crunch crisis from the collapse of the economy in Mexico in ’94, crisis in the bond market after the collapse of the economies in southeast Asia in ’97).

But every overcoming of a crisis in the operations of the system led to a greater gathering of wealth and power in the hands of the elite and left behind it even more painful social crises for humanity. At the same time it cultivated the myth that the system is immortal. In a few words it set the terms for a large and worldwide economic crisis.

The fact that we are living a never-seen-before worldwide social inequality, is not a result of bad management by the system, but it is because of its very nature and the development model that has been globally imposed and which started to form post-war (WW2), to take its final characteristics in the era of neo-liberal globalization.

Monetary capital has been at the wheel of this model for years and stock markets are mechanisms of strategic importance for the gathering of capitals and power in the hands of the economically powerful of the planet.

When we refer to monetary capital we mean the merger not only of the industrial and bank capital but also the capital invested in the stock markets and the exchange markets. This merger which was presented from the beginning of the last century, in the time of neo-liberal globalization, and with the push of technology, has reached such levels that it makes any separation impossible and unrealistic.

Today international banking groups, multinational industrial businesses, large insurance companies and investment formations of every form can be controlled from the same centers and the capitals change position constantly depending on the perspectives formulated for maximum profitability. It is not an accident that today the same people, the same families of modern Croesus [Tycoon] through the model of a shareholding company control industries, banks, insurance companies, and posses an investment portfolio for every kind of stock market investment.

The enormous growth of stock market capital has its roots in the post-war development and the “golden-age of capitalism”. The super profits of that period along with the rapid industrial expansion began to seek new investment opportunities. It was a time when large industries used their profits from the investments on a national level, cooperated with many unforeseen investment formations and through the creation of the first post-war stock market explosion and “bubble” in shares, gave an unforeseen push to the expansion of multinationals by introducing international conglomerate groups.

The expansion of the multinationals happened at the same time as that of the banks, which transformed into powerful international conglomerates with the profits of the “post economic miracle”. The profits filled the drawers of the banks and it was the raw material for the explosion of the euro-dollar market, which cancelled in practice the imposition of State inspection on the international movement of capital. The first “big business” for post-war monetary capital was through the large market of loans in countries of the region.

It was a well set-up “job” in which banks, multinationals and center governments cooperated in.
Regional countries borrow in order to create development projects which were useless for them and their needs, benefited only a small minority of people in these specific countries which got richer, but the drawers of the multinational who carried out the projects got full. With this procedure the monetary capital preformed this cycle: from the central banks, it went to the region in the form of loans and ended up back at the center again, this time in the treasuries of multinational construction conglomerates, while the banks counted crazy profits from the loans they granted. The profitable “stroll” of international capital which from the center banks goes to the developed countries, is a solid policy in the post-war worldwide growth.

The same strategy is followed by the international economic elite in the case of South East Asia, since for years it prepared the field of attack with reports about the “enormous growth potential” which these countries supposedly had as well. When finally these countries went bankrupt, they were transformed into colonies for Western Capital, and they and their people were hostages to economic capital, forever wearing the shackles of debt.

Maybe officially the central role in the post-war economy was played by the government, but already from the ’60s financial capital started to regain its lost power and demanded the leading role in global economic operations.

Through the explosion of the euro-dollar market – which acted as a catalyst in the liberation of the movement of capitalism and brought the first decisive cracks in the system of State intervention – the depreciation of the fixed exchange system – which brought the explosion in the exchange market -, financial capital grew gigantic, managed to liberate the banking system, created a worldwide network of stock markets and exchange markets, and managed to get put behind the wheel of global development and economic operations.

The attempts to divide financial capital into “productive, socially useful industrial capital” and “parasitic speculative”, or in other words, the division of capitalists into “productive and creative industrialists” on one hand, and on the other, “parasitic speculators”, which is included in the rhetoric of all mainstream parties and mainly those of “social democracy” and the mainstream left, is impossible, misleading, but also dangerous.

It is impossible and misleading because it withholds that every operation of the system, every sector and industry is part of the same destructive development model. It is dangerous because it tries to isolate the responsibilities of today’s crisis onto some sectors of the system and onto specific roles in order to save the reputation of the rest of the system, which ‘we will have to correct a bit’.

The globalization of an economic plan of mass destruction

The stock market explosion that took place at the end of the ’80s, in the countries of the capitalist center, came as result of the long-lasting exploitation of the regional countries and the laborers of the industrial countries. When the ‘bubble’ later burst in the stock markets, everyone believed that the time had came for the theory of economic cycles by Kondratiev [1] to be confirmed, based on which the post ’30s great crisis would come in the ’90s, but instead of capitalism entering the vortex of a great crisis, “existing socialism” collapsed, giving food for the theorists of the “end of the economic cycles”.

The ’90s came in triumphantly for the autocracy of capital and the freemarket, with theories about the end of histories and ideologies, with praise for the technological explosion and the progress that promised the endless expansion of the market, smooth profitability for capital, the constant growth and the end of economic recessions. These opinions were shared by not only the neo-liberals but the whole of the political powers across the political spectrum, from the center-left -which at the time had forever abandoned social democracy and has basically adopted the policies of neo-liberals-, to the mainstream left.

The neo-liberal globalization and technological explosion brought drunkenness to the capitalists who were thirsty for more… blood. The governments of every political shade throughout the advanced capitalist world participated and contributed to the apotheosis of the system of market economy and also to the terms of its expansion at a global level, to the militant confrontation with those countries who did not surrender and to the imposition of the new economic and political order around the planet.

The economic explosion in the ’90s was accompanied by a new greater explosion of hunger in the third world and the intensity of social segregation for the semi-region and the center of capitalism.

While the profits of the businesses grew, what also grew was the pressure of Capital towards society with the blackmailing dilemma ‘reduction of production costs or close down’ and the ‘migration’ of the businesses to countries with cheaper labor. During this decade – in which occurred the last of the many “miracles” of capitalism – a new international allocation of labor was created.

In China, India, the countries of South East Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the multinationals install their chains of production, since the poverty wages of modern slavery and the modern slave trade itself that developed with globalization promised great profits for businesses. The tension of international exploitation with the most raw and inhuman pillage of social wealth that humanity had ever seen since the end of the 19th century, and the astronomical profits for the businesses from the reduction of labor costs were the factors that brought explosive dimensions to the global social crisis.

But the supporters of globalization from the neo-liberals to the ‘social democrats’ praised the results of this system which “managed to get millions of people out of the spectrum of hunger”. It’s indicative that before the crisis some alleged ‘socialists’ and ‘critics of neo-liberals’ such as Krugman [2], furiously contradicted the arguments of those against globalization, seeing in this the solution for the improvement of the living standards of the poor populations of the planet.

The main argument was the one that said that globalization “brought millions of people out of absolute poverty”, who became workers in the labour camps of the multinationals “maybe they get low pay, but they used to get even less”. At the same time the slogan “better low-paid jobs than no jobs”, which today amidst a crisis, wage cuts and lay-offs, is heard from every mainstream spokesperson in the developed world, was first used as an answer to the critiques about inhuman exploitation of people in the factory hell-holes set up by multinationals in the regional countries.

There is though a sequence in this course of misery for the people in the region. The pre-existing policy of lending from the Western banks. The pre-existing policy of debt that took hostage whole countries, the policies of the IMF that tore out every production procedure that did not bring in large profits for the Western economical oligarchy, the pre-existing sale of productive resources and infrastructures. The pre-existing enslavement to international capital in the countries who fell victim to the Western banks.

The misery of the people in these countries was a result of a long-lasting policy that started in the ’60s. When in the ’90s multinationals raided these countries to find ‘material’ to man the factories, or more to correct the modern slave markets, the previous policies of the international economic elite had assured that many millions of people would have gone into absolute misery and will accept working even for €1 a day in the factories of Western multinationals.

And the “civilized” world of the West which over-defends human rights, when the Western elite regimes are not satisfied, they have no hesitation to take for slaves even children, millions of which live, get sick and in the end die in the factories of the multinationals.

The result from this regime of globalization is the historically unprecedented gap in the level of wealth between north and south. In 1820 the differences between the 20% of the richest people globally and the 20% of the poorest was 3/1, in 1920 it was 11/1 and in 1997 74/1. Today 1/5 of the richest population of the world own almost 85% of the global GDP [Gross Domestic Product] while the poorest 20% less than 4%. This was the “improvement in people’s ‘quality of life’ in the region” which leftists and right-wingers claim that globalization brought.

Under these terms and while the so-called first world takes 80% of the global income leaving the 20% for the rest of the world, business profits go sky high, increasing the national incomes without however increasing labor incomes. This bundle of money coming from the global labour division, global over-exploitation and new work relations, was massively diverted into the channels of the financial system, ending up in the capitalist metropolis while the speculation games in the stock markets and exchange markets flared.

The stock exchanges in the ’90s live new days of glory with their index hitting the top.
It is the era when wealth and speculation is completely decriminalized. With the super-profits from this international model of development, the stock market sphere inflated and fed the stock market explosions of ’90. One ‘bubble’ came after another, internationally capitalists anticipated the non-stop profitability of this specific development model, globalization was glorified as the final exit from the crises of the system and the mythical profits from the ‘bubbles’ supported consumption from the Western mainly middle and upper classes.

In a nutshell, it was the speculation of the stock market sector, the ‘bubbles’ in property, stocks, exchange markets, the “bubbles” in the prices of food products and raw materials that created the demand and gave the possibility for global production to get absorbed. In the end, for today’s crisis you cannot hold neo-liberalism and the uncontrolled action of the markets only responsible. We cannot separate capitalism into good and bad, put the blame on just a part of it, characterizing it as “casino-capitalism” as a large part of the left is often saying today.

The whole system is responsible, for economic globalization and international labour division, the expansion of capital and development.

Those responsible for this crisis are not just some senior banking executives who got rich from speculation all these years. Behind them were and are interests that connect multinational banking groups, industries, food and medicine companies, insurance companies…. which means, every kind of multinational investment that speculates at the expense of labour, human needs, the environment. Behind the crisis is transnational capital, the whole of the regime.

Stock markets in the center of international economic terrorism

In the time of neo-liberal globalization it is common for stock markets to be shown as an almighty “faceless” force, which moves behind the scenes and is guided by the “sacred and unbreakable laws of the market”, laws which are complicated and incomprehensible for the “common people”, those who are not initiated in their operations. But stock markets have a face and material substance. Behind them are banks, insurance companies, the holders of mutual and investment portfolios, multinational businesses.

These are the economic factors that map out the modern strategies of accumulation and concentration of economic power, applying policies of relentless bloodsucking of social wealth at a global level, having always the sympathy and contribution of governments and central banks.

With the global stock market value surpassing $50 trillion, a sum greater than the global GDP, stock exchanges have transformed into international centres where it is decided what will be produced, from who, which place on the planet, what price it will have, what will be the new development innovations, what will be thrown away from the production procedure and what will be created anew. In production markets with product stock exchanges as the protagonists, capital is gathered that surpasses the astronomical sum of $450 trillion, which means ten times the global GDP.

In the product stock exchange oil companies lead, multinationals of food and raw materials that control the largest part of global production in energy, food and raw materials speculate with product prices. There it is decided what products will be produced, from what countries and with what quantities, where they will be distributed and at what prices. Food multinationals and stock exchanges define the prices of products, which countries will starve to increase their profits.

In exchange markets – where the capital that gathers to speculate at the expense of local currencies reach on a daily basis $2 trillion and on a yearly basis over $400 trillion, ten times the global GDP – is decided every day the value of currencies, where their devaluation and appreciation through this huge market can destroy even a country of the capitalist centre in one night. In a nut shell ‘markets’ – as is common to call them in short – are the absolute Lords of the planet. When we speak of ‘markets’ we mean the transnational conglomerates which control the largest part of global production, multinational monetary institutions and investment companies. We mean an international economic ruling class that controls global economy.

The nucleus of the stock exchanges is the shareholder company which has given great flexibility to capital and which through it can at any given moment transfer from one business position to another, change place, even move through time, “betting” on future alterations and profits with the help of numerous stock market tools that has been discovered by the endless speculative imagination. This business model has given the opportunity to a few large investors, holding stocks from different businesses, to simultaneously control different sectors of economy with relatively few capitals, a fact that leads to the reinforcement of conglomerate monopolies, the concentration of capital and economic force.

Through the stock exchange and the endless hunt to raise as much profit as possible for the shareholders, capitalism succeeds the expansion of these mechanisms of pumping the surplus value at a national as well as international level and promotes the regime of international labour over-exploitation, the brutality of which is in unprecedented in human history.

Thus, the shameful wages, the poverty of the workers of all lands and the human misery brought by poverty, is in coordination with the indices of stock exchanges and is the reason for stock market expansion.

The more wages decrease and businesses profits increase, the more the workers living standards are downgraded, the more stock market speculation expands.

Maybe the social majority is in distress and poverty, maybe the GDP in a country goes up because rich people’s profits go up while the income of the many does not increase and the country is sinking in debt. Maybe the high speed development rhythms declare only the profitable opportunities for the capitalists and not the improvement of living conditions of societies. Maybe the indices prosper but people who live in poverty are miserable, but political authorities use these indices to convince us that the economic situation of the majority of the people is good. In a similar way the rise of the stock markets continues to be propagated as a basic factor that shows that economy is booming.

The argument that ‘the stock market development offers debts for the total of the economy’, is still dominating and the political elites directly or indirectly support the stock market prosperity, despite the fact that it’s more and more obvious that the stock market is a mechanism for snatching produced wealth and its aim is the concentration of the economic force to more and more less. The so-called ‘tidying up’ of business, or in other words – “rationalization” of its operation – in order for it to become more competitive, is used as a basic target of the businesses that want to be listed into the stock market, as well the ones that are already in, is nothing more than the ‘reduction of operational costs’. This in practice means either the reduction of workers wages or reduction of jobs and lay-offs or even shutting down businesses and transporting them to countries with cheaper wages.

Even the known philosophies surrounding the role of the stock exchanges, and presenting them as the fields where businesses inflate capital by avoiding lending in order to finance new investments, are just a scam today. It is easy for someone to accept that the profits from the stock market rise not only are not put into new investments but threaten the existing ones. It is known that large investment and financial organizations – the real masters of stock markets – which assess the listed and their development prospects, have several methods to cause the rise in share prices of companies.

The same investment institutions assess concessional lending to those businesses with the largest increase in their share value. These businesses offer to lend, supporting their business expansion. In other words companies have the possibility to borrow much more capital the more their shares go up and proceed to aggressive buy-outs of competitive businesses, a tactic that serves a basic capitalist principle, based on which a powerful business must expand with final target of the control of the market.

In this game of speculation, the businesses with better yields are in more danger, since the borrowing terms get more lenient as their stock price rises. As well, it is known that when ‘powerful’ business announces it’s going to bought out by another one, its share goes up immediately and the profits for the shareholders are assured. In the end, those listed in the stock market not only don’t inflate capital to raise their capitalist base, but on the contrary, it happens that the most ‘powerful’ of these show a decrease of capital and are in danger of bankruptcy when the stock market explosion is followed by the usual descent.

From this procedure those who are truly winners are the financial and investment institutions who orchestrate the process of buy-outs and mergers with their reports for those listed on the stock exchange, the stocks of which they promote up or down depending on their plans and inflate the surplus profits of the expansion from their participation in the stock composition of companies as well as the capital with which they borrow for this business expansion. We have examples like this all the time in the Greek market as well with a load of speculative portfolios and with multinational investment groups such as Citibank or JP Morgan, UBS etc. systematically “playing” with many listed in the Greek stock exchange.

The over-charging of large businesses comes as a natural result of the stock market expansion of inflated stock-equity businesses and expansionist policies, while when the moment of crisis arrives, then “economic giants” collapse like paper towers while their lenders are in the corner buying the once seemingly mighty companies ‘for a piece of bread’. This condition intensifies economic gathering, since through buy-outs and mergers the multinational-conglomerate groups spread their control onto new markets. It’s a given that the real winners are the multinational financial and investment institutions, who extend their hegemonic position in this modern process of accumulation inflating the surplus profits from the procedure of the business expansion with borrowed money.

The stock market explosion in Greece at the end of the ’90s was orchestrated with the cooperation of the Greek State and local capitalists. It brought the stock exchange to the centre of economic life and thousands of Greeks and immigrants believed that they found their own El Dorado. The transnational capital entered the game en masse right after the devaluation of the Drachma [Previous unit of currency before the Euro] by the Simitis [Prime-minister from '96 to '04 and former leader of PASOK] government to snatch the savings, the fortunes – even the lendings – of the ‘local victims’ that were channeled into the stock exchange, raising the indices sky high and leading the stock market capitalization for the first time to astronomical sizes, more than two times the Greek GDP.

The ‘bubble’ took unprecedented dimensions and the large shareholders collected the profits and left. What followed was the precipitation of indices that left the small time shareholders holding in their hands shares which are garbage. One million people played and lost fortunes in the stock market in ’99, most were completely destroyed, some committed suicide. And of course this massive discord was nothing but a result of a conscious policy by the government and parties, with the overall index of the State on the parliamentary agenda.

The stock market ‘bubble’ of ’99 – and the para-philology about “popular capitalism” that accompanied the ’90s but found its best practical application at the end of the decade -, was necessary for the social modernization promoted by PASOK because it contributed to the complete decriminalization of speculation, the idealization of wealth as a sovereign value, the legalization to a great extent of the banks loansharking which from then on took great dimensions, proportionate to the stock market profits that vulture-bankers took in.

The then government of PASOK with the help of State-controlled stock market companies and companies that had been founded together with members of both major parties, as well as the contribution of large sums from the insurance funds in the stock market to “dope up” the indices (sums that, of course, “were lost” in the pockets of politicians, government executives and big businessmen), orchestrated one of the biggest frauds in Greek history.

It is undoubtedly a theft of mythical dimensions, the biggest most massive transfer of wealth towards the more privileged classes.

Banks, party members and large businesses in Greece got rich by stealing the billions of Drachmas from small time investors and sucking the blood of small businesses that entered en masse with the ‘support’ of the banks. From the stock market explosion and the collapse that followed ’99, the gathering of capital in Greece went forward at a fast pace strengthening monopolies and oligopolies in the Greek market.

Consequent of ’99 is that foreign capital participated in the shareholder creation of large Greek companies controlling them and owning the biggest part of the stock market capitalization. The contribution of the Greek stock exchange was defining in the establishment and control of the economic life of the land by a bunch of Greek tycoons and foreign large investors, a fact which has not taught the necessary social and political lessons.

It might be that since then, small time shareholders systematically abstain from the Greek stock exchange, despite any attempts of economical and political authorities to attract the lower-middle class and their savings. One part though, of the middle class in Greece continues to own fortunes in the form of shares, bonds and other brokerage products and expects the increase of its personal wealth from the practices of relentless executives and managers, from the intensity of labour exploitation and from the poverty of the workers.

The blindness caused by the thirst for wealth does not allow any of those who chase quick profit to see that with the prosperity of stock exchanges, from which they hope to get rich from, they support – besides the intensity of labour exploitation – indirectly the debts of households, since with this consumption increases and profits flock to the businesses raising at the same time their stock market indices. In this way, social inequality constantly increases, as one part of society gets rich from the debts of another obviously larger one and the many are destroyed in order for the few to prosper.

Let’s not fool ourselves, the participation of anyone in stock market speculation is a clearly anti-social practice, it is aggressive towards the proletarians, it materially and morally reinforces the bosses and the rich and contributes in the strengthening of social and class inequalities. And if for the rich the cold indifference to the source of their wealth and the cynicism in front of the hunt for profit is a given because of their class, for the poor such a stance should be ethically unacceptable and reprehensible .

Since many professional politicians, whatever their political affiliation, own large amounts of shares in their vaults, it becomes understandable why it’s not only a matter of political position when it comes to blindly supporting the stock exchange, but also a matter of personal interest. Just like it is a matter of personal interest, the adoption of policies by those who have the State power, or reinforce whichever business, depending on which capitalist they have invested their future profits in.

The portfolios of politicians and their families reflect in an undeniable manner even for the more naive, the personal benefit of political power from the so-called “intertwining” of the political and economic sphere. And for sure an MP cannot be exempted from this reality just because he is a leftist, such as Alavanos of Sinaspismos, who – besides his huge fortune which declares that his interests are light years away from the interests of the non privileged – holds a not-insignificant number of stocks. Even more, a leftist party such as the KKE (communist party) cannot be exempted, despite the fact that it hides well its business deals and activities.

Such cases of Leftists, who claim that their purpose is the defence of the rights of the workers, the poor, who denounce economic exploitation and uneven distribution of wealth, elastic and uninsured labour and the exploitation of immigrants, the bloodsucking of households by the banks, who often heavily criticize casino-capitalism and on the other hand get rich through the stock market, are raw liars and hypocrites.

Because participation in the stock market today legalizes the most thieving regime of sucking social wealth via labour, we should denounce as frauds and hypocrites all those who use leftist rhetoric for a better world while at the same time preserve and support the existing exploitative and oppressive regime. From cases like this we have nothing more to expect but deceit.

The blood sucking of the insured by the stock exchange

From the ’50s all Greek governments found in the insurance funds an unlimited source of cash which they systematically robbed in order to fund their stay in power.

With laws voted by the gangs of the parliaments, throughout time the insurance reserve funds were robbed “legally”, with which the State funded the policies of capitalist growth. Today the usual tactic of robbing the insured by the governments has become even more imperative not only because of the large State deficits, but also because the depreciation of insurance funds constitutes a strategy of political importance so much for N.D. as well as PASOK.

While the procedure of political and economic bankruptcy of the insurance system in Greece goes ahead since the ’90s independently of what government is in power, the government of N.D from the first moment it came into power in 2004, first promised directly to the insurance companies via Karamanlis, the “reform” of insurance policies and the privatization of insurance.

The insurance reform opens a new field of exploitation by capital, promises mythical profits from the private exploitation of insurance and its utilization becomes even more imperative today amidst the crisis that eats away at the profits of the capitalists. Already the vultures of the bankers under the name “Union of Institutional Investors” persistently apply pressure so that they can get the reserve funds in order to “invest” them.

Greek governments for years now are used to, through their appointed people in the leading positions of funds, buying with the reserve of the insured invested products, which are appointed to them by unscrupulous individuals who either hold chairs in ministries or excel in brokerage and investment businesses.

The known revelations about the bond of €280 million which was secretly printed by the general accounting office, went through a speedy process of re-sales and ended up over-priced to the pre-arranged buyers which were four funds {TAEDY (Greek pension fund), TEAPOKA (social insurance workers auxiliary pension fund), TSEYP (news vendors and press agency employees pension fund), TEFY (pharmaceutical workers pension fund)}, and showed that the perpetrators and their practices had all the characteristics of a multiplex criminal organization.

Secret deals between State and economic factors, underground re-routing of hundreds of millions of euros for the cover-up of State deficits and reinforcement of party funds, systematic looting of the funds of the insured by the gangs of international financial and investment conglomerates (i.e. JP Morgan) and the vultures of domestic financial businesses (i.e. Akropolis), bribes of many millions of euros that ended up in the pockets of politicians and sectors of the market which were the protagonists of the big scam.

And since we know that a part of the truth saw the limelight and since more bonds were printed and sold to more than the already known ones, we realize that the magnitude of the crime is incalculable for millions of insured.

The policy of managing the reserve through the capitalist market, their increase or decrease depending on the performance of investment tools, has now been legalized in the conscience of most.

This is why the criminal history of placing millions of euro from many funds into different financial derivatives they call “structured bonds”, while it should have become a reason for a social explosion because of the audacity of governments to use the reserve of those insured to feed their hidden accounts, fund State deficits, making themselves richer and finance multinationals, instead of it becoming a reason to overturn the policy of using this social wealth for investments in brokerage products, on the contrary, we saw a ridiculous critique being developed starring the media and political parties, which focused on bribery and the violation of the terms of the market itself in the sales of “bonds”, which were bought from the “capped” funds.

The matter now is not about if the money of the insured should be used in stock market gambling or not – this is considered legalized in the people’s minds – , but if this is happening based on the laws of the markets, if the managing is done by “specialized institutions” and if the agreements are of “of interest or not” for the funds.

This way, no one refers to the great theft that happens to IKA (social insurance organization) through the AEDAK (collective investment scheme), the activities of which, as well as the real accounts, are permanently covered by a shroud of mystery. This specific company which is essentially led by the National Bank, was composed with law 1902/90 in order to control the IKA reserve, and has assumed management of the reserves of OGA (farmers insurance organization) and OAEE (insurance organization for the unemployed).

The big feast with the reserves of the above funds takes place with the blessings of N.D. and PASOK. Besides the fact that part of the known structured bonds were specifically bought from AEDAK – a fact kept silent-, a large part of the reserves are used for the purchase of shares from the managing banks.

The large financial conglomerates of Greece Alpha, EFG, Eurobank, National and Commercial bank through their affiliates, have managed a partnership through AEDAK and snatch the incomes of those insured by financing their scams and filling their funds. As well they have transformed the funds into garbage bins where they throw away the mutual bonds they printed for the listed in the stock exchange and for which they cannot find another buyer. In the fund with the submissive managements that are controlled by the two major parties, they find the always willing buyer for all their investment garbage.

Let’s remember 2007 when the looting of the funds through the structured bonds became known, much of the media spoke of the “sound management of the AEDAK of the insurance funds” where “specialists in financial markets” (the vultures of the National Bank and other banks) “manage the capital of the funds bringing profits, and not the party superiors, who know nothing about financial matters and additionally they are easily bribed”.

Let’s remember that the example of the insurance funds and AEDAK was used repeatedly to urge other funds to follow the same tactic. Today, specifically let all those who spoke then about the AEDAK tell us, when has IKA and the other funds seen their drawers fill up from the “high returns of sound investments” that the company made? Mainly let them explain to us why, despite that the “good management” they announced took place, OAEE has empty drawers and is selling-off assets to pay those insured? Let them explain to us how IKA, the largest fund in the country, almost collapsed and how one fund after another finds it impossible to cover its responsibilities towards those insured.

And while the financial capital in Greece eats the reserves of the funds with the blessing of the State, the government of Nea Dimokratia passes one law after another for the reform of the insurance system and after contributing greatly in the looting of the funds, pretends to legislate for their salvation.

From the beginning of the ’90s, both governments of PASOK and N.D. voted a series of laws that increased the pension age and increased the contribution of the workers, while decreasing the contributions of employers (Sioufas law), decreased the pensions themselves, cut the early retirement pensions (Reppas law), undermined the public pharmaceutical health-care and at the same time pushed the funds deeper and deeper into the quick-sand of stock investments.

The workers terrorized by the heavy changes in the insurance system that the government passed in 2008 and having to deal with even worse terms of retirement – if they are allowed to, by the age limits that keep on going up -, turn more and more to private insurance companies. This reaction of the workers does not concern a non-desirable casualty of the insurance reform, but a desirable outcome for N.D. as well as PASOK, which comes as a result of a long-term policy of theirs for the depreciation of the public insurance system.

The privatization of social insurance means that the insured take on the weight of their insurance and are left completely to the appetites of the markets, or otherwise the financial authority, which the only thing it wants from this procedure is even more margins for profit.

The demands of the insurance companies, the financial institutions with interests in the insurance markets and the major businessmen who ask for even more decreases of their contributions to workers insurance, has succeeded in many countries, the partial and in others the complete, privatization of the social insurance system.

Insurance companies and major pension funds are in our days one of the largest categories of institutional investors managing more than $12 trillion worldwide. On the other hand, the explosion of mergers of the last years brought the insurance companies to connect organically with other multinationals of a different kind (see. Allianz with Siemens) gaining a leading position in the global market. The modern multinationals – multiform monstrosities created through a long period of accumulation -, now set as a target the control of the pension system of the countries where either it’s still public or it’s under partial control of the markets.

In countries where the State has completely destroyed the public health care system, such as the U.S.A., workers pay increased contributions to secure a questionable-sized pension and their fate has been identified by the speculation of the company in which they are insured and the course of its stock. The collapse of large companies – common phenomenon in our capitalist era – might not mean the economic destruction of the large shareholders and managing executives – who usually abandon ship before it sinks -, but definitely means the complete destruction of those who not only lose their jobs but mainly, lose their contribution which they paid until the moment of the collapse in order to have health care and a pension.

With the contributions of those insured, large sums are gathered that are diverted into the stock market for “investments”. This way Capital manages another raw looting at the expense of the workers. In stock market gambling the reserves of the funds are used as a “mound” in the increasingly larger investment risks taken by major investors. Pension funds were a main buyer of the securitized debts from the banks that opened the market for mortgage loans in the U.S. And it is not of course the first time this happens. It’s a usual practice as we know very well from the Greek example of structured bonds.

In a similar way the insurance funds in Greece and even before the privatization of social insurance was completed, become a mound in the current crisis protecting the Greek financial institutions. The unrestricted snatching of the reserves of the funds by large-scale capitalists is carried out for years with the blessings of the governments of N.D. and PASOK, the other parties and the media, filling the pockets of the major investors, who either directly or indirectly are connected to the vultures of the banks which manage the money of the insured.

It is an intermediate stage before total privatization, for which in order to happen, presupposes the complete depreciation of the funds and the collapse of the existing insurance system. This depreciation has already happened and this is proved by the fact that the government just recently went ahead and printed bonds worth €4.6 billion to cover the major financial needs of IKA, a fact that confirms the collapse of public economy and justifies the rush to the polls on October 4th [2009].

If this course is not overturned by a major social revolution, in the immediate future the economic indices of businesses, their competitiveness, their position in the market, will determine the level of pensions and health benefits.

The fate of the capitalist will become our fate. We will see in their riches the possibility to have a decent pension, we will see their economic difficulties as our obstacles in health and the threat we might find ourselves in the social margin as we get older. We will see the trembles of the freemarket as a threat to ourselves and when the company collapses (just as it happened with Enron in the United States and with the dozens of companies that collapse today because of the crisis) our contributions, or whatever is left of them, will be in the luggage of managing executives which will be abandoning ship as it sinks, and the right to insurance will drown in the shipwrecks of company interests.

Revolution is the only solution for the complete exit from the crises

It is natural that the political elites worldwide that support their authorities in the existing economic system, are trying to convince us that the crisis has a limit and concerns the bad operation of the banks and mainly the American banks. For them and the mainstream propaganda they cultivate there’s no problem in the capitalist system and the markets, there is no connection of previous crises with today’s – each one was a “sole incident without references to the past and without consequences on the future” -, there is no connection to the long-term increasing exploitation that accompanies today’s situation.

For them it’s important to save the banking system from collapse, which means to save the economically ruling class of the planet and their fortunes, even if this means greater poverty and exploitation for the people.

We do not believe that anyone from the governments that take measures to save the system really believes that these will pull us out of the crisis and that all this happens for the good of all. Because only a stupid politician would believe that by giving away public money to the banks, giving astronomical dimensions to a debt which is already unbearable for the society that pays it, to fill with this money the pockets of the rich who couldn’t care less about their fellow human beings when they see no possibilities of profit amidst a crisis, and who know very well themselves that the talk about exiting the crisis is intentional bullshit, and among all this to impose policies of spending cuts on basic public operations such as health, cut wages and pensions and sell out at cost price whatever public wealth left, only a stupid politician would believe all this that they are real solutions to exit the crisis.

The policy of strengthening capitalism with money and the harsh austerity policies imposed by the European Committee and applied religiously by the governments, are not policies to exit the crisis, they are policies that make the crisis worse and this will show in the immediate future. They are policies of the ruling class and securing its profits. They are policies of securing that the system will continue to operate since it is what governments rely their power on. They are policies that point towards greater exploitation as is shown by the complete cover up of illegal labour and the blackmailing establishment of the 4-day work week. The crisis gives a unique opportunity for businessmen to impose with the blackmail of being fired, the unique-in-history compression of workers income.

The slogan ‘better badly paid jobs than no jobs’ is not only heard now in the ‘Dachau’ factories of Asia but also for every workplace of the West and is adopted in full by the political leaders of the right, centre and centre-left parties as a central political line. It is not about choices that will disappear magically when, and if, the economic situation improves. It is about permanent choices that are legislated by the governments and will determine the terms of work relations from now on.

For the political authorities worldwide, today’s crisis and its successful managing means that it will help the capitalists surpass their problems and extend their economic power, it means they will manage to contribute to the largest gathering of economic power. For the political elites themselves it means new opportunities to extend their authorities for the strengthening of State power. If they manage to get through this obstacle without any real social cost – which nowadays, we don’t just mean the expected social explosions but the danger of a political overturning, the violent downfall of governments and the overturning of the regime – then societies will have to deal with a form of the State where totalitarian and even neo-fascist characteristics will dominate.

This is being prepared in many countries around the world but also in Greece. The government of N.D. has not only chosen the far-right view to get the vote, this is a simplistic approach, but because it sees that the right conditions are being created. The unlimited support of the fascist Karatzaferis [leader of the popular orthodox party LAOS] and the paramilitary fascist gangs that surround it, is for the formation of a social current with far-right characteristics and over-conservative reflexes.

This social trend, while under development and until today a vile minority, is foisted onto society with the contribution of media as the dominant social trend and is used to show that there is not only consensus to the measures for the strength of State control, but a social demand for the immediate application of totalitarian methods of State imposition and social control. A thorn in the side of this policy is the political and economic refugees, the people who suffer the largest weight of the long term infection caused by the economic regime and the wars brought by the extension of the dominant model of authority. Another thorn is the task of the regime’s security demands and combating every social resistance by all means.

In reality, they know that with these choices cultivated by the two major parties, LAOS and the absence of any essential resistance from the parties of the left, has already produced a climate of social civil war which is consolidated by the back-to-back military style laws which were voted for the security of the regime. This climate of social civil war is promoted in the streets of the cities with the military collaboration of the police and armed far-right gangs that are controlled by the State mechanism.

Today the dangers of a new style of totalitarianism are not in the extreme elements of the system, since both they and their basic projections have merged with the dominating political trends. As the party components of the regime assimilate the far- right proposals – see the consistency of N.D and PASOK policy on immigration matters and oppression – State neo-fascism will be based on all the more minority social trends which it will legalize through electoral parodies. It will be the governing model created by today’s crisis.

This neo-fascist and authoritarian political situation that is already being formed and that already has the political consensus of the majority of the mainstream parties, leaves no left wing party able to go up against it. Already the concentration camps for immigrants and the deportations are the ‘main migration policy’ with the consent of PASOK and LAOS, while the protests by SIRIZA and KKE (left political parties) are not capable of preventing its implementation. Laws to combat resistance and for the armouring of the regime are voted in one after another, i.e. laws for hoods and facemasks, registering of SIM cards, CCTV, DNA).

We believe that from now on the participation of any party in parliament, there where they decide and execute the most extreme policies this land has seen since the time of Metaxas [Prime Minister of Greece between April and August 1936, and dictator during the 4th of August coup, from 1936 until his death in 1941.] and the coup d’état of the colonels, cannot be justified by the society that does not compromise.

If there is one message that was sent with the historical 50% absence from the EU elections to the political system, it was that it’s becoming increasingly understood by more and more people that the regime and its institutions are rotten, and that no part inspires trust and hope for a better tomorrow.

Now a situation has formed that for the existing regime means from now on nothing will be the same, since it’s losing its social basis and is not legitimized in the consciences of more and more people. Because it knows that the base on which the system of parliamentary representation relies on shrinks, it prepares to claim its survival with the weapons of totalitarianism.

We do not believe that everyone who did not vote are just waiting for the revolutionary onslaught. We believe that what was imprinted clearly is the depreciation of the economic and political regime, a fact that draws many of its reasons from the economic crisis. Of course the abstention from the elections does not mean itself more politicized citizens or that they are more active in common matters.

Because of this, together with our projection for abstention from the next elections, we would add that it is of imperative need that this choice does not mean the resignation from the managing of the social matters, but on the contrary, it should mean the non-institutional activity of people targeting the constant prevention of the anti-social work of mainstream parties.

Don’t let the abstention become a turn to passivity and resignation, but let it be the beginning of an honest and undistorted struggle for social emancipation.

For us, the real exit from the crisis is not in any recipe of correcting the system. We shouldn’t help them come out of a crisis with the system a winner and societies as losers. Let’s not live anymore under the yoke of a system that grows poverty constantly, is fed with fear and insecurity for survival. Let’s not live anymore under the yoke of the State, with daily control and terrorism applied at the expense of us all.

The only real exit from the crisis is in the overturning of the system that creates the crises

We believe that today more than ever, it is legitimate and necessary that the biggest liberation of all societies from the regime parties of all hues takes place. The evacuation of resistance from the sold-out-to-the-system parties of the left, from the reformist traps and the fraudulence of the subversion ‘from the inside’. The political solution is in the non-institutional and horizontal organization of resistance into a prospect that will aim at subversion and revolution.

It is not only about a proposal that replies to the immoral characteristics of the regime, the exploitation and oppression of people by people. It is not only about an ethical necessity to overcome a regime that relies on oppression. In the environment of the crisis that is formulated, the exit from the system is now a matter of survival, since capitalism with its devouring and greedy character has already pushed societies to the extreme limits; poverty, death and the destruction of the ecosystem. If not overthrown it will kill the planet, it will kill all of us.

The exit from the crisis will come through the revolutionary social organization that will unavoidably clash with the mainstream form of organization. The exit from the crisis will come with the destruction of the system, its mechanisms and institutions, with the organization of a society of economical equality and political freedom. A society without economic and social differences, outside the dogmas of competitiveness, a society of solidarity.

When we speak of complete exit from today’s and any other crisis, we mean revolution. We mean the abolition of the State and every form of organized authority which that will unavoidably exist to perpetuate and reproduce social and class segregation, i.e. the deeper reasons for every sort of crisis.

We mean the withdrawal of economic privileges from the ruling class and their socialization, i.e. the re-appropriation of the stolen social wealth. The re-appropriation of State and church fortunes and their socialization. The re-appropriation of all the land and fortunes owned by the industries. The sharing of the wealth of the rich to the people. The abolition of economic and political privilege and the creation of a social organization which will stop the reappearance of old or even new forms of political and economic gathering and where every decision will be taken by the communities and the citizens assemblies. The abolition of private property of the means of production but also the deterring of every policy that will pursue their nationalization. Because we cannot go back to forms of State accumulation, with a party of “enlightened leadership” to organize a ‘new’ centrally controlled development model.

This social model collapsed anyway. But either way it is counter-revolutionary and anti-social, since it’s consolidation is politically based on totalitarianism. Property should only be communal, the only authority of this community are assemblies of the people. All expropriated wealth and productive means of the authorities should go into the hands of the social base. The social base itself through its direct democratic procedures should decide for everything, the production, the distribution of products, consumption, i.e. the complete abolition of the operation of the market and capitalism. The isolation of every political party that attempts to usurp the revolutionary achievements and restore the authoritarian cancers that will want to put an end to the revolution.

What we want to say in a nutshell is that it’s worth coming to a rupture with the system and its institutions and start a revolutionary social experiment with horizontal social organization, where every one of us will have the first word on their lives, an experiment for a society without masters and slaves.

A society of truly free people.

REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE



P.S. During the placement of the explosive mechanism in the Eurobank in Argiroupouli, “we met” a police jeep that was patrolling the area and in which were three cops. Coming out of the bank, the comrades who had undertaken the placement of the mechanism, saw the jeep parked with the lights turned off at a distance of about 30 metres away.

Absolutely calm and walking steadily without hurrying they head towards the motorcycles which were the escape vehicles. While the comrades had gotten on, one of the cops came out of the jeep and moved towards us shouting: “Police, don’t move”. Then one of the comrades pulled out his gun and aimed at him and he retreated immediately. This move was the wisest one, since it saved his life and his colleagues lives. In the case that he didn’t retreat immediately, they should be sure to know that they would have fallen down dead. We suggest therefore, if some cops have the misfortune to come face-to-face with armed fighters, they should do the same, since it is the only way to save themselves.

After this incident, some journalists unleashed a heavy criticism to the attitude of the specific cops, some asked bluntly for blood to be spilled and especially on the morning-time of a State channel declared that “they should have dropped them -the comrades of course- to the ground and they would have received the applaud of the people”. If some hyenas of journalism such as this one – who thinks that in this way he serves best his responsibilities as an ass kisser of the State – think that by publically incite cops to shoot and ask for the bloodshed of fighters, that they will harm us, or if they think that society is on the side of the cops, they are truly ridiculous. The only thing they accomplish with such declarations is to be self-stigmatized, and worsen their social position.

[1] Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kondratiev (1892-1938). Russian economist who proposed a theory that Western capitalist economies have long term (50 to 60 years) cycles of boom followed by depression. These business cycles are now called “Kondratiev waves”.

[2] Paul Robin Krugman (1953-). American economist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. In 2008, Krugman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography. According to the Nobel Prize Committee, the prize was given for Krugman’s work explaining the patterns of international trade and the geographic concentration of wealth, by examining the impact of economies of scale and of consumer preferences for diverse goods and services. Krugman considers himself a liberal, calling one of his books and his New York Times blog “The Conscience of a Liberal”.



Translated by boubourAs / actforfreedomnow! 2011

http://actforfreedomnow.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/communique-claiming-responsibility-for-the-bombing-of-the-stock-exchange-in-athens-on-292009-from-the-revolutionary-organisation-%E2%80%93-revolutionary-struggle/

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