Thanks to Louis Proyect for sharing this recording of the Nixon White House crew musing on the Jewishness of Daniel Ellsberg.
Archive for June, 2010
Nixon’s Inner Circle on Black People and Jews
Posted by Mike E on June 30, 2010
Posted in African American, anti-semitism, Black History, civil rights, racism, video | Tagged: Nixon | 4 Comments »
Report from the Excluded Workers Congress
Posted by Tell No Lies on June 30, 2010
Migrant farm worker.
from IPS
While this article, in keeping with the politics of many of the groups involved in this work, closes with John Sweeney investing faith in the Democratic Party, the coming together of these different sectors of excluded workers is an important development that revolutionaries need to relate to.
“Excluded Workers” Move from Shadows to Negotiating Table
By Bankole Thompson
The U.S. labour movement needs to be reorganised from the bottom up to include domestic workers, day labourers, restaurant workers, taxi drivers, farm workers, incarcerated workers, guest workers and those in the “right to work” states.
That is the message the Excluded Workers Congress, a coalition of labour groups, brought to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit this week. In addition to state-by-state advocacy, they are pressing hard for reforms at the federal level, particularly to the National Labour Relations Act.
The coalition held a fierce discussion at the Social Forum about the need for reform and how workers who are not part of the federally recognised labour movement in the country are being denied decent wages and benefits.
“We need to protect all workers under labour law. I think this is a historic demand because it’s about time the public recognises that you can’t respect some workers and deny others,” said Camilo Viveiros, director of Jobs with Justice based in Rhode Island. Guided by the mantra “We need a domestic bill of rights,” labour activists say they want to break down the legislative barriers that have made it difficult for some sectors of the workforce to effectively demand equal protections. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news, labor, poverty, sweatshop, trade unions, working class | Leave a Comment »
Nepali Maoists Debate the Next Leap in Revolution
Posted by Mike E on June 29, 2010
Kasama will be posting a series of new articles appearing in Nepal, that lay out in some fresh detail the perspective and debates among the Maoists in Nepal. These pieces have appeared in the Nepali English language journalThe Red Star Vol 3 issue 16.
“If we pay our attention towards the history, there was a hot debate on it in course of justifying the bases of revolution before initiation of People’s War (PW). The debate was about national and international situation at that time. In course of debate, the aspect to consider international situation more decisive than the national was defeated and PW was initiated. The success of PW justifies the factual reality that the internal aspect- that is people, politics, struggle,ideology and leadership- can have more important and decisive role than external aspect. The same debate has come into existence due to the prolonging peace process.”
* * * * * * *
Can We Go Ahead?
by Netra Bikram Chanda “Biplap”
The debate in Nepal is on whether revolution is possible or not. The debate is not only ideological and general assumption; rather, it is centered on the question whether there is possibility to increase intervention in the central power state or not. The two sharp analyses have emerged on the issue. They are on for and against.
The analytical perspective that sees revolution impossible:
One of the analytical perspectives is that the revolt is impossible. Yes, it seems so from that side of perspective. This analysis has been emerged mainly from the side of some leftist intellectual politicians and analysts. They have given the following reasons to justify this logic.
Unfavorable international situation-
Favorable international situation is needed for the completion of revolution. For that, there should be a crisis in the centre of capitalism and unfavorable situation should have created against them. Moreover, there should be crisis in India, America and China for the completion of revolution like small and poor country Nepal. Otherwise, these power centres interfere over Nepal and revolution can not be succeeded.
Posted in >> analysis of news | 12 Comments »
Violence & Street Fighting: Who Says It Alienates the People?
Posted by Mike E on June 29, 2010
Zengakuren 1967
“Revolutionary politics and militant tactics are inherently shocking to powerful sections of society. It is certainly unacceptable to that liberal establishment (that some want to ally with). It is offensive and infuriating to the more backward. And any serious revolutionary movement needs to travel (with enthusiasm) straight into those hostile winds — with a deep strategic sense that there are other forces who in class society who are not nearly so conservative.”
* * * * * * *
This discussion is about general politics and overall evaluations — it does not advocate any specific acts, in any specific timeframe.
by Mike Ely
An anarchist wrote in a neighboring thread:
“i find it a little odd the way Marxists in the US always associate militant action with anarchists almost exclusively.”
That is a misunderstanding. I think you are talking to the wrong Marxists. The experience of the Maoist movement in the U.S. (to take just one example) is closely tied with many forms of militancy — starting with the Black Panther policies of armed self defense, and then also with the militant combativity of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). And denoucing militancy is (in my view) associated with very particular currents within the Left — whose strategic errors are closely tied up with those tactical views..
Learning and Practicing Street-Fighting in 1968
While in high school, those of us attracted to SDS took classes at a local “Free University” in radical theory and the street fighting snake dances of the Japanese Zengakuren.
Posted in Black Panthers, China, Mao Zedong, Maoism, mass line, Mike Ely, New Com. Movement, revolution, vanguard party | 41 Comments »
Justice for Oscar Grant: Oakland Police Brace for Post-Verdict Rebellion
Posted by Mike E on June 29, 2010
Thanks to the red fox for this suggestion.
Telephone tip line among plans for Mehserle verdict aftermath
OAKLAND — A telephone tip line will be activated today for anyone wanting to provide authorities with information concerning potential problems that might occur in the city after the verdict is announced in the murder trial of Johannes Mehserle, the former BART police officer charged with killing Oscar Grant III.
City officials on Friday also issued a community bulletin offering steps to help keep the city safe and how to get the most up-to-date information when the verdict is reached in Los Angeles.
Even though a verdict is not expected until late next week at the earliest, police and city officials have been holding meetings, and police conducting crowd-control and arrest-training exercises to prepare for any contingencies, including riots and acts of vandalism, such as those that plagued the city after Grant was fatally shot Jan. 1, 2009, at the Fruitvale BART station.
Oakland police, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, the California Highway Patrol and BART police will be the main law enforcement agencies dealing with crowds and potential illegal activity. They will be able to request mutual aid if necessary from police agencies throughout the Bay Area.
Posted in >> analysis of news, African American, anti-racist action, Oscar Grant | 8 Comments »
Resistance to Honduras Coup Continues One Year After
Posted by Tell No Lies on June 29, 2010
National Popular Resistance Front march in January, 2010.
from Upside Down World
The Coup Is Not Over: Marking a Year of Resistance in Honduras
by Joseph Shansky
At one point during the military coup in Honduras last year, a US representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) joked that Hondurans were living in a state of “magical realism”, a folkloric literary genre blurring reality and the surreal, often in the historical or political context of Latin America.
He wasn’t far off, despite the bizarre comparison: A democratically-elected president is overthrown by an elite conspiring against him, forced out of the country, the military takes over, the people revolt in massive opposition, while governments across the world refuse to recognize the new regime and withdraw their ambassadors. Only the United States, the most powerful of all countries, remains on the fence, then hops off onto the side of the golpistas (coup-makers) while presenting a straight face of diplomacy.
Yes, the story of how elected president Manuel Zelaya was violently removed from power under the guise of legal proceedings would make great fiction, but sadly remains the true story of the first successful Latin American military coup in decades.
Honduras burst into the international news last summer when on the morning of June 28th, Hondurans awoke (in more than one sense) to a dismantled government and a military takeover of their country. The Honduran Congress had just issued the trumped-up charge that Zelaya, of the Liberal Party, had violated the law by attempting to assess the interest of the general population in potentially rewriting the outdated Constitution to include new progressive reforms. Hondurans were scheduled to vote that day in a non-binding referendum. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news, Honduras | Leave a Comment »
Video: Aaron Neville and Daniel Lanois “With God On Our Side”
Posted by onehundredflowers on June 29, 2010
Lyrics:
Posted in >> analysis of news, music, video | Leave a Comment »
After the Party: Conclusions of a Practical Worker
Posted by Mike E on June 28, 2010
The following was posted as a comment in a thread on the need for communist cadre and professional workers. In particular it bounces off the comments of Miles Ahead.
by EnCee
I wanted to respond more, but life and organizing got in the way.
One point which Mike raised that I thought has particular resonance because of the way the party I was in was structured had to do with a specific division of labor. It jumped out to me more on a second reading.
Mike mentions agitating, organizing and fundraising as functions all cadre should be able to participate in.
Division of Labor, Divisions Over Labor
In my previous work there was a pronounced separation of some of these functions, especially among “office staff” and a few select “leaders” but even more there was a definite division between the two functions of agitation and organizing and on the other hand fundraising. While most people could generally contribute to small functions like fundraising parties or yard sales, other things were definitely off limit. I can understand some discretion needed for this. People want to be protective of the way people contribute so not everyone can be involved in collecting party dues and knowing what people contribute. That was one minor division, which could be criticized, but I think the problem lies in that it was symptomatic and reflective of larger problems.
The more major division had to with access to donors. “Donors” in this sense were people of considerable wealth who contributed to the party based on their solidarity to our politics. Many of them might have come into an inheritance, be a successful but independent business people or professionals like a Lawyer or Doctor with progressive politics. Some were simply members of oppressed groups or nationalities who appreciated our mass work and wanted to contribute in some way. None of them were members as far as I know, unless you count some of the better off “leaders” of the organization. The thing is there was a definite blocking off of the people who had access to the “Donors” and those who did run of the mill fundraising like sending out mailing or organizing a party.
Posted in >> communist politics, vanguard party | 6 Comments »
35 Years Ago: The Shootout at Oglala
Posted by Mike E on June 28, 2010
The Pine Ridge reservation
Leonard Peltier, activist and leader of the American Indian Movement, has been in prison for decades — accused in the killing of two FBI agents at Oglala on June 26, 1975.
Join Kasama in demanding freedom for Leonard Peltier– in demanding that, at long last, simple justice be done from him and the Native peoples. He has now spent his life in federal prison for dreaming of liberation — unjustly railroaded and subjected to horrific conditions behind bards.
And join with us in telling the true story of the shootout of Oglala — and the workings of this system that condemned Leonard Peltier.
I originally wrote this article twelve years ago as a contribution to the Jericho ’98 Movement. And I have updated it and reedited it repeatedly since then.
It is infuriating that, today, this freedom fighter is still locked in prison, instead of walking the streets among us.
The Railroad of Leonard Peltier
by Mike Ely
For over 36 years the Indian freedom fighter Leonard Peltier has been a target of government attack. He’s been set up by FBI Cointelpro “dirty tricks,” attacked by federal SWAT teams on Indian land, subjected to a national manhunt, illegally smuggled across international borders, railroaded with manufactured evidence, denied religious rights, targeted for assassination in prison, denied basic medical attention and tortured with extreme isolation.
Leonard Peltier has now spent 33 hard years in prison–for the “crime” of defending Indian people from violent government attack. Though it was proven that the FBI manufactured the “evidence” that convicted Leonard of the death of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation, each court appeal ended in new denials and new insults.
The U.S. government insists that there are, officially, no political prisoners in its dungeons. (Just as they insist “The U.S. does not torture.”)
The U.S. insists there are no political laws that target and punish speech, political activity, dissidents and rebels. But the truth is that the U.S. government has always targeted those who rise up against injustice — they massacred the Native people relentlessly, they assassinated key Native leaders, they have framed and persecuted those who dare to rise up and speak. And this story of Leonard Peltier is a living example of the techniques used to protect this system from exposure, resistance and revolution.
Posted in AIM (Indian), Indian, Leonard Peltier, Mike Ely, Native people, political prisoners, poverty, prison, racism | 1 Comment »
Conceiving the Working Class: Unitary or Contradictory?
Posted by Mike E on June 28, 2010
Proletarian life in the U.S. includes millions of men hanging out on street corners, while NOT producing surplus value.
by Mike Ely
Steve Swede writes (in a thoughtful response within a larger discussion):
“The working class party must represent the whole class but hopefully will organize the most conscious elements and cannot do so without uniting lots of people in different revolutionary movements… “
Five questions on this:
1) Does the “whole class” in an imperialist country have uniform interests in such a way that one party can represent the whole?
The notion that we communists can represent “the whole class” assumes, on some level, that this whole class has a uniform (or common) set of interests that can therefore be represented. Are there sections of this stratified class that are “bribed” or “privileged”enough by imperialism so that their interests no longer correspond with the international class of propertyless laborers desperately needing revolution?
Posted in >> analysis of news, Marxist theory, Mike Ely, V.I. Lenin | 24 Comments »
Black Bloc Clashes with Cops at G20
Posted by Tell No Lies on June 28, 2010
Posted in >> analysis of news, anarchism | 8 Comments »
Review: Stonewall Uprising
Posted by Tell No Lies on June 27, 2010
from New York Times
June 28, 1969: Turning Point in Gay Rights History
By Stephen Holden
“The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage.”
So declared Mike Wallace in authoritative voice-of-God tones in “The Homosexuals,” a tawdry, sensationalist 1966 “CBS Reports,” excerpted in Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s valuable film, “Stonewall Uprising.” Funny how yesterday’s conventional wisdom can become today’s embarrassment.
The most thorough documentary exploration of the three days of unrest beginning June 28, 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a seedy Mafia-operated gay bar in Greenwich Village, turned on the police after a routine raid, “Stonewall Uprising” methodically ticks off the forms of oppression visited on gays and lesbians in the days before the gay rights movement.
“Before Stonewall there was no such thing as coming out or being out,” says Eric Marcus, the author of “Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian & Gay Equal Rights.” “People talk about being in and out now; there was no out, there was just in.”
At the time of the riots, homosexuality was illegal in every state except Illinois. Before the laws were changed, one commentator observes, gay bars offered the same kind of social haven for an oppressed minority as black churches in the South before the civil rights movement. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> Art and Culture, >> GLBT, Queer History | 2 Comments »
Stonewall!
Posted by Mike E on June 27, 2010
This year, 2010, marks the 41th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a watershed moment in the history of the modern LGBTI-Q movement and, it must be argued, an important breakthrough in the history of the society itself.
Rowland is the instigator of the Speed of Dreams blog, where this piece first appeared under the title “The History and Legacy of the Stonewall Rebellion.”
by Rowland Keshena
The Stonewall Riots were a series of violent clashes between New York City cops and groups of gay and transgender people. It all began on the early morning of the 28th of June 1969, and proceeded to last for several days. The clashes became a watershed for the worldwide gay rights movement, never before had gay and transgender people moved and acted together in such large numbers to forcibly resist police harassment directed towards their community. My intent here is to tell the history of Stonewall, and to attempt to do justice to its legacy.
Posted in >> GLBT, >> history, civil rights, gay, lesbian | Leave a Comment »
Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave is Your Fourth of July?
Posted by Mike E on June 27, 2010
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.
“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.“
Posted in African American, Black History, civil rights, racism, slavery | Leave a Comment »
Conquer the World: The International Proletariat Must and Will
Posted by Mike E on June 27, 2010
Here for reference is the full text of this work which originally appeared on revcom.us
CONQUER THE WORLD?
The International Proletariat Must and Will
by Bob Avakian
Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
Posted on revcom.us
Bob Avakian gave an informal talk in the early fall of 1981 ranging widely over the historical and present questions of the world proletarian revolution. The author made certain changes in the text for publication in Revolution magazine #50.
- Further Historical Perspectives on the First Advances in Seizing and Exercising Power—Proletarian Dictatorship—and Embarking on the Socialist Road.
- More on the Proletarian Revolution as a World Process.
- Leninism as the Bridge.
- Some Summation of the Marxist-Leninist Movement Arising in the 1960s and the Subjective Factor in Light of the Present and Developing Situation and the Conjuncture Shaping Up.
- Some Questions Related to the Line and Work of Our Party and Our Special Internationalist Responsibilities.
In this talk, I will address a number of general themes and then some attempts will be made to develop particular points within those general themes. Now this is likely to be—in fact you can almost guarantee that this is going to be—somewhat scattered and hopefully, in a way, a little bit trippy. But we’ll see what happens. The basic purpose and nature of this is to lay out some ideas about some points that have been spoken to in the literature, in the reports from the Central Committee that people have seen and been studying over the past two years or so; it’s in the character of and has the purpose of an informal talk to try to develop some of these ideas, to try to give some play to some thinking on these ideas, many of which are explicitly only tentative theses. The attempt is not being made to present worked out ideas. And that’s going to be true generally of the whole talk and will also be particularly obvious in relation to certain specific points. So it shouldn’t be seen even as a “worked out personal opinion,” let alone any kind of a systematic presentation of the line and views of the organization overall on these questions, but should be taken more as something informal to stimulate some thinking, study and discussion, and hopefully some further development on a number of these points.
Posted in Bob Avakian, Marxist theory, RCPUSA | Leave a Comment »
Lars T. Lih’s Look at Lenin’s “What Is To Be Done” – Part IV & Looking Ahead
Posted by Tell No Lies on June 27, 2010
from Kritika
How a Founding Document Was Found, or
100 of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?
Part IV:
Marking Time, 1977-2002
After 1977 the bottom dropped out of the Iskra-period market. This period of relative neglect is my next and final period. The profession was understandably bored with the topic and felt there were other things to do. The reasons for this neglect are familiar and I will not say much about it, except to point out the following. The careful academic study of ideology and doctrine was rejected partly because it was elitist, top-down, the very opposite of social history, and so on. But it was also rejected because the topic had been done (it would seem) to death. Younger scholars needed new topics, and academic promotion in history departments was certainly not going to someone who neglected archival documents in order to read Lenin’s Complete Works. Everybody therefore found it convenient to assume that not only had the subject been done to academic death, but also that it had been done thoroughly and competently.
The most prominent work of this period — for example, the Robert Service biographies — just played variations on Wolfe pack themes. 70 The opening of the archives in 1991 has paradoxically not been very good for the quest for the historical Lenin. The feeling has grown that Lenin was an awful person whose political project failed miserably, so that studying his political outlook — as opposed to simply dismissing it — is a waste of time. This attitude is combined with collapsing standards of factual scrupulousness (as I have tried to show in various reviews of new work on Lenin). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in theory, V.I. Lenin | 1 Comment »
Revolution’s Core Outlaw Force: What is Needed? What is Possible?
Posted by kasama on June 26, 2010
by Mike Ely
The Kasama Project stated that,
“ We seek to find the forms of organization and action for the people most dispossessed by this system to free themselves and all humanity.”
In response, Jerry Spring wrote:
Firstly, it is not the people most dispossessed, but the working class as a whole that in freeing themselves will free all humanity.
I appreciate that Jerry has taken the time to investigate our views, and share his reaction.
In reply to Jerry’s simply assertion, I would like to ask, “Uh, who says?” Who says that it will be the “working class as a whole” that plays the historic role in emancipating all of humanity? Based on what analysis and experience?
Posted in Marxist theory, Mike Ely, revolution, working class | 12 Comments »
Lars T. Lih’s Look at Lenin’s “What Is To Be Done” Parts 2 & 3
Posted by Tell No Lies on June 26, 2010
from Kritika
How a Founding Document Was Found, or
100 of Lenin’s What Is to Be Done?
Part II:
Historical Document, 1906-30
The Revolution of 1905 presented the two party factions with much more urgent and compelling matters of dispute than whether or not Lenin misspoke, and the whole issue quickly slid into the background. Even in 1905 Potresov referred to his analysis of WTBD as “archeological work.” During the second of my two periods — 1906-30 — WTBD was treated, if at all, as an interesting historical document. Mainly it was ignored. In my remarks, therefore, I shall concentrate more on significant absences than on explicit mentions. The following items of evidence need to be taken into account before WTBD can be called a founding document.
Item One is WTBD‘s treatment in the quotation wars in the 1920s when Lenin’s writings were being turned into authoritative and sacrosanct “Leninism.” When I researched this period, I was on the lookout for which works of Lenin were quoted to what effect. I was struck by the fact that WTBD was almost entirely absent. Sherlock Holmes once built a case around the curious incident of the dog that did not bark. Here we have the curious incident of the founding document that was never cited. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in theory, V.I. Lenin | Leave a Comment »
Is the Leak Becoming Unstoppable?
Posted by Mike E on June 26, 2010
Posted in >> analysis of news | 2 Comments »
