English

Roman Giertych may not be the Minister of Education anymore, but his replacement, Ryszard Legutko, famous Polish philosopher against "tolerance, is no better. As it turns out, the woman who chooses the textbooks in Poland is an ultra-Catholic activist. Books are approved by the Ministry of Education after 3 "reviewers" from a panel of experts approve them. Despite a positive approval from those "experts", an English language textbook was turned down by the head of textbook selection because the published didn't want to remove a chapter which made reference to Halloween.

On Oct.13-15, a series of actions were held against the building of a US military base housing elements of the Anti-Missile Defense System in northern Poland.

The US has been negotiating to build a base housing long-range ABMs in Redzikowo near the Baltic Sea. US government literature supporting the plans focuses on defensive capability against Iranian missile attacks. Radars are to be built in the Czech Republic.

A majority of Poles are against the location of the missile shield in Poland, as are several political parties.

Early this morning there were simultaneous raids across the North Island, in Auckland, Whakatane, Wellington, Ruatoki, and Hamilton. Later in the morning, Police came to at least four houses in Christchurch. Seventeen people have been arrested so far, and reports are that up to 60 are being sought for questioning.

The raids were under the Suppression Of Terrorism Act and the Firearms Act. They have been targetted at people involved in the Tino Rangatiratanga, Peace and Environmental movements.

conducted by CrimethInc. International Brigades volunteer Ret Marut

A Bulgarian organizer and ‘zine publisher describes current anarchist projects in his country, discussing how Really Really Free Markets work in an eastern European context and addressing the local relevance of CrimethInc. texts from the United States. Contacts are included for those hoping to connect with anarchists between Sofia and the Black Sea.

Dirty politics is in 5th gear in the lead up to the October 21st parliamentary elections in Poland

The (pseudo)Left
Former President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who has been campaigning for the Left and Democrats (Lewica i Democraci, LiD) coalition, has announced that he will be reducing his role as the face of the left in the election campaign. After an embarrassing incident in the Ukraine last month, where he drunkenly slurred his way through a public address to students, he repeated the faux-pas earlier this week with another performance that showed him under the influence. He claimed he is suffering from a tropical disease and is on heavy medication which automatically transform phrases like: 'The Polish economy needs to be less liberalised' to 'What the bloody F#*^ are ya talking on about Kaczynski, ya filthy little c*~?'

Stubborn nuns evicted
The eviction of 64 former Bethany nunsand postulates from their convent took place yesterday in the peaceful area of Kazimierz Dolny, 140 km south-east of Warsaw. Over 100 police officers, Catholic priests, negotiators, debt collectors, and locals participated in the action, ensuring that events transpired without any violence. It seems that the greatest fear of church and police authorities, that the former nuns and the Franciscans who have joined them would commit mass suicide, had always been an unlikely outcome. This ain't no Branch Davidian cult - just a bunch of stubborn delusional nuns.

The Polish political scene will soon have a new kid on the block: the Polish Pirate Party (Partia Piratów). Once registered it will join Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Spain in having a full Pirate Party.

Approximately 30% of Poland's 38 million population use the Internet. Torrent Freak Ben Jones recently talked to party founder Błażej Kaczorowski.

The following is a transcript of his interview:

Doda, in one of her Polish military 'Special Forces' outfits

The players
According to Polish military authorities, national bimbo extraordinaire Doda has agreed to 'perform' for Polish troops in Afghanistan. There are approximately 1,200 Poles in the war-torn country at the moment. And boy, do they need some morale boosting! Polish Radio interviewed a spokesperson for the Taliban recently where the mad mullah vowed his comrades would be doing their utmost to put a bullet through any Polish soldier that strays their path. So nothing like a bit of tits and ass on stage in Helmand to solve that problem, heh!

The confusing name
The TV personality, formerly known as Dorota Rabczewska, is now dangerously named similar enough to the extinct bird for me to get them mixed up every now and again. However, she seems to cleverly realise that her time in the high life may just suffer the same fate as the Dodo's time on earth unless she keeps marketing herself to any and every opportunity that arises. The author of this article has also heard (and this bit seems true) she has also offered her services to a leading Polish humanitarian organisation - services meaning high heels and uum, her hyena-pitched laugh.

Serbian Nazis from informal organization “Nacionalni stroj” (National formation) tried to march at Novi Sad, capital of northern Serbian province Vojvodina, a multinational and multi confessional region famous for its peaceful coexistence of different ethnic minorities and religions. Minor political parties influential in that region (social democrats and liberals), together with NGOs organized anti-fascist rally in order to prevent Nazis from marching in Novi Sad. Anti-fascist action Novi Sad (with tight links with social-democrats) organized a separate block within the protest. That block of radical anti-fascists was made of mixture of anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, commies, queers, punks and alike.

In saturday 7th of August 2pm, an illegal action was organised in Russian embassy of Minsk in solidarity with Russian anti-fascists.

Around 50 anti-fascists and anarchists showed up in Russian embassy of Minsk, in order to show solidarity with Russian anti-fascists and in order
to point out, that nazis may murder people in Russia with impunity. As action was illegal, it did not lasted more than five minutes. Protesters
could only unroll banner with text "no tofascism", and carry portraits of four anti-fascists murdered in Russia (Timur Kacharava, Aleksander Ryuhin,
Stanislav Korepanov and Ilya Bondarenko), when police showed up and demanded to stop illegal action. Police immediately called OMON riot police, and began grabbing people.

Cry 'Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.
Julius Caesar: Act III, scene i

What do the State, Aliens and Tom Cruise have in common

The State tends to be a bit like an alien spaceship - the more you attack it, the stronger its' will and the more steadfast it becomes in pursuit of its' nemesis. Advocates of 'propaganda by deed' tactics discovered this over 100 years ago. Nowadays, we can see fictitious 'apocalyptic battles' between the 'goodies' and 'baddies' taking place in big budget Hollywood movies, from Star Trek to Independence Day or the War of the Worlds. And of course, those with the most gel in their hair and brownest tan usually win the fight to save humankind from nasty looking sub, meta, or non-humans. William Shatner, Will Smith, Tom Cruise, and ah, the Kaczynski twins, to name but a few. So how can we solve the question posed above? Answer: their strengths are superficial, while their weaknesses - once identified, can be successfully exploited.

1) Call for days of decentralized actions in defense of squatted & autonomous spaces in Europe, April 2008;
2) Invitation to a preparation meeting in "Les Tanneries" (Dijon, France), November 2007;

Call

On Friday the 4th and Saturday the 5th of April 2008, we call for two days of demonstration,
direct action, public information, street-party, squatting... in defence of free
spaces and for an anti-capitalist popular culture. ---- Through these two days,
we want to help create more visibility of autonomous spaces and squats as a
european/global political movement. We want to develop interconnections and
solidarity between squats and autonomous spaces. We want to keep linking our
spaces with new people and new struggles, and support the creation of autonomous
spaces in places where there has not been a history of this kind of action. We
want to build, step by step, our ability to overcome the wave of repression
falling on us.

We have put out 6 issues of "Katarzis" in Bulgarian and now we made an English version. We wanted to share our ideas for a better world based on freedom, equality, mutual aid and solidarity. There are some texts and news about actions we took part in. "Katarzis" is available in PDF form and you can copy it and distribute as you like - FUCK COPYRIGHT! We try to destroy capitalism, hierarchy and prejudice and transform life into a joyous, carefree game played for the highest of stakes.

Contact: katarzis@riseup.net

To download the PDF of the zine, click here:
KATARZIS

* The collective editors of the Venezuelan journal El Libertario and the Organizacion Nelson Garrido, have issued a call out for filmmakers and video activists from all over the world to present their recent autonomous works concerning active social movements in struggle. This will be held in Caracas, Venezuela, between the 21st and the 28th of January 2008

* A member of the editorial collective of El Libertario prepared this article for the 6th edition of the Costa Rican (A) journal La Libertad [September 2007; http://revistalalibertad.blogspot.com] in response to an inconsistent effort to establish impossible affinities between Chavism and Anarchism.