Leyton Marsh Camp update (London north

  March 29, 2012

Here is a report from the camp at Leyton Marsh next to the site of a planned 'temporary' Olympics basketball training facility.  The camp is here to support the local community and the Campaign to Save Leyton Marsh.

Community Support!

Chatting

Food kindly donated by locals
The tent occupation which sprang up on Saturday in solidarity with the Campaign to Save Leyton Marsh has entered its 5th day.  The camp continues to grow with supporters arriving every day.  Local residents and campaigners visit all day long providing support, bringing supplies and chatting with the campers.  Basic facilities have been setup including a field kitchen and washing up area.  There is also a communications tent.
No construction work has taken place on the Leyton Marsh site since Friday when local campaigners from the Save Leyton Marsh group stood in front of lorries preventing them from entering the site.  On Monday, the occupation campers joined with local residents standing in front and lying down under lorries.
Today a Police Community Support Officer arrived at the camp in the early morning to inform the group that the Olympic Delivery Authority will be coming to the camp on Friday morning.  The PCSO said that the purpose of the visit was to negotiate with the Save Leyton Marsh Campaign and Campers about the situation (an update will be published when more info is known).
The occupiers welcome any and all support. There is plenty of space for more people to get involved. It is located Behind Lee Valley Ice Cente on Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton Map: http://tinyurl.com/6ntfscy
For more info check out:
http://saveleytonmarsh.wordpress.com/
http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk/

Save Leyton Marsh - Update London

Save Leyton Marsh - Update

local resident | 26.03.2012

The Occupy movement have joined Hackney and Waltham Forest residents in their struggle against the Olympic land grab.

the plan for the marsh

Since planning permission was granted in January by Waltham Forest council for a large indoor basket ball arena for Olympic and paralympic athletes to practice on, local residents and marsh users have been organising and campaigning to save Leyton Marsh.

Leyton Marsh is metropolitan open land and is managed by the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) on behalf of the people. It is land that is not supposed to be built on, unless in exceptional circumstances. Waltham Forest have designated the Olympics as such “exceptional” circumstances and have leased the land to the Olympic Development Authority for £138,000. The structure that will house the two practice basketball courts and associated facilites is temporary and the ODA and LVRPA are assuring us that they will take the structure down and return the land to its previous condition by the 11th October 2012.

Many of us who use the marsh and who have witnessed the destruction of the site over the past few weeks do not believe that there is the will, never mind the way, to return the site to its previous condition and are determined to stop this build going ahead.

There has been organised resistance to the building works and local residents have been successful on a number of occaisions in halting building work on site. On Friday 23rd March, a determined bunch of people exercised their rights to use the Marsh freely with a 6 hour game of boules that resulted in £40,000 of cement being spoiled as the trucks carrying it were blocked from getting on site.

Local residents have been meeting weekly since January and the Save Leyton Marsh group has been formed, who have been having weekly Saturday demonstrations and last Saturday the 24th of Marsh saw the occupy movement join the fight to protect our communal land and collective legacy.

Occupiers from the Finsbury Square occupation marched to the marsh and over the past few days an intentional community of tents and people have joined the communities of Leyton, Walthamstow and Hackney in fighting against the Olympic land grab.

Lorries containing hard core were prevented from entering the Marsh today and we are hopeful that if we are able to significantly delay building work from taking place we may be successful in halting this destruction of Leyton Marsh.

Leyton Marsh is a beautiful bit of open land bang in the middle of Hackney and Leyton. I would encourage all those who live nearby to come and visit the site and the camp. This battle is winnable and I would encourage all those interested in defending the land, fighting against the Olympics, protecting our environment, challenging capitalism, building community, etc etc to come and get involved.

For more information visit www.saveleytonmarsh.wordpress.com

local resident

Occupation on Leyton Marsh.london

March 28, 2012

An occupation has sprung up next to the site of a planned Olympic 'temporary' basketball training facility on Leyton Marshes, Leyton.
It is there to show solidarity with the Campaign to Save Leyton Marsh.

tent occupation

tents 2

having a chat

lorry blockage

lying under lorry

An occupation has sprung up next to the site of a planned Olympic 'temporary' basketball training facility on Leyton Marshes, Leyton.

It began on Saturday when a group of concerned people went to the Marsh to show solidarity with the Campaign to Save Leyton Marsh (CSLM).  Some had marched from Occupy London's Finsbury Sq.
The CSLM was formed to challenge the decision by Waltham Forest Council to grant the Olympic Delivery Authority permission to build a temporary basketball training facility on Leyton Marsh, which is designated 'Metropolitan Open Land'.  As well as opposing the decision through a media campaign, the group has also engaged in several acts of peaceful disobedience: by standing in front of lorries attempting to enter the site where the facility is due to be built.

On Monday this week, the new occupiers joined with the local campaigners preventing any vehicles entering the site.  By today, there were no vehicles at all and all work on the site stopped.
Many locals are very upset at what is happening to this piece of open, communal land.  Kev, a local resident from Hackney expressed his feelings:
'' What they have been doing in Hackney on the East Marsh has shown the local people the devastation caused by the Olympics.  Even if we're told this is just temporary we do not want it.  East Marsh is too late but here there is a chance to stop it''. 

Health and safety concerns have also been raised by local residents who point to the possibility of contamination.  Caroline, a local resident and campaigner from Leyton said:  ''They are churning up contaminated soil from WW2 and leaving it in mounds around the site.  There could be asbestos in there.''
Locals are also concerned that by building on Metropolitan Open Land which is supposed to be protected, a precedent is being set for further land grabs, development and privatisation of public space.  They also question the promise made by Waltham Council that the land would be returned to its original state by October 15th which seems hard to imagine if tons of concrete is laid.  Caroline commented: ''It will take 1 year minimum for the turf to grow back, and the eco-systems will take far longer''

This morning a police officer reported that members of Waltham Forest and Hackney Council held a meeting.  Presumably the fledgling occupation an peaceful direct actions by locals and occupiers will be a hot topic of discussion.
The site where the occupiers are camping is part of the Lea Valley Park and is subject to byelaws which forbid camping and barbeques.  It is possible that the police may be instructed to clear the camp soon.
In the meanwhile though, the sun shines and local people come and talk with the occupiers and share their views on the situation, with some delighting in the obvious lack of work and silence on Olympic site.  Lots of food, blankets and supplies have been donated: an indicator that many are glad to have the presence and action of the occupiers.

The occupiers welcome any and all support.  There is plenty of space for more people to get involved.  It is located   Behind Lee Valley Ice Cente on Lea Bridge Rd, Leyton Map:

The 10,500 athletes participating in the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, the world's greatest celebration of human physical endeavour and progress, will be guarded by a security force of some 40,000.

The 10,500 athletes participating in the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, the world's greatest celebration of human physical endeavour and progress, will be guarded by a security force of some 40,000. This beats the 3:1 ratio of guards to athletes at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, as the London Games continues the Olympian trend for record-breaking security contingencies. Indeed the home secretary, Theresa May, only last month crowed that the Games' security would constitute "the UK's largest ever peacetime logistical operation". Never mind the performance of athletes: the Olympics is about government and business delivering security solutions.

And it's a great show. Armed officers from the Metropolitan police and the Royal Marines hammering along the Thames in speedboats and helicopters, ground-to-air missiles scanning the skies, hovering spy drones scanning the land, security services scanning the internet for nascent plots or cyber attacks – it's all being co-ordinated by a bevy of Olympic-themed security agencies.

The police-led multi-agency National Olympic Coordination Centre co-ordinates the forces to deal with the threats identified in the Olympic Intelligence Centre's "national Olympic threat assessments, while the Olympic Clearing House is screening 380,000 people, from athletes to voluntary litter pickers, seeking accreditation for the Games. Meanwhile the UK Borders Agency boasts the UK is to be the first country to welcome arriving athletes by funnelling them up dedicated "Olympic lanes" at airports for fast-track fingerprinting.

Locals are also in the firing line, in subtle, privatised ways. Houseboaters on the River Lea have been priced out of a controlled mooring zone around the Games, while the £60m Prevent strategy has screened the five Olympic host boroughs for what threat they pose for brewing local extremism, with "engagement officers" dispatched to each borough.

Random security screening has been carried out on cars parked at Stratford City's Westfield shopping centre, by officers from the staggering 23,700-strong private security contingent of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and G4S. Westfield isn't even in the Olympic park, itself a hotbed of embedded biometric scanners and CCTV with automatic facial and behaviour recognition technologies, amid which LOCOG's forces can search anyone and use "all available powers" to dispose of troublemakers, particularly anyone caught with anything that could be used … in a tent.

Who LOCOG's bouncers are accountable to is not clear, but they are backed by 13,500 military reservists, apart from countless police deployments, and international contingents such as up to 1,000 US agents, possibly armed. The Games' security costs exploded from £282m in 2010 to £553m by end-of 2011, with another £475m for policing. Under the host city contract, the chancellor of the exchequer signed a guarantee "bearing the costs of providing security" – a blank cheque signed by the taxpayer for Olympic security planning that industry lobby body the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) has proudly been involved with from the outset.

Olympic security is booming business. The $1.7bn security budget for the 2004 Athens Games was over four times that of the 2000 Sydney Games, while $6.5bn went on security at the 2008 Beijing Games, mostly going on security technologies supplied by firms like General Electric and Panasonic – two major sponsors of the London Games. Beijing also saw innovations like armed police zipping around on Segways, or tickets inserted with radio-frequency ID chips to enable the real-time tracking of ticket holders.

Bureaucrats and lawmakers have internationalised efforts to use the Olympics to install and expand intrusive, permanent surveillance measures. The 2005 European Prüm Treaty justified the mass sharing of data among Europe's security forces on convicted criminals, suspects, possible protesters and anyone deemed suspicious for seeking to attend a big sporting event. Britain didn't sign Prüm but certainly shaped and aped its aims, as it did from a 2006 EU manual that standardised how the security forces should respond to threats arising from major events, "political, sporting, social, cultural or other".

Amid the greater alarm of security and the Games, the coalition is soon to wheel out the Communications Capabilities Development Programme – an old, dusted-down plan to force companies to hoard of all text, phone call, email and internet data.

Meanwhile, installed gadgetry always finds other uses. CCTV set up to monitor traffic during the Athens Games were later used to monitor public gatherings. In addition, a communications system set up to co-ordinate the Greek emergency services has, at great cost, been expanded into a surveillance command system dealing with "Greek post-Olympic security needs", presumably in great use now in the bankrupt land where the Games were born.

And so thousands of impoverished teenage Londoners who've lost playing fields to highly secured Olympic carparks, missed out on sports training or couldn't afford tickets, instead of rioting, may take up X-ray screening and door supervision qualifications backed by LOCOG, the BSIA and Home Office, securing their own futures by becoming part of the industry that's securing all our futures. Everyone's a winner.

BP’s Olympic branding defaced throughout London

 February 26, 2012 

 

Today hundreds of BP signs across London were targeted by activists protesting against the company’s role as ‘Sustainability Partner’ of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Around the capital, protesters hit petrol stations, advertising hoardings, and BP-sponsored cultural institutions[1], disfiguring hundreds of the famous BP ‘sunflower’ logo. Advertisements with the company’s Olympic strapline ‘fuelling the future’ were altered with the addition of three asterisks to make ‘f***ing the future’.

Wenlock & Mandeville at the National Maritime Museum

King's Cross Underground poster
Activists said the ‘subvertising’ action, dubbed ‘Brand Piracy’ day, would escalate public debate[2] of BP’s sponsorship after headlines in recent months had focused on the Dow controversy.[3] The action was said to be “the first of many” with “more BP branding to be targeted in the run up to the Olympics”.

One of those taking part in the action, Bridget Peterson, said, “BP has just closed its solar business[4] and is now plunging into highly polluting tar sands[5], exploring the pristine Arctic[6] and restarting its deepwater drilling operations[7]. These extreme forms of energy extraction are incompatible with stopping climate change,[8] yet BP pursues them greedily while gloatingly advertising itself as ‘Sustainability Partner’.”

Another activist, who wished to remain anonymous, explained, “The Olympics gives BP the chance to look ethical and yet lead the public down the garden path. BP pays millions to manufacture a false reputation as a ‘sustainable’ company,[9] and deflect all attention from its actual operations. This sickening marketing spree amounts to a major cover-up – and so today we took our own action to cover it up.”

A website, http://www.f-ingthefuture.org, shows pictures of the action and outlines the problems with BP’s sponsorship of the Olympics.  

For more information, interviews and high-resolution photos, email  f.ingthefuture@gmail.com or phone Bridget Peterson on 07741 103 248

Notes:

[1] Cultural institutions, especially the Tate, have long been targeted by activists concerned at oil companies using arts sponsorship to cover up their environmental and human rights atrocities. See e.g.  http://www.artnotoil.org.uk and  http://liberatetate.wordpress.com/

[2] Concern over BP’s sponsorship of the Olympics entered the news last week when a coalition of NGOs and individuals wrote an open letter to Olympic organisers. See  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/17/olympic-games-protest-bp-sponsorship

[3] See e.g.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/feb/09/london-2012-sustainability-ioc-ethics

[4] BP closed its solar business in December 2011. See  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/80cd4a08-2b42-11e1-9fd0-00144feabdc0.htm

[5] For more information on tar sands, see  http://www.no-tar-sands.org/what-are-the-tar-sands/

[6] See  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-08/tnk-bp-to-spend-12-billion-on-four-yamal-fields-to-boost-output.html

[7] Deepwater operations were announced to be restarted in April 2011. See  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/uk-bp-idUKTRE7330SZ20110404 The company still faces a civil court case over the Deepwater Horizon disaster due to start at the end of February. See  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/68715b32-5cb3-11e1-ac80-00144feabdc0.html

[8] NASA Climate Scientist James Hansen has shown that a safe level of CO2 can only be reached if coal is phased out and unconventional fossil fuels are not explored. See  http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/05/236978/james-hansen-keystone-pipeline-tar-sands-climate/

[9] Research shows that BP’s sponsorship of the Olympics has indeed improved its public image. See  http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1117665/BPs-brand-image-benefits-London-2012-sponsorship-claims-research/

Hackney roof top defiance north london February 20, 2012

Anti eviction at work, squats saved by the people. Early friday morning, police and bailiffs turned up to evict a row of squatted houses in Dalston lane, but luckily the anti eviction squad was out, in numbers this time with over 60 people blocking the road and lining the rooftop.

please remove your banner, its rude...

nice turn out

pan left

pan right

helpless
As the morning progressed with music, sandwiches and the barking of a dog, the police and bailiffs were helpless bystanders, who finally agreed they would leave on the condition that the 'fuck the Olympics banner was removed because its a bit rude, as the people on the roof top laughingly refused, the police drove away morally defeated.
In this time of uncertain squatting future, people are standing up in solidarity to house each other, at a real grass roots level.
A lovely morning, and houses saved.

UPDATED: Coca-Cola Wall At Hackney Wick Defaced (london)

Published on February 23rd, 2012

As predicted by many, the controversial Coca-Cola wall in Hackney Wick has been given the fire extinguisher treatment. It didn’t last long did it!
Before the wall was dogged, The London Vandal had spoken to Monorex, the agency behind this work, and they offered this comment on the wall:
“We try to do our bit to make advertising a little more exciting and support artists in many ways – like the INSA wall in Birmingham! That Olympic wall was destined for print advertising – so our hand painted image, we feel, was the better solution! Monorex & Coke were always planning on commissioning original art after this campaign.Part of our agreement”.



We have no idea if Coca-Cola are going to dig deep in their pockets to keep this wall maintained throughout the Olympics, or if they are going to abandon it now that they have filmed and photographed it. If they do try to painting this wall, you can be sure this won’t be the last time it get’s dogged.
Here is the video advert that Coca-Cola used the wall in, just so you can see what all of the fuss is about:

UPDATE:
High Rise Murals, who worked with Monorex on this project, have just been online and posted this photo. Seems like Coca-Cola will not be maintaining the wall after all!
High Rise Murals are asking the residents of Hackney Wick how they would like to see the wall filled on their Facebook page. Thanks to The Visual Yard for the update.

Preparations for military repression at UK 2012 Olympics

Hundreds of soldiers from 3rd

battalion The Parachute Regiment

spent last week learning how to

contain and arrest "rioters" in a

series of exercises mirroring last

summers violence. During the

exercises at the Lydd training base in

Kent, the elite troops were pelted

with petrol bombs and missiles and

"fought" running battles with gangs

of protesters as part of the

battalion's "public order training".

The battalion is the lead unit in the

Airborne Task Force - the Army's

premier rapid response unit and can

be called on to deal with a wide

range of emergency situations - from

hostage rescue to riot control -

around the world.

In the past, riot training was carried

out by all troops deploying to

Northern Ireland where public

disturbances were commonplace.

But those “skills” have been “lost”

following the major withdrawal of

troops from the streets of the

occupied land.

During last week's training package

young soldiers were taught how to

use body-length use riots shields,

protect themselves from missiles

and how to identify and arrest "ring

leaders' using specially trained

"snatch squads".

Troops were trained into how to

work as teams armed with bodylength

shields in driving back hostile

crowds.

Last summer's rioting was sparked

by the police shooting of Mark

Duggan in Tottenham and the brutal

beating of a young girl when the

family and friends demanded

answers.

The violence quickly spread across

London and to other cities where

police were attacked with fire

bombs, shops were looted and

businesses burnt to the ground.

One senior police source said: "The

police couldn't cope with last

year's riots and the Army came very

close to being deployed.”

"All of the Army's riot equipment

was in Scotland at the time and

that created a time delay but

lessons from that have been learnt.

The Army could have deployed but

it would have been only marginally

quicker than the police.”

The riots were the best for a

generation and caused over £300m

of damage. Hundreds of shops and

warehouses were looted as masses

of people and gangs of youth

informally organised attacks via

twitter and other social media sites.

The number and spontaneity of the

riots often meant that police from

forces across the country, but

especially in London, were stretched

to the limit and in many cases

overwhelmed.

THE GAMES OF FINANCE ARE

ONLY ABOUT MONEY, SOCIAL

CONTROL & SPECTACLE

AGAINST THE MEGA-PROJECT

OF THE SPECULATORS AND

CORPORATE ELITES

RIOT 2012

Counter Olympics - meeting date in London

A BIG meeting to prepare for Countering the Olympics is being held in London later this month.

The event is being staged on Saturday January 28, from 10.30am to 5pm, at Toynbee Hall, Commercial Road, London E1 6LS.

Says a statement on the CounterOlympics website: "There are now fewer than seven months before the shenanigans hit town, with each day bringing more news about runaway finances, contaminated topsoil, privatised housing, militarised neighbourhoods, losses of basic liberty, corruption, undemocratic planning decisions…

"While the bigwigs are gaining billions, just what do the rest of us lose?

"This will be a day-long opportunity to investigate and interrogate all aspects of Olympic theft, debt, repression, pollution, corporatisation, sponsorship, displacement, and lack of community consultation.

"From NOGOE and Save Wanstead Flats to Vancouver and Athens, a range of local, national and international activist groups will share their stories. Then it’s up to us all to create the mass mobilisation needed to expose these Olympic-sized lies!

"Whether you’re an avid organiser or new to the game, now is the time to get involved."

LET THE OLYMPIC GAMES DIE IN THE LAND THEY WERE BORN

	In times of war for the imposition of global domination, where the bosses proceed to inter-state coalitions and capitalist completions, coordinating their operations in the name of "anti"terrorism to establish totalitarian control and to loot the world... In times of an all-out attack against the peoples of the so-called "third world", whose genocide from starvation and diseases and their enslavement in the dungeons of mass production-multinationals' colonies are nourishing the well-being of the "developed" world; whose death during the new order's crusades and under military occupation, their confinement and torturing inside concentration camps and the attempts to neutralize their resistance have become the foundation stone for the Security of domination's projects... In times of intensified exploitation, surveillance and repression for the excluded and those who resist within the walls of the western world... ...The olympic games are a front-window of capitalism and domination itself. An advertisement for the world of class slavery and for the means to impose it. A global gala, sealing in one more level the cooperation of the local bosses with multinational corporations, international political staffs and agencies of repression. For the greek state, a participant in the criminal coalition that is launching the global terror-war, the olympic games are a step to upgrade its role in the world's elite and strengthen its pre-eminent position in the Balkans. They are its own way to contribute to the expansion of this terror-war and especially to this aspect that concerns the militarization of western societies and the extermination of the "internal enemy". Inside the country, the games are the spearhead for the state's attack against the exploited and oppressed, as well as the means to accelerate the imposition of a long-lasting State of Emergency, signifying a new era of repression and social control. In the name of accomplishing the National Grand Idea, the "ideals" of profit are praised by all kind of bosses: companies, contractors and state officials who handle the huge 2004 budgets. In this giant commercial enterprise which will cost more than 6 billion euros, the proletarians are forcefully labeled "volunteers" to pay its cost by being robbed through the taxes, the expensiveness and wage freeze, but also to pay its price: by speeding up the rhythms of work, in extremely dangerous conditions and under new forms of surveillance, with their own blood in working "accidents". These human sacrifices (more than 620 dead immigrant and local workers the last four years) in the altar of profit and due of the bonuses given for the fast termination of the Works, have taken nightmarish dimensions in the olympic construction sites where hundreds of workers are killed or seriously injured. A new model of absolute exploitation and expendable humans is consolidated in the olympic works, to characterize from now on the conditions of labor in every other site of wage slavery. At the same time, as the games offer a unique opportunity for capitalist pillage, the natural environment is plundered and destroyed, while the urban landscape is redeveloped according to the new norms of commercialization and surveillance of public spaces. The local version of international "anti"terrorism is being established trough the colossal operation "safe olympic games", including: the collaboration of "anti"-terrorist specialists from greek, US, british, israeli, australian, german, french and spanish secret services, military exercises by greek and foreign special forces, based on scenarios of "pre-emptive action" and "management of disproportionate threats"    NATO's engagement after official demand made by the greek state, with spying aircrafts, special units on alert and navy patrolling in the Aegean and Mediteranea sea, mass imports of modern weapons and the installation of technologically advanced equipment monitoring public spaces and persons, such as the C4I system developed by the american multinational SAIC (a company providing know-how, infrastructure and armament for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq). Hundreds of surveillance cameras are being placed and forbidden "red zones", where access is possible only for those having license, are instituted. All areas around athletic facilities, hotels, ports and airports in the five olympic cities are sealed and sterilized with the use of sensors to locate anything and anyone considered as suspect. In the streets, the death squads of a police occupation army undertake "cleansing operations" against the homeless, drug addicts and immigrants, while the former US base in Aspropyrgos, outside Athens, is transformed in to an olympic concentration camp. In Heraklio, Crete, Roma families will be evicted out of their settlement to be relocated in an old military base. During the games, 50.000 soldiers will take position around Athens and patrolling inside the red zones. Through these orgiastic preparations, the repressive apparatus is modernized, and the new role of the army in the confrontation of the "internal enemy" is promoted. The "zero tolerance" doctrine against any expression of social and class dissidence is rooting and the borders, where already hundreds of refugees are loosing their lives, are even more fortified. The olympics are proclaimed "matter of national interest" and their safety becomes the ideological vehicle for the implementation of methods that are either way considered as priorities for the intensification of state terrorism, in the framework of constructing a global Guantanamo. Within this situation, "court-martials" are set, such as the one that accomplished its mission inside Koridallos prison, imposing to the accused as "November 17" members exterminative sentences of political convenience, and the one that is taking place now against the five accused for participation in E.L.A (Revolutionary Popular Struggle), with the judges cynically admitting that "the trial must be finished before the olympics". These are trials aiming at having the institution of "independent justice" legalize the tortures and confinement in "white cells", the collaborators and the pogrom against the dissidents of terror-democracy. After they're finished, political prisoners will be sent to the new isolation wing, which was recently built in the jail of Larisa. Participation in social-class struggles and the expression of solidarity are both criminalized, and every choice to resist without apologizing to state legality, rejecting the mediation of institutions is baptized "terrorism". The greek state signs international "anti"terrorist acts and treaties allowing extradition. Within these circumstances it was decided to extradict in Germany Sinan Bozcourt - Taylan, a Kurdish communist arrested in Greece on the same day that many other political refugees from Turkey were arrested in different countries of Fortress-Europe. Using the alibi of the olympics' safety, the greek secret service and police authorities are officially now after political refugees, Arab and muslim immigrants, anarchists and anti-authoritarians, announcing that their places are being watched and their email and telephone communication monitored. The fact that the recently formed european task force -which introduces the term of confronting "anarchist terrorism" for reasons of preemptive repression- is dealing, among other things, with the safety of the olympics, and the press statement of a greek police official that "until the games we will be finished with the anarchists", are indicating that this is a chance for the state to attack social militants in an examplary way in order to intimidate society and disarm the idea of resistance. The olympics, as the bosses' Grand Idea, propagandized by the whole spectrum of the authoritarian system (political parties, financial institutions and the Media) is a contemporary ideological machine to extract social consent, consisting of the most conservative figures, such as nationalism, to the most modern "values" of consumerism and "voluntary" offer of unpaid labor in the service of the bosses. We do not forget that, here as much as globally, the excess of multi-advertised means, mechanisms and methods of repression the state and capital are getting armed with, as well as their intimidating campaign, reflect also their insecurity caused by existent and imminent social explosions. They reflect the failure they taste in their effort to present their domination as indisputable and totally invulnerable, when all over the world there are struggles and revolts bursting against globalization of exploitation and oppression, against war and capitalist peace. Today, the olympics concentrate the state's effort to deepen its authority in society, repressing all those resisting its plans. But this campaign is not adequate to instill fear, discourage and deter the multiform expressions of social and class struggle. On the contrary, it is a condition highlighting the necessity to intensify and spread this struggle in every front the bosses are opening with their aggression and in every front they try to close to their account. We antagonize the projects of the growing commercialization and surveillance of public spaces, reclaiming them and transforming them to spaces of resistance. We sabotage social peace. We resist the "anti"terrorist war inside and outside the borders. We stand in solidarity with political prisoners and persecuted social fighters. We act together with all those revolting against the dictatorship of the State and Capital. REKINDLE THE FLAMES OF SOCIAL AND CLASS WAR DESTROY THE BOSSES' GRAND IDEA Open Assembly of Anarchists-Antiauthoritarians June 2004

http://squathost.com/anarchist_assembly/en/f2004.htm