redFlags

Nine Letters to Our Comrades: Getting Beyond Avakian's New Synthesis

Mike Ely, a life-long communist and former editor of the RCP's press, has released a major polemic on Avakian's supposed "New Synthesis" and the failures of the RCP to become a leading party of revolution in the USA. I'll hold off on my own commentary by way of introduction... but discussion has already taken off on Ely's new Kasama website. For anyone working to build a revolutionary movement in the United States, this is among the most thoughtful, engaged analyses you will find on such efforts over the last few decades. It is no "so long to all that" – rather, it is a call to begin the "audacious task". 

Download – Nine Letters to Our Comrades: Getting Beyond Avakian's New Synthesis (PDF)

We must name the system

This dramatic reading of Paul Potter's rightly famous speech is part of a wonderful series of public performances called the Port Huron Project re-enacting the signal flares of the American New Left. It's striking how contemporary they sound, and why, really, 1968 neither failed nor won. It is in more ways than one would wish the terrain of the battle we are still fighting. It's easier than you think to engage in free speech. You just have to do it. Read an interview with project creator Mark Tribe.

Sison arrested: Emergency Action Alert

RELEASE JOSE
MARIA SISON!
Picket the Dutch
Consulate in NYC
Wednesday
August 29th, 4pm
11 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan
Trains: B/D/F/V/N/R to Rockefeller Place

Readings: JoseMariaSison.org | Biography | writings & speeches | Philippine Society & Revolution |  An interview with Jose Maria Sison | Intl. Herald Tribune article on arrest and protest in the Netherlands |  National Democratic Front (Philippines) | BAYAN USA statement

Notes on XXIst Century Socialism

[Thus far my favorite critical piece on events in Venezuela. For a surprisingly robust, open and religious(!) exploration of the same theme, check out this speech by the outgoing Defense Minister... a long time friend of Hugo. — JB]

by Bromma
from threewayfight

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, recently announced the arrival of XXIst Century Socialism. This declaration, although greeted with great enthusiasm, left a residue of confusion. Since Chavez didn't discuss XXIst Century Socialism during his recent Presidential campaign, and since there are virtually no public theoretical documents defining this new Socialist era, its precise features are not always clear.

Fortunately, Chavez has appointed a committee, well stocked with international supporters, to come up with appropriate explanatory documents. In the meantime, we can best understand the contours of XXIst Century Socialism by examining it as it actually functions in the real world. Practice is the true test of theory; after several years of Chavez's leadership, we can readily detect the broad outlines of this innovative Socialism.

There appear to be several critical new features of the new XXIst Century Socialist breakthrough. We will review some of the most important:

First of all, XXIst Century Socialism does not require a revolution. This comes as a great relief to Socialists around the world, and will surely encourage many new Socialists to step forward.

Dare to Struggle: A report from the SDS National Convention

By: Max Uhlenbeck
www.ideasforaction.org

It seemed only right that longtime civil rights veteran Grace Lee Boggs  was asked to open up the 2nd annual national convention for the newly reformed Students for a Democratic Society [SDS], which took place in Detroit over this past weekend.

Grace Lee Boggs, although rarely receiving the same kind of attention as some of her male counterparts in the movement, is truly a living testament to what a life-long commitment to revolutionary organizing looks like. Many of the 150 students in attendance seemed aware that they were witnessing something special, as they battled through some tough audio difficulties to listen to Grace's talk.

Grace painted an eloquent historical backdrop for the convention, as she described the rebellions that shook Detroit in the summer of 1967, nearly 40 years ago to the day. She talked about how although the media had called described the uprising as 'unruly riots', but that to many militant black workers it signified the start of something much more hopeful, "a time when anything seemed possible".

U.S. Imperialism, Islamic Fundamentalism… and the Need for Another Way

by Sunsara Taylor, Revolution

As the U.S.'s crimes against humanity in the Middle East mount, it is of tremendous importance for people in the U.S. to honestly confront and rise to the profound challenges and responsibilities before us in bringing this to a halt. In this spirit, I welcomed the argument made by Hadas Thier and Aaron Hess in the Socialist Worker on April 20, 2007 entitled Standing up to Islamophobia, even while I find their central arguments to not only be wrong, but harmful.

I do not doubt that Thier and Hess want to oppose U.S. wars of aggression and their accompanying assault on Muslims, Arabs and South Asians living in the U. S. But they end up arguing for an approach that will neither meet the actual challenges of opposing the U.S. “crusade,” nor bring forward new, truly liberating possibilities here and around the world. They end up in this unfortunate place through the use of bad logic, flawed methodology, and a duck-from-unpleasant-realities epistemology (method for arriving at what is true).

From New Orleans to Caracas: The Mutual Aid & Intl. Solidarity Conference

Received from the National Hip Hop Political Convention:

After Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast and uprooted the lives of more than a million, predominantly Black and working class people, Venezuela, under the leadership of President Hugo Chavez, was one of the first nations to offer humanitarian aid to the United States government and all those displaced.

The US government, under the leadership of George W. Bush, rejected Venezuela’s offer and closed a venue of life saving support sorely needed by the Black and working class Survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Why? The answer lies with the racist and imperialist structure and worldview of the US government. It is this structure and worldview that left Black people to die in New Orleans after the great flood and deliberately attacked them, scattered them, and abandoned them without aid or humanitarian protection. It is this same system and worldview that has repeatedly sought to disrupt and undermine the democratic process in Venezuela and threatened to assassinate its President.

Denmark riots: Youth House Vs. Father House

Riots and repression have rocked Copenhagen for three days and nights. In what's been billed as the "final conflict" of the Scandanavian autonomous scene, the Danish state has moved to sell off and shut down Youth House, the last remaining political squat outside of Cristiana, Copenhagen's famed semi-autonomous zone in the center of the city. Over 600 people have been brutally arrested attempting to block the transfer of Youth House to a Christian sect that has slated this vibrant social center for demolition. Supporters from around Scandanavia and Germany traveled to assist the Danes, with the government responding by raiding anti-authoritarian offices and movement centers in round-ups. UK Indymedia has an update page with timelines, pictures and tons of information.

David Rovics wrote a short report on some of the back story:

The 1980’s was the heyday of the autonomous movement in Denmark, Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Thousands of mostly young people squatted hundreds of abandoned buildings in dozens of urban centers, creating alternative societies that embraced community, art, music, and a culture of resistance that rejected consumerism and empire. A community was formed that rejected the domination of the world by multinational corporations and the governments that supported them, whether they be outright militarist states like the US or more watered-down NATO members like Denmark. They defended their squats in pitched battles with police, and at the same time debated sexism within their movement and organized protests in support of refugees and against nuclear power. The movement existed in a near-constant state of siege. Many squats were ultimately taken by force by the police, and others were legalized.

With that in mind: Either we fight for the world, or fight for our own turf. They are not the same thing. There is no as autonomy in this world and there never will be. The retreat into socio-political ghettos in Europe was a surrender to the permanence of the capitalist (welfare) state while playing at war against it. It is people in their millions who will take down European capitalism. In the difference between the suburban riots in France last year and the subcultural resistance of the long-waned autonomous scene – we can see the outlines of new European left that no longer sees itself flowering in the cracks and margins – but which pushes to the very centers of power through the rebellion of working people and their allies, both native born and immigrant.

These social centers are exciting places, particularly for Americans with little experience in strong, radical institutions (as Rovics ably reports). Understood in context, the squats and social centers were a retreat by movements past, not simply something to defend. When radicals gave up on a better world, they settled for a better apartment.

What sees itself as autonomy could be seen through another lens as containment.

That said, they take their autonomy seriously – and they fight for it. You have to respect people who refuse to be governed. In Texas, the fetish of private property means you legally get shot for walking on somebody's lawn. In Copenhagen for these days, what people were willing to wage a violent defense of is their right to a social existence outside of capitalism, with mutual aid and solidarity outside of the exploitative hierarchies of capitalism.

In the ferocity of their battle is the measure of their hope.

Former Black Panthers/BLA under attack

For anyone not familiar, raids in several states have nabbed eight former Panthers on charges that date back 35 years. This terrorization of comrades from the Black liberation movement is intolerable and all support is due. Though there are no complete histories of the Black Liberation Army currently in print, quite likely because of the continuing government interest in hounding these comrades across the globe, brother Kaz recently wrote up a short history of the deceased freedom fighter Kuwasi Balagoon that gives some flavor of the movement and its rank-and-file militants. RedFlags is here reposting an announcement from the Jericho Movement, an organization dedicated to supporting and assisting political prisoners and prisoners of war.

To all Jericho chapters, members and allies:

It is with urgency that we call on you to be alert right now in light of this latest assault on our movement coming from California and New York. By now you have heard the news that fascism has called for the arrest of at least eight (8) former members of the Black Panther Party, two of whom are already serving life sentences in New York state prisons. The incident occurred back in August 29, 1971, when, if I remember correctly, a unit of the Black Liberation Army attacked a precinct in San Francisco in retaliation for the assassination of Field Marshall George Jackson the week prior.

As with many actions of the BLA, large-scale corralling measures were taken and numerous folks, community revolutionaries and unaffiliated community folks were arrested and charged with criminal bs. Torture and other illegal but totally characteristic measures were used by local, state and federal forces to coerce “confessions” and manufacture evidence where there was none. But that's war, aint it?

Impeachment: What's the word?

Far-fetched? Unlikely? Liberal? Won't impeaching Bush just leave us with Cheney? Didn't Pelosi say it's "off the table?"

Planned for February 17 and 18, the Emergency Summit to Impeach Bush for War Crimes in New York,  is a must-attend event.

Sponsored by World Can't Wait, Progressive Democrats of America, Troops Out Now, DemocracyRising, Ramsey Clarke's ImpeachBush.org, After Downing Street and the Green Party of the United States – it's looking to be a movement that won't be deniable. For any activists reading this, there's an open call for workshops — so if you know what the movement is missing, here's your chance to change the game.

Saving the summit talk for the gathering, I did want to bring together some of the available writing on impeachment and what people's thinking is. On the jump, I've posted the entirety of Howard Zinn's recent article Impeachment by the People.

Also worth a read, on both the urgency of the situation and the strategy of impeachment:
Voices for Impeachment | Voices Speak Out | US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) on Oct. 5 | Deborah Sweet: Presentation to WCW National Meeting 1/13/07 | Liz Holtzman: The Case for  Impeachment | Fact Sheet on the Military Commissions Act | Why Demand Impeachment Now?  | Sunsara Taylor: Why the Democrats Won't Stand and Fight (and Why YOU Must) | The New Investigation Season | Nader: Talking About Impeachment | 4 Things You Can Do to Drive Out the Bush Regime

Kenya: World Social Forum Diary

by Jordan Flaherty

Nairobi, Kenya — This week, tens of thousands of people, representing nearly every nation and people, are gathered to strategize, debate and struggle for solutions to worldwide problems of injustice and inequality. For the first time, the World Social Forum has come to Nairobi, Kenya. The global conference is situated in a massive sports complex neighboring the slum of Korogocho, where tens of thousands of Kenyans live in abject poverty, a vivid demonstration of the themes discussed at the Forum, and a contrast to the wealth of many of the conference participants from the so-called “developed world.”

Workers Party of Belgium: Pageantry, Parliaments & Uncle Joe

By way of Jimmy Higgins from Fire on the Mountain, this report about the recent growth of the Workers Party of Belgium (PTB) is interesting on a few counts. The PTB has been the center of international gatherings to re-form the international communist movement on the conflation of revisionism and Marxism-Leninism, promoting left Stalinism against MLM. At the same time, they have grown from the "biggest of the small parties" to the "smallest of the big" in the Belgian parliament and local electoral lists. Running a high-profile campaign in her district and of mixed immigrant/European family, Miss Brussels Halima Chehaima came in second promoting the PTB platform. Cuts a better profile than Uncle Joe, but what of this program they run, what of their international profile, of shop stewards vs. tribunes of the people? What of syncretism vs. synthesis?

Maybe this is a good time to have a discussion about the Old Synthesis.

The full report is here on the link.

U.S. Peace Movement Plans to “Escalate” Street Protests

International ANSWER has released a statement calling for an "escalation" of street protests following the Bush State of the Union speech last night.

Dissent must turn to resistance.

The issue right now for the anti-war movement can not simply be opposition to a surge or an escalation: the issue is the war itself. The troops must be brought home now. As in Vietnam, that is the only solution. Those who initiated the war and who funded the war should be held accountable for one of the great crimes of the modern era...

If Bush fails in Iraq the people of the United States lose nothing. It is not our Empire.

Daring to Change Minds: Sunsara Taylor Back on the O'Reilly Factor

The day Congress opened with its new Democratic Party majority, activists with World Can't Wait confronted DLC bagman Rahm Emmanuel with chants of "De-escalate, Investigate, Troops Out Now!" Emmanuel couldn't handle the heat and like the chickenbutt he is, bounced from his own press conference.

According to Father Coughlin Bill O'Reilly, this was a "wild mob" of "lunatics" shouting poor Rahm down, or at least that's the approach he took with Sunsara Taylor on his show that night. Putting this surreal etiquette lesson from the bully pulpit himself aside, it was hot hot hot to see the Democrats put on the hot seat starting day one. World Can't Wait is pushing (yeah, pushing) for activists and people of conscience to not accept the Bush agenda as some "new normal"... whether Republicans or Democrats are serving it up — and to campaign for impeachment of the executive as repudiation of the program.

Legalization of torture, the shredding of the Fourth Amendment and a permanent, illegal war have to be stopped. We need a definitive repudiation. Impeachment is possible, but only if there is a broad mass movement determined to make it happen.

I urge any activist reading this to question their own work, and how they are contributing to the political fight shaping up (and not just the various issue-symptoms so many groups are built around).

UFPJ is building up for a big anti-war protest on January 27, and ANSWER is looking to March 17 with talk of direct actions coming from some others. If we all pick up the pace, we have a chance of turning this tide back instead of finding cold comfort in turning the reins of empire over to the Democrats. Judging from UFPJ's track record over the last couple of years, they cannot be trusted to do more than run scrimmage for the Democrats (and to avoid any "embarassments" to the now ruling party), having adopted a firm (and weak) pro-Democratic position over the last year.

If we fear disruption, resistance and honesty about the stakes — we are in trouble. Only in America are activists fatigued by success. The majority of people are now against this war, but they are sending more troops. Resistance, not dissent, is the order of the day.

Sunsara wrote up her experience for CounterPunch, Same As It Ever Was: The Democrats' First Day, and below is a recent speech by Sunsara Taylor from the World Can't Wait town hall at Fordham that lays out the basic analysis (edited for publication in Revolution).

Engage!

Day of Solidarity with the People of Oaxaca

An ad hoc network of activists in New York has taken up the Zapatista call for a day of actions in solidarity with the popular struggle in Oaxaca on Friday, December 22. Organizations, collectives and individuals are encouraged to plan autonomous actions, and to join gatherings at the Mexican consulate and later at Rockefeller Center (remember Diego Rivera!).

Download Oaxaca/NYC Solidarity Flyer

For more information, check:
El Enemigo Comun
Friends of Brad Will

Or for background on the conflict and the voice of the people themselves, check the website of the Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO)

 

Leslie Feinberg's Lavender & Red, a history of communists and LGBT liberation

Serving as long-time editor of Workers World newspaper, Leslie Feinberg is perhaps best known for writings on transgender liberation, including the novel Stone Butch Blues about a working class transgendered lesbian in Buffalo, NY. Workers World has been running a lengthy history of the LGBT movement's intersections with, and conflicts within, the communist movement. With around 80 installments  so fa you can learn something new every day.

Click here for the complete archive of Leslie Feinberg's Lavender & Red

Or start with the same chapter I did: Sexual Freedom vs. Fascism in Germany

And now for something completely different...

I'll just post this one without introductory commentary, except by way of historical introduction.

Here's  an American professor of Marxism (at NYU no less!), giving a lecture in Havana in 1991 as Cuba went into a complete economic collapse with the end of Soviet subsidies resulting from their own disintegration as a contending world power.

The topic of this lecture? "A Pedagological Battle Plan to Check the Spread of Skepticism in Cuba." A daunting task if ever there was one... Prof. Ollman is not detered, and begins by way of what he learned in Russia from a fundamentalist American preacher himself just returned from Siberia... Read on...

Stan Goff Follows the Logic of the "Refoundation" Logic

What is a website like this to do? For regular readers that's obviously been an issue for me. My hope has been to create a discussion board for the broader communist trend in a time of tremendous political crisis. I don't think that "crisis" is mainly in socialism: but in the whole creaking, bloody edifice of capitalism itself, a crisis that has most certainly extended to those sections of the socialist movement that do not accept, or cannot honestly conceive, of a revolutionary break with the existing social relations.

Organized, self-described communist forces have tended to do one of two things. Either they pragmatically tailor their politics to what they take as their immediate needs, or they play the lonely beacon — shining the light into the conceptual darkness of the "masses." The pragmatists lose the forest for the trees, and more often than not themselves along the way. The vanguardists confuse the Forest for its dialectical ecology. And the system has stood through this, if not impervious to resistance – still standing, still dangerous, still wasting lives by the millions.

I've never believed that the conscious, active, vanguard element is fundamentally separate from the "masses." (Self-)Consciousness itself is not an alienation. I have to work. I've been a waiter and a glorified typesetter. Sometimes I've also led and participated in social movements; felt a glow from the people in struggle, like Etienne, the hero of Emile Zola's classic novel Germinal. My old friend Nilda, who introduced me to Wu Tang, also taught me a simple, important lesson: "you're in the mix, kid."

We are in the mix.

Why say all this? ...By way of introduction to Stan Goff's renunciation of Leninism as "doctrine." Goff has been one of the more interesting Marxist-identified writers in the US for a minute. A former Special Forces soldier, he served in Haiti, Somolia and Colombia, writing a chilling memoir of the former. Like a modern Smedley Butler, he went from being a "racketeer of capitalism" to a dedicated opponent not just "imperialism," but each of the systems of oppression that feed each other. In particular, he has dedicated substantial attention to questions of patriarchy. In one line he summed up the link between militarism and the domination of women in a way that helped me understand a lot: "Perfect masculinity is sociopathic." Indeed.

Renunciations are important — even when I disagree, strongly. It's necessary to reject "doctrine" if you want to think, let alone accomplish something. For those who view Marxism as a monolith, or conflate a scientific method with a search for purity, it is this same rejection of orthodoxy and dogmatism that has led me not to reject Marxism for the "sins of revisionism," as Lenin put it, but to engage what Avakian calls an "epistemological break."

There is no doubt the Soviet Union created a "doctrine" of Marxism-Leninism. They gave PhDs in it for crissakes. Sects have come and gone, it's true,  be they Trots or Mao-Maos (or Hoxjaites or New Americans or anti-authoritarians). There is also no doubt that the Marxist-Leninist party is the single most important "movement technology" to ever be developed. Where there are revolutions, that seek socialism and not just a re-shuffling of the same deck, these are the organizations that do it.

The reason for this isn't magical, or related to any orthodoxy or doctrine. In this, Goff always failed to understand what Marxism is. [Hint: It's not a normative vocabulary binding disparate reform struggles.]

I've posted Goff's piece in full on the continuation of this post to see what other folks think about it, and to comment myself when I've thought on it a bit. I hope those who respond do so having read what he's written. 

People of the Shining Path video, readings on the PCP – and analysis of the "peace accords"

                 

This film provides a sympathetic look at the Peruvian revolution and the Communist Party of Peru (Shining Path) before Presidente Gonzalo's capture. The situation is now, very much, different. It was produced by the British TV station Channel 4. Most notable is how it actually includes interviews with guerillas and communist political officers. Considering the tremendous efforts to totally demonize these brave fighters, at a time when most of the Latin American left was hanging it all up, anyone who hasn't seen this documentary might be more than a little surprised. This honest, in-depth documentary shows why revolutionaries who refused to lower their sights found inspiration from this great attempt in a time of near universal dispair. It also shows what can be done when you try. Additional background reading:  Gordon McCormick's comparitive study of the MRTA and the PCP, Sharp Dressed Man | On the link, A World to Win's current analysis of the "Peace Accords," with some discussion of ideological issues related to Guzman (Gonzolo), the PCP's currently fractured leadership and Guzman's theory of "jefetura", or placing the Party's leadership above internal democratic centralist practice: A Sober Look at the Situation of the Peru Revolution and Its Needs

Interview with Flavio Sosa of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO)

Interview by Hernán Ouviña
Translation by Chuck Morse

Flavio Sosa is a member of the “provisional collective council” of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO, in Spanish). Despite being one of APPO’s most visible faces at the moment, he insists on stating that “ours is a movement of the grassroots, not leaders.” What follows are some fragments of a much longer conversation that we had with him and other comrades in the tent city in the emblematic Santo Domingo Plaza, a bastion of communalist resistance in Oaxaca.

It's worse than you think: Video Teach-In on why the Bush regime must be stopped

Webcast of the World Can't Wait NYC teach-in "It's Worse Than You Think."

If all the recent changes brought by the Bush administration, and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, has started to blur: this Oct. 30 teach-in is a necessary summation of what the stakes really are.

Where the Bush regime is taking the world and why it must be stopped, featuring:

Larry Everest
author, "Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda"

 Bill Goodman
Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights
   
Chris Hedges
author of bestseller "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning"
   
Cristina Page
author, "How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War on Sex"
   
Les Roberts
An author of the recent study revealing that over 600,000 Iraqis have died since war began.

Watch | Donate

Click here for a list of dozens of teach-ins around the country through Nov. 5

Click here for more on organizing showings

On Your Own Terms: An open letter to activists regarding World Can't Wait

Jed Brandt writes:

This letter is a personal appeal for your active involvement with World Can't Wait, on your own terms, starting now.

Momentum is building for the Oct. 5 protests, but many activists have yet to step up -- or even investigate for themselves the scope of this effort. The lull in the protest movement since the start of the war, exactly as the population has turned against this disaster is more confusing than it should be and, I'd argue, related to a passive orientation towards the elections.

Let's stop waiting. Let's stop pretending like Bush will change his mind or the Democrats will "grow a spine." They have backbone, but they don't as a party represent us. After literally years of this same wishing game, we have to learn the lessons that are there in plain sight. That's right. I'm using the imperative "we have to." We have to act consciously, resist, and stop politically pussyfooting around.

Too many of us have been involved in day-to-day activism that isn't taking into consideration the political root of the current situation. Massive popular revulsion at the legalization of torture,  surveillance without warrant -- and Bush's recent legislation exempting himself and his cabinet from war crimes prosecution must be galvanized, mobilized, given tangible expression. This requires experienced activists, media workers, community-based organizers. It requires that we put distrust aside, and work like what we do matters.

If you are not now involved, please question why. What is holding "radical" movements from radical action? It certainly isn't that people aren't ready to move. Hardly. The problem as I see it is in the habits of the organized left and its refusal to get with the times, leave comfort zones and challenge all the orthodoxies of political passivity.

Lebanon, Palestine and a War Against the World: RESIST

War against the world? I am ready to resist. Knowing I am not alone, there must be mass resistance.

There is no simple way to describe the anger, the dispair, for the Arab people that I feel. Imperialism is a monster. Now reckless in its weakness, an anti-people machine.

Within the United States, Great Britain and to a much lesser extent Israel, there are millions of people who are opposed in their very bones to endless war with the world. Not just these crimes, so undeniable, racist and unrelenting. But the whole bloody history.

Now. This is not a cry against one bombing or one war. It is to condemn no people to the worst of their rulers and even own selves. It is a world system, backed by nuclear weapons and black ops. A cynical, de-humanized media propaganda that runs right into people's minds a culture of supremacy, well-minded ignorance and the cold surrender of our common human heart. I am refusing to accept these ground rules, the devil's choice our government always demands. We must begin to actually resist this war.

A movement against war can be nothing but a movement against empire, the economic vampirism and fake-ass "clash of civilization" bullshit. It must no longer just declare, opt out, reject. It must refuse through resistance. Our governments will not listen to reason because their interests are not our own. They will never listen.

Students out on the west coast have non-violently disrupted military supply chains at the Port of Olympia. Counter-recruiting puts the issue among the youth most at risk here. Opposition must now turn to not just to rallies of opposition, but demonstrations of manifest resistance to the war machine.

Participants in this action want to emphasize and make visible to people in the United States and beyond that the United States government does not represent them, that there is a significant group of people who will not allow U.S. aggression to occur in their name. It is an attempt to raise the social cost of the war by showing through actions the growing forms of resistance that will occur in the United States as the war continues. The participants in this action and its advocates were primarily younger people.

If Israel can drop American bombs on Lebanese roads killing the very refugees they are creating, then we can at least put our bodies on the streets and roads of America. Why should traffic proceed as normal? Why should normality be assumed, or shifted off to a fear of terrorism? Why should professors of the status quo direct fall's campus syllabus? You know, there are thousands of people in the USA who have blockaded whole cities. The knowledge is out there, but the political will to lead is lacking. [Opinions stated above are my own —JB]

On the jump, A World To Win News Service puts out a detailed analysis of the causes and implications of this war. The murder of Lebanon is not simply another grotesquery of Zionism, which it certainly is -- but it is Israel's very purpose as a state. This is the US/UK war. It is the larger conflict, it is the same war, the logic of imperialism. Here in America we must take heed of this. This is the best analysis I have seen, coming as it does from the revolutionary, internationalist and proletarian perspective.

The State of the Movement Is Everything

The launch of Red Flags is still a few weeks off, but in the meantime, something must-read does come across the wire. Andy Cornell and Dan Berger have shared their assessment of the current period and what is portends for anti-authoritarian activists. (By way of Kazembe who just launched what promises to be the blog of the year.)

Ten Questions for Movement Building and Reflections on the Current Period has a "movement-centered" orientation that ontologically equates organized political parties and groupings on the revolutionary left with sectarianism, no matter their actual practice -- but lacks some of the knuckle-headed shallowness that generally passes for original thinking in these circles.

Both are dedicated anti-racists, anti-imperialists and anti-capitalists. Both reject Leninism and feel little need to even engage what it is. And in this, they are typical of activists around the USA at this point in time. I post this not because I agree much at all with what it says, but rather because it is honest, is the product of hundreds of discussions around the country, and, perhaps most importantly — because they actually want to see some motion in the movement is everything.

The traditional anti-authoritarian mix of social-democracy and anarchism is fully evident here, with serious objectives not discussed -- and the myriad obvious ways that it has limited resistance movements (from within) is not addressed.

While Dan and Andy look to Latin America as an exception to this rule -- it is the very proof in the pudding. See Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia — and, yes, Mexico. If the proletariat cannot rule, according to the orthodoxies here, then it would seem the bourgeoisie is always up for the part.

In the same way that Berger's history of the Weather Underground takes their conceits at face value, this joint statement is rigorous only within the narrow limits it sets itself: anyone who has alternate answers to these questions is categorically denounced as "sectarian," fixated on "correct line," while the very line they agree on is always implicit. Quite a trick when looked at from outside, disheartening when its implications are grasped. And, it only works so long as proletarian politics don't have an organic presence... As Avakian remembered Lenin observing, anarchism remains payment for the sins of revisionism.

I would argue that the responsibility for this lies in the failures of the communist movement to fully break with what are genuinely authoritarian and reactionary ideological habits we've inherited. That revolutionary-minded thinkers such as these two remain divorced from the exciting developments among revolutionary communists is a tragedy. They continue to treat MLM as little more than a sectarian tic, which at this point I suspect is honest ignorance, and in so doing limit both themselves and the "range of the possible" among countless radicals looking to break on through.

Actions to Defend the Zapatista "Other Campaign"

RJ posted to NYC Indymedia:

The Zapatistas have declared a red alert! From now until May 8th, the Good Government Councils of the Zapatista communities are closed and the Mexican tour of Delegate Zero (SubC. Marcos) has been put on hold. For now, the words on the lips of every participant and supporter of the national anticapitalist initiative known as "the Other Campaign" are "We Are All Atenco!"

This is a call to organize actions at Mexican embassies and consulates throughout the world demanding an end to the attack on San Salvador Atenco and all repression against the Other Campaign!

Here in NYC, there will be a demonstration in front of the Mexican Consulate
(27 E. 39th St. between Madison and Park)
This Friday at 12:30!

This is one of those critical moments where visible solidarity will make a difference!

The Revolution is here in Nepal

I'm currently working on a short article about the rapid developments in Nepal. It will be up soon in place of this. For now, I've posted an open thread where any reporting/comments on the unfolding revolution can be posted.

The Royal army has encircled the king's palace with barbed wire. Democratic protests in the cities defy shoot-on-sight curfews. The People's War proceeds virtually unchallenged in the countryside. Prachanda warned on the eve of these protests that King Gyanendra faces "exile or death" for his crimes.

The Communist Party of Nepal has risen above Stalinophilic nostalgia and seeks a 21st Century communism, and sees the liberation of Nepal in both a regional and global context of revolution.

Will red flags fly from Katmandu? Have we finally kicked the end-of-history shroud? Is a secular, popular and revolutionary communist force pointed a way beyond the "clash of barbarisms?"

News & Views on Unfolding Revolution in Nepal
On the Scene in Katmandu: Revolution interviews Nepal expert and anthropologist Stephen Mikesell | Li Onesto's digest of breaking events: Mass Upsurge Against the King | Sudhanva  Deshpande: Nepal on the Verge of Bastille | International Nepal Solidarity Network -- tons of articles | Maoist Information Bulletin from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) | The Royal Regression and the Question of a Democratic Republic by Baburam Bhattarai

UK Guardian: Protesters Plan Final Heave to Rid Nepal of Monarchy

And, like anyone asked, according to (boo, hiss) Bloomberg: US Demands Nepal's King Relinquish Power

And... word from the fierce one...
CPN(M) Chairman Prachanda:
Constituent Assembly Now!
Prachanda, the political and military leader of the revolutionary forces demands an "unconditional constituent assembly."

The tried ceasefires, they tried to negotiate -- but the people are done with all of it and will not wait for permission to proceed. The King's statues are being torn down and the monarchy is in fact over on the ground. The King is now the mayor of his own palace, hiding behind barbed wire and (if he's smart) checking if JetBlue has any specials to Dehli.

Raymond Lotta "Sets the Record Straight" on the history of 20th Century socialism

Next stop for Raymond Lotta's Setting the Record Straight campus speaking tour is Columbia University... into the belly of the intellectual beast. Challenging the barrage of reactionary garbage thrown over the history of revolutionary socialism with a powerful grasp of history, Lotta is more than up to the task.

For anyone concerned with changing the world, who wants a deeper history of the triumphs and failures of 20th Century socialism – break plans and make plans to hear Raymond Lotta. Ask your real questions, treat socialism and communism with an open mind -- even if that's already where you're trying to get.

I heard that after an hour-long presentation, Ray Lotta will open the room up for questions and answers. He knows the history as more than just a "narrative." He is a materialist who understands the force of ideas.

I'll be there, with my toughest questions.

Columbia University
Thursday, April 20, 6:00 pm
Faculty House, Harison Rm, 2nd Floor
400 West 117th St. (between Amsterdam & Morningside)

Download the leaflet and postcard for the NYC program.

Full event description follows