By A. Tolbert, III

Did you know that in the 1920s, there were 24,000 Blacks living in Germany? Here’s how it happened, and how many of them were eventually caught unawares by the events of the Holocaust.

Kate Connolly in Berlin | January 12, 2008 | The Guardian

· Dutch activist exonerated under 1998 law
· Hitler used fire as pretext to establish dictatorship

In many towns and villages, especially in eastern Germany, many local governments and judges either sympathize with or fear the Nazis, who call these areas "liberated zones". A few show more courage, together with church and union groups. But when young antifascists actively defy the many...[marches] of the [far right] [National Democratic Party]...every weekend in city after city all over Germany, they often find themselves being apprehended and arrested, while the Nazis get police protection.

It was the linking of the arms, over 200 rows made up of 8 to 12 people each and a sister from Berlin who whispered ‘because of the snatch squads’ that reawakened my dormant thoughts on ‘the black bloc’

A compendium of reports from the G8 protests in Germany, with many links to photos and video.

As Angela Merkel now assumes the presidency of the European Union for the first half of 2007, Thierry Meyssan looks back on the amazing career of this communist propagandist in the former German Democratic Republic ['East Germany'] who made it to Chancellor of the reunified Germany. He emphasises her links with the neo-conservatives and her idea of US leadership in Europe.

Today the EU/ASEM summit began. At the place I was staying at there was an anxious excitement present in everybody. We all made our way down to the meeting point near the St. Pauli subway station. After a few police instigated stalls we were on our way. I was with a few dozen familiar faces, all wearing black. Most of them had water proof jackets and pants for the water cannons. As we marched I looked forward and backward and saw that I was in the middle of a giant black bloc.

by George Aleman III | Dissident Voice

A Legitimate Crisis of Legitimacy

It was recently reported that the United States is “trying a radical new strategy” in Baghdad: the building of a wall to keep rival sects apart.1. This is hardly a radical, even new, strategy. In 1961, the Soviet Union constructed a wall not only to choke the flow of millions fleeing from East Germany, but also to keep two rival philosophies apart. One of the chief goals of the Berlin Wall was to quell the outflow of East German workers. In short, this writer maintains that the Soviet Union was having a crisis of legitimacy due to its failure to bring about its promise of a better life for those under its control. To subdue its declining image, it resorted to building this grotesque structure. It was a vile and arrogant attempt to divide a historic society. The forces of history would prove to work against this action, among others, as a divided Germany became the focal point of legitimacy for the Soviet Union on the world stage. The building of the Berlin Wall displayed the Soviet Union’s inability to enforce its system and control foreign populations. The building of the Baghdad Wall shows America’s inability to do the same.

Despite the chosen G8 venue being in the sleepy Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm in the far north-east of the country (already surrounded with a shiny new $17m fence), last week saw many hundreds of cops involved in around forty raids right across Germany, with convergence and social centres, squats and anti-G8 group offices all targeted...In the capital, Berlin, at least eight properties were attacked, including a bookshop, flats, two offices, the kanalb radio and media group and the servers of [an] autonomous tech collective...

Greenpeace Smashing LightbulbsEnergy wasting incandescent lightbulbs are so dangerously inefficient it's better for the climate (and your wallet) to smash even brand new ones rather than use them. So we got a road roller and crushed 10,000 energy wasting lightbulbs at the Brandenburg Gate, while EU and G8 ministers were meeting in Berlin today.

More than 100,000 demonstrators are planning to disrupt the G8 summit this June in the German seaside resort of Heiligendamm - and the dress rehearsals have already begun.

"We have never before seen such a militant campaign of the extreme Left in northern Germany," says Claudia Schmid, head of the Berlin wing of the Agency for the Protection of the Constitution, the equivalent of the Special Branch. Similar reports are coming from Denmark, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

About 16,000 police, the most concentrated deployment since the war, have been drafted from across the country and will be backed by soldiers.

[Note from b&r: The following is an excellent, though quite lengthy, analysis of the weaknesses inherent in much of contemporary anarchism; if your time is limited, skip the literature review.]

[In the Anarchist movement]...one divide that is growing more sharp is the same one that runs through much of Europe, the debate between insurrection and organization...[T]here seems to be a lingering affinity for certain Western values that are at the heart of the state and capitalism: a worldview based on dichotomies, and a logical structure that is startlingly monotheistic...For example, when there are two different strategies for revolution, many of us do not see this as two paths for different groups of people to walk...but as evidence that somebody must be Wrong.

The G8 circus is coming to Heiligendamm, (Germany). As recent summits have moved to more remote areas, we have felt our strength decline, mainly because they increasingly control the playground and everything around it. In Seattle, Prague and Genoa our strengths were in being inventive and surprising the police. This allowed us the freedom to stage effective direct actions and disrupt the summits. The time has come to seize back the initiative.

I should like to trace the paradoxical discourse not only of the western doctrines, but also of Middle-Eastern contexts, to show the contrary relations between dominant readings/interpretations and the volition and power which resistance and refusal can garner for its benefit. I will shortly speak about the Shari-ah. The Shari’ah is the body of Islamic law that was developed by religious scholars (Ulama’s) after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

"Football (soccer) isn't a matter of life and death, it's more important than that."

For all you soccer (or "football" for those living outside North America) fans, here's a Socialist's guide to the World Cup.