Jose Redfox suggested that this be posted to craft and share a critical response together.
Jose said this piece had played a role in “peace police” actions during various occupations. Let’s also share, if we can, what kinds of actions and assumptions such a piece has been used to justify (whether it was the intention of the author or not).
Violence is what the police use. It’s what the state uses.
If we want a revolution, it’s because we want a better world, because we think we have a bigger imagination, a more beautiful vision. So we’re not violent; we’re not like them in crucial ways. When I see a New York City policeman pepper-spray already captive young women in the face, I am disgusted; I want things to be different. And that pepperspraying incident, terrible though it was for the individuals, did not succeed in any larger way.
This piece is available as podcast. It is part of our larger Kasama offerings on peoples’ history.
The Puritan colonists of Massachusetts embraced a line from Psalms 2:8:
“Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
by Mike Ely
Intro to that first occupation
We are talking widely among ourselves about “occupying” Wall Street — taking the center of an empire back for the people of the world. We are talking about “Occupy Everything” — sharing our dreams of taking all society away from banks, police, and the heartless authority of money. We hope this moment marks a beginning of the end for them.
And yet, just such a moment cannot be understood without remembering that other occupation — the one that marked the beginning of their beginning.
Arrogant invaders occupied a land using the most naked forms of genocide. They invented new forms of slavery, slave trade and profit making. They arrived with their high-tech arms and bibles. They declared all was theirs by divine right, while they took it all with raw force.
Put another way: That first occupation was a sweeping nightmare that starts with Columbus. It has continued for 500 years. For the Native peoples of today (and therefore for us too) it remains an ongoing story of domination and removal. The nation-state who today labels millions of indigenous descendants “illegal aliens” arrived in boats with only royal decrees and their holy book as documents of legitimacy.
Every schoolchild in the U.S. has been taught that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after surviving their first bitter year in New England.
Here is the true story of that Thanksgiving — a story of murder and theft, of the first “corporations” invented on North American soil, of religious fundamentalism and relentless mania for money. It is a story of the birth of capitalism.
This piece is intended to be shared at this holiday time.
Pass it on. Serve a little truth with the usual stuffing.
This is what it looks like when the deliberate, routinized acts of authorities concede the high moral ground to us. This is how a whole generation learns about who is listening to the people, and who coldly treats the people like cockroaches needing sprays from a can. Acts of power meant to assert and enforced the norm — now expose that norm to vast audiences (including internationally). This is what awakening looks like. This is what delegitimization emerges from. This is the platform of consciousness upon which a new revolutionary movement can be built.
One million views and climbing — at youtube. The video is viral, the mood is viral.
In the aftermath, the students confront UC Davis Chancellor Katehi with a stunning silence. Everywhere the camera pans shows how many faces there were in the huge crowd — silent watching and indictment. In answer to “students as threat” and “occupations are unsafe” — they displayed their unity, their discipline, their utter distance from the authorities.
Here too the world is watching, here too the video has now reached a million views on youtube (and uncounted more in other venues).
Whatever lies the mainstream media whips up for those who still watch it, there is another answer captured in real time and shared through channels that are not yet controlled.
A lot of liberal groups, political parties, have made compromises with the military council in these last 10 months in fear of the Muslim Brotherhood and the rise of the Islamists and somehow taking over the country and creating an Islamist state, or taking away a civil state. And so, they made compromises with the military as well. So, you have this, kind of, this politics going on, and what’s forgotten is why people went into the street in the first place. The calls were for bread, freedom, and social justice, human dignity. People feel this has not been achieved, and so they say, “es-sawra mustamirra,” the revolution continues.
Egyptian Revolution Enters New Phase As Thousands Brave Violence to Protest Military Rule
Activists in Egypt are holding their fourth day of massive demonstrations to demand an end to military rule and a transition to a civilian government. The protests continue amidst a massive crackdown and an offer to resign from Egypt’s interim cabinet. Reports from Cairo’s main morgue said at least 33 people have been killed and more than 1,500 wounded in the military government’s crackdown. The turmoil comes as Egypt is scheduled to begin holding parliamentary elections on Monday. “I can’t see how a legitimate election can take place when you have such state-sponsored brutality happening in the heart of the capital city of the country,” says Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who joins us for an update from Cairo. “What many Egyptians have been seeing over these past 10 months has been that the revolution has been abused and stolen and deformed, and that the military council in Egypt has really not lived up to any of its promises in this transitional period, from human rights abuses to just their complete grip on power.”
“When words are spoken that (suddenly! finally!) invoke that idea of negating a whole system or structure (i.e. “Occupy Everywhere!” “All power to the General Assembly!” “Long live the Oakland Commune!”) — every nerve should go on alert. We should tune in intently to the reception.
“Who is speaking? Who is listening? Who is answering back?…
“We should take note as the stone hits the pond, and read the ripples. Because we are wanting to generate waves.”
Any complex human task, (any!) that you speak the words quite a bit in advance of the actual moment, in order to be able to act when the actual alignment of stars is “just right.” And you often have to speak them with poetry that won’t hold up to lawyerly textualism (“We want the world and we want it now!” or one of my favorite Pantherisms “Blood to the horse’s brow, and woe to those who cannot swim.”)
If you think about it: Any revolutionary cause needs contagious agitational slogans the preconfigure in the mind the visions and goals that will (eventually, hopefully) give rise to action slogans.
That is how ideas change matter: When revolutionary ideas become grasped (understood, taken up and creatively morphed) by large numbers of people, matter itself is changed (meaning that social relations are overthrown and their defenders are challenged and defeated).
The communards' barricade in Oakland -- denounced on pro-police website
In their new poster for Saturday, the Occupy Oakland graphics crew (and who else? Oakland’s General Assembly?) raised the beautiful and visionary slogan
“Long live the Oakland Commune!”
What does that mean to them? And to us?
Reactionary columnists have attacked the Occupations for “playing at the Paris Commune, with barricades and visions of power.” How do we answer that? How do we build on it?
There has also been agitation discussion of “All power to General Assemblies” — raising the idea that society should be occupied generally, and that a new order could start with the formation of General Assemblies everywhere.
The following essay was submitted by Abbas to Kasama — and (obviously) raises precisely this.
By posting this essay here, Kasama is not endorsing this, nor even raising the slogan… but pointing to the various early glimmers of counter-power being felt and discussed.
This confronts revolutionaries everywhere with practical and theoretical question:
Are we speaking to (or even seeing!) the ways our new generation is thinking about new power?
What is the role for visionary manifestos of dreams? How do they relate to immediate plans?
What would it mean to inject something into the air, before it can be realized on the ground?
When and how do we raise the destruction of old power and the creation of new power?
How do we envision and present our end goals and the transition to new society? Is it just in whispered discussions of one’s and two’s, or does it deserve space in slogans, posters and banners?
How to we speak to the glimmers of new power in this moment? How we speak to those bold ones who are asking: Why don’t the 99% just occupy everything? What do we say to those aging heads who just think such things are merely naive, or divisive, or impossible?
How do we speak to the forms, transitions, prerequisites and demands of discussing power?
How and when does the visionary clash with the practical? When does it invent a new practical?
How and when does the visionary clash with necessary alliances? And when does it transform those alliances?
Here is the pdf of our “What is Kasama?” essay. Prints well in simple black-and-white. But (if you have the chance) consider printing this two-sided pdf on goldenrod paper, and even use two color (red and black) print. (Thanks to our Kasama design crew for their beautiful work… more handout pdfs to be posted tomorrow.)
Click here for PDF -- print on yellow paper if you can
It is no longer five minutes to midnight. After Arab Spring leaps to Spain, and Greece, and on to New York’s Wall Street, it suddenly feels like five minutes to dawn.
We no longer need assume that there is no time to stop the world going to shit. There is an opening and we are flooding into it.
We are suddenly in a moment that is not marked by exhausted routine protests that speak for no one and speak to no one.
I spoke last night with someone in our Kasama project about a pro-Occupy meeting with many local union officials. One thing jumped out at me.
An emerging truth is now being spoken out loud:
That Occupy Wall Street is not some progressive “constituency” that unions and others need to “relate to.”
Things have gone far beyond that. This is now a historical moment, a true tear in previous politics, alignments, possibilities and silence. It is a rupture and an opening where everyone needs to act, based on their understandings and political concerns.
And the implication of this is profound: This is no longer just about “go down to the occupations and hook up with what they have created.” The opening is there for many kinds of people to speak — from where they sit in society, about what they see — and to be part of something new erupting within the power relations of society.
The occupations remain (symbolically, politically, visually) the core of this. Their growth, spread, survival, maturation and defense is an important part of this moment.But (again) this is not JUST an occupation event — it has become a large, open flapping tear in fabric of deadly normal/official politics, in its language, allignment and assumptions.
“I heard Ralph Nader praise “the brave founding fathers , who settled this land”. I thought I would throw up listening, but I have run into that kind of stuff in many cases in this movement.”
Many people have been trained to think of the settler/slaveowners of the early U.S. as “their” founding fathers. And Louise is deeply correct that this is mistaken, and has ongoing implications for politics. History is not just about the past, but about the present.
This country was founded in genocide and slavery. It was built and maintained by some of the most vicious exploitation imaginable — obviously of kidnapped Africans but also of impoverished immigrants from Asia and Europe who were herded into mines, and mills.
And it is not just that the “founding fathers” were slave traders, capitalists, and slave owners (and therefore not “ours”) — but (more controversial even) their very political system, constitution and even their concepts of property, authority, law, and morality were all deeply marked by this exploitative, expansionist and genocidal nature.
They are not “our” founding fathers — but the founders of the empire we now confront, and within which we seek to act as an increasingly conscious and determined force of negation.
Eric Ribellarsi, national organizer of the Kasama project, recently returned from deep investigations into the movement of the squares in Greece and the revolutionary movement in Nepal.
Mike Ely, veteran revolutionary and editor of the Kasama discussion.
What can we learn from other revolutionary forces around the world — from their successes, their frustrations, their innovations and their still-unsolved problems?
How would we imagine a revolutionary change in the U.S. — how would it happen? Where would it lead? Who are the forces who might congeal to carry it through? How has revolution changed in a time of globalization and instant horizontal communication.
What does Occupy Together mean for the chances of radical change in the U.S.?
How do we create a new revolutionary movement that can creatively learn and understand this rapidly-changing world and actually empower oppressed people?
Be there.
Download and print color and b/w versions of the poster.
“I can appreciate the desire to limit the critique of the RCP to what Mike calls “questions of line” (i.e., their ideas).”
There is a debate here about “the high plane of two line struggle” — something I have argued strongly for. I want to take a second to clarify this term “questions of line.”
I understand why CWM equates line simply with “their ideas” — but that is not exactly how I would look at it.
What road are we on?
Sometimes, on the left, people say “what is your line on this? What is your line on that?”
This is not what I mean by line. To me (and to Maoists generally) line is a matter of examining “where does this lead?” It is like a surveyor’s tool that projects forward.
It is an approach to methods, policies, theoretical “packages” — that asks the questions: where does this lead? who does it serve? what will come from taking this road?
You have to consciously fight to get things considered and decided on that basis. And only by posing and deciding things on that basis can a communist program come forward, and gain support broadly among key sections of the people.
This piece speaks for itself. From Capitoilette and BBC. Next question: Was the Obama administration in on the phone call? When did they know? When did they approve?
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Admits Cities Coordinated Crackdown on Occupy Movement
Posted on November 15, 2011
Embattled Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, speaking in an interview with the BBC (excerpted on The Takeaway radio program–audio of Quan starts at the 5:30 mark), casually mentioned that she was on a conference call with leaders of 18 US cities shortly before a wave of raids broke up Occupy Wall Street encampments across the country. “I was recently on a conference call with 18 cities across the country who had the same situation. . . .”
Mayor Quan then rambles about how she “spoke with protestors in my city” who professed an interest in “separating from anarchists,” implying that her police action was helping this somehow.
“… according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.”
What role does the Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF) play locally and nationally?
Is there a national anti-Occupy “war room” in DC?
What does Obama know? When did he know it? What plans, funding, oversight and acts did he personally give the green light to?
Who serves the people, and who serves the system of oppression?
Follow the trail, bring it to light. Shout out to the journalists who are fighting to bring the truth to light — the coordination and planning to crush the Occupation movement, and a trail of command that includes Democratic mayors and federal officials.
‘Occupy’ crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials
by Rick Ellis
Over the past ten days, more than a dozen cities have moved to evict “Occupy” protesters from city parks and other public spaces. As was the case in last night’s move in New York City, each of the police actions shares a number of characteristics. And according to one Justice official, each of those actions was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.
Here’s a statement from Mexico, addressed to the Oakland Commune. November 13, 2011. Spanish version
To the Peoples of the World
To the Occupy Movement
To the Oakland Commune
To Our Sisters and Brothers in Struggle on the Other Side of the Border
We don’t need to remind you of the deep connections between Wall Street, Gringo Capitalism and our Mexican misery. From Imperialist wars to the initial experiments in agrobiotechnology, Mexico has been the principal landscape for offensives by northern capital. We have participated and continue to, in the uprising of the Zapatistas against the neoliberal attack of NAFTA. The uprising which set the spark for the movement against neoliberalism. We met each other at the summits of Seattle, Prague, Genoa, Miami and Cancun. We met each other through a great global conversation.
It’s been a long time since we fought together in the movement against neoliberalism and the world has changed since those times. Today the narco war is devastating our society. As two sides of the same coin, on one side we have the narco and on the other the militarization of the country. These two faces are crushing us from both sides. Although it seems like they fight, they are both at the service of capital and in the modern world local capital is connected in a strong fashion to global capital. In the last few months we have learned these connections between Wall Street and narco money. According to one analysis, narco money was the liquid capital necessary to rescue the banking sector from the initial hits of the financial crisis in 2008 [1].
Connect people with Kasama’s rich offering of pamphlets. This two-sided handout describes key Kasama publications. And describes the two ways that people can get them: by ordering a printed version, or by downloading and printing a PDF. Print this and share it.
“99% / MIC CHECK! / LOOK AROUND / YOU ARE A PART / OF A GLOBAL UPRISING / WE ARE A CRY / FROM THE HEART / OF THE WORLD / WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE / ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE / HAPPY BIRTHDAY / #OCCUPY MOVEMENT / OCCUPY WALL STREET / list of cities, states and countries / OCCUPY EARTH / WE ARE WINNING / IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING / DO NOT BE AFRAID / LOVE.”
A few hours later I spoke with Mark Read, who organized the “bat-signal” project. He tells Boing Boing why and how he did this, and what technology he used.
This proposal was passed by the Seattle General Assembly GA:“Occupy Seattle has many different politics and visions within it. This is our strength.
We will not allow any in our movement to be singled out and attacked for their politics whether they be anarchist, progressive, communist, liberal, socialist, radical, etc.
We welcome healthy debate among and between each of these groups, but debate is very different from irrational attacks and fear-mongering. We will defend each other and our movement.
If people are partaking in actions which are damaging to the movement or risk the safety of its members unnecessarily, this should be dealt with as a separate matter, outside the purview of this statement of principle.
But no one will be allowed to be ostracize or demonize our fellow occupiers for their world views or goals. Unless that be a world view or goal which is decisively against the general unity and aspirations of the movement, such as: fascists, the openly racist, sexist, or homophobic, white-nationalist populists, ageist, ableist, etc. No action, except those passed by the General Assembly, represent Occupy Seattle as a whole.
Mayor Bloomberg stated today that he believed health and safety conditions were intolerable at Zuccotti Park. But instead of putting together a community based task force or something, he unleashed hundreds of police officers in the middle of the night to roust everyone. Predictably, these really dirty and unhealthy people didn’t go easy, and they were prepared: Barricades for blocks, the subway and Brooklyn Bridge shut down so the crowd couldn’t rush to help, an LRAD acoustic sound weapon stationed near the park to deafen protestors, and what must have been hundreds upon hundreds of NYPD, including their SWAT surveillance unit, Technical Assistance Resource Unit, which has gotten in trouble before for filming peaceful protests unconstitutionally.
The crackdown caused more health and safety problems than it solved, although they certainly got that park squeaky fucking clean. For instance, they caused a major health issue for City Councilman Ydannis Rodiguez, who was beaten and then arrested for resisting arrest. (Resisting arrest is such a bunk charge if there is no accompanying charge—resisting what arrest? it’s so confusing.) Or, think of all the homeless people who had been making Zuccotti Park their home; it’s certainly a health and safety problem to return them to the streets.
One of the aims of the Nepalese armed Maoist guerrilla war (1996-2006), was to seize land for those who farm it — i.e. to occupy the land of the rich with guns, divide it up, abolish the structure of rich and poor, and create the ways for farmers to solve problems for themselves, their families and their new organized collectivities.
To accomplish this, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) helped peasants confiscate lands from feudal lords or rich landowners.
This was especially important in the heavily-populated and fertile Terai region in southern Nepal, where peasant farmers have often labor on land owned by others.
Now, under the sinister terms of the a counter-revolutionary Seven-Point Agreement, peasants have been ordered to return much of this land. Peasants who are part of All Nepal Peasants Federation-Revolutionary are refusing to do so.
This development is especially interesting, as some leaders of the ANPF(Revolutionary) are aligned with Prachanda, who signed the seven-point agreement. What this means, if anything, is not clear.
This article is from Red Star, the revolutionary English-language newspaper from Nepal, and it was originally posted on our sister site Revolution in South Asia.
Peasant Against Returning Land
by Red Star
Kathmandu, 16 November:
All Nepal Peasants Federation-Revolutionary (ANPF (Revolutionary) has declared not to return the land; which was confiscated in the period of People’s War. It was declared in a press meet held in capital city Kathmandu yesterday. ANPF-Revolutionary is standing against the returning of the land where the poor and homeless people are farming for their livelihood making their small huts.
“Today at rush hour, people took the streets in front of the Chicago Board of Trade, locking arms and completely shutting down traffic in the financial heart of the city’s Loop. These pics were with my cell phone, so they aren’t the greatest, but you can feel the spirit and the strong strong sense of solidarity with New York City.”
