Our world needs a Klaatu Nikto

by Flavio Goncalves

Having recently watched “The Day The Earth Stood Still” starring Keanu Reeves, a remake from 1951 original movie, I've come to the following conclusion.

The story is simply this: planet Earth is not ours, we are merely its modern tenants. Unhappy as to the way we are mistreating the planet, the landlord, in the figure of the alien Klaatu Nikto, decides to pay us a visit, to call out for our attention to or warn us that we do not amend our ways, he would exterminate entirely all life on the planet saving only, in a sort of Noah’s ark, the flora and the non-human fauna.

Even though the movie solely focus on the ecological aspect about the way humans' exploit of the natural resources on this planet, I believe we are in need of a Klaatu Niktos that would call our attention to other aspects of our modern lives. While the bombings and the invasion of Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces are still warm in our minds – which resulted in the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and part of the Israeli embassy staff stationed in Venezuela – given that these events opened up the year 2009 for us, I believe that it’s urgent that we become aware of the harm we cause not just to our planet but to our fellow man.

With the economic recession spreading, we end up by not giving a thought about other humans. We are preoccupied with ourselves. How will I be able to pay my bank loan? My car loan? My credit card? My consumer credit loan? We live our lives buried in our own, sometimes miserable, existence that we end up solely watching what goes on in the world through television.

We don’t even realise that it’s up to us, all of us, the responsibility to try and change the way things are, preferably in a specific manner before frustration kicks in among our youth against all that is of democratic politics and capitalist economy, like the frustration that bursts into the streets by the rebellious fervor of the Greek youth (still waging a civil war against their own government).

I hope that all the violence and gore that opened this new year for us, be it in Israel or in Greece, won’t last long. And that all of us can collaborate in a far more positive spirit so that the Azores and Portugal, even in recession, will not fall into a spiral of depression and misanthropy. The attitude in our daily lives, maybe the lack of civil concerns - a trait of most of our own people - needs to be eliminated and THAT is very important.

Without a Klaat Nikto in a world that awakens the human beings to the awareness of our own mistakes – or to the very least the errors of our rulers – that awareness is up to us, and we should evaluate ourselves given that we already do such, in a much prejudiced way, daily evaluating those around us.

The construction of a Socialist, Libertarian and Fraternal 21st century is in the hands of the average citizen, not the sole responsibility of our rulers.

“What we have to keep in mind is how Portugal should be. I’m not in politics, it’s not in my ways to work in such. What we have to do is keep in mind how it should be. And keeping in mind how it should be, we hope…” – Agostinho da Silva; in “The Empire is over. What now? – Dialogues with Agostinho da Silva” by Antonio Sousa, Casa das Letras, page 137, Portugal.

For my part I would add: keeping in mind… and acting accordingly!

Interview with Flavio Goncalves

by Juan Antonio Llopart

Note: after this interview the movement known as TIR (Portuguese for Land, Identity and Resistance) was legally disbanded and its former membership gave birth to the Free Revolutionaries Circle and the National-Anarchist Faction. TIR also founded, after this interview, the Portuguese section of the French alternative news agency No Media, as an alternative to both Novopress and Altermedia, still active at http://pt.no-media.info .

Q: Flavio Goncalves, tell us who you are and your political background…

A: Tricky question, well, since 14 I’ve been politically active. I’ve been involved in the punk underground and after that I spent quite a few years wandering from party to party, from the far-right to the far-left. I’m a proud Azorean. In the Anarchist movement, I was one of the founders and treasurer of ACINTERPRO, an Anarchist inspired workers union that was extinguished by the Portuguese government. The foundation act was published in the Spanish Anarchist newspaper “Rojo y Negro” (Red & Black) by the CGT, which contained a report with a few pictures of me. I was also a translator for AFRE, presided by Sillis Muhammad, on which a chief elder Osiris Akkeballa is also involved; this NGO has consultant status at the United Nations. I was also the Portuguese representative of the Israeli-Palestinian One Democratic Stat, presided by Mahmoud Nimir Musa. In addition, I was one of the founders of the Portuguese-Iranian Friendship Society. I write for several national and international media. I also took part with Robert Faurisson, Serge Thion and many other “leftwing” Historians – even though the mainstream media insists in labelling us all something else – in the polemic “Holocaust: Global Vision” conference in Teheran, where I met personally the anti-Zionist rabbis of Neturei Karta and also President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I’m listed in two separate websites sponsored by the Israeli government as being an “anti-Semite” and a “terrorist”, and I did not even give a speech in Teheran, go figure.

The new “Jewish studies for peace” chair at the Yeshiva University in New York pointed me out as being an example on how the anti-Zionist radical Left becomes anti-Semite. On a not so political level, I write fiction, one tale of mine served as a script for one of the stories of a comics book homage to H.P. Lovecraft, published this year in Portugal last May. In the long run, I hope to become a full time writer, rich and famous (one has to dream). Noteworthy, I’m also an activist for the Socialist Patriotic movement Land, Identity and Resistance.

Q: Regardless of the proximity, in Spain we hardly know anything about the Portuguese National Revolutionary movements; could you please tell us a bit about them, maybe a small synthesis on them?

A: Truth be said that in Portugal NR movements have never been so numerous, besides the old National Action Movement that includes a few NR. There exists the National Revolutionary Coordination, in a way nowadays TIR is an evolution of the former CNR (as the FRC and the NAF are evolutions of TIR now that is over). The term “NR” in Portugal has been long used by far-Rightwing personalities of the System, such as Nuno Rogeiro, television and mainstream media political commentator that in the 80’s was one of the leaders of the Nationalist Movement. He is a usual visitor of the embassy of Israel and of the synagogue of the Portuguese Israeli Community but he still claims publicly that he remains a National Revolutionary. Not one of our best examples.

Sadly, Portugal does not have a tradition regarding NR movements; the Portuguese nationalism have all been of a reactionary nature. I’m sorry if I forgot to mention any other NR Portuguese movement, but I don’t recall any other besides the NRC, perhaps because I worked with them back then.

Q: How it came about and how would you define the creation of Land, Identity and Resistance (TIR)?

A: TIR originated from a group of friends and comrades that have been active National Revolutionaries for many years in Portugal and other people that worked together before we legally registered as an association. This legal inscription had the purpose of making easier for us to hold public demonstrations, step by step – or perhaps even too damn fast – our numbers grew; now we have organized cells in several Portuguese cities, Lisbon, Coimbra, Portalegre, Almada e Oporto.

Our main bet have been social causes, our strategy passed through a delicate phase during which we lost a few members, when we decided once and for all to abandon the “national area” and create our own Socialist area, something that the MSR also did, if I correctly remember the editorial in the first issue of Krisis21. TIR is a Socialist revolutionary movement first and Patriotic only on a secondary level, we include NR, National-Bolsheviks, National Left, Maoists and we go as far as to National-Anarchism, you can say we are a real “black bloc”.

Q: What are your main activities? What objectives have you planned for short and medium terms?

A: TIR, unlike all the other Portuguese movements, works very hard at street level. We frequently hold public demonstrations and protests while all the others organize lectures for each other. While they do that we go and meet the people on the streets, go to the doorsteps of the factories that are closed, and we demonstrate against the anti-Socialist laws of the Government. We even take part in demonstrations organized by people we don’t agree with. If the cause is fair and we agree with it we will join in, no matter who organized it. We have no problems in marching side by side with Anarchists and Communists.

In the long run, our strategy is to create our own niche in the Portuguese Socialist movement, a convergence of Revolutionary wishes, a common front against the system. In the short term we are trying to get out, completely, from the pighouse that the Portuguese nationalist movement is. Personally I would be very pleased with an approximation and collaboration with the Portuguese Communist Workers Party, a Patriotic Maoist party from which, by coincidence, quite a few of our members originated from, we have members today in TIR in their 70’s and 80’ who were members of the PCTP.

Q: For all times the NR have always stood, among other things, for the defence of the Identity of the peoples and the fight carried by the Arab movements for their liberation. It´s easy to find Italian and French posters that, for example, a picture of the black rat (symbol of European NR – translator note) with a Palestinian scarf. Today we have parties, that label themselves as Identitarians or NR, that criticize the using of that scarf and that also support the same measures that Israel uses against the Arabs. What’s your opinion regarding this subject?

A: Some still insist in labelling this simply as a strategically change in tactics, taking advantage of the politically correct hate that the system has created, my personal opinion is that it’s plain treason. To listen to an Identitarian speaking the same exact words that George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon speak about Islam, accusing Islam of the same things that the system blames on him in all mainstream media, that’s treason and hypocrisy. We are anti-system but we use the same speech of the system? Do not cheat me, I wasn’t born yesterday.

In Germany the NPD is having problems because it always worked closely with Muslims and Arabs and recently an Identitarian party whose sole message is one of hate against Islam is taking it’s votes away. The same is happening in France, Belgium and England: the Identitarians are the Trojan horses for Israeli Zionism and for American Capitalism. I’m widely hated for not being afraid of claiming this publicly, and I don’t care, this is the truth, pure and simple!

Q: It’s common among the Spanish NR parties to speak about an Iberian alliance with Portugal, does the same happen in Portugal regarding Spain?

A: We very rarely discuss that, but it’s a lot better than in the early 90’s when we heard a lot of claims that the Spaniards are “our Historic enemies”. In TIR we have people that stand for the idea of Eurasia and we also have a few pan-Latinists, that stand for a union between South America and the Latin peoples of Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Romania). Be it in either case, Eurasia or pan-Latinism, an alliance between Portugal and Spain is acceptable, but beware: an alliance, not an integration in the Spanish state.

Q: Portugal – as Spain – has strong ties with Iberian America. What role do you believe Portugal – and Spain – should have in the relationship between Europe and the Iberian American fatherlands?

A: I believe I answer that partially in the last question. We should create a Pan-Latin Union, Latin countries (specially Portugal since our ancestors where the first ones to leave for South America) should be used as a bridge in the relationships between Europe and Latin America, that way we could reduce the Imperial influence of North America, sadly, many South American politicians still prefer to speak with the “big ones” (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) instead of with their distant relatives… I remember that comrade Hugo Chavez, an inspiration for us all, upon his visit to Portugal spoke highly of the Portuguese community in Venezuela, who knows what the future has in store for us?

Q: One of the purposes of the MSR is to create a European Front, regarding that it’s public knowledge the pact between the Belgian NATIO and the MSR. What’s TIR’s stand regarding the creation of an European Front?

A: TIR is very much in favour of such a European organization being created, it’s no big news though, it’s an old idea that never gave birth to anything that lasted. We would surely support something like that, we even have among us a Luso-Belgian that acted as editor of “NATION Infos”. Both NATION and the MSR have very similar creeds with TIR, even though we do not understand their relationships with the Identitarians. But every country has the right to choose the strategy that works best for it, we are aware that the Identitarians of NATION have little or nothing in common with Les Identitaires or even with Terre et Peuple. If all Identitarians were like the ones in NATION it would be heavenly…

Q: To finish I would appreciate a few short answers to the following subjects:

Jean Thiriart: a visionary, an European Socialist Revolutionary! In TIR we have one comrade that was his personal friend and knew him very well, Thiriart used to stay in his home with his family when he visited Portugal.

Socialism: The most humane form of government if applied correctly and ethically, something the Communists have failed to do.

Altermedia: The Socialist and Patriotic indymedia, they could learn something about design with their opponents at Novopress though, but the contents are more correct and ethical than the ones in Novopress.

G. Faye: The main propagandist of Kosher Patriotism, Trojan Horse for the Zionist Israeli Racism and Supremacism, a lover of US Capitalism, he has admitted publicly in the past that the Zionists funded him. He’s a cancer.

I. R. of Iran: Our natural allies, I have visited the IRI and I had the chance of witnessing by myself the Patriotic and Socialist policies of it’s government, Tehran looks like any other European city with beautiful blue eyed and fair hair Persian women, I was shocked to find Coca Cola, pizzas, hamburgers and broadband Internet, rock bands, hip hop and heavy metal there though, the only difference between Iran and any other European country I could notice was the lack of alcoholic beverages (they do have a delicious non-alcoholic beer though), I was in Tehran when the students riot in the University of Tehran erupted with the protest of the anti-Regime students and no students where arrested, I saw anti-Regime public demonstrations and press that is hostile to the regime in quite a few newsstands, I even managed to find some revolutionary anti-regime music, by the supporters of the Sha. Even the Portuguese embassy there confirms that Tehran, a city with more population than Portugal, has a crime rate of almost zero and I hardly saw police officers on the streets. And the Government lost the local elections, what sort of dictatorship looses elections and does not have the streets filled with Police and Military?

Europe: These days an insignificant Political and Military block… we have to resurrect the sleeping giant, from the Azores to Vladivostok.

Ianki-Zionist Imperialism: Our main enemies, and the most deadly, they have destroyed European culture and identity with their Capitalism and now they are trying to do the same thing to all the peoples of the planet, they are the Great Satan!

Q: Now to really finish, any last words you wish to dedicate to the readers of Krisis21?

A: Read plenty, a revolutionary should keep his brain sharp, I try to read 1 or 2 books weekly and I strongly advise you to do the same. Besides that, remember the fight is for our people, know your people. Take part in your neighbourhood activities, in the life of your villages and cities, do voluntary work for the community, help your neighbours. Socialism is created in the family first, then in your local community and finally in the whole of the Nation. Working locally is the most important task of all and it bears sweet fruits, even if it takes a few years. Another world is possible, look at Venezuela!

Published in Krisis21 magazine, issue 6, October 2008.

As the world economy collapses, decadence is revealed

by Flavio Goncalves

I’m as anxious as most of you as to what is coming out of Hellas (or Greece) when the apparently Anarchist insurrection – not even the people taking part in it dare call it a revolution – gives way to some real social change or, better yet, may the spirit of insurrection spread throughout Europe.

So far Euribor seems to be dropping rapidly, the oil prices are also down, even so the effects of the crisis that is taking over the whole world seems to be here to stay and is causing some social, or at least market changes: the cheapest supermarkets chain stores in Portugal had their worst month, as far as sales go, this season: December.

December is in itself the most profitable month of the year for most stores, this year it wasn’t. Surprised? I was, but I was even more surprised when I found out that even though most economic supermarkets were empty, all the expensive stores and shopping centres had long lines of costumers and the parking spots completely loaded almost during the whole month.

So, it seems people are saving – and maybe starving – to buy all the expensive useless junk (or ‘stuff’ as John Zerzan puts it) they got used to purchase during all those golden years of savage Capitalism and Market Christmas.

The supermarkets sold hardly any flour, sugar and milk, but all the cakes and candy shops had lines all the way to the sidewalks. What does this mean? That people these days rather pay 4 our 5 times more and buy ready-made foods and packed all the sweets our grandparents and even our parents used to bake in their home kitchen.

If saving money on what is cheap in order to buy what is expensive or buy take-out instead of choosing basic ingredients for cooking, how alienated the Portuguese society (and I’m guessing European society as a whole) has become!

We can only hope for a way out, but after the system crumbles – and by the looks of it that is happening now – how will we deal with a population that has relied on such luxuries and commodities? Will they be ready for some real change? And, most importantly, will they want change?

Just a thought to keep you busy in 2009…

Introduction to the Portuguese National-Syndicalist Movement

by Flavio Goncalves

Lecture delivered at the VI Young Eurasian Intellectuals Congress in the Moscow State University, 27th of November, 2008, Russia. (Image: Rolao Preto)

When we mention National-Syndicalism people always remember the Spanish version and ignore the Portuguese version of the phenomenon, pushed by Rolao Preto and many other Portuguese activists.

National-Syndicalism was hated by both the New State dictatorship in Portugal and by the Communist opposition; the Communists like to forget that they were not the only political movement prosecuted by the government.

I will not give you the History of this movement, but solely it’s political leanings that caused its members to be considered as “Fascists” by the Left and as “Communists” by the Right.

It was a workers oriented movement that also had many intellectuals, they wore blue jean shirts because those were the shirts the Portuguese proletariat used at the time.

They defended the implementation of a family wage to the housewife’s, considering that taking care of one’s home and family was a very hard and important work that should be paid as such.

They had workers unions that included both farmers and factory workers along with white collar and blue collar workers, they were not Right-wingers nor Left-wingers given that they believed that those labels were just another way of dividing the Nation’s population.

They preached that wealth should only be produced by work, not by speculation and usury as it was then, and still is now: only hard work should be rewarded with the creation of wealth.

All families should have the right to a house, without mortgage, that is: you and your family should have a house without having to pay for it to the banks for the rest of your life to own it!!

Local power should be very strong as opposed to central power that corrupts, as all powers do.

They also opposed the accumulation of political, private and governmental positions, something still very fashionable in today’s Portugal, where politicians also work for private companies and even state owned companies gathering several wages instead of solely one.

They were also the first ones preaching anti-colonialism, Portugal should create something off the likes of the British Commonwealth instead of keeping it’s imperial rule, they were very much ahead of their time.

For preaching a creed that was beyond Capitalism, Liberalism and Communism they were forced into exile, prosecuted and sent to jail by the far-Right government and attacked on the streets by the far-Left and the Communists that hated their popularity among the working classes.

They were even referred to as “National-Communists” for defending a strong sense of national community at the same time that they supported class war (of the oppressed against the oppressors) and workers emancipation.

There is much to discover still about this movement given that the New State dictatorship did its best to erase it from memory and after the Portuguese revolution the Democrats did the exact same thing, we have still much to research about this movement that gathered under a single banner thousands willing to fight both a far-Right government and a far-Left empty opposition.

III Quests of Dissidence in Madrid

by Flavio Goncalves

Last November 7th, 8th and 9th several Socialist, Revolutionary and Patriotic dissidents from all over Europe (from the far West of the Azores islands to the far East of Russia) gathered in Madrid, Spain, for the III Quests of Dissidence. In these three days hundreds of people had the chance to listen to very unique, and different, individuals that held very not so mainstreamish views. I was one of them!.

Day one

We left early for the airport in Lisbon (laugh if you want, it was cheaper for us poor three Portuguese citizens to travel by plane to Madrid rather than driving, that’s how expensive gasoline is around here these days) after a depressing visit to our P.O. Box. We had hoped that in the last minute all the merchandise Welf Herfurth of National-Anarchism sent us from Australia would arrive… well it didn’t, so the eye filling exhibition we were counting on to present National-Anarchist merchandise and literature to impress our European partners had to settle with the 4 issues of our Portuguese language magazine… my fault given that I gave Welf the wrong postal code given that my slight dyslexia caused me to mix up two of the numbers…

The flight to Spain was only one hour long, surprising enough for a Portuguese our designated Spaniard driver was waiting for us at the airport when we arrived (those of you that may have visited Portugal should know what I’m talking about regarding timing) and took us to the hotel, there we were greeted by Antonio Martinez Cayuela, general secretary of the Social Republican Movement, whose cultural section had organized the event. Small talk and then lunch, where we met Alberto Buela, a deeply interesting Argentinean with whom we had the chance to chat for a few hours and that, later, he would be fascinated with our speeches in the Quests.

After a short introduction by Cayuela the first speaker took the word, our very own Filipe Ferreira acting as president of the Portuguese-Iranian Friendship Society gave a great speech about a few details that mainstream ignores regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran and then ended with a short resume about his personal evolution and how we deal with politics in Portugal (namely our practice of working with far-left and far-right activists at will).

Buela was fascinated with our “Vertical action” theory, Filipe stated that the system sees the world in an Horizontal way, with Right, Left and Center and places in these circles all that exist while we, on the other hand, must act in a Vertical way, front towards the system. A Vertical line has place for cooperation’s with both the Left and the Right and escapes completely to the labels used today. Alberto Buela promised he will write about this in detail (a philosopher that is a vice-secretary of the Internal Affairs Ministry of Argentina studying National-Anarchist theory… not bad for the first day, is it?)

The second speaker was a Spanish historian that presented his book about the 1808 May 2nd insurrection in Spain, of which I never heard before. It was when Spanish people took their weapons and rioted against the Napoleonic invaders that the Spanish military were almost pleased to welcome. An interesting speech on people’s autonomous action, with no State nor Military rulings, just ‘we’ the people.

To finish the evening a great fiery speech by Jaume Farrerons, member of the Party of Catalonia, former general secretary and founding member of Platform for Catalonia, party from which he resigned due to its far-right political inclinations of late. The name of the speech was titled “National Revolutionaries: a Leftwing alternative?”.

He proved to us, for nearly an hour, that Nationalism belongs to the Leftwing side of the political spectrum and, I quote, “We are left-wingers, we are radical Left, more: we are far-left!”. He gave us many historical references about the fact that the Left was not a concise ideological block - it has many different ideologies within it and we are one of those ideologies. History always placed revolutionaries and bringers of change on the Left side of the fence, well we are revolutionary and we want change so…

He also pointed out that “our main enemies are the Jewish Far-Right” (Zionism that is), and also that working class people, the people we target as our own, have always been seen as naturally Leftwing while the Bankers and the bosses have always been connected to rightwing forces, once again… any wonder that we, in Portugal, label ourselves as New Left?

Day two

The day started with Alexander Kuznetsov speech on Eurasia. Alexander is the head of International section of the movement and also a member of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Russia - a heavy weight with whom I also had the pleasure of chatting with the day before.

He gave us the background of the Eurasian movement and showed a very interesting movie on Eurasian action, the movement has thousands of supporters spread across Europe.

After the movie exhibition it was time for the presentation of the latest books from Ediciones Nueva Republica, one of them being Tomislav Sunic’s “Homo Americanus”. Sunic himself was scheduled to be there but he couldn’t, on that same day he was nominated ambassador of Croatia in Algeria, so he had to cancel on us.

After lunch it was my time to take the podium – representing the Free Revolutionaries Circle - in a round table discussion with Roberto Bevilacqua (Fiamma Tricolore, Italy), Robin Morawitz (very young and unknown skinhead from the NPD, a very poor choice by the Germans), Herve van Laethem (NATION, Belgium), Jordi de la Fuente (MSR, Spain) and Frederik Ranson (NSA, Flanders – Belgium).

I was surprised that Frederik knew National-Anarchism and he knew me from Revolution International, that is linked in the NSA official website. We were asked 3 questions each to see if we could figure out our differences, which turns out that we were not so different even though my answers were slightly different.

First question: What’s the biggest problem haunting Europe today?: Fiamma: The lack of values in today’s citizens and society due to materialism. FRC: The artificial crisis created by the Bank owners – pure usury – with the support of the European Central Bank. NATION: Immigration and the lack of Identity. NSA: Globalization. NPD: Globalization and Capitalism.

During the talk we pretty much agreed that Capitalism is the main menace today.

Second question: can the Nation states of Europe fight alone this problem or do we need a bigger entity?: Fiamma: No (I couldn’t tell the rest of the answer, did not understand it). FRC: No, and pointed out Lusophony as a solution to Portugal, Pan-Latinism for Latin Southern America and Southern Europe and, finally for Europe, Eurasia, these are all valid alternative markets to get us out of the global market ran by the US of A. NATION: No, united European block with strong armed forces, an Identitarian and Socialist Europe. NSA: No, we need a European National Revolution and closer ties with Russia. NPD: We need a European Federation of Nation states. MSR: we need a greater space.

During the talk we all agreed on the need of greater spaces, I guess George Orwell gave a turn or two in his grave.

Third question: how can we fight global Capitalism? Creating European Capitalism?: Fiamma: Socialization of the companies. FRC: We need Socialism, not Capitalism, money has its own logic and the only solution is Socialism. NATION: Capitalism is dying; we should follow the Italian example (socialization, social actions and squatting). NSA: Political renewal, a bigger control by the state regarding the economy. NPD: Stated that Socialist Nationalism is the solution and Capitalism the disease. MSR: Capitalism always existed ruled by usuraries, gangsters, drug dealers and assorted speculators. Capitalism is Death, Socialism is Live.

During the talk we all agreed on Socialism as the only way out (or Socialization for the Italian Right-wingers that seem to have a problem with the word Socialism…).

After this we had a very touching poetry session accompanied with guitar background music followed by a debate between several Spanish parties, of local interest.

After the debate, the crowd was entertained with a folk concert by Mara Ros (Spain) and Saturnia Regna (Italy, they know Troy Southgate so I take they are good people).

Day Three

The open speeches were given by Jose Luiz Riesco (who greeted me very enthusiastically the day before, I guess because of my alternative markets theory that includes Pan-Latinism) and Joachim Bochaca (Spanish intellectual that is being translated into English in the last year by The Barnes Review magazine).

They spoke about the world crises, Riesco quoted me on the artificiality of the crisis, the role of Zionism and the US of A in the world as we know it was also strongly spoken of.

After this dual conference (Bochaca and Riesco spoke together) we heard Christian Bouchet discussing the future of the French National Front and explaining why the National Revolutionaries and the National Left are supporting Marine Le Pen as next president of FN, they see Marine as a continuity of the Le Pen brand and, at the same time, someone that can revolutionize the party within.

In the last few years the FN has been growing Left-wing members and there is much fear that the party may split in two (or more) after the dead of Jean Marie Le Pen.

The last speaker was Alberto Buela who presented his own theory on the geopolitical weight of South America and he quoted Ferreira quite a few times, we need Vertical action in a horizontal world. It was a great presentation that complemented my Pan-Latinist theory and had a soul of its own.

Curiously, Buela met Hugo Chavez three times so far.

Aftermath

Given that the latest issue of the Spanish “Krisis21” magazine ran two and a half pages interview with me I was somewhat noticed and greeted during the three days, even more after my short interventions.

So far I was invited to contribute in the next issues of the “Nihil Obstat” magazine (that among it’s contributors counts with Dugin, de Benoist, Bouchet and even Alain Soral…) and I was also invited to visit Moscow, apparently the Eurasian diplomat enjoyed my conversations and theories.

It’s great work what the Social Republican Movement is doing with these Quests of Dissidence, let’s hope it lasts many more years to come. Also, the event have a dozen of stands selling mainly books, very politically incorrect books for all tastes, from historical Revisionism to Communism and National-Bolshevism passing by National Socialism and Anarchism and ending in the Sinn Fein and other Irish Republicanism.

Let the dissidence roll…

Commemorations of the independence of Venezuela in Portugal

By Flavio Goncalves

Last July 5^th the revolutionary government of Venezuela commemorated the 197^th anniversary of the country’s independence, which happened in the 5^th of July in 1811. The embassy of Venezuela in Portugal organized 4 different events to celebrate the occasion, even though the events had no media this reporter attended 3 of the events as the director of the small Portuguese and Spanish language magazine “Revolution” published by the Bolivarian revolution friendly Portuguese Free Revolutionaries Circle.

Heading for 21^st Century Socialism conference

The first event was staged at the Casa da America Latina (Latin America House) in Lisbon, June 27^th, a conference titled “Positive Venezuela: heading for 21^st Century Socialism” and was held by the ambassador of Venezuela in Portugal, general Lucas Rincon, that held several key positions in the government of Venezuela, among them Minister of Defence, Minister of Internal Affairs and head of the armed forcers of Venezuela, a heavy weight that seemed to me as a very passionate man and gave us all a very good impression of the revolutionary steps the Bolivarian regime is taking in Venezuela.

I was very surprised by the public recognition and compliment he have in his introductory speech – before the conference – in which he mentioned “Revolution” magazine and myself, by name, most likely surprising the representatives of the Portuguese Communist Party that where also present and had no idea who we were (even though I had reported, in the past, the visits between Zyuganov and the PCP).

During the conference we had the chance to be aware of the projects that Venezuela is working on with the revolutionary government of Iran and the (sadly not so revolutionary) government of Portugal, serving the best interests of all the parties involved. The conquests of the last 9 years of Venezuelan Socialism rule are really outstanding and an example for all the peoples of the world. After the conference we had the pleasure of being served beverages (and what a delicious Cuba Libre they had there) and traditional Venezuelan food.

Luso-Bolivarian music night

July 1^st we had the pleasure of attending a Luso-Bolivarian musical night, in the Mirror Room of the Foz Palace in downtown Lisbon, we had the joy of listening the Venezuelan classic music musicians Ana Beatriz Manzanilla, Pedro Saglimbeni and the Portuguese Joao Santos playing Schumann, Martinu, Sarasate, Massenet and Racel in piano, violin and viola. After that Celeste Moreira, a Portuguese born fado singer that has lived in Venezuela since her early years, she sang all the Portuguese classics of fado also a few Venezuela music, including the National Anthem, a very patriotic moment given that one of the songs was titled “Two Fatherlands” dedicated to the Portuguese communities of Venezuela and the Venezuelan communities of Portugal.

As a side note Renato Epifanio, from the International Lusophone Movement and one of the directors of the New Eagle magazine was also present for a brief moments, listening only to the introductory remarks of General Lucas Rincon.

Bolivar remembrance and brindis

In the morning of the 5^th of July the diplomatic corps of Venezuela visited the statue of Simon Bolivar on Avenida da Liberdade in Lisbon and offered a huge crown made up of fresh flowers in honour if their founding father, Portuguese officials were also present as well as a numerous crowd constituted of Venezuelan immigrants living in Portugal. After the reading of the Chart of Independence, a minute of silence was held in memory of Heroes of the Fatherland.

At noon we all gathered in the Pestana Palace Hotel for a toast and lunch in honour of the independence of Venezuela, the lunch was held in the gardens and animated by the musical band Espiritu Nativo (Native Spirit), we also could enjoy the photographic exhibition titled Venezuela Magic Land by Roberto Collantoni.

Among many others there were present the ambassadors of Cuba, Libya, Colombia Sao Tome e Principe and of the Islamic Republic of Iran – to whom I had the chance of chatting given that he already knew my work through the Iranian officials stationed at the embassy in Lisbon. I also did try to track down the ambassador of Libya but without success, too bad.

All the commemorations where very sound, it’s amazing to witness the dedication of the Venezuela officials stationed in Lisbon to the revolution that our beloved Hugo Chavez Frias has been leading, democratically, over the last 9 years.

Tribute to Portuguese National-Anarchists & Nazbols

Aussie N-A: a case study

by Flavio Goncalves

I have been forced by circumstances to pay more attention to what has been happening in Australia lately, country in which National-Anarchism has been gaining great stamina thanks to the efforts of Welf Herfurth, former member of both the German NPD and the Aussie One Nation parties.

I believe my surprise is due to the fact that Welf is a recent Anarchist, a few years back he joined the National-Anarchist International discussion list almost out of curiosity, maybe to check out the sort of loonies that might wander about over there and what the Hell did they stand for, I remember that at first Welf’s participation was shy, more due to the discussion of the quality of several beer brands (as you should know beer is a very important component of National-Anarchist ideology, the same goes for ‘strawberry’ red wine from the island of Pico for the Portuguese N-A) and comment on some international news.

As time went by Welf realized that what we stood for where the same ideas he himself defended, he created a blog, later a website, promoted our ideas among his friends, comrades and acquaintances in Australia and voila, two years later, give or take, Australia has the most well organized, active and militant National-Anarchist cell of the whole planet, something that should ashame hard enough the original National-Anarchists stationed in England, Germany, France, Spain and even in Portugal.

For the pictures we can witness that all that is needed is a hand full of good men, 5 or 6 men (or women, because we also have them) fearless of taking a beating from the police or a few kicks from the mainstream Left – that looses itself more in more in unworthy crap causes with no ideological purpose.

What about us? Can we do something like that? The only Portuguese political organization that includes National-Anarchists is legally disbanding itself, when the process is over will the Portuguese N-A head home? Or for the streets?

There is already available several merchandise in Australia, t-shirts, posters, stickers and even an English language magazine that we advise to all the curious (and in Portugal we have just published the third issue of our Revolution magazine), Anarchists, Antifas, Nationalists… with no dogmas and no artificial ideological barriers, the future is ours!

From freedom of speech to blasphemy

By Bita Ghaffari, Press TV

There is a border between freedom of expression and blasphemy - a border that should never be crossed.

Attempts to confuse the concept of free speech with one that is inciting, provocative, or offensive has a long history.

Attacking Islam and striving to portray it as a religion harboring violence and extremism is not a new phenomenon. However, there have been renewed attempts to distort the image of Islam through profane utterances or writings concerning Muslim sacred entities in recent times.

Certain naïve political figures resort to sacrilege as a means of working their way up the ladder of political success. Austria's Susanne Winter is one such figure.

Her blasphemous remarks regarding the Prophet of Islam Muhammad (PBUH) and the assertion that Islam should be 'thrown back where it came from, beyond the Mediterranean Sea' only expose her prejudiced and ignorant mindset. Can that be considered an instance of extremismi/>?

Apparently, she made the hate speech with the intention of garnering massive support at the city council elections - a strategy which failed to work.

Winter's comments even drew immediate condemnation from several top-ranking Austrian authorities including Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer who said she had absolutely no right to attempt to undermine the values and beliefs of an acknowledged religion.

She was also reprimanded by Vice-Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer, Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik and finally President Heinz Fischer who said the remarks were 'intolerable and outrageous'.

Yet again, another Islamophobic European politician recently announced his plan to make a film with the clearly stated objective of attacking Qur'an, the Muslim holy book. Geert Wilders, the head of the Dutch far-right Freedom Party, announced he would release a 10-minute film to show his view that the Holy Qur'an, 'is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror'.

He earlier proposed a ban on the Holy Qur'an. There are even fears Wilders might burn or tear up Islam's Holy Book in the film. Threatening to commit sacrilege against the sacred book of 1.2 billion people? Is that not extremism?

French writer Robert Redeker in an article printed in Le Figaro caused offense to Muslims through his provocative remarks about the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the religion of Islam, but was defended and offered protection by the French government.

In 2005, a Danish newspaper infuriated Muslims around the world for publishing offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), which were later reprinted in several other European media under the pretext of freedom of expression. What are these if not vivid instances of extremism?

Having been introduced into the current political parlance, the words 'terrorism and extremism' are in sudden vogue. This is part of a scenario to instill a phobia of Islam and of the Muslims worldwide.

A review of the crime situation worldwide would reveal that most 'advanced' countries have crime rates which are several times higher than the corresponding rates in major Muslim countries. Not to mention that the number of lethal domestic assaults would have been much higher, in US for instance, had it not been for the availability and improved quality of emergency care and medical variables.

The mass media of the so-called civilized world keep branding Islam as a religion breeding violence, turning a blind eye to the fact that a great many lives are being everyday sacrificed in uncalled for wars that are waged by non-Muslims in the first place. Consider the civilian toll in hot spots like Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine today.

Religions are for promotion of peace and love for humanity. Some, however, have been conspiring throughout history to misuse religion as a tool to accomplish their hideous ploys.

One need not be a passionate religious believer to realize that making profane remarks against other religions - be it Islam or other divine faiths - or arousing a sentiment of anger and disgust among followers of a certain faith is not a way to uphold freedom of expression, but a most unethical practice.

Interestingly enough, most European countries prohibit any speech or writing that denies the Holocaust but turn to advocates of liberty of expression when it comes to unfair and biased interpretations of Islam.

A German court recently sentenced Sylvia Stolz, the former lawyer of Holocaust revisionist Ernst Zundel, to 3.5 years in prison, and banned her from practicing law for five years.

Also, French judicial police summoned French revisionist historian Robert Faurisson on charges of attending an anti-Holocaust conference in Iran.

To date, Faurisson has been subjected to a long list of official and unofficial penalties from assault and battery leaving him with a broken jaw, to a suspended prison term of three months, a fine of 7,500 euros as well as removal from his university chair - for questioning the historic events surrounding the killings of European Jews by Germany in WWII.

France's 1990 Gayssot Act makes it an offense to question the existence of crimes against humanity. It is one of several European laws prohibiting Holocaust denial.

Islam is a religion that is embraced by about 1.2 billion people around the world from a host of nationalities and races. That means one in every five people is a Muslim.

What therefore encourages some to try to blatantly desecrate Muslim sanctities and what good do they achieve from offending the beliefs of followers of the world's second largest religion?

Islam is attracting an increasingly larger percentage of global population at a faster rate (2.9 percent) than the total annual population growth (2.3 percent).

The world today needs discourse among religions and cultures more than ever before. Followers of divine religions need to be vigilant and think twice before they fall for the 'black propaganda' intended to mislead.

The irony is that covert Western hands can be traced in creating the breeding grounds for extremist movements. First, the groups are mentored, funded and trained; later, they are reprimanded as radical Islamist groups involved in terrorism.

Violence is committed by groups that are bred and fostered by Western powers to give a distorted impression of Islam.

Let us not be carried away by the tide of provocations and deceptions. Religions are to shine the light of guidance throughout the human journey toward perfection. The faiths of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (PBUT) have all aimed to provide mankind with direction.

All throughout history, people's religious sentiments have been provoked to sow the seeds of discord and enmity, by timeservers who think of nothing but quenching their insatiable greed for power and wealth.

Extremism comes into play where there is ignorance and deception. It is the duty of the elite to keep the public opinion from falling for such distortions of reality. There have been and still are numerous cases wherein Muslims have been the victims rather than perpetrators of violence and terrorism in recent history.

Extremism and terrorism are terminology propagated by hegemonic powers to justify invasion of foreign territories and plunder of their resources - those who live in homes that have been built at the expense of ruining other people's homes. They need alibis to attack and invade; wage wars, and sell arms. What can serve their purpose better than clinging to the excuse of 'fighting extremism'?

Only Anarchists Are Really Conservative

by Doug French"It is only the anarchists who are really conservative." The rank-and-file Republican will recoil at that statement, believing it to be unpatriotic, impractical and foolish. The Republicans' blind allegiance to the flag, the GOP and the state is unwavering: convenient for those who wish not to tax themselves with thinking.

Author Bill Kauffman, on the other hand, is a thinker, and writer of the first order. There may have been better books than Look Homeward, America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists, published in 2006, but I didn't read them. In Look Homeward, Kauffman celebrates those uniquely American radicals who make this the country it is, and does it with humor, grace and keen perception.

My first memories of the author are from Liberty Magazine conferences where he spoke with sly wit and self-deprecating humor. His books are equally engaging. Kauffman has described his politics as "a blend of Catholic Worker, Old Right Libertarian, Yorker transcendentalist, and delirious localist." He has also called himself, "Jeffersonian," an "anarchist," a "cheerful enemy of the state," a "reactionary Friend of the Library," and a "peace-loving football fan."

For the uninitiated picking up Look Homeward, the author describes his anarchist as being "the love child of Henry Thoreau and Dorothy Day, conceived amidst the asters and goldenrod of an Upstate New York autumn." Those he honors are political radicals of all stripes, with each having a deep sense of conservative social values.

Kauffman continues to live in the county he grew up in, Genesee County in Upstate New York. One of the prominent themes of Look Homeward is that war displaces people from where they grew up. The state drafts young men and women to fight in far away lands, killing people they don't know. If the state doesn't call away young people they leave to work in cities, manning the factory jobs created by the wartime boom that soldiers are forced to leave behind. Nothing destroys families and communities like war.

"The die was cast," Kauffman writes. "For the next six decades (and God knows how many more to come), Iowans looked away from Sioux City and learned to pronounce, if not understand, Seoul, Vladivostock, Phnom Penh, Fallujah. [E. Bradford] Burns concludes: 'A significant victim of the world war was regionalism. The war eclipsed it.'"

Kauffman became an anarchist after working for New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan for two and half years. He came to Washington "a skeptically cheerful liberal," and "left quoting the mid-century anarchist Frank Chodorov." He opens the book with a chapter devoted to Eugene McCarthy and Moynihan, a chapter that includes a discussion of Robert Moses, the man who never learned to drive but was responsible for the highway system in New York with its 627 miles destroying and disrupting many neighborhoods.

Dorothy Day was the founder of the Catholic Worker movement and was a pacifist to boot. The Catholic workers held "an anarchist distrust of the state," according to Kauffman.

Insubordinate author Carolyn Chute is a self-taught novelist living in the Maine woods. She founded the 2nd Maine Militia, "the militia of love," and lives with a husband who is illiterate. Chute makes the point that left-leaning yuppies are worried about peasants in other countries while at the same time they "hate and fear the American working class and peasantry, especially when Jethro has a gun."

Kauffman laments that we Americans get older but no wiser. We are fat, dumb and happy, in what Robert Nisbet called "the heart of totalitarianism." Kauffman quotes Nisbet, "the masses; the vast aggregates who are never tortured, flogged, or imprisoned, or humiliated; who instead are cajoled, flattered, stimulated by the rulers; who are nonetheless relentlessly destroyed as human beings, ground down into mere shells of humanity."

But Kauffman is not ashamed to be an American. He contends that there are two Americas, the televised version that the rest of the world hates, and then there are the rest of us. Big government, big corporations and big media form the America that has "no heart, no soul, no connection to the thousand and one real Americans that produced Zora Neale Hurston and Jack Kerouac and Saint Dorothy Day and the Mighty Casey who has struck out."

Whatever your ideology, Bill Kauffman's words will touch your soul and make you long for his America.

This article originally appeared in Liberty Watch Magazine.

January 22, 2008

Doug French [send him mail] is executive vice president of a Nevada bank and associate editor for Liberty Watch Magazine. He received the Murray N. Rothbard Award from the Center for Libertarian Studies.

Copyright © 2008 Doug French

Got Gold?

Call out the SWAT Teams!

... Someone dared put up Ron Paul signs.



















"YOU WILL NOT HANG UP RON PAUL SIGNS AND YOU WILL NOT PRACTICE FREE SPEECH! DO YOU UNDERSTAND? DO NOT MAKE ME CALL JANET RENO!"

Merry Christmas to all revolutionaries worldwide

The Lobby Strikes Back

by Scott McConnell

One prism through which to gauge the impact of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy is a September incident involving Barack Obama. His campaign had placed small ads in various spots around the Internet, designed to drive readers to its website. One turned up on Amazon’s page for the Walt and Mearsheimer book. A vigilant watchdog at the New York Sun spotted it and contacted the campaign: Did Obama support Walt and Mearsheimer?

The answer came within hours. The ad was withdrawn. Its placement was “unintentional.” The senator, his campaign made clear, understood that key arguments of the book were “wrong,” but had definitely not read the work himself. In short, Walt and Mearsheimer had reached a pinnacle of notoriety.

Though The Israel Lobby was on the way to best-sellerdom and has become perhaps the most discussed policy book of the year, the presidential candidate touted as the most fresh-thinking and intellectually curious in the race hastened to make clear he had not been corrupted by the toxic text.

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Introducing the Holocaust into Chinese domestic and foreign politics

by Fredrik TöbenWith the Beijing Olympic Games fast approaching there is a massive multi-faceted expectation coming China’s way – both from within its own peoples and from overseas.

In both instances world politics will also assume prominence. After all, isn’t sport merely war without deadly weapons?

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"Land of Cunfusion" by Genesis

A class act in Oxford

by Zoe JewellA giant cheque for £15,000 is proudly propped up against the wall of the Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) councillors’ office at the Oxford City Council town hall. It is a prized libel payment from the Oxford East Labour Party after Labour posted defamatory leaflets to residents in last year’s election campaign. Under the headline ‘Watch out for extremist group’, Bill Baker – Labour’s deputy city council leader – claimed that the IWCA had links to Irish Republicans and violent extremists.

In the otherwise bare office, Stuart Craft and Clare Kent, two of the four IWCA councillors on Oxford City Council, still talk about it now with disbelief. ‘We’ve been called vigilantes, racists, fascists, communist boot boys, everything you could think of,’ says Craft.

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Zionists stifle free speech

by Michael Collins Piper

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

However—in open and deviantly proud defiance of American tradition—the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith and other private Jewish pressure groups loyal to a foreign nation—Israel—have achieved special influence in the public arena and are thus able to go beyond the purview of the First Amendment in time and again attempting to suppress (often successfully) the rights of Americans outlined in the First Amendment.

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Whatever happened to the anti-war movement?

by Alexander Cockburn

America right now is ‘anti-war’, in the sense that about two thirds of the people think the occupation of Iraq is a bad business and the troops should come home. Anti-war sentiment was a major factor in the success of the Democrats in last November’s elections, when they recaptured Congress. The irony is that this sharp disillusion of the voters owes almost nothing to any anti-war movement. To say the anti-war movement is dead would be an overstatement, but not by a large margin. Compared to kindred movements in the 1960s and early 1970s, or to the struggles against Reagan’s wars in Central America in the late 1980s, it is certainly inert.

When in March of this year Democrats in the us Congress felt obliged to send President Bush the message that he should bring the troops home before he leaves office, they were not voting in the shadow of a mighty throng of protesters cramming into the open spaces in front of the Lincoln Memorial, their slogans rattling the windows of Congress. They were voting in the shadow of the elections of 2008, and eager to display in gesture if not in substance some acknowledgement of a general anti-war feeling abroad in the land.

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Unmasking the wannabe masters of the universe

by Bev Conover

"In 1954, the most powerful men in the world met for the first time under the auspices of the Dutch royal crown and the Rockefeller family at the luxurious Hotel Bilderberg in the small Dutch town of Oosterbeck. For an entire weekend, the debated the future of the world. When it was over, they decided to meet once every year to exchange ideas and analyze international affairs. They named themselves the Bilderberg Group. Since then, they have gathered yearly in a luxurious hotel somewhere in the world to try to decide the future of humanity. Among the select members of this club are Bill Clinton, Paul Wolfowitz, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Tony Blair and many other heads of government, businessmen, politicians, bankers and journalists from all over the world," writes journalist Daniel Estulin in the opening paragraph of the introduction to his must-read book, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group.

"Nevertheless, in the more than fifty years of their meetings, the press has never been allowed to attend, no statements have ever been released on the attendees' conclusions, nor has any agenda for a Bilderberg meeting been made public," Estulin notes.

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Long Live the Revolution!

by Lisa Krakova

Workers of the world UNITE! You have nothing to lose but your chains! A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. These two slogans have indelibly impressed hearts, minds and spirits and changed the world forever. The 1917 Revolution in Russia made its mark forever on this planet. Today the healthy pulse of a reborn worldwide Communist spirit can be felt growing stronger and stronger every day.

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Laibach - "Empire March"

Is it possible to be an Anarchist in an Authoritarian world?

by Flavio GoncalvesHaving, as I have, a long and heavy past of political idealism it’s easy to notice that, each year – or even each day, it’s becoming harder and harder to remain truly an Anarchist without drawing negative attention to oneself. Given that the Anarchist creed implicates that we stand up for freedom of speech, a freedom that is ever more threatened by either restrictive laws pushed by national governments or by Bruxels regime (1), or even due to the ideological obscurantism that painted our world in Black and White, divided in “good” and “evil”, resulting that true Anarchists – those that stand up for absolute freedom of speech and opinion for all – end up being accused sometimes as “fascists” and others as “communists”, depending on the political guidelines (the artificial Right/Left) of those that disagree with your point of view.

Given the Portuguese example, we have ever more governmental decisions that are taken without the approval of the people (most recent cases being Flexi security and the European Treaty). We have a regulating governmental entity that rules over the press – something that does not seen all that democratic. In the colleges, political parties youth wings and in the opinion columns of the newspapers we witness what Joaquim Letria (2) labeled as “self censorship”, when people restrain themselves to voice publicly certain opinions that might look bad or raise a cloud of negative suspicion over its authors by their professors, editors or even some parcel of the public that might be organized as a lobby.

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The Convenience Store and American Democracy

by Ean FrickWhat images come to mind when one utters that word so common to our cultural vocabulary: democracy? Poll booths, perhaps? Politicians engaging in a televised debate? Or how about an enthusiastic crowd of flag wavers celebrating the majoritarian spirit? Sure all these things would be correct, but only because there is no right or wrong when it comes to cultural signifiers. I guess the answer I was looking for would be my answer, for when I hear the word democracy I think of a 7-11.

Now the reader may think I am being facetious or droll. Cue liberal arrogance: “Oh, those stupid Americans, all they care about is crap food and don’t give one iota about politics! Hububububb...” But no, I am being entirely serious when I say this. For not only do I think of convenience stores when I hear the word democracy, I find them wholly representative of American democracy, in fact, I feel they are better examples of American democracy than the electoral process.

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