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Focus (Not) On Fire

Monday, 12. March 2007, 21:27:25

,

I'm not a reporter and my writings are not a professional recount of what's happening. So, I'll just try to give a rough description of what's been going in Greece for the past few days.

A HUGE STUDENT FIGHT AGAINST YET ANOTHER NEOLIBERAL EDUCATIONAL REFORMATION.

That's the big picture to me and certainly that's the big picture to thousands of students, teachers and professors that took part in a HUGE march against the law last Thirsday.

It was like a huge concert. Great music. Way too many people. Rythm and vibe all over the place. Peaceful but powerful. And somewhere in the crowd a man was showing his middle finger. And once cameras discovered him he was all over the giant screens. And then police stormed in and hell's gates opened. And then there were more like this man. And few of them lit fires and those fires were now on every screen and no screen was showing police brutality against people that showed no finger and no screen showed police arresting people that lit no fire. And then one of the angry men burned the flag of a sacred rock band (say Led Zeppelin) and screens all over the world were showing this and no screen was showing the tear-gas that had drown all the other concert watchers nor the filthy cells where the arrested innocents were thrown in...

And no fucking TV screen bothered to notice that at the backstage, left all alone -like leprants- only the edge majority of the party that's on power -with closed windows to keep away the tear gas that they released- were voting the law.

But all fucking TV screens were showing again and again the idiot(?) who was burning a sacred place.

Screens had their fireworks and were able to concurrently justify the law, hide the police violence and forget about the student movement.

Meanwhile, the macho minister of law and order, like cowboy was yelling that he would "get down on the street and kick the asses of anarchist hooligans". Law and order is his trademark. But it was mostly (if not only) students whom their asses were kicked. No hooligans. But either way he had to maintain law and order. So, a CRS-like police force were constantly present on the edge of a historic city territory renowned for it's extreme left habitué's. (They, as I learn by reading their broadsheets, are overly pissed off because comrades of them are being held in prison against the law and some of them are on hunger strike. (Strange but even an apathetic like me would be pissed off with this shit.)

I'd passed through that vigilant point some months ago (btw, great bars with sensible prices are located in the area) and looked at the policemen on duty then. I'm not anything of an extremist but nevertheless I feel a certain amount of fear when seeing 12 policemen with helmets and all. Yet, I'd swear that I saw some fear in the eyes of their leader. Something like the fear of a man used as a bait.

And I forgot about it until yesterday when I heard the news about a team of 50 anarchists who assaulted the policemen on duty at that point and lead one of them in hospital with serious injuries. It seems like Law and Order feeds on young men these days.

I don't really understand Mr Law and Order and his government anymore and I doubt if they understand their selves. What the fuck do they think they do and where is all that shit leading? Some say that they used anarchists anger to provide a justification for hitting educational movement. Others claim that they just try to control the whole thing according to their conservative ethics (i.e. police, police, police). Meanwhile violence escalates and media attempt to hide the big issue (i.e. the educational reformation) is futile. Students seem to resist better than ever and people KNOW that that's the big issue and not flaming a sacred place...

...After all, stupid media, a place is sacred because of what symbolizes and what symbolizes lies in people's hearts and no one (except maybe for you - fucking media) is able to burn down peoples' hearts.

CU

PS 1: Btw, I'm using my favorite word -fuck- too much to be member of the week so let me at least rejoice it as much as I want. FUCKING STUPID MEDIA SCREENS.

PS 2: No, I don't belong anywhere politically. I'm just trying to maintain my sanity.

PS 3: FUCKING STUPID MEDIA SCREENS.

PS 4: I, like others, need a reasonable honest explanation as to why young men and women (policemen included) have to see the internals of hospitals and prisons for a law that addresses none of the problems in education but will only allow bussiness to grep a pie of educational market. But I'm asking too much, ain't I?


UPDATE - 20 March 2007:
There was another massive march today. Due to lack of molotov coctails, fires and the like you won't hear much on your TV but people report that it was HUGE :smile:.

HYS (I do).

image here

8 comments

What Would You Choose?

Saturday, 3. March 2007, 18:33:08

Imagine a daemon suddenly appearing to you in the middle of the night and speaking those words to you:

"You are doomed to live only once and die away and never exist again.

I have the power to make you live eternal lives. Yet, every life you are going to live will be exactly the same with your current one up to this point and until the day you die. Whatever happened or will happen to you, whatever decisions you took or will take, whatever you loved, hated or will love and hate, however much joy or pain you felt or will feel will occur exactly the same in every of these eternal lives. You will repeat this life forever and you won't have the choice to really die. The eternal hourglass of existence will be turned over again and again - and you with it, you tiny speck of dust!(*)

Now choose between those two alternatives."

What would you choose?

About:
This -Eternal Recurrence- is one of the main ideas that Friedrich Nietzsche worked on. It's a dilemma faced by "his son" Zarathustra in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" and seen as a thought experiment it leads to very interesting (and quite frightening) implications.

The above formulation is mine and I hope I got the main idea right.

* F. Nietzsche, "The Joyful Science"

image from here

23 comments

You Remind Me Of 300

Thursday, 1. March 2007, 21:49:22

,

I don't have much time. I work and work and work. Overtime after overtime. I can't say no. Maybe I forgot how it is spelled or maybe I have no alternatives. Fact is that this whole thing does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I wasn't always like this.

I remember I was different when I was at university. I did say no. Many of us did. These times weren't much different than the current ones. The fuss was about yet another "educational" reformation that, at least the way we saw it, would result in bringing public universities and our diplomas to their knees. Then both would be easy prey to private interests. (Unfortunately, my present working status as well as the working status for the majority of my generation, suggests that we were right back then.)

Anyway, I remember us saying NO. We didn't really hope to win the game. It was mostly our sense of dignity that was driving us. (Dignity - that's a hard word.) We were saying NO when they were trying to convince us with stupid arguments. We said NO when they claimed that the reformation plan was voted (as if we were expecting something else) and our fight was pointless. We said again NO when they tried threats about the semester. Then NO again at the final call about our semester. Then we said NO to police and after that we repeated our NO to some paid bully boys.
...
We almost forgot that when authorities start using violence it usually means that they are about to fall.
...
And so it happened. And we won (even partly). And we almost couldn't believe it.
...
If any of the fighting Greek students comes by this post I'd like to:
1. Express my admiration for her(*) courage and my wholehearted (albeit useless) support to her fight
2. Remind to her that she is not supposed to save the world but with this fight may very well have claimed her self respect back which is already a big personal and communal victory
3. Good luck from now on - whatever you might decide - my heart and my mind is with you.
4. You remind me of the movie 300 and more accuratelly of the real 300 story(**). "You want the university? Come and get it."


HYS


(*) Normally I'd started the politically correct him/her, he/she blah, blah, blah. I'm bored with this shit Okay? So if all that fuss is about making women feel equal (as if they'll feel equal with some shitty slashes and extra pronouns) I'm going it a step further and totally omit the male pronoun from now on.
(**) But you are many more than 300.

...Gee man. I need some sleep.

15 comments

The Sold And The Fuckenful - Episode 7/64236

Monday, 12. February 2007, 19:13:40

Yet another "Sold And The Fuckenful" episode is here. Take a bucket of pop corn, a barrel of refreshments and a couch and see the biggest soap opera with the biggest cast ever. (One more lifetime needed to see the end titles.)

The air inside ant colony QW-12 was electrified to say the least and pure gasoline at the instant of ignition to say the even lesser. Subversive ants were gathered in the colony basement around the dead body of their comrade.
"Enough is enough comrades. EZ-21-B must be the last one who dies like this. If people want war then war they should get!"
The speaker was a young ant named F-13 but everyone knew him as "Friday the 13th". He was young, courageous and pissed off and today was Friday and 13.

"For thousands of years, comrades we were the joke of the universe. We worked like slaves while our queen and her fiancés live and fuck in wealth. We die in underground accidents and over ground suicide walks. We work uninsuranced just for a plate of food. No other living creature (apart from the stupid bees) would ever accept to do our work. People and animals step on us without even noticing. They literally shit on us without even noticing. Human children drown and torture us just for their fan while their parents leave us some shrimps to fool us. And when we report all these to the queen she says that we should protest peacefully in ridiculous marches that end up by more of us smashed under peoples and animals feet. Thousands years of marches did nothing than add more dead comrades. Enough!"

"Enough! Enough is enough!" the crowd went. (Some thought that now you could describe the air like the air between the earth and the ground just before the thunder strike but they said nothing in fear of others calling them geeks.)

"Last week I was at a Termite meeting. They said that they were going to declare war to mankind for the fifth time in this year. They also said that they didn't count much on us."

"Aaa" the crowd went. (Some thought that now it was like the thunder was not so eager to strike and he could very well go home rather than crashing the Earth, but they, too, said nothing.)

"Do you know what I told them brothers?"

Crowd stayed silent. (Thunder scratched his beard.)

"I told them. I told them that WE, the -up to NOW- peaceful ants, were what is needed to win that war. I told them that they might do their show now and then but they very well know that WE are the real army!

Brothers last night messengers came from colonies far away. They said they were ready. They said that tomorrow morning every ant colony would be on war! I say brothers... that they wouldn't mind if we begun a little earlier! You know the plan brothers! Fuck the queen and take over the world!"

"Whoray!" went the crowd. (And Thunder was wondering what the hell he was thinking about all that time as it was ripping the air off rushing towards the Earth.)

And that was a night that no pen (or keyboard) may describe. You know how it is when someone busts your balls for a while but you just put up with that until a day arrives and you can't put up anymore and you explode. Well imagine the explosion if that thing had been going on for thousands or even millions of years... Let's just say that I wouldn't like to be their queen, one of queen's fiancés, any of the pigs of the nearby farm, a man called Boinjk or his goat who were running like hell to get away from a killing maze while a fat man in red smoking suit, generally known as Santa Claus, was crashing in front of them.

4 comments

What The #$*! Do They Know?

Saturday, 27. January 2007, 22:01:35

,

First five readers will experience an intense orgasm ... now!
If you felt nothing then, obviously, you weren't quick enough to read me. Sorry.
...
I need to believe in something so badly. Call me romantic, sensitive, weirdo but don't call me strong. I'm not among those ones who, despite being thrown in a world with no obvious meaning according to human logic, they still manage to live a sensible life having looked under the hood of everydayness and having found out that there is nothing there but a non-sense clockwise mechanism that just keeps time to an incobrehensible opera. In other words I was quick enough to throw away religious theories that in essence don't differ much by the quirky but stupid introduction of this post. Yet, I was not able to replace the consolation they offer by presenting a meaning behind my existence and an assurance of its continuation after my physical death.
...
I need to believe in something. Bad news slap me in my face everyday. War, death, blood, pain, evil, fear knock at my door (and my mind). Future is an ass ready to shit, we are the toilet and Earth is a van driven by drunken eggheads. Should I draw it clearer? There are times that I really I need to believe in something...and I'm a guy with no serious personal or family problems. So, how badly would I need to believe in something if I were say poor or ill?

Apparently really bad. But wait. Wherever there is a need there is a market and where there is a market there is business. And big business I'd say. Traditional organized religions thrive wherever poverty reigns. Poor need the dream and old mainstream religions (lets say the big corporations of the game) were there right from the beginning to create and grasp the market (no? remember history books saying that the first to establish a colony were the army and a priest?).

Yet, those religions seem to loose a market share in the more developed countries where "educated" (and more importantly less hungry) people like me, disgusted by their practices and insensibility, throw them out of the window. Over the last decades there has been a rapid market change in so called advanced societies and these mega corps are slow to follow. So, there has been space for little companies to enter the game. They are young, fresh and aggressive and they seem to understand better the uncommitted and uneasy target group. Forget the old "believe 'cause I say so". These generations have rejected all authorities but science. So, one way or another, the platform where their churches have to be built on must reflect rejection and science. The target group will accept rhetoric that bomb hideous churches and borrow from science. Spit old religions with their prophets, burning bushes, bloody crusades, woman oppression and middle age. Talk about DNA manipulation, quantum physics, string theory, black holes and cosmos unity. Then they'll hear (and hopefully buy). Never mind if half of what you say are unproved theories or if what you say is outright wrong and rejected by real experts. What matters is to have such magic words in your speech. These are the "open sesame" that will unlock the gates of your target group souls.

And there you will find what makes every exploiter smile. A sobbing kid that is afraid to live and die. Just play his mommy and it’s all yours.
…
Stop fucking with our need. Will you? I’ll buy your car, pasta and mobile but leave the kid in me free of bullshit. Maybe then he will rise up and find other kids around and do what kids should do. Play and smile.


PS 1: What made me write this post was the film "What the bleep do we know" which offered me a nice trance while watching it and a hard landing when I learned more about it.

PS 2: Zerog wears a Christian cross. It was a gift by his love. He will keep wearing it both because it was a gift from his love and because he believes there is something out there. Yet, zerog, doesn't want any relation with any church or organized religion. One thing is that they know nothing and the other is that they keep accumulating wealth and speaking nonsense about the problems that fuck zerog's world.

20 comments

Broken Toilets

Tuesday, 16. January 2007, 21:36:43

,

I guess you've heard the news about the terroristic hit at Athens US Embassy. The story in short goes like this. Last Friday morning unidentified (at least officially) terrorists shot a rocket against the embassy. It was said that they were aiming at the Embassy's emblem (which means this was to be a symbolic blow) and it was also said that instead of it they partially hit some toilets (I'm still wondering whether this is symbolic too).

...And that was it. My small, albeit beautiful and heavy on history, country was again in the center of the world (which proves that we can do it with many more ways than just hosting the Olympic games). Many remembered the "inherent" Greek Antiamericanism. Others were quick to register us as yet another terroristic country and so on and so forth. I'll dismiss such hateful and stupid comments and attitudes for now as they deserve a post on their own and I'll stick with what I believe is the core matter of all the fuss.

At the very next day some were quick to emphasize on the need of using the C4I system that was installed for the Olympics (and cost a fortune to Greek people) for urban surveillance. (As for now the system is used for traffic surveillance - or so they say.) Other witty conversations on police surveillance and the need of more antiterrorism laws soon spun off. Little by little the Big Brotherian think tank realized that this is an enormous chance to get thinks done their way and started working. See, when the blow is hot and a superpower is pissed with us there isn't much resistance to be anticipated. Just look at USA, Great Britain and the like. Every terroristic blow initiated reformations that took away some more of personal freedoms in return for safety (I still wonder how safe can you feel when somebody is constantly watching your every step and thought - and by someone I don't mean the God).

Of course there are a lot at stake. Government has to deal with real problems that drive people on the road and is expecting a certain turmoil. This wouldn't be a problem if there were real solutions under the table but if not...then there is only the solution of suppression and "antiterrorism" laws, surveillance systems, cutting out personal freedoms, cultivating fear are great tools if your plan to suppress people and continue to exploit them economically and politically. Just remember how many times you voted for the least evil to see how powerful weapons the afore mentioned are.

That's my humble opinion and I'd really appreciate if you could correct me or prove me wrong. But I would never appreciate it if you started peeping through my life in order to fight terrorism. If you want to fight it then start by solving the problems that create it, not by creating more.

As for the impact of the terroristic action on USA politics, about 100 people are still being killed in Iraq every single day (UN statistic) in spite of the broken toilet. It is just uncertain whether shit will flood Athens.

HYS (I'm not)

6 comments

Sick To The Bone

Monday, 8. January 2007, 22:01:54

, ,

1. The bad guy (Saddam) was hanged and this awesome victory of justice (hope you get my cynicism) was recorded through a mobile phone (sic). The video was uploaded on the Internet and then taken by voluptuous Mass Media and then shown all the time. A number of kids, scattered throughout the world, thought that this is a game and tried to recreate it with lethal results. My English curses are not good enough to describe what I feel about the whole story. Suffice to say that terrorist is the one who terrorizes no matter how eloquently s/he covers his/her terrorism.(The link is somewhat old. A current (up to this time)reference is a Greek article which raises the number of dead kids to 8.)

2.Disney (yeah the guys with Mickey, Donald and the other animals) is bullying a blogger because s/he had the courage to tell to sponsors of specific radio shows that the show hosts were spitting racist and hate messages to their audiences. As a result some of the sponsors pulled out and Disney who happens to own that marvelous radio station went after the blogger. Again my English curses are not many enough but I'll try a "fuck Mickey".


3. In my country the two major political parties (one of them has a "Socialistic" somewhere in its name - surreal isn't it?) seem to unanimously agree on the reformation of the constitution article which enforces free education in order to open the door to new private investments (sic) in education (aka private universities). I guess they sold everything else out and education is the last field that they can offer to private investors. No, I don't think that mathematics and philosophy will be in the curriculum. Investors want their returns and Cantor and Irakleitos aren't exactly killer applications right now. I'd bet on more of marketing, one use programmers and the like.

13 comments

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