Archive for July, 2012
Posted by Mike Ely on July 30, 2012
Farm workers in the U.S.: exploited, often illegal, and truly people with nothing to lose but their chains. What is their role within a revolutionary process? How do their potential actions and ideas differ from other sections of the working class? What is their relationship with those, from among the middle classes, who often break first into political life and often formulate the initial ideas of revolutionary movements?
“I think that you can’t have a radical movement of revolutionary change without a solid partisan base among broad strata among the oppressed. “Those with nothing to lose but their chains” are indispensable for a movement that “pushes all the way through” — both because of their social power and because of their inclination toward non-compromise and radicalism.
“This raises the relationship between
1) a particular class of people (“the working class” including very different diverse currents within that class)
2) a particular set of movements (a broadly popular revolutionary movement emerging with a self-consciously communist movement within it), and
3) a particular possible event (the socialist revolution — inevitably existing in unique and unprecedented forms of presentation).
“I am arguing for not mechanically or sloppily confusing these three things.”
* * * * * * * * *
We have had a discussion which (in part) explores whether it is possible to dismiss successful artists in the superstructure precisely because they are successful there (and therefore presumably corrupted, wealthy, or members of an alien class). Or because they express views that we disagree with.
Nat Winn calls recognizing that there is radical and revolutionary art (and artists) contending with the overall bourgeois hegemony in the society’s cultural superstructure. And he calls for an approach of “unity and struggle” with the artists engaged in that work.
The accompanying discussion inevitably has touched on matters of class and politics that are highly controversial among revolutionaries today. Here are some quick notes that I wrote in that thread — and which deal with how we view class and identity (not mainly how we view art).
by Mike Ely
One thing I would like to see is more precision in the distinction between communist, socialist and working class. I have written about this before, but previously in connection with peasant countries.
In some discussions communist, socialist and working class seem to be treated as virtually the same thing.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, Maoism, Marxist theory, Mike Ely, working class | 53 Comments »
Posted by Mike Ely on July 27, 2012
This piece also appears on Counterpunch.org Gary previous writings on Kasama are here.
“An Officer Involved Shooting”
The Real Crime in Anaheim
by GARY LEUPP
“He was a documented gang member,” say the Anaheim police of Manuel Diaz, a 25 year old unarmed man they shot dead around 4:00 pm Sunday.
They shot him in the buttocks as he ran, and as he stooped to his knees in someone’s yard they followed up by a bullet to the back of his head. Then they handcuffed their immobile quarry with a bloody face and a hole in his skull (as described by a 17 year old neighborhood resident), and searched his pockets before sending him to the hospital to die within three hours.
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Posted in Gary Leupp, police | 1 Comment »
Posted by Mike E on July 26, 2012
Details are slim. We will share more as we know it. This early report comes from Portland Mercury.
FBI Raids Homes Across Northwest
Looks Like They Might Be Targeting Anarchists
FBI agents and local police who are part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force raided multiple houses in Portland, Olympia, and Seattle this morning—but it’s still unclear what the authorities were looking for, exactly.
No arrests were made in the raids and the warrants for the searches are sealed, which means they’re not public record. The most the FBI will say is the raids are part of an “ongoing violent crime investigation.” They issued grand jury subpoenas to individuals in all three cities.
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Posted in >> analysis of news | 3 Comments »
Posted by Mike Ely on July 26, 2012
The following piece appeared on ThinkProgress (July 3, 2012). It was shared by Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle.
By Aviva Shen
The New York Police Department has put out a “police advisory” flyer warning cops and residents to look out for two “professional agitators,” a Harlem couple who film officers stopping and frisking young New Yorkers of color.
DNAinfo reports that Matthew Swaye, 35, and his partner Christina Gonzalez, 25, came across the poster, complete with mugshots and the official seal of the NYPD’s intelligence division, taped to a podium in the 30th precinct’s public hearing room while attending a precinct council meeting. The flyer listed the home address of the couple and warned:
“Be aware that the subjects are known professional agitators that live at [home address]. Above subjects mo is that they video tape officers performing routine stops and post on youtube. Subjects purpose is to portray officers in a negative way and too deter officers from conducting there responsibilities. Above subjects also deter officers from being safe and tactical by causing unnecessary distractions. Do not feed into subjects propaganda.”
Swaye and Gonzalez have been arrested several times in the past year for civil disobedience. Swaye was detained at a stop-and-frisk protest in Harlem, along with a a group of advocates including Cornel West. Gonzalez was arrested at a Father’s Day stop-and-frisk march and, on a separate occasion, spent a few days at Rikers on a contempt charge after refusing to apologize for calling conservative Brooklyn Judge John H. Wilson a “white racist pig.”
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Posted in >> analysis of news, police, repression | 3 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on July 25, 2012
This essay appeared in Jacobin magazine.
‘The Dark Knight is no capitalist…
… he’s something much worse.
by Gavin Mueller
By now, you already know: the new Batman movie is fascist propaganda, a clear swipe against the Occupy movement, and the occasion for the worst rampage in U.S. history, by a guy referring to himself as the Joker. Historic stuff is happening, so much so that Hollywood opted not to report its weekend numbers out of sensitivity (and, maybe, because Batman 7: Dark Knight 2 isn’t going to beat The Avengers).
But Batman a fascist? Come on, this isn’t news. This is American entertainment!
Folks have been doing the superheroes-are-fascist routine for over 50 years now, so there’s very little novel in dropping the f-bomb on Batman now. Which isn’t to say the critics are wrong: after all, the last Dark Knight movie was totally reactionary, though I don’t seem to remember quite so many complaints about it.
There’s that whole rich guy handing out helpings of extrajudicial brutality thing, which is the entire Batman schtick. Then there’s the Brothers Nolan heaping some extra fascist ideology on top, wrapping up The Dark Knight with authority figures effacing the crimes of the elite in a deliberate effort to craft symbols that will get the public to support their War on Crime.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, film, film review | 16 Comments »
Posted by Mike Ely on July 25, 2012
Great efforts were made, during the Chinese revolution and by Mao personally, to bring political issues out into the open — to void shielding veterans and leading cadre from public criticism, and to have a frank lively atmosphere of speaking truth to each other (including about differences and errors).
We are posting it here both because it has great value for revolutionaries, and also because we have had a discussion of “what are the different meanings of the word liberalism?” in an accompanying thread.
This 1937 essay by Mao is available from the Marxist Internet Archives, along with Mao’s other works. Kasama’s earlier discussions around Mao are available here.
This essay digs into the distinctively Maoist meaning of the word “liberalism” — and what communist practice should be around the conflict over ideas, actions and policies.
Combat Liberalism
by Mao Zedong
We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon.
But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations.
Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one’s suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one’s own inclination. This is a second type.
To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
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Posted in Mao Zedong, Maoism, methodology | 18 Comments »
Posted by Mike Ely on July 25, 2012
(click for larger image) The extent of Greenland’s ice sheet surface, in white, on July 8, left, and July 12, right, based on measurements from three satellites, which pass over at different times and whose data are combined and analyzed. The deepest pink areas reflect maximal certainty that the ice has melted.
This has been a summer of rare heat — including (obviously) in the U.S. The following report appeared in the New York Times (July 24, 2012) and describes a troubling development in Greenland, the giant frozen island in between Canada and Europe.
Within four days, the virtually entire surface of Greenland’s famous ice sheet has turned to slush.
Just to be clear, this is not the disappearance of the whole thick sice sheet itself, but the unusually widespread “melt” of its surface.
Rare Burst of Melting Seen in Greenland’s Ice Sheet
By KELLY SLIVKA
In a scant four days this month, the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet melted to an extent not witnessed in 30 years of satellite observations, NASA reported on Tuesday.
On average, about half of the surface of the ice sheet melts during the summer. But from July 8 to July 12, the ice melt expanded from 40 percent of the ice sheet to 97 percent, according to scientists who analyzed the data from satellites deployed by NASA and India’s space research institute.
“I started looking at the satellite imagery and saw something that was really unprecedented” since the advent of satellite imaging of the earth’s frozen surface, or cryosphere, said Thomas L. Mote, a climate scientist at the University of Georgia who for 20 years has been studying ice changes on Greenland detected by satellite.
While scientists described it as an “extreme event” not previously recorded from space, they hastened to add that it was normal in a broader historical context.
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Posted in global warming | 1 Comment »
Posted by It's Up to Us to End Mass Incarceration on July 25, 2012
We are posting two essays at the same time.
The first, by Curtis Cole, is entitled False Progress: Queer Equality and the Media .
The second, is an answer to Curtis by Nat Winn, and argues that revolutionaries must not be mechanical in evaluating artists and the cultural superstructure — and that we should develop a long term policy of “unity and struggle” with radical artists operating in major arenas of art, media, film and music.”
Curtis is a reader of the Kasama site and has submitted this article. Curtis describes himself this way: “
My name is Curtis Cole and though I haven’t yet spent decades in activism I know that the only way forward to a better future lie within the creation of queer friendly socialism. This society cannot be built without help from all corners of life; with this in mind I wrote the following article in an attempt to further the notion that without a revolution led by young queer workers against the liberal media machine progress will never blossom.”
False Progress: Queer Equality and the Media
by Curtis Cole
“Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.”
–Mao Tse-Tung
The liberal establishment is, in regards to Queers, a contradiction. On one hand they promote social awareness of Queer causes while at the same time ‘jabbing’ Queer culture for laughs. Such actions are commonplace in liberal circles; they profess support while they jeer. The other hand stresses that even though the attention is bought at the price of debasement, it is nonetheless attention. Attention which never would have been garnered if not for the likes of Seth Macfarlane, Matt Stone and Tray Parker, Matt Groening, and Keith Olbermann. In light of these titans the big questions remain: are liberal “frenemies” proactive segments to the queer revolution or are they detriments? And what about the even bigger question- what effect does the propagation of such hypocrisy have on impressionable youth?
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Posted in >> Art and Culture, >> GLBT, cartoons, civil rights, comedy, gay, lesbian, Queer History | Tagged: Popular Culture, Queer Liberation | 17 Comments »
Posted by It's Up to Us to End Mass Incarceration on July 25, 2012
Gay activist Harvey Milk played by Sean Penn in “Milk.” The film was the work of many artists includings director Gus Van Sant, writer written Dustin Lance Black and actors such as Penn, Emile Hirsch and Josh Brolin.
“First, let’s appreciate the radical art that is made (not just in subculture margins, but sometimes in a ways that reach millions).
“Second, let’s appreciate the role that radical artists currently play (Hunger Games was recently playing in theatres!)
“Third, let’s understand that many radical people will wobble back and forth between revolutionary politics and left oppositional politics for a long time and this will be resolved in real life, not by arguments in the main.
“Fourth, let’s develop a long term, strategic relationship of “unity and struggle” – with a genuine appreciation of people trying to do radical things under difficult constraints, and also under the pull of notoriety, great wealth, active courting by slick imperialists like Bill Clinton, etc.
“Finally—We need to have a communist pole (that is clear and very bold about road and direction and goals and about supporting revolutionary struggles of the people internationally), that is able to conduct real politics (including extolling and critiquing in the realm of art), that appreciates the different and diverse roles that people can play (and do play).”
We are posting two essays at the same time.
The first, by Curtis Cole, is entitled False Progress: Queer Equality and the Media .
This essay, the second one, is an answer to Curtis by Nat Winn. It argues that revolutionaries must not be mechanical in evaluating artists and the cultural superstructure — and that we should develop a long term policy of “unity and struggle” with radical artists operating in major arenas of art, media, film and music.”
Progressive artists and the revolutionary movement:
A relationship of unity and struggle
by Nat Winn
Thank you for writing this Curtis. We certainly need more writing and critical thinking and communist discussion on popular culture and revolution. In that spirit I would like to share some ideas and concerns I had when reading this article.
There is a very simple binary that runs through this article of progressive vs. “false” progressive or revolutionary vs. reactionary.
In many circles of the left there is kneejerk opposition to “Hollywood” or “bourgeois artists”. There is an assumption that the cultural superstructure is uniformly reactionary and that it all somehow serves the ruling classes and this system.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> Art and Culture, >> communist politics, Nat Winn | Tagged: Art, communism, Culture | 17 Comments »
Posted by Mike Ely on July 24, 2012
Maoist guerrilla squad in Chhattisgarh, India
This article is written by Kamal K.M, a Mumbai-based film maker who was a member of the fact-finding team that visited the villages where the massacre took place. It first appeared on countercurrents.org and sanhati.com. We are publishing excerpts.
Intro
by A World to Win News Service
On 28 June, 23 adivasis (tribal people) were killed in the state of Chhattisgarh, where the Indian government is carrying out what it calls Operation Green Hunt (OGH), a campaign launched in September 2009 to hunt down, torture and murder members and leaders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and their supporters.
The Indian government claims that they have only killed Maoists while also stating that anyone helping a Maoist will be treated as a Maoist and killed, created a huge outcry of protest.
According to journalists from the BBC and The Hindu and many witnesses, the villagers were attending a meeting to discuss an upcoming seed festival held every year just before the onset of the monsoon. This meeting is part of a collective decision-making process on the utilisation and distribution of land among the peasants.
In the late evening they were surrounded by security forces who opened fire on the attendees, many of whom had come from nearby villages. Victims of this attack were also hacked with sharp objects. Young girls were chased into the fields and beaten, their clothes torn off and threatened with rape.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, AWTW, CPI(Maoist), India | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mike E on July 24, 2012
Click for larger picture
Or put another way: Black people often make the observation that crazy mass murderers are almost always white (and often from that nutbag righting section of uber-frustrated “angry white men”).
But that observation (borne out by statistics) rarely makes it into the exhaustive round-the-clock massacre coverage. Why is that?
The following appeared on the “We are Respectable Negroes” blog.
What James Holmes and the Colorado Movie Massacre Tell Us About White (Male) Privilege
The Colorado “Batman Movie” Shooting Massacre will generate many narratives among the public and media. This tragedy will be one more opportunity to reflect on the United States’ gun laws. The relationship between popular culture and violence will be a hot topic as well. Others will focus on questions surrounding access to mental healthcare, and what if anything could have been done to prevent James Holmes from committing his murder rampage during the debut of The Dark Knight Rises.
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Posted in >> analysis of news | 26 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on July 24, 2012
What follows are excerpts of Stephanie McMillan’s interview of Leña Verde, an activist, born and raised, in struggle against the U.S. Navy’s theft and destruction of his island, Vieques. The piece was just published by One Struggle in South Florida.
For more than 60 years, the U.S. Navy pounded the island of Vieques, of the main island of Puerto Rico, with live explosives, including napalm, depleted-uranium projectiles, and experimental weapons systems.
In the 1940s, with the permission of the Puerto Rican government, the Navy expropriated 26,000 of Vieques’ 33,000 acres to build a testing and practice ground for US military invasions. (See chart on pg. X). Viequenses were forced off their land and into the center of the island. The eastern portion of the island became a bombing range; the western side stored ammunition.
With their environment, economy, and culture being blasted away, Viequenses waged battle for over half a century for expulsion of the Navy. In 1999, after years of local conflict and protest, the Viequenses’ struggle sparked international solidarity when an F-18 fighter jet accidentally dropped two, 500-pound live bombs on an observation post, killing David Sanes Rodríguez, a civilian Viequense security guard working for the Navy.
Supporters from around the globe participated in a four year civil disobedience campaign, setting up protester camps across the island and using human barricades to prevent bombings.
Efforts resulted in thousands of arrests, and finally, the expulsion of the U.S. Navy from Vieques.
* * * * * * * *
Interview with Leña Verde
LV: Before I was born, the Navy offered the people of the island a job somewhere else… They cut out all the sugar cane. So eventually everybody have to leave the island ‘cause there is no more work… The Navy put the civilians right in the center of the island. It was 5 miles by 5 miles. They took 3/4 part of the island to use for ammunition supplies, the other part for war games. So they could bring that same line to other countries, and they could do the war games.
Everybody left the island. Only the oldest people were left behind. My grandfather… he told me when the navy came to their land…they gave them 24 hours. They would come with bulldozers and knock down their little wooden house. And they would come out with a big truck and take them to middle of the island, and say, “This is a piece of land for you. Do whatever you want there.”
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Posted in >> analysis of news, One Struggle collective, Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Libre, Stephanie McMillan | 1 Comment »
Posted by Mike E on July 23, 2012
“We can’t train communists in an invented greenhouse. You can declare (in a small bubble) that certain ideas are wrong, and don’t deserve discussion. But the moment communists leave that bubble they need to be prepared to confront and answer those ideas (which are quite influential broadly in society).
“How do you prepare radicals to argue for our ideas? By declaring them obviously true? By refusing to debate opposing ideas? No.
“We also can’t build alliances from behind high self-righteous walls.
“The only way to train and prepare people to (themselves) present our arguments, and understand the views of others, is to go through these things in depth — and to draw many people into such debates.”
by Mike Ely
In some ways, this is an odd discussion, but a necessary one.
Mark (who disagrees with me on many points) wrote:
“Mike’s contribution on the need for debate and discussion in the communist movement is one of the best things to come out of this thread. It’s actually this problem which has been holding back the development of a mass movement, the development of thinking cadre who are able to operate outside of the ‘communist bubble’ so to speak, and can actually engage with these debates amongst the masses, where these ideas are held by millions of people.
“The idea that we can build a mass communist movement without debate all these issues is not a perspective which is actually engaged with reality. A movement of millions will be a hive of debate and activity, or it will not be a real movement. We need to develop forms of organisation which can contain debate and differences without the sectarian fracturing which has left our movement small and divided, and develop ways of debate whereby people seek to use debate to come to the truth of the matter, not simply as a way to impose their view, and cadre capable of carrying out these debates amongst themselves and in the wider movement. If we can’t do that then there will be no progress.
Encouraged by this comment, let me share the reason Kasama posts essays we don’t agree with, and that we then together debate those views.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, Marxist theory, mass line, Mike Ely | 5 Comments »
Posted by eric ribellarsi on July 23, 2012
On July 27-29, the Brecht Forum in NYC will be hosting a series of talks titled
“All that is solid melts into air: the red power mixtape.
Eric Ribellarsi, national organizer of Kasama’s project will be speaking on Saturday July 28 at 4 pm.
Eric will speak on his recent experiences in Greece as a revolutionary journalist and what the prospects are for revolution in the midst of inhuman austerity and courageous resistance.
* * * * * * * * *
The Brecht Forum’s annual Summer Intensive is designed as an introduction to the theoretical and practical traditions that trace their origins to the works of Karl Marx and Frederich Engels….
As the current crisis deepens and the state finds itself deploying more of the public wealth to save private capital, people are demanding answers that respect their intelligence and get to the root of the problem.
Through lectures, readings and lively discussion, in an adamantly open-minded environment, participants will be introduced to Karl Marx’ revolutionary critique of capitalism–not to find a ready-made blueprint for change, nor a dogma that excludes other traditions, but for tools of analysis that can help us to think more strategically and act more effectively.
Click for full schedule
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Posted in >> analysis of news | Leave a Comment »
Posted by eric ribellarsi on July 23, 2012
The following essay comes to Kasama from Viewpoint Magazine.
“While higher education has historically been understood, with some validity, as a marker and reproducer of middle class status, college is no longer a guaranteed ticket to a stable, decent paying job. Increasingly, it offers to the degree-holder little more than decades of indebtedness and precarious employment. Our generation of students is facing a process of proletarianization; and rather than clinging to a fantastical “middle class” status, definitively refuted by economic transformations, we should act in solidarity with, and with an eye towards, the working class from which many of us hail and into which we’re headed. As we plan another round of protest, let’s concern ourselves with the perception of the broader class, those facing another devastating round of austerity, rather than with the sanctimonious vision of those who fear and resent the pleasures and possibilities of working class struggle and mutual aid – pleasures that many of us experienced last fall at the Occupy Oakland encampment, and during strikes on our campuses.
While things have been slow this summer, we’re still here; and if the recent past is any indication, another upsurge is likely imminent.”
by Amanda Armstrong
We’re passing through a low phase in Northern California – a lull that partially parallels those facing organizers from Madison to New York. The rebellious energies so evident recently seem scattered these days, dormant. The universities are quiet. And the forces that had gathered in city parks and squares, most massively at Oakland’s Oscar Grant Plaza, are largely absent. The encampments are broken up, the assemblies dissolved.
It’s hard to know whether this is simply a period of incubation, from which another, similar wave of class struggle will soon emerge, or if this moment of relative inactivity is allowing for the recomposition of our forces, our alliances, the ways we take action together. If the terrain of struggle we now encounter has been remade by the past year of action – by our effective acts of opposition, by new forms of state repression and co-optation, and by our own missteps – how can we most effectively intervene in the shifting political force fields we’re coming to inhabit? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in >> analysis of news | Leave a Comment »
Posted by onehundredflowers on July 23, 2012
This comes from Orchestrated Pulse.
Everyone in the community lived that day, if only for a few moments, as if they themselves had the power to stop the police from terrorizing their neighborhood. The key for liberation isn’t protest, but it’s acting as if we already live in the world we want to see. Kids were with their parents, neighbors joined neighbors, and the whole community found themselves in the street together. “If you want real insight into love, participate in a riot”, and love took the streets Saturday afternoon in Anaheim. Love pushed a dumpster and trash can into the street and set them on fire. Love threw rocks and bottles at the police to force them from the neighborhood they had just recklessly shot up. Love is a riot.
The Anaheim Anti-Police Riot, A Love Story
Posted by @RobtheIdealist on Jul – 22 – 2012
Do we need to start a riot? Ordinarily we focus on the police after they kill someone, but I’m not going to do that. Fuck them. The central figures in this story are the friends, neighbors, and community members that came together and stood up against the latest act of murderous police aggression. This story is about community, specifically a neighborhood filled with people of color (Shout out to the Latino homies). They watched the police kill a man, a member of the community, and their anger swelled as he lay motionless in a grass-covered yard.
Crystal Ventura, a 17-year-old who lives in the neighborhood, said she saw the shooting from about 20 feet away. She said the man had his back to the officer. She said the man was shot in the buttocks area. The man then went down on his knees, and she said he was struck by another bullet in the head. Another officer handcuffed the man who by then was on the ground and not moving, Ventura added. ”They searched his pockets, and there was a hole in his head, and I saw blood on his face,” she said.
Soon anger turned to action. EVERYONE came outside, disturbing the illusion of peace for a little afternoon insurrection.
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Posted in >> analysis of news, anti-racist action, police, racism, repression | Tagged: Anaheim, California | 2 Comments »
Posted by Mike Ely on July 22, 2012
Kasama received this from the One Struggle collective in South Florida. Thanks.
Three days of activities to mark the first U.S. invasion of Haiti in 1915
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Posted in >> analysis of news, >> Art and Culture, One Struggle collective | 2 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on July 22, 2012
Caption by RI: “The Panthers led some of the most exemplary serve-the-people programs done by revolutionary communists in North America in the last half century. Their work amongst the masses were built into schools of communism for the masses. But the lack of distinction between the tasks of Party organization and the mass organization also left their leadership exposed to infiltration, assassination, and disruption, bringing the organization down as quickly as it went up. How we resolve the contradiction between minimizing exposure to the enemy and maximizing exposure amongst the people?”
The following essay was written for the communist group Revolutionary Initiative / Initiative Révolutionnaire (Canada). Kasama re-publishes it here to contribute to critical discussion over issues this essay addresses.
There have been earlier discussions here on Kasama regarding the mass line. Some previous Kasama discussions on “who are the advanced” can be found here.
by Amil K.
Introduction
The question of what are the tasks of proletarian revolutionaries amongst the masses remains a major point of difference1 between and an obstacle to the unification of the two revolutionary communist organizations in Canada, the Revolutionary Communist Party and our own organization, Revolutionary Initiative. This article is intended to explain the answer to this question not only to advance the unity-struggle-transformation process between Canada’s two revolutionary communist organizations, but also as a general discussion that all revolutionaries should be having.
How RI understands mass work of proletarian revolutionaries can be broken down into three questions:
First, what is the correct form of revolutionary leadership by proletarian revolutionaries among the masses? Based on the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we uphold the mass line method of leadership; but we do not take it for granted that upholding the mass line theory leads to its implementation in practice. A related question to the mass line in particular and mass work in general is who we understand the advanced masses to be – a question that, as is argued below, follows from our understanding of the contradictions of Canadian society. We cannot define our mass work unless we know what sections of the masses we prioritize in our work.
Based on the answer we give to these questions, we then proceed to answer a second major question: How should proletarian revolutionaries relate to the masses in the current phase of revolutionary struggle, which is a phase of regroupement of proletarian revolutionaries in Canada? Or in other words, what should be the relationship between the Party and the masses broadly?
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Posted in >> analysis of news, mass line, Revolutionary Initiative (Canada) | 6 Comments »
Posted by Mike Ely on July 22, 2012
From the Revolutionary Initiative’s discussion of communist study. Kasama has its own cluster page.
Posted in >> analysis of news, Kasama, Marxist theory | 3 Comments »
Posted by Mike E on July 22, 2012
by J. Ramsey
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.”
-Albert Einstein
Dressed up in camouflage
Like soldiers
We used to hunt bumblebees in the back yard.
We would chase the bees away (or try to),
From the cement basement foot of the little red house
where my parents tried to grow strawberries,
all the way across the clover patch that lined the driveway.
I guess it was only a few adult steps, really.
But to us it seemed like a wide stretch of terrain:
A battlefield occupied by the enemy.
My best-friend Andrew and I—we shared the very same birthday, us too—
We’d gather up rocks and sticks that felt like logs
—like battering rams in our child hands–
And we’d gather our giddy kid courage, tucked around the corner:
a commando team on a mission:
to kill the bees.
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Posted in >> analysis of news | 2 Comments »
Kasama 