After Winter Must Come Spring: A Self-Critical Analysis of the Love & Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation

Posted: October 29, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Anarchism, Ideas: Gender/Women/Feminism, Ideas: Marxism/Leninism, Ideas: Racial/National Oppression, Ideas: Revolutionary Theory
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Early on in my radical development I was drawn to the ideas of anarchism. However I eventually drifted away from it, dissatisfied with its theory, practice and history. One of the influential documents on this evolution in my thought was this one, After Winter Must Come Spring. I hadn’t read it in some time, but I found myself reading it again the other day, for a critical paper I writing on the international resonance of Zapatismo for all things for one of my Masters seminars of all things.

I had, to an extent, forgotten how important the insights of it were on my own development. I have now decided to make it, as well as Christopher Day’s The Historical Failure of Anarchism (the other doc that influenced my movement away from anarchism), reading for the recently launched Red Path Society that I am involved in. For now I am posting it in full here for everyone else.

[Note: the version below comes from the one published by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization]

Introduction

Friends and comrades,

It’s an honor to introduce this thoughtful and thought-provoking evaluation by people who were core members of one of the most promising revolutionary organizations in the US in the last quarter century, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation.

As a revolutionary socialist coming out of the new communist movement of the ’60s and ’70s, I can understand why many in the generation after us would search for analyses outside of the Marxist left. There were our premature and arrogant declarations of revolutionary leadership for the US and the ensuing sectarian battles. There was our head-in-the-sand approach to problems in actually existing socialist countries and parties. Many of our groups tried to unite white and black workers around economic issues and refused to see the central importance of the fight against institutional racism.Internally, many organizations were male-dominated hierarchical structures with explicitly anti-gay lines. So it’s not surprising to me that many younger activists today look to alternative traditions such as anarchism for answers on how to make revolution. Read the rest of this entry »

Beyond Gay Marriage and Queer Separatists – The Call for a Working-Class Queer Movement

Posted: October 28, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Revolutionary Theory, Struggles: LGBTI-Q, Struggles: Revolution
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From Gathering Forces.

The gay marriage debate has taken over all the attention from the queer movement left and right. The right wing is consistently and stubbornly denying the existence of queer folks by saying that it’s an immoral choice of lifestyle. The liberal gay and lesbian organizations are continually pulling millions and millions of dollars to appeal to the state for marriage equality under the rhetoric of “we are all the same.” On the other hand, queer separatists are fiercely combating the liberals with the slogan: “we are totally and absolutely different from the heteros,” and have made good points on criticizing the oppressive patriarchal nature of the institution of marriage and how queers should not seek this type of inclusion (see: against equality).  However, these critiques have not necessarily been able to generate an alternative grassroots movement which can seriously take on the demands of those queers who are marginalized–queer people of color, trans folks, working-class queers, queers with disabilities, and third world and immigrant queers–from all of the above approaches.

There has been a series of intolerable queer violence that occurred very recently in the country–torture, youth suicide, school bullying–while the violence is nothing new to queer folks, it is urgently calling for the communities’ response to these issues. Though the liberals are posting heartwarming videos and articles and holding vigils saying that “it gets better” (Dan Savage’s video),  we know that the fight cannot end here. As oppressed folks we know that queer oppression does not end when we graduate from high school bullying and move to San Francisco and suddenly become successful professionals who hang out in fancy bars and overcome all of our internal and external conflicts. Here are QPOCs’ responses to queer youth suicides: “It doesn’t get better. You get stronger” Read the rest of this entry »

Break Word at the University of Waterloo

Posted: October 27, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Religion/Spirituality
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Tomorrow at the University of Waterloo, Environment Courtyard, Outside Environment 1 Building, from 18:00 to 21:00. Featuring some of my good friends from the KW Ummah.

Break Word will have Spoken Word/Slam Poetry performances that aim to address topics broadly related to social change and activism in an effort to increase civic participation of Muslim youth in the community. This initiative transpires out of a strong belief in the idea that effectual social change is only possible when a forum for discussion is presented. This project seeks to provide the community with that forum; a platform for dialogue where controversial subjects can be expressed through performance art in a safe space, providing Muslim youth with an alternative way of seeking self-fulfilment.

The resultant goal of this is to engender further initiatives that will deliver tangible solutions to problems spoken about through the poetry and to mark the inception of thought reflective of the presented subjects. The issues they wish to address range from politics to gender and sexuality issues, religion, social and economic activism.

Check out the web page and Facebook event.

Malcolm X – The Ballot or The Bullet

Posted: October 27, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Armed Struggle/Direct Action, Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Revolution
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The Ballot or the Bullet is one of the most well known, insightful and powerful public speeches delivered African liberation activist Malcolm X. In the speech, which was delivered on April 3, 1964, at Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, Malcolm advised his fellow African Americans to judiciously exercise their right to vote, but he cautioned that if the government continued to prevent African Americans from attaining full equality, it might be necessary for them to take up arms.

Listen. Learn. Enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Long Ago Before Colonial Borders

Posted: October 26, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Gender/Women/Feminism, Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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From Mohawk Nation News.

During the French and Indian Wars in the 1750s, the invaders came up against the Mohawk “Keepers of the Eastern Door” who told them to go home. In order to occupy land the legal occupants had to be killed off. The colonists started a genocide campaign beginning with the Mohawks.

As a story goes, once upon a time in present day New York State, a French troop came across a lone Mohawk Warrior standing on top of a cliff waving at them. The troop commander told three of his men, “Go up and kill him’.

They climbed up. Behind the bushes a big fight broke out. The commander waited. They never returned. Eventually the Mohawk Warrior appeared on top of the mountain and waved to the troops below. Aghast, the commander ordered another 10 soldiers to, “Kill him once and for all”.

They went up. Another noisy fight ensued. None returned. Once again, the Mohawk Warrior stood on top and waved to them with a big smile.

Finally the commander ordered the rest of his troops to go up and “Finish him off”, to return and tell him what happened.

Another huge fight took place with lots of yelling and screaming. This time one badly wounded man came down the hill. “What happened?” asked the commander.

The soldier said, “That Warrior wasn’t alone. He had a Mohawk woman behind him!” and then passed out. The Mohawk Warrior stood at the top of the cliff and waved at them to leave. Read the rest of this entry »

SDS Holds 5th National Convention, Lays Plans to Build Student Movement

Posted: October 26, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Revolution, Struggles: Youth
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Written by Mike Gold. This appeared on Fight Back! News, the news service of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Marxist-Leninist).

Milwaukee, WI – On Oct. 23-24, around 100 student activists from across the country converged here for the fifth Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) National Convention.

From Diablo Valley and Los Angeles, California, Dallas, Texas, Gainesville, Florida and College Park, Maryland, SDS chapters came together to share their experiences organizing locally and to discuss the two major campaigns – education rights and anti-war – that SDS has been leading nationally and to talk about the next steps for the student movement in the U.S.

The convention began with discussion around the recent FBI attacks on the anti-war and solidarity activists in the U.S., including one member of SDS at the University of Minnesota, Tracy Molm. Keynote speakers included Jess Sundin and Steff Yoerk , two targets of the FBI raids, who spoke to SDSers about their personal experiences and shared ideas for how to speak out against the raids locally.

Workshops that weekend included immigration rights, campaign building and a workshop hosted by the Chicano student organization MEChA. Two plenaries on the education rights movement and anti-war movement addressed those issues and how to continue to build them from a student perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

Paulo Freire on Liberation Theology and Marx

Posted: October 25, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Uncategorized
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Organize the South: Learning from Today’s Non-Majority Projects

Posted: October 25, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Marxism/Leninism, Ideas: Revolutionary Theory, Struggles: Revolution, Struggles: Socialism
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This is part two of a series of articles from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organizacion Socialista del Camino para la Libertad’s Strategy for the Coming Period: 2010 – 2013. As usual, posting this does not imply endorsement. Written by T. Sheldon. T. Sheldon has spent the last decade helping build a non-majority public sector union in the south. He is a member of FRSO/OSCL

This article is a continuation of the line presented in Hezekiah’s, May 2010 piece, “How to Organize the South: Non-Majority Organizing for the Win” published by the Freedom Road’s Non-majority Organizing/Organize the South workteam of our Labor Commission (and on my site here). This piece both responds to and deepens an article by Judy Atkins and David Cohen in the recent online edition of Labor Notes.

As a younger comrade engaged for the past decade in non-majority organizing among workers at public universities and community colleges in Tennessee, much of the history presented in the Labor Notes piece concerning Section 7 of the NLRA was new to me. [Section 7 of the NLRA says that employees have the right to self-organize and bargain collectively; it does not require majority status to do so. Section 9 of the NLRA says that once majority status is achieved they become the sole bargaining agent.] In the article Atkins and Cohen detail how unions in the 1930s used Section 7 of the NLRA to force their employers’ hands. Most first union contracts, like the one reached in Flint at GM, were in fact negotiated for union members who were a small minority of the workforce. Union growth began afterwards, not before. The juxtaposition between this approach, grounded deeply in the class struggle orientation of the 1930s and early 40s, and the retreat to Gomperite business unionism and the legislative defeat of Taft Hartley was spot on.

However, the article describes this organizing method as if it is a forgotten weapon, like some mythical flaming sword lost to history. References are made to past uses, radical trade unionism’s heyday, attempts in the 1980s and early 90s, but no mention of present-day struggles, no current examples, of which there are many, happening mostly in the US south. What’s more, there is no mention of the integral role radical trade unionists must play in this work. Read the rest of this entry »

Announcing the UW Red Path Society

Posted: October 24, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Anarchism, Ideas: Eco/Green, Ideas: Economics, Ideas: Fascism/Anti-Fascism, Ideas: Gender/Women/Feminism, Ideas: History, Ideas: Marxism/Leninism, Ideas: Philosophy, Ideas: Racial/National Oppression, Ideas: Religion/Spirituality, Ideas: Revolutionary Theory, Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada)
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Over the last several months several local Tri-City (Kitchener-Waterloo & Cambridge, Ontario) comrades and I have been in discussions to create a new leftist and activist organization. That goal is now close to fruition, and only awaits official sanction from the University of Waterloo Federation of Students. So with this post I would like to publicly announce the formation of the UW Red Path Society (RPS).

This is a project born largely out of frustration felt by many of us with the existing activist channels and circles in the Tri-City area. We are indigenous people, women, queers, people of colour, immigrants, working class folk, Muslims and others who have often not had their voices heard within the local activist milieu. We are tired of being silenced – or worse, shouted down by activists of privilege who have come to dominate the Tri-City scene.

Also, I would like to make the important note that we will not be restricting ourselves to the University of Waterloo student body. We are open to, and invite the participation of, people in the wider Tri-City community. It will technically be known as the UW RPS so that it can make use official channels for events, promotion and funding, but our goal has never been to build an organization exclusively around UW students. Read the rest of this entry »

Privilege and the Ability to be Arrested

Posted: October 23, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Struggles: Revolution
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This will be short, but it is something that has been bothering me for a while now, and I have to get off of my chest.

I’ve been having conversations lately with several other local Kitchener-Waterloo radicals and leftists over the last couple of weeks about privilege within the local movement and how it informs, or rather fails to inform, the thought and practice of a number of more well known characters. In this movement, which is mostly defined by the university town nature of the city, many of these more well known local activists come from decidedly privileged socio-economic, racial, gender and sexual identity backgrounds, by which I mean they are mostly middle to upper class, white, heterosexual, cisgendered men. There of course women, people of colour, working class folk and queers, but they do not share the limelight to the same level as the others.

I also want to make it clear that I am not aiming this at all people who got arrested at the G8/G20, as many, perhaps even most, are people who struggle every day through oppression: indigenous people, women, working class people, people of colour and immigrants. I applaud those people and the bravery that it took for them to risk what they did and stand up for freedom, justice and equality. This article/rant takes aim at a particular layer within the KW radical activist scene.

The fact that people come to radical politics from positions of privilege does not have to be a problem. I myself would be lying to you if I told you that my own upbringing was an entirely ghettoized one. Sure I am a Native person, with all the shit that comes with that and living in Canada, but I am also a cisgendered man, I am currently involved in a long-term heterosexual relationship, and I went to a private high school back in Bermuda. All I can ever say is that I my perspective is informed by the time I spent on my reservation, where I saw my relatives live desperately poor, racially and nationally marginalized existences, and that I was raised by a strong Native woman from a working class background who didn’t take shit from anyone.

I self-reflect and self-criticize about my relative privilege though. I am fully aware of the privilege I receive in this society because of my primary sexual orientation and because of my gender. Where problems arise in the KW activist scene is when certain people do not engage in this practice, or, even worse, when they actively try to deny the privilege they have. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Organize the South: Non-Majority Organizing for the Win

Posted: October 22, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Marxism/Leninism, Ideas: Revolutionary Theory, Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Socialism
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This is part one of a series of articles from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organizacion Socialista del Camino para la Libertad’s Strategy for the Coming Period: 2010 – 2013. As usual, posting this does not imply endorsement. Written by Hezikiah, a UMWA pensioner who has been in the labor movement for 42 years and counting as a rank-and-file activist and organizer.

“The inclusion of public sector workers must also be central to our analysis and work. These workers, many of whom are women of color, deliver the social wage that we seek to protect and expand and, as the economic crisis deepens, are on the frontlines of mass layoffs and budget cuts. Just as more and more folks turn to social-safety-net services to survive, the workers delivering these services are cut back below the already bare-bones, pre-crisis levels.”

While this task is true for revolutionaries throughout the country, we in Freedom Road have always placed a special emphasis on the importance of the South and Southwest. In the spirit of grounding the tasks our strategy points to as well as sharing the deep experience our members have in building mass movements, we would like to share the following document with the hope of sparking on-going conversations.

Non-Majority Organizing to Organize the South

To a certain extent this article is about how we view reform.  I am of the school that we must fight for reforms and involve ourselves in the fight to improve conditions for workers.  However, we have to remind ourselves that reforms are always mixed bags…

the very reform we fight for has opposition from the right and is filtered through state and federal legislatures.  We can win victories but they are always partial.  We always have to fight to maintain them and expand on them.  The right wing tries to undermine or eliminate any victories we achieve.   Read the rest of this entry »

Ecuador’s Challenge: Rafael Correa and the Indigenous Movements

Posted: October 22, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Civil/Human Rights, Ideas: Eco/Green, Ideas: Economics, Ideas: Fascism/Anti-Fascism, Ideas: Racial/National Oppression, Places: Nuestra América, Struggles: Imperialism/De-Colonization, Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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Written by Benjamin Dangl. This appeared on Upside Down World and was originally posted on Toward Freedom.

Sections of this article are adapted excerpts from Benjamin Dangl’s new book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America, (AK Press, October 2010). For more information visit www.DancingwithDynamite.com

Dangl is also the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press, 2007), the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. Email Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com

The recent right-wing coup attempt in Ecuador shed light on the rupture between President Rafael Correa and the country’s indigenous movements. This rocky relationship demonstrates the challenges of protesting against a leftist leader without empowering the right.

When Correa took office in January of 2007, he moved forward on campaign promises including creating an assembly to rewrite the country’s constitution, using oil wealth for national development, and confronting US imperialism. However, once the electoral confetti stopped falling, Correa began to betray the indigenous movements’ trust on many fronts, pushing for neoliberal policies, criminalizing protests against his administration and blocking indigenous movements’ input in the development of extractive industries and the re-writing of the constitution.

Indigenous movements protested a right wing coup attempt on September 30th while criticizing the negative policies of Correa, a president widely considered a member of Latin America’s new left who is working to implement modern democratic socialism. How did it come to this? The history of the dance between Correa and the indigenous movements offers insight into the current political crisis in the country. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rent IS too Damn High

Posted: October 22, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Economics
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Indigenous Women Sterilised Against Their Will in Peru Seek Justice, Again

Posted: October 20, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Gender/Women/Feminism, Places: Nuestra América, Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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Written by Ángel Páez. From IPS via Upside Down World.

Poor, rural, Quechua-speaking women in the Peruvian province of Anta who were victims of a forced sterilisation programme between 1996 and 2000 have filed a new lawsuit in their continuing struggle for justice.

In May 2009, Jaime Schwartz, the public prosecutor investigating the case against four former health ministers of the Alberto Fujimori administration (1990-2000), decided to shelve the investigation. He said the case involved alleged crimes against the victims’ life, body and health, and manslaughter, and that the statute of limitations had expired.

But the plaintiffs in the case had brought accusations of genocide and torture, which as crimes against humanity have no statute of limitation. The attorney-general’s office upheld Schwartz’s decision, overruling the complaint lodged against it by the victims and the human rights organisations providing them with legal advice.

Now the Women’s Association of Forced Sterilisation Victims of Anta, a mountainous province in the southern department of Cuzco, has decided to combat impunity with a new strategy: it is presenting a new lawsuit against those responsible for family planning policy in the last four years of the Fujimori regime.

The Association’s approximately 100 members are rural women whose testimonies have revealed the hidden side of the National Programme for Reproductive Health and Family Planning, imposed by coercion and deceit under the guise of an anti-poverty plan.

Sabina Huillca, 41, told IPS: “I remember perfectly the day they sterilised me against my will, because what they did to me made me suffer ever since. It was August 24, 1996,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm.

She is one of the witnesses who will testify before the justice authorities against those who devised and implemented the programme.  Read the rest of this entry »

Navajo Water Rights Talking Points

Posted: October 20, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Eco/Green, Places: Aztlán/México Ocupado, Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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Navajo elder drinking contaminated water/Photo Forgotten People

1. The Navajo Nation Council should vote No on the proposed Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Agreement, Legislation 0422-10 until the Navajo Nation government installed in early 2011 can take up the settlement negotiations from an honest and fully informed perspective and a quantitative analysis is done of present and future needs for domestic use, large-scale agricultural projects and livestock.

2. There is not only no use of our Treaties in the 400 pages of the proposed Arizona Water Settlement, there is actually no mention whatsoever of either of our Treaties in the proposed settlement agreement.

3. The Navajo Nation is a federally recognized Indian Tribe, having two Treaties with the United States, dated 1849 and 1868 and is the only one of the 22 Arizona Indian Tribes that has a Treaty with the United States but the treaties are not mentioned in the Settlement.

4. The Settlement does not recognize the purposes of the Navajo Indian Reservation, as identified in the 1849 and 1868 Treaties as a “permanent home” specifically for agricultural purposes, with the 1849 Treaty referring to Navajos receiving “implements,” which means farm implements, and the 1868 Treaty referring to “cultivating the soil,” “seeds and agricultural implements,” “farming and mechanical pursuits,” and “sheep, goats, and cattle,” and also encouraging us to “settle permanently” on our Reservation. Read the rest of this entry »

LGBT Suicides: The Fire This Time

Posted: October 18, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Struggles: LGBTI-Q
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This was posted on the Solidarity Webzine. Solidarity is a democratic, revolutionary socialist, feminist, anti-racist organization.

I don’t know whether to call it a rash or not, but the recent reporting of the suicides of young gay men should certainly raise alarm bells. I would be interested to know if this was a cluster or just an average that is finding the light of day because of the higher profile of some of these tragedies. In any case, it stands in stark contrast to the popular version that official Hollywood, the mainstream Gay movement and the current administration currently pedal where gays are widely accepted and on their way (if not in this election cycle, the next) to full equality.

It was only a few years ago where films like Boys Don’t Cry, a surprising breakthrough at the time, were out there setting some of the tone. The years of demonization combined with the heroic and radical movement of the 80s and early nineties (ACT-UP and many others) forced the issues. The issues (well, some of them), surprise surprise, have been appropriated, including, hesitatingly to be sure, by leading elements of the Democratic Party. DADT? Don’t ask. Read the rest of this entry »

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Responds to the South African Communist Party

Posted: October 17, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Places: Africa, Struggles: Labour, Struggles: Revolution, Struggles: Socialism
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Abahlali baseMjondolo (Zulu: Shack Dwellers), or AbM, is a shack-dwellers’ movement in South Africa. They are also known as the red shirts. The movement grew out of a road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and now also operates in the cities of Pietermaritzburg and in Cape Town. It is the largest shack dweller’s organization in South Africa. It campaigns to improve the living conditions of poor people and to democratize South African society from below. The movement refuses party politics and boycotts elections. It’s key demand is that the social value of urban land should take priority over its commercial value and it campaigs for the public expropriation of large privately owned landholdings. The key organising strategy is to try “to recreate Commons” from below by trying to create a series of linked communes.

Here they are responding to accusations levelled by the South African Communist Party that the tactics of roadblocks is “anarchy and reactionary.” But it is also more than that. Lately the African National Congress and its old apartheid-era allies in the SACP have done much to stifle and put down actions by the working class and most impoverished in South Africa that are independent of the ANC lead post-apartheid regime. This can be seen in the ANC’s reaction to the recent Congress of South African Trade Unions lead strike, as well as the demonization of the AbM, the Landless People’s Movement, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign and other autonomous movements of the working class. So here AbM also makes front and centre their right to be independent of the government and its allies, and refuse to endorse the ANC in the upcoming elections. Read the rest of this entry »

Dudley George Memorial Unveiled at Ipperwash

Posted: October 16, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Fascism/Anti-Fascism, Ideas: Racial/National Oppression, Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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From the CBC.

Members of First Nations from across Ontario have gathered to remember native protester Dudley George, who was shot and killed by police during a standoff at the former Ipperwash Provincial Park.

About 200 people, many from the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, were at the site near Sarnia, Ont., Friday morning to unveil a monument to George, created by his brother, Pierre.

Chief Liz Cloud told CBC News the gathering was an opportunity to not only pay tribute to George, but also to all those who took part in the protest 15 years ago.

Memorial March Planned for Saturday

George was shot and killed by an Ontario Provincial Police officer in September 1995 when a group of about 30 native protesters, with George as one of the leaders, built a barricade at Ipperwash Provincial Park to enforce the First Nation’s claim to the land.

The unveiling of the memorial is part of a weekend gathering commemorating the 15th anniversary of that event.

Sections of Highway 21 near the former Ipperwash park will be closed Saturday morning, as a march is planned for 9 a.m. along the highway leading to the site of the standoff. Read the rest of this entry »

Thomas Sankara: the Upright Man

Posted: October 15, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Places: Africa, Struggles: Imperialism/De-Colonization, Struggles: Revolution, Struggles: Socialism
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23 Years Since the Assassination of Thomas Sankara

Posted: October 15, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: History, Places: Africa, Struggles: Imperialism/De-Colonization, Struggles: Revolution, Struggles: Socialism
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Thomas Sankara was a bold revolutionary leader who gave Burkina Faso its name and attempted to wrestle it from the hands of imperialism.

Today marks the 23rd anniversary of the murder by African revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara. He came to the leadership of the former French colony of Upper Volta through a coup, which he spent the next four years struggling to transform into a revolutionary project. In 1987 he was assassinated in a counter-coup by domestic neocolonial agents working for neighbouring neocolonial states and their imperialist masters.

For many people throughout the African continent Sankara has joined the ranks of Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba and others as martyrs of the struggle for Africa’s total liberation.

To commemorate his martyrdom, I am reposting this article from 2007 from Burning Spear, the news service of the Uhuru Movement, on the 20th occasion of this date.

By Ousainou Mbenga

This year, October 15, 2007 will mark the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara, the short-lived president of the African country that became known as Burkina Faso, the “land of upright people.”

His assassination was a concerted effort of the surrounding “neocolonial States”, particularly Ivory Coast, Mali and the authoritative command of their imperialist masters who saw him as a threat to their easy access and control of the resources of Burkina Faso and Africa in general.

The assassination of African revolutionaries with impunity will continue to happen as long as we keep fighting in isolation; separated from each other by the imposed senseless borders that continue to suffocate Africa.

It’s been 20 years since that eventful day in 1987 when the traitorous Blaise Compaoré and his gang of thugs aborted the revolutionary new State of Burkina Faso and reinstated the neocolonial State of indignity. Read the rest of this entry »

Venezuela Commemorates Indigenous Resistance with Abya-Yala Congress, Demonstrations

Posted: October 14, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Places: Nuestra América, Struggles: Indigenous Struggles, Struggles: Prisons/Prisoners, Struggles: Revolution
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By Juan Reardon. This appeared on Venezuela Analysis.

Venezuelan Indigenous Affairs Minister Nicia Maldonado

Commemorations in Venezuela continued today in the context of October 12th, Indigenous Resistance Day. On Monday and Tuesday of this week, over 400 representatives of indigenous peoples gathered for the 4th Abya-Yala Great Nation Congress of Anti-Imperialist Indigenous Peoples. On Wednesday, demonstrations were held in solidarity with the Yukpa people and imprisoned Yukpa Chief Sabino Romero.

On Tuesday, Chávez used his Twitter account to declare, “I say with Perón [Argentine political figure]: In the 21st century we will find ourselves united or dominated. 500 years later we are united in the name of our original peoples. We will win!”

Anti-Imperialist Indigenous Congress

On Monday and Tuesday, Venezuela hosted the 4th Abya-Yala Great Nation Congress of Anti-Imperialist Indigenous Peoples for the fourth consecutive year.

More than 400 representatives of indigenous peoples from Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay converged in Elorza, Apure state, to discuss social, political, cultural and economic issues that affect their communities as well as strategies for greater integration among indigenous people.

During the event, Indigenous Affairs Minister Nicia Maldonado asserted that Venezuela’s indigenous people are committed to the consolidation of a socialist, anti-imperialist, and “indo-american” homeland. Read the rest of this entry »

Lines In The Forest: Grassy Narrows, Weyerhaeuser And The CBFA

Posted: October 13, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Eco/Green, Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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From Intercontinental Cry.

Less than five months ago, several large environmental groups and logging companies declared a truce to the “war in the woods”, a long-standing campaign that frequently targeted customers and investors of companies like Weyerhaeuser, who have continuously pursued large-scale and damaging operations within the Canadian Boreal Forest.

However, to the shock and dismay of some activists in Canada, Grassy Narrows and other Indigenous Nations were shut out of the deal even though they are primary stakeholders who depend on the forest for their cultures and livelihoods.

It is especially troubling since Grassy Narrows has been a leader in the so-called war to protect the Boreal forest along with their territory, their health, their culture and their economy like so many other Indigenous Nations in Canada.

Then there’s the fact that some of the NGOs who agreed to the truce–that is, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA)–have staunchly supported Grassy Narrows in the past. But now, it appears that any such support would undermine the conditions of the CBFA.

For instance, “To ensure that the days of Greenpeace dropping banners from Abitibi-Bowater’s HQ are long forgotten, the agreement stipulates that ENGOs will take back whatever bad things they may have said about FPAC [Forest Products Association of Canada] member companies in the past,” notes Dawn Paley in an article for the Dominion.

“The ENGOS [also] agreed to express a ‘continuum’ of support for FPAC members, ranging from ‘recognizing that [sic] the leadership represented by the commitment of FPAC Members to develop and implement the CBFA’ to ‘demonstrating support for products from the boreal operations of FPAC members,’” says Paley.

It’s unclear how far this support will go; but there is nonetheless a concern that it could interfere with long-standing struggles like the one led by Grassy Narrows, who’s territory was excluded from theprotection zones outlined in the CBFA. Read the rest of this entry »

Accusations that Weaken Us All: A response to Eva Golinger’s Attack on the CONAIE

Posted: October 13, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Places: Nuestra América, Struggles: Imperialism/De-Colonization, Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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Written by Ecuador Solidarity Network

On September 30, as Ecuadorians lived through a police uprising that seemed to put the leadership of President Rafael Correa in jeopardy, people from around the world tuned into Twitter to garner information about what was happening on the ground.

Respected lawyer and author Eva Golinger sent out tweets in rapid-fire, informing readers from around the world with news from her sources in Ecuador. But as soon as translated statements from Ecuadorian Indigenous groups hit the ether, Golinger tweeted:

“Be careful, there are folks in CONAIE funded by US agencies that sway the organization to certain positions…”

Her tweet was in response to the English translation of a statement by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), one of the most powerful social movements in Latin America. In their statement, the CONAIE was anti-coup, but they also pointed to the fact that Correa himself had helped create the conditions for an uprising. The statement pointed out that the Correa administration has attacked and delegitimized social movements in Ecuador. It also criticized the “authoritarian character” of the government.

Golinger later wrote an article called Behind the Coup in Ecuador, which was widely circulated online. In it, she repeats her accusation that CONAIE has funds at its disposal from the National Endowment for Democracy that would somehow provoke the organization into destabilizing the government of Ecuador:

“Not all groups and organizations in opposition to Correa’s policies are imperial agents. But a sector among them does exist which receives financing and guidelines in order to provoke destabilizing situations in the country that go beyond the natural expressions of criticism and opposition to a government… Organizations in Ecuador such as Participación Ciudadana and Pro-Justicia [Citizen Participation and Pro-Justice], as well as members and sectors of CODENPE, Pachakutik, CONAIE, the Corporación Empresarial Indígena del Ecuador [Indigenous Enterprise Corporation of Ecuador] and Fundación Qellkaj [Qellkaj Foundation] have had USAID and NED funds at their disposal.” Read the rest of this entry »

Toward a Critical Reassessment of Maoism

Posted: October 12, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: History, Ideas: Marxism/Leninism, Ideas: Revolutionary Theory
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This article by Khalil Hassan, an activist with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization [Left Refoundation] has been kicking around on the net for some years now, being written all the way back in the now ancient times of 2002. However, I found myself reading it again lately, and thought it was worth it to take another look at it.

While I am not a member of the FRSO [LR], I do think the article makes several good insights into where Maoism succeeded, as well as where it failed, at times spectacularly. If we are to truly build a revolutionary movement for the transformation of the future we must come to understand our past, with all shining victories, and its crushing defeats.

Max Elbaum’s Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che offers the revolutionary Left an opportunity for a long-needed self-examination. A well-written and thoughtful book, it seriously examines much of what led to the formation of a New Communist Movement in the USA, and much of what led to its collapse by the 1980s. An exhaustive review is necessary since Elbaum’s book can and should catalyze a needed dialogue and analysis of that period. At the same time, the publication of this book, and its harsh condemnation of the political tendency known as Maoism as being the principal problem of the revolutionary Left, offers us a moment to begin a reassessment of the political tendency that came to be associated with the late Chairman of the Communist Party of China.

The following essay presents a series of theses toward such a reassessment. A much more in-depth look is warranted, but in light of the discussion that has accompanied the publication of Revolution in the Air, it is critical to clarify terms, and better understand the Maoist political tendency.

It should be added at the outset that Elbaum collapses most of the problems of the New Communist Movement into his notion of the errors of Maoism. With this thesis, I am in fundamental disagreement. The New Communist Movement, a movement that, as Elbaum correctly noted, arose out of the progressive social movements of the ’60s and attempted to rebuild a revolutionary current in US politics, died due to an ultra-leftism that crossed political currents, a fact that Elbaum grudgingly seems to accept, albeit in contradiction with his main argument. Read the rest of this entry »

Urgent Appeal to All Friends and Supporters of Tuchone Warrior John Graham

Posted: October 12, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada), Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles, Struggles: Prisons/Prisoners
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From the John Graham Defence Committee.

As many have heard, John Graham is currently jailed in Rapid City, South Dakota. They are trying to put him away for life with the charge of killing his friend and comrade from in American Indian Movement, Anna Mae Aquash. While the only real evidence in this murder (along with at least 66 other murders of indigenous people in S. Dakota during 1973-76) points to the U.S. Government and the paramilitary forces they funded and equipped.

John and his co-defendant, Thelma Rios, are scheduled to face trial on November the 29th, 2010 and his legal bill is estimated around $50,000! Donations and fundraising events are urgently needed and greatly appreciated.

The U.S. government is trying to cover up their brutal repression of the American Indian Movement in the 70′s with the frame up of John Graham and other native warriors. He has spent over two years behind bars in S. Dakota after he was under house arrest for around four years during extradition hearings in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. This is a direct result of his refusal to cooperate with the F.B.I.

It is in this hour of need that we make this urgent appeal to dig deep and show your support for a man who has contributed so much over the years in the struggle for a better world. Who has stayed true, refusing to sell out in the face of heavy state intimidation. Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Columbus Day

Posted: October 11, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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Or as we call it, the Day of Indigenous Resistance. Meanwhile, please be on the look out for this armed and dangerous criminal and those who may be aiding and abeting him.

Showdown in the Far North

Posted: October 11, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Eco/Green, Ideas: Economics, Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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First Nations oppose Ontario’s Far North Act, some environmental orgs support it.

By Jon Thompson. He is an award winning journalist and author in Northwestern Ontario. Jon’s reckless, freelance adventuring pseudonym is selling his book at www.tommyjonsson.ca. This appeared on the site of the Dominion News Cooperative.

KENORA, ONTARIO—Following the third reading of the Far North Act, the Chiefs of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) in Northern Ontario have vowed to “unanimously oppose the introduction of Bill 191 into law, and will continue to do so by any means necessary.” NAN represents First Nations that are signatories to treaties 5 and 9, covering two-thirds of the land mass of Ontario.

The Far North Act, provincial bill 191, is said to have been designed to protect at least 50 per cent of this territory north of the 51st parallel, and to arrange for First Nations to lead land use plans. While the government and environmentalists insist the land use plans would be constructed, led and finalized by the First Nations, NAN’s leadership believes the Minister of Natural Resources will have the final say in development, overriding treaty rights.

As the 225,000 square kilometre space is set aside, First Nations expressed concern that they would be ceding territory outside of the protected land use area to development.

Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals passed the bill in a 46 to 26 vote on September 23, despite opposition from not only First Nations, the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democratic Party but seemingly unanimous opposition from those who live and do business in the North, including the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, the adjacent Treaty Three Grand Council, the Ontario Prospectors Association, the Ontario Forestry Industries Association and the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce.

“It is a disappointing day for all of us who spent tireless hours opposing Bill 191 as our opposition was obviously ignored,” said NAN Deputy Grand Chief Mike Metatawabin. “As we have stated time and time again, NAN First Nations and Tribal Councils do not and will not recognize this legislation on our homelands. We will continue to uphold our Aboriginal and Treaty rights and jurisdiction over our land. The real fight is just beginning.”

From the government’s corner, the intention with the bill has always been straightforward: to establish a clear set of rules in order to develop the Ring Of Fire, an estimated 72-megatonne chromite deposit located 500 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry, Michael Gravelle, has called it “the largest economic development opportunity in Northern Ontario in a century.” More than 30,000 mining claims have been staked in the area in the past seven years alone. Read the rest of this entry »

J. Sakai and the Struggle for Onkwehonwe Liberation

Posted: October 11, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Armed Struggle/Direct Action, Ideas: Economics, Ideas: History, Ideas: Marxism/Leninism, Ideas: Racial/National Oppression, Ideas: Revolutionary Theory, Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles, Struggles: National Liberation, Struggles: Socialism
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Introduction

Poor whites in Appalachia

The creation of a system of  separate, often hierarchically arranged, human “races” is one of the primary weapons by which the capitalist state apparatus oppresses not only onkwehonwe, Africans and other so-called “people of colour”, but all people, including whites. This may sound counter-intuitive, that the system of racial apartheid and white supremacy oppresses whites as well as non-whites, but I believe a serious materialist analysis of history shows this to be true. As racism has intensified on both sides of the colonially imposed North American border – most notably in the form of the Tea Party in the U.S. and rising anti-Native and anti-immigrant sentiment in Canada – those of us fighting for revolutionary change in society must take up an analysis of white supremacy so that we may better understand how it is used to divide the working class so that we may better combat and defeat it. Importantly, any such analysis must also include an examination of class at the very least.

Though it is somewhat beyond the scope of this article to examine the origins of white supremacy and how it continues to work in society and effect the working class, we are quite fortunate that a number of people have already taken up this task, and as such we do not need to begin from scratch. Thinkers who have taken up the question of racism and white supremacy have included WEB DuBois, Angela Davis, Alexander Saxton, George Rawick, Theodore Allen, David Roediger, Robin Kelley, Noel Ignatiev, George Lipsitz, Mike Goldfield, Tim Wise, Howard Adams, Himani Bannerji, and Enakshi Dua. All of these people have contributed meaningful and constructive insights into how white supremacy developed in North America, including how the composition of various races evolved over time, and how it has been used as a weapon by the bourgeoisie to suppress the working class. Read the rest of this entry »

Decriminalization of Sex Work and Indigenous Youth and Communities

Posted: October 10, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Gender/Women/Feminism, Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles, Struggles: Youth
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A response from the Native Youth Sexual Health Network on the recent Ontario Superior Court Decision on the recent Ontario Superior Court Decision.

October 5, 2010 (Toronto) – The Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN) would like to express our support of the recent Ontario Superior Court decision to strike down three aspects of the criminalization of sex work which include: living off of the avails of prostitution, keeping a common bawdy-house and communicating in a public place for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. However, given the lack of Indigenous voices during this process, there is some confusion as to what this could mean for Indigenous people here and now.

As a North America wide organization working in the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health by and for Indigenous youth, NYSHN is particularly concerned with the ways in which Indigenous youth perspectives and rights as sex workers are generally not taken into account. In this case, it was not Indigenous people bringing this court challenge forward and unfortunately our voices have not been heard well.

However, this decision has the potential to actually mean less violence for Indigenous communities, not only because it allows for safer working conditions for sex workers, it also means less police interference. Given that Indigenous communities face racial profiling and police brutality as an everyday lived experience, as well as extremely high rates of incarceration, this is of utmost importance to our safety. Current estimates state that Aboriginal people make up more than 20% of the total prison inmate population across Canada, which is a full ten times more than the general population.

If sex workers are able to live off of the money they earn, they may be able to afford shelter, better provide for their families, or be able to hire someone else, such as a driver, as protection. If they are able to openly communicate about sex work, they may be able to negotiate safer working conditions (such as condom use) with a client or report violence without fear of being arrested. If keeping a bawdy-house is no longer illegal, then sex workers may have access to indoor working conditions, decreasing the chances of street-based violence. If police are given less opportunity to arrest people on the basis of these laws, it means less Indigenous people that are incarcerated because of sex work. These are just a few examples of how this ruling has the potential to reduce violence. Read the rest of this entry »

Voices of the Voiceless: Dead Prez

Posted: October 10, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Media: Voices of the Voiceless
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A few months ago I tried to start a regular Sunday music feature that presented the music of some of my favourite political artists. The first two posts featured English-Iraqi rapper Lowkey and Mexica hip-hop trio El Vuh, but it dropped off after that. Well, this week we are going to be doing things a little different with an attempt to relaunch this musical project. This week’s feature is the revolutionary black nationalist rap duo Dead Prez. So sit back. Chill out, and let the sounds wash over you.

Wolves, ft. Omali Yeshitela

Read the rest of this entry »

Grassy Narrows Clan Mothers Block MNR Enforcement Team

Posted: October 9, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Places: Northern Turtle Island (Canada), Struggles: Indigenous Struggles
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This appeared on the Media Co-Op, a project of the Dominion News Cooperative.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 6, 2010

Slant Lake, Asubpeeschoseewagong – The site of Grassy Narrows’ high profile logging blockade saw action again today as grassroots women blocked passage for Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR ) enforcement officers interfering with back-road repair work by the northwestern Ontario First Nations community. The community was repairing washouts and beaver damage to nearby back-roads to facilitate their ongoing use and enjoyment of their tradtional territory.

The MNR has visited the repair work three times and have threatened to stop the work. This time the community has resolved not to allow that and blocked MNR access at Slant Lake, allowing repairs to proceed. This action has now been sustained for over 6 weeks by grassroots people from Grassy Narrows. “We the Anishinabek have never given up jurisdiction on our natural territories,” said Judy Da Silva, a Grassy Narrows mother and blockader, “We agreed to share the lands with the newcomers, but we will never give up our inherent right to use and protect the land, water, and the forests.”

The roads require repairs because the MNR has not conducted maintenance on the back road network since 2002 when grassroots women and youth put their bodies on the line to block logging machinery from further destroying the forests their community depends on. Previously the back roads had been maintained by local contractors through provincial subsidies provided to the logging industry. The blockade, now in its eighth year is the longest running blockade in Canadian history. Read the rest of this entry »

South African Splinters: From “Elite Transition” to “Small-a Alliances”

Posted: October 7, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Economics, Ideas: Racial/National Oppression, Places: Africa, Struggles: Globalization/Anti-Globalization, Struggles: Imperialism/De-Colonization, Struggles: Revolution
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The following article first appeared in AfricaFile’s At Issue Ezine, vol. 12 (May-October 2010), edited by John S. Saul, which examines the development of the southern African liberation movement-led countries.

By Patrick Bond.

October 2010 — Since the freeing of Nelson Mandela in February 1990, the South African liberation struggle has witnessed the truncation, hijacking and reversal of its fabled “second stage”: the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), which aims to transform the state and address class inequality. Instead, the state has become an even more blatant vehicle for crony capitalism and merely tokenistic welfarism than under the Afrikaners’ Nationalist Party rule. By mid-2010, the contradictions had become unbearable, and a spate of labour unrest suddenly brought home the obvious point: Alliance politics must urgently restructure – as must national socio-economic policies – or face an historic breaking point.

Society divides

The whole society began splintering just a few weeks after the World Cup provided a show of nation-building, broad-based excitement and unity. But the structural cracks had been widening during a long era of neoliberalism, for as the University of Cape Town’s SA Labour and Development Research Unit recently reported, “income inequality increased between 1993 and 2008″ (from a 0.66 Gini coefficient to 0.70) as South Africa raced ahead of Brazil to become the world’s leader among major countries. The income of the average black (African) person actually fell as a percentage of the average white’s from 1995 (13.5 percent) to 2008 (13 percent), and “poverty in urban areas has increased” (Leibbrandt et al, 2010).

How could a democratic government actually amplify apartheid-era race-class inequality? It’s stunning, but Mandela (1994–99) and his successor Thabo Mbeki (1999–2008), long-serving former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, former Trade Minister Alec Erwin, former Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni and current President Jacob Zuma, deserve recognition for constructing a “class apartheid” system that not even the most extreme pessimist would have predicted when the African National Congress (ANC) was unbanned. Read the rest of this entry »

Douchebag Decree: Lou Dobbs

Posted: October 7, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Fascism/Anti-Fascism, Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States), Struggles: Immigrants
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From Bitch Magazine.

This week’s Douchebag Decree goes to a man who used his post at CNN as a platform to rage against “illegal aliens” to the American public. If that wasn’t douche-y enough for you, it has now come out that this same man has been employing undocumented workers for years to tend to his prized horses and mansions. Who is this hypocritical douche, you ask? Lou Dobbs, come on down!

A piece published earlier today by Isabel Macdonald of The Nation reports that:

Based on a yearlong investigation, including interviews with five immigrants who worked without papers on his properties, The Nation and the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute have found that Dobbs has relied for years on undocumented labor for the upkeep of his multimillion-dollar estates and the horses he keeps for his 22-year-old daughter, Hillary, a champion show jumper.

Apparently, Dobbs and his daughter own five “European Warmbloods,” horses that can cost upwards of $1 million and require ’round the clock care (you can’t make this stuff up, folks). The stable where the horses are kept is staffed in part by undocumented laborers, a fact that Dobbs apparently knew—though that didn’t stop him from warning Americans about the dangers of hiring “illegals” from his position at CNN. In April of 2006 he even said that “illegal employers who hire illegal aliens” should face felony charges. Do you think he’s changed that tune now that he’s apparently been found out? Read the rest of this entry »

Sixteen Years After Official End of Aparthied: An Interview with Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA) Leader Lybon Mabasa

Posted: October 6, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Economics, Ideas: History, Places: Africa, Struggles: Imperialism/De-Colonization
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Lybon Mabasa was one of the young activists of the Black Conscience Movement set up by Steve Biko during the 1976 Soweto uprising.

He was also one of the leaders of the Azanian People Organisation (AZAPO) founded in 1978 to pursue Steve Biko’s combat.

Today, he is one of the leaders of the Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA).

The SOPA has had an active part at international level in many of the campaigns and activities of the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples.

Lybon Mabasa will be present in Algiers for the Open World Conference Against War and Exploitatiion on November 27-28-29, 2010.

For International Newsletter he went back over the present situation in his country (August 5, 2010).

As all the clamor around the World Cup dies down and as contradictions with official announcements arise, the situation in South Africa remains just as critical, even worsened by the consequences of the World Cup.

More than 8 billion Euros have been spent, notably for building enormous stadiums in nine regions over the country, for introducing certain destinations, such as high speed trains at a prohibitive tariff, and for improving the airports.

They pretended that these infrastructures would be of durable benefit to South Africa.

But this is not the case at all, for most of these high cost installations are inaccessible for the great majority.

Most of the stadiums that have been built will remain largely unused. Read the rest of this entry »

Black is Back Coalition Opposes FBI Attacks on Antiwar Activists and Movement

Posted: October 6, 2010 by Rowland Keshena in Ideas: Fascism/Anti-Fascism, Places: Southern Turtle Island (United States)
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Uhuru!

The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations wants to state our unequivocal opposition to the September 24 multi-state Federal Bureau of Investigation harassment of a number of antiwar militants and activists.

For the Black is Back Coalition this recent aggression against political dissent is glaring evidence of the depth of the crisis of an imperialism that requires for its survival the permanent exploitation of the world’s peoples, including Africans, Mexicans and others within the ghettos and barrios here within the US.

We see this crisis is one that is caused by the struggling masses of the world’s peoples to reverse the verdict of imperialism that has resulted in the vast majority of the Earth’s population being reduced to a status of poverty and oppression.

It is the struggles of the peoples of the Middle East, South America, Africa and elsewhere imperialism has left its bloody mark that has led to this crisis that the US white ruling class has attempted to quell through seduction with the selection of Barack Hussein Obama as US president. We recognize that Obama was imperialism’s desperate response to the resistance of the world’s peoples after the failed policies of George W. Bush served to deepen the crisis by winning more of the oppressed to the ranks of imperialist resistance.

The Black is Back Coalition is not hoodwinked by the phony charges imposed on the militants by the FBI under the guise of anti-terrorist investigation.

We know that this is an attempt to isolate the legitimate forces of resistance here in the US and throughout the world. We know that this is an attempt to intimidate those who currently oppose US imperialist foreign policy and to prevent any others from joining in the opposition. Read the rest of this entry »

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