(Bill Fletcher will be speaking in Salem this Sunday!)
Seemingly out of nowhere the FBI announced that fugitive Black activist Assata Shakur was now declared a “terrorist” on their Most Wanted list. In addition, a bounty for her capture was raised from $1 million to $2 million. There are several questions that immediately arise but the most important is perhaps this: why now?
Assata Shakur, known earlier as Joanne Chesimard, was a leading member of the Black Panther Party.
Following the split in the Panthers in 1971 she became involved with the Black Liberation Army, an organization that saw itself as the military wing of the Black Freedom Movement. In 1973 Assata Shakur was in a car that was stopped by the police on the New Jersey Turnpike. A shootout took place during which she was wounded, a comrade of hers was killed along with a police officer. After several very controversial trials covering various allegations against her, Assata was ultimately convicted of murder and assault in connection with the Turnpike shootout, despite evidence of her innocence. In 1979 she escaped prison and fled to Cuba where she was granted political asylum. She has lived there ever since.
Assata Shakur has lived in relative silence, only periodically offering interviews. The Black Liberation Army was crushed, and in either case never engaged in military attacks on civilians. The Cuban government saw in Assata’s case that of an individual who was politically persecuted by the United States government and, therefore, concluded that she had a legitimate right to remain in Cuba and not be forced to return to prison.
Terrorism?
Independent of any organization in the USA and living in a country that has been victimized by terrorist acts by US-supported Cuban exile groups, Assata Shakur has been the ‘poster child’ for segments of the political Right in the USA, including but not limited to those in the Cuban exile community. Elements of the law enforcement community as well as those who wish to freeze any discussion of normalized relations between the USA and Cuba have periodically seized upon the image of Assata Shakur in order to suggest that not only is she a terrorist but that the Cuban government is aiding and abetting terrorism. This begs at least one question: has there ever been a connection between Assata Shakur and terrorism?
The simple answer is “no,” but that answer necessitates further explanation. Assata Shakur, like many other activists in the 1960s—including but not limited to African Americans—witnessed the active infiltration and repression of liberal, progressive and radical movements by the US government. Through programs such as the notorious COINTELPRO (the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program), an active effort was undertaken by various branches of the US government to disrupt and suppress a wide variety of social justice movements and organizations. This disruption and suppression included the use of murder, such as the infamous drugging and killing of Chicago Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by the Chicago Police.
It was in this environment of severe repression that certain elements within the Black Freedom Movement concluded that a military organization needed to be built to both defend against attacks from the government (and from non-governmental right-wing organizations) as well as prepare for what many people thought was a pending revolution. Assata Shakur was part of that section of the movement.
Assata Shakur has never denied having been a member of the Black Liberation Army. She has also never denied being a revolutionary. She has a very well developed critique of US capitalism, imperialism and racism. In no case has anything ever associated with terrorism been alleged against her. Just to be clear, the armed actions that were taken never conformed to any approximation of the notion of “terrorism,” i.e., the use of military/violent actions against civilians in order to advance a political agenda.
The label of “terrorist” in this case then has nothing do with actual terrorism. Assata never targeted civilians; her political beliefs and practice never suggested actions be taken against non-combatants. Yet the label of terrorist, particularly in the post-9/11 world is a very convenient means of stirring fear and irrationality among many people and, in effect, of getting a segment of the public to simply stop thinking. Label someone a “terrorist” and all sorts of actions can be justified, including targeted killings whether through drones or renegade bounty hunters.
Read more here.
May 18, 2013
May 17, 2013
REVOLUTION!: No Thanks, We Are Autonomists..
By ANDREW POLLACK
This is the first in a series of critical notes on
Marina Sitrin’s “Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina”
(Zed Books, 2012).
Marina Sitrin is one of the most prolific, visible,
and eloquent theorists of “horizontalism” and “autonomy” (hereafter referred to
jointly as horizontalist autonomy). Thanks to her years of activism and
journalism in Argentina and the U.S., and the writings and speeches based on
them, I believe she now surpasses John Holloway as the most prominent exponent of
the “don’t take power” school of thought.
So a critique of her works is not meant to single
her out as politically worse than any of the school’s other thinkers or
practitioners, just as the most (at least for now) important.
As I write this, teachers in Greece are preparing
for a strike tomorrow (Tuesday, May 14), likely to be followed by another
strike on the 17th, and the distinct possibility of solidarity strikes on both
days. The government has responded by threatening to impose—for the third time
this year—“mobilization” orders, in essence breaking the strike by enrolling
all teachers overnight into the military, AND thus making it “illegal” for them
to walk off their jobs.
What would the theory of horizontalist autonomy
advise the strikers to do in the face of the government’s threat? What would
these theories have to say about the hope of Greek workers in general to build
a different society, one in which their own ruling class, and their partners in
the “Troika,” can no longer exploit them—in which in fact there is no ruling
class?
In the introduction to the book, Sitrin says
(referring to movements she has studied in Argentina and elsewhere): “These
movements define themselves as autonomist precisely because they do not want to
take over the state, and see themselves in a position different and separate
from the state, therefore autonomous. They do not desire state power, as many
left-wing groups and political parties have in the past, but rather want to try
to create other forms of horizontal power with one another, in their
communities and workplaces. This concept of power and revolution is about a
total transformation of society, but one that takes place and continues to
expand from below. As the Zapatistas in Mexico say: ‘From below and to the left.’”
The movements in Argentina, she writes, “are
prefiguring the change that they desire.” They are “creating horizontal
relationships … with a focus on that relationship deepening and expanding. This
conceptualization of revolution as an everyday transformation, not a storming
of the Bastille, is an important distinction put forth at the outset of the
book.”
Now Greek workers—and those of many other countries
on the continent—have engaged in repeated general strikes in recent years, none
of which have yet substantially altered the balance of power, much less
overthrown the state. Millions of Europeans are wondering what changes in
strategy, tactics, and goals might reverse that situation.
Clearly, Sitrin would not recommend to them that
they try to overturn the states that have tried to crush or outlaw their
strikes, the states that have imposed the savage cuts demanded by the IMF and
the corporations. For her, Greek and other workers should “prefigure,” they
should “transform,” and not with a long-term vision, but simply on an
“everyday” basis.
But let’s leave aside even the question of trying
to dismantle such pernicious states. Sitrin’s advice is of even more immediate
danger: While acknowledging the repressive role of the state, and the concrete
consequences that role has for the very movements she defends, she has no
suggestion at all for how these movements might defend themselves. Or to be
more precise, her advice is to sidestep the state, to avoid confrontation with
it.
On page 12 she writes: “In the later sections of
this book I discuss what happens when the state becomes cognizant of a society
moving ahead without it. It is in these moments that those creating these vast
new landscapes face some of the most serious challenges. It is most often, in this
time of reaction to and from institutional power, that autonomous communities
are defeated. Inherent in the role of the state is its resistance to people
organizing outside of it, much in the same way as corporations resist parallel
economies; it is here that often these institutions apply direct repression and
cooptation, or a combination of the two.”
Her answer to this threat is simply to point with
satisfaction to the beginnings of signs that those movements that have been
repressed and/or coopted have begun rebuilding themselves. That’s it.
What’s worse, Sitrin takes this approach a step
further, and argues for a more general approach of non-confrontation. On page
13, in the section, “Challenging the contentious framework,” she criticizes
sociologists studying social movements who assume the latter are always “in a
contentious relationship to the state, or another form or institution with
formal ‘power over,’ whether demanding reforms from or desiring another state
or institution.”
This framework, she argues, “is not sufficient in
explaining these contemporary, autonomous social movements, because of these
movements’ choice not to focus on dominant institutional powers (such as the
state), but rather to develop alternative relationships and forms of power.
This reconceptualization of power is linked to the nonhierarchical and directly
democratic vision of their organizing.”
This should sound familiar to those who remember
the heated debate within the Occupy movement around whether to place demands on
the 1% or its state, with the overwhelming majority of those most frequently
active—usually heavily influenced by anarchism—arguing against placing demands
for just the reasons Sitrin spells out.
Elsewhere in the book Sitrin argues for “everyday
revolutions” not as preparatory steps, as building blocks, to a revolution to
change society as a whole, but rather as superior substitutes for such a
revolution. She explicitly counterposes storming the Bastille, or soviets
taking power through an insurrection, to building co-ops and self-managed
factories and participatory neighborhood health or education groups, all busily
occupying (pun intended) themselves with their little everyday revolutions, and
spreading their example bit by bit—and not, god forbid, preparing themselves
for what Sitrin herself sees as an inevitable attack by the state!
For revolutionaries, those struggles—like the ones
engaged in by the heroic teachers of Greece—are means of accumulating the
self-confidence needed for workers to take power as a class through their
democratic organs of struggle. But for Sitrin, they must limit their scope and
ambitions (in much the same way as the liberal wing of Solidarnosc demanded a
“self-limiting” revolution—one that ended up handing power back to Capital
against the wishes of genuine Polish revolutionaries).
In future posts I’ll look at some more examples of
problems with horizontalist autonomy as revealed in this book. Let me just
close here by noting in passing that given all the above, it’s not
surprising—although extremely disquieting—to read on pages 99-100 a passage
from Grace Lee Boggs explicitly counterposing Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcolm
X, insisting that the (supposed) absolute nonviolence of the former should have
been adopted by the Black movement of the 1960s, and even blaming its downfall
at least partly on their failure to have done so.
Photo: Occupy Wall Street. By Tony Savino /
Socialist Action
May 16, 2013
Jeremy Brecher: Why Labor Should Back Gina McCarthy for EPA Administrator
American workers need jobs. They also need protection from chemicals and pollutants that threaten their lives, health, environment, climate, and future. Gina McCarthy, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, has a unique track record in protecting the environment in ways that also protect and expand jobs.
For the past four years as head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, Gina McCarthy has exemplified protection of the environment based on US laws and scientific facts combined with common sense strategies to ensure that such regulation promotes rather than hurts jobs. In testimony at a recent Senate confirmation hearing, for example, she called fighting climate change “one of the greatest challenges of our generation and our great obligation to future generations.” But she pointed out that, along with public health benefits, those efforts can “create markets for emerging and new technologies and new jobs.”
In an interview with the Labor Network for Sustainability Gina McCarthy elaborated:
Was the result good for workers? Here’s what the UAW’s legislative director testified to Congress: “Based on our experience, the regulation of mobile sources has been a “win-win” that results in greater oil independence for our nation; a cleaner, healthier environment for ourselves and our children; and an increased number of jobs in the auto sector.”
This job creation resulted from “the new technology required to meet tailpipe emissions standards” which “represents additional content on each vehicle.” That requires “more engineers, more managers, and more construction and production workers.”
Indeed, “The continuing recovery of the automobile industry in the United States has as its foundation the regulatory certainty of these tailpipe emission standards, which is driving innovation in every company and in every vehicle segment.”
Read more here.
For the past four years as head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, Gina McCarthy has exemplified protection of the environment based on US laws and scientific facts combined with common sense strategies to ensure that such regulation promotes rather than hurts jobs. In testimony at a recent Senate confirmation hearing, for example, she called fighting climate change “one of the greatest challenges of our generation and our great obligation to future generations.” But she pointed out that, along with public health benefits, those efforts can “create markets for emerging and new technologies and new jobs.”
In an interview with the Labor Network for Sustainability Gina McCarthy elaborated:
We learned a long time ago that you don’t need to pit the economy against public health. Why would we want to? How is that to anybody’s advantage? I think labor can speak to that better than anybody can. And we look forward to them doing that, and continuing to work with us, so we get the protections we need and the American people want — but we do it in a way that is as sensitive as possible, as flexible as possible, in a way that doesn’t just protect jobs but that grows them today and tomorrow.Speaking of EPA regulations of toxic pollutants from utilities under the Clean Air Act, McCarthy said:
Our rules will generate jobs tomorrow, not a decade from now, but will put steelworkers back to work, will put electrical workers back to work, because they will require control technologies while we look at how to reduce carbon emissions through greater efficiencies. We’re not about jobs, we’re about public health, but we sure like it when it creates jobs and it creates them today when we actually need them.Gina McCarthy’s track record reveals her commitment in deeds as well as words. For example, as EPA’s official in charge of implementing the Clean Air Act, Gina McCarthy helped lead the process to establish mileage and tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks. For years, such regulations were stymied by lawsuits, political warfare, and public campaigns claiming they would hurt the automobile industry and destroy jobs. But Gina McCarthy helped bring together the auto industry, the United Auto Workers, and other stakeholders to work out a common approach.
Was the result good for workers? Here’s what the UAW’s legislative director testified to Congress: “Based on our experience, the regulation of mobile sources has been a “win-win” that results in greater oil independence for our nation; a cleaner, healthier environment for ourselves and our children; and an increased number of jobs in the auto sector.”
This job creation resulted from “the new technology required to meet tailpipe emissions standards” which “represents additional content on each vehicle.” That requires “more engineers, more managers, and more construction and production workers.”
Indeed, “The continuing recovery of the automobile industry in the United States has as its foundation the regulatory certainty of these tailpipe emission standards, which is driving innovation in every company and in every vehicle segment.”
Read more here.
Hungarian Communists Respond To Attacks
To the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the world
Comrades,
The Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party has held its 25th Extraordinary Congress 11 May 2013 in Budapest.
We have changed the name of the party. Our party will be called in the future Hungarian Workers Party.
The change of the name of the party does not mean any political or ideological change. We want to continue our fight against capitalism openly, rather than be forced into illegality. That’s why the congress has modified the party's name in order to register as the Hungarian Workers Party.
Although our name will change, our principles will not. We remain a Marxist-Leninist, Communist Party fighting against capitalism.
Comrades,
We have been forced to have this congress because the Hungarian government launched a new and very serious attack on the party. On November 19 last year, the parliament in Budapest adopted a new statute banning the public use of names connected with the "authoritarian regimes of the 20th century." (See the attachment)
The law came into force on January 1 this year. According to the Hungarian Constitution and current government policy, "authoritarian regimes" mean the fascist dictatorship headed by Ferenc Szalasi, which existed from October 1944 until April 1945, and all the governments of socialist construction between 1948 and 1990. Not, you'll note, the Miklos Horthy dictatorship of 1919 to 1944.
Accordingly, no political party, company, organ of the mass media, street, square or public place can include the "name of persons who played a leading role in founding, developing or maintaining the authoritarian political regimes of the 20th century, or words and expressions or names of organisations which can be directly related to the authoritarian political regimes of the 20th century."
This means that 43 Lenin streets, 36 Karl Marx streets and six Red Star streets have been renamed. So, too, will 44 Liberation streets - named originally to celebrate the liberation of Hungary from Hitlerite fascism - and the 53 Endre Sagvari streets named in honour of Hungary's most famous anti-fascist martyr, killed in 1944 by the fascist police. His name shall not be spoken. All the People's Army, People's Front and People's Republic streets have to go. Budapest's well-known Moscow Square has recently been renamed.
In effect, the public use of such words and categories as "communist," "socialist," "liberation" and many others have been made illegal.
Why do the pro-capitalist forces attack our party? It is because Hungary is in crisis. Almost 500,000 people are officially registered as unemployed - just over 11 per cent of the workforce. About the same number of young people are working in other EU countries, notably Britain, Austria and Germany, because they could not find a job at home. Even so, the rate of youth unemployment (under the age of 25) in Hungary stands at more than 28 per cent.
The Fidesz (Civic Union) government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban is well aware of these facts, while proclaiming the "Hungarian miracle." The reality is that many ordinary people are worse off than they have ever been.
The pro-capitalist forces in Hungary know very well that only our party proposes a real alternative to mass unemployment, poverty and the colonial occupation of Hungary by multinational companies.
More and more people are waking up and realising that it is not only capitalist governments, which are to blame for their plight. It's the capitalist system in general that isn't working - at least for them. They also appreciate that Hungary's communists are on the side of the workers. Our party has accumulated considerable moral capital in our society.
Dear Comrades,
Thank you for your solidarity in our fight. Please inform your members about the Hungarian situation and tell them that you can rely upon the Hungarian communists in the future, too.
Comradely yours
Gyula Thürmer
President
Hungarian Communist Workers Party
Comrades,
The Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party has held its 25th Extraordinary Congress 11 May 2013 in Budapest.
We have changed the name of the party. Our party will be called in the future Hungarian Workers Party.
The change of the name of the party does not mean any political or ideological change. We want to continue our fight against capitalism openly, rather than be forced into illegality. That’s why the congress has modified the party's name in order to register as the Hungarian Workers Party.
Although our name will change, our principles will not. We remain a Marxist-Leninist, Communist Party fighting against capitalism.
Comrades,
We have been forced to have this congress because the Hungarian government launched a new and very serious attack on the party. On November 19 last year, the parliament in Budapest adopted a new statute banning the public use of names connected with the "authoritarian regimes of the 20th century." (See the attachment)
The law came into force on January 1 this year. According to the Hungarian Constitution and current government policy, "authoritarian regimes" mean the fascist dictatorship headed by Ferenc Szalasi, which existed from October 1944 until April 1945, and all the governments of socialist construction between 1948 and 1990. Not, you'll note, the Miklos Horthy dictatorship of 1919 to 1944.
Accordingly, no political party, company, organ of the mass media, street, square or public place can include the "name of persons who played a leading role in founding, developing or maintaining the authoritarian political regimes of the 20th century, or words and expressions or names of organisations which can be directly related to the authoritarian political regimes of the 20th century."
This means that 43 Lenin streets, 36 Karl Marx streets and six Red Star streets have been renamed. So, too, will 44 Liberation streets - named originally to celebrate the liberation of Hungary from Hitlerite fascism - and the 53 Endre Sagvari streets named in honour of Hungary's most famous anti-fascist martyr, killed in 1944 by the fascist police. His name shall not be spoken. All the People's Army, People's Front and People's Republic streets have to go. Budapest's well-known Moscow Square has recently been renamed.
In effect, the public use of such words and categories as "communist," "socialist," "liberation" and many others have been made illegal.
Why do the pro-capitalist forces attack our party? It is because Hungary is in crisis. Almost 500,000 people are officially registered as unemployed - just over 11 per cent of the workforce. About the same number of young people are working in other EU countries, notably Britain, Austria and Germany, because they could not find a job at home. Even so, the rate of youth unemployment (under the age of 25) in Hungary stands at more than 28 per cent.
The Fidesz (Civic Union) government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban is well aware of these facts, while proclaiming the "Hungarian miracle." The reality is that many ordinary people are worse off than they have ever been.
The pro-capitalist forces in Hungary know very well that only our party proposes a real alternative to mass unemployment, poverty and the colonial occupation of Hungary by multinational companies.
More and more people are waking up and realising that it is not only capitalist governments, which are to blame for their plight. It's the capitalist system in general that isn't working - at least for them. They also appreciate that Hungary's communists are on the side of the workers. Our party has accumulated considerable moral capital in our society.
Dear Comrades,
Thank you for your solidarity in our fight. Please inform your members about the Hungarian situation and tell them that you can rely upon the Hungarian communists in the future, too.
Comradely yours
Gyula Thürmer
President
Hungarian Communist Workers Party
Some Upcoming Radical Events In Portland
Sat, May 18thNW Regional Leonard Peltier & Mother Earth March
12:00 pm @ Portland Ave. Park, Tacoma, WA (Portland Ave & E Fairbanks)
March and rally in Tacoma in support of Leonard Peltier and indigenous resistance to displacement and destruction.
Mon, May 20th
Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero: Conversion and Martyrdom
7pm @ Red and Black Cafe (400 SE 12 Ave)This live bilingual play chronicles the life and death of Monsignor Romero, the iconic priest assassinated for being outspoken against the military and death squads.
Tues, May 21st
African Liberation Day 2013! Who Are We?
6:30-9:30 pm @ PSU Smith Memorial Hall Rm 338
A riveting presentation and discussion about African Liberation Day, it's history, and why we should support it today more than ever!
Thurs, May 23rd
Public Art, Not Clear Channel Signs
5:30-8:30 pm @ Montgomery Park (2701 NW Vaughn St)
Teach-in and paint demonstration on the fight for public art, and the history of why Portland has so little of it.
12:00 pm @ Portland Ave. Park, Tacoma, WA (Portland Ave & E Fairbanks)
March and rally in Tacoma in support of Leonard Peltier and indigenous resistance to displacement and destruction.
Mon, May 20th
Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero: Conversion and Martyrdom
7pm @ Red and Black Cafe (400 SE 12 Ave)This live bilingual play chronicles the life and death of Monsignor Romero, the iconic priest assassinated for being outspoken against the military and death squads.
Tues, May 21st
African Liberation Day 2013! Who Are We?
6:30-9:30 pm @ PSU Smith Memorial Hall Rm 338
A riveting presentation and discussion about African Liberation Day, it's history, and why we should support it today more than ever!
Thurs, May 23rd
Public Art, Not Clear Channel Signs
5:30-8:30 pm @ Montgomery Park (2701 NW Vaughn St)
Teach-in and paint demonstration on the fight for public art, and the history of why Portland has so little of it.
The Reprehensible Meddling of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center
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| Just before the April 14 Presidential elections in Venezuela, RT News reported on a Wikileaks Cable from 2006 in which, in the words of RT, then “ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, outlines a comprehensive plan to infiltrate and destabilize former President Hugo Chavez’ government,” including through programs of the USAID and its Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). On May Day, Bolivian President Evo Morales informed the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia that he wanted USAID to leave Bolivia because he (quite reasonably) suspected USAID of trying to subvert his own government as well. The 2006 Wikileaks cable makes for fascinating reading. (1) In the cable, Ambassador Brownfield explains that, among its many goals, the destabilization “program fosters confusion within the Bolivarian ranks . . . .” And, he describes a key component of this program as follows: OTI supports local NGOs who work in Chavista strongholds and with Chavista leaders, using those spaces to counter this [Chavista] rhetoric and promote alliances through working together on issues of importance to the entire community. OTI has directly reached approximately 238,000 adults through over 3000 forums, workshops and training sessions delivering alternative values and providing opportunities for opposition activists to interact with hard-core Chavistas, with the desired effect of pulling them slowly away from Chavismo. We have supported this initiative with 50 grants totaling over $1.1 million. Brownfield concludes the cable by stating: “Through carrying out positive activities, working in a non-partisan way across the ideological landscape, OTI has been able to achieve levels of success in carrying out the country team strategy in Venezuela. These successes have come with increasing opposition by different sectors of Venezuelan society and the Venezuelan government.” One of the major recipients of USAID monies in the Andean Region, which includes Venezuela, is the AFL-CIO’s international wing, the Solidarity Center. The Solidarity Center was quite embarrassed in 2002 when the union it was working with and funding in Venezuela — the anti-Chavez CTV — actively participated in the coup against President Hugo Chavez. However, the Solidarity Center was not embarrassed enough to relent from continuing to support the CTV and to even support the management-led strike against the Venezuelan oil company (PDVSA) which greatly damaged the Venezuelan economy. And, the Solidarity Center is still working in Venezuela, thanks to a recent grant of $3 million from the USAID for its work in both Venezuela and Colombia. While seemingly innocuous in isolation, the Solidarity Center’s own description of its work in Venezuela, when read in light of the above-described Wikileaks cable, is revealing of the Solidarity Center’s imperial role. Thus, the current description of this work on the Solidarity Center website is as follows: Over the past 13 years, the Solidarity Center has worked with a broad range of national labor centers and unaffiliated worker organizations in Venezuela. . . . Given the political fragmentation and divisions between unions in Venezuela, Solidarity Center activities work to help unions from all political tendencies overcome their divisions in order to jointly advocate for and defend policies for increased protection of fundamental rights at the workplace and industry levels. The Solidarity Center currently supports efforts to unite unions from diverse political orientations (including chavista and non-chavista, left and center) to promote fundamental labor rights in the face of anti-labor actions that threaten both pro-government unions and traditionally independent unions. This emphasis on core union rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining helps unions transcend their political fissures to address the basic needs of working people in Venezuela. (2) Sound familiar? The program of the Solidarity Center in Venezuela is exactly that of the U.S. State Department and USAID; that is, to bring Chavistas together with non-Chavistas into alliance over a common cause — a process which the U.S. hopes will dilute Chavismo, or, in the words of former Ambassador Brownfield, to have “the desired effect of pulling them [the Chavistas] slowly away from Chavismo.” Read more here. |
Gerardo and Ramón have birthdays in June.
Gerardo and Ramón have birthdays in June.
Be sure to send them a birthday greeting!
You can write to them directly at the prison, (address below) and also transmit a greeting to our email address below. We will then mail Ramón and Gerardo your greeting which you e-mail us.
Gerardo Hernández was born June 4, 1965.
His address is:
He is registered in prison as Luis Medina, so you
have to address the envelope as:
You can write to them directly at the prison, (address below) and also transmit a greeting to our email address below. We will then mail Ramón and Gerardo your greeting which you e-mail us.
Gerardo Hernández was born June 4, 1965.
His address is:
Gerardo Hernández, #58739-004Ramón Labañino was born June 9, 1963.
U.S.P. Victorville
P.O. Box 3900
Adelanto, CA 92301
He is registered in prison as Luis Medina, so you
have to address the envelope as:
Luis Medina, #58734-004Then inside the cards and letters, you can write to him as Ramón.
FCI Ashland
P.O. Box 6001
Ashland, KY 41105
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Contact Us
email:
info@freethefive.org
phone:
415-821-6545
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Socialism or “Castles in the Air”?
From Zoltan Zigedy | | | |
| It’s hardly a secret that the US left is barely alive. While left-wing movements in the US have hardly shaken the foundations of power in my life time, they have known moments of modest success, reshaping the political landscape in significant and irreversible ways. Since World War II, left activism has stirred and nourished important movements like the struggles for African American equality and against US aggression in Vietnam. The left has also played important roles in fueling struggles for women’s and gay rights and for strengthening environmental protection. While 1960s talk of revolution and radical alternatives were more hyperbole than real, the ferment of those days was real. Unfortunately, little of the US left’s modest success penetrated the labor movement, a social force defanged and declawed by anti-Communism early in the Cold War. And little of the left’s wave of vitality challenged the two-party system in any serious way. As the risings of the sixties recede further and further in our collective memory, the quantity and quality of popular struggle diminishes as well. It’s not just the number of actions or the size of the crowds that are shrinking, but also the ideological understanding that purports to animate our US left. That is, the ideas embraced by various elements of the left have grown more and more murky and superficial. What Ails the Left? There are many symptoms and causes of the relative decline of the US left. But always looming in the shadows of struggles for social justice is the demon of anti-Communism. Other peoples have suffered periods of hysterical, paranoid anti-Communism, but few countries outside of the US have elevated it to a state religion. While fear of Islam may have currently replaced Cold War fears as the national obsession, anti-Communism remains deeply embedded in the national psyche. Recent movies featuring West Coast and East Coast invasions of the US by forces from the tiny Democratic People’s Republic of Korea only underscore the persistence of this demon. Of course the US left is neither immune from nor unwelcoming to Red-baiting. From the fifties, “leftists” could earn respectability and credibility with the public ritual of denouncing Communism. It was from this period that critical financial umbilical chords from the most prominent, most influential left and liberal formations to wealthy donors, foundations, and, in some nefarious cases, the security services were established. Any independent organizations deriving grass roots funding from workers’ organizations or the nationally oppressed were routinely looked at suspiciously for Red ties. By the early sixties, the purge of everything Red or even Pink was largely completed. Everything—words, ideas, associations—even vaguely linked to Communism had disappeared from the mainstream. And the rise of a “new” left reflected the weight of that legacy. Both opportunism and ignorance led most of the left’s new leadership to establish a political camp to the right or left of Communism, demonstrably distant from Communism: radical democracy and social democracy to the right; Maoism and anarchism to the left. Arguably this failure to establish an honest, objective encounter with Communism, this Cold War attitude of framing all politics as a counterweight to Communism, contributed mightily to the decline of the left in the next decade. The student base and alienation from working people demonstrated the shallowness of New Left ideology. Most leaders and activists turned to careers, the Democratic Party, the social service bureaucracy, or retreated to the universities. Anti-Communism continued and continues as a blind faith. The fall of Soviet and Eastern European socialism added a new dimension to the anti-Communist canon: Not only was Communism evil, but it didn’t work. Without the foil of real existing socialism, the US left drifted aimlessly. Some found an ideological anchor in “market socialism,” especially with the rise of Market-Leninism in the Peoples’ Republic of China. Others found romantic answers in Comandante Zero, a pipe-smoking, inscrutable poet/revolutionary diminutive caricature of Che Guevera. Still others attempted to restore life to the New Left of the sixties. One cannot but be reminded of the situation of Russian revolutionaries after the suppressed 1905 uprising as described by Lenin: The years of reaction (1907-10). Tsarism was victorious. All the revolutionary and opposition parties were smashed. Depression, demoralisation, splits, discord, defection, and pornography took the place of politics. There was an ever greater drift towards philosophical idealism; mysticism became the garb of counter-revolutionary sentiments. (Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder) Where most European Communists degenerated into social democrats in this period, US leftists, scarred by anti-Communism and with no similar tradition, found hope in narrow-issue activism, cult-like formations, or the unlikely revival of the New Deal Democratic Party. Read more here. |
Turkey: Grup Yorum member and 5 others given six-year prison sentences
Turkish media is reporting the following:
Six activists, including a member of the revolutionary band Grup Yorum, have bee sentenced to six years of prison for aiding and abetting the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C).
Six suspects---Grup Yorum member Seçkin Taygun Aydoğan, Eser Morsümbül, Cemray Baş, Gürkan Türkoğlu, Melis Ciddioğlu and Hazal Kaya---have been accused of abetting the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C).
In a hearing at the İstanbul 15th High Criminal Court on Thursday, the suspects denied the accusations. They were sentenced to six years and 15 days in prison for the charges brought against them.
March Against Monsanto In Bend On May 25!
Here's the "March Against Monsanto" event listed: http://www.occupybendor.org/
And be sure to check out: http://www.occupybendor.org/
And be sure to check out: http://www.occupybendor.org/
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