[My translation from original Slovak at the Priama ackia ("Direct Action") website. All errors mine.]

Priama Akcia’s call: “We don’t intend to pay for the crisis!”

Activism opportunity in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

12 November 2008

A world summit will take place on 15 November 2008 in Washington at which 20 of the most economically powerful countries in the world (including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) will debate regarding reform of the global financial system. It is the day on which the elite will decide upon the salvation of capitalism. This meeting merits our attention because its outcome affects even us. Come what may, we are not going to just sit back and watch the whole crisis. There are many possibilities for beginning activism related to the crisis.

OUR POSSIBILITIES IN SLOVAKIA AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The politicians, bosses and bankers settle things and take care of their own. And we should do the same. The only way we can succeed in not being forced to pay for this crisis is to know ourselves, to have contact among ourselves and to help each other. The objective of this call is to take the first step toward presenting an approach to the crisis from the perspective of ordinary people rather than liberal economists and politicians.

We say this openly: ordinary people – workers, students, retirees and unemployed alike – should in our view take advantage of this global financial crisis to build contact among ourselves. Regardless of how or even whether the capitalists manage to salvage their system, the problems will not go away. They will always arouse discontent and the striving to resolve it by our very own energies. The current situation is an opportunity for establishing contact and thinking about setting up a contact network amongst ourselves. In the process the crisis can be built upon in terms of aid and solidarity regarding the various problems what await us in the near future.

CONCRETE ACTIONS IN OUR TOWNS AND WORKPLACES

During Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and subsequent days we will publish a flyer, a poster and a questionnaire at our website, www.priamaakcia.sk.

• We suggest distributing flyers basically everywhere. Places where people gather (cafes, clubs, etc.) are good, but distributing them in trains is also very good. All you have to do is get on before the train leaves, throw a few flyers into the cabin and get off before departure. Quick and effective.
• Posters for transport stops, schools, workplaces and elsewhere can also draw attention to this activism.
• The questionnaire will be able to be filled out right on a web page and is part of an international project by militant workers. More information coming soon.

Only two things are needed for anyone to get involved in this activity immediately: the urge to do something and the ability to print out materials. These will be prepared in PDF form for open download in Slovak and Czech. Even now you can talk about activism options with someone near you with whom you might be able to do something today, tomorrow or the day after.

OTHER ACTIVITIES GOING FORWARD

Other activities are planned as well. If you want to get involved, let us know at priamaakcia(at)priamaakcia(dot)sk. We will provide information on the website about further activism opportunities and we would be especially pleased if more people – including readers of this text – took part in our ideas. Should you get involved in any way (such as by distributing flyers), please let us know.

We can’t count on chit-chat saying that the crisis will impact us to a weaker extent than it will other countries. The fact is, it’s already impacting us through layoffs at US Steel, in the auto industry (the firms Riba Nitra, Dura Stupava and Johnson Controls), in machining (PPS, Embraco), etc. This will by no means be where it ends…

For spreading this call farther – among your acquaintances, friends or colleagues, via discussion forums, blogs, web pages, myspace, hi5, facebook or other information channels – we thank you in advance.

This is the impulse. What else, and how, is up to you.

WE DON’T INTEND TO PAY FOR THE CRISIS!
Watch www.priamaakcia.sk

PRIAMA AKCIA
Priama akcia (“Direct Action”) is the Slovak branch of the International Workers Association (IWA), a confederation which unites trade unions and initiatives from 16 countries of the world as a membership base.

Absolute nonsense we can believe in.

Sorry for the poor quality, it’s the best I can do with a crappy camera phone at 11pm on a Saturday.

Maybe it’s just me, but my romanticized vision of Martin Luther King has the great man drop-kicking and wiping the floor with poseurs like Barack Obama. Kinda like my version of Jesus carries an AK-47 and a length of piano wire for the up-close work. I’m just sayin’…

Anyway, King’s dream was one of a just society. What’s Obama’s dream? Why, to become the Supreme Overlord, of course! Don’t you see the connection? Two Black men with dreams, why, they must be the same dream, right?

French face prosecution for ‘insulting’ civil servants

The offence — which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison and a €7,500 fine — dates from Napoleonic times and is designed to protect “the dignity … of a person charged with a public service mission”. Behind the legalese is the belief that civil servants are the embodiment of a French State that deserves the respect and support of all its citizens. The number of prosecutions for insulting police officers and other civil servants has risen from 17,700 in 1996 to 31,731 last year in what critics say is an abuse of government power.

Post office employees, tax inspectors, railway staff and teachers are all starting to file lawsuits when they believe that they have been slighted.

Even Gérard Depardieu has fallen foul of the law. A description of three work inspectors as “jokers” when they raided the film set where the actor was performing left him with him a €3,500 fine.

A homeless man was given a one-month prison term for shouting out that Mr Sarkozy — Interior Minister at the time — was a “bloody Hungarian” in reference to his family origins. A 21-year-old was given a similar sentence for insulting the President’s mother.

Ahaaaa… I see… “fraternité” is about creating a privileged class to lord it over the rest of us with not only the relative impunity that goes with “sovereign immunity” and the like, but should also protected from the horrors of criticism from the slave class.

Also worth mentioning is that the Times, not atypically, puts the scare quotes in the wrong place. If they had written:

French face prosecution for insulting ‘civil servants’

they’d be a bit closer to the mark.

Hat tip to An Englishman’s Castle.

Day of Reckoning? Super Rich Tax Cheats Outed by Bank Clerk

Technician in Liechtenstein Turns Over Names of Americans With Secret Bank Accounts

Heinrich Kieber, fuckface extraordinaire

Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there, according to Washington lawyers investigating the scheme.

The bank clerk, Heinrich Kieber, has been branded a thief by the government of Liechtenstein for violating the country’s bank secrecy laws.

[...]

Kieber reportedly sold three CD’s full of names and data to tax authorities to 12 countries including Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States.

Nice going, fuckface.

Let’s be clear on one thing. There is no such thing as a “tax cheat”.

“Cheating” on your taxes is the moral equivalent of telling a mugger you have no more money than what’s in your wallet when you’ve got a wad of currency crammed between your ass cheeks.

Kieber’s Washington lawyer, Jack Blum, says Kieber should be considered a whistleblower and a hero, not a thief, for revealing how the super rich hid billions of dollars using the Liechtenstein bank.

So let’s see… steal from your employer, violate the privacy of your customers, turn the data over to the biggest and most ruthless gangs of muggers the world has ever known, and you can count on at least one jackass lawyer to call you a hero.

The persistent inversion of all human values continues unabated in the comments on the article:

every person and I mean every person, should be prosecuted and made to pay all back taxes on those sums in offshore banks. I am sick and tired of the rich getting richer by not paying their fair share of taxes

Fair share? A fair share would be a capitation.

The criminals are those who choose to live in this country and run their vast corporations here, yet violate this country’s tax codes in order to add millions on top of their billions. The hero is the guy who blew the whistle. Only the self-serving elite would attempt to blur the distinction

Consider me one of the self-serving elite, then, but just you go ahead and try to locate my billions, buster.

Too often the only way corrupt behavior can be exposed is by the brave actions of a whistle-blower.

Tax is corruption. “Brave”? Ha! The guy stole from his employer and sold the data. We have things to call that, but “brave” isn’t one of them.

Why don’t we make it illegal for US citizens to have accounts in Liechtenstein and with the Swiss for that matter until they make public the account information to the IRS. We should sanction these governments just as we want to do with any rogue nation such as The Sudan. there is no way these rich CRIMINALS should have a safe place to hide their money.

Why don’t we make being a dumbass illegal? And who said anything about CRIMINALS anyway, other than Mr. Fuckface who sold out his customers? Ah that’s right, if someone has more than you do, they’re a criminal. I done gone and forgot the whole “Robin Hood” ethic.

Where can I send a small check to this guy to help him out?

You can address it to me, and I’ll forward it to him. Promise.

Karma works!

That’s right. And I have a flying pony.

I hope that the IRS does something with the information. Tax cheats really irk me- these are the true non-productive members of our society.

Oh, someone, STOP THE INSANITY!!!

Attendees came from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey, and Slovenia.

Instructors/organizers/facilitators came from the USA, UK, Switzerland, France, Malaysia (more on him later!), Slovakia and Canada.

A grand time was had by all. These photos are mostly from student presentations during the camp’s final evening.

The quality is often poor, unfortunately. My camera does a rather poor job indoors, and has a slow shutter speed so there’s plenty of blurring, which can sometimes be amusing

UPDATE 27 May 2009: I have moved the photos to Photobucket.

The Irish failure to ratify means that the entire Treaty is now off the table, since it required ratification by all member states to become law.

This also means that the relentless drive from Brussels and elsewhere to turn Europe into a federal super-state has suffered yet another setback, the last one being the defeat of the proposed European Constitution in 2005 by referenda in France and the Netherlands. This in turn means that plans for a unified pan-European military will be delayed.

Incidentally, this is a time to point out that while most voting — especially that which serves to create positive law or delegate powers that voters don’t have to representatives who will then lord it over others — should be seen as immoral, defensive voting of this nature, to prevent government doing anything but shrink itself, is to be celebrated.

I humbly suggest that all lovers of freedom and good beer hoist a Guiness today in honor of the Irish refusal to submit to Brussels. Sláinte!

From The Inquirer:

French Government decides to censor the Internet

Keep your Égalité and Fraternité but shove your Liberté!

10 June 2008

THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT has apparently decided that it doesn’t much like being democratic, and that it would rather like to censor the Internet instead.

Not content with simply limiting itself to blocking despicable child sex abuse, a move three major ISPs in the US also agreed to today, the French government feels it necessary to go a radical step further and decide for its citizens whether or not they can view content it considers inappropriately racist and or linked to terrorism.

In fact, worse still is that any site is now game for a French blockade, as Sarkozy’s government is inviting people to send in huge long lists of sites which offend their delicate sensibilities. The French government, which will purportedly be able to receive complaints from Internet users in real time, will be able to add sites to a so called “black list”, which it will then force national ISPs to block.