Category: Texts

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“The proletariat of the industrial countries has completely lost the affirmation of its autonomous perspective and also, in the last analysis, its illusions, but not its being. It has not been suppressed. It remains irreducibly in existence within the intensified alienation of modern capitalism: it is the immense majority of workers who have lost all power over the use of their lives and who, once they know this, redefine themselves as the proletariat, as negation at work within this society”.
Guy Debord

Since the nineties different people who’ve expressed themselves about postmodern typology wearing a different mask every time (sometimes of the neo-liberal, sometimes of the “middle political scene”, sometimes of the social democrats, sometimes of the ideologists of tepidity and confused multi cultural neo-leftism that mixes everything up, and sometimes the mask of the “anti authoritarian” new-hippie lifestyle ) ruminate/brag about the ideology of the end of history: there is no more proletariat, there is no class war, we can at last without fear head towards the Paradise of Market, where honey and milk flow abundantly. And hamburgers and ketchup too…

Unfortunately for the apologists of legality, the facts are stubborn: a handful of capitalists has organized a criminal gang and kidnapped proletarians demanding for ransoms, their working power, the commercialization of human activity, their time (that transforms into money), even their whole existence. Wage slavery is a permanent crime against human dignity. It’s not just because of the usual ‘casualties’ of work “accidents” of class war. It’s not just because of the dead, wounded and amputated people of the work “accidents”, but also because of the diseases related to the working environment and space. It’s not just because of the strawberry fields, that show us we’ve never escaped the time of slavery. It’s not just because of the sacrificed workers (locals and immigrants, “expensive and cheap” labor hands) at the altar of every “American dream” or “Greek miracle”.
It is the existence itself of waged work that constitutes the permanent crime! And the criminals, the kidnappers and the blackmailers are all the Mylonas. Even if the rats of the media present the leader of thieves Mylonas (the boss of the gang for common thieves of the Federation of Industries of Northern Greece) as an “innocent” victim, as a misunderstood neo-liberal Christian child, as a pain resistant worker, who efforts night and day for the common good.
As for the illusionist tricks that different vampires like Mylonas invent to show their “human face” (for example green capitalism, socialised industry, etc.), only one thing can be said:

SATIRE HAS ITS LIMITS…

Mylonas is no more than the brain of a gang of exploiters. Like all capitalists he too is a parasite: a weight on earth and an obstacle for winds.
So the Mylonas couple should stop pretending raped virgins .

“O gentlemen, the time of life is short! …
And if we live, we live to tread on kings”
W. Shakespeare

The first duty of the proletariat is the conscienceness of itself, of its position and its role. The conscience of being a prostitute in the hands of a capitalist, of producing wealth for the bosses and misery for itself.
The conscienceness on the other hand that produces the whole material life of society. That it is nothing but CAN BE EVERYTHING.
The second duty of the proletariat is the denial of its imposed role, the denial of work, the denial of alienation.
The third duty of the proletariat which arises naturally from the first duties, is the revolutionary action for it’s own suppression.
Only the subjects can ignite the objective conditions and cause the revolutionary explosion for the destruction of the authoritarian/class society.

From: ‘The art of war’, 6th issue of “Asymmetric threat” (under publication…)

Unfortunately in the wild west of capitalism the proletarians lullaby with trash eating over consumerism. Life has involved into a necrophilic survival between cages of cement, cars, billboards, surveillance cameras and cops. The route of survival is assigned: from one concentration camp to another. From school to university, from army to wage slavery. And there the proletarian crosses the same streets of alienation as the night walker: work, home, shopping mall, work. From production to consumption…
Behind the iron curtain of virtual prosperity and spectacular misery lies an unadmitted truth: the miracle of the west walks over corpses. Not only of those in the third world (either way this constant exploitation is the most gigantic crime of human history), but also of those in the third world on the west.
Behind a glance of being high on consumption hides the rot of a slaughtering civilization. But from inside this rot one possibility springs up. A possibility that not even the think tanks of the existent system, not even the bureaucratic certainties of Bolshevism, not even the paleolithic determinism of ideologies can repress: the social entropy, the revolution, the constant struggle for the destruction of the state, of private property and of waged work.
Comrades! Life is short. If we live, we live to step on the heads of bosses and their slaves.

For anarchy and communism!

P.S.1 As in the past also now, in my public speech I will not speak about issues of the penal code. Moreover “innocence” and “guiltiness” are fake distinctions that concern only the legal armory of the state.
The only thing that I want to say about the case, is that I was and I am in solidarity, as anarchist as well as a friend, to an illegal and haunted man, Vasilis Paleokostas. From there on, my speech will be a continuity of my pre-arrest placement and not a whine for “innocence”.

P.S.2 Economical and legal support is good. So are wishes for freedom, but the strongest form of solidarity is the continuation of revolutionary action.
Freedom to the comrades G. Dimitrakis, G. Voutsis-Vougiatsis and V. Botzatzis.
Freedom for the revolutionaries of the revolutionary organisation 17th of November.
Solidarity to the 6 wanted comrades.

-Revolution first and always-

Polikarpos Georgiadis,
Prisons of Ioannina,

01/09/2008

Anti-authoritarians Polikarpos Georgiadis and Vagelis Hrisohoidis have been in prison since August 2008, accused of participation in the case of the kidnapping of a big industrialist, Giorgos Milonas in Thessaloniki. The comrades refuse any participation in the abduction, but state their solidarity and defend their relationship with a hunted person that is characterized by his dignity, the fugitive Vasilis Palaiokostas who is accused for the same case. In February 2010 they were sentenced in the first degree to 22 years.

After two postponements (March 9th, 2011, February 14th, 2012) the second appeal court starts on April 24th, 2012. The final outcome was that both comrades had their sentences reduced to 12 years and 10 months.

While the two comrades, being imprisoned since august 2008, have already purged 1/5 of their penalty since May 2012, and the appeal court for the case of the kidnapping of Mylonas ended on the same month, none of the requests of Polykarpos Georgiadis for leave have been accepted. The first apply was done on June 2012. On August 2012, he reiterates his request, receiving the same negative answer. The comrade takes the case to the judicial council of Kerkyra, where his request is again rejected, based on the justification that he was a fugitive before his arrest, which is not true. The fourth time, on January 2013, the answer is still negative, but this time the formal justification is that he might make wrong use of his leave, and  the informal one is that the state is afraid that he might participate in illegal political actions, since the political ambience is quite tensed (referring to the period of great repression against squats in Greece). Finally, on April 2013, after his fifth request, Polykarpos gets his first leave.

The comrades Vagellis and Polykarpos got released in August and September of 2013 respectively.

-Did someone speak of kidnapping?

 Court statement by Polykarpos Georgiadis – February 2010

[… Different questions have been raised, like the question of social robbery, what motives and what characteristics a robbery might have in order for us to characterize it as social and the biggest weight from what I can see falls on this: what are the motives for a robbery.

As you know and as has already become known I am an anarchist. As a consequence I have a particular political understanding and I also, as many others have said, place the role of the bank as especially guilty within our society. I consider the bank to play a significant role in economic affairs. It has been shown to act as a modern feudal lord, it has enslaved the great majority of workers, who due to economic weakness are forced to resort to banks in order to make ends meet or in any way so that they can also acquire the self-evident, a house which has become an elusive dream. This is what society has accomplished that a house for a worker is a dream which he/she will have to repay for 30 years.

On the television the largest part of what we watch constitutes advertisements for those who these gentlemen here are defending (he points to the lawyers of the bank). They brainwash the citizens of this country and in general this is the standard tactic carried out by the banks. Their background (of the ads) are people going to a bank to find a refuge. The incidents are not rare, we have even heard of people committing suicide, people that don’t have the money to pay and we have tragedies with households that are forced to the ultimate humiliation. That is, we came here to discuss what is self-evident? Whether a bank is sympathetic towards society or not? […]

Of course I have no illusions that by my action I would be able to abolish the existence of banks. I would be stupid or with my head in the clouds if I thought I could abolish banks by me robbing one. That is self-evident. On whether there are anarchist theoreticians  or whether incidents such as this have existed before through the years let us not bring here literature to see which people have supported such political ideas on whether we can commit a robbery and to what extent this is acceptable.

Also the question of selfishness and selflessness has been raised in regards to the money and what you do with it. I believe that it has become understood, and this is what I also intended on doing, that it is not a matter of acquiring riches. It is not a matter of me going around in a Ferari or popping over to the Bahamas to have a drink. This is self-evident. And to set it out in a few words, it is definitely refusal of work, in the way it is carried out today. In other words, I refuse truly to partake in such life imprisonment. I refuse to leave the years from 20 to 60-65 years of age, I refuse to leave them in the hands of a capitalist who will define me as the exploited. I refuse truly to do this. Of course I don’t underestimate the whole of society, which accepts this condition. Its largest part consists of the exploited. Let us not open such self-evident questions, that our society is divided into the exploiters and the exploited. Of course I don’t underestimate society. But me as an anarchist and with the particular characteristics I have as a human being, I am maybe particularly disobedient, maybe insubordinate, I don’t carry out orders. I don’t know maybe for others this is reproachable, for me it isn’t. I, as an anarchist am self-defined within society and as a role: neither exploiter nor exploited. I could never finish my university decree and become a superintendent, have workers under my supervision and earn a salary of 1500 euros while the worker earns 500 euros. I can’t understand something like that. I can’t understand what these privileges that place me above other people are. And I considered my action as an action of attack against this predatory system. Of course a very uneven attack, as it was proven. I chose to meddle with a system that crushed me in a military sense, as my soul and my mind at least cannot be crushed by anything.

In regards to the “selfish and non-selfish act”, since it has been mentioned often here. I perceive, view and name my action as this, as a revolutionary action. Amongst all those things that I have been doing for years, this was also one in an individual context. Anyway, I am an anarchist and as you can understand this milieu has many needs, although I can’t be precise in what amount I would have provided. I can’t say that I would have been a Robin Hood. We have reached now a moment where we are also opening our soul here… I have no illusions that I would have been a Robin Hood. I am also a human being who moves in this system and I would have definitely taken part of that money for myself, but only to the point of being able to live a life were my basic needs are covered for and that gives me the ability to be able to involve myself more with this milieu and the problems that our society has to face, without being burdened by work. Because if you want we can go to a factory and ask how many workers can join a strike in the private sector, how many workers would like to strike but can’t, because they have made their compromises. They can’t. How can they strike when they know that the next day they might be fired? It’s a form of terrorism.

You say here that the bank robber terrorizes. In my case an attempt was made to try and avoid that as much as possible. For people not to be so scared. That’s what I think. I don’t know about other bank robberies, they don’t have to do with me and I do not take a position on them. In regards to terrorizing I would like to ask them…I should have gotten up and asked one of the women or men who were in the bank to what extent their income ensures them a good life, if they have children and how would they feel if after 15 years of service they were fired. That is, what would terrorize them more? What if they were fired and rendered unemployed, chasing a few euros by becoming cleaners or looking for a day’s wage after 15 years? Because anyway bank employees are not in an ideal environment. I remember shortly before I robbed the bank there were mobilizations by OTOE (bank employees syndicate). I definitely scared these people and that is the only thing for which I could offer them an apology, but it is the only thing that you can’t prevent. I definitely would have much more preferred to scare the political rulers or the privileged or the oligarchy in this country and not ms x or y working at this cashier’s desk or that cashier’s desk, the customer, the citizen that appears, him who runs and panics because he doesn’t know what is going on. But I would like them to answer this: a visit by some bank robbers would terrorize them more? Or if it was announced to them that they are fired after 15 years, without having a pension, receiving only some small compensation and being thrown in the waste bin?

Coming back to the question of selflessness and selfishness which I have left in the middle, I view an action like this as being in some ways revolutionary, I don’t think it has humble motives, at least in my case. This logic of selflessness however has for me connotations of the ideology of a victim. That is, I understand that everyone would prefer a guise where the robber does it in order to give to the poor, a form of victimology, an extreme altruism where the robber is completely selfless. However I do view that there is some such disposition. Generally in a revolutionary action there is such a disposition and selflessness exists. The individual ego is that which, according to the elements of one’s character and the level of consciousness that exists within the subject, will add within society the reflection towards something widely positive. In my case, let’s say, since I am also active and I supposedly have some social awareness –unless you also want to deprive this of me- I believe some money would go towards a good cause. This is for me indisputable. Indisputable. […].

By protecting the bank’s interests you do not protect the peoples’ interests. Let’s not loose our minds completely. The wealth amassed by the bank with the thousands of machinations it commits, with its application of additional illegal interests, with Tiresias (data-base of financial behaviour- black-list). It has condemned whole families, people are going crazy out there, they don’t know what to do. Two million Greeks have been said to be below the poverty line and others are struggling with their credit cards and we have debt transfers from one bank to the other. Soon the debts will be transferred to the children and thus we will return to feudalism. Banks will play the role of feudal lords and we will have ready-made workers. A parent will have children who will be potential slaves, they will have to take on the debt. Because the loan they have taken out cannot be repaid. It has a stage payment of 60 years. The father dies and the child inherits it. We will also reach this point since we have already started with debt transfers from bank to bank… And in any case am I the enemy of society, I have to be arrested, I have to take bullets, I have to be in prison, I have to be reintegrated as if I am an estranged part of society. I am a fighting part and so I will remain. That in regards to the motives of the robbery.

[…] For me, the bank is a nebulous construction, completely faceless. We don’t know who these gentlemen are, we have never seen them. And if we see them they will have 8 jaws and a fin!