redFlags

Victory at Columbia: 'No Evidence' of In-Class 'Anti-Semitism'

Chris Anderson reports for NYC Indymedia: "After receiving testimony from over 120 Columbia students, faculty members, administrators and alumni, an ad-hoc committee charged by University President Lee Bollinger to investigate claims of in class intimidation of pro-Israeli students found "no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic."  Read full story

The one sour note is that Professor Massad has been singled out for exceeding "commonly accepted bounds" of classroom conduct despite rave reviews from students of all political orientations.

The right is using patriotism against Ward Churchill in Colorado and Zionism against Middle Eastern Studies in New York.

This is a serious victory for academic integrity and a set-back for the hard right's campaign of academic purges. The larger problems remain. Counterpunch recently featured a story about Columbia's Zionist-dominated law school and outside of the MEALAC program, the fight is going full steam.

FBI Pressures Anarchist Server Into Disclosing IP Addresses

It's all getting very real. The administrator of flag.blackened.net, a major anarchist internet host, has gone public with a harrowing account of FBI thuggery.

According to the report on their discussion forums, two comments were posted to subdomains hosted by the server, including Infoshop.org, which claimed responsibility for "propaganda of the deed." Although the administrator "Dave" is under some kind of government gag order, he did say this: "Both incidents involve topics which are completely out of line for consideration here at flag and really I can only view them in two ways. Either people are simply ignorant about the murderous history of the FBI, or, as is my belief in one case, they are trying to make flag vulnerable to government intrusion."

Under threat of imprisonment, the administrator appears to be leaning towards cooperation with the FBI. He is the sole provider for his family and is afraid of losing his home. He has also chosen to go public with this decision. Regardless of the right or wrong in his cooperation with the FBI political investigation, the  administrator must be commended for his public honesty about the situation.

"I feel like a coward and traitor to my comrades, even in the face of what is essentially a coerced decision. I'm the last one who will criticize or disagree with any of you who want to deride me. I'm also aware that this will probably cause quite a few of you to lose faith in me, flag, and it's subdomains. This can't be avoided and it's something I weighed into my decision. I post this mainly to inform you all and give you opportunity to make your own decisions as to whether I've handled this correctly and whether you wish to use flag or it's subdomains in the future."

Infoshop.org, the Institute for Anarchist Studies  and the Institute for Social Ecology are all hosted by this server. There are also significant international anarchist sites and archives.

Government coercion is real. That said, concern for personal property is not a justification for cooperating with political police. Just because it is understandable does not mean it is justified or acceptable. If these are the times we are living in, it's time to get straight on the basics. Don't talk. Comrades must look out for each other, and that includes caring for the family of people who go to prison. It's been done before by people in harder situations that we've had to face yet. Nobody said this would be easy.

"This Is What Democracy Looks Like" and "Zapatista" Out On DVD

The good people at Big Noise who've been touring Fourth World War have finally remastered their earlier films This Is What Democracy Looks Like, an account of the Battle of Seattle, and Zapatista -- the definitive film on indigenous uprising in the hills of Chiapas. If you've ever looked for a way to break the movement down to your auntie or your boy, these films are an open door. Big Noise videos are political education for real people.

The DVDs can now be purchased directly from the producers.

Indian Army Intervenes Against the Nepal People's War

Li Onesto writes: "On February 28, Nepal's Royal Army, backed up by the Indian army, inflicted  serious losses on a contingent of the Western Division of the Maoist People's Liberation Army. This involvement of Indian soldiers in a major battle against Maoist guerrillas in Nepal represents a new and alarming development in the war.

"On February 1, Nepal's King Gyanendra's declared a state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, sacked the prime minister and suspended many constitutional rights, including freedom of the press, speech and expression, peaceful assembly, the right to privacy, and the right against preventive detention. The Indian government officially denounced this move by the King and announced it was suspending military aid to the Nepalese government. But meanwhile, on the ground, it appears  that India is not only still backing, but stepping up its support for and involvement in the RNA efforts to crush the Maoist insurgency."

Read the full report

Bansky Bombs the Met

From the NYC Indymedia newswire: A British artist by the name of Bansky managed to surreptitiously hang four pieces of his art in four elite New York Museums - The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Natural History. He said he did so during normal viewing hours. "I've wandered round a lot of art galleries thinking 'I could have done that' so it seemed only right that I should try," says Bansky. "These Galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see."

Read the full article

RCYB Steals Schiavo Spotlight From Randall Terry

CNN's frontpage reports that two women from the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade got right in the middle of this whole Terri Schiavo row.

After remarks by Randall Terry -- an activist against abortion rights who has been acting as a spokesman for Terri Schiavo's family, the Schindlers -- members of a group calling itself the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigades seized control of the microphones and blasted Terry as a "Christian fascist thug" trying to interfere in "the most intimate affairs of life and death.

Who is this "anti-abortion activist" Randall Terry? Aside from being a first class scumbag, he's the theocratic founder of the anti-abortion stormtrooper movement Operation Rescue that terrorized abortion clinics throughout the late 1980s and early 90s. His life is dedicated to bringing what can only be called Christian Fascism. Big ups to Sunsara Taylor, who the NY Times quoted as saying, ""We don't want to live in a theocracy. We don't want to creep towards Christian fascism in this country."

UPDATE: Sunsara and Debra are heading for the Faux News studios Tuesday night at 9pm EST to take on Hannity & Combs. Good God! Take no shit sisters!

Porn Wars Reprise: A Discussion With Nina Hartley About the Sex Industry

Over at Stan Goff's excellent blog, there's a debate ripping on where pornography is at and how the left responds not just to the industry, but also to the "rights" of prostitutes, porn performers and pornographers. In response to an article by Robert Jensen, an Austin, Texas-based professor, many of the same tired libertarian versus radical strawmen are trotted out. That said, this debate is different from the bad old days of the 1980s "porn wars" in that all sides are talking on the same page.

Jensen penned his piece for Ms., and focuses on the increasingly brutal depictions of violence against women that over the last few years have become the norm in porn. There is also an interesting thread discussing the degrading drift of porn on Adultdvdtalk, where "the industry meets the consumer." My favorite quote has to be from the pornographer Max Hardcore, who writes: "I pay an otherwise unemployable whore around a thousand dollars for two to three hours work. Few lawyers make that much - and they don’t take it up the ass. Call me old fashioned, but I expect people who get paid that much to work hard on the set."

Okay then... We'll just note that and then ponder how much of the discussion on the left about pornography has centered on the idea that "second-wave feminists have stigmatized sex workers." This line of argument is the specialty of industry apologists who signify left while arguing that anything the pornographers do is a matter of "choice." Right... How many women would sign up for the treatment they dish out for free never seems to be of interest to them.

Nina Hartley, a veteran porn performer who is as far from Max Hardcore as you can get inside the unique world of American porn subculture, has taken up the feminist, pro-porn argument on the CounterPunch website. Stan Goff, host of the debate and a former career soldier, is at work on a new book about patriarchy and had quite a back and forth with Hartley not so long ago. His best quote on the subject has to be that "perfect masculinity is sociopathic."

What am I doing in the middle of this? I'm just addicted to argument and it drives me absolutely batty how much the discussion of sexuality is constrained by the limits of this system, not what we can aspire to as free people. It's down right refreshing to have a discussion about "really existing porn," unmuddled by liberal notions of "free speech" and "rights" that ignore the reality we all live in.

Join the debate

What Is the Nature of Communist Leadership? Case Study: Bob Avakian

In a discussion prompted by the release of Bob Avakian's memoir From Ike to Mao and Beyond, the Another World Is Possible bulletin board has hosted a fairly detailed and open debate on the "cult of personality" and the ways in which political line leads.  The Revolutionary Communist Party, whose chairman is Bob Avakian, promotes their leader in a singular way. While Avakian certainly stands out from the anonymous crowd of socialist mediocrities, the effect of promoting a "culture of respect" towards leaders in lieu of leading by catalytic example is one of the great faultlines inside the international communist movement. This discussion is one of the few examples of the debate with plain speaking coming from all sides. At stake is the heart of socialism. Are we fighting for a kind fo benevolent despotism, or is revolution the work of the people themselves? Some even argue that's a false choice.

Read the discussion on Avakian and the cult of personality.

Nepalese Parliamentary Parties Back Maoist Call For Constituent Assembly, People's War Advances

The People's War in Nepal is surging from one success to another. Since "King" Gyanendra's Feb. 1 decree of emergency rule, any claim to being the sovereign of the Nepalese people has been shown for the fantasy it is. The Maoists immediately launched a relatively non-violent "siege" of Katmandu, called a bandh, that stopped all traffic throughout most of the country without even blockading the roads. Western "human rights" groups made outrageous accusations of Maoists "threatening" to cut off people's hands, while failing to report that no such atrocities occured. Amnesty International sent a high-profile delegation to meet with the king and victims of the army's rapes and abuse, but couldn't bring themselves to meet with the rebels, or to present their story. Reports in the capitalist and communist press agree that the Maoists have galvanized the lower classes, particularly the desperately poor peasants, into a cohesive fighting force that cannot be defeated by the monarchy.

The wildcard in Nepal's civil war has been the marginalized parliamentary parties centered in the capital city. Up until today, they have respected the legitimacy of the monarchy and refused to recognize facts on the ground, including the censorship of their press, and the killing and jailing of their leaders by the isolated monarchy. U.S. ambassador James Moriarty told the BBC that failure to bring the "mainstream" parties back into alliance with the monarchy could result in victory for the Maoist rebels. He meant that this would be a bad thing, unlike having a king.

The Congress Party, UML and the other main "legal" parties  declared in a March 16 New Delhi meeting that "This will be our last fight with the king. There will be no more compromise." They have accepted the Community Party of Nepal's main demands for an end to the monarchy, the establishment of a republic and the calling of Nepal's first constituent assembly. The days of the monarchy grow shorter by the minute. How these parties respond to the fight for communism remains to be seen, but if democratic respectability is their measure -- then the way points towards at least neutrality towards the People's War.

Meanwhile, the non-Maoist American and Western European left continue to ignore the People's War in Nepal and the atrocities the monarchy, with their backers in the US/UK and India, inflicts on the population. Considering how much political capital social democrats, liberals and anti-authoritarians have invested in the "death of communism," it's hardly surprising. Another world is possible, they say, while ignoring it's birth in the mountains of Asia.

Li Onesto, a journalist with the Chicago-based Revolutionary Worker, trekked into the heights of the  Himalayas to meet with the rebels in their base areas, mass organizations and scored a unique interview with the CPN's leader Prachanda. Her recent book Dispatches From the People's War in Nepal is a necessary read on the early growth of the communist movement. Her portraits of common people in struggle and their inspiring belief that they can remake the world against centuries of oppression is a tonic to the lowered expectations and defeatism afflicting much of the post-everything left.

For those interested in how the liberal party line is being articulated, and what much of the anti-radical left will undoubtedly start parroting once they can no longer ignore the insurgency, check out this cut-and-paste job from Human Rights Watch. It deploys the standard line that the people are caught between the King and the Maoists. They've said the exact same thing about every insurgency since the 1980s when this meme was deployed with stunning effectiveness against the guerillas of the Communist Party of Peru/Shining Path. They just switch the party names and local color and call it an analysis. At least now they openly admit that their goal is not simply "democracy," but a "strong civil society and a vibrant middle class." Tell that to the peasants who've had enough of those lies.

New Weblog for Military Counter-Recruitment

The good folks at the Indypendent have launched CounterRecruiter, a new weblog keeping a sharp eye on the growing movement against chickenhawks. Desperate for bodies to keep "boots on the ground," the Army, Marines and Reserves are getting ever more desperate. Students were brutally arrested at New York's City College for disrutping a recruting table at a student job fair and in New Jersey just for handing out flyers. From exchanging information to taking direct action, activists have found a way to hit the military where it hurts. Even High school students are getting fed up.

Military enlistment is falling short. They can't fight their wars if we won't fight for them.

For more information, check out the GI Rights Hotline and the Central Committee for Conscientous Objectors.