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In commemoration of 'Οχι Day, we present the text of the October 31, 1940 "Open Letter of the General Secretary of the KKE" by Nikos Zachariadis. The English and Greek editions of this text were transcribed by my pal Panos Fidis. We worked together on the footnotes to create these documents for marxists.org. Μου λείπεις, my friend!
Open Letter of the General Secretary of the KKE [A],[B] to the People of Greece
Nikos
Zachariadis
Mussolini's fascism backstabbed Greece in a murderous and immoral way in order to occupy and enslave Greece. Today all the Greeks are fighting for our freedom. our honor, our national independence. The struggle will be very hard and very tough. But a nation that desires to survive must fight defying the dangers and the sacrifices. The people of Greece are fighting a national liberation war against Mussolini's fascism. Alongside with the main front, EVERY ROCK, EVERY HILLSIDE, EVERY CITY, HOUSE BY HOUSE MUST BECOME A FORTRESS OF THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE. Every agent of fascism must be exterminated mercilessly. In this war which is led by the government of Metaxas, all of us must offer all their efforts without doubts. The reward for the working people and the capstone of today's struggle will be a new Greece of work and freedom liberated from any foreign imperialist dependence with a true popular culture. Everyone to the struggle, each one to his position, and the victory will be a victory of Greece and the Greek people. The workers of all the world are on our side.
Athens, 31 of October 1940. Nikos Zachariadis Secretary of the Central Comitee of KKE
B. The KKE had been banned in 1936 by the Metaxas regime. As such, much of the KKE leadership had been imprisoned by the onset of Italian aggression toward Greece. Zachariadis wrote this letter from jail, urging unity with the Metaxas government the effort to defeat the common enemy of the Greek people.
Ανοιχτό γράμμα του Γενικού Γραμματέα του ΚΚΕ Προς το λαό της Ελλάδας
Ο φασισμός του Μουσολίνι χτύπησε την Ελλάδα πισώπλατα, δολοφονικά και ξετσίπωτα με σκοπό να την υποδουλώσει και εξανδραποδίσει. Σήμερα όλοι οι Έλληνες παλεύουμε για τη λευτεριά, την τιμή, την εθνική μας ανεξαρτησία. Η πάλη θα είναι πολύ δύσκολη και πολύ σκληρή. Μα ένα έθνος που θέλει να ζήσει πρέπει να παλεύει, αψηφώντας τους κινδύνους και τις θυσίες. 0 λαός τής Ελλάδας διεξάγει σήμερα έναν πόλεμο εθνικοαπελευθερωτικό, ενάντια στο φασισμό του Μουσολίνι. Δίπλα στο κύριο μέτωπο και Ο ΚΑΘΕ ΒΡΑΧΟΣ, Η ΚΑΘΕ ΡΕΜΑΤΙΑ, ΤΟ ΚΑΘΕ ΧΩΡΙΟ, ΚΑΛΥΒΑ ΜΕ ΚΑΛΥΒΑ, Η ΚΑΘΕ ΠΟΛΗ, ΣΠΙΤΙ ΜΕ ΣΠΙΤΙ, ΠΡΕΠΕΙ ΝΑ ΓΙΝΕΙ ΦΡΟΥΡΙΟ ΤΟΥ ΕΘΝΙΚΟΑΠΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΩΤΙΚΟΥ ΑΓΩΝΑ. Κάθε πράκτορας του φασισμού πρέπει να εξοντωθεί αλύπητα. Στον πόλεμο αυτό πού τον διευθύνει ή κυβέρνηση Μεταξά, όλοι μας πρέπει να δώσουμε όλες μας τις δυνάμεις, δίχως επιφύλαξη. Έπαθλο για τον εργαζόμενο λαό και επιστέγασμα για το σημερινό του αγώνα, πρέπει να είναι και θα είναι, μια καινούργια 'Ελλάδα τής δουλειάς, τής λευτεριάς, λυτρωμένη από κάθε ξενική ιμπεριαλιστική εξάρτηση, μ'εναν πραγματικά παλλαϊκό πολιτισμό. Όλοι στον αγώνα, ο καθένας στη θέση του και ή νίκη θα 'ναι νίκη τής Ελλάδας και τού λαού της. Οι εργαζόμενοι όλου του κόσμου στέκουν στο πλευρό μας.
Last night on Monday Night Raw,CM PunkandKofi Kingstonwon theWWE World Tag Team Championshipafter beatingTeam Priceless. And again, I totally screamed like a little girl when CM Punk got the pin. Punk is one of the best and most exciting talents to hit WWE in years. It's too bad that hisreign as World Heavyweight Championwas so short-lived, but it's not his fault that WWE can't figure out how to effectively write for Punk's character.
I really wasn't expecting WWE to put another title on Punk anytime soon because the writers have seemed hell-bent on bumping him back down to the lower portion of the midcard. So last night's win was a pleasant surprise. My favorite spot of the match (other than the actual pin, that is) was Punk's "counter" to theRussian leg sweep(0:28 in the clip below). The Russian leg sweep is such a fast move that there usually isn't an effective counter to it. If I've ever seen a counter to it before, I can't remember it. Turns out all you really have to do is grab a rope, though. Punk's high spots were pretty good, too. "Go To Sleep," which is CM Punk's finishing move, (0:34) is probably my favorite finisher since "Sweet Chin Music." Awesome. Finally some good stuff from WWE!
You can make your loan just a little longer, All you got to do is share the wealth. Oh no, don't you keep your good luck to yourself...
-- From the Audioslave song “Hypnotize” off the 2002 album Audioslave
You know, with the exception of a short post a couple of weeks ago, I don't think I've posted anything at all on the election. It's not that it hasn't been an interesting time...In fact, maybe it's been a little too interesting. It's just too time-consuming to write about every little thing that has puzzled and infuriated me about this race. But consider these points...
We have Sarah Palin, the one-time "maverick" turned "rogue" who is now unofficially campaigning for the top spot in the 2012 Republican Presidential ticket. Assisting Palin is the right-wing fembotElizabeth Hasselbeck. Good luck with that one, ladies. Five bucks says Palin and Hasselback end up co-hosting an afternoon talk show on Fox News once The View drops Hasselback's contract. Looking forward to that.
"Please, George...Make that awful Palin woman go away!"
Then you have John McCain, who is slowly unravelling more and more each day right before the eyes of the American public. I think people are still showing up at his rallies for the same reasons that most folks go to NASCAR races: They're hoping to see a big time crack-up. And somehow Bill Ayers has become the major villain of this campaign. How exactly did that happen? Ten bucks says the bombs that McCain & company dropped on the Vietnamese during Operation Rolling Thunder killed and injured more innocent people than all of the Weather Underground's bombs combined.
But Joe McCarthy is the real winner in this election cycle. "Socialism" and "communism" haven't received so much press since 1992. Whether we're talking about Barack Obama's "spread the wealth" comment or the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, the American public is all to happy to return to the wily red-baiting, blacklisting days of the 1950's by invoking all kinds of anti-left harangues. Even the so-called "liberal" media is along for the ride. In case you missed it, a Florida anchorwoman actually quoted Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program to Joe Biden the other day (here's the video). Now that's not something you expect to see when you turn on the television. Unless you live in Cuba, I guess.
I have yet to see any serious debate in America on state ownership, healthcare and bank nationalization, and redistribution of wealth through taxation. What exactly is wrong with spreading the wealth around, anyway? Of course, I don't think many folks are interested in that here in America no matter the explanation. The dogma from both parties basically follows that the aforementioned concepts amount to "socialism" which is "bad" because it's "unamerican." (By the way, which kind of fallacious argument is that? I vote for "appeal to consequences of a belief," but I would also consider "circumstantial ad hominem.") Anyway, it seems that allowing uninsured Americans to suffer and die from preventable medical conditions while we spend billions to feed the military-industrial complex so we can kill thousands in other countries is apparently the more desirable path for our nation according to our current and future leaders. You see, when we're talking about money, there are just some things we won't consider. But when it comes to killing folks, nothing is off the table. Go back and watch the town hall debate and you'll see what I mean.
Twenty bucks says that come November 5th, we'll still be in a very tough spot as we decide the best way forward, not just for our future and the future of our children but for the sake of the entire planet. Based on our collective failure to address substantive issues and our resistance toward a struggle for radical change, I would say it's a long and winding road ahead. If I'm wrong, you can have my twenty bucks. But please -- by all means -- spread that wealth around. Related Reading from greeklish.org Life in these United States 07 Mar 2006 Life in these United States, continued 12 Aug 2008 The second coming of Joseph McCarthy 6 Feb 2006
A few years ago, there was a show on VH1 called "When _ Ruled the World." It was a pretty good show, as every episode featured stories, interviews and footage about a band or some other pop-culture phenomenon during their respective peak years. As a longtime Kiss fan, "When Kiss Ruled the World" stands out in my mind as one of the better episodes in the series. Back in the mid to late 1990s one of my favorite bands was a Chicago-area act called The New Duncan Imperials and for a while there, NDI really ruled the world as far as I was concerned. I guess a lot of cool stuff comes out of Chicago.Around 1994 or so, NDI videos were in heavy rotation on our local cable access channel. Some of the guys at the station were big fans of NDI and at one point, NDI even played a huge, three-hour extravaganza concert that was broadcast live from the Miami Valley Cable Council studios. To this day, that show is pretty much the best thing I have ever seen on public access television.
Clips from NDI's Video Trash including the full video for "Motel 666"
NDI had a decent following in Dayton some years ago and Gem City Records used to keep their stuff in stock so it was easy to buy their full-length CDs . They played quite a few dates in eastern Indiana and western Ohio area back in the 1990s. I saw them live for the first time at Canal Street in Dayton in the summer of 1994 (I think) and Thomai and I caught them at shows in Dayton, Columbus, and Indianapolis over the years that followed. Once, we even drove from Dayton to Broadripple and back in one night just to catch NDI. They were touring with Mojo Nixon at the time and we even managed to get a spot in the front row for the entire NDI set. Pigtail Dick signed my Harmony Les Paul before the show that night. Unfortunately, all I had with me was a very old purple Sharpie and the ink has long since worn off the guitar. I had the same guitar autographed by all the Melvins in 1995, which is a tale for another day. Hopefully I can get Pigtail Dick (or maybe even the whole NDI crew) to sign the guitar again someday.
There is really nothing like a New Duncan Imperials show. It's a high-impact act with all kinds of visual stimuli to accompany all the great music. There's all kinds of props and effects and some of them – like the mechanical "Velourabeast" head – are there to help tell a story, while other things – like the leaf blower that's been converted into a giant toilet paper streamer gun – are just part of the show because they're flat out hilarious. Plus, there's always all kinds of giveaways at the shows (the band and fans alike lovingly call this stuff "free shit") including stuff like, matches, frisbees and t-shirts. The interaction between the band and the crowd is really the cornerstone of the NDI live show experience. I have seen Pigtail play wailing guitar solos while standing on the tables at Canal Street and I remember standing under Goodtime as he bodysurfed over the crowd at the Broadripple show. Those things are really, really good memories for us.
NDI has always been about much more than funny lyrics and catchy songs. There is some fantastic musicianship in their work. Pigtail Dick is fantastic with singing and all sorts of crazy on-stage theatrics and he is an accomplished guitarist as well. Truth be told, he's really one of my favorite guitarists of all time. His licks are some of the most intense and blistering pieces imaginable, effectively fusing old-school country western influences with blues and punk. And nobody plays a riff like Pigtail. Skipper is just a terrific bassist and he's extremely witty and talented on the mic as well and once in a while he breaks out a kind of unusual instrument called an "oral piano" (that's what it's called on the CD liner notes, anyway.) All the proof you need about Goodtime's drumming abilities lies in the fact that his drum kit is basically three pieces – unless you count the gigantic kettle drum, of course. The fact the GT gets such a massive, Tommy Lee/Eric Carr quality sound out of such a small kit speaks volumes about his work as a performer.
Cover art for my mix CD When NDI Ruled the World
When I heard NDI released a new album called End of Phase Oneand that they are preparing to launch a tour celebrating their twenty year anniversary, I pulled together my entire collection of NDI CDs, tapes, vinyl and video tapes and decided it would be as good of a time as any to create the ultimate NDI mix CD. It took me a really long time to pick all my favorites and pare them down to fit on one CD, but I finally settled on a decent mix of my favorites from their major releases while also including some obscure gems from EPs, singles and videos. I call my mix CD When NDI Ruled the World and I think the selections in the mix show why NDI was such a big deal to me all those years ago and why I still love to listen to them today. My cover art for the CD features the members of NDI standing in the forefront of K. Yuon's painting A New Planet.
Here's the track listing, with a bit of info about the songs:
1. Motel 666 2. Pensacola 99 from the album Hanky Panky Parley Voo! Released back in 1990, Hanky Panky was NDI's first full-length album. I can't say for sure if this was the first NDI album that I ever bought, but I do know that the video for "Motel 666" was the first NDI song/video I ever encountered. The song is quirky and heavy at the same time and the video really captures that. "Pensacola 99" has all the elements of an NDI classic, including some raunchy lyrics, a memorable riff and wailing guitar.
3. Feelin' Sexy from the Feelin' Sexy EP The Feelin' Sexy EP was NDI's first actual record and it was released in 1990 before Hanky Panky. I absolutely love this tune and I picked the EP version over the Hank Panky version because of the EP version features an absolutely blistering guitar solo.
4. Rockin' Daddy from Video Trash I'm not really sure if the title of this song is really "Rockin' Daddy," but the words feature prominently in the chorus. This is a really unusual live performance NDI did for a local news station in Canada. Check out that "oral piano" I mentioned above because Skipper plays it in this song.
The Hymns of Bucksnort
5. Got Our Shit Together 6. Pitch A Fit from the album Hymns of Bucksnort The 1991 album Hymns of Bucksnort is my all-time favorite NDI album. "Got Our Shit Together" is kind of like the a ridiculous anthem for overconfident people. "Pitch a Fit" is a song that NDI opened with now and then during some of the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vegas shows, but the best thing about this version is that they play a low-volume rendition of the entire theme from "What's Happening!!" (one of my favorite TV sitcoms ever) at the end of the song. It's played on either an accordion or that oral piano-thing with an "a cappella" bass line. Sweet.
7. Waste Your Time 8. The Freshman 15 from the album Sticky The 2000 double CD Sticky has a really different sound from a lot of the older NDI albums and the evolution and improvement of both their skills and their production is really evident through and through on the entire album. "Waste Your Time" is a song I would definitely want to cover if I had a band of my own.
9. Overserved (Danny Bonaduce Show) from the album Fried I think the Fried collection of B-sides and oddities was released in the late 1990s and I am guessing this track was cut in 1995 or so. It doesn't get any weirder than having NDI perform a live acoustic set with Danny Bonnaduce playing rhythm guitar while Skipper yells out the chords for him.
10. Lenkkimakkaraa! from the album The Best of Mikhael Jackson The Best of Mikhael Jackson was released in 1993 and it's a "greatest hits" of sorts that features a couple of rare and previously unreleased tracks. This song was supposedly written after NDI's huge tour of Finland (no joke!) in honor of some kind of Finnish sausage-related delicacy.
11. Good Men Are Pukin' from the album Live, Rare and Bad Live, Rare and Bad is a 1992 collection of B-tracks, commercials, live stuff and other odds and ends. "Good Men Are Pukin'" is a straight-up classic, especially because you can hear Pigtail shouting out instructions to Skipper about his effects pedals before and after the main solo.
12. Female Voodoo 13. Can't Hardly Wait from the album Fried More terrific rare tracks from Fried. The live version of "Female Voodoo" is one of my favorite Pigtail Dick solos. It's got an Ace Frehley kind of simplicity about it in that there aren't many notes, but the playing is just absolutely fierce.
Back cover for the Queen of Venus single
14. Dollywood from the Queen of Venus 7" single A truly weird song from 1992. Every time I finish listening to it, I want to immediately play it again. We took a trip to Gatlinburg in 1999 and I couldn't get the song out of my head the whole time we were there.
15. Tilt-a-Whirl from the album Loserville Tilta-whirl kicks off the 1993 album Loserville, but NDI used to close shows with this song and absolutely tear the house down. I love the guitar effects for the solo -- heavy fuzz, a wha-wah pedal and maybe some kind of flanger-like effect going on there.
16. I'm Your Boogieman from the album Fried K.C. and the Sunshine Band's material sounds much better when it's NDI playing the stuff.
17. Queen Of Venus 18. Fan It And Cool It from the album Loserville "Queen of Venus" is probably what you would have gotten if H.G. Wells had written some songs for the Guess Who. "Fan It and Cool It" is a great sing-along song.
19. Power Tool from the album Sticky In one of the radio interview clips on Live, Rare and Bad, Pigtail tells a DJ, "There are worse things that you can call us besides 'riff rock'...but not many worse things." Here's one of the most tremendous NDI riffs ever. And it just keeps going and going and going...
20. I Never Got Anything Off Of You from the album End of Phase One End of Phase One is NDI's most recent album, released just this year. "I Never Got Anything Off Of You" features a driving riff that is reminiscent of another great song from Fried, "Takin Out the Trash."
21. "Oh My God We're Fucking!" from the single Oh My God We're Fucking! Not sure of the release date of this single, but I'm guessing it was 1996 or 1997. One of the funniest NDI songs ever. It's even better when it's performed live and you don't have a clue of the premise of the song until the first chorus hits. Hilarious.
22. Driving Nails In My Coffin 23. If She Wasn't On Blocks from the album The New Duncan Imperials Live One time I called into Gary Burbank's awful "Stump the Band" radio show and I stayed on hold for over half an hour hoping to get his in-studio to play "If She Wasn't On Blocks" on the air. then the show ended and they hung up before they got to me. In my book, that's compelling evidence that Burbank's show absolutely sucked.
24. It's Popular from the album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vegas "It ain't good, it ain't bad, it's popular." It's funny because it's true. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vegas was released in 1995.
We're in a Band! (EP)
25. We're An American Band from the album We're in a Band! One of the best ideas for a concept album ever. We're in a Band was NDI's 1994 EP that featured five cover songs and all of them had the word "band" in the title. "We're an American Band" was another of NDI's encore tunes from their live shows and I remember that they closed the first show I ever attended with this song.
26. Jägermeister performed live at the Miami Valley Cable Council Studios This is hands down my favorite NDI performance ever. It's a massive, in-your-face encore from their epic set at the MVCC studios back in 1994 or 1995. It's just a phenomenal ending to any NDI set, complete with a dazzling guitar solo and an hilarious Pigtail Dick story that goes absolutely nowhere. Burning this audio to CD from my old, grainy VHS copy was a blast. I had to get a little creative in my efforts to remove some of noise from the aging video tape, but then again, if I cleaned it up too much then it wouldn't be nearly as cool
Soviet Russia Today March, 1944 issue On the cover: Soviet guerilla heroine T. Galavenskaya
A couple of years ago, I discovered Steve Trussel’s great Howard Fast archive on his website EclectiCity. I was working on a new project at the time and Steve had some important material in his Fast archive which he generously shared with me for my project. I have always appreciated Steve’s efforts in building such a great archive and it was really kind of him to share his transcription of a relatively rare work.
I recently purchased a vintage issue of Soviet Russia Today (the March 1944 issue to be precise) from an eBay seller and as I was excited to find a short book review written by Howard Fast near the back of the magazine. The review was of the book Konstantin Simonov's Short Stories. Steve’s website was the first thing that came to mind and I quickly wrote to him to share news of my discovery. After we corresponded a bit, I sent him a transcription of the review along with the scan of the cover of the magazine. The full text of the review is now posted on online as a permanent addition to the Howard Fast section of the EclectiCity. Click here to view the text.
Never underestimate the importance of exposing your children to professional wrestling at a young age. Any doubts that I had were dispelled last night. Over dinner, Thomai and I were discussing our mutual disdain for Sarah Palin when our older daughter chimed in to say that Palin reminds her of Smackdown's Vickie Guerrero. I told her that this was an excellent comparison with the exception being that Vickie merely plays the part of an evil character, for the sake of entertainment while Palin is downright awful in real life. My daughter appreciated this important distinction.
Vickie Guerrero (left) with former ECW Champion Chavo Guerrero
