From his Facebook page: Born and raised in Accra, Ghana, Blitz the Ambassador grew up to the sounds of Afro-Beat, Highlife, Jazz, and Motown. But when his older brother introduced him to Public Enemy’s classic album, It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, as a young boy, he was changed forever. “I had never heard young Black people express themselves in that way before,” recalls Blitz.
Archive for August, 2009
Video: Blitz the Ambassador ft. Rob Murat “Breathe”
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 31, 2009
Posted in >> analysis of news, hip hop, video | Leave a Comment »
Video: Black Panther Party 10 Point Program 1966
Posted by Mike E on August 30, 2009
Posted in >> analysis of news | 3 Comments »
Nepal’s Binod: We Have to Accomplish Insurrection
Posted by Mike E on August 30, 2009
Members of World People’s Resistance Movement from Britain and Ireland conducted this interview in Nepal.
“At this moment when there is no experience of revolution in the 21st century, when there is no advanced proletarian revolutionary movement in the world, when this country is encircled and governed by Indian expansionism, at this moment against imperialism and expansionism, we have come to the decision that we have to accomplish insurrection. This is the important outcome of this meeting.”
WPRM: Can you introduce yourself please?
Com. Binod: My name is Comrade Binod. I am a Central Committee member and secretary of the state council for Mahakali state, which comprises seven districts in the far west of Nepal.
WPRM: Can you tell us about the recent Central Committee meeting and its implications for the coming weeks and months?
Com. Binod: In the life of the party, this Central Committee meeting has been unusual from the point of view of ideology and debate. We have received an opportunity, and we are proud that this meeting has been very unusual because it has taken place amid the deep curiosity of the proletariat in Nepal as well as the world over. This curiosity is positive. At the same time, the imperialists and reactionaries also have an expectation. Amid this we have carried out a great meeting, and made decisions which have made us proud to talk about this meeting.
WPRM: And what are these decisions?
Com. Binod: At this moment when there is no experience of revolution in the 21st century, when there is no advanced proletarian revolutionary movement in the world, when this country is encircled and governed by Indian expansionism, at this moment against imperialism and expansionism, we have come to the decision that we have to accomplish insurrection. This is the important outcome of this meeting.
Posted in >> analysis of news | 15 Comments »
The Real Death Panels
Posted by Mike E on August 30, 2009
This appeared on Truthdig, Aug 13, 2009
By Joe Conason
When Republican politicians and right-wing talking heads bemoan the fictitious “death panels” that they claim would arise from health care reform, they are concealing a sinister reality from their followers. The ugly fact is that every year we fail to reform the existing system, that failure condemns tens of thousands of people to die—either because they have no insurance or because their insurance companies deny coverage or benefits when they become ill.
The best estimate of the annual death toll among Americans of working age due to lack of insurance or under-insurance is at least 20,000, according to studies conducted over the past decade by medical researchers, and the number is almost certainly rising as more and more people lose their coverage as costs continue to go up.
They die primarily because they didn’t have the coverage or the money to pay doctors and thus delayed seeking treatment until it was too late. They don’t get checkups, screenings and other preventive care. That is why uninsured adults are far more likely to be diagnosed with a disease, such as cancer or heart disease, at an advanced stage, which severely reduces their chances of survival.
This isn’t news. Seven years ago, the Institute of Medicine found that approximately 18,000 Americans had died in 2000 because they had no insurance. Using the same methodology combined with Census Bureau estimates of health coverage, the Urban Institute concluded that the incidence of death among the uninsured was enormous. Between 2000 and 2006, the last year of that study, the total number of dead was estimated to have reached 137,000—a body count more than double the number of casualties in the Vietnam War.
The Institute of Medicine also found that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private health insurance, and other studies have warned that uninsured adults between the ages of 55 and 64 are even more prone to die prematurely. A lack of health insurance is the third-leading cause of death for that age cohort, following heart disease and cancer.
All those appalling figures, which are real rather than mythical, do not include the casualties of insurance company profiteering—namely, all the people, including small children, who perish because of the anonymous “death panels” that deny or delay coverage to consumers.
Posted in abuse, capitalism, economics, imperialism | Leave a Comment »
Repression Targets Indymedia in Greece
Posted by Mike E on August 29, 2009
In December 2008 there was a powerful uprising of radical youth in Athens and many cities of Greece. It was triggered by a police killing, but developed as a revolt against the capitalist system itself. The following documents some of the mopping up actions attempted by powerful reactionary forces in Greece — targeting the various ways that radical youth got the truth out to the world, including (in first place) the Indymedia of Greece (IMC). Kasama itself used many reports from Indymedia to pass along reports from Greece during and after the uprisings.
Emergency for IMC in Athens and Patras (Greece)
A period of State widespread repression and brutality followed after December 2008 Rebellion. During and after the rebellion, the political party of extreme right wing LAOS (Popular Orthodox Party Alert) and the Greek state decided to press the IMC of Athens and Patras, on the grounds that they were used as centers for the coordination of Rebellion (no rebellions may, of course, be conducted via the Internet), deliberately ignoring the contribution of CMI to the counter-information.
Members of fascist parties of the right and the extreme right of the parliament have launched attacks against the IMC of Athens. The fascists tried to foist their propaganda about the government right through their blogs, and they are trying to block access to the site by attacks made by hackers. The statements of politicians at parliament and on television make the IMC as a major enemy of the state.
The most dangerous movement was the appeal sent to the Minister of Education by K. Velopoulos, a member of LAOS. He asked the Minister of Education if the IMC of Athens and Patras were housed in the Athens Polytechnic University (UPA) and demanded immediate action to stop these “dangerous” sites from “supporting terrorism” and so on.
Posted in anarchism, Greece | 1 Comment »
Imperialism and the Politics of Food
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 29, 2009
Haitians searching for food at a dump
This was originally posted on monthlyreview.org.
“Things have changed in the course of the last decade, of course. However, the basic trends continued and have become deeper and more ingrained in the system. For example, the many ecological disasters associated with conventional agricultural production have only gotten worse. These include pollution of groundwater and surface water with nitrates, phosphates, sediments, and pesticides; contamination of food; nutrient depletion on farms that raise crops, even while nutrient-rich wastes accumulate to dangerously polluting levels in large-scale animal production facilities; and increasing spread of antibiotic resistant microbes due to the routine use of antibiotics in factory-raised livestock. The main driving force of the agrifood system is, of course, the never ending goal of continual generation of profits.
Today, approximately a billion people — close to one-sixth of humanity — suffer from continual and severe hunger. There are many more, possibly another two billion, who live in perpetual food insecurity — missing some meals and often not knowing where their next meal will come from. This means that close to half of all humans are either perpetually hungry and malnourished or suffering from varying degrees of food insecurity.”
Agriculture and Food in Crisis
An Overview
Fred Magdoff and Brian Tokar
“Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?,” asks the title of an article by Lester Brown in Scientific American (May 2009). Just a few years ago, such a question would have seemed almost laughable. Few will be surprised by it today.
In 2008 people woke up to a tsunami of hunger sweeping the world. Although the prospect of rising hunger has loomed on the horizon for years, the present crisis seemed to come out of the blue without warning. Food riots spread through many countries in the global South as people tried to obtain a portion of what appeared to be a rapidly shrinking supply of food, and many governments were destabilized.
Posted in >> analysis of news, economics, environment, food, Fred Magdoff | 5 Comments »
Watts: Learning Among the Flames of Revolt
Posted by Mike E on August 29, 2009
Watts Rebellion, August 1965
by Mike Ely
I have been grappling with theories that blame racism on the privilege of white people. In a post exploring complicity, I asked the question:
“Are people fixed by relative privilege and their specific history, locked into a structure that inexorably commands their minds and loyalties — or can even the deeply complacent be shaken awake and radically transformed — by both sudden conjunctural events and long-term political work?”
Someone wrote and asked me for an example.
There are many examples — perhaps you too have a story to share. For now, here is one.
* * * * * *
I was sitting with political friends years ago. Different people were describing how they got involved in radical politics.
One brother said he had been a typical, middle-class, unaware teenager living in LA when the 1965 Watts rebellion broke out. His father was an Asian-American minister at an LA community church.
When the rebellion broke out, sections of the city were out of government control for four intense days and nights. People gathered in crowds to confront and fight the hated police. Fires lit the night sky as people targeted local businesses and expropriated movable goods. It was August, and Watts was the opening of that decade’s long hot summers.
The authorities reached out to non-white ministers (Black, Asian, Mexican…) to go down into the Black community and help calm things down. This teenager insisted on accompanying his father on this mission to Watts — which they both understood would be dangerous.
Posted in African American, anti-racist action, Black History, Mike Ely, police, racism | 38 Comments »
Obama’s Imperialist Logic: Afghanistan War Needs Philippines Bases
Posted by Mike E on August 29, 2009
Obama’s determination to finally conquer and dominate Afghanistan (and stabilize Pakistan) has reinforced U.S. demands for a permanent military presence in the Philippines — which since WW2 has been a U.S. staging area for imperialist interventions in Asia. (And as an extension of that logic: it has meant that the Philippines has been a center of the global sex trade, that the U.S. has conducted counterinsurgency against anti-imperialist forces, and the U.S. has backed one brutal, corrupt and repressive neo-colonial regime after another in Manila.
This statement appeared on The Marxist-Leninist. It is an item for our “Kasama’s Obama List” — a slow steady documentation of the imperialism of the current U.S. government. If you uncover items (large or small, but always revealing) that belong on our list, send them in.
From the statement of the Communist Party of the Philippines:
“US Pacific forces commander Adm. Timothy J. Keating said, as reported by New York Times, that their work in the Philippines was not yet done. He added that ‘When the options were presented to our leadership, the decision was made to continue the Philippines mission.’ Senior Pentagon senior officials declared that they will apply to the Philippines the lessons the US military has learned in the war in Afghanistan where the US is now pouring in additional troops: ‘Battlefield successes need sustained commitment of military presence.’
The CPP noted that Pentagon chief Robert M. Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta came to the Philippines ‘to present to Arroyo in advance Obama’s agenda and ‘points of agreement,’ with the matter of US military presence in the Philippines and its role in the Southeast Asian region foremost in the agenda.’”
For the full statement > Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in antiwar, Barack Obama, CP Philippines, Democratic Party, fascism, Human rights, imperialism, military, Philippines, revolution, sex trade, war on terror | Leave a Comment »
Bertold Brecht: Are the People Guilty of a System’s Crimes?
Posted by Mike E on August 28, 2009
Bertold Brecht:
“One day the German industrialists will try to find bayonets (and any bayonets will do) in the hope that their loss of political power will only be temporary if their economic power can be salvaged. Is that clear?But how is it with the rest of the German people, the ninety-nine percent?Is the war in their interest too? Do they need war?
Well-meaning people are too hasty by half when they confidently answer: No. A comforting reply, but not a true one. The truth is that the war is in their interest so long as they cannot or will not shake off the system under which they live….
The idea of forcibly educating a whole people is absurd. What the German people have not learned when this war is over from bloody defeats, bombings, impoverishment, and from the bestialities of its leaders inside and outside Germany, it will never learn from history books. Peoples can only educate themselves; and they will establish popular government not when they grasp it with their minds but when they grasp it with their hands.”
Intro by Mike Ely
It is no surprise that there is controversy over how to evaluate people who support the system and its crimes — particularly in the U.S. today.
In almost a decade of global rampages after 9/11, after the torture of people worldwide, the shameless unprovoked aggression against Iraq, the escalating occupation of Afghanistan, the drone assassination, the waves of commando raids, the militarization of the border and more… after all that, there is still a void where a visible, unrepentant, strident antiwar movement should be. There is deep confusion among even people who are otherwise progressive. And there is, as we all know, a section of society that actually supports U.S. empire — and equates that imperialist exploitation with “freedom” or even “the free world.”
So how do we view this? Do we simply decide that the people are “complicit” and “guilty” of those crimes (that they are not opposing)? Are large sections of the people just willingly “drinking the koolaid”?
Do we seek to explain horrible silence by deciding that people have chosen their privilege over their humanity? Do we assume that within the U.S. people (including white working people) have no progressive interests (in common with the people of the world)? Are people fixed by relative privilege and their specific history — locked into a structure that inexorably commands their minds and loyalties — or can even the deeply complacent be shaken awake and radically transformed — by both sudden conjunctural events and long-term political work?
Are the “interests” of different sections of people fixed and simple? Or do “interests” appear in complex patterns — objective interests, subjectively perceived interests, short term interests of self and family, long term interests of humanity and class, interests in survival in the face of threat, interests in great self-sacrifice to make a new world? What is the relationship between interests and political desires?
Posted in >> analysis of news, Barack Obama, capitalism, comintern, communism, economics, fascism, Germany, Human rights, imperialism, labor, Mike Ely, military, Nazis, politics, Republican Party, revolution, war on terror, working class, World War II | 8 Comments »
Protocol: Decentralization and Control
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 27, 2009
This was originally posted on the nettime.org mailing list.
Kasama does not necessarily share the analysis being provided, but we are posting this because it poses a provocative framework for envisioning political organization and strategy.
THE LIMITS OF NETWORKING
A reply to Lovink and Schneider’s “Notes on the State of Networking”
by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker
The question we aim to explore here is: what is the principle of political organization or control that stitches a network together? Writers like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have helped answer this question in the socio-political sphere using the concept of “Empire.” Like a network, Empire is not reducible to any single state power, nor does it follow an architecture of pyramidal hierarchy. Empire is fluid, flexible, dynamic, and far-reaching. In that sense, the concept of Empire helps us greatly to begin thinking about political organization in networks. But like Lovink and Schneider, we are concerned that no one has yet adequately answered this question for the technological sphere of bits and atoms.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Alexander Galloway, Eugene Thacker, network, organizing | 1 Comment »
A Politics of the Spectacle
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 26, 2009
This was originally posted on turbulence.co.uk.
“But what if, just maybe, the problem was not with me but with the main currents of progressive thinking in this country? More precisely, maybe there was something about progressive politics that had become increasingly problematic. The problem, as I see it, comes down to reality. Progressives believe in it, Bush’s people believe in creating it. The left and right have switched roles – the right taking on the mantle of radicalism and progressives waving the flag of conservatism. The political progeny of the protestors who proclaimed, “Take your desires for reality” in May of 1968, were now counseling the reversal: take reality for your desires. Republicans were the ones proclaiming, ‘I have a dream.’ “
Politics in an age of fantasy
By Stephen Duncombe
REALITY, FANTASY AND POLITICS
In the autumn of 2004, shortly before the U.S. presidential election and in the middle of a typically bloody month in Iraq, the New York Times Magazine ran a feature article on the casualty of truth in the Bush administration. Like most Times articles, it was well written, well researched, and thoroughly predictable. That George W. Bush is ill informed, doesn’t listen to dissenting opinion, and acts upon whatever nonsense he happens to believe is hardly news. (Even the fact that he once insisted that Sweden did not have an army and none of his cabinet dared contradict him was not all that surprising.) There was, however, one valuable insight. In a soon-to-be-infamous passage, the writer, Ron Suskind, recounted a conversation between himself and an unnamed senior adviser to the president:
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernable reality.” I nodded and murmured something about Enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create reality. And while you are studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
It was clear how the Times felt about this peek into the political mind of the presidency. The editors of the Gray Lady pulled out the passage and floated it over the article in oversized, multi-colored type. This was ideological gold: the Bush administration openly and arrogantly admitting that they didn’t care about reality. One could almost feel the palpable excitement generated among the Times’ liberal readership, an enthusiasm mirrored and amplified all down the left side of the political spectrum on computer listservs, call-in radio shows, and print editorials over the next few weeks. This proud assertion of naked disregard for reality and unbounded faith in fantasy was the most damning evidence of Bush insanity yet. He must surely lose the election now.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Stephen Duncombe | 3 Comments »
Video: Kalash “Job”
Posted by Mike E on August 26, 2009
This is the seccond song by Kalash (Hunter McCord) posted by Kasama. Kalash is a revolutionary communist singer/songwriter living in Brooklyn. These are recordings from his “couch sessions.”
Kalash wrote:
“This song was inspired by the character of Job in the Old Testament. I feel his story reveals the hypocrisy and insecurity of the character of God.”
Lyrics >
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Kalash, music, video | 1 Comment »
Video: Le Tigre “Deceptacon”
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 26, 2009
This not the official video for the song, that can be found here.
Lyrics:
Posted in >> analysis of news, Le Tigre, video | 3 Comments »
Palestine: Mapping the Occupation
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 25, 2009
The French cartographer, Julien Bousac, has rendered the the Israel-Palestine conflict geographically, representing the Palestinian areas as land masses, surrounded and divided by Israel-dominated territories represented as water.
This was originally posted on strangemaps.wordpress.com. The title and text were written by the blog’s author. Kasama does not necessarily share the author’s viewpoints but is posting this because we believe it is of interest to our readers.
Palestine’s Island Paradise, Now With a Word from its Creator
Posted in >> analysis of news, Palestine | Leave a Comment »
Video: Kalash’s “Kitty”
Posted by Mike E on August 25, 2009
Kasama is going to post a few songs by Kalash (Hunter McCord) who is a revolutionary communist singer/songwriter living in Brooklyn. These are recordings from his “couch sessions.”
This song was inspired by the death of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese — a reminder that it is not always best to “mind our own business.”
For hours, one awful New York evening, Kitty was beaten and stabbed — her cries for help were heard by many people in surrounding buildings who did little or nothing. Her attacker left and then returned to finish the killing. The story shocked New York City at the time (1964) and has always been a symbol of a society that has lost compassion and solidarity, and evolved into atomized isolation, fear and even indifference.
“Live together or die alone!”
Posted in abuse, Domestic violence, Kalash, music, video, women | 34 Comments »
Thodoris Iliopoulos: You Are Not Alone
Posted by Mike E on August 24, 2009
Free Thodoris Ilopoulous
Thodoris Iliopoulos was seized and imprisoned by the Greek state – as part of their rampage against the great people’s rebellion in December 2008. As youth all over Greece revolted against police abuse – and against the whole capitalist syatem – Thodoris was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail. Though witnesses insist he is innocent of police charges, this 31-year old radical was has been locked up now for 8 months in Athens, inside Koridalos Prison.
Thodoris decided to resist — and started a hunger strike on July 10, 2009. On August 20, that the Greek authorities moved Thodoris to a hospital. His health and life are in danger.
Support for his cause has been expressed throughout Greek society – every day more and more organizations are voicing support for his immediate release.
Free Thodoris Iliopoulos! Now! It is right to rebel against reactionaries!
* * * * * * *
The following is an interview with Thodoros, conducted by Ntina Daskalopoulou and published in an Athens daily on August 15. It appeared online on UK Indymedia.
I took a stand in the December uprising and now I face the state’s reprisal
Eight months in pre-trial detention for December’s events, the last one also on hunger strike. His anticipated release in July never came, the theatre of the absurd of the charges against him continued and Thodoris remains incarcerated.
But he is a fighter. This time, his “weapon” is his own body.
He spoke to us over the phone from the prison of Korydallos. From there he sees the revanchist face of the state, that Greece of violence and repression, but also sees another Greece — of the restless youth, of the faith in ideals.
He is insisting on his innocence and his own beliefs — and paying dearly for both.
I hear his voice with intermissions from the loudspeakers blasting orders to the prisoners of Korydallos. He is extremely polite, low-pitched, strong within his weakness. Now fragile, but determined, in the middle of August, the month with no news, he fights the struggle for his freedom with the only weapon he has left: His own body. For more than one month now (trans: 36 days), the only remaining prisoner of December is on hunger strike. Despite having lost 12 kilos, having low pressure and suffering hypoglycaemic shocks, and although his doctors insist that he can now suffer irreversible damages, the prison administration refuses to transfer him to hospital. Thodoris Iliopoulos declares his innocence. A hostage.
Interview >
Posted in anarchism, capitalism, civil liberties, fascism, Greece, Human rights, political prisoners, politics | 1 Comment »
Video: PS22 Chorus “Flying Dutchman” [Tori Amos cover]
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 24, 2009
Posted in >> analysis of news, video | 3 Comments »
Remembering George Jackson & re-thinking revolutionary strategy
Posted by Mike E on August 23, 2009
“The unspoken assumptions often say:
1) Our movement suffers mainly from a lack of contact with the people, so anything that brings us into contact and quickly in “scale” is good.
2) First we build the networks, then we imbue them (at some future unknown point) with revolutionary politics and contact. (“It is easier to steer a truck once it’s moving.”)
3) We organize the people around their known needs and wants — and by proving ourselves as the “best fighters” for those things, develop the creds and contacts through which our larger political views will get a hearing and a rooting.
“In fact, all three of these assumptions lead revolutionaries to be the footsoldiers of for non-revolutionary projects.”
By Mike Ely
George Jackson had a particular vision of the revolutionary process: he foresaw a legal above-ground movement that served the people with various programs, operating as a political face to the world — and he envisioned a parallel illegal underground movement waging war against the police and the system, rooted in the prisons and the underground networks of “the lumpen” (i.e. the semi-proletarian world of youth in-and-out of the “underground economy” and constant “trouble with the law”).
When I was a teenager, on my first organizing project (a pro-Black Panther collective reaching out to a white working class youth scene), we received a heartwarming letter from prisoners in a nearby state prison — they offered themselves (and their services) as a strong arm for “the movement” — against rightwing vigilantes or whoever threatened the people’s struggle. The letter was signed VAVA (Violence Against Violence Associates).
Posted in Black History, Black Panthers, cointelpro, communism, George Jackson, Marxist theory, mass line, Mike Ely, theory | 20 Comments »
Video: Dionne Farris “Blackbird”
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 23, 2009
This is not an official video for the song, but Dionne Farris’s rendition is moving and deserves to be heard.
Posted in >> analysis of news, video | Leave a Comment »
Revolutionary Women of the Young Lords Party
Posted by onehundredflowers on August 23, 2009
This was originally posted on colorlines.com.
The Mujeres of the Young Lords
By Erica González
On Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009, the Young Lords Party will have its 40th reunion at the First Spanish Methodist Church in New York City. This article first appeared in Spanish in El Diaro/La Prensa.
Connie Cruz had been told what to do all her life-by her parents, then her husband. That changed in December of 1969.
Then, a group of young Puerto Rican activists were appealing to a church in El Barrio (East Harlem) for space to house a breakfast program for the poor. The First Spanish Methodist Church had denied their request. Its minister saw the youths as leftist rabble-rousers.
But the group-the Young Lords Party-remained undeterred. They planned to put in another request during the church’s testimonials.
“My brother-in-law Mickey came to visit,” Cruz said. “He explained the reasons for them being there [at the church]-to ask for the community to give up space for a children’s breakfast program. I felt that was a very good cause to become involved in.”
But her willingness to act was not encouraged. “My brother-in-law at that time said this is for men, not for women,” she said. “That stirred something in me.”
Posted in >> analysis of news, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Libre, women, Young Lords Party | 7 Comments »
